A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

PREBEND. (Lat. Præbenda.) The stipend which is received by a prebendary, from the revenues of the cathedral or collegiate church with which he is connected. It denoted originally any stipend or reward, given out of the ecclesiastical revenues, to a person who had by his labours procured benefit to the Church; and the gratuity which was given either to a proctor or advocate, or any other person of the like kind. When the cathedral churches became well endowed, they left off receiving the income of their lands into one common bank, and dividing it among the members, but parcelled out the lands into several shares, appropriating them for the maintenance of each single clergyman who resided about the cathedral, calling it Præbenda, or Corpus Præbendæ, the Corps of the Prebend. Hence arose the difference between a prebend and a canonry. A canonry was a right which a person had in a church, to be deemed a member thereof, to have the right of a stall therein, and of giving a vote in the chapter; but a prebend was a right to receive certain revenues appropriated to his place. The number of prebends in the several cathedral churches was increased by the benefactions of respective founders; oftentimes out of the revenues of the rural clergy, and oftentimes by exonerating the lands of prebends from paying tithes to the ministers of the parishes where they lay.—Nicholls.

PREBENDARY. A clergyman attached to a cathedral or collegiate church, who enjoys a prebend in consideration of his officiating at stated times in the church. (See Dean and Chapter.)

In Scotland, there were established by the respective founders in the colleges of St. Salvador, at St. Andrew’s, and King’s College, Aberdeen, certain “Prebendaries, or perpetual chaplains, to sing and serve in the choir” of the chapel. These were, in fact, the same as chaplains in the choral colleges of England.

PRECENTOR. The leader of a choir. The precentor in almost all cathedrals of old foundation in England, and very generally on the continent, was the first dignitary in the chapter, ranking next to the dean. In some few instances the archdeacons preceded him. He superintended the choral service, and the choristers; and in Paris the precentor of Notre Dame had the supervision of the lesser schools in the city, as the chancellor had of the greater. In all the new foundations, except Christ Church in Dublin, where he is a dignitary, the precentor is a minor canon: an anomalous and modern provision. In most ancient cathedrals the precentor had for his badge of office a silver staff or baculus. In choral colleges the precentor is a chaplain. At Llandaff and St. David’s, till very lately, the precentor was presbyteral head of the chapter.

PRECEPTORIES were manors or estates of the Knights Templars, on which they erected churches for religious service, and convenient houses for habitation, and placed some of their fraternity under the government of one of those more eminent Templars, who had been by the grand master created “præceptores templi,” to take care of the lands and rents in that place and neighbourhood: these preceptories were only cells to the Temple, or principal house of the knights, in London. Preceptor was the title of the head of some old hospitals.

PRECES. A general word for prayers; but it is often applied in a technical sense to the shorter sentences, as versicles and suffrages which are said in the way of verse and response. In the English choral service the term is limited to those versicles (with the Gloria Patri) immediately preceding the Psalms, beginning “O Lord, open thou our lips.” These anciently formed a regular part of the harmonized services for cathedral choirs, which were set to music by an earlier musician.—Jebb. (See Responses, Versicles, and Service.)

PREDESTINATION. (See Election; see also Calvinism and Arminianism.) Of predestination and election our 17th Article thus speaks: “Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) he hath constantly decreed by his counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour. Wherefore they which be endued with so excellent a benefit of God, be called according to God’s purpose, by his Spirit working in due season; they through grace obey the calling; they be justified freely; they be made sons of God by adoption; they be made like the image of his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ; they walk religiously in good works; and at length, by God’s mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity. As the godly consideration of predestination and our election in Christ is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons, and such as feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works of the flesh and their earthly members, and drawing up their mind to high and heavenly things, as well because it doth greatly establish and confirm their faith of eternal salvation to be enjoyed through Christ, as because it doth fervently kindle their love towards God: so, for curious and carnal persons lacking the Spirit of Christ, to have continually before their eyes the sentence of God’s predestination, is a most dangerous downfal, whereby the devil doth thrust them either into desperation, or into wretchlessness of most unclean living, no less perilous than desperation. Furthermore, we must receive God’s promises in such wise, as they be generally set forth to us in Holy Scripture: and, in our doings, that will of God is to be followed, which we have expressly declared unto us in the Word of God.”

Such is the barrier which the Church places between this solemn subject and irreverent inquiries; but the Scripture doctrine of predestination may be further stated without any forgetfulness of the spirit here inculcated. We are told indeed by the Church, that “the godly consideration of predestination and our election in Christ is full of sweet and unspeakable comfort to godly persons” (Art. xvii.); and it is certain that it can be full neither of profit nor of comfort, unless we meditate upon it. And if it be among the things “hard to be understood,” (2 Pet. iii. 16,) this is no reason why we should not try to understand it, and, by understanding, cease to be “unlearned and unstable,” and so take care that it shall not be wrested to our destruction.

In the first chapter to the Ephesians, we find that there are certain persons whom God hath chosen in Christ, before the foundation of the world; having predestinated them unto the adoption of children of Jesus Christ to himself, not on account of their good works, but according to the good pleasure of his will. (Eph. i. 4, 5.) Again, in another Epistle, we are told that God hath “called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.” (2 Tim. i. 9.) These are persons whose names are said to have been written in heaven, in the book of life, called the Lamb’s book of life, (Rev. xx. 15; xxi. 27,) because the first among God’s elect is he who, being God as well as man, is the Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. xiii. 8) as a propitiation for sins. (1 John ii. 2; iv. 10.) Thus, then, we see that there are persons who, in the words of St. Paul, are “vessels which God hath afore prepared unto glory.” (Rom. ix. 22–24.)

And now comes the question, Who are those who are thus predestinated to the glories of the new heaven, the new earth, the new Jerusalem, which is to come down from above? (Rev. xxi. 2.) Let St. Paul give the answer: “Whom he did predestinate, them he also called” (Rom. viii. 30): called by the circumstances under which he providentially placed them, either by the appearance, in the first ages, of an apostle or an evangelist; or, as is the case with us, by the fact of our being born in a Christian land: “and whom he called, them he also justified;” receiving them, for Christ’s sake, as his own children in holy baptism, he justified, or, for the same Saviour’s sake, counted as holy, those who as yet were not actually so: “and whom he justified, them he also glorified.” He glorified them by regenerating them, and making them temples of the Holy Ghost (1 Cor. vi. 11, 19); than which what greater glory can pertain to the sons of men?