accommodated their quotations from the Old Testament to the prejudices of the Jews, without any regard to their original import; an opinion the most unwarrantable and dangerous; for that those who were commissioned to publish the revelations of God to mankind should have recourse to such an unjustifiable artifice, is contrary to all the notions which sound reason, the ultimate judge of the truth of revelation, leads us to form respecting the divine character and conduct. Dr. Eckermann extends the doctrine of accommodation to every quotation in the New Testament, without exception; proceeding on the hypothesis that the Old Testament contains no prophecy which literally and immediately relates to the person of Jesus Christ. Dr. Owen, on the contrary, in his "Modes of Quotations," § 5, entirely rejects the principle of accommodation, to whose opinion Michaelis is, in most cases, inclined to accede, though with this essential difference, that he admits only a grammatical and literal, whilst Dr. Owen contends for a typical, meaning of particular passages.

With respect to the quotations from the Jewish scriptures, contained in the New Testament, it seems necessary to make an accurate distinction between those which, being merely borrowed, are used as the words of the person who quotes them, and those which are produced as proofs of a doctrine or the completion of a prophecy. In the one case, accommodation may be allowed; for it is natural to suppose that the writers of the New Testament, from their intimate acquaintance with the Septuagint, might often allude to passages and quote them from memory, as an illustration of what they were stating, without directly intending to bring them forward as irresistible arguments. But, in the other case, there is no little difficulty, and even hazard, in having recourse to this principle; for if it once be admitted that the Evangelists and Apostles, and even our Lord himself, employed arguments which, on this supposition, are evidently no arguments at all, the inspiration of the one, and the divine mission of the other, must be extremely equivocal.

If it were true that the Old Testament was falsely quoted in the New, when either doctrines or prophecies are the subjects of discussion, it would be necessary to make the following distinctions: 1. If such quotations were discovered in

a book whose canonical authority is doubted, they must be regarded as human errors, and the inspiration of the book itself be abandoned. 2. If they could be found in those books which belong to the house, the inspiration of these books also must be given up, though no inference could be drawn that the Apostles were not preachers of a divine religion. 3. But were it possible to show that the very author of our religion had made a wrong application of any text of the Old Testament, it would follow, that he was not infallible, and that Christianity itself was false.

It seems particularly obvious, that the principle of accommodation should not be hastily adopted where the strong expressions are used, "This was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet;" or, "Then was fulfilled that which was spoken," &c. A formula of this kind is never used in quoting from a classic author: it is, therefore, no argument in favour of accommodation in these cases, to say, with Nicholls, (Conference with a Theist, P. iii. p. 11,) that no one would object to a writer who should address the Apostles in the words of Virgil's invocation of the sun and

Every one must perceive that these cases are quite dissimilar, and that when the sacred writers used the above expressions, they were persuaded that the passages which they introduced did directly refer to the events to which they applied them. Wetstein (Note on Matt. i. 22) alleges an example of similar latitude of expression from Ephrem Syrus ; and Dr. Sykes (Introduction to the Hebrews, §3) appeals to other writers also. The authority of Jerome, however, whom he quotes among the rest, is of little weight, as that learned father was an avowed allegorist. The examples of Wetstein, and those which Dr. Sykes has quoted from Epiphanius and Olympiodorus, are not much more conclusive, being only similar to the language which we would use in cautioning any one, "Let not that be fulfilled in thee;" where the caution itself implies, that the words to which we allude are no prophecy.

Dr. Sykes, indeed, affirms, that if we were better acquainted with the Jewish phraseology, we should less hesitate in admitting the principle of accommoda

tion. As to the particular term "fulfilled," he says the Jewish writers very often meant no more by it than the happening of a similar event, or an exact agreement in particular circumstances of latter things with the former; and that the masters of the synagogue applied passages of the Old Testament in senses very remote from that of the original author. But not to insist on the impropriety of putting the inspired writers of the New Testament on a level with the Jewish Rabbis, it must not be concealed that this learned author has produced no examples from the Talmud, or from any Jewish commentator, where similar expressions are used in cases of mere accommodation, and no assertion can be admitted without authority. This omission is the more inexcusable, that the very principle which he defends rests almost entirely on the decision of the question,-Did the Rabbis, in quoting passages from the Old Testament, with a formula of this kind, "In this the Scripture was fulfilled," consider these passages as directly referring to the events to which they applied them? or did they ground the quotation on a mere parity of circumstances? It is no small presumption against his assertions, that Surenhusius, who has accurately examined this question in his βιβλος καταλλayns (Amsterd. 1713), decides against them. In his third thesis, " De formulis allegandi," he compares the expression, λngwon n ygapn, with the rabbinical formulæ ; and referring to the Tanchuma, fol. 39, col. 3, where Deut. xvii. 7 is quoted with the formula, "ad confirmandum id quod scriptum est," observes, "ex cujus loci applicatione patet illam formulam, non solum alludendi verum etiam demonstrandi vim habere," that it is not merely allusive, but demonstrative.-Encyclop. Edin.

