The Heritage Anglican Network

Ceremonies, Ornaments, and Historic Anglicanism

2011-08-02T14:27:00.001-05:00

By Robin G. Jordan

If we take a short trip back in time to the beginning of the twentieth century and tour the parish churches of the Church of England, the first thing that we will notice is that a number of the ceremonies and ornaments that modern-day clergy and others assure us are thoroughly “Anglican” are found only in English parish churches where the clergy are Ritualists bent on making the Church of England like the Church of Rome even in defiance of the canons of the Church and the laws of the land. If we cross the Atlantic to the United States and tour the parish churches of the Protestant Episcopal Church, we find the same thing—Ritualists bent on making the Episcopal Church like the Roman Catholic Church. The difference between the United States and the United Kingdom is that clergy in the Episcopal Church are not required to accept the authority of the Thirty-Nine Articles as clergy are in the Church of England. The Episcopal Church also has no canons regulating ceremonies and ornaments in that denomination. The Ritualists defeated a proposal in the General Convention, which would have established such regulations in the Episcopal Church in the previous century. Having left the door wide open the Episcopal Church was at the mercy of any group that could gain hegemony in the denomination and lead the denomination in whichever direction it chose. We have seen the results in the closing years of the twentieth century and the opening years of the twenty-first century.

Doctrines that are erroneous and unscriptural can ride piggyback on ceremonies and ornaments into the Anglican Church in this century as they did in the nineteenth century. They can also provide a smokescreen behind which erroneous and unscriptural doctrines can be introduced into the Anglican Church. In the nineteenth century the Ritualists frequently claimed that they were seeking to beautify the worship of the Church of England and to make it more appealing to the lower classes. Their real intention was to transform the Church of England into a facsimile of the Church of Rome and to bring the Anglican Church into the orbit of the Roman Catholic Church.

Ceremonies and ornaments make a doctrinal statement. They are not theologically-neutral. They have long-standing associations with particular doctrines and cannot be separated from these teachings.

Congregation and clergy that upholds the Thirty-Nine Articles “as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God’s word and as authoritative for Anglicans today,” as does the Jerusalem Declaration, will keep away from ceremonies and ornaments that are associated with doctrines and practices that the Articles reject as erroneous and unscriptural. In matters of worship the teaching of the Scriptures and the faithful testimony of the Articles to the teaching of the Scriptures will be their guide. They will adopt and apply the principle that where a ceremony or ornament in their own denomination or in another denomination is associated with such doctrines and practices, it should be avoided. They will bring how they worship into line with what they believe. There will be no discrepancies between their worship and their beliefs.

Ceremonies are “gestures or acts preceding, accompanying, or following the utterance of words—the external acts of worship.” A Protestant Dictionary also gives the following definition of ornaments:

This word does not mean in ecclesiastical law what it means when used in its popular sense, viz., an embellishment or adornment. It is a collective term for all the articles used in, and ancillary to, the performance of the prescribed Church service. Thus, vestments, books, cloths, chalices, patens, communion tables, and a number of other things are “ornaments,” of which none may, in fact, be decorative.

Ornaments fall into two categories—the ornaments of the church and the ornaments of the minister.

Among the ceremonies that historically have been regarded as being agreeable to the Holy Scriptures and the Thirty-Nine Articles in the Church of England are kneeling to confess one’s sins and to pray, sitting to sing or recite Psalms, standing to sing canticles and hymns, bowing at the name of Jesus; taking the paten into one’s hand, breaking the bread, and laying one’s hand on all the bread; taking the cup into one’s hand and laying one’s hand on every vessel in which there is any wine to be consecrated; kneeling to receive the Bread and Wine; extending one or both hands towards the congregation when pronouncing the Benediction, making the sign of the cross upon the foreheads of the newly-baptized after their baptism, laying hands upon candidates for confirmation when praying for them; laying hands upon candidates for ordination when praying for them; giving a New Testament to deacons at their ordination and a Bible to priests and archbishops and bishops at their ordination or consecration.

Among the gestures and acts that historically have been seen as contrary to the Word of God and to the Thirty-Nine Articles in the Church of England are lighting candles and praying before images and reliquaries; blessing water and placing it in a stoup at the entrance of a church building so that those entering may dip their fingers in it and make the sign of the cross; carrying a cross or crucifix in procession; bowing one’s head when a cross or crucifix borne in a procession passes; carrying lighted candles in a procession; carrying a censor containing burning incense in a procession; censing the congregation; bowing or genuflecting before the Lord’s Table; censing the Lord’s Table and the bread and wine in their containers upon it; kissing the Lord’s Table; mixing water with the wine during the service; making the sign of the cross over the water and pronouncing a blessing upon it before mixing it with the wine; washing one’s hands during the service, making the sign of the cross over the bread and wine; elevating the cup and the paten or showing the Bread and Wine to the congregation after consecration; bowing or genuflecting to the consecrated elements; placing the bread upon the tongue of the communicant rather than in the communicant’s hand; performing the ablutions immediately after the distribution of the communion; reserving the consecrated elements; making the sign of the cross when pronouncing the Benediction; lighting candles and praying before the reserved sacrament; anointing the hands of a newly-made priest with blessed oil; giving a paten and a chalice to a newly-made priest; anointing the head of a newly-consecrated priest; and giving a pastoral staff, ring, and pectoral cross to a newly-consecrated bishop. This list is by no means exhaustive.

While these gestures and acts may not be expressly prohibited by Scripture, as the successors of the Ritualists are wont to argue, they are closely associated with the doctrines of transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the Mass in its various forms and other superstitious and unscriptural beliefs. They are an integral part of the ceremonial of the pre-Reformation Medieval Catholic Church and the post-Tridentian Roman Catholic Church, which the reformed Church of England disowned and rejected. Wherever they are found, one is also likely to find these doctrines in some form.

First, Christ is present in or with the eucharistic elements.

Second, Christ is present even to those in whom a vital faith is lacking (e.g. small children).

Third, the Eucharist is more than a commemoration of Christ’s sacrifice. The Eucharist is a repetition of Christ’s sacrifice or an addition to it or a participation in it.

None of these doctrines is consistent with the Scriptures and the Thirty-Nine Articles.

Those who think that ceremonies and ornaments agreeable to Scripture and the Articles would take away from the worship of the church should think again. One of the insights of the Liturgical Movement of the last century is “Less is more.” We can enrich the worship of the church by being more sparing and restrained in what we do. Anglican worship at its best embodies a “noble simplicity.” In reducing the elements of the service and simplifying the ceremonies in the service, we highlight and emphasize what remains. The same principle is applicable to the ornaments of the church and of the minister.

The abolition of ceremonies and ornaments that the nineteenth century Ritualists reintroduced or imported into the worship of the church will not rob the church’s worship of its visual element. Nor will it deny creativity and the arts a place in worship.

Candles on the Lord’s Table. The use of two lights on the “altar” is far from ancient as often is mistakenly claimed. This practice was introduced in the thirteenth century at the same time as the doctrine of transubstantiation was adopted as the official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church and by the same Pope. It is closely associated with that doctrine.

The 1547 Injunction of Edward the Sixth is often claimed as proof that Church of England retained this practice after the Reformation While Edward the Sixth’s Injunction permitted “two lights upon the high altar, before the sacrament” (i.e. altar lights, not lights before the Host), the Six Articles adopted during the reign of Henry the Eighth were still in full force at the time. The Six Articles upheld the doctrines of transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the Mass. Edward the Sixth’s Injunction was a continuation of Henry the Eighth’s Injunction. Within a year the Six Articles would be repealed and Edward the Sixth’s Injunction rescinded. Permission for the two lights on the “altar” would be withdrawn.

The two lights on the “altar” in the royal chapel of Elizabeth the First are also claimed as proof of the continuance of this practice during her reign. Elizabeth’s use of these ornaments in her royal chapel was politically motivated as was her hanging of a crucifix on the wall above the “altar.” They are far from proof that the use of lights on the communion table was a common practice in the Elizabethan Church. The preponderance of the evidence is to the contrary.

One of the insights of the Liturgical Movement was that lights on the Lord’s Table, tall candles and tall candlesticks in particular, draw the eye away from the sacramental signs of bread and wine. The sign value of the bread and wine are greater when lights are taken off the Lord’s Table. The lights no longer compete with the bread and wine and the Manual Acts for congregation’s attention.

Anglicans historically have regarded the consecration and distribution of the elements as a visual proclamation of the gospel. Removing everything from the Lord’s Table that draws the eye away from the sacramental signs of bread and wine is consistent with this view.

Eastward Position. The eastward position—the priest facing the Lord’s Table, his back to the congregation—is a Medieval development. Like candles on the Lord’s Table, the eastward position is closely associated with the doctrine of transubstantiation and the related doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass. The more ancient position is the westward position, the priest facing the congregation across the Lord’s Table.

The rubrics of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer direct that the minister to conduct the service of Holy Communion from the north side of the Table, allowing him to briefly stand before the Table to rearrange the bread and wine before beginning the Prayer of Consecration at the north side of the Table. The place of the priest at the Table in the 1662 Prayer Book is the place of a steward, not a sacerdote, or sacrificing priest. Christ is the only mediator, the Scriptures teach us, that we need between God and ourselves. We do not need a priest to make intercessions and offerings for us. When used in the Prayer Book the word “priest” is simply a contraction of the word “presbyter,” or elder, and refers to a minister who has been “called, tried, examined, and admitted” to the “office” and “function” of presbyter.

The Scriptures teach that “heaven and the heaven of heavens” cannot contain God (2 Chronicles 6:18). God is present everywhere (Psalm 139:7-10); nothing is hidden from him (Psalm 139:11-12). “God is Spirit” (John 4:24) God also indwells his gathered people. The individual Christian and the Christian assembly both are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19; 2 Corinthians 6:16; Ephesians 2:21). Christ has promised that when two or three gather in his name, he will be there in the midst of them (Matthew 18:20).

Making the Lord’s Table the focus of prayer, much less the object of devotion, is not only unscriptural but also superstitious and idolatrous. God does not hover at a point somewhere above the Lord’s Table, which some clergy appear to infer when they argue that kneeling or standing in front of the Table with their backs to the congregation, they are facing in the same direction as the congregation. Implicit in this argument is the notion that God’s attention is always turned to the Lord’s Table where the priest reiterates or represents the Christ’s sacrifice in the Eucharist. The presence of Christ on the Table in or under the forms of bread and wine has also infused the Table with holiness unlike any other object in the chancel or nave. It is Christ’s earthly throne. Prayer before that throne is offered to Christ upon his heavenly throne, much in the same manner as prayer offered before an image of Christ is offered to Christ. Such views have no basis in Scripture and are in conflict with its teaching.

Eucharistic Vestments. As Christianity spread outside of the Roman Empire and less civilized people groups—at least by Roman standards—became Christians, the clergy clung to the civil organization, the dress, and the language of Imperial Rome, associating them with a more civilized time. The chasuble was originally a poncho-like outer garment that both clergy and laity wore on the streets. The stole was originally a scarf also worn outdoors. The alb was originally an under-tunic. After the doctrines of transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the Mass were made the official doctrines of the Western Church, these vestments came to be associated with these doctrines and the Medieval Catholic doctrine of the sacerdotal character of the priesthood. At his ordination a priest was given a paten and chalice, his hands were anointed with oil that had been blessed, and he was vested in a chasuble that had also been blessed.

The English Reformers would do away with the chasuble, stole, and alb in the sixteenth century. A loose white linen surplice would become the principal vestment in the reformed Church of England. The Canons of 1604 would permit the wearing of a cope, a long cloak especially worn in processions, at cathedrals and collegiate churches, by the bishop or priest officiating at the celebration of Holy Communion and the ministers reading the Epistle and the Gospel, upon the five festivals for which there were proper prefaces in the Book of Common Prayer. The surplice and the cope were not associated with the doctrines of transubstantiation, the sacrifice of the Mass, and the sacerdotal character of the priesthood in the English Church.

Bishop Lancelot Andrews, while he revived what he believed to a number of ancient ceremonies in the celebration of the Holy Communion in his episcopal chapel and said the Prayer of Oblation immediately after the Prayer of Consecration and before the distribution of the communion, wore a cope, not a chasuble, stole, and alb, at these celebrations. Bishop Andrews greatly influenced William Laud, John Cosin, and the other seventeenth century High Churchmen.

During the nineteenth century the Ritualists would, based upon their “false interpretation” of the Ornaments Rubric in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, claim that the chasuble, stole, and alb were the only legal vestments for celebrations of the Holy Communion. They would not only reintroduce these vestments in the English Church but also other ornaments that had been abolished in that Church. They plunged the English Church into bitter controversy that has never been resolved to the satisfaction of all parties to this day.

The 1604 Canons, which were in force well into the twentieth century, direct that the Lord’s Table should covered, “in time of Divine Service,” with a “carpet of silk or other decent stuff, upon which should be laid “a fair linen cloth at the time of the Ministration.” “Every minister” who ministers the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is directed to wear “a decent and comely surplice with sleeves.” The surplice is the garment of a steward whose Master has instructed him to feed his fellow servants from what their Master has supplied—the Word and the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.

Crosses with images of Christ upon them. Article 22 identifies the “Romish teaching” about “the worship and adoration of images” as being “a futile deception, which, far from being grounded in Scripture, is repugnant to the Word of God.” An Homily against Peril of Idolatry and Superfluous Decking of Churches, published in 1571, equates praying and lighting candles before images with idolatry and gross superstition. The proposed Canons approved by Convocation in the same year order the removal of the wooden “sollars” from parish churches. In these “sollars” crosses, images, and relics were displayed for “latria,” or worship. Parish churches were further ordered to be whitewashed and decorated with passages of Scripture.

Crucifixes and Christus Rex crosses seen in a number of contemporary Anglican churches fall in the category of images. As for plain crosses readers are referred to the accompanying article “Ornaments and the Ornaments Rubric.” Standing crosses placed on the Lord’s Table or wall crosses hung in close proximity to the Table so as to suggest that it is an altar are to be avoided.

Prayer Books.Since the Prayer Book is used in church services, it is deemed to be an ornament of the Church. As the GAFCON Theological Resource Group point to our attention in Being Faithful: The Shape of Historical Anglicanism Today, the Thirty-Nine Articles are “a faithful testimony to the teaching of Scripture.” Both the 1928 Prayer Book and the 1979 Prayer Book contain erroneous beliefs and practices that are contrary to the teaching of Scripture according to the testimony of the Articles. They are not entirely “the very pure Word of God, the Holy Scriptures or that which is agreeable to the same.” They have no place in the worship and catechetical instruction of congregations and clergy that upholds the Thirty-Nine Articles “as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God’s word and as authoritative for Anglicans today.” Both the 1928 Prayer Book and the 1979 Prayer Book contain liturgical elements that may be interpreted to support not only the doctrine of the real presence (i.e. the objective presence of Christ in the eucharistic elements) but also the doctrine of transubstantiation. The 1928 Prayer Book also contains elements that are historically associated with the doctrine of the sacrifice of Mass. The four Eucharistic Prayers in Rite II and the Outline of Faith (Catechism) in the 1979 Prayer Book clearly teaches the doctrine that the Eucharist is a means by the Church participates in Christ’s sacrifice.

I have posted a number of related articles from A Protestant Dictionary, published in 1904. They were written to counter the erroneous views that were spreading in the Church of England,
promoted by the Ritualists. The Ritualists were not only reviving pre-Reformation Medieval Catholic beliefs and practices in the English Church but also introducing post-Tridentian Roman Catholic innovations in doctrine and worship.

“Advertisements”
“Agnus Dei”
“Candles”
“Ceremonies”
“The Chasuble”
“The Cope”
“Eastward Position”
“Lights”
"Lincoln Judgment"
“Ornaments and the Ornament Rubric”
“Stole”
“Surplice”
“Vestments”

2011-08-02T13:11:00.001-05:00

ADVERTISEMENTS, i.e. Official Notices. This name, though used of various public notices given by authority, is now usually connected with the celebrated regulations described in the twenty-fourth Canon as “the Advertisements (admonitions) published anno 7 Eliz.” That description, however, was in exact, as the Advertisements were not, in fact, “published” until March 1566, whereas the “seventh year of Elizabeth” ended on November 16, 1565. The explanation is that the legal force of the Advertisements depended entirely on the Queen’s Letter directing the Primate and his fellow “Commissioners under the great seal for causes ecclesiastical” (in other words, the episcopal members of the High Commission, who formed a quorum for such matters), to publish “Orders or Injunctions” for carrying out the Queen’s disciplinary plans. A long time necessarily intervened, because the Commissioners were directed first to inquire into the existing “varieties” and irregularities then common in Divine service, and after tabulating the returns to lay down such rules as would force the clergy to a more careful observance of uniformity. The Royal Letter is dated January 24, 1565 (New Style), and the title of the Advertisements when published described them as “by virtue of the Queen s Majesty’s letters commanding the same the 25th day of January in the seventh year of the reign.” Thus the date of the Royal authority was the only date specified, because that alone fulfilled the requirements of the provisoes at the end of Elizabeth’s Act of Uniformity which had authorised the Queen to take “other Order” as to ornaments, and to “ordain and publish further ceremonies” besides those prescribed in the Prayer Book. “There was no particular form required by statute or by law in which the Queen was to take order, and it was competent for her Majesty to do so by means of a Royal Letter addressed to the Metropolitan. The Advertisements were issued by the prelates as orders prepared under the Queen’s authority” (Judgment of the Privy Council in Ridsdale v. Clifton). As, however, the object of the Queen was to secure uniformity, only a very small part of the orders relate to any proposed changes; the only material alteration being that in Cathedrals copes were, for the first time, directed to be worn by the celebrant and by his two assistants. It was at one time thought that the dress of the clergy was simplified by these orders; but no hint of such a change is to be gleaned from any contemporary writer, and the mistake was due to overlooking the fact that the ornaments rubric of 1552, which ordered the surplice to be worn at Holy Communion, was re-enacted by Elizabeth’s Act of Uniformity, whereas the printed rubrics, substituted in 1559 for those of the Second Prayer Book, were mere illegalities and were treated as such, being never once acted upon or recognised by the authorities in Church and State. The Advertisements, therefore, which contradicted the rubrics of 1549, were nevertheless enforcements of the legally re-enacted rubric of 1552-59, and at the same time were the “publishing further orders” as regards cope-wearing in Cathedrals. This last alteration was partially confirmed by the Canons of 1603-4, but only as to the five “principal Feast Days” which have “proper Prefaces” (viz. Christmas, Easter, Ascension Day, Whitsunday, and Trinity Sunday), the events commemorated on those days being further honoured by requiring the most eminent dignitary in residence to be the celebrant. The disputed questions as to the date and legal warrant of the Advertisements are discussed exhaustively in Tomlinson, On the Prayer Book;and the section of the Advertisements relating to ritual is given in Miller’s Guide to Ecclesiastical Law. See ORNAMENTS RUBRIC, VESTMENTS, COPE. [J. T. Tomlinson]

The contents of the Advertisements, so far as they are material, are as follows:--

“In the ministration of the Holy Communion in cathedral and collegiate churches, the principal minister shall wear a cope, with gospeller and epistoller agreeably; and at all other prayers to be said at the Communion Table to use no copes but surplices.

“That the dean and prebendaries wear a surplice with a silk hood in the choir; and when they preach to use their hoods.

“Item.--That every minister saying any public prayers, or ministering the sacraments, or other rites of the Church shall wear a comely surplice with sleeves to be provided at the charge of the parish.”

The importance of the Advertisements depends upon the view taken of the celebrated 25th section of Queen Elizabeth’s Act of Uniformity (1559) (see ORNAMENTS RUBBIC). The theory of the Privy Council was that the effect of this section was to cancel for the time the Ornaments Rubric of 1552 (which required the surplice only), and to provisionally restore the use in church of the Mass vestments of 1549. On this supposition they found it necessary to hold that “other order” had been taken under section 25, and they consider that this was done by means of the Advertisements in 1566. The difficulty of this solution is, that it leaves seven years during which the Mass vestments were compulsory and the surplice illegal, and no evidence can be produced to prove what is obviously so contrary to the facts. The other construction of the 25th section (that of Mr. J. T. Tomlinson and others) is, that this section had nothing whatever to do with the wearing of vestments in church, but simply had for its object the retention of the illegal Mass vestments until “other order” was taken as to their sale or disposal.

This view certainly harmonises law and fact, and under it the Advertisements become merely a directive and administrative enforcement of the Ornaments Rubric of 1552, with a “further Order” under the 26th section for the wearing of copes in cathedrals and collegiate churches. It will thus be seen that, according to the Ridsdale judgment, the Advertisements lowered the ritual standard, while on Mr. Tomlinson’s view they raised it. The latter view is alone consistent with contemporary evidence and facts. In any case, the royal authority of the Advertisements is undoubted. For details see Tomlinson, On the Prayer Book, ch. iv. ,and article by B. Whitehead in Churchman, for February 1899, and see ORNAMENTS RUBRIC. [Benjamin Whitehead]

Agnus Dei

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AGNUS DEI is the name given I. To the well-known prayer which occurs both in the Litany and in the “Gloria in Excelsis” in our present Prayer Book: “O Lamb of God, that takest away way the sins of the world, have mercy upon us,” or “grant us Thy peace.” It is one of our oldest prayers, being adapted from John i. 29. It is found in the Apostolic Constitutions, Book vii. as an evening hymn, and in the Codex Alexandrinus it is described as a morning hymn; and its original use had no connection with Holy Communion. Pope Sergius I. (in A.D. 688) is said to have been the first to insert the “Agnus Dei” in the Mass. He placed it between the “Pater” and the “Communio.” The original direction was that it should be chanted by clerks and people. At the beginning of the ninth century it was chanted by the choir alone, and in some churches with the threefold repetition. After the doctrine of Transubstantiation began to be received, the place of the “Agnus Dei” in the Mass, i.e. between the consecration of the elements and their reception by the people, became fraught with danger, for the wafer itself was addressed as a living person under this title. From about the fourteenth century the “Agnus” was said in a low voice by the priest, and later the third petition was changed into “dona nobit pacem” probably on account of the then troubled condition of the Church. The present practice in the Roman Catholic Church is for the priest to strike his breast three times, pronouncing as many times the “Agnus Dei.” The practice in the Romish Church at date of the Reformation is thus described by Preb. Becon, chaplain to Archbishop Cranmer: “Then do ye say the Agnus, which Pope Sergius also commanded that it should be said at mass a little before the receiving of the host. And here again ye play the abominable idolaters. For looking upon the bread ye look yourselves and worship it, saying in Latin Agnus Dei, &c. Thrice do ye call that bread which ye hold in your hands the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world. & c; intolerable blasphemy, was there ever an idolater who worshipped a piece of broken bread for God?” “a piece of thin wafer cake for God?” (Works, iii. 278; cf. Jewel’s Works ii. 586).

By the first Prayer Book of King Edward (1549) the “Agnus Dei” was retained in the Romish position, but with a rubric directing that the clerks should sing it as a hymn “during communion time.” And in 1550 Bishop Ridley issued an injunction forbidding the minister to counterfeit the Romish Mass by saying the “Agnus” before the communion. By the second Prayer Book (1552) the “Agnus Dei” was omitted altogether from this place, no doubt on account of the difficulty there was, so long as the words remained, in preventing some ministers from counterfeiting the Romish Mass by mumbling the “Agnus” and idolatrously adoring the bread as if it were the Lamb of God. For the same purpose i.e. the prevention of idolatry “the prayer of access” and the “Gloria” were transposed, so that the former should precede the consecration while the latter
was removed from its place near the beginning of the service to its present position at the end. It is thus said after the elements have been consumed or at any rate hidden from sight. Some have thought, however (like Archbishop Benson), that the omission was simply due to the desire to prevent repetition, the “Agnus” (as we have seen) occurring also in the “Gloria.” But that would hardly have been the reason, as the repetitions in the “Gloria” were actually increased in 1552. At any rate the “Agnus” has been omitted from the Romish position since 1552. In 1661 a proposal to reinsert the “Agnus” was carefully considered and deliberately rejected. It was actually proposed and adopted by the committee, but struck out again afterwards. Therefore the courts of law held that it was illegal to sing the “Agnus” during the partaking of the Communion. In 1892, however, in their Lincoln judgment the Privy Council changed their opinion, and sanctioned the interpolation of the “Agnus Dei” as a hymn (in spite of the fact that it had been expressly omitted for good reason) on the ground that “a hymn may be sung at any convenient time” in a service, provided that such service is not thereby “let or hindered.” This would not cover the case of the “Agnus Dei” being merely said by the minister. It is just possible that the Privy Council may on some future occasion return to their earlier and in our opinion, more correct judgment! (See Smith, Dictionary of Christian Antiquities; Whitehead, Church Law, article “Singing”; and Tomlinson, Historical Grounds of the Lambeth Judgment, 6th ed. pp. 69-73.)

II. The name “Agnus” or “Agnus Dei” is also applied to the figure of the Holy Lamb, i.e. a lamb with a nimbus bearing a cross or flag with the sign of the Labarum. Wax medallions bearing such figures were anciently blessed and given to worshippers on the first Sunday after Easter. They were considered to have magical virtues and gave rise to much superstition. In modern times such medallions are still used in the Church of Rome but are blessed by the Pope only first of all on the first Sunday after Easter after his consecration and every subsequent seventh year. The number of persons to whom the distribution is made is now much restricted.(See Smith, Dict. of Christian Antiq.; and Larousse, Dict. Univ.).

Candles

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CANDLES. In the Romish Church, two candles are considered necessary at Low Mass, six at High Mass, and twelve at Benediction. Lighted candles in the Church of England on the Lord’s Table or on a ledge immediately above it are illegal, except when necessary for the purpose of giving light. By the Judgment of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, 1868, in the case of Martin v. Mackonochie, it was ruled that “lighted candles are clearly not ornaments, within the words of the rubric, for they are not prescribed by the authority of Parliament therein mentioned, namely, the first Prayer Book, nor is the injunction of 1547 the authority of Parliament within the meaning of the rubric” (See Procter on Prayer Book, pp. 202, 203). In the case cited the Judges maintained that the use of lighted candles “is not, nor is any ceremony in which it forms part, among those retained in the Prayer Book” (Brooke, p. 125). See Tomlinson, Historical Grounds of the Lambeth Judgment Examined, 6th edit. London: Church Association. On Archbishop Benson’s view, see Whitehead, note on p. 168. See LIGHTS.

Ceremonies

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CEREMONIES. Gestures or acts preceding, accompanying, or following the utterance of words ; the external acts of worship. Ceremonies entered abundantly into the worship of the ancient Jewish Church, for in the infancy of mankind God dealt largely with His chosen people as with children, teaching them by pictures and primers, so to speak, and suffering them to express their thoughts and feelings of devotion to Him. by outward gestures and acts. But the case is very different with regard to the worship of the Christian dispensation. Whereas in the Jewish Tabernacle or Temple the material predominated greatly over the spiritual, in the Christian Church God has evidently intended the spiritual to predominate over the material. In proof of this we may point to that regular development and advance in point of spirituality in faith and worship which can be traced from the first dawn of revelation to its present full noonday light. Our Lord also surely laid down in the New Testament once and for all the true principle of Christian devotion that it must be spiritual when He said to the woman of Samaria, in connection with this very subject of worship, that “God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in Truth,” adding that “the Father seeketh such to worship Him” (John iv. 2, 3).

Yet how differently do Rome and her imitators view this matter! By a vast retrogressive movement they have revived with tenfold gorgeousness the “beggarly elements” of a superseded dispensation. The whole tendency of the Romish system is to suffocate the spirit of piety beneath a mass of outward ceremonies, and to encourage the great majority of her worshippers to rest contentedly in these forms as the sufficient and proper expression of true religious service. For each particular Mass alone Rome prescribes no less than 330 external acts or gestures.

In the chastened ritual of the Church of England, when the Prayer Book is rightly interpreted, the spiritual part of divine worship is exalted while the material is relegated to a subordinate place; in fact, use is made of just so much outward form as may foster, and not carnalize, the religious sensibilities, and quicken, without stifling, the spirit of devotion. It has been well said, with regard to the Romish system of worship (and that of the Ritualists may be included also as affected by this statement) that “if, as all experience testifies, every religious ceremony, however calculated in itself to improve the heart, is thus liable to grow into an empty form, what madness, yea, what wickedness it is to make such ceremonies, not merely the accessories, but the prime elements of worship, and by an elaborately constructed ritual to foster the native superstition of the heart into portentous vigour and luxuriance.”

The following ceremonies have been decided by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council or by the Archbishop’s Court to be illegal: kneeling or prostration before the consecrated elements; the use of lighted candles on the Communion Table except when required for the purpose of giving light; the use of incense for the purpose of censing things and persons; standing before the holy table with back to the people while reading the Collects next before the Epistle (See EASTWARD POSITION), or the Collects following the Creed at Evening Prayer; the mixing of water with wine during the administration of the Lord’s Supper; elevating the paten or cup; the using of wafer bread instead of such bread as is usually eaten; the using of crucifixes or images ceremonially as a part of the service. The Archbishops have also recently published an Opinion that the ceremonial use of incense and of processional lights is not ordered or permitted by the law of the Church of England. Also that Reservation of the Sacrament for any purpose is illegal. For a longer list of condemned ceremonies see Miller’s Guide to Eccl. Law. [M. E. W. Johnson.]

Chasuble

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CHASUBLE. A cloak at first commonly worn by peasants ; afterwards adopted as an ecclesiastical vestment. The first writer that speaks of the casual, or chasuble, is St. Augustine, A.D. 354-430. He tells a story of a poor tailor at Hippo, a little before his own time, who lost his chasuble, and not having money to buy another, went to the Chapel of the Twenty Martyrs at Hippo and prayed that it might be restored to him on which the boys laughed at him for seeming to ask the Martyrs for 500 “folles,” which shows us what was about the price of a chasuble, as a large-sized fish could be bought for 300 “folles” (De Civ. Dei, xxii.). In his own time, he speaks of the chasuble as a common article of dress. “Will you go on,”he says, “with a bad chasuble or a bad boot? Then why with a bad soul?” (Serm. 107). It was at this time a cloak enveloping the whole person, like the manta still worn in Spain, with the addition of a hood that might be drawn over the head. Being the ordinary dress of the poor, it was worn by monks, and Bishop Fulgentius, about A.D. 500, strictly ordered that his monks chasubles should not be of a high price, or of a bright colour. Procopius, A.D. 530, speaks of the chasuble as being a cloak of a slave or of a common person, which a general, or a private soldier, would be ashamed of (De Bello Vindal. ii. 26). Archbishop Caesarius, A.D. 540, left to his successor, in his will, a long-napped chasuble, which he distinguishes from his church robes. Pope Gregory I., A.D. 600, presented three pieces of money and a chasuble, that is, a cloak, to a Persian abbot who saluted him in the streets of Rome. Boniface III., A.D. 606, sent to King Pepin a chasuble made partly of silk partly of goat s hair with a long nap, on which he says that he might wipe his feet dry a very singular use of a chasuble. Isidore of Seville, A.D. 620, in his De Originibus, describes the chasuble as a garment with a hood, and states that its name is a diminutive of casa, a house, because it covers the whole man like a little house (Lib. xix.). St. Boniface and a Council held at Ratisbon in 742, order presbyters and deacons not to wear the short military cloak, but the chasuble, as befitting the servants of God (Labbe, vi.).

Hitherto we have had no indication of the chasuble being a ministerial vestment, or a garment in any way peculiar to the clergy,but, with the ninth century it becomes more specially clerical by ceasing to be the common dress of the people; and symbolical meanings become now attached to it. Rabanus Maurus, A.D. 800, repeating Isidore’s derivation of the name from casa, a house, says that it covers all the other vestments, and therefore symbolises charity. Amalarius, A.D. 824, says that, as the chasuble is worn by all the clerical body of whatever degree, it symbolises “the works which belong to all, namely, hungering, thirsting, watching, nakedness, reading, psalm singing, prayer, toil, teaching, silence, and everything else of that kind; when a man is clothed with them he has on his chasuble.” The double fold of the chasuble between the shoulders indicated that good works should be performed both towards men and towards God; the double fold on the breast implied the need both of learning and of truth (De Eccl. Off. ii.). In a treatise of the eleventh century, wrongly attributed to Alcuin, the writer repeats that the symbolical meaning of the chasuble is charity (De Div. Off.). Ivo Carnotensis, A.D. 1100, knows no signification of the chasuble except charity (De eccl. sacram. et officiis), nor Hugo a Sancto Victore, A.D. 1120, nor Honorius Augustodunensis, A.D. 1125. To Innocent III. it also means charity, but he likewise sees in it the symbol of the Pre-Christian and Post-Christian Church, because it hangs in front and behind, which, he says, is right because on Palm Sunday both those who went before and those who followed after cried, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” (De sacro altaris mysterio). Durandus, A.D. 1250, repeats the signification of charity, but adds that it also represents the wedding garment of Matt. xxii. 12, and the Catholic Church, and the vestment of Aaron, and the purple robe of Christ. By hanging both in front and behind, he says that it symbolises love to God and man, whilst its width shows that charity must reach to enemies. Its three folds on the right arm teach the duty of “succouring monks, clergy, and laity,” and the three folds on the left arm the duty of “ministering to bad Christians, Jews, and Paynims.”

Thus it appears that the chasuble, beginning as the ordinary outer garment of the poor, was retained by the clergy when other people changed the fashion of their clothes, and thus became their ministerial dress. But down to the end of the thirteenth century the idea of its being a sacrificial garment had not arisen. Its accepted meaning was charity. But in the thirteenth century Innocent III. and the Fourth Lateran Council introduced such wide reaching modifications of the Christian faith as almost to change its character. In 1215 Transubstantiation became the authorised belief, and auricular confession the authorised practice of the Latin Church. Transubstantiation, which is the basis of the Sacrifice of the Mass, and compulsory confession profoundly altered the conception entertained of the priesthood. The presbyter now became a sacrificing priest, and the victim that he sacrificed was no other than Christ Himself, while in the confessional he sat as the representative of God. His vesture must indicate the stupendous office which he held. The most noticeable, because the outside, garment that he wore was the chasuble; the chasuble therefore must symbolise sacrifice. By degrees it attracted to itself this character, and in the course of the subsequent centuries it became recognised as the priestly sacrificial vestment, while it underwent considerable changes in form.

But if the chasuble did not symbolise sacrifice for at least 1300 years, why should it be supposed to symbolise it now? The whole theory of the symbolical meaning of vestments, which first grew up in the ninth century, is partly a pretty and quaint, partly a fantastic and foolish imagination. Ritualist fancy has again declared the chasnble to be necessary for the priest who offers the Sacrifice of the Mass, or celebrates the Holy Eucharist. Mr. Passmore pronounces it to be “an ecclesiastical vestment indispensable to, and characteristic of, the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar” (Sacred Vestments, vii.). The Ritual Reason Why tells us that the priest removes his chasuble when preaching “because the sermon is not directly a part of the sacrifice,” and that “he lays it on the altar because it is a sacrificial vestment” (No. 430). The Congregation in Church is daring enough to state, without any regard to historical fact, that the alb, girdle, amice, maniple, stole, and chasuble “have been worn at Holy Communion from the days of the Holy Apostles”; the cloak which St. Paul left at Troas having been, no doubt, his chasuble. And it states that it is “the sacerdotal or priestly vestment worn by the celebrant at the Holy Eucharist” (pp. 54, 176). This theory is a reason why so strong a desire is entertained for restoring the use of the pre-Reformation vestments in the Church of England. It is not merely a matter of aestheticism, but of doctrine, although the sketch above given of the history of the chasuble proves that the connection between it and the doctrine which it is now supposed to symbolize is an arbitrary dictum of the later Middle Ages unknown for more than a thousand years. [Frederick Meyrick]

In England the chasuble was blessed “that all clad with this chasuble may have power to perform a sacrifice acceptable to Thee for quick and dead” (Mon. Rit. i. 144). It was placed by the bishop on the shoulders of the priest with the words “receive the Sacerdotal vesture” and was followed by the blessing of the priest’s hands to “consecrate Hosts which are offered for the sins and negligences of the people.” When Sawtre was degraded from the priesthood in 1401 the form ran “we pull from thy back the chasuble and take from thee the priestly Vestment and deprive thee of all priestly honour.” Archbishop Parker and the High Commissioners in 1566 published a letter from Bullinger who denounced the “Massing apparel, that is in an alb and in a Vestment,” and opposite the word “Vestment,” they inserted in the margin “Casula,” thus showing beyond all doubt what was then understood by the word “Vestment.” In the English Pontificals the bishop was directed to come in procession to church in a cope, but to lay it aside for the “Vestment” when he was about to say Mass. The cope being unblessed, and not given to the ordinees, but worn by laymen, by children, and even by women, often out of doors, was not held to be a “sacrificial dress,” and was therefore tolerated when the “Vestment” of the Mass-priests was finally laid aside. (See Scudamore, Notitia Eucharistica. pp. 67, 70; Tomlinson on the Prayer Book, pp. 56, 96, 117, 119, 274; Mr. Edmund Bishop in the Dublin Review for January 1897, p. 17.) [J. T. Tomlinson]

The Cope

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COPE, THE. An ecclesiastical vestment. The cope, like the chasuble, was originally an outdoor garment worn by laymen, monks, and clergy. Isidore of Seville is the first person that mentions it, A.D. 620, and he derives its name, capa, from its embracing, capit, the whole man. It originally had a hood to draw over the head, and was sometimes called pluviale as being a protection against bad weather. It was a long cloak, reaching to the ground behind, open in front, but brought together by a clasp or button. It was naturally used by ecclesiastics at ceremonial meetings and outdoor processions, and so it came to be regarded as a processional dress. Durandus account of its symbolical meaning, A.D. 1250, is as follows: “It is embroidered with fringes, which are labours and cares of this world. It has a hood, which is heavenly delight. It is long, reaching to the feet, which signifies perseverance to the end. In front it is open, to denote that eternal life is open to men of holy life, and that the wearer’s life ought to be an open example to others. By the cope we also understand the glorious immortality of our bodies, for which reason we only wear it on the greater festivals; having respect to the future resurrection when the elect, laying aside the flesh, will receive two garments, rest of soul and glory of body. This vestment is very properly of ample size, and its sides are joined in front by only one necessary fastening, because in that day the body, rendered spiritual, will not shut in the soul by any narrowness. And it is provided with a fringe, because then nothing will be wanting to our perfection, but what we now know in part, we shall then know even as also we are known” (Rationale divinorum officiorum, Bk. iii.).

