The Wisdom of the Prefaces: peace and concord after confusion and conflict

It hath 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.

Robert Sanderson, Bishop of Lincoln, was the author of the Preface to the revision of 1662.  These opening words of the Preface almost certainly have their roots in an earlier statement by Sanderson, in his 1647 Oxford lectures On Conscience and Human Law: 

but in this, as in many other debates, the mean between the two extremes seems to be the truer opinion , and safer to follow.

In the 1662 Preface, Sanderson also applied this moderation and prudence to the description of the bitterly divisive events of the 1640s and 1650s, the civil wars and the Interregnum: the Preface refers to "the late unhappy confusions".  It would, of course, have been easy to give expression to a triumphalist Royalism and Laudianism.  Such a spirit was evident in the services appointed for 30th January and 29th May, with their references to "cruel and bloody men", "sons of Belial", "the unnatural rebellion, usurpation, and tyranny of ungodly and cruel men".  Sanderson, however, avoided such language in the Preface, employing moderation and prudence to bind up the wounds of the past two decades, "the late unhappy confusions".

Even well into the late 1650s, the times were indeed marked by "confusions".  As Paul Lay has shown in Providence Lost: The Rise & Fall of Cromwell's Protectorate (2020), the new regime had begun to put down roots.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, the "'passive majority' of Royalists bedded down in England, content to live peaceably in a land without a king", with "many former supporters of the king" signing "the government's Engagement of loyalty to the Commonwealth".  Ecclesiastical life was similarly marked by "confusions".  Despite Parliament's abolition of episcopacy and prohibition of the liturgy, bishops and the Book of Common Prayer continued to shape ecclesiastical life, as John Morrill has demonstrated. The "great majority" of new clerics appointed during these years sought out episcopal ordination from surviving bishops, while "prudent use" of the Prayer Book was "very common".  Such a context certainly contributed to, as Robert Bosher noted in The Making of the Restoration Settlement, 1649-1662 (1951), a majority of episcopalian clergy in the parishes accepting the Oath of Engagement with its rather mild expression of allegiance to "the Commonwealth of England, as it is now established, without a King or House of Lords".  

Sanderson knew all about such "confusions" and the wisdom of moderation.  He ministered legally during the 1650s because he had taken the Engagement. What is more, the advice he - as England's leading casuist - gave to another cleric on the matter, defending taking the Engagement, was published and widely circulated.  Here again we see moderation and prudence, "the mean between two extremes":

Between which two there seemeth to be a middle Construction very reasonable also, and obvious to every man's understanding: as thus. Whereas the Government of this Commonwealth of England, so far as it standeth presently established, is administered and exercised without either King or Lords, I do faithfully promise, so long as I live under the present Power and enjoy the benefit of their protection, that I will not do any act of hostility against them, nor contrive or attempt any thing to their destruction; but living quietly and peaceably under them, will endeavour in my place and calling to do what to my best understanding shall appear requisite to be done for the safety of my Country, and the maintenance of Civil Society within the same.

We can see, then, the deep roots of the moderation and prudence with which Sanderson in the 1662 Preface sought to bind up the wounds of a divisive time.  In the confusions of those years, many of the laity and clergy of the Church of England had lived with and ministered amidst the ambiguities and uncertainties of the times.  A more triumphalist, less prudent phrase than "the late unhappy confusions" would have failed to recognise and include these experiences; it would have failed to bind up the wounds of a divided church and country.

Sanderson's words came to mind during the weekend past as US friends celebrated Independence Day because a similar wisdom, moderation, and prudence is to be found in the Preface to PECUSA's BCP 1789.  Referring to the upheavals of the Revolutionary War, the defeat of Great Britain, and the emergence of the newly independent United States of America, the Preface modestly states:

But when in the course of Divine Providence, these American States became independent with respect to civil government.

Much more triumphalist language could have been employed.  The Declaration of Independence, after all, had asserted:

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

What is more, the first General Convention of PECUSA in 1785 had shown itself willing to employ language that veered towards the triumphalist: PECUSA had "become independent of all foreign authority" and the liturgy was altered to "render it consistent with the American revolution".  The reference to "foreign authority" found no place in the Preface. Indeed, a rather different tone was struck:

The Church of England, to which the Protestant Episcopal Church in these States is indebted, under God, for her first foundation and a long continuance of nursing care and protection.

The moderation continued when the change in civil government was mentioned in greater details regarding the state prayers.  Rather than revising the liturgy to make it "consistent with the American revolution", the "principal care" was make it consistent with Scripture's exhortations regarding civil authority:

The attention of this Church was in the first place drawn to those alterations in the Liturgy which became necessary in the prayers for our Civil Rulers, in Consequence of the Revolution. And the principal care herein was to make them conformable to what ought to be the proper end of all such prayers, namely, that "Rulers may have grace, wisdom, and understanding to execute justice, and to maintain truth;" and that the people "may lead quiet and peaceable lives, in all godliness and honesty."

The 1789 Preface, therefore, referred to the events and outcome of the Revolutionary War with a moderation and prudence similar to that shown by Sanderson in 1662.  And a similar reason may be detected.  When the Convention sought, in the good Anglican tradition of state services, to include commemoration of Independence Day in the revised Prayer Book, it was William White - Bishop of Pennsylvania, first presiding bishop, and formerly chaplain of the Continental Congress - who urged otherwise.  White reminded the Convention that for "the majority of the clergy" the Revolutionary War had been a time of, to use Sanderson's words, "unhappy confusions":

Had the question been concerning the praying for the prosperity of the commonwealths, and for the persons of those who rule in them, the argument would have been conclusive; and, indeed, this had been done by all the remaining clergy, however disaffected they might have been, throughout the war. But, the argument did not apply to a retrospective approbation of the origin of the civil constitutions, or rather, to a profession of such approbation, contrary to known fact ...

The members of the convention seem to have thought themselves so established in their station of ecclesiastical legislators, that they might expect of the many clergy who had been averse to the American revolution the adoption of this service; although, by the use of it, they must make an implied acknowledgment of their error, in an address to Almighty God. . . . The greater stress is laid on this matter because of the notorious fact, that the majority of the clergy could not have used the service, without subjecting themselves to ridicule and censure (from White's Memoirs of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, from its Organization up to the Present Day.)

White, like Sanderson, urged a wisdom, moderation, and prudence which would bind up wounds: indeed, he specifically invokes "point of prudence ... and dictate of moderation". What makes White's views especially relevant here is that he was - as noted in Bishop Doane's funeral sermon for White - the author of the 1789 Preface. That Preface, like that of 1662, looked back on a time of conflict and division with a moderation and prudence which promoted concord, recognising the confusions and ambiguities experienced not least by clergy during that time. The modesty of the 1789 Preface's reference to how "these American States became independent with respect to civil government" aided the acceptance of the new constitutional order by the significant proportion of clergy "who had been averse to" the Revolution.  

On a previous occasion laudable Practice has referred to the wisdom of the Prefaces, to how they embody a prudence, caution, and moderation flowing from "the author of peace and love and concord", and that this Anglican wisdom presents a vision of common life which can have resonance in our own turbulent times.  The manner in which the Prefaces of 1662 and 1789 approached times of conflict and bitter division has a particular relevance, reminding us that peace and concord, civility and constitutional order, are goods to be cherished and nurtured, and that "in this, as in many other debates, the mean between the two extremes seems to be the truer opinion, and safer to follow".

(The painting is William Russell Birch, 'Second Street north from Market St. wth. Christ Church', 1828. William White was rector of the Philadelphia church.)