The Book of Common Prayer | |||||||
|
|
After an unfortunate experience with a Proposed Book of Common Prayer in 1786, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church approved a final Book of Common Prayer three years later, in October of 1789. The first printing of this book, by Hall and Sellers of Philadelphia, occurred the following year, and this first edition is what is presented here. The book was very similar to the 1662 English Book of Common Prayer, with few significant changes made, other than the fact that the communion service followed the Scottish form rather than the English. This book did not include several services (the Ordinal, Consecration of Churches, and Institution of Ministers) nor the Articles of Religion, as these would not be approved for another ten years or so. This book was succeeded in 1793 by the first Standard Edition, which made a few minor, mostly typographical, changes. For those interested, we have a much more detailed history of these editions elsewhere on this web site. The book is listed in David Griffiths' Bibliography of the Book of Common Prayer as 1790/13. One will notice that the book is fairly small (duodecimo, about 17 x 11cm), but Adobe Acrobat should allow you to increase the size for improved legibility or printing, if desired. One will also notice that it uses the old-style "long s" (which looks much like the letter "f"); this usage did not disappear from American Prayer Books until just about the year 1800. It is also available as scanned PDF graphics from the Internet Archive. The book is presented as a series of typeset Adobe Acrobat (PDF) files (or as a single file) which are intended to be an exact reproduction of the original in every way. The files were originally created in Adobe InDesign and use the same font (Caslon Old Face), and have the same dimensions, line and page breaks, etc., as does the original. Clicking on any of the links below should bring up the file as an Adobe Acrobat file; if this does not work, you may need to get the Adobe Acrobat Reader (it's free). All the files below are also available together as a single file. As always, we welcome your comments and corrections. |
|
TABLE OF CONTENTS.1. THE Ratification
of the Book of Common Prayer. |
Note that the book additionally contains under a separate title page, The Whole Book of Psalms in Metre; with Hymns suited to the Feasts and Fasts of the Church and other Occasions of Public Worship, also published by Hall & Sellers in 1790. My copy of the book has 12 pages missing or damaged, covering the last page of the Private Baptism of Infants, all of the Baptism of Adults, and the Catechism. Layout for these were taken from another edition published by Hall & Sellers in 1800, which has virtually identical pagination. |
Web author: Charles Wohlers | U. S. England Scotland Ireland Wales Canada World |