Calvin and Funerals

John Calvin (1509-1564) preached,

"What good is it to be a dead person that he is washed or anointed or a great parade is made in honour of him."

In fact, before he died, Calvin desired that he be given the plainest funeral service and be buried in a plain wooden box without ornament, and that no monument be erected over his grave.  Clearly, Calvin did not wish to draw any attention to himself, but desired rather that Christ be glorified in his death as well as in his life.

When we see the pomp that many go in for when their relative dies, one wonders what their beliefs are concerning death. For many, it is an opportunity to parade the deceased and to exhibit the coffin and flowers, and to give them "a good send off."  They buy the most expensive coffin they can get and have as many ministers/clergy officiating as possible.  And, of course, they want him to say all the nicest things about the deceased.

John Calvin could not have been more different.  All such pomp was rejected entirely.  While our Lord was buried with all the elaborate trimmings of Jewish custom of the time, Calvin puts this down to an uncultured people who knew no better.  I suppose where great elaborations accompany funerals, it is also down to a great element of superstition. In this as in every other pompous event, "they have their reward."

Worldly honours are sought and provided for the world's 'worthies.' Sadly for many of them this could be all the honours they get - and they don't even know about it.

Christians ought not to follow the world's example.  They should practice simplicity and plainness in every aspect of their lives, including their funerals.

When Calvin died in 1564, his wishes were observed and he lies in an unmarked grave.

The Blessings of Illness

There is nothing like serious illness entering a family and home to concentrate the mind on our mortality.  Death is waiting for us, if Christ does not first return to take us home and to wind up history and usher in the Final Judgement. When we think of death, we cannot get away from our own sin. Then we are cast unreservedly upon Jesus’ sin-bearing love for forgiveness and acceptance with the holy God.  With Horatius Bonar, we can sing,

Mine is the sin, but Thine the righteousness;
Mine is the guilt but Thine the cleansing blood;
Here is my robe, my refuge and my peace,
Thy blood, Thy righteousness, O Lord my God!

Where would any of us be but for Christ’s cleansing blood?  Lost and undone for eternity. Yes, we are and always will remain sinners; but we are redeemed sinners who are now clothed and robed in Christ’s perfect righteousness.  All that is wrong with us belongs to us; but everything that makes us acceptable with God is His.  The only righteousness we have is in Him alone. And that is ours only because of the cleansing blood of our precious Saviour.  We are safe in Him for time and for eternity.  

That’s why for the Christian, death holds no real fear because Christ has removed the sting of death which is sin.   However, illness reminds us of our sinfulness and mortality. And we are human and have all the human emotions that go along with serious illness. And because this life and our life in Christ is all we know, the unknown future is and can be somewhat frightening, of we’re honest.  We are fearful because we are human; but we can sing with Henry Francis Lyte, 

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

Having and knowing the abiding Christ with us and in us is the greatest possible assurance any believer can have.  Indeed, if our faith in the risen Christ cannot help us to face the last enemy – death, then of what use is it?  It might just be a faith of words alone, like so much of our prayers.  Serious illness brings us right back to ‘the solid Rock,’ Christ Jesus, for only He can support and comfort us in trying times.

That does not mean that we do not feel the seriousness of Margaret’s situation, for we do.  We have our thoughts which sometimes we share with each other and sometimes we keep to ourselves.  If the worst comes to the worst, we do not want to leave this life and part; yet we know that “to depart” and “to be with Christ” is “far better.” Being where He is is heaven.

Return to Anglicanism?

Reformed circles in the UK seem to have a jaundiced view that despite everything she has done and is still doing to Gospel preachers and despite her appalling spiritual condition, the desire to rehabilitate semi-reformed Anglicanism into the reformed constituency is proceeding apace.

At the Westminster Conference in December 2012, three convinced Anglicans will be speaking on subjects that bear on the Great Ejection of ministers from the Anglican Church in 1662 under Archbishop Skelton who followed the policies of Arch. William Laud - Lee Gatiss, Andrew Atherstone and David Ceri Jones. Indeed, Rev Dick Lucas spoke at a recent Leicester Minister's Conference.

Is there an admission that dissenting brethren got it all wrong about Anglicanism after all?  Is Anglicanism still "the best boat to fish from" for souls? Does it have a richness that is lacking in non-conformist churches?  What is the present day appeal of this semi-reformed religious institution?

