Book of Common Prayer (1662)

Puritans rejected substantial portions of the Book of Common Prayer, particularly elements retained from pre-Reformation usage. Further escalating the tension between Puritans and other factions in the Church of England were efforts, such as those by Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, to require the usage of certain vestments such as the surplice and cope.[13]^: 12 The Puritan faction further established their opposition to the prayer book liturgical formulae by the Millenary Petition in 1603 and at the Hampton Court Conference in 1604.[8]^: 76[13]^: 12 The resulting Jacobean prayer book was only a minor revision, but the conference also approved the development of the Authorized Version of the Bible.[8]^: 73 Among the more notable alterations in the Jacobean prayer book was an elongation of the Catechism's sacramental teachings and the introduction of a rubric allowing only a "lawful minister" to perform baptisms, which has been described as an example of post-Reformation clericalism.[14]^: 85[12][15]^: 383

Jenny Geddes rejects Laud's prayer book in St. Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh, 23 July 1637[13]^: 122

The Puritan, Presbyterian, and eventually Parliamentarian opposition to the prayer book continued, while the prayer book was a sign of Royalist leanings. The imposition of a 1637 prayer book influenced by William Laud, the high church Archbishop of Canterbury, for the Church of Scotland stirred a riot that eventually spiraled into the First Bishops' War.[16] The popular Puritan Root and Branch petition, presented to the Long Parliament by Oliver Cromwell and Henry Vane the Younger in 1640, attempted to eliminate the episcopacy and decried the prayer book as "Romish".[8]^: 74

With the defeat of the Royalist Cavalier faction, execution of Charles I, and establishment of Commonwealth England under the Puritan Parliament, restrictions were repeatedly imposed on prayer book worship that culminated in its prohibition in 1645 and introduction of the Directory for Public Worship.[17]^: 47 Public celebration according to prayer book rubrics occasionally continued with varying degrees of discreetness, with priests such as George Bull and John Hacket memorising certain offices to feign extemporaneous prayer. Private celebration of the prayer book among some laity continued, with John Evelyn recording in his diary the conduct of private baptisms of his children and the churching of his wife according to the prayer book.[18]^: 90–91 Other proponents of the prayer book, including Laud, were imprisoned. Laud was executed in 1645.[8]^: 75

John Cosin, prominent Laudian during the Savoy Conference and notator of the Durham Book

Matthew Wren, a Laudian bishop locked in the Tower of London by the Parliamentarian Roundheads, remarked during his imprisonment that the prayer book "hath been long disused that not one of five hundred" were familiar enough with the prayer book that they would recognise any alterations. Despite this, Wren hoped that he could effect a revision that would resolve the issues that had made the prayer book so unpopular.[8]^: 77 This desire for effective revision was contemporaneous with a significant increase of interest in Anglican liturgical history; Hamon L'Estrange's 1659 The alliance of divine offices would be the only comparative study of the preceding prayer books for some time even following the 1662 edition's approval.[19]^: 15

The 1660 Stuart Restoration saw the end of Puritan rule and coronation of Charles II. While the reinstated Church of English prelates desired a return to prayer book liturgies, the surviving Nonconformist Puritan party sought an arrangement that would prevent the resurrection of the prayer book and other pre-Commonwealth Anglican practices. The new leadership broadly supported simply reinstating the 1604 prayer book, but both Laudians and Presbyterians successfully lobbied for revision.[20]^: 167 This dialogue culminated in the 1661 Savoy Conference at Savoy Hospital in London. From among the Anglican bishops and Puritan ministers, twelve representatives and nine assistants attended the conference. The Anglican party forwarded a modest revision of the 1559 prayer book, advertised as a via media between Catholic and Reformed Protestant practice.[21] The conference terminated with few concessions to the Puritans, which included rejecting an effort to delete the wedding ring from the marriage office, and encouraged the creation of a new prayer book.[17]^: 50[22]^{: xiii–xiv}[note 2]

