Foundations of the Anglican Church CXI

A somewhat typical 17th century
Oxfordshire Communion Table

With the restoration of the monarchy and the episcopacy in 1660 and the subsequent imposition of liturgical conformity on the Church of England with the Act of Uniformity of 1662 there was an opportunity to make revisions in the Book of Common Prayer that set the form for the Anglican Liturgy.  The Savoy Conference of 1661 failed to reconcile the Presbyterian/Congregationalist faction which, in rejecting the Act of Uniformity, went on to become separate Churches and this separation, in turn, permitted the High Church wing of the Church of England to make several revisions in the Liturgy that stressed its Catholic heritage.  You may remember that one of the things that triggered the Civil War and the abolishment of both monarchy and episcopacy (in 1649 and 1646 respectively), was Archbishop Laud’s attempts to push some liturgical changes that departed from the puritan/Calvinist theology in favor of more a more ancient (read: Catholic) approach. 

The words “bishops,” “pastors,” and “ministers” were to be replaced in most instances with the terms “bishops,” “priests,” and “deacons.”  In the Liturgy itself, a prayer for the departed was inserted into the prayer for the Church Militant and while it was not so much intercessory as it was commemorative it is still a most noteworthy addition as it marks the first such commemoration of the faithful departed since the 1549 Prayer Book was superseded by the 1552 edition.   

There was also a re-introduction of the idea of “offertory” with the insistence that the alms be placed on the holy table alongside the bread and wine with the accompanying prayer: “We humbly beseech thee to accept our alms and oblations…”   Previously there was no mention of placing the elements on the holy table though obviously they had to get there somehow.  Their inclusion alongside the alms—which had formerly been placed directly in the poor-box—signifies an idea of the people offering their gifts and word “oblations” gives it a sacrificial connotation.     

The “Black Rubric” which had insisted on kneeling for Holy Communion, but insisted also that the kneeling should not imply the Real Presence much less adoration of the Sacrament had been dropped in the 1559 Prayer Book.  It was now introduced in an altered form to read

"Whereas it is ordained in this Office for the Administration of the Lord's Supper, that the Communicants should receive the same kneeling; (which order is well meant, for a signification of our humble and grateful acknowledgment of the benefits of Christ therein given to all worthy Receivers, and for the avoiding of such profanation and disorder in the holy Communion, as might otherwise ensue;) yet, lest the same kneeling should by any persons, either out of ignorance and infirmity, or out of malice and obstinacy, be misconstrued and depraved: It is hereby declared, That thereby no adoration is intended, or ought to be done, either unto the Sacramental Bread or Wine there bodily received, or unto any Corporal Presence of Christ's natural Flesh and Blood. For the Sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their very natural substances, and therefore may not be adored; (for that were Idolatry, to be abhorred of all faithful Christians;) and the natural Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven, and not here; it being against the truth of Christ's natural Body to be at one time in more places than one."

As Protestant as this might sound, there is a significant shift from the 1552 text which read

… Lest yet the same kneeling might be thought or taken otherwise, we do declare that it is not meant thereby, that any adoration is done, or ought to be done, either unto the sacramental bread and wine thereby bodily received, or to any real and essential presence, there being of Christ’s natural flesh and blood.”

 Whereas in the 1552 text, it is denied that Christ is really and essentially present, the 1662 text denies the corporeal presence of Christ’s natural flesh and blood.  We Catholics can easily miss the distinction, but it would be very clear to a 17^th century Protestant.  The 1662 text is ambiguously worded to permit belief in the Real and Essential Presence of Christ as long that Presence is not confused with his physical Body that was Raised from the Dead and has ascended into heaven and has taken his place at the right hand of God.  In other words, while the 1552 text insists that Christ is present only in a spiritual or commemorative sense, the 1662 Book permits belief in a Real but not a corporeal Presence.  This distinction is strange to us Catholics, but it would be a crucial shift in theology for English Protestants of the time. The 1662 text was wary of a physicalist understanding of Christ’s Presence in the Eucharist but it was not denying that Christ was truly Present in a sacramental sense even as we might find him truly present but not physically present to us in moments of intense prayer.  This might even be compared to what Saint Teresa of Avila writes about the presence of Christ in a vision where he is, the Saint says, present but not corporeally. 

