x began his labours there. And even at the time when he
removed to the southern province it was not necessary that he should use
the liturgy in the office he held, as the special preachers of that day,
and even the lecturers for long after, often delivered their discourses
in the open air, and used before them only free prayer or a short prayer
similar to that which is still employed by the university preachers at
Oxford and Cambridge. It was not till a considerably later period that
"to gall tender consciences" it was required of all _lecturers_ and
_special preachers_ that they should also personally read the liturgy so
many times every year. Dr Lorimer has proved that Knox used at Berwick a
simpler form of communion service, moulded so far as yet traced on Swiss
and German offices.[160] And it can be established on the best of all
authority--Knox's own testimony--that he neither approved of nor was
willing to conform to the communion office. Then no sooner was he beyond
the restraint of English law than he proposed for adoption in his
congregation, first at Frankfort and then at Geneva, the form ultimately
adopted in Scotland after his return thither.

[Sidenote: A Guide or Moael.]

As has been already mentioned, the exclusive authority of the Book of
Common Order, as a guide and aid to ministers in conducting public
worship and administering the sacraments, was asserted by the General
Assembly in 1564. It continued to hold the place thus given to it down
to 1637, when it was superseded, in so far as the king and his council
were concerned, first, by what is known as Archbishop Laud's Liturgy,
and then by an injunction of the disappointed prelates, which required
that, till further order should be taken, neither the new nor the old
liturgy should be used in the public services, in Edinburgh, but only
those prayers which the ministers had been accustomed to make before and
after their sermons.[161] Thus the bishops themselves were the unwitting
instruments of first setting aside a partially liturgic, and introducing
instead a wholly extemporary, form of worship into Scotland. There is no
reason, however, for maintaining that the Book of Common Order, while it
continued in authority, was regarded as more than a guide or model, at
least to the ordained ministers, or can be so regarded by any one who
studies with care its rubrics and general contents, far less was
observed as a rigid liturgy, every word of which must be