cre of about 200,000, or as some say, 300,000 Protestants in Ireland, bid fair to extirpate the reformation in these places; but Providence remarkably interposed. About A. D. 1620, and afterward, the Papists almost extirpated the Protestants from Bohemia, and the palatinate of the Rhine; and bade fair to expel their religion from Germany. But by the seasonable interposal of Gustavus, king of Sweden, and after a war of a

ing which, it is believed, the Papists ment, much nearer to the Popish than had a very active hand. By reason any of their Protestant brethren.of the Lutherans' obstinacy, their dif- Since the beginning of the 17th centuference with other Protestants, about ry, the reformation has been generally the corporal presence of Christ, in and on the decline. The true religion has with the sacramental bread, could ne- indeed spread into part of America; ver be composed. Servetus, Socinus, and in New England hath had consiand others, shocked with the idolatry || derable success: but I suppose, that, and absurdities of the Romish church, on the whole, the Protestants are now drunk in a system of blasphemy, not decreased in number about 12 or 15 much different from that of Mahomet. millions. Twice the Prelatists' perThey made human reason the stand-secution of their Protestant brethren ard of trying revelation, and so reject-in Britain, and once a Popish massaed the doctrine of the Trinity, of the divinity of Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and of Christ's satisfaction for our sins, and our justification through him. They denied the covenants of works and grace; denied original sin; maintained, that perfection in holiness is attainable in this life; and that there was no matter what opinions in religion men were of, if they but trusted the promises, and obeyed the commands of God. They admitted every body that asked, be of what par-bout 30 years, the Protestants, both ty he would, to their church-fellowship; and contended, that such as opposed this universal coalescence were unchristian bigots. In Poland, Hungary, and Transylvania, they made a considerable figure, under the name of Antitrinitarians, or Socinians. In the next century, the Dutch Remonstrant Arminians embraced a great part of their errors, and thought the rest of very small consequence. These Socinians, assuming the Protestant name, rendered the reformers o'lious. The madness, error, and bloodshed of the Anabaptists in Germany, immediately after the begun reformation, had the same effect.The Christian religion, however, as taught by Luther, was, by civil authority, settled in Denmark, Sweden, and a great part of Germany; as taught by Calvin, in Holland, half of Switzerland, and in Scotland, and secured by edict in France. In England and Ireland, the doctrines of Calvin were established by the reformers; but they retained a form of govern

Lutherans and Calvinists, had their liberties restored, and settled by the treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Lewis XIII. of France terribly distressed the Protestants there. His ungrateful son, after long oppression of them, whom they had fixed on the throne, did, in 1685, abolish the edict of Nantz, by which their liberties were established; and ordered his troops to convert them to Popery. Multitudes were forced to comply; vast numbers were barbarously murdered; and several hundred thousands, with great difficulty, fled off to Holland, Brandenburgh, Britain, &c. Thus, a famous Protestant church, in which there were once about 2000 congregations, sundry of them comprehending some thousand communicants, was entirely ruined.

In the last and present century, the Protestants that were once numerous in Hungary, Austria, and Savoy, are almost utterly extirpated. Nor in Poland, except in the country of Prussia, are many of them left. If we

may judge of other Protestant coun- if all the ancient martyrs had risen tries from the case of Britain, we are from the dead; and indeed they shall tempted to believe a considerable in- rise, not in their persons, but in their crease of Papists there. At present, spiritual successors; and shall, in glosuch is the condition of the Protest- rious fellowship with Christ, have the ant churches, by reason of the pre- ruling power for a thousand years; valence of ignorance, contention, and while the wicked shall be brought unlicentiousness, among all ranks, and der to such a degree, as if almost buof Arminian, Deistical, and other er- ried in their graves. It seems, that rors, and of negligence, and even pro- near the end of this happy period, faneness of clergymen, that one can Christians shall become lukewarm: hardly say whether they seem fastest | Satan, shall be freed from his former returning to Popery or to Heathen- restrictions; and, by his instigation, ism. the Russians, Turks, and Tartars, the Scythians, or persons of a similar savage temper, shall unite, to make a ruinous attack on the church. By some signal stroke of divine vengeance, perhaps at the very instant of Christ's appearance to judgment, shall their wicked armies be cut off. Then shall the world be judged; the hypocritical members of the church, together with Heathens and others, shall be condemned, and hurried to everlasting torments in hell; while the saints, after being first raised from the dead, caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and adjudged to happiness, shall, by Jesus be led into the heavenly mansions of bliss, to possess the everlasting enjoyment of God, Rev. xi. 15 -19. and xx. and xxi. Isa. xxxv. lx. and lxv. Ezek. xl. to xlviii.

