men must necessarily speak one language; even so the necessity of polity and regimen in all churches may be held without holding any one certain form to be necessary in them all.' HOOKER. The ceremony may be said either of an individual or a community; the rite is said only of a community; the observance, more properly of the individual either in public or private. The ceremony of kneeling during the time of prayer is the most becoming posture for a suppliant, whether in public or private ;

Bring her up to the high altar, that she may The sacred ceremonies there partake. SPENSER. The discipline of a Christian church consists in its rites, to which every member, either as a layman or a priest, is obliged to conform;

Live thou to mourn thy love's unhappy fate,
To bear my mangled body from the foe,

Or buy it back, and fun'ral rites bestow. DRYDEN. Public worship is an observance which no Christian thinks himself at liberty to neglect; Incorporated minds will always feel some inclination towards exterior acts and ritual observances.' JOHNSON.

It betrays either gross ignorance or wilful impertinence, in the man who sets at nought any of the established forms of society, particularly in religious matters; You may discover tribes of men without policy, or laws, or cities, or any of the arts of life; but no where will you find them without some form of religion.' BLAIR. When ceremonies are too numerous, they destroy the ease of social intercourse; but the absence of ceremony destroys all decency; Not to use ceremonies at all, is to teach others not to use them again, and so diminish respect to himself." BACON. In public worship the excess of ceremony is apt to extinguish the warmth and spirit of devotion; but the want of ceremony deprives it of all solemnity,

LORD'S SUPPER, EUCHARIST, COM-
MUNION, SACRAMENT.

The Lord's supper is a term of familiar and general use among Christians, as designating in literal terms the supper of our Lord; that is, either the last solemn supper which he took with his disciples previous to his crucifixion, or the commemoration of that event which conformably to his commands has been observed by the professors of Christianity; To the worthy partícipation of the Lord's supper, there is indispensably required a suitable preparation.' SOUTH. Eucharist is a term of peculiar use among the Roman Catholics, from the Greek uxapita to give thanks, because personal adoration, by way of returning thanks, constitutes in their estimation the chief part of the ceremony; This ceremony of feasting belongs most properly both to marriage and to the eucharist, as both of them have the nature of a covenant.' SOUTH. As the social affections are kept alive mostly by the common participation of meals, so is brotherly love, the essence of Christian fellowship, cherished and warmed

in the highest degree by the common participation in this holy festival: hence, by distinction, it has been denominated the communion; One woman he could not bring to the communion, and when he reproved or exhorted her, she only answered that she was no scholar.' JOHNSON. As the vows which are made at the altar of our Lord are the most solemn which a Christian can make, comprehending in them the entire devotion of himself to Christ, the general term sacrament, signifying an oath, has been employed by way of emphasis for this ordinance; I could not have the consent of the physicians to go to church yesterday ; I therefore received the holy sacrament at home.' JOHNSON. The Roman Catholics have employed the same term for six other ordinances; but the Protestants, who attach a similar degree of sacredness to no other than baptism, annex this appellation only to these two.

MARRIAGE, WEDDING, NUPTIALS.

Marriage, from to marry, denotes the act of marrying; wedding and nuptials denote the ceremony of being married. As marry, in French marrier, comes from the Latin marito to be joined to a male; hence marriage comprehends the act of choosing and being legally bound to a man or a woman; wedding, from wed, and the Teutonic wetten to promise or betroth, implies the ceremony of marrying, inasmuch as it is binding upon the parties. Nuptials comes from the Latin nubo to veil, because the Roman ladies were veiled at the time of marriage: hence the word has been put for the whole ceremony itself. Marriage is a general term, which conveys no collateral meaning. Marriage is an institution which, by those who have been blessed with the light of Divine Revelation, has always been considered as sacred;

O fatal maid! thy marriage is endow'd

With Phrygian, Latian, and Rutulian blood. DRYDEN. Wedding has always a reference to the ceremony; with some persons, particularly among the lower orders of society, the day of their wedding is converted into a day of riot and intemperance; Ask any one how he has been employed to-day: he will tell you, perhaps, I have been at the ceremony of taking the manly robe: this friend invited me to a wedding ; that desired me to attend the hearing of his cause." MELMOTH (Letters of Pliny). Nuptials may either be used in a general or particular import; among the Roman Catholics in England it is a practice for them to have their nuptials solemnized by a priest of their own persuasion as well as by the Protestant clergyman;

Fir'd with disdain for Turnus dispossess'd,

And the new nuptials of the Trojan guest. DRYDEN.

