Is this to wrong the Bible? So thinks the "Puritan"; but so think not we. We have full faith in its inspiration, and own its authority to be supreme in all questions of religion. But you "give to the Creed and tradition an authority superior to that of the Scriptures?" Not at all. We give to them only an authority superior, at worst, to that of the Puritan scheme of thought, the New England tradition, so far forth as this same may be found seeking to thrust the old faith out of the way. Forced to an election between two conflicting traditions, one resting in the Apostles' Creed, and the other charging it with heresy, we choose the first, as on the whole more rational and safe than the second. This is the only true issue in the case. To make the Puritan tradition per se the same thing with the Bible, is but an impudent begging of the whole question in debate. We do not believe that Puritanism, as distinguished from the old catholic sense of the Creed, expresses at all the true sense of the Bible; and we have yet to learn by what right we are to be shut up to its authority here, that is a whit better, to say the least, than that claimed to the same purport by the Church of Rome. Why should the fathers of New England be counted more infallible, as interpreters of the Bible, than the fathers of the ancient Church in Africa or Asia Minor? Did these last love the Bible less? Had Augustine less regard for its authority than Edwards? Why, to show my obedience to the Bible, must I give up the Creed, and immerse my mind in the element of Puritanism only in its stead? To say: "Come to the Bible, without any medium," is pitiful nonsense. No man can come to it in that way: and the least really free in their approach to it ordinarily, are just those who are most forward to dream and talk of their freedom in any such fantastical style.

ART. XLV. THE LITURGICAL MOVEMENT.

With very slight
The resolutions

THE late meeting of the German Reformed Synod at Norristown, is allowed, on all hands, to have been one which it was a privilege to attend. It was characterized throughout by a good spirit. Among its proceedings, the action taken on the subject of a new liturgy, is entitled to special interest. This was based on an able report, presented by the Rev. Mr. Bomberger, chairman of a committee to which the general question had been referred a year before by the Synod at Hagerstown. The report consisted of a proper historical introduction or preamble, setting forth the general posture of the early Church, and of the Church at the Reformation, in regard to worship, and of a series of resolutions, issuing in favor of an immediate movement, at this time, for the formation of a liturgy suitable to the wants of the body represented by the Synod. The whole led to an animated discussion of nearly two days, which served, far beyond all that was expected in the beginning, to bring out the result of a general substantial agreement and harmony of views. modification, the entire report was adopted. affirm: 1. That the use of liturgical forms falls in clearly with the practice and genius of the original Protestant Church; 2. That no reason exists in the state of the present American German Church, to justify a departure from this ancient usage; 3. That the Liturgy now authorized is inadequate to the wants of the Church, as apart from other defects it makes no provision for ordinary occasions of public worship; 4. That while the older Reformed Liturgies are in general worthy of adoption, there is still need of various modifications to adapt them fully to our circumstances and wants; 5. That the present time is as favorable for new action in the case, as any that can be anticipated hereafter; 6. That it is expedient, accordingly, to proceed forthwith in the business of providing a new Liturgy. In conformity with the conclusion thus reached, a large committee was appointed to report, at the next meeting of the Synod, a scheme or plan of such a Liturgy as the interests of the Church may be supposed to require, with certain parts made more or less complete, in the

way of specimen and rule, that may be expected to govern subsequently the construction of the whole. It is a matter for congratulation, certainly, that so auspicious a commencement is at length made in this high and solemn work. For two years past, the subject has been, in a certain sense, before the mind of the Church; in such a way, however, unfortunately, that it has not been able to come to any fair and open discussion. No one could show any good reason, why the liturgical question should not be treated, in the German Church, with the most unreserved freedom; and yet there has been evidently a feeling of embarrassment in venturing to approach it, and a disposition to hold it at arm's length, which has stood thus far much in the way of a just consideration of its rights and claims. In the mean time, as it now appears, the want that needs to be supplied in this direction, has been steadily making itself to be more and more felt, on all sides; until at length it is found, as it were, forcing its own way to the clear utterance, from which it had been so long previously withheld and restrained. The preparation for a new Liturgy has been altogether more general and deep, it would seem, than most had before imagined. The Synod, at the start, was by no means clear in regard to its own mind. Discussion, once fairly set free, caused a whole world of fog to pass away; and the body was taken with a sort of surprise, in the end, at the unanimity of its views and feelings, where it had been so needlessly haunted with the spectre of controversy and discord. The discussion had in all respects a happy effect. The interest taken in it, too, by the community, bore testimony to its importance. Such a question, involving what pertains to the interior life of the Church, always commands attention and respect, when treated by an ecclesiastical body in an earnest and manly way. The more, too, any such body can be led to exercise its interest, in this way, on questions that enter into the real life of the Church, to the exclusion of what would suit just as well for a Temperance Society or any other like voluntary and merely human association, the more may it be expected to rise always in the actual dignity of its own character, as well as in the solemnity of all its proceedings.

