All can agree that the question of authority is at the center of much of the conflict and tension in the Church today.  People ask: "Where is authority to be located?"  If the answer is "in God and by His revelation," then, in these days of pluralism, there is the further question, "Which or what God?"  Moreover, in these days of relativism, there is the added question, "Where and how is God’s revelation known or felt?"  Our particular concern is to ascertain where authority for Christian faith, morals, and worship is located according to the teaching of the new Prayer Books of the Anglican Way.

In the next chapter we shall seek to answer from the 1979 BCP and 1985 BAS the specific question, "Who is the Lord God?"  Here, taking for granted the existence of the living God, we assume the position of worshippers and ask, "Where and what is authority in the Christian religion?"  That is, "On what or upon whom does the Christian faith stand or rest?"  In terms of our modern ships we ask by what authority they voyage on the oceans of life and who or what gives them their certification to carry passengers.  However, in order to set this question in context, we shall need to look first at the old and tested Common Prayer Tradition.  But before doing this, we may find it appropriate to consider briefly what is meant by the word "authority."

Authority is not the same as power, even though an authority will normally have power.  Authority points to the right to command or to give or make

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the ultimate decision.  Thus the President of the USA has authority to send the US army into battle, for he is the Commander-in-Chief.  He exercises his authority through others who, having received his orders, then command those over whom they have authority.

So in Christianity authority relates to and resides in the One (God) who has the right to command what all people, and specifically believers, are to be and to do.  Further, it relates to and resides in the persons and/or means which God uses in the exercise of His unique authority.

Perhaps we need to begin by looking at the first Books of Common Prayer in England – the editions of 1549, 1552, 1559, and 1662.  Alongside the BCP there existed the Ordinal, the Book of Homilies, and the Thirty-Nine Articles.  Any question concerning authority has to be settled by an examination of all four.

The most obvious characteristic of traditional Anglican worship is the centrality of Bible reading.  In the daily services there are the readings from the Old and New Testaments, both in the morning and in the evening.  Further, there is the prayerful recital of the Psalms at each service.  In the service of the Holy Communion there is the recital of the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20) and a reading from an Epistle and a Gospel.  Readings from Holy Scripture have a primary place in the occasional offices – e.g., Baptism, the Burial of the Dead and Holy Matrimony.  Obviously, the Bible is read because it is assumed to be a unique collection of books in which are not only the record of what God has said and

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done but also words (messages) to worshippers from God Himself for today.

Such an approach is commended and communicated by Collects.  For example, Advent 2 for 1662:

Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning, Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them, that by patience, and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

And for St. John the Evangelist’s Day:

Merciful Lord, we beseech thee to cast thy bright beams of light upon thy Church, that it being enlightened by the doctrine of thy blessed Apostle and Evangelist Saint John may so walk in the light of thy truth, that it may at length attain to the light of everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

The first refers to the whole Bible and the second to the Gospel and Epistles of John.  They presume that the Bible is both the written Word of God today and the only place where there is now, today, an authoritative word concerning God’s salvation and the gift of everlasting life.

If we turn to the Ordinal (1662), we find that these questions are asked in the ordering of priests:

Are you persuaded that the holy Scriptures contain sufficiently all Doctrine required of necessity for eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ?  and are you determined, out of the said Scriptures to instruct the people committed to your charge, and to teach nothing, as required of necessity to eternal salvation, but that which you shall be persuaded may be concluded and proved by the Scripture?

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Will you be ready, with all faithful diligence, to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to God’s word...?

Will you be diligent in Prayers and in reading of the holy Scriptures...?

Will you be diligent to frame and fashion your own selves, and your families, according to the Doctrine of Christ [found in holy Scripture]...?

Similar questions are also asked in the consecration of bishops.

Article XX makes clear that the Church is only to teach what is found within or is in conformity to the Bible:

The Church hath power to decree Rites [= liturgies] or Ceremonies, and authority in Controversies of Faith: and yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God’s Word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture that it be repugnant to another. Wherefore, although the Church be a witness and a keeper of holy Writ, yet, as it ought not to decree any thing against the same, so besides the same ought it not to enforce any thing to be believed for necessity of Salvation.

This message is reinforced, often eloquently, as a sermon such as "A faithful Exhortation to the Reading and Knowledge of Holy Scripture" in the Book of Homilies.

Obviously, the Bible was understood to be authoritative in specific ways (e.g. for declaring what salvation is) for the Church in all places and at all times because God had caused it to be written (via human agents) and because (by the Holy Spirit) He still speaks in and through it.  Thus the authority is God Himself – but God in association with, by, and through His written Word.  The Word is so

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important because it was inspired by the Holy Spirit; and the same Holy Spirit is present to make it again His Word, even the Word which points to the living Word of God (John 1), who is the only begotten Son of the Father.  Therefore, we may say that the Father speaks concerning His Son (the Word) by His Holy Spirit through the content of sacred Scripture to the Church.

Alongside the authority of Scripture for faith and morals is the related yet subservient authority of bishops as chief pastors of the flock.  The bishops represent personally and directly the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ in His Church even as the apostles did in the early Church.  However, they are to be conformed and faithful to the teaching of Scripture (i.e., God’s authority mediated via Scripture = the apostolic faith) in their ministries of diligently preaching the Word of God and duly administering the godly discipline thereof.  In turn, bishops, acting on behalf of the Lord Jesus, personally give authority at ordination to priests to preach and teach God’s Word and to administer the holy sacraments.

Perhaps the mind of the English reformers concerning bishops is best captured in Canon 10 of the Reformatio Legum Ecciesiasticarum of 1553 concerning the position and dignity of bishops in the Church.

Bishops, because they hold the principal place.. . shall govern and have pastoral care for the lower orders of clergy and all God’s people, with sound doctrine, weight of authority, and especially prudent counsel.  They shall not, indeed, play the master over them, but show themselves to be truly the servants, of the servants, of God.  Let them be aware that their ecclesiastical authority. . . is entrusted to them for no other reason than that by

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their ministry and diligence very many men may be united to Christ.  Likewise those who are already Christ’s may thus thrive and come to maturity in the Faith.

This is Cranmer and his friends at their best, showing pastoral concern with doctrinal clarity.

According to the Articles, councils of bishops also have authority to declare the Faith (in Creeds), to make liturgies, to fix and administer discipline (canons), and to decree ceremonies for worship. However, such councils "may err and sometimes have erred." What they ordain as necessary to salvation must be taken out of holy Scripture (Article XXI).  This latter point is made explicit by the commentary of the Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum on Article XXI:

Though we gladly give great honor to the Councils, especially those that are General, we judge that they ought to be placed far below the dignity of the canonical Scriptures: and we make a great distinction between the Councils themselves.  For some of them, especially those four, the Council of Nicea, the first Council of Constantinople, and the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, we embrace and receive with great reverence. And we bear the same judgment about many others held afterwards, in which we see and confess that the most holy Fathers gave many weighty and holy decisions, according to the Divine Scriptures, about the blessed and supreme Trinity, about Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, and the redemption of man obtained through Him.  But we think that our faith ought not to be bound by them, except so far as they can be confirmed by Holy Scripture.  For it is manifest that some Councils have sometimes erred, and defined contrary to one another, partly on actions of law,

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partly even of faith. (see E.C.S.Gibson, The Thirty-Nine Articles, p.531)

The classical Anglican divines certainly accepted the first four general councils and, since the fifth and the sixth (Constantinople, II and III) may be said to have merely explicated and clarified the doctrine of the third and fourth, they also received these.  However, there has been uncertainty in the Anglican Communion over the seventh ecumenical council that was held at Nicea in 787 and concerned with the right use of ikons.  [I share the view of C.B.Moss, The Church of England and the Seventh Council, 1957, that, when rightly understood, there is every good reason for the Anglican Communion of Churches to state its acceptance of this Council with its careful distinction between what is to be offered to God as worship [latreia], and the reverence [proskunesis] permitted to icons of our Lord, His Mother and the angels.]

The Creeds – the Apostles’, the Nicene [and for most parts of the Anglican Communion, the Athanasian] – have always had a special authority for the Anglican Way in that they have been seen as summaries of the essential message of the Scriptures, as that which forms the doctrinal structure of the Christian mind and the means or the lens in and by which the Scripture is to be heard and read.  So the Apostles’ Creed is used in Holy Baptism and in the Catechism while the Nicene Creed is used in the Eucharist.  The place of the Creed in the Administration of the Lord’s Supper is significant. It is said after the reading of the Gospel and before the preaching of the sermon with the intention that the Scriptures will be received and expounded not according to individual fancy and judgment but with that doctrinal norm and mindset which God in His providence gave to the early Church.  This placing of

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the Creed after the Gospel is to be traced back to Charlemagne and Alcuin and so is a very old tradition in the West.

Therefore, the only final authority in the Church is God Himself, or, more specifically, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, Jesus Christ, who is God incarnate.  As the resurrected Lord Jesus, He said, "All authority/power is given unto me in heaven and on earth" (Matt. 28:19), for He is the Lord of lords and the King of kings and the Head of the Church.  His divine authority is exercised in and via the Scriptures, through the Creeds and in and through the bishops of the Church.  Therefore, there is a delegated authority given to priests ordained by bishops (and thus ordained by Christ through his servants) as well as in Creeds promulgated by bishops (accepting the authority of Scripture).

