PREFACE TO THE SEVENTH EDITION. (continued 16)

The third Diet of Augsburg was held in 1548, when, the commissioners named to examine some memoirs about a confession of faith, not agreeing together, the emperor named three divines, who drew the design of that famous Interim so well known in Germany and elsewhere.

The fourth Diet of Augsburg was held in 1550, when the emperor complained that the Interim was not observed, and demanded that all should submit to the council, which they were going to renew at Trent; but Duke Maurice, one of Saxony’s deputies, protested that their master did submit to the council on this condition, that the divines of the Confession of Augsburg not only should be heard there, but should vote also like the Roman Catholic bishops, and that the pope should not preside: but, by plurality of votes, submission to the council was resolved on.

The first Diet of Ratisbon was held in 1541, for uniting the Protestants to the Church of Rome. The pope’s legate having altered the twenty-two articles drawn up by the Protestant divines, the emperor proposed to choose some learned divines that might agree peaceably upon the articles, and being desired by the Diet to choose them himself, he named three Papists, viz. Julius Phlugus, John Gropperus, and John Eckius; and three Protestants, viz. Philip Melancthon, Martin Bucer, and John Pistorius. After an examination and dispute of a whole month, those divines could never agree upon more than five or six articles, wherein the Diet still found some difficulties; wherefore the emperor, to end these controversies, ordered by an edict, that the decision of those doctors should be reserved to a general council, or to the national council of all Germany, or to the next Diet eighteen months after; and that, in the mean while, the Protestants should keep the articles agreed on, forbidding them to solicit anybody to change the old religion, (as they called it,) &c. But to gratify the Protestants in some measure, he gave them leave, by patent, to retain their religion, notwithstanding the edict.

The second Diet at Ratisbon was held in 1546: none of the Protestant confederate princes appeared; so that it was easily decreed here, by plurality of votes, that the Council of Trent was to be followed, which yet the Protestant deputies opposed, and this caused a war against them.

The third Diet of Ratisbon was held in 1557: the assembly demanded a conference between some famous doctors of both parties; which conference, held at Worms, between twelve Lutheran and as many Popish divines, was soon dissolved by the Lutherans’ division among themselves.—Broughton.

DIGNITARY. One who holds cathedral or other preferment to which jurisdiction is annexed.

The dignitaries in British cathedrals are, for the most part, the dean, precentor, chancellor, treasurer, and archdeacon. Sometimes the subdean and succentor canonicorum are so called; and in a few churches in Ireland, the provost, and sacrist (or treasurer). The only dignitary in cathedrals 291of the new foundation is the dean; as the archdeacon is not necessarily a member of such chapters. It is a vulgar error to style prebendaries, or canons residentiary, dignitaries. The prebendaries without dignity were styled canonici (or prebendarii) simplices.—Jebb.

DILAPIDATION is the incumbent suffering the chancel, or any other edifices, of his ecclesiastical living, to go to ruin or decay, by neglecting to repair the same; and it likewise extends to his committing, or suffering to be committed, any wilful waste in or upon the glebe, woods, or any other inheritance of the church. By the injunctions of King Edward VI. it is required, “that the proprietors, parsons, vicars, and clerks, having churches, chapels, or mansions, shall yearly bestow on the said mansions or chancels of their churches, being in decay, the fifth part of their benefices, till they be fully repaired; and the same being thus repaired, they shall always keep and maintain them in good estate.”—See Art. XIII. of Queen Elizabeth’s Injunctions.

By the constitutions of Othobon it is ordained, that “all clerks shall take care decently to repair the houses of their benefices and other buildings, as need shall require, whereunto they shall be earnestly admonished by their bishops or archdeacons; and if any of them, after the monition of the bishops or archdeacons, shall neglect to do the same for the space of two months, the bishop shall cause the same effectually to be done, at the cost and charges of such clerk, out of the profits of his church and benefice, by the authority of this present statute, causing so much thereof to be received as shall be sufficient for such reparation: the chancels also of the church they shall cause to be repaired by those who are bound thereunto according as is above expressed; also we do enjoin, by attestation of the Divine judgment, the archbishops and bishops, and other inferior prelates, that they do keep in repair their houses and other edifices, by causing such reparation to be made as they know to be needful.”—See 13 Eliz. c. 10; 17 Geo. III. c. 53; 21 Geo. III. c. 66; Gibson’s Codex, pp. 751–754, and Hodgson’s Instructions to the Clergy.

DIMISSORY LETTERS. In the ancient Christian Church, they were letters granted to the clergy, when they were to remove from their own diocese and settle in another, to testify, that they had the bishop’s leave to depart; whence they were called Dimissoriæ, and sometimes Pacificæ.

In the Church of England, dimissory letters are such as are used when a candidate for holy orders has a title in one diocese, and is to be ordained in another; in which case the proper diocesan sends his letters, directed to the ordaining bishop, giving leave that the bearer may be ordained by him.

Persons inferior to bishops cannot grant these letters, unless the bishop shall, by special commission, grant this power to his vicar-general; or unless the bishop be at a great distance from his diocese, in which case his vicar-general in spirituals may grant such licence as the chapter of a cathedral may do sede vacante; or, lastly, when a bishop is taken prisoner by the enemy, for then the chapter exercises the same rights and powers as if the bishop were naturally dead.

DIOCESE. The circuit of a bishop’s jurisdiction. The ecclesiastical division in England is, primarily, into two provinces, those of Canterbury and York. In Ireland into two, Armagh and Dublin; till lately, however, into four, Cashel and Tuam, besides the two now mentioned. A province is a circuit of an archbishop’s jurisdiction. Each province contains divers dioceses, or sees of suffragan bishops; whereof Canterbury includes twenty, and York five. Armagh and Dublin, five each; though till lately Armagh had seven, Dublin three, Cashel five, and Tuam three. Though, properly speaking, the Irish dioceses are far more numerous, as most of the bishops have more than one see under their jurisdiction; which nevertheless, though thus united as to episcopal government, have their separate chapters, ecclesiastical officers, &c. Every diocese in England is divided into archdeaconries, and each archdeaconry into rural deaneries, and every deanery into parishes. In Ireland, there is but one archdeaconry to each diocese, though in two instances, those of Glendaloch and Aghadoe, these dioceses have been so long united to the adjacent sees, that their boundaries are now unknown, and consequently the diocese of Dublin and Ardfert have apparently, though not really, two archdeacons each. The division into rural deaneries and parishes is as in England.

The division of the Church into dioceses may be viewed as a natural consequence of the institution of the office of bishops. The authority to exercise jurisdiction, when committed to several hands, requires that some boundaries be defined within which each party may employ his powers; otherwise disorder and confusion would ensue, and the Church, instead of being benefited 292by the appointment of governors, might be exposed to the double calamity of an overplus of them in one district, and a total deficiency of them in another. Hence we find, so early as the New Testament history, some plain indications of the rise of the diocesan system, in the cases respectively of James, bishop of Jerusalem; Timothy, bishop of Ephesus; Titus, of Crete, to whom may be added the “angels” or bishops of the seven churches in Asia. These were placed in cities, and had jurisdiction over the churches and inferior clergy in those cities, and probably in the country adjacent. The first dioceses were formed by planting a bishop in a city or considerable village, where he officiated regularly, and took the spiritual charge, not only of the city itself, but of the suburbs, or region lying round about it, within the verge of its [civil] jurisdiction; which seems to be the plain reason of that great and visible difference which we find in the extent of dioceses, some being very large, others very small, according as the civil government of each city happened to have a larger or lesser jurisdiction.

Thus, in our own Church, there were at first only seven bishoprics, and these were commensurate with the Saxon kingdoms. Since that time our Church has thought fit to lessen the size of her dioceses, and to multiply them into above twenty; and if she thought fit to add forty or a hundred more, she would not be without precedent in the primitive Church. It is a great misfortune to the Church of England that her dioceses, compared with the population, are so extensive and so few. It is impossible for our bishops to perform all their canonical duties, such as visiting annually every parish in the diocese, inspecting schools, Divine service, instruction, &c., besides baptizing, confirming, consecrating. Episcopal extension, as well as Church extension, is most important. We must seek to add to the number of our bishops. There will be prejudices and difficulties for some time to be overcome on the part of the State, which is not sufficiently religious to tolerate an increase in the number of spiritual peers. An addition to the number of our spiritual peers is however not what we seek, but that our spiritual pastors may be more numerous.

The ancient bishoprics being baronies, the possessors of them might sit in parliament; while the new bishoprics, not having baronies attached, might only qualify for a seat in the upper house of convocation. The beginning of a new system was made on the erection of the see of Manchester, in 1847, since which time the junior bishop has no seat in the House of Lords.

DIOCESAN. A bishop, as he stands related to his diocese. (See Bishop.)

DIPPERS. (See Dunkers.)

DIPTYCH. A kind of sacred book, or register, made use of in the ancient Christian Church, and in which were written the names of such eminent bishops, saints, and martyrs, as were particularly to be commemorated, just before oblation was made for the dead. It was called diptych (δίπτυχος) from its being folded together; and it was the deacon’s office to recite the names written in it, as occasion required. Some distinguish three sorts of diptychs: one, wherein the names of bishops only were written, such especially as had been governors of that particular church; a second, in which the names of the living were written, such in particular as were eminent for any office or dignity, or some benefaction and good work, in which rank were bishops, emperors, and magistrates; lastly, a third, containing the names of such as were deceased in catholic communion.

Theodoret mentions these kind of registers in relation to the case of St. Chrysostom, whose name, for some time, was left out of the diptychs, because he died under the sentence of excommunication, pronounced against him by Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, and other Eastern bishops, with whom the Western Church would not communicate until they had replaced his name in the diptychs; for, to erase a person’s name out of these books was the same thing as declaring him to have been an heretic, or some way deviating from the faith.—Bingham.

