Why I Like the 1662 BCP

Clipped from: https://rtbp.wordpress.com/2010/06/07/why-i-like-the-1662-bcp/
By bentonmarder,Mark

Why I Like the 1662 BCP

June 7, 2010 by bentonmarder

Many years ago, Fr Stephen Heimann asked my dear friend Fr Lou Traycik why it was that I preferred the !662 BCP over the American 1928.  At the time, Fr Lou had not had occasion to discuss this with me, so he opined that it was likely an austerity in devotional temperament.

The reason has always been more than devotional temperament.  Over my years of study of the BCPs and Articles, I had noted the American boo’s tendency to be ‘nicey-nice’ to the point of a certain degree of weakness in expression.  As I use the two books, I see the points noted.

Fr Hart, in a recent sermon on Deives & Lazarus, reminds us that our personal duty is to become familiar with Holy Writ.  We caano and should not rely on our clergy to do this for us.  We have to take up and read.  Now, this applies not only to the Bible but also to the Prayer Book.  We need to know the Catholic faith through reading and praying and living—the old ‘lex orandi, lex credendi,—lex vivendi’.

So, I will try to point out some areas of perceived weakness.  Interestingly, the new REC BCP, which is a reasonably successful conflation of the 1662 and 1928 BCPs, preserves most of the materiel of 1662 that is missing in the 1928—for which we all owe the REC thanks.

Fr Hart, in his sermon on Dives & Lazarus, reminds us without saying so that the beginning is in Mattins.  We sing the Venite te exultemus in a toned down version that replaces part of Psalm 95 with parts from Psalm 96.  While the rubric permits us to use the whole of Psalm 95, few of us do.  We don’t sing the nitty-gritty of the verses beginning with “Harden not your hearts—”  This was what Fr Hart was getting at.  Dives knew that his brethren would not listen to Moses and the Prophets.  Abraham reminded him that, if they would not hear Moses and the prophets, they weren’t about to hear that stinking beggar Lazarus.  Harden not our hearts, brethren, lest we not enter into His rest.

We look at the Penitential office, which has been shorn of the first half of the Commination.  We are not reminded that certain behaviour reflects a profound turning away from God.  Removing our neighbours landmarks in any way, whether they be physical, intellectual, spiritual, is a deliberate destruction of our neighbour.  Taking reward to slay the innocent applies not only to abortionists and other suchlike hit-men, but also to soldiers that callously inflict ‘collateral damage’—this reminding us of Lenin’s dictum about eggs and omelettes.  When we look at the rest of the ‘Curses’, we recognise what they tell us about fundamental attitudes.

In our Baptismal service, we don’t, and the god-parents don’t for their god-children, say the Belief.  That is left to whatever other service is being said.  However, from time immemorial, the Belief itself is an integral part of Baptism, not merely a reference.

The opening exhortation of the Marriage service in our rite is toned down quite a bit.  !662 is quite plain about the purpose of marriage in comparison to later BCPs.  I am reminded of the ‘tattle-tale scribblings of Mrs Sayers’ here—her telling of the Dowager Duchess of Denver’s reference to ‘the coarse old Prayer Book form’ used at Lord Peter’s wedding to his Lady Harriet.

I could go on to remind us of the inevitable weakness mixed with excellence of our 1928 BCP.  As I mentioned, the new REC BCP conflates the two books.  Essentially, my preference for 1662 is that I want to use a book that sets forth the Apostolic and Catholic faith—warts and all.  Glossing away the hard parts, the rough-sounding parts, doesn’t help us much.  In a sense, such glossing can inculcate an attitude of ‘I’m OK, you’re OK’  The ’79, in the Confessions for Mattins and Evensong, stripped out the telling phrase ‘And there is no health in us’.  This, another ‘bicey-nice’ glossing, obscures reality.

The American BCP has never included the Athanasian Creed.  The ’79 does includeit as a Historical Document along with other formulae that were never used in the liturgy.  In 1662, the Athanasian Creed is to be used some 12 or 13 times a year at Mattins.  It speaks of right belief in relation to salvation.  Now, the root of the words used has to do with health, wholeness.  So it is thatwe must hold the Catholic Faith if we would be whole, in sound health.  If we do not keep and hold it completely, we perish.  Further, it is necessary that we believe in the reality of our Incarnate Lord..  At the end, we are flatly reminded that the Catholic Faith is what it is; without it, we cannot be whole, we cannot be in health.  Here in the USA,  we don’t use this bold statement of Christian reality.  In other Prayer Books, the actual use is minimised.

Brethren, we need to know the Catholic Faith, to proclaim it in our worship, in our lives—-blunt language and all.  Complete truth hurts sometimes.  For our souls’ health, we have to hear it loud and clear so it sticks in our minds and souls.  We hear it all in the 1662 BCP.

Tolle lege, fratres, tolle lege.  Lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi.

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Posted in Uncategorized | 38 Comments

38 Responses

1. on June 7, 2010 at 3:09 pm | Reply Eric
   An interesting pro-1662 post. You may be one of the few who prefers the 1662 over the ’28 without even mentioning the Communion rite (this is not a criticism, merely an observation of something I find unique).
   I am not familiar with the REC BCP – which does it prefer in its burial rite? Also, does it have a single Baptismal rite or three?
   Thanks for this post.

   • on June 7, 2010 at 6:05 pm | Reply Mark
     Dear Eric,
     The REC has one baptismal rite; that from 1662. Ditto “The Order for the Burial for the Dead.” The Holy Communion is really the ’62 antecommunion with the canons from both 1662 and 1928. Holy Matrimony is also 1662. And, happily, it does not exclude those wonderful and gritty prefaces Benton alludes to explaining the institution and purpose of wedlock.

