A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

Your most obedient servant,

——

Secretary.

RESPOND. Before the Reformation a short anthem was so called, which was sung after reading three or four verses of a chapter; after which the chapter proceeded.

RESPOND. A half pillar attached to a wall, to support one side of an arch, of which the other side rests on a pillar. It has its name from responding or answering to a pillar.

RESPONSE. In the Church service, an answer made by the people speaking alternately with the minister. The use of responses is not to be viewed as a mere incidental peculiarity of liturgical services, but rather as a fundamental characteristic of Divine worship. Responses were not made for liturgies, but liturgies for responses. Many of the psalms are constructed on the responsive model, because this was a prior trait of the worship of the sanctuary; and it is an error to suppose that responses were introduced because these psalms happened to be in alternate verses. God’s worship is an act in which both minister and people are concerned. This worship the Church requires to be both mental and vocal, and has ordered her ritual accordingly,—not degrading the priest to a proxy, nor the congregation to an audience; but providing for supplications and thanksgivings, which, like herself, shall be strong because united. It should be deemed a high privilege by the churchman, that he is permitted to lift up his voice in prayer, as well as in praise, “in the congregation of the saints;” that he may openly profess his confidence in the Father of all, and his trust in the “Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world;” that he may join aloud in the “solemn litany,” and cry for grace whereby he may keep God’s holy law for the time to come. In ages past the privilege was prized. Men were not ashamed, in primitive days, to confess Christ before the world, and, as it were, to rend the heavens with their fervent appeals. Neither was it by an ecclesiastical fiction, but in solemn reality, that they sung, “Therefore with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, WE LAUD AND MAGNIFY THY GLORIOUS NAME.” May the time come when such devotion shall again adorn the “spacious courts” of Zion; when the vague murmur of confession, and the languid tones of penitence, the silent creed, and the smothered prayer, shall give place to the earnest and nervous expression of spiritual concern, and the animating testimony of devout gratitude!

It was a very ancient practice of the Jews to recite their public hymns and prayers by course, and many of the Fathers assure us that the primitive Christians imitated them therein; so that there is no old liturgy which does not contain such short and devout sentences as these, wherein the people answer the priest, and which are therefore called “responses.” This primitive usage, which is now excluded not only from Popish assemblies by their praying in an unknown tongue, but also from those of our Protestant Dissenters by the device of a long extempore prayer, is still maintained in the Church of England; which allows the people their ancient right of bearing part in the service for these good reasons: First, hereby the consent of the congregation to what we pray for is declared; and it is this unity of mind and voice, and this agreement in prayer, which hath the promise of prevailing. (Rom. xv. 6; Matt. xviii. 19.) Secondly, this grateful variety and different manner of address serves to quicken the people’s devotion. Thirdly, it engages their attention, which is apt to wander, especially in sacred things; and, since they have a duty to perform, causes them to be expectant and ready to perform it. Let all those, then, who attend the public service, gratefully embrace the privilege which the Church allows them, and make their responses gravely and with an audible voice.—Dean Comber.

But it must be remembered, both here and elsewhere, when our prayers to God are divided into such small portions as we call “versicles,” that the people are to join mentally in that part which the minister utters, as well as in that which they are directed to pronounce themselves. And so the minister, in like manner, must join in what the people utter, as well as in his own part. For otherwise they do not join in prayer. Besides, if this be not done, we shall frequently offer to God that which has but an imperfect sense. For instance, in this place, these words, “and our mouth shall show forth thy praise,” do so manifestly depend upon what the minister spake just before, that the sense of the one is not perfect without the other. It is true the Church requires, that the minister shall say the one, and the people the other portion; that is, the one portion shall be vocally uttered by the minister, and the other portion shall be vocally uttered by the people, alternately and by way of responses; but yet both the minister and the people ought mentally to offer, and to speak to God, what is vocally offered and spoken by the other party respectively, for the reasons already given. And, that both the minister and the congregation may be the better able to do this, they should respectively take care, that they do not confound and disturb each other by beginning their several portions too soon. The minister’s first versicle should be finished, before the people utter a word of the second; and the people should have time enough to finish the second, before the minister begins the third, &c.: so that both the minister and people may have time enough deliberately to offer every portion, and make, all of them together, one continued act of devotion. The same rule must be observed in all those psalms and hymns which are used alternately.—Dr. Bennet. (See Versicle.)

The Responses, or Responsals, as some writers call them, may be said to be of four kinds: First, those which consist of Amen after the prayers: Secondly, those which follow the versicles or suffrages: Thirdly, those which are repetitions of what the minister has said, as in the confession, some parts of the Litany, &c.: and Fourthly, the short prayers or anthems, interposed between each commandment in the Communion Service.

RESPONSORIES, or RESPONDS. These, in the unreformed ritual, are short verses from Scripture, repeated as verse and response, after the lessons at matins. Hence perhaps it is that the hymns after our lessons have sometimes incorrectly been called responses; a term, however, which in this sense seems nearly obsolete. It is to these responsories that allusion is made in the Preface “concerning the Service of the Church,” in our Prayer Book. “For this cause he cut off Anthems, Responds, Invitations, and such like things as did break the continual course of the reading of the Scriptures.” Here is not meant responses per se; for these our reformers most carefully retained; not anthems per se, as these are prescribed in their proper places; but the ancient custom was corrected, which after every three or four verses of a lesson interposed a respond, &c., so as to interrupt the service; the sequel being taken up when the respond was finished.—Jebb.