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Attention was drawn at the close of the last
lecture to the attempt on the part of the Aberdeen Doctors to lead the
mind of the Church away from the doctrinal discussions, which were for
the most part inconclusive, to those practical matters upon which
Christian conduct and character depend. In other words, they tried to
bring into prominence the objective side of religion, and to give it its
due place in the thought and life of the Church. It is a similar
attitude that we find them taking up on the question of ceremony or
ritual, with which we have now to deal. Once more they endeavoured to
mediate between the two movements, which came to a head in their day,
and their efforts, however fruitless at the time, have not been without
their influence. The balance which they tried to form between the views
of the two contending parties is being now more evenly adjusted, when
the form of religion is seen to be, in a way, as essential as the matter
and the outward no less indispensible than the inward, in the worship
and service of the Church.
This, of course, was not so well understood
at the Reformation. The objective side of religion had, during the
supremacy of the Roman Church, grown to such abnormal proportions as to
obscure, if not almost to destroy, the subjective. External authority,
outward form, ceremonies, ritual, the adornment and embellishment of
churches with images and statuary, the burning of incense, clerical
vestments, and numerous other accretions, had gradually gathered round
the simple services of the Apostolic Church, and encouraged the belief
that in them true religion vvas to be found. It was against these, and
the superstitious feelings which they engendered, that the Reformers
protested. They wished with all their heart to sweep them away, or at
all events so to reduce them as to prevent worshippers from believing
that by these external forms man's spiritual nature could be satisfied.
It was to reform the Church of these and suchlike abuses that they
banded themselves together and risked limb and life in the enterprise.
While this is generally true of the motives
which animated the Reformers as a whole, it is particularly true of
those who founded that branch of the Protestant Church to which we
belong. Zwingli,1 in particular, sounded the note of "No idolatry," for
he regarded much of the worship of the Roman Church as no better than
the Pagan rites of ancient Greece and Rome. Indeed, he knew, as we have
all since learned, that many of the practices of the medieval Church had
been adopted from heathen idolatry. They were accepted as weak
compromises, as a concession to the heathens, who from time to time were
admitted into the Christian Church. These practices, in the course of
years, became so associated with the religion of Christ, as to be
regarded as part and parcel of it; nay more, their value was so
exaggerated as to obscure altogether the essence of the Christian
religion, which is inward and spiritual. The enlightenment of the mind,
the purification of the soul, and the uplifting of the spirit, which
come from the direct contact of man's nature with God's, through true
and simple worship, was altogether lost sight of, by the magnifying of
the objective side of religion, and by the unlimited indulgence in
ritual and ceremonial practices, which the Reformers held to be no
better than Pagan idolatry. Indeed, they went farther, and directly
attributed to this idolatry many of the corruptions which were sapping
the life of the Church, and hastening its destruction.
It was natural, of course, that in the
strong attitude which the Reformers thus took up, and in their almost
violent protests against the abuses which they condemned, they should be
tempted to go to the other extreme and to over-emphasise the subjective
element in religion.1 And this is really what happened, at least in the
case of some of them, and the disputes which have agitated the Scottish
Church since their day on the question, originated in the
over-exaggeration of the subjective in relation to the objective side of
religion, of the matter in opposition to the form, of preaching as
distinct from worship, and of instruction apart from ceremony. Ever
since there has been a continuous struggle to adjust the two sides. That
struggle came to a head at the time of the Aberdeen Doctors, when King
Charles attempted to foist an alien liturgy on the Scottish Church. The
opposing schools of thought came then into as violent collision as they
did at the Reformation, and the attempt of the Doctors to mediate
between the two, to hold the balance between them, to prove the
necessity of form as well as spirit in religion, though ineffective, was
at the time courageous and laudable, and is not without its significance
now.