I just don't know! Reformers have consistently held that the Scriptures alone determine the faith and order of the Christian church, and while the Anglican church is doctrinally reformed, by no stretch of the imagination is she reformed ecclesiastically.  She still copies the Pope's church in all outward appearances.

Yet, evangelicals within Anglicanism maintain that she is a reformed church in all respects.  Hardly so. She had the opportunity to be reformed in the seventeenth century, but refused to leave the outward trappings of the Pope's church; yet she opted for the doctrinal position of the reformed church.

The trend amongst non-conformists is to accept Anglicanism as a reformed church in the same way that they are.  I would like to know how they justify this position?

THE ANGLICAN BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER: ITS VIRTUES & VICES (Part 1)

THE ANGLICAN BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER:

ITS VIRTUES & VICES

OR

THE ALTERNATIVE WESTMINSTER DIRECTORY OF PUBLIC

WORSHIP (1645) CONSIDERED

Being the substance of a paper first presented to the

1989 Westminster Conference in London

by Dr Alan C. Clifford

PART 1

Introduction

Had this Westminster Conference been commissioned by Her Majesty's Government to reform British Christendom, some of us would doubtless relish the opportunity. Others would hasten back to their pastorates, utterly intimidated by the sheer scale of the task. For the boldest spirits among us, the charge of Erastianism notwithstanding, the prospect of sending the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Durham and a few more prelates to the Tower  even if they didn't lose their heads  would be doubtless irresistible. The thought of not only disestablishing but abolishing the Church of England (as the Puritans did in 1643) in favour of a more biblical institution would excite our most fervent expectations. However, would a hypothetical Westminster Assembly of the 1990s have even a fraction of the success of its seventeenth-century forerunner? Probably not, for the ecclesiastical situation we face today is infinitely more confused and intractable than that faced by the Westminster divines. Even if our proposals were to pass through Parliament and receive the Royal Assent, the current confusion of British evangelicalism would hardly ensure their acceptance in the country. At least seventeenth-century evangelicals were convinced of the need for continuing reform and there was little doubt in their minds that the criteria of reform were to be determined exclusively by Holy Scripture.

It would appear that in some respects, current confusion in the realm of worship is more difficult to cure than more theoretical theological differences. While it is ultimately true that faulty theology lies behind faulty practice, not all those who have abandoned traditional Reformed worship have rejected Reformed theology, at least notionally. What a former FIEC president has recently written in his church magazine gives us a measure of the problem:

Within the service of worship we are also trying to proclaim God's truth, and here too there is room for variety. The sermon as we think of it, is a relatively modem invention. There is room for all kinds of ways of reading the Scriptures, and also, I believe, for testimonies, interviews, and drama. We have to distinguish very honestly between what dishonours God, and what annoys our sensibilities.1

And all this in a magazine which happily, in the same issue, quotes  as a SOP for traditionalists? from Matthew Henry and Thomas Watson! Without pursuing our subject in pure academic and historical isolation, we may surely ask if the Westminster divines can help us nearly three hundred and fifty years on? At least they might help us to understand our confusion a little more clearly!

The Regulative Principle and Its Limits
The famous Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms, together with their Independent and Particular Baptist derivatives, are well known throughout the international Reformed constituency. The Directory of Public Worship is less well known although it was the first document to be produced by the Assembly of Divines. That it ever commanded agreement is truly remarkable, for unlike the drafting of the Confession of Faith, the Directory's passage in committee and debate was often stormy.2 For the most part, differences of opinion concerned matters which the Scriptures shed no specific light on, a fact which serves to underline the difficult task before us, namely, that 'the speaker is asked to consider to what extent the Directory — as a replacement for the Book of Common Prayer — advanced the cause of the reformation of worship and to evaluate critically its biblical basis.' The task is made no easier when one learns, in the words of Dr. Horton Davies, that the Directory was in fact 'a compromise between the three parties, the English Presbyterians, the Scottish Presbyterians and the Independents.'3

An evaluation of the Confession of Faith would have been easier to make: the subject matter in question is all contained in the Bible. But apart from certain leading principles, adopting the 'regulative principle' found the various parties at considerable odds where the Directory of Worship was concerned. It is easy to discern from the Scriptures that preaching, scripture reading. prayers and the singing of God's praise are the main elements of Christian worship and that the two divinely instituted symbolic ordinances are baptism and the Lord's Supper. Undergirding this is the New Testament stress that all worship should be both 'orderly' and 'spiritual'. But concerning the precise form of sermons and prayers', the structure of a service of worship, the number of psalms (and/or hymns) to be sung, the frequency of the Lord's Supper, the conduct of marriages and funerals, such matters are not determined in the New Testament. In short, what exactly does it mean to be biblical in the details as well as the principles of worship?

