A dangerous and offensive innovation?

A final extract from Mant's An Explanation of the Rubrics in the Book of Common Prayer.

The Church gives no countenance to the mixing of water with the sacramental wine. Her authority for so doing, in King Edward VI.'s first book, was subsequently withholden, and has not been revived. To revive it now were a dangerous, and offensive, innovation.

Mant's opposition to the mixed chalice may seem to represent a rather antiquated approach to Anglican liturgy. After all, what can possibly be wrong with a practice that has patristic precedent and which, as a result of later 19th century Anglo-catholic practice, has become quite common within broader Anglicanism?

Two reasons come immediately to mind. Firstly, in rejecting the revival of the mixed chalice, Mant was standing in continuity with normative High Church tradition. Yes, examples may be pointed to of Laudian and High Church clergy using a mixed chalice (that is, water mingled with wine in the chalice prior to the service and thus without ceremony), but by no means was this a widespread or popular practice. Sparrow makes no reference to it in his A Rationale. Wheatly, while recognising the patristic precedents in his Rational Illustration, is unconvinced the practice is Scriptural, describes the post-1549 liturgies as "laying it aside", and declares "there is no reason to believe it essential".

Even amongst the Non-Jurors the practice was controversial, as the Usages Controversy demonstrated. Charles Leslie, for example, condemned the mixed chalice as an "unscriptural notion" and a "practice ... not necessary".

Secondly, in rejecting the mixed chalice Mant was affirming the catholic integrity of the 1662 eucharistic rite. 1662 did not need to be supplemented by the clergy introducing the ceremony of the mixed chalice precisely because 1662 as it stood was a fully catholic eucharistic rite. This may explain his forceful use of the "dangerous, and offensive", as inserting the mixed chalice (without authority) could be regarded as implying that 1662 is deficient.

Mant's stance, then, flowed from long-established High Church reflection and practice, and was an affirmation of the integrity of the 1662 rite and of the eucharistic celebration known to Anglican parish churches over generations. Rather than dismissing his critique of the mixed chalice - and while not expecting it to necessarily determine contemporary practice - we can heed it as a call to rejoice without embarrassment in the catholic integrity of 1662 and Anglican eucharistic practice over the centuries prior the ritual innovations of the late 19th century.

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laudable Practice will be taking a break over the next week, returning on 8th July with thoughts on Romantic Anglicanism, Anglicanism's marriage wars, and the Masons (not all in the one post).

ALMIGHTY God, our heavenly Father, who art the author and giver of all good things, and who art merciful to us sinners beyond our deservings; Look upon us, we beseech thee, in thy loving-kindness, and grant to us at this time such fair weather that we may receive the fruits of the earth in their season, and learn by thy mercy to amend our lives to the glory of thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen - a prayer for Fair Weather, from the Church of Ireland BCP 1926.

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