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'.

THE ANGLICAN BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER: ITS VIRTUES & VICES (Part 5)

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 5

A Liturgy for Life

Before we focus particular attention on the public worship of the Lord's Day, it should he remembered that 'worship' embraced the whole of life in the minds of our forefathers. God was to be acknowledged, loved and obeyed in all the experiences and decisions of daily life. Accordingly, the BCP  in keeping with centuries of Christian tradition  made provision for the great and momentous occasions in life from the womb to the tomb. What we immediately think of as 'worship' was a special instance of communal Lord's Day worship, where the Lord is pleased to 'command the blessing' (Ps.133: 3). Thus against a background of common Sabbath desecration, even in less secular times, the Directory supplied practical spiritual guidance on 'the sanctification of the Lord's Day'. While this concern was justified, it was recognized that in the vast majority of English parishes, then as now, the only certain contact people had with the church was through 'hatchings, matchings and despatchings'. 

Here the Directory is so unlike the Prayer Book in dealing with the problems posed by nominalism in a territorial conception of the church. Taking matters in reverse order, concerning the burial of the dead, 

'When any person departeth this life, let the dead body, upon the day of burial, be decently attended from the house to the place appointed for public burial, and there immediately interred, without any ceremony'. Because of superstitious abuse, readings, prayers and singing 'are to be 'laid aside'. At most, the minister  if he is present  is only to encourage the mourners to engage in suitable meditations.
The pressure to eulogize over the doubtful virtues of the irreligious is thus removed. The minister is also delivered from perjuring himself. No longer does he have to say beside the graves of the ungodly 'Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed….' However, one wonders if the Directory's blanket solution goes a little too far. May not a graveside oration comfort the relatives of one who is a 'dear departed brother/sister'? The question of funeral sermons was hotly debated, the Scots objecting to what the English wished to retain.33 One notes with interest that Knox's Liturgy left it an open question, permitting  where Calvin's Genevan service book had enjoined  that the minister go to the church and make 'some comfortable exhortation ... touching death and the resurrection'.34 With reference to human mortality, the Directory reminds ministers of the pastoral and evangelistic opportunities of sick visitation: 'He is to admonish' the people 'in time of health, to prepare for death; and, for that purpose, they are often to confer with their minister about the estate of their souls; and in time of sickness, to desire his advice and help ... before their strength and understanding fail them'.

On the 'solemnization of marriage', the Directory states categorically that 'marriage be no sacrament, nor peculiar to the church of God, but common to mankind'. While the XXXIX Articles deny that 'matrimony' is a sacrament of the gospel' (Art. XXV), to this day there remains a somewhat mystical regard for church weddings; so this directive is no less necessary in some quarters. Yet because the Scriptures give directions to Christians about marriage 'in the Lord', the Assembly judged it 'expedient that marriage be solemnized by a lawful minister of the word'. Thus the idea of a strictly secular marriage was ruled out. Few may quarrel with this appeal to expediency, a criterion generally anathema to the Puritan mind. At the same time, none can object on scriptural grounds to a purely civil ceremony. Indeed, the Bible provides no specific guidance either way. Despite the impact of his presence at the marriage at Cana, the Lord Christ was no more than a guest. He didn't even bless the marriage as the Prayer Book almost implies. Among the Jews, marriage was at one time a merely civil ceremony; not until the later Middle Ages did the presence of a Rabbi become obligatory at Jewish weddings.35 Even in post-apostolic Christian times, marriage was a private ceremony. Only with the advent of sacramentalism were marriages blessed at special services, i.e. the eucharist.36 That said, there is no violation of principle in the Assembly's ruling provided stress is placed on the need for life-long marital commitment and fidelity under the Lordship of Christ rather than on some mystical, sacramental blessing conveyed by a priest or minister. Unlike the Genevan church,37 the Assembly advised that weddings should not take place on Lord's Day. 

THE ANGLICAN BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER: ITS VIRTUES & VICES (Part 6)

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 6

The Sacrament of Baptism
This brings us to the administration of the sacraments. Every member of the Westminster Assembly was committed to the Reformed doctrine of covenant baptism. Like all the sixteenth century Reformers, they did not consider that infant baptism was an unscriptural relic of Roman Catholicism. Unlike the BCP, but in harmony with the continental Reformed churches, the Directory places infant baptism in a covenant context when it declares:

That baptizing, or sprinkling and washing with water, signifieth the cleansing from sin by the blood and for the merit of Christ, together with the mortification of sin, and rising from sin to newness of life, by virtue of the death and resurrection of Christ: That the promise is made to believers and their seed; and that the seed and posterity of the faithful, born within the church, have, by their birth, interest in the covenant, and right to the seal of it, and to the outward privileges of the church, under the gospel, no less than the children of Abraham in the time of the Old Testament; the covenant of grace, for substance, being the same; and the grace of God, and the consolation of believers, more plentiful than before ...

