Church of England

This is a sensible edition of the texts of The Book of Common Prayer that were edited in 1549, 1559, and 1662. It's far better as a reference work than a commentary. More on that later.

The Good: The quality of this volume is what you would expect from Oxford, but at a more reasonable price— attractively bound and printed. The texts themselves are accurate and the editorial choices made by Cummings are considered. Cummings wisely refuses to fall into the trap of reproducing original spellings of the texts (there are numerous variants in early Modern English), but hews closely to the original punctuation.

The Bad: The Propers for the Day (the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels) are not included. This appears to have been a compromise to prevent the book from getting too unwieldy. A far worse gaffe is the Introduction. Cummings' theology presents several serious problems. One is that he is trapped in the modern conundrum of thinking that Protestant is the opposite of Catholic. Another is the notion that 'the Prayer Book was written in “the ordinary language of its time”', a rather severe error. The concept of the Reformation as a return to primitive Christianity, and the corresponding claim to the patristic *consensus fidelium*, is foreign to him.

I wanted badly to give this book five stars when I obtained a copy, but it was not to be. I feel that this would be especially valuable for non-Anglicans who probably do not have the three included BCP texts as separate volumes, and are better read on the Reformation sources. It is less valuable to serious Anglicans who may have the English Prayer Book Society's edition of 1549 and 1552 in one volume, and John Booty's scholarly edition of 1559. If you have those books, you won't need this. Otherwise, I recommend it.… (more)