RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Advent Christians Advocatus Dei
Bibliography: 0. S. Halsted, The Theology of the Bible, Newark, 1860; Discussion between Miles Grant and J. T. Curry, Boston, 1863.
5. Church of God: This is a branch of the Seventh-day Adventists, which seceded in 1866 because its members denied that Mrs. Ellen Gould White was an inspired prophetess. Their organ is The Bible Advocate and Herald of the Coming Kingdom, published at Stanberry, Mo., which is their center. Like the parent body, the Church of God has tithes, sanatoriums, and a publishing house.
Bibliography: A. F. Dugger, Points of Difference between the Church of God and Seventh-Day Adventists, Stanberry, Mo.; J. Brinkerhoff, Mrs. White's Visions. Comparison of the early Writings of Mrs. E. G. White with later Publications, showing the Suppressions made in them to deny their erroneous Teaching; D. Nield, The Good Friday Problem, showing from Scripture, Astronomy and History that the Crucifixion of Christ took Place on Wednesday, and his Resurrection on Saturday.
6. Churches of God in Christ Jesus, popularly known as the Age-to-come Adventists : These have existed since 1851, when their organ, The Restitution (Plymouth, Ind.), was established, but they were not organized till 1888, when the general conference was formed. They believe in the restoration of Israel, the literal resurrection of the dead, the immortalization of the righteous, and the final destruction of the wicked, eternal life being through Christ alone.
Bibliography: J. P. Weethee, The Coming Age, Chicago, 1884.
The statistics of the Adventists are thus given by H. K. Carroll in The Christian Advocate for Jan. 25, 1906:
Commu-
Name. Ministers. Churches, nicants.
Evangelical 34 30 1,147
Seventh-day 486 1,707 60,471
Advent Christians 912 610 26,500
Life and Advent Union.. .. 60 28 3,800
Church of God 19 29 647
Churches of God in Christ
Jesus 54 95 2,872
Total Adventists 1,565 2,499 95,437
ADVERTISEMENTS OF ELIZABETH: Name commonly applied to the regulations promulgated in 1566 by Matthew Parker, archbishop of Canterbury, for the purpose, as alleged, of securing uniformity and decency in public worship, against the tendencies of the extreme Protestant party (see Puritans, Puritanism, § 6). It is now generally admitted that, though they represented Elizabeth's policy in ritual matters, they never received her formal sanction. They assumed some importance in the ritual controversies of the nineteenth century, the High-church party contending that they were merely an archiepiscopal injunction enforcing an irreducible minimum of ritual, while their opponents attempted to show that they were a legal prescription of a positive kind, which made the surplice the only lawful vestment of the clergy in parish churches.
Bibliography : The text of the Advertisements is given in GeeandHardy, Documents, pp. 467-475. Consult: J. Strype, T and Acts of Matthew Parker, London, 1821; Church quarterly Review, xvii. (1881) 54-60.
ADVOCATE OF THE CHURCH (Lat. Advocatus or Defensor Ecclesim): An officer charged with the secular affairs of an ecclesiastical establishment,
more especially its defense, legal or armed. The beginnings of the office appear in the Roman empire. From the end of the fifth century there were defensores in Italy, charged with the protection of the poor and orphans as well as with the care of Church rights and property. In the Merovingian kingdom legal representatives of the churches had the title. In the Carlovingian period, in accordance with the effort to keep the clergy as far as possible from worldly affairs, bishops, abbots, and other ecclesiastics were required to have such an official. The development of the law of immunity made such advocati necessary — on the one hand, to uphold Church rights against the State and in court, on the other hand to perform judicial and police duties in ecclesiastical territory. The Carlovingian kings had the right of appointment, but sometimes waived it in individual cases. These officers were at first generally clerics, later laymen, and finally the office became hereditary. Often this advocate of the Church developed into a tyrant, keeping the establishment in absolute submission, despoiling and plundering it. He usurped the whole power of administration, limited the authority of the bishop to purely spiritual affairs, absorbed the tithes and all other revenues, and doled out to the clergy a mean modicum only. Innocent III. (1198-1216), however, succeeded in checking the growing importance of this institution, and soon the office itself disappeared.
Bibliography: It. Happ, De advocaiia ecclesiastica, Bonn, 1870; H. Brunner, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, ii. 302, Leipsic, 1892.
ADVOCATES, CONSISTORIAL: Twelve lawyers who outrank all the advocates in the papal court. They trace their origin from the close of the sixth century, when Gregory the Great appointed seven defensores in the city of Rome to plead the cause of poor litigants who would otherwise be without legal counsel. Sixtus IV increased the number by the addition of five junior advocates, but the memory of the historical origin of the body was preserved by reserving to the seven senior members certain privileges, among them the right to constitute the college proper of consistorial advocates. This college at the present time is made up of two clerics and five laymen, one of the latter being dean. The name "consistorial" comes from the fact that their principal duties — presenting the claims of candidates for canonization and petitioning for the pallium— are performed in papal consistories. John T. Creagh.
ADVOCATES OF ST. PETER: An association of Roman Catholic jurists formed on the occasion of the episcopal jubilee of Pius IX. in 1876, for the purpose of asserting and vindicating the rights and teaching of the Church and of the Holy See. The organization, which was blessed by Pius IX., received a signal mark of approbation from Leo XIII. in 1878, when its constitution was approved in a papal brief. From Rome, where its headquarters were established, it has spread into all the countries of Europe, but is unknown in the United States. John T. Creagh.
ADVOCATUS DEI, DIABOLI. See Canonization.
Advowson Affre