Whatever particular revivals may take place among the Protestants, I fear things in general shall grow worse and worse, till, by apostacy, and by persecution and murder, the slaughter of the witnesses against Popery be fulfilled. Nor do I suppose this will take place, till about A. D. 1866, or 2016. Scarce shall the Popish party have prevailed to their wish, and kept the poor remains of the witnesses in a very low and distressed condition, || for about three years an a half, when God shall grant them a signal relief. From the beginning of which, to their entrance on the complete happiness of the millennial state, may be 75 years; the first thirty of which, it seems, shall be noted for terrible trouble and distress, Rev. xi. and xiv. Dan. xii. 1, 11, 12.

During the glorious Millennium, or thousand years reign of the saints, Satan and his agents shall be remarkably restrained; the world of Jews and Gentiles shall unite in one Christian faith and fellowship; the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government of the church shall exactly correspond with the word of God; her spiritual light, peace, and the activity of her members in holiness, internal and external, shall be quite amazing. While our Redeemer, and God in him, shall appear all in all, her officers shall be holy, and eminently qualified for, and successful in, winning souls to Christ. Such shall be the multitudes and quality of her members, as

CHURL; a naughty person, who hoards up his wealth as in a prison, and is utterly averse to live up to his station, or to bestow alms according to his ability, Isa. xxxii. 5.

CHURN; to toss milk in a vessel of skin, or wood, &c. till the butter be extracted, Prov. xxx. 32.

CHUSHAN-RISHATHAIM, a king of Mesopotamia, who oppressed the Israelites eight years, from A. M. 2591 to 2599; and from whose yoke they were delivered by ОтнNIEL, Judg. iii. 8—10.

CEIL; to overlay the inside of a roof with dales, or plaster, Jerem. xxii. 14.

CILICIA; a country of Lesser Asia, on the north of Syria, between

CINNERITH,

a

the 36th and 40th degree of north || most bark, becomes brown, and it is a latitude. It had Pamphilia on the most agreeable spice, much used in west; the Issic bay of the Mediter- diarrheas, and weaknesses of the storanean sea on the south; the moun- mach. There is a wild cinnamontain Amanus on the east ; and part tree in the West Indies; but its bark of Cappadocia and Armenia the Less is inferior to that of the former. It on the north. The soil was mostly seems the cinnamon-tree anciently stony, and the country was so sur- grew in Araba; or else the cinnamon rounded with the hills, Taurus, Ama- of the ancients was different from nus, and others, that there were but ours. The cinnamon-bark was used three narrow passages into it. Its in the sacred oil, Exod. xxx. 23; chief cities were Tarsus, Soli, An- and in perfuming beds, Prov. vii. 17. chiale, Anazarbum, Issus, &c. It Saints, and their graces, are likened seems to have been originally peo- to cinnamon; they are precious and pled by Tarshish, the Grandson of pleasant; saints are the means of Japheth; but these were driven out rendering nations and churches deby Cilix, and his Phenicians, about lightful, and sound in their constituthe time of DAVID. Numbers from tion; and spiritual grace has the same Syria, and, it seems, from Persia, effect on men's hearts, Song iv. 14. afterwards settled here. The Cilicians were a rough, cruel, and deceitful people, much given to piracy. They appear to have had kings of their own, for many ages, but these in subjection to the Trojans, Lydians, Persians, or Romans; the last of whom made the country a province. The gospel was here preached by Paul; and a Christian church early settled, Acts xi. 30. The Christians here were concerned in the contests about the imposition of the Jewish ceremonies on the Gentile converts, Acts xv. 23. 41. Christianity remained here in some lustre, till about the beginning of the 8th century, when the Saracens sei-up in the bowels of our globe, Prov. zed the country. After some ages, viii. † 27. The circle of the earth the Turks took it from them; and it may denote its whole surface, Isa. is now a part of Caramania.

