By Robin G. Jordan
The 1662 Communion Service has a number of unique
characteristics that reflects its Protestant and Reformed theology. The 1662
Book of Common Prayer is substantially the reformed 1552 Book of Common Prayer,
and its Communion Service is substantially the 1552 Communion Service, with
some additions and alterations. Dom Gregory Dix described the 1552 Prayer Book
as “the only effective attempt ever made to give liturgical expression to the
doctrine of ‘justification by faith alone.’” A liturgical commission guided by
the theology of the 1662 Communion Service will take pains to ensure that these
characteristics or commensurate characteristics are included in any order that
it develops for the administration of the Lord’s Supper, or Holy Communion. Among
these characteristics are the following features:
1. Gives far greater
weight to Scripture than to antiquity. What is incorporated in an order for
the administration of the Lord’s Supper, or Holy Communion, is clearly
agreeable with Scripture. The wording of a text not only is taken from
Scripture or is agreeable to Scripture but the use of the text also conforms to
the plain teaching of Scripture. The same principle applies to liturgical
usages. Among the implications is that in adopting a practice the first
consideration is not its great age or its wide use but the consistency with Scripture of the
practice and the use to which it is put.
Even in ancient times the Church was given to error and
superstition. Errors and superstitious beliefs may be transmitted from one generation
to the next. They may become entrenched in Church tradition but such entrenchment
does not make them any less errors and superstitious beliefs. While Archbishop
Cranmer applied the principle of retaining and using the old where it might be
well-used, he used Scripture as his rule in determining what should be retained
and used. He kept and used what was agreeable to Scripture or which could be
adapted to make it agreeable to Scripture, purging from it anything that was
contrary or repugnant to Scripture. Otherwise, he discarded it. He did not
assume that it was agreeable to Scripture on the basis of its antiquity. He
also used it in a manner that was agreeable to Scripture.
2. Adopts a language
and order that is plain and easily understood by all who are participating the
celebration of the Holy Communion—the congregation as well as the ministers. Among
the characteristics of the order for the administration of the Lord’s Supper,
or Holy Communion, is brevity and plainness. The rubrics are few and easy. No extraneous
or unnecessary elements are included in the rite.
3. Keeps ceremonial simple
and to a bare minimum. Whatever ceremonial is used, it is readily understandable
as far as its meaning and the use that it serves. It does not require
complicated or lengthy explanation.
4. Makes the service
as congregational as possible as within a particular context. When the liturgies of the 1662 Prayer Book are
compared with the seventeenth century Latin Mass and the proposals of the
Puritans at the 1661 Savoy Conference, one of their outstanding characteristics
is that they are far more congregational in relation to their particular
context—a period in English history before the introduction of public education
and the advent of widespread literacy at all levels of society.
Common prayer is by its very nature congregational. The
congregation is an active participant in the liturgy, not a passive observer.
The use of set forms that facilitate the participation of the congregation is
one of the characteristics of common prayer.
Common prayer is shared prayer. It gives tangible expression
to the priesthood of all believers. When a minister says a prayer, he is acting
as the representative of the congregation, not as an intermediary or mediator between the
congregation and God. He is serving as the voice of the congregation. The
congregation affirms the prayer as its own by the addition of its “Amen.”
Alterations and additions to the order for the
administration of the Lord’s Supper, or Holy Communion, which expand the role of the congregation in
the liturgy, are consistent with the principles of common prayer reflected in
the 1662 Prayer Book,. They include general directions that require the use of
members of congregation to read the lessons, lead the general intercession, and
to distribute the consecrated elements and rubrics that direct or permit the
congregation to join with the minister in saying the Collect for Purity, the
Prayer of Humble Access, and the Post-Communion Prayers. They also include the
insertion of a congregation response after each section of the Prayer for State
of Christ’s Church and the use of alternative forms for the general
intercession, which give a larger role to the congregation.
