Collect for Purity (1928 BCP)

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Collect for Purity (1928 BCP) is the fixed prayer of preparation at the opening of Holy Communion in the American Book of Common Prayer of 1928. Addressed to Almighty God, it acknowledges that the worshipper is already fully known, asks the Holy Spirit to cleanse the inward life, and gives that cleansing a twofold purpose: perfect love of God and worthy praise of his Name, through Christ.

The collect is not the variable Collect of the Day. It stands before the Decalogue or Summary of the Law and before the appointed Epistle and Gospel. Because it is used independently of the day’s proper readings, its scriptural foundations are best traced directly through the biblical language of divine knowledge, a clean heart, the gift of the Spirit, the great commandment, and praise.

Text of the Collect

Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid; Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.

[1]

This is the complete prayer appointed by the 1928 book. “Holy Spirit,” not “Holy Ghost,” is the wording printed here; “Cleanse” begins with a capital because it follows the semicolon in the Standard Book. The final “Amen” makes the petition the Church’s own response to the priest’s prayer.

Liturgical position and action

The opening rubric fixes the prayer’s place, minister, and posture:

At the Communion time the Holy Table shall have upon it a fair white linen cloth, and the Priest, standing reverently before the Holy Table, shall say the Lord’s Prayer and the Collect following, the people kneeling; but the Lord’s Prayer may be omitted at the discretion of the Priest.

[2]

The priest stands before the Holy Table while the people kneel. The Lord’s Prayer may be omitted, but the rubric gives no corresponding permission to omit the collect. The next action is the rehearsal of the Ten Commandments, unless the Decalogue is omitted under its own rubric and the Summary of the Law is used.[3] The order is theologically exact: those about to hear God’s law do not claim an unexamined purity but ask God to purify the very thoughts from which obedience or disobedience proceeds.

Clause-by-clause meaning

“Almighty God”

The invocation places the whole petition under divine power. The worshippers do not ask merely for insight into themselves or resolve to improve themselves. They address the God who is able to cleanse, give his Spirit, order love, and receive praise. The rest of the collect specifies the work for which his almighty grace is sought.

“Unto whom all hearts are open”

“Heart” in the prayer is not restricted to emotion. It names the inward person—the seat of thought, desire, intention, love, and will. Psalm 139 and Hebrews 4 supply close biblical parallels:

O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.
For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

[4]

The prayer therefore begins with disclosure, not concealment. God’s knowledge is prior to the worshipper’s confession: the heart is “open” because nothing in it is closed to him. This excludes performance before God while also making honest prayer possible. The congregation asks cleansing from the One who already knows exactly what must be cleansed.

“All desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid”

The second and third clauses intensify the first. God knows not only acts and words but desires, including mixed motives that may remain obscure to the person praying. “No secrets” denies the possibility of a protected inner chamber unavailable to divine judgment and mercy.

This threefold acknowledgment should not be reduced to terror before omniscience. It is spoken to “Almighty God” in a prayer that immediately asks and expects grace. Divine knowledge exposes hypocrisy, but it also means the petition need not depend on the worshipper’s perfect self-diagnosis. The One asked to cleanse already knows the whole truth.

“Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts”

The only imperative petition in the collect is “Cleanse.” It does not ask God to ignore or merely relabel disordered thoughts; it asks him to purify the source from which words and deeds arise. Psalm 51 and Ezekiel 36 join cleansing, a renewed heart, the Spirit, and obedience:

Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.
Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.

[5]

The petition is thus both penitential and positive. Cleansing removes defilement, but the desired result is a renewed heart capable of love, praise, and obedience. Its position before the law and sacrament prevents two opposite errors: outward conformity without inward renewal, and inward aspiration detached from the Church’s commanded worship.

“By the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit”

The means of cleansing is God’s gift, not unaided introspection or moral effort. “Inspiration” here denotes the action of the Holy Spirit within the worshipper. The phrase gives the collect its explicit doctrine of grace and makes it a prayer for sanctification.

Article X of the Articles of Religion supplies a formal Anglican doctrinal parallel:

The condition of Man after the fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and good works, to faith, and calling upon God: Wherefore we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us, when we have that good will.

[6]

The collect enacts this doctrine rather than discussing it abstractly. The Church calls upon God, yet in the same act confesses that the good will to love and magnify him requires grace “by the inspiration” of the Spirit. Grace does not make the worshipper passive; it cleanses and enables the willing love and praise for which the prayer asks.

