Page:Readings in European History Vol 2.djvu/270

 232 Readings in European History 311. Amin- adab Blower rejects the Book of Common Prayer. (A satire of uncertain date.) Some small and simple reasons, delivered in a hollow tree, in Waltham Forest, in a lecture, on the jjd of March last, by A7ni?iadab Blower, a devout bellows mender of Pimlico ; show- i?ig the causes, in general and particular, wherefore they do, might, would, should, or ought, except against a?id quite refuse the Liturgy or Book of Common Prayer : My dear beloved and zealous brethren and sisters here assembled in this holy congregation, I am to unfold, unravel, untwist, untie, unloose, and undo, to your uncapable under- standings, some small reasons, the matter, the causes, the motives, the grounds, the principles, the maxims, the whys and the wherefores, wherefore and why, we reject, omit, abandon, contemn, despise, and are and ought to be with- standers and opposers of the service book, called by the hard name of Liturgy, or Common Prayer, which hath con- tinued in the Church of England eighty-four years. I have exactly examined and collected some notes and observations out of the learned Hebrew translated volumes of Rabbi Ananias, Rabbi Ahitophel, Rabbi Iscariot, Rabbi Simon Magus, Rabbi Demas, and Rabbi Alexander the coppersmith, and all nor any of their writings doth in any place so much as mention that book, or any such kind of service, to be used at all by them. I have farther taken pains in looking over some Chaldean, Persian, Egyptian, Arabian, and Arminian authors, of which I understood not one word ; I also (with the like diligence and understand- ing) have viewed the Turkish Alchoran, and there I found not a syllable concerning either Liturgy, Common Prayer, or divine service. As for Greek authors, I must confess I understand them not, or negatively, for which reason I leave them as impertinent ; and, touching the Latin writ- ers, they are partial in this case, the tongue being Roma- nian and the idiom Babylonish, which seems to me an intricate confusion. I, having' carefully viewed the tomes and tenets of reli- gion and books of all manner of hieroglyphics, writings, scrolls, tallies, scores, and characters, and finding nothing for the maintaining of that book or Liturgy, I looked into the