The Westminster divines soon realized that their attachment to the regulative principle did not solve all their problems. It was relatively easy to detect the unbiblical elements in the Book of Common Prayer (BCP), but not so easy to replace them by valid alternatives. Hence the Preface states that in laying 'aside the former Liturgy, with the many rites and ceremonies formerly used in the worship of God ... our care hath been to hold forth such things as are of divine institution in every ordinance; and other things we have endeavoured to set forth according to the rules of Christian prudence, agreeable to the general rules of the Word of God'. Whereas these criteria were sufficient to ban the sacerdotal and superstitious overtones of the BCP — and still are sufficient to ban drama and dance as well as women preachers and priests of either sex, areas of potential disagreement still remained. This is hardly surprising, for three distinct outlooks faced one another in the Assembly. The English Presbyterians were ex-Anglican Puritans, who, in their 'nonconformity' had been used to 'reformed' editions of the BCP. The Scottish Commissioners had used the Book of Common Order, the so-called 'Knox's Liturgy', which reflected the forms of Calvin's Genevan liturgy. These two groups both accepted the validity of liturgical worship. And then there were the 'proto-charismatic' Independents who were opposed to any kind of service book. Such was the rather ominous lament of Robert Baillie, one of the Scottish Commissioners: "While we were sweetly debating on these things, in came Mr. Goodwin, who
incontinent assayed to turn all upside down, to reason against all directories... I hope God will not permit him to go on to lead a faction for renting of the kirk."4

THE ANGLICAN BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER: ITS VIRTUES & VICES (PART 2)

THE ANGLICAN BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER:

ITS VIRTUES & VICES

OR

THE ALTERNATIVE WESTMINSTER DIRECTORY OF PUBLIC

WORSHIP (1645) CONSIDERED

Being the substance of a paper first presented to the

1989 Westminster Conference in London

by Dr Alan C. Clifford

PART 2

The History and Development of Worship
To make a comprehensive and objective evaluation of the Directory requires a pre- as well as post-Westminster perspective. We who are used to so-called non-liturgical orders of service have inherited a largely Directory-based state of affairs, i.e. the usual hymn (or psalm)-free prayer-sermon sandwich. Such a 'simple' service is not without some vestige of order even when it remains unpublished. Even anti-formal charismatic fellowships cannot dispense with some kind of structure; they seem to opt for 'praise and chorus-time, prophecy and tongues-time, dance and drama-time and a sermon if there's any time left'. One caricatures  not maliciously, I trust  to make a point! That said, few are aware that the Westminster Directory largely terminated a Reformed tradition of liturgical worship, at least in the Anglo-Scottish tradition. However, a case may be made that liturgical worship is ultimately derived from New Testament times, and that when the reformers inherited corrupted forms of worship, they reformed and simplified them without discarding them entirely. The close contact between the early church and the synagogue very probably influenced Christian worship at an early stage. Accordingly, Professor John M. Barkley writes:

The early Christians naturally made use of the synagogue forms of worship in their own meetings. Synagogue worship consisted in reading from the Old Testament (Law and Prophets) with exposition, praise and prayer. These four elements continued in Christian worship, but they were permeated with a new meaning and spirit. Praise and prayer were 'in the name of Christ'. and to the Old Testament readings were added gradually readings from the Epistles and Gospels.5

For those persuaded by the Jonathan Edwards thesis,6 the Apostle Paul clearly envisaged a time when the presence of the revelatory gifts would cease (1 Cor. 13: 8, 13), and even when they were intended to function in worship, he ruled decisively in favour of 'decency' and 'order' (1 Cor. 14: 40). On this key text, Calvin writes:

The Lord allows us freedom in regard to outward rites, in order that we may not think that his worship is confined to those things. At the same time, however, he has not allowed us unlimited and unbridled liberty, but has, so to speak, put railings round about it; or at any rate he has restricted the freedom, which he has given us, in such a way that it is only from his Word that we can make up our minds about what is right... Furthermore, we may easily infer from this, that the Church's laws are not to be regarded as mere human traditions, seeing that they are based on this general injunction, and clearly give the impression of being approved, as it were, from the mouth of Christ himself.'7

