The Normative Principle of Worship

[Click here to see the article posted at the Anglo-Reformed blog:  Regulative Principle of Worship????].

Barton,

The fellow you're citing is an advocate of the "regulative" principle of worship, which means that anything that is not specifically commanded in Scripture for worship is forbidden in worship.  The irony here is that the author is himself going beyond the "broader Reformed" center!  The Anglican Reformers upheld a "magisterial" view meaning that they held to a "normative" principle of worship.  The normative principle of worship means that unless Scripture "forbids" something in worship, like idolatry, it is permitted.  That's why we can in good conscience utilize the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.  The more radical Puritans rejected the prayer book altogether. Lee Gatiss, in his new book, The True Profession of the Gospel, says:

The Anglican Catholic group was not alone in its discomfort with Queen Elizabeth's determined resolution to stand still religiously after 1559.  The Reformed Church of England was agreed in one important principle with the Lutherans, that of the so-called normative principle: the English Reformation was generally conducted along the lines that whatever is not prohibited in Scripture is permitted, as long as it is agreeable to the peace and unity of the Church.  The Church of England, for example, therefore retained bishops whereas the Reformed on the continent (following the regulative principle, that whatever is not commanded is prohibited) generally abandoned episcopacy in favour of Presbyterianism.  Not everyone was in agreement with this way of settling matters:  the puritans of the late sixteenth century continued to seek further reformation of church government and the abolition of various practices which they considered to be a hangover from the medieval past, such as the sign of the cross used in baptism or the use of the surplice and other vestments.  (Pp. 15-16)

I am posting this comment to my blog since you have disabled commenting on your own blog.  I happen to agree with R. Scott Clark's view that there needs to be a recovery of the Reformed Confessions, although I do disagree with Clark's view of regulative worship.  J.I. Packer is now advocating a recovery of the practice of catechesis of new church members and current church members.  The Anglican Formularies function as a Reformed Confession of the Anglo-Reformed faith.  That would include following the Anglo-Reformed view of the vestments expressed by the ornaments rubric under Edward VI and not the revisionist interpretation of that rubric by high church Arminians and Anglo-Catholics.  Basically, high church Arminians are in collusion with the Anglo-Catholics whether they admit such  or not.  That does not mean that the normative principle permits idolatrous practices like the veneration of bread and wine, the saints, or prayers to Mary and the saints.  I hardly believe that Luther himself would have permitted such a thing. 

I should also point out that the reason high church Arminians in the Anglican Communion favor the "Lutheran" view is that they side with the more semi-pelagian side of Lutheranism, i.e. Philip Melanchthon.  Lee Gatiss argues that point effectively in his book as well.

Peace,


Charlie

The book is published by Latimer Trust.

For the original article by Alan Strange see Rejoinder to Clark Response to Review.  It looks like Strange is complaining about Clark's evaluation of Jonathan Edwards among other things.  I would agree that both Clark and Muller have overreached in their critique of Edwards in some ways.

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Reasonable Christian Blog Glory be to the Father, and to the Son : and to the Holy Ghost; Answer. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be : world without end. Amen. 1662 Book of Common Prayer