Since Christianity declares that believers are called into a right relationship with the Father in the Son and by the Holy Spirit, the authority of God is always personal, even when it is exercised through the written Word.  It is God who speaks via the text of Scripture whether it be directly through the Holy Spirit to the human spirit in personal Bible reading or in the personal words of the preacher as God’s ambassador addressing people with the Word of God in the sermon within divine worship.

Although classical Anglicanism has been hesitant to use such terms as "infallibility" and "inerrancy" of the Holy Scriptures (because of fear of being associated with "extreme" Protestantism!), it seems to me that these words do capture what is believed concerning the Bible.  What these terms convey is that the teaching and affirmations of the sacred text concerning God and His relation to His world are wholly true and wholly trustworthy.  So

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when the text is being interpreted, no part of it may be disregarded or struck out, and no part of it may be relativized by claiming that it is merely the human opinion of the writer.

In fact, these terms point to what we may call the divine character of Holy Scripture.  They do not deny what may be called the human character, for Christians have traditionally held to dual authorship.  Certainly, the Bible is the work of the men who wrote it, but at the same time by the invisible superintendence of the Holy Spirit it is also the work of God.  This is surely what is conveyed by the statement of Paul, "All Scripture is inspired by God [= God-breathed]" (2 Tim 3:16).  As men wrote their words, the Holy Spirit (who is the Breath of God) breathed the Word (the Logos of John 1:1–18) into the text so that the result is God’s Word written.  So it is that the Church has historically taken all Scripture seriously as both coming from God and of being nothing less than divine instruction to the Church and to the world.  Further, it may be said that the Church has always had a dual role of being at one and the same time under the authority of the Holy Scriptures and of being "a witness and a keeper of Holy Writ" (Article xx).

Further, in recognizing the dual character of the Scriptures as being both human and divine, the Church has encouraged both serious biblical scholarship working with the original languages, and prayerful meditation upon the text by the faithful as well as prayerful preaching from the text by the clergy, using the best modern translations.  Scholarship, recognizing both the human and divine character of the Bible, ought to go hand in hand with the doctrinal and practical use of the same Bible by the Church as the Word of God written.  For, where scholarship, seeing only the humanity of the text,

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goes in one direction and the pious faithful, seeing primarily the divinity of the text, go in another, then the Church has problems!

The impact of modern "scientific" study of the Bible within universities and then in Christian seminaries and colleges has been deeply felt within the Anglican Communion of Churches.  Many questions have been raised concerning the authority of Scripture within the Church.  For example, how can the Bible be seen as authoritative for the faith of modern people when it was written within the Church and reflects ancient societies which were patriarchal and pre-scientific in structure?  Similar questions have been asked about the authority of the Creeds, for they too may be said to reflect the intellectual and cultural context in which they were written.  And the pressure to include within Christian thinking insights gained from modern empirical study has been growing since the early nineteenth century.

Meeting in London in 1948 just after World War II, the bishops of the Anglican Communion faced the question of the meaning and unity of the Anglican Communion of Churches.  In particular, they asked: "Is Anglicanism based on a sufficiently coherent form of authority to form the nucleus of a world-wide fellowship of Churches, or does its comprehensiveness conceal internal divisions which may cause its disruption?"  To answer, they chose to take into account recent theological and historical study (for many bishops came out of academia) and apply it to the unique reality of an international union of independent Churches, all of whom trace their origins to the Church of England.

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They claimed that authority is dispersed rather than centralized, and they stated:

Authority, as inherited by the Anglican Communion from the undivided Church of the early centuries of the Christian era, is single in that it is derived from a single Divine source and reflects within itself the richness and historicity of the divine Revelation, the authority of the eternal Father, the incarnate Son, and the life-giving Spirit.  It is distributed among Scripture, Tradition, Creeds, the Ministry of the Word and Sacraments, the witness of saints and the consensus fidelium, which is the continuing experience of the Holy Spirit through His faithful people in the Church.  It is thus a dispersed rather than a centralized authority having many elements which combine, interact with, and check each other; these elements together contributing by a process of mutual support, mutual checking, and redressing of errors or exaggerations to the many-sided fullness of the authority which Christ has committed to His Church.  Where this authority of Christ is to be found mediated not in one mode but in several, we recognize in this multiplicity God’s loving provision against the temptations to tyranny and the dangers of unchecked power.

This represents not so much a rejection of the way authority was understood in the sixteenth century but a novel interpretation of that authority.  As they said:

This authority possesses a suppleness and elasticity in that the emphasis of one element over the others may and does change with the changing conditions of the Church.  The variety of the contributing factors gives to it a quality of richness which encourages and releases initiative, trains in fellowship, and evokes a free and willing obedience.

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Gone is the hierarchical order (God to Scripture and bishops; Scripture to Creeds, and Scripture to the preaching of the Word and administration of the Sacraments), and in its place is a flexible relationship of the elements in and through which the authority of God is experienced.  Thus it is not surprising that we are told, "authority of this kind is much harder to understand and obey than authority of a more imperious character.  This is true, and we glory in the appeal which it makes to faith."

Then the bishops addressed their own authority in terms of being fathers in God’s family:

God who is our ultimate personal authority demands of all His creatures entire and unconditional obedience.  As in human families the father is the mediator of this divine authority, so in the family of the Church is the bishop, the Father-in-God, wielding his authority by virtue of his divine commission and in synodical association with his clergy and laity, and exercising it in humble submission, as himself under authority.

What is new here is the "in synodical association with his clergy and laity" which reflects the growth of synodical government within the Anglican Communion.

Having spoken of two sides of the one coin of authority (the written and the personal) but without as yet saying how these two sides interacted, they returned to the first side.  And likening the elements in authority to the aspects of the discipline of the inductive, empirical, scientific method, they claimed that "Catholic Christianity presents us with an organic process of life and thought in which religious experience has been, and is, described, intellectually ordered, mediated, and verified."  (We may note that this reduction of the elements in authority to expe-

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rience is most interesting and surely reflects not only the influence of the Enlightenment but also of Romanticism as well.)

So this religious experience is "described in Scripture, which is authoritative because it is the unique and classical record of the revelation of God in His relation to and dealings with man."  Further, it is "defined in Creeds and in continuous theological study."  Then it is "mediated in the Ministry of the Word and Sacraments by persons who are called and commissioned by God through the Church to represent both the transcendent and immanent elements in Christ’s authority."  Finally, it is "verified in the witness of saints and in the consensus fidelium."

How do the two sides of the coin fit together?  We learn that:

This essentially Anglican authority is reflected in our adherence to episcopacy as the source and center of our order, and the Book of Common Prayer as the standard of our worship.  Liturgy, in the sense of the offering and ordering of the public worship of God, is the crucible in which these elements of authority are fused and unified in the fellowship and power of the Holy Spirit.  It is the Living and Ascended Christ present in the worshipping congregation who is the meaning and unity of the whole Church.  He presents it to the Father and sends it out on its mission.

I am not wholly sure what this means.  However, the basic stability of the Common Prayer Tradition is assumed, since the call for "liturgical reform" had not been made and the production of Books of Alternative Services had not begun.  So on the basis of the classical BCP the interaction of the various structuring elements of authority could be claimed with some expectation of clarity and harmony.  However, as we shall see, in the instability of the new genera-

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tion of prayer books the location of authority in the Holy Trinity and via these elements is not obvious and straightforward.

Before we turn to examine the teaching on authority in the new Prayer Books, it is perhaps necessary to comment on the exercise of authority in the last decade within the Anglican Communion of Churches.  This Communion is made up of twenty-three Provinces over which (contrary to popular opinion) the Archbishop of Canterbury has no authority whatsoever.  Each is autonomous and can vote to go its own way and none of the other provinces has any legal right to interfere.  Thus the brief of the recent Eames Commission, set up after the Lambeth Conference of Bishops in 1988, was principally to find a way of co-existence between provinces that do or do not ordain women as priests and bishops.  "Impaired communion" is the expression that is now used of that "co-existence," while "dispersed authority" points to the fact that there is no central governing body (for the Lambeth Conference held every ten years is only advisory) for worldwide Anglicanism.

Perhaps, however, the key expression since 1988 is "provincial autonomy," which points to the fact that each province (which often means a local, national Anglican Church) has exercised authority to have its own liturgy and canon law and to implement the mission of the universal Church according to local culture and circumstances.  So far, so good!  What has changed in the last decade is that provincial autonomy has been extended to include matters of doctrine and church order.  Up to recent times the very expression, "Anglican Communion", implied

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not only a common faith and order (as the Lambeth Quadrilateral indicates) but a commitment to consult when there were doctrinal differences and only to take major action when there was a common mind.  Yet recently there has been the confusion of a legal autonomy (which is certainly the case) with an autonomy in received doctrine and order (which is a new development).  So provinces have gone ahead with major changes in the doctrine and practice of the ordained ministry contrary to the teaching of the Lambeth Quadrilateral (as I indicated in chapter two).  Further, as we shall see, provinces have seen fit within their new Prayer Books to change or modify classical orthodoxy.