2. on June 7, 2010 at 3:58 pm | Reply Charles
   My most recent critical engagement with 1928 vs. 1662 has been over the marriage rite. There are some stark differences which immediately come to mind, the most notable being the shortening of the rite by deletion of OT quotations, the equal betrothal vows exchanged by husband and wife, and the blessing of the ring. I would not be surprised if the changes were effected by the Lux Mundi party back in 1928. What is ironic is the 1928 is preferred by Anglo-Catholics over the 1662. Yet the 1928 gives the first concessions, most apparent in the marriage rite, to liberals and feminists. For those who wish to keep Holy Orders male, it stands to reason to keep male distinction in the matrimonial vows. We might consider that feminism in the church began with feminism in the family, and this is something Anglo-Catholics ought to be more consistent about.
   Those of us committed to the continuing church w/ 1928 usage, I believe, can make up many differences by good sermons (say, adding more OT references in the pulpit). But this has lead me to thinking about the 1928 and the legacy of Lux Mundi. I doubt we will ever entirely shake the left or the right of Anglicanism, and there ought to be a certain patient acceptance of these extremes, i.e., “living with liberalism” (or old catholics) for example. This is causing me to read Lux Mundi arguments and find what common ground we have. The irony is the old liberal crowd would be judged mostly conservative today. In some cases the extreme liberals just need to be held to the fire of what their Lux Mundi fathers said. I have found a recent Anglo-emergent website that calls the ‘three legged stool’ of Anglicanism, “reconciliation, mission, justice”, and I doubt men like Gore would have gone this far. I guess today there’s just no longer any constraints…

3. on June 7, 2010 at 5:03 pm | Reply Fr. David F. Coady
   An interesting fact regarding the original American Prayer Book. The reason that the Athanasian Creed is omitted is from the first American Prayer Book is because it was printed by Benjamin Franklin. Franklin went to the Church leaders and pointed out that by omitting this one Creed they could save a substantial amount of printing costs. Apparently in those days printing was done in thirteen page increments and by omitting the Athanasian Creed it would cut back on the number of pages printed. Why it was not included in later editions of the Prayer Book is probably because of the Anglican perchance for tradition. After all the word “Holy” is omitted from the Nicene Creed because of a printing error many “moons” ago in the English Prayer Book.

   • on June 10, 2010 at 3:40 am | Reply H Lee Poteet
     Father, I have never heard that story about the QV before, but considering the cost of printing and the poverty of the Church at that point I can well believe it. I only wish I had known it much, much earlier because as a teenager I got into a debate with Bishop John Hines at the first National Canterbury Conference at Sewanee over the necessity of the Athanasian Creed. He was against it and I was more than pleased that the group of students I was sitting with thought I had won my argument for its necessity quite handily.
     We use it at my parish on the occasions called for in the English prayer book. We also frequently use the traditional English Venite rather than the American watered down version.
   • on June 27, 2010 at 2:48 am | Reply Benton H Marder
     Brother David,
     I suspect that someone was mistaken about the BCP being printed in 13 page takes. Letterpress printing doesn’t work that way. The usual forms are folio (four pages), quarto (eight pages), octavo (16 pages), etc. There is a duodecimo (24 pages). A sheet was printed on one side and then the other. Each sheet had a folio number or letter printed on the bottom; this was for gathering into quires for folding and stitching. There could be a number of quires involved. Pamphlets and tracts usually involved a single sheet, folded and stitched. If we examine old books, we will note the folio letters or numbers; this will show how it works. Essentially, I am saying that the ’13 page’ number is mistaken. It just doesn’t work that way
     I come from a family of typefounders and printers, which is how I know about this sort of thing. I have actually cast type by hand and have set type and printed from it.
     What is more likely is that Franklin wasn’t enthusiastic about the Athanasian Creed and figured out how to eliminate it, knowing that most people wouldn’t know he was blowing smoke. Also, this was a time when many of the learned disliked the Athanasian Creed. Most likely, all this and much else was due to the toning down of the American BCP.
     Hope this helps.
     In +,
     Benton

4. on June 7, 2010 at 5:54 pm | Reply Mark
   Dear Benton,
   Their literary beauty notwithstanding-the majesty of Cranmer’s heightened prose has a strangeness, which underscores the uncanny realities of corporate worship in ways which leave our modern, lackaday idioms in the dust-the classical Prayer Books offer a no-nonsense approach to inculcating the people of God into the mysteries of the catholic faith, once delivered, as it has come down in the Western Augustinian tradition. That means Prayer Book worship, of necessity, must set forth God’s love and God’s wrath (as Chesterton quipped, “we want both things, burning at the top of their energies”) as well as our impotence as Adam’s sons to effect our own redemption.
   The hard reality of our falleness neccesitates the retention of those phrases and descriptions, which aren’t at all helpful to the project of shoring up self-esteem; from the fact that we are “very far gone from righteousness”, it follows that we are indeed “miserable sinners”, and that “there is no health in us”.
   On the other hand no other liturgical schema of which I am aware is so deeply pastoral. Take the Commination and Penitential Office: In the former we read “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God; He shall pour down rain upon the sinners-snares, fire and brimstone, storm and tempest; this shall be their portion to drink. For, Lo, the Lord is come out of His place to visit the wickedness of such as dwell upon the earth.” (Can the wrath of God burn more brightly than this)?
   But following such terrors, the tender mercies of God are enunciated in an abbreviated form of the “Comfortable words”: “Although we have sinned, yet we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous; and He is the propitiation for our sins. For He was wounded for our offences and smitten for our wickedness. Let us therefore return unto Him, who is the merciful reciever of all true penitent sinners.”
   The self-abnegation that follows in the Penitential Office with Psalm 51 incarnates our miserable state, and through fervent prayer and contrition, crystallizes the astonishing love of God towards penitent sinners; for He who comes “out of His place to visit the wickedness of those that dwell upon the earth” also has “compassion upon all men, “hates nothing” He has made, spares “when we deserve punishment” and “thinketh upon mercy”, even in His wrath. He is “merciful”, “full of compassion”, long-sufferring and of great pity”, and His “very nature and property” is “ever to have mercy and to forgive.” (And wherelse does the love of God’s burn more brightly)?
   So I am in complete agreement with you. Take away or soften the edges of those hard sayings in the Prayer Book and you wind up with a gelded variation or caricature of the faith, which actually robs the Church of the joy that comes from knowing a God of such astounding love. “O Felix Culpa.”

