e 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 xxvi