Page images
PDF
EPUB

SECT. XI. Of the Romish Saints-days and Holy-days

in November.

Part II.

day.

THE second of this month is called All-Souls day, Nov. 2. being observed in the Church of Rome upon this oc- All-Souls casion. A monk having visited Jerusalem, and passing through Sicily as he returned home, had a mind to see mount Etna, which is continually belching out fire and smoke, and upon that account by some thought to be the mouth of hell. Being there, he heard the devils within complain, that many departed souls were taken out of their hands by the prayers of the Cluniac monks. This, when he came home, he related to his Abbot Odilo, as a true story; who thereupon appointed the second of November to be annually kept in his monastery, and prayers to be made there for all departed souls: and in a little time afterwards the monks got it to be made a general holy-day by the appointment of the Pope; till in ours and other reformed churches it was deservedly abrogated.

§. 2. Leonard was born at Le Nans, a town in France, 6. Leonard, bred up in divinity under Remigius Bishop of Rhemes, Confessor. and afterwards made Bishop of Limosin. He obtained of King Clodoveus a favour, that all prisoners whom he went to see should be set free. And therefore whenever he heard of any persons being prisoners for the sake of religion, or any other good cause, he presently procured their liberty this way. But the monks have improved this story, telling us, that if any one in prison had called upon his name, his fetters would immediately drop off, and the prison doors fly open: insomuch that many came from far countries, brought their fetters and chains, which had fallen off by his intercession, and presented them before him in token of gratitude. He died in the year 500, and has always been implored by prisoners as their saint.

tin, Bishop and Con

§. 3. St. Martin's account has already been given on 11. St. MarJuly 4. §. 4. Britius, or St. Brice, was successor to St. Martin fessor. in the bishopric of Tours. About the year 432, a great 13. Britius, Bishop. trouble befel him: for his laundress proving with child, the uncharitable people of the town fathered it upon Brice. After the child was born, the censures of the people increased, who were then ready to stone their Bishop. But the Bishop having ordered the infant to be brought to him, adjured him by Jesus the Son of the living God, to tell him whose child he was. The child being then

Chap. I. but thirty days old, replied, "You are not my father." But this was so far from mending matters with Brice, that it made them much worse; the people now accusing him of sorcery likewise. At last being driven out of the city, he appealed to Rome, and, after a seven years suit, got his bishopric again. This story is told of him by Gregory Turonensis, his successor in his see at Tours. 15. Machu- §. 5 Machutus, otherwise called Maclovius, was a Bitus, Bishop. shop in Bretagne in France, of that place which is from him called St. Maloes. He lived about the year 500, and was famous for many miracles, if the acts concerning him may be credited.

17. Hugh, Bishop of

Lincoln.

§. 6. Hugh was born in a city of Burgundy, called Gratianopolis. He was first a Regular canon, and afterwards a Carthusian monk. Being very famous for his extraordinary abstinence and austerity of life, King Henry II. having built a house for Carthusian monks at Witteham in Somersetshire, sent over Reginald Bishop of Bath to invite this holy man to accept the place of the Prior of this new foundation. Hugh, after a great many intreaties, assented, and came over with the Bishop, and was by the same King made Bishop of Lincoln: where he gained an immortal name for his well governing that see, and new building the cathedral from the foundation. In the year 1200, upon his return from Carthusia, the chief and original house of their order, (whither he had made a voyage,) he fell sick of a quartan ague at London, and there died on November the seventeenth. His body was presently conveyed to Lincoln, and happening to be brought thither when John King of England and William ́ King of Scots had an interview there, the two Kings, out of respect to his sanctity, assisted by some of their Lords, took him upon their shoulders, and carried him to the cathedral. In the year 1220, he was canonized at Rome; and his body being taken up October 7, 1282, was placed in a silver shrine. The monks have ascribed several miracles to him, which I shall omit for brevity, and only set down one story which is credibly related of him, viz. That coming to Godstow, a house of Nuns near Oxford, and seeing a hearse in the middle of the choir covered with silk, and tapers burning about it, (it being then, as it is still in some parts of England, a custom to have such monuments in the church for some time after the burial of persons of distinction,) he asked who was buried there; and being informed that it was fair Rosamond, the concubine of King Henry II. who had that honour done her

for having obtained a great many favours of the King for Part II. that house, he immediately commanded her body to be digged up, and to be buried in the church-yard, saying it was a place a great deal too good for a harlot, and therefore he would have her removed, as an example to terrify other women from such a wicked and filthy kind of life.

King and

§. 7. Edmund was a king of the East-Angles, who be- 20. Eding assaulted by the Danes (after their irruption into mund, England) for their possession of his country, and not being Martyr. able to hold out against them, offered his own person, if they would spare his subjects. But the Danes having got him under their power, endeavoured to make him renounce his religion: which he refusing to do, they first beat him with bats, then scourged him with whips, and afterwards, binding him to a stake, shot him to death with their arrows. His body was buried in a town where Sigebert, one of his predecessors, had built a church; and where afterwards (in honour of his name) another was built more spacious, and the name of the town, upon that occasion, called St. Edmund's Bury.