MARRIAGE, MATRIMONY, WEDLOCK. Marriage (v. Marriage) is oftener an act than a state; matrimony and wedlock both describe states.

Marriage is taken in the sense of an act, when we speak of the laws of marriage, the day of one's marriage, the congratulations upon one's marriage, a happy or unhappy marriage, &c.; Marriage is rewarded with some honourable distinctions which celibacy is forbidden to usurp.' JOHNSON. It is taken in the sense of a state, when we speak of the pleasures or pains of marriage; but in this latter case matrimony, which signifies a married life abstractedly from all agents or acting persons, is preferable; so likewise, to think of matrimony, and to enter into the holy state of matrimony, are expressions founded upon the signification of the term. As matrimony is derived from mater a mother, because married women are in general mothers, it has particular reference to the domestic state of the two parties; broils are but too frequently the fruits of matrimony, yet there are few cases in which they might not be obviated by the good sense of those who are engaged in them. Hasty marriages cannot be expected to produce happiness; young people who are eager for matrimony before they are fully aware of its consequences will purchase their experience at the expense of their peace; As love generally produces matrimony, so it often happens that matrimony produces love." SPECTATOR.

Wedlock is the old English word for matrimony, and is in consequence admitted in law, when one speaks of children born in wedlock; agreeably to its derivation it has a reference to the bond of union which follows the marriage: hence one speaks of living happily in a state of wedlock, of being joined in holy wedlock; The men who would make good husbands, if they visit public places, are frighted at wedlock and resolve to live single.' JOHNSON

FUNERAL, OBSEQUIES.

Funeral, in Latin funus, is derived from funis a cord, because lighted cords, or torches, were carried before the bodies which were interred by night; the funeral, therefore, denotes the ordinary solemnity which attends the consignment of a body to the grave. Obsequies, in Latin exequiæ, are both derived from sequor, which, in its compound sense, signifies to perform or execute; they comprehend, therefore, therefore, funerals attended with more than ordinary solemnity. We speak of the funeral as the last sad office which we perform for a friend; it is accompanied by nothing but by mourning and sorrow;

That pluck'd my nerves, those tender strings of life,
Which, pluck'd a little more, will toll the bell
That calls my few friends to my funeral. YoUNG.

We speak of the obsequies as the tribute of respect

BURIAL, INTERMENT, SEPULTURE. Burial from bury, in Saxon birian, birigan, German bergen, signifies in the original sense to conceal. Interment from inter, compounded of in and terra, signifies the putting into the ground. Sepulture, in French sepulture, Latin sepultura, from sepultus, participle of sepelio to bury, comes from sepes a hedge, signifying an enclosure, and probably likewise from the Hebrew naw to put to rest, or in a state of privacy.

Under burial is comprehended simply the purpose of the action; under interment and sepulture, the manner as well as the motive of the action. We bury in order to conceal; Among our Saxon ancestors, the dead bodies of such as were slain in the field were not

This

laid in graves; but lying upon the ground were covered with turves or clods of earth, and the more in reputation the persons had been, the greater and higher were the turves raised over their bodies. some used to call biriging, some beorging of the dead; all being one thing though differently pronounced, and from whence we yet retain our speech of burying the dead, that is, hiding the dead.' VERSTEGAN. Interment and sepulture are accompanied with religious ceremonies.

*Bury is confined to no object or place; we bury whatever we deposit in the earth, and wherever we please;

When he lies along

After your way his tale pronounc'd, shall bury
His reasons with his body. SHAKSPEARE.

But interment and sepulture respect only the bodies
of the deceased when deposited in a sacred place.
Burial requires that the object be concealed under
ground; interment may be used for depositing in
vaults.. Self-murderers are buried in the highways;
Christians in general are buried in the church-yard ;
If you have kindness left, there see me laid;
To bury decently the injur'd maid
Is all the favour. WALLer.

in station or public esteem;

His body shall be royally interr'd.

I will, myself,

Be the chief mourner at his obsequies. DRYDEN.

