a name given to those set forms of prayer which have been generally used in the Christian church. Of these there are not a few ascribed to the apostles and fathers, but they are almost universally believed to be spurious. The word comes from the Greek λειτουργία, service, or public ministry.

The liturgy of the church of England was composed in the year 1547, since which time it has undergone several alterations; the last of which was in the year 1661, and of this liturgy Dr Comber gives the following character. "No church was ever better fed with so comprehensive, so exact, and so innocent a liturgy as ours; which is so judiciously contrived, that the whole may exercise at once their knowledge and devotion; and yet so plain, that the most ignorant may pray with understanding; so full, that nothing is omitted, which ought to be asked in public; and so particular, that it comprehends most things which we would ask in private; and yet so short, as not to tire any that have true devotion. Its doctrine is pure and primitive; its ceremonies so few and innocent, that most of the Christian world agree in them: its method is exact and natural; its language significant and perspicuous, most of the words and phrases being taken out of the holy scripture, and the rest are the expressions of the first and purest ages."—And in the opinion of the most impartial and excellent Grotius, (who was no member of, nor had any obligation to, this church) "the English liturgy comes so near the primitive pattern, that none of the reformed churches can compare with it." Again, he says, "In the prayers, a scholar can discern close logic, pleasing rhetoric, pure divinity, and the very marrow of the ancient doctrine and discipline; and yet all made so familiar, that the unlearned may safely say Amen."

LIUUS, in Roman antiquity, a short, straight rod, only bending a little at one end, used by the augurs. See Augur.