PREFACE TO THE SEVENTH EDITION. (continued 20)
Reading edition
The ancient Christian Church made a distinction between such heretics as contumaciously resisted the admonitions of the Church, and such as never had any admonition given them, for none were reputed formal heretics, or treated as such, till the Church had given them a first and second admonition, according to the apostle’s rule.
The principal sects of heretics, which disturbed the peace of the Church, sprung up in the first six centuries: most of the heresies, in after ages, being nothing but the old ones new vamped, or revived. The following table may serve to give the reader a compendious view of the most remarkable of the ancient heresies.
CENTURY I.
1. The Simonians, or followers of Simon Magus; who maintained that the world was created by angels; that there is no resurrection of the body; that women ought to be in common, &c.
2. Cerinthians and Ebionites, followers of Cerinthus and Ebion; who denied the Divinity of our Saviour, and blended the Mosaical ceremonies with Christianity, &c.
3. The Nicolaites, followers of Nicolas, deacon of Antioch; who allowed the promiscuous use of women, &c., alluded to by St. John in Rev. ii. 6, 15.
CENTURY II.
4. The Basilidians, followers of Basilides of Alexandria; who espoused the heresies of Simon Magus, and denied the reality of our Saviour’s crucifixion, &c.
5. The Carpocratians, followers of Carpocrates; who, besides adhering to the heresies of Simon Magus, rejected the Old Testament, and held that our Saviour was but a mere man, &c.
6. The Valentinians, followers of Valentinus; who corrupted the Christian doctrine with the Pythagorean and Platonic notions, &c.
7. The Gnostics; so called from their pretences to superior knowledge. The term Gnostics seems to have been a general name for many of the earliest heretics. (See Gnostics.)
8. The Nazarenes; who ingrafted the law of Moses on Christianity, &c.
9. The Millenarians or Chiliasts; so called, because they expected to reign with Christ, a thousand years, upon the earth.
10. The Cainites; a branch of the Valentinians, but particularly remarkable for paying a great regard to Cain and all the wicked men mentioned in the Scripture, &c.
11. The Sethians; who held that Seth, the son of Adam, was the Messiah.
12. The Quartodecimans; who observed Easter on the fourteenth day of the first month, in conformity to the Jewish custom of keeping the Passover.
13. The Cerdonians, followers of Cerdon; who held two contrary principles, denied the resurrection of the body, and threw the Four Gospels out of the canon of Scripture.
14. The Marcionites, followers of Marcion; who held three principles, denied the resurrection of the body, and declaimed against marriage, &c.
15. The Cataphrygians, or Montanists; who baptized the dead, and held Montanus to be the Holy Ghost, &c.
16. The Encratites, or Tatianists, followers of Tatian; who boasted of an extraordinary continency, and condemned marriage, &c.
17. The Alogians; so called, because they denied the Divinity of the Word, and rejected St. John’s Gospel, which particularly asserts it.
18. The Artotyrites; so called, because they offered bread and cheese in the eucharist.
19. The Angelics; so called, because they worshipped angels.
CENTURY III.
20. The Monarchici, or Patripassians, followers of Praxeas; who denied a plurality of persons in the Trinity, and affirmed that our Saviour was God the Father.
21. The Arabici; who believed that the soul dies, or sleeps, till the day of judgment, and then rises with the body.
22. The Aquarians; who used only water in the eucharist.
23. The Novatians; who would not allow those, who had lapsed in time of persecution, to be restored, upon repentance, to communion.
24. The Origenists, followers of Origen; who, among other things, held that the devil, and all the damned, will at last be saved.
25. The Melchisedechians: who held Melchisedech to be the Messiah.
26. The Sabellians, followers of Sabellius; who denied the Trinity, and affirmed 368that the distinction of persons in the Godhead was merely nominal, and founded only upon a diversity of attributes, &c.
27. The Manicheans, followers of Manes; who held that two opposite principles reigned over the world, the one good, the other bad, &c.
CENTURY IV.
28. The Arians, followers of Arius, a priest of Alexandria; who believed the Father and the Son not to be of the same nature, substance, or essence, and that there was a time when the Son was not, &c.
29. The Colluthians, followers of Colluthus; who confounded the evil of punishment with the evil of sin.
30. The Macedonians; who denied the Divinity of the Holy Ghost.
31. The Agnoëtæ; so called, because they denied the certainty of the Divine prescience.
32. The Apollinarians, followers of Apollinaris; who asserted that our Saviour, at his incarnation, assumed a human body without a soul, and that the Word supplied the place of a soul, &c.
33. The Timotheans; who held, that our Saviour was incarnate only for the benefit and advantage of our bodies.
34. The Collyridians; so called, because they made a kind of goddess of the Blessed Virgin, and offered cakes to her.
35. The Seleucians, followers of Seleucus; who held that the Deity was corporeal; and that the matter of the universe was co-eternal with God.
36. The Priscillianists, followers of Priscillian, a Spanish bishop; who held all the errors of the Gnostics and Valentinians.
37. The Anthropomorphites; so called, because they ascribed a body to God, understanding literally those passages of Scripture which speak of God as having hands, eyes, feet, &c.
38. The Jovinianists, followers of Jovinian; who denied the virginity of Mary.
39. The Messalians; who chiefly pretended to prophecy.
40. The Bonosians, followers of Bonosus; who held that Jesus Christ was the Son of God only by adoption.
CENTURY V.
41. The Pelagians, followers of Pelagius; who denied the necessity of Divine grace, in order to salvation, &c.
42. Nestorians, followers of Nestorius; who distinguished our blessed Saviour into two persons, the one Divine, the other human.
43. The Eutychians, followers of Eutyches; who fell into the opposite error, and held, that there was but one nature in Jesus Christ.
44. The Theopaschites, followers of Petrus Fullo, bishop of Antioch; so called, because they affirmed that all the three persons in the Trinity were incarnate, and suffered upon the cross.
CENTURY VI.
45. The Predestinarians; so called, because they held that the salvation or damnation of men is pre-ordained, and that no man is saved or damned by his works.
46. The Apthartodocetes, or Incorruptibilists; so called, because they held that our Saviour’s body was incorruptible, and exempt from passion.
47. A second sect of Agnoëtæ; so called, because they held that our blessed Saviour, when upon earth, did not know the day of judgment.
48. The Monotheletes; who held that there was but one will in Jesus Christ.
These were the principal sects of heretics, which, in those early ages, infested the Christian Church. The succeeding ages produced a great variety of heretics likewise; as the Gnosimachi and Lampetians, in the seventh century; the Agonyclites in the eighth; the Berengarians, Simoniacs, and Vecilians, in the eleventh; the Bogomiles, in the twelfth; the Fratricelli and Beguards, in the thirteenth; to enumerate all which would be both tedious and uninteresting.—Broughton.
HERETIC. Dr. Johnson, in his dictionary, defines a heretic to be, “one who propagates his private opinions in opposition to the Catholic Church;” and the Catholic or universal Church, in the second general council, has pronounced those to be heretics “who, while they pretend to confess the sound faith, have separated and held meetings contrary to our canonical bishops.”—Conc. Const. Can. 6.
A man may be erroneous in doctrine and yet not a heretic; for heresy is a pertinacious adherence to an opinion when it is known that the Church has condemned it. (See the preceding article.)
Although the Scripture only is our guide, there are certain points of disputable doctrine on which the Church Universal has decided, e. g. the doctrine of the Trinity; and he who refuses “to hear the Church” on these points, is held a heretic by the Church Universal. There are certain points on which our own Church has decided, e. g. the doctrine of transubstantiation, and he who holds this doctrine is regarded as a heretic by the Church of 369England. For those who do not defer to the Church, to pronounce any one a heretic who professes to take the Bible for his guide, is an inconsistency which can only be accounted for by the existence, on the part of the offender, of a very intolerant and tyrannical disposition.
HERMENEUTÆ. (From ἑρμηνεύω, to interpret.) Persons in the ancient Church, whose business it was to render one language into another, as there was occasion, both in reading the Scriptures, and in the homilies that were made to the people; an office which was very important in those churches where the people spoke different languages, as in Palestine, where some spoke Syriac, others Greek; and in Africa, where some spoke the Latin, and others the Punic tongue.
HERMENEUTICS. (From ἑρμηνεύω, to interpret.) The principles and practice of translation and interpretation of the sacred Scriptures.—See Hartwell Horne’s Introduction and Ernesti’s Institutes.
HERMITAGES were cells constructed in private and solitary places, for single persons, or for small communities, and were sometimes annexed to larger religious houses.
HETERODOX. Contrary to the faith or doctrine established in the true Church.
HEXAPLA. A book containing the Hebrew text of the Bible, written in Hebrew and Greek characters, with the translations of the Septuagint, of Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus, in six several columns. There was added to it a fifth translation, found at Jericho, without the author’s name; and a sixth, named Nicopolitanum, because found at Nicopolis: Origen joined to it a translation of the Psalms, but still the book retained the name of Hexapla, because the fifth and sixth translations did not extend to the whole Bible; and so the same book of Origen had but six columns in divers places, eight in some, and nine in the Psalms. Others are of opinion that the two columns of the Hebrew text were not reckoned; and that the translation of the Psalms was not to be considered so as to give a new name to the book. When the edition contained only the translations of the Septuagint, Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus, it was called Tetrapla, and the name of Octapla was sometimes given to the eight versions, that is, to the collections containing the translations of Jericho and Nicopolis. Ruffinus, speaking of this elaborate work, affirms that Origen undertook it because of the continual controversies between the Jews and Christians: the Jews citing the Hebrew, and the Christians the Septuagint, in their disputes, this father was willing to let the Christians understand how the Jews read the Bible; and to this end, he laid the versions of Aquila, and some other Greek translations, before them, which had been made from the Hebrew; but few people being able to buy so great a work, Origen undertook to abridge it, and for that purpose published a version of the Septuagint, to which he added some supplements, taken out of Theodotion’s translation, in the places where the Septuagint had not rendered the Hebrew text; and which supplements were marked with an asterisk. He added also a small line like a spit, where the Septuagint had something that was not in the Hebrew text. The loss of the Hexapla is one of the greatest which the Church has sustained. But a few fragments remain, published by Montfauçon, in 1713; and by Bahrdt, (an abridgment, and not a very skilful one, of the former,) in 1769.
