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the Offertory Sentences in his two Books, ordered that all offerings due to the Parson, etc. should be paid on the accustomed" Offering-days;" but it added that "in default thereof," they were to be paid "at Easter then next following." This provision of the Act, and the evident recognition of Easter in the present Rubric (first so expressed in 2 B. E.), had the natural effect of making Easter the only Offeringday by custom for all ecclesiastical duties, as it was by law for personal tithes. Hence the Easter Offerings, which still survive in many ill-endowed Parishes, may be regarded both as a composition for personal tithes, and as the representative of other customary offerings, the distinctive ground of which is not now known. It is indeed possible that these two ancient payments may be one and the same,-that is to say, that those quarterly offerings had themselves been originally a modus for personal tithes. However this may be, it is a cause of thankfulness that even a shadow of personal tithing has been preserved in the local custom of Easter Offerings. Its value may yet be seen, when it shall please God to open the eyes of His people to a forgotten duty, and to move them to give in a more adequate measure of that which He has given them, for the support and extension of the true knowledge and worship of His holy Name.

1 This is Bp. Stillingfleet's conjecture of the origin of Easter Offerings (Eccl. Cases, p. 252), and it is approved by Johnson, Vade Mecum, P. i. ch. xxiv. p. 233.

CHAPTER XXI.

Of the Disposal of the Offerings.

SECTION I.-The English Rule.

RUBRIC XXXIV.—PARAGRAPH IX.

¶ After the Divine Service ended, the money given at the Offertory shall be disposed of to such pious and charitable uses, as the Minister and Churchwardens shall think fit. Wherein if they disagree, it shall be disposed of as the Ordinary shall appoint.

DIVINE SERVICE.]-The application of this term to the Holy Communion is to be noted, on account of its bearing on the rule for the repetition of the Lord's Prayer by the people, as given in the Rubric after the Absolution in the Order for Morning Prayer. See Part I. Ch. iii. Sect. xviii. p. 205.

b PIOUS AND CHARITABLE USES.-This Rubric was clearly suggested to the Revisers of 1662 by the following, which occurs immediately after the blessing in the Scotch Liturgy of 1637:-" After the Divine Service ended, that which was offered shall be divided in the presence of the Presbyter and the Churchwardens, whereof one half shall be to the use of the Presbyter to provide him books of holy Divinity; the other half shall be faithfully kept and employed on some pious or charitable use, for the decent furnishing of that Church, or the public relief of their poor, at the discretion of the Presbyter and Churchwardens." A closer adherence to this original was at first intended, for the draft of this paragraph in the handwriting of Sancroft runs as follows:-" After the Divine Service ended, the money which was offered shall be divided, one half to the Priest, the other half to be employed to some pious or charitable use, for the decent furnishing of the Church, or the

relief of the poor, among whom it shall forthwith be distributed, if need require, or put into the poor man's box, at the discretion of the Priest and Churchwardens and other officers of the place, that are for that purpose appointed."1

The earlier Books in the Rubric after the Sentences for the Offertory had implied that the gifts (unless “due and accustomed offerings" for the Clergy) were for the poor only;2 but in 1662 that Rubric began to speak of "the Alms for the Poor, and other Devotions of the people." The present Rubric, recognising "pious" as well as "charitable uses" in the application of the alms, was introduced at the same time, and indicates the same intention. An obvious reason for not specifying any pious and charitable uses to which the alms may be applied, would be the fear, lest they should be thought limited to the objects expressly named; and the Offertory thus become unavailable in unforeseen emergencies, or even in the event of new claims of a permanent kind arising on the Christian liberality of the people. Pious uses are such as the honourable maintenance of those who serve the Altar, the support of Missions among the heathen, etc., the education of young men for the Ministry, the formation of Theological Libraries, the erection, repair, and due care of Churches, etc. Charitable uses are, the relief of the sick and needy, the building and maintenance of schools for poor children, of orphanages, alms-houses, hospitals, and other houses of charity.

"By Stat. 8 and 9 Vict. c. 70, s. 6, the money given at the Offertory in district or consolidated Chapelries is to be disposed of by the Ministers and Churchwardens thereof, as the money given at any Parish Church is by law directed to be disposed of by the Minister and Churchwardens of such Parish."3

SECTION II.-The ancient rule for the Disposal of the Offerings.

We have elsewhere1 had occasion to mention incidentally the uses to which the gifts of the people were applied before the primitive Offertory fell into desuetude; but it will be well

1 Bulley, Variations, p. 220. The change was suggested by Cosin. See his notes in the Durham Book, Corresp. P. ii. p. 62. In his draft, after "Priest" Sancroft had added from the Scotch Book, "to provide him books of divinity."

