tizing the Gentiles of Cornelius' fa- | ness, and affectionate conjunction, mily, and vindication of his conduct Gen. v. 2.: but it is ordinarily apberein, chap. ix. 32,-43. and x. propriated to the man. On the and xi. 1,-18.: of the spreading of sixth day of the creation, when God the gospel among the Gentiles by had fitted the earth for his resi the dispersed preachers; and the dence, he formed man's body of contribution for the saints at Jeru- the dust of the ground; he breathed salem in the time of a dearth, chap. into his nostrils the breath of life, si. 19,-39. of Herod's murder of and endued him with a rational James; imprisonment of Peter, and soul, resembling himself in knowfearful death, chap. xii.: of the ledge, righteousness, and holiness: council held at Jerusalem, which for his exercise and refreshment, he condemned the imposition of Jewish placed him in the garden of Eden, ceremonies, and advised to avoid to keep and cultivate it. Though offence of the weak, to forbear eat- his most perfect obedience was due ing of meats offered to idols, or of to his Maker, and could properly things strangled, or blood, chap. xv. merit no valuable reward, God, in The rest of the book relates the rich condescension and grace, made conversion, labours, and sufferings a covenant with him, importing, of Paul, chap. ix. 1,-81. and xiii. that upon condition of his perfect and xiv. and xvi. to the end. It obedience to every precept of the contains the history of the plant- divine law, he and all his posterity ing and regulation of the Christian should be rewarded with happiness church for about 30 years. Nor and life, natural, spiritual, and eterbave we any other for 250 years nal; but in case of failure, should be after that deserves our belief. This subjected to the contrary, death, to large gap betwixt inspired history, which he consented. This, to be and that of human authority which sure, was the shortest, easiest, and deserves credit, Providence no doubt most probable method of securing ordered, that our faith and practice happiness to mankind. relative to the concerns of the was the fittest person, and lay church should stand, not in the wis- under the strongest obligations to dom of men, but in the authority of perform the condition. To render God. him the more attentive, to keep him Luke the evangelist was the pen-mindful of his fallible nature, and man of this history; he wrote it as a continuation of his history of Christ. The Marcionite and Manichean heretics of the early ages of Christianity utterly rejected it. The Ebionites translated it into Hebrew, grossly corrupting it. Other heretics attempted to obtrude on the church a variety of forged imitations of it; as Abdias' Acts of the apostles, the Acrs of Peter, Paul, John, Andrew, Thomas, Philip, Matthias, &c. ADAM. This name was divinely imposed on both the original parents of the human race, to import their earthly original, their comeli that his happiness consisted only in passing a sentence of ruin upon Satan and his agents, by means of the Seed of the woman, and of affliction on the serpent, the instrument of his deceit; of sorrow, painful childbirth, and further subjection to her husband, on the woman and her female offspring; God threatened Adam and his whole posterity with a curse on their fields; with scanty crops; with sorrow and toil; and finally, with death and a return to dust. The threatening on Satan implied a promise of mercy and redemption to mankind by the blood of God's Son: God therefore now instructed Adam and his wife in the manner and signification of typical sacrifices. To mark their degrading of themselves to the rank of beasts by sin, and denote their recovery by the imputed righteousness of the great atonement, God clothed them with the skins of sacrificed animals. To testify his displeasure with sin, and prevent their vain attempts to procure happiness and immortality by eating of the tree of life, God ex a piece of flesh, or a rib, from his side, without the least pain, and formed it into the body of a most beautiful woman: Her too he endued with a reasonable soul, and brought her to Adam, who received her with the utmost affection as his wife. There being no inclemency in the air, no irregularity in their nature, they went both naked; and were neither hurt nor ashamed, Gen. i. 23,-31. and ii. Psal. viii. 4,-7. Rom. v. 12,-19. That very day, or rather soon after, Satan, just expelled from the heavenly abodes, conceiving the strongest envy at the happiness of mankind, resolved to effectuate their ruin. Sticking at nothing base, he entered into a serpent, the most simple or subtile of the animal tribe. Thence, finding the woman all alone, he conferred with her; tempted her to suspect the meaning and certainty of the divine prohibition, and to eat of the forbidden fruit. Solicited by her, Adam followed his wife's example, received part of the fruit from her hand, and did eat thereof. He no doubt hoped for happi-pelled them from Eden, to cultivate ness, at least impunity, in so doing; but it is quite absurd to imagine he wittingly threw himself into endless woe, from affection to her. Guilt immediately