The 1662 Book of Common Prayer was essentially a compromise position, satisfying the needs of neither the Laudian or Presbyterian parties within the Church of England (Jasper, 1989: 1).  This is apparent in The Preface of the 1662 BCP which expresses the conciliatory view that it has been “the wisdom of the Church of England, ever since the first compiling of her Publick Liturgy, to keep the mean between the two extremes, of too much stiffness in refusing, and of too much easiness in admitting any variation from it.” (BCP, 1662: Preface).  Accordingly those responsible for the restoration of the Book of Common Prayer in England following the period of the Commonwealth, described their general aim in revision as:

“… not to gratify this or that party in any their unreasonable demands; but to do that, which to our best understandings we conceived might most tend to the preservation Peace and Unity in the Church.” (BCP, 1662: Preface).

A similar tone of conciliation was also reflected in the The Declaration at Breda made by Charles II on 11 April, 1660 as he returned to England to be King.  He arrived declaring “a liberty to tender consciences, and that no man shall be disquieted or called in question for differences of opinion in matter of religion, which do not disturb the peace of the kingdom” (The Declaration at Breda, reprinted in Gee and Hardy, 1896: 587).  Charles II’s purpose in matters of religion, including the restoration of The Book of Common Prayer, was one of tolerance.  Whilst expressing his esteem for the liturgy of the Church of England as contained in The Book of Common Prayer (see Order for the Savoy Conference, A.D. 1661, reprinted in Gee and Hardy, 1896: 589), Charles II nonetheless appointed a commission, with representation from both parties, to review the liturgy.  The Savoy Conference, held in 1661, fulfilled this purpose.  Both bishops and clergymen of the Church of England and Presbyterian ministers made up the representatives to carry out this task.  The Savoy Conference was instructed by Charles II to:

“ … make such reasonable and necessary alterations, corrections, and amendments therein as by and between you the said archbishop, bishops, doctors, and persons hereby required and authorized to meet and advise as aforesaid shall be agreed upon to be needful or expedient for the giving satisfaction to tender consciences and the restoring and continuance of peace and unity in the churches under our protection and government;” (Order for the Savoy Conference, A.D. 1661, reprinted in Gee and Hardy, 1896: 591).

There were many suggestions for improvement in the liturgy.  Cosin’s proposals were contained in The Durham Book (edn. Cuming, 1961) and were Laudian in nature.  The Presbyterian suggestions were contained in a document entitled Exceptions against the Book of Common Prayer (see Jasper, 1989: 3) and in Richard Baxter’s 1661 work entitled The Reformation of the Liturgy (edn. Jasper and Cuming, 1987: 270-276) or The Savoy Liturgy (Thompson, 1987: 375-405).  Baxter’s liturgy is discussed in the case study 1.41 entitled ‘Liturgies other than The Book of Common Prayer’.  Despite the suggestions from the different parties, the Savoy Conference ended inconclusively on 25 July, 1661 with the bishops being willing to accept only the most insignificant changes.  Convocation took up the matter, and with Cosin’s Durham Book before it undertook revision in a record 22 days.  The work of revision was mainly carried out by eight bishops: Cosin of Durham, Wren of Ely, Skinner of Oxford, Warner of Rochester, Henchman of Salisbury, Morley of Worcester, Sanderson of Lincoln and Nicholson of Gloucester (Brook, 1965: 32).  Both the houses of Parliament approved the revised book and it received royal assent in 19 May, 1662.  The Book of Common Prayer (1662) came into use on 24 August, 1662 (Jasper and Cuming, 1987: 277). 