5. on June 7, 2010 at 6:04 pm | Reply Charles
   I think where 1928 criticism vis-a-vis 1662 is troublesome is the apparent rejection of non-juror thought. There are two things to keep in mind: First, the 1789 came to a compromise with Seabury’s Scottish canon, accepting the order of eucharist prayer but rejecting the content of the epiklesis, i.e., an explicit confection for the bread and wine. Rather, the epiklesis retains, as I believe Bp. P. Robinson claims, a ‘high virtualist’ sacramentology. In this sense, it’s not 100% non-juroring but stays within BCP tradition and intent whereas the scottish liturgy represents more of a break. Secondly, when we use the term ‘non-juror’, I’d wish we’d me more exact, distinguishing unionists from usagers. The non-juroring party was in fact divided, and unionists stuck with majoritarian theology, closer to the Caroline divines, etc..
   I am very sympathetic to Nicholas Armitage’s sentiments on 1928, preferring the 1892. Here you see modifications in both lectionary and liturgy in the more catholic direction without the greater influence of Lux Mundi. Nonetheless, I think taking the best of liberal catholicism, i.e., Bicknell, Dearmer, and even Gore, has its merit. We need to learn to live with, or at least reconcile, what we’ve inherited. And, this is primarily why I might support 1928– because it represents a situation more akin to our present predicament, forcing us to consider and integrate aspects of Anglo-Catholicism.

6. on June 8, 2010 at 3:16 pm | Reply bentonmarder
   I did not deal with the ’28 Communion because I don’t have any problems with it—as it stands. Any problems really have to do with how it is celebrated.
   In most of our parishes, the Communion is pretty much the only service on Sundays. It is, thereby, shorn of its setting in the Prayer Book pattern of Mattins, Litany, Communion, Evensong. These are a whole, as Cranmer envisaged. In this context, the Communion is like a precious gem, removed from its setting.
   Further, we don’t even celebrate the Communion as envisaged. There are parts that are habitually disused that are essential parts of the whole.
   The Long Exhortation giving notice is essential because it warns us to prepare for the Sacrament, it tells us how we might best prepare.
   The Decalogue is a first essential to our self-examination within the Communion Service. The Long Exhortation between the Prayer and the Invitation is also an essential part of that preparation.
   How often is the Giving Notice read? Hardly ever. It should be read on Sundays before Ash Wednesday, Christmas, Ascension, etc.
   How often is the Decalogue rehearsed? The BCP requires it once a month minimum. I know of some ly botched. the priest, even though a priest for 50 years, parishes, specially missal parishes, where the Decalogue is never heard. Claude Moss tells us that he preferred to use the Decalogue rather than merely the Summary precisely because the Decalogue confronts us with our sins, it has the ‘bite’ the Summary lacks.
   The Long Exhortation is required to be read thrice a year at minimum. I know of parishes where it, like the decalogue, was never read.
   The habitual disuse of these, along with the common disuse of Mattins and Evensong, read in church, contributes to a profound ignorance of the Psalter and Scripture and the Gospel canticles by layfolk and clergy alike. It also contributes to a profound taking of the Communion Itself for granted.
   We need to know the Bible, the Psalter, the whole of the BCP. Otherwise we remain ignorant and careless.
   On the one occasion I actually heard the Decalogue rehearsed in a missal parish, it was horribly botched. The priest, after 50 years of using the missal, simply did not know how to di it.
   Later, when a locumtenens read the Long Exhortation, long-time parishioners told him that they had never heard it before. When that same locum tenens ran the parish through the offices of Instruction, long-time parishioners told him that they didn’t even know these offices were in the prayer Book. The parish in question, a missal mass only parish, was profoundly ignorant of the basics. they probably could not have said the belief from memory; all they knew was the Nicene and the pater.
   Brethren, our great Archbishop bestowed upon us priceless gifts in the BCP. All too many of us don’t even know what we’ve inherited. Shame on us, brethren, shame on us. No wonder we’re in such a fix.
   In +,
   Benton

   • on June 10, 2010 at 4:02 am | Reply H Lee Poteet
     Benton,
     It is very difficult for most to understand the necessity of doing the prayer book as a whole and not just as an either/or sort of thing. The reaction to the Catholic revival in which those who understood the fullness of the Tractarian argument led to more frequent celebrations although there had always been those parishes where there were celebrations on all Sundays and Holy Days. But that on the part of low churchmen resulted in a reaction in which the ante-communion service was dropped and the Sermon simply followed Morning Prayer. Obedience simply created more rabid disobedience by folks who proceed to insist that they were the true prayer book churchmen.
     On the other hand, the prayer book pattern is not that of Cramner. May I quote from Walter Langland’s The Vision of Piers the Plowman?
     “Lewd men to labour, lords to hunt . . .
     On Sundays to cease, God’s service to hear,
     Both mattins and mass, and after meat
     Evensong, in church every man ought. . .”
     But I know entirely what you mean. I have known even bishops who did not know all and everything which was in the prayer book. They had not been exposed to it in their three years in seminary, either in class or in the chapel, and they lacked the intellectual curiosity to actually read the Book of Common Prayer all the way through. I was required to do that fully twice before I was confirmed.
     The whole problem with the missals and missal services is that the the priests and bishops for all their denials are pretending to be Roman Catholics and actually obeying the rubrics of the prayer book destroys that fantasy.

7. on June 8, 2010 at 8:49 pm | Reply Fr. David F. Coady
   At St. Francis Anglican Church, Blacksburg, VA we rehearse The Decalogue (with sung response) the first Sunday of each month. As for The Exhortation, it is said more often than the rubrics call for. We are in the Diocese of the Eastern United States, Anglican Province of America (APA). We have Morning Prayer and Holy Communion every Sunday and Evening Prayer every Wednesday. Monday through Thursday Morning Prayer, Holy Communion, and Evening Prayer is celebrated by all who wish to attend.

