More from Alan Jacobs on Cranmer's BCP and the Bible.
Jacobs, Alan (2013-09-30). The "Book of Common Prayer": A
Biography (Lives of Great Religious Books) (p. 27). Princeton University Press.
Kindle Edition.
"Thus when Cranmer rose to his archepiscopal seat, he might have heard
Latin employed everywhere in England, but otherwise a wide range of practice.
As he later wrote, when his liturgical revisions were mostly complete and the
Book of Common Prayer ready for distribution, `
"'Heretofore, there hath been great diversity in saying and singing in
churches within this realm: some following Salisbury use, some Hereford use,
same the use of Bangor, some of York, and some of Lincoln.' (In Scotland the Sarum
rite was the norm, in part because the Scots refused to be dictated to by York;
but as Scotland was then its own kingdom, Cranmer need not concern himself with
it.)
"So the Easter 1548 promulgation of his `Order of the Communion' was
not just concerned to shift worship services from Latin to English; it was the
first unambiguous indication that Cranmer meant all the public services
everywhere in England to be conducted identically. `Now from henceforth, all
the whole realm shall have but one use.' 10
“Perhaps even more important to Cranmer than the establishment of one use
was the regularization of the Kalendar, including what we now call the
lectionary: the set of prescribed readings from Scripture. We have already seen
that the first of Cranmer’s Homilies emphasized the absolute centrality of
regular Bible reading to the Christian life, and that his preface to the Great
Bible had made the same point some years earlier; such an emphasis continued as
he built the whole prayer book. Indeed, the preface to the completed book
focused on this point almost to the exclusion of others:
"`For [the church Fathers] so ordered the matter, that all the whole
Bible (or the greatest part thereof) should be read over once in the year,
intending thereby, that the Clergy, and specially such as were Ministers of the
congregation, should (by often reading and meditation of God’s word) be stirred
up to godliness themselves, and be more able also to exhort others by wholesome
doctrine, and to confute them that were adversaries to the truth. And further,
that the people (by daily hearing of holy scripture read in the Church) should
continually profit more and more in the knowledge of God, and be the more
inflamed with the love of his true religion. But these many years passed this
Godly and decent order of the ancient fathers, hath been so altered, broken,
and neglected, by planting in uncertain stories, Legends, Responds, Verses,
vain repetitions, Commemorations, and Synodals, that commonly when any book of
the Bible was began: before three or four Chapters were read out, all the rest
were unread.' 11
"In addition to having the congregation get through the whole Bible
(`or the greatest part thereof’) in a year , Cranmer wanted particular
attention given to the Psalms, so often referred to as `the prayer book of the
Bible' itself; his Kalendar outlined a schedule by which all 150 Psalms would
be read each month. For Cranmer, regularization of the actual liturgy was
important, but thorough knowledge of the Bible— by which alone people could be
`stirred up to godliness' and enabled to `confute them that were adversaries to
the truth'— was more important still.
"Indeed, one could argue that Cranmer’s chief reason for implementing
standard liturgies was to provide a venue in which the Bible could be more
widely and more thoroughly known. Each service would require the reading of
several biblical passages. In the service of Holy Communion there were (and
indeed are) typically four: an Old Testament passage, a Psalm, a passage from
some part of the New Testament other than the Gospels , and a Gospel reading—
all this in addition to the many sentences and phrases from Scripture woven
into the liturgical language."
Jacobs, Alan (2013-09-30). The "Book of Common Prayer": A
Biography (Lives of Great Religious Books) (p. 27). Princeton University Press.
Kindle Edition.
Available here in hardcopy and kindle versions: http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-Common-Prayer-Biography/dp/0691154813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1403130396&sr=8-1&keywords=alan+jacobs+book+of+common+prayer
