est. Nam cum Servilia soror Uticensis materque Bruti fuerit, cum qua adolescens Cæsar consuetudinem non sine probro habuisse fertur, cumque eo tempore Brutus ex Servilia natus foret, haud dubie Cæsaris filius vulgo habitus est: quod ipsum Cæsarem die cædis suæ, cum undique infestis mucronibus appeteretur, dixisse ferunt. Alexand. ab Alexand. lib. v. c. 27.

Whether the authority of BISHOPS be by divine right or no, it is trifling to dispute; for, since the apostles, in planting and establishing the church, were divinely inspired; since they did nothing but what they were taught to do by Christ; since he did nothing but what he was taught by the Father, and was himself God; it comes to the samé thing whether we assert episcopacy to be of divine right or apostolical institution. Stackhouse on Creed.

A law imperial there is, which sheweth that there was great care had to provide for every Christian city a bishop, as near as might be, and that each city had some terri tory belonging unto it, which territory was also under the bishop of the same city. Unto the bishop of every such city, not only the presbyters of the same city, but also of the territory thereunto belonging, were, from the first beginning, subject. For we must note, that, when as yet there were in cities no parish-churches, but only colleges of presbyters under their bishop's regiment, yet smaller congregations and churches there were even then abroad, in which churches there was but some one only presbyter to perform among them divine duties. Towns and villages abroad, receiving the faith of Christ from cities whereunto they were adjacent, did, as spiritual and heavenly colonies, by their subjection honour those antient mother-churches out of which they grew. The bishop, for his assistance and ease, had under him, to guide and direct deacons in their charge, his arch-deacon; so termed in respect of care over deacons, albeit himself were not deacon but presbyter. For the guidance of presbyters in their function, the bishop had likewise under him one of the self same order with them, but above them in authority: one whom the antients termed usually an archpresbyter; we at this day name him dean. For most certain truth it is, that churches cathedral and the bishops of them are as glasses, wherein the face and very countenance of apostolical antiquity remaineth even as yet to be seen. Hooker's Eccles. Pol. book vii. sect. 7, 8. See also Diocese.

There is some probability that the GOSPEL was preached in Great Britain by St Simon, the apostle; there is much greater probability that it was preached there by St Paul; and there is absolute certainty that it was planted there in their days. Eusebius says, that the apostles preached in all the world, and some of them passed beyond the ocean, even to, the Britannic Isles, Dem. Ev. lib. iii. Smith's Sermons, Provost of Philad

"

S

BAAL,

BAAL, Bel, Belus, Chronus, Moloch, Saturn, the same deity. Chronus derived from 1P, a horn, which was an emblem of power and dominion among the Eastern nations. Univ. Hist. v. xvii. 8vo, p. 265.

From p comes cornu, whence our horn.

Chronus must have been rendered by the Grecks Koronus, and there was a place dedicated to him in the island of Cyprus, which was called Koronis; and both these words are a transposition for Kon-Orus, the Lord Orus, or ns, lux, vel ignis. He was originally an Oriental deity, and introduced into Africa by the Carthaginians: Bryant's Mythol. Observ.

The prohibition of eating BLOOD, though not a commandment of moral obligation; yet is a positive precept, which cannot but be thought of some weight and impor tance for its frequent and soleinn injunctions; and, as the prevention of cruelty and murder is alleged as one reason for its injunction, and will be ever esteemed a good it can hardly be understood without some restriction; and, as it seemed once good to the Holy Ghost to prescribe an abstinence from blood, and when it seemed otherwise to him we are no where that I know of instructed, the obligation seems to lie upon every good Christian. Stackh. Hist.

one,

The most probable reason that eating of blood was prohibited by the law, and in the Gospel to its proselytes from Gentilism, seems to be that it is a kind of acknowleges ment that our privilege, for killing and eating the flesh of those living creatures, is not derived to us from the law of Nature, which seems ratlier to be against it, but from an express permission from the Author of Nature. Ant. Univ. Hist. vol. iii. p. 155.

BRIBERY arrived to an immoderate height in Rome, when Cæsar brought over Emilius Paulus, one of the consuls, to his party, at the price of 1500 talents; i. e.. £310,627 sterling. Univ. Hist..

