Upon original sin the doctrine of the schoolmen was no less fanciful and remote from every Scriptural idea, than flattering to human pride. They contended that the infection of our nature is not a mental but a mere corporeal taint; that the body alone receives and transmits the contagion, while the soul in all instances proceeds immaculate from the hands of her Creator. This disposition to disease, such as they allowed it to be, was considered by some of them as the effect of a peculiar quality in the forbidden fruit; by others, as having been contracted from the poisonous breath of the infernal spirit which inhabited the serpent’s body. On one point they were all united; by preserving to the soul the bright traces of her divine origin unimpaired, they founded on a deceitful basis an arrogant creed, which, in declaring peace and pardon to the sinner, rested more upon personal merit than the satisfaction of a Saviour. In commenting upon the celebratedBook of Sentences, a work once not much less revered than the Scriptures themselves, the disciples of Lombard never failed to improve every hint which tended to degrade the grace of God and exalt the pride of man. Original sin the Romish schoolmen directly opposed to original righteousness; and this they considered not as something connatural with man, but as a superinduced habit or adventitious ornament, the removal of which could not prove detrimental to the native powers of his mind. When, therefore, they contemplated the effects of the fall, by confining the evil to a corporeal taint, and not extending it to the nobler faculties of the soul, they regarded manas an object of divine displeasure, not because he possessed that which was offensive, but because he was defective in that which was pleasing to the Almighty. Adam, they said, received for himself and his posterity the gift of righteousness, which he subsequently forfeited; in his loins we were included, and by him were virtually represented: his will was ours, and hence the consequence of his lapse is justly imputable to us his descendants. By our natural birth, therefore, under this idea, we are alienated from God,innocentin our individual persons, butguiltyin that of him from whom we derived our existence; a guilt which, although contracted through the fault of another, yet so closely adheres to us that it effectually precludes our entrance at the gate of everlasting life, until the reception of a new birth in baptism. Thus they contended, that the sin of Adam conveys to us solely imputed guilt; the corporeal infection which they admitted not being sin itself, but only the subject matter of it,--notpeccatum, but, according to their phraseology,fomes peccati, a kind of fuel which the human will kindles or not at pleasure. Such was the outline of the doctrine maintained in the church of Rome. The tenet of the Lutherans, on the other hand, is remarkable for its simplicity and perspicuity. Avoiding all intricate questions upon the subject, they taught that original sin is a corruption of our nature in a general sense, a depravation of the mental faculties and the corporeal appetites; that the resplendent image of the Deity, which man received at the creation of the world, although not annihilated, is nevertheless greatly impaired; and that, in consequence, the bright characters of unspotted sanctity, once deeply engraven on his mind by the hand of the living God, are become obliterated, the injury extending to his intellect, and affecting as well his reason and his will as his affections and passions. To conceive that inclination to evil incurs not in itself the disapprobation of Heaven, appeared to them little better than an apology for crime, or at least a dangerous palliation of that which the Christian’s duty compels him not only to repress but abhor.
The case of Cornelius, whose prayers and alms are said to have ascended up for a memorial before God, was often quoted, by the advocates of the church of Rome, to prove the merit of works before the reception of grace; to prove the human will capable, by its own inherent rectitude, of deserving the favour and approbation of Heaven. The Lutherans, on the other hand, contended, that the argument supported not the conclusion drawn from it, and was therefore irrelevant; that the works of Cornelius were not thecausesbut theeffectsof grace; and that this is sufficiently apparent from the context, in which he is described as a devout man, who feared God and prayed continually.” The disciples of Lombard, in whatever mode disposed to pervert reason and annihilate Scripture, universally held, that neither before nor after the fall was man in himself capable of meriting heaven; that by the gratuitous endowments of his creation, even in paradise, he was only enabled to preserve his innocence, and not to sin; and that he was utterly incompetent to proceed one step farther, efficaciously to will a remunerable good, and by his natural exertions to obtain a reward above his nature; original righteousness being reputed not a connate quality, but a supernatural habit. Thus, he could resist evil, but not advance good to perfection; could in some sense live well, by living free from sin, but could not without divine aid so live as to deserve everlasting life. For such a purpose they asserted that grace was necessary, to operate upon his will in its primary determinations, and to co-operate with it in its ultimate acts. It was, therefore, in the loss of this celestial aid, this superadded gift, and not in any depravity of his mind, that they supposed the principal evil derivable from his lapse to consist; a loss, however, which, by a due exertion of his innate abilities, they deemed to be retrievable; and hence sprung that offensive doctrine of human sufficiency which, in the Lutheran’s eye, completely obscured the glory of the Gospel, and which, when applied to the sinner’s conscience, taught the haughty to presume, and the humble to despair. According, then, to the system under consideration, the favour of God in this life, and his beatific vision in the life to come, are both attainable by personal merit; the former bycongruous, as it was termed, the latter bycondign; the one without, the other with, the assistance of grace. By our natural strength, it was said, we can fulfil the commands of God as far as their obligation extends; yet was it added, that we cannot fulfil them according to the intention of the divine Legislator; an intention of rewarding only those who obey them in virtue formed by charity, under the influence of a quality rather regulating the tendency, than augmenting the purity, of the action. They stated, that we may so prepare ourselves for grace as to become entitled to it congruously, not as to a debt which in strict justice God is bound to pay, but as to a grant which it is congruous in him to give, and which it would be inconsistent with his attributes to withhold. This favourite doctrine was supported by every denomination of scholastics, and by every individual of the church of Rome. Congruous merit was universally esteemed a pearl above all price, the intrinsic value of which attracted the regard, and conciliated the benevolence, of the Almighty. According to their conception, we are endowed with an innate propensity to good, which vice itself can never obliterate, and are able not only to reverence and adore the supreme Being, but to love him above other objects. They supposed man competent no less to the efficient practice, than to the barren admiration, of holiness; enabled as well to obey the laws, as to love the goodness, of the Almighty; and, if not to deserve the rewards, at least to discharge the obligations, of religion. Impressed, therefore, with suchexalted notions of human ability, and forgetful of the Christian propitiation for sin, the sophists of the schools maintained, that the soul of man possesses in the freedom, or rather in the capacity, of herWILLa faculty almost divine. Stimulated by the most upright propensities, and undepraved in her noblest powers, she directs her progress in the path of truth and the road to bliss, by the pure and inextinguishable light of an unperverted reason. Although mutable in her decisions, nevertheless complete controller of her conduct, she becomes at pleasure either the servant of righteousness or the slave of sin; and, disdaining to be anticipated by God himself, prevents him in his supernatural gifts by a previous display of her own meritorious deeds, challenging, as a congruous right, that which only could have been otherwise conferred as a favour undeserved. By the bare observance of my holy order,” exclaimed the secluded devotee, I am able not solely to obtain grace for myself, but, by the works which I then may do, can accumulate merit sufficient both to supply my own wants and those of others; so that I may sell the superabundance of my acquired treasure.” Can we be surprised