An Act of Parliament was required in 1662 to restore the Book of Common Prayer to its legal status, because it had been made illegal by an Act of Parliament in 1645. Its repeated use could bring on the offender a loss of all his property as well as perpetual imprisonment. The former Archbishop of Canterbury preceded his friend, King Charles I, to the executioner’s block for his devotion to the Church of England and “the ancient and venerable traditions” of her worship.
Most of the Anglican clergy and devout laity maintained those “venerable traditions” during the Puritan Commonwealth. Some, like Bishop Wren, who the Puritans locked in the Tower for eighteen years, spent their time preparing for the time when the Church and her worship would be restored. He wrote of his time: “Never could there have been so offenseless an opportunity for amending the Book of Common Prayer as now…” Others, not sharing his cold lodgings, did share his thoughts. John Cosin, chaplain to the exiled Queen, devoted his years abroad to the study of liturgy in general and the Prayer Book in particular. Harmon L’Estrange, a devout and erudite layman, compiled a massive study of the Prayer Book during the Puritans’ reign, The Alliance of Divine Offices. In it he laid out, in parallel columns, the texts of the 1549, 1552, 1559 and 1604 English Books of Common Prayer, as well as the 1637 Scottish Book (which, probably more than anything else, had cost Archbishop Laud his head). He wrote copious notes comparing and contrasting the texts, as well as pointing out inconsistencies in the translations of these books into Latin (Latin versions of the Book of Common Prayer were in widespread use both at Oxford and Cambridge). The Prayer Book had never been so popular as when it was made illegal!
After the defeat of the Puritans and presbyterians at the Savoy Conference (where they refused any but the most miniscule changes to the Prayer Book, and none at all they disagreed with), many of the Bishops, clergy and laity of the Church of England looked to this as a chance to alter the Book of Common Prayer to bring it more in line with the ancient liturgies they’d been studying. Bishop Cosin and Bishop Wren collaborated in a book, known to history as the Durham Book (Cosin was Bishop of Durham), which embodied many of their ideas. These centered around the Eucharist. It was a widespread wish to restore many of the ancient chants and prayers which had once accompanied the celebration of the Eucharist, and to add prayers from the Eucharistic liturgies of the Eastern Orthodox Churches. In fact, while the Prayer Book was illegal, some Anglican clergy had used portions of the Eastern Orthodox liturgies to replace their own outlawed rites.
But the new king had little interest in liturgy and his Parliament had even less. They ordered the Bishops to get on with it—and quickly. They had two months to revise the Book. Much work was done, but with little results. The Puritans failed at Savoy because they squabbled with each other in the face of their Anglican opponents. Now those same opponents took a page from the Puritans. Everybody wanted changes, but where to begin? What changes were most important? Who was to do what?
In the end, most of the changes which actually made it into the 1662 Book of Common Prayer showed the anti-Puritan tenor of the day. The Ordinal (technically not even a part of the Prayer Book) was much-revised to explicitly teach the doctrine of Apostolic Succession and the ancient three-fold Orders of Ministry—Bishop, Priest and Deacon—which the Puritans and presbyterians had so explicitly rejected. Some prayers were added—most familiar to us are the two prayers near the end of Morning and Evening Prayer: the “Prayer for All Conditions of Men” (BCP p 18), written by Bishop Gunning, and “A Prayer of Thanksgiving” (BCP p 19), written by Bishop Reynolds of Norwich. Many of the other changes, A Service of the Thanksgiving for the Accession of the King, a Service commemorating the Martyrdom of King Charles I, and other prayers connected with the Church of England as the Established Church, are unfamiliar to most of us “in the colonies.”
The Book of Common Prayer that survived the Puritans and remains the “official” English Prayer Book today, “the 1662,” is essentially the Book of 1604, the Prayer Book of King James I—of Bible fame. Our survey of the Prayer Book thus far has shown us a history of controversies—and every reader of this page knows those controversies have continued down to our own day. But people only fight—really fight tooth and nail—about things they care about. Why do we care? What is it about the Prayer Book that so generates controversies?
For the next several weeks we’ll be stepping back from this modest Prayer Book history to consider other—related—topics. Is the religion of the Prayer Book viable in today’s society? If it is (my opinion is obvious) can we share it without changing it? How do we do that?
Those questions—and their answers—are vital to the future of Anglicanism.
When we’ve solved that problem, we can return to our story.
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