arV15474 Christian worshii Cornell University Library 111 3 1924 031 228 673 olin,anx fyxull Wimvmxi^ pibrng THE GIFT OF M^ ^ir^v have kept the Catholic faith un- spotted from the world, unwarped by the Church. The educative use of Christian worship, its reflexive influence on persons, on households, on schools, and on communities, makes worship a part of sociology. The religious nature must be reckoned with in all attempts to reconstitute the dignity of a fallen community, or to develop the powers of an inchoate life. Man is not normal until he worships. Upon the director of worship lies, therefore, the burden of an educator. To him much has been com- mitted, and of him shall men, without injustice, require much. They have a right to the best, to the noblest forms of worship; to the most devout, the most studious, the most solicitous, the most reveren- tial fulfilment of all the contents of that sacred institution founded upon the will of God, demanded by the intuitions of human consciousness. Worship is an education, the leader of worship a teacher of men. It is his so to serve with clean hands at the altar of God, so to live in all godliness and gravity, so to stand surrendered to the power of the Paraclete, 30 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP that the eternal verities of worship shall become to many lires a revelation of truth, a voice from the unseen, a theophany of the Spirit, sublimating thought, moulding character, strengthening with might the wings of the soul's aspiration. II PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN LITURGIES By the Eev. ALEXANDER V. G. ALLEN, D.D., Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the Protestant Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Mass. PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN LITURGIES I PROPOSE in this lecture to discuss the litur- gical motives which influenced the development of worship in the ancient Church, and were finally embodied in liturgies.^ The impulse to liturgical development was Oriental in its origin. It is a familiar generalization that in the development of the ancient Church Greece contributed the intellec- i List of some of the Moke Important Works on Ancient Christian Worship. — The larger collections of Assemanni, Een- audot, Daniel, and Muratori. The Liturgies in the 2d, 7th, and 8th books of the Apostolic Constitutions. Cyril's Mystagogic Catechisms. Bingham's Christian Antiquities, B. XIV. c. 5, B. XVI. Dionysius the Areopagite in Migne, Patrol. Gr. ii. Swainson, C. A., The Greek Liturgies, chiefly from Original Authorities, 1884. Brightman, F. E., Liturgies, Eastern and Western, being the Texts, original or translated, of the Principal Liturgies of the Church, vol. i. 1896. Palmer, W., Origines Liturgicce. Bnnsen, Chevalier, Christianity and Mankind, and Analecta Ante-Nicmna. Smith and Cheetham, Dictionary of Christian Antiquities ; articles on LITURGIES AND LITURGICAL BOOKS. Neale, J. M., Introduction to the History of the Holy Eastern Church; also Essays on Liturgiology and Church History. Stanley, The Eucharistic Sacrifice in " Christian Institutions," 1881. Freeman, Principles of Divine Service. Probst, Liturgie der drei ersten christ- liehen Jahrhunderten, 1870. Mone, Lateinische und griechische Messen aus dem zweiten his sechsten Jahrhundert. Gottschick, Der Sontags- gottesdienst der Christl. Kirche, 1885. Kortlin, Geschich. d. Christl. Gottesdienstes, 1887. Duchesne, Origines du culte Chretien, Htude sur la Liturgie Latine avant Charlemagne, 1 889. 3 34 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP tual formulas of doctrine, and Rome her genius for law and government and administration. To this may be added that Oriental countries contributed the tendencies which to some extent influenced the aspect of worship. And by Oriental countries are meant Egypt, parts of Asia Minor, and Eastern Syria, where, although the influence of Greek culture had been felt, there were characteristics of tempera- ment, religious traditions, a certain conception of man in his relation to nature, and theosophical tend- encies also, which were never entirely overcome by Greek influence, and which finally left their mark on Christian worship. The time of liturgical prepa- ration may be said to date from the age of Constan- tino, and to include the fourth and fifth centuries. During this period we may trace the origin and development of most of those principles which were afterward embodied in the cultus. The liturgies themselves did not assume their final shape, as we know them to-day, until a much later time. There are no manuscripts of liturgies which date earlier than the eighth or ninth centuries. The liturgy of Constantinople, called after Basil and Chrysostom, was not then in existence, nor was the Roman Mass. The sources for our knowledge of the worship of the fourth and fifth centuries are to be found in a so- called liturgy, which is contained in the eighth book of the Apostolic Constitutions. The exact date is uncertain, but I will assume that it was put forth about the year 340. The reason for this assumption PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN LITURGIES 35 is a certain tinge of Semi-Arianism which is to be detected in it, a theology which was then in vogue, whose influence may be said to have culminated at the Council of Antioch in the year 340 or 341. This so-called liturgy is commonly known as the Clementine, and as this is a convenient designation, I shall refer to it by this name in the frequent allu- sions which will be made to it. It was never used as a liturgy, nor was it intended that it should be ; it is to be regarded as a private compilation, con- taining formulas of prayer which were never adopted into general use. But it also contains ritual direc- tions which were adopted, and therefore serves in many respects as a model and type of the later East- ern liturgies. Other important sources for our knowledge of the worship in the fourth and fifth centuries are the Lectures on the Mysteries by Cyril of Jerusalem, who lived about the time of the Second General Council, in 380 ; the many allusions to the ritual, and comments on its significance, by Chrysos- tom, bishop of Antioch, and afterwards patriarch of Constantinople; and lastly, the order of worship given by the so-called Dionysius the Areopagite, who lived in the latter part of the fifth century. The development of liturgical principles was con- temporaneous with an age of doctrinal activity and controversy, with which are connected the names of Apollinaris and Cyril of Alexandria, Nestorius and Eutyches. When the Church grew weary of the in- cessant discussion, and losing its faith in the reason 36 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP fell back upon tradition as the highest authority, ritual came to the front, as if a refuge from the distractions of controversy, as if the instincts of the heart might be trusted, when the Christian intellect seemed to have lost itself in a labyrinthine maze of contradiction and confusion. In order to measure the ritual advance of the fourth and fifth centuries, we must keep in view the worship of the Church in an earlier age, our knowl- edge of which depends upon a few brief but precious fragments There is an account of the worship at the close of the Apostolic age, or about the beginning of the second century, which is given in the Didache. Another account is contained in the letter of the Roman governor, Pliny, to the Emperor Trajan, which belongs to the earlier years of the second cen- tury. Justin Martyr is our next authority, whose time is about the middle of the second century. Nearly two centuries intervene between Justin Martyr and the time of the Clementine liturgy, in which we are dependent upon allusions in various writers, but in which as a whole the ritual of the Church is like an underground stream, collecting its waters from sources which have not yet been fully traced, till at last it emerges a river, which no authority of council or hierarchy can control, which defies tradition and makes its channel at its will and pleasure. We seem to pass abruptly, and as if with- out preparation, from the simple eucharistic service as described by Justin, to the highly complex and PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN LITURGIES 37 elaborate worship, the stately ceremonial of the age of Constantine. The word " liturgy " has undergone many changes. According to its etymological use and its earlier application, it meant a public service or function, and the name Leitourgos was sometimes given to the deacon as indicating his peculiar work. In its widest use, when applied to the worship, the liturgy included a public service, consisting of prayer, the reading of Scripture, and preaching. This may be called a homiletic service, whose aim was moral and spiritual edification. All classes of Christians were allowed to be present, — the catechumens, the penitents, and also the outside world of heathens and unbelievers. This service was given in the morning hours. There was also from the first an interior service for the faithful, in which was administered the Lord's Supper, and from which the public were excluded, as were also the penitents and catechumens. Ritual advance or development con- sisted in expanding the ceremony of the Eucharist, and enhancing its importance, till finally, some- where after the fifth century, the homiletic worship ceased in the churches, the Eucharist was thrown open to the whole congregation, the communion of the Lord's Supper was practically discontinued, and the people were content to witness the impressive dramatization of the passion of Christ. The earlier homiletic service now took refuge in the monasteries, where its development continued 38 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP till it issued in what is known in the Latin Church as the Breviary, which, however intricate it became, still retained its original character as a service of prayer and song, readings from the Scripture, and the word of exhortation. At the Reformation it was reduced into the Morning and Evening Prayer of the English Church. It is then with the development of the worship which is connected with the Lord's Supper that we are now chiefly concerned. The oifice of the Eucha- rist becomes the liturgy, — the only application which the term now has in the Greek and Latin churches. There is among us a popular use of the word "liturgy" to which I may refer in passing, which places a liturgical service in contrast with those forms of worship where the ministrant offers extemporaneous prayers. But this distinction was not made in the ancient Church. In the account of the worship found in the Didache, while formulas of prayer are given for those who may need them, it is also enjoined that the prophets are to be permitted "to give thanks as much as they will." In the liturgy of Justin Martyr no forms of prayer are mentioned, but the president of the congregation is said to pray at considerable length, and according to his ability. Even in the Clementine liturgy, while some forms of prayer are given in full, in other cases only directions are given as to the nature or contents of the prayer to be offered. According to Chrysos- tom of Antioch, there were three usages in prayer. PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN LITURGIES 39 There were certain formulas pronounced by the officiant alone; there was the Litany, where the priest or deacon read the petitions and the people responded with Kyrie Meison; and thirdly, there was a method of common prayer, which has since disappeared, in which, after the priest or deacon had declai'ed the object of supplication and bidden the people to pray, there was silence in the church while the prayer was offered, followed by the injunction to pray more fervently, when silence again prevailed. To this custom Chrysostom alluded when he ex- claimed, "Great is the power of the congregation." But so late as the sixth century, according to Duchesne, the Leonian Sacramentary, so-called, gives ground for supposing that improvised prayer was still practised, or at least the insertion of phrases prepared by the officiant himself. The earliest accounts of Christian worship connect the Lord's Supper with the Agape, which may be defined as a common evening meal, in imitation of the last supper of Christ with his disciples, when " after supper he took the cup. " It is possible not only that this arrangement was followed in the social meeting of the Christian community, but that in individual households the evening meal became a Christian agape, where after supper the head of the 40 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP household presided, praying over the bread and tak- ing the cup. Traces of the agape are also to be seen in the Didache, and in the letter of Pliny to Trajan. Let me read here these two accounts, although you are already familiar with them. The service of the Didache is peculiar, and according to a type which has had no historical development. "Now concerning the Eucharist, thus give thanks: first, concerning the cup. We thank thee, our Father, for the holy vine of David thy servant, which thou hast made known to us through Jesus thy servant ; to Thee be the glory forever. "And concerning the broken bread ; "We thank thee, our Father, for the life and knowledge which Thou hast made known to us through Jesus, thy servant : to Thee be the glory forever. Just as this broken bread was scattered over the hills and having been gathered together became one, so let Thy church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into Thy Kingdom ; for thine is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ forever. But let no one eat or drink of your Eucharist, except those baptised into the Lord's name : for iu regard to this the Lord hath said : Give not that which is holy unto the dogs. " Now after ye are JUled thus do ye give thanks : We thank thee holy Father for Thy holy name, which thou hast caused to dwell in our hearts ; and for the knowledge and faith and immortality, which thou hast made known to us through Jesus thy servant ; to Thee be glory for- ever. Thou Almighty Master did'st create all things for PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN LITURGIES 41 thy name's sake : both food and druik thou did'st give to men for enjoyment, in ordei- that they might give tlianks to Thee. But to us Thou hast graciously given spiritual food and drink and eternal life through thy servant. Be- fore all things we thank Thee that thou art powerful : to Thee be glory forever. Remember, Lord, thy Church, to de- liver it from every evil and to make it perfect in thy love, and gather it from the four winds, the sanctified, into thy Kingdom which thou hast prepared for it ; for thine is the power and the glory forever. Let Grace come and let this world pass away. Hosanna to the Son of David ! Whoever is holy let him come : Whoever is not let him repent. Maranatha. Amen. But permit the prophets to give thanks as much as they will." In Pliny's letter to Trajan, which contains infor- mation extracted from the Christians by the Roman governor, it is said that " they were wont to meet on a stated day before sunrise, when they offered a form of invocation to Christ as to a God, binding them- selves also by an oath not for any guilty purpose, but not to commit thefts or robberies or adulteries, not to break their word, not to repudiate deposits when called upon. These ceremonies having been gone through, they separated and again met together for the purpose of taking food, — food that is of an ordinary and innocent character. " In consequence of the prohibition of Trajan against secret societies, the agape seems for a while to have been given up, and the Lord's Supper as distinct from the agape was transferred to the morning hours, 42 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP where it followed the homiletic service. In the next description of Christian worship as contained in Justin Martyr's Apology, about the middle of the second century, the agape is not mentioned, but the Lord's Supper is described as following a service at which the catechumens were present, in which the Scriptures were read, prayers were offered, together with a sermon or exhortation. There are two descriptions in Justin; they are short, and 1 will give them both. " Having ended the prayers we salute one another with a kiss. There is then brought to the president or leader among the brethren bread and a cup of wine mixed with water ; and he taking them, gives praise and glory to the Father of the universe through the name of the Sou and of the Holy Ghost, and offers thanks at considerable length for our being considered worthy to receive these things. And when he has concluded the prayers and thanksgivings all the people express assent by saying Amen. And when the president has given thanks and the people have expressed assent, those who are called by us deacons give to each of those present to partake of the bread and wine mixed with water, over which the thanksgiving was pronounced and to those who are ab- sent, they carry away a portion." ■ " And on the day called Sunday, all who live in the city or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the Apostles or the writings of the proph- ets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs and PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN LITURGIES 43 exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings according to his ability and the people assent saying Amen. And there is a distribution to each and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do and will- ing, give what each thinks fit, and what is collected is deposited with the president who succors the orphans and widows and those in sickness or want, the prisoners and the strangers among us." Justin's account might be made the occasion of extended comment, which the limits of my time and subject will not allow. But the main points to be noted are that the Lord's Supper has been discon- nected from the agape, and transferred from the even- ing to the morning, following the homiletic service, and we may also note the great simplicity of ritual direction and observance. But the agape had left so deep an impression, and was also so beautiful an expression of Christian love, that it still continued for a time to be observed. TertuUian refers to it as still maintained about the beginning of the third century, and also Clement of Alexandria. Even so late as the Synod of Gangra, in the fourth century, those ai'e reproved who speak disrespectfully of the agape. The rite, however, was doomed to disappear. It was incongruous with 44 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP the splendid churches that began to be built after the accession of Constantine, and with the solemn and stately formalities of ritual. The relics of it may still exist, as in the Roman Church, in the small cakes called eulogice, which on certain occasions are distributed to the people; or in the Eastern Church, in the bread which has been blessed in the Prothesis, but not consecrated on the altar, and which, after the divine office is ended, is given to the people who are not deemed worthy of commun- ing in the consecrated elements. This union of the agape with the Lord's Supper, their subsequent separation, and the final suppression of the agape, have a deep significance for the devel- opment of Christian worship, because of the perpetua- tion in a modified form of one feature of the agape, which constituted one of its most potent charms. The people themselves furnished the material for the evening meal, which thus became, as it were, a kind of alms or offering, in which the poor partici- pated, as well as a manifestation of Christian love. When the agape was discontinued, these contribu- tions, which also included the bread and wine for the eucharistic feast, still continued to be made, but now they were enveloped with a new solemnity, and be- came in themselves as if meritorious acts of worship. This view, so far as it may be traced, first appears in the writings of Cyprian of Carthage, who seems to have been influenced by Jewish rather than by heathen analogies in his doctrine of oblation and PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN LITURGIES 45 sacrifice. The giving of alms he regards as a reli- gious act, which is placed to one's credit in the records of heaven, and therefore contributes to sal- vation. The bread and wine brought for the Lord's Supper form what is called the lesser, or " lower obla- tion." After their consecration they are offered in a "higher oblation" which is presented to God as an acceptable sacrifice. Between the middle of the third century, when Cyprian flourished, and the middle of the fourth century, the date of the Clemen- tine liturgy, this idea had come to prevail widely throughout the Church. In the liturgy as described by Justin, in the account of Christian worship in Pliny's letter to Trajan, or in the Didache, there is no such ritual act mentioned as an oblation. A prayer is made over the bread and the wine, but they are not presented to God as a sacrificial offering. If the later importance attached to the oblation had been assigned to it in this earlier age, it would surely have been mentioned. Let me give at this point a summary of the Clem- entine liturgy to which I have referred. It is a pic- ture of the worship as it was conducted in the age of the Emperor Constantius, the son of Constantino, and although somewhat uncertain in its theology, it is reverential toward Christ in the highest degree. It suggests a scene in which preparation is made as for some great solemnity. " Let the children stand at the reading desk and let a deacon stand by them that they be not disorderly. Let 46 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP the deacons walk about and watch the men and the women that no tumult be made and that no one nod or whisper or slumber. Let the deacons stand at the doors of the men and the sub-deacons at those of the women, that no one go out nor a door be opened even for one of the faithful at the time of the oblation. But let one of the deacons bring water to wash the hands of the priests, which is a sj-mbol of the purity of the souls that are de- voted to God." When the injunction has been renewed which has ordered the departure of the unbelievers, the peni- tents, the catechumens, and the hearers, the faithful who remain are exhorted to have nothing against any one, to come in sincerity, and to stand upright before the Lord with fear and trembling to make the offering. " Then let the deacons bring the gifts of bread and wine to the bishop at the altar, and let the presbyters stand at his right hand and at his left, as disciples stand before the Master. But let two of the deacons on each side of the altar hold a fan made of some thin membrane, and let them silently drive away the small animals that fly about, that they come not near the cups. Let the High Priest pray by himself, and let him put on his shining garment, and stand at the altar, and make the sign of the cross upon his forehead with his hand. " At this point begins the Anaphora of the Greek liturgy, the Sursum Corda of the Latin Mass. " Let the High Priest say, The grace of Almighty God and the Love of our Lord Jesus Christ and the fellow- PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN LITURGIES 47 ships of the Holy Ghost be with j-ou all ; to which all the people are to respond with one voice, And with thy spirit. The High Priest, Lift up your mind ; and the people, We lift it up unto the Lord. The Piiest, Let us give thanks unto our Lord God : the people, It is meet and right so to do. Tlien let the High Priest say. It is very meet and right before all things to sing an hymn to Thee, who art the true God, who art before all beings, from whom the whole family in lieaven and earth is named." Such is the beginning of the long prayer which, without any break, proceeds first to glorify God in his wisdom and goodness and power, next at some length and with much detail to commemorate the creation of the whole world and the goodness which is revealed in its adaptability to man; then the crea- tion of man, the garden of Eden, and the fall are mentioned, and the beginning of the process of redemption. After the leading features of the Old Testament history in the successive stages of the process of redemption have been rehearsed, there follows the Cherubic hymn, as the preparation for the recountal of the story of the Incarnation: "For these things, glory be to Thee, Lord Almighty, whom innumerable hosts of angels, archangels, thrones, dominions, principalities, authorities and powers with their everlasting armies do adore, say- ing, together with thousand thousands of angels and ten thousand times ten thousands of angels, saying incessantly and with constant and loud voices, — and 48 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP let all the people say it with them. Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Hosts, heaven and earth are full of thy glory. Glory be to Thee, Lord most High. " The incidents of the life of Christ are then given as they lead up to his crucifixion, and Christ is glorified in his redeeming work as a preparation for the culmination of the office, in the sacred words of institution of the mystery, when he broke the bread and took the cup. The language of the prayer now grows more in- tense and intimate in the intercession which follows for the living and the dead, till it finally concludes with the angelic hymn, the Qloria in ^xcelsis, the preliminary to the distribution of the elements. To the waiting congregation in the attitude of standing,, the bishop in turn gives the oblation, saying, " The body of Christ," and the deacon gives the cup with the words, "the blood of Christ, the cup of Life." And while the communion is in process, is said the thirty-fourth Psalm, and a more exquisite Psalm could not have been chosen : " taste and see that the Lord is gracious. Blessed is the man that trusteth in him." After the distribution of the elements a shorter prayer follows, and the ofiice concludes with the benediction, which has a tendency, as in other Oriental liturgies, to expand itself, until it has been illustrated anew what the blessing of God may mean. PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN LITURGIES 49 II As we study this directory for worship, which is in many respects the model of the later Oriental liturgies as they appeared in the eighth and ninth centuries, it is seen to contain some marked diver- gencies from the worship of the earlier Church. In the earlier age the Christians came together in a spirit of gratitude to acknowledge a great work which had already been accomplished, some blessing which was continuously bestowed. But here the solemnity centers and culminates in a great act to be performed. Something is to be done by means of which a desired end is to be attained. That act is the oblation of the elements of bread and wine, the offering of them to God after they have been consecrated by the repetition of the words of institution : — " We offer to Thee," so runs the formula, " Our King and God, according to His constitution this bread and this cup, giving thee thanks through Him that Thou hast thought us worthy to stand before Thee and to sacrifice to Thee ; and we beseech Thee that Thou wilt mercifully look down upon these gifts which are here set before Thee, O Thou God, who standest in need of none of our offerings. And do Thou accept them to the honor of Thy Christ, and send down upon this sacrifice thine Holy Spirit . . . that He may show this bread to be the body of Thy Christ and the cup to be the blood of Thy Christ, 4 60 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP that those who are partakers thereof may be strengthened for piety and may receive- the remission of their sins, may be delivered from the devil and his deceits, may be filled with the Holy Ghost, may be made worthy of Thy Christ, and may obtain eternal life upon Thy reconciliation to them, O Lord God Almighty." To comment fully upon the significance of this change in Christian worship is here impossible. But I must allude briefly at least to one of its aspects, which constitutes a supreme motive in the development of the ritual which was to follow. A change is taking place in the thought regarding God, by which what is called anthropomorphism is being substituted for the earlier conception of God as a spirit, whom they that worship must worship in spirit and in truth. Of course our language regard- ing God, from its inherent limits and deficiencies, must always have an anthropomorphic character. In our highest thought, He is infinite intelligence, to whom the universe lies open, and in whom, as in a focus, is concentred the unity and harmony for the sight of which we vainly strive. Because all things are known to Him, we speak of Him in anthropomor- phic language as seeing whatever is done, as hearing prayer. We go further, and speak of His eye as fastened upon the children of men, His ear as always open to their supplication. Or again, in the manner of Hebrew prophets and psalmists, we speak of His right hand and His glorious arm. But it is important to guard our thought of God against PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN LITURGIES 51 the imperfection of language. The eye and the ear are the most spiritual of the avenues to the human soul. The sense of smell, of taste, or of touch, are more closely related to our material bodily organiza- tion, and lend themselves less easily to the idea of a spirit. It is of course hard to say in this, as in everything else about which there is difference of opinion or practice, just exactly where the line is to be drawn which separates the higher from the lower; but we generally know when the line has been passed. The fathers and writers of the ancient Church in the first three centuries were making a desperate struggle to maintain the spiritual concep- tion of Deity as a being who is " without body, parts or passions," according to the very significant lan- guage of the first of the Thirty-nine Articles of the English Church. But in the fourth century this spiritual idea of God had begun to yield to an anthropomorphism which conceived of Deity as exist- ing in bodily form. The change was silent and un- pei'ceived, accomplished without discussion, and only acknowledged after the transition had been made. In the earlier Church there was also sacrifice and offering, but it was what we call a spiritual offering, the sacrifice of prayer and thanksgiving, and the grateful consecration of one's self, after the likeness of the offering of Christ once for all. It was there- fore a momentous change from a spiritual sacrifice to a physical or material one. From the higher point of view, it is incongruous to offer to Deity the 52 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP physical or material sacrifice, because the whole world is His, and He needs none of these things. There is only one thing which God has not and desires to have, — the grateful love of His chil- dren, manifested in obedience to His will. In His mysterious economy, He has left men free to make this offering or not as they choose, while using His love and His power to persuade their choice. This offering of the consecrated will is seen and known to spirit alone. " Speak thou to Him, for He hears thee, and spirit with spirit may meet." The introduction into the worship of what is called the "higher oblation," as the supreme act of Christian devotion, was accompanied with a change in the popular thought regarding God, of which, however, the traces are slight in the litera- ture of the time. And yet no such change can be accomplished without some external evidence, and somewhere, if we look, we shall find the conscious- ness of an impending transition. In Christian his- tory, it is those insignificant controversies, as they seem to us, which are obscure or scandalous, and do not seem as if they would repay our laborious inves- tigation, which may be the turning-points on which hinge momentous results. There was one such controversy in the latter part of the fourth century, not far from the time when this liturgy on which I am commenting was pro- duced. It is known as the Origenistic controversy, and was felt in Alexandria and Constantinople, PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN LITURGIES 53 Antioch and Jerusalem, those centres of church life, for each of which was afterwards claimed a liturgical interest and activity. I will not stop to descrihe it; one remark will answer my purpose. The contro- versy began with a complaint of the monks in Egypt against Origen, because he had written in his books that the Father did not see the Son, or the Son the Father, as with bodily vision. In other words, the communion of the Father and the Son was a spiritual fellowship. To this teaching, which had been almost universal in the Church of the first three centuries, some of the Egyptian monks now made opposition, raising the cry of the woman at the empty sepulchre, " They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him." Such was the beginning of the movement which finally ended in the condemnation of Origen and the dis- couragement of free inquiry in theology. Ill Again, there is to be noticed in this Clementine liturgy an increase in what may be called ceremo- nialism, as when the ministrant is directed to put on his shining garment in order to stand before the altar for the oblation. When compared with later liturgies, the amount of ceremony is yet small and rubrical directions are few. But compared with the simplicity of worship of the earlier Church, there 54 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP has been a great change in this respect, which also marks the introduction of a new motive, controlling the development of the cultus. We shall not find anv discussion over this motive in Christian litera- ture, as there was over the theological opinions of the time; it was a silent change, tacitly accepted without being formally announced; it seemed fitting and proper that there should be an increase of form or ceremonial ; it was not imposed by the authority of councils, but it spread rapidly from church to church, till it became universal. And yet again it would be strange if somewhere in the literature of the time some writer had not stated the principle which explained the motive of ceremonial, and attempted its defence and justification. There is a passage in the writings of Gregory of Xyssa to which I call your attention as being profoundly significant for the history of ritual development. He lived in the latter part of the fourth century, and was nearly if not quite contemporaneous with the production of the Clementine liturgy. He was a Cappadocian by birth, which means that he shared in the Oriental temperament to a certain extent, and although he had received the benefits of Greek training in the schools of Athens, and was a disciple of Athanasius, yet he had another element in his composition, and never escaped the sensuousness of Oriental influence. In his treatise on the Holy Spirit, Gregory of Nyssa writes as follows : — ■ PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN LITURGIES 55 " Inasmuch, as men when approaching emperors and potentates for the objects which they wish in some way to obtain from those rulers, do not bring to them their mere petition only, but employ every possible means to induce them to feel pity and favor towards themselves, adopting a humble voice and a kneeling position, clasping their knees, prostrating themselves on the ground, and putting forward to plead for their petition all sorts of pathetic signs to wake that pity, so it is that those who recognize the true Potentate, by whom all things in existence are controlled, when they are supplicating for that which they have at heart, some lowly in spirit because of piti- able conditions in this world, some with their thoughts lifted up because of their eternal mysterious hopes, seeing that they know not how to ask and that their humanity is not capable of displaying any reverence that can reach to the grandeur of that glory, they carry the ceremonial used in the case of men into the service of the Deity. And this is what worship is, that worship I mean which is offered for objects we have at heart along with supplica- tion and humiliation." Comment upon this passage is hardly necessary. The anthropomorphic conception of God is here seen as tending toward the acceptance of the Eoman emperoi', after he had assumed the arbitrary char- acter of an Oriental despot, as the standard by which to adjust the formal manner of approaching God. The etiquette of an imperial court determines the external aspect of Christian worship. Since Deity is conceivecl as holding a reception on earth, there 56 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP must be the same splendor of surroundings, the same regulations of attitude on the part of those who approach, while officials who represent or guard his presence must be clothed with becoming splendor in order to represent the dignity of the monarch dwell- ing in some remoter grandeur; whose secret, glorious shrine so intimidates and awes the worshipper that he loses his power of utterance, and must be content with the physical signs of abject humility and desti- tution. There may have been an educational influ- ence in such a dramatization of piety towards God, and it was something after all that human souls, shut out from the vision or sympathy of the earthly king, were still able at their will to enter the pres- ence of the King of kings. It may have done some- thing also to check the exercise of arbitrary power in the earthly sovereign, at a time when there was no other check, that he should be represented in Chris- tian worship as dwarfed by the majesty of the Eternal Potentate. But one also recalls the words of Christ: " I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you, for the Father Himself loveth you. " When the disciples asked how they were to pray, the answer was given, "When ye pray, say, Our Father." It was the heathens who thought to be heard by much speaking. But in the dramatization of the soul's relations with God, there is a danger of for- mality hardly compatible with the worship which is in spirit and in truth, PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN LITURGIES 67 IV There is one other peculiarity about the Clemen- tine liturgy which is so important as to demand our special attention. The subject with which it is related is difficult and obscure, leading us to a field of inquiry which has not yet been thoroughly explored. It is a prominent feature of this liturgy that not only in the eucharistic prayer given in the eighth book of the Apostolic Constitutions, but also found in the liturgical sketch given in the seventh book, there is an emphatic and beautiful commemoration of nature, external nature and this visible world. The story of the creation is rehearsed in detail, and the beauty of the kosmos is ackowledged in eloquent lan- guage. God is praised for having beautified the world, and for our comfort rendered it illustrious with sun and moon and choir of stars which forever praise His glorious majesty. The water is commem- orated also for drink and for cleansing, the air for respiration and for sound, the fire for our consola- tion in cold and darkness, the navigable ocean, and the land with the animal creation, the sweet- smelling and healing herbs, the fi'uits of the earth, the order of the seasons, the courses of the clouds, and the winds which blow when commanded by (lod. For all these things praise is given to Him in the eucharistic prayer, as though it formed an indispen- 68 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP sable element in worship to acknowledge the beauty, the glory, and especially the goodness of the visible world of external nature. The commemoration of extei'nal nature forms a part of every Eastern liturgy. Cyril of Jerusalem, who lived in the later part of the fourth century, speaks of it as if an indispensable element to a true euchai'ist. After the Anaphora, as it is called, with which the divine office begins, Cyril remarks that the next step is to commemorate the creation : " We make mention of heaven and earth and sea ; of sun and moon ; of stars, and all the creation rational and irrational, visible and invisible." So also Dionysius the Areopagite, who lived at the close of the fifth century, in his outline of the eucharistic office, makes the Hierarch celebrate the works of God before proceeding to consecrate the divine gifts. In the words of Dionysius, or attributed to him : — " The commemoration of Thy gifts, O Lord, exceeds the power of mind or speech or thought ; nor can human lips or minds glorify Thee as Thou art worthy to be praised. For by Thy word the heavens were made, and by the breath of Thy mouth all the supernal powers, all the lights which are in the firmament, sun and moon, the sea and the dry land, and whatever in them is. Things which have no voice by their silence, and those endowed with speech, praise Thee perpetually through word and song, because Thou art by nature good, and in Thy incomprehensible essence above all praise. This visible creation related to the senses praises Thee, O Lord, as PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN LITURGIES 69 well as that higher intellectual world above the conditions of sensuous perception. Heaven and earth glorify Thee ; sea and air proclaim Thee ; the sun in his course praises Thee ; the moon in its changes venerates Thee. Troops of archangels and hosts of angels, powers elevated above the world and above all human faculty, send their benedictions to Thy throne, — sweet songs and pure, free from all earthly strain ; joining all in one eternal hymn of praise, — ' Holy, Holy, Holy.' " Such was the way in which the Oriental Church met and satisfied the deep unquenchable instinct which in eai'lier ages had given birth to the nature- religions, and had generated the worship of sun and moon and stars. This worship the Church pro- hibited and overcame, resisting the fascination which it exerted. How deep and potent its charm for the Oriental mind is seen in the patriarch Job's cry for forgiveness, if ever he had been tempted to kiss his hand to the moon riding in her beauty. But the commemoration of nature is not to be found in the Latin or Western liturgies, nor in the Sarum Use in England. While it is a most characteristic feature of Oriental liturgies, its absence from Occi- dental worship is also deeply characteristic of the Western civilization. The Western world has never felt the charm of nature as it has been felt in the East. Rather has it been called to resist and con- quer nature, to subdue the powers of nature to the will and service of man. According to the Oriental interpretation of the miracle, it is wrought by sym- 60 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP pathy with nature; according to the Occidental in- terpretation, the miracle is essentially a violation of the laws of nature, wherein lies its influence upon the elevation of human life and the development of personality. It should be said, however, that the Latin Church has found a place, though a subordinate one, for the recognition of this view of nature, by incorporating in the Breviary the Benedicite, or the Song of the Three Children, which begins with the words, "0 all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord, praise Him and magnify Him forever." The English church also adopted the Benedicite as one of the Canticles in the office of Morning Prayer ; retaining it there despite the objections of the Puritans, who requested that