The Old Baptist Rejoices in the Truth



The Calvinist is often characterized as somber and stoic in worship; the stereotype of the cold and cheerless Reformed liturgy has deterred many an inquirer from attending his local confessional Presbyterian or Baptist congregation on the Lord's Day. Is this representation faithful to the facts? Is Reformed worship inherently cold and lifeless? Have the Charismatics really cornered the market on emotion and experience in the presence of God?

One of the oldest Reformed manuals for biblically-faithful worship, The Directory for the Public Worship of God (also called The Westminster Directory, because of its connection with the Westminster Assembly which produced it) is remarkably helpful as we seek to respond to the above-mentioned characterization, because of its unimpeachable Reformed/Calvinistic pedigree. If there is a place to which the interested person could turn to discover the true nature of Reformed Protestant worship, the Directory is definitely the place. What do we learn when we examine its contents; does it present us with a program for approaching God that is as emotionally sterile as is often the accusation? Does the Directory acknowledge human experience as a legitimate phenomenon within biblical worship? At this point, I wish to happily acknowledge the influence of David Silversides' thoughtful discussion of this issue in his 1997 address at the Salisbury Conference entitled, "The Westminster Directory of Public Worship - A Puritan View."

In fact, the Directory indicates that emotion does indeed have a place in the worship of God. It speaks of reverence and humility; it mentions our bewailing our blindness of mind, hardness of heart, unbelief, impenitency, security, lukewarmness, barrenness. It speaks too of giving thanks for the great love of God and of the need for the minister to apply comfort to troubled hearts and afflicted spirits. With reference to the Lord's Supper, it teaches that we must come with knowledge, faith, repentence, love, and with hungering and thirsting souls after Christ and his benefits. Concerning the minister who administers the Lord's Supper, it says, "All of which he is to endeavor to perform with suitable affections, answerable to such an holy action, and to stir up the like in the people."

The Directory does therefore envisage emotion in worship and, of course, this is entirely scriptural. The Word of God refers to "godly sorrow" and this must entail emotion (2 Corinthians 7:10). Repentance is more than emotion but it is not less. The psalmist confesses, "My flesh trembles for fear of you, and I am afraid of your judgments" (Psalm 119:120, ESV). Again, Psalm 43:4 speaks of "God my exceeding joy" and the apostle Peter mentions "joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory" (1 Peter 1:8). Again, "the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Romans 14:17).

Certainly there is to be emotion in worship, but at no point did the Westminster Assembly see emotion as something to be stimulated by anything other than the truth of God expressed in His own ordinances. Throughout the whole Directory there is no indication of rousing the emotions by any other means than the Spirit of Truth who operates through the truth of the divinely appointed ordinances.

This is so very important. As a culture, we appear to be those who are governed by our feelings. We are a people who are fond of "following our hearts." In worship, however, God's people should seek truth-led and truth-governed emotion. As the apostle Paul wrote, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope" (Romans 15:13). It is in believing - in believing the truth made known in the Holy Scripture - that we experience this peace and joy.

Likewise the apostle, after a most involved and detailed doctrinal argument, exclaims, "Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!" (Romans 11:33). As he meditates upon the truth revealed and the awesome purpose of God made known, he bursts into buoyant doxology. It is therefore doctrine which serves as the fuel for properly motivated praise.

Emotions, of course, can be aroused by many things. Our feelings are not at all reliable. What madness, then, to step outside of divine ordinances and then try to determine the source of our feelings! We must keep to His ordinances and to His truth made known in them, and then we will be rescued from much falsely stimulated emotion which does not lead to our profit.

There is an awesome scriptural chasteness in the Directory for Public Worship. The Westminster Assembly stuck close to Scripture and to its ordinances because of an awareness that it was through these means that God is glorified and God's people are edified. Our emotion in response to the truth in these ordinances is that godly emotion of which Scripture speaks and which Reformed churches have so uniquely and properly embraced.

Grace and peace.