Mass Vestments.

For the edification of our fellow churchmen, we find it incumbent upon us to refer at some length to the present trouble within the Church; and first of all, we purpose setting forth for their consideration a summary of information on the subject of the Mass Vestments, which form the most important element in the controversy of the present day. It is well that our people should have the fullest and most page 4 accurate information about their history and significance, and to that end it will be necessary that our remarks should assume a historical character. We hold that there is ample reason for entering on such a discussion, not only because of the attitude of indifference taken up by so many people to-day on the subject of unauthorised vestments, but because it has been quietly assumed in certain quarters that the Laity of our Church have tacitly acquiesced in their adoption. We have been recently told on high authority, that at the present time in England "No one cares a snap of the fingers about the subject of Ritual." Now, while we know this statement to be absolutely inaccurate as regards the Old Country, we are painfully aware that in our own land the subject does not receive the attention it should, owing to want of knowledge of the real significance of some Ritualistic practices. People frequently say, "What does it matter what the parson puts on or off during the Services in the Church? The extraordinary millinery they use is just a fad of the younger Clergy, and can do us no harm. Of course they look absurd, cutting such antics in such garbs; but if they choose to make fools of themselves, what is that to us?" This carelessness on the part of the Laity springs from want of information about the hidden meaning of these vestments; and their adoption is becoming more general, owing to the prevailing apathy of our people. If vestments had no doctrinal significance, indifference might be excused in the Laity. But, surely, it is no time for indifference when garments are being openly paraded which are typical of doctrines false to the principles of our Church. For the Clergy, who assume these vestments, do so because they hold that a priest so habited, instead of commemorating with his people Our Lord's death in the Sacrament of Holy Communion, is discharging the office of a sacrificing priest, who can, by power inherent to his Order, perform the miracle of transforming material bread and wine into the material Body and Blood of Our Lord, which he presumes to offer in sacrifice to God as a propitiation for the sins of the people.

View of those who use the Vestments.

If it is desired to know the meaning of the chasuble and the other vestments, we appeal to the declarations of those who wear them, and of those who want them. The dress is connected with the doctrine of Transubstantiation, i.e., the presence of Christ's material body in the Sacrament, with a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the living and the dead, with the offering of it to Almighty God by the sacerdos, or sacrificing priest. These are the three ideas which invest the dress of the priest with a symbolism which no man can consider innocent or uncontroversial. As history shows, the acceptance of doctrine by the Church of Rome was in two advancing stages. The first at the Council of Lateran, in 1215, when the word "Transubstantiation" was sanctioned, and the second at the Council of Trent, in 1545-63, where the doctrine of the Lateran Council was finally inserted as an article of faith page 5 to be rejected on peril of salvation. That the dress is associated with the doctrine is proved by two most impressive functions. The first is Ordination. The very words used at the ordination by the Bishop when he blesses the ordinand as he assumes the chasuble are: "The blessing of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit descend upon thee, and may thou be blessed in the sacerdotal order and offer propitiatory sacrifices for the sins and offences of the people!" After the chasuble has been placed on the shoulders of the newly-ordained priest, his hands are anointed with Holy Oil, so that he may consecrate "Hosts, which are offered for the sins and negligences of the people." The Council of Trent pronounces that, in connection with the Sacrifice of the Mass, the Church employs "Mystic benedictions, lights, incense, vestments, whereby the majesty of so great a Sacrifice may be recommended." The other function referred to is called "Degradation;" the form to which Cranwell was subjected. It consists in the un-doing in revolting detail of every solemnity connected with the Ordination of a Priest. He is stripped of all his Mass Vestments, one by one, and then declared to be "incapable of celebrating the Mass." There can be, therefore, no possible doubt as to the significance attached to the vestments as ordered in the Roman Church.

View of those who want to use them.

So much for those who in an alien Church wear the vestments; let us now turn to those who in our own Church want them. Lord Halifax, the mouthpiece of the Ritualistic propaganda in the Church in England, with whose name and sacerdotal teaching we purpose making the readers of future publications of the League thoroughly familiar, has declared that "Our Communion Office is and will continue to be the Mass in Masquerade, till it is performed with all the externals accustomed to be used in the rest of the Western Church," meaning, of course, the Church of Rome.

History of the Chasuble.