The Laudian ritualist John Cosin had fled during the Commonwealth and was made Bishop of Durham upon his return in 1660. Cosin, who had spent his exile examining the prayer book liturgy, produced a compilation of his proposed revisions as notations in a 1619 copy of the prayer book. The edits and notes of this copy, known as the Durham Book, were translated by William Sancroft into a new copy, known as the Fair Copy. Ultimately, some of these edits were accepted by the Convocation and placed into a manuscript, known as the Annex Book for its attachment as an annex to the law approving it, and a noted 1636 copy of the prayer book, known as the Convocation Book.[26]

The post-Puritan Parliament passed a series of four laws, known as the Clarendon Code, to prevent Puritans and other Nonconformists from holding office and ensure that public worship was according to officially approved Anglican texts. The Act of Uniformity 1662, passed on 19 May 1662, authorised the usage of the 1559 prayer book until St. Bartholomew Day that year, at which point it would be replaced with the 1662 prayer book.[27]^: 370[28] When the 24 August date arrived, an estimated 1,200 to 2,000 Puritans were evicted from their benefices in what became known as the Great Ejection or Black Bartholomew.[29] In 1664, the Conventicle Act introduced punishments for any person over 16 years old should they attend a worship service not according to the 1662 prayer book.[30] These Nonconformists would boost the Dissenter denominations, frustrating the Church of England's efforts for uniform worship.[31]^: 218

Including printings of the 1549, 1552, 1559, and 1662 editions, there were more than 500 printings of the Book of Common Prayer through to the 1730s, with an average of 2,500 to 3,000 copies in these printings. The total number of copies printed increased as technology improved; in the period between 1836 and 1846, up to half a million copies of the 1662 prayer book were printed each year.[32]^: x It was during the first decades of the 1662 edition's use that Oxford University Press began printing an increasingly larger proportion of the total number of prayer books produced.[33]^: 120

Some initial printings retained the already antique blackletter script of earlier editions,[32]^: xv though the last blackletter English prayer book of any note may have been the 1662 prayer book's first folio edition.[19]^: 8[note 3] The 1662 prayer book was among the various texts printed by John Baskerville in his font during the 18th century.[34] Baskerville, whose printings achieved acclaim for their ornamentation, also collaborated with Cambridge University Press to produce octavo and duodecimo prayer books.[19]^: 11 Deviating from the red and Gothic script used in Roman Breviaries and earlier prayer books respectively, roman fonts were standard for 1662 prayer book rubrics.[32]^: lxiii

Two printings of the proposed 1928 prayer book

The influences of the Oxford Movement, a ritualist and Anglo-Catholic movement launched by a series of tracts first published in 1833, continued after the First World War, and the immediate Interwar period drew a desire to revise the 1662 prayer book in accord with social changes.[49]^: 18 Anglo-Catholics in particular had been agitating for revision even prior to the war. In 1906, a group of five Church of England bishops led by John Wordsworth, the Bishop of Salisbury, and aided by liturgical scholar Walter Frere, met to discuss which ornaments and vestments were permitted by the 1662 prayer book's rubrics. Their publicly published 1908 consensus was that the chasuble was permitted, drawing ire that saw the Upper House of Convocation approving a less affirmative resolution in 1911. Also in 1911, Frere published Some Principles of Liturgical Reform. This text prompted Randall Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury, to approve an advisory committee to discuss revision.[50]^: 240

An assemblage composed of members of both the Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical parties first met in 1912. During the war years, some of the practices that Anglo-Catholics sought, such as reserving the Eucharist, were permitted to the suspicion of the Evangelical wing. With the experience in the war, many clergy reported an increased need for revision. These efforts first culminated in NA 84 in February 1923, which most closely followed Anglo-Catholic desires and moved away from the 1662 edition.[50]^{: 240–241}[note 5] The publishing of NA 84 prompted three separate unofficial proposals in 1923 and 1924.[52] The staunchly traditionalist Anglo-Catholic English Church Union (E.C.U.) published their own proposal, the "Green Book", in 1923 in accordance to their internal revision process's 1922 conclusions which deleted many non-liturgical elements of the 1662 prayer book which they determined to be anachronistic.[53] More limited revisions were prepared by more Liberal Anglo-Catholics under William Temple in the 1923 "Grey Book" and moderate Anglo-Catholics of the Alcuin Club in the 1923 and 1924 "Orange Books".[52][note 6] Alongside these efforts, Evangelicals increasingly disapproved of revision entirely.[50]^: 241

