NAOMI. SeeRuth.
NAPHTALI, the sixth son of Jacob by Bilhah, Rachel’s handmaid. The word Naphtali signifieswrestling, orstruggling. When Rachel gave him this name, she said, With great wrestlings have I wrestled with my sister, and I have prevailed,” Gen. xxx, 8. Naphtali had but four sons, and yet at the coming out of Egypt his tribe made up fifty-three thousand four hundred men, able to bear arms. Moses, in the blessing he gave to the same tribe, says, O Naphtali, satisfied with favour, and full with the blessing of the Lord, possess thou the west and the south,” Deut. xxxiii, 23. The Vulgate reads it, the sea and the south,” and the Hebrew will admit of either interpretation, that is, the sea of Gennesareth, which was to the south by the inheritance of this tribe. His soil was very fruitful in corn and oil. His limits were extended into upper and lower Galilee, having Jordan to the east, the tribes of Asher and Zebulun to the west, Libanus to the north, and the tribe of Issachar to the south. Under Barak, their general, they and the Zebulunites fought with distinguished bravery against the army of Jabin the younger; and at the desire of Gideon they pursued the Midianites, Judges iv, 10; v, 18; vii, 23. A thousand of their captains, with thirty-seven thousand of their troops, assisted at David’s coronation, and brought great quantities of provision with them, 1 Chron. xii, 34, 40. We find no person of distinguished note among them, save Barak, and Hiram the artificer. Instigated by Asa, Benhadad the elder, king of Syria, terribly ravaged the land of Naphtali; and what it suffered in after invasions by the Syrians we are partly told, 1 Kings xv, 20. The Naphtalites were, many, if not most of them, carried captive by Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, 2 Kings xv, 29. Josiah purged their country from idols. Our Saviour and his disciples, during his public ministry, resided much and preached frequently in the land of Naphtali, Isaiah ix, 1; Matt. iv, 13, 15.
NAPHTUHIM, a son, or rather the descendants of a son, of Mizraim, whose proper name is Naphtuch. Naphtuch is supposed to have given his name to Naph, Noph, or Memphis, and to have been the first king of that division of Egypt. He is, however, placed by Bochart in Libya; and is conjectured to be the Aphtuchus, or Autuchus, who had a temple somewhere here. He is farther conjectured, and not without reason, to be the original of the Heathen god Neptune; who is represented to have been a Libyan, and whose temples were generally built near the sea coast. By others, he is supposed to have peopled that part of Ethiopia between Syene and Meroe, the capital of which was called Napata.
NATHAN, a prophet of the Lord, who appeared in Israel in the time of King David, and had a great share in the confidence of this prince. His country is unknown, as also the time in which he began to prophesy. The first time we find him mentioned, is when David designed to build the temple, 2 Sam. vii, 3, &c. We find him mentioned again in theaffair of David and Bathsheba, when he faithfully reproved the king for his wicked conduct, 2 Sam. xii, 1–14. And when Adonijah began to take upon him the state, and to assume the dignity, of a sovereign, and to form a party in opposition to his brother Solomon, Nathan repaired to Bathsheba, and sent her immediately to the king with instructions what to say; and while she was yet discoursing with the king, Nathan came in, reminded David of his promise, that Solomon should be his successor, and procured Solomon to be immediately anointed king of Israel.
NATHANAEL, a disciple of our Lord. He appears to have been a pious Jew who waited for the Messiah: and upon Jesus saying to him, Before Philip called thee, I saw thee under the fig tree,” Nathanael, convinced, by some circumstance not explained, of his omniscience, exclaimed, Master, thou art the Son of God, and the King of Israel.” Many have thought that Nathanael was the same as Bartholomew. The evangelists, who mention Bartholomew, say nothing of Nathanael; and St. John, who mentions Nathanael, takes no notice of Bartholomew. We read at the end of St. John’s Gospel, that our Saviour, after his resurrection, manifested himself to Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, and the sons of Zebedee, as they were fishing in the lake of Gennesareth. We know no other circumstances of the life of this holy man.
NATURAL, ψυχικὸς, is a term that frequently occurs in the apostolic writings: The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned,” 1 Cor. ii, 14. Here it is plain that by the natural man,” is not meant a person devoid of natural judgment, reason, or conscience, in which sense the expression is often used among men. Nor does it signify one who is entirely governed by his fleshly appetites, or what the world calls a voluptuary, or sensualist. Neither does it signify merely a man in the rude state of nature, whose faculties have not been cultivated by learning and study, and polished by an intercourse with society. The Apostle manifestly takes his natural man” from among such as the world hold in the highest repute for their natural parts, their learning, and their religion. He selects him from among the philosophers of Greece, who sought after wisdom, and from among the Jewish scribes, who were instructed in the revealed law of God, 1 Cor. i, 22, 23. These are the persons whom he terms the wise, the scribes, the disputers of this world--men to whom the Gospel was a stumbling block and foolishness, 1 Cor. i, 20, 23. The natural man is here evidently opposed to, ὁ πνευματικὸς, him that is spiritual,” 1 Cor. ii, 15, even as the natural body which we derive from Adam is opposed to the spiritual body which believers will receive from Christ at the resurrection, according to 1 Cor. xv, 44, 45. Now the spiritual man is one who has the Spirit of Christ dwelling in him, Rom. viii, 9, not merely in the way of miraculous gifts, as some have imagined, (for these were peculiar to the first age of the Christian church, and even then not common to all the saints, nor inseparably connected with salvation, 1 Cor. xiii, 1–4; Heb. vi, 4–7,) but in his saving influences of light, holiness, and consolation, whereby the subject is made to discern the truth and excellency of spiritual things, and so to believe, love, and delight in them as his true happiness. If therefore a man is called spiritual” because the Spirit of Christ dwells in him, giving him new views, dispositions, and enjoyments, then the natural man,” being opposed to such, must be one who is destitute of the Spirit, and of all his saving and supernatural effects, whatever may be his attainments in human learning and science. It is obviously upon this principle that our Lord insists upon the necessity of the new birth in order to our entering into the kingdom of heaven, John iii, 3, 5.
NATURE. In Scripture the word nature expresses the orderly and usual course of things established in the world. St. Paul says, to ingraft a good olive tree into a wild olive is contrary to nature, Rom. xi, 24; the customary order of nature is thereby in some measure inverted. Nature is also put for natural descent: We who are Jews by nature,” by birth, and not Gentiles,” Gal. ii, 15. We were by nature the children of wrath,” Eph. ii, 3. Nature also denotes common sense, natural instinct: Doth not even nature itself teach you, that if a man have long hair, it is a shame to him?” 1 Cor. xi, 14.
NAZARENES, or NAZARÆANS, a name originally given to Christians in general, on account of Jesus Christ’s being of the city of Nazareth; but was, in the second century, restrained to certain judaizing Christians, who blended Christianity and Judaism together. They held that Christ was born of a virgin, and was also in a certain manner united to the divine nature. They refused to abandon the ceremonies prescribed by the law of Moses; but were far from attempting to impose the observance of these ceremonies upon Gentile Christians. They rejected those additions that were made to the Mosaic institutions by the Pharisees and doctors of the law, and admitted the Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament. The fathers frequently mention the Gospel of the Nazarenes, which differs nothing from that of St. Matthew, but was afterward corrupted by the Ebionites. These Nazarenes preserved this first Gospel in its primitive purity. Some of them were still in being in the time of St. Jerome, who does not reproach them with any errors.
