Saturday, August 27, 2011

A History of the Book of Common Prayer in Four- Minute Chunks (Part the Seventh)

An Act of Parliament was required in 1662 to restore the Book of Common Prayer to its legal status, because it had been made illegal by an Act of Parliament in 1645. Its repeated use could bring on the offender a loss of all his property as well as perpetual imprisonment. The former Archbishop of Canterbury preceded his friend, King Charles I, to the executioner’s block for his devotion to the Church of England and “the ancient and venerable traditions” of her worship.

Most of the Anglican clergy and devout laity maintained those “venerable traditions” during the Puritan Commonwealth. Some, like Bishop Wren, who the Puritans locked in the Tower for eighteen years, spent their time preparing for the time when the Church and her worship would be restored. He wrote of his time: “Never could there have been so offenseless an opportunity for amending the Book of Common Prayer as now…” Others, not sharing his cold lodgings, did share his thoughts. John Cosin, chaplain to the exiled Queen, devoted his years abroad to the study of liturgy in general and the Prayer Book in particular. Harmon L’Estrange, a devout and erudite layman, compiled a massive study of the Prayer Book during the Puritans’ reign, The Alliance of Divine Offices. In it he laid out, in parallel columns, the texts of the 1549, 1552, 1559 and 1604 English Books of Common Prayer, as well as the 1637 Scottish Book (which, probably more than anything else, had cost Archbishop Laud his head). He wrote copious notes comparing and contrasting the texts, as well as pointing out inconsistencies in the translations of these books into Latin (Latin versions of the Book of Common Prayer were in widespread use both at Oxford and Cambridge). The Prayer Book had never been so popular as when it was made illegal!

After the defeat of the Puritans and presbyterians at the Savoy Conference (where they refused any but the most miniscule changes to the Prayer Book, and none at all they disagreed with), many of the Bishops, clergy and laity of the Church of England looked to this as a chance to alter the Book of Common Prayer to bring it more in line with the ancient liturgies they’d been studying. Bishop Cosin and Bishop Wren collaborated in a book, known to history as the Durham Book (Cosin was Bishop of Durham), which embodied many of their ideas. These centered around the Eucharist. It was a widespread wish to restore many of the ancient chants and prayers which had once accompanied the celebration of the Eucharist, and to add prayers from the Eucharistic liturgies of the Eastern Orthodox Churches. In fact, while the Prayer Book was illegal, some Anglican clergy had used portions of the Eastern Orthodox liturgies to replace their own outlawed rites.

But the new king had little interest in liturgy and his Parliament had even less. They ordered the Bishops to get on with it—and quickly. They had two months to revise the Book. Much work was done, but with little results. The Puritans failed at Savoy because they squabbled with each other in the face of their Anglican opponents. Now those same opponents took a page from the Puritans. Everybody wanted changes, but where to begin? What changes were most important? Who was to do what?

In the end, most of the changes which actually made it into the 1662 Book of Common Prayer showed the anti-Puritan tenor of the day. The Ordinal (technically not even a part of the Prayer Book) was much-revised to explicitly teach the doctrine of Apostolic Succession and the ancient three-fold Orders of Ministry—Bishop, Priest and Deacon—which the Puritans and presbyterians had so explicitly rejected. Some prayers were added—most familiar to us are the two prayers near the end of Morning and Evening Prayer: the “Prayer for All Conditions of Men” (BCP p 18), written by Bishop Gunning, and “A Prayer of Thanksgiving” (BCP p 19), written by Bishop Reynolds of Norwich. Many of the other changes, A Service of the Thanksgiving for the Accession of the King, a Service commemorating the Martyrdom of King Charles I, and other prayers connected with the Church of England as the Established Church, are unfamiliar to most of us “in the colonies.”

The Book of Common Prayer that survived the Puritans and remains the “official” English Prayer Book today, “the 1662,” is essentially the Book of 1604, the Prayer Book of King James I—of Bible fame. Our survey of the Prayer Book thus far has shown us a history of controversies—and every reader of this page knows those controversies have continued down to our own day. But people only fight—really fight tooth and nail—about things they care about. Why do we care? What is it about the Prayer Book that so generates controversies?

For the next several weeks we’ll be stepping back from this modest Prayer Book history to consider other—related—topics. Is the religion of the Prayer Book viable in today’s society? If it is (my opinion is obvious) can we share it without changing it? How do we do that?

Those questions—and their answers—are vital to the future of Anglicanism.