DIRECTORY. A kind of regulation for the performance of religious worship, drawn up by the Assembly of Divines in England, at the instance of the parliament, in the year 1644. It was designed to supply the place of the Liturgy, or Book of Common Prayer, the use of which the parliament had abolished. It consisted only of some general heads, which were to be managed and filled up at discretion; for it prescribed no form of prayer or circumstances of external worship, nor obliged the people to any responses, excepting Amen. The use of the Directory was enforced by an ordinance of the Lords and Commons at Westminster, which was repeated August 3rd, 1645. By this injunction, the Directory was ordered to be dispersed and published in all parishes, chapelries, donatives, &c. In opposition to this injunction, King Charles issued a proclamation at Oxford, 293November 13th, 1645, enjoining the use of the Common Prayer according to law, notwithstanding the pretended ordinances for the new Directory.

To give a short abstract of the Directory: It forbids all salutations and civil ceremony in the churches. The reading the Scripture in the congregation is declared to be part of the pastoral office. All the canonical books of the Old and New Testament (but none of the Apocrypha) are to be publicly read in the vulgar tongue. How large a portion is to be read at once is left to the minister, who has likewise the liberty of expounding, when he judges it necessary. It prescribes heads for the prayer before sermon; among which part of the prayer for the king is, to save him from evil counsel. It delivers rules for managing the sermon; the introduction to the text must be short and clear, drawn from the words or context, or some parallel place of Scripture; in dividing the text, the minister is to regard the order of the matter more than that of the words; he is not to burden the memory of his audience with too many divisions, nor perplex their understandings with logical phrases and terms of art; he is not to start unnecessary objections; and he is to be very sparing in citations from ecclesiastical, or other human writers, ancient or modern.

The Directory recommends the use of the Lord’s Prayer, as the most perfect model of devotion. It forbids private or lay persons to administer baptism, and enjoins it to be performed in the face of the congregation. It orders the communion table at the Lord’s supper to be so placed that the communicants may sit about it. The dead, according to the rules of the Directory, are to be buried without any prayers or religious ceremony.

The Roman Catholics publish an annual Directory for their laity, which serves the purpose of a book of reference in matters of ceremonial as settled by their communion.—Broughton.

DISCIPLE, in the first sense of the word, means one who learns any thing from another. Hence the followers of any teacher, philosopher, or head of a sect, are usually called his disciples. In the Christian sense of the term, disciples are the followers of Jesus Christ in general; but, in a more restrained sense, it denotes those who were the immediate followers and attendants on his person. The names disciple and apostle are often used synonymously in the gospel history; but sometimes the apostles are distinguished from disciples, as persons selected out of the number of disciples, to be the principal ministers of his religion. Of these there were twelve; whereas those who are simply styled disciples were seventy, or seventy-two, in number. There was not as yet any catalogue of the disciples in Eusebius’s time, i. e. in the fourth century. The Latins kept the festival of the seventy or seventy-two disciples on the 15th of July, and the Greeks on 4th of January.

DISCIPLINE, ECCLESIASTICAL. The Christian Church being a spiritual community or society of persons professing the religion of Jesus, and, as such, governed by spiritual or ecclesiastical laws, her discipline consists in putting those laws in execution, and inflicting the penalties enjoined by them against several sorts of offenders. To understand the true nature of church discipline, we must consider how it stood in the ancient Christian Church. And, first,

The primitive Church never pretended to exercise discipline upon any but such as were within her pale, in the largest sense, by some act of their own profession; and even upon these she never pretended to exercise her discipline so far as to cancel or disannul their baptism. But the discipline of the Church consisted in a power to deprive men of the benefits of external communion, such as public prayer, receiving the eucharist, and other acts of Divine worship. This power, before the establishment of the Church by human laws, was a mere spiritual authority, or, as St. Cyprian terms it, a spiritual sword, affecting the soul, and not the body. Sometimes, indeed, the Church craved assistance from the secular power, even when it was heathen, but more frequently after it was become Christian. But it is to be observed, that the Church never encouraged the magistrate to proceed against any one for mere error, or ecclesiastical misdemeanour, further than to punish the delinquent by a pecuniary mulct, or bodily punishment, such as confiscation or banishment; and St. Austin affirms, that no good men in the Catholic Church were pleased that heretics should be prosecuted unto death. Lesser punishments, they thought, might have their use, as means sometimes to bring them to consideration and repentance.

Nor was it a part of the ancient discipline to deprive men of their natural or civil rites. A master did not lose his authority over his family, a parent over his children, nor a magistrate his office and charge in the state, by being cast out of the Church. But the discipline of the 294Church being a mere spiritual power, was confined to, 1. The admonition of the offender; 2. The lesser and greater excommunication.

As to the objects of ecclesiastical discipline, they were all such delinquents as fell into great and scandalous crimes after baptism, whether men or women, priests or people, rich or poor, princes or subjects. That princes and magistrates fell under the Church’s censures, may be proved by several instances; particularly St. Chrysostom relates, that Babylas denied communion to one of the Roman emperors on account of a barbarous murder committed by him: St. Ambrose likewise denied communion to Maximus for shedding the blood of Gratian; and the same holy bishop absolutely refused to admit the emperor Theodosius the Great into his church, notwithstanding his humblest entreaties, because he had inhumanly put to death 7000 men at Thessalonica, without distinguishing the innocent from the guilty.

DISPENSATION. The providential dealing of God with his creatures. We thus speak of the Jewish dispensation and the Christian dispensation. (See Covenant of Redemption.)

In ecclesiastical law, by dispensation is meant the power vested in archbishops of dispensing, on particular emergencies, with certain minor regulations of the Church, more especially in her character as an establishment.

DISSENTERS. Separatists from the Church of England, and the service and worship thereof, whether Protestants or Papists. At the Revolution a law was enacted, that the statutes of Elizabeth and James I., concerning the discipline of the Church, should not extend to Protestant Dissenters. But persons dissenting were to subscribe the declaration of 30 Car. II. c. 1, and take the oath or declaration of fidelity, &c. They are not to hold their meetings until their place of worship is certified to the bishop, or to the justices of the quarter sessions, and registered; also they are not to keep the doors of their meeting-houses locked during the time of worship. Whoever disturbs or molests them in the performance of their worship, on conviction at the sessions, is to forfeit £20 by the statute of 1 W. & M.—Broughton.

At the present time there are in England 34 dissenting communities or sects; 26 native or indigenous, 9 foreign.

PROTESTANT SECTS.

Scottish Presbyterians:

Church of Scotland.

United Presbyterian Synod.

Presbyterian Church in England.

Independents, or Congregationalists.

Baptists:

General.

Particular.

Seventh Day.

Scotch.

New Connexion General.

Society of Friends.

Unitarians.

Moravians, or United Brethren.

Wesleyan Methodists:

Original Connexion.

New Connexion.

Primitive Methodists.

Bible Christians.

Wesleyan Association.

Independent Methodists.

Wesleyan Reformers.

Calvinistic Methodists:

Welsh Calvinistic Methodists.

Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion.

Sandemanians, or Glassites.

New Church.

Brethren.

FOREIGN:

Lutherans.

German Protestant Reformers.

Reformed Church of the Netherlands.

French Protestants.

OTHER CHRISTIAN SECTS.

Roman Catholics.

Greek Church.

German Catholics.

Italian Reformers.

Irvingites, or Catholic and Apostolic Church.

Latter-day Saints, or Mormons.

JEWS.

Registrar-general’s Report.

DIVINE. Something relating to God; a minister of the gospel; a priest; a theologian. (See Clergy.)

DIVINITY. The science of Divine things; theology; a title of the Godhead. (See Theology.) In strictness, meaning that department of sacred knowledge which has more peculiar reference to the attributes and essence of God.

DIVORCE. A separation of a married man and woman by the sentence of an ecclesiastical judge qualified to pronounce the same.

Among us, divorces are of two kinds, à mensâ et thoro, from bed and board; and à vinculo matrimonii, from the marriage tie. The former neither dissolves the marriage, nor debars the woman of her dower, nor bastardizes the issue; but the latter absolutely 295dissolves the marriage contract, making it void from the very beginning. The causes of a divorce à mensâ et thoro are adultery, cruelty of the husband, &c.; those of a divorce à vinculo matrimonii, precontract, consanguinity, impotency, &c. On this divorce the dower is gone, and the children, if any begotten, bastardized. On a divorce for adultery, some acts of parliament have allowed the innocent person to marry again.

DOCETÆ. Heretics, so called ἀπὸ τοῦ δοκέειν (apparere), because they taught that our Lord had only a seeming body, and that his actions and sufferings were not in reality, but in appearance. There was in the second century a sect which especially bore this name; but the Docetic error was common to many kinds of Gnostics. (See Gnostics.)

DOCTOR. One who has the highest degree in the faculties of divinity, law, physic, or music. (See Degree.)

DOCTRINE. A system of teaching. By Christian doctrine should be intended the principles or positions of the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

DOGMA. A word used originally to express any doctrine of religion formally stated. Dogmatic theology is the statement of positive truths in religion. The indifference of later generations to positive truth is indicated, among other things, by the different notion which has come to be attached, in common discourse, to these words. By a dogma is now generally meant too positive or harsh a statement of uncertain or unimportant articles; and the epithet dogmatic is given to one who is rude or obtrusive, or overbearing in the statement of what he judges to be true.

