Rites and Ritual: A Plea for Apostolic Doctrine and Worship — Background and Themes

Weekly Communion as Divine Ordinance

Freeman devotes considerable space to proving that weekly Communion is part of the divine ordinance, not merely a pious option. He argues from primitive practice and the Church’s own formularies, pointing to the abeyance of weekly celebration as a serious departure. The excerpts show him marshalling evidence that the English Church has historically protested against this neglect. He acknowledges practical difficulties but insists they can be met. Notably, he distinguishes his plea from recent Eucharistic excesses, warning against worship addressed to Christ as enshrined in the elements—a practice he claims was unknown to primitive doctrine.

Vestments and the Aaronic Model

The most detailed surviving excerpt concerns the rationale of Eucharistic vestments. Freeman argues that early Church vestments were deliberately assimilated to those of the Jewish High Priest, as described in Exodus 28. He points to specific parallels: the amice placed on the head and then the shoulders, the stole as a detached, richly adorned neck-garment, and the mitre of fine linen. The prayer ‘Place on my head, O Lord, the helmet of salvation’ confirms the amice’s symbolic function. Freeman concludes that the Church’s vestment customs—universal in East and West—cannot be explained by ordinary dress alone; they require an intentional typological link to Aaron’s garments.

Non-Communicating Attendance and Ritual Law

Freeman touches on non-communicating attendance, which he says was unknown to antiquity. This connects to his broader argument about restoring the integrity of Eucharistic worship. On ritual law, he asks how the English Church’s law about ritual is ascertainable, noting that the vestment rubric has been preserved and an alternative recognised. The excerpts do not fully develop this legal argument, but the preface indicates that the Bishop of Exeter contributed an appendix on Eucharistic doctrine. Freeman’s method is to combine historical precedent with legal interpretation, aiming to show that current practice is both primitive and lawful.

Freeman’s work is best read as a controversial pamphlet, not a systematic treatise. The excerpts reveal a writer deeply engaged with liturgical history and patristic evidence, but the full argument depends on sections not included here. Readers should note that the appendix by Bishop Henry Phillpotts may offer a distinct doctrinal perspective. The book rewards attention to its detailed typological reasoning and its attempt to ground ritual reform in apostolic precedent.

There’s something tender about Freeman’s plea for the old vestments, as if cloth itself could hold meaning we’ve misplaced. It reminded me of another quiet book I found once, The Idea of God as Affected by Modern Knowledge — A Closer Reading, which asks a gentler question: whether our changing understanding of the world ever truly loses the sacred. Both feel like letters from another self.