5. Avoids all
language and ceremonial which suggests that the Lord’s Supper is a reiteration
or representation of Christ’ sacrifice or a participation in Christ’s ongoing
sacrificial activity. This includes any reference to the communion table as
an altar.
6. Omits the salutation,
“The Lord be with you; and with thy spirit” from the entire service. This
salutation has a long association with the Medieval doctrines of
Transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the Mass. Archbishop Cranmer uses the
salutation only once in the 1552 Prayer Book – before the second Lord’s Prayer
in the services of Morning and Evening Prayer, a position where it is not open
to interpretation as a prayer for the priest that the Holy Spirit will stir up
the special gift that Roman Catholics and Anglo-Catholics believe is given him
at ordination to confect the bread and
the wine into Christ’s Body and Blood and to offer Christ’s sacrifice on the
altar for the sins of the world for the living and the dead. The 1662 Prayer
Book follows suit.
7. Begins the service
with the recitation of the Ten Commandments. The rehearsing of the Ten
Commandments at every celebration of the Holy Communion is not only an
important part of the Reformed heritage of the 1662 Communion Service but also
a major evangelistic, or revivalistic, element in that service. Revisions that
permit the omission of the Ten Commandments and the substitution of the Summary
of Law defeat the purpose of the Ten Commandments. Their recitation initiates a
sequence that lies at the heart of the 1662 Communion Service and which
culminates in the commemoration of Christ’s saving work on the cross and the
appropriation of the benefits of his passion and death by repentance and faith.
It concludes on a fitting note of thanksgiving, self-dedication, and
praise. As J. I. Packer and Roger
Beckwith point out in The Thirty-Nine Articles: Their Place and Use Today, the 1662 Communion Service emphasizes
what God has done for us. Anglican churches that adopt the order for the
administration of the Lord’s Supper and the doctrine of eucharistic sacrifice
that the Subcommittee on the Holy Communion Service recommended to the 1958
Lambeth Conference and which the 1958 Lambeth Conference commended to the
Anglican Communion emphasize what we are doing for God.
8. Retains the Prayer of Humble Access in its
1552-1662 position—after the Sanctus and before the Memorial of the Institution
of the Lord’s Supper. For an explanation of why Archbishop Cranmer moved
the Prayer of Humble Access to this position in the 1552 Communion Service and
the rationale for its retention in that position, see Karen Batie’s Churchman article, “The Prayer of Humble Access.”
9. Omits a petition for
the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the eucharistic
elements during the consecration. Archbishop Cranmer omitted such a petition
from the consecration of the eucharistic elements in the 1552 Prayer Book for
three reasons. The first reason was that it suggested a change occurred in the
bread and wine when they were consecrated, a change in which they became in
substance the Body and Blood of Christ while retaining the appearance of bread
and wine. The second reason was that he found no basis for such a petition in
Scripture. What he did find was a number of instances where the Holy Spirit
descended upon people, in some cases in response to prayer. But he found no
instances where the Holy Spirit descended upon inanimate objects. The third
reason was that he concluded from his study of the Holy Scriptures that the
Holy Spirit did not work in that way. This view of the Holy Spirit is one that
evangelicals share with Cranmer and the English Reformers.
