>.^>^^ 'fl ■^4stfi><4;*0 ^w -.^ ^i ,^ « ^'':'*/lM^' ^■:*^ ': '■:^m w^^^^:<^, ! L I E) RARY OF THE U N IVE.R5ITY or 1 LLI NOIS / /^^^i^^ /uUtCAj^ . /3y y- ^ ^ /^^/T-ZS^^'^s.-.-^^ /if RITES AND RITUAL; A PLEA FOR APOSTOLIC DOCTKINE AND WORSHIP BY PHILIP FREEMAN, .M.A., VICAR OF THORVEETON, DEVON ; ARCHDEACON AND CANON OP EXETER ; AUTHOR OF " THE PRINCIPLES OF DIVINE SERVICE." WITH AN APPENDIX CONTAINING THE OPINIONS, ON CERTAIN POINTS OF DOCTRINE, OF HENRY, LORD BISHOP OF EXETER. " Mother dear. Wilt thou forgive thy sou one boding sigh ? Forgive, if round thy towers he walk in fear, And tell thy jewels o'er with jealous eye?" FOURTH EDITION, REVISED. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1866. PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET, AND CIIAKING CROSS. PREFACE, The following pages had been prepared, for the most part, for publication, before it was known that the question of Ritual would be discussed in Convocation, or a Committee of the Lower House appointed, by the direction of the Upper House, to report upon it. But the suggestions here offered are of so general a character, that it seemed to the writer that they might still without impropriety be put forth as a contribution, of however humble a kind, to the general ventilation of the subject. It was the writer's hope, as expressed in the original announcement of the Pamphlet, that his Diocesan, the venerable Bishop of Exeter, would have been able to prefix, in an Introduction, his opinion on the leading points, whether of Ritual or Doctrine, involved in the present controversy. And, although that hope has been in part frustrated, he has still been privileged to embody, in an Appendix, his Lordship's deliberate judgment on some of the weightier matters of Eucharistic Doctrine ; and to IV PREFACE. receive an assurance of his warm interest in the subjects dwelt upon in these pages. The writer has to apologise for having occasionally referred the reader to a larger work of his own. He begs that this may be understood to be merely a guarantee, that detailed proof is forthcoming on points which could only be cursorily treated of in the present publication. ^ ^'"\ CONTENTS. Rites. — Importance of them above Ritual — Serious departure of the English Church from primitive practice — Abeyance of Weekly Cele- bration — Proofs that Weekly Communion is part of the Divine Ordinance — Practical advantages of restoring it — Origin and history of the present unsound practice — Vigorous protest of the English Church against it — Difficulties in the way of a reformation, how to be met — Recent Eucharistic excesses — Worship addressed to Christ as enshrined in the Elements — Proof that this was not the primitive doctrine or practice — Recent origin of it among ourselves — Non- commimicating attendance unknown to antiquity. Ritual. — Law of the English Church about it, how ascertainable — Vest- ments — An alternative recognised — The Vestment Rubric preserved — The Surplice permitted — Ritual advance at the present day — Choral Festivals — Church Decoration — History and rationale of the Eucha- ristic Vestments, and of the ordinary ones — Position of the Celebrant — Two lights on the Altar — Incense — The " Mixed Chalice" — The Crucifix — Minute ceremonial disallowed by the English Church — Suggestions as to the present controversy — Hopeful circumstances, and grounds of union. 1. — Appendix A. Opinions of the Bishop of Exeter on certain points of Doctrine Page 101 2. — Appendix B. Former judgment of the Bishop of Exeter en Vestments „ 103 3. — Appendix C. On Saying and Singing, by the Rev. J. B. Dykes. 105 RITES AND RITUAL, ETC. The position of affairs in the English Church, at the present moment, is such as may well call forth from her children such counsel as their affection may prompt, or their experience justify. And, whatever be the intrinsic value, if any, of the suggestions about to be offered here, the writer can at least testify that, though called forth by a particular con- juncture of circumstances, they are not the hasty or immature thoughts of the moment, but rather an outpouring of the anxious musing of years over the condition and prospects of a beloved and honoured Mother. It will be conjectured, from what has now been said, that the writer is not among the number of those who perceive, in the present condition of the English Church, or in her rate of improvement of late years, any grounds for satisfaction, much less for complacency or congratulation. On the contrary, he very humbly conceives — and his reasons for that opinion shall be given presently — that to the spiritual 8 RITES AND RITUAL. eye, used to rest either on what the Church of God was intended to he, or on what once, for a few centuries, she was, there is, in the practical condition of the English Church one defect of so radical a character, and which has eaten so extensively into her entire system, that until this is, at least in a very great measure, remedied, all else is little better than a pal- liative, and little else than an illusion. There is surely something deeply saddening in the spectacle (if it indeed be so) of a Church busying herself with "many things" — making much show of practical activity, of self-reparation, of improvement in ser- vices and ministries, of extension abroad, — when all the while the " one thing," namely, soundness and per- fectness in Apostolic faith and practice, is in any serious degree wantiug to her. If, while she is manifesting a feverish anxiety about the more or less of Ritual, there is in her Rites (of which Ritual is but the outward clothing) that which demands repair and readjustment on an extensive scale ; then it is surely needful to press upon her, in the first instance, the redress of such essentials, before proceeding to speak of the accessories. And this is what the present writer, with all humility, undertakes to make good. He is indeed far from denying that, " by the good Hand of our God upon us," great things, of a certain kind, have been accomplished in our day. *' Stately thy walls, and holy are the prayers That day and night before thine altar rise." Our churches have grown to be, to a great extent. PROGRESS IN THE CHURCH. 9 the perfection of earthly sanctuaries. Our Services are nobler and heartier. Our church music is more worthy of the name. Better still than this, and more to the present purpose, our communicants have increased in numbers, our Communions in frequency. Our clergy, as a rule, are devoted, beyond the example of former times, to their duty, according to their conception of it. Schools are diligently cared for, and are fairly efficient ; foreign missions grow ; the rhome circle of charities is daily widened and ren- dered more effectual. And this is "progress," or " improvement," undoubtedly. And, were the Church a mere Machine, or a mere System, it would be per- fectly reasonable to point with satisfaction to such progress or improvement. But the Church is neither the one nor the other. She is a Divine Body, And what if, while some operations of that Body are being performed with a certain increase of vigour, her very constitution, as divinely organised by Grod Himself, is being suffered to fall into habitual and chronic unsoundness ? Surely, as it is the first duty of man to do rights and only his second to do good; — as health is the highest of bodily blessings, so that activity, apart from it, is but spurious and imperfect ; — so is it the Church's first duty to be sounds — -primum valere, — and only her second to be, if Grod enables her, active and prosperous. And the Church being, as I have said, a Divine Body — the Body of Christ — it is plain that the first condition of her soundness is full as well as vital imion with Christ through the appointed medium, 10 RITES AND RITUAL. the Sacraments. Upon these are absolutely suspended her existence in the first instance, and her preserva- tion and growth afterwards. What then, I would ask, can possibly be of more importance than that these sacred and wonderful ministries should be per- formed, in all respects^ according to the Ordinance of Christ, such as he delivered it to the apostles ? And if it be asked. How are we to hnow what it was that Christ delivered to the apostles on this subject, seeing that Holy Scripture is confessedly brief and unsystematic in its teaching respecting it ? the answer manifestly is, By looking at the universal practice of the Church in the time of the apostles, and during the earliest ages after them. We know, with sufficient accuracy, what that practice was. Their customs as to the administration of Baptism are known to us ; their Liturgies or Communion Offices are in our hands. And^ though diversities of practice, outside of certain limits, are found existing in those ages, within certain limits there is none. Now, among the points thus defined for us by uni- versal early usage, is the ordi^anQdi frequency of celebra- tion of both Sacraments. The law of Holy Baptism, viz. that it should be administered once only, was uni- versally received. This is confessed on all hands. And when we come to the Holy Eucharist, here, too, the degree of frequency, as a law and as a mini- mum, of celebration, is defined for us no less certainly. That this was, by universal consent and practice, weekly, — namely, on every Lord's Day or Sunday — cannot be gainsaid. That it was on occasion ad- ministered more frequently still ; that in some CELEBRATION OF THE EUCHARIST. 11 churches it became, we will not define how early, even daily ; that, according to some, the apostles, at the very first, used it daily, — is beside the present question. The point before us is, that there was no Church throughout the world which failed, for the first three or four hundred years, to have everywhere a weekly celebration on the Sunday, and to expect the attendance of all Christians at that ordinance. Of this, I say, there is no doubt. The custom of apos- tolic days is perfectly clear from Acts xx. 7, and other passages. The testimony of Pliny, at the beginning of the second century, is that the first Christians met " on a stated day " for the Eucharist ; while Justin Martyr (an. 150) makes it certain that that day was Sunday. And the testimony of various subsequent writers proves that the practice continued unbroken for three centuries. The Council of Elvira,* A.D. 305, first inflicted the penalty of suspension from church privileges on all who iailed to be present for three successive Sundays ; and we know from our own Archbishop Theodore of Tarsus, a.d. 668, that in the East that rule was still adhered to, though in the West the penalty had ceased to be inflicted. Now the ground which I venture to take up, as absolutely irrefragable, is that it must needs be of most dangerous consequence to depart from the apostolic and primitive eucharistic practice, in any of those things which were ancient and uni- versal, and, as such, we cannot doubt, ordained features of the Ordinance. Thus, we rightly view * Can. 21. It is referred to by Hosius at the Council of Sardica, a.d. 347. 12 lUTES AND RITUAL. with the utmost repugnance, and even sickness of heart, the practice of the Western Church in later ages in respect of the Elements ; viz. her refusing to the laity, and to all but the Celebrant himself, one half of the Holy Eucharist. We pity or marvel at the flimsy pretences by which the fearful and cruel decree, originating in the bestowal of exclusive privi- leges upon the higher clergy,* is attempted to be justified, and its effects to be explained awa3^ The Western Church, we feel, must answer for that to God as she can. But what right have we, I would ask, to choose, among the essentials of the mysterious Ordinance, one which, as we conceive, we may dispense with, while we condemn others who select for themselves another ? And yet, what do we ? what is our practice? the practice so universally adopted throughout our Church, that the exceptions are few, and but of yesterday ; so that those who contend for and practise the contrary are deemed visionary and righteous over much ? Alas ! our practice may be stated in few and fatally condemnatory words. The number of clergy in England may be roundly stated at 20,000. Now, it was lately affirmed in a Church Review of high standing, that the number who celebrate the Holy Communion weekly in England is 200 : that is to say, if this estimate be correct, tliat one in a hundred of our clergy conforms to the apostolic and ecclesiastical law of the first centuries. This statement, it is true, proves to be somewhat of an exaggeration. But to what extent ? The real * See Mabillon, referred to in Introduction to vol. ii. of ' The Frinciples of Divine Service.' — 1*. 79, note z. FREQUENCY OF COMMUNION. 13 number of cliTirches where there is Holy Communion every Sunday is, by recent returns, about 430.