Liturgy in the Age of Reason

Worship and Sacraments in England and Scotland 1662–c.1800

Bryan D. Spinks

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781351921794
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Worship has always been affected by its surrounding culture. This book examines the changing perspectives in and discussions on worship styles and practices from the Restoration to the death of Wesley, in England and Scotland. Moving beyond the text, Spinks grounds the discussion within the changing cultural and intellectual framework of the period referred to as the Enlightenment. The focus is the end of the early modern period, when already the upheaval of the English Civil War, the methods of the Cambridge Platonists, and the thinking of Descartes and Spinoza were making the period one of transition, and Newtonian thought and the thought of John Locke impacted theological thought and worship forms. It is against this framework that the worship in England and Scotland will be described and assessed. As well as published and unpublished liturgical documents, this book draws on contemporary accounts and descriptions of worship, catechisms, sermons and theological works, and contemporary diaries. Musical and architectural changes are also noted, particularly the late seventeenth century hymns of Richard Davies of Rothwell, Joseph Stennett and Benjamin Keach. This book places worship in the society which it served, and from which changes sprang. It explores the interaction of cultural thought and worship, drawing parallels between the Enlightenment period and problems of late modernity and the worship wars of the late twentieth century.

CHAPTER 1

The Restoration Settlement of Worship in the Established Churches of England and Scotland

The Church of England’s Reconstruction

Between the death of Oliver Cromwell and the Act of Uniformity of 1662, government and worship in the Church of England were in flux. Episcopacy was restored, but worship was still officially conducted according to the Westminster Directory for Public Worship of 1644, and the Book of Common Prayer was technically illegal. In 1660 many churches immediately reverted to the Prayer Book, but even with the rescinding of the legislation of the Interregnum, the ‘lawful’ forms of worship were still far from being settled. I.M. Green noted that at the proclamations of Charles II as king, in only one place outside London – Lowestoft – do we hear of the Book of Common Prayer being used in a thanksgiving service.¹ In the 1660 Declaration of Breda, Charles II had promised liberty to those of tender consciences, and a number of the Presbyterian-minded clergy presented him with an address in which they asked him not to restore the Book of Common Prayer without modification of some of its text, particularly, the ceremonies which had been disputed from the time of Elizabeth. In his reply, His Majesty’s Declaration to all his living subjects of his kingdom of England and dominion of Wales, concerning ecclesiastical affairs (25 October 1660), also known as the Worcester House Declaration, Charles stated that the Book of Common Prayer was ‘the best we have seen’. However, he nevertheless undertook to appoint an equal number of divines from the Presbyterian and Episcopal parties to review the liturgy, and ‘to make such Alterations as shall be thought most necessary; and some additional Forms ... and that it be left to the Minister’s Choice, to use one or other at his Discretion’. Barry Till notes,

This offer of alternative liturgies, if it had ever been implemented, would have been a significant contribution to comprehension. The provision of alternative liturgy, with the power of the minister to choose, had been the [Presbyterian] ministers’ suggestion.²

A Royal Warrant of 25 March 1661 established a commission to discuss liturgical reform. The deliberations that followed were held in April at the Master’s Lodge of the Savoy, and are known as the Savoy Conference.³ There were twelve commissioners from the two parties, together with nine deputies and some observers. The Presbyterian party included Edward Reynolds, who would later become Bishop of Norwich, Richard Baxter, who declined the see of Hereford, Anthony Tuckney, Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, and John Lightfoot, the biblical commentator. The Episcopal party included Gilbert Sheldon, Bishop of London, as well as Robert Sanderson, John Cosin and John Pearson, though some inflexible High Churchmen such as William Sancroft (Fig. 1.1) refused to attend. The Conference ended without achieving compromise or comprehension. Meanwhile, the former Prayer Book services were coming back into use. Samuel Pepys recorded on 5 August 1660, ‘After dinner to St.Margaret’s [Westminster], where for the first time I ever heard Common Prayer in that Church’.⁴