   • on June 8, 2010 at 10:07 pm | Reply bentonmarder
     Thank you Fr C.� I’m glad some folks out there are facing in the right direction. My own suggestion is not to harden the use of the Decalogue to one particular Sunday in the month.� The Propers for a number of Sundays suggest that the Decalogue might be appropriatemention of the Law in the Epistle or Gospel, perhaps? The Long exhortations do deserve more frequent use.� Again, thanks. In +, Benton

8. on June 9, 2010 at 5:13 am | Reply Mark
   At my parish, Eucharist has always been the primary service on the Lord’s day and holy days of obligation (we use the ’28 canon, incidentally). Before changing venues a few years ago, our Sundays would feature the Morning Office and Holy Communion, with Christian education sandwiched in between. We only say Evening Prayer on Wednesday nights (we do not own our own property, you see), but once every month we hold an Evensong for all ACNA and Continuing parishes in the vicinity.
   And, happily, we never omit the Decalogue in the Holy Communion (our rubrics allow the summary of the law to be said, even when the ten words are left out). The exhortation, however, is spoken only on those Sundays mandated by the rubrics.
   What Iv’e described here is pretty typical of REC parishes in the Diocese of mid America.

9. on June 10, 2010 at 4:39 am | Reply H Lee Poteet
   Overall, I can’t say that I prefer 1662 to the American book of 1928. But I would not be unhappy is the strengths of 1662 were returned to the American prayer book tradition. The major weakness of 1662 lies in the service of Holy Communion and that in the portion of the service which begins with the offertory. The 1928 arrangement simply flows better with the parts in a more logical order. In the canon the necessary parts are in the earliest order, that of the Verona fragment so that we have the offering of thanks, the oblation and the invocation of the Holy Spirit in that order. And while the invocation is not as strongly worded as that of the Scots’ canon, neither is that of the earliest surviving model. One might also look at the Supplices te rogamus which during the greater part of the use of the Gelasian/Gregorian canon was the part considered the most mystical and the point at which in the earliest printed Roman missal (1474) the priest was order to bow to find that neither it nor the Quam oblationem are as explicit as the later Orthodox models. I would like to quote those texts directly but can not at the moment find my copy of Coverdale’s translation of same.
   But the most important thing which needs to be done is to reestablish a tradition of obedience to the fullness of the Book of Common Prayer with our American book being interpreted in the light of the rubrics of the English books of 1559 and 1662. I realize that when missions and parishes in the continuum don’t own or have access to full time chapels, there is no place for the daily offices and the litany to be said on the times appointed and many holy days will have to ignored as well. But that also means that the priest is the more required to teach all (and I do mean ALL) of what the prayer book contains and the importance of the laity joining him in saying the offices privately when they cannot be read publicly. There is simply no excuse for a parish or mission with a building and a full time minister neglecting the obligation of the public reading of the offices with lay members of the parish taking them when the priest is unable to do so.

10. on June 11, 2010 at 2:52 pm | Reply George B. Fincke
    Thanks for the kind words re: the REC BCP. I served of the revision committee for the REC. It took us 12 years, but is, IMO a much stronger Prayer Book than the RE Church had at the time.

    • on June 11, 2010 at 10:10 pm | Reply bentonmarder
      Brother George, � I’ve heard of you; I remember your name from years ago.� Louis Traycik was a dear friend of mine.� He studied at the old Reformed Episcopal Seminary in Philadelphia way back when. I know your old book somewhat.� I did like the idea of additional provision for alternates to Venite te exultemus.� I’m sorry some of this wasn’t carried over to the new book.� There were some other excellences, too.� I’m also familiar with the FCE book, which is very much 1662.� I’m wondering if your new book is having its influence upon your ‘intercommunion’ partners. Lou, while he was at RES, sent me a copy of a sermon by Bishop Riches, which I have always thought of as the beginning of an ‘Oxford Movement’ in the REC. I also gained a great respect for Allan Guelzo, who taught at RES then.� Also for Ray Sutton.� Lou would tell me about them and their outlook and what he learned from them, just being around them.� I’m very pleased he went to RES; he learned a lot of Bible theremore than he would have learned elsewhere. I, and many others, owe great thanks to the REC for the reprints of Griffith Thomas, Browne, and Litton on the 39.� I purchased a number of copies of Griffith thomas and Browne to give to friends that needed solid exposure to the Articles. � In +, Benton

11. on June 14, 2010 at 1:39 pm | Reply Benton H Marder
    Charles,
    Going over your comment on the Marriage Service, I’d like to make some additional ones’
    The Proposed BCP of 1785 had a very truncated opening, which was lengthened for 1789. This is pretty much as it stands in the ’28.
    Our rite has always been bob-tailed, so to speak. The true blessing of the marriage begins with the Psalm, Beatus vir. For this reason, Fr Hollister (?) prefers to use the Canadian service, which is very like the English PBCP of 1928.
    None of these deal with the nitty-gritty of the purpose of marriage as does 1662. In our case, the Bride vowed to obey up to the ’28 revision. It is interesting to note that certain other books of the period omit ‘obey’, while others retain. The South African BCP has an interesting caveat:’in all things lawful to bey’. The SA book uses the 1662 opening, by the way.
    Yes, there is the ‘headship’ issue. I think we all need to contemplate its significance for and in our time.
    I’m not convinced that these differences can be traced to Lux Mundi, which did have a great influence in its time. I am more likely to trace a lot of our present difficulties to the rise of the ‘higher criticism’ in Biblical scholarship. The early assertions of very late dating of NT books did weaken the authority of Scripture, giving rise to a ‘supermarket’ approach as exemplified by the Jesus Seminar assertions anent the Pater. It all comes down to how we approach the Bible itself. All else flows from that.
    In +,
    Benton

12. on June 21, 2010 at 8:08 pm | Reply Mark Haverland
    Dear Mr. Marder,
    I strongly agree with your particular reasons for preferring 1662 to the 1928 American BCP. I would add that the three rather minor changes to the Te Deum are all for the worse. However, overall the 1662 book, if used strictly, would strike the average modern Anglican of almost any stripe as rigid, tedious, and unvarying – for reasons I noted in a brief piece on the subject in March over at Retro-Church.
    Most of what is better in 1662 is also found in other BCPs. What might be best would be to begin a conservative reform from a 1928 American base, restoring the features of 1662 you miss, adding some of the good things from 1549 or the Indian and South African books of the early 1960s, and when in doubt resisting the temptation to fiddle.
    +MDH

    • on June 24, 2010 at 9:52 pm | Reply deathbredon
      Well said.

