ADVERTISEMENT TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. (continued 14)

6. In much the same manner he contends that the necessity of sinning is laid upon the reprobate by the ordination of God, and yet denies God to be the author of their sinful acts, since the corruption of men was derived from Adam, by his own fault, and not from God. He exhorts us “rather to contemplate the evident cause of condemnation, which is nearer to us, in the corrupt nature of mankind, than search after a hidden and altogether incomprehensible one, in the predestination of God.” “For though, by the eternal providence of God, man was created to that misery to which he is subject, yet the ground of it he has derived from himself, not God; since he is thus ruined, solely in consequence of his having degenerated from the pure creation of God to vicious and impure depravity.” Thus, almost in the same breath, he affirms that men became reprobate from no other cause than “the will of God,” and his “sovereign determination;” that men have no reason “to expostulate with God, if they are predestinated to eternal death, without any demerit of their own, merely by his sovereign will;”--and then, that the corrupt nature of mankind is the evident and nearer cause of condemnation; (which cause, however, was still a matter of “appointment,” and “ordination,” not “permission;”) and that man is “ruined solely in consequence of his having degenerated from the pure state in which God created him.” These propositions manifestly fight with each other; for if the reason of reprobation be laid in man’s corruption, it cannot be laid in the mere will and sovereign determination of God, unless we suppose him to be the author of sin. It is this offensive doctrine only, which can reconcile them. For if God so wills, and appoints, and necessitates 198the depravity of man, as to be the author of it, then there is no inconsistency in saying that the ruin of the reprobate is both from the mere will of God, and from the corruption of their nature, which is but the result of that will. The one is then, as Calvin states, the “evident and nearer cause,” the other the more remote and hidden one; yet they have the same source, and are substantially acts of the same will. But if it be denied that God is, in any sense, the author of evil, and if sin is from man alone, then is the “corruption of nature” the effect of an independent will; and if this corruption be the “real source,” as he says, of men’s condemnation, then the decree of reprobation rests not upon the sovereign will of God, as its sole cause, which he affirms; but upon a cause dependent on the will of the first man: but as this is denied, then the other must follow. Calvin himself, indeed, contends for the perfect concurrence of these proximate and remote causes, although in point of fact, to have been perfectly consistent with himself, he ought rather to have called the mere will of God THE CAUSE of the decree of reprobation, and the corruption of man THE MEANS by which it is carried into effect:--language which he sanctions, and which many of his followers have not scrupled to adopt.

7. So certainly does this opinion involve in it the consequences, that in sin man is the instrument, and God the actor, that it cannot be maintained, as stated by Calvin, without this conclusion. For as two causes of reprobation are expressly laid down, they must be either opposed to each other, or be consenting. If they are opposed, the scheme is given up; if consenting, then are both reprobation and human corruption the results of the same will, the same decree, and necessity. It would be trifling to say that the decree does not influence; for if so, it is no decree in Calvin’s sense, who understands the decree of God, as the foregoing extracts and the whole third book of his “Institutes” plainly show, as appointing what shall be, and by that appointment making it necessary. Otherwise, he could not reject the distinction between will and permission, and avow the sentiment of St. Augustine, “that the will of God is the necessity of things; and that what he has willed will necessarily come to pass,” book iii, chap. 23, sec. 8. So, in writing to Castellio, he makes the sin of Adam the result of an act of God: “You say Adam fell by his free will. I except against it. That he might not fall, he stood in need of that strength and constancy with which God armeth all the elect, as long as he will keep them blameless. Whom God has elected, he props up with an invincible power unto perseverance. Why did he not afford this to Adam, if he would have had him stand in his integrity?” And with this view of necessity, as resulting from the decree of God, the immediate followers of Calvin coincided; the end and the means, as to the elect, and as to the reprobate, are equally fixed by the decree, and are both to be traced to the appointing and ordaining will of God. On such a scheme it is therefore worse than trifling to attempt to make out a case of justice in favour of this assumed divine procedure, by alleging the corruption and guilt of man: a point which, indeed, Calvin himself, in fact, gives up when he says, “That the reprobate obey not the word of God, when made known to them, is justly imputed to the wickedness and depravity of their hearts, provided it be at the same time stated, that they are abandoned to this depravity, because they have been raised up by a just but inscrutable judgment of God, to display his glory in their condemnation.”

8. It was by availing themselves of the ineffectual struggles of Calvin to give some colour of justice to his reprobating decree by fixing upon the corruption of man as a cause of reprobation, that some of his followers endeavoured, in the very teeth of his own express words, to reduce his system to sublapsarianism. This was attempted by Amyraldus; who was answered by Curcellæus, in his tract “De Jure Dei in Creaturas.” This last writer, partly by several of the same passages we have given above from Calvin’s Institutes, and by extracts from his other writings, proves that Calvin did by no means consider man, as fallen, to be the object of reprobation; but man not yet created; man as to be created, and so reprobated, under no consideration in the divine mind of his fall or actual guilt, except as consequences of an eternal preterition of the persons of the reprobate, resolvable only into the sovereign pleasure of God. The references he makes to men as corrupt, and to their corrupt state as the proximate cause of their rejection, are all manifestly used to parry off rather than to answer objections, and somewhat to moderate and soften, as Curcellæus observes, the harsher parts of his system. And, indeed, for what reason are we so often brought back to that unfailing refuge of Calvin, “the presumption and wickedness of replying against God?” For if reprobation be a matter of human desert, it cannot be a mystery; if it be adequate punishment for an adequate fault, there is no need to urge it upon us to bow with submission to an unexplained sovereignty. We may add, there is no need to speak of a remote or first cause of reprobation, if the proximate cause will explain the whole case; and that Calvin’s continual reference to God’s secret counsel, and will, and inscrutable judgment, could have no aptness to his argument. Among English divines, Dr. Twisse has sufficiently defended Calvin from the charge, as he esteems it, of sublapsarianism; and, whatever merit Twisse’s own supralapsarian creed may have, his argument on this point is unanswerable.

9. As it is not intended here to enter into this controversy, on which multitudes of books have been written, and the leading authors are known almost to every one, the above may be sufficient to convey a just notion of Calvin’s own opinions. After these subjects had long agitated the reformed churches, and given rise to several modifications of Calvin’s original scheme, and to numerous writings in refutation of it, the synod of Dort digested the whole 199into five articles from which arose the celebrated controversy on the five points. These articles, as being the standard of what is generally called strict Calvinism, are, in substance, as follows:--

(1.) “Of Predestination. As all men have sinned in Adam, and have become exposed to the curse and eternal death, God would have done no injustice to any one, if he had determined to leave the whole human race under sin and the curse, and to condemn them on account of sin; according to those words of the Apostle, ‘All the world is become guilty before God,’ Rom. iii, 19, 23; vi, 23. That some, in time, have faith given them by God, and others have it not given, proceeds from his eternal decree; for ‘known unto God are all his works from the beginning,’ &c, Acts xv, 18; Eph. i, 11. According to which decree, he graciously softens the hearts of the elect, however hard, and he bends them to believe; but the non-elect he leaves, in his judgment, to their own perversity and hardness. And here, especially, a deep discrimination, at the same time both merciful and just; a discrimination of men equally lost, opens itself to us; or that decree of election and reprobation which is revealed in the word of God; which, as perverse, impure, and unstable persons do wrest to their own destruction, so it affords ineffable consolation to holy and pious souls. But election is the immutable purpose of God; by which, before the foundations of the world were laid, he chose, out of the whole human race, fallen by their own fault from their primeval integrity into sin and destruction, according to the most free good pleasure of his own will, and of mere grace, a certain number of men, neither better nor worthier than others, but lying in the same misery with the rest, to salvation in Christ; whom he had, even from eternity, constituted Mediator and head of all the elect, and the foundation of salvation; and therefore he decreed to give them unto him to be saved, and effectually to call and draw them into communion with him, by his word and Spirit; or he decreed himself to give unto them true faith, to justify, to sanctify, and at length powerfully to glorify them, &c, Eph. i, 4–6; Rom. viii, 30. This same election is not made from any foreseen faith, obedience of faith, holiness, or any other good quality and disposition, as a pre-requisite cause or condition in the man who should be elected, &c. ‘He hath chosen us,’ not because we were, but ‘that we might be, holy,’ &c, Eph. i, 4; Rom. ix, 11–13; Acts xiii, 48. Moreover, Holy Scripture doth illustrate and commend to us this eternal and free grace of our election, in this more especially, that it doth testify all men not to be elected; but that some are non-elect, or passed by, in the eternal election of God, whom truly God, from most free, just, irreprehensible, and immutable good pleasure, decreed to leave in the common misery into which they had, by their own fault, cast themselves; and not to bestow on them living faith, and the grace of conversion; but having been left in their own ways, and under just judgment, at length, not only on account of their unbelief, but also of all their other sins, to condemn and eternally punish them, to the manifestation of his own justice. And this is the decree of reprobation, which determines that God is, in no wise, the author of sin, (which, to be thought of, is blasphemy,) but a tremendous, incomprehensible, just judge, and avenger.“

(2.) “Of the Death of Christ.” Passing over, for brevity’s sake, what is said of the necessity of atonement, in order to pardon, and of Christ having offered that atonement and satisfaction, it is added, “This death of the Son of God is a single and most perfect sacrifice and satisfaction for sins; of infinite value and price, abundantly sufficient to expiate the sins of the whole world; but because many who are called by the Gospel do not repent, nor believe in Christ, but perish in unbelief; this doth not arise from defect or insufficiency of the sacrifice offered by Christ upon the cross, but from their own fault. God willed that Christ, through the blood of the cross, should, out of every people, tribe, nation, and language, efficaciously redeem all those, and those only, who were from eternity chosen to salvation, and given to him by the Father; that he should confer on them the gift of faith,” &c.

