growing consciousness, on the part of modern predestinarians, that the
common notions and common language of mankind on these deep subjects are
not far from the truth. And though some too fastidious Arminians may
complain, that, in this desire to enlist the views and words of common
sense on the side of Calvinism, many of those by whom they are employed
attach to them a meaning very different from that which ordinary usage
warrants; yet even this tendency to approximate to right views should be
regarded as favourable to the progress of truth, and the evidently
improved feeling which has suggested such approximation ought to be met
in a conciliating spirit. But this is a fault which must always be an
appendage to such a system, however it may be modified; and does not
exclusively apply to its modern supporters. The following remarks by
Archbishop Laurence on the ambiguity of language not unfrequently
discernible in the writings of Calvin himself, are worthy of
consideration:--“In whatsoever sense he wished these words to be
understood, it must be admitted that he sometimes adapted the style of
others, who had a very different object in view, to his own peculiar
opinions. And hence, from the want of a due discrimination, the
sentiments of his contemporaries, opposite in their natural tendency,
are often improperly forced into the vortex of Calvinism. Systematizing
was his darling propensity, and the ambition of being distinguished as a
leader in reform his predominant passion: in the arrangements of the
former, he never felt a doubt, or found a difficulty; and in the
pursuits of the latter he displayed an equal degree of perseverance and
ardour. Thus, in the doctrine of the eucharist, it is well known that he
laboured to acquire celebrity, and conciliate followers, by maintaining
a kind of middle sacramental presence between the corporeal of the
Lutherans, and the mere spiritual of the Zuinglians; expressing himself
in language which, partly derived from one, and partly from the other,
verged toward neither extreme; but which, by his singular talent at
perspicuous combination, he applied, and not without success, to his own
particular purpose. Nor was he less solicitous to press into his service
a foreign phraseology upon the subject more immediately before me; a
subject on his theory of which he not a little prided himself, and
seemed contented to stake his reputation. He perceived that the
Lutherans, strongly reprobating every discussion upon the decrees of a
Deity unrevealed to us, founded predestination solely on a Scriptural
basis; contending for a divine will which is seriously, not
fictitiously, disposed to save all men, and predetermined to save all
who become and continue sincere Christians. Zuingle, indeed, had
reasoned from a different principle; and, although persuaded that God’s
mercies in Christ were liberally bestowed on all without distinction, on
infants who commit not actual crime, and on the Heathen as well as the
Christian world, he nevertheless was a necessitarian in the strictest
sense of the expression; referring events of every kind to an
uncontrollable and absolute predetermination. Zuingle, however, died in
1531, before the youth of Calvin permitted him to assume the character
of a reformer; who found Bullinger then at the head of the Zuinglian
church, not only applauding, but adopting, the moderation of
the Lutherans; and, to use the phrase of Turretin, plainly
_Melancthonizing_. But the doctrine alluded to, it may be imagined, was
of a species too limited and unphilosophical for one of his enterprising
turn of mind, who never met with an obstacle which he attempted not
instantly to surmount. Disregarding, therefore, the sober restrictions
of the times, he gave loose to the most unbounded speculation: yet,
anxious by all means to win over all to his opinion, he studiously
laboured to preserve, on some popular points, a verbal conformity with
the Lutherans. With them, in words, he taught the universality of God’s
good will; but it was a universality which he extended only to the
_offer_ of salvation; conceiving the reprobate to be precluded from the
reception of that offer by the secret decree of an immutable Deity. The
striking feature of _their_ system was an election in Christ, by which
they meant an election as Christians. This also, in words, he
inculcated: his idea, however, of an election in Christ was totally
different from theirs; for he held it to be the previous election of
certain favourites by an irrespective will of God, whom, and whom alone,
Christ was subsequently appointed to save. But his ingenuity was such,
in adapting the terms borrowed from another source to his own theory,
that some erroneously conceive them to have been thus originally used by
the Lutherans themselves. Hence, therefore, much confusion has arisen in
the attempt of properly discriminating between the various sentiments of
Protestants upon this question, at the period under consideration: all
have been regarded as formed upon the model which Calvin exhibited; at
least by writers who have contemplated him as the greatest reformer of
his age, but who have forgotten that, although they chose to esteem him
the greatest, they could not represent him as the first in point of
time; and that his title to preëminence, in the common estimation of his
contemporaries, was then far from being acknowledged.”