Amidst all these fantastic significations it will be seen that there is no idea of sacrifice imposed on the cope as one of its symbolical meanings; and for this reason probably it was admitted as an occasional robe by the Reformed Church of England. In 1549 the minister at the Lord’s Table was allowed to wear either a chasuble (called a vestment) or a cope. This was a step onwards, the chasuble up to this time having been regarded as indispensable. In 1552 both the chasuble and the cope were forbidden, the surplice being substituted. All the Mass garments were restored under Queen Mary. I 1559, Queen Elizabeth being on the throne, a cope was used by the Bishop of Chichester and two of the Archbishop’s chaplains at the consecration of Archbishop Parker. In the same year a clause of the Act of Uniformity, commonly called the Ornaments Rubric, was added, without authority, to the Prayer Book of 1559, by which the ornaments which “were in use in the second year of Edward VI.” (that is, the 1549 ornaments) were to be used, “until other order should be taken” by the authority of the Queen with the advice of the Metropolitan. In 1566 the “other order,” foreshadowed in 1559, was “taken” by the Advertisements drawn up by the Queen’s direction, and issued by Archbishop Parker, which ordered that in cathedrals and collegiate churches the principal minister, the gospeller, and the epistoler should wear copes, and all other clergy, in all their various ministrations, the surplice. In 1604 the canons of that year ordered that the minister of highest rank in Cathedral and Collegiate Churches, on the chief feasts, should at the Holy Communion wear the cope, and all other ministers the surplice. This is the last rule respecting English ecclesiastical dress, as the repetition of the so-called Ornaments Rubric in the Prayer Books of 1604 and 1662, carries with it, in each case, a simultaneous authorisation of “the other order” which was “taken” at the royal instance by Archbishop Parker in 1566, and sanctioned by the Church in 1604, superseding the order relating to the Edwardine ornaments. [Frederick Meyrick]

Before the Reformation, the cope was regarded as a suitable festive decoration, which might be worn by women, boys, and laymen, as well as out of doors. But it was not even permitted to the “sacrificing” celebrant at Mass. The language of our 24th Canon about “principal feast days” is explained by such passages as the following. Rupert of Deutz ( d. 1130) says, “we put on copes also in greater feasts”; but he was then speaking, not of the priest, but of the “Cantors,” i.e. “rectores chori,” or rulers of the choir (Dublin Review, cxx. 17). Durand says, “illam non nisi in majoribus festivitatibus induimus” (Marriott, Vest. Christianum, p. 167). “Festis duplicibus, sive praecipuis, quae, ob id, Festa in Cappis dicebantur,” says Matthew of Paris (Watt’s edit., p. 227. Compare North’s Chronicle of St. Martin’s, Leicester, p. 103). And this probably was the origin of the custom at Oxford for the “Heads” to appear on such occasions in dress gowns (Notes and Queries, 2nd series, i. 230). Silk copes for the “principal” rulers of the choir were ordered by Bishop Gravesend in the thirteenth century to be used at Lincoln Cathedral; and the Greyfriar’s Chronicle, p. 68, records how, in A.D. 1550, “Item at Xtmas was put down at Powle’s the Rectores Chori, with all their coppys at procession, and no more to be used.” Indeed, the rubric then in force, under the First Prayer Book (p. 97), prescribed the cope to be worn “after the Litany ended” on Wednesdays and Fridays “if there be no Communion.” The non-sacrificial and even “secular” character of this dress explains why Cranmer and his fellow-bishops secured for themselves the right to wear the cope at Holy Communion in lieu of the Mass “Vestment” (i.e. chasuble), and also why, with a view of destroying the “distinctive” dress of the Mass, the bishop was required to wear the same dress at “all other” ministrations (see p. 157 of Parker Soc. edit, of First Book of Edward VI.).

In the larger and richer churches, the copes were not only used in sets of three, as before explained, but were made to match the celebrant’s chasuble, varying with the season. Mr. Walcott’s Westminster Inventories mentions (p. 16) “copes and Chezabulls agreable,” temp. Henry VIII., and in his Parish Goods in Kent (p. 66) we find at Dartford “one cope with one vestment to the same, suted with th’albe thereto belonging.” This explains the meaning of “agreeably” in the Advertisements of 1566 and in Canon 24.

In 1548, when the First Prayer Book was enacted, the Reforming party among the bishops were, if not in a minority, at least balanced by a powerful and compact phalanx of Romish prelates, and were unable or afraid to attempt to give to their clergy the same liberty which they had secured for themselves. Under that book, therefore, no parish clergy man might shirk wearing a “ distinctive dress” at Holy Communion; while his “epistoler and gospeller” might not at any time wear the “distinctive” dress in question. But when the Rubric of 1552 abolished this “distinctive” difference between the Lord’s Supper and “all other times of ministration,” and had been re-enacted in 1559, under penalties, by the 1 Eliz. c. 2, it becomes of extreme interest to notice how the Government and the bishops dealt with the cope. In the vast majority of the poorer parishes its use was either unknown or was abolished forthwith by authority. The strict letter of the law said, “shall wear neither alb, vestment, nor cope,” but shall have and wear “a surplice only.” Accordingly, as the contemporary Machyn’s Diary (p. 208) and Stow’s Annals (p. 639, b) testify, the copes were generally destroyed by the royal Visitors acting in the High Commission, which included all the bishops newly nominated and most of the M.P. s and peers who had personally taken part in the passing of the Act of Uniformity, 1 Eliz. c. 2. Canon T. W. Perry (the champion employed by the E.C.U. to defend the vestments) admits that in twenty-four instances the Lincolnshire copes had been destroyed or converted before the Advertisements of 1566 were issued (On Purchas Judgment, p. 237). But that admission gives no adequate idea of the actual facts. Out of the first seventy-nine Lincoln parishes recorded as visited by Archdeacon Aylmer in 1565, before the Advertisements issued, fifty-one had no copes at all, fifteen had been “defaced,” twelve had been “sold”; and in several returns it is spoken of as “popish,” and is reported to the Visitors as being an “illegal” ornament, though “yet remaining” in the custody of the wardens. These facts appear from Peacock’s Church Furniture. Mr. Tyssen’s Surrey Inventories also throws light on the varied ways in which the copes were held to be “in use.” Inter alia, twenty-nine copes were assigned to be made into coverings for the Lord’s Table. The official “assignments” for the Hundred of Redgate run in this form: “Delivered unto the hands of the said wardens unto the use of the Church, there to be occupied according to the effect of the commission directed unto the Commissioners appointed for the sale of church goods and other order to be therein taken for the same, as followeth,” and then follow such entries as “Item, a cope to make a communion table cloth,” “Item, a cope of blue dornix and an old coverlet to cover the communion table,” “Item, iiij vestments to make a communion table cloth.”

So at Carshalton, we read “Md. that the ij albes . . are now made into surplices to the use of the Church”: and at St. Saviour’s, Southwark, “Item, xix albes . . whereof the wardens have made xvi surplices for the quere which was all that could be made of them.” When we compare this language with the proviso “such ornaments shall be retained and be in use . . . until other order shall be therein taken,” we see at once that it merely prescribed for the careful retention and utilization of the ornaments in the hands of the wardens, and that the “other order” was “therein taken” by the Commissioners at the royal visitation.

Thus, as Bishop Horn testifies, “the copes were taken away” in the Visitation of 1559 (Zurich Letters, i. 142 and App. 84) in parish churches; while we learn from Puritan writers and from Bishop Sandys that in Cathedrals and collegiate and some of the “larger” churches they were temporarily retained (in sets of three), as also in the Royal Chapel and on certain occasions of State ceremonial and display.

It is singular that the actual compromise thus brought about was left to the discretion of the royal Visitors to determine by “taking order” in each parish, according to circumstances, and does not correspond exactly with any theory as to the then existing statutory standard of ritual. If it were true that from 1559 to 1566 the rubrics of 1549 were in force, it is an astounding fact that not one single instance of compliance with the alleged “law” has ever yet been discovered. Not even in Elizabeth’s private chapel was the ritual of the First Prayer Book followed even for a single day. Yet a small and uncertain percentage of churches were connived at in their “retention” of the cope, provided that they did not allow the Epistoller and Gospeller to be arrayed in “albs, tunicles, or dalmatics” or any otherwise than the officiating clergyman himself. In this way the Executive were enabled to humour the love of pomp and dignity in the more florid services and to change the symbolism. It was no longer in honour of the Mass, as such, but of the events commemorated on the “principal feast days” (i.e. those which had “proper prefaces”) in honour of Almighty God (Canon 24). Yet the fact that the cope was a costly dress, extremely inconvenient, hot and heavy, and disabling the clergyman from “using both his hands” with “decency” and unfettered freedom, led to the rapid discontinuance of this cumbersome dress. And since the Restoration, it has rarely been seen anywhere in England. A disuse of forty years even by the Canon Law itself evacuates the obligation of mere canons. So that it would now need fresh legislation to legitimatise the re-introduction of such belated “survivals of the [un] fittest.” [J. T. Tomlinson]

Eastward Position

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EASTWARD POSITION. A posture some times adopted by the minister officiating at the Lord’s Table. There is no reason whatever why one side of the Table of the Lord should in itself be better than another for the officiating minister to stand at. North, south, east, west what can it matter? except, indeed, that the eastward position is clearly the most inconvenient, because it makes an obstacle to the sight of the congregation. But just as an unreasonable idea sprang up shortly before the Reformation that the chasuble was a sacrificial garment, which idea was totally unknown, not only to the Primitive Church, when it was merely an outer cloak, but to the earlier Middle Ages also, so a sacrificial character was assigned to the eastward position of the minister before the altar. There is no adequate ground for this opinion. Indeed, it was maintained, rightly or wrongly, by Dean Stanley that the fact of the minister standing in front of the congregation, and looking in the same direction with them, symbolised that he was with them humbly offering prayer to God, and not that he was Christ’s representative offering the sacrifice of Him to the Father; but however this may be, the notion more and more prevailed that the eastward position of the minister was that which meant the sacrifice of Christ, and that any other position ignored, if it did not condemn, that suggestion. Hence it has been reintroduced in many churches where doctrines identical with, or approaching to, that of the Sacrifice of the Mass have been believed and taught.

As there are no grounds in reason for the eastward position, so there is no authority for it. Not even did the Jewish priest, who was really a sacerdos, stand either facing eastwards, or with his back to the people, as his duties kept him moving from side to side of the altar. The Christian priest or presbyter never took up such a position in the early Church. For many centuries the Table of the Lord stood, not against the wall of the church, but in the centre of the arc of the semi-circular apse, which ordinarily formed the end of the church (Bingham, Ant., viii. 6.) Behind the Lord’s Table, in the bay of the apse, was situated the bishop’s cathedra or throne, and on each side of him were the seats of the clergy. The old throne with the seats on either side of it, still remains,in situ, in the cathedral of Norwich, which was built in the twelfth century; and the same spot is the place of the bishop’s throne in the Eastern Church, as marked by Dr. Wright in his Service of the Mass, p. 18, where he gives a plan of a Greek Church. When the administration of the Eucharist took place, the bishop or the officiating presbyter proceeded from behind to the Lord’s Table and took his stand on the farther side of it, looking over it, and facing the people ; and in this position he performed the service, the communicants kneeling on either hand at the north and south sides of the Table. That such were the primitive positions of priest and people is clearly shown in Mr. Tomlinson’s The Liturgy and the Eastward Position.

The Italian and Spanish Old Catholic reformers have so far resumed the primitive position that their officiating clergy stand to the east of the Communion Table, facing west; and Signer Ugo Janni, arguing for the practice has shown it to be the ancient position by quotations from the Abbe Guillois’ Catechism, Canon Salmon, of Chalons, Histoire de l’art Chretien, and Canon Martigny’s Amico Cattolico.(See the Labaro for June 1899, and the Foreign Church Chronicle, vol. xxiii. p. 138, 1899.) Canon Farquhar, in confirmation of the same fact, has pointed to the frescoes in San Clemente, Rome (of the eleventh century), and in Raffaelle’s Loggia (of the fifteenth century), representing the priest on the east side of the altar, and has stated that a picture by Sacchi, in 1600, is the first painting that represents the officiator with his back turned to the people (F. C. C., ibid. p. 141). The well-known Dr. St. John Mivart in his Essays and Criticism (i. 192), says, “In the ancient Ambrosian rite of Milan . . . the priest never turns round to the people at any Dominus Vobiscum. The last circumstance is due to the fact that according to the strict Ambrosian rite the priest should celebrate facing the people (i.e. standing on the farther side of the altar), and no doubt the former existence of a similar custom in Spain accounts for the fact that the priest does not turn round to the people at the Dominus Vobiscum in the Mozarabic rite. The whole Mass (Gallican) bears traces of having been originally said with the celebrant facing the people. In the Ambrosian rite the assistants pass behind the altar instead of in front” (F. C. C., xxiii. 72). In the Mozarabic Missal the position of the officiator, which was looking westwards, has been somewhat obscured by some modern rubrics, framed in accordance with the later Roman use, having been inserted by Ortiz, the compiler of Ximenes’ edition of the Mozarabic Liturgy in 1500. Cardinal Lorenzana, in his edition of Missa Gothicain 1770, explaining the reason why the priest turns only once or twice towards the congregation (instead of six times, as in the Roman Canon), writes,”It is only in this (the final) benediction, and in the offertory, when it was customary for him to have withdrawn a little from the altar, that the priest turns towards the people in the Mozarabic Mass; the chief cause of which is the antiquity of the Mozarabic rite, for in t first ages of the Church the altar was in the same direction as the faithful, and the priest faced the people, so that he had not to turn in order to address them, as is now necessary, for now the people stand behind him” (p. 132). See further the illustrations in Mr. Tomlinson’s The Liturgy and Eastward Position, and Canon Swainson’s Greek Liturgies, pp. 77, 117, 139, 141, 144.

On account of the practice of early times, and the false signification attached at present to the eastward position, the Old Catholic Reformers of Italy hold tenaciously to the westward position as a “reform of great importance.” “In modern Churches of the Papal Confession the altar is generally against the wall, and the priest celebrates Mass standing between the people and the altar, and turning his back on the people. Our Catholic Reformed Church of Italy has abolished this use, moving forward the Eucharistic Table from the wall, so that there is no difficulty in walking round it, and the minister who celebrates places himself behind the Table with his face toward the people. This reform has met with, and meets with the approval of our congregations, and of all those who come into our churches and chapels. In truth, to turn the back to the people is not in accordance with the rules of aesthetic, nor indeed of sound belief. . . . This reform of ours is not an innovation, but a return, pure and simple, to the practice of the ancient Church” (Labaro, June 1899).

Signer Ugo Janni sums up his estimation of the difference of teaching in the two positions as follows: “The position of the priest at the altar, according to the use of the Roman Church, signifies that the priest, who puts himself between the people and the altar, turning his back to the people, is a sacerdote, a mediator, in virtue of the sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ which he offers on the altar. This is the reason why some Romanising Ritualists of the Anglican Church, who would cancel the glorious page of the Reformation, hold to this position as a thing of vital importance. For the opposite reason, we are firm in retaining this most beautiful practice of the ancient Catholic Church” (Labaro, June 1899).

In England the eastward position was ordered in 1549, no alteration being made in the then prevalent use. But the position was felt to be unsuitable to a reformed Prayer Book, and the rubric was not generally obeyed. “There were so many exceptions taken and opposition made to that order,” says Bishop Cosin, “(some standing at the west side of the altar with their faces turned towards the people, others at the east, others at the south, and others at the north), that at last they agreed to set forth this rule [the present rule ordering the priest to stand at the north side], in the fifth of King Edward, instead of the former set forth in the second year” (Notes, p. 458). Therefore the position ordered for the clergyman since 1552 is the north of the Table (which seems to have been adopted as a compromise between east and west, and to prevent unseemly difference of use), and he is to keep that position throughout the service, except that immediately before the consecration prayer he is desired by a rubric insertedin 1662 to “stand before the Table” to “order the Bread and Wine, that he may with the more readiness and decency break the Bread before the people, and take the Cup into his hands.” In other words, he is to place the paten and chalice, which had been standing since the offertory in the middle of the Table, nearer to the north end of it, in order that he may reach them easily from thence. Having done so, he resumes his place to the north of the Table, where he is able readily and decently to break the Bread before the people, which he cannot do if he stands on the westside of the Table, and to reach the Cup and take it in his hands.

A difficulty has been raised from the use of the word “side” instead of “end” of the Table. It is probable that the word “side” was originally preferred, because at the same time as the enactment of the rule “at the north side,” permission was given (confirmed in 1559) to remove the Table into the chancel or church at the time of Communion, where it would, sometimes at least, have been placed length wise from east to west, and then the word “end” would not have been applicable; it would have meant either the eastward or the westward position. But every parallelogram or square is a four-sided figure, and the term “side” would cover the longer or the shorter side, which the term “end” would not. The “north side of the Table,” therefore, where the priest is ordered to stand, is the same thing as the “north end.” Accordingly, Laud’s biographer, Heylin, arguing against Bishop Williams, wrote, “It is plain that if we speak according to the rules of art (as certainly they did that composed that rubric), every part of it is a side, however custom hath prevailed to call the narrower parts by the name of ends” (A Coale from the Altar, p. 21). And Bishop Wren said, “Custom of speech led men to call the north end or north part of the Table the north side thereof” (Answer to Impeachment). The Scottish Liturgy, authorised in 1637, directs the presbyter to stand “at the north side or end,” the terms being equivalent. [Frederick Meyrick]

Lights

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LIGHTS. For utilitarian purposes lights were needed in the worship of the early Church (Acts xx. 7, 3). Pliny describes the Christians as meeting “before it was light” and Tertullian speaks of their assemblies “held before dawn.” In the Catacombs artificial light was always necessary. But it was not till the fourth century after Christ that lights began to be employed for ritual or symbolical purposes. The Christian Apologists ridiculed the practices of the heathen in this very matter. Tertullian, A.D. 192, denounces the practice of “exposing useless candles at noon” and by that means “encroaching on the day.” “Let them,” he says, “who have no light, kindle their lamps every day” (Apol., xlvi. xxxv.).“They kindle lights to God,” says Lactantius, A.D. 303, “as if He dwelt in darkness .... Is he then to be thought in his right mind, who offers for a gift the light of candles and wax tapers to the Author and Giver of light ? But light of another kind He does require of us, and that not smoky, but, as the poet sings, liquid and clear, to wit, that of the mind” (Div. Inst., vi. 2, and Epitome, cap. 58). Gregory Nazianzen, A.D. 370: “Let not our houses blaze with visible light . . . for this is indeed the custom of the Greek Holy Moon . . . but with . . . lamps that light up the whole body of the Church, I mean with divine contemplations and thoughts” (Orat., v. 35). Yet, on occasions of jubilee an illumination seemed appropriate as the mere expression of rejoicing and festival. The last-named writer mentions as the custom of his day for the newly baptized to light lamps, which he couples with the parable of the Virgins meeting the Bridegroom. Baptism itself was called photismos, the “Illumination,” the light of the Holy Spirit, being given to the adult convert on his admission into the “household of God.” In the East, St. Jerome tells us, they had a custom, then unknown in the West, that “when the Gospel is about to be read, lights are lit at noonday, not to disperse the darkness, but to show gladness ... so that under the type of a corporal light, that light might be shown concerning which we read in the Gospel, Thy word, O Lord, is a lantern unto my feet and a light unto my paths”(Contra Vigilant. 467). This Oriental usage was adopted in Spain in the seventh century. Isidore of Seville wrote, “Those who in Greek are called acolytes, are in Latin called ceroferarii, from their carrying wax candles when the Gospel is to be read, or the sacrifice to be offered;” the practice being for light-bearers to precede the bishop on his going to the Lord’s Table, the lights being afterwards set down on the floor, or in the case of the gospel lights, extinguished at the close of the reading. For convenience, the extinguished lights were set behind, or at the back of the “altar.” “In course of time,” says Romsee, “it seemed more convenient to set the candlesticks with the candles on the slab of the altar, and to burn the candles.” In this way the modern altar-lights originated.

At funerals, from the time of Constantine at least, processional lights were used: the day of the Christian’s death being regarded as his birthday into life arid immortality. Hero-worship soon sprang up, for the immense influx of adult pagans into the (now fashionable) Church brought with them the habits and modes of thought of their previous lifetime. Cardinal Baronius admits (Annals, p. 551) that the cultus of images by means of lights burning before them was taken directly from the idolaters—“the venerable ecclesiastical antiquity brought it to pass that what used to hang before the idols should be providently converted to the worship of God.” A clergyman named Vigilantius complained to St. Jerome that, “Under the pretext of religion we see a custom introduced into the churches which approximates to the rites of the Gentiles, namely, the lighting of multitudes of tapers while the sun is yet shining. And everywhere they kiss in adoration a small quantity of dust folded up in a little cloth, and deposited in a little vessel. Men of this stamp give great honour, forsooth, to the most blessed martyrs, thinking with a few insignificant wax-tapers to glorify those whom the Lamb, who is in the midst of the throne, enlightens with all the brightness of His Majesty.”

St. Jerome in reply denied that it was the practice of the Church. He said: “We do not light candles in the daylight as you falsely accuse us, but we do so that we may alleviate the darkness of the night by this comfort.” Yet he admitted that the Ritualists were beginning the practice complained of: “But what if some do so, in honour of the martyrs through the ignorance and simplicity of secular men or even of religious women (of whom we may in truth say, I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge), what loss do you thereby sustain?” (Epist. contra Vigilantium, xxxvii.)

Yet he ends by admitting the pagan origin of the custom, saying, “That was done to the idols, and therefore to be detested: this is done to the martyrs, and therefore may be received.” In vain had the laws of Theodosius forbidden under severe penalties to “light candles, burn incense, or hang up garlands to senseless images.” Not only did these pagan observances be come more and more fashionable, but at length the Second Synod of Nicaea, A.D. 787, decreed as of faith that “To these (i.e. the likenesses of our Lord and His blessed ones) as to the figure of the precious and life-giving Cross, and to the Book of the Gospels, and to other holy objects, incense and lights may be offered according to ancient pious custom, for the honour which is paid to the image passes on to that which the image represents, and he who reveres the image reveres in it the subject represented” (Mr. Athelstan Riley’s translation).

This was just what the heathen had always pleaded, and as the Buddhist now pleads, in defence of idolatry. The apostate Julian said, “We do not think them gods, but that through them we may worship the Deity: for we being in the body, ought to perform our service in a way agreeable to it.” Canon Robertson, the historian, says. “There was too much foundation for the reproach with which the Manichean Faustus assailed the Church: The sacrifices of the heathen you have turned into feasts of charity: their idols into martyrs, whom ye honour with the like religious offices” (Hist. Christian Church, ii. 43-45). The condition of Christian society which made this possible is depicted in Kingsley’s Hypatia, and in Dean Farrar’s Gathering Clouds. The character of the so-called Seventh General Council is described in Palmer’s Treatise of the Church, ii. 151-161, and by Robertson (Hist., iii. 55). In Perceval’s Roman Schism, p. 418, is given a long list of the Fathers who are anathematized by this “Seventh General Council.” Bishop Stillingfleet says, “Christianity became at last to be nothing else but reformed paganism as to its worship” (Works, v. 459). Baruch vi. 18, 19, Hislop’s Two Babylons, chap, v., or Middleton’s Letters from Rome, p. 27, illustrate the universal prevalence of candle-worship among all nations. For centuries the struggle went on within the Church to resist this deterioration. The Synod of Elvira, A.D. 306, condemned the use of pictures in the churches, and decreed “that candles be not burned during the day in cemeteries, for fear of troubling the spirits of the saints.” This canon was only one of a series directed against heathenish rites then calling for repression; yet Mr. Dale, in his interesting Essay on the Synod of Elvira (published by Macmillan), has shown (pp. 207-22) that the “Fathers” who condemned these rites were themselves infected by a belief in necromancy. So soon had “the fine gold become dim”! Dupin honestly says, “that the Fathers of this Council did not approve of the use of images, no more than that of wax candles lighted in full day light.”

Our English Bede, A.D. 730, tells us that the Feast of Candlemas merely replaced the pre-Christian lustrations “this custom the Christian religion did well to change when in the same month,” of February, the feast of the purification was celebrated (De Temp. Rat., 10).

This “relative worship” of inferior deities by means of tapers and lamps and torches naturally culminated in the worship of the Host when the doctrine of transubstantiation had been formally adopted, and Innocent III., the promulgator of that dogma at the Fourth Lateran Council, was the first to order two lights to be set burning upon the altar itself. Cardinal Langton, who took part in that Council, promulgated the Lateran Decrees at the Synod of Oxford, A.D. 1222, directing that “two candles, or at least one together with the lamp” (hanging before the reserved wafer), should be burning at mass, and ordering the laity to kneel to the corpus Domini as to “their Creator and Redeemer (Wilkins, i. 593).

All the Lateran Decrees were made binding as parts of the Canon Law duly published in this country. In addition to the recognition of the divinity of the wafer, it was claimed that “sacrificial fire” was indicated by the same symbol. Lyndwood, John de Burgh, Polydore Vergi], and Suarez, all give this, and refer to Lev. vi. 13 for scriptural warrant. In 1541 the Royal Injunctions of Henry VIII. ordered that “no offering or setting of lights or candles should be suffered except To the Blessed Sacrament.” In 1547 Edward’s Injunction repeated his father’s direction that, “no torches nor candles, tapers or images of wax to be set AFORE any image or picture, but only two lights upon the high altar, before the sacrament” (Doc. Ann, i. 7). It is important to remember that at that date (July 31, in the first year of Edward’s reign) the bloody act of the Six Articles was still in full force—no reformation of doctrine having been as yet even attempted. But so soon as the First Prayer Book had been enacted, the Royal Visitation Articles of 1549 ordered these Injunctions to be no longer read (Doc. Ann., 2nd edit., p. 25), and Ridley and Hooper accordingly forbade the (now illegal) lights to be anywhere placed upon the Lord s Table, and “that the ministers, in time of the Communion, do use only the ceremonies and gestures appointed by the Book of Common Prayer.” From that day forward, save during the reaction under Mary, no lights “before the sacrament” were anywhere seen in the Church of England; though Queen Elizabeth, for reasons of Statecraft, introduced a crucifix before which two candles were burned at evening service in her own chapel. Both the image and its attendant lights were unique, and designed to create an impression that the Queen was then hesitating whether to abandon the Reformation or not; but when they had served the purpose of mystifying the Spanish ambassador, the crucifix was broken and its lights allowed to stand idle. As Bishops Grindal and Horn reported in 1567, “the Church of England has entirely given up the use of a foreign tongue, breathings, exorcisms, oil, spittle, clay, lighted tapers, and other things of that kind which by Act of Parliament (ex legum prescripto) are never to be restored” (Zurich Letters, i. 178).

Smith’s Dict. Christian Antiq., ii. 993. Scudamor’s Notit. Eucharistica, 2nd ed. , p. 121. Dimock’s Christian Ritual, p. 34. Tomlinson’s Historic Grounds of Lambeth Judgment, pp. 75-104, and Tract on Altar Lights, their History and Meaning. [J. T. Tomlinson]

Lincoln Judgment

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LINCOLN JUDGMENT. The trial of Bishop King for ritual nonconformity by Archbishop Benson in 1890 is remarkable, perhaps even “epoch-making,” on account of the adoption of certain principles as the basis of its judgment, every one of which had been decisively rejected as unsound by the Supreme Court of Appeal. The importance of these fundamental principles has never yet received the attention which is due to the far-reaching results which were thus foreshadowed as possible.

Two preliminary questions had to be decided: (1) That a diocesan bishop is subject to the jurisdiction of his metropolitan; (2) that a bishop is subject, like every other “minister,” to the rubrics and canons of the Church of England when officiating in divine service. The former of these points was decided by the Privy Council itself, which held that “the archbishop has jurisdiction in this case. They are also of opinion that the abstaining by the archbishop from entertaining the suit is matter of appeal to her Majesty.”

Nevertheless Bishop King lodged a formal protest “that the Provincial Synod is the only Court before which a bishop can be tried,” and
that “bishops are not included among the ministers to whom the provisions of the Act of Uniformity apply.” The archbishop, however, gave judgment on May 12, 1899, in favour of his own sole jurisdiction; and it is erroneously stated in the Encyclopedia Britannica that he was supported in this by his suffragan assessors. Such was not the case; their lordships dissented, yet were compelled to listen to the very able judgment in which Archbishop Benson ruled that he was competent to sit in judgment upon them all! A report of this judgment, with illustrative notes, is published by the Church Association (Tract 104).

Bishop King thereupon decided to appear by counsel, but under protest, as not acknowledging the jurisdiction claimed. Nor has the English Church Union, of which he was a member, and which supported the Bishop of Lincoln throughout, ever admitted the jurisdiction of the primate to be well founded. The archbishop further ruled that a bishop, when officiating in any service contained in the Prayer Book, is bound by the same rules as any other “minister.” In this ruling he was supported by all his assessors except Bishop John Wordsworth.

These preliminaries having been decided, the hearing on the merits was reached in February 1900, and judgment was delivered on November 21 in the same year. It introduced the novel claim that a Court of first instance is entitled to review and set aside the previous judgments of the Court of Appeal a principle in itself sufficiently revolutionary. But the decisions ultimately reached did not greatly alter the legal position, except as regards the singing of the “Agnus Dei.” The following summary exhibits the changes actually effected:--

1st Charge. Mixing water with the wines during the service. Before the Lincoln Judgment this was illegal. After the Judgment it still remains illegal; the “Judgment” given being on a point not raised in the articles of charge.

2nd Charge. Hiding the Manual Acts. Before the Judgment this was illegal. After the Judgment it still remains illegal.

3rd Charge. Making the sign of the Cross. Before the Judgment this was illegal. After the Judgment it still remains illegal.

4th Charge. Ministering wine which had been mixed with water during the service. Before the Judgment this was illegal. After the Judgment it still remains illegal; the “Judgment” given being on a point not raised in the suit.

5th Charge. Using lighted candles, “before the sacrament.” Before the Judgment this was illegal. After the Judgment it still remains illegal; the Judgment in the Supreme Court in Martin v. Mackonochie being unaffected by the appeal. On this point the Privy Council merely said that the bishop was not responsible, but they did not legalise the use of lighted candles.

6th Charge. Drinking the ablutions during divine service. Before the Judgment this was illegal. After the Judgment it still remains illegal. On this point the judges declared the drinking of the rinsings after the close of the service to be lawful.

7th Charge. The eastward position during the entire ante-Communion service. This was a new point, and therefore could not affect any previous judgment.

8th Charge. The singing of the “Agnus Dei.” Before the Judgment this was illegal. After the Judgment it is permitted to be done with impunity. This, therefore, though a most important point, is the only one on which a judgment was given at complete variance with former decisions.

But the really grave feature of this Judgment was that it discarded the rationes decidendi, upon which all former judgments in ritual suits had been based. The Privy Council had laid down the dictum that canons and constitutions relating to divine service prior to the Reformation, and even royal Injunctions of any earlier date, “must be taken, if of force at the time of passing of any of the Acts of Uniformity, to have been repealed by those Acts” (Martin v. Mackonochie, L.R. 2 P.C. 389). In Westerton v. Liddell, the first of these suits, it was held that “the word ‘ornaments’ applies, and in this [‘the ornaments’] rubric is confined to those articles the use of which in the services and ministrations of the Church is PRESCRIBED BY the Prayer Book of Edward the Sixth” (Moore’s separate report, p. 156). The importance of these elementary bases of Church Law (which were adopted and followed in all subsequent judgments), arises from the fact that ritual mainly centres around the doctrine of the sacraments and the worship supposed to be due (or to be prohibited) in reference to the supposed indwelling Deity within the consecrated species. In other words, it involves the question of the “continuity” of sacramental doctrine before and after the “Reformation” in England.

The Privy Council had solved these questions by saying, “The Prayer Book, in the Preface, divides all ceremonies into these two classes: those which are retained are specified, whereas none are abolished by name; but it is assumed that all are abolished which are not expressly retained” (Martin v. Mackonochie, ut supra). This elementary principle was fully adopted by the two Archbishops of Canterbury and York in their published “Opinion” on Incense and Processional Lights, July 31, 1899, when the ceremonial use of either was held to be prohibited under section 27 of Elizabeth’s Act of Uniformity, which renders “void and of none effect all laws, statutes, and ordinances whereby any other service ... is limited, established, or set forth to be used within this realm.”

In open defiance of this principle, Archbishop Benson actually adduced such “authorities” as Pope Leo IV., who directed that “Nullus cantet sine lumine . . . et casual” in A.D. 847, and Pope Honorius III., who ordered a priest to be deprived because “sine igne sacrificabat et aqua” (L.R. 1891, P.C., p. 95). This same Pope instituted elevation of the Host and its adoration, according to Fleury (xv. 663). See Cranmer’s Remains, p. 154, and Lord’s Supper, p. 238. These “authorities” were cited in support of the decree of the papal legate, Langton, in the Synod at Oxford in 1222, at which he formally promulgated the decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council ordering the punishment by death of “heretics” who denied the doctrine of transubstantiation (first decreed at Lateran), and had himself taken part in that “General Council.” Another “authority” cited by Archbishop Benson (L.R., p. 96) is John de Burgh, A.D. 1385, who warned English priests to put out the light if the wafer had been consumed, lest “idolatry” ensue, and that if the priest gave an unconsecrated wafer, the communicant must needs commit idolatry because “manducans adorat quod manducat.” He adduced Lev. vi. 13, “fire shall ever be burning on my altar,” as the reason for altar lights! Whereupon the archbishop observes, “It would be contrary to the history and interpretation of the two lights on the Holy Table to connect them with erroneous and strange teaching as to the nature of the sacrament.”

Edward’s Injunction of 1547 was also adduced, ignoring the fact that the “Six Articles” Act was then in full force, and that the statute which gave “the authority of Parliament” to these Injunctions was repealed before the “second year of Edward VI.” had commenced. Lord Cairns had pointed out that the Royal Visitation Articles of 1549, published by Wilkins, Cardwell, and Burnet, forbidding the “setting any light on the Lord’s Board at any time” as being a “counterfeit of the Popish mass,” were evidence of the meaning of the First Prayer Book, and were acted upon by the Ordinaries under that book (4th Report Rit. Comm., p. 220, col. 2); whereas this Judgment assumed that these were (unlike all other Visitation Articles) not enforcements of existing law, but irregular attempts at legislation. In the same spirit they mention that Ridley merely “exhorted” churchwardens in June 1550, to “remove” altars, and urge that this was ultra vires (Judgment, Macmillan’s, p. 20); but are careful not to mention that after the Order in Council of November 23, Ridley at once “required and commanded,” in the king s name (Fox, vi. 744), this (no longer doubtful) alteration. The so-called “historic” treatment is throughout of the same one-sided character, having always this uniform object, viz., to “dissemble and cloak” the notorious fact that an enormous alteration of ritual had designedly resulted from the doctrinal changes which took place in 1548-52, and that the inculpated ritual was regarded by everybody, on both sides, as the recognised expression of the distinctive belief of the “Romanensians.” In pursuit of this object, the draftsman of the Judgment was guilty of very numerous misquotations, of glaring suppressions of evidence, and of downright misrepresentations of fact. For detailed evidence of this, see Historic Grounds of the Lambeth Judgment, published by J. F. Shaw. The very points on which the Judgment turned, e.g. the alleged fact that the communion tables were placed lengthwise down the church at the time when the north-side rubric was devised, is quietly assumed as though it were indisputable, though it is contrary to all the contemporary evidence. Nor was the Judgment even consistent with itself. For example, mixing water with wine during the service was disallowed because the rubric directing this to be done had been struck out in 1552, and had never been restored. Yet the “Agnus” which was not merely struck out, but was, at the last revision, again deliberately rejected by Convocation when its restoration was proposed, was held to be perfectly legal! But perhaps the chief objection to this extra ordinary farrago of sham “learning” is, that if papal decrees, pre-Reformation precedents, and foreign bishops may be adduced as evidence of the existing “law” of the Reformed Church of England, there can be no limit to the application of this Romanising process until the Established Church has been screwed up by clerical judges to the Italian standard. The Judgment of the Privy Council on appeal is hardly worth referring to. Little or no trouble had been taken to assign any reasons for accepting the conclusions of the Court below. The reasoned judgments previously laid down by judges like Lords Kingdown, Cairns, and Selborne were set aside whenever necessary, and without any attempt at confutation; nor was the smallest particle of evidence adduced to supply the lack of relevant vouchers in the Archbishop’s Judgment. The Lord Chancellor seemed determined at any cost to avoid a collision with the priest-party, and willing to accept any way of escape which the Primate’s ingenuity had suggested, as a pretext for avoiding the duty of enforcing the law as laid down by a long succession of the foremost judges in the land. [J. T. Tomlinson.]

Ornaments and Ornament Rubric

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ORNAMENTS and ORNAMENTS RUBRIC. This word does not mean in ecclesiastical law what it means when used in its popular sense, viz., an embellishment or adornment. It is a collective term for all the articles used in, and ancillary to, the performance of the prescribed Church service. Thus, vestments, books, cloths, chalices, patens, communion tables, and a number of other things are “ornaments,” of which none may, in fact, be decorative. The question, What are ornaments in the Church of England? has been the subject matter of a large number of decisions. Great interest has been taken in these decisions because one party wished to use ornaments which symbolise that the minister is a sacrificing priest, and the other party objected to articles tending to teach a doctrine especially repudiated at the Reformation. A great deal of the litigation has been caused by the wording of the rubric known as the “Ornaments Rubric,” and the fact that the printers who print the Prayer Book do not print with it the two Acts of Uniformity (that of 1 Eliz. c. 2, and that of 13 & 14 Charles II.c. 4) which enforce the use of the Prayer Book. When these Acts are read together with the rubric, they explain its meaning. The rubric is as follows:

“And here is to be noted, that such Ornaments of the Church, and of the Ministers thereof at all times of their ministration, shall be retained, and be in use, as were in this Church of England by the authority of Parliament, in the second year of the Reign of King Edward the Sixth.”

As the Act of Uniformity of Elizabeth, which ought to have been printed as the first item of the Prayer Book, is frequently not so printed, it has led to the belief that the above rubric laid down the rule to be observed, and that the only question was, what was the proper construction of it? The Privy Council have, however, held that the law as to what are legal ornaments is not contained in it at all; but that it is no more than “a memorandum or note of reference to the law” as to ornaments which is contained in the Act of Uniformity (1 Eliz. c. 2), printed in all the legal copies of the Book of Common Prayer (see Ridsdale v. Clifton, L.R. 2 P.C. 276, at p. 324).

