"The Ecclesiastical Commission does with the lands of Bishops and Chapters what these could never do for themselves. It can afford to wait for the falling in of leases, whereas those old corporations were obliged to renew them, that they might live on the money paid for renewals; and when it has got the lands it lets them for their full value. By this means it is able to pay the old corporations out of half their lands as much as they used to get from the whole under their own system, and the other moiety is taken out of the hands of laymen (regard being had to equity) and devoted to other beneficial purposes for the Church. In this way the surplus revenues of capitular estates have been applied to the benefit of an immense number of parishes which had claims upon them." (Dixon's "Peek Essay.") ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS. The following are the principal: the Consistory Courts of the Bishops; the Arches Court of Canterbury; and the Supreme Court of Appeal, composed of members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Under the Public Worship Act the Dean of the Arches Court has been made Official Principal of both Provinces. A Royal Commission has recently issued a Report upon the Ecclesiastical Courts, and the question of their constitution generally is under consideration. ELECTION. A choosing, hence the "chosen people" of God. There are three views taken of election,--the Calvinistic, the Arminian, and the Catholic. The Calvinistic view is that certain persons are from all eternity chosen or elected by God to salvation, the rest of mankind being condemned to eternal death (See _Predestination_, _Calvinism_, _Antinomianism_.) The Arminian view is that God, knowing what the life of every man born into the world shall be, and foreseeing that some "will refuse the evil and choose the good," hath elected them to eternal life. (See _Arminianism_.) The Catholic view is that God of his mercy elects certain of His creatures for a place in the visible Church, and thus causes them to be placed in "a state of salvation," of which, however, they may fall short by their own perverseness. The Church of England, as a branch of the great Church Catholic, is believed to teach this latter view, as will be seen by a study of her Liturgy. ELEMENTS. The Bread and Wine used in Holy Communion (See _Communion, Holy_). In Holy Baptism, Water, wherein the person is baptized, is the _Element_. ELEVATION. In Articles xxv. and xxviii. reference is made to a ceremony of the Church of Rome, called the Elevation of the Host, which consists in the consecrated wafer being held up, or elevated, for the adoration of the people. Bp. Harold Browne says, "Elevating the Host resulted from a belief in transubstantiation. . . .There is evidently no Scriptural Authority for the Elevation of the Host, the command being, 'Take, eat.' The Roman ritualists themselves admit that there is no trace of its existence before the 11th or 12th centuries." (See _Note on Art_. xxviii.)