some Psalm or Scripture hymn be substituted for it. It is possible that the Puritan dislike of the Benedicite had some deeper root than the circumstance of its being taken from the Apocrypha. But there is a further aspect of this subject to which we must now turn. It is in the environment of the Oriental Church that we must seek the expla- nation of its emphatic insistence upon the natural order as good, and as if alive and choral with the worship of God. Much more than in Western Europe had the influence been felt there of the great nature religions which prevailed till the coming of Christ. In Syria and in Egypt more particularly was the Catholic Church confronted with both the PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN LITURGIES 61 principle and the practice. If these worships had seemed to decline, yet there came to them a revival in the second century, when missionaries and priest- esses of Isis, or of the Syrian mother, went forth throughout the empire to propagate their ancient cults. We know that they became popular, that they were eagerly received, the mysteries of Mithras in particular finding many and ardent votaries. This missionary movement on the part of the old nature religions came at the close of a long regime, which Plato had initiated when he taught that matter was evil, that man was superior to nature, and had called man to the knowledge of himself as his highest study. Plato had no taste for the old mythologies which deified the forces of nature, but rather regarded them as immoral. Socrates had been put to death because he no longer believed in them. When Christianity came into the world, it almost seemed as if the nature worships were dead or dying. Nature no longer appealed to man as in- stinct with a divine life, or as worthy of worship. On the contrary, the Gnostics of the second century in their speculative systems denounced the natural order as evil, as unworthy of creation by God. They regarded it rather as the work of some evil or in- competent being, who was called the world-maker as distinct from the true and highest God. When the nature religions began to revive and reassert their old charm in the second century. Christian apolo- gists had attacked them with all the power of satire 62 CHRtStlAN WORSSIP and ridicule at their command. It is not impossi- ble that Tertullian, before he entered the Catholic Church, may have been influenced by their teaching ; and the same may be true of Justin Martyr, though in less degree. But even though Tertullian fought the nature worships with bitterness and vehemence, he also retained, even as a Montanist, traces of their inherent principle in his thought In his doctrine of the magical efficacy of water and its latent spirit- ual potency, in his insistence on the sacredness of the flesh and the eternal permanence of the human form, in his doctrine of the spiritual efficacy of physical acts, may be seen the ancient conception of the rela- tion between body and soul, between the material and the spiritual, which prevailed before Plato arose. It was in the fourth century, in the latter part of the fourth century, the age of the Cappadocians and of Cyril of Alexandria, that an influence born of the reverence for physical nature began to tell most powerfully upon Christian thought and practice. This was also the age when the principles were reached which were to mould the worship of the Catholic Church. The line which divides Athanasius and the Nicene theology from the later theology, which came into vogue in the Oriental Church, is profoundly significant. Athanasius was the culmi- nation of the Anti-Nicene age, not the founder of a new theology. We shall not understand the history of the ancient Church until we make the distinction PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN LITURGIES 63 sharp and clear that Athanasius belongs to the school of Origen, whatever departures from his teaching he may have made, while Cyril of Alexan- dria is the antagonist of the Origenistic principles, and helped prepare the way for his further condem- nation. Cyril introduced into theology a physical material principle, by which the distinction between spirit and body was weakened and neutralized. He was seeking for some law by which the world of matter should be brought into organic relationship with spirit, by which matter and spirit should be fused into some higher form of organic life, by which matter should minister to the spiritual life. When this tendency came to prevail, as it did after the fifth century, is it any wonder that Origen should have again become the type and embodiment of all that was most false or obnoxious ! Origen, it must be admitted, had gone too far; he had come very near conceding that the natural order was evil ; he saw evil in external nature, and he drew the infer- ence that man was placed in this world to expiate the sins of a former existence, that the human body was a prison-house in which the soul was confined. It is outside of my province to attempt to show how this new motive, originating in an Oriental source, modified Christian doctrine. Hitherto the leading direction in theology had been the Pla- tonic Philosophy. Now it became an Egyptian mysteriosophy, which, combined with kindred tend- encies in the remoter Syria of the East, and 64 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP planting itself upon a modified conception of the Incarnation, developed into the Oriental theology which commingles nature and spirit in organic fashion, and found its expression in Oriental wor- ship. It is only with the latter that I am here concerned. The recovery of the truth which had been endan- gered in the Church of the first three centuries, that the " world is good, " that there is a divine life in nature, and that the natural order has been ordained for the service of man by a beneficent Creator, marks the greatest movement in the history of ritual devel- opment. But this remark refers mainly to the East- ern Church. The Latin Church in the West did not feel its influence until a later age, when it was too late for its incorporation into the Latin Mass. In the Eastern Church it was not only introduced into the liturgies, but it gave rise to a peculiar reli- gious philosophy or theosophy, which pervaded every part of the cultus, and gave to it unity and coher- ence. So profoundly has the Eastern Church been influenced by this new motive, springing from the conviction that the natural order is good, and that of this order humanity forms a constituent part, that it rapidly became oblivious of the literature and life of the Church of the first three centuries, as if it were almost a barren and empty world. It was as if the Church began a new career in the fourth cen- tury with Basil of Csesarea, Cyril of Jerusalem, Cyril of Alexandria. In the Russian Church to-day, it PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN LITURGIES 65 was true only a few years ago, there was no transla- tion of any church father earlier than St. Basil. Origen has been dismissed and forgotten as an evil dream, even Athanasius is not so great a name as his successor Cyril of Alexandria, and no influence has been greater than that of Cyril of Jerusalem. It was indeed an important gain for the cause of truth when the conviction of the sacredness of the natural order was achieved. For the foundation of revealed theology must be laid deep in natural the- ology. If the world were to be regarded as evil, it would not have been very long before faith in the goodness of God would have perished. Humanity is too weak to sustain its hope, when it cannot see the love of the eternal Father revealed in the visible creation. In the age, however, when this conviction began to prevail, that the world is good and closely related to the spiritual life, there was no longer any scientific study of nature. What the Catholic Church from the fourth century knew about nature may be seen in a little treatise of St. Basil, called the "Hexameron," which was widely read, and which contained a comment on the six days of the creation. It may be contrasted with Origen's allegorical treat- ment of the first chapter of Genesis, where facts are submerged inr ideas, and where his obnoxious con- ception of the body as a prison-house of the soul was unfortunately advanced. 66 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP But now there were grave dangers connected with this doctrine of the divine life in nature, which were not slow in appearing. There was danger of a relapse into the earlier Greek attitude hefore Socrates, when man was conceived as part of the natural order, when there was no consciousness of person- ality as higher than nature, — the blissful uncon- sciousness, as it has been called, of that antagonism between man and natural law, out of which there has grown up in Western Christendom the higher civilization. The doctrine of the Divine immanence was also in danger of a one-sided perversion. In the earlier Church the divine mind had been regarded as imma- nent in the human reason. But that conception was now yielding to the idea that the divine immanence was chiefly to be sought in the physical or natural order. The great bishop Theodore of Mopsuestia contended for the divine immanence in the conscience as that faculty of the soul where the human and divine most closely intermingled; but his teaching was of no avail. When we study the writings of Gregory of Nyssa or of Dionysius the Areopagite, whose thought is saturated with idea of the divine immanence, both of whom profoundly influenced the development of the cultus, it is an indwelling of the Deity in the physical order upon which the stress is PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN LITURGIES 67 laid rather than in the reason or the conscience. There was danger, therefore, that the Christian cul- tus would come to resemble the ancient Greek Mys- teries, of which Aristotle had said " that their object was not to teach anything, but to produce an impres- sion on the religious feelings and imagination. " The conviction of the sacredness of external nature which filled the Eastern Church in the latter part of the fourth century with a new enthusiasm, gave rise to the necessity for seeking some organic tie between the spiritual life in man and the latent potentiality of matter. The tendency was now to connect most closely body and soul, matter and spirit, natural and spiritual law. Already the germs were at hand for development in the cultus, in the symbol of water in baptism, the chrism in confirmation, the laying on of hands in ordination, and above all, the elements of bread and wine in the Eucharist. Cyril of Alex- andria announced the principle of transmutation, transelementation, or transubstantiation, by which matter passes over into spiritual force, when, in speaking of the water of baptism, he declared that " by the power of the Holy Ghost the water perceived by the senses is metamorphosed into a certain divine and ineffable power. " Cyril of Jerusalem and Gregory of Nyssa speak in a similar way of the action of the Holy Spirit upon the elements of bread and wine, by which they are metamorphosed into the body and the blood of Christ. The passage of Scripture upon which they chiefly rested in making the Holy Ghost 68 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP the bond of unity between the physical and the spirit- ual, was found in the Mosaic account of the crea- tion, where the Spirit of God is said to have brooded upon the face of the waters. Those words became almost the locus classicus in defending or expounding the sacramental mysteries. This word Mysteries, by which the Eastern Church designated the sacraments, may then be defined as a conjunction of the physical with the spiritual, operated by the action of the Holy Ghost. In every Greek liturgy the invocation of the Holy Ghost becomes the essential condition for the transmutation of the physical elements of bread and wine into food for the immortal soul. I can only here allude to the circumstance that this invocation of the Holy Ghost is wanting in the Roman liturgy. It has not merely dropped out ; it never was there. In the Latin Mass, it is the enumeration of the words of Institution by the priestly ministrant that accom- plishes the transmutation. Prom the point of view of the Greek Church, if it were strictly construed, the Roman sacrament of the altar is lacking in an element which is vital and indispensable. This nature philosophy, which began to prevail in the latter part of the fourth century, found its strongest illustration and support in the doctrine of the Incarnation, which was strongly advocated by Cyril of Alexandria. In the thought of Cyril, the deepest importance attached to the body of Christ, as if therein were a common meeting-place of nature and spirit, as though the body of Christ were endowed PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN LITURGIES 69 with spiritual and supernatural power. Hence the essence of the Incarnation now came to be identi- fied with the act of the miraculous conception of Christ, as if God and nature found their supreme point of conjunction in the womb of the Virgin, in order to the accomplishment of the transcendent work of divine revelation. An act of such supreme significance in itself, whose principle also covered the whole range of mysteriosophy, necessarily found recognition in the ritual, where the Virgin Mother was associated with its most solemn moment, — the time of the oblation, — as if her commemoration formed an integral part in the right performance of the mystery of the altar,. The earlier view of the Incarnation, while accepting the miraculous birth as its unique initiation, had placed the emphasis, how- ever, in the mind and teaching, the character and the life of Christ, as reflecting the inmost life of God. But from the end of the fourth century it was the body of Christ, rather than the spirit of Christ, which elicited the popular reverence; it was the sacrifice of the body, rather than of the will, which constituted the highest feature of divine atoning love. Along with this estimate of the body of Christ came the worship also of the bodies of the saints and martyrs, till in the adoration of physical relics, whether of Christ or Mary or the saints, the fervors of Christian devotion found their most intense and rapt expression. 70 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP VI I have now only a moment left in which to allude to that strange mystez-ious personality who once tabernacled in the flesh, as we must believe, but concerning whom we know little more. The prepa- ration for ritual development seemed to have been completed when Dionysius the Areopagite appeared, — a most profound religious thinker, a most beautiful spirit, whose soul was alive with love toward higher things, and burning with the flames of devotion, a man without a country, without beginning or end of days, the essence of whose being was so identified with his thought that all except his thought has per- ished. The first allusion to his books was made in the year 533, from which it is inferred that his time was the latter part of the fifth century. In his writ- ings, the nature philosophy found fuller expression and a beautiful exposition. He brought together the teaching of the ancient Neoplatonism, modified as it had been by Egyptian influence and the purest Christian feeling. At the moment of the decline of the old civilization, he lighted up the gloom of the closing day with an unearthly light, which softened its dark and evil memories with its subdued reflec- tion. He dwelt mainly on the good in the world and in man. In human sinfulness he saw mainly a weakness which attracted the divine compassion. He looked upon this world as some dim reflection, PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN LITURGIES 71 some feeble reproduction of a higher and more beau- tiful world, anticipating Swedenborg in his doctrine of a correspondence between things natural and supernatural, earthly and heavenly, human and divine. He dwelt much upon angels and archangels, and all the hosts of heaven, constituting them into a hierarchy of which the earthly hierarchy, its minis- trants and its sacraments, was but a continuation, a ladder as it were let down from heaven, on which angels were ascending and descending. Physical objects became religious symbols, because they were a divinely given alphabet for spelling out eternal realities. A supernatural coloring was in conse- quence thrown about the ritual, so that every slight- est act became significant of some spiritual meaning. Under his magic touch a new impulse was given to ritual development, the extent of which or the depth of which in the Bast and in the West can hardly be exaggerated. It is difficult to estimate the exact nature of this influence, but, at least, it was of a twofold kind, one aspect of which neutralized or negatived the other. He seems at times so to identify the symbol with the thing signified, after the cruder fashion of an earlier age, that the symbol appears to become in itself an indispensable agency for man's salvation. But he also held that while God revealed Himself through the external sign, yet there was also in the symbol a concealment, as if by a veil, of his glory and his power. 72 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP Dionysius also seems to have had an exoteric faith in harmony with the Catholic Church, which was expressed in symbol and ritual for the common people, while for the clergy, the monks and enlight- ened souls, there was reserved a more direct approach to God, which no longer depended upon material media. In the description which he has left us of the ritual of the altar, as performed in his time and possibly by himself, there is little change or advance as compared with the order of the Clementine liturgy, beyond the introduction of the incense : — " The hierarch having finished his prayer by the altar, begins by incensing it, and then makes the circuit of the holy building. Returning to the altar he begins to chant the psalms, all the ecclesiastical orders joining with him in the sacred psalmody. After this, the lesson from Holy Scripture is read by the minister ; and when it is ended, the Catechumens, together with the penitents and those possessed, are ordered to depart from the sacred enclosure, those only remaining who are worthy of the sight and the communion of the sacred mysteries. Of the lower ranks of the ministry, some are standing near the closed doors of the sanctuary, while others perform some functions pertaining to their order. Those who hold the highest place among the deacons (leitourgoi) assist the priests in bringing to the altar the sacred bread and the cup of blessing, chauting at the same time, together with the whole assembly, the universal hymn of praise. Then the divine hierarch completes the sacred prayers and announces to all the peace ; and when they have made the mutual salutation, then follows the mystic recital of the PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN LITURGIES 73 names inscribed in the holy diptycha. The hierarch and priests having washed their hands, the hierarch stands at the middle of the holy altar surrounded by those chosen from among the deacons, together with the priests. After the hierarch has celebrated the marvellous works of God, he consecrates the divine mysteries, and offers to the view the things celebrated beneath the symbols reverently exhibited. When he has thus exposed to view the gifts of divine power, he partakes of the communion himself and then invites the others ; and when he has received and given to others the divine communion, he closes with a sacred act of thanksgiving. But while the common people have seen the mysteries under the veil of the symbol. Tie himself is led, always by the Holy Spirit, through spiritual contemplation, and as becomes a hierarch, to the intellectual types of the ceremonial in their original purity." The chief significance of this account lies, as I think, in its closing words, which are strangely pro- phetic, as if he were writing better than he knew. Wherever his influence was felt, it carried with it a double tendency ; it led to increased devotion toward ritual observance, and it also relaxed the tie which bound the soul in bondage to the material symbol. It affected Thomas Aquinas and all the scholastic theologians of his age, giving also to the worship of the Latin Church a charm which it could never have originated. But it also inspired a Dante, and the mystic reformers who prepared the way for the Reformation, for the restoration of that spiritual 74 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP worship which is now the common heritage and not the possession of a few, — a worship in which we are taught that even now we know God and see Him as He is, by means of faith, while yet we wait for a perfect fruition and bliss in the glory to be revealed. From this point of view the ritual of the ancient Church carried in it the seeds of its dissolution. It was rejected by the Protestant churches, but not until all that it contained of beautiful or good or true had been taken up by other agencies with richer and more ample possibilities of development. Ill THE GREEK LITURGIES By the Rev. EGBERT C. SMYTH, D.D. Professor of Church History, Andover Theological Seminary, Andover, Mass, THE GEEEK LITURGIES THE phrase " Greek liturgies," by which the topic on which I am asked to speak to you has been expressed, can be variously understood. It may apply to the rites of the Greek or Oriental Church, including not merely present uses but forms or types which have been earlier observed by churches now in its communion ; or it may cover all liturgies written in Greek ; or it may designate Eastern lit- urgies as distinguished from Western, inclusive of those which exist in other languages than the Greek, in so far as these are regarded as versions or deriva- tives, or as marked by Greek characteristics. The attempt would be inadmissible, within the limits of this address, to notice individually the various distinguishable Greek liturgies, and wholly impracticable to include those in other languages more or less closely connected with them. I could present little more than what, in the present condi- tion of liturgical investigation, must be at best an imperfect enumeration, and one that would leave only a confused impression. My aim will be a prac- tical one, — the suggestion of a method of study, and 78 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP of some incentives to it. For that acquaintance with the ancient rites which it is desirable that all whose office it is to conduct public worship should secure, and for that personal benefit which familiarity with them may bring in many ways and in rich meas- ures, it is best to concentrate attention upon the great liturgies — first upon the liturgy of St. James, then upon that of St. Mark, then on the Byzantine rite (the so-called liturgy of St. Chrysostom, with that of St. Basil), in use to-day in many languages, and especially interesting because of this relation to the religious thought and life of so very great a number of disciples of our common Lord. If one desires to go further, he will naturally connect with the Syrian and Byzantine rites the Armenian lit- urgy, and with the Alexandrian the Coptic and Abyssinian. He will include also the Persian or Nestorian rite, and finally the Mozarabic and Galilean liturgies. In all this range of study the acquaintance of which I am now speaking will be with the accepted texts, if not in the originals (which for most of us, in several instances, would be, perhaps, impracticable), at any rate through such scholarly translations as are now available. This amount of reading could be done by every minister in his preparatory courses. And, if nothing more were attempted, important ad- vantages would be gained. But something more, even from a purely practical point of view, is desir- able, may 1 not say incumbent. If I may speak from my own experience, the mere TEE GREEK LITURGIES 79 reading of the leading liturgies, those which are translated, for instance, into English in a volume of the Ante-Nicene Library, whether in this rendering or in the original, leaves upon the mind, with a measure of enrichment and stimulus, an almost pain- ful sense of a lack of clear and definite distinction and division, of order, proportion, and progress. We find ourselves in a strange land; the tones and accents we catch are unfamiliar. All this, apart from much that may be positively offensive from its apparent formalism, or its tendency to superstition, or its affinity with a magical interpretation of the spirit- ual and holy sacraments of our faith, or from the presence of corruptions of the truth and simplicity of the gospel. For the best use, therefore, — and this because neces- sary to their true understanding, — for the best use of these developed, aggregated, compounded, and changed liturgies, these composites of many rites and many successions of religious conception and life, we need pre-eminently to study them by a right method. This means that we must deal with them as historical formations. Such a study is, in many respects, at present beyond the pursuit of any but special litur- gical scholars. It is not yet brought up to the standards and requirements of modern historical scholarship. The criticism of texts, for instance, — their collection, publication, even their examination and collation, — demands much patient labor beyond that already expended. Liturgies is, it may fairly be 80 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP said, and with very high appreciation of what has been achieved, — without this we should not have even the urgent pressure of a sense of our ignorance, — liturgies is, at present, the least developed de- partment of theological science. So much especially needs to be done in order to the understanding of the genesis and growth of liturgies, that a complete or thorough scholarly discussion of them is not yet possible. Yet we may not let the best be the enemy of the good. We may, by a simple and practicable method, gain very much light upon the structure of these liturgies, and obtain some true insight into their significance and value. For such a fruitful study the revision of Mr. Hammond's helpful volume on " Eastern and Western Liturgies," now in course of publication by Mr. Brightman, of Oxford, thi-ough the Clarendon Press, is an invaluable aid. The first volume, the only one yet published, is limited to Eastern liturgies, and is confined to texts and biblio- graphical and other critical aids. It may be hoped that in the second volume the author will be able to make some systematic presentation of the genesis and literary dependence and inter-relations of the liturgies which he has classified in groups or families. What, as already stated, I will uow attempt, and this only tentatively and provisionally, is the sugges- tion of a method of approach to the greater liturgies, serviceable to their understanding and personal use ; and then, so far as time permits, the presentation of some remarks on their value. THE GREEK LITURGIES 81 The earliest account which has come down to us of an order of worship is from Justin Martyr, writing about the middle of the second century. I notice this testimony, and one which will follow, for their peculiar helpfulness to an understanding of the later developments. The simpler uses guide us when we come to the more complex. This advantage will excuse, I trust, my recalling what may already have been considered in the preceding lecture (of which I have seen no report), or which may be other- wise quite familiar. Justin's account implies distinct services, or com- posite parts of one service. In one chapter of his first " Apology " he describes the baptismal rite. In another, the usual order of worship at the Sunday gatherings. Each of these is followed by the com- munion. We see here quite distinctly defined the later distinction between what is called the Anaphora, or Holy Communion, and the Proanaphoral or ante- cedent part. We have a suggestion also of what appears, from Cyril's " Catecheses," to have been the practice in Jerusalem two centuries later, namely, the substitution, under appropriate conditions, of the baptismal service for the ordinary more didactic observance which preceded the communion. The essential parts of each order are substantially indicated. The baptismal portion is least described, noticeably so when compared with a representation half a century later. We observe, however, the two actions described in this subsequent account, — the 6 82 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP ceremony at the water, or the administration of the rite, and the bringing of the baptized into the church or place of assembly, to join in the prayers of the brotherhood and in the communion. Turning our attention to the other and ordinary Sunday service, including the eucharistic, we find this order : 1. The reading of Scripture, specified as " the memoirs of the Apostles, or the writings of the prophets." This continued as long as time permitted. 2. Instruction and exhortation by the irpoeaTm, or president. 3. Prayers. This included intercession for all the assembled " brethren," and " for all others in every place, that we may be counted worthy, now that we have learned the truth, by our works also to be found good citizens and keepers of the commandments, so that we may be saved with an everlasting salvation." These prayers are described as earnest or intense. They were marked with power. They were offered not only at the ordinary Sunday morning service, but in connection with the baptismal, and contained distinct petitions for those now to participate in their first communion. Probably the prayers already included the efo^oXd- 'yr]nto the offering of the body of Christ for the sins of the living and the dead. The central truth, which the Lord's Supper was in- tended to proclaim and seal, was thus utterly denied. Each element of the Service is then separately criti- cised. Instead of the Introits, he preferred the chant- ing of the entire Psalms from which they had been 10 146 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP taken. In the use of the Kyrie, the music should vary according to the season of the Church Year. The use of the Gloria in Excelsis was recommended ; but was left to the discretion of the bishop. So Scriptural are the Collects, that they commend themselves; nevertheless, reverting to the Gregorian usage, he directs that not more than one be used at one time. The selection of lessons from the Epistles he criticises for their preponderance of legal elements, styles their compiler a " remarkably ignorant man," and hopes for an ultimate revision which will introduce selections from St. Paul touching the doctrine of faith. The suppression of the Hallelujah at Lent, and at other penitential seasons, he disapproves, as this is contrary to the joyful spirit of the Gospel. Even when under the cross, the child of God should be ready to sing songs of triumphant thanksgiving. SallelujaJi enim vox perpetua est Meelesice. Much thought was given to the proper position of the sermon. Nor, on this subject, did he come altogether into the clear. He suggested, as a very appropriate place, that it intro- duce the Service, and thus directly precede the Introit. " For the Gospel is a vox damans in deserto et vocans ad fidem infideles." In the year 1524, Dr. John Bugenhagen, Luther's colleague, and pastor at Wittenberg, embodied these principles in a pamphlet with the title: "Of the Evangelical Mass; what the Mass is, how and by whom and wherefore it was instituted ; also how it is to be heard, and the Holy Sacrament received," and THE LUTHERAN LITURGIES 147 containing, as its third part, "An Order for the Evangelical Mass, translated from the Latin." The succession of parts is retained, as in Luther's Formula; but after the Epistle a direction is given that a Psalm translated into German, or a German hymn concern- ing Christ, is to be sung. A formula for " Con- fession" and a "Declaration of Grace" before the Service is also provided. The express statement is given that this Order must not be regarded as a law, but its use must be left free. The Strassburg Kirchen-Amt of the same year, pre- pared by Kopphel, also introduces a Confessional Prayer, to be used by the congregation while kneel- ing, followed by the words : " This is a faithful say- ing, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners ; of whom I am chief." This is followed by Introit, Kyrie, Gloria in Uxoelsis, Salutation and Collect, etc., as in the old Orders. Cotemporaneously appeared an Order for the churches of St. Sebald and St. Lawrence at Niirnberg (Dober's Mass), following the same arrangement of parts, except that, instead of the Introit, a German hymn paraphrasing a psalm may be sung, while the minister enters the church. Instead of isolated selec- tions from the Gospels and Epistles as found in the pericopes, a preference is expressed for the leotio con- tinua of these two portions of the New Testament. In 1526, another classical liturgical treatise was published by Luther in his Deutsche Messe. The use 148 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP of the vernacular in the public worship is especially urged. God is to be addressed by the worshippers only in such language as they themselves understand. But wherever a language is intelligible to the congre- gation or a portion of it, whether that language be German or Latin, its use is appropriate. "Were I able," he says, " and the Greek and Hebrew were as common as the Latin, and iiad in them as much fine music and song, as the Latin has. Mass should be cele- brated, one Sunday after another, in all four lan- guages, — German, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew." Luth- er's hymns, therefore, have their origin in his efforts to translate and popularize the church service. Instead of mere spectators and listeners, he sought to make the people actual participants in the worship. Psalms, Canticles, Graduals, and even the Creed, that had heretofore been chanted by those trained for the pur- pose, were paraphrased into German verse, and set to familiar or easy tunes. Within the single year, 1524, the most of Luther's hymns were written. Their aim was not so much to supplement as to popularize the service. Even the Ten Commandments appeared in verse, each stanza ending with the Kyrie. Instead of the Iiitroit, a versified paraphrase of a psalm, in Ger- man, was often sung. I^un bitten wir den Heiligen Geist was a popular adaptation of the Gradual, while the Nicene Creed appeared in Wir glauhen all an ehien Gott. A paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer was the first form of the prayer after the sermon. As time progressed, there was a similar reforma- THE LUTHERAN LITURGIES 149 tion of the service in every principality of Germany that had accepted the Lutheran faith. The princi- ples laid down by liuther in his Formula Missce and Deutsche Messe were consistently applied ; and that, too, with the assertion of Christian Freedom in justi- fying diversities according to circumstances of time and place. The Lutheran Church has peculiar capacities for adaptation to diverse gifts, and degrees of culture, and preferences of men, with respect to the externals of worship. Laying all stress upon unity in faith and confession, it is thankful that it is able to express this one faith in so many diversified forms both of government and cultus. What is often regarded as the very strictest of the Lutheran Confessions de- clares : " We believe, teach, and confess that no Church should condemn another, because one has less or more external ceremonies, not commanded by God, than the other, if otherwise there be agreement among them in doctrine, and all its articles, as well also as in the right use of the Holy Sacraments " {Formula of Concord, chap. x.). Lutheranism knows how to discriminate between what is desirable and what is essential. Uniformity in worship, if attain- able, is often highly desirable ; but there are greater questions at stake than that of mere external con- formity to a given model. Augusti, accordingly, has stated that no less than one hundred and thirty-two Lutheran orders were published between 1523 and 1555. Nevertheless this does not indicate general 150 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP confusion. In every respect, many of these orders are identical, and may be regarded as substantial reprints. A very few became the standards, which some with more, and others with less, revision, fol- lowed. They have been classified according to three distinct types : — 1. The Ultra Conservative, ■where the effort is the greatest to reproduce the Mediasval Service, with only such changes as seem to be imperatively demanded for doctrinal reasons. Of this type, the Mark-Bran- denburg Order of 1540, the Pfalz-Neuburg of 1543, and the Austrian of 1571, are types. In the first of these, the chants are sung in Latin; the prayers are made in German ; the Gospel and Epistle are first chanted in Latin, and then read in German, with the preface : " This is the Epistle, beloved, which you have heard sung in Latin." In the consecration, both the bread and the cup are elevated cum modica inclinatione.. The words of Institution and the Lord's Prayer are sung in German; while, following the Agnus Dei, are three Collects, said in Latin, for the forgiveness of sins. The service ends with a German, followed by a Latin, Collect. The latter is subject to the just criticism of transcending the Lutheran doc- trine of the Real Presence, by the use of language that, even if though meant in a figurative sense, admits of the interpi'etation of a permanent union between the bread and the body of Christ, and of that Capernaitic eating thereof, which the Lutheran Church afterwards confessionally repudiated in the Formula THE LUTHERAN LITURGIES 151 of Concord : " Quod nos peccatores sumpsimus et calix quern potavimus adhcereat visaeribus nostris, et proesta ut ihi nulla remaneat peccati macula, ubi tarn pura et sancta introierunt saaramenta." The Pfalz-Neuburg Order follows the Mark-Brandenburg in this. While in 1539, Luther declares his indifference as to the extent to which external conformity with Roman ceremonies may be carried, provided only that the gospel be purely preached, the sacraments be prop- erly administered, and no invocation of saints, or con- secration of holy water, or Masses for the dead, or sacramental processions be admitted, nevertheless, at other times, he speaks freely concerning his appre- hensions as to whither merely archaistic tendencies may lead. Problems were presented by the Leipzig Interim of 1548, concerning which the Formula of Concord had to make a definite statement as to the limitations with which ceremonies should be regarded as mere adiaphora. Rites which, of themselves, are matters of indifference, may become marks or badges of a false Confession. Times there are when it makes a difference whether we wear a blue or an orange ribbon, a white or a red rose, though this of itself be an adiaphoron. " We believe, teach and confess," says the Confession just cited, "that, in time of persecution, when a bold confession is re- quired of us, we should not yield to the enemies in regard to such adiaphora. . . . For in such case, it is no longer a question concerning adiaphora, but con- cerning the truth of the gospel. Christian Liberty and 152 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP sanctioning open idolatry, as also concerning the pre- vention of offence to the weak, in which we have nothing to concede, but must boldly confess, and then suffer whatever God allows the enemies of His Word to inflict upon us." 2. The Conservative type, following the principles set forth by Luther in his liturgical treatises. The general structure of the Gregorian Order which under- lies the Latin Mass is here retained, but with impor- tant changes and adaptations. Of these, the most influential, probably, was the Brandenburg-Niirnberg, prepared by Osiander and Brentz in 1533, and revised by the Wittenberg Faculty. The Orders prepared by Bugenhagen for a number of States and cities in Northern Germany, as Brunswick (1528), Hamburg (1529), Liibeck (1531), Pomerania (1535); the Han- over Order (1536), prepared by Regius ; and the Order prepared in 1536 for Duke Henry of Saxony by Justus Jonas, belong to the same class. So also do the Swedish Order, and the Danish Order, prepared by Bugenhagen. Another most important Order of this type was the one prepared by Melanchthon and Bucer in 1547 for Archbishop Hermann in his proposed Reformation of Cologne. It was based upon the Brandenburg-Niirnberg Order, and, although never introduced, lives in the Prayer Book of the Church of England, through the first Prayer Book of Edward VI., which drew largely upon it, and which we claim as one of the members of this group of Lutheran liturgies. 3. The liturgies of Southwest Germany, the Bran- THE LUTHERAN LITURGIES 153 denburg-Niirnberg excepted. While Lutheran in doc- trine, they show the influence of the earlier efforts of Dr. John Brentz, the Wiirtemberg reformer, in the revision of the service, in ■which he had less regard for historical precedents tlian at a later period. With all his endeavors afterwards, to conform the Wiirtem- berg Orders to the type that had been established in Saxony, the most he could do was to effect a com- promise. These liturgies are recognized, therefore, as mediating between the Lutheran and Reformed types. They assume a fixed form in The greater Wurtemhurg Order of 1553, providing for two orders, one for communion days, and the other for other occasions. On communion days, the order is : 1. Hymn to the Holy Spirit, a German Psalm, or any hymn suitable to the time. 2. Sermon, followed by the General Prayer. 8. Creed (German). 4. Admoni- tion concerning the Lord's Supper. 5. Brief prayer read. 6. Chanting of the Lord's Prayer. 7. Words of Institution. 8. Administration, a hymn being sung while communicants go to the altar. 9. Prayer of thanksgiving. 10. Patriarchal Benediction. For other Sundays : 1. A Latin Introit or a German Hymn. 2. Sermon. 3. Reading of the General Prayer. 