HIERARCHY. (See Bishops.) A designation equally applied to the ranks of celestial beings in the Jerusalem above, and to the apostolic order of the ministry in the Church below. In reference to the latter, it is an error to suppose that it necessarily implies temporal distinction, wealth, splendour, or any other adjuncts with which the ministry may, in certain times and countries, have been distinguished. These are mere accidents, which prejudice has identified with the being of a hierarchy, but from which no just inference can be drawn against the inherent spiritual dignity of the Christian priesthood.
HIGH PRIEST. The highest person in the divinely appointed ecclesiastical polity of the Jews. To him in the Christian Church answers the bishop, the presbyter answering to the priest, and the deacon to the Levite.
HISTORIANS, ECCLESIASTICAL. Those writers who record the acts and monuments of the Christian Church. After the evangelical historians, the most distinguished is Hegesippus, who lived principally in the reign of Marcus Aurelius (A. D. 161–180). He wrote five books of ecclesiastical history, called Commentaries of the Acts of the Church, wherein he described the character of the holy apostles, their missions, &c., the remarkable events in the Church, and the several heresies, schisms, and persecutions which had afflicted it from our Lord’s death to the writer’s own times. All the writings of Hegesippus are now lost. Next follows 370Eusebius, bishop of Cæsarea, a pupil of Pamphilus, on which account he is often called Eusebius Pamphili. He wrote an ecclesiastical history in ten books, comprising a history of the Church from our Lord’s birth to the conversion of Constantine the Great, which he compiled chiefly from the commentary of Hegesippus. St. Jerome and Nicephorus derive the materials of their history from Eusebius. The histories written by Socrates, Theodoret, and Sozomen, relate to their own times only. These are the sources from which all modern historians of the early Church derive their materials.
HOLY-DAY. The day of some ecclesiastical festival. The rubric after the Nicene Creed directs that “the curate shall then declare to the people what holy-days or fasting days are in the week following to be observed.”
Canon 64. “Every parson, vicar, or curate shall, in his several charge, declare to the people every Sunday, at the time appointed in the Communion Book, whether there be any holy-days or fasting days the week following. And if any do hereafter willingly offend herein, and, being once admonished thereof by his ordinary, shall again omit that duty, let him be censured according to law until he submit himself to the due performance of it.”
Canon 13. “All manner of persons within the Church of England shall from henceforth celebrate and keep the Lord’s day, commonly called Sunday, and other holy-days, according to God’s will and pleasure, and the orders of the Church of England prescribed on that behalf: that is, in hearing the word of God read and taught, in private and public prayers, in acknowledging their offences to God, and amendment of the same, in reconciling themselves charitably to their neighbours where displeasure has often been, in oftentimes receiving the communion of the body and blood of Christ, in visiting of the poor and sick, using all godly and sober conversation.”
Canon 14. “The Common Prayer shall be said or sung distinctly and reverently upon such days as are appointed to be kept holy by the Book of Common Prayer, and their eves.”
HOLY GHOST. (See Procession.) The third Person of the adorable Trinity.
“The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is of one substance, majesty, and glory with the Father and the Son, very and eternal God.”—Article V.
The name Ghost, or Gast, in the ancient Saxon, signifies a spirit, to which the word holy is applied, as signifying a communication of the Divine holiness. Having been baptized “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” we cannot say with the ignorant disciples, that “we have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost” (Acts xix. 2); we are therefore called upon to believe in the Holy Ghost as we do in the Father and the Son; and for our authority in considering him to be a person as well as the others, we have not only the analogy of faith, but sufficient evidence in holy writ.
First, he is plainly distinguishable from the others; from the Father, as proceeding from him, (John xv. 26,) and from the Father and the Son, in being sent by one from the other; “The Comforter, whom I,” says our Lord, “will send unto you from the Father;” “If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you, but if I depart, I will send him unto you.” (John xv. 26; xvi. 7.) This was the Spirit promised before of the Father. (Isa. xliv. 3; Ezek. xxxvi. 25, with John xiv. 16; Acts i. 4; ii. 33.) He is sometimes termed “the Spirit of the Son,” as well as of the Father, (Gal. iv. 6,) and is given by the Father, (Eph. i. 17,) and sent in his Son’s name, (John xiv. 26,) as at other times by the Son. (John xv. 26; xvi. 7; xx. 21, 22.)
Secondly, such properties, attributes, and acts are ascribed to him as are only applicable to a person. He is spoken of in formal opposition to evil spirits, who are clearly represented as persons (1 Sam. xvi. 14; 2 Chron. xviii. 20, 21); and if expressions are used not exactly suitable to our conceptions of a person, this may well be allowed without its making him a mere quality or attribute. When God is said to “give” the Holy Ghost “to them that obey him,” (Acts v. 32,) it may be compared with similar passages respecting the Son: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,” &c., (John iii. 16,) in conformity to the prophecy, “Unto us a Son is given.” (Isa. ix. 6.)
Thirdly, he is also truly God, as is proved from the titles given to him by fair implication, (Acts v. 3, 4; Luke i. 35; and see 2 Sam. xxiii. 2, 3,) and the attributes of God, (Job xxxiii. 4; Ps. cxxxix. 7; Isa. xlviii. 16; with Acts xiii. 2; xx. 28; Mark xiii. 11; Rom. viii. 14; xv. 13, 19; 1 Cor. ii. 11,) and he is in two grand instances united to the Father and the Son, in perfect equality,—the form of baptism, by which we are admitted into the Church of 371God, (Matt. xxviii. 19,) and the apostolic benediction, the common Christian salutation. (2 Cor. xiii. 14.)
As he is the Holy Spirit of God, “the Spirit of holiness,” (Rom. i. 4,) so is he the cause of all holiness in man. That as the Son, by his sacrifice, put us in the way of salvation, (John iii. 16,) so must the Holy Spirit co-operate in sealing “us unto the day of redemption,” through his “sanctification,” and “belief of the truth,” (Rom. viii. 16; 2 Cor. i. 22; v. 5; Gal. vi. 8; Eph. i. 13, 14; iv. 30; Phil. i. 19; 2 Thess. ii. 13; Tit. iii. 5,) according as he has been promised. (Deut. xxix. 4; Jer. xxxii. 40; Ezek. xxxvi. 27; John vi. 44.) And this he does by regenerating us at baptism, (Matt. iii. 11; John iii. 5; Gal. iv. 29; Tit. iii. 5,) and making us the “sons of God,” (Rom. viii. 14–16; Gal. iv. 6,) and thus uniting us to our “head,” (1 Cor. vi. 17; xii. 12, 13; Eph. iv. 4; 1 John iii. 24,) and by instructing us in our duty, (Prov. i. 23; Ps. clxiii. 10; Isa. lix. 21: 1 Cor. ii. 10, 11; xii. 3; 2 Cor. iii. 3; Gal. v. 16, 25,) illuminating the understanding, (Neh. ix. 20; Isa. xxxii. 15, 16; Ezek, xxxvi. 27; Micah iii. 8; Rom. viii. 2, 5; Eph. i. 17, 18; 1 John iii. 24; iv. 13,) disposing the will, (Heb. iii. 7, 8; 1 Pet. i. 2, 22,) settling us in the faith and love of God, (Rom. v. 5; 2 Cor. iv. 13; 2 Tim. i. 7,) giving us power to obey, (Zech. iv. 6; 2 Cor. iii. 17; Eph. iii. 16,) helping us in prayer, (Zech. xii. 10; Rom. viii. 26; 1 Cor. xiv. 15; Jude 20,) and sanctifying us. (Rom. xv. 16; 1 Cor. vi. 11; Gal. v. 16.) And as his very name, “the Comforter,” implies, he gives consolation and joy. (Acts ix. 31; Rom. xiv. 17; xv. 13; Gal. v. 22; 1 Thess. i. 6.)
It is necessary, then, that we believe in the Holy Ghost, as having been baptized to God in his name; and as we would receive the apostolic benediction, (2 Cor. xiii. 14; Phil. ii. 1,) and enjoy the kingdom of God on earth, which is “righteousness, and peace, and joy,” in him. (Rom. xiv. 17; Acts xiii. 52.)
HOLY TABLE, (ἅγια τράπεζα.) (See Altar.) The altar on which the appointed memorials of the death of Christ, namely, the bread and wine, are presented before God, as an oblation of thanksgiving, is called the Lord’s table, or the holy table; because his worshippers do there, as his guests, eat and drink these consecrated elements, in faith, to be thereby fed and nourished unto eternal life, by the spiritual food of his most precious body and blood.
HOLY THURSDAY. The day of our Lord’s ascension. (See Ascension Day.)
HOLY WATER. In the Romish Church, water blessed with an appropriate service by the priest, and placed in a shallow basin, called the holy water stoup, at the entrance of the Church. Its primary use was, that the hands of the worshippers might be washed, and “pure hands lifted up in prayer;” afterwards it symbolized their purification from defilement before engaging in prayer. The modern Romanists forget this, and, as if they thought that some intrinsic benefit resulted from the physical application of the holy water, independent of its mystic meaning, use it both on entering and leaving a church.
So many superstitions had become connected with the use of holy water, that it was discontinued at the Reformation.
HOLY WEEK. (See Passion Week.) The Passion week—the last week in Lent, in which the Church commemorates the cross and passion of our blessed and only Saviour.