DOMINICAL or SUNDAY LETTER. In the calendar, the first seven letters of the alphabet are applied to the days of the week, the letter A being always given to the 1st of January, whatsoever that day may be, and the others in succession to the following days. If the year consisted of 364 days, making an exact number of weeks, it is evident that no change would ever take place in these letters: thus, supposing the 1st of January in any given year to be Sunday, all the Sundays would be represented by A, not only in that year, but in all succeeding. There being, however, 365 days in the year, the first letter is again repeated on the 31st of December, and consequently the Sunday letter for the following year will be G. This retrocession of the letters will, from the same cause, continue every year, so as to make F the dominical letter of the third, &c. If every year were common, the process would continue regularly, and a cycle of seven years would suffice to restore the same letters to the same days as before. But the intercalation of a day, every bissextile or fourth year, has occasioned a variation in this respect. The bissextile year, containing 366 instead of 365 days, will throw the dominical letter of the following year back two letters, so that if the dominical letter at the beginning of the year be C, the dominical letter of the next year will be, not B, but A. This alteration is not effected by dropping a letter altogether, but by changing the dominical letter at the end of February, where the intercalation of a day takes place. In consequence of this change every fourth year, twenty-eight years must elapse before a complete revolution can take place in the dominical letter, and it is on this circumstance that the period of the solar cycle is founded.

DOMINICAN MONKS. The religious order of Dominic, or friars preachers; called in England Black friars, and in France Jacobins.

Dominic de Guzman was born in the year 1170, at Calaruega, a small town of the diocese of Osma, in Old Castile. According to the Romish legend, his mother, being with child of him, dreamed she was delivered of a little dog, which gave light to all the world, with a flambeau in his mouth. At six years of age he began to study humanity under the direction of his uncle, who was archpriest of the church of Gumyel de Ystan. The time he had to spare from his studies was spent in assisting at divine offices, singing in the churches, and adorning the altars. At thirteen years of age, he was sent to the university of Palencia, in the kingdom of Leon, where he spent six years in the study of philosophy and divinity. From that time he devoted himself to all manner of religious austerities, and he employed his time, successfully, in the conversion of sinners and heretics. This raised his reputation so high, that the bishop of Osma, resolving to reform the canons of his church, cast his eyes upon Dominic for that purpose, whom he invited to take upon him the habit of a canon in the church of Osma. Accordingly, Dominic astonished and edified the canons of Osma by his extraordinary humility, mortification, and other virtues. Some time after, Dominic was ordained priest by the bishop of Osma, and was made sub-prior of the chapter. That prelate, making a scruple of confining so great a treasure to his own church, sent Dominic 296out to exercise the ministry of an evangelical preacher; accordingly, he went through several provinces, as Galicia, Castile, and Aragon, converting many, till, in the year 1204, the bishop of Osma, being sent ambassador into France, took Dominic with him. In their passage through Languedoc, they were witnesses of the desolation occasioned by the Albigenses, and obtained leave of Pope Innocent III. to stay some time in that country, and labour on the conversion of those heretics. Here it was that Dominic resolved to put in execution the design he had long formed, of instituting a religious order, whose principal employment should be, preaching the gospel, converting heretics, defending the faith, and propagating Christianity. By degrees he collected together several persons, inspired with the same zeal, whose number soon increased to sixteen. Pope Innocent III. confirmed this institution, at the request of Dominic, who went to Rome for that purpose. They then agreed to embrace the rule of St. Augustine, to which they added statutes and constitutions which had formerly been observed either by the Carthusians, or the Premonstratenses. The principal articles enjoined perpetual silence, abstinence from flesh at all times, wearing of woollen, rigorous poverty, and several other austerities.

The first monastery of this order was established at Toulouse, by the bounty of the bishop of Toulouse, and Simon earl of Montfort. From thence Dominic sent out some of the community to several parts, to labour in preaching, which was the main design of his institute. In the year 1218 he founded the convent of Dominicans at Paris, in the Rue St. Jaques, from whence they had the name of Jacobins. At Metz, in Germany, he founded another monastery of his order; and another, soon after, at Venice. At Rome, he obtained of Pope Honorius III. the church of St. Sabina, where he and his companions took the habit which they pretended the Blessed Virgin showed to the holy Renaud of Orleans, being a white garment and scapular, to which they added a black mantle and hood ending in a point. In 1221, the order had sixty monasteries, being divided into eight provinces, those of Spain, Toulouse, France, Lombardy, Rome, Provence, Germany, and England. St. Dominic, having thus settled and enlarged his order, died at Bologna, August 4th, 1221, and was canonized by Pope Gregory IX., July 13th, 1234.

The order of the Dominicans, after the death of their founder, made a very considerable progress in Europe and elsewhere. They therefore erected four new provinces, namely, those of Greece, Poland, Denmark, and the Holy Land. Afterwards the number of monasteries increased to such a degree, that the order was divided into forty-five provinces, having spread itself into all parts of the world. It has produced a great number of martyrs, confessors, bishops, and holy virgins: there are reckoned of this order 3 popes, 60 cardinals, 150 archbishops, 800 bishops, besides the masters of the sacred palace, who have always been Dominicans.

There are nuns of this order, who owe their foundation to St. Dominic himself, who, whilst he was labouring on the conversion of the Albigenses, was so much concerned to see that some gentlemen of Guienne, not having wherewith to maintain their daughters, either sold or gave them to be brought up by heretics, that, with the assistance of the archbishop of Narbonne, and other charitable persons, he laid the foundation of a monastery at Prouille, where those poor maids might be brought up, and supplied with all necessaries for their subsistence. The habit of these religious was a white robe, a tawny mantle, and a black veil. Their founder obliged them to work at certain hours of the day, and particularly to spin yarn and flax. The nuns of this order had above 130 houses in Italy, 45 in France, 50 in Spain, 15 in Portugal, 40 in Germany, and many in Poland, Russia, and other countries. They never eat flesh, excepting in sickness; they wear no linen, and lie on straw beds; but many monasteries have mitigated this austerity.

In the year 1221, Dominic sent Gilbert du Fresney, with twelve brothers, into England, where they founded their first house at Oxford the same year, and soon after another at London. In the year 1276, the mayor and aldermen of the city of London gave them two streets by the river Thames, where they had a very commodious monastery; whence that place is still called Black Friars. They had monasteries likewise at Warwick, Canterbury, Stamford, Chelmsford, Dunwich, Ipswich, Norwich, Thetford, Exeter, Brecknock, Langley, and Guildford.

The Dominicans, being fortified with an authority from the court of Rome to preach and take confessions, made great encroachments upon the English bishops and the parochial clergy, insisting upon a liberty of preaching wherever they thought fit. And many persons of quality, especially women, deserted from the parochial clergy, 297and confessed to the Dominicans, insomuch that the character of the secular clergy was greatly sunk thereby. This innovation made way for a dissoluteness of manners; for the people, being under no necessity of confessing to their parish priest, broke through their duty with less reluctancy, in hopes of meeting with a Dominican confessor, those friars being generally in a travelling motion, making no stay where they came, and strangers to their penitents.—Brouqhton.

DONATISTS. Schismatics, originally partisans of Donatus, an African by birth, and bishop of Casæ Nigræ, in Numidia. A secret hatred against Cecilian, elected bishop of Carthage, notwithstanding the opposition of Donatus, excited the latter to form one of the most pernicious schisms that ever disturbed the peace of the Church. He accused Cecilian of having delivered up the sacred books to the Pagans, and pretended that his election was thereby void, and all those who adhered to him heretics. Under this false pretext of zeal for the Church, he set up for the head of a party, and about the year 312, taught that baptism, administered by heretics, was null; that the Church was not infallible; that it had erred in his time; and that he was to be the restorer of it. But a council, held at Arles in 314, acquitted Cecilian, and declared his election valid.

The schismatics, irritated at this sentence, refused to acquiesce in the decisions of the council; and the more firmly to support their cause, they thought it better to subscribe to the opinions of Donatus, and openly to declaim against the Catholics: they gave out, that the Church was become prostituted; they rebaptized the Catholics; they trod under foot the eucharist consecrated by priests of the Catholic communion; they overthrew their altars, burned their churches, and ran up and down decrying the Church. (See Circumcellians.) They had chosen into the place of Cecilian one Majorinus; but he dying soon after, they brought in one Donatus, different from him of Casæ Nigræ.

This new head of the cabal used so much violence against the Catholics, that the schismatics took their name from him. But as they could not prove that they composed a true Church, they sent one of their bishops to Rome, who secretly took upon him the title of bishop of Rome. This bishop being dead, the Donatists appointed him a successor. They attempted likewise to send some bishops into Spain, that they might say, their Church began to spread itself everywhere; but it was only in Africa that it could gain any considerable footing, and this want of diffusion was much insisted on by their opponents as an argument against their pretensions.

After many vain efforts to crush this schism, the emperor Honorius assembled a council of bishops at Carthage, in the year 410; where a disputation was held between seven of each party. Marcellinus, the emperor’s deputy, who presided in that assembly, decided in favour of the Catholics, and ordered them to take possession of all the churches, which the Donatist bishops had seized on by violence, or otherwise. This decree exasperated the Donatists; but the Catholic bishops used so much wisdom and prudence, that they insensibly brought over most of those who had strayed from the bosom of the Church. It appears, however, that the schism was not quite extinct till the 7th century.—Broughton.

DONATIVE. A donative is when 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, and vested absolutely in the clerk by the patron’s deed of donation, without presentation, institution, or induction. This is said to have been anciently the only way of conferring ecclesiastical benefices in England; the method of institution by the bishop not being established more early than the time of Archbishop Becket in the reign of Henry II. And therefore Pope Alexander III., (Decretal, 1. 3, t. 7, c. 3,) in a letter to Becket, severely inveighs against the prava consuetudo, as he calls it, of investiture conferred by the patron only: this however shows what was then the common usage. Others contend, that the claim of the bishops to institution is as old as the first planting of Christianity in this island; and, in proof of it, they allege a letter from the English nobility to the pope in the reign of Henry III., recorded by Matthew Paris, (A. D. 1239,) which speaks of presentation to the bishop as a thing immemorial. The truth seems to be that, where a benefice was to be conferred on a mere layman, he was first presented to the bishop, in order to receive ordination, who was at liberty to examine and refuse him: but where the clerk was already in orders, the living was usually vested in him by the sole donation of the patron; until about the middle of the twelfth century, when the pope endeavoured to introduce a kind of feudal dominion over ecclesiastical benefices, and, in consequence of that, began 298to claim and exercise the right of institution universally as a species of spiritual investiture.