4. Psalm or Hymn. 5. Benediction. Some elements are omitted in the enumeration, clearly because the pastors were assumed to understand that they were inseparable from elements that are mentioned, as, for example, the reading of the Gospel, before the sermon. Here the responsive features of the service have 154 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP vanished, except that the Litany may be used for the General Prayer, or at special services on appointed days. In all these Orders, however, even in those of the first class, provision is made for a considerable degree of flexibility, by express directions in the Rubrics, that, in the country churches and villages, a much simpler form might be followed, without destroying the organism of the worship, while a more elaborate rendering of the service was desirable in the cities, where the necessary musical resources were accessible. In thus seeking to adapt the principles of the service to the conditions of the people, while at the same time preserving all its parts, Bugenhagen's Order provides for no less than seven hymns, as Iktroit, Gloria in Exeehis, and Agnus Dei assume a hymnal form. Underlying the Lutheran conception of the service are certain principles, necessary to be kept in mind in order to appreciate the mutual relations of its several parts. All true worship is the communion of man with God, in response to an assurance of favor and a divine invitation encouraging such approach. Upon some word and promise of God every prayer must rest. Two factors, therefore, are found in all true worship ; namely, the divine invitation and the human response. God is ever graciously giving, and man is ever thankfully receiving. The former is the sacramental, and the latter the sacrificial, element of worship. A clear statement of this distinction is made THE LUTHERAN LITURGIES 155 by Melanchthon in the Apology of the Augisburg Con- fession. ^ The sacramental element is not limited to the two Sacraments, but, in a general sense, comprises every act in which God brings man a blessing, and thus belongs to the preaching and reading of the Word, as well as to Baptism and the Lord's Supper. A sacrifice, however, is any act whereby man brings something to God, in order to afford Him honor. Sacrifices are of two kinds. The propitiatory sacri- fice, whereby God's wrath is appeased and His favor gained, is found only in the sacrifice of Christ for us on the Cross. But eucharistic sacrifices of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving are to be continual, offered by those who, through the one propitiatory sacrifice once offered, are reconciled to God. Examining the three main types of Christian worship, it is claimed that these three factors, the sacramental, the propitiatory-sacrificial, and the eucharistic-sacriflcial, distinguish three forms of Chris- tianity. Romanism, and, to a less degree, Greek Catholicism, obscure or deny the doctrine of the completion of Christ's sacrifice on Calvary as the sole propitiation for our sins. The worship centres, therefore, around the Bloodless Sacrifice of Christ in the Mass, for the sins of the living and the dead. By being converted into a sacrifice, the sacramental force of the Lord's Supper is lost. The assui-ance of forgiveness, of which it is the pledge, has vanished. 1 Book of Concord (Jacobs), i. 262. 156 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP God no longer is recognized as approaching His people with the words of pardon and comfort But instead, the priest, in order to shelter the people from the divine wrath, offers the body of Christ to an angry and as yet unappeased God. Nor in the Holy Supper do we find, according to this conception, a divine act ; but Masses are multiplied, as works whereby man brings something to God. The Reformed and Lutheran conceptions of the public service are alike based upon a combination of the thought of the eucharistic sacrifice with that of the sacrament. The proportion, however, is different ; or there is a variation in the side emphasized. The question involved is, as to whether the main end be the rendering to God of the sincere offering of grate- ful hearts, or the receiving of God's riches of forgiv- ing, renewing, enlightening, and strengthening grace. Are the hearing of God's Word and the reception of the Holy Supper chiefly incentives to prayer and praise ? Or do prayei* and praise only prepare for and accompany Word and Sacrament, and help us to receive them? Is the Lord's Supper principally an act whereby man professes his faith, or one whereby God comes, with a peculiar blessing, to man ? Which part of the minister's duty is the more important, — that whereby he stands before God as the leader of the congregation, or that whereby he stands before the congregation as the representative of God ? According to the Lutheran conception, the sacra- mental is the main element. Not the prayers and THE LUTHERAN LITURGIES 157 chants and hymns of tlie people, or even the word of the pastor, testifying from the depth of his Christian experience, but the Word of God, is itself the chief part of every service. The reading and repeating of this Word have a sacramental force ; as with the Word, and only through the Word, comes the divine blessing. The Lord's Supper is no sacrifice that the worshipper offers, or that any priest offers for him. He thanks God for the sacrifice made for him, once for all, ages ago, when his Lord declared : " It is finished." Of tliis complete redemption he finds a sure pledge in the gift to him, with the bread and wine, of the very Body and Blood that have paid the price for his sins, and bought him back from the bondage of Satan to the sonship of God. Luther, in expounding the true character of the Lord's Supper as a sacrament of the New Testament, says in his sermon concerning the New Testament of 1520 : " A testament receives no benefit from us ; but brings a benefit to us. Who ever heard of a man doing a good work by receiving a testament ? Man does nothing but take to himself the benefit that is offered. In the Lord's Supper, therefore, we give Christ noth- ing ; but only receive from Him the blessing." The entire life of the service is dependent upon the reciprocal action of these two elements ; just as the life of the body continues by the twofold process of inhalation and expiration. God speaks. Man re- sponds ; and then God speaks again. In the eucha- ristic sacrifice the heart turns to God, and opens 158 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP for the blessing, whicli is immediately followed by the word of divine grace. But no sooner is the blessing received than it immediately awakens new emotions. The heart overflows with gratitude, with the sense of unworthiness of the blessings received, and with the desire for closer union with God, and a more worthy service of so gracious a benefactor. The expression of this is another cucharistic act, to which God responds in a new blessing. Thus the entire service is a conversation between God and man ; a continual giving and receiving. Now the pastor acts as the representative of the people before God, when he leads their prayers ; and then, as the representative of God to the people, as he reads or proclaims the Word, or administers the sacrament. Now the people exercise the function of their spiritual priesthood, in their united hymns and prayers, — the cucharistic act ; and then, again, stand and speak in God's name, as, in their responses, they announce to one another the consolations and admo- nitions of God's Word, — the sacramental act. So also the various parts of the service are directed towards a common end. The entire plan of salva- tion, from its beginnings in the counsels of eternity to its completion in the new heavens and the new earth, is gradually unfolded. A portion of the service, like the needs of the Christian life and their supply, is permanent; while another portion is variable with the change of times and seasons ; yet so as to present each year (such, at least, is the aim) the leading THE LUTHERAN LITURGIES 159 features of the life of Christ, all the doctrines of the Christian faith, and all the duties of the Christian life. Not in advance was this organism of the ser- vice determined. Gradually and spontaneously it emerged from the experience of believers, as, from generation to generation, they assembled to hear and worship. Even where a fixed liturgy is discarded, or no attention is given to any scientific expi'ession of principles, it reappears, without law or prescription, as to its main features, from the necessities of a common religious experience. The ideal of congregational worship in the minds of the Lutheran reformers could not be realized within a single generation. Luther's introduction to the Small Catechism (1529) may be read, if we desire to learn the standard of intelligence and the extent of the religious knowledge among the most of the congrega- tions with which they had to deal. A people unaccus- tomed to participate in the service were to be gradually trained to be more than mere spectators who " attended Mass." This had to be accomplished without hymn or prayer-book in their hands as to-day. The time was in the Lutheran Church when a book, even of hymns, in the hands of a member of the congregation was regarded as formalism. All liymns that were to be sung, it was thought, should be committed to memory, in order that men could sing from the heart what had first been learned by heart. But before the complete revision of the service throughout the Lutheran churches of Germany could 160 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP be attained, a new period came. Scholastic Luthcr- anism burdened the service with labored attempts at dogmatical precision of statement. Gradually the freshness and warmth of the sixteenth century vanish. The overwhelming preponderance of what was purely didactic in sermon, prayer, and hymn hinders the free movement between the sacramental and sacrificial elements. Then came the scourge of the Thirty Years' War, reducing the population of Germany to one fourth, and devastating alike city and country in many regions where the Lutheran faith was most unequivocally confessed. Then came Piet- ism, with its standard of what subserves the purposes only of individual and temporary devotion. The Com- mon Prayer and common testimony of the Church were overshadowed by the individuality of the one who professed to lead the devotions. Then came Rational- ism, which regarded sermon and service purely with respect to moral ends, and not as a means of the united communion of the children of God with their Heavenly Father, upon the ground solely of their redemption, as lost sinners, by the blood of Christ. No wonder that the orders of the sixteenth century were depreciated by those whose preaching was di- rectly contradicted by their Scriptural teaching. Both in Germany and America, during the last half century, there has been a widespread return to these orders, accompanied with the recognition of the necessity of certain adaptations to circumstances of time and place. In so doing, the Lutheran Church in THE LUTHERAN LITURGIES 161 America has only reverted in the liturgical sphere, as she has generally done in the confessional sphere, to the foundations laid by her great organizer, Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, — a man who united the best elements of Pietism with thorough fidelity to the Lutheran Confessions, and who, as a Hanoverian, came from a portion of Germany where the Lutheran service of the Reformation period had been retained in its purity. At the first meeting of the first Luth- eran Synod in America in 1748, an Order, prepared by him, was adopted, which, when the condition of the Lutheran churches of that period is considered, is remarkable for its fidelity to liturgical principles. The order is : A hymn to the Holy Spirit ; an exhor- tation to Confession ; the Confession of Sins ; the Kyrie ; a versified paraphrase of the Gloria in Ux- celsis ; Salutation and Collect for the day ; Epistle for the day, followed by a hymn ; Gospel for the day ; Paraphrase of the Creed, in verse; Sermon; General Prayer, according to a prescribed form, than which " nothing else shall be read," save only that the Lit- any may be used instead, followed by special supplica- tions, as circumstances suggest; the Lord's Prayer; Hymn ; closing Collect ; Benediction ; Hymn verse. In 1783, Muhlenberg expressed his great desire that all the Lutheran congregations in North America should be united with one another, and use the same Order of Service and same Hymn Book. Within the last decade, all the so-called General Bodies of the Lutheran Church in this country, upon the motion of 11 162 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP the United Synod of the South, have either adopted or indorsed the " Common Service," — an order em- bodying the consensus of the pure Lutheran liturgies of the sixteenth century. " The aim has been," we quote from an official statement, " to furnish the full Lutheran service for all who wish to use it. But if, at any time or place, the use of the full service is im- practicable or undesired, it is not contrary to Lutheran principles or usage to follow a simple form, in which only the principal parts of the Common Service, in their order, are retained." Briefly following the various parts of this " Com- mon Service," the Confession of Sins, with which it opens, is demanded by the necessities of the Christian heart. For the very first thought that arises, as we come into the Divine Presence, is that of the contrast between God's holiness and our sinfulness. In the Orders that were followed, it is, indeed, true that the weight of authorities would have begun the service with the Introit. But this occurred, where there was a confessional service, late on the preceding evening (Beicht-Vesper'), or early in the morning before the chief service began. The absence of a confession, where these subordinate services do not occur, would have been a violation of the principle. Accordingly after the example of Bugenhagen's Order and the Stras- burg Order (both 1524), and the Brandenburg-Niirn- berg (1533), the private prayers that, before this, were prescribed for the use of the priest, as he came to the altar, were adapted to the general wants of all THE LUTHERAN LITURGIES 163 present, and made the prayer of the entire con- gregation. But when The Confession has been made, the heart yearns for some assurance of forgiveness. Hence it is followed by a Declaration of Q-race, announcing in three sentences the mercy of God in the gift of His Son, the sending of the Holy Spirit, and the institution of the means of grace, and praying that what God has thus provided may be savingly enjoyed by all pi'esent. This declaration differs from an absolution in two re- spects, since the absolution is administered to an individual, and not to an entire congregation ; and, secondly, the absolution is not the prayer for forgive- ness, but the absolute impartation of God's pardoning grace to a penitent and believing man. Joyful in the consciousness of the love of God thus pledged, the congregation can now enter upon what is properly The Service. As each Sunday presents its peculiar message of divine grace, and has its pecul- iar part of tlie plan of salvation to unfold, it is the office of the Introit to announce the main thought of the day. Many of the Sundays are known by the opening words of the Introit. Thus we have in Lent, Invoeavit, Heminiscere, Oculi etc., and after Easter, Quasimodogeniti, Miserieordias, Jubilate, Gantate, Ro- gate. The Introits, in their present form, appear first in the Gregorian Order. They have their origin however, in the Psalms, with which not only in the Apostolic Church, but also in the synagogues, the services began. Two parts belong to every Introit : 164 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP first, the scriptural words announcing the thought of the day, generally taken from the Psalms, and rendered at first antiphonally ; and, secondly, the psalm verse, which is generally the first verse of a psalm, that probably was once sung throughout when thus an- nounced. Then followed the Gloria Patri, which belongs to the Introit, because taken from the Psalms. The Gloria Patri, as used in our church services, at the close of every psalm, shows that the psalms have acquired a new meaning in the light of the gospel, and that we use them not as Jews, but as Christians. But no sooner has the Gloria Patri been called forth in gratitude for what has been heard in the psalm, than there once more arises in man's heart the sense of his sinfulness and unworthiness. As even the apostle who had leaned on Jesus' breast fell as dead at the manifestation of the divine glory in the beginning of the Apocalypse, so the devout worshipper, after learning of God's favor, remembers that, even though he be a forgiven child of God, rejoicing in the consciousness of his sonship, nevertheless he still lives upon earth, and sin still exists within and around him. Hence there arises the plaintive Kyrie, Meieson (" Lord, have mercy upon us ; ' Christ, have mercy upon us ; ' Lord, have mercy upon us "), which is not simply a Trinitarian formula, but which looks back towards the fountain of all mercy as existing before the world, then to its historical manifestation in time ; and finally, through all the stages of applying grace, to its full fruition in the world to come. THE LUTHERAN LITURGIES 165 Then, as alwaj's in the Christian life, tlie cry for mercy is succeeded by the triumphant celebration of what we are and have in Christ, as the Gloria in Uxeelsis is chanted, — a hymn of which Luther de- clared : " It did not grow ; nor was it made on earth ; it came down from heaven." In it, the spirit of devotion, under the electric thrill of intense feeling, has blended many Scriptural passages, so that eveiy clause of this, the greater Gloria, uses a new Scriptural phrase as the vehicle of its adoration and worship. It is truly termed a summary of all the hymns of thanksgiving and praise, both in this world and the world to comOj that follow the contemplation of God's glory in the incarnation of Christ. May not its foundation be " the hymn to Christ as God " which the famous letter of Pliny to Trajan says that the early Christians chanted in their early morning worship ? The first part of the service, thus concluded by the Gloria in Uxeelsis, is chiefly sacrificial; for it con- sists mainly of prayer, praise and thanksgiving. The second pai't is chiefly sacramental ; for in it, God approaches man with His Word, to bestow His blessing. The worshippers, before active, now be- come receptive. The transition, however, is gradual. Wherever God comes to men with His Word, they meet His approach with prayer. Hence the reading of the Word is preceded by a Collect. In uniting in the Collect, the pastor first prays for the people in the Salutation, and the people, for the pastor in the re- 166 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP sponse: And with Thy Spirit; and then their com- bined petition arises in the brief and condensed language of these simple, but at the same time pro- found and comprehensiTe, prayers, through which the cliildren of God have, for ages, been carrying to the throne of Grace the deepest felt aspirations of their hearts. That the most of them are a thousand years earlier than the Reformation, and cannot be claimed as the exclusive property of the Lutheran Church, only renders them the more precious to us. While drawn chiefly from the Leonine (a. d. 440), Gelasian (a. d. 492), and Gregorian (a. d. 596) sacramentaries, they were embodied there as formulas already ap- proved, and we may, therefore, assume that some of them are much older than the book in which we first find them. Most clear and vivid expressions of the Augustinian theology, they adopt, at times, the very language of the great expounder of the doctrines of the utter nothingness of man, and the sovereignty of divine grace. Some of the very oldest came forth from a period when the Nestorian controversy was still fresh, and the Church gave the simplest and most direct expression to the doctrine of incarna- tion, with its unfathomable depths, upon which its mind had been greatly exercised. Their deep spirituality is the reflection of a period, when the vanity of earthly things was especially impressed by the decay of the Roman Empire, the inroads of the barbarians, the growing insecurity, the siege, the capture, the pillage of Rome itself, and when, where all was confusion THE LUTHERAN LITURGIES 167 and desolation, men turned to God, and found in Him that peace which the world could not give. After the Collect, come the Scripture Lessons, whore the practice of the ancient Church is retained in chang- ing the synagogue lessons of the Law and the Prophets into those of the Epistle, the New Testament Law, and the Grospel, the fulfilment of the prophets. The selections themselves are those which the Reformers found already made for them. But various portions of the Lutheran Church have guarded against exces- sive rigidity in their use, by providing schemes of supplementary and even alternative lessons. So well- adapted, however, are the Gospels for the day to the end of presenting, in methodical order, within the year, the chief events of our Lord's life on earth, and the words which he left to be proclaimed, that they have a hold upon the hearts of the people which, without the urgency of any ecclesiastical regulation, creates the demand that they be, in general, followed, and renders any system of instruction unpopular among us, that attempts to completely revolutionize this order. The Sermon is the application of the Word that is read. The lessons are not determined by the sermon that is to be preached ; but the sermon that is to be preached is, as a rule, determined by the lessons. The sermon is supplementary and subordinate to the reading of the Holy Scriptures. But, before proceeding to the sermon, and dwelling upon the one particular aspect of truth and duty pre- 168 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP sented by the day, in the repetition of The Creed, a survey is first taken of the entire scope of Christian doctrine. While theoretically the preference is given to the Nicene Creed, as the regula fidei of the ancient Church, nevertheless, in general usage, except, on the Chief Festivals and Communion Sundays, it gives place to the Apostles' Creed, as that which is better adapted to popular use. Following it, is a hymn, known as " the Hymn" of the service, as it is intended to particularly express the thought of the Lessons. While, as a rule, the Sermon is upon the Gospel or Epistle for the day, free texts are often used as cir- cumstances may suggest or the edification of the con- gregation may require. The sermon preached, the minister descends from the pulpit, where he has stood as the representative of God to man, and goes to the altar, where he stands as the leader of the congregation and one of their num- ber, in their approach to God. What is called The Offertory has nothing, except its relative place, in common with the poi"tion of the Eoman Mass which is so designated. The Fifty-first, or another penitential psalm is chanted here, after a custom still more ancient than the Roman Offertorv, as the expression of the sense of sin and of need of forgiveness, called forth by the Word of God pro- claimed in the sermon, and as the declaration of the entire consecration of the people to the Lord, whose rights have just been asserted. The General Prayer, which follows, is not a mere THE LUTHERAN LITURGIES 169 r(5sum^ or application of the sermon, or even a prayer whose chief contents are the necessities of the worshipping congregation. At every stage of the service up to this point, these necessities have found expression. The purpose of the General Prayer is tliat through it, the congregation may ask God that others may obtain the blessings which through the Word have been brought to them, and for which they have given thanks. It is not a prayer of the officiat- ing minister for the congregation to which he has preached, but a prayer of the congregation itself. It is the common prayer of the whole people, ex- pressed in simple and well-known words, and free, as far as possible, from such individual peculiarities as, by inviting criticism, would interfere with the intelligent adoption of all its petitions by every man, woman, and child in the audience, in whom God's Spirit has enkindled the flame of devotion. In it, the wants of all classes and conditions of men are re- called, and recounted before God. The " Long Prayer," made in some of the Reformed churches before the sermon, has a different scope, since the adoration, thanksgiving, confession of sin, and supplication for pardon for which it provides, have been previously offered to God in the Order which we are explaining. It is peculiarly the Inter- cessory Prayer of the service. A place is found in this " General Prayer " for the introduction of " spe- cial supplications, intercessions, and prayers," as peculiar circumstances may suggest j but as tq other 170 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP parts, in order that the people may enter with the least distraction into the prayer, it is urgently recom- mended that, whatever variety may be employed in adapting prayers to individual wants at other times, in this prayer they should know beforehand not only for what, but also in what words, they are to pray. The aim of the Lutheran Reformers of the service, in this respect, is stated in the Wiirtemberg Order (one of the least conservative), where it is said : " Although the Lord's Prayer is in itself a General Prayer, and should always have the preference, as a brief sum- mary of all other Christian prayers, nevertheless, since the other prayers comprised in the Holy Scrip- tures, and especially in the Psalms, or, according to present necessities derived from passages of Holy Scripture, are an explanation and exposition of the Lord's Prayer, they should not be rejected, but be used, at the proper time, in connection with the Lord's Prayer." The entire structure of " the General Prayer," and, to an extent, its various petitions, have reached us by a clearly traceable historical process. When Luther substituted " The Lord's Prayer " for " The Offertory," and prefaced it by a paraphrase, explaining its peti- tions in detail, he was only returning to an older practice. In some of the ancient Oriental liturgies, of which that of St. James was a type, it was cus- tomary to comply with the Apostolic command that " supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men " (1 Tim. ii. 1), by a TBE LUTHERAN LITURGIES 171 series of exhortations, specifying at length the vari- ous objects to be prayed for, as in the Bidding Prayer, to which the people replied in the words, " Lord, have mercy." So in some of the earlier Lutheran Orders, a very full exliortation of a similar character is used as a preface to the Lord's Prayer. Thus, in the Brunswick Order, prepared by Bugenhagen in 1531 : "Lotus pray for his Imperial Majesty, and all who bear the temporal sword. Pray also for the ministers who feed us with the Word of God. Pray also for tem- poral peace, for the sick, the weak, the sorrowing, the tempted, women with child, for our enemies, for all neces- sities of body and soul. Let us pray for one another that all may be saved. Let us unite in the Lord's Prayer." These exhortations, however, being themselves em- bodied in particular collects with which the Church was familiar, these collects were first said succes- sively, as in the Brandenberg-Niirnberg Order, and, afterwards, by a very natural process, were combined in the continuous prayer, which is found, almost as now used, in the Wiirtemberg Order of 1553. The Consecj'ation consists of The Lord's Prayer, the Words of Institution, and the Pax. The consecration itself lies in the use of the words of Institution,^ the Lord's Prayer either preceding or following them, as consecratory of the communicants in their approach to this mystery, while of the Pax (" The peace of the Lord be with you alway"), Luther says: "It is the voice of the Gospel, announcing the forgiveness of 172 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP sins, and is the only and most worthy preparation for the Lord's Table." The communicants then approach the altar while the Agnus Dei is sung. In this chant, there is noth- ing to justify the objection that it is connected with the doctrine of the sacrifice of Christ in the Mass. It has been used as a part of the Gloria in JSxeelsis at the beginning of the service; and its repetition here, where the minds of communicants are thus directed to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, is most appropriate and edifying. In the Distribution, each communicant receives di- rectly from tiie pastor the consecrated elements, with the words : " Take, eat ; this is the Body of Christ given for thee. Take and drink ; this is the Blood of Christ, shed for thy sins." The words, " Given for thee," were added by Luther to tlie for- mula of distribution, in accordance with his statement that in them lay the chief stress of the sacrament. The rest of the service is a gradual descent from this exalted place, where weak and sinful man has been admitted into the holy of holies, and conversed almost face to face with his Eedeemer and reconciled Father. He has the highest joy that earth can affoi'd, and his lips pour forth the song of Simeon, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace," and, after a thanksgiving collect composed by Luther, he receives the patriarchal benediction, " The Lord bless thee and keep thee," which was precious to Luther, because the pronoun is in the singular number. As THE LUTHERAN LITURGIES 173 the congregation disperses, each individual departs with the peace of God in his heart, and the liglit of God's countenance resting upon him. The other church services hold a subordinate char- acter, and follow the Orders for matins and vespers. Their aim is to provide for the systematic contin- uous reading of the Holy Scriptures, accompanied by Psalms, hymns, and a brief exhortation. They trans- fer to the New Testament the main features of public worship, in which our Lord himself frequently par- ticipated in the synagogues of His people. The struc- ture of the two services is essentially the same. They differ chiefly in the Psalms used, and in the tone of the worship. In the Matin Service, thanksgiving pre- ponderates ; while in the Vesper Service, supplication. The former is more jubilant ; the latter breathes the spirit of humble resignation and trust in the divine mercy. Where congregations, however, are not prepared to use these fixed orders to edification, the Lutheran Church has infinite capacities for adapting the simple truth as it is in Jesus to their varied wants. The service is used as a means to an end, which, like all human arrangements, even when determined by com- pliance with the impulses of the Holy Spirit, is not an absolute finality. Fixed orders are not used, as though there could be no true worship without them ; nor are historical orders repudiated, as though they were obsolete, and no true worship could be found except in that which is born in the present moment. 174 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP " Of Kites and Usages, they teach," says the Augs- burg Confession (Art. XV.), " that those ought to be observed which may be observed without sin, and which are profitable unto tranquillity. . . . Neverthe- less, concerning such things let men be admonished that consciences are not to be burdened as though such observance were necessary for salvation." Each age has its peculiar wants ; and for each age and land God has a special message. The Lutheran Church, therefore, while turning reverently to the sixteenth century to find there the basis for her ser- vice, is fully conscious that she cannot rest there, but that the spirit of faith must mingle with the voices of believers in the past, the sincere expression of her own peculiar experiences in the present. Her liturgy, like her hymn-book, represents all ages of the Church, and must continually grow. But this growth can afford permanent results, and contribute to general edification, only as it proceeds upon a well- established historical basis. TBE LUTHERAN LITURGIES 175 BIBLIOGRAPHY. The following bibliographical list does not attempt to be ex- haustive. It aims simply at giving some of the chief works ser- viceable to a student, who may desire to pursue the subject further : Daniel, H. A. D., Codex liturgicus Ecclesim Universm. 4 vols., Leipzig, 1 847. (Vol. II. for Lutheran liturgies. ) Kliefoth, Th., Liturgische Ahhandlungen, Schwerin, 1854, 2d ed. 1868, 8 vols. (The first five volumes treat of Die Urspriingliche Gottesdienst-Ordnung in den deutschen KircJien lutkerischen Bekennt- nisses, ikre Destruction und Reformation.) Schoberlein, L., Ueber den liturgischen Atisbau des Gemeindegoites- dienstes in der deutschen evangelischen Kirche. Gotha, 1859. Schoberlein, L., Schatz des liturgischen Chor- und Gemeindegesangs nebst den Altarwesen in der deutschen evangelischen Kirche aus den Quellen vomehmlich des I6ten und 17ten Jahrhunderts geschSpft. 3 vols. Jacohy, H., Die Liturgik der Reformatoren, 2 vols., Gotha, 1876. (Vol. L Luther; Vol. II. Melanchthon. ) Lohe, W., Agende Jur ChristUche Gemeinden des lutherischen Bekenntnisses. 3d ed., enlarged by J. Deinzer. Nordlingen, 1884. (Valaable for its introductions and notes.) Kostlin, H. A. F., Geschichte des Christlichen Gottesdienstes. Freiburg, 1887. Harnack, Th., Outline of Liturgies in Zockler's Handbuch der theologischen Wissenschaften. 3d edition, Miinchen, 1890. Cantionale Jur die evangelisch lutherischen Kirchen im Grossher- zogthum Mecklenhurg-Schwerin. 4 vols., folio, Schwerin, 1886-1887. Hofling, J. H. F., Liturgische Urkundenbuch, enthaltend die Aide der Communion, der Ordination und Introduction, und der Trauung. Leipzig, 1852. Nitzsch, Praktische Theologie. 2 vols., Bonn, 1851. Zezschwitz, Praktische Theologie. Leipzig, 1878. Siona, A Monthly, devoted to Liturgies and Church Music, pub- lished since at Giitersloh (Schoberlein, Herold, Kriiger). Above all, Eichter, A. E. L., Die evangelischen Kirchenordnungen des sechszehnten Jahrhunderts. 2 vols., Weimar, 1846. Contains most of the chief Lutheran liturgies of the period from 1523-1598. The Originals in large number may be found in the Liturgical Library at Mt. Airy, Philadelphia. VI THE LITURGIES OF THE REFORMED CHURCHES Bt the Eev. WILLIAM RUPP, D.D. Professor of Practical Theology in the Refwmed Theological Seminary, Lancaster, Pa. 12 THE LITURGIES OP THE REFORMED CHURCHES THERE exists an intimate relation between reli- gious doctrine and worship, or between creed and liturgy. Worship is the expression and action of faith, and faith is the root and motive of worship. Religious faith will always create a system of wor- ship corresponding to its own character; and any system of religious rites and ceremonies will in time give rise to a corresponding creed. Hence the Reformation of the sixteenth century was bound to be equally a reformation of worship and of doctrine. The Reformers were all agreed as to the necessity of a reformation in worship. The existing abuses and superstitions excited their profoundest indigna- tion and horror. The sacrifice of the Mass espe- cially, and the idolatrous worship of the saints and angels, were, in their view, the very abomination of desolation, now standing permanently in the temple of God. That these abuses must be removed and the existing order of worship reformed, was a propo- sition to which all the Reformers were agreed. But they differed somewhat in the manner in which they 180 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP carried out the work of reformation; and so we come to have different orders of worship in different parts of the Protestant Church. In this respect there is a general difference between the churches of the Lutheran and those of the Keformed confessions. This difference is usually expressed by the propo- sition that the Lutherans were the more conservative and the Reformed the more radical in the work of reformation. The principle adopted by the Luth- eran reformers, it is usually said, was to reject noth- ing in the cultus of the Catholic Church that was not repugnant to some express statement of the Bible; while the principle adopted by the Reformed was to accept nothing that could not be supported by direct Scriptural authority. Both parties made Scripture the rule of their reforming activity; but they applied this rule with varying degrees of strict- ness, and hence there arose a difference in their work. With some reservation this representation may be accepted as correct. In reconstructing their worship, the Reformed churches were guided less by the principle of tradition and more by the principle of Scripture, than the Lutheran Church. Hence the Reformed liturgies are characterized by a greater degree of simplicity and unadorned grandeur, but also, in proportion as they drew upon the Old Testa- ment for their material, by something of a legalistic and Judaistic tone, which the student of liturgies will not fail to notice. Nevertheless they all show evidence, more or less plainly, of their origin in the LITURGIES OF THE REFORMED CHURCHES 181 old order of worship, and thus of their connection with the past history and life of the Church. The Reformed churches are not unhistorical creations of the sixteenth century; but in doctrine and worship they are rooted in the old order of Christian life and action within the fields in which they originated. The Eeformed liturgies may be divided into three distinct families or groups, — namely, the Zwinglian, the Calvinistic, and the Calvino-Melanehthonian, or the Swiss, French, and German; the Scotch and English belonging to the second of these groups. They all possess certain elements in common, but differ in special features, according to their national and historical relations. One common feature of all Eeformed liturgies, for instance, consists in this, that the public services of God are divided into two kinds, namely, preaching services and communion services. In the old Catholic Church the Eucharist formed an essential part of every Lord's day service. In the medieval Church the sermon was suppressed, and the Eucharist, which was now regarded as a sacrifice for the living and the dead, came to be the chief, indeed almost the only, part of Christian cultus. The sacrifice, however, was not a service rendered by the congregation, but by the priesthood in behalf of the congregation. And it could be effectually rendered without the presence of the con- gregation, and without any communicants. But this was no longer the case when the idea of a propitia- tory sacrifice in the Mass was rejected, and when the 182 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP Eucharist was again transformed into a common ser- vice of the congregation, as it had been in primitive times. In the Protestant sense there can be no com- munion service without communicants. Nor is the idea of a common congregational service realized, when a few only of the congregation participate in the transaction, while the majority are mere spec- tators of the solemn show. But the Eeformers soon discovered that it was not possible to cause an entire congregation to be present, and get them to partici- pate in the communion service on every Lord's day. What, then, was to be done? Luther proposed to let the communion service stand as a part of the service of every Lord's day, but to make optional the participation in it by the people. Both sides of the Reformation agreed that the ministration of the divine word, the preaching of the sermon, is the cen- tral and essential part of public worship ; and Luther went so far on one occasion as to say, that there is no use in Christian assemblies where there is noth- ing but prayer and singing, and where no sermon is preached. But Luther, nevertheless, proposed to let the Lord's Supper remain as an appendix at least to every public service on the Lord's day. If at any time there should be no communicants from among the people, the ministers could commune, and it would still be the communion. This, although a violation of the general Protestant principle, that all acts of public worship must be common acts of the congrega- tion, was adopted at first as the rule of the Lutheran LITURGIES OF TEE REFORMED CHURCHES 183 Church, • — a rule, however, it should be added, that did not maintain itself very long in Lutheran cultus. Calvin was at first disposed to retain the celebration of the communion in every Lord's day service accord- ing to primitive custom, and to require the presence and participation of the whole congregation on every occasion. He soon found, however, that this was a demand which could not be exacted; and subse- quently, while expressing his preference for at least a monthly communion, he agreed to the rule, which Zwingli had already introduced at Zurich, of cele- brating four communions in the year, namely, at Christmas, Easter, Whitsunday, and some Sunday in the fall. This came to be the order subsequently in most of the Reformed churches. Thus the com- munion service was separated from the ordinary Lord's day service, and the latter came to have its chief interest, its centre of gravity, in the sermon. This arrangement, though a departure from all past liturgical traditions, was doubtless justified by the circumstances of the times, and could moreover claim a precedent in the practice of the Apostolic Church. In the early period of the Apostolic Church there were two kinds of Christian assemblies for worship, the one occuri'ing in the temple and other public localities, where nothing took place but prayer and the preaching of the Gospel, the other occurring mostly at night in private houses, where the Lord's Supper was partaken and the love-feast celebrated. The former might be called homiletic, or perhaps 184 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP better, evangelistic, and the latter eucharistic ser- vices. This difference still existed at Corinth at the time when the Corinthian Epistles were written. Agreeably to the modification of the constitution of divine service made by the Reformers, the liturgy, which previously signified the order of celebrating the Eucharist, now came to signify for the most part merely the order of beginning and closing sermons. A liturgy, of course, contains other offices, like those for the administration of baptism, of confirmation, of ordination and installation, and so forth ; but the office for the conduct of public worship forms its principal feature and determines its character. The first formal attempt at a reconstruction of the order of Christian worship according to Reformed principles was made at Zurich, in the year 1623, by the composition and publication by Leo Judse, at the request of Zwingli, of an Order of Baptism, to which was attached an Order for the Beginning and Closing of Sermons. This title is indicative of the change which had taken place in the conception of the liturgy. The order here laid down is very sim- ple, merely containing directions for prayer, which is to be made for the right understanding of God's word, for Christian pastors, for secular authorities, and for those who are in tribulation, directions for the commemoration of those who have recently de- parted this life, whose names are announced at the beginning of the service, and directions for a general confession of sin, This is in fact a directory rather LITURGIES OF THE REFORMED CHURCHES 185 than an order of worship; and even as a directory it is incomplete, and was in practice doubtless supple- mented by additional forms. It was unsatisfactory, and did not long maintain itself. In 1525 a new Order of Worship was established at Zurich by public authority. It contains forms for the beginning and ending of sermons, for the administration of the Lord's Supper, for the solemni- zation of marriage, and for the burial of the dead. The ordinary preaching service begins with a votum : " Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you, " etc. Then comes the singing of a psalm or hymn. After this we have an exhortation to prayer for the presence and illuminating influence of the Holy Spirit in order to the right understanding of God's word ; and this is followed by the Lord's Prayer, and then the general intercessory prayer. After this comes the reading of Scripture, which may be a passage from the Old or New Testament selected by the minister, accord- ing to his inclination or judgment. The system of pericopes is abandoned. After the reading of Scrip- ture follows the sermon. And the sermon is fol- lowed by a general confession of sin, a prayer of thanksgiving, ending with the Lord's prayer, the publication of the banns of marriage, and of the names of any deceased members of the Church, an exhortation to almsgiving for the benefit of the poor, and the benediction. The communion service contained in this Eeformed Zurich liturgy was prepared by Zwingli himself, and 186 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP used for the first time