Presbyterian Worship Part 5

Chapter VII.

Legislation concerning Public Worship in the Period subsequent to the Revolution of 1688.

In 1689 the first Parliament under William and Mary was held, and their Majesties promised to establish by law "that form of Church government which is most agreeable to the inclinations of the people." In accordance with this promise the Confession of Faith, adopted in 1645, was in the following year declared to be for Scotland "the public and avowed confession of this Church," and an Order was issued summoning a General a.s.sembly, the first since the forcible dissolution of the a.s.sembly of 1653 by Cromwell's dragoons. No Act was pa.s.sed at this time concerning public worship, nor was the authority of the Directory affirmed, but, whether by intention or through neglect, it was left to the Church to adjust matters pertaining to this subject, without formal instruction from Parliament. Considering, however, that the controlling party in the Church was the one that had suffered persecution, and whose well-known feelings on the subject of worship had been intensified by long and severe suffering, it is not to be wondered at if the changes and adjustments effected in church worship and discipline should in large measure bear the stamp of their extreme opinions. So far as legislation is concerned, however, moderation and fairness marked all the proceedings of the Church, for in the a.s.sembly of 1690, which was largely composed of those whose sympathies were with the Protesters, no action whatever was taken for the regulation of public worship, the only Act having any reference thereto being one which forbade private administration of the Sacraments. But although the form of worship was not affected by legislation, it is evident from contemporary writings that the spirit of the Protesters survived, and exerted itself in fostering, in many parts of the land, a sentiment even more hostile to everything that might savor of even the simplest ritual.

The references of the a.s.semblies that followed the Revolution show that the Directory of Worship as adopted by the Westminster Divines, and afterwards by the Church and Parliament of Scotland, was at this time regarded as the authority in matters of worship, and it was to worship, as so regulated, that the Act of 1693 referred. This Act pertaining to "The Uniformity of Worship" ordained:

"That uniformity of worship and of the administration of all public ordinances within this Church be observed by all the said ministers and preachers as the same are at present performed and allowed therein, or shall be hereafter declared by the authority of the same, and that no minister or preacher be admitted or continued hereafter unless that he subscribe to observe, and do actually observe, the aforesaid uniformity."

The General a.s.sembly, in the following year, in accordance with this civil legislation, prepared a form for subscription in which the subscribing minister promised to "observe uniformity of worship and of the administration of all public ordinances within this Church, as the same are at present performed and allowed." In the same year reference is made in an "Act anent Lecturing" to the "Custom introduced and established by the Directory."

It is evident, therefore, that at this period the Directory was regarded by the Church as the authority, and the only authority, in matters pertaining to worship. In spite of Acts requiring uniformity, however, there were still within the Church those who sought to introduce changes, some of these desiring the introduction of an imposed ritual, others regarding absolute congregational liberty in matters of worship as desirable. As a result of divergent views and practices there was pa.s.sed by the a.s.sembly of 1697 the Barrier Act, for the purpose of

"Preventing any sudden alteration or innovation or other prejudice to the Church in either doctrine or worship or discipline or government thereof, now happily established."

This was the formal and particular enactment of the principle laid down two generations earlier, when in 1639 the Church, disturbed by the Brownists, had ordained that "no novation in worship should be suddenly enacted."

One other Act of a.s.sembly in this period must be quoted as showing the feeling in Scotland at this time with regard to ritual in the Church.

It resulted from a determined effort on the part of some Episcopalians to introduce, wherever possible, the English Book of Common Prayer into the services of the Church in Scotland. The a.s.sembly accordingly enacted that:

"The purity of religion and particularly of Divine Worship ... is a signal blessing to the Church of G.o.d-- ... and that any attempts made for the introduction of innovations in the worship of G.o.d therein have been of fatal and dangerous consequence ... that such innovations are dangerous to this Church and manifestly contrary to our known principle (which is, that nothing is to be admitted in the worship of G.o.d but what is prescribed in the Holy Scripture) and against the good and laudable laws made since the late happy Revolution for establishing and securing the same in her doctrine, worship, discipline and government."

Therefore the Church required "all the ministers of this Church ... to represent to their people the evil thereof and seriously to exhort them to beware of them, and to deal with all such as do or practise the same in order to their recovery and reformation."

