The American Prayer Book
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The main reason that there is an American edition of the Book of Common Prayer is the revolution of 250 years ago. The 1662 BCP contained prayers for the King at each of the regular services - Morning Prayer, Litany, Holy Communion, and Evening Prayer - and these prayers were commonly amended on the fly between 1776 and 1783 in Patriot leaning congregations. Some parishes have preserved 1662 BCPs with these ad hoc changes written into them. This clearly unsuitable as a permanent solution for the Republic established in the wake of the Revolutionary War, and the process of revision was undertaken in two stages, the first of which resulted in the Draft Book of Common Prayer of 1786, and the second in the first authorized BCP of 1789.
The 1785/6 Revision
The 1785-6 edition is very much a late-1700s, republican, revision of the existing Book of Common Prayer. Prayers for the King are replace with prayers for the 'civil authorities' and there is a certain tendency to avoid dogmatic formulas such as the Nicene and Athanasian Creed, which are wholly omitted, and to remove certain repetitions of certain elements used frequently in the services such as the Lord's Prayer, and the Gloria Patri. This reduction in doctrinal content was in accordance with the principles of a movement called Latitudinarianism, which tended to downplay the differences between Anglicans and other Protestants. In addition to the removal of two of the three Creeds, the concept of Baptismal Regeneration is removed from the Baptismal Office, as are the causes of matrimony from the Marriage service. Otherwise, the revised Prayer Book was very much like its predecessor, but it reduced doctrinal content was to cause problems for the new Protestant Episcopal Church. The Reaction of the English Bishops
When tidings of the new Prayer Book reached London, together with a request for bishops to be consecrated for the new Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, it was necessary for the Archbishop of Canterbury and other senior bishops to give their opinion. The rejected the 1786 book as a basis of intercommunion mainly because of its omission of the Nicene Creed, and of the clause 'He descended into hell' from the Apostles' Creed. This opinion was communicated to William White and the other leaders of the General Convention who agreed to make the necessary revisions, whilst for their part, the English Bishops prepared to consecrate three bishops for the American Church, the first two of which Samuel Provoost and William White, crossed the Atlantic to be consecrated in Lambeth Palace Chapel on February 4th, 1787.
The Circumstances of the 1789 Revision The Revolutionary War had left the USA with three groups claiming the title Episcopalian - the General Convention's Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, the Synod led by Bishop Samuel Seabury's in New England, and the Methodist Episcopal Church - and it was not at all clear how they would relate to one another. Seabury ordained presbyters for the Methodists in the mid-1780s, but the assertion of Coke-Asbury superintendency seems to have halted that practice. White and Smith, the General Convention's two most prominent clerical members made approaches to both the Methodist Episcopal Church, and to the Seabury's Synod. Methodists ultimately rejected the General Convention's overtures mainly because they regarded the proposed Prayer Book as too restrictive on the one hand, and doctrinally compromised on the other. However, White's approaches to Seabury were ultimately successful.
Seabury had been consecrated in Scotland by Non-Juror bishops who maintained a nominal loyalty to the deposed House of Stuart. They also used a version of the Non-Juror Liturgy which reordered the principle prayers of the Communion service to make them more like the Canon of the ancient Mass, so instead of the Prayer for the Church, the Prayer of Consecration, and the Prayer of Oblation being said separately, they were arranged as one long prayer, said at the altar, when the Bread and Wine were consecrated for communion. Seabury had introduced this form of service into Connecticut, in fulfilment of a promise made to the Scottish bishops, and it is also clear that he though the General Convention's 1786 revision of the Prayer Book inadequate. On the other hand, the last viable Jacobite claimant to the Crown of the United Kingdom - Bonnie Prince Charlie - had died in 1787, and the Scottish Episcopalians were ready to make their peace with the Hanoverian dynasty. When Seabury applied for the consecration of a second bishop for New England, his request was politely declined, which gave him a good shove in the direction of the General Convention.
The need to accommodate the views of the English bishops, and of Bishop Seabury form the background to the 1789 revision, and it was clear that the changes that would be made would be in a conservative direction.
The 1789 Prayer Book The committee that met to revise the Prayer Book took 1786 and the parent 1662 Book of Common Prayer as their starting point. They began by restoring the clause 'He descended into hell' to the Apostles' Creed, appointed the Nicene Creed as an alternative at Morning and Evening Prayer, as well as in the Communion service. However, they also removed the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis from Evening Prayer adding portions of Ps. 92 and Ps. 103 to replace them. The prayers referring to baptismal regeneration were restored to the Baptismal Office, but the single most significant change was made to the Communion service. Here the Scottish Prayer of Consecration and Oblation replaced the English text, though otherwise, the 1662 text remains little altered apart from the necessary political changes.
Being acceptable to the moderate White, the Low Church Provost, and the High Church Seabury alike, the 1789 Book of Common Prayer was accepted with comparatively little fuss, and with minor alterations, was to serve the Protestant Episcopal Church for the next 103 years, as well as form the basis for the 1892 and 1928 revisions. It is the 1928 version of this book that is used for almost all services at Good Shepherd Anglican Church.