seized on their conscience, and irregular passions awaked in their soul; they were ashamed of their nakedness, and applied fig. leaves for a covering. In the cool, or afternoon of the day, they heard the Voice, the WORD, or Son of God, walking in the garden, and fled to hide themselves amidst the thick bushes or trees. God called for Adam and inquired why he fled, how he became ashamed of his nakedness, and why he had eaten the forbidden fruit? Adam laid the whole blame on Eve, whom, he said, God had given him for an assistant and comfort. Eve blamed the serpent as her deceiver. After the fields eastward, whence their body had been formed. The symbols of the divine presence hovered on the east of the garden: some angels, and perhaps some fiery meteor there placed, rendering it impossible for mankind to re-enter. Just before his expulsion Adam had called his wife ÉVE, because she was to be the common mother of men, particularly of these appointed to everlasting life. Now he knew her, and she conceived and bare CAIN, and soon after ABEL. These Adam taught to sacrifice to the Lord, but both in the issue proved to their parents a source of trouble and grief. Soon after the death of Abel, Adam, in the 130th year of his age, had Seth born to him: he had besides a great many other children. After he had lived 930 years he died. A member of fancies concerning him are reported by Heathen and Jewish writers: but he is represented in scripture as a covenant-breaker; as a coverer of his transgressions; as a source of guilt and death to all his posterity; and as a figure of the promised Messiah, Gen. iii. iv. and v. Hos. vii. 6. Job xxxi. 33. Rom. v. 12,-19. 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22, 45, -49. Jesus Christ is called the second ADAM, because of his similitude to the first. He is in a peculiar manper the Son of God, the express image of his person, and brightness of his glory. He is a new thing created in the earth, by the overshadowing influence of the Holy Ghost. He is the glorious fruit of the earth; the product of the chief counsels of God, and the ornament and centre of all his works. He is the head and representative of his people in the second and last cove nant: he is their common parent, who communicates to them his spiritual image, and entitles them to all the fulness of God: he is their great prophet, priest, and goverBor. All things, without reserve, are subjected to him for their sake. Having by his blood regained the celestial paradise, he resides in it, and cultivates the whole garden of his church; and hath, and gives men, power to eat of the tree of life. Being, by the determinate counsel of God, cast into the deep sleep of debasement and death, his church, in her true members, was formed out of his broken body and pierced side: divinely is she espoused to him; and to her he cleaves, at the expense of once leaving his Father in heaven, and now leaving his mother the church and nation of Judah, 1 Cor. xv. 22, 45,—49. ADAM, ADAMAH, ADAMI, a city pertaining to the tribe of NAPHTALI. It was situated near the south end of the sea of Tiberias: just by it the waters of Jordan stood as an heap till the Hebrews passed over, Josh. iii. 16. and xix. 33, 3. Perhaps Adami was a different city from Adamah. ADAMAH, or ADMAH, the most easterly of the four cities destroyed by fire and brimstone from heaven. Some think the Moabites built a city of that name near to where the other had stood, Gen. xiv. 2. Deut. xxix. 23. To be made as Almah, and set as Zeboim, is to be made a distinguished monument of the fearful vengeance of God, Hos. xi. 8. ADAMANT, the same precious stone, which we call a diamond. It is the hardest and the most valuable of gems. It is of a fine pellucid substance; is never foulded by any mixture of course matter; but is ready to receive an elegant tinge from metalline particles: Being rubbed with a soft substance it shines in the dark; but its lustre is checkt if in the open air any thing stop its communication with the sky. It gives fire with steel, but does not ferment with acid menstruums. No fire, except the concentrated heat of the solar rays, have the least impression on it, and even that affects but its weakest parts. Some diamonds are found in Brazil, but these of the East Indies, in the kingdoms of Golconda, Visapour, Bengal, and the isle of Borneo, are the best. We know of no more than four mines of diamond in India. That of Gani or Coulour, about seven days journey east of Golconda, seems the most noted. About 60,000 persons work in it. The goodness of diamonds consist in their water or colour, lustre and weight. The most perfect colour is the whitish. Their defects are veins, flaws, spects of red or black sand; and a bluish or yellowish cast. The finest diamonds now in the world are, that of the present king utter, Deut. v. 22. They added nothing to me; they gave me no new information or authority which I had not before, Gal. ii. 6. To add sin to sin, is to continue and become more open and active in the practice of it, Isa. xxx. 1. To add to faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge, &c. is more and more to exercise and abound in all the graces of the divine Spirit, and the virtues of an holy conversation in their proper connection, 2 Pet. i. 5,-7. ADDER, a venomous animal, brought forth alive, not by eggs. It is considerably smaller and shorter than the snake, and has black spots on its back; its belly is quite black of France, weighing 136 carats : that of the Duke of Tuscany, weighing 136 carats, and worth 195,374 pounds Sterling: that of the Great Mogul, weighing 279 carats, and worth 779,244 pounds: that of a certain merchant, weighing 242 carats. There is too, one in the French crown that weighs 106 carats. The adamant or daimond was the third jewel in the second row of the high-priest's breastplate, Exod. xxviii. 