There were two tangible causes which
produced that struggle. The one was the extreme attitude of Knox towards
the worship of the Roman Church, and the other was the action of King
Charles in attempting to force upon the Church a service book that was
displeasing to it. Every one, of course, knows of Knox's violent attacks
upon the ceremonies of the Roman Church. These attacks were again and
again repeated, from the day on which he preached his first sermon in
St. Andrews until the close of his life. They were repeated in England,
on the Continent, and on his return. to Scotland with almost growing
vehemence. His watchword as a Reformer was, "No idolatry," and while far
from standing alone in sounding this battle-cry, it is unquestionable
that he gave it forth with a louder peal than any of his brother
Reformers. He did not go the length, as some of his followers did, of
advocating the disuse of a liturgy altogether. The Church of the second
Reformation out-Knoxed Knox in this matter, and we, who are now without
an authorised service book, can hardly call ourselves his spiritual
children. He had to make a compromise with the Roman Church on the
question of worship, and on the question of doctrine as well, as indeed
had all the Reformers ; for however much they inveighed against both, it
cannot be admitted that their Prayer Books, their Books of Discipline,
their Canons, Rubrics, and Confessions of Faith are to be found in the
shape in which they put them, in the Bible. They could not altogether
break away from Catholic antiquity; the dead Church's hand still
governed them. It cannot, however, be denied that Knox's hatred and fear
of Roman ceremonial, in which he saw Pagan idolatry and the greatest
danger to the purity of the Reformed Church, infected the Scottish
people, sank deeply into their natures, and has been a main factor in
the development of the Church's policy, doctrine, and worship from then
till now.
While Knox's Liturgy, or Book of Common
Order,1 gives considerable liberty in the conduct of worship, the
Reformation was not many years old until the Church, through its General
Assembly, put its ban upon certain religious customs practised, not only
by the Roman Church, but in the several branches of the Protestant
Church as well. There was nothing in Knox's Liturgy about vestments,
attitudes, and visible ceremonials in general; these were left to be
determined by usage. Nor did it give any regulation with regard to the
conduct of services in celebration of the great Christian festivals ; in
fact it takes no recognition of them whatsoever. While there was
difference of usage among the Churches which cast off the Roman yoke
with regard to these festivals, most of them observed them. The Church
of Scotland was soon to prove the exception. In 1566 it was asked to
give its approval of the second Helvetic Confession, as had been done by
other Reformed Churches. This Confession contained the following
passage: "If Churches, in right of their Christian liberty, commemorate
religiously our Lord's Nativity, Circumcision, Passion, and
Resurrection, with his Ascension into Heaven, and the Descending of the
Holy Ghost upon the disciples, we highly approve thereof. But Feasts
instituted in honour of men or angels we approve not." The answer was:
"This Assembly would not allow the days dedicate to Christ—the
Circumcision, the Nativity, Passion, Resurrection, Ascension, and
Pentecost days, but took exception against that part of the Confession."
This indicates the official mind of the Church. By its decision it put a
barrier between itself and the other Churches of the Reformed Faith.
Still in different parts of the country these festivals continued to be
observed, because they were an inheritance from the ancient Church, and
because the other Churches of the Reformation practised them. The
Assembly, however, was determined to put them down, from fear of
encouraging superstition, and the first step was thus taken in that
narrowing and hardening process with relation to the Church's worship,
which we observed in our last lecture, occurred with regard to its
creed, and both for the same reason, dread of Popery.
Another sign of the times which points in
the same direction is to be found in the office of the reader. He came
into existence chiefly because of the dearth of ministers, and he read
the prayers in Churches where there was no stated pastor. But even after
parishes were filled up with incumbents his office still continued. He
conducted the first part of the service, which was the devotional, from
the Prayer Book. After he was done, the minister entered the church,
mounted the pulpit, and preached the sermon. This part of the service
immediately began to be regarded as by far the most important. This was
encouraged by the teaching of the Liturgy itself, and the subordinate
place that was now given to worship caused preaching to be looked upon
as the main, if not the sole element in the Sunday service.
It may be impossible for us to appreciate
fully the reason which led Knox and his immediate successors to guide
the policy of the Church, with regard to its worship, in the direction
now indicated. They probably felt that unless they took a very straight
and narrow course the evils which had sprung up through excessive
ceremonial, and what they called " creature worship," in the Roman
Church, might still be perpetuated. Anything, they thought, would be
better than that. They were inspired by the same hatred which animated
the old Hebrew prophets, of everything that defileth or maketh a lie in
the worship of Jehovah, and their every effort was to remove any
obstacle that might stand between the soul and God, and to quicken in
the soul itself a spirit of devotion that required no external aid.
Still, the question may be asked if the Scottish Church has not paid too
dearly for its sacrifice, and does it follow that because a thing is
abused, that thing is wrong ? Because the Roman Church carried to
extremes the objective element in religion, are we to condemn that
element altogether and to deny its use? Is everything that is not inward
and of the spirit sinful ? Is everything that is outward and external
wrong? Is what appeals to the senses wicked ? If an answer in the
affirmative be given to these questions, we divide the world and create
a dualism which it is the express object of the Christian religion to
destroy. If form without spirit is meaningless, so spirit without form
is vague and vain.
