PROSEUCHÆ. That the Jews had houses, or places for prayer, called ϖροσευχαὶ, appears from a variety of passages in Philo; and, particularly in his oration against Flaccus, he complains that their ϖροσευχαὶ were pulled down, and there was no place left in which they might worship God and pray for Cæsar. Among those who make the synagogues andproseuchæto bedifferent places, are the learned Mr. Joseph Mede and Dr. Prideaux; and they think the difference consists partly in the form of the edifice; a synagogue, they say, being roofed like our houses or churches; and aproseuchabeing only encompassed with a wall, or some other mound or enclosure, and open at the top, like our courts. They make them to differ in situation; synagogues being in towns and cities,proseuchæin the fields, and frequently by the river side. Dr. Prideaux mentions another distinction in respect to the service performed in them. In synagogues, he says, the prayers were offered up in public forms in common for the whole congregation; but in theproseuchæthey prayed, as in the temple, every one apart for himself. And thus our Saviour prayed in theproseuchainto which he entered. Yet, after all, the proof in favour of this notion is not so strong, but that it still remains a question with some, whether the synagogues and theproseuchæwere any thing more than two different names for the same place; the one taken from the people’s assembling in them, the other from the service to which they were more immediately appropriated, namely, prayer. Nevertheless, the nameproseuchæwill not prove that they were appropriated only to prayer, and therefore were different from synagogues, in which the Scriptures were also read and expounded; since the temple, in which sacrifices were offered, and all the parts of divine service were performed, is called οικος προσευχης,a house of prayer, Matt. xxi, 13.
PROTESTANT. The Emperor Charles V. called a diet at Spire, in 1529, to request aid from the German princes against the Turks, and to devise the most effectual means for allaying the religious disputes which then raged in consequence of Luther’s opposition to the established religion. In this diet it was decreed by Ferdinand, archduke of Austria, and other popish princes, that in the countries which had embraced the new religion it should be lawful to continue in it till the meeting of a council; but that no Roman Catholic should be allowed to turn Lutheran, and that the reformers should deliver nothing in their sermons contrary to the received doctrine of the church. Against this decree, six Lutheran princes, namely, John and George, the electors of Saxony and Brandenburg, Ernest and Francis, the two dukes of Lunenburg, the landgrave of Hesse, and the prince of Anhalt, with the deputies of thirteen imperial towns, namely, Strasburg, Ulm, Nuremberg, Constance, Rottingen, Windsheim, Memmingen, Nortlingen, Lindaw, Kempten, Hailbron, Wissemburg, and St. Gall, formally and solemnlyprotestedand declared that they appealed to a general council; and hence the name of Protestants, by which the followers of Luther have ever since been known. Nor was it confined to them; for it soon after included the Calvinists, and has now of a long time been applied generally to the Christian sects, of whatever denomination, and in whatever country they may be found, which have separated from the see of Rome.
Mr. Chillingworth, addressing himself to a writer in favour of the church of Rome, speaks of the religion of the Protestants in the following excellent terms: “Know then, sir, that when I say the religion of Protestants is in prudence to be preferred before yours, on the one side, I do not understand by your religion the doctrine of Bellarmine, or Baronius, or any other private man among you, nor the doctrine of the Sorbonne, of the Jesuits, or of the Dominicans, or of any other particular company among you, but that wherein you all agree, or profess to agree, the doctrine of the council of Trent; so, accordingly, on the other side, by the religion of Protestants, I do not understand the doctrine of Luther, or Calvin, or Melancthon, nor the confession of Augsburg, or Geneva, nor the catechism of Heidelberg, nor the articles of the church of England; no, nor the harmony of Protestant confessions; but that in which they all agree, and which they all subscribe with a greater harmony, as a perfect rule of faith and action; that is, the Bible. The Bible, I say, the Bible only, is the religion of Protestants. Whatsoever else they believe beside it, and the plain, irrefragable, indubitable consequences of it, well may they hold it as a matter of opinion; but as a matter of faith and religion, neither can they with coherence to their own grounds believe it themselves, nor require belief of it of others, without most high and most schismatical presumption. I, for my part, after a long, and, as I verily believe and hope, impartial, search of the true way to eternal happiness, do profess plainly that I cannot find any rest for the sole of my foot but upon this rock only. I see plainly, and with my own eyes, that there are popes against popes, and councils against councils; some fathers against other fathers, the same fathers against themselves; a consent of fathers of one age against a consent of fathers of another age; traditive interpretations of Scripture are pretended, but there are few or none to be found; no tradition but that of Scripture can derive itself from the fountain, but may be plainly proved either to have been brought in in such an age after Christ, or that in such an age it was not in. In a word, there is no sufficient certainty but of Scripture only for any considering man to build upon. This, therefore, and this only, I have reason to believe. This I will profess; according to this I will live; and for this, if there be occasion, I will not only willingly, but even gladly, lose my life, though I should be sorry that Christians should take it from me. Propose me any thing out of this book, and require whether I believe or no, and, seem it never so incomprehensible to human reason, I will subscribe it with hand and heart, as knowing no demonstration can be stronger than this, God hath said so, therefore it is true. In other things, I will take no man’s liberty of judging from him; neither shall any man take mine from me.”
Under such views the Bible is held as the only sure foundation upon which all true Protestants build every article of the faith which they profess, and every point of doctrine whichthey teach; and all other foundations, whether they be the decisions of councils, the confessions of churches, the prescripts of popes, or the expositions of private men, are considered by them as sandy and unsafe, or as in nowise to be ultimately relied on. Yet, on the other hand, they by no means fastidiously reject them as of no use; for while they admit the Bible, or the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, to be the only infallible rule by which we must measure the truth or falsehood of every religious opinion, they are sensible that all men are not equally fitted to understand or to apply this rule; and that the wisest men want, on many occasions, all the helps afforded by the learning and research of others to enable them to understand its precise nature, and to define its certain extent. These helps are great and numerous, having been supplied, in every age of the church, by the united labours of learned men in every country, and by none in greater abundance than by those in Protestant communions.
PROVERBS, short aphorisms, and sententious moral and prudential maxims, usually expressed in numbers, or rhythm, or antithesis, as being more easily remembered, and of more use, than abstruse and methodical discourses. This method of instruction appears to be peculiarly suited to the disposition and genius of the Asiatics, among whom it has prevailed from the earliest ages. The Gymnosophists of India delivered their philosophy in brief enigmatical sentences; a practice adopted and carried to a great extent by the ancient Egyptians. The mode of conveying instruction by compendious maxims obtained among the Jews, from the first dawn of their literature, to its final extinction in the east through the power of the Mohammedan arms; and it was familiar to the inhabitants of Syria and Palestine, as we learn from the testimony of St. Jerom. The eloquence of Arabia was mostly exhibited in detached and unconnected sentences, which, like so many loose gems, attracted attention by the fulness of the periods, the elegance of the phraseology, and the acuteness of proverbial sayings. Nor do the Asiatics at present differ, in thisrespectrespect, from their ancestors, as numerousamthâl, or moral sentences, are in circulation throughout the regions of the east, some of which have been published by Hottinger, Erpenius, the younger Schultens, and others who have distinguished themselves by the pursuit of oriental learning. “The moralists of the east,” says Sir William Jones, “have, in general, chosen to deliver their precepts in short sententious maxims, to illustrate them by sprightly comparisons, or to inculcate them in the very ancient forms of agreeable apologues: there are, indeed, both in Arabic and Persian, philosophical tracts on ethics, written with sound ratiocination and elegant perspicuity; but in every part of the eastern world, from Pekin to Damascus, the popular teachers of moral wisdom have immemorially been poets; and there would be no end of enumerating their works, which are still extant in the five principal languages of Asia.” The ingenious but ever disputing and loquacious Greeks were indebted to the same means for their earliest instruction in wisdom. The sayings of the seven wise men, the golden verses of Pythagoras, the remains of Theognis and Phocylides, if genuine, and thegnomaiof the older poets, testify the prevalence of aphorisms in ancient Greece. Had no specimens remained of Hellenic proverbs, we might have concluded this to have been the case; for the Greeks borrowed the rudiments, if not the principal part, of their knowledge from those whom they arrogantly termed barbarians; and it is only through the medium of compendious maxims and brief sentences that traditionary knowledge can be preserved. This mode of communicating moral and practical wisdom accorded with the sedate and deliberative character of the Romans; and, in truth, from its influence over the mind, and its fitness for popular instruction, proverbial expressions exist in all ages and in all languages.
