UNIFORMITY OF WORSHIP IN THE PAST.
James Dodson
For three centuries, till recently, there has been uniformity of worship in the Church of Scotland. All ministers and elders have been solemnly bound to this, and the same general form of worship has been observed in every church and parish throughout the land. It will be shown that great importance was attached by the early reformed Church to the purity of worship, as well as to the “uniformity”
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of its observance, so that all causes of division, confusion, and irritation might be avoided. The essential condition of worship was based upon the principle of allowing nothing whatever in the service not divinely “appointed.” This principle comes to be of the greatest importance in considering the action of the Reformers in regard to worship, and the attitude assumed by the Established Church on the subject; whilst in tracing the history of the mode of Divine worship instituted by the Reformers, it will be noticed what weight was attached to this principle, and how deeply it imbued all the legislation in the matter. If this was well established as a principle at the outset, nothing has occurred to change it till this day, and it will be shown what interpretation the Reformers put upon it in framing that Confession of Faith and modelling that form of worship which are still fundamental in the constitution of the Presbyterian Church. Adopting the model of the Primitive Church, the Scottish Church secured, and in the Westminster Directory specially provided for, the five parts of the public worship, viz.:—
Public prayer.
Public reading of the Holy Scriptures.
Preaching of the Word.
Singing of praise; and
The dispensation of sacraments.
In the preface to the Directory it is explained by the Assembly that “Our care hath been to
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hold forth such things as are of divine institution in every ordinance; and other things we have endeavoured to set forth according to the rules of Christian prudence, agreeable to the general rules of the Word of God; our meaning therein being only that the general heads, the sense and scope of the prayers, and other parts of public worship being known to all, there may be a consent of all the churches in those things that contain the substance of the service and worship of God.”
In the Westminster Confession of Faith, to which the office-bearers of the Presbyterian Churches are bound, it is said, chap. xxi. sec. 1, “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 Scriptures.” Some attempt has been made to evade this on the one hand, and to confuse the whole principle on the other, by demanding a Divine warrant for the most minute and insignificant details connected with worship; but all this has been anticipated and met by another passage of the Confession, chap. i. sec. 6, where it is said that “there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God and the government of the Church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the
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Word, which are always to be observed.” The two qualifications here, however, clearly define the meaning and the limitation of this statement. The passage refers to and lays down a rule in regard to such unimportant matters, viewed with relation to the substance of worship, as are “common to human actions and societies,” and it declares, at the same time, even in regard to such matters, that everything must be “according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed.” But while “circumstances” are thus dealt with, the provisions touching the grand and well-known essentials of worship stand out clearly and without derogation.
The Larger Catechism lays down the principle that the second commandment forbids “all devising, counselling, commanding, using, and anywise approving any religious worship not instituted by God Himself.” The Shorter Catechism declares that the second commandment “forbiddeth the worshipping of God by images, or any other way not appointed in His Word.”
As a matter of notoriety, the form of worship throughout Scotland became stereotyped and familiar to all the people, and is still in use, with more or less purity, in all the Presbyterian churches in the country. As every one knows, it still consists of the five parts—praying, reading, preaching, singing of Psalms, and the dispensation of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The attitudes in worship have also been unaltered. The uniform scope of these services has hitherto been in substance
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as set forth in the Directory, although the power and fervour of them are necessarily varied according to the abilities and spirit of each minister.