Ecclesiastes. One of the books written by Solomon. It contains many difficulties which have proved to be a great puzzle to commentators. So much so that though its inspiration and Canonical authority have been admitted, yet it has been denied that it was written by Solomon. The internal difficulties are confessedly very great; but objections can readily be mustered against any theory of interpretation, so that it may very well have been the genuine work of Solomon the Preacher, the Son of David, king in Jerusalem. It has been alleged that the Aramaisms (words and phrases from one of the dialects of Babylonia) number one hundred, and show a late date,-later by four hundred years and more than Solomon's time,-probably after the return from the Babylonian exile. The reply reduces the number of Aramaisms to eight, and denies that they and the style are out of harmony with Solomon's reign, for the Hebrew was a singularly poor language, and was better fitted for sententious, pithy aphorisms than for any diffuse discourse. It is alleged that the tone is not such as Solomon could have felt, but so far from that, it is directly in the line of thought a man who had a large share of insight and keenness would feel after having blunted his spiritual perceptions and then have repented. The first tender devoutness is lost, the trustful innocence has disappeared, and the conclusion is that of a man who, having tried everything in his reach of human joys and earthly excesses, at last finds the sum of the whole matter to be, Fear GOD and keep His commandments. It is, however, a result in words identical with, but in tone dissimilar to, the trustful, "The Fear of GOD is the beginning of wisdom, a good understanding have they that do thereafter, the praise of it endureth forever." It is a shock to our ideas of truthfulness to suppose that a book written under the name of Solomon, by a later writer, could be admitted into the Canon without a comment or note explanatory of it. It might be defended in ordinary literary work, but it is absolutely opposed to any right conception of the fact that the Canon of Scripture was formed by men, but by the defending and guiding influence of the HOLY GHOST.

The truest appreciation of the book is found in considering it the Confessions, in a kind of mental debate, of one who, having had wisdom for spiritual things given him, debased it to searching the depths of earthly happiness; and is in accord with what one in Solomon's position-having wealth, yet corruptions in the state and society destroying his pleasure; having royal power, yet seeing it thwarted; enjoying life keenly, yet having its cup dashed from his lips-would acknowledge to be the sum of his experience. In fact, the objections are more ingenious and plausible than really sound; since we know that conclusions drawn from internal evidence not buttressed by external facts are very treacherous, as they are based upon ar

bitrary assumptions that may be wholly out of accord with the real contents of the book. The Salomonic authorship may be considered as established.

Ecclesiasticus. A book of the Apocrypha, written by Jesus, the son of Sirach, 190170 B.C., and translated from the Hebrew by his grandson (130 B.C.). The book was composed at Jerusalem, and was translated in Egypt. It is based upon and imitates the Proverbs, and was evidently the work of a very devout and earnest student of the Scriptures. It is well worth reading and study, since it is full of practical wisdom. It was considered Canonical by a few writers, and was quoted by them freely,-Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Cyprian. It is quoted by Augustine and Jerome, but as useful, excellent, but not in the Canon.

Economist. An officer in some Irish Cathedrals, who is appointed to manage the common Cathedral fund, to see to necessary repairs, to pay Church officers, etc.

Economy. The management of a household by a steward, but used to mean a dispensation, as the Christian Economy administered by the Son of GOD. It was so used by the Apostle St. Paul (Eph. i. 10): "That in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in CHRIST." It also was used to signify the Apostolic office: "I have intrusted to me a dispensation" (as a steward) (1 Cor. ix. 17). "For His body's sake, which is the Church whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God" (Col. i. 25). But the Fathers generally keep it to refer to the administration of redemption by the Son of GOD. St. Athanasius speaks of the Economy of the Cross, of His blood-shedding, of His human nature. St. Basil of the Economy of our GOD and SAVIOUR in man's behalf, which is the calling from falling and the restoration to the household of GOD. So, too, Gregory Nazianzen: "But when we speak of GoD as saving, avenging, justifying, as the GOD of peace, of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, or of all Israel, as spiritual and seeing GOD, these phrases are used of the Economy." Such a term could also readily fall into Gnostic phraseology very readily, and was so misused. But there was another use of the word too. It was used to express the plan by which the Catechist limited (or was limited by the Church) the amount of instruction which would be intrusted to the catechumens. They were intrusted "according to the stewardship," with varying degrees of knowledge in Christian doctrine. It lost this sense with the disappearance of the catechetical classes. It has been very seriously debated how far this concealment was carried, and whether the catechumens were purposely misled or had unfairly withheld from them the proportion of the Faith. To us now it is by no means so important, still, in a lesser degree, it is a very important question how far a teacher, having to

attract those ignorant of Church doctrine to receive it, should ignore differences, and dwell upon the agreements and harmonies of the truths held in common. So Clement of Alexandria dwells upon the apparent agreement of Platonic philosophy with Christian truth. St. Paul's speeches at Lystra and at Athens give the fundamental rule to be followed. What we need is a deeper study of irenics, not of polemics; there has been too much of that.