on Easter Sunday, in the year 1625. It follows pretty closely the order of the canon of the Gregorian Mass. After the conclusion of the sermon, the minister is directed to stand at the table containing the sacramental elements, and turning his face to the people, he is to say with a loud voice, " In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, " to which his attend- ants are to answer, "Amen." Then is to be said the infcroit, or invocation, a short prayer beginning with the words: "Almighty and everlasting God, whom all creatures justly worship and adore," etc. This is to be followed by the reading of the account of the institution of the Supper in 1 Cor. xi. 20-29, at the conclusion of which the congregation responds : " God be praised." After this the Crloria in JSxcelsis is recited antiphonally by the men and the women in the congregation. Then the minister says : " The Lord be with you," and the people answer: "And with thy spirit." Next the minister announces the reading of another Scripture lesson, namely, John vi. 47-63, which announcement the congregation re- ceives with the response: " God be praised. " After the reading the minister kisses the Bible, and says : " Laud be to God, who according to His holy word will forgive us all our sins, " and the people respond, " Amen. " This is followed by the antiphonal recita- tion of the Apostles' Creed. After the creed comes an address by the minister, in which the communi- cants are exhorted to penitence, to faith, and to LITURGIES OF THE REFORMED CHURCHES 187 prayer. Then the congregation kneels, and the Lord's Prayer is repeated, after which another prayer is offered by the minister for the divine blessing and for the grace of sanctification, to which the people respond, " Amen. " After this follows the consecra- tion of the elements by means of the words of insti- tution and the breaking of the bread. The elements are then distributed by the deacons to the members of the congregation, who are kneeling in their pews. After all have communed, the 113th Psalm is recited, the minister repeating the first verse, and then the men and women reading antiphonally to the end. Another short collect together with the benediction closes the service. It will be observed that this whole communion service is an action of the congregation, not an action of the minister in the stead or in behalf of the congregation. But it will be observed also that there is here a striking contrast between the compar- ative richness of the communion service and the baldness of the ordinary preaching service. This is due doubtless to the lingering influence of mediaeval tradition. In the medieval Church the liturgy or divine service, as we have already seen, meant essen- tially the offering of the sacrifice of the Mass ; and of this preaching was not a part. What preaching there was then took place at irregular times, and was not accompanied by any special ceremonies. Preach- ing was not a regular and constitutional part of divine cultus. This conception still exercised its 188 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP influence upon the Reformers. Though the office of preaching was the chief instrument in the work of the Reformation, yet the Reformers found it difficult at first to give it its right setting in the general cultus of the Church. The idea of the liturgy was still associated mainly with the communion service, and the office of preaching stood out by itself without any support from the liturgy. Of course this relation could not long continue. The communion service, with its comparative wealth of ceremony, occurred only seldom, while the office of preaching, with its liturgical baldness and poverty, was performed not only on every Sunday, but often also on week days. Accordingly, the subsequent development of the Reformed liturgies in Switzerland pertained espe- cially to the ordinary service of the sermon. This needed to be enriched and made more popular. The idea of the communion service as being essentially an action of the whole congregation, needed to be extended also to the preaching service. This end was accomplished to some extent by the introduction of additional forms of common prayer, and espe- cially by the introduction of congregational singing. The office of congregational singing did not exist in the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages. This office had to be created by the Reformation; and this was a work that could only be accomplished gradually. But it was the larger extension of this office in the preaching service, and the introduction of additional forms of prayer in which the people LITURGIES OF THE REFORMED CHURCHES 189 could take part, that distinguishes the later liturgies of the Zwinglian type from that which was originally established at Zurich. The Zwinglian type, how- ever, has maintained itself in the various liturgies or agendas of the Swiss churches down to the pres- ent day. Zwingli's spirit still lives in the Swiss churches. The liturgies of the Calvinistic churches have their type in Calvin's "Forms of Common Prayer," pub- lished in 1545, as an appendix to the Geneva Cate- chism, and afterwards used in the churches of Geneva. "Calvin," says Henry, his biographer, " regarded it as most important, for the safety of the Church, to establish a durable order through uni- formity in liturgical rites, and thereby to oppose effectually the wilfulness of individuals. But even here he would suffer nothing which was not in strict conformity with the Scriptures. He in all things exhibited the purest antagonism to Eome; and as the papists made the central point of their religious service the Mass, a miracle invented by men, so Cal- vin employed the exposition of the Bible as the middle point of the devotions of his Church " (Henry's "Life of Calvin," vol. i. p. 410). It is, then, not Calvinistic, in the sense of Calvin himself at least, to reject all fixed forms of prayer as popish fetters of devotion. This Calvin did not do, and would most likely not approve in his followers. But Calvin was the most radical of the Reformers in all things relating to cultus. At least such is the usual 190 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP judgment of history. While Zwingli, according to Ebrard, may be said to have removed too little of the old order of worship to gain room for things new, Calvin, on the other hand, found everything that was old cleared out of the way, and the ground pre- pared for an entirely new liturgical creation. Farel, who had preceded Calvin at Geneva, had abolished the whole order of the Catholic Church, and in cultus had left nothing remaining but the sermon, which stood out in entire isolation and nakedness. Here, then, there was room for the architectonic skill of the great Reformer; and the result shows that his skill was indeed of a superior order. It should be observed, however, that Calvin's work was after all not a creation out of nothing. Calvin was evidently familiar with liturgical history. He was acquainted with the forms of worship in primitive times. And his soul was saturated with the spirit of worship which prevailed in the best ages of the Church, — a qualification without which no one will ever be able to produce a liturgy that shall be worthy of the name. He may have been somewhat too coldly intellectual in temper to produce an ideal liturgy ; but he was at least not ignorant of liturgical practices, and was willing, moreover, to retain in use the best elements of the old order, such as the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' Creed, and so forth. Calvin's originality in the treatment of the order of worship, however, is shown in the very beginning of his common service for the Lord's day. This LITURGIES OF TEE REFORMED CHURCHES 191 service begins, as in the primitive Church, with the reading by an assistant of selections of Scripture from the Old and New Testaments, together with the Ten Commandments. After this the minister, having taken his place in the pulpit, begins with an invo- cation. Then he addresses to the congregation an exhortation to the confession of sin, and invites them to follow him in their hearts while he makes use of a form of confession, which has become the type of confessional prayer in a number of later liturgies. Such a beginning with confession of sin, however appropriate in itself, is something new in the history of worship. No ancient liturgy begins in this way — not even the Sarum Missal. And yet it is the way in which the service begins in the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England. But this is only one of the many traces of Calvinistic influence in that wonderful work. After the con- fession of sin, in Calvin's Order, a psalm is to be sung by the whole congregation. A psalm is pre- scribed, not because Calvin had any objection to suitable hymns of extra-Scriptural origin, but be- cause there were then no suitable hymns in the French language. Luther was a poet of no small power, and exercised his talent in the composition of hymns fit to be sung in the German churches. But poets are born, not made; and Calvin was not only himself not born with much poetical talent, but neither had he a man at his side who was thus endowed. The best, therefore, that he could do was 192 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP to employ the talents of Marot and Baza in turning the Psalms into metrical French, so that tliey could be sung by the congregations until something better could be offered them. After the singing of the psalm the minister again leads in a prayer for the illumination of the Holy Spirit, to the end that the word of God may be rightly expounded and rightly received ; which ends with the Lord's Prayer. After this comes the sermon ; and after the sermon follows a general prayer of intercession, for rulers, for pastors, for all conditions of men, for afflicted persons, for persecuted Christians, and finally for the congregation itself. This again concludes with the Lord's Prayer; and after the Lord's Prayer fol- lows the creed. The service ends with the Aaronic benediction, an exhortation to remember the poor, and the dismission. We have already seen that, according to the order adopted at Geneva, the Lord's Supper was celebrated four times a year, namely, at the three Christian festivals of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, and on some Sunday in autumn. A public announce- ment of the communion is to be made on the Sunday before its celebration, so that the people may have time for proper preparation. On the day of the communion it is directed that the sermon should have reference, either in whole or in part, to the signification and benefit of this mystery. After the sermon, in addition to the usual intercessory prayer and the succeeding Lord's Prayer, a special prayer LITURGIES OF THE REFORMED CHURCHES 193 is offered, asking God for the grace required for the right and worthy celebration of the sacrament. This is followed by the Apostles' Creed. After the creed comes a lengthy exhortation to the communi- cants, in which they are further instructed in regard to the nature and meaning of the sacrament, and in regard to the necessary qualification for its salutary reception. After a general sentence of excommuni- cation pronounced against all idolaters, blasphemers, despisers of God, heretics, sectarians, and similarly impious persons, the objective character of the sacra- ment is explained. It is declared to be as a medi- cine for those who are spiritually sick; and in order to the due reception of its benefit, there is nothing required on the part of the communicants but a lively consciousness of their sinfulness and misery. The benefit of the sacrament, however, is not connected with the elements of bread and wine. These are only witnesses and signs. The communicants are exhorted to lift up their minds and hearts on high, where Jesus Christ abides in the glory of His Father, that from thence they may obtain food and life from the substance of Christ's glorified being. This is doubtless all very correct in a dogmatic point of view. It is a clear repudiation of the theories of transub- stantiation and consubstantiation, and a distinct afiirmation of the doctrine of a spiritual real presence of Christ in the sacrament. The only question is whether this is the right place for such instruction. Does not this rather belong to the sermon? The 13 194 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP Sursum Corda of the older liturgies, of which we are reminded by some of the expressions used in this address, is after all something quite different. That is a spiritual and devotional action ; this is only an act of intellectual reflection which, in the light of correct liturgical principles, could hardly be said to be appropriate just before the most solemn part of the whole sacramental transaction, namely, the participation of the communion itself. The distribu- tion of the communion takes place at a long table, which stands in the central aisle or nave of the church, and along which the communicants are ranged. At the conclusion of the address just re- ferred to, the minister takes his place at the head of the table ; and taking up the bread before him, and repeating the words of institution, he breaks off pieces and hands them to the elders on his right and left ; these then take up the bread and pass it along the table, each communicant with his own hand breaking off a small portion, and reverently eating it. In like manner the cup is passed along from one communicant to another. While the communion thus proceeds, a psalm may be sung, or a portion of Scripture read. After all have communed, there is offered a prayer of thanksgiving, the Nunc Dimittia is sung, and the congregation is dismissed with the apostolic benediction. Besides the forms now mentioned, Calvin's liturgy contains offices for the administration of baptism, the solemnization of marriage, and the visitation of LITURGIES OF TEE REFORMED CBURCHES 195 the sick, as well as prayers for morning and evening devotion, prayers lor use before and after meals, and prayers for times of public calamity. Of these no particular account can here be given. These litur- gical forms of Calvin became the type of the various orders of worship in the Reformed churches of France, Holland, Scotland, and parts of Germany. "The Book of Common Order" of the Church of Scotland was first framed, in 1554, by John Knox, for the English congregation at Frankfort. In 1556, it was adopted by the English congregation at Geneva with the approbation of Calvin. Upon the return of Knox to Scotland, his Order of Worship was adopted there by the General Assembly in 1560, as the estab- lished order of worship. It continued to be used until it was displaced by the Directory of Worship of the Westminster Assembly, in 1645. The Com- mon Order was modelled closely after the Calvin- istic original, though in devotional unction and fervor it probably excelled it. In the Lord's day service we have first a confession of sin ; then the reading of Scripture by the minister, and the sing- ing of a psalm by the congregation. After this comes the sermon, and after the sermon a general prayer for the whole estate of Christ's Church, end- ing with the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' Creed. After the creed another psalm is sung, and the con- gregation is dismissed either with the Aaronic or the apostolic benediction. When the Lord's Supper is celebrated, which is directed to be done once a 196 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP montli, there comes, after the part of the service usually following the sermon, an address to the com- municants, instructing them in regard to the nature of the sacrament and of the necessity of a proper preparation of the heart for rightly receiving it. This is in a tone somewhat less didactic and more fervently devotional than that belonging to the same part of the service in the liturgy of Geneva. The address is followed by a prayer, which reminds one somewhat of the preface of the old Greek liturgies. It is a prayer of thanksgiving for God's goodness, as displayed in the works of creation and redemp- tion, and as it is witnessed especially in the institu- tion of the Lord's Supper for the benefit of unworthy sinners. After this follows the distribution of the elements in Calvinistic fashion. When all have communed, the 103d Psalm is sung, and the congre- gation is dismissed with the benediction. One of the best liturgies of the Reformed Church of France is that of Xeufchatel. It was formed and adopted in 1713, and belongs, therefore, not to the age of the Reformation. But it is important as indi- cating the direction of liturgical development in the land of Calvin himself in post-Reformation times. At the time of its formation there was a felt need of a larger number of spiritual hymns fit for use in divine service, and an effort was made to supply this need by the addition to the Psalms of a number of canticles, which may be chanted or read according to circumstances. What may be called the compar- LITURGIES OF THE REFORMED CHURCHES 197 ative baldness and poverty of Reformed worship is relieved by the introduction of additional responses and antiphonies, and by the rehabilitation of some of the best liturgical elements of past systems of worship. Tor instance, in the communion service, after the usual explanatory and hortatory address, which is peculiar to the Calvinistic order, we have the true Sursum Oorda : " Let us lift up our hearts on high, and give thanks unto the Lord our God." Then follows the refrain : " It is just and reasonable, and a very salutary duty, that we should at all times and in all places give thanks unto thee. Lord God, holy and eternal Father. " This is followed by the variable preface, according to the order of the Eoman Mass. That for Christmas day, for example, reads as follows: "Through Jesus Christ, Thine only Son, our Lord, who at this time was born for us, and who by the operation of the Holy Spirit was made very man, of the substance of the blessed Virgin, His mother, and without any spot of sin, to the end that He might cleanse us from all iniquity. " After this comes the Tersanetus, as follows : " There- fore with angels, with archangels, and with all the hosts of heaven, we magnify Thy glorious name, singing to Thy glory, and saying. Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts, the heavens and the earth are full of Thy glory, God, Most High." Hereupon fol- lows a prayer for the peace of the world, the salva- tion of all nations, the protection of the whole Church, the unity and peace of Christians, and 198 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP finally for the grace required in order to the worthy reception of the communion. This is followed by the Lord's Prayer, and by another prayer for forgive- ness of sin, which is but an expansion of the old Kyrie Uleison. Hereupon follows the consecration of the elements in the use of the words of institution. After the communion we have, in the following order, the Ifune Dimittis, the Gloria in Uxcelsis, an exhorta- tion to Christian fidelity, and the benediction. The last family of Eeformed liturgies are the German. They exhibit evidences of Lutheran, or rather Melanchthonian, as well as Calvinistic influ- ences. The most noteworthy of these are the Hes- sian, first published in 1539, and afterwards often revised; the Palatinate, published in 1563; and the Netherland, or Dutch, published in 1566. It is only of the second of these that we propose here to give a more particular account. It was prepared for the use of the churches of the Palatinate, by order of the Elector, Frederick III., in 1563. Its authors were Zacharias Ursinus, a pupil of Melanchthon, Caspar Olevianns, who studied theology imder Calvin at Geneva, and Emanuel Tremellius, a disciple of Peter Martyr, and at one time professor at Cam- bridge, England. Thus German, French, and Swiss tendencies are happily and harmoniously combined in the construction of this liturgical book. Its basis was a liturgy prepared by John A. Lasco, for the use of the Dutch and Walloon churches in Lon- don, which had itself been based upon an order of LITURGIES OF TEE REFORMED CHURCHES 199 worship prepared by Polanus for the foreign Reformed churches of Strassburg. The latter was made the basis also for the liturgy of the Netherlands. The Palatinate liturgy attests its Reformed char- acter by the distinction which it makes between the communion service and the regular preaching service on the Lord's day, and by the importance which it attaches to the sermon as the principal element in Christian cultus. It contains explicit instructions concerning the preparation of sermons, the source from which their material is to be drawn, and the end which they should have in view. Besides offices for the regular service on Sunday, the Palatinate liturgy contains forms for week day services, which are to be held wherever possible on Wednesday and Friday, and special forms for the Christian festivals, and for days of humiliation and days of thanksgiving. The remaining offices are those for the administra- tion of baptism and the Lord's Supper, for confirma- tion, or the admission of youths to the Lord's Supper, by prayer and the laying on of hands, for the sol- emnization of marriage, for the administration of discipline, for the visitation of the sick and of pris- oners, and for the burial of the dead. Special offices are provided for the administration of baptism to Anabaptists and Jews. The service on Sunday morning, in cities, towns, and villages, is to begin at eight o'clock, in country places somewhat later. The service opens with a votum : " Grace, mercy, and peace, " etc. This is 200 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP followed by a prayer, consisting of confession of sin and of penitence, and of petitions for mercy, for sanctification, and for saving knowledge of God's word, concluding with the Lord's Prayer. Here fol- lows the sermon, which, according to the rubric, is not to exceed one hour in length. After the sermon comes an exhortation to the confession of sin, and then a confessional prayer, in which both minister and people audibly unite. This is succeeded by the absolution, or the declaration of pardon to the peni- tent, and the announcement of the retention of sin to the impenitent. Here again follows the Lord's Prayer; and after this the general morning prayer, containing thanksgiving for bodily and spiritual blessings and petitions for the continuation of the same, — petitions for all in authority, for the preser- vation of the fruits of the earth and the peace of the world, for the prosperity of all men, for the relief of those who are suffering persecution, for the comfort of the poor and of all who are in tribulation and distress. For this prayer, however, others are sub- stituted on special occasions, such as the Christian festivals, for which the liturgy provides suitable forms. The general prayer always ends with the Lord's Prayer, which thus occurs three times in the same service. After the prayer, a short psalm is to be sung, and the congregation dismissed with the Aaronic benediction. On Sunday afternoon it is ordered that, wherever possible, services are to be held in which a lecture on LITURGIES OF THE REFORMED CHURCHES 201 the Catechism, adapted to the comprehension of the young, is to be the principal feature, but which is to be opened and closed with singing and prayer, forms being provided for this purpose in the liturgy. This liturgy, it should be observed, has no room for extemporaneous prayer in public worship. It fur- nishes forms for all conceivable occasions, and the rubrics are mandatory in regard to the use of them. In the order of succession of the various offices in this, as in other Reformed liturgies, the office of baptism comes immediately after that of the preach- ing service, and before that of the Lord's Supper. This implies that the Lord's Supper is regarded, not as an essential element of all Christian cultus, but as an occasional means of grace and help to piety, the use of which may be deferred to more or less distant intervals according to convenience. It is, however, regarded as an exceedingly solemn trans- action, requiring very special preparation for its due and proper observance. The rubric provides that in cities the Supper is to be celebrated every two months, and in towns and villages four times a year, — namely, at Christmas, Easter, Whitsunday, and on the first Sunday in September. On Saturday preced- ing the communion, a special preparatory service is to be held, when all the members of the church who intend to commune are to be present, and when also the catechumens are to be examined and confirmed. The service on this occasion consists in the usual opening prayer, a sermon dwelling upon the natiife 202 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP and effect of Christ's sufEering, and upon the mean- ing and design of the Supper, and in a series of ques- tions and answers, in which the congregation con- fesses the sense of its need and misery, its faith in Christ as the only Mediator and Saviour, and its purpose to forsake sin, and to live in newness of life. The service concludes with the Lord's Prayer and benediction. After the dismission an opportunity is given to any members of the church to speak to the minister or other officer in regard to matters pertain- ing to salvation, about which their minds may be disturbed. On Sunday, when the communion is celebrated, the service proceeds as usual until after the general prayer. Then the minister takes his place at the table, and reads a very long address to the communi- cants, in which the history of the institution of the Supper is rehearsed in the words of Saint Paul, the self-examination required in order to its salutary reception explained, the forgiveness of sins announced to the penitent, the impenitent and unbelieving warned not to approach the Lord's table, and the nature and design of the Supper set forth. After the address follows the prayer of consecration, in which the Holy Spirit is invoked to the end that, in consequence of this sacramental transaction, the com- municants may be more fully united to Christ their Head. This is followed by the Lord's Prayer and the creed. After the creed comes another address based upon the old idea of the Sursum Oorda, in LITURGIES OF THE REFORMED CHURCHES 203 which the communicants are exhorted not to let their hearts cleave to the external elements of bread and wine, but to lift them up into heaven, where Christ is in the glory of the Father, that they may be united with Him by the operation of the Holy Spirit. The administration of the communion takes place at the table conveniently placed within the choir of the church, which the members successively approach in order to receive the sacred emblems from the hands of the minister. During the administration of the Supper, suitable Psalms may be sung by the congregation, or appropriate Scripture lessons read. After all have communed, the 103d Psalm may be recited, or a short prayer of thanksgiving offered, after which the congregation is dismissed with the Aaronic benediction. This Palatinate liturgy may be regarded as the type of a number of German Eeformed Agendas, of which it would be impossible here to give any account. They would be found to differ more or less from each other, and to present evidences of development of the liturgical principle in various directions, but they would all be true to their original type. We have said nothing of the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England, not because we do not regard the English Church as a Reformed Church, which originally stood in friendly and fraternal relations with the Reformed churches of the continent, exchanging with them both pulpits and ministers, nor because we do not recognize in it 204 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP Reformed elements ; but, first, because it is too well known to need description, and, secondly, because it forms the subject of a separate lecture in this course. We deem it, however, not out of place to mention in this connection the Order of Worship for the re- formed church in the United States, published in 1866. It is a Reformed liturgy resembling in general conception the older liturgies of the German Calvin- istic type, but having features in common also with the old Oriental and Roman liturgies. The com- munion service, for example, while thoroughly true to the Reformed or Calvinistic doctrine of the sacra- ment, has elements in common with the early Greek liturgies, especially the Clementine of the Apostolic Constitutions. Among these are the Pax Vbbiseum, the Sursum Corda, the invariable preface, and the invocation of the Holy Spirit upon the elements of bread and wine in the prayer of consecration. The old responses and antiphonies, the old chants and creeds, the litany, the pericopes, and collects have been restored. The effort has been made to produce a book of worship that should stand in vital con- tinuity with the past, and yet be adapted to the reli- gious wants of the present. As to the success or failure of the effort, it may still be too early to pro- nounce judgment. The Reformed churches have in their liturgical treasures a rich inheritance, for which they have reason to be thankful, and which they cannot suffer always to remain unused. But what use shall be LITURGIES OF TEE REFORMED CHURCHES 205 made of it? The old liturgies cannot be brought back into the worship of the churches of the present day, in the form in which they were once used. That the old liturgical idea, the idea of a common service in which all the people shall participate, will assert itself again in the churches, we are fully persuaded. There are many tendencies at the present time which point in that direction. The worship of the future will be liturgical. But this does not mean that the Reformation liturgies, in their original form, will again be introduced. There was a reason doubtless for their going out of use in the past ; and that same reason will operate against their reintroduction now. Had they fully satisfied the spirit of derotion in the times succeeding the age of the Reformation, they would have continued to direct that devotion. The continued use of the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England is a fact that should be instruc- tive to other reformed churches. But no work of the past can be true and valuable for all time with- out undergoing a continual process of transformation and readaptation. The Reformers thought — at least some of them did — that they were bringing back the precise pattern of worship which prevailed in the Apostolic Church. Had they done so, their work would not have suited the age in which they lived, and for which they labored. No one age can be a law for all other ages, either in doctrine or worship. The doctrinal confessions of the Reformation have, indeed, maintained themselves much longer than did 206 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP the books of worship. But they are now generally beginning to be felt to be inadequate to the demands of Christian faith, and the cry for revision has gone up, which will continue to resound until it shall be satisfied. But while the past cannot be repristinated, either in doctrine or worship, neither can the present with impunity sever its connection with the past. Con- tinuity in the midst of change is the law of history ; and only those productions can be truly valuable to the life of the present which stand in organic con- nection with the life of the past. Our prevailing unliturgical practices, for instance, are not a devel- opment out of the liturgical practices which were once universal; they imply an absolute break with all past principles of public worship. Is not that a reason, perhaps, why the masses among us do no longer attend church? Would, then, the creation of new liturgies, wholly different from anything that has ever been known in the past, meet the wants of the time any better ? We think not. Apart from the fact that the man would have to be more than human who should be able to accomplish such a work, it would be a useless work after being accomplished. As the life of the Church at the present moment grows out of the life of the past, so the order of worship that shall satisfy the feelings of devotion now must be the outgrowth of the order of worship in all past ages. Perhaps the Reformers erred in not sufficiently observing this principle. Did they not in some LITURGIES OF THE REFORMED CHURCHES 207 respects deal too violently with the productions of history, and destroy where they should only have purified and renovated? Did not their hatred of the abuses of the old order and an extreme application of their principle of Scripture, sometimes betray them into violence? Take, for example, their manner of dealing with the Church year. It would not, as is sometimes maintained, be correct to say that they destroyed it, for in principle they accepted it, by accepting the great Christian festivals; but they mutilated it by cutting out those parts which are necessary to connect the festivals into an organic whole of sacred time. Historically they were justi- fied in doing this by the abuse of the sacred year in the Catholic Church, which contained so many holy days that honest people had no longer working days enough to earn their bread. But surely that justifi- cation exists no longer now. And the arrangement of the Reformers could not long maintain itself. Either the whole idea of the Church year must be given up, as has happened in some sections of the Reformed Church, or the whole circle must be restored, as has been done in other sections, and is proposed in our own Order of Worship. Again, some of the Reformers at first dealt violently with the altar ; for which there was good reason at the time, in the fact that the altar had been made the recep- tacle for the relics of the saints, many of them spuri- ous, with which much superstitious practice was connected. But Christian worship involves a sacri- 208 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP ficial and priestly element, — a God-ward action on the part of the congregation, — and this demands for its full expression the symbol of the altar, just as the prophetic or teaching function of the Church demands the pulpit ; and consequently in large sec- tions of the Reformed Church the altar has long since been restored to its place. Finally, the Re- formers were generally opposed to the employment of art in worship, because in the old order art had been prostituted to what they believed to be idola- trous practices. But art has its place in worship, and has, therefore, gradually come back into the service of the Church, as we see in the modern styles of church architecture, and in the use of organs, hymns, and music. These changes are evidences of the manner in which the primitive Reformed orders of worship have been developed in modern time. And it must be by still further development and change, making old things new and taking up new things into harmonious union with the old, that the old orders shall again become adapted to the existing wants of worship. The Reformation did not end all liturgical progress, any more than it ended all prog- ress in theology; only the progress that shall be legitimate must be in harmony with the order of the Reformation, as well as with all that was true and good in the old order that went before ; and it must produce a work in which all one-sidedness and con- tradiction shall be overcome, and every element of devotion find its due expression. LITURGIES OF THE REFORMED CHURCHES 209 It is a question, for example, whether the Refor- mation has rightly settled the relation between the sermon and the Eucharist in the constitution of Christian cultus, and whether the ideal liturgy of the future will not need some modification at this point. Is the sermon really the central and essen- tial element of cultus, and is the Eucharist properly appreciated when it is regarded merely as an occa- sional appendix to the service of preaching? As over against the practice of the Catholic Church in the time of the Reformation, there is doubtless a degree of justification for the Reformed view. The Catholic practice had made the sacrifice of the Mass central, and had crowded the sermon out of the regu- lar order of worship altogether. The evil conse- quences of this neglect of the teaching function of the Church were very apparent in the time of the Reformation, and the Reformers had good reason for emphasizing the oflSce of preaching. But is this emphasizing of the sermon at the expense of the Eucharist with its accompanying services, which may have been right and proper at the time of the Refor- mation, right and proper now? Is this the ideal of Christian cultus? It is a contradiction of the order of worship of the primitive Church as far back as we know anything of it. Is it in harmony with the fun- damental idea of Christian worship? Is not this theory responsible for the prevailingly intellectual and pedagogic character of our church services, which, while they may satisfy the intellect, fail to satisfy the heart? People now "go to preaching," 14 210 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP instead of going to church or to divine service ; and if the preaching is no longer to their liking, or if it fails to satisfy their intellectual temper, they cease going altogether. Is not this another reason why the Church is losing her hold upon the modern mind? Is there not needed a readjustment of the order of our church services in such way that they shall engage the interest of the heart as well as that of the head? In our opinion, at least, this is one of the pressing needs of the age. The relation of sermon and Eucharist, or the relation of sermon and liturgy, must be readjusted. Neither one may overshadow the other. Neither one may be central in the con- stitution of cultus. They may be related as opposite poles of the same reality, the one always balancing and supporting the othei-. Not that the Eucharist needs to be celebrated at every service, but that the central idea of the Eucharist, namely, the idea of collective as well as personal communion with Christ in the Spirit, should be the pervading idea of every service. In this sense the liturgies of the Reforma- tion may need modification in order to adapt them to our time. Our age needs more of worship. The heart needs to be engaged and satisfied as well as the head. And to this end the old liturgical idea and habit need to be brought back to the churches ; but it must be the Reformation idea and the Reformation habit enriched and modified by the best liturgical productions of pre-Reformation times, as well as by the liturgical achievements which have been accom- plished since the period of the Reformation. VII THE BOOK OF COMMON PKAYER By the Rev. WILLIAM R. HUNTINGTON, D.D. Rector of Grace Church, New York City THE STORY, THE CHARACTERISTICS, AND THE POSSIBILITIES OP THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER IT was Mr. Galton, I believe, who first suggested the ingenious process known as composite photog- raphy. Wishing to secure a picture which should represent a class or family rather than any single individual member of such family or class, he hit upon the device of superimposing one negative upon another, until the features of the successive sitters became finally blended in a face that was the like- ness of no one of them in particular, but, so to say, of all of them in general. Only by some such method as this will it be pos- sible for us to make a satisfactory study of the Book of Common Prayer, since, in truth, there are many Books of Common Prayer, each one of which has full right and fair title to be called by that name. There is the First Book of King Edward the Sixth, the editio princeps, the fount and prototype of all the Prayer Books that have succeeded it. That dates from 1549. Then there is Edward's Second Book, — the revision of 1552. Following upon this comes 214 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP Elizabeth's Book, then James's. Later still, we have the revised Common Prayer of the Stuart Restora- tion, and " in the course of human events " the Amer- ican Book, in its first revision of 1789 and in its latest standard form of 1892. There are still other vari- ants, — as, for example, the Scottish Book, which Laud and Charles endeavored unsuccessfully to force upon the people of the northern kingdom, just before the breaking out of the great rebellion which cost both of them their heads. There is also the Irish Book, the product of the Disestablishment Act of 1870. It would be unfair to take any one of these various readings and to treat it as if it were the alone true and authentic text. The just method would seem to be to approach the subject, first of all, historically : to follow the romantic fortunes of the book from its beginnings until now ; and then, but not until then, to attempt the composite photography which is to give us the means of discriminating between tran- sient phase and settled type, accident and essence, ear-mark and birth-mark. The English Book of Common Prayer came into being as a distinct entity in the year of our Lord 1549. On the Whitsunday of that year it was born ; but to discover the genesis of the book's pre-natal life we should have to go much farther back. It used to be the fashion to say that the Prayer Book was " compiled " by the English Reformers, with the assistance of learned friends brought over from the Continent ; but stating the case in that way meant THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER 216 putting a strain upon the words "compile" and " compilation." The Common Prayer was, and is, not so much a compilation as a product of growth, — interrupted growth, no doubt, dislocated growth, if you prefer to call it that, — but still growth, pure and simple. The English reformers were not as men who get together around a table, saying, " Go to, let us construct a liturgy suited to present-day needs." On the con- trary, what they did was this : they took the devo- tional system to which they and their countrymen had been accustomed from their childhood, and hav- ing purged it of what were believed to be superstitious accretions, they sent it forth to do a better work than it had ever done before. Not even for the name upon the titlepage can absolute originality be claimed ; for King Edward's first Act of Uniformity begins with the declaration that " Of long time there has been had in this realm of England and in Wales divers forms of common prayer, commonly called the Service of the Church." It was apparently, therefore, no new thing for the Service of the Church, as those people already had it, to be called " Common Prayer." What the reformers aimed to do was to make the public prayers really, instead of only nominally, " common " by translating them from aristocratic Latin into homely English, and thus giving to the people their due portion of a worship which had by default lapsed almost wholly to the priests. We have first, therefore, to inquire what this " Ser- 216 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP vice of the Church " was which Edward's ecclesiastics undertook, midway in the sixteenth centuiy, to re- mould and refashion into better form. The service-books in use in the mediaeval Catholic Church, although many in number, were all of them reducible to one or other of three sorts, — the Missal, or Mass-book ; the Breviary, or Book of Hours ; and the Ceremonial, or Book of Rites. No single embodi- ment of any one of these types enjoyed universal acceptance. Different countries, yes, even different dioceses, had their