While discarding the cumbrous ceremonial of the Roman Church, on the ground that it was not only overloaded with superfluous ornament, but too fatally disfigured by irrational, superstitious, or impious observances to be susceptible of correction or adaptation to the wants of their infant congregations, the founders of the reformed churches of the continent did not leave the inexperienced ministers to whose care these congregations were confided altogether without a guide in the conduct of divine worship. Esteeming a written account of the manner in which the public services were customarily performed to be the safest directory for the use of the young or ill-equipped, as well as the surest means of silencing the shameless calumnies of their malignant opponents, they early framed liturgies, not to be imposed as obligatory forms, but rather to serve an important end in securing an orderly conformity in the general arrangement followed in their churches.
Farel's "Manière et fasson," 1533.
The earliest of these liturgical compositions appears to have been a small and thin volume of eighty-seven pages, which, as we learn from the colophon, was "printed by Pierre de Wingle at Neufchâtel, on the twenty-ninth day of August in the year 1533;" that is to say, on the same press which, about a twelvemonth later, sent forth the famous "Placards" against the mass, and a year afterward the Protestant version of the Bible, translated into French by Olivetanus. It is entitled "La Manière et fasson qu'on tient ès lieux que Dieu de sa grace a visités." It was undoubtedly composed by Guillaume Farel, and, like all the other tracts of that vigorous and popular reformer, it has become extremely rare. Indeed, the work was altogether unknown until a single copy, the only one thus far discovered, was found by Professor Baum, of Strasbourg, in the Library of Zurich.[726]
What lends additional interest to the liturgy of Farel, is the circumstance that it is at the same time, as the modern editor remarks, "the earliest Confession of Faith of the Reformed Churches, their first apology in answer to the atrocious, absurd and lying accusations which the hatred of their enemies, especially among the clergy, had invented at will, or had borrowed from pagan calumnies against the Christians of the first centuries." "Do they not exclaim," writes Farel in his preface, "that those accursed dogs of heretics who would uphold this new law live like beasts, renouncing everything, maintaining neither law nor faith, abjuring all the sacraments; that they reject Baptism, and make light of the Holy Table of our Lord; that they despise the Virgin Mary and the saints, and observe no marriage." To remove the prejudice thus engendered from the minds of the ignorant, is the chief design of the writer, who accordingly appeals at each step for his warrant to the Holy Scriptures, and entreats the reader to have no regard for the antiquity of the abuses he combats, or for the reputation of their advocates, but simply to examine for himself what "our good Saviour Jesus has instituted and commanded." The offices are five in number; for Baptism, Marriage, the Lord's Supper, Preaching, and the Visitation of the Sick; but to a certain extent, and particularly in the last-mentioned office, they are little more than a series of directions for the orderly conduct of worship. In other cases the service is very fully written out.
Calvin's liturgy, 1542.
Nine years after the publication of this very simple liturgy of Farel, appeared the first edition of the liturgy of Geneva, composed by Calvin, or the "Prayers after the fashion of Geneva," as they were usually designated by contemporary Roman Catholic writers. Until recently the first edition was supposed to have been published in 1543, but Professor Felix Bovet, of Neufchâtel, has been so fortunate as to find a copy in the Royal Library of Stuttgart, bearing the date of 1542. This is probably the solitary remaining specimen of the original impression.[727] Although without name of place, it was doubtless printed in Geneva. The title is: "La Forme des Prières et Chantz Ecclésiastiques, avec la Manière d'administrer les Sacremens et consacrer le Marriage, selon la coustume de l'Eglise Ancienne. M.DXLII."
The following brief sketch will perhaps convey a sufficient idea of the form "which is ordinarily used" for the public worship of the morning of the Lord's day.
A brief invocation ("Our help be in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth") is followed by an exhortation addressed to the congregation ("My brethren, let each one of you present himself before the face of the Lord with confession of his faults and sins, following in his heart my words"). The Confession, which is the most beautiful and characteristic part of the liturgy, comes next. Used by Théodore de Bèze and his companions at the Colloquy of Poissy, with wonderful impressiveness, as preparatory to that reformer's grand vindication of the creed of the Protestants of France, it has been imagined by many that it was composed by him for this occasion. But it had already constituted a part of the public devotions of the French and Swiss Protestants for eighteen or twenty years. A Psalm was then sung, and a prayer offered "to implore God for the grace of His Holy Spirit, to the end that His Word may be faithfully expounded to the honor of His Name and the edification of the church, and may be received with such humility and obedience as are becoming." The form is "at the discretion of the minister." After the sermon comes a longer prayer for all persons in authority; for Christian pastors; for the enlightenment of the ignorant and the edification of those who have been brought to the truth; for the comfort of the afflicted and distressed;[728] closing with supplications for temporal and spiritual blessings in behalf of those present. The service was concluded by the form of benediction, Numbers, vi. 24-26.
Colladon, in his life of the reformer, tells us that Calvin "collected (recueillit), for the use of the church of Geneva, the form of ecclesiastical prayers, with the manner of administering the sacraments and celebrating marriage, and a notice for the visitation of the sick, as they are now placed with the Psalms." (Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss, vi., pp. xvii., xviii.) And Calvin himself, in his farewell address to his fellow-ministers (April 28, 1564), as taken down from memory by Pinaut, observed: "As to the prayers for Sunday, I took the form of Strasbourg, and borrowed the greater part of it." (Adieux de Calvin, Bonnet, Lettres françaises, ii. 578.) The Strasbourg liturgy to which Calvin here refers was one which he had himself composed for the use of the French refugee church of Strasbourg, when acting as its pastor, during his exile from Geneva (1538-1541). The earliest edition known to be extant is that of which a single copy exists in the collection of M. Gaiffe, and of which M. O. Douen has for the first time given an account in his "Clément Marot et le Psautier huguenot," Paris, 1878, i. 334-339. This Strasbourg liturgy of 1542 (the pseudo-Roman edition already referred to, p. 275), like that of 1545 (which Professors Baum, Cunitz, and Reuss described in their edition of Calvin's works, vi. 174, 175), contains some striking variations from the Geneva forms. In particular, immediately after the "Confession of Sins," it inserts these words: "Here the Minister recites some word of Scripture to comfort consciences, and then pronounces the absolution as follows:
"Let each one of you recognize himself to be truly a sinner, humbling himself before God, and believe that our Heavenly Father will be gracious unto him in Jesus Christ.