ABDICATION for Jesus Hominum Salvator; St. or S. for Saint; D. G. for Dei Gratia; A. C. for Ante Christum; A. D. for Anno Domini; A. M. for Anno Mundi; O. S. for Old Style, that is, the reckoning of the beginning of the year as it was before Sept. 2, 1752, and N. S. for new. (See Old Style.) Also with regard to academical degrees: D. D. for Divinitatis Doctor; B. D. for Baccalaureus Divinitatis. S. T. P. Sanctæ Theologiæ Professor, which = D. D. &c. ABDICATION OF ORDERS. Although Canon 76 says that "no man ordained deacon or priest shall voluntarily relinquish the same nor use himself in the course of his life as a layman upon pain of excommunication," the Clerical Disabilities Act, 1870, allows one to do so by executing what is called a Deed of Relinquishment, after resigning any preferment he may have, in the form given by the Act. He may then enrol it in Chancery, and may deliver a copy of the enrolment to the bishop in whose diocese he last held any preferment; or if none, where he lives and may give notice to the archbishop. Six months after he has so delivered a copy of the enrolment to the bishop, the bishop shall, on his application, have it registered; and thereupon (but not before) he becomes for all practical purposes a layman. And as no man can be re-ordained the step is irrevocable. But if any proceedings against him as a clergyman were pending, the registration is to be suspended till they are terminated; and abdication does not relieve him from any claim for dilapidations or any other debt. It has been decided that a clergyman may stop and change his mind at any of the stages prescribed by the Act, which indeed was quite clear, as they are all permissive; and the notice to the archbishop seems purely optional, and has no consequences, and may be put in the fire forthwith. [G.] ABECEDARIAN HYMNS. Hymns composed in imitation of the acrostic poetry of the Hebrews, in which each verse, or each part, commenced with the first and succeeding letters of the alphabet, in their order. This arrangement was intended as a help to the memory. St. Augustine composed a hymn in this manner, for the common people to learn, against the error of the Donatists. (See Acrostic; Alphabet Psalms.) of others, on condition that they should live according to their rules. The sect died out in the reign of Theodosius the Younger. Soames' Mosheim, vol. i. 150 (Stubbs' edition). ABEYANCE. Coke explains the term thus: "En abeiance, that is, in expectation, from the French bayer, to expect. For when a parson dieth, we say that the freehold is in abeyance, because a successor is in expectation to take it; and here note the necessity of the true interpretation of the words. If tenant pur terme d'autre vis dieth the freehold is said to be in abeyance until the occupant entereth. If a man makes a lease for life, the remainder to the right heirs of I. S., the fee simple is in abeyance, that is, in expectation, in remembrance, entendment, or consideration of law, in consideratione sive intelligentia legis; because it is not in any man living." (Co. Litt. 342, b.) And if a man be patron of a church, and presenteth a clerk to the same; the fee of the lands and tenements pertaining to the rectory is in the parson; but if the parson die, and the church becometh void, then is the fee in abeyance, until there be new parson presented, admitted, and inducted. a ABJURATION. A solemn renunciation in public, or before a proper officer, of some doctrinal error. A formal abjuration was often considered necessary by the Church, when any person sought to be received into her communion from heresy or schism. Many forms of abjuration exacted from persons convicted of being Lollards or disciples of John Wiclif, may be found in the Registers of English Bishops during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; also in the Fasciculi Zizaniorum. The culprit was generally compelled to make his abjuration in his parish church, in the presence of the bishop; sometimes in several parish churches in the diocese. A form for admitting Romish recusants into the Church of England was drawn up by one of the Houses of Convocation of 1714, but did not receive the royal sanction. This may be found in Cardwell's Synodalia, vol. ii. c. 40. ABJURATION OATH, THE. A form for renouncing the Stuart dynasty, to be sworn by every person who took office, civil, military, or spiritual. It was first proposed in 1690, but was not made compulsory before the last year of the reign of William III. It was reenforced on the accession of George I., and on the death of the Old Pretender (1765), and was not finally abolished until 1858. (See