LITURGICAL PROPOSALS PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND HISTORY, EXPERIENCE, AND SCRIPTURE. F--dj6 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND TRIED BY HIS TOR V, EXPERIENCE, AND SCRIP 1 URE. /^y - /^ ^DEC 8 1937 ^ OGICALGt^^ BY S. R.'^MACPHAIL, M.A, Liverpool, AND JOHN MONTEATH DOUGLAS, London. LONDON : JAMES NISBET AND CO, 2 1, BERNERS STREET. 189I. Richard Clay and Sons, Limited, london and bungay. CONTENTS. lAGE Prefatory Note, stating the Question Debated, the Motion and Amend:ment, and the Question left OPEN FOR Future Discussion in the Church . . ix c\: x English Prayer Book does not strengthen Churches apart from Establishment: General disuse by Methodists ; poor results in America and Colonies ; Striking Figures . xi-xvi Mr. MacphaiTs Argument i Some details of the Revision 3 Antique and Ritual Expressions 5 Confirmation 9 Ecclesiastical Language and Regulations ... 13 Standing at the Creed and ai Commencement of Service 14 Church Status of the Young 16 Sponsors 17 vi CONTENTS. VACK Admission to Full Communion 21 WrSTMINSTER DiREClORY OF 1644 22 History of Liturgies 24 Reformation Liturgies 31 John Knox's Liturgy (so-called) 33 Apostles" Creed; General Objections to Use ln Worship and as Test of Belief '42 Late Origin ; Dates of its parts widely dif- ferent 44 Not Apostolic or Catholic 46 Rev. Principal Cunningham's \varning against IP. Opposite Meanings put on it by different Churches 48 Dedication of Churches; Imperial, Catholic, AND Anglican 51 Results and Conclusion 63 Mr. Douglas's Argument ; Lntroductory 69 I. Burial Service 71 IL Lord's Supper, " Celebrai ion," " Holy Com- munion," ETC. . . • 72 in. Dedication of Churches, Catholic and Anglican, KTC 77 IV. The Lord's Prayer, incorrectly used; more care- ful attention to His directions wani ed . . 80 V. Apostles' Creed ; Introductory 84 CONTEXTS. vii PAGE (i) Miraculous Conception 86 (2) Descent into Hell, or Hades 87 (3) Holy Catholic Church 89 (4) Communion of Saints 90 (5) Grave Omissions from Creed, with Alterna- tive Questions offered, and preferable Questions proposed by United Presbyterian Devotional Service Association 91 VI. Conclusion 96 PREFATORY NOTE. The Synod of the Presbyterian Chnrch of Eng- land at its Meeting of Aprils 1 891, Iiad a Report laid before it by its Committee on Public Worships embodying an additional Litnrgical Service, prepared for the Dedication of a Chnrch, A motion was thereo?i made that tlie Committee should be authorised to print that Service, and bind it up along with the ''Draft of Revised Directory'' which they prepared in previoits years, and had been for some time selling. To this an amendme?it zvas moved, in effect, that the Synod^ seeing the strong objections to the Draft Revised Directory already issued, decline to proceed further in the matter, and intimate that no Synodical approval has been given to that book. What follozus is an enlargement of the speeches delivered by the mover and seconder of this amend- ment. They deal with the subject from entirely different points of viezv. Several other amendments itnfavourable to the Committee s proposals ivere moved, but were ultimately witlidrazvn along with the original motion, — and the following amendment, moved by the Rev. Dr. Morison of London, zvas carried by a majority PREFATORY NOTE. in a very thin house on the last evening of the Synod : " Tliat the report be received as a7i interim one, with thanks to the Convener and Committee^ The ivhole matter is thus left open for future discussion. In view of that fact, and of the importance of tJie subject, tlie zvriters have thought it zvell to pi^esent iji this form their aigiiments against the pi^oposed Book to tJie Ministers, Office-bearers, and Members of our Church. The facts and arguments on which the discussion should turn, — and the Liturgical ' work of the Committee, — have had comparatively little attentio?i in our Church generally. Great ignorance also prevails as to the small- ness of the use of the Prayer-book outside of the Chicrch of England itself, a^id as to the very reduced proportion of worshippers in connection with that Church in the United States and the British Colonies, as compared zvith the other Protestant denominations. The striking information on these subjects, which we have for that reason procured from the most authoritative sources available, will thei^efore be interesting and usefil. Does the Use of Liturgical Forms give Popularity and Strength to a Church ? No ; for English, American, and - Colonial Expeinence decidedly shows it does not. As follows : — The numerous churches and clergy, rich and fashionable congregations, and general influence of the Church of England, with the marvellous position and regard which the Prayer Book or Liturgy enjoys in that Church, so impress man}- residents in and visitors to England that they fancy this influence of the Church is in great part attributable to this constantly praised book. Thence they proceed to fancy that our Church, and other non-liturgical Churches, might increase their attractiveness and influence by adopting this popular Church of England liturgy, or part of it, or some imitation of it, or at least something like it, and generally by assimilating our services to it. But they should enquire whether the Liturgy gave the Church its special kind of success, or whether the great and rich Establishment, con- nected with almost all the territorial and official magnates, made its Liturgy such a favourite with its admirers. xii DISUSE BY METHODISTS AND OTHERS. This can best be answered by seeing what is the success and permanence of the Prayer Book, when and where it is not backed up by the prestige of Establishment. The evidence is clear and decisive. The Prayer Book has been and is disused by the English race, in England, in the United States (our oldest and greatest colony), and, in the Colonies, wherever it has lost the adventitious support of Establishment. I. In England. Two denominations or churches in England were originally off-shoots from the Church of England, and naturally began by all using the Prayer Book. One is the great world-wide Methodist Church. Of the Wes/ej/ans a number of the congregations in and about London, in Manchester and in Liver- pool, and a few here and there in other towns and places, still use the Prayer Book. The rest have given up liturgical forms. The Wesleyans don't use such in their missions generally, but in some parts of the West Indies and other places, where it had a special hold, they use a much modified form of the book. The Welsh Methodists, with the Primitive Methodists, and other smaller sections of the English Methodists, use no Prayer Book. The other is the small body known as Lady Huntingdons, whose pretty chapels, planted in attractive spots over England, used to be undis- tinguishable by a casual visitor from those of " The Church " itself, unless by their uniformly evan- gelical preaching. But the number of chapels has long remained almost stationary. The Prayer AMERICAN CHURCHES. xiii Book has been so little help to them that the writer of this is told by an intelligent minister of the denomination that a great part of their con- gregations have wholly disused it, while the others use it only as the minister pleases, and altered by him to his own taste. The writer has heard it so read, with the Creed altered for the better. II. In the United States of America. The Government Census of 1890 we have not yet received in detail, but that of 1880 gave the number of Protestant Church members, not mere adherents, thus : — Methodists of all sorts 4,500,000 Baptists ^ „ 3,585,000 Presbyterians „ 1,375,000 Lutherans 987,000 Congregationalists or Independents ... 436,000 Episcopal^ corresponding with the Church of England Toial Frotestant C/iurc/i A fern ders .. 11,314,000 The Methodists in America don't use the Prayer Book, and are free from liturgical forms. There is much misapprehension as to the largest section ot that Church from its calling itself " Episcopal Methodist," and having a small staff of " Bishops." But these are not such in the prelatic sense, nor have they any dioceses, but are Superintendents or Overseers, the English equivalents of the Greek word Bishop They travel about, superintending their many thousands of congregations, scattered over that vast country, and have not the least XIV PRAYER BOOK IN CANADA, likeness to Anglican or Roman Catholic bishops, in authority, functions, or otherwise. The Lutherans, and some of the smaller sections of the Presbyterian Church, being of Continental origin, are understood to continue the use of their old Continental liturgies. III. In the Chief British Colonies. Canada is the only other great colony which is old enough for the various systems to develop and compare their vitality and power of growth. The Government census is taken at different dates in the various provinces, and the last results we find are published by the Government at Ottawa in 1889, with the numbers of Protestants, thus : — Methodists Presbyterians Church of Englajid Baptists Other Protestants 758,000 697,000 590,000 292.000 102,000 Total Protestants ,.. 2,439,000 The nominal adherents of the Methodists and Presbyterians in this United Kingdom are much fewer than those of the Church of England. But these three Churches in Canada had to be originally formed by emigration from those three bodies. Hence it seems clear that the Methodists and Pres- byterians must have had a much more vigorous and expansive life there than " The Church," seeing they now outnumber it so greatly, reversing the propor- tions at home. NEW ZEALAND, AND AUSTRALL'\. XV New Zealand is the youngest great colony, and its religious census of Protestant adherents is as follows : — Church of E7i gland ^ about Presbyterian ,, Methodists ,, Congregational „ Baptists „ Other Protestants 202,600 1 12,500 45,600 6,400 10,800 i2,6co Total Protestants, about ... 390,500 Victoria and Neiv South Wales take census of adherents to each Church, and record the average attendance at the principal service of each Sunday; also one records the sittings provided in places of worship, and the other the average Sunday School attendance approximately as follows : — Victoria — Numbers. .. 311,291 • ^32,591 •• ioS,393 Baptists, Congregationalists, and others are also nume rous, but we omitted to note their numbers Church of En gland Presbyterians Methodists Average at Chief Service. 49,261 73,095 79.059 Sittings pro- vided for Worship. 8^,000 05' 83,000 109.000 New South Wales — Average , Attendance Average at at Sunday Numbers. Chief Service. School. Church of Engla7id •• 455>ooo 60,796 ZZro-^Z Presbyterians 96,390 19,970 10,937 Methodists, various .. 85,968 44,873 26,939 Congregational 19,138 ^fi(,^^ 6,11 r Baptists 9,819 4,095 1,986 Others •• 19.839 3.465 1,224 Salvation Army besides returns about 27,000 adherents. xvi AUSTRALIAN RESULTS. In these two great colonies the Liturgy seems not very successful in procuring church attendance, even of Church of England people. It is fair to notice, however, that both they and the Presby- terians, representing the two established Churches at home, have their numbers of nominal adherents uncomfortably swelled by the convicts formerly transported in such numbers to Australia, and by descendants of convicts. These two generally care nothing for Churches in reality, but if they call themselves Protestants, almost always describe themselves as connected with one or other of the Establishments of the Old Country. For them these Established Churches must not be blamed. ARGUMENT, OR ENLARGEMENT OF SPEECH, BY REV. S. R. MACPHAIL, When moving the Amendment prefixed, — see pages ix and x, — to the Report of Com- mittee as to Revised Directory, In order to make the Westminster Directory of 1644 more suited to our present requirements and practices, the Committee, whose latest work is now on the table, was constituted by our Synod. That Committee have worked for six years and presented from time to time results of their labours, which have unfortunately been published and introduced into use while yet only a Draft} Thus many have ^ In the Synod of 1886 an attempt was made to remove the revision of the Directory from the work of the Com- mittee, and to confine it to *' forms and specimens of service adapted to special occasions." That amendment was lost. B LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO already become familiar with the book, and many more think our Church has adopted a definite liturgical Service-book. Others, taking advantage of this beliefjhave gone in ritual far beyond anything which has been recommended by the Committee. What the Committee have hitherto prepared (though what they have proposed to themselves is by no means nearly completed) consists of an order for public worship and what are practically six liturgical services, viz. — for Baptism, the Lord's Supper, Marriage, Burial, Admission to full Com- munion, and lastly, in the present Report, the Dedi- cation of Churches.^ ^ The Committee frankly say in their Report (Synod, 1889) regarding two of these services that they ''''are Uturgically complete'' and the same might very well be said of the remaining four. This contrasts strongly with what Principal Baillie wrote from Westminster in his '* Public Letter " to Scotland, June, 1644. " No man here to speak a word either for bishops, or liturgy or ^ny ceremony/' He wrote again Nov., 1644 • " The preface of our Directory, casting out of doors the liturgy and all the ceremonies, /;;. cuj?imIo^ is this day passed." The 'tendency of history to repeat itself is suggested by the action of a Committee of the Synod of New York and Philadelphia which, in 1787, presented a ** Revised Directory," which was really a liturgy of over 140 pages. Though printed " in draught," it was entirely rejected. PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 3 These six liturgical services are, all of them, considerably more than a revision of the West- minster Directory, and are, as far as possible, a return to a manner of conducting worship, solem- nizing ordinances, and administering sacraments, from which the Directory was a distinct and recognized removal. Some Details of the Revision.^ The first circulation of this Draft Directory was in 1889, followed last year by an additional portion, Its existence is now scarcely remembered, though it is said to have contained many good things. ^ The intrinsic character of the devotional elements of the Draft-Book is not touched on. It is enough here to remark that it is not meantime usual for liturgical writers to compose^ but rather to conipile. This seems inherent in the soul of a true modern liturgist. It would have been exceedingly easy to have done so on strictly Presbyterian lines, as some of the most admired portions of the Book of Common Prayer are derived from older Presbyterian books. Of those enumerated in Baird's "Chapter on Liturgies" are the Baptismal services, the Confession, absolution and post-communion thanksgiving, nearly all the marriage service and great part of the Order of the Burial of the Dead. The responses too to the Commandments are copied from an early Calvinistic Liturgy. Even the words used in the distribution of the bread B 2 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO this year by still another, while more is promised. The materials thus gathered together form an Order of Common Service and six Special Services more or less *' liturgically complete." These, doubt- less, are intended to be what the Committee pro- posed to offer, — ^' Specimen Services." In the amendment now proposed to the Com- mittee's motion the design is to discharge this Committee and with it the Draft-Book, as in character and substance unsuitable for use in this Church. In 1889 the Synod resolved thus — " Regard with general approval the Draft of the Revised Directory now submitted, reserving final judgment, and meantime authorise the Committee to put copies of this Draft in circulation." That permission was, many now feel, a mistake ; and the manner in which the circulation has been carried out has created no little misapprehension regarding our relation to the Draft. The amend- ment is intended to remove the impression that the Draft is an authoritative document of this Church. Indeed the adoption of that book w^ould and wine are copied from Calvin. Whether this makes these services more desirable is an entirely different matter, and is dealt with already, as far as space allows. PRESBYTERIANS OE EXGLAXD. 