Revision continued until 1927 producing the "Green Book" of the Church of England's National Assembly. Proponents of the proposed prayer book noted that it would only serve as an alternative to the 1662 edition, rather than succeeding it entirely, as had occurred elsewhere.[54]^: 6–7 This text was submitted to the House of Commons as required by law, where it was defeated in December 1927 after a coalition of conservative Church of England loyalists and Nonconformists failed to override both opposition and Catholic parliamentarian abstention. Among those in favour of approval had been Winston Churchill, who affirmed the Church of England's Protestant orthodoxy, while opponents viewed the proposed text as too permissive of "indiscipline and Romanism".[50]^: 242 A second effort, with some minor modifications, similarly failed in 1928. Subsequent usage of the text, while not approved, resulted in later printings.[55][note 7]

Copies of three of the Common Worship series containing texts for individual offices

Following the failure of the 1928 text, the next decades were featured a wide assortment of new conceptualisations what liturgies should look like and accomplish. This breadth of ideas was largely the result of the Liturgical Movement. Church of England liturgists such as A. G. Hebert pushed for "renewal" of parochial liturgies during the Interwar period, with their ideas remaining popular into the 1960s.[56]^: 362 Post-Second World War Anglicans from both Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical strains sought liturgical reforms, including prayer book revision.[57]^: 232

Ultimately, an incremental addition of alternative liturgies was adopted. This may have been an effort to circumvent the process that would be required to outright replace the 1662 prayer book, the same process that caused the rejection of the 1927 and 1928 proposals;[55] The Church of England passed the Alternative and Other Services Measure in 1965 to authorise these alternative liturgies.[58] The first, Alternative Services Series 1, was published in 1966 and was largely similar to the 1928 proposed text.[59] Series 2 contained traditional prayer book language but had new orderings for rites. Series 3 was the first set to use modernised language. Up to that point, these alternatives had been printed in booklets, but in 1974 the publication of fully-bound pew books was authorised through the Worship and Doctrine Measure. This same measure also permanently enabled the church to produce alternative liturgies, contingent on the church permanently protecting the 1662 prayer book.[58] In 1980, the Alternative Service Book was published.[60]^: 265 The acceptance of these new rites saw several failed attempts in the House of Lords to limit the alternative texts, including requirements that parishes offer a certain proportion of their liturgies according to the 1662 prayer book.[60]^: 266

The lectionary was a matter of contestation; the Church of England opted against the post-Vatican II, three-year Roman Sunday lectionary despite its otherwise ecumenical reception, and instead approved a two-year lectionary in the later 1960s. This two-year cycle was reflected in the Alternative Service Book; the new daily Roman lectionary was also approved for use in the Alternative Service Book. Ultimately, a modified form of the Roman Sunday lectionary, the three-year Revised Common Lectionary, was approved by the Church of England.[61]^: 256

In 2000, a new compilation of the Church of England's approved liturgies was published as Common Worship. However, due to the variety of alternatives for various offices, the text is often printed not containing each liturgy but only those relevant to the preferences and needs of various congregations. Among the approved offices in Common Worship is the 1662 Communion office, considered an alternative in the text. The favouring of Common Worship and decline in parishes using the 1662 prayer book has led groups such as the Prayer Book Society to sponsor the 1662 edition's usage, with some success.[60]^: 266

