MR. HOPE ON RITUAL.*
Mn. HOPE'S book is, without doubt, honestly intended for an Eirenicon. He is an advanced High Churchman, but he is willing to make concessions—concessions at the extent of which he seems: almost to tremble himself—to those who differ from him. The use of the gown in preaching—if that is the meaning of an extremely obscure sentence in his concluding paragraph—the practice of saying the words of administration to a railful of communicants at once, and even the use of evening communions, unsanctioned as it is by any authority, except, we may say, that of the Divine Founder,—all these he is willing to allow. On the other hand, he condemns emphatically certain ritualistic excesses. He believes, by what we may call an extraordinary exercise of faith, that those who practise them are loyal sons of the Church of England, but he has no sympathy with them. He would not object, we sup- pose, though he does not directly say so, to see them restrained by law. That he takes pains, and even goes out of his way (for he disclaims theological controversy) to show that his toler- ance does not extend to the teaching of Broad Churchmen, will probably not make his mediation less acceptable to the great parties which he seeks to reconcile. But we doubt whether this moderation will be welcome to his friends, or his concessions valued by his antagonists. Low Churchmen, with a few insignificant exceptions, would much prefer a strict obedience to the letter of the law, to yielding what they look upon as a far more than equivalent advantage to their opponents. The Ritualists, on the other hand, if we may judge from the action of the English Church Union, a society numbering nearly three thousand clerical members, in defending Mr. Mackonochie, seek the legalisation of practices which would have the effect, avowedly sought by the bolder of the party, of assimilating the worship of the Reformed Church to that of pre-Reformation times. But the fact is, that the more this question is discussed the more distant and faint becomes the hope of agreement, or even of com- promise. Disputants cannot fail to become more and more con- scious that questions as to whether the herald of the sublimest truth is to wear this or that garment, or stand with his face towards this or that point of the compass, are utterly futile and ludicrous. So they are driven, often against their will, to connect the ques- tions more and more closely with doctrine. A man cannot justify himself in declaring that the Eucharistic vestments or the East- • Worship 1n the Church of England. By A. J. B. Bereetord Hope, M.P. London: John Murray. 1874.
ward position are matters of life and death to him except by as- serting most vehemently that they symbolise a truth. And the more he asserts this symbolism, the more impossible to the other side he makes concession. Mr. Hope finds comfort in the fact that Canon Liddon and Dean Howson were able to agree at the Conference of Bonn on an article which expressed the common faith of the Old Catholic, the Anglican, and the Eastern Churches on the subject of the Eucharist. "In the name of Christian charity and of common-sense," he exclaims, "why can- not the parties in the Church of England agree to differ in their Eucharistic ritual? Dr. Liddon has expressed no desire to inter- fere with Dr. Howson's practice ; why need Dr. Howson interfere with that of Dr. Liddon?" We never have attached, as our readers are aware, much importance to the carefully-balanced compromises of the theologians of Bonn. If they have any value, it is as articles of peace between distinct communions. Mr. Hope talks as if the parties in the Church of England had as little need to interfere with each other as have the Churches whose represen- tatives met at Bonn. All might be well if we could divide England as King Knut and Edmund Ironsides divided it. But in the single church of a parish how can both parties "agree to differ in their Eucharistic ritual "? Mr. Hope's appeal is practically confined to Dean Howson, who has to concede everything, and whose common-sense is insulted by supposing that he was incon- sistent in signing both the articles of Bonn and the memorial against the Eucharistic vestments and the Eastward position. It is, of course, from the other party that concession ought to be
asked. . HAopgeensuitatneesdhesisiraervformpeenateew:ulediabcoommrateanddetathile, relinquish-
ment qwuishichh- m ent of everything except what is essential to the validity of the sacraments.
