ʻFor the More Explanationʼ and ʻFor the More Perfectionʼ: Cranmerʼs Second Prayer Book

Three years ago we were celebrating the 450th anniversary of the First Prayer Book of King Edward VI and of his Archbishop, Thomas Cranmer, which came into use on Whitsunday 1549; and this year, three years later, we are celebrating the 450th anniversary of their Second Prayer Book, which came into use on All Saintsʼ Day 1552. The 1549 Book was in many ways the greater change, for it was the first liturgy in the English language—in every respect an extraordinary achievement—but the 1552 Book was the climax of Cranmerʼs work, for it brought to clear and mature expression the biblical theology which in the 1549 Book was often only implicit. The 1552 Act of Uniformity which introduced the Second Prayer Book expresses Cranmerʼs intentions in the book: it commends the previous book as ʻa very godly order ... agreeable to the word of God and the primitive Churchʼ, but says that it has now been ʻexplained and made fully perfectʼ, ʻas well for the more plain and manifest explanation...as for the more perfectionʼ.

The remarkable speed of events during Edwardʼs short reign of little more than six years might seem to show indecent haste, were it not for the remarkable sluggishness of progress during the long reign of his father Henry VIII, when, because of the hesitations of the king, little more than preparations for reform were possible. These preparations included the very important steps of introducing the Great Bible of Tyndale and Coverdale into every parish church, and making the Church of England independent of theauthority of Rome; but reformed services and homilies could only be privately prepared, not publicly introduced, with the single exception of Cranmerʼs English Litany of 1544, the first edition of the one now in the Prayer Book. To read more, click here.