# The misleading case of The Book of Common Prayer as amended by the Westminster Assembly, 1661



## NaphtaliPress (Oct 22, 2017)

I wrote this up for Facebook but it struck me just now to post it here since it has come up here before as far as the mistake about the title.

In the mid 19th century a Presbyterian named Charles Shields, who wanted his church to be more liturgical, penned an essay entitled _The Book of Common Prayer as Amended by the Westminster Divines, A.D. 1661_ (Appendix 2 must be read). He paired this with issuing a version of the BoCP changing it up to what he thought would have been acceptable and represent the views of the Westminster assembly. This was in 1861 at the bicentennial of the Savoy Conference. At that conference, due to the restoration of Charles II, the Presbyterians were making a desperate stand to have a say in what was about to be imposed on them. 

I have seen people over the years use this man’s work to imply or state outright that the Presbyterians and Westminster Assembly were not opposed to liturgical worship or the Book of Common Prayer, and use it for justifying not just Presbyterian tolerance but enthusiastic embrace of the use of such things as the pretended holy days of the old church calendar.

No, what was happening was, that with a gun to their head as it were, the Presbyterians in 1661 were trying to mitigate just how bad and draconian things were to become. They needn’t have bothered. The conference failed with the bishops never even reading the Presbyterian objections and presented exceptions to the BoCP. In 1662 came the act of uniformity and the great ejection of hundreds of puritan ministers who could not accept the imposition of the changes in worship. 

The title of this 19th century work is misleading and is one created by Shields with a strained reasoning that because some men were at the 1661 conference who were at the Westminster assembly, the views of the Presbyterians in 1661 were the views of the earlier assembly and so justifying the title that has misled some to draw unwarranted conclusions. Julius Melton in his Presbyterian Worship explains.
_The Presbyterian Book of Common Prayer _was his [Shields] ultimate contribution to his denomination’s worship. Much thought went into laying the groundwork for this project. It was prompted in part by the coming in 1861 of the bicentennial of the Savoy Conference of 1661, at which the Presbyterians and Episcopalians of England had explored the possibility of a Church of England which could include them both and of a liturgy to which they could both agree.​
Shields’ first move was to write a careful historical essay explaining the Savoy attempt at liturgical compromise…. His assessment of the situation was colored, however, more by nineteenth-century romanticism than by awareness of the harsh facts of seventeenth-century English church life. Although the Presbyterian representatives in 1661 had stated grounds on which they could accept the Book of Common Prayer, they had done so not because they liked liturgical worship, as Shields did, but because there was no other possible way of being included in the Church of England. As it turned out, the Savoy Conference was an utter failure [see here for some of the background on the Savoy https://renopres.com/2016/12/22/1661-1662-history-around-savoy/). 

The title of Shields’ historical essay, in one of its printings, was _The Book of Common Prayer as Amended by the Westminster Divines, A.D. 1661._ Of course, the Westminster Assembly had ended in 1653 (for all practical purposes several years before that); but some of its former members were on hand at the Savoy Conference of 1661, so Shields considered the Presbyterian statements there to be opinions of the Westminster divines…. Julius Melton, _Presbyterian Worship in America_ (1967/1984/2001), 85.​So do not be tricked and please stop misusing this man’s work to spread misleading and incorrect information about what Presbyterians in 1661 or at any time would freely find acceptable, and certainly do not seek to justify Presbyterians today using unPresbyterian practices by appealing to it.

Reactions: Like 2 | Informative 4


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## Andrew P.C. (Oct 23, 2017)

This was a good post. Like I’ve mentioned before, I’m not sure what the appeal to high church worship is, but it isn’t Presbyterian.


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