15. On one topic, however, Calvin and the older divines of that school
were very explicit. They tell us plainly, that they found all the
Christian fathers, both of the Greek and the Latin church down to the
age of St. Augustine, quite unmanageable for their purpose; and
therefore occasionally bestow upon them and their productions epithets
not the most courteous. Yet some modern writers, not possessing half the
splendid qualifications of those veterans in learning, make a gorgeous
display of the little that they know concerning antiquity; and wish to
lead their readers to suppose, that the whole stream of early
Christianity has flowed down only in their channel. Every one must have
remarked how much like Calvin all those fathers speak whose works are
quoted by Toplady in his “Historic Defence.” Nor can the two Milners, in
their “History of the Church,” entirely escape censure on this
account,--though both were excellent men, and better scholars than
Toplady. But from the manner in which they “show up” only those ancient
Christian authors, some of whose sentiments _seem_ to be nearly in
unison with their own, they induce the unlearned or half informed to
draw the erroneous conclusion,--that the peculiarities of Calvinism are
not the inventions of a comparatively recent æra, and that they have
always formed a prominent part of the profession of faith of every
Christian community since the days of the Apostles.
All men must admire the candid and liberal spirit which breathes in the
subjoined high but just eulogium on Calvin, from the pen of the same
amiable Archbishop: “Calvin himself was both a wise and a good man;
inferior to none of his contemporaries in general ability, and superior
to almost all in the art, as well as elegance, of composition, in the
perspicuity and arrangement of his ideas, the structure of his periods,
and the Latinity of his diction. Although attached to a theory, which he
found it difficult in the extreme to free from the suspicion of
blasphemy against God, as the author of sin, he certainly was no
blasphemer; but, on the contrary, adopted that very theory from an
anxiety not to commit, but, as he conceived, to avoid blasphemy,--that
of ascribing to human, what he deemed alone imputable to divine,
agency.”
CAMBYSES, the son of Cyrus, king of Persia. He succeeded his father, A.
M. 3475, and is the Ahasuerus mentioned in Ezra iv, 6, to whom, as soon
as he came to the crown, the Samaritans applied by petition, desiring
that the rebuilding of Jerusalem might be stopped. What the motives were
which they made use of to prevail upon this prince, we are ignorant; but
it is certain, that though he was not persuaded to revoke his father’s
decree, yet he put a stop to the works, so that for the remaining seven
years and five months which he reigned, the building of the city and
temple was suspended. See AHASUERUS.
CAMEL, גמל. This animal is called in ancient Arabic, _gimel_; and in
modern, _diammel_; in Greek, κάμηλος. With very little variation, the
name is retained in modern languages. The camel is very common in
Arabia, Judea, and the neighbouring countries; and is often mentioned in
Scripture, and reckoned among the most valuable property, 1 Chron. v,
21; Job i, 3, &c. “No creature,” says Volney, “seems so peculiarly
fitted to the climate in which he exists as the camel. Designing this
animal to dwell in a country where he can find little nourishment,
nature has been sparing of her materials in the whole of his formation.
She has not bestowed upon him the fleshiness of the ox, horse, or
elephant; but limiting herself to what is strictly necessary, has given
him a long head, without ears, at the end of a long neck without flesh;
has taken from his legs and thighs every muscle not immediately
requisite for motion; and, in short, bestowed upon his withered body
only the vessels and tendons necessary to connect its frame together.
She has furnished him with a strong jaw, that he may grind the hardest
aliments; but, lest he should consume too much, has straitened his
stomach, and obliged him to chew the cud; has lined his foot with a lump
of flesh, which sliding in the mud, and being no way adapted to
climbing, fits him only for a dry, level, and sandy soil, like that of
Arabia. So great, in short, is the importance of the camel to the
desert, that, were it deprived of that useful animal, it must infallibly
lose every inhabitant.” The chief use of the camel has always been as a
beast of burden, and for performing journeys across the deserts. They
have sometimes been used in war, to carry the baggage of an oriented
army, and mingle in the tumult of the battle. Many of the Amalekite
warriors, who burnt Ziklag in the time of David, were mounted on camels;
for the sacred historian remarks, that of the whole army not a man
escaped the furious onset of that heroic and exasperated leader, “save
four hundred young men, which rode upon camels, and fled,” 1 Sam. xxx,
17.