Sympathetic critics of Anglicanism charge that orthodoxy is most at risk at the level of ecclesiology. This vulnerability was made obvious at the Lambeth Conference of 1988 where the Archbishop of Canterbury championed the theme of "provincial interdependence" and the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States insisted on "provincial independence" in order to justify departures from catholic faith and order in the ECUSA.  "Provincialism" is now used to indicate the pendulum swing within Anglicanism towards the celebration of autonomy.  In contrast, the Lambeth Conference in 1920 stated in Resolution IX that "the spiritual leadership of the Catholic Church in days to come, for which the world is manifestly waiting, depends upon the readiness with which each group is prepared to make sacrifices for the sake of a common fellowship, a common ministry, and a common service to the world."

The Canadian Roman Catholic theologian, Jean Pillard, commenting on the Lambeth Conference of 1988, wrote:

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One of the problems underlying the whole Conference was that ... of the tension between the price to pay for unity on the one hand, and on the other, the ardent attachment to provincial [national] independence.  On this question the Anglican Communion is living through one of the deepest crises in its history.  In the past it had at least three cements, all considered essential.  These cements had preserved its cohesion in a way that seemed exemplary.  They were, in order of importance, the Book of Common Prayer...; the common episcopate ... and the moral authority (in a sort of honorary primacy) of the Archbishop of Canterbury, charged with the task of preserving the other bishops within one communion.  But now the unity of the Prayer Book has been broken, sometimes with a crisis deeper than that felt by certain Catholics over the affair of the so-called Missal of Paul VI. Moreover, the unity of the episcopate is now at stake...

Further, since the authority of the Archbishop has been eroded, the cement has cracked!  No longer can the bishops of the Communion meet in cor unum et anima una (one heart and mind).  ("The ecumenical lesson of Lambeth, 1988" in Irenikon, LXI, 1988, No 4.)

From the impact of the Conference in 1988 we return to that of 1948 and its impact on modern prayer books.  It seems to me that underlying the 1979 BCP is a view of authority much like that offered by the bishops in 1948 from Lambeth but possibly with more "suppleness and elasticity."  However, in America much greater emphasis is given to a secular understanding of the consensus fidelium.

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That is, the secular doctrine of equality is adopted, and with it the principle of inclusive language within parts of the book is utilized.  This general "elasticity" and relativism will be seen as we proceed.

First of all, there is an acceptance of the authority of Scripture, most obviously in the ordination oath: "I solemnly declare that I do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God and to contain all things necessary to salvation" (pp. 513, 526 & 538).  However, in the Catechism (p. 853), where one would expect the authority of Scripture to be taught, it is not. In answer to the question, "Why do we call the Holy Scriptures the Word of God?" the answer is given, "because God inspired their human authors and because God still speaks to us through the Bible."  We all know that inspiration is an imprecise word and that, standing alone, really tells us nothing very clear about whether or not the Bible is authoritative for faith and morals.

Further, the authority of Scripture as the Word of God is limited in two more ways.  Because of the selective Lectionary provided at the back of the book (pp. 888ff.), the people are not allowed to hear those parts of the Bible which the experts deem to be out of date or inappropriate or wrong.  Thus the Word of God is edited rather than being free. And, by the use of inclusive language in the Psalter (pp. 584ff.) and in the Canticles (pp. 82ff.), the revisers force the modern ideology of anti-sexism and inclusivism into the translation, making them at best only paraphrases of the original.  Thus the Word of God is partially hidden behind an ideology.  (I realize that there was a certain muffling of the Scriptures in the 1928 and 1962 BCPs, and this I cannot defend.)

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When we turn to the Creeds, we find that their traditional authority as summaries of the doctrinal content of Scripture is also restricted.  I say this because we are given two different translations of both the Apostles’ and the Nicene Creeds in Rite I and Rite II (pp. 53, 66, 96, 120, 326–7, & 358).  Now, if we have two texts whose obvious differences cannot merely be explained in terms of old and modern English renderings, but must also be accounted for in terms of different concepts, then we are into relativism.  Thereby, any inherent authority which the original Creed has is (to say the least) eroded, for people ask, "Which is the correct translation?" or more poignantly, "Which one is the Creed?"

Further the place of the Creed in the Eucharist is changed.  It is placed after the sermon, not between the reading of the Gospel and the preaching of the sermon as in the Common Prayer Tradition.  It loses thereby its pivotal position as providing the doctrinal and ecclesial context in which the Gospel is read and preached.  This may seem a little matter, but it reflects a general move to find the lex credendi in the lex orandi of the Eucharistic Prayer rather than in the received Creed.  In traditional terms the Creed is intended to proclaim the Faith which we participate in sacramentally through the Eucharist.

Let us move on to the theme of the Ministry of the Word and Sacraments and to the ordination of a priest (p. 531).  We find that in the bishop’s address in the new ordination services little emphasis is placed upon the relation of the priest to the sacred Scriptures.  Further, the vocation is presented in primarily functional terms. In contrast, in the traditional Ordinal the charge is saturated with biblical images, concepts, and duties, and priests in their vocation are set in a definite relationship with the

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Lord as his "messengers, watchmen and stewards."  The priest is to consider "how studious you ought to be in reading and learning the Scriptures."  The contrast in the use of Scripture in the two Ordinals is very clear.

On the surface (as J. Robert Wright has claimed in "The Official Position of the Episcopal Church on the Authority of Scripture" in the Anglican Theological Review, Vol. LXXIV, No.3., pp. 348ff) it would appear that the view of authority in the 1979 BCP is not essentially different from that of the 1928 BCP.  Yet, if we take seriously what the adoption of inclusive language in the Psalter and Canticles of Rite 2 means, then we see that modern experience has been given priority over honest translation.  The adoption of inclusive language was in effect saying, "The authority of modernity is to be preferred to the authority of the actual historical and plain meaning of the text of holy Scripture."

When we turn to the Canadian BAS we also meet a diminished or changed doctrine of Scripture.  Its preface tells us that modern biblical criticism "has fostered a rich, subtle, and theological understanding of the holy scriptures [notice the lack of capital letters] as the repository of the Church’s symbols of life and faith."  What is surely meant is one type of biblical criticism, since there remain many biblical scholars who believe that in Scripture there is what may be called propositional truth – true and accurate statements about God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and so on.

The view of Scripture as containing symbols of life and faith, the trend towards inclusive language, and the authority of modern, secular experience are clearly seen in the claims made within the prefaces, introductions, and contents of both PBS 30 in the

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ECUSA and in the 1985 BAS in the Anglican Church of Canada.  Further, we need to remember that such theological moves are in line with what is happening in the study of theology within the universities and seminaries.  There, as we have already noted in chapter two, theology is often just empirical theology or merely begins from claimed human experience of God in the modern world. We would have to go out of our way to search for and list official pronouncements (from synods, conventions, bishops and presiding bishops) of both the Episcopal Church and Canadian Anglican Church which utilize the authority of modern experience over and above the authority of Scripture, Creeds, and traditional Christian morality (e.g., sexual morality); but, such certainly exist.

Like the American Book, the BAS places the Creed after the sermon in the Eucharist, but unlike the American Book it also provides both a version of the Nicene Creed without the filioque (in the modern Rites) and a version with it (in the traditional Rite).  If anything declares that doctrine does not really matter, it is surely this.  There is here a major question of truth – does the Anglican Church in Canada accept the western version of the Creed or does it accept the version used in the Orthodox Churches?  Over this issue Christendom divided in the Middle Ages.  The Church in Canada ought to decide to which doctrine it adheres!

Further, the BAS leaves out completely the Athanasian Creed (which is part of the Canadian credal tradition and is in the BCP of 1962), and also, as we have noted elsewhere, it includes, amazingly, as an alternative to the Apostles Creed the Jewish Shema (Deut.6:4–5).  How can an Old Testament statement, marvelous as it is, be a Christian Confession of Faith if it stands alone?

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The Lectionary of the BAS is not identical with that of the 1979 Book but is based on similar foundations.  It is related to the Roman Catholic Ordo Lectionum Missae of 1969.  From the Daily Office lectionary the following passages are omitted from the New Testament: Mark 11:26; Romans 1:26–27; 1 Corinthians 6:9–11; 11:3–16; 14:33–36; Philippians 4:21–23; Colossians 4:7–18; 1 Timothy 2:9–15; 5:1–16; 1 Peter 3:1–12.  A brief perusal of them will tell the reader very quickly why they are omitted!

Further, the dominance of modern biblical criticism appears most clearly and most questionably in the acceptance of the existence of "Q" (Quelle) – a pre-Gospel narrative source which predates and is used in the three "Synoptic" Gospels.  This hypothesis is by no means universally held by modern scholars.  However it affects the way that the Gospels are used in the eucharistic lectionary (e.g. Year A, Matthew; Year B, Mark; and Year C, Luke) and particularly how the reading of Mark is interrupted with insertions from the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel from the seventeenth to the twenty-second Sundays in "Ordinary Time." In contrast, the BCP use of the Gospels may be put very simply – the first half of the year from Advent to Whitsunday follows the substantial or doctrinal moments of Christ’s life and mission and we learn what He has done for us; the second half from Trinity to Advent applies Christ’s saving work to us.  In the one we travel through a greater part of the Creed, and in the other the Creed passes into and through us so that doctrine and holiness travel together.

