in future ages. They indeed constituted God's ancient church. Not that many scattered patriarchal and family churches did not remain such was that of Melchizedec; and such probably was that of Nahor, whom Abraham left behind in Mesopotamia. But a visible church relation was established between Abraham's family and the Most High, signified by the visible and distinguishing sacrament of circumcision, and followed by new and enlarged revelations of truth. Two purposes were to be answered by this, the preservation of the true doctrine of salvation in the world, which is the great and solemn duty of every branch of the church of God, and the manifestation of that truth to others. Both were done by Abraham. Wherever he sojourned he built his altars to the true God, and publicly celebrated his worship; and, as we learn from St. Paul, he lived in tents in preference to settling in the land of Canaan, though it had been given to him for a possession, in order that he might thus proclaim his faith in the eternal inheritance of which Canaan was a type; and in bearing this testimony, his example was followed by Isaac and Jacob, the "heirs with him of the same promise," who also thus "confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims," and that " they looked" for a continuing and eternal city in heaven. So also now is the same doctrine of immortality committed to the church of Christ; and by deadness to the world ought its members to declare the reality of their own faith in it.

2. The numerous natural posterity promised to Abraham was also a type of the spiritual seed, the true members of the church of Christ, springing from the Messiah, of whom Isaac was the symbol. Thus St. Paul expressly distinguishes between the fleshly and the spiritual seed of Abraham; to the latter of which, in their ultimate and highest sense, the promises of increase as the stars of heaven, and the sands of the sea shore, are to be referred, as also the promise of the heavenly Canaan.

3. The intentional offering up Isaac, with its result, was probably that transaction in which Abraham, more clearly than in any other, "saw the day of Christ, and was glad." He received Isaac from the dead, says St. Paul, "in a figure." This could be a figure of nothing but the resurrection of our Lord; and, if so, Isaac's being laid upon the altar was a figure of his sacrificial death, scenically and most impressively represented to Abraham. The place, the same ridge of hills on which our Lord was crucified; the person, an only son, to die for no offence of his own; the sacrificer, a father; the receiving back, as it were, from death to life; the name impressed upon the place, importing, "the Lord will provide," in allusion to Abraham's own words to Isaac, "The Lord will provide a lamb for a burnt offering;" all indicate A mystery which lay deep beneath this trans

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action, and which Abraham, as the reward of his obedience, was permitted to behold. The day" of Christ's humiliation and exaltation was thus opened to him; and served to keep the great truth in mind, that the true burnt-offering and sacrifice for sin was to be something higher than the immolation of lambs and bulls and goats,-nay, something more than what was merely human.

4. The transaction of the expulsion of Hagar was also a type. It was an allegory in action, by which St. Paul teaches us to understand that the son of the bondwoman represented those who are under the law; and the child of the free woman those who by faith in Christ are supernaturally begotten into the family of God. The bondwoman and her son being cast out, represented also the expulsion of the unbelieving Jews from the church of God, which was to be composed of true believers of all nations, all of whom, whether Jews or Gentiles, were to become "fellow-heirs."

III. But Abraham appears before us invested with a MYSTIC character, which it is of great importance rightly to understand.

1. He is to be regarded as standing in a federal or covenant relation, not only to his natural seed, but specially and eminently to all believers. "The gospel," we are told by St. Paul, "was preached to Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed." "Abraham believed in God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness;" in other words, he was justified. A covenant of gratuitous justification through faith was made with him and his believing descendants; and the rite of circumcision, which was not confined to his posterity by Sarah, but appointed in every branch of his family, was the sign or sacrament of this covenant of grace, and so remained till it was displaced by the sacraments appointed by Christ. Wherever that sign was, it declared the doctrine, and offered the grace, of this covenantfree justification by faith, and its glorious results to all the tribes that proceeded from Abraham. This same grace is offered to us by the gospel, who become "Abraham's seed," his spiritual children with whom the covenant is established, through the same faith, and are thus made "the heirs with him of the same promise."