Westminster Abbey ;

His body shall be royally interred, And the last funeral pomps adorn his hearse. DRYDEN.

Sepulture is an abstract term confined to particular cases, as in speaking of the rights and privileges of sepulture;

Ah! leave me not for Grecian dogs to tear, The common rites of sepulture bestow; To soothe a father's and a mother's woe; Let their large gifts procure an urn at least, And Hector's ashes in his country rest. POPE. Interment and sepulture never depart from their religious import; bury is used figuratively for other objects and purposes. A man is said to bury himself alive who shuts himself out from the world; he is said to bury the talent of which he makes no use, or to bury in oblivion what he does not wish to call to mind.

This is the way to make the city flat
And bury all, which yet distinctly ranges
In heaps and piles of ruin. SHAKSPEARE.

Inter is on one occasion applied by Shakspeare also to other objects;

The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones.

SHAKSPEARE.

*BEATIFICATION, CANONIZATION. These are two acts emanating from the pontifical authority, by which the Pope declares a person, whose life has been exemplary and accompanied with miracles, as entitled to enjoy eternal happiness after his death, and determines in consequence the sort of worship which should be paid to him.

In the act of beatification the Pope pronounces only as a private person, and uses his own authority only in granting to certain persons, or to a religious order, the privilege of paying a particular worship to a beatified object.

In the act of canonization, the Pope speaks as a judge after a judicial examination on the state, and decides the sort of worship which ought to be paid by

the whole church.

FEAST, FESTIVAL, HOLIDAY.

Feast, in Latin festum, or festus, changed most probably from fesiæ, or feria, which, in all probability, comes from the Greek ispôs sacred, because these days were kept sacred or vacant from all secular labor: festival and holiday, as the words themselves denote, have precisely the same meaning in their original sense, with this difference, that the former

derives its origin from heathenish superstition, the latter owes its rise to the establishment of Christianity in its reformed state.

A feast, in the Christian sense of the word, is applied to every day, except Sundays, which are regarded as sacred, and observed with particular solemnity; a holyday, or, according to its modern orthography, a holiday, is simply a day on which the ordinary business is suspended: among the Roman Catholics, there are many days which are kept holy, and consequently by them denominated feasts, which in the English reformed church are only observed as holidays, or days of exemption from public business; of this description are the Saints' days, on which the public offices are shut: on the other hand, Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide, are regarded in both churches more as feasts than as holidays.

Feast, as a technical term, is applied only to certain

specified holidays ;

A holiday is an indefinite term, it may be employed for any day or time in which there is a suspension of business; there are, therefore, many feasts where there are no holidays, and many holidays where there are no feasts: a feast is altogether sacred; a holiday has frequently nothing sacred in it, not even in its cause; it may be a simple, ordinary transaction, the act of an individual;

It happen'd on a summer's holiday,

That to the green wood shade he took his way.

6

DRYDEN.

A

A festival has always either a sacred or a serious object; In so enlightened an age as the present, I shall perhaps be ridiculed if I hint, as my opinion, that the observation of certain festivals is something feast is kept by religious worship; a holiday is kept more than a mere political institution.' WALPOLE. by idleness; Many worthy persons urged how great the harmony was between the holidays and their attributes (if I may call them so), and what a confusion would follow if Michaelmas-day, for instance, was not to be celebrated when stubble geese are in their mirth and festivity: some feasts are festivals, as in highest perfection.' WALPOLE. A festival is kept by the case of the carnival at Rome; some festivals are holidays, as in the case of weddings and public thanksgivings.

CLERGYMAN, PARSON, PRIEST,

MINISTER.

Clergyman, altered from clerk, clericus, signified any one holding a regular office, and by distinction from person, that is, by distinction the one who held the holy office; parson is either changed person who

spiritually presides over a parish, or contracted from parochianus; priest, in German, &c. priester, is contracted from presbyter, in Greek #perBurepos, signifying an elder who holds the sacerdotal office; minister, in Latin minister a servant, from minus less or inferior, signifies literally one who performs a subordinate office, and has been extended in its meaning, to signify generally one who officiates or performs an office.

