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THE PRESBYTERIAN WORSHIP CONFIRMED.

James Dodson

From all this it clearly appears that when the Establishment of the Presbyterian Church was secured at the Revolution, with the Confession of Faith as embodied in an Act of Parliament, including the passage, chap. 21, s. 1, that “the acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by Himself, and so limited by His own revealed will, that He may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices of men or the suggestions of Satan under any visible representation, or IN ANY OTHER WAY NOT PRESCRIBED IN THE HOLY SCRIPTURE,” it was intended to exclude all that had hitherto been rejected as unscriptural, including a liturgy or instrumental music,

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which were foreign to the avowed principles and practice of the Presbyterian Church. The Act 1693, on the other hand, providing “that no minister or preacher be admitted or continued for hereafter unless that he subscribe to observe and do actually observe the aforesaid uniformity,” was presumably intended to secure that there should be no infringement on the simplicity of worship as thus established, without subjecting the ministers and elders to expulsion from office. All this appears still more evident from the fact that the General Assembly of 1694, c. 12 and 13, in consequence probably of the recent ecclesiastical confusions and changes, and especially with reference to such “conform ministers as having qualified themselves according to law,” had been more recently admitted into the Presbyterian Church, and subscribed the formula, provided, “That during the same time [i.e., the continuance of its Commission] no Judicatory of this Church do take advantage to censure any minister whatsoever for not having qualified himself in the terms of the Act of Parliament 1693, intituled, Act for settling the Quiet and Peace of this Church.” This suspension of censure, which was probably ordered to give the conforming Episcopalian ministers a little time to settle in their places, was to last only during the continuance of the Commission. But to avoid the appearance or the possibility of the Act 1693 being virtually set aside, the duration of the suspension was definitely fixed, for to this Act of Assembly it was added, “This Act

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to endure only till the second Tuesday of April 1695, or the meeting of next General Assembly, which of the two shall first happen.” This Act therefore confirms the rule, and proves that all ministers and elders were then liable to the law of 1693. It clearly proves the admitted personal responsibility at that time of ministers and elders to maintain purity and uniformity of worship on pain of censure; since the Assembly required thus to interpose to protect the transgressors for a year. When this year expired, the Assembly proceeds again to deal firmly with innovations and innovators.

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