NAZARETH, a little city in the tribe of Zebulun, in Lower Galilee, to the west of Tabor, and to the east of Ptolemais. This city is much celebrated in the Scriptures for having been the usual place of the residence of Jesus Christ, during the first thirty years of his life, Luke ii, 51. It was here he lived in obedience to Joseph and Mary, and hence he took the name of Nazarene. After he had begun to execute his mission he preached here sometimes in the synagogue, Luke iv, 16. But because his countrymen had no faith in him,and were offended at the meanness of his original, he did not many miracles here, Matt. xiii, 54, 58, nor would he dwell in the city. So he fixed his habitation at Capernaum for the latter part of his life, Matt. iv, 13. The city of Nazareth was situated upon an eminence, and on one side was a precipice, from whence the Nazarenes designed, at one time, to cast Christ down headlong, because he upbraided them for their incredulity, Luke iv, 29.
The present state of this celebrated place is thus described by modern travellers:--Nassara, or Naszera, is one of the principal towns in the pashalic of Acre. Its inhabitants are industrious, because they are treated with less severity than those of the country towns in general. The population is estimated at three thousand, of whom five hundred are Turks; the remainder are Christians. There are about ninety Latin families, according to Burckhardt; but Mr. Connor reports the Greeks to be the most numerous: there is, beside, a congregation of Greek Catholics, and another of Maronites. The Latin convent is a very spacious and commodious building, which was thoroughly repaired and considerably enlarged in 1730. The remains of the more ancient edifice, ascribed to the mother of Constantine, may be observed in the form of subverted columns, with fragments of capitals and bases of pillars, lying near the modern building. Pococke noticed, over a door, an old alto-relief of Judith cutting off the head of Holofernes. Within the convent is the church of the annunciation, containing the house of Joseph and Mary, the length of which is not quite the breadth of the church; but it forms the principal part of it. The columns and all the interior of the church are hung round with damask silk, which gives it a warm and rich appearance. Behind the great altar is a subterranean cavern, divided into small grottoes, where the virgin is said to have lived. Her kitchen, parlour, and bed room, are shown, and also a narrow hole in the rock, in which the child Jesus once hid himself from his persecutors. The pilgrims who visit these holy spots are in the habit of knocking off small pieces of stone from the walls, which are thus considerably enlarging. In the church a miracle is still exhibited to the faithful. In front of the altar are two granite columns, each two feet one inch in diameter, and about three feet apart. They are supposed to occupy the very places where the angel and the virgin stood at the precise moment of the annunciation. The innermost of these, that of the virgin, has been broken away, some say by the Turks, in expectation of finding treasure under it; so that,” as Maundrell states, “eighteen inches’ length of it is clean gone between the pillar and the pedestal.” Nevertheless, it remains erect, suspended from the roof, as if attracted by a loadstone. It has evidently no support below; and, though it touches the roof, the hierophant protests that it has none above. All the Christians of Nazareth,” says Burckhardt, with the friars, of course, at their head, affect to believe in this miracle; though it is perfectly evident that the upper part of the column is connected with the roof.” The fact is,” says Dr. E. D. Clarke, that the capital and a piece of the shaft of a pillar of gray granite have been fastened on to the roof of the cave; and so clumsily is the rest of thehocus pocuscontrived, that what is shown for the lower fragment of the same pillar resting upon the earth, is not of the same substance, but of Cipolino marble. About this pillar, a different story has been related by almost every traveller since the trick was devised. Maundrell, and Egmont and Heyman, were told that it was broken, in search of hidden treasure, by a pasha, who was struck with blindness for his impiety. We were assured that it was separated in this manner when the angel announced to the virgin the tidings of her conception. The monks had placed a rail, to prevent persons infected with the plague from coming to rub against these pillars: this had been, for many years, their constant practice, whenever afflicted with any sickness. The reputation of the broken pillar, for healing every kind of disease, prevails all over Galilee.”
Burckhardt says that this church, next to that of the holy sepulchre, is the finest in Syria, and contains two tolerably good organs. Within the walls of the convent are two gardens, and a small burying ground: the walls are very thick, and serve occasionally as a fortress to all the Christians in the town. There are, at present, eleven friars in the convent: they are chiefly Spaniards. The yearly expenses of the establishment are stated to amount to upward of nine hundred pounds; a small part of which is defrayed by the rent of a few houses in the town, and by the produce of some acres of corn land: the rest is remitted from Jerusalem. The whole annual expenses of theTerra Santaconvents are about fifteen thousand pounds; of which the pasha of Damascus receives about twelve thousand pounds. The Greek convent of Jerusalem, according to Burckhardt’s authority, pays much more, as well to maintain its own privileges, as with a view to encroach upon those of the Latins. To the north-west of the convent is a small church, built over Joseph’s work shop. Both Maundrell and Pococke describe it as in ruins; but Dr. E. D. Clarke says, This is now a small chapel, perfectly modern, and neatly whitewashed.” To the west of this is a small arched building, which, they say, is the synagogue where Christ exasperated the Jews, by applying the language of Isaiah to himself. It once belonged to the Greeks; but, Hasselquist says, was taken from them by the Arabs, who intended to convert it into a mosque, but afterward sold it to the Latins. This was then so late a transaction that they had not had time to embellish it. The Mountain of the Precipitation” is at least two miles off; so that, according to this authentic tradition, the Jews must have led our Lord a marvellous way. But the said precipice is shown as that which the Messiah leaped down to escape from the Jews; and as the monks could not pitch upon any otherplace frightful enough for the miracle, they contend that Nazareth formerly stood eastward of its present situation, upon a more elevated spot. Dr. E. D. Clarke, however, remarks that the situation of the modern town answers exactly to the description of St. Luke. “Induced, by the words of the Gospel, to examine the place more attentively than we should otherwise have done, we went, as it is written, out of the city, ‘to the brow of the hill whereon the city is built,’ and came to a precipice corresponding to the words of the evangelist. It is above the Maronite church, and, probably, the precise spot alluded to by the text.”
NAZARITES, those under the ancient law who engaged by a vow to abstain from wine and all intoxicating liquors, to let their hair grow, not to enter any house polluted by having a dead corpse in it, nor to be present at any funeral. If, by accident, any one should have died in their presence, they recommenced the whole of their consecration and Nazariteship. This vow generally lasted eight days, sometimes a month, and sometimes their whole lives. When the time of their Nazariteship was expired, the priest brought the person to the door of the temple, who there offered to the Lord a he-lamb for a burnt-offering, a she-lamb for an expiatory sacrifice, and a ram for a peace-offering. They offered, likewise, loaves and cakes, with wine, for libations. After all was sacrificed and offered, the priest, or some other, shaved the head of the Nazarite at the door of the tabernacle, and burned his hair on the fire of the altar. Then the priest put into the hands of the Nazarite the shoulder of the ram roasted, with a loaf and a cake, which the Nazarite returning into the hands of the priest, he offered them to the Lord, lifting them up in the presence of the Nazarite. And from this time he might again drink wine, his Nazariteship being accomplished.
Perpetual Nazarites, as Samson and John the Baptist, were consecrated to their Nazariteship by their parents, and continued all their lives in this state, without drinking wine or cutting their hair. Those who made a vow of Nazariteship out of Palestine, and could not come to the temple when their vow was expired, contented themselves with observing the abstinence required by the law, and cutting off their hair in the place where they were: the offerings and sacrifices prescribed by Moses, to be offered at the temple, by themselves or by others for them, they deferred till a convenient opportunity. Hence it was that St. Paul, being at Corinth, and having made the vow of a Nazarite, had his hair cut off at Cenchrea, a port of Corinth, and deferred the rest of his vow till he came to Jerusalem, Acts xviii, 18. When a person found he was not in a condition to make a vow of Nazariteship, or had not leisure fully to perform it, he contented himself by contributing to the expense of sacrifices and offerings of those who had made and were fulfilling this vow; and by this means he became a partaker in such Nazariteship. When St. Paul came to Jerusalem, A. D. 58, St. James, with other brethren, said to him, that to quiet the minds of the converted Jews he should join himself to four persons who had a vow of Nazariteship, and contribute to their charges and ceremonies; by which the new converts would perceive that he did not totally disregard the law, as they had been led to suppose, Acts xxi, 23, 24. The institution of Nazaritism is involved in much mystery; and no satisfactory reason has ever been given of it. This is certain, that it had the approbation of God, and may be considered as affording a good example of self-denial in order to be given up to the study of the law, and the practice of exact righteousness.
