'Extremely slight alterations': an Old High view on the state prayers in the PECUSA BCP 1789

In the course an 1840 sermon entitled 'Prayer and Thanksgiving for Civil Rulers', preached in the parish church of Iffley, Oxford, on the day appointed to give thanks for the preservation of the life of Queen Victoria after an assassination attempt, Old High divine William Jacobson (received orders in 1830, appointed Regius Professor of Divinity, Oxford in 1848, appointed Bishop of Chester in 1865), expounded "the great Christian duty of praying and giving thanks for rulers and governors":

For, remember, however much the form of government may be permitted to vary in different countries, whatever be the alterations in the working and administration of government which may be thought (and thought at times with the best reason) necessary and desirable in the same country, as one generation comes into the place of another, the duty remains as binding as ever, Let every soul be subject to the higher powers.

This scriptural understanding, declared Jacobson, was particularly set forth in the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer:

The duty of loyalty and obedience to civil rulers, in general, the duty of praying for them, in particular, are then among the plainest and most bounden duties of all who profess and call themselves Christians. And the Church, to which it is your high privilege to belong, faithful to her trust, has made full provision for inculcating the obligation and assisting the discharge of both duties. 

Jacobson then turned to a perhaps surprising source: the state prayers in the PECUSA BCP 1789. Here, he said, could be found the same scriptural principle:

And scriptural, eminently scriptural and catholic as we have reason to bless God our Common Prayer Book is, often as this has been acknowledged even by those who have on other grounds felt bound in conscience to dissent from us, it was never perhaps in any case more strongly and clearly shewn how scriptural and how catholic our services are, than when the final separation of the British settlements in North America from the mother country, now more than sixty years ago, rendered it necessary for such of our brethren there as continued to adhere to our Communion, to make certain alterations in those very prayers of which we have just been speaking. It is at once astonishing and pleasing to see how extremely slight, how entirely verbal and formal the alterations were which the convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America was constrained to adopt; and that, though the change in government and policy was so great and so universal.

Despite the outcome of the Revolutionary War and the new constitutional settlement for the formerly "British settlements in North America", the state prayers in the PECUSA liturgy, with only "extremely slight alterations", remained those of 1662. Prior to the above extract, Jacobson had quoted from 1662's 'A Prayer for the High Court of Parliament', offered "whenever the great council of the nation is assembled in Parliament". PECUSA 1789 retained this as 'A Prayer for Congress':

Most gracious God, we humbly beseech thee, as for the peoples of these United States in general, so especially for their Senate and Representatives in Congress assembled ...

After this revised opening, the 1662 petitions were retained:

That thou wouldest be pleased to direct and prosper all their consultations, to the advancement of thy glory, the good of thy Church, the safety honour and welfare of thy people; that all things may be so ordered and settled by their endeavours, upon the best and surest foundations, that peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety, may be established among us for all generations.

This illustrates the significant point made be Jacobson in his sermon: the 18th century Anglican understanding of the duties of subjects to civil rulers was not dependent upon a particular form of government. Indeed, the Loyalist Charles Inglis had declared this in a 30th January sermon preached during the Revolutionary War:

It may be proper to observe further, that this Duty is not confined to those who live under any one particular Form of Government: It extends to the Subjects of all regular States, lawfully established. That some Forms of Government are preferable to others, cannot be doubted; yet neither our Saviour, nor his Apostles have decided where that Preference is due.

That both Jacobson and Inglis declared that the Church of England's understanding of scriptural teaching on duties to civil rulers was not applicable only to monarchies is significant in a number of ways. It is a reminder that those whom Burke derided as "the old prerogative enthusiasts" - those with 'high flying' notions of monarchical divine right, contrary to the Revolution of 1688 - were not to be found amongst the 'Orthodox' (that is, Old High) divines of the Church of England. In the words of another Old High divine, Samuel Horsley, in another 30th January sermon, this time from 1793:

the principles which I advance ascribe no greater sanctity to monarchy than to any other form of established government ... all government is in such sort of Divine institution.

This aids in explaining the path taken by those formerly Loyalist clergy who swore allegiance to the newly-independent United States of America. As William White himself noted - in opposing the proposal for a 4th July state service in the post-Revolutionary War revision of the Prayer Book - it was well recognised that a majority of PECUSA clergy had "been averse to the American revolution". Those formerly Loyalist clergy who remained in the United States, on the basis of the teaching of Inglis, reaffirmed by Horsley and Jacobson, gave their allegiance to the new constitutional order under which they lived. 

Jacobson's understanding of the state prayers also has some contemporary significance. It offers a reasoned, prudent, wise, modest, traditionally conservative approach to Christian duty in the polity. Against the radtrad cultural warriors with their deeply weird, toxic, revolutionary fantasies about reviving Christendom, the 'Orthodox'/Old High Anglican understanding of our relationship with civil rulers rejects and refutes such enthusiasm. Our duties towards civil rulers - the duties of prayer and civic obedience - have no place for a crusade to overthrow a lawfully established constitutional order in order impose a fantastical vision of the state, promoted by enthusiasts.