Ebook The Liturgy of the Church of Scotland, or John Knox's Book of Common Order

Effort we have referred to, was made in the 17th century by Laud and his party, to force on the Scottish National Church not the Book of Common Prayer, but a modification of the Roman Missal, the Protestants of that era with stood the imposition, not merely because they condemned that book, but because, first, they would not submit to a force exterior to their own ecclesiastical superiors; and secondly, because they would not use any form, to the entire exclusion of extemporaneous prayer. These were the two reasons that determined the course they adopted. Had more con ciliatory measures been pursued, there is no doubt that the Presbyterial Church-service would have been partly formal, and partly extemporaneous.