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CHURCH DICTIONARY.

BY

WALTER FARQUHAR HOOK, D.D.,

VICAR OF LEED S.

SIXTH EDITION.

REVISED AND ADAPTED TO THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH

IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

BY A PRESBYTER OF SAID CHURCH.

PHILADELPHIA:
PUBLISHED BY E. H. BUTLER & CO.
1854.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853,

BY E. H. BUTLER & CO.,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

LENOX LIBRAR

NEW YORK

C. SHERMAN, PRINTER,

19 St. James Street.

PREFACE.

THE American Editor of this valuable work begs leave to state that it was undertaken with strict reference to the wants of American churchmen. In pursuance of this object, he has left out many articles which relate to the peculiar ecclesiastical laws and institutions of the Church of England; many articles purely architectural in their details; several on the more abstruse and mooted points of theology; and he has modified and amended others, by the introduction of much new matter, relating to the American branch of the Holy Catholic Church, in all those points where we canonically, rubrically, and politically differ from the Church of England.

The Editor firmly believes that, while under his revision it has lost none of its real value as an English work, it has gained something in its better adaptation to the American Church, and the ecclesiastical peculiarities which pertain to the noble daughter of a more noble and venerable mother.

Dr. Hook says, "This edition," the sixth (of which this is a reprint) "has been enlarged by an addition of more than one hundred articles, the authorities are quoted upon which the statements are made in the more important articles, and, where it has been possible, the ipsissima verba of the authors referred to, have been given." Dr. Hook also adds:-"The circumstances of the Church of England have changed considerably from what they were when the Church Dictionary was first published. At that time the Protestantism of the Church of England was universally recognised, and the fear was lest her pretensions to Catholicity should be ignored. But now an affectation of repudiating our Protestantism is prevalent, while by ignorant or designing men Protestantism is misrepresented as the antithesis, not, as is the case, to Romanism, but to Catholicism; at the same time, Catholicism is confounded with Romanism, primitive truth with medieval error, and the theology of the Schools with that of the Fathers while, therefore, the articles bearing on the Catholicity, orthodoxy, and primitive character of the Church of England are retained, the articles relating to the heresies and peculiarities of the Church of Rome have been expanded; and strong as they were in former editions in condemnation of the papal system, they have been rendered more useful, under the present exigencies of the Church, by a reference to the decisions of the so-called Council of Trent, so as to enable the reader to see what the peculiar tenets of that corrupt portion of the Christian world really are."

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CHURCH DICTIONARY.

ABBA.

ABBEY.

ABBA. A Syriac word signifying Fa- | their souls, they would both mitigate their ther, and expressive of attachment and torments while they lasted, and deliver confidence. St. Paul says, Ye have received themselves from them entirely, after the the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, lapse of a certain time. Father. (Rom. viii. 15.)

ABBE. The designation assumed in France, before the Revolution, by certain persons, who ostensibly devoted them selves to theological studies, in the hope that the king would confer upon them a real abbey, i. e. a certain portion of the revenues of a real abbey. Hence it became the common title of unemployed secular priests.

ABBEY. (See Abbot, Monastery, Monk.) The habitation of a society devoted to religion. The name Abbey is derived from Abbas, which occurs in the lower Latin, which is derived from the Hebrew, and signifies Father. The heads of abbeys were patres monasterii, or, if females, matres monasterii, and their houses were denominated abbeys. An abbey was a monastery, whether of men or women, distinguished from other religious houses in the middle ages, and in the existing Romish Church, by larger privileges. The abbeys in England were exempted from all jurisdiction, civil and spiritual, and from all impositions, and having generally the privilege of sanctuary, for all who fled to them were beyond the reach of the law. They became enormously rich through an appeal on the part of the monks to the superstitious feelings of the age. The doctrine of purgatory being insisted upon, they persuaded the people that by making endowments for the saying of masses for

The worship of saints, of images, and of relics, having been encouraged, the ignorant were urged to make large donations to certain shrines, concerning miracles wrought at which, the most monstrous falsehoods were related. The merit of good works, and their power to justify sinners being admitted, the monks easily persuaded awakened profligates on their deathbeds to leave large legacies to their respective abbeys. The abuse became at last a public nuisance. As the abbeys increased in wealth, the state became poor; for the lands which these regulars (see Regulars) possessed were in mortua manu (see Mortmain), and could not be brought into the market. This inconvenience gave rise to the statutes against gifts in mortmain.

The abbeys were totally abolished in England in the time of Henry VIII., who, in the twenty-eighth year of his reign, appointed visiters to inspect them. The abuses discovered were so many and so disgraceful, that many of the abbeys were voluntarily surrendered to the king; by which means the abbey lands became invested in the crown, and were afterwards granted to the nobility; under which grants they are held to the present day. One hundred and ninety such abbeys were dissolved. Cranmer begged earnestly of Henry VIII., that he would save some of the abbeys to be reformed and applied to

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