unted almost to a total
change of the established religion.[**] An attempt had been made to
separate the use of images from their abuse, the reverence from the
worship of them; but the execution of this design was found, upon trial,
very difficult, if not wholly impracticable.

As private masses were abolished by law, it became necessary to compose
a new communion service; and the council went so far, in the preface
which they prefixed to this work, as to leave the practice of auricular
confession wholly indifferent.[***] This was a prelude to the entire
abolition of that invention, one of the most powerful engines that ever
was contrived for degrading the laity, and giving their spiritual guides
an entire ascendant over them. And it may justly be said, that, though
the priest's absolution, which attends confession, serves somewhat to
ease weak minds from the immediate agonies of superstitious terror, it
operates only by enforcing superstition itself, and thereby preparing
the mind for a more violent relapse into the same disorders.

The people were at that time extremely distracted by the opposite
opinions of their preachers; and as they were totally unable to judge of
the reasons advanced on either side, and naturally regarded every thing
which they heard at church as of equal authority, a great confusion
and fluctuation resulted from this uncertainty. The council had first
endeavored to remedy the inconvenience by laying some restraints on
preaching; but finding this expedient ineffectual, they imposed a total
silence on the preachers, and thereby put an end at once to all the
polemics of the pulpit.[****] By the nature of things, this restraint
could only be temporary. For in proportion as the ceremonies of public
worship, its shows and exterior observances, were retrenched by the
reformers, the people were inclined to contract a stronger attachment
to sermons, whence alone they received any occupation or amusement. The
ancient religion, by giving its votaries something to do, freed them
from the trouble of thinking: sermons were delivered only in the
principal churches, and at some particular fasts and festivals: and the
practice of haranguing the populace, which, if abused, is so powerful
an incitement to faction and sedition, had much less scope and influence
during those ages.

* Burnet, vol. ii.

** Burnet, vol. ii. p. 60. Collier, vol. ii. p. 241. Heylin,
p. 55.

*** Burnet, vol. ii.