4. Tlie Court of lliyli Commiaxion originated in the Act of Supremacy, passed in 1559, which empowered queen Elizabeth to choose commissioners who might exercise supreme juristhction in spiritual or ecclesiasti- cal matters. The court so formed claimed a pre-emi- nence over the ordinary courts of the bishops. The rack and other means of torture were weapons confided to them. They were bound by no rules or precedents in receiving evidence or in imposing penalties, but acted as they pleased, and soon became odious as a terrific and lawless inquisition. In ICIO a court of this nature was erected by James VI in Scotland, and re-erected in lOti-I, the last consisting of nine prelates and tliirty-five laymen. It was armed with highest authority, and had a military force at its command. It had also an organized espionage, with agents everywhere. It ruined many financially l>y the heavy fines imposed, banished others to unhealthy districts, and even sold some as slaves.
5. The Court of Faculties belongs to the archbishop of Canterbury. Its power is to grant dispensations for the marriage of persons without the publication of bainis, to ordain a deacon under the canonical age, to enable a son to succeed his father in a benefice, or one person to hold two or more benefices incompatible with each other.
6. The Court of Prerorjative is held at Doctors' Com- mons, in London, in which all wills and testaments are proved, and administrations granted on the estates of persons dying intestate, etc.
7. The Court of Teiiids is that portion of the judges of the Court of Session that administer the law as to the revenues of the Scottish Established Church.
Meetings of Session, Presbytery, Synod, and General Assembly are usually termed Courts.
Spiritual Gifts {tu TrrtvfiaTiKa suppl. xapiffjua- To), a phrase used to denote those endowments which were conferred on persons in the primitive Church, and wliich were manifested in acts and utterances of a su- pernatural kind. The phrase is taken from I Cor. xii, 1, where the words Trtpt tmv Tn'tv^uiTiKMV are rendered in the A. V. "concerning spiritual gilts." The accu- racy of this rendering is generally admitted; for, though Some would take Trvn> f-iariKiov as masculine, and under- stand it, as in xiv, 37, of persons spiritually endowed, the tenor of the entire passage shows that it is of the gifts themselves, and not of tlie parties endowed with tliem, that the apostle speaks in this chapter (comp. xiv, 1). It is from the apostle's statements in this chap- ter that our information concerning the spiritual gifts of the primitive Church is chiefly drawn.
1. The first thing to be noted is what may be called the fundamental condition and test of these gifts. This is the acknowledgment of Jesus Christ as Lord. "I give you to understand," says the apostle, " that no man speaking by the Spirit of (iod calleth Jesus accursed : antl tliat no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost" (1 Cor. xii, 3). The denunciation of Jesus as an impostor, whether that came forth in the shape of an imprecation {tcrnu dmi^ifja) i>r in the shape of an assertion (tfrriv ai'd^fj-ia), having reference to his having died as one accursed (comp. (ial. iii, 13), provc<i sufficiently tiiat the party uttering it was not under the infiuence of the Spirit; wiiile, on the other liand, the recognition of Jesus as the Lord— i. e. the admission of his Messianic claims and the submission to his supreme authority — formed the antithesis to this, and was a proof that the party was under the power of the Holy Ghost. The primary condition, then, of the possession
of spiritual gifts was sincere adlicrence to Jesus as the jMessiah. Apart from this there might be the arts of the magician or soothsayer, but no effects produced by the Spirit of God.
2. The source of these spiritual gifts was God's grace, and the ai/ent by whom they were jiroduced was the Holy Ghost. They were xopirTitara, t)r f/mce-f/ifts ; and the apostle expressly says tliat amid diversity of gifts it is one and tlie same Spirit by whom they are bestowed, anil amid diversity of services it is one aiul the same Lord by wliom they are a])pointed, and amid diversity of operations it is one God who energizes all in all (1 Cor. xii, 4-t)).
3. When the apostle speaks here of xcpif^t^aTct, dia- Koi'iai, and ti'tpytiiicira, the inquiry is suggested how these three expressions are to be taken. Are they in- tended to mark off three distinct classes of spiritual gifts? or do the}' describe the same ol)jects under dif- ferent aspects'? or is the first the generic class under which the other two are subsumed as species? Each of these views has found advocates. The Greek fathers generall}' regard them as simply different names for the same ol)ject (comp. Clirysostom, ad loc.'), hut most re- cent writers regard them as relating to distinct classes. (For different classifications on this principle, see Aqui- nas, Summu Theol. ii, 2, qu. 171 ; Estius. On 1 Cor. xii; Olshausen on do., etc.) The objection to all the ar- rangements on this principle is that they are all more or less arbitrary, so that what is placed bj' one under one head is with equal plausibility placed by another under another. The opinion that Charisma is the ge- itus of which IJiakoniai and Eneryeinata are species is open to the objection that to make diakoniai a kind of charisma is somewhat forced ; and, besides, it does not ac- cord with the parallelized structure of the apostle's state- ment, which plainly makes these three objects collateral with each otlier. The opinion which has most in its favor is that we have here only one object presented under different aspects. On this principle the three classes may be arranged thus: These endowments of the primitive Church are, (1) Gifts of divine yrace, as the principle of the new life which, with its manifold ca|)abilities, is communicated by the indwelling Spirit of God; (2) Ministries, as means by which one member serves for the benefit of others; and (3) Opei-ations, ef- fects, by which the charismata manifest their active power. Tills seems a highly probaljle explanation of the apostle's words; nor do we see the harshness in it of which Kling, from whom we have taken it, com- plains.