The word Economy has returned into use, latterly, in its older theological sense.

Edification. A building up; a growth in grace, in love, in faith, in all Christian virtues by the help of the HOLY GHOST. It is not identical with sanctification, which has a larger meaning. It is rather applied to individual than to communal development and growth, though this sense is very frequent in Holy Scripture. It includes the idea of instruction, and this has often been wrongly made the exclusive import of the word. Edification refers for its primal force to house-building. Hence this word is used, oikodomé, by St. Paul in 1 Cor. iii., to describe a spiritual building, and often elsewhere. Oikodomos is used in Acts iv. 11 as a builder, an edifier. And this term wherever used implies man's co-operation. So the discipline of the Church is for edifying, "building up" the Church. The teaching in the Church is for edification, Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors, Teachers,i.e., government and instruction for the same end, "till we all come into the unity of the Faith and of the knowledge of the SON of GOD,... may grow up unto Him in all things which is the Head, even CHRIST, from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love." The growth in all virtuous and godly living, the example of patience, courage, love, of all the Christian virtues, is edifying,-i.e., it builds up others, who see it and who are influenced by our conduct. Therefore edification comes by the indwelling of the HOLY GHOST, and is in a sort the work of confirmation, which builds us as consecrated stones into GOD's Temple, and by which we are built up in our most holy Faith, and through the gifts thus come to us by it are edifying others in the truth. The unity of the Church and our own union with it in the power and grace of the HOLY GHOST are the means of our receiving edification and contributing to the edification of others. The compactest building is best built. The closest communion in the Church is the truest edification, for it is most deeply bound up in the graces of the SPIRIT.

Elder. In Holy Scripture, the office of the Presbyter (from which the word Priest is formed by contraction), who exercised a spiritual function. In scriptural usage and in Church history such a person as a lay

Elder is an impossible person; the words contradict each other. The first hint of such an officer was given by Calvin.

Election. I. The title of the XVII. "Ar ticle of Religion" is, "Of Predestination and Election." The words are used as though they were synonymous, and the first sentence is a definition of their meaning. "Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of GOD, whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) He hath constantly decreed by His counsel, secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom He hath chosen (elegit) in CHRIST out of mankind, and to bring them by CHRIST to everlasting salvation." After enlarging upon the last clause of this sentence, the Article goes on to state the comfort and the danger which attend the consideration of the doctrine, and closes with an appeal to the general (generaliter-universally) promises of GOD as set forth in Holy Scripture. The word "elect" occurs also in the Collect for All-Saints' day. In the English PrayerBook it is also found in the Office for Baptism, "Thy faithful and elect children;" and in the Catechism, "me and all the elect people of GOD." The natural question is, how these different uses of the term agree with each other and with the doctrine of Holy Scripture. For as the terms, and therefore the doctrines of predestination and election, occur in the Scriptures, all Christians must hold some "doctrine" upon the subject, and the question for us is, whether what we hold is the doctrine of Holy Scripture.

"The

In the first place, however, it is well to remember that questions about fate and foreknowledge, providence and free-will, are not confined to any time or class of men. Essenes among the Jews, Zeno and the Stoics, and the followers of Mohammed were all rigid predestinarians, believing that all the affairs of the world and the actions of the human race were ordered by an eternal and inexorable decree." St. Augustine, in the fourth century, was the great exponent of the doctrine in the Church. Owing to his authority and influence, it was the more general doctrine of the Western Church. After St. Augustine, its great expounder was St. Thomas Aquinas. It was the doctrine of Zwinglius and John Calvin. It is natural that the questions which it involves should arise whenever men think at all, but it is certain that when they depend entirely upon their own reason and knowledge they will fall into one of two errors. Reasoning from the sovereignty of GOD they exclude the freedom of man, which they cannot reconcile with it, and are led into fatalism. Reasoning from the freedom of man, they are led to deny the sovereignty of God.

II. The Christian faith does not explain to us the problems which we discover in nature and in ourselves, but it reveals to us Him in whom GoD and man are reconciled,

and by whom evil is conquered and man delivered from it. It does not remove the darkness, but it throws light upon us and around us to guide us. It does not explain GOD's eternal purposes, but it declares to us one purpose and one " decree," the coming of the Son of GOD for man's salvation. "I will declare the decree. Thou art my Sox. This day have I begotten Thee" (Ps. ii. 7). If we are to understand the meaning of the election" of GOD, we must begin from the ground of Christian faith, and not narrow that faith by some preconceived notion of the doctrine.