The priest is to recite one of the two collects for the monarch prior to saying the collect of the day.[65]^: 127 The collects often followed the models established in the 1549 prayer book, with many being translations of the Gregorian or Sarum collect for a given day or feast. However, there were sometimes additions and elongations of these prayers. Other collects had ending doxologies which were generally omitted from printings as they were popularly known. If these endings were not already included in the collect, they were implicitly deleted by the 1662 prayer book's inclusion of "Amen" as a terminus at the end of each collect. Three new collects were introduced in the 1662 prayer book.[13]^: 40–41

The Anaphora or Eucharistic prayer follows the pattern established by Cranmer in 1552:[69]^: 180[70]^: 116

• Sursum corda[13]^: 22
• Preface
• Sanctus
• Prayer of Humble Access
• Prayer of Consecration
• Thanksgiving after Communion

The Black Rubric was introduced in the 1552 prayer book as a statement of Eucharistic theology, prescribing that kneeling before the consecrated Eucharist was "a sygnificacion of the humble and gratefull acknowledgyng of the benefites of Chryst", rather than suggestive of a "real and essential" change that could be construed as transubstantiation. The rubric was deleted in the 1559 prayer book.[62] Ultimately, even kneeling became a rarer practice heavily opposed particularly by Puritans.[8]^: 50 The 1662 prayer book reinserted the Black Rubric, though amended. The amended 1662 version revised the rubric to disallow viewing the consecration of the Eucharist as a "corporal" change, permitting a limited theology of the real presence.[71] The Test Act of 1673 required that ministers in the Church of England to reject transubstantiation.[31]^{: 218–219}

By 1714, standard practice was to celebrate Holy Communion on Sundays beginning at 9:45 am.[22]^: 165 The Communion office, while not the preferred Sunday service until World War I, was still in general high esteem.[65]^: 126 The 1958 Lambeth Conference's Prayer Book Committee recommended psalms for the Introit and Gradual; metrical hymns were also generally accepted for both portions of the Communion office.[72]

Illustration of Morning Prayer from an 1845 illuminated edition of the 1662 prayer book

The 1662 prayer book retained many of the elements from the 1552 Daily Office, with the addition of state prayers to be appended after Morning and Evening Prayers.[73]^: 454 Prayers for the state and royal family are found in the suffrages, collects, and Litany.[65]^: 127[note 8] The Litany was largely that written by Cranmer in the 1544 Exhortation and Litany.[75] There were other additions in the occasional prayers and thanksgivings. The second prayer in times of death was added, and two Ember Week prayers—including one first included in the 1637 Scottish prayer book.[13]^: 80

The 1662 prayer book introduced a rubric that allowed an anthem to be said at the conclusion of the Daily Office and before the state prayers. These anthems were derived from Latin motets and inspired a renewed interest in Anglican church music. Anthems became a standard feature of English cathedral and collegiate churches, where choirs were standard, further distinguishing the public recitation of the Daily Office at these locations from parochial practice.[76]

By 1714, standard practice was to celebrate Sunday Morning Prayer beginning at 10 am.[22]^: 165 Morning Prayer was the dominant choice of Sunday service over Holy Communion through the early 20th century.[77]^: x By this point, though, the 1662 prayer book's Daily Office faced criticism as insufficiently reflective of Reformation desires for public celebration of the canonical hours.[73]^{: 455–456}

The offices for baptism within the 1662 prayer book were prepared partially in reaction to the rise of Anabaptistry. The form of baptism "for such as are of Riper Years" was not only suitable for those converting to Christianity in the colonies but those coming from traditions and denominations that did not practice the formerly normative infant baptism.[32]^: 211 The rubric preceding the public baptismal office was altered to remove allusion to a preference for public baptisms to occur exclusively between Easter and Pentecost and a benediction of the baptismal font was added.[13]^: 93

The prayer of thanksgiving after Communion from the Eucharistic celebration was appended to the Forms of Prayer to be used at Sea, suggesting a non-sacramental interpretation of the prayer as the maritime prayers were intended to be used by ships' captains in front of their crew.[70]^{: 116–117}

