riage, he took the government of ecclesiastical affairs into his own hand; and, having reformed many abuses, entitled himself supreme head of the church. See REFORMATION.

no power to give new laws to it; but "The Defender of the Faith." But, only, in conjunction with the other mem-falling out with the pope about his marbers of the society, to execute the commands of Christ. They have no dominion over any man's faith, nor any compulsive power over the consciences of any. Every particular church has a right to judge of the fitness of those who offer themselves as members, Acts || ix. 26. If they are found to be proper persons, they must then be admitted; and this should always be followed with prayer, and with a solemn exhortation|| to the persons received. If any member walk disorderly, and continue to do so, the church is empowered to exclude him, 1 Cor. v. 7. 2 Thess. ii. 6. Rom. xvi. 17. which should be done with the greatest tenderness; but if evident signs of repentance should be discovered, such must be received again, Gal. vi. 1. This and other church business is generally done on some day preceding the sabbath on which the ordinance is administered.

See art. EXCOMMUNICATION; Dr. Owen on the Nature of a Gospel Church and its Government; Watts's Rational Foundation of a Christian Church; Turner's Compendium of Soc. Rel.; Fawcett's Constitution and Order of a Gospel Church; Watts's Works, ser. 53. vol. i.; Goodwin's Works, vol. iv.; Fuller's Remarks on the Discipline of the Primitive Churches; and Bryson's Compendious View.

CHURCH OF ENGLAND, is the church established by law in this king

dom.

The doctrines of the church of England, which are contained in the thirtynine articles, are certainly Calvinistical, though this has been denied by some modern writers, especially by Dr. Kipling, in a tract entitled, "The Articles of the Church of England proved not to be Calvinistic." These articles were founded, for the most part, upon a body of articles compiled and published in the reign of Edward VI. They were first passed in the convocation, and confirmed by royal authority in 1562. They were afterwards ratified anew in the year 1571, and again by Charles I. The law requires a subscription to these articles of all persons who are admitted into holy orders. In the course of the last century disputes arose among the clergy respecting the propriety of subscribing to any human formulary of religious sentiments. An application for its removal was made to parliament, in 1772, by the petitioning clergy; and received the most public discussion in the house of commons, but was rejected in the house of lords.

The government of the church of England is episcopal. The king is the supreme head. There are two archbishops, and twenty-four bishops, The benefices of the bishops were converted When and by whom Christianity was by William the Conqueror into tempofirst introduced into Britain cannot per- ral baronies; so that every prelate has haps be exactly ascertained. Eusebius, a seat and a vote in the house of peers. indeed, positively declares that it was Dr. Hoadley, however, in a sermon by the apostles and their disciples. It is preached from this text-"My kingalso said that numbers of persons pro- dom is not of this world,” insisted that fessed the Christian faith here about the the clergy had no pretensions to tempoyear 150; and according to Usher, there||ral jurisdiction; which gave rise to vawas in the year 182 a school of learning, to provide the British churches with proper teachers. Popery, however, was established in England by Austin the monk; and the errors of it we find every where prevalent, until Wickliffe was raised up by Divine Providence to refute them. The church of England remained in subjection to the pope until the time of Henry VIII. Henry, indeed, in early life, and during the former part of his reign, was a bigotted papist: he burnt the famous Tyndal (who made one of the first and best translations of the New Testament;) and wrote in defence of the seven sacraments against Luther, for which the pope gave him the title of

rious publications, termed by way of eminence, the Bangorian Controversy, because Hoadley was then bishop of Bangor. Dr. Wake, archbishop of Canterbury, formed a project of peace and union between the English and Gallican churches, founded upon this condition, that each of the two communities should retain the greatest part of their respective and peculiar doctrines; but this project came to nothing. In the church of England there are deans, archdeacons, rectors, vicars, &c.; for an account of which, see the respective articles.

The church of England has a public form read, called a Liturgy. It was composed in 1547, and has undergone several alterations, the last of which

was in 1661. Since that time, several attempts have been made to amend the liturgy, articles, and some other things relating to the internal government, but without effect. There are many excellencies in the liturgy; and, in the opinion of the most impartial Grotius (who was no member of this church,) "it comes so near the primitive pattern, that none || of the reformed churches can compare with it." See LITURGY.

The greatest part of the inhabitants of England are professedly members of this church; but, perhaps, very few 1 either of her ministers or members; strictly adhere to the articles in their true sense. Those who are called methodistic or evangelical preachers in the establishment are allowed to come the

nearest.

the protestants have suffered much from persecution. A solemn law, which did much honour to Louis XVI. late king of France, gave to his non-Roman Catholic subjects, as they were called, all the civil advantages and privileges of their Roman Catholic brethren.

The above statement was made previously to the French revolution: great alterations have taken place since that period. And it may be interesting to those who have not the means of fuller information, to give a sketch of the causes which gave rise to those important events.

