A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

CHRISTOPHORI and THEOPHORI, (Χριστοφόροι και Θεοφόροι, Christ-bearers and God-bearers,) names given to Christians in the earliest times, on account of the communion between Christ, who is God, and the Church. Ignatius commences his Epistles thus, Ἰγνάτιος ὁ καὶ Θεοφόρος: and it is related in the acts of his martyrdom, that hearing him called Theophorus, Trajan asked the meaning of the name; to which Ignatius replied, it meant one that carries Christ in his heart. “Dost thou then,” said Trajan, “carry him that was crucified in thy heart?” “Yes,” said the holy martyr, “for it is written, I will dwell in them, and walk in them.”

CHRONICLES. Two canonical books of the Old Testament. They contain the history of about 3500 years, from the creation until after the return of the Jews from Babylon. They are fuller and more comprehensive than the Books of Kings. The Greek interpreters hence call them Παραλειπομένα, supplements, additions. The Jews make but one book of the Chronicles, under the title Dibree hajamin, i. e. journal or annals. Ezra is generally supposed to be the author of these books. The Chronicles, or Paraleipomena, are an abridgment, in fact, of the whole Scripture history. St. Jerome so calls it, “Omnis traditio Scripturarum in hoc continetur.” The First Book contains a genealogical account of the descent of Israel from Adam, and of the reign of David. The Second Book contains the history of Judah to the very year of the Jews’ return from the Babylonish captivity—the decree of Cyrus granting them liberty being in the last chapter of this Second Book.

CHURCH. (See Catholic.) The word church is derived from the Greek κυριακὸς (belonging to the Lord)—the Teutonic nations having, at their first conversion, generally adopted the Greek ecclesiastical terms. The truth of this etymology is confirmed by the fact, that in the Sclavonic languages the names for the Church resemble the Teutonic, evidently because derived from a common Greek original. The Church, meaning by the word the Catholic or Universal Church, is that society which was instituted by our blessed Lord, and completed by his apostles, acting under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to be the depository of Divine truth and the channel of Divine grace. Every society, or organized community, may be distinguished from a mere multitude or accidental concourse of people, by having a founder, a form of admission, a constant badge of membership, peculiar duties, peculiar privileges, and regularly appointed officers. Thus the Catholic Church has the Lord Christ for its founder; its prescribed form of admission is the holy sacrament of baptism; its constant badge of membership is the holy sacrament of the eucharist; its peculiar duties are repentance, faith, obedience; its peculiar privileges, union with God, through Christ its Head, and hereby forgiveness of sins, present grace, and future glory; its officers are bishops and priests, assisted by deacons, in regular succession from the apostles, the first constituted officers of this body corporate. It has the Bible for its code of laws, and tradition for precedents, to aid its officers in the interpretation of that code on disputed points. It is through the ordinances and sacraments of the Church, administered by its divinely appointed officers, that we are brought into union and communion with the invisible Saviour; it is through the visible body that we are to receive communications from the invisible Spirit; and, says the apostle, in the fourth chapter to the Ephesians, “There is,” not merely one Spirit, “there is one body and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling.” Again, (1 Cor. x. 17,) “We being many are one bread and one body.” And in the first chapter to the Colossians, the same apostle tells us that this body is the Church. And thus we must, if we are scriptural Christians, believe that there is one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

Of this one Church there are many branches existing in various parts of the world, (not to mention the great division of militant and triumphant,) just as there is one ocean, of which portions receive a particular designation from the shores which they lave. But of this one society there cannot be two branches in one and the same place opposed to each other, either in discipline or in doctrine. Although there be two opposing societies or more in one place, both or all claiming to be Christ’s Church in that place, yet we are quite sure that only one of them can be the real Church. So here, in this realm of England, speaking nationally, there is but one Church, over which the archbishops of Canterbury and York, with their suffragans, preside: and in each diocese there is only that one Church, over which the diocesan presides, a branch of the national Church, as the national is a branch of the universal Church: and again, in each parish there is but one Church, forming a branch of the diocesan Church, over which the parochial minister presides.