Derived from Levitical law, a purification ritual for women following childbirth called the Churching of Women was taken from Sarum practice. The 1662 prayer book's alterations from the 1559 version included a rephrasing of the preceding rubric, replacement of Psalms 116 and 127 with Psalm 121, and introduction of "Let us pray" before the Kyrie in mirror of the Daily Office.[13]^: 96

The 1662 prayer book matrimonial office altered the rubrics from prior Sarum and prayer book practice, permitting it to be celebrated independently from a Communion office.[13]^: 99 The 1662 matrimonial office remains a legal option to solemnise marriages in the Church of England, and a modified form known as Alternative Services: Series One that is also partially derived from the 1928 proposed prayer book was latterly adopted.[78][59] As in the preceding English prayer books and deviating from medieval English custom, the wedding ring is placed on left hand.[79]

The 1662 ordinal was changed little from the form found within the first Edwardine Ordinal, with the deletion of rubrics for some vestments in 1552 among the more notable. However, until 1662, the text had been a separate book. In 1662, the ordinal was added to the rest of the prayer book and there were some more substantial additions to the liturgies for ordaining and consecrating presbyters and bishops.[8]^: 3 These additions emphasised the office of both priest and bishop in contrast to the theology of Puritans and Presbyterians.[13]^{: 110–111} A new version of the Veni Creator Spiritus introduced in the 1662 ordinal was produced by Cosin to replace that from 1550.[80]

Modifications to the preface of the ordinal made in 1661 were made to distinguish Anglican ministry from those forms that had appeared under the Commonwealth.[35]^{: 662–663} The 1662 prayer book's office for the ordination of priests closes with an emphasis on the role of preaching, keeping with the 1550 ordinal's ministerial theology.[81] Additionally, the minimum age for candidates to the diaconate was raised from 21 to 23 and, reverting an omission made in 1552, these candidates were to be "decently habited" in vestments.[35]^: 663

Charlotte Brontë's copy of the 1662 prayer book, a gift from her husband, is now owned by Cambridge University.

The 1662 prayer book's matrimonial office is subtly referenced in Jane Austen's 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice, in which the reasoning of Mr William Collins's proposal to Elizabeth Bennet is given in a manner parodying the three points given in the prayer book for the purpose of marriage.[7] Austen's father, George Austen, was a Church of England parish rector. In her regular recitation of the 1662 prayer book's liturgies and devotions, Austen is estimated to have said the Lord's Prayer at least 30,000 times.[87]

Events in Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel Jane Eyre have been noted for their correspondence with the dates of particular lessons in the 1662 prayer book. The Brontë sisters were the daughters of Patrick Brontë, a Church of England cleric who would lead the sisters in the regimen of prayer delineated by the prayer book. Among the dates thought intentionally included in Jane Eyre to allude to the day's lessons are 5 and 6 November, a day that marks an improvement in the titular character's fortunes. On these days, the two lessons from Ecclesiasticus correspond with the themes of Jane discovering her true identity.[88] Charlotte Brontë's copy of the 1662 prayer book, gifted by her future husband Arthur Bell Nicholls and later acquired by Francis Jenkinson, resides in Cambridge University Library's special collections.[89]

The popular phrase "Dearly Beloved" is associated with marriage across multiple religious traditions. While introduced to the English language by William Tyndale's translation of the Greek word ἀγαπητός (agapétos) for his production of the Bible, as well as subsequent versions produced by Myles Coverdale, the phrase attained popularity after its inclusion in the 1662 prayer book. Perhaps best known for its appearance in the matrimonial office, it also appears in Morning and Evening Prayer as part of the officiating minister's exhortations to the congregation and the visitation of the sick. A slightly altered permutation, "my beloved brethren", appears in the office of burial.[90][91]

The Reformed Episcopal Church in the Dominion of Canada revised the 1662 prayer book in 1922 to remove "justification for un-Protestant teaching and ritual."[104]

