THE WORSHIP NOT ALTERED AFTER THE RESTORATION.
James Dodson
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The following confirmation of this by Archbishop Leighton is curious, although the fact itself is beyond a doubt. “This one word I shall add:—That this difference should arise to so great a height may seem somewhat strange to any man that calmly considers, that there is in this Church no change at all, neither in the Doctrine nor Worship, no, nor in the substance of the Discipline itself.”—Leighton’s “Moderate Episcopacy,” “Remains,” p. 190. Works by West, vol. vii. Longmans, 1875.
The Rev. Matthias Symson, Canon of Lincoln, who received the title of D.D. from the University of Edinburgh in 1738, published in the same year a treatise “On the Present State of Scotland.” His father was a non-juring Minister, who became a printer in Edinburgh, and continued so, as well as his son, for several years. In this treatise an account is given of the worship in Scotland during the Restoration of Charles II. and James. He says (p. 241):—
“After the King’s restoration, when bishops were re-established, none were admitted into the ministry but by Episcopal ordination, though every bishop did not use the same form, yet none of them (except Bishop Mitchel) imposed what was called re-ordination on such as had been ordained otherwise, though they did not refuse it to such as desired it. They enjoined no form of public prayer, but left every minister to his own liberty, both in common as well as in occasional worship and administration of the sacraments; they enjoined no habits (that was left to the King’s disposal), though they generally wore black gowns and bands. They
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had no godfathers and godmothers, nor the cross in baptism; they required no ring in marriage, nor genuflexions in the eucharist, unless the communicant pleased. They did not demand subscription to the old and first confession of the Reformers, but connived at the Westminster Confession and Catechisms; they enjoined no holy days, and observed but few.”