ACCURSED, see ANATHEMA. ACEPHALI, such bishops as were exempt from the discipline and jurisdiction of their ordinary bishop or patriarch. It was also the denomination of certain sects who refused to acknowledge any ecclesiastical head:-1. Of those who, in the affair of the council of Ephesus, refused to follow either St. Cyril or John of Antioch; 2. Of certain monophysite monks and priests in Egypt, who did not acknowledge the patriarch, Peter Mongus, because he had not, at the adoption of the Henoticon, in 483, expressly condemned the council of

Chalcedon. 3. Of the followers of Severus of Antioch, and of all, in general, who held out against the council of Chalcedon; and 4. Of the Flagellants, whom see.

ACOEMETÆ, or ACOEMETI, an or der of monks at Constantinople in the fifth century, whom the writers of that and the following ages called Axnuntai; that is, Watchers, because they performed divine service day and night without intermission. They divided themselves into three classes, who alternately succeeded one another, so that they kept up a perpetual course of worship. This practice they founded upon that passage" Pray without ceasing." 1 Thess. v. 17.

ACOLOUTHI, or ACOLITES, servants of the church, who appeared in the Latin Church as early as the third century but in the Greek not till the fifth. Their office was to light the candles, thence they were called accensores; to carry the tapers in the festal processions, thence ceroferarii; to present the wine and water at the supper, and in general to assist the bishops and priests in the performance of the ceremonies. They belonged to the clergy, and had a rank immediately below the subdeacons. In the Roman Church the consecration of an acolouthos is the highest of the lower kinds of ordination. The person ordained receives a candlestick and chalice, in token of his ancient employment. The duties, however, formerly belonging to this office, have been performed since the seventh century by menials and boys taken from the laity, who are improperly called acolouthi in the books of Roman liturgy. The modern Greek Church no longer retains even the name.

ACT, CONVENTICLE, passed in 1664. It enacted that only five persons above sixteen years of age, besides the family, were to meet for any worship, domestic or social. The first offence on the part of him who officiated was three months' imprisonment, or five pounds fine; the second, six months' imprisonment, or ten pounds; the third offence was transportation for life, or a fine of one hundred pounds. Those who permitted conventicles to be held in their barns, houses, or outhouses, were liable to the same forfeitures; and married women taken at such meetings were to be imprisoned for twelve months, unless their husbands paid forty shillings for

their redemption. The power of enforcing the act was lodged in the hands of a single justice of the peace, who might proceed, without the verdict of a jury, on the bare oath of an informer. In consequence of this act, houses were broken open, goods and cattle distrained, persons arrested, and the gaols in the different counties filled with those who had been guilty of no other misdemeanour but that of assembling together to worship God, or listen to the exposition of his holy word.

ACT, CORPORATION, a statute of 13 Charles II., chap. i., in which, to the end that the succession in corporations might most probably be perpetuated in the hands of persons well affected to his Majesty, and the established government, it was, among other things, enacted, "That no person shall be chosen into any office of magistracy, or other employment relating to corporations, who shall not, within one year next before such election, have taken the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, according to the rites of the Church of England."

ACT, FIVE-MILE, or OXFORD, an act passed in 1665, which imposed an oath on all nonconformists, binding them to attempt no alteration in either church or state; and provided that all ministers, who did not take it, should neither live in, nor come within five miles (except in crossing the road) of any borough, city, or corporate town; or within five miles of any parish, town, or place in which they had been, since the Act of Oblivion, parson, vicar, or lecturer, under a penalty of forty pounds, and being rendered incapable of teaching any school, or taking any boarders to be taught or instructed.

ACT, TEST, a statute, 25 Charles II. 2, for preventing dangers that were apprehended from Popish recusants, by which it was enacted, that every person who should be admitted into office or trust under his Majesty, should, among other things therein required, receive the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, according to the usage of the Church of England, within three months after his admittance into such office, under very severe penalties. This, together with the Corporation Act, has at last been repealed, after a very protracted struggle on the part of the dissenters.

