IX. Churches were divested of Catholic adornments, except in the case of certain large and elegant edifices, which, as already remarked, shew in their present state how little injury was done to their sculpture, their carvings, or even their painted windows. Commonly, however, images were torn from their niches, screens were taken down in the Chancel, and plain glass substituted in windows for coloured panes. Walls became whitewashed, and exhibited a framed copy of the Covenant hung up in some conspicuous position. No rails enclosed the uncovered table of plain wood standing in the chancel, then altarless. No organ helped the service of song. Pews in continually-increasing number[422] covered the floor of the nave; galleries in the side aisles also afforded accommodation for the multitudes who, in greater crowds than ever, flocked to hear the sermons of popular Divines. Reading-desks went out of fashion; and a precentor, instead of a clerk, occupied a seat under the pulpit—a heavy sounding-board aiding the preacher's voice, and the sands of the hour-glass measuring out the length of his discourses.[423] The general appearance of Gothic fabrics under Presbyterian rule resembled that of ancient parish churches and cathedrals in Holland, Switzerland, and Scotland. Indeed, St. Lawrence at Rotterdam, the Gross Minster of Zurich, and the Grey Friars in Edinburgh, may be regarded as specimens of the appearance which some of our large religious edifices wore before the Restoration.
X. Presbyterians conducted worship according to the terms of the Directory. The service commenced with prayer; then followed the reading of the Holy Scriptures, with more or less of exposition. The congregation afterwards sung a psalm; subsequently to which the minister offered a long prayer, which embraced a number of prescribed topics. The sermons introduced by these devotional exercises were—according to the admirable advice given in the Directory—to be prepared and delivered painfully, plainly, faithfully, wisely, gravely, lovingly, and as taught of God. Some preachers, it would appear, read their discourses; but it was by far the most general practice amongst Puritan Divines to deliver them without the aid of notes.[424] In the Westminster Assembly there had been a debate respecting a curious practice adopted by the Scotch clergy, of bowing in the pulpit to certain distinguished persons in the audience. Baillie attempted to introduce the custom into England, but the Independents opposed it; and the Presbyterians on this side the Tweed never imitated this peculiar usage of their brethren on the other. Devout behaviour at worship was carefully enjoined in the Directory, which, very properly, interdicted all whispering, sleeping, and looking about. Yet the taking of notes—as observed already in the case of persons in Calamy's congregation—seems to have continued as a common habit. "Almost all people," Baillie remarks, "men, women, and children, write at preaching."
Wearing hats during Divine service had been usual in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. At the funeral of Bishop Cox, in Ely Cathedral, the congregation sat in the choir to hear the sermon, "all covered, and having their bonnets on." Archbishop Laud noticed that it was a new thing, and he approved of it, for the Oxford Masters to sit at St. Mary's Church bareheaded. To do so became a sign of Cavaliership; and a Royalist colonel, hanged for burglary, told the crowd what a consolation it was to him to remember "that he had always taken his hat off when he went to church." The Puritans continued the older practice, and a forest of steeple-crowned hats covered the pews as long as the sermon lasted; but they were all doffed again as soon as they began to pray.[425]
During the Civil Wars, very unseemly conduct was witnessed occasionally in places of worship. The inhabitants of a parish in the Isle of Wight being divided into two parties as to the great religious questions of the day, the Puritans went one Sunday to church to hear a minister sent down by Parliament. But the previous Anglican incumbent stood upon his rights, and would not allow the new comer to enter within the sacred edifice. Sending for his surplice, he preached in the porch, whereupon the other party adjourned to the school-room, leaving him where he was, surrounded by a small auditory. The correspondent who communicated to the newspaper this piece of intelligence added to it this congratulatory remark: that the discomfiture of the parson was the more remarkable, because in that rude place, the godly folks had before been scorned and derided—as was the case when a certain Lady Norton, living in that neighbourhood, "had repetitions of sermons in her house."[426]
There was little or no difference between the Presbyterian and Independent methods of worship, except that the latter would not employ any prescribed method of service; insisting very much upon the advantages of free prayer, and upon the doctrine that in such kind of prayer "the Spirit helpeth our infirmities."
The Lord's Supper.
XI. Anglicans still knelt in secret, and received the consecrated bread and cup from the hands of one of their own priests; but the Presbyterian incumbent administered the Lord's Supper in the parish church to all parishioners, excepting the ignorant and scandalous. The table, decently covered, was conveniently placed so that the communicants might sit around it. After a short warning against improper communion—called in Scotland fencing the tables—the minister began "the action" by sanctifying the elements; then he read the words of institution, and proceeded to pray; after which the bread and wine were distributed, with solemn words, including those used by our blessed Saviour when He instituted the holy feast. Thanksgiving, with a collection, closed the celebration of the Eucharist.
The Independents sat in their pews during the commemoration, instead of sitting close around the tables, as the Presbyterians did; also, they disapproved of the unfrequency of the service amongst their brethren, and were themselves wont to celebrate it week by week. Generally, they partook of the sacred emblems in silence. Philip Nye, according to the report of Robert Baillie, thought that the minister, in preaching, should "be covered, and the people discovered;" but that, "in the sacrament, the minister should be discovered, as a servant, and the guests all covered."[427] How far this strange practice prevailed we cannot say; but the wearing of hats at the Lord's table was a reproach which we find cast upon the Independents by Edwards, the Presbyterian; and that he did not bring the charge without good reason appears from the reply which was made to him by one Catherine Chidley, who thus attempts to vindicate the practice: "It may be as lawful for one man to sit covered, and another uncovered, as it may be lawful for one man to receive it sitting, and another lying in bed."[428]
Psalmody.
XII. A prejudice existed amongst some of the earlier Baptists against the use of psalmody in the worship of the Almighty, but the practice met with decided approval from Ainsworth and Robinson, who were patriarchs of Congregationalism.[429] Also, in "The Apologetical Narration of the Five Brethren," the singing of psalms is mentioned as a part of their worship, from which it follows that any objection to it amongst the Congregationalists must have been quite exceptional. The many versions of the Psalms (forty-three at least) at the commencement of the Civil Wars, bear witness to the extensive delight felt at that time in the exercise of praise. Of the primitive Protestant version of Sternhold and Hopkins, there were then several Genevan editions; and certain other versions—altogether distinct from it—present clear indications of a Puritan, and even of a Nonconformist origin.[430] Rivalry between the two Presbyterian hymnologists, Rouse and Barton, as to the use of their new books, published respectively in 1641 and 1644, has been already noticed. The metrical psalms of King Edward the Sixth's time—which had been enjoined under Queen Elizabeth, and in the reigns of the early Stuarts had been liked by the Puritans—were pronounced by some, after the commencement of the Civil Wars, as "uncouth, and unsuited to the times." But the venerable psalter of the Reformers still, to some extent, held its ground; and Baxter complains that those who laid it by used, "some one, and some another" of the existing versions, so that there could be no uniformity at that time in "the service of song."[431]