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gels of the highest order. These angels formed a heaven for their habitation, and brought forth other angelic beings of a nature somewhat inferior to their own. Many other generations of angels followed these. New heavens were also created, until the number of angelic orders, and of their respective heavens, amounted to three hundred and sixtyfive, and thus equalled the days of the year. All these are under the empire of an omnipotent Lord, whom Basilides called Abraxas.

The inhabitants of the lowest heavens, which touched upon the borders of the eternal, malignant, and self-animated matter, conceived the design of forming a world from that confused mass, and of creating an order of beings to people it. This design was carried into execution, and was approved by the Supreme God, who to the animal life, with which only the inhabitants of this new world were, at first endowed, added a reasonable || soul, giving at the same time to the angels the empire over them.

contrary, shall pass successively into other bodies.

BATANISTS, or ASSASSINS; a famous heretical sect of murderers among the Mahometans, who settled in Persia about 1090. Their head and chief seems to have been Hassan Sabah, who made fanatical slaves of his subjects. Their religion was a compound of that of the Magi, the Jews, the Christians, and the Mahometans. They believed the Holy Ghost resided in their chief; that his orders proceeded from God himself, and were real declarations of his will.

This chief, from his exalted residence on Mount Lebanon, was called the old man of the mountain; who, like a vindictive deity, with the thunderbolt in his hand, sent inevitable death to all quarters, so that even kings trembled at his sanguinary power. His subjects would prostrate themselves at the foot of his throne, requesting to die by his hand or order, as a favour by which they were sure of passing into paradise. "Are your subjects," said the old man of the These angelic beings, advanced to the mountain to the son-in-law of Amoury, government of the world which they had king of Jerusalem, "as ready in their created, fell by degrees from their ori- submission as mine?" and without stayginal purity, and soon manifested the ing for an answer, made a sign with his fatal marks of their depravity and cor-hand, when ten young men in white, ruption. They not only endeavoured to who were standing on an adjacent tower, efface in the minds of men their know-instantly threw themselves down. To ledge of the Supreme Being, that they one of his guards he said, "Draw your might be worshipped in his stead, but dagger, and plunge it into your breast;" also began to war against each other, which was no sooner said than obeyed. with an ambitious view to enlarge every At the command of their chief, they one the bounds of his respective domi- made no difficulty of stabbing any prince, nion. The most arrogant and turbulent even on his throne; and for that purof all these angelic spirits was that pose conformed to the dress and reliwhich presided over the Jewish nation. gion of the country that they might be -Hence, the Supreme God, beholding less suspected. To animate them on with compassion the miserable state of such attempts, the Scheik previously rational beings, who groaned under the indulged them with a foretaste of the contest of these jarring powers, sent delights of paradise. Delicious soporific from heaven his son Nus, or Christ, the drinks were given them; and while chief of the aions, that, joined in a sub-they lay asleep, they were carried into stantial union with the man Jesus, he might restore the knowledge of the Supreme God, destroy the empire of those angelic natures which presided over the world, and particularly that of the arrogant leader of the Jewish people. The god of the Jews alarmed at this, sent forth his ministers to seize the man Jesus, and put him to death. They executed his commands: but their cruelty BATH-KOL, (i. e. the daughter of a could not extend to Christ, against voice,) an oracle among the Jews, frewhom their efforts were vain. Those quently mentioned in their books, espesouls who obey the precepts of the Son cially the Talmud. It was a fantastical of God, shall, after the dissolution of way of divination invented by the Jews, their mortal frame, ascend to the Fa-though called by them a revelation from ther, while their bodies return to the God's will, which he made to his chosen corrupt mass of matter whence they people after all verbal prophecies had were formed. Disobedient spirits, on the ceased in Israel.

beautiful gardens, where, awaking as it were in paradise, and inflamed with views of perpetual enjoyments, they sallied forth to perform assassinations of the blackest dye.

It is said, they once thought of embracing the Christian religion; and some have thought the Druses a remnant of this singular race of barbarians.

life, and justification in judgment; glorification of the soul at death, and of the body at the resurrection, Phil. iii. 20, 21. 2 Cor. v. 1, 2, 3.

