RITUALISM IS POPERY.

CHAPTER I.

WHEN Ritualism first began, about 30 years ago, it was not called Ritualism. It was called Puseyism, or Tractarianism, because one of its chief promoters was called Dr. Pusey; because it was first circulated in some Tracts, called "Tracts for the

Times."

But it has now got the new name of Ritualism because of the great attention paid to Ritual, or forms and ceremonies of public worship. The Gospel has no show-rooms for exhibition, it has no outside, it hates exterior. The Church of St. Alban's, Holborn, is most notorious for the display of Ritualism, and is thus described by a Visitor on the occasion of what is called "High Service," and is sufficient to startle the most tolerant of Churchmen. Priests, as they delight to call themselves, in defiance of the most judicious of English divines, are conspicuous in dresses unknown to the English eye for 300 years. Three of these personages, bedizened with green, and gold, and yellow, and covered with black stripes and crosses, stand with their backs to the congregation on the elevated steps at the east end of the Church. The altar is overladen with gorgeous ornaments, and illuminated at noon day with two great lighted candles. Pyramids of tapers, such as are seen in Roman Catholic Churches, are placed at each side; the chancel is emblazoned with tinsel. banners; the surplices of the choristers are the only things in the gaudy spectacle which could remind one of the customary ritual of the English Church. Here, across an atmosphere which is faint with the odours of incense, the green and gilded priests are dimly discerned performing unintelligible manœuvres-bowing,

and bending, and turning, and crossing from side to side, until the recitating of the words of the service become the smallest part of their functions. Two white-dressed attendants carry a silver censer from which the fumes of the incense are incessantly tossed-now over the altar, now over the book from which the Gospel is read, and now into the faces of all the performers in the chancel, and the performance culminates in a series of flexions and genuflexions, which can only be fitly described as the Elevation of the Host.

PRIESTS, as they delight to call themselves—yes, and why? Because they pretend to be SACRIFICING PRIESTS, who can offer the real body and blood of our blessed Saviour, as a Sacrifice to God, every time they celebrate the Lord's Supper.

This is the true reason why "they delight to call themselves Priests."

And this is the Very Heart and Soul of Popery—

The Popish priests worship the Virgin Mary and dead saints, they pray for the dead, they shut up the Holy Scriptures, and put the traditions of men in their place; they imprison poor helpless girls in convents; they honour crucifixes, and images, and relics, and such-like superstitious objects: they dress themseves up in all sorts of fantastic "vestments" or robes, blazing with gold and scarlet, and ornaments, more fit for actors in a play than for Ministers of the Gospel of Christ, and more suitable for a theatre than a Church of Christ; they mutter over their church services in such a way that no one can hear them; they make but little use of preaching, but great use of fine music and chanting, and drawling out the prayers in a sing-song manner called intoning; they use incense, and make bowings and bendings, and turning and crossing themselves, and gestures and ceremonies without end, so that the celebration of High Mass in a Romish Church is far more like a play acted in a theatre than the pure and spiritual worship of God.

Now, in all these things the Ritualists are making themselves as like the Romish priests as they can. If they followed their real opinions they would go over to the Church of Rome at once. They are not honest enough to do this; but, as far as they dare, they are trying to make the services of the Church of England like those of Rome.

They are trying hard to get the Church of England and the Church of Rome joined into one; and, if they cannot bring our Church over to Popery, they hope to bring Popery into our Church. This is the Truth

They make no secret of it any longer. And Dr. Manning, the head of the Church of Rome in England, who insolently calls himself " Archbishop of Westminster," says that he has no occasion to give himself any trouble to teach Popery in England, as the Ritualists are doing it for him.

Shall we, then, again submit to be Slaves of the Pope, and put our Necks under the Yoke of the Idolatrous and Tyrannical Church of Rome?

This is the question.

other idea.

Let no one deceive himself with any

RITUALISM IS POPERY. The Ritualists are Papists in heart, and want to make the Church of England to be the Church of the Pope again. Will Englishmen and English women submit?

Now the very heart and soul of Popery is the doctrine of THE MASS.

The Church of Rome teaches that when the Bread in the Lord's Supper (which they make in the form of a wafer) is consecrated by the Priest, it is CHANGED from bread into the real flesh and blood of Christ, so that the consecrated wafer is turned into THE BODY, SOUL, AND DIVINITY of Christ himself. They believe that as the priest utters the words of consecration Christ comes down from Heaven, and makes the WAFER TO BE HIMSELF, and this every time a wafer is consecrated. So also of the wine as well as the wafer.

