But there is one other result of a return to the First Book which is of supreme importance, though I have not yet seen any notice of it in the recent discussion, viz., that by returning to the First Book we should get behind the date of the Articles. The Articles were not drawn up till the year A.D. 1552, so that by adopting the First Book we should go back to a date at which the Articles did not exist, at which, in fact, the Church of England had drawn up no formal dogmatic protest against the errors of Rome. The Reformation began with the reform of the Liturgy, before there was any authoritative statement of distinctive truth, and when the minds of men were passing through a rapid transition. To this transition period the First Book belongs; and if we were to decide on adopting the Liturgy of the transition there would be a manifest inconsistency in combining with it those definite statements of truth which were carefully drawn up afterwards when the great gulf was past, and the work of the Reformation in essential points complete. With all these facts before us, it is impossible to mistake the character of the proposal made. Whether we look at the history or the contents of the book, we are brought to the same conclusion. It is not a proposal to improve our Prayer Book or to adapt it to the special demands of the day. It is a proposal to depart from the Prayer Book altogether, and to return to the transition state through which the Church of England passed in the transition days of the Reformation. The First Book of Edward bore just the same relationship to the Use of Sarum that Basingstoke does to the city of Salisbury. The Reformers halted awhile there on the up line, but they could not rest, so they soon left it to complete their journey. We are now invited to return there; but is there any thinking man who can suppose for one moment that we are intended to remain there, when we have the public avowal of the undenied preference for “the unreformed liturgies” and the Use of Sarum? Is it not perfectly clear that the attraction to the First Book is simply this, that it is a station for the express train on the direct down line to Sarum?