“That we may perfectly love thee”

“That” introduces the first purpose of cleansing. Purity is not an end in itself: it serves love of God. “Perfectly” should be read with the collect’s comprehensive language—open hearts, known desires, and cleansed thoughts. It asks for whole, undivided, rightly ordered love, not a boast that the congregation has already attained sinless perfection.

The petition echoes the first and great commandment, while St. Paul names divine gift as the source of love in the heart:

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.
And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

[7]

The collect’s placement before the Decalogue sharpens this connection. It asks for the inward grace to love God before the commandments are heard, and when the Summary is used, the liturgy places the collect immediately before Christ’s command to love God with all the heart, soul, and mind.

“And worthily magnify thy holy Name”

The second purpose is doxological. To “magnify” God is not to increase his greatness but to proclaim and honor it. “Worthily” asks that praise correspond truthfully to the holiness of the Name and proceed from hearts being cleansed by the Spirit.

O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together.
And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

[8]

The plural “we” and “our” are important. The collect prepares a congregation for common worship. Personal self-examination is included, but the goal is corporate love and praise at the Lord’s Table.

“Through Christ our Lord”

The conclusion gives the prayer its Christological ground. The congregation does not approach God on the strength of its achieved purity. It asks for the Spirit’s cleansing and offers its petition through Christ. The collect therefore has a compact Trinitarian movement: prayer to Almighty God, cleansing by the Holy Spirit, and access through Christ the Lord.

Historical development

From Sarum preparation to Prayer Book worship

In the medieval Use of Sarum, the prayer belonged to the priest’s preparation while vesting. Albert Harford Pearson’s English edition prints it under “The Ordinary of the Mass,” after the hymn Veni Creator Spiritus and its versicle and response:

God, unto Whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from Whom no secrets are hid; cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of Thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love and worthily magnify Thee; through Christ our Lord. Amen.

[9]

Pearson’s wording intentionally follows the familiar Prayer Book translation, so it is evidence for the prayer’s location in the Sarum order rather than an independent medieval English text. Brightman supplies the Latin source beginning Deus cui omne cor patet and identifies its setting as a prayer said while the priest puts on the sacred vestments.

C. J. Ridgeway, Dean of Carlisle, describes the liturgical distinction in his historical account:

It began with a short service of preparation for the clergy, with a confession, absolution, the collect for purity and the Lord’s Prayer, ending with a short anthem. Then came the public service, consisting of the collect for the day, the Epistle, Gospel, Gloria and Nicene Creed.

[10]

Ridgeway’s distinction explains the significant Prayer Book development: material used for the clergy’s preparation was carried into the vernacular Communion order at its beginning.

A medieval English devotional parallel

The prayer was also known beyond the missal. The anonymous fourteenth-century English contemplative work The Cloud of Unknowing begins with a singular adaptation:

GOD, unto whom all hearts be open, and unto whom all will speaketh, and unto whom no privy thing is hid. I beseech Thee so for to cleanse the intent of mine heart with the unspeakable gift of Thy grace, that I may perfectly love Thee, and worthily praise Thee. Amen.

[11]

Its “intent of mine heart” and “gift of Thy grace” make explicit the prayer’s use for interior preparation. The parallel also shows that the substance of the prayer had entered English devotion before the first Book of Common Prayer.

The 1549 Book of Common Prayer

The first English Prayer Book placed the collect at the altar near the opening of the public Communion rite. Its rubric and spelling read:

The Priest standyng humbly afore the middes of the Altar, shall saye the Lordes prayer, with this Collect.

ALMIGHTIE God, unto whom all hartes bee open, and all desyres knowen, and from whom no secretes are hid: clense the thoughtes of our hartes, by the inspiracion of thy holy spirite: that we may perfectly love thee, and worthely magnifie thy holy name: through Christ our Lorde. Amen.

[12]

The 1549 text preserves the substance of the Sarum prayer while changing its liturgical reach: the priest says it at the altar in the English Communion service. In 1552 the collect remained at the opening, but the Decalogue was placed immediately after it. Brightman’s critical synopsis prints the Sarum, 1549, 1552, and 1661 texts in parallel, making both continuity and changed placement visible.[13]

The 1928 American book inherits that later structural sequence: Lord’s Prayer, Collect for Purity, Decalogue or Summary of the Law, Kyrie, and Collect of the Day. It modernizes “be open” to “are open” and regularizes spelling, but retains the prayer’s address, acknowledgment, petition, purposes, and conclusion.

