Liturgies and their Imposition

John Owen, William Goold, William Goold

• Publisher: GLH Publishing
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781648630255
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

It deserves attention that this pamphlet, with its humble title, "A Discourse concerning Liturgies, " etc., and printed anonymously in 1662, contains the judgment of our author in regard to measures which gave rise to most important events in the ecclesiastical history of England. It is an argument against the liturgy, the imposition of which obliged nearly two thousand clergy of the Church of England to resign their livings rather than sacrifice a good conscience.

Liturgies

and their

Impositions

John Owen

Vintage Puritan Series

GLH Publishing

Louisville, KY

Sourced from The Works of John Owen, Vol. XV.

Edited by William Goold. Johnstone & Hunter, London, 1851.

Republished by GLH Publishing, 2020.

ISBN:

Paperback 978-1-64863-024-8

Epub 978-1-64863-025-5

Sign up for updates from GLH Publishing using the link below and receive a free ebook.

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Contents

Prefatory note.

Chapter I.

The state of the Judaical church — The liberty given by Christ; 1. From the arbitrary impositions of men; 2. From the observances and rites instituted by Moses — The continuance of their observation, in the patience and forbearance of God — Difference about them stated — Legal righteousness and legal ceremonies contended for together — The reason of it.

Chapter II.

The disciples of Christ taken into his own disposal — General things to be observed about gospel institutions — Their number small — Excess of men’s inventions — Things instituted brought into a religious relation by the authority of Christ — That authority is none other — Suitableness in the matter of institutions, to be designed to their proper significancy — That discoverable only by infinite wisdom — Abilities given by Christ for the administration of all his institutions — The way whereby it was done, Eph. iv. 7, 8 — Several postulata laid down — The sum of the whole — State of our question in general.

Chapter III.

Of the Lord’s prayer, and what may be concluded from thence as to the invention and imposition of liturgies in the public worship of God — The liberty whereunto Christ vindicated and wherein he left his disciples.

Chapter IV.

Of the worship of God by the apostles — No liturgies used by them, nor in the churches of their plantation — Argument from their practice — Reasons pleaded for the use of liturgies: disabilities of church officers for gospel administration to the edification of the church; uniformity in the worship of God — The practice of the apostles as to these pretences considered — Of other impositions — The rule given by the apostles — Of the liturgies falsely ascribed unto some of them.

Chapter V.

The practice of the churches in the first three centuries as to forms of public worship — No set forms of liturgies used by them — The silence of the first writers concerning them — Some testimonies against them.

Chapter VI.

The pretended antiquity of liturgies disproved — The most ancient — Their variety — Canons of councils about forms of church administrations — The reasons pleaded in the justification of the first invention of liturgies answered — Their progress and end.

Chapter VII.

The question stated — First argument against the composing and imposing of liturgies — Arbitrary additions to the worship of God rejected — Liturgies not appointed by God — Made necessary in their imposition, and a part of the worship of God — Of circumstances of worship — Instituted adjuncts of worship not circumstances — Circumstances of actions, as such, not circumstances of worship — Circumstances commanded made parts of worship — Prohibitions of additions produced, considered, applied.

Chapter VIII.

Of the authority needful for the constituting and ordering of any thing that is to have relation to God and his worship — Of the power and authority of civil magistrates — The power imposing the liturgy — The formal reason of religious obedience — Use of the liturgy an act of civil, not religious obedience, Matt. xxviii. 20 — No rule to judge of what is meet in the worship of God, but his word.

Chapter IX.

Argument second — Necessary use of the liturgy exclusive of the use of the means appointed by Christ for the edification of his church.

Chapter X.

Other considerations about the imposition of liturgies.

Prefatory note.

It deserves attention that this pamphlet, with its humble title, “A Discourse concerning Liturgies,” etc., and printed anonymously in 1662, contains the judgment of our author in regard to measures which gave rise to most important events in the ecclesiastical history of England. It is an argument against the liturgy, the imposition of which obliged nearly two thousand clergy of the Church of England to resign their livings rather than sacrifice a good conscience.

On the Restoration, the Book of Common Prayer had been resumed in the royal chapel at Whitehall; it was ordained to be read in the House of Peers; and before the year closed, some of the parochial clergy, who scrupled to use it, were prosecuted according to the laws in force before the civil war.

As many leading Presbyterians, however, had been favourable to the Restoration, the Court could not afford at first to come to an open rupture with them, and accordingly, in 1661, a conference was appointed between twelve bishops and an equal number of Presbyterian ministers, with instructions to revise the Book of Common Prayer, so as to bring it into conformity with the religious convictions of both parties, and establish peace and unity in the church. This conference, however, after long and keen debate, broke up without any good results.