We Catholics, of course, believe that the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist is a corporeal presence and that, in fact, the bread and wine of the Eucharist have been transformed into the true flesh and true blood of the Risen Lord, indistinguishable from the flesh and blood that was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary, that died upon the Cross, and that was raised from the dead.  This revised text in the 1662 Book does not meet Catholic orthodoxy, but it does mark a significant step away from the Zwinglian understanding of Eucharist as memorial to an eating and drinking of Christ’s sacramental (as distinguished from physical) Presence.

Catholic theologians of the period had lost the intrinsic connection—so clear in the Eucharistic theology of Saint Augustine—of the Eucharistic Presence of Christ and the Ecclesial Presence of Christ (The Church as the Body of Christ)—and of the Ecclesial Presence of Christ with the Physical Body of the Risen Christ.  The 1943 Encyclical Letter of Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, has helped us recover our awareness that we, as Church, are the Risen Body of the Lord, but the imagination of most Catholics even today restricts the Presence of Christ’s Body to the Eucharistic Bread and Wine.  For them, Christ is in heaven and he is in the tabernacle and nowhere else.  Consequently their belief in the Real Presence becomes an assertion in his Real Absence from our daily lives and leaves us with a very truncated understanding of both the Eucharist and the Church as well as a highly disempowered Christ who has no involvement with the world in which we live but only in the world that awaits us beyond death.  This distortion of Christ reduces his kerygma of the Kingdom of God to the post-mortem paradise and frees the believer from taking any responsibility for this world beyond his or her own moral righteousness.  Ironically this leads to the same over-spiritualization of the Christian faith that results from the purely Spiritual understanding of the Eucharist that has permitted the bi-level morality of Protestant/Capitalist Western Society.  There is no social sin, only personal sin because God has no investment in human society.  But enough of that.  I tend to digress, but thank you Max Weber for your insights about The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. 

In addition to the text of the Liturgy, there were a number of rubrical changes.  The priest was required to wear as a vestment the surplice and not simply the black gown preferred by the Puritan wing.  The priest was also required to take up the bread and wine in his hands during the Words of Institution (Words of Consecration) and break the bread as he speaks the words.  These “manual acts” imply the priest consecrating the bread and wine as he reenacts the actions of Jesus while speaking Jesus’ words.  Perhaps the most dramatic revision was that whatever consecrated bread and wine remained after the Holy Communion were to be reverently placed on the Holy Table and covered with a fair linen cloth until after the service, at which time they were to be reverently consumed.  Previously the Eucharistic remains were to be given to the priest for daily use.  This rubric suggests that the “real and essential” (though not-corporeal) Presence remained, or perhaps better that the Presence was an objective reality regarding the bread and wine and not merely the subjective apprehension of the believing communicant. 

As to other matters, there is no mention of cross or candles upon the Holy Table and the Holy Table is still to be positioned in the chancel—supposedly in its accustomed spot in the center—with the priest standing on the north side.  In fact, more and more the Holy Table was placed in Laud’s preferred position at the east end in the traditional positioning of the pre-Reformation altar.  Normally, however, in this position the priest still stood at the north end of the table (which in its eastward positioning was no longer a long side); it would be some time before priests resumed the eastward facing positioning as it was important to the Prayer Book mentality that the “manual acts” of the priest breaking the bread and holding the cup be visible.  

The Service of Holy Communion was unquestionably Protestant but it was no longer a Zwinglian commemorative meal.  Freed of Puritan influence, the Church of England was free to chart a new course.  It would over the next century and a half take steps in several different directions.  

Foundations of the Anglican Church, CX

William Juxon, Archbishop
of Canterbury from 1660
until his death in 1663.

All good things must come to an end—and so too the Cromwellian dictatorship over the Commonwealth. In this posting, we will look at the restoration of Crown and Bishops in England after the Civil War and the Commonwealth. 