Both the Reformed Episcopal Church in the U.S. and Canada and the Free Church of England in the United Kingdom use prayer books at least partially derived from the 1662 prayer book. While the current 2003 prayer book of the Reformed Episcopal Church includes a preface describing its derivation from the 1662 prayer book, the 1874, 1930, and 1963 editions had been based more closely on the reformed 1552 English and proposed 1785 U.S. prayer books.[105]^: xii[106]^: 219[note 14] An early bishop of the Reformed Episcopal Church, Charles Edward Cheney, wrote that for the 1662 prayer book "no fewer than six hundred changes were made in the prayer book, every one of which made it less and less the Protestant liturgy which Edward VI had bequeathed." Cheney also favoured the Reformed Episcopal prayer book's reintroduction the Black Rubric.[109] The Free Church of England's 1956 prayer book similarly removes or adds explanation for "particular phrases and expressions" of the 1662 prayer book that "afford at least plausible ground for the teaching and practice of the Sacerdotal and Romanising Party."[110]

The Anglican Church in North America, a denomination founded in 2009 largely by congregations that had been part of the Anglican Church of Canada or U.S. Episcopal Church, establishes the 1662 prayer book as its "standard for Anglican doctrine and discipline, and, with the Books which preceded it, as the standard for the Anglican tradition of worship."[111] When the Anglican Church in North America released its Ordinal and matrimonial office in 2011 and 2015 respectively, the 1662 prayer book was cited as a basis for both.[112][113] The church's 2019 Book of Common Prayer contains a Eucharistic liturgy, the Anglican Standard Text, that draws largely from the 1662 prayer book's Holy Communion office as well as those present in succeeding prayer books.[114]^: 104 A "Traditional Language Edition" of the 2019 prayer book, produced by members of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, was dedicated in June 2022 by the ACNA.[115] The book was intended to render the 2019 prayer book in Elizabethan English, using the 1662 prayer book's language "where possible" and replacing the 2019 edition's "New Coverdale Psalter" with one akin to the Coverdale Psalter of the 1662 and 1928 American prayer books.[116]^: XI

In 2021, InterVarsity Press published The 1662 Book of Common Prayer: International Edition, a non-ecclesial revision of the 1662 prayer book. Besides modernising syntax and spelling, certain elements such as the state prayers were drawn other Anglican prayer books, prominently the 1928 U.S. Episcopal Church prayer book and the 1960 Ghanan prayer book.[117] Though not developed through an Anglican denomination, the text has received international endorsement from individual Anglican bishops and priests.[118][119]

In 1980, Pope John Paul II approved a pastoral provision whereby U.S. Episcopal Church clergy, including those already married, could be received into the Catholic Church. After Catholic ordination, they would be permitted to celebrate liturgies largely derived from the Anglican tradition. This provision resulted in the Sacred Congregation for the Sacraments and Divine Worship starting work on "Anglican Use" liturgies for Catholic Church usage in 1983. This produced the Book of Divine Worship, first published in 2003, a text containing two forms of the Mass and canonical hours based most directly on the 1979 U.S. prayer book.[120][121]

In 2009, Benedict XVI issued the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum coetibus which established personal ordinariates for former Anglicans in the Catholic Church and expanded permissions for the Anglican Use liturgy into territories regularly using the English prayer book tradition. The Customary of Our Lady of Walsingham, a Daily Office book developed from the English prayer book tradition for the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in the United Kingdom, was published on the 350th anniversary of the 1662 prayer book.[122] The 1662 prayer book provides the basis for Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer in the 2021 Divine Worship: Daily Office: Commonwealth Edition which replaced the Customary for use by the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham and the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross based in Australia.[123] While the U.S. Episcopal Church's prayer books are the dominant influence on the North America-based Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter, its first bishop, Steven J. Lopes, declared that the 1662 prayer book "is still the authoritative version".[6]