BAXTERIANS, so called from the learned and pious Mr. Richard Baxter, who was born in the year 1615. His design was to reconcile Calvin and Arminius: for this purpose he formed a mid- Christ has made a conditional deed of dle scheme between their systems. He gift of these benefits to all mankind; but taught that God had elected some, the elect only accept and possess them. whom he is determined to save, with-Hence he infers, that though Christ out any foresight of their good works; and that others to whom the Gospel is preached have common grace, which if they improve, they shall obtain saving grace, according to the doctrine of Arminius. This denomination own, with Calvin, that the merits of Christ's death are to be applied to believers only; but they also assert that all men are in a state capable of salvation.

Mr. Baxter maintains that there may be a certainty of perseverance here, and yet he cannot tell whether a man may not have so weak a degree of saving grace as to lose it again.

In order to prove that the death of Christ has put all in a state capable of salvation, the following arguments are alleged by this learned author. 1. It was the nature of all mankind which Christ assumed at his incarnation, and the sins of all mankind were the occasion of his suffering.-2. It was to Adam, as the common father of lapsed mankind, that God made the promise, (Gen. iii. 15.) The conditional new covenant does equally give Christ, pardon, and life to all mankind, on condition of acceptance. The conditional grant is universal: Whosoever believeth shall be saved.—3.| It is not to the elect only, but to all mankind, that Christ has commanded his ministers to proclaim his Gospel, and offer the benefits of his procuring.

There are, Mr. Baxter allows, certain fruits of Christ's death which are proper to the elect only: 1. Grace eventually worketh in them true faith, repentance, conversion, and union with Christ as his living members.-2. The actual forgiveness of sin as to the spiritual and eternal punishment.-3. Our reconciliation with God, and adoption and right to the heavenly inheritance. -4. The Spirit of Christ to dwell in us, and sanctify us, by a habit of divine love, Rom. viii. 9-13. Gal. v. 6.-5. Employment in holy, acceptable service, and access in prayer, with a promise of being heard through Christ, Heb. ii. 5, 6. John xiv. 13.-6. Well grounded hopes of salvation, peace of conscience, and spiritual communion with the church mystical in heaven and earth, Rom. v. 12. Heb. xii. 22.-7. A special interest in Christ, and intercession with the Father, Rom. viii. 32, 33.-8. Resurrection tunto

never absolutely intended or decreed that his death should eventually put all men in possession of those benefits, yet he did intend and decree that all men should have a conditional gift of them by his death.

Baxter, it is said, wrote 120 books, and had 60 written against him. 20,000 of his Call to the Unconverted were sold in one year. He told a friend, that six brothers were converted by reading that Call. The eminent Mr. Elliott, of New England, translated this tract into the Indian tongue. A young Indian prince was so taken with it, that he read it with tears, and died with it in his hand. Calamy's Life of Baxter; Baxter's Catholic Theology, p. 51-53; Baxter's End of Doctrinal Controversu, p. 154, 155.

BEATIFICATION, in the Romish church, the act whereby the pope declares a person happy after death. See CANONIZATION.

BEATITUDE imports the highest degree of happiness human nature can arrive to, the fruition of God in a future life to all eternity. It is also used when speaking of the theses contained in Christ's Sermon on the Mount, whereby he pronounces the several characters there mentioned blessed.

BEGHARDS, or BEGUARDS, a sect that arose in Germany in the thirteenth century, and took St. Begghe for their patroness. They employed themselves in making linen cloth, each supporting himself by his labour, and were united only by the bonds of charity, without having any particular rule; but when pope Nicholas IV. had confirmed that of the third order of St. Francis in 1289, they embraced it the year following.

