The Exceptions

The objections to the existing Prayer Book (that of 1604) made by the Presbyterian Puritans (e.g., R. Baxter) in 1661 after the restoration of Charles II. They were made at the Savoy Conference* which met that year. The Presbyterian ministers composed a document, The Exceptions against the Book of Common Prayer, to which the bishops replied in The Answer of the Bishops. The Exceptions falls into two parts: a tabulation of the historic Puritan objections to the Prayer Book and religious ceremonies (e.g., no lessons to be read from the Apocrypha, and saints' days to be abolished), and a catena of critical comments and suggested amendments to parts of the Book. Among the latter was the request that the famous Black Rubric (Declaration on Kneeling of 1552) be restored, and that modifications be made in the Communion and Baptismal Services. Very few of the exceptions were in fact taken notice of and incorporated in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.