Evangelical theology is different from Catholic and Orthodox theology primarily in the realm of Christian experience, which is the work of the Holy Spirit. We believe that the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the believer is primary and immediate. Without such a work a human being cannot know that he is saved and therefore cannot really be called a Christian. It is also to say that the Spirit’s work is not necessarily mediated through other agencies like the institutional Church with its ministry and sacraments, even if these may be (and usually are) the means of grace that God chooses to use. What we mean by this is not that a person will not come to know God through the ministry of the Church but that the Church has no right to claim control over the believer on the ground that without its ministry, salvation for the individual is impossible. The practical implications of this for the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit can be seen in two areas. (1) We cannot subscribe to the view that the double procession somehow increases the authority of the pope, because we do not accept that he is the Vicar of Christ on earth. (2) We do not believe that the Holy Spirit comes down into the sacramental elements by an act of invocation or epiclesis (as it is known in Eastern theology). That idea fits in very well with the mystical notion of the resting of the Spirit on the Son, but it is unacceptable to evangelicals because we do not believe that the Spirit works in that way. It is not through the ministry or the sacraments but by a direct conviction of sin in our hearts that the Spirit builds up the Church. [Gerald Bray, “The Double Procession ofthe Holy Spirit in Evangelical Theology Today: Do We Still Need It?” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 41/3 (September 1998), p. 425]The Restoration bishops could have incorporated a petition for the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the eucharistic elements in the consecration in the 1662 Prayer Book. Bishop Cosin had drafted such a petition for possible use in that book. However, they wisely chose to make no changes in the consecration other than the addition of an “Amen” at the conclusion of the Words of Institution.
10. Omits any offering of the eucharistic elements at the offertory or during the consecration. The Lesser Oblation and the Greater Oblation have no place in an order for the administration of the Lord’s Supper, or Holy Communion, based upon the 1662 Communion Service and its theology. Neither does the elevation of the unconsecrated bread and wine at the offertory and the elevation of the consecrated bread and wine during the consecration or at its conclusion.
11. Places the prayer
of oblation after the distribution of the consecrated elements where it cannot
be construed as inferring that the Lord’s Supper is a sacrifice in any way
other than an offering of thanksgiving and praise for Christ's saving work on the cross and its benefits.
12. Avoids any
ceremonial suggestive of Christ’s presence in the consecrate eucharistic presence
and any texts associated with such ceremonial. This includes showing the
consecrated bread and wine to the people while saying “Behold the Lamb of God….”
13. Avoids any reference
to Christ’s presence in the consecrated eucharistic elements. Dyson Hague
points out a number of significant differences between the partially reformed
1549 Communion Service and the reformed 1552 Communion Service and its 1662
revision.
In the First Prayer Book of Edward, the doctrine of the Real Presence (in the Romish sense) was countenanced, and the most objectionable expressions were employed. For instance, in the exhortation which the curate is enjoined to give to the people, he says, " He hath left in those holy mysteries, as a pledge of His love, and a continual remembrance of the same, his own blessed Body and precious Blood, for us to feed upon spiritually." In the prayer of consecration, which in the First Book came before the "You that do truly repent," etc., he prays that the "Bread and Wine may be unto us the Body and Blood of Thy most dearly beloved Son, Jesus Christ." Both in the prayer of humble access, and in the prayer after the communion, the words are used, " to eat the flesh of Thy Son, and to drink His Blood, in these holy mysteries," and, " that Thou hast vouchsafed to feed us in these holy mysteries, with the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of Thy Son." In the revised Prayer Book, as we now have it, all these expressions are carefully avoided, the only approach to them being the unobjectionable thanksgiving to God for giving Christ to be our food in the sacrament. While not actually teaching, in so many words, the doctrine of transubstantiation, and the Real Presence, these expressions hinted in that direction, and were capable of being distorted into a direct support of these doctrines. The Reformers, therefore, carefully removed them, not by accident, or in ignorance, but because they thoroughly understood their work.* Another decided Protestant mark. [Dyson Hague, The Protestantism of the Prayer Book, pp. 46-47]
14. Avoids a
protracted delay between the consecration of the eucharistic elements and their
distribution. The 1552 Communion Service moved immediately to the
distribution of the consecrated bread and wine following its consecration. The
1662 revision placed an “Amen” between the consecration and the distribution.
Both rites avoid preceding the distribution of the consecrated elements with a
series of devotions that suggests that Christ is present in under or under the
forms of the consecrated bread and wine either substantively or
spiritually. The two rites do not exclude
Christ’s presence but it is not localized in the consecrated elements.