Proverbs, in the Hebrew language, are calledmeshalim, which is derived from a verb signifying both “to rule,” “to have dominion,” and “to compare,” “to liken,” “to assimilate:” hence the term denotes the highly figurative and poetical style in general, and likewise those compendious and authoritative sentences in particular which are commonly denominated proverbs. This term, which our translators have adopted after the Vulgate, denotes, according to our great lexicographer, “a short sentence frequently repeated by the people, a saw, an adage;” and no other word can, perhaps, be substituted more accurately expressing the force of the Hebrew; or, if there could, it has been so long familiarized by constant use, that a change is totally inadmissible.
TheMeshalim, or Proverbs of Solomon, on account of their intrinsic merit, as well as of the rank and renown of their author, would be received with submissive deference; in consequence of which, they would rapidly spread through every part of the Jewish territories. The pious instructions of the king would be listened to with the attention and respect they deserve, and, no doubt, would be carefully recorded by a people attached to his person, and holding his wisdom in the highest admiration. These, either preserved in writing, or handed down by oral communication, were subsequently collected into one volume, and constitute the book in the sacred canon, entitled, “The Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel.” The genuineness and authenticity of this title, and those in chap. x, 1, and xxv, 1, cannot be disputed; not the smallest reason appears for calling them in question. One portion of the book, from the twenty-fifth chapter to the end of the twenty-ninth, was compiled by the men of Hezekiah, as appears from the title prefixed to it. Eliakim, Shebna, Joah, Isaiah, Hosea, and Micah, personages of eminence and worth, were contemporary with Hezekiah; but whether these or others executed the compilation, it is now impossible to determine. They were persons, however, as we may reasonably suppose, well qualifiedfor the undertaking, who collected what were known to be the genuine proverbs of Solomon from the various writings in which they were dispersed, and arranged them in their present order. Whether the preceding twenty-four chapters, which, doubtless, existed in a combined form previous to the additional collection, were compiled by the author, or some other person, is quite uncertain. Both collections, however, being made at so early a period, is a satisfactory evidence that the Proverbs are the genuine production of Solomon, to whom they are ascribed; for, from the death of Solomon to the reign of Hezekiah, according to the Bible chronology, was a period of two hundred and forty-nine years, or, according to Dr. Hales, two hundred and sixty-five years; too short a space to admit of any forgery or material error, as either must have been immediately detected by the worthies who flourished during the virtuous reign of Hezekiah.
PROVIDENCE, the conduct and direction of the several parts of the universe, by a superior intelligent Being. The notion of a providence is founded upon this truth, that the Creator has not so fixed and ascertained the laws of nature, nor so connected the chain of second causes, as to leave the world to itself, but that he still preserves the reins in his own hands, and occasionally intervenes, alters, restrains, enforces, suspends, &c, those laws by a particular providence. Some use the wordprovidencein a more general sense, signifying by it that power or action by which the several parts of the creation are ordinarily directed. Thus Damascenus defines providence to be that divine will by which all things are ordered and directed to the proper end: which notion of providence supposes no laws at all fixed by the author of nature at the creation, but that he reserved it at large, to be governed by himself immediately. The Epicureans denied any divine providence, as thinking it inconsistent with the ease and repose of the divine nature to meddle at all with human affairs. Simplicius argues thus for a providence: If God does not look to the affairs of the world, it is either because he cannot or will not; but the first is absurd, since, to govern cannot be difficult where to create was easy; and the latter is both absurd and blasphemous. In Plato’s Tenth Dialogue of Laws, he teaches excellently, that (since what is self-moving is, by its nature, before that which moves only in consequence of being moved) mind must be prior to matter, and the cause of all its modifications and changes; and that, therefore, there is a universal Mind possessed of all perfection, which produced and which actuates all things. After this he shows that the Deity exercises a particular providence over the world, taking care of small no less than great things. In proving this he observes “that a superior nature of such excellence as the divine, which hears, sees, and knows all things, cannot, in any instance, be subject to negligence or sloth; that the meanest and the greatest part of the world are all equally his work or possession; that great things cannot be rightly taken care of without taking care of small; and that, in all cases, the more able and perfect any artist is, (as a physician, an architect, or the ruler of the state,) the more his skill and care appear in little as well as great things. Let us not, then,” says he, “conceive of God as worse than even mortal artists.”
The term providence, in its primary signification, simply denotes foresight; and if we allow the existence of a supreme Being who formed the universe at first, we must necessarily allow that he has a perfect foresight of every event which at any time takes place in the natural or moral world. Matter can have no motion, nor spirit any energy, but what is derived from him; nor can he be ignorant of the effects which they will, either separately or conjointly, produce. A common mechanic has knowledge of the work of his own hands: when he puts the machine which he has made in motion, he foresees how long it will go, and what will be the state and position of its several parts at any particular point of time; or, if he is not perfectly able to do this, it is because he is not perfectly acquainted with all the powers of the materials which he has used in its construction: they are not of his making, and they may therefore have qualities which he does not understand, and consequently cannot regulate. But in the immense machine of the universe there is nothing except that which God has made; all the powers and properties, relations and dependencies, which created things have, they have, both in kind and degree, from him. Nothing, therefore, it should seem, can come to pass at any time, or in any part of the universe, which its incomprehensible Architect did not, from the moment his almighty fiat called it into existence, clearly foresee. The providence of God is implied in his very existence as an intelligent Creator; and it imports not only an abstract foresight of all possible events, but such a predisposition of causes and effects, such an adjustment of means and ends, as seems to us to exclude that contingency of human actions with which, as expectants of positive rewards and punishments in another world, we firmly believe it to be altogether consistent.
By providence we may understand, not merely foresight, but a uniform and constant operation of God subsequent to the act of creation. Thus, in every machine formed by human ingenuity, there is a necessity for the action of some extraneous power to put the machine in motion: a proper construction and disposition of parts not being sufficient to effect the end: there must be a spring, or a weight, or an impulse of air or water, or some substance or other, on which the motion of the several parts of the machine must depend. In like manner, the machine of the universe depends upon its Creator for the commencement and the conservation of the motion of its several parts. The power by which the insensible particles of matter coalesce into sensible lumps, as well as that by which the greatorbs of the universe are reluctantly, as it were, retained in their courses, admits not an explanation from mechanical causes: the effects of both of them are different from such as mere matter and motion can produce; they must ultimately be referred to God. Vegetable and animal life and increase cannot be accounted for, without recurring to him as the primary cause of both. In all these respects the providence of God is something more than foresight; it is a continual influence, a universal agency; “by him all things consist,” and “in him we live, and move, and have our being.”
