Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals. * * * * * RITES AND RITUAL; A PLEA FOR APOSTOLIC DOCTRINE AND WORSHIP. BY PHILIP FREEMAN, M.A., VICAR OF THORVERTON, DEVON; ARCHDEACON AND CANON OF 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. "O Mother dear, Wilt thou forgive thy son 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. LONDON: PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET, AND CHARING 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 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 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.