The Elizabethan Book of Common Prayer

I checked out a copy of the 1559 edition of the Anglican Book of Common prayer.

This was the time of William Shakespeare. During this age, going to church was compulsory! (Wouldn’t that be something…)

In the appendix, the author has this to say about it’s influence:

Indeed, without knowing it we may find ourselves using phrases derived from the Book of Common Prayer. “Throug fire and water,” “outward and visible,” “inward and spiritual,” “picking and stealing,” “pomps and vanity,” “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust” – these and like words and phrases heard over and over again have become a part of the heritage of English-speaking peoples. it could be argued that the Prayer Book has had a disproportionately high degree of influence when compared with the influence of the Authorized [King James] Version of the Bible.

-John E. Booty, History of the 1559 Book of Common Prayer, p.327