    • on June 29, 2010 at 4:44 pm | Reply bentonmarder
      You are most welcome to the Beach Party, Your Grace, more than welcome. Drag up a chair and make yourself comfortable. There’s iced tea in the pitcher on the table. No sweetener in it, but there is a good touch of mint for a hot day.
      I am glad you stopped by. Yes, I saw that post at RetroChurch. I have problems posting comments on certain blogsites due to the posting procedures; I wanted to say something about your note on the actual use of the 1662 BCP. Sure, using it as given can be tedious. However, when the BCPs were drafted, and even now, there was a need for solid instruction of the layfolk. The then theory was that, if sound doctrine was to be gotten into the heads of the layfolk, they had to hear it again and again and again—the whole ball of wax every chance possible. Back then, the service might have been tedious (add the long sermons or reading of a Homily), but most people did have all they needed to know to their souls’ health provided them.
      Any possible review of the ’28 BCP must involve a greater degree of co-operation and unity than is present in the movement. Otherwise, there’s no point; different jurisdictions would be using different books. This liturgical chaos now apparent is bad enough. This is not merely a matter of pragmatism; it is a moral issue affecting all of us. The disunity is killing us and has been doing so from the early years of the movement. The pragmatic aspect is clear: due to our divisions, we separately do not have the resources or abilities we need.
      Perhaps, Dr Haverland, you and your fellow primates (EMC, APCK, APA, UEC, etc) might arrange for a commission to collect suggestions and advice for a future look at revision. Such a revision could not be a ‘party’ book; that’s obvious.
      How do we improve the ’28? Adjustment of badly placed rubrics. Restoration of the actual use of the Athanasian Creed. The strengthening of Baptism, Confirmation, Matrimony, etc. Cleaning up weaknesses in text (You mentioned Te Deum.). An examination of the present Office Lectionary to improve it. I can go on and on. The catch will be in securing a near unanimous agreement.
      During the ’50s, the EC put out a series of Prayer Book Studies (uniform blue covers) that examined each of the rites, proposed revisions, explained the rationale for each proposal. Whether we agreed or not, we saw that the then SLC was being honest and up front about this process. Later on, this ceased to be so, to our misfortune. This sort of reasoning will be essential.
      Back in the ’60s, the EC missed the opportunity to create a new altar book, made up of the Altar Service, Lesser Feasts & Fasts, and other items not included in the Altar Servive—Ordination propers, etc.
      I would think such a book could contribute to a certain degree of uniformity in the movement. So, I pose several questions:

      Are the missal users wedded to the missal schedule or Kalendar—black letter, etc?
      Are the missal users wedded to the appointments (Collects, Epistles, Gospels) provided in the missals?
      Could missal users be content with the sort of book I mentioned above.
      Would the missal users feel comfortable using something like the Canadian provisions for Introits & Graduals. The citation could be printed with the Propers.
      Would an OT lesson be welcome in the Communion Service. I am thinking of the OT lesson citation marked with the ‘*’ in the Office Lectionary as fitted to the Epistle & Gospel for the day. Here I am thinking of parishes that don’t do Mattins for whatever reason.
      The model I am using for this altar book suggestion did not provide for the likes of Ash Wednesday and Holy week other than the Collects, Epistles & Gospels. This whole matter might be better handled in a revision of the Book of Offices. My own experience is that most parishes cannot and do not use the whole of the Easter Even service in the missals. Too long.
      In sum, sir, I’d like us all to think of a way that all of us use the same rite so that we’re all on the same page of the same book. This, for us, would be a big step toward the unity we all need. That is the important thing here.
      We behold the coming disaster for parishes and layfolk in the TAC/ACA. Many parishes and layfolk have next to no desire to become part of the Roman Church. Since all the TAC/ACA bishops, one way or other, have signed on to this move, there will be unhappy divisions, even within dioceses and parishes. I think, sir, that you and your fellow primates need, in addition to working to overcome divisions made in the past, to co-operate in finding these parishes and layfolk convenient and congenial homes. In some parts of the country, this will not be easy. It might well mean suggesting to a parish that they approach another jurisdiction that would suit them better. These people need to be provided for. In the early years of the movement, the perception was that certain jurisdictions represented certain ‘parties’ As the EC fell into diarray and severe loss of souls, many simply dropped out altogether due to these perceptions and the ‘warring factions’. We recognise that many of the clergy in the movement then were ‘high to higher to highest’ while the layfolk were most ‘low to middling’ This hurt us then; it hurts us now. A million souls were lost due to all this. We dare not lose more, lest we hear His voice—.
      Again, sir, I welcome you to the Beach Party. Do come visit whenever you can. Some of us were surprised that you read our scribblings. I am not, really. I know that you are continually seeking to learn whatever you can to build up the Church; not only the ACC, but the rest of the movement. It’s been good to have you.
      In +,
      Benton

      • on June 29, 2010 at 9:44 pm deathbredon
        Benton–well said also.
        I am constantly perplexed that so many of those who feel the need to supplement the BCP, which need I also feel, seem hellbent on so doing peculiarly Roman materials. Instead, “English-sourced” supplementation is readily available in the 1962 Canadian BCP (introits and grails), in various Anglican hymnals and psalters, and in the judicious use of Lesser Feasts and Fasts and other within-the-Anglican-way alternative services books.
        Of course, I realize that all this material is not neatly compiled into a one-volume altar or pew missal, and that this disarray can be tiresome at times. But, surely the Continuum could come together and combine its collective resources to compile an Anglican-Use Missal for supplementation of the traditional editions of the BCP. Combine that with an updating of the Parson’s Handbook and we can chuck our Roman-Use Missals, Ritual Notes, and Ultramontane vestments into the Tiber.
      • on June 29, 2010 at 10:02 pm bentonmarder
        One thing we’d have to do, Brother Death, is not to clutter it up with rubrics.� The BCP is very sparing with rubrics for good reason.� All the detailed rubrics in the missals stem from a time when there were no such books as Ritual Notes.� It all had to be in the altar book.� In fact, when we look at the really old missals, we find that the whole service, with necessary rubrics, is printed out on Advent Sunday.� This was a training tool. When it comes to Parson’s Handbook, it’s probaby wiser to work from the Pocknee edition.� Otherwise, some folks would get bogged down in all the historical detail.� I might add that it might be wise to look at the appropriate rubrics in the 1928 English Proposed BCP.� Much more realistic for most of us. In +, Benton
      • on June 29, 2010 at 11:53 pm deathbredon
        I agree entirely. Perhaps, should no one do it sooner, I will attempt to top produce such a Missal in my dotage.
        My feeling is that, given all the innovation about, the last thing that is likely to go ever well are neo-trad edition of the BCP proper. Hence, as an interim, an Anglican-Use Missal with restraint and sparring inclusion of rubrics could be minted and sold as a set with the Pocknee edition of the Parson’s Handbook!