Much labour has been employed to account for all the phenomena of nature by the powers of mechanism, or the necessary laws of matter and motion. But this, as we imagine, cannot be done. The primary causes of things must certainly be some powers and principles not mechanical, otherwise we shall be reduced to the necessity of maintaining an endless progression of motions communicated from matter to matter, without any first mover; or of saying that the first impelling matter moved itself. The former is an absurdity too great to be embraced by any one; and there is reason to hope that the essential inactivity of matter is at present so well understood, and so generally allowed, notwithstanding some modern oppugners of this hypothesis, that there can be but few who will care to assert the latter. All our reasonings about bodies, and the whole of natural philosophy, are founded on the three laws of motion laid down by Sir Isaac Newton, at the beginning of the “Principia.” These laws express the plainest truths; but they would have neither evidence nor meaning, were not inactivity contained in our idea of matter. Should it be said that matter, though naturally inert, may be made to be otherwise by divine power, this would be the same with saying that matter may be made not to be matter. If inactivity belong to it at all, it must belong to it as matter, or solid extension, and therefore must be inseparable from it. Matter is figured, movable, discerptable, inactive, and capable of communicating motion by impulse to other matter: these are not accidental but primary qualities of matter. Beside, matter void of inactivity, if we were to suppose it possible, could produce no effects. The communication of motion, its direction, the resistance it suffers, and its cessation, in a word, the whole doctrine of motion cannot be consistently explained or clearly understood without supposing the inertia of matter. Self-moving matter must have thought and design, because, whenever matter moves, it must move in some particular direction, and with some precise degree of velocity; and as there is an infinity of these equally possible, it cannot move itself without selecting one of these preferably to and exclusively of all others, and therefore not without design. Moreover, it may be plainly proved that matter cannot be the ultimate cause of the phenomena of nature, or the agent which, by any powers inherent in itself, produces the general laws of nature, without possessing the highest degree of knowledge and wisdom; which might be easily evinced or exemplified by adverting to the particular law of gravitation. “The philosopher,” says an excellent writer, “who overlooks the laws of an all-governing Deity in nature, contenting himself with the appearance of the material universe only, and the mechanical laws of motion, neglects what is most excellent, and prefers what is imperfect to what is supremely perfect, finitude to infinity, what is narrow and weak to what is unlimited and almighty, and what is perishing to what endures for ever. Sir Isaac Newton thought it most unaccountable to exclude the Deityonlyout of the universe. It appeared to him much more just and reasonable to suppose that the whole chain of causes, or the several series of them, should centre in him as their source; and the whole system appear depending on him the only independent cause.” If, then, the Deity pervades and actuates the material world, and his unremitting energy is the cause to which every effect in it must be traced; the spiritual world, which is of greater consequence, cannot be disregarded by him. Is there not one atom of matter on which he does not act; and is there one living being about which he has no concern? Does not a stone fall without him; and does, then, a man suffer without him? The inanimate world is of no consequence, abstracted from its subserviency to the animate and reasonable world: the former, therefore, must be preserved and governed entirely with a view to the latter. But it is not mere energy or the constant exertion of power that is discernible in the frame or laws of the universe, in maintaining the succession of men, and in producing men and other beings; but wisdom and skill are also conspicuous in the structure of every object in the inanimate creation. After a survey of the beauty and elegance of the works of nature, aided by the perusal of Matt. vi, 28, &c, we may ask ourselves, Has God, in the lowest of his works, been lavish of wisdom, beauty, and skill; and is he sparing of these in the concerns of reasonable beings? Or does he less regard order, propriety, and fitness in the determination of their states? The answer is obvious. Providence also implies a particular interposition of God in administering the affairs of individuals and nations, and wholly distinct from that general and incessant exertion of his power, by which he sustains the universe in existence.
The doctrine of providence may be evinced from the consideration of the divine perfections. The first cause of all things must be regarded as a being absolutely perfect; and the idea of absolute perfection comprehends infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; hence we deduce the doctrine of providence. The Deity cannot be an indifferent spectator of the series of events in that world to which he has given being. His goodness will as certainly engage him to direct them agreeably to the ends of goodness, as his wisdom and power enable him to do it in the most effectual manner. This conclusion is conformable to allour ideas of those attributes. Could we call that being good who would refuse to do any good which he is able to do without the least labour or difficulty? God is present every where. He sees all that happens, and it is in his power, with perfect ease, to order all for the best. Can he then possess goodness, and at the same time not do this? A God without a providence is undoubtedly a contradiction. Nothing is plainer than that a being of perfect reason will, in every instance, take such care of the universe as perfect reason requires. That supreme intelligence and love, which are present to all things, and from whence all things sprung, must govern all occurrences. These considerations prove what has been called aparticular, in opposition to ageneral, providence. We cannot conceive of any reasons that can influence the Deity to exerciseanyprovidence over the world, which are not likewise reasons for extending it toallthat happens in the world. As far as it is confined to generals, or overlooksanyindividual, oranyevent, it is incomplete, and therefore unsuitable to the idea of a perfect being.
One common prejudice against this doctrine arises from the apprehension that it is below the dignity of the Deity to watch over, in the manner implied in it, the meanest beings, and the minutest affairs. To which it may be replied, that a great number of minute affairs, if they are each of them of some consequence, make up a sum which is of great consequence; and that there is no way of taking care of this sum, without taking care of each particular. This objection, therefore, under the appearance of honouring God, plainly dishonours him. Nothing is absolutely trifling in which the happiness of any individual, even the most insignificant, is at all concerned; nor is it beneath a wise and good being to interpose in any thing of this kind. To suppose the Deity above this, is to suppose him above acting up to the full extent of goodness and rectitude. The same eternal benevolence that first engaged him to produce beings, must also engage him to exercise a particular providence over them; and the very lowest beings, as well as the highest, seem to have a kind of right to his superintendence, from the act itself of bringing them into existence. Every apprehension that this is too great a condescension in him is founded on the poorest ideas; for, surely, whatever it was not too great condescension in him to create, it cannot be too great a condescension in him to take care of. Beside, with regard to God, all distinctions in the creation vanish. All beings are infinitely, that is, equally, inferior to him.
Accident, and chance, and fortune, are words which we often hear mentioned, and much is ascribed to them in the life of man. But they are words without meaning; or, as far as they have any signification, they are no other than names for the unknown operations of providence; for it is certain that in God’s universe nothing comes to pass causelessly, or in vain. Every event has its own determined direction. That chaos of human affairs and intrigues where we can see no light, that mass of disorder and confusion which they often present to our view, is all clearness and order in the sight of Him who is governing and directing the whole, and bringing forward every event in its due time and place. “The Lord sitteth on the flood. The Lord maketh the wrath of man to praise him,” as he maketh the “hail and rain to obey his word. He hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over all. A man’s heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps.” No other principle than this, embraced with a steady faith, and attended with a suitable practice, can ever be able to give repose and tranquillity to the mind; to animate our hopes, or extinguish our fears; to give us any true satisfaction in the enjoyments of life, or to minister consolation under its adversities. If we are persuaded that God governs the world, that he has the superintendence and direction of all events, and that we are the objects of his providential care; whatever may be our distress or our danger, we can never want consolation; we may always have a fund of hope, always a prospect of relief. But take away this hope and this prospect, take away the belief of God and of a superintending providence, and man would be of all creatures the most miserable; destitute of every comfort, every support, under present sufferings, and of every security against future dangers.
