User:Pbritti/archived/Book of Common Prayer (1928, England)



The 1928 Book of Common Prayer, sometimes known as the Deposited Book, is a  liturgical book which was proposed as a revised version of the Church of England's 1662 Book of Common Prayer. Opposing what they saw as an Anglo-Catholic revision that would align the Church of England with the Catholic Church, Protestant evangelicals and nonconformists in parliament put up significant resistance, driving what became known as the Prayer Book Crisis.

A text resultant from the Oxford Movement Tractarians and the reaction against it, the proposed revised prayer book failed in the House of Common, first in December 1927 and then in June 1928. With the failures in parliament, the Church of England's spiritual authority suffered a significant blow. Though parliament never approved it, the proposed prayer book's use would become widespread during the mid-20th century and see approval by the Church of England. The proposed prayer book also influenced later authorized Anglican liturgical books both in England and elsewhere.

Background
Early Oxford Movement Tractarians of the Church of England had interpreted the 1662 Book of Common Prayer as a catholic liturgy with rubrics that which should be closely followed. This view was challenged by "second-generation" Tractarians and members of the Cambridge Movement, who found the 1662 prayer book too liturgically Protestant. Instead, this latter faction advocated the adoption of ceremonial and some liturgical practices from the Catholic Church, such as celebrating Communion facing eastward, placing candles and a cross on the altar, and vestments. These "usages" were justified by ritualsts pointing to the prayer book's Ornaments Rubric, contending that it mandated such practices. It was these Anglo-Catholic and similar movements that would ultimately spur the prayer book revision movement in England.

Among some clergy, adoption of medieval Sarum and modern Catholic Latin liturgies was contemporaneous with the proliferation of Anglo-Catholic devotional literature in the 1870s and 1880s. The Tractarian John Henry Newman's conversion to the Catholic Church elicited praise but also raised concerns regarding his peers' degree of conformity to the Church of England. The Protestant-leaning evangelical party of Anglicans advocated for measures that removed "ambiguity" regarding the prayer book's Protestant qualities. The resulting Royal Commission on Ritual–formed in 1867–and its four reports resulted in the 1872 Act of Uniformity Amendment Act and 1874 Public Worship Regulation Act, the latter of which established a secular court to which bishops could send insubordinate ritualist priests. After several priests were imprisoned, public opinion grew hostile towards these courts and ultimately bishops would refrain from bringing priests before them.

Opposition to ritualist practice, led in the 1890s by John Kensit and his Protestant Truth Society, further challenged Anglo-Catholics, who were represented by the English Church Union and Viscount Halifax. While Archbishop of Canterbury Frederick Temple had officially approved several Anglo-Catholic practices, politician William Harcourt met with the church's archbishops in 1900 to promote the prosecution of ritualists. This meeting resulted in a statement that prohibited the reserved sacrament and use of incense.

Despite this, ritualists continued researching further into the past in search of patristic continuity. The Alcuin Club, founded in 1897 to research the history and use of the prayer book, often pulled from medieval pre-Reformation period and sometimes the first centuries of Christian history. Liturgical scholars would soon lean on this research in their criticisms of the 1662 prayer book, preferring a "primitive" liturgy. Prayer book historian Brian Cummings credited their research with doing more to "unearth the original manuscripts of the liturgical traditions", though critiqued their ardent defense of the Victorian era "Anglo-Catholic myth" that the 1549 prayer book was very close to the medieval Sarum Use.

The 19th century saw several Anglican liturgical revision efforts outside England: the Episcopal Church in the United States made a series of minor changes between 1808 and 1868 before approving a comprehensive but conservative revision of the prayer book in 1892, evangelicals guided the creation of an 1877 prayer book for the Church of Ireland, and Canadian Anglicans were considering their own revisions from an Anglo-Catholic direction. In England, Anglo-Catholics were fostering an increase in scholarship while the 1662 prayer book's language grew increasingly divorced from the English of the day, both increasingly challenging prior idealization of the 1662 prayer book. The linguistic issues within the prayer book, many of which was derived from Thomas Cranmer's translation of Latin, left pastors many "trip-wires" with theological and ministerial implications that could not be easily explained. With no way to stop the mechanisms behind these complications, Church of England clergy increasingly supported revision.