The word clergyman applies to such as are regularly bred according to the forms of the national religion, and applies to none else. In this sense we speak of the English, the French, and Scotch clergy without distinction; By a clergyman I mean one in holy orders.' STEELE. To the time of Edward III. it is probable that the French and English languages subsisted together throughout the kingdom; the higher orders, both of the clergy and laity, speaking almost universally French; the lower retaining the use of their native tongue.' TYRWHITT. A parson is a species of clergyman, who ranks the highest in the three orders of inferior clergy; that is, parson, vicar, and curate; the parson being a technical term for the rector, or him who holds the living: in its technical sense it has now acquired a definite use; but in general conversation it is become almost a nickname. The word clergyman is always substituted for parson in polite society. When priest respects the Christian religion it is a species of clergyman, that is, one who is ordained to officiate at the altar in distinction from

the deacon, who is only an assistant to the priest. But the term priest has likewise an extended meaning

in reference to such as hold the sacerdotal character in any form of religion, as the priests of the Jews, or those of the Greeks, Romans, Indians, and the like; ‹ Call a man a priest, or parson, and you set him in some men's esteem ten degrees below his own servant.' SOUTH. A minister is one who actually or habitually

officiates. Clergymen are therefore not always strictly

If a

ministers; nor are all ministers clergymen. clergyman delegates his functions altogether he is not a minister; nor is he who presides over a dissenting congregation a clergyman. În the former case, however, it would be invidious to deprive the clergyman of the name of minister of the gospel, but in the latter case it is a misuse of the term clergyman to apply it to any minister who does not officiate according to the form of an established religion;

With leave and honour enter our abodes,
Ye sacred ministers of men and gods. POPE.

BISHOPRIC, DIOCESE.

Bishopric, compounded of bishop and rick or reich empire, signifies the empire or government of a bishop: Diocese, in Greek dioixnois, compounded of dia and dé, signifies an administration throughout.

Both these words describe the extent of an episcopal jurisdiction; the first with relation to the person who

officiates, the second with relation to the charge. There may, therefore, be a bishopric, either where there are many dioceses or no diocese; but according to the import of the term, there is properly no diocese where there is not a bishopric. When the jurisdiction is merely titular, as in countries where the catholic religion is not recognized, it is a bishopric, but not a diocese. On the other hand, the bishopric of Rome or that of an archbishop comprehends all the dioceses of the subordinate bishops. Hence it arises that when we speak of the ecclesiastical distribution of a country, we term the divisions bishoprics; but when we speak of the actual office, we term it a diocese. England is divided into a certain number of bishoprics, not dioceses. Every bishop visits his diocese, not his bishopric, at stated intervals.

ECCLESIASTIC, DIVINE, THEOLOGIAN.

An ecclesiastic derives his title from the office which

he bears in the ecclesia or church; a divine and theologian from their pursuit after, or engagement in, divine or theological matters. An ecclesiastic is connected with an episcopacy; a divine or theologian is not essentially connected with any form of church government.

An ecclesiastic need not in his own person perform any office, although he fills a station; a divine not only fills a station, but actually performs the office of station, nor discharges any specific duty, but merely teaching; a theologian neither fills any particular follows the pursuit of studying theology. An ecclesiastic is not always a divine, nor a divine an ecclesiastic; a divine is always more or less a theologian, but every theologian is not a divine.

Among the Roman Catholics all monks, and in the the episcopal functions, are entitled ecclesiastics; Church of England the various dignitaries who perform 'Our old English monks seldom let any of their kings depart in peace, who had endeavoured to diminish the power or wealth of which the ecclesiastics were in denominations of Christians who have not appointed those times possessed.' ADDISON. There are but few teachers who are called divines; Nor shall I dwell on our excellence in metaphysical speculations; because, he that reads the works of our divines will easily discover how far human subtilty has been able to penetrate.' JOHNSON. Professors or writers on theology are peculiarly denominated theologians; ‘I looked on that sermon (of Dr. Price's) as the public declaration of a man much connected with literary caballers, intriguing philosophers, and political theologians.' BURKE.

CLOISTER, CONVENT, MONASTERY.

Cloister, in French *cloitre, from the word clos close, signifies a certain close place in a convent, or

an enclosure of houses for canons, or in general a religious house; convent, from the Latin conventus a meeting, and convenio to come together, signifies a religious assembly; monastery, in French monastère, signifies an habitation for monks, from the Greek μóvos alone.