To understand how this result was arrived at, it will be necessary to state the history of the Ornaments Rubric as it has been found by the Privy Council. The principle on which certain ornaments have been held to be legal and others illegal, will then be clear. The several kinds of ornaments may be dealt with in the following order: (1) Ornaments of the Church. Decorations are not ornaments as they are not things which are in use, or subsidiary to the service of the Church, but are things which are merely embellishments or architectural adornments. They are dealt with in this article partly because the law of ornaments is easier to understand if things which might be taken for such are discussed together. (2) Ornaments of the Minister. In what follows, the reader will bear in mind that what is attempted in this article is a resume of the law as to “ornaments” as laid down in the cases decided up to the present. The correctness of such decisions depends, first, on the historical accuracy and completeness with which the facts between Queen Elizabeth’s and Charles II.’s reigns have been brought before the Courts and found by them; secondly, on the correctness of the reasoning from such facts. Lord Cairns, in delivering the Judgment of the Privy Council in Ridsdale v. Clifton (L.R. 2 P.D. 276, at p. 307), pointed out that ritual suits were penal in form, and that a tribunal ought to be slow to exclude any fresh light which might be brought to bear on the subject; but said the Privy Council were “fully sensible of the importance of establishing and maintaining, as far as possible, a clear and unvarying interpretation of rules, the stringency and effect of which ought to be easily ascertained and understood by every clerk before his admission into Holy Orders.” The judgments, in their reasonings therefore, attempt to give such rules and principles; and their decisions and rulings must bind any conscientious and loyal member of the Church of England as by law established, until a case is brought where the parties succeed in inducing that Court to say that, owing to new light, it alters the rules as laid down previously. A lawyer can only express his opinion on the value of the reasoning on the facts as found by the tribunal. A historian may attack the correctness of the finding on which the reasoning is based, but it would be rash for either to predict to what extent a judgment would be upset and new rules laid down.

The first English Prayer Book was issued in 1549 by Edward VI., by authority of Parliament in the second year of his reign, and is known as Edward VI.’s First Prayer Book. That Prayer Book contained at the end of it “certain notes.” The directions contained in these general notes as to ornaments of the minister were as follows:--

“In the saying or singing of Matins and Evensong, Baptizing and Burying, the Minister, in parish churches and chapels annexed to the same, shall use a surplice. And in all cathedral churches and colleges, the Archdeacons, Deans, Provosts, Masters, Prebendaries, and Fellows, being Graduates, may use in the Quire, beside their surplices, such hoods as pertaineth to their several degrees which they have taken in any University within this realm. But in all other places, every Minister shall be at liberty to use any surplice or no. It is also seemly that Graduates when they do preach, should use such hood, as pertaineth to their several Degrees.

“And whensoever the Bishop shall celebrate the Holy Communion in the church, or execute any other public Ministration, he shall have upon him, besides his Rochette, a Surplice or Albe, and a Cope or Vestment, and also his Pastoral Staff in his hand, or else borne or holden by his chaplain.”

A rubric (in the same Prayer Book) at the beginning of the communion service, contained the following direction:

“Upon the day, and at the time appointed for the ministration of the Holy Communion, the Priest that shall execute the holy ministry shall put upon him the vesture appointed for that ministration, that is to say: a white albe plain, with a vestment or cope. And where there be many Priests or Deacons, then so many shall be ready to help the Priest in the ministration, as shall be requisite. And shall have upon them likewise the vestures appointed for their ministry, that is to say, albes with tunicles.”

The same book, in the first rubric at the end of the communion service, directs the English Litany to be said on Wednesdays and Fridays, and directs the priest on these days (after the Litany is ended) “to put upon him a plain albe or surplice, with a cope,” and to read that part of the communion service until after the offertory (although there is no one to communicate with him), and then to add one or two of the collects in the communion service, and to let the people depart with the usual blessing.

In 1552, by an Act of Uniformity 5 & 6 Edward VI. c. 1., Edward VI. introduced his Second Prayer Book into the Church of England. This Prayer Book does not contain the “certain notes” given above, nor the above rubrics as to albes, tunicles, and copes in the communion service the one in the communion service, the other at the end of the Prayer Book but has instead the following rubric before the Order for Morning Prayer:--

“And here is to be noted that the minister at the time of the Communion, and at all other times in his ministration, shall use neither alb, vestment, nor cope; but being Archbishop or Bishop, he shall have and wear a rochet, and being a Priest or Deacon, he shall have and wear a surplice only.”

When Queen Elizabeth ascended the throne, and the Reformation, which had been put back in Queen Mary’s reign, was continued, she reintroduced, by the Act 1 Eliz. c. 2, the Second Prayer Book of Edward VI., with certain trifling alterations which had nothing to do with the question of ornaments. Though the Act did not mention the last-mentioned rubric, forbidding alb, vestment, and cope at all, as one of the alterations, nor suspend it directly, section 25 seems to have been a temporary suspension of it. Section 25 reads as follows:

“Provided always, and be it enacted, that such ornaments of the Church and of the ministers thereof, shall be retained and be in use, as was in this Church of England by authority of Parliament in the second year of the reign of Edward VI., until other order shall be therein taken by authority of the Queen’s Majesty; with the advice of her Commissioners appointed and authorised under the Great Seal of England for causes ecclesiastical, or of the Metropolitan of this realm.”

The second year of Edward VI. is the year when his First Prayer Book was enacted by authority of Parliament. The 25th section has been held by the Privy Council to mean, not that the ornaments lawful at the time of the introduction of the Prayer Book were to be the standard, but the ornaments “prescribed by” the First Prayer Book. That section was clearly intended to have only temporary effect, since it speaks of the ornaments being “retained and being in use until other order.” The effect of this section was that while the Act made the Second Prayer Book of Edward VI. compulsory, the ornaments prescribed by the First Prayer Book were to be “retained and be in use until other order should be taken,” but it did not provide for or authorise the leaving out of the Prayer Book the rubric forbidding their use.

When the Prayer Book was published, the Act of 1 Eliz. c. 2, was printed in full in front of it. The authorities who issued the book, when they published it took upon themselves, without any legal authority, but not (as the Privy Council have held) intending it by way of enactment or order, but only by way of a memorandum or reference to the statute (printed along with the book), to substitute an admonitory note or rubric for the statutory rubric of Edward VI.'s Second Prayer Book. The new note was as follows:--

“And here is to be noted that the minister at the time of the Communion, and at all other times in his ministration, shall use such ornaments in the Church as were in use by authority of Parliament in the second year of the reign of King Edward the VI., according to the Act of Parliament set in the beginning of this Book.”

This note was misleading, as it did not refer to the fact that the Act only directed that such ornaments should be “retained and be in use until other order;” but at the same time the note, on the face of it, showed that it professed to have no intrinsic authority, for it referred to the Act of Parliament “set in the beginning” of the book. And this is the view the Privy Council took.

In 1566 “other order was taken” by the Advertisements of that year. See ADVERTISEMENTS. These Advertisements contain the following directions as to ornaments:

“Item. In the ministration of the Holy Communion in cathedral and collegiate churches, the principal minister shall use a cope, with Gospeller and Epistoler agreeably, and at all other prayers to be said at that Communion table to use no copes, but surplices.

“Item. That the Dean and Prebendaries wear a surplice with a silk hood in the Quire, and when they preach ... to wear their hood.

“Item. That every minister saying any public prayers, or ministering the sacraments (plural), or other rites of the Church, shall wear a comely surplice with sleeves, to be provided at the charges of the parish, and that the parish provide a decent table standing on a frame for the Communion table.

“Item. They shall decently cover with carpet, silk, or other decent covering, and with a fair linnen cloth (at the time of the ministration) the Communion table, and to set the Ten Commandments upon the east wall over the said table.

“Item. That the font be not removed, nor that the curate do baptize in Parish Churches in any Basons, nor in any other form than is already prescribed. . . .”

These directions having been made under the authority derived from the 25th section of Elizabeth’s Act of Uniformity, have statutory authority (Ridsdale v. Clifton, L.R. 2 P.D. 276, at p. 321). They have been copied almost verbatim into the 24th, 25th, 81st, and 82nd Canons, the first quoted of which refers to them expressly. In spite of this, those who wished to use the cope, alb, &c., argued that no “other order” had ever been taken, and that consequently such vestments were the only legal ones at the time of communion. The fact that from 1566 to 1840, over two hundred years, the vestments in question had never been used in parish churches and the cope only at exceptional seasons (see COPE) in cathedrals up to the time of the Commonwealth, and not revived after the Restoration, but universally discarded, weighing for nothing with them when seeking to interpret the rubric.

The Privy Council therefore held that the 25th section of 1 Eliz. c. 2 must now be read as if these directions of the advertisements were part and parcel thereof (see Ridsdale v. Clifton, at p. 321). The section so altered then reads as follows:

“Provided always that such ornaments of the Church and of the ministers thereof, shall be retained and be in use, as were in this Church of England by authority of Parliament in the second year of King Edward VI., except that the surplice shall be used by the ministers of the Church at all times of their public ministrations, and the alb, vestment, or tunicle shall not be used, nor shall a cope be used except at the administration of the Holy Communion in cathedral and collegiate churches.”

In spite of the “other order” having been taken the rubric continued to be printed in the same form and with the same wording as it had before Queen Elizabeth’s Advertisements altered the law, until the time of the Restoration and the last Act of Uniformity. A correction not having been made either per incuriam, or because the law was well known, Queen Elizabeth s Advertisements were universally obeyed, in that no attempt was made by any one to use the alb or vestment at all, and the cope was worn only in cathedrals and collegiate churches.

When at the Restoration, in Charles II.’s reign, the Prayer Book came up again for revision, the Puritans objected to the rubric which had been inserted without authority in Queen Elizabeth’s book as above mentioned, because it “seemeth to bring back the cope, alb, & c., and other vestments forbidden by the Common Prayer Book 5 & 6 Edward VI.” The bishops at the Savoy Conference stated that they intended to leave the law as to vestures unchanged. The rubric, however, was altered by making it more closely conform to the wording of the 25th section of the statute of Elizabeth, by altering the words “The minister at the time of the Communion, and at all other times in his ministration,” to “such ornaments of the Church, and of the ministers thereof, at all times of their ministration, shall be retained and be in use.” All these new words being extracted from the Act of Elizabeth except the words “at all times of their ministration;” they also omitted the words at the end of the old rubric—“according to the Act of Parliament set in the beginning of this Book.”

The Prayer Book with the rubric in this altered form was passed by both Houses of Convocation, and received legislative sanction both from the Houses of Convocation and by Parliament by the Act of 13 & 14 Charles II. c. 4., with the statute of Elizabeth inserted into it and put No. 1 in the list of contents. Elizabeth’s statute is in the unique position of having been passed in both places. That statute, in order that there should be no uncertainty as to it, “annexed” the original MS., containing the alterations, to the Act itself as a schedule, and ordered carefully compared copies to be made, and when properly verified to be sealed with the Great Seal of England. Each cathedral, and certain other places, were ordered to provide them selves with one of these “sealed copies.” The sealed books contain both Acts of Uniformity—that of 1 Elizabeth c. 2, and 13 & 14 Charles II. c. 4. The Act of Elizabeth was not repealed by the Act of Charles II. in 1662. Charles II.’s Act of Uniformity specially refers to the Elizabethan Act in the preamble as an Act which was in force, and which Parliament intended to enforce and strengthen by passing the then Act of Uniformity. Section 24 of Charles II.’s Act provides as follows:

“And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that the several good laws and statutes of this realm which have been formerly made, and are now in force, for the uniformity of Prayer and administration of the Sacraments within this realm of England and places aforesaid, shall stand in full force and strength to all intents and purposes whatsoever, for the establishing and confirming of the said book.”

It was for the first time in 1662 by virtue of the Uniformity Act (but only in an altered form), that the “rubric” of 1559 as to ornaments which was put in without authority by those who published the Prayer Book obtained legislative sanction. When it was argued before the Privy Council that the present rubric repealed the Act of Elizabeth and the advertisements and canons, they held that was not so; first, because the Act of Elizabeth was specially confirmed by the Act of Uniformity of 1662. Next, because the universal practice, from the time of the passing of the Act until the beginning of the modern Oxford Movement, showed that no one considered that the rubric altered the universally enforced rule from 1566 to 1662 (leaving out the time of the Rebellion) of abolishing the alb and other vestments in parish churches. The Privy Council held therefore that the present rubric, if it was not in conformity with the statute of Elizabeth as amended by the “other order” contained in the advertisements of 1566, was not otherwise than what it had been before, a memorandum of reference to that law (Ridsdale v. Clifton, 2 P.D. at p. 324). Elizabeth’s Act of Uniformity was specially subscribed and adopted by Convocation. The Elizabethan Act was also incorporated into the Prayer Book, and made part of its contents No. 1.

The result of this history and the law laid down by the Privy Council at the same time is that the only ornaments that are lawful are: (1) Those prescribed by the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. as altered by the Advertisements; (2) any prescribed by the present Prayer Book; and (3) such ornaments as are consistent with, and subsidiary to, the prescribed service, as pews, hassocks, church bells. The test of legality is not what ornaments were used in the second year of Edward VI.’s reign, nor what ornaments the Canons or Royal Injunctions prior to 1549 directed to be used, but what ornaments were retained and in use by authority of Parliament dating from the second year of Edward VI., and not abolished entirely, or else changed as to the time and place of their lawful use by the Advertisements of Elizabeth of 1566. Besides these negative enactments, there is the statute of 3 & 4 Edward VI. c. 10, which was revived in 1603, 1 Jac. I. c. 25, sec. 25, and which is still a binding statute. This requires that all antiphons, missals, grailes, processionals, manuals, legends, pies, portuasses, primers in Latin or English, couchers, journals, ordinals, be abolished and forbidden to be used. It required all images of stone, timber, alabaster, or earth, graven, carved, or painted, to be defaced and destroyed in churches, except images on tombstones of persons not reputed to be saints. So that from 1603 these ornaments used up to the time of the introduction of the First Prayer Book are expressly forbidden

The Ornaments of the Church.—We will now see what ornaments of the Church are mentioned in the Prayer Book of 1549, the first one of Edward VI. They are: An English Bible, the new Prayer Book, a poor men’s box, a paten, bell, chalice, a corporas, an altar, pulpit, font. There are some others implied in it by ceremonies which have been abolished, such as a vessel for anointing oil, but it cannot be fairly contended that the “ornament” remains after its use has been abolished.

Altar altered to Communion Table.—The First Prayer Book of Edward VI. speaks in the rubrics in the communion service, and in the service itself, four times of a “Table,” four times of “the Altar,” and once of “God’s Board.” The Second Prayer Book of Edward VI., re-introduced by Elizabeth, speaks throughout in the rubrics of the communion service, and in the service itself, of a “table,” and of “God’s Board” (in the present book altered to “table”), and of the communion itself as “a supper,” “a feast,” or “a banquet.” The Injunctions of 1559, which were issued by Queen Elizabeth contemporaneously with the publishing of the Prayer Book, contain an article headed “For Tables in the Churches.” This article contains the following direction:--

“And that the Holy Table in every church be decently made, and set in the place where the altar stood.” The Advertisements, following up the Injunctions of 1559, directed the parish to “provide a decent table standing on a frame for the Communion Table,” and then had the following direction: “Item. They shall decently cover with carpet, silk, or other decent covering, and with a fair linen cloth, at the time of ministration, the Communion Table.” The Rubric orders that “The Table at the Communion time having a fair white linen cloth upon it, shall stand in the body of the church, or in the chancel), where Morning and Evening Prayer are appointed to be said.” The 82nd Canon is so worded as to carry out the provisions of the rubric and the Advertisements, for it says: “Whereas we have no doubt but that in all churches within the realm of England convenient and decent tables are provided and placed for the celebration of the Holy Communion, we appoint that the same tables shall from time to time be kept and repaired in sufficient and seemly manner, and covered in time of divine service with a carpet of silk or other decent stuff thought fit by the Ordinary of the place, if any question be made of it, and with a fair linen cloth at the time of the ministration, as becometh that table, and so stand, saving when the said Holy Communion is to be administered, at which time the same shall be placed in so good sort within the church or chancel as thereby the minister may be more conveniently heard of the communicants in his prayer and ministration, and the communicants also more conveniently and in more number may communicate with the said minister.”

The result of these directions has been held to be that stone altars are illegal in the Church of England, and that wooden movable tables are the proper ornament (Faulkner v. Litchfield, 1 Robertson Eccl. Report, 184 ; Westerton v. Liddell, Moore, Sp. Report, p. 185). In Westerton v. Liddell it was also held that as there was no direction as to the colour of the “carpet,” any colour might be used. This did not apply to the fair white linen cloth. As to that, it was held it must not have an embroidered or lace border. Prima facie two communion tables are not lawful in one church, but if part of a church is separated from the rest, and is used when there are small attendances, it has been allowed (re Holy Trinity, Stroud Green, 12 P.D. 199).

Bells.—A bell is mentioned in the last paragraph of the Preface concerning the service of the Church (and in the Commination Service in the First and Second Prayer Books, but not in that finally adopted), and in Canons 15, 17, 80, and 111.

Bible.—Ordered by the Prayer Book and by the 80th Canon, and described as “the Bible of the largest volume.”

Flagon, chalice, or cup.—Ordered by the rubric in the communion service. By the 20th Canon the wine is required “to be brought to the communion table in a clean and sweet standing pot or stoup (= flagon) of pewter, if not of purer metal.”

Stone Font.—The rubric in the baptismal services mentions a font, but does not otherwise describe it. Elizabeth’s Advertisements have the following provision as to it. “That the font be not removed, nor that the curate do baptize in parish churches in any basons.” The 81st Canon is as follows: “According to a former constitution (viz., the Canon of 1571 [Card. Synod, I. 123]), too much neglected in many places, we appoint that there shall be a font of stone in every church and chapel where baptism is to be ministered, the same to be set in the ancient usual place, in which only font the minister shall baptize publicly.”

Reading-desk.—“A convenient seat to be made for the minister to read service in,” Canon 82, and also referred to in the rubric in the commination service as the “reading pew.”

Pulpit.—Referred to in the rubric at the head of the commination service, and ordered by the 83rd Canon: “The Churchwardens or Questmen, at the common charge of the parishioners in every church, shall provide a comely and decent pulpit to be set in a convenient place within the same, by the discretion of the Ordinary of the place, if any question do arise, and to be there seemly kept for the preaching of God’s Word.”

Ten Commandments.—Queen Elizabeth’s advertisements provide that the Ten Commandments shall be placed at the east end over the communion table, for, after speaking of the communion table, they say: “And to set the Ten Commandments upon the east wall over the said table.” The 82nd Canon provides as follows as to the Ten Commandments: “That the Ten Commandments be set up in the east end of every church and chapel where the people may best see and read the same.” It omits the provision of the advertisements which directs their being placed “over the said table.” The Canon continues: “And other chosen sentences written upon the walls of the said churches and chapels in places convenient.”

Alms Bason.—Directed by the rubric in the communion service to be a “decent bason.” In the First and Second Prayer Books a poor man’s box is mentioned. The Prayer Book of 1662 omits all reference to it, but it is mentioned in the 84th Canon under the name of Alms-chest.

Register of Christenings, Weddings and Burials.—Ordered by Canon 70 to be of parchment, to be kept in one sure coffer with three locks and keys, one to remain with the minister, and the other two with the churchwardens severally. This book shall not be taken out except in presence of the minister and churchwardens. The register must now, by 19 & 20 Vict. c. 119, be kept in an iron chest. It should be noted that the Registration Acts to some extent supersede this Canon.

Table of Degrees of Affinity within which marriages are not lawful.—Ordered by Canon 99 “to be in every church publicly set up.”

Homilies, Book of.—Ordered by the 80th Canon.

The above is a list of all the ornaments directed by law to be used. Mr. Justice Phillimore, in the 2nd edition of the late Sir Robert Phillimore’s Ecclesiastical Law, has a long list of others, and as an authority for their use he gives Lindwood. Lindwood was Bishop of St. David’s in pre-Reformation times, namely in Henry VI.’s reign, and a canon lawyer. He wrote a book discussing how far the English provincial constitutions were valid, testing their validity by examining whether they agreed with, or contravened, the Roman Canon Law. It is needless to say that this writer is not recognised by the English Courts as an authority as to what ornaments are lawful since the Reformation. (The only ornaments that have been held lawful are things consistent with the rubric, and subsidiary to the prescribed service). In discussing how far ornaments are legal the Courts have taken notice of former rubrics on the subject, and where a former rubric prescribed the use of a certain ornament, and that ornament has been omitted from the later one, they have held such ornament illegal. Most of the decisions deal with vestments, but this principle of construction has been applied to ambiguous rubrics (see, for example of an instance, the way in which the words “it shall suffice” were construed in Hebbert v. Purchas, 3 P.O. 605, in discussing whether wafers are legal. See also Martin v. Mackonochie, L.R. 2 P.C. 365, at p. 390). The Privy Council in Westerton v. Liddell (Moore’s Sp. Report, at p. 187), after saying they “entirely agree with the opinions expressed by the learned judges in these cases (i.e. Westerton v. Liddell and Beal v. Liddell) and in Faulkner v. Litchfield (1 Rob. Ecc. Rep. 184), that in the performance of the services, rites, and ceremonies ordered by the Prayer Book, the directions contained in it must be strictly observed, that no omission and no addition can be permitted,” said that they were not prepared to hold that the use of all articles not expressly mentioned in the rubric, although quite consistent with, and even subsidiary to, the service, is forbidden. They pointed out that organs, pews, cushions, pulpit-cloths, seats by the communion table, were permissible. On this basis they dealt with the question whether a credence table was permissible, and held it to be so. And this view the Privy Council held to be right in Martin v. Mackonochie (L.R. 2 P.C. 365, at p. 390).

Illegal Ornaments of the Church. Bearing in mind the definition of ornament “a thing used in the services and ministrations of the Church”–it will be seen that on the principles laid down in the cases cited, all ornaments not prescribed by the First Prayer Book of Edward VI., the rubrics and the canons (which are to be read together with the former), are illegal unless it can be proved that they are quite consistent with, and subsidiary to, the prescribed service. Thus, a cross used as an ornament and carried about is illegal, and, a fortiori, a crucifix (Elphinstone v. Purchas, 3 Ad. & Eccl. 67). Holy water stoups, on the same principle, were held illegal in Davey v. Hinde, 1901, p. 95, and ordered to be removed. We will now give a list of some ornaments which have been held to be illegal.

Baldacchino, or canopy over the communion table. This, at first sight, would appear not to be an ornament, as incapable of use, but it has been held that as it was used for the purpose of protecting the host when exposed for worship, and for the honour of the blessed sacrament, it was an ornament and illegal. The Prayer Book forbids the elevation or showing of the sacrament, and a baldacchino was inconsistent with the service prescribed therein.

Other illegal ornaments are:--

Confessional Boxes.—Bradford v. Fry, 1878, 4 P.D. 93; Davey v. Hinde, 1901, p. 95.

Stations of the Cross.—Ridsdale v. Clifton, 2 P.D. 316; Davey v. Hinde, 1901, p. 95.

Tabernacle.—Davey v. Hinde, 1901, p. 95; Kensit v. St. Ethelburga, 1900, p. 80.

Images representing the Virgin Mary, the Good Shepherd, the same case.

Decorations have been defined in Martin v. Mackonochie (2 P.C. 364, at p. 387) to be “things inert and unused,” and were distinguished from ornaments which have an “active use ... as part of the administration of a ceremony.” Decorations are of two kinds things, like decorative patterns, which are incapable of use. Next, things which though inert, can be used. These, as long as they are not used, are treated as decorations. There is often considerable controversy as to whether a “usable” thing is an “ornament” or a “decoration.” Thus, one picture might be an “ornament” if used for a religious purpose, or as an aid to prayer, and another, of a historical scene, would only be a “decoration.” For example a cross, the rule has been to allow them if not used, or put up in a place where they lead to misconceptions. Thus, a cross is not allowed in connection, or apparent connection, with the communion table, for it must not be given the appearance of an altar. The judgment of the Privy Council in Liddell v. Beal (Moore s Sp. Rep.), in dealing with a case where a wooden cross had been put upon a narrow ledge “raised above the rest of the table” (see p. 151), the ledge being attached to the table (p. 186), contains the following conclusions: “The distinction between an altar and a table is in itself essential, and the circumstances, therefore, which constitute the distinction, however trifling in themselves, are for that reason important.” The cross was therefore ordered to be removed from the table so that it should not look like an altar. The existence of a cross attached to the table was said to be neither consistent with the letter nor the spirit of the canons. In consequence the cross was removed to the sill of the east window, which was five feet ten inches away from the communion table. This did not satisfy some of those who objected to the cross, and they took further proceedings (Liddell v. Beal, I860, 14 Moore P.O. 1). The Privy Council then held that the cross was not “in any sense in communication or contact with the communion table,” and that the monition in that case had not been disobeyed. In Durst v. Masters (1876, 1 P.D. 373) the incumbent put a cross on a ledge a quarter of an inch above the table, and asserted that it was legal in such a position and was movable. The Privy Council however, refused to enter into any such refinements as to its being movable and a quarter of an inch away from the table, and said that to the eye of a stranger coming into the church there was no difference from what had been originally condemned in Liddell v. Westerton; and laid down the principle that no cross should be placed in such a position as to be in apparent connection with the communion table.

The Privy Council in Phillpotts v. Boyd (L.R. 6 P.C. 435) allowed a marble reredos at Exeter Cathedral, having on it a bas-relief carving which represented the Ascension, Transfiguration, and the Descent of the Holy Ghost as historical scenes. The Privy Council allowed this reredos on the ground that it could not become an object of superstitious reverence. Courts judge on the evidence presented before them as to the likelihood of any decoration or figure becoming an object of superstition. Thus, the figures in relief on the reredos at Exeter were held subsidiary to the representation of the events, and so were permitted as unlikely to lead to superstition. It is not sufficient that a figure might be, it must be likely to be, or probably would be, a cause of superstitious reverence; thus, a bas-relief of the crucifixion scene on a reredos was held not likely to be a cause of superstition in Hughes v. Edwards (1877, 2 P.D. 361), and the Bishop of London, exercising his discretion in R. v. Bishop of London (24 Q.B.D. 213), refused to sanction proceedings in the case of the reredos of St. Paul’s Cathedral, on the ground that he thought it would not be a cause of superstition.

By the words “superstitious reverence,” “adoration,” or “worship,” the Courts do not only mean to convey the limited idea of a figure or object itself worshipped like a pagan idol, but to embrace the far more extended conception of worship, adoration, or reverence paid to the Deity in presence of, or before, and through the medium of, those objects or figures, and referred to the Roman Catholic doctrine as laid down by the Council of Trent, Sess. xxv., De Invocatione veneratione et reliquiis sanctorum ct sacris imaginibus. It is this kind of worship which the XXIInd Article of Religion repudiated, and declared to be “a fond thing vainly invented.” The principle on which the Courts go is that the best forecast as to whether a thing is in danger of being an object of superstitious reverence, especially in those cases where the weaknesses and failings of mankind are concerned, is to be obtained from the experience of the past. Thus, as the worship of the crucifix on the rood screen was enjoined in the Missal according to the Sarum Use, such a crucifix was clearly liable to abuse. Lord Penzance laid down the rule in the following words in Clifton v. Ridsdale (1876, 1 P.D. 316, at p. 356), which were quoted and approved of by the Privy Council on appeal (1877, 2 P.D. 276): “When the Court is dealing with a well-known sacred object an object enjoined and put up by authority in all the churches in England before the Reformation in a particular part of the church, and for the purpose of adoration when the Court finds the same object, both in the church and out of it, is still worshipped by those who adhere to the unreformed Romish faith, and when it is told that now after a lapse of three hundred years it is suddenly proposed to set up the same object in the same part of the church as an architectural ornament only it is hard not to distrust the use to which it may be put, or escape the apprehension that what begins in decoration may end in idolatry.” If this apprehension is a just and reasonable one, then there exists that likelihood and danger of superstitious reverence which the Privy Council, in Phillpotts v. Boyd (1875, L.R. 6 P.C. 435), pronounced to be fatal to the lawfulness of all images and figures set up in a church. Sir A. Charles, the late Dean of the Arches, held in re St. Anselm, Pinner, 1901, p. 202, that the question whether a particular decoration was in danger of superstitious reverence depended on the probability considering the circumstances of the particular church, and suggested evidence being adduced as to the nature of the services in the church where it was proposed to put up on a chancel screen a crucifix with figures of the Virgin Mary and St. John on either side. When he was satisfied as to the nature of the services, he allowed those figures to be put up. It is submitted that the principle of this decision is not correct a new vicar might commence all the superstitious practices forbidden and that the principle laid down by Lord Penzance is a more satisfactory one, viz., that when the particular thing has been associated, and still is, with a practice the Church of England holds superstitious, it cannot be permitted.

Gates to chancel screens have not been approved of by the different chancellors, as appearing to make a distinction between the chancel and the rest of the church, which is not recognised by law; yet they have been allowed for protection of church property where it was customary to keep the church open all week days, and on condition that they should be kept open during the services (Rector of St. Andrew s, Romford v. All Persons having Interest, 1894, P.D. 220).

Flowers, if used only as decorations, are legal (Elphinstone v. Purchas, L.R. 3 P.O. 605). As to things forbidden because used ceremonially, see CEREMONIES.

Ornaments of the Minister.—The reader who has followed the introductory history has seen that the Privy Council have held that the lawful ornaments for a minister are those authorized by the Advertisements of Queen Elizabeth, and that these Advertisements have not been superseded by the Ornaments Rubric. The consequence is that the surplice is the only lawful ornament to be worn in parish churches while ministering, unless, perhaps, the scarf or tippet, and hood in addition.

Tippet or Scarf, and Hood.—The Advertisements direct Deans, Masters of Colleges, Archdeacons, other Dignitaries in Cathedral Churches, Doctors, Masters of Arts, Batchelors (sic) of Divinity, Medicine, and Law, having ecclesiastical living, inter alia to wear in their common apparel abroad tippets of sarcenet. The 74th Canon directs for the same persons hoods and tippets of silk or sarcenet, and square caps. All other ministers “admitted or to be admitted,” are to wear the same dress as the others, except tippets. The tippet has become part of the dress worn by ministers, though it is clear both from the Advertisements and Canon that it was an outdoor dress and originally worn by dignitaries in Colleges and Cathedrals, and Doctors and Bachelors of Theology, Law, and Medicine. It has never been the subject of any judicial decision. The scarf is to be distinguished from a stole. A stole is a narrow strip of coloured silk expanded at the ends and reaching down to the knees. A tippet, or scarf, was of folded black silk going down to the ankles.

Copes, according to the Advertisements, are to be worn in cathedrals and collegiate churches in the ministration of the Holy Communion by the principal minister with Gospeller and Epistoler agreeably. They have fallen into disuse for nearly two centuries now in cathedrals, and if an action were brought against any one for not using them, it is not improbable that the Court would hold that the contemporary, general, and continuous disuse of the same had created a legal practice authorising their disuse, and the use, instead, of a surplice with the other usual ornaments. This disuse seems to have been recognised in 1604, for the 24th Canon, instead of directing the clergy in cathedrals to wear the cope at every ministration of the Holy Communion, limits its direction to the “principal feast days,” although a few lines further down it refers to Elizabeth’s Advertisements. See COPE. The following vestments have been held to be illegal: alb, amicr, maniple, chasuble, tunicle (Hebbert v. Purchas, 7 Moore, P.C. N.S. 468, or L.R. 3 P.C. 650; Ridsdale r. Clifton, 2 P.D. 276), a biretta, if worn (Hudson v. Tooth, 2 P.D. 125 ; Enraght v. Lord Penzance, 1882, 7 App. Gas. 240). In ruling on this point (Elphinstone v. Purchas, 1870, 3 Ad. & Eccl. 94) the Court
thought it could be innocently carried in the hand.

The black gown has been held to be legal for two reasons: first, because the surplice has been only directed to be worn during the administration of the Holy Communion and the other rites (rite being “a service expressed in words,” Martin v. Mackonochie, 2 Ad. & Eccl. 116, at p. 136) of the Church, and preaching is not a rite nor ministration within the rubric; secondly, the Court held that the use of the black gown had been legal all along through three centuries, and that if it had not been so, on the principle that communis error facit legem, i.e. since there has been a continuous use of such gown for three hundred years, such use would make it legal even if it had not been so originally (Wright v. Tugwell, 1897, 1 Ch. 85).

Ornaments of a Bishop.—The bishop is ordered by the rubric in the consecration of a bishop to wear a rochet. With this they wear a chimere, which was an upper robe originally worn out of doors, and since Queen Elizabeth’s time made of black satin.

Pastoral Staff.—If we apply the method of interpreting the rubrics which has been laid down by the Courts, and which is explained on a previous page of this article, it will be clear that the pastoral staff is an illegal ornament. The First Prayer Book of Edward VI. Enjoined it in the “certain notes” at the end, where vestments are dealt with; the Second Prayer Book and the present one have omitted all reference to it. In the “certain notes” at the end of the First Prayer Book the bishop was directed to hold it in his hand, or have it borne for him by his chaplain, both at Holy Communion and when executing any other public ministration. The Ordinal of 1550, in the service of consecrating bishops, also directed both the consecrating bishops to have their pastoral staves in their hands, and, as part of the ceremony of consecrating a new bishop, in the middle of the exhortation, after he is given the Bible with the words, “Give heed unto reading,” directs the archbishop while saying the words, “Be to the flock of Christ a shepherd,” to put a pastoral staff into the new bishop’s hands. All these references to a pastoral staff have been cut out of the present Prayer Book and Ordinal. This view is borne out by Gibson, who, in his Codex published in 1761, says at p. 118, referring to the pastoral staff, episcopal ring, mitre, and gloves (all enjoined in the Roman Pontifical): “All which, and many other superstitions of like nature (as savouring more of the ceremonies of the Jewish, than of the simplicity of the Christian religion), our Reformed Church hath prudently and piously laid aside in the consecration of her archbishops and bishops, retaining only such outward tokens as are most ancient and most grave.” And it may be noted that at the first Elizabethan consecration of a bishop, viz., Archbishop Parker’s (of which he took care there should be a very exact account in his Register), no pastoral staff was given, as is expressly mentioned in the Archiepiscopal Register.

Mitre.—This also is probably illegal, since it is not part of the specified dress of a bishop in either the First or Second Prayer Book of Edward VI., or any other, and the rule laid down by the Courts is that no garments shall be worn except such as are authorised. In Read v. Bishop of Lincoln, it was held that, when a bishop ministers in any office prescribed by the Prayer Book, he is a “minister,” and bound to observe the directions given to the minister in the rubrics of such office (L.R. 14 P.D. 148). [E. Blackwood Wright.]

Stole

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STOLE. A long strip of black or coloured silk, expanded at the ends, worn by priests of the Church of Rome, the ends often being embroidered. It is worn round the neck, and hangs down on either side in front. Its original shape and use were, however, different (Rock’s Hierurgia, p. 429). The colour of the stole is by Romanists and Ritualists often changed according to the festival or fast that is being observed. The important point to be noted is that the stole is entirely distinct from the scarf worn in accordance with continuous usage and custom by the Anglican clergy, and which ought not to be termed a “stole.” The scarf was called also the “tippet.” The scarf consists of a wider strip of folded black silk, and ought to reach down nearly to the ankles. The “tippet” is permitted to be worn by the 58th Canon of 1604, and must not be confused with the hood. The tippet was the distinctive badge of Reformed ministers, opposed to the stole, although both were objected to by the Puritans. Being one of the mass vestments, the stole was discarded in 1549, and Sir R. Philimore, Dean of the Arches, pronounced it illegal on that ground (Hebbert v. Purchas). In the Roman Pontifical, in the form of degrading a priest, the stole is taken away with the words “inhabilem (te) reddimus ad omne sacerdotale officium.” Hoods and tippets are both prescribed for
graduates by Canon 74. The 4th Canon of the Church of Ireland correctly speaks of “the customary scarf of plain black” and as worn with the hood. The “stole” is generally explained in Roman Catholic manuals as representing the cord by which Christ was led along to be crucified. See Wright’s Service of the Mass in the Greek and Roman Churches, p. 43. [C. H. H. Wright]

Surplice

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SURPLICE. A white linen garment with wide sleeves used in the ministrations of the clergy of the Church of England. The black gown is the proper dress for sermon or lecture, though now generally disused. The surplice is probably the most ancient vestment of Christian ministers, although the name appears to date only from about the twelfth century. It is probably derived from the Low Latin super pelliceum, “over the pelisse”; pellicium itself being derived from the classical Latin word pellis, a skin. The surplice is now frequently worn by the men and boys in choirs. It is alluded to as worn by singers in Ridley’s Works, p. 290.

Vestments

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VESTMENTS. The ministerial dress of the clergy. At the beginning no peculiar dress was worn by the clergy of the Christian Church at the time that they officiated. But a special dress grew up spontaneously and almost necessarily. It was the practice of officials and of persons of condition in the time of the Empire to wear a more gala dress than usual at public ceremonies, and this example was followed by the Christian clergy. The special feature of the ordinarydress was the tunic; of the ceremonial dress, the toga or some other garment worn as a supervestment over the tunic. It was etiquette, for example, to wear the toga when dining with the Emperor, when it was beginning to be commonly given up. Fashions changed, but the old forms, having been once employed for religious ceremonies, continued to be retained in use for them. Thus, as time proceeded, what was in fact only an older fashion of lay dress, became peculiar to those engaged in religious rites or solemnities.

The old forms of dress were clung to with the greater determination by the clergy when the Barbarians had burst into the Empire and spread through the provinces, because they served as a claim and proof that the wearers belonged to the civilised, not to the barbarian division of the world. The old Roman secular dress continued in this way to be the distinctive apparel of the Christian clergy for some 800 years. Pope Celestine, in the fifth century, condemns “superstitious observances in dress” by priests with more than Puritanic rigour.

At the commencement of the Middle Ages, in the ninth century, a change had come over the face of the world. The clergy no longer desired to distinguish themselves by outward marks from those who had formerly been despised as barbarians, but were now rulers of the Western world and represented by a Charlemagne. consequently the old Roman dress, now slightingly called Byzantine, was no longer a subject of pride to them. At the same time a wave of asstheticism and ceremonialism, emanating from the court of Charlemagne, passed over the Church, which led it to desire something more gorgeous and more symbolical than had hitherto been in use in the ministerial dress. Unaware that the existing dress of the clergy was no more than a slight modification of the old Roman toga, the Statesmen and Churchmen of Charlemagne s court (the two names represent the same persons) looked back to the Aaronic vestments as the origin of Christian clericalrobes, and they resolved to establish a likeness between them, which they could hardly discover in the existing forms. Speaking generally, the present Roman Catholic vestments were introduced at this time. Those who seek to restore them in the English Church are often unaware that they merely date from the ninth century, the beginning of the Middle Ages, and that the surplice, which they wish to supersede, is more like the robes worn by the Apostles and the first Christians than any other vestment. This may easily be seen by looking at early representations in the Catacombs and elsewhere.

The Ritualist vestments belong to the Church of Charlemagne, not of Constantine. The first modification of the mediaeval garments in the English Church was made in 1549. The priest ministering the Holy Communion was then confined to the use of the alb, surmounted by a chasuble or cope ; the deacon or assistant priest to the alb with tunicle; the bishop to the rochet or surplice or alb with a chasuble or cope. In 1552 the alb, chasuble, and cope were forbidden, the priest and deacon being confined to the surplice and the bishop to the rochet.

