The Church Handy Dictionary Part 10

GOLDEN NUMBER. A term used in the elaborate tables placed at the beginning of the Prayer Book for the finding of Easter. The Golden Number of a year marks its place in a cycle, called the Metonic Cycle (from Meton, an Athenian astronomer B.C. 432), of nineteen years. The year A.D. 1 was fixed as the second year of such a cycle.

Hence the rule given to find the Golden Number, viz., "Add one to the year of our Lord, and then divide by 19; the remainder, if any, is the Golden Number; but if there be no remainder, then 19 is the Golden Number."

GOOD FRIDAY. The day regarded as the anniversary of our Saviour's death. It has been observed from the first age of the Church as a day of peculiar solemnity, to be spent in fasting and humiliation.

GOSPEL, _see_ Bible.

GOSPELLER. The priest or deacon who, in the Communion Service, reads the Gospel, standing at the north side of the Altar. (See _Epistoler_.)

GRACE. Favour. A word used with various meanings in Holy Scripture.

The influence of the Holy Spirit upon the heart of man.

GRADUATE, _see_ Degree. One who has pa.s.sed through the curriculum of a University, and has had a degree conferred on him.

GREEK CHURCH, _see_ Church, The Catholic.

GREGORIAN MUSIC, _see_ Church Music.

GUILD. In the Church, a Society formed for a certain purpose, and governed by certain rules; to promote personal piety; or active usefulness.

HADES. Unfortunately two distinct words in the original of the New Testament have both been translated _h.e.l.l_. _Hades_ is one of these words; _Gehenna_ is the other. The latter is applied only to the place of the d.a.m.ned, _Hades_ is the abode of departed spirits, good and bad, waiting for the final Judgment. When, in the Creed, we say of our Lord that He "descended into h.e.l.l," it should be "into _Hades_," showing that alive and dead He was perfect man.

It is generally believed that a foretaste of final joy or woe is experienced in Hades by the spirits waiting for their doom.

HEAVEN. The final abode of the blessed.

h.e.l.l. The final abode of the d.a.m.ned. (See _Hades_.)

HERESY. From a Greek word meaning "a choice," and thus an adoption and obstinate holding of a doctrine not taught by the Catholic Church. Heresies began very early in the Church, even in Apostolic times. (See _Gnostic_.) The heresies of the present day are for the most part revivals of the heresies of the first six centuries.

HERETIC. One who holds doctrines opposed to those of the Catholic Church. (See above.)

HETERODOX. Contrary to the faith of the true Church.

HIERARCHY. Properly, _rule_ in _sacred_ matters. The apostolic order of ministry.

HIGH CHURCH, _see_ Church Parties.

HOLY DAY. A festival of the Church. (See _Feast_.)

HOLY GHOST. _see_ Trinity, The Holy.

HOLY THURSDAY. _see_ Ascension Day.

HOLY WEEK. Some consider the terms _Holy Week_ and _Pa.s.sion Week_ equally to apply to the week preceding Easter--the last week in Lent. This is Dr. Hook's opinion. Others restrict the term _Holy Week_ to the week commencing with Palm-Sunday, and call the week preceding that _Pa.s.sion Week_. Undoubtedly the fifth Sunday in Lent was commonly called in old times Pa.s.sion Sunday, because of the antic.i.p.ation of the Pa.s.sion in the Epistle.

HOMILIES. The Homilies of the Church of England are two books of 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." Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer are thought to have composed the first volume; the second is supposed to be by Bishop Jewel, 1563.

HOODS. The ornamental fold which hangs down the back of a graduate to mark his degree. (See _Degree_.) The 58th Canon provides that "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." The same Canon goes on to say "It shall be lawful for such ministers as are not graduates to wear upon their surplices, instead of _hoods_, some decent tippet of black, so it be not silk."

HYMN, _see_ Church Music.

IDOLATRY. The worship of any person or thing but the one true G.o.d, whether it be in the form of an image or not.

IMMERSION, _see_ Baptism, Infant.

IMPOSITION, or LAYING ON OF HANDS, _see_ Ordinal.

