Judaism, who had engaged themselves to receive circumcision, and to
observe the whole law of Moses. Thus were they admitted to all the
prerogatives of the people of the Lord. The rabbins inform us that,
before circumcision was administered to them, and before they were
admitted into the religion of the Hebrews, they were examined about the
motives of their conversion; whether the change was voluntary, or
whether it proceeded from interest, fear, ambition, &c. When the
proselyte was well proved and instructed, they gave him circumcision;
and when the wound of his circumcision healed, they gave him baptism, by
plunging his whole body into a cistern of water, by only one immersion.
Boys under twelve years of age, and girls under thirteen, could not
become proselytes till they had obtained the consent of their parents,
or, in case of refusal, the concurrence of the officers of justice.
Baptism in respect of girls had the same effect as circumcision in
respect of boys. Each of them, by means of this, received, as it were, a
new birth, so that those who were their parents before were no longer
regarded as such after this ceremony, and those who before were slaves
now became free.
Many, however, are of opinion that there appears to be no ground
whatever in Scripture for this distinction of proselytes of the gate,
and proselytes of righteousness. “According to my idea,” says Dr.
Tomline, “proselytes were those, and those only, who took upon
themselves the obligation of the whole Mosaic law, but retained that
name till they were admitted into the congregation of the Lord as
adopted children. Gentiles were allowed to worship and offer sacrifices
to the God of Israel in the outer court of the temple; and some of them,
persuaded of the sole and universal sovereignty of the Lord Jehovah,
might renounce idolatry without embracing the Mosaic law; but such
persons appear to me never to be called proselytes in Scripture, or in
any ancient Christian writer.” He also observes that “the term
_proselytes of the gate_ is derived from an expression frequent in the
Old Testament; namely, ‘the stranger that is within thy gates;’ but I
think it evident that the strangers were those Gentiles who were
permitted to live among the Jews under certain restrictions, and whom
the Jews were forbidden ‘to vex or oppress,’ so long as they live in a
peaceable manner.” Dr. Lardner says, “I do not believe that the notion
of two sorts of Jewish proselytes can be found in any Christian writer
before the fourteenth century or later.” Dr. Jennings also observes that
“there does not appear to be sufficient evidence in the Scripture
history of the existence of such proselytes of the gate, as the rabbins
mention; nor, indeed, of any who with propriety can be styled
proselytes, except such as fully embraced the Jewish religion.”
PROSEUCHÆ. That the Jews had houses, or places for prayer, called
ϖροσευχαὶ, appears from a variety of passages in Philo; and,
particularly in his oration against Flaccus, he complains that their
ϖροσευχαὶ were pulled down, and there was no place left in which they
might worship God and pray for Cæsar. Among those who make the
synagogues and _proseuchæ_ to be different places, are the learned Mr.
Joseph Mede and Dr. Prideaux; and they think the difference consists
partly in the form of the edifice; a synagogue, they say, being roofed
like our houses or churches; and a _proseucha_ being only encompassed
with a wall, or some other mound or enclosure, and open at the top, like
our courts. They make them to differ in situation; synagogues being in
towns and cities, _proseuchæ_ in the fields, and frequently by the river
side. Dr. Prideaux mentions another distinction in respect to the
service performed in them. In synagogues, he says, the prayers were
offered up in public forms in common for the whole congregation; but in
the _proseuchæ_ they prayed, as in the temple, every one apart for
himself. And thus our Saviour prayed in the _proseucha_ into which he
entered. Yet, after all, the proof in favour of this notion is not so
strong, but that it still remains a question with some, whether the
synagogues and the _proseuchæ_ were any thing more than two different
names for the same place; the one taken from the people’s assembling in
them, the other from the service to which they were more immediately
appropriated, namely, prayer. Nevertheless, the name _proseuchæ_ will
not prove that they were appropriated only to prayer, and therefore were
different from synagogues, in which the Scriptures were also read and
expounded; since the temple, in which sacrifices were offered, and all
the parts of divine service were performed, is called οικος προσευχης,
_a house of prayer_, Matt. xxi, 13.
PROTESTANT. The Emperor Charles V. called a diet at Spire, in 1529, to
request aid from the German princes against the Turks, and to devise the
most effectual means for allaying the religious disputes which then
raged in consequence of Luther’s opposition to the established religion.
