A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

Whether this office is to be used over such as have been baptized by the dissenters or sectaries, who have no regular commission for the administering of the sacraments, has been a subject of dispute; people generally determining on one side, or the other, according to their different sentiments of the validity or invalidity of such disputed baptisms.—Wheatly.

All other persons that die in the communion of the visible Church are capable of these rites of Christian burial, according to the rules and practice both of the primitive and the present ages.—Dean Comber.

Though this rubric was not drawn up till 1661, and none of the regulations which it enjoins, excepting only what relates to persons excommunicate, was before that time specified in any of our articles, or ecclesiastical constitutions, yet it must not be considered as a new law, but merely as explanatory of the ancient canon law, and of the previous usage in England.—Shepherd.

The Order for the Burial of the Dead is much modified from the service in the First Book of King Edward VI. The psalms were the 116th, 139th, and 146th: the prayers were in many respects different; and there are certain passages omitted in the Second Book. The psalms in the First Book were omitted in the subsequent revisals, and the lesson was recited after the anthem, “I heard a voice from heaven:” and the present psalms were not inserted till the last Review.

At solemn funerals it has not been unusual to combine the Burial Service with the office of Evening Prayer, substituting the psalms and lessons for those of the day; but the regularity of this usage is questionable.—Jebb.

BUTTRESS. An external support to a wall, so arranged as to counteract the lateral thrust of roofs and vaulting.

The buttress is not used in Classic architecture, where the thrust is always vertical; and in Romanesque it is hardly developed. It is, in fact, a correlative of the pointed arch, especially when used in vaulting, and so first attains considerable depth in the Lancet period. In the Tudor period, when it had to support fan vaulting of vast expanse and weight, its depth or projection was proportionably increased.

The flying buttress, arch-buttress, or cross-springer, is an arch delivering the weight to be supported at a distance, as of a spire at the angle of the tower, of a clerestory at the aisle buttress, or of the chapter-house roof at Lincoln, to the heavy masses of masonry prepared at a distance to receive it.

The pinnacles which frequently terminate buttresses are intended to add to the weight of the supporting mass. (See Bay.)

CABBALA. (Hebrew.) Tradition. Among the Jews, it principally means the mystical interpretations of their Scriptures, handed down by tradition. The manner in which Maimonides explains the Cabbala, or Traditions of the Jews, is as follows: “God not only delivered the law to Moses on Mount Sina, but the explanation of it likewise. When Moses came down from the mount, and entered into his tent, Aaron went to visit him, and Moses acquainted Aaron with the laws he had received from God, together with the explanation of them. After this, Aaron placed himself at the right hand of Moses, and Eleazar and Ithamar, the sons of Aaron, were admitted; to whom Moses repeated what he had just before told to Aaron. These being seated, the one on the right, the other on the left hand of Moses, the seventy elders of Israel, who composed the Sanhedrim, came in. Moses again declared the same laws to them, with the interpretations of them, as he had done before to Aaron and his sons. Lastly, all who pleased of the common people were invited to enter, and Moses instructed them likewise in the same manner as the rest. So that Aaron heard four times what Moses had been taught by God upon Mount Sina; Eleazar and Ithamar three times; the seventy elders twice; and the people once. Moses afterwards reduced the laws, which he had received, into writing, but not the explanations of them; these he thought it sufficient to trust to the memories of the above-mentioned persons, who, being perfectly instructed in them, delivered them to their children, and these again to theirs, from age to age.”