own proper missals. There were also breviaries and breviaries ; but the variations were of a non-essen- tial kind, the type stood. The Missal was the Office of the Holy Communion, — the Liturgy, strictly and properly so called. The Breviary was a collection of carefully chosen psalms, hymns, and prayers, assigned to the canonical hours of every day in the year. The Ceremonial was a compendium of forms suitable for such occasions as Holy Matrimony, the Burial of the Dead, Exorcisms, Confessions, and the like. A dis- tinction was made, to be sure, between such rites and ceremonies as came within the province of the parish priest and those that only a bishop could lawfully perform ; and so there was a special book, known as the Pontifical; but, not to burden the memory un- necessarily, it suffices to say that the Missal, the Bre- viary, and the Ceremonial were the standard books, — the great devotional manuals of the Church. Were we disposed to go into the philosophy of the THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER 217 matter, we might find here the grounds for a very interesting study in evolution. The proposition is a defensible one that these three sorts of service- books correspond to ritual uses even more ancient than the Christian Church itself, — uses, in fact, which may be traced back to synagogue and temple. The central feature of the Hebrew worship was sacrifice, an action which had, as we know, its carefully pre- scribed method or ritual. We find the antitype to this in the commemoration of the sacrifice of the Son of God upon the Cross, the eucharistic expression of which is the service of the Holy Communion, known in mediaeval times and among Roman Catholics to this day as the Mass. But besides its sacrificial system the Jewish Church had also its scheme of daily psalmody and prayer. Peter and John, for instance, went up together into the temple at " the hour of prayer " ; and it is evident, from the many musical rubrics of the Book of Psalms, that sacred song played no small part in the temple worship. The Psalter, with its ordered sequences and responsals, was practically the Hebrew's breviary. But besides their acts of sacrifice and their ofiices of daily prayer and praise, the Jews had other religious usages that called for liturgical accompaniment ; and these we naturally classify under the distinct head of rites and ceremonies, — such would have been, for instance, the official cleansing of the leper by pro- nouncement of the priest, the receiving of children into the fellowship of the congregation, and the like. 218 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP Of course, it is easy to say that all this was only part and parcel of the semi-pagan sacerdotalism which Christ came to sweep away and to replace. That is a question by itself, — a very grave question, no doubt, but not the question with which we are busy just at this moment. At present I am only seeking rationally to accouht for the existence in the Christian Church of the particular sorts of service-books which, in point of fact, were everywhere in use among the faithful before the Pl'otestant Reformation, and to account for it with due deference to that principle of continuity which is to-day as much the watchword of histoi'ical, as it has long been of geological and biological inves- tigation. But, be this as it may, the fact remains that by the middle of the sixteenth century the mul- tiplicity of the service-books had become, in the eye at least of the northern portion of European Christen- dom, an intolerable nuisance. It should be remembered that in what I have been saying as to Missal, Breviary, and Ceremonial, I have been speaking of genera rather than of species. Had these three books existed only as three vol- umes, the mental hardship of familiarizing himself with their contents would have been no greater for the medieval Christian than was involved in that mastering of Holy Scripture which the Reformers demanded of him if he inclined to become a Protes- tant. In reality, however, the mingle-mangle of the service-books was much more perplexing than our classification would suggest ; and it was only trained THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER 219 ecclesiastics who could so much as pretend to under- stand the ins and outs of public worship. But this was not the only grievance, nor was it the most serious. The era of the inyention of printing was the last of all times when we should have ex- pected impatience at the number of service-books in use to become the provoking cause of a liturgical revolt. The real trouble lay deeper. The intelli- gence of the age had awakened to discern the child- ishness and senselessness of much that the old formularies of worship contained, and there was a prevalent demand that the winnowing-fan be set in motion, the melting-pot made ready. The men to whom new worlds were opening, both overhead and over seas, could not be put off much longer with old wives' fables read to them from the lives of the saints. The times were waking up. Cervantes was born. Presently his gentle knight, the representative of a belated mediaevalism, would be laughed off the stage of secular affairs ; why should not the equally superannuated priest Mumpsimus Bumpsimus be ex- pelled the sanctuary as well ? A cry for veritable fact was on the air. Men were clamoring for the pure word of God, and their demand was that it should be given them in the vernacular. All this the scholars who adventured the remodelling of the devotional system of the Church of England well and clearly perceived and knew. Present-day Anglicans are, many of them, very mealy-mouthed indeed when it comes to any criticism 220 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP of old-time methods in religion ; but the broad-minded ecclesiastics who took up liturgical revision in the year of our Lord 1549 were of a more robust temper. The fact that a lie was masquerading in venerable raiment gave it no sanctity in their eyes ; and what- ever in the old usages seemed to them " superstitions " they did not scruple to brand with that offensive name. If you have an appetite for racy English, look up, some day when opportunity serves, the First Prayer Book of Edward VI., and read the Preface. You will find there the frankest possible statement of the bur- dens under which English Christians in that day must needs stagger if they would arise and go unto their Father and say unto Him anything. Take a few sen- tences, picked out here and there, for a sample of their style : " Whereas St. Paul would have such lan- guage spoken to the people in the Church as they might understand and have profit by hearing the same, the service in this Church of England, (these many years) hath been read in Latin to the people, which they understood not, so that they have heard with their ears only, and their hearts, spirit and mind have not been edified thereby. . . . Moreover . . . the manifold manglings of the service was the cause that to turn the book only was so hard and intricate a matter, that, many times, there was more business to find out what should be read than to read it when it was found out." " These inconveniences, therefore, considered," they go on to say, " here is set forth such an order whereby TEE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER 221 the same shall be redressed; . . . because here are left out many things, whereof some be untrue, some uncertain, some vain and superstitious." "Furthermore, by this Order," and here the na- tional instinct of thrift betrays itself, " the curates shall need none other for their public service but this book and the Bible, by the means whereof the peo- ple shall not be at so great charge for books as in times past they have been. And where, heretofore, there hath been great diversity in saying and sing- ing in Churches within this realm, some following Salisbury use, some Hereford use, some the use of Bangor, some of York and some of Lincoln, now, from henceforth, all the whole realm shall have but one use." With such honest, sane, and pithy sentences as these was the Book of Common Prayer launched upon its eventful voyage. But the ship, to continue our nau- tical figure, was scarcely out of port before she found herself temporarily grounded upon a bar. The more advanced among the English reformers were not entirely satisfied with the Book as it stood, and presently they began to agitate for revision. Their movement was successful; and after three short years of use Edward's First Book gave place to his second; otherwise known as tlie Book of 1552. This second Book was even shorter-lived than the first,* for it had scarcely been set forth and made obligatory before Mary came to the throne, and at a stroke overthrew, for the moment, the whole Refor- 222 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP mation fabric. But the labor expended upon the second Book was by no means wasted ; for Eliza- beth's divines chose to make it, rather than the first Book, the basis of their recension, and thus what had seemed abortive turned out fruitful. Almost, if not quite, all of the changes made in the second Book, differencing it from the first, had been in what may fairly enough be called the Protestant direction. Prayers for the dead were omitted ; certain vestments were disallowed ; the prefatory poi"tions of the Morn- ing and Evening Prayer were amplified ; the word " Table " was substituted for " Altar," the public reading of the Decalogue was enjoined, and various transpositions were effected in the Office of the Holy Communion. There were other alterations, but these that I have mentioned were among the more signifi- cant. Slight as they may look from one point of view, from another they may be said to have influenced the whole course of English Christianity from those days to these. Elizabeth's Prayer Book has been twice revised, — once under King James after the Hampton Court Conference, and again under Charles the Second after the Savoy Conference ; but neither of the Stuart monarchs in his day laid so strong a hand upon the text as the Tudor queen had done in hers. Substantially, the Prayer Book of the Church of Eng- land to-day is what the age of Raleigh, of Bacon, and of Shakspeare made it. Conceivably some Victorian pen might have ministered to the devotional needs of the modern English more effectively than the Eliza- THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER 223 bethan has made out to do, but most lovers of their mother tongue will doubt it. Time presses ; but I cannot forbear detaining you a moment for a look at the two Conferences just men- tioned, seeing that they count among the more note- worthy of the lost opportunities of history. A little way out of London stands the charming old palace of Hampton Court, a house of many more than seven gables, and compassed about with a per- fect paradise of trees and shrubs. Hither, at the invitation of King James, shortly after his accession, came divers Puritan divines, the representatives of more than a thousand petitioners, " groaning," as they declared, "under a common burden of human rites and ceremonies." This common burden was none other than the Common Prayer. His Majesty set over against these champions of reform a brave array of ecclesiastics, — to wit, one archbishop, eight bishops, seven deans, and two doctors of divinity ; but with characteristic Scottish shrewdness the British Solomon was careful to retain the chair for himself. The Puritans made their complaints, the Anglicans their rejoinders, the King his caustic observations, — in fact, to use his own rather piquant language, he " peppered the Puritans soundly," but nothing, or next to nothing, came of it. Yes, something came of it ; something always does come of futile negotiations for peace. The grievance rankled, and when next the Puritans set their hand to the revision of the Common Prayer, it was not in kings' houses that 224 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP they gathered, but on the field, their pen a trooper's sword. Just one and forty years after the fiasco at Hampton Court, an ordinance passed both houses of Parliament whereby it was enacted that any persons found using the Book of Common Prayer, either publicly or in their families, were to forfeit five pounds for the first offence, ten pounds for the second, and a year's imprisonment without bail for the third. Clearly the pepper-pot had changed hands. But England wearied of the Directory, even as it had wearied of the Common Prayer ; and presently we find ourselves lookers-on at a fresh Conference. Again, ominously enough, the council chamber is a palace, — the palace of the Savoy in the Strand. It is the year 1661. The Stuarts are once more in the saddle ; and with the fond hope that the King is at last in some measure favorable to their views, the Presbyterians have come to meet the Episcopalians, ostensibly for peace. This time the two sides are more fairly matched in point of numbers than they were at Hampton Court ; for each delegation counts twelve principals and nine assistants. But again, alas ! the thing turns out a flash in the pan. Richard Baxter, saint and scholar though he is, makes the unaccountable blunder of proposing to substitute a liturgy of his own impromptu manufacture for the already venerable Book of Common Prayer ; the bishops show themselves imperious, not to say re- vengeful, certainly anything but "easy to be en- treated," and the Conference perishes in collapse. THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER 225 A large number of unimportant changes were made by Convocation in the text of the Prayer Book while the Conference was still in session, but few, if any, of them were in the direction of the Presbyterians' desires. Twenty-eight more years passed, and yet another attempt was made to promote a better liturgical understanding. It was in the reign, this time, of William and Mary; and again there was good hope felt in some quarters that Englishmen might come to at least an approximate agreement in the matter of their prayers. But, no, " this great and good work," to quote the language of the Preface to the American Prayer Book, " miscarried," and all things continued as they had been from the beginning of the Eestora- tion. Yes, all things thus continued, so far as Eng- land was concerned ; but see what happened next, for it is a most striking illustration of what we may call the reprisals of divine Providence. " The shot heard round the world " was fired at Lexington, the little group of thirteen Colonies that fringed the Atlantic coast fought its way to national- ity, and the long quarrel of the European powers over the partition of North America ended in the establishment of a great English-speaking Common- wealth. What did all this portend for the Book of Common Prayer ? It portended the reversal, in great measure, of the judgments pronounced at Hampton Court in 1604 and at the Savoy in 1661. Let us quote again from the Preface to the American Prayer Book, for it gives the whole story in a nut-shell : 15 226 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP " When in the course of Divine Providence, these American States became independent with respect to civil government, their ecclesiastical independence was necessarily included ; and the different religious denomi- nations of Christians in these States were left at full and equal liberty to model and organize their respective Churches and forms of worship and discipline in such manner as they might judge most convenient for their future prosperity, consistently with the laws and Con- stitution of their Country. "The attention of this Church was, in the first place, drawn to those alterations in the Liturgy which became necessary in the prayers for our civil rulers in conse- quence of the Revolution. And the principal care herein was to make them conformable to what ought to be the proper end of all such prayers, namely, that ' Knlers may have grace, wisdom and understanding, to exercise justice and to maintain truth ; ' and that the people ' may lead quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty.' But while these alterations were in review before the Conven- tion, they could not but, with gratitude to God, embrace the happy occasion which was offered to them (unin- fluenced and um-estrained by any worldly authority what- soever) to take a further review of the Public Service, and to establish such other alterations and amendments therein as might be deemed expedient." So far, the American revisers of 1789. Their words present a sober and modest estimate of what they had just been doing in convention assembled. It might look, from their own account of the matter, as if they had not accomplished very much in the THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER 227 line of improvement ; but if you will be at the trouble of laying an American Prayer Book open by the side of an English one, and will compare them page for page, you will find that almost all of the more serious liturgical grievances alleged at London in the seventeenth century were redressed at Philadelphia in the eighteenth. I say " serious grievances," for very many of the criticisms brought against the Prayer Book by the Puritan party at Hampton Court, and by the Presbyterians at the Savoy were of a sort which the ecclesiastical de- scendants of those who brought them would be, to-day, the first to declare frivolous and petty. "The thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns ; " and many things that loomed large before the eyes of Puritan and Churchman two hundred years ago look insignificant enough to you and me. As to the very latest of all the revisions of the Prayer Book, I mean the one made in this country and brought to a conclusion four years ago, any extended remark is uncalled-for. The changes effected were none of them of a doctrinal charac- ter, but were consented to on grounds of practical expediency, as likely to heighten the book's useful- ness under the present conditions of American life. Whether the authorities, in their anxiety "to keep the mean between the two extremes of too much stiffness in refusing and of too much easiness in 228 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP admitting any variation," erred most on the side of boldness or on the side of timidity, it must be left to the critics of a future generation to decide. Our swift review of the history of the Common Prayer concluded, I suggest that we pass next to a study of the book's characteristics, literary and theo- logical, beginning with the former of the two. And here let me say that I welcome the fact that I am addressing an audience not supposed to be particu- larly alive to the excellences of the Prayer Book, because it will help to safeguard me against that tendency to indiscriminate eulogy which so many An- glicans betray when once you start them on the sub- ject of their " incomparable liturgy." To hear some people talk, one would suppose that the doctrine of verbal inspiration, driven from the biblical precincts, had taken up its abode in liturgical quarters. It is worth our while to remember that the worship of any book whatever, whether a book of Holy Scripture, a book of prayer, or a book of destructive criticism, is " bibliolatry." Of com-se there are inequalities of style in the Prayer Book, and divers varying grades of literary excellence. As well go through the Pitti and Uflfizi galleries affirming that all the Raphaels you may happen to find possess one and the same artistic value simply because signed by the same hand ; as well insist that " The Surgeon's Daughter " is as good a novel as " Ivanhoe," or " Troilus and Cressida " as great a play as " Hamlet," or " The May Queen " as THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER 229 fine a poem as the " Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington," as try to make it out that in point of loftiness, dignity, and fervor all portions of the Common Prayer are of a piece. The General Exhor- tation and the General Confession, for instance, stand next to each other in the Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer ; they are so near that they actually touch ; yet is the one as far removed from the other in style-value as silver is from gold. The notes of the style of .the Common Prayer are simplicity, majesty, and tenderness. Of course I do not mean that we everywhere find these character- istics conjoined ; it is not to be expected or desired that we should ; all I say is that they are noticeable features when we look at the book as a whole with, a view to appraising its value and fixing its- place. The simplicity is almost everywhere present ; tiie majesty comes out whenever it is a question of addressing the Throne ; the tenderness reveals itself in all that is said of God's disposition towards the penitent soul, and in every reference to the sorrows and calamities of the mortal lot. The simplicity of the language may be accounted for on more grounds than one. A chief reason for putting forth the book at all had been the demand for a worship which the common people could under- stand. As in the case of the translated Bible, the object was to get as far away from the Latin tongue as possible. This explains, perhaps, the marked con- trast as respects the proportion of Saxon to Latin 230 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP derivatives, between the Bible and Prayer Book on the one hand, and on the other not a few of the masterpieces of English letters produced at the same period. The secular authors, even though writing English, were not wholly loath to have the gold thread of their latinity reveal itself pretty freely in the texture of their homespun; but Tyndale and Cran- mer had another aim in view altogether, being more anxious that the ploughboy should understand them than that the ear of the university don should detect nothing amiss. Take as an illustration the follow- ing prayer from the Matins of Edward the Sixth's First Book. I have chosen it almost at random : — " O Lord, our heavenly Father, Almighty and ever- living God, which hast safely brought us to the beginning of this day; Defend us in the same with thy mighty power ; and grant that this day we fall into no sin neither run into any kind of danger ; but that all our doings may be ordered by thy governance to do always that is righteous in thy sight, through Jesus Christ our Lord." Here out of seventy-one words, only three — namely, " defend," " ordered," and " governance " — • are Latin derivatives. It is probable that an analysis of the whole book would show a similar ratio. Another guarantee of simplicity was supplied by the healthy realism characteristic even of those cor- rupt forms of devotion which Cranmer and his col- leagues had before them as working models in their task of reconstruction. Superstitious as many of THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER 231 the old formularies were, they could not be charged with indifference to things in the concrete. Hence we find throughout the Book of Common Prayer a care- ful avoidance of figurative speech, and a jealous clinging to what is substantive and real. An excep- tion should be made with respect to such imagery as has the sanction of the Bible writers, — though even this is very sparingly employed ; but of meta- phors not Scriptural, there are, in the more ancient and best-loved portions of the book, very few indeed. The Litany, which a justly honored and beloved pro- fessor in this Seminary, the late learned Dr. Shedd, once told me he regarded as the most wonderful compend of intercessory prayer to be found in the whole range of devotional literature, — the Litany is devoid of figurative language altogether. It might seem, at first, as if this banishment of trope and figure, simile and metaphor, must involve a costly sacrifice of beauty, — but no, that does not follow. Massiveness has a beauty of its own. The interior of Durham Cathedral is severe, profoundly so ; nothing could be further removed from those tremendous pillars and those solemn Norman arches than the airy grace of the churches which exemplify the deco- rated Gothic of a later period; and yet it never occurs to anybody to speak of Durham as lacking the element of beauty. It is a grave and serious beauty which reveals itself under that high vault, but it is beauty. A liturgy which is to live on, from generation to generation, must possess the sort of 232 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP beauty which wears. What is fascinating upon occar sion does not necessarily meet our every-day need. Eloquent prayers, tense with imaginative thought and vibrant, in a good sense, with poetic feeling, are, as a rule, eloquent only for once. Try to repeat them and they pall. The most marvellous burst of eloquence I ever listened to in my life was the extem- poraneous prayer made by Phillips Brooks at the Harvard Commemoration in 1865. Even the splen- dors of Lowell's Ode paled, for the moment, in the presence of that flame. It was the very utterance for which the great occasion called. But it, or any adaptation or paraphrase of it, would be simply pre- posterous in a liturgy. You may reply that if this be so, its being so is the condemnation of liturgies. Yes, perhaps so, if the conditions which made that prayer possible could be counted upon to reproduce themselves every Sunday in the fifty-two that punc- tuate a year, and you were sure of having a poet- orator in every pulpit. I spoke of majesty of speech as characterizing • more particularly those portions of the Common Prayer in which we are invited to draw near to God for purposes of adoration. I had especially in mind the usage which there obtains, of linking some attri- bute with the name of Deity in the opening sentence of every prayer, and thus imparting a certain sublim- ity to the very act of crossing the threshold of wor- ship. " God, who showest to them that are in error the light of thy truth"; "0 Almighty God, who THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER 233 alone canst order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men " ; "0 God, who never failest to help and govern those whom thou dost bring up in thy stead- fast fear and love " ; "0 God, who hast prepared for those who love thee such good things as pass man's understanding," — these are illustrations of what I mean. We shall all of us agree that there is a quiet dignity about this method of approaching the Most High in worship which, without argument, commends itself to a reverential mind. But not only in the prayers, majesty is the distinguishing mark of the praises as well. The Te Deum is majestic : " We praise thee, God, we acknowledge thee to be the Lord." The Grioria in excelsis is majestic : " Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us." The Ter sanofus is majestic : " Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts,' heaven and earth are full of thy glory. Glory be to thee, Lord most High." The other characteristic of which I spoke was tenderness. The tone of the Prayer Book in its ap- proaches to the human soul is gentle, winning, com- passionate. There is nothing anywhere between the covers that even remotely resembles gush. There is no shilly-shallying with the awful fact of sin. In the Office for the Visitation of the Sick there is no sug- gestion that opiates are a good substitute for a quiet conscience, and in the Office for the Visitation of Prisoners the words addressed to criminals under sentence of death are in refreshing contrast to the 234 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP maudlin sentimentalism which, with a strange perver- sity, too often seeks to divert sympathy from the per- son wronged and to transfer it to the unrepentant doer of the wrong. For tenderness of this morbid type, the Prayer Book has no indulgence ; but towards all who sorrow, and for all who " suffer according to the will of God," its tone is everywhere gentle, sym- pathetic, pitiful, compassionate. It not only asks that the merciful Lord will strengthen those who do stand, it pleads with him to comfort the weak-hearted and to raise up those who fall ; it remembers all who are in danger, necessity, and tribulation, all sick persons and young children, the prisoners and the captives, the fatherless and the widowed, and all who are deso- late and oppressed. Simplicity, majesty, tenderness, — yes, these are certainly the features that we should wish to see looking out upon us from a manual of worship, a book purporting to teach us how to pray. Having discussed style, we pass next to the more difficult question of doctrine. What is the theology of the Book of Common Prayer ? Pray observe that tliis is a matter quite apart from the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion. The Thirty-nine Articles bear an important doctrinal relation to the Church of England and to the American Episcopal Church ; but we are not discussing these Churches, we are discussing the Prayer Book, and the Articles are no part of the Prayer Book, they make a book of themselves. The theology of the Prayer Book must be gathered from within its own covers. If we look there to find a THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER 235 system of theology thoroughly well bolted and riv- eted, we shall look in vain ; but this is by no means an admission that the language of the formularies is that invertebrate and undogmatic thing which some would like to see it made. Far from it ; for not only are the ancient creeds, in one or other of their au- thenticated forms, made a frequent feature of worship, the very prayers themselves are redolent of dogma. And yet it is rare indeed to hear anybody, except an extreme liberal, complain of the dogmatic feature of the Prayer Book worship as a grievance. And why ? Simply because the dogma has been, if I may be allowed to coin a word, devotionalized. In liturgies, as elsewhere, much depends upon the way of putting things. By way of illustration, suppose we take some orthodox statement of doctrinal truth and lay along- side of it a devotionalized form of the same thought. We are bent, for example, upon setting up a barrier against the arch-heretic Pelagius and his vicious doc- trine of human merit. Very well, here is one way of doing it, the systematic way : " Albeit that good works, which are the fruits of faith and follow after justifica- tion, cannot put away our sins and endure the se- verity of God's judgment, yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ ; but works done before the grace of Christ and the inspiration of his Spirit are not pleasant to God." This of course throws the mind of the listener into a critical and argumentative mood at once ; but attend to the same thought in the attractive form in which it comes wooing us through 236 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP tlie lips of prayer on the Fifth Sunday after Easter : " O Lord, from whom all things do come ; Grant to us thy humble servants, that by thy holy inspiration we may think those things that are good, and by thy merciful guiding may perform the same, through Jesus Christ our Lord." Most will agree, I think, that the liturgical method of inculcating the truth is, for the ordinary lay mind, at any rate (and the laity are much in the majority), the more persuasive of the two. I do not for a mo- ment pretend to afi&rm that the Prayer Book is always equally felicitous in its attempts to clothe the hard skeleton of dogma with the warm flesh and blood of a personal devotion. There are marked exceptions. The opening invocations of the Litany, and the Proper Preface, so called, for Trinity Sunday in the Com- munion Office are well-meant endeavors to fasten the Nicene dogma in the affections of the worshippers; but the same end would have been more effectively served, and the purposes of devotion far better met, by a few quotations from that strangely neglected liturgical treasure-house, the Revelation of St. John the Divine. There need have been no real fear that the interests of Trinitarianism would suffer. The Prayer Book is Trinitarian through and through, warp and woof. You would have to put it under axes and hammers, as was once done in Boston, to get the Trinitarianism out of it. Again, the theology of the Prayer Book is pre- eminently a biblical as contrasted with a systematic THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER 237 theology. In saying this I do not mean to assert that the Prayer Book is always true to the teachings of Holy Scripture (though personally I believe it so to be), for that, in this presence, would seem too much like begging the question ; but what I mean is that the Prayer Book ever shows itself more solicitous that its utterances shall square with the utterances of the prophets, the apostles, and our Lord Jesus Christ than that they should be absolutely consistent in their relations to one another. In a " system," whether of theology or of philosophy, the great point is to avoid self-contradiction. All things must hang together logically ; there must be no broken link in the coat of mail, no gap between gorget and cuirass wherethrough the point of sword or lance may pierce. But the Bible writers do not seem to have felt this sort of anxiety. First they stated one truth, and then they stated another ; and the listener was left, notably in the case of the Sermon on the Mount, the most divine of all discourses upon ethics, to discover for himself the articulation of the truths enunciated. If they seemed to him contradictory, so much the worse for him. I have already once referred to the doctrine of merit by way of illustration ; let it again serve us as a case in point. What a very Arminian sound, to speak theologically, has the following sentence from the Apocrypha which the Prayer Book orders to be read at the Offertory, or Alms-gathering : " Be merciful after thy power, if thou hast much give plenteously. 238 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP if thou hast little do thy diligence gladly to give of that little, for so gatherest thou thyself a good re- ward." Here there seems to be a very evident eye to some recompense for our deserts. On the other hand, Calvin himself would have been satisfied with the predestinarian import of a petition which occurs in the very same office, later on, where the order of request is that the suppliants may be given grace to do such good works as have been " prepared " for them " to walk in." Another striking instance of the Prayer Book's utter indifference to logical consistency, when it is a question of faithfully reflecting the teachings of Holy Scripture, is afforded by its eschatology. With re- spect to the great central verity of the resurrection to eternal life, there is no uncertain sound ; but as to lesser points, and especially as to the temporal rela- tions between death and the judgment, we find in the Prayer Book the same ambiguity that perplexes us in the New Testament. How much better this than an attempt to be wise above what is revealed ! It remains to say something about the sacramental aspects of the theology of the Common Prayer. It is here that we come into closest contact with that great doctrinal quarrel which underlay the whole six- teenth century movement. On its political side, the Reformation was a protest against absolutism centred at Rome ; on its doctrinal side, it was a protest against an overstrained and exaggerated sacramental sys- tem, or, as Froude bluntly puts it, an assertion on THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER 239 the part of the laity of their own intrinsic spiritual rights. The attitude of the Prayer Book towards Roman error under this head is not so much polemical as it is independent and self-respecting. Those were not the days when Anglicans waited with bated breath to hear what Rome might have to say as to the validity of their orders. The men who framed the Prayer Book had a mind of their own, and did not think it necessary to cross the mountains to search out what was Catholic and primitive. It is true that a slight panicky feeling betrays itself in the famous suffrage of King Edward's Litany, " From the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome and all his detestable enormities, Good Lord deliver us " ; but this is offset by the cour- age and good sense which Elizabeth showed in ex- punging the supersensitive clause while as yet the embers of the fires which her sister had kindled at Smithfield were scarcely cold. The unquestioned prominence which the Book of Common Prayer assigns to sacramental doctrine and sacramental practice is not adequately explained by the hypothesis of a sort of half-way covenant with Rome. This is a method of dealing with the fact more popular than profound. Journalists and littera- teurs may be pardoned for taking that view, but serious-minded theologians will scarcely be content with it. The true explanation of the emphasis that the Prayer Book lays upon sacramental obligation and sacramental privilege is to be found in a conviction 240 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP toward which many independent lines of present-day thought converge ; namely, the conviction that religion is, after all, far more an affair of personal allegiance and personal intercourse than it is the acceptance of a syllabus of sacred truths, however well authenticated or accurately dovetailed. St. Paul's aspiration was not " that I may know about Him," it was " that I may know Him." It might seem to be expecting a great deal of a Church to ask it to retain within its confines two such contrasted and apparently irreconcilable minds as Pusey and Maurice. Yet each of these two men is found exalting to a very lofty place in his religious system the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ. What worthier explanation can we frame for the occurrence of so unlooked-for a truce between hostile temperaments than to suppose that both men have discovered the emptiness of mere intellectuality in religion, and, weary of what one of them was so fond of stigmatizing as " a Gospel of notions," are fleeing, hungry and thirsty, to the presence of the personal, the true, the living Christ. The truth is, that so far from carrying any taint of Roman error, the Prayer Book Office for the Holy Communion is probably, of all the formularies which the book contains, the one least obnoxious to such a charge. The doctrine of the Eucharist was known to be the critical point in the Eeformation's line of defence, and it was guarded with a corresponding jealousy. That the Prayer Book Office still retains THE BOOK OP COMMON PRAYER 241 this bulwark character is sufficiently evidenced by the fact that those who seek to make it do duty as High Mass are compelled to mutilate and dislocate it before it can be forced to lend itself to their ques- tionable purpose. I have spoken of the history and of the charactei'- istics of the Prayer Book ; bear with me a little longer until I shall have said a few words about its possibilities in years to come. It would rightly have appeared a poor requital of the courtesy which I began by acknowledging, had I come here to exploit the Prayer Book as the special possession of the Communion in which it happens to be my own privilege to serve, or to make boast of its excellences in the spirit of a monopolist. Such has not been my attitude of mind, and I should be unhappy if I thought that any one of you who have so kindly listened to my imperfect setting forth of a great subject had so imagined. I hold the Common Prayer to be the common property of the whole English-speaking race. It was originally promul- gated with the intention of its being that. By what disabling statute or repealing clause, 1 should like to ask, has right of ownership been since limited to any narrower constituency ? There are, to be sure, cer- tain corporate bodies that hold the book in trust, as it were, for the several nationalities into which the Englishry of the sixteenth century has, under God's providence, wonderfully developed, — there is a stan- dard edition according to the use of England, another 16 242 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP according to the use of Ireland, and another accord- ing to the use of the United States ; hut on the book's titlepage, high up above these particulars of lesser moment, stands the generous and inclusive super- scription, " The Book of Common Prayer, and Admin- istration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church." What Church? Eng- land's Church ? Ireland's Church ? No ; — the Holy Catholic Church, the Congregation of Faithful Men, the Body of all those who have been baptized into the Holy Name. Do not imagine that T am about to close a cool survey with a perfervid rhapsody. I have no extravagant expectations for the future of the Prayer Book in this country, though in common with many others I entertain some, perhaps not wholly unreasonable, hopes. In the light of the post-Refor- mation history, covering now almost four centuries, it does not seem likely that liturgical worship will ever again become universal throughout Christendom, least of all that it will do so in a country like this. If the Church to which an eminent Presbyterian divine has given the felicitous title of " The United Church of the United States " ever grows into reality, the probability is that we shall see within its borders public worship conducted with high ritual, with low ritual, and with no ritual, by liturgy or by directory, according to the needs, demands, and aptitudes of particular communities. The Church of England is the only national Church in Christendom that ever undertook to enforce abso- THE BOOK OP COMMON PRAYER 243 lute uniformity in public worship, and England's attempt has been a conspicuous failure. Ritualists and Evangelicals succeed in making one and the same liturgy speak in very different tones ; while non- conformity, standing beyond the pale altogether, con- trives to say its prayers without the help of any book at all, and yet keeps up, strange to say, a fair show of good works. But let that pass. What I am seeking to emphasize in these closing words is the common and undivided interest which all English-speaking Christians already possess in the ancient Common Prayer if they have a mind to claim it. There are no copyright restric- tions hedging the book ; no ecclesiastical treasury derives a royalty from its sale. Why should not congregations of whatever name that feel the need of a liturgy take it and use it, or so much of it as they care to use, instead of setting committees at work compiling formularies which after all would have to shine mostly by borrowed light ? Scruples about the ordination service need not be an obstacle ; for no more than the Thirty-nine Articles is the Ordinal a part of the Prayer Book. The Prayer Book proper ends with the Psalms of David, as a glance at its table of contents will show. And these are the words with which it ends : " Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord." 244 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP BIBLIOGEAPHY. Palmer, Eev. Wm., Origines Liturgicce. Freeman, Rev. Philip, Principles of Divine Service. 2 vols. Breviary, Salisbury. Breviary, Aberdeen. Breviary, Quignonian. Breviary, Mozarabic. Muratori, Liturgia. 2 vols. Gee and Hardy, Documents illustrative of English Church History. Primers, The Three, of Henry VIU. Keeling, Liturgies Britannicce. Parker, James, First Prayer Book of Edward VI. compared with the successive Revisions. Parker, James, Introduction to the History of the Successive Re- visions of the Book of Common Prayer. Maskell, Rev. Wm., Aricient Liturgy of the Church of England. Maskell, Rev. Wm., Monumenta Ritualia Ecclesice Anglicance. Walton and Medd, First Prayer Book of Edward VI. Pickering, W., Reprints of Books of Common Prayer, from Edward to Victoria. 