ADA to our notice. It is, in consequence, with the eyes, not of Europeans of the nineteenth century after Christ, but with those of Easterns, of centuries on centuries before, that we should study the Mosaic record of the crea tion. We may go further, and add, that as the writer himself appears to have written in the spirit of the earliest ages of the world, so in them, in the hoary mists of a primeval antiquity, must we take our stand, if we would rightly comprehend this first Biblical narrative. 23 If we look into the sources whence the writer drew his account, we may find aid towards a right conception of its import. That they were partly documentary appears certain; equally, that the documents were of a twofold kind. As they are twofold in their nature, so, most probably, had they a twofold origin. Certainly, they have produced a twofold description of creation; a fact of which the reader may easily satisfy himself. These two leading documents are distinguished chiefly by the names used to designate the Divine Being; who, in one, is denominated Elohim; in the other, Jehovah. Other documents may have furnished contributions. The documents, whatever they were, cannot have existed in writing much before the time of Moses (BOOKS); whence we are led to see that their substance must have come down to the compiler by tradition - from mouth to mouth, and so be liable to some degree of colouring. The transmission, however, was facilitated by the primitive character of the times, and by the sacredness of the topics. Still more was it facilitated probably by picture-writing, which, beyond a doubt, existed in the earliest ages; and not improbably by rude inscriptions, cut in stones, -a practice to which or on the living rockthe East, and, not least, the Arabs, were accustomed, in primeval times. It is easy to see how sources of information such as these would give, not only a hue, but a certain form and shape, to the narrative, which might indeed leave entire and untouched great facts and truths, but still put them into a dress taken from the condition of mind, degree of culture, and apprehensions of those whose heads, hearts, tongues, and fingers were the medium of transmission. We may illustrate this by an instance. That the guilty Adam shrank from his Judge, who, however, arraigned and condemned him, is a great and important truth which remains equally certain, after the human attire in which it is such as God's walkclothed is cast away, ing in the garden in the cool of the day, and holding a conversation face to face with Adam. That Adam committed sin by breaking God's law, is also an important truth; while the imagery of the serpent and the apple may, in part, be taken from mere earthly influences. Hence we are brought to another remark one of very great consequence. Revela tion, as being the disclosure of divine truth to human beings, must have two sides; the divine, as proceeding from God; the human, as addressed to man. In its divine relations, In its it is truth, and nothing but truth. human relations, it must necessarily be Revelation is, adapted to, and partake of, the character of those to whom it comes. therefore, essentially historical: it varies step by step with the advances made by mankind in ability and knowledge. Hence, also, it is gradual. The human disappears - the divine shines forth more and more. As our minds improve, so do we more fully and more clearly see the will of God. The husk perishes the grain comes forth into day. In the very nature of the case, then, revelation has two elements: the divine, which is like its author, immutable; the human, which is like its source, varying and perishable. The business of the religious truthseeker is to separate the one from the other, by the aids afforded by his own mind, his own experience, history and providence. But, if revelation pre-supposes these two elements, then does it involve the one no Consequently, the less than the other. existence of both is essential to constitute revelation. If so, difficulties, and even darkness, are no disproof of revelation, but the The human element is as essential to revelation as is the divine: the dark cannot be dispensed with, any more than the light. There must be a mortal vesture for God's eternal truth. Like the universe, all true revelation has its darkness, as well as its light; while the former is allowed, merely for the sake of the latter, into which it tends incessantly to pass, and does, from age to age, gradually and inevitably pass. If God was ever to speak to man, he could do no other than employ a language in which he That tongue is hu would be understood. man-its laws, working, history, tendencies - all human; suited to the narrow capacities and narrow range of observation of a primeval and untutored age. It is for us to learn that language, and, having learned it, to gather there the everlasting truths which it enshrines. reverse. These are general principles, the application of which may communicate light to the They lead to the student of the Bible. establishment of another important principle; - there is, even in regard to human conceptions, a relative, and