IMPROPRIATION. Ecclesiastical property, the profits of which are in the hands of a layman. Impropriations have arisen from the confiscation of monasteries in the time of Henry VIII., when, instead of restoring the t.i.thes to Church purposes, they were given to Court favourites.

INCARNATION. The act whereby Christ, the "Word, was made flesh."

The "taking of the Manhood into G.o.d."

INc.u.mBENT. A person in possession of a benefice. (See _Benefice_.)

INDEPENDENTS. The first body of Dissenters which actually broke away from the Church of England was that of the _Independents_, or--as they are nowadays perhaps more intelligibly called--the _Congregationalists_. An Independent sect seems to have existed about the year 1568, the whole question in dispute between them and the Church being then, as it is still, essentially one of "discipline," or Church Polity. They made each congregation a body corporate, governed exclusively by itself, and disclaim, more or less, every form of union between churches. In doctrine they are strictly Calvinistic, and, reviving the ancient heresy of Donatus, they profess to receive only accredited or really serious Christians into their fellowship, and to exclude any who may prove themselves unworthy members.

The Independents are sometimes called _Brownists_, from Robert Brown, a clergyman of the Church of England, who was the first to secede from her ranks, and who, retreating to Holland, set up a separatist communion.

There are 76 County and other a.s.sociations at home and in the Colonies, with 3,895 meetinghouses, and 1,039 preaching stations, 300 being foreign mission stations; of ministers and missionaries they have about 3,500. They reckon to have about 360,000 members in the British dominions.

INDUCTION. The ceremony whereby a minister is put in actual possession of the living to which he has been presented.

INFALLIBILITY. The claim set up by the Church of Rome, either for the Pope, or the Church, or for the Pope and the Church consenting together; of absolute freedom from error in deciding questions of faith and doctrine. Roman divines are not agreed among themselves as to precisely _where_ the infallibility of their Church is found.

Certain it is that Councils and Popes have contradicted and anathematized each other.

INNOCENTS' DAY, THE HOLY. This festival has been observed ever since the 3rd century, in memory of the slaughtered children of Bethlehem (Matt. ii. 16.) Its old English name is Childermas, and it is kept on December 28th; the attendants on the nativity being St. Stephen, a martyr in will and deed, December 26th; St. John the Divine, a martyr in will though not in deed, December 27th; and The Holy Innocents, martyrs in deed but not in will, December 28th.

INSPIRATION. The extraordinary and supernatural influence of the Holy Spirit on the human mind, by which the sacred writers were qualified to set forth the things of G.o.d. In this sense the word occurs in 2 Tim. iii. 16. (See _Bible_.)

The word is also used of the ordinary influence of the Holy Spirit on the heart of man, as "Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the _inspiration_ of Thy Holy Spirit."

INSt.i.tUTION. The legal act by which the Bishop commits to a clergyman the cure of a church.

INSt.i.tUTIONS, CHURCH, _see_ Societies.

INTROIT, _see_ Church Music

IRVINGITES. The followers of Edward Irving, a minister of the Scottish establishment, who was born in 1792, and died in 1834. He was deposed from the Presbyterian ministry for teaching that our Lord's nature was peccable, or capable of sin. He gathered a congregation round him in London, and now has many followers both in Scotland and England, and also in Germany. His followers entertain peculiar notions about the millennium, and they claim to exercise the power of prophecy, to have the miraculous gift of tongues, and to be able to raise the dead.

The Irvingites call themselves "The Catholic and Apostolic Church,"

and among their ministers number apostles, prophets, angels, evangelists, &c. They use as much as possible the liturgies of the Church in their worship, and observe a very ornate ritual. In their princ.i.p.al places of worship the Holy Communion is administered daily, and throughout the day many other Services are held.

They recognise the three Creeds of the Catholic Church as their rule of faith.

They have 19 places for public worship, besides many preaching stations, in England; the princ.i.p.al erection is in Gordon Square, London, and is a large building of considerable architectural pretensions.

JAMES'S (St.) DAY. July 25th. The day on which the Church celebrates the memory of the Apostle St. James the Great, or the Elder. He was one of the sons of Zebedee, and a brother of St. John the Divine.

He was the first of the Apostles to suffer martyrdom. (Acts xii. 2.)