What is the Book of Common Prayer?

During the brief reign of Edward, every encouragement was given to the diffusion of the English Bible. Though his reign extended to little more than seven years, no fewer than eleven editions of the Bible, and six of the New Testament were published. Various improvements were also introduced in the mode of conducting divine service. Images were ordered to be removed from the churches, prayers were no longer to be offered for the dead, auricular confession and transubstantiation were declared to be unscriptural, the clergy were permitted to marry, and the service was ordered to be performed in English in place of Latin. Articles of religion were also agreed upon in convocation; they were forty-two in number. In the reign of Elizabeth, they were reduced to thirty-nine, which continue, as then revised, to be the standard of the English church. The liturgy was revised, and re-revised, chiefly by Cranmer and Ridley-after consulting Bucer and Martyr-known as the "First and Second Book of Edward VI., and was duly ratified by the king and the parliament, and came into use in 1552. It was substantially the Book of Common Prayer now in use.

Cranmer next turned his attention to writing a Catechism, with scripture proofs, in which he exposed the errors of Romanism.

His next work was to prepare a new Prayer Book. In this he laboured to retain as much as he could in the oldest books, so as to give as little offence as possible. A good part of this remains to this day. In 1548 by Act of Parliament, the Prayer Book was settled as the service-book of church of England. In the same year an Act was passed allowing the marriage of the clergy.

The Prayer Book once settled, it was forced upon the people. No clergyman was to use any other, and all were to use this, under pain of fine and imprisonment — the third offence being punished by imprisonment for life.

As a result of that work of God’s Holy Spirit,—the glorious Reformation, England threw off the yoke of Roman Catholicism with its superstitions, traditions and idolatries. An edition of the Book of Common Prayer, with these evil teachings removed, was produced in 1549 in the reign of the youthful King Edward VI. This book did not fully satisfy the more zealous reformers, so much so that when one of two or three subsequent revisions was produced in 1660 in the reign of Charles II, no less than 2,000 godly clergymen gave up their livings, rather than adopt the new Prayer Book.

In spite of all these revisions, alas! the Book of Common Prayer in use today contains a most serious departure from the truth of God. We refer to the Baptism of Infants. In the Catechism learned by every candidate for confirmation the following question and answer well describe what is meant by Baptismal Regeneration.

This Bucer was a man highly esteemed for his moderation and powers, and, having long resided at Strasbourg, was therefore invited over to assist in settling the Reformation in England, and was accordingly appointed Professor of Divinity at Cambridge. He had a very important share in the settlement of the English Liturgy, which was translated into Latin on purpose that he might revise, give his opinion and corrections; and many and material alterations were made accordingly at his suggestion and by his advice. In fact, this may be said to have been the formation of the Liturgy, or Book of Common Prayer: and from its validity the whole validity of the English succession hangs. For King Edward's first book was in truth (what King James was pleased, while a Scotch king, to designate the present Liturgy itself) little more than "an ill said mass": but in this it assumed substantially its present form. There were alterations in Queen Elizabeth's book, as since also; of which some have approved, some thought that they were to conciliate the then Papists. But anyone who will take the trouble of comparing them, will see that the second book of King Edward may be considered substantially as the settling of the Liturgy. Moreover, all the first bishops of Queen Elizabeth were ordained according to this book; that is, on the principles of episcopal succession, in effect, all: and (some having called in question the validity of their ordination, it having been abolished by Queen Mary, and not legally revived) an act of parliament was passed against those who should dare to impugn the validity of what was done under that book.

I am not aware that any Protestant Church in England teaches the doctrine of baptismal regeneration except one, and that happens to be the corporation which with none too much humility calls itself the Church of England. This very powerful sect does not teach this doctrine merely through a section of its ministers, who might charitably be considered as evil branches of the vine, but it openly, boldly, and plainly declares this doctrine in her own appointed standard, the Book of Common Prayer, and that in words so express, that while language is the channel of conveying intelligible sense, no process short of violent wresting from their plain meaning can ever make them say anything else.