13. on June 22, 2010 at 4:38 pm | Reply Charles
    Hi Benton,
    yes. I give Lux Mundi too much credit. I also think there is a generation gap between Gore and the liberal catholics of the 1930’s. From what little I’ve read about the 1920’s revisions, higher critics made odd alliances with both evangelicals and catholics, but liberal (high-centre) catholics were the intellectual driving force nonetheless. From Lux Mundi there is a bias in favor of NT, and the bias (that’s all it is) is shewn throughout the 28. Rank heresy would come after WWII. These things are hard to evaluate, because partyism is somewhat fictional. There are many grades between, and often ideas and certain trends permeate across conventional party-lines. In sum, Lux Mundi is not the sole culprit, and if evangelicals could make common cause with modernists, then obviously more is going on than meets the eye.

14. on June 28, 2010 at 12:26 am | Reply Fr. David F. Coady
    Brother Benton:
    I very well may have the number of pages wrong in the printing process. It must be remembered at the time of the printing of the first American Prayer Book, Philadelphia was the largest city and Benjamin Franklin was the largest printing firm in America. To my knowledge Benjamin Franklin was not an Anglican and was probably a deist. He was, however, a very good friend of Bishop William White. White was the chaplain for both the committee which drafted the Declaration of Independence and the Constitutional Convention. Of the three American Bishops, White represented the Low Church faction and would have favored omitting the Athanasian Creed from the Prayer Book. (see pages 188 – 189 “A History of the American Episcopal Church”, 1935, 1950, Morehouse- Gorham Co.) If there was any shady business regarding the omission of the Athanasian Creed from the American Prayer Book it probably should be attributed to White and not Franklin.
    Fr. David

    • on June 28, 2010 at 12:59 am | Reply bentonmarder
      Fr David, � Actually, we cannot know just how much of anything Franklin had to do with the BCPs. � The 1785/6 Proposed Book omitted the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, along with other materiel of syubstance.� The English bishops would not accept this book as a sufficiently othodox liturgy, which is why this book was discarded. The 1789/90 BCP restored the Nicene Creed but still omiteed the Athanasian, along with restoring some other materiel.� As I mentioned in another place, the Proposed Book contained the Gospel canticles in full; the later book omitted two and shortened the third. All this comparative materiel was edited and published by William McGarvey in his ‘Liturgiae Americanae’, which includes other materiel of the period, such as the ‘Seabury Rite’ The printing of both books was done by Hall & Sellers in Philadelphia, the successor of Franklin & Hall, which is why there is a question about Franklin’s actual involvement in the preparation of both books. I don’t know if we can suggest ‘funny business’ anent the omissions.� I do suspect that the revision committee was far from representative of the Church at the time.� I might add that the ‘Seabury Rite’ had to be toned down quite a bit for the first BCP of 1789/90.� Interestingly, in Connecticut, Seabury;s original clergy continued to use the ‘Seabury Rite’ for several decades after. In +, Benton

15. on June 30, 2010 at 3:13 am | Reply H Lee Poteet
    Brothers, I think what we are all looking for is a way forward with the paradox being that in order to actually go forward we must first go backwards. The coming disaster for TAC/ACC and ACCC to say nothing of their other national jurisdictions comes from the beginning of the Back to Baroque movement ifirst in England and then all over the Anglican Communion. A sizeable portion of the Anglo-Catholic party gradually became Anglo-papist under the influence of the English Church Union and the Society of Saints Peter and Paul. So to correct matters we have to go behind that moving disaster.
    But the choice is not, I believe, to follow Dearmer but to follow the Alcuin Club transforming what they called English Use into Anglican Usage. Dearmer was a populizer and willing to make compromises in hopes of luring back some of those who had already committed to the Roman Use of Pius V. It didn’t work and we see the result of it now. Central and Evangelical Churchmen rejected it out of hand for its Romanizing tendencies while each of the Catholic parishes it captured froze it into a position that not even Rome was willing to maintain.
    By going behind the beginning of that movement we return to the true Catholic roots of the English Church and Anglianism as a whole. We return to a mentality which was the key of the Catholic party under Elizabeth, James and Charles which Cosin voiced as being one with First Nicea by maintaining the ancient customs of the Church.
    In the Sixteenth Century, the Roman See was in a process of rapidly moving from doing what the whole of the Western Church had done over most of the last thousand years. The innovations began with the papal master of ceremonies under Alexander VI and involved all those things near and dear to the Anglo-papalist heart, the genuflections and elevations that necessitated the destruction of the ancient screens and the cutting down of ancient vestments so that the priest could lift his hands above his shoulders without the help of the deacon or the clerk.
    The priest’s book in the middle ages has almost no rubrics because they didn’t need them. Indeed, the prayer book services had more rubrics than the missals before them because they told the priest of the intended changes in the service and the ceremonial. Worse, much of the service which the priest was expected to know by heart was written out in Latin shorthand rather than in full because of the expense of vellum.
    Personally, I find the Pocknee revision of the Parson’s Handbook a horror. I don’t even like Dearmer’s later editions. But neither is needed if you simply turn to the far more scholarly Directory of Ceremonial which is clear concise and correct.