HOMILIES. (From ὁμιλία, a sermon or discourse, delivered in a plain manner, so as to be understood by the common people.) The Homilies of the Church of England are two books of plain discourses, composed at the time of the Reformation, and appointed to be read in churches, on “any Sunday or holy-day, when there is no sermon.” The first volume of them was set out in the beginning of King Edward the Sixth’s reign in 1547, having been composed (as it is thought) by Archbishop Cranmer and Bishops Ridley and Latimer, when a competent number of ministers of sufficient abilities to preach in a public congregation was not to be found. It was reprinted in 1560. The second book appeared in 1563, having been printed the year before, (see Strype’s Life of Parker,) in the reign of Elizabeth. Bishop Jewell is supposed to have had a great share in its composition. In the first book, the homily on “Salvation” was probably written by Cranmer, as also those on “Faith” and “Good Works.” The homilies on the “Fear of Death,” and on the “Reading of Scripture,” have likewise been ascribed to the archbishop. That on the “Misery of Mankind,” which has sometimes been attributed to him, appears in Bishop Bonner’s volume of Homilies, A. D. 1555, with the name of “Jo. Harpesfield” attached to it. The homilies on “the Passion,” and on “the Resurrection,” are from Taverner’s “Postills,” published in 1540. Internal evidence arising out of certain homely expressions, and peculiar forms of ejaculation, the like to 372which appear in Latimer’s sermons, pretty clearly betray the hand of the Bishop of Worcester to have been engaged in the homily against “Brawling and Contention;” the one against “Adultery” may be safely given to Thomas Becon, one of Cranmer’s chaplains, in whose works, published in 1564, it is still to be found; of the rest nothing is known, but by the merest conjecture. In the second book, no single homily of them all has been appropriated.
All members of the Church of England agree that the Homilies “contain a godly and wholesome doctrine;” but they are not agreed as to the precise degree of authority to be attached to them. In them the authority of the Fathers, of the first six general Councils, and of the judgments of the Church generally, the holiness of the primitive Church, the secondary inspiration of the Apocrypha, the sacramental character of marriage and other ordinances, regeneration in holy baptism, and the real presence in the eucharist, are asserted. To some of these assertions ultra-Protestants of course demur.
By this approbation of the two books of Homilies it is not meant that every passage of Scripture, or argument that is made use of in them, is always convincing; or that every expression is so severely worded, that it may not need a little correction or explanation: all that we profess about them is only that they “contain a godly and wholesome doctrine.” This rather relates to the main importance and design of them, than to every passage in them. Though this may be said concerning them, that, considering the age wherein they were written, the imperfection of our language, and some inferior defects, they are two very extraordinary books. Some of them are better writ than others, and are equal to anything that has been writ upon those subjects since that time. Upon the whole matter, every one, who subscribes the Articles, ought to read them, otherwise he subscribes a blank; he approves a book implicitly, and binds himself to read it, as he may be required, without knowing anything concerning it. This approbation is not to be stretched so far, as to carry in it a special assent to every particular in that whole volume: but a man must be persuaded of the main of the doctrine that is taught in them.—Bp. Burnet.
The Church requires our assent and approbation to the Articles, and so in like manner to the Rubric, to be expressed in a different degree and manner from that in which we express our assent to the Homilies and the Canons; the same degree of preference being given to the Articles of religion before the Homilies, in point of doctrine, and to the Rubric before the body of Canons, in point of practice.
The Thirty-nine Articles, for instance, being the capital rule of our doctrine, as we are teachers in this Church; (they being this Church’s interpretation of the word of God in Scripture, so far as they go;) and designed as a bulwark against Popery and fanaticism; we are bound to a very full and explicit acknowledgment under our hands, that we do deliberately, and advisedly, and ex animo, assent to every part and proposition contained in them. For this everybody knows to be the meaning of clerical subscriptions, both before ordination, and as often as the three articles of the thirty-sixth canon are subscribed by us.
In the like manner the Rubric being the standard of uniformity of worship in our communion; the adding to which tends towards opening a gap to Popish superstitions, and the increase of human inventions in the service of God; and the subtracting from which tends towards paving a way to a fanatical disuse and contempt of rites and ceremonies; therefore we are obliged, not only to declare our ex animo approbation, assent, and consent, to the matter of the Rubric, but are laid under religious promises, that we will in every particular, prescribed in and by it, conform ourselves to it as the rule of our ministration.
And, indeed, considering that both the Articles and the Rubric are statute as well as canon law, and have equally the sanction and authority both of the temporal and spiritual legislatures; and considering the condition upon which we are admitted to minister in this established Church, which is our solemn reception of them both as our rule; I do not see how any man can, with a good conscience, continue acting as a minister of our Church, who can allow himself either to depart from her doctrine as expressed in her Articles, or from her rites and ceremonies as prescribed in the Service Book. Wherefore it is not without reason that the thirty-eighth canon, which is entitled “Revolters after subscription censured,” expressly denounces, that “if any minister, after having subscribed the three articles of the 36th canon, shall omit to use any of the orders and ceremonies prescribed in the Communion Book, he shall be suspended; and if after one month he reform not, he shall be excommunicated; and if after the space of another month he submit 373not himself, he shall be deposed from the ministry.”
But the case of Homilies and Canons is different from that of the Articles and Rubric. They are indeed equally set forth by authority. The one is as truly the doctrine, and the other is as truly the law, of the Church. But still the regard that we are supposed to pay to them is not equally the same. For, though we subscribe to the Homilies, yet this subscription amounts to no more than our acknowledgment, that “they contain a godly and wholesome doctrine necessary for the times they were written in, and fitting to be publicly taught unto the people;” and not that we will maintain every particular doctrine, or argument, or assertion, contained in them.
In like manner we say as to the Canons. “We receive them in general as a good body of ecclesiastical laws. We acknowledge the wholesomeness and fitness of them all for discipline, and order, and edification, and proper in every respect for the times in which they were drawn up. But we do not look upon every particular thereby enjoined as absolutely and indispensably requisite to be practised now by us in the manner it is enjoined, any more than we hold our approbation of every sentence or expression in the Book of Homilies to be necessary.—Archdeacon Sharp.
Were I asked the question, whether the clergymen of the Church of England subscribe to the doctrines of the Homilies, as well as to the Articles of Religion, I should, in sincerity and truth, be obliged to reply, most undoubtedly not. Neither at ordination, nor upon collation or institution to benefices, nor at any other period, is any such subscription required of the clergy. We cannot help remarking a broad distinction in the degree of authority attributed by our Church, to the Liturgy, the Articles, and the Books of Homilies, respectively. To the Liturgy, all beneficed clergymen are bound, within a limited period after institution or collation, open and publicly, before the congregation to which they have been appointed ministers, to declare their unfeigned assent and consent. To the Articles, the clergy are obliged, at various times, and on different occasions, solemnly to subscribe. But, however venerable and valuable the Homilies unquestionably are, we do not find them treated with any such distinction; and, by the simple fact, that no provision is made for their being signed, subscribed, or solemnly assented to, they are placed in an immeasurably lower grade than the other formularies. It is, indeed, asserted in the thirty-fifth Article, that “the Second Book of Homilies doth contain a goodly and wholesome doctrine, and necessary for these times,” [the times in which it was prepared and published,] “as doth the former Book of Homilies:”—and, in subscribing to the Articles, every clergyman admits the truth of this assertion. But the assertion itself is both limited and guarded, and is very different from that full assurance and conviction expressed by the Church, and demanded of her ministers, respecting both our Articles and Liturgy.... I conceive the framers of our Articles merely to have asserted, that the Homilies, generally speaking, contained religious and moral instruction, good, and salutary, and necessary to be so administered under the peculiar circumstance of their own times.—Bishop Jebb: the Homilies considered.
It seems the author of the Homilies wrote them in haste, and the Church did wisely to reserve this authority of correcting and setting forth others. (See Rubric before Offertory.) For they have many scapes in them in special, although they contain in general many wholesome lessons for the people; in which sense our ministers do subscribe unto them, and no other.—Bp. Overall.
The authors of several of the Homilies are mentioned in Corry’s recent edition of them, who also shows how they were intended to bear upon the Antinomian as well as the Popish errors of the day.
HOMOIOUSIANS. Semi-Arians, who held that the nature of God the Son, though not the same, was similar to that of God the Father.
HOMOOUSIANS. A name given by Arians to Catholic Christians, for holding the doctrine of the Homoousion.
HOMOOUSION. (See Trinity.) This is the critical word of the Nicene Creed, and is used to express the real Divinity of Christ, and that, as derived from, and one with, the Father. The word was adopted from the necessity of the case, in a sense different from the ordinary philosophical use of it. Ὁμοούσιος properly means of the same nature, i. e. under the same general nature, or species; i. e. is applied to things which are but similar to each other, and are considered as one by an abstraction of our minds. Thus Aristotle speaks of the stars being ὁμοούσια with each other; and Porphyry, of the souls of brute animals being ὁμοούσιαι to ours. When, however, it was used in relation to the incommunicable essence of God, there was obviously no abstraction possible in contemplating 374him, who is above all comparison with his works. His nature is solitary, peculiar to himself, and one; so that, whatever was accounted to be ὁμοούσιος with him, was necessarily included in his individuality by all who would avoid recurring to the vagueness of philosophy, and were cautious to distinguish between the incommunicable essence of Jehovah and all created intelligences. And hence the fitness of the term to denote without metaphor the relation which the Logos bore in the orthodox creed to his eternal Father. Its use is explained by Athanasius as follows: “Though,” he says, “we cannot understand what is meant by the οὐσία of God, yet we know as much as this, that God exists (εῖναι), which is the way in which Scripture speaks of him; and after this pattern, when we wish to designate him distinctly, we say God, Father, Lord. When then he says in Scripture, ‘I am ὁ ὤν,’ and ‘I am Jehovah, God,’ or uses the plain word ‘God,’ we understand by such statements nothing but his incomprehensible οὐσία, and that he, who is there spoken of, exists (ἐστίν). Let no one then think it strange, that the Son of God should be said to be ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ Θεοῦ, of the substance of God; rather, let him agree to the explanation of the Nicene fathers, who, for the words ἐκ Θεοῦ, substituted the ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας. They considered the two phrases substantially the same, because, as we have said, the word God denotes nothing but the οὐσία αὐτοῦ τοῦ ὄντος. On the other hand, if the word be not in such sense ἔκ τοῦ Θεοῦ, as to be the true Son of the Father according to his nature, but be said to be ἐκ τοῦ Θεοῦ, merely as all creatures are such as being his work, then indeed he is not ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ Πατρός, nor Son κατ’ ὑσίαν, but so called from his virtue, as we may be who receive the title from grace.