5 raise most serious issues with those who are in principle opposed to what they beheve to be impHed in it. Meantime, how^ever, we are concerned with the external characteristics of the various portions. Antique and Ritual Expressions. A certain stately Cathedral charm hangs about archaic religious language. But affectation of the archaic in a new book to be used for the worship of God is most unseemly. Let us write such books, if they must be written, in our own mother tongue; and, if they live, some other generation will discover their archaic charm. The proper language for our sacred inven- tions is '^ a tongue understanded by the hearers" of our own day. The chaim cf the English Bible when first printed was not its archaic dignity, but its reproduction of God's word in language intelligible to every reader. But in this revised Directory (revised in a very dif- ferent sense from our revised Bible), there is no attempt to retain the old form or even character. All the reverence for the Westminster Directory which is discoverable is a sprinkling of its archaic phraseology cast in here and there, like the LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO few straggling remnar ts of the original left in the theoric Ship of Athens. It is unnecessary to re- hearse the words and phrases to which this is applicable. They perhaps elevate the mere sound of the clauses in which they occur, though some of them, such as '' the voice is to be tunably and gravely ordered," are rather ludicrous than im- pressive when now used. A better compliment might have been paid to those who carefully ex- punged several things then in common use which are now very prominently restored in the Draft. In some of the ritual expressions employed the work of the Committee is strongly suggestive of revolution in the relations between our Church and other Churches around us. Probably there is nothing in the several orders of service antagonistic to our Church's faith, but the distinct bias of the language is to the pronounced ritual now so much in vogue in the Church of England, especially in the so-called Catholic Section of that Church. Instead of taking advantage of the opportunity afforded by the revision of the old Directory to make the position of our Church more distinctly evangelical, apostolic and scriptural, this revision at some points almost suggests lurking favour for An- glican Catholicity. The expressions " Absolution PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 7 and Cleansing," " Holy Sacrament/' " Eucharistic prayer," and, in that prayer, speaking to God of '•' receiving the elements .... may be partakers of the body and blood of Christ," ^ where there is no suggestion of faith, but only of the Spirit's working, also the prayer " to accept this our Sacrifice of praise and of thanksgiving " are, to assert the least, 1 It is notorious that the present state of the Church of England, as a productive nursery for the Church of Rome, is largely the result of the influence of Queen EHzabeth on the standards of that Church. Bishop Burnet says, ''She inclined to keep up images in churches, and to have the manner of Christ's presence in the Sacrament left in some general words, that those who believed in the corporal Presence might not be drawn away from the Church." Hence for ten years of Elizabeth's reign Romanists continued to worship contentedly under her approved form of Protestant service. Bishop Hall asserts that his eyes and ears could witness " with what applause the Catholics entertained the new translated Liturgy of our Church." Bishop Stillingfleet {Irenicum^ p. 122) admits that the English Reformers, in composing the Liturgy, had an especial eye to the papists, " whom they desired to draw into their Communion by coming as near them as they well and safely could." The result is that the tables have been turned. Will history have, from us, an opportunity of repeating itself again through this proposed Liturgy ? LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO most undesirable for present use. Were all hearers thoughtful and attentive, there might be no danger of false impressions from all this. But the ear un- fortunately regulates impressions more than con- sideration does, and what the ear catches in much of this revision is specially associated with sacerdotal and high Anglican teachings and pretensions. In the marriage ceremony the minister declares the pledged persons man and wife '' in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." Did it escape our Committee that this has often been regarded as suggestively giving sacramental importance to marriage, being taken from sacramental language appointed by our Lord for Baptism ? At the Savoy Conference (1661) the Commissioners contended, " We desire it may be considered whether they (the same words in the Book of Common Prayer) should not here be omitted, lest they should seem to favour those that count matrimony a sacrament." ^ ^ Samuel Rutherford, in the Westminster debate on the *' Directory," said (session 327) regarding the proposed form for marriage, " The former part denies marriage to be a Sacrament, so there is good reason to deny it to be a part of God's worship. . . . formally it is no worship." PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 9 The Burial Service is, in part, because of its source, scarcely consistent with Christian hope and experience. No primitive Christian would have desired such doleful burial even in the darkest days of persecution. But specially, why should that phrase occur in our service — "in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection from the dead "^ " It is merely a clever play and echo of one of the most offensive, because, very often, quite untrue, expres- sions in the Book of Common Prayer. Confirmation. In admission to full Communion the phrase occurs *' to confirm their membership." Is not this the uprising viist of ''Confirmation'' I Doubt- Again he says, ^' I never heard it denied but that the formality and essentiality of marriage consists in the con- sent of parties." .... "confounds marriages and the solemnization of marriage." Our ministers simply act as the ever present Registrar's mouthpiece in conducting the marriage. What we do ministerially is the *' solemn- izing " of the marriage, from which the Registrar generally removes himself, as neither clergyman nor minister, as such, is of any legal importance to the occasion, except that the clergy of the Established Church of England have statutory authority to do the duty of registrars. Our churches are only registered for " solemnizing " lo LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO less this ghostly side glance at what Principal Moule terms "just not a sacrament'' has Calvin's consent, who dearly loved the old word though not the thing. Even at the Hampton Court Con- ference, A.D. 1604, Calvin was quoted by Bishop Bancroft as favourable to Confirmation. If the Bishop had really read Calvin, he must have known that Confirmation as approved by Calvin was no more than the training, common in all Presbyterian Churches, of young communicants, and their reception publicly to full Communion. Some Presbyterians seem to be in much the same state of enlightenment regarding what Calvin actually desired as Bancroft professed to be. But our Committee should not forget that Con- firmation, as practised under the Prayer Book Service, is a thing unknown in Christian anti- quity, and is, if literally taken, little short of blas- phemous assumption : for assuredly no unsacramen- tarian Bishop when he says to God, " who hast vouchsafed to regenerate these Thy Servants by Water and the Holy Ghost, and hast given unto them forgiveness of all Their Sins " can believe marriage, or giving solemnity to it. The marriage be- comes binding when the parties sign the register and the Registrar grants his certificate. PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. ii this to be true, otherwise than that it is hturgically hypothetical. Or, if this phrase of our Committee be not of Anglican origin, then, they must know that Confirmation was always in the earlier ages of its practice (until the thirteenth century), immediately connected w^ith Baptism, both in significance and time, being, not a new relation to Baptismal en- gagements, but a distinct ritual indicating special bestow^ment of the Spirit, in imitation of the descent of the Holy Ghost in the primitive Church, before or after Baptism as seemed good to the Divine Saviour.^ Confirmation has no historical ^ Professor Plumptre says, " Of zu/iat may be called the inoder7i Protestant Idea of Co7ifirviatio7i, as the ratification by the baptized child, when he attained an age capable of deliberate choice, of the promises made for him by his sponsors, there is not the slightest trace iii Christian antiquity i" Why should our Presbyterian Committee be less courageous than the episcopal scholar? Even Episcopalians in Scotland during the period of their ascendency and for a long time after the Revolution abstained from ^'' Bishopping'' or confirmation. The Eastern Church continues, to this hour, its confirmation at the time of Baptism. It is done, not by bishops alone, but by all who have a right to baptize. Only England follows Rome in episcopal confirmation. Archbishop Cranmer when denying that Confirmation had any authority fi-om Christ, assigns as his reasons : — (i) '* The 12 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO relation to the Lord's Supper, and is in no way- embraced or implied in the confession of Christ made by those going to the Lord's table for the first time. So far as appears, catechumens of old were either persons preparing for Baptism or young persons who had already partaken of the Lord's Supper, the universal custom being that baptized infants also received the Lord's Supper, as is still the case in the entire Eastern Church. Confirmation was regarded as necessary to com- plete the life which Baptism was supposed to give, for that life was judged to be without the Holy- Ghost till Confirmation took place. Hence Cyprian taught, ^' Baptism alone cannot purge away sin or sanctify a man, unless he have the Holy Spirit." Accordingly Confirmation and Baptism went together in order to entrance into the Kingdom of God. Thus Scripture was perverted and a false rite instituted which gradually became a separate Sacrament in the Church of Rome. places alleged for the same be no institutions, but Acts and Deeds of the Apostles. (2) Those Acts were done by a special gift given to the Apostles for the Confirma- tion of God's Word at that time. (3) The same special gift doth not now remain with the successors of the Apostles." PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 13 Ecclesiastical Language and Regu- lations. This division is so closely linked to the intrinsic character of the services that Httle can be brought under examination without encroachincr on that aspect of the work of the Committee. Two points may, however, be selected. (i.) The use made of the words ''may " and ''shall " is such as does not belong to a Directory, but to a Liturgy.^ ^ It has not been thought necessary to refer to the nervous insistance on the use of the Lord's Prayer manifested by our Committee, yet it should not be for- gotten that even in Augustine we read, "that Christ intended this prayer as a model, rather than as a form ; til at He did not 7?iean to teach His disciples what words they should use in prayer, hut what things they should pray for.'' Calvin (Matt. v. 9) remarks in reference to the Lord's Prayer, *' Christ does not enjoin His people to pray in a prepared form of words, but only points out what ought to be the object of all our wishes and prayers." Pursuing the subject he a^lds, " Hence w^e infer that the rule which He has given us for praying aright relates not to the words, but to the things themselves." It was not till A.D. 618 that the use of the Lord's Prayer was enjoined for daily use in public and private worship, under pain of deposition. To this is referable the excessively reiterated. 14 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO (ii.) In the reading of Scripture the expression '' Let us hear the word of the Lord " is, not inten- tionally but suggestively, inconsistent with one of our distinguishing merits, that we encourage wor- shippers to follow the public reading of Scripture on their own Bibles. There is already too much disuse of Bibles in our public worship. Our Bible should be as religiously and devoutly 2.vademectim among us as the Prayer Book is among those who use it. Standing at the Creed and at Beginning OF Service. It is a necessary question, which perhaps should have been raised under Ritual Language, why we are expected to stand \n\\^x). repeating "The Apostles' Creed.'' Doubtless, there is some Litur- gical purpose in this, and one is interested to ascertain what } It is not for relief to the worshipper by change of attitude, as ''Praise" immediately precedes. Reference shows that, similarly, when the congregation is summoned to worship " the repetition of the prayer found in Service books, specially in the Book of Common Prayer, so that it is repeated from three to twelve times in one service. PRESBYTERIAXS OF ENGLAND. 15 Great and Holy Name of God " it is to hear the summons in scripture sentences, ''' reverently stand- ing." If special reverence is implied by standing, then why should this be shown in connexion with the Creed, so questionable a composition at the best ? If we follow ritualistic teaching, the reason assigned is — '' By rehearsing the Creed stayiding, we declare our resolution to stand by the faith we have professed." But surely our Presbyterian Church is not prepared to adopt practices founded on notions so alien to the entire spirit and history of our worship. And why does this book propose that public worship is to begin, " the people reverently stand- ing," while some short texts are read, similar to the short texts said (or often sung) in the Church of England .^ The reason why this standing is pre- scribed cannot be that the honour due to God's Word requires standing, for the congregation is to sit while the Scriptures are being read. The stand- ing has become customary in the Church of England, but it is not enjoined, nor even sug- gested, in their Liturgy. Our book, more advanced, proposes to enjoin it. The practice is naturally and closely connected with that other practice, common in the Church of England, and of late i6 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO not unknown among ourselves, of standing up to receive and do honour to the *' priest " on his entrance before the worshippers. Ministers are not priests over the people, but servants, and when they are among the people " as him that serveth " they are most like the Master. By importing these paltry tricks of inflated worldly ritualism, we might reproduce the social cleric in our Church, but should inevitably disgust all sensible world- lings and all spiritual Christians. Church Recognition of the Young. A more important ecclesiastical peculiarity of language is found in defining the position of young people in connection with the Church. Here are three utterances of our " Revised Directory.'' p. 26. "The children of believers, dcmg boim ivithin the churchy should have their membership solemn- ly recognised and attested by Baptism. " p. 29. The minister, after Baptism, shall say, — "This child is now received into the fellowship of the chtirchy p. (^(^. The minister after giving the right hand of fellowship to ap- plicants for admission to full communion, shall say, — "These persons having now been admitted into the fellowship of the Church of Christ." PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 17 The question is surely a curious one at what point, or if even after the third state- ment, those young persons are fully members in the fellowship of the Church of Christ. Can it be that some service not yet given us will again assert their admission ? The statement on page 26 is unquestionably that which should be expressed. Moreover, it is in accordance with the well-known statement of the Confession ; — *' The visible Church .... consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion, together zvith their children.'' {Confession of FaitJi, chap. xxv. Sec : II.) Hence our children are not received and baptized at the church door, as though previously aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel, but are brought into the midst of the congregation to be welcomed by them, while having their holiness avowed in the Sacrament of Baptism. Sponsors. The oft-repeated term " Sponsors '' is another restoration. I take no exception to the thing intended, but the term is peculiarly objection- able and misleading in England, and has already produced a common impression, even among C i8 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO office bearers, that we propose the use of sponsors in our Presbyterian Church of England similar to sponsors in the Church of England whose law forbids parents to be sponsors for their own children} The notoriously frequent and shameful sacrilege connected with sponsors and sponsor-proxies should have made our Committee avoid the use or even suggestion of the name. Cases of Baptism which require some one other than the parent to be present to undertake the responsibility, might easily have been met otherwise than by using this term, which in our day really means something quite different from godly or parental upbringing, as the Canon of the English Church quoted in the footnote below forbidding parents to be sponsors abundantly proves. That Sponsorship, as we see it around us, is not a practice honoured even by the ordinary antiquity ^ Canzones Ecdesiastici xxix, '^ Parentes liberorum suorum Baptismati interesse non impellentur; neqiie eisde?7f. etia7n permiltetur^ pro propriis i72fantihus adsacram fontem susceptoru77i loco respo?idere , . ." ('^ Parents are not bound to be present at the baptism of their children, nor are they