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284
History of the Nonjurors.

Rome, though this was not the case with any of the leaders. "I am grieved that so many of the handful shew inclinations to popery: I am told that about a dozen are gone off lately, and others send their children to be educated in popish, and even in Jesuit seminaries. Let me know, if this of the reasons for restoring some Prayers is all the dispute, which now makes new divisions amongst us, even as I am told, to the abstaining from each other's communion."[1]

Collier, Brett, and Campbell the Scottish Bishop, were the chief of that section, by whom the restoration of the prayers and directions was advocated: while Spinkes, Gandy, Taylor, and Bedford strenuously contended for a strict adherence to the Liturgy, as now used in the Church of England.

At the commencement of the year 1718, Collier published an answer to the Reply to his former Pamphlet, in which he meets the objections alleged by his opponent against the restoration of the prayers.[2] Collier asks, whether Justin Martyr is not early enough, the author of "No Reason, &c." having objected on the ground, that he was too late as an evidence in such a matter. It would occupy too much space to go over Collier's reasoning. It may, therefore, be sufficient to observe, that he enters at great length into all the arguments advanced by his opponent, with a view to the establishment of his former positions. He closes in these words: "The best service we can do the Church of England, is to recover the main of her first Reformation: to retrieve what


  1. Leslie's Letter, p. 5.
  2. A Defence of the Reasons for Restoring some Prayers and Directions of King Edward the Sixth's First Liturgy: being a Reply to a Book entituled No Reason for Restoring them. London, 1718. Two Parts.