Whence the Regulative Principle of Worship? 2

Again, it is often claimed that Calvin did not hold to the Puritan Regulative Principle of Worship (to speak anachronistically). Rather the Puritans followed Calvin in placing key importance on the RPW. Horton Davies' Worship of the English Puritans is another work covered in "The Regulative Principle of Worship: Sixty Years in Reformed Literature Part One (1946–1999)," By Frank J. Smith, Ph.D., D.D. with Chris Coldwell, in The Confessional Presbyterian (2006) 89-164.

We cannot close out the 1940s without noticing the first of several historical works to be covered in this survey, which, while not uncritical of or even sympathetic toward the regulative principle, nevertheless are helpful in that they present it more or less accurately in the words of those who did hold to it. The late Horton Davies’ 1948 work, Worship of the English Puritans, which is based upon his 1944 Oxford dissertation, presented the Puritan view of worship with frequent citations from important works of the period. In a few years it had become a standard work.18 While his book is not above criticism,19 it was particularly important at the time as a means by which many were introduced to the Puritan (and Calvinistic) view of worship, and it continues to be an oft-cited work on the subject. The opening chapter lays out the difference in the worship views of Luther and Calvin, and clearly links the Puritan principle to that of the Genevan Reformer.

The real difference between the Lutheran and Calvinist reforms in worship may be summed up as follows: Luther will have what is not specifically condemned by the Scriptures; whilst Calvin will have only what is ordained by God in the Scriptures. That is their fundamental disagreement. It is of vital importance in the history of Puritan worship, since the Puritans accepted the Calvinist criterion, whilst their opponents, the Anglicans, accepted the Lutheran criterion (Davies, English Puritans, 16).

Following Calvin, they [the Puritans] affirmed the sufficiency of Scripture as a directory of worship, as well as the repository of the saving knowledge of God (49).20

Davies summed up the Puritan “apologia” for their view of worship this way:

In their apologia their first position was inevitably the all-sufficiency and perfection of the Scriptures for the ordering of worship. William Bradshaw writes in 1605:

‘IMPRIMIS they hould and maintaine that the word of God contained in the writings of the Prophets and Apostles, is of absolute perfection, given by Christ the Head of the Churche, to bee unto the same, the sole Canon and rule of all matters of Religion, and the worship and service of God whatsoever. And that whatsoever done in the same service and worship cannot be iustified by the said word, is unlawfull.’

Having stated their thesis in such bold terms, they proceed to justify it by quotations from the Scriptures. It is their invariable practice to find a warrant in Holy Writ for every postulate they make. Thus, believing themselves bound to the Word of God, they do not assert a mere opinion, or a reasonable conviction, but the declared will of God. What may appear as Bibliolatry to their successors or opponents is, in fact, their consistency.

The Scriptural citations warranting their main thesis are derived from both Testaments. Thus II Peter i 19–21 and II Timothy iii 15–17 urge the perfection of the Scriptures; while Matthew xv 9, 13, and Rev. xxii 19 are taken to forbid any man-made additions to the worship of God. Even more relevant and stronger proof-texts are found in the Old Testament. Exodus xx 4–6 (the Second Commandment), Joshua i 7, Deut. iv 2, xii 32, and Proverbs xxx 6 assert that God will not tolerate any additions to his worship since he is ‘a jealous God.’

Once their thesis is established, the Puritans then diligently search the Scriptures for evidences of the worship which God demands from his people. Their norm is the Apostolic Church and their aim is to re-establish its purity and simplicity in their midst. They believe that the worship of this church is characterized by six ordinances: namely, (i) Prayer; (ii) Praise; (iii) the proclamation of the Word; (iv) the administration of the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper; (v) catechizing; and (vi) the exercise of Discipline … (50–51).

In a final chapter entitled “A Survey and Critique of Puritan Worship,” Davies’ criticism came down to the complaint “that its [Puritanism’s] Biblical criterion was too rigidly applied.”

The dominant principle in Puritan worship is that only the worship prescribed by God in his Word is acceptable to the Divine Majesty. It is expressed in characteristic fashion by John Owen:21

‘The end wherefore God granted his word unto the church was, that thereby it might be instructed in his mind and will as to what concerns the worship and obedience that he requireth of us, and which is accepted with him. This whole Scripture itself everywhere declares and poseth, it declareth, that of ourselves we are ignorant how God is, how he might be worshipped, Isa. viii. 20. Moreover, it manifests him to be a “jealous God,” exercising the holy property of his nature in an especial manner about his worship, rejecting and despising every thing that is not according to his Will, that is not of his institution, Exod. xx. 4–6.’

The characteristic Puritan reverence for the Scriptures, as Dr. F. J. Powicke remarks,22 was carried to the point of Bibliolatry.’ This meant for every detail of worship Biblical sanction or silence was required (257–258).