BEGUINES, a congregation of nuns founded either by St. Begghe or by Lambert le Begue. They were established, first at Leige, and afterwards at Neville, in 1207; and from this last settlement sprang the great number of Beguinages which are spread over all Flanders, and which have passed from Flanders into Germany. In the latter country some of them fell into extravagant errors, persuading themselves that it was possible in the present life to arrive to the highest perfection, even to impeccability, and a clear view of God,

in short, to so eminent a degree of contemplation, that there was no necessity, after this, to submit to the laws of mortal men, civil or ecclesiastical. The council of Vienna, in 1113, condemned these errors; permitting, nevertheless, those among them who continued in the true faith to live in charity and penitence, either with or without vows. There still subsists, or at least subsisted till lately, many communities of them in Flanders. What changes the late revolutions may have effected upon these nurseries of superstition we have yet to learn.

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working will of the holy triune incomprehensible God, manifesting himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, through an outward perceptible working triune power of fire, light, and spirit, in the kingdom of heaven.-2. How and what angels and men were in their creation; that they are in and from God, his real offspring; that their life begun in and from this divine fire which is the Father of light, generating a birth of light in their souls; from both which proceeds the Holy Spirit, or breath of divine love in the triune creature, as it does in the triune Creator.-3. How some angels, and all men, are fallen from God, and their first state of a divine triune life in him; what they are in their fallen state, and the difference between the fall of angels and that of man.-4. How the earth, stars, and elements, were created in consequence of the fallen angels.-5. Whence there is good and evil in all this temporal world, in all its creatures, animate and inanimate; and what is meant by the curse that dwells every where in it.-6. Of the kingdom of Christ; how it is set in opposition to and fights and strives against the kingdom of hell.-7. How man, through faith in Christ, is able to overcome the kingdom of hell, and triumph over it in the divine power, and thereby obtain eternal salvation; also how, through working in the hellish quantity of principle, he casts himself into perdition.-8. How and why sin and misery, wrath and death, shall only reign for a time, till the love, the wisdom, and the power of God shall in a supernatural way (the mystery of God made man) triumph over sin, misery, and death; and make fallen man rise to the glory of angels, and this material system shake off its curse, and enter into an everlasting union with that heaven from whence it fell.

BEHMENISTS, a name given to those mystics who adopt the explications of the mysteries of nature and grace, as given by Jacob Behmen. This writer was born in the year 1575, at Old Seidenburg, near Gorlitz, in upper Lusatia: he was a shoemaker by trade. He is described as having been thoughtful and religious from his youth up, taking peculiar pleasure in frequenting public worship. At length, seriously considering within himself that speech of our Saviour, My Father which is in heaven will give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him, he was thereby thoroughly awakened in himself, and set forward to desire that promised Comforter; and, continuing in that earnestness, he was at last, to use his own expression, "surrounded with a divine light for seven days, and stood in the highest contemplation and kingdom of joys!" After this, about the year 1600, he was again surrounded by the divine light, and replenished with the heavenly knowledge; insomuch as, going abroad into the fields, and viewing the herbs and grass, by his inward light he saw into their essences, use, and properties, which were discovered to him by their lineaments, figures, and signatures. In the year 1610, he had a third special illumination, wherein still farther mysteries were revealed to him. It was not till the year 1612 that Behmen committed these revelations to writing. His first treatise is entitled Aurora, which was seized on and withheld from him by the senate of Gorlitz (who persecuted him at the instigation of the primate of that place) before it was finished, and he never after-fold Life of Man, according to the Three wards proceeded with it farther than Principles. In this work he treats more by adding some explanatory notes. The largely of the state of man in this world: next production of his pen is called The 1. That he has that immortal spark of Three Principles. In this work he more life which is common to angels and fully illustrates the subjects treated of devils.-2. That divine life of the light in the former, and supplies what is and Spirit of God, which makes the wanting in that work. The contents of essential difference between an angel these two treatises may be divided as and a devil, the last having extinguishfollow: 1. How all things came from aed this divine life in himself; but

The year after he wrote his Three Principles, by which are to be understood the dark world, or hell, in which the devils live-the light world, or heaven, in which the angels live-the external or visible world, which has proceeded from the internal and spiritual worlds, in which man, as to his bodily life, lives; Behmen produced his Three

