Church of England

This is a sensible edition of the texts of The Book of Common Prayer that were edited in 1549, 1559, and 1662. It's far better as a reference work than a commentary. More on that later.

The Good: The quality of this volume is what you would expect from Oxford, but at a more reasonable price— attractively bound and printed. The texts themselves are accurate and the editorial choices made by Cummings are considered. Cummings wisely refuses to fall into the trap of reproducing original show more spellings of the texts (there are numerous variants in early Modern English), but hews closely to the original punctuation.

The Bad: The Propers for the Day (the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels) are not included. This appears to have been a compromise to prevent the book from getting too unwieldy. A far worse gaffe is the Introduction. Cummings' theology presents several serious problems. One is that he is trapped in the modern conundrum of thinking that Protestant is the opposite of Catholic. Another is the notion that 'the Prayer Book was written in “the ordinary language of its time”', a rather severe error. The concept of the Reformation as a return to primitive Christianity, and the corresponding claim to the patristic *consensus fidelium*, is foreign to him.

I wanted badly to give this book five stars when I obtained a copy, but it was not to be. I feel that this would be especially valuable for non-Anglicans who probably do not have the three included BCP texts as separate volumes, and are better read on the Reformation sources. It is less valuable to serious Anglicans who may have the English Prayer Book Society's edition of 1549 and 1552 in one volume, and John Booty's scholarly edition of 1559. If you have those books, you won't need this. Otherwise, I recommend it. show less

1662. What else need be said? Although published a century on, this is basically the work of Thomas Cranmer. A triumph of the English language, and deserves to be read even by those who don't believe, purely as a work of literature.

When I was a child I wasn't allowed to read anything frivolous on Sundays, so I used to read my illustrated Bible and the prayer book - I particularly liked the tables for working out the date for Easter, and the bits about who you couldn't marry. Also the language is beautiful, shame they've replaced it with banal everyday version.

For English Anglicans of a certain age, this, and not the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, is the once-familiar liturgy now remembered with fond nostalgia. It had its awkward points - many have never become comfortable with the Lord's Prayer in modern language - but some of it was quite inspired. Some of its elements remain in Common Worship, but I will always have a soft spot for the 1980 book. MB 15-vi-2007