Abraham came to mourn and to perform the funeral offices for her. He
addressed the people at the city gate, entreating them to allow him to
bury his wife among them; for, being a stranger, and having no land of
his own, he could claim no right of interment in any sepulchre of that
country. He, therefore, bought of Ephron, one of the inhabitants, the
field of Machpelah, with the cave and sepulchre in it, at the price of
four hundred shekels of silver, about forty-five pounds sterling. And
here Abraham buried Sarah, with due solemnities, according to the custom
of the country, Gen. xxiii. This whole transaction impressively
illustrates the dignity, courtesy, and honour of these ancient chiefs;
and wholly disproves the notion that theirs was a rude and unpolished
age.
10. Abraham, having grown old, sent Eliezer, his steward, into
Mesopotamia, with directions to obtain a young woman of his own family,
as a wife for his son Isaac. Eliezer executed his commission with
fidelity, and brought back Rebecca, daughter of Bethuel, grand-daughter
of Nahor, and, consequently, Abraham’s niece, whom Isaac married.
Abraham afterward married Keturah; by whom he had six sons, Zimran,
Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah; who became heads of different
people, which dwelt in Arabia, and around it. He died, aged a hundred
and seventy-five years, and was buried, with Sarah his wife, in the cave
of Machpelah, which he had purchased of Ephron, Gen. xxiv, xxv, A. M.
2183, before Christ 1821.
II. From the personal history of Abraham we may now proceed to the
consideration of the TYPICAL circumstances which were connected with it.
1. Abraham himself with his family may be regarded as a type of the
church of God in future ages. They indeed constituted God’s ancient
church. Not that many scattered patriarchal and family churches did not
remain: such was that of Melchizedec; and such probably was that of
Nahor, whom Abraham left behind in Mesopotamia. But a visible church
relation was established between Abraham’s family and the Most High,
signified by the visible and distinguishing sacrament of circumcision,
and followed by new and enlarged revelations of truth. Two purposes were
to be answered by this,--_the preservation of the true doctrine of
salvation in the world_, which is the great and solemn duty of every
branch of the church of God,--and _the manifestation of that truth to
others_. Both were done by Abraham. Wherever he sojourned he built his
altars to the true God, and publicly celebrated his worship; and, as we
learn from St. Paul, he lived in tents in preference to settling in the
land of Canaan, though it had been given to him for a possession, in
order that he might thus proclaim his faith in the eternal inheritance
of which Canaan was a type; and in bearing this testimony, his example
was followed by Isaac and Jacob, the “heirs with him of the same
promise,” who also thus “confessed that they were strangers and
pilgrims,” and that “they looked” for a continuing and eternal city in
heaven. So also now is the same doctrine of immortality committed to the
church of Christ; and by deadness to the world ought its members to
declare the reality of their own faith in it.
2. The numerous natural posterity promised to Abraham was also a type of
the spiritual seed, the true members of the church of Christ, springing
from the Messiah, of whom Isaac was the symbol. Thus St. Paul expressly
distinguishes between the fleshly and the spiritual seed of Abraham; to
the latter of which, in their ultimate and highest sense, the promises
of increase as the stars of heaven, and the sands of the sea shore, are
to be referred, as also the promise of the heavenly Canaan.
3. The intentional offering up Isaac, with its result, was probably that
transaction in which Abraham, more clearly than in any other, “saw the
day of Christ, and was glad.” He received Isaac from the dead, says St.
Paul, “in a figure.” This could be a figure of nothing but the
resurrection of our Lord; and, if so, Isaac’s being laid upon the altar
was a figure of his sacrificial death, scenically and most impressively
represented to Abraham. The _place_, the same ridge of hills on which
our Lord was crucified; the _person_, an only son, to die for no offence
of his own; the _sacrificer_, a father; the _receiving back_, as it
were, from death to life; the _name_ impressed upon the place,
importing, “_the Lord will provide_,” in allusion to Abraham’s own words
to Isaac, “the Lord will provide a lamb for a burnt offering;” all
indicate a mystery which lay deep beneath this transaction, and which
Abraham, as the reward of his obedience, was permitted to behold. “The
day” of Christ’s humiliation and exaltation was thus opened to him; and
served to keep the great truth in mind, that the true burnt offering and
sacrifice for sin was to be something higher than the immolation of
lambs and bulls and goats,--nay, something more than what was _merely_
human.