Shortly after assuming the archiepiscopate at Canterbury in 1903, Randall Davidson told parliament that he would rein in the ritualists. In March the next year, Davidson and Prime Minister Arthur Balfour authorised a review of the state of church discipline to address the debate between Anglo-Catholics and their opponents. The Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Discipline–chaired by Michael Hicks Beach–interviewed 164 witnesses to produce a four-volume report in 1906. This report asserted "the law of public worship is too narrow for the religious life of the present generation", particularly with regard to the desire for ceremony and historic continuity as violations of policies including the Ornaments Rubric were widespread. The commission also reported the mechanisms for enforcing teaching and practice in the church were ineffective. The report included ten recommendations primarily compiled by Davidson. Among the recommendations was to begin revising the vestiture rubrics, formally initiating the process for a new prayer book authorized by an Act of Uniformity.

Revision process
The initial period of revision, between 1906 and 1914, primarily focused on the 1662 prayer book's Ornaments Rubric and its role in justifying Anglo-Catholic ceremonial practice. John Wordsworth chaired a group of five bishops, who issued a report on the rubric in 1908 with the assistance of leading moderate Anglo-Catholic liturgist Walter Frere. The report's assertion that chasubles were legal elicited protest; the upper house of the Convocations of Canterbury and York passed a resolution that which was less supportive of this view. In his 1911 Some Principles of Liturgical Reform, Frere pushed for the establishment of a committee to examine liturgical affairs; Davidson established such a body in May that year. Attempting to create a balanced committee, the evangelical bishop Thomas Drury was appointed alongside Arthur James Mason, Frere, Frank Edward Brightman, and, from 1912, onward Percy Dearmer and Percival Jackson.

Many Anglican scholars in this period published extensive histories on liturgical practice, largely in association with the Alcuin Club. Among them were E. G. Cuthbert F. Atchley's History of the Use of Incense in Divine Worship (1909), F. E. Warren's The Sarum Missal in English (1913), Brightman's The English Rite (1915), and Frere's research on medieval pontificals and early sacramentaries. Another influential work came in the anonymously written A Prayer-Book Revised (1913) prefaced by Charles Gore. It was understood that these scholars were to "safeguard" the "both catholic and reformed" Anglican identity in a manner akin to the earlier Non-jurors.

In February 1914, the Convocation's upper house report was published and committees established to oversee the work. Davidson revealed his disinterest in revision in private correspondence, considering it a distraction from church administration. Soon, World War I hampered the work and saw discussion of approval tabled until after the war so that the laity could engage. Gregory Dix characterized the general attitude among the revisers pre-war with a quote from Bishop George Forrest Browne, who said "that there should be a minimum of change" and "that there should be no change that in any sort of way could honestly be said to touch doctrine at all" (a view similar to Davidson's ); Dix compared this with what he found to be a similar attitude in the 1662 prayer book's revision process. This moderate stance towards revision emphasized making a prayer book more easily enforced by law. During the war, Convocation continued reviewing potential changes. Among these was a proposal emulate the 1549 English and 1637 Scottish prayer books' Holy Communion offices and move the Prayer of Oblation to after the Consecration. Lord Halifax went further, requesting that the 1549 Communion service be approved.

The war proved a proximate cause towards fostering a more significant revision. Reservation of the sacrament became more popular during the war, as the convenience convinced chaplains who may have avoided this "Romish" practice in peacetime. From 1911, a convocational drafted rubric that had been intended to prevent "extra-liturgical devotions" by authorizing reservation exclusively for communing the sick served as the standard for diocesan permissions. Though generally popular, the increased permissions for reservation during the war were met with strong evangelical disapproval and suspicion. Linguistically, the 16th-century diction were not comforting to the many illiterate and barely literate soldiers most in ministerial need. The 1662 prayer book's monotony similarly came under scrutiny during the war, with its repetitiveness felt "mindless" by those attending its liturgies. Alec Vidler described the "conventional worship of the Church of England" as "too dull and cold and reserved" for those living on the social margins. It was among the slums that Tractarians and ritualists had entrenched their ministries, with great success. These factors meant that the moderate rubrical adjustments advocated in the 1906 report were felt insufficient by the war's end.

Postwar
While chaplains returning from the war and those ministering to the working class had identified the needs for "a simplified, linguistically modernized, and theologically less intimidating" liturgy in their mounting support for a significantly revised prayer book, these pastoral concerns were generally dismissed once the more substantial work began. Instead, scholastic and party lines became the dominant forces in this renewed process. The role of revision fell not to chaplains, but rather academics more focused on relitigating the evangelical-versus-traditionalist debate that had run since Cranmer's era. Further, the perceived "timeless sanctity" of both the 1662 prayer book and the King James Version of the Bible saw many defend the dated language of both texts as essential for worship. General modernization of the liturgical language would not be accomplished until the 1960s.