(3.) “Of Man’s Corruption, &c. All men are conceived in sin, and born the children of wrath, indisposed (inepti) to all saving good, propense to evil, dead in sin, and the slaves of sin; and without the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit, they neither are willing nor able to return to God, to correct their depraved nature, or to dispose themselves to the correction of it.“

(4.) “Of Grace and Free will. But in like manner as, by the fall, man does not cease to be man, endowed with intellect and will; neither hath sin, which hath pervaded the whole human race, taken away the nature of the human species, but it hath depraved and spiritually stained it; so that even this divine grace of regeneration does not act upon men like stocks and trees, nor take away the properties of his will; or violently compel it, while unwilling; but it spiritually quickens, heals, corrects, and sweetly, and at the same time powerfully, inclines it; so that whereas before it was wholly governed by the rebellion and resistance of the flesh, now prompt and sincere obedience of the Spirit may begin to reign; in which the renewal of our spiritual will, and our liberty, truly consist; in which manner, (or for which reason,) unless the admirable Author of all good should work in us, there could be no hope to man of rising from the fall by that free will, by which, when standing, he fell into ruin.”

(5.) “On Perseverance. God, who is rich in mercy, from his immutable purpose of election, does not wholly take away his Holy Spirit from his own, even in lamentable falls; nor does he so permit them to glide down, (prolabi,) that they should fall from the grace of adoption, and the state of justification; or commit the ‘sin unto death,’ or against the Holy Spirit; that, being deserted by him, they should cast 200themselves headlong into eternal destruction. So that not by their own merits or strength, but by the gratuitous mercy of God, they obtain it, that they neither totally fall from faith and grace, nor finally continue in their falls and perish.”

10. The controversy on these difficult subjects was not decided by the decrees of the synod of Dort, which, it will be seen under that article, were purposely drawn up in a politic and wary manner, so as to quadrate with the opinions, and not to outrage the feelings, of any grade of Calvinists. Prior to the convention of that celebrated assembly, the doctrines of Calvin had been refined upon and incautiously carried out to some of their legitimate consequences, in a manner almost without precedent, except that of the Mohammedan doctors on the absolute fate which holds a distinguished place in the Koran. Several of the brightest and most acute wits in Europe occupied themselves in sublimating to the height of extravagance the two kindred branches of predestination,--the eternal and absolute election of certain men to everlasting glory, and the reprobation of the rest of mankind to endless punishment, without regard in the divine mind to the foreseen faith of one class or to the foreseen unbelief of the other. This course was commenced by Beza, the contemporary and successor of Calvin, who possessed neither his genius nor his caution; and his writings contain several rash assertions on these points, which, it is probable, would never have obtained the approbation of his departed friend and instructer. Zanchius, with true Italian astuteness, carried on this process of refinement in high style; and his predestinarian improvements were only equalled by those of Piscator, Pareus, Keckerman, Hommius, Kimedontius, Polanus, Sturmius, Danæus, Thysius, Donteklock, Bogerman, Gomar, Smoutius, Triglandius, down to the minor tribe of Contra-Remonstrants, Damman, Maccovius, and Sibrandus Lubbertus. Nor were the clever divines of our own country a whit behind the foreigners in accomplishing this grand object; and the theological reader, on seeing the names of Perkins, Whitaker, Abbot, and Twisse, will instantly recognise men whose doctrinal vagaries were familiar to all the Calvinists in Europe. No one can form an adequate conception of the injury thus inflicted on the divine attributes of wisdom, goodness, and mercy, as they have been revealed in the Scriptures, unless he has read the immense mass of quotations from the writings of these and other divines, which were presented to the notice of the synod of Dort by the Remonstrants, especially in their Rejection of Errors under each of the five points in dispute; the proofs of which were quoted from their respective authors, and the accuracy and faithfulness of which were never called in question. Not only would the minds of all sober Christians in these days be shocked when perusing the monstrous sentiments propounded in those extracts, but even the tolerably stiff Calvinists of Oliver Cromwell’s time felt themselves scandalized by any allusion to them, and would not admit that their opinions had the least affinity to such desecrating dogmas. Little more than twenty years after the synod of Dort, that distinguished polemical divine and accurate scholar, Dr. Thomas Pierce, published his able and very interesting pamphlet, entitled, “A Correct Copy of Some Notes concerning God’s Decrees;” in which, without naming the authors, he gave ten extracts from celebrated Calvinistic treatises, to prove, that “there are men of no small name who have told the world, that all the evil of sin which is in man proceedeth from God only as the author, and from man only as the instrument.” Four of these extracts will furnish sufficient matter to every judicious mind for mournful reflections on the strange obliquities to which the human understanding is liable:--(1.) “A wicked man, by the just impulse of God, doeth that which is not lawful for him to do.” (2.) “When God makes an angel or a man a transgressor, he himself doth not transgress, because he doth not break a law. The very same sin, namely, adultery or murder, inasmuch as it is the work of God, the author, mover, and compeller, is not a crime; but inasmuch as it is of man, it is a wickedness.” (3.) “God can will that man shall not fall, by his will which is called voluntas signi; and in the mean while he can ordain that the same man shall infallibly and efficaciously fall, by his will which is called voluntas beneplaciti. The former will of God is improperly called his will, for it only signifieth what man ought to do by right; but the latter will is properly called a will, because by that he decreed what should inevitably come to pass.” (4.) “God’s will doth pass, not only into the permission of the sin, but into the sin itself which is permitted. The Dominicans,” the high predestinarian order in the church of Rome, “do imperfectly and obscurely relate the truth whilst, beside God’s concurrence to the making way for sin, they require nothing but the negation of efficacious grace, when it is manifest that there is a farther prostitution of sin required.” Of these four passages the first is from Calvin himself, the second from Zuinglius, and the third and fourth from Dr. Twisse. This pamphlet was the first in a smart controversy, in which Doctor (afterward Bishop) Reynolds, Baxter, Hickman, and Barlee, took part against Dr. Pierce, but in which those eminent men virtually disclaimed all community of sentiment between themselves and such high predestinarians. In their warmth, however, they accused the Doctor of having “rifled the well-furnished cabinet of the Batavian Remonstrant writings,” and of not having hesitated “to be beholden to very thieves, namely, such roguish pamphlets as Fur Predestinatus and others are, rather than want materials for invectives against Calvin, Beza, Twisse,” &c. In his reply, the Doctor says, “When I published my papers on God’s decrees, I had never so much as seen that well-furnished cabinet, the ‘Acta Synodalia Remonstrantium;’” and he proves that he has copied none of his extracts from Fur Predestinatus. As his opponents were “so unthankful for the lenity” which he had displayed in 201giving “so short a catalogue,” he added other affirmations of a still more revolting import, if that were possible. The four extracts which follow, will serve as a correct specimen of the gross and unguarded assertions of some of those good men who were thus exposed; the first two are from Zanchius, the other two from Piscator, both of them men of renown in that age:--(1.) “Reprobates are compelled with a necessity of sinning, and so of perishing, by this ordination of God; and so compelled that they cannot choose but sin and perish.” (2.) “God works all things in all men, not only in the godly, but also in the ungodly.” (3.) “Judas could not but betray Christ, seeing that God’s decrees are immutable; and whether a man bless or curse, he always doth it necessarily in respect of God’s providence, and in so doing he doeth always according to the will of God.” (4.) “It doth or at least may appear from the word of God, that we neither can do more good than we do, nor omit more evil than we omit; because God from eternity hath precisely decreed that both [the good and the evil] should so be done. It is fatally constituted when, and how, and how much, every one of us ought to study and love piety, or not to love it.” In that newly emancipated age, the ample discussion of these topics could not fail to produce much good; and the result in the course of a few years was, that a vast number of those who had implicitly followed the guidance of Calvin, deserted his standard, and either went completely over to the ranks of Arminius, or halted midway under the command of Baxter. From that time to the middle of the eighteenth century, those dogmas which are usually designated as ultra-Calvinian or Antinomian, received no support except from such shallow divines as Dr. Crisp and his immediate admirers. But when the Rev. John Wesley and his brother, as Arminians, propounded the doctrines of the Gospel in as evangelical a manner, and with as marked success, as any Calvinist, a number of those excellent men, both in the church and among the Dissenters, who had been early benefited by the ministry of the two brothers, thought, as many now do, that it was impossible for any thing to be evangelical that was not Calvinistic; and, apparently with the design of being at as great a remove as possible from a reputed heresy, they became in principle real Antinomians. In forming this conclusion, and in running to a supposed opposite extreme, such persons seem to have forgotten that those truly evangelical principles,--which in Germany and the neighbouring states effected the reformation from Popery, which transformed sinners into Christians and martyrs, and which, in the perverted state of society that then obtained, but too painfully reminded the sainted sufferers of the domestic, municipal, and national grievances and persecutions to which the earliest confessors of the name of Christ were subjected,--had been in beneficial operation long before Calvin’s doctrinal system was brought to maturity, and when he was known only as the humble and diligent pastor of the church of Geneva. And even after the publication of his “Institutes,” which contained the peculiarities of his creed, he had to wait many years, to labour hard, not always in the most sanctified spirit, both from the pulpit and the press, and to endure many personal mortifications, before he was able to obtrude his novel dogmas on his own immediate connections, or to make any sensible impression on the generally received theology of his learned contemporaries. Such persons ought also to recollect, that, as Dr. Watts justly observes, “some of the most rigid and narrow limitations of grace to men are found chiefly in Calvin’s Institutions, which were written in his youth. But his comments on Scripture were the labours of his riper years and maturer judgment.”

