{
  "id": "a_yv4dkc2m",
  "oid": 165482,
  "revision": 1,
  "revision_oid": 165483,
  "work": "orthodoxy",
  "edition": "pg16769-r1",
  "title": "A prayer that asks God to arrive first",
  "anchors": [
    {
      "unit": "CH07.P035",
      "oid": 191,
      "role": null,
      "edition": "pg16769-r1",
      "paragraph": "CH07.P035",
      "exact": "God answered the prayer, \"Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings.\"",
      "start": 430,
      "end": 495,
      "prefix": "and partly in the modern sense, ",
      "suffix": " Without vanity, I really think ",
      "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH07.P035#char=430,495"
    }
  ],
  "body_markdown": "The words open a collect in the Book of Common Prayer. In the Church of England’s online text of the 1662 prayer-book tradition, it appears among the collects following the Communion service, with permission to use these prayers on other occasions as well. Chesterton quotes its opening accurately and stops before the petition for gracious favour and continuing help. The prayer book was first published in 1549; the witness cited here is the Church’s current online presentation, not a facsimile of that first edition. [Read the collect](https://www.churchofengland.org/liturgy/book-of-common-prayer/lords-supper-or-holy-communion).\n\nHere *prevent* carries its older meaning, to go before or anticipate. A later parliamentary discussion of this very prayer explicitly explains that sense; it is useful evidence of the linguistic obstacle the expression presents to modern hearers. [Hansard, 14 November 1974](https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1974/nov/14/church-of-england-worship-and-doctrine-1). Chesterton then activates the familiar meaning of hindering: God has gone ahead of his intellectual discoveries and, in doing so, frustrated his hopes of originality. The turret already standing on the building is the same joke in architectural form. Its age disappoints the would-be inventor while confirming that his desired structure exists. The prayer therefore condenses the paragraph’s mixture of gratitude and comic professional disappointment; it does not suggest that the original collect asks God to obstruct good actions.",
  "sources": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.churchofengland.org/liturgy/book-of-common-prayer/lords-supper-or-holy-communion",
      "title": "The Book of Common Prayer: The Lord’s Supper or Holy Communion",
      "locator": "Collects to be said after the Offertory, fourth collect, beginning Prevent us",
      "exact": null
    },
    {
      "url": "https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1974/nov/14/church-of-england-worship-and-doctrine-1",
      "title": "Church of England (Worship and Doctrine) Measure",
      "locator": "HL Deb 14 November 1974, vol. 354, cc. 874–945; passage explaining the word prevent in the quoted prayer",
      "exact": null
    }
  ],
  "citations": [],
  "external_references": [
    {
      "url": "https://www.churchofengland.org/liturgy/book-of-common-prayer/lords-supper-or-holy-communion",
      "title": "Read the collect"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1974/nov/14/church-of-england-worship-and-doctrine-1",
      "title": "Hansard, 14 November 1974"
    }
  ],
  "limits": [
    "The prayer’s earliest textual ancestry is not established here; 1549 dates the first Book of Common Prayer, not an asserted invention date for every element of the collect."
  ],
  "metadata": {
    "run": "chapter-07-restart-2026-11-07",
    "paragraph_investigator": "P035",
    "task": [
      {
        "approach": "Assumed knowledge and unusual language; quotations and attributions",
        "question": "Which prayer is quoted, and how do the two senses of prevent explain the discovery that Christianity has anticipated his Utopia?"
      }
    ],
    "model": "gpt-6.1-sol"
  },
  "content_sha256": "sha256:54f3eccb25b4a2da4643e7e0b0be7d6a30e07b86ab7387d90b310ad594cfbc8a",
  "created_at": "2026-11-07T18:08:03Z",
  "is_current": true,
  "url": "/a/a_yv4dkc2m",
  "revision_path": "/a/a_yv4dkc2m/r/1",
  "cited_by": []
}