A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

The bishops of the Scottish Church, thus deprived of their property and their civil rights, did not attempt to keep up the same number of bishops as before the Revolution, nor did they continue the division of the country into the same dioceses, as there was no occasion for that accuracy, by reason of the diminution which their clergy and congregations had suffered, owing to the persecutions they had to endure. They have also dropped the designation of archbishops, now only making use of that of Primus, (a name formerly given to the presiding bishop,) who being elected by the other bishops, six in number, is invested thereby with the authority of calling and presiding in such meetings as may be necessary for regulating the affairs of the Church. The true Church of Scotland has thus continued to exist from the Revolution to the present time, notwithstanding those penal statutes, of the severity of which some opinion may be formed when it is stated, that the grandfather of the present venerable bishop of Aberdeen, although he had taken the oaths to the government, was committed to prison for six months; and why? for the heinous offence of celebrating Divine service according to the forms of the English Book of Common Prayer, in the presence of more than four persons! But in vain has the Scottish establishment thus persecuted the Scottish Church; as we have said, she still exists, perhaps, amidst the dissensions of the establishment, to be called back again to her own. The penal statutes were repealed in the year 1792. But even then the clergy of that Church were so far prohibited from officiating in the Church of England, that the clergyman, in whose church they should perform any ministerial act, was liable to the penalties of a premunire. Although a clergyman of any of the Greek churches, although even a clergyman of the Church of Rome, upon his renouncing those Romish peculiarities and errors, which are not held by our Scottish brethren, could serve at our altars, and preach from our pulpits, our brethren in Scotland and America were prevented from doing so. This disgrace however has now been removed by the piety of the late archbishop of Canterbury, who has obtained an act which restores to the Church one of her lost liberties. At the end of the last century, the Catholic Church in Scotland adopted those Thirty-nine Articles which were drawn up by the Church of England in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. They, for the most part, make use of our liturgy, though in some congregations the old Scotch liturgy is used, and it is expressly appointed that it shall always be used at the consecration of a bishop.

The Church of Scotland, before the political recognition of Presbyterianism, had fourteen bishops: viz. The archbishop of St. Andrew’s, primate of Scotland, with nine suffragans; viz. Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Moray, Dunkeld, Brechin, Caithness, Dunblane, Orkney, and Ross. The archbishop of Glasgow, with three suffragans; viz. Galloway, Argyle, and the Isles. The bishops of Edinburgh and Galloway had precedence over the others. All the bishops sat in the Scottish parliament, but they had no convocation, like those of the Church of England in ancient times, their synods being episcopal. After the Reformation, their assemblies were long of an anomalous kind, and bore witness to a continual struggle between the episcopal and presbyterian, or rather democratic, principle, which finally prevailed. In 1663, however, an act of parliament was passed regulating their national synod. (See Convocation.)

CHURCH, GALLICAN, or THE CHURCH OF FRANCE, although in communion with the see of Rome, maintained in many respects an independent position. (See Concordat and Pragmatic Sanction.) This term is very ancient, for we find it used in the Council of Paris, held in the year 362, and the Council of Illyria, in 367.

This Church all along preserved certain ancient rites, which she possessed time out of mind; neither were these privileges any grants of popes, but certain franchises and immunities, derived to her from her first original, and which she will take care never to relinquish. These liberties depended upon two maxims, which were always looked upon in France as indisputable. The first is, that the pope had no authority or right to command or order anything, either in general or particular, in which the temporalities or civil rights of the kingdom were concerned. The second was, that, notwithstanding the pope’s supremacy was owned in cases purely spiritual, yet, in France, his power was limited and regulated by the decrees and canons of ancient councils received in that realm. The liberties or privileges of the Gallican Church were founded upon these two maxims, and the most considerable of them are as follows:

I. The king of France has a right to convene synods, or provincial and national councils, in which, amongst other important matters relating to the preservation of the state, cases of ecclesiastical discipline are likewise debated.

II. The pope’s legates à latere, who are empowered to reform abuses, and to exercise the other parts of their legantine office, are never admitted into France unless at the desire, or with the consent, of the king: and whatever the legates do there, is with the approbation and allowance of the king.

III. The legate of Avignon cannot exercise his commission in any of the king’s dominions, till after he hath obtained his Majesty’s leave for that purpose.

IV. The prelates of the Gallican Church, being summoned by the pope, cannot depart the realm upon any pretence whatever, without the king’s permission.

V. The pope has no authority to levy any tax or imposition upon the temporalities of the ecclesiastical preferments, upon any pretence, either of loan, vacancy, annates, tithes, procurations, or otherwise, without the king’s order, and the consent of the clergy.

VI. The pope has no authority to depose the king, or grant away his dominions to any person whatever. His Holiness can neither excommunicate the king, nor absolve his subjects from their allegiance.