NEBO, the name of an idol of the Babylonians: Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth,” Isaiah xlvi, 1. The wordNebocomes from a root that signifies to prophesy,” and therefore may stand for an oracle. There is some probability in the opinion of Calmet, that Bel and Nebo are but one and the same deity, and that Isaiah made use of these names as synonymous. The god Bel was the oracle of the Babylonians. The name Nebo, or Nabo, is found in the composition of the names of several princes of Babylon; as Nabonassar, Nabopolassar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzar-adan, Nebushasban, &c.
NEBUCHADNEZZAR THE GREAT, son and successor of Nabopolassar, succeeded to the kingdom of Chaldea, A. M. 3399. Some time previously to this, Nabopolassar had associated him in the kingdom, and sent him to recover Carchemish, which had been conquered from him four years before by Necho, king of Egypt. Nebuchadnezzar, having been successful, marched against the governor of Phenicia, and Jehoiakim, king of Judah, who was tributary to Necho, king of Egypt. He took Jehoiakim, and put him in chains in order to carry him captive to Babylon; but afterward left him in Judea, on condition of paying a large tribute. He took away several persons from Jerusalem; among others Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, all of the royal family, whom the king of Babylon caused to be carefully instructed in the language and in the learning of the Chaldeans, that they might be employed at court, Dan. i. Nabopolassar dying about the end of A. M. 3399, Nebuchadnezzar, who was then either in Egypt or in Judea, hastened to Babylon, leaving to his generals the care of bringing to Chaldea the captives whom he had taken in Syria, Judea, Phenicia, and Egypt; for, according to Berosus, he had subdued all those countries. He distributed these captives into several colonies; and deposited the sacred vessels of the temple of Jerusalem, and other rich spoils in the temple of Belus. Jehoiakim, king of Judah, continued three years in fealty to King Nebuchadnezzar; but being then weary of paying tribute, he threw off the yoke. The king of Chaldea sent troops of Chaldeans, Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites, who harassed Judea during three or four years, and at last Jehoiakim was besieged and taken in Jerusalem, put to death, and his body thrownto the birds of the air, according to the predictions of Jeremiah. SeeJehoiakim.
In the mean time, Nebuchadnezzar being at Babylon in the second year of his reign, had a mysterious dream, in which he saw a statue composed of several metals, a head of gold, a breast of silver, belly and thighs of brass, legs of iron, and feet half of iron and half clay; and a little stone rolling by its own impulse from the mountain struck the statue and broke it. This dream gave him great uneasiness, yet it faded away from his memory, and he could not recover more than the general impression of it. He ordered all his diviners and interpreters of dreams to be sent for; but none could tell him the dream or the interpretation: and, in wrath, he sentenced them all to death, which was about to be put in execution, when Daniel was informed of it. He went immediately to the king, and desired him to respite the sentence a little, and he would endeavour to satisfy his desire. God in the night revealed to him the king’s dream, and also the interpretation: Thou,” said Daniel, art represented by the golden head of the statue. After thee will arise a kingdom inferior to thine, represented by the breast of silver; and after this, another, still inferior, denoted by the belly and thighs of brass. After these three empires,” which are the Chaldeans, Persians, and Greeks, will arise a fourth, denoted by the legs of iron,” the Romans. Under this last empire God will raise a new one, of greater strength, power, and extent, than all the others. This last is that of the Messiah, represented by the little stone coming out from the mountain and overthrowing the statue.” Then the king raised Daniel to great honour, set him over all the wise men of Babylon, and give him the government of that province. At his request he granted to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the oversight of the works of the same province of Babylon.
In the same year, as Dr. Hales thinks, in which he had this dream, he erected a golden statue, whose height was sixty cubits, and breadth six cubits, in the plains of Dura, in the province of Babylon. Having appointed a day for the dedication of this statue, he assembled the principal officers of his kingdom, and published by a herald, that all should adore this image, at the sound of music, on penalty of being cast into a burning fiery furnace. The result, as to the three Jews, companions of Daniel, who would not bend the knee to the image, is stated in Dan. iii. Daniel probably was absent. The effect of the miracle was so great that Nebuchadnezzar gave glory to the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; and he exalted the three Hebrews to great dignity in the province of Babylon, Dan. iv.
Jehoiachin, king of Judah, having revolted against Nebuchadnezzar, this prince besieged him in Jerusalem, and forced him to surrender. Nebuchadnezzar took him, with his chief officers, captive to Babylon, with his mother, his wives, and the best workmen of Jerusalem, to the number of ten thousand men. Among the captives were Mordecai, the uncle of Esther, and Ezekiel the prophet. He took, also, all the vessels of gold which Solomon made for the temple, and the king’s treasury, and he set up Mattaniah, Jehoiachin’s uncle by his father’s side, whom he named Zedekiah. This prince continued faithful to Nebuchadnezzar nine years: being then weary of subjection, he revolted, and confederated with the neighbouring princes. The king of Babylon came into Judea, reduced the chief places of the country, and besieged Jerusalem: but Pharaoh-Hophra coming out of Egypt to assist Zedekiah, Nebuchadnezzar overcame him in battle, and forced him to retire into his own country. After this he returned to the siege of Jerusalem, and was three hundred and ninety days before the place before he could take it. But in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, A. M. 3416, the city was taken. Zedekiah attempted to escape, but was taken and brought to Nebuchadnezzar, who was then at Riblah in Syria. The king of Babylon condemned him to die, caused his children to be put to death in his presence, and then bored out his eyes, loaded him with chains, and sent him to Babylon.
Three years after the Jewish war Nebuchadnezzar besieged the city of Tyre, which siege held thirteen years. But during this interval, he made war, also, on the Sidonians, Moabites, Ammonites, and Idumeans; and these he treated in nearly the same manner as the Jews. Josephus says these wars happened five years after the destruction of Jerusalem, consequently in A. M. 3421. The city of Tyre was taken in A. M. 3432. Ithobaal, who was then king, was put to death, and Baal succeeded him. The Lord, as a reward to the army of Nebuchadnezzar, which had lain so long before Tyre, gave up to them Egypt and its spoils. Nebuchadnezzar made an easy conquest of it, because the Egyptians were divided by civil wars among themselves: he enriched himself with booty, and returned in triumph to Babylon, with a great number of captives. Being now at peace, he applied himself to the adorning, aggrandizing, and enriching of Babylon with magnificent buildings. To him some ascribe those famous gardens, supported by arches, reckoned among the wonders of the world; and also the walls of Babylon, though many give the honour of this work to Semiramis.
About this time Nebuchadnezzar had a dream of a great tree, loaded with fruit. Suddenly, an angel descending from heaven, commanded that the tree should be cut down, but that the root should be preserved in the earth, Dan. iv. The king sent for all the diviners in the country, but none could explain his dream, till Daniel, by divine revelation, showed that it represented his present greatness, his signal approaching humiliation, and his restoration to reason and dignity. A year after, as Nebuchadnezzar was walking on his palace at Babylon, he began to say, Is not this great Babylon, which I have built for thehouse of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?” and scarcely had he pronounced these words, when he fell into a distemper or distraction, which so altered his imagination that he fled into the fields and assumed the manners of an ox. After having been seven years in this state, God opened his eyes, his understanding was restored to him, and he recovered his royal dignity.
Nebuchadnezzar died, A. M. 3442, after having reigned forty-three years. Megasthenes, quoted by Eusebius, says, that this prince having ascended to the top of his palace, was there seized with a fit of divine enthusiasm, and cried out, O Babylonians, I declare to you a misfortune, that neither our father Belus, nor Queen Baltis has been able to prevent. A Persian mule shall one day come into this country, who, supported by the power of your gods, shall bring you into slavery. He shall be assisted by the Mede, the glory of the Assyrians.” This Persian mule is Cyrus, whose mother was a Mede, and whose father was a Persian. The Mede who assisted Cyrus was Cyaxares, or Darius the Mede. This story at least shows that the Heathens had traditions of an extraordinary kind respecting this monarch, and that the fate of Babylon had been the subject of prophecy.
