PREFACE BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR.

THE numerous and extensive editions of Buck's Theological Dictionary published both in England and in this country since its first appearance, together with the continued and increasing demand, sufficiently attest the estimate in which the work is held by the Christian public. The judgment, industry, candour, and impartiality evinced by the Author in the selection and compilation of the articles, embracing, as they do, the wide field of Theology, didactic and polemic, Ecclesiastical Polity, Church History, Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy, and Biblical Literature, together with a copious list of references to the most valuable authorities in each department, are universally acknowledged. So far as the merit of sterling utility can entitle any book to favourable acceptance, the Dictionary of Mr. Buck presents claims which will not be contested. As a theological and ecclesiastical manual, embodying a vast amount of useful information in a moderate compass, and clearly and judiciously arranged, it would not be easy to designate its superior.

Yet while this tribute of deserved commendation is readily bestowed, it must still be admitted, that the work hitherto has not been altogether adapted to the circumstances of our own country, or the wants of the present day. Considered in this view the Theological Dictionary labours under manifold defects, which it would be as easy to specify as it is obvious to perceive. As might have been expected, its local bearings and allusions are to the state of things in England, and not in this country. But a work of this nature is needed, which shall be suited to the state of religious opinion in the Christian community of the United States. Moreover, since the first publication of Mr. Buck's work, great changes have occurred in the religious world; great advances have been made in theological as well as in natural science; a fresh impulse has been given to the investigation of revealed truth; new sects, especially in our own country, have risen up, and with them new controversies, or new forms of old ones; the ever varying field of religious discussion, while it has been contracted in some of its limits, has been widened in others; besides which, nearly every department treated in the Theological Dictionary has been enriched with new treasures from the writings of modern divines, to which the reader will look in vain for any references in the previous editions. While therefore the active spirit of progress and improvement is urging its way in the province of Theological inquiry as well as every other, while modern researches are shedding light upon numberless points of Christian and Jewish antiquities, upon Ecclesiastical institutions, and Biblical criticism, it is doubtless desirable that a Theological Dictionary should be prepared, fitted to meet, in some good degree, the exigences of the present period.

With this view the present edition of Buck has been undertaken. In the prosecution of the plan, the steady aim has been to increase the amount of new and valuable matter, at the same time that the accession should not swell the size, nor enhance the price of the volume. The whole work therefore has undergone a careful revisionSome few articles of trivial moment have been expunged to make way for others of more consequence-Several have been abridged-Several in whole or in part re-written: But the principal feature of the present edition is the addition of a large mass of new matter under the following heads: ABYSS, ACCOMMODATION of Scripture, ANNIHILATION, ANTICHRIST, ANTICHRISTIANISM, Atonement, CHURCH, COMMENTARY, CONGREGATIONALISTS, EPISCOPALIAN, GLASSITES, NEW INDEPENDENTS, NEOLOGY, PRESBYTERIANS, UNITARIANS, besides many others, which will be pointed out to the reader, wherever they occur, by the letter B. being annexed to them. Notices of all or nearly all the existing religious denominations in the United States are given, accompanied with historical sketches and ecclesiastical statistics. In this department of the work the Editor acknowledges his obligations to the very valuable Quarterly Register and Journal of the American Education Society, for Feb. 1830, by means of which, and from other sources, he has been enabled to bring down the records of the various denominations to the commencement of the present year.

In the earnest hope that the attempted improvements of the present edition may be found to be a benefit, and not a bar, to its general reception, it is submitted to the candour of the public.

AMYRALDISM

ANABAPTISTS

cording to him, religion had three epochas, which | Amyrault and others his followers, among the bore a similitude to the reign of the three persons reformed in France, towards the middle of the in the Trinity. The reign of God had existed as seventeenth century. This doctrine principally kong as the law of Moses. The reign of the Son consisted of the following particulars, viz. that would not always last. A time would come God desires the happiness of all men, and none when the sacraments should cease, and then the are excluded by a divine decree; that none can religion of the Holy Ghost would begin, when obtain salvation without faith in Christ; that mea would render a spiritual worship to the Su- God refuses to none the power of believing, preme Being. This reign Amauri thought would though he does not grant to all his assistance succeed to the Christian religion, as the Christian that they may improve this power to saving purhad succeeded to that of Moses. poses; and that they may perish through their AMAZEMENT, a term sometimes employ-own fault. Those who embraced this doctrine

ed to express our wonder; but it is rather to be considered as a medium between wonder and astonishment. It is manifestly borrowed from the extensive and complicated intricacies of a labyrinth, in which there are endless mazes, without the discovery of a clue.. Hence an idea is conveved of more than simple wonder; the mind is lost in wonder. See WONDER.

