presbyters, who sat on either side, also called by | marry, therefore, has evidently the mark of the the ancient fathers Assessores Episcoporum. beast upon it. See MARRIAGE. The episcopal authority did not reside in the bishop alone, but in all the presbyters, whereof the bishop was president. A cathedral, therefore, originally was different from what it is now; the Christians, till the time of Constantine, having no liberty to build any temple. By their churches they only meant assemblies; and by cathedrals nothing more than consistories. CEMETERY, a place set apart for the burial of the dead. Anciently, none were buried in churches or church-yards: it was even unlawful to inter in cities, and the cemeteries were without the walls. Among the primitive Christians these were held in great veneration. It even appears from Eusebius and Tertullian, that in the early ages they assembled for divine worship in CATHOLIC, denotes any thing that is uni- the cemeteries. Valerian seems to have confisversal or general. The rise of heresies induced cated the cemeteries and other places of divine the primitive Christian church to assume to itself worship; but they were restored again by Galthe appellation of catholic, being a characteristic lienus. As the martyrs were buried in these to distinguish itself from all sects, who, though places, the Christians chose them for building they had party names, sometimes sheltered them-churches on, when Constantine established their selves under the name of Christians. The Rom-religion; and hence some derive the rule which ish church now distinguishes itself by catholic still obtains in the church of Rome, never to conin opposition to all who have separated from her secrate an altar without putting under it the relics communion, and whom she considers as heretics of some saint. and schismatics, and herself only as the true and Christian church. In the strict sense of the word, there is no catholic church in being; that is, no universal Christian communion. CELESTINS, a religious order in the thirteenth century; so called from their founder, Peter De Meuron, afterwards raised to the pontificate under the name of Celestine V. The Celestins rose two hours after midnight to say matins; ate no flesh, except when sick; and often fasted. Their habit consisted of a white gown, a capuche, a black scapulary, and shirts of serge. CENSURE, the act of judging and blaming others for their faults. Faithfulness in reproving another differs from censoriousness: the former arises from love to truth, and respect for the person; the latter is a disposition that loves to find fault. However just censure may be where there is blame, yet a censorious spirit or rash judging must be avoided. It is usurping the authority and judgment of God. It is unjust, uncharitable, mischievous, productive of unhappiness to ourselves, and often the cause of disorder and confusion in society. See RASH JUDGING. CERDONIANS, a sect in the first century, who espoused most of the opinions of Simon Magus and the Manichæans. They asserted two principles, good and bad. The first they called the Father of Jesus Christ; the latter the Creator of the world. They denied the incarnation and the resurrection, and rejected the books of the Old Testament. CELIBACY, the state of unmarried persons. Celibate, or celibacy, is a word chiefly used in speaking of the single life of the popish clergy, or the obligation they are under to abstain from marriage. The church of Rome imposes an universal celibacy on all her clergy, from the pope to the lowest deacon and subdeacon. The advocates for this usage pretend that a vow of perpetual celibacy was required in the ancient church as a CEREMONY, an assemblage of several accondition of ordination, even from the earliest tions, forms, and circumstances, serving to render apostolic ages. But the contrary is evident from a thing magnificent and solemn. Applied to renumerous examples of bishops and archbishops ligious services, it signifies the external rites and who lived in a state of matrimony, without any manner wherein the ministers of religion perform prejudice to their ordination or their function. their sacred functions. In 1646, M. Ponce pubNeither our Lord nor his apostles laid the least lished a history of ancient ceremonies, tracing the restraint upon the connubial union: on the con-rise, growth, and introduction of each rite into trary, the Scriptures speak of it as honourable in all, without the least restriction as to persons. | Heb. xiii. 4. Matt. xix. 10, 12. 