remain, his followers were taught to look on Jew, philosopher, vulgar, pagan, and Christian, as all of the same creed," and worshippers of the same God, whether denoLainated" Jehovah, Jove, or Lord."

AMMONITES, the descendants of Ammon, the son of Lot. They took possession of the country called by their name, after having driven out the Zamzummims, who were its ancient inhabitants. The precise period at which this expulsion took place is not ascertained. The Ammonites had kings, and were uncircumcised, Jer. ix. 25, 26, and seem to have been principally addicted to husbandry. They, as well as the Moabites, were among the nations whose peace or prosperity the Israelites were forbidden to disturb, Deut. ii. 19, &c. However, neither the one nor the other were to be admitted into the congregation to the tenth generation, because they did not come out to relieve them in the wilderness, and were implicated in hiring Balaam to curse them. Their chief and peculiar deity is, in scripture, called Moloch. Chemosh was also a god of the Ammonites. Before the Israelites entered Canaan, the Amorites conquered a great part of the country belonging to the Ammonites and Moabites; but it was retaken by Moses, and divided between the tribes of Gad and Reuben. Previous to the time of Jephthah, B. C. Iss, the Ammonites engaged as principals in a war, under a king whose name is not given, against the Israelites. This prince, determining to recover the ancient country of the Ammonites, made a sudden irruption into it, reduced the land, and kept the inhabitants in subjection for eighteen years. He afterwards crossed Jordan with a design of falling upon the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Ephrain. The Israelites resisted the invader; and, assembling at Mizpeh, chose Jephthah for their general, and sent an expostulatory message to the king of the Ammonites, Judges 1, xi. The king replied, that those lands belonged to the Ammonites, who had been unjustly dispossessed of them by the Israelites, when they came out of Egypt, and exhorted Jephthah to restore them peaceably to the lawful owners. Jephthah remonstrated on the injustice of his claim; but finding a war inevitable, he fell upon the Ammonites near Aroer, and defeated them with great slaughter. On this occasion the Ammonites Just twenty cities; and thus an end was put, after eighteen years' bondage, to the tyranny of Ammon over the Israelites beyond Jordan. In the days of Saul, 1 Sam. xi., B. C. 1095, the old claim of the Ammonites was revived by Nahash their king, and they laid siege to the city of Jabesh. The inhabitants were inclined to acknowledge Nahash as their sovereign; but he would accept their submission only on condition that every one of them should consent to lose his right eye, and that thus he might fix a lasting reproach upon Israel: but from this humiliating and severe requisition they were delivered by

The pro

Saul, who vanquished and dispersed the army of Nahash. Upon the death of Nahash, David sent ambassadors to his son and successor Hanun, to congratulate him on his accession; but these ambassadors were treated as spies, and dismissed in a very reproachful manner, 2 Sam. x. This indignity was punished by David with rigour. Rabbah, the capital of Hanun, and the other cites of Ammon, which resisted the progress of the conqueror, were destroyed and razed to the ground; and the inhabitants were put to death or reduced to servitude. In the reign of Jehoshaphat the Ammonites united with their brethren, the Moabites, and the inhabitants of Mount Seir, against the king of Judah; but they were completely routed. They were afterwards overthrown by Uzziah, king of Judah, and made tributary, 2 Chron. xxvi. 8; and rebelling in the reign of his son Jotham, they were reduced to the necessity of purchasing peace at a very dear rate. After the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh, were carried into captivity by Tiglath Pileser, B. C. 740, the Ammonites and Moabites took possession of the cities belonging to these tribes, and were reproached for it by Jeremiah, xlix. 1. Their ambassadors were exhorted to submit to Nebuchadnezzar, and threatened, on their refusal, with captivity and slavery, Jer. xxvii. 2, 3, 4. phet Ezekiel, xxv. 4-10, denounces their entire destruction, and informs them, that God would deliver them up to the people of the east; and that the Ammonites should no more be mentioned among the nations: and this punishment they were to suffer for insulting the Israelites on account of their calamities, and the destruction of their temple by the Chaldeans. This malediction began to be inflicted upon them in the fifth year after the taking of Jerusalem, when Nebuchadnezzar made war against all the people around Judea, A. M. 3420 or 3421, B. C. 583. It is probable that Cyrus granted to the Ammonites and Moabites liberty to return into their own country, whence they had been removed by Nabuchadnezzar; for they were exposed to the revolutions that were common to the people of Syria and Palestine, and were subject sometimes to the kings of Egypt, and sometimes to the kings of Syria. Polybius informs us, that Antiochus the Great took Rabboth, or Philadelphia, the capital of the Ammonites, demolished the walls, and put a garrison into it, A. M. 3806, B. C. 198. During the persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes, the Ammonites manifested their hatred to the Jews, and exercised great cruelties against such of them as lived in their parts. At length their city Jaser, and the neighbouring town, fell a prey to the Jews, who smote the men, carried their wives and children into captivity, and plundered and burned the city. Thus ended their last conflict with the descendants of Israel. Ammon