It is a historical fact that the coat known as "the chasuble" was, in former days, the regular "overall" worn by the ordinary poor of the South of Europe, including the monks. And when the fashion of the common people changed, the monks and secular clergy retained the garment as their ordinary dress.

The following extract from an article by the Rev. Frederick Meyrick, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, Oxford, and Prebendary of Lincoln, will be of interest in this connection. He says:—

Thus it appears that the chasuble, beginning as the ordinary outer garment of the poor, was retained by the Clergy when other people changed the fashion of their clothes, and thus became their ministerial dress. But down to the end of the thirteenth century the idea of its being a sacrificial garment had not arisen. Its accepted meaning was charity. But in the thirteenth century Innocent III. and the Fourth Lateran Council introduced such wide-reaching modifications of the Christian Faith as page 6 almost to change its character. In 1215 Transubstantiation became the authorised belief, and auricular confession the authorised practice of the Latin Church. Transubstantiation, which is the basis of the sacrifice of the Mass, and compulsory confession, profoundly altered the conception entertained of the priesthood. The presbyter now became a sacrificing priest, and the victim that he sacrificed was no other than Christ Himself, while in the confessional he sat as the representative of God. His vesture must indicate the stupendous office which he held. The most noticeable, because the outside, garment that he wore was the chasuble; the chasuble therefore must symbolise sacrifice By degrees it attracted to itself this character, and in the course of the subsequent centuries it became recognised as the priestly sacrificial vestment, while it underwent considerable changes in form. But if the chasuble did not symbolise sacrifice for at least 1300 years, why should it be supposed to symbolise it now ? The whole theory of the symbolical meaning of vestments, which first grew up in the nineteenth century, is partly a pretty and quaint, partly a fantastic and foolish, imagination. Ritualistic fancy has again declared the chasuble to be necessary for the priest who offers the Sacrifice of the Mass, or celebrates the Holy Eucharist. Mr. Passmore pronounces it to bo "an ecclesiastical vestment indispensable to, and characteristic of, the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar" (Sacred Vestments vii). The Ritual Reason Why tells us that the priest removes his chasuble when preaching "because the sermon is not directly a part of the sacrifice," and that he lays it on the altar "because it "is a sacrificial vestment." (No. 430). The Congregation in Church is daring enough to state, without any regard to historical fact, that the alb, girdle, amice, maniple, stole, and chasuble "have been worn at Holy Communion from the days of the Holy Apostles;" the cloak which St. Paul left at Troas having, been, no doubt, his chasuble! And it states that it is the sacerdotal or priestly vestment worn by the celebrant at the Holy Eucharist (pp. 54, 176). This theory is a reason why so strong a desire is entertained for restoring the use of the pre-Reformation vestments in the Church of England. It is not merely a matter of æstheticism, but of doctrine, although the sketch above given of the history of the chasuble proves that the connection between it and the doctrine, which it is now supposed to symbolise, is an arbitrary dictum of the later Middle Ages, unknown for more than a thousand years.

The views of those who USE, and of those who Want the chasuble, have been pithily summarised thus : "Historically, then, the chasuble means the Mass; it was retained by the Church of' Rome because it meant the Mass; it was rejected by the Church of England because it meant the Mass; it was revived by the Ritualists because it meant the Mass."

Extended reference necessary

This extended reference to illegal vestments has seemed necessary, inasmuch as around the "sacrificing priest" circles nearly all the error of a reactionary and disloyal trend that has crept into our Church in recent years. But, though it may on a future occasion be interesting to enter into an examination and refutation of the claims made by Ritualists, that some of these condemned vestments have a kind of warrant, notwithstanding the judgment of the Privy Council, we do not purpose to pursue the subject further than to say, that the lay mind, as distinguished from the Clerical, is accustomed to derive the significance of a term from its use. This principle pervades our literature, our law, and even Holy Scripture. Applying it to the subject before us, we recognise in the chasuble the doctrines that the Papacy has accepted, defined, and authorised. These same doctrines the Church of England has branded as "blasphemous fables," and "pernicious impostures." How can we retain these words, and page 7 at the same time accept the invitation, so complacently tendered us by five of our Bishops, to look upon as "innocent and fanciful" vestments, which symbolise doctrines so sternly denounced by the Thirty-first Article.