---
title: 'James H. Thornwell on Circumstances of Worship'
type: post
author: 'R. Andrew Myers'
date: 2021-10-25
url: https://confessional.org/blog/2021-james-h-thornwell-on-circumstances-of-worship
---

# James H. Thornwell on Circumstances of Worship

“Where God has not commanded, the Church has no jurisdiction. Now, as to the real nature of her discretion: ‘Nevertheless,’ says this venerable \[Westminster\] Formulary, in continuation of the section from which our first extract has been taken, ‘nevertheless, we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the Word; and there are some circumstances concerning the Worship of God, and government of the Church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed.’ Here the discretion is limited to some circumstances, and those common to human actions and societies. Now, the question arises, What is the nature of these circumstances? A glance at the proof-texts on which the doctrine relies enables us to answer. **Circumstances are those concomitants of an action without which it either cannot be done at all, or cannot be done with decency and decorum.** Public worship, for example, requires public assemblies, and in public assemblies people must appear in some costume, and assume some posture. Whether they shall shock common sentiment in their attire, or conform to common practice; whether they shall stand, sit, or lie, or whether each shall be at liberty to determine his own attitude — these are circumstances: they are necessary concomitants of the action, and the Church is at liberty to regulate them. Public assemblies, moreover, cannot be held without fixing the time and place of meeting: these, too, are circumstances which the Church is at liberty to regulate. Parliamentary assemblies cannot transact their business with efficiency and dispatch — indeed, cannot transact it decently at all — without Committees. Committees, therefore, are circumstances common to parliamentary societies, which the Church, in her parliaments, is at liberty to appoint. All the details of our government in relation to the distribution of courts, the number necessary to constitute a quorum, the times of their meeting, the manner in which they shall be opened, — all these, and such like, are circumstances, which, therefore, the Church has a perfect right to arrange. We must carefully distinguish between those circumstances which attend actions as actions — that is, without which the actions could not be — and those circumstances which, though not essential, are added as appendages. These last do not fall within the jurisdiction of the Church. She has no right to appoint them. They are circumstances in the sense that they do not belong to the substance of the act. They are not circumstances in the sense that they so surround it that they cannot be separated from it. A liturgy is a circumstance of this kind; as also the sign of the cross in baptism, and bowing at the name of Jesus.”

— from [“Church Boards and Presbyterianism,” in *The Collected Writings of James Henley Thornwell, D.D., LL.D.*, Vol. 4](/authors/james-henley-thornwell) (1873), pp. 246-247