vocated the change. Any material alterations at the Revolution might have endangered the Church: and the changes made by some of the Nonjurors weakened them so much, as a party, that they never assumed so compact a form after this period. The divisions, indeed, which now sprang up, may be assigned as the remote cause of their extinction.
The Communion Office, in the First Book of King Edward, A.D. 1549, differed, as is well known, from that of The Second, and of all our succeeding Books, in several particulars. Certain practices and several petitions were laid aside, when the book was revised in 1552. In the year 1717, when this dispute commenced, a reprint of the First Communion Book was published by the Nonjurors, who wished to adopt the usages, which were rejected when the book was reviewed.
Collier took the lead in this controversy. Hickes had expressed his preference of the First Communion Book, but during his life no formal proposal was made by Collier to publish a New Book. In the year 1717, appeared the "Reasons for Restoring Some Prayers, &c."[1] The work was published by Morphew, who was the printer of The Communion Office: from which circumstance, we may infer the probability, that Collier, or one of the Nonjurors, was the originator of the latter.
This Tract was written in a candid and moderate tone. The Author enters very abruptly upon his work: for the very first sentence in the Tract is the
- ↑ Reasons for Restoring some Prayers and Directions as they stand in the Communion Service of the First English Reformed Liturgy, compiled by the Bishops in the 2nd and 3rd years of the reign of King Edward VI. London, 1717.
