The Coronation Ceremonial

"SINCE the ecclesiastical Coronation," writes Dr. Onno Klopp, "had its origin in that Christian conception of the world's economy which prevailed in the middle ages, the sublime significance of such a function as being the contract between the two highest independent powers on earth can be realized only within the fold of the one and universal Church." State Churches, he goes on to say, like those of Sweden, or Denmark, or England, may retain the external forms of an ecclesiastical...
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"SINCE the ecclesiastical Coronation," writes Dr. Onno Klopp, "had its origin in that Christian conception of the world's economy which prevailed in the middle ages, the sublime significance of such a function as being the contract between the two highest independent powers on earth can be realized only within the fold of the one and universal Church." State Churches, he goes on to say, like those of Sweden, or Denmark, or England, may retain the external forms of an ecclesiastical ceremony, but" the jewel itself has been wrenched away and it is only the setting which remains."The distinguished historian of the Thirty Years' War is no Ultramontane extremist. He approaches the subject with absolute impartiality. But he knows history too well to countenance the legend so dear to the hearts of our Anglican friends, that medieval England alone in all Europe stood out from the Papal communion and possessed a national Church of its own. Common sense and historical research alike have convinced him that the Church of the middle ages all over the world was a Church united under one head, a power which in spite of encroachments and abuses and subserviencies and occasional rectifications of frontier, remained independent of the State. And it was in this independence, as Dr. Klopp has discerned with rare insight, that the whole beauty and significance of the Coronation Service lay. The Sovereign who bids an obsequious Church to bless at his command is but equivalently blessing himself. It is really with him that it rests ultimately to determine the form and the manner and the meaning. Should he be averse to all ceremonial, then unction, and vestures, and "Holy Altar" may go, and many an honest Protestant subject will only say good riddance. Should he be, onthe contrary, an advanced sacerdotalist, there will be imposition of hands, and incense and lighted candles, and he will be told that he is raised to an ecclesiastical dignity more exalted than a Bishop's. The Church of old, however unworthy her ministers may at times have been, stood on a higher plane than this. She was still felt in the popular imagination to hold the place of God. The monarch came to her to crave a boon. She stood before him as an equal and granted it on her own terms. And in the act of consecration which followed, celebrated with all the solemnity which ingenuity could devise, a holy compact was ratified binding Church to State, and State to Church, having for its object the peace and welfare of the people who were the common subjects of both, to the end that all might be the more free to work out in loyalty and charity the salvation of their souls.