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Sunday, January 17, 2021

The Early Reformed Eucharistic Prayer, Its Characteristics, Its Use, and Its Implications for Reformational Anglicans


What are the distinguishing characteristics of the early Reformed eucharistic prayers? A number of the early Reformed leaders compiled eucharistic liturgies. Among these leaders was Zwingli. Bucer, Farrel, Calvin, Coverdale, a Lesko, Cranmer, and Knox. A comparative study of these liturgies enables us to identify several characteristics that distinguish the eucharistic prayers used in these liturgies from earlier and later eucharistic prayers. I use the term “eucharistic prayer” in a technical sense. They are eucharistic prayers in so far as they are prayers of the eucharist. 

One of the distinguishing characteristics that these prayers share is that they are not prayers of consecration. We are accustomed to thinking of eucharistic prayers as consecratory prayers. These prayers do not serve that function. Rather they are prayers for the communicants. They may more accurately be described as prayers before communion or prayers before the Lord’s Supper.

Unlike Luther’s German Mass, they do not use the Words of Institution to consecrate, or set apart, the bread and wine for sacramental use. Rather they use the Words of Institution as a Scriptural warrant for the church’s celebration of the Lord’s Supper. The Words of Institution may be read separately form the eucharistic prayer. This is another distinguishing characteristic of the early Reformed eucharistic prayers.

A third distinguishing characteristic of the early Reformed eucharistic prayers is that they do not contain an invocation of the Holy Spirit to bless and sanctify the bread and wine. Reformed theologians did not find any support for this practice in the Bible. On other hand, they did find evidence of the practice of praying for the Holy Spirit to infill human beings. They therefore concluded that such an invocation was not consistent with the teaching of the Bible. Early Reformed eucharistic prayers are, as Peter Martyr Vermigli put it, “prayers for men,’ not “prayers for bread and wine.”

In his First Apology, the earliest account of a eucharistic celebration, written around circa 150, Justin Martyr makes not mention of any invocation of the Holy Spirit upon the bread and wine in his two descriptions of the eucharist in Rome. In the first description the president of the eucharist “offers praise and glory to the Father of all in the name of the Son and the Holy Spirit” and “gives thanks at some length” that those gathered “have been deemed worthy of these things.” In the second description the president “offers prayers and thanksgiving to the best of his ability and the people assent, saying the Amen….” The practice of invoking the Holy Spirit does not appear in eucharistic prayers until later.

Because it appears in these later prayers, some liturgical scholars assume that it was also a feature of the eucharistic prayers in Justin’s time, but Justin’s account does not support this assumption. If such an invocation was as important part of the earliest eucharistic prayers as these scholars maintain, one might expect Justin to refer to it. If anything, the invocation of the Holy Spirit upon the elements in later eucharistic prayers and the offering of the consecrated elements as a sacrifice point to how quickly the early Church fell into error and departed from the teaching of the Bible. Those who argue that because the early Church did it, we should do it too, choose to ignore the fact that ancient error is nonetheless error and its antiquity or wide-acceptance does not make it any less error. Error was rife even in New Testament times. The argument that the doctrine of the early Church was purer because the early Church was closer to apostolic times does not hold water. While church tradition can perpetuate truth, it can also perpetuate error. For this reason, Protestants insist that it should be tried by the test of Scripture as Bishop J. C. Ryle put it.

The compilers of the Anglican Church in North America’s The Book of Common Prayer (2019) in adopting an invocation of the Holy Spirit appeal to what they describe as an “ecumenical consensus.” They neglect to mention that this so-called “ecumenical consensus” does not represent all denominations and churches and does not enjoy the recognition of all Anglicans. For example, An Australian Prayer Book (1978) contains six eucharistic prayers, none of which contain an invocation of the Holy Spirit on the elements. Common Prayer: Resources for Gospel-Shaped Gatherings (2012) contains four eucharistic prayers. None of these eucharistic prayers contain such an invocation. The rationalization that the compilers of the 2019 Book of Common Prayer use for their adoption of such an invocation in the book’s eucharistic prayers is simply justification for what amounts to personal preference. From a Reformed point of view it is a preference for a practice that has no support in Scripture but is contrary to biblical practice.

A fourth distinguishing characteristic of early Reformed eucharistic prayers is that the only sacrifice to which these eucharistic prayers refer is Christ’s offering of himself on the cross for the sins of the world. There is no reiteration or reoffering of Christ’s sacrifice or pleading of his self-offering. They do not suggest that Christians, when they celebrate the eucharist, participate in any way in Christ’s sacrifice. They are the beneficiaries of his sacrifice but not participants in it. They do not support the Lambeth doctrine of eucharistic sacrifice any more than they do the Medieval and modern Roman doctrine of eucharistic sacrifice.

