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A
CHURCH DICTIONARY.

BY

WALTER FARQUHAR HOOK, D. D.

VICAR OF LEEDS.

SEVENTH EDITION, REVISED AND AUGMENTED.

LONDON:

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.

1854.

JOHN CHILDS AND SON, BUNGAY.

TO

HENRY HALL,

OF BANK LODGE, LEEDS,

ESQUIRE,

SENIOR TRUSTEE OF THE ADVOWSON OF THE VICARAGE OF LEEDS,

A LOYAL MAGISTRATE,

A CONSISTENT CHRISTIAN, A FAITHFUL FRIEND,

THIS VOLUME

IS,

WITH AFFECTION AND RESPECT,

INSCRIBED.

PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION.

The Church Dictionary, of which the Sixth Edition is now published, appeared originally in the shape of monthly tracts, intended by the writer to explain to his parishioners the more important doctrines of the Church, and the fundamental verities of our religion. The title of Church Dictionary was adopted from a work published with a similar object in America, by the Rev. Mr. Staunton; and the work itself assumed the character of short dissertations on those theological terms and ecclesiastical practices, which were misrepresented or misunderstood by persons who had received an education external to the Church.

For these tracts there was a considerable demand; and the monthly issue amounting to four thousand, the author was persuaded to extend his plan, and to make the Church Dictionary a work of more general utility than was at first designed. It was, in consequence, gradually enlarged in each successive Edition until now, when it has assumed its last and permanent character.

In this Edition, which has been enlarged by an addition of more than one hundred articles, the authorities are quoted upon which the statements are made in the more important articles; and where it has been possible, the ipsissima verba of the authors referred to have been given.

But as this publication has no pretensions beyond those of an elementary work, it has been thought, for the most part, sufficient only to refer to secondary authorities, such as Bingham, Comber, Wheatly, Palmer, &c., in whose learned works the reader, who wishes to investigate any subject more thoroughly, will find the further references which he may require.

In deference to a wish very generally expressed, an account has been taken from sources acknowledged to be authentic, and which are duly noticed, of various Christian communities, not in connexion with the Church.

It was found impossible, within the limits prescribed, to act upon another suggestion, and to introduce the biographies of our great divines. This, therefore, has been done in a separate publication, entitled “An Ecclesiastical Biography.”[^[1]]

The articles on Church architecture have been carefully revised by the Rev. G. A. Poole, M. A., vicar of Welford.

The Law articles have been revised, partly by the Rev. James Brogden, A. M., of Trinity College, Cambridge, and partly by William Johnston, of Gray’s Inn, Esq., barrister-at-law.

To Mr. Johnston, known to the literary world as the author of “England as it is,” the thanks of the present writer are also due for the kindness with which he has assisted him in correcting the press, and for many valuable suggestions.

The original dissertations remain unaltered; but the circumstances of the Church of England have changed considerably from what they were when the Church Dictionary was first published. At that time the Protestantism of the Church of England was universally recognised, and the fear was lest her pretensions to Catholicity should be ignored. But now an affectation of repudiating our Protestantism is prevalent, while by ignorant or designing men Protestantism is misrepresented as the antithesis, not, as is the case, to Romanism, but to Catholicism; at the same time, Catholicism is confounded with Romanism, primitive truth with mediæval error, and the theology of the Schools with that of the Fathers: while, therefore, the articles bearing on the catholicity, orthodoxy, and primitive character of the Church of England are retained, the articles relating to the heresies and peculiarities of the Church of Rome have been expanded; and strong as they were in former editions in condemnation of the papal system, they have been rendered more useful, under the present exigencies of the Church, by a reference to the decisions of the so-called Council of Trent, so as to enable the reader to see what the peculiar tenets of that corrupt portion of the Christian world really are.

Vicarage, Leeds, 21 Sept. 1852.

PREFACE TO THE SEVENTH EDITION.

In this Edition the articles on the Early Heresies have been revised by the Rev. James Craigie Robertson, M. A.;[^[2]] the Ritual articles, by the Rev. John Jebb, M. A,; the articles on the Councils, by the Rev. Sanderson Robins, M. A.; and the Law articles, by William Johnston, Esq. To Mr. Jebb’s notes in Stephens’s edition of the Book of Common Prayer, and to his other learned works, and to Mr. Robins’s excellent treatise entitled “Evidences of Scripture against the Claims of the Romish Church,” reference is frequently made. Authorities have been fully given, except when articles have been taken with only slight alterations from Broughton or Bingham, or translated from Suicer.

July, 1854.

A CHURCH DICTIONARY.

ABACUS. The upper member of a capital. (See Capital.)

In semi-Norman and early English architecture, the abacus of engaged shafts is frequently returned along the walls, in a continued horizontal string: perhaps the last lingering recognition of the effect of the capital in representing that horizontal line, which was so decided in the classic architrave, and to which the spirit of Gothic architecture is in the main so greatly opposed.

ABBA. A Syriac word signifying Father, and expressive of attachment and confidence. St. Paul says, Ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father. (Rom. viii. 15; comp. Gal. iv. 6.) The word is derived from the Hebrew Ab: and, if we may ascend still higher, that word itself (as many others which occur in that language) proceeds from the voice of nature; being one of the most obvious sounds, to express one of the first and most obvious ideas.

ABBÉ. The designation assumed in France, before the Revolution, by certain persons, who, whether in the higher orders of the ministry or not, ostensibly devoted themselves to theological studies, in the hope that the king would confer upon them a real abbey, i.e. a certain portion of the revenues of a real abbey. Hence it became the common title of unemployed secular priests. In Italy the word Abate was similarly used, to designate one who merely adopted the clerical habit. [Vocabolario della Crusca.]

ABBEY. The habitation of a society devoted to religion. It signifies a monastery, of which the head was an Abbot or Abbess. (See Abbot.) Of cathedral abbeys the bishop was considered to be virtually the abbot: and therefore the Presbyteral Superior of these establishments was styled Prior. The abbey of Ely was constituted a cathedral in 1109: when the Abbot Harvey was made bishop. The abbacy was henceforward united to the bishopric: and therefore it is that the bishops of Ely still occupy the first stall on the right side of the choir, usually assigned to the dean: the dean’s stall being the first on the left side, formerly occupied by the prior. (See Monasteries.)

Cranmer begged earnestly of Henry VIII. that he would save some of the abbeys, to be reformed and applied to holy and religious uses, but his petition, and the exertions of Latimer for the same purpose, were in vain. For the arrangement of the several buildings of an abbey, see Cathedral and Monastery.

ABBOT. The Father or Superior of an abbey of monks, or male persons, living under peculiar religious vows. The word abbot comes, through the late Latin abbas, from the Syriac abba—father. (See Abba.) The word Father, in its various forms of Papa, Abbas, Padre, Père, &c., has in all countries and all ages of Christianity been applied as a title of respect to the superior clergy and priesthood. In some parts of the East and in Ireland, this term, abbas or abbat, was frequently confounded with that of bishop, from the fact of the abbots being in the early times bishops also.

Among the abbeys in England before the dissolution, were some which gave the title of Mitred Abbot [or Abbots general, or sovereign] to the superiors of them. These mitred abbots sat and voted in the House of Lords. They held of the king in capite per baroniam, their endowments being at least an entire barony, which consisted of thirteen knights’ fees. The following are the abbeys which conferred this distinction on their abbots: St. Alban’s, Glastonbury, St. Peter’s, Westminster; St. Edmondsbury, St. Bennet’s of Holm, Bardney, Shrewsbury, Croyland (or Crowland), Abingdon, Evesham, Gloucester, Ramsey, St. Mary’s, York; Tewkesbury, Reading, Battle, Winchcomb, Hide by Winchester, Cirencester, Waltham, Malmesbury, Thorney, St. Augustine’s, Canterbury; Selby, Peterborough, St. John’s, Colchester; to which was added, not long before the Reformation, Tavistock. All mitred abbots were of the Benedictine order, except those of Waltham and Cirencester, who were Augustinians. This fact Fuller has overlooked. (See Dugdale’s Monasticon.)

But it is to be observed, that there were two other lords of parliament, heads of religious houses, who were not abbots: (1.) The prior of St. John’s of Jerusalem, of the Knights Hospitallers in England. He ranked before the mitred abbots, and was considered the first baron in England. (2.) The prior of Coventry; a solitary instance in England of the presbyteral head of a cathedral being a spiritual peer. Of the abbots, the abbot of Glastonbury had the precedence, till A. D. 1154, when Pope Adrian VII., an Englishman, from the affection he entertained for the place of his education, assigned this precedence to the abbot of St. Alban’s. In consequence, Glastonbury ranked next after him, and Reading had the third place.

According to the ancient laws of Christendom, confirmed by general councils, all heads of monasteries, whether abbots or priors, owed canonical obedience to their diocesan. And the same law subsisted till the Reformation, wherever special exemptions had not been granted, which, however, were numerous. Cowell, as quoted by Johnson in his Dictionary, (voce Abbot,) erroneously says that the mitred abbots were exempted from episcopal jurisdiction, but that the other sorts (i. e. the non-mitred) were subject to their diocesans. The truth is, that the former endeavoured after their own aggrandizement in every possible way, but had no inherent right of exemption from the fact of their being lords of parliament, or being invested with the mitre. Thus it appears from Dugd. Monast. that Gloucester, Winchcomb, and Tewkesbury were subject to the visitation and jurisdiction of the bishop of Worcester, till the Reformation; Croyland, Peterborough, Bardney, and Ramsey to the bishop of Lincoln; St. Mary in York, and Selby, to the archbishop of York, and Coventry to the bishop of Lichfield. The abbots, unless specially exempted, took the oath of canonical obedience to their diocesan, and after election, were confirmed by him, and received his benediction. [Fuller, Collier, Willis’s Mitred Abbeys.] In Ireland the abbots who were mitred, or lords of parliament, were those of St. Mary, Dublin; St. Thomas, Dublin; Monastereven, Baltinglass, Dunbrody, Duisk, Jerpoint, Bective, Mellifont, Tracton, Monasternenagh, Owney, and Holycross. All these were of the Cistercian order, except the abbot of St. Thomas, who was of St. Victor. The other parliamentary lords, heads of religious houses, were the cathedral priors of Christ Church, Dublin, and of Downpatrick; the priors of Allhallows, Dublin; Conall, Kells, (in Kilkenny,) Louth, Athassel, Killagh, Newton, and Rathboy. All these were of the Augustinian order, except the prior of Down, who was a Benedictine, the preceptor of the Knights Hospitallers at Wexford, and the prior of the Knights Hospitallers at Kilmainham. (See Monks.)

ABBESS. The Mother or Superior of an abbey of nuns, or female persons living under peculiar religious vows and discipline.

ABECEDARIAN HYMNS. Hymns composed in imitation of the acrostic poetry of the Hebrews, in which each verse, or each part, commenced with the first and succeeding letters of the alphabet, in their order. This arrangement was intended as a help to the memory. St. Augustine composed a hymn in this manner, for the common people to learn, against the error of the Donatists. (See Acrostics.)

ABEYANCE, from the French bayer, to expect, is that which is in expectation, remembrance, and intendment of law. By a principle of law, in every land there is a fee simple in some body, or else it is in abeyance; that is, though for the present it be in no man, yet it is in expectancy belonging to him that is next to enjoy the land.—Inst.

Thus if a man be patron of a church, and presenteth a clerk to the same; the fee of the lands and tenements pertaining to the rectory is in the parson; but if the parson die, and the church becometh void, then is the fee in abeyance, until there be a new parson presented, admitted, and inducted. For the frank tenement of the glebe of a parsonage, during the time the parsonage is void, is in no man; but in abeyance or expectation, belonging to him who is next to enjoy it.—Terms of the Law.

ABJURATION. A solemn renunciation in public, or before a proper officer, of some doctrinal error. A formal abjuration is often considered necessary by the Church, when any person seeks to be received into her communion from heresy or schism. A form for admitting Romish recusants into the Church of England was drawn up by one of the Houses of Convocation of 1714, but did not receive the royal sanction. It is as follows:

A Form for admitting Converts from the Church of Rome, and such as shall renounce their errors.

The bishop, or some priests appointed by him for that purpose, being at the communion table, and the person to be reconciled standing without the rails, the bishop, or such priest as is appointed, shall speak to the congregation as followeth:

Dearly beloved,

We are here met together for the reconciling of a penitent (lately of the Church of Rome, or lately of the separation) to the Established Church of England, as to a true and sound part of Christ’s holy Catholic Church. Now, that this weighty affair may have its due effect, let us in the first place humbly and devoutly pray to Almighty God for his blessing upon us in that pious and charitable office we are going about.

Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings with thy most gracious favour, and further us with thy continual help, that in this and all other our works, begun, continued, and ended in thee, we may glorify thy holy name, and finally by thy mercy obtain everlasting life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Almighty God, who showest to them that be in error the light of thy truth, to the intent that they may return into the way of righteousness; grant unto all them that are or shall be admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s religion, that they may eschew those things that are contrary to their profession, and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same, through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Psalm cxix. 161.

Let my complaint come before thee, O Lord; give me understanding according to thy word.

Let my supplication come before thee; deliver me according to thy word.

My lips shall speak of thy praise, when thou hast taught me thy statutes.

Yea, my tongue shall sing of thy word, for all thy commandments are righteous.

Let thine hand help me, for I have chosen thy commandments.

I have longed for thy saving health, O Lord, and in thy law is my delight.

O let my soul live, and it shall praise thee and thy judgments shall help me.

I have gone astray, like a sheep that is lost; O seek thy servant, for I do not forget thy commandments.

Glory be to the Father, &c.

As it was in the beginning, &c.

The Lesson. Luke XV. to ver. 8.

Then drew near unto him the publicans and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees and Scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. And he spake this parable unto them, saying, What man of you having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? and when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders rejoicing; and when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and his neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance.

The hymn to be used when the penitent comes from the Church of Rome.

Psalm cxv. to ver. 10.

Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give the praise, for thy loving mercy and for thy truth’s sake.

Wherefore shall the heathen say: Where is now their God?

As for our God, he is in heaven; he hath done whatsoever pleased him.

Their idols are silver and gold, even the work of men’s hands.

They have mouths, and speak not; eyes have they, and see not; they have ears, and hear not; noses have they, and smell not; they have hands, and handle not; feet have they, and walk not; neither speak they through their throat.

They that make them are like unto them, and so are all such as put their trust in them.

But thou, house of Israel, trust thou in the Lord; he is their succour and defence.

Glory be to the Father, &c.

As it was in the beginning, &c.

If the penitent comes from the separation, then this is to be used.

Psalm cxxii.

I was glad when they said unto me, We will go into the house of the Lord.

Our feet shall stand in thy gates, O Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is built as a city that is at unity in itself.

For thither the tribes go up, even the tribes of the Lord, to testify unto Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord.

For there is the seat of judgment, even the seat of the house of David.

O pray for the peace of Jerusalem, they shall prosper that love thee.

Peace be within thy walls, and plenteousness within thy palaces.

For my brethren and companions’ sake I wish thee prosperity.

Yea, because of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek to do thee good.

Glory be to the Father, &c.

As it was in the beginning, &c.

Then the bishop sitting in a chair, or the priest standing, shall speak to the penitent, who is to be kneeling, as follows:

Dear brother, or sister,

I have good hope that you have well weighed and considered with yourself the great work you are come about, before this time; but inasmuch as with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation, that you may give the more honour to God, and that this present congregation of Christ here assembled may also understand your mind and will in these things, and that this your declaration may the more confirm you in your good resolutions, you shall answer plainly to these questions, which we in the name of God and of his Church shall propose to you touching the same:

Art thou thoroughly persuaded that those books of the Old and the New Testament, which are received as canonical scriptures by this Church, contain sufficiently all doctrine requisite and necessary to eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ?

