Rites and Ritual A Plea for Apostolic Doctrine and Worship

Rites.—Importance of them above Ritual—Serious departure of the English Church from primitive practice—Abeyance of Weekly Celebration—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-communicating attendance unknown to antiquity.Ritual.—Law of the English Church about it, how ascertainable—Vestments—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 Eucharistic 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.