was, however, a highly productive and populous country when the Romans became masters of all the provinces of Syria; and several of the ten allied cities, which gave name to the celebrated Decapolis, were included within its boundaries. Even when first invaded by the Saracens, this country, including Moab, was enriched by the various benefits of trade, covered with a line of forts, and possessed some strong and populous cities. Volney bears witness, "that in the immense plains of the Hauran, ruins are continually to be met with, and that what is said of its actual fertility perfectly corresponds with the idea given of it in the Hebrew writings." The fact of its natural fertility is corroborated by every traveller who has visited it. And it is evident," says Burckhardt, "that the whole country must have been extremely well cultivated in order to have afforded subsistence to the inhabitants of so many towns," as are now visible only in their ruins. While the fruitfulness of the land of Ammon, and the high degree of prosperity and power in which it subsisted long prior and long subsequent to the date of the predictions, are thus indisputably established by historical evidence and by existing proofs, the researches of recent travellers (who were actuated by the mere desire of exploring these regions and obtaining geographical information) have made known its present aspect; and testimony the most clear, unexceptionable, and conclusive, has been borne to the state of dire desolation to which it is and has long been reduced.

;

It was prophesied concerning Ammon, "Son of man, set thy face against the Ammonites, and prophesy against them. I will make Rabbah of the Ammonites a stable for camels and a couching place for flocks. Behold, I will stretch out my hand upon thee, and deliver thee for a spoil to the heathen I will cut thee off from the people, and cause thee to perish out of the countries; I will destroy thee. The Ammonites shall not be remembered among the nations. Rabbah" (the chief city) "of the Ammonites shall be a desolate heap. Ammon shall be a perpetual desolation," Ezek. xxv. 2, 5, 7, 10; xxi. 32; Jer. xlix. 2; Zeph. ii. 9.

Ammon was to be delivered to be a spoil to the heathen-to be destroyed, and to be a perpetual desolation. "All this country, formerly so populous and flourishing, is now changed into a vast desert." (Seetzen's Travels.) Ruins are seen in every direction. The country is divided between the Turks and the Arabs, but chiefly possessed by the latter. The extortions of the one, and the depredations of the other, keep it in "perpetual desolation," and make it "a spoil to the heathen." The far greater part of the country is uninhabited, being abandoned to the wandering Arabs, and the towns and villages are in a state of total ruin." (Ibid.) "At every step are to be found the vestiges of ancient cities, the re