By the act 14 & 15 Vict. c. 97, sec. 9, the right of perpetual nomination of an incumbent may be acquired by the person or body, their heirs, &c., who shall procure a church to be erected and endowed.

DONNELLAN LECTURES. Mrs. Anne Donnellan, in the last century, bequeathed a sum of £1243 to the college of Dublin, for the encouragement of religion, learning, and good manners; the application of the sum being intrusted to the provost and senior fellows; who, consequently, in 1794, resolved, that a lecturer should be annually appointed to preach six lectures in the college chapel: the subject of the lectures for each year being determined by them. The other regulations are analogous to those of the Bampton Lectures at Oxford. Many distinguished works have been the fruits of this Lecture: among them may be mentioned Dr. Graves’s Lectures on the Pentateuch, Archbishop Magee on Prophecy, &c.

DORMITORY, DORTOR, or DORTURE. The sleeping apartment in a monastic institution.

A place of sepulture is also so called, with reference, like the word cemetery, which has the same meaning, to the resurrection, at which time the bodies of the saints, which for the present repose in their graves, shall arise, or awake. But it must be borne in mind, that the word has reference to the sleep of the body, and not of the soul, which latter was never an article of the Christian faith.

DORT. The Synod of Dort was convened to compose the troubles occasioned by the celebrated Arminian controversy.

Arminius, professor of divinity at Leyden, had received his theological education at Geneva. After much profound meditation on the abstruse subject of predestination, he became dissatisfied with Calvin’s doctrine of the absolute decrees of God, in respect to the salvation and perdition of man; and, while he admitted the eternal prescience of the Deity, he held, with the Roman Catholic Church, that no mortal is rendered finally unhappy, by an eternal and invincible decree; and that the misery of those who perish comes from themselves. Many who were eminent for their talents and learning, and some who filled high situations in Holland, embraced his opinions; but, apparently at least, a great majority sided against them. The most active of these was Gomar, the colleague of Arminius in the professorship. Unfortunately, politics entered into the controversy. Most of the friends of Arminius were of the party which opposed the politics of the Prince of Orange; while, generally, the adversaries of Arminius were favourable to the views of that prince. Barneveldt and Grotius, two of the most respectable partisans of Arminius, were thrown into prison for their supposed practices against the state. The former perished on the scaffold; the latter, by his wife’s address, escaped from prison. While these disturbances were at the highest, Arminius died.

On his decease, the superintendence of the party devolved to Episcopius, who was, at that time, professor of theology at Leyden, and universally esteemed for his learning, his judgment, and his eloquence. The Arminian cause prospering under him, the opposite party took the alarm, and, in 1618, a synod was called at Dort, by the direction, and under the influence, of Prince Maurice. It was attended by deputies from the United Provinces, and from the Churches of England, Hesse, Bremen, Switzerland, and the Palatinate.

The synod adopted the Belgic Confession, decided in favour of absolute decrees, and excommunicated the Arminians. Its canons were published under the title of “Judicium Synodi nationalis reformatarum ecclesiarum habiti Dordrechti anno 1618 et 1619, de quinque doctrinæ capitibus, in ecclesiis Belgicis, controversis: Promulgatum VI. Maii MDCXIX. 4to.” It concludes the Sylloge Confessionum, printed at the Clarendon press.—Butler’s Confession of Faith.

DOXOLOGY. (See Gloria Patri.) A hymn used in the Divine service of Christians. The ancient doxology was only a single sentence, without a response, running in these words: “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, world without end. Amen.” Part of the latter clause, “As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,” was inserted some time after the first composition. The fourth Council of Toledo, in the year 633, added the word “honour” to it, and read it, “Glory and honour be to the Father,” &c., because the prophet David says, “Bring glory and honour to the Lord.” It is not easy to say at what time the latter clause was inserted. Some ascribe it to the Council of Nice, and suppose it was added in opposition to the Arians. But the first express mention made of it is in the second Council of Vaison, an. 529, above two centuries later.

There was another small difference in 299the use of this ancient hymn; some reading it, “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, with the Holy Ghost;” others, “Glory be to the Father, in (or by) the Son, and by the Holy Ghost.” This difference of expression occasioned no disputes in the Church, till the rise of the Arian heresy: but, when the followers of Arius began to make use of the latter, and made it a distinguishing character of their party, it was entirely laid aside by the Catholics, and the use of it was enough to bring any one under suspicion of heterodoxy.

This hymn was of most general use, and was a doxology, or giving of praise to God, at the close of every solemn office. The Western Church repeated it at the end of every psalm, with some few exceptions; and omitted it on the three days before Easter, and in offices of the dead; and the Eastern Church used it only at the end of the last psalm. Many of their prayers were also concluded with it, particularly the solemn thanksgiving, or consecration-prayer at the eucharist. It was also the ordinary conclusion of their sermons.

There was likewise another hymn, of great note in the ancient Church, called the great doxology, or angelical hymn, beginning with those words, which the angels sung at our Saviour’s birth, “Glory be to God on high,” &c. This was chiefly used in the Communion Service. It was also used daily in men’s private devotions. In the Mozarabic liturgy it is appointed to be sung before the lessons on Christmas day. St. Chrysostom often mentions it, and observes that the Ascetics, or Christians who had retired from the world, met together daily to sing this hymn. Who first composed it, adding the remaining part to the words sung by the angels, is uncertain. Some suppose it to be as ancient as the time of Lucian, about the beginning of the second century. Others take it for the Gloria Patri; which is a dispute as difficult to be determined, as it is to find out the first author and original of this hymn.

Both these doxologies have a place in the liturgy of the Church of England, the former being repeated after every psalm, the latter used in the Communion Service.

As the ancient doxology of “Glory to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost” was, among the Christians, a solemn profession of their belief in the Holy Trinity, so the Mohammedans, by their doxology, “There is but one God,” (to which they sometimes add, “and Mohammed is his prophet,”) which they use both in their public and private prayers, and in their acclamations, sufficiently show their disbelief of a Trinity of persons in the Godhead.—Bingham.

DRIPSTONE. In church architecture, the projecting moulding which crowns doors, windows, and other arches, in the exterior of a building.

DULCINISTS. Heretics, so denominated from one Dulcinus, a layman, of Novara in Lombardy, who lived in the beginning of the 14th century. He pretended to preach the reign of the Holy Ghost; and while he justly enough rejected the pope’s authority, he foolishly made himself to be the head of that third reign, saying, that the Father had reigned from the beginning of the world to the coming of Christ; and the Son’s reign began then, and continued until the year 1300. He was followed by a great many people to the Alps, where he and his wife were taken and burnt by the order of Clement IV.

DULIA. (Δουλεία.) The worship paid by Romanists to saints and angels, and to images. Not denying that all these are made by them objects of worship, the Papists invent a distinction of many kinds and degrees of worship, and very accurately assign to each object of worship its proper amount of reverence. The lowest degree is the dulia, which is given to saints and angels. Hyperdulia (ὑπερδουλεία) is reserved for the Blessed Virgin alone: and Latria (λατρεια) is given to the Lord himself, and to each person in the ever blessed and glorious Trinity. Images of either of these receive a relative worship of the same order. An image of a saint or angel, relative Dulia: an image of the Blessed Virgin, relative hyperdulia: an image of either person of the Blessed Trinity, relative Latria. (See Idolatry, Images, Invocation of Saints.)

DUNKERS, or DIPPERS. A sect of Baptists, originating (1724) in the teaching of one Conrad Peysel or Beissel, a German, in Philadelphia, one of the American states. They are distinguished not only by their adherence to the rite of baptism with trine immersion, which, like other Baptists, they of course confine to adults, but also by their rigid abstinence from flesh, except on particular occasions; by their living in monastic societies, by their peculiar garb, like that of the Dominican friars, and by their scruples with regard to resistance, war, slavery, and litigation. Their great settlement is at a place which they call Euphrata, in allusion to the lament of the Hebrews in their captivity, which they used to pour forth to their harps as they sat on the banks of the Euphrates.

300EAGLE. A frequent, and the most beautiful, form of the lectern for reading the lessons from in churches. It has probably some reference to the eagle, which is the symbolical companion of St. John, in ecclesiastical design. The eagle is frequently employed in foreign churches, but generally for the chanting of the service, not for the lessons. Sometimes it is employed for the reading of the Epistles and Gospels, and there are instances of one being on each side of the choir or chancel. Several of the cathedrals and colleges in our universities have this kind of lecterns. Before the civil wars in 1651, there was in the cathedral of Waterford, a “great standing pelican to support the Bible, a brazen eagle,” and other ornaments.—Ryland’s Waterford. Winchester and St. John’s College, Cambridge, have of late years been provided with eagle lecterns. The “Lecterna” or Bible eagle at Peterborough was given by Abbot Ramsay and John Maldon in 1471.—Dugd. Monast. ed. 1830, i. 344.—Jebb.