* The number of churches in England is at least 12,000. That is to say, that there are in England at this moment more than eleven thousand parishes which, judged by the rule of the apostles, are false to their Lord's dying command in a particular from which He left no dispensation. It will be said, the Holy Eucharist is celebrated in these parishes from time to time, only \q^^ frequently than of old. But who has told us that we may safely celebrate it less frequently? How can we possibly know but that such infrequency is direfully injurious ? Take the analogy of the human body, which ever serves to illustrate so well the nature of the Church's life. Take pulsation, take respiration, or even food. Is not the frequency of every one of these mysterious conditions of life as certainly fixed, as their necessity to life at all ? Let pulsation or respiration be suspended for a few minutes, or food for a few days, and what follows but death, or trance at the best ? And what know we, I ask, of the appointed intervals for the awful systole and diastole of the Church's heart — of the appointed times of her inbreathing and expiration of the affldtus of the Divine Spirit — of the laws regu- lating the frequency of her mysterious nourishment ? What know we, I say, of these things, but what we learn from the wondrous Twelve, who taught us all we know of the kingdom of God ? What may be the exact injury of such intermittent * See the ' Churchman's Diary ' (Masters). Another return makes the number only 328. See the ' Kalendar of the English Church.' 14 RITES AND RITUAL. celebration of tbe Divine Mysteries — of such scanty and self-chosen measures of obedience to the com- mands of Christ, — I pretend not by these analogies to decide. But surely it may well be that continuous and unbroken weekly Eucharist is as a ring of magic power, if I may use the comparison, binding in and rendering safe the Church's mysterious life ; and that any rupture in that continuity is exceed- ingly dangerous to her. Or if it be contended, as not unnaturally it may, that this particular circumstance of frequency^ and of iveekly recurrence may, notwithstanding the apostolic testimony to its importance, be subject to variation, then I would desire to put the matter from another point of view. One way of judging of the degree of importance to be attached by us to any given religious element or feature, is to observe what degree of divine care Almighty God has bestowed in incul- cating it upon the world. Thus, the Unity of God, and again the necessity of sacrifice to atone for sin, or procure admission to His favour, were attested throughout the whole pre-evangehc history by special training, imparted, in the one instance, to the Jews, in the other to all mankind. But each of these instances of training is even surpassed by that which God was pleased to impart respecting the mysterious Ordinance of the week. Creation, Redemption^ Sanctification — the three great phenomena of man's religious history — were all visibly based upon the Week. About the Creation, and its septenary commemoration as a religious ordi- nance, there is no real doubt whatever. In the THE SEVEN-DAYS PEKIOD. 15 Jewish system the sabbath, or week, is the basis upon which the whole structure rests.''^ And when the awful mystery of Redemption itself was to be consummated, it was once more within the limits of a single iveek that the mighty drama was wrought out. From the early morning of Palm Sunday, when our Lord entered Jerusalem as the Lamb of God, Incarnate in order that He might suffer, to the early morning of Easter Day, when He rose from the dead, a measured week, rich in divine incident, ran out. Seven weeks, or a week of weeks, again elapses, and the Spirit is sent down from on high for the completion of the Church. All this indicates some deep mystery of blessedness as attaching to the seven-days period in the matter of man's relations to God. It cannot be alleged, indeed, as an absolute proof that the celebration of the Eucharist was also meant to be of weekly recurrence, or that such re- currence would be the proper and indefeasible law of its rightful administration. But it surely renders that conclusion highly probable. For what purpose else, we may ask, was all this training given ? Why was the Jewish nation, who were to be the first to receive the Gospel ordinances, and to transmit them to man- kind, c'arefully habituated to a seventh-day rendering up of themselves to God ? As regards the general principle involved, it was doubtless because it is good that man should keep with God these " short reckon- ings," which " make long " and eternal " friends." But besides this, it was, as the ancient Jewish * See this admirably worked out in Dr. Moberl}'s Sermons on the Decalogue. 16 RITES AND RITUAL. services testify,^ that they might keep in remem- brance two very wonderful weeks of divine operation on their behalf, the week of Creation, and the week of their own deliverance out of Egypt. What more likely than that a seventh-day observance was to be perpetuated still, only with reference to that anti- typical Redemption, which itself also was ordained to take place, as if for this very purpose, within the compass of a week ? In this point of view, the Christian Eucharist is the gathering up of the memories of that wonderful week, called of old the " Great Week," the " Week of Weeks." That such was its purpose might be gathered even from the accustomed Day, no doubt appointed by Christ Himself, for its celebration. This is not, as might perhaps have been expected, the Thursday, the day of the Institution ; not a day in the middle of the week, but at the close of one week and the beginning of another : that so it may look back on the marvels of the Great Week, ever renewed in memory, and with deepest thankfulness comme- morate them. The original time of celebration in apostolic days was at first, as it should seem_, on the evening of the old Sabbath ; that is, according to the then reckoning, on the overnight commence- ment, or eve, of the Sunday, on which the whole mystery was consummated by the Resurrection. In the account of the celebration at Troas, we find it to have been, from particular causes, already past midnight when the celebration took place. By the * See this proved at large in ' Principles of Divine Service,' vol. ii., pp. 284, sqq. FITNESS OF THE SUNDAY CELEBRATION. 17 time of Pliny, in the first century, it had passed on to the morning hour of Sunday, where it has con- tinued ever since. Surely it is manifest that, in the Divine Intention, the Church ought to pass week by week, in solemn memory and mysterious sympathy, through the great series of redeeming events, and crown her contemplation of them by the great act of Oblation and Eeception, which Christ himself ordained for high memorial of these events, and to convey the graces and powers flowing out of them. This is indeed to keep up a '*• continual remem- brance of the Sacrifice of the death of Christ, and of the benefits which we receive thereby." A weekly Eucharist is really a continual Eucharist, because it makes our whole life to be nothing else than a living over again and again, with perpetual application to our own practice, of those events and memories which are the staple of the Ordinance. In this respect the Sunday celebration of the Eucharist, viewed as crowning the week, possesses a fitness, because a close following in the steps of Christ, in his Incarna- tion and Passion, his Death and Burial and Resur- rection, which no other day can lay claim to. This fitness, of course, reaches its height on Easter-Day, but is also realized in a very high degree on our " Easter Day in every week." Nor are there wanting more positive and distinct intimations of the Will of God in this matter, over and above the general presumptions which have been adduced hitherto. It is always a somewhat delicate task to gather from 18 RITES AN13 mTUAL. the provisions of the Old Law sure and certain con- clusions as to the destined ones of the New ; because some of the former were, as the event proved, to be entirely abrogated, or however absorbed, while others were to abide to the end, only with new powers. Thus, the multitude of slain sacrifices was to dis- appear, being absorbed and done away in the One Slain Sacrifice. But the bread and wine of the Elder Economy were to survive, with added powers, in the New. We cannot, therefore, assume with certainty that the seventh-day recurrence of any feast of the Old Law, however close its resem- blance to the Eucharist in other respects, en- forces of necessity a like seventh-day recurrence of the Christian Ordinance. But thus much may be observed, as a law pervading the transference of the old ways of service to the new system, that there was to be no going back, or falling short, in this point of frequency^ but an equality at the lowest, and even some advance in that respect. Thus, the great Con- tinual Sacrifice of the Tabernacle and Temple, con- sisting in the renewal, morning and evening, of a lamb as a burnt offering, has passed on into the really continual, and not merely renewed, Offering and Pre- sentation in Heaven of the true Lamb once for all slain. The eucharistic or peace-offerings, again, personal or congregational, which bear so close an analogy to the Holy Eucharist, were only offered and partaken of, as an absolute rule, three times in the year, though they might be, and were, offered and eaten more frequently. So that the frequency of the Christian Eucharist, once a week as a minimum, was a clear THE SHEWBREAD. 19 advance upon this. — But there was another (Jrdinance very closely resemblmg the Eucharist. This was the Shewbread. The materials of it were bread and wine ; it was offered and eaten as a memorial of the one continual sacrifice, and as a means of presenting before God the Church of that day, the twelve tribes of Israel. The analogy, therefore, is perfect ; es- pecially in that no part of the offering was consumed by fire, but the whole of that which was offered was also eaten, exactly as in the Eucharist. That this particular Ordinance was to survive, accordingly, with the least possible amount of transformation, in the Gospel economy, was foretold, apparently, by Mala- chi. For to this we may most safely refer his predic- tion, that " in every place incense should be offered, and a pure offering;" the terms "pure offering," and "incense," being especially applied to this rite ; and the subject treated of being the negligence of the priests, to whom this ordinance was confined. How often^ then, was this offering presented and partaken of? weekly — neither more nor less; namely, on the Sabbath morning; it having been placed on the Table of Shewbread the Sabbath before, and being now consecrated, or offered, by burning, upon the altar of incense, the frankincense which had been placed on the top of the loaves for that purpose. This " Weekly Celebration and Communion," then, as it may rightly be called, certifies to us, on the principle above laid down, that the Christian Eucha- rist, its very counterpart or continuation, was to be weekly as a minimum. The same analogy would suggest, what we know to have been the case from 20 BTTES AND RTTUAL. very early times, that the Christian rite was not, like the Jewish, to be limited to a weekly performance. In this respect, as well as in the extension of the rite to all Christians, now become " Priests unto Grod," the antitype was to rise, on occasion at least, above the type ; even to the degree, at high seasons, or under special circumstances, of a daily celebration. And the fact that the bread and wine offered on each Sabbath had already lain there a week, gives much countenance to the view advocated above, that the Christian rite is, on the Lord's Day, retrospective, inclusive of the memories of the preceding week. For the idea manifestly was that, in the twelve loaves, the twelve tribes lay in a mystery all the week long, with all their actions, before the Divine Majesty. But we may, with much probability, go one step further, and say that Our Lord himself, in the very words of the Institution, gave no obscure intimation that the law of recurrence of the Ordinance was to be that which is here contended for. Among those words there is one, though but one, which bears upon the question of frequency. It is, " Do this, as oft as ye drink^ for My memorial" (paaKi^ av Trm^re), What is the allusion here? Had the Jews any custom at that time of " drinking " wine in solemn religious " memorial " of national mercies ; for which this greater " Memorial," of world-wide meaning, was henceforth to be substituted ? and if so, how often did that rite recur, and what law would thus be suggested or prescribed for the New '* Memorial" ? Now, that they had such a rite* at that time, is * See ' Principles of Divine Service,' vol. ii., pp. 284-298. THE CUP OF WINE. 21 rendered infinitely probable by the fact that they have such a one at this day ; and of such a structure, and involving such reference to the ancient system of sacrifice, as though actually going on, that it is in- conceivable but that it must have existed before the destruction of the temple, and abolition of the law. It consisted of offering and consecrating, at the Synagogue Service , on the eve of every Sabbath, a cup of wine, which was then drunk of, first by the consecrator, and then by the orphan children there present : — a touching rite, signifying (as appears by the prayers accompanying it) the fatherless con- dition of the nation when in Egypt, and God's mercy in bringing them out of it, to drink of the fruit of the vine in their own