It has been asserted, that about the middle of the last century a conspiracy was formed to overthrow Christianity, without distinction of worship, whether Protestant or Catholic. Voltaire, D'See Mr. Overton's True Churchman; Alembert, Frederick II. king of PrusBishop Jewel's Apology for the Church ||sia, and Diderot, were at the head of of England; Abp. Potter's Treatise on this conspiracy. Numerous other adepts Church Government; Tucker's ditto; and secondary agents were induced to Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity; Pear-join them. These pretended philosoon the Creed; Burnet on the Thirty-nine Articles; Bishop Prettyman's Elements of Theology; and Mrs. H. More's Hints on forming the Character of a young Princess, vol. ii, ch. 37. On the subject of the first introduc- | tion of Christianity into Britain, see the 1st vol. of Henry's History of Great Britain.

807

CHURCHGALLICAN, denotes the ci-devant church of France under the government of its respective bishops and pastors. This church always enjoyed certain franchises and immunities, not as grants from popes, but as derived to her from her first original, and which she took care never to relinquish. These liberties depended upon two maxims; the first, that the pope had no right to order any thing in which the temporalities and civil rights of the kingdom were concerned; the second, that, notwithstanding the pope's supremacy was admitted in cases purely spiritual, yet in France his power was limited by the decrees of ancient councils received in that realm.

In the established church the Jansenists were very numerous. The bishoprics and prebends were entirely in the gift of the king; and no other catholic state, except Italy, had so numerous a clergy as France. There were in this kingdom eighteen archbishops, one hundred and eleven bishops, one hundred and sixty-six thousand clergymen, and three thousand four hundred convents, containing two thousand persons devoted to a monastic life.

Since the repeal of the edict of Nantz,

phers used every artifice that impiety could invent, by union and secret correspondence, to attack, to debase, and annihilate Christianity. They not only acted in concert, sparing no political or impious art to effect the destruction of the Christian religion, but they were the instigators and conductors of those secondary agents, whom they had seduced, and pursued their plan with all the ardour and constancy which denotes the most finished conspirators.

The French clergy amounted to one hundred and thirty thousand, the higher orders of whom enjoyed immense revenues; but the cures, or great body of acting clergy, seldom possessed more than twenty-eight pounds sterling a year, and the vicars about half the sum. The clergy as a body, independent of their titles, possessed a revenue arising from their property in land, amounting to five millions sterling annually; at the same time they were exempt from taxation. Before the levelling system had taken place, the clergy signified to the commons the instructions of their constituents, to contribute to the exigencies of the state in equal proportion with the other citizens. Not contented with this offer, the tithes and revenues of the clergy were taken away; in lieu of which, it was proposed to grant a certain stipend to the different ministers of religion, to be payable by the nation. The possessions of the church were then considered as national property by a decree of the constituent assembly. The religious orders, viz. the communities of monks and nuns, possessed

N

immense landed estates; and, after || having abolished the orders, the assembly seized the estates for the use of the nation: the gates of the cloisters were now thrown open. The next step of the assembly was to establish what is called the civil constitution of the clergy. This, the Roman Catholics assert, was in direct opposition to their religion. But though opposed with energetic eloquence, the decree passed, and was soon after followed by another, obliging the clergy to swear to maintain their civil constitution. Every artifice which cunning, and every menace which cruelty could invent, were used to induce them to take the oath; great numbers, however, refused. One hundred and thirtyeight bishops and arch-bishops, sixtyeight curates or vicars, were on this account driven from their sees and parishes. Three hundred of the priests were massacred in one day in one city. All the other pastors who adhered to their religion were either sacrificed, or banished from their country, seeking through a thousand dangers a refuge among foreign nations. A perusal of the horrid massacres of the priests who refused to take the oaths, and the various forms of persecution employed by those who were attached to the Catholic religion, must deeply wound the feelings of humanity. Those readers who are desirous of farther information, are referred to Abbe Barrul's History of the Clergy.

Some think that there was another cause of the revolution, and which may be traced as far back at least as the revocation of the edict of Nantz in the seventeenth century, when the great body of French Protestants who were men of principle, were either murdered or banished, and the rest in a manner silenced. The effect of this sanguinary measure (say they) must needs be the general prevalence of infidelity. Let the religious part of any nation be banished, and a general spread of irreligion must necessarily follow: such were the effects in France. Through the whole of the eighteenth century infidelity has been the fashion, and that not only among the princes and noblesse, but even among the greater part of the bishops and clergy. And as they had united their influence in banishing true religion, and cherishing the monster which succeeded it, so have they been united in sustaining the calamitous effects which that monster has produced. However unprincipled and cruel the French revolutionists have been, and however much the sufferers, as fellow

creatures, are entitled to our pity; yet, considering the event as the just retribution of God, we are constrained to say, "Thou art righteous, O Lord, who art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus; for they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy."