The prayer book's liturgies, particularly its Holy Communion and Ordinal offices, were reviewed in an Eastern Orthodox perspective by Julian Joseph Overbeck in 1869, with the Russian Orthodox Church and later the Greek Orthodox Church issuing official approval for Overbeck's assessment. The ranking Russian Orthodox bishop in the U.S., Tikhon, submitted a request for a possible adaption of the U.S. Episcopal Church's 1892 prayer book to be used by Episcopal priests entering the Russian Orthodox Church. The 1904 response from the Russian Orthodox synod reviewing of the 1662 and later U.S. Episcopal Church prayer books found deficiencies in the manner and theology of the liturgies, though opened the door to permitting a revised version.[124][125]

The Liturgy of Saint Tikhon is a Western Rite Orthodox revision of the Book of Common Prayer Eucharistic liturgy. While Tikhon, who later became Patriarch of Moscow and was canonised in the Eastern Orthodox Church, did not directly produce or approve the liturgy—it was first approved by the Antiochian Western Rite Vicariate in 1977—the liturgy is named in his honour.[126] Though this liturgy is derived largely from the U.S. prayer book tradition, it has influences traceable to the 1662 prayer book. As of 2012, roughly thirty to forty per cent of Antiochian Western Rite parishes used the Liturgy of Saint Tikhon, with the remainder using the Liturgy of Saint Gregory, a revision of the Roman Rite Mass.[5] Kallistos Ware, a convert to Eastern Orthodoxy from Anglicanism with a personal familiarity with the 1662 prayer book, opted against the Western Rite but retained 17th-century English lexicon for his translations of the Festal Menaion and the Lenten Triodion.[5]^: 3, 7

John Wesley, Church of England cleric and founder of Methodism

John Wesley, in his position as a cleric within the Church of England, established the revivalist movement of Methodism during the 18th century. Besides preaching and social advocacy, Wesley undertook a pattern of liturgical modification to support his fellow Methodists. Wesley was a proponent of Anglican liturgy, saying in 1784 of the 1662 prayer book that he felt "there is no liturgy in the world, either in ancient or modern language, which breathes more a solid, scriptural, rational piety".[127] To enable early Methodists to continue attending the Church of England liturgies according the 1662 prayer book, the first Methodist services were held outside standard church hours on Sundays and were composed mostly of non-liturgical preaching, Scripture reading, and prayer. These events would often featuring paraphrasing or portions of Anglican liturgical material, exposing non-Church of England Methodist adherents to the 1662 prayer book.[128]

Despite his affinity for the prayer book, Wesley desired to adjust its liturgies and rubrics to maximise evangelisation and better reflect his view of Scriptural and early apostolic practises.[128] These generally took the form of abridgments, such as The Sunday Service of the Methodists in North America with Other Occasional Services.[127] Wesley produced The Sunday Service in 1784 on behalf of Methodists in the newly founded, post-Revolution United States as a shortening of the 1662 prayer book. These liturgies were supplemented by editions of Wesley's earlier work, including the 1741 Collection of Psalms and Hymns.[129]

Among Wesley's grievances with the prayer book, voiced in a 1755 essay supporting remaining within the Church of England, were the inclusion of the Athanasian Creed, sponsors at baptism, and the "essential difference" between bishops and presbyters. In the 1784 Sunday Service, he removed the rites of private baptism, the visitation of the sick, the offices of accession, and others. Readings from the Apocrypha were removed entirely, with the exception of one reading from Tobit.[129] Also deleted were reference to The Books of Homilies, the Black Rubric, and saints' feast days.[127] Retained and complementing the liturgies were modified Articles of Religion, derived from the standard 39 Articles in the 1662 prayer book.[130] Influences on Wesley's liturgy included Puritans and Samuel Clarke's work to alter the 1662 prayer book, as compiled and implemented by Theophilus Lindsey for his Essex Street Chapel congregation. Wesley was also familiar with Richard Baxter's efforts to approve a more reformed liturgy at the Savoy Conference and the later 1689 Liturgy of Comprehension.[129]