15. Includes the
Declaration on Kneeling in the rubrics after the service. The Declaration
on Kneeling, sometimes called the "Black Rubric," is a important statement of the eucharistic doctrine of the 1662
Prayer Book.
These features are not the only ones that characterize the
1662 Communion Service. They are, however, characteristics that can be used even
in a cursory examination of an order for the administration of the Lord’s
Supper, or Holy Communion, to determine whether whoever drafted the rite was
guided by the theology of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.
A number of changes that Protestant Episcopal Church
introduced in the the Communion Service of the first American Prayer of 1789
were consistent with the theology of the 1662 Communion Service, for example,
the addition of the introductory phrase, “All glory be to thee” to the Memorial of the Institution of the Lord’s
Supper and of the rubrical permission to omit the first Lord’s Prayer and to substitute
“a proper hymn” for the Gloria in Excelsis . Several changes, however, were at
odds with that theology and reflected the influence of the American High Church
party and Scottish Usager Non-Juror Communion Office of 1764. They included the
addition of an Anamnesis-Oblation of the Elements, Invocation of the Holy
Spirit, and Oblation of the Communicants to the Consecration and of the
rubrical requirement that a hymn, or a part of the hymn, should be sung before
the distribution of the consecrated elements. This rubric not only delayed the
distribution but also permitted the singing of the Agnus Dei, which had a long
association with the Medieval doctrines of Transubstantiation and the sacrifice
of the Mass.
With 1789 Communion Service the Protestant Episcopal Church
set off down the path that would lead it further and further away from the
Protestant and Reformed doctrine and principles of the Anglican formularies.
Since 1928 revision of the American Prayer Book that path has split in two
directions—a liberal direction observable in the modern-day Episcopal Church
and an Anglo-Catholic direction seen in its conservative counterpart, the
Anglican Church in North America.
Neither of the two orders for the administration of the
Lord’s Supper, or Holy Communion, which the Anglican Church in North America’s Liturgy
and Common Worship Task Force has produced to date, evidences these
characteristics or commensurate characteristics to the extent that the 1662
Prayer Book’s theology may be described as having guided the task force. It
remains to be seen whether the task force will make an about-face under former
Archbishop Duncan’s chairmanship and retreat from its present Anglo-Catholic
direction. Duncan has called for the establishment of a “new settlement” to
replace the Elizabethan Settlement which has shaped historic Anglicanism and in
which the Anglican formularies (including the 1662 Book of Common Prayer) are
grounded. During his arch-episcopate Duncan showed a decided preference for
unreformed Catholic teaching and practices in the rites of the Church and its
structure and form of governance.
The two new Eucharistic Prayers to which former Archbishop
Duncan refers to in The Apostle’s article, “Taking the Next Steps toward a New Prayer Book” are based upon Eucharistic Prayers A and D in the 1979 Book of
Common Prayer. Eucharistic Prayer A is “a shorter, modern adaptation of the
prayers of the previous American Prayer Books and of Prayer I of Rite One.” Eucharistic Prayer D is “adapted from the Liturgy
of Saint Basil….and an abbreviated and revised form of this lengthy prayer is
one of the four eucharistic prayers of the Roman sacramentary of Paul VI.” Needless to say neither prayer conforms to the
theology of 1662 Prayer Book. One the other hand, an eucharistic prayer based
upon Eucharistic Prayer D holds a strong appeal for that segment of the Anglican
Church in North America which seeks to reshape the Anglican Church along the
lines of the purportedly undivided Church of the early High Middles ages before
the East-West schism in the eleventh century.
Also see
Taking the Wrong Steps Toward a New Prayer Book
Surprises in Store? College of Bishops Consider Liturgy Revisions at June Meeting
Also see
Taking the Wrong Steps Toward a New Prayer Book
Surprises in Store? College of Bishops Consider Liturgy Revisions at June Meeting
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