Davies published a companion volume to this work forty years later, Worship of the American Puritans, 1629–1730 (New York: Peter Lang, 1990).23 In chapter one, “The Beginnings,” Davies describes the worship of early New England. Regarding New England Puritan worship, he writes: “One is impressed by the novelty of the worship in several ways. First and foremost, one notes the determination to use all the ordinances in their pristine purity as Christ’s commands in Scripture, thus to avoid the arrogance of human invention, which is idolatry condemned by the Second Commandment. It is this that accounts for the insistence on the biblical basis of all the ordinances. This leads to the denial of any formal liturgy and the demand for extemporaneous prayers, and it even determines the correct order for the different types of prayers” (Davies, American Puritans, 11). In chapter three on “The Theology of Worship,” Davies again paints the difference in Lutheran and Calvinian worship: “This was essentially not a philosophical theology, but a biblical theology, and in this way it showed its Calvinian heritage…. Calvin, by contrast, insisted that Scripture was to be dominant as God’s law in church and state. His principle was in reference to God: Quod non jubet, vetat (He forbids what He does not command). Thus Scripture was to be dominant, not only in faith and ethics, but as God’s law it must dictate church worship and polity. For Calvin the Bible was, in his own words, “la saincte parole et loi de Dieu,” the holy word and law of God. The Puritans followed Calvin in their insistence that sola Scriptura (Scripture alone) was the paramount and exclusive liturgical criterion” (23–24).24
--------------------
18. “The importance of the regulative principle of worship for the origin and essential character of the Puritan movement appears in the definition of Puritanism given by Prof. Horton Davies in his standard work on, ‘The Worship of the English Puritans’ (Chap. I. p. 1.)….” William Young, “The Puritan Principle of Worship,” In Servants of the Word [Puritan Conference 1957] (Southampton, England, 1958) 46.

19. “I find it surprising that so well informed a writer as Horton Davies suggests that the Puritans probably were not aware of ‘the cleavage between themselves and John Calvin’ and how their viewpoint differed from the practice of other Reformed churches [Davies, 48].… The facts are otherwise, and Davies really undermines his assertion on his page 112.” Rowland S. Ward, “The Directory for Public Worship Prepared by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster in the Year 1644,” Westminster Assembly 2004: A Conference on the Westminster Standards, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia Pa., November 21–22, 2004 (Unpublished; MS dated February 18, 2006) 2. Ward goes on to conclude, “I am quite satisfied there is no fundamental difference between Calvin and the Westminster men on worship. They are in agreement in the principle, and the differences in form and rubric are those which a church, in due subjection to Scripture, may maintain without schism.” Ward, 13.

20. Dr. Davies had previously published a more general, less detailed and popular work on worship, Christian Worship, its Making and Meaning (Wallington, U.K.: The Religious Education Press, Ltd., 1946). A second edition was issued as Christian Worship, its History and Meaning (New York: Abingdon Press, [1957]). He gives similar definitions (citing the 2nd edition): “In comparison with the Lutheran and Anglican reformations, which were conservative, his type of churchmanship and worship may seem radical, but it was considerably less so than that of the Puritans in England and the Quakers, so that it may be termed moderate as a mediating though logical view of worship. Whereas Luther was willing to retain all features of the medieval rite that did not conflict with the understanding of the gospel he obtained from the New Testament, Calvin held that what was
not prescribed by the Bible was positively forbidden to the Christian man. For this reason, although his forms of worship attempted to imitate the worship of the primitive Church, he was primarily concerned to design a form of worship with strong biblical authority” (55). “These criticisms, carried over from England and Scotland to North America by immigrants, have accounted for the dislike until recent times of precomposed forms of prayer and an ornate liturgy, among the heirs of the Puritans…. But this conception of worship is not a merely negative, dissenting, or niggardly view of worship. It must be recognized that these churches have made several positive contributions to worship. The most notable of them is the use of extemporary prayer” (67).

21. Davies is citing John Owen’s “A Brief Instruction in the Worship of God,” Works (Edinburgh: Goold ed., 1862) 15.450.

22. Davies is citing F. J. Powicke, “English Congregationalism in its greatness and decline (1502–1770),” in Essays Congregational and Catholic, issued in commemoration of the centenary of the Congregational Union of England and Wales, ed. Albert Peel (London: Congregational Union of England and Wales, 1931) 299.

23. Horton Davies, Worship of the American Puritans, 1629–1730 (New York: Peter Lang, 1990).

24. Davies also compares and contrasts Anglicanism and Puritanism in his magnum opus, Worship and Theology in England (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1961–1975) 1.69ff. He comments on the Puritan demand for a biblical warrant for all worship ordinances as follows: “Biblical fidelity could all too easily degenerate into Bibliomania in the more extreme forms of text-hunting and strained interpretation…. Disregarding such special pleading and hair-splitting interpretation as mere eisegesis, it must still be recognized that the value of providing a Biblical warrant for all the ordinances of Puritan worship was that each was directly related to the divine will, and that this gave these ordinances an august authority for those who used them, as the Puritans did, in the obedience of faith” (71).