The Convocation was then ordered to revise the liturgy. The changes made on it were not such as to relieve the consciences of the Presbyterians; but, nevertheless, as revised by the Convocation, it was adopted by Parliament, and ratified by the Act for Uniformity in the Prayers and Ceremonies of the Church of England. This act, designed, according to Burnet, to make the terms of conformity stricter than before, passed the House of Commons by a majority of 186 to 180, The House of Lords endeavoured to abate the stringency of some of its provisions, but, supported by the Court, the majority in the Lower House effectually resisted the modifications proposed. The bill passed the House of Peers by a small majority, and received the royal assent on 19th May 1662. The act required all ministers to announce publicly their adherence to the liturgy, and to subscribe a declaration that it was unlawful, upon any pretence, to take arms against the king, or to endeavour any change in the government of church or state. No person, moreover, according to the act, could hold a benefice or administer the Lord’s supper unless he was episcopally ordained. Fines, imprisonment, and the forfeiture of their livings, were the penalties to be inflicted on those who could not yield compliance with the law. The act took effect on the 24th of August, and nearly two thousand devout and faithful pastors were then expelled from the Church of England.

The chief merit of the following tract can only be understood in the light of these exciting events. From some expressions in it, it must have been written while the contest prevailed, and before the liturgy was actually imposed; and yet the whole argument is conducted in perfect temper, and the readers of Owen might fail to bear in mind that he is discussing a question which was stirring English society to its depths, and involved consequences unparalleled in English history. The treatise has all the weight and gravity of a judicial decision. The author, rising above petty details, expends his strength in proof that the imposition of a liturgy by civil enactment is an interference with the authority of Christ; and, unwilling to heighten the asperities of the prevailing controversy, he excludes from discussion the character of the English liturgy, and confines himself to the abstract question, as to the lawfulness of enforcing it on the conscience as essential to divine worship. It is the more honourable to Owen that he should have exerted himself against the imposition of the liturgy, when it is remembered that as at this time he held no living in the church, he could not suffer under the Act of Uniformity, and the measures of the Court were directed against the Presbyterians rather than the Independents. Orme remarks of this production and its subject, “The principle which these forms of human composition involve is of vast importance; and I know not where, in so small a compass, this principle is so well stated and so ably opposed as in this work.” — Ed.

Chapter I.

The state of the Judaical church — The liberty given by Christ; 1. From the arbitrary impositions of men; 2. From the observances and rites instituted by Moses — The continuance of their observation, in the patience and forbearance of God — Difference about them stated — Legal righteousness and legal ceremonies contended for together — The reason of it.

Although our present inquiry be merely after one part of instituted worship under the gospel, and the due performance of it according to the mind of God, yet, there being a communication of some light to be obtained from the turning over of that worship from the Mosaical to the care and practice of the evangelical church, we shall look a little back unto it as therein stated; hoping thereby to make way for our clearer progress. What was the state of the church of God amongst the Jews as to instituted worship, when our blessed Saviour came to make the last and perfect discovery of his mind and will, is manifest both from the appointment of that worship in the law of Moses, and the practice of it remarked in the gospel. That the rites and ordinances of the worship in the church observed, were from the original in their nature carnal, and for the number many, on both accounts burdensome and grievous to the worshippers, the Scripture frequently declares. Howbeit, the teachers and rulers of the church, being grown wholly carnal in their spirits, and placing their only glory in their yoke, not being able to see to the end of the things that were to be done away, had increased those institutions, both in number and weight, with sundry inventions of their own; which, by their authority, they made necessary to be observed by their disciples. In an equal practice of these divine institutions and human inventions did our Lord Jesus Christ find the generality of the church at his coming in the flesh. The former, being to continue in force until the time of reformation, at his resurrection from the dead, should come, both by his practice and his teaching, as a minister of Circumcision, he confirmed and pressed frequently on the consciences of men, from the authority of the Law-maker. The latter he utterly rejected, as introduced in a high derogation from the perfection of the law, and the honour of Him whose prerogative it is to be the sole lawgiver of his church, — the only fountain and disposer of his own worship. And this was the first dawning of liberty that, with the rising of this Day-star, did appear to the burdened and languishing consciences of men. He freed them, by his teaching, from the bondage of Pharisaical, arbitrary impositions, delivering their consciences from subjection to any thing in the worship of God but his own immediate authority. For it may not be supposed that, when he recommended unto his hearers an attendance unto the teaching of the scribes and Pharisees, with an injunction to obey their directions, that he intended aught but those commands which they gave from Him, and according to his mind, whose fear they did outwardly profess; seeing that, both in general and particular, he did himself condemn their traditions and impositions, giving out a rule of liberty from them unto others in his own constant practice. Yea, and whereas he would do civil things in their own nature indifferent, whereunto he was by no righteous law obliged, to avoid the offence of any which he saw might follow, Matt. xvii. 27, yet would he not practise or give countenance unto, nay, nor abstain from condemning of, any of their ecclesiastical self-invented observances, though he saw them offended and scandalized at him, and was by others informed no less, chap. xv. 12–14; confirming his practice with that standing rule concerning all things relating to the worship of God, “Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up.” But he is yet farther to carry on the work of giving liberty to all the disciples, that he might take them into a subjection to himself and his own authority only. The Aaronical priesthood being the hinge on which the whole ceremonial worship turned, so that upon a change thereof the obligation of the law unto that worship, or any part of it, was necessarily to cease, our blessed Saviour, in his death and oblation, entering upon the office, and actually discharging the great duty of his priesthood, did virtually put an end to the whole obligation of the first institution of Mosaical worship. In his death was the procurement of the liberty of his disciples completely finished, as unto conscience; the supposed obligation of men’s traditions, and the real obligation of Mosaical institutions, being by him (the first as a prophet in his teaching, the last as a priest in his offering) dissolved and taken away. From that day all the disciples of Christ were taken under his immediate lordship, and made free to the end of the from all obligations in conscience unto any thing in the worship of God but what is of his own institution and command.