BENEDICTINES, an order of monks who professed to follow the rules of St. Benedict. They were obli

that man can only attain unto this heavenly life of the second principle through the new birth in Christ Jesus.-3. The life of the third principle, or of this ex-ged to perform their devotions seven ternal and visible world. Thus the life times in twenty-four hours. They were of the first and third principles is com- obliged always to go two and two togemon to all men; but the life of the se- ther. Every day in Lent they fasted till. cond principle only to a true Christian six in the evening, and abated of their or child of God. usual time in sleeping, eating, &c.Every monk had two coats, two cowls, a table-book, a knife, a needle, and a handkerchief; and the furniture of his bed was a mat, a blanket, a rug, and a pillow. The time when this order came into England is well known, for to it the English owe their conversion from idolatry. They founded the metropolitan church of Canterbury, and all the cathedrals that were afterwards erected. The order has produced a vast number of eminent men.-Their Alcuinus formed the university of Paris; their Dionysius Exiguus perfected the ecclesiastical computation; their Guido invented the scale of music; and their Sylvester the organ.

Behmen wrote several other treatises, besides the three already enumerated; but these three being, as it were, the basis of all his other writings, it was thought proper to notice them particularly. His conceptions are often clothed under allegorical symbois; and in his latter works he has frequently adopted chemical and Latin phrases to express his ideas, which phrases he borrowed from conversation with learned men, the education he had received being too illiterate to furnish him with them: but as to the matter contained in his writings, he disclaimed having borrowed it either from men or books. He died in the year 1624. His last words were, "Now I go hence into Paradise."

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BENEDICTION, in a general sense the act of blessing, or giving praise to God, or returning thanks for his favours. The Jews, it is said, are obliged to re

Some of Behmen's principles were adopted by the late ingenious and pious William Law, who has clothed them in a more modern dress, and in a less ob-hearse a hundred benedictions per day, scure style. See Behmen's Works; Okely's Memoirs of Behmen.

BELIEF, in its general and natural sense, denotes a persuasion or an assent of the mind to the truth of any proposition. In this sense belief has no relation to any particular kind of means or arguments, but may be produced by any means whatever: thus we are said to believe our senses, to believe our reason, to believe a witness. Belief, in its more restrained sense, denotes that kind of assent which is grounded only on the authority or testimony of some person. In this sense belief stands opposed to knowledge and science. We do not say that we believe snow is white, but we know it to be so. But when a thing is propounded to us, of which we ourselves have no knowledge, but which appears to us to be true from the testimony given to it by another, this is what we call belief. See FAITH.

BELIEVERS, an appellation given, toward the close of the first century, to those Christians who had been admitted, into the church by baptism, and instructed in all the mysteries of religion. They were thus called in contradistinction to the catechumens who had not been baptized, and were debarred from those privileges. Among us it is often used synonymously with Christian. See CHRISTIAN.

of which eighty are to be spoken in the morning. It was usual to give a benediction to travellers on their taking leave; a practice which is still preser ved among the monks. Benedictions were likewise given among the ancient Jews as well as Christians, by imposition of hands. And when at length the primitive simplicity of the Christian worship began to give way to ceremony, they added the sign of the cross, which was made with the same hand as before, only elevated or extended. Hence benediction in the modern Romish church is used, in a more particular manner, to denote the sign of the cross made by a bishop or prelate as conferring some grace on the people.

Benediction is also used for an ecclesiastical ceremony, whereby a thing is rendered sacred or venerable. In this sense benediction differs from consecration, as in the latter, unction is applied, which is not in the former: thus the chalice is consecrated, and the pix blessed; as the former, not the latter, is anointed, though in the common usage these two words are applied promiscuously. The spirit of picty, or rather of superstition, has introduced into the Romish church benedictious for almost every thing: we read of forms of benedictions for wax candles, for boughs, for ashes, for church vessels, for ornaG