ACT OF TOLERATION, the famous statute of William and Mary, sec. i.,

ch. 18, " for exempting their Majesties Protestant subjects dissenting from the Church of England, from the penalties of certain laws" enforcing conformity (except the Test Acts), and extending a free and full toleration to all dissenters, excepting Papists and such as deny the Trinity.

The preamble states, That forasmuch as some ease to scrupulous consciences, in the exercise of religion, may be an effectual means to unite their Majesties' Protestant subjects in interest and affection, it enacts as follows, viz.—

nor

Sect. II. That neither the statute made in the 23d of Elizabeth, intituled "An Act to retain the Queen's Majesty's subjects to their due obedience;" the statute made in the twentieth year of the said Queen, "for the more speedy and due execution of certain branches of the former act;" nor that clause of a statute made in the first year of the said Queen, intituled "An Act for the Uniformity of Common Prayer," &c.; whereby all persons are required to resort to their parish church or chapel, upon pain of punishment by the censures of the church; and also upon pain that every person so offending shall forfeit, for every such offence, twelve pence; nor the statute made in the third year of the late King James, intituled "An Act for the better discovering and repressing Popish Recusants;" nor that other statute, intituled " An Act to prevent and avoid dangers which may grow by Popish Recusants;" nor any other law or statute of this realm made against Papists or Popish Recusants, shall be construed to extend to any person or persons dissenting from the Church of England, that shall take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and shall make and subscribe the declaration against Popery; which oaths and declaration the justices of peace at the general sessions of the peace for the county or place where such persons shall live, are hereby required to administer to such persons as shall offer themselves to make and subscribe the same, and thereof to keep a register; and, likewise, none of the persons aforesaid shall give or pay, as any fee or reward, to any officer belonging to the court, above the sum of sixpence for his entry of his taking the said oaths, &c., nor above the further sum of sixpence for any certificate of the same.

Sect. IV. That every person that shall

take the said oaths, and make and subscribe the declaration aforesaid, shall not be liable to any pains, penalties, or forfeitures, mentioned in an act made in the 35th of the late Queen Elizabeth, nor in an act made in the 22d of Charles II., intituled “An Act to prevent and suppress Seditious Conventicles;" nor shall any of the said persons be prosecuted in any ecclesiastical court for their nonconforming to the Church of England.

Sect. V. Provided that, if any assembly of persons, dissenting from the Church of England, shall be held in any place for religious worship with the doors locked, barred, or bolted, during any time of such meeting together, such person shall not receive any benefit from this law, but be liable to all the pains and penalties of all the aforesaid laws.

Sect. VI. Provided that nothing herein contained shall be construed to exempt any of the persons aforesaid from paying of tithes, or other parochial duties; nor from any prosecution in any ecclesiastical court, or elsewhere, for the same.

Sect. VII. That if any person dissenting, &c., as aforesaid, shall hereafter be chosen high constable, or petit constable, churchwarden, overseer of the poor, or any other parochial or ward officer, and such person shall scruple to take upon him any of the said offices, in regard of the oaths or any other matter or thing required by the law to be taken or done in respect of such office, every such person shall and may execute such office by a sufficient deputy, that shall comply with the laws on this behalf.

Sect. VIII. That no person dissenting from the Church of England in holy orders, or pretended holy orders, or pretending to holy orders, nor any preacher or teacher of any congregation of Dissenting Protestants, that shall make and subscribe the declaration aforesaid, and take the said oaths at the general or quarter sessions of the peace, to be held for the county, town, parts, or division where such person lives, which court is hereby empowered to administer the same, and shall also declare his approbation of, and subscribe the articles of religion mentioned in the statute made in the 13th of Queen Elizabeth, except the 34th, 35th, and 36th, and these words in the 20th article; viz."the Church hath power to decree rites

or ceremonies, and authority in controversies of faith,"-shall be liable to any of the pains or penalties mentioned in former acts.

Sect. X. recites, That some dissenting Protestants scruple the baptizing of infants; and proceeds to enact,-That every person in pretended holy orders, &c., &c., that shall subscribe the aforesaid articles of religion, except before excepted, and also except part of the 27th article, touching infant baptism, and shall take the said oaths, &c. &c., shall enjoy all the privileges, benefits, and advantages which any other dissenting minister might enjoy.

Sect. XI. That every teacher or preacher in holy orders, or pretended holy orders, that is, a minister, preacher, or teacher of a congregation, that shall take the oaths herein required, and make and subscribe the declaration aforesaid, &c. &c. shall be exempted from serving upon any jury, or from being appointed to bear the office of churchwarden, overseer of the poor, or any other parochial or ward office, or other office in any hundred of any shire, city, town, parish, division, or wapentake.

