A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

“The National Church of Scotland has three presbyteries in England; that of London, containing five congregations,—that of Liverpool and Manchester, containing three congregations,—and that of the North of England, containing eight congregations.

“Various considerable secessions have from time to time occurred in Scotland from the National Church, of bodies which, while holding Presbyterian sentiments, dissent from the particular mode in which they are developed by the Established Kirk, especially protesting against the mode in which Church patronage is administered, and against the undue interference of the civil power. The principal of these seceding bodies are,—the ‘United Presbyterian Church,’ and the ‘Free Church of Scotland;’ the former being an amalgamation (effected in 1847) of the ‘Secession Church’ (which separated in 1732) with the ‘Relief Synod’ (which seceded in 1752); and the latter having been constituted in 1843.

“The ‘United Presbyterian Church’ has five presbyteries in England, containing seventy-six congregations; of which, however, fourteen are locally in Scotland, leaving the number locally in England 62.

“The ‘Free Church of Scotland’ has no ramifications, under that name, in England; but various Presbyterian congregations which accord in all respects with that community, and which, before the disruption of 1843, were in union with the Established Kirk, compose a separate Presbyterian body under the appellation of the ‘Presbyterian Church in England,’ having, in this portion of Great Britain, seven presbyteries and eighty-three congregations.”

PRESBYTERIUM, or PRESBYTERY, the space in collegiate and large churches between the easternmost stalls of the choir and the altar; answering to the solea of the ancient basilicas.

PRESENCE. (See Real Presence.)

PRESENTATION, (see Patron and Benefice,) is the offering of a clerk to the bishop by the patron of a benefice. It differs from nomination in this, that while presentation signifies the offering a clerk to the bishop for institution, nomination signifies offering a clerk to the patron in order that he may be presented.

PRIEST. (See Orders, Ordination, Presbyter, Sacrifice, and Absolution.) Who can deny that our word priest is corrupted of presbyter? Our ancestors, the Saxons, first used preoster; whence, by further contraction, came preste and priest. The High and Low Dutch have priester; the French, prestre [now contracted into prêtre]; the Italian, prete; but the Spaniard only speaks full, presbytero.—Joseph Mede.

The Greek and Latin words, (ἱερεύς, sacerdos,) which we translate “priest,” are derived from words that signify holy: and so the word priest, according to the etymology, signifies him whose mere charge and function is about holy things; and therefore seems to be a most proper word to him who is set apart to the holy public service and worship of God, especially when he is in the actual ministration of holy things. If it be objected that, according to the usual acceptation of the word, it signifies him that offers up a sacrifice, and therefore cannot be allowed to a minister of the gospel, who hath no sacrifice to offer, it is answered, that the ministers of the gospel have sacrifices to offer, (1 Pet. ii. 5,) “Ye are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices” of prayer, praises, thanksgiving, &c. In respect of these, the ministers of the gospel may safely, in a metaphorical sense, be called priests; and in a more eminent manner than other Christians, because they are taken from among men to offer up these sacrifices for others. But besides these spiritual sacrifices mentioned, the ministers of the gospel have another sacrifice to offer, viz. the “unbloody sacrifice,” as it was anciently called, the commemorative sacrifice of the blood of Christ, which does as really and truly show forth the death of Christ, as those sacrifices under the law did; and in respect of this sacrifice of the eucharist, the ancients have usually called those that offer it up, priests.—Fludyer’s Comm.

That it might not be doubted by whom the form of absolution may be pronounced, the rubric expressly informs us, that it is the priest who officiates. By priest, in Church language, is understood a person who is advanced in the ecclesiastical orders to the dignity of a presbyter; and no person, in any age of the Church, who was under this degree, did ever pretend, as of right, to pronounce absolution. The penitentiaries, in the ancient and more modern ages of the Church, were always of this degree. It was adopted into an axiom in the canon law, “ejus est absolvere cujus est ligare.” No one could pronounce absolution but he who had power to excommunicate. In the body of that law, absolutions of all kinds are reserved either to presbyters or bishops; and in our provincial constitutions it is strictly enjoined, “de pœnitentia præcipimus quod diaconi pœnitentias dare non presumant,” unless the priest be away when a man is dying.—Lyndwood. Our Church, in the last review of the liturgy, has chosen to put in the word priest instead of minister, (which was in King Edward VI.’s Second Book, and in Queen Elizabeth’s,) to the end that no one might pretend to pronounce this but one in priest’s orders; being sensible that some bold innovations have been made herein, by reason of some persons misunderstanding or misapplying the word minister. But the first compilers of the Common Prayer understood the same by minister as we do now by priest, that being the general acceptation of the word at that time. The compilers of the Second Book of Edward VI. (in which the Confession and Absolution were first inserted) put into the rubric, “to be pronounced by the minister” (or priest) “alone,” to avoid the imputation which the Papists had charged some of the reformed with, for permitting absolution to be pronounced by persons not of this order. For in the provincial Council of Sens, A. D. 1528, which was before that of Trent, and twenty years before the compiling our Common Prayer, we find the Protestants found fault with for affirming, that laics and women among them might pronounce absolution; which indeed was Luther’s opinion, but only so (as Chemnitius explains it) that in case of extreme necessity they might use it; which doctrine he had from the Papists themselves.—Nicholls; and see his long note on the subject, if necessary, in his “Commentary on the Common Prayer,” Evening Service.