that a reformer of Luther’s manly disposition, who wrote without reserve and reasoned without control, when adverting to opinions of so noxious a tendency, should sometimes, from excess of zeal, lose sight of moderation in his censures? The Lutherans commenced the attack upon these unscriptural dogmas, under a persuasion that the position of their opponents militated against the leading principles of Christianity. If man,” they said, be capable of pleasing God by his own works abstractedly considered, without divine assistance, where is the necessity, and what is the utility, of that assistance?” They argued, that, were it possible for the moral virtues of the mind by their own efficiency to render our persons acceptable to God and obtain his lost favour, no need would exist of any other satisfaction for sin, and thus the whole scheme of Gospel redemption would have been fruitless, and Christ have died in vain. While, therefore, the doctrine of the atonement presented nothing buta cloud and darkness to their adversaries, it gave light by night to these; on them it shone, amidst surrounding gloom, with lustre unobscured. Luther advanced a proposition which proved highly offensive to the Papists, and which they never ceased to condemn and calumniate. His assertion was, that he who exerts himself to the utmost of his ability still continues to sin. On the other side, unassisted man was thought incapable of performing an action remunerably good, or, as it was usually termed, condignly meritorious, even before his lapse; and that consequently, in his fallen state, all to which he was conceived competent by his innate strength wasnot to sin. When Luther therefore drew up his thesis for public disputation against the tenet of congruous works, if little delicacy, yet some caution, and much discrimination, appeared requisite. Had he stated them to be thus good in a scholastic sense, he would have completely lost sight of his object, and allowed more than even his opponents themselves. Had he described them as not demeritorious, or, in other words, not sinful, he would have precisely maintained the adverse position, and might consequently have spared his labour, at the same time that he would have tacitly acknowledged them to possess, what he could not consistently with truth attribute to them, every natural perfection of virtue and holiness. Under what denomination, then, could he class them, except under that ofsinful? a denomination which he the more readily adopted because, even among his adversaries themselves, the wordsSINandGRACE, as he remarked, were in general immediately opposed to each other. Anxious to rescue Christian theology from the grasp of those who embraced only to betray, the Lutherans laboured to restore that importance to the doctrine of redemption with which the Scriptures invest it, but of which, by a subtle perversity, it had been deprived. The principal object, therefore, in their view evidently was, to Christianize the speculations of the schools; and the principal drift of their argument is to prove, that human virtue, how extravagantly soever extolled by a vain philosophy, is wholly insufficient (because imperfect) to merit the favour of Heaven. Allowing no medium between righteousness and unrighteousness, the approbation and disapprobation of the Almighty, characterizing that as sinful which is confessedly not holy, and thus annihilating every ground of self-presumption, they inculcated the necessity of contemplating with the eye of faith those means of reconciliation which Christianity alone affords. But it has been insinuated, that the Lutheran doctrine went to prove man’s total inability to extricate himself from crime, until the arrival of some uncertain moment, which brings with it a regeneration from on high, the sudden transfusion of a new light and new virtues. But those who thus conceive of it are not probably aware, that Melancthon, the venerable author of the Augsburgh Confession, warmly reprobates this precise idea, which he denominatesa Manichean conceit and a horrible falsehood. Upon the abstract question of free will it is indeed true, that Melancthon, no less than Luther, at first held opinions which he was happy to retract. But when this is acknowledged it should be added, that he made ample amends for his indiscretion by not only expunging the offensive passages from the single work which contained them, but by introducing others of a nature diametrically opposite. And although the more inflexible coadjutor of Melancthon was too lofty to correct what he had once made public, and too magnanimous to regard the charge of inconsistency which his adversaries urged against him; yet what his better judgment approved clearly appears from a preface written not long before his death; in which, while he expressed an anxiety to have his own chaotic labours, as he styled them, buried ineternal oblivion, he recommended in strong terms, as a work admirably adapted to form the Christian divine, that very performance of his friend which was remarkable for something more than a mere recantation of the opinions alluded to. It was not against any conceived deficiency in the quality of our virtue that they argued, but against its supposed competency, whether wrought in or out of grace, with greater or less degrees of purity, to effect that which the oblation of Christ alone accomplishes. Upon both points Luther treated the doctrine of his adversaries as altogether frivolous, and incapable of corroboration by a single fact. Futile, however, as the scholastical tenet appeared to be, although deficient in proof and unsupported by example, upon this, he remarked with indignation and grief, was founded the whole system of papal delusion.
Justification was on both sides supposed to consist entirely in the remission of sins. The popish scholastics, on this head, were remarkably distinct in their ideas, and express in their language. They represented it as an effect produced by the infusion of divine grace into the mind; not as a consequent to a well spent life, but as preceding all remunerable obedience, as the intervening point between night and day, the gloom of a guilty and the light of a self-approving conscience; or, in other words, and to adopt their own phraseology, as the exact boundary where merit of congruity ends and where merit of condignity begins, the infallible result of a previous disposition on our part, which never fails of alluring from on high that supernatural quality which, being itself love, renders the soul beloved. While the Lutherans, however, adhered to the general import of the term as understood in the schools, they waged an incessant warfare upon another point; while they allowed that justification consists in the remission of sin, they denied that this remission is to be acquired by the merit of the individual. Their scholastic opponents maintained that man is justified in the sight of God in consequence of his own preparation, and on account of his personal qualities. They, on the other band, argued with an inflexibility which admitted of no compromise, that, possessing not merits of his own to plead, man freely received forgiveness through the mercy of God solely on account of the merits of Christ. The effective principle, therefore, ormeritorious cause of justification, was the great point contested. The doctrine of the popish divines, explained more at large, was this: When the sinner, conscious of his past transgressions, inquired where he was to seek the expiation of his crime, and deliverance from the dreadful consequences of it, the general answer was,In the merit of penitence; a merit capable of annihilating guilt, and appeasing the anger of incensed Omnipotence. He, they argued, who, having disobeyed the laws of Heaven, is desirous of returning into that state of acceptance from which he has fallen, must not expect free forgiveness; but previously by unfeigned sorrow of heart deserve the restoration of grace, and, with it, the obliteration of his offences. To effect this desirable purpose he is bound strictly to survey and detest his former conduct, accurately to enumerate his transgressions and deeply feel them; and, impressed with a due sense of their magnitude, impurity, and consequences, to condemn his folly and deplore his fault, which have made him an outcast of Heaven, and exposed him to eternal misery. So far he can proceed by that operation of the mind which they denominatedATTRITION, and which, being within the sphere of his natural powers, they regarded ascongruous piety meritorious of justification, as a preparation of the soul more or less necessary to receive and merit justifying grace. When, therefore, he is arrived at this point,ATTRITIONceases andCONTRITIONcommences; the habit of sin is expelled, while that of holiness is superinduced in its stead, and with the infusion of charity, the plastic principle of a new obedience, justification