In some places the Prayer Book was reintroduced gradually. Pepys noted of his own church, St Olave’s, Hart Street, on 4 November 1660:

In the morn to our own church, where Mr.Mills did begin to nibble at the Common Prayer, by saying ‘Glory be to the Father, &c’. after he had read the two psalms; but the people had been so little used to it, that they could not tell what to answer. This declaration of the King’s do give the Presbyterians some satisfaction, and a pretence to read the Common Prayer, which they would not do before because of their former preaching against it. After dinner to Westminster, where I went to the Abbey, where the first time that ever I heard the organs in a cathedral.⁵

The following Sunday he wrote, ‘This day also did Mr. Mills begin to read all the Common Prayer, which I was glad of’.⁶ On 15 July 1661 he recorded: ‘Then to King’s College chappell (Cambridge) where I found the scholars in their surplices at the service with the organs, which is a strange sight to what it used in my time to be here’.⁷

Since the Savoy conference had ended without definite agreement, the task of settling forms of worship passed to Convocation in November 1661. Proposals for revision had been made by Bishop Matthew Wren in his Advices, written during his years of imprisonment in the Tower of London. John Cosin, Bishop of Durham, had also drafted alterations in a Prayer Book printed in 1619, known as the Durham Book. For inspiration, Cosin looked back to the abortive Scottish Book of Common Prayer of 1637 and the first Prayer Book of 1549.⁸ Cosin’s chaplain, William Sancroft, had the task of copying proposals from the Durham Book together with those few ‘Exceptions’ which had been accepted by the bishops, and these were entered into what has come to be known as the ‘Fair Copy’. As Convocation emended these in debate, the changes were entered into a folio Prayer Book printed in 1636, known as the ‘Convocation Book’. This in turn was copied and attached to the Act of Uniformity, and is known as the ‘Annexed Book’. Revision began on 21 November 1661 and was completed in 22 days. A committee was appointed to work on the revised text, and the committee’s work was debated each day by the Convocation.⁹

Figure 1.1 William Sancroft, 1617–1693. Engraving by David Loggan, 1680. Reproduced by kind permission of National Portrait Gallery, London.

Much of the revision was carried out by Wren, Cosin and Sanderson. Concessions to Laudian theology were usually made in the form of rubrics rather than in textual changes; for example, the concept of consecration of the bread and wine, ambiguous in earlier books, was now made clear by the rubrics. In addition to revising the 1604 Prayer Book, new services were added, including a rite for adult baptism and a form for services for use at sea. In contrast to the rite for infant baptism, the rite for ‘such as are of Riper years’ appointed John 3, the narrative of Nicodemus, as the Gospel reading, and the exhortation which followed made references to the command of Jesus in the last chapter of St Mark and the words of Peter in Acts 2. The forms of prayer at sea seem to have been a response to the provision by the Westminster Assembly in 1645 of a service entitled A Supply of Prayer for Ships. At one point the Benedicite was removed because of Presbyterian objection to material from the Apocrypha, but this canticle was later reinstated. Bishop Edward Reynolds, one of the Presbyterians who accepted the Restoration Settlement, was the author of ‘The General Thanksgiving’, which he seems to have expanded from the directions for setting apart the bread and wine in the Westminster Directory.¹⁰ The Preface, which was thought to be authored by Robert Sanderson, enshrines what the Restoration Church of England envisaged its liturgy to represent:

... the Mean between the two Extreams of too much stiffness in refusing, and of too much easiness in admitting any variation from it ... Our general aim therefore in this undertaking was, not to gratify this or that party in any their unreasonable demands; but to do that, which to our best understanding we conceived might most tend to the preservation of Peace and Unity in the Church; the procuring of Reverence and exciting of Piety, and Devotion in the Publick Worship of God; and the cutting off occasion from them that seek occasion of eavil, or quarrel against the Liturgy of the Church.¹¹