The above enactment leaves no room for doubt as to the opinion prevailing in the Church of Scotland at the beginning of the eighteenth century respecting ritual in the public worship of G.o.d. At the same time it is very evident that a desire prevailed in the Church for a seemly and uniform order of service in public worship and an Act of the a.s.sembly of 1705

"Seriously recommends to all ministers and others within this national Church the due observance of the Directory for public worship of G.o.d approven by the General a.s.sembly held in the year 1645."

This deliverance may be taken as representing the spirit of all legislation of the Church respecting worship up to the middle of the present century. Whenever, in response to overtures from subordinate courts, or inspired by special requirements of the times, deliverances concerning any part of worship were prepared by the a.s.sembly, they uniformly directed the Church to the observance of the regulation of this department of Divine service as provided for in the Westminster Directory.

It cannot be claimed, however, that due regard was accorded the Directory throughout the whole Church. The last half of the eighteenth century was a time of spiritual coldness in Scotland; not only did evangelical piety languish but there existed at the same time a corresponding want of interest in the worship of the Church. Praise was neglected, and little effort was made to secure suitable singing of the Psalms; at times the reading of Scripture was entirely omitted, prayers were brief and meagre, the sermon was regarded as in itself sufficient for the whole service, and all other parts of public worship were looked upon either as preliminaries or subordinate exercises, not calling for any particular preparation or attention. It was a time when spiritual life was low, and the outward expression of that life exhibited a corresponding want of vigor. The evil, therefore, from which the Church suffered at this period was not an excess of attention to worship, but a neglect of it; not a too great elaboration of forms, but an almost total disregard of them, even of such as are helpful to the development of the spiritual life of the worshipper. And thus it came to pa.s.s that the struggle of more than a century against the use of prescribed forms of worship resulted in a condition more extreme than had been either antic.i.p.ated or desired, for not only were such forms abandoned, but worship itself was neglected and disregarded.

In reviewing the period subsequent to the rejection of Laud's Liturgy and up to the time of the First Secession within the Church of Scotland, some features that mark the general trend of the spirit of Presbyterianism with regard to worship are clearly manifest.

First, in the rapid growth of the sect of the Brownists and their sympathizers, a growth that had been rendered the easier by the arbitrary acts of Charles and Laud in a preceding period, we find a clear indication of the spread of opinions strongly opposed to the use of prescribed forms of prayer and, indeed, of any ritual in the exercises of public worship. It may be urged, as has already been remarked, that this opposition was not the result of an unprejudiced consideration of the subject on its merits, but that it was rather an outcome of the spirit which had been aroused by the persecutions through which the Stuarts had endeavored to force a ritual upon the Church of Scotland. This may be granted, and yet it is not to be forgotten that many of those who held these views were among the excellent of their age, men who did not hesitate to bear persecution and to endure hardness as good soldiers of Christ for conscience' sake, and who, while doubtless influenced by the sentiments of those who stood to them either in the relation of friends or foes, were not men to allow prejudice to blind both reason and conscience alike. They had found a ritualistic worship a.s.sociated with practices which they could not but judge to be unG.o.dly and unjust, and engaged in by men who made much of form, but little of truth and charity and justice. It is not surprising, therefore, that in their desire for a revived spiritual life in the Church they should consider such a life to be most effectively forwarded by a departure from those forms that had been a.s.sociated with the decay of true religion in their midst.

But, in the second place, this sentiment in favor of absolute freedom from form was not confined to sectaries or their sympathizers in the Church, it made itself manifest among the leaders of religion in the land and in the Church courts. The proposal of the General a.s.sembly of 1643 to prepare a Directory of Worship, and the subsequent action of the Scottish Church in uniting with the Westminster Divines in the preparation of that Directory, clearly indicate that the Church had changed its att.i.tude since the day in which the a.s.sembly refused to alter any of the prayers in the Book of Common Order. The adoption of the Directory by the Scottish Church was in a measure an endorsation of the views of those who were opposed to the use of prescribed forms, and while it is true that the Scotch Commissioners would have preferred the retention of parts of the Book of Common Order, it is surely instructive that even these men were prepared to abandon all forms for worship and to accept simply a regulative Directory. The enthusiastic endorsation accorded the Directory, both by Parliament and by the a.s.sembly, is a further indication that the spirit of the Church of Scotland had undergone whatever slight change was necessary to make it favorable to a simple regulation of public worship, unhampered by anything that had even the appearance of a ritual.