there is an absolute truth. The first is truth as conceived and recognised by each successive generation; the second is that truth towards which the race of man is ever making advances, and in the attainment of which, the high culture of the present day assures us we have made, or may make, successful efforts. But, clearly, these two species of truth must not be confounded. It is enough for the verification of history that it clearly possesses relative truth. What burden that relative truth has for us, is another and a different question. But there is a great advantage afforded to the earnest and candid inquirer, in the distinction now suggested; namely, that he who admits the distinction can see how ancient writers may, in perfect good faith, set forth as facts what the knowledge and experience of later times show to have been nothing higher than the modes of conception, and points of view, then prevalent. Thus the historian is an honest and trustworthy chronicler, provided he believes what he narrates; and he supplies us with very valuable materials for the formation of our opinions. The absolute truth contained in the narrative of the creation is ample in amount, and most important in character. We can here mention, by way of suggesting how the subject of inspiration should, as it appears to us, be viewed and treated, only one or two of the leading particulars. The world is not eternal: it came into its present state within a definable, though it may not be a strictly historical period; and it proceeded immediately from the volition of an intelligent Creator. A comparison of this grand view with the absurd and fantastic cosmogonies of other nations will readily show the immeasurable superiority and inappreciable value of the sacred books of the Hebrew people. The human race, in all its varieties, is the offspring of one pair, the work of one creating Mind, the object of one preserving Providence. Our great progenitor, as the son of God' (Luke iii. 38), was made in the divine image. Hence man has a spiritual no less than an animal nature (Job xxxiii. 4), and is, in his very essence, a religious being. Here is laid the basis, not only of filial piety and childlike obedience, but of that great and humanising truth which lies at the centre of the gospel, namely, that all men are equally dear in the sight of the common Father, and should regard and treat each other with brotherly kindness. Here, too, lies the ground why man was entrusted with lordship over the entire earth, and all its inhabitants and productions. Nor did the Creator abandon the work of his hands, but took man, as soon as he was made, under his own immediate guidance, and began the education of his moral and spiritual nature. Even when man broke the divine law, his great Father did not desert him, nor leave him hopeless and without aid. Most important is the idea of duty which we find written in the first page of the records of time. As soon as man is placed on earth, he is made subject to law-to that influence which, in the process of ages, was to be the great bond of social life, the source and the guardian of its highest advantages, individually and collectively. Objections have been taken to the fall. Yet a first sin there must have been; and the first sin was the fall. That sin also must have been one which Adam, in his actual condition, was likely to commit. It is very easy to indulge in exceptions to the form and details of the actual narrative; but it is not so easy to point out how a more natural and probable account could, in the circumstances of the case, have been given. Even the creation of Eve out of one of Adam's ribs may, through the gross verbal covering, indicate the highly important truth of the strict unity of nature that there is between man and woman, and teach the duty of mutual love and mutual service; since woman is not so much another being, as a second self. So marriage did not spring from those low passions which assimilate man to the brute, but from the wise and benign ordinations of the Maker of the universe. It has not only a spiritual import and aim, but a divine origin. We are not here required to show precisely how these truths came to be embodied in the form in which they stand in Genesis; but it may well be doubted, whether there could have been chosen a manner of representation more fitted to impress the mind and move the heart of those primitive beings for whose use the narrative was intended. Equally may it be maintained, that in no way could the direful consequences of sin have been so well set forth, as in that which is actually taken, in which man is made to lose his all, so soon as he has lost his innocence. The light without, and the light within, are quenched at the same time. God, who was a Friend, becomes a Judge. Paradise is forfeited by one sin. So is it still; so it always must be. Peace departs the moment sin enters the soul. Sin committed is death begun (James i. 15). Revelation must be taken as a whole. In the New Testament, Christ is analogically described as the second Adam (1 Cor. xv. 45). The first Adam was tempted, and fell. The second Adam was