ADVERTISEMENT TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. (continued 27)

GARDENS. In the language of the Hebrews, every place where plants and trees were cultivated with greater care than in the open field, was called a garden. The idea of such an enclosure was certainly borrowed from the garden of Eden, which the bountiful Creator planted for the reception of our first parents. Beside, the gardens of primitive nations were commonly, if not in every instance, devoted to religious purposes. In these shady retreats were celebrated, for a long succession of ages, the rites of Pagan superstition. Thus Jehovah calls the apostate Jews, “a people that provoketh me continually to anger to my face, that sacrificeth in gardens,” Isa. lxv, 3. And in a preceding chapter, the prophet threatens them in the name of the Lord: “They shall be ashamed of the oaks which ye have desired, and ye shall be confounded for the gardens which ye have chosen.” The oriental gardens were either open plantations, or enclosures defended by walls or hedges. Some fences in the Holy Land, in later times, are not less beautiful than our living fences of white thorn; and perfectly answer the description of ancient Jewish prophets, who inform us that the hedges in their times consisted of thorns, and that the spikes of these thorny plants were exceedingly sharp. Doubdan found a very fruitful vineyard, full of olives, fig trees, and vines, about eight miles south-west from Bethlehem, enclosed with a hedge; and that part of it adjoining to the road, strongly formed of thorns and rose bushes, intermingled with pomegranate trees of surpassing beauty and fragrance. A hedge composed of rose bushes and wild pomegranate shrubs, then in full flower, mingled with other thorny plants, adorned in the varied livery of spring, must have made at once a strong and beautiful fence. The wild pomegranate tree, the species probably used in fencing, is much more prickly than the other variety; and when mingled with other thorny bushes, of which they have several kinds in Palestine, some of whose prickles are very long and sharp, must form a hedge very difficult to penetrate. These facts illustrate the beauty and force of several passages in the sacred volume: thus, in the Proverbs of Solomon, “The way of the slothful man is as a hedge of 398thorns,” Prov. xv, 19; it is obstructed with difficulties, which the sloth and indolence of his temper represent as galling or insuperable; but which a moderate share of resolution and perseverance would easily remove or surmount. In the prophecies of Hosea, God threatens his treacherous and idolatrous people with many painful embarrassments and perplexities, which would as effectually retard or obstruct their progress in the paths of wickedness, as a hedge of thorny plants stretching across the traveller’s way, the prosecution of his journey: “Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths,” Hosea ii, 6. In the days of Micah, the magistrates of Judah had become exceedingly corrupt: “The best of them is a brier; the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge;” to appear before their tribunal, or to have any dealings with them, was to involve one’s self in endless perplexities, and to be exposed to galling disappointments, if not to certain destruction. They resembled those thorny plants which are twisted together, whose spines point in every direction, and are so sharp and strong that they cannot be touched without danger, and so entangling that when the traveller has with much pain and exertion freed himself from one, he is instantly seized by another. “But the sons of Belial,” said the king of Israel, “shall be all of them as thorns thrust away, because they cannot be taken with hands: but the man that shall touch them must be fenced with iron, and the staff of a spear; and they shall be utterly burned with fire in the same place,” 2 Sam. xxiii, 6, 7. Other enclosures had fences of loose stones, or mud walls, some of them very low, which often furnished a retreat to venomous reptiles. To this circumstance the royal preacher alludes, in his observations of wisdom and folly: “He that diggeth a pit, shall fall into it: and whoso breaketh a hedge, a serpent shall bite him,” Eccles. x, 8. The term which our translators render hedge in this passage, they might with more propriety have rendered wall, as they had done in another part of the writings of Solomon: “I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; and lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down,” Proverbs xxiv, 30.

2. The land of promise has been, from the earliest ages, an unenclosed country, with a few spots defended by a hedge of thorny plants, or a stone wall built without any cement. At Aleppo, most of the vineyards are fenced with stone walls; for in many parts of Syria a hedge would not grow for want of moisture. But, as their various esculent vegetables are now not unfrequently planted in the open fields, both in Syria and Palestine, so Chardin seems to suppose they were often unfenced in ancient times; and, on this account, those lodges and booths, to which Isaiah refers, in the first chapter of his prophecy, were built. In Hindostan they follow the same custom. At the commencement of the rainy season, the peasants plant abundance of melons, cucumbers, and gourds, which are then the principal food of the inhabitants. They are planted in the open fields and extensive plains, and are therefore liable to the depredations of men and beasts. In the centre of the field is an artificial mount, with a hut on the top, sufficiently large to shelter a single person from the inclemency of the weather. There, amid heavy rains and tempestuous winds, a poor solitary being is stationed day and night to protect the crop. From thence he gives an alarm to the nearest village. Few situations can be more unpleasant than a hovel of this kind, exposed for three or four months to wind, lightning, and rain. To such a cheerless station the prophet no doubt alludes, in that passage where he declares the desolations of Judah: “The daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers,” Isa. i, 8. If such watch houses were necessary in those gardens which were defended by walls or hedges, some of which, indeed, it was not difficult to get over, they must have been still more necessary in those which were perfectly open.

3. The oriental garden displays little method, or design; the whole being commonly no more than a confused medley of fruit trees, with beds of esculent plants, and even plots of wheat and barley sometimes interspersed. The garden belonging to the governor of Eleus, a Turkish town on the western border of the Hellespont, which Dr. Chandler visited, consisted only of a very small spot of ground, walled in, and containing only two vines, a fig and a pomegranate tree, and a well of excellent water. And, it would seem, the garden of an ancient Israelite could not boast of greater variety; for the grape, the fig, and the pomegranate, are almost the only fruits which it produced. This fact may perhaps give us some insight into the reason of the sudden and irresistible conviction which flashed on the mind of Nathanael, when our Saviour said to him, “When thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee.” The good man seems to have been engaged in devotional exercises in a small retired garden, walled in, and concealed from the scrutinizing eyes of men. The place was so small, that he was perfectly certain no man but himself was there; and so completely defended, that none could break through, or look over, the fence; and, by consequence, that no eye was upon him, but the all-seeing eye of God; and, therefore, since Christ saw him there, Nathanael knew he could be no other than the Son of God, and the promised Messiah.

GARLICK, שום. As this word occurs only in Numbers xi, 5, some doubts have arisen respecting the plant intended. From its being coupled with leeks and onions, there can be but little doubt that the garlick is meant. The Talmudists frequently mention the use of this plant among the Jews, and their fondness for it. That garlicks grew plenteously in Egypt, is asserted by Dioscorides: there they were much esteemed, and were both eaten and worshipped:--

399“Then gods were recommended by their taste.

Such savoury deities must needs be good,

Which served at once for worship and for food.”

GARMENT. See Habits.

GATE is often used in Scripture to denote a place of public assembly, where justice was administered, Deut. xvii, 5, 8; xxi, 19; xxii, 15; xxv, 6, 7, &c. One instance of these judgments appears in that given at the gate of Bethlehem, between Boaz and a relation of Naomi, on the subject of Ruth, chap. iv, 2; another in Abraham’s purchase of a field to bury Sarah, Gen. xxiii, 10, 18. The gate of judgment is a term still common to the Arabians to express a court of justice, and even introduced by the Saracens into Spain. “I had several times,” says Jacob, “visited the Alhambra, the ancient palace and fortress of the Moorish kings: it is situated on the top of a hill, overlooking the city, and is surrounded by a wall of great height and thickness. The entrance is through an archway, over which is carved a key, the symbol of the Mohammedan monarchs. This gate, called the gate of judgment, according to eastern forms, was the place where the kings administered justice.” In Morocco, the gate is still the place where judgment is held. “All complaints,” says Host, “are brought, in the first instance, to the cadi, or governor, who, for that purpose, passes certain hours of the day in the gate of the city, partly for the sake of the fresh air, and partly to see all those who go out; and, lastly, to observe a custom which has long prevailed, of holding judgment there. The gate is contrived accordingly, being built like a square chamber, with two doors, which are not directly opposite to each other, but on two adjoining sides, with seats on the other sides. In this manner David sat between two gates,” 2 Sam. xviii, 24. Gate sometimes signifies power, dominion, almost in the same sense as the Turkish emperor’s palace is called the Porte. God promises Abraham that his posterity shall possess the gates of their enemies, their towns, their fortresses, Genesis xxii, 17. Jesus Christ says to Peter, “Thou art Peter; and on this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” Matt. xvi, 18. This may mean either the powers of hell, or invisible spirits; or simply death,--the church shall be replenished by living members from generation to generation, so that death shall never annihilate it.

Solomon says, “He that exalteth his gate seeketh destruction.” The Arabs are accustomed to ride into the houses of those they design to harass. To prevent this, Thevenot tells us that the door of the house in which the French merchants live at Rama was not three feet high, and that all the doors of that town are equally low. Agreeably to this account, the Abbé Mariti, speaking of his admission into a monastery near Jerusalem, says, “The passage is so low, that it will scarcely admit a horse; and it is shut by a gate of iron, strongly secured in the inside. As soon as we entered, it was again made fast with various bolts and bars of iron: a precaution extremely necessary in a desert place, exposed to the incursions, and insolent attacks of the Arabs.” Mr. Drummond says, that in the country about Roudge, in Syria, “the poor miserable Arabs are under the necessity of hewing their houses out of the rock, and cutting very small doors or openings to them, that they may not be made stables for the Turkish horse, as they pass and repass.” And thus, long before him, Sandys, at Gaza, in Palestine: “We lodged under an arch in a little court, together with our asses; the door exceeding low, as are all that belong unto Christians, to withstand the sudden entrance of the insolent Turks.” “To exalt the gate,” would consequently be to court destruction. Morier says, “A poor man’s door is scarcely three feet in height; and this is a precautionary measure to hinder the servants of the great from entering it on horseback; which, when any act of oppression is intended, they would make no scruple to do. But the habitation of a man in power is known by his gate, which is generally elevated in proportion to the vanity of its owner. A lofty gate is one of the insignia of royalty: such is the Allan Capi, at Ispahan, and Bob Homayan, or the Sublime Porte, at Constantinople. It must have been the same in ancient days; the gates of Jerusalem, Zion, &c, are often mentioned in the Scripture, with the same notion of grandeur annexed to them.”