4. The transaction of the expulsion of Hagar was also a type. It was an
allegory in action, by which St. Paul teaches us to understand that the
son of the bondwoman represented those who are under the law; and the
child of the freewoman those who by faith in Christ are supernaturally
begotten into the family of God. The bondwoman and her son being cast
out, represented also the expulsion of the unbelieving Jews from the
church of God, which was to be composed of true believers of all
nations, all of whom, whether Jews or Gentiles, were to become “fellow
heirs.”
III. But Abraham appears before us invested with a MYSTIC character,
which it is of great importance rightly to understand.
1. He is to be regarded as standing in a _federal_ or _covenant_
relation, not only to his natural seed, but specially and eminently to
all believers. “The Gospel,” we are told by St. Paul, “was preached to
Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.” “Abraham
believed in God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness;” in
other words, he was justified. A covenant of gratuitous justification
through faith was made with him and his believing descendants; and the
rite of circumcision, which was not confined to his posterity by Sarah,
but appointed in every branch of his family, was the sign or sacrament
of this covenant of grace, and so remained till it was displaced by the
sacraments appointed by Christ. Wherever that sign was it declared the
doctrine, and offered the grace, of this covenant--free justification by
faith, and its glorious results--to all the tribes that proceeded from
Abraham. This same grace is offered to us by the Gospel, who become
“Abraham’s _seed_,” his spiritual children with whom the covenant is
established, through the same faith, and are thus made “the heirs with
him of the same promise.”
2. Abraham is also exhibited to us as the _representative_ of true
believers; and in this especially, that the true nature of faith was
exhibited in him. This great principle was marked in Abraham with the
following characters:--An entire unhesitating belief in the word of
God;--an unfaltering trust in all his promises;--a steady regard to his
almighty power, leading him to overlook all apparent difficulties and
impossibilities in every case where God had explicitly promised;--and
habitual and cheerful and entire obedience. The Apostle has described
faith in Heb. xi, 1; and that faith is seen living and acting in all its
energy in Abraham.
A few miscellaneous remarks are suggested by some of the circumstances
of Abraham’s history:--
1. The ancient method of ratifying a covenant by sacrifice is
illustrated in the account given in Gen. xv, 9, 10. The beasts were
slain and _divided_ in the midst, and the persons covenanting passed
between the parts. Hence, after Abraham had performed this part of the
ceremony, the symbol of the Almighty’s presence, “a smoking furnace, and
a burning lamp, passed between the pieces,” verse 18, and so both
parties ratified the covenant.
2. As the beauty of Sarah, which she retained so long as quite to
conceal her real age from observers, attracted so much notice as to lead
to her forcible seizure, once by Pharaoh in Egypt, and again by
Abimelech in Palestine, it may appear strange, that, as in the east
women are generally kept in seclusion, and seldom appear without veils,
she exposed herself to observation. But to this day the Arab women do
not wear veils at home in their tents; and Sarah’s countenance might
have been seen in the tent by some of the officers of Pharaoh and
Abimelech, who reported her beauty to their masters.
3. The intentional offering up of Isaac is not to be supposed as viewed
by Abraham as an act sanctioned by the Pagan practice of human
sacrifice. The immolation of human victims, particularly of that which
was most precious, the favourite, the first-born child, appears to have
been a common usage among many early nations, more especially the tribes
by which Abraham was surrounded. It was the distinguishing rite among
the worshippers of Moloch; at a later period of the Jewish history, it
was practised by a king of Moab; and it was undoubtedly derived by the
Carthaginians from their Phenecian ancestors on the shores of Syria.