1 Cor. vii. 2, 9. St. Paul even assigns forbidding to marry as characteristic of the apostacy of the latter times, 1 Tim. iv. 3. The fathers, without making any distinction between clergy and laity, asserted the lawfulness of the marriage of all Christians. Marriage was not forbidden to bishops in the Eastern church till the close of the seventh century. Celibacy was not imposed on the Western clergy in general till the enil of the eleventh century, though attempts had been made long before. Superstitious zeal for a sanctimonious appearance in the clergy seems to have promoted it at first; and crafty policy, armed with power, no doubt rivetted this clog on the sacerdotal order in later periods of the church. Pope Gregory VII. ap- It has been a question, whether we ought to pears in this business to have had a view to sepa- use such rites and ceremonies which are merely rate the clergy as much as possible from all other of human appointment. On one side it has been interests, and to bring them into a total depend- observed that we ought not. Christ alone is ence upon his authority; to the end, that all tem- King in his church; he hath instituted such orporal power might, in a high degree, be subju-dinances and forms of worship as he hath judged gated to the papal jurisdiction. Forbidding to fit and necessary; and to add to them seems, at the church and its gradual advancement to su- pre least, to carry in it an imputation on his wisdom | it from heaven, it quitted him after his passion, and authority, and hath this unanswerable objec- and returned to the place whence it came; so that tion to it, that it opens the door to a thousand in- Jesus, whom they called a pure man, really died, novations (as the history of the church of Rome and rose again; but that Christ, who was distinhath sufficiently shown), which are not only in-guished from Jesus, did not suffer at all. It was different in themselves, but highly absurd, and partly to refute this sect that St. John wrote his extremely detrimental to religion. That the Gospel. They received the Gospel of St. Matceremonies were numerous under the Old Testa- thew, to countenance their doctrine of circumment dispensation is no argument; for, say they, cision; but they omitted the genealogy. They 1. We respect Jewish ceremonies, because they discarded the epistles of St. Paul, because that were appointed of God; and we reject human apostle held circumcision abolished. ceremonies, because God hath not appointed them.-2. The Jewish ceremonies were esta-binical style, is called Targum. There are three blished by the universal consent of the nation: Chaldee paraphrases in Walton's Polyglot: human ceremonies are not so.-3. The former viz. 1. of Onkelos;-2. of Jonathan, son of were fit and proper for the purposes for which Uziel;-3. of Jerusalem. See BIBLE, sect. 19, and they were appointed; but the latter are often the TARGUM. contrary.-4. The institutor of the Jewish ceremonies provided for the expence of it; but no provision is made by God to support human ceremonies, or what he has not appointed. CHALDEE PARAPHRASE, in the rab CHALICE, the cup used to administer the wine in the sacrament, and by the Roman Catholics in the mass. The use of the chalice, or communicating in both kinds, is by the church of Rome denied to the laity, who communicate only in one kind, the clergy alone being allowed the privilege of communicating in both kinds; in direct opposition to our Saviour's words—“Drink ye all of it." These arguments seem very powerful; but, on the other side, it has been observed, that the desire of reducing religious worship to the greatest possible simplicity, however rational it may appear in itself, and abstractedly considered, will be considerably moderated in such as bestow a mo- CHANCE, a term we apply to events to dement's attention upon the imperfection and in-note that they happen without any necessary or firmities of human nature in its present state. foreknown cause. When we say a thing hapMankind, generally speaking, have too little ele- pens by chance, we mean no more than that its vation of mind to be much affected with those cause is unknown to us, and not as some vainly forms and methods of worship in which there is imagine, that chance itself can be the cause of nothing striking to the outward senses. The any thing. "The case of the painter," says great difficulty here lies in determining the length Chambers, "who, unable to express the foam at which it is prudent to go in the accommodation the mouth of the horse he had painted, threw his of religious ceremonies to human infirmity; and sponge in despair at the piece, and by chance did the grand point is, to fix a medium in which a that which he could not do before by design, is an due regard may be shown to the senses and ima- eminent instance of what is called chance. Yet it gination, without violating the dictates of right is obvious all we here mean by chance, is, that reason, or tarnishing the purity of true religion. the painter was not aware of the effect, or that he It