“Religion being, therefore, a matter partly of contemplation, partly of action, we must define the Church, which is a religious society, by such differences as do properly explain the essence of such things; that is to say, by the object or matter whereabout the contemplation and actions of the Church are properly conversant; for so all knowledge and all virtues are defined. Whereupon, because the only object which separateth ours from other religions is Jesus Christ, in whom none but the Church doth believe, and whom none but the Church doth worship, we find that accordingly the apostles do everywhere distinguish hereby the Church from infidels and from Jews, accounting them which call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to be his Church.”—Hooker’s Eccl. Pol. Hooker’s assertion as to the Church in this country must be so far modified, that now, by change of political circumstances, the Churches of England and Ireland are politically united, and form but one Church, over which two primates, that of Canterbury and Armagh, of co-ordinate jurisdiction, preside, with other archbishops and suffragans, &c.—Jebb.

CHURCH IN NORTH AMERICA. It is not possible, in such a publication as this, to give an account of the various branches of the one Catholic Church, which are to be found in the various parts of the world; but it would be improper not to notice the Church in the United States of America, since it is indebted for its existence, under the blessing of the Great Head of the Church Universal, to the missionary labours of the Church of England; or rather we should say, of members of that Church acting under the sanction of their bishops, and formed into the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Before the American Revolution it can scarcely be said that the Church existed in our American colonies. There were congregations formed chiefly through the Society just mentioned, and the clergy who ministered in these congregations were under the superintendence of the bishop of London. We may say that the first step taken for the organization of the Church was after the termination of the revolutionary war, at a meeting of a few of the clergy of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, at New Brunswick, N. Y., in May, 1784. Though this meeting was called on other business, yet the project of a general union of the churches throughout the States became a topic of sufficient interest to lead to the calling of another meeting, to be held in October following, in the city of New York. At this latter meeting, “although the members composing it were not vested with powers adequate to the present exigencies of the Church, they happily, and with great unanimity, laid down a few general principles to be recommended in the respective States, as the ground on which a future ecclesiastical government should be established.” It was also recommended that the several States should send clerical and lay deputies to a future meeting in Philadelphia, on September the twenty-seventh, of the following year. In the interim, the churches of Connecticut, having made choice of the Rev. Dr. Seabury for a bishop, he had proceeded to England with a view to consecration. In this application he was not successful, the English bishops having scruples, partly of a political nature, and partly relative to the reception with which a bishop might meet, under the then imperfect organization of the Church in America. Resort was therefore had to the Church in Scotland, where Dr. Seabury received consecration in November, 1784.

According to appointment, the first general convention assembled in 1785, in Philadelphia, with delegates from seven of the thirteen States. At this convention measures were taken for a revisal of the Prayer Book, to adapt it to the political changes which had recently taken place; articles of union were adopted; an ecclesiastical constitution was framed; and the first steps taken for the obtaining of an episcopate direct from the Church of England.

In June, 1786, the convention again met in Philadelphia. A correspondence having meanwhile been carried on with the archbishops and bishops of the English Church, considerable dissatisfaction was expressed on their part relative to some changes in the liturgy, and to one point of importance in the constitution. The latter of these was satisfied by the proceeding of the then session, and the former were removed by reconsideration in a special convention summoned in October in the same year. It soon appearing that Dr. Provoost had been elected to the episcopate of New York, Dr. White to that of Pennsylvania, and Dr. Griffith for Virginia, testimonials in their favour were signed by the convention. The two former sailed for England in November, 1786, and were consecrated at Lambeth on the 4th of February in the following year, by the Most Reverend John Moore, archbishop of Canterbury. Before the end of the same month they sailed for New York, where they arrived on Easter Sunday, April 7th, 1787.

