Rites and Ritual: A Plea for Apostolic Doctrine and Worship

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 conjuncture 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 eye, used to rest either on what the Church of God was intended to be, 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 palliative, 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 services and ministries, of extension abroad,—when all the while the "one thing," namely, soundness and perfectness in Apostolic faith and practice, is in any serious degree wanting 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.