GATH, the fifth of the Philistine cities. It was a place of strength in the time of the prophets Amos and Micah, and is placed by Jerom on the road between Eleutheropolis and Gaza. It appears to have been the extreme boundary of the Philistine territory in one direction, as Ekron was on the other. Hence the expression, “from Ekron even unto Gath,” 1 Sam. vii, 14.

GAULAN, or GOLAN, a city beyond Jordan, from which the small province called Gaulonitis took its name. It was given to the half tribe of Manasseh, on the other side Jordan, Deut. iv, 43; and became a city of refuge, Joshua xxi, 27.

GAZA, a city of the Philistines, made by Joshua part of the tribe of Judah. It was one of the five principalities of the Philistines, situated toward the southern extremity of the promised land, 1 Sam. vi, 17, between Raphia and Askelon. The advantageous situation of Gaza was the cause of the numerous revolutions which it underwent. It first of all belonged to the Philistines, and then to the Hebrews. It recovered its liberty in the reigns of Jotham and Ahaz, and was reconquered by Hezekiah, 2 Kings xviii, 8. It was subject to the Chaldeans, who conquered Syria and Phenicia. Afterward, it fell into the hands of the Persians. It must have been a place of considerable strength. For two months it baffled all the efforts of Alexander the Great, who was repeatedly repulsed, and wounded in the siege; which he afterward revenged in a most infamous manner on the person of the gallant defender Betis, whom, while yet alive, having ordered his ankles to be bored, he dragged round the walls, tied to his chariot wheels, in the barbarous parade of imitating the less 400savage treatment of the corpse of Hector by Achilles.

Dr. Wittman gives the following description of his visit to Gaza: “In pursuing our route toward this place, the view became still more interesting and agreeable: the groves of olive trees extending from the place where we had halted to the town, in front of which a fine avenue of these trees was planted. Gaza is situated on an eminence, and is rendered picturesque by the number of fine minarets which rise majestically above the buildings, and by the beautiful date trees which are interspersed. The suburbs of Gaza are composed of wretched mud huts; but within side the town the buildings make a much better appearance than those we had generally met with in Syria. The streets are of a moderate breadth. Many fragments of statues, columns, &c, of marble were seen in the walls and buildings in different parts of the town. The suburbs and environs of Gaza are rendered infinitely agreeable by a number of large gardens, cultivated with the nicest care, which lie in a direction north and south of the town; while others of the same description run to a considerable distance westward. These gardens are filled with a great variety of choice fruit trees, such as the fig, the mulberry, the pomegranate, the apricot, the peach, and the almond; together with a few lemon and orange trees. The numerous plantations of olive and date trees which are interspersed contribute greatly to the picturesque effect of the scene exhibited by the surrounding plains. These, on our arrival, were overspread with flowers, the variegated colours of which displayed every tint and every hue. Among these were the chrysanthemum, scarlet ranunculus, lupin, pheasant-eye, tulip, china-aster, dwarf-iris, lintel, daisy, &c, all of them growing wild and abundantly, with the exception of the lupin, which was cultivated in patches, regularly ploughed and sowed, with a view to collect the seeds, which the inhabitants employ at their meals, more especially to thicken their ragouts. The few corn fields, which lay at a distance, displayed the promise of a rich golden harvest; and the view of the sea, distant about a league, tended to diversify still more the animated features of this luxuriant scene.” This and similar descriptions of modern travellers, which are occasionally introduced into this work, are given both as interesting in themselves, and to show that relics of the ancient beauty and fertility of the Holy Land are still to be found in many parts of it.

GEMARA. This word signifies complement, perfection. The rabbins call the Pentateuch the law, without any addition. Next to this they have the Talmud, which is divided into two parts: the first is only an application of the law to particular cases, with the decision of the ancient rabbins, and is called mishnah, or “second law:” the other part, which is a more extensive application of the same law, is a collection of determinations by rabbins, later than the mishnah. This last is termed gemara, “perfection,” “finishing,” because they consider it as a conclusive explanation of the law, to which no farther additions can be made. There are two gemaras, or two Talmuds, that of Jerusalem, and that of Babylon. The former was compiled, according to the Jews, about the end of the second or third century, by a celebrated rabbin, called Jochanan; but father Morinus maintains that the gemara was not finished till about the seventh century. Dr. Prideaux says that it was completed about A. D. 300. The Jews have little value for this Jerusalem Talmud, on account of its obscurity. The Babylonish gemara is, as the rabbins say, more modern. It was begun by a Jewish doctor, named Asa, and continued by Marmar and Mar, his sons or disciples. The Jews believe that the gemara contains nothing but the word of God, preserved in the tradition of the elders, and transmitted, without alteration, from Moses to rabbi Judah, the holy, and the other compilers of the Talmud; who did not reduce it to writing till they were afraid it would be corrupted by the several transmigrations and persecutions to which their nation was subjected.

GENEALOGY, γενεαλογία, signifies a list of a person’s ancestors. The common Hebrew expression for it is Sepher-Toledoth, “the Book of Generations.” No nation was ever more careful to preserve their genealogies than the Jews. The sacred writings contain genealogies extended three thousand five hundred years backward. The genealogy of our Saviour is deduced by the evangelists from Adam to Joseph and Mary, through a space of four thousand years and upward. The Jewish priests were obliged to produce an exact genealogy of their families, before they were admitted to exercise their function. Wherever placed, the Jews were particularly careful not to marry below themselves; and to prevent this, they kept tables of genealogy in their several families, the originals of which were lodged at Jerusalem, to be occasionally consulted. These authentic monuments, during all their wars and persecutions, were taken great care of, and from time to time renewed. But, since the last destruction of their city, and the dispersion of the people, their ancient genealogies are lost. But to this the Jews reply, that either Elias, or some other inspired priest or prophet, shall come, and restore their genealogical tables before the Messiah’s appearance; a tradition, which they ground on a passage in Nehemiah vii, 64, 65, to this effect: the genealogical register of the families of certain priests being lost, they were not able to make out their lineal descent from Aaron; and therefore, “as polluted, were put from the priesthood;” the “Tirshatha said unto them, that they should not eat of the most holy things, till there stood up a priest with Urim and Thummim.” From hence the Jews conclude, that such a priest will stand up, and restore and complete the genealogies of their families: though others suppose these words to import, that they should never exercise their priesthood any more; and that, “till there shall stand up a priest with Urim and 401Thummim,” amounts to the same as the Roman proverb, ad Græcas calendas, [never,] since the Urim and Thummim were now absolutely and for ever lost.

GENERATION. Beside the common acceptation of this word, as signifying descent, it is used for the history and genealogy of any individual, as “The book of the generations of Adam,” Genesis v, 1, the history of Adam’s creation, and of his posterity. “The generations of the heavens and of the earth,” Genesis ii, 4, is a recital of the creation of heaven and earth. “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David,” Matthew i, 1, is the genealogy of Jesus Christ, and the history of his life. The ancients sometimes computed by generations: “In the fourth generation thy descendants shall come hither again,” Genesis xv, 16. “Joseph saw Ephraim’s children of the third generation,” Genesis 1, 23. “A bastard shall not be admitted into the congregation, till the tenth generation,” Deut. xxiii, 2. Among the ancients, when the duration of generations was not exactly described by the age of four men succeeding one another from father to son, it was fixed by some at a hundred years, by others at a hundred and ten, by others at thirty-three, thirty, twenty-five, and even at twenty years; being neither uniform nor settled: only, it is remarked, that a generation is longer as it is more ancient.

GENESIS, a canonical book of the Old Testament, so called from the Greek γενεσις, genesis, or generation, because it contains an account of the origin of all visible things, and of the genealogy of the first patriarchs. In the Hebrew it is called בראשית, which signifies, in the beginning, because it begins with that word. See Pentateuch.

GENNESARETH, Land of, or GENNESAR, a small district of Galilee, supposed to have been so called from its pleasantness, and extending about four miles along the north-western shore of the sea of Galilee, or Gennesareth, so called from this same region. It is more probable, however, that Gennesareth is nothing more than a word moulded from Cinnereth, the ancient name of a city and adjoining tract in this very situation, as well as of the lake itself. This part of Galilee is described by Josephus as possessing a singular fertility, with a delightful temperature of the air, and abounding in the fruits of different climates.

GENTILE. The Hebrews called the Gentiles גויים, ἔθνη, the nations, that is, those who have not received the faith or law of God. All who are not Jews, and circumcised, are goiim. Those who were converted, and embraced Judaism, they called proselytes. Since the Gospel, the true religion is not confined to any one nation or country, as heretofore, God, who had promised by his prophets to call the Gentiles to the faith, with a superabundance of grace, has fulfilled his promise; so that the Christian church is now composed principally of Gentile converts; and the Jews, too proud of their particular privileges, and abandoned to their reprobate sense of things, have disowned Jesus Christ, their Messiah and Redeemer, for whom, during so many ages, they had looked so impatiently. In the writings of St. Paul, the Gentiles are generally denoted as Greeks, Rom. i, 14, 16; ii, 9, 10; iii; x, 12; 1 Cor. i, 22–24; Gal. iii, 28. St. Luke, in the Acts, expresses himself in the same manner, Acts vi, 1; xi, 20; xviii, &c.

