was both frequent and numerously attended. Voluntary absence was
considered as a culpable neglect; and exclusion from it, by the sentence
of the church, as a severe punishment. Every one brought an offering
proportioned to his ability; these offerings were chiefly of bread and
wine; and the priests appropriated as much as was necessary for the
administration of the eucharist. The clergy had a part of what was left
for their maintenance; and the rest furnished the repast called ἀγάπη,
or _love-feast_, which immediately followed the celebration of the
Lord’s Supper, and of which all the communicants, both rich and poor,
partook. The sacrament of the Lord’s Supper greatly resembled the
religious feasts to which the Jews were accustomed. At those feasts they
partook of bread and wine in a serious and devout manner, after a solemn
blessing or thanksgiving to God for his manifold mercies. This was
particularly the case at the feast of the passover, which our Saviour
was celebrating with his Apostles when he instituted this holy
sacrament. At that feast, they commemorated the deliverance of their own
peculiar nation from the bondage of Egypt; and there could not be a more
suitable opportunity for establishing an ordinance which was to
commemorate the infinitely more important deliverance of all mankind
from the bondage of sin. The former deliverance was typical of the
latter; and instead of keeping the Jewish passover, which was now to be
abrogated, they were to commemorate Christ, their passover, who was
sacrificed for them; the bread broken was to represent his body offered
upon the cross; and the wine poured out was to represent his blood,
which was shed for the salvation of men. The nourishment which these
elements afford to our bodies is figurative of the salutary effects
which the thing signified has upon our souls. And as the celebration of
the passover was not only a constant memorial of the deliverance of the
Israelites out of the land of Egypt, but also a symbolical action, by
which they had a title to the blessings of the old covenant; so the
celebration of the Lord’s Supper is not only a constant memorial of the
death of Christ, but also a pledge or earnest to the communicant of the
benefits promised by the new covenant. As the passover was instituted
the night before the actual deliverance of the Israelites, so the Lord’s
Supper was instituted the night before the redemption of man was
accomplished by the crucifixion of the blessed Jesus. It is to be
partaken of by all who look for remission of sins by the death of
Christ; we are not only to cherish that trust in our minds, and express
it in our devotions, but we are to give an outward proof of our reliance
upon the merits of his passion as the means of our salvation, by eating
that bread, and drinking that wine, which are typical representations of
the body and blood of Christ, who by his one oblation of himself once
offered, made a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and
satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.” See SACRAMENTS.
LOT, the son of Haran, and nephew to Abraham. He accompanied his uncle
from Ur to Haran, and from thence to Canaan; a proof of their mutual
attachment, and similarity of principles respecting the true religion.
With Abraham he descended into Egypt, and afterward returned with him
into Canaan: but the multiplicity of their flocks, and still more the
quarrels of their servants, rendered a friendly separation necessary.
When God destroyed the cities of the plain with fire and brimstone, he
delivered just Lot” from the conflagration, according to the account of
the divine historian. The whole time that Lot resided there was
twenty-three years. During all this period he had been a preacher of
righteousness among this degenerate people. In him they had before their
eyes an illustrious example of the exercise of genuine piety, supported
by unsullied justice and benevolent actions. And doubtless it was for
these purposes that Divine Providence placed him for a time in that
city. The losses which Lot sustained on this melancholy occasion were
very great; his wife, property, and all the prospects of the future
settlement of his family blasted. Pity must therefore draw a friendly
veil over the closing scene of this man of affliction; and let him that
thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall into deeds more
reprehensible than those of Lot, without having equal trials and
sufferings to plead in his favour. Respecting his wife, whether grieving
for the loss of her property, or inwardly censuring the severity of the
divine dispensation, or whether moved by unbelief or curiosity, cannot
now be known; but, looking back, she became a pillar of salt, Gen. xix,
26. It would be endless to present the reader with all the opinions on
this subject. Some contend that nothing more is meant than that she was
suffocated: others, that a column or monument of metallic salt was
erected upon her grave: others affirm that she became encrusted with the
sulphur, insomuch that she appeared like an Egyptian mummy, which is
embalmed with salt. Our Lord warns his disciples to remember Lot’s wife
in their flight from Jerusalem, and not to imitate her tardiness, Luke
xvii, 32.