The passage of Scripture in which our Lord says, “It is easier for a
camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter
into the kingdom of heaven,” Matt. xix, 24, has been the occasion of
much criticism. Some assert that near Jerusalem was a low gate called
“the needle’s eye,” through which a camel could not pass unless his load
was taken off. Others conjecture that κάμιλος should be read κάβιλος, _a
cable_. But there are no ancient manuscripts to support the reading. In
the Jewish Talmud, there is, however, a similar proverb respecting an
elephant: “Rabbi Shesheth answered Rabbi Amram, who had advanced an
absurdity, ‘Perhaps thou art one of the Pambidithians, who can make an
elephant pass through the eye of a needle;’” that is, says the Aruch,
“who speak things impossible.” There is also a saying of the same kind
in the Koran: “The impious, who in his arrogancy shall accuse our
doctrine of falsity, shall find the gates of heaven shut; nor shall he
enter there, till a camel shall pass through the eye of a needle. It is
thus that we shall recompense the wicked,” Surat. vii, 37. Indeed,
Grotius, Lightfoot, Wetstein, and Michaëlis join in opinion, that the
comparison is so much in the figurative style of the oriental nations
and of the rabbins, that the text is sufficiently authentic.
CAMEL’s HAIR, mentioned Matt. iii, 4; Mark i, 6. John the Baptist, we
are told, was habited in a raiment of camel’s hair; and Chardin assures
us, that the modern dervises wear such garments; as they do also great
leathern girdles. Camel’s hair is also made into those beautiful stuffs,
called shawls; but certainly the coarser manufacture of this material
was adopted by John, and we may receive a good idea of its texture, from
what Braithwaite says of the Arabian tents: “They are made of camel’s
hair, somewhat like our coarse hair cloths to lay over goods.” By this
coarse vesture the Baptist was not merely distinguished, but contrasted
with those in royal palaces, who wore “soft raiment,” such as shawls or
other superfine manufactures, whether of the same material or not.
CAMERONIANS, a sect in Scotland, who separated from the Presbyterians in
1666, and continued to hold their religious assemblies in the fields.
The Cameronians took their denomination from Richard Cameron, a famous
field preacher, who, refusing to accept the indulgence to tender
consciences granted by King Charles II, as such an acceptance seemed an
acknowledgment of the king’s supremacy, and that he had before a right
to silence them, separated from his brethren, and even headed a
rebellion in which he was killed. His followers were never entirely
reduced till the Revolution, when they voluntarily submitted to King
William. The Cameronians adhered rigidly to the form of government
established in 1648.
CAMERONISTS, or CAMERONITES, is the denomination of a party of
Calvinists in France, who asserted, that the cause of men’s doing good
or evil proceeds from the knowledge which God infuses into them; and
that God does not move the will physically, but only morally, in virtue
of its dependence on the judgment of the mind. They had this name from
John Cameron, one of the most famous divines among the Protestants of
France, in the seventeenth century, who was born at Glasgow, in
Scotland, about the year 1580, and taught Greek there till he removed to
Bourdeaux in 1600. Here he acquired such celebrity by the fluency with
which he spoke Greek, that he was appointed to teach the learned
languages at Bergerac. He afterward became professor of philosophy at
Sedan; but returning to Bourdeaux in 1604, he devoted himself to the
study of divinity. Upon being appointed tutor to the sons of the
chancellor of Navarre, he accompanied them to Paris, Geneva, and
Heidelberg. After having discharged the office of a minister at
Bourdeaux, which he assumed in 1608, for ten years, he accepted the
professorship of divinity at Saumur. Upon the dispersion of that academy
by the public commotions in 1621, he removed to England, and taught
divinity at his own house in London. King James inclined to favour him
on account of his supposed attachment to the hierarchy, made him master
of the college, and professor of divinity, at Glasgow; but after holding
this office, which he found to be unpleasant to him, for a year, he
returned to Saumur, where he read private lectures. From thence he
removed, in 1624, to Montauban; where the disturbances excited by the
emissaries of the duke de Rohan led him to remonstrate against the
principles which produced them, with more zeal than prudence. This
occasioned his being insulted by a private person in the streets, and
severely beaten: and this treatment so much affected him, that he soon
after died, in 1625, at the early age of forty-six years. Bayle
represents him as “a man of great parts and judgment, of an excellent
memory, very learned, a good philosopher, good humoured, liberal not
only of his knowledge but his purse, a great talker, a long-winded
preacher, little versed in the fathers, inflexible in his opinions, and
inclined to turbulence.” He was one of those who attempted to reconcile
the doctrine of predestination, as it had been taught at Geneva, and
confirmed at Dort, with the sentiments of those who believe that God
offers salvation to all mankind. His opinion was maintained and
propagated by Moses Amyraut, and several others of the most learned
among the reformed ministers, who thought Calvin’s doctrine too harsh.
They were called _Hypothetical Universalists_. Cameron likewise
maintained the possibility of salvation in the church of Rome. See
AMYRAUT and BAXTERIANISM.