Moderation was regarded by the authors as the outstanding virtue of the new liturgy. The resulting Book of Common Prayer, with only a few further alterations, and known as the ‘sealed’ book (as it was certified under the Great Seal), was signed by the Convocations on 21 December 1661 and given the royal assent on 19 May 1662. It was little altered in text or character from its predecessors.¹² However, it could be argued that the small changes which were made reflected a higher value of the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist, and the Ordinal also underlined the importance of a three-fold ministry of bishop, priest and deacon. In the rite of baptism, provision was made for the explicit blessing of the water in the prayer immediately before the act of baptism: ‘sanctifie this Water to the mysticall washing away of sin’. In the Lord’s Supper, the rubrics directed the place for setting bread and wine on the table, indicated manual actions during the words of institution, made provision for consecrating additional bread and wine, and distinguished between consecrated and unconsecrated bread and wine. One further change was the addition of the so-called ‘Black Rubric’ of 1552. This had been omitted since the Elizabethan Prayer Book of 1559, but was now restored. However, whereas the rubric of 1552 repudiated any ‘reall and essential presence’, the 1662 version repudiated a ‘corporal’ presence. This allowed for the fact that most Church of England divines who wrote on the sacraments taught a real but spiritual presence.¹³

The book was to come into use no later than 24 August, St Bartholomew’s day, 1662. However, printing of the new book was delayed, and copies do not seem to have been available until about 6 August. Michael Honywood, Dean of Lincoln, wrote to William Sancroft, ‘Wee long to see the Common Prayer-Books, which must be read before S. Bartholomew, the penalty being so great. And we doubt, whether reading the old would serve, if that come to places too late’.¹⁴ Honywood did not receive a copy until 23 August. The first Prayer Book service in the strong puritan town of Taunton was not until 25 August.¹⁵ The contemporary diarist, John Evelyn, noted that on the appointed Sunday, ‘There were strong Guards in the Citty this day, apprehending some Tumult, many of the Presbyterian Ministers, not conforming’.¹⁶ Pepys’s uncle Fenner reported that ‘the new service-book (which is now lately come forth) was laid upon their deske at St.Sepulchre’s for Mr.Gouge to read; but he laid it aside, and would not meddle with it: and I perceive the Presbyters do all prepare to give over all against Bartholomew tide’.¹⁷

Prayer Book worship was formally re-established by law, and those such as Gouge who could not in conscience use this ‘Porridge’, reject the covenant, and accept Episcopal ordination were ejected.¹⁸ Both Pepys and Evelyn noted that even the French Church at the Savoy now used the Book of Common Prayer in French.¹⁹

On the other hand, Ralph Josselin, the incumbent of Earls Colne in Essex, recorded in his diary on 30 May 1663, ‘God good to us in manifold mercies, this day our Church wardens brought in the booke of common prayer, which I used’.²⁰

On 14 September 1662, Pepys observed:

Thence to White Hall chapel, where sermon was almost done, and I heard Captain Cooke’s new musique. This is the first day of having vialls and other instruments to play a symphony between every verse of the anthem; but the musique more full than the last Sunday, and very fine it ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The Restoration Settlement of Worship in the Established Churches of England and Scotland
• 2 Restoration Sacramental Teaching South and North of the Border
• 3 The Glorious Revolution and Liturgical Plurality
• 4 Singing God’s Praises from the Margins: Worship and Hymns of Late Seventeenth-Century Dissent
• 5 Ancien Régime and Patristic Authority: High Church, Nonjuring and Jacobite Liturgical Experiments
• 6 Newtonian and Lockean Theology, Liturgical Revision and Rational Sacraments
• 7 Affectionate Worship: The Evangelical Revival
• 8 ‘Common or Garden’ Liturgy: Worship and Sacraments in Later Georgian England
• 9 Some Aspects of Worship and Sacramental Instruction in the Georgian Kirk
• 10 Glimpses of Dissenting Worship – Old, New and Curious
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index