In this diet it was decreed by Ferdinand, archduke of Austria, and other
popish princes, that in the countries which had embraced the new
religion it should be lawful to continue in it till the meeting of a
council; but that no Roman Catholic should be allowed to turn Lutheran,
and that the reformers should deliver nothing in their sermons contrary
to the received doctrine of the church. Against this decree, six
Lutheran princes, namely, John and George, the electors of Saxony and
Brandenburg, Ernest and Francis, the two dukes of Lunenburg, the
landgrave of Hesse, and the prince of Anhalt, with the deputies of
thirteen imperial towns, namely, Strasburg, Ulm, Nuremberg, Constance,
Rottingen, Windsheim, Memmingen, Nortlingen, Lindaw, Kempten, Hailbron,
Wissemburg, and St. Gall, formally and solemnly _protested_ and declared
that they appealed to a general council; and hence the name of
Protestants, by which the followers of Luther have ever since been
known. Nor was it confined to them; for it soon after included the
Calvinists, and has now of a long time been applied generally to the
Christian sects, of whatever denomination, and in whatever country they
may be found, which have separated from the see of Rome.
Mr. Chillingworth, addressing himself to a writer in favour of the
church of Rome, speaks of the religion of the Protestants in the
following excellent terms: “Know then, sir, that when I say the religion
of Protestants is in prudence to be preferred before yours, on the one
side, I do not understand by your religion the doctrine of Bellarmine,
or Baronius, or any other private man among you, nor the doctrine of the
Sorbonne, of the Jesuits, or of the Dominicans, or of any other
particular company among you, but that wherein you all agree, or profess
to agree, the doctrine of the council of Trent; so, accordingly, on the
other side, by the religion of Protestants, I do not understand the
doctrine of Luther, or Calvin, or Melancthon, nor the confession of
Augsburg, or Geneva, nor the catechism of Heidelberg, nor the articles
of the church of England; no, nor the harmony of Protestant confessions;
but that in which they all agree, and which they all subscribe with a
greater harmony, as a perfect rule of faith and action; that is, the
Bible. The Bible, I say, the Bible only, is the religion of Protestants.
Whatsoever else they believe beside it, and the plain, irrefragable,
indubitable consequences of it, well may they hold it as a matter of
opinion; but as a matter of faith and religion, neither can they with
coherence to their own grounds believe it themselves, nor require belief
of it of others, without most high and most schismatical presumption. I,
for my part, after a long, and, as I verily believe and hope, impartial,
search of the true way to eternal happiness, do profess plainly that I
cannot find any rest for the sole of my foot but upon this rock only. I
see plainly, and with my own eyes, that there are popes against popes,
and councils against councils; some fathers against other fathers, the
same fathers against themselves; a consent of fathers of one age against
a consent of fathers of another age; traditive interpretations of
Scripture are pretended, but there are few or none to be found; no
tradition but that of Scripture can derive itself from the fountain, but
may be plainly proved either to have been brought in in such an age
after Christ, or that in such an age it was not in. In a word, there is
no sufficient certainty but of Scripture only for any considering man to
build upon. This, therefore, and this only, I have reason to believe.
This I will profess; according to this I will live; and for this, if
there be occasion, I will not only willingly, but even gladly, lose my
life, though I should be sorry that Christians should take it from me.
Propose me any thing out of this book, and require whether I believe or
no, and, seem it never so incomprehensible to human reason, I will
subscribe it with hand and heart, as knowing no demonstration can be
stronger than this, God hath said so, therefore it is true. In other
things, I will take no man’s liberty of judging from him; neither shall
any man take mine from me.”
Under such views the Bible is held as the only sure foundation upon
which all true Protestants build every article of the faith which they
profess, and every point of doctrine which they teach; and all other
foundations, whether they be the decisions of councils, the confessions
of churches, the prescripts of popes, or the expositions of private men,
are considered by them as sandy and unsafe, or as in nowise to be
ultimately relied on. Yet, on the other hand, they by no means
fastidiously reject them as of no use; for while they admit the Bible,
or the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, to be the only
infallible rule by which we must measure the truth or falsehood of every
religious opinion, they are sensible that all men are not equally fitted
to understand or to apply this rule; and that the wisest men want, on
many occasions, all the helps afforded by the learning and research of
others to enable them to understand its precise nature, and to define
its certain extent. These helps are great and numerous, having been
supplied, in every age of the church, by the united labours of learned
men in every country, and by none in greater abundance than by those in
Protestant communions.
