Confessing Evangelical

There were a great many plots and Parliaments in James I's reign ... One plot, however, was by far the best plot in History, and the day and the month (though not, of course, the year) are well known to be utterly and even maddeningly MEMORABLE.

- 1066 and All That, W.C. Sellar and R.J. Yeatman

Remember, remember, the fifth of November,
Gunpowder treason and plot.

- Traditional

As the last of the fireworks die away, I couldn't let this Fifth of November go by without recommending the "Form of Prayer with Thanksgiving, to be used yearly upon the Fifth Day of November for the happy Deliverance of the King, and the Three Estates of the Realm, from the most Traiterous and Bloudy intended Massacre by Gun-Powder" which has, sadly, been dropped from the Book of Common Prayer in recent centuries. (The 1662 version is here; the version used in the 18th century is here.)

The first collect for use at morning prayer gets right off the fence and tells us what it thinks:

ALMIGHTY God, who hast in all ages shewed thy power and mercy in the miraculous and gracious deliverance of thy Church, and in the protection of righteous and religious Kings and States, professing thy holy and eternal truth, from the wicked conspiracies and malicious practices of all the enemies thereof;

We yield thee our unfeigned thanks and praise for the wonderful and mighty deliverance of our late gracious Sovereign King James, the Queen, the Prince, and all the Royal Branches, with the Nobility, Clergy, and Commons of England, then assembled in Parliament, by Popish treachery appointed as sheep to the slaughter, in a most barbarous, and savage manner, beyond the examples of former ages.

From this unnatural conspiracy, not our merit, but thy mercy; not our foresight, but thy providence, delivered us: And therefore, not unto us, O Lord, not unto us; but unto thy Name be ascribed all honour and glory in all Churches of the saints, from generation to generation, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Another prayer gives thanks that God "[did] prevent the malice and imaginations of our enemies, by discovering and confounding their horrible and wicked enterprize, plotted, and intended this day to have been executed against the King, and whole State of this Realm, for the subversion of the Government, and Religion established among us".

Now it's easy to mock all this. And indeed I could probably leave it there: it is easy to mock this, and by and large it deserves it. But here are a couple of quick thoughts anyway:

1. The emphasis on it being "not our merit, but [God's] mercy" that foiled the plot (setting aside, for these purposes, the various theories about it being a put-up job) is heartening - but undermined by the suspicion that the language of divine grace is being usurped for what is really a triumphalist celebration of the Protestant (but not too Protestant thanks-all-the-same) post-Restoration status quo.


2. This only goes to reinforce one's admiration for the genius of Thomas Cranmer, whose contributions to the bulk of the Book of Common Prayer have aged considerably better than these later prayers. "We have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep; we have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts" taps into universal human experience in a way that these prayers - the liturgical equivalent of a "Church and King" riot - singularly fail to achieve.