land. There were also prayers for the acceptance of the great continual sacrifice of the nation, then lying on the altar in the temple ; for peace ; for grace to keep the command- ments. In all respects, therefore, this rite bore a very close resemblance, in its own sphere, to that which our Lord was instituting : He, too, having offered a cup of wine, presenting thereby the Sacrifice of His Blood, and enjoined that it should be then and ever after drunk of in thankful memorial and all- powerful' pleading of that sacrificial deliverance. And there was yet another Sabbath-eve rite, nearly akin to this one, only that it was a domestic rite, and performed at supper, and with bread as well as wine ; features which, of course, assimilated this latter form of the rite still more closely to what our Lord was doing. Let it be supposed then, — and it seems to be c 22 RITES AND RITUAL. incontestable, if the existence of the rites at that time may be safely assumed, — that to these rites our Lord alluded, both generally in the whole Institution (though of course he referred to many other and greater rites too), and specially in the words — " As oft as ye drink." We then have from Himself a plain intimation as to the degree of frequency of Celebration. Such an intimation would, apart from subsequent instructions during the Forty Days, account for the " First day of the week " being men- tioned for celebration, as if a fixed habit^ in the Acts of the Apostles. These things considered then ; — the deep mystery for good attaching, from the very Creation downwards, to the seventh-day recurrence of religious ordinances ; the special fitness of such a law of recurrence in the case of the Holy Eucharist, because it is the summing up of a Divine Week's Work of Eedemption and Salvation ; the sharply defined presignification, by means of the Law and the Prophets, the shewbread and Malachi, of a seventh-day rite of universal obli- gation, and blessedness yet to come ; lastly, and chief of all, the brief but pregnant command of Our Lord Himself, gathered with the utmost probability from the very words of the Institution ; and all this, not left to our inference, but actually countersigned by the unvarying practice of the Church throughout the world for three hundred years : — all this con- sidered, I conceive that we have very strong grounds indeed for affirming the proper obligation of this law of recurrence, and for earnestly desiring that it might please the Great Head of the Church to put it into NEED OF FKEQUENT COMMUNIONS. 23 the mind of. this branch of it to return, with all her heart, to the discharge of this most bounden duty. I have preferred, in what has been said^ to place this duty on the lofty ground of zeal for the integrity of the great Mystery of our religion, and of reve- rence for the commands of Christ, and the practice of His Apostles, rather than on the lower ones of expediency and advantage. And in this light I would earnestly desire that it may be primarily regarded. The only question for any branch of God's Church ought to be, What is commanded? What did God Almighty intend^ and types foreshadow, and Christ enjoin, and the Apostles practise ? Whatever that was, it must be right for us to aim at, and to strive for it with all our hearts. Yet I would not have it supposed but that there is every reason to hope for the largest measures of blessing, and of spiritual results, from a return to this practice. I will mention one very great scandal, the very canker and weakness of our whole parochial system, which has a fair likelihood of being removed by this means. Next to the infrequency of our Communions, the fewness of our communicants, — that is, in fact, of our bond fide members of the Church, — is our greatest and most inveterate evil. When this fewness is allowed its due significance, we must see and confess that the nominally Christian condition of this country is but an illusion and an untruth after all. Judged by our own Church's rule (which is the rule of Christ Himself), our communicants, and they only, are our people. The rest may call them- c 2 24 RITES AND RITUAL. selves what they will ; or we may for euphony call them " our flocks," or God's people. But one thing is certain, that in those apostolic or early days to which we ever appeal, and rightly, as our standard, they would have been held to be reprobates, and no faithful members of Christ's body at all. Such then is our condition : — a miserable handful, even among those who are nominally members of the Church, having any claim to the title in reality. Now, how are these wanderers to be brought back ? these abortive or moribund Christians to be induced to accept the gift of life, through the indispensable Sacrament? Surely, for the most part, even in the same way as converts are brought in, one by one, in heathen lands. Public ministrations, sermons, services, will not do it. It is a personal effort, a personal rendering up of self, that is needed ; and it is only by seizing and pressing, in private inter- course, the chance occasions of speech, the day of sorrow, or of conviction of sin, that we can induce men to make this effort. But, unhappily, when they are prepared to make it, in the vast majority of our parishes, the '' Communion Sunday " is too often a far-off event : and before it arrives the favourable impression and disposition has passed away. While, on the other hand, the ever-ready rite secures the communicant. In saying this, I am not merely theorizing, but describing what I have found to take place within my own experience. It has been found that in this way nearly one-third of the entire population of a parish may be brought in a few years to Holy Communion. Surely some DIFFICULTIES STATED. 25 may be induced to try the effect, were it with this view only, of the restoration of Weekly Cele- bration. I am well aware, indeed, of the difficulties which, in many cases, stand in the way of such a restoration, and on these I would venture to say a few words. In the first place, then, the state of things which prevails among us, and of which I have above ventured to speak in such strong language of de- precation, is one which we of this generation have not made, but inherited. It is not we, God be thanked, that have diminished, but rather, in almost all cases, increased, the frequency of our celebrations. The guilt of this evil custom is shared by the whole Church of fifteen hundred years past ; and therefore we must not be surprised if very great difficulties are found in correcting it. The history of the desue- tude, which we behold and deplore, is simply this. For nearly three centuries, scarcely any breach was made in the Church's Eucharistic practice. Not only was there universal weekly celebration, but universal weekly reception also ; with only such abatement, doubtless, as either discipline or un- avoidable hindrance entailed. But the ninth of the so-called Apostolic canons, belonging probably to the third century, speaks of some " who came in to hear the Scriptures, but did not remain for the prayer (i.e. the Communion service) and holy re- ception." All such were to be suspended from Communion, as " bringing disorder into the Church," i.e. apparently (with reference to 2 Thess. iii. 6), as 26 RITES AND RITUAL. " walking disorderly, and not after the tradition received from the Apostles." By about a.d. 305, the Council of Elvira, as cited above, orders suspen- sion after absence from the Church three successive Sundays : a curious indication of " monthly Com- munions " having been an early, as it continues to this day a favourite, form of declension from primitive practice. But by St. Chrysostom's time (c. 400) so rapidly had the evil increased, that he speaks of some who received but twice a year ; and even of there being on occasion none at all to communicate. But this seems to have been but local, since we find the Council of Antioch, a.d. 341, reiterating the Apostolic canon : and even three centuries later, the old rule of suspension for three absences was still in force in the East ; as Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Can- terbury in 668, testifies of the Greek Church, from which he came. But even in the East the decline was rapid. The Apostolical usage, confirmed by the ninth canon, was admitted to be binding ; but obedience to it was given up as hopeless. Nay, even the laxer rule of Elvira was stretched by Canonists,* so as to recognise attendance without reception as sufficient. In the West the habit was all along laxer still than in the East. At Rome, as * So Balsamon, in the twelfth century : " Though some desire by means of this Canon to oblige those who come to Church to receive the Sacraments against their will, yet we do not ; for we decide that the faithful are to stay to the end of the Divine Sacrifice ; but we do not force them to communicate." — See Scudamore, ' Communion of the Faithful,' p. 58. Yet later wi'iters acknowledged the true meaning of the Canon, though they thus condemned the existing practice of the Church. — Ibid. EARLY AND MIDDLE-AGE PRACTICE. 27 Theodore tells ns, no penalty was inflicted for failing to communicate for three Sundays ; but the more devout still received every Sunday and Saint' s-day in the time of St. Bede ; whereas in England, as St. Bede tells us, even the more religious laity did not presume to communicate — so utterly had the Apostolic idea of Communion perished — except at Christmas, Epiphany, and Easter. Some attempt was made in Spain and France* in the sixth century to revive the pure Apostolic rule. But meanwhile the Council of Agde, held in 506, discloses the actual state of things by prescribing, as the condition of Church membership, three receptions in the year — at Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost.f The recognition of this miserable pittance of grace, as sufficient for membership in Christ, was rapidly propagated through East and West ; and remains, unhappily, as the litera scripta of two out of the three great branches of the Church — the Eastern and the English — to this day. In the Roman Church, ever since the Fourth Lateran Council in 1214, but one reception a year is enjoined under penalty ; viz. at Easter. The English Church, however, never accepted the Lateran decree ; but by Canons of Salisbury (about 1270), and of Lambeth (1378), re-affirmed the thrice-a-year rule. By the time of the Reformation, however, as is evident from the rubric attached to the Commu- nion Office in Edward YI.'s First Book, reception * Council of Lugo, a.d. 572 ; of Mayon, a.d. 585. f " Sseculares qui natale Domini, pascha et pentecosten non communicaverint, catholici non credantur nee inter catholicoN habeantur." — Concil. Agath., c. 18. 28 RITES AND RITUAL. once a year had become tlie recognised minimum in this country also. Meanwhile the miserable prac- tice grew up, as a result of the lack of communicants, of the priest celebrating a so-called " Communion," on occasion at least, alone. It is probable that in the earlier days, as e. g, of St. Chrysostom, there were always clergy to receive ; the " parochial " system of that time being to congregate several clergy at one cure. But in the ninth century, solitary celebra- tions existed extensively, and were forbidden,* in the West. Not, however, to much purpose. It soon became the rule, rather than the exception, for the priest to celebrate alone ; and thus it continued until the Reformation. The Council of Trent con- tented itself with feebly wishing things were other- wise ; and justified the abuse on the ground of vicarious celebration and spiritual communion. It was in her gallant and noble protest, single- handed, against this vast and desolating perversion of the Ordinance of Christ, that the English Church, far from her own desire, and only borne down by the accumulated abuse of ages, lapsed into that unhappy desuetude of the Weekly Celebration, which prevails so widely to this hour. In her First Revised Communion Office she provided that, in order " that the receiving of the Sacrament may be most agreeable to the Institution thei^eof^ and to the usage of the Primitive Church, some one, at the least, of that house in every parish, to whom it appertaineth to offer [at the Offertory] for the charges of the Communion, or some other whom they shall pro- * Council of Paria (829). PEOTEST OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 29 vide, shall receive tlie Communion with the Priest."* It is added, that "on week-days he shall forbear to celebrate except he have some that will communicate with himr Another rubric provided, that " on Wednes- days and Fridays" (which had traditionally! been the great week-days for celebration in this country), " though there might be none to communicate with the priest, yet on those days" (after the Litany ended) " he should put on a plain albe or surplice, with a cope, and say all things at the altar appointed to be said at the celebration, until after the Offertory." And this rule was extended to " all other days," meaning apparently customary high holy days, occurring in the week, " whensoever the people were customably assembled to pray in the church, and none disposed to communicate with the priest." Thus was a solemn protest made, and not in word only, as in other parts of the Church, but by out- ward deed, against the unpardonable and fatal neglect of the people to avail themselves of the ordinance of Christ. On Sundays only (so the rubric seems to mean) a peculiar provision was made, so that there should, without fail, be attendants at the cele- bration. But on week-days, on which there was no such Divine obligation to celebrate, the Church would carry her protest still further. While vesting her ministers, as if ready, for their parts, for the * Enbric at the end of the Comnmnion Service, 1549. I Thus, in the Sarum Use, separate Epistles and Gospels are provided for those days throughout Advent, Epiphany, and Easter, tiU Whitsuntide ; for Wednesdays only throughout the Trinity period. 