There is one further and important point that I need to make about both the American and Cana-

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dian books.  They appear to share in the assumption and ethos of modernity that newer is better.  Thus the new has greater authority than the old!  We are all familiar with the theme found in virtually all popular (and much serious) writing, conversation, and media presentations that new = good and that change = improvement.  For example, those of us who work in education are aware that it is generally accepted that the more recent ways of knowing the truth are self-evidently superior to all alternatives.  Yet to state that the liturgists who claim to be recovering authentic Christian rites share the philosophy that newer is better might appear to my reader to be an odd or false assertion.  I understand and appreciate such a reaction. Let me say in response that my argument is that their aim was to introduce new rites containing new theology – and this is what they did.  However, and this is important, to justify this project they had to appeal to something in the past, simply because Christianity is a historical religion and the Church has continuity through space and time.

So to what period could they appeal?  Influenced by Gregory Dix, they made it very clear that they rejected the central liturgical insights and contribution of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, for they assumed that he was too pre-occupied with sin and penitence (themes which do not fit into, and are not acceptably within, modernity!).  Thus they had to be committed to some other model for liturgy than that contained in the Common Prayer Tradition.  What about the later and developed patristic liturgies of the East and West of which we have much detail?  They could not follow these, in part because they contained the fruit of the development of dogma as set forth in the ecumenical councils, and some liturgists shared the view that the dogma of the councils

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is the result of the Hellenization of the Christian message and is therefore not original, authentic Christian doctrine.  But what about the New Testament?  It does not seem to have occurred to them to go back to the record of the original newness of Christianity, Scripture itself, and, working within and from the authority of Scripture, to produce Eucharistic Prayers on the basis of scriptural prayers (e.g., from the Lord’s Prayer).

Thus, led primarily by the liturgists of post-Vatican II Roman Catholicism, they looked to the pre-Nicene period – that is, from the close of the apostolic age to the first ecumenical council, the Council of Nicea (325), which was called by Constantine the Great.  Here, by selective looking, they found sufficient information about structures and basic content of liturgy that they were able to take it and fashion it so that, in their hands, it became as new material when they injected into it their modern doctrine.  And so they fulfilled the claim of modernity that newer is better and also satisfied the generally felt need among the faithful to have a liturgy with historical roots.  The authoritative center of their newer is better "program" is their reconstructed unitary festival of the Pascha, which lasts for fifty days. With this goes their new design of the Eucharist by which all their work was guided, including their reworking of the Eucharist which they took from the Common Prayer Tradition. In fact, the doctrine that newer is better is well illustrated by the way in which they restructured both the American 1928 and the Canadian 1962 rites according to their new design when they placed them in the 1979 and 1985 books.  Thousands of the faithful would have been much happier to have seen the Common Prayer Tradition left unmolested in its little corner in the new books!

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To adopt this unitary festival as the center requires changes in the church year (e.g. the season of Pentecost replaces the season of Trinity), and at the same time allows for modern doctrines of the identity of Christ to enter in the guise of "the Easter Jesus," the "Christus Victor," and the "Jesus of the fifty days" (see further Chapters five and eight).  Further, it opens the door to at least three changes in Anglican identity and practice – first, the elimination of the long-standing and valuable Anglican practice of the public confession of sins followed by absolution; secondly, the insistence that to stand for the Eucharist is better than to kneel (see Chapter six and Appendix 2 below for details); and, thirdly, it effectively removes the sacrament of confirmation by insisting that "initiation is complete in baptism" (see Chapter eight below).  And, finally, by its general impact, it minimizes the doctrine of grace and removes the influence of the doctrine of justification by faith from the liturgy.

What is implicit in the 1979 book is made very clear in the 1985 book.  In the Preface explaining Holy Week, the BAS explains:

In the earliest days of the Church, Easter was the only Christian festival: an annual celebration, in one act, of Christ’s life, death, resurrection, ascension, and His sending of the Holy Spirit.  The celebration lasted fifty days in one continuous festival of adoration, joy and thanksgiving, ending on the Feast of Pentecost.  [However] by the fourth century, the Church was adding to its celebration of Easter a week-long commemoration of the events which preceded our Lord’s resurrection, beginning on Sunday with His triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  [On Thursday] Christians would recall the final meal Jesus had with His disciples and His institution of

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the sacrament of the Eucharist.  On Friday they would commemorate Christ’s agony and death of the cross.  On Saturday night they would gather for the reading of the Scripture, for prayers, for the baptism of new converts, and then, as the day of the resurrection dawned, for the joyful celebration of Easter.

In this mood, it is not surprising to find that the rite for Easter Eve has no confession of sin and that the full confession of sins is never required in the celebration of the Eucharist in the new rites.

So, in ways which are mostly hidden from the observation of priests and laity, authority is effectively taken away from Scripture and the Councils and placed in this new construct of the unitary festival with its supposed doctrinal and practical corollaries.  Thus, while the claim is made that an early church program is being revived, the truth of the matter is that historic Christianity is being eroded, for it is a program in which newer is better is being implemented in an indirect way.

I believe that my reader will be able to note that the modified doctrines of God, Christ, Church, man, sin, salvation and sacraments, which we shall study in the next five chapters, could only enter the two Books because already there was a diminished view of the authority of Holy Scripture in the minds of the liturgists who wrote them believing that newer is better.  Let us be very clear: the Anglican Way loses its distinctive character if and when it reduces or denies the authority of the whole of Holy Scripture over the total life of the Church, the family, and the individual Christian believer.  A newer-is-better program which is designed to reduce that authority for modernity (or post-modernity) will not have the Holy Bible standing in judgment upon it.

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For some people the question is not "Who" but "What is God?"  Only if God is known or desired as the One who is in personal relations with us do we ask "Who is God?"  However, if God is seen as the Creator who like a clockmaker made the universe and then left it totally alone to function according to its own inbuilt laws (i.e., Deism), then "What is this God?" seems a more appropriate question, for we cannot have personal relations with Him or He with us.  Further, if God is specifically understood as only the "Mind" or the "Spirit" of the universe (i.e., idealism), then again the identity of such a God is very much a "What" question.  Finally, if God’s being is identified with the universe (i.e., pantheism), then we certainly have a "What" question and not a "Who" question to answer.

In the Anglican Church, as in other liberal denominations, there has been a definite move in the last twenty years or so away from the question "Who" to the question "What is God?"  This reflects both the changing concept or view of God held by some of those who are in teaching and leadership positions and a general lack of dynamic faith in the Lord Jesus amongst laity.  There has been a memory loss of the concept of God as the uncreated, superessential, transcendent Being who chose to create the world as other than Himself and then, having made it, entered into fellowship with man.  Further, there has been a move away from the doctrine, long held within the Church, that God is the end, the telos, of all human aspiration and the goal to which

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all creation is drawn.  That is, He is the author and governor of all things and in relation to man He is sovereign Lord: so the chief end of man is therefore to enjoy and glorify God forever.

In the place of this classical Christian trinitarian theism, concepts of God as a limited God or as transcendent Being (i.e., not a Being or the Being) have been adopted (e.g., through embracing pantheism, panentheism [the world is in God, enclosed in His Being], and process theology [both God and the cosmos are in evolution, becoming what they will be]).  In these alternatives "God" is only as eternal as is matter itself.  Further, while biblical trinitarian theism tells of the God who is truly personal, these substitute forms of theism cannot focus upon on personal relations between God and His creatures, for the relation which they describe is hardly a genuinely personal one between the deity and human beings.  So it is not surprising that, influenced by these doctrines, there is a new emphasis in the new liturgies on the horizontal/immanental and the finding of God within the "community" and its liturgical embrace in "the Peace."  In fact, the constant use of the word liturgy (work of the people) and the sparing use of the word worship also convey the same emphasis upon the primacy of the horizontal/immanent over the vertical/transcendent.

Writing in 1960 before both the liturgical and the feminist movements got into full sway, the wellknown biblical scholar, G. Ernest Wright, spoke of "our modern skepticism and fuzziness about God" and a loss of faith in "the Definite He, the Lord and directing Sovereign of history."  And he continued:

The God of our churches has become more of an inner personal God, working within the inner resources of our souls or spirits.  When we say

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anything about His being, we are inclined to use the categories of breath and wind which can be felt, but have no definite form or substance.  God as the Definite Lord is set aside or merged with the Spirit, so that we believe that we have said all that is necessary when we intone, ‘God is a Spirit.’  (The Rule of God, 1960, p. 11.)

Later in the chapter he expressed admiration for the existentialist theology of Paul Tillich, but concluded that it was not the dynamic equivalent of, and thus could not substitute for, the biblical theology of the sovereign Lord God.

The changing question concerning the identity of God also reflects the move towards the use of inclusive language for God.  We shall address this modern issue in chapter seven where we shall observe that the refusal to use biblical and traditional images and names for God has the effect of de-personalizing God and making God into the "It" with which we have to deal.  (We all understand that we can have a personal relation with a father, with his son, and with a king; but to have a relation with One for which there are only neutral images and names is less easy to conceive!)

