Page:History of the Nonjurors.djvu/511

Rh 1718, the Book of Common Prayer was still used by the other: and even those, who received the new Office, still adhered to the Liturgy of the National Church in all other particulars. Subsequent to 1733, however, a considerable change took place. All the Nonjurors, with the very few exceptions previously specified, had then adopted the new Communion Office, or at all events the Usages: but in 1734 the parties, who separated from their brethren, and whom, for the sake of precision, I have denominated Separatists, departed altogether from the Liturgy of the Church of England, and adopted a new Book of Common Prayer. In Scotland, the English Book, with the exception of the Office for the Communion, was received by the Nonjurors: and, when they ceased to be a Nonjuring Church, the Prayer Book was retained as a matter of course, and is continued at the present time. I proceed, therefore, to give some account of the Communion Office, adopted by the regular body, and also of the Book which was introduced into public worship among the Separatists.

The new Communion Office is founded on that of King Edward's First Book, A. D. 1549, in which the particular practices, comprehended under the general term Usages, were retained. Not a few of our most eminent theologians, at various periods, have expressed their preference of the Communion Office in the First Book of Common Prayer, though they considered our present form as sufficient. This circumstance, therefore, should certainly make us cautious, in condemning the Nonjurors, or our Scottish brethren, for adopting that form, which, though rejected by our own reformers at the revision of the Prayer Book in 1551, was rejected in consequence of the scruples of some of the foreign reformers, for the sake of preserving peace and union. The four par-