Session 4 The 1559, 1604 and 1637 Prayer Books

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1 Session 4 The 1559, 1604 and 1637 Prayer Books I. Continued Upheaval The 1552 Book of Common Prayer was sanctioned by the Parliament in April On All Saints Day 1552, Bishop Nicholas Ridley celebrated Holy Communion at St. Paul s Cathedral, London according to the new rite. However, the life of this Prayer Book was very brief. In 1553 the sickly King Edward VI died and was succeeded by his half-sister Mary Tudor a devout Roman Catholic completely loyal to the memory of her mother, Catherine of Aragon. Upon her accession to the throne, Mary sought to restore England to the Roman fold. During her reign the Church reverted back to the use of Latin service books. When Mary died in 1558, she was succeeded by her half-sister Elizabeth, who reissued the Prayer Book in English. She combined and revised sections from the 1549 and 1552 Books, and the third Book of Common Prayer was published in II. The 1559 Prayer Book The 1559 Prayer Book brought back the 1552 Prayer Book with some revisions aimed at conciliating those with more catholic leanings. The Black Rubric which denied any real and essential presence of Christ in the bread and wine was deleted. The 1552 Sentences of Administration of Communion were prefaced by those of 1549, which allowed for the real presence of Christ in the bread and wine, but received by faith. Thus, the doctrines of the real presence and receptionism were combined. The new wording read: - The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life, and take and eat this, in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving. - The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. And drink this in remembrance that Christ s blood was shed for thee, and be thankful. An Ornaments Rubric (subject to varying interpretations) restored vestments of the Second Year of the Reign of King Edward VI. In 1561 a new calendar containing more than sixty Black Letter Days of the saints was issued. In 1562 a metrical version of the Psalter with a few hymns and metrical versions of certain Prayer Book texts was authorized for use before and after services and sermons. III. Still Cranmer s Book The question arises on whether the 1559 Prayer Book was catholic enough to withstand scrutiny from the Roman Catholics. Could one reasonably interpret its communion liturgy

2 to affirm a doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the consecrated bread and wine? The answer is doubtful for various reasons. 1. On the face of it, the Communion Service of 1559 is the same as 1552, so the answer is no. The minister recites the words of institution, followed immediately by the administration of communion. There is no Amen at the end of the instruction, so there is every reason to deny that the prayer itself is one of consecration. The prayer recalling the institution of the Lord s Supper is followed immediately by reception of the bread and wine. It is all one action the minister recalling Christ s institution of the Supper and the communicants eating the bread and wine. This remains Again, like 1552, there is no rubric requiring the priest to consecrate additional bread and wine if the amount used in the service is not sufficient to communicate everyone. Clearly, any bread or wine will do and the words of institution need not be repeated. 3. The rubric at the end of the service repeats what was allowed in the 1552 rite, that if any of the bread or wine remains, the Curate shall have it to his own use. In other words, there is no reserved sacrament the bread and wine in the communion service revert back to ordinary usage. The Curate takes the remainder home for dinner. IV. Anglican Revisionism Despite these seeming defects in the 1559 Communion Service, some Anglicans did insist on the doctrine of the real presence and even argued that a Prayer of Consecration is implicit in the service, though not specifically stated. 1. Queen Elizabeth, whose private chapel had candles and a cross on it (things not permitted on the Tables in parish churches) was asked what she believed about the presence of Christ in the sacrament. She penned these lines: Twas God the word that spake it, He took the bread and brake it; And what the word did make it, That I believe, and take it. 2. In a series of debates with the Roman Catholic theologian Stephen Harding, Bishop John Jewel defended the 1559 Communion Service as having a consecration in the sense that Cranmer expounded in Yes, reception remains the focal point, but a consecration there was, Jewel insisted. Bishop John Jewel An Apology of the Church of England (1561) In the Lord s Supper there is truly given to the believing the body and blood of the Lord, the flesh of the Son of God, which quickens our souls, the meat that comes from above, the food of immortality, grace, truth, and life; and the Supper to be the communion of the body and blood of Christ, by the partaking whereof we be revived,