Answer. I am so persuaded.

Dost thou believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son our Lord, and that he was conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, that he suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried, that he went down into hell, and also did rise again the third day, that he ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, and from thence shall come again, at the end of the world, to judge the quick and the dead?

And dost thou believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the remission of sins, the resurrection of the flesh, and everlasting life after death?

Answer. All this I stedfastly believe.

Art thou truly sorrowful that thou hast not followed the way prescribed in these Scriptures for the directing of the faith and practice of a true disciple of Christ Jesus?

Answer. I am heartily sorry, and I hope for mercy through Jesus Christ.

Dost thou embrace the truth of the gospel in the love of it, and stedfastly resolve to live godly, righteously, and soberly in this present world all the days of thy life?

Answer. I do embrace it, and do so resolve, God being my helper.

Dost thou earnestly desire to be received into the communion of this Church, as into a true and sound part of Christ’s holy Catholic Church?

Answer. This I earnestly desire.

If the penitent come from the Church of Rome, this question is to follow:

Dost thou renounce all the errors and superstitions of the present Romish Church, so far as they are come to thy knowledge?

Answer. I do from my heart renounce them all.

If the penitent from the Church of Rome be in holy orders, let these further questions be asked:

Dost thou in particular renounce the twelve last articles added in the confession, commonly called “the Creed of Pope Pius IV.,” after having read them, and duly considered them?

Answer. I do upon mature deliberation reject them all, as grounded upon no warrant of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the word of God.

Dost thou acknowledge the supremacy of the kings and queens of this realm, as by law established, and declared in the thirty-seventh article of religion?

Answer. I do sincerely acknowledge it.

Wilt thou then give thy faithful diligence always so to minister the doctrine and sacraments, and the discipline of Christ, as the Lord hath commanded, and as this Church and realm hath received the same, according to the commandments of God, so that thou mayest teach the people with all diligence to keep and observe the same?

Answer. I will do so by the help of the Lord.

Wilt thou conform thyself to the liturgy of the Church of England, as by law established?

Answer. I will.

If the penitent come from the separation, these questions are to be asked:

Dost thou allow and approve of the orders of bishops, priests, and deacons [as what have been in the Church of Christ from the time of the apostles]; and wilt thou, as much as in thee lieth, promote all due regard to the same good order and government of the Church of Christ?

[Note. That within the crotchets is to be used only when the penitent hath been a teacher in some separate congregation.]

Answer. I do approve it, and will endeavour that it may be so regarded, as much as in me lieth.

Wilt thou conform thyself to the liturgy of the Church of England, as by law established, and be diligent in attending the prayers and other offices of the Church?

Answer. I will do so by the help of God.

If the penitent be one who has relapsed, the following question is to be asked:

Art thou heartily sorry, that when thou wast in the way of truth, thou didst so little watch over thy own heart, as to suffer thyself to be led away with the shows of vain doctrine? and dost thou stedfastly purpose to be more careful for the future, and to persevere in that holy profession, which thou hast now made?

Answer. I am truly grieved for my former unstedfastness, and am fully determined by God’s grace to walk more circumspectly for the time to come, and to continue in this my profession to my life’s end.

Then the bishop, or priest, standing up, shall say:

Almighty God, who hath given you a sense of your errors, and a will to do all these things, grant also unto you strength and power to perform the same, that he may accomplish his work, which he hath begun in you, through Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Absolution.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who of his great mercy hath promised forgiveness of sins to all them that with hearty repentance and true faith turn unto him, have mercy upon you, pardon and deliver you from all your sins, confirm and strengthen you in all goodness, and bring you to everlasting life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Then the bishop, or priest, taking the penitent by the right hand, shall say unto him:

I N., bishop of ——, or I A. B., do upon this thy solemn profession and earnest request receive thee into the holy communion of the Church of England, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

People: Amen.

Then the bishop, or priest, shall say the Lord’s Prayer, with that which follows, all kneeling.

Let us pray.

Our Father, which art in heaven, &c.

O God of truth and love, we bless and magnify thy holy name for thy great mercy and goodness in bringing this thy servant into the communion of this Church: give him (or her) we beseech thee, stability and perseverance in that faith of which he (or she) hath in the presence of God and of this congregation witnessed a good confession. Suffer him (or her) not to be moved from it by any temptations of Satan, enticements of the world, the scoffs of irreligious men, or the revilings of those who are still in error; but guard him (or her) by thy grace against all these snares, and make him (or her) instrumental in turning others from the errors of their ways, to the saving of their souls from death, and the covering a multitude of sins. And in thy good time, O Lord, bring, we pray thee, into the way of truth all such as have erred and are deceived; and so fetch them home, blessed Lord, to thy flock, that there may be one fold under one Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ; to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be all honour and glory, world without end. Amen.

Then the bishop, or priest, standing up (if there be no communion at that time), shall turn himself to the person newly admitted, and say:

Dear brother, or sister,

Seeing that you have by the goodness of God proceeded thus far, I must put you in mind, that you take care to go on in that good way into which you are entered; and for your establishment and furtherance therein, that, if you have not been confirmed, you endeavour to be so the next opportunity, and receive the holy sacrament of the Lord’s supper. And may God’s Holy Spirit ever be with you. Amen.

The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your heart and mind by Christ Jesus. Amen.—Cardwell’s Synodalia. Wilkins’s Concilia.

ABSOLUTION. (See Confession, Penance.) The power of absolution consists in removing the guilt and punishment of sin, and receiving the guilty person into favour, as if he were perfectly innocent. This is variously expressed in holy Scripture. It is sometimes made the same with justification, which is the acquitting a person from guilt, and looking upon him as perfectly righteous. It is opposed to condemnation, which is a laying of sin to his charge. This power is expressed by remitting or retaining of sin, which is the pardoning or punishing of it. It is called sometimes the power of opening and shutting the kingdom of heaven, which is by admitting into, or excluding out of, the Church; for none can be received into the kingdom of glory hereafter but such as are admitted into the church or kingdom of grace here: called therefore the power of the keys. It is called in St. Matthew the power of binding and loosing, (xvi. 19,) “Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth,” &c. Sinners are said to be “tied and bound with the chain of their sins,” to be “holden with cords,” and to be “in the bond of iniquity.” Now to loosen this bond, to untie those cords, and so be freed from these chains, is done by what we call the power of absolution, or remission of sins: and so the words of St. Matthew are the same in effect with those of St. John, “Whose soever sins ye remit,” &c. This power of pardoning is annexed to some acts of religion, instituted by God for this purpose, and executed only by Christ’s ministers. As, 1. Baptism was ordained for the remission of sins; so St. Peter told his converts, (Acts ii. 38,) “Repent, and be baptized, every one of you,” &c. 2. The holy sacrament of the eucharist was instituted for this purpose: as we read, Matt. xxvi. 28, where Christ’s body is said to be broken, and “his blood shed for many for the remission of sins.” 3. The preaching the word is for the proclaiming of pardon, called therefore the ministry, or word, of reconciliation. (2 Cor. v. 18.) 4. The prayer of the elders over the sick hath joined to it the forgiveness of sins. (Jas. v. 14.) Now these ministerial acts for the “remission of sins,” are peculiar only to the “priest’s office:” neither is the virtue or effect of them to be imparted to any other; for to them it is said, and to no other, “whose sins ye remit,” &c.; and therefore a pardon pronounced by them must be of greater efficacy than by any ordinary person.—Hole.

The authority and power of conferring absolution on penitents, wherewith our gracious Saviour hath so clearly vested his ministerial successors, “whose soever sins ye remit,” &c., having been abused by the Church of Rome into a lucrative market of pardons and indulgences, it is no wonder that Luther, and all our first reformers, should have taken infinite offence at a practice so flagitious, and so directly contrary to the command of Christ, “freely ye have received, freely give.” This, however, should not have been a reason, as it was with too many, for rejecting all absolutions. The true doctrine is, and must be, this: For the consolation of his Church, and particularly of such as class with the penitent publican in the gospel, Christ hath left with his bishops and presbyters a power to pronounce absolution. This absolution is on condition of faith and repentance in the person or persons receiving it. On sufficient appearance of these, and on confession made with these appearances in particular persons, the bishop or presbyter, as the messenger of Christ, is to pronounce it. But he cannot search the heart; God only, who can, confirms it. The power of absolution is remarkably exercised by St. Paul, though absent, and depending on both report and the information of the Holy Spirit, in regard to the Corinthian excommunicated for incest. The apostle, speaking in the character of one to whom the authority of absolution had been committed, saith to the Church of Corinth, “to whom ye forgave anything, I forgive also.” (2 Cor. ii. 10.) Thus the penitent was pardoned and restored to communion by delegated authority, in the person of Christ, lest such an one should be swallowed up with over-much sorrow, and lest Satan should get an advantage over us. As these reasons for compassion still remain, it seems evident that the Church should still retain the same power of showing that compassion, as far as human understanding may direct its application.—Skelton.

Sacerdotal absolution does not necessarily require any particular or auricular confession of private sins; forasmuch as that the grand absolution of baptism was commonly given without any particular confession. And therefore the Romanists vainly found the necessity of auricular confession upon those words of our Saviour, Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them: as if there could be no absolution without particular confession; when it is so plain, that the great absolution of baptism (the power of which is founded by the ancients upon this very place) required no such particular confession. We may hence infer, that the power of any sacerdotal absolution is only ministerial; because the administration of baptism, (which is the most universal absolution,) so far as man is concerned in it, is no more than ministerial. All the office and power of man in it is only to minister the external form, but the internal power and grace of remission of sins is properly God’s; and so it is in all other sorts of absolution.—Bingham.

The bishops and priests of the whole Christian Church have ever used to absolve all that truly repented, and at this day it is retained in our Church as a part of the daily office; which being so useful, so necessary, and founded on holy Scripture, needs not any arguments to defend it, but that the ignorance and prejudice of some make them take offence at it, and principally because it hath been so much abused by the Papal Church. We may declare our abhorrency of these evil uses of absolution; though in that sober, moderate, and useful manner we do perform it, we do not vary from the prime intention of Christ’s commission, and the practice of antiquity: absolution was instituted by Jesus, and if it have been corrupted by men, we will cast away the corruptions, not the ordinance itself.—Comber.

Sin is compared to a bond, (Acts viii. 23; Prov. v. 22,) because it binds down the soul by its guilt and power, and hinders it from free converse with God, yea, makes it liable to eternal condemnation: but Jesus came to unloose these bonds, and actually did so to divers, when he was upon earth, and left this power to his apostles and their successors, when he went to heaven; and this unloosing men from the bond of their sins is that which we properly call absolution, and it is a necessary and most comfortable part of the priest’s office. But the sectaries do wholly disown this power, and are so bold as to deride us for the use thereof: yet it is certain that Christ did give his disciples the power of binding and loosing, (Matt. xvi. 19; xviii. 18,) or, as it is elsewhere called, of remitting sins, (John xx. 22, 23,) frequently repeating this commission, and solemnly promising to ratify in heaven what they did on earth. It is plain also, that the apostles exercised this power, (Acts ii. 38; 2 Cor. ii. 10,) and gave their successors a charge to use it also (Gal. vi. 1; James v. 14, 15); and the primitive histories do abundantly testify they did so very often; so that they must cancel all those lines of Scripture, and records of antiquity also, before they can take away this power. Nor can they fairly pretend it was a personal privilege dying with the apostles, since the Church hath used it ever since, and penitents need a comfortable application of their pardon now, as well as they did then: and whereas they object with the Jews, that “none can forgive sins but God only,” (Luke v. 21,) we reply, that God alone can exercise this power in his own right, but he may and hath communicated it to others, who did it in his name, and by his authority; or, as St. Paul speaks, in the person of Christ (2 Cor. ii. 10); so that St. Ambrose saith, “God himself forgives sins by them to whom he hath granted the power of absolution.”—Comber.

Calvin’s liturgy has no form of absolution in it: but he himself says that it was an omission in him at first, and a defect in his liturgy; which he afterwards would have rectified and amended, but could not. He makes this ingenuous confession in one of his epistles: “There is none of us,” says he, “but must acknowledge it to be very useful, that, after the general confession, some remarkable promise of Scripture should follow, whereby sinners might be raised to the hopes of pardon and reconciliation. And I would have introduced this custom from the beginning, but some fearing that the novelty of it would give offence, I was over-easy in yielding to them; so the thing was omitted.” I must do that justice to Calvin here, by the way, to say, that he was no enemy to private absolution neither, as used in the Church of England. For in one of his answers to Westphalus he thus expresses his mind about it: “I have no intent to deny the usefulness of private absolution: but as I commend it in several places of my writings, provided the use be left to men’s liberty, and free from superstition, so to bind men’s consciences by a law to it, is neither lawful nor expedient.” Here we have Calvin’s judgment, fully and entirely, for the usefulness both of public and private absolution. He owns it to be a defect in his liturgy, that it wants a public absolution.—Bingham.

Calvin’s own account of his facility merits attention. In his character, flexibility of disposition appears to be a lineament either so faint, or so obscured by more prominent features of a different cast, that it has generally escaped vulgar observation. His panegyrist, the learned translator of Mosheim’s Eccles. Hist., [Maclaine,] describes him as surpassing most of the reformers “in obstinacy, asperity, and turbulence.”—Shepherd.

This penitence our Church makes not a new sacrament, (as doth the Church of Rome,) but a means of returning to the grace of God bestowed in baptism. “They which in act or deed sin after baptism, (saith our homily,) when they turn to God unfeignedly, they are likewise washed by this sacrifice from their sins.”—Puller.

If our confession be serious and hearty, this absolution is as effectual as if God did pronounce it from heaven. So says the Confession of Saxony and Bohemia, and so says the Augustan Confession; and, which is more, so says St. Chrysostom in his fifth homily upon Isaiah, “Heaven waits and expects the priest’s sentence here on earth; the Lord follows the servant, and what the servant rightly binds or looses here on earth, that the Lord confirms in heaven.” The same says St. Gregory (Hom. 20) upon the Gospels: “The apostles (and in them all priests) were made God’s vicegerents here on earth, in his name and stead to retain or remit sins.” St. Augustine and Cyprian, and generally all antiquity, say the same; so does our Church in many places, particularly in the form of absolution for the sick; but, above all, holy Scripture is clear, (St. John xx. 23,) “Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them.” Which power of remitting sins was not to end with the apostles, but is a part of the ministry of reconciliation, as necessary now as it was then, and therefore to continue as long as the ministry of reconciliation; that is, to the end of the world. (Eph. iv. 12, 13.) When therefore the priest absolves, God absolves, if we be truly penitent. Now, this remission of sins granted here to the priest, to which God hath promised a confirmation in heaven, is not the act of preaching, or baptizing, or admitting men to the holy communion. But this power of remitting sins, mentioned John xx., was not granted (though promised, Matt. xvi. 19) till now, that is, after the resurrection, as appears by the ceremony of breathing, signifying that then it was given: and secondly, by the word receive, used in that place, (ver. 22,) which he could not properly have used, if they had been endued with this power before. Therefore the power of remitting, which here God authorizes, and promises certain assistance to, is neither preaching nor baptizing, but some other way of remitting, viz. that which the Church calls absolution. And if it be so, then, to doubt of the effect of it, (supposing we be truly penitent, and such as God will pardon,) is to question the truth of God: and he that, under pretence of reverence to God, denies or despises this power, does injury to God, slighting his commission, and is no better than a Novatian, says St. Ambrose.—Sparrow.