becomes complete. But even here it was not conceived that a total deliverance takes place; a liberation from guilt andeternalpunishment is effected, but not fromtemporal, which is never remitted unless either by the infliction of some personal suffering or satisfactory compensation required of him who is already justified and approved by Heaven. However, to accomplish this remaining object, nothing more is wanting than a continuation, to a sufficient intensity, of that compunction of heart which is now denominatedCONTRITION, grace supplying the defects of nature, and enabling penitential merit not only to justify, but to obtain exemption from punishment of every species. But so great appeared to the popish scholastics the frailty of man and the severity of God, that no inconsiderable difficulty occurred in the due application of this favourite doctrine to individuals; for the means of expiation, they imagined, ought always to be proportionate to the magnitude of the offences. How,” they reasoned, are we to be assured that our contrition has been either sufficient or sincere, and whether it has been so in the obliteration not only of one crime, but of all; whether it has atoned for past transgressions of every kind, the number of which may perplex, as well as their guilt confound, us?” Instead, therefore, of penitence in its strictest acceptation as a perfect virtue, God, they said, in condescension to human infirmity, has substituted for general practicethe sacrament of penitence, which, for the attainment of full remission, requires only a moderate compunction of soul, with confession to the priest, and the discharge of such satisfaction as he may enjoin. And, still lower to reduce the terms of acceptance, they even argued that it is not absolutely necessary for the penitent to experience an entire conversion of heart, but only not to oppose the impediment of mortal crime, to feel some displeasure at his past conduct, and to express a resolution of amending it in future. But, after all, and in spite of the boasted authority of the keys, complete confidence in divine forgiveness was never inculcated; for it was neither theinterest nor the inclination of the church of Rome to teach the simple doctrine of Christian faith, but rather to involve it in metaphysical obscurity. Under the pretext, therefore, of relieving the throbbing breast from its apprehensions, they had recourse to numerous inventions for propping the insecure fabric of penitential hope; asserting, among other extravagancies, that the sacraments are in themselves efficacious by virtue of their own operation, exclusively of all merit in the recipient; and that the sacrament of the altar, in particular, acts so powerful in this respect as to communicate grace not only to those who partake of it, but to others from whom it is received by substitution, provided its operation be not hindered by confessedly flagrant immorality. So deeply rooted in the minds of the papists had become the persuasion of its thus effecting the best of purposes, and that even without the necessity of an actual participation of it by him upon whom the benefit is conferred, that the celebration of the mass was universally regarded as the means of appeasing the anger of Heaven, and obtaining pardon and peace, of procuring divine assistance for the living, and, for the dead, deliverance from the bitter pains of purgatory. Nor by the sacraments alone, but by every good external work, as well as internal disposition, was justifying grace supposed to be meritedcongruously, and satisfaction for sin to be madecondignly. In monastical institutions, likewise, were found no mean materials for similar purposes; for in those feigned religions,” as the homilyOn Good Worksdescribes them, the devotees boasted of having lamps which ran always over, able tosatisfynot only for their own sins, but also for all other their benefactors, brothers and sisters of religion, as most ungodly and craftily they had persuaded the multitude of ignorant people; keeping in divers places marts or markets of merits, being full of their holy relics, images, shrines, and works of overflowing abundance, ready to be sold.” Yet, whether the dubious penitent was instructed to derive consolation from the efficacy of the sacraments, from his own personal qualities, or from any of what Cranmer aptly termed “the fantastical works of man’s invention,” it should be observed that he was not directly taught to consider these as wholly superseding the virtue of repentance, but as supplying his deficiencies in the performance of it; an incongruous system of atonement, fabricated by the avarice of Rome, and the obsequiousness of scholastical philosophy, to augment the treasures and extend the influence of the church, to extinguish the light of Gospel truth, and, while keeping the world at large in ignorance, to hold the conscience of the individual in slavery. Upon the whole, then, the scholastics maintained that justification is unattainable without repentance, at least, without some degree of attrition on our part; but in the common apprehension of the doctrine even this seems to have been forgotten, and merit of congruity considered in a general point of view as alone efficacious. Thus good works of every species preceding grace were said to deserve it, and, by deserving grace, to deserve the justifying principle. And always were they careful to impute the cause of forgiveness, not to the mercy of God in Christ, but to the sole change in the individual, to his transmutation from a state of unrighteousness to one of righteousness, to his possession of a quality which renders him a worthy object of divine approbation. For in every instance personal merit was conceived to be the solid basis upon which rests the complete remission of sin. Upon no one point, perhaps, has the opinion of Luther been more misrepresented than upon this. Some have ascribed to it a solifidian tendency, if not of the most enthusiastical, at least, of the most unqualified, description. But it seems indeed impossible accurately to comprehend the position which he maintained, if we examine it in an insulated point of view, unless we connect it with that of which in the church of Rome it properly formed a part, and from which he never intended to separate it,--the doctrine of penitence. In opposing the absurdity of papal indulgences, (the first impiety against which his manly mind revolted,) a ray of light, before unnoticed, darted upon him, and opened a completely new scene, which, while it stimulated his efforts as a reformer, animated his hopes as a Christian. Hence, averting with disdain from the speculations of sophists, and turning to the sacred page of revelation, he there beheld an affiance very different from what the schools inculcated; and thus, whiletheirvain language was, Repent, and trust to the efficacy of your contrition, either with or without extraneous works, according to the degree of its intensity, for the expiation of your offences;”his, more Scriptural and more consoling, became simply this: Repent, and trust not for expiation to your own merits of any kind, but solely to those of your Redeemer.” Rejecting the dreams of their adversaries with respect to the nature and effects of this important duty, they represented it as consisting of two essential parts,CONTRITIONandFAITH, the latter as always associated with the former. Hence, in the Apology of their Confession, they repeatedly declared a disavowal of all faith, except such as exists in the contrite heart. Far was it from their intention to encourage the presumptuous or fanatical sinner in a false security; their object was very different and laudable,--they laboured to fix the eye of him who both laments and detests his offences, upon the only deserving object of human confidence and divine complacency. Properly, then, as they frequently remarked, their doctrine of justification was appropriated to troubled consciences, at every period of true repentance, and particularly at the awful hour of death, when the time for habitual proofs of amendment has elapsed, and when the past appears replete with guilt and the future with terror. At such moments, they taught not, with the schools, an affiance in human merit, but in the gratuitous mercy of God through Christ: to contrition, as a preparatory qualificationor previous requisite, they added faith; and from faith they deemed every principle of real piety and virtue inseparable. Good works, or the outward fruits of an inward renovation of mind, were said tofollowremission of sins;internalnecessarily precedingexternalreformation. For the individual, they argued, must himself be good before the action can be so denominated, be justified before it can be deemed just, and accepted before it can prove acceptable,--distinguishing between the primary admission into God’s favour, and the subsequent preservation of that favour.