The Catholic religion is now again established, but with a toleration of the Protestants, under some restriction.— See the Concordat, or religious establishment of the French Republic, ratified September 10th, 1801.

CHURCH, GREEK or EASTERN, comprehends the churches of all the countries anciently subject to the Greek or Eastern empire, and through which their language was carried; that is, all the space extended from Greece to Mesopotamia and Persia, and thence into Egypt. This church has been divided from the Roman ever since the time of the emperor Phocas. See article GREEK CHURCH.

CHURCH, HIGH. See HIGH CHURCH.

CHURCH OF IRELAND is the same as the church of England, and is governed by four archbishops and eighteen bishops.

CHURCH, LATIN or WESTERN, comprehends all the churches of Italy, Portugal, Spain, Africa, the north, and all other countries whither the Romans carried their language. Great Britain, part of the Netherlands, of Germany, and of the north of Europe, have been separated from it almost ever since the reformation.

CHURCH, REFORMED, comprehends the whole Protestant churches in Europe and America, whether Lutheran, Calvinistic, Independent, Quaker, Baptist, or of any other denomination who dissent from the church of Rome. The term Reformed is now, however, employed on the continent of Europe, to distinguish the Calvinists from the Lutherans.

CHURCH, ROMAN CATHOLIC, claims the title of being the mother church, and is undoubtedly the most ancient of all the established churches in Christendom, if antiquity be held as a proof of primitive purity. See PoPERY.

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND, established by law in that kingdom, is presbyterian, which has existed (with some interruptions during the reign of the Stuarts) ever since the time of John Knox, when the voice of the people || prevailed against the influence of the

BYTERIANS.

CHURCHWARDENS, officers chosen yearly, either by the consent of the minister, or of the parishioners, or of both. Their business is to look to the church, church-yard, and to observe the behaviour of the parishioners; to levy a shilling forfeiture on all such as do not go to church on Sundays, and to keep persons orderly in church-time,

&c.

CHURCH-YARD, a piece of ground adjoining to the church, set apart for the interment of the dead. In the church of Rome, church-yards are consecrated with great solemnity. If a church-yard which has been thus consecrated shall afterwards be polluted by any indecent action, or profaned by the burial of an infidel, an heretic, an excommunicated or unbaptized person, it must be reconciled; and the ceremony of the reconciliation is performed with the same solemnity as that of the consecration! See CONSECRATION.

crown in getting it established. Its doc- || God. These words in their mouths trines are Calvinistic. See article PRES- were the signal of slaughter more terrible than the roaring of a lion. They had invented an unheard-of punishment, which was to cover with lime, diluted with vinegar, the eyes of those unhappy wretches whom they had crushed with blows and covered with wounds, and to abandon them in that condition. Never was a stronger proof what horrors superstition can beget in minds destitute of knowledge and humanity. These brutes, who had made a vow of chastity, gave themselves up to wine, and all sorts of impurities; running about with women and young girls as drunk as themselves, whom they called sacred virgins, and who often carried proof of their incontinence. Their chief took the name of chief of the saints. After having glutted themselves with blood, they turned their rage upon themselves, and sought death with the same fury with which they gave it to others. Some scrambled up to the tops of rocks, and cast themselves down headlong in multitudes; others burned CIRCONCELLIONES, a species of themselves, or threw themselves into fanatics; so called because they were the sea. Those who proposed to accontinually rambling round the houses quire the title of martyrs, published it in the country. They took their rise long before; upon which they were among the Donatists, in the reign of feasted and fattened like oxen for the the emperor Constantine. It is incre- slaughter; after these preparations they dible what ravages and cruelties they set out to be destroyed. Sometimes committed in Africa, through a long they gave money to those whom they series of years. They were illiterate met, and threatened to murder them if savage peasants, who understood only they did not make them martyrs. Theothe Punic language. Intoxicated with doret gives an account of a stout young a barbarous zeal, they renounced agri- man, who meeting with a troop of these culture, professed continence, and as- fanatics, consented to kill them, prosumed the title of "Vindicators of jus-vided he might bind them first; and tice, and protectors of the oppressed." having by this means put it out of their To accomplish their mission, they en- power to defend themselves, whipped franchized slaves, scoured the roads, them as long as he was able, and then forced masters to alight from their cha- left them tied in that manner. Their riots, and run before their slaves, whom bishops pretended to blame them, but they obliged to mount in their place; in reality made use of them to intimiand discharged debtors, killing the cre- date such as might be tempted to forditors if they refused to cancel their sake their sect; they even honoured bonds. But the chief objects of their them as saints. They were not, howcruelty were the Catholics, and espe-ever, able to govern those furious moncially those who had renounced Donatism. At first they used no swords, because God had forbidden the use of one to Peter: but they were armed with clubs, which they called the clubs of Israel, and which they handled in such a manner as to break a man's bones without killing him immediately, so that he languished a long time, and then died. When they took away a man's life at once, they looked upon it as a favour. They became less scrupulous afterwards, and made use of all sorts of arms. Their shout was Praise be to