PSALMS. The book of Psalms is a collection of hymns, or sacred songs, in praise of God, and consists of poems of various kinds. They are the productions of different persons, but are generally called the Psalms of David, because a great part of them was composed by him, and David himself is distinguished by the name of the Psalmist. We cannot now ascertain all the Psalms written by David, but their number probably exceeds seventy; and much less are we able to discover the authors of the other Psalms, or the occasions upon which they were composed. A few of them were written after the return from the Babylonian captivity. The titles prefixed to them are of very questionable authority; and in many cases they are not intended to denote the writer but refer only to the person who was appointed to set them to music. David first introduced the practice of singing sacred hymns in the public service of God; and it was restored by Ezra. The authority of the Psalms is established not only by their rank among the sacred writings, and by the unvaried testimony of ages, but likewise by many intrinsic proofs of inspiration. Not only do they breathe through every part a divine spirit of eloquence, but they contain numberless illustrious prophecies that were remarkably accomplished, and are frequently appealed to by the evangelical writers. The sacred character of the whole book is established by the testimony of our Saviour and his Apostles, who, in various parts of the New Testament, appropriate the predictions of the Psalms as obviously apposite to the circumstances of their lives, and as intentionally composed to describe them. The venerationfor the Psalms has in all ages of the church been considerable. The fathers assure us, that in the earlier times the whole book of Psalms was generally learned by heart; and that the ministers of every gradation were expected to be able to repeat them from memory. These invaluable Scriptures are daily repeated without weariness, though their beauties are often overlooked in familiar and habitual perusal. As hymns immediately addressed to the Deity, they reduce righteousness to practice; and while we acquire the sentiments, we perform the offices of piety; while we supplicate for blessings, we celebrate the memorial of former mercies; and while in the exercise of devotion, faith is enlivened by the display of prophecy. Josephus asserts, and most of the ancient writers maintain, that the Psalms were composed in metre. They have undoubtedly a peculiar conformation of sentences, and a measured distribution of parts. Many of them are elegiac, and most of David’s are of the lyric kind. There is no sufficient reason however to believe, as some writers have imagined, that they were written in rhyme, or in any of the Grecian measures. Some of them are acrostic; and though the regulations of the Hebrew measure are now lost, there can be no doubt, from their harmonious modulation, that they were written with some kind of metrical order; and they must have been composed in accommodation to the measure to which they were set. (SeePoetry of the Hebrews.) The Hebrew copies and the Septuagint version of this book contain the same number of Psalms; only the Septuagint translators have, for some reason which does not appear, thrown the ninth and tenth into one, as also the one hundred and fourteenth and one hundred and fifteenth, and have divided the one hundred and sixteenth and one hundred and forty-seventh each into two.
It is very justly observed by Dr. Allix, that, “although the sense of near fifty Psalms be fixed and settled by divine authors, yet Christ and his Apostles did not undertake to quote all the Psalms they could, but only to give a key to their hearers, by which they might apply to the same subjects the Psalms of the same composure and expression.” With regard to the Jews, Bishop Chandler very pertinently remarks, that “they must have understood David, their prince, to have been a figure of Messiah. They would not otherwise have made his Psalms part of their daily worship; nor would David have delivered them to the church to be so employed, were it not to instruct and support them in the knowledge and belief of this fundamental article. Were the Messiah not concerned in the Psalms, it would have been absurd to celebrate twice a day, in their public devotions, the events of one man’s life, who was deceased so long ago, as to have no relation now to the Jews and the circumstances of their affairs; or to transcribe whole passages from them into their prayers for the coming of the Messiah.” Upon the same principle it is easily seen that the objections, which may seem to lie against the use of Jewish services in Christian congregations, may cease at once. Thus it may be said, Are we concerned with the affairs of David and of Israel? Have we any thing to do with the ark and the temple? They are no more. Are we to go up to Jerusalem, and to worship on Sion? They are desolated, and trodden under foot by the Turks. Are we to sacrifice young bullocks according to the law? The law is abolished, never to be observed again. Do we pray for victory over Moab, Edom, and Philistia; or for deliverance from Babylon? There are no such nations, no such places in the world. What then do we mean, when, taking such expressions into our mouths, we utter them in our own persons, as parts of our devotions, before God? Assuredly we must mean a spiritual Jerusalem and Sion; a spiritual ark and temple; a spiritual law; spiritual sacrifices; and spiritual victories over spiritual enemies; all described under the old names, which are still retained, though “old things are passed away, and all things are become new,” 2 Cor. v, 17. By substituting Messiah for David, the Gospel for the law, the church Christian for that of Israel, and the enemies of the one for those of the other, the Psalms are made our own. Nay, they are with more fulness and propriety applied now to the substance, than they were of old to the “shadow of good things then to come,” Heb. x, 1. For let it not pass unobserved, that when, upon the first publication of the Gospel, the Apostles had occasion to utter their transports of joy, on their being counted worthy to suffer for the name of their Lord and Master, which was then opposed by Jew and Gentile, they brake forth into an application of the second Psalm to the transactions then before their eyes, Acts iv, 25. The Psalms, thus applied, have advantages which no fresh compositions, however finely executed, can possibly have; since, beside their incomparable fitness to express our sentiments, they are at the same time memorials of, and appeals to, former mercies and deliverances; they are acknowledgments of prophecies accomplished; they point out the connection between the old and new dispensations, thereby teaching us to admire and adore the wisdom of God displayed in both, and furnishing while we read or sing them, an inexhaustible variety of the noblest matter that can engage the contemplations of man.
Very few of the Psalms, comparatively, appear to be simply prophetical, and to belong only to Messiah, without the intervention of any other person. Most of them, it is apprehended, have a double sense, which stands upon this ground and foundation, that the ancient patriarchs, prophets, priests, and kings, were typical characters, in their several offices, and in the more remarkable passages of their lives, their extraordinary depressions and miraculous exaltations foreshowing him who was to arise as the head of the holy family, the great prophet, the true priest, the everlasting king. The Israelitish polity, and the law of Moses, were purposely framed after the example and shadow of things spiritual andheavenly; and the events which happened to the ancient people of God were designed to shadow out parallel occurrences, which should afterward take place in the accomplishment of man’s redemption, and the rise and progress of the Christian church. (SeeProphecy.) For this reason, the Psalms composed for the use of Israel, and by them accordingly used at the time, do admit of an application to us, who are now “the Israel of God,” Gal. vi, 16, and to our Redeemer, who is the King of this Israel. It would be an arduous and adventurous undertaking to attempt to lay down the rules observed in the conduct of the mystic allegory, so diverse are the modes in which the Holy Spirit has thought proper to communicate his counsels to different persons on different occasions; inspiring and directing the minds of the prophets according to his good pleasure; at one time vouchsafing more full and free discoveries of future events; while, at another, he is more obscure and sparing in his intimations. From hence, of course, arises a great variety in the Scripture usage of this kind of allegory as to the manner in which the spiritual sense is couched under the other. Sometimes it can hardly break forth and show itself at intervals through the literal, which meets the eye as the ruling sense, and seems to have taken entire possession of the words and phrases. On the contrary, it is much oftener the capital figure in the piece, and stands confessed at once by such splendour of language, that the letter, in its turn, is thrown into shade, and almost totally disappears. Sometimes it shines with a constant equable light, and sometimes it darts upon us on a sudden, like a flash of lightning from the clouds. But a composition is never more truly elegant and beautiful, than when the two senses, alike conspicuous, run parallel together through the whole poem, mutually corresponding with and illustrating each other.