11. His first tract on predestination was published in 1552; and the first complete edition of his “Institutes” did not see the light till the year 1558; but the change in Melancthon’s opinions, from the fatality of Stoicism, to the universality of the Gospel, occurred at least six years prior to 1535, when the second edition of his “Common Places” was published, that contained his amended creed, and strong cautions against the contrary doctrines. One of the most eloquent and best informed writers of the present age has, in reference to this subject, justly observed: “Both Luther and Melancthon, after their creed became permanently settled at the diet of AugsburgAugsburg, (A. D. 1530,) kept one object constantly in view,--to inculcate only what was plain and practical, and never to attempt philosophizing. They perceived, that before the reformation the doctrine of divine foreknowledge had been grossly misconceived and abused, although guarded by all the logic of the schools; and they felt, that, after it, they had themselves at first contributed to increase the evil, by grounding upon the same high argument, although for a very different purpose, the position of an infallible necessity. Thenceforward, therefore, they only taught a predestination which the Christian religion explains, and the Christian life exemplifies. Thus, while their adversaries philosophized upon a predestination of individuals, preferred one before another by divine regard because worthy of such a preference, they taught only that which has been revealed with certainty,--the predestination of a peculiar description of persons, of a people zealous of good works, of the Christian church contemplated as an aggregate, not on account of its own dignity, but on account of Christ its supreme Head, and the author of eternal salvation to all who obey him. While restoring Scriptural simplicity to the doctrine of predestination, perplexed and disfigured by the vanity of the schools, they studiously and anxiously preserved every trace of that universal benevolence by which Christianity is particularly distinguished. ‘Let us,’ they said, ‘with both our hands, or rather with all our heart, hold fast the true and pious maxim, that God is not the author of sin, that he sits not in heaven writing Stoical laws in the volumes of fate; but, endowed with a perfect freedom himself, 202he communicates a liberty of action to his creatures; firmly opposing the position of necessity as false, and pernicious to morals and religion. God, we may be assured, is no cruel and merciless tyrant; he does not hate and reject men, but loves them as a parent loves his children.’ Universal grace, indeed, was at all times a favourite topic with the Lutherans; nor would they admit of any predestination except that of a beneficent Deity, who was in Christ reconciling the world to himself; except a predestination conformable with that order of things which he has established, and with the use or abuse of the means which he has ordained. ‘The Almighty,’ they said, ‘has seriously willed and decreed, from eternity, all men to be saved and to enjoy everlasting felicity; let us not therefore indulge in evil suggestions, and separate ourselves from his grace, which is as expanded as the space between heaven and earth; let us not restrain the general promise, in which he offers his favour to all without discrimination, nor confine it to those who, affecting a peculiar garb, wish to be alone esteemed pious and sanctified. If many perish, the fault is not to be imputed to the divine will, but to human obstinacy, which despises that will, and disregards a salvation destined for all men.’ ‘And because many are called, but few are chosen, let us not,’ they added, ‘entertain an opinion highly impious,--that God tenders his grace to many, but communicates it only to a few; for should we not in the greatest degree detest a Deity by whose arbitrary will we believed ourselves to be excluded from salvation?’ Upon the important point likewise of the conditional acceptance of the individual, their ideas were not more distinct than their language was explicit. ‘If God chose,’ they argued, ‘certain persons only in order to unite them to himself, and rejected the remainder in all respects alike, would not such AN ELECTION WITHOUT CAUSES seem tyrannical? Let us therefore be persuaded, that some cause exists in us, as some difference is to be found between those who are, and those who are not, accepted.’accepted.’ Thus they conceived that, predestinating his elect in Christ, or the Christian church, to eternal salvation, he excludes none from that number by a partial adoption of favourites, but calls all equally, and accepts of all who obey his calling, or, in other words, who become true Christians by possessing the qualifications which Christianity requires.--'He,' they stated, who ‘falls from grace, cannot but perish, completely losing remission of sin, with the other benefits which Christ has purchased for him, and acquiring in their stead divine wrath and death eternal.’ Melancthon, who in his private correspondence expressly termed Calvin the Zeno of his day, says, ‘Let us execrate the Stoical disputations which some introduce, who imagine that the elect always retain the Holy Spirit, even when they commit atrocious crimes,--a manifest and highly reprehensible error; and let us not confirm in fools security and blindness.’”

These quotations might be augmented by others from the earliest Lutheran authors, more Arminian in their import than any which Arminius ever wrote: but the preceding are sufficient to show, that, during upward of thirty years, the Protestant church in Germany was nourished by doctrines most manifestly at variance with the refinements afterward promulgated by Calvin. Real conversions of sinners were never more abundant than in that golden age; yet these were produced by the blessing of God upon an evangelical agency that had scarcely any thing in common with the Genevan dogmas. With these and similar facts before him, therefore, no Calvinist can in common honesty claim for the peculiarities of his creed, for those doctrines which distinguish it from the Melancthonism of the Protestant churches of England and Germany, the exclusive title of Evangelical. Equally fallacious is the ground on which he can prefer any such claim on account of the alleged counsel and advice given by Calvin to our reformers while they were engaged in the formation of our Articles and Liturgy. On no fact in the ecclesiastical history of this country are our annalists more completely at agreement than on this,--that Calvin’s name and writings were scarcely known in England till the time when the persecution under Queen Mary forced many of our best divines into banishment; and that, to the great future disquietude of the church, several of these exiles on their return imported a personal bias either in favour of his discipline or of his dogmas. Anterior to that period he had received no such pressing invitations from our reformers, and from the king himself, as Melancthon had done, for his friendly theological aid in drawing up the doctrinal and disciplinary formulæ of our national church. The man who asserts the contrary to this, and who has the hardihood to deny the Melancthonian origin of the Articles and Liturgy, discovers at once his want of correct information on these subjects, and has never read the convincing documents appended to the Archbishop of Cashel’s (Dr. Laurence’s) “Eight Sermons,” being the Bampton Lectures for 1804, and entitled, “An Attempt to Illustrate those Articles of the Church of England which the Calvinists improperly consider as Calvinistical;” Todd’s treatise “On Original Sin, Free Will, &c, as maintained by certain Declarations of our Reformers;” Plaifere’s “Appello Evangelium;” nor even the portable yet convincing pamphlets of Kipling and Winchester, the former entitled “The Articles not Calvinistic;” the latter, “A Dissertation on the Seventeenth Article of the Church.”

12. There is one fact connected with these assumed yet unfounded claims, which has never yet been placed in its proper light, but which it may be well briefly to notice in this place. Calvin himself, in 1535, wrote the following truly Melancthonian paragraphs as part of his preface to the New Testament in French: “This Mediator, our Lord Jesus Christ, was the only, true, and eternal Son of God, whom the Father was about to send into the world, that he might collect all men together from this horrid dispersion and devastation. When, at 203length, that fulness of time arrived, that day preordained by the Lord, he openly showed himself as that Messiah who had for so many ages been the desire of all nations, and hath most abundantly performed all those things which were necessary for the redemption of all men. But this great blessing was not confined solely within the boundaries of the land of Israel, since, on the contrary, it was intended [porrigendum] to be held out for the acceptance of the whole human race; because through Christ alone the entire family of man was to be reconciled to God, as will be seen, and most amply demonstrated, in these pages of the New Testament.” “To this inheritance of our heavenly Father’s kingdom we are all called without respect of persons,--whether we be men or women, high or low, masters or servants, teachers or disciples, [doctores] divines or laics, Jews or Greeks, Frenchmen or [Romani] Italians. From this inheritance no one is excluded, if he only so receive Christ as he is offered by the Father for the salvation of all men, and embrace him when received.” Great research has been displayed by the Calvinists at different periods, in endeavouring to discover, in the public formularies of the church, or in the private productions of our reformers, some trace of affinity between them and the writings of Calvin. Only two cases of such affinity have yet been found; and, unfortunately for the validity of all pretensions of this kind, neither of them contains a single peculiarity of Calvinism, but, on the contrary, both are of the moderate and evangelical class of the Melancthonian school. One of the passages thus discovered is here subjoined from Cranmer’s “Defence of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament,” &c; and bears all the marks of verisimilitude to the second of the preceding paragraphs from Calvin, though written fifteen years after it:--“Almighty God, without respect of person, accepteth the oblation and sacrifice of priest and lay person, of king and subject, of master and servant, of man and woman, of young and old, yea, of English, French, Scot, Greek, Latin, Jew, and Gentile; of every man according to his faithful and obedient heart unto him, and that through the sacrifice propitiatory of Jesus Christ.” Had either this or the other passage contained the least tinge of what is now considered as belonging exclusively to the system of Calvin, the English admirers of that great man would have had some grounds for the assertions which have been too confidently made, because so easily refuted.