Bishop Bull says that ὁμοούσιος is used by standard Greek writers to signify that which is of the same substance, essence, or nature. And he shows at large that the term was not invented by the Nicene Fathers, but was known in its present theological acceptation long before; by Irenæus, by Origen, (as Dionysius of Alexandria and Athanasius testify,) by Gregory Thaumaturgus, &c. See the 2nd section of that exhaustive and irrefragable treatise, the Defensio Fidei Nicænæ. See also Suicer in voc., from which it appears that the ante-Nicene fathers defined the word as signifying “that which is of the same nature, essence, eternity, and energy,” without any difference.
HOOD. The hood as used by us, is partly derived from the monastic caputium, partly from the canonical amice, or almutium. It was formerly used by the laity as well as the clergy, and by the monastic orders. In cathedral and collegiate churches, the hoods of the canons and prebendaries were frequently lined with fur or wool, and always worn in the choir. The term almutium, or amice, was peculiarly applied to these last. And such is the present usage in foreign churches, where the capitular canons are generally distinguished from the inferior members, by the colour or materials of the almuce. (See Amice.)—Palmer.
As used in England and Ireland, it is an ornamental fold that hangs down the back of a graduate to mark his degree. This part of the dress was formerly not intended for distinction and ornament, but for use. It was generally fastened to the back of the cope or other vesture, and in case of rain or cold was drawn over the head. In the universities the hoods of the graduates were made to signify their degrees by varying the colours and materials. The hoods at our three principal universities, Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin, vary considerably from one another: with this agreement, that all Doctors are distinguished by a scarlet hood, the linings (at Oxford and Dublin) varying according to the different faculties. Originally however it would appear that they were the same, probably till after the Restoration. Masters of Arts had originally fur hoods, like the proctors at Oxford, whose dress is in fact that of full costume of a Master of Arts; Bachelors in other faculties wore silk hoods of some intermediate colour; and Bachelors of Arts stuff hoods lined with lambs’ wool. The hoods in the Scottish universities followed the pattern of those of the university of Paris.—Jebb.
By the 58th canon, every minister saying the public prayers, or ministering the sacraments, or other rites of the Church, if they are graduates, shall wear upon their surplice, at such times, such hoods as by the orders of the universities are agreeable to their degrees.
HOSANNA, signifies as much as Save now. The Jews call their feast of Tabernacles, Hosanna Rabba, i. e. the great Hosanna; the origin of that word is, because on that day they prayed for the salvation and forgiveness of all the sins of the people. Therefore they used the word Hosanna in all their prayers; which implies, Save, I pray, according to Buxtorf; but Anthony Nebrissensis observes after Rabbi 375Elias, that the Jews call the willow branches, which they carry at the feast, Hosanna, because they sing Hosanna, shaking them everywhere. And Grotius observes, that the feasts of the Jews did not only signify their going out of Egypt, the memory of which they celebrated, but also the expectation of the Messias: and that still on the day when they carry those branches, they wished to celebrate that feast at the coming of the Messias; from whence he concludes, that the people carrying those branches before our Saviour, showed their joy, acknowledging him to be the Messias.
HOSPITALS, were houses for the relief of poor and impotent persons, and were generally incorporated by royal patents, and made capable of gifts and grants in succession. Some of these in England are very noble foundations, as St. Cross at Winchester, founded in the reign of King Stephen, &c. In most cathedral towns there are hospitals, often connected with the cathedrals. Christ’s Hospital in London was one of those many excellent endowments, to which the funds of alienated monasteries would have been more largely directed, had secular avarice permitted.
HOSPITALLERS, or Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. Knights who took their name from an hospital built in Jerusalem for the use of pilgrims coming to the Holy Land. They were to provide for such pilgrims, and to protect them on the road. They came to England in the year 1100, and here they arrived to such power that their superior had a seat in the House of Lords, and ranked as the first lay baron.
HOSPITIUM, or Domus Hospitium. In ancient monasteries, the place where pilgrims and other strangers were received and entertained.
HOST. (See Transubstantiation.) From hostia, a victim. The bread used by the Roman Catholic Church in the celebration of the eucharist. It is unleavened, thin, flat, and of circular form, and has certain mystic signs impressed on it. Romanists worship the host, under a false presumption that the elements are no longer bread and wine, but transubstantiated into the real body and blood of Christ.
HOSTIARIUS. (See Ostiarius.) The second master in some of the old endowed schools, as Winchester, is so called. Hence usher.
HOUR GLASS. The usual length of sermons in the English Church, from the Reformation till the latter part of the seventeenth century, was an hour. Puritans preached much longer—two, three, and even four hours. For the measurement of the time of sermon, hour glasses were frequently attached to pulpits, and in some churches the stand for the glass, if not the instrument itself, still remains.
HOURS OF PRAYER. The Church of England, at the revision of our offices in the reign of Edward VI., only prescribed public worship in the morning and evening: and in making this regulation she was perfectly justified: for though it is the duty of Christians to pray continually, yet the precise times and seasons of prayer, termed Canonical Hours, do not rest on any Divine command; neither have they ever been pronounced binding on all Churches by any general council; neither has there been any uniformity in the practice of the Christian Church in this respect. The hours of prayer before the Reformation were seven in number,—matins, the first, third, sixth, and ninth hours, vespers, and compline. The office of matins, or morning prayer, according to the Church of England, is a judicious abridgment of her ancient services for matins, lauds, and prime; and the office of even-song, or evening prayer, in like manner, is an abridgment of the ancient service for vespers and compline. Both these offices have received several improvements in imitation of the ancient discipline of the Churches of Egypt, Gaul, and Spain.—Palmer.
The offices for the third, sixth, and ninth hours, were shorter than the others, and were nearly the same every day. Bishop Cosin drew up, by royal command, a form of devotion for private use for the different canonical hours. It is supposed that the seven hours of prayer took their rise from the example of the psalm, “Seven times a day do I give thanks unto thee;” but the ancient usage of the Church does not sanction more than two or three times for stated public prayer. (See Primer.)
HOUSEL. (Saxon.) The blessed eucharist. Johnson derives it from the Gothic hunsel, a sacrifice, or hostia, dim. hostiola, Latin. Todd, in his emendations, remarks on the verb to housel, that an old lexicography defines it specially, “to administer the communion to one who lieth on his death-bed.” It was, perhaps, in later times more generally used in this sense: still it was often employed, as we find from Chaucer, and writers as late as the time of Henry VIII., as in Saxon times, to signify absolutely the receiving of the eucharist.—Jebb.
HUGUENOTS. A name by which the French Protestants were distinguished, 376very early in their history. The name is of uncertain derivation; some deduce it from one of the gates of the city of Tours, called Hugon’s, at which these Protestants held their first assemblies; others from the words Huc nos, with which their original protest commenced; others from the German, Eidgenossen, (associated by oath,) which first became Egnots and afterwards Huguenots.
The origin of the sect in France dates from the reign of Francis I., when the principles and doctrines of the German Reformers found many disciples among their Gallic neighbours. As everywhere else, so in France, the new doctrines spread with great rapidity, and called forth the energies both of Church and State to repress them. Both Francis and his successor, Henry II., placed the Huguenots under various penal disabilities, and they were subjected to the violence of the factious French among their opponents, without protection from the State: but the most terrible deed of horror which was perpetrated against them was the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s day. (See Bartholomew.) A scene which stands recorded in history, as if to teach us to how great a depth of cruelty and oppression mankind may be driven by fanaticism.
In the reign of Henry IV. the Huguenots were protected by the edict of Nantes, which was revoked, however, in 1685, by Cardinal Mazarin, the minister of Louis XIV.: on this occasion 500,000 of this persecuted race took refuge in the neighbouring Protestant states. At the Revolution, the Huguenots were restored to their civil rights, so far as civil rights were left to any citizens of a libertine and infidel state: and at present their ministers, like those of all Christian sects, are paid a scanty pittance by the State.
In doctrine and discipline the Huguenots symbolized with Calvin, and the sect which he originated at Geneva.
HULSEAN LECTURES. Lectures delivered at Cambridge, under the will of the Rev. John Hulse, late of Elworth, bearing date the 12th day of July, 1777. The number, originally twenty, is now reduced to eight.
HUMANITY OF OUR LORD, is his possessing a true human body and a true human soul. (See Jesus.)
HUSSITES. The followers of John Huss, of Bohemia, who maintained Wickliff’s opinions in 1407, with wonderful zeal. The emperor Sigismond sent to him, to persuade him to defend his doctrine before the Council of Constance, which he did A. D. 1414, having obtained a passport and an assurance of safe conduct from the emperor. There were seven months spent in examining him, and two bishops were sent into Bohemia, to inform themselves of the doctrine he preached; and for his firm adherence to the same, he was condemned to be burnt alive with his books, which sentence was executed in 1415, contrary to the safe-conduct, which the Council of Constance basely said that the emperor was not bound to keep to a heretic. His followers believed that the Church consisted only of those predestinated to glory, and that the reprobates were no part of it; that the condemnation of the five and forty articles of Wickliff was wicked and unreasonable. Moreri adds, that they partly afterwards subdivided, and opposed both their bishops and secular princes in Bohemia; where, if we must take his word, they were the occasion of great disorders and civil commotions in the fifteenth century.
