Collect for Peace in Evening Prayer (1928 BCP)

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Collect for Peace in Evening Prayer (1928 BCP) is the first of the two fixed collects near the close of Evening Prayer in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer. After the variable Collect of the Day, it asks God for the peace that the world cannot give, so that his servants may obey his commandments and live without servile fear. It is followed by the Collect for Aid Against Perils.

Unlike a Collect of the Day, this daily collect has no Epistle and Gospel appointed specifically to it. Its clauses nevertheless draw directly on Scripture: God works in his people both desire and deed; Christ gives a peace unlike the world's; love issues in obedience; the Lord alone gives safety; and Christian intercession seeks a quiet and godly life.

Text of the Collect

O God, from whom all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed; Give unto thy servants that peace which the world cannot give; that our hearts may be set to obey thy commandments, and also that by thee, we, being defended from the fear of our enemies, may pass our time in rest and quietness; through the merits of Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.

[1]

This is the complete collect through “Amen.” The local transcription agrees with the Standard Book facsimile on printed p. 31 (PDF p. 38); capitalization and typographic emphasis above have been normalized without changing the wording or punctuation.[2]

Place in Evening Prayer

The 1928 office orders the Collect of the Day first and then “the Collects and Prayers following.” The fixed Collect for Peace therefore carries the worshippers from the particular Sunday or holy day into a petition needed every evening. The Collect for Aid Against Perils then turns from peace and obedience to the dangers of the coming night.

The suffrages immediately before the collects already join peace to God's keeping:

Give peace in our time, O Lord.
For it is thou, Lord, only, that makest us dwell in safety.

[3]

The collect answers both lines. It asks for peace as God's gift and for defence from fear as God's work. Because the prayer says “servants,” “our,” and “we,” even solitary recitation remains an act of the Church's common prayer rather than a private technique for achieving calm.

Clause-by-clause meaning

“From whom all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed”

The threefold description moves from desire, through deliberation, into action. “Holy,” “good,” and “just” do not describe every human impulse or plan; they distinguish what accords with God's will. The collect begins by confessing that the whole movement toward faithful action has its source in God. Saint Paul makes the same point:

For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

[4]

The prayer is therefore neither fatalistic nor a claim that unaided effort merits grace. It asks active servants to obey, but first names God as the source of rightly ordered willing, counsel, and work. Article X gives the same Anglican doctrinal grammar:

We have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us.

[5]

Grace “prevents” by going before the good will and then works with it. That doctrine guards the opening clause from two opposite errors: good works are not independent human achievements, and God's grace does not make human counsel and action unnecessary.

“That peace which the world cannot give”

The principal petition closely echoes Christ's words in the Farewell Discourse:

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.

[6]

The collect does not disparage civil peace, bodily safety, or reconciled human relationships. It distinguishes their fragile and partial character from Christ's gift. Worldly conditions can reduce conflict but cannot reconcile sinners to God, rightly order desire, or secure the heart against every fear. The Church therefore receives peace rather than manufacturing it.

“That our hearts may be set to obey thy commandments”

The first purpose of the requested peace is obedience. The collect does not seek inward tranquillity as an end in itself. A heart “set” to obey is directed and made steadfast, so that peace bears the fruit of a holy life. Christ connects love and obedience with equal directness:

If ye love me, keep my commandments.

[7]

The sequence is important. God is first confessed as the source of holy desire and just work; peace is then requested; obedience is its intended effect. Prayer Book devotion thus joins consolation and moral formation rather than opposing them.

“Defended from the fear of our enemies”

The wording asks specifically for defence from fear. It does not promise that Christians will have no enemies, face no danger, or escape all suffering. The worshippers ask that hostile powers, outward or spiritual, should not rule the heart by terror. The preceding suffrage adapts the confidence of Psalm 4:

I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety.

[8]

This is a fitting evening connection: safety rests finally in the Lord's keeping, not in the worshipper's ability to control the night. The collect's “by thee” makes divine protection the ground of quietness while leaving room for ordinary prudence and courageous action.

“May pass our time in rest and quietness”

“Rest and quietness” describes life under God's peace, not withdrawal from duty. The phrase has a public and ethical resonance with Saint Paul's instruction to pray for rulers:

That we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.

[9]

Quietness is therefore ordered toward “godliness and honesty.” It is the condition in which vocation, worship, family life, and works of mercy may be carried out without domination by fear. “Pass our time” also places the whole course of ordinary life under providence: the prayer is not only for the moment of Evening Prayer but for the hours entrusted to God afterward.

“Through the merits of Jesus Christ our Saviour”

The conclusion names the ground on which every petition is made. “Merits” does not refer to the worshippers' spiritual performance but to Christ's saving worth and work. Article XI uses the same contrast:

We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith.

[10]

The prayer begins with grace as the source of holy willing and ends with Christ's merit as the basis of access to God. Its request for obedience is thus enclosed by divine gift rather than presented as a means of self-justification.

