REC Declaration of Principles

REC Declaration of Principles refers to the foundational doctrinal declaration adopted at the organization of the Reformed Episcopal Church on December 2, 1873. The document is short, but it has had continuing importance because it states the REC's relation to Holy Scripture, the Apostles' Creed, Baptism and the Lord's Supper, the doctrines of grace in the Articles of Religion, episcopal polity, liturgical worship, and several nineteenth-century doctrinal controversies.

The Declaration is best read as a founding Anglican statement rather than as a complete systematic theology. It is explicitly scriptural, creedal, sacramental, episcopal, liturgical, and Protestant. Its polemical clauses were directed against claims that the REC's founders believed obscured the Gospel, narrowed the visible Church, or confused the sacraments with theories not required by Scripture or the Anglican formularies.

Historical Setting

The Declaration was adopted when Bishop George David Cummins and other clergy and laity formed the Reformed Episcopal Church after controversy within the Protestant Episcopal Church. The immediate context included debate over evangelical catholicity, intercommunion with non-episcopal Protestants, the meaning of priesthood, the Eucharistic sacrifice, the real presence, and baptismal regeneration.

The 2018 bishops' teaching document Understanding the Declaration of Principles in the 21st Century describes the Declaration as a response to specific controversies rather than an attempt to create a new faith. It presents the REC as intending to restore "old paths" of historic biblical Christianity within an episcopally ordered Anglican body.

Text and Structure

The Declaration has four principal articles. Article I identifies the core authorities and doctrinal commitments of the Church. Article II affirms episcopacy while denying that one order of polity is necessary to the existence of Christ's Church. Article III receives a Prayer Book liturgy while reserving liberty to revise it. Article IV rejects five doctrines judged contrary to God's Word.

The opening article begins with the biblical language of Jude 3:

the faith once delivered unto the saints

That phrase gives the Declaration its basic orientation. The REC was not claiming authority to invent doctrine, but to confess and guard the apostolic faith under Holy Scripture.

The first article then names the Holy Scriptures as:

the sole rule of Faith and Practice

This clause places the Declaration within classical Protestant and Anglican appeals to Scripture as the final norm of doctrine. The same article affirms the Apostles' Creed, the two dominical sacraments, and the doctrines of grace as substantially set forth in the Thirty-Nine Articles.

Article II states that the Church recognizes episcopacy:

not as of Divine right

The phrase does not deny that episcopacy is ancient, beneficial, or normative for the REC. It rejects the stricter claim that Christ's Church exists only where episcopal polity is present. The 2018 bishops' commentary connects this with older Anglican divines such as Richard Hooker and John Bramhall, who defended episcopacy without unchurching non-episcopal Christians.

Article III accepts the proposed American Prayer Book of 1785 but reserves liberty to revise worship:

provided that the substance of the faith be kept entire

This has been important for later REC liturgical development. The REC did not define itself by permanent attachment to the 1785 proposed book. Later Prayer Book revision, including North American REC use of the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer, can therefore be understood as consistent with the Declaration's own liturgical principle.

Doctrinal Commitments

The positive doctrinal substance of the Declaration includes:

• the authority of Holy Scripture;
• the Apostles' Creed as a summary of Christian belief;
• the divine institution of Baptism and the Lord's Supper;
• the doctrines of grace in the Articles of Religion;
• episcopacy as ancient and desirable;
• public liturgy ordered to edification and doctrinal integrity.

The Declaration's relation to the Articles is especially important. It does not reduce Anglican doctrine to a new REC platform. It receives the Articles as a central Anglican witness to grace, justification, sacramental doctrine, and the sufficiency of Scripture for salvation.

Rejected Errors

Article IV rejects five claims. These rejections are often the most disputed part of the Declaration, but they should be interpreted as denials of specific errors rather than as denials of all catholic or sacramental doctrine.

The first rejected claim is that Christ's Church exists only in one form of ecclesiastical polity. The REC's denial protects the reality of Christian churches without bishops while allowing the REC itself to remain episcopal.

The second concerns ministers as "priests." The issue is not whether Anglican presbyters may be called priests in the older English sense of presbyter, but whether ordained ministers are priests in a sacrificing sense that obscures the royal priesthood of all believers.

The third concerns the Lord's Table as an altar on which Christ is offered anew. This rejection aligns with Article XXXI, which teaches the sufficiency of Christ's one oblation on the cross. It does not require denial that the Eucharist is a memorial, thanksgiving, sacrifice of praise, or solemn proclamation of Christ's death until he comes.

The fourth rejects the claim that Christ's presence in the Lord's Supper is "in the elements" of bread and wine. The 2018 commentary argues that this clause should not be read as a denial of real participation in Christ, but as a rejection of locating Christ's presence in the elements apart from the whole sacramental action and faithful reception.

The fifth rejects the claim that regeneration is inseparably connected with Baptism. In REC interpretation, this guards against a mechanical theory of baptismal efficacy while preserving Article XXVII's language that Baptism is a sign of regeneration and an instrument by which those who receive it rightly are grafted into the Church.

Modern REC Interpretation

In 2018 the bishops of the Reformed Episcopal family of churches issued a pastoral letter commending Understanding the Declaration of Principles in the 21st Century. The letter states that the teaching was offered because REC growth, revised canons and liturgical provision, and wider Anglican relationships required the Declaration to be expressed in present-day terms while keeping "the substance of the faith" entire.

This modern interpretation is associated especially with the episcopal leadership of Ray R. Sutton in North America and John Fenwick in the Free Church of England. It reads the Declaration inside a larger doctrinal framework: Holy Scripture, the Articles, the Prayer Book, the Creeds, the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, the Jerusalem Declaration, the REC constitution and canons, and recognized Anglican ecumenical agreements.

The result is a fuller REC account of Anglican identity. The Declaration is not treated as an anti-catholic manifesto or as a denial of all sacramental realism. It is read as a guardrail for evangelical, scriptural, Prayer Book catholicity.

Anglican Significance

The Declaration remains significant because it states a distinct REC version of classical Anglicanism. It affirms episcopal order without making episcopacy the essence of the Church. It affirms liturgy without making one Prayer Book text unrevisable. It affirms the sacraments without accepting mechanical or sacerdotal theories. It affirms catholic continuity while keeping Scripture as the sole rule of faith and practice.

For sympathetic Anglicans, the Declaration can therefore be read as a charter for reformed catholicity. It is Protestant in its doctrine of Scripture, grace, and Christ's once-for-all sacrifice; catholic in its creedal, sacramental, episcopal, and liturgical commitments; and pastoral in its refusal to unchurch other Christians who confess the Gospel.

See Also

• Reformed Episcopal Church and the 1928 BCP
• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• Articles of Religion
• Baptismal Regeneration in Anglican Theology
• Eucharistic Sacrifice in Anglican Theology
• Real Presence in Anglican Theology
• Common Prayer and Anglican Unity
• Catholicity in Classical Anglicanism

External Links

• Declaration of Principles of 1873 - Reformed Episcopal Church
• A Pastoral Letter 2018 - Reformed Episcopal Church
• Understanding the Declaration of Principles in the 21st Century - official REC PDF