EARLY ENGLISH, or LANCET, the first style of pure Gothic architecture, fully established about 1190, and merging in the Geometrical about 1245. The Lancet window is the principal characteristic of this style; but it has, besides, various peculiarities, (see Arcade, Capital, Moulding, Vaulting,) among which are the following:—The doorways are frequently divided by a central shaft. As compared with the preceding style, the buttresses have a considerable projection, and they usually terminate in a plain pediment. The flying buttress becomes frequent. Gables are of very high pitch; the parapet usually retains the corbel-table. Piers consist of a circular or octagonal shaft, surrounded by four or eight smaller ones, which stand free, except that, when of great length, they are generally banded in the centre. Purbeck or Petworth marble is often used both for the central, which is really the bearing shaft, and the smaller ones; but in this case the marble of the bearing shaft is laid as in the quarry, while the smaller shafts are set upwards, for the sake of greater length. The triforium still maintains its importance, though hardly so lofty as in the Norman style: it is usually of two smaller behind a principal arch, or of four smaller behind two principal arches. The clerestory is generally of the three Lancets, the central one much more lofty than the two others. The carving is extremely sharp and good, and very easily recognised, when it contains foliage, by the stiff stalks ending in crisped or curled leaves. Panels are often used to relieve large spaces of masonry, either blank or pierced; and sometimes in window-heads, and in triforium arcades, approach very nearly to the character of tracery. They are also often filled with figures. The dog-tooth, which had made its appearance in the Transition, is now extremely abundant, often filling the hollows of the mouldings in two or three continuous trails. The spires are almost invariably broach-spires.

EAST. (See also Bowing and Apostles’ Creed.) In the aspect of their churches, the ancient Christians reversed the order of the Jews, placing the altar on the east, so that in facing towards the altar in their devotions they were turned to the east. As the Jews began their day with the setting sun, so the followers of Christ began theirs with the rising sun. The eye of the Christian turned with peculiar interest to the east, whence the day-spring from on high had visited him. There the morning star of his hope fixed his admiring gaze. Thence arose the Sun of righteousness with all his heavenly influences. Thither, in prayer, his soul turned with kindling emotions to the altar of his God. And even in his grave, thither still he directed his slumbering eye, in quiet expectation of awakening to behold in the same direction the second appearing of his Lord, when he shall come in the clouds of heaven to gather his saints.

In the ancient Church it was a ceremony almost of general use and practice, the turning the face to the east in their solemn adorations, which custom seems derived from the ceremonies of baptism, when it was usual to renounce the devil with the face to the west, and then turn to the east and make the covenant with Christ. Several reasons were given by the Fathers for this. First, As the east, the place of the day-spring from darkness, was the symbol of Christ, “the Sun of righteousness.” 2ndly, As it was the place of paradise, lost by the fall of the first Adam, and to be regained by the second Adam. 3rdly, That Christ made his appearance on earth in the east; there ascended into heaven; and thence will again come at the last day. And, 4thly, That the east, as the seat of light and brightness, was the most honourable part of the creation, and therefore peculiarly ascribed to God, the fountain of light, and illuminator of all things; as the west was ascribed to the devil, because he hides the light, and brings darkness on men to their destruction.

When we repeat the creed, it is customary to turn towards the east, that so, 301whilst we are making profession of our faith in the blessed Trinity, we may look towards that quarter of the heavens where God is supposed to have his peculiar residence of glory.—Wheatly.

Turning towards the east is an ancient custom,—as indeed in most religions, men have directed their worship some particular way. And this practice being intended only to honour Christ, the Sun of righteousness, who hath risen upon us, to enlighten us with that doctrine of salvation to which we then declare our adherence, it ought not to be condemned as superstition.—Secker.

Most churches are so contrived, that the greater part of the congregation faces the east. The Jews, in their dispersion throughout the world, when they prayed, turned their faces towards the mercy-seat and cherubim, where the ark stood. (2 Chron. vi. 36–38.) Daniel was found praying towards Jerusalem, (Dan. vi. 10,) because of the situation of the temple. And this has always been esteemed a very becoming way of expressing our belief in God.—Collis.

EASTER. A festival of the Christians observed in the memory of our Saviour’s resurrection. The Latins, and others, call it Pascha, an Hebrew word, which signifies “passage,” and is applied to the Jewish feast of the Passover, to which the Christian festival of Easter corresponds. This festival is called, in English, Easter, from the Saxon Eostre, an ancient goddess of that people, worshipped with peculiar ceremonies in the month of April.

Concerning the celebration of this festival, there were anciently very great disputes in the Church. Though all agreed in the observation of it in general, yet they differed very much as to the particular time when it was to be observed; some keeping it precisely on the same stated day every year; others, on the fourteenth day of the first moon in the new year, whatever day of the week it happened on; and others, on the first Sunday after the first full moon. This diversity occasioned a great dispute, in the second century, between the Asiatic Churches and the rest of the world; in the course of which Pope Victor excommunicated all those Churches. But the Council of Nice, in the year 324, decreed, that all Churches should keep the Pasch, or festival of Easter, on one and the same day, which should be always a Sunday. This decree was afterwards confirmed by the Council of Antioch, in the year 341. Yet this did not put an end to all disputes concerning the observation of this festival; for it was not easy to determine on what Sunday it was to be held, because, being a movable feast, it sometimes happened, that the Churches of one country kept it a week, or a month, sooner than other Churches, by reason of their different calculations. Therefore the Council of Nice is said to have decreed further, that the bishops of Alexandria should adjust a proper cycle, and inform the rest of the world, on what Sunday every year Easter was to be observed. Notwithstanding which, the Roman and Alexandrian accounts continued to differ, and sometimes varied a week, or a month, from each other; and no effectual cure was found for this, till, in the year 525, Dionysius Exiguus brought the Alexandrian canon, or cycle, entirely into use in the Roman Church. Meantime, the Churches of France and Britain kept to the old Roman canon, and it was two or three ages after, before the new Roman, that is, the Alexandrian canon was, not without some struggle and difficulty, settled among them.—Bingham, Orig. Eccles. b. xx. c. 5. Theod. lib. i. c. 10. Socrat. lib. ii. c. 9. Euseb. de Vit. Const. lib. iii. c. 14. Leo, Ep. 63, ad Marcian. Imper.

But though the Christian Churches differed as to the time of celebrating Easter, yet they all agreed in showing a peculiar respect and honour to this festival. Gregory Nazianzen calls it the Queen of Festivals, and says, it excels all others as far as the sun exceeds the other stars. Hence, in some ancient writers, it is distinguished by the name of Dominica Gaudii, i. e. the “Sunday of joy.” One great instance of the public joy was given by the emperors, who were used to grant a general release to the prisons on this day, with an exception only to such criminals as were guilty of the highest crimes. The ancient Fathers frequently mention these Paschal indulgences, or acts of grace, and speak of them with great commendations. It was likewise usual at this holy season for private persons to grant slaves their freedom or manumission.—Orat. 19, in fun. Patris, t. v. Cod. Theod. lib. ix. tit. 38, leg. 3. Cod. Justin. lib. iii. tit. 12, leg. 8.

To these expressions of public joy may be added, that the Christians were ambitious, at this time especially, to show their liberality to the poor. They likewise kept the whole week after Easter day, as part of the festival; holding religious assemblies every day, for prayer, preaching, and receiving the communion. Upon which account the author of the Constitutions requires servants to rest from their labour 302the whole week. All public games were prohibited during this whole season; as also all proceedings at law, except in some special and extraordinary cases.—Lib. viii. c. 53. Cod. Theod. lib. xv. tit. v. leg. 5. Ib. lib. ii. tit. viii.

The festival of Easter was, likewise, the most noted and solemn time of baptism, which, except in cases of necessity, was administered only at certain stated times of the year.

The eve, or vigil, of this festival was celebrated with more than ordinary pomp, with solemn watchings, and with multitudes of lighted torches, both in the churches and in private houses, so as to turn the night itself into day. This they did as a prodromus, or forerunner of that great light, the Sun of righteousness, which the next day arose upon the world.—Greg. Naz. Orat. ii. in Pasch.

The paschal canon, or rule, of Dionysius having become the standing rule, for the celebration of Easter, to all the Western Churches, it will be proper briefly to explain it. The particulars of it are as follows: viz. That Easter be always on the Sunday next after the Jewish Passover; that, the Jewish Passover being always on the fourteenth day of the first vernal moon, the Christian Easter is always to be the next Sunday after the said fourteenth day of that moon; that, to avoid all conformity with the Jews in this matter, if the fourteenth day of the said moon be on a Sunday, this festival is to be deferred to the Sunday following; that the first vernal moon is that, whose fourteenth day is either upon the day of the vernal equinox, or the next fourteenth day after it; that the vernal equinox, according to the Council of Nice, is fixed to the twenty-first day of March; that therefore the first vernal moon, according to this rule, is that, whose fourteenth day falls upon the 21st of March, or the first fourteenth day after; that the next Sunday after the fourteenth day of the vernal moon (which is called the paschal term) is always Easter day; that, therefore, the earliest paschal term being the 21st of March, the 22nd of March is the earliest Easter possible; and the 18th of April being the latest paschal term, the seventh day after, that is, the 25th of April, is the latest Easter possible; that the cycle of the moon, or golden number, always shows us the first day of the paschal moon, and the cycle of the sun, or dominical letter, always shows us which is the next Sunday after.—Prideaux, Connect. part ii. b. iv.

In the Romish Church, on Easter eve, the bells are rung about four in the afternoon; the ornaments of the churches and altars are changed from black to white; and the paschal taper is placed in a great candlestick made in the shape of an angel. On the morning of Easter Sunday, matins are said before day-break, because our Saviour rose at that time. When the pope officiates, two cardinal deacons are placed on the right and left of the altar, dressed in white robes, to represent the two angels who watched our Saviour’s sepulchre.—Sacra Cerem. Eccl. Rom. lib. ii.