AMBITION, a desire of excelling, or at least of being thought to excel, our neighbours in any thing. It is generally used in a bad sense for an immoderate or illegal pursuit of power or honour. See PRAISE.

were called Universalists, though it is evident they rendered grace universal in words, but partial in reality. See CAMERONITES.

ANABAPTISTS, those who maintain that baptism ought always to be performed by immersion. The word is compounded of , "anew," and BTITS, "a Baptist;" signifying that those who have been baptized in their infancy ought to be baptized anew. It is a word which has been indiscriminately applied to Christians of very different principles and practices. The English and Dutch Baptists do not consider the word as at all applicable to their sect; because those persons whom they baptize they consider as never having been baptized before, although they have undergone what they term the ceremony of sprinkling in their infancy.

certain ideas which they entertained concerning a perfect church establishment, pure in its members, and free from the institutions of human policy. The most prudent part of them considered it possible, by human industry and vigilance, to purify the church; and seeing the attempts of Luther to be successful, they hoped that the period was arrived in which the church was to be restored to this purity. Others, not satisfied with Luther's plan of reformation, undertook a more perfect plan, or, more properly, a visionary enterprise, to found a new church, entirely spiritual and divine.

AMEDIANS, a congregation of religious in Italy; so called from their professing themselves amantes Deum, "lovers of God;" or rather emati Deo, "beloved of God." They wore a grey habit and wooden shoes, had no breeches, and The Anabaptists of Germany, besides their gurt themselves with a cord. They had twenty-notions concerning baptism, depended much upon eight convents, and were united by pope Pius V. partly with the Cistercian order, and partly with that of the Soccolanti, or wooden shoe wearers. AMEN, a Hebrew word, which, when prefixed to an assertion, signifies assuredly, certainly, or emphatically so it is; but when it concludes a prayer, so be it, or so let it be, is its manifest import. In the former case it is assertive, or assures of a truth or a fact; and is an asseveration and is properly translated, verily, John m. 3. In the latter case it is petitionary, and, as it were, epitomises all the requests with which it stands connected. Numb. v. 25. Rev. xxii. 20. This sect was soon joined by great numbers, This emphatical term was not used among the whose characters and capacities were very difHebrews by detached individuals only, but, on ferent. Their progress was rapid: for, in a very certain occasions, by an assembly at large. Deut. short space of time, their discourses, visions, and xxii. 14. 20. It was adopted, also, in the public predictions, excited great commotions in a great worship of the primitive churches, as appears by part of Europe. The most pernicious faction of that passage, 1 Cor. xiv. 16, and was continued all those which composed this motley multitude, among the Christians in following times; yea, was that which pretended that the founders of this sach was the extreme into which many ran, that new and perfect church were under a divine imJerome informs us, that, in his time, at the con- pulse, and were armed against all opposition by clusion of every public prayer, the united amen the power of working miracles. It was this facof the people sounded like the fall of water, or tion, that, in the year 1521, began their fanatical the noise of thunder. Nor is the practice of some work under the guidance of Munzer, Stubner, professors in our own time to be commended, Storick, &c. These men taught, that, among who, with a low, though audible voice, add their Christians, who had the precepts of the Gospel to emen to almost every sentence as it proceeds direct, and the Spirit of God to guide them, the from the lips of him who is praying. As this office of magistracy was not only unnecessary, but has a tendency to interrupt the devotion of those an unlawful encroachment on their spiritual lithat are near them, and may disconcert the berty; that the distinctions occasioned by birth, thoughts of him who leads the worship, it would rank, or wealth should be abolished; that all be better omitted, and a mental amen is sufficient. Christians, throwing their possessions into one The term, as used at the end of our prayers, sug-stock, should live together in that state of equality gests that we should pray with understanding, faith, fervour and expectation. See Mr. Booth's Amen to Social Prayer.

AMMONIANS. See NEW PLATONICS. AMYRALDISM, a name given by some writers to the doctrine of universal grace, as explained and asserted by Amyraldus, or Moses

which becomes members of the same family; that, as neither the laws of nature, nor the precepts of the New Testament, had prohibited polygamy, they should use the same liberty as the patriarchs did in this respect.