tempted, and triumphed. With Jesus Christ there began a new order of events, and a higher range of spiritual life-a new creation, all who partake in which are to put off the old Adam with his deeds (Eph. iv. 22. Col. iii. 9). Thus grace superabounds; the evils of the fall are more than repaired by the redemption which is in our second head and representative, by whom we are raised into moral union and spiritual sonship with God. The world, then, is not without a ruler, nor its history without a plan. Man is under the empire of law; that law is the divine will; that will is infinite wisdom, guided by unlimited benevolence; and as wisdom and love constitute power, so man, in becoming a consciously moral being under divine discipline, works forward in faith and hope, fulfilling the gra cious ends and purposes of the government of a Father, till God shall be all in all. In the teachings of which we have made mention, are found the central truths of religion, as well as high and noble conceptions, which must work most benignly on the human race, and without which man would indeed be lost. They are found in the Bible. Were they not there, man could not in the early ages, if ever, have discovered them, how desirable soever the possession of them may be. Of Adam's immediate offspring, only three sons are mentioned, Cain, Abel, and Seth. Yet it is clear that he had other children (Gen. iv. 15; v. 4); whence we may learn, that the writers of the Bible had not the intention to record every event, even in relation to the chief characters of its history. From a passage in Joshua (iii. 16), the name Adam appears to have been given to a city on the shore of the Jordan, beside Zaretan,' near the part where the Israelites passed the river, on proceeding to take possession of the land of promise. ADDER was applied in the Anglo-Saxon as a general name for the serpentine class of reptiles: in German, at the present day, the word is found, with a slight variation, in natter, denoting generally the class termed viper. From the ensuing lines, adder, in the time of Dryden, seems to have denoted those serpents (Naja Haje, or Naja Tripudians) that have the power of inflating the neck when they throw the fore part of their body erect in a proud attitude of assault "By the crested adders' pride, That along the clifts do glide.' There are four words in the Hebrew rendered by the English term adder. Of these, one is more often translated asp, and will be noticed under that word. Of the other three, we begin with-I. Gachshoov, which comes from a root denoting to swell under the effect of heat: it occurs only in Ps. cxl. 3, 'adder's poison is under their lips;' from which words it was evidently venomous;— II. Tzehphag, the root-meaning of which is to hiss this word, and a slightly altered form of it, are used five times in the Bible, out of which it is translated four times cockatrice, and once adder. The reptile had the power of stinging, but, apparently, not of killing ;III. Shepheephon, rendered the only time it occurs (Gen. xlix. 17) adder; and in the margin, arrowsnake: the root signifies to puncture, to wound as with the fang of a serpent. The bite must have been severe, if not venomous, to warrant the comparison -Dan shall be an adder in the path, that biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward.' Palestine, and its immediate vicinity, abounded in reptiles of the serpent kind. Some fifty species are known to exist, of which the bite of eight is accompanied by an effusion of a venomous and virulent kind. ADJURE (L. to put to an oath) signifies to request with that solemn earnestness which ensues from an immediate reference to the all-seeing and retributory providence of God (OATH). When Jesus held his peace before the tribunal of the high priest, the latter said, 'I adjure thee, by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ' (Matt. xxvi. 63. Mark v. 7. Acts xix. 13. 1 Thess. v. 27). ADMONITION (L. giving advice to) is rendered from a Greek word which signifies putting in mind, and indicates the act of a friendly adviser (1 Cor. x. 11. Eph. vi. 4. Tit. iii. 10). ADONI-ZEDEK (H. Lord of Zedek or of righteousness), a Canaanite King of Jerusalem, whose name recalls Melchi-zedek, king of Zedek or righteousness, giving the idea that Zedek may have been an ancient name of Jerusalem. Alarmed at the progress which the Israelites were making in their invasion of Canaan, and indignant at the defection of the Gibeon ites, Adoni-zedek made an alliance with four other petty princes, and boldly laid siege to Gibeon; but was defeated and slain by Joshua, who was aided by a very destructive hailstorm (Josh. x.). ADONIJAH (H. my Lord Jehovah) fourth son of David, by Haggith. On the death of Absalom, and when his father was old and weak, he proceeded to lay claim to the crown, on the ground of being older than Solomon, to whom it had been promised. His attempt failed, and he was pardoned. He soon renewed his efforts, which being discovered, Solomon, now king, put him to death (2 Sam. iii. 1 Chron. iii. 1 Kings i. ii.). Absalom and Adonijah were two rebellious sons, whose conduct must have