allo7ved to be sponsors for their 07vn infants at the holy font.") This Canon is on purely Romish lines, J^onie having in the ninth century, for the first time, excluded parents fvm sponsorship. PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 19 to which so many abuses can be ^referred, is proved from Augustine, who in the fourth century, the parent age of so many errors and corruptions, says, " Sometimes when parents are dead the infants are baptized, being offered by those who could show such compassion to them, and sometimes infants, whom their parents have cruelly exposed, are taken up by Holy Virgins and offered to baptism by them." Such sponsorship finds a response of sympathy in any Christian heart : but that of the Canon quoted, the only sponsorship known in England, is the antagonism of that mentioned by Augustine, for from it parents are distinctly sJmt ottt. ^ The additional absurdity of ^ The Book of Common Order requires that the child to be baptized be brought .... ^' accompanied with the father and god-father." In the service the minister says, " To the intent that we may be assured that you, the father and the surety consent to the performance hereof" This was subsequently amended, and in the Westminster Directory stands : " The child to be baptized .... is to be presented by the father or (in case of his necessary absence) by some Christian friend in his place." Subse- quently, as abuses began to creep in, the Church of Scotland enacted, in 171 2; "It being the duty of Christian parents to dedicate their children to God in Baptism and to covenant for their education in the faith of Christ, 110 other spo7isor is to he tahcn^ unless the C 2 20 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO making the child say, through the mouth of the sponsor or god-parent, what is not only untrue, but absolutely incapable of being true, need not detain us. But anything more fitted to make Christianity a theme for scoffers than the entire farce of sponsorship as now used could not have been invented. It is no part of the present criticism to review the position of other churches : but for us form- ally and officially to adopt a term which is connected in the public mind with one of the parents be dead, or absent, or grossly ignorant, or under scandal, or contumacious to discipline, such bemg unfit to attend as sponsors in lra?isacti?ig a soleinri cove- 7iant with God.'' See Acts, a.d. 1705. Beza, in 1567, was very explicit in his advice in refer- ence to the sponsorship of the English Church. *^ Con- cerning the interrogatories proposed to infants in their baptism, he declares it to be only a corruption of the ancient form used in baptizing adults." Not only did the Savoy Commissioners oppose English sponsorship, but in the revision of 1689 the absurdity was amended, though the amendment was never ratified or acted on. It has been so far put right in the American Episcopal Prayer Book. There is not even a shadow of excuse for this sponsorship to be drawn from Scripture. Its best plea is the uncertainty of human life in martyr times .! PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 21 grossest absurdities, abuses, and errors of the Church of Christ would be highly reprehensible, and pitifully weak. Admission to Full Communion. The prayers intended for use at the Service of "Admission to Full Communion" are expressed in language more consistent with Congregationalism or Episcopal Confirmation than with Presbyterian usage. It is not customary in Presbyterian Churches to accept more responsibility in connec- tion with "admission to full Communion" than what is implied in '^ A credible professions^ The prayers of our Committee imply much more 'than this, and in so far are not suitable for adoption, however truly they may be warranted in particular ^ " In the Presbyterian Churches, while the minister should do all in his power to instruct and guide the intending communicant, he does not undertake to judge for him as to his state, but simply admits him on his own profession" (Candlish on The Sacraments^ p. 107). Justin Martyr, in his second Apology (quoted by Stilling- fleet in his Irenicum, p. 135), asserts that in his day what was required for participation in the Lord's Supper was " a profession of faith in the truths of the Gospel and life answerable to the Gospel, without which it was not lawful to participate." 22 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO instances. Our Church has not adopted, and surely will not adopt, the liturgical principle of a " Chaj'itable hypothesisT Neither has it adopted the Gorham dictum of the Privy Council that "the Services abound with expressions which must be construed in a charitable and qualified sense, and cannot, with any appearance of reason, be taken as proofs of doctrine." In other words, without passing any judgment on others, who answer to their own Master, we deem it profane to tell God what we do not believe to be true. The Westminster Directory. Let us now turn our attention to the West- minster Directory, of which our Draft is supposed to be a Revision. To many that Directory is a small and insig- nificant part of the work of the Westminster Assembly, but by themselves it was not at all so lightly esteemed. It was the first work to which they addressed themselves, and more than a year was spent over it, with more debate than over the Confession.^ ^ It was finished Dec. 27, 1644, at the 348th Session of the Assembly. See Baillie's Letters, No. 89, and " Minutes of Assembly " (Mitchell's), p. 23. PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 23 The historical development of the present prac- tical disuse of the Directory is twofold. That disuse is a partial manifestation of the necessary freedom of the quickened heart from set forms in its approaches unto God. To the more devout the Directory in its devotional aspects soon became a dead letter. Again, it was disused by those who took advantage of its not containing a binding or direct form of prayer to fashion forms agreeable to their own dogmatic declension,^ as was very largely done in England ; or, to copy definite forms from liturgies in use in other Churches or from private published books of prayer. Thus, it was by no means un- common in many Churches in Scotland to hear from a certain class of ministers the same prayers re- peated week after w^eek and year after year, and subsequently, w^hen coming to England, to feel quite at home in Episcopal Churches w^here the same prayers were read from the book. From both these causes, the Directory has to a ^ This may be conveniently seen in the Dunkirk Prayer Book (1791), a Unitarian mutilation of the Book of Common Prayer. Hall's Fragme?ita Liturgica^ vol. vii. The adoption of the Apostles' Creed by Unitarians may be seen in the same Liturgy. In this respect it is not exceptional. See page 48. 24 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO large extent become an unknown document, and much perplexity has been felt by young ministers which would have been avoided had it occurred to them to consult the Directory itself. Still, it is not to be denied that some more modern guidance is highly desirable among us. Is such guidance, then, to take the form of a ^' revised Directory," or, as is at present proposed, a Variorum Liturgy ? The history of liturgies ought to weigh for much in determining this question. History of Liturgies. In the Christian Church there is no trace of any liturgy until the foitrtli century} There are 1 It raises an interesting question as to the supposed intelligence of our University men that the Rev. W. Trol- lope, M.A. (Cambridge), should have printed a volume of " Questions and Answers on the Liturgy of the Church of England " for students in the Universities, in which he states that our Lord *' gave directions to the chief pastors of His Church that they should agree touching petitions which they offered in His name, and in accordarice with these directions the sublime prayer recorded in the Acts (iv. 24 to 30) was manifesdy a precomposed form. . . . Indeed, it were a palpable absurdity to offer up joint PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. certainly liturgies now extant bearing the names of Peter, James, Mark and Clement, but these are not recognized by any competent scholars as belonging to the men whose names are prefixed to them.^ prayers, without agreeing as to the subject of them." (From the sixth edition, 1862.) ^ Bunsen, in Analeda Ante-Nicceiia, vol. iii., says, '^ In the first place almost all the names which these liturgies bear are entirely fabulous, from those of the Apostles down to those of Basil and Chrysostom." In Dr. Swain- son's Greek Liturgies {y^^^a^^ Cambridge), it is shown that the first record of those of James and Bazil is a.d. 692. Mark's is first heard of in the eleventh century, and as regards that of Peter, Swainson says that in it '' the Canon of the Roman Church was translated, not very skilfully, into Greek." Page xxxi. The so-called Liturgy of Cle- ment found in the Apostolical Constitutions^ Book viii, a collection not earlier than the fifth century, never was in use in any Church, as even the halting ■' Introductory Notice "to Clark's Early Liturgies, (ante-Nicene) allows. Hatch, in his Bampton Lecture, says, ''The Apostohc constitutions . . . are no more the work of the Apostles than is the Apostles' Creed." Chrysostom's Liturgy, though found in the eighth or ninth century, was not at- tributed to him till the eleventh. Yet Mr. TroUope teaches University men, "So early were Liturgies introduced that four of them are mentioned under the names of St. Mark, St. Peter, St. James, and St. John " (sixth edition). John Owen has left a valuable *' Discourse concerning Liturgies," calmly and ably argued, in which he says, 26 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS. TO Indeed their contents make such a supposition impossible. They all alike require the mixing of wine and water in the Sacrament.^ They all make prayer for the Dead a part of the Service. They all make oblation or offering of the elements to God necessary in the Supper, and all contain an Invo- cation of the Spirit to transmute the Bread and Wine into the sacramental body and blood of Christ. These, as is well known, are common cha- racteristics of the earliest Christian liturgies.'^ But ^* I shall subjoin some of the reasons that evidentl)^ declare the imposition and use of such a Liturgy or form of public words to be contrary to the rule of the Word and con- sequently sinful." In developing his argument and writing of the liturgies, claiming Apostolic names he remarks (Works, vol. xv. p. 20), *' They must be strangers to the spirit, doctrine, and writings of the Apostles, who can impose such trash upon them, as these liturgies are stuffed withal." The introductions to Dr. Nealc's edition of Primitive Liturgies can only be read with sad sur- prise. To be able to repeat all that vast aggregate of grotesque ceremonial, and believe it truly related to Apostolic precept or example is a sad illustration of the blinding power of ecclesiastical arrogance and ritualistic fanaticism. 1 The Armenian Liturgy is the only known exception to this. Se^Yi^xnmondl^ Litu7'gies, Eastern and Western, Glossary, sub chalice and mixture, '^ All these '' usages " are retained in the Scotch PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 27 before any of them were written the Church of Christ had lost its purity and its simplicity. It had become sacerdotal, and was bound over to worldly practices and courtly submissions which were entirely alien to its spiritual character and primitive fidelity to the example and precept of Christ and His Apostles. To men generally the Church was already more than Jesus Christ, and the Emperor was far more than all Christ's ambassadors, while ritual had taken the place of the quenched power of the Spirit of God. Even morality among Church orders had sunk to a level not exceeded in the darkest acres of Rome's ascendencv. In speaking of liturgies at the present time we Episcopal Communion Service. (See introduction to reprint of Laud's Communion office of 1637, printed by Anderson, Glasgow, 1881.) In the English con- troversy conducted by the non-jurors, those adopting the ^* usages " were called *' the usagersT The special language of the various liturgies (82 in number in one Appendix) on the '' Institiitioji " and *' Prayers for tlie departed," is printed separately in Appendices I. and II. of Neale and Littled ale's Translatioii of the Primitive Liturgies. The n on- juror, Brett, elaborately discusses the same in his *' Collection of the Principal Liturgies." There is no possible misunderstanding regarding the testimony cf liturgies, and that testimony is utterly un- scriptural and non-apostolic. 28 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO imply prepared forms of worship and address in various ecclesiastical ^' offices," such as those em- braced in the Draft-book now printed by our Com- mittee on Public Worship.^ This application of the ^ The word liturgy, meaning a public work^ is in scripture applied to 7?ii7iistry in general, as was also its classical use, in connection with any public service. In ecclesiastical usage liturgy came to be restricted to service in connection with the Lord's Supper. Subse- quently the word was employed to indicate the ritual observances connected with that Sacrament, and, still later, the ritual connected with any religious office. In Smith's Dictionary of Christiaii Aiitiquities the ut- most historical claim put forth is, " The existence of something of the nature of a mass -book in the fifth century is testified by Gregory of Tours." Tertullian has been claimed in support of set forms of prayer, notwith- standing his assertion that " Christians were accustomed to look up to heave?i with their hands stretched out, because they were innocent, with heads uncovered because they were not ashamed and withoiit a monitor because from their hearts they prayed for all Emperors," etc. (Apolog. C. XXX.). The Didache, the earliest church manual which we possess, shows no use of any prayers but the Lord's Prayer and a form of the most meagre character used before and after Communion and the Agape. Even to this " the prophets " were not restricted. The Council of Carthage (fifth century) makes it plain that no fixed forms of prayer were then employed, for the Council warns against, making the blunder in prayer of PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 29 term " liturgy " to various ''offices " was unknown to the ''ancient " Church. The term was for centuries confined to the one service of Communion, and a liturgy was nothing more than a Missal or Mass- hook. Subsequently what w^as known as a Breviary^ or guide to the various Canonical prayers and readings for the hours of the day, was intro- duced. In the earliest forms of the Breviary nothing is found but the Psalms and the Lord's Praver. This was more and more elaborated under mo- nastic influence and degeneracy until it became the Roman Breviary now in daily use in Romish circles. Our Committee's work has not, however, touched this department of liturgy. Most of their revision is nothing other than what is liturgically called " the Ritual^ In this direction they have already proceeded very far. Even the Church of England does not place in its misnaming the Father for the Son, &:c. It also gives rules regarding the Person of the Trinity to be addressed in connection with special service, and enjoins care to he taken 7iot to nse prayers cojnposed by heretics. Surely nothing could be clearer than that men were then as free as we still are, and yet, like some of us, required cautions as to the risk of copying prayers which are unsuitable for the worship of an evangelical and apostolic church. 30 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO Book of Common Prayer a ritual for clnirch dedi- cation. Indeed it has no authoritative ritual for this purpose. Our Committee seem to have taken counsel with the more ritualistic, priestly, and sacramentarian ages of the Church rather than with the earlier, purer, and Apostolic practices and institutions, which, as a Reformed Church, we believe ourselves to represent. That forms of Church government and of self-aggrandizement from which before God and man, in Covenants, Declarations, and Confessional documents, we pro- claim that we have been set free by the Gospel, should be those from which we now begin to re- learn how to worship God and conduct the Service of His Church, is, even on the lowest ground, not the mark of consistent progress or of wise self- respect. May we not justly suspect practices and devices which were unknown among Christians till the Church had ceased to be inspired by supreme regard for the will of Christ,^ and had begun to ^ John Owen {tct ante, see note, pp. 25, 26) having referred to the grounds on which Liturgies are defended, enumerates two, "■ ist. The disability of the present ministers of churches to celebrate and administer the ordi- nances of the Gospel to the honour of God and edification of the Church, without the use of them. 2nd. The great PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 31 restore again those Judaistic practices and insti- tutions which He came to set aside, and con- cerning which His Apostles taught that to re- impose them was simply to make Christ profit men nothing ? Reformation Liturgies. But to this conclusion it is objected that the Reformers approved of liturgies, and that Calvin, Knox, and others of the Reformers prepared liturgies for the Churches which they directed or advised. Calvin in this, and in some other re- spects, was far from shaking himself loose from certain traditions and influences of the dark ages.