Oliver Cromwell died on September 3, 1658 and was succeeded as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth by his son, Richard.  Richard lacked his father’s resolve and in the face of conflict between the Army and civilian government, resigned.  The majority of the English people had grown very disillusioned with Puritan government.  The draconian laws that restricted any games or pleasure on the Sabbath, the abolition of holydays—including and especially Christmas, the wordy and drab forms of worship in the churches, the excessive Calvinistic moralism all combined to wear down even the dour English.  With the resignation of Richard Cromwell as Lord Protector and the aimless policies of the Council of State—the group that had served as the “Privy Council” to Cromwell Senior and Cromwell Junior, the administration of government began to implode.  The office of Lord Protector was replaced by a seven (later eleven) member “Committee of Safety.” This arrangement lasted only two weeks.  Fighting broke out in England as the Royalists under George Booth began to push against Parliamentarian government.  General John Lambert defeated Booth’s army and tried to put down the rebellion but Cromwell’s governor of Scotland, George Monck, saw the inevitable end of the Commonwealth and led his forces to defeat Lambert.  Monck entered into secret communication with Charles II, son of the “martyred” Charles I, who issued the Declaration of Breda from his exile in the Spanish Netherlands.  This declaration promised a general pardon for all involved in the rebellion against the monarchy, assured all who had purchased or legally obtained property during the Cromwell years that they would retain ownership, and finally promised payment of back pay to the army and guaranteed all officers that they would continue to serve under the monarchy as they had under the Commonwealth.  Eight weeks later Charles was back in England and on the Throne. 

One of the first concerns was to restore the Church to its former status.  In 1662 Parliament passed an act of Uniformity imposing a new Prayer Book and requiring ordination by a bishop for all clergy.  Those who had been ordained according to Presbyterian polity during the Commonwealth were required to submit to re-ordination by a bishop.  Approximately 2000 clergy refused and lost their livings.  The Act of Uniformity also imposed a new Book of Common Prayer upon the English Church.  Anglicans and Presbyterians had met for the Savoy Conference in 1661 but in the end were unable to agree on a liturgy acceptable to both sides. The failure to agree on a liturgy and the disenfranchisement of those clergy who would not accept Episcopal Ordination (or re-ordination in the case of those already ordained during the period in which the episcopacy was abolished from 1646 until 1660) led to a final separation of the Presbyterian/Congregationalist faction in the Church of England from the Anglican/Episcopal faction.  Those who broke with the Established Church were referred to as non-Conformists (because they would not “conform” to the official rites) and included Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Baptists.  (The Methodists, originally a 18^th century movement within the Church of England also joined the non-Conformists when it broke with the Anglican Church.  More will be written on that in later posts.)

The Episcopacy was restored in the Church of England in 1660 and William Juxon, who had been Bishop of London before the suppression of Episcopacy in 1646 was named Archbishop of Canterbury, thus guaranteeing continuity in lineage and Apostolic Succession (at least according to Anglican perspectives) with the pre-Civil War bishops.  Similarly Accepted Frewen (yes, his first name was ‘Accepted’—that is the sort of things evangelicals do to their children), one-time bishop of Litchfield and Coventry before the Civil War, was named to York guaranteeing the succession in the Northern Province as well. 

In doing some background for this entry I found out that George Montaigne who served briefly as Archbishop of York before the Civil War and previously held the sees of Lincoln, London, and Durham had, among his consecrators when consecrated as Bishop of Lincoln in 1617, one Marco Antonio de Dominis who himself had been the Catholic Archbishop of Split in Dalmatia.   De Dominis had apostatized when caught in a political dispute between Venice and the papacy.  He later returned to the Catholic Church, and he was still later tried for heresy.  Be that as it may, it is interesting to note that Catholic lineage was re-instated into the Anglican line as early as 1617. De Dominis also was co-consecrator for Nicholas Felton who served first as Bishop of Bristol and later as Bishop of Ely.  Montaigne had little chance to consecrate bishops himself when Archbishop of York—he only held the see a few months before his death, but as Bishop of Durham he probably would have been a co-consecrator for a number of bishops in the Northern Province and as Bishop of London for a number of bishops in the Canterbury province.  