NEBUZAR-ADAN, a general of Nebuchadnezzar’s army, and the chief officer of his household. He managed the siege of Jerusalem, and made himself master of the city, while his sovereign was at Riblah in Syria, 2 Kings xxv; Jer. xxxix; xl; lii.
NECESSITARIANS. The doctrine of necessity regards the origin of human actions, and the specific mode of the divine government; and it seems to be the immediate result of the materiality of man; for mechanism is the undoubted consequence of materialism. Hence all materialists are of course necessitarians; but it does not follow that all necessitarians are or must be materialists. Whatever is done by a cause or power that is irresistible, is by necessity; in which sense this term is opposed to freedom. Man is, therefore, a necessary agent, if all his actions be so determined by the causes preceding each action, that not one past action could possibly not have come to pass, or have been otherwise than it hath been; and not one future action can possibly not come to pass, or be otherwise than it shall be. But man is a free agent, if he be able at any time, in the circumstances in which he is placed, to do different things; or, in other words, if he be not unavoidably determined in every point of time by the circumstances he is in, and the causes he is under, to do that one thing he does, and not possibly to do any other thing. This abstruse subject has occasioned much controversy, and has been debated by writers of the first eminence, from Hobbes and Clarke, to Priestley and Gregory. The anti-necessitarians allege, that the doctrine of necessity charges God as the author of sin; that it takes away the freedom of the will; renders man unaccountable to his Maker; makes sin to be no evil, and morality or virtue to be no good; and that it precludes the use of means, and is of the most gloomy tendency. The necessitarians, on the other hand, deny these to be legitimate consequences of their doctrine, which they declare to be the most consistent mode of explaining the divine government; and they observe, that the Deity acts no more immorally in decreeing vicious actions, than in permitting all those irregularities which he could so easily have prevented. All necessity, say they, doth not take away freedom. The actions of a man may be at one and the same time both free and necessary. Thus, it wasinfalliblyinfalliblycertain that Judas would betray Christ, yet he did it voluntarily; Jesus Christ necessarily became man, and died, yet he acted freely. A good man doth naturally and necessarily love his children, yet voluntarily. They insist that necessity doth not render actions less morally good; for, if necessary virtue be neither moral nor praiseworthy, it will follow that God himself is not a moral being, because he is a necessary one; and the obedience of Christ cannot be good, because it was necessary. Farther, say they, necessity does not preclude the use of means; for means are no less appointed than the end. It was ordained that Christ should be delivered up to death; but he could not have been betrayed without a betrayer, nor crucified without crucifiers. That it is not a gloomy doctrine they allege, because nothing can be more consolatory than to believe, that all things are under the direction of an all-wise Being, that his kingdom ruleth over all, and that he doeth all things well. They also urge, that to deny necessity, is to deny the foreknowledge of God, and to wrest the sceptre from the hand of the Creator, and to place that capricious and undefinable principle, the self-determining power of man, upon the throne of the universe. In these statements there is obviously a confused use of terms in different meanings, so as to mislead the unwary. For instance:necessityis confounded withcertainty; but an action may be certain, though free; that is to say, certain to an omniscient Being, who knows how a free agent will finally resolve; but this certainty is, in fact, a quality of the prescient Being, not that of the action, to which, however, men delusively transfer it. Again: God is called a necessary Being, which, if it mean any thing, signifies, as to his moral acts, that he can only act right. But then this is a wrong application of the term necessity, which properly implies such a constraint upon actions, exercisedab extra, as renders choice or will impossible. But such necessity cannot exist as to the supreme Being. Again: the obedience of Christ unto death was necessary, that is to say, unless he had died guilty man could not have been forgiven; but this could not make the act of the Jews who put him to death a necessary act, that is to say, a forced and constrained one; nor did this necessity affect the act of Christ himself, who acted voluntarily, and might have left man without salvation. That the Jews actedfreely, is evident from their being held liable to punishment,although unconsciously theyaccomplishedaccomplishedthe great designs of Heaven, which, however, was no excuse for their crime. Finally: as to the allegation, that the doctrine of free agency puts man’s self-determining power upon the throne of the universe, that view proceeds upon notions unworthy of God, as though he could not accomplish his plans without compelling and controlling all things by a fixed fate; whereas it is both more glorious to him, and certainly more in accordance with the Scriptures, to say that he has a perfect foresight of the manner in which all creatures will act, and that he, by a profound and infinite wisdom, subordinates every thing without violence to the evolution and accomplishment of his own glorious purposes.
The doctrine of necessity is nearly connected with that of predestination, which, of late years, has assumed a form very different from that which it formerly possessed; for, instead of being considered as a point to be determined almost entirely by the sacred writings, it has, in the hands of a number of able writers, in a great measure resolved itself into a question of natural religion, under the head of the philosophical liberty or necessity of the will; or, whether all human actions are, or are not, necessarily determined by motives arising from the character which God has impressed on our minds, and the train of circumstances amidst which his providence has placed us? The Calvinistic doctrine of predestination is, that God for his own glory, hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.” The scheme of philosophical necessity, as stated by the most celebrated necessitarian of the age, is, that every thing is predetermined by the divine Being; that whatever has been, must have been; and that whatever will be, must be; that all events are preordained by infinite wisdom and unlimited goodness; that the will, in all its determinations, is governed by the state of mind; that the state of mind is, in every instance, determined by the Deity; and that there is a continued chain of causes and effects, of motives and actions, inseparably connected, and originating from the condition in which we are brought into existence by the Author of our being.” On the other hand, it is justly remarked, that “those who believe the being and perfections of God, and a state of retribution, in which he will reward and punish mankind according to the diversity of their actions, will find it difficult to reconcile the justice of punishment with the necessity of crimes punished. And they that believe all that the Scripture says on the one hand, of the eternity of future punishments, and on the other, of God’s compassion to sinners, and his solemn assurance that he desires not their death, will find the difficulty greatly increased.” It is doubtless an article of the Christian faith, that God will reward or punish every man hereafter according to his actions in this life. But we cannot maintain his justice in this particular, if men’s actions be necessary either in their own nature, or by the divine decrees. Activity and self-determining powers are the foundation of all morality; and to prove that such powers belong to man, it is urged that we ourselves are conscious of possessing them. We blame and condemn ourselves when we do amiss; but guilt, and inward sense of shame, and remorse of conscience, are feelings which are inconsistent with the scheme of necessity. It is also agreed that some actions deserve praise, and afford an inward satisfaction; but for this, there would be no foundation, if we were invincibly determined in every volition: so that approbation and blame are consequent on free actions only. Nor is the matter at all relieved by bringing in a chain of circumstances as motives necessarily to determine the will. This comes to the same result in sound argument, as though there was an immediatecoäctionof omnipotent power compelling one kind of volitions only; which is utterly irreconcilable to all just notions of the nature and operations of will, and to all accountability. Necessity, in the sense of irresistible control, and the doctrine of Scripture, cannot coëxist.
NECROMANCY, νεκρομαντεία, is the art of raising up the ghosts of deceased persons, to get information from them concerning future events. This practice, no doubt, the Israelites brought with them from Egypt, which affected to be the mother of such occult sciences; and from thence it spread into the neighbouring countries, and soon infected all the east. The injunction of the law is very express against this vice; and the punishment to be inflicted on the practisers of it was stoning to death, Lev. xx, 27. What forms of enchantment were used in the practice of necromancy we are at a loss to know, because we read of none that the pythoness of Endor employed; however, that there were several rites, spells, and invocations used upon these occasions, we may learn from almost every ancient author, but from none more particularly than from Lucan in hisPharsalia. Whether the art of conversing with the dead was mere imposture, or grounded upon diabolical agency, is a question which has been disputed in all ages.
