A popular expression, much loved of those engaged in the study of liturgy is this – lex orandi: lex credendi.  It is usually quoted in Latin, which sounds more imposing and awesome than the English translation, "the law of praying: the law of believing."  (Technically it may also be translated "the law of believing: the law of praying.")

The Preface to the BAS (1985) of the Canadian Church clearly reveals that the architects of this book believed they were working according to this supposed hallowed principle.  We read that,

It is precisely the intimate relationship of gospel, liturgy and service that stands behind the theological principle, lex orandi: lex credendi, i.e., the law of prayer is the law of belief.  This principle, particularly treasured by Anglicans, means that theology as the statement of the Church belief is drawn from the liturgy, i.e., from the point at which the gospel and the challenge of Christian life meet in prayer.  The development of theology is not a legislative process which is imposed on liturgy; liturgy is a reflective process in which theology may be discovered.  The Church must be open to liturgical change in order to maintain sensitivity to the impact of the gospel on the world and to permit the continuous development of a living theology.

This is a remarkable paragraph based as much on ignorance as prejudice.  Similar statements both spoken and written abound and their abundance testifies to the move away from classic Anglicanism by those who, for the most part, now effectively order and run the worship of Anglicans.  The same type of claims were made by those who created the BCP (1979), although at first they pretended that they were merely updating the Common Prayer Tradition and keeping its doctrinal framework.

First of all, the claim "it is precisely..." supposes that the writers have done careful historical research and can document their case.  Such a possibility is doubtful.  In fact if the Pope, and particularly Pope Pius XII, is any guide, then this expression is not a safe or sure guide.  In his famous encyclical letter, Mediator Dei (1947), this Pope referred to the error and fallacious reasoning of those who claim that the sacred Liturgy is a kind of proving-ground for the truths to be held by faith.  Such is not what the Church teaches and enjoins, he maintained.  The entire Liturgy ought to have the Catholic Faith for its content, inasmuch as the Liturgy bears witness to the Faith of the Church.

He certainly recognized that on occasions the content of the Liturgy has been examined as one way (alongside others) of gaining insight into a controversial or doubtful truth.  Yet the Pope concluded: "If one desires to differentiate and describe the relationship between Faith and the sacred Liturgy in absolute and general terms, it is perfectly correct to say: Lex credendi legem statuat supplicandi (let the rule of belief determine the rule of prayer)."  This is precisely the opposite of the way lex orandi: lex credendi is used today.

In fact the origin of the expression, lex orandi: lex credendi, seems to have been with Prosper, a disciple of the great St Augustine of Hippo.  He did not actually use it but another similar one which is the fore-runner of it: lex supplicandi statuat legem credendi (let the rule of prayer determine the rule of faith).  Prosper was involved in a controversy [known as the Pelagian controversy] concerning the grace of God offered in Christ and the freedom of man to accept or reject it.  Being a disciple of Augustine, he held that our wills are in a bondage to sin and until God releases them and gives them the freedom to choose Christ and to believe on His name then we are not able to do so. In order to show that this doctrine of God’s sovereign grace was truly the faith of the Church, he appealed to the contents of the prayers offered by Christians. He believed that these assumed that without God we can do nothing for our salvation.

Therefore he could confidently say, in this specific context, that the rule of prayer tells us what is the rule of faith.  Of course he and his master, Augustine, did not stop there; they also turned to the Scripture to study its message and to the Creeds of the Church to learn what they declared.  In fact for the early fathers of the Church the lex credendi was to be found in the Holy Scriptures and to this the Liturgy was to witness and had to conform.  If it conformed then it could be said in a strictly limited way that the law of prayer is the law of faith – e.g. it confirmed Prosper’s point that we are dependent upon God’s grace in order to choose Christ.  But such a law was not then, and cannot be now, of total or universal application in all circumstances.

Certainly since the sixteenth century, Anglicans have believed that in the Book of Common Prayer (in which historically were bound not only the Prayer Book proper but also the Ordinal and the Thirty-Nine Articles) is the lex credendi.  For where you have the commitment to the authority of the Scriptures (the written Word of God), and a further commitment both to the catholic Creeds, and alongside the Creeds to the Thirty-Nine Articles, then you certainly have a lex credendi – which is more developed if you add the doctrines of the Ordinal concerning the Threefold Ministry.  However, the lex is not primarily to be found in the whole Book but specifically in the doctrinal truth of the Scriptures and the dogma of the Creeds as summarizing the truth of Scripture.  Thus to claim with the BAS (1985) that the lex orandi: lex credendi is a principle particularly treasured by Anglicans is true but only in a limited way.  Further, it is true only of the Common Prayer Tradition in which the BAS (1985) hardly partakes.

The BCP (1549; 1552; 1662 etc.) was written from a theological, doctrinal and dogmatic perspective.  It was held by Archbishop Cranmer and his colleagues that God expected the English Church to wash its dirty face in the sixteenth century with the "holy water" of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  For God had given to His Church the Two Testaments in the One Bible containing God’s Word, together with the means to understand it through the holy Tradition of the first five or so centuries of the Catholic Church.  Thus they spoke of five centuries, four general councils and two or three Creeds along with the development of doctrine and guidance in the interpretation of Scripture through important literature from the early fathers (e.g. Athanasius, Basil and Augustine).  The BCP Liturgy was intended to express this Faith and thus be true to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  The fact that there have been continuing minor revisions of this Common Prayer Tradition over the centuries shows that no Liturgy as a collection of services can ever be a perfect embodiment of either the law of prayer or the law of belief.  Yet this Common Prayer Tradition aims at excellence.

Liturgy, as written documents, reflects the beliefs of the writers even when they use or utilize ancient sources. Cranmer and his colleagues were vitally committed to the dogma of the early councils of the Church concerning God, the Holy Trinity, and Jesus Christ as God Incarnate, One Person with two natures, which they believed correctly summarized the basic testimony of Holy Scripture: thus these dogmas are clearly set forth in and through what they produced. But so also are other doctrinal aspects of the lex credendi which they wanted to make a part of the Liturgy.  In particular it is obvious that the liturgy of the Lord’s Supper is deeply informed both by the Augustinian doctrine of sin and the Augustinian doctrine of grace (as that is filtered through the emphasis of the Reformation on justification by faith).  Much of course was received from the late medieval Church and adapted to fit into the new liturgical structures and renewed doctrinal framework to which the first Books of Common Prayer testify.