^ Under the same name it would be quite importance of uniformity in the worship of God, not possibly to be attained but by virtue of this expedient." He then adds, " I desire to know whether these argu- ments did occur to the consideration of the Apostles or no?" After arguing, he sums up: *' Thus the first pre- tended ground of the necessary use of such liturgies as we speak of, endeth in a reflection on the honour of our Lord Jesus, or a publication of their own unbelief and apostasy. The second is like the former." ^ In 1590, even King James could see that Calvin was not thoroughly reformed in his ecclesiastical concep- tions. Addressing the General Assembly he said, 32 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO possible, with some appearance of justification, to plead in our Church for Confirmation, auricular Confession, Absolution, and other things which we believe we have for ever shaken off as perversions of the truth of the Gospel. (See remarks above as to Calvin's views, first paragraph under Confirma- tion, p. ID.) More than once he expostulated with John Knox on his much greater reforming thoroughness and self-denying opposition to what Calvin would, for the time at least, have allowed as " tolerable fooleries" in the English book of Common Prayer and elsewhere. At the same time Calvin, who was consulted in 1554 regarding Knox's opposition to the English Prayer-book in Frankfort, where he was then minister, wrote in reply that he did not see " that purity which were to be wished in the liturgie of England, and wondereth what they " The Kirk of Geneva keep Pasch and Yull were of no constitution ; and as for our neighbour Kirk of England, their service is an evil-said mass in English, they want nothing of the mass but the liftings, but the Kirk of Scotland was the sincerest in the world." If we mistake not we have seen a Presbyterian Doctor of Divinity bowing to receive the Sacrament where the "liftings" had been restored. O tempera ! O mores ! ! O doctores ! ! ! PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 33 meant to delight so much in popish dregs." (Calder- wood's history.) Bishop .Sparrow {Rationale) also quotes Calvin as writing '' There was so much Popery and intolerable stuff still remaining" (in the English Reformation) ^' that the pure worship of God was not only weakened, but in a manner stifled and overlaid with it." Appendix, p. clxxxviii. It is not wonderful that Calvin, Luther, and others no less distinguished in their own lines of usefulness, were unable at once to escape from all the impurities of the system under which they were brought up, a system which filled every pore of their past consciousness and trust, and which possessed all the subtle fascination Vv^hich comes from many centuries of observance, reverence, and supreme authority.^ '' Knox's Liturgy." But as Presbyterians of this country, we are chiefly, and often, reminded of the so-called 1 On the other hand Row well remarks, " Many things must be tolerated for a tyme in the infancie of a Kirk, which may not be authorized when the Kirk comes to a greater perfection, many things ' iii ecdesia constitue7ida^' which are not to be tolerated in constitutay D 34 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO " Liturgy of John KnoXy' which has been several times reprinted since its reissue by Edward Irving. There is no doubt that John Knox did, under Calvin's leading and approval, prepare the book referred to. But would it not be more straight- forward to call it by its own name, given by its author, rather than by its modern designation 1 ^ Its own name suggests the proper plan for the labours of our Committee, when they shall assume the practical form of a " revised Directory." " The ^ Dr Hill Burton, quoted approvingly by Dr. Sprott in Scottish Liturgies of the Reign of James VI. ^ p. xx., asserts that not till the Spurious Assembly of Aberdeen, 1616, was the term "Liturgy," known in Scotland as expressing a form of prayer ! (See Hill Burton's Hist, of Scotla?td., vol. vii. p. 116.) It is much to be regretted that our Committee have yielded to the common unhistoric adoption of the expression " Knox's Liturgy." There is no such book ! The resolution of the Aberdeen Assembly of 1616 ran thus: — " //^;;/, It is a statute and ordained that an- uniform order of Liturgie or Divine Service be set down to be read in all kirks, on the ordinarie dayes of prayer and every Sabbath day before sermon, to the end the common people may be ac- quainted therewith and by custome may learne to serve God rightly." {Catderwoody p. 663.) That Assembly was one of those utterly repudiated by the restored Presbyterian Church in 1638. PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 35 Book of Common Order'' is John Knox's title for it, and was that adopted and used by the Church of Scotland. This title affords the true conception of what is now almost always misnamed "John Knox's Liturgy." ^ As originally used it was bound up with the Psalms, and a considerable part of its Preface is a defence of singing the Psalms as a part of the prayer service. In this volume there are some most instructive notes {j'librics) attached to the prayers ; e.g, " This ordour may be enlarged or contracted as the wisdome of the discreit minister shall think expedient. For we rather show the way to the ignorant, than prescribe ordour to the learned that cannot be amended.'' ^ The Genevan Book of Order ^fd.'h published in 1543 (six years before Edward VI. issued his First Book of Common Prayer). This was used by Knox at Frankfort in 1554-5. In 1557 the Scottish Proteslant Fords in Council, during Knox's enforced absence, began regular Protestant worship, using probably the English Service Book. Knox's Book is dated Geneva, Feb. 10, 1556. It came into use in Scotland in 1559, and was formally adopted by the Church in 1562 and again in 1564. The English Puritans adopted the "Order of Geneva" as early asi57i. In 1585 was pubHshed the ^'' Middleburgh Liturgy^'' which is but a slightly altered form of Knox's Book of Common Order. \) 2 36 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO Again, " It shall not be necessarie for the minister dayly to repete all these things before mentioned but beginning with some manner of Confession to procede to the Sermon, which ended, he either useth the prayers before mentioned, or else prayeth as the Spirite of God shall move his harte." In the first edition of that "Book of Common Order," A.D. 1556, at the close of a prayer of Confession before Sermon, this note is added : — "This done the people shall sing a Psalm all to- gether in a plain tune, which ended, the minister prayeth for the assistance of God's Holie Spirit, as the same shall move his heart." ^ Calderwood, in his ^ The Savoy Conference of 1661, though in many respects a mere temporizing experiment for the sake of a much-desired basis of common church govern- ment and worship in England, showed before its close some true spirit in the Presbyterian commis- sioners. When it was urged by the Episcopal party that a liturgy was necessary for unity, they replied, '' The Apostles knew the best way of unity and of speaking the same things in the matters of God. But the Apostles knew not our Liturgy nor any Common Prayer Book for aught that has yet been proved." Again, to the argument that liturgies are necessary to avoid discord in prayer and worship they replied, " Where have there been less heresies and schisms than in Scotland, where there was no such liturgy to unite them ? " Much PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 37 History of the Church, written for and revised by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, says in reference to the Book of Common Order (p. 25, edn. 1678), "None are tyed to the prayers of that Book ; but the prayers are set down as samplers, as you may see in the direction set down before the Confession of sins." That Calderwood knew what he thus testifies may be concluded from the fact that he was a settled minister little over thirty years after the Book of Common Order was adopted, and lived till after " the Directory " had come into use in Scotland.^ There is at has been made of Baxter's proposed Liturgy, brouglit forward at the Savoy Conference. It should not be forgotten that Baxter's personal position is thus expressed, " A constant form is a certain way to bring a soul to a cold, insensible, formal worship." It is amusing to hear men plead Baxter as a weighty authority for a fixed liturgy, yet abuse him for daring to write one out in four- teen days, though when he did so he had been twenty years a settled minister. ^ From the year 1602 to 1638 there was no real Presbyterian Assembly; for some years before 1602 none truly free and Presbyterian. The liturgy of Laud (1637) precipitated the rising feeling of the nation which burst out in Edinburgh and swept away the Prelatic power, more, it must be confessed, through the stand made by the people and the noblemen, than through any zeal of ih.e 38 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO present a prevalent notion, carefully nurtured by men who should know better, that the Church of Scotland would have preferred a liturgy to a Directory at the time of the Westminster Assembly. In a letter from the Scotch Assembly of 1641, written by Alexr. Henderson, to certain ministers in England, the proposal is made for '' One Directory for public worship." See Acts of Assembly, \6\\. It is noteworthy that the Directory was made when the Scotch Commissioners led the Westminster Assembly; but the revision of the Book of Common Prayer, at the Savoy Conference of 1661, was tried when no Scotch representatives were present. In the Assembly of 1643, the same at which the Scotch representatives were sent to the Westminster Assembly, a resolution was passed to prepare and issue to Synods for consideration before next Assembly 'M Directory for Divine WorsJiip!'^ Like- ministers, In the so-called Aberdeen Assembly of 1616 a liturgy had been demanded, and Laud's was, after many attempts, \\,^ final expression. ^ Though not mentioned in my copy of the Acts of Assembly, it is stated in lives of Calderwood that he was one of those appointed to prepare the Directory which appeared in 1644. It was printed in abbreviated form as the " New Book of Common Prayer, according to the form of the Kirke of Scotland, our Brethren in faith and PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 39 wise in the Assembly's reply, that same year, to the Houses of Parliament in England its commissioners were appointed for "settling .... one Directory of public worship." The urgent language used by the Assembly makes it abundantly clear that Knox's Book of Common Order had then become almost as much a dead letter as the Westminster Directory has become among our- selves, and no attempt was made to restore it in 1638 though practices as diverse as possible prevailed in the Church.^ Indeed a liturgy quite as little as Covenant," and is really a very brief form of the Book of Common Order, the whole being em.braced in ten small pages. It is printed in W?X!% Fragmeiita Liturgica^ vol. I. The complete book is that known as The Settled Orde7' of Church Goverriment^ Liturgie and Disciplifie for the rooting out of all Popery^ &c. London, printed for Great Britainein the year of the Churche's Reformation, 1644." Hall's Reliquiae Liturgicae^ vol. I. It is, like the other, an abbreviated form of the Book of Common Order. ^ It is astonishing how some at present insist that it was the manner of its introduction, rather than its sub- stance, which made the Book of Common Prayer offensive in Scotland. The Assembly of 1638 declared : "All in one voice hath rejected and condemned the said book not 07ily as illegally introduced, but also as repugtia7it to the doctrine, discipline, and order of this reformed Church.''' They also described it as containing '^ the seeds of 7nanifold 40 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO a Directory has sufficed to prevent diversity of usage, except where a Hturgy has been made and gross super stitio?i and idolatries But even could it be proved that the Church would have accepted Laud's Liturgy at that time, it must not be forgotten that a decay of religious feeling, consequent on the unscrupulous oppression of the King and the servility of a degenerate ministry, had then been in progress for fully forty years. Indeed, but for a wholesome spirit of Presbyterian fidelity and evangelical earnestness among the aristo- cratic leaders in Scotland, there would not have been any deliverance from Laud and his master. The want of reality in the seeming opposition to Rome at this time on the part of the Court is remarkably shown by the vigorous return thitherwards made in 1662 in the English Book of Common Prayer, which was then made much more Laudian and Romish than it was when refused by Scotland. In this more Romeward form it still remains. The proposed real improvements of 1689 were never adopted in England, though they are partially embodied in the American Book of Common Prayer. Row (writ- ing in 1650) makes some powerful remarks on Laud's Liturgy : " This Popish-Enghsh-Scottish-Masse-Service Book is to be rejected by the Kirk of Scotland for these reasons : — i. The sincerer sort in England never did agree with the Service Book as being (as James VI. said of it) but an ill-said Masse in English .... It fosters a lazie, jdle, careles ministrie ... If a stinted liturgy had been necessary for the Kirk of God, Christ either by Himself or His Apostles would not have suffered the PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 41 imperative by the civil power, as in the Church of England.^ Even under Rome, diversity of Use has ever prevailed, as it did largely in England till the Civil Reformation of the Church. John Milton well summed up the contention thus : — " To imprison and confine by force, within a pinfold of set words, those two most unimprison- able things, ozir prayers and tliat Divuie Spirit of lUterance that moves tlievi, is a tyranny that would have longer hands than those giants who threatened bondage to heaven." ^ Kirk of God to want one." The whole of Row's remarks are well worth reproduction in our day. ^ Even liturgical uniformity secures little real unity, for no denominations of Trinitarian Protestants are so widely separated in faith and practice and are so unable to co- operate and to bear with one another, as the different schools or parties of the 07ie Church of England. Their unity is only in Service Book and civil subjection, though in fact these two are one. An Anglican Catholic, an English Low Churchman and a thorough-going Broad Churchman are simply incompatibilities. ^ The Testimo7iy of the Reformed Presbyterian CJiiirch (p. 87) declares— " It " (prayer) "ought not to be read from a book nor servilely repeated from memory, but presented to God after thoughtful premeditation and deuendence on the Suirit." 42 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO The Apostles' Creed. Let us now consider the proposed introduction of the so-called '' Apostles' Creed " into the ordinary Lord's Day's service/ into the baptismal service and into that for admission to full Communion. It is obvious that there is a marked distinction between these. In the ordinary services the Creed is merely repeated ; in the others the minister asks the parent or person desiring admission to full Communion whether he believes clause by clause of this Creed. Elasticity of interpretation is conceivable when the Creed is merely read, but when belief has to be declared in it clause by clause a definite meaning ought to be understood as belonging to each clause. That there is no such definite meaning expressed by the several clauses is well known. Very rarely, if ever, will minister and people meet who interpret the clauses alike. How then can a minister con- scientiously ask people solemnly to say they believe certain words when he knows there is no likelihood that he and they attach the same meaning to them, 1 When the Committee began their work the Creed was not found by them to be in use in any of our Churches, See their report to Synod of 1887. PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 43 if, indeed, either attaches any very distinct meaning to some of them ? The Church of Christ was for a long time quite content with the Baptismal formula prescribed by our Lord, the candidate expressing his faith in the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, into whose Name he desired to be baptized. In the earliest Church manual which we possess, the Didache^ of the early or middle part of the second century, no more than this is mentioned. Probably the next place where we encounter a Creed is in Cyprian (a.D. 250), which runs (Ep : 76) " I believe in God the Father, in His Son, Christ, in the Holy Ghost. I believe in the remission of sins and Eternal Life, through the Holy Church." ^ We see in this Creed how far the Church had already gone in decay and assumption, and how far opinion reached on the way to the later so-called *' Apostles' Creed." It is now a commonplace that the present form ^ In another letter Cyprian reverses the order, " Dost thou believe in Life Eternal and the remission of Sins by the Holy Church?" 