NEHEMIAH professes himself the author of the book which bears his name, in the very beginning of it, and he uniformly writes in the first person. He was of the tribe of Judah, and was probably born at Babylon during the captivity. He was so distinguished for his family and attainments, as to be selected for the office of cup bearer to the king of Persia, a situation of great honour and emolument. He was made governor of Judea, upon his own application, by Artaxerxes Longimanus; and his book, which in the Hebrew canon was joined to that of Ezra, gives an account of his appointment and administration through a space of about thirty-six years to A. M. 3595, at which time the Scripture history closes; and, consequently, the historical books, from Joshua to Nehemiah inclusive, contain the history of the Jewish people from the death of Moses, A. M. 2553, to the reformation established by Nehemiah, after the return from captivity, being a period of one thousand and forty-two years.
NEOLOGY. This term, which signifiesnew doctrine, has been used to designate a species of theology and Biblical criticism which has of late years much prevailed among the Protestant divines of Germany, and the professors of their universities. It is now, however, more frequently termed rationalism, and is supposed to occupy a sort of middle place between the orthodox system and pure deism. The German divines themselves speak of naturalism, rationalism, and supernaturalism. The termnaturalismarose first in the sixteenth century, and was spread in the seventeenth. It was understood to be the system of those who allowed no other knowledge of religion than the natural, which man could shape out by his own strength, and, consequently, excluded all supernatural revelation. As to the different forms of naturalism, theologians say there are three: the first, which they call Pelagianism, and which considers human dispositions and notions as perfectly pure, and the religious knowledge derived from them as sufficiently explicit. A grosser kind denies all particular revelation; and the grossest of all considers the world as God.Rationalismhas been thus explained: Those who are generally termed rationalists,” says Dr. Bretschneider, admit universally in Christianity, a divine, benevolent, and positive appointment for the good of mankind, and Jesus as a messenger of Divine Providence, believing that the true and everlasting word of God is contained in the Holy Scripture, and that by the same the welfare of mankind will be obtained and extended. But they deny therein a supernatural and miraculous working of God, and consider the object of Christianity to be that of introducing into the world such a religion as reason can comprehend; and they distinguish the essential from the unessential, and what is local and temporary from that which is universal and permanent in Christianity.” There is, however, a third class of divines who in fact differ very little from this, though very widely in profession. They affect to allow a revealing operation of God, but establish on internal proofs rather than on miracles the divine nature of Christianity. They allow that revelationmaycontain much out of the power of reason to explain, but say that it should assert nothing contrary to reason, but rather what may be proved by it.Supernaturalismconsists in general in the conviction that God has revealed himself supernaturally and immediately. The notion of a miracle cannot well be separated from such a revelation, whether it happens out of, on, or in men. What is revealed may belong to the order of nature, but an order higher and unknown to us, which we could never have known without miracles, and cannot bring under the laws of nature.
The difference between the naturalists and the rationalists, as Mr. Rose justly remarks, is not quite so wide either as it would appear to be at first sight, or as one of them assuredly wishes it to appear. For if I receive a system, be it of religion, of morals, or of politics, only so far as it approves itself to my reason, whatever be the authority that presents it to me, it is idle to say that I receive the system out of any respect to that authority. I receive itonlybecause my reason approves it; and I should, of course, do so if an authority of far inferior value were to present the system to me. This is what that division of rationalists, which professes to receive Christianity, and at the same time to make reason the supreme arbiter in matters of faith, has done. Their system, in a word, is this: They assume certain general principles, which they maintain to be the necessary deductions of reason from an extended and unprejudiced contemplation of the natural and moral order of things, and to be in themselves immutable and universal. Consequently, any thing which, on however good authority, may be advanced in apparent opposition to them must either be rejected as unworthy of rational belief, or, at least, explained away till it is made to accord with the assumed principles; and the truth or falsehood of all doctrines proposed is to be decided according to their agreement or disagreement with those principles.
It is easy, then, to anticipate how, with such principles, the Biblical critics of Germany, distinguished as many of them have been for learning, would proceed to interpret the Scriptures. Many of the sacred books and parts of others have, of course, been rejected by them as spurious, the strongest external evidence being thought by them insufficient to prove the truth of what was determined to be contradictory to their reason; and the inspiration of the rest was understood in no higher a sense, to use the language of one of their professors, than the expressions of Cicero as to the inspiration of the poets, or those of Quintilian respecting Plato. It would be disgusting, says Rose, to go through all the strange fancies which were set afloat, and which tended only to set Scripture on the same footing as an ingenious but improbable romance. They all proceeded from the determination that whatever was not intelligible was incredible, that only what was of familiar and easy explanation deserved belief, and that all which was miraculous and mysterious in Scripture must be rejected; and they rested perpetually on notions and reasonings which were in themselves miracles of incredibility. But there were many of the German divines of this rationalist period who went much farther, and who imputed a deception to our Lord and his disciples, not for evil but for good purposes. In reading or in hearing of these wretched productions, the mind is divided between disgust at folly, and indignation at wickedness. What can be said for the heart which could suppose that the founders of Christianity could have taught the sublime and holy doctrines of the Gospel with a lie in their hearts and on their lips? or for the intellect which could believe that ambitious and designing men would encounter years of poverty, and shame, and danger, with no prospect but that of an ignominious death? Butwhere the supernatural and miraculous accounts were not rejected, they were, by many of the most eminent of these writers, explained away by a monstrous ingenuity, which, on any other subject, and applied to any ancient classic or other writer, would provoke the most contemptuous ridicule. When Korah, Dathan, and Abiram were swallowed up, Moses had previouslysecretly undermined the earth.” Jacob wrestled with the angel in adream;” and a rheumatic pain in his thigh during sleep suggested the incident in his dream of the angel touching the sinew of his thigh. Professor Paulus gravely explains the miracle of the tribute money thus: That Christ only meant to give a moral lesson, that is, that we are not, if we can avoid it by trifling sacrifices, to give offence to our brethren; that he probably reasoned thus with St. Peter: Though there is no real occasion for us to pay the tribute, yet, as we may be reckoned as enemies of the temple, and not attended to when we wish to teach what is good, why should not you who are a fisherman,” a remark which might very properly be made at a place where St. Peter had been engaged in a fishery for two years, “and can easily do it, go and get enough to pay the demand? Go, then, to the sea, cast your hook, and take up ϖρῶτον ἴχθυν, the first and best fish.” St. Peter was not to stay longer at his work this time than to gain the required money: ϖρῶτος often refers not to number but to time; and ἴχθυν may undoubtedly be taken as a collective. St. Peter must either have caught so many fish as would be reckoned worth astaterat Capernaum, (so near to a sea rich in fish,) or one so large and fine as would have been valued at that sum. As it was uncertain whether one or more would be necessary, the expression is indefinite, τὸν ἀναϐάντα ϖρῶτον ἴχθυν; [the fish first coming up;] but it would not be ambiguous to St. Peter, as the necessity and the event would give it a fixed meaning. Ἀνοίξας τὸ ϛόμα. [Opening the mouth.] This opening of the mouth might have different objects, which must be fixed by the context. If the fisherman opens the mouth of a fish caught with a hook, he does it first to release him from the hook; for if he hangs long he is less saleable: he soon decays. The circumstantiality in the account ispicturesque. Take the hook out his mouth!” Ἑυρήσεις ἑυρίσκειν is used in Greek in a more extended sense than the Germanfinden, as in Xenophon, where it is to get by selling.” When such a word is used of saleable articles, like fish, and in a connection which requires the getting a piece of money, it is clear that getting by sale and not by finding is referred to. “And this from a professor’s chair!” In like manner the miracle of feeding the five thousand in the desert is resolved into the opportune passing by of a caravan with provisions, of which the hungry multitude were allowed to partake, according to eastern hospitality; and the Apostles were merely employed in conveying it out in baskets. Christ’s walkinguponthe sea is explained by his walking upon the sea shore, and St. Peter’s walking on the sea is resolved into swimming. The miracles of healing were the effect of fancy operating favourably upon the disorders; and Ananias and Sapphira died of a fright; with many other absurdities, half dreams and half blasphemies; and of which the above are given but as a specimen.