As the case now stands, the door is thrown open, of course, for the most free discussion of the whole liturgical question

Not only is such discussion allowed, but it is loudly demanded and required. It is not enough here to act; we need intelligent action. It is not enough to follow a mere blind sense of want, or to obey a tendency however good; we need clear insight into our want, and rational mastery over our own movement. This cannot be without much thought, much consultation and debate. It is not enough, of course, that the ministers, and some of the elders, be satisfied; the case requires that the people, the churches generally, should have their attention turned seriously to the subject, their views enlightened, their hearts disposed and prepared for what may be done. This is indeed just one of the last cases in which any end is to be carried by management or trick. No one need fear discussion. The Church can never be hurried into a Liturgy, without her own consent; her own full, free and hearty consent; and if discussion and inquiry may serve to carry her where she would not be prepared to go otherwise, who can have a right to say that such movement is irrational or wrong. If we are to have a Liturgy at all, it is of the utmost consequence that we should have a good one; and this requires, in the first place, a true and just idea of what a Liturgy means, and in the second place, some general inward preparation for the use of one in its proper form. We have no right then, and nobody surely should have any wish to prevent the most full and free study of the subject in all its length and breadth, in order that if possible these necessary conditions of success, in so vast and solemn an enterprise, may be duly secured. We have no right to lay down limits and bounds, within which only the Church is to be considered free to exercise her liberty in this form. The entire question is open. Let the subject be examined without prejudice, or deference to surrounding prejudice, or shy jealousy of any particular tendency; as though a "tendency" might hoodwink a whole Church out of its sober rationality, and we would forestall all that, and take care of its proper liberty, by laying a bridle on its neck beforehand, to keep it from going too far! The danger here, is not in free inquiry, but in the want of it. What is most of all to be deprecated, is the formation of an unripe Liturgy; one that may fall behind the true inward demands of the interest itself, and that may fail, accordingly, to satisfy in the end

the very want from which it springs. No Liturgy can go far beyond the reigning idea of worship, which it is brought in to assist and serve; and if this be still incomplete, or a confused tendency only, perhaps, which has not yet got to its own proper end, the result is likely to be a sort of buckram invention, which will sit stifly on the Church for the time, and prove at last a mere form too irksome for its better life to endure.

Everything here depends on starting right. Our Liturgy will take its character and complexion finally, from the conception we have of the end it is designed to serve. If it is taken to be a mere outward help and convenience for the purposes of public worship, a sort of crutch to assist the decent conduct of our sanctuary devotions, it is not to be expected that we shall be able to bring it to anything better than such poor mechanical character. Better no Liturgy at all, we say from the bottom of our heart, than one produced from such a spirit and constructed on such a plan. In such case, indeed, its services must deserve to be called forms in the bad sense, such as can serve only to generate bondage and not freedom. A Liturgy so adopted, is like the notion of civil government, as taken by a certain school to be a prudential compact, in which men part with some of their rights to be more sure of the rest. Government, in any right view, is the form in which the very idea of our human life becomes real and complete. So we say, the very idea of worship itself demands a liturgy; this is the very form, in which it requires to hold, in order that it may come to its own most true and perfect sense. If there be no need for a liturgy in the idea of Christian worship, in itself considered; if it is to be taken at best, but as an accommodation to the necessities of the ignorant and weak, like the exercises of an infant school designed for infants only; we are ready to say, the sooner the subject is dismissed from our thoughts the better. If we are to have a Liturgy that is worth anything, we must seek it and accept it under a widely different view. We must see, that it involves no bondage, but freedom. We must embrace it, not as a burden but as a relief, not as a yoke but as a crown, not as a minimum of evil simply, but as a maximum of privilege and good. The bondage lies, of a truth, wholly on the other side. The conception of a liturgy in the true sense, as