Martyr.

§. 8. Cæcilia was a Roman lady, who refusing to re- 22. Cæcilia, nounce her religion when required, was thrown into a Virgin and furnace of boiling water, and scalded to death: though others say she was stifled by shutting out the air of a bath, which was a death sometimes inflicted in those days upon women of quality who were criminals. She lived in the

year 225.

ment I.

§. 9. St. Clement I. was a Roman by birth, and one of 23. St. Cle the first Bishops of that place: which see he held, ac- Bishop of cording to the best accounts, from the year 64 or 65 to Rome, and the year 81, or thereabouts; and during which time he Martyr. was most undoubtedly author of one, and is supposed to have been of two very excellent epistles, the first of which was so much esteemed of by the primitive Christians, as that for some time it was read in the churches for canonical scripture 23. He was for the sake of his religion first condemned to hew stones in the mines; and afterwards, having an anchor tied about his neck, was drowned in the

sea.

§. 10. St. Catherine was born at Alexandria, and bred 25. Catherine, Virgin up to letters. About the year 305 she was converted to and MarChristianity, which she afterwards professed with great tyr. courage and constancy; openly rebuking the heathen for

23 Cave's Historia Literaria.

Chap. 1. offering sacrifice to their idols, and upbraiding the cruelty of Maxentius the Emperor, to his face. She was condemned to suffer death in a very unusual manner, viz. by rolling a wheel stuck round with iron spikes, or the points of swords, over her body.

Dec. 6.
Nicolas,
Bishop of
Myra in
Lycia.

8. Conception of the

SECT. XII. Of the Romish Saints-days and Holy-days in December.

NICOLAS was born at Patara, a city of Lycia, and was afterwards, in the time of Constantine the Great, made Bishop of Myra. He was remarkable for his great charity; as a proof of which this instance may serve. Understanding that three young women, daughters of a person who had fell to decay, were tempted to take lewd courses for a maintenance, he secretly conveyed a sum of money to their father's house, sufficient to enable him to. provide for them in a virtuous way.

§. 2. The feast of the Conception of the Virgin Mary blessed Vir- was instituted by Anselm Archbishop of Canterbury, upon gin Mary. occasion of William the Conqueror's fleet being in a storm, and afterwards coming safe to shore. But the council of Oxford, held in the year 1222, left people at liberty whether they would observe it or not. But it had before this given rise to the question ventilated so warmly in the Roman church, concerning the Virgin Mary's immaculate conception; which was first started by Peter Lombard about the year 1160.

12. Lucy, Virgin and Martyr.

entia.

§. 3. Lucy was a young lady of Syracuse, who, being courted by a gentleman, but preferring a religious single life before marriage, gave all her fortune away to the poor, in order to stop his farther applications. But the young man, enraged at this, accused her to Paschasius, the heathen judge, for professing Christianity; who thereupon ordered her to be sent to the stews: but she struggling with the officers who were to carry her, was, after a great deal of barbarous usage, killed by them. She lived in the year 305.

16. O Sapi. §. 4. The sixteenth of December is called O Sapientia, from the beginning of an anthem in the Latin service, which used to be sung in the church (for the honour of Christ's advent) from this day till Christmas Eve.

31. Silvester, Bishop of Rome.

§. 5. Silvester succeeded Miltiades in the papacy of Rome, A. D. 314. He is said to have been the author of several rites and ceremonies of the Romish church, as of Asylums, Unctions, Palls, Corporals, Mitres, &c. He died in the year 334.

CHAP. II.

OF THE FIRST RUBRIC.

The INTRODUCTION.

HAVING done with the Tables, Rules, and Calendar, Chap. II. I should now proceed in order to the daily Morning and Evening Service: but the First Rubric, relating to that service, making mention of several things which deserve a particular consideration, and which must necessarily be treated of somewhere or other; I think this the properest place to do it in, and shall therefore take the opportunity of this rubric to treat of them in a distinct chapter by themselves.

The Rubric runs thus:

¶ The ORDER for MORNING and EVENING PRAYER, daily to be said and used throughout the Year.

The Morning and Evening Prayer shall be used in the accustomed place of the Church, Chapel, or Chancel; except it shall be otherwise determined by the Ordinary of the place; and the Chancels shall remain as they have done in times past.

And here it is to be noted, that such Ornaments of the Church, and the Ministers thereof, at all times of their ministration, shall be retained and be in use, as were in this Church of England, by the authority of Parliament, in the second year of the reign of King Edward the Sixth.

These are the, words of the Rubric, and from thence I shall take occasion to treat of these four things, viz.

I. The prescribed Times of public prayer; Morning and Evening.

II. The Place where it is to be used; in the accustomed place of the Church, Chapel, or Chancel.

III. The Minister, or person officiating.

IV. The Ornaments used in the church by the minister.
Of all which in their order.

« PreviousContinue »