And this they teach in order that they make people believe that they have the real person of Christ in their hands to offer Him up again to God as a sacrifice for the sins, not only of the living, but also of the dead.

Of course Protestants know that this is a monstrous and wicked falsehood. But it is not every one who considers what this falsehood comes to.

It is this

If every consecrated wafer becomes a real and whole Christ, then there must be MILLIONS of Christs, for during a thousand years there have been thousands of Priests, and each of them has

consecrated thousands of wafers; and, as every one of these millions of Christs is God, there must be MILLIONS OF GODS in the world, and every one of these millions of Gods made by a Romish priest!

The poor ignorant heathens in India believe that there are three hundred and thirty-three millions of Gods, so that every man, woman, and child in India can have two or three Gods a-piece. But these Romish Priests are much before them, for if you believe them, they can make as many Gods as they please. They have nothing to do but consecrate a wafer, and there is a whole Christ every time they do it. The wafer, they say, becomes a whole Christ, body, soul, and divinity!

See more of this superstition in the Romish "missals" or Mass Book.

Beader, these are the doctrines of the Mass, taught by the Pope and the whole Church of Rome.

BUT THE DOCTRINES OF THE MASS ARE THE DOCTRINES OF THE RITUALISTS, and this they themselves expressly declare. The Church Times, one of the leading Ritualist papers, said lately "it is perfectly true, that in THE CASE OF THE RITUALISTS it is THE MASS WHICH IS BEING CELEBRATED." An Archdeacon of the Church of England has used these words: "The real presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist (or Sacrament of the Lord's Supper) is the invisible and supernatural presence of His BOBY and HIS BLOOD, PRESENT UNDER THE FORM of Bread and Wine." Mark-" Under the FORM of bread and wine." This is, of course, as much as to say, that ONLY THE FORM of Bread and Wine remains the real SUBSTANCE is Christ's actual Body and Blood. This is the Doctrine of Transubstantiation, or the change of the substance of Bread and Wine into the substance of Christ's Body and Blood, which is the Doctrine of the MASS. So also the Ritualistic Hymnal, used at St. Alban's, says

"Farewell to types! Henceforth

We feed on Angel's food."

"The guilty slave-oh, wonder! eats the Body of his God"

A sermon was preached lately in London-- and preached too by a clergyman receiving his stipend out of the Bishop of London's fund-in which the preacher said: "Those who partake of the

Holy Communion REALLY AND TRULY HOLD GOD IN THEIR HANDS as Simeon held the child Jesus in his arms in the Temple."

Nothing can be plainer. It is a fact confessed by the Ritualists themselves that they hold and teach the doctrine of Transubstantiation, which is the doctrine of the Mass. Only for appearance sake they avoid using the word "Transubstantiation," because it looks too much like rank Popery to suit the irpurpose at present.

Ritualists, therefore, are chargeable with holding all the loathsome abominations openly taught by the Church of Rome as belonging to the doctrine of the Mass. If the Body and Blood of Christ are really and literally" PRESENT UNDER THE FORM OF BREAD," then, when a mouse eats the bread, it eats the literal body of Christ. And so of all the other horrible and loathsome blasphemies which follow of necessity from this most absurd and ridiculous idea.

But why do the Roman Catholic priests, and why do Ritualists, make so much ado about this foolish fancy of the bodily presence of Christ in the Bread and Wine?

Just for this reason-because by means of it they want to make themselves out to be SACRIFICING PRIESTS; that is, to make out that they offer Christ as a Sacrifice to God every time they celebrate the Lord's Supper, or the Mass as they call it.

The Church of Rome teaches that "in the Mass there is offered to God a true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice for the living and dead."

So do the Ritualists. And this is the reason why they "elevate the host" as the Romish priests do-that is, they hold up the consecrated Bread as high as they can reach, as if presenting it as an offering to God. And this, too, is the reason why they insist upon calling the "Lord's Table" "An Altar,"-because an Altar means something on which a sacrifice is offered.

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND HAS NO ALTAR, and the only "sacrifice" we offer at the celebration of the Lord's Supper is the "sacrifice of praise and thanksgivings," as expressed in the Communion Service. It is the "praise and thanksgivings"--that is the sacrifice and offering-not the Bread and Wine.

And this one fancy of the Bread being changed into the actual Body of Christ explains all the mummeries both of the Romish