In urging 'decency' and 'order' on the Corinthians, Paul probably had the order of the synagogue in view. Specific evidence of synagogue influences may be noted in the letters to the seven churches, addressed as they were to the 'angel' or messenger of each church. In his comment on Rev. 2:1, Philip Doddridge  without questioning the plurality of elders at Ephesus  makes three useful and relevant points:

That there was one pastor, who presided in each of these churches, is indeed evident from the expression here used; but that he was a diocesan bishop, or had several congregations of Christians under his care, can by no means be proved... Many have shown from ancient Jewish writings, that there was an officer in the synagogue who had the name of angel. See Vitringa, de Synagogue. Vet. Jib. 3, p. ii. c. 3. And Dr. Lightfoot adds, that from his office of overlooking the reader of the law, he was called episcopus….8

Justin Martyr, writing about 155 AD. provides an account of Christian worship in which synagogue and
Christian features appear. The service is conducted by the 'president', and preaching precedes the Eucharist or Lord's Supper.9 With the advent of spiritual apostasy, ritualism began to assert itself. As Professor Brilioth points out, in the medieval Western Church specially, worship was 'overshadowed by the offering of the sacrifice'.10 A priestly emphasis became prominent in the time of Cyprian (d. 258). He worked out a detailed parallelism between the worshipping Christian community and Old Testament Israel. The title sacerdos (Latin for 'priest') as applied to the presiding presbyter/bishop and the doctrine of Apostolic succession was affirmed.11 The Eucharist was now regarded as a sacrifice and the focal point of worship.'12 It is surely significant that in the writings of Cyprian there is no reference13 to the Epistle to the Hebrews with its stress on the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ and his exclusive priesthood.

With the passage of time, error proliferated. The doctrine of transubstantiation was a ninth century invention of the monk Radbertus,14 and the promulgation of the theory by the fourth Lateran Council (1215)15 elevated the sacrament of the altar to idolatrous heights.

THE ANGLICAN BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER: ITS VIRTUES & VICES (Part 3)

THE ANGLICAN BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER:

ITS VIRTUES & VICES

OR

THE ALTERNATIVE WESTMINSTER DIRECTORY OF PUBLIC

WORSHIP (1645) CONSIDERED

Being the substance of a paper first presented to the

1989 Westminster Conference in London

by Dr Alan C. Clifford

PART 3

Calvin and Cranmer: The Character and Priorities of Worship
Such was the situation inherited by the Protestant Reformers. In their concern to restore preaching to its apostolic and spiritual importance, the Reformers cleansed worship of all superstitious and idolatrous overtones. Nowhere was this policy carried out more consistently and thoroughly than in Geneva; and Calvin's concern for purity of worship in England is especially seen in his lengthy letter to the Duke of Somerset.16 The great priority was the restoration of preaching: 'And the utmost care should be taken, that so far as possible you should have good trumpets, which shall sound into the very depths of the heart.' This letter was written in October 1548, a year before Cranmer's first Prayer Book appeared. We should note that Calvin recognized the need for 'a certain written form' for a catechism, the administration of the sacraments and the public prayers, 'for the sake of supplementing the ignorance and deficiencies of some, as the better to manifest the conformity and agreement between all the churches' and 'to take away all ground of pretense for bringing in any eccentricity or newfangled doctrine'. All this is consistent with Calvin's liturgical provisions in his Les Forme des Prières published in Geneva in 1542.17

While Cranmer's 1549 Prayer Book was a decided disappointment to many, the 1552 book was a more faithful expression of Reformed worship. Indeed, it represents the high water mark of Reformed Anglicanism  or the low water mark if one is an Anglo-Catholic! Even the 1662 Prayer Book has more affinities with the Elizabethan book of 1559 which, in fact, reverted to the 1549 in certain important details. The 1559 reintroduced the 1549's doubtful and ambiguous wording in the delivery of the sacraments to the communicants,18 and it removed the famous 'black rubric', a typically Cranmerian compromise between John Knox's belief that communicants should sit at the Lord's Supper and any idolatrous overtones in the kneeling of communicants.'19 Also, the 1559 deleted the 1552 Litany's reference to 'they tyranny of the Bishop of Rome and all his detestable enormities'.20 Cranmer would have regarded these changes as retrogressive and ominous, a point which history arguably confirms. For those tempted to think that such details are of minor importance, the history of theology confirms too frequently the theory that oaks of falsehood grow from acorns of error.