Our Church has not appointed the indicative form of absolution to be used in all these senses, but only once in the office of the sick, and that may reasonably be interpreted, (according to the account given out of St. Jerome,) a declaration of the sinner’s pardon, upon the apparent evidences of a sincere repentance, and the best judgment the minister can make of his condition; beyond which none can go, but the searcher of hearts, to whom alone belongs the infallible and irreversible sentence of absolution. The indicative form, “I absolve thee,” may be interpreted to mean no more than a declaration of God’s will to a penitent sinner, that, upon the best judgment the priest can make of his repentance, he esteems him absolved before God, and accordingly pronounces and declares him absolved. As St. Jerome observes, the priests under the old law were said to cleanse a leper, or pollute him; not that they were the authors of his pollution, but that they declared him to be polluted, who before seemed to many to have been clean. As, therefore, the priest makes the leper clean or unclean, so the bishop or presbyter here binds or looses, not properly making the guilty or the guiltless; but according to the tenor of his office, when he hears the distinction of sins, he knows who is to be bound, and who is to be loosed. Upon this also, the master of the sentences (following St. Jerome) observes, that the priests of the gospel have that right and office which the legal priests had of old under the law in curing the lepers. These, therefore, forgive sins, or retain them, whilst they show and declare that they are forgiven or retained by God. For the priests “put the name of the Lord” upon the children of Israel, but it was he himself that blessed them, as it is read in Num. vi. 27.—Bingham.

Our Church maintains, appealing to Scripture for the proof of it, that some power of absolving or remitting sins, derived from the apostles, remains with their successors in the ministry; and accordingly, at the ordination of priests, the words of our Saviour, on which the power is founded, are solemnly repeated to them by the bishop, and the power at the same time conferred. We do not pretend it is in any sort a discretionary power of forgiving sins, for the priest has no discernment of the spirit and hearts of men, as the apostles had, but a power of pronouncing authoritatively, in the name of God, who has committed to the priest the ministry of reconciliation, his pardon and forgiveness to all true penitents and sincere believers. That God alone can forgive sins, that he is the sole author of all blessings, spiritual as well as temporal, is undeniable: but that he can declare his gracious assurance of pardon, and convey his blessings to us, by what means and instruments he thinks fit, is no less certain. In whatever way he vouchsafes to do it, it is our duty humbly and thankfully to receive them; not to dispute his wisdom in the choice of those means and instruments; for, in that case, he that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God.—Waldo.

The following remarks on our forms of absolution occur in “Palmer’s Origines Liturgicæ.”

“An absolution followed the confession formerly in the offices of the English churches, for prime, or the first hour of the day. We may, perhaps, assign to the absolution thus placed, an antiquity equal to that of the confession, though Gemma Animæ and Durandus do not appear expressly to mention it. The sacerdotal benediction of penitents was in the earliest times conveyed in the form of a prayer to God for their absolution; but, in after ages, different forms of benediction were used, both in the East and West. With regard to these varieties of form, it does not appear that they were formerly considered of any importance. A benediction seems to have been regarded as equally valid, whether it was conveyed in the form of a petition or a declaration, whether in the optative or the indicative mood, whether in the active or the passive voice, whether in the first, second, or third person. It is true that a direct prayer to God is a most ancient form of blessing; but the use of a precatory, or an optative form, by no means warrants the inference, that the person who uses it is devoid of any divinely instituted authority to bless and absolve in the congregation of God. Neither does the use of a direct indicative form of blessing or absolution imply anything but the exercise of an authority which God has given, to such an extent, and under such limitations, as Divine revelation has declared.”

In the primitive Church absolution was regarded to consist of five kinds: sacramental, by baptism and the eucharist; declaratory, by word of mouth and doctrine; precatory, by imposition of hands and prayer; judicial, by relaxation of Church censures.—Bingham.

The Absolution in the Order for Morning and Evening Prayer was first inserted in the Second Book of King Edward VI. It can be pronounced by the priest only or alone. At the last review the word Minister in the rubric preceding the absolution, was changed into Priest: this change being obviously adopted from the Scotch Prayer Book in Charles I.’s time, where the word in the same place is Presbyter. The other two absolutions are coeval with our reformed Prayer Book. The ministerial absolution of persons unquiet in conscience, before receiving the holy communion, is mentioned in the first exhortation on giving notice of the communion; and the absolution of excommunicated persons in the 65th Canon.

ABSTINENCE. (See Fasting.) In the Romish Church, fasting and abstinence admit of a distinction, and different days are appointed for each of them. On their days of fasting, they are allowed but one meal in four and twenty hours; but, on days of abstinence, provided they abstain from flesh, and make but a moderate meal, they are indulged in a collation at night. The times by them set apart for the first are, all Lent, except Sundays, the Ember days, the vigils of the more solemn feasts, and all Fridays except those that fall within the twelve days of Christmas, and between Easter and the Ascension. Their days of abstinence are all the Sundays in Lent, St. Mark’s day, if it does not fall in Easter week, the three Rogation days, all Saturdays throughout the year, with the Fridays before excepted, unless either happen to be Christmas day. The reason why they observe St. Mark as a day of abstinence is, as we learn from their own books, in imitation of St. Mark’s disciples, the first Christians of Alexandria, who, under this saint’s conduct, were eminent for their great prayer, abstinence, and sobriety. They further tell us, that St. Gregory the Great, the apostle of England, first set apart this day for abstinence and public prayer, as an acknowledgment of the Divine mercy, in putting a stop to a mortality in his time at Rome.

We do not find that the Church of England makes any difference between days of fasting and days of abstinence. It is true, in the title of the table of Vigils, &c., she mentions fasts and days of abstinence separately; but when she comes to enumerate the particulars, she calls them all days of fasting or abstinence, without distinguishing between the one and the other. Nor does she anywhere point out to us what food is proper for such times or seasons, or seem to place any part of religion in abstaining from any particular kinds of meat. It is true, by a statute, (5 Eliz. 5,) none were allowed to eat flesh on fish-days, (which are there declared to be all Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays in the year,) without a licence first obtained, for which they are to pay a yearly fine, (except such as are sick, who may be licensed either by the bishop or minister,) under penalty of three pounds’ forfeiture, or three months’ imprisonment without bail, and of forty shillings’ forfeiture for any master of a family that suffers or conceals it. But then this is declared to be a mere political law, for the increase of fishermen and mariners, and repairing of port towns and navigation, and not for any superstition to be maintained in the choice of meats. For, by the same act, whosoever, by preaching, teaching, writing, &c., affirms it to be necessary to abstain from flesh for the saving of the soul of man, or for the service of God, otherwise than other politic laws are or be, is to be punished as a spreader of false news. That is, he must suffer imprisonment till he produce the author; and, if he cannot produce him, must be punished at the discretion of the king’s council. The sections of this act which relate to eating fish on Wednesdays, were repealed by 27 Eliz. c. 11.

With us, therefore, neither Church nor State makes any difference in the kinds of meat; but as far as the former determines in the matter, she seems to recommend an entire abstinence from all manner of food till the time of fasting be over; declaring in her homilies, that fasting (by the decree of the six hundred and thirty fathers, assembled at the Council of Chalcedon, which was one of the four first general councils, who grounded their determination upon the sacred Scriptures, and long-continued usage or practice both of the prophets and other godly persons, before the coming of Christ, and also of the apostles and other devout men in the New Testament) is a withholding of meat, drink, and all natural food from the body, for the determined time of fasting.—Wheatly.

ABYSSINIA. The Abyssinian Church was founded early in the fourth century. Its first bishop, Frumentius, received consecration from St. Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, and to this day the Abund of Abyssinia is consecrated by the Alexandrian patriarch. In the sixth century the Christians of Abyssinia fell into the heresy of the Monophysites, in which they still remain; and they also agree with the Greek Church in denying the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son. In the fifth, and again in the seventeenth, century, attempts were made to reduce the Abyssinian Christians to obedience to the Roman see, but the attempt in both instances utterly failed. The number of Christians in Abyssinia is said to amount to three millions.

ACŒMETÆ. (Ἁκοιμηταί, Watchers.) An order of monks instituted at the beginning of the fifth century at Constantinople, who were divided into three classes, who performed the Divine service by rotation, and so continued night and day without intermission.

ACEPHALI. (ἀ and κεφαλὴ, literally, without a head.) The name given to those of the Egyptian Eutychians, who, after Peter Magus, bishop of Alexandria, had signed the Henoticon of Zeno, A. D. 482, formed a separate sect. (See Henoticon.) The word is also applied to those bishops who were exempt from the jurisdiction of a metropolitan or patriarch.

ACOLYTH, or ACOLYTE, (ἀκολουθος,) in our old English called Collet, was an inferior church servant, who, next under the subdeacon, waited on the priests and deacons, and performed the meaner offices of lighting the candles, carrying the bread and wine, &c. He was allowed to wear the cassock and surplice. In the Church of Rome it was accounted one of the minor orders. In the Greek Church it is supposed to be another name for the order of subdeacons, according to Bingham.—Jebb.

ACROSTIC. A form of poetical composition among the Hebrews, composed of twenty-two lines, or stanzas, according to the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet, each line or stanza beginning with each letter in its order. Of the several poems of this character, there are twelve in all, in the Old Testament, viz. Psalms xxv., xxxiv., xxxvii., cxi., cxii., cxix., cxlv. Part of Proverbs xxxi. Lament. i., ii., iii., iv. Psalm cxix. is the most remarkable specimen. It still retains in the Bible translation the name of the several letters of the Hebrew alphabet, to mark its several divisions. This Psalm consists of twenty-two stanzas, (the number of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet,) each division consisting of eight couplets; the first line of each couplet beginning with that letter of the alphabet which marks the division. Psalm xxxvii. consists of twenty-two quatrains; the first line only of each quatrain being acrostical. Lam. i. and ii., of twenty-two triplets, the first line of each only being acrostical. Lam. iii., of twenty-two triplets also, but with every line acrostical. Lam. iv. and Psalms xxv., xxxiv., and cxv., and part of Prov. xxxi., of twenty-two couplets, the first line only of each being acrostical. Psalms cxi. and cxii., of twenty-two lines each, in alphabetical order. The divisions of the Hebrew poetry into lines, not metrical, but rhythmical and parallel in sentiment, is very much elucidated by the alphabetical or acrostical poems.—Jebb.

ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. One of the canonical books of the New Testament. It contains a great part of the lives of St. Peter and St. Paul, beginning at our Lord’s ascension, and continued down to St. Paul’s arrival at Rome, after his appeal to Cæsar; comprehending in all about thirty years. St. Luke has been generally considered the author of this book; and his principal design in writing it was to obviate the false Acts, and false histories, which began to be dispersed up and down the world. The exact time of his writing it is not known; but it must have been written at least two years after St. Paul’s arrival at Rome, because it informs us that St. Paul “dwelt two whole years in his own hired house.” Perhaps he wrote it while he remained with St. Paul, during the time of his imprisonment, Acts xxviii. 30.

St. Luke wrote this work in Greek; and his language is generally purer, and more elegant, than that of the other writers of the New Testament. Epíphanius (Hæres. xxx. chap. 3 and 6) tells us that this book was translated by the Ebionites out of Greek into Hebrew, that is, into Syriac, which was the common language of the Jews in Palestine; but that those heretics corrupted it with a mixture of many falsities and impieties, injurious to the memory of the apostles. St. Jerome assures us, that a certain priest of Asia added to the true, genuine Acts, the voyages of St. Paul and St. Thecla, and the story of baptizing a lion. Tertullian (de Baptismo, chap. xvii.) tells us that St. John the evangelist, having convicted this priest of varying from the truth in this relation, the good man excused himself, saying, he did it purely out of love to St. Paul.

The Marcionites and Manichæans, because they were sensible that this book too plainly condemned their errors, rejected it out of the Canon of Scripture. (Tertull. contra Marcion, lib. 5.)

There were several spurious Acts of The Apostles; particularly, I. The Acts of the Apostles, supposed to be written by Abdias, the pretended bishop of Babylon, who gave out, that he was ordained bishop by the apostles themselves, when they were upon their journey into Persia. II. The Acts of St. Peter: this book came originally from the school of the Ebionites. III. The Acts of St. Paul, which is entirely lost. Eusebius, who had seen it, pronounces it of no authority. IV. The Acts of St. John the Evangelist; a book made use of by the Encratites, Manichæans, and Priscillianists. V. The Acts of St. Andrew; received by the Manichæans, Encratites, and Apotactics. VI. The Acts of St. Thomas the Apostle; received particularly by the Manichæans. VII. The Acts of St. Philip: this book the Gnostics made use of. VIII. The Acts of St. Matthias. Some have imagined that the Jews for a long time had concealed the original Acts of the Life and Death of St. Matthias, written in Hebrew; and that a monk of the abbey of St. Matthias at Treves, having got them out of their hands, procured them to be translated into Latin, and published them. But the critics will not allow them to be genuine and authentic.—Cotelerius. Fabricius Apocr. N. T. Tillemont, Hist. Eccles.

ADAMITES. A sect of Christian heretics who imitated Adam’s nakedness before his fall, believing themselves as innocent since their redemption by the death of Christ, and therefore met together naked upon all occasions, asserting that if Adam had not sinned, there would have been no marriages. They sprang from the Carpocratians and Gnostics, and followed the errors of an infamous person called Prodicus. They gave the name of deity to the four elements, rejected prayer, and said it was not necessary to confess Jesus Christ. This sect was renewed in Flanders by one Tanchelm, (1115–1124,) who being followed by 3000 soldiers, committed all kinds of vice, calling their villanies by a spiritual name. In the 15th century one Picard, so called from the country of his birth, renewed it in Bohemia, from whence the sect spread into Poland: it was said they met in the night, and used these words, (originally ascribed to the Priscillianists in the 4th century,) Swear, forswear, and discover not the secret.

ADMINISTRATOR. An ancient officer of the Church, whose duty was to defend the cause of the widows, orphans, and all others who might be destitute of help.

ADMINISTRATION, in an ecclesiastical sense, is used to express the giving or dispensing the sacrament of our Lord.—In its more general use it signifies the distribution of the personal effects of intestates, which is made by the ordinary according to the enactment of sundry statutes; the principal of which is 22 and 23 Car. II. cap. x.

ADMONITION. The first step of ecclesiastical censure, according to the words of the apostle, “a man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject.” (Tit. iii. 10.) This part of episcopal discipline always precedes excommunication; which, however, must necessarily follow, if the offender continue contumacious, and hardened in his error or crime. Vide Canon 64, &c. The word also occurs in the Ordination Service: “following with a glad mind and will their godly admonition.”—Jebb.

ADMONITIONISTS. Certain Puritans in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, who were so called from being the authors of the “Admonition to the Parliament,” 1571, in which everything in the Church of England was condemned, which was not after the fashion of Geneva. They required every ceremony to be “commanded in the Word,” and set at nought all general rules and canons of the Church.

ADOPTIANS. Heretics in several parts of Spain, who held that our Saviour was God only by adoption. Their notions were condemned at Frankfort in the year 794.

ADOPTION. To adopt is to make him a son who was not so by birth. The Catechism teaches us that it is in holy baptism that “we are made members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven.” God sent forth his Son to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. (Gal. iv. 4, 5.)

