Ritual Conformity Interpretations of the Rubrics of the Prayer-Book

Excerpt

PREFACE.

At a Conference of some friends interested in the subject of Ritual, held on January 17, 1880, the following propositions were, amongst others, agreed to:

I. That the evil of unnecessary Diversity in Ritual, as practised in various Churches aiming at the maintenance of Catholic doctrine and usage in the Church of England, is real and great.

II. That an effort to moderate it should be attempted, resting mainly on the united opinion of some of those who have given special attention to the theory and practice of Ritual, in their private capacity of Students or Parish Priests.

III. That the effort should take the form of a body of Comments upon the Rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer, and that these Comments should include cautions against practices which are infractions of the law and usage of the Church of England.

With the view of carrying these propositions into effect, it was arranged that a series of meetings should be held; and the Vicar of All Saints, Margaret-street, kindly provided a room at the clergy-house for the meetings of the Conference.

Those who had met in the first instance were duly summoned, and others were invited to join them. The meetings were held at first on two consecutive days in alternate weeks, (since some of the members came from a considerable distance). Latterly, in order to expedite the work, meetings were held on three consecutive days in alternate weeks. In all, forty-eight meetings were held between January 17, 1880, and July 13, 1881.

It was thought possible that by the co-operation of several minds, information might be collected from sources not commonly accessible, and perhaps hardly within the reach of any one individual. Among the members of the Conference also were those who had had experience of parish-work, as well as those who had devoted time and attention to historical enquiry into the origin and meaning of the Rubrics of the Prayer-Book, or who had made ancient Liturgies their special study: some, it may be added, combined these various qualifications. A hope therefore was entertained, as the second proposition implies, that by considering on very wide grounds (both practical and historical), and not from any one point of view, the various divergencies of ritual practice, some agreement might be arrived at even on the most controverted points.

This hope has been realized. It was found that points which seemed at first to afford no basis on which agreement was at all probable, were settled, after long discussion, almost (if not quite) unanimously; but this involved expenditure of time, and much investigation into matters on which existing text-books were often silent.

With regard to the actual diversities in ritual which came under the attention of the Conference, some appeared to be such direct infractions of the Rubrics that no explanation of the Rubrics could make their irregularity more evident. Others seemed to arise from well-meant attempts to interpret the Rubrics. These last formed the chief subject of the labours of the Conference....