Almost immediately after this rule had been issued, the mediaeval vestments were all restored on the accession of Mary. In 1559 Elizabeth, and her cautious Statesmen and Churchmen, resolved to restore the surplice, but, unwilling to shock prejudice by too violent and sudden a change, induced the Parliament to let the rule of 1549 stand for the moment, while at the same time it gave the Queen authority to “take other order” on the subject with the assent of the Metropolitan. Determined to wait till she could carry public opinion with her, the Queen allowed seven years to elapse before she exercised this right. Then she issued Archbishop Parker’s “Advertisements,” which ordered that at the Holy Communion the officiating clergy should in Cathedrals and Collegiate Churches use the cope (which had never been regarded as a “sacrificial” garment), and that at all other times and in all other Churches a surplice only should be used. That became the law of the land from 1566 onwards. In 1604 it was formally adopted as the law of the Church by the canons of that year, with the only modification that the cope was confined to the principal festivals. The Prayer Books of 1604 and 1662 retained what we know as the Ornaments rubric (which is part of a clause of an Act of Parliament) without alteration of any significance, the object of their doing so being to justify the rule introduced by the Advertisements, which were authorised to be issued by the clause of which the Ornaments rubric is a part, and to retain the practice which at the time existed, and in which it was not desired to make any change. The surplice was universally wished for, and the words at ALL times of their administration virtually abolished all distinctive dresses. We thus see that bythe law of the land since 1566, and by the law of the Church of England since 1604, the surplice, with the academical hood, has been the appointed dress of the clergy in all their ministrations, except in the celebration of Holy Communion in Cathedral and Collegiate Churches, when the cope (never having been made, like the chasuble, a symbol of superstitious belief) was ordered. This law of the Church and State was never broken, so far as the surplice is concerned, till the year 1860, when the Rev. T. Chamberlain introduced the alb and the chasuble into St. Thomas Church, Oxford. Since that time the law has more and more frequently been broken, often from a misunderstanding of the Ornaments rubric, so called. On the subject of vestments in general, see Marriott’s Vestiarium Christianum, and on the force of the Ornaments rubric, see Lord Selborne’s Memorials, pt. ii. vol. i. p. 377. For a different view of the “other order” see Tomlinson on the Ornaments rubric. [Frederick Meyrick]

Making Sense of Our Anglican Heritage: The Laudians

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By Robin G. Jordan

The three chief historic Church of England formularies are the Articles of Religion of 1571 from the reign of Elizabeth I and The Book of Common Prayer of 1662 and The Form and Manner of Making, Ordaining, and Consecrating of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons of 1661 from the reign of Charles II. The first is a product of the Elizabethan Settlement; the second and third are products of the Restoration Settlement. They form together the classical Anglican standard of doctrine and faith.

When I consider the implications of these facts, it is evident to me that we cannot completely exclude the High Churchmanship of the Laudians from historic Anglicanism. We cannot make the Laudians into the Papists into which their Puritan detractors sought to make them, and then dismiss them altogether. The Laudians were certainly given to ritualism and they revived a number of customs and practices that the English Reformers had suppressed. However, they had no sympathy for the Church of Rome or for papacy and the papal system.

The Laudians thought that the customs and practices that they were reviving were those of the Primitive Church. They concluded from the writings of the early Church Fathers that these customs and practices were ancient and allowable. Where the Laudians may be faulted is that their fascination with antiquity resulted in an uncritical approach to the Patristic writers. They were not as cautious as the Edwardian and Elizabethan Reformers in their reading of the Patristic authors.

The Laudians in part represent a reaction to the growing radicalism of the Puritan movement in the Church of England. The Puritan movement would in turn grow more radical in reaction to the High Churchmanship of the Laudians. The Puritans associated the Laudians’ High Churchmanship with Papistry even though the Laudians were not themselves Papists or Papistical.

The Laudians would create a serious obstacle to the aspirations of the Puritans who wanted to establish a presbyterian form of church discipline and governance, modeled upon that of the Church of Geneva. They wanted to further revise The Book of Common Prayer or do away with the Prayer Book altogether.

Some would write off the Laudians and claim the Puritans as the true sons of the Church of England; others would write off the Puritans and claim the Laudians as the English Church’s true sons. However, both schools of thought have a place in historic Anglicanism. It must also be noted that, while certain writers treat the reign of Charles the First as if it was divided into these two camps, their views are an oversimplification of that period in English Church history. There were all kinds of Puritans during that period and we cannot and should not lump them altogether. The same thing can be said in regards to the Laudians. Puritan and Laudian provide convenient labels but we should resist the temptation to pigeonhole every seventeenth century churchman in Charles I’s reign into one of these categories.

It is tempting to attribute Puritanism to the influence of the Church of Geneva or Laudianism to the influence of the Church of Rome and to present one or the other as foreign and un-English. Both Puritanism and Laudianism, however, are very English and cannot be dismissed as an alien intrusion into the English Church.

It is also tempting to attribute Puritanism and Laudianism to a division that existed in the Church of England from the earliest days of the Reformation. This too would be an inaccurate representation of developments in the English Church in the sixteenth and seventeenth century. The divisions that we see in the reign of Elizabeth I and James I are between two wings of the reforming party. One wing was for the most part satisfied with the reforms that would be achieved. The other wing wanted to further reform the English Church. Here again we should take care not to draw a too sharper dichotomy between the two groups. There were blurring and overlapping of boundaries between these groups.

During the reign of Elizabeth I we also have a queen who wished to prevent religious strife, establish political stability, and secure her throne. While Elizabeth at times catered in her Council and in Parliament to those who wished to further reform the English Church, she also opposed them through her bishops. She saw in them a potential threat to her throne. She did not forget John Knox’s The Monstrous Regime of Women and John Calvin’s endorsement of Knox’s views. We have in addition a Recusant population that decided that its best chances of survival lay in not drawing attention to itself.

The Laudians do not emerge as a definable group in the Church of England until the reign of Charles I and the subsequent translation of William Laud to the See of Canterbury. During this period they gained the patronage of the king and rose to prominence and power in the English Church.

Precursors of the Laudians are Bishops Lancelot Andrews and John Overall. They would influence the thinking of key members of the group of Caroline divines that historians have labeled the Laudians after their most prominent figure—Archbishop Laud.

It is tempting too to claim that Puritanism or Laudianism represent the true character of Anglicanism. In the latter case those advocating this position are apt to treat the Edwardian and Elizabethan Reformers and the Puritans as if they did not exist—skip over them and go to the reign of Charles I and the period of the Caroline divines. Or they may claim the existence of a High Church tradition in the Church of England from the Elizabethan Settlement on. To do so, however, they are forced to stretch or lop the facts to fit the Procrustean bed of their theory. One faction in the Oxford Tractarian movement claimed that the Church of England underwent no changes in the reign of Edward IV and would have remained High Church and Anglo-Catholic except for the outbreak of the English Civil War and the establishment of the Commonwealth. This theory did not gain the support of the other factions in that movement. It simply was untenable.

As I noted earlier, there was a blurring and overlapping of boundaries between the two wings of the reforming party in the reign of Elizabeth I. While the Vestarian controversy was one of the earliest divisions between the two groups, the group that would eventually labeled the Puritans included clergy who wore the surplice for church services and those who wore street clothes. The early Puritans pressed for further revision of the Prayer Book. The movement to dispense with a Prayer Book and to place the entire service into the hands of the minister would come later. Even in the reign of Charles I the boundary was not quite as sharp as some might like to claim. There were, for example, both episcopal Puritans and presbyterian Puritans in England. There were congregationalist Puritans in North America.

The Puritans and the Laudians receive a lot of attention in histories of the reign of Charles I, the English Civil War, the Commonwealth, the Restoration, and the reign of Charles II. One would think that everyone in this period belonged to one or the other of these camps. The group that is ignored are those folks who were satisfied with the reforms of the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I. They had no objections to the surplice, the Prayer Book, or to episcopacy. They conformed to the doctrine of the Articles and the Prayer Book. We overlook them because they were not agitating for a Genevan form of church discipline and governance like the successors of the more radical wing of the reforming party. They were not attempting to make changes in the Church of England, which were perceived as a retreat from the church reforms in implemented in the reigns of the two previous monarchs, and using heavy-handed measures to affect these changes and to suppress opposition to them.

This overlooked group is the group that stands in continuity with John Jewel, Matthew Parker, Richard Hooker, and John Whitgift. They may be described as the successors to the moderate wing of the reforming party.

The Laudians do represent a retrograde movement in the Church of England. While it is inaccurate to describe them as seeking to return the English Church to the bosom of mother Rome and to restore the authority of the Pope in England, they did try to bring back a number of usages that the Elizabethan Reformers had rejected and disowned on Scriptural grounds. They argued that these usages beautified the worship of the church and were the usages of the Church in antiquity. There was support for them in the Patristic writings. They further claimed that they were not inconsonant with Scripture. This and their theology, which with some notable exceptions was Arminian, are two of a number of things that sets them apart from the Elizabethan Reformers.

The latter, while they may have retained the surplice and the cope and used a Prayer Book, removed the images, reliquaries, and roodscreens and dismantled the stone altars that had been restored during the reign of Elizabeth’s older sister Mary. They did away with the elaborate ritual and numerous ceremonies that characterized the celebration of the Latin Mass. The only candles seen in Elizabethan churches were those lit for illumination. Stone altars were replaced with honest wooden tables, which were placed at the entrance to the chancel or in the nave. The table was set lengthwise and the minister stood at the north end or side so that the congregation could hear and see what he was saying and doing. The only decorations permitted in churches were passages of Scripture painted in a non-whimsical fashion on wooden boards. The interior walls of churches were whitewashed.

To folk accustomed to the plainness of the late sixteenth century—early seventeenth century English parish church, the chapels and churches of the Laudians were a shock—elaborately carved furnishings, gilded images of angels, colored stained-glass windows, the holy table placed against the east wall of the chancel and surrounded by railings, and candles flickering on the table. So were the clergy bowing and bending before the table, which they called an altar. While some may have been attracted to this “sensuous worship” as nineteenth century Bishop of Liverpool J. C. Ryle would have described it, others recoiled from it in horror. In their eyes it was Papistry.

It is further tempting to read back into English Church history the conflicts of the nineteenth century between the Evangelicals and the Ritualists-Romanists with the Puritans representing the Evangelicals and the Laudians the Ritualist-Romanists. While similarities may exist between the conflicts between the Evangelicals and the Ritualists-Romanists and the conflicts between the Puritans and the Laudians, significant dissimilarities also exist.

In my opinion it is best to treat each period of English Church history as distinct and unique, and to resist the temptation to place everybody and everything in neat, tidy categories. We may take of note the similarities and dissimilarities between the periods but we should be very cautious about what conclusions we draw from them.

Historic Anglicanism may be described as an amalgam of beliefs and practices from the sixteenth and seventeenth century. It is not a synthesis. It is not a via media. A hodgepodge, or hotchpotch, might accurately describe it. A hodgepodge is a dish of many ingredients. Like a West Indian pepper pot some new ingredient may be added from time to time. This description may be disconcerting to those who prefer a neat, tidy system. However, historic Anglicanism is not neat or tidy.

I am not advocating or supporting an evolutionary theory of Anglicanism in which whatever the Anglican Church believes and does in a particular historical period is Anglicanism. Even a hodgepodge has a recipe. There are regional variations. The recipe may be altered over time as new ingredients become available and old ingredients loose their popularity. However, a hodgepodge is recognizable from a Hungarian goulash or a Creole gumbo.

Historic Anglicanism bears a similarity to the English constitution. The English constitution is a puzzle to Americans who are accustomed to a written constitution. The English constitution is comprised of old customs, rights, and usages, as well as Acts of Parliament, Orders in Council, and judicial rulings. There is no single document forming the basis of the law. Instead of a lengthy general confession historic Anglicanism has a number of formularies. One of these formularies is a confession of faith—the Articles of Religion of 1571. It affirms three other confessions of faith—the Apostles, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds.

Two of the formularies are books containing forms of service—The Book of Common Prayer of 1662 and The Form and Manner of Making, Ordaining, and Consecrating of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons of 1661. These two books were compiled by the Restoration bishops most of whom were Laudians. The Church of England in placing these books among its formularies has recognized that the Laudians do have a place in historic Anglicanism.

One of the reasons that these books were placed among the Church of England formularies is that the Restoration bishops made only modest changes in the English Prayer Book and the English Ordinal. The two books are substantially the Prayer Book and the Ordinal that preceded them. The Restoration bishops exercised surprising restraint.

A number of the changes, however, are significant. For example, the Baptismal Service includes a blessing of the water in the font, which was added to the service because the ancient liturgies and the 1549 Prayer Book contain such a blessing. The 1552 Prayer Book and its 1559 and 1604 revisions omitted a blessing of the water as superfluous since God had sanctified all water for the purposes of baptism. Alterations to the Litany and the Ordinal emphasize that the office of bishop is different from that of the office of presbyter. Some would argue that these changes also stress that bishops and presbyters are not of the same order. The changes were clearly directed at the presbyterians in the Church of England.

Since the Church of England has recognized the Laudians as having a place in historic Anglicanism, what is that place? Here we find considerable difference of opinion. At one end of the spectrum we find a number of the Evangelical Episcopalians in the nineteenth century. This group takes the position that the Laudians whom they associate with the nineteenth century Ritualists-Romanists has no place in Anglicanism. The same group would form the Reformed Episcopal Church.

In reading their writings I have noticed a number of things. The nineteenth century Evangelical Episcopalians are prone to accepting the claims of the Ritualist-Romanists that they were the successors to the Laudians. Ritualist-Romanists’ interpretation of the writings of the Caroline divines exerted a strong influence upon their own interpretation of the Laudians. As I have noted elsewhere, the Ritualist-Romanists’ interpretation of the 1789 Book of Common Prayer influenced their interpretation of the American Prayer Book.

The nineteenth century Evangelical Episcopalians are apt to read into the Laudians’ writings opinions that a more careful reading of the Caroline divines does not support. Their thinking in regard to the Laudians is not only colored by their contemporaries—the Ritualist-Romanists—but also by the Caroline divines’ contemporaries and detractors—the presbyterian Puritans.

Nineteenth century Evangelicals in the Churches of England and Ireland and the Church of England in Canada, on the other hand, tend to regard the Laudians more favorably than their cousins in the Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA. This may be attributable to their better acquaintance with the works of the Caroline divines. They do not necessarily agree with the theology of the Laudians but they do not view them as the seventeenth century equivalent of the Ritualist-Romanists.

At the other end of the spectrum are the nineteenth century Ritualist-Romanists themselves. They claim that the Laudians were the forerunners of their own movement, a claim that both nineteenth century and twentieth century scholars have shown to be far from the truth. The Oxford Tractarians are notorious for their selective use of the Caroline divines’ works to support their positions on a number of key issues. When the Laudians’ writings are subject to closer examination, it is only too clear that they do not support the Oxford Tractarians’ positions.

Modern-day Anglo-Papists represent a third view of the Caroline High Churchmen. They regard them as not true “Catholics.” To the modern-day Anglo-Papists acceptance of the doctrine of Transubstantiation and the authority of the Pope are the marks of a true “Catholic”. The Laudians rejected both.

The following articles, “Laudian Theology,” and “Non-Juror Leaven in the Church of England and Oxford High Anglicanism,” are taken from An Protestant Dictionary, edited by Charles H. H. Wright and Charles Neil, and published under the auspices of the Protestant Reformation Society by Hoddard and Stoughton in 1904.

For those who may wish to read further on this subject, Frederick Meyrick’s An Appeal from the Twentieth Century to the Sixteenth and Seventeeth Century, or The Faith and Practice of the two first Centuries of the Reformed Anglican Church, is on the Internet at: http://www.archive.org/details/anappealfromthet00meyruoft

Canon Meyrick’s Old Anglicanism and Modern Ritualism is on the Internet at: http://www.archive.org/details/oldanglicanis00meyruoft

His Scriptural and Catholic truth and worship, or, The faith and worship of the primitive, the mediaeval and the reformed Anglican churches is also on the Internet at: http://www.archive.org/details/scripturalandcat00meyruoft

Laudian Theology

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LAUDIAN THEOLOGY. The theology of the historical High Church school in the Church of England.

Laud is generally regarded as the head and chief of English High Churchmen. Having been Archbishop of Canterbury, he is naturally selected from among the Caroline divines as their representative, and it was the Caroline divines of the seventeenth century who carried High Churchmanship as far as is admissible in the Church of England. The object of the present article is to show that Laudian theology, be it right or wrong, does not justify the modern Ritualist school.

The first characteristic of the Ritualist school is a depreciation of the Reformation. Laud, on the contrary, describes it as a “reformation of an old corrupted Church,” “their part remaining in corruption and our part under reformation; the same Naaman, and he a Syrian still, but leprous with them, and cleansed with us” (Epist. Dedic. to Conference with Fisher). Would a Ritualist regard the Roman Church as leprous and the Anglican Church as cleansed from leprosy by the Reformation?

Ritualists are also in the custom of condemning, or sneering at the way in which the Reformation was conducted. Neither in this are they the disciples of Laud. Laud says, “The Church of England cast off the Pope’s usurpation, and as much as in her lay, restored the king to his right. That appears by a book subscribed by the bishops in Henry VIII.’s time, and by the records in the Archbishop’s office, orderly kept, and to be seen. In the Reformation which came after, our princes had their part, and the clergy theirs, and to these two principally the power and direction for reformation belonged. That our princes had their part is manifest by their calling together of the bishops and other of the clergy to consider of that which might seem wanting of reformation. And the clergy did their part, for being thus called together by regal power, they met in the National Synod of 1562, and the Articles, there agreed on, were afterwards confirmed by Act of State and the royal assent. In this Synod the positive truths which are delivered are more than the polemics, so that a mere calumny it is, that we profess only a negative religion. True it is, and we must thank Rome for it, our Confession must needs contain some negatives, for we cannot but deny that images are to be adored, nor can we admit maimed sacraments,nor grant prayers in an unknown tongue; and in a corrupt time or place, it is as necessary for a religion to deny falsehood as to assert and vindicate truth. Indeed this latter can hardly be well and sufficiently done but by the former, an affirmative verity being ever included in the negative to a falsehood” (Conference, § 24).

Ritualists charge Reformers, whether of the sixteenth century in England or of the nineteenth century on the Continent, with schism. Laud repels the charge, and throws it back on Rome. “The cause of the schism is yours; for you thrust us from you, because we called for truth and redress of abuses. For a schism must be theirs whose the cause of it is” (Conference, § 21).

While depreciating the Reformation and its methods, and charging it with schism, Ritualists make light of the corrupt doctrines of the Church of Rome. But this is what Laud says about them: “There is peril, great peril, of damnable both schism and heresy and other sins, by living and dying in the Roman faith, tainted with so many superstitions, as at this day it is, and their tyranny to boot.” He allows “the possibility of salvation” to Romanists, not as Romanists, but as Christians, “though they hazard themselves extremely by keeping so close to that which is superstition, and in the case of images, comes too near idolatry” (ibid. § 35). “In some instances they have erred in the foundation or very near it” (ibid. § 38). “That there are errors in doctrine, and some of them such as must manifestly endanger salvation, in the Church of Rome, is evident to those that will not shut their eyes (ibid. § 24). “I pray whose device was transubstantiation, and whose, communion under one kind, and whose, deposition and unthroning, nay killing, of princes, and the like, if they were not yours? . . . Is there no superstition in adoration of images? None in invocation of saints? None in the adoration of the sacrament? Is there no error in breaking Christ’s own institution of the sacrament by giving it but in one kind? None about Purgatory? About common prayer in an unknown tongue, none? These and many more are in the Roman religion; and it is no hard work to prove every one of them to be error or superstition or both” (ibid. § 39). “A man may believe the whole and entire Catholic Faith, even as St. Athanasius requires, and yet justly refuse for dross a great part of that which is now the Roman Faith” (ibid. § 38). Laud proceeds to condemn invocation of saints, adoration of images, Purgatory and other definite Romish doctrines, and scoffs at the idea of Trent having been an Oecumenical Council.

The dogma which makes Ritualism to be what it is, is the objective presence of Christ in the elements, for from it follow the doctrines of the mass and all the practices and ceremonies appropriate to the mass. The objective presence in the elements is merely an unscientific form of transubstantiation (or possibly consubstantiation). Condemning transubstantiation and the mass, the Caroline divines condemned the objective presence in the elements, and that condemnation was firm and unhesitating. “It cannot be proved by Scripture, and taken properly, cannot stand with the grounds of the Christian religion,” says Laud of transubstantiation (Conference, § 33). “It is safest to leave the Church of Rome, in this particular, to her superstitions, that I may say no more,” he writes about the mass (ibid. § 35). Andrewes says that “Zion would shudder at, and utterly repudiate the idea of worshipping the Deity hiding there under the species and formed in a flour-mill” (Sermon before Frederick Count Palatine). Cosin says that it was to exclude this notion that “the words fiat nobis corpus et sanguis Domini were altered into what they now are” (Notes on the Prayer Book). Taylor says, “He is not there according to His human nature” (Letter). Bull declares the tenet “bids defiance to all the reason and sense of mankind” (Corruptions of the Church of Rome). Beveridge says that from the truth that worthy receivers of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper partake of the body and blood of Christ, “the devil took occasion to draw men into the opinion that the bread which is used in that sacrament is the very body that was crucified upon the cross, and the wine, after consecration, the very blood that gushed out of His pierced side” (Discourse upon the XXXIX. Articles, p. 470). The tenet was first introduced into the Church of England by Robert Isaac Wilberforce shortly before he joined the Church of Rome about fifty years ago. No previous authority can be found for it, though Dr. Pusey s teaching, a little earlier, had pointed in that direction.

In short, no justification of Ritualism, its special doctrines, practices, and ceremonies, can be derived from the old historical High Church party, represented by Laud and the divines of the seventeenth century. It is a product of the last half of the nineteenth century, an exotic without ancestry in the Church of England.

Rev. Frederick Meyrick,M. A., late Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, Oxford, Rector of Blickling, Norwich, and Non-Resident Canon of Lincoln. Author of The Doctrine of the Church of England in the Holy Communion re-stated; Scriptural and Catholic Faith and Worship; Old Anglicanism; Sunday Observance, &c.

Non-Juring Leaven in the Church of England and Oxford High Anglicanism

2011-06-04T21:02:00.001-05:00

NON-JURING LEAVEN IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND OXFORD HIGH ANGLICANISM. The relation be tween the Non-Jurors of two centuries ago and the Oxford High-Churchmanship of to-day is a subject of much interest, and also of no little importance. Modern Oxford High-Anglicans sometimes seem to imagine that they fully account for the Tractarian Movement in all its developments, and at the same time entirely justify it, by asserting its direct lineal derivation from the Non-Jurors of 1688. Finding the Popery of James II., with all that it involved, too evil and pernicious to be endured, and therefore welcoming William III. as their deliverer from intolerable tyranny and destructive error, the Non-Jurors nevertheless refused to accept William as king, or as anything more than a sort of Regent for the time being, clothed with the royal executive power and jurisdiction. They took up this attitude on the ground that having subscribed the oaths of allegiance to James, they could not, for conscience sake, violate those oaths by accepting William as their sovereign de jure. The incongruous and untenable position which Non-Jurors thus chose to occupy is luminously shown by Lord Macaulay, where, in his History of England, he has dealt with this period. But if any should seek for a more impartial judgment than that of a Scotch Whig like Macaulay, he may refer to Dean Plumptre’s sympathetic biography of that most charming and Christian of Non-Jurors,Bishop Ken, which furnishes a mild but convincing view of the irreducible difficulties and contradictions in which that excellent and gifted prelate found himself entangled by the verbal quibbles and puzzles involved in this Non-Juring attitude. From the whole history it can hardly be doubted that he would have retreated from his false position on to the ground of sane logic and of common sense, if he had not found it beyond his power to extricate himself from his antecedents. He, therefore, silently accepted the disability he had imposed upon himself and declined controversy on this subject.

For the devout High-Churchman, to whom the memory of Charles I., and the principles of hereditary loyalty and of absolute submission to the anointed sovereign as the divinely appointed head of Church and State, were scarcely less sacred than the Christian creed, to accept a Dutch Presbyterian as the head of the English Episcopal Church could not but be a very bitter hardship all the more so because of the memories of fanatical excesses and oppressions from which not a few loyal Churchmen had suffered during the Commonwealth, when Episcopacy was disallowed and a sort of latitudinarian Congregationalism, or else some form of continental Presbyterianism, was allowed precedence and privilege in the kingdom. Nevertheless, such Churchmen had found the tyranny of James II. a more intolerable yoke than even the rule of Cromwell, and the memories and records of the blind and cruel Popery of Philip and Mary had left behind for English Churchmen, a keener and stronger abhorrence ofPopery than their hatred of William s Dutch Presbyterianism. They now, moreover, saw that their only hope of deliverance form James’s tyranny and the domination of Romish cruelty and superstition, was to be found in the wise and able Prince who had married James s daughter, and who ruled over Holland. Such was the dilemma of the Non-Jurors. Their attitude of passive disloyalty may be understood, and in a sense sympathised with, but can hardly be regarded as wise, or tenable as a practical policy. Its unreasonableness savoured of superstition. The party numbered some exemplary saints and many estimable adherents, but practical wisdom can hardly be attributed to them. A fatal weakness infected the whole party, scholarly as not a few among them were, and wise within certain limits. That the Primate and six of his suffragan bishops, and no fewer than 400 of the clergy, were counted among them, are facts which show how strong was sectarian prejudice in the evil times of the Stuart dynasty. Their religious opinions may be summarily described as a combination of Laudian principles in Church and State with an intense abhorrence of Popery. They had good reason to abhor the Popery which had plotted against Queen Elizabeth, and excommunicated both the Queen and Realm of England. The Non-Jurors, moreover, besides the Laudian grounds of antipathy against Popery, had the recent experience of the Popish blindness and the contemptible character of James II. to deepen and make still more intense their Protestantism.

If we compare the religious creed and sympathies or antipathies of the Non-Jurors with those of the early Oxford Leaders of our present day Anglo-Catholicism, we may say that, in a general sense, the Tractarian Churchmen of Oxford have held opinions which seem to link Oxford intimate associates the first principles of their special High- Church inspiration, were already smitten with admiration for the Romish Church as such, and were longing for union with it. Dr. Pusey, also, long before his death, outwent the advances made by Newman and his confidential associates towards Rome while they remained within the Church of England, though he himself never left, nor meant to leave, but only to leaven the Church of England. Lord Halifax to-day is never weary of asserting, and commending to English Churchmen for acceptance, some of the characteristic principles of Popery, and of uttering aloud his longing desire for re-union with the Church of Rome.

So much as this is matter of plain history, but it is another question whether, within the precincts of the Oxford University itself, there has been preserved since the days of William III. and of his successor Queen Anne, a tradition and a line of doctrinal opinion and influence, which, though at one time it became feeble and faltering, never absolutely died out, and which has revived, so to speak, from its ashes during the last half century; and whether, accordingly, the present development of Romish ideas and Romanising activity, taken as a whole, may be said to be a natural English revival, derived from the Non-Jurors of two centuries ago.

That in the University of Oxford there has till recently, if not till now, been maintained more or less, a sympathetic veneration for the ideals of Charles I. and Archbishop Laud, is scarcely to be questioned. Oxford was the chosen seat and centre of Charles' religious and political inspiration and influence. It was absolutely identified with his cause and his principles, absolutely identified not only with Charles, but with the Church of England of that age, which claimed him as its royal head, and with its masterful and all-powerful High-Church archbishop. Oxford stood for the hereditary monarchy and the national Church with its Episcopacy. It was an Anglo-Catholic stronghold. Cambridge was never so identified with ecclesiastical ideas. Oxford, in short, stood for hereditary monarchy in the Stuart line, and for Laudian High-Churchmanship. The University was the school for inspiring and training adherents of “high” principles in Church and State; its representatives had in this sense made its memory famous and its influence commanding. Its earnest adherents among bishops and clergy were counted by hundreds; its spell touched with something like awe the great majority of English people. The result upon the country as a whole was to inspire the nation generally with a horror of Popery, and at the same time a dislike of all forms of Dissent. The combination of these two deep-seated prejudices rendered, for a century or more after the Restoration, all thoughts of a generous and enlightened parliamentary policy of religious liberty for the nation vain all proposals looking in that direction futile. Hence, the leaden materialism of the eighteenth century, during which no political measures of national enlightenment or modern largeness of thought and sympathy were possible, and the one great motive force for moral education and Christian progress was as is now generally acknowledged the Evangelical Revival with which the names of Wesley and Whitfield are associated. The old fashions and habits of religious opinion and observance remained in the soil of the national life; they were the legally recognised religious and educationalforms and forces of the country. Of these the University of Oxford was the chief source and centre. Cambridge was less famous and less influential; in particular, it was not a national school of religious conviction.

Oxford stood, as has been said, for Church and King, and in this relation had famous memories. It contributed the ground-tone for the religious convictions and activities of the nation. Canon Overton, who has probably studied more deeply and thoroughly than any one else the history of the Non-Jurors, has shown us how powerful was the influence of the Non-Juring school of religious feeling both in England, and also still more perhaps in Scotland, during the greater part of the eighteenth century; and that by certain sections of the non-Jurors a separate clerical organisation, though of necessity loose and hard to keep alive, was maintained till the later years of the century. There was even a distinct line of Non-Juring bishops preserved for many years by voluntary zeal and sectarian feeling. The influence of this old Anglo-Catholic school of religious opinion has indeed as I shall try to show, never quite died out, and did undoubtedly help to gain for the Oxford High-Anglican movement, initiated sixty years ago, a favourable entrance into the University, during that introductory period of its history, especially, when it seemed to wear the aspect, not of advance to Rome, but of return to the ideals of such good men as Bishop Ken and Mr. Nelson, the saints whose memory and life fascinated the regard of several of the early Methodists at Oxford.

The history of the Wesley family, in this aspect of the question, is interesting and instructive. Samuel Wesley of Epworth and his accomplished wife, were both descended from an unbroken succession of staunch Puritans, Puritans who held Protestant Evangelical views as to Ordination and the Sacraments, and some of whom had suffered severely from High-Church persecution. But both Samuel Wesley and his wife, in their youthful days, in disgust with the spirit of Low Dissent, renounced the views of their Nonconformist parents and conformed to the Church of England, Samuel Wesley having left a Academy to enter an Oxford College. The father, indeed, was not a Non-Juror or a Laudian High-Churchman ; but his parishioners found him to be not only an enemy of Dissent but a strict disciplinarian, and set his parsonage on fire. He was a plain and strict High-Churchman. His wife, herself an accomplished woman an admirable writer on theology holding the doctrinal views, in the main, of her noble and cultivated Nonconformist ancestors nevertheless leaned so far to the Non-Juring side as to seriously disapprove of her husband taking the oaths of allegiance to William. Their sons all went to Oxford; Samuel, the eldest son, was through life a high Tory, and not without reason was suspected of Jacobite proclivities. He was not, however, a Non-Juror, but a moderate High-Churchman. John Wesley, when he entered the University, held views similar to those of his elder brother, and was of a bright and gay temper, and not “righteous overmuch.” But he read Law s Serious Call, and became his disciple. For many years, Law, the Non-Juror, was to him as a prophet, and under his influence John Wesley, while at Oxford, became an extreme High-Churchman, holding views nearly resembling those held by Keble a century later, except that he did not believe in the “conversion of the elements in the Holy Supper,” to use his own phrase, or sympathise with any degree of Mariolatry. It was not till years afterwards that Wesley came to abandon his High-Church views, or to understand and admire the eminent goodness of not a few of the persecuted Puritan Confessors in Stuart times. Charles Wesley admired and followed in his doctrine his brother John, but, with a poet’s temperament, retained to his death his admiration for Charles I., and never, like his brother, became a broad Evangelical in his tolerance for orthodox Dissent and his sympathy with the best Puritanism of the Stuart period. When, in his History of England, John Wesley gave a discriminating estimate of Charles I., such as no Non-Juror or Jacobite could have accepted, Charles remonstrated with his brother on his too little favourable judgment of the “Martyr,” and John made answer that he could not in conscience revise his estimate of the king, or “speak less evil of him.” Notwithstanding what he afterwards spoke of as the “vehement prejudice” of his education, Wesley totally abandoned, in middle life, after reading Lord Chancellor King’s book on the Primitive Church, and Archbishop Tillotson’s writings on the same subject, all his old Oxford High-Church principles, as his whole subsequent course, his Journals, and in particular his Ordinations for America and Scotland abundantly prove. He did this, how ever, without becoming in any sense or degree a Dissenting Nonconformist.

It can be no wonder that such Churchmen as Bishop Ken and the saintly Nelson and there were not a few other eminent saints among the Non-Jurors, if not so illustrious as these left behind them among serious Oxford Churchmen a godly savour and sacred memories, the influence of which lingered in the University for many years. There are historical traces and biographical memories, as is shown in the writings of Abbey and Overton on the Church of England since the Revolution, and especially in Dr. Overton’s Non-Jurors, which prove that till within the last ten or twenty years of the eighteenth century, the savour of Non-Juring piety was still distinctly traceable in Oxford, and perhaps yet more distinctly in the Episcopal Church of Scotland, which, of course, was for many years intensely Jacobite as well as High-Church, and which had counted an illustrious saint in Archbishop Leighton.

Nor was the ancient tradition of the saintliness of Laud and the orthodoxy of such High-Anglicanism as belonged to the Stuart period of the Church s history, ever quite effaced at Oxford. As on all else that was unworldly or savoured of high religious ideals, the influence of the eighteenth century rested as a blight on Oxford High-Church devotion. For more than fifty years the line of strict High-Anglican tradition had little more place than Methodism in the University. And yet there is reason to believe that it was still traceable here and there. It was, indeed, a purely English and Protestant influence. It had no sympathy with Rome, and was not ashamed of Protestantism. It was content to be no less avowedly Protestant in its antagonism of error than High-Church in its doctrinal teaching. But while it had no leaning towards Popery, the devout High-Churchmanship of Oxford a century ago construed the Prayer Book strictly, and believed in Lenten observance, in daily services, and in weekly communion.

The question here naturally arises, whether the memory and traditions of Oxford afford reason to believe that a leaven of eighteenth century Oxford High-Churchmanship still remained at Oxford during the early years of the nineteenth century; such as, without any indulgent feeling towards Popery, or any loss of sympathy with the Protestant English Reformation, nevertheless provided a favourable soil for the Tractarian Movement in its earlier stages, before its leaders had begun to hanker consciously, though with subtle reserve, after Romish teachings and re-union with the Papacy. My own knowledge of the opinions and clerical influence of Thomas Keble of Bisley, nearly sixty years ago, joined to my study in later years of his brother John’s life in the earlier stages of his course, had led me to suspect that a hereditary High-Church indoctrination, derived from the Stuart or Non-Juring period, might perhaps have prepared John Keble to be the poet of the “Christian Year” at a period when later Tractarian developments were never thought of. What I could learn of that antique survival, Dr. Routh seemed to confirm this idea, although Dr. Routh was a friend and correspondent of a learned and godly Dissenter, Dr. Pye Smith. A letter which I have lately received from my friend Dr. Overton, more than confirms my surmises on this subject. Keble’s High-Church views, I learn from Dr. Overton, were ancestral, and can be traced back through a succession of clerical ancestors to John Keble, of Fairford, in the earlier part of the eighteenth century, who was a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, and an admirer of William Law, not indeed as a Non-Juror, but as respected his type of piety. Dr. Overton is “quite sure that the theological (not political) views of the Non-Jurors never died out of Oxford.” Dr. Van Mildert, Bishop of Durham, he says, “was absolutely at one with the theology of the Non-Jurors, as was a little later William Adamson, Fellow of Merton and Vicar of St. Peter s-in-the-East, and author of the Shadow of the Cross. Dr. Overton’s maternal grandfather, who took his degree at Oxford in 1772, held the same theological views. All these, it appears, were more or less Laudian in their theology, without the least sympathy with Rome or doubt as to the Protestantism of the Church of England.

It must not be forgotten that, however contradictory to modern evangelical ideas and phraseology the High-Church theology of the earlier Stuart period may appear to us to-day, the choice for the Oxford of the eighteenth century lay between that theology of which Andrewes and Ken perhaps afford the most favourable types, and of which the Articles of the Church of England are the statutory standard and the Calvinism of the Westminister Confession, with its doctrine of the Decrees and its high Presbyterianism. It must also be remembered that if the Anglican views as to the Priesthood and its prerogatives may seem to have been unevangelically high, and even to savour of Popery, the Presbyterian platform of pastoral prerogative was in the Stuart period hardly less extreme, when practically regarded, in its views of ministerial authority and of Church discipline, than that of the English High-Churchman of the seventeenth century. The Church which numbered among its worthies such men as Andrewes and Ken might claim a high place among the Protestant Churches of Europe, and can hardly be denied the title of an Evangelical Church.

From the whole of the evidence it seems to result that the High-Church Anglican School of Oxford was Protestant, and, in the spirit of its central teaching, Evangelical, until the direct Popish leaven was introduced by Newman and accepted by Pusey, who, before very long, under the influence of Newman, started on the road towards Rome, and who presently far outwent Newman s advance Romewards, up to the period of his passing across the barrier and seeking a place within the Roman precincts. The Stuart High-Churchmen—the Non-Jurors and their descendants—were Protestants, whereas Pusey adopted Romish doctrine and discipline in all essential particulars—its doctrine as taught by Bossuet, its penitential discipline, the Confessional as administered by priests—some, of whom might have been ordained, as it were, but the day before—and as enforced by spiritual intolerance and moral compulsion on women and children, and carried out in a monastic spirit by means of sisterhoods; all this having been brought about by a persistent subtlety combined with spiritual terrorism, under the inspiration and direction of Pusey as chief guide and master-spirit. The controversy between Dr. Hook and Dr. Pusey, as revealed not only in Dr. Stevens’ Life of Hook but in the volumes of Dr. Pusey’s biography, for which Canon Liddon was chiefly responsible, shows very clearly the wide and deep separation between the Oxford High-Anglicanism of Pusey and that of Dr. Hook, or of the Non-Jurors. As for Pusey himself, his biography proves that under the influence of something like panic, and largely through his contact with Newman, he went over from a sort of Germanised Broad Churchmanship into the Tractarian Fellowship of which he became afterwards the revered oracle. Pusey, throughout his earlier years at the University, had not been taught doctrine by any theologians under Non-Juring influences. The credit for the full Popish development of our Oxford High-Anglicanism must be divided
between Newman and Pusey as chief leaders.

Bishop Ken’s will contains what may be regarded as a strict definition of the platform of Christian faith and doctrine common to the best type of Non-Jurors, and handed down to the days of Routh and Keble. “As for my religion, I die in the Holy Catholic and Apostolic faith, professed by the whole Church before the disunion of East and West; more particularly I die in the Communion of the Church of England as it stands distinctly free from papal and Puritan innovations, and as it adheres to the doctrine of the Cross.” In this definition of Anglo-Catholic doctrine there lurks no germ of Tractarian veneration for Rome and its distinctive errors and corruptions.