They employed, at first, the various arts of persuasion, in order to propagate their doctrines;

ANAGOGICAL

and related a number of visions and revelations, with which they pretended to have been favoured from above: but, when they found that this would not avail, and that the ministry of Luther and other reformers was detrimental to their cause, they then madly attempted to propagate their sentiments by force of arms. Munzer and his associates, in the year 1525, put themselves at the head of a numerous army, and declared war against all laws, governments, and magistrates of every kind, under the chimerical pretext, that Christ himself was now to take the reins of all government into his hands: but this seditious crowd was routed and dispersed by the elector of Saxony and other princes, and Munzer, their leader, put to death."

ANATHEMA

the mind, not only to the knowledge of divine things, but of divine things in the next life. The word is seldom used, but with regard to the different senses of the Scripture. The anagogical sense is when the sacred text is explained with regard to eternal life, the point which Christians should have in view; for example, the rest of the sabbath, in the anagogical sense, signifies the repose of everlasting happiness.

ANALOGY OF FAITH, is the proportion that the doctrines of the Gospel bear to each other, or the close connection between the truths of revealed religion, Rom. xii. 6. This is considered as a grand rule for understanding the true sense of Scripture. It is evident that the Almighty doth not act without a design in the system of ChrisMany of his followers, however, survived, and tianity, any more than he does in the works of propagated their opinions through Germany, nature. Now this design must be uniform; for Switzerland, and Holland. In 1533, a party of as in the system of the universe every part is prothem settled at Munster, under two leaders of the portioned to the whole, and made subservient to names of Matthias and Bockholdt. Having it, so in the system of the Gospel all the various made themselves masters of the city, they deposed truths, doctrines, declarations, precepts, and prothe magistrates, confiscated the estates of such as mises, must correspond with and tend to the end had escaped, and deposited the wealth in a public designed. For instance, supposing the glory of treasury for common use. They made prepara-God in the salvation of man by free grace be the tions for the defence of the city; invited the grand design; then, whatever doctrine, assertion, Anabaptists in the Low Countries to assemble at or hypothesis, agree not with this, is to he conMunster, which they called Mount Sion, that sidered as false.-Great care, however, must be from thence they might reduce all the nations of taken, in making use of this method, that the inthe carth under their dominion. Matthias was quirer previously understand the whole scheme, soon cut off by the bishop of Munster's army, and and that he harbour not a predilection only for was succeeded by Bocklioldt, who was proclaimed part;, without attention to this, we shall be liable by a special designation of heaven, as the pretended to error. If we come to the Scriptures with any king of Sion, and invested with legislative powers preconceived opinions, and are more desirous to like those of Moses. The city of Munster, how-put that sense upon the text which quadrates ever, was taken, after a long siege, and Bockholdt punished with death.

with our sentiments, rather than the truth, it becomes then the analogy of our faith, rather than It must be acknowledged that the true rise of that of the whole system. This was the source the insurrections of this period ought not to be of the error of the Jews, in our Saviour's time. attributed to religious opinions. The first insur-They searched the Scriptures; but, such were gents groaned under severe oppressions, and took their favourite opinions, that they could not, or up arms in defence of their civil liberties; and of would not, discover that the sacred volume testithese commotions the Anabaptists seem rather to fied of Christ. And the reason was evident; for have availed themselves, than to have been the their great rule of interpretation was, what they prime movers. That a great part were Anabap-might call the analogy of faith, i. e. the system tists seems indisputable; at the same time, it ap- of the Pharisean scribes, the doctrine thenin vogue, pears from history, that a great part also were and in the profound veneration of which they Roman Catholics, and a still greater part of those had been educated. Perhaps there is hardly any who had scarcely any religious principles at all. sect but what has more or less been guilty in this Indeed, when we read of the vast numbers that respect. It may, however, be of use to the serious were concerned in these insurrections, of whom it and candid inquirer; for, as some texts may seem is reported that 100,000 fell by the sword, it ap-to contradict each other, and difficulties present pears reasonable to conclude that they were not themselves, by keeping the analogy of faith in all Anabaptists. view, he will the more easily resolve those difficulIt is but justice to observe also, that the Bap-ties, and collect the true sense of the sacred oratists in England and Holland are to be considered in a different light from those above mentioned: they profess an equal aversion to all principles of rebellion on the one hand, and to enthusiasm on the other. See Robertson's Hist. of Charles V.; Enc. Brit. vol. i. p. 614; and articles BAPTISTS and MENNONITES.

cles. What "the aphorisms of Hippocrates are to a physician, the axioms in geometry to a mathematician, the adjudged cases in law to a counsellor, or the maxins of war to a general, such is the analogy of faith to a Christian." Of the analogy of religion to the constitution and course of nature, we must refer our readers to Bishop Butler's excellent treatise on that subject.