7 vols. CardweU, Dr. E., Two Books of Common Prayer of Edward VI. compared. Henry Bradshaw Society, Liturgical publications of. Wheatley, Rev. Chas., Ratiorud Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer. Sanderson and Wrenn, Bishops, Fragmentary lUustrat'ions of the History of the Book of Common Prayer from Manuscript Sources. Blue Book of House of Commons, containing Revised Liturgy of 1689. Hall, Rev. Peter, Reliquiae Liturgicce. Hall, Eev. Peter, Fragmenta Liturgica. Baxter, Rev. Richard, A Petition for Peace with the Reformation of the Liturgy. Blunt, Eev. J. H., Annotated Book of Common Prayer. CardweU, Edward, History of Conferences and other Proceedings con- nected with the Revision of the Book of Common Prayer. Lnckock, Eev. Canon, Studies in the History of the Book of Common Prayer. THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER 245 Daniel, Rev. Canon, The Prayer Book, its History, Language, and Contents. Proctor, Ear. F., History of the Booh of Common Prayer. Campion and Beaumont, The Prayer Book Interleaved. Hole, Rev. Chas., Manual of the Book of Common Prayer. Black-Letter Prayer Book of 1636, Zinco-photographic facsimile. Manuscript Prayer Book of\662, Pliotographic facsimile. Jebb, John, The Choral Service of the Churches of England and Ireland. Stephens, A. J., Book of Common Prayer with Notes Legal and His- torical. Purchas, Rev. J., Directorium Anglicanum. Convocation Prayer Book. Bright and Medd, Liber Precum Publicarum. Scudamore, Notitia Eucharistica. Maurice, Rev. F. D., The Prayer Book and the Lord's Prayer, Gonlburn, Dean, Collects of the Day. Selbome, Earl of. Notes on some Passages in Liturgical History of the Reformed English Church. Sprott, Scottish Liturgies of James VI. Huntington, Rev. W. R., Shoi-t History of the Book of Common Prayer. S. P. C. K., Commentary on the Prayer Book. Barry, Rev. Wm., Teacher's Prayer Book. Wright, Rev. John, Early Prayer Books of America. M'Garvey, Rev. Wm., Liturgice Americanos. The Book Annexed, Philadelphia, 1883. The Book Annexed, as modified, New York, 1885. The Standard Prayer Book of IS92. VIII THE BOOK OF COMMON ORDER AND THE DIRECTORY FOR WORSHIP By THE Rev. ALLAN POLLOK, D.D. Principal of the Presbyterian College, Halifax, N. S. THE BOOK OP COMMON ORDER AND THE DIRECTORY FOR THE PUBLIC WORSHIP OF GOD JOHN KNOX'S views on the subject of public wor- ship may be found in a letter written to the Protestants of Scotland from Prance in 1556 — four years before the Scottish Reformation. In this he advises for their ordinary assemblies : first, Prayer with confession of sins and invocation of the Spirit of the Lord Jesus : then, the reading of the Scripture, plainly and distinctly : then, the interpretation. In reading the Scripture, he adds : " I would ye should join some books of the Old and some of the New Testament together, as Genesis and one of the Evan- gelists, Exodus with another and so forth, ever end- ing such books as ye begin: for it shall greatly comfort you to hear that harmony and well-tuned song of the Holy Spirit speaking in our fathers from the beginning." He then recommends that common prayers and intercessions be made for princes, rulers and magistrates, for the "liberty of the Gospel, the comfort of the afflicted, and the deliver- ance of persecuted churches." This letter contains the first rough sketch of the worship of the Reformed 250 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP Church of Scotland. "We must not suppose that this subject was new to the Scottish reformer, or that in the enthusiasm of his anti-Romish iconoclasm he had entirely overlooked public worship. On his release from the French galleys, he had been em- ployed by the English Privy Council preaching in the north of England. After two years' service there he was appointed one of King Edward's chaplains-in- ordinary — a most important office, which he retained till the king's death in 1553. Thus, during four years he must have been familiar with the liturgy of Edward VI., both in its first form and subsequent revision. Such an important work as the revision of the first book could not but have occupied much of his attention. As a matter of fact, Knox was called up to London and consulted on the subject, and by his influence significant changes were made in the communion office of the Book of Common Prayer. It is important to notice that the Scottish reformer had formed opinions on this subject before he made the acquaintance of Calvin or the Conti- nental divines. In the beginning of 1554 he sought safety and found leisure in Geneva, which he de- scribed as " the most perfect school of Christ that ever was upon earth." There Calvin had fully estab- lished the Reformed doctrine and worship, and here he directed the movement all over Europe. But soon Knox was invited to take charge of a congregation of English exiles, who had been permitted to worship in Frankfort upon condition of conforming as nearly THE BOOK OF COMMON ORDER 261 as possible to the worship of the French church. Those Englishmen accordingly agreed to omit the surplice, the litany, audible responses, and other cere- monies of the Book of Common Prayer, but discord had begun when Knox arrived, and, notwithstanding all his efforts, it continued till he left, and with even increased vehemence after his departure. In the course of tliese disputes between those who were for and those who were against the use of Edward's book, Knox, along with some others, had composed what was afterwards known as the Book of Geneva — a service not the same as the Genevan order but closely resembling it. The name — the Book of Geneva — was derived from the fact that, upon Knox's return to Geneva, it was printed and used by the English Kirk of Geneva, of which John Knox was minister. The title of the first edition states that it was approved by the famous and learned man, John Calvin. Prom the preface, as given in Dunlop's Confessions, we find that the date of this first edition is the 10th of February, 1556. This is the book afterwards known as the Book of Common Order, but commonly and not very inaccurately called, Knox's Liturgy. We thus find that, in the rough sketch addressed to the Scottish Protestants in 1556, Knox wrote from long and sometimes unpleasant familiarity with the subject. As was conspicuously the case with Calvin, we find in all Knox's writings carefully composed prayers. Neither of these great men could have had the least objection to written 262 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP prayers, and both were familiar with liturgical com- position. How could they be otherwise when the Bible is so full of prayers? Knox returned to Scotland in 1559, and the Scot- tish Reformation was accomplished in 1560. In the interval between 1556 and 1560, and for four years afterwards, the Book of Common Prayer was used in meetings of the Reforming party. In 1557 the Scottish Lords of the Congregation resolved : " That the Common Prayers be read weekly on Sunday and other festival days, publicly in the parish kirks with the lessons of the Old and New Testaments, conform to the Book of Common Prayer." The book referred to here was unquestionably the second book of Edward as resumed and slightly amended at the accession of Queen Elizabeth. This was afterwards disputed. However, not only does the wording of the resolution imply it, but it is established by contemporary testi- mony. There is not the least doubt that they would have preferred the Book of Geneva, but few copies of this were available and copies of the other could easily be procured from England. In the First Book of Discipline, prepared by the famous five Johns, John Wiuram, John Spottiswood, John Douglas, John Row, and John Knox, and embodying the church principles of the Scottish Reformers, the Order of Geneva is spoken of as " used in our churches." In 1562 the General Assembly enjoined its uniform use in the administration of the sacraments, solemnization of marriage, and burial of the dead. In 1564 it was THE BOOK OF COMMON ORDER 253 enlarged and the Psalter completed. In this form its use was enjoined upon every minister, exhorter, and reader. In 1567 it was by order of the General Assembly translated into Gaelic for the use of the Highlanders. Probably it was thus the first book printed in the Gaelic language. It is constantly referred to in Acts of Assemblies as the settled and legalized form of worship down to the year 1645, when the Directory was authorized by the Scottish Estates. In a copy of this book, printed at Aberdeen in 1635 — that is, shortly before the St. Giles's riot in 1637 — I find the following contents : a calendar of the moyable feasts, a short and admirable Con- fession of Faith, used in the English congregation of Geneva, an extract from the First Book of Discipline concerning ministers, their election and duties and the assemblies of the Church, the form of ordination of ministers, the order of discipline in excommunica- tion, repentance and absolution with all the prayers prescribed for such services, the order for the visita- tion of the sick, confessions and godly prayers for the daily service and special occasions, forms for the communion, baptism, and marriage, a treatise on fasting, with Scriptures and prayers to be used at such fasts. The prayer for the whole estate of Christ's Church, as in all the liturgies, follows the sermon. It is concluded with the Lord's Prayer. Then followed the recitation of the Apostles' Creed, after the following preamble : " Almighty and ever- 254 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP lasting God, vouchsafe, we beseech thee to grant us perfect continuance in the lively faith, augmenting the same in us daily, till we grow to the full measure of our perfection in Christ, whereof we make our confes- sion, saying, I believe in God, the Father Almighty," etc. This was followed by the benediction, either from Numbers or from 2 Corinthians. The Psalms in metre, along with a music score in four parts and marginal notes to aid the worshipper in singing with the understanding, occupy two-thirds of the book. Thus it must be seen that a worshipper in the Scots church, for nearly a hundred years after the Reforma- tion, went to church well provided for its services. So far as congregational worship is concerned, we have, in losing these forms, not advanced but retro- graded. On the special features of this form of service, I must restrict myself to but a few observations. The peculiar title, " Book of Common Order," was well chosen, for various reasons. Ordo is a word which, from the eighth century, was applied to rubrical di- rections for the guidance of priests in the administra- tration of the sacraments. It accurately describes services which were sometimes discretionary in their parts but never in their order. The term " Common " might suggest a comparison, perhaps a contrast, with the Book of Common Prayer, previously in use. It was " common " because it was not only a service hy the people and not by priests alone, but because it was for the people in every church throughout the nation. TEE BOOK OF COMMON ORDER 255 The word expresses the meaning which, in the follow- ing centmy, was conveyed by the word ^^ uniform." The churches throughout the land were to have a service common to all. The whole form is in close conformity with the Genevan liturgy of 1543, which became the model for all the Reformed liturgies ex- cept that of the English Church. The Book of Com- mon Prayer borrowed much from them, but they borrowed nothing from it. Calvin was preceded in Geneva by Parol, who had swept away every vestige of the ancient worship, so that his successor was able to go directly back to the Holy Scriptures for guidance and authority. Tlie Genevan morning service for the Lord's day began with the reading of the appointed chapters of Holy Scripture and the Ten Command- ments ; then, after a very brief formula of invocation and a single sentence of exhortation, with the con- fession. After a psalm had been sung, a prayer for illumination followed. For this the minister might take a form provided or one composed by himself. The sermon was followed by the prayer for all con- ditions, the Lord's Prayer, the recitation of the Apos- tles' Creed, and the benediction. The service was long neither as a whole nor in any of its parts. The minister was rigorously tied down to this service once a week, — that is, on Sunday mornings ; but ample provision for free prayer was made by the rubric that " On week days the minister useth such words in prayer as may seem to him good, suiting his prayer to the occasion and the matter whereof he treats in 256 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP preaching." Such is substantially the service now maintained in all the Eeformed churches of the Eu- ropean continent. All this was reproduced in the Book of Common Order ; except that the prayer after sermon might be varied, according to a rubrical per- mission, — a liberty of which Knox often availed himself in his conflicts with the Court. In the ser- vices for baptism, the communion, and marriage, everything is prescribed, and no latitude is given to the minister. The communion was to be ministered once a month, or as oft as expedient, and baptism and marriage were to be in church on the Sabbath day in presence of the congregation. The fundamental principle of all the Reformed liturgies, the Anglican excepted, is the conjunction of free with prescribed prayer. The advantages and disadvantages in each were balanced by using both. But there was a common Order ; so that in the sub- stance and succession the worshipper always knew what was coming, and confusion and surprise were prevented. At the same time, as it was not accord- ant with primitive Christianity to restrain all expres- sion of the free spirit, free prayer was allowed in one part of the daily service and encouraged in all other meetings of the Church. The rubrical directions for baptism, the communion, and marriage, allowed no deviation ; because these were of the nature of vows or engagements. A very special feature was the extensive use made of the psalms. Calvin clearly perceived that the psalms were the Church's response THE BOOK OF COMMON ORDER 257 to the Divine message. This response burst from human hearts in a warm tide of emotion diversified by all kinds of experience. The psalmist might speak in the first person, but he spoke as a representative believer and an organ of inspiration. The psalms are the voice of the Church. They everywhere breathe a churchly spirit, and they were written not to be read or recited but to be sung, and if possible sung respon- sively. It may be confidently afiirmed that this col- lection of sacred song can never with propriety be omitted from the services of the Church of that God whom its devout aspirations bring so near to the human soul, or that anything can be found on earth to take its place. When we hear it merely read by the minister, the psalm strikes the ear with a kind of inverted majesty. It must in some way be uttered by the Church which has been divinely furnished with this voice in which to call upon and cry out to the living God. The minister's part in the service was confession, intercession, and preaching, to which the people replied in the psalms by adoration, praise, and exhortation. The minister's prayers contain only confession and intercession, and without the psalms would have furnished an incomplete service. Calvin wholly rejected audible responses without musical expression as fitted not to awaken but to disturb devotion. The psalms were translated into metre by Clement Marot and Theodore Beza and set to plain tunes which could easily be followed by the whole people. Knox adopted the same method, using for 17 258 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP this purpose the yersion of Sternhold and Hopkins. This psalm singing was so marked a feature that the whole Book of Common Order was usually called "The Psalm Book" not only in common speech but in Acts of Assembly. The liturgy and the psalms in Geneva and Scotland were invariably bound together. All the prayers in the Book of Common Order and in the Greneva liturgy are models of simplicity and com- prehensiveness, but the daily ofiBces are especially beautiful. The morning prayer was being heard by Coligny when the assassins burst into his chamber; and the evening prayer was read to Jolm Knox two hours before he expired. When asked if he had heard it, he replied, " Would that you and all men had heard as I have heard it. I praise God for that heavenly sound." The last edition of the Book of Common Order was issued in 1644, and the Directory was adopted by the General Assembly in 1645. In a work, known to be by Alexander Henderson, published in 1641, and intended to correct an impression prevalent in Eng- land that the Scots had no settled forms of worship, he describes the worship in his day. The churches were open every day for the reading of prayera, and on one day of each week there was a regular service with sermon. On Sundays at 7 o'clock a bell was rung to warn the people to prepare for public worship. Another bell at 8 o'clock served to assemble the con- gregation. Each person on entering the church bowed in silent prayer. As there were no pews, the THE BOOK OF COMMON ORDER 259 men stood while the women sat on chairs or stools. The reader read from the lectern the common prayers and gave out psalms to be sung. The singing was always concluded with the " Gloria Patri." He then read chapters from the Old and New Testaments. After an hour another bell announced the entrance of the minister, who bowed as the people had done. Many have wondered at the ringing of three bells in Scotch churches on Sunday mornings and inquired what it is done for. It is simply a survival of the old worship. We have lost the prayers, and for our com- fort or vexation we have the bells. The minister began with a conceived prayer, which was understood to be for illumination. Then followed the sermon, the prayer for all estates, the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the benediction — all forming a service, scrip- tural in character, logical in structure, and in harmony with the order of all Reformed churches on the Euro- pean continent. It was not tedious, as the age of long sermons and long prayers had not arrived. The Scots church would have retained it substantially till now but for the violent interference of the authorities of another church and another people. At the accession of James I., a Presbyterian king, the Puritan members of the Church of England hoped for some relief from obnoxious ceremonies ; but their most reasonable requests were contemptuously re- jected. He told them that they must conform, or be would harry them out of the land. Under Charles I., persecution more and more increased till the meeting 260 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP of the Long Parliament, when the situation was reversed, and Laud was sent to the prison to which he had consigned so many conscientious men. The Scots, in defence of their despised and insulted worship, had invaded England, and when their Commissioners were treating with the king at Ripon, Commissioners from the Long Parliament arrived for a similar purpose. It was at this point that the Scots and English began to co-operate. In 1643 — a year after the civil war had begun — English Commissioners appeared at the General Assembly in Edinburgh and proposed a league between the two kingdoms. As the Scots desired a religious covenant also, the Solemn League and Covenant was subscribed by both nations. It was in consequence of this conjunction that Scottish Commissioners went to the Westminster Assembly — an English Council called by the Long Parliament to reform the English Church. We do not know what reforms the English divines might have made in the Church of England, nor what kind of polity or worship or discipline they would have established without the aid of the Scots, but we do know that it was in con- sequence of this treaty that the Scots gave up their ancient Book of Common Order and adopted the Westminster Directory. It may be well to review the situation at this junc- ture. The grand aim of the Court had been to reduce the Church of Scotland to the English pattern, and in this there was some progress made, for bishops had been established in Scotland for twenty-eight years. THE BOOK OF COMMON ORDER 261 Uniformity in both kingdoms was tlie dream of James and Charles and Laud, and they fondly hoped to have it realized. But worship touched the feelings of the Scottish people more than polity, and when a new liturgy was forced upon them and their old one was superseded, then the Scots threw down bishops, abol- ished the Perth Articles, and cancelled all the offen- sive legislation from 1605 to 1638. Along with this movement in Scotland, Charles and Laud were forcing, by the most cruel penalties, uniformity in England. When the Scots took up arms to fight for their reli- gion, the necessities of the king compelled him to summon a parliament which at once took cognizance of the religious grievances of the English nation. Thus the king had arrayed against him the religious people of both nations. Uniformity was still aimed at, but now the parties had changed places. By the Solemn League and Covenant, the Scots sought uniform- ity, but it was Scotch Presbyterian uniformity, with which they hoped to bless England. With such views and expectations, the Scots Commissioners came to the Westminster Assembly in the autumn of 1643. As representatives of the Scots church and nation, they were received with much respect by the members of what has been called the most grave and learned Assembly of the Church since the days of the Apostles. Upon the 12th October, the Lords and Commons or- dered the Assembly to commence the work of framing a Directory of Public Worship. Previous to this the Solemn League and Covenant had been taken by the 262 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP House of Commons, the Lords, the Assembly of Di- vines, and the Scots Commissioners, in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, and had been sent back to Edinburgh to be subscribed throughout the kingdom. It was under this conjunction and covenant that Puri- tan and Presbyterian now united in framing a form for public worship and Church oflBces. The Scots Commissioners, six in number, sat as a body of assess- ors, with voices but no votes, treating in the name of Scotland for uniformity with England, and they took more than their share in the debates of an Assembly which sat without intermission for five and a half years. Their influence arose, not from their number, which was small, nor from their talents, which were great, but from their representing the Scotch nation. The preparation of the Directory was intrusted to a small committee consisting of Marshall, Palmer, Goodwin, Young, Herle, and the Scots Commission- ers. From this it might be expected that the Direc- tory would be more Scotch than English in its cast. In fact, the important sections on prayer, preaching, and the administration of the sacraments were ulti- mately left to Henderson and his fellow Commission- ers alone. The thirteenth volume of Lightfoot's works, containing his " Notes " and Baillie's letters, give the most distinct account of the debates on the Directory, which are recorded under fifty-four sessions ill the end of the second volume, and twenty-one at the beginning of the third of the Minutes. Not only had they the co-operation of thirty lay assessors from THE BOOK OF COMMON ORDER 263 the Long Parliament, but their decisions were sub- mitted to that body for confirmation or amendment. The sentiments of the English parliamentary govern- ment were thoroughly Erastian, and they did not scruple to make important corrections upon drafts of the Directory as passed by the divines. The work was continued throughout 1644, completed in Decem- ber, and sanctioned by Parliament. In February, 1645, the Scottish Estates ratified and approved it in all the heads and articles thereof. It ought to be noted that the Scots General Assembly passed it with two reser- vations — one relating to the Lord's Supper, in which they say that there must be a table and the communi- cants must distribute the elements among themselves, and the other maintaining the order and practice of the Scots Kirk in all matters, except where they are otherwise ordered and appointed in the Directory. These are important reservations. The Scots were stiffly opposed to the Independents in their manner of distributing the elements to the people in their pews, as well as to the Anglican method of the min- ister giving them to each communicant. They held, as true Presbyterians, a place between these two ex- tremes. The second reservation betrays their attach- ment to their own ancient service and their desire to preserve as much of it as they possibly could. The Preface of the Directory, which sets forth the views and aims of the Divines, should be carefully studied by all who would understand this formulary. It refers almost solely to England and the English 264 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP Church. They say, " We have resolved to lay aside the former liturgy with the many rites and cere- monies formerly used in the worship of God, and have agreed upon this following Directory for all the parts of public worship at ordinary and extraordinary times," etc. It is called a "Directory" to distinguish it from a liturgy, wherein all is set down to be fol- lowed without change and no discretion is allowed. Here the general heads, the sense and scope of the prayers, are given " that there may be a consent of all the churches in those things that contain the substance of the service and worship of God." The meaning of this is that, though the majority desired a fixed order in all the churches, the Inde- pendents did not wish even a Directory, but entire and unrestricted liberty — which some may think to be the leau ideal of public worship and of which we now have enough and to spare. The name " Directory " implies that the rubrics and forms were to be strictly followed, except in parts where latitude is allowed. Clauses or expressions conceding liberty in some parts surely imply that in other cases the minister is bound by the rubric. Without this restraint the book could not be even a Directory. Those who do as they please follow, not the Presbyterians, but the Independents. Also in the matter of order the min- ister is not left free, except where an alternative is allowed. This rule applies to the order of topics in prayers and exhortations. For example, along with the prayer of confession before sermon is the prayer THE BOOK OF COMMON ORDER 265 for all conditions ; but the rubric allows the latter to come after the sermon and change places with the thanksgiving. As it was designed by having a Di- rectory that the worshippers should always know what part to expect next, the order of service and of topics was not discretionary. The Preface was de- bated for six sessions principally upon the point whether the prayer-outlines might be moulded into prayers or not. The Independents were against this, and to satisfy them it was left indefinite ; so that each minister might decide this for himself. Light- foot, the Kabbinical scholar of his age, said that " it was dangerous to hint anything against a form of prayer." Curiously, there is no mention of the pos- ture of the worshippers in prayer, but historical testimonies prove this to have been either kneeling or standing, and never sitting, except during Com- munion. The long prayer before sermon is referred to by Baillie as " a new fancy of the Independents " — " contrary to all the practice of the church, old or late." This outline, consisting of confession and in- tercession, admits of easy separation into two distinct prayers. The public reading of passages from both Testaments is enjoined as an act of worship. The Scriptures must be read in course, and no comments are allowed till the reading is ended, lest the word of God should be intermingled with the word of man. Private prayer on entering the church is presupposed by the rubi'ic which says that " if any be hindered from being present at the beginning, they ought 266 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP not, when they come into the congregation, betake themselves to their devotions." Here the exception clearly establishes the rule. The minister also bowed on entering the pulpit, until this also was abandoned to please the Brownists and their followers, and so, when the minister gave up this becoming practice, the people did the same. This custom, the use of the Gloria and the Lord's Prayer, long used in Scot- land, were surrendered by the Scots, to the sorrow of a great many devout ministers and people. But regard for the Directory might have preserved one of them, for it says : " And, because the prayer which Christ taught his disciples is not only a pattern of prayer but itself a most comprehensive prayer, we recommend it also to be used in the prayers of the Church." Notwithstanding these words, it is not long since it was scarcely ever heard in our churches. The compilers, following the Book of Common Order, intended it probably to be introduced as a conclusion to the last prayer, which is the prayer of thanks- giving and Christian hope. It has been thought very strange, especially in these days, when singing often occupies so much of the time in public worship, that so little place is assigned to it in the Directory. It is referred to incidentally after the reading, and again after the last prayer it is said : " Let a psalm, [not part of a psalm], be sung, if with conveniency it may be done." There is reason to believe that, as expressed in the first Book of Discipline, singing was regarded as "a profitable but not necessary part of THE BOOK OF COMMON ORDER 267 worship." This may have been the prevalent feeling in England, but it was not so among the Scottish presbyters, who had long been accustomed to the singing of the Psalms as an indispensable part of Presbyterian worship ; and hence, when Eouse's ver- sion had, after considerable amendment, been sanc- tioned by the divines and the Long Parliament in 1646 and sent down to Scotland for adoption, the Scots were not as compliant as formerly. They con- tinued to correct and compare it with their own and other versions, and to ask for the advice of presby- teries — in fact to take the utmost pains to secure a suitable version and it was not till 1650 that our present version of the Psalms was finally passed. It was thus not part of the covenanted uniformity and it can only with a qualification be called House's version. It is to this that we owe the preservation of the old versions of the 100th Psalm by Wm. Keith, the old 124th by Whittingham, the brother-in-law of Calvin and the noble second vei'sions of Psalms 102, 136, 143, and 145, by John Craig, the friend of Knox and minister of Holyrood. Coming to special services, baptism must be ad- ministered in church and in the face of the congre- gation — that is, not in a font at the door. Sponsors are dispensed with, but, in the necessary absence of the father, the child may be presented by a Christian friend. This is accordant with Westminster doc- trine : that a child's title to baptism is its federal holiness in right of descent from those who were 268 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP by profession under the covenant of grace. The form contains no profession of faith, no creed, no Yows, and no questions ; but a promise for the perform- ance of duty is required. These seem to have been either excluded or expunged by the Independents — perhaps by the long Parliament. However, in the Book of Common Order there is no promise required, but the Apostles' Creed is rehearsed and expounded. In the absence of any formal and explicit engage- ment, the instruction is very carefully worded and was meant to be used as a form. It embodies the doctrine of the Westminster divines, that, though the grace of baptism is not tied to the time of its admin- istration, it ought to be desired and prayed for as a blessing to be conferred in God's own time, whether then or afterwards. If the seal has no connection with the sign, we cannot justify the baptism of infants at aU. The whole Order is most complete, and wholly opposed to views which are more Socinian than Catholic or Presbyterian. It is a manifest defect that there is no Order for the baptism of adults. As to the mode : sprinkling was preferred, but dipping was not excluded. There was much debate in this matter, but it was not as to the one right mode, but as to the exclusion of the other. The exhortation to the people to improve their baptism is a special feature. The whole service, including the prayers, is most impressive and well worthy of close adherence. As the communion signalized the differences be- THE BOOK OF COMMON ORDER 269 tween the Scots and the English, and especially the Independents, the debates upon this section were long and ardent. It took up eighteen sessions. They at last agreed upon the word " frequently " and left the frequency to be determined by each congregation. The qualification was reduced to the smallest dimensions, probably, by the House of Com- mons. Only the ignorant and scandalous are ex- cluded. In the rubric a table is mentioned, but the Independents were for what has been called " simul- taneous communion " — to which the Scots would never consent. The phrase " about it or at it " ex- pressed compromise, and each nation held fast by its own way. The Scots table-services, once universal, have now nearly disappeared, and have carried away many holy associations and sweet remembrances with them. The Scots way, which continued under some- times very trying circumstances — in the church and in the wilderness — for three hundred years was near- est to the Institution. At the risk of being called a laudator temporis acti I must say that I would much prefer it still. The change which the divines could not make has been the work of church builders and building committees who made no provision in the pews for this ancient mode of celebration. In this we have gone completely over to the Independents. There must be an address, called sometimes fencing, before the prayer of consecration. There is no lit- urgy in modern times without it. The prayer in- cludes the three elements of thanksgiving, a profession 270 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP of faith, and an invocation. There was a debate as to the distribution. In the Scottish practice the communicants handed the elements, the one to the other. In the rubric this matter is left undecided. The prayer at the close is a prayer of thanksgiving. In Scotland the post-communion prayer has always included intercession for all ranks and a strong ex- pression of Christian hope of reunion with departed saints. This is a natural conclusion to a service which not only expresses but ought always to be a communion of saints — a remembrance of the living and the dead. Such a prayer in the morning service would be premature, would interrupt the preparatory work and would make it tedious, so that, on com- munion Sundays, it should be kept till the close. On ordinary days, if the rubric is followed, the first prayer would be the prayer of faith, the second the prayer of charity, and the last the prayer of hope. Thus was the most important part finished and sent up to Parliament. The rest refers to the sanctifica- tion of the Lord's day, marriage, fast days and days of thanksgiving, the visitation of the sick, the burial of the dead, and the singing of psalms. Marriage is to be in church, and, contrary to the Book of Common Order, it is recommended that it be not on Sunday. In many places where Presbyterians began to celebrate marriage in church, they were denounced as innovators and imitators of another church. The marriage ser- vice, both in its rubrics, address, and prayers, is most admirable, and it is not long. The word " obey " is THE BOOK OF COMMON ORDER 271 not omitted from the formula, and it need not be, as probably the persons addressed will, as of yore, rejoice in doing just as they please. The words, " without any further ceremony," refer to the custom of giving the ring, which, so far as the minister is concerned, is discharged. There is no service permitted at funerals, but some word of exhortation is allowed. This rigor was too severe to last, and prayers at the house forced themselves into our practice under the pretext of giving and returning thanks where refreshments were common. Now a reasonable impulse has brought in prayers also at the grave. No former abuses could justify such a stringent prohibition of religious ex- pression when earth opens its mouth to fulfil the primeval curse, when we stand round the grave as more than conquerors through Him that loved us, and God has opened up such an opportunity for ad- monishing the living. This is certainly one of the most serious omissions in the Directory, — a book which may be old, but is not antiquated, — may be neglected, but is not obsolete. In all its ritual it embodies Westminster doctrine, and, even without such emendations as the Church might and should make, a more strict observance of its forms would be an improvement upon much of our present practice. In Scotland the Directory was adopted in evil times. Montrose, an apostate from the Covenant and its legislation, was slaying tliousands of its people. If he had been successful, he would have restored the Book of Common Order. Betwixt 1645 and the 272 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP Restoration, all was confusion, and the book was only imperfectly brought into use. From the Restoration to the Revolution, matters were worse, and neither prelatists nor Presbyterians had any fixed form. They were in that happy state which many think the best. Both prayed entirely without book, as long or as short and in whatever order they pleased. The Directory was not legally sanctioned at the Revolu- tion, which was a compromise in all respects. Only the confession was adopted, and the Church was left without even a catechism or a form of worship. By repeated Acts, however, down to 1856 the General Assembly has endeavored to strengthen the authority of the Directory ; so that it is at this time the only proper standard of public worship. As all this took place before the divisions in the Church of Scotland, the Directory occupies the same position in the non- established Churches in Scotland and England, two of which have marked their desire for improvement by authorizing forms for special services. The book issued by the United Presbyterian Church is of such a character that it must be a great help to ministers and people of that large and respectable body of Christians. The Euchologion, or Book of Common Order, first published by the Church Service Society in 1865, and now in its fourth or fifth edition, has wrought a reformation in the worship of the Church of Scotland, as well as other Presbyterian churches. The professed object of this Society has been not innovation upon the present, but restoration of the THE BOOK OF COMMON ORDER 273 past. It has been dominated by a spirit of reverence for old Presbyterian forms. The existence of asso- ciations in all the three Presbyterian churches in Scotland and the Presbyterian Church in England, having similar ends in view, and discussing such sub- jects as not only an amended Directory but also an optional liturgy with some responses, the rehearsal of the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' or Nicene Creed, and the reading of the Ten Commandments, shows plainly how the current of opinion is flowing. In the United States the Directory was adopted in 1729, and recommended to be used " as near as circumstances will allow." The Rev. Charles W. Baird, in his most instructive little book on liturgies, mentions that when the Synod of Philadelphia revised its Constitu- tion in 1788 it renewed the adoption of the Directory, with the instruction that it was to be followed as each minister " shall think meet," and threw out a number of forms of prayer — for the invocation before sermon, before and after baptism, at the Lord's table, upon exer- cising discipline, at the solemnization of marriage, in the sick room, at ordinations, and nine prayers for the family, which had been drafted by its own committee. He gives specimens of these rejected forms, which are fine liturgical compositions and show that the Synod's committee were men of taste as well as devotion, and were well acquainted with that kind of literature. We may speculate upon what effect the adoption of their draft might have had upon the public worship of the Presbyterian Church of the United States. In 18 274 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP Canada the Directory is part of the basis of union in 1875, and it is similai-ly part of the constitution of the Irish Presbyterian Church. The acceptance is uni- versal, and so also are the deviations from its explicit directions. Thus the Reformers in all countries declared for fixed forms combined with free prayer. These forms both in Knox's book and the Directory were supple- mented by the Psalms, which are an essential part of Presbyterian worship. As the Assembly of 1645, in their zeal for the ancient worship, resolved to retain whatever was not otherwise ordered in the Directory, it would only be right and lawful in our present cir- cumstances to restore the use of the Apostles' Creed, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord's Prayer as the most concise expression of the elements of the Christian Religion, — doctrine, duty, and devotion. For the daily service the Directory provided regular- ity of order, and for special services a prescribed form. By this method the divines, though they have signally failed, honestly endeavored to control the love of novelty and to check the presumption of igno- rant and thoughtless men. They sought to keep a middle place between the rigorous monotony of the Book of Common Prayer and that unbridled license in worship which was the delight of the sectaries. Indeed, experience proves that without sacramental forms the true doctrine of the sacraments wilt be perpetually misstated or misapprehended, and their benefits may be lessened or lost to the partakers. To THE BOOK OF COMMON ORDER 275 adopt any Directory with the proviso that it is to be followed as far as circumstances allow, is to defeat its purpose. When any latitude is given, more will be taken than was given. For proof of this, we have merely to point to the aspect of all Presbyterian churches at the present time. A Directory compiled by the most representative divines of their age, assisted by lay-assessors, revised by both Houses, and accepted by the Scots civil and ecclesiastical authorities, might well claim some attention ; but all its provisions are systematically violated. Infinite diversity prevails, and confusion extraordinary. The Directory does in- deed require enlargement ; but as far as it goes, its order is simple, scriptural, and free from all ambigu- ous and unauthorized symbolism ; but all this diversity means not only that we differ from the formulary, but that we have a most depraved delight in differ- ing from one another. It would be too tedious to enumerate these profuse and unprofitable variations. Any one who pleases may do this for himself to some extent — but only to some extent, for such knowledge is too wonderful for any one individual. This divers- ity ranges through all degrees, from sheets distributed among the pews for each service to the curtailed wor- ship of the last generation. A partial remedy is