If asked, the English reformers would surely have claimed with Pius XII that it is perfectly correct to say, lex credendi legem statuat supplicandi (let the rule of belief determine the rule of prayer). In fact a careful reading of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion confirms this.  Further, testimonies to the priority of the lex credendi abound in Anglican history.  The judicious and learned Lancelot Andrewes wrote: "That which we learned in lege credendi [Apostles Creed] is taught again in lege supplicandi [meaning prayer which proceeds from the Lord’s Prayer]" and went on to show that the law of praying is meant to establish and confirm the law of believing (Sermons of the Lord’s Prayer, 1580, sermon vii).

The real difference between the modern creators of liturgies and their ancient predecessors is that for the latter, unlike the former, the principle of sola scriptura, the Scripture alone as the basis of faith, is non-negotiable and fundamental. Today’s writers apparently see the Scriptures as one important but not the sole source of what we are to believe concerning God and our salvation.  They allow to the world (through its zeitgeist or liberal culture) a certain illuminative role in establishing what we are to believe or what we may not believe.  This is seen in their modern, revisionist translations of the ancient Creeds, their writing of new collects, their rubrical instructions and their inclusive language translations of the Bible.  Thus while the services have the appearance of being genuinely Anglican and Catholic their inner substance represents so often a weakening or a changing of doctrine.

Not merely do liturgical experts produce modern services (that is in modern language) but they produce modern services containing modernity itself.  This fact is often hidden from modern people because the experts often claim with some justification ancient pedigree for some of what they introduce.  In fact a kind of archaeological interest seems to intrigue them and so anything from the fourth century or earlier has a special claim on their attention. Yet this kind of claim often conveniently hides behind the vague statements quoted above from the Preface of the BAS (1985).  What does it mean to say that liturgy is a process in which theology may be discovered?  Probably, that the longer the church uses the modern rites the more it will realize how much modernity is in them! And from the standpoint of the creators of the liturgy this will be a good thing for they are committed to what is often called "the modern experiment."  Further, new liturgies will continue this experiment.

The great stability and value of the Common Prayer Tradition is its wholesome commitment to biblical and catholic truth as the basis of prayer and thus of knowing God. To move away from this norm is to move away from sure contact with the living God and His Revelation.  Of course it is possible to have modern services which are faithful to Scripture and orthodox Christian dogma; regrettably so few modern liturgical experts seem to produce such liturgy.

In the Common Prayer Tradition it is taken for granted that in public worship there will be a fixed form, with very few options and none in essentials.  To find one’s place is easy and to follow the service is straightforward.  This stability and reliability stands in direct contrast to the modern form of liturgy which is fast becoming the provision of a loose-leaf book of resources from which each local church may select its own choice.  Thus there is today the near triumph of mix-and-match and the demise of the principle and practice of common prayer.  The name Anglican on the notice board can no longer guarantee for you or me a particular kind of Liturgy.  Even if that church uses a printed Prayer Book and not a local collection from the loose-leaf resource book it still may offer you or me one of many possible combinations from there.

The Anglican Way as it developed in the Church of England from the sixteenth century and from England spread in all directions through the British Empire and missionary endeavors became a special (perhaps unique!) form and expression of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.  It is biblical yet not biblicist; it is catholic yet evangelical; it is dignified but accessible to all regardless of social class or education. It is of such a nature that it can take within itself and benefit from a variety of churchmanships and different schools of spirituality and mission.  Its special qualities make it just as appealing as the Liturgy of the Orthodox or Roman Catholic Churches and its genius is that it took in from the Protestant Reformation the biblical principle that all worship should conform to Scripture and contribute to the sanctification of those believers whom God justifies by His grace.  For what Christ has done for us by His atoning death and glorious resurrection the Spirit wants to make real within our souls and bodies through the knowing of God in Common Prayer in all its forms.

Common Prayer is the whole collection of liturgies in the BCP and also it is the bond that unites them.  In and through the use of them all, or such as apply to us at any one time, there is established a total rhythm of prayer which is based upon and always sustained by the Word of God. Persistent and mindless variations within Common Prayer cause this rhythm to be lost or its biblical basis overturned.  There can be no regular mixing-and-matching for such a move destroys the rhythm with its logic of faith.  For example, to use Morning Prayer as if the first part (the call to repentance and confession and the hearing of the Word of grace and forgiveness) did not really matter is to lose not only the principle of Common Prayer but also the biblical thread of salvation that informs it and holds it together.  In technical terms (as Cranmer and Richard Hooker put it) Scripture as the doctrinal instrument of salvation lies at the very heart of the Common Prayer Tradition.  Thus it is important to note that the printing of the Collect, Epistle and Gospel for each Sunday of the Year as well as for each Holy Day makes them an integral part of this Tradition.  So the place of Scripture in determining the nature and path of public prayer is clearly recognized and followed.  And around this center there is the reading and praying of the psalter once a month and the reading through of the whole Bible once a year (with parts of the New Testament read more than once) in the Daily Office.

The Common Prayer also speaks to community, and fellowship for worship is offered in Christ’s name to the Father in the Holy Spirit by the Body of Christ.  Regrettably, the Common Prayer Tradition has been made into something less than the experience of unity in Christ in worship.  This is usually attributed to the dominance in days of old of Matins as the major service of the Lord’s Day; but, it is more to be blamed on insufficient teaching of what our common life together in the Lord Jesus is all about.  Where there is the pattern of the Daily Office along with Holy Communion on the Lord’s Day and where there is teaching from the Scriptures which are being continuously read in the Daily Office, then the Common Prayer will also begin to be common fellowship.  For there is no doubt that the Scriptures which lie at the very center of the Anglican Way do call for and expect God’s people to be truly a fellowship of believers: they are to know God in prayer and know God through each other in fellowship.

Unlike modern liturgies which deliberately aim to use popular, forgettable and low-key language, the Common Prayer Tradition has excellency as its aim. Thus each service is presented in excellent English so that all can (perhaps with effort and some instruction) understand it.  As they understand it they will he uplifted by the experience of participating in it and, further, in regularly using it they will not be bored by it but rather its very excellency will enable them to say it often and gain in the using of it.  The fact that the English of the Common Prayer Tradition is not now spoken is no argument against using it. Experience shows that it can be easily understood and is an excellent means of magnifying the name of the Lord our God.  In fact for a congregation to use it in sincerity and truth adds to the genuine experience of fellowship in that society of Christians.  It is also interesting but not surprising for me to learn that university students in England who sing or say Daily Prayer in the College chapels prefer the BCP (1662) to the ASB (1980).  Their reason is simply that the excellency of the liturgy of BCP (1662) helps them more quickly and easily to enter into the ethos of worship.  In the house of the Lord surely we ought to praise our God from the heart in the finest and most excellent words which express our faith.

