A Prayer Meant to Be Said Together

The General Thanksgiving entered the Book of Common Prayer in the 1662 revision, the edition produced after the Restoration of Charles II and the reestablishment of the Church of England following the Commonwealth period, and it is traditionally attributed to Bishop Edward Reynolds, though as with much Prayer Book material the attribution rests on historical tradition rather than a signed manuscript.

What set it apart from most surrounding prayers in that revision was its rubric instructing the whole congregation to say it together, rather than the minister alone or the minister with responses, an unusual choice for the period that liturgical historians have read as an attempt to give ordinary worshippers a more active voice within an otherwise minister-led service. Its content moves deliberately from general blessings shared by the whole human race, creation and preservation, to blessings specific to the gathered congregation of believers, above all redemption through Jesus Christ, a two-stage structure, general to particular, that recurs across a good deal of Anglican prayer of the same period. Its closing petition, asking for a due sense of God's mercies to result not merely in feeling thankful but in a life that shows forth God's praise, ties thanksgiving explicitly to conduct rather than treating gratitude as a private inward sentiment alone.