Thus the establishment of David upon his throne, notwithstanding the opposition made to it by his enemies, is the subject of the second Psalm. David sustains in it a twofold character, literal and allegorical. If we read over the Psalm first with an eye to the literal David, the meaning is obvious, and put out of all dispute by the sacred history. There is indeed an uncommon glow in the expression, and sublimity in the figures; and the diction is now and then exaggerated, as it were, on purpose to intimate and lead us to the contemplation of higher and more important matters concealed within. In compliance with this admonition, if we take another survey of the Psalm, as relative to the person and concerns of the spiritual David, a nobler series of events instantly rises to view, and the meaning becomes more evident, as well as exalted. The colouring, which may perhaps seem too bold and glaring for the king of Israel, will no longer appear so, when laid upon his great antitype. After we have thus attentively considered the subject apart, let us look at them together, and we shall behold the full beauty and majesty of this most charming poem. We shall perceive the two senses very distinct from each other, yet conspiring in perfect harmony, and bearing a wonderful resemblance in every feature and lineament, while the analogy between them is so exactly preserved, that either may pass for the original, from whence the other was copied. New light is continually cast upon the phraseology, fresh weight and dignity are added to the sentiment, till gradually ascending from things below to things above, from human affairs to those which are divine, they bear the great important theme upward with them, and at length place it in the height and brightness of heaven. What has been observed with regard to this Psalm, may also be applied to the seventy-second; the subject of which is of the same kind, and treated in the same manner. Its title might be, “The Inauguration of Solomon.” The scheme of the allegory is alike in both; but a diversity of matter occasions an alteration in the diction. For whereas one is employed in celebrating the magnificent triumphs of victory, it is the design of the other to draw a pleasing picture of peace, and of that felicity which is her inseparable attendant. The style is therefore of a more even and temperate sort, and more richly ornamented. It abounds not with those sudden changes of the person speaking which dazzle and astonish; but the imagery is borrowed from the delightful scenes with which creation cheers the sight, and the pencil of the divine artist is dipped in the softer colours of nature. And here we may take notice how peculiarly adapted to the genius of this kind of allegory the parabolical style is, on account of that great variety of natural images to be found in it. For as these images are capable of being employed in the illustration of things divine and human, between which there is a certain analogy maintained, so they easily afford that ambiguity which is necessary in this species of composition, where the language is applicable to each sense, and obscure in neither; it comprehends both parts of the allegory, and may be clearly and distinctly referred to one or the other.
On this book Bishop Horsley remarks:--These Psalms go, in general, under the name of the Psalms of David. King David gave a regular and noble form to the musical part of the Jewish service. He was himself a great composer, both in poetry and music, and a munificent patron, no doubt, of arts in which he himself so much delighted and excelled. The Psalms, however, appear to be compositions of various authors, in various ages; some much more ancient than the times of King David, some of a much later age. Of many, David himself was undoubtedly the author; and that those of his composition were prophetic, we have David’s own authority, which may be allowed to overpower a host of modern expositors. For thus King David, at the close of his life, describes himself and his sacred songs: “David, the son of Jesse, said, and the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel, said,TheTheSpirit of Jehovahspake by me, and his word was in my tongue.’ It was the word, therefore, of Jehovah’s Spirit which was uttered by David’s tongue. But it should seem, the Spirit of Jehovah would not be wanting to enable a mere man to make complaint of his own enemies, to describe his own sufferings just as he felt them, and his own escapes just as they happened. But the Spirit of Jehovah described by David’s utterance what was known to that Spirit only, and that Spirit only could describe. So that, if David be allowed to have had any knowledge of the true subject of his own compositions, it was nothing in his own life, but something put into his mind by the Holy Spirit of God; and the misapplication of the Psalms to the literal David has done more mischief than the misapplication of any other parts of the Scriptures among those who profess the belief of the Christian religion.
The Psalms are all poems of the lyric kind, that is, adapted to music, but with great variety in the style of composition. Some are simply odes. An ode is a dignified sort of song, narrative of the facts, either of public history or private life, in a highly adorned and figured style. But the figure in the Psalms is that which is peculiar to the Hebrew language, in which the figure gives its meaning with as much perspicuity as the plainest speech. Some are of the sort called elegiac, which are pathetic compositions upon mournful subjects. Some are ethic, delivering grave maxims of life, or the precepts of religion, in solemn, but for the most part simple, strains. Some are enigmatic, delivering the doctrines of religion in enigmata, contrived to strike the imagination forcibly, and yet easy to be understood. In all these the author delivers the whole matter in his own person. But a very great, I believe the far greater, part are a sort of dramatic ode, consisting of dialogues between persons sustaining certain characters. In these dialogue Psalms the persons are frequently the psalmist himself, or the chorus of priests and Levites, or the leader of the Levitical band, opening the ode with a proem declarative of the subject, and very often closing the whole with a solemn admonition drawn from what the other persons say. The other persons are Jehovah, sometimes as one, sometimes as another, of the three Persons; Christ in his incarnate state, sometimes before, sometimes after, his resurrection; the human soul of Christ as distinguished from the divine essence. Christ, in his incarnate state, is personated sometimes as a priest, sometimes as a king, sometimes as a conqueror; and in those Psalms in which he is introduced as a conqueror, the resemblance is very remarkable between this conqueror in the book of Psalms and the warrior on the white horse in the book of Revelation, who goes forth with a crown on his head, and a bow in his hand, conquering and to conquer. And the conquest in the Psalms is followed, like the conquest in the Revelation, by the marriage of the conqueror. These are circumstances of similitude which, to any one versed in the prophetic style, prove beyond a doubt that the mystical conqueror is the same personage in both.
PSALMODY. The service of the ancient Christian church usually began with reading or with the singing of psalms. We are not to understand this as if their psalmody was performed in one course of many psalms together, without intermission, but rather, with some respite, and a mixture of other parts of divine service, to make the whole more agreeable and delightful. As to the persons concerned in singing the Psalms publicly in the church, they may be considered in four different respects, according to the different ways of psalmody; for sometimes the Psalms were sung by one person alone; and sometimes the whole assembly joined together, men, women, and children: this was the most ancient and general practice. At other times the Psalms were sung alternately; the congregation dividing themselves into two parts, and singing verse for verse. Beside all these, there was yet a fourth way of singing, pretty common in the fourth century, which was, when a single person began the verse, and the people joined with him in the close.
Psalmody was always esteemed a considerable part of devotion, and upon that account was usually performed in the standing posture. As to the voice or pronunciation, used in singing, it was of two sorts, the plain song, and the more artificial; the plain song was only a gentle inflexion, or turn of the voice, not very different from the chanting in our cathedrals; the artificial song seems to have been a regular musical composition, like our anthems. It was no objection against the psalmody of the church, that she sometimes made use of psalms and hymns of human composition, beside those of the inspired writers. St. Augustine himself made a psalm of many parts, in imitation of the hundred and nineteenth, to preserve his people from the errors of the Donatists. St. Hilary and St. Ambrose likewise made many hymns, which were sung in their respective churches. But two corruptions crept into the psalmody, which the fathers declaim against with great zeal. The first was, the introducing secular music, or an imitation of the light airs of the theatre, in the devotions of the church. The other was, the regarding more the sweetness of the composition than the sense and meaning; thereby pleasing the ear, without raising the affections of the soul.
The use of musical instruments in singing of psalms, seems to be as ancient as psalmody itself. The first psalm we read of was sung to a timbrel, namely, that which Moses and Miriam sung after the deliverance of the children of Israel from Egypt; and afterward, at Jerusalem, when the temple was built, musical instruments were constantly used at their public services. And this has been the common practice in all ages of the church. When the use of organs was first introduced, is not certainly known; but we find, that about A. D. 660, Constantine Copronymus, emperor of Constantinople, sent a present of an organ to King Pepin of France.