In July, 1789, the general convention again assembled. The episcopacy of Bishops White and Provoost was recognised; the resignation of Dr. Griffith, as bishop elect of Virginia, was received; and in this and an adjourned meeting of the body, in the same year, the constitution of 1786 was remodelled; union was happily effected with Bishop Seabury and the northern clergy; the revision of the Prayer Book was completed; and the Church already gave promise of great future prosperity. In September, 1790, Dr. Madison was consecrated bishop of Virginia at Lambeth in England, by the same archbishop, who, a few years before, had imparted the apostolic commission to Drs. White and Provoost. There being now three bishops of the English succession, besides one of the Scotch, everything requisite for the continuation and extension of the episcopacy was complete. Accordingly the line of American consecration opened in 1792, with that of Dr. Claggett, bishop elect of Maryland. In 1795 Dr. Smith was consecrated for South Carolina; in 1797 the Rev. Edward Bass, for Massachusetts, and in the same year Dr. Jarvis, for Connecticut, that diocese having become vacant by the death of Bishop Seabury. From that time the consecration of bishops has proceeded according to the wants of the Church, without impediment, to the present day. At the beginning of the present century the Church had become permanently settled in its organization, and its stability and peace were placed on a secure footing. In 1811 there were already eight bishops and about two hundred and thirty other clergymen distributed through thirteen States. A spirit of holy enterprise began to manifest itself in measures for the building up of the Church west of the Alleghany Mountains, and in other portions of the country, where heretofore it had maintained but a feeble existence. The ministry numbers in its ranks men of the first intellectual endowments, and of admirable self-devotion to the cause of the gospel. With a steady progress, unawed by the assaults of sectarianism and the reproaches of the fanatic, the Church gradually established itself in the affections of all who came with a spirit of candour to the examination of her claims. The blessing of her Great Head was apparent, not only in the peace which adorned her councils, but in the demands which were continually made for a wider extension of her influence. Hence the establishment of the General Theological Seminary by Bishop Hobart (1817–1821), and afterwards of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society (1835); both of which institutions were instrumental in providing heralds of the gospel for the distant places of the West. These were followed by the diocesan seminaries of Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky, and efforts for the founding of several in other dioceses. At the general convention of 1835, the whole Church assumed the position of one grand missionary organization, and has already her bands of missionaries labouring in the cause of the Church in the remotest districts of the country; and her banner has been lifted up in Africa, China, Greece, and other foreign parts. The year 1852 was distinguished by remarkable demonstrations of communion between the Churches of England and America. The American Church, in token of her connexion with the mother Church, and of gratitude for benefits received from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel while the American States were part of the British dominions, deputed Bishop M’Coskry, of Michigan, and Bishop De Lancey, of Western New York, to attend the third Jubilee of the Society. These bishops were received in England with cordial affection, and the bishop of Michigan preached the Jubilee Sermon at St. Paul’s cathedral. A few months later the English bishop Fulford, of Montreal, shared in consecrating Dr. Wainwright, who had been a member of the deputation to England, coadjutor bishop of Eastern New York. In 1853 Bishop Spenser, Archdeacon Sinclair, and the Rev. Ernest Hawkins, were deputed by the Society for Propagating the Gospel to return the visit of the American prelates, and were received with great cordiality by the general convention of the American Church. An attempt to excite a Romanizing spirit on the part of a few half-educated persons has signally failed, by the suppression, for want of support, of the Journal they established. With her 37 bishops, 2000 clergy, and more than 2,000,000 of lay members; with her numerous societies for the spread of the Bible and the Liturgy; and with her institutions of learning, and presses constantly pouring out the light of the truth, may we not predict, under the Divine protection, a day of coming prosperity, when Zion shall be a praise in all the earth; when her temples and her altars shall be seen on the far-off shores of the Pacific; when even “the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose?”

For a more detailed history of the Church in America, the reader may consult Bishop White’s Memoirs of the Protestant and Episcopal Church in America; Caswall’s America and the American Church; the History of the Church in America in the Christian’s Miscellany: and the more recent History by Bishop Wilberforce, published in the Englishman’s Library.