2. St. Paul is commonly called the Apostle of the Gentiles, 1 Tim. ii, 7, or Greeks; because he, principally, preached Jesus Christ to them; whereas Peter, and the other Apostles, preached generally to the Jews, and are called Apostles of the circumcision, Gal. ii, 8. The prophets declared very particularly the calling of the Gentiles. Jacob foretold that the Messiah, he who was to be sent, the Shiloh, should gather the Gentiles to himself. Solomon, at the dedication of his temple, prays for “the stranger” who should there entreat God. The Psalmist says, that the Lord would give the Gentiles to the Messiah for his inheritance; that Egypt and Babylon shall know him; that Ethiopia shall hasten to bring him presents; that the kings of Tarshish, and of the isles, the kings of Arabia and Sheba, shall be tributary to him, Psalm ii, 8; lxvii, 4; lxxii, 9, 10. Isaiah abounds with prophecies of the like nature, on which account he has justly been distinguished by the name of “the prophet of the Gentiles.”

Gentiles, Court of the. Josephus says there was, in the court of the temple, a wall, or balustrade, breast-high, with pillars at particular distances, and inscriptions on them in Greek and Latin, importing that strangers were forbidden from entering farther; here their offerings were received, and sacrifices were offered for them, they standing at the barrier; but they were not allowed to approach to the altar. Pompey, nevertheless, went even into the sanctuary, but behaved with strict decorum; and the next day he commanded the temple to be purified, and the customary sacrifices to be offered. A little before the last rebellion of the Jews, some mutineers would have persuaded the priests to accept no victim not presented by a Jew; and obliged them to reject those which were offered by command of the emperor, for the Roman people. The wisest in vain remonstrated with them on the danger this would bring on their country; urged that their ancestors had never rejected the presents of Gentiles; and that the temple was mostly adorned with the offerings of such people; at the same time, the most learned priests, who had spent their whole lives in the study of the law, testified that their forefathers had always received the sacrifices of strangers.

From the above particulars, we learn the meaning of what the Apostle Paul calls “the middle wall of partition,” between Jews and Gentiles broken down by the Gospel.

GERAR, a royal city of the Philistines, situate not far from the angle where the south and west sides of Palestine meet.

GERIZIM, a mount near Shechem, in Ephraim, a province of Samaria. Shechem lay at the foot of two mountains, Ebal and 402Gerizim. Gerizim was fruitful, Ebal was barren. God commanded that the Hebrews, after passing the Jordan, should be so divided, that six tribes might be stationed on Mount Gerizim, and six on Mount Ebal. The former was to pronounce blessings on those who observed the law of the Lord; the others, curses against those who should violate it, Deut. xi, 29; xxvii, 12. As to the original of the temple upon Gerizim, we must take Josephus’s relation of it. Manasseh, the grandson of Eliashib, the high priest, and brother to Jaddus, high priest of the Jews, having been driven from Jerusalem in the year of the world 3671, and not enduring patiently to see himself deprived of the honour and advantages of the priesthood, Sanballat, his father-in-law, addressed himself to Alexander the Great, who was then carrying on the siege of Tyre; and having paid him homage for the province of Samaria, whereof he was governor, he farther offered him eight thousand of his best troops, which disposed Alexander to grant what he desired for his son-in-law, and for many other priests, who being married, as well as he, contrary to the law, chose rather to forsake their country than their wives, and had joined Manasseh in Samaria. When Antiochus Epiphanes began to persecute the Jews, A. M. 3836; B. C. 186, the Samaritans entreated him that their temple upon Gerizim, which hitherto had been dedicated to an unknown and nameless god, might be consecrated to Jupiter the Grecian, which was easily consented to by Antiochus. The temple of Gerizim subsisted some time after the worship of Jupiter was introduced into it; but it was destroyed by John Hircanus Maccabæus, and was not rebuilt till Gabinius was governor of Syria; who repaired Samaria, and called it by his own name. It is certain, that, in our Saviour’s time, this temple was in being; and that the true God was worshipped there, since the woman of Samaria, pointing to Gerizim, said to him, “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship,” John iv, 20. We are assured, that Herod the Great, having rebuilt Samaria, and called it Sebaste, in honour of Augustus, would have obliged the Samaritans to worship in the temple which he had erected there, but they constantly refused.

GETHSEMANE. See Olives, Mount of.

GIANT, נפל, Greek, γίγας, a monster, a terrible man, a chief who beats and bears down other men. Scripture speaks of giants before the flood: “Nephilim, mighty men who were of old, men of renown,” Gen. vi, 4. Aquila translates nephilim, ἐπιπίπτοντες, men who attack, who fall with impetuosity on their enemies, which renders very well the force of the term. Symmachus translates it βιαίοι, violent men, cruel, whose only rule of action is violence. Scripture sometimes calls giants Rephaim: Chedorlaomer beat the Rephaim at Ashteroth-Karnaim. The Emim, ancient inhabitants of Moab, were of a gigantic stature, that is, Rephaim. The Rephaim and the Perizzites are connected as old inhabitants of Canaan. The Rephaim in some parts of Scripture signify spirits in the invisible world, in a state of misery. Job says that the ancient Rephaim groan under the waters; and Solomon, that the ways of a loose woman lead to the Rephaim; that he who deviates from the ways of wisdom, shall dwell in the assembly of Rephaim, that is, in hell, Prov. ii, 18; iv, 18; xxi, 16, &c; Gen. xiv, 5; Deut. ii, 11, 20; iii, 11, 13; Joshua xii, 4; xiii, 12; Job xxvi, 5. The Anakim, or the sons of Anak, were the most famous giants of Palestine. They dwelt at Hebron and thereabouts. The Israelites sent to view the promised land reported, that, in comparison, they themselves were but grasshoppers, Num. xiii, 33.

2. As to the existence of giants, several writers, both ancient and modern, have thought that the giants of Scripture were men famous for violence and crime, rather than for strength or stature. But it cannot be denied, that there have been races of men of a stature much above that common at present; although their size has often been absurdly magnified. The ancients considered persons whose stature exceeded seven feet as gigantic. Living giants have certainly been seen who were somewhat taller; but the existence of those who greatly surpassed it, or were double the height, has been inferred only from remains discovered in the earth, but not from the ocular testimony of credible witnesses. Were we to admit what has been reported on the subject, there would be no bounds to the dimensions of giants; the earth would seem unsuitable for them to tread upon. History, however, acquaints us that, in the reign of Claudius, a giant named Galbara, ten feet high was brought to Rome from the coast of Africa. An instance is cited by Goropius, an author with whom we are otherwise unacquainted, of a female of equal stature. A certain Greek sophist, Proæresius, is said to have been nine feet in height. Julius Capitolinus affirms that Maximinian, the Roman emperor was eight feet and a half; there was a Swede, one of the life guards of Frederick the Great, of that size. M. Le Cat speaks of a giant exhibited at Rouen, measuring eight feet and some inches; and we believe some have been seen in this country, within the last thirty years, whose stature was not inferior. In Plott’s “History of Staffordshire,” there is an instance of a man of seven feet and a half high, and another, in Thoresby’s account of Leeds, of seven feet five inches high. Examples may be found elsewhere of several individuals seven feet in height, below which, after the opinion of the ancients, we may cease to consider men gigantic. Entire families sometimes, though rarely, occur of six feet four, or six feet six inches high. From all this we may conclude, that there may have possibly been seen some solitary instances of men who were ten feet in height; that those of eight feet are extremely uncommon, and that even six feet and a half far exceeds the height of men in Europe. We may reasonably understand that the gigantic nations of Canaan were above the average size of other people, with 403instances among them of several families of gigantic stature. This is all that is necessary to suppose, in order to explain the account of Moses; but the notion that men have gradually degenerated in size has no foundation. There is no evidence whatever, that the modern tribes of mankind have thus degenerated. The catacombs of ancient Egypt and Palestine; the cenotaph, if it be truly such, in the great pyramid; the tomb of Alexander the Great, are all calculated for bodies of ordinary dimensions. The truth is still more satisfactorily established from the mummies which are yet withdrawn from their receptacles in Egypt, and the caverns of the Canary Islands. In the most ancient sepulchres of Britain, those apparently anterior to the introduction of Christianity, no remains are discovered which indicate the larger stature of the inhabitants than our own. In every part of the world domestic implements and personal ornaments, many centuries old, are obtained from tombs, from bogs and mosses, or those cities overwhelmed by volcanic eruptions, which would be ill adapted to a gigantic race of ancestors.