44 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO of the Apostles' Creed was not reached till the eighth century.^ The clause " maker of heaven and earth '' was added A.D. 650.'^ " born of the Virgin " was added in the seventh century. *' buried " was added in the seventh century. '' descended into hell " not found till A.D. 391,^ nor added to Creed till later. " Catholic " was added in the sixth century, but not general till the seventh century. " Life Eternal " was definitely added in the seventh century. ^'Communion of saints" was added A.D. 550. ^ See Bishop Westcott's Historic Faith^ from which the dates in the text are gathered. Yet Mr. Trollope (ut supra) instructs University men : *' It appears precisely as it stands in our Liturgy in the v/orks of ^Ambrose and Rufinus. who flourished in the fourth century.'' That Mr. Trollope knew no better is very remarkable. ^^ Bishop Pearson, {Sub Art,) believes it to have entered at least a century later. ^ Pearson's note here is most interesting and instructive. PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 45 Archbishop Ussher (Works, vol. vii. p. 505, Dr. Elrington's edition, Dublin, 1S64) quotes the form in use in England in the eighth century. The Anglo- Saxon character was used to express the Greek words. It runs thus in English — " I believe in God the Father Almighty and in Christ Jesus, His only begotten Son, begotten of the Holy Spirit and of Mary the Virgin, crucified under Pontius Pilate buried and risen from the dead on the third day. He ascended into the heavens, sitteth on the right hand of the Pather, whence He cometh to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Spirit . . . . the remission of sins, the resurrection of the Body. Amen." Where the marks of omission occur, there are in the original four letters which Ussher interprets thus, Iiagi [an ecclesian\ the holy ChitJ^ch. This form of the Creed, which is earlier than that now in use, avoids several of the most objec- tionable and inexplicable expressions contained in it. Like the present form, however, it carefully avoids any declaration of the Divinity of the Holy Ghost.i ^ Archbishop Ussher remarks (/// supra, p. 320), ^'Atqui in Symbolo tantum abest iit scripturae testi- moniis divinitas Spiritus Sancti confirmetiir, ut ne expressis quidem verbis affirmetur.*' (/* In the Creed 46 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO Bishop Pearson shows that, in the early ver- sions, the Creed ran '' having been crucified under Pontius Pilate and buried." This form obtained till at least the time of Leo the Great (middle of the fifth century). The composite and question- able origin of this Creed is surely sufficiently clear, and should suffice to make us slow to re-introduce it into our services, specially into the sacraments of Christ's Church. Why it should have a place and distinction superior to God's Word is a question which re- quires a definite answer. Both in its history and its present form it is not only not Apostolic but a pro- duct of the dark age of the Church. Of its clauses, '^Catholic'' means historically something quite different from our conception of the word, as implying Universal} ''Descended into Hell" means no one knows what, unless it be the mediaeval limbics {Pttrgatory or prison), long ago disowned by Protestants. '' Tlie forgiveness of sins " and *' the the Divinity of the Holy Ghost is not only unproved by Scripture, but is not even expressly mentioned.") ^ That prior to this clause entering the Creed, the term Catholic had come to mean orthodox is made clear beyond all question in Bishop Lightfoot's volumes on the ApostoHc Fathers, H. 310 sqq. PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 47 life everlasting'' are, even by Bishop Pearson, allowed to be placed so as to teach Cyprian's and Augustine's doctrine that these are to be had through the Church.^ Along with these facts we may with advantage bear in mind that the entire Eastern Church, which in the past at least has meant the greater part of Christ's Church, has ever utterly repudiated this Roman Creed as it is properly called, syntbohim Roniamtm,'^ Hence its Catholicity or tmivej^sality is as untrue as its Apos- ^ The Committee seem here to have some '^ con- science of the idol," for immediately after receiving a declaration of belief in ''the forgiveness of sins and life everlasting," in terms of the Creed, they proceed to enquire whether the person desiring Baptism trusts '' in Jesus Christ our Saviour for pardon and the gift of life eternal." Do the Church and Christ both confer the same benefits, or is this corrective of the Creed, or ex- planatory of what is intended? Surely those Gibeonite clouted shoes should be better examined ere a Covenant for God be made by their evidence. ^ It has occasioned difficulty to som^ persons to be told that this Creed, originally found in Greek, is a Roman symbol. The explanation is that for fully three centuries only Greek was used in the Roman Church, and for a long time afterwards occupied a prominent place there. The earliest trace of a Latin Liturgy is in the fifth century. See Hammond's Liturgies, Easte?'n and Western, p. Ixix. 48 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO tolicity. But, even were its antiquity and Catho- licity both proved, yet to it would apply Cyprian's dictum *' Consuetiido sine Veritate^ Vetnstas err or is est " — '* Cits torn zvithout tnttJi^ is the staleness of error!' The late Principal Cunningham in his HistoiH- cal Theology writes very firmly regarding this Creed ; and even since his time its unreliableness and lateness have become more emphatically apparent, notwithstanding Cardinal Newman's claim that the Apostle Paul quoted from the Creed ! Principal Cunningham says, " An essay was once written by a Lutheran Divine, in which he exhibited in parallel columns the Lutheran, the Calvinistic, and the Popish interpretations of all the different Articles of the Creed. . . . Another writer afterwd^ds added a fourth column, contain- ing the Arminian or Pelagian interpretation of all the Articles . . . Nay, it is well known that Arians, who deny the Divinity of the Son and the Holy Ghost, have no hesitation in expressing their con- currence in the Creed, and even appeal to the common use of it in early times as showing that a profession of belief in the divinity of the Son and the Holy Ghost was not required in the Primitive Church." What follows is of much importance to PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 49 our Church in its present critical position, as forced on us by our Committee. " I think it is much to be regretted that so very inadequate and defective a summary of the leading principles of Christianity as the Apostles' Creed . . . should have been exalted to such a place of prominence and influence in the worship and services of the Church of Christ . . . and it is I believe in some measure from this cause . . ■. that we are to account for the ignorance and indifference respecting the great principles of Evangelical truth, by which so large a proportion of the ordinary attenders upon the services of the Church of England have been usually character- ized." Yet to this Creed with such ai^iistory, such ambiguity, such misleading clauses regarding vital truth, and exerting such influence on those to whom it is the chief symbol of Christian faith, we are now asked to return, and to make it the expression of our faith, and of our personal knowledge and trust for salvation ! This is precisely what is implied in the new oftices for participation in the sacraments. It was so used by Calvin and Knox in reference to Baptism ; but in Knox's book of Common Order a very long exposition of each E 50 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO clause was given in connection with its use in Baptism.^ When Calvin, the master, so far erred' regarding the Creed, as to have believed that it was perhaps of Apostolic origin, no wonder that Knox the scholar followed some way in his steps. A Creed equally open to Arians, Romanists and ourselves is extremely unsuitable for our use in God's worship. In the present state of English ^.Principal Baillie, in Letter 93 from the Westminster Assembly, writes: "The Belief in Baptism was never said in England and they would not undergo that yoke. When they urged, we could not deny but the saying by many was a pointless and mere formality and to others a needless weight ; that the saying the commandments was no less unnecessary. W^e got the Assembly to equivalent the interrogatories, much against the mind of the Independents, and we were assured to have the Creed a part of the Catechism." The Houses of Parliament, on reviewing the Directory, missed th^ Apostles' Creed. The Assembly (Dec. 16, 1644) gave the following Order, ''that Dr. Burges inform the Honourable Houses of Parliament that the reason why the Assembly have sent up nothing in the Directory concerning the Creed and the Ten Commandments is because they reserve it for the Directory for catechising, where they conceive it will be most proper." It was only by the vote of a majority that any place was ultimately given to the Creed, even outside the Catechism, with the note still printed alongside it. PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 51 society and surrounding religious tendencies it is much more unfit to be exalted to the position of a sacramental symbol.-^ This would be indeed to make our Church abundantly conformist, but also conspicuously un-Evangelical ; and, if it be not distinctly and simply Evangelical, what sufficient reason has it for its existence here in England ? Dedication of Churches. Something must yet be observed about the Order for " the Dedication of a Church," now ^ The native Japanese Church in drawing up a Creed (Dec. 1890), adopted the Apostles' Creed with two para graphs prefixed — one on our Lord's Divinity and atone ment, the other on the Holy Spirit, His Divinity, Hi? work in renewal, His inspiration of prophets, and holy men of old by whom He speaks in the Scriptures, infal- libly judging in all matters of faith and living. Thus some defects and errors of the Creed are adjusted. Sim.ilarly Mackay of Uganda, that prince among mis- sionaries and men, when preparing for the ])eople a Creed in their native language, avoided the Apostles' Creed as suggesting on the one hand the Mariolatry of the Jesuits, and, on the other, the mere humanity of our Lord as maintained by the Mohammedans. This is scarcely less noteworthy than the action of the Japanese, both showing the practical unfitness of the Apostles' Creed for use in a pure church. K 2 52 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO proposed to us for publication. This is the most pronounced movement which our Committee have yet made. It is observable that the phrase is '"'- dedicationl' not ''consecration'' of a Church. Probably the one word was chosen rather than the other as sounding softer. Liturgically, however, they are identical, " dedication '' being the more common Romish word for the ceremony, rather than consecration. If a distinction must be made between the terms, then, Consecration is the performance of the order and service of Dedication ! ^ On turning to Smith's Dictionary of Christian Antiquities under " Con- secration of Churches," the Latin equivalents are consecratio^ dedicatio. The definition is — '' Consecration of a Church is its dedication by a special rite to Divine worship, performed by a legitimate minister." This is exactly what our Committee have drawn up. It is really a consecration rite. When the Scotch drew up their " National Covenant," which was subscribed by the King and his household in 1580, and again and again till it was subscribed at ^ " In die ipso consecrationis officium de dedicatione recitatur sub ritu." (Romsee's Praxis divi?ii officii, ''de festo anniversarii dedicationis ecclesiae.") PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 53 Scoon by Charles II., in 165 i, they declared, — " in special we detest and refuse Dedicating of KirkSy altars^ daysT Here many are prepared to stand. Our Com- mittee, unhindered and unchallenged, have led us to their present proposal. But surely they never expected such pronounced tergiversation to pass this Synod. We shall probably be told that the Committee mean no more by this form than a becoming service, in which mention is made before God that the building being opened is intended for His service and honour, and that His blessing is asked. But why then introduce into our Church a phrase which wherever used bv others means much more than this, and which historically connects itself with the gravest errors, and with some of the most superstitious perversions of Christianity.'* It is true we cannot keep clear of all terms which are used by others to express absurdities and errors but we can surelv avoid introducinsr terms into our Church which have already obtained a significance entirely contrary to that which we intend. Our small Church cannot turn the tide of usage in respect of words already deeply significant among the mass of this nation. 54 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO Our Presbyterian forefathers had much expe- rience of this thing which, as they knew it, they ''detested and refused." Let us see when and whence this '' dedication " came into the Church of Christ. The dedication of the temple at Jerusalem may be the original source of this practice, though heathen temples were regularly consecrated in all the Roman world. But even if the Jerusalem temple-dedication suggested the practice to Christians, the misfortune is none the less that men so soon forgot that our Lord at the well of Samaria removed the " where men ought to worship " from any and every place, however sacred and sanctified under the old dis- pensation.-^ Templeisin in all its parts, and specially the restriction of public worship and use of the sacraments to places called consecrated, has surely passed away from the Church of God. It is a commonplace of Protestantism that the Christian Church is founded on the Synagogue, not on the 1 Justin Martyr held the true principle in this particular when he wrote, " Through Jesus Christ we are now all become priests to God, who hath promised to accept our sacrifices in every or in any part of the world." So, Clemens Alexandrinus, '' Every place is in truth holy in which we receive the knowledge of God." PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 55 Temple model. ^ The whole idea of the temple is divergent from that of a place of Christian worship. Its only proper continuance is in the person of the Lord Jesus, to whom it pointed, and in whom, with His Body mystical, that is His whole people, ^ Row, when discussing the liturgical proposals of 1636, says in reference to those for the celebration of Communion, that it was discharged to " the upper end of the Chancel .... where it may the better resemble sanctum sa7icio7'uin in the far end of the temple of Jerusalem, for it is known that Poperie (to whilk now we was fast posting) is nothing but a miscellanie farrago of Judaisme and Paganisme, mutatis noini7iibus''' Bishop Stillingflcet asserts, '^that which we lay as a foundation, whereby to clear what apostolical practice was, is that the Apostles i7i formi7ig churches^ did observe the custo77is of the Jewish sy7iagogiie.^' (Ire7iicu77i p. 239.) He quotes Grotius — '^Totum regimen ecclesiarumChristiconfirmatum fuit ad synagogarum exemplar." To this it is enough to add from Dean Stanley's Jezuish Church (vol. iii. pp. 462, 463), this testimony : •' Inasmuch as the Synagogue existed where the Temple was unknown, and remained when the Temple fell, it followed that from its order and worship, and not from tliat of the Temple, were copied, if not in all their details, yet in their general features, the government, the institutions, and the devotions of those Christian Communities which .... were in the first instance known as * Synagogues ' . . . and afterwards by the almost identical word, ^ecdesia,' * Assembly-house.' " 56 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO its purpose is fulfilled. The Synagogues, which arose before or (possibly) after the Captivity, and of which there were 480 in Jerusalem alone when the temple was still standing, were the places of con- gregation for those w^ho desired to hear God's word read and expounded, and to direct their united prayers and praises to Him.