2. Abraham is also exhibited to us as the representative of true believers; and in this especially, that the true nature of faith was exhibited in him. This great principle was marked in Abraham with the following characters:-An entire, unhesitating belief in the word of God;-an unfaltering trust in all his promises;-a steady regard to His almighty power, leading him to overlook all apparent difficulties and impossibilities in every case where God had explicitly promised; and habitual and cheerful and entire obedience. The Apostle has described faith in Heb. xi. 1; and that faith is seen living and acting in all its energy in Abraham,

2. As the beauty of Sarah, which she retained so long as quite to conceal her real age from observers, attracted so much notice as to lead to her forcible seizure, once by Pharaoh in Egypt, and again by Abimelech in Palestine, it may appear strange, that, as in the East women are generally kept in seclusion, and seldom appear without veils, she exposed herself to observation. But to this day the Arab women do not wear veils at home in their tents; and Sarah's countenance might have been seen in the tent by some of the officers of Pharaoh and Abimelech, who reported her beauty to their

masters.

3. The intentional offering up of Isaac is not to be supposed as viewed by Abraham as an act sanctioned by the pagan practice of human sacrifice. The immolation of human victims, particularly of that which was most precious, the favourite, the firstborn child, appears to have been a common usage among many early nations, more especially the tribes by which Abraham was surrounded. It was the distinguishing rite among the worshippers of Moloch; at a later period of the Jewish history, it was practised by a king of Moab; and it was undoubtedly derived by the Carthaginians from their Phenician ancestors on the shores of Syria. Where it was an ordinary usage, as in the worship of Moloch, it was in unison with the character of the religion, and of its deity. It was the last act of a dark and sanguinary superstition, which rose by regular gradation to this complete triumph over human nature. The god, who was propitiated by these offerings, had been satiated with more cheap and vulgar victims; he had been glutted to the full with human suffering and with human blood. In general it was the final mark of the subjugation of the national mind to an inhuman and domineering priesthood. But the Mosaic religion held human sacrifices in abhorrence; and the God of the Abrahamitic family, uniformly beneficent, had imposed no duties which entailed human suffering, had demanded no offerings which were repugnant to the better feelings of our nature. The command to offer Isaac as "a burnt-offering," was for

these reasons a trial the more severe to Abraham's faith. He must therefore have been fully assured of the divine command;

and he left the mystery to be explained by God himself. His was a simple act of unhesitating obedience to the command of God; the last proof of perfect reliance on the certain accomplishment of the divine promises. Isaac, so miraculously bestowed, could be as miraculously restored; Abraham, such is the comment of the Christian Apostle, "believed that God could even raise him up from the dead."

4. The wide and deep impression made by the character of Abraham upon the ancient world is proved by the reverence which people of almost all nations and countries have paid to him, and the manner in which the events of his life have been interwoven in their mythology, and their religious traditions. Jews, Magians, Sabians, Indians, and Mahometans have claimed him as the great patriarch and founder of their several sects; and his history has been embellished with a variety of fictions. One of the most pleasing of these is the following, but it proceeds upon the supposition that he was educated in idolatry: "As Abraham was walking by night from the grotto where he was born, to the city of Babylon, he gazed on the stars of heaven, and among them on the beautiful planet Venus. Behold,' said he within himself, the God and Lord of the Universe!' but the star set and disappeared, and Abraham felt that the Lord of the universe could not thus be liable to change. Shortly after, he beheld the moon at the full : 'Lo,' he cried, the Divine Creator, the manifest Deity!' but the moon sank below the horizon, and Abraham made the same reflection as at the setting of the evening star. All the rest of the night he passed in profound rumination; at sunrise he stood before the gates of Babylon, and saw the whole people prostrate in adoration. 'Wondrous orb,' he exclaimed, thou surely art the Creator and Ruler of all nature! but thou, too, hastest like the rest to thy setting! -neither then art thou my Creator, my Lord, or my God!""

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ABRAHAMITES, reported heretical sects of the eighth and ninth centuries, charged with the Paulician errors, and some of them with idolatry. For these charges we have, however, only the word of their persecutors. Also the name of a sect in Bohemia, as late as 1782, who professed the religion of Abraham before his circumcision, and admitted no scriptures but the decalogue and the Lord's prayer. As these were persecuted, they too were probably misrepresented, and especially as their conductis allowed to have been good, even by their enemies.

ABSALOM, the son of David by Maachah, daughter of the king of Geshur; distinguished for his fine person, his vices, and his unnatural rebellion. Of his open revolt, his conduct in Jerusalem, his pursuit of the king his father, his defeat and death, see 2 Sam. xvi-xviii. at large.

ABSOLUTION, in the church of Rome,

is a sacrament, in which the priests assume the power of forgiving sins. The rite of absolution in the church of England is acknowledged to be declarative only-"Almighty God hath given power and commandment to his ministers to declare and pronounce to his people, being penitent, the absolution and remission of their sins: He pardoneth," &c. In this view it is innocent; and although any private Christian has a right to declare and pronounce the same doctrine to his neighbour, the official publication of the grace of the gospel is the public duty of its ministers in the congregation, since they are Christ's" ambassadors."

