The Nonjurors were those people who refused to swear the oath of allegiance to William and Mary of Orange when they became king and queen in 1689.  The word ‘nonjuror’ comes from the Latin, meaning ‘not swearing’.  The Nonjurors maintained the throne of England rightfully belonged to the heirs of James II.  The results of the failure to swear allegiance was that many members of the Church of England were deprived and lost their positions.  Those who left the Church of England included the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Sancroft (1617-1693), and others, such as Thomas Deacon (see Case Study 2.8).  Eight other bishops and some four hundred clergy, together with many eminent lay people also left the Church of England (Jasper, 1989: 28).  The Nonjurors consecrated bishops and ordained priests and deacons and continued a separate, but dwindling and divided ministry until early in the nineteenth century.  They also developed their own liturgical forms of worship, including the Eucharist.  In this case study the eucharistic liturgies of the Nonjurors will be considered, principally those of 1718 and 1734.

John Johnson, the Rector of Cranbrook in Kent, was not himself a member of the Nonjuring party, however, his major work, The Unbloody Sacrifice (edn. Parker, 1847) had a major impact on the Nonjurors (see Johnson Case Study 2.11).  Johnson’s work set out a theology of the Eucharist based on the theology of the Fathers and it was considered to be the mature product of high Anglicanism.  Although it had minimal impact on the Church of England at the time of its writing, it was all-powerful among the Nonjurors, allowing them to translate Johnson’s theory into practice (Grisbrooke, 1958: 71). 

In 1716 some Nonjuror priests asked their bishops not only for a greater degree of uniformity in worship but also for the inclusion of four matters in the Eucharist (prayer of oblation, the epiclesis, prayers for the dead and the mixed chalice) (Jasper and Cuming, 1987: 290).  A later meeting of the Nonjuring bishops however, could not agree on what the form of liturgy should be.  Some wanted the 1662 BCP in its published form, while others desired the addition of various additional usages, such as those listed above.  The meeting ended in both disarray and schism for the Nonjurors, with some (the Non-usagers) preferring to follow the 1662 BCP, and others (the Usagers) deciding to draw up a new liturgy based on primitive liturgical models and incorporating the various usages they saw as important.  The 1718 Liturgy of the Nonjurors (edn. Grisbrooke, 1958: 273-296) was probably drawn up by several of the Usager Nonjuror bishops, perhaps Collier, Brett and Deacon (Grisbrooke, 1958: 95).  It owes much to primitive liturgies, especially the Clementine Liturgy of the Apostolical Constitutions, with Brett considering this liturgy to be the oldest written liturgy available, and therefore the pattern for liturgical revision (Brett, 1720: 25).  Brett believed that the Clementine Liturgy was pure, because it had remained unused for so long, and did not contain the errors and corruptions that had crept into other liturgies (Brett, 1720: 30).  Although the 1718 Nonjuror eucharistic Liturgy did not follow the Clementine Liturgy in a slavish manner, it was greatly influenced by it, nonetheless, especially in the Prayer of Consecration.  The principles on which the 1718 Liturgy was to be drawn up were set out by Thomas Brett, who indicated that the 1662 BCP would be used where its practice was considered acceptable, that the 1549 BCP text and order would be used where this was preferable, and that where both 1549 and 1662 were considered defective, the ancient liturgical models and materials would be used instead (Brett, 1720: 380-382).  The Nonjurors particularly considered the eucharistic prayer in both the 1549 and 1662 Prayer Books to be defective and so followed primitive models.

The 1718 Nonjuror Liturgy used the word ‘altar’ instead of ‘holy table’ as found in the 1662 BCP and the rubrics directed that it should be against the east wall (the traditional priestly and Laudian position) with “the Priest and People standing with their faces towards the Altar” (The Nonjurors’ Liturgy of 1718, edn. Grisbrooke, 1958: 275).  The use of the word ‘altar’ was suggestive of a sacrificial element in the eucharistic liturgy, as well as maintaining traditional terminology.  The service proceeded in much the same way as the 1662 BCP (Lord’s Prayer, Collect for Purity, Commandments (summary), Prayer for the King, Collect, Readings, Creed, Sermon, Exhortations).  From the Offertory onwards however, the model of 1549 was used with some additions from the ancient liturgies (e.g. the Offertory Prayer based on the rite of St Basil, according to Jasper and Cuming, 1987: 291).  This prayer prayed in part:

“ … may it please thee, O Lord, as we are ministers of the New Testament, and dispensers of thy holy mysteries, to receive us who are approaching the Holy Altar, according to the multitude of thy mercies, that we may be worthy to offer unto thee this reasonable and unbloody Sacrifice for our Sins and the Sins of the People.  Receive it, O God, as a sweet smelling savour, and send down thy Holy Spirit upon us.  And as thou didst accept this worship and service from thy Holy Apostles: so of thy goodness, O Lord, vouchsafe to receive these Offerings from the hands of us sinners …” (The Nonjurors’ Liturgy of 1718, edn. Grisbrooke, 1958: 286).

