Afterthought
Puritan Board Senior
Because I didn't want to throw the thread too much more off topic (http://www.puritanboard.com/f124/ep-violation-rpw-82386/#post1036003), I will reply here. To expound on the thread topic, the question is: How do "specific worship" and "private worship" relate? The rest of the thread topic's exposition can be seen in the following interchange, in which an historical question is asked and an understanding of the relation between the two expressed.
It was said:
I don't pretend to understand entirely how these categories fit together, but if my understanding is right, I think I'm beginning to see why "private worship" is a vague term; it allows for equivocation between actions and set times in which certain actions occur, possibly along with a redefinition of "worship." If my understanding is correct, the general rule (the Second Commandment) requires that specific acts of devotion must be offered to God strictly according to His will. In a time set aside for "private worship," those specific acts of devotion must be offered only according to God's will, but during a time of "private worship," other actions (that are not specific acts of worship) may also be done, e.g., catechizing, or singing other songs, whether for instruction or for meditation. Of course, since meditation is not bound by time or place, though one can have a set time for it too, singing other songs can also take place outside of a time set for "private worship." But then, those other actions, even those specific acts of devotion, are not bound to those times set aside for "private worship" either (though unlike meditation, some of them necessarily require setting aside a time to do them, which set-aside-time one may label "private worship", I suppose), since one's time isn't regulated but done according to liberty of conscience and a normative principle. And then, as a consequence of this view, whether one intends to worship God by something as a specific act of worship depends on the intention, not necessarily the action itself. Such is my understanding of "private worship" and its relation to "specific worship."
Edit: Some previous threads on this subject: http://www.puritanboard.com/f15/second-commandment-applicability-private-worship-76824/
http://www.puritanboard.com/f67/spiritual-songs-mere-human-composure-78741/
http://www.puritanboard.com/f124/high-scriptural-warrant-exclusive-psalmody-77227/
It was said:
That's quite the presumption! Can you demonstrate that they intended them for what we call "specific acts of worship"? John Brown relegates their use to "religious recreation", which seems to me to be either (1) what we refer to as "generic worship" or (2) meditation. I don't know whether meditation is entirely an act of generic worship--and though I am unsure, I have doubts about it being called a "specific act" of worship--but it is definitely an act of religious devotion and so both closer to "worship" in the proper sense of the term and distinct from "doing all to the glory of God." Perhaps "meditation," "religious recreation," and "religious conference" are those vague categories that you have referred to in the past as "informal worship" or worship that is neither specific nor generic?Peairtach said:I'm not aware that the seventeenth century divines - who, from Scripture, limited song in public worship to the Psalms of David - condemned all use of other Scripture songs at other times of worship, or paraphrases of other parts of Scripture, or the composing and use of extra-canonical songs in times of non-public worship.
Some of them may have done. But see the Preface to the Scottish Psalter 1673. It is also true that when the Psalter was approved by the General Assembly of the CofS, Zachary Boyd, was commissioned to prepare metrical versions of other Scripture songs, presumably for use in worship outwith the congregation.
I don't pretend to understand entirely how these categories fit together, but if my understanding is right, I think I'm beginning to see why "private worship" is a vague term; it allows for equivocation between actions and set times in which certain actions occur, possibly along with a redefinition of "worship." If my understanding is correct, the general rule (the Second Commandment) requires that specific acts of devotion must be offered to God strictly according to His will. In a time set aside for "private worship," those specific acts of devotion must be offered only according to God's will, but during a time of "private worship," other actions (that are not specific acts of worship) may also be done, e.g., catechizing, or singing other songs, whether for instruction or for meditation. Of course, since meditation is not bound by time or place, though one can have a set time for it too, singing other songs can also take place outside of a time set for "private worship." But then, those other actions, even those specific acts of devotion, are not bound to those times set aside for "private worship" either (though unlike meditation, some of them necessarily require setting aside a time to do them, which set-aside-time one may label "private worship", I suppose), since one's time isn't regulated but done according to liberty of conscience and a normative principle. And then, as a consequence of this view, whether one intends to worship God by something as a specific act of worship depends on the intention, not necessarily the action itself. Such is my understanding of "private worship" and its relation to "specific worship."
Edit: Some previous threads on this subject: http://www.puritanboard.com/f15/second-commandment-applicability-private-worship-76824/
http://www.puritanboard.com/f67/spiritual-songs-mere-human-composure-78741/
http://www.puritanboard.com/f124/high-scriptural-warrant-exclusive-psalmody-77227/
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