ADORATION. This word signifies a particular sort of worship, which the Pagans gave to their deities: but, amongst Christians, it is used for the general respect and worship paid to God. The heathens paid their regard to their gods, by putting their hands to their mouths, and kissing them. This was done in some places standing, and sometimes kneeling; their faces were usually covered in their worship, and sometimes they threw themselves prostrate on the ground. The first Christians in their public prayers were wont to stand; and this they did always on Sundays, and on the fifty days between Easter and Pentecost, in memory of our Lord’s resurrection, as is still common in the Eastern Churches. They were wont to turn their faces towards the east, either because the East is a title given to Christ in the Old Testament, (as by Zachariah, vi. 12, according to the Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate,) or else to show that they expected the coming of Christ at the last day from the east.

ADULT BAPTISM. (See Baptism.)

ADVENT. For the greater solemnity of the three principal holidays, Christmas day, Easter day, and Whit-Sunday, the Church hath appointed certain days to attend them: some to go before, and others to come after them. Before Christmas are appointed four “Advent Sundays,” so called because the design of them is to prepare us for a religious commemoration of the advent or coming of Christ in the flesh. The Roman ritualists would have the celebration of this holy season to be apostolical, and that it was instituted by St. Peter. But the precise time of its institution is not so easily to be determined; though it certainly had its beginning before the year 450, because Maximus Taurinensis, who lived about that time, writ a homily upon it. And it is to be observed, that, for the more strict and religious observation of this season, courses of sermons were formerly preached in several cathedrals on Wednesdays and Fridays, as is now the usual practice in Lent. And we find by the Salisbury Missal, that, before the Reformation, there was a special Epistle and Gospel relating to Christ’s advent, appointed for those days during all that time.—Wheatly.

It should be observed here, that it is the peculiar computation of the Church, to begin her year, and to renew the annual course of her service, at this time of Advent, therein differing from all other accounts of time whatsoever. The reason of which is, because she does not number her days, or measure her seasons, so much by the motion of the sun, as by the course of our Saviour; beginning and counting on her year with him, who, being the true “Sun of righteousness,” began now to rise upon the world, and, as “the Day-star on high,” to enlighten them that sat in spiritual darkness.—Bp. Cosin, Wheatly.

The lessons and services, therefore, for the four first Sundays in her liturgical year, propose to our meditations the two-fold advent of our Lord Jesus Christ; teaching us that it is he who was to come, and did come, to redeem the world; and that it is he also who shall come again, to be our judge. The end proposed by the Church in setting these two appearances of Christ together before us, at this time, is to beget in our minds proper dispositions to celebrate the one and expect the other; that so with joy and thankfulness we may now “go to Bethlehem, and see this great thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known to us,” even the Son of God come to visit us in great humility; and thence, with faith unfeigned and hope immoveable, ascend in heart and mind to meet the same Son of God in the air, coming in glorious majesty to judge the quick and dead.—Bp. Horne.

ADVOCATE, the word used in our Bibles as a translation of the Greek παράκλητος, (see Paraclete,) which signifies one who exhorts, defends, comforts; also one who prays or intercedes for another. It is an appellation given to the Holy Spirit by our Saviour. (John xiv. 16; xv. 26.)

ADVOCATES are mentioned in the 96th, 131st, and 133rd English Canons, as regular members of the Ecclesiastical Courts. The pleaders, or superior practitioners, in all the English and Irish Church Courts are so called. In London they form a corporation, or college, called Doctors’ Commons; because all Advocates must be Doctors of Law, and they formerly lived together in a collegiate manner, with a common table, &c. The candidate Advocates obtain a fiat from the archbishop of Canterbury, and are admitted by the judge to practise. In Ireland they do not form a college: they must be Doctors of Law, but generally practise in the common law or equity courts, besides. They are admitted to practise by the judge of the Prerogative Court. The pleaders in the supreme courts in Scotland, and generally throughout Europe, are called Advocates. The institution of the order is very ancient. About the time of the emperor Alexander Severus (see Butler’s Life of L’Hopital) three ranks of legal practitioners were established: the orators, who were the pleaders; the advocates, who instructed the orators in points of law; and the cognitores, or procuratores, who discharged much the same office as proctors or attorneys now. The first order gradually merged into the second.—Jebb.

ADVOWSON, is the right of patronage to a church, or an ecclesiastical benefice; and he who has the right of advowson is called the patron of the church, from his obligation to defend the rights of the church from oppression and violence. For when lords of manors first built churches upon their own demesnes, and appointed the tithes of those manors to be paid to the officiating ministers, which before were given to the clergy in common, the lord, who thus built a church and endowed it with glebe or land, had of common right a power annexed of nominating such minister as he pleased (provided he were canonically qualified) to officiate in that church, of which he was the founder, endower, maintainer, or, in one word, the patron.

Advowsons are of two sorts, advowsons appendant, and advowsons in gross. When annexed to a manor or land, so as to pass with them, they are appendant; for so long as the church continues annexed to the possession of the manor, as some have done from the foundation of the church to this day, the patronage or presentation belongs to the person in possession of the manor or land. But when the property of the advowson has been once separated from that of the manor by legal conveyance, it is called an advowson in gross, or at large, and exists as a personal right in the person of its owner, independent of his manor or land. Advowsons are also either presentative, collative, donative, or elective. An advowson presentative is where the patron has a right to present the parson to the bishop or ordinary to be instituted and inducted, if he finds him canonically qualified. An advowson collative is where the bishop is both patron and ordinary. An advowson donative is where the king, or any subject by his licence, founds a church or chapel, and ordains that it shall be merely in the gift or disposal of the patron; subject to his visitation only, and not to that of the ordinary; and vested absolutely in the clerk by the patron’s deed of donation, without presentation, institution, or induction.

As to presentations to advowsons: where there are divers patrons, joint-tenants, or tenants in common, and they vary in their presentment, the ordinary is not bound to admit any of their clerks; and if the six months elapse within which time they are to present, he may present by the lapse; but he may not present within the six months; for if he do, they may agree and bring a quare impedit against him, and remove his clerk. Where the patrons are co-parceners, the eldest sister, or her assignee, is entitled to present; and then, at the next avoidance, the next sister shall present, and so by turns one sister after another, till all the sisters, or their heirs, have presented, and then the eldest sister shall begin again, except they agree to present together, or by composition to present in some other manner. But if the eldest presents together with another of her sisters, and the other sisters every one of them in their own name, or together, the ordinary is not bound to receive any of their clerks, but may suffer the church to lapse. But in this case, before the bishop can take advantage of the lapse, he must direct a writ to inquire the right of patronage. Where an advowson is mortgaged, the mortgager alone shall present, when the church becomes vacant: and the mortgagee can derive no advantage from the presentation in reduction of his debt. If a woman has an advowson, or part of an advowson, to her and her heirs, and marries, the husband may not only present jointly with his wife, during the coverture, but also after her death the right of presenting during his life is lodged in him, as tenant by courtesy, if he has children by her. And even though the wife dies without having had issue by her husband, so that he is not tenant by courtesy, and the church remains vacant at her death, yet the husband shall present to the void turn; and if in such case he does not present, his executor may. If a man, seized of an advowson, takes a wife, and dies, the heir shall have two presentations, and the wife the third, even though her husband may have granted away the third turn. Or, if a manor, to which an advowson is appendant, descends to the heir, and he assigns dower to his mother of the third part of the manor, with the appurtenances, she is entitled to the presentation of the third part of the advowson; the right of presentation being a chose in action which is not assignable. If an advowson is sold, when the church is vacant, it is decided that the grantee is not entitled to the benefit of the next presentation. If, during the vacancy of a church, the patron die, his executor, or personal representative, is entitled to that presentation, unless it be a donative benefice, in which case the right of donation descends to the heir. But if the incumbent of a church be also seized in fee of the advowson of the same church, and die, his heir, and not his executors, shall present.

As to the manner in which advowsons descend, it has been determined, that advowsons in gross cannot descend from the brother to the sister of the entire blood, but they shall descend to the brother of the half blood, unless the first had presented to it in his lifetime, and then it shall descend to the sister, she being the next heir of the entire blood.

ÆONS. (Αίῶνες, ages.) The name given by some of the Gnostic heretics to the spiritual beings, whom they supposed to have emanated from the Divinity. (See Valentinus.)

AERIANS. A small sect founded by Aërius, a presbyter of Sebaste, in the lesser Armenia, about A. D. 355. St. Augustine tells us that Aërius, the author of this heresy, was mortified at not attaining the episcopate; and having fallen into the heresy of Arius, and having been led into many strange notions by impatience of the control of the Church, he taught, among other things, that no difference ought to be recognised between a bishop and a presbyter; whereas, until then, even all sectaries had acknowledged the episcopate as a superior order, and had been careful at their outset to obtain episcopal ordination for their ministers. Thus Aërius revenged himself upon the dignity to which he had unsuccessfully aspired; and he has left his history and his character to future ages, as an argument almost as forcible as direct reasoning and evidence, of the apostolical ordinance of the episcopate.

AFFINITY. (From affinis.) Relation by marriage. Relation contracted by the husband to the kindred of the wife, and by the wife to those of the husband. It is opposed to consanguinity, or relation by birth.—Johnson. (See Consanguinity.)

AFFUSION. Although dipping or plunging into the water were the more ancient practice, and more universal in the primitive times, yet sprinkling or pouring water on the head of the baptized person was of great antiquity in the Church likewise. It had its beginning in the cases of sick persons chiefly, who could not come to the public baptistery, nor could the weakness of their constitution admit of their being dipped all over in the water; and, therefore, the sprinkling or pouring of a small quantity of water upon the face or head was judged sufficient. In the fourth and fifth centuries aspersion was more common. After the heathen nations were converted to Christianity, and by that means the baptisms of adults were less frequent, the tenderness of children’s bodies, especially in the colder countries, not enduring to be dipped in water, the use of sprinkling generally succeeded in the Church, instead of that of dipping. And, indeed, during the more early ages of the Church, and when adults were frequently baptized, there were some particular cases when aspersion was used instead of immersion; as in that of some young women noticed by St. Chrysostom. Our Church, with great moderation, does not totally lay aside immersion, if the strength of the child will bear it, as indeed it seldom will without danger in our cold country; in which case she admits aspersion only, rather than occasion any injury or danger to the body of a tender babe; wisely considering, that, in the sight of God, “mercy is better than sacrifice.”—Dr. Nicholls.

Either of these modes of administering baptism is sufficient. For it is not in this spiritual washing, as it is in the bodily, where, if the bath be not large enough to receive the whole body, some parts may be foul, when the rest are cleansed. The soul is cleansed after another manner; a little water can cleanse the believer, as well as a whole river. The old fashion was to dip or sprinkle the person “thrice,” to signify the mystery of the Trinity. The Church so appointed then because of some heretics that denied the Trinity: upon the same ground, afterwards, it was appointed to do it but once, (signifying the unity of substance in the Trinity,) lest we should seem to agree with the heretics that did it thrice. This baptizing is to be at the “font.”—Bp. Sparrow.

It should here be noticed, that our Church doth not direct sprinkling or aspersion, but affusion or “pouring of water” upon the children to be baptized. It is true the quantity of water to be used is nowhere prescribed, nor is it necessary that it should be; but, however the quantity be left to the minister’s discretion, yet it must be understood to determine itself thus far: first, that the action be such as is properly a “washing,” to make the administration correspond with the institution; and this we should observe as ministers of Christ at large: secondly, that the action be such, as is properly a “pouring of water,” which is the rubrical direction to express that washing at all times when “dipping” is not practised; and this we are bound to observe as ministers of the Church of England in particular; taking it always for granted, that there is a reason for whatever is prescribed in a rubric, and such an one as is not to be contradicted by our private practice, or rejected for the sake of any modes or customs brought in we know not how.

And we should the rather keep to this rule of affusion, because we have in a manner lost that more primitive way of baptizing by immersion. Custom having “certified” in general, that it is the opinion and judgment of all, who bring their children to the font, that they are “too weak to endure dipping.” Or, if we would have their sentiments certified more explicitly, there being a rubric to that purpose, we are sure, as Dr. Wall observes, to find a certificate of the children’s weakness in their dress; and to ask for further satisfaction would be a mighty needless inquiry. I mention this observation of his, as the best apology I know of for our present practice of baptizing by affusion, without any formal declaration being made, according to rubric, of the danger of “dipping.” It is not said we shall ask any questions. And, when we are sure beforehand what would be the answer if the question were asked, we seem under no obligation, as we are under no direction, to put it at all.—Archdeacon Sharp. (See Aspersion.)

AGAPÆ. Love feasts, or feasts of charity, among the early Christians, were usually celebrated in connexion with the Lord’s supper, but not as a necessary part of it. The name is derived from the Greek word ἀγαπὴ, which signifies love or charity. In the earliest accounts which have come down to us, we find that the bishop or presbyter presided at these feasts. It does not appear whether the food was dressed in the place appointed for the celebration of the feast, or was previously prepared by individual members of the Church at their own homes; but perhaps either of these plans was adopted indifferently, according to circumstances. Before eating, the guests washed their hands, and a public prayer was offered up. A portion of Scripture was then read, and the president proposed some questions upon it, which were answered by the persons present. After this, any accounts which had been received respecting the affairs of other Churches were recited; for, at that time, such accounts were regularly transmitted from one community to another, by means of which all Christians became acquainted with the history and condition of the whole body, and were thus enabled to sympathize with, and in many cases to assist, each other. Letters from bishops and other eminent members of the Church, together with the Acts of the Martyrs, were also recited on this occasion; and hymns or psalms were sung. At the close of the feast, money was also collected for the benefit of widows and orphans, the poor, prisoners, and persons who had suffered shipwreck. Before the meeting broke up, all the members of the Church embraced each other, in token of mutual brotherly love, and the whole ceremony was concluded with a philanthropic prayer.

As the number of Christians increased, various deviations from the original practice of celebration occurred; which called for the censures of the governors of the Church. In consequence of these irregularities, it was appointed that the president should deliver to each guest his portion separately, and that the larger portions should be distributed among the presbyters, deacons, and other officers of the Church.

While the Church was exposed to persecution, these feasts were not only conducted with regularity and good order, but were made subservient to Christian edification, and to the promotion of brotherly love, and of that kind of concord and union which was specially demanded by the circumstances of the times.

At first these feasts were held in private houses, or in other retired places, where Christians met for religious worship. After the erection of churches, these feasts were held within their walls; until, abuses having occurred which rendered the observance inconsistent with the sanctity of such places, this practice was forbidden. In the middle of the fourth century, the Council of Laodicea enacted “that agapæ should not be celebrated in churches;” a prohibition which was repeated by the Council of Carthage, in the year 391; and was afterwards strictly enjoined during the sixth and seventh centuries. By the efforts of Gregory of Neocæsarea, Chrysostom, and others, a custom was generally established of holding the agapæ only under trees, or some other shelter, in the neighbourhood of the churches; and from that time the clergy and other principal members of the Church were recommended to withdraw from them altogether.

In the early Church it was usual to celebrate agapæ on the festivals of martyrs, agapæ natalitiæ, at their tombs; a practice to which reference is made in the epistle of the church of Smyrna, concerning the martyrdom of Polycarp.

These feasts were sometimes celebrated on a smaller scale at marriages, agapæ connubiales, and funerals, agapæ funerales.

The celebration of the agapæ was frequently made a subject of calumny and misrepresentation by the enemies of the Christian faith, even during the earliest and best ages of the Church. In reply to these groundless attacks, the conduct of the Christians of those times was successfully vindicated by Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Origen, and others. But real disorders having afterwards arisen, and having proceeded to considerable lengths, it became necessary to abolish the practice altogether; and this task was eventually effected, but not without the application of various means, and only after a considerable lapse of time.—Riddle, from Augusti and Siegel.