made David doubt if he had taken the way to happiness in ascending a throne. All three afford, in their history, a painful proof of the folly of ambition, and serve to teach that real happiness depends not on station, but character. ADONI-BEZEK (H. Lord of Bezek), a Canaanite chief, whose domain appears to have lain in Judah, and whom the tribe of Judah, aided by Simeon, subdued in the period between the death of Joshua and the government of Othniel. Being captured after the battle, he had his thumbs and great toes cut off; when he was reminded of a similar piece of cruelty, only on a larger scale, of which he had himself been guilty, saying, "Threescore and ten kings, having their thumbs and their great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table: as I have done, so God hath requited me.' The wicked often see their wickedness, only when it falls on themselves. These seventy kings, thus disgracefully enslaved to a petty chieftain, show how numerous and inconsiderable the emirs or chiefs of Canaan were at the time of its invasion by the Israelites (Judg. i. 5, seq.). ADOPTION (L. choosing to yourself) is, according to the Roman conception, the selection of another's child with a view to treat it as one's own: according to the Grecian notion, it is the placing of another's child in your family, intending it to have the same rights and privileges as your own. A corresponding term is not found in Hebrew; but the Greek word occurs in the New Testament, and the practice which it sets forth is the source of interesting and important allusions. As, however, the ideas appear to be borrowed from classic usages, we shall say a few words on the subject of adoption as practised among the Romans; the rather because the learned Jews, such as Paul, were, in the primitive times of the gospel, well acquainted with Roman manners and customs; and the practice under consideration was pretty much the same, in essential features, in most ancient nations. Adoption with the Romans sprang out of their peculiar religious constitution; according to which, every family was bound to observe its own religious services and festivals (private duties), with a view to their preservation; which, failing an heir, would be secured by the adoption of another's son. To this was added the natural desire on the part of a man to transmit his name to posterity; as also the continued enjoyment in the family of certain rights, whose existence depended on the possession of children. Adoptions were, therefore, frequent among the Romans: they gave to the father the full paternal power over the adopted child, and to the adopted the full privileges of a natural child. If a person took into his family, as a son, one who had the full rights of a Roman citizen, this act was called arrogatio; but, if the person adopted was in a state of dependance, the act was properly an act of adoption, by which name it was designated. The oldest form of adoption, strictly so called, was a kind of judicial purchase, taking place before the proper tribunal, where there appeared the adopter, the child to be adopted and his father, together with a witness; when the father openly renounced his right to his son, and he was formally adopted by his new father, who handed to the natural parent a piece of money in payment of the purchase. The formalities of purchase in time went out of use. Adoption could take place only on the part of those who were in a condition to exercise a father's power. It was, therefore, prohibited to eunuchs; to women also, except under a special dispensation, granted in the case of their having been bereaved of their own children. The adopted child took his new father's name. Under certain legal conditions, there arose two degrees of adoption, the imperfect and the perfect; the first giving the rights, the second the possession of the advantages which accrued from adoption. Among the Hebrews, adoption was less likely to be practised, because a man's desire for heirs could seldom fail to be gratified under a system of polygamy. It was rather the mother who, being herself barren, might feel a desire to have children by another female, who would be accounted as her own. Sarah had Ishmael by the intervention of her slave Hagar; but the insecurity of the adoptive tenure-law then being mainly custom-is made evident by Ishmael's being, together with his mother, driven from the family on the birth of Isaac. Rachel also had, by her handmaid Bilhah, Dan and Naphtali; when, with that love of offspring which is characteristic of the East, Jacob's other wife, Leah, as she had left off bearing herself, gave Zilpah to her husband, and so increased her family by Gad and Asher. These are instances in which there was a near approach to the ordinary ties of nature. The handmaid in the case seems to have been regarded as little more than an instrument in the hands of her mistress, who, as if to betoken her eagerness and care for the child, received it from the parturient mother on her own knees (Gen. xxx. 3). Before he had children, Abraham seems to have practically adopted a slave born in his house. When, however, it is said that this person was Abraham's heir, it can mean only on the supposition, that he had no children by Sarah; for, when Isaac was born, the inheritance became his. In the East, home-born slaves are frequently adopted, partly through convenience, but more through that favour and affection which are in such circumstances natural. And here we may speak of a reference to this usage made by Paul, whose language gains in clearness to those who are familiar with these ancient usages. In Rom. viii. 15, seq. (see also Gal. iv. 5, 6. 