It is clear that the doctrine of God presupposed in the liturgy of Prayer Book Studies 30 (1989) is that of panentheism (the world is in God who/which does not and cannot exist apart from the world, so that the Being of God is inseparable from the being of the cosmos), and it is not an accident that this liturgy represents a definite move towards the adoption of inclusive language for God by the Episcopal Church – a process begun, as we have noted, in the 1979 book.  Other liturgies produced within univer-

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sities, seminaries and dioceses show the same trends.  Feminist liturgies in particular appear all to be based on either panentheism or pantheism and to make use of process theology.  This move away from trinitarian theism is certainly the direction in which a significant and articulate minority is seeking to take the liberal denominations as we approach the year 2001.  The hope seems to be that the next century will witness the Churches freed from ancient views of God as male/masculine, personal, transcendent, and super-essential.  My comment is that the Churches will then have ceased to be Christian in any meaningful sense of that word.  Certainly they will be religious, but that is not the same thing as to be authentically Christian in faith and practice.

It is also clear that the 1979 and 1985 prayer books exhibit the preliminary stages of the more obvious and daring shift within PBS.30.  The way in which they loosen the Church’s commitment to classical trinitarianism is through the use of the principle of relativism.  That is, they do not set aside the traditional, received doctrine, but they place alongside it variations which look and sound like it.  The intention appears to be that in the constant use of the books the mind is conditioned to assume that there is no fixed dogma of the Holy Trinity and that the Church commends different but related answers to the question, "Who is God?"  From here (as the last decade has clearly shown) it is easy to move into the possibility of asking "What is God?" rather than "Who is God?"

Very few churchgoers, and likewise very few clergy, are consciously Trinitarian in their Christian thinking.  Thus most churchpeople, when shown various trinitarian formulations, will think it ridiculous – even sophomoric – to make distinctions be-

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tween apparently similar statements concerning God as Trinity.  As a Triunity or Triad, they will say, God is surely a Mystery, and no human words can adequately capture the Mystery – so why not allow a cluster of possible formulations, and why get bothered about differences between them?  In reply I would say that because the one God has chosen to reveal both His Unity and Trinity to us, we have an obligation to state what He has revealed in the clearest way available to us.  This is what the Church has sought to do in the past in Creeds and Confessions of Faith.  Further, the way we think about the world and about human relations ought to be dependent upon how we think of God, our Creator, and the relations of the Three Persons to each other in the One Godhead.

Therefore, it should not surprise us that the use of one word (e.g., "the") and the relation of specific words to each other in a statement will be the difference between what the Church has taken to be truth and what she has determined to be error.  For example, the Church has made it clear that the following statements are wrong:

1. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: three Gods.

They are wrong because God is a Trinity of Persons: thus He is One in Three and Three in One.  He really is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and He really is One God.  The three common nouns are names of the three actual Persons of the one Godhead.

Where capitalized and used in ordinary discourse, "God", meaning the supreme deity, usually stands without the definite article. So we say that

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God made the world. Here, we follow St. Paul and mean by "God" the Father of the Son.  However, when the word "God" is used of the deity of a particular people or religion then we say "the God of the Jews" or "the God of Islam."  When we address God in prayer, using the vocative case, we say "O God..." and do not use the definite article.  However, when we speak of the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity, the definite article is normally used with each One in order to denote the unique existence of each Person within the one Godhead.  So we do not speak of "Father" as if He were a universal reality, or of "a Father" as if He were one of a kind, but of "the Father," the specific, unique Father who is the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.  He is supremely "the Father."  Likewise, we do not speak of "Son" or "a Son," but of "the Son," for He is the only and unique Son of the Father (begotten of the Father before all ages); and we do not speak of "Holy Spirit" or "a Holy Spirit" but of "the Holy Spirit," for He is the one and only Spirit of the Father and of the Son (who proceeds from the Father through the Son before all ages).

In the sections to follow I shall begin with the classical formulation of the Trinity.  This is based on scriptural testimony and is inherited from the Church of the patristic period, the time of both St. Basil the Great and St. Augustine of Hippo.  Secondly, I shall briefly note a modification of it, and finally, in more detail, I shall examine a novel trinitarian statement which I take to be erroneous.

Classical Trinitarianism

Orthodox Trinitarianism claims to be scriptural in the sense that it is a rational statement of the identity of the God of Israel and the God of Jesus

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Christ.  It is a theological account of that which is assumed and stated concerning the LORD our God in various ways in the New Testament – in particular by Paul, John, and the Letter to the Hebrews.  This teaching holds together two confessions as one confession – the consistent Old Testament confession that there is one and one only God, the LORD; and the clear witness of the New Testament that the Father is God, the (His) Son is God, and the (His) Holy Spirit is God.  Thus there is Unity in Trinity and Trinity in Unity.

In the New Testament the Holy Trinity is a divine, transcendent communion (or society) of three fully personal and wholly divine entities, whom we are taught to name the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  These THREE are unified in what each wholly possesses – the generic divine essence and the attributes or properties of everlastingness, glory, love, wisdom, and knowledge.  Further, the THREE are unified and united in their activity in creation, revelation, redemption and sanctification.  Also the THREE have a relation with each other before they have a relation with that which they create; the Father loves the Son in and by the Spirit, and the Son loves the Father in and by the Spirit before and after there is space and time.  So, for the New Testament, the Lord God as Trinity is an amazing, super-transcendent society and communion of divine light, love, holiness, righteousness, and mutuality.

Further, while each of the THREE is distinct from the others, at the same time He is not an individual and He is not a separate and independent person.  In the divine essence there is no isolation, no insulation, and no secretiveness, for each of the Three is transparent to the others.  The THREE are to a superlative degree members one of another.  The

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Son is of the Father and from the Father and is His "only" Son; and the Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and also the Spirit of the Son.  Yet God is One, but One in whom is this (beyond our comprehension) Trinity and Triunity.

The clearest statements of orthodoxy are found in the Nicene Creed of A.D. 325 (more precisely the Nicene-Constantinople Creed of A.D. 381) and in the Athanasian Creed (= the Quicunque Vult) from the fifth century.  The former is recited in the Service of Holy Communion, and the latter is required by parts of the Common Prayer Tradition (e.g., BCP 1662 & 1962) to be recited on Trinity Sunday and these feasts: Christmas Day, the Epiphany, St. Matthias, Ascension Day, Whitsunday, St. John the Baptist, St. James, St. Bartholomew, St. Matthew, St. Simon and St. Jude, and St. Andrew at Morning Prayer instead of the Apostles’ Creed.  The text is printed as an historical document at the back of the 1979 book, but is not found in the 1928 BCP (or, regrettably in earlier American books); further, it is not printed either in the 1985 BAS or the English ASB of 1980.

Let us begin with the Nicene Creed, which was originally composed by the bishops of the early Church to state the orthodox Christian teaching concerning the identity of the Lord Jesus over against the heresy of Arianism.  First of all, we may note its threefold arrangement – a paragraph to each of the Three Persons beginning with the Father who is the Almighty God and from whom we are to begin our thinking concerning the Holy Triad.  For the uncreated Father begets the Son before all ages, so that the Son is the Son of the Father in the permanency of the one Godhead: further, the same and only Father spirates or breathes forth the Holy Spirit through the Son before all ages so that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son.

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So there is a hierarchy within God, but it is a hierarchy of order among Persons who are equal.  Thus we are to speak of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, for that is the revealed order given unto us by our Lord (who is, of course, the Son incarnate).

So in the Creed we confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is truly the Second Person incarnate who is begotten of the Father before all ages and who shares the very substance, that is, the very Godhead of the Father.  We also confess that the Holy Spirit is truly God and that He proceeds from the Father and the Son and is worshipped with the Father and with the Son.

Within the Unity of the Holy Trinity the Three Persons exist in perfect harmony; and therefore while the Father is confessed as the Creator, the Son is confessed as the One "by whom all things were made," and the Holy Spirit is confessed as "the Giver of life."  Thus the movement of God towards us is that of the Father through the Son and by the Holy Spirit, and our movement to God is in the Spirit and through the Son and to the Father.

In the Athanasian Creed we confess that "the Catholic Faith is this: that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance."

That is, the Father is God and the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God, but there is one Godhead.  Each Person is unique and different from the other two Persons, but all Three are co-equal in glory and majesty as God.  Thus "the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped."  Each Person is a Subsistent Relation and thus is known in relation to the other Two.  So we confess that:

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The Father is made of none: neither created nor begotten.  The Son is of the Father alone: not made, nor created but begotten.  The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son: neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.

Further, we state that "in this Trinity none is before or after other: none is greater or less than another; but the whole three Persons are co-eternal together and co-equal."

One purpose for the writing and use of the Athanasian Creed in the fifth century was to exclude the heresy of Sabellianism or modalism.  This is the doctrine which denies the reality and the permanence of the personal distinctions in the Trinity.  In other words, for modalism, the "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" are merely three names for the one Godhead in the successive phases of Its self-revelation through the Old into the New Testament.  In the Old, God is known as Father; in the time of Jesus, God is known as or through the Son; and after Pentecost God is known as Spirit.  Modalism was common in Spain and Gaul in the fifth and sixth centuries, and thus the use of the Athanasian Creed met it head-on with its insistence upon the reality, distinction, and permanence of the Three Persons in the One Godhead.