Historical development

The collect is older than the English Prayer Book. John Bauerschmidt reports that it is first found in the eighth-century Gelasian sacramentary and that its English preamble was already present in a fourteenth-century vernacular primer. Cranmer placed it in the first Book of Common Prayer's Evensong in 1549.[11]

The 1549 rubric made the collect and the prayer for aid against perils a daily, unchanging pair:

Whiche ii. laste collectes shall bee daylye saide at Evensong without alteracion.

[12]

Its prayer begins “O God from whom all holy desyres” and already contains the full progression from holy desires, good counsels, and just works to peace, obedience, freedom from fear, rest, and Christ's merits. The 1662 Book of Common Prayer preserved it as “The Second Collect at Evening Prayer,” to be said daily without alteration.[13] The 1928 American text follows this inherited form closely, while omitting the English book's word “both” before “our hearts” and adjusting punctuation.

Bauerschmidt argues that “Collect for Peace” understates the prayer's moral and ascetical reach:

Embedded in this classic prayer is a precis of how Christians engage in moral discernment, a practical guide to living a holy life.

[14]

That interpretation follows the collect's own grammar. Desire, counsel, action, peace, obedience, courage, and rest form one movement. The prayer seeks neither bare activism nor passive serenity, but a life whose willing and working come from God and whose peace is received in Christ.

Use in worship and devotion

In public Evening Prayer, the collect teaches a congregation to pray for more than the absence of conflict. Its plural language gathers the fearful, threatened, responsible, and weary into one petition. Those who are outwardly safe pray with those who are not; those called to difficult obedience ask that fear not master them.

In family or private use, the clauses offer a concise evening examination:

  • Are the day's desires being made holy?
  • Has counsel been governed by Scripture and charity?
  • Have intended good works become just action?
  • Is peace being sought as Christ's gift or merely as control of circumstances?
  • Does rest lead toward renewed obedience?

For catechesis, the collect should be learned as a sequence rather than as a vague prayer for calm: grace gives holy desire, good counsel, and just work; Christ gives peace; peace steadies obedience; divine defence frees from fear; quietness serves godliness; and every request rests on the merits of Jesus Christ. Repeated nightly, it forms the Church to receive consolation and duty together.

See Also

External Links

References

  1. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, Standard Book accepted by the General Convention of October 1928 and printed for the Commission (1930), exact “Collect for Peace in Evening Prayer,” “The Order for Daily Evening Prayer,” p. 31; the complete collect was compared word for word and punctuation for punctuation with sources/justus1928/EP.htm, lines 593–599. The 1928 Book of Common Prayer: Daily Evening Prayer.
  2. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book (1930), “The Order for Daily Evening Prayer,” p. 31. The 1928 Standard Book facsimile, PDF p. 38.
  3. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book (1930), “The Order for Daily Evening Prayer,” suffrages immediately before the collects, p. 31. The 1928 Book of Common Prayer: Daily Evening Prayer.
  4. ↑ The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments, Authorized Version (Oxford: Oxford University Press, standard text), Philippians 2:13. Philippians 2:13, King James Version, Bible Gateway.
  5. ↑ Church of England, The Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, Article X, “Of Free-Will,” official Book of Common Prayer text; “preventing” here means preceding or going before. The Articles of Religion, Church of England.
  6. ↑ The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments, Authorized Version (Oxford: Oxford University Press, standard text), John 14:27a. John 14:27, King James Version, Bible Gateway.
  7. ↑ The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments, Authorized Version (Oxford: Oxford University Press, standard text), John 14:15. John 14:15, King James Version, Bible Gateway.
  8. ↑ The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments, Authorized Version (Oxford: Oxford University Press, standard text), Psalm 4:8. Psalm 4:8, King James Version, Bible Gateway.
  9. ↑ The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments, Authorized Version (Oxford: Oxford University Press, standard text), 1 Timothy 2:2b. 1 Timothy 2:1–2, King James Version, Bible Gateway.
  10. ↑ Church of England, The Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, Article XI, “Of the Justification of Man,” official Book of Common Prayer text. The Articles of Religion, Church of England.
  11. ↑ John Bauerschmidt, “Holy Desire and Good Counsel,” Covenant, the online journal of the Living Church Foundation (20 June 2023), discussion of the Gelasian sacramentary, the medieval primer, and Cranmer's 1549 Prayer Book; the article cites Brian Cummings, ed., The Book of Common Prayer (Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 695. Holy Desire and Good Counsel, The Living Church.
  12. ↑ Church of England, The Book of the Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church (London: Edward Whitchurch, 1549), “An Ordre for Evensong throughout the Yere,” rubric before “The seconde Collecte at Evensong”; transcription based on The First and Second Prayer-Books of Edward VI (Everyman's Library, 1910). The 1549 Book of Common Prayer: Evensong.
  13. ↑ Church of England, The Book of Common Prayer (1662), “The Order for Evening Prayer,” rubric and “The Second Collect at Evening Prayer,” official text. The Order for Evening Prayer, Church of England.
  14. ↑ John Bauerschmidt, “Holy Desire and Good Counsel,” Covenant, the online journal of the Living Church Foundation (20 June 2023), paragraphs 2–3. Holy Desire and Good Counsel, The Living Church.
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