“The result, then, is that liturgies were unknown in the primitive church; that, as piety declined, the clergy began to need external aids for conducting the public devotions of their congregations; that this matter, however, continued for several centuries to be managed by each pastor for himself; that in the exercise of this individual discretion, frequent blunders occurred, through the gross ignorance of the clergy, and some times blunders of a very unhappy kind; and that liturgies did not finally obtain universal prevalence until the church had sunk into a state of darkness and corruption, which all protestants acknowledge to have been deplorable.” — Samuel Miller, On the Use of Liturgies (1830)