X. Presbyterians conducted worship according to the terms of the Directory. The service commenced with prayer; then followed the reading of the Holy Scriptures, with more or less of exposition. The congregation afterwards sung a psalm; subsequently to which the minister offered a long prayer, which embraced a number of prescribed topics. The sermons introduced by these devotional exercises were--according to the admirable advice given in the Directory--to be prepared and delivered _painfully_, _plainly_, _faithfully_, _wisely_, _gravely_, _lovingly_, and _as taught of God_. Some preachers, it would appear, read their discourses; but it was by far the most general practice amongst Puritan Divines to deliver them without the aid of notes.[424] In the Westminster Assembly there had been a debate respecting a curious practice adopted by the Scotch clergy, of bowing in the pulpit to certain distinguished persons in the audience. Baillie attempted to introduce the custom into England, but the Independents opposed it; and the Presbyterians on this side the Tweed never imitated this peculiar usage of their brethren on the other. Devout behaviour at worship was carefully enjoined in the Directory, which, very properly, interdicted all whispering, sleeping, and looking about. Yet the taking of notes--as observed already in the case of persons in Calamy's congregation--seems to have continued as a common habit. "Almost all people," Baillie remarks, "men, women, and children, write at preaching."
Wearing hats during Divine service had been usual in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. At the funeral of Bishop Cox, in Ely Cathedral, the congregation sat in the choir to hear the sermon, "all covered, and having their bonnets on." Archbishop Laud noticed that it was a new thing, and he approved of it, for the Oxford Masters to sit at St. Mary's Church bareheaded. To do so became a sign of Cavaliership; and a Royalist colonel, hanged for burglary, told the crowd what a consolation it was to him to remember "that he had always taken his hat off when he went to church." The Puritans continued the older practice, and a forest of steeple-crowned hats covered the pews as long as the sermon lasted; but they were all doffed again as soon as they began to pray.[425]