The unfathomable depths of divine predestination and predetermination human reason in vain attempts to sound, finite faculties to scan infinite, or the limited intellect of man to comprehend the immensity of the Godhead. Erasmus, a peculiar favourite with the reformers of our own country, when contemplating this inexplicable subject, observed, that in the Holy Scriptures there are certain secret recesses, which God is unwilling for us too minutely to explore; and which, if we endeavour to explore, in proportion as we penetrate farther, our minds become more and more oppressed with darkness and stupefaction; that thus we might acknowledge the inscrutable majesty of the divine wisdom, and the imbecility of the human mind.” Congenial, also, with the feelings and sentiments of Erasmus upon this point were those of Luther. To acquire any knowledge,” he remarked, of a deity not revealed in Scripture, to know what his existence is, his actions and dispositions, belongs not to me. My duty is only this; to know what are his precepts, his promises, and his threatenings. Pernicious and pestilent is the thought of investigating causes, and brings with it inevitable ruin, especially when we ascend too high, and wish to philosophize upon predestination.” How differently Calvin felt upon the same subject, and with what little reserve, or rather with what bold temerity, he laboured to scrutinize the unrevealed Divinity, is too well known to require any thing beyond a bare allusion to the circumstance. His sentiments, however, were much less regarded than some are disposed to allow; and upon this particular question, so far were they from having attained their full celebrity at the period when the articles of the church of England were framed, that they were not taught without opposition even in his own unimportant territory of Geneva. For at that precise era he was publicly accused (by Sebastian Castellio) of making God the author of sin; and although, not contented with silencing, he first imprisoned and afterward banished his accuser, yet he could not expel the opinions of his adversary. While the church of Rome maintained a predestination to life of one man in preference to another individuallyon account of personal merit, the Lutherans taught a gratuitous predestination of Christians collectively, of those whom God has chosen in Christ out of mankind; and by this single point of difference were the contending opinions principally contradistinguished. With us the system of Calvin still retains so many zealous advocates, that to a modern ear the very termPREDESTINATIONseems to convey a meaning only conformable withhisparticular system. It should, however, be observed that this word was in familiar use for centuries before the Reformation, in a sense, very different from what Calvin imputed to it, not as preceding the divine prescience, but as resulting from it, much in the same sense as that in which it has since been supported by the Arminians. Yet, obvious as this appears, writers of respectability strangely persuade themselves, that, immediately prior to the Reformation, the doctrines of the church of Rome were completely Calvinistical; a conclusion to which, certainly, none can subscribe who are sufficiently conversant with the favourite productions of that time. So far, indeed, was this from being the fact, that Calvin peculiarly prided himself on departing from the common definition of the term, which had long been adopted by the adherents of the schools, and retained with a scrupulous precision. For while they held that the expressionpredestinatiis exclusively applicable to the elect, whom God, foreknowing as meritorious objects of his mercy, predestinates to life; and while they appropriated that ofpræscitito the non-elect, whose perseverance in transgression is simply foreknown; Calvin, on the other side, treating the distinction as a frivolous subterfuge, contended that God, decreeing the final doom of the elect and non-elect irrespectively, predestinates both, not subsequently but previously to all foreknowledge of their individual dispositions, especially devotes the latter to destruction through the medium of crime, and creates them by a fatal destiny to perish. Whatever, therefore, modern conjecture may have attributed to the popish scholastics, it is certain that, abhorring every speculation which tends in the remotest degree to make God the author of sin, they believed that only salutary good is predestinated; grace to those who deserve itcongruously, and glory to those who deserve itcondignly. They maintained that almighty God, before the foundations of the world were laid, surveying in his comprehensive idea, or, as they phrased it, in his prescience of simple intelligence, the possibilities of all things before he determined their actual existence, foresaw that, if mankind were created, (although he willed the salvation of all, and was inclined to assist all indifferently, yet) some would deserve eternal happiness, and others eternal misery; and that therefore he approved and elected the former, but disapproved or reprobated the latter. Thus, grounding election upon foreknowledge, they contemplated it, not as an arbitrary principle, separating one individual from another under the influence of a blind chance or an irrational caprice; but, on the contrary, as a wise and just principle, which presupposes a diversity between those who are accepted and those who are rejected. Hence it was, that in order to systematize upon this principle of election, and to show how consistent it is as well with the justice as the benevolence of the Deity, thewill of God was considered in a double point of view, asabsoluteandconditional, or, in the technical language of the schools, asantecedentandconsequent. In the first instance, by his absolute or antecedent will, he was said to desire the salvation of every man; in the latter, by his conditional or consequent will, that only of those whom he foresaw abstaining from sin and obeying his commandments: the one expressed his general inclination, the other his particular resolution upon the view of individual circumstances and conditions. To the inquiry, why some are unendowed with grace, their answer was, Because some are not willing to receive it, and not because God is unwilling to give it.” He,” they said, offers his light to all. He is absent from none; but man absents himself from the present Deity, like one who shuts his eyes against the noon-day blaze.” To the foregoing statement it should be added, that they held an election, or rather an ordination, to grace (which they expressly asserted to be defectible) distinct from an election to glory; that according to them, a name may be written in the book of life at one period, which at another many be erased from it; and that predestination to eternal happiness solely depends upon final perseverance in well doing. On the whole it is evident, that they considered the dignity or worthiness of the individual as the meritorious basis of predestination; merit of congruity as the basis of a preordination to grace, and merit of condignity as that of a preordination to glory. Thus, not more fastidious in the choice of their terms than accurate in the use of them, while they denied that the prescience of human virtue, correctly speaking, could be the primary cause of the divine will, because nothing in time can properly give birth to that which has existed from eternity, they strenuously maintained it to be a secondary cause, the ratio or rule in the mind of the Deity which regulated his will in the formation of its ultimate decisions. Although in the established confession of their faith the Lutherans avoided all allusion to the subject of predestination, it was nevertheless introduced into another work of importance, and of considerable public authority, theLoci Theologiciof Melancthon, a production which was every where received as the standard of Lutheran divinity. Both Luther and Melancthon, after the Diet of Augsburgh, kept one object constantly in view,--to inculcate only what was plain and practical, and never to attempt philosophizing. But to what, it may be asked, did the Lutherans object in the theory of their opponents when they themselves abandoned the tenet of necessity? Certainly, not to the sobriety and moderation of that part of it which vindicated the justice, and displayed the benevolence, of the Almighty; but, generally, to the principles upon which it proceeded; to thepresumption, in overleaping the boundary which Heaven has prescribed to our limited faculties, and which we cannot pass without plunging into darkness and error; and to itsimpietyin disregarding, if not despising, the most important truths of Christianity. A system of such a nature they hesitated not to reject, anxious to conduct themselves by the light of Scripture alone, nor presuming to be wise above what God has been pleased to discover. Maintaining not a particular election of personal favourites, either by an absolute will, or even a conditional one, dependent upon the ratio of merit, but a general election of all who, by baptism in their infancy, or by faith and obedience in mature years, become the adopted heirs of Heaven; they conceived this to be the only election to which the Gospel alludes, and, consequently, the only one upon which we can speak with confidence, or reason without presumption. If it be observed, that the selection of an integral body necessarily infers that of its component parts, the answer is obvious: The latter, although indeed it be necessarily inferred by the former, is nevertheless not a prior requisite, but a posterior result of the divine ordination. What they deemed absolute on the part of God was his everlasting purpose to save his elect in Christ, or real Christians considered as a whole, and contrasted with the remainder of the human race; the completion of this purpose being regulated by peculiar circumstances, operating as inferior causes of a particular segregation. For, persuaded of his good will toward all men without distinction, of his being indiscriminately disposed to promote the salvation of all, and of his seriously (notfictitiously, as Calvin taught) including all in the universal promise of Christianity, they imputed to him nothing like a partial choice, no limitation of favours, no irrespective exclusion of persons; but assuming the Christian character as the sole ground of individual preference, they believed that every baptized infant, by being made a member of Christ, not by being comprised in a previous arbitrary decree, is truly the elect of God, and, dying in infancy, certain of eternal happiness; that he who, in maturer years, becomes polluted by wilful crime, loses that state of salvation which before he possessed; that nevertheless by true repentance, and conversion to the Father of mercy and God of all consolation, he is again reinstated in it; and that, by finally persevering in it, he at length receives the kingdom prepared for every sincere Christian before the foundation of the world. Can any man, whom prejudice has not blinded, rank these sentiments with those of Calvin? It may seem almost unnecessary to subjoin, that the Lutherans held the defectibility of grace; its indefectibility being a position supported but by those who think that the Redeemer died for a selected few alone. Upon the whole then it appears, that the Lutherans, affecting not in any way to philosophize, but committing themselves solely to the guidance of Scripture, differed from the church of Rome in several important particulars. For, although on some points they coincided with her, although they inculcated, with equal zeal and upon a better principle, both the universality and the defectibility of grace, as well as a conditional admission into the number of the elect, they nevertheless were entirely at variancewith her upon the very foundation of the system. Thus while their opponents taught, that predestination consists in the prospective discrimination of individuals by divine favour, according to the foreseen ratio of every man’s own merit,--works of congruity deserving grace here, and works of condignity eternal life hereafter, and that in this way it principally rests upon human worth; the Lutherans, disclaiming every idea of such a discrimination, placed it upon the same basis as they assumed in the case of justification,--that of an effectual redemption by Christ. Instead, therefore, of holding the election of individuals as menon account of personal dignity or worthiness, they maintained the election of a general mass as Christianson account of Christ alone; adding that we are admitted into that number, or discarded from it, in the eye of Heaven, proportionably as we embrace or reject the salvation offered to all, embracing it with a faith inseparable from genuine virtue, or rejecting it by incredulity and crime. For neither in this, nor in the instance of justification, did they exclude repentance and a true conversion of the heart and life, asnecessary requisites, but only asmeritorious causes, from the contemplation of God’s omniscient intellect. Let those,” said Luther, who wish to be elected avoid an evil conscience, and not transgress the divine commandments.” Instructed then by the unerring page of truth, they asserted no other predestination than what is there expressly revealed; that of the good and gracious Father of mankind, who from eternity has been disposed to promote the happiness and welfare of all men, has destined Christ to be the Saviour of the whole world, and withholden from none the exalted hope of the Christian calling. Convinced that this is the only predestination which Christianity discloses, and consequently the only one which we can either with safety or certainty embrace, they discouraged every attempt at investigating the will, out of the word, of God; every attempt at effecting impossibilities, at unveiling the secret counsels of Him who shrouds his divine perfections in darkness impervious to mortal eyes. With such investigations, indeed, the world had already been sufficiently bewildered by the scholastics, who, endowed with a ready talent at perplexing what before was plain, and at rendering abstruseness still more abstruse, had made the subject totally inexplicable, vainly labouring to develope with precision that mysterious will upon which the wise must ever think itfolly, and the goodimpiety, to speculate. Disquisitions of this presumptuous nature, from a personal experience of their mischievous tendency, Luther abjured himself, and deprecated in others. Are we, miserable men,” he exclaimed, “who as yet are incapable of comprehending the rays of God’s promises, the glimmerings of his precepts and his works, although confirmed by words and miracles, are we, infirm and impure, eager to comprehend all that is great and glorious in the solar light itself, in the incomprehensible light of a miraculous Godhead? Do we not know, that God dwells in splendour inaccessible? And yet do we approach, or rather do we presume to approach it? Are we not aware, that his judgments are inscrutable? And yet do we endeavour to scrutinize them? And these things we do, before we are habituated even to the faint lustre of his promises and precepts, with a vision still imperfect, blindly rushing into the majesty of that light which, secret and unseen, has never been by words or miracles exhibited. What wonder, then, if, while we explore its majesty, we are overwhelmed with its glory?” For a farther account of the Lutheran views on predestination, see the last pages of the articleCalvinism.