3 we be strengthened, and be fed unto immortality, and whereby we are joined, united, and incorporate unto Christ, that we may abide in him, and he in us. For, although we do not touch the body of Christ with teeth and mouth, yet we hold him fast, and eat him by faith, by understanding, and by the spirit. We say that the bread and wine are the holy and heavenly mysteries of the body and blood of Christ, and that in them Christ himself, the true bread of eternal life, is so exhibited to us at present, that we do by faith truly take his body and blood; and yet at the same time, we speak not this so as if we thought the nature of the bread and wine were totally changed and abolished, as many in the last age have dreamt, and as yet could never agree among themselves about this dream. For neither did Christ ever design that the wheaten bread should change its nature, and assume a new kind of divinity, but rather that it might change us. 3. The requirement that the words of institution be recited any time additional bread and wine is needed became enshrined in canon law with Canon XXI of the 1603 Canons. V. The 1604 Book of Common Prayer The 1604 Prayer Book was a response to the Millenary Petition of the Puritans to James I requesting changes in the 1559 Prayer Book. The subsequent Hampton Court Conference authorized a revision that made a few concessions to the Puritans the chief one being the limiting of the ministration of private baptism to authorized ministers. The early Stuart period saw the moving of the communion tables back to the East wall, and placed there altarwise. Rails were put around them, and though this was defended to keep the dogs from fouling them, it also provided the place where worshippers received communion. The ministers were at the table in the chancel, the people in the nave, and they now had to be summoned to communion. This meant that there was now no continuity between consecration and reception. VI. The 1637 Scottish Book of Common Prayer When William Laud was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Charles I in 1633, he was intent on restoring the liturgy of the Church of England to a more catholic order. As part of his reform, an effort was made to impose the Prayer Book on the Church of Scotland, which though having Anglican bishops, was mainly Presbyterian in sentiment. The result was the 1637 Scottish Book of Common Prayer (never adopted in England) which is often referred to as Laud s Liturgy, but was the principal work of Scottish bishops John Maxwell and James Wedderburn. It incorporated a number of new features, including: - A presentation of the elements at the offertory - An epiclesis in the prayer of consecration calling on the Holy Spirit to bless and sanctify the bread and wine - A breaking of the bread - The liturgical use of deacons.

4 The new book also downplayed the Apocrypha, substituted the word presbyter for priest, used the King James Version rather than the Great Bible for Scriptural passages, and incorporated other changes to make the book more acceptable to the Scots. VII. The Results of the 1637 Book The 1637 Prayer Book was a miserable failure and precipitated the English Civil War that would eventually see the imprisonment and beheading of both Archbishop Laud and King Charles I. Why the outrage? The book stipulated that the position of the communion table was required to be against the East wall and the 1549-type canon was entitled, The Prayer of Consecration. Manual acts were ordered in the rubrics in the narrative of institution, and the canon ended with Amen and was followed by the Lord s Prayer and Prayer of Humble Access. Provision was made for consuming any consecrated bread and wine remaining after communion, and for supplementary consecration if the bread or wine ran out. Other rubrics prescribed the offering up and placing on the table of the elements before the prayer for the Church militant, and for covering any consecrated remains to await consumption after the service. In sum, Archbishop Laud sought to drastically modify, if not reverse, Archbishop Cranmer s theology and practice of the Eucharist. Ironically, both would suffer the same fate for their efforts execution. And yet, in some ways Archbishop Laud would have his way for the American Prayer Book would be based on the Scottish (not English) liturgy, and today most of the newly revised service books are a blend of both Laud and Cranmer. William Laud was such an impressive theologian that the Pope at the time offered to make him a Cardinal if he would go over to Rome. Laud, to his credit, declined, and instead would face execution by the Puritans for his catholic beliefs (but also his authoritarian manner of demanding conformity to church canons). TESTIMONY OF 17 TH ENGLISH THEOLOGIANS ON THE EUCHARIST The real presence of Christ s most blessed body and blood is not therefore to be sought for in the sacrament, but in the worthy reception of the sacrament. Richard Hooker Christ said, This is My Body. He did not say, This is My Body in this way. We are in agreement with you as to the end; the whole controversy is as to the method. We believe no less than you that the presence is real. Concerning the method of the presence, we define nothing rashly, and I add, we do not anxiously inquire, any more than how the Body and Blood washes us in our Baptism, any more than how the Human and Divine Natures are united in one Person in the Incarnation of Christ. It is perfectly clear that

5 Transubstantiation, which has lately been born in the last four hundred years, never existed in the first four hundred - Bishop Lancelot Andrewes For the Body and Blood of Our Saviour are not only fitly represented by the elements, but also by virtue of His institution really offered to all by them, and so eaten by the faithful mystically and sacramentally And we also deny that the elements still retain the nature of Sacraments, when not used according to Divine institution, that is, given by Christ s ministers and received by His people; so that Christ in the consecrated bread ought not, cannot, be kept and preserved to be carried about, because he is present only to the communicants. Bishop John Cosin The holy Fathers most firmly believed that he who worthily receives these mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ really and actually receives into himself the Body and Blood of Christ, but in a certain spiritual, miraculous, and imperceptible way The opinion of those Protestants and others seems to be most safe and most right who think, nay, who most firmly believe, that the Body and Blood of Christ are really and actually and substantially present and taken in the Eucharist, but in a way which the human mind cannot understand and much more beyond the power of man to express, which is known to God alone and is not revealed to us in the Scriptures, - a way indeed not by bodily or oral reception, but only by the understanding and merely by faith, but in another way known, as has been said, to God alone, and to be left to his omnipotence. Bishop William Forbes Thus in the Lord s Supper the outward thing, which we see with our eyes, is the bread and wine; the inward thing which we apprehend by faith is the Body and Blood of Christ. We acknowledge sacraments to be signs; but bare signs we deny them to be. Seals they are, as well as signs, of the Covenant of Grace. The Bread and Wine are not changed in substance from being the same with that which is served at ordinary tables. But in respect of the sacred use whereunto they are consecrated, such a change is made that now they differ as much from common bread and wine, as heaven from earth. Archbishop James Ussher