GIBEON, the capital city of the Gibeonites, who took advantage of the oaths of Joshua, and of the elders of Israel, procured by an artful representation of their belonging to a very remote country, Joshua ix. Joshua and the elders had not the precaution to consult God on this affair, but inconsiderately made a league with these people. They soon discovered their mistake, and, without revoking their promise of saving their lives, they condemned them to labour in carrying wood and water for the tabernacle; and to other works, as slaves and captives; in which state of servitude they remained, till the entire dispersion of the Jewish nation, A. M. 2553; B. C. 1451. Three days after the Gibeonites had surrendered to the Hebrews, the kings of Canaan being informed of it, five of them came and besieged the city of Gibeon. The Gibeonites sent to Joshua, and desired speedy help. Joshua attacked the five kings early in the morning, put them to flight, and pursued them to Bethoron, Josh. x, 3, &c. The Gibeonites were descended from the Hivites, the old inhabitants of the country, and possessed four cities: Cephirah, Beeroth, Kirjath-jearim, and Gibeon, their capital; all afterward given to Benjamin, except Kirjath-jearim, which fell to Judah. The Gibeonites continued subject to those burdens which Joshua imposed on them, and were very faithful to the Israelites. Nevertheless, Saul destroyed a great number of them, 2 Sam. xxi, 1; but God, in the reign of David, sent a great famine, which lasted three years, A. M. 2983; B. C. 1021; and the prophets told David that this calamity would continue while Saul’s cruelty remained unavenged. David asked the Gibeonites what satisfaction they desired. They answered, “Seven of Saul’s sons we will put to death, to avenge the blood of our brethren.” The Gibeonites crucified them. From this time there is no mention of the Gibeonites as a distinct people. But they were probably included among the Nethinim, appointed for the service of the temple, 1 Chron. ix, 2. Afterward, those of the Canaanites who were subdued, and had their lives spared, were added to the Gibeonites. We see in Ezra viii, 20; ii, 58; 1 Kings ix, 20, 21, that David, Solomon, and the princes of Judah, gave many such to the Lord; these Nethinim being carried into captivity with Judah and the Levites, many of them returned with Ezra, Zerubbabel, and Nehemiah, and continued, as before, in the service of the temple, under the priests and Levites. We neither know when, nor by whom, nor on what occasion, the tabernacle and altar of burnt sacrifices, made by Moses in the wilderness, were removed to Gibeon; but this we certainly know, that, toward the end of David’s reign, and in the beginning of Solomon’s, they were there, 1 Chron. xxi, 29, 30. David, seeing an angel of the Lord at Araunah’s threshing floor, was so terrified, that he had not time or strength to go so far as Gibeon to offer sacrifice; but Solomon, being seated on the throne, went to sacrifice at Gibeon, 1 Kings iii, 4.

GIDEON, the son of Joash, of the tribe of Manasseh; the same with Jerubbaal, the seventh judge of Israel. He dwelt in the city of Ophra, and was chosen by God in a very extraordinary manner to deliver the Israelites from the oppression of the Midianites, under which they had laboured for the space of seven years. See Judges vi, 14–27; viii, 1–24, &c.

GIER EAGLE, רחם, Lev. xi, 18; Deut. xiv, 17. As the root of this word signifies tenderness and affection, it is supposed to refer to some bird remarkable for its attachment to its young; hence some have thought that the pelican is to be understood; and Bochart endeavours to prove that the golden vulture is meant; but there can be no doubt that it is the percnopterus of the ancients, the ach-bobba of the Arabians, particularly described by Bruce under the name of rachamah. He says, “We know from Horus Apollo, that the rachma, or she vulture, was sacred to Isis, and adorned the statue of the goddess; that it was the emblem of parental affection; and that it was the hieroglyphic for an affectionate mother.” He farther says, that “this female vulture, having hatched her young ones, continues with them one hundred and twenty days, providing them with all necessaries; and, when the stock of food fails them, she tears off the fleshy part of her thigh, and feeds them with that and the blood which flows from the wound.”

Hasselquist thus describes the Egyptian vulture: “The appearance of the bird is as horrid as can well be imagined. The face is naked and wrinkled, the eyes are large and black, the beak black and crooked, the talons large, and extended ready for prey, and the whole body polluted with filth. These are qualities enough to make the beholder shudder with horror. Notwithstanding this, the inhabitants of Egypt cannot be enough thankful to Providence for this bird. All the places round Cairo are filled with the dead bodies of asses and camels; and thousands of these birds fly about and devour the carcasses, before they 404putrify and fill the air with noxious exhalations.” No wonder that such an animal should be deemed unclean.

GIFT OF TONGUES, an ability given to the Apostles and others of readily and intelligibly speaking a variety of languages which they had never learned. This was a glorious and decisive attestation to the Gospel, as well as a suitable, and, indeed, in their circumstances, a necessary qualification for the mission for which the Apostles and their coadjutors were designed. Nor is there any reason, with Dr. Middleton, to understand it as merely an occasional gift, so that a person might speak a language most fluently one hour, and be entirely ignorant of it the next; which neither agrees with what is said of the abuse of it, nor would it have been sufficient to answer the end proposed, Acts ii. Some appear to have been gifted with one tongue, others with more. To St. Paul this endowment was vouchsafed in a more liberal degree, than to many others; for, as to the Corinthians, who had received the gift of tongues, he says, “that he spake with tongues more than they all.”

GIFTS. The practice of making presents is very common in oriental countries. The custom probably had its origin among those men who first sustained the office of kings or rulers, and who, from the novelty and perhaps the weakness attached to their situation, chose, rather than make the hazardous attempt of exacting taxes, to content themselves with receiving those presents which might be freely offered, 1 Sam. x, 27. Hence it passed into a custom, that whoever approached the king should come with a gift. This was the practice and the expectation. The custom of presenting gifts was subsequently extended to other great men; to men who were inferior to the king, but who were, nevertheless, men of influence and rank; it was also extended to those who were equals, when they were visited, Proverbs xviii, 16. Kings themselves were in the habit of making presents, probably in reference to the custom in question and the feelings connected with it, to those individuals, their inferiors in point of rank, whom they wished to honour, and also to those who, like themselves, were clothed with the royal authority. These presents, namely, such as were presented by the king as a token of the royal esteem and honour, are almost invariably denominated in the Hebrew, שחד and ברכה, 1 Kings xv, 19; 2 Kings xvi, 8; xviii, 14; Isaiah xxxvi, 16. The more ancient prophets did not deem it discreditable to them to receive presents, nor unbecoming their sacred calling, except when, as was sometimes the case, they refused by way of expressing their dissatisfaction or indignation, 2 Kings v, 15; viii, 9. In later times, when false prophets, in order to obtain money, prophesied without truth and without authority, the true prophets, for the purpose of keeping the line of distinction as broad as possible, rejected every thing that looked like reward. Gifts of this kind, that have now been described, are not to be confounded with those which are called שחד, and which were presented to judges, not as a mark of esteem and honour, but for purposes of bribery and corruption. The former was considered an honour to the giver, but a gift of the latter kind has been justly reprobated in every age, Exod. xxii, 8; Deut. x, 17; xvi, 19; xxvii, 25; Psalm xv, 5; xxvi, 10; Isaiah i, 23; v, 23; xxxiii, 15. The giver was not restricted as to the kind of present which he should make. He might present not only silver and gold, but clothes and arms, also different kinds of food, in a word any thing which could be of benefit to the recipient, Gen. xliii, 11; 1 Sam. ix, 7; xvi, 20; Job xiii, 11. It was the custom anciently, as it is at the present time in the east, for an individual when visiting a person of high rank, to make some presents of small value to the servants or domestics of the person visited, 1 Sam. xxv, 27. It was the usual practice among kings and princes to present to their favourite officers in the government, to ambassadors from foreign courts, to foreigners of distinction, and to men eminent for their learning, garments of greater or less value, Genesis xiv, 22, 23; Esther viii, 15. The royal wardrobe, in which a large number of such garments was kept, is denominated in Hebrew בגדים 2 Chronicles xxxiv, 22. It was considered an honour of the highest kind, if a king or any person in high authority thought it proper, as a manifestation of his favour, to give away to another the garment which he had previously worn himself, 1 Sam. xviii, 4. In the east, at the present day, it is expected, that every one who has received a garment from the king will immediately clothe himself in it, and promptly present himself and render his homage to the giver; otherwise he runs the hazard of exciting the king’s displeasure, Matt. xxii, 11, 12. It was sometimes the case, that the king, when he made a feast, presented vestments to all the guests who were invited, with which they clothed themselves before they sat down to it, 2 Kings x, 22; Gen. xlv, 22; Rev. iii, 5. In oriental countries, the presents which are made to kings and princes are to this day carried on beasts of burden, are attended with a body of men, and are escorted with much pomp. It matters not how light or how small the present may be, it must either be carried on the back of a beast of burden, or by a man, who must support it with both his hands, Judges iii, 18; 2 Kings viii, 9.

GIHON, the name of one of the four rivers the source of which was in paradise, Genesis ii, 13. (See Eden.) Reland, Calmet, &c, think that Gihon is the Araxes, which has its source, as well as the Tigris and Euphrates, in the mountains of Armenia, and, running with almost incredible rapidity, falls into the Caspian Sea. Gihon was also the name of a fountain to the west of Jerusalem, at which Solomon was anointed king by the high priest Zadok, and the Prophet Nathan, 1 Kings i, 33.

GILBOA, Mount, a ridge of mountains on the north of Bethshan, or Scythopolis, forming in that part the boundary of the plain of Jordan to the west. It is memorable from the defeat of Saul by the Philistines; when his 405three sons were slain, and he himself died by his own hand, his armourbearer refusing to kill him, 1 Sam. xxxi.

GILEAD, the name given to the monument erected by Laban and Jacob, in testimony of a mutual covenant and agreement, Gen. xxxi, 47, 48. Hence the hill upon which it was erected, was called Mount Gilead, Cant. iv, 1; vi, 5; Jer. 1, 19. The mountains of Gilead were part of that ridge of mountains which extend from Mount Lebanon southward, on the east of the Holy land; they gave their name to the whole country which lies on the east of the sea of Galilee, and included the mountainous region called in the New Testament Trachonitis. The Scripture speaks of the balm of Gilead, Jer. viii, 22; xlvi, 11; li, 8. The merchants who bought Joseph came from Gilead, and were carrying balm into Egypt, Gen. xxxvii, 25. See Balm.

