A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

That the ancients did not look upon the sin against the Holy Ghost, in the several kinds of it here mentioned, as absolutely irremissible, or incapable of pardon, appears from hence, that they did not shut the door of repentance against such offenders, but invited them to repent, and prayed for their conversion, and restored them to communion, upon their confession, and evidences of a true repentance. Wherever they speak of it as unpardonable both in this world and the next, they always suppose the sinner to die in obduracy, and in resistance to all the gracious motions and operations of the Holy Spirit. Whence it must be concluded, that they did not think the sin against the Holy Ghost, whatever it was, in its own nature unpardonable, but only that it becomes so through final impenitence. Thus the author of the book, “Of True and False Repentance,” under the name of St. Austin, says, they only sin against the Holy Ghost, who continue impenitent to their death. And Bacchiarius, an African writer about the time of St. Austin, says this sin consists in such a despair of God’s mercy, as makes men give over all hopes of recovering that state, from which they are fallen.—Synes. Ep. 58. Bingham, ibid. § 3. Cypr. Ep. 10. Hilar. in Mat. Can. 12, p. 164. Athan. in illud, Quicunque dixerit verbum, &c., p. 975. Ambros. Comment. in Luc. lib. vii. c. 12. Epiphan. Hæres. lxxiv. Aug. Quæst. in Vet. et Nov. Test. 102. Bingham, ibid. Aug. de vera et falsa Pœnit. cap. iv. Bacchiar. Epist. de recipiend. lapsis.

St. Austin speaks often of this crime, and places it in a continued resistance of the motions and graces of the Holy Spirit, and persisting in impenitency to our death. “Impenitency is the blasphemy, which has neither remission in this world, nor in the world to come; but of this no one can judge so long as a man continues in this life. A man is a Pagan to-day; but how knowest thou but he may become a Christian to-morrow? To-day he is an unbelieving Jew; to-morrow he may believe in Christ. To-day he is an heretic; to-morrow he may embrace the Catholic truth.” Out of this notion of St. Austin, the schoolmen, according to their usual chymistry, have extracted five several species of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost; viz. despair, presumption, final impenitency, obstinacy in sin, and opposition to the known truth.

If we consider the Scripture account of this sin, nothing can be plainer than that it is to be understood of the Pharisees imputing the miracles, wrought by the power of the Holy Ghost, to the power of the devil. Our Lord had just healed one possessed of a devil, upon which the Pharisees gave this malicious turn to the miracle; “This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils.” (Matt. xii. 24.) This led our Saviour to discourse of the sin of blasphemy, and to tell his disciples; “Wherefore I say unto you, all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men, but the sin against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men,” (Ver. 31.) The Pharisees therefore were the persons charged with this sin, and the sin itself consisted in ascribing what was done by the finger of God to the agency of the devil. And the reason why our Lord pronounced it unpardonable is plain, because the Jews, by withstanding the evidence of miracles, resisted the strongest means of their conviction. From all which it will follow, that no person now can be guilty of the sin against the Holy Ghost, in the sense in which our Saviour originally intended it; though there may be sins which bear a very near resemblance to it.—August., Serm. xi. de Verbis Domini. Brouqhton.

BLOOD. From the earliest times the clergy have been forbidden to sit in judgment on capital offences, or in cases of blood; a rule still maintained among us; for the bishops, who, as peers of parliament, are a component part of the highest court of judicature in the kingdom, always retire when such cases are before the House.

BODY. The Church is called a body. (Rom. xii. 5; 1 Cor. x. 17; xii. 13; Eph. iv. 4; Col. iii. 15.) Like every other body, society, or corporation, it has a prescribed form of admission, baptism; a constant badge of membership, the eucharist; peculiar duties, repentance, faith, obedience; peculiar privileges, forgiveness of sins, present grace, and future glory; regularly constituted officers, bishops, priests, and deacons. The Church is the body, of which Christ is the Head.