CINNEROTH; city of the tribe of Naphtali, on the west of the sea of Tiberias; and from which, all along the west of Jordan to the Dead-sea, there was a plain, Josh. xix. 35, and xi. 2. and xii. 3. Deut. iv. 49. Some have thought it the same as Tiberias; but Reland is of a different opinion. It is more proba ble it stood where Capernaumi was afterward built.

CIRCLE; a line surrounding a round body. The circle on the face of the deep, is the boundary which God hath fixed for the sea; or that crust of earth which surrounds the mass of water, supposed to be stored

xl. 22.

CIRCUIT; a roundish course of motion, 1 Sam. vii. 16.

CIRCUMCISION; the cutting

CINNAMON. The cinnamontree grows in woods in the East Indies, in Java, Ceylon, &c. It has somewhat of the form of the bay-off of the foreskin of males. To distree, or of our willow. Its flowers are ordinarily as red as scarlet, and it is said sometimes blue. Its fruit is of the form of an olive; and from it is extracted a kind of tallow, for making of candles. The bark is the most valuable: when new stripped off, it has little taste or colour; but when dried, it, at least the middleVOL. I.

tinguish Abraham's family from others; to seal the new covenant to them, and their obligation to keep the laws thereof; and to represent the removal of their natural corrup tion, by the blood and Spirit of Jesus Christ, in virtue of his resurrection the eighth day, God appointed, that all the males in Abraham's family

2 R

should be circumcised, and that his|| them Canaan. Just after the Hebrews

passed the Jordan, their males were all circumcised: this is called a circumcision of them the second time; as, on this occasion, the institution was again revived, after it had long gone into disuse; and it was a rolling away of the reproach of Egypt: God hereby declared they were his free people, and heirs of the promised land, and removed from them, what they reckoned the shame of the Egyptians, Josh. v. 1-10.

posterity should thereafter be circumcised on the eighth day of their life. The uncircumcised child was to be cut off from his people; but that threatening seems not to have affected the child,, till he was grown up, and wilfully neglected that ordinance of God for himself, Gen. xvii. For the last 38 years of their abode in the desart, the Hebrew children were not circumcised. It was not there so necessary to distinguish them from others; and their frequent and sudden removals from one place to another rendered it less convenient: but I suppose the chief design of the inter-surrection, and the use of it, as necesruption of this ordinance, was to mark the interruption of the fulfilment of God's covenant-promise, of giving

The opinion, supported by the authority of Cyprian, that the appointed day of circumcision, being the eighth after the birth of the child, prefigured the day of Christ's resurrection, which is the eighth in the order of days, in which our true circumcision and salvation is fulfilled, does not seem to be well-founded: For Christ, as Witsius justly observes, is no where said to have risen on the eighth day, but either on the third after his death or on the first day of the week. Circumcision was not so much a

After circumcision had continued about 1930 years, it was abolished by means of our Saviour's death and re

sary to salvation, became wicked and damnable, because it imported, that the true Messiah had not made satisfaction for sin, and was a practical rejection of him and his atonement; and he that was circumcised was a debtor to the whole law: obliged to fulfil it for himself, and Christ could profit him nothing; and the returning to it, from the faith of the gospel, was a falling from the doctrines of grace, and from a dependence on the free favour of God, as the ground of our salvation, 1 Cor. vii. 18. Gal. v. 2, 3. By preaching up circumcitype of the resurrection, as of the suffer- sion, the false apostles shunned perings and death of Christ Besides, the secution from the Jews, Cal. v. 11. expression, that our spiritual circumcision and vi. 12, 13. When Paul circumand salvation were fulfilled by the resurreccised Timothy, whose mother was a tion of Christ is not accurate: As to the purchase of our salvation, it was finished Jewess, he did it merely to recomin the death of Christ: But as to the ap-mend him to the Jews as a preacher: plication of the purchased salvation, it re- but he did not circumcise Titus, that quires not only his resurrection, but also he might show his belief that circumhis ascension and will not be completely cision was no more a binding ordifulfilled, till his second coming. This ordinance appears to have been nance of God, Acts xvi. 3. Gal. ii. 3. administered on the eighth day after the As circumcision was a leading orbirth, because infants could hardly be sup-dinance of the ceremonial law, it is posed able to undergo this painful opera-sometimes put for the observance of tion sooner; because the infant, partici- the whole of it, Acts xv. 1. As the pating of the mother's pollution, was ceremonially unclean until the eighth day, Lev.

ii. 2, 3. It may be added, that it seems to have been appointed to be on that day, before which, in the ordinary course of providence, many infants die, to teach us, that the external sign is not necessary to salvation. Abraham was justified, while he was uncircumcised, Rom. iv. 10.