By 1918, according to Dix, the concern with statutory matters had given way to revision from the "point of view of liturgy not law." The lower house of Canterbury voted that year in support of altering the Communion service and in 1920 a special conference favoured adopting an "Eastern" modification to the service. The revision process became complicated by parliament passing the Enabling Act in December 1919, establishing the National Assembly of the Church of England with an upper and lower house of clergy and a house of laity was established. The National Assembly first met in 1920, setting up a committee on prayer book revision in the autumn. That committee's report was published in June 1922 as NA 60. The House of Bishops passed a the Revised Prayer Book (Permissive Use) Measure that accepted these recommendations–including reservation of the sacrament –without modification in October that year, publishing the liturgy with suggested changes as NA 84. The proposed lectionary changes were detached and submitted to parliament, which passed it in 1922 and accepted its use alongside the 1871 revised lectionary.

NA 84's publication saw three major external efforts to influence the final proposed prayer book. The resulting three proposals were known by the colour of their covers: the English Church Union's "Green Book", the Life and Liberty Movement's "Grey Book", and the Alcuin Club's "Orange Book".

The Green Book, published in October 1922, took a scholarly and Anglo-Catholic view particularly visible in its support for commemorations of Saint Joseph and the Falling Asleep of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Life and Liberty Movement, which had pushed for the National Assembly's creation, took a Liberal Anglo-Catholic stance in their 1923 Grey Book. The Grey Book, prefaced by Bishop of Manchester William Temple and "largely the work of Revd Percy Dearmer, F.R. Barry, and R.G. Parsons", reflected what prayer book historian G. J. Cuming called "a remarkable combination of sound liturgical craftsmanship, modernist theology, and high-flown liberal sentiment." The Orange Book (sometimes also known as the "Yellow Book") mostly produced by Frere and published by the Alcuin Club in 1923-4 took a more moderate Anglo-Catholic stance, attempting to "harmonize" the two other external proposals with NA 84. Each proposal included permission for the reserved sacrament.

Evangelical opposition to the revision process persisted through this period. Instead of organizing their own proposed revisions many preferred to simply retain the 1662 prayer book, reckoning that suggesting improvements would weaken their stance. Especially controversial were the repositioned Prayer of Oblation, insertion of an Epiclesis, and permission to reserve the sacrament. Bishops Ernest Barnes, Lord William Cecil, Ernest Pearce, and Bertram Pollock opposed each proposal.

The National Assembly's House of Clery and House of Laity completed their revisions in March and July 1925 respectively. The House of Clergy dropped the earlier proposed Communion canon and offered two of their own. The House of Clergy also widened the permitted forms of reservation and sought to remove the role of regulating the practice from individual bishops. The House of Laity decided on the 1662 Communion service with one alternative form, with reservation exclusively permitted for communing the sick. In October 1925, the bishops began what would eventually be 47 full days of revision. Archbishop Davidson received 800 memorials regarding the revision, including one from nine diocesan bishops that opposed any revision to the Communion service's celebration after the Nicene Creed and rejected the creation of an alternative form.A proposal to separate Communion office revisions from the other changes was defeated.

The bishops' revision, which featured some original additions as well as borrowings from the unofficial proposals, was sent to convocation in February 1927. Here, some changes were again made and the rubrics on reservation were separated by the upper house. In July 1927, this version was approved by the National Assembly by a vote of 517 to 133. Soon, the matter garnered popular attention with Anglo-Catholics and evangelicals opposing the proposed text for polar reasons.

Prayer Book Crisis
The Church of England's status as the established church would soon stymie the revised prayer book's adoption. Unlike the Church of Scotland–also an established church subject to parliamentary authority–the Church of England lacked latitude in self-governance. Further frustrations arose as Anglican dominance of parliament became increasingly diminished, particularly in the House of Commons. Since the end of the 19th century, Catholics, agnostics and atheists, non-Christians, and nonconformist Protestants made up a growing proportion of those admitted as ministers in the House of Commons and peers in the House of Lords.