^ On this model the Christian Church was built up, and hence in the Appendix to our Directory of 1644 we read, " No place is capable of any holiness, under pretence of w^hatsoever dedication or consecration." So Samuel Rutherford, in the Assembly at Westminster, ar- gued : " No holiness in the time of the Gospel in any place. . . . Synagogues only called God's Houses because God was worshipped there." (As- sembly Minutes, Session 338.) But such a rite as consecration of a synagogue ^ See Hausrath's New Testauient Times, vol. i. p. 84 sqq. All books on Jewish antiquities abound in illustrations of the manner of worship and government in the Synagogue. While some pomts are still debated, enough has been cleared to substantiate all important positions taken up by Presbyterians, and among them the points debated here. [In Jahn's Antiquities (p. 198, Upham's edition), we read, '^ The forms of prayer that are used by the Jews at the present time do not appear to have been in existence in the time of Christ."] PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 57 was never thought of. Synagogues often convened in private houses, as we learn from Paul's Epistles/ and were often built by individuals either for themselves or for others, as the Gospels, and the Book of Acts testify. Wherever ten men of leisure, wearing the blue ribbon of Mosaism, were located, a synagogue was always formed. But, even when they were specially built, they were used as seats of justice"^ and of education as well as for worship. The idea of a temple, as connected with a place of Christian assembly, is not consistent with Christian thought in the first three centuries. Even the Dictionary of Cliristian Antiquities sa}\s, ^'Wher- ever naos or teniphun occurs with a Christian reference " in the first three centuries '' it is almost ^ See Gall's remarkable volume, The Synagogue, the ge?vn and model of the Christian Church, specially his remarks on Kat-oihon churches, p. 36, sqq. See also Ginsburg, in The Bible Educator, on the honour of supplying the upper-room for a Synagogue. 2 Five times was Paul taught experimentally the judicial function of the Synagogue (2 Cor. xi. 24). Jews who profess to have become Christians often tell how in Continental Synagogues they suffered personal violence for their change of faith. This is easily understood when the judicial function of Synagogue officials is remembered. 58 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO universally in a metaphorical sense.'' But imme- diately after Constantine's accession, temphtm became a common designation for Christian places of worship. With that fact we reach the first dedicatiori of Churches.* The scriptural synagogue conception was pushed out and the idea of the Judaic and heathen temple was brought in. With it, most naturally, dedication followed. That in all ages of the Church public and private buildings were entered on with some special acknowledgment of God need not be questioned. To begin all our new departures in life with God is an instinct of grace as well as a command. But we cannot trace a ritual of Consecration beyond the imperial edicts of Constantine, who was particularly punctilious regarding dedication rites and cere- monies, doubtless desiring to impress the people with the pomp and magnificence of the imperial religion, because they had been accustomed to the dedication of pagan temples.^ In A.D. 335 ^ The way for both was prepared by the departure from Christianity which had already made the Sacrament of the Supper a Sacrifice^ and the officiating minister a priest, {/iie?'eus, sacerdos), especially if he were a Bishop, for Bishops were even then distinct from Presbyters. 2 This is no harsh estimate of Constantine's character PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 59 Athanasius had the serious charge brought against him of having used an undedicated Church. Athanasius allowed the charge, acknowledging tliat it zvoitld have been unlaw fitl to keep a day of dedica- tion ivithont orders from the Emperor. His apology is that such multitudes pressed to his preaching that he consented to use the Church, and he pleaded the case of other Churches so used. He assured the Emperor that " there w^as no dedication, but only an assembly for the sake of prayer!' He thus con- cluded his humble apology. "The place is ready, having been already sanctified by the prayers which have been offered in it and reqitii'es only the presence of yottr piety!' This is Church dedication as understood at its inception, and its development became more and more worldly, pompous and and general motive. Here are his oivn views : " Pains must be taken to convince men that the worldly condition of a Christian is one to be desired. We must not trust to the force of reason alone, since few love truth for itself .... Some are won by the prospect of obtaining subsistence : others of gaining influence with the great ; some by courtesy of manners : some by presents." As Bishop Kaye, " Council of Nicaea," says " the advice here given .... savours more of the politician than of the missionary." 6o LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO theatrical, till our reforming ancestors declared that they " detested and refused it." ^ Very soon after the institution of dedication of Churches the procurement of relics of martyrs, to be placed under the altar, became necessary. Both Basil and Ambrose affirm this ; the latter, indeed, refused to consecrate a Church till relics were pro- cured. In the eighth century this was made universal law ; and the great feature of the consecration rite became the placing of martyr relics in or beneath the altar. Such is the sliding scale,historically demonstrated, of a return to ceremonial dedications. We have heard some whispers in our own Church of feeble 1 In the '•''Root arid Branch Petition'" of 1640, among *^ the particulars of manifold evils " petitioned against is ^' the christening and consecrating of Churches and Chapels . . . putting holiness in them, yea reconse- crating upon pretended pollution, as though everything were unclean without their consecrating." (Gardiner's Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution^i62^- 1660" p. 70). Even as this note is being written there is a public poster in this city, emanating from an out- standing Evangelical Church, intimating the ^' Dedication of the church tower " — a few feet added high above the place of worship, to form habitation for clock or bell or birds of passage. The same church celebrated its majo- rity a year or two ago by Punch and Judy shows, etc. PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 6i echoes of those Sisyphus' " fooleries " having been resorted to, presumably as " makeways '' among our Anglican Catholic or some hyper-refined noncon- formist neighbours.! Even the Church of England, as already stated, has no authoritative, that is, no royally sanctioned order of Consecration of Churches, though it uses one which passed the houses of Convocation in 1 7 12, and was adopted, almost entire, by the Episcopal Church of America in 1799." ! A ^' Form of Consecration of a Church or Chapel," prepared by Bishop Andrews, was published in 1675. As a specimen of the particular dedication of the separate parts of the House by episcopal laying o?i of hands^ the words used at the * Holy Table ' may be quoted : ' Grant that all they that shall at any time partake at this Table, the Highest Blessing of all, Thy Holy Communion, may be fulfilled wdth Thy Grace and heavenly Benediction," etc. The misconception of special dedication is well illustrated by the following prayer of this dedication Titurgy : " Blessed Spirit, without whom nothing is holy, no person or place is sanctified aright, send down upon this place Thy sanctifying power and grace, hallow it, and make it to Thee an Holy habitation for ever." Like all Bishop Andrews' devotions there is much in this dedica- tion of rare beauty and deep spiritual conception. The ritual is however purely Judaistic and elaborately ''Catholic." '^ The American Book of Common Prayer has, as LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO The document laid on our table thus seems to be, in liviine^ most undesirable for our Church, being more suggestive of retrogression and of a levelling down which shall obliterate our reformed and primitive identity, than of a wholesome forward movement in spiritual Christianity, and in purified devotion. Consecrations of all kinds are unknown to the New Testament ; only real holiness is there recognised, and that through relation or character, not through ritual or any religious performance whatever. Both Churches and individuals require to be reminded of this fact, for on both a yoke of Judaistic bondage is being replaced, generally with the best of intentions, but with most un- wholesome, even if self-satisfying results. previously stated (see p. 20 note), adopted the English Revision of 1689 (never used in England), and is more free and purged of error in several important particulars than the English Book of Common Prayer. The Dutch and German Reformed Churches of America have ser- vices for the consecration of churches in their liturgies. From these Dr. Sprott, Worship and Offices of the Church of Scotland, has prepared a modest service which is indeed a Directory, but contains at least all the suggestions that can be required by an intelligent minister when initiating worship in a new church. PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. There are several additional proposed points of liturgy requiring serious consideration by this Church. But enough has been dealt with to show both the spirit and the character of our proposed variorum Liturgy. It may indeed be said regard- ing several parts of this criticism that it makes much of ivords, rather than of definite opinions or forms of service. But liturgical significance is very largely denoted by the use of single words, w^hich have historical associations and well-known ideas bound up with them. To adopt, particularly at the present time, words and expressions which are prominent Shibboleths of Anglican and other schools diverging more and more from Protestantism and from Scripture, can only be suicidal for us. Our Church stands on Scrip- ture and Apostolicity ; and if there be any idea of thus commending ourselves to Anglican Christians, the mistake is a supreme misjudgment. Men say of all such half-caste compromises, " if we want that sort of thing, we know where to get it properly and not in poor imitation. " 64 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO Never let our Churches be pilloried in public thought, — " Caution : Beware of spurious imi- tations " ! And yet men tell us already that they miss nothing but the surplice in some of our services ; a statement which is suggestive of what Romanists say of the Church of England. There is no proposal to force any minister to use this Revision against his conscience. But Congrega- tions, we must remember, have consciences as well as ministers,^ and already some congregations are suffering severely from the quasi-adoption of this liturgy by our Church and by its partial congre- gational use among us. We must not only be free as ministers and congregations, but the Church itself must be kept free from the imputation of having adopted a liturgy, w^ith its concomitant questionable materials, as an element of its life and worship.- What men in their inmost hearts expect ^ ^' Ipsa quippe mutaiio, etiam quae adjuvat utilitate, novitate perturbat : Quapropter quae utilis non est, perturbatione infractuosa consequenter noxia est." Augustine. (" Any change, however useful in itself, makes trouble through its novelty : a useless change, tnerefore, causing trouble which produces no good, is harmful") - In addressing the King the Bishops declared, " The liturgy they applaud as unexceptionable and they think PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 65 from the Church is not what the world's magicians can also do by their enchantments, but what will make even the magicians say — '' This is the finger of God." This is the want of the Church, not liturgies and innovated ceremonies. When the Church possessed ''the Promise of the Father" it did not dream of liturgies. And whenever it has in some measure felt the pulses of that Spirit in its heart it has cast aside all such forms as encumbrances and restraints on God's working.^ They are only tolerable when Christ- it cannot be said to be too vigorously imposed when ministers are not denied the exercise of their gifts before and after sermon, which soj't of prayt?7g, they declare however^ is but a coiitinnajice of a ciistoin of no great authority a?td grown iiito covwiofi use aiid sufferance only^ without a?iy other foundation in the laws a7id canons.'' This liberty, almost unknown even to members of the Church of England, is founded on the LV. Canon, which contains "the Biddi?ig prayer'' or rather directory for prayer, a time for "- biddi?ig their bedes" previously allowed in the Romish Church, being left without being definitely filled up liturgically in the Book of Common Prayer. A very few bold men, generally earnest men, in the Church of England, even now venture to use extempoj'e prayer at this part of the Service. ^ When the Church of Scotland was in 1636 ruled by Laud's instructions, the Canon Law (No. 20) enjoined, F 66 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO ian life is low. None feel more gratefully the freedom of their absence than those who, having "no minister shall conceive a prayer exte7?ipore, under pain of deprivation." This canon explains a point in regard to the use of " Read Prayers/' previous to the occasion when Janet Geddes's famous stool thrown at the Bishop, com- menced the great revolution. A certain set of Scotch Presbyters nowadays make much of Jenny having earlier on the same day heard prayers read and made no objection. But under that canon, if she or anyone else in Scotland went to public worship at all, they could hear nothing but read prayers. They bore Laud's as well as the King's dictation for a time, as the steam- boiler for a time bears the extra strain when the engi- neer has had the folly to overload the safety-valve and over-heat the fire. But the great national explosions which followed so small a spark as that fateful stool show that the boiler was just ready to burst — that the wrath and indignation of the people were close up to insur- rection heat — and that Laud's service book was only the last straw of pressure before the final blowing up of him and his master and their system. The Scotch people^ then, disliked read prayers, and do so still. To-day, both in Scotland and England, the people — the common pe6ple and the classes next them — don't like read prayers, and scarcely go to hear them, unless under the control of influences which are not religious. The Savoy Commissioners told the Bishops, ^^ for the Common Prayer, our observation telleth us, that though PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 67 once been bound to them, have in spirit and in life been made free from their bondage. Nothing some can use it judiciously, seriously, and we doubt not profitably, yet, as to the most of the vulgar, it occasioneth a relaxing of their attention and intention, and a lazy taking up with a corpse or image of devotion, even in the service of the lips, while the heart is little sensible of what is said." ''And we must seriously profess, that we have found far more benefit to ourselves and to our congregations ... by conceived prayers, than by the Common Prayer Book." This testimony is striking from men who have been quoted as having left us in the Records of that Conference a safe guide for a Presbyterian form of the Book of Common Prayer. Such a book indeed has been drawn up and was published in Philadelphia nearly thirty years ago, with an interesting, though very one-sided introduction, under the title Liturgia Expiirgata. Row, in his history already frequently quoted, thus concludes regarding the use of Liturgies : — " I confess good use may be made of a formed Liturgie and publick service to serve for a rule to other kirks to fall on a hke way, finding it warranted by the word and to be a monu- ment to the posteritie, who thence may learn what forms have been, are, and ought to be used, and that it may lead the way and be a directorie to those that are beginning in the ministrie ; yet^ certamlte^ ?'eadi?ig of prayers and exhortatiofis, is not the way 7u hereby the Loi'd has appomted in His word His servants of the Minist7'ie to luorship Him or to convert^ edifie^ a?id comfort^ or strengthen Soidllsy F 2 68 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS. should induce us to forget that prayer is as much a ministerial gift as preaching. That there are times when perhaps even the best of men feel they cannot pray as they would for themselves, much less lead others in prayer as they would, is not denied. The same thing is true, and even more solemnly true, of preaching, because the sense of unfitness to speak in God's name is much more op- pressive than the sense of unfitness to speak in man's name. Yet we have to push on and cry inwardly, — '' When prayer delights thee least, Then learn to say — Soul, now is greatest need That thou shouldst pray." ARGUMENT, OR ENLARGEMENT OF SPEECH, BY JOHN M. DOUGLAS. I SECOND the amendment, as I object strongly to this so-called Directory, because of the extreme unsuitableness and undesirableness of its contents, in many prominent and most important parts. I do so with regret, on account of the regard I have for its chief authors, and also because 1 had often fancied that a partial and optional liturgy was good and desirable, — so many men, both laymen and ministers, go so far away from the model prayer which our Lord gave us, short, pointed, and direct. They wander away into endless meditations, preachments, and prolixities, most un- JO LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO like that model. So I hoped for good from this movement. I had never studied the liturgical question seriously, and don't command the learning which Mr. Macphail has in his argument so well brought to bear. But I have pretty carefully read the Bible. I know a good deal of nineteenth century people, old and young, town and country, north and south. And I have a decided opinion that the effect of this Directory, if adopted and enlarged on its present plan, would be singularly injurious to our people and to the influence and usefulness of our Church. On opening the book for the first time, recently, I was shocked by its contents, which certainly have never yet been known to and considered by the members of this Church so fully as they ought to be before ofticially adopting such a very great change. Yet it is actually already used in some of our churches, not only as a Directory but as a partial liturgy, altering the method of public worship used in Presbyterian churches for centuries, and introducing ceremonies, services, and sacramen- tarian phrases, foreign to Presbyterian principles and practice. Its adoption would authorise men to impose at pleasure on our members, old and young, learned and unlearned, a declaration of belief in a PRESBYTERIANS OF EXGLAXD. 