HUTCHINSONIANS. “The name of Hutchinsonians,” says Jones of Nayland, who, with Bishops Horne and Horsley, was the most distinguished of those who bore the name, “was given to those gentlemen who studied Hebrew, and examined the writings of John Hutchinson, Esq., [born at Spennythorpe, in Yorkshire, 1674,] and became inclined to favour his opinions in theology and philosophy. The theological opinions of these divines, so far as they were distinguished from those of their own age, related chiefly to the explanation of the doctrine of the Trinity, [see Note L. to Dr. Mill’s five Sermons on the Temptation of Christ,] and to the manner in which they confirmed Divine revelation generally, by reference to the natural creation. The notion of a Trinity, it was maintained, was the token from the three agents in the system of nature, fire, light, and air, on which all natural light and motion depend, and which were said to signify the three supreme powers of the Godhead in the administration of the spiritual world. This led to their opposing Newton’s theory of a vacuum and gravity, and to their denying that most matter is, like the mind, capable of active qualities, and to their ascribing attraction, repulsion, &c., to subtle causes not immaterial.
In natural philosophy they maintained that the present condition of the earth bears evident marks of an universal flood, and that extraneous fossils are to be accounted for by the same catastrophe. They urged great precaution in the study of classical heathen literature, under the conviction 377that it had tended to produce pantheistic notions, then so popular. They also looked with some suspicion upon what is called natural religion, and to many passages of Scripture they gave a figurative, rather than a literal, interpretation.—See Jones’s Life of Bishop Horne.
The learned and pious Parkhurst was a Hutchinsonian; and his peculiar opinions not a little influenced his etymological conjectures, though in no way interfering with his orthodoxy and sound scholarship.
HYMN. A song of adoration. It is certain from Holy Scripture, that the Christians were wont to sing hymns in the apostles’ time; and it is probable that St. Ignatius appointed them to be sung by each side of the choir. It is probable also that the place of these hymns was, as now, after the lessons: for St. Ambrose notes, that as, after one angel had published the gospel, a multitude joined with him in praising God, so, when one minister hath read the gospel, all the people glorify God. The same appears to have been the custom from St. Augustine, and from a constitution of the Council of Laodicea, in the year 365. As for the particular hymns of our Church, they are, as of old in the primitive Church, generally taken out of Scripture; yet as they also made use of some hymns not found in Scripture, so do we.
Hymns may be said to consist of three kinds: (1.) Metrical, such as were in use in the daily service of the unreformed Church. Of this kind there is but one formally authorized by the Church of England, viz. the Veni Creator. (2.) Canticles, appointed to be said or sung in the daily service, and divided into verses, and pointed, like the Psalms. The Te Deum, and the Benedictus, are so expressly called in the Prayer Book; and such by implication are the Benedicite, (called a canticle,) the Magnificat, and Nunc Dimittis. (3.) Those portions of the Communion Service which are appointed to be said or sung, but not arranged like the Canticles: as the Tersanctus, and the Gloria in Excelsis. St. Paul (Eph. v. 19, and Col. iii. 16) speaks of psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs. The first of these words would seem to refer to the mizmor, or psalm, properly so called; the second to the tehikah, or jubilant song of praise; the last to the shir, or song; all of which words occur both in the titles, and the text, of the Book of Psalms. (See Song.)
HYPERDULIA. (See Dulia and Idolatry.)
HYPOSTASIS. A theological Christian term, for the true knowledge of the meaning of which take this short account. The Greeks took it in the first three centuries for particular substance, and therefore said there were three hypostases, that is, three “Persons,” according to the Latins. Where some of the Eastern people understanding the word hypostases in another sense, would not call the Persons three hypostases. Athanasius showed them in a council held at Alexandria in 362, that they all said the same thing, and that all the difference was, that they gave to the same word two different significations: and thus he reconciled them together. It is evident that the word hypostasis signifies two things: first, an individual particular substance; secondly, a common nature or essence. Now when the Fathers say there are “three hypostases,” their meaning is to be judged from the time they lived in; if it be one of the three first centuries, they meant all along three distinct agents, of which the Father was supreme. If one of much later date uses the expression, he means, most probably, little more than a mode of existence in a common nature.
HYPOSTATICAL UNION. The union of the human nature of our LORD with the Divine; constituting two natures in one person, and not two persons in one nature, as the Nestorians assert. (See Union.)
HYPOTHETICAL, This term is sometimes used in relation to a baptism administered to a child, of whom it is uncertain whether he has been already baptized or not. The rubric states, that “if they who bring the infant to the church do make such uncertain answers to the priest’s questions, as that it cannot appear that the child was baptized with water, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” then the priest, on performing the baptism, is to use this form of words, viz. “If thou art not already baptized, N——, I baptize thee in the name,” &c.
This, therefore, is called an hypothetical or conditional form, being used only on the supposition that the child may not have already received baptism.
HYPSISTARIANS. Heretics in the fourth century of Christianity. According to Gregory Nazianzen, (whose own father had once been a member of the sect, but afterwards became a Christian bishop,) they made a mixture of the Jewish religion and paganism, for they worshipped fire with the pagans, and observed the sabbath, and legal abstinence from meats, with the Jews.
378ICONOCLASTS, or IMAGE BREAKERS. (See Images, Image Worship, and Idolatry.) From εἰκὼν, an image, and κλάω, to break. A name given to the image-breakers in the eighth century. Sarantapechs, or Serantampicus, a Jew, persuaded Ezidus, or Gizidus, king of the Arabs, to take the images of saints out of churches that belonged to the Christians: and some time after, Bazere, [but Baronius writes Beser,] becoming a Mahometan in Syria, where he was a slave, insinuated himself so much into the favour of Leo Isauricus, that this prince, at his and the persuasion of other Jews, who had foretold him his coming to the empire, declared against images, about 726, ordered the statue of Christ, placed over one of the gates of the city, to be thrown down, and being enraged at a tumult occasioned thereby, issued a proclamation wherein he abolished the use of statues, and menaced the worshippers with severe punishments; and all the solicitations of Germanus the patriarch, and of the bishop of Rome, could prevail nothing in their favour. His son and successor Constantine forbade praying to saints or the Virgin; he set at nought the pope, and assembled a council, in which his proceedings were approved; but this council, being condemned at Rome, the emperor strove more than ever to gain his point. Leo IV. succeeded in 775, and reigned but four years, leaving his son Constantine under the tutelage of the empress Irene. In her time, A. D. 787, was held the second Council of Nice, in which, according to Baronius, a request was made that the image of Christ and of the saints might be restored. But Spanheim says that Philip the emperor, and John, patriarch of Constantinople, having rejected the sixth general council against the Monotheletes in 712, took away the pictures of the Fathers of that and the former councils, hung up by the emperor Justinian, in the portico of St. Sophia; and that the pope thereupon, in a synod at Rome, ordered the like images to be placed in St. Peter’s church, and thenceforth worshipped; their use until that time being purely historical. The Saracens, offended at that superstition, persecuted the Christians; and Leo calling a synod issued a proclamation, condemning the worship of images, but granting that they might be hung up in churches, the better to prevent idolatry; and upon a further dispute with Pope Gregory II., who excommunicated him, and absolved his subjects from their obedience in 730, he commanded that they should be quite taken down and destroyed. Constantine Copronymus followed his father’s example, and in the thirteenth year of his reign, anno 744, assembled the seventh general council of the Greeks, wherein images and their worshippers were condemned. His son Leo IV. followed his steps, who, at his death, leaving the empress Irene to administer the state during the minority of Constantine VII., she, to gain the monks over to her interest, made use of them to restore images, advanced Tarasius from a laic to be patriarch of Constantinople, and so managed the council which she called at Nice, that they decreed several sorts of worship to images; as salutation, incense, kissing, wax lights, &c., but neither approved images of the Trinity, statues, nor any carved work. Constantine being of age, and opposing this procedure, was barbarously deprived of his sight and life by his unnatural mother Irene; an act which is commended by Cardinal Baronius, who declared the emperor Leo incapable of the crown, which he calls a rare example to posterity not to suffer heretical princes to reign. On the other side, the popes imitated their predecessors in their hatred to the Greek emperors, whom they despoiled of their exarchate of Ravenna, and their other possessions in Italy, which, by the help of the French, was turned into St. Peter’s patrimony; but that the French, Germans, and other northern countries, abhorred image worship, is plain by the capitulary of Charlemagne against images, and the acts of the synod of Frankfort under that prince, who also wrote four books to Pope Adrian against image worship, and the illegal Council of Nice above mentioned. Image worship was also opposed by other emperors who succeeded; as also by the Churches of Italy, Germany, France, and Britain, particularly by the learned Alcuin.
IDES. A word occurring in the Roman calendar, inserted in all correct editions of the Prayer Book. The ides were eight days in each month: in March, May, July, and October, the ides ended on the 15th, and in all other months, on the 13th day. The word Ides, taken from the Greek, (ειἶδος,) means an aspect or appearance, and was primarily used to denote the full moon. The system of the original Roman calendar was founded on the change of the moon, the nones being the completion of the first quarter, as the ides were of the second.—Stephens, Book of Common Prayer; Notes on the Calendar.
IDOLATRY. (See Images and Iconoclasts.) From εἶδωλον, an idol, and λατρεία, worship. The worship of idols. This is 379one of the crying sins of the Church of Rome. Palmer, in his Essay on the Church, mentions some of the idolatries and heresies which are held without censure in the Roman communion.
I. It is maintained without censure that Latria, or the worship paid to the Divine nature, is also due to—
Images of Christ;
Images of the Trinity;
Images of God the Father;
Relics of the blood, flesh, hair, and nails of Christ;
Relics of the true cross;
Relics of the nails, spear, sponge, scourge, reed, pillar, linen, cloth, napkin of Veronica, seamless coat, purple robe, inscription on the cross, and other instruments of the passion;
Images of the cross;
The Bible;
The Blessed Virgin.
All these creatures ought, according to the doctrines taught commonly and without censure in the Roman communion, to receive the very worship paid to God.