GILGAL, a celebrated place situated on the west of Jordan, where the Israelites encamped some time after their passage over that river, and where Joshua pitched twelve stones taken out of Jordan as a memorial. A considerable city was afterward built there, which became renowned for many events recorded in the history of the Jews. Gilgal was about a league from Jordan, and at an equal distance from Jericho. It received its name from the circumstance of the Hebrews being there circumcised; for when by divine command that rite had been performed upon them, the Lord said, “This day have I rolled away from off you the reproach of Egypt,” Joshua v, 2–4, &c.--The word Gilgal signifies rolling. Here the ark was long stationed, and consequently the place was much resorted to by the Israelites. It seems to have been the place in which Jeroboam or some of the kings of Israel instituted idolatrous worship; and hence the allusions to it by the prophets, Hosea iv, 15; Amos iv, 4. It is probable that there were idols at Gilgal as early as the days of Ehud, who was one of the judges; for it is said that, having delivered his presents to the king, “Ehud went away, but returned again from the quarries that were by Gilgal,” Judges iii, 19. The margin of our Bibles reads, “the graven images,” or idols set up by the Moabites, the viewing of which, it is thought, stirred up Ehud to revenge the affront thereby offered to the God of Israel. At this same place, the people met to confirm the kingdom to Saul, 1 Sam. xi, 14, 15. It was at Gilgal, too, that Saul incurred the divine displeasure, in offering sacrifice before Samuel arrived, 1 Sam. xiii; and there also it was that he received the sentence of his rejection for disobeying the divine command, and sparing the king of Amalek with the spoils which he had reserved, 1 Sam. xv.

It has been supposed that the setting up of stones, as at Gilgal and other places, gave rise to the rude stone circular temples of the Druids, and other Heathens. The idea, however, appears fanciful, and there is an essential difference between stones erected for memorials, and those used to mark sacred, or supposed sacred, places for worship.

GIRDLE. The girdle is an indispensable article in the dress of an oriental: it has various uses; but the principal one is to tuck up their long flowing vestments, that they may not incommode them in their work, or on a journey. The Jews, according to some writers, wore a double girdle, one of greater breadth, with which they girded their tunic when they prepared for active exertions: the other they wore under their shirt, around their loins. This under girdle they reckon necessary to distinguish between the heart and the less honourable parts of the human frame. The upper girdle was sometimes made of leather, the material of which the girdle of John the Baptist was made; but it was more commonly fabricated of worsted, often very artfully woven into a variety of figures, and made to fold several times about the body; one end of which being doubled back, and sewn along the edges, serves them for a purse, agreeably to the acceptation of ζώνη, in the Scriptures, which is translated purse, in several places of the New Testament, Matt. x, 9; Mark vi, 8. The ancient Romans, in this, as in many other things, imitated the orientals; for their soldiers, and probably all classes of the citizens, used to carry their money in their girdles. Whence, in Horace, qui zonam perdidit, means one who had lost his purse; and Aulus Gellius, C. Gracchus is introduced, saying, “Those girdles which I carried out full of money when I went from Rome, I have, at my return from the province, brought again empty.” The Turks make a farther use of these girdles, by fixing their knives and poinards in them; while the writers and secretaries suspend in them their ink-horns; a custom as old as the Prophet Ezekiel, who mentions “a person clothed in white linen, with an ink-horn upon his loins,” Ezek. ix, 2. That part of the ink-holder which passes between the girdle and the tunic, and receives their pens, is long and flat; but the vessel for the ink, which rests upon the girdle, is square, with a lid to clasp over it.

2. To loose the girdle and give it to another was, among the orientals, a token of great confidence and affection. Thus, to ratify the covenant which Jonathan made with David, and to express his cordial regard for his friend, among other things, he gave him his girdle. A girdle curiously and richly wrought was among the ancient Hebrews a mark of honour, and sometimes bestowed as a reward of merit; for this was the recompense which Joab declared he meant to bestow on the man who put Absalom to death: “Why didst thou not smite him there to the ground? and I would have given thee ten shekels of silver, and a girdle,” 2 Samuel xviii, 11. The reward was certainly meant to correspond with the importance of the service which he expected him to perform, and the dignity of his own station as commander in chief: we may, therefore, suppose that the girdle promised was not a common one of leather, or plain worsted, but of costly materials and richly adorned; for people of rank and fashion in the east wear very broad girdles, all of silk, and superbly 406ornamented with gold and silver, and precious stones, of which they are extremely proud, regarding them as the tokens of their superior station and the proof of their riches. “To gird up the loins” is to bring the flowing robe within the girdle, and so to prepare for a journey, or for some vigorous exercise.

GLASS, ὕαλος. This word occurs Rev. xxi, 18, 21; and the adjective ὑάλινος, Rev. iv, 6; xv, 2. Parkhurst says that in the later Greek writers, and in the New Testament, ὕαλος denotes the artificial substance, glass; and that we may either with Mintert derive it from ἕλη, splendour, or immediately from the Hebrew הל, to shine. There seems to be no reference to glass in the Old Testament. The art of making it was not known. Our translators have rendered the Hebrew word מראת, in Exodus xxxviii, 8, and Job xxxvii, 18, “looking-glass.” But the making mirrors of glass coated with quicksilver, is an invention quite modern. The word looking-glass occurs in our version of Ecclesiasticus xii, 11, “Never trust thine enemy; for like as iron rusteth, so is his wickedness. Though he humble himself, and go crouching, yet take good heed and beware of him, and thou shalt be unto him as if thou hadst washed a looking-glass, and thou shalt know that his rust hath not been altogether wiped away.” This passage proves, by its mention of rust, that mirrors were then made of polished metal. The word ἔσοπτρον, or mirror, occurs in 1 Cor. xiii, 12, and James i, 23. Dr. Pearce thinks that in the former place it signifies any of those transparent substances which the ancients used in their windows, and through which they saw external objects obscurely. But others are of opinion that the word denotes a mirror of polished metal; as this, however, was liable to many imperfections, so that the object before it was not seen clearly or fully, the meaning of the Apostle is, that we see things as it were by images reflected from a mirror, which shows them very obscurely and indistinctly. In the latter place, a mirror undoubtedly is meant; “For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway he forgetteth what manner of man he was:” but in the former, 1 Cor. xiii, 12, semi-transparent glass such as that which we see in the ancient glass vases of the Romans is obviously intended. Specimens of Roman glass may be seen in collections of antiquities, and some have been dug up at Pompeii; but in all it is cloudy and dull, and objects can only be seen through it with indistinctness. From this we may fully perceive the force of the Apostle’s words, “now we see through a glass darkly.”

GLEAN. To glean is properly to gather ears of corn, or grapes, left by the reapers, &c. The Jews were not allowed to glean their fields, but were to leave this to the poor, Lev. xix, 10; xxiii, 22; Deut. xxiv, 21; Ruth ii, 3.

GLORIFY, to make glorious or honourable, or to cause to appear so, John xii, 28; xiii, 31, 32; xv, 8; xvii, 4, 5; xxi, 19; Acts iii, 13. In this view it particularly refers to the resurrection of Christ, and his ascension to the right hand of God, John vii, 39; xii, 16. It also expresses that change which shall pass upon believers at the general resurrection, and their admission into heaven.

GLORY, splendour, magnificence. The glory of God in the writings of Moses, denotes, generally, the divine presence; as when he appeared on Mount Sinai; or, the bright cloud which declared his presence, and descended on the tabernacle of the congregation, Exod. xxiv, 9, 10, 16, 17. Moses, with Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy elders of Israel, went up to Mount Sinai, and “saw the glory of the Lord.” Now “the glory of the Lord was, as it were, a burning fire on the mountain; and under his feet was, as it were, the brightness of the sapphire stone, resembling heaven itself in clearness.” The glory of the Lord appeared to Israel in the cloud also, when he gave them manna and quails, Exod. xvi, 7, 10. Moses having earnestly begged of God to show his glory to him, God said, “Thou canst not see my face, for there shall no man see me and live. And the Lord said, There is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock: and it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in the cleft of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by: and I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see my back parts:” (the train, the fainter rays of the glory:) “but my face shall not be seen,” Exod. xxxiii, 18. The ark of God is called the glory of Israel; and the glory of God, 1 Samuel iv, 21, 22; Psalm xxvi, 8. The priestly ornaments are called “garments of glory,” Exod. xxviii, 2, 40; and the sacred vessels, “vessels of glory,” 1 Macc. ii, 9, 12. Solomon “in all his glory,” in all his lustre, in his richest ornaments, was not so beautifully arrayed as a lily, Matt. vi, 29; Luke xii, 27. When the prophets describe the conversion of the Gentiles, they speak of the “glory of the Lord” as filling the earth; that is, his knowledge shall universally prevail, and he shall be every where worshipped and glorified. The term “glory” is used also of the Gospel dispensation by St. Paul; and to express the future felicity of the saints in heaven. When the Hebrews required an oath of any man, they said, “Give glory to God:” confess the truth, give him glory, confess that God knows the most secret thoughts, the very bottom of your hearts, Joshua vii, 19; John ix, 24.

GNAT, κώνωψ, Matt. xxiii, 24, a small-winged insect, comprehending a genus of the order of diptera. In those hot countries, as Servius remarks, speaking of the east, gnats and flies are very apt to fall into wine, if it be not carefully covered; and passing the liquor through a strainer, that no gnat or part of one might remain, became a proverb for exactness about little matters. This may help us to understand that passage, Matt. xxiii, 24, where the proverbial expression of carefully straining out a little fly from the liquor to be drunk, 407and yet swallowing a camel, intimates, that the scribes and Pharisees affected to scruple little things, and yet disregarded those of the greatest moment.