ANACHORETS, or ANCHORITES, a sort of monks in the primitive church, who retired from ANATHEMA, imports whatever is set apart, the society of mankind into some desert, with a separated, or divided; but is most usually meant view to avoid the temptations of the world, and to to express the cutting off of a person from the be more at leisure for prayer, meditation, &c.communion of the faithful. It was practised in Such were Paul, Anthony, and Hilarion, the the primitive church against notorious oflenders. first founders of monastic life in Egypt and Pa-Several councils also have pronounced anathelestine. mas against such as they thought corrupted the ANAGOGICAL, signifies mysterious, trans-purity of the faith. Anathema Maranatha, menporting: and is used to express whatever elevatestioned by Paul, (1 Cor. xiv. 22,) imports that he

who loves not the Lord Jesus will be accursed at [tion, and we dare not indulge a spirit of conjechis coming. Anathema signifies a thing devoted ture. It is our happiness to know that they to destruction, and Maranatha is a Syriac word, are all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister signifying the Lord comes. It is probable in this to them who are heirs of salvation. passage there is an allusion to the form of the Jews, who, when unable to inflict so great a punishment as the crime deserved, devoted the culprit to the immediate vindictive retribution of divine vengeance, both in this life and in a future

state.

ANDRONA, a term used for that part in churches which was destined for the men. Anciently, it was the custom for the men and women to have separate apartments in places of worship, where they performed their devotions asunder, which method is still religiously observed in the Greek church.

particular saint has a guardian angel, when we are sure he has a guard of angels about him?" They will gather the elect in the last day, attend the final judgment, Matt. xxv. 31. Rev. xiv. 18. Matt. xiii. 39; and live for ever in the world of glory, Luke xx. 36.

