The Lutheran Liturgy had some significant influence on the Book of Common Prayer, used by the Anglicans. This shows up in many places, but one place where you can note a curious difference is in the liturgy for Holy Baptism.Both Lutherans and Anglicans (at least historically) used the Flood Prayer. Here's the version of the Flood Prayer that shows up in the current Lutheran Service Book - it's fairly faithful to the original, with only a silly shift at the end to remove the language of "made righteous" to "declared righteous" (silly because God's declaration MAKES so exactly what He says!):
Almighty and eternal God, according to Your strict judgment You condemned the unbelieving world through the flood, yet according to Your great mercy You preserved believing Noah and his family, eight souls in all. You drowned heart-hearted Pharaoh and all his host in the Red Sea, yet led Your people Israel through the water on dry ground, prefiguring this washing of Your Holy Baptism. Through the Baptism in the Jordan of Your beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, You sanctified and instituted all waters to be a blessed flood, and a lavish washing away of sin. We pray that You would behold N. according to Your boundless mercy and bless him with true faith by the Holy Spirit that through this saving flood all sin in him which has been inherited from Adam and which he himself has committed since would be drowned and die. Grant that he be kept safe and secure in the holy ark of the Christian Church, being separated from the multitude of unbelievers and serving Your name at all times with a fervent spirit and a joyful hope, so that, with all believers in Your promise, he would be declared worthy of eternal life, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
That's the Lutheran version. Now check out what the Anglicans did to the prayer:
Almighty and everlasting God, who of thy great mercy didst save Noah and his family in the ark from perishing by water; and also didst safely lead the children of Israel thy people through the Red Sea, figuring thereby thy holy Baptism; and by the Baptism of thy beloved Son, Jesus Christ, in the river Jordan didst sanctify Water to the mystical washing away of sin: We beseech thee, for thine infinite mercies, that thou wilt mercifully look upon this Child, wash him and sanctify him with the Holy Ghost; that he, being delivered from thy wrath, may be received into the ark of Christ's Church; and being stedfast in faith, joyful through hope, and rooted in charity, may so pass through the waves of this troublesome world, that finally he may come to the land of everlasting life, there to reign with thee world without end; through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Notice what's gone! Not merely the wrath side of water as the destruction of God's enemies, but the words referring to belief or faith. In the Lutheran prayer, it is BELIEVING Noah who is saved, and the UNBELIEVING world that is condemned. Pharaoh is HARD-HEARTED, a synonym for not believing! THE central petition of the Lutheran prayer is for the gift of faith for the person being baptized: "bless N. with TRUE FAITH by the Holy Spirit." It acknowledges Baptism as precisely a "being separated from the multitude of UNBELIEVERS" so that "WITH ALL BELIEVERS in Your promise" the baptized would come to eternal life.
Lex orandi in this case shows that by their Baptismal rite, Lutherans confess that Holy Baptism is a PROMISE and must be received in faith to benefit. Confident of the Lord's willingness to answer prayer, we ask exactly such faith for the baptized. That God sunder them from unbelief and unbelievers and plant them securely in the Church among the promise-trusters - which promise trusting happens only by the work of the Holy Spirit Himself. The Anglican prayer picks up all the beauty of the Lutheran one, and even improves the poetry at points, but it utterly misses the very thing that WE are praying for!
5 comments:
So are you going to continue to find new and amazing ways where people do an end run around the Law - I'm finding these fascinating.
Pr. Weedon,
It appears to me that you are making a mountain out of a molehill, or actually making a point that isn't really supported by the prayer itself. Granted that the BCP prayer takes out the first allusions to "the unbelieving world" and "hard hearted pharoah" and the juxtaposition with "preservation" and salvation. And yet, while that juxtaposition is missing, the BCP still prays that Baptism be that water of salvation, alluding both to the ark of Noah and the Red Sea. And the BCP does most definitely read "that he (the baptised), being delivered from thy wrath, may be received into the ark of Christ's Church" and so deliverance from God's wrath "in" the water's of Holy Baptism is not absent in Anglican baptismal theology.
What I have never completely understood about some explanations of baptism is this paradox rendered in your words: First, "THE central petition of the Lutheran prayer is for the gift of faith for the person being baptized..." and secondly, "Lutherans confess that Holy Baptism is a PROMISE and must be received in faith to benefit." What I have always thought is, Which one is it? Baptism is the gift of faith or Baptism must be received in faith (when, at the actual Baptism or later in life, years after being baptized) to benefit?
And yet, if one wants to claim that the answer is both/and, still, the Anglican prayer contains just that which you think it doesn't. First, "that he, being delivered from thy wrath, may be received into the ark of Christ's Church;..." speaks to the gift of salvation and faith in Baptism, and secondly "and being stedfast in faith, joyful through hope, and rooted in charity, may so pass through the waves of this troublesome world, that finally he may come to the land of everlasting life..." speaks to the life of faith (which would inevitably grasp, in faith, the gifts of Baptism). No?
BPW
But Bryce, surely you see that the central point of the Lutheran prayer is a petition for faith in the baptized? Prayer for faith is because the deliverance which Baptism truly accomplishes, is accomplished in those who trust its promises. Faith remains the instrumental means for ALL to receive salvation and without faith, no one can be saved (Mark 16). So when the Anglican prayer removed the prayer for God to give faith to the baptizand, it fundamentally altered the prayer. That was my point, and I think it still stands.
An interesting discussion. The 1549 BCP preserves a midway point, when the first half of Luther’s prayer is largely preserved (wrath and mercy in the same events), yet already the focus has shifted from the faith which justifies to the grace of baptism, both regeneration and remission - so that Luther’s petition for faith becomes a petition for a life of faith hope and charity. My guess is that this reflects the reformed interest in sanctification.
An interesting discussion. On the one side, Cranmer chooses to include Luther’s prayer: but what he preserves are the petitions for the grace of baptism in washing and sanctification. As the rest of the Order of Baptism indicates, he is as much concerned with sanctification as with justification.
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