GNOSTICS, from γνώσις, “knowledge,” men of science and wisdom, illuminati; men who, from blending the philosophy of the east, or of Greece, with the doctrines of the Gospel, boasted of deeper knowledge in the Scriptures and theology than others. It was, therefore, not so properly a distinct sect as a generic term, comprehending all who, forsaking the simplicity of the Gospel, pretended to be “wise above what is written,” to explain the New Testament by the dogmas of the philosophers, and to derive from the sacred writings mysteries which never were contained in them. The origin of the Gnostic heresy, as it is called, has been variously stated. The principles of this heresy were, however, much older than Christianity; and many of the errors alluded to in the apostolic epistles are doubtless of a character very similar to some branches of the Gnostic system. (See Cabbala.) Cerinthus, against whom St. John wrote his Gospel; the Nicolaitans, mentioned in the Revelation, and the Ebionites, (described under that article,) were all early Gnostics, although the system was not then so completely formed as afterward. Dr. Burton, in his Bampton Lectures, has thus sketched the Gnostic system:--In attempting to give an account of these doctrines, I must begin with observing what we shall see more plainly when we trace the causes of Gnosticism, that it was not by any means a new and distinct philosophy, but made up of selections from almost every system. Thus we find in it the Platonic doctrine of ideas, and the notion that every thing in this lower world has a celestial and immaterial archetype. We find in it evident traces of that mystical and cabalistic jargon which, after their return from captivity, deformed the religion of the Jews; and many Gnostics adopted the oriental notion of two independent coëternal principles, the one the author of good, the other of evil. Lastly, we find the Gnostic theology full of ideas and terms which must have been taken from the Gospel; and Jesus Christ, under some form or other, of æon, emanation, or incorporeal phantom, enters into all their systems, and is the means of communicating to them that knowledge which raised them above all other mortals, and entitled them to their peculiar name. The genius and very soul of Gnosticism was mystery: its end and object was to purify its followers from the corruptions of matter, and to raise them to a higher scale of being, suited only to those who were become perfect by knowledge.

2. We have a key to many parts of their system, when we know that they held matter to be intrinsically evil, of which, consequently, God could not be the author. Hence arose their fundamental tenet, that the creator of the world, or Demiurgus, was not the same with the supreme God, the Author of good, and the Father of Christ. Their system allowed some of them to call the creator God; but the title most usually given to him was Demiurgus. Those who embraced the doctrine of two principles supposed the world to have been produced by the evil principle; and, in most systems, the creator, though not the father of Christ, was looked upon as the God of the Jews, and the author of the Mosaic law. Some, again, believed that angels were employed in creating the world; but all were agreed in maintaining that matter itself was not created, that it was eternal, and remained inactive, till

Dispositam, quisquis fuit ille Deorum,

Congeriem secuit, sectamque in membra redegit.

Ovid.

[Some God, whoever he was, separated and arranged the mass, and reduced it, when separated, into elements.]

The supreme God had dwelt from all eternity in a pleroma of inaccessible light; and beside the name of first Father, or first Principle, they called him also Bythus, as if to denote the unfathomable nature of his perfections. This being, by an operation purely mental, or by acting upon himself, produced two other beings of different sexes, from whom, by a series of descents, more or less numerous according to different schemes, several pairs of beings were formed, who were called æons, from the periods of their existence before time was, or emanations, from the mode of their production. These successive æons or emanations appear to have been inferior each to the preceding; and their existence was indispensable to the Gnostic scheme, that they might account for the creation of the world without making God the author of evil. These æons lived through countless ages with their first father; but the system of emanations seems to have resembled that of concentric circles; and they gradually deteriorated, as they approached nearer and nearer to the extremity of the pleroma. Beyond this pleroma was matter, inert and powerless, though coëternal with the supreme God, and like him without beginning. At length, one of the æons passed the limits of the pleroma, and, meeting with matter, created the world, after the form and model of an ideal world which existed in the pleroma or in the mind of the supreme God. Here it is that inconsistency is added to absurdity in the Gnostic scheme. For, let the intermediate æons be as many as the wildest imagination could devise, still God was the remote, if not the proximate, cause of creation. Added to which, we are to suppose that the Demiurgus formed the world without the knowledge of God; and that, having formed it, he rebelled against him. Here, again, we find a strong resemblance to the oriental doctrine of two principles, good and evil, or light and darkness. The two principles were always at enmity with each other. God must have been conceived to be more powerful than matter, or an emanation from God could not have shaped and moulded it into form: yet God was not able to reduce matter into its primeval chaos, nor to destroy the evil which the Demiurgus had produced. What God could not prevent, he was always endeavouring to cure: and here 408it is that the Gnostics borrowed so largely from the Christian scheme. The names, indeed, of several of their æons were evidently taken from terms which they found in the Gospel. Thus we meet with Logos, Monogenes, Zoe, Ecclesia, all of them successive emanations from the supreme God, and all dwelling in the pleroma. At length, we meet with Christ and the Holy Ghost, as two of the last æons which were put forth. Christ was sent into the world to remedy the evil which the creative æon or Demiurgus had caused. He was to emancipate men from the tyranny of matter, or of the evil principle; and, by revealing to them the true God, who was hitherto unknown, to fit them, by a perfection and sublimity of knowledge, to enter the divine pleroma. To give this knowledge, was the end and object of Christ’s coming upon earth; and hence the inventors and believers of the doctrine assumed to themselves the name of Gnostics. In all their notions concerning Christ, we still find them struggling with the same difficulty of reconciling the author of good with the existence of evil. Christ, as being an emanation from God, could have no real connection with matter: yet, the Christ of the Gnostics was held out to be the same with him who was revealed in the Gospel; and it was notorious that he was revealed as the Son of Mary, who appeared in a human form. The methods which they took to extricate themselves from the difficulty, were principally two: they either denied that Christ had a real body at all, and held that he was an unsubstantial phantom; or, granting that there was a man called Jesus, the son of human parents, they believed that one of the æons, called Christ, quitted the pleroma, and descended upon Jesus at his baptism.

3. We have seen that the God who was the father or progenitor of Christ, was not considered to be the creator of the world. Neither was he the God of the Old Testament, and the giver of the Mosaic law. This notion was supported by the same argument which infidels have often urged, that the God of the Jews is represented as a God of vengeance and of cruelty; but it was also a natural consequence of their fundamental principle, that the author of good cannot in any manner be the author of evil. In accordance with this notion, we find all the Gnostics agreed in rejecting the Jewish Scriptures, or, at least, in treating them with contempt. Since they held that the supreme God was revealed for the first time to mankind by Christ, he could not have been the God who inspired the prophets; and yet, with that strange inconsistency which we have already observed in them, they appealed to these very Scriptures in support of their own doctrines. They believed the prophets to have been inspired by the same creative æon, or the same principle of evil, which acted originally upon matter; and if their writings had come down to us, we should perhaps find them arguing, that, though the prophets were not inspired by the supreme God, they still could not help giving utterance to truth.

4. Their same abhorrence of matter, and their same notion concerning that purity of knowledge which Christ came upon earth to impart, led them to reject the Christian doctrines of a future resurrection and a general judgment. They seem to have understood the Apostles as preaching literally a resurrection of the body; and it is certain that the fathers insisted upon this very strongly as an article of belief. But to imagine that the body, a mass of created and corruptible matter, could ever enter into heaven, into that pleroma which was the dwelling of the supreme God, was a notion which violated the fundamental principle of the Gnostics. According to their scheme, no resurrection was necessary, much less a final judgment. The Gnostic, the man who had attained to perfect knowledge, was gradually emancipated from the grossness of matter; and, by an imperceptible transition, which none but a Gnostic could comprehend, he was raised to be an inhabitant of the divine pleroma. If we would know the effect which the doctrines of the Gnostics had upon their moral conduct, we shall find that the same principle led to two very opposite results. Though the fathers may have exaggerated the errors of their opponents, it seems undeniable, that many Gnostics led profligate lives, and maintained upon principle that such conduct was not unlawful. Others, again, are represented as practising great austerities, and endeavouring, by every means, to mortify the body and its sensual appetites. Both parties were actuated by the same common notion, that matter is inherently evil. The one thought that the body, which is compounded of matter, ought to be kept in subjection; and hence they inculcated self-denial, and the practice of moral virtue: while others, who had persuaded themselves that knowledge was every thing, despised the distinctions of the moral law, which was given, as they said, not by the supreme God, but by an inferior æon, or a principle of evil, who had allied himself with matter.

5. With respect to the origin of this system the same author observes: There is no system of philosophy which has been traced to a greater number of sources than that which we are now discussing; and the variety of opinions seems to have arisen from persons either not observing the very different aspects which Gnosticism assumed, or from wishing to derive it from one exclusive quarter. Thus, some have deduced it from the eastern notion of a good and evil principle, some from the Jewish Cabbala, and others from the doctrines of the later Platonists. Each of these systems is able to support itself by alleging very strong resemblances; and those persons have taken the most natural and probably the truest course, who have concluded that all these opinions contributed to build up the monstrous system, which was known by the name of Gnosticism.

