On Episcoterianism and Why Old School Presbyterians Reject Liturgies
Autor: Marcelo Matos | Publicado: 2012-11-13T15:09:00-08:00


&nbsp;Andrew Webb



Introduction:
 I decided some time ago to publish an article examining the appearance 
of a form of worship that incorporated the liturgy, church year, and 
worship practices of the Anglican church into Presbyterianism. This 
blended form of worship that I refer to as “Episcoterian” began to appear in the early 20th
 century and had largely replaced the simple and expressly biblical 
worship of the Old School Presbyterian (OSP) church by the 1950s. This 
replacement was so complete that when Presbyterians refer to 
“traditional” (as opposed to contemporary) worship, this form of 
worship, and not the OSP worship that preceded it, is almost always what
 they are referring to. I stress that point because often critics of Old
 School Presbyterianism are actually criticizing Episcoterianism and have never actually experienced OSP worship and practice.

The critical problem with Episcoterianism is that it is not based on or compatible with the  doctrine that lays at the heart of all Presbyterian worship – the Regulative Principle –  which states that “the
 acceptable way of worshiping the true God is instituted by himself, and
 so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshiped 
according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of 
Satan, under any visible representation, or any other way not prescribed
 in the Holy Scripture” (WCF 21.1) The RPW is a logical outgrowth of the doctrine of Sola Scriptura and
 the integrally related doctrine of the sufficiency of scripture, and 
states that Christ alone has the authority to determine how his church 
should worship Him, and that He has done so in the Bible.

Episcoterian worship however is based upon the Anglican theory that “The Church hath power to decree Rites or Ceremonies”
 (The 39 Articles, Article 20) essentially stating that Christ has 
granted the church the authority to create new patterns for worship and 
to decree that congregations shall adopt and follow these patterns. Thus
 in Episcoterianism we see the introduction of many elements into 
worship that, while they may be ancient, are not prescribed in scripture
 such as vestments, the church year, lectionaries, processions, 
liturgies, the use of images, etc.

Of late this 
traditional worship is enjoying something of a revival in Presbyeterian 
churches, often as a result of the rejection of “contemporary” worship. 
In some congregations they have gone well beyond the old blended 
Episcoterianism of the 1950s and have instituted what can only be 
described as high-church Anglican or even Anglo-Catholic worship.

In the next article, I will examine historically how Episcoterianism crept into Presbyterianism in the late 1800s, but now I want to publish a document, Presbyterians Reject Prescribed Liturgies, that should show in detail how alien Episcoterianism is to Old School Presbyterianism.

The following was part of a book entitled Presbyterianism which
 was written at the request of the official Presbyterian Board of 
Publication in 1835 by Samuel Miller (1769-1850). Miller, with Archibald
 Alexander, was one of the founding professors of Old Princeton. He 
served as professor of Ecclesiastical History and Church Government 
there from 1813 till his death. This paper does not express some sort of
 radical view, this was the mainstream and indeed official position of 
American Presbyterianism at the time it was written. Miller’s thesis, as
 you shall see, is not only that liturgies are not biblical, but that 
they tend to be the cause of declension in piety and doctrine within the
 churches that embrace them.

 


Presbyterians Reject Prescribed Liturgies

By Samuel Miller

We
 do not, indeed, consider the use of forms of prayer as in all cases 
unlawful. We do not doubt that they have been often useful, and that to 
many this mode of conducting public devotions is highly edifying. If any
 minister of our Church should think proper to compose a form of prayer,
 or a variety of forms, for his own use, or to borrow those which have 
been prepared by others, he ought to be considered as at perfect liberty
 so to do. But we object to being confined to forms of prayer. We 
contend that it is of great importance to the edification of the Church,
 that every minister be left at liberty to conduct the devotions of the 
sanctuary as his circumstances, and the dispensations of Providence, may
 demand. Our reasons for adopting this judgment, and a corresponding 
practice, are the following:

1. We think it perfectly evident that no forms of prayer- no prescribed Liturgies were used in the apostolic age of the Church.
 We read of none; nor do we find the smallest hint that any thing of the
 kind was then employed in either public or social worship. Will the 
most zealous advocates of Liturgies point out even a probable example of
 the use of one in the New Testament? Can any one believe that Paul used
 a prescribed form of prayer when he took leave of the Elders of 
Ephesus, after giving them a solemn charge? Acts xx. 37. Can it be 
imagined that he used a Liturgy when, in bidding farewell to a circle of
 friends in the city of Tyre, who had treated him with kindness, he 
kneeled down on the sea shore and prayed with them? Or can we suppose 
that he and Silas read from a book, when, at midnight, in the prison at 
Philippi, they prayed and sang praises unto God? Again; when Paul 
exhorted Timothy to see that “kings and all in authority” were 
remembered in public prayer, is it not evident that the Church had no 
Liturgy? If she had been furnished with one, and confined to it, such 
direction would have been unnecessary, or rather absurd; for they would 
have had their prayers all prepared to their hand. In short, when we 
find prayer spoken of in the New Testament on a great variety of 
occasions, and in a great variety of language, is it not passing 
strange, if Liturgies were then used, that no turn of expression, giving
 the remotest hint of it, should be employed? Surely, if forms of prayer
 had been regarded in the days of the Apostles, as not only obligatory, 
but so highly important as some Protestants now profess to regard them; 
who can believe that the inspired writers would have passed over them in
 entire silence? The very least that we can infer from this circumstance
 is, that the use of them is not binding on the Church. The primitive 
Christians had indeed, precomposed Psalms and Hymns, which they united 
in singing, and probably, a uniform method, derived front the example 
and letters of the first ministers, of administering the sacraments, and
 blessing the people; but so have Presbyterians, and various other 
ecclesiastical bodies, who yet are not considered as using a Liturgy. 
These, of course, have no application to thepresent inquiry. 

2. The Lord’s Prayer, given at the request of the disciples, forms no objection to this conclusion.
 It was, evidently, not intended to be used as an exact, and far less as
 an exclusive form. It is not given in the same words by any two of the 
‘Evangelists. As it was given before the New Testament Church was set 
up, so it is strictly adapted to the old rather than the new economy. It
 contains no clause, asking for blessings in the name of Christ, which 
the Saviour himself afterwards solemnly enjoined its indispensable. 
After the resurrection and ascension of Christ, when the New Testament 
Church was set up, we read nothing more in the inspired history 
concerning the use of this form. And it is not until several centuries 
after the apostolic age, that we find this prayer statedly introduced 
into public worship. Accordingly, it is remarkable, that Augustine, in 
the fourth century, expresses the decisive opinion, “that Christ 
intended this prayer as a model rather than a form; that he did not mean
 to teach his disciples what words they should use in prayer, but what 
things they should pray for.”

3. No
 such thing as a prescribed form of prayer appears to have been known in
 the Christian Church, for several hundred years after Christ. 
The contrary is, indeed, often asserted by the friends of Liturgies, but
 wholly without evidence; nay, against the most conclusive evidence. The
 most respectable early writers who undertake to give an account of the 
worship of the early Christians, make use of language which is utterly 
irreconcileable with the practice of reading prayers. They tell us, that
 the minister, or person who led in prayer, “poured out prayers 
according to his ability;” that he prayed, “closing his bodily eyes, and
 lifting up the eyes of his mind, and stretching forth his hands toward 
heaven.” Surely, in this posture, it was impossible to “read prayers.” 
Socrates and Sozomen, respectable ecclesiastical historians, who wrote 
in the fifth century, both concur in declaring, that, in their day, “no 
two persons were found to use the same words in public worship.” And 
Augustine, who was nearly their contemporary, declares, in relation to 
this subject, -” There is freedom to use different words, provided the 
same things are mentioned in prayer.” Basil, in the fourth century, 
giving directions about prayer, remarks, that there were two parts of 
this service; first, thanksgiving and praise, with self-abasement; and, 
secondly, petition. He advises to begin with the former, and, in doing 
it, to make choice of the language of Scripture. After giving an example
 of his meaning, he adds, “When thou hast praised him out of the 
Scriptures, as thou art able, (a strange clause, truly, if all had been 
prepared before hand, and read out of a book,) then proceed to 
petition.”.- Clarkson on Liturgies, p. 120. Would not all this be 
manifestly absurd, if public prayer had been by a prescribed Liturgy in 
Basil’s days? The truth is, it is evident that extemporary or free 
prayer was generally used in the primitive Church, and continued to be 
used until orthodoxy and piety declined, and the grace as well as the 
gift of prayer greatly diminished. Then ministers began to seek the best
 aid that they could procure. The Church, however, at large, even then, 
provided no Liturgies; but each pastor, who felt unable to pray 
extemporaneously, procured prayers composed by other individuals, which 
lie used in public. Accordingly, Augustine tells us, that some ministers
 in his day, (a period in which we have complete evidence that many of 
the sacred order were so uneducated as to be unable to write their own 
names) “lighted upon prayers which were composed not only by ignorant 
babblers, but also by heretics; and through the simplicity of their 
ignorance, having no proper discernment, they made use of them, 
supposing them to be good.’? Surely, this could never have happened, if 
the Church had been accustomed at that time to the use of prescribed 
Liturgies. In short, the very first document in the form of a 
prayer-book, of which we read, is a Libellus Officialis, mentioned in 
the proceedings of the council of Toledo, in the year 633 after Christ; 
and that was, evidently, rather a “Directory for the worship of God,” 
than a complete Liturgy. There is, indeed, evidence that, before this 
time, ministers, deficient in talents and piety, either wrote prayers 
for themselves, or procured them from others, as before stated; but the 
first hint to be found of an ecclesiastical body interposing to regulate
 the business of public prayer, appears about the middle of the fifth 
century.