Time forbids an in-depth discussion of the subject of baptism. Suffice it to say that the Westminster divines believed they had a strong biblical case for rejecting the Baptist position. The present lecturer, after man years of years of thought, is now inclined to think that the Waldensians, the Reformers, the Huguenots, the Pilgrim Fathers, the Puritans, and the Covenanters had it right after all! 

While seventeenth-century Baptists argued their case chiefly from a partial, New Testament view of the
evidence, they were naturally confirmed in their antipaedobaptism by the abuses of the Reformed. But the Westminster Assembly was no less concerned to root these out, while taking care not to throw out the covenant baby with the superstitious font-water. However, while the Assembly clearly rejected the Prayer Book's language of baptismal regeneration  the Directory states that 'the inward grace of baptism is not tied to that very moment of time wherein it is administered' a highly questionable statement is made: '...all who are baptized in the name of Christ, do renounce, and by their baptism are bound to fight against the devil, the world and the flesh: That they are Christians, and federally holy before baptism, and therefore are they baptized'. Now does federal or covenant holiness necessarily imply actual grace? Is it not a red rag to a
Baptist bull to say 'they are Christians'? Surely the statement is neither true nor necessary. One notes that this unfortunate expression of the Directory finds no parallel in Calvin's form of administering baptism.38 Observing the circumcision analogy, even the Apostle Paul denied that someone was a (true) Jew in the sight of God without evidence of the circumcision of the heart (see Rom. 2: 28, 29). As surely as the prophets preached the necessity of heart circumcision to those circumcised in the flesh, so preachers must urge the necessity of the new birth upon the baptized children of believers. They are not to be told they are Christians without a credible, personal profession of faith. Let it also be said that the danger of nominalism no more invalidates the lawfulness of infant baptism than a similar state of affairs in the Old Testament invalidated divinely-commanded circumcision. Neither should Baptists give the impression that paedobaptists are the only ones plagued by hypocritical nominals. Both schools, in the absence of godly discipline, may be confronted by the same problem in church life. Indeed, are there not unregenerate members of Baptist churches? Comparing the current Rome-ward drift of the ecumenical Baptist Union with the traditionally faithful paedobaptist Free Church of Scotland suggests that Baptist ultra-Puritanism is no sure guarantee of doctrinal and ecclesiological purity. Is it not significant that if one drew up a list of faithful preachers and theologians from the last 450 years, Baptists would be a decided minority? While we cannot allow ourselves the luxury of dividing over baptism, these points must be made in the interests of truth. Equally it should be said that Presbyterians have not opposed believer's baptism as Baptists have opposed infant baptism. In a missionary context  such as the period of the Acts of the Apostles  Presbyterians would expect to baptize believers but not without their children. While the evidence is not entirely conclusive, the covenant view makes better sense of NT household baptisms than the individualist Baptist view does. The Directory's failure to provide for a missionary context reflects the general lack of missionary awareness during the Puritan
period. Interestingly, the 1662 BCP added a service of baptism for those of 'Riper Years' to meet the need caused by the neglect of the sacrament during the Commonwealth and by the beginnings of missionary work in the colonies.39

The divines were clearly opposed to an undisciplined, indiscriminate administration of infant baptism of the kind Anglicanism had encouraged. In other words, the sacrament made no sense unless at least one parent was a true believer; and in stressing the responsibility of the father, the Directory abolishes the idea of godparents. Furthermore, infant baptism is not to be 'administered in private places, or privately, but in the place of public worship, and in the face of the congregation, where the people may most conveniently see and hear; and not in the places where fonts, in the time of Popery, were unfitly and superstitiously placed'.

