Lichfield.
[Edward Stephens is the author of this Liturgy, who describes himself
as "late of Cherington, co. Gloucester, sometime barrister-at-law of
the Hon. Society of the Middle Temple, and since engaged, by a very
special Divine Providence, in the most sacred employment." He farther
informs us, that "when it pleased God to discharge him from the civil
service, his first business in public was a gentle and tacit admonition
of the neglect of the most solemn and peculiar Christian worship of God
in this nation; accompanied by such public acts in the very heart of
the chief city, as made it a most remarkable witness and testimony
against them who would not receive it, but rejected the counsel and
favour of God towards them." Stephens's Liturgy has been republished by
the Rev. Peter Hall, in his _Fragmenta Liturgica_, vol. ii., who thus
notices the author:--"Stephens was the leader of a class by no means
contemptible, though himself as odd a mixture of gravity and
scurrility, learning and trifling, pietism that could stoop to
anything, and liberalism that stuck at nothing, as English theology
affords." Some account of Edward Stephens will be found in Leslie's
_Letter concerning the New Separation_, 1719; and in _An Answer to a
Letter from the Rev. C. Leslie, concerning what he calls the New
Separation_, 1719. Stephens advocated the practice of daily communion.]
"_Ancient hallowed Dee._"--What is the historical, traditional, or
legendary allusion in this epithet, bestowed by Milton on the river Dee?