ORDERS, or IIO'LY OR'DERS, de note the character and office peculiar to ecclesiastics, whereby they are set apart for the ministry. Since the Reformation, there are three orders of the clergy ac knowledged, namely, bishops, priests, and deacons ; whence the phrase, " to be in orders," is the same as to be of the cleri cal order.—Religious orders, associa tions, or societies of monastics, bound to lead strict and devotional lives, according to the prescribed rules of their respective cominouities. An order, in fact, consists in the rules to be observed by those who enter it ; thus some orders are more aus tere than others, and one order dresses in white, while another is habited in gray or black.—Alilitary Orders are societies es tablished by princes, the members of which are distinguished by particular badges, and consist of persons who have done particular service to the prince and state, or who enjoy, by the privileges of birth, the highest distinctions in the state.
They originated from the institutions of chivalry and the ecclesiastical corpora tions, and were, in the beginning, frater nities of men, who, in addition to particu lar duties enjoined by the law of honor, united fur the performance of patriotic or Christian purposes. Free birth and an irreproachable life were the conditions of admission. During the time of the cru sades numerous military orders arose, and were an example for all future or ders. The oldest of the religious military orders is that of St. John of Jerusalem ; and on their model the secular military orders were formed in later times, which united religious with military exercises. But tha original pious object of these or ders was changed, and they acquired by degrees their present character.—Or ders, in law, rules made by the court in causes there depending.