Clement Marot, groom of the bed chamber to Francis I., king of France, was the first who engaged in translating the Psalms into metre. He versified the first fifty at the instigation of Vatablus, Hebrew professor at Paris; and afterward, upon his return to Geneva, he made an acquaintance with Beza, who versified the rest, and had tunes set to them; and thus they began to be sung in private houses, and afterward were brought into the churches of the French and other countries. In imitation of this version, Sternhold, one of the grooms of the privy chamber to our King Edward VI., undertook a translation of the Psalms into metre. He went through but thirty-seven of them, the rest being soon after finished by Hopkins and others. This translation was at first discountenanced by many of the clergy, who looked upon it as done in opposition to the practice of chanting the Psalms in the cathedrals.
Early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, metrical psalmody was introduced into this country. The new morning prayer began at St. Antholin’s, London, when a psalm was sung in the Geneva fashion, all the congregation, men, women, and boys singing together. Bishop Jewel says, that “the singing of psalms, begun in one church in London, did quickly spread itself, not only through the city, but in the neighbouring places; sometimes at Paul’s Cross six thousand people singing together.”
A curious controversy on this subject arose among the Dissenters in the end of the seventeenth century. Whether singing in public worship had been partially discontinued during the times of persecution to avoid informers, or whether the miserable manner in which it was performed gave persons a distaste to it, so it appears, that in 1691, Mr. Benjamin Keach published a tract entitled, “The Breach Repaired in God’s Worship: or, Psalms, Hymns, &c, proved to be a Holy Ordinance of Jesus Christ.” To us it may appear strange that such a point should be disputed; but Mr. Keach was obliged to labour earnestly, and with a great deal of prudence and caution, to obtain the consent of his people to sing a hymn at the conclusion of the Lord’s Supper. After six years more, they agreed to sing on the thanksgiving days; but it required still fourteen years more before he could persuade them to sing every Lord’s day; and then it was only after the last prayer, that those who chose it might withdraw without joining in it! Nor did even this satisfy these scrupulous consciences; for, after all, a separation took place, and the inharmonious seceders formed a new church in May’s Pond, where it was above twenty years longer before singing the praises of God could be endured. It is difficult at this period to believe it; but Mr. Ivimey quotes Mr. Crosby, as saying, that Mr. Keach’s was the first church in which psalm singing was introduced. This remark, however, must probably be confined to the Baptist churches. The Presbyterians, it seems, were not quite so unmusical; for the Directory of the Westminster divines distinctly stated, that “it is the duty of Christians to praise God publicly by singing of Psalms together in the congregation.” And beside the old Scotch Psalms, Dr. John Patrick, of the Charter house, made a version which was in very general use among Dissenters, Presbyterians, and Independents, before it was superseded by the far superior compositions of Dr. Watts. These Psalms, however, like those of the English and Scotch establishment, were drawled out in notes of equal length, without accent or variety. Even the introduction of the triple-time tunes, probably about the time of Dr. Watts’s psalms, gave also great offence to some people, because it marked the accent of the measure. Old Mr. Thomas Bradbury used to call this time “a long leg and a short one.” The beautiful compositions of Dr. Watts, Mr. C. Wesley, and others, have produced a considerable revolution in modern psalmody. Better versions of the Psalms, and many excellent collections of hymns, are now in use, and may be considered as highly important gifts bestowed upon the modern church of God.
PSALTERY. SeeMusic.
PTOLEMAIS. SeeAccho.
PUBLICAN, a collector or receiver of the Roman revenues. Judea being added to the provinces of the Roman empire, and the taxes paid by the Jews directly to the emperor, the publicans were the officers appointed to collect them. The ordinary taxes which the Romans levied in the provinces were of three sorts: 1. Customs upon goods imported and exported; which tribute was therefore calledportorium, fromportus, “a haven.” 2. A tax upon cattle fed in certain pastures belonging to the Roman state, the number of which being kept in writing, this tribute was calledscriptura. 3. A tax upon corn, of which the government demanded a tenth part. This tribute was calleddecuma. These publicans are distinguished by Sigonius into three sorts or degrees,--the farmers of the revenue, their partners, and their securities; in which he follows Polybius. These are called themancipes,socii, andprædes, who were all under thequæstore særarii, that presided over the finances at Rome. Themancipesfarmed the revenue of large districts or provinces, had the oversight of the inferior publicans, received their accounts and collections, and transmitted them to thequæstores ærarii. They often let out their provinces in smaller parcels to thesocii; so called, because they were admitted to a share in the contract, perhaps for the sake of more easily raising the purchase money; at least to assist in collecting the tribute. Both themancipesandsociiare therefore properly styled τελῶναι, from τελος,tributum, and ὠνέομαι,emo. They were obliged to procureprædes, or sureties, who gave security to the government for the fulfilment of the contract. The distribution of Sigonius, therefore, or rather of Polybius, is not quite exact, since there were properly but two sorts of publicans, themancipesand thesocii. The former are, probably, those whom the Greeks call ἀρχιτελώναι,chiefs of the publicans; of which sort was Zaccheus. As they were superior to the common publicans in dignity, being mostlyof the equestrian order, so they were generally in their moral character. But as for the common publicans, the collectors or receivers, as many of thesociiwere, they are spoken of with great contempt, by Heathens as well as Jews; and particularly by Theocritus, who said, that “among the beasts of the wilderness, bears and lions are the most cruel; among the beasts of the city, the publican and parasite.” The reason of the general hatred to them was, doubtless, their rapine and extortion. For, having a share in the farm of the tribute, at a certain rate, they were apt to oppress the people with illegal exactions, to raise as large a fortune as they could for themselves. Beside, publicans were particularly odious to the Jews, who looked upon them to be the instruments of their subjection to the Roman emperors, to which they generally held it sinful for them to submit. They considered it as incompatible with their liberty to pay tribute to any foreign power, Luke xx, 22, &c; and those of their own nation that engaged in this employment they regarded as Heathens, Matthew xviii, 17. It is even said, that they would not allow them to enter into their temple or synagogues, nor to join in prayers, nor even allow their evidence in a court of justice on any trial; nor would they accept of their offerings in the temple.
It appears by the Gospel that there were many publicans in Judea at the time of our Saviour. Zaccheus, probably, was one of the principal receivers, since he is called the chief of the publicans, Luke xix, 2; but St. Matthew was only an inferior publican. The Jews reproached our Saviour for showing kindness to these persons, Luke vii, 34; and he himself ranks them with harlots, Matt. xxi, 31. Some of them, it should seem, had humbling views of themselves, Luke xviii, 10. Zaccheus assures our Lord, who had honoured him with a visit, that he was ready to give the half of his goods to the poor, Luke xix, 8, and to return fourfold of whatever he had unjustly acquired.
PUBLIUS, the governor of Melita, Acts xxviii, 7–9. When St. Paul was shipwrecked on this island, Publius received him and his company into his house very kindly, and treated them for three days with great humanity.
PUL, king of Assyria. He came into the land of Israel in the time of Manahem, king of the ten tribes, 2 Kings xv, 19, &c, and invaded the kingdom on the other side of Jordan. But Manahem, by a present of one thousand talents of silver, prevailed on the king of Assyria, not only to withdraw his forces, but to recognize his title to the crown of Israel before he left the kingdom. This is the first time that we find any mention made of the kingdom of Assyria since the days of Nimrod; and Pul is the first monarch of that nation who invaded Israel, and began their transportation out of their own country.