Since 1662 this prayer book has been widely used throughout the Anglican Communion and is often thought of, together with The Thirty-Nine Articles of 1571 as the means to define the core beliefs of Anglicanism (Kaye, 1996: 45).  In the Anglican Church of Australia, for example, the 1662 BCP occupies a very important role in the ruling principles of that church.  In the 1962 Constitution of the Anglican Church of Australia, the following words are found:

“This Church, being derived from the Church of England, retains and approves the doctrine and principles of the Church of England embodied in the Book of Common Prayer together with the Form and Manner of Making Ordaining and Consecrating Bishops, Priests and Deacons and in the Articles of Religion sometimes called the Thirty-Nine Articles but has plenary authority at its own discretion to make statements as to the faith ritual ceremonial or discipline of this Church and to order its forms of worship and rules of discipline and to alter or revise such statements, forms and rules, provided that all such statements, forms, rules or alteration or revision thereof are consistent with the Fundamental Declarations contained herein and are made as prescribed by this Constitution.  Provided, and it is hereby further declared, that the above-named Book of Common Prayer, together with the Thirty-Nine Articles, be regarded as the authorised standard of worship and doctrine in this Church, and no alteration in or permitted variations from the services or Articles therein contained shall contravene any principle of doctrine or worship laid down in such standard.” (The Constitution of the Anglican Church of Australia, 1962: Section 4, Online)

The 1662 BCP is one of the formularies that is seen to define “the pedigree of the Anglican Church of Australia” (Kaye, 1995: 86) and for some within the Anglican Church of Australia this pedigree has become normative to the exclusion of any other liturgical form which is seen to depart in any way from the form and doctrine of the 1662 BCP which stands as ‘the authorised standard of worship and doctrine in this Church.  Some argue that the principles of Anglican worship and doctrine are “enshrined in the Book of Common Prayer” (Mason, 1995: 1).  Others go so far as to say:

“I am convinced we can only locate genuine Anglicanism in its formularies or confessional foundations, namely the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer” and that “these documents have provided the foundation of Anglican self-understanding. …. If, then, anything has a claim to be considered genuinely Anglican, it is that theology which is expressed in the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer and the Book of Homilies.” (Thompson, 2001: 1-2).

Others confirm the same view.  Phillip Jensen, at the 2001 Synod Dinner of the Australian Church League (a conservative Evangelical organisation located within the predominately Evangelical Diocese of Sydney) in a speech entitled An Evangelical Agenda, refers to the ACL as an organisation aimed at maintaining “the reformed, protestant and evangelical character of the Anglican church”, and states that “this character is based on Scripture and is expressed in the Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty Nine Articles of Religion.” (Phillip Jensen, 2001: 1). 

At the official level the Synod of the Diocese of Sydney has passed a resolution that states that:

“ … no prayer book which clearly allows for interpretations or practices contrary to the doctrine and principles of The Book of Common Prayer and The Thirty Nine Articles should be authorised for use in this Diocese.” (Resolution 45/95 of the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, printed in Yearbook of the Diocese of Sydney, 1997: 450).

Clearly within the Diocese of Sydney the 1662 BCP is highly regarded as the standard of worship and doctrine for the Church.  The 1662 BCP not only defines the standard but excludes other forms seen to be outside this standard.

The Anglican Church of Australia at the national level has historically also supported the use of the 1662 BCP as the defining standard.  The Preface to the 1978 An Australian Prayer Book clearly stated that the new prayer book was for use together with The Book of Common Prayer, 1662, that it was supplementary to it and not a replacement of it (AAPB, 1978: 7).  Clearly the normative status of the 1662 BCP remained in 1978.  The same desire to supplement and not to supersede was also expressed in the Preface of The Alternative Service Book, published in 1980 in England (ASB, 1980: 9).  This desire continues with the publication of a new prayer book entitled Common Worship – Prayers and Services for the Church of England (2001).  In England, as in Australia, the 1662 BCP seems to be a permanent feature, widely used and loved.  The 1662 BCP in England is described as:

“ … the foundation of a tradition of Common Prayer and a fundamental source of the Church of England’s doctrine.” (Common Worship. A Guide to the Present Exercise, 2001: Online, 1).

For some within the Anglican Communion the 1662 BCP has normative status.  This is however, not universally accepted.  As long ago as 1958 at the Lambeth Conference, the following judgment on the 1662 BCP was recorded:

“When in the past, there has been discussion on the place of the Book of Common Prayer in the life of the Anglican Communion, the underlying assumption, and often the declared principle, has been that the Prayer Book of 1662 should remain as the basic pattern, and, indeed, as a bond of unity in doctrine and in worship for our Communion as a whole. …. Yet now it seems clear that no Prayer Book, not even that of 1662, can be kept unchanged for ever, as a safeguard of established doctrine.” (Lambeth Conference Report, 1958: 2.78).

