{27a} Bishop Jebb’s Pastoral Instructions, Disc. iii. p. 61. {27b} History of his Own Times, vol. ii. p. 33. {28a} John and W. W. Hull’s observations on the petition, p. 23. {28b} p. 29. {29} p. 17. {31} Bp. of Norwich’s Pamph. p. 14. {32} Rule of Conscience, b. iii. c. iv. r. 23. {33} Bp. of Norwich Pamph. p. 29. {34a} Barclay’s Apol. p. 27. {34b} p. 67. {34c} Petition with Expl. p. 47. {34d} I have introduced the name of the Bishop of London, as it gives me an opportunity of doing fuller justice to his Lordship’s sentiments with respect to a REVISION OF THE LITURGY than I have yet seen done them in any of the publications in which his name has been introduced in connection with the subject. His Lordship admits, that since the LITURGY is a human composition, it falls short of perfection, and is consequently “susceptible of improvement.” “I should be deficient in candour,” says his Lordship, “if I did not acknowledge that I think the LITURGY susceptible of improvement, it would be little short of a miracle were it otherwise, . . . and I heartily pray that the time may come when the question can be looked at with calmness and candour, and if the recent conduct of dissenters forbids us to look forward with any sanguine hope to an extensive comprehension of those who differ from us, that something may be done for the satisfaction of many who are sincere and zealous members of the Church.”—Such is the sum and substance of all that his Lordship has admitted that may seem to favour the views of the revisers, and here most of them have been satisfied to stop short in their quotations from his Lordship’s charge. From a passage in the Bishop of Norwich’s pamphlet, I should be led to think that his Lordship had been content to take his quotation from his brother Bishop’s charge at second hand, for after quoting the above passages, his Lordship says, “I have only to add, that had the Right Rev. Prelate who expressed these his deliberate sentiments in 1834, manifested in his speech of 1840, a disposition to follow them out in their true spirit and legitimate results, the conscientious men who signed the Petition, might have entertained a just hope that he would have lent his powerful aid in supporting its prayer.” {35a} I will take up his Lordship’s charge where the Bishop of Norwich and you have left it— “BUT,” says his Lordship, “when I consider the circumstances in which we are now placed, and the advantage which would be taken from different quarters, of any door which might be opened to change, I am led to adopt the sentiment of a pious and sagacious man, {35b} uttered nearly forty years ago:—‘As to our liturgy, I am far from thinking it incapable of amendment; though when I consider the temper and spirit of the present times, I dare not wish that the improvement of it should be attempted, lest the remedy should be worse than the disease.’” {35c}