AGAPETÆ. In St. Cyprian’s time certain ascetics (who wished, perhaps, to add to their religious celibacy the additional merit of a conquest over a special and greater temptation) chose persons of the other sex, devoted like themselves to a life of celibacy, with whom they lived under the sanction of a kind of spiritual nuptials, still maintaining their chastity, as they professed, though living, in all things else, as freely together as married persons. These were called Agapetæ, Subintroductæ, Συνείσακτοι. This practice, however pure in intention, gave rise to the utmost scandal in the Church; and those who had adopted it were condemned severely, both by the individual authority of St. Cyprian, and afterwards by the decrees of councils. See Dodwell’s Dissertationes Cyprianicæ.

AGISTMENT. The feeding of cattle in a common pasture for a stipulated price; and hence tithe of agistment is the tithe due for the profit made by agisting. The Irish parliament, in the last century, most iniquitously declared that man an enemy of his country who should demand tithe of agistment.—Jebb.

AGNOETES or AGNOETÆ. (ἀ and γνῶμι.) A sort of Christian heretics about the year 370, followers of Theophronius the Cappadocian, who joined himself with Eunomius; they called in question the omniscience of God, alleging that he knew not things past in any other way than by memory, nor things to come but by an uncertain prescience.

AGNOETES. Another sort of heretics about the year 535, who followed the errors of Themistius, deacon of Alexandria, who believed that Christ knew not when the day of judgment should happen.

AGNUS DEI. A cake of wax, used in the Romish Church, stamped with the figure of a lamb supporting the banner of the cross. The name literally signifies The Lamb of God. These cakes, being consecrated by the pope with great solemnity, and distributed among the people, are supposed to possess great virtues. They cover them with a piece of stuff, cut in the form of a heart, and carry them very devoutly in their processions. From selling these Agnus Deis to some, and presenting them to others, the Romish clergy and religious officers derive considerable pecuniary advantage. The practice of blessing the Agnus Dei took its rise about the seventh or eighth century. It was common in those times to mark converts with the sign of the cross after baptism; and in order to distinguish the converted from heathens, they were commanded to wear about their necks pieces of white wax stamped with the figure of a lamb. This was done in imitation of the heathenish practice of hanging amulets around the neck, as preservatives against accidents, diseases, or any sort of infection. Though the efficacy of an Agnus Dei has not been declared by Romish councils, the belief in its virtue has been strongly and universally established in the Church of Rome. Pope Urban V. sent to John Palæologus, emperor of the Greeks, an Agnus folded in fine paper, on which were written verses explaining all its properties. These verses declare that the Agnus is formed of balm and wax mixed with chrism, and that being consecrated by mystical words, it possesses the power of removing thunder and dispersing storms, of giving to women with child an easy delivery, of preventing shipwreck, taking away sin, repelling the devil, increasing riches, and of securing against fire.

AISLE. (Ala.) The lateral divisions of a church, or of any part of it, as nave, choir, or transept, are called its aisles. (See Church.) Where there is but one aisle to a transept, it is always at the east. In foreign churches the number of aisles is frequently two on either side of the nave and choir; at Cologne there are three. This arrangement is very ancient, since it is found in the Basilicas of St. John, Lateran, and St. Paul, at Rome. In England this was never perhaps the original plan. All, except one on each side, are clearly additions at Chichester, Manchester, St. Michael’s, Coventry, Spalding, and several other churches.

The last bay to the west, or that westward of the porch in the south aisle, is generally a little earlier in character than the rest. It frequently happens, too, that the north aisle is of an earlier type than the south, where there is no reason to suppose them of different dates. There is no sufficient reason assigned for this. The word has been very commonly, but incorrectly, applied to the open space in the nave of churches between the seats of the congregation.

AISE. A linen napkin to cover the chalice used in Bishop Andrew’s chapel, and in Canterbury cathedral, before the rebellion. See Canterbury’s Doom, 1646, Neale’s Hist. of Puritans.

ALB. An ample linen tunic with sleeves, named from its colour, (albus, white,) worn next over the cassock and amice. It was at first loose and flowing, afterwards bound with a zone, mystically signifying continence, according to some ritualists; but more probably for the greater convenience of ministering at the communion office. It has been in other points considerably altered from its primitive form in the continental churches subject to Rome; in the Greek churches it more nearly resembles the form of the surplice used in the English Church. Cardinal Bona admits that the alb, as well as the surplice, was anciently talaris, that is, reaching to the feet, and it was therefore called podéris in the Greek Church. It was made originally of white linen; and was probably the same as the surplice, from which it now differs only in the form of the sleeves, which are not flowing, but closed at the wrists.

The rubrics of King Edward VI.’s First Book prescribed the alb to be worn at the communion by the principal minister and his assistants, and by the bishop at all times of his public ministrations. These rubrics are referred to in our present Prayer Book, in the notice preceding the Morning Prayer: “And here it is to be noted, that such ornaments of the Church, and of the ministers thereof at all times of their ministrations, shall be retained and be in use as were in this Church of England by the authority of parliament, in the second year of the reign of King Edward VI.” Most of our most eminent ritualists, and constitutional lawyers, have considered the rubric of King Edward VI. as still binding in strictness of law. The 58th Canon apparently, but not really, contradicts these rubrics, as it prescribes a surplice with sleeves, to be used at the communion as well as at other services. But it is to be observed that an alb is, in fact, a surplice with sleeves; and by these very rubrics the terms seem to be almost convertible, as the bishop is enjoined to wear a surplice or alb: and in the rubric after the communion, regulating the Wednesday and Friday services, the priest is to wear a plain alb or surplice. But even if the canon did contradict the rubric, it ought to be remembered that the rubric of 1662 is the final enactment of the Church, and plainly ought to supersede the enactment of 1604. The English alb is enjoined to be plain, that is, not ornamental with lace, or gold, as was the mediæval custom.—Jebb.

ALBATI. A sort of Christian hermits (so called from the white linen which they wore). Anno 1399, in the time of Pope Boniface IX., they came down from the Alps into several provinces of Italy, having for their guide a priest clothed all in white, and a crucifix in his hand: he pretended so much zeal and religion, that he was taken for a saint, and his followers multiplied so fast, that the pope, growing jealous of their leader’s aiming at his chair, sent soldiers, who apprehended and put him to death, upon which his followers dispersed. They professed sorrow and weeping for the sins and calamities of the times, they ate together in the highways, and slept promiscuously like beasts.

ALBIGENSES. Certain religionists who sprung up in the twelfth century. They received their name from a town in Aquitaine, called Albigia or Alby, where their tenets were first condemned in a council held in the year 1176. The Albigenses grew so formidable, that the court of Rome determined upon a league or crusade against them. Pope Innocent III., desirous to put a stop to their progress, stirred up the great men of France to make war upon them. After suffering cruelly from their persecutors, they dwindled by little and little, till the time of the Reformation; when such of them as were left fell in with the Vaudois, and conformed to the doctrine of Zuinglius and the disciples of Geneva. The Albigenses have been frequently confounded with the Waldenses; from whom however it is said that they differed in many respects, both as being prior to them in point of time, as having their origin in a different country, and as being charged with divers heresies, particularly Manicheism, from which the Waldenses were exempt.

ALBIS (Dominica in). See Low Sunday.

ALIENATION, ecclesiastically speaking, is the improper disposal of such lands and goods as have become the property of the Church. These being looked upon as devoted to God and his service, to part with them, or divert them to any other use, may be considered as no less than the sin of sacrilege. Upon some extraordinary occasions, however, as the redemption of captives from slavery, or the relief of the poor in the time of famine, this was permitted; in which cases it was not unusual to sell even the sacred vessels and utensils of the church. Some canons, if the annual income of the church was not sufficient to maintain the clergy, allowed the bishop to sell certain goods of the church for that purpose. By subsequent canons, however, this was prevented, unless the consent of the clergy was obtained, and the sanction of the metropolitan, lest, under the pretence of necessity or charity, any spoil or devastation should be made on the revenues of the church. See Bing. Orig. Eccl. lib. v. ch. vi. s. 6.

ALIENATION IN MORTMAIN, is the conveying or making over lands or tenements to any religious house or other corporate body.

ALLELUIA, or HALLELUJAH. This is a Hebrew word signifying Praise the Lord, or Praise to the Lord. It occurs at the beginning and at the end of many of the Psalms, and was always sung by the Jews on solemn days of rejoicing. An expression very similar in sound seems to have been used in many nations, who can hardly be supposed to have borrowed it from the Jews. Hence it has been supposed to be one of the most ancient words of devotion. St. John retains the word without translation (Rev. xix. 1, 3, 4, 6); and among the early Christians it was so usual to sing Hallelujah, that St. Jerome says little children were acquainted with it.

In evident imitation of the Jewish custom, the Church has from very early times, at least during the season of Easter, preceded the daily Psalms with Alleluia, or Praise ye the Lord. In the Roman and unreformed offices it was disused during certain penitential seasons; while Alleluia was used in other parts of the service also during the Easter season, &c. In the First Book of King Edward VI., Allelujah was sung after “Praise ye the Lord,” from Easter to Trinity Sunday. The response, “The Lord’s name be praised,” was added at the last review. It had been inserted in the Scotch Liturgy in King Charles I.’s time. (See Gloria Patri.)—Jebb.

ALL SAINTS’ DAY. The festival of All Saints is not of very high antiquity. About the year 610, the bishop of Rome ordered that the heathen Pantheon, a temple dedicated to all the gods, should be converted into a Christian church. This was done, and it was appropriately dedicated to the honour of All Martyrs; hence came the origin of All Saints, which was then celebrated on the first of May. In the year 834 it was changed to November 1st, on which day it is still observed. Our Church having, in the course of her year, celebrated the memories of the holy apostles, and the other most eminent saints and martyrs of the first days of the gospel, deems it unnecessary to extend her calendar by any other particular festivals, but closes her course with this general one. It should be the Christian’s delight, on this day, to reflect, as he is moved by the appointed scriptures, on the Christian graces and virtues which have been exhibited by that goodly fellowship of saints who, in all ages, have honoured God in their lives, and glorified him in their deaths; he should pray for grace to follow them “in all virtuous and godly living;” he should meditate on the glorious rest that remains for the people of God, on which they have entered; he should gratefully contemplate that communion of saints which unites him to their holy fellowship, even while he is here militant, if he be a faithful disciple of the Saviour in whom they trusted; he should earnestly seek that grace whereby, after a short further time of trial, he may be united with them in the everlasting services of the Church triumphant. The Church of England seems to have been induced to sum up the commemoration of martyrs, confessors, doctors, and saints in this one day’s service, from the circumstance of the great number of such days in the Church of Rome having led to gross abuses, some of which are enumerated in the preface to the Book of Common Prayer.

This day was popularly called “Allhallows day.” “Hallow E’en” in Scotland, and “Holy Eve” in Ireland, means the eve of all Saints’ Day. This day is celebrated as a high festival, or scarlet day, at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

ALL SOULS. A festival or holiday of the Romish Church, on which special prayers are made for the benefit of the souls of the departed. Its observance has been traced back to the year 998; about which time, we are told, a certain monk, whose curiosity had led him to visit Mount Ætna, which he, in common with others of that age, verily believed to be the mouth of hell, returned to his abbot with the grave story that he had overheard “the devils within complain, that many departed souls were taken out of their hands by the prayers of the Cluniac monks.” (See Clugni.) The compassionate abbot took the hint, and set apart the second day of November, to be annually kept by his monks as a day of prayer for All Souls departed. This local appointment was afterwards changed by the pope into a general one, obligatory on all the Western Churches. The ceremonies observed on this day were in good keeping with the purpose of its institution. In behalf of the dead, persons arrayed in black perambulated the cities and towns, each provided with a loud and dismal-toned bell, which they rang in public places by way of exhortation to the people to remember the souls in purgatory, and give them the aid of their prayers. In France and Italy, at the present day, the annual Jour des Morts is observed, by the population resuming their mourning habits, and visiting the graves of their friends for many years after their decease. At the period of the Reformation, the Church of England abrogated altogether the observance of this day, as based on false doctrine, and as originating in a falsehood.

ALMONER. An officer in monasteries, who had the care of the Almonry. In the cathedral of St. Paul, London, the Almoner had the distribution of the alms, and the care of the burial of the poor. He also educated eight boys in music and in literature, for the service of the Church. The office afterwards was practically that of a Chori-master, or Master of the Boys, and was usually held by a Vicar Choral. See Dugdale’s History of St. Paul’s.

The Lord High Almoner is a Prelate, who has the disposing of the King’s Alms, and of other sums accruing to the Crown. Till King James I.’s accession, when the office of Dean of the Chapel Royal was revived, he had the care of the King’s Chapel; his office being then analogous to that of the Grand Almoner of France. See Heylin’s Life of Laud.

ALMONRY. A room where alms were distributed, generally near to the church, or a part of it. The Almonries in the principal monasteries were often great establishments, with endowments specially appropriated to their sustentation, having a chapel, hall, and chambers for the accommodation of the poor and infirm. The remains of the Almonry at Canterbury, for example, are extensive and interesting.—Jebb.

ALMS. In the primitive Church, the people who were of sufficient substance used to give alms to the poor every Sunday, as they entered the church. And the poor, who were approved and selected by the deacons or other ministers, were exhorted to stand before the church doors to ask for alms, as the lame man, who was healed by Peter and John, at the Beautiful Gate of the temple. The order in our Church is, that these alms should be collected at that part of the communion service which is called the Offertory, while the sentences are in reading which follow the place appointed for the sermon. The intention of the compilers of our service was, that these alms should be collected every Sunday, as is plain from the directions in the rubric; and this, whether there was a communion or not. It is much to be regretted that the decay of charity has caused this good custom to fall into too general disuse; and it is one which all sincere churchmen should endeavour to restore. The alms are, and have immemorially been, collected every Sunday in Ireland.

ALMS-CHEST. Besides the alms collected at the offertory, it may be supposed that devout persons would make contributions to the poor on entering the church, or departing from it, at evening service; and to receive these alms, it is appointed by the 84th Canon, that a chest be provided and placed in the church.

ALOGIANS. Heretics in the second century, who denied the Divine Logos, or Word, and attributed the writings of St. John, in which the Second Person of the Godhead is so styled, to Cerinthus.

ALTAR. Altar was the name by which the holy board was constantly distinguished for the first three hundred years after Christ; during all which time it does not appear that it was above once called “table,” and that was in a letter of Dionysius of Alexandria to Xystus of Rome. And when, in the fourth century, Athanasius called it a “table,” he thought himself obliged to explain the word, and to let the reader know that by table he meant altar, that being then the constant and familiar name. Afterwards, indeed, both names came to be promiscuously used; the one having respect to the oblation of the eucharist, the other to the participation: but it was always placed altar-wise in the most sacred part of the church, and fenced in with rails to secure it from irreverence and disrespect.—Wheatly.

In King Edward’s first service-book the word altar was permitted to stand, as being the name that Christians for many hundred years had been acquainted withal. Therefore, when there was such pulling down of altars and setting up of tables in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, she was fain to make an injunction to restrain such ungodly fury, and appointed decent and comely tables covered to be set up again in the same place where the altars stood, thereby giving an interpretation of this clause in our communion-book. For the word “table” here stands not exclusively, as if it might not be called an altar, but to show the indifferency and liberty of the name; as of old it was called “mensa Domini,” the table of the Lord; the one having reference to the participation, the other to the oblation, of the eucharist.—Bp. Cosin.