In 1927, the change in liturgy became a question of national identity. Anglicans understood the Church of England as "inextricably bound up" with "English character", particularly among the many bishops who took a "Centre-High" view. Davidson considered the matter of revision in Arnoldian national terms, saying "We want to use for the better of English life every ounce of strength which by God's benediction is ours. We want that strength so consecrated and so united that it shall be irresistible for what we desire to effect our country's life." Anglo-Catholics framed their practices as in-line with English norms, arguing that the popular masonic rituals were more complicated than Catholic ones and comparing vestments to with Forester regalia. However, others of all colors concerned themselves with maintaining England's Protestant character against encroachments by the Catholic Church. In 1927, Dearmer suggested Anglo-Catholic opposition to the revised prayer book was a "determined attempted to destroy the Church of England" coordinated by the papacy. Evangelicals understood Protestantism as underpinning the relationship between the monarchy, parliament, and the established church, pointing to the anti-papist language in the coronation oath as a contract to preserve English and British religious identity. The evangelical bishop E. A. Knox feared in 1926 that the Catholic Mass might become the coronation rite of a "Roman Catholic king'; similarly disposed churchmen would lean on rhetoric from the Reformation in their opposition to the proposed text.

The proposed prayer book measure reached parliament in December 1927. The House of Lords voted for the measure, 241 approving and 88 against. The House of Commons vote against was carried by a 238 to 205 vote. This second measure failed on 14 June in the House of Commons with a larger majority of 266 to 220.

Though a distinct province from the Church of England and disestablished, the prayer book debate reached Church in Wales in 1927. After a brief and abortive attempt there in 1922, further proposals towards a local revision had not been forthcoming. However, at the Easter 1927 meeting of the Welsh bishops and with mounting speculation regarding the impact of the English proposed text upon his province, Archbishop of Wales A. G. Edwards asserted that decisions made by the English "have no authority nor force in the Province of Wales" and declared illegal the use of any prayer book other than that authorized by the Church in Wales. In September that year, a motion was brought before the Welsh Governing Body requesting consideration of the English Deposited Book; the archbishop replied that action would not be taken until "the proper moment has arrived." The motion towards consideration was carried by a great majority but intentional inaction by the Bench of Bishops meant the issue of Welsh prayer book revision would not be revisited until 1943.

Later use and influence
The fallout from the failed prayer book measures saw calls for disestablishment.

Following the parliamentary rejection, use of unauthorized liturgies became widespread. The Shorter Prayer Book, containing the most popular elements from the 1928 proposal and approved by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in 1947, came into popular use. Ultimately, the bishops came to consider the Deposited Book's prayers and practices as lawful and formally approved its use in 1958. By 1959, many English clergymen used considerable elements of the 1928 prayer book. The belated episcopal approval for printing of and worshipping according to the 1928 prayer book was contingent on the "goodwill" of the congregations through their representation in the parochial church councils. By failing to perform this approval earlier, the Church of England might have lost an opportunity for their proposals to be respected and supported by all but the strongest partisans and failed to establish a basis upon further revision could be accomplished.

Among the more widely adopted 1928 forms were the reserved sacrament, the revised forms of baptism, marriage, and burial, and the supplementary collects. In particular, clergy preferred performing the marriage office without the 1662 prayer book's referencing of "men's carnal lusts and appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding", though Cummings reported that some couples enjoyed retaining the older form and the discomfort it brought their relatives.

The proposed text also proved influential on other Anglican liturgies, though other 20th century Anglican liturgies also resembled the 1928 English prayer book due to sharing many of the same influences rather than as a result of direct influence by the Deposited Book. In 1966, with some changes, many services from the 1928 book were compiled in the Church of England First Series of Alternative Services. The Series One marriage office remains authorized.

Contents
According to Cuming, the preface to the proposed prayer book was likely written by Davidson. As with the 1662 prayer book, the Psalter is the translation found within the 1540 Great Bible rather than the 1611 King James Bible.

Calendar and lectionary
A Table of Proper Psalms was introduced in the proposed text, assigning specific psalms to all Sundays and some holy days. While this increased the relevancy of the psalms to the given day, it broke up Cranmer's original monthly cycle in which every psalm was read during daily recitation of Morning and Evening Prayer. Many new commemorations were added to calendar of saints, though a few were omitted. Despite his medieval popularity, Thomas Becket was excluded as he was from the 1549 prayer book. The number of vigils requiring fasting was reduced to five: Christmas, Pentecost, St. John the Baptist's Day, All Saints' Day, and Saint Andrew's Day.