2. Lot, any thing cast or drawn in order to determine any matter in
question, Proverbs xviii, 18. We see the use of lots among the Hebrews
in many places of Scripture: God commands, for example, that lots should
be cast upon the two goats which were offered for the sins of the
people, upon the solemn day of expiation, to know which of the two
should be sacrificed, and which liberated, Lev. xvi, 8–10. He required
also that the land of promise should be divided by lot as soon as it was
conquered; which command Joshua accordingly executed, Num. xxvi, 55, 56;
xxxiii, 54; xxxiv, 13, &c; Joshua xiv-xvi; hence the term lot” is used
for an inheritance, Thou maintainest my lot;” and figuratively for a
happy state or condition. The priests and Levites had their cities
appointed by lot. Lastly, in the time of David, the four and twenty
classes of the priests and Levites were distributed by lot, to determine
in what order they should wait in the temple, 1 Chron. vi, 54, 61; xxiv,
5; xxv, 8. In the division of the spoil, after victory, lots were
likewise cast, to give every man his portion, Obadiah 11; Nahum iii, 10,
&c. In the New Testament, after the death of Judas, lots were cast to
decide who should occupy the place of the traitor, Acts i, 26. From the
above instances, it is clear that when men have recourse to this method,
the matter ought to be of the greatest importance, and no other apparent
way left to determine it; and the manner of making the appeal should be
solemn and grave, if we would escape the guilt of taking the name of God
in vain. It unquestionably implies a solemn appeal to the Most High to
interpose by his decision; and so every thinking man will be very
careful that he has a true and religious ground for so serious a
proceeding; and few if any cases can now occur in which it can have any
justification. The ancient manner of casting lots, was either in some
person’s lap,” or fold of the robe; into a helmet, or urn, or other
vessel, in which they might be shaken before they were drawn or cast.
LOVE-FEASTS. It is Godwin’s opinion, that the _agapæ_, or love-feasts,
of the primitive Christians, were derived from the חגים or feasts upon
the sacrifices, at which the Jews entertained their friends, and fed the
poor; Deut. xii, 18; xxvi, 12. There were also feasts of much the same
kind in use among the Greeks and Romans. The former were wont to offer
certain sacrifices to their gods, which were afterward given to the
poor. They had likewise public feasts for certain districts, suppose for
a town or a city, toward which all who could afford it, contributed, in
proportion to their different abilities, and all partook of it in
common. Of this sort were the συσσίτια of the Cretans; and the φιδιτία
of the Lacedæmonians, instituted by Lycurgus, and so called ϖαρὰ τῆς
φιλίας, (the λ being changed into δ according to their usual
orthography,) as denoting that love and friendship which they were
intended to promote among neighbours and fellow citizens. The Romans
likewise had a feast of the same kind, called _charistia_; which was a
meeting only of those who were akin to each other; and the design of it
was, that if any quarrel or misunderstanding had happened among any of
them, they might there be reconciled. To this Ovid alludes in the second
book of his Fasti:--
_Proxima cognati dixere charistia cari,
Et venit ad socios turba propinqua deos._ v. 617.
[The feasts next in order beloved relatives called _charistia_, at which
the kindred throng assembled under their family household gods.]
In imitation either of these Jewish or Gentile love-feasts, or probably
of both, the primitive Christians, in each particular church, had
likewise their love-feasts, which were supplied by the contribution of
the members, according to their several abilities, and partaken of by
all in common. And whether they were converts from among the Jews or
Gentiles, they retained their old custom with very little alteration,
and as their ἀγάπαι had been commonly annexed to their sacrifices, so
they were now annexed to the commemoration of the sacrifice of Christ at
the Lord’s Supper; and were therefore held on the Lord’s day before or
after the celebration of that ordinance. It would seem at Corinth, in
the Apostles’ days, they were ordinarily held before; for when the
Corinthians are blamed for unworthily receiving the Lord’s Supper, it is
partly charged upon this, that some of them came drunk to that
ordinance, having indulged to excess at the preceding love-feast: Every
one taketh before, ϖρολαμϐανει, his own supper, and one is hungry, and
another is drunken,” 1 Cor. xi, 21. This shows, says Dr. Whitby, that
this banquet, namely, the love-feast, was celebrated before the Lord’s
Supper. But Chrysostom gives an account of it, as being in his time kept
after it. It is commonly supposed, that when St. Jude mentions certain
persons, who were spots in the feasts of charity, ἐν ταῖς ἀγάπαις, verse
12, he means in the Christian love-feasts; though Dr. Lightfoot and Dr.
Whitby apprehend the reference in this passage is rather a custom of the
Jews, who, on the evening of their Sabbath, had their κοινωνία, or
communion, when the inhabitants of the same city met in a common place
to eat together. However that be, all antiquity bears testimony to the
reality of the Christian ἀγάπαι, or love-feasts.
