The response to Anglican ritualism

Abstract

In 1859, there were attempts to persuade the Scottish Reformation Society to take a stand against the ritualism that was beginning to be manifested within the Scottish Episcopal Church. This chapter analyses the divisions that existed within the Church of England over matters of ritual. It surveys the responses of the different sections of the church — the clergy, the laity, the bishops, the cathedrals — to ritual innovation, and considers the exploitation of the patronage system of the Church of England for the benefit of ritualist clergy, as well as the pressures within the church from those who wanted to use the divisions over ritual as arguments in favour of disestablishment or schism. All sections of the church, clerical and lay, were divided over ritual, and Anglican opponents of ritual were encouraged in their opposition by Protestant dissenters, who used the evidence of growing ritual within the Church of England as additional ammunition in their campaigns to destabilize the Anglican establishment.