As to the nature of these beings, we are told that they are spirits; but whether pure spirits, divested of all matter, or united to some thin bodies, or corporeal vehicles, has been a controversy of long standing; the more general opinion is, that they are substances entirely spiritual, though they can at any time assume bodies, and appear in human shape, Gen. xviii. xix. and xxxii. Matt. xxviii. Luke i. &c. The Scriptures represent them as endued with extraordinary wisdom and power, 2 Sam. xiv. 20. Ps. ciii. 20; holy and regular in their inclinations; zealous in their employ, and completely happy in their minds, Job xxxviii. 7. Heb. i. 7. Matt. ANGEL, a spiritual intelligent substance, the xviii. 10. Their number seems to be great, Ps. first in rank and dignity among created beings. lxviii. 17. Heb. xii. 22; and perhaps have disThe word angel (ayy) is Greek, and signifies tinct orders, Col. i. 16, 17. 1 Pet. iii. 22. 1 Thes. a messenger. The Hebrew word signi- iv. 16. Dan. x. 13. They are delighted with the fies the same. Angels, therefore, in the proper grand scheme of redemption, and the conversion signification of the word, do not import the na- of sinners to God, Luke ii. 12. 1 Pet. i. 12. Luke ture of any being, but only the office to which xv. 10. They not only worship God, and exethey are appointed, especially by way of message cute his commands at large, but are attendant on or intercourse between God and his creatures. the saints of God while here below, Ps. xci. 11, Hence the word is used differently in various 12. Heb. i. 13. Luke xvi. 22. Some conjecture parts of the Scripture, and signifies, 1. Human that every good man has his particular guardian messengers, or agents for others. 2 Sam. ii. 5. angel, Matt. xviii. 10. Acts xii. 15; but this is "Daval sent messengers (Heb. angels) to Jabesh easier to be supposed than to be proved; nor is Gilead." Prov. xiii. 17. Mark I. 2. James ii. it a matter of consequence to know. "What 25.-2. Officers of the churches, whether pro-need we dispute," says Henry, "whether every phets or ordinary ministers, Hag. i. 13. Rev. i. 20-3. Jesus Christ, Mal. iii. I. Is. Ixiii. 9.4. Some add the dispensations of God's providence, either beneficial or calamitous, Gen. xxiv. 7. Ps. xxxiv. 7. Acts xii. 23. 1 Sam. xiv. 14; but I must confess, that, though I do not at all see the impropriety of considering the providences of Although the angels were originally created God as his angels or messengers for good or for perfect, yet they were mutable: some of them evil, yet the passages generally adduced under sinned, and kept not their first estate; and so, this head do not prove to me that the providences of the most blessed and glorious, became the most of God are meant in distinction from created an-vile and miserable of all God's creatures. They gels-5. Created intelligences, both good and were expelled the regions of light, and with heabad. Heb. i. 14. Jude vi.; the subject of the pre-ven lost their heavenly disposition, and fell into sent article.-As to the time when the angels a settled rancour against God, and malice against were created, much has been said by the learned.men. What their offence was is difficult to deSome wonder that Moses, in his account of the termine, the Scripture being silent about it. Some creation, should pass over this in silence. Others think envy, others unbelief; but most suppose it suppose that he did this because of the proneness was pride. As to the time of their fall, we are of the Gentile world, and even the Jews, to idola- certain it could not be before the sixth day of the try: but a better reason has been assigned by creation, because on that day it is said, "God saw others, viz. that this first history was purposely every thing that he had made, and behold it was and principally written for information concerning very good," but that it was not long after, is very the visible world; the invisible, of which we probable, as it must have preceded the fall of our know but in part, being reserved for a better life. first parents. The number of the fallen angels Some think that the idea of God's not creating seems to be great, and, like the holy angels, perthem before this world was made, is very con-haps, have various orders among them, Matt. tracted. To suppose, say they, that no creatures xii. 24. Eph. ii. 2. vi. 12. Col. ii. 15. Rev. xii. whatever, neither angels nor other worlds, had 7. Their constant employ is not only doing evil been created previous to the creation of our themselves, but endeavouring by all arts to seduce world, is to suppose that a Being of infinite and pervert mankind, 1 Pet. v. 8. Job. i. 6. It power, wisdom, and goodness, had remained is supposed they will be restrained during the totally inactive from all eternity, and had per-millennium, Rev. xx. 2; but afterwards again, for mutted the infinity of space to continue a perfect a short time, deceive the nations, Rev. xx. 8; and vacuum till within these 6000 years; that such then be finally punished, Matt. xxv. 41. The an idea only tends to discredit revelation, instead authors who have written on this subject have of serving it. On the other hand it is alleged, been very numerous; we shall only refer to a that they must have been created within the six few: Reynolds's Inquiry into the State and Ecodays; because it is said, that within this space nomy of the Angelical World; Cudworth's InGod made heaven and earth, and all things that tellectual System; Doddridge's Lect. p. 10. lect. are therein. It is, however, a needless specula- 210 to 214; Milton's Paradise Lost ; Bp. New

ANGER

ANNIHILATION

ANGER of GOD. See WRATH. ANGLO-CALVINISTS, a name given by some writers to the members of the church of England, as agreeing with the other Calvinists in most points, excepting church government.

ANNATES, an ecclesiastical term, signifying a year's income of a spiritual living. These were, in ancient times, given to the Pope throughout all Christendom, upon the decease of any bishop, abbot, or parish clerk, and were paid by his successor. At the Reformation they were taken from the Pope and vested in the king; and finally queen Anne restored them to the church, by ap propriating them to the augmentation of poor livings-B.