II. Divine honours are practically offered to the Virgin and to all the saints and angels. It has been repeatedly and clearly shown, that they are addressed in exactly the same terms in which we ought to address God; that the same sort of confidence is expressed in their power; that they are acknowledged to be the authors of grace and salvation. These idolatries are generally practised without opposition or censure.
III. The Virgin is blasphemously asserted to be superior to God the Son, and to command him. She is represented as the source of all grace, while believers are taught to look on Jesus with dread. The work of redemption is said to be divided between her and our Lord.
IV. It is maintained that justification leaves the sinner subject to the wrath and vengeance of God.
V. That the temporal afflictions of the righteous are caused by the wrath of an angry God.
VI. That the righteous suffer the tortures of hell-fire after death.
VII. That the sacrifice of Christ on the cross is repeated or continued in the eucharist.
These and other errors contrary to faith are inculcated within the communion of the Roman Church, without censure or open opposition.—Palmer.
ILE. (See Aisle.) The passages in a church, parallel to the nave, from which they are separated by rows of columns and piers, being narrower and lower. The same term is applied to the side passages which sometimes mark the transept and the choir. The aisles of the apin are more properly called the ambulatory. The aisles were adopted from the ancient Basilicas, in which they are for the most part found. They are of comparatively rare occurrence in the Oriental churches. The word is derived from the Latin ala, which was used in an architectural sense to mean a side building, as we use wing. Thus Vitruvius, as quoted by Facciolati; “In ædificiis alæ dicuntur structura ad latria ædium, dextra, et sinistra protensæ, ut columnarum ordines, vel porticus; quas Græci quoque πτερὰ et πτέρυγας appellant.” And thus in French, the same word aile signifies a wing and a church aisle.
ILLUMINATI, or ALLUMBRADOS. Certain Spanish heretics who began to appear in the world about 1575; but the authors being severely punished, this sect was stifled, as it were, until 1623, and then awakened with more vigour in the diocese of Seville. The edict against them specifies seventy-six different errors, whereof the principal are, that with the assistance of mental prayer and union with God, (which they boasted of,) they were in such a state of perfection as not to need either good works, or the sacraments of the Church. Soon after these were suppressed, a new sect, under the same name, appeared in France. These, too, were entirely extinguished in the year 1635. Among other extravagances, they held that friar Antony Bocquet had a system of belief and practice revealed to him which exceeded all that was in Christianity; that by virtue of that method, people might improve to the same degree of perfection and glory that saints and the Virgin Mary had; that none of the doctors of the Church knew anything of devotion; that St. Peter was a good, well-meaning man only; St. Paul never heard scarce anything of devotion; that the whole Church lay in darkness and misbelief; that God regarded nothing but himself; that within ten years their notions would prevail all the world over; and then there would be no occasion for priests, monks, or any religious distinctions.
IMAGES. In the religious sense of the word, there appears to have been little or no use of images in the Christian Church for the first three or four hundred years, as is evident from the silence of all ancient authors, and of the heathens themselves, who never recriminated, or charged the use of images on 380the primitive Christians. There are positive proofs in the fourth century, that the use of images was not allowed; particularly, the Council of Eliberis decrees that pictures ought not to be put in churches, lest that which is worshipped be painted upon the walls. Petavius gives this general reason for the prohibition of all images whatever at that time—because the remembrance of idolatry was yet fresh in men’s minds. About the latter end of the fourth century, pictures of saints and martyrs began to creep into the churches. Paulinus, bishop of Nola, ordered his church to be painted with Scripture histories, such as those of Esther, Job, Tobit, and Judith. And St. Augustine often speaks of the pictures of Abraham offering his son Isaac, and those of St. Peter and St. Paul, but without approving the use of them; on the contrary he tells us, the Church condemned such as paid a religious veneration to pictures, and daily endeavoured to correct them, as untoward children.
It was not till after the second Council of Nice that images of God, or the Trinity, were allowed in churches. Pope Gregory II., who was otherwise a great stickler for images, in that very epistle which he wrote to the emperor Leo to defend the worship of them, denies it to be lawful to make any image of the Divine nature. Nor did the ancient Christians approve of massy images, or statues of wood, metal, or stone, but only pictures or paintings to be used in churches, and those symbolical rather than any other. Thus, a lamb was the symbol of Jesus Christ, and a dove of the Holy Ghost. But the sixth general council forbade the picturing Christ any more under the figure of a lamb, and ordered that he should be represented by the effigies of a man. By this time, it is presumed, the worship of images was begun, anno 692.
The worship of images occasioned great contests both in the Eastern and Western Churches. (See Iconoclasts.) Nicephorus, who had wrested the empire from Irene, in the year 802, maintained the worship of images. The emperor Michael, in 813, declared against the worship of images, and expelled Nicephorus, patriarch of Constantinople, Theodorus Studita, Nicetas, and others, who had asserted it. Michael II., desiring to re-establish peace in the East, proposed to assemble a council, to which both the Iconoclasts (those who broke down images) and the asserters of image worship should be admitted; but the latter refusing to sit with heretics, as they called the Iconoclasts, the emperor found out a medium. He left all men free to worship or not worship images, and published a regulation, forbidding the taking of crosses out of the churches, to put images in their place; the paying of adoration to the images themselves; the clothing of statues; the making them godfathers and godmothers to children; the lighting candles before them, and offering incense to them, &c. Michael sent ambassadors into the West to get this regulation approved. These ministers applied themselves to Louis le Debonnaire, who sent an embassy to Rome upon this subject. But the Romans, and Pope Pascal I., did not admit of the regulation; and a synod, held at Paris in 824, was of opinion, that though the use of images ought not to be prohibited, yet it was not allowable to pay them any religious worship. At length the emperor Michael settled his regulation in the East; and his son Theophilus, who succeeded him in the year 829, held a council at Constantinople, in which the Iconoclasts were condemned, and the worship of images restored. It does not appear that there was any controversy afterwards about images. The French and Germans used themselves, by degrees, to pay an outward honour to images, and conformed to the Church of Rome.
Image worship is one great article of modern Popery. “No sooner is a man advanced a little forward into their churches, (says a modern author, speaking of the Roman Catholics,) and begins to look about him, but he will find his eyes and attention attracted by the number of lamps and wax candles, which are constantly burning before the shrines and images of their saints; a sight which will not only surprise a stranger by the novelty of it, but will furnish him with one proof and example of the conformity of the Romish with the Pagan worship, by recalling to his memory many passages of the heathen authors, where their perpetual lamps and candles are described as continually burning before the altars and statues of their deities.” The Romanists believe that the saint to whom the image is dedicated presides in a particular manner about its shrine, and works miracles by the intervention of its image; insomuch that, if the image were destroyed or taken away, the saint would no longer perform any miracle in that place. This is exactly the notion of Paganism, that the gods resided in their statues or images. “Minucius Felix, rallying the gods of the heathens, (they are M. Jurieu’s words,) says: Ecce funditur, fabricatur; nondum Deus est. Ecce plumbatur, construitur, erigitur: nec adhuc Deus. Ecce ornatur, consecratur, 381oratur; tum postremo Deus est. I am mistaken if the same thing may not be said of the Romish saints. They cast an image, they work it with a hammer; it is not yet a saint. They set it upright, and fasten it with lead; neither is it yet a saint. They adorn, consecrate, and dedicate it; behold, at last, a complete saint!”
By a decree of the Council of Trent, it is forbidden to set up any extraordinary and unusual image in the churches, without the bishop’s approbation first obtained. As to the consecration of images, they proceed in the same manner as at the benediction of a new cross. At saying the prayer, the saint, whom the image represents, is named: after which the priest sprinkles the image with holy water. But when an image of the Virgin Mary is to be blessed, it is thrice incensed, besides sprinkling: to which are added the Ave Mary, psalms, and anthems, and a double sign of the cross.
The Roman Catholics talk much of the miraculous effects of the images of their saints, forgetting that lying wonders are a sign of Antichrist. The image of Jesus Christ, which, feeling itself wounded with a dagger by an impious wretch, laid its hand upon the wound, is famous at Naples. The image of St. Catharine of Siena has often driven out devils, and wrought other miracles. Our Lady of Lucca, insolently attacked by a soldier, (who threw stones at her, and had nearly broken the holy child’s head, which she held on her right arm,) immediately set it on her left; and the child liked sitting on that arm so well, that, since that accident, he has never changed his situation.—Broughton.
IMAGE WORSHIP. All the points of doctrine or practice in which the Church of Rome differs from the Church of England are novelties, introduced gradually in the middle ages: of these the worship of images is the earliest practice, which received the sanction of what the Papists call a general council, though the second Council of Nice, A. D. 787, was in fact no general council. As this is the earliest authority for any of the Roman peculiarities, and as the Church of England at that early period was remarkably concerned in resisting the novelty, it may not be out of place to mention the circumstances as they are concisely stated by Perceval. The emperor Charlemagne, who was very much offended at the decrees of this council in favour of images, sent a copy of them into England. Alcuin, a most learned member of the Church of England, attacked them, and having produced Scriptural authority against them, transmitted the same to Charlemagne in the name of the bishops of the Church of England. Roger Hoveden, Simon of Durham, and Matthew of Westminster, mention the fact, and speak of the worship of images as being execrated by the whole Church. Charlemagne, pursuing his hostility to the Nicene Council, drew up four books against it, and transmitted them to Pope Adrian; who replied to them in an epistle “concerning images, against those who impugn the Nicene Synod,” as the title is given, together with the epistle itself, in the seventh volume of Labbe and Cossart’s Councils. The genuineness of these books is admitted by all the chief Roman writers. For the purpose of considering the subject more fully, Charlemagne assembled a great council of British, Gallican, German, and Italian bishops at Frankfort, at which two legates from the bishop of Rome were present; where, after mature deliberation, the decrees of the soi-disant general Council of Nice, notwithstanding Pope Adrian’s countenance, were “rejected,” “despised,” and “condemned.” The synod at Frankfort remains a monument of a noble stand in defence of the ancient religion, in which the Church of England had an honourable share, occupying, a thousand years ago, the self-same ground we now maintain, of protesting against Roman corruptions of the Catholic faith.
IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. (See Conception, Immaculate.)
IMMERSION. A mode of administering the sacrament of baptism, by which first the right side, then the left, then the face, are dipped in the font. Immersion is the mode of baptizing first prescribed in our office of public baptism; but it is permitted to pour water upon the child, if the godfathers and godmothers certify that the child is weak. (See Affusion.)
IMMOVEABLE FEASTS. (See Moveable Feasts.)
IMPANATION. A term (like transubstantiation and consubstantiation) used to designate a false notion of the manner of the presence of the body and blood of our blessed Lord in the holy eucharist.
This word is formed from the Latin panis (bread), as the word incarnation is formed from the Latin caro, carnis (flesh): and as incarnation signifies the eternal Word’s becoming flesh, or taking our nature for the purpose of our redemption; so does impanation signify the Divine person Jesus Christ, God and man, becoming bread [and wine], or taking the nature of bread, for the purposes of the holy eucharist: 382so that, as in the one Divine person Jesus Christ there were two perfect natures, God and man; so in the eucharistic elements, according to the doctrine expressed by the word impanation, there are two perfect natures—one of the Divine Son of the Blessed Virgin, and another of the eucharistic elements; the two natures being one, not in a figurative, but in a real and literal sense, by a kind of hypostatical union.
It does not occur to us that there is any sect which holds this false notion; but there are some individuals to whom it seems the true method of reconciling those apparent oppositions, (which are of the very essence of a mystery,) which occur in the Catholic statement of the doctrine of the holy eucharist. The nearest approach to the doctrine of impanation avowed by any sect, is that of the Lutherans. (See Consubstantiation.)
IMPLICIT FAITH. The faith which is given without reserve or examination, such as the Church of Rome requires of her members. The reliance we have on the Church of England is grounded on the fact, that she undertakes to prove that all her doctrines are Scriptural, but the Church of Rome requires credence on her own authority. The Church of England places the Bible as an authority above the Church, the Church of Rome makes the authority of the Church co-ordinate with that of the Bible. The Romish divines teach that we are to observe, not how the Church proves anything, but what she says: that the will of God is, that we should believe and confide in his ministers in the same manner as himself. Cardinal Toletus, in his instructions for priests, asserts, “that if a rustic believes his bishop proposing an heretical tenet for an article of faith, such belief is meritorious.” Cardinal Cusanus tells us, “That irrational obedience is the most consummate and perfect obedience, when we obey without attending to reason, as a beast obeys his driver.” In an epistle to the Bohemians he has these words: “I assert that there are no precepts of Christ but those which are received as such by the Church (meaning the Church of Rome). When the Church changes her judgment, God changes his judgment likewise.”
IMPOSITION, or LAYING ON OF HANDS. St. Paul (Heb. vi. 2) speaks of the doctrine of laying on of hands as one of the fundamentals of Christianity: it is an ecclesiastical action, by which a blessing is conveyed from God through his minister to a person prepared by repentance and faith to receive it. It is one of the most ancient forms in the world, sanctioned by the practice of Jacob, Moses, the apostles, and our blessed Lord himself. It is the form by which the bishop conveys his blessing in confirmation.
This ceremony has been always esteemed so essential a part of ordination, that any other way of conferring orders without it has been judged invalid. The imposition of hands undoubtedly took its rise from the practice of the Jewish Church, in initiating persons for performing any sacred office, or conferring any employ of dignity or power. Thus Joshua was inaugurated to his high office. (Numb. xxvii. 23.) Hence the Jews derived their custom of ordaining their rabbis by imposition of hands. The same ceremony we find used by the apostles, as often as they admitted any new members into the ministry of the Church. For, when they ordained the first deacons, it is recorded, that after praying “they laid hands on them.” (Acts vi. 6.) At the ordination of Barnabas and Paul it is said, that they “fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them.” (Acts xiii. 3.) When St. Paul bids Timothy have regard to the graces conferred in his ordination, he observes that these were conferred by imposition of hands: “Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.” (1 Tim. iv. 14.) And in his other Epistle he exhorts him to “stir up the gift of God which was in him by the putting on of his hands.” (2 Tim. i. 6.) The primitive Christians, following exactly after this copy, never admitted any into orders but with this ceremony: so that the ancient councils seldom use any other word for ordination than “imposition of hands;” and the ancient writers of the Church signify, that the clerical character, and the gifts of the Spirit, were conferred by this action.
It must be observed here, that the imposition of the bishop’s hand alone is required in the ordination of a deacon, in conformity to the usage of the ancient Church.—Dr. Nicholls.
This was always a distinction between the three superior and five inferior orders, that the first were given by imposition of hands, and the second were not.—Dr. Burn.
IMPROPRIATION. Ecclesiastical property, the profits of which are in the hands of a layman; thus distinguished from appropriation, which is when the profits of a benefice are in the hands of a college, &c. Impropriations have arisen from the confiscation of monasteries in the time of 383Henry VIII., when, instead of restoring the tithes to ecclesiastical uses, they were given to rapacious laymen. Archbishop Laud exerted himself greatly to buy up impropriations.
IMPUTATION. The attributing a character to a person which he does not really possess; thus, when in holy baptism we are justified, the righteousness is imputed as well as imparted to us. The imputation which respects our justification before God, is God’s gracious reckoning of the righteousness of Christ to believers, and his acceptance of these persons as righteous on that account; their sins being imputed to him, and his obedience being imputed to them. Rom. iv. 6, 7; v. 18, 19; 2 Cor. v. 21. (See Faith and Justification.)
INCARNATION. The act whereby the Son of God assumed the human nature; or the mystery by which the Eternal Word was made man, in order to accomplish the work of our salvation.
The doctrine of the incarnation as laid down in the third General Council, that of Ephesus, (A. D. 431,) is as follows:—“The great and holy synod (of Nice) said, that he ‘who was begotten of the Father, as the only-begotten Son by nature; who was true God of true God, Light of light, by whom the Father made all things; that he descended, became incarnate, and was made man, suffered, rose on the third day, and ascended into the heavens.’ These words and doctrines we ought to follow, in considering what is meant by the Word of God being ‘incarnate and made man.’
“We do not say that the nature of the Word was converted and became flesh; nor that it was changed into perfect man, consisting of body and soul: but rather, that the Word, uniting to himself personally flesh, animated by a rational soul, became man in an ineffable and incomprehensible manner, and became the Son of man, not merely by will and affection, nor merely by the assumption of one aspect or appearance; but that different natures were joined in a real unity, and that there is one Christ and Son, of two natures; the difference of natures not being taken away by their union.... It is said also, that he who was before all ages and begotten of the Father, was ‘born according to the flesh, of a woman:’ not as if his Divine nature had taken its beginning from the Holy Virgin ... but because for us, and for our salvation, he united personally to himself the nature of man, and proceeded from a woman; therefore he is said to be ‘born according to the flesh.’... So also we say that he ‘suffered and rose again,’ not as if God the Word had suffered in his own nature the stripes, the nails, or the other wounds; for the Godhead cannot suffer, as it is incorporeal: but because that which had become his own body suffered, he is said to suffer those things for us. For he who was incapable of suffering was in a suffering body. In like manner we understand his ‘death.’... Because his own body, by the grace of God, as Paul saith, tasted death for every man, he is said to suffer death,” &c.
INCENSE. The use of incense in connexion with the eucharist was unknown in the Church until the time of Gregory the Great, in the latter part of the sixth century. It then became prevalent in the Church, but has been long disused by the Church of England.—Bingham.
INCOMPREHENSIBLE. In the Athanasian Creed it is said, that “the Father is incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, the Holy Ghost incomprehensible;” which means that the Father is illimitable, the Son illimitable, the Holy Ghost illimitable. At the time when this creed was translated, the word incomprehensible was not confined to the sense it now bears, of inconceivable, or beyond the reach of our understanding; but it then meant, not comprehended within limits.
INCORRUPTICOLÆ, or Aphthartodocetæ, or Phantasiastæ. Heretics who had their original at Alexandria, in the time of the emperor Justinian. The beginning of the controversy was among the Eutychians, whether the body of Christ was corruptible or incorruptible from his conception: Severus held it corruptible; Julian of Halicarnassus held the contrary, that our Lord’s body was not obnoxious to hunger, thirst, or weariness; and that he did but seemingly suffer such things; from whence they were called Phantasiastæ. The emperor Justinian, in the very end of his reign, favoured these heretics, and persecuted the orthodox.
INCUMBENT. He who is in present possession of a benefice.
INDEPENDENTS. Like the Presbyterians, the Independents sprang from Puritanism, and were originally formed in Holland, about the year 1610, but their distinguishing doctrine seems to have been previously maintained in England by the Brownists, who were banished, or emigrated, in 1593.
The Independent idea of the word “Church,” says Adam, from whom this article is abridged, is, that it is never used 384but in two senses—as including the whole body of the redeemed, whether in heaven or in earth, who are called “the general assembly,” &c. (Heb. xii. 23); and, again, “the whole family in heaven and in earth” (Eph. iii. 15); or, as one single congregation. Hence their distinguishing tenet is grounded upon the notion that the primitive bishops were not overseers of dioceses, but pastors of single independent congregations.
That which unites them, or rather which distinguishes them from other denominations of Christians, is their maintaining that the power of Church government and discipline is lodged neither in the bishop, nor in a presbytery or senate of Church rulers distinct from the people, but in the community of the faithful at large; and their disclaiming, more or less, every form of union between Churches, and assigning to each congregation the exclusive government of itself, as a body corporate, having full power within itself to admit and exclude members; to choose Church officers; and, when the good of the society requires it, to depose them, without being accountable to classes, presbyteries, synods, convocations, councils, or any jurisdiction whatever.