sters; and more than once found themselves under a necessity of abandoning them, and even of imploring the assistance of the secular power against them. The counts Ursacius and Taurinus were employed to quell them; they destroyed a great number of them, of whom the Donatists made as many martyrs. Ursacius, who was a Catholic, and a religious man, having lost his life in an engagement with the barbarians, the Donatists did not fail to triumph in his death, as an effect of the vengeance of heaven. Africa was the theatre of these

bloody scenes during a great part of || word clergy, however, among us, alConstantine's life. ways refers to ecclesiastics.

CISTERCIANS, a religious order founded by St. Robert, a Benedictine, in the eleventh century. They became so powerful, that they governed almost all Europe both in spirituals and tem-acoluthists, readers, &c. The clergy of porals. Cardinal de Vetri, describing their observances, says, they neither wore skins.nor shirts, nor ever ate flesh, except in sickness; and abstained from fish, eggs, milk and cheese: they lay upon straw beds in tunics and cowls; they rose at midnight to prayers; they spent the day in labour, reading, and prayers; and in all their exercises observed a continual silence.

The clergy originally consisted of bishops, priests, and deacons; but in the third century many inferior orders were appointed; such as sub-deacons, the church of Rome are divided into regular and secular. The regular consists of those monks or religious who have taken upon them holy orders of the priesthood in their respective monasteries. The secular clergy are those who are not of any religious order, and have the care and direction of parishes. The Protestant clergy are all secular. For archbishops, bishops, deans, &c. &c. see those articles.

CLEMENCY denotes much the same as mercy. It is most generally The clergy have large privileges alused in speaking of the forgiveness ex-lowed them by our municipal laws, and ercised by princes. It is the result, in- || had formerly much greater, which were deed, of a disposition which ought to abridged at the reformation, on account be cultivated by all ranks, though its of the ill use which the popish clergy effects cannot be equally conspicuous. had endeavoured to make of them; for Clemency is not only the privilege, the laws having exempted them from the honour, and the duty of a prince, almost every personal duty, they atbut it is also his security, and better tempted a total exemption from every than all his garrisons, forts, and guards, secular tie. The personal exemptions, to preserve himself and his dominions indeed, for the most part, continue. A in safety. That prince is truly royal clergyman cannot be compelled to serve who masters himself, looks upon all in- on a jury, nor to appear at a court leet, juries as below him, and governs by which almost every other person is equity and reason, not by passion or obliged to do; but if a layman be sumcaprice. David, king of Israel, appears moned on a jury, and before the trial in no instance greater or more amiable takes orders, he shall notwithstanding than in sparing the life of his persecu- appear, and be sworn. Neither can he tor Saul, when it was in his power. be chosen to any temporal office; as CLERGY (from the Greek word bailiff, reeve, constable, or the like, in Angos, heritage,) in the general sense regard to his own continual attendance of the word, as used by us, signifies the on the sacred function. During his atbody of ecclesiastics of the Christian tendance on divine service, he is privichurch, in contradistinction to the laity: leged from arrests in civil suits. In but strictly speaking, and according to cases of felony also, a clerk in orders Scripture, it means the church.-shall have the benefit of clergy, without "When Joshua," as one observes, "divided the Holy Land by lot among the Israelites, it pleased God to provide for a thirteenth part of them, called Levites, by assigning them a personal estate equivalent to that provision made by real estate, which was allotted to each of the other twelve parts. In conformity to the style of the transaction, the Levites were called God's lot, inheritance, or clergy. This style, however, is not always used by the Old Testament writers. Sometimes they call all the nations God's lot, Deut. xxxii. 9. Ps. lxxviii. 71. Ps. xxviii. 9, &c. The New Testament writers adopt this term, and apply it to the whole Christian church, 1 Pet. v. 3. Thus it is the church distinguished from the world, and not one part of the church as distinguished from another part." The

being branded in the hand, and may likewise have it more than once; in both which cases he is distinguished from a layman.

Benefit of Clergy was a privilege whereby a clergyman claimed to be delivered to his ordinary to purge himself of felony, and which anciently was allowed only to those who were in orders; but, by the statute of 18th Eliz., every man to whom the benefit of clergy is granted, though not in orders, is put to read at the bar, after he is found guilty, and convicted of felony, and so burnt in the hand; and set free for the first time, if the ordinary or deputy standing by do say, Legit ut clericus: otherwise he shall suffer death. As the clergy have their privileges, so they have also their disabilities, on account of their spiritual avocations. Cler