It is very observable, that Rachel was delivered of her son BENJAMIN where afterwards the tribe of Benjamin was situated..

The children of the BRIDE-CHAMBER might be better understood of the bride herself, for such was the Church; and, in conformity to the genius of that language which was spoken by our blessed Saviour, those who were then wedded to their Lord and Master, and to whom therefore the bride-chamber belonged, might as such be called the children, &c. Littleton, LL.D.

¿D'pwa www¬1. “ Whose top may reach unto heaven," i. e. the top of the tower of BABEL. Hyperbole hæc erat, q. d. altissima. Vide Deut. i. 28; ix. 1. Sic Homer, Od. 1. v. 239, garunans, i, e. in cælum usque sublimis. Ad cælum exstruxit villam, &c.

Cic..

Cic. pro domo. Bochart, &c. But some would render the words, Whose top was consecrated to the heavens, i. e. to the heavenly bodies, Baal or the Sun, &c. See Tenison, Owen, &c. But they have not produced any authorities for this signification. of the preposition a..

It is very remarkable that there had been new discoveries and clearer revelations of JESUS CHRIST in every fifth century, successively, from Adam to the fullness of time. There is only one of those periods which I cannot yet fix, and that is between Adam and Enoch, whose translation was about a thousand years after the first promise of a Saviour, and five hundred years before the preaching of Noah. From whence we may observe the great exactness and propriety of those words, in the consummation of the ages, which is quite lost in our English translation, and called the end of the world, which hath perplexed the sense and given occasion for unnecessary scruple, Bishop Brown's Sermons, vol. i. p. 173.

That he might render the execution of justice strict and regular, Alfred divided all Eugland into COUNTIES: these counties he subdivided into hundreds, and the hundreds into tithings. Every householder was answerable for the behaviour of his family and slaves, and even of his guests if they lived above three days in his house. Ten neighbouring householders were formed into one corporation, who, under the name of a tithing, decennary, or fribourg, were answerable for each other's conduct; and over whom one person, called a tithing-man, headbourg, or borsholder, was appointed to preside. And no man could change his habitation without a warrant or certificate from the borsholder of the tithing to which he formerly belonged. Hume's History, vol. i.

Ecclesiastical history will shew us one evil, than which none began sooner, or stretched itself farther, or hath more disturbed and distressed the Christian world in all ages; and that evil is, the imposing unreasonable TERMS of COMMUNION, and requiring Christians to profess doctrines not propounded in scriptural words, but inferred as consequences from passages of Scripture, which one may call systems of consequential divinity. Two authors, who have been an honour to this nation, have expressed themselves with remarkable strength and freedom in censuring such impositions; namely, John Hales and Chillingworth. Jortin's Sermons, vol. vii. p. 401.

Crown-Lands. Vide Forest.

Henry III. in 1272, granted a charter to the town of Newcastle, in which he gave the inhabitants a license to dig cQAL. This is the first mention of coal in England. Hume's Hist. vol. ii. p. 230.

The HOUSE of CONVOCATION first summoned in the reign of Edward I. annó Domini 1235. Hume's Hist.

A good secular CHRISTIAN, in antient times, was a man, for example, who was perhaps a married man, who was occupied in some honest and reputable calling, who was a good husband, a good father, a good master of a family, a good neighbour, a good subject, a good magistrate if he were in authority, a man courteous to all, kind to his relations and friends, charitable to the poor, frequenting the public worship of God, respecting the ministers of the Gospel; a man who made it his endeavour to live soberly, righteously, and godly. We should be apt, in these days, to call such a one a good man, and to wish that we were plentifully furnished with persons of this character. But all this was accounted a low, imperfect, and vulgar, sort of Christianity. The sublimer religion, which was then called Christian philosophy, was practised by pious persons, who bound themselves to a single life, departed from their houses and friends, gave up their possessions, retired to solitary places, and there spent their days in working, with their own hands, for a poor subsistence; but principally in praying, watching, fasting, contemplation, and silence; lived upon spare, coarse, and unwholesome, food, and treated their bodies with so much severity, that, if their pagan enemies had used them so, they might have justly called it an inhuman persecution. This introduced the prohibition of marriage, extended to monks and nuns and to the clergy. Now a small degree of sober reflection might have convinced Christians that all this was over-righteousness, and the religion of good men, who had zeal without knowledge and devotion without judgement. Yet this is what the church of Rome extols, recommends, and requires. Jortin's Serm. vol. i. p. 97.