30 RITES AND RITUAL. rite, she would refuse to volunteer a mode of celebra- tion, for which there was no precedent in the early and pure days of Christianity. Such appears to have been the intention of the First Book of Edward YI. The expedient of per- forming the Communion Service up to a certain point only, on Wednesdays and Fridays, was mani- festly adopted from the ancient Church of Alexandria, where, as Socrates has recorded, exactly this usage prevailed on those days. In the Second Book of Edward YI. (revised, be it remembered, in part by members of the same Committee of Divines as the First was, and professing the same doctrine),* the pro- vision for the compulsory attendance of each household in turn was laid aside, probably as being found im- practicable. And now at length the step was taken, to which sound principles of action had in reality pointed all along; and it was ordained that, if the people, appealed to as they had been, and would continue still to be, persisted on any given Sunday in excommunicating themselves, they should even be permitted to do so. The great unreality of a Com- munion, which was no Communion according to the Ordinance of Christ, should be done away. The minister should still be ready on all Sundays and holydays at the altar ; but it would be left, awfully left, for the people to say whether Christ's ordinance should have place, or whether its continuity should be violated, and its benefits so far forfeited. * See 'Principles of Divine Service,' Introd. to Part II., p. 123-129. Mr. Perry ('Declaration on Kneeling') arrives at the same conclusion. EFFECT OF THE GEE AT REBELLION. 31 And who will deny that such a course was, though a choice of evils, the right one ? What had the other practice done, but lull the Church of God into a fatal satisfaction with a state of things as widely different from primitive Eucharist and primitive Christianity, as any one thing can well be from another? And if those other sad results have fol- lowed, which we behold before our eyes, let not the blame be laid on the age which has inherited, but on the ages which had accumulated and transmitted, such an inveterate habit of neglect to receive the Holy Communion. Be it remembered, too, that (as has been well pointed out of late) the period of the Great Eebellion caused an entire suspension of the Church's proper rites. " The Sacrament was laid aside, in those distracting times, in many parishes in the kingdom, for near twenty years." (Bishop Patrick.) " This solemn part of religion was almost quite for- gotten ; the Eemembrance of Christ's Death was soon lost among Christians." (Archbishop Tillotson.) " The Sacrament was laid aside, in Cromwell's days, in most parishes in the nation. In many churches there was no speaking of the Sacrament for fifteen or sixteen years ; till it was feared the Lord's Supper would come to be ranked among those superstitious ceremonies that must be abolished." (Dr. Durell.) These testimonies considered, the real wonder would be if there had not been found very great difficulty in bringing back, at the time of the Restoration, the primitive habit of Weekly Celebration. And now that we have added two hundred years more of neglect, we have to face the mighty difficulty of awakening 32 EITES AND EITUAL. a whole nation, of clergy and laity alike, to a due sense of our very grievous departure from that Apostolic model, to which professedly we appeal as our standard of duty. And the task would seem to be hopeless, were it not, 1st, that a great and powerful movement tending to this result has already for many years been going forward ; and, 2nd, that there is reason for believing that vast numbers of the clergy are really anxious to restore the primitive practice, and are only held back by difficulties, either real or imagined. Of this latter fact it is in my power to speak with some confidence ; since I have been frequently urged, by no inconsiderable number of my brethren, to set forth, as I have now very imperfectly endeavoured to do, the grounds for such a restoration. What then, sujoposing the clergy to be really anxious for it, are the difficulties in the way ? The first and most obvious is that of finding a sufficient number of Communicants. This is to be overcome in a great measure by careful heed to that pregnant charge given to the clergy at their Ordination, "So to sanctify the lives of them and theirs^ and io fashion them after the Rule and Doctrine of Christ, that they " (that is the clergy and their households) " may be godly examples and patterns for the people to follow." And again they are charged " to frame the manners of them that specially pertain io them,'' These injunctions suggest, that in the families and depend- ences of the parochial clergy ought to be fouud a nucleus and centre of all Christian living. Frequent Communion, at the least — weekly, if pos- DIFFICULTY OF WEEKLY CELEBEATION. 33 sible — should be the normal condition of the Clergy- man's household, and of all who are allowed any special part in, or connexion with, the Services of the Church. Care being taken of this, it may well be hoped that at least a gradual reform might be made : the stereotyped monthly Communions being ex- changed for a fortnightly, and finally for the full *' orbed round " of Weekly Celebration. But there is also a vis inertice to be overcome, among the middle classes more especially, in the form of an objection to frequent Celebration at all. This, being founded in misapprehension, and a vague general distrust of the object of such changes, must be removed, in part by full and earnest setting forth of the grounds for them ; but still more by extending to those classes a fuller measure of education, in- cluding, as it cannot fail to do, a juster conception of the Church's duty and claims. Another difficulty is the increased amount of labour which a weekly Communion, if largely attended, as it ought to be, would entail upon the clergy. This may in part be compensated for by keeping the eucharistic sermon within more moderate limits. Even so, however, the service is to the full long and laborious for a priest single-handed ; while the great majority of benefices are unable to maintain a second clergyman, even in Deacon's Orders. And the true remedy for this^ and for the kindred dif- ficulty of maintaining the Daily Service, would seem to lie in that revival of the Order of Subdeacons which has of late been so much urged, and which seems likely to be countenanced by our ecclesiastical 34 RITES AND RITUAL. authorities.* The duties of a Subdeacon might, it is thought, include the reading of the daily Office (excepting, of course, the Absolution), of the Epistle, and some other subordinate portions of the Com- munion Service. And it may be worth considering (though I offer the suggestion with much diffidence), seeing that the Diaconate, as used among us, trenches so largely upon the duties of old assigned to the priest (such as preaching), whether it would not be proportionate that the Subdeacon should be advanced, in some cases, to a restrained Diaconate, and ad- minister the Cup also. Such a provision would diminish by one-half the time and labour of admi- nistration. On the whole, I cannot but hope that, if our Eight Reverend Fathers in God, the Bishops, should think fit to press upon their clergy, and they upon their flocks, the duty of Weekly Celebration as alone fulfilling the commandment of Christ, a great deal might be done towards rolling away this heavy reproach from us. And let it be borne in mind, as an encouragement, that this is the only point absolutely wanting to complete our agreement, in every particular, with the apostolic practice. Such of our churches as have already, week by week, a fairly attended Celebration, to which all the faithful are heartily invited and urged to come, — such churches exhibit * See ' The Eevival of tlie Subdiaconate,' a pamphlet ; and the Suggestions of the Archdeacon of London, put forth in his Charge of 1850, and lately revised at a meeting of his Clergy of his Archdeaconry, " not without the full knowledge and sanction of the Archbishops and of the Bishop of London." FORM OF EUCHARISTIC ERROR. 35 a spectacle of really Apostolical Eucharistic Service, such as the whole world beside cannot produce. Neither in East or West, but in the English Church only, is weekly Communion, as the bounden duty of all Christians, so much as dreamt of; so utterly has the apostolic model, throughout Christendom, faded from the memory of the Church of God. I turn now to another form of eucharistic error which has obtained some footing among us. In what has been said above, the mind and practice of the first ages have been appealed to as the absolute standard of eucharistic duty. And on this point we cannot, surely, be too solicitous, or too firm in resisting any departure from it. Such is, at any rate, the mind of the English Church. " Before all things we must be sure that this Sacrament be ministered in such wise as our Saviour did, and the good fathers in the primitive Church frequented it." The position amounts to this, — that whatever was then held to be true, and was acted upon, must be true, and ought to be acted upon still. And the converse position is no less important, — that "what- ever was demonstrably not held nor was acted upon then, cannot be true at all, and ought not to be acted upon now. But this position has now, for some few years past, been, in practice, abandoned by some who have interested themselves in the eucharistic condition of the English Church. Doctrines have been main- tained, and practices founded upon them, about which, whatever defence may be set up for them. 36 RITES AND RITUAL. thus mucli at least is certain, and can be proved to demonstration, that they find no recognition in the ritual of the primitive ages. I speak more especially of the tenet, that one purpose, and a very principal one to say the least, of the Holy Eucharist, is to provide the Church vnth an object of Divine Worship^ actually enshrined in the Elements — namely, our Lord Jesus Christ; and that the Church ought accordingly to pay towards that supposed personal Presence of Christ on the altar, and towards the Elements as containing Him, that worship, which at other times she directs to Him as seated at the Eight Hand of God. Such is the position laid down and acted upon. Now, it might be shewn that there are infinite objections to this tenet, and that it involves vast diffi- culties and perplexities. But the one answer which is instar omnium, and must be held to be absolutely decisive against it, is that it was evidently unknown to the mind, because unrecognised by the Ritual, of the first ages. The altar, we are told, is, for the time being, the Majestic Throne of Christ ; His Presence there (I cite the language of the upholders of this view) is of such a nature as to demand at our hands the same worship as we commonly pay to the Holy Trinity in Heaven. Now, if this be really so, it necessitates, as a matter of course, acts of Service, of Worship, of Prayer, of Invocation, addressed to Christ so present and so enthroned. Let, then, the upholders of it produce a single instance from the Ancient Communion Offices of a prayer, or even an invocation, so addressed. QUESTION OF THE REAL PRESENCE. 37 It cannot be done. Or if there be found such an one lurking in some remote corner of a Liturgy, its manifest departure from the whole tone and bearing of the rest of the Office stamps it at once as late and unauthoritative. . And this is the leading consideration, — that the entire drift and structure of the Eucharistic Service is against such a view. Its keynote is '' Sursum cor da'' This we are now called upon to give up, and to turn our worship, and the direction of our hearts, to an object enshrined on earth. — But besides this, the Liturgies throughout speak of that which is consecrated, and lies upon the altar, as Things, and not as a person. But if it be indeed Christ Himself that lies there, is it reverent to speak of Him as " Things," " Ofierings," or even as " Mysteries"? Yet what is the language of the ancient Liturgies, after the consecration ? " Bestow on us benefit from these Offerings " (Lit. S. Chrys.). "That we may become worthy par- takers of Thy holy Mysteries " (Syr. Lit. S. James). " Holy Things for holy persons :" or (as it is other- wise rendered) " The Holy Things to the Holy Places;" or in the Western uses, "Desire these Things Qicec) to be carried up by the hands of Thy Holy Angel unto thy sublime altar, into the Presence of Thy Majesty." It is intelligible, that for the divine and mysterious Things, the Body and Blood of Christ, we should desire contact with the mysterious heavenly altar, on which " the Lamb that was slain " personally presents Himself ; but that we should desire this for Christ Himself would be incomprehensible, if not irreverent. 