Where it was an ordinary usage, as in the worship of Moloch, it was in
unison with the character of the religion, and of its deity. It was the
last act of a dark and sanguinary superstition, which rose by regular
gradation to this complete triumph over human nature. The god, who was
propitiated by these offerings, had been satiated with more cheap and
vulgar victims; he had been glutted to the full with human suffering and
with human blood. In general it was the final mark of the subjugation of
the national mind to an inhuman and domineering priesthood. But the
Mosaic religion held human sacrifices in abhorrence; and the God of the
Abrahamitic family, uniformly beneficent, had imposed no duties which
entailed human suffering, had demanded no offerings which were repugnant
to the better feelings of our nature. The command to offer Isaac as “a
burnt offering,” was for these reasons a trial the more severe to
Abraham’s faith. He must therefore have been fully assured of the divine
command; and he left the mystery to be explained by God himself. His was
a simple act of unhesitating obedience to the command of God; the last
proof of perfect reliance on the certain accomplishment of the divine
promises. Isaac, so miraculously bestowed, could be as miraculously
restored; Abraham, such is the comment of the Christian Apostle,
“believed that God could even raise him up from the dead.”
4. The wide and deep impression made by the character of Abraham upon
the ancient world is proved by the reverence which people of almost all
nations and countries have paid to him, and the manner in which the
events of his life have been interwoven in their mythology, and their
religious traditions. Jews, Magians, Sabians, Indians, and Mohammedans
have claimed him as the great patriarch and founder of their several
sects; and his history has been embellished with a variety of fictions.
One of the most pleasing of these is the following, but it proceeds upon
the supposition that he was educated in idolatry: “As Abraham was
walking by night from the grotto where he was born, to the city of
Babylon, he gazed on the stars of heaven, and among them on the
beautiful planet Venus. ‘Behold,’ said he within himself, ‘the God and
Lord of the universe!’ but the star set and disappeared, and Abraham
felt that the Lord of the universe could not thus be liable to change.
Shortly after, he beheld the moon at the full: ‘Lo,’ he cried, ‘the
Divine Creator, the manifest Deity!’ but the moon sank below the
horizon, and Abraham made the same reflection as at the setting of the
evening star. All the rest of the night he passed in profound
rumination; at sunrise he stood before the gates of Babylon, and saw the
whole people prostrate in adoration. ‘Wondrous orb,‘ he exclaimed, ‘thou
surely art the Creator and Ruler of all nature! but thou, too, hastest
like the rest to thy setting!--neither then art thou my Creator, my
Lord, or my God!’”
ABRAHAMITES, reported heretical sects of the eighth and ninth centuries,
charged with the Paulician errors, and some of them with idolatry. For
these charges we have, however, only the word of their persecutors. Also
the name of a sect in Bohemia, as late as 1782, who professed the
religion of Abraham before his circumcision, and admitted no scriptures
but the decalogue and the Lord’s prayer. As these were persecuted, they
too were probably misrepresented, and especially as their conduct is
allowed to have been good, even by their enemies.
ABSALOM, the son of David by Maachah, daughter of the king of Geshur;
distinguished for his fine person, his vices, and his unnatural
rebellion. Of his open revolt, his conduct in Jerusalem, his pursuit of
the king his father, his defeat and death, see 2 Sam. xvi-xviii, at
large.
ABSOLUTION, in the church of Rome, is a sacrament, in which the priests
assume the power of forgiving sins. The rite of absolution in the church
of England is acknowledged to be declarative only--“Almighty God hath
given power and commandment to his ministers to declare and pronounce to
his people, being penitent, the absolution and remission of their sins:
He pardoneth,” &c. In this view it is innocent; and although any private
Christian has a right to declare and pronounce the same doctrine to his
neighbour, the _official_ publication of the grace of the Gospel is the
public duty of its ministers in the congregation, since they are
Christ’s “ambassadors.”
ABSTINENCE, forbearance of any thing It is generally used with reference
to forbearance from food under a religious motive. The Jewish law
ordained that the priests should abstain from the use of wine during the
whole time of their being employed in the service of the temple, Lev. x,
9. The same abstinence was enjoined upon the Nazarites, during the time
of their Nazariteship, or separation, Num. vi, 3. The Jews were
commanded to abstain from several sorts of animals. See ANIMAL.
