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"Simplicity, decency, and suitableness": Mant on Old High/New Low ceremonial

To continue the 'Old High/New Low' theme, words from Richard Mant's 1845 Charge, Horae Ecclesiasticae; The Position of the Church with Regard to Romish Error, a critique of Tractarianism.  Amongst the Tractarian errors challenged by Mant was the desire restore "ceremonies which our Church has abolished or disused in her reformed Liturgy".  He provides examples of such ceremonies:

the innumerable and reiterated gesticulations of the officiating priests, and the variety and continual changes of the sacerdotal vestments: of the exorcisms and chrisms, and the mixing of oil and balsam with the water used in holy baptism: of the reserving, carrying about, lifting up, and worshipping of the consecrated bread and wine in the holy communion: of the creepings to the cross: of the multitudinous bowings and crossings of the person: of the sprinkling of holy water: of the ringing of little hand bells, and the lighting of numerous candles, and the burning of incense during divine service: of the worshipping and adoration of images and relicks as well as of saints: of the dressing of images and pictures: and of the superfluous and excessive decking of churches.

Mant contrasts these ceremonies with the simplicity and decency of those retained, particularly pointing to the surplice and the Holy Communion:

Of her prudence in the choice of the ceremonies which she has retained, examples appear, in the few and appropriate postures which she appoints for her ministers, as well as for her people, during divine service, and the simplicity, decency, and suitableness of the garment, the only garment prescribed for her ministers during their ministrations, such as was in use with the early Christians many ages before the Popish corruptions, and such as has no necessary or natural connection, any more than kneeling and the Lord's Prayer, with the superstitions and idolatry of Rome.

This simplicity and decency finds a particular focus in the Prayer Book's order for the ministration of the Communion:

In the simple and purified, but most solemn and impressive, order for the ministration of the holy Communion also, the prudence of the Church is manifested; "the bread," and not a wafer after the Romish manner, being ordered to be delivered severally to every one of the communicants, "into their hands, and not after the Romish manner into their mouths; the cup also, being not, after the Romish manner, "denied," but "delivered to every one," with no other ceremony than the posture of "meekly kneeling," "well meant," as she assigns her reason, "for a signification of our humble and grateful acknowledgment of the benefits of Christ, therein given to all worthy receivers, and for the avoiding of such profanation and disorder in the holy communion as might otherwise ensue." 

The "simplicity, decency, and suitableness" which Mant identifies as the appropriate and traditional ceremonial of "our Reformed National Church" is a reminder that what may now appear 'Low' is actually a traditional High Church piety, an authentically Reformed Catholic expression.

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