38 KITES AND RITUAL. And let these words of S. Ohrysostom's Liturgy be especially pondered : " Hear us, Lord Jesus Christ, out of Thy Holy Dwelling-place, and from the Throne of the glory of Thy kingdom ; Thou that sittest above with the Father, and here art invisibly present with us ; and by thy mighty Hand give us to partake of Thy spotless Body and Thy precious Blood." Is it not perfectly certain from hence, that, in the conception of antiquity, Our Blessed Lord was 7iot lying personally upon the altar ? that, personally, He was, as regards His Majestic Presence, on His Throne in Heaven ? and as regards His Mysterious Presence on earth, it was to be sought, not in or under the Elements, but (according to the proper law of it) in and among the faithful, the Church of God there present? For He is invited to come, by an especial efflux or measure of that Presence, and to give the mysterious Things, His Body and Blood. The same conclusion follows from the language of the Fathers, taken in its full range. Let any one examine Dr. Pusey's exhaustive catena of passages from the Fathers, concerning the '' Real Presence," and he will find that, for one instance in which That which is on the Altar is spoken of as if it were Christ Himself, it is called a hundred times by the title, " His Body and Blood." The latter is manifestly the exact truth ; the former the warm and affectionate metonymy, which gives to the mysterious Parts, the Body and Blood, the titles due only properly to the Divine and Personal Whole. Vain then, and necessarily erroneous, because utterly devoid of countenance from the ancient QUESTION OF THE REAL PRESENCE. 39 Apostolic Rites, are the inferences by which this behef is supported. Though, indeed, the fallacy of the inferences themselves is sufficiently apparent. It is said that Christ's Body, wherever it is, and under whatsoever conditions existing, must demand and draW Divine Worship towards iti Is it so indeed ? Then why, I would ask, do we not pay Divine Worship to the Church ? for the Church certainly is " His Body^ His Flesh, and His Bones." Nay, why do we not worship the individual communicant ? for he, cet- tainly, has received not only Christ's Body, but Christ's very Self, to dwell within him. The truth isj that inferences, in matters of this mysterious nature^ are perfectly untrustworthy, unless supported and countersigned by apostolic practice * I am aware that this doctrine has been em- braced, of late years, by some of the most devout and eminent of our divines. But the history of their adoption of it is such, that we may allege themselves, in the exercise of their own earliet' and unbiassed judgment, against their present opinions. The names of those diviiies are named with reverence and affection^ and justly so, wher- ever the English language is spokerii But the works, on which that estimate was first founded, upheld,- explicitly or tacitly, the opposite of that to which they now lend the high sanction of their adliesion. A sermon on the Catholic doctrine of the Holy Eucharist was called forth from one of them by a sentence of suspension from preaching in the Uni- versity pulpit at Oxford. But this full exposition of his eucharistic views at that time is absolutely D 2 ^ 40 RITES AND RITUAL. devoid of any claim for Divine Adoration as due to the Body and Blood of Christ, or to Christ Himself as present under the Eucharistic Elements. Again, in a well-known stanza of the ' Christian Year,' another honoured divine has said, — " come to our Comnmnion Feast ; There present in the heart, Not in the hands, th' eternal Priest Will His true self impart." * And it is believed that the first appearance in a modern days of the former doctrine, viz. that worship is due to the Body and Blood of Christ, was in the year 1856, in the case of Ditcher v. Denison.f It was through a chivalrous desire to uphold a cause, with the main aspects of which they naturally felt a deep sympathy, that the writers referred to were drawn into countenancing a doctrine,, then new to their theology, but of the truth of which, on examination, they seem to have satisfied themselves. Surely we may believe that it was not without misgiving that they thus aban- doned the doctrines which they once taught us. * It is true that another part of the same exquisite volume speaks of — " The dear feast of Jesus dying, Upon that altar ever lying, Where souls, with sacred hunger sighing, Are called to sit and eat, while angels prostrate fall." But this is exactly an instance of the warm metonymy ahove spoken of, and cannot be pressed against the distinct disallow- ance, contained in the passage quoted in the text, of there being a personal Presence of Christ in the Elements, t See note at the end. PKESENCE OF NON-COMMUNICANTS. 41 They cannot have felt altogether satisfied thus to break with the Church of the First Ages in a matter so momentous as that of the Object of worship, and of the nature and purpose of the Holy Eucharist. Closely connected with this doctrine, is a practice not merely defended of late, but strongly urged as being of the very essence of exalted Eucharistic duty : — that of being present at the Rite without receiving ; for the purpose, it is alleged, of adoring Christ as present under the Elements. But here again the Early Church furnishes thorough condem- nation of the practice. In an exhaustive treatise,* it has been shown that, except as a deeply peni- tential act, she knew of no such practice ; making no account whatever of attendance on the rite apart from reception : rightly viewing it as a Sacrifice indeed, but a Sacrifice of that class or kind in which pai'taking was an essential and indispensable feature. And the English Church, it is almost unnecessary to add, though a faint endeavour has been made to disprove it, has given no more countenance than the Church of old to this practice. Contenting herself, at first, at the Reformation, with forbidding non- communicants to remain in the choir, she afterwards so efiectually discouraged and disallowed their pre- sence at all, that it became unmeaning to retain the prohibition any longer. f And in truth it is, as might be expected, to the later and corrupt ages of the Church that we owe * Eev. W. Scudamore's ' Comnmnion of the Faithful.' t This is fully proved by Scudamore, ' Communion of the Faithful,' pp. 107-120. 42 KITES AND RITUAL. both of these positions which it is now attempted to revive among ns : viz. that in the language of the decrees of Trent,* " our Lord Jesus Christ, God and Man, is truly, really, and substantially contained in the Sacrament of the Eucharist," i. e, in the Elements, " and is to be adored " as contained therein : and again, that the faithful may be present merely to adore, and may communicate spiritually,! though, as has been well said, '^ they purposely neglect the only piode of doing so ordained by Christ." The latter position — respecting non-communicat- ing attendance — has been lately discountenanced^ by one of those eminent divines who are generally claimed as sanctioning the entire system to which it belongs, And though the number of those among the clergy who have embraced these views is not inconsiderable, while their piety and devotedness are unquestionable, yet I cannot doubt that at least an equal number, in no way their inferiors in learning or devotion, deeply deplore these departures from the primitive faith. And it is not too much to hope, that, as the English Church has witnessed a school of postmediseval or unsacramental divinity, which, notwithstanding its piety and earnestness, has ceased to exercise much influence among us, even so it may be with the mediasval and ultra-sacramental school which has lately risen up, Defend their views how they will, what they are seeking to introduce * Council of Trent, Session 13, c. 1. See ' Principles of Divine Service,' Introd. to vol. ii., pp. 158-187. \ Session 22, c. 0. j See Mr. Keble's letter in the 'Guardian,' Jan. 24, 18(30. MODE OF CONDUCTING SEEVICE. 43 is a new cultus, and a new religion, as purely tlie device of the middle ages, as non-sacramentalism was the device of Calvin and Zv^ingle. Ji.nd the one doctrine as distinctly demands a new Prayer-book as the other does. What the English Church, on her very front, professes, is neither postmedisevalism nor mediaevalism, but apostolicity. Since choose she must, (for the two are utterly irreconcilable) between symbolising with the medisevalising Churches of the West, and symbolising with the Church of the first ages, she has taken her part, and her deliberate mind is " Sit Anima Mea cum Apostolis." From EiTES, I turn to Ritual, which claims at this moment the larger share of attention. How, then, are the Services of the English Church to be performed, so as to be in accord- ance with her mind and principles? It will be answered, that the Services ought to be conducted according to "the Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, according to the use of the Church of England." * But this, though at first sight the true and sufficient answer, is not, in reality, either true or sufficient. The duty in question, that of conducting the Services of the Church, is laid upon particular persons : and it is by recurring to the exact terms of the obligation laid on those persons, when they are solemnly com- missioned to their office, that we must seek for an answer. Now the engagement exacted by the Bishop from candidates for the priesthood, at their * Preface concerning the Service of the Church. 44 RITES AND RITUAL. Ordination, is, in exact terms, this : *' Will you give your faithful diligence always so to minister the Doctrine and Sacraments, and the Discipline of Christ, as the Lord hath commanded, and as this Church and Realm hath received the same ? " The italicised words contain the gist of the whole matter. By the interpretation we put upon them must our standard of Ritual be determined. What then " hath this Church and Realm received," at the present moment, in the matter of Ritual ? Not the Prayer-book standing absolutely, and alone, without any comment or addition whatsoever : but that Book, as interpreted and modified, in certain respects, by subsequent enactments, which have in various ways obtained, practically, the Church's recognition. The truth is, that this country has taken a cer- tain line, and the same line, in her ecclesiastical and in her civil polity. In civil matters, Magna Charta is the broad basis and general draught of her free constitution. But the particulars of that con- stitution have been from time to time regulated and modified, not by interlining the original document, but by separate statutes. And the Prayer-book, in like manner, is the ecclesiastical Magna Charta of the Church and Realm. For upwards of two centuries — since 1662 — it has received no authoritative in- terlineation whatever ; and but few and slight ones (subsequently to its first settlement in 1549-1559) for another century before that. The differences which are found at the present moment in any two copies of the Prayer-book are purely unauthorised. They are merely editions for convenience. The Sealed ROYAL INJUNCTIONS. 45 Book, settled in 1662 — that, and no other — is the English Prayer-book. For more than three centuries, then, we may say that a policy of non- interlineation, so to call it — that is, of leaving intact the original document — has been very markedly adhered to. Such alterations or modifications as have, practically, been made and accepted by the Church and Realm, have been effected by enactments external to the Prayer-book. Injunctions, canons, statutes, judicial decisions, have from time to time been allowed, nemine contradicente, to interpret or even contravene particular provisions of the Book. And, not least of all, custom itself has, in not a few par- ticulars, acquired the force of law, and though not as yet engrossed in any legal document, has long been, in practice, part and parcel of our ecclesiastical polity. Instances in point are^ — 1. Of an injunction prac- tically recognised as law, that of Queen Elizabeth, per- mitting the use of " a hymn or such like song in the beginning or in the end of the Common Prayers ;" whereas the Prayer-book recognises no such feature or element. It is on this injunction, and on that alone, that the practice, now universal, is based. Other in- stances, again, of royal injunctions, constantly acted upon, are those by which the names of the sovereign and royal family, pro re natd, are inserted and altered ; a power given indeed, by implication, in the Prayer- book itself, because necessary by the nature of the case ; but not expressly there,* and a departure, speaking literally, from the Sealed Book. Such, * It is provided for, as is well known, by the Act of Uniformity, 13 & 14 Car. II. 46 RITES AND RITUAL. again, is the use of prayers or thanksgivings enjoined on special occasions by royal authority. These it has so long been customary to accept and use, that no serious question is now made of their legality. 