Foundations of the Church of England CVI

Oliver Cromwell, leader 

of the Puritan faction and 

Lord Protector of England

after the abolition of the 

monarchy

There is a lot that I want to get to.  I want to follow up on the French and Anti-Semitism theme with the connections between Anti-Semitism and Catholic “Traditionalist” movements as well as Political Monarchism and Catholic Traditionalism.  Then I have a lot of material on the dissatisfaction of the Traditional wing-nuts with Pope Francis, and the whys and wherefores of their anger for the Pope, as well as how the Pope’s political agenda—Income Inequality, Climate Change, etc—are fueling the neo-traditionalist anger towards him.  I still have two more posting’s on the Pope’s Christmas message to the Curia.  And I have yet to finish my series on the Katholic Krazies.  And in the midst of all this, Pope Francis and others keep making the news. 

But let’s go back, at least for today, to my Church of England series.  I bit off more than I could chew when I picked that topic, but we are too far into it to abandon it and while it elicits fewer hits than my occasional skewering of Cardinal Burke and other primping prelates, it has a committed and loyal leadership to keep letting me know how much they appreciate it.

So we left off with the English Civil War. Parliament abolished episcopacy (government by bishops) in 1646 and the monarchy in 1649.  (James I was right: no bishop, no king.)  With the abolition of bishops, the Church of England became Presbyterian in government, but would actually best be described as what we Americans know as “Congregationalist.”  The Book of Common Prayer and its liturgical forms were discarded in favor of The Directory For Public Worship which was borrowed from the Scots Tradition established by John Knox almost a century before.  The purpose was to purify any elements of “Romish” doctrine, practice, or superstition from Reformed worship.  The “rule of thumb” was that for anything to be done in public worship, there must be an explicit warrant for it in the New Testament.  This rule, while applied strictly, was also applied somewhat uncritically as historical primitive church practice was, in fact, little known in the 17^th century and there was often a sort of sentimental projection backwards of a certain ideology/idealism onto a romanticized primitive Church.   Archbishop Laud’s restoration of altars (usually wooden tables but covered with rich hangings) in the former chancels, along with cross and candles that had re-appeared in some places, were all done away with, while plain wooden communion tables re-appeared.  Where copes or even surplices had been used, they too were suppressed and the ministers wore simply their black academic gown.  There was no pronouncing of the absolution after a confession of sinfulness, no recitation of the doxology, no use of the Nicene or Apostles Creeds, no liturgical seasons (Advent, Lent, etc.)  or feasts (including Christmas, Easter, Pentecost).  There was no Confirmation service, no provision for Holy Communion for the sick, and no giving of a ring in marriage.  The only hymns that could be sung were metric psalms, and some were opposed to even these.  In fact, some ministers or congregations refused to use even the Lord’s Prayer, rejecting any set words for prayer.  There was no burial service lest the appearance be given of prayers for the dead, but the minister could give a sermon on the occasion of a funeral admonishing the living to keep in mind their impending call to stand before the Throne of Judgment. and civic honors could be paid to the deceased according to the dead person’s station.    Baptism was never to be administered privately but only on the occasion of Sunday Worship and even marriage were ideally to be part of the Sunday Service.  Sunday Worship—indeed even daily worship where it was held—was to consist of scripture readings—an entire chapter of the Old Testament followed by an entire chapter of the New (and the books of the bible were to be read in sequence and not according to the abolished seasons and feasts)—followed by a long prayer by the pastor.  This, in turn, was followed by the sermon which lasted an hour or more and was to be an exhortation for people to repent from their sinful ways.  Finally there was to be a collection for the poor.  Holy Communion was to be administered “frequently” but this usually was interpreted to mean quarterly—every three months.  Holy Communion, when it was held, followed the sermon.  The minister would then read Saint Paul’s account of the Eucharistic Tradition that he himself had received (I Corinthians 11:23-26).  This was followed by a fairly long prayer asking, among other things, that through these gifts spiritually received the communicants might dwell in Christ and Christ might dwell in them.  The bread and wine were then distributed to those congregants who had remained after the morning sermon and had been approved by the minister for Holy Communion.  In some of the more rigidly administered churches communicants sat around the communion table set up in the front of the church; in others they received bread and wine passed to them in their pews.   The Anglican posture of kneeling for Holy Communion was done away with in favor of an insistence that communicants remain seated. 

