A prudent man concealeth knowledge; he has more knowledge in his heart than he pretends to, Prov. xii. 23.It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, by sovereignly and wisely hiding from men the knowledge of some things, and the reasons of his conduct, he displays his own glory and greatness, Prov. xxv. 2. CONCEIT; fancy; proud thought, Prov. xviii. 11. CONCORD; agreement, 2 Cor. CONCOURSE; running together, CONCUBINE; a wife of the second rank. She differed from a proper wife, in that she was not married by solemn stipulation; she brought no dowry with her; she had no share in the government of the family; nor did her children share of their father's CONCEIVE; (1.) To begin to be inheritance, Gen. xxv. 6. Through with Gen. xxx. 38. (2.) To a sinful mistake of the nature of maryoung, Abraham had devise; purpose; find designs and riage, it was common for the ancients counsels in the mind, Acts v. 4. Isa. to have concubines. The church Hagar and Keturah, Jacob had Zilpah xxxiii. 11. Job xv. 35. conceives the saints, when, by means and Bilhah, Gen. xxv. 6. and xxx. A of ordinances, ministers, or others, Levite's concubine occasioned terrible the first beginnings of grace are form-disorder and ruin in Israel, Judg. xix. ed in them, Song iii. 4. Lust con- to xxi. One of Saui's occasioned the ceives, when it produces the first motions or resolutions towards sinful acts, James i. 15. To conceive mischief, a mischievous purpose, or words of falsehood, is to devise and fix on a method for executing mischief, or for uttering words or falsehood, Job|| Isa. lix. 13. Jer. xlix. 30. To CONCERN; to touch; belong to, Ezek. xii. 10. XV. 35. CONCISION; cutting off, Joel iii. † 14. The Jews are called the concision, because, under pretence of zealous adherence to circumcision, they, after it was abolished by our Saviour's death, cut their bodies, rent the church, and cut off themselves from the blessings of the gospel, Phil. iii. 2. CONCLUDE; (1.) To end a dispute, by a plain inference from what had been said, Rom. iii. 28. (2.) To make a final resolution or determination, Acts xxi. 25. (3.) Irreversibly to declare, Gal. iii. 22. God concluded the Jews in unbelief; he gave them up to their own unbelieving heart, and withheld the light and influence of the gospel from them, Rom. xi. 32. CONCLUSION is the end the summary inference, final determination, and whole substance, Eccl. xii. 14. loss of the kingdom of the eleven tribes to his family, 2 Sam. iii. David's ten concubines were publicly defiled by Absalom his son, 2 Sam. xvi. 22. Solomon had 300 concubines; and Rehoboam his son 60, 1 Kings xi. 3. 2 Chron. xi. 22.The fourscore concubines, Song vi. 8. may denote great beauties among women; or weak saints, of a very legal temper, who have small familiarity with Christ, and little boldness towards him. CONCUPISCENCE. (1.) The corruption of our nature, from whence all our actual sin proceeds, Rom. vii. † 7.* James i. † 14. (2.) Actual mo * When the apostle says, I had not known sin, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet; by sin we are not to understand the actual and formal consent of the will to a known breach of God's law: for this he could not but know to be lust or concupiscence is sin in the root tions and inclinations of our heart toward sinful deeds, Rom. vii. 8. (3.) Unchastity, especially of desire, Col. iii. 5. 1 Thess. iv. 5. CONDEMNATION. and adjudged to utter ruin its power, pollution, and existence, Rom. viii. 3. CONDESCEND; humbly to stoop, Rom. xii. 16. CONDITION. (1.) A term of a bargain to be performed, Luke xiv. 32. 1 Sam. xi. 2. Strictly taken, a condition of a covenant is that which when performed, gives the performer a right to claim the promised reward, as due to his work. (2.) A case or circumstance, Dan. xi. † 17. CONDORMIENTES, in church CONDUCT; to guide in a proper way, 2 Sam. xix. 15, 31. (1.) The judicial declaring of a person to be guilty, and sentencing him to punishment. In this sense, Christ did not condemn the woman taken in adultery, but spake to her as a gospelminister, and Saviour calling her to repentance, John viii. 10, 11. (2.) The cause and reason of such a sentence, John iii. 19. (3.) The punish-history, religious sectaries, which ment to which one is condemned, take their name from lying all toge1 Cor. xi. 32. Luke xxiii. 