In the BCP tradition "common" refers to that which belongs to all and is accessible by and to all. It is for all to use together.  Therefore all, without exception, who attend the parish church services use the identical forms of worship all the time. Thus they need to be in excellent form and language.  Today "common" in the title of the American BCP (1979) hardly means what it meant in the BCP (1928) for the intention of the former Book is to set up a new model of prayer – that of variety and mixing-and-matching, so that there is something for everyone (or at least for every priest or worship committee who do the choosing).  It is inclusive in that provision is made in it for people of all kinds to participate in the modern styles of worship.  Again we readily admit that where wise people do the choosing a good service of worship can result.

This difference in the meaning of "common" is easily illustrated by looking at the services in the two American Books for visiting the sick.  The traditional rite in BCP (1928) precedes the sacramental actions of anointing, absolution and holy communion with Psalms and prayers offered for and with the sick person.  The revised rite in BCP (1979) introduces these sacramental actions with a reading of Bible lessons to the sick.  The model for the revised rite is taken from the Sunday Eucharist so that the Psalm is read as a gradual between the Epistle and the Gospel.  The model for the old rite is the Daily Office with its basic structure of Psalms and prayers.  In the old rite it was assumed that the sick person could join in the familiar Psalms and prayers either vocally or in his heart for they represented the common prayer of the Church offered daily to the Lord. In the new rite it is assumed that common prayer does not exist and that the only form people will know or be used to is that of the Sunday Eucharist.  There is no doubt in my mind which of these models is superior at the pastoral level!

In their expositions of the Common Prayer Tradition many Anglicans from Cranmer to C.S.Lewis have made the point that there is great spiritual value when worshippers are able to give themselves wholly to their high calling because they are using week by week the same, near-perfect expressions for praise and petition.  They know always what is coming next and so are not unnecessarily shaken in their concentration upon the act of worship.  Writing three centuries ago William Beveridge, Bishop of St Asaph, explained the difference from the point of view of the worshppers between set prayer and ex temporare prayer.  What he wrote also applies to modern mix-and-match liturgy:

Moreover, that which conduceth to the quickening our souls and to the raising of our affections must needs be acknowledged to conduce much to edification.  But it is plain that for such purposes a set form of prayer is an extraordinary help to us.  For, if I hear another pray and know not beforehand what he will say, I must first listen to what he will say next: then I am to consider whether what he saith be agreeable to sound doctrine, and whether it be proper and lawful for me to join with him in the petitions he puts up to God Almighty: and if I think it is so, then I am to do it.  But before I can well do that, he is got to another thing; by which means it is very difficult, if not morally impossible, to join with him in everything so regularly as I ought to do.  But by a set form of prayer all this trouble is prevented; for having the form continually in my mind, being thoroughly acquainted with it, fully approving of everything in it, and always knowing beforehand what will come next, I have nothing else to do, whilst the words are sounding in mine ears, but to move my heart and affections suitably to them, to raise up my desires of those good things which are prayed for, to fix my mind wholly upon God whilst I am praising of him, and so to employ, quicken and lift up my soul in performing my devotions to him. No man that hath been accustomed to a set form for any considerable time, but may easily find this to be true by his own experience, and, by consequence, that this way of praying is a greater help to us than they can imagine that never made trial of it (A Sermon on the Excellency of the Common Prayer, 1681).

These are wise words and had priests given explanations like this to young people then there would have been a greater understanding and deeper commitment to the Common Prayer Tradition in the 1960s and 1970s and the story of liturgical revision would probably have been a very different one than it has been.  Divine service is not the place for experiment or for leaders to share their latest liturgical fads and fancies.  It is the meeting with Almighty God, who calls us into His presence as His covenant people in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. To gain fully from this encounter we need the most excellent form of words available to us.

[In his Companion io the Festivals and Fasts (1804) Bishop Hobart had the following explanations of Common Prayer.]

Q.  Since our Church has prescribed a form of prayer or Liturgy, for the public service of the Church, state some of the particular advantages of forms of prayer.

A.  When a form of prayer is used, the people are previously acquainted with the prayers in which they are to join, and are thus enabled to render unto God a reasonable and enlightened service.  In forms of prayer, the greatest dignity and propriety of sentiment may be secured.  They prevent the particular opinions and dispositions of the minister from influencing the devotions of the congregation; they serve as a standard of faith and practice; and they render the service more animating, by uniting the people with the minister in the performance of public worship.

Q.  What are the peculiar excellences of the Liturgy prescribed by our Church?

A.  In the Liturgy of our Church there is an admirable mixture of instruction and devotion.  The Lessons, the Creeds, the Commandments, the Epistles and Gospels, contain the most important and impressive instruction on the doctrines and duties of religion; while the Confession, the Collects and Prayers, the Litany and Thanksgivings, lead the understanding and the heart through all the sublime and affecting exercises of devotion.  In this truly evangelical and excellent Liturgy, the supreme Lord of the universe is invoked by the most appropriate, affecting and sublime epithets; all the wants to which man, as a dependent and sinful being, is subject, are expressed in language at once simple, concise, and comprehensive; these wants are urged by confessions the most humble, and supplications the most reverential and ardent; the all-sufficient merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world, are uniformly urged as the only effectual plea, the only certain pledge of divine mercy and grace; and with the most instructive lessons from the sacred oracles, and the most profound confessions and supplications, is mingled the sublime chorus of praise, begun by the minister, and responded with one heart and voice from the assembled congregation.

The mind, continually passing from one exercise of worship to another, and, instead of one continued and uniform prayer, sending up its wishes and aspirations in short and varied collects and supplications, is never suffered to grow languid or weary.  The affections of the worshipper ever kept alive by the tender and animating fervour which breathes through the service, he worships his God and Redeemer in spirit and in truth, with reverence and awe, with lively gratitude and love; the exalted joys of devotion are poured upon his soul; he feels that it is good for him to draw near unto God, and that a day spent in his courts is better than a thousand passed in the tents of the ungodly.

The Common Prayer Tradition assumes that God has named and described Himself and thus in addressing Him in prayer His worshippers are to keep to these names and descriptions.  (At the end of this chapter a list of these names and titles is provided.)  In this assumption there is a basic commitment to the authority of Scripture, but there is a recognition that a national Church does have liberty within the biblical range of names and descriptions to use some more than others.  In terms of names those of the three Persons of the most Holy Trinity do, of course, along with such names as "Lord" and "King", have pride of place and in terms of descriptions, words such as "Almighty" and "Everlasting" are used often.

If this is the case why has there been so much talk within liberal denominations, including the Episcopal Church, of the need for inclusive language, not only for speaking of human beings but also for the naming and addressing of their Creator and Redeemer?  Why do we hear of bishops giving the Blessing in "the name of God, Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier", and refusing to use the names of "the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit?"  Why do some modern forms of service begin the Lord’s Prayer with "Our Father-Mother..." instead of just "our Father...?"  Why is the referring to the Holy Spirit as "She" becoming so common?  And why is there in some quarters the prohibition of the name "Lord" for Jesus or for God?