It is called an altar, 1. Because, the holy eucharist being considered as a sacrifice, we offer up the commemoration of that sacrifice which was offered upon the cross. 2. We offer, with the action, prayers to God for all good things, and we need not fear to call the whole action by the name of a sacrifice, seeing part of it is an oblation to God of hearty prayers, and it is not unusual for that to be said of the whole, which is exactly true but of one part; and as the word sacrifice may be used without danger, so also the ancient Church did understand it.

And it is called a table, the eucharist being considered as a sacrament; which is nothing else but a distribution and application of the sacrifice to the receivers; and the proper use of a table is to set food upon, and to entertain guests, both which are applicable to this.—Clutterbuck.

But at the beginning of the Reformation an unhappy dispute arose, viz. whether those tables of the altar fashion, which had been used in the Popish times, and on which masses had been celebrated, should still be continued? This point was first started by Bishop Hooper, who in a sermon before the king, in the third year of his reign, declared, “that it were well, if it might please the magistrate to have altars turned into tables; to take away the false persuasion of the people, which they have of sacrifice, to be done upon altars; because as long,” says he, “as altars remain, both the ignorant people and priests will dream of sacrifice.” This occasioned not only a couple of letters from the king and council, one of which was sent to all the bishops, and the other to Ridley, bishop of London, in both which they were required to pull down the altars; but also that, when the liturgy was reviewed in 1551, the above-said rubric was altered, and in the room of it the priest was directed to stand on the north side of the table. But this did not put an end to the controversy. Another dispute arising, viz. whether the table, placed in the room of the altar, ought to stand altar-wise; i. e. in the same place and situation as the altar formerly stood? This was the occasion that in some churches the tables were placed in the middle of the chancels, in others at the east part thereof, next to the wall. Bishop Ridley endeavoured to compromise this matter, and therefore, in St. Paul’s cathedral, suffered the table to stand in the place of the old altar; but beating down the wainscot partition behind, laid all the choir open to the east, leaving the table then to stand in the middle of the chancel. Under this diversity of usage, things went on till the death of King Edward; when, Queen Mary coming to the throne, altars were again restored wherever they had been demolished; but her reign proving short, and Queen Elizabeth succeeding her, the people, (just got free again from the tyranny of Popery,) through a mistaken zeal fell in a tumultuous manner to the pulling down of altars; though, indeed, this happened for the generality only in private churches, they not being meddled with in any of the queen’s palaces, and in but very few of the cathedrals. And as soon as the queen was sensible of what had happened in other places, she put out an injunction to restrain the fury of the people, declaring it to be no matter of great moment, whether there were altars or tables, so that the sacrament was duly and reverently administered; but ordering, that where altars were taken down, holy tables should be decently made, and set in the place where the altars stood, and so to stand, saving when the communion of the sacrament was to be distributed; at which time the same was to be so placed in good sort within the chancel, as thereby the minister might be more conveniently heard of the communicants in his prayer and ministration, and the communicants also more conveniently and in more number communicate with the said minister. And after the communion, done from time to time, the same holy table was to be placed where it stood before. Pursuant hereunto, this part of the present rubric was added to the liturgy, in the first year of her reign, viz. that “the table, at the communion time, having a fair white linen cloth upon it, shall stand in the body of the church, or in the chancel, where morning and evening prayer are appointed to be said:” which was in those times generally in the choir. But then it is plain from the aforesaid injunction, as well as from the eighty-second Canon of the Church, (which is almost verbatim the same,) that there is no obligation arising from this rubric to move the table at the time of the communion, unless the people cannot otherwise conveniently hear and communicate. The injunction declares, that the holy tables are to be set in the same place where the altars stood, which every one knows was at the east end of the chancel. And when both the injunction and canon speak of its being moved at the time of the communion, it supposes that the minister could not otherwise be heard: the interposition of a belfry between the chancel and body of the church hindering the minister in some churches from being heard by the people, if he continued in the church. And with the same view seems this rubric to have been added, and which therefore lays us under no obligation to move the table, unless necessity requires. But whenever the churches are built so as the minister can be heard, and conveniently administer the sacrament at the place where the table usually stands, he is rather obliged to administer in the chancel, (that being the sanctum sanctorum, or most holy place, of the church,) as appears from the rubric before the Commandments, as also from that before the Absolution, by both which rubrics the priest is directed to turn himself to the people. From whence I argue, that if the table be in the middle of the church, and the people consequently round about the minister, the minister cannot turn himself to the people any more at one time than another. Whereas, if the table be close to the east wall, the minister stands on the north side, and looks southward, and consequently, by looking westward, turns himself to the people.—Wheatly.

Great dispute has been raised in the last age about the name of the communion table, whether it was to be called the Holy Table or an Altar. And indeed anything will afford matter of controversy to men in a disputing age. For the ancient writers used both names indifferently; some calling it Altar, others the Lord’s Table, the Holy Table, the Mystical Table, the Tremendous Table, &c., and sometimes both Table and Altar in the same sentence ... Ignatius uses only the name θυσιαστήριον, altar, in his genuine Epistles ... Irenæus and Origen use the same name ... Tertullian frequently applies to it the name of Ara Dei and Altare ... Cyprian uses both names; but most commonly Altar ... It is certain they did not mean by the altar what the Jews and heathens meant; either an altar dressed up with images, or an altar for bloody sacrifices. In the first sense they rejected altars, both name and thing. But for their own mystical, unbloody sacrifice, as they called the eucharist, they always owned they had an altar.... In Chrysostom it is most usually termed, “the mystical and tremendous table,” &c. St. Austin usually gives it the name of Mensa Domini, the Lord’s Table. It were easy to add a thousand other testimonies, where the altar is called the Holy Table, to signify to us their notion of the Christian sacrifice and altar at once, that it was mystical and spiritual, and had no relation either to the bloody sacrifices of the Jews, or the idolatries of the Gentiles, but served only for the service of the eucharist, and the oblations of the people.—Bingham.

In the First Book of King Edward, the terms used for this holy table are the Altar, and God’s Board. In our present Prayer Book, it is styled the Table, the Holy Table, and the Lord’s Table. The phrase communion table occurs in the Canons only, as in the 20th, and the 82nd. The word altar is used in the Coronation Service. It is employed without scruple by Bishop Overall, one of the commissioners for the revision of the Liturgy in King James I.’s reign, and by those who were employed in the last Review in 1662, who of course understood the real spirit of the Church of England. For example, the following are the words of Bishop Sparrow, one of the Reviewers.

“That no man take offence at the word Altar, let him know, that anciently both these names, Altar, or Holy Table, were used for the same thing; though most frequently the fathers and councils use the word Altar. And both are fit names for that holy thing. For the holy eucharist being considered as a sacrifice, in the representation of the breaking of the bread, and pouring forth of the cup, doing that to the holy symbols which was done to Christ’s body and blood, and so showing forth and commemorating the Lord’s death, and offering upon it the same sacrifice that was offered upon the cross, or rather the commemoration of that sacrifice, (St. Chrysost. in Heb. x. 9,) it may fitly be called an Altar; which again is as fitly called an Holy Table, the Eucharist being considered as a Sacrament, which is nothing else but a distribution and application of the sacrifice to the several receivers.”

And Bishop Cosins, who (Nicholl’s add. notes, p. 42) speaks of the king and queen presenting their offering “on their knees at God’s altar:” though he adds afterwards, (p. 50,) on the passage “This our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving,”—“In which regard and divers others besides, the eucharist may by allusion, analogy, and extrinsical denomination, be fitly called a sacrifice, and the Lord’s table an altar, the one relating to the other; though neither of them can be strictly and properly so called.... The sacrament of the eucharist carries the name of a sacrifice; and the table, whereon it is celebrated, an altar of oblation, in a far higher sense than any of their former sacrifices did, which were but the types and figures of those services, which are performed in recognition and memory of Christ’s own sacrifice, once offered upon the altar of his cross.”

Again, Bishop Beveridge, on the necessity, &c., of frequent communion, uses the word; “Upon Sundays and holy days, although there be not such a number, and therefore no communion, yet, however, the priest shall go up to the altar,” &c.

And Bishop Bull (Charge to the Clergy of St. David’s): “Before the priest goes to the altar to read the second service,” &c.

Hence, though not presuming to dispute the wisdom of the Reviewers, or, to speak more reverently, the dispositions of God’s providence, whereby the use of the word altar was withheld from our Prayer Book, there can be no doubt that the employment of the word can be justified, if we understand it as the ancient Church understood it.—Jebb.

According to Bingham, the ancient altars were of wood; and he considers that the fashion of stone altars began in the time of Constantine. Stone altars were enjoined by the Council of Epone, (or Albon,) in France, A. D. 509 or 517; and throughout the whole of the time to which we look for architectural examples, altars were of stone.

The place of the high altar was uniformly, in England at least, at the east of the church; but in large churches room is left for processions to pass behind it, and in cathedral churches of Norman foundation for the bishop’s throne. Where the end of the church was apsidal, the high altar was placed in the chord of the apse. Chantry altars, not being connected with a service in which processions were used, were placed against the wall, and scarcely an aisle or a transept was without one or more. In form the high altar was generally large and plain, relying for decoration wholly on the rich furniture with which it was loaded; very rarely its front was panelled or otherwise ornamented. Chantry altars were, perhaps, in ninety-nine cases in a hundred, mere slabs built into the wall. At Jervaulx, however, at the end of each aisle, is a large plain altar built up of separate stones, much in the form of a high tomb. In situ but few high altars remain, but chantry altars in situ are frequent enough. They are not, however, often found in the aisles and transepts of our churches, but in places where they would more readily escape observation, as, for instance, under the east window (or forming its sill) of a vestry, or of a parvise, or in a gateway to a monastery, or in private chapels and chapels of castles. Altar stones not in situ, but used in pavements and all places, are almost innumerable, sometimes two or three or more occurring in a single small church. They may be recognised by five little crosses, one in the centre, and one at each corner. The multiplication of altars in the same church is still strictly forbidden in the Eastern Church, as it was in ancient times. (Vide Bingham, book viii. c. 6, § 16.)—Poole.

ALTARAGE, a legal term used to denote the profits arising to the priest or parson of the parish on account of the altar, called obventio altaris. Since the Reformation there has been much dispute as to the extent of the vicar’s claim upon tithes as altarage. In the 21st Eliz. it was decided that the words Alteragium cum manso competenti would entitle him to the small tithes; but it has since been holden and now generally understood, that the extent of the altarage depends entirely upon usage and the manner of endowment.

ALTAR CLOTH. By the 82nd Canon it is appointed that the table provided for the celebration of the holy communion shall be covered, in time of divine service, with a carpet of silk, or other decent stuff thought meet by the ordinary of the place, if any question be made of it; and with a fair linen cloth at the time of the ministration, as becometh that table. The sovereigns of England, at their coronation, present, as their first oblation, a pall or altar cloth of gold, &c.

ALTAR PIECE. A picture placed over the altar. It is not uncommon in English churches to place paintings over the altar, although it is a practice of modern introduction, and although there would be a prejudice against placing paintings in other parts of the church. The English Reformers were very strongly opposed to the introduction of paintings into the sanctuary. In Queen Elizabeth’s reign, a proclamation was issued against pictures as well as images in churches; and Dean Nowell fell under her Majesty’s displeasure for procuring for her use a Prayer Book with pictures. The Puritans, who formed the religious world of King Charles’s time, both in the Church and out of it, destroyed pictures wherever they could find them, as relics of Popery. We may add that the feeling against pictures prevailed not only in modern times, but in the first ages of the primitive Church. In the various catalogues of church furniture that we possess, we never read of pictures. There is a particular breviat of the things found by the persecutors in the church of Paul, bishop of Cirta, in Numidia, (A. D. 303,) where we find mention made of cups, flagons, two candlesticks, and vestments; but of images and pictures there is not a syllable. In Spain, at the Council of Eliberis, A. D. 305, there was a positive decree against them. And, at the end of this century, Epiphanius, passing through Anablatha, a village of Palestine, found a veil there, hanging before the doors of the sanctuary in the church, whereon was painted the image of Christ, or some saint, which he immediately tore in pieces, and gave it as a winding-sheet for the poor, himself replacing the hanging by one from Cyprus. The first mention of pictures we find at the close of the fourth century; when Paulinus, bishop of Nola, to keep the country people employed, when they came together to observe the festival of the dedication of the church of St. Felix, ordered the church to be painted with the images of saints, and stories from Scripture history, such as those of Esther and Job, and Tobit and Judith. (Paulinus, Natal. 9. Felicis, p. 615.) The reader will find a learned historical investigation of this subject in note B to the translation of Tertullian’s Apology in the Library of the Fathers, which is thus summed up: 1. In the first three centuries it is positively stated that Christians had no images. 2. Private individuals had pictures, but it was discouraged. (Aug.) 3. The cross, not the crucifix, was used; the first mention of the cross in a church is in the time of Constantine. 4. The first mention of pictures in churches, except to forbid them, is at the end of the fourth century, and these historical pictures from the Old Testament, or of martyrdoms, not of individuals. 5. No account of any picture of our Lord being publicly used occurs in the six first centuries; the first is A. D. 600. 6. Outward reverence to pictures is condemned. We find frequent allusion to pictures in the writings of St. Augustine. We thus see that the use of pictures in churches is to be traced to the fourth century; and we may presume that the practice of the age, when the Church was beginning to breathe after its severe persecutions, when the great creed of the Church Universal was drawn up, and when the canon of Scripture was fixed, is sufficient to sanction the use of pictures in our sanctuaries. That in the middle ages, pictures as well as images were sometimes worshipped, as they are by many Papists in the present day, is not to be denied. It was therefore natural that the Reformers, seeing the abuse of the thing, should be strongly prejudiced against the retention of pictures in our churches. But much of Romish error consists in the abuse of what was originally good or true. We may, in the present age, return to the use of what was originally good; but being warned that what has led to Popish corruptions may lead to them again, we must be very careful to watch against the recurrence of those evil practices to which these customs have been abused or perverted.

ALTAR RAILS, as such, and as distinguished from the chancel screen, were not known in the Western Church before the Reformation. We probably owe them to Archbishop Laud, who, in order to guard against a continuance of the profanations to which the holy table had been subjected, while standing in the nave of the church, or in the middle of the chancel, ordered that it should be placed at the east end of the chancel, and protected from rude approach by rails. As the use of altar rails arose out of, and visibly signified respect for, the great mysteries celebrated at the altar, they were, of course, a mark for the hostility of the Puritans; and accordingly, in the journal of William Dowsing, parliamentary visitor of churches in the great rebellion, we find that they were everywhere destroyed. They have generally, however, been restored; and there are now few churches in England where they are not found. In the East, the altar has been enclosed by a screen or an enclosure resembling our rails, from ancient times. These were at first only the cancelli, or κίγκλιδες, or, as Eusebius styles them, reticulated wood-work. They were afterwards enlarged into the holy doors, which now wholly conceal the altar, and which Goar admits to be an innovation of later times. (pp. 17, 18.) These are not to be confounded with the enclosure of the choir; which, like the chancel screen, was originally very low, a mere barrier, but was enlarged afterwards into the high screens which now shut out the choir from the church.—Jebb.

