Members only: Morning Prayer Compared Across Three Editions of The Book of Common Prayer

For those who want to say Morning Prayer from a traditional Book of Common Prayer, there are a number of options, including: the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, the 1928 Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church (USA), and the recently published 1662 Book of Common Prayer: International Edition or 1662IE (Disclosure: I am one of the editors of the latter, along with Drew Nathaniel Keane)

This essay compares Morning Prayer in each of these prayer books, first in descriptive summary and then in more detail.

I. AN INITIAL SUMMARY AND EVALUATION

There are three main lines of difference between Morning Prayer in the 1662 and 1928 prayer books, and I will list these in increasing importance.

First, in the 1928 there is some change in language. The 1928 updates a few phrases in the 1662, such as “Spare thou them” to “Spare thou those.” Even though a few of the more pronounced archaisms are updated, the 1928 clearly uses traditional prayer book language.

The 1662 IE essentially aligns with the 1928 in making similar modest linguistic updates. The differences are the 1662 IE’s use of “a humble” in the exhortation (which should be in slightly closer contact with contemporary speech) and “pastors” as a more precise equivalent than “clergy” for “curates.”

It is worth noting that these modest linguistic updates in the 1928 and the 1662 IE have a weighty precedent: the 1662 itself, which similarly retained many archaisms while still making a few modest updates to reflect changes in language.