[CHAPTER VIII.]
PRESBYTERIAN WORSHIP OUTSIDE OF THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH OF SCOTLAND
[CHAPTER IX.]
MODERN MOVEMENTS IN PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES RESPECTING PUBLIC WORSHIP
[CHAPTER X.]
CONCLUSION
"Inward truth of heart alone, is what the Lord requires. Exercises superadded are to be approved, so far as they are subservient to Truth, useful incitements, or marks of profession to attest our faith to men. Nor do we reject things tending to the preservation of Order and Discipline. But when consciences are put under fetters, and bound by religious obligations, in matters in which God willed them to be free, then must we boldly protest in order that the worship of God be not vitiated by human fictions."—CALVIN.
PREFATORY NOTE.
The purpose in the following pages is a simple one. It is to discover the trend of thought in connection with Public Worship within the Presbyterian Church, particularly in Scotland, during the course of her history since the Reformation. The spirit of the Church in her stirring and formative periods, especially if that spirit is a constant one, is pregnant with instruction. Such a constant spirit is readily discovered by a study of the attitude of the Presbyterian Church towards the subject of Public Worship during the course of her history, and to the writer it seems very evident that that spirit indicates an increasing suspicion of liturgical forms in Worship, and a growing confidence in, and desire for, the liberty of untrammeled approach to God.
Whether this spirit be the best or not, it is not the purpose of these pages to discuss. The great principle of the liberty of the Church in matters of detail, is fully recognized, a principle ever to be sedulously guarded, but an appeal is made to the record of history for its evidence as to the historic attitude of the Presbyterian Church, on a question which to-day is claiming the earnest attention of those who desire for that Church fidelity to her Lord and efficiency in His work.