A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

See more fully, as to the subjects of the omitted chapters, Bennet’s Paraphrase, Common Prayer, Appendix; and Shepherd, Common Prayer.

Of the apocryphal lessons, (from ἀπὸ τῆς κρύπτης, removed from the place, or chest where the sacred books were kept; or from ἀποκρυπτω, to conceal or hide; i. e. either as being kept from the people, or as not being canonical; and see fully Hey’s Lectures, and Bingham’s Antiquities, book xiv. ch. 3, sec. 15, 16,) those read and those omitted are as follows:—The whole of Esdras (2 books, of 9 and 16 chapters) is omitted. The whole book of Tobit (14 chapters) is read, except chapter 5. The whole of Judith (16 chapters) is read. The remainder of the Book of Esther (6½ chapters) is passed over. The Wisdom of Solomon (19 chapters) is read throughout. And the whole of the Wisdom of Jesus the son of Sirach, or Ecclesiasticus, (51 chapters,) except the 26, and part of the 25, 30, and 46. The whole of Baruch is read (6 chapters). But the Song of the Three Children, (1 chapter,) a continuation of Daniel iii. 23, is omitted; principally, perhaps, as the greater part of it is the “Benedicite,” &c. The History of Susannah (1 chapter) and that of Bel and the Dragon (1 chapter) are both read. The two Books of Maccabees (16 chapters and 15 chapters) are omitted.

We fix articles of faith, and things necessary to salvation, upon the Scriptures; we do not allow any part of the apocrypha a casting voice in the establishment of any doctrine.—Boys on the Thirty-Nine Articles.

The New Testament is read through three times in the year, for the second lessons; i. e. the Four Gospels and the Acts, for the second lessons in the morning service; and the Epistles (the Revelation of St. John being omitted) for the second lesson in the evening service. The Gospel of St. Matthew, and the Epistle to the Romans, beginning respectively on the 1st day of January—the 3rd and 2nd of May—and the 31st of August—the 1st chapter of St. Luke being, on the first and third reading, divided into two portions, and the 7th chapter of Acts on the third reading. Of the Epistles, the 2nd and 3rd chapters of 1 Timothy and of Titus, are read together; as are also the 2nd and 3rd Epistles of St. John, on the first and second reading, but not on the third. This order is broken into only on four Sundays in the year, i. e. the sixth Sunday in Lent, (or Sunday before Easter,) Easter day, Whitsunday, and Trinity Sunday, but more frequently in holy-days; for all which days proper lessons are appointed.

The Book of the Revelation of St. John is wholly omitted, except on his own peculiar day, when the 1st and 22nd chapters (the first and the last) are read; and on All-saints day, when part of the 19th chapter is read.

When a Sunday and a saint’s day coincide, we appear to be left in some degree of uncertainty, whether the first lesson together with the service for the holy-day, or that for the Sunday, is to be read. The consequence is, says Archdeacon Sharp, (Visit. ch. 3, Disc. iv.,) that the clergy differ in their practice, and use the service appropriated to that festival, to which, in their private opinion, they give the preference. Some choose to intermix them, using the collects appointed to each, and preferring the first lesson for the Sunday, taken out of a canonical book, to that for the holy-day, if it happens to be appointed in the Apocrypha. Uniformity of practice was certainly intended by the Church, and what now may seem to require the direction of a rubric, or at least the decision of the diocesan, our forefathers, in all probability, thought sufficiently plain. They knew that, prior to the Reformation, (admitting that the practice of England corresponded with that of the Roman and Gallican Churches,) the service for all the holy-days now retained being “Doubles,” generally took place of that appointed for ordinary Sundays, excepting those of Advent and Lent, with Easter day, Whitsunday, and Trinity Sunday. They would, therefore, naturally read the service for the saint’s day, and omit that for the Sunday in general. This continues to be the practice of the Roman Church, and it was the practice of the Gallican Church for more than a century after the æra of our Reformation. In some parts of the late Gallican Church a change took place about the beginning of the present century, and the service for the Sunday was appointed to supersede that for the saint’s day. But in our Church no such alterations have been made by lawful authority. Hence it would appear that the service for the saint’s day, and not that for the Sunday, should be used. And notwithstanding there exists some diversity of opinion on this subject, yet the most general practice seems to be to read the collect, Epistle, and Gospel for the saint’s day; and it is most consonant to that practice to read also the first lesson appropriated to that day. This remark I have heard made by the lord bishop of London.—Shepherd.

When the feast day falls upon a Sunday, it was ordered in the service of Sarum, that the Sunday service should give way to the proper service ordained for the festival, except some peculiar Sunday only, and then the one or the other was transferred to some day of the week following.—Bp. Cosin.

LETTERS OF ORDERS. (See Orders.) The bishop’s certificate of his having ordained a clergyman, either priest or deacon. Churchwardens have the power to demand a sight of the letters of orders of any one offering to assist in the church of which they are the guardians.

LEVITICUS, a canonical book of Scripture, being the third book of the Pentateuch of Moses; thus called because it contains principally the laws and regulations relating to the priests, the Levites, and sacrifices; for which reason the Hebrews call it the priests’ law, because it includes many ordinances concerning sacrifices. The Jews term it likewise Vajicra, because in Hebrew it begins with this word, which signifies, “and he called.”

All the world agree, that Leviticus is a canonical book, and of Divine authority. It, as well as the rest of the Pentateuch, is generally held to be the work of Moses. It contains the history of what passed during the eight days of Aaron’s and his sons’ consecration, which was performed in the year of the world 2514. The laws which were prescribed in it upon other subjects, besides sacrifices, have no other chronological mark, whereby we may be directed to judge at what time they were given. Only four chapters of Leviticus are read in our Church, as remarked in the article on Lessons.