Octagon Chapel, Liverpool

Despite open opposition by John Brekell from 1758, who by then had been ministering at the Kaye Street Chapel for nearly 30 years,[2] the compilation of a new liturgy went ahead.

[4] The Benn's Garden Chapel in Red Cross Street, Liverpool, dated from 1727 and had been built for the Presbyterian minister Henry Winder.

[8] Nicholas Clayton, of Unitarian views, accepted an invitation to become the first minister there;[9] the appointment was joint with Hezekiah Kirkpatrick.

[15][16] Clayton moved from 1776 to share the ministry at Benn's Garden Chapel with Robert Lewin (1739–1825), of Arian views, until 1781.

[11] Although it was adopted by a prominent minister, David Williams, for his congregation at Exeter,[25] the liturgy proved controversial and even divisive.

Seddon and Holland were founders of the nearby Warrington Academy: John Taylor, who was a tutor there, opposed the liturgy from before the time of its publication.

[26] Seddon and Taylor had in fact a profound disagreement on the suitability of the philosophy of Francis Hutcheson for the teaching at the academy;[27] while the liturgy was Hutchesonian in intent.

The arguments that Anglicans of broad views would prefer a liturgy, and that it would curb the tendency to free-thinking in nonconformists, remained on a theoretical level, and were apparently contradicted by Methodist success at the time.

[26] In the longer term, the creedless and liberal liturgy of the Octagon Chapel formed a starting point for the beliefs and writings of Anna Aikin (later Anna Barbauld) who was brought up at Warrington Academy, her father John Aikin being a tutor there and on Seddon's side of the debate.