A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

On this doctrine of the Church of Rome our Church thus speaks in the fourteenth Article:—“Voluntary works besides, over and above God’s commandments, which they call works of supererogation, cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety; for by them men do declare, that they do not only render unto God as much as they are bound to do, but that they do more for his sake than of bounden duty is required; whereas Christ saith plainly, ‘When ye have done all that are commanded to you, say, We are unprofitable servants.’”

The works here mentioned are called in the Romish Church likewise by the name of “counsels” and “evangelical perfections.” They are defined by their writers to be “good works, not commanded by Christ, but recommended;” rules which do not oblige all men to follow them, under the pain of sin; but yet are useful to carry them on to a sublimer degree of perfection than is necessary in order to their salvation. But there are no such counsels of perfection in the gospel; all the rules, set to us in it, are in the style and form of precepts; and, though there may be some actions of more heroical virtue and more sublime piety than others, to which all men are not obliged by equal and general rules; yet such men, to whose circumstances and station they belong, are strictly obliged by them, so that they should sin if they did not put them in practice.—Dr. Nicholls. Bp. Burnet.

SUPPLICATIONS. The following part of this Litany [beginning with the Lord’s Prayer] we call the Supplications, which were first collected and put into this form, when the barbarous nations first began to overrun the empire about six hundred years after Christ: but, considering the troubles of the Church militant, and the many enemies it always hath in this world, this part of the Litany is no less suitable than the former at all times whatsoever.—Wheatly. (See Litany and Suffrage.) In many choirs and at the universities this latter part of the Litany is performed by a different minister from the former: in apparent compliance with the rubric, which before the Lord’s Prayer directs that the Priest shall say it. And when the Litany is sung to the organ, it is usual to sing the responses in the Supplications without that accompaniment.

SUPRALAPSARIANS. The way in which they understand the Divine decrees, has produced two distinctions of Calvinists, viz. Sublapsarians and Supralapsarians. The former term is derived from two Latin words, sub, below or after, and lapsus, the fall; and the latter from supra, above, and lapsus, the fall. The Sublapsarians assert, that God had only permitted the first man to fall into transgression, without absolutely predetermining his fall; their system of decrees, concerning election and reprobation, being, as it were, subsequent to that event. On the other hand, the Supralapsarians maintained that God had, from all eternity, decreed the transgression of man. The Supralapsarian and Sublapsarian schemes agree in asserting the doctrine of predestination, but with this difference, that the former supposes that God intended to glorify his justice in the condemnation of some, as well as his mercy in the salvation of others; and for that purpose decreed that Adam should necessarily fall, and by that fall bring himself and all his offspring into a state of everlasting condemnation. The latter scheme supposes, that the decree of predestination regards man as fallen by an abuse of that freedom which Adam had, into a state in which all were to be left to necessary and unavoidable ruin, who were not exempted from it by predestination.

SUPREMACY. Lord Chief Justice Hale says, The supremacy of the Crown of England in matters ecclesiastical is a most indubitable right of the Crown, as appeareth by records of unquestionable truth and authority.—1 H. H. 75.

Lord-Chief Justice Coke says, That, by the ancient laws of this realm, this kingdom of England is an absolute empire and monarchy, consisting of one head, which is the king; and of a body, consisting of several members, which the law divideth into two parts, the clergy and laity, both of them, next and immediately under God, subject and obedient to the head.—5 Co. 8. 40. Caudrey’s case.

By the parliament of England, in the 16 Rich. II. c. 5, it is asserted, that the Crown of England hath been so free at all times, that it hath been in no earthly subjection, but immediately subject to God in all things touching the regality of the same Crown, and to none other.

And in the 24 Hen. VIII. c. 12, it is thus recited: “By sundry and authentic histories and chronicles it is manifestly declared and expressed, that this realm of England is an empire, and so hath been accepted in the world, governed by one supreme head and king, having dignity and royal estate of the imperial crown of the same; unto whom a body politic, compact of all sorts and degrees of people, divided in terms and by names of spirituality and temporality, been bounden and owen to bear, next unto God, a natural and humble obedience; he being also furnished by the goodness and sufferance of Almighty God, with plenary, whole, and entire power, pre-eminence, authority, prerogative, and jurisdiction, to render and yield justice and final determination to all manner of persons, resiants within this realm, in all cases, matters, debates, and contentions, without restraint or provocation to any foreign princes or potentates of the world; in causes spiritual by judges of the spirituality, and causes temporal by temporal judges.”

Again, 25 Hen. VIII. c. 21. The realm of England, recognising no superior under God but only the king, hath been and is free from subjection to any man’s laws, but only to such as have been devised, made, and obtained within this realm for the wealth of the same, or to such other as, by sufferance of the king, the people of this realm have taken at their free liberty by their own consent to be used amongst them, and have bound themselves by long use and custom to the observance of the same, not as to the observance of the laws of any foreign prince, potentate, or prelate; but as to the customed and ancient laws of this realm, originally established as laws of the same by the said sufferance, contents, and custom, and none otherwise.

The Church of England declares, Can. 1, “As our duty to the king’s most excellent Majesty requireth, we first decree and ordain, that the archbishop from time to time, all bishops, deans, archdeacons, parsons, vicars, and all other ecclesiastical persons, shall faithfully keep and observe, and as much as in them lieth shall cause to be observed and kept of others, all and singular laws and statutes made for restoring to the Crown of this kingdom the ancient jurisdiction over the state ecclesiastical, and abolishing of all foreign power repugnant to the same. Furthermore, all ecclesiastical persons having cure of souls, and all other preachers, and readers of divinity lectures, shall, to the uttermost of their wit, knowledge, and learning, purely and sincerely, (without any colour of dissimulation,) teach, manifest, open, and declare, four times every year at the least, in their sermons and other collation and lectures, that all usurped and foreign power (forasmuch as the same hath no establishment nor ground by the law of God) is for most just causes taken away and abolished, and that therefore no manner of obedience or subjection within his Majesty’s realms and dominions is due unto any such foreign power; but that the king’s power, within his realms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and all other his dominions and countries, is the highest power under God, to whom all men, as well inhabitants as born within the same, do by God’s laws owe most loyalty and obedience, afore and above all other powers and potentates in the earth.”