Page:The Parson's Handbook - 2nd ed.djvu/24

8 before us as the order of the Church? It is not, I think, difficult if we go straight to the Prayer Book.

1. ‘The Church,’ says our Twentieth Article, ‘hath power to decree rites or ceremonies,’ but not ‘to ordain anything that is contrary to God’s Word written,’ nor ‘to decree anything against the same.’ As a preliminary, then, the mind of the Church is to be sought in the Bible upon which it is based.

Now it is certain that the worship described both in the Old and New Testaments is what is called ‘ritualistic.’ The minute directions as to the ornaments and vestments of the ministers are familiar to every reader of the Pentateuch; and these directions go even into such detail as the proper ingredients of incense Nor is there any hint that this ritualism was to be dropped under the New Covenant, as is sometimes gratuitously assumed. Our Lord attended the ritualistic services of the Temple; nay, He was careful to be present at those great feasts when the ceremonial was most elaborate. Yet no word of censure ever escaped His lips. This was the more remarkable, because He was evidently far from ignoring the subject. No one ever appreciated the danger of formalism so keenly as He: He did condemn most strongly the vain private ceremonies of the Pharisees. Also, on two occasions He cleansed the Temple, driving out, not those who adorned it with ceremonial, but those who dishonoured it with commercialism. That is to say, His only interference with the ritualistic worship of the Temple was to secure it against profane interruption.

The use of incense is a good test as to the continuance of ceremonial under the New Covenant; because it is now regarded, even by some Bishops, as a mark of extreme ritualism. Its use is mentioned in the last prophetic book of the Old Testament as