The answer to all these questions is very simple – the authority of the Holy Scripture, the Creeds and of traditional theology has waned and the authority and power of modern secular thinking and culture have risen.  The wind of feminism, anti-sexism and anti-patriarchy has blown through the churches and since their windows were wide open to it they have felt its force.  The clergy in particular have developed a sense of guilt about their addressing of God in exclusively male terms and to show that they truly believe in the equality of women they have been ready to adopt female names for God such as "mother" to try to bring in fair-play as they see it.  For the majority who have adopted inclusivism there have been no theological considerations: they have simply thought that they had to move with the times and show that they really believed in the equality of men and women in the Church.  Thus hand in hand with the ordaining of women as priests has gone an increasing commitment to inclusive language for God.

Therefore it is not surprising that the emphasis on equality for women in terms of entry to the ordained ministry seems to require a change in both the doctrine and the forms of worship of the churches today.  This is because the activists for equal rights and feminism are not satisfied with anything less than a total change in the way that congregations address God and ministers name God in public services and in official documents and reports.

Certainly it is usually the case that for the leaders of these causes the call for the changing of the names of God is based on a view or doctrine of God.  In chapter three we discussed theism, deism, panentheism and pantheism and emphasized that Christianity is committed to Trinitarian Theism.  Those who have been and still are pressing for changes in the naming and addressing of God are usually committed to deism or panentheism or pantheism.  In contrast those who insist that the churches are already committed, and ought to stay committed, to the revealed names of God in Scripture are invariably Trinitarian Theists.  For to be Trinitarian is to confess that God has not only revealed that He is Three Persons but that each Person has a name which comes out of the self-naming of God by God Himself.

It is important to recognize that according to the Bible God chooses to be known through and by His names.  Thus in terms of the knowing and having communion with God it is of supreme importance that His creatures name Him in ways that are pleasing to Him.  The primary confession of the Christian is "Jesus is Lord" and it is in the naming of Jesus as Lord (Rom. 10:9; Phil. 2:11) and thus in the giving to him of the worship and obedience contained in that name that the believer both knows Jesus and is known by him.

Jesus himself, the eternal Son made Man (that is the Man for others), addressed God in heaven in a very particular way.  Over and over again we read of him in all the Gospels both speaking of and addressing God in heaven as "Father". His moving, priestly prayer in John 17 contains several addresses "O Father" and one "O righteous Father."  Then when asked by his disciples how they ought to pray he taught them to begin, "Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name..."  Continuing this way of prayer we find that St Paul speaks often of "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Cor.1:2–3) and himself prays to the Father, through the Son and in the Holy Spirit (Rom.8).  And this is the basic pattern of the prayers of the early Church and of the Common Prayer Tradition.  We address the FATHER through the SON in the HOLY SPIRIT.

It seems to me that Dr James I Packer, the leading Anglican Evangelical theologian, put this matter very clearly when he wrote:

You sum up the whole of New Testament teaching in a single phrase, if you speak of it as a revelation of the Fatherhood of the holy Creator.  In the same way, you sum up the whole of New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one’s holy Father.  If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father.  If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all.  For everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new, and better than the Old, everything that is distinctively Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God.  "Father" is the Christian name for God (Evangelical Magazine, vol.7, p.19).

If Packer is right, and I believe that he is, then those who want to minimize or set aside the name "Father" do not "understand Christianity very well at all."

Those who want to set aside this biblical way of prayer and of knowing God as the Triune LORD use a variety of devices.  One is to claim that there is within the Bible a suppressed tradition of understanding, devotion and prayer which uses female images and names for God.  Certainly there are a few similes in the Old and New Testaments which compare the gracious character of God to that of a loving mother bird or human mother who cares for her offspring (see e.g. Is. 66:13; Matt.23:37).  Then because the grammatical gender of "wisdom" in Hebrew is female it is alleged that since God’s wisdom is personified (e.g. Prov.8) then God may rightly be called "She" and we may use feminine pronouns of the deity. Of course orthodox Christianity should speak of God’s mercy through the use of similes drawn from the love of mothers; however, it cannot jump from the recognition of grammatical gender to a doctrinal claim! And to say God is like a mother is not the same as saying "O God, our mother."  A simile is not a title!

Another argument follows from the claim that God is utter Mystery, that he is totally beyond our comprehension and understanding.  This being so, it is claimed, no words, not even Bible names, can be sufficient in and of themselves to evoke in us the truth and sense of God as Mystery.  In fact, the names used by the Bible and in the early Church were probably socially conditioned and thus reflect the patriarchal, androcentric culture of those times.  So in naming the Mystery we are free to use those names and expressions for God which flow from our experience and cultural roots and seem authentic to and for us.  Since our culture is moving away from the dominance of men to the practice of equality of men and women, it is said that we ought to reflect this move in our naming and addressing of God and be bold to call God "Mother" and "Sister", or use verbal nouns such as "cosmic Regenerator" and "ineffable Sanctifier."

This kind of argument has to be challenged on two fronts.  First, one admits that there is in the Church a tradition of theology which recognizes that God is Mystery (better, the Mystery) for He is supremely above all our knowledge and experience.  We recognize this in theology by speaking of the Via Negativa, the way of saying who God is by saying what He is not.  This method does not seek to describe or name God but it certainly makes clear that God is other than everything we think of and know in this finite world.  God is Mystery for we do not know His Being – all we can say is that He is super-essential Being. However, and secondly, alongside the Via Negativa, has always stood the Via Affirmativa, the way of affirming who God is – not out of human knowledge – but from God’s self-unveiling in His Revelation through the prophets and uniquely in Jesus Christ.  It is only because of this Revelation that the Church dares to name God for she learns that God has already self-named Himself. The Church names God in fear and trembling by His own names, recognizing that who He is to her is contained in these names. These are the name of His covenant relationship with His new Israel.  He who revealed His name as LORD [Yahweh, Jehovah] to Moses and the old Israel revealed His name to the new Israel as the LORD, who is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

A third argument, and one which can be very influential at the personal and parochial level, is psychological.  It usually comes from persons who have had a bad relationship with a man, either a father, brother or husband.  Your hear a very sincere woman say something like this: "It was so liberating to learn that I can call God ‘Mother’ and think of God in feminine ways," and usually her story is of being abused by her father.  In order to be healed she needs, not to name God as "She" and "Mother" as she has been led to believe, but to sort out her feelings and thoughts concerning her father and men in general.  When she has achieved psychological health then she can address theological problems.