In more recent times, The Virginia Report, the Report of the work of the Inter-Anglican Theological and Doctrinal Commission, published in 1997, for the Anglican Consultative Council, sought to consider in some depth the meaning and nature of communion (The Virginia Report, 1997).  In this report, the Eucharist per se, in its many forms and prayer books, and not the 1662 BCP in particular or in principle, was considered to be one of the meanings of communion in the Anglican Communion (The Virginia Report, 1997: 11-12).  At the international level of the Anglican Communion, it seems that it is the Eucharist, and not its particular liturgical expression that is considered to be normative.  Some within the Anglican Communion do not subscribe to this view, especially those who consider the 1662 BCP to be the standard of worship and doctrine.

Despite the retention of the 1662 BCP as the standard of doctrine and worship in some parts of the Anglican Communion (e.g. England and Australia), this has not been the case everywhere.  By 1985 the Anglican Church in Canada was producing “alternatives to services” offered in The Book of Common Prayer style only (The Book of Alternative Services, 1985: 7).  The prayer book of the Province of Southern Africa, published in 1989, spoke about the new prayer book being “grounded upon the 1662 Book of Common Prayer” (An Anglican Prayer Book, 1989: 9) but not being defined by it.  In 1989 the new prayer book of New Zealand had far stronger comments to make about the absence of a normative status for the 1662 BCP.  It said:

“One of the treasures of Anglican spirituality has been its authorised Book of Common Prayer, helpful both for personal devotion and public liturgical worship.  The prayer book of 1662 has served Anglican well, and for longer than its English authors would have imagined.  Now, all over the Anglican world, prayer books more suitable to local and contemporary needs are finding favour.” (A New Zealand Prayer Book, 1989: ix).

Forms of worship were, according to the New Zealand book, based not on the need for conformity to particular standards of doctrine and worship, but according to contemporary need.  The same principle was applied at the time of the publication of A Prayer Book for Australia, in 1995.  Whilst the contribution of the 1662 BCP and the 1978 AAPB, were acknowledged, it was also stated that: “the demand for a more contemporary liturgy has grown” (APBA, 1995: vii).  Some of these contemporary needs are stated as the need for less polished and complex syntax in services, the simplification of rubrics, the use of inclusive language and greater sensitivity to human need in liturgy (APBA, 1995: viii).  Whilst the need for the prayer book to conform to the standard of doctrine and worship contained in the 1662 BCP, is not explicitly stated in the Preface, the section of the Constitution of the Anglican Church of Australia, referring to the Church retaining and approving the doctrine and principles of the Church of England, contained in The Book of Common Prayer, is reproduced following the Preface (APBA, 1995: ix).  It seems that despite the expressed need for contemporary liturgy, the normative status of the 1662 BCP remains in the Anglican Church of Australia.  This is certainly the view of many within the predominately Evangelical Diocese of Sydney.  Robert Doyle, for example, goes so far as to state that the Second Order of the Eucharist in APBA (1995) has no place within the liturgy of an Evangelical Church (Doyle, 1997a: 26).  Doyle rejects this eucharistic liturgy on the basis of its theology, which he states, differs from that of the Bible and the Reformation prayer books (Doyle, 1995: 9-10).

The function and place of the 1662 BCP as a standard of doctrine and worship is not universally agreed within the Anglican Communion.  Comment has been made in other case studies on the doctrine of the Eucharist expressed in some of the Anglican prayer books (e.g. those of 1549 and 1552).  It may now be of use to look more closely at the 1662 BCP, particularly in relation to the doctrine of the Eucharist expressed in that book and the specific changes made to the Eucharist in the revision of 1662.