BOHEMIAN BRETHREN. A sect which sprung up in Bohemia in the year 1467. In 1503 they were accused by the Roman Catholics to King Ladislaus II., who published an edict against them, forbidding them to hold any meetings, either privately or publicly. When Luther declared himself against the Church of Rome, the Bohemian Brethren endeavoured to join his party. At first, that reformer showed a great aversion to them; but the Bohemians sending their deputies to him in 1535, with a full account of their doctrines, he acknowledged that they were a society of Christians whose doctrine came near to the purity of the gospel. This sect published another confession of faith in 1535, in which they renounced anabaptism, which they at first professed; upon this an union was concluded with the Lutherans, and afterwards with the Zuinglians, whose opinions from thenceforth they continued to follow.

BOUNTY, QUEEN ANNE’S. (See Annates.)

BOWING AT THE NAME OF JESUS. (See East.) It is enjoined by the eighteenth canon of the Constitutions of the Church of England, that “When in time of Divine service the Lord Jesus shall be mentioned, due and lowly reverence shall be done by all persons present, as it hath been accustomed; testifying by these outward ceremonies and gestures, their inward humility, Christian resolution, and due acknowledgment that the Lord Jesus Christ, the true eternal Son of God, is the only Saviour of the world, in whom alone all the mercies, graces, and promises of God to mankind, for this life and the life to come, are fully and wholly comprised.” We do not bow when our Lord is spoken of as Christ; for when we speak of him as the Christ, we speak of his office, the anointed, the prophet, priest, and king of our race, which implies his Divine nature. But Jesus is the name of his humanity, the name he was known by as man; whenever, therefore, we pronounce that name, we bow, to signify that he who for our sakes became man, is also God.

With reference to turning to the east when we say the Creed, and bowing at the name of Jesus, Dr. Bisse remarks: As to the first, it was the custom of the ancient Church to turn to the altar or east, not only at the confessions of faith, but in all the public prayers. And therefore Epiphanius, speaking of the madness of the impostor Elxæus, counts this as one instance of it among other things, that he forbade praying towards the east. (Lib. i. Hæres. 18.) Now this is the most honourable place in the house of God, and is therefore separated from the lower and inferior parts of the Church, answering to the Holy of Holies in the Jewish tabernacle, which was severed by a veil from the sanctuary; and the holy table or altar in the one answers to the mercy-seat in the other. As then the Jews worshipped, “lifting up their hands towards the mercy-seat,” (Psal. xxviii. 2,) and even the cherubim were formed with their faces looking towards it, (Exod. xxv. 19,) so the primitive Christians did in their worship look towards the altar, of which the mercy-seat was a type. And therefore the altar was usually called “the tabernacle of God’s glory,” his “chair of state,” “the throne of God,” “the type of heaven,” “heaven itself:” for these reasons did they always in praying look towards it. But in rehearsing our Creeds this custom is still more proper and significant, for we are appointed to perform it “standing;” by this posture declaring our resolution to stand by, or defend, that faith, which we have professed: so that all these times we resemble, not so much an assembly, as an army: as then in every well-marshalled army all look and move one way, so should we always do in a regular assembly; but especially at the confessions of faith all “Christ’s faithful soldiers” should show, by this uniformity of gesture, that they hold the unity of faith.

The other usage, of bowing at the name of Jesus, seems founded on that Scripture, where it is declared, that “God hath given him a name which is above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father,” (Isa. xlv. 23; Phil. ii. 9,) &c. Now though the rubric be silent herein, yet the canon of our Church thus enjoins. Now if such reverence be due to that great and ever-blessed name, when it is mentioned in the lesson or sermon, how much more in the Creeds, when we mention it with our own lips, making confession of our faith in it, adding the very reason given in the canon, that we believe in him as “the only Son,” or “only-begotten Son of God,” the Saviour of the world; and when too we do this “standing,” which is the proper posture for doing reverence!—Dr. Bisse.