( Adelphoi,
As part of the early 19th century missionary outreach, evangelical churchmen desired to make available not only the Bible but the BCP and the Book of Homilies, read on please... [I am due to record today the First of the Homilies, that on Reading Scripture!])
On May 20 1812 a group of Church of England evangelical clergy & laity met in The Freemasons' Tavern in Great Queen Street, London, to form "The Prayer Book and Homily Society." The founders and early supporters were also members of the Church Missionary Society (founded 1799) and the British and Foreign Bible Society(founded 1804). The latter society could not by its charter distribute specifically Anglican things and so the new society arose to complement the work of evangelical churchmen in that society.
The purpose of this Society was to print and distribute the Book of Common Prayer (1662) in English and in other languages, as needed by missionaries; and also to publish "The Book of Homilies" which is referred to in "The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion" (printed at the back of the Prayer Book) as a source of the foundational doctrine of the Church of England by law established.
The Society published the Prayer Book in at least 12 languages and seems to have been at the peak of its activity in 1828-1833. The Homilies were only published in English and in editions without the critical apparatus.
Most of the annual reports from 1813 to 1874 can be found in the British Library, London, and the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
Apparently no archives of the Society have been preserved and the Society has not yet attracted a historian to write its history -- which can only be understood in relation to the 19th century evangelical concern to have people read the Bible in the context of worshipping God with "that most perfect liturgy" (as they called it) of the BCP and with a mind informed by the reformed catholic (= protestant) teaching of the official homilies.
The Revd Dr Peter Toon January 21, 2003
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