ABSTINENCE, forbearance of anything. It is generally used with reference to forbearance from food under a religious motive. The Jewish law ordained that the priests should abstain from the use of wine during the whole time of their being employed in the service of the temple, Levit. x. 9. The same abstinence was enjoined upon the Nazarites, during the time of their Nazariteship, or separation, Num. vi. 3. The Jews were commanded to abstain from several sorts of animals. See ANIMAL.

The fat of all sorts of animals that were sacrificed was forbidden to be eaten, Levit. iii. 17; vii. 23; and the blood of every animal, in general, was prohibited under pain of death. Indeed blood was forbidden by the Creator, from the time of the grant of the flesh of beasts to man for food; this prohibition was continued under the Jewish economy, and transmitted to the Christian church by apostolic authority, Acts xv. 28. 29. (See Blood.) The Jews also abstained from the sinew which is upon the hollow of the thigh, Gen. xxxii. 25; because of the shrinking of the sinew of Jacob's thigh when touched by the angel, as though by that the part had been made sacred.

Among the primitive Christians, some denied themselves the use of such meats as were prohibited by the law; others treated this abstinence with contempt. St. Paul has given his decision on these questions in his erstles, 1 Cor. viii. 7-10; Rom. xiv. 1-3. The council of Jerusalem, which was held by the apostles, enjoined the Christian converts to abstain from meats strangled, from blood, from fornication, and from idolatry, Acts xv. 20.

The spiritual monarchy of the western world introduced another sort of abstinence which may be termed ritual, and which consists in abstaining from particular meats at certain times and seasons, the rules of which are called rogations. The ancient Lent was observed only a few days before Easter. In the course of the third century, it extended at Rome to three weeks; and before the middle of the succeeding age, it was prolonged to six weeks, and began to be called quadragesima, or the forty days' fast.

ABYSS, or DEEP, &ßvooos, without bottom. The chaos; the deepest parts of the sea; and,

in the New Testament, the place of the dead, Rom. x. 7; a deep place of punishment. The devils besought Jesus that he would not send them into the abyss, a place they evidently dreaded, Luke viii. 31; where it seems to mean that part of Hades in which wicked spirits are in torment. See HELL.

In the opinion of the ancient Hebrews, and of the generality of eastern people at this day, the abyss, the sea, or waters, encoinpassed the whole earth. This was supposed to float upon the abyss, of which it covered a small part. According to the same notion, the earth was founded on the waters, or at least its foundations were on the abyss beneath, Psalm xxiv. 2; cxxxvi. 6. Under these waters, and at the bottom of this abyss, they represented the wicked as groaning, and suffering the punishment of their sin. The Rephaim were confined there, those old giants, who, whilst living, caused surrounding nations to tremble, Prov. ix. 18; xxi. 16, &c. Lastly, in these dark dungeons the kings of Tyre, Babylon, and Egypt are described by the prophets as suffering the punishment of their pride and cruelty, Isaiah xxvi. 14; Ezek. xxviii. 10, &c.

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These depths are figuratively represented as the abodes of evil spirits, and powers opposed to God: "I saw," says St. John, star fail from heaven unto the earth, and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of it, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth. And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit," Rev. ix. 1, 2, 11. In another place, the beast is represented as ascending out of the bottomless pit, and waging war against the two witnesses of God, Rev. xi. 7. Lastly, St. John says, "I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season," Rev. xx. 1-3.

ABYSSINIAN CHURCH, a branch of the Coptic church, in Upper Ethiopia. The Abyssinians, by the most authentic accounts, were converted to the Christian faith about the year 330; when Frumentius, being providentially raised to a high office, under the patronage of the queen of Ethiopia, and ordained bishop of that country by Athanasius, patriarch of Alexandria, established Christianity, built churches, and ordained a regular clergy to officiate in them. The Abyssinian Christians themselves, indeed, claim a much higher antiquity, having a tradition, that the doctrine of Christ was first in

troduced among them by queen Candace, Acts viii. 27; or even preached there by the apostles Matthew and Bartholomew; but the former is supported by no collateral evidence, and the latter is in opposition to high authority. Some of them claim relation to the Israelites, through the queen of Sheba, so far back as the reign of Solomon.