This raises the question of the mode of baptism. While the Prayer Book allows for 'dipping', and no absolute prejudice against immersion was entertained by Calvin40 and the other reformers, the Directory ruled in favour of 'pouring or sprinkling of the water on the face of the child, without adding any other ceremony'. The etymology of baptizo surely justifies this position. The 'baptism of the Spirit' was an 'outpouring' (Acts 1: 5; 2: 17) rather than an 'immersion'; Israel's 'baptism unto Moses' simply meant an identification of the people with their leader, when they were neither immersed nor sprinkled. Their baptism was entirely dry, for not a drop of water fell on them! (1 Cor. 10: 2); as for the alleged immersionism of Romans 6, the notion of a watery grave is more applicable to God's enemies than his friends if the flood and the drowning of the Egyptians are anything to go by. As one may be perfectly clean after a bath or a shower,' so ceremonial washing is adequately signified by sprinkling (see Numbers 8: 7). Indeed, the quantity of water is quite irrelevant. Even the Apostle Peter seems to warn against attaching too much importance to the sign of baptism (1 Pet. 3: 21), a danger which faces Roman Catholics and Baptists alike. The essential thing which must always unite Bible-believing Christians  especially at the Lord's Table  is the reality of regeneration and a living, obedient faith in Christ.

THE ANGLICAN BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER: ITS VIRTUES & VICES (Part 7)

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 7

The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper
This brings us to the subject of the Lord's Supper. The Directory states that it is 'frequently to be celebrated', without determining just how frequently. In terms familiar to most of us, the Assembly decided that it should be celebrated 'after the morning sermon' or, as is suggested elsewhere, after the final psalm. This practice has been criticized for treating the Lord's Supper as a mere appendage, a thought reinforced by the relative infrequency of celebration in the Scottish tradition. This practice reflects the view of Zwingli rather than Calvin, who actually desired a weekly celebration of the Lord's Supper,41 incorporated into the Lord's Day morning service rather than merely tacked on the end. In this respect, the Independents were closer to Calvin's wishes than the Scots were. 

Unlike the Prayer Book with its ceremony of episcopal confirmation, the Directory says

nothing about the admission of catechized young people to the Lord's Table. In this respect also, Anglo-Scottish Presbyterianism went beyond the Continental Reformed churches. While admittance to the Lord's Table before the congregation by the minister and kirk session with the right hand of fellowship became the norm,42 even Calvin argued for a simple form of confirmation with laying on of hands by the pastor.43 However, a general exhortation is to be made at every celebration. The minister fences the table by warning 'all such as are ignorant, scandalous, profane, or that live in any sin or offense against their knowledge or conscience, that they presume not to come to that holy table'.

While the Westminster divines were agreed on the theology of the Lord's Supper, the seemingly innocuous statement that 'communicants may orderly sit about' or 'at' the table hides the fact that violent disagreement occurred over the question of 'posture'. Baillie complained that 'The Independents and others keeped us long three weeks upon one point alone, the communicating at a table'.44 Heated discussion of a merely circumstantial aspect of the sacrament of unity, as Dr. Robert Paul writes, 'almost tore the Assembly apart and occupied all the time until a compromise was reached'.45 Three kinds of practice were argued for. The ex-Anglican Puritans had been used to kneeling at the Lord's Table (in the spirit of the 'black rubric', i.e. no adoration of the elements was intended); the Scots believed that communicants should come up to the table  in separate groups if numbers demanded it  and sit about it; whereas the Independents insisted that communicants should receive the elements sitting in their pews!

Extremist misrepresentation of one another's position produced a loss of perspective. It was surely sufficient to stress, negatively, that the place of remembrance was not an altar of sacrifice, and positively, that the act of receiving the elements was the significantly symbolic act. As for kneeling or sitting, either at the table or in one's pew, the first disciples received the elements in a reclining posture. Such a circumstance could hardly be repeated in a large congregation, even assuming that the procedure was either necessary or desirable. While Charles Herle argued that the Scots practice tended to fragment the congregation into groups, and Edmund Calamy replied that the unity of the congregation is in the unity of consecration,46 it arguably maximizes the sense of unity if all receive the elements sitting in their pews. Goodwin was surely right in this, that 'Christ doth not put the honour in that sitting at table, but that he serves them'.47 Once it was realized that the regulative principle could be taken a little too far, the result was a rather Anglican kind of agreed statement permitting all three procedures!

The radical simplicity of the Directory's Lord's Supper is in stark contrast to the Prayer Book. Gone are the rehearsing of the Ten Commandments (with responses), the Nicene Creed and the comfortable words. One notes with interest that in Calvin's Geneva (where 'coming forward with reverence and in order' to kneel at the Lord's Table was not viewed with suspicion)48 the administration of the Lord's Supper included the Lord's Prayer (in paraphrase form) and the Apostle's Creed.