In the Greek Church, it is usual, on Easter day, upon meeting their friends, to greet them with this salutation, “Jesus Christ is risen from the dead;” to which the person accosted replies, “He is risen indeed.” On Good Friday, two priests carry in procession, on their shoulders, the picture or representation of a tomb, in which the crucified Jesus, painted on a board, is deposited. On Easter Sunday, this sepulchre is carried out of the church, and exposed to public view, when the priest solemnly assures the people, that Christ is risen from the dead, and shows them the picture turned on the other side, which represents Jesus Christ rising out of the sepulchre. The whole congregation embrace each other, and, in transports of joy, shoot off pistols.—Tournefort’s Voyages, Letter III. Broughton.

The anniversary festival appointed in remembrance of the resurrection of our blessed Saviour from the state of death, to which he had subjected himself as an atonement for the sins of men. It is stated by Venerable Bede, that this name was given to this festival at the time when Christianity was first introduced among our Saxon ancestors in this island. Those people, says Bede, worshipped an imaginary deity, called Eostre, whose feast they celebrated every year at this season; the name remained when the worship was altered. Others conceive the name to be derived from an old Saxon word importing rising; Easter day thus signifying the day of resurrection. Easter Sunday is not strictly the anniversary day of our Saviour’s resurrection, but is the day appointed by the Church to be kept in remembrance of that event. After great difference of opinions, it was decided in the Council of Nice that Easter day should be kept on the Sunday following the Jewish feast of the Passover, which Passover is kept on the 14th day, or full moon, of the Jewish month Nisan. At the same time, to prevent all uncertainty in future, it was made a further rule of the Church, that 303the full moon next to the vernal (or spring) equinox should be taken for the full moon in the month Nisan, and the 21st of March be accounted the vernal equinox. Easter Sunday, therefore, is always the Sunday following the full moon which falls on, or next after, the 21st of March. Easter is thus observed with reference to the feast of the Passover, on account of the typical quality of that day; the annual sacrifice commanded by the Jewish law being regarded as a type of the greater sacrifice of Christ for our redemption, and the deliverance of the Israelites out of Egypt as a type of our deliverance from sin and death by his merits.

This was the birthday of our Saviour in his state of glory and exaltation, as his nativity was his birthday to his state of humiliation. It was anciently called the “great day,” and “the feast of feasts;” being by eminence “the day which the Lord hath made,” (Ps. cxviii. 24,) for the Fathers unanimously expound that passage of this day, and therefore with them, as with us, that psalm was always part of the office of the day. For the antiquity of the observation of this day innumerable authors might be produced; but the matter is not at all controverted.—L’Estrange.

This is the highest of all feasts, saith Epiphanius: this day Christ opened to us the door of life, being the first-fruits of those that rose from the dead: whose resurrection was our life; for he rose again for our justification. (Rom. iv. 25.)—Bp. Sparrow.

In the primitive times the Christians of all Churches on this day used this morning salutation, “Christ is risen;” to which those who were saluted answered, “Christ is risen indeed;” or else thus, “and hath appeared unto Simon;” a custom still retained in the Greek Church. And our Church, supposing us as eager of the joyful news as they were, is loth to withhold from us long the pleasure of expressing it; and therefore, as soon as the absolution is pronounced, and we are thereby rendered fit for rejoicing, she begins her office of praise with anthems proper to the day, encouraging her members to call upon one another “to keep the feast; for that Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us, and is also risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept,” &c.—Wheatly.

The first lesson in the morning is the twelfth chapter of Exodus, in which is mentioned the institution of the Passover, proper for this day, the feast of the Passover: for, as St. Augustine observes, “we do in this feast not only call to mind the history of our Saviour’s resurrection, but also celebrate the mystery of ours.” That as Christ this day rose again from death to life, so by Christ, and the virtue of his resurrection, shall we be made alive, and rise from death to life eternal. Christ is therefore our true Passover, whereof the other was a type: the lesson then is proper for the day. So is the first lesson for the evening, (Exod. xiv.,) for it is concerning the Israelites’ deliverance out of Egypt, a type of our deliverance from hell this day by Christ’s glorious resurrection. As that day Israel saw that great work, which the Lord did upon Egypt, (ver. 31,) so this day we see the great conquest over hell and death finished by Christ’s triumphant resurrection from the dead. The second lessons are plain. The Gospel gives us the full evidence of Christ’s resurrection; the Epistle tells us what use we should make of it, “If Christ be risen, seek those things that are above,” &c. The collect prays for grace, to make the use of it which the Epistle directs.

Thus holy Church is careful to teach and instruct all her children in the matter of the feast, preaching Christ’s resurrection to us, both in the type and prophecy out of the Old Testament, and in the history of it out of the New. And she does not only teach us to know what God hath done for us this day, but also she is careful that we may do our duty to God for this his marvellous goodness, commanding and directing us to pray for grace to do our duty, prescribing us excellent forms of adoring and blessing God for his mercy this day, such methods as the Holy Ghost hath set down, in which we may be sure to pray and praise God by the spirit.—Bp. Sparrow. On this day, as on Christmas day, there were formerly [in the First Book of King Edward VI.] two communions, whereof we have retained the former Epistle and Gospel.—Bp. Cosin.

Easter day is a scarlet day at the universities of Cambridge and Oxford. In choirs, the Responses and Litanies used to be universally, and in many places are still, solemnly sung to the organ; and the Responses, on the Monday and Tuesday following.—Jebb.

EASTER ANTHEMS. On Easter day, instead of the Venite, certain anthems are appointed to be said or sung. At the last review the first two verses now used were prefixed, and the authorized translation adopted. In the First Book of King Edward VI., these anthems were appointed to be said or sung “afore matins, the 304people being assembled in the church;” and were followed by the following Versicle and Response.

Priest. Show forth to all the nations the glory of God.

Answ. And among all people his wonderful works.

With a special prayer. (See Anthem.)

EBIONITES. Heretics in the first century; so called from their leader, Ebion. The Ebionites, as well as the Nazarenes, had their origin from the circumcised Christians, who had retired from Jerusalem to Pella, during the war between the Jews and Romans, and made their first appearance after the destruction of Jerusalem, about the time of Domitian, or a little before.

Ebion, the author of the heresy of the Ebionites, was a disciple of Cerinthus, and his successor. He improved upon the errors of his master, and added to them new opinions of his own. He began his preaching in Judea: he taught in Asia, and even at Rome: his tenets infected the isle of Cyprus. St. John opposed both Cerinthus and Ebion in Asia; and it is thought that this apostle wrote his Gospel, in the year 97, particularly against this heresy.

The Ebionites held the same errors as the Nazarenes. They united the ceremonies of the law with the precepts of the gospel: they observed both the Jewish Sabbath and the Christian Sunday. They called their place of assembling a synagogue, and not a church. They bathed every day, which was the custom of the Jews. In celebrating the eucharist, they made use of unleavened bread, but no wine.

They added to the observance of the law divers superstitions. They adored Jerusalem as the house of God. Like the Samaritans, they would not suffer a person of another religion to touch them. They abstained from the flesh of animals, and even from milk: and, lest any one should object to them that passage of the Gospel, where our Lord says he desires to eat of the passover, they corrupted it. When they were sick, or bitten by a serpent, they plunged themselves into water, and invoked all sorts of things to their assistance.

They disagreed among themselves in relation to our Lord Jesus Christ. Some of them said he was born, like other men, of Joseph and Mary, and acquired sanctification only by his good works. Others of them allowed that he was born of a virgin, but denied that he was the Word of God, or had a pre-existence before his human generation. They said he was indeed the only true prophet, but yet a mere man, who, by his virtue, had arrived at being called Christ and the Son of God. They supposed that Christ and the devil were two principles, which God had opposed the one to the other.

Though the Ebionites observed the law, yet they differed from the Jews in many points. They acknowledged the sanctity of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, and Joshua; but they laughed at all those who came after them. They rejected some parts of the Pentateuch; and when they were too closely pressed by these books, they entirely abandoned them.

Of the New Testament, they acknowledged only the Gospel of St. Matthew, that is, that which was written in Hebrew, and which they called the Gospel according to the Hebrews. But they took from it the two first chapters, and corrupted other passages of it. They absolutely rejected St. Paul as an apostate, and an enemy of the law, and published several calumnies against him. They had likewise false Acts of the Apostles, in which they mixed a great many fables.

As to their manner of life, they imitated the Carpocratians, the most infamous of all heretics. They rejected virginity and continence: they obliged children to marry very young: they allowed married persons to separate from each other, and marry again, as often as they pleased.

St. Justin, St. Irenæus, and Origen, wrote against the Ebionites. Symmachus, author of one of the Greek versions of the Scriptures, was an Ebionite.

ECCLESIASTES. A canonical book of the Old Testament. It is called “The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king of Jerusalem,” that is, of Solomon, who, from the great excellency of his instructions, was emphatically styled “the preacher.” The design of it is to show the vanity of all sublunary things, in order to which the author enumerates the several objects upon which men place their happiness in this life, and then discovers the emptiness and insufficiency of all worldly enjoyments, by many various reflections on the evils of human life. The conclusion of the whole is, in the words of the preacher, “Fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” St. Jerome observes, that this pious inference prevented the Jews from suppressing this whole book of Ecclesiastes, which they had thoughts of doing, (as well as many other writings of Solomon, which are now lost and forgotten,) because it 305asserts that the creatures of God are vain, and all things as nothing; it was also thought to contain some dangerous opinions, and some particular expressions that might infuse doubts concerning the immortality of the soul.

