opinions, and declaring in favour of what to us appeared to be the most natural conclusions." A few years after the above work was published, the truly pious Mr. John Brown, of Haddington, in Scotland, published another Dictionary of the Bible, in framing which he evidently availed himself of the aid to be derived from every work of the kind then existing; but the phraseology and sentiments were so much altered, and so much new matter was added, as to make it appear almost like an original production. It was well received by religious persons of most denominations, although not a few of them objected to some of the doctrines which it contained. Mr. Brown espoused the Calvinistic system, which supposes that a very small number of the human race, called the elect, are the only objects of divine mercy; that these are absolutely chosen to eternal salvation, and the rest of mankind as certainly doomed to damnation. This view, many persons, with the editor of this work, cannot reconcile with the most plain and solemn declarations in the word of God; such, for instance, as the following: As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked,' Ezek. xxxiii. 11. Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth,' 1 Tim. iv. 4. 'We see Jesus-that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man,' Heb. ii. 9. • Go preach the gospel to every creature,' Mark xvi. 15. God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him, is not condemned: but he that believeth not, is condemned already. BECAUSE he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God,' John iii. 16-18. They cannot suppose, that the righteous God will condemn any man to eternal death for not believing a palpable falsehood, which must be the case, if Christ did not suffer death to procure salvation for him. It is likewise thought, that in the Dictionary published by Mr. Brown, are numberless conjectures, which are rather fanciful than solid. These appear in almost every part of the work where there is any allusion to Solomon's Song, or the ceremonial law of Moses; and which, however they were improved by the worthy author to the increase of personal godliness, may, it is feared, have greatly lessened the relish of some people of little discernment for rational, scriptural religion. Numerous scotticisms also are found in the above-mentioned publication, which are not easily understood by every English reader, such as airth, pannel, anent, sist, &c. In the present publication, Calvinistic sentiments and phrases are generally avoided, and the whole of what the editor considered as evidently fanciful in Mr. Brown. He has no hope that this work will be without faults; yet he has taken considerable pains that it might have but few. It has been his sincere and steady aim to give what he conceived to be the natural and obvious sense of Scripture, according to the analogy of faith. How far he has succeeded in this, he wishes a candid public to judge. It is humbly committed to the blessings of Him who is the fountain of useful knowledge, the giver of every good and perfect gift. It was undertaken with reluctance, has been executed with diffidence, and is now introduced to the world with ardent prayer that it may be acceptable and useful. N. B. Where this mark † is found in any quotation of Scripture, it denotes a marginal reading; or this.... at the end of any article, it signifies, that there are other persons or things of the same name, but of which nothing important is known. A AND 2, Alpha and Omega, the straw wherewith to make their first and last letters of the Greek bricks. Aaron and Moses were upalphabet; applied to Jesus Christ by braided by their brethren, for asking himself, Rev. i. 8. intimating that their dismission, and so eventually he is the beginning and ending occasioning their aggravated labour of all things, or in other words, and misery, id. v. the power that produces all things, and to whom all things shall be referred. * About two months after, when the Hebrews, newly delivered from Egypt, fought with Amalek in RephiAARON, lofty, mountainous, a dim, Aaron and Hur attended MoLevite, the son of Amram, and bro-ses to the top of an adjacent hill, and ther of Moses and Miriam. When held up his hands, while he contihe was grown up, he married Elishe-nued encouraging the struggling Heba, the daughter of Amminadab, a brews, and praying for their victory, chief prince of the tribe of Judah, id. xvii. 10-13. At Sinai, he with and had by her four sons, Nadab and his