[168] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 426. There is a similar rubric in the Liturgy of Pollanus: "Minister, nomine Domini invocato, ut Spiritu Sancto adjutus, possit digna Deo atque salutaria ecclesiae eloqui recitat textum."
[169] The Liturgy of Pollanus appoints sermons to be preached on the mornings of Tuesday and Thursday. The service is to begin with a psalm, which being sung, the minister having invoked the Holy Spirit recites his text and proceeds with his sermon. He concludes with some shorter prayer "prout animus tulerit."
[170] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 583; Laing's Knox, ii. 238.
[171] Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 450; Laing's Knox, iv. 194.
[172] In the Order of the General Fast it is stated: "The exhortation and prayers of everie several exercise we have remitted to be gathered by the discrete ministers, for time preased us so that we culd not frame them in such order as wes convenient, nether yit thought we it so expedient to pen prayers unto men, as to teach them with what hart and affection and for what causes we shuld pray, in this great calamitie" (Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 695; Laing's Knox, vi. 421). See also Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 698; Laing's Knox, vi. 470. Even the Order of Excommunication might be "enlarged or contracted as the wisedome of the discreit minister shall thinke expedient" (Dunlop's Confessions, ii. 746; Laing's Knox, vi. 470).
[173] Calderwood's Altare Damascenum, 1623, p. 613. In this and the preceding pages I have made use of materials contributed by me to a Report anent Innovations in Public Worship, presented to the General Assembly in 1864. [Elsewhere, Calderwood says: "None are tyed to the prayers of that book; but the prayers are set down as samplers" (Calderwood's History, 1678 ed., p. 25). Principal Baillie's evidence is to the same effect: "The Warner is here also mistaken in his beliefe that ever the Church of Scotland had any liturgy; they had and have still some formes for helpe and direction but no tie ever in any of them by law or practise" (Review of Bramhall's Faire Warning against the Scots Discipline, 1649, p. 57).]
[174] Row's History, Wodrow Society, pp. 403, 404.
[175] Order and Government of the Church of Scotland, 1641: Address to the reader.
[176] Certainly not more consistently than Pollanus in the following rubric: "Hae sunt precationum in liturgiis certae formulae, quae tamen sequitur minister SUO ARBITRIO ut tempus fert et res postulat. Neque enim ullâ praescriptione formularum alligandus est Spiritus Dei ad eum verborum numerum, cui non liceat subjicere vel supponere si meliora suggerat.... Hae formulae serviunt tantum rudioribus. Nullius libertati praescribitur, tantum ne ab eâ ratione discedatur quam nobis Jesus Christus praescripsit.... Cumque is (scilicet Spiritus Sanctus) apud tribunalia subministret quae dicenda sint, non deerit nobis [si] cum vera fide coram Deo nos sistemus sensu orationis excitati."
[177] "Von vorgeschriebenen Kirchengebeten vor und nach der Predigt finden wir keine Spur, vielmehr das sichere Gegentheil.... Ums Jahr 1589 finden wir zuerst das sogenannte Lob und Dankopfer und die daran gehängten Fürbitten für die Obrigkeit, und die übrigen christlichen Stände.... Erst nach der Mitte des siebzehnten Jahrhunderts ... suchte man auch im Liturgischen die Willkür der einzelnen in engere Schränken zuruckzuführen" (Geschichte der ersten Basler-konfession, S. 249-251).