40. (4.) ther, men and women, young and Rash, uncharitable, and unjust censure old. They arose in the 13th century, of men's persons, purposes, words, near Cologne; where they are said or actions, Luke vi. 37. (5.) A wit- to have worshipped an image of Lunessing against sin, by a contrary cifer, and to have received answers practice: so the Ninevites, by their and oracles from him. Ency. ready hearkening to the warning of Jonah, condemned the Jews, who refused to embrace Christianity, though often called to it by Jesus and his apostles, and though it was attested by miracles unnumbered, Matt. xii. 41.† The condemnation of the devil, is a sin and punishment like to this, 1 Tim. iii. 6. The condemnation which all wicked men are under, and all believers free from, is a legal charge of iniquities; and the sentence of the divine law, as a broken covenant, adjudging them to bear the wrath of an angry God, till their sins be fully satisfied for, and all the infinite wrath, contained in that sentence, be fully executed, Rom. v. 16, 18. and viii. 1. God condemned sin in the flesh of his Son; by executing the punishment due to it upon him, in our nature, he clearly demonstrated how abominable and criminal it is, expiated its guilt, Noah condemned the old world, that is, by his doctrine and practice, he condemn ed the unbelief and disobedience of the rest of the world, who slighted all the solemn warning, which God in his great longsuffering had given them by him and by the strivings of his Spirit with them under his ministry for an hundred and twenty years together, Heb. xi. 7. CONDUIT; a water-course, whether by pipes, stone-work, ditch, &c. 2 Kings xviii. 17. CONFECTION; a medicinal composition oi gums, powders, &c. Exod. xxx. 35. CONFECTIONARIES; makers of sweet-meats, 1 Sam. viii. 13. CONFEDERACY; a covenant-agreement between princes or na tions. Isaiah was forbidden to say, A confederacy; he was neither to approve nor trust in the alliance between Ahaz and the Assyrians, nor to be afraid of that between the Israelites and Syrians, Isa. viii. 12. CONFEDERATE; in league or covenant, Gen. xiv. 13. CONFER; to talk together; advise with, 1 Kings i. 7. || ing our persons and hearing our prayers, Eph. iii. 11. CONFIDENT; bold; assured, Psal. xxvii. 3. ordinances, and walk in his way, Matth. x. 32. To confess God, is to praise and thank him, Heb. xiii.† 15. To confess sin, is candidly to acknowledge our guilt before God, CONFIRM; (1.) To strengthen; who can pardon or punish us; or to establish, 1 Chron. xiv. 2. Acts xiv. our neighbour whom we have offend- 22. (2.) To make sure, ratify, Ruth ed, or who can give us proper instruc-iv. 7. (3.) To give further evidence tion and comfort, Psal. xxxii. 5. Jam.of the certainty of, 2 Cor. ii. 8. 1 v. 16. Matth. iii. 6. Kings i. 14. Phil. i. 7. (4.) To reOn the tenth day of the seventh fresh; encourage, Psalm 1xviii. 9. month, the Jewish high-priest con- (5.) To fulfil; continue to perform, fessed the sins of the whole nation, o- Dan. ix. 12. Deut. xxvii. 26. God ver the head of the scape-goat, which || confirmed the covenant to Abraham, typically bore them into the wilder- when he repeated the intimation of it; ness, Lev. xvi. 21. During the ten added his oath to it; and, by fire and preceding days, it is said, the Jews darkness, marked the truth of it, Gal. made particular confession each of iii. 17. Gen. xv. and xvii. God conhis own sins; if they were breaches firms the promises, in fulfilling the of the first table, they confessed them principal ones of the incarnation, only to God; if they were breaches death, and resurrection of his Son; of the second, they confessed them and in shewing to our faith the absoalso to the party wronged. When a lute certainty of them all, Rom. xv. 8. criminal was come within ten cubits He confirms the saints when he reof the place of execution, he was ob- freshes, strengthens, and encourages liged to confess his crimes, and beg them under fainting and weakness, that his death might expiate them. 1 Cor. i. 8. He confirmed Israel to At the beginning of the year, the himself, when he renewed his covemodern Jews confess their sins, stand-nant with them, and heaped distining in a tub of water: some of them, guishing favours on them, 2 Sam. vii. when sick, confess them to a Rabbin, || 24. The testimony of Christ is conwho marks them down in an alpha-firmed in his people, when the power betic order. On their death-beds, and certainty of his truth is spirituthey confess them with a great deal ally felt in their heart, and manifestof vain ceremony, much in the man-ed in their practice, 1 Cor. i. 6. He ner of the Papists. CONFIDENCE; (1.) Assurance; certainty, 2 Cor. viii. 22. (2.) Boldness; courage, Acts xxviii. 