The fat of all sorts of animals that were sacrificed was forbidden to be
eaten, Lev. iii, 17; vii, 23; and the blood of every animal, in general,
was prohibited under pain of death. Indeed blood was forbidden by the
Creator, from the time of the grant of the flesh of beasts to man for
food; this prohibition was continued under the Jewish economy, and
transmitted to the Christian church by Apostolic authority, Acts xv, 28,
29. (See _Blood_.) The Jews also abstained from the sinew which is upon
the hollow of the thigh, Gen. xxxii, 25; because of the shrinking of the
sinew of Jacob’s thigh when touched by the angel, as though by that the
part had been made sacred.
Among the primitive Christians, some denied themselves the use of such
meats as were prohibited by the law; others treated this abstinence with
contempt. St. Paul has given his decision on these questions in his
epistles, 1 Cor. viii, 7–10; Rom. xiv, 1–3. The council of Jerusalem,
which was held by the Apostles, enjoined the Christian converts to
abstain from meats strangled, from blood, from fornication, and from
idolatry, Acts xv, 20.
The spiritual monarchy of the western world introduced another sort of
abstinence which may be termed _ritual_, and which consists in
abstaining from particular meats at certain times and seasons, the rules
of which are called rogations. The ancient Lent was observed only a few
days before Easter. In the course of the third century, it extended at
Rome to three weeks; and before the middle of the succeeding age, it was
prolonged to six weeks, and began to be called quadragesima, or the
forty days’ fast.
ABYSS, or DEEP, ἄβυσσος, _without bottom_. The chaos; the deepest parts
of the sea; and, in the New Testament, the place of the dead, Rom. x, 7;
a deep place of punishment. The devils besought Jesus that he would not
send them into the abyss, a place they evidently dreaded, Luke viii, 31;
where it seems to mean that part of Hades in which wicked spirits are in
torment. See HELL.
In the opinion of the ancient Hebrews, and of the generality of eastern
people at this day, the abyss, the sea, or waters, encompassed the whole
earth. This was supposed to float upon the abyss, of which it covered a
small part. According to the same notion, the earth was founded on the
waters, or at least its foundations were on the abyss beneath, Psalm
xxiv, 2; cxxxvi, 6. Under these waters, and at the bottom of this abyss,
they represented the wicked as groaning, and suffering the punishment of
their sin. The Rephaim were confined there, those old giants, who,
whilst living, caused surrounding nations to tremble, Prov. ix, 18; xxi,
16, &c. Lastly, in these dark dungeons the kings of Tyre, Babylon, and
Egypt are described by the Prophets as suffering the punishment of their
pride and cruelty, Isaiah xxvi, 14; Ezek. xxviii, 10, &c.
These depths are figuratively represented as the abodes of evil spirits,
and powers opposed to God: “I saw,” says St. John, “a star fall from
heaven unto the earth, and to him was given the key of the bottomless
pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of
it, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were
darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And there came out of the
smoke locusts upon the earth. And they had a king over them, which is
the angel of the bottomless pit,” Rev. ix, 1, 2, 11. In another place,
the beast is represented as ascending out of the bottomless pit, and
waging war against the two witnesses of God, Rev. xi, 7. Lastly, St.
John says, “I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the
bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the
dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan, and bound him a
thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up,
and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more till
the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed
a little season,” Rev. xx, 1–3.
ABYSSINIAN CHURCH, a branch of the Coptic church, in Upper Ethiopia. The
Abyssinians, by the most authentic accounts, were converted to the
Christian faith about the year 330; when Frumentius, being
providentially raised to a high office, under the patronage of the queen
of Ethiopia, and ordained bishop of that country by Athanasius,
patriarch of Alexandria, established Christianity, built churches, and
ordained a regular clergy to officiate in them. The Abyssinian
Christians themselves, indeed, claim a much higher antiquity, having a
tradition, that the doctrine of Christ was first introduced among them
by Queen Candace, Acts viii, 27; or even preached there by the Apostles
Matthew and Bartholomew; but the former is supported by no collateral
evidence, and the latter is in opposition to high authority. Some of
them claim relation to the Israelites, through the queen of Sheba, so
far back as the reign of Solomon.