ALTAR SCREEN. A screen behind the altar, bounding the presbytery eastward, and in our larger churches separating it from the parts left free for processions between the presbytery and the Lady Chapel, when the latter is at the east end. (See Cathedral.) These screens were of comparatively late invention. They completely interfered with the ancient arrangement of the Apsis. (See Apsis.) The most magnificent specimens of altar screens are at Winchester cathedral, and at St. Alban’s abbey. In college chapels, and churches where an apse would be altogether out of place, and where an east window cannot be inserted, as at New College, and Magdalene, Oxford, they are as appropriate as they are beautiful.—Jebb.

AMBO. A kind of raised platform or reading desk, from which, in the primitive Church, the Gospel and Epistle were read to the people, and sometimes used in preaching. Its position appears to have varied at different times; it was most frequently on the north side of the entrance into the chancel. Sometimes there was one on each side, one for the Epistle, the other for the Gospel, as may still be seen in the ancient churches of St. Clement and St. Lawrence, at Rome, &c. The word Ambo has been popularly employed for a reading desk within memory, as in Limerick cathedral, where the desk for the lessons in the centre of the choir was so called. The singers also had their separate ambo, and in many of the foreign European churches it is employed by the precentor and principal singers; being placed in the middle of the choir, like an eagle, but turned towards the altar.—Jebb.

AMBROSIAN OFFICE. A particular office used in the church of Milan. It derives its name from St. Ambrose, who was bishop of Milan in the fourth century, although it is not certain that he took any part in its composition. Originally each church had its particular office; and even when Pope Pius V. took upon him to impose the Roman office on all the Western churches, that of Milan sheltered itself under the name and authority of St. Ambrose, and the Ambrosian Ritual has continued in use.—Brouqhton, Gueranger.

AMEDIEU, or Friends of God. A kind of religious congregation in the Church of Rome, who wore grey clothes and wooden shoes, had no breeches, girding themselves with a cord; they began in 1400, and grew numerous; but Pius V. united their society partly with that of the Cistercians, and partly with the Soccolanti.—Jebb.

AMEN. This, in the phraseology of the Church, is denominated orationis signaculum, or devotæ conscionis responsio, the token for prayer—the response of the worshippers. It intimates that the prayer of the speaker is heard, and approved by him who gives this response. It is also used at the conclusion of a doxology. (Rom. ix. 5.) Justin Martyr is the first of the fathers who speaks of the use of the response. In speaking of the sacrament he says, that, at the close of the benediction and prayer, all the assembly respond, “Amen,” which, in the Hebrew tongue, is the same as, “So let it be.” According to Tertullian, none but the faithful were permitted to join in the response.

In the celebration of the Lord’s supper especially, each communicant was required to give this response in a tone of earnest devotion. Upon the reception, both of the bread and of the wine, each uttered a loud “Amen;” and at the close of the consecration by the priest, all joined in shouting a loud “Amen.” But the practice was discontinued after the sixth century.

At the administration of baptism also, the witnesses and sponsors uttered this response in the same manner. In the Greek Church it was customary to repeat this response as follows: “This servant of the Lord is baptized in the name of the Father, Amen; and of the Son, Amen; and of the Holy Ghost, Amen; both now and for ever, world without end;” to which the people responded, “Amen.” This usage is still observed by the Greek Church in Russia. The repetitions were given thrice, with reference to the three persons of the Trinity.—Coleman’s Christian Antiquities.

It signifies truly or verily. Its import varies slightly with the connexion or position in which it is placed. In the New Testament it is frequently synonymous with “verily,” and is retained in some versions without being translated. At the conclusion of prayer, as the Catechism teaches, it signifies So be it; after the repetition of the Creed it means So it is.

It will be observed, that the word “Amen” is at the end of some prayers, the Creed, &c., printed in the same Roman letter, but of others, and indeed generally, in Italics—“Amen.” This seems not to be done without meaning, though unfortunately the distinction is not correctly observed in all the modern Prayer Books. The intention, according to Wheatly, is this: At the end of all the collects and prayers, which the priest is to repeat or say alone, it is printed in Italic, a different character from the prayers themselves, probably to denote that the minister is to stop at the end of the prayer, and to leave the “Amen” for the people to respond. But at the end of the Lord’s Prayer, Confessions, Creeds, &c., and wheresoever the people are to join aloud with the minister, as if taught and instructed by him what to say, there it is printed in Roman, i. e. in the same character with the Confessions and Creeds themselves, as a hint to the minister that he is still to go on, and by pronouncing the “Amen” himself, to direct the people to do the same, and so to set their seal at last to what they had been before pronouncing.

AMERICA. (See Church in America.)

AMICE. An oblong square of fine linen used as a vestment in the ancient Church by the priest. At first introduced to cover the shoulders and neck, it afterwards received the addition of a hood to cover the head until the priest came before the altar, when the hood was thrown back. We have the remains of this in the hood.

The “grey amice,” a tippet or cape of fur, was retained for a time by the English clergy after the Reformation; but, as there was no express authority for this, it was prohibited by the bishops in the reign of Elizabeth.

The word Amice is sometimes used with greater latitude. Thus Milton, (Par. Reg. iv.,)

——morning fair

Came forth, with pilgrim steps, in amice grey.

By most ritualists, the Amictus, or Amicia, and the Almutium, of the Western Churches were considered the same. But W. Gilbert French, in an interesting and curiously illustrated Essay on “The Tippets of the Canons Ecclesiastical,” considers that there is a distinction between the amice and the almuce. The former he identifies with the definition given above. The latter he considers to be the choir tippet, worn by all members of cathedral churches, of materials varying with the ecclesiastical rank of the wearer. The hood part of the almuce was in the course of time disused, and a square cap substituted; and the remaining parts gave rise to the modern cape, worn in foreign churches, and to the ornament resembling the stole, like the ordinary scarf worn in our churches. The almuce, or “aumusse,” is now an ornament of fur or other materials carried over the arm by the canons of many French and other continental cathedrals. In the Dictionnaire de Droit Canonique (Lymr. 1787) it is defined as an ornament which was first borne on the head, afterwards carried on the arm. Cardinal Bona only mentions the amictus, describing it as in the first paragraph of this article. He identifies it, but certainly without any reason, with the Jewish ephod. There seems nothing improbable in the various terms above mentioned having been originally identical. (See Band, Hood, Scarf, and Tippet.)—Jebb.

AMPHIBALUM. (See Chasible.)

ANABAPTISTS. (See Baptists.) Certain sectaries whose title is compounded of two Greek words, (ἀνα and βαπτιζω,) one of which signifies “anew,” and the other “to baptize;” and whose distinctive tenet it is, that those who have been baptized in their infancy ought to be baptized anew.

John of Leyden, Münzer, Knipperdoling, and other German enthusiasts about the time of the Reformation, were called by this name, and held that Christ was not the son of Mary, nor true God; that we were righteous by our own merits and sufferings, that there was no original sin, and that infants were not to be baptized. They rejected, also, communion with other churches, magistracy, and oaths; maintained a communion of goods, polygamy, and that a man might put away his wife if not of the same religion with himself; that the godly should enjoy monarchy here on earth; that man had a free will in spiritual things; and that any man might preach and administer the sacraments. The Anabaptists of Moravia called themselves apostolical, going barefoot, washing one another’s feet, and having community of goods; they had a common steward, who distributed equally things necessary; they admitted none but such as would get their livelihood by working at some trade; they had a common father for their spirituals, who instructed them in their religion, and prayed with them every morning before they went abroad; they had a general governor of the church, whom none knew but themselves, they being obliged to keep it secret. They would be silent a quarter of an hour before meat, covering their faces with their hands, and meditating, doing the like after meat, their governor observing them in the mean time, to reprove what was amiss; they were generally clad in black, discoursing much of the last judgment, pains of hell, and cruelty of devils, teaching that the way to escape these was to be rebaptized, and to embrace their religion. They caused considerable disturbance in Germany, but were at length subdued. To this sect allusion is made in our 38th Article. By the present Anabaptists in England, the tenets subversive of civil government are no longer professed.

The practice of rebaptizing proselytes was used by some ancient heretics, and other sectaries, as by the Montanists, the Novatians, and the Donatists. In the third century, the Church was much agitated by the question whether baptism received out of the Catholic communion ought to be acknowledged, or whether converts to the Church ought to be rebaptized. Tertullian, St. Cyprian, and the Africans generally, held that baptism without the Church was null, as did also Firmilian, bishop of Cæsarea in Cappadocia, and the Asiatics of his time. On this account, Stephen, bishop of Rome, declined communion with the Churches of Africa and of the East. To meet the difficulty, a method was devised by the Council of Arles, Can. 8, viz. to rebaptize those newly converted, if so be it was found that they had not been baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and so the first Council of Nice, Can. 19, ordered that the Paulianists, or followers of Paul of Samosata, and the Cataphrygians should be rebaptized. The Council of Laodicea, Can. 7, and the second of Arles, Can. 16, decreed the same as to some heretics.

But the notion of the invalidity of infant baptism, which is the foundation of the modern Anabaptism, was not taught until the twelfth century, when Peterall Bruis, a Frenchman, preached it.

ANABATA. A cope, or sacerdotal vestment, to cover the back and shoulders of a priest. This is no longer used in the English Church.

ANALOGY OF FAITH, [translated in our version, proportion of faith,] is the proportion that the doctrines of the gospel bear to each other, or the close connexion between the truths of revealed religion. (Rom. xii. 6.)

ANAPHORA. That part of the liturgy of the Greek Church, which follows the introductory part, beginning at the Sursum corda, or, Lift up your hearts, to the end, including the solemn prayers of consecration, &c. It resembles, but does not exactly correspond to, the Roman Canon. (See Renandot.)—Jebb.

ANATHEMA, imports whatever is set apart, separated, or divided; but is most usually meant to express the cutting off of a person from the communion of the faithful. It was practised in the primitive Church against notorious offenders. Several councils, also, have pronounced anathemas against such as they thought corrupted the purity of the faith. The Church of England in her 18th Article anathematizes those who teach that eternal salvation is to be obtained otherwise than through the name of Christ, and in her Canons excommunicates all who say that the Church of England is not a true and apostolic Church.—Can. 3. All impugners of the public worship of God, established in the Church of England.—Can. 4. All impugners of the rites and ceremonies of the Church.—Can. 6. All impugners of episcopacy.—Can. 7. All authors of schism.—Can. 9. All maintainers of schismatics.—Can. 10. All these persons lie under the anathema of the Church of England.

ANCHORET. A name given to a hermit, from his dwelling alone, apart from society (Ἀναχωρητής). The anchoret is distinguished from the cœnobite, or the monk who dwells in a fraternity, or Κοινόβια. (See Monks.)

ANDREW’S (Saint) DAY. This festival is celebrated by the Church of England, Nov. 30, in commemoration of St. Andrew, who was, first of all, a disciple of St. John the Baptist, but being assured by his master that he was not the Messias, and hearing him say, upon the sight of our Saviour, “Behold the Lamb of God!” he left the Baptist, and being convinced himself of our Saviour’s divine mission, by conversing with him some time at the place of his abode, he went to his brother Simon, afterwards surnamed Peter by our Saviour, and acquainted him with his having found out the Messias; but he did not become our Lord’s constant attendant until a special call or invitation. After the ascension of Christ, when the apostles distributed themselves in various parts of the world, St. Andrew is said to have preached the gospel in Scythia, in Epirus, in Cappadocia, Galatia, Bithynia, and the vicinity of Byzantium, and finally, to have suffered death by crucifixion, at Ægea, by order of the proconsul of the place. The instrument of his death is said to have been in the form of the letter X, being a cross decussate, or saltier, two pieces of timber crossing each other in the middle; and hence usually known by the name of St. Andrew’s cross.

ANGEL. (See Idolatry, Mariolatry, Invocation of Saints.) By an angel is meant a messenger who performs the will of a superior. The scriptural words, both in Hebrew and Greek, mean a messenger. Thus, in the letters addressed by St. John to the seven churches in Asia Minor, the bishops of those churches are addressed as angels; ministers not appointed by the people, but sent by God. But the word is generally applied to those spiritual beings who surround the throne of glory, and who are sent forth to minister to them that be heirs of salvation. It is supposed by some that there is a subordination of angels in heaven, in the several ranks of seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominions, principalities, &c. We recognise in the service of the Church, the three orders of archangels, cherubim, and seraphim. The only archangel, as Bishop Horsley remarks, mentioned in Scripture, is St. Michael. (See Cherub.) The word seraph signifies in the Hebrew to burn. It is possible that these two orders of angels are alluded to in Psal. civ. 4, “He maketh his angels spirits; and his ministers a flaming fire.” The worship of angels is one of the sins of the Romish Church. It was first invented by a sect in the fourth century, who, for the purpose of exercising this unlawful worship, held private meetings separate from those of the Catholic Church, in which it was not permitted. The Council of Laodicea, the decrees of which were received and approved by the whole Church, condemned the sect in the following terms: “Christians ought not to forsake the Church of God, and depart and call on angels, and make meetings, which are forbidden. If any one, therefore, be found, giving himself to this hidden idolatry, let him be anathema, because he hath left the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and hath betaken himself to idolatry.” The same principle applies to prayers made to any created being. The worship of the creature was regarded by the Church in the fourth century as idolatry. See Bishop Beveridge’s Expos. of Acts xxii.: see also Bishop Bull, on the Corruption of the Church of Rome, sect. iii., who, whilst showing that the ancient fathers and councils were express in their denunciation of it, (e. g. the Council of Laodicea, Theodoret, Origen, Justin Martyr, &c.,) says, “It is very evident that the Catholic Christians of Origen’s time made no prayers to angels or saints, but directed all their prayers to God, through the alone mediation of Jesus Christ our Saviour. Indeed, against the invocation of angels and saints we have the concurrent testimonies of all the Catholic Fathers of the first three centuries at least.” Bishop Bull then refers to his own Def. Fid. Nic. ii. to 8, for a refutation of Bellarmine’s unfair citation of Justin Martyr, (Apol. i. 6, p. 47,) where he says, “I have evidently proved that that plan of Justin, so far from giving countenance to the religious worship of angels, makes directly against it.” Also the most ancient Liturgies, &c.

ANGELIC HYMN. A title given to the hymn or doxology beginning with “Glory be to God on high,” &c. It is so called from the former part of it having been sung by the angels on their appearance to the shepherds of Bethlehem, to announce to them the birth of the Redeemer. (See Gloria in Excelsis.)

ANGELICI. A sort of Christian heretics, who were supposed to have their rise in the apostles’ time, but who were most numerous about A.D. 180. They worshipped angels, and from thence had their name.

ANGELITES. A sort of Sabellian heretics, so called from Agelius or Angelius, a place in Alexandria, where they used to meet.

ANGLO-CATHOLIC CHURCH. (See Church of England.) Any branch of the Church reformed on the principles of the English Reformation.

In certain considerations of the first spiritual importance, the Church of England occupies a singularly felicitous position. The great majority of Christians—the Roman, Greek, and Eastern Churches—regard Episcopacy as indispensable to the integrity of Christianity; the Presbyterians and others, who have no bishops, nor, as far as we can judge, any means of obtaining the order, regard episcopacy as unnecessary. Supposing for a moment the question to be dubious, the position of the Presbyterian is, at the best, unsafe; the position of the member of the Church of England is, at the worst, perfectly safe: at the worst, he can only be in the same position at last as the Presbyterian is in at present. On the Anti-episcopalian’s own ground, the Episcopalian is on this point doubly fortified; whilst, on the opposite admission, the Presbyterian is doubly condemned, first, in the subversion of a Divine institution; and, secondly, in the invalidity of the ordinances of grace. Proceeding, therefore, on mere reason, it would be most unwise for a member of the Church of England to become a Presbyterian; he can gain nothing by the change, and may lose everything. The case is exactly the reverse with the Presbyterian.