Then there are women who constantly claim that they are abused or belittled by traditional Christian worship for their equality with men before God is denied if God is only addressed in worship in male terms – Father, Son, Lord, King, and Bridegroom – and thus the worship assumes that patriarchy is not only true but also is God’s will.  It is difficult to know whether these women really are expressing deep hurt as such or whether they are expressing an ideology of feminism through the medium of claimed hurt feelings.  How one seeks to minister to them will depend upon where they are coming from in these assertions and claims of hurt.

I have come to the conclusion after writing a book (Let God be God, 1990) and giving many talks on the topic, "Inclusive language, right or wrong?", that the only way to defend traditional biblical language for God is to argue for it from the primary doctrine of divine order.

First of all, however, I need to address those who are pushing for inclusive language their doctrine of God.  Usually I find that those who are loudest and most zealous for renaming God are not theists and thus have no rightful claim to be seeking to change the names of the God whom Christians have explained in theistic terms.  Usually they have a concept of God which includes the world within the being of God.  That is, if the world were taken out of their concept of God there would be only one part or dimension or aspect of God left!  (Such a view stands of course in complete contrast to classical Christian theism where God minus the world equals God.)

It is often said today in seminaries and religious conferences that the world is in God but that God, since he/she includes the world in his/her being, is more than the world.  Or that God and the world (which may or may not be within God) are in mutual attraction and development, each being changed by the other as day succeeds day.  This panentheism or process theology easily marries with earth-mother and mother-goddess talk.  In fact if the world is in God and if God is developing in and through the world, then in the bringing forth of new life each Spring God is like a mother – so God may be called and addressed as a mother.

I also find that this way of thinking of the world as being within the being of God with the world and God mutually affecting each other as they develop together is often married to aspects of Jungian (depths) psychology.  For example, I heard a sermon at an Anglican Conference recently based upon the text, "Unless you become as little children..." (Matt. 18:2–3), in which a woman explained that there is in each of us a divine child waiting to he born and to develop in and through us; and further that God as the divine Mother is there waiting and ready to bring this child to birth within and through us.  Here I heard both Jungian psychology and panentheism.

So unless I can persuade those who hold such views to turn from them to classical Christian theism there is little hope of their seeing the necessity of only using such names as are permitted by God Himself.

The belief and the doctrine that God has named God begins with confession of faith in the Holy Trinity.  God as the LORD transcends and is beyond all sexuality: God as God does not have either a male or female nature for God as God has a divine nature.  Within the One Godhead of the Three Persons there is both perfect equality (for all share the One Godhead) and an ordered relation.  The First Person, who is self-named the Father, eternally begets the Son before all ages; the Son, who is named by the Father, is therefore in a particular relation, Sonship, to the Father; the Holy Spirit, who is named by the Father eternally proceeds from the Father through the Son. Here there is perfect equality but ordered relation within the One Godhead.  Here there is also the naming of the three Persons by the First Person (with the agreement of the Second and Third Persons) in order for the angels and archangels as well as earthly creatures to address and adore their LORD, a Trinity in Unity.

The One God in whom is an ordered relation of Three Persons is the Creator of the world.  The Father speaks His creating and sustaining Word as and through the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit.  Thus the invisible world of archangels and angels, cherubim and seraphim comes to be and the visible world in which we live, and move and have our being also comes to be.  In each case there is an ordered relation, first to God, the Creator and Judge, and second of parts of the creation to other parts of the same creation.  In terms of human beings God created male and female human beings, who are truly equal before Him in terms of their being made in His image and after His likeness, in an ordered relation.  The woman is not the man and the man is not the woman but their relation is of the priority of the man.  This is set forth in the Genesis narrative through the story of the woman being made from the man’s rib (Gen.2:22–23). St Paul teaches this with clarity especially in his First Letter to Corinth, the Letter to Ephesus and the Letters to Timothy.

Only in this kind of context can we speak positively of patriarchy.  If we take patriarchy to mean the ordered relation of men and women in which the man assumes his God-given place and vocation then we may say that patriarchy is biblical and reflects the hierarchical relations of the Blessed Trinity.  Such patriarchy assumes therefore the perfect equality of man and woman in their differences and also establishes their relation in terms of hierarchy of order.  To present this as God’s design is not of course to claim that such order has existed except for brief periods here and there.  We also have to tell the story of sin and how this has brought disease and rebellion against God and His holy order into all human souls and all relationships between husbands and wives, males and females, and men with men and women with women.

In this context of divine order we have a sound basis upon which to reject not only inclusive language for God but also much of the modern clamor for inclusive language for human beings.  If we are Trinitarian Theists, if we believe that God has graciously revealed Himself to us in ways that we can understand (through the illumination of the Spirit) and if we believe that God has self-named God then our solemn and joyous duty is to ascertain God’s names and use them in the way which is pleasing to Him.  (To do this is, I believe, to walk in the way of the Common Prayer Tradition.)  Further, if we believe that God is the God of Order, that God as God is an ordered, hierarchical relation of Persons in one Godhead, and that God has built ordered relations into His creation of the invisible and visible worlds, then our solemn and joyous duty is to submit to this order and use language which reflects it.

To use language which reflects it will include the readiness to use what is technically called generic language.  The New Testament is written in this language and one of the purposes of new translations like the New Revised Standard Version is to set aside this language.  Thus the Greek, adelphoi, which literally means "brothers" is translated "brothers and sisters."  In generic Greek or English "brethren" means both "brothers and sisters."  In the Psalms the Hebrew noun, ish, meaning "the man" is translated as "they" (a third person neuter plural, in order to seek to cover male and female persons).  In generic Hebrew and English "the man" includes his wife and family.

Together with this argument from divine order there is of course the historical fact that the Hebrew does actually say "the man" and not "they" and the Greek says "brethren" not "brothers and sisters."  So there is a matter of honesty in translating ancient texts into English at stake as well.  The NRSV, however, unlike the Psalter in the BCP (1979), does clearly indicate by footnotes most places where inclusivism has intruded into the translation.

But what about language for male and female persons in Liturgy?  The Common Prayer Tradition uses generic language and in so doing reflected the use of language in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; but that usage accorded with the doctrine of divine order.  Today the way of modern culture is to insist on inclusive language in the media, in education and most if not all areas of modern life.  The Church, however, which is called not to be conformed to the world but to be transformed by being renewed in and after the mind of Christ, ought not to feel obliged to leave its generic language but to use it as a way of expressing divine order.  Of course, in so doing, the Church would have to set aside the ordination of women as presbyters/priests and bishops because they do not fit into God’s plans for His divine order.

Knowing God in Liturgy involves naming, addressing, adoring, praising and thanking Him according to His design and not after our sinful desires and ideas.  If we draw near to Him in the way He has prescribed for us, then, as St James declares, He will draw near to us (Jas 4:8).