13. Having given this summary of the sentiments of Calvin himself, and of the ancient or strict Calvinists, it is proper to observe, that there are, and always have been, many who generally embrace the Calvinistic system, but object to some particular parts, and to the strong language in which some of the propositions are expressed. These are called moderate or modern Calvinists, who differ from Calvin, and the synod of Dort, chiefly on two points,--the doctrine of reprobation, and the extent of the death of Christ. The theory of Baxter has already been noticed. This and all other mitigated schemes rest on two principles, the sufficiency of the atonement for all mankind, and the sufficiency of grace for those who do not believe. Still something more is held to be necessary than this sufficiency of grace in order to actual salvation; namely, an acceptance by man, which can only be made under that degree of effectual supernatural aid which is dispensed only to a certain number of persons, who are thus distinguished as the “elect of God.” The main characteristic of all these theories, from the first to the last, from the highest to the lowest, is, that a part of mankind are shut out from the mercies of God, on some ground irrespective of their refusal of a sincere offer to them of salvation through Christ, made with a communicated power of embracing it. Some power they allow to the reprobate, as natural power, and degrees of superadded moral power; but in no case the power to believe unto salvation; and thus, as one well observes, “When they have cut some fair trenches, as if they would bring the water of life unto the dwellings of the reprobate, on a sudden they open a sluice which carries it off again.” The whole labour of these theories is to find out some plausible reason for the infliction of punishment on them that perish, independent of the only cause assigned by the word of God--their rejection of a mercy free for all, and made attainable by all. See Baxterianism.

14. After all, however, it is pleasant to find these indications of a growing consciousness, on the part of modern predestinarians, that the common notions and common language of mankind on these deep subjects are not far from the truth. And though some too fastidious Arminians may complain, that, in this desire to enlist the views and words of common sense on the side of Calvinism, many of those by whom they are employed attach to them a meaning very different from that which ordinary usage warrants; yet even this tendency to approximate to right views should be regarded as favourable to the progress of truth, and the evidently improved feeling which has suggested such approximation ought to be met in a conciliating spirit. But this is a fault which must always be an appendage to such a system, however it may be modified; and does not exclusively apply to its modern supporters. The following remarks by Archbishop Laurence on the ambiguity of language not unfrequently discernible in the writings of Calvin himself, are worthy of consideration:--“In whatsoever sense he wished these words to be understood, it must be admitted that he sometimes adapted the style of others, who had a very different object in view, to his own peculiar opinions. And hence, from the want of a due discrimination, the sentiments of his contemporaries, opposite in their natural tendency, are often improperly forced into the vortex of Calvinism. Systematizing was his darling propensity, and the ambition of being distinguished as a leader in reform his predominant passion: in the arrangements of the former, he never felt a doubt, or found a difficulty; and in the 204pursuits of the latter he displayed an equal degree of perseverance and ardour. Thus, in the doctrine of the eucharist, it is well known that he laboured to acquire celebrity, and conciliate followers, by maintaining a kind of middle sacramental presence between the corporeal of the Lutherans, and the mere spiritual of the Zuinglians; expressing himself in language which, partly derived from one, and partly from the other, verged toward neither extreme; but which, by his singular talent at perspicuous combination, he applied, and not without success, to his own particular purpose. Nor was he less solicitous to press into his service a foreign phraseology upon the subject more immediately before me; a subject on his theory of which he not a little prided himself, and seemed contented to stake his reputation. He perceived that the Lutherans, strongly reprobating every discussion upon the decrees of a Deity unrevealed to us, founded predestination solely on a Scriptural basis; contending for a divine will which is seriously, not fictitiously, disposed to save all men, and predetermined to save all who become and continue sincere Christians. Zuingle, indeed, had reasoned from a different principle; and, although persuaded that God’s mercies in Christ were liberally bestowed on all without distinction, on infants who commit not actual crime, and on the Heathen as well as the Christian world, he nevertheless was a necessitarian in the strictest sense of the expression; referring events of every kind to an uncontrollable and absolute predetermination. Zuingle, however, died in 1531, before the youth of Calvin permitted him to assume the character of a reformer; who found Bullinger then at the head of the Zuinglian church, not only applauding, but adopting, the moderation of the Lutherans; and, to use the phrase of Turretin, plainly Melancthonizing. But the doctrine alluded to, it may be imagined, was of a species too limited and unphilosophical for one of his enterprising turn of mind, who never met with an obstacle which he attempted not instantly to surmount. Disregarding, therefore, the sober restrictions of the times, he gave loose to the most unbounded speculation: yet, anxious by all means to win over all to his opinion, he studiously laboured to preserve, on some popular points, a verbal conformity with the Lutherans. With them, in words, he taught the universality of God’s good will; but it was a universality which he extended only to the offer of salvation; conceiving the reprobate to be precluded from the reception of that offer by the secret decree of an immutable Deity. The striking feature of their system was an election in Christ, by which they meant an election as Christians. This also, in words, he inculcated: his idea, however, of an election in Christ was totally different from theirs; for he held it to be the previous election of certain favourites by an irrespective will of God, whom, and whom alone, Christ was subsequently appointed to save. But his ingenuity was such, in adapting the terms borrowed from another source to his own theory, that some erroneously conceive them to have been thus originally used by the Lutherans themselves. Hence, therefore, much confusion has arisen in the attempt of properly discriminating between the various sentiments of Protestants upon this question, at the period under consideration: all have been regarded as formed upon the model which Calvin exhibited; at least by writers who have contemplated him as the greatest reformer of his age, but who have forgotten that, although they chose to esteem him the greatest, they could not represent him as the first in point of time; and that his title to preëminence, in the common estimation of his contemporaries, was then far from being acknowledged.”

15. On one topic, however, Calvin and the older divines of that school were very explicit. They tell us plainly, that they found all the Christian fathers, both of the Greek and the Latin church down to the age of St. Augustine, quite unmanageable for their purpose; and therefore occasionally bestow upon them and their productions epithets not the most courteous. Yet some modern writers, not possessing half the splendid qualifications of those veterans in learning, make a gorgeous display of the little that they know concerning antiquity; and wish to lead their readers to suppose, that the whole stream of early Christianity has flowed down only in their channel. Every one must have remarked how much like Calvin all those fathers speak whose works are quoted by Toplady in his “Historic Defence.” Nor can the two Milners, in their “History of the Church,” entirely escape censure on this account,--though both were excellent men, and better scholars than Toplady. But from the manner in which they “show up” only those ancient Christian authors, some of whose sentiments seem to be nearly in unison with their own, they induce the unlearned or half informed to draw the erroneous conclusion,--that the peculiarities of Calvinism are not the inventions of a comparatively recent æra, and that they have always formed a prominent part of the profession of faith of every Christian community since the days of the Apostles.

All men must admire the candid and liberal spirit which breathes in the subjoined high but just eulogium on Calvin, from the pen of the same amiable Archbishop: “Calvin himself was both a wise and a good man; inferior to none of his contemporaries in general ability, and superior to almost all in the art, as well as elegance, of composition, in the perspicuity and arrangement of his ideas, the structure of his periods, and the Latinity of his diction. Although attached to a theory, which he found it difficult in the extreme to free from the suspicion of blasphemy against God, as the author of sin, he certainly was no blasphemer; but, on the contrary, adopted that very theory from an anxiety not to commit, but, as he conceived, to avoid blasphemy,--that of ascribing to human, what he deemed alone imputable to divine, agency.”

CAMBYSES, the son of Cyrus, king of Persia. He succeeded his father, A. M. 3475, and is the Ahasuerus mentioned in Ezra iv, 6, 205to whom, as soon as he came to the crown, the Samaritans applied by petition, desiring that the rebuilding of Jerusalem might be stopped. What the motives were which they made use of to prevail upon this prince, we are ignorant; but it is certain, that though he was not persuaded to revoke his father’s decree, yet he put a stop to the works, so that for the remaining seven years and five months which he reigned, the building of the city and temple was suspended. See Ahasuerus.

CAMEL, גמל. This animal is called in ancient Arabic, gimel; and in modern, diammel; in Greek, κάμηλος. With very little variation, the name is retained in modern languages. The camel is very common in Arabia, Judea, and the neighbouring countries; and is often mentioned in Scripture, and reckoned among the most valuable property, 1 Chron. v, 21; Job i, 3, &c. “No creature,” says Volney, “seems so peculiarly fitted to the climate in which he exists as the camel. Designing this animal to dwell in a country where he can find little nourishment, nature has been sparing of her materials in the whole of his formation. She has not bestowed upon him the fleshiness of the ox, horse, or elephant; but limiting herself to what is strictly necessary, has given him a long head, without ears, at the end of a long neck without flesh; has taken from his legs and thighs every muscle not immediately requisite for motion; and, in short, bestowed upon his withered body only the vessels and tendons necessary to connect its frame together. She has furnished him with a strong jaw, that he may grind the hardest aliments; but, lest he should consume too much, has straitened his stomach, and obliged him to chew the cud; has lined his foot with a lump of flesh, which sliding in the mud, and being no way adapted to climbing, fits him only for a dry, level, and sandy soil, like that of Arabia. So great, in short, is the importance of the camel to the desert, that, were it deprived of that useful animal, it must infallibly lose every inhabitant.” The chief use of the camel has always been as a beast of burden, and for performing journeys across the deserts. They have sometimes been used in war, to carry the baggage of an oriented army, and mingle in the tumult of the battle. Many of the Amalekite warriors, who burnt Ziklag in the time of David, were mounted on camels; for the sacred historian remarks, that of the whole army not a man escaped the furious onset of that heroic and exasperated leader, “save four hundred young men, which rode upon camels, and fled,” 1 Sam. xxx, 17.