Supremacy.) ABELIANS, Abelins, Abelites, or Abelonites. A sect of heretics mentioned by St. Augustine as existing in the diocese of Hippo. Founding their opinions on the idea that Abel always continued in a state of celibacy, they condemned the uses of marriage. If married themselves they had ABJURATION OATH for Scotland, no intercourse with their wives; but to keep 1662. Imposed on all persons holding up their numbers they adopted the children | public office, included a declaration that "the Covenant and League are of themselves unlawful oaths, and were taken and imposed upon the subjects of this kingdom against the fundamental laws and liberties of the same." ABJURATION OF THE REALM. An oath which might be enforced on any one guilty of felony who had availed himself of the privilege of sanctuary. It bound the offender to quit the kingdom within thirty days, and rendered him liable to the penalty of death if he returned. The oath was abolished together with the privilege of sanctuary in the time of James I. In the thirty-fifth year of Elizabeth a statute was passed by which Protestant Dissenters who refused to attend divine service according to the Anglican form, and Roman Catholics, might be forced to abjure the realm, and if they refused or returned without licence, might be hanged as felons. The Act of Toleration relieved Protestant Dissenters from the obligation to take this oath, but Romanists were legally subject to it until 1791, when it was removed from the Statute Book' ABLUTION. Washing, or purification, either of the person or the sacred vessels. The word is generally used to signify the rinsing of the chalice, after the Holy Communion, with wine and water, which are reverently drunk by the priest. (Cf. 6th rubric after communion office.) [H.] ABSOLUTION. The pardon of God for sins, pronounced by the priest to the penitent, in the name of God. "If our confession be serious and hearty, this absolution is as effectual as if God did pronounce it from heaven. So says the Confession of Saxony and Bohemia, and so says the Augsburg Confession; and, which is more, so says St. Chrysostom in his fifth homily upon Isaiah, "Heaven waits and expects the priest's sentence here on earth; the Lord follows the servant, and what the servant rightly binds or looses here on earth, that the Lord confirms in heaven." The same says St. Gregory (Hom. xxvi.) upon the Gospels: "The apostles (and in them ail priests) were made God's vicegerents here on earth, in his name and stead to retain or remit sins." St. Augustine and Cyprian, and generally all antiquity, say the same; so does our Church in many places, particularly in the form of absolution for the sick; but, above all, holy Scripture is clear (St. John xx. 23), "Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them." Which power of remitting sins was not to end with the apostles, but is a part ot the ministry of reconciliation, as necessary now as it was then, and therefore to continue as long as the ministry of reconciliation; that is, to the end of the ABSOLUTION world. (Eph. iv. 12, 13.) When, therefore, the priest absolves, God absolves, if we be truly penitent. Now, this remission of sins granted here to the priest, to which God hath promised a confirmation in heaven, is not the act of preaching, or baptizing, or admitting men to the holy communion. But this power of remitting sins, mentioned John xx., was not granted (though promised, Matt. xvi. 19) till now, that is, after the resurrection, as appears by the ceremony of breathing, signifying that then it was given: and secondly, by the word receive, used in that place (ver. 22), which he could not properly have used, if they had been endued with this power before. Therefore the power of remitting, which here God authorizes, and promises certain assistance to, is neither preaching nor baptizing, but some other way of remitting, viz. that which the Church calls absolution. And if it be so, then, to doubt of the effect of it (supposing we be truly penitent, and such as God will pardon) is to question the truth of God: and he that, under pretence of reverence to God, denies or despises this power, does injury to God, slighting his commission, and is no better than a Novatian, says St. Ambrose.