GOLD COIN was first minted here in the reign of Edward III. and 120 grains, about the value of our guinea, was current then only for six shillings and eight-pence. The proportion of gold to silver at this time being as sixty-seven to six. Campbell's Pol. Hist. vol. ii. p. 403.

9

St Chrysostom over and over most expressly teaches, that CONFESSION of our sins to men is not necessary, but that it is sufficient to confess them to God. And thus, for several ages, the matter rested, till, the degeneracy of the church of Rome growing towards its height about the ninth and tenth centuries, some began to contend for the necessity of secret confession. And this, in the year 1215, in the fourth council of Lateran under Pope Innocent III. was decreed and established. Tillotson's Serm. vol. ix. p. 64.

Auricular confession was first introduced into the church, by Leo the Great, in the fifth century, who granted a permission to grievous offenders to confess their crimes privately to a priest appointed for that purpose. Mosheim, vol. i. 8vo.

Personne

Personne n'a été plus loué et plus blamé que CRANMER. Les protestans en font un héros et un martyr, et les catholiques un hypocrite et un libertin. Cependant il n'étoit, à mon sens, ni l'un ni l'autre. C'étoit un homme de sens et de capacité, mais foible et trop complaisant pour un prince qui n'agissoit que par caprice et par violence. Ce prélat peut avoir cru, de bonne foi, que le divorce d'Henri étoit légitime, et que les prétentions des papes étoient injustes et mal-fondées; mais comment justifier, dans un homme qui étoit ou Luthérien ou Zwinglien dans le cœur, toute sa dissimulation sous le règne d'Henri, qui maintenoit toutes les doctrines et les cérémonies Romaines; les sentences qu'il rendit contre quelques novateurs contre ses propres lumières, sa sentence de divorce d'Henri VIII. avec Anne de Clèves, sa retractation sous Marie, et quantité d'autres choses de ce genre? Ce qu'il eut à craindre sous un prince aussi violent et despotique que Henri, et sous une reine aussi bigotte et aussi persécutrice que Marie, peut fournir un prétexte plausible pour diminuer ses fautes, mais ne peut jamais empêcher qu'on ne regarde Cranmer autrement que comme un homme foible et trop complaisaut, qu'on doit plutôt excuser que canoniser. Courayer in Sleidan, vol. ii. p. 77.

Archbishop Cranmer, being overcome with fear upon the approach of his sufferings, subscribed to the errors of the church of Rome he had before so stoutly opposed; but, after repenting and being brought to the stake, he put his right hand, with which he had signed the recantation, into the fire, and held it there till it was quite consumed. Tillotson's Sermon 92d.

But we may ask who would have acted so well in Cranmer's situation? And, as he had views to the reformation of the church, had he acted otherwise his designs would have been defeated: and have we not always seen that Providence makes use of weak and imperfect, not to say wicked, creatures to effect its great designs? Why, therefore, should we depreciate persons for not having those perfections which are impossible to be attained in this imperfect state? See Martyr.

My Lord Herbert fait THOMAS CROMWELL mourir catholique, et Mr Burnet prétend le contraire. Mais son discours sur l'echaffaut me paroît decider pour My Lord Herbert: car, si ce discours a le sens qu'y veut faire trouver Mr Burnet, il faut avouer qu'il a porté l'équivoque jusqu'au tombeau, puisqu'il y déclare, qu'il renonce aux erreurs et qu'il meurt dans la foi catholique. Or si, comme le prétend ce prélat, il faut entendre, par la foi catholique, le Luthéranisme, qui étoit la religion de Cromwell, il n'y a rien qu'on ne puisse faire dire aux hommes; puisque cette secte n'étoit qualifié de catholique, ni à Rome ni en Angleterre, du tems d'Henri VIII. Courayer in Sleidan, vol. ii. p. 77.

The CANON of Scripture probably finished by Simon the Just, ante Christ, 292; as the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles, and Esther, could not have been inserted

1