In doctrine they are strictly Calvinistic. But many of the Independents, both at home and abroad, reject the use of “all creeds and confessions drawn up by fallible men;” and merely require of their teachers a declaration of their belief in the truth of the gospel and its leading doctrines, and of their adherence to the Scriptures as the sole standard of faith and practice, and the only test of doctrine, or the only criterion of faith. And in general they require from all persons who wish to be admitted into their communion, an account, either verbal or written, of what is called their experience; in which, not only a declaration of their faith in the Lord Jesus, and their purpose, by grace, to devote themselves to him, is expected, but likewise a recital of the steps by which they were led to a knowledge and profession of the gospel.
In regard to Church government and discipline, it may be sufficient to remark here, after what has already been said, that Independents in general agree with the Presbyterians, “in maintaining the identity of presbyters and bishops, and believe that a plurality of presbyters, pastors, or bishops, in one church, is taught in Scripture, rather than the common usage of one bishop over many congregations;” but they conceive their own mode of discipline to be “as much beyond the presbyterian, as presbytery is preferable to prelacy:” and, that one distinguishing feature of their discipline is, their maintaining “the right of the Church, or body of Christians, to determine who shall be admitted into their communion, and also to exclude from their fellowship those who may prove themselves unworthy members.
This their regard to purity of communion, whereby they profess to receive only accredited, or really serious Christians, has been termed the grand Independent principle.
The earliest account of the number of Independent congregations refers to 1812; before that period, Independent and Presbyterian congregations were returned together. In 1812, there seem to have been 1024 Independent churches in England and Wales (799 in England, and 225 in Wales). In 1838, an estimate gives 1840 churches in England and Wales. The present Census makes the number 3244 (2604 in England, and 640 in Wales); with accommodation (after making an allowance for 185 incomplete returns) for 1,063,136 persons. The attendance on the Census-Sunday was as follows—after making an addition for 59 chapels for which the numbers are not given—Morning, 524,612; Afternoon, 232,285; Evening, 457,162.—Registrar’s Report, 1851.
INDEXES. (Prohibitory and Expurgatory.) The books generally bearing the title of Prohibitory and Expurgatory Indexes, are catalogues of authors and works either condemned in toto, or censured and corrected chiefly by expunction, issued from the Church of modern Rome, and published by authority of her ruling members and societies so empowered.
The Prohibitory Index specifies and prohibits entire authors or works, whether of known or of unknown authors. This book has been frequently published, with successive enlargements, to the present time, under the express sanction of the reigning pontiff. It may be considered as a kind of periodical publication of the papacy.
The other class of indexes, the Expurgatory, contains a particular examination of the works occurring in it, and specifies the passages condemned to be expunged or altered. Such a work, in proportion to the number of works embraced by it, must be, and in the case of the Spanish indexes of the kind, is, voluminous. For a general history of these indexes the reader is referred to Mendham’s “Literary Policy of the Church of Rome.”
INDUCTION. This may be compared to livery and seisin of a freehold, for it is 385putting a minister in actual possession of the Church to which he is presented, and of the glebe land and other temporalities thereof; for before induction he hath no freehold in them. The usual method of induction is by virtue of a mandate under the seal of the bishop, to the archdeacon of the place, who either himself, or by his warrant to all clergymen within his archdeaconry, inducts the new incumbent by taking his hand, laying it on the key of the church in the door, and pronouncing these words, “I induct you into the real and actual possession of the rectory or vicarage of H——, with all its profits and appurtenances.” Then he opens the door of the church, and puts the person in possession of it, who enters to offer his devotions, which done he tolls a bell to summon his parishioners.
INDULGENCES. One of the evil practices of the Church of Rome, of whose doctrine upon the subject the following outline may be given:—
The conferring of indulgences, which are denominated “the heavenly treasures of the Church,” (Conc. Tri. Decret. Sess. XX.,) is said to be the “gift of Christ to the Church.” (Sess. XXV.) To understand the nature of indulgences we must observe, that “the temporal punishment due to sin, by the decree of God, when its guilt and eternal punishment are remitted, may consist either of evil in this life, or of temporal suffering in the next, which temporal suffering in the next life is called purgatory; that the Church has received power from God to remit both of these inflictions, and this remission is called an indulgence.”—Butler’s Book of the Rom. Cath. Ch. p. 110. “It is the received doctrine of the Church, that an indulgence, when truly gained, is not barely a relaxation of the canonical penance enjoined by the Church, but also an actual remission by God himself, of the whole, or part, of the temporal punishment due to it in his sight.”—Milner’s End of Controv. p. 305. Pope Leo X., in his bull De Indulgentiis, whose object he states to be “that no one in future may allege ignorance of the doctrine of the Roman Church respecting indulgences, and their efficacy,” declares, “that the Roman pontiff, vicar of Christ on earth, can, for reasonable causes, by the powers of the keys, grant to the faithful, whether in this life or in purgatory, indulgences, out of the superabundance of the merits of Christ and of the saints (expressly called a treasure); and that those who have truly obtained these indulgences are released from so much of the temporal punishment due for their actual sins to the Divine justice, as is equivalent to the indulgence granted and obtained.”—Bulla Leon. X. adv. Luther. Clement VI., in the bull Unigenitus, explains this matter more fully:—“As a single drop of Christ’s blood would have sufficed for the redemption of the whole human race,” so the rest was not lost, but “was a treasure which he acquired for the militant Church, to be used for the benefit of his sons; which treasure he would not suffer to be hid in a napkin, or buried in the ground, but committed it to be dispensed by St. Peter, and his successors, his own vicars upon earth, for proper and reasonable causes, for the total or partial remission of the temporal punishment due to sin; and for an augmentation of this treasure the merits of the Blessed Mother of God, and of all the elect, are known to come in aid.” “We have resolved,” says Pope Leo XII., in his bull of indiction for the universal jubilee, in 1824, “in virtue of the authority given us by heaven, fully to unlock that sacred treasure, composed of the merits, sufferings, and virtues of Christ our Lord, and of his Virgin Mother, and of all the saints, which the author of human salvation has intrusted to our dispensation. During this year of the jubilee, we mercifully give and grant, in the Lord, a plenary indulgence, remission, and pardon of all their sins, to all the faithful of Christ, truly penitent, and confessing their sins, and receiving the holy communion, who shall visit the churches of blessed Peter and Paul,” &c. “We offer you,” says Ganganelli, in his bull De Indulgentiis, “a share of all the riches of Divine mercy, which have been intrusted to us, and chiefly those which have their origin in the blood of Christ. We will then open to you all the gates of the rich reservoir of atonement, derived from the merits of the Mother of God, the holy apostles, the blood of the martyrs, and the good works of all the saints. We invite you, then, to drink of this overflowing stream of indulgence, to enrich yourselves in the inexhaustible treasures of the Church, according to the custom of our ancestors. Do not, then, let slip the present occasion, this favourable time, these salutary days, employing them to appease the justice of God, and obtain your pardon.”
The reasonable causes, on account of which indulgences are given, are, where “the cause be pious, that is, not a work which is merely temporal, or vain, or in no respect pertaining to the Divine glory, 386but for any work whatsoever, which tends to the honour of God, or the service of the Church, an indulgence will be valid. We see, occasionally, the very greatest indulgences given for the very lightest causes; as when a plenary indulgence is granted to all who stand before the gates of St. Peter, whilst the pope gives the solemn blessing to the people on Easter day;” for “indulgences do not depend, for their efficacy, on consideration of the work enjoined, but on the infinite treasure of the merits of Christ and the saints, which is a consideration surpassing and transcending everything that is granted by an indulgence.” In some cases “the work enjoined must not only be pious and useful, but bear a certain proportion with the indulgence; that is, the work enjoined must tend to an end more pleasing in the sight of God, than the satisfaction remitted,” “although it is not necessary that it be in itself very meritorious, or satisfactory, or difficult, and laborious, (though these things ought to be regarded too,) but that it be a mean apt and useful towards obtaining the end for which the indulgence is granted.” “As the large resort of people,” before the gates of St. Peter, when the pope gives his solemn blessing, “is a mean, apt and useful, to set forth faith, respecting the head of the Church, and to the honour of the apostolic see, which is the end of the indulgence.”—Bellarmine de Indulgentiis, lib. i. c. 12. The first General Lateran Council granted “remission of sins to whoever shall go to Jerusalem, and effectually help to oppose the infidels.”—Can. XI. The third and fourth Lateran Councils granted the same indulgence to those who set themselves to destroy heretics, or who shall take up arms against them.—See Labbe, vol. x. p. 1523. Boniface VIII. granted, not only a full and large, but the most full, pardon of all sins to all that visit Rome the first year in every century. Clement V. decreed, that they who should, at the jubilee, visit such and such churches, should obtain “a most full remission of all their sins;” and he not only granted a “plenary absolution of all sins, to all who died on the road to Rome,” but “also commanded the angels of paradise to carry the soul direct to heaven.”
“Sincere repentance,” we are told, “is always enjoined, or implied, in the grant of an indulgence, and is indispensably necessary for every grace.”—Milner’s End of Controversy, p. 304. But as the dead are removed from the possibility, so are they from the necessity, of repentance; “as the pope,” says Bellarmine, “applies the satisfactions of Christ and the saints to the dead, by means of works enjoined on the living, they are applied, not in the way of judicial absolution, but in the way of payment (per modum solutionis). For as when a person gives alms, or fasts, or makes a pilgrimage, on account of the dead, the effect is, not that he obtains absolution for them from their liability to punishment, but he presents to God that particular satisfaction for them, in order that God, on receiving it, may liberate the dead from the debt of punishment which they had to pay. In like manner, the pope does not absolve the deceased, but offers to God, out of the measure of satisfaction, as much as is necessary to free them.”—Id. Their object is “to afford succour to such as have departed real penitents in the love of God, yet before they had duly satisfied, by fruits worthy of penance, for sins of commission and omission, and are now purifying in the fire of purgatory; that an entrance may be opened for them into that country, where nothing defiled is admitted.”—Bull. Leo. XII.