Another principle is as necessary. The Old Testament and the New are one, and the union of them is in CHRIST. The Old foretells Him and prepares for Him. The New reveals Him. The New is the fulfillment of the Old. The faith of the Old Testament is the faith of expectation, believing the promises of GOD, looking for CHRIST. The faith of the New Testament is the faith of possession, having CHRIST. The Old and the New will use the same words even, and their meaning will unite in CHRIST.

III. We find this word election, or choice, in frequent use in the Old Testament. It is perhaps unfortunate that the more frequent word in the authorized version of the Old Testament is choose, chosen; and elect is rare, while in the New elect is used in a large proportion of cases. But it will help to clear our view if we fix it in mind that the words are translations of the same word. The chosen are the elect. Election is choice.

In the Old Testament the choice or election of GOD falls upon men, cities, peoples, inanimate things. He chooses "a place to set His name there" (Neh. i. 9), one man for a king (Deut. xvii. 15), a people to be His people (Deut. vii. 6, 7), a tribe to be His priests (Deut. xxi. 5), a family to be High-Priests (Ps. cv. 26). Israel is His chosen generation (Ex. xix. 5, 6), Abraham His servant, David His servant (Ps. lxxviii. 70), Israel His elect (Isa. xlv. 4). ĠOD has a purpose, and with that purpose in view He chooses men to carry it out, while as regards that purpose He passes by and puts aside others. That purpose becomes more and more clear as time goes on. It is the purpose which was indicated by the promise made in the Garden of Eden, and repeated to Abraham, and again to David. Abraham is chosen with reference to that purpose, and after him the people Israel. Israel was therefore elect" according to the purpose" of GOD, and for that purpose elect to special privileges. Pharaoh stood in the way of that purpose and went down before it. Esau

was set aside and set himself aside, and in comparison with his brother and with reference to this special purpose of GOD is "hated" (Rom. ix. 14). This, therefore, is election or choice in the Old Testament, the choice of the people Israel, and of men and things belonging to them for the carrying

out of GOD's one purpose of blessing the world "in CHRIST." In the way of that purpose their choice to special blessings; a choice which was indicated by GOD and claimed by them in the rite of circumcision. By which rite they entered upon an inheritance not only of temporal but of spiritual and eternal blessings,-unless indeed they forfeited them.

IV. The purpose of GOD with Israel was fulfilled when "of them CHRIST came, who is over all GOD blessed forever." That purpose was His eternal purpose, and had been declared before Abraham in the Garden. It entered "the parenthesis of the Law" (Rom. v. 20) with Abraham and passed out through the "broken wall of partition" (Eph. ii. 14) into its fulfillment in CHRIST. The Kingdom of Israel is fulfilled in the Kingdom of CHRIST, the law in the Gospel "preached to every creature," the election of Israel in the Church of CHRIST, "which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all." The same principles underlie the old dispensation and the new. The relation of one to the other throughout is defined in our LORD's words, "I am not come to destroy but to fulfill" (St. Matt. v. 17).

Two of St. Paul's Epistles may be said to deal especially with this subject of the election and eternal purpose of GOD. The Epistle to the Romans is often appealed to as though it taught the narrowest doctrine of individual election. If we will remind ourselves that it was manifestly written to rebuke the narrowness and exclusiveness of those Jewish Christians who would have claimed the Church as the special heritage of Judaism, and to show how God's purpose reached out towards all who would believe in Him, we will agree with the early Church, which read it as though it breathed the spirit directly opposed to exclusiveness and narrowness, the very spirit of liberty and liberality. It sets before us the purpose of GOD and the election of GOD according to that purpose, but it shows us how that purpose extended to all men, and how it is being accomplished in its fullness by CHRIST. Love and hate, honor and dishonor, calling, glory, and mercy, and hardening and casting off and destruction are defined by this purpose of GOD and explain the relation of men to it (Rom. ix.).