When we’ve solved that problem, we can return to our story.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

A History of the Book of Common Prayer in Four- Minute Chunks (Part the Sixth)


During the grueling, four-month debate of the Savoy Conference, the Anglican Bishops yielded almost nothing to their Puritan and presbyterian opponents. Most of their responses to the pages and pages of Puritan objections to the Prayer Book were concluded with the same response: “we think it fit that it continue as it is.” Those few concessions they made, were, tar-baby like, almost all changes the bishops themselves had proposed before the Conference was even called.

Having refused to change anything in the Prayer Book during the Conference, however, the bishops after the Conference began proposing changes to the Old Book right and left. The Prayer Book some of them intended to put together would have made the Puritans apoplectic. Looking back to the first Prayer Book of 1549 and the Scottish Prayer Book of 1637, they meant to review the Liturgy of the English Church “ comparing the same with the most ancient liturgies, which have been used in the Church in the primitive and purest times” (to use King Charles’ directive), and revise it accordingly.

The men of Parliament, however, were not liturgical scholars. They had little interest in “the most ancient liturgies.” They wanted to quit arguing about religion. The King was restored, the Church re-established; it was time to get things back to normal. They tossed the Prayer Book to the Convocations of Canterbury and York (the governing houses of clergy for the two provinces of England), telling the reverend members to present their new Prayer Book “to us without delay for our consideration, allowance, or confirmation." The two Convocations (York in northern England, Canterbury in the south) worked together to reach agreement on the new book. On November 21, 1661, the King’s letters conveying Parliament’s statement were read to the Convocation of Canterbury. “The time for your work,” they were told, “is short.”

Messengers carried the work of the two Convocations back and forth for a month; bishops and scholars burned their candles down to the nub, writing, reading, composing, and debating the changes to the New Book. By December 20, the Convocations reported to Parliament their work was done. The New Book was sent to the King and his Council before Christmas. Their work sat, unopened, in the Privy Council’s chamber for two months while other business was pursued. On February 24, 1662, the Bishops of London, Durham, Salisbury, Worcester and Chester were summoned “to that day present the said book to the King and Council.” By the afternoon, the notes of the Privy Council tell us, “the Book of Common Prayer, with the Amendments and Additions…was read and approved,” and ordered to be transmitted to Parliament. Not bad for a morning’s work: perhaps, like our modern-day legislators, they didn’t read the whole thing.

The Council sent the New Book to the House of Lords. They passed it “finding no need to review its contents.” The same day they passed the Act of Uniformity, declaring the New Book to be THE Book of Common Prayer. When the Book and attached Act was sent to the House of Commons, it was decided “the Book need not be read, the Lords Bishops being content to so have it.” Commons attached a series of resolutions to their approval of the Act, ordering “reverent gestures and demeanors” to be “enjoined on all at the time of Divine Service.” These required faithful Churchmen to “bow at the mention of the Lord Jesus’ Name” and to make “a humble gesture toward the Altar or Holy Table set in the Chancel” of their churches. The Puritans would not have been happy.

Parliament returned their work to the King. On May 10, 1662, he signed it, ordering that on St Bartholomew’s Day (August 24), printers across the country should make it available. The whole thing was put into the hands of John Cosin, the Bishop of Durham, to complete. He issued the following orders to all who were licensed to print the Book:

“To the Printers:

Page the whole Book.

Add nothing. Leave out nothing. Alter nothing, in what Volume soever it be printed. Particularly; never cut off the Lord's Prayer, Creed, or any Collect with an &c.; but wheresoever they are to be used, print them out at large, and add ‘Amen’ to the end of every prayer.

Never print the Lord's Prayer beyond—‘deliver us from evil. Amen.'

Print the Creeds always in three paragraphs, relating to the three Persons, &e.
Print not Capital letters with profane pictures in them.

In all the Epistles and Gospels follow the new translation [i.e., the King James Version of 1611].

As much as may be, compose so that the leaf be not turned over in any Collect, Creed, Verse of a Psalm, in the Middle of a sentence, &c.

Set not your own Names in the Title-page nor elsewhere in the Book, but only ‘Printed at London by the printers to the King's most excellent Majesty. Such a year.'

Print Glory be to the Father, &c. at the end of every Psalm, and of every part of Psalm 119.”

The Prayer Book of 1662 was done. It is still the official Book of Common Prayer for the Church of England today. Next week, we’ll look at some of the changes the Bishops made to the Book and, more interestingly, the changes they didn’t make. The Puritans may have been sent packing; but the united front the Bishops presented against them was already beginning to crack—and the Prayer Book would be a battleground once more.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

ARE YOU SAVED?