The Abyssinian Christians have always received their abuna, or patriarch, from Alexandria, whence they sprang, and consequently their creed is Monophysite, or Eutychian; maintaining one nature only in the person of Christ, namely, the divine, in which they considered all the properties of the humanity to be absorbed; in opposition to the Nestorians.

On the power of the Saracens prevailing in the East, all communication being nearly cut off between the eastern and western churches, the Abyssinian church remained unknown in Europe till nearly the close of the fifteenth century, when John II. of Portugal, accidentally hearing of the existence of such a church, sent to make inquiry. This led to a correspondence between the Abyssinians and the church of Rome; and Bermudes, a Portuguese, was consecrated by the pope patriarch of Ethiopia, and the Abyssinians were required to receive the Roman Catholic faith, in return for some military assistance afforded to the emperor. Instead of this, however, the emperor sent for a new patriarch from Alexandria, imprisoned Bermudes, and declared the pope an heretic.

About the middle of the sixteenth century, the Jesuits attempted a mission to Abyssinia, in the hope of reducing it to the pope's authority; but without success. In 1588 a second mission was attempted, and so far succeeded as to introduce a system of persecution, which cost many lives, and caused many troubles to the empire. In the following century, however, the Jesuits were all expelled, Abyssinia returned to its ancient faith, and nothing more was heard of the church of Abyssinia, till the latter part of the last century.

After the expulsion of the Jesuits, all Europeans were interdicted; nor does it appear that any one dared to attempt an entrance until the celebrated Mr. Bruce, by the report of his medical skill, contrived to introduce himself to the court, where he even obtained military promotion; and was in such repute, that it was with great difficulty he obtained leave to return to England

Encouraged, perhaps, by this circumstance, the Moravian brethren attempted a mission to this country, but in vain. They were compelled to retreat to Grand Cairo, from whence, by leave of the patriarch, they visited the Copts at Behrusser, and formed a small society; but in 1783, they were driven thence, and compelled to return to Europe. More recently, however, the late king of Abyssinia (Itsa Takley Gorges) ad

dressed a letter to Mr. Salt, the British consul in Egypt, and requested copies of some parts of both the Old and New Testaments. Copies of the Psalms, in Ethiopic, as printed by the British and Foreign Bible Society, were also sent to him.

ACADEMICS, a name given to such philosophers as adopted the doctrines of Plato. They were so called from the Academia, a grove near Athens, where they frequently indulged their contemplations. Academia is said to derive its name from one Academus, a god or hero so called. Thus Horace,

Atque inter sylvas Academi quærere verum. The academics are divided into those of the first academy, who taught the doctrines of Plato in their original purity; those of the second or middle academy, who differed materially from the first, and inclined to scepticism; and those of the new academy. The middle school laid it down as a principle, that neither our senses, nor our reason, are to be trusted; but that in common affairs we are to conform to received opinions. The new academy maintained that we have no means of distinguishing truth, and that the most evident appearances may lead us into error; they granted the wise man opinion, but denied him certainty. They held, however, that it was best to follow the greatest probability, which was sufficient for all the useful purposes of life, and laid down rules for the attainment of felicity. The difference betwixt the middle academy and the new seems to have been this, that though they agreed in the imbecility of human nature, yet the first denied that probabilities were of any use in the pursuit of happiness; and the latter held them to be of service in such a design: the former recommended a conformity with received opinions, and the latter allowed men an opinion of their own. In the first academy, Speusippus filled the chair; in the second, Arcesilaus; and in the new or third academy, Carneades.

ACCAD, one of the four cities built by Nimrod, the founder of the Assyrian empire. (See Nimrod.) "And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar," Gen. x. 10. Thus it appears that Accad was contemporary with Babylon, and was one of the first four great cities of the world.

It would scarcely be expected that any thing should now remain to guide us in our search for this ancient city, seeing that Babylon itself, with which it was coeval, is reduced to heaps; and that it is not mentioned under its ancient name by any profane author. But the discoveries of modern travellers may be brought to aid us in our inquiry. At the distance of about six miles from the modern town of Bagdad, is found a mound, surmounted by a tower-shaped ruin, called by the Arabs Tell Nimrood, and by the Turks Nemrood Tepasse; both terms implying the Hill of Nimrod. This gigantic