Sect. XII. That every justice of the peace may, at any time, require any person that goes to any meeting for exercise of religion, to make and subscribe the declaration aforesaid, and also to take the said oaths or declaration of fidelity hereinafter mentioned, in case such person scruples the taking of an oath; and upon refusal, such justice of the peace is required to commit such person to prison, and to certify the name of such person to the next general or quarter sessions of the peace, &c.

Sect. XIII. recites, That there are certain other Dissenters who scruple the taking of any oath; and then proceeds to enact, That every such person shall make and subscribe the aforesaid declaration, and also this declaration of fidelity following: viz. “I, A. B., do sincerely promise and solemnly declare, before God and the world, that I will be true and faithful to King William and Queen Mary; and I do solemnly profess and declare, that I do from my heart abhor, detest, and renounce, as impious and heretical, that damnable doctrine and position, That princes excommunicated or deprived by the Pope, or any authority of the see of Rome, may be deposed or murthered by their subjects, or any

other whatsoever; and I do declare, That no foreign prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate, hath, or ought to have, any power, jurisdiction, superiority, pre-eminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm;" and shall subscribe a profession of their Christian belief in these words: "I, A. B., profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ, his eternal Son, the true God, and in the Holy Spirit, one God, blessed for evermore; and do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration :"--which declarations and subscription shall be entered on record at the General Quarter Sessions, &c.; and every such person shall be exempted from all the pains and penalties of all and every the aforementioned statutes, &c.

Sect. XVI. Provided, That all the laws made and provided for the frequenting of divine service on the Lord's Day, commonly called Sunday, shall be still in force, and executed against all persons that offend against the said laws, except such persons come to some congregation or assembly of religious worship, allowed or permitted by this act.

Sect. XVII. Provided, That neither this act, nor any clause, article, or thing herein contained, shall extend, or be construed to extend, to give any ease, benefit, or advantage to any Papist or Popish Recusant whatsoever, or any person that shall deny in his preaching or writing the doctrine of the blessed Trinity, as it is declared in the aforesaid Articles of Religion.

Sect. XVIII. Provided, That if any person or persons do and shall willingly, maliciously, or contemptuously, come into any cathedral or parish-church, chapel, or other congregation permitted by this act, and disquiet and disturb the same, or misuse any preacher or teacher, such person or persons, upon proof thereof before any justice of the peace, by two or more sufficient witnesses, shall find two sureties, to be bound by recognizance in the penal sum of 507., and, in default of such sureties, shall be committed to prison, there to remain till the next General or Quarter Session; and, upon conviction of the said offence at the said General or Quarter Sessions, shall suffer the pain and penalty of 207., to the use of the King's and Queen's Majesties, their heirs and successors.

Sect. XIX. That no congregation or

assembly for religious worship shall be permitted or allowed by this act until the place of such meeting shall be certified to the bishop of the diocese, or to the archdeacon of that archdeaconry, or to the justices of the peace at the General or Quarter Sessions of the peace for the county, city, or place, in which such meeting shall be held, and registered in the said bishop's or archdeacon's court respectively, or recorded at the said General or Quarter Sessions; the register or clerk of the peace whereof respectively is hereby required to register the same, and to give certificate thereof to such person as shall demand the same; for which there shall be no greater fee or reward taken than the sum of sixpence.

Lord Sidmouth attempted, in 1810, to introduce a bill in the House of Lords, proposing some amendment or explanation of this famous act, in order to prevent abuses; but, in reality, the prevention of the spread of Dissent by means of itinerant preachers; and to clog the exertions of those who wish to instruct their neighbours. Vast numbers of petitions from all parts of the country were presented against the bill; so that when it was brought forward on May 21, 1811 (after a considerable discussion), the question for a second reading was put and negatived without a division. The bill was, therefore, thrown out. It is to be hoped that this will be the last effort ever made to infringe the Act of Toleration.

ACT OF FAITH (Auto da Fe), in the Romish church, is a solemn day held by the Inquisition for the punishment of heretics, and the absolution of the innocent accused. They usually contrive the auto to fall on some great festival, that the execution may pass with the more awe; and it is always on a Sunday. The Auto da Fe may be called the last act of the inquisitorial tragedy: it is a kind of gaol delivery, appointed as often as a competent number of prisoners in the Inquisition are convicted of heresy, either by their own voluntary or extorted confession, or on the evidence of certain witnesses. The process is this: In the morning they are brought into a great hall, where they have certain habits put on, which they are to wear in the procession, and by which they know their doom. The procession is led up by Dominican friars, after which come the penitents, being all in black coats without sleeves, and bare-footed, with a wax