mains of many temples, public edifices, and Greek churches." (Burckhardt's Travels.) The cities are left desolate. "Many of the ruins present no objects of any interest. They consist of a few walls of dwellinghouses, heaps of stones, the foundations of some public edifices, and a few cisterns filled up; there is nothing entire, though it appears that the mode of building was very solid, all the remains being formed of large stones. In the vicinity of Ammon there is a fertile plain interspersed with low hills, which for the greater part are covered with ruins." (Burckhardt's Travels in Syria.) While the country is thus despoiled and desolate, there are valleys and tracts throughout it which "are covered with a fine coat of verdant pasture, and are places of resort to the Bedouins, where they pasture their camels and their sheep." (Buckingham's Travels in Palestine.) "The whole way we traversed," says Seetzen, we saw villages in ruins, and met numbers of Arabs with their camels," &c. Mr. Buckingham describes a building among the ruins of Ammon, "the masonry of which was evidently constructed of materials gathered from the ruins of other and older buildings on the spot. On entering it at the south end," he adds, we came to an open square court, with arched recesses on each side, the sides nearly facing the cardinal points. The recesses in the northern and southern wall were originally open passages, and had arched door-ways facing each other; but the first of these was found wholly closed up, and the last was partially filled up, leaving only a narrow passage, just sufficient for the entrance of one man and of the goats, which the Arab keepers drive in here occasionally for shelter during the night." He relates that he lay down among "flocks of sheep and goats," close beside the ruins of Ammon; and particularly remarks that, during the night, he "was almost entirely prevented from sleeping by the bleating of flocks." So literally true is it, although Seetzen, and Burckhardt, and Buckingham, who relate the facts, make no reference or allusion whatever to any of the prophecies, and travelled for a different object than the elucidation of the scriptures,-that "the chief city of the Ammonites is a stable for camels, and a couchingplace for flocks."

"The Ammonites shall not be remembered among the nations." While the Jews, who were long their hereditary enemies, continue as distinct a people as ever, though dispersed among all nations, no trace of the Ammonites remains; none are now designated by their name, nor do any claim descent from them. They did exist, however, long after the time when the eventual annihilation of their race was foretold; for they retained their name, and continued a great multitude until the second century of the Christian æra. (Justin Martyr.) "Yet they are cut off from the people. Ammon has perished out of the countries; it is destroyed." No people is

attached to its soil; none regard it as their country and adopt its name: And the Ammonites are not remembered among the nations."

"Rabbah" (Rabbah Ammon, the chief city of Ammon) "shall be a desolate heap." Situated, as it was, on each side of the borders of a plentiful stream, encircled by a fruitful region, strong by nature and fortified by art, nothing could have justified the suspicion, or warranted the conjecture in the mind of an uninspired mortal, that the royal city of Ammon, whatever disasters might possibly befal it in the fate of war or change of masters, would ever undergo so total a transmutation as to become a desolate heap. But although, in addition to such tokens of its continuance as a city, more than a thousand years had given uninterrupted experience of its stability, ere the prophets of Israel denounced its fate; yet a period of equal length has now marked it out, as it exists to this day, a desolate heap, a perpetual or permanent desolation. Its ancient name is still preserved by the Arabs, and its site is now "covered with the ruins of private buildings -nothing of them remaining except the foundations and some of the door-posts. The buildings, exposed to the atmosphere, are all in decay," (Burckhardt's Travels in Syria,) so that they may be said literally to form a desolate heap. The public edifices, which once strengthened or adorned the city, after a long resistance to decay, are now also desolate; and the remains of the most entire among them, subjected as they are to the abuse and spoliation of the wild Arabs, can be adapted to no better object than "a stable for camels." Yet these broken walls and ruined palaces, says Mr. Keith, which attest the ancient splendour of Ammon, can now be made subservient, by means of a single act of reflection, to a far nobler purpose than the most magnificent edifices on earth can be, when they are contemplated as monuments on which the historic and prophetic truth of scripture is blended in one bright inscription.