After this very ample exposition of the sentiments of the German reformers on the chief points of Christian doctrine, it is only necessary to give a few additional particulars in corroboration of some portions of the preceding statement. The high estimation in which Luther held the productions of the judicious Melancthon is apparent from a passage in the preface to the first volume of Luther’s works, dated 1545. In that year also appeared the last amended edition of Melancthon’s Common Places,” to which he alludes. Long and earnestly,” he says, have I resisted the importunity of those who have wished me to publish my works, or, to speak more correctly, my confused and disorderly lucubrations; not only because I was unwilling that the labours of the ancients should be turned aside by my novelties, and that the reader should be hindered from perusing them, but likewise because now, by the grace of God, a great number of methodical books are extant; among which theCommon Placesof our Philip claim the preference, for by them a divine and a bishop may be abundantly and satisfactorily confirmed, so as to become powerful in the word of the doctrine of piety, especially when the Holy Bible itself can now be procured in almost every language. But the want of order in the matters to be discussed in my books induced, nay compelled, me to render them a sort of rude and indigested chaos, which it would now require even on my part no small exertion to digest into a methodical form. Under the influence of such motives as these, I was desirous that all my productions should be buried in perpetual oblivion, that they might give place to others of a better description.” In this preface Luther also gives the following testimony to the general usefulness of Melancthon’s labours: In the same year Philip Melancthon had been called to this university by Prince Frederick to fill the chair of Greek professor, but no doubt with the intention that I should have him as my colleague in the labours of the divinity professorship. For his works are sufficiently in proof of what the Lord hath effected by this his choice instrument, not only in polite literature, but in theology, although Satan be enraged and all his party.” Though the early opinions of Luther upon the doctrine of a philosophical necessity appear to have been occasionally expressed in a harshand repulsive manner, yet his followers pertinaciously contend that even the harshest of them cannot, with propriety, be construed into a sense favourable to the Calvinistical system. Those of Melancthon in the first edition of hisLoci Theologici, although occurring but in one or two instances, were nevertheless still more offensive, and less capable of a mitigated interpretation. So far indeed did he carry the doctrine of divine predetermination as to degrade man to a level with the brutes, as will be obvious from the following passage in the edition of 1525. Lastly, divine predestination takes away human liberty. For all things come to pass according to divine predestination, not only external works, but also internal thoughts in all creatures.” After the Diet of Augsburgh in 1530, we hear no more of this obnoxious tenet. Indeed so early as 1527 these reformers seem to have abandoned it. At least, when in that year a form of doctrine was drawn up for the churches of Saxony, free will in acts of morality was thus inculcated: The human will is so far free as to be able in some sort to perform the righteousness of the flesh, or civil justice, when it is obliged by the law and by force not to steal, not to kill, not to commit adultery, &c. Therefore let ministers teach, that it is in a measure in our own hands to restrain carnal affections, and to perform civil justice; and let them diligently exhort men to a strict and proper course of life, because God also requires this kind of righteousness, and will grievously punish those men who live so negligent of their duty. For as we are bound to make a good use of the other gifts of God, so is it likewise our duty to employ to good purpose those powers which God has bestowed on nature.” For God takes no delight in that ferocious mode of life which is adopted by some men, who, after having heard that we are not justified by our own powers and works, foolishly dream that they will wait until they be drawn by God, and in the mean time their course of life is most impure. Such persons God will most severely punish; and they must therefore be earnestly reprehended and admonished by those whose province it is to teach in the churches.” This work, which is generally termed,Libellus Visitationis Saxonic, was first composed in German by Melancthon in 1527, and afterward republished by Luther with a preface, in which he thus expresses himself: We do not publish these as rigorous precepts, nor do we again employ ourselves in drawing up pontifical decrees, but we relate matters of history and public deeds, and present the confession and symbol of our belief.” The previous controversy between Luther and Erasmus, on the topic of free will, had probably tended to produce an amelioration of the doctrinal system of the Lutheran church. In this view it was not without reason that Erasmus made the following reflections in a letter dated 1528, soon after he had seen this production: The Lutheran fever, every succeeding day, assumes a milder form; so that Luther himself now writes recantations on almost every thing, and on this account he is considered by the rest as a heretic and a madman.” Similar caustic remarks occur in other letters of Erasmus; and as, in those days of high religious excitement, taunts of this kind were considered too good to be confined as secrets within the breast of the correspondents to whom they were addressed, it is not improbable that Luther might be prevented through them, among other reasons, from making farther doctrinal concessions; it being no uncommon circumstance in the history of the human mind for persons of otherwise strong understandings to be under the influence of this pitiable weakness. That Melancthon not only abandoned but reprehended the doctrine in 1529, we cannot doubt, because his own express testimony in proof of it remains on record. In a letter to Christopher Stathmio, dated March 20th, 1559, which was not long before his death, he notices the subject in these words: Thirty years ago, not through the desire of contention, but on account of the glory of God, and for the sake of discipline, I sharply reprehended the Stoical paradoxes concerning necessity, because they are reproachful toward God and injurious to morals. At this time the legions of the Stoics are waging war against me; but in the answer which I have written in opposition to the Bavarian inquisition, I have once more pointed out in a modest manner that opinion (on fate or predestination) in which anxious minds may acquiesce and be at rest.” On consulting the tract to which his letter alludes, we find him employing this strong and unequivocal language: I also openly reject and abhor those Stoical and Manichean furies who affirm that all thingsnecessarilyhappen, evil as well as good actions. But concerning these I refrain at present from any lengthened discussion; only I entreat young people to avoid these monstrous opinions, which are contumelious against God, and pernicious to morals.” From theLoci Theologici, in which Melancthon had first introduced this obnoxious tenet, he expungednecessityin the edition of 1533, and inserted in its place the opposite one ofcontingency. The following are extracts from this amended work: The discussion onthe cause of sinand that oncontingencyhave sometimes greatly agitated the church, and excited mighty tragedies. Men of acute minds collect multitudes of inextricable and absurd things about both these subjects. Because there is some danger in them, young people must be warned to abstain from these interminable disputes, and in preference to search out a simple and pious opinion, beneficial to religion and morals, in which they