The introduction of the Directory into Scotland, it is true, effected a very slight change in the method of conducting public worship. Indeed, a comparison of the order of service as laid down in the Directory with that prescribed by the Book of Common Order shows the order of Worship to be the same in both. And thus it was that Baillie, in addressing the a.s.sembly, and expressing his satisfaction at what had been accomplished, declared it to be a most remarkable distinction "that the practice of the Church of Scotland set down in a most wholesome, pious and prudent Directory, should come in the place of a Liturgy in all the three Dominions." By the adoption of the Directory all the substance of the worship of the Church of Scotland was retained with the order likewise of its different parts, but the suggested forms were surrendered, and even prayers, which owing to the circ.u.mstances of an earlier age had been retained and submitted for discretional use, were laid aside. No mention was made in the Directory of the use of the Gloria, nor did the creed find a place either in public worship or in the administration of the Sacraments, but the Lord's Prayer was mentioned as being "not only a pattern of prayer, but itself a comprehensive prayer," and a recommendation was accordingly made that it should be "used in the prayers of the Church."

It is evident, therefore, that the spirit of the Presbyterian Church was still strongly in favor of worship regulated in its order and providing for all the different spiritual exercises authorized by Scripture, but which at the same time should be free from any imposed forms from which worshippers should not be allowed to deviate. Of the opinion of the Church of Scotland at this time on the dire effects produced by the use of a ritual in the cultivation of formality among the people, and in the encouragement of a lifeless ministry in the Church, there can be no question, as the adoption of the terms of the preface to the Directory clearly shows. With the experience of the English Church of that age before them as an object lesson of the evil effects of ritualistic worship, the Presbyterian Church was not unwilling to abandon the use of all imposed forms, and to give itself rather to the cultivation and development of a truly spiritual worship.

And finally, the spirit thus planted and fostered in Scotland, was intensified during the persecutions which followed the restoration of Charles the Second. So firmly was this opposition to an imposed form of worship implanted in the hearts of Presbyterians that, alike at the Revolution and again at the time when the terms from the "Act of Union"

between England and Scotland were under consideration the most earnest representations were made, to the end that there should be no change in the worship of the Scottish Church, but that the freedom in this matter, so prized and so dearly won, should be secured to the people of Scotland.

The Church of Scotland then, it may safely be said, moved ever in the direction of securing greater liberty in worship, rather than towards an increase of ritual and an imposition of form. Every succeeding period in her history, whether we judge from the general spirit characterizing the people or from the official acts of the Parliament and the Church, shows a growing distaste for a liturgical worship and an increasing appreciation of liberty in all matters pertaining to the approach of the soul to G.o.d. The Church of Scotland rejected, on the one hand, the extreme positions of sectaries who condemned alike a combined system of Church government, the celebration of marriage in the Church, the use in worship of the Lord's Prayer and all regulations even of the order of Divine worship, and on the other hand it resisted successfully the strongest Anglican influences which would have deprived it of the liberty it prized and would have circ.u.mscribed that liberty by a ritual. It retained dignity and order, while it rejected both the license of extravagance and the bondage of form.

Presbyterian Worship Outside of the Established Church of Scotland.

Whether they were right or wrong ... no man of fairness will fail to allow that the record of the Seceders all through the period of decadence was a n.o.ble one, a record of splendid service to the cause of Christ and the historic Church of Scotland.--M'CRIE.

Chapter VIII.

Presbyterian Worship Outside of the Established Church of Scotland.

No review of Presbyterian Worship would be complete which failed to consider the spirit which has characterized those large sections of the Church which exist in Scotland outside of the Establishment, and those also which have been planted and fostered in the New World.