GOAT, עו. There are other names or appellations given to the goat, as, 1. השופ, 1 Kings xx, 27, which means the ram-goat, or leader of the flock. 2. עתודים, a word which 409never occurs but in the plural, and means, the best prepared, or choicest of the flock; and metaphorically princes, as, Zech. x, 3, “I will visit the goats, saith the Lord,” that is, I will begin my vengeance with the princes of the people. “Hell from beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy coming; it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the great goats of the earth,” Isaiah xiv, 9; all the kings, all the great men. And Jeremiah, speaking of the princes of the Jews, says, “Remove out of the midst of Babylon, and be as the he-goats before the flocks,” Jer. 1, 8. 3. צפיר, a name for the goat, of Chaldee origin, and found only in Ezra vi, 17; viii, 35; Daniel viii, 5, 21. 4. עואול, from עו, a goat, and אול, to wander about, Leviticus xvi, 8, “the scape-goat.” 5. שער, hairy, or shaggy, whence שעירים, “the shaggy ones.” In Lev. xvii, 7, it is said, “And they shall no more offer their sacrifices unto devils,” (seirim, “hairy ones,”) “after whom they have gone a whoring.” The word here means idolatrous images of goats, worshipped by the Egyptians. It is the same word that is translated satyrs, in Isaiah xiii, 21; where the LXX render it δαιμόνια, demons. But here they have ματαιοίς, to vain things or idols, which comes to the same sense. What gives light to so obscure a passage is what we read in Maimonides, that the Zabian idolaters worshipped demons under the figure of goats, imagining them to appear in that form, whence they called them by the names of seirim; and that this custom, being spread among other nations, gave occasion to this precept. In like manner we learn from Herodotus, that the Egyptians of Mendes held goats to be sacred animals, and represented the god Pan with the legs and head of that animal. From those ancient idolaters the same notion seems to have been derived by the Greeks and Romans, who represented their Pan, their fauns, satyrs, and other idols, in the form of goats: from all which it is highly probable, that the Israelites had learned in Egypt to worship certain demons, or sylvan deities, under the symbolical figure of goats. Though the phrase, “after whom they have gone a whoring,” is equivalent in Scripture to that of committing idolatry, yet we are not to suppose that it is not to be taken in a literal sense in many places, even where it is used in connection with idolatrous acts of worship. It is well known that Baal-peor and Ashtaroth were worshipped with unclean rites, and that public prostitution formed a grand part of the worship of many deities among the Egyptians, Moabites, Canaanites, &c.

The goat was one of the clean beasts which the Israelites might both eat and offer in sacrifice. The kid, גרי is often mentioned as a food, in a way that implies that it was considered as a delicacy. The אקו, or wild goat, mentioned Deut. xiv, 5, and no where else in the Hebrew Bible, is supposed to be the tragelaphus, or “goat-deer.” Schultens conjectures that this animal might have its name, ob fugacitatem, from its shyness, or running away. The word יעל, occurs 1 Sam. xxiv, 3; Job xxxix, 1; Psalm civ, 18; Prov. v, 19: and various have been the sentiments of interpreters on the animal intended by it. Bochart insists that it is the ibex, or “rock-goat.” The root whence the name is derived, signifies to ascend, to mount; and the ibex is famous for clambering, climbing, and leaping, on the most craggy precipices. The Arab writers attribute to the jaal very long horns, bending backward; consequently it cannot be the chamois. The horns of the jaal are reckoned among the valuable articles of traffic, Ezek. xxvii, 15. The ibex is finely shaped, graceful in its motions, and gentle in its manners. The female is particularly celebrated by natural historians for tender affection to her young, and the incessant vigilance with which she watches over their safety; and also for ardent attachment and fidelity to her mate.

GOD, an immaterial, intelligent, and free Being; of perfect goodness, wisdom, and power; who made the universe, and continues to support it, as well as to govern and direct it, by his providence. Philologists have hitherto considered the word God as being of the same signification with good; and this is not denied by M. Hallenberg. But he thinks that both words originally denoted unity; and that the root is אתד, unus; whence the Syriac Chad and Gada; the Arabic Ahd and Gahd; the Persic Choda and Chuda; the Greek ἀγαθὸς and γάθος; the Teutonic Gud; the German Gott; and our Saxon God. The other names of God, this author thinks, are referable to a similar origin.

2. By his immateriality, intelligence, and freedom, God is distinguished from Fate, Nature, Destiny, Necessity, Chance, Anima Mundi, and from all the other fictitious beings acknowledged by the Stoics, Pantheists, Spinosists, and other sorts of Atheists. The knowledge of God, his nature, attributes, word, and works, with the relations between him and his creatures, makes the subject of the extensive science called theology. In Scripture God is defined by, “I am that I am; Alpha and Omega; the Beginning and End of all things.” Among philosophers, he is defined a Being of infinite perfection; or in whom there is no defect of any thing which we conceive may raise, improve, or exalt his nature. He is the First Cause, the First Being, who has existed from the beginning, has created the world, or who subsists necessarily, or of himself.

3. The plain argument, says Maclaurin, in his “Account of Sir I. Newton’s Philosophical Discoveries,” for the existence of the Deity, obvious to all, and carrying irresistible conviction with it, is from the evident contrivance and fitness of things for one another, which we meet with throughout all parts of the universe. There is no need of nice or subtle reasonings in this matter; a manifest contrivance immediately suggests a contriver. It strikes us like a sensation; and artful reasonings against it may puzzle us, but it is without shaking our belief. No person, for example, that knows the principles of optics, 410and the structure of the eye, can believe that it was formed without skill in that science; or that the ear was formed without the knowledge of sounds; or that the male and female in animals were not formed for each other, and for continuing the species. All our accounts of nature are full of instances of this kind. The admirable and beautiful structure of things for final causes, exalts our idea of the Contriver; the unity of design shows him to be one. The great motions in the system performed with the same facility as the least, suggest his almighty power, which gave motion to the earth and the celestial bodies with equal ease as to the minutest particles. The subtilty of the motions and actions in the internal parts of bodies, shows that his influence penetrates the inmost recesses of things, and that he is equally active and present every where. The simplicity of the laws that prevail in the world, the excellent disposition of things, in order to obtain the best ends, and the beauty which adorns the works of nature, far superior to any thing in art, suggest his consummate wisdom. The usefulness of the whole scheme, so well contrived for the intelligent beings that enjoy it, with the internal disposition and moral structure of these beings themselves, shows his unbounded goodness. These are arguments which are sufficiently open to the views and capacities of the unlearned, while at the same time they acquire new strength and lustre from the discoveries of the learned. The Deity’s acting and interposing in the universe, show that he governs as well as formed it; and the depth of his counsels, even in conducting the material universe, of which a great part surpasses our knowledge, keeps up an inward veneration and awe of this great Being, and disposes us to receive what may be otherwise revealed to us concerning him. It has been justly observed, that some of the laws of nature now known to us must have escaped us if we had wanted the sense of seeing. It may be in his power to bestow upon us other senses, of which we have at present no idea; without which it may be impossible for us to know all his works, or to have more adequate ideas of himself. In our present state, we know enough to be satisfied of our dependency upon him, and of the duty we owe to him, the Lord and Disposer of all things. He is not the object of sense; his essence, and, indeed, that of all other substances, are beyond the reach of all our discoveries; but his attributes clearly appear in his admirable works. We know that the highest conceptions we are able to form of them, are still beneath his real perfections; but his power and dominion over us, and our duty toward him, are manifest.

4. Though God has given us no innate ideas of himself, says Mr. Locke, yet, having furnished us with those faculties our minds are endowed with, he hath not left himself without a witness; since we have sense, perception, and reason, and cannot want a clear proof of him as long as we carry ourselves about us. To show, therefore, that we are capable of knowing, that is, of being certain that there is a God, and how we may come by this certainty, I think we need go no farther than ourselves, and that undoubted knowledge we have of our own existence. I think it is beyond question, that man has a clear perception of his own being; he knows certainly that he exists, and that he is something. In the next place, man knows, by an intuitive certainty, that bare nothing can no more produce any real being, than it can be equal to two right angles. If, therefore, we know there is some real Being, it is an evident demonstration, that from eternity there has been something; since what was not from eternity had a beginning; and what had a beginning must be produced by something else. Next it is evident, that what has its being from another must also have all that which is in, and belongs to, its being from another too; all the powers it has must be owing to, and derived from, the same source. This eternal source, then, of all being must be also the source and original of all power; and so this eternal Being must be also the most powerful. Again: man finds in himself perception and knowledge: we are certain, then, that there is not only some Being, but some knowing, intelligent Being, in the world. There was a time, then, when there was no knowing Being, or else there has been a knowing Being from eternity. If it be said there was a time when that eternal Being had no knowledge, I reply, that then it is impossible there should have ever been any knowledge; it being as impossible that things wholly void of knowledge, and operating blindly, and without any perception, should produce a knowing Being, as it is impossible that a triangle should make itself three angles bigger than two right ones. Thus from the consideration of ourselves, and what we infallibly find in our own constitutions, our reason leads us to the knowledge of this certain and evident truth, that there is an eternal, most powerful, and knowing Being, which, whether any one will call God, it matters not. The thing is evident; and from this idea, duly considered, will easily be deduced all those other attributes we ought to ascribe to this eternal Being. From what has been said, it is plain to me, that we have a more certain knowledge of the existence of a God, than of any thing our senses have not immediately discovered to us. Nay, I presume I may say that we more certainly know that there is a God, than that there is any thing else without us. When I say we know, I mean, there is such a knowledge within our reach, which we cannot miss, if we will but apply our minds to that as we do to several other inquiries. It being then unavoidable for all rational creatures to conclude that something has existed from eternity, let us next see what kind of thing that must be. There are but two sorts of beings in the world that man knows or conceives; such as are purely material without sense or perception, and sensible, perceiving beings, such as we find ourselves to be. These two sorts we shall call cogitative 411and incogitative beings; which to our present purpose are better than material and immaterial. If, then, there must be something eternal, it is very obvious to reason that it must be a cogitative being; because it is as impossible to conceive that bare incogitative matter should ever produce a thinking, intelligent being, as that nothing should of itself produce matter. Let us suppose any parcel of matter eternal, we shall find it in itself unable to produce any thing. Let us suppose its parts firmly at rest together, if there were no other being in the world, must it not eternally remain so, a dead inactive lump? Is it possible to conceive that it can add motion to itself, or produce any thing? Matter, then, by its own strength cannot produce in itself so much as motion. The motion it has must also be from eternity, or else added to matter by some other being, more powerful than matter. But let us suppose motion eternal too, yet matter, incogitative matter, and motion could never produce thought: knowledge will still be as far beyond the power of nothing to produce. Divide matter into as minute parts as you will, vary its figure and motion as much as you please, it will operate no otherwise upon other bodies of proportionable bulk, than it did before this division. The minutest particles of matter knock, impel, and resist one another, just as the greater do; so that if we suppose nothing eternal, matter can never begin to be; if we suppose bare matter without motion eternal, motion can never begin to be; if we suppose only matter and motion to be eternal, thought can never begin to be; for it is impossible to conceive that matter, either with or without motion, could have originally in and from itself, sense, perception, and knowledge, as is evident from hence, that then sense, perception, and knowledge must be a property eternally inseparable from matter, and every particle of it. Since, therefore, whatsoever is the first eternal Being must necessarily be cogitative; and whatsoever is first of all things must necessarily contain in it, and actually have, at least all the perfections that can ever after exist, it necessarily follows, that the first eternal Being cannot be matter. If, therefore, it be evident that something must necessarily exist from eternity, it is also evident that that something must necessarily be a cogitative Being. For it is as impossible that incogitative matter should produce a cogitative Being, as that nothing, or the negation of all being, should produce a positive Being or matter.

