Problems with 1662 – from Anglican Catholic Liturgy and Theology

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Clip source: Problems with 1662 – Anglican Catholic Liturgy and Theology (Archbishop Mark Haverland)
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Problems with 1662

Archbishop Mark Haverland
Dear _________,

Thank you very much for sending me a copy of the prayer book by Drs. Bray and Keane and published by the InterVarsity Press. It is certainly a beautiful and well-made book. Your cover letter includes a request that I give approval to you to make this book the principal text for worship in your parish.

Individual clergy, including even the Acting Primate, do not have the authority to set aside authorized liturgical texts in favor of other texts, and particularly not on a systematic, on-going basis. This fact should be a great comfort to you, as it is to me: individual authorization of liturgical change is an invitation to chaos1. The liturgical settlement of our Church is well-known, long established, adequately flexible, and not easily altered. We have added historical Prayer Books when we have begun work in new countries, and we have authorized liturgical rites not provided for in our authorized Prayer Books to supply needed rites and ceremonies. Otherwise, we have changed nothing significant since 1977.

While I do not have the authority to authorize what you seek in regard to systematic parochial use, I also do not think it is necessary or desirable.

You compare the IVP book to the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer. This is an instance of the frequent mistake of assuming that the Anglican Catholic Church is an American Church. It is not. The ACC has four authorized Prayer Books in addition to the 1928 American book: the 1549 English, 1954 South African, and the Canadian and Indian books from 1960-3. You provide a schedule of comparisons between the IVP book and the 1928 BCP. But in most cases the texts you (and often I) prefer are already authorized in two, three, or four of our authorized books.

For example, all the ACC’s authorized prayer books save the 1928 provide for the use of Psalm 95 in Morning Prayer, the Te Deum in its 1549 version, the English form of the opening versicles, and the Athanasian Creed. The versicles in the offices in the IVP book may be unpacifistic and in that respect follow 1662, but the American form of the fifth pair of suffrages (also followed by the South Africans and Canadians) is biblical and perfectly orthodox. In any case, many of the other forms we prefer are already available in currently authorized BCPs.

If, for example, you wanted to say Morning Prayer or Evening Prayer using something much closer to the 1662 form than the 1928 form, you could easily do so using a booklet with every word and prayer taken from an authorized ACC prayer book.2 Switching to 1662 instead, however, would produce significant losses. Every BCP since 1662, for instance, has added at least one optional canticle to the two in 1662 (the Te Deum and the Omnia opera). Most of us think that falling back to only those two options would be a loss. So too in the Offices in many other ways the IVP book drops desirable options, such as: permission to omit the confession; briefer alternatives for bidding to confession and for absolution; optional invitatories for the Venite; and optional omission of the prayers after the two fixed collects. 1662 imposes excessive uniformity and a tendency to multiply the length and number of prayers and exhortations.3 Later books show a more sensible flexibility. Nonetheless, if the priest or parish prefers longer versions, mostly they are already available to you in 1928 or in the other prayer books authorized in our Church. I would say personally that I think the clergy should say or hear Morning Prayer, Mass, and Evening Prayer daily. I would find three long confessions daily burdensome and the repetition of the prayers after the three collects excessive.

Of the 12 specific superiorities4 you note in favor of the IVP book, none is in the Eucharistic rite, which is the most important rite in our Church. I think this fact is telling. While I do not doubt that the 1662 rite provides for a valid sacrament5, it is, I believe, inferior to the Eucharistic rites in all our other authorized books. Among the inferiorities I would name is especially the truncated prayer of consecration, which is unlike that in other ancient and catholic uses and which has recommended itself to no subsequent revision. I also note the omission of ancient prayers and elements such as the Agnus Dei and the Benedictus qui venit; the long and mandatory exhortations6; the mandatory use of the Decalogue (without abbreviation); a mandatory initial State prayer (in addition to the prayer for civil authorities in the Prayer for the Whole State of Christ’s Church); and the omission of prayer for the faithful departed. As someone who celebrates or attends a Eucharistic celebration almost daily, I have to say the idea of those exhortations daily is very distasteful, though they are fine three times a year. Likewise the Decalogue monthly or occasionally is fine, but daily it would be burdensome.6 While the existing formularies in our Church suffice to cover much of the contents of the 1662 book, I do not believe they would authorize the 1662 Eucharistic rite. And I am glad for that fact.