The principal changes to the Eucharist which occurred in the 1662 BCP were:

•The word ‘offertory’ was used in the rubric directing the priest ‘to begin the offertory’ as had been the case in the 1549 BCP (Ketley, 1844: 85).  No such direction had been in the prayer book of 1552.  In the 1662 Eucharist the bread and wine was placed on the altar at this stage, although there was no direction to ‘offer up’ the oblations as the Scottish Prayer Book of 1637 had done (see text in Grisbrooke, 1958: 170) or was in The Durham Book (edn. Cuming, 1961: 146).  The rubric at the Offertory in 1662 clearly states that the bread and wine are to be placed on the altar at this place in the service.  In the Prayer for the Church, the prayer asks that God “accept our alms and oblations”.  The meaning of the word ‘oblations’ has been the subject of some debate.  Whilst some see the word oblations referring to the bread and wine, offered to God, others do not.  Evan Daniel argues that “there is little doubt, therefore, that ‘oblations’ refers to the bread and wine, here formally offered, though not consecrated, as an oblation to God” (Daniel, 1913: 360).  This opinion is supported by others, such as Wheatly, 1864: 276; Scudamore, 1876: 385; Blunt, 1903: 378; Warren, 1910: 104 and Procter and Frere, 1929: 481.  Others, such as Dowden, 1908: 176-22; Dimock, 1910a: 60; Neil and Willoughby, 1913: 315-317; Robinson, 1966: 107-116 and Griffith Thomas, 1966: 163, argue that the word ‘oblations’ referred to money apart from the alms, given for pious purposes and not to the bread and wine placed on the altar.  Whichever of these arguments is correct, the fact still remains that at the Offertory, bread and wine was directed to be placed on the altar by the priest.  This simple ceremony was additional to the earlier editions of the prayer book (1552, 1559 and 1604) and represented a specific form of setting these elements apart for holy use (Parsons, 1961: 54).

•The eucharistic prayer was entitled ‘the Prayer of Consecration’.

•Manual acts were restored to the eucharistic prayer.  These had been removed in the 1552 BCP.  The manual acts directed the priest to take the paten and the chalice in his hands, to break the bread, to lay his hand upon the bread and upon the chalice.  The fraction was clearly directed by these rubrics.  Both the Laudians and the Presbyterians were pleased about the addition of the manual acts.  The Presbyterians had complained that the consecrating of the elements was not specific enough.  The Laudians were pleased to see the return of these traditional actions in the eucharistic prayer since they focused the eucharistic action in the Prayer of Consecration.  This lessened any possible receptionist interpretations and emphasised the elements.

•The addition of the ‘Amen’ at the end of the Prayer of Consecration separated the reception of communion from the consecration.  This heightened the idea of an objective real presence of Christ in the Eucharist which was not dependent on the act of reception alone.  The absence of an ‘Amen’ at the end of this prayer in the 1552 BCP had suggested that the central action of the Eucharist included the reception of the bread and wine.  One nineteenth century commentator observes that the effect of this is that, “The Holy eucharist is therefore consecrated before it is partaken of.” (Blunt, 1868: 60).

•Several aspects of the Scottish Liturgy of 1637 were included in the 1662 Eucharist.  These were provision for additional supplies of bread and wine; the remaining elements were to be veiled and then consumed, but could not be taken out of the church for the use of the priest as the 1552 BCP had suggested.

•The Declaration on Kneeling (The Black Rubric) was restored to the Eucharist (as the final rubric) but with a significant change in wording from the original.  The words ‘corporal presence’ replaced the previous ‘real and essential presence’, thereby denying any physical presence of Christ in the Eucharist, but not denying the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  The omission of this rubric in 1559 BCP was one of the chief Puritan objections, and therefore its replacement, with amendment, was a concession to the Presbyterian party.  See the case study on The Black Rubric (1.15) for a fuller discussion on this matter.