may abide, nor suffer themselves to be withdrawn from it by those fallacious tricks of disputations. But this is a pious and true sentiment to be embraced with both hands, and to be retained rather by the whole heart,--that God is not the cause of sin, and that he does not will sin. But the causes of sin are the will of the devil, and the will of man.” But this sentiment being once laid down, that God is not the cause of sin, it evidently follows that contingencymust be granted. The freedom of the will is the cause of the contingency of our actions.” Neither must the delirious doatings about Stoical fate, or about necessity, be conveyed into the church, because they are inextricable and sometimes injurious to piety and morals.” From these opinions it becomes the pious to be abhorrent in their ears and in their hearts.” These extracts serve to prove, that Melancthon reprobated the idea of introducing into the church the doctrine of Stoical fate, before Calvin had distinguished himself either as an author or a reformer. Into his subsequent productions of almost every description Melancthon introduced the doctrine of contingency, and strenuously defended it, particularly in the amended edition of hisLoci Theologiciin 1545. Luther never formally revoked any of his own writings; but on this last corrected production of his friend, as we have shown, he bestowed the highest commendations. Yet he did not scruple publicly to assert, that at the beginning of the Reformation he had not completely settled his creed. In the seventh volume of his works this sentence is found: I have also published the confession of my faith; in which I have openly testified what and how I believe, and in what articles I think myself at length to be at rest.” He seems, indeed, to have generally avoided the subject, from the period of his controversy with Erasmus, to the publication of his Commentary on Genesis,--his last work of any importance. But in this, after a long argument to prove that, as we have no knowledge of the unrevealed Deity, we have nothing to do with those things which are above our comprehension; and that we are not to reason upon predestination out of Christianity; he thus apologizes for his former opinions: “It has been my wish diligently and accurately to deliver these charges and admonitions; because, after my death, many persons will publish my books to the world, and by that course will confirm errors of every kind and their own delirious ravings. But among other matters I have written, that all things are absolute and necessary; but at the same time I added, that we must behold God as he is revealed to us, as we sing in the Psalm, ‘Jesus Christ is the Lord of sabaoth, nor is there any other God.’ In several other passages I have used similar expressions. But these people will pass by all such passages, and will only seize upon those concerning a hidden Deity. You, therefore, who now hear me, recollect that I have taught this,--We must not inquire concerning the predestination of a hidden God, but we must abide and acquiesce in those things which are revealed by calling and by the ministry of the word.” But in other passages of my different works I have inculcated the same sentiments, and I now deliver them again with an audible voice; therefore I am excused.” For the more modern state of the Lutheran church seeNeology.
The following account of the union between the Lutheran and Calvinistic churches, as given in the advertisement to Baron Von Wessenberg’s Correspondence with the Court of Rome,” may not be uninteresting to the reader: The Germans have just set the noble example of forming a union between these two branches of the Protestant faith. This union, which originated, we believe, in the grand duchy of Nassau, has taken place almost universally throughout Germany; and the separate appellations of Lutheran and Calvinistic churches have merged in the common appellation of the Evangelical church. The Lutheran and Reformed churches of Prussia met in synod together, on the invitation of their monarch, the first of October, 1817, and soon came to an agreement; and the union was celebrated on the day of the tri-centenary festival of the Reformation. A similar synod of the Lutherans and Calvinists in Hesse-Cassel was held at Hanau in May and June, 1818, and attended with the same result. The royal confirmation was given to the Bavarian union on the first of October following. Saxe-Weimar, and most of the other small states have followed this example. The Protestant Germans have now, therefore, only one Gospel, one temple, one divine Instructer, and one mode of communion; and, what is singular, and highly honourable to their liberality, this union was every where accomplished with the greatest ease, and without a dissentient voice having been raised against it.” How different was this result from that of the synods and councils of other times; and what a change in the state of public opinion does it indicate! And yet it is to be feared that theliberalityfrom which this union has resulted, is rather indifference to the grand peculiarities of the Christian faith than mutual charity.
LYCAONIA, a province of Asia Minor, accounted a part of Cappadocia, having Pisidia on the west, and Cilicia on the south. In it were the cities of Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe, mentioned in the travels of St. Paul. The former was the capital, and the country itself at that time a Roman province. The speech of Lycaonia,” mentioned Acts xiv, 11, is supposed to have been a corrupt Greek, intermingled with many oriental words.
LYCIA, a country of Asia Minor, having Phrygia on the north, Pamphylia on the east, the Mediterranean on the south, and Caria on the west. The greatest part of the country, however, is a peninsula projecting into the Mediterranean. Lycia derived its name from Lycus, the son of Pandion, who settled here. It was conquered by Crœsus, king of Lydia, and passed with his kingdom into the hands of the Persians. It afterward, in common with the neighbouring countries of Asia Minor, formed part of the Macedonian empire, under Alexander; then of that of the Seleucidæ, his successors in those countries; and, at the time of the Apostles, was reduced to the state of a Roman province.
LYDDA, by the Greeks called Diospolis. It lay in the way from Jerusalem to Cæsarea, four or five leagues to the east of Joppa. Lydda belonged to the tribe of Ephraim. It seems to have been inhabited by the Benjamites,at the return of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity, Neh. xi, 35. St. Peter coming to Lydda, cured a sick man of the palsy named Eneas, Acts ix, 33, 34.
LYDIA, a woman of Thyatira, a seller of purple, who dwelt in the city of Philippi, in Macedonia. She was converted to the faith by St. Paul, and both she and her family were baptized. She offered her house to the Apostle, and pressed him to abide there so earnestly, that he yielded to her entreaties. She was not a Jewess by birth, but a proselyte, Acts xvi, 14, 15, 40.
2.Lydia, an ancient celebrated kingdom of Asia Minor, which, in the time of the Apostles, was reduced to a Roman province. Sardis was the capital.
LYSTRA, a city of Lycaonia, the native place of Timothy. The Apostle Paul and Barnabas having preached here, and healed a cripple, were taken for gods. But so fickle are human praise and popular encomiums, that, in the space of a few hours, those who had been deemed gods were regarded as less than mortals, and were stoned by the very persons who so lately deified them. See Acts xiv.
MAACAH, or BETH-MAACHA, a little province of Syria to the east and the north of the sources of the river Jordan, upon the road to Damascus. Abel or Abela was in this country, whence it was called Abelbeth-Maachah. We learn from Joshua xiii, 13, that the Israelites did not destroy the Maachathites, but permitted them to dwell in the land among them. The distribution of the half tribe of Manasseh, beyond Jordan, extended as far as this country, Deut. iii, 14; Joshua xii, 5.