Early Reformed eucharistic prayers may include other elements such as thanksgiving and praise, intercessory petitions for Christians rulers, the congregation, and the sick, petitions for the forgiveness of sin, and petitions for worthy reception but these elements vary from prayer to prayer. A number of early Reformed eucharistic prayers are prolix and wordy but these characteristics are not particular to early Reformed prayers. They are more particular to the times and the kind of formal speech that people used in addressing kings and princes. A number of the early Reformed prayers like Thomas Cranmer’s 1552 Communion Service’s eucharistic prayer incorporate elements from the Medieval Roman Canon such as the Sursum Corda and the Sanctus.

How does the 1662 Communion Service’s eucharistic prayer stack up to the early Reformed eucharistic prayers? The short answer is not very well. This is not immediately obvious because the 1662 Communion Services’ eucharistic prayer uses texts from the 1552 Communion Service’s eucharistic prayer. The Restoration bishops made several changes that negate its Reformed credentials. The changes put the prayer in a tradition that goes back the 1637 Scottish Canon, the 1549 Canon, and the late Medieval Sarum Canon. They substituted “the Lord’s Table” for “God’s board” in the rubric before the Prayer of Humble Access. They labeled the section of the prayer, "Almighty God, our heavenly Father” as “the Prayer of Consecration.” They added the manual acts to the Words of Institution and an “Amen” to the end of the prayer. They added a rubric directing the priest to “consecrate” more bread and wine with the Words of Institution if he ran out of bread and wine during the distribution of the communion elements. They also added rubrics directing that the priest cover what remained of the “consecrated” elements with a “fair linen cloth” and consume them after the service with the assistance of members of the congregation. These changes represent a decided shift away from the doctrine of the Reformed eucharistic prayer of the 1552, 1559, and 1604 Communion Services.

A part of the problem is that we have become so accustomed to these changes after using the 1662 Book of Common Prayer for the last 350 odd years, we do not recognize them for what they are and how they affect the doctrine of the Communion Service. The widespread acceptance of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and the 1661 Ordinal as historic formularies blinds us to their defects. The two not only have defects but they also have contributed to the proliferation of Anglican service books, which some Anglicans deplore.

We must also remember that the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and the 1661 Ordinal were the work of the Restoration bishops who, with the exception of the Bishop of Norwich Edward Reynolds, were Laudian High Churchmen and Arminians. Both Bishops John Cosin and Matthew Wren had been influenced by the two early High Churchmen, Bishops Lancelot Andrewes and John Overall who were also the founders of the Arminian wing of the Church of England.

Andrewes combined the eucharistic prayer of 1552-1604 Communion Services with the first Post-Communion Thanksgiving from these Communion Services in imitation of the 1549 Canon and used it in his private chapel. He adorned with chapel with many church ornaments from pre-Reformation times. He also placed the table against the east wall and used elaborate ceremonial which included bowing, genuflecting, and kneeling.

Andrewes and Overall were close friends. Cosin was at one time Overall’s secretary. Cosin and Wren played a leading role in the 1662 revision of the Book of Common Prayer.

Among the changes that Cosin had wanted to make to the 1604 Communion Service was to add an invocation of the Holy Spirit like the one that the Scottish bishops had incorporated into the eucharistic prayer of the 1637 Scottish Communion Office. But due to fear of the kind of reaction that the Scots had to that communion office, the language of the 1604 Communion Service’s eucharistic prayer was kept. The introduction of the 1637 Scottish Prayer led to the Bishops’ War and the abolition of Episcopacy in the Scottish Church.

What we see in the 1662 revision is not just a dilution of the Reformed doctrine of the 1552-1604 Communion Services but a movement away from that doctrine. A parallel movement is discernible in the 1662 baptismal services with the addition of a petition for God to sanctify the water in the font in the prayer before the baptism. This petition reflects the influence of the 1637 Scottish Prayer Book and is redundant. Earlier in the service the Ark Prayer states that God, by the baptism of his Son Jesus Christ, sanctified the Jordan River and “all waters” for the mystical washing away. of sin. There is no need to ask God to sanctify what he has already sanctified!

