Covenant or Contract?: A Study of the Theological Background of Worship in Seventeenth-Century Scotland

Abstract

The Westminster Directory for the Public Worship of God, 1645, acknowledged by Presbyterian Churches throughout the English-speaking world, emerged at a time of political controversy, when an attempt was made to achieve liturgical uniformity in England and Scotland, and therefore must be understood not only in terms of the theology which it embodies, but also in terms of the social and political revolution of which it was a kind of liturgical manifesto. The immediate context was that of a national struggle for freedom, a revolt from all forms of ‘catholic’ authoritarianism (Charles I, Archbishop Laud, divine right of kings, the papacy, Erastianism, etc.) and a rising suspicion of anything that savoured of imposed form and ritual.