Again: by all apostolic Churches the apostolic succession is maintained to be a sine quâ non for the valid administration of the eucharist and the authoritative remission of sins. The sects beyond the pale of the apostolic succession very naturally reject its indispensability; but no one is so fanatical as to imagine its possession invalidates the ordinances of the Church possessing it. Now, of all branches of the Catholic Church, the Church of England is most impregnable on this point; she unites in her priesthood the triple successions of the ancient British, the ancient Irish, and the ancient Roman Church. Supposing, therefore, the apostolic Churches to hold the right dogma on the succession, the member of the Church of England has not the slightest occasion to disturb his soul; he is trebly safe. Supposing, on the other hand, the apostolic succession to be a fortunate historical fact, not a divinely perpetuated authority, he is still, at the least, as safe as the dissenter; whereas, if it is, as the Church holds, the only authority on earth which the Saviour has commissioned with his power, what is the spiritual state of the schismatic who usurps, or of the assembly that pretends to bestow, what God alone can grant and has granted to his Church only. No plausible inducement to separate from the Church of England can counterbalance this necessity for remaining in her communion: and her children have great cause to be grateful for being placed by her in a state of such complete security on two such essential articles of administrative Christianity.—Morgan.

ANNATES, or FIRST-FRUITS. These are the profits of one year of every vacant bishopric in England, claimed at first by the pope, upon a pretence of defending the Christians from the infidels; and paid by every bishop at his accession, before he could receive his investiture from Rome. Afterwards the pope prevailed on all those who were spiritual patrons to oblige their clerks to pay these annates; and so by degrees they became payable by the clergy in general. Some of our historians tell us that Pope Clement was the first who claimed annates in England, in the reign of Edward I.; but Selden, in a short account which he has given us of the reign of William Rufus, affirms that they were claimed by the pope before that reign. Chronologers differ also about the time when they became a settled duty. Platina asserts that Boniface IX., who was pope in the first year of Henry IV., Annalarum usum beneficiis ecclesiasticis primum imposuit (viz.) dimidium annui proventus fisco apostolico persolvere. Walsingham affirms it to be above eighty years before that time,(viz.) in the time of Pope John XXII., who was pope about the middle of the reign of Edward II., and that he reservavit cameræ suæ primos fructus beneficiorum. But a learned bishop of Worcester has made this matter more clear. He states that the old and accustomed fees paid here to the feudal lords were called beneficia; and that the popes, assuming to be lords or spiritual heads of the Church, were not contented with an empty though very great title, without some temporal advantage, and therefore Boniface VIII., about the latter end of the reign of Edward I., having assumed an absolute dominion in beneficiary matters, made himself a kind of feudal lord over the benefices of the Church, and as a consequence thereof, claimed a year’s profits of the Church, as a beneficiary fee due to himself, the chief lord. But though the usurped power of the pope was then very great, the king and the people did not comply with this demand; insomuch that, by the statute of Carlisle, which was made in the last year of his reign, and about the beginning of the popedom of Clement V., this was called a new imposition gravis et intolerabilis, et contra leges et consuetudines regni; and by reason of this powerful opposition the matter rested for some time: but the successors of that pope found more favourable opportunities to insist on this demand, which was a year’s profits of each vacant bishopric, at a reasonable valuation, viz. a moiety of the full value; and having obtained what they demanded, they afterwards endeavoured to raise the value, but were opposed in this likewise by the parliament, in the 6th of Henry IV., and a penalty was inflicted on those bishops who paid more for their first-fruits than was accustomed. But, notwithstanding these statutes, such was the plenitude of the pope’s power, and so great was the profit which accrued to him by this invention, that in little more than half a century, the sum of £16,000 was paid to him, under the name of annates, for expediting bulls of bishoprics only. The payment of these was continued till about the 25th year of Henry VIII., and then an act was made, reciting, that since the beginning of that parliament another statute had been made (which act is not printed) for the suppressing the exaction of annates of archbishops and bishops. But the parliament being unwilling to proceed to extremities, remitted the putting that act in execution to the king himself: that if the pope would either put down annates, or so moderate the payment that they might no longer be a burthen to the people, the king, by letters patent, might declare the act should be of no force.

The pope, having notice of this, and taking no care to reform those exactions, that statute was confirmed; and because it only extended to annates paid for archbishoprics and bishoprics, in the next year another statute was made, (26 Henry VIII. cap. 3,) that not only those first-fruits formerly paid by bishops, but those of every other spiritual living, should be paid to the king. Notwithstanding these laws, there were still some apprehensions, that, upon the death of several prelates who were then very old, great sums of money would be conveyed to Rome by their successors; therefore, Anno 33 Henry VIII., it was enacted, that all contributions of annates for bishoprics, or for any bulls to be obtained from the see of Rome, should cease; and if the pope should deny any bulls of consecration by reason of this prohibition, then the bishop presented should be consecrated in England by the archbishop of the province; and if it was in the case of an archbishop, then he should be consecrated by any two bishops to be appointed by the king; and that, instead of annates, a bishop should pay to the pope £5 per cent. of the clear yearly value of his bishopric. But before this time (viz. 31 Henry VIII. cap. 22) there was a court erected by the parliament, for the levying and government of these first-fruits, which court was dissolved by Queen Mary; and in the next year the payment was ordered to cease as to her. But in the first of Elizabeth they were again restored to the crown, and the statute 32 Hen. VIII., which directed the grant and order of them, was recontinued; and that they should be from thenceforth within the government of the exchequer. But vicarages not exceeding £10 per annum, and parsonages not exceeding ten marks, according to the valuation in the first-fruits’ office, were exempted from payment of first-fruits; and the reason is because vicarages, when this valuation was made, had a large revenue, arising from voluntary oblations which ceased upon the dissolution, &c., and therefore they had this favour of exemption allowed them afterwards. By the before-mentioned statute, a new officer was created, called a remembrancer of the first-fruits, whose business it was to take compositions for the same; and to send process to the sheriff against those who did not pay it; and by the act 26 Henry VIII. he who entered into a living without compounding, or paying the first-fruits, was to forfeit double the value.

To prevent which forfeiture, it was usual for the clerk newly presented, to give four bonds to pay the same, within two years next after induction, by four equal payments. But though these bonds were executed, yet if the clergyman died, or was legally deprived before the payments became due, it was a good discharge by virtue of the act 1 Elizabeth before-mentioned. And thus it stood, until Queen Anne, taking into consideration the insufficient maintenance of the poor clergy, sent a message to the House of Commons by one of her principal secretaries, signifying her intention to grant the first-fruits for the better support of the clergy; and that they would find out some means to make her intentions more effectual. Thereupon an act was passed, by which the queen was to incorporate persons, and to settle upon them and their successors the revenue of the first-fruits; but that the statutes before-mentioned should continue in force, for such intents and purposes as should be directed in her grant; and that this new act should not extend to impeach or make void any former grant made of this revenue. And likewise any person, except infants and femme-coverts, without their husbands, might, by bargain and sale enrolled, dispose lands or goods to such corporation, for the maintenance of the clergy officiating in the Established Church, without any settled competent provision; and the corporation might also purchase lands for that purpose, notwithstanding the statute of mortmain. Pursuant to this law, the queen (in the third year of her reign) incorporated several of the nobility, bishops, judges, and gentry, &c., by the name of the Governors of the Bounty of Queen Anne, for the augmentation of the maintenance of the poor clergy, to whom she gave the first-fruits, &c., and appointed the governors to meet at the Prince’s Chamber, in Westminster, or in any other place in London or Westminster, to be appointed by any seven of them; of which number a privy-counsellor, a bishop, a judge, or counsellor at law, must be one; there to consult about the distribution of this bounty. That four courts shall be held by these governors in every year, viz. in the months of December, March, June, and September; and that seven of the said governors (quorum tres, &c.) shall be a court, and that the business shall be despatched by majority of votes: that such courts may appoint committees out of the number of the governors, for the better managing their business; and at their first or any other meeting, deliver to the queen what methods they shall think fit for the government of the corporation; which being approved under the great seal, shall be the rules of the government thereof. That the lord keeper shall issue out writs of inquiry, at their request, directed to three or more persons, to inquire, upon oath, into the value of the maintenance of poor parsons who have not £80 per annum, and the distance of their churches from London; and which of them are in market or corporate towns, or not; and how the churches are supplied; and if the incumbents have more than one living; that care may be taken to increase their maintenance. That after such inquiry made, they do prepare and exhibit to the queen a true state of the yearly value of the maintenance of all such ministers, and of the present yearly value of the first-fruits and arrears thereof, and of such pensions as are now payable out of the same, by virtue of any former grants. That there shall be a secretary, and a treasurer, who shall continue in their office during the pleasure of the corporation; that they shall take an oath before the court for the faithful execution of their office. That the treasurer must give security to account for the money which he receives; and that his receipt shall be a discharge for what he receives; and that he shall be subject to the examination of four or more of the governors. That the governors shall collect and receive the bounties of other persons; and shall admit into their corporation any contributors, (whom they think fit for so pious a work,) and appoint persons under their common seal, to take subscriptions, and collect the money contributed; and that the names of the benefactors shall be registered in a book to be kept for that purpose.

Owing mainly to the exertion of Dean Swift, a similar remission of the first-fruits was made in Ireland during the reign of Queen Anne, and a corporation for the distribution of this fruit was appointed under the designation of the Board of First-fruits, consisting of all the archbishops and bishops of Ireland, the dean of St. Patrick’s, and the chief officers of the Crown. The Board was dissolved by the act of parliament which established the first Ecclesiastical Commission, which now discharges its functions.

ANNIVELAIS, or Annualais. The chantry priests, whose duty it was to say private masses at particular altars, were so called; as at Exeter cathedral, &c. They were also called chaplains.

ANNUNCIADA. A society founded at Rome, in the year 1460, by Cardinal John Turrecremata, for the marrying of poor maids. It now bestows, every Lady-day, sixty Roman crowns, a suit of white serge, and a florin for slippers, to above 400 maids for their portion. The popes have so great a regard for this charitable foundation, that they make a cavalcade, attended with the cardinals, &c., to distribute tickets for these sixty crowns, &c., for those who are to receive them. If any of the maids are desirous to be nuns, they have each of them 120 crowns, and are distinguished by a chaplet of flowers on their head.

ANNUNCIADE, otherwise called the Order of the Ten Virtues, or Delights, of the Virgin Mary; a Popish order of women, founded by Queen Jane, of France, wife to Lewis XII., whose rule and chief business was to honour, with a great many beads and rosaries, the ten principal virtues or delights of the Virgin Mary; the first of which they make to be when the angel Gabriel annunciated to her the mystery of the incarnation, from whence they have their name; the second, when she saw her son Jesus brought into the world; the third, when the wise men came to worship him; the fourth, when she found him disputing with the doctors in the temple, &c. This order was confirmed by the pope in 1501, and by Leo X. again in 1517.

ANNUNCIATION of the BLESSED VIRGIN MARY. This festival is appointed by the Church, in commemoration of that day on which it was announced to Mary, by an angel, that she should be the mother of the Messiah. The Church of England observes this festival on the 25th of March, and in the calendar the day is called the “Annunciation of our Lady,” and hence the 25th of March is called Lady-day. It is observed as a “scarlet day” at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford.

ANOMŒANS. (From ἄνομοιος, unlike.) The name of the extreme Arians in the fourth century, because they held the essence of the Son of God to be unlike unto that of the Father. These heretics were condemned by the semi-Arians, at the Council of Seleucia, A. D. 359, but they revenged themselves of this censure a year after, at a pretended synod in Constantinople.

ANTELUCAN. In times of persecution, the Christians being unable to meet for divine worship in the open day, held their assemblies in the night. The like assemblies were afterwards continued from feelings of piety and devotion, and called Antelucan, or assemblies before daylight.

ANTHEM. A hymn, sung in parts alternately. Such, at least, would appear to be its original sense. The word is derived from the Greek Ἀντιφωνὴ, which signifies, as Isidorus interprets it, “Vox reciproca,” &c., one voice succeeding another; that is, two choruses singing by turns. (See Antiphon.) In the Greek Church it was more particularly applied to one of the Alleluia Psalms sung after those of the day. In the Roman and unreformed Western offices it is ordinarily applied to a short sentence sung before and after one of the Psalms of the day: so called, according to Cardinal Bona, because it gives the tone to the Psalms which are sung antiphonely, or by each side of the choir alternately; and then at the end both choirs join in the anthem. The same term is given to short sentences said or sung at different parts of the service; also occasionally to metrical hymns. The real reason of the application of the term in these instances seems to be this, that these sentences are a sort of response to, or alternation with, the other parts of the office. The preacher’s text was at the beginning of the Reformation sometimes called the Anthem. (Strype, Ann. of the Ref. chap. ix. A. D. 1559.) In this sense it is applied in King Edward’s First Book to the sentences in the Visitation of the Sick, “Remember not,” &c., &c., “O Saviour of the world,” &c., which were obviously never intended to be sung. In the same book it is applied to the hymns peculiar to Easter day, and to the prayer in the Communion Service, “Turn thou us,” &c., both of which are prescribed to be said or sung. In our present Prayer Book it occurs only in reference to the Easter Hymn, and in the rubrics after the third Collects of Morning and Evening Prayer. These rubrics were first inserted at the last Review, though there is no doubt that the anthem had always been customarily performed in the same place. To the anthem so performed Milton alluded in the well-known words, “In service high and anthems clear;” these expressions, as well as the whole phraseology of that unrivalled passage, being technically correct: the service meaning the Church Hymns, set to varied harmonies; the anthem, (of which two were commonly performed in the full Sunday morning service,) the compositions now in question.

The English Anthem, as the term has long been practically understood, sanctioned by the universal use of the Church of England, has no exact equivalent in the service of other Churches. It resembles, but not exactly, the Motets of foreign choirs, and occasionally their Responsories or Antiphons. There are a few metrical anthems, corresponding to the hymns of those choirs. But, generally speaking, the English anthem is set to words from Holy Scripture, or the Liturgy; sung, not to a chant, or an air, like that of a hymn, but to varied consecutive strains, admitting of every diversity of solo, verse, and chorus. The Easter-day Anthem, at the time of the last Review, was not usually sung, as now, to a chant, but to varied harmonies, (as is still the case at Salisbury cathedral,)—and in the sealed book it is to be observed, that it is not printed like the Psalms, in verses, but in paragraphs. Properly speaking, our services, technically so called, (see Service,) are anthems; as are also the hymns in the Communion and Burial Service. The responses to the Commandments, and the sentence “O Lord, arise,” &c., in the Liturgy, give a tolerably correct notion of the Roman Antiphon.

The Church of England anthems consist of three kinds: Full; or those sung throughout by the whole choir. Full with verse; that is, consisting of a chorus for the most part, but with an occasional passage sung by but a few voices. Verse; consisting mainly of solos, duets, trios, &c., the chorus being the appendage, not the substance. Objections have been made of late to verse anthems; but there is no question that they are nearly, if not quite, coeval with the Reformation.

In many choirs, besides the anthem in its proper place after the third Morning Collect, another was sung on Sundays after the sermon. In the Coronation Service several anthems are prescribed to be used.—Jebb.

An anthem in choirs and places where they sing is appointed by the rubric in the daily service in the Prayer Book, after the third Collect, both at Morning and Evening Prayer.