THE PRESENT DIFFICULTY.
James Dodson
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PURITY OF WORSHIP IN THE SCOTTISH CHURCH.
For the last twenty years the peace of the Established Church of Scotland has been greatly disturbed by internal movements for altering, and, as is alleged, improving, the mode of divine worship. Whatever their real motive may be, the innovators urge as their reason the necessity for adapting the worship of the Church to the spirit and requirements of the age. A similar spirit and similar innovations have appeared in some of the non-established Presbyterian Churches, both at home and abroad. These Churches stand on a different footing, and grounds of complaint in regard to them must be dealt with, by objectors, in a different way from the violations of compact in a Church established by statute. But as they all originally sprang from the same root of the Scottish Reformation, and as the definitions of Presbyterian doctrine and uniformity of worship were
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chiefly given in connection with the formation of the alliance between Church and State, the legal aspects of these changes must sooner or later be dealt with by all the Presbyterian Churches, and the matter is therefore interesting to all.
Like all other Christian creeds, the Confession of Faith of the Established Church of Scotland, which is still the Confession of the mass of Presbyterians, has been again and again assailed by parties outside, on a variety of grounds; and proposals have been made for modifying the Standards, to keep pace with the alleged progress of the community. Till now, such attempts have been strenuously resisted. To them there is but one answer. Divine truth does not change. The Confession of Faith embodies the scriptural beliefs on which the Church is founded,—these are suited to the wants and necessities of every age, and to the condition of the most intellectual as well as the most unlearned of men. Still, they bind only those who willingly receive them, although no one who cannot honestly profess the faith expressed in these Standards is fitted for admission to office in the Church. Thus while the entrance to the Church is jealously guarded to prevent the admission of faithless office-bearers, there have been innumerable instances in its history of deprivation of office for faithlessness to her Standards; and in this way there has been maintained a general veneration for doctrinal purity, and an adherence to the creed of the Church.
But this question of innovation has arisen within
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the pale of the Church itself, and is urged with a pertinacity and a speciousness of argument which render it necessary that it should be met and coped with. The promoters of innovations say no doctrine is to be called in question, no change of the creed is to be attempted, but the worship is simply to be made more inviting to the cultivated taste; and all this can be done, as a matter of regulation merely, by Kirk-Sessions, Presbyteries, or by the General Assembly, without in any way infringing either the creed or the constitution of the Church.
It is evident, however, that the attempted innovations are such as cannot be carried into effect without affecting in a very serious manner both the creed and the constitution of the Church; and many are desirous of using every lawful means to prevent their introduction generally, to secure a universal maintenance of that uniformity of worship which is essential to Presbyterianism, and thus to remove a great obstacle in the way of Presbyterian reunion.