The passage of Scripture in which our Lord says, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven,” Matt. xix, 24, has been the occasion of much criticism. Some assert that near Jerusalem was a low gate called “the needle’s eye,” through which a camel could not pass unless his load was taken off. Others conjecture that κάμιλος should be read κάβιλος, a cable. But there are no ancient manuscripts to support the reading. In the Jewish Talmud, there is, however, a similar proverb respecting an elephant: “Rabbi Shesheth answered Rabbi Amram, who had advanced an absurdity, ‘Perhaps thou art one of the Pambidithians, who can make an elephant pass through the eye of a needle;’” that is, says the Aruch, “who speak things impossible.” There is also a saying of the same kind in the Koran: “The impious, who in his arrogancy shall accuse our doctrine of falsity, shall find the gates of heaven shut; nor shall he enter there, till a camel shall pass through the eye of a needle. It is thus that we shall recompense the wicked,” Surat. vii, 37. Indeed, Grotius, Lightfoot, Wetstein, and Michaëlis join in opinion, that the comparison is so much in the figurative style of the oriental nations and of the rabbins, that the text is sufficiently authentic.

CAMEL’s HAIR, mentioned Matt. iii, 4; Mark i, 6. John the Baptist, we are told, was habited in a raiment of camel’s hair; and Chardin assures us, that the modern dervises wear such garments; as they do also great leathern girdles. Camel’s hair is also made into those beautiful stuffs, called shawls; but certainly the coarser manufacture of this material was adopted by John, and we may receive a good idea of its texture, from what Braithwaite says of the Arabian tents: “They are made of camel’s hair, somewhat like our coarse hair cloths to lay over goods.” By this coarse vesture the Baptist was not merely distinguished, but contrasted with those in royal palaces, who wore “soft raiment,” such as shawls or other superfine manufactures, whether of the same material or not.

CAMERONIANS, a sect in Scotland, who separated from the Presbyterians in 1666, and continued to hold their religious assemblies in the fields. The Cameronians took their denomination from Richard Cameron, a famous field preacher, who, refusing to accept the indulgence to tender consciences granted by King Charles II, as such an acceptance seemed an acknowledgment of the king’s supremacy, and that he had before a right to silence them, separated from his brethren, and even headed a rebellion in which he was killed. His followers were never entirely reduced till the Revolution, when they voluntarily submitted to King William. The Cameronians adhered rigidly to the form of government established in 1648.

CAMERONISTS, or CAMERONITES, is the denomination of a party of Calvinists in France, who asserted, that the cause of men’s doing good or evil proceeds from the knowledge which God infuses into them; and that God does not move the will physically, but only morally, in virtue of its dependence on the judgment of the mind. They had this name from John Cameron, one of the most famous divines among the Protestants of France, in the seventeenth century, who was born at Glasgow, in Scotland, about the year 1580, and taught Greek there till he removed to Bourdeaux in 1600. Here he acquired such celebrity by the fluency with which he spoke Greek, that he was appointed to teach the 206learned languages at Bergerac. He afterward became professor of philosophy at Sedan; but returning to Bourdeaux in 1604, he devoted himself to the study of divinity. Upon being appointed tutor to the sons of the chancellor of Navarre, he accompanied them to Paris, Geneva, and Heidelberg. After having discharged the office of a minister at Bourdeaux, which he assumed in 1608, for ten years, he accepted the professorship of divinity at Saumur. Upon the dispersion of that academy by the public commotions in 1621, he removed to England, and taught divinity at his own house in London. King James inclined to favour him on account of his supposed attachment to the hierarchy, made him master of the college, and professor of divinity, at Glasgow; but after holding this office, which he found to be unpleasant to him, for a year, he returned to Saumur, where he read private lectures. From thence he removed, in 1624, to Montauban; where the disturbances excited by the emissaries of the duke de Rohan led him to remonstrate against the principles which produced them, with more zeal than prudence. This occasioned his being insulted by a private person in the streets, and severely beaten: and this treatment so much affected him, that he soon after died, in 1625, at the early age of forty-six years. Bayle represents him as “a man of great parts and judgment, of an excellent memory, very learned, a good philosopher, good humoured, liberal not only of his knowledge but his purse, a great talker, a long-winded preacher, little versed in the fathers, inflexible in his opinions, and inclined to turbulence.” He was one of those who attempted to reconcile the doctrine of predestination, as it had been taught at Geneva, and confirmed at Dort, with the sentiments of those who believe that God offers salvation to all mankind. His opinion was maintained and propagated by Moses Amyraut, and several others of the most learned among the reformed ministers, who thought Calvin’s doctrine too harsh. They were called Hypothetical Universalists. Cameron likewise maintained the possibility of salvation in the church of Rome. See Amyraut and Baxterianism.

CAMP, or ENCAMPMENT, of the Israelites. The whole body of the people, consisting of six hundred thousand fighting men, beside women and children, was disposed under four battalions, so placed as to enclose the tabernacle, in the form of a square, and each under one general standard. (See Armies.) There were forty-one encampments, from their first in the month of March, at Rameses, in the land of Goshen, in Egypt, and in the wilderness, until they reached the land of Canaan. They are thus enumerated in Numbers xxxiii:--

1. Rameses

2. Succoth

3. Etham, on the edge of the wilderness

4. Pihahiroth

5. Marah

6. Elim

7. By the Red Sea

8. Wilderness of Sin

9. Dophkah

10. Alush

11. Rephidim

12. Wilderness of Sinai

13. Kibroth-hattaavah

14. Hazeroth

15. Rithmah

16. Rimmon-parez

17. Libnah

18. Rissah

19. Kehelatha

20. Shapher

21. Haradah

22. Makheloth

23. Tahath

24. Tarah

25. Mithcah

26. Hashmonah

27. Moseroth

28. Bene-jaakan

29. Hor-hagidgad

30. Jotbathah

31. Ebronah

32. Ebion-gaber

33. Kadesh

34. Mount Hor

35. Zalmonah

36. Punon

37. Oboth

38. Ije-abarim

39. Dibon-gad

40. Almon-diblathaim

41. Mountains of Abarim

In the second year after their exodus from Egypt they were numbered; and upon an exact poll, the number of their males amounted to six hundred and three thousand, five hundred and fifty, from twenty years old and upward, Num. i, ii. This vast mass of people, encamped in beautiful order, must have presented a most impressive spectacle. That it failed not to produce effect upon the richly endowed and poetic mind of Balaam, appears from Num. xxiv, 2; “And Balaam lifted up his eyes and he saw Israel abiding in his tents according to their tribes; and the Spirit of God came upon him, and he took up his parable and said, How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel! As the valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by the river side, as the trees of lign aloes which the Lord hath planted, and as cedar trees beside waters.” Grandeur, order, beauty, and freshness, were the ideas at once suggested to the mind of this unfaithful prophet, and called forth his unwilling admiration. Perhaps we may consider this spectacle as a type of the order, beauty, and glory of the true “church in the wilderness,” in those happy days when God “shall not behold iniquity in Jacob, nor perverseness in Israel;” when it shall be said, “The Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them.”

CAMPHIRE. כפר. Greek, κύπρος. Latin cyprus. Canticles i, 14; iv, 13. Sir T. Browne supposes that the plant mentioned in the Canticles, rendered κύπρος in the Septuagint, and cyprus in the Vulgate, is that described by Dioscorides and Pliny, which grows in Egypt, and near to Ascalon, producing an odorate bush of flowers, and yielding the celebrated oleum cyprinum. [A sweet oil made of the flowers of the privet tree.] This is one of the plants which is most grateful to the eye and the smell. The deep colour of its bark, the light green of its foliage, the softened mixture of white and yellow with which the flowers, collected into long clusters like the lilac, are coloured; the red tint of the ramifications which support them, form an agreeable combination. The flowers, whose shades are so delicate, diffuse around the sweetest odours, and embalm the gardens and apartments which they embellish. The women take pleasure in decking themselves with them. With the powder of the dried leaves they give an orange tincture to their nails, to the inside of their hands, and to the soles of their feet. The expression, עשתה את־צפרניה, rendered “pare their 207nails,” Deut. xxi, 12, may perhaps rather mean, “adorn their nails;” and imply the antiquity of this practice. This is a universal custom in Egypt, and not to conform to it would be considered indecent. It seems to have been practised by the ancient Egyptians, for the nails of the mummies are most commonly of a reddish hue.

In the Song of Solomon, the bride is described as saying, “My beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire in the vineyards of Engedi,” chap. i, 24; and again, “Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits, camphire with spikenard,” chap. iv, 13.

CANA, a town of Galilee, where Jesus performed his first miracle, John ii, 1, 2, &c. It lay in the tribe of Zebulun, not far from Nazareth. Cana was visited by Dr. E. D. Clarke, who says, “It is worthy of note, that, walking among the ruins of a church, we saw large massy stone pots, answering the description given of the ancient vessels of the country; these were not preserved nor exhibited as reliques, but lying about, disregarded by the present inhabitants, as antiquities with whose original use they were unacquainted. From their appearance, and the number of them, it was quite evident that a practice of keeping water in large stone pots, each holding from eighteen to twenty-seven gallons, was once common in the country.”

CANAAN, the son of Ham. The Hebrews believe that Canaan, having first discovered Noah’s nakedness, told his father Ham; and that Noah, when he awoke, having understood what had passed, cursed Canaan, the first author of the offence. Others are of opinion that Ham was punished in his son Canaan, Gen. ix, 25. For though Canaan is mentioned, Ham is not exempted from the malediction; on the contrary, he suffers more from it, since parents are more affected with their children’s misfortunes than with their own; especially if the evils have been inflicted through some fault or folly of theirs. Some have thought that Canaan may be put elliptically for the father of Canaan, that is, Ham, as it is rendered in the Arabic and Septuagint translations.