The most circumstantial account, says Dr. Townley, of the manner in
which the ancient _agapæ_ were celebrated, is given by Tertullian, in
his Apology,” written in the second century: Our supper,” says he, which
you accuse of luxury, shows its reason in its very name, for it is
called ἀγάπη, that is, _love_. Whatever charge we are at, it is gain to
be at expense upon the account of piety. For we therewith relieve and
refresh the poor. There is nothing vile or immodest committed in it. For
we do not sit down before we have first offered up prayer to God. We eat
only to satisfy hunger, and drink only so much as becomes modest
persons. We fill ourselves in such a manner, as that we remember still
that we are to worship God by night. We discourse as in the presence of
God, knowing that he hears us. Then, after water to wash our hands, and
lights brought in, every one is moved to sing some hymn to God, either
out of Scripture, or, as he is able, of his own composing, and by this
we judge whether he has observed the rules of temperance in drinking.
Prayer again concludes our feast; and thence we depart, not to fight and
quarrel; not to run about and abuse all we meet; not to give up
ourselves to lascivious pastime; but to pursue the same care of modesty
and chastity, as men that have fed at a supper of philosophy and
discipline, rather than a corporeal feast.” Ignatius, in his epistle to
the church of Smyrna, in the first century, affords us the additional
information, that it was not lawful to baptize, or celebrate the
love-feasts, without the bishop, or minister.” Lucian, the epicurean,
has also a passage which seems to refer to the _agapæ_. He tells us that
when Peregrinus, a Christian, was in prison, you might have seen, early
in the morning, old women, some widows, and orphans, waiting at the
prison. Their presidents bribed the guards, and lodged in the prison
with him. Afterward (that is, in the evening) various suppers (that is,
suppers consisting of various dishes, and various kinds of meat, brought
thither by various persons of the company) were brought in, and they
held their sacred conversations, ἴεροι λογοι, or their sacred discourses
were delivered.” Pliny, in his celebrated epistle to Trajan, mentions
the “_cibus promiscuus et innoxius_,”--“common and harmless meal” of the
Christians, which they ate together after the celebration of the
eucharist. This primitive practice, though under a simpler form, and
more expressly religious, is retained in modern times, only by the
Moravians, and by the Wesleyan Methodists.
LOVE TO GOD. To serve and obey God on the conviction that it is right to
serve and obey him, is in Christianity joined with that love to God
which gives life and animation to service, and renders it the means of
exalting our pleasures, at the same time that it accords with our
convictions. The supreme love of God is the chief, therefore, of what
have sometimes been called our theopathetic affections. It is the sum
and the end of the law; and though it has been lost by us in Adam, it is
restored to us by Christ. When it regards God absolutely, and in
himself, as a Being of infinite and harmonious perfections and moral
beauties, it is that movement of the soul toward him which is produced
by admiration, approval, and delight. When it regards him relatively, it
fixes upon the ceaseless emanations of his goodness to us all in the
continuance of the existence which he at first bestowed; the
circumstances which render that existence felicitous; and, above all,
upon that great love wherewith he loved us,” manifested in the gift of
his Son for our redemption, and in saving us by his grace; or, in the
forcible language of St. Paul, upon the exceeding riches of his grace in
his kindness to us through Christ Jesus.” Under all these views an
unbounded gratitude overflows the heart which is influenced by this
spiritual affection. But the love of God is more than a sentiment of
gratitude: it rejoices in his perfections and glories, and devoutly
contemplates them as the highest and most interesting subjects of
thought; it keeps the idea of this supremely beloved object constantly
present to the mind; it turns to it with adoring ardour from the
business and distractions of life; it connects it with every scene of
majesty and beauty in nature, and with every event of general and
particular providence; it brings the soul into fellowship with God, real
and sensible, because vital; it moulds the other affections into
conformity with what God himself wills or prohibits, loves or hates; it
produces an unbounded desire to please him, and to be accepted of him in
all things; it is jealous of his honour, unwearied in his service, quick
to prompt to every sacrifice in the cause of his truth and his church;
and it renders all such sacrifices, even when carried to the extent of
suffering and death, unreluctant and cheerful. It chooses God as the
chief good of the soul, the enjoyment of which assures its perfect and
eternal interest and happiness: Whom have I in heaven but thee? and
there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee,” is the language of
every heart, when its love of God is true in principle and supreme in
degree.