While Calvin expressed his doubts about the residual Romanism of the Anglican liturgy21 and the slow pace of the English Reformation22 we should recognize the incipient Puritanism of the 1552 Book of Common Prayer. Did not Cranmer establish a puritan precedent by using the word 'minister' more frequently than 'priest' in the 1552 Order for Morning Prayer, and introducing it into the Communion service?23 In fact, Puritan editions of the Prayer Book, appearing from 1578 onwards, applied these measures more consistently.24 And had not Cranmer recognized as early as 1540 that the New Testament assumes an identity between bishops and presbyters, and that the people, rather than princes, elected overseers in the church?25 The logic of these observations leads inexorably to Puritanism. Thus there seems to be some evidence that, for all his caution, Cranmer was moving in this direction. His understanding was never static and, had both he and England's Josiah, King Edward VI, lived, the English Reformation would have gone beyond the 'half-way house' Elizabethan settlement. One wonders what might have happened if Cranmer's projected Reformed ecumenical synod had taken place with John Calvin in attendance at Lambeth!26 Furthermore, what might Cranmer's close friendship with the proto-Puritan John Hooper have produced had both men survived the Marian persecutions?27 Speculations apart, the evidence cited above suggests that if the 1552 Prayer Book does not lead directly to the Westminster Directory of Public Worship, its author would arguably have been more at home with the abortive 1689 Prayer Book proposals28 than the anti-puritan 1662 Prayer Book.29 He would doubtless have shared the view that when John Calvin's achievement was celebrated at the Church of the Holy Trinity, Geneva, on Reformation Sunday, 1986, it was altogether inappropriate to use the 1662 Prayer Book. 

THE ANGLICAN BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER: ITS VIRTUES & VICES (Part 4)

THE ANGLICAN BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER:

ITS VIRTUES & VICES

OR

THE ALTERNATIVE WESTMINSTER DIRECTORY OF PUBLIC

WORSHIP (1645) CONSIDERED

Being the substance of a paper first presented to the

1989 Westminster Conference in London

by Dr Alan C. Clifford

PART 4

Puritan Worship: the Westminster Directory

To return to the Directory itself, the in-built ambiguities of Elizabethan Anglicanism, the constant threat of Romanism and the Romanizing measures of Archbishop Laud form the immediate backdrop to the Westminster Assembly. With political Puritanism in the ascendance, the scene was setto complete the English Reformation. With respect to a replacement for the BCP, various options were open to the Assembly as it commenced its work on 24 May 1644. These included the various Puritan editions of the BCP and other similar substitutes,30 together with an abridgment of Calvin's Form of Prayers for the Church and its Knoxian derivative, The Book of Common Order.31 However, the Assembly preferred to issue a work of its own composition.32

If the text of the Directory tends to obscure differences over alternative preferences, the Preface justifies the replacement of the BCP in no uncertain terms. While its virtues are not ignored, it had become an 'offense' to many of the godly at home and abroad. 'For, not to speak of urging the reading of all the prayers, which very greatly increased the burden of it, the many unprofitable and burdensome ceremonies', e.g. wearing the surplice, the sign of the cross at baptism, confirmation, bowing at the name of Jesus, etc., 'have occasioned much mischief' by troubling the consciences 'of many godly ministers and people'. Many good Christians have been 'kept from the Lord's Table' and 'able and faithful ministers' have been debarred from their ministry. The bishops had virtually insisted that use of the BCP was the only acceptable way of worshipping God. Preaching had been 'jostled out as unnecessary, or at best as far inferior' to the reading of the service. In short, the Prayer Book had become 'no better than an idol by many ignorant and superstitious people'. Accordingly, the 'Papists boasted that the book was a compliance with them in a great part of their service; and so were not a little confirmed in their superstition and idolatry, expecting rather our return to them, than endeavouring the reformation of themselves'. Furthermore, exclusive use of the BCP had promoted 'an idle and unedifying ministry', which contented itself with reading 'set forms' composed by others 'without putting
forth themselves to exercise the gift of prayer, with which our Lord Jesus Christ pleaseth to furnish all his servants whom he calls to that office'. These were the 'weighty considerations' which led the Assembly to 'lay aside the former Liturgy'.