A reaction was bound to set in, but it came
from a quarter that defeated its own object. If the Church had been left
to itself, it is not at all unlikely that the objective side of religion
might in due course have received the countenance to which it is
entitled, and worship have taken its place in the life and services of
the Church. Knox's Liturgy was there, and it continued to be used until
the Covenanters, in their violent opposition to what is called Laud's
Liturgy,1 imposed by Royal fiat upon the Church in 1637, caused it to
abjure all liturgies and to pave the way for the Presbyterians from
Ireland and the Brownists from England to reduce to the lowest level,
and even to discredit, decency and order in the conduct of worship. All
that the Revolution Settlement gave us was the Directory of Public
Worship, prepared by the Westminster Assembly. It is a guide but nothing
more. But the reaction did not come from the Church itself, it came from
the King, first from King James and then from his son King Charles. It
was not thus a natural development that might have come in time, for we
cannot conceive that the Scottish Church would have been so untrue to
its origin or would have endangered its communion with the other
Churches of the Reformation as to abjure ceremonies which would have
made it singular in the eyes of all. But the chance was not given to it.
King James, in his eager haste to bring about conformity between the
Anglican and Scottish Churches, managed by means of packed Assemblies to
have the famous Perth Articles adopted. He had also in hand the
preparation of a new liturgy, but this he wisely dropped. His son, King
Charles 1., with still greater eagerness, foisted, on his own authority,
a Book of Canons and his notorious Liturgy upon the Church, which saw in
both the symbols of Popery and made that the ostensible ground for
rejecting them. The "auld enemy" of the Scottish Church, hatred to which
had been inspired by Knox, and duly fostered by his successors, was
still dreaded by the Scottish people, and this dread was encouraged by
the clergy and nobility for purposes of their own. They did not wish the
interference of the Monarch and kindled the popular opposition by
methods which they knew would be most effective. This action on the part
of father and son, King James and King Charles, was the second tangible
cause of the struggle which agitated the Church, on the question of
ritual, and it was during the time of the Aberdeen Doctors that the two
parties, the party of Knox and the party of the King, came into violent
collision. There is no question, of course, on whose side the majority
lay. The result that followed shows this. The popular vote was cast in
favour of the Covenanters. The landed gentry whose interests were
threatened by the establishment of Episcopacy, sided with the common
people, whose prejudices were wounded by the threatened changes in the
form of worship, and the coalition thus formed and led by the ministers,
who resented the interference of the King in matters which belonged to
the Church, finally triumphed. Still it must not be forgotten that the
advocates of the proposed changes were influential. They were as keen on
the introduction of the new order as those who were afterwards known as
Covenanters were in their opposition to it. The strife accordingly was
bitter and prolonged, historical perspective was lost sight of, and
everything had to give way, both reason and good feeling, in face of the
blind fury that prevailed. It was at this point that the Aberdeen
Doctors stepped in and endeavoured to throw the light of knowledge, of
judgment, and of truth upon the subject in dispute.
In relation to what has now been said, the
statement of the views of the Doctors, which I am about to give, may
seem unwarrantably brief. All that I can do in the present relation is
just to indicate it.
It was the dispeace which followed the
adoption, by the Perth Assembly in 1618, of the Five Articles, which
King James desired to impose upon the Church, that drew from Dr. John
Forbes his views on rites and ceremonies in general, and the relation
which the Scottish Church should adopt towards them, in particular.
These views were incorporated in his well-known work the Irenictim,
written with the express purpose of bringing about peace in the troubled
Church. The five Articles are as follows:—
1. That the Communion should be received
kneeling.
2. That in cases of necessity the Communion might be administered in
private houses.
3. That in cases of necessity Baptism might be administered in private
houses.
4. That children on reaching eight years of age should be confirmed by
the Bishop.
5. That Christmas, Good Friday, Easter
Monday, Ascension Day, and Whitsunday should
be observed as Holy Days.