2. An instance of a canon obtaining recognition by common consent, though irreconcilable with the rubric of the Prayer-book, is that of the 58th of 1604, which orders any minister, when ^'ministering the sacraments," to wear a surplice ; whereas the rubric recognises for the Holy Communion far other " Orna- ments of the Church, and of the ministers thereof." 3. A case of statute law being allowed to sup- plement rubrical provision, by adding an alternative, is that which orders Banns of Marriage to be asked after the Second Lesson at Evening Service, if there be no Morning Service. Such too, as the Dean of Westminster lately pointed out in Convocation, was the Act of Toleration ; as is also the Act empowering bishops to require a second sermon on Sundays. 4. Judicial decisions, once more, are from time to time unavoidable. By these a certain interpretation is put upon the rubrics of the Prayer-book ; and unless protested against, as sometimes they are, in some weighty and well-grounded manner, they are prac- tically embodied in the standing law of the Church. 5. And lastly, apart from any legal prescription whatever, various usages and practices, especially in matters not expressly provided for in the Prayer- book, have obtained so generally, as to be a part of what may be called the " common law " of the Church, though liable to revision by the proper authority. Such is the alternate recitation, in Churches AUTHORITY OF CUSTOM. 47 where it obtains, of the psalms, between the Minister and the people. Such too is, in reality, the use of any other mode of saying the Service than that of reciting it on a musical note ; for none other was intended by the Churchy nor is recognised in the Prayer-book.* Such, once more, is the having any sermon beyond the rubrical one. On the whole, it cannot be gainsaid, that what " this Church and realm hath received," and what her Ministers, therefore, undertake to carry out in their ministrations, is not the Book of Common Prayer, pure and simple, hut that Book as their main guide and Magna Charta, yet interpreted and modified here and there, and in some few but not unimportant points, by provisions or considerations external to it. When, therefore, the candidate for Holy Orders, or for admission to a benefice, undertakes, by signing the Thirty-sixth Canon, that '' he will use the form in the said Book prescribed in Public Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, and none other^' it cannot be understood that the directions of that Book are, without note, comment, or addition, his guide in every particular. For he is about, if a candidate for Ordination, to promise solemnly before the Church that he will minister " as this Church and Pealm hath received ;" a formula, as has been shown, of much wider range than the letter of the Prayer-book. And in like manner, if a candidate for a benefice, he has already, at his Ordination, * See, in proof of this, the admirable letter, which, by the kind permission of the Rev. J. B. Dyke, late Precentor of Durham, I have placed in the Appendix. 48 RITES AND RITUAL. made that larger undertaking, and cannot be under- stood to narrow it now by subscribing to the Canon. And if it be asked, Why were the terms of the Thirty-sixth Canon made so stringent originally by the addition of the words " and none other ; " or why should these words be retained now ? the answer is, that originally, as a matter of historical fact, the Canon was directed against wilful depravers and evaders of the Book and its rules ; not against such interpretations, or even variations and additions, as had all along obtained on various grounds, and are in fact unavoidable by the nature of things. " No one," says the late Bishop Blomfield, " who reads the history of those times with attention can doubt that the object of the Legislature, who imposed upon the clergy a subscription to the above Decla- ration, was the substitution of the Book of Common Prayer" (subject_, even then, to Injunctions, Canons, and customs already modifying it here and there) " for the Missal of the Roman Catholics, or the Directory of the Puritans." And the present retention of the wording of the Canon stands on the same grounds. It is necessary that a promise, and that of a stringent kind, should be exacted of the clergy of a Church, or licence would be unbounded. But on the other hand, it is perfectly intelligible, and has the advan- tage of practicability, that the words should be understood to speak of the Book as modified in the way in which it has all along, by universal consent, been held to be modified. If it be replied that this, too, opens a door to endless licence, I answer. No. The modifications are, for the most part, as definite EUCHARISTIC VESTMENTS. 49 as the document itself, and are in number few, though they cover, on occasion, a considerable range of actions. The Prayer-book, in short, is not unlike a monarch, nominally absolute, and for the most part really such ; but on whom a certain degree of pressure has from time to time been brought to bear, and may be brought to bear again. But its actual status is at any given time fairly ascertainable. It might be well, indeed, that all this occasional legisla- tion should be digested by the only proper authority, viz. the conjoint spiritualty and temporalty of the realm, into one harmonious and duly authorised whole. But for the time being the position of things is sufficiently intelligible. And now to apply this view of Prayer-book law, so to call it, to the matter which especially engages attention at this moment, — that of the manner of administering the Holy Communion ; and first to the vestments of the clergy. 1. Now, if there be any one point in which the English Church is, what she has most untruly been asserted to be in other points, namely, broad and alternative in her provisions, it is this one of the ornaments or dress of her clergy. While, in the matter bf doctrine. Heaven forfend that she should have two minds, and give her children their choice which they should embrace — seeing that so would she forfeit the name and being of a '' Church " altogether ; — certain it is, that, from peculiar causes, she does, in this matter of officiating vestments, give, by her present and already ancient provisions, a choice and an alternative. With her eyes open, and 50 RITES AND RITUAL. at periods when she was most carefully scannings for general adoption, those provisions, has she delibe- rately left on her statute-book (meaning thereby her entire range of rules), and admitted into her practical system, two diverse rules or practices. We may confine our attention for the moment to the period of the latest revision of the Prayer-book in 1662* On that occasion the Fifty-eighth Canon of 1603, — derived from certain '' Advertisements " of Elizabeth^ and probably supported by the universal custom of tlie realm, — was allowed to stand unaltered. This Canon provides, as has been above mentioned, that "Every minister, saying the public prayers, or ministering the sacraments^ or other rites of the Church, shall wear a decent and comely surplice with sleeves ;" only with a special exception, recognised in another Canon, in the c,ase of Cathedrals. And yet on the same occasion was retained the rubric of Elizabeth (1559), about "the ornaments of the Church, and of the ministers thereof," with only such variation as fully proves that it was not an oversight, but a deliberate perpetuation of the law concerning vest- ments more especially. For the previous form of it, —dating from 1603, and but slightly altered from that of Elizabeth, — was, that " the minister at the time of the Communion, and at all other times in his ministrations, shall use such ornaments in the Church as were in use by authority of Parliament in the second year of \hQ reign of King Edward YI,, according to the Act of Parliament set in the beginning of this Book." But the altered form was,- " Such ornaments of the Church, and of the m,inisters EUCHARISTIC VESTMENTS. 51 thereof^ at all times of their ministrations, shall he retained, and he in use, as were in this Church of England in the second year," &c. ; omitting only the mention of the Act of Parliament. It will be observed, that in lieu of " ornaments of the Churcl^'' which might have seemed to be irrespective of vestments, was now substituted " ornaments of the Church, and of the ministers thereof." And again, compare the words " shall be retained, and be in use " with '' shall use." In truth, the new rubric is a citation from the Act of Elizabeth, only omitting the limitation " until such time, &c.," and it cannot be taken as expressing less than a real desire and earnest hope, on the part of our latest revisers, that the original Edwardian '^ ornaments " might really be used ; that they should — gradually, perhaps, but really— supersede, in the case of the Communion Service, the prevalent surplice* If it be asked, how it came to pass that the surplice had superseded the proper eucharistic vest- ments prescribed by Elizabeth's rubric ? we can only answer, that the prevailing tendency during her reign was decidedly in favour of simpler ways in the matter of ritual ; and that, the Second Book of Edward- y I. (1552), having distinctly /(9r6z<:/(im those vestments by the words, " the minister at the time of the Communion, and at all other times of his ministration, shall use neither alh, vestment, nor cope^ but, being a bishop, a rochet ; and being a priest or deacon, he shall have and wear a surplice only :" the Elizabethan clergy would, owing to the reaction after Queen Mary's reign, be inclined to recur to that 52 RITES AND RITUAL. position rather than to retain the other vestments. Some, indeed, did retain them, as appears by allusions to them as in use in the beginning of Elizabeth's reign ;* but, as a general rule, their use was discouraged, and apparently put down. " For the disuse of these orna- ments we may thank them that came from Geneva, and, in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, being- set in places of government, suffered every negligent priest to do as he listed." (Bishop Overall.)! On the other hand, one form of the Edwardian " Ornaments " had survived, even through Elizabeth's reign ; viz. the cope (of course with the alb), chiefly in cathedrals. For so it is recognised in the 24th canon of 1603. " In all cathedrals and collegiate churches the Holy Communion shall be administered upon principal feast-days by the Bishop, the Dean, or a Canon or Prebendary, the principal minister [z. e. celebrant] using a decent cope'' This was in accord- ance, as far as it went, with the original rubric of Edward YI.'s First Book. ''The priest that shall execute the holy ministry shall put upon him ... a vestment, or cope'' But during the Elizabethan period two limitations had, practically, been intro- duced ; the cope^ only, was used ; and chiefly, though not exclusivel}^, in cathedral churches only .J How- * See note M, p, 49, of Mr. Skinner's recent ' Plea for the threatened Eitnal of the Church of England.' I Skinner, p. 48. Archbishop Grindal, and Bishop Sandys (1571-76) urged their destruction. \ 1 636. " Must other churches have copes^ because such is the guise of cathedrals?" St. Giles' in the Fields and St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, are named in 1640. An Act of 1644 orders copes to be sold in parish churches. — (Hiei-urgia Anglicana, p. 164.) EUCHARISTIC VESTMENTS. 53 ever, the fact that to this extent the rubric of Edward Y I. was still acted upon, might well encourage the revisers of 1662 to contemplate a general return to its provisions.