The Abyssinian Christians have always received their abuna, or
patriarch, from Alexandria, whence they sprang, and consequently their
creed is Monophysite, or Eutychian; maintaining one nature only in the
person of Christ, namely, the divine, in which they considered all the
properties of the humanity to be absorbed; in opposition to the
Nestorians.
On the power of the Saracens prevailing in the east, all communication
being nearly cut off between the eastern and western churches, the
Abyssinian church remained unknown in Europe till nearly the close of
the fifteenth century, when John II, of Portugal, accidentally hearing
of the existence of such a church, sent to make inquiry. This led to a
correspondence between the Abyssinians and the church of Rome; and
Bermudes, a Portuguese, was consecrated by the pope patriarch of
Ethiopia, and the Abyssinians were required to receive the Roman
Catholic faith, in return for some military assistance afforded to the
emperor. Instead of this, however, the emperor sent for a new patriarch
from Alexandria, imprisoned Bermudes, and declared the pope a heretic.
About the middle of the sixteenth century, the Jesuits attempted a
mission to Abyssinia, in the hope of reducing it to the pope’s
authority; but without success. In 1588 a second mission was attempted,
and so far succeeded as to introduce a system of persecution, which cost
many lives, and caused many troubles to the empire. In the following
century, however, the Jesuits were all expelled, Abyssinia returned to
its ancient faith, and nothing more was heard of the church of
Abyssinia, till the latter part of the last century.
After the expulsion of the Jesuits, all Europeans were interdicted; nor
does it appear that any one dared to attempt an entrance until the
celebrated Mr. Bruce, by the report of his medical skill, contrived to
introduce himself to the court, where he even obtained military
promotion; and was in such repute, that it was with great difficulty he
obtained leave to return to England.
Encouraged, perhaps, by this circumstance, the Moravian brethren
attempted a mission to this country, but in vain. They were compelled to
retreat to Grand Cairo, from whence, by leave of the patriarch, they
visited the Copts at Behrusser, and formed a small society; but in 1783,
they were driven thence, and compelled to return to Europe. More
recently, however, the late king of Abyssinia (Itsa Takley Gorges)
addressed a letter to Mr. Salt, the British consul in Egypt, and
requested copies of some parts of both the Old and New Testaments.
Copies of the Psalms, in Ethiopic, as printed by the British and Foreign
Bible Society, were also sent to him.
ACADEMICS, a name given to such philosophers as adopted the doctrines of
Plato. They were so called from the _Academia_, a grove near Athens,
where they frequently indulged their contemplations. Academia is said to
derive its name from one Academus, a god or hero so called. Thus
Horace,--
_Atque inter sylvas Academi quærere verum._
[And in the groves of Academus to search for truth.]
The academics are divided into those of the first academy, who taught
the doctrines of Plato in their original purity; those of the second or
middle academy, who differed materially from the first, and inclined to
skepticism; and those of the new academy. The middle school laid it down
as a principle, that neither our senses, nor our reason, are to be
trusted; but that in common affairs we are to conform to received
opinions. The new academy maintained that we have no means of
distinguishing truth, and that the most evident appearances may lead us
into error; they granted the wise man opinion, but denied him certainty.
They held, however, that it was best to follow the greatest probability,
which was sufficient for all the useful purposes of life, and laid down
rules for the attainment of felicity. The difference betwixt the middle
academy and the new seems to have been this, that though they agreed in
the imbecility of human nature, yet the first denied that probabilities
were of any use in the pursuit of happiness; and the latter held them to
be of service in such a design: the former recommended a conformity with
received opinions, and the latter allowed men an opinion of their own.
In the first academy, Speusippus filled the chair; in the second,
Arcesilaus; and in the new or third academy, Carneades.
ACCAD, one of the four cities built by Nimrod, the founder of the
Assyrian empire. (See _Nimrod_.) “And the beginning of his kingdom was
Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar,” Gen. x,
10. Thus it appears that Accad was contemporary with Babylon, and was
one of the first four great cities of the world.