[This excerpt comes from his Companion for the BCP]

It is much to he lamented, that the POSTURE of KNEELING, during the public prayers, is very generally neglected. In many churches, the boards provided for the purpose of kneeling, are used only as foot boards.  The general prevalence of the posture of sitting during the solemn acts of confession and supplication must be a subject of deep regret with all who esteem the decent and devout performance of public worship a matter of the first importance.  The late excellent and exemplary Bishop of London, Dr. Porteus, in a letter which he addressed in May 1804 to the clergy of his Diocese, thus enforces the duty of kneeling during the performance of prayer: "For many years past, I have observed with extreme concern, in different churches and chapels, both in the metropolis and in various parts of the country where I happened to be present, a practice prevailing (and evidently gaining ground every day) of a considerable part of the congregation sitting during those parts of divine worship where the rubric expressly enjoins every one to kneel.

"It may be thought, perhaps, that the posture of body in offering up our prayers, is a circumstance too trivial to deserve such serious notice as this.  But can anything be trivial that relates to the Almighty Governor of the universe?  Does not every one know, too, that the mind and the body mutually act upon and influence each other; and that a negligent attitude of the one will naturally produce indifference and inattention in the other?  Look only at the general deportment of those who sit at their devotions (without being compelled to it by necessity), and then say whether this remark is not founded in truth and in fact. I shall be told, perhaps, that there are some denominations of Christians that stand, and others that sit at their devotions.  It is very true, and they must he left to judge for themselves; but my concern at present is with members of the church.  Our Church, in her admirable form of public prayer, allows, in different parts of the service, the different postures both of standing and sitting; which, with her usual wisdom and discretion, she adapts to the respective circumstances of those particular parts.  But where the solemnity and importance of our supplications require it, there she positively enjoins the posture of kneeling; and to disobey that injunction is unquestionably an offence against the discipline and usage of that venerable Church to which we have the happiness to belong.

"It is also contrary to the practice of the best, and greatest, and wisest men, both before the promulgation of the Gospel and after it.  The exhortation of king David in the 95th Psalm, which we have adopted into our Liturgy, is, ‘O come, let us worship, and fall down, and kneel before the LORD our Maker.’  When Solomon dedicated his magnificent temple to God, he kneeled down upon his knees before all the congregation of Israel, and spread forth his hands towards heaven, while he poured forth one of the most sublime and affecting prayers that ever fell from the lips of man.  It was the custom of the prophet Daniel to kneel upon his knees three times a day, and pray and give thanks unto his God.  Our Saviour himself, in his last agony, kneeled down and prayed; St. Stephen, in his last moments, kneeled down and prayed for his murderers; and St. Paul, when he took his last solemn leave of his brethren, kneeled down even on the seashore, and offered up his petitions to heaven for their everlasting welfare.

"After these injunctions of the Church, and these examples from Scripture, no one, I think, who calls himself a Christian, and a member of the Church, will (unless prevented by illness or infirmity) refuse to kneel down before the Lord his Maker.  But if you perceive any part of your congregation habitually neglecting so to do, I must request you to represent to them, in forcible terms, the great impropriety and indecency of such a practice.  It is very possible that they may have fallen into it from mere thoughtlessness and inattention, and considered it as a matter of very little importance; but you will, I hope, endeavour to convince them that it is in reality a very serious offense against the Majesty of Heaven and the decorum and solemnity of public worship.  It is evidently inconsistent with that profound reverence which is due to the great Creator of the universe, and that deep humility, and contrition which become such wretched sinners as we all are, in a greater or less degree, in the sight of God. It strikes, in short, in my apprehension, at the very root of all true devotion; and ought therefore to be vigorously resisted before it has gained too much strength to be subdued.  If it is not, if it is suffered to go on without control, there is too much reason to apprehend, from the progress it has made within these few years, that it will in a few years more become a universal practice, and that you will see the whole of your congregation sitting during every part of divine service."

[In his fascinating book, The Liturgy compared with the Bible, Henry I Bailey provided a list of the "Epithets, Titles and Characters by which the Divine Being is addressed..."  The list is given below along with a further list of expressions by which Almighty God is addressed.]

Aid of all that need

Author of everlasting life

Author and giver of all good things

Author of peace

Comforter Sovereign

Commander of all the world

Head Corner-stone

Creator and Preserver of all mankind

Faithful Creator

Defender and Mighty Deliverer

Father of all mercies

Father of our Lord Jesus Christ

Father of heaven

Father of spirits

Almighty Father

God the Father Almighty

Heavenly Father

Most merciful Father

Fountain of all goodness

Fountain of all wisdom

Giver of all goodness

Giver of all good things

Giver of all spiritual grace

God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost

God Almighty

God of Abraham, and of Isaac and of Jacob

God of all comfort

God of all mercy

God, just and powerful

God most mighty

God of God

Almighty God

Almighty and everlasting God

Almighty and everliving God

Almighty and immortal God

Almighty and merciful God

Almighty and most merciful God and Saviour

Blessed Lord

Eternal God

Great God

Lord God of hosts

Lord our God

Lord God of our salvation

Lord God most holy

A merciful God

Most gracious God

Most mighty, gracious and good God

Most glorious and gracious Lord God

Most powerful and glorious Lord God

Perfect God

Very God of very God

Governor of all things

Only Help in time of need

Helper of them that flee to Him for succour

Most High Judge of all men

Righteous Judge

Most worthy

Judge eternal

Jesus

Jesus Christ

Blessed Jesus

Lord Jesus Christ

Only-begotten Son, Jesus

Christ King of glory

King of kings

Lamb of God

Immaculate Lamb

Life of them that believe

Light of Light

Lord

Lord of hosts

Lord of lords

Lord of all power and might

Lord most mighty

Lord and Giver of life Lord in whose sight the death of his saints is precious

Blessed Lord

Lover of Concord

Divine Majesty

Maker of all things

Maker of heaven and earth

Maker of mankind

Our Master

Preserver of all mankind

Prince of Peace

Protector of all that trust in Him

Most Mighty

Protector Redeemer of the world

Refuge and Strength

Resurrection of the dead

Resurrection and the Life

Ruler of princes

Saviour

Saviour of the world

Saviour Christ

Blessed Saviour

Holy and most merciful Saviour

Shepherd

Son of David

Spirit of Christ

Blessed Spirit

Good Spirit

Holy Spirit

Strength of all them that put their trust in Him

Strong Tower of Defence

God, who desireth not the death of a sinner

God, who from his throne heholdeth all the dwellers upon earth

God, who despiseth not the sighing of a contrite heart

God, who alone worketh great marvels

God, who governeth all things in heaven and earth

God, who hateth nothing that He has made

God, who declareth His almighty power most chiefly in shewing mercy and pity

God, who of his infinite goodness hath given His only and dearly beloved Son to he our Redeemer and the Author of everlasting life

