Why "YOU" as second person singular in the ORDINAL?

The use of the 2nd person singular in The Form and Manner of Making, Ordaining and Consecrating of Bishops, Priests and Deacons [ = The Ordinal] printed inside The Book of Common Prayer (1552, 1662, 1928) is most interesting, opening a window upon mid-sixteenth century English.

In all Three Services, God is addressed as "Thou/Thee" and "Thy" and "Thine" are often used. There are no exceptions to this rule. God is never the "You-God".

Further, in each of the Three Services, the candidate is ordained with words that also use the second person singular - e.g., "take thou authority" & "committed unto thee" & "be thou a faithful" & "thou stir up".

However, in the last of the Three Services, involving the Bishop, the Archbishop delivers to him a Bible after he has been ordained and as he delivers it addresses him. In the first part of this brief address the Archbishop uses the words "thyself" "thou" and "thee". Then, perhaps surprisingly, in the second half the Archbishop switches to "ye" and "you": "Be so merciful, that ye be not too remiss; so minister discipline, that you forget not mercy." With each set of pronouns, he is addressing the one and the same person.

There is another surprising thing in the Service for the Ordaining & Consecrating a Bishop. It is this. In each of the eight questions put to the Bishop-elect as well in the introduction and final statement of the questioning, the Archbishop addresses him as "you" and "ye". "Are you persuaded.?" "Will you maintain.?" and so on.

Now in the parallel questions addressed to the candidates within the other Two Services there is also the use of "you"; but, in these it is assumed that several men are being ordained together and thus the "you" is the 2nd person plural form.

So it appears that there is the use of "you" as second person singular in a large part of the Service for Bishops and that in one particular paragraph (the address as the Bible is delivered) the new Bishop is first addressed as "thou/thee" and then as "you/ye".

What are we to make of this?

We can see that both "thou/thee" and "you/ye" functioned as second person singular in the mid sixteenth century. At that time "you/ye/you" was a polite form (hence "your majesty"). Since a bishop belonged to the Lords spiritual, he was addressed as an Earl, Duke, Lord & King - "ye/you/your". However, in divine worship before God he is the equal of all the baptized and so he could also be addressed "thou/thee/thine/thy".

Further, most importantly, God who is the King of kings, lords, dukes and earls is always in the Ordinal (as in the Prayer Book itself) addressed as "Thou/Thee/Thy/Thine". That he is so addressed represents a definite choice by Archbishop Cranmer and his colleagues. Thus the English language of public prayer is no accident. It was planned! And when many ditched it in the 1960s and afterwards they lost a great treasure.

(To read more about the use of pronouns for God and for man in the English
language of public prayer, see Toon & Tarsitano, Neither Archaic nor
Obsolete: The Language of Common Prayer & Public Worship, 2003. ISBN 0
907839 75 4 available from Edgeways Books or The Anglican Marketplace In the USA call 1 800 727 1928)

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The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)