For most older worshippers the classic doctrine is best known and expressed in the traditional Gloria, which is not printed in the content of services in the 1979 book but is provided in the "Additional Directions" on page 141.  It is: "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.  Amen."  Here we have the clear recognition of each of the Three Persons to whom, as the one Godhead, glory is due before all ages, through

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all ages, and unto all ages – from everlasting to everlasting.  In the Daily Office the Gloria is said several times, both on its own and after Canticles and Psalms.  Its presence ensures that worship is truly and really Trinitarian.

Then also the classical doctrine is prayed in the traditional Collects, which often have a trinitarian structure.  These often begin by addressing "Almighty God" (the biblical and credal equivalent of "O Almighty Father"), continue by extolling Jesus Christ, and end with "through Him (the Son) who liveth and reigneth with Thee (the Father) and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever."  That wonderful prayer we call "The General Thanksgiving," which is addressed to "Almighty God, Father of all mercies," ends in this way: "through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee [the Father] and the Holy Spirit, be all honor and glory, world without end."

Happily, the form of words used in Holy Baptism truly follows the specific words given to us by our Lord in Matthew 28:19. "I baptize you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen." (p.299)  Further, the first Eucharistic Prayer in Rite 1 (based on that in BCP [1928]) is also clearly Trinitarian in structure and content.  It ends in this way: "By whom, and with whom [Jesus Christ], in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all honor and glory be unto thee, O Father Almighty, world without end."

Finally, it is good to remember that the Articles of Religion, approved by the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1801 (and much the same as the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England and the Anglican Church in Canada), begin with an article "Of Faith in the Holy Trinity," which reads:

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There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts or passions; of infinite power, wisdom and goodness; the Maker, and Preserver of all things both visible and invisible.  And in this unity of Godhead there be three Persons, of one substance, power, and eternity; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

This doctrine is then presumed in the second article on the Son of God and in the fifth article on the Holy Spirit.

Perhaps I need to make clear that person is the English translation of the Latin persona and the Greek prosopon and hypostasis meaning "face", "manifestation," and, for theological discourse, "subsistence"; in patristic theology person is not, as in modern philosophy, a separate and distinct individual.  Therefore, the tri-personality of God is not a numerical or essential trinity of three beings, for that would be tritheism; further, it is not a threefold aspect and mode of manifestation as in the Sabellian and modalist sense; rather, the person is a real, objective and ineffable distinction in the one Godhead, and thus God is a Trinity of Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  So we can speak of the ontological, immanent, and intrinsic Trinity (God as God is in Himself) and the extrinsic and economic Trinity (God as He is towards us in creation, redemption, and sanctification).  In contrast, for the modalism of both the patristic and modern periods there is but one and only one divine Person, God, who has three modes of activity and appearance (which modes, to complicate matters, can be called persons!).

(In the BAS classical triitarianism is found, for example, in the traditional Eucharist [pp. 230ff.],

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and in Collects which are modern English forms of the traditional Collects.)

What I am calling minimal trinitarianism exists alongside what I have called orthodox or classic trinitarianism.  Because of this association it is possible to interpret the minimal formulation generously and equate it intentionally with the classic doctrine.  In fact, for the untrained eye it is difficult to recognize the difference, unless one is willing to take seriously what was stated above – that in this doctrine every word and phrase counts.  Accuracy of statement is not merely desirable but required in order for the liturgy to do justice to God’s gracious self-revelation to us.

Examples of the minimal abound in Rite II but are not absent from Rite I in the 1979 book.  In both forms of Morning and Evening Prayer, the Gloria has been reduced to: "Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now and will be for ever.  Amen."  The final phrase of the traditional form is missing – "world without end" (= "unto the ages of ages").  The purpose of the "unto the ages of ages" is to affirm that the glory of the Triune God is not merely for all eternity (which is created by God and is where the angels are), but is before, above, through, and after eternity.  God is the uncreated Being, the Super-Essential Being upon Whom all eternity and all creation are dependent.  To leave out the "unto the ages of ages" allows doctrines of God which place God in eternity (only as eternal as is matter) rather than as the Creator of the eternal and the infinite.

The modern translation of the Nicene Creed (p.326) contains these words: "We believe in one

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Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father."  (In contrast, the old translation has: "I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds."  And a recent translation by Jesuit scholars has: ". .in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten from the Father before all the ages.")  The general force of the words in the 1979 book is to place God within eternity, not before and above eternity.  The old English "before all worlds" (= "before all ages") and the Jesuit "before all the ages" clearly convey the idea that the Holy Trinity is before all eternity, before all ages and before all worlds.

In all the Eucharistic Prayers of Rite II of the 1979 book the reduced trinitarianism is apparent, but truly to see it one has to read the whole set of prayers and compare the way they address God with the way of the Common Prayer Tradition and of Rite I, Prayer I.  For example, why does Prayer B (p.368, line 3) not address the First Person of the Holy Trinity as "O gracious/heavenly Father" or some similar address? Prayer C is hardly recognizable as trinitarian at all, and Prayer D, though it is claimed to be based on the early Eucharistic Prayer of St. Basil, has none of the clear and explicit trinitarianism of the great and wonderful text known as the Liturgy of St. Basil.  Of course, orthodox minds will read these texts as if they were orthodox, but this mental activity of re-symbolizing ought not to be necessary!

If we turn to the Collects in the official The Proper for the Lesser Feasts (1980), we find that a form of confused trinitarian thinking (related to God = Being) is found in the very Collects which celebrate the great Cappadocian theologians, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazian-

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zus, to whom we owe the actual clarification of the doctrine of the Trinity in the East in the late fourth century.  In fact, there is one Collect for all three, but the name is changed for each of their days.  It begins:

Almighty God, who hast revealed to thy Church thine eternal Being of glorious majesty and perfect love as one God in Trinity of Persons: Give us grace that, like thy bishop...

Amazingly, this Collect actually states the doctrine of the Trinity in a way which the three great theologians would not have accepted!  Further, it does not make sense.  It addresses "Almighty God" (which normally means "the Father") and then speaks of the eternal Being of God as threefold. Is the Father three, not one?  It seems that the "Almighty God" is here the One Godhead, but in prayer the Church always addressed one of the Persons, normally the Father.

The Cappadocian bishops began their thinking with the Person of the Father (the Monarchy of the Father), and then spoke of the Son as the only begotten Son of the Father, begotten before all ages, and of the Holy Spirit as proceeding from the Father through the Son.  The movement of their thought (as that of the New Testament) was from the Father, to the Son, to the Holy Spirit, one God.  They did not begin from thought of the Being of the One God and move from there to Three Persons within the one God.  Such a way of thinking is western rather than eastern.

One more Collect from the Proper for the Lesser Feasts needs to be quoted.  It is that for John Donne (p. 187):

Almighty God, the root and fountain of all being: Open our eyes to see, with thy servant John Donne, that whatsoever hath any being is a mirror in which

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we may behold thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

The Scriptures tell us that the Father created all beings through the Son and by the Spirit out of nothing. Being or beings did not proceed from Him as if growing from a root or flowing from a mountain.  Creation was ex nihilo (out of nothing), not out of the being of God.  Again this shows the influence of modern, existential theology (God = Being), which has the effect of changing the received doctrine of the Trinity.

[In the Canadian BAS this minimal trinitarianism is found in and through virtually all that new material, which has been utilized from other sources or composed for this book.]

A novel formulation occurs frequently throughout the 1979 book.  It is "God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit."  People encounter it most often as the first half of an acclamation, "Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit," found at the beginning of services (of the Holy Eucharist, Baptism, Confirmation, and the Ordinations of Deacons, Priests and Bishops).  It entered the experimental liturgies as early as 1967 in the first trial Eucharist as a part of an acclamation and remained there until the end of the process in 1979.  Apparently, together with its response from the people ("Blessed be His kingdom, now and for ever"), it is supposed to be an American adaptation of the Blessing which begins the Greek Liturgy of St. Chrysostom: "Blessed be the kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, now and always, even unto the ages of ages.  Amen."

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From being part of an acclamation the formulation spread (by design or natural expansion) into other parts of the new liturgies and into translations of ancient canticles (e.g., A Song of Creation and A Song of Praise , 1979, p.88) and hymns (e.g. the Phos hilaron in Evening Prayer), and also, significantly, into the new Catechism.  I find all the usage disturbing, but especially the fact that it was deliberately used in the Catechism or Outline of the Faith printed in the 1979 book (p. 852).  This asks, "What is the Trinity?" and the answer is ,The Trinity is one God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit." Recalling the Athanasian Creed or the Baptismal Formula or the Gloria the author(s) could have said: "The Trinity is the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, One God" or "The Trinity is the One God in Three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit," or another form of words which indicated the absolute reality of the Three Persons.  But the drafting committee and the Standing Liturgical Commission chose to go with the formulation that someone had created for the trial liturgy of 1967.  Further, and I find this extremely worrying, this procedure was done on the basis of lex orandi: lex credendi. Since the formulation already existed in the Acclamation and the [faulty] translation of the Phos hilaron, the revisers decided to follow this rather than look to sound, classical trinitarian formulations in the holy tradition.  (See further Appendix 1 on the 1979 Catechism.)