com- monly sought by a written order being kept in each pulpit for the use of the occasional supply, — an arrangement very trying to the preacher for the day, who has to learn a new ritual ; and who, when he has enough to think about, is haunted with the fear that 276 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP lie may be breaking through an order which he does not know. This irregularity may be expected to increase by ministers using different manuals of their own selection ; and all the while the Church does nothing but gather hymns and hymn-tunes of all kinds, and bind them for our use in volumes larger than our Bibles ; and when any attempt is made to reform matters, some of our most devoted ministers and laymen are met with all sorts of dark sus- picions calculated to excite prejudice and prevent people from arriving at a correct opinion on a most important subject, and with the well known cry for what is called the good old way. It may be well to ask. What is that way [since there are so many ways] ? The Book of Common Order is one way, and the Directory is another. A way might be good without being old, and it might be old without being good. Probably such complainers, by the " good old way " mean their own way. They think that it is old, and, because it is theirs, it must be good, not only for themselves but for all others. But it is not always good for people to have their own way, — especially when it is not very old and may not be very good, and when so many love it, not so much for its own sake as for the delightful sensation of forcing it upon other people. But Church-rulers should always re- member that the people have an option; and that tJiey can take their own way too. When persecuted in one city they can flee to another. When they do not find, and cannot get, what they want in one THE BOOK OF COMMON ORDER ^11 church, they can seek it elsewhere. Under ordinary- circumstances, the Presbyterian Church must appeal very strongly to the sympathies of religious people who are reasonable and don't delight in extremes. It looks for its polity where it finds its doctrine and discipline, — nowhere but in Scripture. In polity it stands between Prelacy and Independency, and in worship it ought to stand, where it stood long ago, — both in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, — between Eitualism and Radicalism. It ought to allow some freedom, but it ought to be a regulated freedom, lest it may fail in securing such respect for its or- dinances as may produce respect for itself and for religion. Extempore prayer being allowed, it might be well to interpose such questions as the following : Can it ever be a prayer not offered to but hy an ordinary congregation ? Can the people supplicate before they know or feel the want ? Can such an exer- cise rise higher than a meditation ? Can the people ever be more than hearers ? Are they not often critics ? and, since the exercise stimulates curiosity, can they well help this undevout attitude of mind ? Is not the pleasure experienced in such an exercise rather the delight of being witness to a succession of pious reflections and emotions in another without any participation of these in themselves, or any thought of this ? Does not the leader in this exercise succeed best when he forgets the presence of others, and, becoming wrapt in himself, pours forth his own rap- turous experience or desires to God ? — that is, forgets 278 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP or ignores the true nature of an exercise in which he is supposed to be representative and to express the average wants and feelings of human beings and of Christians ? Does not all this give too much a media- torial character to the Christian ministry ? Can such prayer ever be the voice of the Church ? Is there, or can there be, in this world any exercise so difficult for any mortal man ? Prayer is not a string of Scrip- ture passages, but the highest result of faith, — the rich flower and fruit of pious thought and experience, — a holy secretion of digested thought and life. These are questions of immense moment. I hope American Presbyterians, with their predominating good sense, are destined to answer them and practically solve them for us all as they have done in many other cases ; and I cannot but think that a lecture course on this subject, in this, one of the greatest and most pro- gressive of the American theological schools, is a bright augury of some change which may be an im- provement in our worship, by which Presbyterians all over the world will be gainers. IX WORSHIP IN NON-LITURGICAL CHURCHES Bt the Rev. GEORGE DANA BOARDMAN, D.D., LLD. Honorary Pastor of the First Baptist Church, Philadelphia, Pa. WOKSHIP IN NON-LITURGIOAL CHURCHES WORSHIP is a human instinct. Wherever trav- ellers have penetrated (whether into the polar regions, the heart of the Dark Continent, or the most isolated isles of the seas), they have never found a tribe so degraded that it did not worship something, — God, man, beast, demon, thing. On the other hand, there has never been a nation so civilized that it did not have its own divinity or divinities ; recall Baal of Assyria, Osiris of Egypt, Brahm of India, Ormuzd of Persia, Jupiter of Rome, Zeus of Greece, Jehovah of Canaan. True, there are in our own favored land a few who profess them- selves to be atheists. Nevertheless, even these gen- tlemen have some kind of a god of their own ; if it is not the personal Jehovah of the Bible, it is some impersonal Absolute of Law, of Force, of Existence, of Something or other. It is said that even Voltaire prayed in an Alpine thunderstorm. No man was ever born an atheist; if he has become one, it is be- cause he has suicidally emasculated his own moral nature. This innate worship of God is one of the few relics of the Paradise that has been; it is also 282 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP one of the many auguries of the Paradise that is to be : " They have no rest day and night, saying : Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God, the Almighty, Who was and who is and who is to come ! " — Revelation iv. 8. Man worships as instinctively as he breathes. And the God of Revelation made provision for this instinct in His covenant with His ancient people. Listen to Jehovah as He spake unto Israel through His servant, saying : "Let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them . . . There I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy-seat, from be- tween the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony." — Exodus xxv. 8, 22. Observe what Jehovah declares to be the precise pur- pose of His tabernacle : He did not appoint it as the place where His people might gather together to wor- ship Him; He appointed it as the place where He would enshrine Himself and meet His worshipping people. This phrase — " tabernacle of the congrega- tion" (or "tent of meeting," as it is rendered in the Revised Version) — did not mean the meeting-place of man and man in worship, so much as it meant the meeting-place of God Himself and man. It is curious to recall how the Established Church of England paid an unconscious tribute to " dissenters " by styling their places of worship " meeting-houses " or " con- WORSHIP IN NON-LITURGICAL CHURCHES 283 venticles. " No, Jehovah appointed His ancient tab- ernacle to serve as the shrine for Himself; the con- gress of Godhead and manhead ; the convention of the Infinite and the finite: "There I will meet with them, and commune with them from above the mercy- seat, from between the two cherubim. " Accordingly, when the tabernacle was dedicated, the Shechinah, or dazzling symbol of Jehovah's presence, which had been hovering for many weeks over Sinai, majesti- cally swept downward into the plain and covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of Jehovah filled the tabernacle. But Jehovah not only appointed the tabernacle for His own enshrinement and communion with Israel ; He also appointed an elaborate system of worship by which Israel could meet Him in humble adoration, thanksgiving, confession, supplication, consecration, communion. This was the meaning of the priesthood with its minute details of vestments, ablutions, sac- rifices, oblations, festivals, Levitical ritual, and the like, — all this being scrupulously arranged according to a divinely shown pattern. Thus this whole elab- orate system of ancient worship was a divinely pre- scribed liturgy. True, it appealed to the eye rather than to the ear, being, so to speak, a pictorial ser- vice or dramatic liturgy. Nevertheless, the chief point is this, — for fifteen hundred years Jehovah's ancient chosen people worshipped according to a divinely appointed liturgy. But that ancient sanctuary, with all its elaborate 284 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP ritual, has been abolished in Christ. Recall the story of Jesus at Jacob's Well : — " The woman saith unto bim, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Oui* fathers worshipped in this mountain [pointing to Gerizim towering hard by] ; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour Cometh, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shaU. ye worship the Father. Ye worship that which ye know not : we worship that which we know : for salva- tion is from the Jews. But the hour- cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth : for such doth the Father seek to be His worshippers. God is a Spirit : and they that worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." — John iv. 19-24. I know not that even the Son of God ever made a more majestic annunciation. This proclamation by Jacob's Well forms a momentous epoch in the moral history of mankind ; it marks a colossal stride in the unfolding of the ideal of worship. It is as though the divine prophet had said, — ' ' Henceforth worship is not to be a thing of place and time and rite. Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when men will neither on your Gerizim nor on our Moriah worship the Father. You Samaritans are worshipping blindly. What though you accept the five books of Moses ? You do not catch their meaning. But we Jews know what we worship. We understand the meaning of paschal lamb; day of atonement ; holy of holies; mercy- WORSHIP IN NON-LITURGICAL CHURCHES 285 seat. We know that the promised Messiah is to come of Jewish stock. As then between Moriah and Gerizim, Moriah must take precedence. Yet our system of wor- ship, although divinely ordained, is only provisional. The hour has already come in which all who truly realize the ideal of worship will worship the Father in spu-it and truth, — in spirit as opposed to form ; in truth as opposed to type. For such kind of worshippers does the Father of spirits seek. Being Himself of a spiritual nature, He yearns toward what in us is spiritual. All true worship is but response to our Father's yearning." What sublime teaching for a Galilean carpenter! Alas ! how slowly the Church has been learning this sublime lesson of the spirituality of Christian worship ! To this day the confessors of the Prophet of Jacob's Well are debating about Gerizim and Moriah, — about little matters of vestments, canons, re-ordination, rebaptism, terms of communion, and the like. One might almost fancy that the story of Jacob's Well were altogther a myth, and that the Divine Man had never been born. No, worship is no longer a question of form, — henceforth worship is a question of spirit; no longer a matter of Jewish distinctions of meat and drink, — henceforth a matter of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. " Are we then (I hear you asking) to dispense with all forms of worship? Must we understand our Master as teaching that there is no need of church- organizations, and sacraments, and set seasons of worship ? " 286 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP Certainly not. We need all these, and such as these, as helps to worship, and therefore we must have them. For the body is the spirit's home, vehicle, organ, inlet, outlet. Accordingly, body and spirit act and react on each other. No matter how exalted our ideal of a Christian life may be, no matter how exalted our Christian character actually is, a quite certain thing is this, — the possibility of a genuine spiritual worship at any given time does depend greatly on our environment: for example, on the state of our bodily health; the comfortableness of the temperature ; the thoroughness of the ventilation ; the freedom from noise and distraction ; the manner of the preacher; the religiousness of the music; and the like. Even the character of the architecture affects the ease of spiritual worship, — many persons being really aided in their devotions by " The high embowed roof, With antick pillars massy proof, And storied windows richly dight, Casting a dim religious Ught." — 11 Penseroso. As a simple matter of fact, we cannot, even if we would, at least while we remain in this world, get rid of our bodies ; we must take them with us whenever we go to church, and be more or less affected by them during our worship. Here in fact is one of the reasons of the incarnation or enfleshment of Deity. Just because we are perforce more or less swayed by WORSHIP IN NON-LITURGICAL CHURCHES 287 our bodily organisms, it pleased the Father that in Jesus Christ His Son all the fulness of the Godhead should dwell bodily, body-wise. The incarnate career of the Son of God is Deity in sensible outflow and manifestation. The visible Jesus, because moving in the realm of our senses, helps us to see the invisible Father. Herein also lies the meaning of the ordinances of baptism and communion. These are outward acts, palpable to the senses ; and there- fore have been appointed to help us, body-invested as we are, to grasp the spiritual truths which they visibly symbolize. Forms of worship then are neces- sary. But they are necessary merely as means ; they are not themselves ends. The great thing then is to use forms intelligently, conceiving them as being only aids to worship, mere ladders by which the soul may climb to her eternal habitation. For God is spirit; and therefore they that worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. Nevertheless, we are still in the body ; and therefore even spiritual wor- ship must take on some kind of form or liturgy. Beware then of that pantheistic philosophy which, to use the words of one of its most distinguished champions, teaches that "Religion demands no particular actions, forms, or modes of thought ; man's plowing is as holy as his pray- ing, his daily bread as the smoke of his sacrifice, his home as sacred as his temple ; his week-day and his Sabbath are alike God's day." 288 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP On the other hand, Horace Bushnell never said a more sensible thing than when in his sermon entitled " Routine Observance Indispensable " he declares that " We need to keep fixed times, or appointed rounds of observance, as truly as to be in holy impulse ; to have prescribed periods in duty as truly as to have a spirit of duty ; to be in the diHl of observance, as well as in the liberty of faith." — Sermons on Living Subjects, xvi. Yes, I believe in Sabbaths and sanctuaries and hymns and prayers and sacraments. Were it not for these, and such as these, I honestly believe that true personal godliness would soon perish from the face of the earth. The consecrated temple, the gath- ered multitude, the devout posture, the humble invo- cation, the sacred melody, the holy reading, the reverent adoration, the hearty thanksgiving, the lowly confession, the fervent supplication, the generous intercession, the ardent aspiration, the glowing con- secration, the grateful offering, the uplifting sermon, the solemn baptism, the peaceful communion, the gracious benediction, — these, and such as these, are the stately buttresses and graceful shafts on which the Master of assemblies rests the temple of His truth, and from which His righteousness goes forth as brightness, and His salvation as a lamp that burns. It is as true to-day as it was in the days of the psalmist Asaph, God's way is in the sanctuary. And as a matter of fact, even non-liturgical WORSHIP IN NON-LITURGICAL CHURCHES 289 churches do have some form of liturgical service. Indeed, this whole question of liturgy is largely a question of degree rather than of nature ; ranging all the way from the simplicity of the Quaker meeting to the elaborateness of the Roman ritual. The com- parative bareness of the service in our non-liturgical churches is not so much a denial of the principle of a liturgy as it is a recoil against the excessive liturgy of ritualism. In fact, do not we ourselves, non-liturgical ministers though we are, have in our pulpits a printed " Order of Service. " — indeed, a little Breviary of our own, — varying, it is true, in different pulpits, yet serving as a sort of chart for such sons of Levi as may honor us with their friendly exchange, and particularly for those ecclesiastical peripatetics who are ever walking through di-y places, seeking rest, and find none? No, the question is not so much a question of substance as it is a question of degree. We all do have some kind of liturgy. And the problem is, — How much shall we have? Where shall we stop? What provision liturgical churches have made for worship in their respective communions has already been eloquently set forth by my honored predecessors in this course. " Worship in Non- Liturgical Churches " is the topic your courtesy has assigned me. And in discussing this topic, I must remember that in the audience which I have the honor of addressing there are many students for the Chris- tian ministry, the larger part of whom are doubtless 19 290 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP looking forward to service in non-liturgical churches. Accordingly, I presume, it is expected of me that I should say something about what I conceive to be a proper manner of conducting worship in churches which have no prescribed liturgy. Not that I am so conceited or stupid as to presume to prescribe rigid rules or modes of worship. All that I may presume to undertake is to offer some hints suggested by a somewhat long and varied observation and experience. Let me then, young brothers, say to you first of all that your responsibility in this matter will be very serious. For devotions, or acts of homage, consti- tute the chief part of worship. Beware, then, of falling into the irreverent habit of regarding the devotional services as merely subsidiary, degrading them into what are profanely styled "preliminary services, mere accessories," and the like. In fact, the devotional part of public worship is even more important than the preaching part; for the preaching part is to men, but the devotional part is to God. .Do not then let the devotional part drift. Arrange it as orderly and progressively as you would arrange the movements of your sermon. Poet and scientist alike sing "Order is Heaven's first law." Listen to Ulysses as he stands before Agamemnon's tent: " The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre Observe degree, priority, and place, Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, OflSce, and custom, in aU line of order." — Troilus and Cressida. WORSHIP IN NON-LITURGICAL CHURCHES 291 It is particularly true in the sphere of public wor- ship. Indeed, it was public worship which St. Paul had in mind when he wrote to the Corinthian Church, — "Let all things be done decently and in order" (de- corously and orderly). — 1 Corinthians xiy. 30. If ever we are to deport ourselves with reverent decorum, it is when we stand in the presence of the King of kings in His own appointed audience-court. " Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God ; be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God ; for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth : therefore let thy words be few." — Ecclesiastes v. 1,2. How then shall we as a congregation of worshippers express our worship? Unitedly, as one congrega- tion ; or isolatedly, as a congregation of one? Before undertaking to answer this question, permit me to say that I have the painful conviction that the wor- shippers in our non-liturgical churches are allowed too small a part in the public worship of Almighty God. With the exception of the responsive Bible readings now prevailing in some of our churches, and also of the singing (alas, even this privilege is in many instances artistically denied us), everything is done by a vicarious worshipper. No voice but the preacher's is heard in adoration, thanksgiving, con- fession, supplication, intercession, aspiration, com- 292 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP munion. So far as the vocal act of homage goes, the preacher alone worships. Should some angelic visitor enter one of our sanctuaries and observe the silence of the congregation, I am not sure but that he would imagine that some calamity like that which befell ancient Zacharias in the temple had befallen Christ's churchly priesthood to-day, and he would wonderingly ask what sin this people had committed that they should thus be struck dumb. Enter any Roman Catholic sanctuary while the service is going on. The priest is everything ; the laity is nothing. From beginning to ending, excepting the organist and choir, it is the priest who carries on the entire worship ; the congregation remaining as voiceless as an asylum of mutes or a graveyard of the dead. Enter one of our non-liturgical churches, and the same scene in its essential features is re-enacted. From beginning to ending, with the exception of the singing, and it may be of the responsive reading, it is the minister who is everything ; the congregation is nothing. It is the minister who does the preach- ing; and this of course is right. But preaching is not, strictly speaking, a part of worship. Preaching means exposition, instruction, warning, entreaty, comforting, building up of the body of Christ. As such, and in its own place, preaching is of supreme importance, and indeed indispensable. But preach- ing in itself is not a part of worship. The address- ing men on the subject of their duties and privileges is not worship ; except in the general sense that all WORSHIP IN NON-LITURGICAL CHURCHES 293 life, alike on Sunday and on week-days, in closet and market, ought to be a ceaseless liturgy. Public worship means the direct adoration of Almighty God and the direct supplication of His favor. It means the personal soaring of each individual worshipper toward his heavenly Father. Alas! this individual privilege of each member of the congregation we allow the minister to appropriate to himself. He alone lifts the veil, and enters the holy of holies, and communes before the mercy -seat; while the con- gregation stands mute in the outer court. The New Testament doctrine of the rent veil and the priest- hood of all Christians gives way to the Old Testa- ment doctrine of a sacerdotal order; or, what is worse, to the Roman heresy of a priestly caste and a priestly worship. Even the pulpit has been removed from the side to the centre ; so that the preacher is perpetually in the foreground, while the worship of Almighty God is consigned to a comparatively subor- dinate niche. How painfully true this is may be seen in the fact that while it is not considered rude to enter the sanctuary during the earlier parts of the service, such as the singing or the Bible reading, — that is to say, be it observed, during that part of the service which is distinctly liturgical or worship- ful, — it is considered rude to come in or go out while the minister is preaching, as though, forsooth, the main thing in worship were ignorant, feeble, sinful man, instead of Jehovah of hosts. What we need is a return to the ancient ways, even the good 294 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP old paths of our fathers, falling in line with the venerable and saintly past, worshipping liturgically, as did the church of Knox and Luther, Anselm and Chrysostom, Peter and Isaiah, David and Moses. On the other hand, we must guard ourselves against falling into mere routine worship. Remember what our Master Himself has said in this very matter of worship : — " In praying use not vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do : for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking: be not therefore like unto them : for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask Him." — Matthew vi. 7, 8. Does our Lord then mean to forbid all repetitions of the same words? Certainly not. He Himself bids repetition : " When ye pray, bay " ; then follows the Lord's Prayer according to the Evangelist Luke; moreover, He Himself thrice repeated the same prayer in Gethsemane. What, then, does our Lord forbid? Evidently the senseless repetition of prayers for repetition's own sake ; substituting quantity for quality; vaporizing verbal requests into monotonous iterations and reiterations. And this is a character- istically heathen habit. Thus prayed Baal's prophets on Carmel in Elijah's time, calling on the name of their god from morning even imtil noon, saying: -" Baal, hear us ! " Thus pray Buddhist monks to- day, ceaselessly repeating for whole days the sacred syllable, " Um ! Um ! Um ! " But is this much worse WORSHIP m NON-LITVRGIOAL CHURCHES 295 than the rosary of our Roman Catholic friends, which requires that each of its fifteen decades shall begin with a Paternoster, be continued with ten Ave Marias, and end with a Gloria Patri? Is it much worse than the ritual of our liturgical friends, which requires that on the recurrence of a certain day in each succeeding year precisely the same prayer shall be recited? Nay, more, is this Gentile custom of using vain repetitions much worse than the stereo- typed prayers of not a few of us non-liturgists, — prayers in which the round of particulars and the very phraseology may be predicted with almost as much certainty as the eclipses or the tides? Ah, if we cannot do better than this, — if we must use vain repetitions as the heathen do, — ■ it would pay for us to buy one of the devotional machines of the Thibetan Lamaists, and, cranking the wheel, set our prayers a-going. And now, to revert specifically to the question in hand, how shall we conduct worship in non-liturgical churches? Of course I cannot go into minute par- ticulars, — questions, for example, of order of ser- vice, selections for Bible reading, holy days, saints' days, posture, costume, and the like. I must con- tent myself with general suggestions. The chief elements of public worship are two, — Praise and Prayer. And just here the Model Prayer ^ is our 1 Observe, I do not say, "the Lord's Prayer;" for, although the Lord dictated it, and although it is familiarly and dearly known to us as " the Lord's Prayer," yet it is not His prayer in the sense that He 296 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP divine pattern. Observe how tlie first half, — " Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name : Thy kingdom come : Thy will be done As in heaven, so on earth," — consists in praise to God. Observe how the second half, — " Give us this day our daily bread ; And forgive us our debts. As we also have forgiven our debtors ; And bring us not into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one," — consists in prayer for men. And observe particu- larly that the praise comes before the prayer, — the angels of our worship ascending before descending upon the ladder of the Son of man. This divinely given order of thought in praise and prayer deserves Himself used it. For although entering sympathetically into human woe and guilt, — Himself taking our infirmities and bearing our sick- nesses, — yet He was evermore holy, harmless, nndefiled, separate from sinners. How, then, could He, who did no sin, and in whose mouth was found no guile, ever pray for Himself as though He were a fellow- sinner with us, saying, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors ? " No ; it is the seventeenth chapter of St. John's Gospel, — that wonderful, sublime, blessed chapter which records the Lord's own prayer, first, for Himself (verses 1 -5) ; secondly, for His Apostles (verses 6-19) ; and, thirdly, for His Church Universal (verses 20-26). It is this seventeenth chapter of St. John which is in the strictest sense the Lord's Prayer ; whereas the prayer which our Lord dictated to His disciples for their use, — " After this manner pray ye " ; " When ye pray, say," — this is the Church's, or the Model Prayer. WORSHIP IN NON-LITURGICAL CHURCHES 297 profound pondering. In studying it, let us rever- ently follow the same divine order. And first, what does praise mean? To answer in general outline, praise means adoration, thanks- giving, aspiration, consecration, offering, com- munion, and the like. Now the question is, — How shall we as a congregation of worshippers express our praise, our service of adorations, thanskgivings, aspirations? Let an inspired apostle answer our question : — "Speaking one to another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord " (speaking one to another responsively, in psalms and hymns and odes pneumatic ; chanting and psalming with your hearts to the Lord). — JSphesians V. 19. No wonder that Pliny, writing to his master Trajan about the close of the first century, describes the early Church as accustomed to assemble before day- light, and sing alternately one to another, praising Christ as God : — "Ante lucem con venire, carmenque Christo quasi Deo dicere secum invicem." — Epist. x. 97. The exile of Patmos describes the worship in heaven itself as liturgical (see Rev. iv. 8-11; v. 9-14; vii. 9-12; XV. 3, 4; etc.). For all deep feeling, especially the feeling of praise, is essentially poetical, instinctively yearning 298 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP for the rhythmical accompaniment of sound. In fact, the truest devotion is also the highest poetry. It has been so in all lands and in all ages. Recall the paeans of Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, David, Isaiah, Mary, Zacharias, Simeon ; even the great Hallel, or Hallelujah, of our Lord's final Passover. The Del- phian Pythoness herself was wont to breathe forth her oracle in hexameter. Even the Quakers, although they disallow music, yet preach intoningly, in a sing- song way. In brief, music is the natural outlet of devotion. What does not the Church owe in way of worship to the hymns of Greek Anatolius, Latin Ambrose, French Bernard, Italian Aquinas, Ger- man Luther, English Watts, American Palmer? Ay, here is the real concord of the ages ; here is the true ecumenical. I do thank God that the Christian hymns, of whatever communion, are the common property of Christ's Church of all communions. Here at least the non-liturgical churches are them- selves liturgical ; for they join in praising God con- gregationally and synchronously by using together the same hymnal formulas. But we are not only to praise God by speaking to one another in hymns and spiritual songs; we are also to praise Him in Psalms, chanting and psalming with our hearts to the Lord. In fact, the Psalter of the Bible ever has been, and I trust ever will be, the chief praise -book of the Church. Indeed, many of the Psalms were composed for a distinctively litur- gical purpose; for example. Psalms xcii.-c. Ac- WORSHIP IN NON-LITURGICAL CHURCHES 299 cordingly they have an antiphonal or responsive structure; that is, the lines or strophes were to be chanted alternately, for example, by sections of the choir responsively to each other, or by Levite and congregation. For while English rhythm is the rhythm of metre, and English rhyme is the rhyme of sound, Hebrew rhythm was the rhythm of statement, and Hebrew rhyme was the rhyme of sentiment ; or, as Ewald beautifully expresses it, " the rapid stroke as of alternate wings," "the heaving and sinking as of the troubled heart." Viewed in this light, Hebrew poetry is as much nobler than modern as rhyme of thought is nobler than rhyme of sound. When will our colleges teach Job and David and Isaiah as well as Homer and Virgil and Dante? Now this musical burst of soul and its responsive echo — this deep calling unto deep — is quite lost in our Authorized Version, and also in the Psalter of the Book of Common Prayer ; for in these versions the parallelism of sense-rhythm or thought-rhyme is ruptured into verses so-called, which, however, are not so much verses as fractures. I confess that the re- sponsive readings of Scripture, whether in the Psalter of liturgical churches or in the Bible selections of some of our non-liturgical, have never impressed me deeply; for they are painfully mechanical, sug- gesting neither the thought-rhythm of Hebrew paral- lelism nor the sound-rhyme of modern hymnals. One of the great boons which the revisers of our English Bible have conferred on us is their printing the 300 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP Psalms (as also they ought to have printed many of the prophecies) in lines instead of " verses " so- called ; thus helping to preserve the parallelism so exquisitely characteristic of Hebrew poetry. And herein, as it seems to me, lies the superiority of chanting. For while in certain respects it is said to be more difl5cult than singing, yet in other respects it is the simplest form of religious music, and therefore it offers least temptation to pride of artistic execution. Moreover, chanting is intelli- gible; and this is certainly an advantage. For, according to a master of spiritual music, — " Even things without life, giving a voice, whether pipe or harp, if they give not a distinction in the sounds, how shall it he known what is piped or harped ? For if the trumpet give an uncertain voice, who shall prepare him- self for war? So also ye, unless ye utter by the tongue speech easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? for ye wiU be speaking into the air." — 1 Corinthians xiv. 7-9. Once more, chanting is probably the most ancient form of temple music. To the reflective worshipper few things are more inspiring than the sense of join- ing in strains centuries old. What can awaken a sublimer feeling of worship than to join in chanting, for instance, the Benedicite, the Magnijicat, the Bene- dictus, the Gloria in Excehis, the Nunc Bimittis, the Gloria Patri, the Tersanctus, the Te Beum Lau- damus? What could be auguster than for a con- WORSHIP IN NON-LITURGICAL CHURCHES 301 gregatioDL to rise at the beginning of worship, and join in chanting anti-pTionally the Venite, exultemus Domino ? " O come, let us sing unto Jehovah ; Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, Let us make a joyful noise unto Him with psalms. For Jehovah is a great God, And a great King above all gods. In His hand are the deep places of the earth ; The heights of the mountains are His also The sea is His, and He made it ; And His hands formed the dry land. O come, let us worship and bow down ; Let us kneel before Jehovah our Maker ; For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand." — Psalm -say. 1-7. Now when this responsive chanting or antiphonal recitative of the Hebrew parallelism shall become more familiar in our worship, and take the place due it in the musical part of our service, then shall the Hebrew Psalter become still more than ever the great praise-book of the Church. True, to chant well is a difficult art; but it can be learned. In my judgment, music composers could hardly do a more sacred thing than to set the liturgical psalms to simple and fitting chants ; nor could music teach- ers do a richer service to the Church than to teach the children of our congregations (not merely a " boys' choir") how to chant the psalms; thus singing in 302 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP the temple Hosannas to the Son of David, and out of the mouths of babes and sucklings perfecting praise. Let our children of this generation be thus trained to chant the melodies of the Psalter; then the worshippers of the next generation will indeed be, like the sons of Korah in the ancient temple, singers to the Chief Musician. But prayer, not less than praise, is a part of wor- ship. Indeed, to praise without praying is to wor- ship as worshipped Cain and the Pharisee. And now our question is, — How shall we as a congrega- tion of worshippers express our prayers, our service of confessions, supplications, intercessions, aspira- tions? Shall each worshipper pray silently, follow- ing the minister as he prays for the congregation? Or shall the minister and the congregation pray together, joining their voices in familiar and appro- priate formulas? In brief, shall the congregation pray directly; or shall it pray by proxy? Both directly and by proxy is my answer. On the one hand, we need extemporaneous prayers. Observe, however, that when I say " extemporaneous, " I do not mean unpremeditated. For no minister has a right to undertake to lead his people in their devo- tions, and at the same time to allow himself to drift before God in his praying. If ever a pastor should carefully arrange his thoughts beforehand, asking the Spirit's guidance in his preparation, it is when he undertakes to present his flock before the Chief Pastor, voicing for them their manifold desires and WORSHIP IN NON-LITURGICAL CHURCHES 303 needs. No; by extemporaneous prayers I mean prayers that are unwritten, or at least unread. And such prayers, when duly premeditated, are apt to be fresh, specific, appropriate, sympathetic, fervent, unctional. Just here, as I venture to think (may my dear brethren of the liturgical churches forgive me for saying it !), is one of the serious defects in their noble form of worship. Profoundly convinced as I am of the need and the beauty of liturgical forms of worship, I would never surrender the precious privi- leges and spiritual worth of extemporaneous prayers in the house of God. But as this is already one of our established usages, I need not descant on it further. On the other hand, we need forms of devotion as well as the spirit of devotion. Young brethren, the older I grow, the more incompetent I feel for attempt- ing to lead the people's devotions extemporaneously. As the flying years bring with them more of experi- ence and observation, the more I shrink from the possible disasters incident to extemporaneous prayers, — for instance, grammatical blunders; tortuous movements; forced retreats; explanatoiy paren- theses; ill-timed allusions; unfortunate reminis- cences, and oblivions as unfortunate; unintentional exaggerations; personal idiosyncrasies; capricious moods ; theological processes ; conscious mentalities ; in one word, egoism. And therefore I thank the Master of Assemblies that He has at sundry times and divers manners moved saintly men of all communions 304 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP to provide prayers for the use of His Church, — prayers which are choice in thought; brief in statement; comprehensive in range; manifold in variety; spe- cific in details ; reverent in expression ; hallowed in associations; reverend in antiquity. For prayers, like hymns, are the common heritage of all Christ's people in all lands and all times and all communions. Our brethren of the Greek Church have no more right to monopolize the Prayer of St. Chrysostom than our brethren of the Methodist Church have the right to monopolize Charles Wesley's "Jesus, Lover of my Soul. " If it is right to praise God by singing to- gether the same hymns, why is it not right to pray to God by joining together in the same prayers? Is prayer less solemn than praise? Oh, brothers, why take such pains to elaborate our written sermons before finite and sinful men, and yet presume to extemporize our prayers before infinite and sinless God? Of whom shall we be the more afraid, — them who can kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do ; or Him who has power to destroy both body and soul in Gehenna? Yea, I say unto you. Fear Him. But while all this is true, we must take care lest in our use of collects and liturgical prayers we allow ourselves to become slaves to a ritual. Laws which alter not may have become heathen Medes and Per- sians: they hardly become the followers of Christ; for where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Appropriate, beautiful, devout, uplifting as many of WORSHIP IN NON-LITURGICAL CHURCHES 305 the collects are, they must not be allowed to supplant liberty of conscience or freedom of emotion and ex- pression. Minister and people must stand fast here in the liberty wherewith Christ set us free, lest we be entangled again in some yoke of bondage which our liturgical fathers or our -non-liturgical contem- poraries may have imposed. Having thus insisted on the right pf Christian liberty here, I feel free to say that while extemporaneous prayers and liturgical prayers are both allowable, they are hardly equally allowable, my judgment leaning, in the majority of cases, to the use of appropriate and hallowed for- mulas. Doubtless the wisest course here is to have a liturgy which is flexible, judiciously blending the stateliness of ancient formulas and the tenderness of modern adjustments. Glancing back at the territory through which we have sped, let me re-indicate some of the points where we halted for special inspections. We have seen that worship is a divine instinct; that the God of Revelation made provision for this instinct in His liturgy for ancient Israel ; that Israel's liturgy was abolished under and in Christ; that, notwithstand- ing this abolition, forms of worship are still indis- pensable ; that liturgy is a question of degree rather than of substance ; that devotions are the chief parts of worship ; that worship in non-liturgical churches tends to be vicarious; that we must guard against vain repetitions ; that " the Lord's Prayer " is our model for worship; that the two chief elements of 20 806 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP worship are praise and prayer ; that music is the natu- ral outlet of praise ; that the Psalter is the Church's chief praise-book ; that chanting is the noblest form of church music ; that extemporaneous prayers have certain immense advantages of freshness, adapted- ness, personality, sympathy, fervor, unction; that liturgical prayers have also certain immense advan- tages of variety, brevity, specialty, reverence, pre- ciousness, and above all, concord. To sum up as compactly as possible : Worship in non-liturgical churches should have a liturgy that is flexible ; thus joining the stability of the golden altar with the mobility of its soaring incense. So shall the two pillars of our praise and prayer in the temple of our God be called " Jachin " (that is, " He shall establish") and "Boaz" (that is, "In it is strength "). After all, young brothers, daily life is the real worship ; daily character is the true liturgy. Listen to Jerusalem's great Pastor : — " Pure religion (Opijo-Keta, worship, ritual) and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." — James i. 27. " There are in this loud, stunning tide Of human care and crime, With whom the melodies abide Of the everlasting chime ; WORSHIP IN NON-LITURGICAL CHURCHES 307 Who carry music in their heart Through dusky lane and mart, Plying their daily task with busier feet, Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat." — Keble's Christian Year. Be it for you and me thus to worship. Thus wor- shipping, we shall be admitted to that nobler service, in that purer realm, wherein there shall be no longer need of sun or moon, church or rite; for the Lord God, the Almighty, is the temple of it^ and the Lamb is the liturgy thereof. " Almighty and merciful God, of whose only gift it Cometh that Thy faithful people do unto Thee true and laudable service ; grant, we beseech Thee, that we may so faithfully serve Thee in this life, that we fail not finally to attain Thy heavenly promises; through the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." — Collect. X THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP By the Rev. THOMAS S. HASTINGS, D.D., LL.D. President of the Faculty of Union Theological Seminary, New York City. THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP npHIS course of lectures began with an admirable -■- presentation of the Principles of Christian Worship. Then followed historical discussions of the chief representative liturgies, showing an evolu- tion which prepared the way for the final theme, — The Ideal of Christian Worship. The terms are simple, and yet there may be help in definition. What is an ideal? An ideal is the superlative, the uttermost degree of excellence, of beauty, and of power of which a thing is capable. It is that toward which all development tends : it is the goal of progress. The value and power of the ideal can hardly be overestimated. In his History of Rationalism in Europe, Lecky says^ that it is "the assimilating and attractive influence of a per- fect ideal, " which has been " the main source of the moral development of Europe." To some the ideal is only a visionary thing. It savors of building cas- tles in the air. But, as Thoreau says,^ "If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost : that is where they should be. Now put foun- » Vol. i. p. 336. ^ Walden, p. 346. 