Select Works of Archibald Boyd (8 vols.)

To help Anglican laity understand the polity of their church, Archibald Boyd composed these four sermons with the hope that congregates would see the scriptural foundations of the Anglican Church’s governing structure. Each sermon discusses a different aspect of the Church’s codified norms including, formulaic prayers, rites and ceremonies, the episcopacy, and the characteristics of a true Christian church. Boyd’s sermons are informative in nature, but also employ an apologetic stance. The combination enables him to explain church rules and structures clearly while firmly, but respectfully, answering opponents of the Church of England’s ecclesiological polity.

Archibald Boyd’s Episcopacy, Ordination, Lay-eldership, and Liturgies expands and further develops the sermons found in Sermons on the Church. This volume is more contentious—though still respectful—in tone, and more thorough in its arguments, research, and answers to objections. Composed as letters, Boyd’s work addresses the spirit of dissent he believes exists among his opponents, and then examines the episcopacy, the apostolic succession of ordination, lay-eldership, and the power of the Church to establish liturgy.

Episcopacy and Presbytery is Archibald Boyd’s systematic treatment of the formal observances, offices, and ceremonies of the Anglican Church. Citing the ongoing controversy between Boyd and dissidents of the Anglican Church, this text maintains an apologetic tone but also provides a mature, fully articulated explanation the Church of England’s polity and liturgy. He roots each aspect of Anglican polity and liturgy in the biblical witness and then further substantiates them in church tradition by examining their existence and practice throughout church history.

In England, Rome, and Oxford Compared as to Certain Doctrines Archibald Boyd uses specific Scripture passages as touchstones for contrasting core doctrines between his own church, the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church, and other protestant groups in England. The doctrines, many of which remain contentious today, include justification, the sacraments, church unity, the nature of Christian truth, church tradition, Scripture, and authority, as well as Christology.

The History of the Book of Common Prayer explains why the Anglican Church’s liturgical guide came into existence. Noting that the early church was “predisposed” toward a liturgical form of worship based on written documents, Boyd explains how Christians inherited a formulaic mode of worship and how the Book of Common Prayer evolved out of the church’s practices—practices that date back to the apostolic era. Thus, the lecture is not only historic in scope, but is also a justification of the Anglican Church’s use of The Book of Common Prayer.

Arguing that “the tendency of modern thought is to elevate reason above revelation—to make truth the result of mere investigation and deduction, rather than of God’s communications to man” Archibald Boyd shows in Intuition or Revelation? why Scripture is a more trustworthy source for truth than human reason. Addressing the concerns of his own nineteenth-century context—concerns that remain pertinent today—Boyd’s work is a response to the belief that Scripture was no longer needed or useful in the burgeoning modern world.

Originally given as a series of lectures, Baptism and Baptismal Regeneration, was written, to present a clear and comprehensive articulation of baptism as it is understood in the Church of England. While its original format prevents it from being a “systematic” treatise in the true sense, it nonetheless contains all of the components of a proper statement of doctrinal theology, including arguments from Scripture, extensive interaction with the church’s historical tradition, and thorough understanding of Anglican liturgical practices. All aspects of baptism are covered—including infant baptism and baptismal regeneration—and the objections of opponents are given due consideration.

This short, adapted lecture, simply entitled The Book of Common Prayer: A Lecture explores the nature, function, and historical veracity of the Anglican Church’s liturgical guide—The Book of Common Prayer. Leaving behind the apologetic tone, Boyd’s intention is explanatory and focuses exclusively on helping his readers understand how important the book is for the Anglican community.