The word Ecclesiastes, which is Greek, signifies a preacher. The Hebrews call it Coheleth, which literally signifies a collector, because it is supposed to be a sermon or discourse delivered to an assembly. The Talmudists will have King Hezekiah to be the author of it. Kimchi ascribes it to Isaiah, and Grotius to Zorobabel; but the book itself affords no foundation for these conjectures. On the contrary, as observed by Mr. Holden, “The author is expressly styled in the initiatory verse, the son of David, king in Jerusalem: and in the 12th verse he is described as king over Israel, in Jerusalem. These passages are found in every known MS., and in all the ancient versions; and Solomon, as is well known, was the only son of David who ever reigned in Jerusalem. The book has been thus admitted into the sacred canon as the production of Solomon, to whom it has also been ascribed by a regular and concurrent tradition. A collateral proof arises from the contents of the work itself, in which the author is stated to have excelled in wisdom beyond all who were before him in Jerusalem, and to have composed many proverbs: circumstances descriptive of Solomon, and of no other personage whose name is recorded in the Holy Scriptures. The writer is likewise represented as abounding in wealth and treasure, &c., extremely applicable to Solomon.” Mr. Holden, and Mr. Desvœux, in their very learned and exhaustive dissertations, completely refute the really shallow objections of Grotius, Dathe, Eichhorn, and others, as to Solomon’s authorship. They do not, however, quite agree as to the scope of the book. Mr. Desvœux (to whom Dr. Graves, in his Lectures on the Pentateuch, assents) states that his object is to prove the immortality of the soul, or rather the necessity of another state after this life, from such arguments as may be afforded by reason and experience. Mr. Holden abides by the generally received opinion, that it is “an arguing into the summum bonum, or chief good: not however merely as regarding happiness in this life, but that which in all its bearings and relations is conducive to the best interests of man. This he finally determines to be true wisdom: ... and every part of the discourse, when considered in reference to this object, tends to develope the nature of true wisdom, to display its excellence, or to recommend its acquirement.” So Bishop Gray: “he endeavours to illustrate the insufficiency of earthly enjoyment; not with design to excite in us a disgust to life, but to influence us to prepare for that state where there is no vanity.” Ecclesiastes may justly be considered as a sequel to the Book of Proverbs. Ecclesiastes, according to a modern author, is a dialogue in which a man of piety disputes against a libertine who favoured the opinions of the Sadducees; his reason is, because there are some things in it which seem to contradict each other, and could not proceed from the same person. But this may be wholly owing to Solomon’s method of disputing pro and con, and proposing the objections of the Sadducees, to which he replies.

The generality of commentators believe this book to be the product of Solomon’s repentance, after having experienced all the follies and pleasures of life; notwithstanding which, some have questioned whether Solomon be saved, and his repentance is still a problem in the Church of Rome.

ECCLESIASTIC. A person holding any office in the sacred ministry of the Church. (See Bishop, Priest, and Deacon.)

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORIANS. (See Historians.)

ECCLESIASTICUS. An apocryphal book of Scripture, distinguished by this name because it was read (in ecclesia) in the church as a book of piety and instruction, but not of infallible authority; or it is so called, perhaps, to distinguish it from the book of Ecclesiastes; or to show that it contains, as well as the former, precepts and exhortations to wisdom and virtue. The anonymous preface to this work informs us, that the author of it was a Jew, called Jesus, the son of Sirach, who wrote it in Hebrew; but it was rendered into Greek by his grandson of the same name. The Hebrew copy of this book, which St. Jerome saw, was entitled Proverbs. By many of the ancients it was styled Παναρετος, the book of every virtue: but the most common name among the Greeks is, The Wisdom of Jesus the son of Sirach. This book was written under the high priesthood of Onias III., and translated in the reign of Ptolemy Euergetes, or Physcon. Some of the ancients have ascribed it to Solomon. The author, no doubt, had in his view the subject and thoughts expressed in the Proverbs of that king, and has followed his method of teaching morality by sentences or maxims. This book begins with an exhortation to the pursuit of 306wisdom; after which follow many maxims of morality to the forty-fourth chapter, where the author begins to rehearse the praises of famous men, such as the patriarchs, prophets, and the most illustrious men of the Jewish nation. The Latin version of Ecclesiasticus has more in it than the Greek, several particulars being inserted in that, which are not in the other. These, Dr. Prideaux observes, seem to have been interpolated by the first author of that version; but now, the Hebrew being lost, the Greek, which was made from it by the grandson of the author, must stand for the original; and from that the English translation was made.

Parts of Ecclesiasticus are strikingly like the style of Solomon, and truly Hebraic in their cast, as has been remarked by Bishop Lowth in his 24th Prelection; who subjoins a translation of the 24th chapter into Hebrew. He recognises however a considerable difference between its style and that of Solomon.

ECLECTICS. A sect which arose in the Christian Church towards the close of the second century. They professed to make truth the only object of their inquiry, and to be ready to adopt from all the different systems and sects such tenets as they thought agreeable to it; and hence their name, from ἐκλεγω, to select. They preferred Plato to the other philosophers, and looked upon his opinions concerning God, the human soul, and things invisible, as conformable to the spirit and genius of the Christian doctrine. One of the principal patrons of this system was Ammonius Saccas, who at this time laid the foundation of that sect, afterwards distinguished by the name of the New Platonists, in the Alexandrian School.—Broughton.

ECONOMICAL. The economical method of disputing was that in which the disputants accommodated themselves, as much as possible, to the taste and prejudices of those whom they were endeavouring to gain over to the truth. Some of the early Christians carried this condescension too far, and abused St. Paul’s example. (1 Cor. ix. 20.) The word is derived from οἰκονομία, dispensatio rei familiaris, the discretionary arrangement of things in a house according to circumstances.

ECONOMIST. (Œconomus.) An officer in some cathedrals of Ireland, chosen periodically by the chapter out of their own body, whose office is to manage the common estate of the cathedral, to see to the necessary repairs, pay the church officers, &c.—Jebb.

ECONOMY ESTATE, or FUND. In some Irish cathedrals the common fund, for the support of the fabric, the payment of the inferior church officers, and sometimes certain members of the choir, is so called. It is not divisible among the cathedral body themselves. About half the cathedrals in Ireland are destitute of any common or corporate fund whatever.—Jebb.

ECUMENICAL. (From οἰκουμένη, the world.) A term applied to general councils of the Church, to distinguish them from provincial and diocesan synods. (See Councils.)

EDIFICATION. Literally, a building up; and in the figurative language of the New Testament, a growing in grace and holiness, whether of individuals or of the Church.

A pretence of greater edification has been a common ground of separation from the Church; but most absurdly, for “edification,” says Dean Sherlock, in his resolution of some cases of conscience which respect Church communion, is building up, and is applied to the Church, considered as God’s house and temple; and it is an odd way of building up the temple of God, by dividing and separating the parts of it from each other. The most proper signification of the word which our translators render by “edification,” is a house or building; and this is the proper sense wherein it belongs to the Christian Church: “ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building,” that is, the Church is God’s house or building. Thus the same apostle tells us that in Christ, “the whole building” (that is, the whole Christian Church) “fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord.” (Ephes. ii. 21.) Hence the governors of the Church are called builders, and the apostles are called “labourers together with God,” in erecting this spiritual building; and St. Paul calls himself a “master builder.” Hence the increase, growth, and advances towards perfection in the Church, is called the building or edification of it. For this reason, St. Paul commends prophecy, or expounding the Scriptures, before speaking in unknown tongues without an interpreter, because by this the Church receives building or edification.

All those spiritual gifts, which were bestowed on the Christians, were for the building and edifying of the Church. The apostolical power in Church censures was “for edification, not for destruction” (2 Cor. x. 8); to build, and not to pull down; that is, to preserve the unity of the Church 307entire, and its communion pure. And we may observe, that this edification is primarily applied to the Church: “that the Church may receive edifying;” “that ye may excel to the edifying of the Church;” “for the edifying of the body of Christ.” (1 Cor. xiv. 5, 12; Ephes. iv. 12.) And it is very observable wherein the apostle places the edification of the body of Christ, viz. in unity and love: “till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” (Ephes. iv. 12, 13.) Till we are united by one faith unto one body, and perfect man, and “speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ; from whom the whole body fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.” (Ephes. iv. 15, 16.) This is an admirable description of the unity of the Church, in which all the parts are closely united and compacted together, as stones and timber are to make one house; and thus they grow into one body, and increase in mutual love and charity, which is the very building and edification of the Church, which is edified and built up in love, as the apostle adds, that “knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.” (1 Cor. viii. 1.) This builds up the Church of Christ; and that not such a common charity as we have for all mankind, but such a love and sympathy as is peculiar to the members of the same body, and which none but members can have for each other. And now methinks I need not prove that schism and separation are not for the edification of the Church; to separate for edification is to pull down instead of building up. But these men do not seem to have any great regard to the edification of the Church, but only to their own particular edification: and we must grant that edification is sometimes applied to particular Christians in Scripture, according to St. Paul’s exhortation, “Comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.” (1 Thess. v. 11.) And this edifying one another, without question, signifies our promoting each other’s growth and progress in all Christian graces and virtues; and so the building and edification of the Church, signifies the growth and improvement of the Church in all spiritual wisdom and knowledge, and Christian graces. The edification of the Church consists in the edification of particular Christians; but then this is called edification or building, because this growth and improvement is in the unity and communion of the Church, and makes them one spiritual house and temple. Thus the Church is called the temple of God, and every particular Christian is God’s temple, wherein the Holy Spirit dwells; and yet God has but one temple, and the Holy Spirit dwells only in the Church of Christ; but particular Christians are God’s temple, and the Holy Spirit dwells in them as living members of the Christian Church; and thus by the same reason the Church is edified and built up, as it grows into a spiritual house and holy temple, by a firm and close union and communion of all its parts: and every Christian is edified, as he grows up in all Christian graces and virtues in the unity of the Church. And, therefore, whatever extraordinary means of edification men may fancy to themselves in a separation, the apostle knew no edification but in the communion of the Church; and indeed, if our growth and increase in all grace and virtue be more owing to the internal assistance of the Divine Spirit, than to the external administrations, as St. Paul tells us, “I have planted and Apollos watered, but God gave the increase; so then, neither is he that planteth anything, nor he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase” (1 Cor. iii. 6, 7); and if the Divine Spirit confines his influences and operations to the unity of the Church, as the same apostle tells us that there is but “one body and one spirit,” (Eph. iv. 4,) which plainly signifies that the operations of this one spirit are appropriated to this one body, as the soul is to the body it animates;—then it does not seem a very likely way for edification, to cut ourselves off from the unity of Christ’s body.