If, then, the will of God is the perfect rule of morals; and if supreme
and perfect love to God must produce a prompt and unwearied, a
delightful subjection to his will, or rather an entire and most free
choice of it as the rule of all our principles, affections, and actions;
the importance of this affection in securing that obedience to the law
of God in which true morality consists, is manifest; and we clearly
perceive the reason why an inspired writer has affirmed, that love is
the fulfilling of the law.” The necessity of keeping this subject before
us under those views in which it is placed in the Christian system, and
of not surrendering it to mere philosophy, is, however, an important
consideration. With the philosopher the love of God may be the mere
approval of the intellect; or a sentiment which results from the
contemplation of infinite perfection, manifesting itself in acts of
power and goodness. In the Scriptures it is much more than either, and
is produced and maintained by a different process. We are there taught
that the carnal mind is enmity to God,” and is not, of course, capable
of loving God. Yet this carnal mind may consist with deep attainments in
philosophy, and with strongly impassioned poetic sentiment. The mere
approval of the understanding, and the susceptibility of being impressed
with feelings of admiration, awe, and even pleasure, when the character
of God is manifested in his works, as both may be found in the carnal
mind which is enmity to God, are not therefore the love of God. They are
principles which enter into that love, since it cannot exist without
them; but they may exist without this affection itself, and be found in
a vicious and unchanged nature. The love of God is a fruit of the Holy
Spirit; that is, it is implanted by him only in the souls which he has
regenerated; and as that which excites its exercise is chiefly, and in
the first place, a sense of the benefits bestowed by the grace of God in
our redemption, and a well grounded persuasion of our personal interest
in those benefits, it necessarily presupposes our reconciliation to God
through faith in the atonement of Christ, and that attestation of it to
the heart by the Spirit of adoption. We here see, then, another proof of
the necessary connection of Christian morals with Christian doctrine,
and how imperfect and deceptive every system must be which separates
them. Love is essential to true obedience; for when the Apostle declares
love to be the fulfilling of the law,” he declares, in effect, that the
law cannot be fulfilled without love; and that every action which has
not this for its principle, however virtuous in its show, fails of
accomplishing the precepts which are obligatory upon us. But this love
to God cannot be felt so long as we are sensible of his wrath, and are
in dread of his judgments. These feelings are incompatible with each
other, and we must be assured of his reconciliation to us, before we are
capable of loving him. Thus the very existence of love to God implies
the doctrines of atonement, repentance, faith, and the gift of the
Spirit of adoption to believers; and unless it be taught in this
connection, and through this process of experience, it will be exhibited
only as a bright and beauteous object to which man has no access; or a
fictitious and imitative sentimentalism will be substituted for it, to
the delusion of the souls of men.
LUCIAN, a philosopher and wit, who appeared as one of the early opposers
of the Christian religion and its followers. The hostile sentiments of
the Heathens toward Christianity, says Dr. Neander, were different
according to the difference of their philosophical and religious views.
There entered then upon the contest two classes of men, who have never
since ceased to persecute Christianity. These were the superstitious, to
whom the honouring God in spirit and in truth was a stumbling stone, and
the careless unbeliever, who, unacquainted with all feelings of
religious wants, was accustomed to laugh and to mock at every thing
which proceeded from them, whether he understood it or not, and at all
which supposed such feelings, and proposed to satisfy them. Such was
Lucian. To him Christianity, like every other remarkable religious
phenomenon, appeared only as a fit object for his sarcastic wit. Without
giving himself the trouble to examine and to discriminate, he threw
Christianity, superstition, and fanaticism, into the same class. It is
easy enough, in any system which lays deep hold on man’s nature, to find
out some side open to ridicule, if a man brings forward only that which
is external in the system, abstracted from all its inward power and
meaning, and without either understanding, or attempting to understand,
this power. He, therefore, who looked on Christianity with cold
indifference, and the profane every-day feelings of worldly prudence,
might easily here and there find objects for his satire. The Christian
might indeed have profited by that ridicule, and have learned from the
children of darkness to join the wisdom of the serpent with the meekness
of the dove. In the end the scoffer brings himself to derision, because
he ventures to pass sentence on the phenomena of a world of which he has
not the slightest conception, and which to his eyes, buried as they are
in the films of the earth, is entirely closed. Such was Lucian. He
sought to bring forward all that is striking and remarkable in the
external conduct and circumstances of Christians, which might serve for
the object of his sarcastic raillery, without any deeper inquiry as to
what the religion of the Christians really was. And yet even in that at