With
 respect to the boasted Liturgies of St. Mark, St. James, &amp;c., of 
which we often hear, all enlightened Protestants, it is believed, agree 
that they are manifestly forgeries; and as to the Liturgies attributed 
to Chrysostom, Basil, and several others of the early Christian Fathers,
 bishop White, an English prelate, who lived in the seventeenth century,
 delivers the following opinion :-” The Liturgies,” says he, “fathered 
upon St. Basil and St. Chrysostom, have a known mother, (to wit, the 
Church of Rome;) but there is (besides many other just exceptions) so 
great a dissimilitude between the supposed fathers of the children, that
 they rather argue the dishonest dealings of their mother, than serve as
 lawful witnesses of that which the adversary intended to prove by 
them.”-Tracts against Fisher, the Jesuit, p. 377.

4. If
 the Apostles, or any apostolic men, had prepared and given to the 
Church any thing like a Liturgy, we should, doubtless, have had it 
preserved, and transmitted with care to posterity. The Church, 
in this case, would have had one uniform book of prayers, which would 
have been in use, and held precious, throughout the whole Christian 
community. But nothing of this kind has ever been pretended to exist. 
For let it be remembered, that the prayers, in the Romish and English 
Liturgies, ascribed to some of the early Fathers of the Church, and even
 to apostolical men, supposing them to be genuine, which, by good 
judges, as we have just seen, is more than doubted,-.were not Liturgies,
 but short prayers, or “collects,” just such as thousands of 
Presbyterian ministers, who never thought of using a Liturgy, have 
composed, in their moments of devout retirement, and left among their 
private papers. Who doubts that devotional composition is made by 
multitudes who reject the use of prescribed forms of prayer in public 
worship? Accordingly, when Liturgies were gradually introduced into 
general use, in the sixth and subsequent centuries, on account of the 
decline of piety and learning among the clergy, there was no uniformity 
even among the churches of the same state or kingdom. Every Bishop, in 
his own diocese, appointed what prayers he pleased, and even indulged 
his taste for variety. Accordingly, it is a notorious fact, which 
confirms this statement, that when the Reformation commenced in England,
 the established Romish Church in that country had no single uniform 
Liturgy for the whole kingdom; but there seems to have been a different 
one for the diocese of every Bishop. And when, in the second year of 
king Edward’s reign, the principal ecclesiastical dignitaries of the 
kingdom were directed to digest and report one uniform plan for the 
public service of the whole Church, they collated and compared the five 
Romish missals of the several dioceses of Sarum, York, Hereford, Bangor,
 and Lincoln, and out of these formed a Liturgy for the Protestant 
Episcopal Church of England. So that the Prayer-books which had been 
used in five Popish bishoprics, constituted the basis of the first 
Liturgy of king Edward, and consequently of the book of Common Prayer, 
as now used in Great Britain and the United States. This Liturgy, at 
first, contained a number of things so grossly Popish, that, when it was
 read by Calvin and others, on the continent of Europe, to whom copies 
were sent for obtaining their opinion, their severe criticisms led to 
another review, and a considerable purgation. Still a number of articles
 were left, acknowledged on all hands to have been adopted from the 
missals of the Church of Rome, which, as stated in various parts of this
 chapter, exceedingly grieved the more pious and evangelical part of the
 Church; but which the queen, and the ecclesiastics more immediately 
around her person, refused to exclude. Their antiquity was plead as an 
argument in their favour.