-Sparrow. "Sacerdotal absolution does not necessarily require any particular or auricular confession of private sins; forasmuch as that the grand absolution of baptism was commonly given without any particular confession. And therefore the Romanists vainly found the necessity of auricular confession upon those words of our Saviour, Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them: as if there could be no absolution without particular confession; when it is so plain, that the great absolution of baptism (the power of which is founded by the ancients upon this very place) required no such particular confession. We may hence infer, that the power of any sacerdotal absolution is only ministerial; because the administration of baptism (which is the most universal absolution), so far as man is concerned in it, is no more than ministerial. All the office and power of man in it is only to minister the external form, but the internal power and grace of remission of sins is properly God's; and so it is in all other sorts of absolution." -Bingham, Ant. bk. xix. c. 1, 2. Calvin's liturgy has no form of absolution in it: but he himself says that it was an omission in him at first, and a defect in his liturgy; which he afterwards would have rectified and amended, but could not. He makes this ingenuous confession in one of his epistles: "There is none of us," says he, "but must acknowledge it to be very ABSOLUTION useful, that, after the general confession, II. In the order for Holy Communion, III. The absolution in the Visitation of ABSTINENCE The more authoritative in its language. The ministerial absolution of Bingham (Lib. xix. c. ii.) says with regard to the indicative form (I absolve thee) that "Morinas proves that it did not take the place of the deprecatory form (Christ absolve thee) till the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, not long before the time of Thomas Aquinas, who was one of the first that wrote in defence of it, and Bishop Usher ('Ans. to Jesuit's Challenge,' p. 89) has proved the novelty of it from Aquinas himself." (Ant. xix., ii. 5.) Palmer remarks, "An absolution followed the confession formerly in the offices of the English Churches, for prime, or the first hour of the day. We may perhaps assign to the absolution thus placed an antiquity equal to that of the confession, though Gemma Anima and Durandus do not appear expressly to mention it. The sacerdotal benediction of penitents was in the earliest times conveyed in the form of a prayer to God for their absolution; but, in after ages, different forms of benediction were used, both in the East and West. With regard to these varieties of form, it does not appear that they were formerly considered of any importance. A benediction seems to have been regarded as equally valid, whether it was conveyed in the form of a petition or a declaration, whether in the optative or the indicative mood, whether in the active or the passive voice, whether in the first, second, or third person. It is true that a direct prayer to God is a most ancient form of blessing; but the use of a precatory, or an optative form, by no means warrants the inference, that the person who uses it is devoid of any divinely instituted authority to bless and absolve in the congregation of God. Neither does the use of a direct indicative form of blessing or absolution imply anything but the exercise of an authority which God has given, to such an extent, and under such limitations, as Divine revelation has declared."-Palmer's ABSTINENCE. Orig. Liturg. vol. i. p. 242. The refraining from indulgence especially in the use of food. In the Roman Church, fasting and abstinance admit of a distinction, and different days are appointed for each of them. On their 6 ABSTINENCE ACCESSION prisonment till he produce the author; and, if he cannot produce him, must be punished at the discretion of the king's council. The sections of this Act which relate to eating fish on Wednesdays, were repealed by 27 Eliz. c. 11. With us, therefore, neither Church nor State makes any difference in the kinds of meat; but as far as the former determines in the matter, she seems to recommend an entire abstinence from all manner of food till the time of fasting be over; declaring in her homilies, that fasting (by the decree of the six hundred and thirty fathers, assembled at the Council of Chalcedon, which was one of the four first general councils, who grounded their determination upon the sacred Scriptures, and long-continued usage or practice both of the prophets and other days of fasting, they are allowed but one meal in four and twenty hours; but, on days of abstinence, provided they abstain from flesh, and make but a moderate meal, they are indulged in a collation at night. The times by them set apart for the first are, all Lent, except Sundays, the Ember days, the vigils of the more solemn feasts, and all Fridays except those that fall within the twelve days of Christmas, and between Easter and the Ascension. Their days of abstinence are all the Sundays in Lent, St. Mark's day, if