One, at this time of day, may find it hard
to appreciate the strife which the introduction of these Articles
engendered. Three of them have now been practically adopted by the
Church, namely, Private Baptism, Private Communion, and the Celebration
of Holy Days; the second and third perhaps more sparingly than the
first. The Church objected to Private Baptism and to Private Communion,
chiefly on the ground that, at their celebration, there would be no
preaching. The rite accordingly would tend to be regarded in a
superstitious way, as possessing in itself a supernatural efficacy. In
opposing the celebration of the Christian Festivals, the Church took up
the position of historical continuity. It had never adopted them
although the other Churches of the Reformation had. Confirmation was
objected to on the ground that the parochial bishop had as much right to
administer it as the diocesan, but the real battle took place on the
Article which imposed kneeling at the Communion. This was held as gross
idolatry, a worshipping of the sacred elements, almost a revival of the
Mass. Knox had resolutely set his face against it, and the Church shared
his views.
It may accordingly be of interest to hear
Dr. John Forbes' opinion on the subject. He opposed those who would
force it upon an unwilling Church, but he equally repudiated the
contention of those who declared it to be unlawful.
With regard to the charge that kneeling at
Communion is idolatrous, since it is a religious adoration in presence
of the creature, he replied that this is not true, unless it can be
shown that adoration in presence of creature, or object, is a religious
adoration of creature or object itself, which is not the case, as can be
shown from the worship before the Altar of the Lord, the Ark of the
Covenant, and the Temple at Jerusalem; the adoration of God with the
raising of the eyes and hands to heaven ; falling on the knee at public
penitence; and religious adoration at the ordination of ministers, when
the minister to be ordained receives with bended knee the imposition of
hands and the sacred volume. He maintained that the bread is not placed
so that it may be adored, or that adoration may be made before it so
that the bread may be the object of worship, but that the humble
kneeling itself may be the token of devotion and reverence towards God,
when He confers the most precious gifts on us.
The example of Christ and the Apostles is
brought forward. He shows that no mention is made of the posture in
which the disciples accepted from the hands of the Lord the sacred
elements. No special posture was essential; that neither at its
institution nor afterwards in Scripture is it ever appointed. That there
were many circumstances in the first celebration which were essential
neither to the Sacrament nor its institution, nor laid down by the
necessary practice of the Church. Those things only are necessary which
arise from the Divine institution of the Sacrament. The necessary
circumstances of time, place, mode, are natural necessities, but do not
bind to a certain kind of posture.1 He also held that the Commemoration
of the Anniversaries of Holy Days, such as Christmas and Easter, are
lawful. These, he remarks, have been observed from the earliest times by
the whole Church. It is not the day that is commemorated, but the
spiritual blessings which are associated with it. These it would be
possible to celebrate on any day, but uniformity is advisable in the
interests of the people. No superstition is attached to the day, or any
sanctity, but the practice tends to the worship of God, to whom we owe
the blessing it indicates, and to the discipline of Christian life. He
argues much in the same way with regard to the other Articles, and says
that they must not be done away with because of the abuse of the Papists
any more than Marriage, Confession, or the Holy Communion. Any good
custom can be corrupted, but its corruption should not blind us to its
goodness.
He then takes up the following general
position with regard to worship, ceremonies, and ritual: that everything
that makes for peace and edification are moral necessities; also what
makes for decency and order; and that everything against peace and
edification and every unseemly posture or neglect of order must be
excluded ; that rites in themselves are indifferent, and may be omitted
or replaced, just as order, decorum, peace, charity, and edification may
dictate. And with regard to the particular Articles in dispute, he held
that the dignity and freedom of the Scottish Church demanded their
introduction : its dignity, so that the objective side of religion might
receive its due share of recognition, and the services of the Church be
prevented from falling into disrepute through unseemliness and
slovenliness; and its freedom, so that it might assert its right and
liberty to arrange its order of worship, and to omit or introduce such
rites and ceremonies, as it felt justified in doing, for the edification
of its members
Such, in brief outline, were the views of
Dr. John Forbes, which were shared, more or less fully, by the rest of
the Aberdeen Doctors, and it seems to me that in them may be found a
line of policy for the guidance of the Church on this question ; for, as
every one knows, guidance is sorely needed. Some forty years ago the
question of what was popularly known as improved Church services, or, as
I would prefer to call it, a renewed recognition of the objective side
of religion, began to interest the Church. The movement was headed by
Dr. Robert Lee, who fell a victim to the cause. The war of parties in
Presbytery and Assembly is still fresh in the minds of many, and the
movement which he so bravely and ably championed has made undoubted
progress. Still, fresh cases of dispute continually crop up, and what
painfully strikes one, in the attempted settlement of them, is the lack
of a guiding principle. If I am not misinformed, the Assembly of the
Church, not many years ago, gave a decision on a case of this kind
mainly on the representation of a wealthy member, who happened to be
standing for the constituency where the dispute occurred. He declared
that unless the so-called innovations were put down, popular feeling
would be so roused against the Church and himself, that he would be in
danger of being defeated. The Church decided against the so-called
innovations, and the candidate was defeated all the same. Well, it is
nothing short of a scandal that the Church of Scotland should determine
important questions of this kind in such a loose and haphazard way. In
order to receive right guidance one has to go back to the period between
the Reformation and the Aberdeen Doctors; for, after the abolition of
Episcopacy in 1638 until our own time, the worship of the Church
presents an arid waste ; in any case it is separated so radically from
the Church's own teaching and practice, as laid down during the time
when it was uninfluenced by outside agents or movements, that no
authoritative guidance can therein be found. The Assembly may have
passed certain Acts, and the Church may or may not have respected them,
but it seems to me that it is to the earlier period we must look for
light to guide us.