5. Confining ministers to forms of prayer in public worship, tends to restrain and discourage the spirit of prayer.
 We cannot help thinking, that the constant repetition of the same 
words, from year to year, tends to produce, at least with very many 
persons, dullness, and a loss of interest. We are sure it is so with not
 a few. Bishop Wilkins, though a friend to the use of forms of prayer, 
when needed, argues strongly against binding ourselves entirely to such 
“leading strings,” as he emphatically calls them, and expresses the 
opinion, that giving vent to the desires and affections of the heart in 
extemporary prayer, is highly favourable to growth in grace. -Gift of 
Prayer, chap. II. p. 10, 11. Accordingly, it is remarkable that, when 
those who were once distinguished for praying extemporaneously with 
fluency and unction, lay aside this habit, and confine themselves to 
stinted forms for many years, they are apt to manifest a striking 
decline in the spirit of devotion, and are no longer able to engage in 
free prayer without much hesitation and embarrassment.

6.
 No form of prayer, however ample or diversified, can be accommodated to
 all the circumstances, exigencies, and wants of either individual 
Christians, or of the Church in general. Now, when cases occur 
which are not provided for in the prescribed forms, what is to be done? 
Either extemporary prayer must be ventured upon, or the cases in 
question cannot be carried before the throne of grace, in words, at all.
 Is this alternative desirable? Cases of this kind have occurred, 
approaching the ludicrous, in which ministers have declined engaging in 
social prayer in situations of the deepest interest, because they could 
find nothing in their Prayer-book adapted to the occasion! Nay, so 
common and so interesting a service as the monthly concert in prayer, on
 the first Monday evening of every month, can never be attended upon by 
an Episcopal pastor, in an appropriate and seasonable manner, without 
indulging in extemporary prayer. This has been, more than once, 
confessed and lamented by ministers of that denomination.

7. It
 is no small argument against confining ministers and people to a 
prescribed form, that whenever religion is in a lively state in the 
heart of a minister accustomed to use a Liturgy, and especially when it 
is powerfully revived among the members of his church, his form of 
prayer will seldom fail to be deemed an undesirable restraint; and this 
feeling will commonly either vent itself in fervent extemporary prayer, 
or result in languor and decline under restriction to his form.
 The more rigorous and exclusive the confinement to a prescribed form, 
the more cold and lifeless will the prevailing formality generally be 
found. The excellent Mr. Baxter expresses the same idea with more 
unqualified strength: -”A constant form,” says he, “is a certain way to 
bring the soul to a cold, insensible, formal worship.” -Five Disputations, &amp;c. p. 385.

8. Once
 more: prescribed Liturgies, which remain in use from age to age, have a
 tendency to fix, to perpetuate, and even to coerce the adoption and 
propagation of error. It is not forgotten, that the advocates 
of Liturgies urge, as an argument in their favour, a consideration 
directly the converse of this, viz., that they tend, by their scriptural
 and pious character, to extend and perpetuate the reign of truth in a 
Church. Where their character is really thus thoroughly scriptural, they
 may, no doubt, exert, in this respect, a favourable influence; but 
where they teach or insinuate error, the mischief can scarcely fail to 
be deep, deplorable, and transmitted from generation to generation. Of 
this, painful examples might be given, if it were consistent with the 
brevity of this sketch, to enter on such a field. On the whole, after 
carefully comparing the advantages and disadvantages of free and 
prescribed prayer, the argument, whether drawn from Scripture, from 
ecclesiastical history, or from daily experience, is clearly in favour 
of free or extemporary prayer. Its generally edifying character may, 
indeed, sometimes be marred by weak and ignorant men; but we have no 
hesitation in saying that the balance is manifestly in its favour. For, 
after all, the difficulty which sometimes occurs in rendering 
extemporary prayer impressive and edifying, is by no means obviated, in 
all cases, by the use of a Prayer-book. Who has not witnessed the 
recitation of devotional forms conducted in such a manner as to disgust 
every hearer of taste, and to banish all seriousness from the mind? As 
long as ministers of the Gospel are pious men; “workmen that need not be
 ashamed ;” qualified “rightly to divide the word of truth,” and “mighty
 in the Scriptures,” they will find no difficulty in conducting free 
prayer to the honour of religion, and to the edification of the Church. 
When they cease to possess this character they must have forms, they 
ought to have forms of devotion provided for them. It was precisely in 
such a state of things that the use of Liturgies gradually crept into 
the Christian Church in the fifth and sixth centuries. But it is 
manifestly the fault of ministers, if ex-temporary prayer be not made, 
what it may, and ought ever to be, – among the most tender, touching, 
and deeply impressive of all the services of the public sanctuary.