it does not fall in Easter week, the three Rogation days, all Saturdays throughout the year, with the Fridays before excepted, unless either happen to be Christmas day. The reason why they observe St. Mark's as a day of abstinence is, as we learn from their own books, in imitation of St. Mark's disciples, the first Chris-godly persons, before the coming of Christ, tians of Alexandria, who, under this saint's conduct, were eminent for their great prayer, abstinence, and sobriety. They further tell us, that St. Gregory the Great, the apostle of England, first set apart this day for abstinence and public prayer, as an acknowledgment of the Divine mercy, in putting a stop to a mortality in his time at Rome. We do not find that the Church of England makes any difference between days of fasting and days of abstinence. It is true, in the title of the table of Vigils, &c., she mentions fasts and days of abstinence separately; but when she comes to enumerate the particulars, she calls them all days of fasting or abstinence, without distinguishing between the one and the other. Nor does she anywhere point out to us what food is proper for such times or seasons, or seem to place any part of religion in abstaining from any particular kinds of meat. It is true, by a statute (5 Eliz. 5) none were allowed to eat flesh on fish-days (which are there declared to be all Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays in the year,) without a licence first obtained, for which they are to pay a yearly fine (except such as are sick, who may be licensed either by the bishop or minister,) under penalty of three pounds' forfeiture, or three months' imprisonment without bail, and of forty shillings forfeiture for any master of a family that suffers or conceals it. But then this is declared to be a mere political law, for the increase of fishermen and mariners, and repairing of port towns and navigation, and not for any superstition to be maintained in the choice of meats. For, by the same Act, whosoever, by preaching, teaching, writing, &c., affirms it to be necessary to abstain from flesh for the saving of the soul of man, or for the service of God, otherwise than other politic laws are or be, is to be punished as a spreader of false news. That is, he must suffer im and also of the apostles and other devout men in the New Testament) is a withholding of meat, drink, and all natural food from the body, for the determined time of fasting. -Wheatly. (See Fasting.) ABYSSINIA. The Abyssinian Church was founded early in the fourth century. Its first bishop, Frumentius, received consecration from St. Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, and to this day the Abund of Abyssinia is always an Egyptian monk, chosen and consecrated by the Coptic patriarch. In the sixth century the Christians of Abyssinia fell into the heresy of the Monophysites, in which they still remain; and they also agree with the Greek Church in denying the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son. In the fifth, and again in the seventeenth century, attempts were made to reduce the Abyssinian Christians to obedience to the Roman see, but the attempt in both instances utterly failed. The number of Christians in Abyssinia is said to amount to three millions. The ACCESS, Prayer of Humble. prayer offered immediately before the Prayer of Consecration in the Office of Holy Communion. In the Liturgies of 1548 and 1549 the Invitation ("Ye that do truly," &c.), the Confession, the Absolution, the "Comfortable Words," and this prayer, were placed between the Consecration and the actual Communion. This order is observed in the Scottish Office. The alteration in, the English Office was made in 1552, so that the consecration of the Elements, and the reception of the faithful, should come as near as possible together. In the Eastern Liturgies the prayer which corresponds to this is called the "Prayer of Inclination," and is used immediately before the communion of the people. [H.] ACCESSION SERVICE. The first form of prayer, with Thanksgiving to be used on ACCESSORIES the anniversary of the Sovereign's accession to the Throne, was set forth" by authority" in 1578, and was to be used on Nov. 17, the day of Queen Elizabeth's accession. In 1626 a a new form was published by_the king's authority, and sanctioned by ConVocation in 1640. This was superseded in 1661 by the Service of Thanksgiving for the Restoration to be held on May 29. In James II.'s reign the Accession service was revived, and, with the exception of the prayer, an entirely new form was prepared. This was again revived in Queen Anne's reign (1703-4), and as so revived (with the exception of the alteration of the first lesson from Prov. viii. 13 to Josh. i. 1-9, the latter being the lesson in King James' form) is the form now enjoined for use on June 20, the anniversary of Her Majesty's accession. (See State Prayers.) ACCESSORIES OF DIVINE SERVICE. The rule with regard to these is briefly comprehended in the Rubric, "And here it is to be noted, that such ornaments of the Church, and of the ministers thereof, at all times of their ministration, shall be retained, and be in use as were in this Church of England, by the Authority of Parliament, in the 2nd year of the reign of King Edward the sixth." This is substantially the same as the rubric in the Prayer Book of 1559, which was incorporated with the Elizabethan Act of Uniformity (1 Eliz. c. 2, § 25), was retained in the Prayer Book of James I., and was re-enacted at the last revision in 1661. -Perry in Blunt's Annotated Prayer Book. ACCUSTOMED DUTY to the Priest and Clerk. That which is ordered by the rubric in the Marriage Service to be "laid on the book together with the ring, immediately before the solemn placing of the ring upon the finger of the bride. In olden times gold, silver, and a ring were given at this part of the service, but the gold and silver was not intended as a fee, but as a symbol of dowry. The old form in the Prayer Book of 1549 was “With this ring I thee wed, this gold and silver I thee give." In the York Use the form was "With this ringe I wedde the, and with this gold and silver I honoure the, and with this gift I honoure the. In nomine," &c. An old Manual in the British Museum explains the object of the gold and silver "in signifyinge that the woman schal haue pure dower, thi goods if heo abide aftur thy disces" (Blunt). Hooker (Ecc. Pol. v. lxxiii. 6) thinks that the custom may be traced to the old Saxon practice of buying wives. The rubric was changed to its present form in 1552; but as a rule the fees are not laid upon the book during the service. ACEPHALI. (ȧ and kepaλn, literally, without a head.) The name given to those of the Egyptian Eutychians, who, after Peter Mongus, bishop of Alexandria, had signed the Henoticon of Zeno, A.D. 482, formed a separate sect. (See Henoticon.) The Egyptians had since the Council of Chalcedon renounced Eutyches as their leader and assumed the more appropriate name of "Monophysites." When some of them also renounced Peter Mongus, they were indeed "without a head." Yet all the branches of this sect continued to bear the name of Monophysites till late in the sixth century, when they assumed the name of Jacobites (from Jacobus Baradeus), which they still bear.-Stubbs' Soames' Mosheim, i. 377, and 408, note; Suicer v. akéþuλoi. (See Monophysite.) ACEMETE. CAKоunтai, Watchers.) An order of monks instituted at the beginning of the fifth century at Constantinople. They were divided into three classes, who performed the Divine service by rotation, and so continued night and day without intermission. ACOLYTH, or ACOLYTE, (åkodovðòs,) in our old English called "Collet," was an inferior church servant, who, next under the subdeacon, waited on the priests and deacons, and performed the meaner offices of lighting the tapers, carrying the candlesticks and pot of incense, and preparing the wine and water. Acolytes were admitted at the age of 14. (See Age.) The order seems not to have existed in the Eastern Church for more than 400 years, being mentioned for the first time in the age of Justinian. ACROSTIC. A form of poetical composition among the Hebrews, composed of twenty-two lines, or stanzas, according to the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet, each line or stanza beginning with each letter in its order. Of the several poems of this character, there are twelve in all, in the Old Testament, viz. Psalms XXV., xxxiv., xxxvii., cxi., cxii., cxix., cxlv., Part of Proverbs xxxi., Lament. i., ii., iii., iv. Psalm cxix. is the most remarkable specimen. It still retains in the Bible translation the name of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, to mark its several divisions. This Psalm consists of twentytwo stanzas, (the number of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet,) each division consisting of eight couplets; the first line of each couplet beginning with that letter of the alphabet which marks the division. Psalm xxxvii. consists of twenty-two quatrains; the first line only of each quatrain being acrostical: Lam. i. and ii., of twentytwo triplets, the first line of each only being acrostical: Lam. iii., of twenty-two triplets also, but with every line acrostical: Lam. iv. and Psalms xxv., xxxiv., and |