we cannot follow him. For some practices he makes out a strong ease, in respect of authority and precedent, if not of absolute legality. It is not strange that he should be able to do so. No Church has ever been subject to such singular vicissitudes as was ours from the days of Henry's first rebellion against Rome to the Restoration of the Stuarts. No clergy ever was so facile in accepting changes as that which, without any great secession, submitted within twenty years to the varying regime of Edward, of Mary, and of Elizabeth. Never, again—and the one fact helps greatly to account for the other—has there been a communion in which the central authority has been less effective. The English beneficed clergy are, and probably ever have been, we might say, almost the most insubordinate, but certainly the most independ- ent ecclesiastical class in Christendom. And so it comes to pass that precedents may be quoted on either side perplexingly abund- ant and contradictory. One thing, however, seems tolerably plain,—that the ritual of our Prayer-book, in the main, represents the reaction against an elaborate worship, and especially against mediaeval doctrine of the nature of the Eucharist. Mr. Hope complains more than once of the influence which foreign Reformers exercised over the settlement of eccle- siastical matters in England. His complaint is perfectly justified. For half a century or more including the period when the
Rubrics were actually settled, that influence was dominant. Let any one look at the Visitation Articles which Archbishop Grindal sent out at York in 1571 and at Canterbury in 1576, and candidly state the impression left on his mind. The fourth of the " articles to be inquired of within the Province of Canter- bury "—and the York articles differ but little from them—runs thus :—" Whether in your churches and chapels all altars be utterly taken down and clean removed, even unto the founda- tion, and the place where they stood paved, and the walls whereunto they joined whited over, and made uniform with the rest, so that no breach or rupture appear?" The sixth asks, " Whether all vestments, albs, tunicks, stoles, phanons, pixes, pares, handbells, sacring bells, censers, chris- matories, crosses, candlesticks, holy-water, stocks, images, and such other relics and monuments of superstition and idolatry, be utterly defaced, broken, and destroyed?" And the seventh, whether " your parson, vicar, curate, or minister do wear any
cope in your parish church or chapel or use at the administration [of the Holy Communion] any gestures, rites, or ceremonies not appointed by the Book of Common Prayer ?" The visitation of the Province of York was actually carried out, that of the Province of. Canterbury was hindered by the suspension of the Archbishop in the same year. But the suspension was a punishment for what Elizabeth considered an irregularity,—the Archbishop's approval of the " prophesyings." It cannot be supposed for a moment that the articles of inquiry were not according to law. Grindal was a man of courage, but it is in- if the coincidences aro a little marvellous ? Harry Blount is a fine
credible that he should have gone a step beyond the law, the more so when we know what were the Queen's sympathies in the matter. And it is equally incredible that Prebendary Smart, preaching against the innovations of Bishop Cosin, of Durham, in 1628—a dangerous act, as Smart found to his cost—should not have been sure that he had the law at his back when he expressed himself thus :—
" Our Communion-table must stand as it had wont to do, in the midst of the quire, not at the east end, as far as is possible fro the people, where no part at all of evening prayer is ever said, and but a piece of the morning, and that never till of late. Neither must the table be placed along from north to south, as the altar is set, but from east to west, as the custom is of all Reformed Churches; otherwise the minister cannot stand at the north side, there being neither side towards the north. And I trow there are but two sides of a long table, and two ends ; making it square, and then it will have foure aides and no end, or foure ends, and no side at which any minister can stand to celebrate."
And again :-
" The Lord's table, I say, eleven years agoe was turned into an altar, and so placed that the minister cannot stand to do his office on the north side, as the law expressly chargeth him to do, because there is no side of the table standing northward."
The High Churchmen were bent on making the change in the position of the table and of the minister, and doubtless for doctrinal reasons, though one of the most active of them, Bishop Wren, declared that he adopted the eastward position from no cause than that he was short of stature, a declaration which naturally troubles Mr. Hope very much. The change was made, but the rubric that the "table shall stand in the body of the church, or in the chancel, where morning and evening prayer are appointed to be said," stands still to witness to its legal position. As we have come upon mention of the two terms " altar " and "table," let us ask Mr. Hope what he means by the following :- " Happily, however, no persistence of Calvin, Peter Martyr, or Alasco was able to stamp out the name of an altar from the minds and hearts of Englishmen and Englishwomen, and so long as every bridegroom who seeks the Church's blessing brings his bride to the ' altar,' and not to the ' Communion-table,' we may despise and write ' failure' against the aggressive unrest of Swiss innovators which worked so unfortunately upon the weakness of the English Prelacy in 1552." Of course, in the Prayer-book " the table " or "The Lord's table " are the terms used. And curiously enough, the blessing which adorns Mr. Hope's rhetoric is pronounced before the "minister or clerks" go "to the Lord's table." As for the term " altar," as used in connection with matrimony, it has no ecclesiastical significance whatever. It is merely a somewhat bombastic expression which, in prose at least, no person of taste would think of using. As often as not, it is called "the hymeneal altar." Will Mr. Hope argue that the culture of Hymen is still cherished " in the hearts of Englishmen and Englishwomen "?
We have probably now exhausted the patience of our readers. It will be enough to repeat that the volume before us does not encourage the hope of a peaceful solution of present difficulties. That solution must be found, if it is to be found at all, elsewhere than in Mr. Hope's excessive demands and valueless concessions.
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