71 creed which the very proposers of it don't venture to present in English, but partly in Greek, and which is both defective and unintelligible. I shall shortly deal with some of these objections. I. A Burial Service is provided in this proposed Directory. The short addresses and prayers are very much those of the Church of England Burial Service, more or less altered. That service is ac- knowledged by all to be beautiful. But it, and this of our Directory, are for the burial of believers, or of those who may charitably be taken as such. Un- fortunately there are many others. As an elder in a large Scotch congregation, in charge of a populous district for many years, I frequently had to conduct funeral services in absence of the minister, and I have experienced the delicacy of those variable circumstances. Such services are too solemn for mere words of course. But the elasticity of our unwritten methods allowed us to avoid offence and yet be honest. Everyone knows what storms and quarrels arise in the Church of England if the minister declines to use the Burial Service, and thereby practically pronounces the deceased to have been too bad for it. These troubles would be far more trying to our comparatively small 72 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO organization in England, than to the AngHcan Church, rich and strong in the wealth and prestige of EstabHshment and fashion. Why should we create for ourselves new difficulties and dangers ? If any one wish to use the Church of England service for burial there is nothing to prevent him now ; and he may make alterations in it to suit his taste, without our Church reprinting it in this way as if it were ours and not theirs. The texts and psalms wliich are printed in it are taken from God's Word, and belong to all. The chief of them are necessarily the same as those used not only in the Anglican Liturgy, but by everyone else in any Church. II. One division of this Directory is titled " Of the Celebration of the Lord's Supper or Holy Communion." The Lord said that when we broke and ate the bread, and again when we drank of the cup, we were to do each " /;^ remembrance of '' Him. Paul wrote to the Corinthians that as often as we so eat and drink we " shezv, (Revised Version ^''proclaim ") the Lord's death till He come." W^e join not to '' celebrate the Communion',' but to celebrate Him personally and His death; — see the above two PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 73 directions. His Apostles, according to the best translators, never mentioned '' the Communion " ; they simply celebrated Him and His death, and looked forward to His coming, as He directed them. But when priests and ecclesiastics invented ceremonies and superstitions, and were to make money out of masses, all this was too simple. There was no longer the remembrance of a past sacrifice ; the service was corrupted into the Mass, which proposed to be the offering of a new sacrifice for sin, — repeated perpetually. The two plain New Testament names, '' Breaking of Bread " and '' Supper of the Lord " w^ere dropped, and the re- ception of the bread, or bread and wine, was called in the Mass Book the ''Communion," w^ith numerous forms and prayers before, at, and after Communion, especially numbers of " Post Communions." So when after the Reformation the Church of Eng- land preserved a good deal of the forms and service of the Romish Church, she retained the words " Celebration " and " Communion," which had been used in connection with the mass. Just so her clergy and people have generally retained in their vernacular the Romish and Jewish name '' Altar" for the table on which the " consecrated" 74 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO bread and wine were placed, although that name was kept out of the Prayer Book. When she invites her members to '' Holy Communion" why should we follow her language instead of that of the Apostles ? They knew better than to speak so ; for in- accurate words produce inaccurate thoughts. The Prayer Book had preserved the w^ord '' Com- munion," and the translators of the" Authorised Version, followed by the Revised Version, probably on that account retained that word in 1 Cor. X. i6. " The Cup — is it not the Com- munion of the blood of Christ ? " " The bread which we break, is it not the Com.munion of the body of Christ ? " But that word really is not applicable in any proper or natural sense in those sentences, however well suited to the Mass Book ; it is evidently retained in the translations because it had got into the liturgy. The Revisers put on the margin to replace it the words " participation in," which is intelligible to every one. This suggested translation is no new fancy. " St." Jerome's ancient version, the Vulgate, w^hich is the Authorised Version of the Church of Rome, uses in this passage the word " Communicatio" in the first place and ^' participatio " in the second. PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. -j':, The Greek word translated " Communion '' in this text is, in at least eleven others rendered " fellowship," by our Authorised Version, and in two other texts '"' Communion/' In the last of these, 2 Cor. xiii. 14, most people have felt the difficulty of attaching a definite meaning to the words *' Communion of the Holy Ghost " in that great text ; had it been " Fellowship of the Holy Ghost," how much more clearly it would have shone into our hearts ! And fellowship would also have been better in i Cor. x. 16, translating it in the same way as so many other texts. If we are to have a Directory let us have a chapter on " TIic Lord's Sjipper or tJie Breaking of Bi'ead',' and let us leave Holy Comimmion with Holy Baptis7Ji, Holy Scripture, Holy Trinity, Holy Jllatri- inony} and all that set of exaggerated ecclesiastical phrases, to those who wittingly or unwittingly are the subjects of ritualistic mediaevalism, and so ^ All these are holy, but the perpetual parading of that adjective has anything but a solemnising or elevating effect. The use of it as a title has no example in the New Testament, and only commenced long after the Apostolic age — developing more and more till it named the Spanish admiral's ship at Trafalgar the '' Most Holy TriiutyP 76 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO become unwittingly the patrons and manufacturers of infidels and unbelief. Celebration leads to Celebrant, — the person who celebrates. According to the words of the Lord, and of Paul, every participant of bread and w^ine is a Celebrant, for he or she celebrates the Lord and His death. But nowadays the Celebrant is the name which ecclesiastics of the Churches of Eng- land and of Rome give to the minister who ad- ministers the elements, — who is in their language a Priest. Our Church holds with all Presbyterians and other Protestants that Christ was the last Priest offering sacrifices for sin. I have been charged with a terrible mistake in objecting to this word " Celebration," because it occurs in the Westminster Directory in connection with this ordinance, — there called Communion, not Holy Communion, as our more advanced Commit- tee call it, after the liturgy. But the Westminster Divines could not know everything, and much has happened since. The ritualizing and Romanizing of the Church of England has in our day advanced wonderfully. Had the Westminster Divines 250 years ago foreseen the present Anglican Celebrants of Holy Communion, with their eastward positions, &c., &c., they w^ould doubtless have been still more PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND 77 careful than they were to keep distinctly apart from them and even from their way of talking. Let us stick to the plain Bible names, The Supper of the Lord and The Breaking of Bread. The Lord gave the bread to the Disciples and told them to divide it among themselves. But while still very few centuries had passed, the corrupting ecclesiastics taught that the bread being con- secrated was too sacred to be touched by the hands of the laity, and that therefore the clergy must put the bread into the mouths of the laity, one by one. Calvin describes this in commenting on i Cor. x. 16. This is the origin of the division of the bread by the '* Priest " to each partaker, one by one, in the Church of England ;— quite different from the method in which the Lord expressly caused it to be used in His presence. He said, " Take it and divide it among yourselves." Bad forms mean a great deal, and sadly obscure the truth. Let us and our Church never be moved, in word or doctrine, or modes of worship or service, from the simplicity that is in Christ. in. The Committee ask leave this year to add to their book a set of forms for Dedication of 78 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO Churches. Presb3'terians used to confine them- selves to "Opening" these, and should do so still, though a few ritualistically disposed ministers of the Established Church of Scotland, and some few elsewhere, have taken to '' dedicating " them. If that word were always, and for everybody, to have the prosaic secular meaning which it has when people say a piece of ground is dedicated to the use of the public for a road, or the like, there would be no harm in it. I presume the Committee do not intend their proposed ceremony to mean any more -than that, but to be a pretty and impressive way of saying that. If they think it means more, I should like them to state the meaning definitely. We live here in England among many thousands of buildings and pieces of ground, churches, churchyards, &c., both Anglican and Roman Catholic, which are said to be " dedicated " or " consecrated " to religious purposes ; and many millions of people, Anglicans and Catholics, are taught to believe, and do believe, that the cere- monies of Consecration or Dedication performed upon them have very serious religious meanings and effects. The Catholic Missal contains the forms of " Dedication" of Churches and Altars, and also for the anniversaries of each '^ Dedication." PRESBYTERIANS OF EXGLAXD. 79 In these forms the CathoHcs use the words dedi- cation and consecration as equivalents, inter- changeable with each other. The Church of England Service Book contains no form for these purposes, and there is no fully authorised form. But I am under the impression that some of them try to make a distinction between the two words, and the occasions for using them. The Roman Catholics who passed on these superstitious ceremonies to the Anglicans, should best understand their meaning, and they employ both words to represent special religious character, supposed to be given to buildings, ground, and other things, by certain ceremonies, — if performed by ^' priests " qualified in a certain way, or of a certain rank. These words and ceremonies are used to produce ideas of the worship and other ordinances of the Church, which our Church and all Presbyterians hold to be most erroneous, and to be great hindrances to the gospel and to the work of God in the world. If our Church now adopt " Dedications " of churches, it will not only be a novelty most disa- greeable to many members, but the public, includ- ing three-fourths of our own members, would think we were after our own fashion performing a cere- 8o LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO mony for the same superstitious and delusive purposes as those others use ; — consecrating our churches just like them. The Bible tells us to avoid even the appearance of evil, lest we mislead others, as this Dedication Service would do, however well it may be meant. It is one of those Judaising services against which both the Lord and His Apostles so often and strongly spoke, warning converts not to be entangled again in the yoke of bondage. It is only a degree more dignified than the ceremonial wash- ings of hands and dishes w^hich the Lord so decidedly disregarded and put aside. Our Church should not provide forms for such humanly in- vented ceremonies, — '^ will worship " brought into His house, — but should firmlyand promptly prevent these ceremonies from being performed in our Church, or those phrases used in it. IV. The Saviour when on earth taught His Dis- ciples how to pray, and His lessons on this subject are in words so few and so clear that they should have been exactly and completely in the minds of all Christians. Yet all the liturgy-makers of this country, though they were above all others bound to know and follow these directions, have PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 8i with curious perversity disregarded them hitherto, not only as to their spirit of brevity, simpHcity, and directness, but as to the essential matter of one of the petitions. The Lord treated the subject twice. First, in the Sermon on the Mount, He told the multitude neither to follow the ostentatious prayers of the hypocrites, nor the long-winded thoughtless repetitions of the heathen Gentiles. To show them a better way. He gave them, not a mere form to repeat but an intelligent and sufficient direction and ex- ample^ as a model of the proper manner for praying. He said (Matth. VI. 9), '' After this manner therefore pray ye. Our Father, which art in heaven," &c., " Give us t/iis day our daily bread," &c. The Revisers of the New Testament translation have left this petition for daily bread unaltered in the text, while both at this and the other passage, (Luke XL, 3), they record on the margins that the original Greek zvords properly signify not *^ our daily bread,'' but '''our bread for the coming day!' The second time He gave the same lesson in a slightly varied form, which He said was suitable for repetition, and He put no limit on the times, or occasions for using it. The pattern given by Him on the Mount was suitable not only for an G 82 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO example, but for repetition at many hours of every day. Yet to render it perfectly fit for all hours indiscriminately, He made a significant change upon it : " When ye pray, say, Father, hallowed be Thy Name," &c., and '' Give us day by day our daily bread." (Luke xi. 3.) But the English Church Liturgy took the pattern ^iven for guidance, and made it the only form to repeat, at all hours, early or late, " Give us this day our daily bread." If the framers of the Liturgy had, like the Revisers, even gone back to the Greek, and said, " Our bread for the coming day," it would have been agreeable to common sense. The Lord and the Apostles strictly kept to that. But the form in the English Liturgy is the only form in our new Directory, — " Give us tliis day our daily bread." This when used in the afternoon or evening, or at night, by people w^ho have had their regular food that day, is sheer nonsense, — much or all of the day's food being already con- sumed ! It is like asking at evening service for a good sermon at morning service of the same day : or like an absurd prayer which I once heard from a noted evangelical clergyman of the Church of England, of high repute for his labours as an evangelist, who asked of God in the evening that PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 83 the service of the morning might have been blessed! Of course every one present, whose intellect was awake, was either amused or grieved. It is either mockery or thoughtlessness to pray for what is past, — makes intelligent men and women into unbelievers, — and confirms them in unbelief. The elaborate forms for Church Services for the Established Church of Scotland, published by a Society of Ministers in that Church, and used in many congregations there, unfortunately follow this error of the Liturgy. I may seem too hardy in challenging what is