AMORITES, the descendants of Amori, or Hæmorri, or Amorrhæus, Gen. x. 16, the fourth son of Canaan, whose first possessions were in the mountains of Judea, amongst the other families of Canaan: but, growing strong above their fellows, and impatient of confinement within the narrow boundaries of their native district, they passed the Jordan, and extended their conquests over the finest provinces of Moab and Ammon; seizing and maintaining possession of that extensive and almost insulated portion of country included between the rivers Jordan, Jabbok, and Arnon. This was the kingdom, and Heshbon the capital, of the Amorites, under Sihon their king, when the Israelites, in their way from Egypt, requested a passage through their country. This request, however, Sihon refused; and came out against them with all his force, when he

was slain, his people extirpated, and his kingdom taken possession of by the Israelites. It was subsequently divided between the tribes of Reuben and Gad, Num. xiii. 29; xxi. 13, 25; Joshua v. i; xi. 3; Judges xi. 19, 22.

AMOS, the fourth of the minor prophets, who in his youth had been a herdsman in Tekoa, a small town about four leagues southward of Jerusalem. He was sent to the people of Samaria, to bring them back to God by repentance, and reformation of manners. Hence it is natural to suppose that he must have been born within the territories of Israel, and that he only retired to Tekoa on being expelled from Bethel by Amaziah, the priest of the calves at Bethel. He frequently complains of the violence offered him by those who endeavoured to impose silence on him. He boldly inveighs against the crying sins of the Israelites, such as idolatry, oppression, wantonness, and obstinacy. Nor does he spare the sins of Judah, such as their carnal security, sensuality, and injustice. He utters frequent threatenings against them both, and predicts their ruin. It is observable in this prophecy, that, as it begins with denunciations of judgment and destruction against the Syrians, Philistines, Tyrians, and other enemies of the Jews, so it concludes with comfortable promises of the restoration of the tabernacle of David, and the establishment of the kingdom of Christ. Amos was called to the prophetic office in the time of Uzziah, king of Judah, and Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel.

Some writers, in adverting to the condition of Amos, have, with a minute affectation of criticism, pretended to discover a certain rudeness and vulgarity in his style; and even Jerom is of opinion that he is deficient in magnificence and sublimity. He applies to him the words which St. Paul speaks of himself, that he was rude in speech, though not in knowledge; and his authority, says Bishop Lowth, "has influenced many commentators to represent him as entirely rude, and void of elegance; whereas it requires but little attention to be convinced that he is not a whit behind the very chiefest of the prophets;" equal to the greatest in loftiness of sentiment, and scarcely inferior to any in the splendour of his diction, and in the elegance of his composition. Mr. Locke has observed, that his comparisons are chiefly drawn from lions, and other animals, because he lived among, and was conversant with, such objects. But, indeed, the finest images and allusions, which adorn the poetical parts of scripture, in general are drawn from scenes of nature, and from the grand objects that range in her walks; and true genius ever delights in considering these as the real sources of beauty and magnificence. The whole book of Amos is animated with a fine and masculine eloquence.

AMULET, a charm or supposed preser

sug

vative against diseases, witchcraft, or any other mischief. They were very frequent amongst the Jews, the Greeks, and the Romans, and were made of stone, metal, animal substances, or, in short, any thing which a weak imagination gested. The Jews were very superstitious in the use of amulets, but the Mishna forbids them, unless received from some person of whose cures, at least, three instances could be produced. The phylacteries worn by the Pharisees and others of the Jewish

nation were a sort of amulets.

Amulets amongst the Greeks were called, φυλακτήρια, περιάπτα, ἀποτέλεσματα, περιάμματα, Bohsia, and eκóλmiα. The Latins called them amuleta, appensa, pentacula, &c. Remains of this superstition continue among ignorant people even in this country, which ought to be strongly discountenanced as weak or wicked. The word amulet is probably derived from amula, a small vessel with lustral water in it, anciently carried in the pocket for the sake of purification and expiation.

AMYRALDISM, a name given by some writers to the doctrine of universal grace, as explained and asserted by Amyraldus, or Moses Amyraut, and his followers, among the reformed in France, towards the middle of the seventeenth century. This doctrine principally consisted of the following particulars, viz., that God desires the happiness of all men, from which none are excluded by a divine decree; that none can obtain salvation without faith in Christ; that God refuses to none the power of believing, though he does not grant to all his assistance, that they may improve this power to saving purposes; and that many perish through their own fault. Those who embraced this doctrine were called Universalists, although, it is evident, that they rendered grace universal in words, but partial in reality, and are chargeable with greater inconsistencies than the supralapsarians. Amyraldus is said to have formed his system with a view of producing a reconciliation between the Lutherans and Calvinists. This theory was supported in England by Baxter. See BAXTERIANISM.