The Offertory Prayer expresses clear realist thinking in regard to the offering of the sacrifice in the Eucharist.  Whilst the offering is real and effective against sin and received by God, it is also reasonable and unbloody, thereby suggesting a moderate realism but not any form of fleshy or immoderate sacrifice.  The role of the Holy Spirit is here limited to that of being sent down upon the people, not upon the elements, although in the eucharistic prayer the Holy Spirit was invoked to ‘make’ the bread and wine the body and blood of Christ.  The rubric at the Offertory specifically separates the collection of money from the offering of the elements, instructing the priest to place the bread and wine on the altar.  The priest is directed, following traditional and ancient practice, to place a small amount of water in the chalice (mixed chalice), before saying the Offertory prayer.  These specific directions concerning the Offertory and the Offertory Prayer itself had been missing in the 1662 Prayer Book.

Following the Offertory the liturgy proceeds much according to 1549 (Sursum Corda, Sanctus, Benedictus and Proper Prefaces, (The Nonjurors’ Liturgy of 1718, edn. Grisbrooke, 1958: 286-288).  The prayer following the Benedictus however is taken from ancient models (the rite of St James, according to Jasper and Cuming, 1987: 291) and presents a prayer extolling the holiness of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, as well as a thanksgiving for creation and redemption.  The prayer continues with the words of institution (with the addition of the black crosses that had been placed in the 1549 BCP, following the model of the Sarum Liturgy, to indicate the blessing of the bread and wine by the priest) (The Nonjurors’ Liturgy of 1718, edn. Grisbrooke, 1958: 289).  This is suggestive of setting the bread and wine apart and of special blessing that is specifically associated with them, as opposed to the ministration of the sacrament as a whole.

The prayer following contains anamnesis, oblation and epiclesis, taken almost verbatim from the Clementine Liturgy.  This prayer will be quoted in full:

“Wherefore, having in remembrance his Passion, Death and Resurrection from the dead; his Ascension into heaven, and second coming with glory and great power to judge the quick and the dead, and to render to every man according to his works; we Offer to Thee, our King and our God, according to his holy Institution, this Bread and this Cup; giving thanks to thee through him, that thou hast vouchsafed us the honour to stand before thee, and to Sacrifice unto thee.  And we beseech thee to look favourable on these thy Gifts, which are here set before thee, O thou self-sufficient God: And do thou Accept them to thy honour of thy Christ; and send down thine Holy Spirit, the witness of the passion of our Lord Jesus, upon this sacrifice, that he may make this Bread the Body of thy Christ, and this Cup the Blood of thy Christ; that they who are partakers thereof, may be confirmed in godliness, may obtain remission of their sins, may be delivered from the Devil and his snares, may be replenished with the Holy Ghost, may be made worthy of thy Christ, and may obtain everlasting life, Thou, O Lord Almighty, being reconciled unto them through the merits and mediation of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ; who, with Thee and the Holy Ghost, liveth and reigneth ever one God, world without end.  Amen.” (The Nonjurors’ Liturgy of 1718, edn. Grisbrooke, 1958: 289-290).

This prayer sets out a moderate realist expression of both eucharistic presence and sacrifice.  The bread and wine is ‘offered’ to God as a sacrifice, not as re-iteration of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, but in accordance with Johnson, as an unbloody sacrifice, done to follow Christ’s offering at the institution of the Eucharist, not at the sacrifice of the cross.  The link between the sign and the signified is clear, with the bread and wine (the gifts) being set before God, the Holy Spirit being invoked over them to ‘make’ them the body of Christ and the blood of Christ.  Those who partake of the bread and wine are then seen to be effectually given all the benefits of Christ (e.g. remission of sins, Holy Ghost, everlasting life).  Moderate realism is affirmed here and immoderate realism is denied.