PROVERBS, short aphorisms, and sententious moral and prudential maxims,
usually expressed in numbers, or rhythm, or antithesis, as being more
easily remembered, and of more use, than abstruse and methodical
discourses. This method of instruction appears to be peculiarly suited
to the disposition and genius of the Asiatics, among whom it has
prevailed from the earliest ages. The Gymnosophists of India delivered
their philosophy in brief enigmatical sentences; a practice adopted and
carried to a great extent by the ancient Egyptians. The mode of
conveying instruction by compendious maxims obtained among the Jews,
from the first dawn of their literature, to its final extinction in the
east through the power of the Mohammedan arms; and it was familiar to
the inhabitants of Syria and Palestine, as we learn from the testimony
of St. Jerom. The eloquence of Arabia was mostly exhibited in detached
and unconnected sentences, which, like so many loose gems, attracted
attention by the fulness of the periods, the elegance of the
phraseology, and the acuteness of proverbial sayings. Nor do the
Asiatics at present differ, in this respect, from their ancestors, as
numerous _amthâl_, or moral sentences, are in circulation throughout the
regions of the east, some of which have been published by Hottinger,
Erpenius, the younger Schultens, and others who have distinguished
themselves by the pursuit of oriental learning. “The moralists of the
east,” says Sir William Jones, “have, in general, chosen to deliver
their precepts in short sententious maxims, to illustrate them by
sprightly comparisons, or to inculcate them in the very ancient forms of
agreeable apologues: there are, indeed, both in Arabic and Persian,
philosophical tracts on ethics, written with sound ratiocination and
elegant perspicuity; but in every part of the eastern world, from Pekin
to Damascus, the popular teachers of moral wisdom have immemorially been
poets; and there would be no end of enumerating their works, which are
still extant in the five principal languages of Asia.” The ingenious but
ever disputing and loquacious Greeks were indebted to the same means for
their earliest instruction in wisdom. The sayings of the seven wise men,
the golden verses of Pythagoras, the remains of Theognis and Phocylides,
if genuine, and the _gnomai_ of the older poets, testify the prevalence
of aphorisms in ancient Greece. Had no specimens remained of Hellenic
proverbs, we might have concluded this to have been the case; for the
Greeks borrowed the rudiments, if not the principal part, of their
knowledge from those whom they arrogantly termed barbarians; and it is
only through the medium of compendious maxims and brief sentences that
traditionary knowledge can be preserved. This mode of communicating
moral and practical wisdom accorded with the sedate and deliberative
character of the Romans; and, in truth, from its influence over the
mind, and its fitness for popular instruction, proverbial expressions
exist in all ages and in all languages.
Proverbs, in the Hebrew language, are called _meshalim_, which is
derived from a verb signifying both “to rule,” “to have dominion,” and
“to compare,” “to liken,” “to assimilate:” hence the term denotes the
highly figurative and poetical style in general, and likewise those
compendious and authoritative sentences in particular which are commonly
denominated proverbs. This term, which our translators have adopted
after the Vulgate, denotes, according to our great lexicographer, “a
short sentence frequently repeated by the people, a saw, an adage;” and
no other word can, perhaps, be substituted more accurately expressing
the force of the Hebrew; or, if there could, it has been so long
familiarized by constant use, that a change is totally inadmissible.
The _Meshalim_, or Proverbs of Solomon, on account of their intrinsic
merit, as well as of the rank and renown of their author, would be
received with submissive deference; in consequence of which, they would
rapidly spread through every part of the Jewish territories. The pious
instructions of the king would be listened to with the attention and
respect they deserve, and, no doubt, would be carefully recorded by a
people attached to his person, and holding his wisdom in the highest
admiration. These, either preserved in writing, or handed down by oral
communication, were subsequently collected into one volume, and
constitute the book in the sacred canon, entitled, “The Proverbs of
Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel.” The genuineness and
authenticity of this title, and those in chap. x, 1, and xxv, 1, cannot
be disputed; not the smallest reason appears for calling them in
question. One portion of the book, from the twenty-fifth chapter to the
end of the twenty-ninth, was compiled by the men of Hezekiah, as appears
from the title prefixed to it. Eliakim, Shebna, Joah, Isaiah, Hosea, and
Micah, personages of eminence and worth, were contemporary with
Hezekiah; but whether these or others executed the compilation, it is
now impossible to determine. They were persons, however, as we may
reasonably suppose, well qualified for the undertaking, who collected
what were known to be the genuine proverbs of Solomon from the various
writings in which they were dispersed, and arranged them in their
present order. Whether the preceding twenty-four chapters, which,
doubtless, existed in a combined form previous to the additional
collection, were compiled by the author, or some other person, is quite
uncertain. Both collections, however, being made at so early a period,
is a satisfactory evidence that the Proverbs are the genuine production
of Solomon, to whom they are ascribed; for, from the death of Solomon to
the reign of Hezekiah, according to the Bible chronology, was a period
of two hundred and forty-nine years, or, according to Dr. Hales, two
hundred and sixty-five years; too short a space to admit of any forgery
or material error, as either must have been immediately detected by the
worthies who flourished during the virtuous reign of Hezekiah.