Even in the more Protestant parts of the nation—London, Norwich, the south-east—the changes were not well taken by the majority of the people.  Indeed England was somewhat unsettled both politically and religiously under Oliver Cromwell’s being “Lord Protector.”  Conformity was enforced by military strength and where it could not be so enforced—rural areas, the north, and the west, the Prayer Book Liturgy—albeit without the Laudian accouterments—often surreptitiously survived.  The Burial Office was particularly popular as the official rites had been so stripped down that many people felt totally unconsoled by them.

Despite the radical turn to the most severe Protestantism, it was not far enough for some.  Even before the Civil War there was a faction among the English Puritans that began to hold the necessity of a faith-filled encounter with Christ that must precede baptism.  This idea that the believer must first accept Christ and commit himself to Christian discipleship before one could be baptized obviously ruled out infant baptism—a practice of the Church from very early in its history.  While there had been Anabaptist movements (Anabaptist from the Greek ἀναβαπτισμός, re-baptized or baptized over again) in Germany from the time of Thomas Müntzer (preached 1521-1525)  Anabaptist doctrine had spread widely on the continent throughout the sixteenth century, its first appearance for the English was in the English émigré community in Amsterdam where one-time Anglican Priest, John Smyth, had broken with the Church of England because he was opposed to the idea of a State Church, that is the political control of the State over a Church.  By 1609 Smyth had come to believe that one must acknowledge Christ as Lord and Savior before one could be baptized.  Smyth re-baptized himself and then his followers.  Smyth never returned to England and in fact sought to join the Mennonites, a religious community in Holland (and elsewhere in Europe) that also practiced believer’s baptism.  After Smyth’s death, however, a portion of his flock returned to England.  Other Anglicans, all of the Puritan faction, also came to hold believer’s baptism.  John Spillsbury was a shoemaker who belonged a church that followed Smyth’s teaching that the Church must be independent of the State (they were known as Separatists)  and he also held for infant baptism.  In 1638, on the eve of the English Civil War, Spillsbury set up his own church which not only practiced believer’s baptism but insisted that baptism must be by full immersion, that is the baptized person must be brought totally under the water and not simply have it poured over him or be sprinkled with it. 

Like others of the extreme Puritan wing, these Baptists (as they came to be known) rejected any of the liturgical practices of the Church of England which they saw as holdovers from the Church of England’s Catholic past.  Worship was totally without form and spontaneous.  Some even forbad the reading of the scripture during worship, claiming that since the scriptures were being read in translation they were “the work of men and not of God.”  Hymns were forbidden, though psalms—including those in metrical form—could be sung.  There were to be no organs in their meeting houses, nor candles (except, of course, for lighting), crosses or other ornaments.  The ministers wore plain street clothing or, if they had matriculated at university, their gown.  Baptism and Holy Communion were the only “ordinances” (the word “Sacrament” being too Catholic). 

With the collapse of the Episcopacy in 1646, such chaos resulted in the Church of England that the Baptist congregations were not only, for the most part, unharmed but unnoticed.   They looked like the Puritan (Congregationalist) congregations in every respect except for their mode of baptism.  Consequently they were able to grow unmolested.  They never became particularly big in England, though they did have considerable success in Wales.  Meanwhile, their ideas spread to the North American colonies, and especially Puritan Massachusetts, where they did meet with persecution from the predominant Congregationalists in the colony.  Massachusetts dissidents fled to Rhode Island where they shaped the colony in a slightly different way, arguing both for freedom of conscience and separation of Church and State.  The Baptist movement in North America would only really take off in the Second Great Awakening, a religious revival movement in the early 19^th century, but American Baptists have always been stalwarts on the separation of Church and State.  Classically Baptists have also been in favor of freedom of religion but in the current culture war environment that is eroding in some quarters.  More on the Baptists at some future time.  

Foundations of the Anglican Church CIII

Archbishop Laud

Well, enough for now about Cardinal Burke and his proclivity for dressing up like Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey.  Let’s get back to the Church of England and the Caroline Divines. There is a character there of some confused personality as well.  Actually there are several, but we will deal with one today.  