312 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP dations under them. " That touches the vital point. We must build castles in the air, but can we, will we put foundations under them? Without the ideal there would be no aspiration, no progress. The other term to be defined is worship. In the most general sense it is the natural or instinctive recognition and assertion of our divine kinship; it is the uplifting and outgoing of the soul toward the author and the end of its being. Not impression but expression is its main object, its characteristic idea. Worship is the expression to God of the soul's convictions and emotions; — it involves rev- erence for God in Christ, penitence, faith, love, joy, gratitude, hope, aspiration and holy desire. It is the expression of the inward faith and love of the believer by methods and forms corresponding to the nature of the soul. Vinet says:^ "Worship is the more immediate expression, the purely religious form of religion. It is the internal or external act of adoration, — adoration in act. Now adoration is nothing else than the direct and solemn acknowl- edgment of the divinity of God, and of our obligations to Him. " It is important to remember that there are two sides of worship, the divine and the himian. In prayer man draws near to God, and God draws near to man. The divine spirit co-operates with the human spirit in every true prayer. It has been beautifully said that "Worship is the dialogue be- 1 Vinefs Pastoral Theology, p. 178. THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 313 tween God and the soul " ; or, as another ^ puts it, true prayer is " a part of God's soliloquy. " If the divine participation be wanting, it is because the human service is not genuine. In real worship God and man are together, and are co-operating. The question will be asked, — How much of our public service is to be considered as comprehended in worship? Vinet says,^ "Public worship, other- wise called service or divine office, comprehends, according to the ordinary idea, whatever is per- formed during the time in which an assembly remains together in the name of God and for the cause of God. " But our question was more fittingly answered in the opening lecture of this course. We were told that there are seven elements in public worship, — "the hymn, the Scripture, the belief, the prayers, the oblation, the teaching, the sacraments." This is the general and prevailing view. And yet there are some who deny that the sermon is really a part of the worship. But it should be remembered that the true object of a sermon is to feed the fires of devotion, of consecration, and of service. Devotional feeling must have a basis of knowledge, thought, and conviction. Emotion is secondary ; it must be fed, or it will soon burn out. Instruction feeds the flame of worship, and through it comes that necessary increment of knowledge which is fuel for the altar fire of worship. Sometimes the tendency has been 1 Radical Problems, p. 89. 2 Pastoral Theology, p. 198. 314 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP to crowd out the sermon by the predominance of other parts of the service ; at other times the sermon by its length has lessened the time for reading, song, and prayer. Luther went to an extreme in this matter. He said, " The greatest and most important part of all the worship of God is the preaching and the teaching of God's Word." He even went so far as to say, "Wherever the Word of God is not preached, there it is better neither to sing, nor to read, nor to assemble together. " On the other hand, the Presb3-terian Directory for Worship says,^ "As one primary design of public ordinances is to pay social acts of homage to the most high God, minis- ters ought to be careful not to make their sermons so Jong as to interfere with or exclude the more impor- tant duties of prayer and praise ; but preserve a just proportion between the several parts of public wor- ship. " Those are wise words. The ideal of worship requires that this "just proportion" of its several parts be carefully preserved. Ritual and liturgy must not crowd the sermon and so limit its useful- ness as a means of promoting a thoughtful and an intelligent worship. On the other hand, the sermon must not be permitted to subordinate praise and prayer, or the reading of the Word. In the non- litargical churches the sermon is generally too long; while in the liturgical churches it is apt to be too short. It would be quite impossible within the limits 1 Chapter vii. 4. THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 316 assigned to this lecture to speak at length of all the seven elements of public worship which have been named. A few words may be said concerning some of these elements, and then a more extended consid- eration of the others will be undertaken. I shall not follow the order of the seven elements, because the first, "the hymn," and the fourth, "the prayer," require the chief places in our discussion. The second element in worship is "the Scripture." The reading of the Divine Word is a part of the wor- ship, not as bibliolatry, but as a homage to the recorded will of God. The ideal is that the Word shall be read with such intelligence, clearness, and emphasis that its meaning shall be apparent, and its power and beauty shall be felt by the people. Responsive reading makes good reading impossible. It breaks the exquisite rhythm and the fine coherence and continuity of the Scriptures. Another element in the ideal of this part of the worship is, that as much as possible of the Word should be read in the course of each year in the public services. A Lectionary, or table of selections from Scripture, would serve an excellent purpose. It would insure a far more com- prehensive public reading of the Bible than is possi- ble while the minister Is loft, as now, to make his selection with reference to his sermon, or to be guided only by his taste and feeling. The Bible is a large book, much larger than any one minister. Its public reading should not be circumscribed by the small limitations of any one man. The ideal is to 316 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP have the whole of the Scriptures as fully represented from year to year in the public reading as may be consistent with the maintenance of a due proportion of the several parts of the worship. The third element of public worship is " the belief. " That venerable and beautiful symbol, the Apostles* Creed, of course belongs equally to all the churches, and deserves a place in all public worship at least once on the Sabbath. It should be repeated in uni- son by the whole body of worshippers standing together before God. The oblation was named as the fifth element of public worship. The Psalmist cries, " Give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name ; bring an offering, and come into His courts." (Ps. xcvi. 8.) The ideal worship will no more be empty-handed than it will be songless or prayerless. The gold, frankin- cense, and myrrh wise men will bring whenever they gather to worship the incarnate Lord. Instead of occasional contributions, there will be in every ser- vice free-will offerings as inseparable from worship as are songs and prayers. The treasury of the Lord will then be full. Giving will be a delight; not a hesitant and reluctant answer to arguments and appeals, but a glad and grateful, a spontaneous and habitual offering unto God. The Sacraments constitute the crowning element of worship. Only a few words may be said concerning the Holy Communion. This beautiful symbolic ordinance deserves a high place in public worship. THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 317 To put its observance at the close of an ordinary ser- vice is to endanger its spiritual value, unless it can be made the culmination, and not the mere hurried conclusion of such a service. One thing should be emphasized: the celebration of the Eucharist is not by any means a fitting occasion for didactic or for evangelistic talk. It is not the fitting occasion for instructing or exhorting believers, much less for warning unbelievers. It is pre-eminently a Com- munion Service, in which fellowship with Christ and with one another should characterize the worship; and this fellowship should be full of praise, of grati- tude, of gladness, and of hope. To my mind it would be ideal if all churches could agree to be visibly one in the celebration of this ordinance, both as to the time and as to the mode of its celebration. It would indeed be inspiring to feel that the whole believing host is at the same time and in the same way com- memorating the sacrifice of our common Lord and Saviour. Surely we might — God grant that we may — agree, in all branches of the Church, upon some common order for at least this one delightful service. This order should not be made by any one church, but should be compiled from the usages and from the historic treasures of all the churches, both liturgical and non-liturgical. Could we reach such an agree- ment, it would be an ideal movement toward the inviting goal of Church Unity. It would be a thrilling scene to angels and to men, if all be- lievers, in holy concert of the common faith, 318 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP would thus unite in celebrating the Supper of the Lord. Thus far all of the seven elements of public wor- ship have been considered except the first and the fourth, the hymn and the prayer. To these our attention shall now be given. The Hymn. — The ideal is that as many as possible shall take at least some part in the service of song and of prayer. Neither the minister nor the choir should be so prominent as to dishonor or to discredit the true priesthood of the body of believers. Chris- tians are " an holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacri- fices acceptable to God by Christ Jesus " ; they are " a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, that they should shew forth the praises of Him who hath called them out of darkness into His marvellous light." (1 Pet. ii. 5, 9; cf. Isa. li. 6; Rev. i. 6.) As PearsalP says, "The complaint of many intelli- gent Christians is not that we have too much of the voice of the minister, but too little of the voices of the people, — that too much is done for them, and too little hy them. There is an excess of listening in our devotional services." This complaint, of which Mr. Pearsall thus speaks, is becoming more and more general and imperative. The people are willing that the minister and the choir should in some fitting measure represent them in song and in prayer, but they rightfully claim that their own voices shall be heard in the services. This claim cannot safely be disregarded. 1 Public Worship; the Best Methods of Conducting it, p. 160. THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 319 Jonathan Edwards took the deepest interest in this part of public worship, and he uttered these pungent words, which the Church of to-day sadly needs to hear: "As it is commanded of God that all should sing, so all should make conscience of learning to sing, as it is a thing that cannot be done decently without learning. Those therefore who neglect to learn to sing live in sin, as they neglect what is necessary to their attending one of the ordinances of God^s worship."^ These words con- vict most of the churches of to-day as living in sin in neglecting systematic instruction in church music. In the early Christian centuries the Church recognized its duty in this regard. Gregory the Great established singing schools in Rome, and often attended them himself. In this country, especially after the Revolution, singing schools were common and characteristic. But during recent years such schools are scarcely known, and are not in any way recognized as necessary for the proper equipment of the Church, or for the maintenance of such singing in the sanctuary as, to use Edwards's words, " cannot be done decently without learning." Meanwhile the reading of music at sight is almost a lost ai-t, so that for the most part the singing of God's praise must of necessity be done by proxy, except so far as the old tunes, learned by ear, are retained, to the deep and restless dissatisfacti on of the young and of 1 Quoted by the Reverend J. Spencer Pearsall in his Public Wor- ship, p. 109. 320 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP all who love good music. The churches of course must suffer for this neglect of duty, and they deserve no sympathy whatever for the endless trou- bles they are having with choirs and with those who want something more and better than " Windham, " "Dundee," and "Balerma." In England, Scot- land, and Wales the situation is by no means so bad. Under the influence of the Curwens, of Dykes, Barnby, Smart, Monk, and of many others, there is an active interest in the promotion of the practical training of congregations in church music. Mr. Curwen says,^ "The example of every church whose psalmody has reached a high degree of congregational power and beauty shows that the key to success is hard and sustained work in teaching the congrega- tion. " Then this author tells us how this work is done in many different churches through " Psalmody Improvement Associations "; through large elemen- tary classes in which congregations are taught to read music ; and through regular " practices " (or rehear- sals), "Psalmody Classes," and Praise Services. This educational work, we are told, has yielded excellent and delightful results. We are living in the era of the Hymn-Tune Book. Our forefathers had only psalm-books, and would tolerate nothing else. Sternhold and Hopkins, Rouse, Tate and Brady, Ainsworth's Psalms, the Bay Psalm-book, and then Watts's Psalms and Hymns, — this is the familiar succession. Isaac Watts is 1 Studies in Worship Music, by J. Spencer Cnrwen, p. 162. THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 821 styled the "Inventor of Hymns." But in all the editions of Watts's Psalms and Hymns, a sharp dis- tinction was maintained between psalms and hymns ; they were separated. But that distinction and sepa- ration are practically lost. For convenience of adap- tation, the Hymn-Tune Book has mingled the psalms and the hymns together, and gradually the rapid multiplication of hymns has been steadily crowding out the psalms from our repertoire. For the last forty years, that is, throughout the era of the Hymn- Tune Book (which began in 1856), this process has been steadily going on. What will be the result ? It is to be hoped that the best and noblest of the versions may be retained. We cannot afford to lose them. But probably metrical versions of the Psalms will be to a great extent succeeded by a revival of chanting, which, though a low order of music, has this great advantage, that it preserves and honors the exact language of the Psalter. Hymns must have place and recognition, for it is the inalienable right of each age and generation to make and to sing its own songs of praise. Dr. Watts said : ^ " Moses and Deborah, and the princes of Israel, David, Asaph, and Habakkuk, and all the saints under the Jewish state, sung their own joys and victories, their own hopes and fears and deliverances ; and why must we, under the Gospel, sing nothing else but the joys, hopes, and fears of Asaph and David ? Why must Christians be forbid all other melody but what arises 1 Worlcs, iv. 116. 21 322 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP from the victories and deliverances of the Jews ? David would have thought it very hard to have been confined to the words of Moses, and sung nothing else on all his rejoicing days but the drowning of Pharaoh in the fifteenth of Exodus." Of course Dr. Watts was right. We must have our own hymns. Demand will regulate supply. Ephemeral hymns and tunes will intrude themselves for a time, but will disappear as the level of education is lifted. I have said nothing of instrumental music as an aid in worship. The organ has come to stay, for it desei'ves to stay. Dr. Bushnell said of it : ^ " This is the instrument of God, and so in fact it now is. The grandest of all instruments, it is, as it should be, the instrument of religion. Profane uses cannot handle it. It will not go to the battle, nor the dance, nor the serenade ; for it is the holy Nazarite, and can- not leave the courts of the Lord. " ^ But are we to have other instruments in the sanctuary ? Who shall dare 1 Work and Play, p. 460. 2 In 1735, the Dean of Berkeley presented an organ to the town which bears his name, but in a public meeting the people voted that " An organ is an instrument of the DbtU, for the entrapping of men's souls"; and so they declined to receire the generous gift. (Studies in Worship Music, by J. Spencer Cnrwen, p. 62.) The violoncello was the first instrument to invade the sanctuary. It was sneeringly called " the Lord's Fiddle." It drove many people from the churches. Even Dr. Emmons left the pulpit, and refused to preach, when he heard the violoncello in the choir gallery. The churches were distracted and divided by the innovation, and in the language of that day were known as " Catgut " or " Anti-catgut " churches. Comp. Hood's History of Music in New England; The Sabbath in Puritan New England, by Alice Morse Earle. THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 823 exclude them if they can aid the service of song ? Read the last Psalm in the Psalter as the best and briefest treatment of this point. " Praise ye the Lord. Praise God in His sanctuary; praise Him in the firmament of His power. Praise Him for His mighty acts ; praise Him according to His excellent great- ness. Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet; praise Him with the psaltery and harp. Praise Him with the timbrel and dance ; praise Him with stringed instruments and organs [or "the pipe," as the Revision has it]. Praise Him upon the loud cym- bals; praise Him upon the high sounding cymbals. Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord." This would seem to justify a whole orchestra in the church, if thereby the praise of God may be promoted. The beat and highest that we can bring to the altar we owe to Him whom we worship. Art must be subordinate ; must serve and not dominate. Architecture and music we must have. Painting and sculpture we may have, if only they can serve and not rule. One principle must be emphasized as bearing equally both upon praise and prayer. While we deprecate the entire silence of the people in public worship, it must not be assumed by any means that they cannot join in song or in prayer except as they join with their voices. That would be a monstrous assumption against which all churches, liturgical and non-liturgical, must alike protest. Worship may be silent. There should be some sing- 324 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP ing in which the people do not join with their voices, but only with their hearts. Introits, Anthems, Psalms, and Hymns, in some parts of the service, may be so sung by the representatives of the people that the singing shall be both an education and a spiritual help to the silent worshippers. It can be wisely claimed only that the people shall have some vocal participation both in song and in prayer. Now can we give the ideal of this part of public worship ? The ministry will be so trained in the theological schools that they can intelligently guide and elevate the praises of the sanctuary. The Church will feel that she must systematically promote and maintain such musical education as will make the praise of God in his house a delight and a service worthy of His holy name. There will not only be schools and classes for instruction, but there will be gatherings of the congregations for special practice, tuition, and rehearsal. As all can be taught to sing, all will be taught to sing. I know that some will question this statement ; let me fortify it by high authorities. Curwen says : ^ " The question may be asked, Do you really mean that all persons can be taught to sing? What about those that have no voice, or no ear ? To this I reply, that although natural capacity for singing differs greatly in dif- ferent people, I believe that, speaking generally, all persons can be taught sufficient to enable them to take their natural part in the chants and hymn-tunes of 1 Studies in Worship Music, p. 155. THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 325 the service. Dr. Hullay is never tired of reiterating his disbelief in the common talk about people having no ear, and no voice. It is, of course, easier for a boy to learn to sing than a man ; it is easier for some men than for others ; but it is impossible for so very small a minority, that we may safely say it is possible for all. " Then the people will praise the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Is there any other being so sen- sitive, so refined, so delicate in taste and feeling as is the God we worship ? He who has made the forms and colors of the flowers so fine and fair, and the songs of the birds so varied and sweet, He surely should have the choicest and best offerings of our minds and hearts, of our hands and tongues. He longs for the faith, the confidence, and the overflowing affection of his worshippers; for as that exquisite Scripture puts it, " The Lord taketh pleasure in His people." (Ps. cxlix. 4.) The remaining element in public worship which we have to consider is prayer. Two types of worship have characterized Prot- estantism, — liturgical and non-liturgical services.'^ 1 John HuUah, LL.D., Professor of Vocal Music in Queen's College and in Bedford College, London. 2 A few books may be named in two classes. 1st. For those who are opposed to liturgies : Miller on Public Prayer ; Henry on Prayer ; Worship of the Old Covenant; Willis's Pulpit Prayers by Eminent Preachers ; The Worship of the Presbyterian Church, D. D. Banner- man ; The Wmship and the Offices of the Church of Scotland, Dr. G. N. Sprott. 2dly. Tor those who favor liturgies : Translations of the Primitive Liturgies, Neale and Littledale ; The Book of Common Order, 326 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP All who desire the unity of the Church should seek to blend these two types in one. That is the ideal. Some one has said, "The Gospel edition of Levit- icus is comprised in a single verse, ' God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. ' " All will agree with that. Worship is a matter of spirit rather than of form. But form and spirit are not antagonistic. They belong together, and form may serve and help spirit, and spirit may subsidize, beautify, and glorify form, transfiguring it as on the mount of vision. My limits forbid a full review of the histoi-y of what the Presbyterian Church has done with reference to this subject. Only some necessary points shall be touched. In 1787, a committee, appointed the year before to revise the "Book of Discipline and Directory for Worship," reported to the Synod of New York and Philadelphia a collection of devotional forms, speci- mens of what the public prayers should be. A majority of the Synod, however, decided that only directions, and not forms, should be given. Against this action some of the ablest and wisest men in the commonly known as John Knox's Liturgi/ ; Eutaxia, or the Presbyterian Liturgies, and A Book of Public Prayer, compiled from the Authorized Formularies of the Presbyterian Church, as prepared by the Reformers, Calvin, Knox, Bucer, and others, both by Dr. C. "W. Baird ; A General Liturgy and Book of Common Prayer, Dr. S. M. Hopkins ; An Order of Worship, with Forms of Prayer for Divine Service, B. B. Comegys, LL.D. ; also, by the same author, Public Worship, partly Respon- sive ; Scriptural Prayer Booh far Church Services ; A Presbyterian Prayer Book. Other books will be named as reference is made to them. THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 327 Church at that time — Doctors Rogers, McWhorter, Ashbel Green, and others — protested, desiring that at least some forms should be given to the churches. It should be noted that forms of prayer were not for- bidden, but they could not be imposed or enjoined. I quote the language of the Directory : " But we thint it necessary to observe that, although we do not approve, as is well known, of confining ministers to set or fixed forms of prayer for public worship ; yet it is the indispensable duty of every minister, previ- ously to his entering on his office, to prepare and qualify himself for this part of his duty, as well as for preaching. He ought by a thorough acquaintance with the Holy Scriptures, by reading the best writers on the subject, by meditation, and by a life of com- munion with God in secret, to endeavor to acquire both the spirit and the gift of prayer. " i Going back still further, I would emphasize the fact that in 1543, Melancthon and Bucer prepared the Cologne Liturgy, a translation of which was published in London four years later. From this Cologne Liturgy, says Arch- bishop Laurence, in his work on the Thirty-nine Articles, pp. 377, 378, " Our offices bear evident marks of having been freely borrowed, liberally imitating, but not servilely copying it." That is the Angli- can statement of the case. The Presbyterian state- ment is more definite and comprehensive. It is claimed that the whole Lord's day service, as usually celebrated, " contains but a single prayer (and even 1 Directory for Worship, chap. v. section iv. 328 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP this exception is doubtful) that can be traced to a distinctively Episcopalian origin. In the occasional ofiBces of baptism, matrimony, visitation of the sick, and burial of the dead, the question of authorship lies between the Calvinist and the Lutheran, or between the French and the German Protestant, rather than between the Presbyterian and the Episcopalian. " ^ The Booh of Common Order, prepared by John Knox (1564), had much in common with the Anglican Liturgy, and was formally adopted by the General Assembly. The Scotch Prayer Book, substantially agreeing with the Anglican Liturgy, was authorized by the General Assembly in 1637. This would doubtless have been generally acceptable, but for the attempt of Charles L to force the liturgy upon the Church. This attempt led to the Solemn League and Covenant, which was the bold and decisive assertion of such liberty as Presbyterians have always loved and maintained. After the Restoration, the Book of Common Prayer would have been adopted by the Presbyterians if it had been changed in some particulars, as Charles II. promised that it should be. The Savoy Conference failed to bring about an agreement, and then followed the famous Act of Uniformity in 1662. Two thousand Presbyterian clergymen thereupon at once surrendered their liv- ings, and went forth penniless and homeless, because they would not be compelled to use a liturgy. The 1 Presbyterian Book of Common Prayer, edited by Professor Charles W. Shields, D.D., LL.D. Liturgia Expnrgata, p. 55. THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 329 lessons are obvious. The Book of Common Prayer cannot be considered as the exclusive property of any one branch of the Church; it really belongs to the Church Catholic. It is a legacy, not from Cranmer alone, but also from Calvin and Melancthon and Bucer and John Knox. Presbyterians have a his- toric right to use a liturgy, but its use must be dis- cretionary, and not required. Whether prayer be free or prescribed, its quality and character will correspond with the quality and character of the Church and of her ministry. So Van Oosterzee says,^ speaking of Germany: "As regards the contents, we see reflected also in the Church prayer, whether free or prescribed, the differ- ent periods which were passed through in the sphere of Church and theology. Orthodoxism petrified it ; Formalism lengthened it; Rationalism diluted and watered it; Crypto-Catholicism restored it in a form harmonizing with its own aspirations; but happily also, sincere devotion animated and raised it, in accordance with the wants of the time, to be the worthy expression of the highest life of the soul." In recent years there has. been a growing uneasi- ness with reference to this subject, both in the litur- gical and in the non-liturgical churches. The former want more liberty, — at least some room for free prayer; the latter want less liberty and more uni- formity. In 1880, in his brilliant paper read before 1 Practical Theology, by Professo? J, J. Van Oosterzee, D.D., p. 4Q^. 330 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP the Presbyterian Alliance in Philadelphia, the late President Roswell D. Hitchcock, D.D., LL.D., said: "Now in all liturgical churches, or nearly all, the liturgy is no longer servant, but master. There is too much of it for constant repetition. Liberty of omitting portions not always apposite, is unwisely denied. The absolute exclusion of extemporaneous petitions is equally unwise. And the overshadowed, dwarfed discourse would be a great misfortune were good discourse otherwise more likely to be had. . . . One of these days, though probably not till we are all gone, there will be a form of public service, which shall suit the matured and cultured none the less for suiting the immature and uncultured. ... No existing Prayer Book satisfies any good Presbyterian. Still less would any good, wise Presbyterian ask to have a new Prayer Book made up out of materials that are new. The materials mostly are old ; some of them very old, such as the ' Gloria in Excelsis, ' the ' Tersanctus,' and the ' Te Deum.' Christen- dom could better spare any treatise of Athanasius than the prayer ascribed to Chrysostom: ' Fulfil now, Lord, the desires and petitions of thy ser- vants as may be expedient for them, granting us in this world knowledge of thy truth, and in the world to come life everlasting.' The farther we get down the centuries, the more precious will be to us the long unbroken melodies of praise and prayer. " I have quoted these words of my honored predeces- sor, because with his main positions I heartily agree ; THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 331 but I cannot quite agree with what he said about exist- ing Prayer Books, and this may be because, in Dr. Hitchcock's view, I am not a good Presbyterian. I certainly do not want all that is found in any exist- ing Prayer Book, or Ordinal, but as certainly I could find in the Book of Common Prayer all the forms which I would crave for the use of our non- liturgical churches. And I would far rather have the selections made from that venerable and beautiful liturgy, than to have new forms made by any eccle- siastical body, or by any association. I am not unmindful of the excellent work which has been done by the " Church Service Society " in Scotland. That Society was formed in Glasgow in 1865. The first edition of its Booh of Common Order ^ was published in 1867, and the sixth edition in 1890, at which time it was reported that there were five hun- dred and six ministers and one hundred and thirty laymen in the membership of the Society, repre- senting more than sixty different Presbyteries. The Editorial Committee of this Society has searched the libraries of the great Universities to draw from all the liturgical literature of the centuries contributions for their work. Their methods have been scholarly, their labors abundant, and the results are of exceed- 1 EuxoXo'yioi'. A Book of Common Order, being Forms of Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, and other ordinances of the Church ; issued by the Church Service Society. WiUiam Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London. The volume contains a Lectionary intended to secure in the public reading of the Scriptures the fullest and most comprehensive representation of the whole Bible. 332 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP ing value. A similar society, bearing the same name, has been organized in this country. ^ But is it wise 1 Dr. Louis F. BensoD, of Philadelphia, is the President. The statement of the principles of this American "Church Serrice Society " is as follows : — " I. The Church Service Society of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America stands upon the basis of that doctrine of the Church, the Ministry, and the Sacraments, which ia set forth in the Westminster standards ; including within its province all matters and things which pertain to public worship. " 11. The society proposes as its first object an inquiry into the present conduct of public worship in the Presbyterian Chnrch, and the various orders of worship in actual use. "in. The society proposes to study the modes of worship which have been in use in the different branches of the Church, and especially in those Churches known as the Beformed, of which we are one ; and thus to recognize the importance of this branch of historical theology, to make its lessons clear to the mind of the Church, and to strengthen in our services the links which bind us to historic Christianity. " rV. The Society aims to follow this study of the present conduct and past history of the worship of the Church by doing such work in the preparation of forms of service in an orderly worship as may help to gnard against the contrary evils of confusion and ritualism, and promote reverence and beauty in the worship of God in His holy House, unity and the spirit of common praise and prayer among the people." The Provisional Constitution of the American Church Service Society is added : — "I. The name of the Society shall be The Chnrch Service Society of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. "n. The object of the Society shall 'be the improvement of public worship in the Church upon the basis set forth in the Statement of Principles. " in. The officers of the Society shall be a President, a Vice-Presi- dent, a Secretary, a Treasurer, and a Committee of Twelve, all of whom shaU be elected for the term of three years, and shall form a Board of Management for the Society. THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 333 to multiply forms of prayer ? In his Introduction to his Systematic Theology, Dr. Charles Hodge says : ^ "So legitimate and powerful is this inward teach- ing of the Sp,irit, that it is no uncommon thing to find men having two theologies, — one of the intel- lect, and another of the heart. The one may find expression in creeds and systems of divinity, the other in their prayers and hymns. It would be safe for a man to resolve to admit into his theology nothing which is not sustained by the devotional writings of true Christians of every denomination. It would be easy to construct from such writings, received and sanctioned by Romanists, Lutherans, " IV. Clergymen and male communicants in good standing in the Presbyterian Church iu the United States of America may be admitted to membership by the rotes of a majority of the Board, upon the ap- plicant's approval of the Statement of Principles. " V. Members shall make an annual payment of one dollar to the funds of the Society. " VI. Any person who is in sympathy with the objects of this Society and will subscribe the Statement of Principles, may be admitted to associate membership by a vote of the Board, and upon payment of the annual dues shall be entitled to receive a copy of the publications of the Society, but without the privilege of voting. " Vn. Meetings of the Society for the election of officers and for other purposes shall be called by the Board. Members may send their ballots through the mails. " VIII. Changes in the Constitution may be made by a majority of ballots cast at any meeting, provided that one month's notice of the proposed change has been given in writing to all members. " IX. Changes in the Statement of Principles shall be made only by a three-fourths vote of all the members of the Society, three months' notice of the proposed change having been given in writing to all members." 1 Vol. i. pp. 16, 17. 334 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP Reformed, and Remonstrants, a system of Pauline or Augustinian theology, such as would satisfy any in- telligent and devout Christian in the world. " This statement may be assumed to be orthodox. Accord- ingly, Christians of " every denomination " may be asked and expected to unite with a good degree of uniformity in their "prayers and hymns." So the historical spirit, the tradition of the churches, the common longing for church unity, the sacredness and the beauty of the affluent liturgical literature which we inherit from the centuries, and the con- fessed deficiency and inadequacy of the average extemporaneous prayer, — all these things unite in a common demand for some prescribed forms of wor- ship.^ The Lord's Prayer, all will agree, should have place and prominence, and it should be repeated in unison by the whole congregation. In Rhenish Prussia, and elsewhere, the beautiful custom has pre- vailed of tolling the bell when the Lord's Prayer is repeated in the public worship, so that those who are detained from the house of God by sickness or other causes may join in the common service. The Commandments should be read, combining duty with I In an article in the " New Englander" for August, 1855, the late Dr. Leonard Bacon, with characteristic positiveness, made this state- ment: "The responsive reading of the Psalms and of other devotional parts of Scripture, between the minister and the congregation, or the repetition of the Lord's Prayer by the whole assembly, would be quite certain to break down if attempted in any of our churches. Anything of that sort, we are sure, will be a failure." This reads strangely now. " We are sure " the good Doctor has not proved a good prophet. THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 335 devotion, and, as I said before, the Apostles' Creed should be repeated in unison. To these should be added the "Te Deum," the "Tersanctus," and the "Sursum Corda," the latter in connection with the Communion serivce. So far as this most are will- ing to go. The ideal, however, demands something more. The opponents of all forms of prayer assume that one man can be large enough to comprehend and to represent five hundred men. This seems a mon- strous assumption. No one man can reasonably be expected to be large enough or elastic enough to comprehend so much. The priesthood of the people must not be overshadowed and suppressed by the excessive and false assumption of priesthood by the minister who is only a minister. So the ideal of prayer calls us further. Nothing could be more beau- tiful and appropriate for the beginning of the Sab- bath worship than such Scriptures as introduce the " Order for Daily Morning Prayer " : — " The Lord is in His holy temple ; let all the earth keep silence before Him. I was glad when they said unto me, We will go into the house of the Lord. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart, be alway acceptable in thy sight, Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Grace be unto you, and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ." Then a form of confession, another of general thanksgiving, a prayer for the President of the United States and for all in authority, and another for "all classes and conditions of men," 336 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP might be used in common by all the churches of all denominations, and such unison and uniformity seem to me ideal. It may not be best that these forms should be taken from the Book of Common Prayer, though this would be my preference ; it may be better that they should be compiled from that and also from other existing liturgies. The important thing is not to add to divisiveness and confusion by making new forms. Added to these forms there should be free prayer, in which the pastor's heart may intercede for his people under the pressing consciousness of their immediate and characteristic wants. It would be the ideal of worship if all Christians of all denom- inations could be outwardly one at least in song and in prayer. Thus on the one hand might be avoided the danger which freedom in public worship involves, — the danger of lawlessness, disorder, and narrow inadequacy; and on the other hand might be avoided the danger which fixedness in public worship in- volves, — namely, the danger of formality, monotony, and restraint. The ideal must be the combination or the interblending of the two methods which have obtained so long, the liturgical and the non-litur- gical. The best things in each method should be adopted and unified. Then and thus the real one- ness of all believers would be proclaimed and empha- sized; then and thus the churches which differ in polity or in doctrine would be visibly one before the throne of grace. The ideal of Christian worship, — feeble and inad- THE IDEAL OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 337 equate must be the attempts of any one man to set forth such a theme. Even an archangel could not do it, for he could not know and feel the Christian element in worship. The fallen and the believing, and only they, can realize that ideal. We try to do it; we long to do it; we vie with animate and inan- imate nature to' swell the volume of adoration which this stricken and struggling earth is ever sending up to the throne of the Eternal, and God is always lis- tening and is always gracious. " From hiR to Mil, from field to grove, Across the waves, around the sky. There 's not a spot, or deep or high, Where the Creator has not trod, And left the footstep of a God. But are his footsteps all that we. Poor grov'ling worms, must know or see? Thou Maker of my vital frame, Unveil thy face, pronounce thy name. Shine to my sight, and let the ear Which Thou hast formed, thy language hear. Where is thy residence ? Oh ! why Dost Thou avoid my searching eye, My longing sense ? Thou great Unknown, Say, do the clouds conceal thy throne ? Divide, ye clouds, and let me see The power that gives me leave to be. Or art Thou all diffused abroad Thro' boundless space, a present God, Unseen, unheard, yet ever near ? What shaU I do to find Thee here? Is there not some mysterious art To feel thy presence at my heart? 23 338 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP To hear thy whispers soft and Mnd, In holy silence of the mind ? Then rest, my thoughts ; no longer roam In quest of joy, for heaven 's at home." ^ 1 Watts's Works, it. 510. ,i^-^i Tii^'^'r'fa 1-* M {|i'3h*tf4^?«i"(fr