has been said, that the Romish church has did not throw the sponge with such a view: not gone too far in its condescension to the infirmi- but that he actually did every thing necessary to ties of mankind; and this is what the ablest de- produce the effect; insomuch that, considering fenders of its motley worship have alleged in its the direction wherein he threw the sponge, tobehalf. But this observation is not just; the gether with its form and specific gravity, the church of Rome has not so much accommodated colours wherewith it was smeared, and the disitself to human weakness, as it has abused that tance of the hand from the piece, it was impossiweakness, by taking occasion from it to establish ble, on the present system of things, that the efan endless variety of ridiculous ceremonies, de- fect should not follow."-The word, as it is often structive of true religion, and only adapted to used by the unthinking, is vague and indetermipromote the riches and despotism of the clergy, nate-a mere name for nothing. and to keep the multitude still hood-winked in their ignorance and superstition. How far a just antipathy to the church puppet-shows of the Papists has unjustly driven some Protestant churches into the opposite extreme, is a matter that certainly deserves a serious consideration. See Dr. Stennett's Ser. on Conformity to the World; Robinson's Sermon on Ceremonies; Booth's Essay on the Kingdom of Christ; Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History; with Mac Laine's Note, vol. i. p. 203, quarto edition. Jones's Works; vol. iv. p. 267 Conder's Protestant Nonconformity. ČERINTHIANS, ancient heretics, who denied the deity of Jesus Christ; so named from Cerinthus. They believed that he was a mere man, the son of Joseph and Mary; but that in his baptism a celestial virtue descended on him in the form of a dove; by means whereof he was consecrated by the Holy Spirit, made Christ, and wrought so many miracles; that, as he received CHANCELLOR, a lay officer under a bishop, who is judge of his court. In the first ages of the church the bishops had those officers, who were called church lawyers, and were bred up in the knowledge of the civil and canon law: their business was to assist the bishop in his diocese.-We read of no chancellors till Henry the Second's time; but that king requiring the attendance of the bishops in his councils, it was thought necessary to substitute chancellors in their room for the dispatch of business. CHANT is used for the vocal music of churches. In church history we meet with divers kinds of these; as, 1. Chant Ambrosian, established by St. Ambrose ;-2. Chant Gregorian, introduced by pope Gregory the Great, who esta blished schools of chanters, and corrected the church music. This, at first, was called the Roman song; afterwards the plain song; as the choir and people sing in unison. CHAOS, the mass of matter supposed to be In confusion before it was divided by the Almighty | by which they measure or count the number of into its proper classes and elements. It does not their prayers. appear who first asserted the notion of a chaos. Moses, the earliest of all writers, derives the origin of this world from a confusion of matter, dark, void, deep, without form, which he calls TOHU BOHU; which is precisely the chaos of the Greek and barbarian philosophers. Moses goes no further than the chaos, nor tells us whence it took its origin, or whence its confused state; and where Moses stops, there precisely do all the rest. CHAPTER, a community of ecclesiastics, belonging to a cathedral or collegiate church. The chief or head of the chapter is the dean; the body consists of canons or prebendaries. The chapter has now no longer a place in the administration of the diocese during the life of the bishop; but succeeds to the whole episcopal jurisdiction during the vacancy of the see. CHARGE: 1. A sermon preached by the bishop to his clergy;-2. Among the Dissenters, CHAPEL, a place of worship. There are it is a sermon preached to a minister at his ordivarious kinds of chapels in Britain. 1. Domes-nation, generally by some aged or respectable tic chapels, built by noblemen or gentlemen for preacher. private worship in their families. 2. Free chapels, such as are founded by kings of England. They are free from all episcopal jurisdiction, and only to be visited by the founder and his successors, which is done by the lord chancellor: yet the king may licence any subject to build and endow a chapel, and by letters patent exempt it from the visitation of the ordinary. 3. Chapels in universities, belonging to particular universities. 