In 1733 the first Secession Church was formed, when Ebenezer Erskine, William Wilson, Alexander Moncrieff, and James Fisher, protesting against what they regarded as the unjust treatment accorded them by the prevailing party in the Church, were declared to be no longer members of the Church of Scotland. This Secession Church enjoyed a rapid growth, and soon came to form a very influential section in the Presbyterianism of the land. Its principles and practices with regard to worship show that same suspicion of a ritual and partiality for a free form of worship which has always characterized the Presbyterian Church in the days of her greatest vigor. In 1736 this Church published its judicial testimony, in which it declared its loyalty to the Directory of Worship as the same was approved by the a.s.sembly of 1645. Some years later one section of this Church, known as the Antiburgher, published a condemnation of the corruptions of worship as witnessed in England and Wales, and at a subsequent period a further manifesto, in which the reading by ministers of their sermons in the public ministry of the Word was condemned, as was also "the conduct of those adult persons who, in ordinary circ.u.mstances, either in public, in private, or in secret, restrict themselves to set forms of prayer, whether these be read or repeated." The same manifesto, in a part treating of Psalmody, claimed for the Psalms Divine authority, as suitable for the service of praise, in the Christian as well as in the Old Testament dispensation, but acknowledged that, in addition to these, "others contained in the New Testament itself may be sung in the ordinance of Praise."

Similar to this position was that of the United a.s.sociate Synod, which, formed in 1820, published, seven years later, its views on the subject of worship. It condemned "the conduct of adult persons who restricted themselves to set forms of prayer, whether read or whether repeated;"

it acknowledged also that other parts of Scripture besides the Psalms were suitable for praise, and, with regard to the use of the Lord's Prayer in public worship, a matter which had caused much discussion within the Church in earlier times, it a.s.serted that:

"As Scripture Doxologies and the Divinely-approved pet.i.tion of saints may be warrantably adopted in our devotional exercises, both public and personal, so may the Lord's Prayer be used by itself or in connection with other supplications."

Other manifestos were published from time to time by different bodies as separations or unions took place, for the early part of the past century was a period of frequent divisions and of more happy unions.

But while differences existed with regard to the use of paraphrases and human hymns in the service of praise, on the general subject of simplicity of worship and absence of prescribed forms, the manifestos previous to the middle of the century were a unit. As late indeed as 1872, in a deliverance of the United Presbyterian Church upon the subject of instrumental music in public worship, this jealousy of simplicity in worship hitherto enjoyed is evident. To a consideration of that subject this Church had been led by the example of the Established Church in securing to its congregations liberty of action in the matter. The United Presbyterian Synod, in a deliverance in which it declined to p.r.o.nounce judgment upon the introduction of instrumental music in Divine service, proceeded to urge upon the courts of the Church, and upon individual ministers, the duty of guarding anxiously the simplicity of worship in the sanctuary. Not until recent years has any considerable section of the Presbyterian Church shown a tendency to return to the bondage of a ritual.

The views of the bodies above referred to will be differently estimated by different men. Some will be inclined to regard the Secessionists as narrow in spirit and severe in their simplicity, and as often failing to exhibit a due regard for the beauty of holiness that should characterize Divine worship. It will surely, however, indicate on the part of those who read their history a want of appreciation if they fail to recognize the st.u.r.dy spiritual life which, forming, as it ever does, the truest foundation for right views of religion, marked these men of whom an eminent leader in the religious life of Scotland has said "they stood for Truth and Light in days when the battle went sore against them both; and as long as Truth and Light are maintained in Scotland it will not be forgotten that a great share of the honor of having carried them safe through some of our darkest days, was given by G.o.d to the Seceders."

The period of the disruption in Scotland was one of such struggle concerning great and fundamental principles of Church government, that the Free Church, during the first quarter of a century of its existence as a separate communion, had little time to devote to a consideration of the subject of worship; with the work of organization at home, and afterwards in seeking to carry forward evangelization abroad it was fully occupied. It was for the Free Church, as also for the Established Church, a period of revival and of new life, and at such a time men think but little of form and method, finding spiritual satisfaction in the voluntary and spontaneous worship which such an occasion develops. The practice, however, of the Free Church in worship, and its uniform tendency, was decidedly un-liturgical; freedom from prescribed forms in prayer and an absence of ritual marked its services during the half-century of its existence as a separate communion. So emphatic was its devotion to absolute liberty on the part of the worshippers that it was the last of the great Presbyterian bodies in Scotland to take any steps towards a further control of public worship other than that which is provided in the Directory.