MACCABEES, two apocryphal books of Scripture, containing the history of Judas and his brothers, and their wars against the Syrian kings in defence of their religion and liberties, so called from Judas, the son of Mattathias, surnamed Maccabæus, as some authors say, from the wordמכבי, formed of the initials ofמי-כמכה באלים יהוה, Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods?” Exod. xv, 11, which was the motto of his standard; whence those who fought under his standard were called Maccabees, and the name was generally applied to all who suffered in the cause of true religion, under the Egyptian or Syrian kings. This name, formed by abbreviation according to the common practice of the Jews, distinguished Judas Maccabæus by way of eminence, as he succeeded his father, B. C. 166, in the command of those forces which he had with him at his death; and, being joined by his brothers, and all others that were zealous for the law, he erected his standard, on which he inscribed the above mentioned motto. Those, also, who suffered under Ptolemy Philopater of Alexandria, fifty years before this period, were afterward called Maccabees; and so were Eleazar, and the mother and her seven sons, though they suffered before Judas erected his standard with the motto from which the appellation originated. And therefore, as these books which contain the history of Judas and his brothers, and their wars against the Syrian kings, in defence of their religion and liberties, are called the first and second books of the Maccabees; so that book which gives us the history of those who, in the like cause, under Ptolemy Philopater, were exposed to his elephants at Alexandria, is called the third book of the Maccabees; and that which is written by Josephus, of the martyrdom of Eleazar, and the seven brothers and their mother, is called the fourth book of the Maccabees.
The first book of the Maccabees is an excellent history, and comes nearest to the style and manner of the sacred historians of any extant. It was written originally in the Chaldee language, of the Jerusalem dialect, and was extant in this language in the time of Jerom, who bad seen it. From the Chaldee it was translated into Greek, from the Greek into Latin. Theodotion is conjectured to have translated it into Greek; but this version was probably more ancient, as we may infer from its use by ancient authors, as Tertullian, Origen, and others. It is supposed to have been written by John Hyrcanus, the son of Simon, who was prince and high priest of the Jews near thirty years, and began his government at the time where this history ends. It contains the history of forty years, from the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes to the death of Simon, the high priest; that is, from the year of the world 3829 to the year 3869, B. C. 131. The second book of the Maccabees begins with two epistles sent from the Jews of Jerusalem to the Jews of Egypt and Alexandria, to exhort them to observe the feast of the dedication of the new altar erected by Judas, on his purifying the temple. The first was written in the 169th year of the era of the Seleucidæ, that is, B. C. 144; and the second, in the 188th year of the same era, or B. C. 125; and both appear to be spurious. After these epistles follows the preface of the author to his history, which is an abridgment of a larger work, composed by one Jason, a Jew of Cyrene, who wrote in Greek the history of Judas Maccabæus, and his brethren, and the wars against Antiochus Epiphanes, and Eupator his son. The two last chapters contain events under the reign of Demetrius Soter, the successor of Antiochus Eupator, and contain such varieties in their style, as render it doubtful whether they had the same author as the rest of the work. This second book does not by any means equal the accuracy and excellency of the first. It contains a history of about fifteen years, from the execution of Heliodorus’s commission, who was sent by Seleucus to fetch away the treasures of the temple, to the victory obtained by Judas Maccabæus over Nicanor; that is, from the year of the world 3828 to the year 3843, B. C. 157.
There are in the Polyglott Bibles, both of Paris and London, Syriac versions of both these books; but they, as well as the English versions which we have among the apocryphal writers in our Bibles, are derived from the Greek. For a farther account of Judas Maccabæus,and of his brothers, whose history is recorded in the first and second books of the Maccabees, and also by Josephus, we refer to the articleJews. The third book of the Maccabees contains the history of the persecution of Ptolemy Philopater against the Jews in Egypt, and their sufferings under it; and seems to have been written by some Alexandrian Jew in the Greek language, not long after the time of Siracides. This book, with regard to its subject, ought to be called the first, as the things which are related in it occurred before the Maccabees, whose history is recorded in the first and second books; but as it is of less authority and repute than the other two, it is reckoned after them. It is extant in Syriac, though the translator did not seem to have well understood the Greek language. It is in most of the ancient manuscript copies of the Greek Septuagint, particularly in the Alexandrian and Vatican, but was never inserted into the vulgar Latin version of the Bible, nor, consequently, into any of our English copies. The first authentic mention we have of this book is in Eusebius’sChronicon.” It is also named with two other books of the Maccabees in the eighty-fifth of the apostolic canons. But it is uncertain when that canon was added. Grotius thinks that this book was written after the two first books, and shortly after the book of Ecclesiasticus, from which circumstance it was called the third book of Maccabees. Moreover, Josephus’s history of the martyrs that suffered under Antiochus Epiphanes, is found in some manuscript Greek Bibles, under the name of the fourth book of the Maccabees. This book, ascribed to Josephus, occurs under the title, Concerning the Empire or Government of Reason;” but learned men have expressed a doubt whether this was the book known to the ancients as the fourth book of the Maccabees.
MACEDONIA, a kingdom of Greece, having Thrace to the north, Thessaly south, Epirus west, and the Ægean Sea east. Alexander the Great, son of Philip, king of Macedonia, having conquered Asia, and subverted the Persian empire, the name of the Macedonians became very famous throughout the east; and it is often given to the Greeks, the successors of Alexander in the monarchy. In like manner, the name of Greeks is often put for Macedonians, 2 Maccabees iv, 36. When the Roman empire was divided, Macedonia fell to the share of the emperor of the east. After it had long continued subject to the Romans, it fell under the power of the Ottoman Turks, who are the present masters of it.
St. Paul was invited by an angel of the Lord, who appeared to him at Troas, to come and preach the Gospel in Macedonia, Acts xvi, 9. After this vision, the Apostle no longer doubted his divine call to preach the Gospel in Macedonia; and the success that attended his ministry confirmed him in his persuasion. Here he laid the foundation of the churches of Thessalonica and Philippi.
MAGDALA, a city on the west side of the sea of Galilee, near Dalmanutha; Jesus, after the miracle of the seven loaves, being said by St. Matthew to have gone by ship to the coasts of Magdala, Matt. xv, 39; and by St. Mark, to the parts of Dalmanutha,” Mark viii, 10. Mr. Buckingham came to a small village in this situation called Migdal, close to the edge of the lake, beneath a range of high cliffs, in which small grottoes are seen, with the remains of an old square tower, and some larger buildings, of rude construction, apparently of great antiquity. Migdol implies a tower, or fortress; and this place, from having this name particularly applied to it, was doubtless, like the Egyptian Migdol, one of considerable importance; and may be considered as the site of the Migdal of the Naphtalites, as well as the Magdala of the New Testament.
MAGI, or MAGIANS, a title which the ancient Persians gave to their wise men, or philosophers. Magi, among the Persians, answers to σόφοι, or φιλόσοφοι, among the Greeks;sapientes, among the Latins; druids, among the Gauls; gymnosophists, among the Indians; and priests, among the Egyptians.
