Excerpt from A Plea for Toleration by Law, in Certain Ritual Matters: With Reference to the Public Worship Regulation Bill But there are one or two other ritual matters (and I do not think that there need be more) which might, I conceive, be declared by law to be indifferent and if this course were pursued, then the danger of a Schism, which might be incurred, 'if the present Bill passes without any moderating and qualifying provisions, would be averted; and the Bill itself might be made acceptable to the great body of the faithful and loyal Clergy and Laity of the Church of England. In adopting such a course we should be treading in the steps of our own Reformers, and of those who revised the Prayer Book at the Restoration. The doctrine contained in the Prayer Book is unalter able, because it is the Faith revealed in Holy Scripture, and received by the Primitive Church. But the Reformers altered the Ritual of the Church no less than three times in the course of twenty years and in the Preface which was prefixed to that Book at the last review, about 200 years ago, and which is due to one of the most judicious of English Prelates, Bishop Sanderson, it is affirmed that it hath been the Wisdom of the Church of England ever since the first compiling of her public Liturgy, to keep the mean between the two extremes, of too much stiffness in refusing, and of too much laxness in admitting, any varia tion from it - and it is but reasonable, that upon weighty and important considerations, according to the various exigency of times and occasions, such changes and altera tions should be made therein, as to those that are in place of Authority should from time to time seem either necessary or expedient. It may therefore be presumed, that our Reformers and our Revisers of the Book of Common Prayer would, as wise, learned, pious, and charitable men, contemplating the altered circumstances of the times, and the condition of the Church in these days, be the first to relax some of the stringent laws of our ritual, and to pronounce certain things to be indifferent by law, in order that they might promote those high and holy purposes of faith, worship, and morals, for which the Prayer Book was framed, and which are paramount to all rites and ceremonies of human institution. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.