A discourse concerning liturgies

Let us then leave them to those who can believe them, which I shall wonder if any can, but those who have a Faith at Command, (when it will serve a turn) wide enough to swallow a Jacobus de Voragine without mincing.

If I have stayed the longer here, they will, I hope, bear with me, who tender the honour of the Apostles, and of the Divine and Infallible Spirit, to whose inspirations we owe all their writings; and would not have them lie under the unsufferable reproach, of having such deformed Brats fathered on them; which indeed were the issue of darkness and degeneracy, and the Ages wherein those prevailed; but borrowed those great and sacred names, to hide their shame, and gain them reputation, in a World much under the power of delusion, where alone it was to be hoped for.

Thus we have cleared the first Three hundred Years after Christ, from all suspicion of Worshipping God publicly, in the way under debate; having examined all that is alleged, either for prescribed or arbitrary Forms; and finding nothing of weight therein, to sway a disinterested person, to believe there was any such thing, or to procure the assent of any, but those who are disposed to yield it without proof: And since that is not found to have been the way of the Three First Ages of Christianity, it is not very considerable, nor scarce worth the inquiry, in what times else this may be found, a way of worshipping God in public Assemblies, ⟨p. 155⟩for which there is nothing in the Apostles writings or practice, or in the practice of the First Churches, and those after them for Three hundred Years; and so, neither rule, nor reason, nor example, in the best and most imitable Ages; where also, their way of Worshipping is deserted, who served God most regularly and acceptably: If it find any thing to excuse it, it will have nothing to commend it to any, unless we will admit those of such Palates to be our Tasters, who like a Puddle better than either the Spring or the Streams while they run any thing clear.