The following is posted at the request of a number of people who read this recent “St Joseph Tract.” It was written to address the question of “being saved.” As such, it’s far from complete, or even thorough. The essentials of a grace-filled, sacramental life are only hinted at here—and there is no salvation without them; not by my estimate but by the words of our Lord Himself.

Next week, we’ll resume our review of Prayer Book history, but no doubt everybody needs a break after four weeks’ recounting the Puritans' grim assault on Anglicanism in general and the Common Prayer Book in particular. We'll see though, that the history of the Prayer Book is told not only by the many who've been nurtured on its comfortable words and but also by those who've squabbled over its contents--and not just in the past!


Are You Saved?

It’s a question we hear from well-meaning people in almost any setting: in the check-out line at the market, along a hiking trail in the park, sitting in the mall. Have you accepted Jesus as your personal Savior?

The person asking is usually driven by a desire to share with you the good news that he is saved, and hopes that you are, too. If not, he has the remedy: confess your sins, believe in Jesus Christ, and ask Him to be your Savior. That’s it: follow these simple steps and you’re going to Heaven. Often these sincere people will offer to help you on the spot. You can get saved in the checkout line.

While he may encourage you to go to a Christian church or a Bible fellowship and tell you it’s important that you “walk the talk” (which means to live the life of a believer), when pressed he’ll admit that although those things are helpful, you’ve already done all that’s necessary. Your eternal salvation is already secure.

He’s well-meaning, sincere—and wrong.

As much as these earnest people talk about the Bible, the “quick-fix” salvation they hawk is a fantasy, and a tawdry one at that. The message of the Holy Scriptures is radically different. The teaching of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church (which put the Bible together in the first place) for the last 2,000 years is different. Those Christians who have actually “walked the talk” for 20 centuries (we call them Saints, people like St Mary of Egypt or St Francis of Assisi) would find this idea of being saved silly, immature and—worst of all—untrue.

Sincerity, nice as it is, is no assurance of truth.

History is full of sincere people who were very wrong: Adolf Hitler was probably the most sincere person of the 20th century. His sincerity proved deadly to many millions—and in the end, to himself as well.

Just because somebody says you can be saved by “believing Jesus died for your sins” or saying a “sinner’s prayer” doesn’t make it so, regardless of the sincerity of the person telling you it is; after all, they’ve done it and they’re saved. Right?

Or are they?

They’ll tell you they base their certainty of being saved on the Bible—but the Bible, if we actually take it as a whole, not just pluck out a few verses here and there, gives a completely different view of salvation.

Before anything else, it’s fair for us to ask our self-assured questioner, “What does ‘being saved’ mean?” What is salvation? The word “salvation” comes from Latin. Its original form, salus, means “health” or “wholeness.” Many times the question “are you saved” is accompanied by an explanation (or is it a threat?) that if you aren’t saved, you’ll burn for eternity in hell after you die. Fires and devils and eye gouges forever and ever and ever and then forever after that. Pretty grim—and pretty pathetic. The “god” behind such a scenario is not the God revealed in Holy Scripture, Who loves us and became one of us to bring us to salvation—to wholeness and spiritual health. The great fourth-century Bishop of Alexandria, St Athanasius the Great, says “God became like us, so we could become like Him.” For 2,000 years, the Church has proclaimed her Good News, her Gospel; this is the calling she holds out “for us men and for our salvation.”

Salvation isn’t escaping hell. It’s becoming a son or daughter of God. This doesn’t happen by saying a prayer or having a warm glow of certainty that you’re saved. It happens by wrestling daily with your love of sin, by living a life of grace, a life where we learn the hard lessons of loving our neighbor as ourselves and loving God above everything else—things none of us want to do, but this is what the Gospel calls us to. In the middle of His great Sermon on the Mount, in the fifth chapter of St Matthew’s Gospel, the Lord Jesus tells His disciples “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” He is calling us to live our salvation.

For 2,000 years Christians have understood that my personal salvation doesn’t depend on “getting saved” one day, but by living with God day in and day out, even when I don’t particularly want Him around. Salvation isn’t something which happened to me one day, it’s something which continually happens. As I live with Christ, I am made more and more—even if it’s by baby steps—like Him. Salvation isn’t escaping hell, but discovering in our lives, almost imperceptibly, the daily Presence of God. “He became like us, to make us like Him.” Salus.

