"The two best Branches of the Reformation": more early 18th century High Church praise for Lutheranism

The 1715 publication 'The Lutheran Liturgy' was attributed to "a late Gentleman-Commoner of Magdalen College in Oxford", likely to have been Theophilus Dorrington.  As noted last week regarding other works of Dorrington, as a High Church Tory supporter of the Revolution and the Hanoverians, he participated in the debates surrounding the 1714 accession of the Lutheran George I.  

The work emphasises the similarities - "how parallel it runs" - between the BCP and the Lutheran liturgy.  This enabled a contrast to be drawn between, on the one hand, the Church of England and the Lutheran churches, and on the other, those in England who dissented and rejected the authorized liturgy: 

Although the great Apostle of the Gentiles hath taught that there is but One Christ, One Faith, and One Baptism, and so there ought to be One Religion; yet hath some People through Prejudice, Interest, or Ignorance separated themselves from the Church of God; and being so impudent as to reject all manner of Set Prayers, because they have the Vanity to think themselves able to talk ex tempore with the Almighty, I undertook the Translation of the Lutheran Liturgy, or Book of Common-Prayer, us'd by the Protestants in the Reformed Churches in Germany, to shew how parallel it runs with that in Use with the Church of England: For they are to understand that Luther was no Presbyterian, Anabaptist nor Quaker; for the Followers of that German Divine admire both Kingly Government and Episcopacy, as it plainly appears in the Kingdoms of Denmark and Sweden, who use Liturgies, or Books of Common-Prayers: but I acknowledge somewhat different from one another, because they are compil'd according to the different Usages of Churches in each Nation.

The acknowledgement that the two liturgies were "somewhat different from one another" was, of course, hardly unexpected to a "sober, peaceable, and truly conscientious" son of the Church of England.  This, after all, was precisely what Article 34 recognised and what Cranmer had stated regarding liturgical ceremonies:

And in these things we condemn no other Nations, nor prescribe any thing but to our own people only.

The work's characteristically High Church praise for the BCP also reflects on the Lutheran liturgy because it "is very parallel to it":

Truly our Liturgy is a Book, that, next to the inspired Volumes of the Holy Scriptures, of all the Compositions in the World, the best of Christians have the greatest Value for ... I have been the longer in praising the Excellency of it, because the Liturgy us'd by the Lutherans in Germany is very parallel to it.

Pointing to the scriptural and patristic roots of their shared liturgical worship, the work goes on to give Lutheranism the highest praise a High Churchman could ascribe - Lutheranism was as good a Reformed Church as the Church of England: 

a certain Proof that the Christians, in the most early Times, made use of Set Forms of Devotion; and they have continu'd ever since in Use among all Bodies of true Christians, both of the Eastern and Western Church; nay, and even among the two best Branches of the Reformation, I mean the Lutherans, and those of the Church of England.

When its comes to the Eucharist, the work makes no reference to differences in Eucharistic doctrine between Lutherans and Anglicans, but emphasises shared liturgical and sacramental practice rooted in "pure Antiquity":

The Eucharist, or Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is received both by us and the Lutherans kneeling. In all the first Ages of Christianity, many Liturgies were composed suitable to the Places and Times for which they were design'd; but yet all different from the Roman Manner of receiving it; and the reverend Composers of our Common-Prayer Book have used the same Freedom, extracting the Power, and rejecting the suspicious Parts out of all the former, and so have completed this Model with so exact a Judgment, and happy Success, that it is hard to determine whether they more endeavoured the Advancement of Devotion, or the Imitation of pure Antiquity: For we, and the Lutherans of Germany, may safely affirm, that it is more Primitive in all its Parts, and more apt to assist us in worthy receiving, than any Liturgy now used in the Christian World. The Stile is plain and moving, the Phrase is that of the most genuine Fathers, and the whole Composition very pious, and proper to represent and give Lustre to the Duty.

The work concludes by returning to the "Principles and ... Liturgy" Lutheranism shared with the Church of England:

Thus have we impartially shew'd how Parallel and Corresponding the Lutherans of Germany are both in Principles and their Liturgy to the Church of England, to the general Satisfaction (I am sure) of all them who love Monarchical Government and Episcopacy, in Opposition to Anarchy and Confusion, so much admir'd in this Kingdom by some sort of People, from whose base Principles Good Lord deliver us.

What is more, this evokes a wider sense of unity, a shared understanding of a settled order in Church and State, described earlier in the work:

righteous and religious Kings, guided by wise Councils, and living in Prosperity and Peace.

This is suggestive of the rather compelling and attractive quality of the vision - rooted in earlier Laudian ambitions - of an arc of national churches with Reformed Catholic order and doctrine, stretching from the kingdoms of the British Isles, through Germany, and into Scandinavia:

more agreeable to God's Word, and to primitive Practice, than any that is to be found throughout the whole diffusive Body of Christ's Catholick Church.