Membership with the Church of England rests on this sacramental foundation. And violent indeed are the efforts of godly Churchmen to evade the plain language of the Book of Common Prayer. In it the whole baptized population are regarded, according to the Romish model, as the Church. No wonder that men, surrounded by such a state of things, ask, "What is the world?" All are treated, in virtue of baptism, as born again, as therein made members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven. No godly man can hinder this. It is the regular course and aim of Anglicanism,* not an abuse; so much so, that if a minister or a member were in these points to act scripturally, he must act schismatically. In other words, the actings of the Spirit Himself would be condemned as schismatical, if judged by the Services and Articles, the Rubrics and Canons of that system — a most solemn consideration for those who are upholding or in any way sanctioning it! No system can be of God, where the ways of a formalist might be canonically right, and those of the Holy Ghost must be canonically wrong; and this, notwithstanding many excellent persons there, is exactly true of the English Establishment. It is in vain to say, "I do not believe in baptismal regeneration:" the important point is, What says the English Church? And this must be determined by the literal and grammatical sense of the formularies. In these all the members are supposed to acquiesce; if they do not, they have no business there — they ought to leave.

Within six months of his landing on British ground Charles II. issued an order that all preachers must use what was called The Book of Common Prayer, and that all preaching must be on lines ordered by the king. Any who refused to obey were liable to be sent to prison.

No intelligent Christian objects to the Common Prayer Book on the ground here alleged, but to the merging saints and sinners in a common petition and confession of sins, to the exceeding detriment of the converted, to the imminent peril of the unconverted, and above all to the trampling under foot of the primary idea, the express design, and revealed character of God's Church.

Now we affirm by the scriptural test the Anglican doctrine is unsound. For there, as in Romanism, baptism is made the means of the new birth; whereas we are told that it is burial into Christ's death, and not a channel for the communication of life. Let Mr. T. weigh his own examples: had not the sin-convicted Jews life at Pentecost? had not Saul life before baptism? No doubt "the gift of the Spirit" was subsequent: but it is a total fallacy to confound, as they do, birth of the Spirit with the Spirit given to believers, a power and privilege beyond life. Calvin was right in denying John 3 to teach Christian or any other baptism; but this error lies at the root of all the Services, Catechism, etc. New birth is nowhere attributed to baptism in scripture. "As many as are baptized unto Jesus Christ are baptized unto his death." Baptism is therefore a sign of salvation by Christ's death, and in no way a means of quickening. Still less does baptism give union with Christ. "By one Spirit we were all baptized into one body" — a baptism never in scripture mixed up with water-baptism. And can one fail to see that the apostle Paul could never say he was not sent to baptize but to preach, if their system of quickening ordinances were true? All is confusion in these traditional schemes and their advocates. Alas! faith and the word and preaching are nowhere, in order to exalt ordinances as life-giving, and the sacerdotal class supposed to be invested with their administration on our Lord's part. The apostles James (James 1:18) and John (1 John 5:1), Paul (1 Cor. 4:15) and Peter, (1 Pet. 1:23), all expressly and exclusively connect being born again with the word of God, never with baptism; which represents not life given, but the believer's dying with Christ to sin; so that he is thenceforth (and it is initiatory) to reckon himself dead to sin. The Book of Common Prayer ignores all this; as one versed in scripture will gather from its confounding things that differ.

As to doctrine, we read in the second article, "That Christ died to reconcile His Father to us" - a statement quite inconsistent with the gospel on its fundamental principle, which flows from the Father sending the Son out of His own voluntary and uncaused love. This mission of the Father from His own mind is of the very essence of the gospel; the error is an abuse of one part of the gospel, in which Christ made satisfaction for sin, to destroy another, the fountain from which it flowed, in which God gave Him so to make the satisfaction. It strikes at the root of all the liberty and settledness of peace of the people of God. It is false doctrine, and all the liturgy is founded on the bondage. The litany especially, much as people admire it, is what no simple holy Christian could use. Can a body of Christian worshippers continually be saying, "Spare thy people and be not angry with us for ever"? If these are joint supplications, is the Church always to be under the sense of God's anger? There is a continual confusion in these supplications between God's people and the people of England or Ireland as being a Christian nation; and they treat the world even as in a Christian state, and are no prayers of the Spirit of Christ and for the Church at all. The fact is, it is a relic (as any one may see in the treatises on the common prayer) of superstitious processions, begun about the seventh century, to arrest evils. But it is not a Christian supplication at all, though there may be Christian things in it. I do not think any part of the Prayerbook recognizes the Church in the place in which God has set it of redeemed liberty in Christ, and because it is identified with the world, and therefore always labours and tends to keep down the Church to the level of its association with the world. In the assertion of provision for everything there is the assertion of fitness for nothing. If I make the common supplication of the congregation to say, "be not angry with us for ever," it is foolish to say beforehand, "let us rejoice in the strength of our salvation."