Jews were, by this rite, distinguished from others, they are called the circumcision, and the Gentiles the uncircumcision, Rom. iv. 9, 11. Cir cumcision profiteth; is useful as a seal of the covenant, if one keep the law as a law, and so manifest his union

with Christ; but if he be a breaker || Exod. vi. 12, 30. The fruit of the of the law, his circumcision is made Hebrews' trees was uncircumcised, or uncircumcision; is of no avail to his polluted, three years after they began present or eternal happiness and if to bear,-to commemorate Adam's uncircumcised Gentiles keep the law, fall, and to point out to us how defiltheir uncircumcision is counted for cir-ed these enjoyments are, which we cumcision; they are as readily accept-come too hastily at, Lev. xix. 23. ed of God, and rendered happy, as All the nations descended from Aif they were circumcised Jews, Rom.braham, except perhaps the Edoii. 25, 26. Neither circumcision, nor mites, long retained the use of ciruncircumcision, availeth any thing; cumcision. no man is a whit more readily accepted of God, or saved by him, that he is either a Jew or a Gentile, Gal. v. 6. and vi. 15. 1 Cor. vii. 19.

Besides the outward circumcision of the flesh we find an inward one mentioned, which is what was signified by the other. It consists in God's changing our state and nature, through the application of the blood and Spirit of his Son. By this we are made God's peculiar people, have our corruptions | mortified, and our souls disposed to his service; and, for this reason, the saints are called the circumcision;|| while the Jews, with their outward circumcision, are, in contempt called the concision, Phil. iii. 2, 3.

UNCIRCUMCISED; (1.) Such who had not their foreskin cut off; the Gentiles, Gal. ii. 7. Eph. ii. 11. Such were detested of the Jews, and divinely prohibited to eat the passover, Judg. xiv. 3. 1 Sam. xvii. 26. Exod. xii. 48. (2.) Such as had not their nature changed, nor their inward corruptions subdued and mortified, nor their soul disposed to a ready hearing and belief of the gospel, are called uncircumcised in heart and ears, Jer. ix. 29. and vi. 10. Acts vii. 51. Such

The Arabs and the Turks, who learned it from them, still retain the use of it; but it is no where commanded by their Koran or Bible, nor have they a fixed time for it; and it is rarely performed, till the child be at least five or six years of age. The Jews, with great zeal, and a multitude of ceremonies unworthy of our rehearsal, still practise it. It is said, the natives, in some places of the West Indies, lately practised it. It is more certain, that it was used by the Egyptian priests; and that it has been long practised in Abyssinia, perhaps from the days of Solomon.

CIRCUMSPECT; cautious, seriously advertent to every precept of God's law, and every circumstance of things to be done or forborne, Exod. xxiii. 13. Eph. v. 15.

CISTERN; [a reservoir or large vessel to retain water]. Cisterns were very necessary in Canaan, where fountains were scarce; and some of them were 150 paces long, and 60 broad, 2 Kings xviii. 31. The left ventricle of the heart, which retains the blood, till it be redispersed through the body, is called a cistern, Eccl. xii. 6.* Wives are called ciswho are inwardly unregenerate, and terns; they when dutiful, are a great outwardly scandalous, are uncircum-pleasure, assistance, and comfort to cised in heart and flesh, Ezek. xliv. 7. The corruption of nature is called the uncircumcision, or foreskin of the flesh, Col. ii. 13. Moses was of uncircumcised lips; stammered in hising happiness and comfort, Jer ii. 13. speech; or, by the largeness of his lips, spoke disagreeably, or spoke unhandsome language, abounding it is replenished with blood which it sends with superfluities fit to be retrenched, to and receives from all parts of the body.

their husbands, Prov. v. 15. Idols, armies, and outward enjoyments, are broken cisterns that can hold no water; they can afford no soid or last

*The heart may be called a cistern, as