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viii
Preface.

the Reformers, and to call the use of it a change, is disparaging to the memory of those great and holy men.

The same paper also recommends an application to Parliament, the Crown first issuing a commission. But surely the editor of the Record cannot imagine that the House of Commons would stop just where he would wish! or that they would be content with rescinding such Rubrics only as he might select. Should the matter ever come before Parliament, changes of a most serious character will be proposed, and probably carried. Whatever may be the Record's views of the Liturgy, is the editor prepared to surrender the Articles? Yet were such a suicidal act as that which he recommends to be carried into effect, the Articles would fare no better than the Liturgy. Both would be placed in jeopardy. Besides, is it consistent to recommend the settlement of such questions in such an assembly, an assembly in which Romanists and Socinians, to say nothing of other Dissenters, have seats and votes!

That such a course will be adopted by the present Government I have no apprehension whatever. Sir Robert Peel and all the members of the Cabinet are too warmly attached to the Anglican Church to allow her Articles and Liturgy to be subjected to Parliamentary revision. But the Record and the Times are