The first step in this sorrowful gradation down to a depth of falsehood and blasphemy, into which certainly no body of Christian ministers, so large, so learned, and influential, in any age or period of the church ever before fell, was, contempt for the authority of the divines of the Reformation, and of the subsequent age. They were about to set out on a voyage of discovery; and it was necessary to assume that truth still inhabited someterra incognita, [unknown region,] to which neither Luther, Melancthon, nor their early disciples, had ever found access. One of this school is pleased, indeed, to denominate the whole even of the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth century, the age of theological barbarism; an age, notwithstanding, which produced in the Lutheran church alone Calovius, Schmidt, Hackspan, Walther, Glass, and the Carpzoffs, and others, as many and as great writers as any church can boast in an equal space of time; writers whose works are, or ought to be, in the hands of the theological student. The general statements of the innovators amount to this, that the divines of the age of which we speak had neither the inclination nor the power to do any thing but fortify their own systems, which were dogmatical, and not to search out truth for themselves from Scripture; that theology, as a science, was left from the epoch of the Reformation as it had been received from the schoolmen; that the interpretation of the Bible was made the slave, not the mistress, of dogmatical theology, as it ought to be.
The vain conceit that the doctrines of religion were capable of philosophic demonstration, which obtained among the followers of Wolf, is considered by Mr. Rose as having hastened onward the progress of error. We find some of them not content with applying demonstration to the truth of the system, but endeavouring to establish each separate dogma, the Trinity, the nature of the Redeemer, the incarnation, the eternity of punishment, on philosophical and, strange as it may appear, some of these truths on mathematical, grounds. We have had instances of this in our own country; and the reason why they have done little injury is, that none of those who thus presumed, whether learned or half learned, had success enough to form a school. So far as such a theory does obtain influence, it must necessarily be mischievous. The first authors may hold the mysteries of Christianity sacred; they may fancy that they can render faith in them more easy by affecting demonstrative evidence, which, indeed, were the subjects capable of it, would render faith unnecessary; but they are equally guilty of a vain presumption in their own powers, and of a want of real reverence to God, and to his revelation.With them, this boast of demonstration generally ends in the rejection of some truth, or the adoption of some positive error; while their followers fail not to bound over the limits at which they have stopped. The fallacy of the whole lies in assuming that divine things are on the same level with those which the human mind can grasp, and may therefore be compared with them. One of these consequences must therefore follow: either that the mind is exalted above its own sphere, or that divine things are brought down below theirs. In the former case, a dogmatical pride is the result; in the latter, the scheme of revelation is stripped of its divinity, and sinks gradually into a system of human philosophy, with the empty name of a revelation still appended to it to save appearances. What can bear the test of the philosophical standard is retained, and what cannot be thus proved is, by degrees, rejected; so that the Scripture is no longer the ground of religious truth; but a sort of witness to be compelled to assent to any conclusions at which this philosophy may arrive.
The effect in Germany was speedily developed, though Wolf, the founder of this school, and most of his followers, were pious and faithful Christians. By carrying demonstrative evidence beyond its own province, they had nurtured in their followers a vain confidence in human reason; and the next and still more fatal step was, that it was the province of human reason in an enlightened and intellectual age to perfect Christianity, which, it was contended, had hitherto existed in a low and degraded state, and to perfect that system of which the elements only were contained in the Scripture. All restraint was broken by this principle. Philosophy, good and bad, was left to build up these elements” according to its own views; and as, after all, many of these elements were found to be too untractable and too rudely shaped to accord with the plans of these manifold constructions, formed according to every pattern,” except that in the mount;” when the stone could not be squared and framed by any art which these builders possessed, it was rejected,” even to the head stone of the corner.” Semler appears to have been the author of that famous theory of accommodation, which, in the hands of his followers, says Mr. Rose, became the most formidable weapon ever devised for the destruction of Christianity.” As far as Germany is concerned, this language is not too strong; and we may add, that it was the most impudent theory ever advocated by men professing still to be Christians, and one, the avowal of which can scarcely be accounted for, except on the ground, that as, because of their interests, it was not convenient for these teachers of theology and ministers of the German churches to disavow Christianity altogether; it was devised and maintained, in order to connect the profits of the Christian profession with substantial and almost undisguised deism. This theory was, that we are not to take all the declarations of Scripture as addressed to us; but to consider them as, in many points, purposely adapted to the feelings and dispositions of the age when they originated; but by no means to be received by another and more enlightened period; that, in fact, Jesus himself and his Apostles hadaccommodatedthemselves in their doctrines to the barbarism, ignorance, and prejudices of the Jews; and that it was therefore our duty to reject the whole of this temporary part of Christianity, and retain only what is substantial and eternal. In plain words they assumed, as the very basis of their Scriptural interpretations, the blasphemous principle, that our Lord and his Apostles taught, or, at least, connived at doctrines absolutely false, rather than they would consent to shock the prejudices of their hearers! This principle is shown at length by Mr. Rose, to run through the whole maze of error into which this body of Protestant divines themselves wandered, and led their flocks. Thus the chairs of theology and the very pulpits were turned into the seats of the scornful;” and where doctrines were at all preached, they were too frequently of this daring and infidel character. It became even, at least, a negative good, that the sermons delivered were often discourses on the best modes of cultivating corn and wine, and the preachers employed the Sabbath and the church in instructing their flocks how to choose the best kinds of potatoes, or to enforce upon them the benefits of vaccination. Undisguised infidelity has in no country treated the grand evidences of the truth of Christianity with greater contumely, or been more offensive in its attacks upon the prophets, or more ridiculous in its attempts to account, on natural principles, for the miracles. Extremes of every kind were produced, philosophic mysticism, pantheism, and atheism.
