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"What she has repudiated you may be assured that you ought not to adopt"

From a 'Charge to Candidates for Holy Orders' in Richard Mant's An Explanation of the Rubrics in the Book of Common Prayer.  Here Mant reaffirms the traditional High Church understanding of decency and uniformity in the face of what was then emerging Ritualism. 

Specimens of these objectionable rites will occur to you in the innumerable and reiterated gesticulations of the officiating priests, and the variety and continual changes of the sacerdotal vestments: in the exorcisms and chrisms used in holy baptism : in the reserving, carrying about, lifting up, and worshipping of the consecrated bread and wine in the holy communion : in the kissings of the pax, and the creepings to the cross: in the telling of beads: in the hallowing of bells: in the  multitudinous bowings and crossings of the person : in the sprinklings of holy water : in the ringing of little hand bells, and the lighting of numerous candles, and the burning of incense during divine service : in the worshipping and adoration of images and reliques, as well as of saints : in the dressing of images and pictures : and in the superfluous and excessive decking of churches. If not altogether in exact form, yet in spirit, a disposition has appeared in recent times for reverting to some at least of these. On all such questions the Church should be our guide. Some of these ceremonial observances she has rejected as being repugnant to the word of God: some as obscuring God's glory: some as giving occasion for vanity and many superstitions. But in any case our obedience to her is due : and what she has repudiated you may be assured that you ought not to adopt.

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  1. The Jester of Qi26 June 2019 at 15:33

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    1. laudable Practice27 June 2019 at 22:09

      It identifies "the Church" with the Church to whose Formularies clergy given their solemn assent. In such a context, guidance from the pre-Reformation Church is, obviously, secondary to the Formularies. In terms of images, the relevant Homily - itself a retrieval of the historic Latin West's rejection of Nicaea II - continued to guide the High Church tradition as images were not placed in churches for veneration, and the Homily itself allows for stained glass. Candles were incredibly rare in a Laudian and High Church context, and the use of incense was an eccentric exception. The key issue here, is that restrained Laudian ritual was designed not to overpower the words of the BCP liturgy, a common High Church concern.

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    2. The Jester of Qi28 June 2019 at 15:51

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