4. Chapels of ease, built for the ease of one or more parishioners that dwell too far from the church, and are served by inferior curates, provided for at the charge of the rector, or of such as have benefit by it, as the composition or custom is. 5. Parochial chapels, which differ from parish churches only in name: they are generally small, and the inhabitants within the district few. If there be a presentation ad ecclesiam instead of capellam, and an admission and institution upon it, it is no longer a chapel, but a church for themselves and families. 6. Chapels which adjoin to and are part of the church: such were formerly built by honourable persons as burying-places. 7. The places of worship belonging to the Cal-neighbourhood, relations, and friends; and spreads vinistic and Arminian Methodists are also generally called chapels, though they are licensed in no other way than the meetings of the Protestant Dissenters. CHAPLAIN, a person who performs divine service in a chapel, or is retained in the service of some family to perform divine service. As to the origin of chaplains, some say the shrines of relics were anciently covered with a kind of tent, cape, or capella, i. e. little cape; and that hence the priests who had the care of them were called chaplains. In time, these relics were reposited in a little church, either contiguous to a larger, or separate from it; and the name capella, which was given to the cover, was also given to the place where it was lodged; and hence the priest who superintended it came to be called capellanus, or chaplain. CHARITY, one of the three grand theological graces, consisting in the love of God and our neighbour, or the habit or disposition of loving God with all our heart, and our neighbour as ourselves. "Charity," says an able writer, "consists not in speculative ideas of general benevolence floating in the head, and leaving the heart, as speculations often do, untouched and cold, neither is it confined to that indolent good-nature which makes us rest satisfied with being free from inveterate malice, or ill-will to our fellow-creatures, without prompting us to be of service to any. True charity is an active principle. It is not properly a single virtue; but a disposition residing in the heart as a fountain; whence all the virtues of benignity, candour, forbearance, generosity, compassion, and liberality flow, as so many native streams. From general good will to all, it extends its influence, particularly to those with whom we stand in nearest connexion, and who are directly within the sphere of our good offices. From the country or community to which we belong, it descends to the smaller associates of itself over the whole circle of social and domestic life. I mean not that it imports a promiscuous undistinguishing affection, which gives every man an equal title to our love. Charity, if we should endeavour to carry it so far, would be rendered an impracticable virtue, and would resolve itself into mere words, without affecting the heart. True charity attempts not to shut our eyes to the dis tinction between good and bad men; nor to warm our hearts equally to those who befriend and those who injure us. It reserves our esteem for good men, and our complacency for our friends. Towards our enemies, it inspires forgiveness and humanity. It breathes universal candour and liberality of sentiment. It forms gentleness of temper, and dictates affability of manners. It prompts corresponding sympathies with them who rejoice and them who weep. It teaches us to slight and despise no man. In England there are forty-eight chaplains to Charity is the comforter of the afilicted, the prothe king, who wait four each month, preach in tector of the oppressed, the reconciler of differthe chapel, read the service to the family, and to ences, the intercessor for offenders. It is faithfulthe king in his private oratory, and say grace in ness in the friend, public spirit in the magistrate, the absence of the clerk of the closet. While in equity and patience in the judge, moderation in waiting, they have a table and attendance, but the sovereign, and loyalty in the subject. In pano salary. In Scotland, the king has six chap-rents it is care and attention; in children it is lains with a salary of 50l. each; three of them having in addition the deanery of the chapel royal divided between them, making up above 1007. to each. Their only duty at present is to say prayers at the election of peers for Scotland, to sit in parliament. CHAPLET, a certain instrument of piety made use of by the papists. It is a string of beads, reverence and submission. In a word, it is the soul of social life. It is the sun that enlivens and cheers the abodes of men; not a meteor which occasionally glares, but a luminary, which in its orderly and regular course dispenses a benignant influence." See Barrow's Works, vol. i. ser. 27, 28; Blair's Ser. vol. iv. ser. 2; Scott's Ser. ser. 14; Tillotson's Ser, ser. 158; Paley's Mor. |