Authorities.—The Nonjurors, by J. H. Overton, D.D., Canon of Lincoln. Abbey and Overton’s English Church in the Eighteenth Century. Lord Macaulay’s History of England, vol. v. Tyerman’s Oxford Methodists (Harper Bros., New York). Dean Plumptre’s Life of Bishop Ken (2 vols). The Mother of the Wesleys, by the Rev. John Kirk (Wesleyan Conference Office). Oxford High Anglicanism, by the Rev. Dr. Rigg (C. H. Kelly ; 2nd ed. enlarged, with Appendix, 1899).

Rev. J. H. Rigg, D.D., late Principal of the Wesleyan Training College, Westminster; twice President of the Wesleyan Methodist Conference. Author of Oxford High Anglicanism and its chief Leaders, 2nd edit, enlarged with Appendix; A Comparative View of Church Organisations, Primitive and Protestant, 3rd edit, enlarged; Modern Anglican Theology, 3rd edit, with Memoirs of Charles Kingsley and Personal Reminiscences; The Living Wesley, 3rd edit., & c.

The Baptismal Controversy

2011-05-09T12:45:00.001-05:00

In the nineteenth century a major controversy that divided the Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church was the baptismal controversy. This controversy centered upon the doctrine of the Baptismal Offices in the English and America Prayer Books. With the exception of the Scottish Prayer Book they were the only two Prayer Books in use at the time. (The Church of Ireland did not adopt its own Prayer Book until disestablishment in 1871.) The controversy was sparked by the adherents of Tractarianism, the Oxford High Church movement led by John Henry Newman, Edward Bouverie Pusey, and others in the Tracts for the Times 1833-1841. The Tractarians asserted that the Baptismal Offices of the two Prayer Books taught the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. In the Church of England the controversy was eventually settled at least officially by the Gorham Judgment, which ruled that baptismal regeneration was not the doctrine of the Church of England.

In the Protestant Episcopal Church the controversy would take a different turn. A number of Evangelical Episcopalians would come to the conclusion that the Tractarians were right in their interpretation of the 1789 Prayer Book. They would at first campaign for the revision of the American Prayer Book. When their calls for Prayer Book revision were snubbed by a General Convention sympathetic to Tractarian principles, they came to the conclusion that their only option was to leave the Protestant Episcopal Church, form a reformed Church, and adopt a reformed Prayer Book. In 1873 they established under the leadership of the former Assistant Bishop of Kentucky, the Right Reverend George David Cummins, the Reformed Episcopal Church. With the formation of this breakaway Church the Protestant Episcopal Church would loose the conservative nucleus of its Evangelical wing. The remaining Evangelical Episcopalians would be absorbed into the Protestant Episcopal Church’s Broad Church wing.

The following articles come from A Protestant Dictionary that was published seventy years after the first of the Tracts for the Times. In the Preface the book’s editors state that the object of A Protestant Dictionary is to provide “a handy work of reference for Protestants on the Romish controversy.” The work was produced under the auspices of the Protestant Reformation Society, and givs special attention to questions involving the Book of Common Prayer and of particular interest to Evangelical members of the Church of England. In addition to these four articles I have posted an excerpt from “The Baptismal Service” in Dyson Hague’s The Protestantism of the Prayer Book.

Baptism

2011-05-09T12:36:00.001-05:00

BAPTISM This word is Greek, and signifies prop. dipping, a ceremonial washing with water, and is the name of one of the two Sacraments ordained by Christ. It is of equal importance with the other Sacrament, for both are "generally necessary to salvation." By Baptism persons are admitted into the visible Church. Baptism of a certain kind, as well as circumcision, was practised by the Jews of our Lord’s time for the admission of proselytes to Judaism, and, it is said, of their families, into the Jewish congregation, and was used by the Baptist under divine direction "unto repentance for the remission of sins." But Christian Baptism was ordained by Christ just before His Ascension (Matt. xxviii. 19). According to His words on that occasion, the essentials of the ordinance are the application of water whether by immersion or by affusion in the name of the Trinity. This is laid down in the rubric at the end of the office for private Baptism. The sign of the Cross is therefore not essential, though it is an expressive symbol enjoined by the Church of England. Baptism is valid, even if thus administered by a lay person or a schismatic or a heretic. But the rubric in the office for private Baptism limits the performance of that rite to "the minister of the parish, or in his absence any other lawful minister." There is certainly no authority for the re-baptism of those who have been thus baptized in another Communion. When, however, after inquiry it may be doubtful whether it has been properly administered, a conditional form is supplied at the end of the office for private Baptism. But in both the Prayer Books of Edward VI. and in Elizabeth’s it was ordered that "one of those present" should baptize the child. The present rubric dates from the Hampton Court Conference. The Church of Rome (C. Trent, sess. iv. c. 11) anathematises any one affirming that Baptism administered even by a heretic, with the intention of doing what the Church does, is not true Baptism. The third article of the Creed of Pope Pius IV. also declares that Baptism, Confirmation, Orders cannot be reiterated without sacrilege. Nevertheless Roman priests re-baptize Protestants and thus incur the charge of sacrilege. It is asserted, however, that such baptism is performed only conditionally on the supposition that the persons have not been baptized. The condition is, however, in most cases not openly stated. There are other contradictions in which the Church of Rome is involved on this subject. As she asserts the absolute necessity of Baptism (C. Trent, sess. vi. c. 4), her theologians are forced to discuss such questions as whether infants can be baptized before birth through their mothers, whether abortions should be baptized, and the like.These questions are affirmatively answered by Dens and Benedict IV. But this is surely to limit the sovereignty of God by tying His grace to His own ordinances, and seems designed to increase the power of the priesthood.

As to the effects of Baptism there is a marked contrast between the doctrine of Rome and that of the Church of England. The Church of Rome teaches that "Everything which has the true and proper nature of sin is in Baptism taken away, and that not only is its condemnation remitted, but that concupiscence, called sin by St. Paul because it inclines to sin, is removed" (see C. Trent, sess. v. 5). This makes Baptism, not faith, the means of justification. "The point" (says Bishop Harold Browne on Article IX.) on "which these canons differed from the ninth Article of our Church is in the entire cancelling of original sin in Baptism. The Council of Trent determined that in Baptism the soul was restored pure into the state of innocency, though the punishments which follow sin be not removed." Our Reformers, on the contrary, maintained that the tendency to sin is a symptom of spiritual disease, and is itself sin. Article IX. declares that "the infection of nature doth remain, yea in them that are regenerated," and that "concupiscence and lust hath of itself the nature of sin." Article XV. adds that "all we the rest, although baptized and born again in Christ, yet offend in many things." All this agrees, not only with experience, but the teaching of God’s Word e.g. Romans vii.; 1 John i. 9, 10; St. James 1. 14, 15.

The language of the baptismal offices, in which the baptized, whether adult or infant, is declared regenerate, is understood by many of our best divines as that of charitable assumption, and of faith in God’s promises, nor is it any where asserted in the Prayer Book that every baptized person is changed in heart and nature. Repentance and faith, which are prayed for in the Baptismal Service for Infants, are absolutely necessary to the realisation of the full benefits of Baptism. This view is well expressed by Bishop Harold Browne (Article XXVII.). He wrote: "If a person has been baptized, but still remains with his carnal nature unrenewed, we are not to conclude that God was unfaithful though the man has been unfaithful. But we are still to look upon that person as practically unregenerated, and we ought to try to bring him to conversion of heart, to a real change of soul and spirit. We may in deed still hope that God’s Spirit promised in Baptism will be ever ready to aid him, when he does not continue obstinately to resist Him." In this he fully agrees with Article XXVII., which defines Baptism as " a sign of regeneration or new birth, whereby as by an instrument" (i.e. a legal deed of conveyance), "they that receive Baptism rightly are grafted into the Church, the promises of forgiveness of sins and of our adoption to be the sons of God by the Holy Ghost are visibly signed and sealed; faith is confirmed and grace increased by virtue of prayer unto God." On the other hand, the Council of Trent (sess. vii. ch. 8) anathematises those who deny that grace is given by the Sacraments of the new law ex opere operato. But it is evident, from such cases as those of St. John the Baptist and of the penitent thief, that it is possible to receive the Holy Spirit and the forgiveness of sins without Baptism, or previous to it; and also, from the case of Simon Magus (Acts viii. 13-23), that a person may be baptized and remain unrenewed. The new birth is spoken of sixteen times at least in the New Testament, but only once is water connected with it (John iii. 5). Once regeneration is associated with washing or the bath (1 Peter iii. 21), and there it is expressly added that it is “not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” Twice believers are said to be born of the "Word of God," or the "Word of truth" (James i. 18; 1 Peter i. 23). Augustine’s language on this point is very clear. "Outward Baptism," he says," may be administered where inward conversion of the heart is wanting, and, on the other hand, inward conversion of the heart may exist where outward Baptism has never been received " (Treatise on Adoption). Again he wrote, "the laver of regeneration is common to all who are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost; but the grace itself of which they (?) are the sacraments and by which the members of the Body of Christ are regenerated is not common to all" (On Psalm lxxvii.).

So, according to Bishop Harold Browne, Augustine taught that Baptism is not in itself conversion of heart, and of adults he says that a person may be baptized with water and not born of the Spirit. In infants he also says that the sacrament of regeneration precedes conversion of heart. As regards the Baptismal Services for infants, whilst their language is so strong and apparently absolute, it should be interpreted by that of Articles XXV. and XXVII. It clearly presupposes the existence of repentance and faith in adults, and in the case of infants relies on the virtue of the prayers of faith offered on their behalf, as answered according to St. John’s assurance (1 John v. 14, 15) and our Lord’s loving declaration that "of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." Such views were in the Gorham case pronounced by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council to be consistent with subscription to the Prayer Book, and they are in harmony with the doctrine of Holy Scripture and the Articles. See Mozley, Baptismal Regeneration; See GORHAM DECISION.

Rev. William Burnet, M.A., Ex-Scholar of Trinity College, Dublin; Vicar of Childerditch.

Baptismal Regeneration

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BAPTISMAL REGENERATION In considering this subject, we shall do well to begin by endeavouring to ascertain the true meaning of the word Regeneration, as employed in the New Testament ; and then proceed to inquire into the connection of this spiritual experience with the ordinance of Christian Baptism.

It is a singular but instructive fact that the desire on the part of some to exalt this sacrament, as the means of inducing regeneration, has led to a depreciation of this term, by a lowering of the spiritual value of its connotation. Inasmuch as facts will not allow us to affirm that the administration of the ordinance is followed, in the vast majority of cases, by any moral results that can be discerned, it has been concluded by many who belong to the High Church school that the benefits of regeneration are not to be looked for (at any rate directly) in the moral region; the grace that is bestowed is a capacity or potentiality rather than any thing that affects us consciously; it is the implanting of a germ, which may or may not develop and fructify, rather than the occurrence of a moral or spiritual revolution.

The New Testament, on the other hand, represents regeneration as the most radical and far reaching that the mind can conceive of, constituting him who is the subject of it a new creature, with whom old things are passed away, and all things have become new (2 Cor. v. 17). It is the initial step in the process of salvation by cleansing from sin, and spiritual renewal (Titus iii. 5). It produces, according to St. John, deliverance from conscious and habitual sin, and victory over the world; it is a birth by the Spirit, which constitutes him who undergoes it "spirit" (John iii. 6). It in duces a sense of freedom and spontaneity in religious life, which is in the strongest contrast to all legal bondage and restraint (ibid. v. 8). It carries with it the privilege of a new and spiritual sonship towards God, and the blessed assurance of it.

That all this represents something more than a mere "capacity" goes without saying; but the case becomes immeasurably stronger when we observe that, while regeneration and its cognate terms are but seldom employed, [1] there can be no reasonable doubt that the word indicates that one supreme and radical change which is insisted on as necessary in the New Testament Scriptures under many differing designations. This change is spoken of as Justification, Salvation, Remission of sins, Cleansing from old sins, Translation from darkness into light, Passage from death into life, Death and burial with Christ and resurrection into newness of life. It is represented as inducing consequences affecting our consciousness, condition, and experience, such as inward joy, peace, and hope, love to God and to the brethren, deliverance from sin and devotion to God, the holy intimacy of sonship and the blessedness of acceptance, all resulting in actual righteousness, and at any rate incipient holiness.

One other aspect of regeneration needs to be noticed, inasmuch as it is the most important of all, and that is its close connection with the gift of spiritual life. The natural life of the human spirit having become forfeit through sin, regeneration is effected by the imparting of a new life, which is God’s gift to man through the atoning work of Christ. It is this introduction of a new life that constitutes the recipient a new creature; for the new and divine life thus communicated carries its own proper moral characteristics along with it. Our reception of this new life is dependent upon our death to sin, in the person of Christ, and our rising up with Him into a new condition, in which we live unto God. Regeneration may therefore be defined as that supreme change which takes place when by faith we regard ourselves as dead to sin in the death of Christ, and claim with Him to be raised to a new life, "through faith in the operation of God." Where faith is thus exercised God responds to its claim, by imparting that new life which is in His Son—a life that carries with it its own moral characteristics, and renders him who receives it a new creature.

If this be regeneration, what is the nature of the relation of Baptism to it? Three distinct answers may be returned to this inquiry; and between these our decision lies. First, some hold that this change, called regeneration, is directly dependent upon Baptism, so that when Baptism takes place it also occurs. Secondly, others hold that Baptism is only a sign or symbol of this change, witnessing to the fact, that it already has occurred in the case of the true believer, and also a public confession of its occurrence. Third, it may be answered that the ordinance is designed to bear witness to the specific provision for our regeneration, made in Redemption, and to concentrate our faith upon this, as a definite issue, and, in normal cases, to be its sacramental expression. [2]

The first of these answers might seem to be justified by the fact that, in the memorable words of our Lord to Nicodemus, the birth by water and that of the Spirit seem to be spoken of as elements in the same great change; and by the further fact that the Apostles seem ever to refer to the moment of Baptism as the time when that change took place. But a small amount of reflection suffices to show that to this view there are many and insuperable objections. A large amount of confusion of thought has been caused on this subject by the habit of theorising on the subject of infant Baptism, and the benefits that are believed to flow from it, instead of basing our conclusions on that which was actually revealed with respect to the Baptism of adults. Few will have the temerity to affirm that the mere process of baptizing an adult, whatever his moral condition or attitude, will produce real spiritual regeneration. A man may submit to baptism merely because the chief of his tribe has become a nominal Christian, and he desires to keep in his favour; or he may be baptized, as multitudes of Jews recently were in Russia, merely to escape persecution. To suppose that, in response to a sacrilegious abuse of the sacrament, the Holy Ghost confers on the recipient the blessing of regeneration, and works in him, as the reward of his impiety, the greatest and most beneficent change that supernatural power can effect, is to come perilously near blaspheming the Holy Ghost. But as soon as the admission is made that the act of Baptism does not produce regeneration in such cases, logic constrains us to conclude that Baptism is not the cause of regeneration; nor is it even, if we regard God Himself as the cause, a condition upon which it is absolutely dependent. In such cases as we have suggested unquestionably the man is not regenerated; but he may become so, if he comply with certain other conditions ; that is to say, if he subsequently exhibits that frame of mind which ought to have accompanied his Baptism. His regeneration, then, will have been dependent, on man’s side, not on his Baptism, but on the sincerity of his repentance and the reality of his faith.

But if Baptism be not the cause of regeneration (on man’s side), is it one of two alternative causes? Are we, for instance, to believe that God sometimes regenerates through the act of Baptism without faith, and sometimes by faith without Baptism? To ask such a question is to answer it. God does not deal in alternative methods, saving one man through a mere mechanical act while he saves another by a moral process. On this point nothing more need be said. But are we then driven to believe that Baptism and faith are two co-ordinate causes of regeneration? For a full discussion of this important point the reader may be referred to a book which has recently appeared on the subject of this article (Canon Aitken’s Doctrine of Baptism: Nisbet). In this volume the writer points out that in both the Acts and the Epistles one and the same great change is represented as sometimes conditioned on Baptism and sometimes on faith; and argues that this could never have occurred if it were the case that two entirely distinct and co-ordinate conditions had to be fulfilled before regeneration could occur. If peace were offered to China on the two co-ordinate conditions that the Celestial authorities should pay down sixty millions and also abolish a score of their forts, what should we think of an ambassador who should at one time affirm that peace could be secured by the payment of sixty millions, without referring to the forts ; while at another time he averred that it could be obtained by the destruction of the forts, without referring to the millions?

There is only one way in which this phenomenon can be explained. The sacramental act was regarded as the appointed means of expressing the faith, which it concentrated on the specific provision of divine grace; and therefore it was the means whereby the spiritual grace of regeneration was received while it was also a pledge that assured us of its reception. To say this is not to affirm, in accordance with the second of the three views of the relation of regeneration to the sacrament stated above, that the ordinance is a mere symbol of the spiritual experience, or a public confession that it has taken place. This explanation of the case is forbidden by the fact that the spiritual benefits symbolised by the ordinance are invariably spoken of in the New Testament as being realised in and through the ordinance. The ordinance is nowhere described as a mere sign of a spiritual benefit independently realised, and Protestants do untold damage to their cause when they put themselves in the position of having to explain away numerous clear and definite expressions to this effect. The true statement of the case would seem to be, that regeneration is conditioned upon faith in Christ and His atoning work; while Baptism has been appointed to concentrate that faith upon the specific features of that atonement, and to give it definite expression when so concentrated. Thus, in strictly normal cases the moment of the believing reception of Baptism would be the moment of regeneration, but in many cases the faith may precede the ordinance, with the result that the spiritual regeneration will take place before Baptism, as in the instance of Cornelius and his friends. Where this occurs the ordinance will be the outward and formal expression of a faith already existing (Rom. iv. 11; Col. ii. 11); and on God’s side the pledge assuring us of a benefit already received. It will be to the Christian very much what his coronation was to our King. It did not make him king, yet it was the complement of his accession, and who will say that it was unnecessary to the recognition of his kingly position? Besides this, Baptism will be the sacramental admission of the recipient into the spiritual society called the Christian Church, which the kingdom of heaven upon earth identifies itself with, and by which he is assured of the enjoyment of all the rights of our heavenly citizenship.

Where, on the other hand, the ordinance is performed upon an adult without that faith being exercised which it was specially designed to evoke (excitat, Art. xxv. ), as, for instance, in the case of Simon Magus, regeneration does not occur. It is clear that Simon Magus could not have been born of God, and made a new creature in Christ Jesus, and yet have remained "in the bond of iniquity and the gall of bitterness." He could not have been received into that Church of the first-born whose names are written in heaven, and yet have been "without part or lot in the matter." In all such cases regeneration, if it occurs at all, must occur apart from the sacrament; and this in itself suffices to show that the ordinance, considered apart from the faith which it should express, does not stand to regeneration in the relation of cause to effect. Yet, even in such a case, upon the occurrence of repentance and faith, the penitent would find in the ordinance an assurance of his pardon, and a pledge of the specific divine grace to which the ordinance bears witness. See Homily of Salvation.

With regard to Inward Baptism we may point out that we have strong ground for inferring that God has a provisional economy of grace for our little ones, resulting, at any rate in certain cases, in their regeneration, and thus in their final salvation, if they die in infancy. Why then should not the Christian parent plead that this economy of grace may be extended to his child, inasmuch as it is needed, as for death so also for the perils of continued life; and why should he not prove the faith of his prayer by submitting his child to the ordinance, which is the means whereby this grace of regeneration is normally received? In such a case, whatever benefit may be granted through the ordinance by Him who sees the faith of those who bear the helpless infant and lay him at the Master’s feet, that benefit must needs be provisional in its character. The condition on which the enjoyment of the new life is dependent, i.e. faith in the Life-giver, cannot be evaded or dispensed with; and if special adaptations of divine grace to the case of helpless infancy are not met by such a repentance as forsakes sin, and such a faith as steadfastly believes the specific promise of God made in the sacrament, all such benefits must needs be forfeited.

The point of cleavage between those who hold the crude theory of Baptismal regeneration, ex opere operato, and those who maintain what is usually spoken of as the "Hypothetical Theory," lies just here. The former believe that the recital of a formula and the performance of a particular action necessarily produce the spiritual effect of regeneration; the latter hold that where believing prayer is offered for a blessing, which we have reason to believe it is God’s will to grant, that prayer will be provisionally answered. The former believe that this spiritual result is absolute, and admits of being neither reversed nor supplemented; the latter maintain that the result, whatever it is, must needs be provisional in its character, and cannot be made absolute until the condition upon which in the case of an adult it is contingent is complied with. The former maintain that the saving effect of this ordinance may be lost by wilful sin; the latter maintain that such saving effects only remain if the condition on which they are contingent is complied with, and, even where wilful sin does not occur, are forfeited by the non-fulfilment of the appointed condition. According to the former theory, no baptized member of our congregations needs to be born again, or, indeed, can be, although his life may be a discredit to our common humanity, and it would seem that the only hope for him lay in the possibility of so radical a change ; according to the other, all who have never consciously exercised faith in the special promise of God made in Baptism need to be told, "Ye must be born again." The difference between the two positions, which may seem to be slight, is really radical. The Gorham judgment given on appeal by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council affirmed that the hypothetical explanation of the formularies of the Church of England was a perfectly reasonable and legitimate one, though it did not affirm that it was the only possible interpretation. See GORHAM CASE.

Endnotes:
[1]The word translated regeneration (παλιγγενεσία – paliggenesia) only occurs twice in the New Testament: (1) in Matt. xix. 28, where by "the regeneration" is meant the new birth of the world, or its restitution to its original state of blessedness ; (2) in Titus iii. 5, where " the washing of regeneration " or " the laver of regeneration " i.e. the laver of baptism, which symbolises "regeneration" is spoken of. See note p. 141, and C. H. H. Wright, Roman Catholicism, R.T.S., p. 39.—EDD.
[2] [Note by Editors. The phrase used by John the Baptist, "He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire" (Matt. iii. 11), is
essentially the same as "born of water and of the Holy Spirit " (John iii. 5), used by our Lord, and explained by Him in the subsequent verses. The first refers to the work of the Spirit as "the Spirit of burning," predicted in Isaiah iv. 4, the second to that of the Spirit predicted in Isaiah xliv. 3, and Ezekiel xxxvi. 25-27, which a "master of Israel" ought to have understood. The first phrase might, exegetically considered, have reference to a rite or ceremony, for "baptize" is used; the second refers only to an inner birth unto righteousness, and therefore ought, we contend, to be explained by such passages as 1 John ii. 29, 1 John iii. 9. Both phrases speak of the work of the Spirit as a cleansing and purifying work, and both use language drawn from the prophets of Israel. Christ’s words are of universal reference, and ought not, we maintain, to be interpreted primarily to refer to Christian Baptism which was not ordained till Christ had risen from the dead.]

Rev. W. H. M. H. Aitken, M.A..Canon Residentiary of Norwich. Author of Mission Sermons(3 vols.); The School of Grace; The Highway of Holiness; The Doctrine of Baptism, Mechanical or Spiritual; and other works.

The Gorham Case

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GORHAM CASE, THE. According to the judgment of the Privy Council in the case of Gorham v. the Bishop of Exeter, the validity of the doctrine of the conditional (or hypothetical) regeneration of infants in baptism was declared consistent with the teaching of the Church of England. The Gorham Case proved to be one of far-reaching importance in the history of the Church of England. It was the first great decision on a doctrinal question since the Reformation, and though its effects were minimised by the leaders and sympathisers of the then incipient Tractarian Movement, the decision of the Court was nevertheless viewed by them as a serious blow to their theory of Sacramental Grace. The circumstances of the case were as follows.

The Rev. Geo. Cornelius Gorham, B.D., Fellow of Queen’s College, Cambridge, and a clergyman of over thirty years standing, incurred, when vicar of St. Just, Cornwall, the displeasure of his diocesan, Bishop Henry Phillpots of Exeter, on account of certain phrases,such as "National Establishment, "used by him in a circular relating to a new church in Pendeen, and in advertising for a curate "free from Tractarian Error." The vicar, on his part, protested against the bishop's determination to institute a particular inquiry into any curate nominated by him. This was the first indication of that friction which developed into a serious and protracted controversy. In 1847 Lord Chancellor Cottenham offered Mr. Gorham the living of Brampford Speke in the same diocese. The required signatures of three beneficed clergymen were, on his acceptance of the offer, appended to the Letters Testimonial. These, on being submitted to the bishop for his counter-signature, were endorsed to the effect that he must conscientiously withhold his signature, inasmuch as he considered that the affixing of his name would imply his personal belief that the party to whom it relates had not held, written, or taught anything contrary to the doctrine of the United Church of England and Ireland, and that his own experience attested that Mr. Gorham did hold, write, and maintain what was contrary to the discipline of the said Church. This drew forth a remonstrance from Mr. Gorham. The bishop refused to alter his determination. The Lord Chancellor, on being appealed to, ordered the Presentation to be made out, which was done on November 2nd. Mr. Gorham in due course applied to the bishop for institution. That application led to a correspondence which resulted in the signification of the bishop’s intention to test the presentee’s soundness as to doctrine by examination. This examination began on November 17, 1847, lasting six days in spite of Mr. Gorham’s protest against its continuance, "on the ground that his doctrine-had been sufficiently tested, and that the examination was becoming over-minute and inquisitorial. "Notwithstanding, for three days in the following March (1848) it was resumed, and finally terminated on the llth of that month. The examination was conducted partly by written questions and partly viva voce. When the latter method was used, the bishop’s chaplain and Mr. Gorham took down both question and answer. The whole examination was eventually published by Mr. Gorham, and acknowledged to be correct by the bishop, who subsequently incorporated the book in his Act of Petition to the Court of Arches. No less than 149 questions were put at this examination, most of which were answered by Mr. Gorham, while some were declined on the ground of irrelevancy.

To Questions V., VI., and VII., which were to the effect, "Does the Church hold, and do you hold, that every infant lawfully baptized is by God made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven that such infants are born again of water and of the Holy Ghost, and received by the laver of regeneration into the number of the children of God? " Mr. Gorham replied that these propositions being stated in the words of the Book of Common Prayer must be held to contain nothing contrary to the Word of God or to sound doctrine, "and therefore may be deemed to be fairly defensible, if it shall be allowed such just and favourable construction as in common equity ought to be allowed to all human writings, especially such as are set forth by authority." (See Preface to Book of Common Prayer.)

"Just and favourable construction" of passages like these must be sought, argued Mr. Gorham, (1) by bringing them into juxtaposition with the precise and dogmatical teaching of the Church in her explicit standard of doctrine, the XXXIX. Articles; (2) by comparing the various parts of her Formularies with each other; (3) by ascertaining the views of those by whom her services were reformed and her Articles sanctioned.

The real point involved in these questions was the efficacy of the Sacrament of Baptism, not merely in infants, but in adults, and that question could not, he argued, be fairly dissevered from the efficacy of the other Sacrament, that of the Lord s Supper. (See Article XXIX.) The Articles were cited as teaching that, in addition to right administration of both sacraments, "worthy reception" is essential to their becoming " effectual signs of grace." No distinction is made in this respect between adults and infants. "They that receive baptism rightly (recte baptismum suscipientes, i.e. not merely by lawful administration, but by worthy reception) are grafted into the Church; the promises of the forgiveness of sins and of our adoption to be the sons of God by the Holy Ghost, are visibly signed and sealed."

Such, Mr. Gorham contended, is the doctrine of the Articles on the efficacy of both Sacraments—where there is no worthy reception, there is no bestowal of grace.

The Formularies fairly construed are consistent with the Articles. In the Catechism "the inward and spiritual grace" is carefully distinguished from "the outward and visible sign" which is its token, pledge, and manifestation when rightly received. The conditions of repentance and faith " are expressly required even of infants, who must enter into these stipulations by their representatives. Faith and repentance are declared by the adult in his own person, and are stipulated by the infant through his sponsors as dispositions which exist, or shall hereafter exist, in the mind of the candidate. The whole Baptismal Service, therefore, is constructed on the assumption that these promises are sincere, and are pledged on behalf of the infant by its sponsors as conditions which should be forth coming in the mind of the candidate for baptism. In this charitable hope the Formularies of the Church affirm that the subject of baptism is "a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven" (Question V.).

Question VI. In the same strain of charitable hypothesis it is affirmed that infants" so baptized," namely, not merely according to the institution of Christ, but, with "the stipulation (the answer) of a good conscience towards God," are born again of water and of the Holy Ghost; (Question VII. ) it being impossible that such dispositions and fruits should exist, except when the Holy Ghost has imparted a new nature, which He may do before baptism, in baptism, or after baptism, "as He listeth."

The examination resulted in the refusal on the part of the bishop to institute Mr. Gorham. on the ground of the unsoundness of the doctrines enunciated by him.

In compelling the bishop by legal proceedings to grant institution, the form known as Duplex Querula was adopted, which consisted of a complaint tendered to the archbishop against his Ordinary for some alleged denial of justice. The Dean of Arches (Sir H. J. Fust) issued a monition to the bishop to institute Mr. Gorham within fifteen days, or show cause for refusing; institution to be proceeded with by default. The bishop responded by what is called an "Act on Petition," in which he included the book published by Mr. Gorham containing a detailed account of his examination. The bishop expressed himself convinced that Mr. Gorham was of unsound doctrine in respect to the efficacy of the Sacrament of Baptism, inasmuch as he held that spiritual regeneration is not given or conferred in that Holy Sacrament. This elicited a defensive rejoinder from Mr Gorham. The case came on for hearing in the Arches Court in February 1849, and judgment was given in the following August in favour of the bishop. Sir H. J. Fust concluded his judgment by stating that "the doctrine of the Church of England undoubtedly is that children baptized are regenerated at baptism, and are undoubtedly saved if they die without committing actual sin. Mr. Gorham has maintained, and does maintain, opinions opposed to that Church of which he professes himself a member and a minister."

From the decision of the Court of Arches Mr. Gorham appealed to her Majesty in Council. The case came on for hearing on Appeal, before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, December 11, 1849. The appellant’s points, as put by his Counsel, were principally these: The Articles are the Code of Doctrine in the Church of England, the Prayer Book the Code of Devotion. It is not imputed to Mr. Gorham that he holds anything inconsistent with the Articles, but that he holds doctrine inconsistent with opinions gathered by the bishop inferentially from the Services of the Church. The doctrine which Mr. Gorham is alleged to contradict may be stated as that of unconditional regeneration in baptism, which is substantially the same as that opus operatum of the Council of Trent, which Article XXV. condemns, as is shown by the version of that Article in the edition of 1552 (their Article XXVI.), where the words used were "and in such only as worthily receive the same, have they a wholesome effect, and that not on account of the work wrought, "idque non ex opera (ut quidam loquuntur) operate."The present Article XXV., though leaving out the particular words ex opere operato, as effectually condemns the idea of unconditional grace. The question is not whether the doctrine of Mr. Gorham is laid down in the Articles, but whether it is tenable consistently with them.

A true view of the baptismal services shows that they all admit of explanation on that same charitable hypothesis which is confessedly the true explanation in the service for adult baptism, and which charitable hypothesis necessarily pervades the entire Prayer Book from Morning Prayer onward to the close.

Mr. Gorham, on his part, denied the allegation of the bishop that he maintained, or had at any time maintained, unsound doctrine respecting the efficacy of the Sacrament of Baptism, or that he had held, or persisted in holding, any opinions thereon at variance with the plain teaching of the Church of England in her Articles and Liturgy.

The construction put upon Mr. Gorham’s doctrine by the Judicial Committee was as follows:--

"Baptism is a Sacrament generally necessary to salvation, but the grace of regeneration does not so necessarily accompany the act of baptism that regeneration invariably takes place in baptism; that the grace may be granted before, in, or after baptism; that baptism is an effectual sign of grace, by which God works invisibly in us, but only in such as worthily receive it in them alone it has a wholesome effect; and that without reference to the qualification of the recipient, it is not in itself an effectual sign of grace. That infants baptized, and dying before actual sin, are certainly saved; but that in no case is regeneration in baptism unconditional."

The concluding words of the judgment given in the Court of Appeal, reversing that of the Court of Arches, are as follows:--

"The judgment of their lordships is, that the doctrine held by Mr. Gorham is not contrary or repugnant to the declared doctrine of the Church of England as by law established, and that Mr. Gorham ought not, by reason of the doctrine held by him, to have been refused admission to the vicarage of Brampford Speke. We shall therefore humbly report to her Majesty that the sentence pronounced by the learned Judge of the Arches Court of Canterbury ought to be reversed, and that it ought to be declared that the respondent, the Lord Bishop of Exeter, has no shown sufficient cause why he did not institute Mr. Gorham to the said vicarage.

"We shall humbly advise her Majesty to remit the cause with that declaration to the Arches Court of Canterbury, to the end that right and justice may be done in this matte: pursuant to the said declaration " (March 8 1850).

As the result of this judgment, the Dean of Arches, acting for the archbishop, duly instituted Mr. Gorham to the living of Brampford
Speke.

Literature.--Brodrick and Fremantle’ s Judgments of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, London, 1865. Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury from the Bishop of Exeter, 91 pp., London, 1850. By the same to the Churchwardens of the Parish of Brampford Speke. A Pastoral Letter by the Bishop of Exeter to his Clergy on " The Present State of the Church," 126 pp., London, 1851. This last contains an Address of sympathy from thirty-seven ministers in Prussia. J. B. Mozley, Review of the Baptismal Controversy, new edition, 1895, and his Primitive Doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration, 1856. Among Mr. Gorham s publications relating to the case, the following maybe quoted: "Examination before Admission to a Benefice, by the Bishop of Exeter, followed by Refusal to Institute," London. This is the book mentioned as having been filed in the Register of the Court of Arches. The Rev. W. Goode issued a remarkable pamphlet by way of comment on the Bishop of Exeter’s Letter to the Primate above mentioned, 107 pp.

Rev. W. Heber Wright, M.A., of Trinity College, Dublin, Vicar of St. George's, Worthing.

Opus Operatum

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OPUS OPERATUM. Work wrought, as though it were said that the benefit of a rite accrued ex opere operato, by virtue of the work wrought, i.e. by virtue of the due administration. The doctrine meant by the expression opus operatum was first enunciated in form by the Schoolman Duns Scotus [1] (ob. 1308), who thus wrote (as Robertson translates): "A sacrament confers grace through the virtue of the work which is wrought, so that there is not required any inward good motion such as to deserve grace, but it is enough if the receiver place no bar" in the way of its operation. [2] The doctrine thus stated makes the passive reception of a sacrament sufficient, and if it does not intentionally teach that the ordinance works mechanically like a charm, it must inevitably spread among ordinary people the perilous notion that it does. The German Schoolman Gabriel Biel (ob. 1495), taught the doctrine in no more guarded a way, though avoiding some dangerous expressions, saying that ex opere operato meant "by virtue of the very consecration, oblation, and reception, of the venerable eucharist." [3]

On March 3, 1547, the Council of Trent, in its seventh session, passed Canon 8, De Sacramentis, anathematising those who should say that "by the sacraments themselves of the new law, ex opere operato, grace is not conferred, but that faith alone in the divine promise is sufficient to obtain grace."In Edward VI.’s 42 Articles [4] of 1553 (since made 39), there occurred (Article XXVI., now XXV.) after the word "operation" this passage: "not as some say, ex opere operato, which terms, as they are strange and utterly unknown to the Holy Scripture, so do they yield a sense which savoureth of little piety but of much superstition." The Articles signed by Convocation in 1563, omitted this passage and never again mentioned the opus operatum; but even without mentioning it they clearly enough assert a view as to sacramental efficacy entirely opposed to the opus operatum theory, however expounded. Moreover, the addition of Article XXIX. in 1563 fully made up for the withdrawal of the clause referred to. On Dec. 4, 1563, ended the Council of Trent, which on Jan. 26, 1564, received papal confirmation, and its decrees then became binding.

Bishop Jewel’s Challenge Sermon at St. Paul s Cross, March 31, 1560, included among its twenty-seven points one (No. 20) on Opus Operatum, [5] and this article in the controversy which the sermon produced with Harding in 1564, 1505, was discussed at some length. Jewel, speaking of the ancient superstitions connected with the Eucharist before the terms opus operatum were invented, went on to say: "This old error our adversaries of late years have taken up and made it catholic, bearing the people in hand that their Mass itself, ex opere operato, only of itself, and because it is said, is available for the remission of their sins." [6] Harding had asserted [7] that the Challenge Sermon misrepresented the Roman doctrine, referring opus operatum to the bare act of the priest; not so, it was the work which God Himself worked by the ministry of the priest, namely, the body and blood of Christ offered in sacrifice to God, which was available "where there is no stop nor let on the behalf of the receiver." Thus, with Harding, the recipient was simply passive, just as Duns Scotus put it. Jewel, therefore, produced his authorities, successfully, as it seems to us, to make good his original point. The Reformation period, therefore (that of Trent, the 42 Articles, Jewel), was an active one in the debate on this subject, and the Roman side seems to have made then no real advance beyond the dictum of Duns Scotus, which, to the Reformers, looking to Scripture, was repellent in the extreme.

Perhaps it was the severe handling the papal Article received from them that made its exponents more cautious; for later on we find Bellarmine (ob. 1621) asserting the need of faith and repentance in the recipient; still, however, adding: "But that which actively, proximately, and instrumentally effects the grace of justification is only the external act called sacrament, and this is called opus operatum, by receiving it passively (operatum), so that it is the same thing (to say) that the sacrament confers grace ex opere operato as (to say) that it confers grace by virtue of the sacramental act itself, instituted by God for this purpose, not by the merit of the minister or the recipient."[8] If in that language there seems some degree of concession, it is more apparent than real. Bellarmine may be held the chief authority for the current Roman view, as this is expounded in Addis and Arnold’s Catholic Dictionary, where what we have given above from that writer, somewhat differently rendered, and much more of his, is quoted. See BAPTISM, GORHAM CASE.

Endnotes:
[1] Gieseler, Text-book of Ch. Hist., vol. ii. p. 490,
n. 22 sub. fin.; Robertson, Ch. Hist., vol. vi. p. 446, ed. 1874.
[2] Scotus, Quaestiones in Lib. IV. Sententiarum, distinctio i. qusestio vi. sec. 10 sub. fin., in his Works, ed. Lyons, 1639, vol. viii. p. 125, col. 1. Sacramentum enim ex opere.
[3] Biel, Sacri Canonis missae Expositio, lectio xxvi.
fol. 50, col. 1, sub. fin., Basel, 1515; quoted in Jewel’s Works, ii. 751, Parker Society.
[4 ]To be seen in Burnet (vol. iv. p. 311, ed. Nares; vol. v. p. 314, ed. Pocock), with notes giving the later changes.
[5] Works, vol. i. pp. 21, 103 ; vol. ii. p. 749.
[6] Ibid., vol. ii. 751.
[7] Ibid., 749.
[8] De Sacramentis, lib. ii. c. 1, in Works, 1872, Naples, vol. iii. p. 87. col. 1.

Rev. Charles Hole, B.A., Trinity College, Cambridge (Wrangler), Lecturer on Ecclesiastical Hististory, King’s College, London. Author of A Manual of the Book of Common Prayer; Early Missions in the British Islands; By-Paths of English Church History, and other works.