The intercessions followed the eucharistic prayer, as they did in the Clementine Liturgy, however, the words are those of the 1549 BCP and the 1637 Scottish BCP (Jasper and Cuming, 1987: 291).  Significantly the prayers are offered in the presence of the consecrated elements, thereby departing from the practice of the 1552 and 1662 Prayer Books of receiving communion immediately following the Prayer of Consecration.  The 1552 and 1662 Prayer Books intended in this way to limit any idea or suggestion of a continuing eucharistic presence of Christ in the elements on the altar, which could be the subject of eucharistic devotion.  The 1552 and 1662 moved directly to reception as the highlight of the service, without any prayers or space between consecration and reception.  Clearly these scruples were no part of the 1718 Nonjurors’ Liturgy.  The administration did not occur until after the Lord’s Prayer, the peace, the hymn ‘Christ, our Paschal Lamb’, the invitation, confession, absolution, comfortable words and prayer of humble access had been said.  All this occurred in the presence of the consecrated elements.  The words of administration were those of 1549 (The Nonjurors’ Liturgy of 1718, edn. Grisbrooke, 1958: 293), that is, words without reference to feeding by faith, such as in 1552 and 1662.  The words of administration clearly associated the bread and wine with the body and blood of Christ in a moderate realist fashion.

Following the administration the elements were directed to be placed reverently on the altar and covered with a linen cloth (The Nonjurors’ Liturgy of 1718, edn. Grisbrooke, 1958: 293).  The Prayer of Thanksgiving from the 1549/1662 BCP followed the administration, as did the Gloria in excelsis and blessing (The Nonjurors’ Liturgy of 1718, edn. Grisbrooke, 1958: 294)..

The final rubrics (The Nonjurors’ Liturgy of 1718, edn. Grisbrooke, 1958: 296) directed the priest to reserve the sacrament for any who were sick or for urgent cause so that it could be taken to them.  This indicates that there was seen to be a continuing presence of the body and blood of Christ in the elements following the reception of communion and indeed the conclusion of the service.  The presence of Christ’s body and blood in the Eucharist was not restricted to the reception alone and did not thereby depend on the faith of those who received.  It was also seen to be possible to have the presence of Christ in a lasting manner outside the context of the service.  The presence of Christ in the bread and wine was therefore an objective presence which continued to be present in the bread and wine.  This is indicative of moderate realism in relation to the eucharistic presence of Christ in the bread and wine.

The Nonjurors’ Liturgy of 1718, not only provided a practical application of the theology of John Johnson, but it also expressed the understanding of the Nonjurors in regard to eucharistic presence and sacrifice.  The Nonjurors who constructed this liturgy were of the mind that Christ was present in the bread and wine in a real way and that the Eucharist represented a reasonable and unbloody sacrifice to God.  The liturgy depended on a realist conception of both Christ’s presence and sacrifice in the Eucharist to a moderate degree.

As Jasper and Cuming comment in summary on this liturgy:

“Of all the rites produced in England in the post-1662 period, this was the most practical and satisfactory.  Restrained and largely familiar in language, reasonable in length and primitive in structure, it is not surprising that it was a model to which others – notably Scotland and America – were glad to turn in the creation of a new family of Anglican liturgies which took 1549 rather than 1662 as their parent.  It was certainly more widely followed than the later Nonjuring rite of 1734, which was longer and more complicated and produced when the movement was past it zenith.” (Jasper and Cuming, 1987: 291).

An attempt at reuniting the Usagers and Non-Usagers, with an Instrument of Union, signed by some of the bishops in both parties in April, 1732, actually resulted in more disunity amongst the Nonjurors.  Instead of two groups, the Usagers and the Non-Usagers, there were now three – those who followed the Instrument of Union, signed by the Usager Bishop Brett, and by some of the Non-Usagers; those who continued as Non-Usagers, unconvinced that the union could be trusted; and those Usagers who refused to have anything to do with the union since they saw it as a surrendering of essential parts or usages of the eucharistic liturgy.  It is this third group of continuing Usagers that developed the Nonjurors’ Liturgy of 1734, and it is this liturgy which forms the next part of this case study.