31. (3.) Trust; hope, Job iv. 6. (4.) The thing in which one trusts, Jer. xlviii. 13. (5.) Succour; help, 2 Kings xviii. 19. (6.) Safety; security, Ezek. xxviii. 26. (7.) Due resolution, 2 Cor. x. 2. (8.) A bold and open profession of Christ and his truth, Heb. x. 35. (9.) A wellgrounded persuasion of God's accept The confession of Christ is such as shall confirm the covenant with many for one week; either Jesus, by the ministry of John Baptist, and his own and apostles, shall, for about seven years before his death, bring many into the bond of the new covenant; or in about the same space, before the destruction of Jerusalem, shall Titus make or confirm leagues with a variety of eastern princes, Dan. ix. 27. CONFISCATION; a punishment, whereby a man's goods are taken from him, and appropriated to the king's use, Ezra vii. 26. CONFLICT; (1.) Warlike strug proceeds from true faith in him, Rom. x.gle or stroke, Psal. xxxix. † 10. (2.) Persecution; distress, Phil. i. 30, 9, 10. CONGRATULATE; to express joy to, or with one, for some happiness that has befallen him, 1 Chron. xviii. 10. (3.) Deep concern, care, and anxiety | Confusion of face, denotes perplexity to promote one's good, Col. ii. 1. and shame, which make one doubtCONFORMED; made like, Rom. ful, or to blush to look any where, xii. 2. The saints are conformed to Ezra ix. 7. Christ; they are made like him in CONGEAL; to freeze together. their new covenant-relations to God; The waters of the Red sea stood up and in their privileges, graces, and as firmly on every hand of the Israholy conversation, Rom. viii. 29.-elites, as if they had been frozen into They are conformable, or like to him walls of ice, Exod. xv. 8. in his death; they gradually die to their corrupt lusts; have their old man crucified with him; its lusts and deeds mortified through the influence of his death; and they are exposed to sufferings for his sake, Phil. iii. 10. They ought not to be conformed to this world; ought not to imitate, or join in the vain and wicked customs and practices thereof, Rom. xii. 2. CONFOUND; (1.) To disorder; jumble together, Gen. xi. 7. (2.) Mightily to baffle and confute, Acts ix. 22. (3.) To be ashamed and vexed for sin or disappointment, Ezek. xvi. 63. Job vi. 20. (4.) To be perplexed, astonished, and troubled in mind, Acts ii. 6. (5.) To be fear-nicated from their sacred privileges, fully destroyed, Jer. i. 17. Zech. x. 5. He that believeth shall not be confounded; he shall not be disappointed of his expected salvation; shall not, with perplexity or surprise, be exposed to any fearful destruction; nor shall he make haste; shall not basely catch at unlawful means of deliverance, but patiently wait till God deliver him, 1 Pet. ii. 6. Isaiah xxviii. 16. Rom. ix. 33. CONFUSION; huddling of things together, perplexity, disorder, shame, ruin, Isa. xxiv. 10. Psal. xxxv. 4.Unnatural intimacy with beasts, or of a man with his daughter-in-law, is confusion; is an horrid and shameful blending of natures or persons, which ought to be kept distinct. But the word TEBEL might be translated, A shocking crime, Lev. xviii. 25. and xx. 12. Idols, and the Egyptians, were the confusion of the Jews; were the means or occasion of bringing them to shame, disorder, perplexity, and ruin, Isa. xli. 29. and xxx. 3. CONGREGATION; an asscmbly; church. The Israelites having encamped together 40 years in the wilderness, and met thrice every year at their solemn feasts, are called the congregation, Lev. iv. 15. and the congregation of the Lord; as they were peculiarly related to, dependent on,' and subject to the Lord Christ, and to God in him, Numb. xxxi. 16. be cut off from the congregation, was to be removed from among the Hebrews by death; or to be excommu Το Numb. xix. 20. The congregation, from which the Egyptians and Edomites were excluded, till the third generation, and the Ammonites, Moabites, and bastards for ever, probably was no more than the assemblies of Jewish rulers: for it is hard to suppose that bastards, however pious, and Ammonites and Moabites, though real proselytes, were perpetually_excluded from sacred privileges. The great congregation, in