The Baptismal Service

2011-05-09T10:36:00.001-05:00

Editor’s Note: The following passages are taken from the Reverend Dyson Hague’s The Protestantism of the Prayer Book, which was published by the Church Association in the late nineteenth century in a revised and enlarged edition for English readers with a preface by the first Bishop of Liverpool, the Right Reverend J. C. Ryle. Dyson Hague was an Evangelical minister in the Church of England in Canada. He was also Professor of Liturgics and Ecclesiology at Wycliffe College in Toronto. Hague wrote at a time when the Church of England and her overseas branches were racked by controversy over the doctrine and liturgical usages of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.

With the publication of the Tracts for the Times in the 1830s the Tractarians had undertaken the self-appointed task of changing the identity of the Church of England. They imposed a new meaning upon the 1662 Prayer Book, reinterpreting it in what they described as “a Catholic sense”. They engaged in a “microscopic search” for “words and phrases, devotional and rubrical,” that might serve “to establish an interpretation of the Prayer Book, unknown to its authors, and to three centuries of Christian life and thought.” No part of the Prayer Book was neglected in this search but the Baptismal Offices received particular attention. The Tractarians would claim that the Prayer Book taught the doctrine of baptismal regeneration as taught by the Roman Catholic Church.

Hague wrote not only to defend the Protestant character of the 1662 Prayer Book but also to allay the uneasiness of his fellow Evangelicals with the Prayer Book. A similar controversy had raged in the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States over the 1789 Book of Common Prayer. Evangelical Episcopalians had developed qualms about using its Baptismal Offices. They initially sought to persuade the General Convention to revise the 1789 Prayer Book—to adopt an alternative form or alternative wording in the Baptismal Offices that they could use in place of the form and wording of the Prayer Book. Those sympathetic to Tractarian principles by this time had come to dominate the General Convention and were not open to any proposal for revision of the Prayer Book.

The Assistant Bishop of Kentucky, the Right Reverend George David Cummins, became convinced by a pamphlet then in circulation that the American Prayer Book did indeed contain “the germs of Romanism.” Cummins would resign his office and leave the Protestant Episcopal Church. He would form the Reformed Episcopal Church with other Evangelicals who like himself had concluded that they could not in good conscience remain any longer in the Protestant Episcopal Church.

Among Hague’s works are The Church of England before the Reformation; The Story of the English Book of Common Prayer: its Origin and Developments; and Through the Prayer Book: an Exposition of its Teaching and Language: the Origins and Contents of Its Services. Hague was a major contributor to The Fundamentals.

Having dwelt sufficiently upon the outward form, let us proceed now to the doctrinal expressions of the service. Though it is hardly within the purpose of this work to offer explanations upon controverted points of theology, it may not be out of place to dwell for a little space upon those expressions which have, to so many Protestant minds, offered most serious difficulty, the words, "seeing that this child is regenerate," & c.

But the reader must distinctly understand that the difficulty of these words and the Popery of these words are two entirely different things. Difficult they are; Popish they are not. They are found in a service compiled by men flatly opposed to Popery, and if any interpretation can be given to them but the Roman, it must be given. They are words, moreover, which are found elsewhere in ultra-Protestant formularies, and employed by men of must Protestant prejudices. They are precisely similar, for instance, to those employed by one whom no one ever suspected of Popish proclivities, John Calvin, in his catechism; [1] and they may be employed by any who really believe in the power of God to receive as His own disciples the little infants.

They are, moreover, words similar to those which are used by most ultra-Evangelicals to illustrate the baptismal blessing.

In a book lately written by the Rev. Andrew Murray, who is, I believe, a Presbyterian minister, author of "Abide in Christ," "With Christ," and other works, it is said: "Not only are the children when grown up, but even from the birth, to be partakers of the covenant." "The promise is not held in abeyance to wait for the child's faith, but is given to the father's faith in the assurance that the child's faith will follow." "The promise of God is no empty word, though our unbelief may make it of none effect. In His purpose the water and the spirit are inseparably united; ‘What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder’; let not a parent's unbelief rest content with the water without the spirit." And throughout the whole work similar reasoning is to be found. The expressions, therefore, of our baptismal service can no more be adduced in themselves as indications of the lingering Romanism of the Prayer Book, than the expressions employed by John Calvin and Mr. Murray could be brought forward as proofs of the Popish tendency of their works. Certain it is that in the baptismal service of the Church of England the Roman doctrine of baptismal regeneration is not taught. In proof of this four facts may be
adduced.

The first fact is this:—

That after the baptismal service was completed it was eulogized by Peter Martyr, one of the most uncompromising Protestants of the Reformation age, a man summoned by Archbishop Cranmer to aid in the work of reforming the Church of England, and declared by Archbishop Parker to be one "who had sustained constant labours in the defence of evangelical truth against the Papists." This eulogy is possessed of more than ordinary importance, for it occurs in one of the most important publications bearing upon the baptismal controversy, viz., a letter of this Peter Martyr, Regius Divinity Professor in Oxford in 1552, preserved in the archives of the ecclesiastical library in Zurich and edited by Goode, written to his friend Bullinger just after the completion of the Second Prayer Book of Edward the Sixth. In this letter, speaking of the Prayer Book as then published. Martyr states: "For all things are removed from it which could nourish superstition." Then, almost immediately afterwards, he mentions as one of the doctrines, like that of the real presence, which would bring with it superstitions, the doctrine that grace is invariably conferred in the sacraments, that is, the Romish doctrine of baptismal regeneration. Since, therefore, in Martyr's opinion the doctrine that grace is invariably conferred by the sacraments brings with it superstitions, and Martyr testified that all things are removed from the Prayer Book that could nourish superstitions, it is certain that in the mind of those who were identified with Martyr's views, viz., the Reformers, the doctrine of the invariable spiritual regeneration of infants in baptism (the Tractarian doctrine of baptismal regeneration) is not the teaching of the Book of Common Prayer. It is, moreover, most significant, as pointed out by Goode, that the leading Reformers held the evangelical view with Peter Martyr, as opposed to the Romish, and that when the Articles were afterwards published to abolish controversy and determine the true teaching of the Church of England, the phraseology of the Article on baptism was the phraseology of Peter Martyr, and the views of the sacrament the views of the party with which he was connected, and not the views of the Romish party.

The second fact is this:—

That among all the controversies raised by the early Puritans about the baptismal services, none was ever raised about the doctrine of regeneration as taught in it. This fact, which is pointed out by Boultbee in his exposition of the Articles, though apparently insignificant, and not generally known, is, to the careful observer, most important. These men were, as everybody is aware, the most uncompromising, and often the most unreasonable, opponents of everything that savoured of Papistry. Beneath their searching scrutiny a mole-hill of Churchiness was magnified into a mountain of Romanism. They would have destroyed even the very formula and materials of Rome, not because they were wrong, but because they were Roman. Yet these men, amidst all their objections, never so much as raised a whisper against the expressions of the baptismal service, or everdreamed of exhibiting the words, "this child is regenerate," as a proof of lingering Romanism.

The third fact is this:—

That there is so striking a difference between the Articles of the Church of England in 1536, the Church's first effort in the way of doctrinal reform, and the Articles of 1553, in their treatment of the doctrine of baptism, as to make it clear that the Reformers intended to discard the Romish doctrine of baptismal regeneration. Indeed, no stronger proof of the soundness and legitimacy, from a Church standpoint, of the position of those who deny the Tractarian doctrine of baptismal regeneration can be offered than a comparison of the Articles of 1536 and our present Articles, Homilies, and Catechism. We have presented in these Articles of 1536 the spectacle of a Church trying to rid itself of Romanism, yet ignorant of evangelical truth. The very fact of their publication, though at such a date, speaks volumes for their Protestantism, for the "Roma lacuta est, causa finita est" doctrine was just as true then as now, and ten times more practical. But of course they are full of Romish errors, and many doctrines afterwards discarded are there plainly set forth. In the Article on baptism, the doctrine of baptismal regeneration is clearly taught, and were it the doctrinal standard of to-day the position of Pusey and the Tractarian school would be demonstrated and established beyond cavil. It begins by asserting that people must of necessity believe all those things which hath, by the whole consent of the Church, been always approved, received, and used in the sacrament of baptism; that it was instituted by Christ, &c. ; that it is offered unto all men, as well as to infants such as have the use of reason, that by baptism they shall have remission of sins, and the grace and favour of God, according to the saying of Christ: Whosoever believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; and continues by arguing at great length, that the promise of grace and everlasting life (which promise is adjoined to this sacrament of baptism) pertaineth not only unto such as have the use of reason, but also to infants, innocents, and children ; and that they ought, therefore, and must needs be baptized; and that by the sacrament of baptism they do also obtain remission of their sins, the grace and favour of God, and be made thereby the very sons and children of God; that infants must needs be christened because they be born in original sin, which sin must needs be remitted, which cannot be done but by the sacrament of baptism, whereby they receive the Hoiy Ghost, which exerciseth His grace and efficacy in them, and cleanseth and purifieth them from sin by His most secret virtue and operation." And much more to the same effect.

The contrast to the present teaching of the C'hurch in the twenty-seventh Article is remarkable. In the Article of 1536 baptism is declared to be the bestower of the Holy Ghost, and this in the most unqualified terms. It is Rome's "ex opere operato" theory most clearly. In our Article baptism is said to be the sign and seal of regeneration, and the qualifying expressions are carefully added : And in such only as worthily receive the same they have a wholesome effect or operation." "They that receive baptism rightly," &c. In the First Book of Articles the baptism of infants and their sacramental remission of sins and regeneration occupies an extremely prominent part and place. In the Article of to-day instead of this there is the qualified statement that the baptism of young infants is, in anywise, to be retained as most agreeable with the institution of Christ.

This fact may at first sight appear trivial, but to the careful observer it is profoundly significant, and throws strong light on the interpretation of the baptismal service.

The fourth fact is this: —

That throughout the whole of the Prayer Book expressions are found which clearly prove that the Church frames the language of many of her services upon what is commonly called the principle of charitable assumption. The services are drawn up upon the supposition of faith in those who are addressed by them in other words, that the participants in the Church services are in reality what they are declared to be. Without this principle many of the expressions in the Catechism, the Collects, the Burial Service, and other offices, cannot be understood. If then it is a fact that this principle obtains throughout the Prayer Book, there is no reason why it should not be found in the baptismal service; and it is evident then that the Reformers, holding as they did strong Calvinistic doctrines with regard to the salvation of the elect, and the perpetuity of faith in them, could not compile formularies which taught the very Romish doctrines they were drawn up to protest against and destroy. Believing as they did that infants may be spiritually regenerate, and believing most certainly that all infants are not spiritually regenerate, and therefore could not be spiritually regenerated in baptism, it is clear that the language of the service, "this child is regenerate," was intended to bear an hypothetical interpretation. This seems borne out by the fact that in the very prayer in which the priest gives God thanks for the regeneration of the infant, he almost immediately afterwards prays that "finally, with the residue of God's holy Church, he maybe an inheritor of God's everlasting kingdom," which proves that from the standpoint of the Reformation age, the statement about regeneration was generic and presumptive, not a positive judgment with regard to each particular infant. The teaching of the catechism that infants are bound to perform the promises made by their sureties when they come to age, a statement that is in flat opposition to the Romish doctrine of invariable spiritual regeneration, and is honoured by a special anathema against it from the Church of Rome in the Council of Trent, [2] also bears out the principle of hypothetical explanation. In fact it seems from a consideration of the known views of the Reformers, and the literal statements of the Articles and Services, that on the one hand the teaching of the Church is plainly this, that the blessing of newness of life and spiritual regeneration is possible alike to adult and infant. As Samuel was the child of God from infancy, and John the Baptist filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb, so is it possible for God now to settle on even new-born infants the fulness of His grace. Since, therefore, it is as impossible for the Church to discern which are not to be recipients of this blessing as to discern which are, she charitably uses the only language that is scripturally possible in connection with baptism. On the other hand, while the regeneration in the highest sense, though possible, is in many cases in adults and in all cases in infants the charitable language of faith and "expectative" hope, a relative change has always taken place. All children brought into a covenant state of grace by baptism, as the Jews of old by circumcision, and all adults likewise who have professed their faith, are relatively, that is as far as covenant privilege, and responsibility goes, and as far as a dispensation of grace is concerned, "members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of Heaven." But as all circumcised were not circumcised in heart, Romans ii. 28-29, so all baptized are not necessarily baptized of the Spirit because baptized with water. Acts viii. 21-23. It is perfectly right, therefore, to address those as unregenerate, that is in the spiritual sense, from the pulpit, who are without any signs of spiritual life, even though they have been publicly pronounced regenerate at the font.

Could not the expressions of the Church of England baptismal service have been applied to Simon Magus on his baptism ? Certainly they could have. And yet, notwithstanding, there can be no doubt that St. Peter was justified in addressing him as one who had still need of a change of heart and newness of life. "Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter; for thy heart is not right in the sight of God." Numberless quotations from the greatest and most authoritative teachers of the Church of England could be collected to prove that this view, as opposed to the Romish doctrine of baptismal regeneration, has been the commonly accepted interpretation of the language of the Prayer Book in the baptismal service.[3] It is a fact that the principle of hypothetical interpretation was evidently intended by the Church to obtain in the case of the Collects, the Catechism, and the Burial Service. It is also a fact that a great number of most learned, pious, and representative Churchmen have united to declare that the principle of the prayer in these general cases is the principle of interpretation that must be applied to the words, "this child is regenerate," in the baptismal service.

It is evident, therefore, to thoughtful minds that hasty expressions of opinion as to the Romanism of this service are entirely inconsiderate. They are too frequently the utterances of ignorant and prejudiced men whose judgment is crude, and knowledge shallow; men who consider it a blemish that anything should be found in the service which needs an explanation. Such persons forget apparently that the whole of the Word of God abounds with expressions which require most careful investigation and studied explanation. And no expressions, perhaps, in the Word of God are more difficult of correct explanation than the expressions of the Prayer Book with regard to baptism. See Rom. vi., Col. ii. 12, I Peter iii. 21, Acts xxii. 16.

In fact, enlarging Origen's sagacious remark, as quoted by Butler in his Analogy, that he who believes the Scripture to have proceeded from Him who is the author of nature, may well expect to find the same sort of difficulties in it as are found in the constitution of nature ; we may say also: he who finds difficulties in those very Scriptures which were given by the Holy Ghost for the illumination of mankind, may expect more difficulties in compilations which, however beautiful and complete, were still drawn up by the hands of fallible men.

One thing, however, we confidently affirm to the student of the Prayer Book: difficulties he will find, but Popery never.

Endnotes:
[1] See Mozley on the Baptismal Controversy, Part ii, Chap. vii. [On the Internet at: http://www.archive.org/details/areviewbaptisma01mozlgoog; http://www.archive.org/details/a596159000mozluoft and http://www.archive.org/details/areviewofbaptism00mozluoft]
[2] See Bungener's " History- of the Council of Trent," page 29. [On the Internet at: http://www.archive.org/details/historycouncilt00bunggoog and http://www.archive.org/details/historyofcouncil00bung] The 14th Anathema on Baptism anathrmatizes those who maintain that persons baptized in infancy should, when they come of age, be asked whether they are willing to ratify the promise made in their name.
[3] I would heartily commend to my fellow Churchmen the work of Dean Goode on Baptism. [On the Internet at: http://www.archive.org/details/doctrineofchurch00goodiala] The argument is somewhat involved and lengthy, but when once mastered it convinces the reader that the Romish doctrine of baptismal regeneration never was, and never can be, with the Prayer Book untampered with, the doctrine of the Church of England.

Observing a Prayer Book Good Friday

2011-04-21T10:38:00.001-05:00

By Robin G. Jordan

“The title” of Good Friday, Charles Neil and J. M. Willoughby in The Tutorial Prayer Book informs us, “is peculiar to the Church of England. They go on to write, “There is a particular fitness in the English title, both positively, as recognizing the joyous emancipation of the believer through the finished work of the Cross, and negatively as a protest against the superstitious branding of all Fridays, and this one in particular as ‘unlucky,’ a superstition … traceable without much difficulty to the mistaken ideas which tended to fill the day with the external pomp of a funereal gloom.”

Neil and Willoughby makes this very important point:

Easter having been in very early times as a great day for public baptism, it is not surprising that the solemnity of the events immediately preceding Easter should be seized upon as an occasion for heart-searching preparations. Such commendable reverence has nothing in common with Medieval customs, e.g., Creeping to the Cross, The Mass of the Pre-Sanctified, Stripping of the Altars, Singing of the ‘Reproaches.’ Apart from the doctrinal errors associated with such practices, there is danger of obscuring the great lesson which alone justifies the observance of Good Friday, viz. that ‘with His stripes we are healed,’ not plunged into gloom. The hymnology of Reformed Christianity is not free from the same danger, not infrequently overstepping the bounds of reverential awe, and so tending to reproduce the blindness of those who wept for Christ when their own desperate condition alone called for tears!

Charles H. H. Wright and Charles Neil in their article, “Good Friday,” in A Protestant Dictionary note how Medieval superstition, revived by the nineteenth century Ritualists, had come to dominate the observance of Good Friday in 1904.

It is strange that it has now become unusual to have the Lord’s Supper administered on Good Friday, although St. Chrysostom mentions consecrating on that day, and it was general in the Church of England up to very recent times. The mass doctors say that as Christ is there Himself offering sacrifice the Church should forbear from doing so. But such an argument would surely tell in favour of the abolition of all such pretended sacrifices. The Church of England provides special Collects, Epistle and Gospel for the day, and the religious observance of Good Friday, apart from superstition, seems proper and desirable.

As Neil and Willoughby note in The Tutorial Prayer Book, the Epistles and Gospels are appointed for use exclusively in connection with the Communion Office.

Morning Prayer, Litany, Holy Communion, and Evening Prayer is the classical Anglican pattern for the observance of holy days as well as Sundays and the great feasts of the Church. A genuine Prayer Book observance of Good Friday would involve all four. This would include the saying or singing of the Te Deum laudamus at Morning Prayer and the Gloria in excelsis after the Post-Communion Thanksgivings at the Holy Communion. The 1662 Prayer Book does not prohibit the use of the Te Deum laudamus in Lent and Holy Week. The Benedicite omnia Opera may be substituted for the Te Deum laudamus at any time of the year. Both are ancient hymns of praise. The Benedicite omnia Opera is particularly appropriate for Septuagesima Sunday and the first Sunday after Trinity. The 1662 Prayer Book makes no provision for the omission of the Gloria in excelsis during Lent and Holy Week and none was intended.

The celebration of the Holy Communion on Good Friday may be disconcerting to North American Anglicans who have grown accustomed to the Good Friday observances such as the Way of the Cross that the nineteenth century Ritualists introduced. Good Friday, however, is a day for the joyous recollection of all that Christ accomplished on the cross. He made there, in the words of the 1662 Prayer of Consecration—“by his one oblation of himself once offered—a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole word.” Christ bore our sins upon the cross and opened to us the way of salvation. It is certainly not a day to allow Medieval superstition keep us from celebrating the Lord’s Supper that Christ “did institute and in his holy Gospel command us to continue, a perpetual memory of that his precious death, until his coming again.”

The Litany: A Gateway to Prayer

2011-03-12T20:31:00.003-06:00

By Robin G. Jordan

The Litany, also known as the General Supplication, is the oldest portion of the Book of Common Prayer. It was first published, with its accompanying music, in 1544, as a special supplication for the English nation then at war with France and Scotland. Archbishop Cranmer prepared the Litany at the request of King Henry VIII. It is the oldest liturgical service in the English vernacular.

The Litany has fallen on hard times since the nineteenth century. It has lost favor with Anglican clergy and consequently few Anglican congregations are familiar with it. In A Parson’s Handbook, in a footnote at the bottom of page 249, Percy Dearmer who championed the more frequent use of the Litany in his own day points to the reader’s attention:

There has been a widespread idea that the Litany, so beautiful a part of the Prayer Book, is wearisome, and in consequence a most regrettable tendency to omit it. It may be wearisome when sung in the usual dragging and monotonous way, but not when its beauty is brought out by proper rendering. On Wednesdays and Fridays, and on Festivals (p. 446), the priest may well kneel and read it without note, which takes but little time, and is most devotional. Then on Sundays it can be sung to the beautiful plainsong of the Sarum Processional (The Litany and Suffrages with the Musick from the Sarum Processional: from the Oxford Press, 95 Wimpole Street, W.I), which, of course, should be sung after the manner of good reading, and not in the style of chanting which a modern writer has compared to ‘an elephant waltzing’. In this setting there is some more elaborate music, but only in the anthem and following suffrages, which are sung by the chanters. The points of the service are fully brought out when it is sung to the old tones and properly divided up between chanters, priest, and people; still more, when it is sung in procession, as it may be on ordinary Sundays. In churches where it is usually said or sung at the Litany-desk, it might be sung in procession on Rogation Sunday.

The Litany is very ancient form of prayer, its use in the Christian Church going back as far as the Fourth Century AD. The Litany-form predates Christianity and is found in the Old Testament, in the Book of Psalms. The Litany is longer than other forms of prayer because it is the most comprehensive form of prayer in the Prayer Book. It covers a wide range of concerns. In Everyman’s History of the Book of Common Prayer Percy Dearmer tell us:

Thus the Prayer Book Litany…greatly extends the realm of intercession, stretching out those touching and melodious phrases, which are now of the very marrow of the English language, to all human needs, dangers, sorrows, aspirations, and efforts towards perfection, and ending with the two beautiful supplications in which the people turn at length to pray for their own necessities. In contrast to the weak and selfish spirit of many popular modern devotions, we think proudly of the English Litany, and have a right to be proud of it; for we can turn to the whole world, Christian and otherwise, and say, "This is how we pray, this is how we are taught to think of life and death, of God and man; and this is a service we really use, a popular service, known and loved and understood by all."

He goes on to stress:

We are indeed brought to the mysteries of the Eucharist through a noble gate, through the preparation of that generous, unselfish, and humble intercession for the human race which the Litany has given us; and it is our own fault if our religion falls behind the fullness of the Gospel of Christ.

For this reason the Litany has been called the “Anglican introit.”

In The Protestantism of the Prayer Book Dyson Hague in a description of the general characteristics of Prayer Book services draws attention to the co-operative and participatory character of these services:

The Church of England, to my mind, is unique in this, not in that she recognized the right of the people to participate in the public worship of God, but in that she alone practically has made this participation an accomplished fact. She looks for the co-operation of all the people in all her services. She desires all, not only to have a part, but to have a great part.

This, he notes, is particularly characteristic of the Litany:

The Litany is another wonderful example of a form of supplication in which the priesthood of the people is practically recognized, in making them all draw near to the Throne of Grace, with liberty to speak out before God.

The rubrics of the 1662 Prayer Book direct the Litany “to be sung or said after Morning Prayer upon Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and at other times when it shall be commanded by the Ordinary.”

In A Parson’s Handbook, on page 253, Percy Dearmer points to the reader’s attention:

The Litany is the authorized prelude to the Eucharist, and ought not to be treated as a mere appendage to Mattins; the practice of so regarding it was a gradual result of the neglect to celebrate the Sunday Eucharist.

In a footnote at the bottom of the same page, Dearmer goes on to write:

‘After Morning Prayer’ is only another way of stating what had already been ordered by Elizabeth’s Injunctions of 1559, that the Litany should be said ‘immediately before the time of communion of the Sacrament’ (Cardwell, Doc. Ann., I, p. 187); for Mattins has always been said before the hour of Communion.

The Litany formed with Morning Prayer, Ante-Communion or Holy Communion, Evening Prayer, and Catechizing a regular part of the pattern of worship on Sundays in Anglican churches until the nineteenth century. While contemporary Anglicans accustomed to an hour-long service on Sunday morning and perhaps an adult Christian education hour before the service, this pattern may seem very rigorous and even tedious, it has a long history in the Christian Church and is observed to this day in Eastern Orthodox Churches. Where this pattern has been restored in Anglican churches, and the members of the congregation pray and worship from the heart rather than going through the motions of praying and worshiping, it has transformed the life and worship of the local Anglican church community. It has helped to shift the focus of Sunday away from the churchgoers themselves to God.

In Loyalty to the Prayer Book Percy Dearmer reminds us:

The ideal of the Prayer Book, then, is plain. On Sunday morning, people are to come to church for the Holy Communion, and to hear the sermon. Preparatory to this Service is the Litany, which is the Anglican preparation for Holy Communion, and ought not to be misused: to shift it to the afternoon or evening is to do a grievous wrong to the meaning and order of Divine Service. Some time before the Litany, Mattins is to be said or sung.

The Litany is particularly appropriate in times of war, pestilence, famine, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, floods, and other natural disasters. We certainly live in such times. The islands of Japan were just struck by a succession of devastating earthquakes and a tsunami in a twenty-four hour period. The death toll is rising along with the number of reports of missing persons who may have been swept away by the tidal wave. Thousands are without food, shelter, and water. Fires have broken out due to ruptured gas lines, a number of nuclear reactors have malfunctioned, and radiation leaks and one explosion has been reported.

The Litany is traditionally said or sung on the Rogation Days—the three days preceding Ascension Day. They are days of solemn supplication to God for fruitful seasons and a good harvest. Queen Elizabeth’s Royal Injunctions recognized the medieval custom of singing the Litany in procession during Rogationtide. The practice of “beating the bounds of the parish” has continued in a number of churches to this day. The same injunctions direct that the Litany should be said “immediately before the time of communion.”

Due to the penitential nature of the Deprecations, the final Supplication, the Invocations, and Kyrie in the Litany some Anglican churches have adopted the practice of singing the Litany in procession on Sundays in Lent and Advent. In churches that use the 1979 Book of Common Prayer and observe this practice, the Litany ends at the Kyries and replaces all that precedes the salutation and collect. Any setting of the Kyrie may replace that printed with the Litany, and the Prayers of the People are, and the confession may, be omitted. No entrance hymn is appropriate when the Litany is used in the entrance procession of the Eucharist on Sundays of Lent and Advent. John Merbecke’s setting of the Litany is found in The Hymnal 1982 at S 67. Music for the supplication is found in the Accompaniment Edition at S 338 and S 339.

A number of more recent Prayer Books incorporate provisions to keep the Litany from unduly lengthening the service when combined with Morning Prayer or The Holy Communion. These provisions also minimize redundant elements. The General Directions for Publick Worship in the 1926 Irish Prayer Book contains the following provisions:

If Morning Prayer, the Litany, and the Order for the Administration of Holy Communion are used in conjunction, the Minister after Te Deum Laudamus may proceed to the Litany, first saying, Let us pray. In this case, at the Morning Prayer the Minister shall read either the First or Second Lesson of the Day, and in the Litany he shall omit the intercessions from That it may please thee to guard and bless to That it may please thee to give to all nations, inclusive.

The rubrics preceding the Litany in the 1926 Irish Prayer Book contain these provisions:

When the Litany is used as a separate Service, it may be preceded by a Hymn and one of the Lessons of the Day; or when used in conjunction with the Communion Service the Minister may, instead of a Lesson, use one or more of the Sentences appointed to be used at the commencement of the order for Morning Prayer, and then say, Let us pray.

When the Litany is followed by the Communion office, or by that part of it appointed to be used when there is no Communion, it shall be lawful to omit from the Litany the Lord’s Prayer and all that is set down after it. When the Litany is said at any other time, it shall be lawful to omit from it all that follows the Lord’s Prayer, and use one or more of the Occasional Prayers; the whole to conclude with A Prayer of St. Chrysostom, and The grace of, etc.

The rubrics of An Australian Prayer Book(1978) permit the saying or singing of the Litany after the Apostles’ Creed after Morning or Evening Prayer, in which case the remainder of Morning or Evening Prayer may be omitted. If the service of Holy Communion follows, they permit the Litany to be concluded after the last two supplication for ourselves. After the Lord’s Prayer the minister may use other authorized prayers; he may ask the prayers of the congregation for particular persons and needs; he may read the Collect of the Day.

The Notes following the Litany state that the Litany may be said or sung as a separate service; or instead of the last part of Morning or Evening Prayer; or before The Holy Communion. They further state that when The Holy Communion follows the Litany, everything after the last two supplications and the general intercession of The Holy Communion may be omitted.

The Litany does not need an ordained minister to say or sing it. A prayer group might use the Litany to provide structure to their meetings. The person reading the Litany could pause after each petition to give the members of the prayer group an opportunity to name particular intentions silently or aloud before cuing the response—“ We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.” After the Lord’s Prayer the members of the prayer group could be given opportunity to ask the prayers of the group for particular persons and needs and to offer spontaneous petitions and thanksgivings. All might join together in reading the General Thanksgiving, followed by a Prayer of St. Chrysostom and the Grace.

Congregations and prayer groups using the Litany from the 1662 Prayer Book may want to add one of the following petitions to the Litany

After the petition for all Bishops, Priests, and Deacons—

That it may please thee to further the work of the Church in all the world, and send forth labourers into thy harvest.
We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.[1928 Irish Prayer Book]

or

That it may please thee to send forth labourers into thy harvest. We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.[1928 American Prayer Book]

or

That it may please thee to send forth labourers into thy harvest, to prosper their work by thy Holy Spirit, to make thy saving health to all nations, and to hasten thy kingdom.
We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord. [1962 Canadian Prayer Book]

Another suitable additions may be a petition for the armed forces (see the 1926 Irish Litany, the 1928 Proposed English Litany, and the 1962 Canadian Litany). The phrase “or by air” may be inserted into the petition for travelers.

The Litany was written for times like ours—times when the Church is troubled by heresy and persecution and the world by disease, famine, natural disaster, and war. I have a vision of Anglicans taking some time from their busy lives to gather together and to pray the Litany. Lent is a good time to start. But let us not confine praying the Litany to Lent. Let us pray it all year round. Let us dip its intercessions and supplications into our hearts and pray them from the heart. Let us also be open to what God says to us as we seek Him in prayer. Let us not forget the words of James, the brother of our Lord.

If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Depart in peace, be warmed and filled," but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? (James 2:15-16)

Let us be prepared, having prayed and heard God’s voice, to act upon what God has said to us, to obey the Holy Spirit’s prompting. Who is to say what may come from our prayer?

The Reformed Catholicism of the English Litany

2011-03-12T20:08:00.001-06:00

[Editor’s Note: The following account of the history of the English Litany was excerpted from Dyson Hague’s The Protestantism of the Prayer Book.]

As to the Litany, it is not only a wonderfully comprehensive and satisfying service of prayer, a very model of intercessory worship, it is also a striking monument of the Protestantism of our liturgy. The various stages through which it has passed, from its original form in the Roman service, to its form as now used in the Prayer Book, are trustworthy indexes of the various transition periods of our Church. In its Romish form, it need hardly be said, the Litany was full of error. There were in it no less than sixty-two petitions to angels and archangels, men and women, dead and alive. Invocations for intercession were addressed, not only to Mary, Holy Mother of God, to Michael and Gabriel, to angels and archangels, to all the holy order of blessed spirits, patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, to martyrs and evangelists, innocents and confessors, but also to St. Laurence, St. Vincent, St. Cosmas, and St. Damian, and to all the holy priests and Levites, all the holy monks and widows, all the holy monks and hermits. Kneeling upon their knees, the congregation would listen in ignorance and superstition, while there rolled forth in an unknown tongue, from the lips of the priest and the choir, such petitions as these —

“Sancta Maria, Ora pro nobis”

“Sancte Abel, Ora pro nobis,”

“Omnes sancti Dei, Orate pro nobis,”—

petitions, it need scarcely be added, as unedifying to the Church, as they were unintelligible to the suppliants.

The year 1544 marks the second stage of the Litany. It is a year worthy to be held in grateful remembrance from generation to generation of Protestant Englishmen; for in that year, 1544, thanks, under God, to the untiring vigilance of Archbishop Cranmer, prayers were used for the first time in the English tongue. “Hitherto, the people had understood no part of such prayers and suffrages as were used to be said or sung,” but now, by royal mandate, it is enjoined that certain prayers and suffrages are to be said in the language of the people.

It was certainly a most momentous innovation; it was, in fact, a national revolution. It gave a new character to the Church and the nation. It broke the spell of Popery; it established the Protestantism of England. Simply, and quietly, yet most effectually, it brought back again to primitive usage the forms of public devotion, and the religious sentiment of the people. The English Litany now introduced by authority, though substantially differing from the Roman in that it was in the English tongue and contained much new matter, was marred by many unscriptural features. While the numerous petitions to the monks and hermits, and other saints of the Roman Canon, were omitted, petitions still remained to Mary and the angels.

“St. Mary, Mother of God, pray for us.”

“All holy angels and archangels, and all holy orders of blessed spirits, pray for us.”

“All holy patriarchs, and prophets, apostles, martyrs, confessors, and virgins, and all the blessed company of Heaven, pray for us.”

However, on the whole, it was a worthy monument of Cranmer's evangelical zeal, and of the ripening Protestantism of the English Church.

The reign of Edward the Sixth witnessed the Litany issuing forth from its final revision as pure gold refined in the furnace. Not only were all the invocations to saints and angels finally and summarily disposed of; not only was the petition, “ by the intercession of thy saints turn from us all those evils that we most righteously have deserved,” omitted from the Collect at the end; not only were numerous petitions, breathing the most fervent spirit of evangelical truth, inserted; but the whole was remodelled and adjusted to meet the ever varying and perpetual needs of the hungering and thirsting spiritual mind. The most devout and loyal Christian can find nothing in it that, being weighed in the balance of scriptural truth, will be found faulty or wanting.

Why then, perchance some one will ask, was that grand old petition omitted, “From the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome, and all his detestable enormities, Good Lord, deliver us”? For the simple reason, in truth, that it was no longer necessary. Finally and wholly, the Church of England had been delivered from Rome's accursed thralldom. The declaration of the King's supremacy had as completely demolished Rome's political despotism, as the establishment of the Reformed religion had abolished her spiritual despotism. What need, then, for the free man to pray that he might be freed from a yoke which he no longer wore, and from a chain which God's grace had snapped asunder?

An Ashless Ash Wednesday for Anglicans

2011-03-08T18:29:00.006-06:00

In the sixteenth century the English Reformers abolished the imposition of ashes on the heads of parishioners on Ash Wednesday due to the superstitious beliefs that had become associated with the practice. The practice was too closely tied the Medieval doctrines of attrition, auricular confession, contrition, priestly absolution, and penance.

The imposition of ashes was not reintroduced into the Church of England and her daughter churches until the nineteenth century and then by the Ritualists. It was one of the errors in doctrine, practice, and ritual that the Romeward Movement revived to make the Anglican Church more like the Roman Catholic Church in the hopes that they would help to affect a reunion between the Church of England and the Church of Rome.

The 1979 Book of Common Prayer popularized the practice in the Episcopal Church in the closing decades of the twentieth century.

The following articles on Ashes, Ash Wednesday, Fasting, and Lent are taken from A Protestant Dictionary, which was published under the auspices of the Protestant Reformation Society in 1904, and was compiled for Evangelicals in the Church of England and the Church of Ireland.

ASHES. Used for sprinkling persons by the Romish Church. Before use, the ashes are dedicated previously by a special prayer offered by a bishop. In that prayer, invocation is made to God "that whosoever shall sprinkle themselves with these ashes for the redemption of their sins may obtain health of body and protection of soul."

ASH-WEDNESDAY. A mediaeval title given to the first day of Lent. It had formerly two names: (1) "Caput jejunii," the "head of the fast," and (2) "Dies cinerum." The forty days of Lent, being appointed in memory of our Lord s fast in the wilderness as a season of abstinence, date from the Wednesday of the first week, because it was never the custom to fast on Sundays, and in this way the full number of forty is made up. The name of "Ash-Wednesday" was given in reference to an ancient discipline, described by Gratian, according to which penitents had to appear before the Bishop and Clergy clothed in sack cloth. The seven penitential Psalms were then sung, after which ashes were thrown upon them, and they covered their heads with sackcloth. The Church of England, however, has in no way retained or sanctioned those superstitions. By the Scriptures appointed to be read and the prayers to be used, she has rather exhibited the true ideal of a fast. The old title of Ash-Wednesday is only employed as an alternative for the " first day of Lent," because before the Reformation it was "commonly so called." The revival of such practices is therefore entirely foreign to her prescribed ritual and is illegal.

FASTING. There is no command to fast in the New Testament. In the Sermon on the Mount our Lord, speaking to Jews who were then accustomed to fast, says : "When thou fastest, anoint thine head and wash thy face ; that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret ; and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly (Matt. vi. 17, 18). Under the Old Testament there was but one fast distinctly enjoined namely, "the fast" on the great day of atonement (Lev. xvi. 29-31), which is referred to in Acts xxvii. 9. Other fasts were, however, enjoined on special occasions by the direction of the civil or religious authorities (e.g. Jer, xxxvi. 9). After the destruction of the Jewish State fasts became more numerous (Zech. vii. 5). But when the Lord was inquired of concerning those fasts, the answer given by the prophet Zechariah showed that those fasts were neither enjoined nor forbidden, and that persons were at liberty to make use of such days or not, according as they found fasting beneficial or otherwise to themselves; such acts not being regarded as in themselves meritorious in the sight of God (Zech. vii. 5/.). The Lord, by the mouth of Isaiah (ch. Iviii. 5-7), asks, " Is it such a fast that I have chosen ? a day for a man to afflict his soul ? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him ? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord ? Is not this the fast that I have chosen ? to loose the bands of wickedness ; to undo the heavy burdens? . . . Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house ? When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him ; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh ? "

Our Lord' s teaching concerning the times most suitable for fasting is set forth in the following passage : " Can the children of the bride-chamber mourn, as long as the bride groom is with them ? but the days will come, wen the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast" (Matt. ix. 15), which passage has been explained by the Church of England in her Homily of Fasting, Part II., as follows: "Ye shall note, that so long as God revealeth His mercy unto us, and giveth us of His benefits, either spiritual or corporal, we are said to be with the Bridegroom at the marriage. . . . But the marriage is said then to be ended, and the Bridegroom to be gone, when Almighty God smiteth us with affliction, and seenieth to leave us in the midst of a number of adversities. So God sometimes striketh private men privately with sundry adversities, as trouble of mind, loss of friends, loss of goods, long and dangerous sicknesses, & c. Then it is a fit time for that man to humble himself to Almighty God by fasting, and to mourn and bewail his sins with a sorrowful heart. . . . Again, when God shall afflict a whole region or country with wars, with famine, with pestilence . . . and such other calamities, then is it time for all states and sorts of people . . . to humble themselves by fasting, and bewail their sinful living before God."

The principle here laid down can be exemplified from Scripture histories. David fasted when his child was sick (2 Sam. xii. 16) ; Esther, with her maidens, fasted ere she went in to Ahasuerus (Esth. iv. 16) ; Ezra fasted at the river of Ahava (Ezra viii. 21); Daniel set himself to seek the Lord by prayer and fasting (Dan. ix. 3). Christ said of certain demons, "This kind can come forth by nothing but by prayer and fasting" (Mark ix. 29), but the oldest MSS. omit the words "and fasting." (See R.V. and marginal note on Matt. xvii. 21.) And prior to the solemn ordination of elders, Paul and Barnabas "prayed with fasting" (Acts xiv. 23).