We need to ask what exactly is meant by this form of words, divided by a colon and possessing no definite articles before the three common nouns.  Usually what follows the colon stands in apposition to, or explanation of, what is stated before the colon.  So on this logic God = Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

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A sound rule of interpretation is to interpret one formulation by others within the same document, since presumably they all come from the same hands.  So let us note what is said of the "Three Persons" in the Catechism. First, "the Father" is presented (p. 846) in terms of being one God, the creator of heaven and earth and the giver of revelation to Israel. There is nothing about "the Father" being "the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," that is the Father of the Son before there was a universe.  "The Son" is presented (p. 849) in terms of "Jesus is the only perfect image of the Father" who shows us the nature of God, which is love.  And "the Holy Spirit" is defined as "God at work in the world and in the Church even now."  This could mean (as with the Sabellianism of Gaul and Spain in the fifth and sixth centuries) that God is known by these three names in successive phases of His self-revelation.  If there were teaching somewhere in this Catechism to suggest an interpretation other than modalism, then what is said of "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" in this formulation could be read as a minimal trinitariaism expressed rather carelessly.  But it is very difficult to find or deduce anything like the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity that tells us about Who God is in Himself in this Catechism.

What we appear to have in the Catechism is teaching about how God is towards us or how God shows Himself to the church and world.  That is, there is nothing whatsoever to indicate that the formulation "God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" refers to Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity.  Rather it seems to be saying that God is threefold – like a Father; seen in Jesus, His perfect image; and present now as Spirit.  Its logic is that to speak of Trinity is to speak of God with Three Names, or God with Three Faces, or God with three modes of opera-

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tion and activity.  There is nothing to indicate that God as the holy God is permanently and mysteriously Three Persons before becoming Creator of the universe and giver of revelation.  In a sense it is settling for minimal knowledge of God’s actions and a rejecting of His revelation of Himself in His own uncreated Being.  Or, it is a conflating of who God is in Himself with who God is towards the created universe.  That is, the "immanent" Trinity and the "economic" Trinity are united.

Further examples are found in the Canticles for Morning Prayer II (numbers 12 and 13).  The first, the Benedicite, ends, "Let us glorify the Lord: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit"; while the older translation has, "Let us bless the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit."  The second, the Benedictus es, ends, "Glory to you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit" while the older translation has no equivalent trinitarian ascription (See the 1928 BCP pp. 11–13).

Then in the translation of the ancient Greek hymn, Phos hilaron, used in Evening Prayer, we have the line: "We sing thy [your] praises O God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" (pp.64 & 112 & 118).  An honest translation of the Greek (humnoumen Patera, Huion, kai Hagion Pneuma, theon) is "We hymn the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, God."  (The definite articles are omitted in the Greek because the structure is that of address – the addressing of the Three Persons; but there is no need to omit them in English.)  The praise is addressed to all Three Persons who are one God.  And the word "God" is used, in grammatical terms, in apposition and adjectivally.  In contrast, the logic of the 1979 paraphrase is "we praise God who has three names" or "we praise God who reveals himself in three ways" or "we praise God who has three modes of operation" – but this is not what the Greek original says.

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The concluding words of both Compline and Daily Devotions for Families (pp. 135 & 140) are: "The almighty and merciful Lord, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit bless us and keep us."  Why was the definite article not put before "Father," "Son," and "Holy Spirit" so as to make this clearly the blessing of the Holy Trinity?

One of the collects to conclude the intercessory prayers of the Eucharist begins, "For yours is the majesty, O Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" (p. 391).  Why could it not have been, "...O Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit?"  Another collect designed for the same purpose begins, "O Lord our God" and then ends, "O lover of souls, and to you we give glory, Father, Son and Holy Spirit" (p. 395).  Why could it not have been "and to you we give glory, to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit?"

In the service for the Dedication of a Church (p. 569) the Bishop prays: "Now, O Father, Son, and Holy Spirit sanctify this place."  Why could it not have been, "Now, O God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit sanctify this place?"  On the very same page the Bishop says, "We dedicate this Font in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen."  Then at the end of the dedication (p. 574) the Bishop says, "Blessed be your Name, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and for endless ages."  Again why could it not have been, "Blessed be the Name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, now and unto the ages of ages," as the Greek Church with its impeccable trinitarian orthodoxy would do it?

Perhaps what I am trying to say will become clearer if we compare the "traditional" Collect for Trinity Sunday with the optional Collect "Of the Holy Trinity" (pp.176 & 199).  The first is an ex-

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panded form of the Collect which is in the 1928 BCP.  It is as follows:

Almighty and everlasting God, who hast given unto us thy servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of the Divine Majesty to worship the Unity: We beseech thee that thou wouldest keep us steadfast in this faith and worship and bring us at last to see thee in thy one and eternal glory, O Father, who with the Son and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, for ever and ever [world without end].  Amen.

This is addressed to the Father (who is the almighty and everlasting God), who has by grace caused believers to know of the Holy Trinity and to be united to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The second, composed by Charles Guilbert, is as follows:

Almighty God, who hast revealed to thy Church thine eternal Being of glorious majesty and perfect love as one God in Trinity of Persons: Give us grace to continue steadfast in the confession of this faith, and constant in our worship of thee, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; who livest and reignest, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

On the logic of normal collects this appears to be addressed to the Father (almighty God).  But this is not so, for its inner logic is that of addressing the Godhead. "O Godhead" (= almighty God) is addressed and is then named as "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."  This is modalism, not classic trinitarianism. Whereas we have the clear teaching that there is One God, we do not have the further teaching that there are Three Persons who are the One God.  The use of the word "Being" suggests that the influence

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of John MacQuarrie or Karl Rahner, both modalists, or Paul Tillich, for whom the Trinity was only a symbol, underlies this collect.

The fact that there is a constant stream of modalism in the 1979 book should not surprise us.  If we take a look at major theologians who wrote on the doctrine of God and whose books were available in the 1960s and 1970s (e.g., Barth, Rahner, and MacQuarrie) we find that most of them were teaching modalism of one kind or another.  Further, and I regard this as most significant, the book in the Episcopal Church Teaching Series entitled Understanding the Faith of the Church by Richard Norris (1979) clearly teaches modalism.  [For those who wish to study this doctrine of the Holy Trinity in the modern context, I commend The Three-Personed God (1988) by William J Hill, O.P. Further, there are defences of classic trinitarianism in Trinity, Incarnation and Atonement (ed. Ronald J. Feenstra, 1988) by Cornelius Plantinga and David Brown.]

(In the BAS this novel formulation has slipped into the prayers – see for example No 1 [p.62], No 13

[p.82], No.14 [p.83], No 15 [p.84], No 16 [p.85], No 18 [p.88], No 9 [p.99], and No 17 [p.126].)

Perhaps I need to add that what has happened in some modern theological discourse is that there has been a marriage of modalism and panentheism and/or of modalism and process theology.  Here the world is conceived as being in God and in a process of evolution with God.  Therefore God as God is seen as existing and operating in three modes of existence – as the fatherly or motherly Creator (but not the Creator ex nihilo); as in Jesus, the Revealer of the Divine Nature; and as Spirit, God everywhere.  PBS.30 lends itself to this kind of interpretation, and there are hints of this in the 1979 and 1985

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books (e.g., Eucharistic Prayer C, 1979 = Eucharistic Prayer 4, 1985).

Having explained the three formulations in the 1979 book, I think it is now perhaps necessary to offer some explanation of the way in which language concerning God as a Triad works.  In fact, truly to understand the dogma of the Trinity requires that one understand as a preliminary basic grammar, and especially the function of the definite article and the difference between common and proper nouns.

Already I have pointed out that in English the words "father," "son," and "spirit" are common nouns.  When used without the definite article, they refer to an indefinite subject of some sort and not to a definite person or thing.  An exception to this general rule would be when there is some form of address such as "O father" or "O son" or "O spirit."  Used with the definite article, they refer to a specific father, a specific son, and a specific spirit – this one and not another.  When used with such words as "my" or "your" or "his" they also refer to a specific father and son and spirit.

In the Holy Trinity the names of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are common nouns, which have a most specific reference to the Subsistent Relations or Persons in the one Godhead.  They are capitalized on the same basis as "the King" and "the President," are – both out of respect and out of particularity (the President is not just anybody; he is the President of the country).  Further, they are used not as proper nouns (i.e., like John, Jack, Joe) but as common nouns.  They remain common nouns when the Father declares, "Thou art my Son" at the Baptism, when Jesus Christ prays "O Father" and

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when Jesus speaks of sending "my Spirit" to the waiting disciples.

Yet the first Two Persons of the Holy Trinity do also have proper names.  The proper name of the Father is the tetragrammaton, YHWH (which Jews do not pronounce, see Exod. 3:13ff) and which we render as Yahweh or Jehovah or LORD; that of the Son is Jesus, for Joseph and Mary were instructed to give Him, the incarnate Son, the name of Joshua (= Jesus).  Thus in prayer and praise we address the LORD (e.g., "O LORD"), the Father (e.g., "Our Father"), the Son (e.g., "O Lord Jesus Christ") and (rarely) the Spirit (e.g., "Come, O Holy Spirit").  Normally, Christians pray to the Father through the Son and by the Spirit (as traditional collects well illustrate).