two eldest sons, and seventy of Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar, Exod. the elders of Israel, accompanied iv. 20, 23. He was a holy and com- Moses part of his way up to the passionate man, an excellent speaker, mount; and, without receiving any and, by the appointment of God, was hurt, had very near and distinct spokesman for Moses to Pharaoh, and views of the glorious symbols of the the Hebrews; id. iv. 14-16. With divine presence, when the Lord talkhis brother, he intimated God's gra- ed with Moses, id. xxiv. 1, 2, 9—11. cious purpose, of their speedy deli- Almost immediately after, he and his verance, to his distressed kinsmen; posterity were divinely chosen, to exand, in the name of God, demanded ecute the office of priesthood among of Pharaoh an immediate permission the Jews, till the coming and death for them to go into the wilderness of of the promised Messiah, id. xxix. Arabia, to serve the Lord their God. Scarcely was this distinguished hoPharaoh ordered Aaron and Moses nour assigned him when he himself from his presence, and increased the fell into a most grievous crime. The Hebrews' servitude, denying them | Hebrews solicited him to make them *N. B. Those words which immediately follow the name of any person, or place, printed in Italics, signify the meaning of it; as, for instance, AARON, signifies lofty, mountainous. VOL. I. B gods, to be their directors, instead of for them, except in forbearing to eat Moses, who still tarried in the mount. the flesh of the people's sin-offering He ordered them to bring him all that day, id. x. their pendants and earrings, and It was perhaps scarcely a year after, having collected them, he caused when Aaron and Miriam, envying them to be melted down into a golden the authority of Moses, rudely upcalf in imitation of the ox Apis, braided him for his marriage with which the natives, and probably too Zipporah the Midianitess, or, as many of the Hebrews, had adored in some writers think, another woEgypt. This idol he probably or-man, after the death of Zipporah, dered them to place on a pedestal, to who had been a proselyte to the Jewrender it the more conspicuous; ap-ish religion; and also, for overlookpointed a solemn feast to be observed ing them in the constitution of the to its honour, and caused the people seventy elders. Aaron was spared; to proclaim before it," These be thy but Miriam was smitten with an unigods, O Israel, which brought thee versal leprosy. Aaron immediately "out of the land of Egypt." While discerned his guilt, acknowledged he was thus occupied, Moses de- his fault, begged forgiveness for himscended from mount Sinai, and sharp-self and his sister, and that she might ly reproved him for his idolatry. speedily be restored to health, Num. Amidst the deepest confusion, he at-xii. It was not long after, when tempted to excuse himself, by laying KORAH and his company, envying the blame on the wickedness of the the honours of Aaron, thought to have people; and seemingly by the false thrust themselves into the office of pretence, that he had but cast the priests. These rebels being miracuearrings into the fire, and the golden lously destroyed by God, the Hebrews calf had been formed out of them by reviled Moses and Aaron as guilty of mere accident, id. xxxii. murdering them: the Lord, provokAaron repented of this great iniqui-ed with them, sent a destructive ty; and, with his four sons, was, about plague among the people, which two months after, invested with the threatened to consume the whole sacred robes, and consecrated by congregation. Aaron, who had latesolemn washing, unction and sacri- ly, by his prayers, prevented their fices, to his office of priesthood, Lev. being totally ruined with Korah, now viii. He immediately offered a sacri-generously risked his own life for the fice for the congregation of Israel; deliverance of his ungrateful and inand while he and his brother Moses jurious brethren; he ran in between blessed the people, the sacred fire the living and the dead, and by ofdescended from heaven, and con- fering of incense, atoned for their sumed the sacrifice on the brazen al- trespass, and so the plague was staytar, id. ix. His two eldest sons ed. To prove his call from God, through what cause cannot be ascer- and prevent future contention about tained, instead of taking sacred fire the priesthood, God confirmed it to from the brazen altar, took common Aaron, by making his rod, in one fire to burn the incense with on the night, when laid up