I also note that the 1662 book omits the biblical and ancient use of the holy oils, which are restored in all our authorized books, and in many other instances does not contain useful things provided for in our authorized books.

I take seriously your comments about the deficiencies of the 1928 and 1943 lectionaries. The simplest way to rectify the problems in those lectionaries is by expanding lessons to cover ‘snipped’ passages. Alternatively, although you lose something by not reading more or less the same lessons as your fellow priests, you might look into the use of the already authorized lectionaries from the South African, Canadian, or Indian books. If even that does not produce a satisfactory lectionary, then we might consider authorizing another lectionary. The lectionary can be amended without altering the basic book: it is, like the Articles or the Psalter, another ‘book’ (in the Tudor sense of the word), though one usually printed with the BCP.

I recognize some superiority in 1662 in the baptismal and marriage rites, in the catechism, and elsewhere. Again, some of what you would like to see can be found in our other authorized prayer books. There is no need to authorize another book, which contains some notable deficiencies, in order to gain its advantages.

In my experience people who say that they want 1662 in England almost always do not really want 1662. They want the Coverdale Psalter and Cranmer’s prose. Particularly in the case of the Eucharist, even people who think they grew up with 1662 in fact grew up with something closer to 1928 than to a rubrically correct 1662 service.

You say that use of the 1928 BCP suggests a connection with the apostate Episcopal Church. But if we adopt 1662, or something mostly based on 1662, then we have only abandoned the former official prayer book of the Episcopal Church for the current, legal prayer book of the equally apostate Church of England: for 1662 remains the CofE’s official book.7

I would recommend that you consider use of the South African BCP. It contains much of what you like about 1662, makes most of the improvements that have been normal in prayer book revisions since 1662, and is free of the deficiencies of 1662. The Prayer Book Society once funded a reprint of the 1954 South African book. I would have, if consulted, recommended an expansion of that program rather than a private revision of 1662.


My Comments:


  1. Ironically, this concern is reminiscent of Tract III: that the 1662 prayer book ought be taken as-is, without revisions, regardless of whether burdensome or not. To begin the revision process will result in chaos of personal preference, evidenced by the fact of having so many authorized books, revised frequently according to the times: revisions of 1892, 1928, 1979, 2019 (in America alone).
  2. This is a welcome level of liturgical flexibility for the continuum!
  3. Appendix III (1662IE p. 719): Additional Rubrics of 1662 IE allow for similar flexibility with post 1880s shortening in mind, with "permission to follow them in public worship may be granted only by the appropriate ecclesiastical authority."
    For example: Morning & Evening Prayer:"On any day other than a Sunday, the exhortation (pp. 2, 18) may be shortened at the discretion of the minister." (1662IE p. 719)

  5. I am encouraged to hear explicit recognition of the validity of the 1662 rite. The rite has received, in some quarters, the reputation of Anglo-Catholic invalidity, thus making post-1662 books akin to American Restorationism. Somehow England was bereft of Eucharistic presence, save for spiritual communion, unless using an American or Scottish canon.
  6. 1662IE p. 721: "The summary of the law may be substituted for the Ten Commandments (which, however, shall always be said at least once a month)."
    1662IE p. 722: "¶ The exhortations may be shortened or omitted, provided that the exhortation in the Communion service is read to the people at least three times in the year and always on the First Sundays in Advent and Lent."
  7. 1662 is not just the prayer book of the (yes, largely apostate) Church of England, but the prayer book in use--literally or in translation--by tens of millions of orthodox, non-apostate Anglicans, mostly in Africa: https://virtueonline.org/why-1662-book-common-prayer-so-popular-all-sudden