CHAPTER I.
STATE OF WORSHIP AT THE TIME OF THE REFORMATION.
One of the points proposed for our inquiry was the state of religious
worship, with reference to the invocation of saints, at the time
immediately preceding the reformation. Very far from entertaining a wish
to fasten upon the Church of Rome now, what then deformed religion among
us, in any department where that Church has practically reformed her
services, I would most thankfully have found her ritual in a more
purified state than it is. My more especial object in referring to this
period is twofold: first, to show, that consistently with Catholic and
primitive principles, the Catholic Christians of England ought not to
have continued to participate in the worship which at that time
prevailed in our country; and, secondly, by that example both to
illustrate the great danger of allowing ourselves to countenance the
very first stages of superstition, and also to impress upon our minds
the duty of checking in its germ any the least deviation from the
primitive principles of faith and worship; convinced that by the general
tendency of human nature, one wrong step will, though imperceptibly, yet
almost inevitably lead to another; and that only whilst we adhere with
uncompromising steadiness {193} to the Scripture as our foundation, and
to the primitive Church, under God, as a guide, can we be saved from the
danger of making shipwreck of our faith.
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