    • on June 30, 2010 at 10:42 am | Reply deathbredon
      Personally, I am not committed to either Drearmer or the Alcuin Club “down the line” so to speak, but rather I agree with the general principle of “English Sourcing” for ceremonial, which I think is implicit in the Ornaments Rubrick and which motivated both Percy and the Club.
      But even here, I am not a legalist. Rather, our general principle should be to ornament our worship by first delving into the the great treasury of Anglican patrimony rather than looking first to some other tradition. In sum, it is for this general principle only that I made reference to Dreamer.
      Of course, we need true liturgical scholars involved in the production of our Anglican-Use Missal and Ceremonial! I do not mean that I myself would literal attempt to construct either!

      • on June 30, 2010 at 12:28 pm bentonmarder
        Actually, Brother Death, this suggested altar book would be pretty much a cut & paste job.� The materiel already exists in printed form.� I envisage it as pretty much an enlarged Altar Service with the music for precenting the Gloria, Credo, Sursum Corda, etc.� Nothing in the detail given by the missals.� The likes of Ash Wednesday and Holy Week should be in a Book of Offices in loose-rubric form as parishes usually don’t have the resources to do the likes of Good Friday and Easter Even in full.� In sum, it should be strictly a book of the Communion and all the authorised Collects, Epistles, Gospels for red and black letter plus a set of Commons and Votives.� We want to keep it plain and simple without excessive elaboration. � In +, Benton

    • on June 30, 2010 at 12:45 pm | Reply bentonmarder
      The reason we mention Pocknee, Brother Lee, is that it is relatively simple when we compare with the last editions of Dearmer.� These last editions bog us down with historical detail and explanation. � What we need to concentrate upon is an attitude, a direction, a turning aright to recover our own liturgical heritage.� We don’t really need to get bogged down in all the details of Dearmer and the Alcuin Club as our brethren get bogged down with the details of Ritual Notes and the old RC ceremony books. � Here in the USA and Canada, we need to keep all this simple.� We don’t have the resources the Victorians and Edwardians did.� We don’t have the money to throw about on interiors and vestments and all. � The splintering of the Continuing Church is a prime reason why we don’t have the resources.� I devoutly hope that the coming TAC/ACA/ACCC disaster will concentrate our minds wonderfully to undo as much of the splintering as possible.� We know that we’re going to have to heal a lot of suffering souls when the TAC people realise just what their bishops have led them into.� This has got to be paramount. � In +, Benton

      • on June 30, 2010 at 9:51 pm deathbredon
        Yes, well said, again, Brother Benton.
        I don’t doubt that the Alcuin Club is the more technically accurate than than the Parson’s Handbook of any edition Dreamer/Pocknee approach, and I have no objection to a cathedral or well-heeled parish going that direction, but I am more concerned with general liturgical principles.
        Indeed, the first thing needed in the Continuum is a revival of Anglican self-identity–and that doesn’t mean limiting ourselves to the few Anglican divines and liturgists who spent their whole careers apologizing for the Counter-Reformation and Tridentine Rite any more than it does limiting ourselves to the partisan Evangelical Anglicans enraptured with the Puritan Directory of Worship.

16. on June 30, 2010 at 4:39 pm | Reply H Lee Poteet
    Brother Benton,
    The reason I prefer the Alcuin Club’s Directory of Ceremonial to either Pocknee’s version of Dearmer or the straight and from my point of view, more pertinent text of the earlier editions of The Parson’s Handbook is that it, in fact, provides the most simple and straight forward instructions on how to do the prayer book services. On the other hand, I equally believe that it is important that bishops, priests and deacons know the Biblical, theological and historical reasons for the most literal obedience to the prayer book and the avoidance of inventing one’s own liturgy.
    The other major reason I prefer the Alcuin Club approach is that it recommends the greatest use of your resources; if you have a deacon and a lay clerk capable of doing the full ceremonial you do it but you always should do the best that you can with what you actually have.
    As a model for your proposed service book, may I suggest The English Liturgy as edited by Dearmer and the Right Reverend Walter Howard Frere, C.R., It, unlike the American Altar Service Book contains the music for the prefaces and for intoning the beginning of the Creed and the Gloria. It also contains the collects, epistles and gospels for the ordinal which the Altar Service Book does not and all of the lessons, epistles and gospels are pointed for singing in accordance with the rubric in Elizabeth’s book of 1559.
    When it comes to the ornaments of the altar and the ministers, it really is sufficient for an oratory, mission or parish to have a woman or man with enough sewing skills to produce very simple frontals, linens and vestments. They should be full with minimal decoration in keeping with the aesthetic of our time while at the same time based upon historical models. If you run through Allan Barton’s blog you should find appropriate models for everything needed. But the one model which should be entirely rejected is that of the Back to Baroque movement of the last centuries English Church Union or SSPP or this of the Roman New Liturgical Movement blog.
    Musically, we desprerately need simple settings for the service of Holy Communion that came be sung acapella by a very few voices. Cranmer’s The Prayer Book Noted should be used as a guide, but there should be general settings for festal, ferial and penitential seasons. The classic Anglican hymnals are The Hymnal 1940, Hymns Ancient and Modern, Songs of Praise and The English Hymnal, but they all require almost a professional choir although my small congregation did a good job of singing hymns from them acapella last Sunday. The very small parish which provided my introduction to Anglicanism sang the psalms and canticles to Anglican chant from The Oxford American Psalter. But there are other collections of Anglican chants used in the English Church which remain available.

    • on June 30, 2010 at 10:01 pm | Reply deathbredon
      I think we are all basically agreeing here. We really have no need for the Roman-Use missals and ceremonials, any more than we do for limiting the wardrobe to Geneva gowns. And keeping a simple Anglican-Use Identity is just not that difficult for any one who cares to do it!
      * * * * *
      BTW, with and old volume of Briggs and Frere and one good canter, the Office and Liturgy can be pulled off in a fine, reverent, and edifying plain-chant style. And if you can afford to pay a few college or graduate school music scholars just above gas money, you can have full-fledged Anglican Chant service music as well a Tallis Motet during communion.