It is important to recognize that in prayer we do not address the divine nature or the Godhead itself, but always we address one or other of the Persons of the Holy Trinity.  In the New Testament and within Christian liturgy we find that "God" without any definite article usually stands for "the Father."  We can quickly see this by looking at any of the Letters of St Paul.  For example, in the first, the Epistle to the Romans, and in its first verse he writes of the "gospel of God [the Father]," and a few verses later he speaks of "a righteousness from God [the Father]."  So when we pray "O God..." we mean "O God the Father..."  Most of the collects of the Common Prayer Tradition are addressed to "God" (often as "Almighty God"), and less frequently to the LORD (usually as "O LORD"), and both are names which refer to the Father.

In Greek liturgy the word "God" is also used as an adjective, in apposition to one or another of the Divine Persons.  As we saw above, in the praise of

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the Three Persons in the ancient hymn, the Phos hilaron, each Person is addressed, and then the word theos, God, occurs.  Christians are praying to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who are God and who share the one Godhead.  In a correct translation of the Greek evening hymn there are three Persons, and thus three subjects, who are named God, whereas in the misleading translation there is one Person and thus one subject who has three names.  One is classical Trinitarianism, and the other is apparently modalism.

In the Latin rite the blessing at the end of the Mass is: "Benedicat vos, omnipotens Deus, Pater, et Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus."  Here Deus or God refers only to the Father as in the New Testament usage.  The Blessing has the meaning "Almighty God, the Father, and the Son, [who is also God] and the Holy Spirit [who is also God] bless you."  However, the Blessing from the English liturgy (Roman and Anglican) is often pronounced as if it were the blessing of "God Almighty" ( the Godhead), who has the names of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Perhaps in these days of theological misunderstanding we need to say, "The Blessing of God Almighty, the Father, [and of] the Son [and of] the Holy Spirit be amongst you and remain with you always.  Amen."  Of course, how it is said and where the emphasis is placed will count a lot in conveying sound meaning.

It is generally recognized that in the Western Church there has been a constant tendency to think from the Unity of God to the Triuity of God.  This is in contrast to the Eastern Church, where the movement is always from the Father to the Son and the Holy Spirit – God.  If the danger for the Eastern Orthodox Church is to become tritheist (as in Arianism where there are three deities in a descending

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and diminishing order), the danger for the Western Catholic Church is to become unitarian and modalist (a common development).  If our first thought of God is as the one Godhead, and then from there we consider His Triunity, we have to work hard to accommodate the doctrine of Three Persons.  The temptation is always to reduce the Trinity to an economic rather than an ontological Reality.  (That is, to think only of God as He is towards us and as we experience Him, rather than of God as He is in Himself as a Trinity.)  In contrast, if we begin from the Father who is God and think of the Son as begotten of the Father before all ages (and thus also God) and of the Spirit as proceeding from the Father through the Son (and thus also God), then we preserve the Unity and Trinity and thus the Triunity of God.

It is now time to return to consider the novel formulation, "God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" or "Lord: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."  As far as I can see, the only way it can possibly be an orthodox formulation is if "God" and "Lord" here mean neither "the Father" nor "the Godhead or divine essence" but "the Holy Trinity."  Then the formulation is really "Holy Trinity: [the] Father, [the] Son, and [the] Holy Spirit."  However, it is difficult to consider this meaning because of the fact that this particular formulation was produced from the original Greek blessing, which specifically and carefully names each of the Persons with the definite article.

So we are left with three possible meanings and none of the three is classic or orthodox trinitarianism.  First, there is one subject, God, who has three proper names (here Father, Son, and Spirit function like Joe, Jack, and James).  Secondly, there is one subject, God, who holds three offices or presents Himself in three ways (as fatherly, as in Jesus and

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as universal Spirit).  Thirdly, arising from modern, existentialist theology (e.g., that of John MacQuarrie, Principles of Christian Theology), there is one Deity (Being) who is known as Primordial Being (Father) and Expressive Being (Son) and Unitive Being (Spirit).

Technically speaking, all three explanations are forms of modalism, for they effectively prohibit belief in the reality of the Three Persons and reduce the Three Common Names to ways or means or modes in which the one God is perceived as acting.  What I find difficult to understand is that, though this formulation was around from 1967, it seems to have attracted little criticism from both Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals in the ECUSA.

[Since several people have pointed out to me that the 1928 BCP contains two places where the definite articles are omitted from the Names of the Persons of the Trinity, perhaps I need to comment on them. In general I do not want to say that the definite article is always necessary and its absence means heresy.  But I do want to say that there is so much carelessness in modern English in the use of the definite article that we need to be extremely careful today in the use of it with respect to the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity.

In the 1928 BCP the optional antiphon provided for Trinity Sunday is "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, one God; O come let us adore Him" (p. 8).  This is probably intended to be in the vocative with the intention "O Father etc."  Even if it is not in the vocative but in the nominative case, it is in accordance with Greek patristic custom of naming each of the Persons in turn and then stating that they are God (see above, as in the Phos hilaron).  However, while it is not modalistic, it does represent sloppy

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English! A better version would be, "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, God; O come, let us adore Him."

In the second place, in the hymn Veni, Creator Spiritus, sung at ordinations, there are these lines (p. 556):

Teach us to know the Father, Son,

And thee, of both, to be but One;

That, through the ages all along,

This may be our endless song:

Praise to thy eternal merit,

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Obviously, we have here the translation of a Latin hymn into English and so there is need to adjust words to make it rhyme.  Even so, it is clear that in this prayer to the Holy Spirit there is an assumption that He is one of the Three distinct Persons of the One Godhead.]

If orthodox Trinitarianism represents the clearest Christian thinking concerning the self-revelation of God with respect to the self-identity of God, then it is surely important.  If the early Church went to such pains to produce the dogma of the Holy Trinity and saw alternative formulations as betrayals of the truth of Scripture, then we ought to take the dogma seriously.  For centuries the Church has recited the Creed wherein is the dogma, and if words beginning with "I believe" are taken seriously, then the Church has taken the dogma seriously.  If God has revealed Himself as a Triad, a Holy Trinity, and a Triunity, then we ought to receive in humility and adoration this self-unveiling by the uncreated, super-essential Being we call the LORD.

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From the dogma of the Holy Trinity many primary or basic truths flow.  If the LORD is not a Trinity of Persons, then who is Jesus?  Is He only a Man whom God adopted or a Man with whom God entered into the closest possible moral union?  Only if the Second Person, the only-begotten Son of the Father, took to himself flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary and became Man, can we say that Jesus is God.  For unless He is the Son of God, then what He does in His manhood for us men and for our salvation cannot avail and succeed.  Likewise, only if the Spirit is truly the Third Person, the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father through the Son, will there be a people who are truly "the temple of the Holy Spirit" and "the Body of Christ" – a fellowship of believers who are being sanctified and deified by the Spirit as they enjoy the privilege of being adopted "sons of God" in union with the only begotten Son of the Father.

In fact, all the major doctrines of the Christian religion fall like a pack of cards if there is no dogma of the Holy Trinity.  If God-as-God-is-in-Himself is not permanently the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Three Persons and one Godhead, then Christianity is based upon a false foundation.  It is not enough to say that "God-as-God-is-towards-us" is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; we must also confess that God is truly a Trinity, Triad, and Triunity permanently and before all ages.  And liturgy which is meant to contain the lex credendi (the law of believing) ought also to be constructed upon and around this dogma!  In fact the Council of Carthage in 397 insisted on the Triitarian character of the Eucharistic Prayer: Ut nemo in precibus vel Patrem pro Filio vel Filium pro Patre nominet; et cum altari adsistitur semper ad Patrem dirigatur oratio ("Let no one in praying replace the Father’s

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name by the Son’s or the Son’s by the Father’s, and prayer at the altar is always to be addressed to the Father").  All the ancient Roman formularies followed this plan.

The Tridentine Mass (1570) has this Preface before the Canon and after the Sursum Corda:

It is truly right and just, proper and fitting for our salvation, that we should always and everywhere give Thee thanks, holy Lord, almighty Father, eternal God.  With Thy only-begotten Son and the Holy Ghost, Thou art one God and one Lord – not one as a single person, but Three Persons in one substance.  Whatever we believe, by Thy revelation, about Thy glory, we believe the same about Thy Son and the Holy Ghost, without any difference or distinction.  So, acknowledging the true and eternal Godhead, we adore each distinct Person in a unity of essence and an equality of majesty.  In praise of this, the angels and archangels, the cherubim and seraphim also lift up their voices day by day, saying with one accord...

Here, of course, are echoes of the Athanasian Creed and certain similarities with Cranmer’s Preface for Trinity Sunday.

Finally, when we ask the question, "What is worship?" we see clearly the importance of the dogma of the Holy Trinity. Christian worship is nothing less than (a) a real and vital communion with our God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of all things visible and invisible; (b) a real and vital participation in the life of Jesus Christ, Incarnate God, whose life is extended into and is encountered in the Church; and (c) a continuing and unending reception of the Holy Spirit, the Lifegiver, who prepares us to be authentic members of the household of God, the Body of Christ.

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The Father comes to us in and by His Son and in and through His Holy Spirit.  We come to the Father through the Son and in the Holy Spirit.  Thus we are united to the Holy Trinity for eternal salvation.