The posterity of Canaan was numerous. His eldest son, Sidon, founded the city of Sidon, and was father of the Sidonians and Phenicians. Canaan had ten other sons, who were fathers of as many tribes, dwelling in Palestine and Syria; namely, the Hittites, the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgasites, the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hemathites. It is believed that Canaan lived and died in Palestine, which from him was called the land of Canaan. Notwithstanding the curse is directed againstagainst Canaan the son, and not against Ham the father, it is often supposed that all the posterity of Ham were placed under the malediction, “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.” But the true reason why Canaan only was mentioned probably is, that the curse was in fact restricted to the posterity of Canaan. It is true that many Africans, descendants of other branches of Ham’s family, have been largely and cruelly enslaved; but so have other tribes in different parts of the world. There is certainly no proof that the negro race were ever placed under this malediction. Had they been included in it, this would neither have justified their oppressors, nor proved that Christianity is not designed to remove the evil of slavery. But Canaan alone in his descendantsdescendants, is cursed, and Ham only in that branch of his posterity. It follows that the subjugation of the Canaanitish races to Israel fulfils the prophecy. To them it was limited, and with them it expired. Part of the seven nations of the Canaanites were made slaves to the Israelites, when they took possession of their land; and the remainder by Solomon.

Canaan, Land of. In the map it presents the appearance of a narrow slip of country, extending along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean; from which, to the river Jordan, the utmost width does not exceed fifty miles. This river was the eastern boundary of the land of Canaan, or Palestine, properly so called, which derived its name from the Philistines or Palestines originally inhabiting the coast. To three of the twelve tribes, however, Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh, portions of territory were assigned on the eastern side of the river, which were afterward extended by the subjugation of the neighbouring nations. The territory of Tyre and Sidon was its ancient border on the north-west; the range of the Libanus and Antilibanus forms a natural boundary on the north and north-east; while in the south it is pressed upon by the Syrian and Arabian deserts. Within this circumscribed district, such were the physical advantages of the soil and climate, there existed, in the happiest periods of the Jewish nation, an immense population. The kingdom of David and Solomon, however, extended far beyond these narrow limits. In a north-eastern direction, it was bounded only by the river Euphrates, and included a considerable part of Syria. It is stated that Solomon had dominion over all the region on the western side of the Euphrates, from Thiphsah, or Thapsacus, on that river, in latitude 25° 20´, to Azzah, or Gaza. “Tadmore in the wilderness,” (Palmyra,) which the Jewish monarch is stated to have built, (that is, either founded or fortified,) is considerably to the north-east of Damascus, being only a day’s journey from the Euphrates; and Hamath, the Epiphania of the Greeks, (still called Hamah,) in the territory belonging to which city Solomon had several “store cities,” is seated on the Orontes, in latitude 34° 45´ N. On the east and south-east, the kingdom of Solomon was extended by the conquest of the country of Moab, that of the Ammonites, and Edom; and tracts which were either inhabited or pastured by the Israelites, lay still farther eastward. Maon, which belonged to the tribe of Judah, and was situated in or near the desert of Paran, is described by Abulfeda as the farthest city of Syria toward Arabia, being two days’ journey beyond Zoar. In the time of David, the people of Israel, women and children included, amounted, on the lowest computation, to five millions; beside 208the tributary Canaanites, and other conquered nations.

The vast resources of the country, and the power of the Jewish monarch, may be estimated not only by the consideration in which he was held by the contemporary sovereigns of Egypt, Tyre, and Assyria, but by the strength of the several kingdoms into which the dominions of David were subsequently divided. Damascus revolted during the reign of Solomon, and shook off the Jewish yoke. At his death, ten of the tribes revolted under Jeroboam, and the country became divided into the two rival kingdoms of Judah and Israel, having for their capitals Jerusalem and Samaria. The kingdom of Israel fell before the Assyrian conqueror, in the year B. C. 721, after it had subsisted about two hundred and fifty years. That of Judah survived about one hundred and thirty years, Judea being finally subdued and laid waste by Nebuchadnezzar, and the temple burned B. C. 588. Idumea was conquered a few years after. From this period till the æra of Alexander the Great, Palestine remained subject to the Chaldean, Median, and Persian dynasties. At his death, Judea fell under the dominion of the kings of Syria, and, with some short and troubled intervals, remained subject either to the kings of Syria or of Egypt, till John Hyrcanus shook off the Syrian yoke, and assumed the diadem, B. C. 130. The Asmonean dynasty, which united, in the person of the monarch, the functions of king and pontiff, though tributary to Roman conquerors, lasted one hundred and twenty-six years, till the kingdom was given by Anthony to Herod the Great, of an Idumean family, B. C. 39.

2. At the time of the Christian æra, Palestine was divided into five provinces; Judea, Samaria, Galilee, Perea, and Idumea. On the death of Herod, Archelaus, his eldest son, succeeded to the government of Judea, Samaria, and Idumea, with the title of tetrarch; Galilee being assigned to Herod Antipas; and Perea, or the country beyond Jordan, to the third brother, Philip. But in less than ten years the dominions of Archelaus became annexed, on his disgrace, to the Roman province of Syria; and Judea was thenceforth governed by Roman procurators. Jerusalem, after its final destruction by Titus, A. D. 71, remained desolate and almost uninhabited, till the emperor Hadrian colonized it, and erected temples to Jupiter and Venus on its site. The empress Helena, in the fourth century, set the example of repairing in pilgrimage to the Holy Land, to visit the scenes consecrated by the Gospel narrative; and the country became enriched by the crowds of devotees who flocked there. In the beginning of the seventh century, it was overrun by the Saracens, who held it till Jerusalem was taken by the crusaders in the twelfth. The Latin kingdom of Jerusalem continued for about eighty years, during which the Holy Land streamed continually with Christian and Saracen blood. In 1187, Judea was conquered by the illustrious Saladin, on the decline of whose kingdom it passed through various revolutions, and at length, in 1317, was finally swallowed up in the Turkish empire.

Palestine is now distributed into pashalics. That of Acre or Akka extends from Djebail nearly to Jaffa; that of Gaza comprehends Jaffa and the adjacent plains; and these two being now united, all the coast is under the jurisdiction of the pasha of Acre. Jerusalem, Hebron, Nablous, Tiberias, and in fact, the greater part of Palestine, are included in the pashalic of Damascus, now held in conjunction with that of Aleppo; which renders the present pasha, in effect, the viceroy of Syria. Though both pashas continue to be dutiful subjects to the Grand Seignior in appearance, and annually transmit considerable sums to Constantinople to insure the yearly renewal of their office, they are to be considered as tributaries, rather than subjects of the Porte; and it is supposed to be the religious supremacy of the Sultan, as caliph and vicar of Mohammed, more than any apprehension of his power, which prevents them from declaring themselves independent. The reverence shown for the firmauns of the Porte throughout Syria attests the strong hold which the Sultan maintains, in this character, on the Turkish population. The pashas of Egypt and Bagdad are attached to the Turkish sovereign by the same ecclesiastical tie, which alone has kept the ill-compacted and feeble empire from crumbling to ruin.

3. A few additional remarks upon the topography and climate will tend to elucidate the force of many of those parts of Scripture which contain allusions to these topics. Dr. E. D. Clarke, after stating his resolve to make the Scriptures his only guide throughout this interesting territory, says, “The delight afforded by the internal evidences of truth, in every instance where their fidelity of description was proved by a comparison of existing documents, surpassed even all we had anticipated. Such extraordinary instances of coincidence even with the customs of the country as they are now exhibited, and so many wonderful examples of illustration afforded by contrasting the simple narrative with the appearances presented, made us only regret the shortness of our time, and the limited sphere of our abilities for the comparison.” Judea is beautifully diversified with hills and plains--hills now barren and gloomy, but once cultivated to their summits, and smiling in the variety of their produce, chiefly the olive and the vine; and plains, over which the Bedouin now roves to collect a scanty herbage for his cattle, but once yielding an abundance of which the inhabitants of a northern climate can form no idea. Rich in its soil; glowing in the sunshine of an almost perpetual summer; and abounding in scenery of the grandest, as well as of the most beautiful kind; this happy country was indeed a land which the Lord had blessed: but Mohammedan sloth and despotism, as the instruments employed to execute the curse of Heaven, have converted it into a waste of rock and desert, with the exception of some few spots, which remain to attest the veracity of the accounts formerly given of it. The hills of Judea frequently rise into mountains; the most considerable of which are those of Lebanon and Hermon, on the north; those 209which surround the sea of Galilee, and the Dead Sea, also attain a respectable elevation. The other mountains of note are, Carmel, Tabor, Ebal, and Gerizim, and the mountains of Gilboa, Gilead, and Abarim; with the summits of the latter, Nebo and Pisgah: a description of which will be found under their respective heads. Many of the hills and rocks abound in caverns, the refuge of the distressed, or the resorts of robbers.

4. From the paucity of rain which falls in Judea, and the heat and dryness of the atmosphere for the greater part of the year, it possesses but few rivers; and as these, have all their rise within its boundaries, their course is short, and their size inconsiderable: the principal is the Jordan, which runs about a hundred miles. The other remarkable streams are, the Arnon, the Jabbok, the Kishon, the Kedron, the Besor, the Sorek, and the stream called the river of Egypt. These, also, will be found described under their respective heads. This country was once adorned with woods and forests: as we read of the forest of cedars in Lebanon, the forest of oaks in Bashan, the forest or wood of Ephraim, and the forest of Hareth in the tribe of Judah. Of these, the woods of Bashan alone remain; the rest have been swept away by the ravages of time and of armies, and by the gradual consumption of the inhabitants, whose indolence and ignorance have prevented their planting others.