18. Ezekiel's forehead was made like an adamant; he was endued with undaunted boldness in declaring God's message to the Jews, Ezek. iii. 9. Wicked men's hearts are as an adamant; neither the threatenings nor judg-ish: it is oft called a viper. We ments of God can break; nor his mercies, invitations, or promises, melt them, till they be sprinkled with Jesus' blood, and have his love shed abroad in them by the Holy Ghost, Zech. vii. 12. The sin of Judah was written with a pen of iron, and point of a diamond; their corrupt inclinations were deep rooted and fixed in their heart and all their crimes were indelibly marked by God, Jer. xvii. 1. ADAR, the 12th month of the Jewish ecclesiastic year, and the 6th of their civil. It had 29 days, and answered to our February and part of March. On the third day of it, the second temple was finished and dedicated, Ezra vi. 15. On the seventh, the Jews fast for the death of Moses: on the 13th, they commemorate the fast of ESTHER and Mordecai on the 14th, they observe the feast of PURIM, Esth. iv. and ix. 17. On the 25th, they commemorate the release of JEHOIACHIN, Jer. lii. 31. Every third YEAR, there was a second Adar added, consisting of thirty days. To ADD. (1.) to join or put to, Deut. iv. 2. (2.) To increase, Prov. xvi. 23. (3.) To bestow, Gen. xxx. 24. (4.) To proceed to find the word ADDER five times in our translation, but I suppose always without warrant from the original. Shepiphon, Gen. xlix. 17. is probably the blood-snake, a serpent of the colour of sand, and which lies among it, and, especially if trampled upon, gives a sudden and dangerous bite. Pethen, Psal. Iviii. 4. and xci. 13. and cxi. 3. signifies an ASP. Tziphoni, Prov. xxiii. 32. signifies that dreadful serpent called the Basilisk. To ADJURE. (1.) To bind one by oath, as under the penalty of a fearful curse, Josh. vi. 26. Mark v. 7. (2.) To charge solemnly, as by the authority, and under pain of the displeasure of God, Acts xix. 13. Matth. xxvi. 63. To ADMINISTER, to manage and give out as stewards, 2 Cor. viii. 19. ADMINISTRATION, a public office, and the execution thereof, 1 Cor. xii. 5. To ADMIRE, to wonder at any thing for its greatness, excellency, rarity, 2 Thess. i. 10. To ADMONISH; to instruct; warn; reprove, 1 Thess. v. 14. The The admonition of the Lord is instruction, warning, and reproof, given in the Lord's name from his word, in a way becoming his perfections, and intended for his honour, Eph. vi. 4. Heritics are to be rejected, or cast out of the church, after a first and second admonition, i. e. solema warning and reproof, Tit. iii. 10. ADONIBEZEK, the king of BEZEK. Just before Joshua entered the land of Canaan. Adonibezek had waged a furious war with his neighbouring kings; seventy of them he had taken captives; and, cutting off their thumbs and great toes, had caused them, like dogs, feed on the crumbs that fell from his table. After Joshua's death, the tribes of Judah and Simeon, finding themselves pent up by the Canaanites, resolved to clear their cantons of these accursed nations: among others they fell upon Adonibézek; took his capital, and made himself prisoner; and cut off his thumbs and great toes; he thereupon acknowledged the just vengeance of Heaven upon him, for his cruelty towards his fellow princes. They brought him along with them to Jerusalem, where he died about A. M. 2570, Judg. i. 4,—7. all his brethren except Solomon, While they caroused at their cups, ADONIJAH, was the 4th son of king David, born at Hebron. When his two elder brothers Ammon and Absalon were dead, and Chileab perhaps weak and inactive, and his father languished under the infitmities of old age, Adonijah attempted to seize the kingdom of Israel for himself. He prepared himself a magnificent equipage of horses and horsemen, and fifty men to run before him: this displeased not his father. His interest at court waxed powerful, JOAB the general of the forces, ABIATHAR the high-ceiver of Solomon's tribute, and priest, and others, were of his par- director of the 30,000 sent to cut ty; though Benaiah, Zadok, and timber in Lebanon, for building the Nathan the prophet, and the most temple and other magnificent strucof the mighty men, were not. To tures, 1 Kings v. 14. introduce himself to the throne, he prepared a splendid entertainment at ENROGEL: to this he inviteded that Joshua had VOL. I. No. I. ADONIZEDEK, king of Jerusalem, A. M. 2554. Being informtaken Jericho E |