A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

SAVOY CONFERENCE. A conference held at the Savoy, in London, in 1661, between the Catholic divines of the Church of England and the Presbyterians; of which the following is a brief account: The object was to ascertain what concessions with respect to the liturgy could conciliate the Presbyterians, or Low Church party of that day. The representatives of that body demanded the discontinuance of all responses and similar divisions in the Litany; an abolition of saints’ days; an introduction of extemporaneous prayer; a change as to several of the Epistles and Gospels, which, remaining in the old version, contained various errors; the lengthening of the collects; the rejection of the Apocrypha; a removal from the baptismal office of the word regenerated, as applied to all baptized persons; and a similar rejection of the giving thanks for brethren taken by God to himself, as embracing all alike who were interred, both these phrases being held incompatible with the commination. They would have the liturgy be more particular, and the catechism more explicit. They consented to give up the Assembly’s Catechism for the Thirty-nine Articles somewhat altered; and they wound up their expectations with the old request, that the cross, ring, surplice, and kneeling at the sacrament should be left indifferent.

On the contrary, the Church commissioners maintained that bishops already performed ordination with the assistance of presbyters; that it was expedient to retain a certain number of holy-days for the reasonable recreation of the labouring classes; that the surplice was a decent emblem of that purity which became the ministers of God; that its high antiquity was shown by St. Chrysostom in one of his homilies; and that it received a sanction from several passages in the Revelation (ch. iii. 4, 5). They affirmed that Christ himself kept the feast of dedication, a festival of human appointment; that the sign of the cross had been always used “in immortali lavacro;” that kneeling was an ancient and decent usage, and that the high antiquity of liturgies in the Church is indisputable. To the demand that the answers of the people should be confined to “Amen,” they replied, that Dissenters say more in their psalms and hymns; if then in poetry, why not in prose? if in the Psalms of Hopkins, why not in those of David? and if in a Psalter, why not in a Litany? That Scripture contained all which is needful for salvation, they deemed no more an objection to the Apocrypha than to preaching. To read the Communion Service at the communion table was maintained to be an ancient custom, and “let ancient customs be observed, unless reason demands their abolition,” was the golden rule of the Council of Nice.

They could see no real advantage in compromise and concession. What had the former alternate preaching of regular incumbents and puritanical lecturers ever effected but the sowing of perpetual dissensions in every parish, the aspersion of the characters and defeating of the usefulness of regular pastors, and a distraction of the people’s minds with different winds of doctrine, till they knew not what to believe? In truth, it was certain that whatever concessions might be made, so long as the love of novelty, the pride of argumentation, the passion for holding forth, and the zeal for proselytizing, continued to be principles in the human heart, no concession would ever abolish sects in religion; while the Church of England, by departing from her ancient practice, would only compromise her dignity, and forfeit her title to due reverence. Yet, since some fondly conceived that all parties, tired of dissension and disturbance, were now eager to coalesce; and that to concede the minor points of difference to the Presbyterian ministers would afford them a plausible excuse for maintaining harmony without violating their principles; they would not object to a revision of the liturgy, they would even give up the ceremonies, if any shadow of objection could be brought forward on the score of their sinfulness or impropriety. Their antagonists, however, refused to accept this challenge, since admitting them to be neither sinful nor improper, they deemed it sufficient to show that a positive obligation should not be imposed with respect to things indifferent. On this question, which was in fact the point at issue, as the parties could come to no agreement, the conference, like the former, terminated in mutual dissatisfaction.—See Cardwell’s History of the Conferences.