which Jesus Christ declared his Father's faithfulness, and praised him, is the multitudes to which he preached on earth, or his church in general, Psalm xl. 9, 10. and xxii. 22. In the congregation of the dead, is among unregenerate or damned sinners, Prov. xxi. 16. Sometimes this word denotes an assembly of rulers, convened for judgment, Numb. xxxv. 12; and sometimes an assembly, as distinguished from their chief rulers, Josh. ix. 18. CONQUER; to OVERCOME; SUBDUE. (1.) To prevail against; take ly; they patiently bear them, rejoice in them, and gain much advantage by them, Rom. viii. 37. Sinful lusts and corruptions overcome the wicked; notwithstanding conviction, resolution and danger, they instigate them to take pleasure in, and work wicked away the strength, and bring down the power of enemies, Dan. vii. 14. Mal. iv. 3. (2.) To bring into obedience and subjection, Phil. iii. 21. 1 Cor. xv. 28. (3.) To cultivate; rule over, Gen. i. 28. Jesus Christ overcame the world; by his death, and the exercise of his power, he pre-ness, 2 Pet. ii. 19, 20. vailed against Satan, the god of it, CONSCIENCE; that reflecting and took him captive: in himself he power of our mind, which compares prevailed over every temptation, a- our qualities and actions with the law rising from its smiles of prosperity, of God, known to us, and approves or frowns of adversity; by his pow- what appears good, and condemns erful word and Spirit, he reforms men and upbraids for what appears evil, from the lusts and wicked customs Rom. ii. 15. Conscience is good, thereof by his providence, he cuts when, being sprinkled with the blood off the incorrigibly wicked; curbs of Jesus, it clearly discerns the will of their outrage, and makes their wrath God, and urges obedience to his law, conduce to his praise, John xvi. 33. from gospel-motives, and approves Rev. xvii. 14. He goes forth conquer- || for the same, 1 Tim. i. 5. It is pure, ing and to conquer. In the apostolic purged from dead works, when by the and after ages, he did, or shall, by his application of Jesus's blood, it is freed word and Spirit, bring down the pow- from the sentence of death due to sin, er of mens sinful lusts, and render delivered from the slavery of indwellthemselves obedient and subject to his ing corruption; and, by the instruclaw, Rev. vi. 2. He subdues iniquity, tion of the Holy Ghost, is rendered when, by removing its guilt, applying clear in its views, holy in its aims, his word, and conveying his grace, he and a vigorous opposer of every thing gradually takes away the power of it sinful, 1 Tim. iii. 9. Heb. ix. 14. and in his people, Mic. vii. 19. The saints x. 2, 22. It is faithful, when it apovercome Christ with their eyes; their proves and condemns things, as they exercise of faith, hope, love, and de- agree with, or are contrary to the disire, on him, makes him delight to do vine law; and powerfully restrains them good, Song vi. 5. They over- from every known sin, Rom. ii. 15. come through his blood, and the word || It is quiet, and void of offence, when it of their testimony: by a vigorous ap- doth not accuse for any wilful breach plication of his righteousness to their of the divine law: and to live in all conscience, by the working of his good conscience, is to behave agreeably Spirit through the word of his truth, to the dictates of a well-informed conprofessed by them, they prevail over science, Acts xxiv. 16. and xxiii. k. their own lusts, over the temptations || Heb. xiii. 18. It bears witness by the of Satan, and the allurements and Holy Ghost, when, by his direction, it frowns of an evil world, Rev. xii. 11. attests the state of our soul, or the inand iii. 5, 12, 21. 1 John ii. 13, 14. tegrity and truth of our concern and and v. 4, 5. They overcome evil with ends, Rom. viii. 16. and ix. 1-Congood, when, by rendering good for e- science is evil, when it is influenced vil, they make those who have injured by sinful habits, or base motives, Heb. them, to be ashamed and grieved for x, 22. [Every guilty and condemning so doing, Rom. xii. 21. In all their conscience is evil.] It is defiled, when tribulations, the saints are more than it is blinded and perverted, ready to conquerors through Christ: by his call good evil, and evil good, Tit. i. grace and presence, they overcome 15. It is seared with a hot iron, when them most certainly, easily, and quick-it is not affected with the promises, |