e prepared to abandon all forms for
worship and to accept simply a regulative Directory. The enthusiastic
endorsation accorded the Directory, both by Parliament and by the
Assembly, is a further indication that the spirit of the Church of
Scotland had undergone whatever slight change was necessary to make it
favorable to a simple regulation of public worship, unhampered by
anything that had even the appearance of a ritual.

The introduction of the Directory into Scotland, it is true, effected a
very slight change in the method of conducting public worship. Indeed,
a comparison of the order of service as laid down in the Directory with
that prescribed by the Book of Common Order shows the order of Worship
to be the same in both. And thus it was that Baillie, in addressing
the Assembly, and expressing his satisfaction at what had been
accomplished, declared it to be a most remarkable distinction "that the
practice of the Church of Scotland set down in a most wholesome, pious
and prudent Directory, should come in the place of a Liturgy in all the
three Dominions." By the adoption of the Directory all the substance
of the worship of the Church of Scotland was retained with the order
likewise of its different parts, but the suggested forms were
surrendered, and even prayers, which owing to the circumstances of an
earlier age had been retained and submitted for discretional use, were
laid aside. No mention was made in the Directory of the use of the
Gloria, nor did the creed find a place either in public worship or in
the administration of the Sacraments, but the Lord's Prayer was
mentioned as being "not only a pattern of prayer, but itself a
comprehensive prayer," and a recommendation was accordingly made that
it should be "used in the prayers of the Church."

It is evident, therefore, that the spirit of the Presbyterian Church
was still strongly in favor of worship regulated in its order and
providing for all the different spiritual exercises authorized by
Scripture, but which at the same time should be free from any imposed
forms from which worshippers should not be allowed to deviate. Of the
opinion of the Church of Scotland at this time on the dire effects
produced by the use of a ritual in the cultivation of formality among
the people, and in the encouragement of a lifeless ministry in the
Church, there can be no question, as the adoption of the terms of the
preface to the Directory clearly shows. With the exper