The proper idea of cloister is that of seclusion; the proper idea of convent is that of community; the proper idea of a monastery is that of solitude. One is shut up in a cloister, put into a convent, and retires to a monastery.

Whoever wishes to take an absolute leave of the world, shuts himself up in a cloister;

Some solitary cloister will I choose,

And there with holy virgins live immur'd. DRYDEN. Whoever wishes to attach himself to a community that has renounced all commerce with the world, goes into a convent; Nor were the new abbots less industrious to stock their convents with foreigners.' TYRWHITT. Whoever wishes to shun all human intercourse retires to a monastery; I drove my suitor to forswear the full stream of the world, and to live in a nook merely monastick.' SHAKSPEARE.

In the cloister our liberty is sacrificed in the convent our worldly habits are renounced, and those of a regular religious community being adopted, we submit to the yoke of established orders: in a monastery we impose a sort of voluntary exile upon ourselves; we live with the view of living only to God.

In the ancient and true monasteries, the members divided their time between contemplation and labour; but as population increased, and towns multiplied, monasteries were, properly speaking, succeeded by

convents.

In ordinary discourse, cloister is employed in an absolute and indefinite manner : we speak of the cloister to designate a monastic state; as entering a cloister; burying one's self in a cloister; penances and mortifications are practised in a cloister; but it is not the same thing when we speak of the cloister of the Benedictines and of their monastery; or the cloister of the Capuchins and their convent.

CONVERT, PROSELYTE.

Convert, from the Latin converto, signifies changed to something in conformity with the views of another; proselyte, from the Greek pornλutos and πpoσéρxoμa, signifies come over to the side of another.

Convert is more extensive in its sense and application than proselyte: convert in its full sense includes every change of opinion, without respect to the subject; proselyte in its strict sense refers only to changes from one religious belief to another: there are many converts to particular doctrines of Christianity, and proselytes from the Pagan, Jewish, or Mahomedan, to the Christian faith: there are political as well as religious converts, who could not with the same strict propriety be termed proselytes.

Conversion is a more voluntary act than proselytism; it emanates entirely from the mind of the agent, independent of foreign influence; it extends not merely to the abstract or speculative opinions of the individual, but to the whole current of his feelings and spring of his actions: it is the conversion of the heart and soul. Proselytism is an outward act, which need not extend beyond the conformity of one's words and actions to a certain rule: convert is therefore always taken in a good sense: it bears on the face of it the stamp of sincerity; A believer may be excused by the most hardened atheist for endeavouring to make him a convert, because he does it with an eye to both their interests.' ADDISON. Proselyte is a term of more ambiguous meaning; the proselyte is often the creature and tool of a party; there may be many proselytes where there are no converts; False teachers commonly make use of base, and low, and temporal considerations, of little tricks and devices, to make disciples and gain proselytes.' TILLOTSON.

The conversion of a sinner is the work of God's grace, either by his special interposition, or by the ordinary influence of his Holy Word on the heart; it is an act of great presumption, therefore, in those men who rest so strongly on their own particular modes and forms in bringing about this great work: they may without any breach of charity be suspected of rather wishing to make proselytes to their own party.

TO TRANSFIGURE, TRANSFORM,

METAMORPHOSE.

Transfigure is to make to pass over into another figure; transform and metamorphose is to put into another form: the former being said mostly of spiritual beings, and particularly in reference to our Saviour; the other two terms being applied to that which has a corporeal form.

Transformation is commonly applied to that which changes its outward form; in this manner a harlequin transforms himself into all kinds of shapes and like

nesses;

Something you have heard

Of Hamlet's transformation; so I call it, Since not the exterior, nor the inward man Resembles what it was. SHAKSPEARE.

Sometimes however the word is applied to moral objects; Can a good intention, or rather a very wicked one so miscalled, transform perjury and hypocrisy into merit and perfection?' SOUTH. Metamorphosis is applied to the form internal as well as external, that is, to the whole nature; in this manner Ovid describes, among others, the metamorphoses of Narcissus into a flower, and Daphne into a laurel: with the same idea. we may speak of a rustic being metamorphosed, by the force of art, into a fine gentleman; A lady's shift may be metamorphosed into billets-doux, and come into her possession a second time.' ADDISON. Transfiguration is frequently taken for a painting of