God, who by His Divine Providence hath appointed divers Orders of Ministers in His Church

God, who by His Holy Spirit hath appointed divers Orders of Ministers in His Church

God, who knoweth our necessities before we ask, and our ignorance in asking

God, who maketh us both to will and to do those things that be good and acceptable unto His Divine Majesty

God, who doth so put away the sins of those who truly repent that He remembereth them no more

God, who doth correct those whom he loveth, and chastiseth every one whom He doth receive

God, who hath compassion upon all men, and hateth nothing that He hath made

God, who alone spreadeth out the heavens, and ruleth the raging of the sea

God, who is of infinite goodness and mercy God, whose mercy is over all His works

God, in whose hand is power and might, which none is able to withstand

God, whose name is excellent in all the earth, and His glory above the heavens

God, who is terrible in His judgements, and wonderful in His doings toward the children of men

God, who by His wisdom guideth and ordereth all things most suitably to His own justice

God, whose righteousness is like the strong mountains, and His judgements like the great deep

God, who ruleth over all the kingdoms of the world, and disposeth of them

God, who upholdeth and governeth all things in heaven and in earth

Christians do not confess that love is God; they confess that God, as the Almighty LORD, is Love.  In fact the early Christians took a Greek word, agape, and made it their special word for speaking of the love that is in God, the love that causes God to reach out to save sinful creatures and the love which in saving them He places in their souls.  Truly happy are those who know and feel that their God is Love.

The Epistle for the first Sunday after Trinity-Sunday is 1 John 4:7–21.  Twice in this passage we hear one of the briefest but most important statements of the whole Bible: God is love.  John wrote: "He that loveth not knoweth not God: for God is love.  In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.  Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."

To believe and confess that God is Love in the manner and spirit of St John is to sum up in three words what we learn about the one, living God from the whole of His self-revelation recorded in Holy Scripture.  That is, to state that the LORD is Love is not to deny what is said in both the OT and NT of His wrath against sin and evil and of His chastising of His covenant people when they forsook Him and worshipped idols.  Further, to say that God is Love is to say that the almighty God who made the whole universe out of nothing and maintains it moment by moment, He is Love.  To affirm that God is Love is to say that the God who guided the patriarchs into Egypt and allowed their descendants to become slaves, He is love.  Also to confess that God is Love is to say that the God who sent the tribes of Israel from Palestine into captivity and exile in Assyria and Babylon where many perished, He is Love.  Further to confess that there is a hell and that God will send there those who totally reject His grace is to claim that such a God, He is Love.  Finally to state that God is Love is to say that the God who caused the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, to suffer, to be crucified and to descend into hell, He is Love.

The God who is Love is the God of justice and righteousness.  Anyone who tries to drive a wedge between the wrath and the love of God is not being instructed by the Holy Scriptures in his thinking.  The God who punishes the disobedient is truly the God who is Love.  This biblical approach to the character of God is a problem for us if we think or feel (as so many seem to do) that all love is God, rather than beginning with God and confessing with St John that God Himself is Love.  Perhaps great harm has been done in the Church in recent times by seeking to describe God in terms of what is considered to be love amongst and in human beings.  Certainly the Common Prayer Tradition is very clear on this point and directs worshippers always to God Himself for an understanding of what is genuine love, compassion, mercy and grace.

It is very important for us to grasp this point because the fact that God Himself is Love is the basis of the divine command that we love God and one another.  In the Epistle for the first Sunday after Trinity-Sunday the second occurrence of "God is love" is as follows: "God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him... We love Him because he first loved us...he who loveth God loves his brother also."  Therefore, it is extremely important that we know God and in knowing God know Him as Love in order that from and in that Love we are able to love our fellow men, especially our fellow believers in Christ.

Such is the prayer that Anglicans have offered to God on the Sunday immediately before Lent (Quinquagesima):

O LORD, who hast taught us that all our doings without charity [love] are nothing worth; send thy Holy Ghost, and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of charity, the very bond of peace and all virtues, without which whosoever liveth is counted dead before thee: Grant this for thine only Son Jesus Christ’s sake.  Amen.

Following this Collect the Epistle is the great hymn of love written by Paul in 1 Corinthians 13.  "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity [love], I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal."

I think it is important that we notice that before John wrote "God is love" he wrote "God is light". He said: "This is the message which we declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all" (1:5).  On this basis John proceeded to call upon his readers to "walk in the light as God is in the light" and thereby to have fellowship one with another and to experience the power of the forgiving, cleansing blood of Jesus Christ in their hearts and fellowship.  Not to walk in the light (that is being enlightened and illumined by God’s self-revelation and presence) is to walk in darkness (enlightened and illumined by the ethos and standards of this sinful world).

Bearing this in mind we have to say that "God is love" means "God is holy love" and "God is righteous love."  God as love is not love divorced from absolute purity and righteousness: rather, His love is pure, holy and righteous love.  God’s love will, therefore, chastise and punish for God is not in the business of making people happy who will not seek for holiness and purity of life.  However, to confess that "God is love" and "God is light" is to believe that in everything (with no exceptions) that God says and does His love and holiness find expression.  To know God as the LORD is to know that God is entirely consistent in His character and His dealings with us: it is also to understand that we know what love really is from contemplating God rather than examining human actions and feelings.

There are some marvelous descriptions of the love of God in the writings of Paul apart from 1 Corinthians 13 cited above.  In Romans 5 and 8 the apostle waxes eloquent concerning the presence of the love of God in the human soul: "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us" (5:5).  Then he asks the rhetorical question: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" (8:35) and comes quickly and eloquently to the conclusion that nothing whatsoever in the whole invisible or visible created worlds "shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."  Love, pure love, which is of God begins within the Godhead and is the essence of the relation of the Father to the Son and the Son to the Father, the relation of the Father to the Spirit and the Spirit to the Father, and the relation of the Son and the Spirit to each other.  God is Love as a Trinity of Persons.  In holy Love the Father eternally begets the Son and spirates the Holy Spirit: thus the Holy Trinity is a Trinity of Love.  From the Father through the Son and by the Holy Spirit all Love flows both in creation and in redemption.  As St John stated it: "God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son..." (John 3:16).

Finally, from Paul’s writings I must mention the prayer request of the apostle in Ephesians 3:14ff., where he kneels in prayer to the Father in heaven and longs that "Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith: that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height: and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God."  I doubt if the theme of this book can be better expressed than Paul has done for us here.  To know God is to be filled with the love of God but it is also at the same time to recognize and to understand that God who is Love is greater than our highest thoughts and beyond our loftiest contemplation of Him.  For the God who is present as the Holy Spirit (or the Spirit of Christ) in His Church and covenant people is the God who is also utterly transcendent, beyond space and time, and glorious in His holiness and Majesty.