ELDERS. (πρεσβύτεροι, hence Presbyterians.) Presbyterian sects have supposed that the order of lay-elders, as they denominate some of their officers, is sanctioned by Holy Scripture. It appears certain, however, that the “elders” mentioned by St. Paul (1 Tim. v.) did not hold the same office as those in the Presbyterian sects, but “laboured in the word and doctrine.” In this place the apostle means only ministers, when he directs that double honour should be paid to the elders that rule well, especially those who labour in the word and doctrine; and the distinction does not appear to consist in the order of officers, but in the degree of their diligence, faithfulness, 308and eminence in laboriously fulfilling their ministerial duties. It is said that Calvin admitted lay-elders into Church courts, on what he conceived to be the sanction of primitive practice, and, as an effectual method of preventing the return of inordinate power in a superior order of the clergy. To this it is answered by Catholics, that neither the name nor office of lay-elder was ever known to any general or provincial council, or even to any particular Church in the world, before the time of Calvin. (See Presbyterians.)

ELECTION. (See Predestination, Calvinism, Armininnism.) There are three views taken of election, all parties agreeing that some doctrine of election is taught in Holy Scripture,—the Calvinistic, the Arminian, and the Catholic.

By the Calvinists, (see Calvinism,) election is judged to be the election of certain individuals out of the great mass of mankind, directly and immediately, to eternal life, while all other individuals are either passively left, or actively doomed, to a certainty of eternal death; and the moving cause of that election is defined to be God’s unconditional and irrespective will and pleasure, inherent in, and exercised in consequence of, his absolute and uncontrollable sovereignty.

By the Arminians, or Remonstrants, (see Arminianism,) Scriptural election is pronounced to be the election of certain individuals, out of the great mass of mankind, directly and immediately to eternal life; and the moving cause of that election is asserted to be God’s eternal prevision of the future persevering holiness and consequent moral fitness of the individuals themselves, who thence have been thus elected.

Election under the gospel or Catholic view denotes, the election of various individuals into the pale of the visible Church, with God’s merciful purpose, that through faith and holiness they should attain everlasting glory, but with a possibility (since God governs his intelligent creatures on moral principles only) that through their own perverseness they may fail of attaining it.

Stanley Faber, from whose learned and most satisfactory work these definitions are taken, very clearly proves this to be the doctrine of the reformed Church of England; where, in the seventeenth Article, the Church of England, speaking of predestination to life, teaches not an election of certain individuals, either absolute or previsional, directly and immediately, to eternal happiness. But she teaches an election of certain individuals into the Church catholic, in order that there, according to the everlasting purpose and morally operating intention of God, they may be delivered from curse and damnation, and thus, indirectly and mediately, may be brought, through Christ, to everlasting glory; agreeably to God’s promises, as they are generically, not specifically, set forth to us in Holy Scripture.

That such is the real doctrine of the Church of England—in other words, that she teaches a predestination to life, not direct and immediate, but indirect and mediate—inevitably follows from the circumstance that, while in her sixteenth Article she hints at the possibility of the elect individually departing from grace given, in her Homilies and in her Burial Service, she distinctly states, that the elect, in her sense of the word, may, in their individual capacity, fall away utterly, and thus perish finally. Now, this statement is palpably incompatible with the tenet of a direct and immediate predestination of individuals to eternal life; for individuals, so predestinated, could not, by the very terms of their predestination, fall away utterly and irrecoverably. Therefore, the predestination to life, mentioned in the seventeenth Article, can only mean an indirect and mediate predestination of individuals; or, in other words, it can only mean a predestination of individuals to eternal life, through the medium of election into the Catholic Church; in God’s everlasting purpose and intention indeed; but still, (since God, in executing his purpose and intention, operates upon the minds of his intelligent creatures not physically, but morally,) with a possibility of their defeating that merciful purpose and intention, and thence of their finally falling away to everlasting destruction.

As the article, in connexion with the other documents of the Anglican Church, must, unless we place them in irreconcilable collision with each other, be understood to propound the doctrine of predestination after the manner and in the sense which has been specified; so it distinctly enjoins us to receive God’s promises, as they are generally set forth to us in Holy Scripture.

The word generally in this place is not opposed to unusually, but to particularly, and signifies generically. And the other documents of the Church of England agree with this interpretation of the seventeenth Article.

We may refer, in the first instance, to the peculiar phraseology introduced into 309the office of Infant Baptism. “Regard, we beseech thee, the supplications of thy congregation: sanctify this water to the mystical washing away of sin: and grant that this child, now to be baptized therein, may receive the fulness of thy grace, and ever remain in the number of thy faithful and elect children, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Thus, in systematically generalizing phraseology, runs the prayer. Now the same prayer is recited over every child. Consequently, by the inevitable force of the word “remain” as here used, every child, baptismally brought into the pale of the Church, is declared to be, at that time, one of the number of God’s elect.

But the largest charity cannot believe that every child, baptismally brought into the pale of the Church, is elect in the sense of election as jointly maintained by Calvin and Arminius.

Therefore, agreeably to the tenor of her own explicit phraseology, the idea which the English Church annexes to the term election, can only be that of ecclesiastical individual election.

The matter is yet additionally established by the parallel phraseology, which occurs in the somewhat more modern office of Adult Baptism.

With the sole requisite alteration of “this person” for “this child,” the prayer is copied verbatim from the older office. Every adult, therefore, who is baptismally introduced into the pale of the Church, is, as such, declared to be one of the number of God’s elect people.

The same matter is still further established by the strictly homogeneous language of the Catechism.

Each questioned catechumen, who, as an admitted member of the Church, has already, in the baptismal office, been declared to be one of the elect, is directed to reply: that, as a chief article of the faith propounded in the Creed, he has learned “to believe in God the Holy Ghost, who sanctifieth” him “and all the elect people of God.”

Now, such an answer plainly makes every catechumen declare himself to be one of the elect.

But, in no conceivable sense which will harmonize with the general phraseology of the Anglican Church, save in that of ecclesiastical individual election only, can every catechumen be deemed one of God’s elect people.

Therefore the idea which to the Scriptural term election, is annexed by the Church of England, is that of ecclesiastical individual election.

The matter is also established by the parallel phraseology introduced into the Burial Service.

“We beseech thee, that it may please thee, of thy gracious goodness, shortly to accomplish the number of thine elect, and to hasten thy kingdom; that we, with all those that are departed in the true faith of thy holy name, may have our perfect consummation and bliss, both in body and soul, in thy eternal and everlasting glory, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

In this prayer, the generic term “we” occurs in immediate connexion with “the number of thine elect.”

Therefore the evidently studied arrangement of the words, enforces the conclusion that every member of the Church, as designated by the term “we,” must be deemed one of God’s elect people.

Finally, the same matter is established, even in the familiar course of daily recitation, by the language of the very liturgy itself.

“Endue thy ministers with righteousness: and make thy chosen people joyful.

“O Lord, save thy people: and bless thine inheritance.”

Now, who are the “chosen people,” whom the Lord is here supplicated to “make joyful?”

Can we reasonably pronounce them, in the judgment of the Anglican Church, to be certain individuals of each actually praying congregation, who, in contradistinction to other individuals of the same congregation, are predestinated, either absolutely or previsionally, to eternal life?

Assuredly, the whole context forbids so incongruous a supposition; for, assuredly, the whole context requires us to pronounce, that “thy chosen people” are identical with “thine inheritance.”

But the entire tenor of the liturgy identifies “thine inheritance” with the Catholic Church.

Therefore, “thy chosen people” and the Catholic Church are terms, in point of import, identical. (See Perseverance.)

ELECTION OF BISHOPS. (See Bishops.)

ELEMENTS. The materials used in the sacraments, appointed for that purpose by our Lord himself. Thus water is the element of baptism, and bread and wine are the elements of the eucharist. With respect to the elements of the eucharist, it is ordered by the Church of England that, “when there is a communion, the priest shall then place upon the table so much bread and wine as he shall think sufficient;” Then, that is, after the offertory, 310and after presenting the basin with the alms. This rubric being added to our liturgy at the last review, at the same time with the word “oblations,” in the prayer following, it is clearly evident, as Bishop Patrick has observed, that by that word are to be understood the elements of bread and wine, which the priest is to offer solemnly to God as an acknowledgment of his sovereignty over his creatures, and that from henceforth they might become properly and peculiarly his. For in all the Jewish sacrifices, of which the people were partakers, the viands or materials of the feast were first made God’s by a solemn oblation, and then afterwards eaten by the communicants, not as man’s, but as God’s provisions, who by thus entertaining them at his own table, declared himself reconciled, and again in covenant with them. And therefore our blessed Saviour, when he instituted the new sacrament of his own body and blood, first gave thanks and blessed the elements; that is, offered them up to God as Lord of the creatures, as the most ancient Fathers expound that passage; who for that reason, whenever they celebrated the holy eucharist, always offered the bread and wine for the communion to God upon the altar by this or some short ejaculation: “Lord, we offer thee thine own out of what thou hast bountifully given us.” After which they received them into the sacred banquet of the body and blood of his dear Son.