How Anglicans Understand Scripture and How to Read and Grow in Your Faith
Part Seven: Thomas Cranmer’s Top Ten Prayers, Phrases, and Proclamations That Shape Our Faith
For nearly five centuries, the words of Thomas Cranmer have shaped the way English-speaking Christians pray, confess, marry, mourn, and meet God.
He has reshaped our faith through writings that still live in the Book of Common Prayer. We are investigating them one by one.
These statements are not only meant to be admired, but they also speak into our lives in a way that few other statements have.
From “Dearly beloved…” to “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes,” to “To have and to hold,” many would agree: this is English at its finest. It is poetry, theology, worship, and liturgy woven into the lingua franca of the modern world.
In this summer series on Thomas Cranmer, we have selected some of the best-known and most beloved phrases of the English reformer to illustrate the kind of faith that Anglicans have and hold.
They carry the weight of biblical theology and heartfelt devotion, and they do so with a grace and gravity of language that is almost Shakespearean.
Cranmer may well have influenced Shakespeare himself. He died in 1556, just eight years before William Shakespeare was born in 1564. The Book of Common Prayer, first published in 1549, had already begun to shape the cadences of English speech and prayer when young William was learning his letters.
The menu I have imagined for this series is filled with the golden oldie hits of our English Reformer (below), but if you are a Paid Subscriber and don’t see your favorite line, please leave a comment and suggest it.
Here are a few entries I hope to cover this summer. (Highlighted ones are complete and published.) They come from a long list of personal favorites:
These are published and can be found here.
Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open… (Collect for Purity)
We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs… (Prayer of Humble Access)
To have and to hold from this day forward… (Marriage)
We have erred and strayed like lost sheep… (General Confession)
Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust… (Burial of the Dead)
Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them… (The Collect for Scripture)
Note: There are so many translations and updates of these prayers and liturgies, it is too bad not to entertain them all. But for simplicity's sake, I will be using the 2019 edition of The Book of Common Prayer. You can probably find an earlier edition somewhere in our home or at a second-hand book dealer. However, if you prefer a standard pew edition of the 2019 BCP, consider purchasing one from Amazon here.
If you want a nice one—leather, ribbons, nice paper—go to the Anglican House Publishers.
The entire series is here. But let’s get to today’s entry.
Part Seven: Thomas Cranmer’s Top Ten Prayers, Phrases, and Proclamations That Shape Our Faith
How Anglicans Understand Scripture and How to Read and Grow in Your Faith
Among the many treasures of the Book of Common Prayer, few are as spiritually rich or theologically profound as the Collect for the Second Sunday in Advent. Penned by Thomas Cranmer, this brief prayer is more than a petition—it is a spiritual map, a distinctly Anglican invitation into the mystery, beauty, and power of Holy Scripture.
Read it slowly. Pray it aloud.
The Collect for Holy Scripture
Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
This prayer doesn’t simply describe Scripture—it leads us through it. It offers not just a theology of the Bible, but a step-by-step pathway to personal transformation. From the ear to the heart, from the printed page to the hungry soul, Cranmer sketches how God’s Word becomes grace in us.
Here are ten features of one of his famous prayers (and one of my favorites, BTW).
1. Its Placement: A New Year, A New Diet
Cranmer placed this Collect at the Second Sunday of Advent—the beginning of the Church year—signaling that the life of faith begins with a life rooted in Scripture. Just as the year starts with hope in Christ’s coming, it also starts with an invitation to consume the Word.
As Peter Toon observed:
“We, who are Christians, live in the light of the First Coming in humility of the Lord Jesus, even as we look for his Second Coming in glory. All the time in this interim period of grace, we are to be taught by his sacred Word.”1
2. Its Authorship: Scripture, Not Just Bible
Cranmer rarely used the word “Bible.” He chose instead the more nuanced term “Scripture,” echoing the New Testament itself (“All Scripture is God-breathed…” – 2 Tim. 3:16). Why? Because “Bible” suggests a single book. “Scripture” recognizes a sacred collection, plural, inspired, and providentially unified.
The word also reminds us: Scripture is not just something to own. It is something to hear, speak, learn, and obey. It is a library of instances when and how God addressed His people.
3. Its Grammar: Passive Voice, but Powerful Theology
“Who caused all holy Scriptures to be written…”
Your English teacher might flag this as poor grammar—passive voice! But Cranmer is making a theological point. Scripture wasn’t dictated. Nor was it dropped from heaven. It wasn’t a download. It was caused to be written by human authors and divine inspiration. Not a monologue from God but an entire library shaped by the history of events, the personality of the writers, the anachronisms of the cultures, and the Providence of God.
(This is remarkably different from both the Muslim and the Mormon view of inspiration. These two religions believe in a dictation event when the divine opened a channel and did a download, effectively bypassing the hand and the heart of the author.)
The passive voice honors the mystery of dual authorship—divinely orchestrated, (caused) and humanly penned (initiated).
4. Its Subject: All Holy Scriptures
Cranmer says All. Not just the comforting Psalms. Not just the words in red. Not just the New Testament. He affirms the whole canon, Old and New. He is no Marcionite.2 Every story, genealogy, lament, and parable serves the grand story of redemption.
To believe in all holy Scripture is to embrace a unified, sacred story that teaches, convicts, consoles, and prepares us for everlasting life.
5. Its Purpose: Written for Our Learning
This line points to Romans 15:4:
“Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”
Scripture is not locked behind academic doors or the control of clergy. It is for us—for our learning, our growth, our maturity in Christ. Not simply to inform, but to form. Not merely to admire, but to be changed by.
👉 The Cranmer Five-Step Plan for Growing in Your Faith
Thomas Cranmer now provides us with a five-step rhythm that describes the progression from encounter to transformation. No other tradition outlines the Christian use of Scripture quite like this.
It is Anglican spirituality at its most vivid.
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