laudable Practice

In the afternoon to the Abbey, where a good sermon by a stranger, but no Common Prayer yet - 1st July 1660. After dinner to St. Margaret’s, where the first time I ever heard Common Prayer in that Church - 5th August 1660. In the morn to our own church, where Mr. Mills did begin to nibble at the Common Prayer, by saying 'Glory be to the Father, &c.' after he had read the two psalms; but the people had been so little used to it, that they could not tell what to answer  - 4th November 1660. This day also did Mr. Mills begin to read all the Common Prayer, which I was glad of - 11th November 1660. Pepys' diary entries for 1660 provide an insight into how the return of the Book of Common Prayer was, in many places, approached with a prudent caution in the aftermath of the Restoration. It was, of course, the case that, as the Preface to the 1662 revision would declare, in constitutional terms, the legal requirement to use to the Prayer Book had not been legitimately repeale...

But this emphasis [in Restoration Episcopalian accounts] on martyrdom, ejection and exile has obscured the extent to which prominent episcopalian conformists were subsequently prepared to defend their Interregnum careers, presenting their ministries in these years as evidence of steadfast commitment to both the Church of England and the king. By staying within the Church, ministers had acted as a bulwark against heresy and error, the last bastions of ‘true Protestantism’, and thereby worked to protect and to ‘undeceive’ the distracted laity - (re)shaping attitudes towards liturgy, episcopacy and even monarchy. William White, in ' Remembering Episcopalian Conformity in Restoration England ', thus reminds us that alongside the narrative of persecution and martyrdom promoted by formerly non-conformist Episcopalians at the Restoration, there was another narrative to be told, that of the Episcopalian Conformists in the Cromwellian Church. As we saw last week , George Bull was amongs...