The Westminster Standards

I was reading a good article on the Westminster Standards this morning. The focus was on the PCA history since its founding on revisions specifically to the Directory of Public Worship. The background is worth reading.

The History of the Westminster Assembly & Standards

What is a directory of public worship, and why does it matter? The original Westminster Assembly was charged to produce ecclesial documents and guidelines to further reform the Church of England. The most famous of those documents was the revision of the 39 Articles, that eventually became a full-blown rewritten Confession of Faith in use in many Reformed and Presbyterian denominations today, including the Korean American Presbyterian Church, the Korean Presbyterian Church in America (Kosin), the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (RPCNA), the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC), the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARP), and the PCA.^[2] The Assembly also produced the Larger and Shorter Catechismsand many other documents related to church polity, including the original Directory for Public Worship.^[3]

Sinclair Ferguson states that “The Directory for Public Worship was intended to produce a more uniform ethos in worship.”^[4] Yet, the design of the original Directory of the Public Worship was to replace the Book of Common Prayer that gave exact prayers and forms, whereas the Directory would give principles and elements. While the Directory would give greater liberty, it still acknowledged Scriptural boundaries protecting people from the whims of a minister. As Rowland Ward put it: “the directory, by providing an outline of how worship should be conducted, offers a middle way between a fixed liturgy and leaving a minister entirely to his own devices.”^[5] The Directory was drafted in the midst of England’s own “worship wars,” and as Sinclair Ferguson explains, “The final document is in many ways a fine example of compromise on non-essentials set within the context of agreement on essentials.”^[6]

Since the time of its publication, Directories for Worship have been the norm within Presbyterian denominations to navigate the often divisive topic of worship in the church. They avoid subjecting a congregation to the slavish prescriptions of a Prayer Book and fixed forms on the one hand, as well as the whims of human innovations and cultural fads on the other.  The establishment of a directory rejected uniformity in form, while recognizing essential elements and manners of right worship in Scripture. See notes in original article link.

The article concludes…

This brief survey of PCA history reveals why the Directory has remained the unfinished work of the founding of the Church. However, as worship is the grand purpose of the work of the church, efforts at various times to finish that work for the sake of unity and fidelity in worship are certainly to be commended for their motivations, if not for their success.

While diversity on non-essentials and circumstances in worship certainly exist and should exist, unity on essentials of worship should also be a hallmark of any communion, especially a Reformed one. A Directory for Worship has historically been, and currently is the basis for great unity for most Presbyterian and Reformed denominations in recognizing the unity on the essentials among diversity on the non-essentials in worship. If handled rightly, a Directory for Worship in a Reformed communion can be a source of great unity and peace.

As the Directory says of itself in BCO 47-6: “The Lord Jesus Christ has prescribed no fixed forms for public worship but, in the interest of life and power in worship, has given His Church a large measure of liberty in this matter. It may not be forgotten, however, that there is true liberty only where the rules of God’s Word are observed and the Spirit of the Lord is, that all things must be done decently and in order, and that God’s people should serve Him with reverence and in the beauty of holiness. From its beginning to its end a service of public worship should be characterized by that simplicity which is an evidence of sincerity and by that beauty and dignity which are a manifestation of holiness.”^[19]