to set down other forms of
prayer than we have in our Psalm Book, penned by our great and divine
reformer."

A book which held for so long a time its place of authority in the
Scottish Church, and which embodied during so important a period the
law of the Church concerning worship, deserves particular study at the
hands of those who are interested in the history of this important
subject, but inasmuch as the form of worship alone is under discussion,
it will be necessary to refer only to those parts of it which bear on
this phase of the Church's practice. Before doing so, however, it will
be instructive to notice what is too frequently overlooked, that the
adoption of Knox's Book of Common Order by the Scottish Church
indicates even in that age a desire for forms of worship less
liturgical than those which were employed by other parts of the
Reformed Church. It is to be remembered that those parishes in which
the Reformed religion prevailed had been accustomed to the use of the
English Book of Common Prayer with responsive services for the people,
and with prayers from which the minister was not supposed to deviate.
This Book was set aside, and in its place was adopted an Order of
worship in no part of which provision was made for responses, and in
all of whose prayers the minister was not only allowed freedom, but was
encouraged to exercise the same. Such action on the part of men
accustomed to make changes only after careful deliberation, clearly
indicates an intelligent choice of a non-liturgical service as opposed
to one of the opposite character.

More than this, the Scottish Book of Common Order is marked by an even
greater freedom from prescribed forms than is Calvin's original Book of
Geneva from which Knox copied so largely. For while both of them
agreed in avoiding a responsive service, Knox seems to have been even
less than Calvin in sympathy with prescribed forms of prayer from which
no deviation was to be allowed. There is nothing to indicate that Knox
would have agreed with the sentiment expressed in Calvin's letter to
the Protector Somerset, in which he says: "As to what concerns a form
of prayer and ecclesiastical rites, I highly approve of it, that there
be a certain form from which the ministers be not allowed to vary....
Therefore there ought to be a stated form of prayer and administration
of the Sacraments." The form of Church prayers, as originally prepared
by Calvin in keeping with his se