* It was but a hundred years ago that they had fallen into desuetude ; and the devout zeal of Bishop Cosin, and others among the revisers, on behalf of the Eucharist, would lead them to desire the restoration of whatever, in their judgment, would tend to its higher honour and more becoming cele- bration. Cosin himself was accustomed, as a Preben- dary of Durham Cathedral, to wear the cope, and to see it worn by others ; and not by the celebrant only, but by the attendant clergy. For in his answer to the articles of impeachment sent to the House of Lords against him in 1640, he says " That the copes used in that Church were brought in thither long before his time. One there was that had the story of the Passion embroidered upon it ; but the cope that he used to ivear^ when at any time he attended the Com- munion Service^ was of plain white satin only, without any embroidery upon it at all."t The canon of 1603 must not, therefore, be understood as confining the use of the cope to the celebrant, but only as providing that the celebrant, at least, must, in cathedrals, be so * It is very remarkable, on the other hand, that, as was pointed out in the recent debate in Convocation, Cosin, and others of the revisers, especially Archbishop Sheldon, still made inquiry in their Visitations, not as to the other vestments, but the surplice only. The only solution would seem to be, that, personally, they wished the vestments restored, but, finding no response to their wishes, fell into the usual track of Visitation Articles. t Life of Cosin, prefixed to his Works, in the " Anglo-Catholic" Library. E 54 RITES AND RITUAL. apparelled. It may be added, that the copes still preserved in Durham Cathedral, and only disused * within a century, are a proof that, in this point at any rate, it is but very recently that the Edwardian " ornaments " ceased to be used in the English Church in our cathedrals ; while, in a solitary instance, that of the Coronation Service, the use of copes by the Archbishop, the attendant Bishoj)s, and by the Dean and Canons of Westminster, survives to the present day. The bearing of these facts upon our subject is, that they prove that it was in no merely antiquarian spirit that our latest revisers retained the far-famed rubric of Edward VI. It was as having been accustomed to see a due access of honour and dignity accruing to the Holy Rite, that' they wished, not merely to retain what had survived, in practice, of that rubric, but to restore the parts of it which had fallen into disuse ; to bring back, everywhere, with the less correct cope, that which in the rubric enjoyed a preference — the " vestment " or chasuble, — and whatever else the rubric involved. They hoped that the day was come, or that it would come ere long, when the surplice would, in respect of the Communion Service, yield to the proper "vestment" its "ancient usual place." t * By Bishop Warburton, it is said, circ, 1770. t It is remarkable that the Canons which are contrariant to the Rubric have no existence in the Irish Canons passed in their Convocation in 1634. The 7th Canon is "All ministers shall use and observe the orders, rites, ornaments, and ceremonies prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer, and in the Act of Uniformity printed therewith, as well in saying of Prayers as in EUCHARISTIC VESTMENTS. 55 And the reason why they did not at the same time procure the formal aboHtion of the Canon of 1603, which recognises the surpHce for parish churches, is, we can hardly doubt, that they wished to leave the practical working out of the change to time, and to the voluntary action of the parochial clergy. There had existed ever since the year 1559 a diversity in practice ; and, ever since Elizabeth's '* Advertisements," an actual alternative in the Church's orders about vestments. That alternative they did not care to remove. It was by desuetude that the irregular habit had first come in, until it obtained recognition by the Canon of 1604 : it was to desuetude that they trusted for the removal of it. Meanwhile, those who chose to plead usage and the canon on the one hand, and those who preferred to plead the statute law of the Eubric on the other, were both alike in a fairly defensible position. Two modes, in short, of vesting the clergy for the Holy Communion were practically recognised at the latest settlement of our Offices ; and, until some new enactment should supersede the one or the other, must continue to be recognised still. Such, I say, appears to be the position of the law," and of clerical duty or obligation, at the present moment. Beyond all question, this " Church and Realm hath received " and recognised, ^jrac" tically^ an alternative in this matter. She has administration of the Sacrament." (See Mr. Baker's letter to the ' Church Eeview,' March 17, 1866). The same canon enforces the surplice and hood for deans, canons, &c., for Praj^ers, without mentioning the Holy Communion. E 2 56 RITES AND RITUAL. not bound her sons absolutely, and without choice, either to the older or the later practice. Her position, as defined by the action of some of the wisest and best of her sons on the last occasion — two hundred years ago — of reconsidering her constitu- tion, has been one of observation and of hope; of waiting to see which way, in a matter non-essential, though far from unimportant, the mind of her sons would carry her. And now a time has arrived when the question, after slumbering for two centuries^ has awakened, and, in a practical form, demands an answer. Hitherto, — that is, from the time of Elizabeth (1559) until now, — no marked desire has been manifested by the parochial clergy to carry out the original pro- visions of the Prayer-book in this matter. But now that step has — whether by more or fewer of them I stop not now to inquire — been taken. There are churches in this land where the long-disused " Ornaments " have been assumed. That which the First Book of Edward handed on from the past; that which the Book of Elizabeth restored after its repeal, taking for granted that it would be operative, though the event proved otherwise ; that which the Eevisers of 1603 did not disturb, though the Canon of the same year authorised a departure from it ; that which Cosin and his fellow-labourers, in 1662, in language of increased strength, directed the restoration of : this has at length come forth among us, not in word only, but in act and visible form. And the question is, how is the Church to deal with this fact, and this phenomenon ? It is obvious and EUCHARISTIC VESTMENTS. 57 easy to say on the one hand — " There is no doubt about the matter. The rubric is statute law, and therefore overrides the canon, which is not." And it is equally obvious and easy to say, on the other hand — " There is no doubt about the matter : the usage^ with certain exceptions, of two hundred, or even three hundred years, can be pleaded for the use of the surplice at the Holy Communion. A rubric which has been in abeyance for that period is and ought to be considered obsolete." A great deal may be said on behalf of both these positions ; and it is very unlikely that, debating the matter from this point of view — i.e. from mere consideration of the compa- rative weight of statute on the one hand, and custom on the other, — we should ever arrive at a conclusion which would satisfy the diversely constituted minds with which these two considerations carry weight respectively. We must, therefore, it is submitted, take a wider view of the question, and see whether there be not other considerations besides these, which may lead us to a just and wise decision about it. And one very weighty and relevant consideration, though by no means decisive of the whole matter, is, How far would the restoration of these vestments — I will suppose it wisely, judiciously, and charitably brought about — accord with the tone and feeling, either present or growing up, of the existing English Church ? Now, it must, I think, be admitted, that the experience of the last few years is such, as to modify very considerably the answer to be given to this question. The Church has within that period succeeded in maldng certain ritual features 58 RITES AND RITUAL. attractive to the people at large, to a degree entirely unknown to her hitherto. She has developed, by- care and training, their capacities for the enjoyment of a well-conceived ritual. And she has exhibited to them phases and modes of Service to which they and their fathers for centuries had been strangers. I refer especially to the great movement lately made for the improvement of parochial music throughout the land. Indirectly and accidentally, this move- ment carried with it many results of a ritual kind. It accustomed the eyes of the generality to Services on a scale of magnitude and dignity unknown to them before. Instead of the single "parson and clerk," or Minister and handful of untrained singers, they beheld, at the Festivals, choral worship, con- ducted by a multitude of clergy, and by hundreds or thousands of choristers. And they were delighted with it. The grandeur of such a service, its correspond- ence to the glimpses of heavenly worship disclosed to us by Holy Scripture,* forcibly impressed the imagination, and enlisted the feelings. These occa- sions also raised the question of how large bodies of persons, meeting for a united act of musical worship, should be attired, how marshalled and occupied, while moving into their assigned places in the Sanctuary. Hence the surplice, the processional hymn, the banner to distinguish the several choirs, became familiar things. They were felt to be the natural accompaniments of such occasions. And thus was brought to light what had hitherto been, and with .great appearance of reason, denied, viz. that * St. Luke ii. 13, Rev. vii. 0, xiv. 3. Compare 2 Chron. v, 12. NOVELTIES IN CHUECH SERVICE. 59 this nation differs not in its mental constitution from other nations ; that its antipathy (doubtless existing) to these things, had been founded sim|)ly on their being unusual, and on their supposed con- nection with unsound doctrine. Once the meaning of them was seen — Englishmen like to know the meaning of things — the dislike and the prejudice were over- come. And the larger gatherings at which these things were done have reacted upon the more limited and ordinary parochial services. Their proper object was so to react in respect of musical proficiency only ; but they have influenced, at the same time, the whole outward form and order of things. As one main result, they have in many instances brought back the proper threefold action so clearly recognised in the Prayer-book, and so long utterly lost sight of, except in cathedral and collegiate churches, " of minister, clerics^ and people." The appointed medium for sustaining the clergy on the one hand, and the congregation on the other, in the discharge of their several parts in the service, — viz. the trained lay-clerks, the men and boys of the practised choir, — has re- appeared and taken its due place among us. The presence of trained persons so employed, — securing and leading, as in the Lord's Prayer, Creed, and Versicles^ the due responsive action of the people ; conducting, as in the Psalms, Canticles, and hymns, the '' saying or singing ;" supporting, as in the processional Psalm of the Marriage Service, or in the solemn anthems at the Burial of the Dead, the voice of the minister ; or, lastly, in the anthem, 60 KITES AND RITUAL. " in quires and places where they sing," lifting priest and people alike by music of a higher strain than those unskilled in music can attain to ; — such ministry is assumed by the Prayer-book to have place in every parish church in the land. And the reducing of this theory to practice is in reality an important step in ritual. It has enlisted the sympathies of the laity in behalf of a fuller and richer aspect of Service than they had heretofore been accustomed to. In another point, too, the mental habit of this country has undergone a change ; viz. as regards the festive use and decoration of churches. Our harvest thanksgivings, and similar occasions, con- ducted as they have been, have taught those, to whom the lesson was perfectly new, to find in the Services of the Sanctuary, in worship, and attendance at the Holy Communion, a vent and expression for their sense of thankfulness. At such times the flower-wreath and the banner, the richly vested and decked altar, the Choral Service, the processional hymn, have been felt to be in place. And thus familiarised with them, our people come even to look for them as the natural attendants on high days of festival. Now it is a question at least worth asking, whether we have not here indications of a greater disposition than we have commonly given our people credit for, to be moved by such things — by sacred song — by fair vestments— by processional movement — by festal decoration ? whether we have not been foregoing hitherto, to our great loss, certain effective ways of in- fluencing our people for good ? whether there must not, SENSUOUS ATTRACTIONS. 