A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

“Besides free-will offerings, the tenth of their increase, including income of every description, is brought up to the Lord, (it being regarded as a sacred duty that tithe should be dedicated to his service alone,) and is apportioned among those who are separated to the ministry.

“In England there are about 30 congregations, comprising nearly 6000 communicants; and the number is gradually on the increase. There are also congregations in Scotland and Ireland, a considerable number in Germany, and several in France, Switzerland, and America.”

Of late years, it is said, this denomination has made considerable progress, so that from 1846 to 1851 the number of communicants in England has increased by a third, while great success has been achieved on the continent and in America. Returns from 32 chapels (chiefly in the southern counties of England) have been furnished to the Census Office. These contained (allowing for one chapel for which the sittings are not mentioned) accommodation for 7437 persons. The attendance, on the Census-Sunday, was, (making an estimated addition for two chapels with regard to which no information was received,) Morning, 3176; Afternoon, 1659; Evening, 2707.

ISAIAH, THE PROPHECY OF. A canonical book of the Old Testament. Isaiah is the first of the four greater prophets, the other three being Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. He was of royal blood, his father Amos being brother to Azariah, king of Judah. He prophesied from the end of the reign of Uzziah, to the time of Manasseh; by whose order, according to a Jewish tradition, he was sawn asunder with a wooden saw. He delivered his predictions under the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. The first five chapters of his prophecy relate to the reign of Uzziah; the vision of the sixth chapter happened in the time of Jotham; the next chapters, to the fifteenth, include his prophecies under the reign of Ahaz; and those that happened under the reigns of Hezekiah and Manasseh are related in the next chapters, to the end.

The style of this prophet is noble, sublime, and florid. Grotius calls him the Demosthenes of the Hebrews. He had the advantage above the other prophets of improving his diction by conversing with men of the greatest parts and elocution. This added a gravity, force, and vehemence to what he said. He impartially reproved the vices and disorders of the age he lived in, and openly displayed the judgments of God, which were hanging over the Jewish nation; at the same time denouncing vengeance on those foreign nations, which were instrumental in inflicting those judgments, viz. the Assyrians, Egyptians, Ethiopians, Moabites, Edomites, Tyrians, and Arabians. He clearly foretold the deliverance of the Jews from their captivity in Babylon, by the hand of Cyrus king of Persia; and this he expressly mentioned an hundred years before it came to pass. But the most remarkable of his predictions are those concerning the Messiah. He, in plain terms, foretold, not only the coming of Christ in the flesh, but all the great and memorable circumstances of his life and death. He speaks, says St. Jerome, rather of things past than to come; and he may rather be called an Evangelist, than a Prophet.

Besides the prophecies of Isaiah still extant, he wrote a book concerning the actions of Uzziah, cited in the Chronicles; but it is now lost. Origen, Epiphanius, and St. Jerome speak of another book, called “The Ascension of Isaiah.” Some of the Jews ascribe to him the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Solomon’s Song, and the Book of Job.

ITALIC VERSION. The old Italic Version, or Vetus Itala, is the name usually given to that translation of the sacred Scriptures into the Latin language, which was generally used until the time of St. Jerome, being distinguished for its clearness and fidelity among the many versions then existing. It was however translated from the Greek in the Old Testament, as well as the New; and is supposed to have been executed in the early part of the 2nd century. St. Jerome, dissatisfied with the ruggedness and imperfections of the old Italic, first commenced a revision of it, which, however, he did not complete; and afterwards made a new translation, which at first gradually, but at length universally, obtained in the Latin Church, under the name of the Vulgate. Of the old Italic Version, the Psalter and Book of Job, corrected by Jerome, remain; and are published in the Benedictine edition of St. Jerome’s Works. The apocryphal books of Baruch, Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom, the two Books of Maccabees, and perhaps, as may be collected from Dr. Hody, the remaining chapters of Esther, and the Song of the Three Children, also belong to this translation. (See Vulgate and Psalter.) Consult Walton’s Prolegomena, and Hodius de Bibliorum textibus originalibus, (who corrects Walton in one of his statements,) for a full account of this version.

JACOBITES, or JACOBINS. Eastern Christians, so denominated from Jacob, a Syrian, the disciple of Eutyches and Dioscorus, whose heresy he spread so much in Asia and Africa, in the 6th century, that at last, in the 7th, the different sects of the Eutychians were swallowed up by that of the Jacobites, which also comprehended all the Monophysites of the East, i. e. such as acknowledged only one nature in Christ. Their Asian patriarch resides at Caramit, in Mesopotamia; Alexandria is the see of the African one, and he follows the errors of Dioscorus and the Cophti. M. Simon relates that under the name of Jacobins must be included all the Monophysites of the East, whether Armenians, Cophti, or Abyssines, acknowledging but one nature in Christ; he adds, the number of the Jacobins, properly so called, is but small, there not being above thirty or forty thousand families of them, which principally inhabit Syria and Mesopotamia: they are divided among themselves, one part embracing, and the other disowning, the communion of the Church of Rome. These last are not all united, having two opposite patriarchs, one at Caramit, and the other at Dorzapharan; besides these two, he says, there is one of the same opinion with the Latins, residing at Aleppo.

JAMES’S, ST., DAY, (July 25th,) the day on which the Church celebrates the memory of the apostle James the Great, or the Elder. He was one of the sons of Zebedee, and brother of St. John. He was the first of the apostles who won the crown of martyrdom. (Acts xii. 2.)

JAMES’S, ST., GENERAL EPISTLE. A canonical book of the New Testament. It was written by St. James the Less, called also the Lord’s brother; who was chosen by the apostles bishop of Jerusalem. The date of this Epistle is placed by Dr. Mills in, or just before, the year 60; two years after which the writer suffered martyrdom, under the high priesthood of Ananus, and procuratorship of Albinus.