This dissolution of the obligation of “the law of commandments contained in ordinances,” being declared by his apostles and disciples, became a matter of great difference and debate amongst the Jews, to whom the gospel was first preached. Those who before had slain him, in pursuit of their own charge, that he would bring in such an alteration in the worship of God as was now divulged, were many of them exceedingly enraged at this new doctrine, and had their prejudices against him and his way much increased, — hating indeed the light, because their deeds were evil. These being obstinately bent to seek after righteousness (as it were, at least) by the works of the law, contended for their ceremonial works as one of the best stakes in their hedge, in whose observance they placed their chiefest confidence of their acceptance with God. But this is not all: many who, falling under powerful convictions of his doctrine and miracles, believed on him did yet pertinaciously adhere to their old ceremonial worship. Partly for want of clear light and understanding in the doctrine of the person and office of the Messiah; partly through the power of unspeakable prejudices which influenced their minds in reference to those rites which, being from of old observed by their forefathers, derived their original from God himself (much the most noble pleas and pretences that ever any of the sons of men had to insist upon for a subjection to such a yoke as indeed had lost all power to oblige them); they were very desirous to mix the observance of them with obedience unto those institutions which they, through the Lord Jesus, had superadded to them.

Things being thus stated amongst the Jews, God having a great work to accomplish among and upon them in a short time, would not have the effect of it turn upon this hinge merely; and therefore, in his infinite wisdom and condescension, waived the whole contest for a season. For whereas, within the space of forty years or thereabout, he was to call and gather out from the body, by the preaching gospel, his remnant according to the election of grace, and to leave the rest inexcusable, — thereby visibly glorifying his justice in their temporal and eternal ruin, — it pleased him, in a way of connivance and forbearance, to continue unto that people an allowance of the observation of their old worship until the time appointed for its utter removal and actual casting away should come. Though the original obligation on conscience, from the first institution of their ceremonies, was taken away, yet hence arose a new necessity of the observation of them, even in them who were acquainted with the dissolution of that obligation, — namely, from the offence and scandal of them to whom their observance was providentially indulged. On this account the disciples of Christ (and the apostles themselves) continued in a promiscuous observation of Mosaical institutions with the rest of the body of that people, until the appointed season of the utter rejection and destruction of the apostate churches was come. Hence many of the ancients affirm that James the Less, living at Jerusalem in great reputation with all the people for his sanctity and righteousness, was not, to the very time of his martyrdom, known to be a Christian; which had been utterly impossible had he totally abstained from communion with them in legal worship. Neither had that old controversy about the feast of the passover any other rise or spring than the mistake of some, who thought John had observed it as a Christian, who kept it only as a Judaical feast among the Jews: whence the tradition ran strong that he observed it with them on the fourteenth day of the month; which precise time others, turning it into a Christian observation, thought meet to lay aside.

Things being thus stated, in the connivance and forbearance of God, among the Jews, some of them, not contented to use the indulgence, granted to them in mere patience, for the ends before mentioned, began sedulously to urge the Mosaical rites upon all the Gentiles that were turned unto God; so making, upon the matter, the preaching of the gospel to be but a new way of proselyting men unto Judaism. For the most part, it appears that it was not any mistake or unacquaintedness with the liberty brought in by Christ that made them engage in this quarrel for Moses; but that indeed, being themselves carnal, and, notwithstanding the outward name o...