Now, in the views of the Aberdeen Doctors,
which were moulded, partly by the regulations and forms laid down by the
Church itself, and partly by the practice of the early Church and of the
other Churches of the Reformation, we find certain principles which the
Church of our time ought seriously to consider in handling the
controversies that may arise on religious worship. The fact that such
controversies do keep recurring must be accepted as a sign that the
Church is not satisfied with the meagre means hitherto afforded for the
satisfaction of one side of Christian thought and feeling. Indeed, these
means are far poorer that the Church of Knox supplied, and, knowing as
we do the reasons which actuated him in cutting down all formal worship
to the very lowest, we ought to hesitate in withholding from the people
their just heritage and rights.
Knox, as we have seen, was actuated by fear
of Popery ; that we can understand. But the Reformed Church of Scotland
is now some three and a half centuries old, and that fear surely ought
to be nonexistent. He had good reason for acting as he did, but that
reason has passed away, therefore any revival of forms of worship which
even he allowed, and of others which are freely used by other Reformed
Churches that can lay claim to as great a purity as our own, ought not
to be denied to our people. The Aberdeen Doctors rightly pointed out
that the New Testament is not a Book of Common Order. It does not lay
down forms of service ; it refrains from stating regulations for every
detail of worship. It inculcates principles, and leaves it to the wisdom
of the Church, acting under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to
determine special questions for itself. In this, as in everything else,
there may be a development. Fresh needs, special circumstances, new
conditions, may call for revision, omission, or addition, in the
ceremonies and worship of the Church ; but all such departures ought to
be made on the understanding that no absolute authority should be
claimed for human appointments, however expedient and seemly, and that
the Church should never make anything imperative which has not the
authority of Scripture.
The Aberdeen Doctors accordingly would not
divide the Church on such questions ; schism did not take place in their
day. This happy practice was left to later times. The unity and
authority of the Church were not scouted as they have since been. Such
matters ought to be considered and debated in a calm and reasonable
manner, and when opinion became fully ripe would be the time to decide
them. No body of men respected the peace of the Church so profoundly as
the Aberdeen Doctors, and Dr. John Forbes in particular deplored the
strife that, what was meant to make for the edification of the Church,
engendered.
And it was just this very edification of the
Church that he and they who thought with him had so much at heart. They
naturally regretted that much which tended towards the development of
worship and towards the building up of the Christian thought and life of
the people was being lost sight of, and that what remained was in
imminent danger of vanishing through the troubles that had arisen. They
could not approve of the method by which the King endeavoured to force
upon the Church a Service Book, though they might not disapprove of the
Service Book itself. For their part, if the Church refused to accept the
proposed innovation, they would have been content to bow to its decision
and remain within it as loyal members. They brought their knowledge and
their ability to bear upon the questions at issue, and endeavoured to
prove the lawfulness and the utility of what was proposed and
introduced. But they would be no schismatics, nor would they disturb the
peace of the Church by intellectual brawling. Unfortunately the King and
those who sided with him roused the worst features of the Scottish
character, and the strife and contention which then began, and have
since continued, have blinded the Church to the real question at issue,
and by centring its mind on the arid centuries that have intervened
since the Glasgow Assembly of 1638, in place of the preceding period,
have filled it with misknowledge and prejudice, and made it all the more
difficult for those who are desirous of doing full justice to the
objective side of religion, to carry out the necessary reforms, chiefly
by way of reviving the past.