So the next time you’re standing in the check-out line and some sincere soul asks if you are saved, give him an understanding smile and say “Well, since you’ve got a few minutes, let’s talk…” –Fr Gregory Wilcox

Saturday, August 6, 2011

A History of the Book of Common Prayer in Four-Minute Chunks (Part the Fifth)

The “Savoy Conference,” which pitted twelve Anglican bishops against twelve Puritan and presbyterian divines, was empaneled by King Charles for four months. They were to spend April to July, 1661, examining the Book of Common Prayer and "make such changes as to bring it into conformity with the most ancient Liturgies which have been used in the Church…” Neither side was to comply with the King’s command.

The Puritans and their presbyterian allies laid their plan out when the Conference began. Their solution was to abolish the Prayer Book (as they’d done under the Lord Protector) and replace it with an “approved and truly reformed” set of services. The most eminent of their number, Richard Baxter, was to compose a service for the celebration of the Eucharist. Baxter would show the Bishops what a “truly reformed” rite looked like. When he brought it to the Conference, however, the Puritans began arguing over it. None of Baxter’s confreres liked it; they refused to approve it, and they spent weeks telling him why. The Anglican bishops smiled, kept their opinions to themselves and let the Puritans and presbyterians picnic on each other.

Baxter’s Communion Service died stillborn. The Puritan Commissioners, realizing they had nothing to offer in place of the Book of Common Prayer, renewed their objections to the Book itself. These objections (which they called “exceptions”) fell into three categories: theological, linguistic, and ceremonial. Their “General Exceptions” were theological: the Church of England was “but the Romish Church disguised and unreformed.” The Prayer Book embodied the “undoing of the principal doctrines and godly teachings of the Protestant Reformers.” The Puritan Commissioners would show that the doctrines of Rome were “in mystick ways hidden” in the words and ceremonies of the Prayer Book.

Noting the affection many Anglicans had for the First Prayer Book of 1549, the Puritans wrote it off as the product of “a mist of popish superstition and ignorance.” The Prayer Book of 1604, to which the King had proposed they return, was no better: “A multitude of godly and sober persons cannot at all (or very hardly) comply with the use of it.” On that principle (“we don’t like it”), the Puritans and presbyterians proposed that if anyone had any objection to anything in the Prayer Book, it should be removed.

The Bishops responded that since the Puritans had “in times recent” outlawed the whole of the Prayer Book, finding it all objectionable, there would be nothing left to present to the King were they to remove everything anybody objected to.

The Puritans filled page after page with their “Particular Exceptions,” which were linguistic or ceremonial. Many of their minor criticisms, though, harkened back to their theological objections.

As an example, the Prayer Book, during the celebration of the Eucharist, requires the “Priest” to say the words of Absolution. The “Exceptions” call for the removal, here and everywhere else in the Prayer Book, of the word “Priest.” It’s to be replaced by the word “Minister.” This, the Puritans claimed, is only being consistent, since sometimes the Prayer Book uses the word “Bishop,” sometimes “Priest” and sometimes “Minister.” They coyly concluded that this difference “in sundry titles” confused people.

One of the Bishops replied using the words from the Preface of the Anglican Ordinal of 1550: “from the Apostles’ time there have been these three Orders of Ministers in Christ’s Church—Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.” Since the Puritans and presbyterians didn’t accept these ancient Orders or maintain the Apostolic Succession, they would of course be willing to see these distinctions erased. The words would remain unchanged.

For the duration of the King’s writ, from April till July, the Commissioners met, argued and debated the “Exceptions.” Nobody looked at “ancient liturgies.” The Bishops fought every Puritan objection tooth and nail, sometimes defending even punctuation marks.

When the four months ended, the Bishops had allowed none of the Puritan’s “General Exceptions” and most of their “Particular Objections” were refused. Those the Bishops “allowed” were minor: “when anything is read for an epistle which is not in the epistles (but drawn from the Old Testament), instead of “The Epistle is written…” the Minster shall say “For the epistle…"; “in the Marriage Service the words, ‘till death us depart,’ be altered thus, ‘till death us do part.’ ”

The Conference ended and the Bishops reported to the King. Robert Sanderson, Bishop of Lincoln, was chosen to write a summary of the Conference. He concluded: "We have rejected all changes such as were either of dangerous consequence (as secretly striking at some established doctrine, or laudable practice of the Church of England, or indeed of the whole Catholick Church of Christ) or else of no consequence at all, but utterly frivolous and vain."

The King forwarded the results of the Conference to Parliament, heartily endorsing their conclusions.

The Puritans and presbyterians left Savoy empty-handed. The Puritans left the Church of England, becoming (many different sects of) “Non-conformists,” “Dissenters,” or “Independents.” The presbyterians became Presbyterians.