This may be all true, and yet Genesis need not be false. Genesis begins with man as man, and not with man as a Monera—supposing he ever was such. But when scientists speak of the principle of life as being the outcome of an act of spontaneous generation without any external creative power, then we must disagree with them. The principle of life is hidden with God alone, and must come from God. Nor does it in any way affect our belief in Almighty God, whether He was pleased to create man from the first in "His own image," or whether He was pleased to make him first pass through the preliminary stages Professor Haeckel enumerates!
EXCOMMUNICATION. An ecclesiastical censure, whereby the person against whom it is pronounced is for the time cast out of the communion of the church. The first rubric in the Office for the Burial of the Dead prohibits the use of the Service for any that die excommunicate.
EXHORTATION. The name given to the various addresses in the Liturgy.
They are nearly all the production of the Reformers. The Burial
Office is the only Service of the Prayer Book which has not one or
more of these exhortations.
EXTREME UNCTION. One of the seven so-called Sacraments of the Church of Rome. It consists in the application of consecrated olive oil, by a priest, to the five organs of sense of a dying person. It is considered as conveying God's pardon and support in the last hour. It is administered when all hope of recovery is gone, and generally no food is permitted to be taken after it. This custom is founded on Mark vi. 13, and James v. 14, 15, but in both these places it is evident that the anointing should be for the recovery of the sick. When miraculous powers ceased in the Church, it was reasonable that the unction should cease also.
FACULTY. An order by the Bishop of a diocese to award some privilege not permitted by common law. A faculty is necessary in order to effect any important alterations in a church, such as the erection of a gallery or an organ. Without a faculty a person is not entitled to erect a monument within the walls of a church.
FAITH. Man is justified by God in respect of, and by means of, Faith in Christ. It is not the principal cause for our Justification, that being God's mercy; it is not the meritorious cause of our Justification, for that is Christ's death; audit is not the efficient cause of our Justification, for that is the operation of the Holy Spirit; but it is the instrument on our side, by which we rely on God's word, and appeal to Him for mercy, and receive a grant of pardon, and a title to the evangelical promises of God.
FALD STOOL. The desk at which the Litany is usually said. In the rubric before the penitential psalm in the Commination Service a special place is mentioned for the saying of the Litany, and this we know from the Injunctions of 1549 was to be "in the midst of the Church," thus marking the congregational character of the service.
FALL OF MAN, see Sin, Original.
FASTING. The Romanist regards the use of fasting, or abstinence, as a means of grace; the Protestant regards it only as a useful exercise, recommended in Scripture, for the subduing of the flesh to the Spirit.
FASTS. Days appointed by the Church for the particular discipline of the flesh, and for a peculiar sorrow for sin. A list of these days is given at the commencement of the Prayer Book.