Our Lord Himself fasted forty days and forty nights, but during that time He did not experience the pangs of hunger. The Gospels which record the Temptation, all call attention to that fact. St. Matthew says, " He was afterward an hungered " (Matt. iv. 2). St. Mark does not mention the fasting (Mark i. 12, 13). St. Luke says of those days, "And when they were ended, He afterward hungered." The forty days appear, therefore, to have been spent in rapt ecstasy and contemplation. The actual temptation occurred at the close of that period.

Fasting, therefore, appears to be of value only when employed for the purpose of giving oneself up to continuous prayer, while abstinence from special kinds of food is nowhere enjoined or recommended in Scripture, although Daniel, in his penitential sorrow of three weeks, abstained from all pleasant food (Dan. x. 2, 3). St. Paul alludes to the "commanding to abstain from meats" as a mark of the apostasy (1 Tim. iv. 3), and a sign of weak faith in persons who attached importance to such trifling matters. " The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost " (Rom. xiv. 17, and the whole of that chapter). In fine, when fasting is employed in order to be able to spend the time in prayer, it may be recommended ; but abstinence from food as a means of punishing the body and laying up " merit " is to be strongly condemned. An abstinence from certain food may be useful for "bodily exercise" or discipline "bodily exercise profiteth a little," or "for a little while " (1 Tim. iv. 8) such exercise has occasionally been useful, but is not to be regarded as really a spiritual work.

The prohibition to eat meat on fast days, prescribed by the statute 2 & 3 Edward VI., c. 19, which may be alluded to in " the Tables and Rules " attached to the Book of Common Prayer which mentions " the Fasts, and Days of Abstinence to be observed in the year," is further dwelt on in the Homily on Fasting, Part II., which states that the statute of Edward VI. referred to, was framed for political reasons. It was " in consideration of the maintaining of fisher-towns bordering upon the seas, and for the increase of fishermen, of whom do spring mariners to go upon the sea, to the furnishing of the navy of the realm. . . . Such laws of princes and other magistrates are not made to put holiness in one kind of meat and drink more than another, to make one day more holy than another, but are grounded merely upon policy," namely, as afterwards explained, for the increase and support of the English navy, and "for the sooner reducing of victuals to a more moderate price, to the better sustenance of the poor." [C. H. H. W.]

LENT. The word is derived either from the A.S. lencten (spring), or from the Dutch lenten (to make mild), the severity of winter being then relaxed. Lent is a period of forty days in the spring, immediately before Easter, prescribed as a time of fasting. The Greek and Latin names for Lent simply indicate the number of its days. Lent is asserted to have been of early, and even of Apostolic origin, but, had the latter been the case, some allusion would have been made to it in the New Testament. But in the New Testament there is no fast prescribed, nor even a positive exhortation to fasting (see FASTING). Our Lord s declaration in the A.V. concerning the boy possessed with an unclean spirit, is often quoted that "this kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting" (Matt. xvii. 21; Mark ix. 29). All the best MSS., however, omit the entire verse in the account in St. Matthew, and the word " fasting " in that of St. Mark (see R.Y.). The same omission is made by the R.V. on MS. authority with regard to the word "fasting" in two other verses, viz., Acts x. 30 ; 1 Cor. vii. 5. That the oldest MSS. should agree in omitting all reference to fasting in four passages in the New Testament, where fasting was supposed to be mentioned, is highly suggestive of interpolations made in the sacred text to suit the ideas of a non-Apostolic Age.

The forty days of Lent are often said to have been instituted as a fast in memory of our Lord's "fast" of a similar period in the wilderness. But the Lord passed that period in a state of exalted spiritual meditation or ecstasy, for St. Matthew distinctly states that Christ s hunger was subsequent to the forty days, "When he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred" (Matt. iv. 2). Lent had originally no real connection with the forty days fast in the desert. Lent seems to have been first established by a Pope, about A.D. 130, to be a tithe of the year (thirty-six days only), and was for centuries confined to that period. When the additional four days were added is not certain, probably not till the time of Pope Gregory II., who died in 731.

Our Lord, in Matt. ix. 15, indicated that the providential circumstances of life were the true guide as to seasons of fasting. Cassian, a disciple of Chrysostom in the fifth century, contrasting the Primitive Church with that of his own day, said, " It ought to be known that the observance of the forty days had no existence so long as the perfection of that Primitive Church remained inviolate." Lent helped in later times to increase the power of the priests. For in the Roman and Eastern Churches dispensations which permit the eat ing of meat on fast days may be obtained for a money payment, and fines are levied on those who break the Church law by eating meat on such days without a dispensation. See FASTING. [M. E. W. J.]

To read An Homily of Good Works: and First of Fasting, click here.

If No Ashes, Then What…?

2011-03-08T17:15:00.002-06:00

The Commination is a substitute for the Reconciliation of Penitents on Ash Wednesday, a rite associated with the Medieval practices of auricular confession, priestly absolution, and acts of penance. The 51st Psalm, the suffrages, and the two collects that follow them, are taken from the Mediaeval form, which dates from about the 12th century, and did not apply to penitents in particular, but to all the faithful, upon whose heads ashes were placed, up till the Reformation. The opening part of the Commination, which forms the rest of the service, was added in the 1549 Prayer Book. The service is appointed to be said immediately after the Litany. The service was revised in the 1662 Prayer Book and the language altered.

The Commination is a service that has been subject to misinterpretation and misunderstanding. The following article from A Protestant Dictionary and accompanying excerpt from Dyson Hague’s The Protestantism of the Prayer Book address common misunderstandings and misinterpretations.

COMMINATION. A threatening. The name is applied to a service in the Prayer Book to be used on the first day of Lent and at other times as the Ordinary shall appoint. It is sometimes ignorantly and flippantly objected that members of the Church of England meet at this service to curse their neighbours, but the alternative title of the service is the " Denouncing of God s Anger and Judgments against Sinners." What is read is " the general sentences of God s cursing" not man s "against impenitent sinners " taken from His Word. It is also objected that the "godly discipline " referred to in the opening address as having existed "in the Primitive Church" dates only from about the ninth century, and that its restoration is not " much to be wished " as the service asserts that it is. But these words evidently refer only to the discipline of the early Church, not to the superstitious practices of later ages. The "open penance " in the address excludes the idea of private "Auricular Confession." The ceremony of applying ashes to penitents, revived by some Ritualists, is a Jewish superstition which has no sanction in the Prayer Book and is illegal (see Whitehead, p. 242). Still, the service as here prescribed has been often found edifying. The opening exhortation is mpressive, the recitation of the fifty-first Psalm kneeling appropriate and helpful, and the other prayers are such as Christians can join in with devotion. The service is omitted from the American and the Spanish versions of the Prayer Book, but has been partially reinstated in the former. It is retained in the Irish Prayer Book, but the reference to the restoration of discipline has been expunged. The Office was composed by our Reformers. [M. E. W. J.]

The Commination Service alone remains. With regard to the Commination Service, whatever opinions men may have as to its usefulness, it certainly cannot be held amenable to the accusation of Popery, The ceremonial of the benediction of the ashes has been discarded, and all is simple, natural, and plain. Nor is it, as some men have carelessly asserted, a service for cursing our neighbors. No man curses any one. It were impious to do so in the face of the Master's prohibition, "Judge not, that ye be not judged." The minister simply reads out "the general sentences of God's cursing against impenitent sinners" — a very different thing — that the man that maketh any carved image, curseth father and mother, etc., is cursed ; that is, the wrath of God abideth on him as long as he remains impenitent; and the people admit the righteousness and reality of that judgment by answering, Amen ! As to the exhortation that follows, we question whether in the whole compass of the Prayer Book there is to be found an address more fervent, more scriptural, more touching in its pathos, more searching in its appeal, and one that is more calculated to arouse the impenitent, and lead unconverted souls to Christ. From first to last it breathes the spirit of the yearning Christ, and is wholly interpenetrated with the purity of evangelical fervor. Herein is nothing of priestly absolution, sacramental efficacy, or reception into the fold of the Church. There may be, and are, lost, unconverted, and unregenerate souls, and in pleading, simple tones, it exhorts the hearer to turn to God ere it be too late, to come for pardon and newness of life, not to the priest, nor to the sacrament, but to Christ, the alone Advocate and Mediator.

To read the service in the 1559 Elizabethan Prayer Book, click here.
To read the service in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, click here.
To read the service in the 1926 Irish Prayer Book, click here.
To read a contemporary English version of the service, click here.
To click an alternative contemporary English version of the service, click here.

A Penitential Service

2011-03-08T16:54:00.001-06:00

To be used on the first day of Lent, and at other times as the Bishop shall appoint.

[Editor's note: This service is to be used on the first day of Lent (Ash Wednesday), and at other times as the ordinary shall appoint. It is taken from Alternative Services (2009), and is a modern English version of 'A Penitential Service’ from the 1956 Free Church of England Prayer Book ]

This service may be used after Morning or Evening Prayer, or after the Litany if the Litany follows Morning or Evening Prayer. It may be used as a part of the Second Alternative Form of Morning and Evening Worship, in which case it may replace the General Confession, the declaration of forgiveness, and the Prayers. It may also be used as a separate service.

When A Penitential Service is used as a separate service, it may be preceded by a Psalm, canticle, or hymn and one of the readings of the day.

The minister says

Brothers and sisters, let us draw near to our Lord God, with all contrition and meekness of heart mourning and lamenting our sinful life, acknowledging and confessing our offences, and seeking to bear fruit worthy of repentance. Although we have sinned, yet we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins. He was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities. Let us therefore return to him, who is the merciful receiver of all true penitent sinners, assuring our selves that he is ready to receive us, and most willing to pardon us, if we come to him, with faithful repentance, if we will submit our selves to him, and from that moment on walk in his ways; if we will take his easy yoke, and light burden upon us, to follow him in lowliness, patience, and charity, and be ordered by the governance of his Holy Spirit, seeking always his glory, and serving him duly in our vocation with thanksgiving.

All kneel and say this Psalm

Misere mei deus (Psalm 51:1-17)

Have mercy on me, O God, in your great goodness;
according to the abundance of your compassion
blot out my offences.
Wash me thoroughly from my wickedness
and cleanse me from my sin.
For I acknowledge my faults
and my sin is ever before me.
Against you only have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
So that you are justified in your sentence
and righteous in your judgment.
I have been wicked even from my birth,
a sinner when my mother conceived me.
Behold, you desire truth deep within me
and shall make me understand wisdom
in the depths of my heart.
Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean;
wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.
Make me hear of joy and gladness,
that the bones you have broken may rejoice.
Turn your face from my sins
and blot out all my misdeeds.
Make me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence
and take not your holy spirit from me.
Give me the joy of your salvation
and sustain me with your gracious spirit;
Then shall I teach your ways to the wicked
and sinners shall return to you.
Deliver me from my guilt, O God,
the God of my salvation,
and my tongue shall sing of your righteousness.
O Lord, open my lips
and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.
For you desire no sacrifice, else I would give it;
you take no delight in burnt offerings.
The sacrifice of God is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Glory to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning, is now
and shall be for ever. Amen.

Then the minister says

Lord, have mercy on us.
Christ, have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy on us.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. AMEN.

or

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. AMEN.

Lord, save your servants,
who put their trust in you.

Lord, send them help from your holy place,
and evermore defend them.

Help us, O God, our Savior;
and for the glory of your Name deliver us;
be merciful to us sinners, for your name’s sake.

Lord, hear our prayer,
and let our cry come to you.

Let us pray.

O Lord, we implore you to mercifully hear our prayers, and spare all those who confess their sins to you, that they (whose consciences by sin are accused) by your merciful pardon may be absolved; through Christ our Lord. AMEN.

O Most mighty God, and merciful Father, you have compassion upon all people, and hate nothing that you have made: you do not desire the death of sinners, but rather that they should turn from sin, and be saved: mercifully forgive us our offenses, and comfort us, who are grieved and wearied with the burden of our sin. Your property is to have mercy, to you alone belong the forgiveness of sins: spare us therefore good Lord; spare your people whom you have redeemed. Enter not into judgment with your servants, who are vile dust, and miserable sinners, but so turn your anger from us who meekly acknowledge our vileness, and truly repent of our faults: so make haste to help us in this world, that we may ever live with you in the world to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN.

All say

Turn us, O good Lord, and so shall we be turned. Be favorable O Lord, be favorable to your people, who turn to you, in weeping, fasting, and praying, for you are a merciful God, full of compassion, long suffering, and of a great pity. You spare us when we deserve punishment, and in your wrath you think upon mercy, spare your people good Lord, spare them, and let not your heritage be brought to confusion: hear us O Lord for your mercy is great, and after the multitude of your mercies, look upon us; through the merits and mediation of your blessed Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN.

Then the minister alone says

The Lord bless us and keep us; the Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon us and give us peace, now and for evermore. AMEN.

A Commination, or Denouncing of God s Anger and Judgments against Sinners.

2011-03-08T16:42:00.000-06:00

[Editor's note: This service is to be used on the first day of Lent (Ash Wednesday), and at other times as the ordinary shall appoint. It is taken from An American Prayer Book (2009) and is a modern English adaptation of 'A Commination' from the 1559 Elizabethan Prayer Book and the 1662 Restoration Prayer Book.]

This service may be used after Morning or Evening Prayer, or after the Litany if the Litany follows Morning or Evening Prayer. It may be used as a part of the Second Alternative Form of Morning and Evening Worship, in which case it may replace the General Confession, the Absolution (or declaration of forgiveness), and the Prayers. It may also be used as a separate service.

When A Penitential Service is used as a separate service, it may be preceded by a Psalm, canticle, or hymn and one of the readings of the day.

The minister says

Brothers and sisters, there has been, from ancient times, a godly custom in the Church, that, at the beginning of Lent, Christian people should be warned and reminded in a special manner, of the wrath of God revealed by heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness, in order that they may take to heart their own sinfulness and continuing need to turn to God, and not become hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. It is therefore fitting, that at this time (in the presence of you all) should be read the general sentences of God’s cursing against impenitent sinners, gathered out of the twenty-seventh chapter of Deuteronomy, and other places of Scripture; and that you should answer to every sentence, Amen: to the intent that, being admonished of the great indignation of God against sinners, you may be moved to sincere and true repentance, and may walk more warily in these dangerous days, fleeing from such vices, for the which you affirm with your own mouths, the curse of God to be due.

Then the minister says.

Cursed be the man who makes a carved or cast metal image, an abomination to the Lord, a thing made by the hands of craftsman, and sets it up in secret. AMEN
Cursed be anyone who dishonors his father and his mother. AMEN
Cursed be anyone who moves his neighbor’s landmark. AMEN.
Cursed be anyone who misleads a blind man on the road. AMEN.
Cursed be anyone who perverts the justice due to the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.AMEN.
Cursed be anyone who strikes down his neighbor in secret. AMEN.
Cursed be anyone who lies with his neighbor’s wife. AMEN
Cursed be anyone who takes a bribe to shed innocent blood. AMEN.
Cursed be anyone who puts his trust in man, and takes man for his defense, and in his heart departs from the Lord. AMEN.
Cursed be the unmerciful, the sexually immoral, and the greedy, the idolaters, slanderers, drunkards, and swindlers. AMEN.

Then the minister says

Now seeing that all are accursed (as the Prophet David bears witness) who err, and wander from the commandments of God, let us (remembering the dreadful judgment hanging over our heads, and being always at hand) return to our Lord God, with all contrition and meekness of heart mourning and lamenting our sinful life, acknowledging and confessing our offences, and seeking to bear fruit worthy of repentance. Even now is the axe laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit, is cut down and thrown into the fire. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God: he shall rain coals on the wicked; fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup. For behold, the Lord is coming out from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. Then, on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment shall be revealed, shall appear the wrath that those with a hard and impenitent heart are storing up for themselves, who presumed upon the riches of God’s kindness and forbearance and patience, by which he meant to lead them to repentance. Then they will call upon me, says the Lord, but I will not answer. They will seek me diligently but will not find me. And because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof, it shall be too late to knock, when the door shall be shut, and too late to cry for mercy, when it is the time of justice. O terrible voice of most just judgment, which shall be pronounced upon them, when it shall be said to them: “Depart from me, you cursed, into eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Let us, brothers and sisters, take heed in good time, for now is the day of salvation. Night is coming when no one can work; but let us while we have the light, believe in the light, that we may become sons of light; that we may not be caste into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Let us not abuse the goodness of God, who calls us mercifully to amendment, and of his endless pity promises us forgiveness of that which is past, if (with a whole mind and true heart) we return to him. Though our sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. Cast away from you all transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone (declares the Lord God) so turn and live. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins. He was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities. Let us therefore return to him, who is the merciful receiver of all true penitent sinners, assuring our selves that he is ready to receive us, and most willing to pardon us, if we come to him, with faithful repentance, if we will submit our selves to him, and from that moment on walk in his ways; if we will take his easy yoke, and light burden upon us, to follow him in lowliness, patience, and charity, and be ordered by the governance of his Holy Spirit, seeking always his glory, and serving him duly in our vocation with thanksgiving. If we do this, Christ will deliver us from the curse of the law, and from the extreme malediction, that shall alight upon those who shall be set on the left hand. And he will set us on his right hand, and give us the blessed benediction of his Father, commanding us to take possession of his glorious kingdom; to which he condescends to bring us all, out of his infinite mercy. Amen.

All kneel and say this Psalm.

Misere mei deus (Psalm 51:1-17)

Have mercy on me, O God, in your great goodness;
according to the abundance of your compassion
blot out my offences.
Wash me thoroughly from my wickedness
and cleanse me from my sin.
For I acknowledge my faults
and my sin is ever before me.
Against you only have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
So that you are justified in your sentence
and righteous in your judgment.
I have been wicked even from my birth,
a sinner when my mother conceived me.
Behold, you desire truth deep within me
and shall make me understand wisdom
in the depths of my heart.
Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean;
wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.
Make me hear of joy and gladness,
that the bones you have broken may rejoice.
Turn your face from my sins
and blot out all my misdeeds.
Make me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence
and take not your holy spirit from me.
Give me the joy of your salvation
and sustain me with your gracious spirit;
Then shall I teach your ways to the wicked
and sinners shall return to you.
Deliver me from my guilt, O God,
the God of my salvation,
and my tongue shall sing of your righteousness.
O Lord, open my lips
and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.
For you desire no sacrifice, else I would give it;
you take no delight in burnt offerings.
The sacrifice of God is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Glory to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning, is now
and shall be for ever. Amen.

Then the minister says

Lord, have mercy on us.
Christ, have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy on us.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. AMEN.

or

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. AMEN.

Lord, save your servants,
who put their trust in you.

Lord, send them help from your holy place,
and evermore defend them.

Help us, O God, our Savior;
and for the glory of your Name deliver us;
be merciful to us sinners, for your name’s sake.

Lord, hear our prayer,
and let our cry come to you.

Let us pray.

O Lord, we implore you to mercifully hear our prayers, and spare all those who confess their sins to you, that they (whose consciences by sin are accused) by your merciful pardon may be absolved; through Christ our Lord. AMEN.

O Most mighty God, and merciful Father, you have compassion upon all people, and hate nothing that you have made: you do not desire the death of sinners, but rather that they should turn from sin, and be saved: mercifully forgive us our offenses, and comfort us, who are grieved and wearied with the burden of our sin. Your property is to have mercy, to you alone belongs the forgiveness of sins: spare us therefore good Lord, spare your people whom you have redeemed. Enter not into judgment with your servants, who are vile dust, and miserable sinners, but so turn your anger from us who meekly acknowledge our vileness, and truly repent of our faults: so make haste to help us in this world, that we may ever live with you in the world to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN.

All say

Turn us, O good Lord, and so shall we be turned. Be favorable O Lord, be favorable to your people, who turn to you, in weeping, fasting, and praying, for you are a merciful God, full of compassion, long suffering, and of a great pity. You spare us when we deserve punishment, and in your wrath you think upon mercy, spare your people good Lord, spare them, and let not your heritage be brought to confusion: hear us O Lord for your mercy is great, and after the multitude of your mercies, look upon us; through the merits and mediation of your blessed Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN.

Then the minister alone says

The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance on you and give you peace, both now and evermore. AMEN.

The Challenges of the Twenty-First Century

2011-03-03T10:13:00.001-06:00

By Robin G. Jordan

What are the challenges that we face as Anglican Christians in the twenty-first century? I have identified fifteen challenges. I believe that they represent only the tip of the iceberg. Many more challenges lie submerged and out of sight

One challenge we face is an Anglican Church that is deeply divided over what is Anglican orthodoxy. This division was clearly evident in the absence of fifteen primates from the last Primates’ Meeting. The issue of Anglican orthodoxy not only divides the provinces of the Anglican Communion but also the different Anglican bodies in North America. It divides the newer Anglican bodies internally although these bodies have yet to recognize and acknowledge its existence, much less its problematic nature and the extent and seriousness of the problem.

The Roman Catholic Church is taking advantage of the Anglican Church’s divisions with the erection of the Anglican Ordinariates. Roman Catholics are actively urging Anglo-Catholics to desert the Anglican Church for the Roman Catholic Church and disparaging the Catholicism of Anglo-Catholics reluctant to leave the Anglican Church.

A second challenge we face is a resurgent Islam and Islamic extremism. We see growing Muslim populations in Western countries that were formerly Christian but have succumbed to secularism. These populations are supplying Islamic extremists with fresh recruits in their campaign of jihad against the West. They are forcing beds for jihadism.

A third challenge we face is an aggressive form of atheism that is simply not content to disbelieve in God but is intent upon spreading its disbelief. In the United States the Center for Inquiry has launched a multimedia ad campaign declaring that atheists and the nonreligious can live good, meaningful lives without God. "You don't need God – to hope, to care, to love, to live," the ad states. The Center for Inquiry is a humanist group that seeks to foster a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values.

A fourth challenge we face is a growing secularism that champions equality over religious freedom and shows a decidedly unfriendly face to Christianity. The United Kingdom is feeling its impact from a recent High Court case in which the judges ruled that Great Britain is a multicultural secular nation in which equality rights take precedence over liberty of religious opinion. Christian couples who on the basis of their religious convictions cannot teach the acceptability of homosexuality and homosexual practice and sexual relations outside of marriage have been barred from fostering children in their homes.

A fifth challenge we face is political unrest in the Mid-East. Pro-democracy movements have toppled Tunisia and Egypt’s longstanding leaders and are seeking to drive Libya’s Mommar Gadhafi from power. There is a very serious likelihood that Islamic extremist will capitalize upon this unrest to establish Islamist regimes in these countries.

A sixth challenge we face is the intensification of the persecution of Christians in predominantly Muslim countries or in countries with substantial Muslim populations like Nigeria. Earlier this week Islamist extremists murdered Pakistan’s Minister for Minorities, a Christian, shooting him down in the street. The murdered man had advocated the reform of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, which Muslims have abused to pursue grudges against Pakistan’s minority Christian population. The Communist Party and the Chinese government have ratcheted up their persecution of Christians in China. Militant Hindu groups continue their attacks on Christians in India.

A seventh challenge we face the rapid growth of technology in and outside of the United States, a revolution in communication, and the tremendous impact it is having upon Western culture and the larger world. It is predicted that by the middle of the Twenty-First Century computer technology will become so advanced that artificial intelligence will become a reality. This prediction conjures up images of Skynet and the deadly killer robots of the Terminator movies, as well as the robot rebellion of I, Robot.

Whatever the future may hold for the human race, the technology explosion of today is altering lives in ways we do not fully understand or appreciate. It is having both a positive impact and a negative impact upon churches.

An eighth challenge we face is a struggling economy, reduced incomes, and rising food and fuel prices. This has not only led to a reduction of family and individual giving to churches but has also led to a similar reduction of the distance that families and individuals are willing to drive to a church of their choice. More and more churches are unable to afford a full-time paid professional pastor. The travel expenses of pastors serving two or more yoked churches have skyrocketed. Rather than attending churches closer to home, families and individuals have stopped going to church altogether. The higher cost of fuel is particularly affecting the rural church serving low-density population areas in which the population is widely scattered.

A ninth challenge we face is the prospect of overpopulation, the growing scarcity of arable land and water for irrigation, and widespread famine around the world. As fossil fuels become scarcer and the transportation of foodstuffs more difficult, Western countries like Canada, the European Union, and the United States, which import fruit, vegetables, and other foods from Third-World countries, will also experience food shortages. Third-World countries presently supplying Western countries may stop selling produce to the Western countries and divert land use to growing crops to feed their starving and increasingly turbulent populations.

A tenth challenge we face is the continuing urbanization of our society as more and more people flock to the cities. This mass migration to the cities is draining the population of rural areas and impacting the lives of the people remaining in these areas. It is reducing the quality of living both in the cities and the rural areas. Among the results of this population shift is that unchurched population of the cities is growing while the constituencies from which the rural church drew its members are disappearing. With them are disappearing the rural church’s financial base and its source of church leaders and volunteers.

An eleventh challenge we face is the real or imagined prospect of global warming due to natural or human causes and a public divided into two camps—believers and skeptics. If it is indeed real, then it is going to impact our lives in ways that we may not imagine. Among the possible consequences are rising oceans, the loss of arable land to the sea, and the incursion of salt water into river estuaries.

A twelfth challenge is the changes through which our society is going—the breakdown of community and family and the isolation of individuals from each other, the radicalization of politics, the normalization of homosexuality and other forms of sexual orientation (considered to be forms of sexual deviancy by the psychiatric community in the last century and still considered to be forms of sexual immorality by Christians, Jews, and Muslims), and the disinterest in and even antipathy toward organized religion.

A thirteenth challenge is a large aging population of Boomers and the divide between this population and the younger generations, the insolvency of the social security system, the rising cost of health care and the very real possibility of health care rationing and mandatory euthanasia.

A fourteenth challenge is the price of real estate, the cost of construction, and a spate of church foreclosures that has churches reconsidering plans to buy land and construct a building. Zoning laws are preventing churches from leasing buildings or even meeting in apartments or houses. The church with its own building is becoming a thing of the past.

A fifteenth challenge is competition from other denominations and other religions. While two of the largest Christian denominations—the Southern Baptist Convention and the United Methodist Church—are losing ground in the United States, cults like the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints and the Jehovah’s Witnesses are gaining ground. The rate at which Wicca and other forms of Neo-Paganism is growing in North America is not yet documented.

The Anglican Church faces other challenges. One challenge I did not include in this list is the spiritual myopia of Anglicans in North America. We cannot see beyond our noses. We face a number of the Anglican Church’s toughest challenges and we choose to adopt a 1950s style of ministry and worship that ill-suited to the challenges that we face. The world is changing rapidly around us, and we act as if The Honeymooners is still on TV and TVs have black and white pictures and antennas on the roof. It is time for Anglicans to face up to reality. Ozzie and Harriet are dead and Beaver is in his early sixties. There is no going back.

If Anglicans are going to serve the cause of the gospel in the new millennium, they need to start thinking out of the box. They need to stop thinking in terms of dioceses, parish churches, full-time paid professional clergy, chancel choirs, and Sunday schools—what has for Anglicans been the conventional church. Retreating to the familiar is not the way to cope with a changing world. The conventional church model is not the best model for these times. It is going to work in fewer places and with fewer people. Some Anglicans may be content for the Anglican Church to become smaller not only in size but also in impact as longs as things do not change. They remain—at least from the standpoint of these Anglicans—as they have always been.

In the sixteenth century the English Reformers undertook the reform of the Church of England. The primary reason that they undertook this reform was so that the English Church would once more serve the cause of the gospel. They stripped away everything that they believed would prevent it from accomplishing that purpose and retained what they thought would help it carryout the same purpose.

They restored the Bible to a central place in the teaching and life of the Church of England. They recovered the gospel of divine grace and did away with the Medieval beliefs and practices that had displaced it—purgatory, the sale of indulgences, the invocation of saints, the sacrifice of Masses, and prayers for the dead.

They retained elements of the Medieval Church—bishops, archdeacons, rural deans, the parish system, and the ecclesiastical courts, believing that they could serve the gospel cause. They kept the liturgy and thoroughly reformed it.

We need to undertake the reform of the Anglican Church in our own day. This reformation must be both church-wide and local. In some areas changes need to be made at the denominational level, for example, changes in the recruitment, training, deployment, and licensing of clergy. In other areas they need to be made in a particular church, in a particular community. A church may need to rethink how it does gospel ministry.

One thing that should be on the top of our list is the recovery of the doctrine of salvation by grace alone by faith alone in Christ alone. It was for their support of this doctrine and their rejection of the Medieval doctrines of the eucharistic sacrifice and the substantive presence of Christ in the eucharistic elements that Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, and others suffered martyrdom. It was the linchpin of the English Reformation as it was for the Continental Reformation. If North American Anglicans cannot agree on this doctrine, it does not matter whether they agree on other basic Christian doctrines.

While fronted with numerous challenges, Anglican Christians are also faced with numerous opportunities. God has put the world’s largest English-speaking mission field right outside the front door of North American Anglicans. They live and work in it. It encompasses their friends, relatives, neighbors, colleagues, and fellow students. This is the mission field in which God has placed them and it is in this mission field that God expects most of them to serve Him—to fulfill the Great Commission.

Jesus said go out into the world and make known the good news to everybody. He did not say this just to the disciples, to the clergy of his future Church, to the more zealous of her members. He said it to the whole Church—to all Christians in all places in all times.

When your parents presented you for baptism, they dedicated you to God and set you apart for God’s service. When you presented yourself for confirmation, you ratified the vows they made at your baptism and said, “Here I am, Lord. Send me.”

You did not sign on to be a hearer of sermons. You did not sign on to be a partaker of communion. You signed on to be a missionary for God—to be a bearer of good news.

Why then are you staring at a computer screen and not going about God’s business?

The Future of Ordained Ministry in the Anglican Church in North America

2011-02-28T21:08:00.002-06:00

By Robin G.Jordan

One reader in a comment in response to the article, “St. Mary's Episcopal Church to Close Sunday After More Than 50 Years,” raised the question as to whether the revival of the practice of weekly celebrations of the Eucharist had really benefited the Episcopal Church. Episcopal churches were closing because they could not even afford to pay the salary of a part-time priest and the diocese was no longer willing or able to subsidize them. Congregations had lost members to the point that the diocese no longer regarded them as viable.

A number of factors have contributed to the loss of members in the Episcopal Church. These factors vary from region to region. The liberal policies of the Episcopal Church and its image as a gay church have negatively impacted churches across the United States, in some regions more than others, depending upon local attitudes toward homosexuality and homosexual practice. But other factors are also affecting the Episcopal Church as they are affecting a number of denominations.

Among these factors is a declining interest in the general population in organized religion. This is not to say that Americans do not have religious beliefs or even a form of spirituality. However, they see no benefit in membership in a religious community such as the congregation of a church, synagogue, or temple or in participation in corporate worship or other communal religious activities (e.g., group meditation). What needs that membership in such a community or participation in such activities might meet are met in other ways or go unrecognized and unmet.

This development has implications not only for the Episcopal Church but also for other denominations in North America. It also has implications for the Anglican Churches that breakaway groups of Canadian Anglican and US Episcopalians have formed during the last 35 years, including the Reformed Episcopal Church that was formed in the nineteenth century. With less people taking part in any form of organized religion these Churches that, like the Episcopal Church, have appealed only to small segment of the general population are going to have greater difficulty in recruiting new members. They are going to find themselves without the kind of financial base needed to maintain a building or to pay the salary, benefits package, and travel allowance of a part-time pastor, much less a full-time pastor.

The revival of the practice of weekly celebrations of the Eucharist in the Episcopal Church and the widespread sacramentalism in the breakaway Anglican Churches compounds this problem as do the expectations that the minister administering the sacraments must be seminary-trained and episcopally-ordained. Anglicans and Episcopalians have professionalized the vocation of pastor to such a degree that more and more churches are going to find it prohibitive to procure the services of such a professional. Today’s weak economy exacerbates the problem.

One proposal is that we ratchet back the professionalization of the vocation of pastor. Instead of expecting to meet a church’s staffing needs with full-time, paid, seminary-trained, professional ordained minister, we make greater use of part-time bi-vocational or retired, locally trained, non-professional ordained and licensed ministers. This entails reassessing and rethinking how much training an individual needs to function as a pastor and how he receives that training. What does he need to know before he begins pastoring and what can he pick up once he has started? This itself entails reassessing and rethinking what the function of a pastor is. It means asking the difficult question, “Are we giving too many tasks to the pastor? What tasks might the members of the congregation themselves perform?”

The role that New Testament envisions for a pastor is largely to preach, to teach, to pray, and to guide, not to administer the sacraments, to manage the church’s finances, or to carryout any number of tasks that he is now expected to perform. These tasks fell to the members of the congregation, to the church elders.

In the Episcopal Church and the breakaway Anglican Churches the administration of the sacraments is, due to the sacramentalism that pervades these churches, seen as the chief task of the pastor. He consecrates the bread and wine for the Lord’s Supper and blesses the water in the font for Baptism.

Scripture does not assign the administration of the sacraments to anyone in particular in the local church community. In the New Testament accounts of the institution of the Lord’s Supper Jesus in his words and actions devotes the bread and wine to a specific purpose—to serve as a memorial of himself. This is the understanding of consecration that the Scriptural narrative supports—a setting apart of the elements for sacramental use.

Some Anglicans conclude from these two facts that an ordained minister or priest is not essential to the administration of the Lord’s Supper. This view is controversial because it goes against a longstanding tradition in the Anglican Church and the sacramentalism of a number of Anglicans. In the view of the latter the valid consecration of the elements requires not just an ordained minister—the Reformed position—but also a priest ordained by a bishop in a particular unbroken line of episcopal succession traceable to the apostles—the Roman Catholic position. Otherwise, the elements will not confer the grace that they signify. This is a major obstacle to the reassignment of the administration of the Lord’s Supper to someone other than an episcopally-ordained priest. In light of the strong negative reaction to Sydney’s proposal to license deacons and lay readers to administer the Lord’s Supper, it is likely to remain a major obstacle for the foreseeable future.

The sacrament of Baptism does not present the same problem as the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Deacons and laypersons have long been recognized as proper ministers of the sacrament along with bishops and priests. The concern is that the proper form and matter should be used.

Other tasks presently assigned to a pastor, however, may be reassigned to the members of the congregation. While he was the rector of St. Aldate’s in Oxford, Michael Green appointed lay elders to work alongside him as the pastor of the church. They shared with him a number of tasks that have over time been assigned to the pastor.

The Bible tells us that New Testaments had more than one elder. They had what the Patristic writer Tertullian describes as a “bench” of elders. These elders taught and provided spiritual guidance and care. They performed other tasks, for example, anointed the sick and prayed over them.

Whether the appointment of church elders is desirable is something that every church must decide for itself. But if members of the congregation are going to take on tasks that the pastor has been performing, they do need to be equipped for such work. This raises the question of what training do they need and how are they going to receive it.

In 1984 the Diocese of Singapore launched a highly effective Diocesan Lay Training Programme. Since that time other Anglican dioceses have experimented with programs of their own. A number of these programs consist of a diocesan ministerial training school that offers classes at night or on weekends, sometimes weekly but often monthly. In the latter case the class may consist of a series of intensive weekend seminars with homework and reading assignments that the participants must complete between seminars. While these programs have brought the ministerial training school to the diocese, they have yet to bring it to the local congregation where it is most needed.

The experience of a number of cell group churches around the world show that equipping can be done in small groups at the local congregational level. It does not need a traditional classroom or lecture hall. A number of cell group churches have developed training programs for this purpose. These programs focus upon discipleship, leadership development, and spiritual formation. They are supplemented by courses on the Old Testament and New Testament and other specialty courses.

Like the Singapore Diocesan Lay Training Program the typical “equipping track” of a cell group church is comprised of a number of modules. As an individual completes a module, he moves along the equipping track. In addition to studying the material in a module and completing any additional reading, the individual meets with a mentor. The mentor provides him with guidance and encouragement and monitors his progress. The individual’s participation in a cell group is also a part of the equipping process. This approach provides cell group churches with a steady supply of leaders.

A number of the mega-churches have adapted this approach to train their own staff who are usually recruited from within the church rather than from outside it. In this way new staff has already been exposed to the culture of the church and they are familiar with how it operates. They also have connections with the community that the church serves. They do not have to spend months and even years building relationships in the community.

The days of the conventional church that can maintain its own building and pay a full-time professional to pastor it are numbered. If the Anglican Church faces a different set of conditions in North America than it does in Africa, Asia, and South America. In these parts of the world the conventional church, adapted to local conditions, may continue to flourish. But even in Africa, Asia, and South America, this is increasingly not the case, for example, in the Diocese of Singapore, and the Anglican Church is turning to other models such as the cell group church and the house church.

Unless the North American Anglican Church wrestles with these issues and adopts new approaches to “doing church,” it is likely to go the way of the dodo bird. The dodo was large flightless bird that was not particularly bright but survived as long as its environment was free from threats to its survival. It quickly became extinct when its environment became filled with such threats. North America is rapidly filling with threats to the survival of the Anglican Church and unless it shows adaptability where it counts, it will join the dodo on the extinction list.

The Senses, Creativity, and the Arts in Worship

2011-02-26T20:05:00.003-06:00

By Robin G. Jordan

One criticism that is leveled at conservative evangelicals like myself is that we make no place for the senses or creativity and the arts in worship. This I do not believe is accurate characterization of the conservative evangelical view on these particular subjects. It is certainly not mine.

I see no problem with worship as a multi-sensory experience provided that such an experience truly engages all the senses in the worship of God and is not used simply as justification for the reintroduction of ceremonies, customs, and usages that were rejected at the Reformation for valid reasons. I have no objection to the use of bright colors in the communion table cover, the pulpit and lectern falls, and the kneeling cushions. I find nothing in the Scriptures that says that the environment in which we worship must be somber or colorless. God has filled the world around us with color.

I have not objection to engaging the olfactory senses in the worship of God provided that it not used as an excuse for offering incense during the service. This is not to say that frankincense might not be burned in the worship space on a special occasion before the service to set that occasion apart from other occasions. This was the practice of the seventeenth century Anglican poet priest George Herbert at his little parish of Fugglestone St Peter with Bemerton St Andrew, near Salisbury. Or frankincense essential oil might be rubbed on the legs of the chairs in which the worshipers are to sit during the service.

If the bread used in the Holy Communion is to have strong value as a sign, it should look like bread. It should smell like bread. It should have the texture of bread, and it should taste like bread. What Jesus took into his hands when he gave thanks was not white paste wafers. It was also not modern Jewish matzo. It in all likelihood bore a resemblance to the flat unleavened breads of the Mid-East of today.

I certainly see a place for creativity and the arts in worship. Here again I must add the same caveat for multi-sensory worship experiences.

Local artisans can be used to make church furniture. They can be used to sew the communion table cover, the fair linen, the Prayer Book cushion, the pulpit-lectern fall, and the kneeling cushions. They can also be used to make the communion ware. Designs for all these items need to be carefully scrutinized for their appropriateness and their aesthetic attractiveness.