2 See Part I. Ch. xii. Sect. v. p. 363.

3 The Common Prayer, with Notes, by Stephens, vol. ii. p. 1242. 4 See Part I. Ch. xii. Sect. ii. pp. 343-53.

nevertheless to mention a few facts in this, the most appropriate place. Of the bread and wine offered, but not required for consecration, the so-called Apostolical Constitutions say:

Let the Deacons distribute them to the Clergy at the discretion of the Bishop or Presbyters; to the Bishop four parts, to a Presbyter three parts, to a Deacon two parts, and to the rest, Subdeacons, or Readers, or Singers, or Deaconesses, one part." Other Offerings, not presented at the Altar itself,2 were to be distributed according to the following rule: "That every first-fruit be brought to the Bishop and the Priest and Deacons for their maintenance, and that every tithe be offered for the maintenance of the other Clerks, and of the Virgins, and of the Widows, and of those who are tried by poverty.' 113 In 475, Simplicius,* Bishop of Rome, in a particular case ordered one quarter of the revenues of the Church and the offerings of the faithful to be given to the Bishop, two others to be spent on the fabric of the Church, and the relief of the poor and strangers, and the remaining fourth to be divided among the inferior Clergy according to their respective claims. This mode of division was approved and recommended to general use by his successor Gelasius about twenty years later. S. Gregory, A.D. 601, in his answers to Augustine of Canterbury, gives the same rule, and says, "It is a custom of the Apostolical See to deliver the precept to Bishops when ordained." It was also adopted by the Council of Nantes,' about 660, the Council appealing to the Sacred Canons as an authority for the arrangement:-"How they ought to be dispensed the Sacred Canons settle; namely, that four parts be made out of all, one for the maintenance of the fabric of the Church, another to be distributed to the poor, a third to be had by the Presbyter with his Clerks, the fourth to be reserved for the Bishop." This division is recognised in a Collection of laws made at the instance of Charlemagne, about 797, and sanctioned by his authority. In 816, however, Louis le

1 Lib. viii. c. xxxi. Cotel. tom. i. p. 412.

2 See Can. Apostol. ii. Cotel. p. 437 (Bever. n. iii. vol. xi. p. xl.)

3 Constit. Apost. L. viii. c. xxx. p. 411. The last words are τῶν ἐν πενίᾳ ἐξεταζομένων. Εξετάζω sometimes means to try by torture, and this is the sense in which it has been supposed to be used here (paupertate afflictos, Cotel.); but I should prefer to translate "reckoned, or registered, in poverty,"-i.e. on the poor list.

4 Ep. iii. Labb. tom. iv. col. 1069. See Vade Mecum, vol. ii. p. 327.

6 Cap. xxvii. Labb. tom. iv. col. 1195.

Epp. Lib. xii. Ep. xxxi. tom. iv. col. 464.

7 Can. x. Labb. tom. ix. col. 470.

8 Capit. Reg. Fr. Add. iv. c. lviii. tom. i. col. 1205.

1

Débonnaire made a law that of all voluntary gifts to the Church made during his reign, "two parts should in richer places go to the use of the poor, a third for the stipends of the Clergy or Monks; but in lesser places it should be divided equally between the Clergy and the poor," leaving, however, power to the giver to direct its application, if he choose. The Canon of Nantes appears in the later books2 of the Capitularies of the French Kings, collected by Benedict the Deacon in 845. When there was a settled provision for the support of the Clergy, and the repairs of the Church, such legislation was no longer necessary on their behalf; and at length, through the almost total disuse of the Offertory, there were no proceeds from it upon which to legislate.

SECTION III.-The Disposal of the Offerings ultimately in

the Bishop.

THE ORDINARY.]-The original right of disposal is in the Bishop, and therefore properly reverts to him, when the provision for its exercise by others fails. The alms of the first disciples were laid "at the Apostles' feet, and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need."s This was the principle on which the Church acted and legislated after the death of the Apostles. Justin Martyr, A.D. 140, after describing the celebration of the Eucharist, says, "They who have the means, and wish it, give each at his pleasure what he chooses; and that which is collected is laid up with him who presides, and he himself succours the orphans and widows, and those in want through sickness or any other cause, or those in bonds, and strangers sojourning among us; and in short he is the guardian of all who are in need." The Council of Gangra, in the fourth century,5 framed its 7th Canon against those who "would receive or give Ecclesiastical Offerings out of the Church, against the mind of the Bishop, or of the person intrusted with such things." The 8th is very similar, forbidding any one to give or take an offering without the Bishop or the person set over the dispensation of charity." The former, which

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1 Cap. iv. Capit. Reg. Fr. tom. i. p. 564.

2 Lib. vii. c. ccclxxv. tom. i. col. 1104.

3 Acts iv. 35.

4 Apol. i. c. 67; tom. i. p. 270.

6 Various dates are given, ranging between 324 and 380.

6 Pand. Bever. tom. i. p. 420.

7 Ibid.

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