Free and Candid Disquisitions

Free and Candid Disquisitions is a 1749 pamphlet written and compiled by John Jones, a Welsh Church of England clergyman, and published anonymously. The text advocated for reforming the Church of England to enable the reintegration of independent English Protestants, particularly through changes to the liturgies of the mandated 1662 prayer book.

Free and Candid Disquisitions followed a failed attempt to revise the Book of Common Prayer in 1689 and other unsuccessful efforts towards comprehending Dissenters. Jones's proposals included combining and abbreviating the Sunday liturgies, removing latent Catholic influences from several rites, and providing improved hymns and psalms. He also challenged the requirement that clergy subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles. The text included an appendix of statements from historic figures and Jones's contemporaries to support his positions.

The pamphlet's contents were the subject of significant discussion, drawing several responding texts by contemporaries. Despite a positive reception by Thomas Herring, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Jones's proposals were generally not accepted by the Church of England. However, his suggested alterations to the prayer book and advocacy of privately published liturgies were influential upon several Dissenter liturgical texts–including Theophilus Lindsey's liturgy and successive Unitarian prayer books–and the first American Episcopal Church's prayer book revisions. Until the beginning of the Tractarian movement in the next century, Free and Candid Disquisitions remained a major influence on proposed liturgical changes in the Church of England.