PULSE,קלי, Lev. xxiii, 14; 1 Sam. xvii, 17; 2 Sam. xvii, 28; a term applied to those grains or seeds which grow in pods, as beans, peas, vetches, &c, fromפול,a bean. The Vulgate renders thiskaliin 2 Sam. xvii, 28,frixum cicer, “parched peas.” In Daniel i, 12, 16, the wordזרעים, renderedpulse, may signify seeds in general.
PUNISHMENTS OF THE HEBREWS. There were several sorts of punishments in use among the Jews which are mentioned in the Scripture. 1. The punishment of the cross. (SeeCross.) 2. Suspension, Esther vii, 10; Joshua viii, 29; 2 Samuel xxi, 12. 3. Stoning. 4. Fire. This punishment was common, Gen. xxxviii, 24; Leviticus xxi, 9. 5. The rack or tympanum, mentioned Heb. xi, 35. Commentators are much divided about the meaning of this punishment; but most of them are of opinion that the bastinado, or the punishment of the stick, is intended, and that the Apostle alludes to the cruelties exercised upon old Eleazar; for, in 2 Mac. vi, 19, where his martyrdom is spoken of, it is said that he came to the tympanum. 6. The precipice, or throwing persons headlong from a rock, with a stone tied about the neck, 2 Chron. xxv, 12. 7. Decapitation, Gen. xl, 19; Judges ix, 5; 2 Kings x, 7; Matt. xiv, 8. 8. The punishment of the saw, or to be cut asunder in the middle, Heb. xi, 37. This punishment was not unknown to the Hebrews. Some think it was originally from the Persians or Chaldeans. 9. Plucking out the eyes, Exod. xxi, 24. Some think this punishment was seldom executed, but the offender was made to suffer in his property rather than in his person: yet there are some instances on record, Judges xvi, 21; 1 Sam. xi, 2; 2 Kings xxv, 7. 10. The cutting off the extremities of the feet and hands, Judges i, 5–7; 2 Sam. iv, 12.
PUR,פור, κλῆρος, signifieslot. Pur, Phur, or Purim, was a solemn feast of the Jews, instituted in memory of the lots cast by Haman, the enemy of the Jews, Esther iii, 7. These lots were cast in the first month of the year, and gave the twelfth month of the same year for the execution of Haman’s design, to destroy all the Jews in Persia. Thus the superstition of Haman, in crediting these lots, caused his own ruin, and the preservation of the Jews, who, by means of Esther, had time to avert this blow. The Jews have exactly kept this feast down to our times. SeeHaman,Esther, andMordecai.
PURGATORY, a place in which, according to the church of Rome, the just, who depart out of this life, are supposed to expiate certain offences which do not merit eternal damnation. Broughton has endeavoured to prove that this notion has been held by Pagans, Jews, and Mohammedans, as well as by Christians; and that in the days of the Maccabees, the Jews believed that sin might be expiated by sacrifice after the death of the sinner. The arguments advanced for purgatory by the papists are these: Every sin, how slight soever, though no more than an idle word, as it is an offence to God, deserves punishment from him, and will be punished by him hereafter, if not cancelled by repentance here. 2. Such small sins do not deserve eternal punishment. 3. Few depart this life so pure as to be totally exemptfrom spots of this nature, and from every kind of debt due to God’s justice. 4. Therefore, few will escape without suffering something from his justice for such debts as they have carried with them out of this world, according to the rule of divine justice, by which he treats every soul hereafter according to his works, and according to the state in which he finds it in death. From these positions, which the papist considers as so many self-evident truths, he infers that there must be some third place of punishment; for since the infinite holiness of God can admit nothing into heaven that is not clean and pure from all sin, both great and small, and his infinite justice can permit none to receive the reward of bliss, who as yet are not out of debt, but have something in justice to suffer, there must, of necessity, be some place or state, where souls departing this life, pardoned as to the eternal guilt of sin, yet obnoxious to some temporal penalty, or with the guilt of some venial faults, are purged and purified before their admittance into heaven. And this is what he is taught concerning purgatory; though he know not where it is, of what nature the pains are, or how long each soul is detained there, yet he believes that those who are in this place are relieved by the prayers of their fellow members here on earth, as also by alms and masses offered up to God for their souls. And as for such as have no relations or friends to pray for them, or give alms to procure masses for their relief, they are not neglected by the church, which makes a general commemoration of all the faithful departed, in every mass, and in every one of the canonical hours of the divine office. Beside the above arguments, the following passages are alleged as proofs: 2 Macc. xii, 43–45; Matt. xii, 31, 32; 1 Cor. iii, 15; 1 Peter iii, 19. But it may be observed, 1. That the books of Maccabees have no evidence of inspiration, therefore quotations from them are not to be regarded. 2. If they were, the texts referred to would rather prove that there is no such place as purgatory, since Judas did not expect the souls departed to reap any benefit from the sin-offering till the resurrection. The texts quoted from the Scriptures have no reference to the doctrine, as may be seen by consulting the context, and any just commentator upon it. 3. The Scriptures, in general, speak of departed souls going immediately, at death, to a fixed state of happiness or misery, and give us no idea of purgatory, Isaiah lvii, 2; Rev. xiv, 13; Luke xvi, 22; 2 Cor. v, 8. 4. It is derogatory from the doctrine of the satisfaction of Christ. If Christ died for us, and redeemed us from sin and hell, as the Scripture speaks, then the idea of farther meritorious suffering detracts from the perfection of his sacrifice, and places merit still in the creature; a doctrine exactly opposite to the Scriptures.
PURITANS. In England, the term Puritans was applied to those who wished for a farther degree of reformation in the church than was adopted by Queen Elizabeth; and a purer form, not of faith, but of discipline and worship. It was a common name given to all who, from conscientious motives, though on different grounds, disapproved of the established religion, from the reformation under Elizabeth, to the Act of Uniformity in 1662. From that time to the revolution in 1688, as many as refused to comply with the established worship, (among whom were about two thousand clergymen, and perhaps five hundred thousand people,) were denominated Nonconformists. From the passing of the Act of Toleration on the accession of William and Mary, the name of Nonconformists was changed to that of Protestant Dissenters. Prior to the grand rebellion in 1640, the Puritans were, almost without exception, Episcopalians; but after the famous “League and Covenant” of those turbulent times the greater part of them became Presbyterians. Some, however, were Independents, and some Baptists. The objections of the latter were more fundamental; they disapproved of all national churches, as such, and disavowed the authority of human legislation in matters of faith and worship. The persecutions carried on against the Puritans during the reigns of Elizabeth and the Stuarts served to lay the foundation of a new empire, and eventually a vast republic, in the western world. Thither, as into a wilderness, they fled from the face of their persecutors; and, being protected in the free exercise of their religion, continued to increase, until at length they became an independent nation. The different principles, however, on which they had originally divided from the church establishment at home, operated in a way that might have been expected, when they came to the possession of the civil power abroad. Those who formed the colony of Massachusetts having never relinquished the principle of a national church, and of the power of the civil magistrate in matters of faith and worship, were less tolerant than those who settled at New Plymouth, at Rhode Island, and Providence Plantations. The very men who had just escaped the persecutions of the English prelates, now, in their turn, persecuted others who dissented from them; until, at length, the liberal system of toleration established in the parent country at the revolution, extended to the colonies, and in a good measure put an end to these censurable proceedings.