We have hitherto referred chiefly to Mr. Rose’s work on this awful declension in the Lutheran and other continental churches. In a work on the same subject by Mr. Pusey, the stages of the apostasy are more carefully marked, and more copiously and deeply investigated. Our limits will, however, but allow us to advert to two or three points. In Mr. Pusey’s account of the state of German theology in the seventeenth century, he opens to us the sources of the evil. Francke, he observes, assigns as a reason for attaching the more value to the opportunities provided at Halle for the study of Scripture, that “in former times, and in those which are scarcely past, one generally found at universities opportunities for every thing rather than a solid study of God’s word.” In all my university years,” says Knapp, I was not happy enough to hear a lecture upon the whole of Scripture; we should have regarded it as a great blessing which came down from heaven.” It is said to be one only of many instances, that at Leipzig, Carpzoff, having in his lectures for one half year completed the first chapter of Isaiah, did not again lecture on the Bible for twenty years, while Olearius suspended his for ten. Yet Olearius, as well as Alberti, Spener says, were diligent theologians, but that most pains were employed on doctrinal theologyand controversy.” It is, moreover, a painful speaking fact, which is mentioned by Francke, (1709,) that in Leipzig, the great mart of literature as well as of trade, “twenty years ago, in no bookseller’s shop was either Bible or Testament to be found.” Of the passages in Francke, which prove the same state of things, I will select one or two only: Youth are sent to the universities with a moderate knowledge of Latin; but of Greek, and especially of Hebrew next to none. And it would even then have been well, if what had been neglected before had been made up in the universities. There, however, most are borne, as by a torrent, with the multitude; they flock to logical, metaphysical, ethical, polemical, physical, pneumatical lectures, and what not; treating least of all those things whose benefit is most permanent in their future office, especially deferring, and at last neglecting, the study of the sacred languages.” “To this is added, that, they comfort themselves, that in examinations for orders these things are not generally much attended to. Hence most who are anxious about a maintenance, hurry to those things which may hasten their promotion, attend above all things a lecture on the art of preaching, and if they can remain so long at the university, one on doctrinal theology, (would that all were anxious about a salutary knowledge of the sacred doctrines,) and having committed these things to paper and memory, return home, as if excellently armed against Satan, are examined, preach, are promoted, provide for their families.” And having spoken farther on the superficial knowledge, pedantry, and other faults of those few who acquired knowledge of these subjects, he sums up: As the vernacular Scriptures are ordinarily neglected or ill employed by the illiterate, so are the original by the lettered: whence there cannot but arise either ignorance in matters of faith, or an unfruitful and vain knowledge; a pleasurable fancy is substituted for the substance of the faith; impiety daily increases. In a word, from the neglect of Scripture all impiety is derived; and so again from the impiety or unbelief of men, there is derived a contempt of Scripture, or at all events an abuse, and an absurd and perverted employment of it: and hence follows either a neglect of the original languages, or a senseless method, or an unfitting employment of them; which evils, since they are continued from the teachers to the disciples, the corrupted state of the schools and universities continually increases: and these we cannot remedy, unless we can prevail upon ourselves to make the word of God our first object, to look for Christ in it, and to embrace him, when found, with genuine faith, and perseveringly to follow him.” Pfaff thus describes the previous state of doctrinal theology: All the compendia of holy doctrines, which have hitherto appeared, are of such a character, that, though their excellence has been hitherto extolled by the common praise of our countrymen, and they still enjoy considerable reputation, (suâ utique luce niteat,) they can even on this ground not be satisfactory to our age,--that since one system was extracted and worked out of the other, with a very few variations, they dwell uniformly on the same string; and that metaphysical clang of causes, which sounds somewhat harshly and unpleasantly to well cultivated ears, constantly reverberates in them, the same terms uniformly recurring in all. To this is added, that a certain coldness appears to prevail in the common mode of treating these subjects, especially in the practical topics of theology; these being set forth as theoretical propositions, so that scarcely any life or any religious influence finds its way into the minds of readers; and the edification of mind, (though it should be the principal object in sacred theology,) derived from them is very slight. Nor does it appear less a subject of blame, that various theological τόποι, and those the very chief, are here altogether omitted; that every thing is choked with the thorns of scholasticism; and that divine truths are often made secondary to the zeal for authority: nor is there sufficient reference to the language of the symbolical books, to the promotion of the peace of the church, to the exhibition of what is of real importance in controverted points, and of the unreality of the mere logomachies, with which all theology abounds; nor again, to destroy theological pedantry and a sectarian spirit, or to treat the subjects themselves in a style becoming to them: but most of all, sufficient pains are not bestowed upon that which is of chief importance, the building up the kingdom of God in the hearts of men, and the influencing their hearts more thoroughly with vivid conceptions of true Christianity.”
Yet these were but effects of a still higher cause,--the rapid decay of piety in this century, of which the statements of Mr. Pusey, and the authorities he quotes, present a melancholy picture. Speaking of J. V. Andrea, he says, the want of practical religious instruction in the early schools, the perverted state of all education, the extravagance and dissoluteness of the universities, the total unfitness of the teachers whom they sent forth and authorized, the degraded state of general as well as of theological science, the interested motives for entering into holy orders, the canvassing for benefices, the simony in obtaining them, the especial neglect of the poorer, the bad lives, the carelessness and bitter controversies of the preachers, and the general corruption of manners in all ranks, are again and again the subjects of his deep regrets or of his censure. “After the evangelic church,” he says, in an energetic comparison of the evils which reigned in the beginning of this period with those which had occasioned the yoke of Rome to be broken, “after the evangelic church had thrown off the yoke of human inventions, they should have bowed their neck under the easy yoke of the Lord. But now one set of human inventions are but exchanged for another, equally, or indeed very little, human; and these are called the word of God, though in reality things are nothing milder than before. Idols were cast out, but the idols of sinsare worshipped. The primacy of the pope is denied, but we constitute lesser popes. The bishops are abrogated, but ministers are still introduced or cast out at will; simony came into ill repute, but who now rejects a hand laden with gold? the monks were reproached for indolence,--as if there were too much study at our universities; the monasteries were dissolved,--to stand empty, or to be stalls for cattle; the regularly recurring prayers are abolished, yet so that now most pray not at all; the public fasts were laid aside, now the command of Christ is held to be but useless words; not to say any thing of blasphemers, adulterers, extortioners,” &c. After many testimonies of a similar and even stronger kind from other pious divines, who lifted up their voice strongly but almost ineffectually against the growing corruption of the universities, the clergy, and the people, Mr. Pusey adds the following passages from Francke: “The works of the flesh are done openly and unrestrainedly, with so little shame, that one who does not approve of many things not consistent with the truth which is in Jesus, would almost be enrolled among heretics. Ambition, pride, love of pleasure, luxury, impurity, wantonness, and all the crop of foulest wickednesses which spring from these; injustice also, avarice, and a species of rivalry among all vices every where sensibly increases, atheism joining itself with epicurism and libertinism. Thus while Christ is held to, while orthodoxy is presented as a shield, all imitation of Christ, all anxiety for true and spiritual holiness, “without which no one shall see the Lord,” nay, all the decorum befitting a Christian, is banished, is exterminated, that it may not disturb the societies of perverse men.” Into the state of the clergy he enters more fully in another work. I remember,” he says, “that a theologian of no common learning, piety, and practical knowledge, νῦν ἐν ἁγίοις, told me, that a certain monarch, at his suggestion, applied to a university, where there was a large concourse of students of theology, for two candidates for holy orders, who, by the excellence and purity of their doctrine, and by holiness of life, might serve as an example to the congregation committed to their charge; the professors candidly answered that there was no such student of theology among them. Nor is this surprising. I remember that Kortholt used to say with pain, that in the disgraceful strifes, disturbances, and tumults in the universities, which were, alas, but too frequent, it scarcely ever happened that theological students were not found to be accomplices, nay, the chiefs. I remember that another theologian often lamented, that there was such a dearth in the church of such persons as the Apostle would alone think worthy of the ministerial functions, that it was to be regarded as a happiness if, of many applicants, some one of outwardly decent life could at length be found.”
With several happy exceptions, and the raising up of a few pious people in some places, and a partial revival of evangelical doctrines, which, however, often ran at length into mysticism and antinomianism, the evil, both doctrinally and morally, continued to increase to our own day; for if any ask what has been the moral effect of the appalling apostasy of the teachers of religion, above described, upon the people of Germany, the answer may be given from one of these rationalizing divines themselves, whose statement is not therefore likely to be too highly coloured. It is from a pamphlet of Bretschneider, published in 1822, and the substance is, Indifference to religion among all classes; that formerly the Bible used to be in every house, but now the people either do not possess it, or, as formerly, read it; that few attend the churches, which are now too large, though fifty years ago they were too small; that few honour the Sabbath; that there are now few students of theology, compared with those in law and medicine; that if things go on so, there will shortly not be persons to supply the various ecclesiastical offices; that preaching had fallen into contempt; and that distrust and suspicion of the doctrines of Christianity prevailed among all classes.” Melancholy as this picture is, nothing in it can surprise any one, except that the very persons who have created the evil should themselves be astonished at its existence, or even affect to be so. But the mercy of God has begun to answer the prayers of the few faithful who are left as the gleanings of grapes after the vintage; and to revive, in some active, learned, and influential men, the spirit of primitive faith and zeal. The effect of the exertions of these excellent men, both from the professor’s chair, the pulpit, and the press, has been considerable; and it is remarked by Mr. Rose, that no small degree of disgust at the past follies of the rationalists prevails; that the cold and comfortless nature of their system has been perceived; that a party of truly Christian views has arisen; and that there is a disposition alike in the people, the better part of the divines, and the philosophers, to return to that revealed religion which alone can give them comfort and peace. It is equally clear that some at least of the governments perceive the dangerous tendency of the rationalist opinions, and that they are sincerely desirous of promoting a better state of religious feeling.
