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United Dioceses of Dublin & Glendalough

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05.10.2012

Book of Common Prayer Exhibition Launched in Christ Church Cathedral

An exhibition marking the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer was launched on Thursday October 4 in Christ Church Cathedral. Compiled by Canon Roy Byrne, the exhibition celebrates the great heritage of liturgical reform and development and draws together a wide variety of editions of the Book of Common Prayer to tell something of its 350th anniversary journey

Entitled “the Word that spake it”, the exhibition was launched in the context of Evensong in the cathedral where the Revd Canon Dr William Marshall was the preacher. His sermon is reproduced in full below.

The exhibition will be on display in the cathedral’s Treasury throughout this autumn and winter.

Address delivered by Canon William Marshall at the opening of an exhibition marking the 350th Anniversary of the 1662 Prayer Book in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. 4 October 2012

A written fixed liturgy, i.e. a Prayer Book, has a key place in the Anglican way of worship. Not only that, it also has a key place in our life and identity. This fact probably gave rise to the jibe, ‘Others go to church to find God; Anglicans to find the page’. Perhaps we should take warning from the jibe not to make an idol of the Prayer Book. But it points to an important value in our practice which I would like to explore with you as we commemorate the 1662 Prayer Book in its 350th Anniversary year. It was not the only or the 1st Anglican Prayer Book; it was the 5th since the Reformation, and today there are many different ones in the Anglican Communion. But 1662 has an important place in our history. It had the longest life of any so far. For long time it was the most widely used among Anglicans. As the English spread abroad with the growth of British Empire, and as missionary work established new churches in many countries, their way of worship was that of the 1662 book. That book was translated into the languages of the countries where it was used. It was only when the younger churches became self–governing and could order their own affairs that they revised the Prayer Book. And that happened mostly in the 20th century.

Here in Ireland the 1662 book was authorised by the Irish Convocation that year and it continued to be used till disestablishment. So it was our form of worship for over 200 years. When our church was disestablished on 1st Jan 1871 it set about revising its Prayer Book but before doing so it issued a Preamble and Declaration, to which our clergy still have to assent. It contains the statement, ‘The Church of Ireland doth receive and approve …. The Book of Common Prayer [i.e. 1662] … and will continue to use the same’ subject only to lawfully authorised revision. In other words the 1662 book remained a standard of worship and doctrine, and its influence strongly continued through the small, though significant, changes of the 1878 revision.

To understand how important the 1662 book was, we need to look at its background in church history since the Reformation. The reformed churches in England and Ireland were, in that period, theatres of vigorous debate. There were those who wished to combine the truths of the Reformation with as much as possible of the tradition which the church had developed in early and medieval times. There were others, conveniently known as ‘Puritans’, who wished to root out every pre–Reformation practice not explicitly sanctioned by the Bible. Of course several grades from moderate to extreme were found in each group. The Puritans suffered a setback in the reigns of James I and Charles I, but their triumph came when Cromwell took over. The 1604 Prayer Book and ministry of bishops were abolished, as were the 39 Articles. In place of the Prayer Book a Directory of Worship was issued. The moderate 39 Articles were replaced by the Westminster Confession, a longer, more detailed document which laid down definite answers to questions such as predestination which the 39 Articles had left open. This was an important change. Previously the Church’s teaching was chiefly found in its prayers. But without a Prayer Book the whole weight of church doctrine rested on an elaborate confession of faith.

However Cromwell’s rule didn’t last. In 1660 the English welcomed back the king’s son as their monarch, Charles II. Those who had loyal to the monarchy and episcopacy and the Prayer Book and had suffered persecution when Cromwell ruled were naturally but unfortunately triumphalist in mood. They were little inclined to sympathy with the considerable number of Puritans in the church. The king called a conference in 1661, the Savoy Conference, which produced the 1662 Prayer Book. As the exhibition catalogue states, the conference was a political compromise rather than a liturgical triumph. Some concessions were made to the Puritans but it was on the whole a restoration of Anglican liturgical tradition. As a result considerable numbers left the church and as nonconformists suffered civil disabilities which were only gradually removed over the centuries. There was little mutual toleration in the 17th century.

The mood of triumphalist Anglicans is well captured in the 1662 Preface, printed in our current Prayer Book. The preface condemns the ‘undue means and … mischievous purposes [why] the use of the liturgy came during the late unhappy confusions to be discontinued.’ On a happier note the preface noted that ‘some Prayers and Thanksgivings’ are added, and ‘an Office for the Baptism of such as are of riper years …[which] may be useful for the baptising of natives in our plantations, and others converted to the Faith’. Among the Prayers and Thanksgivings is the beautiful and much–loved General Thanksgiving, retained in our 2004 book. It was composed by a moderate Puritan, Edward Reynolds.

In spite of the inauspicious circumstances of the 1662 Prayer Book’s origins, it proved a very successful and long–lived Anglican Prayer Book, and is still an official Prayer Book of the Church of England. In the Church of Ireland it lasted till the Church was disestablished in 1869. At that time there were stormy debates in the newly formed General Synod, similar to those in the Savoy Conference in 1661. The Church of Ireland has always been more Puritan than the Church of England. Some of our members were suspicious of parts of the Prayer Book, probably because the Oxford Movement in mid 19th century had emphasised certain teachings of the Prayer Book hitherto neglected. Some Synod members demanded drastic revision. They objected to priestly absolution implied by the words at ordination ‘Whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven; and whose sins thou dost retain they are retained’. They objected to the baptismal office stating, ‘this child is regenerate’. They objected to any real presence in the eucharist implied by words of the Holy Communion service. In the end, after intense debate, little change was made in the services. The 1662 book remained largely intact in the revision completed in 1878. Those of Puritan outlook were catered for by draconian canons forbidding such things as a cross on the Holy Table, bowing to the table, lighted candles except when necessary to give light. Most of these canons have now been repealed or abandoned, but they reflected the usual practice in our Church before disestablishment.

The preface to the 1878 revision bears witness to the strong feelings of the time. It shows that there will always be difference of opinion in our church, since ‘men’s judgements of perfection are very various’ and it pleads for tolerance and harmony.

The world has changed a lot, even in Ireland, since the 1870s and the church’s worship has changed also. But the heritage of the 1662 Prayer Book stills remains and is of value. We can see examples in the first forms of Morning and Evening Prayer, Holy Communion, Baptism and the Ordinal in our 2004 Prayer Book. Our Choral Evensong today was almost entirely that of 1662.

No Prayer Book is perfect. No liturgy should remain unchanging. Our worship here on earth can only be learning to worship, a rehearsal rather than a finished performance. So our 350th anniversary of 1662 should not be a triumphalist glorification of our wonderful liturgy. But it can be a grateful acknowledgement of our heritage from the past and an aid to our devotion to God in the present and the future. The point I wish to convey is well captured in the Preface to our current 2004 book: ‘The words set out in these pages are but the beginning of worship. They need to be appropriated with care and devotion by the People of God so that, with the aid of the Holy Spirit, men and women may bring glory to the Father and grow in the knowledge and likeness of Jesus Christ’.

My concluding task, an honour and pleasure to me, is formally to declare the 1662 Prayer Book Exhibition open.

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