ton's Works, vol. iii. p. 538. 568; Shepherd of An- | always cost us. But the reflection calculated, gels; Gilpin on Temptation; Casmanni Angelo- above all others, to allay that haughtiness of temgraphia; Gill and Ridgeley's Bodies of Divinity. per which is ever finding out provocations, and ANGELITES, a sect in the reign of the Em-which renders anger so impetuous, is, that which peror Anastasius, about the year 494; so called the Gospel proposes; namely, that we ourselves from Angelium, a place in the city of Alexandria, are, or shortly shall be, supplicants for mercy and where they held their first meetings. They were pardon at the judgment-seat of God. Imagine called likewise Severites, from Severus, who was our secret sins all disclosed and brought to light; the head of their sect; as also Theodosians, from imagine us thus humbled and exposed; trembling one Theodosius, whom they made Pope at Alex-under the hand of God; casting ourselves on his andria. They held that the persons of the Tri- compassion: crying out for mercy; imagine such nity are not the same; that none of them exists a creature to talk of satisfaction and revenge; reof himself, and of his own nature; but that there fusing to be entreated, disdaining to forgive, exis a common God or Deity existing in them all, and treme to mark and to resent what is done amiss; that each is God by a participation of this Deity. imagine, I say, this, and you can hardly feign to ANGER, a violent passion of the mind, arising yourself an instance of more impious and unnatuupon the receipt, or supposed receipt, of any in-ral arrogance." Paley's Moral Phil. ch. 7. jury, with a present purpose of revenge. All vol. i.; Fawcett's excellent Treatise on Anger; anger is by no means sinful; it was designed by Seed's Posth. Serm. ser. 11. the Author of our nature for self-defence: nor is it altogether a selfish passion, since it is excited by injuries offered to others as well as ourselves, and sometimes prompts us to reclaim offenders from sin and danger, Eph. iv. 26, but it becomes sinful when conceived upon trivial occasions or inadequate provocations; when it breaks forth into outrageous actions; vents itself in reviling language, or is concealed in our thoughts to the degree of hatred. To suppress this passion, the following reflections of Archdeacon Paley may not be unsuitable:-"We should consider the possibility of mistaking the motives from which the conduct that offends us proceeded; how often our offences have been the effect of inadvertency, when they were construed into indications of ma- ANNIHILATION, the act of reducing any lice; the inducement which prompted our adver- created substance, whether spirit or matter, into sary to act as he did, and how powerfully the same nothing. On this, as well as every other subject, inducement has, at one time or other, operated on which revelation is not express, endless diverupon ourselves; that he is suffering, perhaps, sities of opinion have prevailed in the world. Dr. under a contrition, which he is ashamed, or wants Thomas Bennett, in his Archæologia, underopportunity, to confess; and how ungenerous it takes to show that the first notions of the prois to triumph, by coldness or insult, over a spirit duction of a thing from, or the reduction of it to, already humbled in secret; that the returns of nothing, arose from the Christian theology; the kindness are sweet, and that there is neither words creation and annihilation, in the sense honour, nor virtue, nor use, in resisting them; for now given to them, having been equally unknown some persons think themselves bound to cherish to the Hebrews, the Greeks, and the Latins. The and keep alive their indignation, when they find ancient philosophers, he says, denying all annihiit dying away of itself. We may remember that lation as well as creation, resolved all changes in others have their passions, their prejudices, their the world into new modifications, without supfavourite aims, their fears, their cautions, their posing the production of any thing new, or the interests, their sudden impulses, their varieties of destruction of the old. In respect to annihilation, apprehension, as well as we: we may recollect Christianity adds nothing to the light of reason what has sometimes passed in our own minds and philosophy. That the power which created when we have got on the wrong side of a quarrel, is able to destroy, cannot be doubted; but whether, and imagine the same to be passing in our adver- as a matter of fact, omnipotence will ever reduce the sary's mind now: when we became sensible of smallest particle of matter to a state of nonentity, our misbehaviour, what palliations we perceived we are not informed; and throughout the whole in it, and expected others to perceive; how we extent of nature we meet with no changes or opewere affected by the kindness, and felt the supe-rations calculated to solve the question. The riority of a generous reception, and ready forgiveness; how persecution revived our spirits with our enmity, and seemed to justify the conduct in ourselves, which we before blamed. Add to this the indecency of extravagant anger; how it ren- As to the idea that existence is a state of vioders us whilst it lasts the scorn and sport of all lence; that all things are continually endeavourabout us, of which it leaves us, when it ceases, ing to return to their primitive nothing; that no sensible and ashamed; the inconveniences, and positive power is required to effect it, but that the irretrievable misconduct into which our irascibi- inere withdrawal of the Creator's upholding enerlity has sometimes betrayed us; the friendships it gy is sufficient, we conceive that these are subhas lost us; the distresses and embarrassments injects beyond the grasp of human intellect, and which we have been involved by it; and the re-that speculations upon them are entirely profitpentance which, on one account or other, it less.-B.

eternal existence of human and angelic spirits at least appears to be secured by the plain declarations of holy writ, though some have asserted the contrary. See DESTRUCTIONISTS.