so generally repeated by good and learned men and women. But the very generality of this English usage is what makes the error continue. Don't let us forget the vast crowds of highly intelligent English youths, of both sexes, who have abandoned religious faith and services, and are year by year abandoning them, because they observe and reject incongruities which are not observed by those who have been brought up to reverence them in child- hood, and have continued in daily familiarity with them. Young fresh inquiring minds are driven away, while others take for granted that what is usual is right. A heavy responsibility lies on those G 2 84 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO who maintain such stumbling-blocks, and on those who extend their range. V. The great feature of this Directory is the quite new prominence and (^z////^r//^ which it would confer on that old Creed, commonly but erroneously c'alled the Apostles' Creed, elevating it into a new Confession of Faith, to be imposed at pleasure upon every ordinary member of the Church. It proposes that his or her full belief in the Creed, solemnly and piece by piece declared, may be made the condition of access to the Sacraments of the Church, Baptism and the Lord's Supper. The old Confession of Faith was a trouble to many, though it was only imposed on ministers and other office-bearers. But this new Confession, much shorter, yet at least in some parts harder to understand, is to be imposed at pleasure, as a test, on every member. This Creed began to take shape some centuries after the time of the Apostles, and is said to have very gradually grown into its present shape, during the darkest ages. Mr. Macphail has told us the history of it in the foregoing pages (pp. 43-48). Persecu- tion of the Christians, military revolutions, tyrannies, and misgovernment of all sorts prevailed, during the PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 85 first three centuries from the Christian era, in all parts of the Roman Empire, that is, of the then more or less civilised parts of the world. These brought about long ages of intellectual decay and of mental stagnation, out of which grew ecclesiastical corruptions and priestly assumption. That corrupting and darkening time was the great period of great heresies, Gnostic, Arian, and many others, and also of Creeds. The so-called Apostles' Creed, the Nicene, and the Athanasian are those most popularly known. Such creeds were naturally lopsided, — extra full in contradict- ing those misbeliefs specially pressing on the authors of them, and defective on other points which did not so much occupy men's minds at the time. Short and defective as this one is, many books of Commentaries, large and small, have been written to explain it, and it is understood in quite different ways by different people. Ordinary members of Churches that use it constantly learn it in childhood, and repeat it as a matter of course ever after. But let us look carefully into its details before we accept it as (i) a proper and (2) an adequate statement of belief, and are permanently saddled with it. 86 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO (1.) In coarse, crude, and most inaccurate lan- guage it deals with the great and dehcate mystery of the Incarnation. It says the Lord. Jesus was '^ Conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary." But the Scripture expressly says the con- trary : — He was conceived by tJie Virgifi, under some unexplained influence of the Holy Spirit. To speak of a child being conceived by anyone but its mother is contrary to the facts of nature and to the language both of the world and of Scripture. There are plenty of real difficulties as w^ell as unfair objections to be dealt with by Christians in our day, as regards the foundations of belief, without our obtruding on our intelligent young men and women this artificial difficulty, which has prevailed elsewhere, but from which our Churches have been hitherto free. The larger proportion of men at Services, and especially at the Lord's Supper, in the Presbyterian and other non-liturgical churches in England, is often remarked. The absence of this and other ^' unreasonable services " may be one reason for the difference, and also for the disproportionately small church attendance of those who in leading British Colonies say they belong to the Church of England, as shown above (pp. xi-xvi.). PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 87 (2.) Then this Creed as used in the Church of England says the " Lord descended into hell." But the framers of our new Directory decline to translate the old word rendered as hell, and offer us the Greek word Hades instead, which is sup- posed to mean the State of the Dead. I see the Romish Missal and French Romanist books trans- late Hades by general words that may apply to the State of the Dead, — and that phrase has often been suggested as an English translation of the word in this Creed. But it does not fit in properly, for this Creed has just before said He was crucified, dead, and buried. To add that He descended into the State of the Dead would be the saddest tautology, not conceivable in a document so short, and selected from the writings, — {inspired and uninspired) — of nearly 1,900 years, to be proposed to our Church as the best possible statement and test of Christian Belief! But if the word does not mean that, what does it mean } And how are we to believe in it if we don't know what it means ? As the learned Committee which framed this Directory dared not translate the word into English, I say that when ordinary men and women, and lads and lasses, — not superior in knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Theology, to our Doctors of Divinity, — 88 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO happen to apply for access to the Sacraments, and are asked to declare their belief in this Creed partly in Greek, it is a scandal and a mockery, and a ready way to destroy the faith of the intelligent and thoughtful among them, and among their friends and neighbours. I was told in regard to this objection that I forgot the great progress of education in recent years. But that progress has evidently not yet sufficiently reached the Doctors of Divinity to let them understand and translate this Creed, and they have to leave part of it in Greek. So " the common people " and '^ the poor " cannot be expected to translate it or believe it. They gladly heard the Lord preach, because He spoke in language which they understood. If His faith is to be put into a Creed for general acceptance, it should be such as to be '^ understanded of the people." In the contests of Protestantism, with Rome, one great complaint against Rome has always been that her worship is in Latin, a language not known to the general population. But now we are to have, — both in our ordinary sabbath services, and also as a short test of belief for all and sundry, this Creed partly in Greek, a tongue much less PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 89 known than Latin 1 If all this were not so sad it would be laughable. (3.) This Creed goes on to express belief in " The Holy Catholic Church," which the framers of it probably, and the Roman Catholic transmitters of it certainly, interpreted to signify their corrupt organizations, placed between God and His people, to dispense religious ordinances and salvation, and even to sell these upon occasion. That ambitious Greek title was most fit for adoption by the Church of those darkening ages, which already had begun to lord it over men, and was soon to lord it over kings and nations. Naturally those who lay stress on the transmission of what they call Holy Orders through that corrupt Church of Rome to the present Church of England, and on the consequent sacramental powers of their so-called Priesthood, like to retain that high-sounding phrase, and to enjoy the application of it by the unthinking to their own Church, alleged now to be the only privileged transmitter of grace in this kingdom. But why should we ask our people to adopt, and solemnly to profess their belief in, this phrase, which is not in Scripture, and which is inter- preted quite differently by different people ? 90 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO " Catholic " is a Greek word not intelligible to the ordinary Englishman, Irishman, Scotchman, American, or Colonist, in the sense which the framers of this Directory must mean it to bear, — that of '' Universal,'' as the Confession of Faith translates it. All the English-speaking races, in England and abroad, use in their vernacular the word Catholic as equivalent to Roman Catholic ; — Catholic is the name that great Church takes for itself, and intercourse with its members is impos- sible under any other name. Protestant theolo- gians rightly insist on using the word in a much wider sense, as meaning Universal, and as including their own Churches. But our question is just now about receiving officially a Creed for our people at large, not a Creed for theologians. And even if we translated Catholic into Universal, the Universal Church, with its divisions into Visible and Invisible, Pure, Corrupting, and Corrupt, &c., &c., is too complex and uncertain for ordinary people to have any clear or effective belief in it. (4.) The Communion of Saints is the next item of the Creed, and is a pleasant idea to all, though evidently not much put in practice by many good folks, seeing how little communion there is among PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 91 various Churches and denominations Hving beside each other, and remaining almost unknown and often hostile to each other. The one Church in this country which daily repeats this belief in the Communion of Saints is the one that most narrowly and strictly maintains this isolation. And the expounders of the phrase differ, some making it include all the saints or saved ones, past and present, and some all the future also : — others (with the Confession of Faith and the Scripture proofs there quoted) treat it as a very practical duty and happiness among saints on earth at the same time. The communion said to exist between one person and another who died one, two, or three thousand years ago, or who lives now, but is thousands of miles off, and so that they cannot communicate with each other at all, is obscure, and must require much imagination and understanding to comprehend it and clear it up. The Bible tells us nothing of it. Average church members, old and young, cannot be expected to properly under- stand such a matter, and therefore should not be asked whether they believe it. (5.) Anyhow neither the Lord nor His Apostles mentioned the Descent into Hell or Hades, nor The 92 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO Holy Catholic Church, nor The Communion of Saints in this concrete abstract form, or by these names, as they would have done if they had thought it should be done. But they tell us many interesting and useful things about various Churches and what we should do for them, and how to manage them, and keep them pure from intruding iniquities, and about helpfulness and love among saints on earth ; also the glorified Universal Church is portrayed magnificently in the Book of Revelation. Unfortunately throughout the Epistles and the Revelation the Church on earth is described as sadly sinful and imperfect, very much as it still is, and very ill-deserving the title of '' Holy Catholic.'' The Lord and His Apostles told us a great deal about many other important items omitted from this ill-proportioned and defective Creed, and some of which are strangely omitted from the alternative set of questions which our new Directory offers to be used instead of the Creed as a test for members. For instance, both Creed and questions ignore the existence and use of the Scriptures, and the ques- tions take no notice of the Church the member joins or belongs to. The Lord and the Apostles diligently taught the authority and value of the PKESBYTERIANS OF EXGLAXD. - 93 Scriptures, and the duty of using and searching them, loving and obeying them, and being fully instructed in them, and enlightened by them, both for the present and the future, as the Psalmists and Prophets had previously done. The Lord constantly set the example of at- tending public worship in the synagogues and temple, and bearing His part there ; and not only the Apostles but their converts were, and were expected to be, active in personally teaching others, and in organizing Churches everywhere. The Devotional Service Association of the United Presbyterian Church have issued a little volume of Forms of Service, not as a liturgy, but as an assistance, and to form some basis for the discussion whether an authorized Directory be desirable. This is not the time to criticize it. But the form which it suggests for inquiring the belief of members, seems to me not only infinitely supe- rior to the Apostles' Creed, but also very much pre- ferable to that proposed in the Directory offered to us. The leading principles of the Christian faith are stated in the first four questions, as follows : — * 94 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO 1. Do you acknowledge the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, and the only infallible rule of faith and practice ? 2. Do you believe in God — in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, one God ? 3. Do you acknowledge yourselves to be by nature guilty, depraved, and helpless ; and do you believe that salvation is only from the grace of God, through the obedience unto death of His Son, and the sanctifying influence of the Holy Ghost ? 4. Do you believe in Jesus Christ as your Saviour, own Him as your Lord, and engage, in dependence on the promised aids of His Spirit, to observe His ordinances and to obey His laws ? And then in place of launching out into the vague grandiloquences of the Creed about the *' Holy Catholic Church" and the '' Communion of Saints," it adds two very practical questions in regard to the particular Church the member seeks to join. 5. Do you, so far as your knowledge extends, approve, as agreeable to the Word of God, of the views of Divine truth and duty held PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 95 by this Church, and of the principles on which its constitution and order are founded ? 6. Do you promise to submit to the Session of this congregation as over you in the " Lord, to contribute according to your abihty for the support and extension of the Gospel, and to study to promote the welfare of the congregation, and by a holy life to adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour ? The simplicity and clearness of those six ques- tions would enable any plain man or woman to understand and answer them. But if I were asked whether I believed the Creed, as this new book proposes, I should distinctly say I neither under- stood it nor believed it, but that I believed the Bible, and that I accepted the statements of the Gospels and Epistles as a statement of my faith, much more complete and plainer than this Creed. I earnestly hope that this Church will never adopt the proposal of this Committee to use the Creed as a test, or to read it regularly in the public services in church. Were such service to be generally adopted "many would cease to belong to this 96 LITURGICAL PROPOSALS TO Church, and would seek some other where wiser counsels prevailed. The class of subjects we have been discussing was among those forced on the consideration ot our forefathers throughout most of the seventeenth century, from the time when James I. recognised the English tide of fashion, and said Presby- terianism was not fit for a gentlemajp., — through the long and rough teachings of Strafford and Laud, Claverhouse and Jefferies, — till the Dutch Presby- terians brought us freedom in i6S8. The Westminster Assembly, and brave Jenny Geddes, who started the movement which made that Assembly possible, — are examples how vital these subjects were felt to be by learned and unlearned : so were the English Presbyterians and other Nonconformists, and the Scotch Covenanters. But after their blood had won our liberty, their principles fell very much out of sight, being no longer roughly attacked by power, but only gently pressed upon by influence and fashion, so that their necessity was less felt. Hence liturgical questions have been looked at by most of us with comparative indifference, as if not concerning us. It was so with me, and I know it was so with numbers of others. PRESBYTERIANS OF ENGLAND. 97 We have many more things to tell, but space and time forbid. The more the facts are studied, — the more the mere aesthetic feeling of some among us is got quit of, — the surer is the result of this discussion. The practical decisions of the English-speaking Protestants of the world, which we have collected and prefixed to these remarks, show that wherever the allurements of the English Establishment have been absent, they adopt, by a vast majority, the views we urge. I cannot suppose that ojtr Church, when our people have taken time to consider these matters, will dissent from the almost unanimous verdict of their unbiassed Christian brethren. RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BUNGAY.