Puritan Worship and Shakespeare

Puritan worship resembles the plays of Shakespeare. Shakespeare was content with the scantiest of stage props and built scenery and imagery into the text of the plays themselves. In a similar way, the Puritan got rid of the 'stage scenery' of the Catholic/Anglican worship and relied on the verbal imagery and symbolism, most of it based on the Bible... Once we grant the validity of the verbal image it becomes clear that the Puritan worship service did not starve the imagination or even the senses of the worshipper.

-Leland Ryken, Worldly Saints, 125.