This discovery of the necessary existence of an eternal mind sufficiently leads us to the knowledge of God. For it will hence follow, that all other knowing beings that have a beginning must depend upon him, and have no other ways of knowledge or extent of power than what he gives them; and therefore if he made those, he made also the less excellent pieces of this universe, all inanimate bodies, whereby his omniscience, power, and providence will be established, and from thence all his other attributes necessarily follow.

5. In the Scriptures no attempt is made to prove the existence of a God; such an attempt would have been entirely useless, because the fact was universally admitted. The error of men consisted, not in denying a God, but in admitting too many; and one great object of the Bible is to demonstrate that there is but one. No metaphysical arguments, however, are employed in it for this purpose. The proof rests on facts recorded in the history of the Jews, from which it appears that they were always victorious and prosperous so long as they served the only living and true God, Jehovah, the name by which the Almighty made himself known to them, and uniformly unsuccessful when they revolted from him to serve other gods. What argument could be so effectual to convince them that there was no god in all the earth but the God of Israel? The sovereignty and universal providence of the Lord Jehovah are proved by predictions delivered by the Jewish prophets, pointing out the fate of nations and of empires, specifying distinctly their rise, the duration of their power, and the causes of their decline; thus demonstrating that one God ruled among the nations, and made them the unconscious instruments of promoting the purposes of his will. In the same manner, none of the attributes of God are demonstrated in Scripture by reasoning; they are simply affirmed and illustrated by facts; and instead of a regular deduction of doctrines and conclusions from a few admitted principles, we are left to gather them from the recorded feelings and devotional expressions of persons whose hearts were influenced by the fear of God. These circumstances point out a marked singularity in the Scriptures, considered as a repository of religious doctrines. The writers, generally speaking, do not reason, but exhort and remonstrate; they do not attempt to fetter the judgment by the subtleties of argument, but to rouse the feelings by an appeal to palpable facts. This is exactly what might have been expected from teachers acting under a divine commission, and armed with undeniable facts to enforce their admonitions.

6. In three distinct ways do the sacred writers furnish us with information on this great and essential subject, the existence and the character of God; from the names by which he is designated; from the actions ascribed to him; and from the attributes with which he is invested in their invocations and praises; and in those lofty descriptions of his nature which, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have recorded for the instruction of the world. These attributes will be considered under their respective heads; but the impression of the general view of the divine character, as thus revealed, is too important to be omitted.

7. The names of God as recorded in Scripture convey at once ideas of overwhelming greatness and glory, mingled with that awful mysteriousness with which, to all finite minds, and especially to the minds of mortals, the divine essence and mode of existence must ever be invested. Though One he is אלהים, Elohim, Gods, persons adorable. He is יהוה, Jehovah, 412self-existing; אל, El, strong, powerful; אהיה, Ehieh, I am, I will be, self-existence, independency, all-sufficiency, immutability, eternity; שדי, Shaddai, almighty, all-sufficient; אדן, Adon, Supporter, Lord, Judge. These are among the adorable appellatives of God which are scattered throughout the revelation that he has been pleased to make of himself: but on one occasion he was pleased more particularly to declare his name, that is, such of the qualities and attributes of the divine nature as mortals are the most interested in knowing; and to unfold, not only his natural, but also those of his moral attributes by which his conduct toward his creatures is regulated. “And the Lord passed by and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and fourth generation,” Exodus xxxiv. This is the most ample and particular description of the character of God, as given by himself in the sacred records; and the import of the several titles by which he has thus in his infinite condescension manifested himself, has been thus exhibited. He is not only Jehovah, self-existent, and El, the strong or mighty God; but he is, says Dr. A. Clarke, “רחום, Rochum, the merciful Being, who is full of tenderness and compassion; חנון, Chanun, the gracious One, he whose nature is goodness itself, the loving God. ארך פים, Erec Apayim, long-suffering, the Being who, because of his tenderness, is not easily irritated, but suffers long and is kind; דב Rab, the great or mighty One: חסד, Chesed, the bountiful Being, he who is exuberant in his beneficence; אפת, Emeth, the Truth, or True One, he alone who can neither deceive nor be deceived; נצר חסד, Notser Chesed, the Preserver of bountifulness, he whose beneficence never ends, keeping mercy for thousands of generations, showing compassion and mercy while the world endures; נשא עון ופשע וחטאה, Nose avon vapesha vechataah, he who bears away iniquity, transgression, and sin; properly the Redeemer, the Pardoner, the Forgiver, the Being whose prerogative it is to forgive sin, and save the soul; נקה לא ינקה, Nakeh lo yinnakeh, the righteous Judge, who distributes justice with an impartial hand; and פקד עין, Paked avon, &c, he who visits iniquity, he who punishes transgressors, and from whose justice no sinner can escape; the God of retributive and vindictive justice.”

8. The second means by which the Scriptures convey to us the knowledge of God, is by the actions which they ascribe to him. They contain, indeed, the important record of his dealings with men in every age which is comprehended within the limit of the sacred history; and, by prophetic declaration, they also exhibit the principles on which he will govern the world to the end of time: so that the whole course of the divine administration may be considered as exhibiting a singularly illustrative comment upon those attributes of his nature which, in their abstract form, are contained in such declarations as those which have been just quoted. The first act ascribed to God is that of creating the heavens and the earth out of nothing; and by his fiat alone arranging their parts, and peopling them with living creatures. By this were manifested--his eternity and self-existence, as he who creates must be before all creatures, and he who gives being to others can himself derive it from none:--his almighty power, shown both in the act of creation and in the number and vastness of the objects so produced:--his wisdom, in their arrangement, and in their fitness to their respective ends:--and his goodness, as the whole tended to the happiness of sentient beings. The foundations of his natural and moral government are also made manifest by his creative acts. In what he made out of nothing he had an absolute right and prerogative: it awaited his ordering, and was completely at his disposal; so that to alter or destroy his own work, and to prescribe the laws by which the intelligent and rational part of his creatures should be governed, are rights which none can question. Thus on the one hand his character of Lord or Governor is established, and on the other our duty of lowly homage and absolute obedience.

9. Agreeably to this, as soon as man was created, he was placed under a rule of conduct. Obedience was to be followed with the continuance of the divine favour; transgression, with death. The event called forth new manifestations of the character of God. His tender mercy, in the compassion showed to the fallen pair; his justice, in forgiving them only in the view of a satisfaction to be hereafter offered to his justice by an innocent representative of the sinning race; his love to that race, in giving his own Son to become this Redeemer, and in the fulness of time to die for the sins of the whole world; and his holiness, in connecting with this provision for the pardon of man the means of restoring him to a sinless state, and to the obliterated image of God in which he had been created. Exemplifications of the divine mercy are traced from age to age, in his establishing his own worship among men, and remitting the punishment of individual and national offences in answer to prayer offered from penitent hearts, and in dependence upon the typified or actually offered universal sacrifice:--of his condescension, in stooping to the cases of individuals; in his dispensations both of providence and grace, by showing respect to the poor and humble; and, principally, by the incarnation of God in the form of a servant, admitting men into familiar and friendly intercourse with himself, and then entering into heaven to be their patron and advocate, until they should be received unto the same glory, “and so be for ever with the Lord:”--of his strictly righteous government, in the destruction of the old world, the cities of the plain, the nations of Canaan, and all ancient states, upon their “filling up the measure of their iniquities;” and, to show 413that “he will by no means clear the guilty;” in the numerous and severe punishments inflicted even upon the chosen seed of Abraham, because of their transgressions:--of his long-suffering, in frequent warnings, delays, and corrective judgments inflicted upon individuals and nations, before sentence of utter excision and destruction:--of faithfulness and truth, in the fulfilment of promises, often many ages after they were given, as in the promises to Abraham respecting the possession of the land of Canaan by his seed, and in all the “promises made to the fathers” respecting the advent, vicarious death, and illustrious offices of the “Christ,” the Saviour of the world:--of his immutability, in the constant and unchanging laws and principles of his government, which remain to this day precisely the same, in every thing universal, as when first promulgated, and have been the rule of his conduct in all places as well as through all time:--of his prescience of future events, manifested by the predictions of Scripture:--and of the depth and stability of his counsel, as illustrated in that plan and purpose of bringing back a revolted world to obedience and felicity, which we find steadily kept in view in the Scriptural history of the acts of God in former ages; which is still the end toward which all his dispensations bend, however wide and mysterious their sweep; and which they will finally accomplish, as we learn from the prophetic history of the future, contained in the Old and New Testaments.