      • on July 1, 2010 at 12:20 am bentonmarder
        One point I’d like to make is that we need not restrict the music in church to the organ. Many years ago, I attended a Lutheran service while here in Florida on a visit.� The organist was away, so a scratch group of youngsters made the musicwoodwinds and brass.� Naturally, the whole service was sung by the congregation.� A right joyful noise unto the Lord. � Benton

    • on July 1, 2010 at 2:45 am | Reply bentonmarder
      Brother Lee, � You have just brought up the ideal model for an altar book by mentioning The English Liturgy.� I used to have a copy of this but gave it to Lou Traycik+ years ago–before his much-lamented decease. � There is another reason why I would like to follow this model.� The book is less cluttered by extraneous materie.� most important for practical use is that the text is set in a very clear 18-point typeBookman, I believe.� This 18-pt is the same size, albeit a different face, as that used in the Altar Service. Due to the’kitchen sink’ approach to compilation and editing, the type size used in the missals is 12-pt at best, which is not all that useful at the arms-length distance at the altar.� Further, such a type size isn’t all that useful for reading the Epistle & Gospel, which is why I used my own Altar Service for the purpose.� I could use a 1662 desk book, but there are differences in certain Epistles & Gospels.� The practical points are to keep the book managable in size and weight plus a good readable type face and size. � In +, Benton

17. on July 1, 2010 at 9:37 pm | Reply H Lee Poteet
    Brother Benton,
    You actually gave away a copy of The English Liturgy? What were you thinking? Do you have any idea of what may have happened to it?
    But you are right. It is the perfect model for a real altar service book because unlike the American one it actually contains stuff really needed.
    They did do an American version for the pre-’28 American liturgy, but I have never been able to find a copy of same. Woe to my back account if I ever do.
    +Lee

    • on July 2, 2010 at 12:34 am | Reply bentonmarder
      That copy of The English Liturgy is probably now in the library at All Saints. Charlottesville.� Apparently, Aburn gave most of Lou’s books to them.� When Perry Laukhuff died, I gave a set of the David Daniells books (OT,NT,Bio’) on Tyndale to them in memory. The English Liturgy will set you back a good bit if you find one.� The Updike Altar Service (1892 BCP) will certainly bust the budget.� A fantastic book.� Quite ornate typography.� Can’t remember the name of the type-face Updike had cut for this.� I suspect the only copies are in New England, quite disused now. Before the ’28 Altar Service, the Communion Service was printed after the Collects, Epistles, Gospels, floowed by the Occasional Offices and the Ordinal, following the English modelthe point being to locate the Communion in the middle of the book.� Our ’28 and the Canadian ’62 placed it before the Proper, thus creating an imbalance, so to speak. � BHM

18. on July 11, 2010 at 5:48 am | Reply Benton H Marder
    The following are comments made to me by Dr Haverland at a time I had trouble posting a long comment directly by e-mail. They are typed out from my bins because I can’t transfer them. Typos are my own. BHM
    23 June 2010
    I strongly agree with your particular reasons for preferring 1662 to the 1928 American BCP. I would add that the three minor changes to the Te Deum are all for the worse. However,overall the 1662 Book, if used strictly, would strike the average modern Anglican of almost any stripe as rigid, tedious, and unvarying—for reasons I noted in a brief piece on the subject in March over at Retro-Church.
    Most of what is better in 1662is also found in other BCPs. What might be best would be to begin a conservative reform from a 1928 American base, restoring the features of 1662 you miss, adding some of the good things from 1549 or the Indian and South African Books of the early 1960s, and when in doubt resisting the temptation to fiddle..
    30 June 2010
    I think you are correct that the long exhortations and the hortatory materiel were the result of a perceived need to instruct. Sometimes, earlier BCPs reflect the fact of a largely illiterate society. The presence of many variable elements in the rite when many people do not have Prayer Books and could not read them if they had them would impede active lay participation. That fact helps explain the radical pruning of such variable elements—and also explains why general literacy makes acceptable the return of more variable elements. In any case, whatever the reasons, the net effect is that 1662, if used in a rubrically correct manner, is unvarying, boring,, and hectoring. No-one actually wants to use it in that fashion. But that means what people really mean when they say they prefer 1662 is that they want something: 1. traditional (as in England when 1662 is the main alternative to modern language rites); or 2. without the specific problems of later BCPs such as those you and I have noted. In which case it makes more sense to start, as the ACC does, with books that are in their core superior to 1662, and then add back the particular things from 1662 that in fact are superior.
    The ACC doesn’t feel any strong need for revision. We have several great books to choose from, of which the best, in my opinion, is the 1954 South African Book. The missals and hymnals are available to supplement the books in parishes that want to add to the straight BCP rite.
    An OT lesson can already be added by using the Indian book or by using an abbreviated Mattins before the Eucharist. But many would agree that the addition of an OT lesson ( say, the first lesson from the Morning Prayer Office lectionary—already often related to the HC lections) is desirable.
    No-one would mind much alterations to the calendar, particularly in the matter of minor feasts. The minor propers from the Canadian use are fine, but those in the Anglican Missal (also in the English Hymnal) have a strong tradition—and one with history in Lutheran circles as well as Roman and Anglican.
    5 July 2010
    The South African Prayer Book was reprinted a few years ago by the Prayer Book Society. It is alive and well in the ACC in our dioceses there. Our parishes all use the same book, but some in English and some in other languages (Sepedi, Xhosa, Zulu, and Afrikaans and Venda, I believe, are the other languages in which the ACC worshipsin SA.)
    I see no problem in reading the Introit, say, if there is no choir to sing it. An Offertroy sentence is read in all parishes. Why not an Introit or Gradual? If parishes want to stick to the BCP, fine. But objections to the missals for parishes that want them carries no weight in the ACC. The Missals are authorised.
    The ACC authorises the Canadian and Indian books along with the 1549, the 1928 US book, and the SA book. We can pretty much use the best of all worlds if we don’t want to stick with the 1928. I’ve used 1549 for weddings on several occasions.. Our bishops recommend the 1549 exorcism for the baptism of adults.
    All these over In Christ, +MDH
    Thank you, Dr Haverland.. In +, Benton