About the year 1885 the Presbyterian Churches of England and of Australia appointed committees to consider the matter of a uniform order and method of public worship, and these in each case devoted their efforts to the revision of the Westminster Directory, and in neither has anything more liturgical been suggested than the repet.i.tion of the Creed and the Lord's Prayer by the people. The orders of service recommended are more lengthy than that of the Westminster Directory, but are similar in their general character. The hesitation shown in accepting even such slight changes as were suggested and the vigorous debates which resulted, furnish abundant evidence that the spirit of both of these Churches is still strong in favor of voluntary and untrammeled worship.

It is but right that in reviewing public worship outside of the Established Church, reference should be made to the practice of those large sections of the Presbyterian Church which, originating in Scotland, have grown strong in other lands.

The Presbyterian Church of the United States of America has exhibited in the main the same spirit that has characterized Presbyterian bodies across the sea. In 1788 the Synod of New York and Philadelphia adopted among other symbols the Westminster Directory for the Worship of G.o.d, abbreviating it somewhat, but changing its instructions in no material respect. There has been but little legislation by this Church concerning this subject. In 1874 the General a.s.sembly declared the practice of a responsive service in the public worship of the sanctuary to be without warrant in the New Testament, and to be unwise and impolitic in view of its inevitable tendency to destroy uniformity in the form already accepted. It further urged upon sessions of Churches to preserve in act and spirit the simplicity indicated in the Directory. This judgment of the American Church with regard to the influence of a liturgy in public worship is not materially different from that of the framers of the Directory as it is set forth in their strongly-worded preface. In 1876 the a.s.sembly declined to send down to presbyteries an overture declaring that responsive readings are a permissible part of worship in the sanctuary, although it declined at the same time to recommend sessions to make the question a subject of Church discipline. Six years afterwards it again refused to "prepare and publish a Book of Forms for public and social worship and for special occasions which shall be the authorized service-book of the Church to be used whenever a prescribed formula may be desired;" the reason given for such refusal, however, was the inexpediency of such a step in view of "the liberty that belongs to each minister to avail himself of the Calvinistic or other ancient devotional forms of the Reformed Churches, so far as may seem to him for edification." This explanation clearly indicates that, while the American Church is in sympathy with the necessity on the part of ministers, of a due and orderly discharge of all public services, yet it is unwilling to lay itself open to the charge of even suggesting the imposition of forms upon the Church for use on stated occasions. An optional liturgy has not been without its advocates among the leaders in this influential section of the Church. Such eminent and wise men as Drs. Charles and A. A. Hodge and Dr. Ashbel Green confessed themselves as in favor of the introduction of such forms for optional use, and Dr. Baird in his "Eutaxia" and other writers have argued vigorously from the example of sister churches of the continent of Europe for a return to the practice which they regarded as historically Presbyterian. As yet, however, the Church has preferred liberty to even suggested restriction.

The results in this Church, it cannot be denied, are not all that could be desired. The Directory is but little studied by ministers, and has by many been practically set aside. Frequently each congregation in the matter of worship is a law unto itself. Responsive readings have been introduced in some places, and choir responses after prayer in others; in some congregations the people join in the repet.i.tion of the Creed and the Lord's Prayer, while in others neither of these is heard; in one the collection has become a formal offertory; in another it affords an opportunity for the rendition of a musical selection by the choir. Worship in this great Church is at the present time characterized by the absence of a desirable uniformity, which it was one evident purpose of the Directory to secure, and in some of its congregations by the use of symbolism that occasionally becomes extravagant, and which is calculated to appeal entirely to the imagination, the result frequently being a service not attaining to that dignity which an authorized liturgy fosters, while it sacrifices that simplicity in which Presbyterians have been accustomed to glory.

The United Presbyterian Church in America, the result of so many happy unions, has always regarded simplicity in worship as an end earnestly to be desired, and worthy of all serious effort to secure. Its influence has, therefore, been uniformly in favor of that avoidance of forms against which the Seceders of Scotland, whom it represents on this continent, so often protested.

The Presbyterian Church, South--that Church whose history has been characterized by a loyalty so unswerving to the doctrinal standards of Presbyterianism, by a spirit so wisely aggressive in evangelistic and missionary effort, and by a ministry so scholarly and eloquent, has, in the matter of public worship, shown as constant a fidelity to the Westminster Directory as in doctrine it has shown to the Confession of Faith. There have been attempts made to introduce changes looking towards the adoption of optional liturgical forms, but these have been few, and they have been rejected in such a way as to leave no room for doubt as to the mind of the Church in this matter.