CAMP, or ENCAMPMENT, of the Israelites. The whole body of the people,
consisting of six hundred thousand fighting men, beside women and
children, was disposed under four battalions, so placed as to enclose
the tabernacle, in the form of a square, and each under one general
standard. (See _Armies_.) There were forty-one encampments, from their
first in the month of March, at Rameses, in the land of Goshen, in
Egypt, and in the wilderness, until they reached the land of Canaan.
They are thus enumerated in Numbers xxxiii:--
1. Rameses
2. Succoth
3. Etham, on the edge of the wilderness
4. Pihahiroth
5. Marah
6. Elim
7. By the Red Sea
8. Wilderness of Sin
9. Dophkah
10. Alush
11. Rephidim
12. Wilderness of Sinai
13. Kibroth-hattaavah
14. Hazeroth
15. Rithmah
16. Rimmon-parez
17. Libnah
18. Rissah
19. Kehelatha
20. Shapher
21. Haradah
22. Makheloth
23. Tahath
24. Tarah
25. Mithcah
26. Hashmonah
27. Moseroth
28. Bene-jaakan
29. Hor-hagidgad
30. Jotbathah
31. Ebronah
32. Ebion-gaber
33. Kadesh
34. Mount Hor
35. Zalmonah
36. Punon
37. Oboth
38. Ije-abarim
39. Dibon-gad
40. Almon-diblathaim
41. Mountains of Abarim
In the second year after their exodus from Egypt they were numbered; and
upon an exact poll, the number of their males amounted to six hundred
and three thousand, five hundred and fifty, from twenty years old and
upward, Num. i, ii. This vast mass of people, encamped in beautiful
order, must have presented a most impressive spectacle. That it failed
not to produce effect upon the richly endowed and poetic mind of Balaam,
appears from Num. xxiv, 2; “And Balaam lifted up his eyes and he saw
Israel abiding in his tents according to their tribes; and the Spirit of
God came upon him, and he took up his parable and said, How goodly are
thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel! As the valleys are
they spread forth, as gardens by the river side, as the trees of lign
aloes which the Lord hath planted, and as cedar trees beside waters.”
Grandeur, order, beauty, and freshness, were the ideas at once suggested
to the mind of this unfaithful prophet, and called forth his unwilling
admiration. Perhaps we may consider this spectacle as a type of the
order, beauty, and glory of the true “church in the wilderness,” in
those happy days when God “shall not behold iniquity in Jacob, nor
perverseness in Israel;” when it shall be said, “The Lord his God is
with him, and the shout of a king is among them.”
CAMPHIRE. כפר. Greek, κύπρος. Latin _cyprus_. Canticles i, 14; iv, 13.
Sir T. Browne supposes that the plant mentioned in the Canticles,
rendered κύπρος in the Septuagint, and _cyprus_ in the Vulgate, is that
described by Dioscorides and Pliny, which grows in Egypt, and near to
Ascalon, producing an odorate bush of flowers, and yielding the
celebrated _oleum cyprinum_. [A sweet oil made of the flowers of the
privet tree.] This is one of the plants which is most grateful to the
eye and the smell. The deep colour of its bark, the light green of its
foliage, the softened mixture of white and yellow with which the
flowers, collected into long clusters like the lilac, are coloured; the
red tint of the ramifications which support them, form an agreeable
combination. The flowers, whose shades are so delicate, diffuse around
the sweetest odours, and embalm the gardens and apartments which they
embellish. The women take pleasure in decking themselves with them. With
the powder of the dried leaves they give an orange tincture to their
nails, to the inside of their hands, and to the soles of their feet. The
expression, עשתה את־צפרניה, rendered “pare their nails,” Deut. xxi, 12,
may perhaps rather mean, “_adorn_ their nails;” and imply the antiquity
of this practice. This is a universal custom in Egypt, and not to
conform to it would be considered indecent. It seems to have been
practised by the ancient Egyptians, for the nails of the mummies are
most commonly of a reddish hue.
In the Song of Solomon, the bride is described as saying, “My beloved is
unto me as a cluster of camphire in the vineyards of Engedi,” chap. i,
24; and again, “Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant
fruits, camphire with spikenard,” chap. iv, 13.
CANA, a town of Galilee, where Jesus performed his first miracle, John
ii, 1, 2, &c. It lay in the tribe of Zebulun, not far from Nazareth.