mass rises in an irregularly pyramidal or turreted shape, according to the view in which it is taken, one hundred and twenty-five or one hundred and thirty feet above the gently inclined elevation on which it stands. Its circumference, at the bottom, is three hundred feet. The mound which constitutes its foundation is composed of a collection of rubbish, formed from the decay of the superstructure; and consists of sandy earth, fragments of burnt brick, pottery, and hard clay, partially vitrified. In the remains of the tower, the different layers of sun-dried brick, of which it is composed, may be traced with great precision. These bricks, cemented together by slime, and divided into courses varying from twelve to twenty feet in height, are separated from one another by a stratum of reeds, similar to those now growing in the marshy parts of the plain, and in a wonderful state of preservation. The resemblance of this mode of building to that in some of the structures at Babylon, cannot escape observation; and we may reasonably conclude it to be the workmanship of the same architects. The solidity and the loftiness of this pile, unfashioned to any other purpose, bespeak it to be one of those enormous pyramidal towers which were consecrated to the Sabian worship; which, as essential to their religious rites, were probably erected in all the early cities of the Cuthites; and, like their prototype at Babylon, answered the double purpose of altars and observatories. Here then was the site of one of these early cities. It was not Babylon; it was not Erech; it was not Calneh. It might be too much to say that therefore it must be Accad; but the inference is at least warrantable; which is further strengthened by the name of the place, Akarkouff; which bears a greater affinity to that of Accad than many others which are forced into the support of geographical speculations, especially when it is recollected that the Syrian name of the city was Achar.

ACCESS, free admission, open entrance. Our access to God is by Jesus Christ, the way, the truth, and the life, Rom. v. 2; Eph. 18. Under the law, the high priest alone had access into the holiest of all; but when the veil of the temple was rent in twain, at the death of Christ, it was declared that a new and living way of access was laid open through the veil, that is to say, his flesh. By his death, also, the middle wall of partition was broken down, and Jew and Gentile had both free access to God; whereas, before, the Gentiles had no nearer access in the temple-worship than to the gate of the court of Israel. Thus the saving grace and lofty privileges of the gospel are equally bestowed upon true believers of all nations.

ACCHO, afterwards called Ptolemais, and now Akka by the Arabs, and Acre by the Turks. It was given to the tribe of Asher, Judges i. 31. Christianity was planted here at an early period, and here St. Paul visited

the saints in his way to Jerusalem, Acts xxi. 7. It is a sea-port of Palestine, thirty miles south of Tyre, and, in the first partition of the Holy Land, belonged to the tribe of Asher; but this was one of the places out of which the Israelites could not drive the primitive inhabitants. In succeeding times it was enlarged by the first Ptolemy, to whose lot it fell, and who named it after himself, Ptolemais.

This city, now called Acre, which, from the convenience of its port, is one of the most considerable on the Syrian coast, was, during almost two centuries, the principal theatre of the holy wars, and the frequent scene of the perfidies and treacheries of the crusaders.

Amongst its antiquities, Dr. E. D. Clarke describes the remains of a very considerable edifice, exhibiting a conspicuous appearance among the buildings on the north side of the city. "In this structure the style of the architecture is of the kind we call Gothic. Perhaps it has on that account borne among our countrymen the appellation of King Richard's Palace,' although, in the period to which the tradition refers, the English were hardly capable of erecting palaces, or any other buildings of equal magnificence. Two lofty arches, and part of the cornice, are all that now remain to attest the former greatness of the superstructure. The cornice, ornamented with enormous stone busts, exhibiting a series of hideous distorted countenances, whose features are in no instances alike, may either have served as allusions to the decapitation of St. John, or were intended for a representation of the heads of Saracens suspended as trophies upon the walls." Maundrell and Pococke consider this building to have been the church of St. Andrew; but Dr. E. D. Clarke thinks it was that of St. John, erected by the Knights of Jerusalem, whence the city changed its name of Ptolemais for that of St. John d'Acre. He also considers the style of architecture to be in some degree the original of our ornamented Gothic, before its translation from the Holy Land to Italy, France, and England.

Mr. Buckingham, who visited Acre in 1816, says, "Of the Canaanitish Accho it would be thought idle perhaps to seek for remains; yet some presented themselves to my observation so peculiar in form and materials, and of such high antiquity, as to leave no doubt in my own mind of their being the fragments of buildings constructed in the earliest ages.

"Of the splendour of Ptolemais, no perfect monument remains; but throughout the town are seen shafts of red and grey granite, and marble pillars. The Saracenic remains are only to be partially traced in the inner walls of the town; which have themselves been so broken down and repaired, as to leave little visible of the original work; and all the mosques, fountains, bazaars, and other public buildings, are in a style rather