The object aimed at by those who would have lowered the terms of conformity, was, in itself, inexpressibly inviting. It was their hope to see the great body of professing Christians in England united in one communion: so to annihilate that schism, which, in the judgment of both parties, had been the great blemish of the English Church, from almost the earliest stage of the Reformation. But, allowing every merit to the intention, can we, at this day, refuse the praise of deeper foresight to their opponents; who argued, that if some things were changed, in order to please the party then applying, successive parties might arise, making fresh demands, and inventing as good reasons for the second and third concessions, as had been urged for the first?... If such an ecclesiastical modification as was wished for by Judge Hale and his associates had been adopted, general pacification could not, even then, have been attained; and the discovery of new grounds of dissent would have made the prospect more and more hopeless. In the mean time, the English Church establishment would have parted with some of its most distinguishing characteristics; those features, in particular, which are derived from the ancient Church, would have been, in a great measure, defaced; and of course, the principle of adhering, on all doubtful points, to the concurrence of Christian antiquity, could have been insisted on no longer. Had the Church of England thus deserted her ancient ground, where, we cannot but ask, should alteration have stopped? A practice once originated is repeated without difficulty. Can we, then, entertain a doubt, that the successive endeavours which have been used, at one time, to new-modify the forms of our worship; at another, to abate the strictness of our doctrinal creed; would have been as successful as, in our actual circumstances, they have proved abortive? To nothing, under heaven, can we so reasonably ascribe the defeat of all such efforts, as to the dread of disturbing what had remained so long substantially unaltered. Had there been no room for this feeling, other considerations might not have been available, against the apparent plausibility of what was asked, or the persevering ardour of the applicants. Had the work of demolition once begun, its progress would have been both certain and illimitable; each successive change would have been the precedent for another, yet more substantial and vital.—Alexander Knox, Pref. to 2nd Ed. of Burnet’s Lives.

SAXON. The earliest development of Romanesque, as applied to ecclesiastical architecture in England, is so called. Historically this style ought to extend from the coming of St. Augustine to the Conquest (1066); but the intercourse of England with Normandy was so constant before that time, that there can be no doubt we had already much Norman architecture. It is scarcely less to be doubted that many more ante-Conquest buildings yet remain, than are usually accounted Saxon. The characters most relied on to determine Saxon work are the long and short work, triangular headed doors and windows, the splaying of the windows externally as well as internally, and the occurrence of baluster shafts in the windows. These, however, are not constant in well-authenticated Saxon buildings, nor do they invariably indicate a Saxon date.

SAYING AND SINGING. The parts of the service directed to be said or sung, or sung or said, are, the Venite, the Psalms, (in the title page of the Prayer Book,) the Te Deum, (and by inference and analogy,) the Canticles; the Apostles’ Creed, the Litany, the Athanasian Creed, the Easter Anthem, the Nicene Creed, the Sanctus, the Gloria in Excelsis, the psalm in the Matrimonial Service, the commencing sentences and two anthems in the Burial Service, the Communion Service, the communion service in the Ordination of Deacons and Priests, and the Veni Creator in the Ordination of Priests and Bishops. These two phrases have no difference in meaning, since the Apostles’ Creed is directed to be sung or said, in the Morning Service; to be said or sung, in the Evening. It appears that the ecclesiastical use of the word say is two-fold: (1.) As a general term, including all methods of recitation, with or without note, or musical inflection. In this sense it is used in our Prayer Book, when employed alone. (2.) As a more technical and restricted term, used in contradistinction to singing; and yet not to singing in the general sense, but in one or more of its restricted senses.

For the word sing, as is well known, has more than one ecclesiastical sense; since it includes, (1.) all that is recited, in whatever way, in a musical tone; in which sense it is not used in the Prayer Book; (2.) that which is chanted, like the Psalms, Athanasian Creed, and Litany; (3.) that which is sung anthem-wise, like the Anthems, Canticles, Hymns, and Nicene Creed. In these two last senses it is contradistinguished from say in the Prayer Book.

The phrase sung or said specifies those parts of the service only, in which, when said, the minister has a distinctive part, whether (1.) leading or preceding the people in each clause; or (2.) reciting alternate verses with them; or (3.) reciting the passage alone; but which, when sung, are sung by the minister and people, or choir, all together, without any distinctive part being assigned to him. And it may be added, these parts may be, and usually are, sung to the organ. The phrase never applies to those parts of the service which are always to be repeated by the minister alone in the versicle, and by the people in the response.

The instance given above of the communion service in the Ordination of Priests and Bishops, is the only direction to which this rule does not appear exactly applicable. But here, from the nature of the case, the Communion Service is spoken of in a general way; and we are, of course, referred to its special rubrics in their proper places. All that is meant is this, that the service shall be performed chorally or parochially, according as circumstances may allow or require.

With respect to the Apostles’ Creed, that is the only instance in which the permission or injunction of the rubric to sing this part of the service, (that is, to sing it anthem-wise, or to the organ,) has never been acted on. This rubric was altered to its present form at the last review; as before it had merely been directed to be said. The words “or sung” seem to have been inserted in order to preserve the analogy between this creed and the Nicene, which it resembles in its construction.