5. There are no volcanoes now existing in Judea or its vicinity: nor is mention made of any in history, although volcanic traces are found in many parts on its eastern side, as they are also in the mountains of Edom on the south, the Djebel Shera and Hesma, as noticed by Burckhardt. There can be no doubt that many of the sacred writers were familiarly acquainted with the phenomena of volcanoes; whence it may be inferred that they were presented to their observation at no great distance, and from which they drew some of their sublimest imagery. Mr. Horne has adduced the following instances: “The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence. His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him,” Nahum i, 5, 6. “Behold, the Lord cometh forth out of his place, and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth. And the mountains shall be molten under him, and the valleys shall be cleft as wax before the fire, and as the waters that are poured down a steep place,” Micah i, 3, 4. “O that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence. As when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at thy presence. When thou didst terrible things which we looked not for, thou camest down, the mountains flowed down at thy presence,” Isa. lxiv, 1–3.

6. The climate of Judea, from the southern latitude of the country, is necessarily warm. The cold of winter is, indeed, sometimes greater than in European climates situated some degrees farther to the north; but it is of short duration, and the general character of the climate is that of heat. Both heat and cold are, however, tempered by the nature of the surface; the winter being scarcely felt in the valleys, while in the summer the heat is almost insupportable; and, on the contrary, in the more elevated parts, during the winter months, or rather weeks, frosts frequently occur, and snow sometimes falls, while the air in summer is comparatively cool and refreshing. Many winters pass without either snow or frost; and in the coldest weather which ever occurs, the sun in the middle of the day is generally warm, and often hot; so that the pain of cold is in reality but little felt, and the poor who cannot afford fires may enjoy, during several hours of the day, the more genial and invigorating influence of the sun. This is the ordinary character of the winters; though in some years, as will be seen presently, the cold is more severely felt during the short time that it prevails, which is never more than two months, and more frequently not so much as one. Toward the end of November, or beginning of December, domestic fires become agreeable. It was at this time that Jehoiakim, king of Judah, is represented by Jeremiah as sitting in his winter house, with a fire burning on the hearth before him, Jer. xxxvi, 22. The same luxury, though frequently by no means necessary, is used by the wealthy till the end of March.

7. Rain only falls during the autumn, winter, and spring, when it sometimes descends with great violence: the greatest quantity, and that which properly constitutes the rainy season, happening between the autumnal equinox, or somewhat later, and the beginning of December; during which period, heavy clouds often obscure the sky, and several days of violent rain sometimes succeed each other with winds. This is what in Scripture is termed the early or the former rain. Showers continue to fall at uncertain intervals, with some cloudy but more fair weather, till toward the vernal equinox, when they become again more frequent and copious till the middle of April. These are the latter rains, Joel ii, 23. From this time to the end of May, showers come on at irregular intervals, gradually decreasing as the season advances; the sky being for the most part serene, and the temperature of the air agreeable, though sometimes acquiring a high degree of heat. From the end of May, or beginning of June, to the end of September, or middle of October, scarce a drop of rain falls, the sky being constantly unclouded, and the heat generally oppressive. During this period, the inhabitants commonly sleep on the tops of their houses. The storms, especially in the autumn, are preceded by short but violent gusts of wind, which, from the surface of a parched soil, raise great clouds of dust; which explains what is meant by, “Ye shall not see wind,” 2 Kings iii, 7. The continuation of the same passage likewise implies, that such circumscribed whirlwinds were generally considered 210as the precursors of rain: a circumstance likewise alluded to by Solomon, who says, “Whoso boasteth himself of a false gift, is like clouds and wind without rain,” Prov. xxv, 14. Another prognostic of an approaching storm is a small cloud rising in the west, and increasing until it overspreads the whole heavens. Such was the cloud, “like a man’s hand,” which appeared to Elijah, on mount Carmel; which spread “till the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain,” 1 Kings xviii, 44. To this phenomenon, and the certainty of the prognostic, our Saviour alludes: “When ye see a cloud” (or the cloud, την νεφελην) “rise out of the west, straightway ye say, There cometh a shower; and so it is,” Luke xii, 54. The same appearance is noticed by Homer:--

Ὡς δ’ ὄτ’ ἀπὸ σκοπιῆς εῖδεν νεφος αιπολος ανηρ

Ἐρχόμενον κατὰ ϖόντον ὑπὸ Ζεφύροιο ἰωῆς,

Τῷ δε τ’, ἄνευθεν ἐόντι, μελάντερον, ἠΰτι ϖὶσσα,

Φαίνετ’ ἰὸν κατὰ ϖόντον, ἄγεί δέ τέ λαίλαπα ϖολλην.

Ῥίγησεν τε ἰδὼν. κ. τ. λ. Il. lib. iv, 275.

“Slow from the main the heavy vapours rise,

Spread in dim streams, and sail along the skies,

Till black as night the swelling tempest shows,

The cloud condensing as the west wind blows.

He dreads the impending storm,” &c. Pope.

Hail frequently falls in the winter and spring in very heavy storms, and with hailstones of an enormous size. Dr. Russel says that he has seen some at Aleppo which measured two inches in diameter; but sometimes they are found to consist of irregularly shaped pieces, weighing near three ounces. The copious dew forms another peculiarity of this climate, frequently alluded to in Scripture: so copious, indeed, is it sometimes, as to resemble small rain, and to supply the wants of superficial vegetation. Mr. Maundrell, when travelling near mount Hermon, says, “We were instructed by experience what the Psalmist means by ‘the dew of Hermon,’ Psalm cxxxiii, 3; our tents being as wet with it, as if it had rained all night.”

8. The seasons are often adverted to in Scripture, under the terms “seed time and harvest.” The former, for wheat, is about the middle of October to the middle or end of November: barley is put into the ground two and sometimes three months later. The wheat harvest commences about the twentieth of May, and early in June the whole is off the ground. The barley harvest, it is to be observed, is generally a fortnight earlier. A survey of the astonishing produce of this country, and of the manner in which its most rocky and, to appearance, insuperably sterile parts, are made to yield to the wants of man, will be sufficient to refute the objections raised by skeptical writers against the possibility of its furnishing subsistence to the multitude of its former inhabitants recorded in Scripture. Dr. Clarke, when travelling from Napolose to Jerusalem, relates, “The road was mountainous, rocky, and full of loose stones; yet the cultivation was every where marvellous: it afforded one of the most striking pictures of human industry which it is possible to behold. The limestone rocks and stony valleys of Judea were entirely covered with plantations of figs, vines, and olive trees: not a single spot seemed to be neglected. The hills, from their bases to their upmost summits, were entirely covered with gardens: all of these were free from weeds, and in the highest state of agricultural perfection. Even the sides of the most barren mountains had been rendered fertile, by being divided into terraces, like steps rising one above another, whereon soil had been accumulated with astonishing labour. Among the standing crops, we noticed millet, cotton, linseed, and tobacco; and occasionally small fields of barley. A sight of this territory can alone convey any adequate idea of its surprising produce: it is truly the Eden of the east, rejoicing in the abundance of its wealth. Under a wise and a beneficent government, the produce of the Holy Land would exceed all calculation. Its perennial harvest; the salubrity of its air; its limpid springs; its rivers, lakes, and matchless plains; its hills and dales;--all these, added to the serenity of its climate, prove this land to be indeed ‘a field which the Lord hath blessed: God hath given it of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine.’” An oriental’s ideas of fertility differ, however, from ours; for to him, plantations of figs, vines, and olives, with which the limestone rocks of Judea were once covered, would suggest the same associations of plenty and opulence that are called up in the mind of an Englishman by rich tracts of corn land. The land of Canaan is characterized as flowing with milk and honey; and it still answers to this description; for it contains extensive pasture lands of the richest quality, and the rocky country is covered with aromatic plants, yielding to the wild bees, who hive in the hollow of the rocks, such abundance of honey as to supply the poorer classes with an article of food. Honey from the rocks is repeatedly referred to in the Scriptures, as a delicious food, and an emblem of plenty, 1 Sam. xiv, 25; Psa. lxxxi, 16. Dates are another important article of consumption; and the neighbourhood of Judea was famous for its numerous palm trees, which are found springing up from chance-sown kernels in the midst of the most arid districts. When to these wild productions we add the oil extracted from the olive, so essential an article to an oriental, we shall be at no loss to account for the ancient fertility of the most barren districts of Judea, or for the adequacy of the soil to the support of so numerous a population, notwithstanding the comparatively small proportion of arable land. There is no reason to doubt, however, that corn and rice would be imported by the Tyrian merchants; which the Israelites would have no difficulty in exchanging for the produce of the olive ground and the vineyard, or for their flocks and herds. Delicious wine is still produced in some districts, and the valleys bear plentiful crops of tobacco, wheat, barley, and millet. Tacitus compares both the climate and the soil, indeed, to those of Italy; and he particularly specifies the palm tree and balsam tree as productions 211which gave the country an advantage over his own. Among other indigenous productions may be enumerated the cedar and other varieties of the pine, the cypress, the oak, the sycamore, the mulberry tree, the fig tree, the willow, the turpentine tree, the acacia, the aspen, the arbutus, the myrtle, the almond tree, the tamarisk, the oleander, the peach tree, the chaste tree, the carob or locust tree, the oskar, the doom, the mustard plant, the aloe, the citron, the apple, the pomegranate, and many flowering shrubs. The country about Jericho was celebrated for its balsam, as well as for its palm trees; and two plantations of it existed during the last war between the Jews and the Romans, for which both parties fought desperately. But Gilead appears to have been the country in which it chiefly abounded: hence the name, “balm of Gilead.” Since the country has fallen under the Turkish dominion, it has ceased to be cultivated in Palestine, but is still found in Arabia. Other indigenous productions have either disappeared or are now confined to circumscribed districts. Iron is found in the mountain range of Libanus, and silk is produced in abundance in the plains of Samaria.