PROVIDENCE, the conduct and direction of the several parts of the
universe, by a superior intelligent Being. The notion of a providence is
founded upon this truth, that the Creator has not so fixed and
ascertained the laws of nature, nor so connected the chain of second
causes, as to leave the world to itself, but that he still preserves the
reins in his own hands, and occasionally intervenes, alters, restrains,
enforces, suspends, &c, those laws by a particular providence. Some use
the word _providence_ in a more general sense, signifying by it that
power or action by which the several parts of the creation are
ordinarily directed. Thus Damascenus defines providence to be that
divine will by which all things are ordered and directed to the proper
end: which notion of providence supposes no laws at all fixed by the
author of nature at the creation, but that he reserved it at large, to
be governed by himself immediately. The Epicureans denied any divine
providence, as thinking it inconsistent with the ease and repose of the
divine nature to meddle at all with human affairs. Simplicius argues
thus for a providence: If God does not look to the affairs of the world,
it is either because he cannot or will not; but the first is absurd,
since, to govern cannot be difficult where to create was easy; and the
latter is both absurd and blasphemous. In Plato’s Tenth Dialogue of
Laws, he teaches excellently, that (since what is self-moving is, by its
nature, before that which moves only in consequence of being moved) mind
must be prior to matter, and the cause of all its modifications and
changes; and that, therefore, there is a universal Mind possessed of all
perfection, which produced and which actuates all things. After this he
shows that the Deity exercises a particular providence over the world,
taking care of small no less than great things. In proving this he
observes “that a superior nature of such excellence as the divine, which
hears, sees, and knows all things, cannot, in any instance, be subject
to negligence or sloth; that the meanest and the greatest part of the
world are all equally his work or possession; that great things cannot
be rightly taken care of without taking care of small; and that, in all
cases, the more able and perfect any artist is, (as a physician, an
architect, or the ruler of the state,) the more his skill and care
appear in little as well as great things. Let us not, then,” says he,
“conceive of God as worse than even mortal artists.”
The term providence, in its primary signification, simply denotes
foresight; and if we allow the existence of a supreme Being who formed
the universe at first, we must necessarily allow that he has a perfect
foresight of every event which at any time takes place in the natural or
moral world. Matter can have no motion, nor spirit any energy, but what
is derived from him; nor can he be ignorant of the effects which they
will, either separately or conjointly, produce. A common mechanic has
knowledge of the work of his own hands: when he puts the machine which
he has made in motion, he foresees how long it will go, and what will be
the state and position of its several parts at any particular point of
time; or, if he is not perfectly able to do this, it is because he is
not perfectly acquainted with all the powers of the materials which he
has used in its construction: they are not of his making, and they may
therefore have qualities which he does not understand, and consequently
cannot regulate. But in the immense machine of the universe there is
nothing except that which God has made; all the powers and properties,
relations and dependencies, which created things have, they have, both
in kind and degree, from him. Nothing, therefore, it should seem, can
come to pass at any time, or in any part of the universe, which its
incomprehensible Architect did not, from the moment his almighty fiat
called it into existence, clearly foresee. The providence of God is
implied in his very existence as an intelligent Creator; and it imports
not only an abstract foresight of all possible events, but such a
predisposition of causes and effects, such an adjustment of means and
ends, as seems to us to exclude that contingency of human actions with
which, as expectants of positive rewards and punishments in another
world, we firmly believe it to be altogether consistent.
By providence we may understand, not merely foresight, but a uniform and
constant operation of God subsequent to the act of creation. Thus, in
every machine formed by human ingenuity, there is a necessity for the
action of some extraneous power to put the machine in motion: a proper
construction and disposition of parts not being sufficient to effect the
end: there must be a spring, or a weight, or an impulse of air or water,
or some substance or other, on which the motion of the several parts of
the machine must depend. In like manner, the machine of the universe
depends upon its Creator for the commencement and the conservation of
the motion of its several parts. The power by which the insensible
particles of matter coalesce into sensible lumps, as well as that by
which the great orbs of the universe are reluctantly, as it were,
retained in their courses, admits not an explanation from mechanical
causes: the effects of both of them are different from such as mere
matter and motion can produce; they must ultimately be referred to God.
Vegetable and animal life and increase cannot be accounted for, without
recurring to him as the primary cause of both. In all these respects the
providence of God is something more than foresight; it is a continual
influence, a universal agency; “by him all things consist,” and “in him
we live, and move, and have our being.”