ments, for flags, or ensigns, arms, first || fined by several considerations; such as fruits, houses, ships, paschal eggs, cili- our knowledge of objects, and their difcium, or the hair-cloth of penitents, ferent circumstances, as well as our church-yards, &c. In general, these be- own abilities and opportunities of exernedictions are performed by aspersions cising them. Benevolence or good will of holy water, signs of the cross, and to others does not imply that we are to prayers suitable to the nature of the ce- neglect our own interests. Our salvaremony. The forms of these benedic- tion, health, prosperity, and reputation, tions are found in the Roman pontifical, should all be objects of concern: nor in the Roman missal, in the book of ec- will this clash with the affection we may clesiastical ceremonies, printed in Pope bear to others; on the contrary, expeLeo X.'s time, and in the rituals and riencing the importance of these blessceremonies of the different churches, ings ourselves, we shall be anxious for which are found collected in father others to possess them also. The duties Martene's work on the rites and disci- of benevolence include those we owe to pline of the church. men, purely on the ground of their being of the same species with ourselves; such as sympathy, relief, &c.; those we owe to our country, desiring its honour, safety, prosperity; those we owe to the church of God, as love, zeal, &c.; those we owe to families and individuals, as affection, care, provision, justice, forbearance, &c. Benevolence manifests itself by being pleased with the share of good every creature enjoys; in a disposition to increase it; in feeling an uneasiness at their sufferings; and in the abhorrence of cruelty under every disguise or pretext. The desire of doing good unconnected with any idea of advantage to ourselves is called disinterested benevolence, though some doubt whether, strictly speaking, there be any such thing; as benevolence is always attended with a pleasure to ourselves, which forms a kind of mental interest. So far, however, as we are able to prefer the good of others to our own, and sacrifice our own comfort for the welfare of any about us, so far it may be said to be disinterested. See Hutcheson on the Passions, p. 13—26; Doddridge's Lect. 65; Beattie's Elements of Moral Science, vol. i. p. 244-249; Brown's Second Essay on Shaftesbury's Characteristics; and articles LovE, and SELF-LOVE.

BENEFICENCE, the practice of doing good; active goodness.-Next to justice, the most prominent virtue in the system of morality, is beneficence. Power makes us to be feared, riches to be flattered, learning to be admired; but beneficence renders us amiable and useful in the scale of society. Some qualifications are solitary, and centre mostly in ourselves; but this is social, diffusive, and kind. The objects of our beneficence are all those who are in the sphere of our influence and action, without respect to party or sect. Toward superiors, beneficence expresseth itself in respect, honour, submission, and service; toward inferiors, in liberality, condescension, protection, and support; toward equals, in all the offices of love their cases require, and which they have ability for. It includes all the kind exertions on the behalf of the poor, the sick, the fatherless, the widow, the distressed, &c. and especially those "who are of the household of faith," Gal. vi. 10. The means of beneficence are communication of temporal supplies, Gal. vi. 6; prayer, James v. 16; sympathy, Rom. xii. 15; appropriate advice and conversation, Col. iii. 16.-Obligations to beneficence arise from the law of nature, Acts xvii. 26; the law of revelation, Heb. xiii. 16; the relations we stand in to each other, Gal. vi. 1, 2; the example of Christ and illustrious characters, Acts x. 38; the resemblance we herein bear to the best of Beings, Acts xiv. 17; and the pleasure we receive and give in so noble an employ. See BENEVOLENCE, CHARITY, LOVE.

BEREANS, a sect of protestant dissenters from the church of Scotland, who take their title from and profess to follow the example of the ancient Bereans, in building their system of faith and practice upon the Scriptures alone, without regard to any human authority whatever.

BENEVOLENCE, the love of man- As to the origin of this sect, we find kind in general, accompanied with a de- that the Bereans first assembled as a sire to promote their happiness. It is separate society of Christians, in the distinguished from beneficence, that be- city of Edinburgh, in the autumn of ing the practice, benevolence the desire 1773, and soon after in the Parish of of doing good. Benevolence must be Fettercairn. The opponents of the Beuniversal, reaching to every man with- rean doctrines allege that this new sysout exception; but beneficence cannot tem of faith would never have been be so universal, for it is necessarily con- || heard of, had not Mr. Barclay, the

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