ANABAPTISTS, a name given to those Christians who maintain that baptism ought always to be performed by immersion; that it ought not to be administered to children before the age of discretion; and that at this age it ought to be re-administered to those who have been baptized in their infancy. They affirm that the administration of this sacrament is neither valid nor useful, if it be done by sprinkling only, and not by immersion; or if the persons who receive it be not in a condition to give the reasons of their belief. The Anabaptists of Germany brought the name into great odium by their turbulent conduct; but by the people of this persuasion generally, the conduct of these fanatics was

at all times condemned. In England they form a most respectable, though not a very numerous body.

The word Anabaptist is compounded of avà, new, and Barrishs, a baptist; and has been indiscriminately applied to people of very different principles. Many of them object to the name, because the baptism of infants by sprinkling is, in their opinion, no baptism; and others hold nothing in common excepting some one or other of the above-mentioned opinions concerning baptism.-See BAPTISM.

ANAGOGICAL. This is one of the four senses in which scripture may be interpreted, viz., the literal, allegorical, anagogical, and tropological. The anagogical sense is given when the text is explained with a regard to the end which Christians should have in view, that is, eternal life: for example, the rest of the sabbath, in the anagogical sense, corresponds to the repose of everlasting blessed

ness.

ANAK, ANAKIM, famous giants in Palestine. Anak, father of the Anakim, was son of Arba, who gave his name to Kirjath-Arba, or Hebron. Anak had three sons, Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai, whose descendants were terrible for their fierceness and stature. The Hebrew spies reported that in comparison of those monstrous men, they themselves were but grasshoppers. Some have thought that the name Phoenician, given to the Canaanites, and particularly to the Sidonians, was originally from Bene-Anak, sons of Anak. Caleb, assisted by the tribe of Judah, took Kirjath-Arba, and destroyed the Anakim, A. M. 2559. Josh. xv. 14; Judg. i. 20.

ANALOGY OF FAITH. This has been often and largely descanted upon as an important rule for interpreting scripture, founded, as it is said, upon Rom. xii. 6, "Let us prophesy according to the proportion" (analogy) "of faith."

The principle of this rule has been thus stated: It is evident the Almighty doth not act without a design in the system of Christianity, any more than in the works of nature. Now this design must be uniform; for as in the system of the universe every part is proportioned to the whole, and made subservient to it, so, in the system of the gospel, all the various truths, doctrines, declarations, precepts, and promises must correspond with, and tend to, the end designed. For instance, supposing the glory of God in the salvation of sinners by free grace be the grand design,-then, whatever doctrine, assertion, or hypothesis agrees not with this, it is to be considered as false. The effect however of this view of the case appears to be often delusive. If nothing more be meant than that what is obscure in a revelation should be interpreted by that which is plain, the same rule applies to all sober interpretations of any book whatever; but if we call our opinions, perhaps hastily taken up, or admitted on some authority without examina

tion by the light of scripture, "the analogy of faith," we shall greatly err. On this subject Dr. Campbell remarks:

"In vain do we search the scriptures for their testimony concerning Christ, if, independently of these scriptures, we have received a testimony from another quarter, and are determined to admit nothing as the testimony of scripture which will not perfectly quadrate with that formerly received. This was the very source of the blindness of the Jews in our Saviour's time. They searched the scriptures as much as we do; but, in the disposition they were in, they would never have discovered what that sacred volume testifies of Christ. Why? because their great rule of interpretation was the analogy of the faith; or, in other words, the system of the Pharisean scribes, the doctrine then in vogue, and in the profound veneraton of which they had been educated. This that veil by which the understandings of that people were darkened, even in reading the law, and of which the apostle observed, that it remained unremoved in his day, and of which we ourselves have occasion to observe, that it remains unremoved in ours. And is it not precisely in the same way that the phrase is used by every sect of Christians, for the particular system or digest of tenets for which they themselves have the greatest reverence? The Latin church, and even the Greek, are explicit in their declarations on this article. With each, the analogy of the feith is their own system alone. And that aderent parties of Protestants, though more reserved in their manner of speaking, aim at the same thing, is undeniable; the same, I mean, considered relatively to the speakers; for, absolutely considered, every party means a different thing. But,' say some, 'is not this mode of interpretation warranted by apostolical authority? Does not Paul, Rom. ni. 6, in speaking of the exercise of the spirtual gifts, enjoin the prophets to prophesy arà tir àvatoyíar Tis wisews, according to the proportion of faith, as our translators render it, but as some critics explain it, according to the analogy of the faith? Though this expostion has been admitted into some versions, and adopted by Hammond and other commentators, and may be called literal, it is Faited neither to the ordinary meaning of the words, nor to the tenor of the context. The word dvaxoyia strictly denotes proportion, measure, rate, but by no means that complex notion conveyed in the aforesaid phrase by the term analogy, which has been well observed by Whitby to be particularly unsuitable in this place, where the apostle treats of those who speak by inspiration, not of those who explain what has been thus spoken by others. The context manifestly leads us to understand iraxoyia wiseas, verse 6, as equivalent to perpov wisews, verse 3. And for the better understanding of this phrase, the measure of faith, it may be proper to observe, 1. That a strong conviction of any tenet,

from whatever cause it arises, is in scripture sometimes termed faith. Thus in the same epistle, Rom. xiv. 22, the apostle says, 'Hast thou faith? have it to thyself before God.' The scope of his reasoning shows that nothing is there meant by faith, but a conviction of the truth in regard to the article of which he had been treating, namely, the equality of days and meats, in point of sanctity, under the gospel dispensation. The same is evidently the meaning of the word, verse 23, Whatsoever is not of faith, is sin;' where, without regard to the norality of an action abstractly considered, that is concluded to be sin which is done by one who doubts of its lawfulness. 2. As to spiritual gifts, prophecy and inspiration in particular, they appear to have been accompanied with such a faith or conviction that they came from the Spirit, as left no room for hesitation. And indeed it is easy to perceive that something of this kind was absolutely necessary to enable the inspired person to distinguish what proceeded from the Spirit of God, from what was the creature of his own imagination. The prophets of God were not acted upon like machines in delivering their predictions, as the diviners were supposed to be among the heathen, but had then, as at other times, the free use of their faculties, both of body and mind." This caution is therefore with great propriety given them by the apostle, to induce them to be attentive in prophesying, not to exceed the precise measure allowed them, (for different measures of the same gift were committed to different persons,) and not to mingle aught of their own with the things of God's Spirit. Let him prophesy according to the proportion in which he has received this gift, which is in proportion to his faith. Though a sense somewhat different has been given to the words by some ancient Greek expositors, none of them seems to have formed a conception of that sense, which, as was observed above, has been given by some moderns. This has, nevertheless, a sound and sober principle included in it, although capable of great abuse. Undoubtedly there is a class of great and leading truths in the scriptures so clearly revealed as to afford principles of interpretation in doubtful passages, and these are so obvious that persons of sound minds and hearts will not need those formal rules for the application of the analogy of faith to interpretation, which have been drawn up by several writers, and which when not misleading, are generally superfluous.

ANANIAS was the son of Nebedæus, High Priest of the Jews. According to Josephus, he succeeded Joseph, the son of Camith, in the forty-seventh year of the Christian era; and was himself succeeded by Ishmael, the son of Tabæus, in the year 63. Quadratus, governor of Syria, coming into Judæa, on the rumours which prevailed among the Samaritans and Jews, sent the High Priest Ananias to Rome, to vindicate