This section provides an outline of the structure of the main services in the BCP of 1662 – morning prayer, the litany, communion (sometimes called the ‘second service’) and evening prayer. This outline indicates those parts which were typically modified when forms of prayer issued for special occasions made use of these services, and also where special prayers were to be added to, or to replace, the usual prayers in the BCP services. It is followed by a list of the occasional ‘Prayers and Thanksgivings’ that were printed after the litany, several of which were incorporated in the liturgies ordered for occasions of special worship. The best modern edition of the BCP is The Book of Common Prayer. The texts of 1549, 1559, and 1662, ed. Brian Cummings (Oxford, 2011).

Increasingly from 1914, forms of prayer for special occasions became separate services, which were intended to supplement the BCP services, either used in addition to them, or as independent services – one intention for the latter being to appeal to those who rarely attended church, or were members of other churches: see pp. xcv, xcviii–xcix.

Key

Normal text indicates the unvarying parts of the services, as specified in the BCP.

Italicized text in bold indicates those parts of the service which varied ordinarily according to the minister’s practice or which changed from day to day following the BCP’s calendar: principally the opening sentences, psalms, the lessons, collects, epistle and gospel readings. These were also the principal points of variation in the special services for fast days, days of humiliation and thanksgiving days.

Text in bold indicates those additional parts of the service also changed for fast and thanksgiving days: principally the replacement ‘hymn’ for the Venite exultemus and revisions to the suffrages.

[*] indicates those parts in the service where a prayer or prayers could be added or changed. Some additions and replacements consisted of one new prayer; others consisted of several. For occasions of special prayers, either petitionary or thanksgiving, the specially issued form of prayer gave only the text of the prayer or prayers and a direction as to where they were to be inserted into the BCP services.