We close this article with the excellent remarks of Dr. Tittman of Dresden, on the neological interpreters: What is the interpretation of the Scriptures, if it relies not on words, but things, not on the assistance of languages, but on the decrees of reason that is, of modern philosophy? What is all religion, what the knowledge of divine things, what are faith and hope placed in Christ, what is all Christianity, if human reason and philosophy is the only fountain of divine wisdom, and the supreme judge in the matter of religion? What is the doctrine of Christ and the Apostles more than some philosophical system? But what, then, I pray you, is, to deny, to blaspheme Jesus the Lord, to render his divine mission doubtful, nay vain and useless, to impugn hisdoctrinedoctrine, to disfigure it shamefully, to attack it, to expose it to ridicule, and, if possible, to suppress it, to removeall Christianity out of religion, and to bound religion within the narrow limits of reason alone, to deride miracles, and hold them up to derision, to accuse them as vain, to bring them into disrepute, to torture sacred Scripture into seeming agreement with the fancies of human wisdom, to alloy it with human conjectures, to bring it into contempt, and to break down its divine authority, to undermine, to shake, to overthrow utterly the foundations of Christian faith? What else can be the event than this, as all history, a most weighty witness in this matter, informs us, namely, that when sacred Scripture, its grammatical interpretation and a sound knowledge of languages are, as it were, despised and banished, all religion should be contemned, shaken, corrupted, troubled, undermined, utterly overturned, and should be entirely removed and reduced to natural religion; or that it should end in a mystical theology, than which nothing was ever more pernicious to the Christian doctrine, and be converted into an empty μυθολογία, or even into a poetical system, hiding every thing in figures and fictions, to which latter system not a few of the sacred orators and theologians of our time seem chiefly inclined.”
NEOMENIA, νεομηνία,new moon, Col. ii, 16, a Greek word, signifying the first day of the moon or month. The Hebrews had a particular veneration for the first day of every month; and Moses appointed peculiar sacrifices for the day, Num. xxviii, 11, 12; but he gave no orders that it should be kept as a holy day, nor can it be proved that the ancients observed it so: it was a festival of merely voluntary devotion. It appears that even from the time of Saul they made, on this day, a sort of family entertainment, since David ought then to have been at the king’s table; and Saul took his absence amiss, 1 Sam. xx, 5, 18. Moses insinuates that, beside the national sacrifices then regularly offered, every private person had his particular sacrifices of devotion, Num. x, 10. The beginning of the month was proclaimed by sound of trumpet, at the offering of the solemn sacrifices. But the most celebrated neomenia was that at the beginning of the civil year, or first day of the month Tizri, Lev. xxiii, 24. This was a sacred day, on which no servile labour was performed; on this they offered public or national burnt-sacrifices, and sounded the trumpets in the temple. In the kingdom of the ten tribes, the serious among the people used to assemble at the houses of the prophets, to hear their instructions. The Shunamite, who entertained Elisha, proposing to visit that prophet, her husband said to her, Why do you go to-day, since it is neither Sabbath nor new moon?” 2 Kings iv, 23. Isaiah declares that the Lord abhors the new moons, the Sabbaths, and other days of festival and assembly of those Jews who in other things neglected his laws, Isaiah i, 13, 14. Ezekiel says that the burnt-offerings offered on the day of the new moon were provided at the king’s expense, and that on this day was to be opened the eastern gate of the court of the priests, Ezek. xiv, 17; xlvi, 1, 2; 1 Chron. xxiii, 31; 2 Chron. viii, 13. Judith kept no fast on festival days, or on the new moon, Judith viii, 6. The modern Jews keep the neomenia only as a feast of devotion, to be observed or not at pleasure. They think it rather belongs to the women than to the men. The women forbear work, and indulge a little more on this day than on others. In the prayers of the synagogue, they read from Psalm cxiii, to cxviii. They bring forth the roll of the law, and read therein to four persons. They call to remembrance the sacrifice that on this day used to be offered in the temple. On the evening of the Sabbath which follows the new moon, or some other evening following, when the new moon first appears, they assemble and pray to God, as the Creator of the planets, and the restorer of the new moon; raising themselves toward heaven, they entreat of God to be preserved from misfortune; then, after mentioning David, they salute each other, and separate. SeeMoon.
NEONOMIANISM, so called from the Greek νέος,new, and νόμος,law. This is not the appellation of a separate sect, but of those both among Arminians and Calvinists who regard Christianity as anew law, mitigated in its requisitions for the sake of Christ. This opinion has many modifications, and has been held by persons very greatly differing from each other in the consequences to which they carry it, and in the principles from which they deduce it. One opinion is, that the new covenant of grace which, through the medium of Christ’s death, the Father made with men, consists, according to this system, not in our being justified by faith, as it apprehends the righteousness of Christ; but in this, that God, abrogating the exaction of perfect legal obedience, reputes or accepts of faith itself, and the imperfect obedience of faith, instead of the perfect obedience of the law, and graciously accounts them worthy of the reward of eternal life. Toward the close of the seventeenth century, a controversy was agitated among the English Dissenters, in which the one side, who were partial to the writings of Dr. Crisp, were charged with antinomianism, and the other, who favoured those of Mr. Baxter, were accused of neonomianism. Dr. Daniel Williams was a principal writer on what was called the neonomian side.
The following objection, among others, was made by several ministers in 1692, against Dr. Williams’s Gospel Truth Stated,” &c: “To supply the room of the moral law, vacated by him, he turns the Gospel into a new law, in keeping of which we shall be justified for the sake of Christ’s righteousness, making qualifications and acts of ours a disposing subordinate righteousness, whereby we become capable of being justified by Christ’s righteousness.” To this, among other things, he answers: “The difference is not, 1. Whether the Gospel be a new law in the Socinian, popish, or Arminian sense. This I deny. Nor, 2. Is faith, or any other grace or acts of ours, any atonement for sin, satisfaction to justice, meriting qualification, or any part of that righteousnessfor which we are justified at God our Creator’s bar. This I deny in places innumerable. Nor, 3. Whether the Gospel be a law more new than is implied in the first promise to fallen Adam, proposed to Cain, and obeyed by Abel, to the differencing him from his unbelieving brother. This I deny. 4. Nor whether the Gospel be a law that allows sin, when it accepts such graces as true, though short of perfection, to be the conditions of our personal interest in the benefits purchased by Christ. This I deny. 5. Nor whether the Gospel be a law, the promises whereof entitle the performers of its conditions to the benefits as of debt. This I deny. The difference is, 1. Is the Gospel a law in this sense; namely, God in Christ thereby commandeth sinners to repent of sin, and receive Christ by a true operative faith, promising that thereupon they shall be united to him, justified by his righteousness, pardoned, and adopted; and that, persevering in faith and true holiness, they shall be finally saved; also threatening that if any shall die impenitent, unbelieving, ungodly, rejecters of his grace, they shall perish without relief, and endure sorer punishments than if these offers had not been made to them? 2. Hath the Gospel a sanction, that is, doth Christ therein enforce his commands of faith, repentance, and perseverance, by the foresaid promises and threatenings, as motives to our obedience? Both these I affirm, and they deny; saying, the Gospel in the largest sense is an absolute promise without precepts and conditions, and a Gospel threat is a bull. 3. Do the Gospel promises of benefits to certain graces, and its threats that those benefits shall be withheld, and the contrary evils inflicted for the neglect of such graces, render these graces the condition of our personal title to those benefits? This they deny, and I affirm,” &c.