PURPLE,ארגמן, Exodus xxv, 4, &c; ϖορφύρα, Mark xv, 17, 20; Luke xvi, 19; John xix, 2, 5; Rev. xvii, 4; xviii, 12, 16. This is supposed to be the very precious colour extracted from thepurpuraormurex, a species of shell fish; and the same with the famous Tyrian dye, so costly, and so much celebrated in antiquity. The purple dye is called in 1 Macc. iv, 23, “purple of the sea,” or sea purple; it being the blood or juice of a turbinated shell fish, which the Jews callחלזון. (SeeScarlet.) Among the blessings pronounced by Moses upon the tribes of Israel, those of Zebulun and Issachar are, “They shall suck of the abundance of the seas, and of the treasures hid in the sand,” Deut. xxxiii, 19. Jonathan Ben Uzziel explains the latter clause thus: “From the sand are produced looking glasses, and glass in general; thetreasures, the method of finding and working which, was revealed to these tribes.” Several ancient writers inform us, that there were havens in the coasts of the Zebulunites, in which the sand proper for making glass was found. The words of Tacitus are remarkable: “Et Belus amnis Judaico mari illabitur, circa ejus os lectæ arenæ admixto nitro in vitrum excoquuntur.” “The river Belus falls into the Jewish sea, about whose mouth those sands mixed with nitre are collected, out of which glass is formed.” But it seems much more natural to explain “the treasures hid in the sand,” of those highly valuablemuricesandpurpuræwhich were found on the sea coast, near the country of Zebulun and Issachar, and of which those tribes partook in common with their Heathen neighbours of Tyre, who rendered the curious dyes made from those shell fish so famous among the Romans by the names ofSarranum ostrum,Tyrii colores. In reference to the purple vestment, Luke xvi, 19, it may be observed that this was not appropriately a royal robe. In the earlier times it was the dress of any of high rank. Thus all the courtiers were styled by the historianspurpurati. This colour is more properly crimson than purple; for the LXX., Josephus, and Philo, constantly use ϖορφύραν to express the Hebrewארגמן, by which the Talmudists understood crimson; and that this Hebrew word expressed, not the Tyrian purple, but that brought to the city from another country, appears from Ezek. xxvii, 7. The purple robe put on our Saviour, John xix, 2, 5, is explained by a Roman custom, the dressing of a person in the robes of state, as the investiture of office. Hence the robe brought by Herod’s or the Roman soldiers, scoffingly, was as though it had been thepictæ vestesusually sent by the Roman senate. In Acts xvi, 14, Lydia is said to be “a seller of purple.” Mr. Harmer styles purple the most sublime of all earthly colours, having the gaudiness of red, of which it retains a shade, softened with the gravity of blue.
PUTEOLI, so called from its baths of hot water, a city of Campania, in Italy; now called Pozzuoli, in a province of the kingdom of Naples, called Terra di Lavoro, and about eight miles from Naples. St. Paul stayed a week with the Christians of this place, in his journey as a prisoner to Rome, Acts xxviii, 13. The Alexandrian merchant vessels preferred Puteoli to all the harbours in Italy, and here they deposited their rich freights. They conducted the ships adorned with wreaths and festive garments, in the form of a fleet, one after another, into the harbour, where they were received with the greatest demonstrations of friendship. Such was the case with the sale of Alexandrian commodities throughout Italy. According to the course then pursued, the vessel in which St. Paul sailed went direct into this harbour.
QUAIL,שלו, Exod. xvi, 13; Num. xi, 31, 32; Psalm cv, 10; a bird of the gallinaceous kind. Hasselquist, mentioning the quail of the larger kind, says, “It is of the size of the turtle dove. I have met with it in the wilderness of Palestine, near the shores of the Dead Sea and the Jordan, between Jordan and Jericho, and in the deserts of Arabia Petrea. If the food of the Israelites was a bird, this is certainly it; being so common in the places through which they passed.” It is said that God gave quails to his people in the wilderness upon two occasions: first, within a few days after they had passed the Red Sea, Exod. xvi, 3–13. The second time was at the encampment at the place called in Hebrew, Kibroth-hataavah, the graves of lust, Num. xi, 32; Psalm cv, 40. Both of these happened in the spring, when the quails passed from Asia into Europe. They are then to be found in great quantities upon the coast of the Red Sea and Mediterranean. God caused a wind to arise that drove them within and about the camp of the Israelites; and it is in this that the miracle consists, that they were brought so seasonably to this place, and in so great number as to furnish food for above a million of persons for more than a month. The Hebrew wordshalavsignifies “a quail,” by the agreement of the ancient interpreters. And the Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic languages call them nearly by the same name. The Septuagint, Symmachus, and most of commentators, both ancient and modern, understand it in the same manner; and with them agree Philo, Josephus, Apollinaris, and the rabbins; but Ludolphus has endeavoured to prove that a species of locust is spoken of by Moses. Dr. Shaw answers, that the holy psalmist, in describing this particular food of the Israelites, by calling the animals feathered fowls, entirely confutes this supposition. And it should be recollected, that this miracle was performed in compliance with the wish of the people that they might have flesh to eat.
QUAKERS. SeeFriends.
QUESTIONS. Among the ancients no pastime was more common than that of proposing and answering difficult questions. The person who solved the question was honoured with a reward; he who failed in the attempt suffered a certain punishment; both the rewards and penalties were varied according to the disposition of the company. That the custom of proposing riddles was very ancient, and derived from the eastern nations, appears from the story of Samson, in the book of Judges, who proposed one to the Philistines at his nuptial feast. Nor were these questions confined to entertainments, but, in the primitive times, were proposed on other occasions, by those who desired to make proof of another’s wisdom and learning. Agreeably to this custom, the queen of Sheba came to prove Solomon with hard questions, 1 Kings x, 1.
QUIETISTS, the disciples of Michael de Molinos, a Spanish priest, who flourished in the seventeenth century, and wrote a book called “The Spiritual Guide.” He had many disciples in Spain, Italy, France, and the Netherlands. Some pretend that he borrowed his principles from the Spanish Illuminati;and M. Gregoire will have it that they came originally from the Persian Soofees; while others no less confidently derive them from the Greek Hesycasts. The Quietists, however, deduce their principles from the Scriptures. They argue thus: “The Apostle tells us, that ‘the Spirit makes intercession for’ orin‘us.’ Now if the Spirit pray in us, we must resign ourselves to his impulses, by remaining in a state of absolute rest, or quietude, till we attain the perfection of the unitive life,” a life of union with, and, as it should seem, of absorption in, the Deity. They contend, that true religion consists in the present calm and tranquillity of a mind removed from all external and finite things, and centered in God; and in such a pure love of the supreme Being, as is independent of all prospect of interest or reward. To prove that our love to the Deity must be disinterested, they allege, that the Lord hath made all things for himself, as saith the Scripture; and it is for his glory that he wills our happiness. To conform, therefore, to the great end of our creation, we must prefer God to ourselves, and not desire our own happiness but for his glory; otherwise we shall go contrary to his order. As the perfections of the Deity are intrinsically amiable, it is our glory and perfection to go out of ourselves, to be lost and absorbed in the pure love of infinite beauty. Madam Guion, a woman of fashion in France, born 1648, becoming pious, was a warm advocate of these principles. She asserted, that the means of arriving at this perfect love, are prayer and the self-denial enjoined in the Gospel. Prayer she defines to be the entire bent of the soul toward its divine origin. Some of her pious canticles were translated by the poet Cowper, and represent her sentiments to the best advantage. Fenelon, the amiable archbishop of Cambray, also favoured these sentiments in his celebrated publication, entitled, “The Maxims of the Saints.” The distinguishing tenet in his theology was the doctrine of the disinterested love of God for his own excellencies, independent of his relative benevolence: an important feature also in the system of Madam Guion, who, with the good archbishop, was persecuted by the pope and by Bossuet. SeeMystics.