9. The grand distinction of Canaan, however, is, that it was the only part of the earth made, by divine institution, a type of heaven. So it was exhibited to Abraham, and also to the Jews. It pointed to the eternal rest which the spiritual seed of the father of the faithful were to enjoy after the pilgrimage of life; its holy city was the figure of the “Jerusalem above;” and Zion, with its solemn and joyful services represented that “hill of the Lord” to which the redeemed shall come with songs, and everlasting joy upon their heads; where they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall fly away.

CANAANITES, the posterity of Canaan by his eleven sons, who are supposed to have settled in the land of Canaan, soon after the dispersion of Babel. Five of these are known to have dwelt in the land of Canaan; viz. Heth, Jebus, Hemor or Amor, Girgashi, and Hevi or Hivi; and these, together with their father Canaan, became the heads of so many nations. Sina or Sini was another son of Canaan, whose settlement is not so precisely ascertained; but some authors infer, from the affinity of the names, that the Desert of Sin, and Mount Sinai, were the places of his abode, and that they were so called from him. The Hittites inhabited the country about Hebron, as far as Beersheba, and the brook Besor, reckoned by Moses the southern limits of Canaan. The Jebusites dwelt near them on the north, as far as the city of Jebus, since called Jerusalem. The Amorites possessed the country on the east side of Jordan, between the river Arnon on the south-east, and Mount Gilead on the north, afterward the lot of Reuben and Gad. The Girgashites lay next above the Amorites, on the east side of the Sea of Tiberias, and their land was afterward possessed by the half tribe of Manasseh. The Hivites dwelt northward, under Mount Libanus. The Perizzites, who make one of the seven nations of the Canaanites, are supposed, by Heylin and others, to be the descendants of Sina or Sini; and it is probable, since we do not read of their abode in cities, that they lived dispersed, and in tents, like the Scythians, roving on both sides of the Jordan, on the hills and plains; and that they were called by that name from the Hebrew pharatz, which signifies “to disperse.” The Canaanites dwelt in the midst of all, and were surrounded by the rest. This appears from the sacred writings to have been the respective situation of those seven nations, which are said to have been doomed to destruction for their idolatry and wickedness, when the Israelites first invaded their country. The learned have not absolutely determined whether the nations proceeding from Canaan’s other six sons should be reckoned among the inhabitants of the land of Canaan. The prevalent opinion is, that they were not included. As to the customs, manners, arts, sciences, and language of the seven nations that inhabited the land of Canaan, they must, from the situation they severally occupied, have been very different. Those who inhabited the sea coast were merchants, and by reason of their commerce and wealth scattered colonies over almost all the islands and maritime provinces of the Mediterranean. (See Phenicia) The colonies which Cadmus carried to Thebes in Bæotia, and his brother Cilix into Cilicia, are said to have proceeded from the stock of Canaan. Sicily, Sardinia, Malta, Cyprus, Corfu, Majorca, Minorca, Gades, and Ebutris, are supposed to have been peopled by the Canaanites. The other Canaanites, whose situation was inland, were employed partly in pasturage, and partly in tillage, and they were also well skilled in the exercise of arms. Those who dwelt in the walled cities, and who had fixed abodes, cultivated the land; and those who wandered about, as the Perizzites seem to have done, grazed cattle: so that among the Canaanites, we discover the various classes of merchants, and, consequently, mariners; of artificers, soldiers, shepherds, and husbandmen. We learn, also, from their history, that they were all ready, however diversified by their occupations or local interests, to join in a common cause; that they were well appointed for war, both offensive and defensive; that their towns were well fortified; that they were sufficiently furnished with military weapons and warlike chariots; that they were daring, obstinate, and almost invincible; and that they were not destitute of craft and policy. Their language, we find, was well understood by Abraham, who was a Hebrew, for he conversed readily with them on all occasions; but as to their mode of writing, whether it was originally their own or borrowed from the Israelites, it is not so easy to determine. Their religion, at least in part, seems to have been preserved pure till the days of Abraham, who acknowledged Melchisedek to be priest of the most high God; and Melchisedek was, without doubt, a Canaanite, or, at least, dwelt at that time in Canaan in high esteem and veneration.

2. But we learn from the Scripture history, 212that the Hittites in particular were become degenerate in the time of Isaac and Rebekah; for they could not endure the thoughts of Jacob’s marrying one of the daughters of Heth, as Esau had done. From this time, then, we may date the prevalence of those abominations which subjected them to the divine displeasure, and made them unworthy of the land which they possessed. In the days of Moses, they were become incorrigible idolaters; for he commands his people to destroy their altars, and break down their images, (statues or pillars,) and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire. And lest they should pervert the Israelites, the latter were strictly enjoined not to intermarry with them; but “to smite them, and utterly destroy them, nor show mercy upon them,” Deut. vii, 1–5. They are accused of the cruel custom of sacrificing men, and are said to have made their seed pass through the fire to Moloch, Lev. xviii, 21. Their morals were as corrupt as their doctrine: adultery, bestiality of all sorts, profanation, incest, and all manner of uncleanness, are the sins laid to their charge. “The Canaanites,” says Mr. Bryant, “as they were a sister tribe of the Mizraim, resembled them in their rites and religion. They held a heifer, or cow, in high veneration, agreeably to the customs of Egypt. Their chief deity was the sun, whom they worshipped, together with the Baalim, under the titles of Ourchol, Adonis, or Thamuz.”

3. When the measure of the idolatries and abominations of the Canaanites was filled up, God delivered their country into the hands of the Israelites, who conquered it under Joshua. However, they resisted with obstinate valour, and kept Joshua employed six years from the time of his passing the river Jordan, and entering Canaan, in the year B. C. 1451, to the year B. C. 1445, the sabbatical year beginning from the autumnal equinox; when he made a division of the land among the tribes of Israel, and rested from his conquests. As God had commanded this people, long before, to be treated with rigour, see Deut. vii, 2, Joshua extirpated great numbers, and obliged the rest to fly, some of them into Africa, and others into Greece. Procopius says, they first retreated into Egypt, but advanced into Africa, where they built many cities, and spread themselves over those vast regions which reach to the straits, preserving their old language with little alteration. In the time of Athanasius, the Africans still said they were descended from the Canaanites; and when asked their origin, they answered, “Canani.” It is agreed, that the Punic tongue was nearly the same as the Canaanitish or Hebrew.

4. On the rigorous treatment of the nations of Canaan by the Israelites, to which infidels have taken so many exceptions, the following remarks of Paley are a sufficient reply: The first thing to be observed is, that the nations of Canaan were destroyed for their wickedness. This is plain from Lev. xviii, 24, &c. Now the facts disclosed in this passage sufficiently testify, that the Canaanites were a wicked people; that detestable practices were general among them, and even habitual; that it was for these enormities the nations of Canaan were destroyed. It was not, as some have imagined, to make way for the Israelites; nor was it simply to make away with their idolatry; but it was because of the abominable crimes which usually accompanied the latter. And we may farther learn from the passage, that God’s abhorrence of these crimes and his indignation against them are regulated by the rules of strict impartiality, since Moses solemnly warns the Israelites against falling into the like wicked courses, “that the land,” says he, “cast not you out also, when you defile it, as it cast out the nations that were before you; for whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls that commit them shall be cut off from among their people,” Lev. xviii, 28, 29. Now, when God, for the wickedness of a people, sends an earthquake, or a fire, or a plague among them, there is no complaint of injustice, especially when the calamity is known, or expressly declared beforehand, to be inflicted for the wickedness of such people. It is rather regarded as an act of exemplary penal justice, and, as such, consistent with the character of the moral Governor of the universe. The objection, therefore, is not to the Canaanitish nations being destroyed; (for when their national wickedness is considered, and when that is expressly stated as the cause of their destruction, the dispensation, however severe, will not be questioned;) but the objection is solely to the manner of destroying them. I mean there is nothing but the manner left to be objected to: their wickedness accounts for the thing itself. To which objection it may be replied, that if the thing itself be just, the manner is of little signification, of little signification even to the sufferers themselves. For where is the great difference, even to them, whether they were destroyed by an earthquake, a pestilence, a famine, or by the hands of an enemy? Where is the difference, even to our imperfect apprehensions of divine justice, provided it be, and is known to be, for their wickedness that they are destroyed? But this destruction, you say, confounded the innocent with the guilty. The sword of Joshua, and of the Jews spared neither women nor children. Is it not the same with all other national visitations? Would not an earthquake, or a fire, or a plague, or a famine among them have done the same? Even in an ordinary and natural death the same thing happens; God takes away the life he lends, without regard, that we can perceive, to age, or sex, or character. “But, after all, promiscuous massacres, the burning of cities, the laying waste of countries, are things dreadful to reflect upon.” Who doubts it? so are all the judgments of Almighty God. The effect, in whatever way it shows itself, must necessarily be tremendous, when the Lord, as the Psalmist expresses it, “moveth out of his place to punish the wicked.” But it ought to satisfy us; at least this is the point upon which we ought to rest and fix our attention; that it was for excessive, wilful, and forewarned wickedness, that all this befel them, and that it is 213all along so declared in the history which recites it.