While the House of Clergy had approved the commemoration of Corpus Christi Day, the House of Laity had rejected the proposal. The feast's doctrinal implications regarding the Eucharist gave reason to reject a fixed date, but evangelical support permitted the insertion of an unfixed thanksgiving for each of the two Anglican sacraments: the Institution of Holy Baptism and the Institution of the Holy Communion.

Daily Office
Seeking to increase the variety within the Morning and Evening Prayer's introduction, eight penitential sentences were kept and 19 new sentences with seasonal themes were added in keeping with the earlier Scottish model. The Tudor diction and verbosity of the Confession, Exhortation, and Absolution spurred the creation of alternative forms. The third option was the Irish prayer book's sentence "Let us confess our sins to Almighty God". The proposed prayer book also included a rubric permitting the omission of the introduction "when another Service provided in this Book follows immediately".

In Benedictine and medieval secular practice, the Venite was sung with a variable antiphon to distinguish it from the psalms of a given day. The proposed prayer book reintroduced this practice for greater feasts, but this practice was not widely adopted. Frere provided the 10 invitatory antiphons for the Venite, which was said through verse 7. The 1662 prayer book's daily offices ended with "The Grace" from 2 Corinthians 13; the revised text allowed for three alternative endings after the Prayers and Thanksgivings.

A new translation of the Athanasian Creed (Quicunque vult) was introduced as an option in the revised prayer book. Its recitation was prescribed for fifteen days, compared to 13 days in the 1662 offices. However, its recitation also became optional on all these days–with specific rubrical encouragement for recitation on Trinity Sunday and the Feast of the Annunciation–with added permissions allowing it to be split into two sections that omitted of the "damnatory clauses" in verses 2 and 42. This allowance recitation of the Athanasian Creed relegated to only Trinity Sunday in most parishes, with many omitting it altogether.

Holy Communion
The revised prayer book contained two Communion office: the 1662 prayer book's Communion service was left intact while a second revised form. Frere's influence brought some borrowing from the 1549 and 1637 prayer books to the new rite, including an Epiclesis calling the Holy Spirit into the sacramental elements. The Gloria in Excelsis, as in the 1549 prayer book, was to be optionally omitted on weekdays.

Despite there only being one formal fixed Postcommunion thanksgiving, changes between the 1550 ordinal and the 1552 prayer book resulted in a longstanding tradition wherein the Commendatory Prayers were treated as "Postcommunions"; this tradition was formally authorized in the proposed prayer book and 1929 Scottish Prayer Book while a rubric in the 1928 American prayer book failed to completely prevent the practice.

Ordinal
The 1928 ordinal is largely that as proposed in A Prayer-Book Revised. The Grey Book and Green Book had not included ordinals, and historian Paul F. Bradshaw described Frere's Orange Book ordinal as having "merely reproduced the proposals of A Prayer-Book Revised" with the added suggestions that the litany be abbreviated for ordinations and that new form of "Come, Holy Ghost" aligned more with the Veni Creator than that written by John Cosin and found in the 1662 prayer book. Made Bishop of Truro in 1923, Frere likely guided his fellow bishops in adopting these suggested changes. Deviating from A Prayer-Book Revised, the proposed prayer book made the litany optional; if the litany was omitted in the episcopal consecration rite, silent prayer and then the litany's concluding collect were to be said to provide a prayer of the people. Additionally, the rubrics for episcopal consecration now mandated they occur on only holy days or Sundays and a new collect was added for the simultaneous ordination of deacons and priests.

Overview
The proposed revision was approved in 1927 by the Church Assembly but rejected by Parliament. Its authorisation was defeated in the House of Commons for a second time on 14 June 1928.

In order to reduce conflict with traditionalists, it was decided that the form of service to be used would be determined by the incumbent and the parochial church council, with the older 1662 forms of services continuing to be available alongside the 1928 forms.

Since the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919 required measures affecting the Book of Common Prayer to be approved by Parliament before receiving royal assent, the measure authorising its use, together with an annexed copy (a "Deposited Book"), was submitted to Parliament. The House of Lords approved the Book by a large majority, but the corresponding resolution in the House of Commons was defeated by 33 votes on 15 December 1927. The Home Secretary, William Joynson-Hicks (later Viscount Brentford), and Rosslyn Mitchell "reached and inflamed all the latent Protestant prejudices in the House" and argued strongly against it, largely in opposition to the Roman practice of the "reserved sacrament" which the Book would have legalised in the Church of England, albeit in a limited fashion and for the specific purpose of communion of the sick only.

The prayer book was submitted again the following year and defeated a second time in the Commons on 14 June 1928.