Church of England -- Dictionaries; Theology -- Dictionaries
JOHN (St.) THE EVANGELIST'S DAY. December 27th. This festival, with
those of St. Stephen and the Holy Innocents, immediately follows on
Christmas Day. "Martyrdom, love, and innocence are first to be
magnified, as wherein Christ is most honoured." The eagle is
supposed to be emblematic of St. John the Evangelist.
JUBILATE DEO. Psalm c, appointed to be sung in the Morning Service
instead of the Benedictus, when the latter happens to be read in
the Gospel for St. John Baptist, or the lesson for the day.
JUSTIFICATION. This term signifies our being accounted just or
righteous in the sight of God, not for any merit in ourselves, but
solely for the sake of Christ, and by our faith in Him. The 11th
Article of the Church of England treats of this. All believers are
justified by Christ, but that does not necessarily imply that they
are sanctified; the one is a work wrought exterior to ourselves,
the other is the work of the Holy Spirit in the individual heart
of man.
KEYS, POWER OF THE. The authority existing in the Christian
Priesthood of administering the discipline of the Church, and
communicating or withholding its privileges. It is so called from
our Lord's words to St. Peter in Matt. xvi. 19.
KINDRED, TABLE OF. The Table of Kindred and Affinity found at the
end of our Prayer Book was drawn up by Archbishop Parker, in 1563.
It rests on an Act of Henry VIII., and is designed to be an
authoritative interpretation of it. The whole is based on Lev.
xviii. 6-18. The principles on which it is drawn up are the
following:--
(_a_) It places both sexes on the same footing, forbidding to the
man whatever is forbidden to the woman.
(_b_) It forbids marriage to a man on the grounds of near kindred
or consanguinity; omitting, however, prohibition of marriage between
cousins as not being forbidden in the Levitical Law, nor definitely
by the Canon Law.
(_c_) Acting on the important principle sanctioned by our Lord
Himself, that "man and wife are one flesh," it puts affinity, or
connection by marriage, on exactly the same footing as kindred, or
connection by blood, affirming that a man's wife's connections are
to be held strictly as his own. It is for this reason,--a reason
distinctly based upon Holy Scripture,--that the marriage with a
"deceased wife's sister" is forbidden.
KNEELING. The practice of kneeling in confession, in prayer, and
in adoration, is of great antiquity. David says, "Let us worship
and bow down, let us _kneel_ before the Lord our Maker," Psalm cxv.
6. See also Ps. cxxxii. 7; 1 Kings viii. 54; Ezra ix. 5-15; Dan.
vi. 10; Acts vii. 60; Acts ix. 40; Acts xx. 36, xxi. 5. Our blessed
Lord Himself "_kneeled down_" when He prayed, Luke xxii. 14. How
the example of David and Solomon, Ezra and Daniel, St. Stephen, St.
Peter and St. Paul, nay, of our Saviour Himself, condemns the
lolling, irreverent posture assumed by too many Christians of the
present day in the public worship of the Lord of Hosts!
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