Page:History of the Nonjurors.djvu/503

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History of the Nonjurors.
485

in the principles of the two Churches, would have been for ever laid to sleep. But, no! the Scottish Communion Office is adduced as an instance of a difference even now subsisting."[1] The writer challenges any one to produce a passage which does not accord with the standard of faith in the purest ages. "Here is nothing introduced without unexceptionable warrant: nothing of late beginning: here is no application to saints or angels: no worshipping of images: no praying of the dead out of purgatory: here is no adoration of the consecrated elements, nothing that supposed a corporal presence, either by way of Transubstantiation, Consubstantiation, or of Infusion! In short, here is nothing set down as contended for, or as practised, but what is strictly scriptural and strictly Primitive."[2] The Church of Scotland, though agreeing in principles and doctrines with the Anglican Church, was at perfect liberty, according to our xxxivth Article, to deviate from us in rites and ceremonies, without being exposed to the charge of dissenting from us in principle.

In other respects, the Scottish Clergy adhered for a long time to the English Liturgy, except in some slight rubrical injunctions; but even this variation was found to be inconvenient, since different Clergymen adopted a different practice. The evil was forcibly pointed out by Bishop Gleig in a letter to Bishop Skinner in 1816. "As every man in my diocese," says he, "varied the form according to his own judgment and caprice, I found that I could not officiate


  1. The Office for the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, or Holy Communion, according to the use of the Church of Scotland, &c. By the Rev. John Skinner, A.M. 8vo. Aberdeen 1807.
  2. Skinner's Preface, p. 7.