The Common Prayer Tradition captures this great theme of the holy love of God in a variety of ways.  God’s love in creating and maintaining the world is affirmed as an expression of His goodness.  There is a full and always moving presentation of the love of God manifested in Jesus Christ, in his mission, passion, death, resurrection and exaltation.  Likewise the sending by the Father through the Son of the Holy Spirit is presented as a further manifestation of God’s love as well as the provision of that love to be the holy content of the souls, hearts, minds and wills of those who believe on the name of the Lord Jesus.

So we may join James I Packer in explaining God’s love in this way: "God’s love is an exercise of His goodness towards individual sinners whereby, having identified Himself with their welfare, He has given His Son to be their Saviour, and now brings them to know and enjoy Him in a covenant relation" (Knowing God, 1973, p.111).  From the beginning of this book I have sought to explain not only that we know God because He first chooses to know us but also that our knowing of each other is always within the covenant relation, which He establishes.  How this works in the Common Prayer Tradition with respect to God as holy love and pure goodness we must now briefly survey.

Baptism and Confirmation exist as Sacraments because of the holy love of God.  There is a Gospel to proclaim since God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son to die for our sins and to be raised for our justification.  Messengers are sent into the world by the Lord Jesus because in His love He has provided salvation for all who will believe upon His holy Name.  "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you" (Matt.28:19–20).  Love calls sinners and in the love of God they believe and are baptized into His covenant to enjoy His steadfast, faithful love.

The Daily Office exists as the appointed means and way of being encountered by God because of His holy love and goodness.  God mercifully calls His covenant people to be with Him, to recognize His Majesty, to confess their sins, to hear His Word, to receive His forgiveness and salvation, to petition Him and to intercede with Him and to know Him as LORD.  In this daily discipline centred upon God’s self-revelation recorded in Scripture and celebrated in Psalms and Canticles there is a growing awareness of the height and depth, the breadth and length of the holy love of God.  The soul gradually lays aside all human conceptions of love and is drawn into the mind of Christ to share his love.

We may say that through reading and meditating upon Scripture in the Daily Office God’s covenant people are truly taught the nature and meaning, as well as the practice of love.  Their prayers, flowing from this formative reading, become more and more the prayers of love for the brethren and expressions of the love of God shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Spirit.  We may claim that the Litany is the fullest expression in Liturgy of love addressing the Lord of love in petition and intercession.

The Holy Communion is pre-eminently the Sacrament of the holy love of God.  Here is the Love which forgives, cleanses, justifies, sanctifies, unites to Christ and feeds with heavenly manna at the heavenly table.  This is the holy love so splendidly described in the Proper Prefaces for Christmas-Day, Easter-Day, Ascension-Day, Whit-Sunday and the Feast of the Holy Trinity. And it is the love which as goodness and mercy is recognized and celebrated in the Prayer of Consecration:

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who of thy tender mercy didst give thine only Son, Jesus Christ, to suffer death upon the Cross for our redemption; who made there (by His one oblation of himself once offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world...

In the words "full, perfect and sufficient" we hear what love achieved and what we never could have earned and certainly do not deserve.  Then, having been fed by God at the Holy Table of His Son we cannot but pray:

Almighty and ever living God, we most heartily thank thee, for that thou dost vouchsafe to feed us, who have duly received these holy mysteries, with the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ; and dost assure us thereby of thy favour and goodness towards us; and that we are very members incorporate in the mystical body of thy Son...

Being fed on heavenly manna is only part of the revelation of the love of God.  There is the inner assurance of the covenant favor and grace and tender mercy of God for believing sinners; and there is communion and union with the Lord Jesus Christ, wherein spirit speaks to Spirit.  This is knowledge indeed!

In the Visitation of the Sick God’s tender mercy, love and goodness are the divine realities which make this event meaningful and necessary.  Love is expressed in the opening salutation: "Peace be to this house, and to all that dwell in it." It is then assumed in everything which follows.  The purpose of the service is that the sick person may hear God’s gracious promises and truly know God and be known by Him. Whether he is to recover or whether he is to die the aim is to make sure that he is in a right relationship with God and knows that God is Love and in Christ loves him now.  Thus after Psalms and Collects the priest says:

The Almighty Lord, who is a strong tower to all those who put their trust in him, to whom all things in heaven, in earth, and under the earth, do bow and obey; be now and evermore thy defence; and make thee know and feel, that there is no other Name under heaven given to man, in whom, and through whom. thou mayest receive health and salvation, but only the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

In sickness and in pain it is truly good to know and feel the promises and presence of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Finally, we note that the Burial of the Dead is based wholly on the doctrine of the love of God in Jesus Christ which pardons sin and gives the gift of eternal life to all who receive the Gospel.  The first words are the wonderful promise of Jesus Christ: "I am the resurrection and the life..."  God’s comfort is communicated to those who mourn through familiar Psalms and through the reading of 1 Corinthians 15, the classic New Testament passage on the resurrection of the dead and the glorious life with Christ in the age to come. In an optional Collect the continuing knowing of God both by the departed and the living is recognized until the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus, the general resurrection of the dead and the blessed life of the age to come.

O Almighty God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, who by thy voice from heaven didst proclaim, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord; Multiply, we beseech thee, to those who rest in Jesus, the manifold blessings of thy love, that the good work which thou didst begin in them may be perfected unto the day of Jesus Christ.  And of thy mercy, O heavenly Father, vouchsafe that we, who now serve thee on earth, may at last, together with them, be found meet partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; for the sake of the same thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Both the dead and the living await the resurrection of the dead and what has been termed the beatific vision, the beholding of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, Incarnate God.

Finally, with many others I always feel deeply moved when I join in the familiar but profound prayer called "A General Thanksgiving:"

Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we thine unworthy servants do give thee most humble and heart thanks for all thy goodness and loving-kindness to us, and to all men. We bless thee for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all, for thine inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.  And, we beseech thee, give us that due sense of all thy mercies, that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful; and that we show forth thy praise not only with our lips but in our lives, by giving up ourselves to thy service, and by walking before thee in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost, be all honour and glory, world without end.  Amen.

Where this prayer is truly the prayer of the mind-in-the-heart of God’s covenant people, it may be said of them that they know the Lord.  May we all join with St Paul in concluding: "I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord" (Phil.3:8).  Thanks be to God the Father whom we know in the Son and by the Holy Spirit both in Liturgy and in our daily vocations.  Amen.

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