Next after the Epistle to the Romans St. Paul wrote that to the Ephesians, and the two are closely connected by common words and thoughts. In both he bases his argument on the eternal purpose of GOD as it is revealed in CHRIST, but in Ephesians he advances a step in the development of the thought which he had sketched in the Romans, and the subject of the Epistle is, the Church as the Body of CHRIST and the body of the elect, "whom God hath chosen in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love, having predestinated us to adoption by JESUS CHRIST to Himself, ac

ous efforts to change it. But the strongest argument is that the Calvinistic interpretation cannot be made to harmonize with other articles even, and still less with other formularies. In the Collect for All-Saints' day, and in the Church of England offices for Baptism and the Catechism, "the elect" is synonymous with "the baptized," and though the word is omitted in our office, the idea is the same throughout,-that by baptism this child "is made the member of CHRIST, the child of GOD, and an inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven," by GoD's "good will towards him." And in the Holy Communion, "CHRIST died for thee" is asserted to each communicant. And throughout the services of the Church the same idea prevails and underlies them all,-that those who believe and are baptized are numbered with the elect and are in the ark of salvation. Now let them see to it that they "make their calling and election sure."

Authorities: Wordsworth on Epistles, Browne, Burnet, Forbes, on Articles, Faber on Election. REV. L. W. GIBSON.

Elements. The outward and visible signs in the Sacraments, so called both because water, wine, and bread are simple substances, and because they are of the very essentials of a complete Sacrament. They are the channel of conveyance, the sign and the seal of the Sacrament. How GOD chooses to use them we cannot tell. It is a mystery; but that He does so use them He has repeatedly taught us, and we have but to use them as He appoints: water to the mystical washing away of sin, bread and wine for giving us the Body and Blood of our risen LORD, "whereby He does assure us of His favor and goodness towards us; and that we are very members incorporate in the mystical Body of His Sox.... and are also heirs through hope of His everlasting kingdom." baptism can be administered otherwise than by water, nor the Holy Communion otherwise than with bread and wine. These are elementary to the administration of the Sac

raments.

No

Elements; human and divine in Holy Scripture. In the discussions so rife at present about all parts of religion, there is a singular omission to weigh well the different elements which make it up. It is of GOD, and so divine. It is for man, and so must suit, and sympathize with, his nature at all points. It is lived in and assumed by man, and so there is mingled in it a human element. As a document perfect and flawless when it issues from the author's pen, by repeated and careless copying becomes filled with errors and varying readings, and sometimes with perversions, which yet do not destroy, though may nominally impair their own authenticity, and which all point by their varying errors to the true text, so is religion. Its Divine authorship is overlaid or perverted in minute things which amount to real errors, if they do not compensate each other or are not eliminated with care by the

human elements. This mixture of the human and Divine is most completely exhibited in the Church, which is the Body of CHRIST and yet is made up of men, and in the Holy Scriptures, which are inspired by GoD and yet were intrusted to men to write and to transmit. Indeed, we bear about in our body the same wonderful commixtion,—our souls the Breath of GOD, our bodies of dust.

Inspiration takes and uses men for its purposes, as heralds, declarers, accurate recorders, and mouth-pieces for its messages. It does not destroy, but it sanctifies and greatly magnifies the powers of such men. Isaiah inspired by the same HOLY SPIRIT did not speak as did Jeremiah or Daniel. Balaam divinely directed by the same HOLY GHOST was not more willing to bless the People than the High-Priest was to prophesy of the death of CHRIST as a blessing for all men. David sang by the HOLY GHOST, but so did Isaiah. And they were preserved from error in any way; their own natural idiom He used to accurately convey His messages, whether of mercy or of warning, of love, and of peace, or His revelations. There was the human element. Each man, with his capacities and devout or indevout temper, his command of language, peculiarly his own,-this man with all his traits of character was chosen and used by that one and eternal SPIRIT of GOD.

The Church receives the inspired record, but is herself founded upon the Resurrection of CHRIST, each member being united to Him by baptism, and bound up with his brother by the double bond of a natural and spiritual brotherhood. The Head, CHRIST, is immortal, the members of CHRIST are now mortal. He is sinless, they are struggling with sin. He is ever present, and educates, feeds, and reconciles us, yet we are restless, oblivious, willful, and ungrateful, still the bond is never broken between the Head and His body, which is to grow in holiness.

The omission to comprehend these two apparently conflicting yet actually everpresent facts both in inspiration, the Church of GOD, and our own nature leads many into fundamental errors upon religion and the soul's relation to GOD, and through Him to his neighbor.

Elevation. The elements of bread and wine in Canon of the Mass in the Roman

Church, after consecration, and for the purpose of adoring them. It was an innovation introduced in the twelfth century, and afterwards defined by a rubric in 1271 A.D. by Gregory X., enjoining the celebrant and people to kneel and adore. There was an

elevation of the elements in the earliest Liturgies, also after consecration, which was made with the words "Holy things for holy places" (according to Archdeacon Freeman). Neither the later nor the earlier elevations are sanctioned in the Prayer-Book ; nor are they consonant with the leading feeling of our Liturgy. The Article XXVIII. closes with this sentence: "The sacrament of the LORD's Supper was not by