The ancient magi, according to Aristotle and Laertius, were the sole authors and conservators of the Persian philosophy; and the philosophy principally cultivated among them was theology and politics; they being always esteemed as the interpreters of all law, both divine and human; on which account they were wonderfully revered by the people. Hence Cicero observes that none were admitted to the crown of Persia, but such as were well instructed in the discipline of the magi; who taught τὰ βασιλικὰ, and showed princes how to govern. Plato, Apuleius, Laertius, and others, agree that the philosophy of the magi related principally to the worship of the gods: they were the persons who were to offer prayers, supplications, and sacrifices, as if the gods would be heard by them alone. But, according to Lucian, Suidas, &c, this theology, or worship of the gods, as it is called, about which the magi were employed, was little more than the diabolical art of divination; so that μαγεί.ἁ, strictly taken, was the art of divination. These people were held in such veneration among the Persians, that Darius, the son of Hystaspes, among other things, had it engraven on his monument, that he was the master of the magi. Philo Judæus describes the magi to be diligent inquirers into nature, out of the love they bear to truth; and who, setting themselves apart from other things, contemplate the divine virtues the more clearly, and initiate others in the same mysteries. The magi, or magians, formed one of the two grand sects into which the idolatry of the world was divided between 500 and 600 years before Christ. These abominated all those images which were worshipped by the other sect, denominated Sabians, and paid their worship to the Deity under the emblem of fire. Their chief doctrine was, that there were two principles, one of which was the cause of all good, and the other thecause of all evil. The former was represented by light, and the latter by darkness, as their truest symbols; and of the composition of these two they supposed that all things in the world were made. The sect of the magians was revived and reformed by Zoroaster. This celebrated philosopher, called by the Persians Zerdusht, or Zaratush, began about the thirty-sixth year of the reign of Darius to restore and reform the magian system of religion. He was not only excellently skilled in all the learning of the east that prevailed in his time, but likewise thoroughly versed in the Jewish religion, and in all the sacred writings of the Old Testament that were then extant: whence some have inferred that he was a native Jew both by birth and profession; and that he had been servant to one of the prophets, probably Ezekiel or Daniel. He made his first appearance in Media, in the city of Xix, now called Aderbijan, as some say; or, according to others in Ecbatana, now called Tauris. Instead of admitting the existence of two first causes, with the magians, he asserted the existence of one supreme God, who created both these, and out of these two produced, according to his sovereign pleasure, every thing else. According to his doctrine, there was one supreme Being independently and self-existing from all eternity. Under him there are two angels: one the angel of light, the author and director of all good; and the other the angel of darkness, who is the author and director of all evil. These two, probably speaking figuratively, out of the mixture of light and darkness, made all things that are; and they are in a state of perpetual conflict; so that where the angel of light prevails, there the most is good; and where the angel of darkness prevails, there the most is evil. This struggle shall continue to the end of the world; and then there shall be a general resurrection, and a day of judgment: after which, the angel of darkness and his disciples shall go into a world of their own, where they shall suffer in everlasting darkness the punishment of their evil deeds; and the angel of light and his disciples shall go into a world of their own, where they shall receive in everlasting light the reward due unto their good deeds: and henceforward they shall for ever remain separate.
Of the controversy as to Zoroaster, Zeratusht, or Zertushta, and the sacred books said to have been written by him, called Zend or Zendavesta, which has divided the most eminent critics, it would answer no important end to give an abstract. Those who wish for information on the subject are referred to Hyde’sReligio Veterum Persarum;” Prideaux’s Connection;” Warburton’s Divine Legation;” Bryant’s Mythology;” The Universal History;” Sir W. Jones’s Works, vol. iii, p. 115; M. Du Perron, and Richardson’s Dissertation,” prefixed to his Persian and Arabic Dictionary. But whatever may become of the authority of the whole or part of the Zendavesta, and with whatever fables the history of the reformer of the magian religion may be mixed, the learned are generally agreed that such a reformation took place by his instrumentality. Zeratusht,” says Sir W. Jones, reformed the old religion by the addition of genii or angels, of new ceremonies in the veneration shown to fire, of a new work which he pretended to have received from heaven, and,above all, by establishing the actual adoration of the supreme Being;” and he farther adds, The reformed religion of Persia continued in force till that country was conquered by the Musselmans; and, without studying the Zend, we have ample information concerning it in the modern Persian writings of several who profess it. Bahman always named Zeratusht with reverence; he was, in truth, a pure Theist, and strongly disclaimed any adoration of the fire or other elements; and he denied that the doctrine of two coëval principles, supremely good and supremely bad, formed any part of his faith.” The Zeratusht of Persia, or the Zoroaster of the Greeks,” says Richardson, was highly celebrated by the most discerning people of ancient times; and his tenets, we are told, were most eagerly and rapidly embraced by the highest in rank, and the wisest men in the Persian empire.” He distinguished himself by denying that good and evil, represented by light and darkness, were coëval, independent principles; and asserted the supremacy of the true God, in exact conformity with the doctrine contained in a part of that celebrated prophecy of Isaiah in which Cyrus is mentioned by name: I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me,” no coëval power. I form the light, and create darkness, I make peace,” or good, and create evil, I the Lord do all these things.” Fire, by Zerdushta, appears to have been used emblematically only; and the ceremonies for preserving and transmitting it, introduced by him, were manifestly taken from the Jews, and the sacred fire of their tabernacle and temple.
The old religion of the Persians was corrupted by Sabianism, or the worship of the host of heaven, with its accompanying superstition. The magian doctrine, whatever it might be at first, had degenerated; and two eternal principles, good and evil, had been introduced. It was therefore necessarily idolatrous also, and, like all other false systems, flattering to the vicious habits of the people. So great an improvement in the moral character and influence of the religion of a whole nation as was effected by Zoroaster, a change which is not certainly paralleled in the ancient history of the religion of mankind, can scarcely, therefore, be thought possible, except we suppose a divine interposition, either directly, or by the occurrence of some very impressive events. Now as there are so many authorities for fixing the time of Zoroaster or Zeratusht not many years subsequent to the death of the great Cyrus, the events connected with the conquest of Babylon may account for his success in that reformation of religion of which he was the author. For, had not the minds of men been prepared for this change by something extraordinary, it is not supposable that they would have adopted a purer faith from him.That he gave them a better doctrine, is clear from the admission of even Dean Prideaux, who has very unjustly branded him as an impostor. Let it then be remembered, that as the Most High ruleth in the kingdoms of men,” he often overrules great political events for moral purposes. The Jews were sent into captivity to Babylon to be reformed from their idolatrous propensities, and their reformation commenced with their calamity. A miracle was there wrought in favour of three Hebrew confessors of the existence of one only God, and that under circumstances to put shame upon a popular idol in the presence of the king and all the rulers of the provinces,” that the issue of this controversy between Jehovah and idolatry might be made known throughout that vast empire.--Worship was refused to the idol by a few Hebrew captives, and the idol had no power to punish the public affront:--the servants of Jehovah were cast into a furnace, and he delivered them unhurt; and a royal decree declared that there was no god who could deliver after this sort.” The proud monarch himself also is smitten with a singular disease;--he remains subject to it until he acknowledges the true God; and, upon his recovery, he publicly ascribes to him both the justice and the mercy of the punishment. This event takes place, also, in the accomplishment of a dream which none of the wise men of Babylon could interpret. It was interpreted by Daniel, who made the fulfilment to redound to the honour of the true God, by ascribing to him the perfection of knowing the future, which none of the false gods, appealed to by the Chaldean sages, possessed; as the inability of their servants to interpret the dream sufficiently proved. After these singular events, Cyrus takes Babylon, and he finds there the sage and the statesman, Daniel, the worshipper of the true God, who creates both good and evil,” who makes the light, and forms the darkness.” There is little doubt but that he and the principal Persians throughout the empire would have the prophecy of Isaiah respecting Cyrus, delivered more than a hundred years before he was born, and in which his name stood recorded, along with the predicted circumstances of the capture of Babylon, pointed out to them. Every reason, religious and political, urged the Jews to make the prediction a matter of notoriety; and from Cyrus’s decree in Ezra it is certain that he was acquainted with it; because there is in the decree an obvious reference to the prophecy. This prophecy, so strangely fulfilled, would give mighty force to the doctrine connected with it, and which it proclaims with so much majesty:--