Cana was visited by Dr. E. D. Clarke, who says, “It is worthy of note,
that, walking among the ruins of a church, we saw large massy stone
pots, answering the description given of the ancient vessels of the
country; these were not preserved nor exhibited as reliques, but lying
about, disregarded by the present inhabitants, as antiquities with whose
original use they were unacquainted. From their appearance, and the
number of them, it was quite evident that a practice of keeping water in
large stone pots, each holding from eighteen to twenty-seven gallons,
was once common in the country.”
CANAAN, the son of Ham. The Hebrews believe that Canaan, having first
discovered Noah’s nakedness, told his father Ham; and that Noah, when he
awoke, having understood what had passed, cursed Canaan, the first
author of the offence. Others are of opinion that Ham was punished in
his son Canaan, Gen. ix, 25. For though Canaan is mentioned, Ham is not
exempted from the malediction; on the contrary, he suffers more from it,
since parents are more affected with their children’s misfortunes than
with their own; especially if the evils have been inflicted through some
fault or folly of theirs. Some have thought that _Canaan_ may be put
elliptically for _the father of Canaan_, that is, Ham, as it is rendered
in the Arabic and Septuagint translations.
The posterity of Canaan was numerous. His eldest son, Sidon, founded the
city of Sidon, and was father of the Sidonians and Phenicians. Canaan
had ten other sons, who were fathers of as many tribes, dwelling in
Palestine and Syria; namely, the Hittites, the Jebusites, the Amorites,
the Girgasites, the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, the Arvadites,
the Zemarites, and the Hemathites. It is believed that Canaan lived and
died in Palestine, which from him was called the land of Canaan.
Notwithstanding the curse is directed against Canaan the son, and not
against Ham the father, it is often supposed that all the posterity of
Ham were placed under the malediction, “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of
servants shall he be unto his brethren.” But the true reason why Canaan
only was mentioned probably is, that the curse was in fact restricted to
the posterity of Canaan. It is true that many Africans, descendants of
other branches of Ham’s family, have been largely and cruelly enslaved;
but so have other tribes in different parts of the world. There is
certainly no proof that the negro race were ever placed under this
malediction. Had they been included in it, this would neither have
justified their oppressors, nor proved that Christianity is not designed
to remove the evil of slavery. But Canaan alone in his descendants, is
cursed, and Ham only in that branch of his posterity. It follows that
the subjugation of the Canaanitish races to Israel fulfils the prophecy.
To them it was limited, and with them it expired. Part of the seven
nations of the Canaanites were made slaves to the Israelites, when they
took possession of their land; and the remainder by Solomon.
CANAAN, LAND OF. In the map it presents the appearance of a narrow slip
of country, extending along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean; from
which, to the river Jordan, the utmost width does not exceed fifty
miles. This river was the eastern boundary of the land of Canaan, or
Palestine, properly so called, which derived its name from the
Philistines or Palestines originally inhabiting the coast. To three of
the twelve tribes, however, Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh, portions of
territory were assigned on the eastern side of the river, which were
afterward extended by the subjugation of the neighbouring nations. The
territory of Tyre and Sidon was its ancient border on the north-west;
the range of the Libanus and Antilibanus forms a natural boundary on the
north and north-east; while in the south it is pressed upon by the
Syrian and Arabian deserts. Within this circumscribed district, such
were the physical advantages of the soil and climate, there existed, in
the happiest periods of the Jewish nation, an immense population. The
kingdom of David and Solomon, however, extended far beyond these narrow
limits. In a north-eastern direction, it was bounded only by the river
Euphrates, and included a considerable part of Syria. It is stated that
Solomon had dominion over all the region on the western side of the
Euphrates, from Thiphsah, or Thapsacus, on that river, in latitude 25°
20´, to Azzah, or Gaza. “Tadmore in the wilderness,” (Palmyra,) which
the Jewish monarch is stated to have built, (that is, either founded or
fortified,) is considerably to the north-east of Damascus, being only a
day’s journey from the Euphrates; and Hamath, the Epiphania of the
Greeks, (still called Hamah,) in the territory belonging to which city
Solomon had several “store cities,” is seated on the Orontes, in
latitude 34° 45´ N. On the east and south-east, the kingdom of Solomon
was extended by the conquest of the country of Moab, that of the
Ammonites, and Edom; and tracts which were either inhabited or pastured
by the Israelites, lay still farther eastward. Maon, which belonged to
the tribe of Judah, and was situated in or near the desert of Paran, is
described by Abulfeda as the farthest city of Syria toward Arabia, being
two days’ journey beyond Zoar. In the time of David, the people of
Israel, women and children included, amounted, on the lowest
computation, to five millions; beside the tributary Canaanites, and
other conquered nations.