For it should not be forgotten that the
members of the Church have certain rights in this connection. The
minister may preach as he pleases, and the hearers may accept or reject
at their will. It is different with the service. That is as much their
part as his, indeed it is their part chiefly, for the prayers are
supposed to be the prayers of the congregation, and the various acts of
worship are the expressions of their feelings and aspirations. If the
clergyman conducts the service after a fashion which may be approved of
by himself only, introducing or omitting what may please himself, how
can the service be called that of the congregation, and how can they
participate in the worship which may not be theirs ? Without some stated
order—in short, without a liturgy which has been the growth of the
devout feeling and is the expression of the mind of the Church—there can
be no guarantee of a congregational service in the true sense of the
word. Knox, like the other Reformers, was wise enough to see this.
The Aberdeen Doctors strongly shared his
opinion, and would have liked the Church to develop its worship so as to
bring it into line with other Reformed Churches, and to give as full
expression as possible to the spirit of devotion, and to balance the
subjective by a recognition of the objective element in religion.
It may of course be said that worship, thus
practised, is apt to become formal. So is any kind of worship. Unless
there be a worshipful spirit in the minister and people, it matters not
very much whether the service be conducted on the lines and in the words
laid down by the Church, or according to the liturgist's own sweet will,
the service will be cold and barren. But if there be devout feelings in
the hearts both of minister and congregation, the service, in whatever
form it may be rendered, will express them. For my part, while adhering
to Knox's arrangement that sufficient scope be given for free prayer,
and that the rubrics should, in cases where no absolute authority can be
claimed, give permission for independent action, I believe that a Book
of Common Order, which contains the pious aspirations of past ages and
has been the vehicle for the expression of the devotions of the Church
for generations, ought of itself to inspire both minister and people
with the spirit of true worship.
It may be interesting to note the views of
representative men on the questions which have been discussed in this
lecture. Let me select two recent pronouncements, one by an Anglican and
the other by a Presbyterian. Professor Masterman, in his Hulsean Lecture
on the " Rights and Responsibilities of National Churches/' referring to
the question of ceremonies in a National Church says: "I would plead for
the widest possible scope for experiment in the ceremonial of the
National Church, for the frank abandonment of any attempt at a cast iron
system of legally enforced uniformity. With it must go, too, the
arbitrary power of the clergy to modify and expand local uses in
accordance with the supposed ceremonial of the Catholic Church. The
experience of the Colonial Churches has shown conclusively that the
Christian laity, when entrusted with real power, are a strong safeguard
against rash or ill-considered changes in the customs and ceremonial of
the Church. But experiment and adaptation are only possible to a body
that has an organic character. And it is this organic character that a
National Church is best fitted to secure and retain. For the life of the
Church is grafted on the foundation of the organic life of the nation."
Principal Pollok, in his singularly able
book on Practical Theology/ speaking on behalf of the Presbyterian
Church on the subject of free, as compared to liturgical, prayer, says:
"The real question is, which method best promotes spirituality in the
worshippers? Whenever it can be proved that either promotes religion
more than the other, then the question is for us settled. The advocates
of free prayer often claim for their system a superior spirituality.
.But it must be admitted that some of Paley's objections cannot be
easily answered. What is generally the mental attitude of a congregation
during a prayer which they have never heard before? Are they for the
most part a praying Assembly? We may suppose them to be in a prepared
and devout frame, but does their mental attitude ever rise above a
meditation? Is it not often curiosity mingled with criticism? The
prescribed prayer obviates all this, for the voice is the voice of the
Church, and when the worshipper really tries to worship, the exercise is
not intellectual but devotional. The worshipper is neither a hearer
merely, nor a critic, nor can he complain of surprises. The channel for
his thoughts has been provided, and he is a devout worshipper just to
that degree in which he allows his thoughts and feelings to flow into
it. "There is much," he adds, "to be said in favour of having some
manual of devotion that would unite the hearts of God's people in
worship and so bind all parts of the Church together in a unity
expressed as well as professed. Churches are united in love and in
brotherhood, not by confessions which are seldom read, but by devotions
which are often repeated, wherein the feelings are drawn out and the
souls of the whole people are directed to eternal things." It is very
significant that the Anglican pleads for freedom in ceremonial and the
Presbyterian for uniformity in worship, and their views, seeing they are
those of representative men, must be accepted as hopeful signs of the
times. |