before the mergolden altar; displeased with their cy-seat, to blossom and bear almonds ; inattention and disobedience, God while the rods for the other Hebrew immediately consumed them, proba-tribes continued in their withered bly with a flash of lightning; and or-condition, Numb. xvi. and xvii. We dered, that henceforth no priest hear no more of Aaron, till at Merishould taste wine when he was go-had he and his brother Moses sinned ing to officiate in holy things. Aaron in not sufficiently expressing their was entirely resigned to this just but confidence in God's providing water awful stroke; nor did he and his sur- for the congregation. To punish this, viving sons make any lamentation and to mark the insufficiency of the Aaronic priesthood for bringing men the reign of Ahaz; on the 23d, a feast to the heavenly inheritance, Aaron in memory of the abolishment of the was debarred from entering Canaan. Sadducean law, which required sons About a year before the Hebrews and daughters to be equal heirs of entered into that country, and while their parents' estate. they encamped at Mosera, he, at ABADDON, in Heb. signifies the commandment of the Lord, went destruction; and APPOLLYON in Greek, up to mount Hor; and his sacred the destroyer: it is the name of the king robes being stripped off him by and head of the LOCUSTS, under the Moses, and put on Eleazar, his son fifth trumpet, Rev. ix. 11. His name and successor, he suddenly expired is marked both in Hebrew and Greek, in the Lord, aged 123 years, A. M. to intimate, say some, that he is a 2552: his own sons and his brother destroyer both of Jews and Gentiles. buried him in a cave, and all the Is-But who he is, is not so universally realites mourned for him thirty days, agreed. Some think him to be the de Numb. xx. Deut. x. 6.-His off-vil, who goes about "seeking whom spring were called AARONITES; and he may devour." Without excluding were so numerous, as to have thir-Satan, who was a murderer from the teen cities assigned them out of the beginning, we suppose the Spirit of tribes of Judah and Benjamin, 1God, by this king of the locusts, this Chron. xii. 27. and vi. 54---60. angel of the bottomless pit, directly de Josh. xxi. 13-19. signs the popes, these sons of perdi Some good authors think the story tion, who, at the head of unnumbered of the Heathen Mercury to have been clergy, and other agents, have ruined formed out of Aaron's. But may the souls, and murdered the bodies, we not, with far more edification, of inconceivable multitude of meng consider him as a personal type of and Mahomet and his inferior agents Jesus Christ? Heb. v. 4, 5. His who, partly with delusion, and partcall to this office of priesthood, was ly with ravage and murder, have de seasonably and divinely solemn: an stroyed infinite numbers. It would unmeasurable unction of the Holy be shocking to recite what thousands Ghost, and perfect purity of nature, and millions were murdered by Heprepared him for the execution of jajus, and Abu Moslem, Saracens his office. He is the leader of peo-Tamerlane the Tartar; Bajazet, and ple from their spiritual bondage; and Mahomed II. Turks; Shah Abbas the he guides them in their wilderness- Persian; and other heads of the Majourney. He is their great Prophet, homedan party. See in ANTICHRIST, who can speak well to their respec- ARABIANS, SCYTHIANS. tive cases and doubts. He is their ABAGTHA, father of the wine» distinguished High Priest, and the press, one of Ahasuerus's seven chamspiritual Father of all the innumera-berlains, Esther i. 10. ble company of men, who are made ABANA, made of stone, or build priests unto God. ing, and PHARPAR, that produces AB, the eleventh month of the fruit; two rivers of Syria, which Jewish civil year, and the fifth of Naaman the leper thought more liketheir sacred. It answered to the ly to cure him of his disease, than all moon that begins in July, and con- the rivers of Israel. Abana is prosisted of thirty days. On the first day, bably the same with Barady or Chrythe Jews observe a fast for the death sorroas, which springing from mount of Aaron; on the 9th, a fast for the Libanus, glides pleasantly towards debarring of the murmuring Hebrews the south; and after running some from the promised land, and for the leagues, is divided into three streams, burning of the first and second tem-the middlemost and largest runs diple; on the 18th, a fast for the ex-rectly through the city of Damascus, tinction of the evening lamp during and the other two run one on each |