A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

The Law articles have been revised, partly by the Rev. James Brogden, A. M., of Trinity College, Cambridge, and partly by William Johnston, of Gray’s Inn, Esq., barrister-at-law.

To Mr. Johnston, known to the literary world as the author of “England as it is,” the thanks of the present writer are also due for the kindness with which he has assisted him in correcting the press, and for many valuable suggestions.

The original dissertations remain unaltered; but the circumstances of the Church of England have changed considerably from what they were when the Church Dictionary was first published. At that time the Protestantism of the Church of England was universally recognised, and the fear was lest her pretensions to Catholicity should be ignored. But now an affectation of repudiating our Protestantism is prevalent, while by ignorant or designing men Protestantism is misrepresented as the antithesis, not, as is the case, to Romanism, but to Catholicism; at the same time, Catholicism is confounded with Romanism, primitive truth with mediæval error, and the theology of the Schools with that of the Fathers: while, therefore, the articles bearing on the catholicity, orthodoxy, and primitive character of the Church of England are retained, the articles relating to the heresies and peculiarities of the Church of Rome have been expanded; and strong as they were in former editions in condemnation of the papal system, they have been rendered more useful, under the present exigencies of the Church, by a reference to the decisions of the so-called Council of Trent, so as to enable the reader to see what the peculiar tenets of that corrupt portion of the Christian world really are.

Vicarage, Leeds, 21 Sept. 1852.

PREFACE TO THE SEVENTH EDITION.

In this Edition the articles on the Early Heresies have been revised by the Rev. James Craigie Robertson, M. A.;[^[2]] the Ritual articles, by the Rev. John Jebb, M. A,; the articles on the Councils, by the Rev. Sanderson Robins, M. A.; and the Law articles, by William Johnston, Esq. To Mr. Jebb’s notes in Stephens’s edition of the Book of Common Prayer, and to his other learned works, and to Mr. Robins’s excellent treatise entitled “Evidences of Scripture against the Claims of the Romish Church,” reference is frequently made. Authorities have been fully given, except when articles have been taken with only slight alterations from Broughton or Bingham, or translated from Suicer.

July, 1854.

A CHURCH DICTIONARY.

ABACUS. The upper member of a capital. (See Capital.)

In semi-Norman and early English architecture, the abacus of engaged shafts is frequently returned along the walls, in a continued horizontal string: perhaps the last lingering recognition of the effect of the capital in representing that horizontal line, which was so decided in the classic architrave, and to which the spirit of Gothic architecture is in the main so greatly opposed.