This change would bear fruit in the twentieth century and in this century. The prayer before the baptism would become modeled upon what by the twentieth century had become to be viewed as a proper eucharistic prayer—a prayer with an invocation of the Holy Spirit to bless and sanctify the matter of the sacrament. This view had its antecedents in the thinking of the Usager wing of the Non-Juror movement. The Usagers took the position that the eucharist was invalid unless the eucharistic prayer contained such an invocation. The prayer before the baptism would be drafted to give emphasis to the priest’s role not just as an administrator of the sacraments but as the consecrator of the sacraments—the minister to whom God had at his ordination with prayer, laying on of episcopal hands, and anointing with blessed oil had been give the special gift or grace to transmogrify or confect bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ and to infuse the water in the font with the power to wash away sin. The baptismal rites of the 1979 and 2019 Prayer Books are examples of the kind of fruit that this change would bear.

The baptismal services of the 1662 revision also inherited the problematic language of the baptismal services of the 1552, 1559, and 1604 Books of Common Prayer, which the Tractarians and others have interpreted as teaching baptismal regeneration. This is not surprising since the Laudian High Churchmen had a high view of the sacraments. It is one of the distinguishing characteristics of their school of churchmanship.

One of the results of the disparity between the theology of Anglicans who are Reformed in their theological outlook and the doctrine of the Prayer Books that they are expected to use—1662 Prayer Book, 1928 Prayer Book, 1979 Prayer Book, 2019 Prayer Book, and so on is that they find themselves in the unenviable position of using services books that do not embody their theological views and defending their use of these service books. Among the reasons that they find themselves in this position is the persistence of the belief that everyone must use the same Prayer Book. However, uniformity of doctrine and worship is a lost cause in this day and age. The denomination-wide use of only one service book is a thing of the past. We may not wish to admit it but uniformity of doctrine and worship was illusionary in the days when a single Prayer Book was used. Different clergy used the book differently. They made additions, alterations, and omissions—some authorized and others not. Prayer Book revision was the denomination catching up with its clergy and congregations.

If North American Anglicans who are Reformed in their theological outlook want a service book that embodies their doctrinal views and reflects their worship practices, they are not going to find it in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer or a modern English translation of the 1662 Prayer Book. They certainly will not find it in the 1928 Prayer Book, the 1979 Prayer Book, or the 2019 Prayer Book. They will have to produce their own rites and services. This may come as a disagreeable surprise to some of us but it is a reality of the day and age in which we live.

We can choose to live in a fantasy world in which we imagine that all kinds of people eventually will come out of the woodworks, exclaiming their delight at finding a church that uses the 1662 Prayer Book or its modern-English translation or we can live in the real world, in which lengthy services in Jacobean English hold little appeal for most people, churchgoers and non-churchgoers, and do not lend themselves to online use. Jesus commissioned his disciples, which includes ourselves, to make disciples of all people groups. He did not commission them or us to push a particular service book. The purpose of a service book is to advance the progress of the church’s mission and not the other way around.

If the optional invocation of the Holy Spirit is dropped from the eucharistic prayer in my article, “A Proposed Supplemental Eucharistic Prayer and Post-Communion Thanksgiving,” the resulting prayer is one that fits the distinguishing characteristics of the early Reformed eucharistic prayers. It does not mirror any one of these prayers. It does incorporate textual material from the 1552 Communion Service’s eucharistic prayer with some additions that make it more useful in a twenty-first century context. Does it need some further tweaking? Most likely. But it offers an example of how Reformational Anglicans—those who have been influenced by the Reformed doctrines and principles of the English Reformation and those who have a Reformed theological outlook can draft worship resources for their own use, worship resources that are in line with their own beliefs and which may inspire others to make use of them, others whose thinking otherwise might be influenced and shaped by the eucharistic prayers that they find in worship resources like the 2019 Book of Common Prayer.

It makes no sense for Reformational Anglicans to hobble themselves with an older Prayer Book, even in a modern English edition, that does not serve them well on the North American mission field. This is putting one’s preferences before evangelistic engagement, a practice that has proven over and over again to be to the detriment of churches that follow it. The claim that a Reformational Anglican network of churches or an individual Reformed Anglican church and its clergy are seeking to preserve doctrinal purity rings hallow since the 1662 Book of Common Prayer only partly embodies Reformed doctrine and contains much that conflicts with that doctrine.

Reformational Anglicans need rites and services that embody, teach, and reinforce what they believe. They need rites and services that are understandable and practicable and which can be tailored to the circumstance of the churches that are using them. Reformational Anglicans need rites and practices that are winsome and which will arouse a positive response from clergy and congregations outside their tradition and outside the Anglican Church, clergy and congregations that share their beliefs or which may be led to adopt them. They need rites and services which will enable them to further the cause of the gospel rather than create obstacles to people hearing the gospel and responding to it.

As long as Reformational Anglicans use rites and services that do not reflect the Reformed doctrines and principles of the English Reformation, they will never take their rightful place as the heirs and interpreters of the English Reformation, historic Anglicanism, and the central Anglican theological tradition.

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