Although the 1662 Eucharist was substantially that of the previous prayer books (i.e. 1552, 1559 and 1604) there were slight, but significant changes (as outlined above).  These suggested a more realist conception of the presence and sacrifice of Christ in the Eucharist, although there was no return to the much more realist form of the 1549 BCP.  The fact that the 1662 revisers choose to follow the more Reformed model of 1552, 1559 and 1604 in the main, and not to return to the more Catholic model of 1549, may indicate both a satisfaction with the Reformed model and desire for conciliation between the various parties.  The proposals of the Laudians, as expressed in The Durham Book, were not, in the main, adopted.  The proposals of the Presbyterians in The Exceptions and The Reformation of the Liturgy, were also, in the main, not adopted.  The previous prayer book model was substantially maintained with only slight, although important changes to the Eucharist.  The changes were suggestive of moderate realism and these have been discussed above.

The eucharistic theology of the 1662 BCP is indicated as much as, if not more than, by what it does not include, as what it does.  For example, the omission of sacrificial language at the Offertory, with a specific ‘offering up of the elements’ such as is found in the Scottish Liturgy of 1637 or in The Durham Book, and the failure to include an epiclesis in the Prayer of Consecration, suggest that the revisers, despite the small number of significant changes, were keen to maintain the previous model.  The failure of the revisers to include any of the more radical Puritan suggestions (e.g. those found in Baxter’s Savoy Liturgy) also suggests that they were satisfied with the prayer book at it existed.

Judith Maltby in her recent work on the prayers book (Prayer Book and People in Elizabethan and Stuart England, first published in 1998 and then again 2000) supports the view that there was considerable conformity to the prayer book in England in Elizabethan and Stuart times.  Her work argues that historians have often been overly concerned with the positions of non-conformity (Puritan and Presbyterian) and the Laudian position (e.g. The Durham Book) to the exclusion the considerable conformity which existed in England.  Historians have often focused, she argues, on the hostility towards the BCP rather than on the conformity to it. 

Some historians, for example, quote Puritan views condemning the prayer book.  Frere and Douglas in Puritan Manifestos quote the charge of the Puritans that the prayer book was “an unperfect book, culled and picked out of the popish dunghill, the Mass book full of all abominations” and that it contained “much superstition” (Frere and Douglas, 1954: 15).  Such views are seen to indicate that there was considerable opposition to the use of the prayer book in England.  To take such a view however, suggests Maltby, ignores the considerable degree of conformity to the prayer book which existed in England.  Evidence for conformity to the prayer book emerges during periods of official persecution (e.g. during the reign of Mary I and during the Puritan Commonwealth period) (Matlby, 2000: 5-7).  At other times, when there was no official persecution, the conformity to the prayer book is obscured by it legality (Maltby, 2000: 8).  Further, Maltby argues that it is misleading to suggest that only Puritans and non-conformists were vigorous and successful in the Church of England (Maltby, 2000: 9) and that the vigorous contribution of committed conformists, of the prayer book Protestants, has been overlooked (Maltby, 2000: 11).  Examples of this conformity to the prayer book among parishioners can be found in the referrals to the church courts (Maltby, 2000: 20) and in the many petitions made to Parliament in support of the BCP and the episcopate in the first half of the seventeenth century (Maltby, 2000: 23).  Maltby concludes by saying that:

“While acknowledging the vigour of Marian Protestantism, Elizabeth’s reign can rightly be seen as the crucial period of consolidation.  Backed by the laws of parliament and the protection of the ‘godly prince’, the most pervasive agent of change, the Book of Common Prayer, gained a place in the religious consciousness and even the affections of the English laity.  Its success may be explained in part by the element of continuity it gave its users along with innovation.  That it succeeded as an agent of change as well as continuity from the middle of Elizabeth’s reign forwards, is the chief argument of this study.  A goodly proportion of the English people became ‘people of the book’ – but as much of the Prayer Book as the Bible.  For conformists that association represented no conflict, but rather a happy alliance at best, a manageable partnership at worst.” (Maltby, 2000: 17).

If Maltby is correct, then this may help to explain why the bishops were happy to maintain the prayer book in much the same form as it previously existed and why they generally rejected the proposals for change from both the Laudian and Presbyterian parties.  In so doing the theology of the eucharist, principally moderate realism, was also maintained, although this was in a milder form than it otherwise may have been.  It has been this milder form of moderate realism that has persisted in Anglicanism so strongly (e.g. The Church of England and The Anglican Church of Australia).