While some later Methodists—including the Primitive Methodist Church's founder Hugh Bourne—found the 1662 prayer book too Popish, Methodist liturgy continued being shaped by the prayer book following Wesley's death.[131][note 15] The British Wesley Methodist Church developed its own service book, the 1882 Public Prayers and Services, based directly off the Book of Common Prayer rather than Wesley's revisions. The 1882 book used Morning Prayer, the Litany, and the Holy Communion office from the 1662 edition. The 1784 Sunday Service would be revised and reprinted roughly 45 times in England, sometimes as the further reduced Order of Administration of the Sacraments. The 1662 edition-derived Sunday Service has remained a "urtext" for Methodist denominations in the U.S., through its 1932 adaptation by the Methodist Episcopal Church—and its successor denomination, the United Methodist Church and its 1965 Book of Worship—and the African Methodist Episcopal Church's Communion office.[132][131]

The King's Chapel congregation in Boston, Massachusetts, originated as a Church of England parish in 1686. During the American Revolution, the parishioners were largely Loyalist and many fled following the 1776 British evacuation of Boston. Those Anglicans that remained agreed to permit Congregationalists from Old South Church to use King's Chapel in shared, alternating fashion. James Freeman arrived to serve as a lay reader in 1782 and introduced his own theology of Socinianism and eventually Unitarianism.[133][134]

Using a copy of Theophilus Lindsey's Essex Street Chapel liturgy as a model, Freeman and the King's Chapel congregation created a 1662 prayer book modified to match their nontrinitarian theology in 1785.[135] Freeman and the congregation were both denied entry into the newly independent U.S. Episcopal Church by bishops Samuel Seabury and Samuel Provoost, resulting in it becoming the first Unitarian church in the U.S.[133][136] King's Chapel continues to operate as an independent Unitarian church with the modified 1662 prayer book as its liturgy, currently in a ninth edition published in 1986.[137]

Percy Dearmer produced supplemental material for and histories on the 1662 prayer book.

While the Church of England does not possess a standardised approved hymnal, several hymnals were developed specifically for usage within the church to compliment the 1662 prayer book. Hymns accompanying parochial services were not standard, though had grown increasingly popular by the 1830s due to the influence of Dissenter, particularly Wesleyan, practice.[138] Partially due to this exterior pressure and partially due to the desires of Tractarians, Hymns Ancient and Modern was published in 1861. Among its contributors were Jane Laurie Borthwick, Edward Caswall, Thomas Helmore, John Mason Neale, and Catherine Winkworth.[139] A 1904 revision was widely panned for its alteration of verbiage and numbering, as well as the deletion of popular hymns.[140]

While vicar at St Mary-the-Virgin, Primrose Hill, in London, Percy Dearmer determined their usage of Hymns Ancient and Modern to be deficient. Dearmer pursued the creation of his own hymnal with Ralph Vaughan Williams, resulting in the words version of The English Hymnal published by Oxford University Press in 1906. Hymns were provisioned to the offices of the 1662 prayer book, with a tendency towards Anglo-Catholic sympathies. With hymns for the Virgin Mary and the dead, the Diocese of Bristol prohibited the text and prompted the creation of an abridged version which was printed in 1907.[140] The English Hymnal received a minor revision in 1933 and was regularly used through to the 1980s. The 1986 revision, the New English Hymnal, has largely supplanted the earlier versions.[141]

In 1894, Ritual Notes was introduced as a supplement to provide greater detail to Church of England ritualist celebrants. The text was written with the intention of serving alongside 1662 prayer book's liturgies, though it also proved popular with U.S. Episcopal Church Anglo-Catholics. Its 11th and final edition was published before the 1979 American prayer book's approval, this later prayer book proving too great a deviation from the patterns Ritual Notes was designed for use alongside. The rubrical text thus declined in general popularity.[142] A similarly High Church supplement, The Parson's Handbook, was created by Percy Dearmer in 1899.[143]