The group who continued as Usagers and had no part in the Instrument of Union were led, at first, by Bishop Archibald Campbell.  They continued to use the Nonjurors’ Liturgy of 1718 until 1748, when Bishop Thomas Deacon became the leader and introduced a liturgy he had written in 1734.  The Nonjurors’ Liturgy of 1734, it was argued, was derived from Apostolic authority and “perfectly pure and free from interpolation” (Deacon, A Compleat Collect of Devotions, 1734: iii-iv, cited in Grisbrooke, 1958: 116-117).  For Deacon the material of the first four centuries was a benchmark, and any revision was to be based on the example of the liturgies from this period, such as the Clementine Liturgy.  Deacon, in his work entitled A Full, True, and Comprehensive View of Christianity, published in 1747, gives a commentary of this liturgy, which sets out the eucharistic theology of the liturgy in some detail.  Grisbrooke comments that the theology expressed here shows “that Deacon had moved very far indeed beyond the position of the Church of England” (Grisbrooke, 1958: 117).

Deacon entitled his eucharistic liturgy, The Holy Liturgy; or, The Form of offering the Sacrifice, and of administering the Sacrament of the Eucharist (edn. Grisbrooke, 1958: 297-316).  The 1734 liturgy resembled the 1718 liturgy, except that the Eucharistic Prayer was taken almost completely from the Clementine Liturgy, with the Lord’s Prayer added.  The theology of the Eucharist expressed in the 1734 Liturgy corresponds with that of John Johnson and is also expressed in Deacon’s Shorter Catechism published as part of A True, Full, and Comprehensive View of Christianity in 1747 (see Deacon Case Study (2.8) for details of his eucharistic theology).

The 1734 Liturgy had much in common with the 1718 Liturgy, however, the Lord’s Prayer and the Summary of the Law was omitted at the beginning, while the Eucharistic Prayer was taken almost entirely from the Clementine Liturgy.  Following a long series of prayers referring to salvation history (The Nonjurors’ Liturgy of 1734, edn. Grisbrooke, 1958: 306-310), the institution narrative is recited (The Nonjurors’ Liturgy of 1734, edn. Grisbrooke, 1958: 310).  This is followed by anamnesis, oblation and epiclesis (The Nonjurors’ Liturgy of 1734, edn. Grisbrooke, 1958: 311) and then the intercession for the Church (The Nonjurors’ Liturgy of 1734, edn. Grisbrooke, 1958: 311-312) followed by the Lord’s Prayer.  Like the 1718 Liturgy, the 1734 Liturgy expresses a moderate realism in relation to both eucharistic presence and sacrifice.  The sign and the signified are associated with one another, the priest praying that the bread and wine be made the body and blood of Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit and the offering of the bread and wine in the Eucharist being like the offering of Christ at the institution of the Eucharist.  The peace follows the Lord’s Prayer and then a prayer prays that all “may partake of the mystick blessings now lying on thine altar” (The Nonjurors’ Liturgy of 1734, edn. Grisbrooke, 1958: 313).  The words of administration were simply, “The Body of Christ” and “The Blood of Christ, the cup of life” to which the communicant replied “Amen” (The Nonjurors’ Liturgy of 1734, edn. Grisbrooke, 1958: 313-314).  Following the administration the rubrics direct either consumption of the remaining elements or the carrying of these into the vestry (The Nonjurors’ Liturgy of 1734, edn. Grisbrooke, 1958: 314).  Carrying about of the consecrated elements was specifically banned by the Thirty-Nine Articles of 1571 to avoid any suggestion of devotions to the elements in processions.  The prayers after communion and the blessing were again from the Clementine Liturgy (The Nonjurors’ Liturgy of 1734, edn. Grisbrooke, 1958: 314-315).  Permission was granted for some of the remaining elements to be reserved for the sick or for urgent need (The Nonjurors’ Liturgy of 1734, edn. Grisbrooke, 1958: 316) once again suggesting a continuing and objective presence of Christ in the elements, which existed apart from the reception and the service itself.  This is indicative of realist notions of the presence of Christ in the elements,

The 1734 Liturgy of the Nonjurors presents a moderate realist theology of both Christ’s presence and sacrifice in the Eucharist.  It does this relying heavily on the primitive liturgical forms.  The liturgy did not enjoy the same level of acceptance as the 1718 Liturgy, perhaps partly due to its antiquarian nature and partly due to its length and complexity.  Perhaps also the 1734 Liturgy suffered from the fact that the Nonjuror movement was now splintered and past its peak period.  The legacy of the 1734 Liturgy, unlike that of 1718, for future generations of liturgical development, was limited.