A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

All the festivals of the Jews, it is true, were introduced by the sound of trumpets: but this was attended with more than usual solemnity. For they began to blow at sunrising, and continued till sunset. He who sounded, began with the usual prayer: “Blessed be God, who hath sanctified us with his precepts,” &c., subjoining these words: “Blessed be God, who hath hitherto preserved us in life, and brought us unto this time.” At the conclusion, the people said with a loud voice these words of the Psalmist: “Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance.” And whereas, in other places, the beginning of the year was sounded with a trumpet of ram’s or sheep’s horn, at the temple they used two silver trumpets, and the Levites upon that day sung the eighty-first psalm.

This festival is called a memorial of blowing of trumpets: but it is not so easy to determine what this blowing of trumpets was a memorial of. Maimonides will have it to be instituted to awaken the people out of sleep, and call to repentance; being intended to put them in mind of the great day of expiation, which followed nine days after. Basil imagined, that by these soundings the people were put in mind of that day, wherein they received the Law from Mount Sinai with blowing of trumpets. Others think it more probable, that, since all nations made great shouting, rejoicing, and feasting in the beginning of the year, at the first new-moon, in hopes that the rest of the year by this means would prove more prosperous, God was pleased to ordain this festival among his people, in honour of himself, upon the day of the first new-moon, to preserve them from idolatry, and to make them sensible that he alone gave them good years. Others again imagine, that God marked this month with a peculiar honour, because it was the seventh; that, as every seventh day was a sabbath, and every seventh year the land rested, so every seventh month of every year should be a kind of sabbatical month: and upon that account the people might be awakened by this blowing of trumpets, to observe this festival with the proper ceremonies. Lastly, others explain this blowing of trumpets to be a memorial of the creation of the world, which was in autumn. Upon this account it was that they anciently began their years at this time, as the eastern people do at this day. By this means they also confessed the Divine goodness in blessing the year past, and bringing them to the beginning of a new year, which they prayed that God would make happy and propitious to them.

TUNICLE. An ecclesiastical garment mentioned in the rubrics of King Edward VI.’s First Book, to be worn by the assistant ministers at the holy communion. It is the same as the tunic or the dalmatic, which was also an episcopal garment. Originally it had no sleeves; and was the same with the Greek colobion. The sleeves were added in the west about the fourth century; and then the vestment was called a dalmatic. The tunicle in the Roman Church is proper to subdeacons.—Palmer. Goar.

TURRET. A small tower appended to a tower, or the angle or other part of any component portion of a building for support, or to carry stairs, or for ornament. Like the tower, it is often finished with a high conical capping, which is then called a spiret or pinnacle.

TYPE. An impression, image, or representation of some model, which is termed the antitype. In this sense we often use the word to denote the prefiguration of the great events of man’s redemption by persons or things in the Old Testament.

UBIQUITARIANS. A sect of heretics, so called because they maintained that the body of Jesus Christ is (ubique) everywhere, or in every place.

Brentius, one of the earliest reformers, is said to have first broached this error, in Germany, about the year 1560. Melancthon immediately declared against it, as introducing a kind of confusion in the two natures of Jesus Christ. On the other hand, it was espoused by Flacius Illyricus, Osiander, and others. The universities of Leipsic and Wirtemburg in vain opposed this heresy, which gained ground daily. Six Ubiquitarians, viz. Smidelin, Selneccer, Musculus, Chemnitius, Chytræus, and Cornerus, had a meeting, in 1577, in the monastery of Berg, and composed a kind of creed, or formulary of faith, in which the Ubiquity of Christ’s body was the leading article. However, the Ubiquitarians were not quite agreed among themselves; some holding that Jesus Christ, even during his mortal life, was everywhere, and others dating the Ubiquity of his body from the time of his ascension only.

ULTRA-PROTESTANT. (See Via Media.)

UNCTION. (See Extreme Unction.)

UNIFORMITY, ACTS OF. The Acts of Uniformity are 1 Eliz. c. 2, and 14 Car. II. The Irish Acts of Uniformity are also 2 Eliz. cap. 2, and 17 and 18 Car. II. See Stephens’s Edition of both the English and Irish Prayer Book. By stat. 1 Eliz. c. 2, s. 4–8, If any parson, vicar, or other minister that ought to use the Common Prayer, or to minister the sacraments, shall refuse to do the same, or shall use any other form, or shall speak anything in derogation of the same book, or of anything therein contained, he shall, on conviction for the first offence, forfeit to the queen one year’s profit of all his spiritual promotions, and be imprisoned for six months; for the second offence, shall be deprived of all his spiritual promotions, and be imprisoned for a year; and, for the third offence, shall be deprived of all his spiritual promotions, and be imprisoned during life. And if he has no spiritual promotion, he shall, for the first offence, be imprisoned for a year; and, for the second, during life.