Conservative evangelicals like myself sets high value on those qualities that delight the sight or other senses or the mind. We are not devoid of an aesthetical sense. We can see beauty in the simple, clean lines of well-joined cherry wood communion table and reading desk lovingly made by a skilled woodworker in the congregation.

My observation has been that the church decorations and clergy ornaments to which a number of congregations are addicted are overly ornate and far from beautiful. They may be “traditional” but being “traditional” does not keep something from being ugly.

People give more careful attention to decorating their own home than they do the worship space of their church. Often that space resembles a Victorian parlor or a junk shop, crammed with tasteless objects that people have donated.

In my former parish we had a policy where if a family or individual wished to donate an item, we showed them a list of items that the church needed, pictures of the specific items, and where they might purchase them. We guided the donation process.

Anglican new church plants face a particular set of challenges. They are often the recipient of torn and damaged Prayer Books and hymnals, broken electronic organs, bent processional crosses, faded old-fashioned vestments, and other discarded worn-out items that churches could not bring themselves to throw away and which they gladly will donate to a new congregation under the mistaken belief that they are somehow helping them. They do not realize that new congregations in order to be successful in reaching the unchurched need new Prayer Books, hymnals, keyboards, and the like to create an attractive worship experience.

New congregations frequently worship in non-traditional settings. This often means setting up for worship and children’s ministry every Sunday and then tearing down afterwards. They must store their Prayer Books, hymnals, keyboard, and other equipment during the week. They have no room for junk!

People are also apt to have rather fixed ideas as to how the worship space ought to be arranged and these ideas are generally determined by how a particular church from their past was arranged. Often such ideas based upon the layout of “traditional” church buildings do not work well in non-traditional settings. If creativity is needed anywhere, it is in the new church plant. Indeed creativity and flexibility are musts.

When a new congregation is doing “church in a box,” evangelical simplicity is a boon. We have come to a time in the history of Christianity in North America when it may increasingly become prohibitive for a church to own its own building and a large number of churches will simply lease a building or space in a building. The number of church foreclosures has gone up.

The story of one congregation comes to mind. It was not a large congregation but it believed that it would grow over time especially if it had the right building. The congregation went deeply into debt to buy a large Gothic style church building that was on the market. This building fit the congregation’s idea of how a “church” should look. It put form before function. The congregation, however, did not grow as it had anticipated. It was not able to make the payments on the mortgage and eventually the bank foreclosed on the building and the congregation lost the building to the bank. If the congregation had settled on leasing a modest-sized building, one that may have not looked like its conception of a “church,” it would not have experienced the trauma of foreclosure. If it had grown, it could have moved to a larger building. If it had not grown, it could have downsized to a smaller building.

As far for banners and wall hangings I believe that we can learn from Islam that has a strong prohibition against images of any kind. It has turned the writing of verses from the Quran in the flowing Arabic script and simple geometric shapes into an art form. I can see how verses from the Bible, written in one of the more beautiful scripts used to write the English language, and done artistically, with the use of color, texture, and different materials, might be used to decorate a worship space. They would be pleasing to the eye and edifying to the people. If they are done with imagination and skill, they could be real works of art.

The Journey, the church with which I am presently sojourning, changes the appearance of the worship space for every sermon series. The theme of the sermon series is represented in some visual form. For the sermon series “Guardrails” corrugated aluminum panels were hung on either side of the platform in the imitation of the guardrails erected at curves in the highway. The same video clip introduction may be used to introduce the sermon throughout the sermon series. Video clips and props and even dramatization may be used to illustrate a point in the sermon.

The theme of the sermon series may also be repeated in visual form in the area in which the congregation gathers before the service. During the “Guardrails” sermon series bright orange road cones and road signs marked the way from the stairs and the elevators to the ballroom where the church’s “Sunday gatherings” are usually held. The Guest Services volunteers wore the bright orange vests that road workers wear. These visual props emphasized the sermon series’ theme—the guardrails that we establish in our lives to keep us on the road and not straying off it, as we seek to enter by the narrow gate.

Hope Church with which I previously sojourned made very effective use of video clips as the background of the lyrics of hymns and worship songs. These clips were selected for their suitability to the particular lyrics. The lyrics of a song in praise of God for his handiwork in creation might have as their background a series of images of that handiwork—flowers nodding in a breeze, rippling grass, a stream flowing over rocks, the planet Earth seen from space, a wheeling constellation.

In Creative Christian Education: Teaching the Bible through the Church Year, Howard Hanchey suggests dividing the children’s ministry year into terms and ending each term with a bang, with a celebration that involves the whole church. During the term the children make banners and other visual arts projects. They may learn a song and rehearse a drama. All these elements form a part of the celebration, which is integrated into the Sunday service. The younger children at North Cross, another church with whom I sojourned, tie-dyed large coffee filters and made them into exquisite banners during the children’s ministry time. When they joined their parents after the sermon, they brought their banners with them and the conference room in which we gathered to worship looked like it was filled with delicate pastel colored butterflies.

There are many opportunities for the use of visual arts and multimedia on Sunday mornings and at other times. All that is needed is a little imagination and creativity.

I see room for the use of a wide range of musical forms, styles, and instruments in worship. I also see room for unaccompanied singing and no musical instruments at all. Church music has unfortunately become divided into two main schools—the organ school and the guitar-keyboard-drum kit school. The school to which I belong—the eclectic school—is decidedly in the minority. God has so richly gifted the Church and the human race with all kinds of music from stirring organ voluntaries to the unadorned human voice that it is a shame not to use all of it in the worship of the gift-Giver.

I have come to view the music of the Church in a particular time and place as a part of the witness of the Church in that time and place to successive generations of Christians around the world. In the 1980s I read Betty Pulkingham’s Sing God a Simple Song. I took to heart her advice that to whomever fell the responsibility of choosing the worship music of a church should be like the householder who brought forth from his storeroom treasures new and old.

I can see a place for gestures and hand and body movements in worship, especially when young children are involved. A book that has influenced my thinking in this area is Patricia Beall’s The Folk Arts in God’s Family. I can even see a place for some forms of dance. Some folks may have difficulty with dance in worship, and I understand and appreciate their concerns. At the same time we are called to worship God with our whole being. Through dance people can present their entire selves to God. What I have in mind is the kind of dance in which worshipers join hands in a circle and move their feet to a simple folk dance step as they sing God’s praises in a joyous expression of praise to the Lord.

At one time uplifted hands would have created a stir in an Anglican or Episcopal church. It was associated in people’s minds with the charismatic movement. This gesture, which is thoroughly Biblical, is now widespread. It is found in non-charismatic churches as well as charismatic ones in a number of denominations. The orans position of the minister during the eucharistic prayer in Anglican and Episcopal churches is a survival from a time when all Christians prayed with open or uplifted hands. Many people are unaware that Puritans held their hands this way when they prayed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

In “Evangelical Religion” Bishop J. C. Ryle considers “that religion which is peculiar to those within the Church of England who are normally called ‘the Evangelical Party’.” He also draws attention to the numerous false reports spread about Evangelicals and defends Evangelicals against the many charges made against them in these reports.

7.) Evangelical Religion does not object to handsome Church buildings.

We like well-designed and well arranged places of worship, good architecture, well ordered ceremonial and well conducted services. We dislike slovenliness, and would have all things done “properly and in an orderly manner” (1 Corinthians 14:40). But we maintain that simplicity should be the characteristic of Christian worship. Remembering the great Scriptural truth, “man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7), we believe the inward and spiritual character of the congregation is more important than architecture and ornaments. Further, remembering that human nature is easily led astray, we feel that ornaments, theatrical ceremonial, and such like, only drive men away from Christ, and make them walk by sight and not by faith.

Bishop Ryle makes an important point. We can become so preoccupied with the externals of worship that “the inward and spiritual character of the congregation” is neglected. The congregation’s inward and spiritual character should always be our primary focus. Our main objective should be that we worship God in the true beauty of holiness. This is the holy attire with which we clothe ourselves when we put on Christ. We may worship in the meanest hovel, dressed in rags, yet we, having put on Christ, worship at the very gates of heaven. As our Lord told the woman at the well, those the Father seeks to worship him are the true worshippers, those who worship Him in spirit and in truth.

Three Principles of Practice

2011-02-25T21:14:00.001-06:00

By Robin G. Jordan

I have a makeshift bird feeder on my front porch on which I put out wild bird seed for the birds wintering in my area. I have seen slate-colored juncos, house wrens, mourning doves, cardinals, tree sparrows, white-crowned sparrows, mocking birds, robins, and even house finches and rufous-sided towhees. House finches are usually found in the West but the cold weather and the ice and snow must have driven them to the East.

Bird watching is like observing the different groups of Anglicans in and outside of North America. Except for the occasional squirrel all the visitors to my bird feeder can be categorized as birds. If one accepts self-description as a criterion for being an Anglican, all these groups can be broadly categorized as Anglican. Just as the birds that visit my bird feeder belong to different families—warblers, sparrows, etc.—so do these groups. Just as some of the visitors to my bird feeder are difficult to identify and classify, so likewise are these groups. To my knowledge the different species of birds do not interbreed. However, Anglican groups produce all kinds of hybrids.

If one uses doctrine as a criterion, the “true gospel” and the “Protestant Reformed religion” of the 1688 Coronation Oath Act, then the number of groups that can be categorized as Anglican shrinks markedly. If one adds practice as a criterion—the bare unadorned churches, the movable wooden communion tables, and the surpliced clergy of Matthew Parker’s Advertisements and the 1604 Canons, then the number of groups shrinks even further. Of course, the different groups that claim the self-appellation of Anglican at this point will be objecting strenuously to their disqualification as being Anglican. Yet by these standards they are not Anglican—of the Protestant Reformed Church of England and the particular tradition that flows from that Church. They may represent what may have become accepted as Anglican in certain quarters of the worldwide Anglican Church but what they represent is a fiction—a falsehood that has gained tacit acceptance in these quarters.

The Global Anglican Future Conference wrestled with the problem of Anglican identity and produced the Jerusalem Declaration. Anglo-Catholics have not been too happy with the Jerusalem Declaration as it is too Protestant for their liking. Conservative evangelicals have pointed to the attention of GAFCON primates and bishops a number of doctrinal weaknesses in the Jerusalem Declaration from their perspective. The Jerusalem Declaration also does not address the question of practice.

Practice is an important issue for conservative evangelicals. They take seriously the principle “Lex credendi, lex orendi,” literally “the law of belief, the law of prayer.” How we pray expresses what we believe. It also shapes what we believe. It reinforces and strengthens our beliefs. If a minister preaches from the pulpit and teaches in the classroom the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers but wears a chasuble and stole that mark him as the priest then he is contradicting by his ornamentation his preaching and teaching. Things like vestments are considered the ornaments of the clergy. If he teaches and preaches this doctrine but does not discourage parishioners from addressing him as “Father” and signs his letters “Fr. A. B.” with a cross after his surname, he is doing the same thing.

Parishioners will see the inconsistency between what he is saying and what he is doing. It will not be lost on them. The old proverbial saying, “Practice what you preach,” has a long history. It was first written down in Piers Plowman in the late fourteenth century. It recognizes that generations of ministers have not demonstrated what they preached. They have failed to practice their own doctrine.

If a minister preaches and teaches that the Lord’s Supper is not a sacrifice in any sense other than an offering of our praise, thanksgiving, and our selves to God in response to what He has done through Christ but wears a chasuble and stole—the vestments of a sacrificing priest, then he is contradicting by his ornamentation his preaching and teaching. It does not matter that the vestments that he is wearing may no longer have that association in the minds of the congregation. They are the vestments of a sacrificing priest. They may have begun as the ordinary street wear of a presbyter but that is what they became. It is what they signify. They are not consistent with what he is preaching and teaching. The lack of consistency between doctrine and practice has become a serious problem in Anglican churches in the twenty-first century.

One argument that is made in support of questionable ceremonies, customs, and usages is that the congregation is accustomed to them. This is a spurious argument. If the congregation is accustomed to burning incenses before idols and sacrificing chickens and pigs to them do we accommodate these practices because the congregation is accustomed to them? Too often the real explanation for the retention of such ceremonies, customs, and usages is not the pastoral reasons by which the minister justifies their continuation. It is that the minister has developed an attachment to these practices and is reluctant to abandon them. In his essay “Of Ceremonies, Why Some Be Abolished, and Some Retained” in The Book of Common Prayer Archbishop Thomas Cranmer notes how we can become addicted to such practices.

Some clergy insist that what vestments the minister wears, what ceremonial he use, and what other practices he follows is simply a matter of personal taste or preference. This could not be further from the truth. I am not suggesting that they are deliberately trying to mislead people. They may believe what they are saying. They have lost sight of the connection between doctrine and practice.

Other clergy argue that their preaching and teaching blunts the effects of any messages, subtle or otherwise, that the vestments they wear, the ceremonial they use, and the other practices they follow may convey. They are fooling themselves. They are underestimating the influence of these elements. The latter are blunting the effects of their teaching and preaching.

The minister who has lost sight of the connection between doctrine and practice or who minimizes the deleterious effect of practice inconsistent with doctrine fosters a similar way of thinking in his congregation. This can have very harmful consequences for his parishioners. It makes them vulnerable to false doctrine masquerading under the guise of familiar practice.

Robert Webber and other writers have influenced a generation of clergy. They have promoted a number of practices as worship enrichments without giving any thought to the appropriateness of these practices to a particular ecclesiastical tradition or the doctrinal statements that such practices make. They have encouraged the disconnection of practice from doctrine. They have also shown themselves to have a poor understanding of how liturgy works, how the medium is indeed a major part of the message, and have treated these practices merely as embellishments of worship. They have also repeated a Laudian catch phrase, “the beauty of holiness” to justify the use of such practices as adornments of the Sunday service.

“The beauty of holiness,” however, does not refer church decorations, clergy ornaments, ceremonial, or anything of that nature. It is no justification for the beautification of churches and church services. The phrase “the beauty of holiness” comes from 1 Chronicles 16:29 and Psalm 29:2 and 96:9 in the King James Version of the Bible. The American Standard Version renders this phrase as “holy array.” The Bible in Basic English renders the phrase as “holy robes.” The English Standard Version renders it as “splendor of holiness” with the alternative rendering of “holy attire.” The only true holy array, robes, or attire that a Christian might don to worship God is Christ.

The Laudians should have known that the Hebrew did not support their interpretation of the phrase “the beauty of holiness.” If they did, they chose to ignore it. They may have depended upon a Patristic interpretation of the phrase. The Laudians were uncritical in their approach to the early Church Fathers, not submitting their thoughts to Scripture but over-relying upon their writings in the interpretation of Scripture. They gave too much weight to the rule of antiquity and not enough weight to the rule of Scripture.

The seventeenth century Laudians and the twentieth century liturgical and Ancient-Future or Worship Renewal movements are not the only ones guilty of using this phrase to justify the introduction of practices like wearing chasubles and stoles. So is the nineteenth century Ritualist movement. They all use the same language and speak of adorning, beautifying, embellishing, and enriching Christian worship and the liturgy.

Conservative evangelicals also take seriously the principle of “Let all things be done for edification” (1 Corinthians 14:26) To conservative evangelicals a number of the gestures of the priest in a traditionalist Anglo-Catholic celebration of the Mass—such as making the sign of the cross over everything and multiple signs of the cross over the bread and wine—bring immediately to mind the dark and superstitious ceremonies to which Archbishop Cranmer refers in the essay “Of Ceremonies”. They serve no purpose. They certainly do not serve “a decent Order and godly Discipline” or “stir up the dull mind of man to the remembrance of his duty to God.” They are far from edifying. Rather they resemble the kind of gestures one might observe in occult rituals in the drawing of mystical signs in the air or on the ground or the performance of a conjurer in the magical passes of his hands over an object.

Jesus simply took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to his disciples. He took a cup of wine, gave thanks, and gave it to them. He drew no mystical signs in the air nor did he make any magical passes of his hands over the bread and cup. The Book of Common Prayer only requires that the minister perform the manual acts—take the paten into his hands, break the bread, lay a hand on the bread, take the cup in his hands, and lay a hand on all of the vessels containing wine.

To the twenty-first century Anglican or Episcopalian time traveler from North America accustomed to the decorations and ornaments that the Ritualists introduced into the Anglican Church of Canada and the Protestant Episcopal Church in the nineteenth century, a typical Church of England parish church in 1904 might seem bare and its services plain. In Anglo-Catholic parishes, however, he would discover that ecclesiastical law was flouted and all kinds of illegal decorations and ornaments might be found. The latter included elaborate ceremonial and the use of incense as well as vestments.

If the time traveler went as far back as 1604, he would find the typical Church of English parish church to be even plainer with white washed walls and no wall decorations except the Ten Commandments and passages of Scripture painted or engraved on wooden boards. The services would be longer. Metrical Psalms would be sung in place of hymns and a homily might be read in place of a sermon. The time traveler, if he crossed the Channel and visited Switzerland, he would find little difference between the Swiss parish church and the English parish church—the same unadorned white washed walls. The service would be different. Continental Reformed services were based on the Medieval prone. He would sing metrical Psalms as he had in the English parish church. He would hear a sermon instead of a homily.

The Protestant Reformation swept away the cultus of the Roman Catholic Church and her innovations in doctrine and worship that had not only defaced and overlaid the primitive and apostolic faith in England and the Swiss cantons by the sixteenth century but also had to a large part replaced it. The English Reformers were guided by a third principle that conservative evangelicals take seriously. This principle is articulated in Article XXXIV.

It is not necessary that traditions and ceremonies be in all places one or utterly alike; for at all times they have been diverse, and may be changed according to the diversity of countries, times, and men's manners, so that nothing be ordained against God's word.

The practice of a church should be consonant with Scripture. This means that while a ceremony, custom, or usage may not be specifically prohibited by Scripture, it may not be agreeable to Scripture. While the wearing of a chasuble and a stole may not be expressly forbidden in the Bible, the doctrine with which these vestments are associated, viz., that the Lord’s Supper is a reiteration or representation of Christ’s or a participation in Christ’s sacrifice is not found in Scripture and indeed it is repugnant to Scripture. On this basis the wearing of such vestments should be avoided. Their wearing may also injure the conscience of a weaker brother or sister.

As may be seen from the following list taken fromA Protestant Dictionary, published in 1904, this principle guided the Church of England as late as the beginning of the twentieth century. This list shows what was legal at that time in the Church of England.

Images and paintings of figures that might become the object of adoration or veneration were prohibited. Paintings of historical scenes were permitted as long as no figure in the scene became the object of adoration or worship. Crucifixes, holy water stoups, processional crosses, and pyxes and other vessels for the exposure or reservation of the Host were prohibited. Wall crosses were permitted but not in close proximity to the communion table. Communion tables were to be wooden and moveable. Stone altars were prohibited. No candles were permitted on the communion table except to provide light. No crosses were permitted on the communion table or just above the communion table. The communion table was to have a cover of the best fabric in any color. The fair linen must be white and with no embroidery or lace. Pulpit and lectern falls were permitted. While gates might be installed to separate the chancel from the nave, they were required to be kept open throughout the service. Flowers might be used as decorations in the church building but not in any way in worship in or outside of church services. As for the ornaments of the clergy ministers in parish churches might wear with the requisite full-sleeved white surplice a silken academic hood and black tippet or preaching scarf that came down to their ankles. There was difference of opinion whether a tippet might be worn indoors as it was historically outdoor wear. A black preaching gown might be worn for the sermon but a surplice was required for the administration of the sacraments. Ministers in cathedrals and college chapels might wear a cope. Bishops were to wear a rochette. Albs, chasubles, and stoles were prohibited, as were crosiers, or pastoral staffs. There was debate over the permissibility of a mitre.

These three principles underlie conservative evangelical thinking on the subject of practice. To summarize them:

1. Practice must be consistent with doctrine.
2. Practice must be edifying.
3. Practice must be consonant with Scripture.

These three principles are not the only ones that underlie conservative evangelical thinking on this subject but they are the three most important. They are also a part of the legacy that the English Reformers bequeathed to posterity—our inheritance from the Protestant Reformed Church of England, our Anglican heritage.

The Challenges of Networking

2011-02-24T09:22:00.002-06:00

By Robin G. Jordan

This past November Treading Grain David Wood published a brief article about plans to form an ACNA diocese in the Carolinas. More recently on Baby Blue Cafe Mary Aire published an article about proposals for the reorganization of the CANA District of Virginia into an ACNA diocese. These articles document a trend in the churches forming the Anglican Church in North America to organize in territory-based judicatories.

This trend does not surprise me as a number of voices on the Internet have called for the organization of all ACNA churches in a particular geographic area into a diocese. This form of organization is the one with which the former Anglicans and Episcopalians that form the nucleus of the ACNA are the most familiar. It is the way that the Anglican Church of Canada and The Episcopal Church are organized. It is how the Church of England and a number of other Anglican provinces are organized.

The diocese was the way that the feudal Medieval Church was organized, each bishop with his own fiefdom, palace, retainers, vassals, and serfs. It was also how the Roman Empire was organized. It was from the Roman Empire that the Eastern and Western Church borrowed this form of organization.

As noted in my article, “Affinity Networks,” the Celtic Church would adopt a different form of organization, a network of Christian communities that shared an affinity with each other. It was more suited to conditions in Ireland than the diocese. Patrick attempted to establish the diocesan form of organization in Ireland but it did not survive his death.

With an eye to integrating AMiA and REC congregations and clergy into the life of the diocese, the Diocese of the Central Gulf and the Diocese of the South incorporated provisions into their constitutions and canons opening various bodies of the diocese to these congregations and clergy with one exception—the Standing Committee. The hope is that such congregations and clergy will eventually unite with the new dioceses.

This call for the integration of all churches in a particular geographic area in an ACNA diocese received a rebuff when the Anglican Mission in the Americas opted to become a ministry partner to the ACNA instead of dismantling its organizational structure in order to create new ACNA dioceses. The AMiA had found that its particular form of organization was more effective for achieving its purposes of church planting and evangelism than the traditional diocese. Instead of releasing new churches to the ACNA, the AMiA has enfolded them in its own parachurch organization.

The Reformed Episcopal Church has not shown itself to be in any rush to dismantle its own organizational structure. One observer of developments in the ACNA with whom I am acquainted believes that as other founding entities of the ACNA release their congregations and clergy to ACNA dioceses, the REC will follow suit. Indeed REC will begin feeling pressure to release its churches to ACNA dioceses. While I do not rule out the possibility, I have so far not seen any signs of this development happening. I have also received reports of REC new church plants that have been enfolded into its own parachurch organization. I have adopted a “wait-and-see” attitude regarding what direction the REC will take.

This trend points to collective amnesia on the part of Anglicans and Episcopalians regarding the problems and disadvantages of this particular form of organization—the territory-based judicatory. It brings together congregations and clergy that have little in common beyond that they are located in the territorial bounds of the same judicatory. Anglo-Catholics, charismatics, evangelicals, and “mere Christians” are thrown together to make the best of a bad arrangement.

Conservative evangelicals historically have not benefited from such an arrangement. They have at times found themselves in a diocese in which the bishop is intent upon forcing the churches of the diocese into an Anglo-Catholic or liberal mold and to reshape them to his liking. This has led to serious theological disputes between the bishop and themselves. Conservative evangelical congregations have been forced to accept Anglo-Catholic or liberal clergy. Conservative evangelical ministerial candidates have been denied permission to attend conservative evangelical seminaries and theological colleges. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Another observer of developments in the ACNA with whom I am also acquainted believes that the pending formation of these two dioceses mark a rapidly closing window of opportunity for conservative evangelicals in the ACNA to form a non-geographic diocese or other grouping in that body to enfold congregations and clergy that are committed to upholding the historic Anglican formularies and promoting the Protestant and Reformed heritage of the Church of England. He may be right. The passage of time and further developments in the ACNA will reveal whether he is.

On the other hand, there may be no real openness in the ACNA to the formation of such a judicatory. A judicatory that is more firmly committed than the ACNA to the Jerusalem Declaration would be perceived as a threat to the perception of Anglicans outside of North America that the ACNA is GAFCON in North America. It would point to the ACNA’s own token commitment to the Jerusalem Declaration. An isolated, marginalized, scattered, and weak conservative evangelical wing prevents it from playing any appreciable role in a settlement that might shape the direction of the ACNA. One element in the ACNA would prefer to keep it that way.

Conservative evangelicals have historically tended to focus upon parish ministry. The kind of organizations that they are likely to form and support are those that benefit parish ministry. The Church of England’s Church Pastoral Aid Society (CPAS) is a good example. For a good part of its history the Church of England’s conservative evangelical wing isolated itself from the life of the denomination. The result was that Anglo-Catholics and liberals would come to dominate the decision-making boards, commissions, committees, and councils of the Church of England, as well as the episcopate in the English Church. Only in the second half of the twentieth century would the conservative evangelical wing recognize the folly of its ways and take a more active role in denominational affairs.

A preoccupation with parish work is one of the major obstacles to the organization of conservative evangelicals in the ACNA and the AMiA to further their common interests. They appear set upon following in the footsteps of previous generations of conservative evangelicals. They do not seem to have learned from the mistakes of the past.

Among the other developments that weaken the cause of traditional Anglican evangelicalism in North America is a separatist tendency in those who should be championing its cause. Conservative evangelicals have since the nineteenth century been subject to pressure not only from within their own ranks but also from what are sometimes known as “the Free Churches” to break with the Church of England in the United Kingdom and the Protestant Episcopal Church in North United States and to establish a doctrinally pure denomination. They have also experienced pressure from the Tractarians, the Ritualists, and their successors to secede. The Reformed Episcopal Church and the Free Church of England are the result of nineteenth century attempts to establish such denominations. So is the Plymouth Brethren.

Bishop of Liverpool J. C. Ryle who was a leading nineteenth century conservative evangelical fought against this tendency in conservative evangelicals in his day. He urged them not to abandon the Church of England.

The events of the past 40 years has strengthened this inclination in conservative evangelicals in North America as one group after another has succeeded from The Episcopal Church over issues of doctrine and practice. Separation is no longer Plan B if Plan A fails. It has become Plan A.

The conservative evangelical focus upon parish ministry may itself be a mild form of separatism. Conservative evangelical clergy who find themselves the only Reformed minister in a judicatory are apt to keep their distance from other clergy who do not share their Reformed views. This may explain the past reluctance of conservative evangelical clergy to participate in denominational boards, commissions, committees, and councils. In their minds their participation in these gatherings would entail collaboration with ministers who were not Reformed in their views. The prospect of such collaboration evoked feelings of doubt and uneasiness about the propriety of their participation in the gatherings and caused them hesitance about taking part in them. Rather than suffer the prick of a troubled conscience they avoided gatherings of this type.

I am convinced that the future of historic Anglicanism in North America is tied that of traditional Anglican evangelicalism. If traditional Anglican evangelicalism does not have a future in North America, historic Anglicanism does not have a future either. Of all the schools of thought in the contemporary Anglican Communion, only the conservative evangelicals can truly claim a recognizable continuity not only with the primitive and apostolic Church but also the Protestant Reformation. They are the heirs of the English Reformers. They are the spiritual descendants of Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, Jewel, Parker, Hooker, and Whitfield.

I am also convinced the way forward for conservative evangelicals in the Anglican Church of Canada, the ACNA, the AMiA, TEC and other Anglican bodies in North America and those outside these bodies is to network with each other and with conservative evangelicals outside of North America. They can provide each other with encouragement, support, and assistance and work together for the furtherance of their common interests. Even if the window for a non-geographic judicatory n the ACNA closes, conservative evangelicals should organize into a formal or informal affinity network. This network should be a part of a larger affinity network that enfolds affinity networks in the other Anglican bodies and outside of them and has links to conservative evangelicals outside of North America.

One of the challenges of creating networks of conservative evangelicals is that conservative evangelicals have a tendency to look around them and when they do not immediately see other conservative evangelicals like themselves, they are apt to conclude that they are a dying breed. Because they do no see anyone within the limited range of their vision, they assume that there is no one. They surrender to hopelessness. “What is the point?” they exclaim.

Conservative evangelicals, however, are not noted for their visibility. They do not wave a flag or blow a trumpet to attract attention to themselves. Due to their particular circumstances they may prefer to not draw attention to themselves and to avoid the limelight. In North American and even in the United Kingdom they are not likely to be found in high profile leadership positions.

Those whom we should be seeking to enfold into a network of conservative evangelicals may not yet be conservative evangelicals. We should be endeavoring not only to bring into such a network those who share our views on every point but also those who might over time come to appreciate and even adopt our views and who can be encouraged to gradually move in a conservative evangelical direction. We cannot always expect people to immediately see the merit of our views. Those who are quick to adopt our position on an issue may just as quickly adopt the position of someone else.

A farmer, when he plants wheat, does not expect the seed to produce an immediate yield--to spring up right away as mature plants, the stalks bent double from the weight of the heads of grain. He knows that the seed must be allowed to sprout. The young wheat must be watered. It must be given an opportunity to grow and to mature. When it has ripened, then the wheat is ready for harvest.

We must also be wary of the very human proclivity to conclude from a handful of bruised, rotten, or shriveled apples that the whole apple crop is ruined. In our impatience we are prone to discard the good with the bad. We lump together those who eventually might support our cause with those who will always be its fiercest opponents.

Paul was an enemy of the Lord and a persecutor of the brethren. Jesus met him on the road to Damascus and changed his life. Jesus called Peter to follow him early in his ministry. Peter was a part of Jesus’ innermost circle of followers. Yet Peter did not always grasp what Jesus was saying. He fell away when Jesus was arrested. When he heard the news of Jesus’ resurrection, he did not believe. Under pressure from the Judeacizers he shunned the Gentiles. It took a vision from God to put his feet back on the right path.

We cannot expect everyone to have a road to Damascus experience—to see a bright light, to hear a voice from heaven, and to be immediately convinced of the rightness of our views. Most of people who do come to our position on key issues are going to come slowly to that position as we did.

It is also not necessary that other people share our view on every point—only on what really matters. The Protestant Reformed Church of England required uniformity on essential matters. She permitted liberty of conscience on non-essential matters, matters of indifference.

The creation of a network of conservative evangelicals like the launching of a new church or any other undertaking must begin with prayer. Only through prayer can we discern God’s will in the matter. We must ask God for guidance—to show us what he would have us do. We must also ask Him for the good will and the grace to accomplish his purposes.

The Holy Spirit was at work in the Reformation of the sixteenth century, the rediscovery of the gospel of divine grace to which the New Testament bears witness, and the spiritual movement that flowed from this rediscovery. I believe that the Holy Spirit is at work in our day, bringing about a revival of gospel teaching.

Conservative evangelicals may not be large in numbers. But God works through the weak and the insignificant. He takes those who are nothing and does great things.

I believe that the organization of conservative evangelicals into networks is God’s will. The renewal of classical Anglican evangelicalism and historic Anglicanism are more than the rebirth of a tradition. They are a major part of this revival of gospel teaching.

The Orthodox Problem

2011-02-22T18:31:00.002-06:00

By Robin G. Jordan

This article was prompted by a comment that a reader left in response to one of my articles that was posted on Virtue Online. The reader was not happy with several observations about the current state of the Anglican Church in North America that I made in the article. In my use of the term “the Anglican Church in North America” in this article I am not referring to the most recent Anglican body to adopt that name but the entire Anglican community in North America. In referring to that body in this article I will use the acronym “ACNA.” In his comment the reader made reference to “orthodoxy.” I often read comments and articles on the Internet, which make reference to “orthodoxy,” “orthodox” Anglican churches, and “orthodox” Anglicans. These comments and articles raise this question in my mind—“Orthodox—by what standard?”

The reader who left the comment did not explain what he meant by “orthodoxy” except make further reference to “right belief.” Here again a question is raised in my mind—“Right belief—by what standard?”

The reader who left the comment apparently assumed that those who read his comment would know what he meant by “orthodoxy” and “right belief.” Once more a question is raised in my mind—“Can we assume others know what we mean when we make reference to ‘orthodoxy’ and ‘right belief’?”

One of the problems that affect the Anglican Church in North America is that North American Anglicans, even conservative Anglicans, do not agree on what constitutes “orthodoxy,” in particular Anglican “orthodoxy.” Historically the standard of orthodoxy for Anglicans has been the Articles of Religion of 1571, also known as the Thirty-Nine Articles. However, a number of liberal and conservative Anglicans have rejected this standard and substituted for it a different standard. For Episcopalians it is officially the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. Traditionalist Anglo-Catholics follow in John Henry Newman’s footsteps and refer to a vague body of lore known as Catholic tradition. The Common Cause Partnership drew up a standard for the Common Cause Partners and incorporated that standard into the ACNA constitution. The Global Anglican Future Conference recognized that this problem does not affect only the Anglican Church in North America. GAFCON wrestled with the question of what constitutes Anglican “orthodoxy” and produced the Jerusalem Declaration as a supplemental confession of faith to the Thirty-Nine Articles.

By the standard of the ACNA Fundamental Declarations Anglicans who are “orthodox” according to the standard of the Thirty-Nine Articles and even the Jerusalem Declaration may not “orthodox.” The ACNA Fundamental Declarations incorporate a specific position on the “historic episcopate” into its standard. It is a position associated with a particular school of thought and not a position over which Anglicans are in agreement.

On the other hand, Anglicans who are “orthodox” by the ACNA Fundamental Declaration’s standard may not be “orthodox” according to the Articles’ standard or the Jerusalem Declaration’s standard. The ACNA Fundamental Declarations infer that the authority of the historic Anglican formularies like the Thirty-Nine Articles is largely historical and belongs to the past and that other standards beside these formularies exist and may be more authoritative for contemporary Anglicans. They effectively dilute the authority of the historic Anglican formularies as the standard of Anglican “orthodoxy.” For example, a minister subscribing to the Thirty-Nine Articles would be affirming the doctrine of salvation by grace alone by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone (as opposed to sacraments and good works) as the essence of Gospel teaching. A minister subscribing to the Fundamental Declarations would be free to maintain the doctrine of sacramental salvation.

In the Anglican Church of Canada and The Episcopal Church are different groups of Anglicans and Episcopalians who hold widely disparate beliefs. Some have a Trinitarian view of God; others have a Unitarian view. Some believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God incarnate. Others believe that he was simply a prophet and a teacher. Some believe that we are saved only through faith in Jesus Christ. Others believe that all people are saved whatever they believe.

While there is greater agreement in the ACNA and the AMiA on basic Christian doctrines like the doctrine of the Trinity and the Incarnation, there is also sharp division on a number of critical issues. At the same time folks in the ACNA and the AMiA show a tendency to gloze over significant differences. The articles that refer to “orthodox” Anglican churches in the ACNA and the AMiA are an exercise in the principle of charitable presupposition. Just as the 1662 Book of Common Prayer charitably presupposes that those for whom the Burial Service is being read were believing, faithful Christians, the writers of these articles charitably presuppose that the congregations and clergy of these churches are indeed “orthodox.”

But is it wise to presuppose that such churches are “orthodox” simply on the basis that they are ACNA or AMiA? Affiliation with these parachurch organizations is no guarantee of “orthodoxy” particular as these parachurch organizations have a standard of “orthodoxy” at odds with the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Jerusalem Declaration (the ACNA) or they have an unclear standard of “orthodoxy” (the AMiA). The Solemn Declaration of Principles of the AMiA recognizes and affirms the authority of the historic Anglican formularies. Every year the clergy of the AMiA take an oath to maintain the doctrine of these formularies. In practice, however, many of them do not really subscribe to their teaching in part due to the influence of the unreformed Catholicism of the Anglo-Catholic movement, and in part due to the influence of Wesleyan-Pentecostal theology of the charismatic movement.

At best we can say is that the churches in the ACNA and the AMiA give a more central place to the Bible in their life and teaching and retain more of what Roger T. Beckwith describes as “the ancient common heritage of Christendom” than do the liberal churches in the Anglican Church of Canada and The Episcopal Church. They may in this regard be viewed as more conservative than these liberal churches.

If we apply to them the standard of the historic Anglican formularies, a number of the churches in the ACNA and the AMiA may be regarded as “orthodox” as historic Anglicanism understands “orthodoxy.” Unless we adopt a post-modern view of “orthodoxy,” we cannot view the rest as “orthodox.” They may be “orthodox” by their own estimation or in the estimation of the school of thought to which they belong. But we cannot view them as “orthodox” on this basis when they fall short of historic Anglicanism’s standard of “orthodoxy.”

This is a problem that besets both the ACNA and the AMiA. It is not going to disappear if we close our eyes and pretend that it does not exist. As time passes, the problem is going to worsen. It may lead to conflicts in these parachurch organizations like the ones in the Anglican Church in Canada and The Episcopal Church.

It also raises questions about the Anglican credentials of the ACNA and the AMiA along with the credentials of these two bodies. In the not too distant future we may witness the travesty of the global South primates credentialing the ACNA and the AMiA as “Anglican” and the Archbishop of Canterbury credentialing the Anglican Church of Canada and The Episcopal Church as “Anglican” when none of these bodies in the sense of full adherence to the tenets of historic Anglicanism is by no stretch of the imagination even remotely “Anglican.”

The most obvious solution to this problem is that the churches in the ACNA and the AMiA should take the historic Anglican formularies with the seriousness that they deserve. In this way these two bodies would not only be enforcing a long-standing standard of orthodoxy for Anglicans but also they would be maintaining a recognizable continuity with the reformed Church of England and historic Anglicanism. If these bodies chose to do nothing—a strong likelihood—or pursue ineffectual solutions—also a strong likelihood, they will join the Anglican Church of Canada and The Episcopal Church as two more examples of the North American drift away from authentic historic Anglicanism.

Confessional Anglicans, those who uphold the historic Anglican formularies and value the Protestant, Catholic, Reformed, and evangelical character of historic Anglicanism, need to take stock of their options. They face a prospect of being a minority group in an Anglican body that is from the perspective of the historic Anglican formularies and historic Anglicanism marginally orthodox at best. They have little hope of preserving confessional Anglicanism and transmitting it to future generations without establishing the kinds of structures that the conservative evangelicals did in the Church of England. They purchased the patronages to a number of livings and the right to nominate the incumbent and established trusts. They formed church associations and pastoral aid societies, or home missionary societies. They endowed ministry training schools and theological colleges. They planted independent evangelical churches. They wrote articles, books, and tracts, gave lectures and talks, and held conferences.

All of these approaches may not be workable in North America in the twenty-first century but some of them are. Alternative approaches tailored to conditions in North America may prove more workable. Whatever the case may be, confessional Anglicans need to take steps to ensure that those that succeed them as the future pastors of their churches and professors of their seminaries believe what they believe and teach what they teach. Confessional Anglican must not become content with maintaining a handful of congregations and clergy that share their commitment to the historic Anglican formularies and authentic historic Anglicanism but must work to establish more such congregations and clergy. They must fight against complacency and inertia. If they do not take a stand for confessional Anglicanism, no one else will. They must champion its cause or accept the blame for its demise in North America. Its future is in their hands!