which he scoffed, there was much which might have taught him to remark
in Christianity no common power over the hearts of men, had he been
capable of such serious impressions. The firm hope of eternal life which
taught them to meet death with tranquillity, their brotherly love one
toward another, might have indicated to him some higher spirit which
animated these men; but instead of this he treats it all as delusion,
because many gave themselves up to death with something like fanatical
enthusiasm. He scoffs at the notion of a crucified man having taught
them to regard all mankind as their brethren, the moment they should
have abjured the gods of Greece; as if it were not just the most
remarkable part of all this, that an obscure person in Jerusalem, who
was deserted by every one, and executed as a criminal, should be able, a
good century after his death, to cause such effects as Lucian, in his
own time, saw extending in all directions, and in spite of every kind of
persecution. How blinded must he have been to pass thus lightly over
such a phenomenon! But men of his ready wit are apt to exert it with too
great readiness on all subjects. They are able to illustrate every thing
out of nothing; with their miserable _nil admirari_,” they can close
their hearts against all lofty impressions. With all his wit and
keenness, with all his undeniably fine powers of observation in all that
has no concern with the deeper impulses of man’s spirit, he was a man of
very little mind. But hear his own language: The wretched people have
persuaded themselves that they are altogether immortal, and will live
for ever; therefore they despise death, and many of them meet it of
their own accord. Their first lawgiver has persuaded them also to regard
all mankind as their brethren, as soon as they have abjured the Grecian
gods, and, honouring their crucified Master, have begun to live
according to his laws. They despise every thing Heathen equally, and
regard all but their own notions as profaneness, while they have yet
embraced those notions without sufficient examination.” He has no
farther accusation to make against them here, except the ease with which
they allowed their benevolence toward their fellow Christians to be
abused by impostors, in which there may be much truth, but there is,
nevertheless, some exaggeration.
LUDIM. There were two Luds; the one the son of Shem, from whom the
Lydians of Asia Minor are supposed to have sprung, and the other the son
of Mizraim, whose residence was in Africa. The descendants of the latter
only are mentioned in Scripture: they are joined by Isaiah, lxvi, 19,
with Pul, whose settlement is supposed to have been about the island
Philoe, near the first cataract of the Nile; by Jeremiah, xlvi, 9, with
the Ethiopians and Libyans; by Ezekiel, xxvii, 10, with Phut, as the
mercenary soldiers of Tyre, and xxx, 5, with the Ethiopians and Libyans;
all plainly denoting their African position; but in what particular part
of that continent this position was, is not known.
LUKE. The New Testament informs us of very few particulars concerning
St. Luke. He is not named in any of the Gospels. In the Acts of the
Apostles, which were, as will hereafter be shown, written by him, he
uses the first person plural, when he is relating some of the travels of
St. Paul; and thence it is inferred, that at those times he was himself
with that Apostle. The first instance of this kind is in the eleventh
verse of the sixteenth chapter; he there says, Loosing from Troas, we
came up with a straight course to Samothracia.” Thus, we learn that St.
Luke accompanied St. Paul in this his first voyage to Macedonia. From
Samothracia they went to Neapolis, and thence to Philippi. At this last
place we conclude that St. Paul and St. Luke separated, because in
continuing the history of St. Paul, after he left Philippi, St. Luke
uses the third person, saying, Now when _they_ had passed through
Amphipolis,” &c, Acts xvii, 1; and he does not resume the first person
till St. Paul was in Greece the second time. We have no account of St.
Luke during this interval; it only appears that he was not with St.
Paul. When St. Paul was about to go to Jerusalem from Greece, after his
second visit into that country, St. Luke, mentioning certain persons,
says, These going before tarried for _us_ at Troas; and _we_ sailed away
from Philippi,” Acts xx, 5, 6. Thus again we learn that St. Luke
accompanied St. Paul out of Greece, through Macedonia to Troas; and the
sequel of St. Paul’s history in the Acts, and some passages in his
epistles, 2 Tim. iv, 11; Col. iv, 14, Philemon 24, written while he was
a prisoner at Rome, informs us that St. Luke continued from that time
with Paul, till he was released from his confinement at Rome; which was
a space of about five years, and included a very interesting part of St.
Paul’s life, Acts xx-xxviii.
Here ends the certain account of St. Luke. It seems probable, however,
that he went from Rome into Achaia; and some authors have asserted that
he afterward preached the Gospel in Africa. None of the most ancient
fathers having mentioned that St. Luke suffered martyrdom, we may
suppose that he died a natural death; but at what time, or in what
place, is not known. We are told by some that St. Luke was a painter,
and Grotius and Wetstein thought that he was in the earlier part of his
life a slave; but I find, says Bishop Tomline, no foundation for either
opinion in any ancient writer. It is probable that he was by birth a
Jew, and a native of Antioch in Syria; and I see no reason to doubt that
Luke, the beloved physician,” mentioned in the Epistle to the
Colossians, iv, 14, was Luke the evangelist.