61 after all, be less truth than has been commonly sup- posed in the received maxim, that Englishmen care nothing about these things, nor can be brought to care for them; that they have not in them, in short, the faculty of being affected by externals in religious matters ; that the sober Saxon spirit loves, above all things, a simple and unadorned worship, and the like ? The writer is not ashamed to confess that he has in time past shared in this estimate of his countrymen ; but that experience has greatly shaken his confidence in the correctness of it. And he may, therefore, be accepted, perhaps, as a somewhat unprejudiced wit- ness, when he testifies to so much as has come under his own notice as to the effect of the " ritual develop- ments," so to call them, of which he has above spoken. He can bear witness, then, that with these accom- paniments, the Services of the Sanctuary have become to many, manifestly, a pleasure and a delight ; that these influences are found to touch and move, even to tears, those harder and more rugged natures which are acces- sible to scarce anything else ; breaking even through the crust of formality or indifference which grows so commonly over the heart of middle age. Is it irreve- rent to think and believe that what these simple souls witness to, as their own experience in presence of a kind of ritual new to them, though familiar of old to their fathers, and to the Church throughout the world, is but an anticipation of what our great poet, Puritan though he was, has described as among the consolations of the blessed ? That which our poor peasants gratefully find provided for them on the Church's days of festival, is no other, in its degree, 62 RITES AND RITUAL. than what, to the poet's thought, awaited his Lycidas " in the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love:" — " There entertain him all the saints above, In solemn troops and sweet societies^ That sing, and, singing^ in their glory move. And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes." It will be understood that the writer is not now engaged in advocating these particular practices as binding upon us, or even as capable of being introduced everywhere ; but only pointing out that, in the acceptance and welcome with which this whole side of ritual action has been received, even in unlikely quarters, we have some indication of the probable effect on the general mind of other well- considered ritual restorations. And if it be still contended that the more usual condition of the English mind is that which has been above described, viz. of preferring a religion which reaches them mainly through the ear, and appeals but little to the eye, I venture to suggest that — (granting this to be so)^ — if a given nation is wanting in one particular religious sense, that is the very reason why that sense should be carefully educated. If the Italian is over-sensuous, as it would probably be agreed that he is, in his religious constitution, he is the very person that needs for his improvement intellectual development. And just so, if the Englishman is, in religious matters, unsus- ceptible, comparatively, of aesthetic influences^ the inference is, not that these should be carefully kept EUCHARISTIC VESTMENTS DESIRABLE. 63 from him, but that he should, as he is able to bear, be subjected to them. The bearing of what has now been said upon the restoration of the vestments and the like, is this. The most obvious objection to it is, that the rubric in question has be*en in abeyance for long years, or even centuries ; and that this proves that it does not suit the genius of the English nation. I have shown, indeed, that, as appears from the history of the period in question, — and other evidence might be adduced, — the rubric has not been altogether dormant in times past. Still, the case for desuetude is a very strong one, no doubt ; and there is but one thing that could possibly invalidate it, and that is, the existence of unmistakable indications that the revival would, notwithstanding the long abeyance of the rubric, meet some rising need or aspiration of the hour. If it does that, then the negative argu- ment, that there is no place or call for the restoration, — that it is the mere galvanization of a dead thing, or, at best, the summoning of it back to a life which must be fugitive and evanescent, because there is not atmosphere for it to breathe, — is at once done ^W^J with. But let us now briefly inquire what are the positive recommendations, if any, of the eucharistic vestments which it is proposed to restore. In the first place, then, it is alleged, that to provide for the Holy Eucharist special vestures of any hind, not only harmonizes with the transcen- dent superiority of the rite itself above all other 64 RITES AND RITUAL. kinds of worship, but is the proper correlative of much that has been doing of late years in the English Church. Is it consistent, it is asked, to give to chancel, and sacrarium, and altar, all the chastened richness and beauty of which they are capable, and yet to deny to the celel)rant at the holy Eite all adornment beyond surplice and stole ? Even if we had never possessed any distinct eucharistic vestments, we might well^ it is said, as a matter of consistency, introduce them. But next, let us ask, do these particular vest- ments possess any claim upon us, beyond the fact of their being different from the ordinary surplice, and of their being prescribed in the rubric ? And here, certainly (when we come to inquire into their history) their wonderful antiquity, universality, and probable rationale, cannot but make a deep impression upon us. They have been so fully described in recent publications,* to which the reader can refer, that there is the less need to enter into particulars about them here. The most interesting circumstance hitherto brought to light respecting them, is this ; that there is no reason for doubting that they are, as to their form^ no other than the every-day garments of the ancient world in East and West, such as they existed at the time of Our Lord, and for many ages before. Mr. Skinner has proved this to demonstration. There was, * See Palmer's ' Origines Liturgica3,' vol. ii., Appendix ; the * Directorium Anglicarmm ;' Lee ' On Eucliaristic Vestments ; ' and the Rev. Jas. Skinner's ' Plea for the Ritual ' (Masters) : but especially the last-named writer's most able dissertations in the 'Guardian' of Jan. 17 and Jan. 24, 186G ; and the Dean of Westminster's speech in Convocation, Feb. 9, 1866. HEAD-COVERING. 65 1st, the long and close " coat," '' tunic," or " vesture," called from its colour (as a ministerial garment), tlie " alb ;" 2nd, the broad " border " of this coat, often of the richest materials, which developed, ecclesiastically, into the " orarium " (probably from ora, a border) or " stole ;" 3rd, the girdle, combining easily with the " stole ;" 4th, the "' garment " or " robe " (ecclesiastically the " casula " or " chasuble "), covering the tunic down to the knees, and so allowing the ends of the " border " (or " stole ") to appear. '' Such," says Mr. Skinner, " were the ordinary vestments in daily common use in East and West."* These would be, naturally, the garments in which, like our Lord himself, the Apostles and others would officiate at the Holy Eucharist, and then reverence would preserve them in subse- quent ages. No other supposition can account for their universality, as ministering garments, through- out the world. And how wonderful the interest attaching to them, even were this all ! How fitting that the Celebrant, the representative, however unwor- thily, of our Lord himself, in His most solemn Action, should be clad even as He was ! But this is not all. There are circumstances which this rationale of the vestments, though correct as far as it goes_, does not account for. * Compare the well-known passages, " If any man will take away thy clohe (outer robe), let him have thy coat (or tunic) also." " Ye pull off the robe with the garmmt from them that pass by securely." — Micah ii. 8. "His garments . . and also his coat . . without seam, woven from the top throughout." " The cloke that I left at Troas . . bring with thee." ^6 RITES AND RITUAL. First, in the vestment-customs both of East and West there is recognition, though in different ways, of some covering for the head. In East and West a bonnet or mitre is worn by Bishops. In celebrating, in the West, a small garment called the " amice," of fine white linen, with a very rich edge or fillet, is first placed on the head of the Celebrant, and then removed to his shoulders, so that the rich edge rests at first on the forehead, and then -appears from under the alb and chasuble.* Now the prayer, with which this singular appendage is put on (" Place on my head^ Lord, the helmet of salvation "), proves that it represents a bonnet or head-covering. Again^ the fact that the stole is not a mere border, but detached, both in East and West, from the tunic or alb, and in the West, rests on the shoulders, is singular. In the East it is a broad double stripe of costly silk, richly embroidered, hanging down in front of the wearer ; and often f adorned with gems and gold; while in the West it is crossed J on the breast in celebrating : and throughout the East and * 'Directorium Anglicaniim,' pp. 16, 21. "The amice is an oblong square of fine white linen, and is put on upon the cassock or priest's canonical dress. It is embroidered or ' apparelled ' upon one edge. In vesting, it is placed for a moment, like a veil, upon the crown of the head, and then spread upon the shoulders." *'The apparel of the amice cannot he too rich in its ornamentation." Amice is the Latin amictus — " the covering," referring to Psalm cxl. 7, " Thou hast covered my head in the day of battle." ■f See Neale, Introduction to ' History of Eastern Church,' vol. i. p. 308. J The very ancient Syriac Liturgy of St. James has the loose stole, as in the West, and crossed too upon the breast. — Eenaud. p. 15. GARMENTS OF THE HIGH PRIEST. 67 West extraordinary importance has from early times attached to it, it being worn in every sacred function.* Now there is but one way of accounting for these curious arrangements. It is, that, at a very early period, the course was adopted of assimilating the ministering vestments of the clergy ' — especially in celebrating — to those of the Jewish High Priest. This could with great facility be done, because these vestments themselves were only the usual Eastern dress, glorified and enriched, with some especial ad- ditions. There was (Exod. xxviii.), besides the ephod, which was a rich under-garment — 1. The long "em- broidered coat or tunic of fine linen" (v. 39). 2. The " curious girdle of the ephod," which appears to have girded in both ephod and tunic. 3. The singu- lar combination of the shoulder-pieces and breastplate, which together formed one whole, and were among the richest and most peculiar insignia of the High Priesthood : the names of the Twelve Tribes being engraven, in the costliest gems, both on the shoulder- pieces and breastplate, as a means of making " me- morial " of the people, with especial power, before G-od (vv. 9-30). 4. The outer garment or " robe of the ephod" (v. 31), all of blue, of circular form, with a " hole in the top of it, in the midst thereof," to pass * " In all prayers, even in those recited at home preparatory to the public Office, the Epitrachelion {i.e. stole) is worn." — Neale, ' Eastern Church,' p. 313. And St. Dunstan's Canons, A.D. 979, order "That no priest ever come within thp church door, or into his stall, without a stole." — Hook's ' Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury,' vol. i. p. 488. 68 RITES AND RITUAL. it over the head of the wearer ; whereas the ordinary outer garments were square, and thrown loosely on. On the hem were pomegranates and golden bells alternating. 5. And lastly, the "mitre oi fine linen'' (v. 3 9), and upon it, on the foreliead, the " plate of pure gold" (TreVaXoi/), in virtue of which Aaron "bore," or did away with, through his ministerial sanctity, the imperfections of the people's offerings (v. 38). Now here, at length, we have a full account of the rationale of the Eucharistic vestments, and specially of those parts of them which differed from the ordi- nary clothing of early days. We see that the " border " of the ordinary tunic was therefore detached from it, beautified with embroidery, and enriched with gems, because the Aaronic shoulder-pieces and breastplate were thus detached, and were so adorned. The Greek name for the stole is still, for priests, the " neck-garment," for bishops, the " shoulder-piece " (omophorion) . Again, the ^'bonnet or mitre," or its substitute, the "amice," is therefore of "fine linen," and has a peculiarly rich " fillet," and must be placed upon the head for a symbol, so as to bring \hQ fillet upon the forehead, because of the wondrous power and significance of the Aaronic " plate of gold," similarly placed. We cannot, in short, resist the conclusion that the Church did, at some very early period (as the uni- versality of these things proves), assimilate the old simple Vestments, of set purpose, to the richer jand more significant Aaronic ones. And if we ask how EUCHARISTIC VESTMENTS. 69 early this was done, the answer is, that the first beginnings of it were made even in the lifetime of the Apostles. For Eusebius cites Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus (a.d. 198), as testifying of St. John at Ephesus, that "as a priest he wore the TreVaXoi/, or plate of gold."* And Epiphaniusf says the same of St. JameSj Bishop of Jerusalem. Later (c. 320), Eusebius addresses the priests as " wearing the long garment, the crown, and the priestly robe.";]: The plate of gold_, on a bonnet or mitre, is still used at celebration by the Patriarch of Alexandria.^ And the Armenian Church, whose traditions, where they differ from those of the rest of the world, are generally of immense antiquity, actually has the breastplate,^ only with the names of the Twelve Apostles, instead of those of the Twelve Tribes. We now see, then, how it came to pass that the stole is what it is in East and West ; why it is so highly symbolical of ministerial power ; why made so rich ; why crossed on the breast in celebrating ; why, with all its richness, put mider the chasuble : scil. because, like the Aaronic breastplate, it was a memorial '^ before God " of the preciousness of God's people, whom the priest bore, as he should bear still, on his shoulder and on his heart, in his ministry of labour and of love. We see, again, why the ^^ apparel" of * Hist. Ecol. iii., 31 : 6s iyeWjOrj lepevq to ttItoXov 7r€(f)op€K(ji<5. t ' De Haeresi,' 78. The very ancient Clementine Liturgy lias " exchanging his vestment for a gorgeous one ; " XafXTrpav ia-Oyjra fJi€T€V^V