William Laud came from a merchant family in Reading and was born on October 7, 1573.  His origins were strictly bourgeois but high-bourgeois with his maternal uncle being Lord Mayor of London when Laud was 18.  William Laud was sent to Oxford where he took the Bachelors, Master’s, and Doctorate in Divinity.  He was ordained a priest at 28.  He never married; like many a churchman before and since he was discrete about his homosexuality and could make celibacy look like an option for holiness rather than a cover for psychological struggles.    

He began his career in his college of Saint John’s at Oxford where he was elected president in 1611.  With the patronage of Richard Neile who was Clerk of the Closet to James I Laud was named Dean of Gloucester in 1616.  (The Clerk of the Closet is the chief advisor to the King on matters of ecclesiastical appointments.)  At Gloucester Laud began introducing liturgical reforms that moved away from the Puritan/Calvinist austerity towards practices which would become known as “High Church.”  James was not fond of Laud—the King was quite Calvinist in his preferences for worship.  Moreover, Laud’s lack of genteel family background went against James’ favor of aristocracy.  Nevertheless, Neile was persistent in his pushing Laud for advancement and in 1621 managed to obtain for him the somewhat obscure Bishopric of Saint David’s in Wales. 

While Bishop of Saint David’s Laud switched horses and linked his cart to George Villiers, 1^st Duke of Buckingham.  Buckingham was the “favourite” (read: “lover”) of King James.  (James a man of varied sexual preferences—he fathered seven children born live and two miscarriages, but there is little question of his having a string of male lovers throughout his life and Villiers was perhaps the most formidable of them.) 

When James died, Villiers managed to have great influence of his son, Charles, who succeeded to the throne.  Laud was named Dean of the Chapel Royal which made him a regular preacher to the King, but Charles—unlike his father—preferred more formal liturgy and was little interested in sermons.  A King with High Church sensitivities was a perfect opportunity for Laud to advance his agenda of moving the Church of England away from its Puritan identity and towards a more solid theological foundation.

When I say a “more solid theological foundation” I mean a theology and practice more in accord with the patristic tradition.  Laud is often presented as a closet Catholic but he was anything but that.  Laud looked not to the continental Catholics for reshaping the Church of England but to the Greek Orthodox with whom he established some early ecumenical contact.  Laud wanted to Reform the Church of England—and especially its Liturgy—based on a sound appreciation for the theology of the Church Fathers.  The end result made it more “Catholic” but the route was not through the Tridentine Reforms of Catholicism but through the tradition preserved in the Greek Church.

Meanwhile Laud had moved from Saint David’s to being Bishop of Bath and Wells (1626-28) and then in 1628 Bishop of London.  It was no secret that he would ascend the chair of Saint Augustine at Canterbury when it became vacant as it did in 1633.  Once Archbishop of Canterbury, Laud was quick to move to ensure that every parish church in England faithfully conformed to the Prayer Book Liturgy.  At the same time, he was working for a new edition of the Prayer Book—one that would undo Cranmer’s weird Order of Service in the 1552 Book (and which was retained in the 1559 Book) for a more patristic liturgy.  That liturgy would look far too Catholic for the Puritan faction and that would bring down the entire house of cards.

The die was cast in 1637 when Laud persuaded Charles to impose a Prayer Book on the Church of Scotland.  James had reintroduced Bishops to the Scots Church, taking away its Presbyterian character.  But the Prayer Book proposed for the Church of Scotland reflected Laud’s High Church theology and that was far too much for the Scots to bear. The Scots rose in rebellion—the so-called Bishops’ Wars—and in the end would trigger the English Civil War which would cost both Charles and Laud their heads.

There will be more about William Laud in future postings as we continue to Look at the Caroline Divines and the English Civil War, but he marks a turning point in the Church of England—a turning from the radical Protestantism of Cranmer’s era and the subsequent Puritan domination of the Church to a serious and scholarly approach to Church life that is rooted in a somewhat sophisticated approach to the ancient Christian tradition.  That split in Anglicanism grows wider and wider throughout Laud’s time and will eventually fracture the Church into the Anglican Church and the various other Churches that spring from it in varying degrees of radicalness.