Collect for Independence Day (1928 BCP)

Collect for Independence Day (1928 BCP) is the collect appointed for July 4 in the American Book of Common Prayer. It gives civic thanksgiving a deliberately Christian form: God is thanked as the giver of liberty, and the Church asks for grace to preserve it in righteousness and peace.

Text of the Collect

O ETERNAL God, through whose mighty power our fathers won their liberties of old; Grant, we beseech thee, that we and all the people of this land may have grace to maintain these liberties in righteousness and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

“O eternal God” puts nation and people beneath God's eternity; “through whose mighty power” attributes deliverance to providence rather than political self-sufficiency. “Our fathers” gives thanks for an inherited good, while “we and all the people of this land” makes the petition public rather than partisan. The governing request is not simply that liberty endure, but that it be maintained “in righteousness and peace”; the conclusion offers every civic good through Jesus Christ.

The Appointed Lessons

The 1928 Epistle, Deuteronomy 10:17-21, names God as impartial judge and immediately joins fear of God to justice for the fatherless, widow, and stranger. That choice prevents the collect's liberty from becoming a claim of national exemption from moral judgment.

THE Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward: he doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God; him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave, and swear by his name. He is thy praise, and he is thy God, that hath done for thee these great and terrible things, which thine eyes have seen.

The Gospel, Matthew 5:43-48, gives the collect's “peace” a still more demanding content. The congregation hears Christ forbid a righteousness restricted to one's own side and command prayer for persecutors.

JESUS said, Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

The collect and lessons interpret one another: Deuteronomy makes justice toward the vulnerable and stranger part of righteousness; Matthew makes enemy-love part of peace. The proper asks Christians to give thanks for temporal liberty while receiving it as a trust answerable to God.

Civil Authority in the Prayer Book

The Independence Day collect belongs beside, rather than instead of, the Prayer Book's habitual intercession for civil authority. Morning Prayer asks that those in authority be replenished with the Spirit in order to will and walk in God's way.

O LORD, our heavenly Father, the high and mighty Ruler of the universe, who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers upon earth; Most heartily we beseech thee, with thy favour to behold and bless thy servant THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, and all others in authority; and so replenish them with the grace of thy Holy Spirit, that they may always incline to thy will, and walk in thy way.

Evening Prayer calls rulers God's servants and asks the people to honour authority according to God's Word. Thus the July 4 collect does not sacralize civil power; it prays for liberty within a theology of delegated and accountable authority.

ALMIGHTY God, whose kingdom is everlasting and power infinite; Have mercy upon this whole land; and so rule the hearts of thy servants THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, The Governor of this State, and all others in authority, that they, knowing whose ministers they are, may above all things seek thy honour and glory; and that we and all the People, duly considering whose authority they bear, may faithfully and obediently honour them, according to thy blessed Word and ordinance; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with thee and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth ever, one God, world without end. Amen.

American Prayer Book History

An earlier Independence Day office appeared in the 1786 Proposed Book, not in the Prayer Book adopted in 1789. Its title describes an annual Fourth of July thanksgiving for religious and civil liberty.

A FORM OF PRAYER AND THANKSGIVING TO ALMIGHTY GOD, For the inestimable Blessings of Religious and Civil Liberty; to be used yearly Fourth Day of July, unless it happen to be on Sunday, and then on following.

The proposed collect made providential thanksgiving explicit and directed praise away from the people and toward God's name.

Almighty God, who hast in all ages shewed forth thy power and mercy in the wonderful preservation of thy church, and in the protection of every nation and people professing thy holy and eternal Truth, and putting their sure trust in thee; We yield thee our unfeigned thanks and praise for all thy public mercies, and more especially for that signal and wonderful manifestation of thy providence which we commemorate this day; Wherefore not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy Name be ascribed all honor and glory, in all churches of the Saints, from generation to generation, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

E. Clowes Chorley, Historiographer of the Protestant Episcopal Church, supplies the historical interpretation: the 1785 convention altered state prayers after the Revolution, supplied a Fourth of July observance, and then encountered controversy over it.

A service was provided for the Fourth of July to be observed as a day of thanksgiving “for the inestimable blessings of civil and religious liberty vouchsafed to the United States of America.” It included this Collect:

The service thus adopted was directed “to be used in this Church for ever.” It called forth, however, sharp difference of opinion in the convention and was not retained in the Prayer Book of 1789.

Bishop William White's retrospective identifies why the early office was contentious: it could make political agreement a test for clergy in a Church still being organized after the Revolution. His criticism was directed at the prudence of that observance, not at prayer for civil authorities.

The next material question, to the best of the recollection retained, was on a motion for framing a service for the Fourth of July. This was the most injudicious step taken by the convention. Might they not have foreseen, that every clergyman whose political principles interfered with the appointment, would be under a strong temptation to cry down the intended book, if it were only to get rid of the offensive holiday?

Had the question been concerning the praying for the prosperity of the commonwealths, and for the persons of those who rule in them, the argument would have been conclusive; and, indeed, this had been done by all the remaining clergy, however disaffected they might have been.

Theological Use

The 1928 collect is thanksgiving under judgment. It does not ask God to ratify every national action. It asks for grace to maintain liberty rightly; its Epistle identifies righteousness with impartial justice and love of the stranger, and its Gospel identifies peace with the costly love of enemies. In preaching and catechesis, the proper can distinguish Christian gratitude for temporal goods from uncritical civil religion.

See Also

• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• Collects Epistles and Gospels (1928 BCP)
• Church Calendar (1928 BCP)
• The Litany (1928 BCP)
• Prayers and Thanksgivings (1928 BCP)

External Links

• The 1928 Book of Common Prayer, Independence Day proper
• E. Clowes Chorley, The New American Prayer Book, chapter III
• William White, Memoirs of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America