Theology and use

The Collect for Purity holds together doctrines that can be separated in careless use:

  • Divine omniscience and mercy: God knows every heart and secret, yet the congregation approaches him in confident petition rather than hiding or despairing.
  • Penitence and sanctification: cleansing acknowledges defilement, while the requested result is renewed love, praise, and obedience.
  • Grace and response: the Holy Spirit cleanses and enables; the cleansed worshippers truly love and magnify God.
  • Inwardness and common worship: “thoughts of our hearts” prevents merely outward religion, while “we” and “our” prevent the prayer from becoming private spirituality detached from the Church.
  • Word and sacrament: the prayer prepares the people to hear the law, Epistle, and Gospel and to proceed toward Holy Communion.
  • Trinitarian prayer: Almighty God is addressed, the Holy Spirit is asked to act, and the petition is made through Christ the Lord.

In 1928 Prayer Book worship the collect should therefore be used as the rite directs: said by the priest, owned by the kneeling congregation, and completed through “Amen.” A brief silence before the service may aid recollection, but it does not replace the common words. The prayer is also fitting for private preparation, as its medieval devotional history shows, provided that private use does not obscure its rubrical place in the Church’s corporate Eucharist.

The collect is not itself a general confession or an absolution. It neither inventories particular sins nor pronounces pardon. It asks the searching and gracious God for inward purification so that the whole Communion office may be entered truthfully: the law heard with teachable hearts, Scripture received attentively, the Creed confessed sincerely, intercession offered charitably, and the sacrament received with faith.

See Also

References

  1. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The 1928 Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book accepted in 1928 and printed for the Commission in 1930, “The Order for the Administration of the Lord’s Supper, or Holy Communion,” “Collect for Purity,” p. 67, Society of Archbishop Justus transcription; checked against the 1928 Standard Book facsimile. The complete collect through “Amen.” was compared word for word with the local source sources/justus1928/HC.htm, lines 74–78.
  2. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book accepted in 1928, Holy Communion, opening rubric, p. 67, Society of Archbishop Justus transcription; checked against the Standard Book facsimile and local source sources/justus1928/HC.htm, lines 56–62.
  3. ↑ Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, The Book of Common Prayer, Standard Book accepted in 1928, Holy Communion, rubrics following the Collect for Purity, pp. 67–68, Society of Archbishop Justus transcription, local source sources/justus1928/HC.htm, lines 79–92.
  4. ↑ The Holy Bible, Authorized Version, Psalm 139:1–4 and Hebrews 4:12–13, Bible Gateway.
  5. ↑ The Holy Bible, Authorized Version, Psalm 51:10–12 and Ezekiel 36:25–27, Bible Gateway.
  6. ↑ Church of England, “X. Of Free-Will,” The Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, agreed in 1562 and finalized in 1571, official text in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, Church of England: Articles of Religion.
  7. ↑ The Holy Bible, Authorized Version, Matthew 22:37–38 and Romans 5:5, Bible Gateway.
  8. ↑ The Holy Bible, Authorized Version, Psalm 34:3 and Luke 1:46–47, Bible Gateway.
  9. ↑ Catholic Church, Diocese of Salisbury, The Sarum Missal in English, translated and edited by A. Harford Pearson (London: Church Press Company, 1868), “The Ordinary of the Mass,” p. 290, Internet Archive scan from Princeton Theological Seminary Library. Compare F. E. Brightman, The English Rite: Being a Synopsis of the Sources and Revisions of the Book of Common Prayer, 2nd ed., vol. II (London: Rivingtons, 1921), p. 640, which prints the Sarum Latin beside the 1549 text, Internet Archive scan.
  10. ↑ C. J. Ridgeway, The Story of the Prayer Book (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1906), chapter VII, “How Did the Prayer Book Grow?”, p. 93, Society of Archbishop Justus scan.
  11. ↑ Anonymous, A Book of Contemplation the Which Is Called the Cloud of Unknowing, “Prayer on the Prologue,” edited from British Museum MS. Harley 674 by Evelyn Underhill, 2nd ed. (London: John M. Watkins, 1922), p. 43, Internet Archive scan.
  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), “The Supper of the Lorde and the Holy Communion, commonly called the Masse,” opening rubric and collect, Society of Archbishop Justus transcription, based on the 1910 Everyman’s Library reprint and collated with six 1549 printings.
  13. ↑ F. E. Brightman, The English Rite, 2nd ed., vol. II (London: Rivingtons, 1921), pp. 640–642, Internet Archive scan.

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