A Pattern for Christian Worship

Just recently, I've again come across the writings of Dr J. I. Packer, now in his 80s, who has been a pastor and academic. 

He was once a great hero of mine when I was an orthodox Calvinist decades ago. He was an Anglican but recently left the Canadian church because of its well-publicised slide into liberalism.

Interestingly, although he classed himself as an evangelical he had a great love for The Book of Common Prayer (BCP: 1662). (Being an evangelical Anglican and having a love for the BCP seems rare today.)

Packer was brought up on the BCP and I can understand his strong affection for its rhythms and its implicit piety. (I was not nurtured in it but first encountered Anglicanism through An Australian Prayer Book (AAPA: 1978).)



Packer has made a study of the 1662 BCP and found that a sin-grace-faith pattern exists throughout its services. 

To check this out further, I would like to go back to the second Prayer Book (1552) of Edward VI's reign where the Church of England was struggling to break more fully from Romanism.

The Prayer Book of 1552 was only in use for about six months because of the early death of Edward and his replacement by his half-sister, the infamous, 'bloody' Queen Mary I.1 

This link for Morning Prayer (1552: MP) gives the content of that earlier form of Reformation worship.

The Heart and Outward Behaviour

Anglican liturgical form is persistently concerned about the hearts of worshippers. It's our hearts that require conversion and rebirth. In this respect, Anglicanism is following the OT refusal to accept that outward appearance and 'good behaviour' are the final word (e.g., 1 Sam 16.7). 

God looks at, assesses, evaluates and knows completely the state of our hearts. For in his dealings with us, the Lord is a God of the heart, where each person is inescapably in the presence of God (coram deo), being made in God's image.  

Jeremiah says, 'the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it? (Jer 17.9). Yet, God also knows our frailties, knows that 'we are but dust' (Ps 103.14), and being a patient, merciful and gracious God, we can have every confidence in approaching him.

In this regularly used, opening Anglican collect (short prayer) [known as The Prayer of Preparation] we can see this emphasis on the human heart:

Almighty God, 
to whom all hearts are open, 
all desires known,
and from whom no secrets are hidden:
cleanse the thoughts of our hearts ..'

Hence no wonder, Anglican worship of all types focuses on the human heart's problem with its sin! So no wonder the priest or leader opens with some selection or just one of the given scriptures in the PB all dealing with our sins. 

I appreciate this 1552 rendition of Joel 2.13.

   Rente [Rend] your heartes, and not your garmentes, and turne to the lord your God: because he is gentle and mercyful, he is pacient and of muche mercy, and suche a one that is sory for your afflictions. Joel ii.

Call to Repentance

We next hear an exhortation which also lays out the general content of MP with the first emphasis on our need to repent of our sins.

DEARELY beloved brethren, the scripture moveth us in sundry places, to acknowledge and confess our manifold synnes and wickedness, and that we should not dissemble nor cloke them before the face of almighty God our heavenly father, but confess them with an humble, lowely, penitent and obedient heart: to thende that we may obtayn forgeveness of the same by hys infinite goodness and mercie. And although we ought at al times humbly to knowledge our synnes before God: yet ought we most chiefly so to doe, when we assemble and mete together, to rendre thanks for the great benefytes that we have receyved at his hands, to set foorth hys moste worthy prayse, to hear his most holy word, and to aske those things which be requisite and necessarye, as well for the body as the soule. Wherfore I praye and beseche you, as many as be here present, to accompany me wyth a pure heart and humble voyce, unto the throne of the heavenly grace, saying after me.

The exhortation says that we are to confess our sins 'at al times' it also calls us to do that 'when we assemble and mete together' and then lists the features of that meeting together as to:

1. render thanks for the benefits we have received;
2. set forth his most worthy praise;
3. hear his most holy word;
4. ask those things which be requisite and necessary for body and soul.

Confession

A generall confession, to be sayd of the whole congregacion after 2 the minister, knelynge.

ALMIGHTY and most mercyfull father, we have erred and strayed from thy wayes, lyke lost shepe. We have folowed too much the devises and desyres of oure owne hearts. We have offended against thy holy lawes. We have left undone those things whiche we oughte to have done, and we have done those. thinges which we ought not to have done, and there is no health in us: but thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us miserable offendors. Spare thou them, O God, which confesse theyr faultes. Restore thou them that be penitent, according to thy promyses declared. unto mankynde, in Christe Jesu oure Lorde. And graunt, O most merciful father, for his sake, that we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sobre life, to the glory of thy holy name. Amen.

The Absolution

Many non-Anglicans will find the practice of The Absolution quaint and wonder whether it is even biblical. 

However, what is important in my opinion is to follow a declaration of confession of sin with the pronouncement that God has both  forgiven the sins of the repentant and empowers them by His Spirit to walk in newness of life because of the advocacy of Jesus Christ, the Man at God's right hand (1 Jn 1.5-8 & 2.1-2).

The absolucion to be pronounced by the minister alone.

ALMIGHTY God, the father of oure Lord Jesus Christ, which desireth not the death of a synner, but rather that he maye turne from his wickedness and live: and hath geven power and commaundment to hys ministers, to declare and pronounce to his people, beinge penitent, the absolution and remission of their synnnes: he pardoneth and absolveth all them which truely repent, and unfeynedly believe his holy Gospel. Wherefore we beseche him to graunt us true repentaunce and his holy Spirite, that those thinges may please him, which we do at this present, and that the rest of our life hereafter may be pure and holy: so that at the last we may come to hys eternall joye, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The people shal answere.

    Amen.

It won't be immediately apparent to 21st century ears the Protestant character of this absolution but note that the minister is nowhere said to forgive sins as in the Roman liturgy of that time. In the above he is said to 'declare and pronounce to his people, beinge penitent, the absolution and remission of their synnes'. 

If just the Absolution above is studied carefully, all of the themes of the Sin-Grace-Faith trio mentioned by James Packer are mentioned.

In closing, one of the reasons that the Anglican liturgy (and other formal liturgies) are so poorly understood by those that use them is that the liturgy is not explained in regard to what it is saying spiritually about worshippers. 

See here for more detail on J I Packer's work featuring the sin-grace-faith movement in Holy Communion.

 

1. She being Catholic reversed much Protestant reform and burned at the stake those who refused to recant their beliefs such as Archbishop Cranmer,and Bishops Ridley, Latimer, and Hooper.
2. We need to remember that many parishioners could not read. Hence, the direction to say this confession 'after the minister' (which I imagine would have been done phrase by phrase).