1 Cor. ii. 12), the apostle alludes to the adoption of slaves, which was very customary among the Romans. Out of Christ, men were enslaved either to the Jewish yoke, or to the world. Adopted by the spirit of God, they exchanged the name master for the endearing appellation Father, and entered on all the rights and privileges of sons. But there was an initial and a perfect adoption: the first took place when men received the invitation of the son (John viii. 36), and were made free of his house; the second took place when the introduction to the family had issued in all its practical results, that is, in redemption and final salvation. Conversion begins, sanctification and death consummate, the great act of Christian adoption. There is, for the purposes of property, a decided case of adoption in Gen. xlviii. 5, where Jacob, when near his end, adopts Joseph's sons, Ephraim and Manassehplacing them in the same position as Reuben and Simeon, his own eldest sons: thus Jacob showed favour to his beloved Joseph, securing ADR to his posterity a double share of the promised land. In the 1 Chronicles (ii. 34, seq.) we find a case of adoption which more nearly approaches to the Roman model. Sheshan has no sons, but daughters. Wishing that his family should not become extinct, he marries one of his daughters to a house-slave, Jarha, an Egyptian, whose offspring are not reckoned to him, but to their maternal grandfather, Sheshan. A comparison of texts brings out a curious genealogical fact (1 Kings iv. 13. 1 Chron. ii. 21, seq. Josh. xiii. 30). Machir, Joseph's grandson, marries to Hezron of Judah, his daughter; from which marriage is Jair, who acquires large property by means of his wife; on which account he and his children are reckoned to Manasseh, their maternal, and not to Judah, their paternal ancestor. In Numb. xxxii. 41. 1 Kings iv. 13, this Jair, who was the son of Segub, is termed 'the son of Manasseh,' after his maternal great-grandfather, Machir, son of Manasseh; for the property 'belonged to the sons of Machir' (1 Chron. ii. 23): whence it appears that, in the case of an heiress, the genealogy followed the mother's, and not the father's side. This fact has been used to explain Luke iii. 23, where Joseph, the husband of Mary, is called the son of Heli, because he had married Mary, an heiress, daughter of Heli; thus making Luke's register to be that of Mary's line, and leaving that of Matthew to be the register of the natural line of Joseph. 27 ADORATION (L. (applying (the hand) to the mouth), a token of civil respect, and of religious worship; which consisted in humbly applying the hand to the mouth, or in devoutly kissing the hand, while standing before an image, an object, or a person. This form of worship is spoken of in Job (xxxi. 26, 27), as constituting a species of homage paid to the heavenly bodies. The act and the name are both of Heathen origin. It will readily be seen on reflection, that such an observance could not have its origin in a spiritual religion, such as that of the Bible; in which God being invisible, and not represented by any likeness, could not be an object of adoration in the etymological sense of the term; for, in order to kiss the hand to an object, the object must be present before your eyes. It is not a little curious, as showing the changes that language often undergoes, that this word, which had its origin in idolatry, should in process of time have come to denote the highest reverence which Christians offer to the unseen and omnipresent Maker of heaven and earth. ADRAMMELECH (Fire-king), a divinity of the inhabitants of Sepharvaim (Sipphara, on the Euphrates), whose worship the Assy rian colonists, whom the king of Assyria transplanted from Babylon to Samaria, To this divinity children were brought with them, and practised in the latter country. burnt in fire. The kind of honour paid to this god, as well as to Anammelech, was the same as that rendered to Moloch. The root of the word, in all three cases, signifies king, referring to the king of day.' The idolatry is therefore a species of Sabaism, or starworship, and may be compared with the worship paid by western nations to Chronos or Saturn (2 Kings xvii. 31). ADRAMYTTIUM (G.) a city having a harbour formed by the triangular shape of the land, towards which the island Mitylene, turning in the apex of its triangle, aids to make a good and safe port. It lies on the sea-coast of Mysia, not far from ancient Asia Minor. Its modern name is Adramit. Troy, on the extreme north-western part of It was inhabited by a colony of Athenians; a circumstance which, combined with the peculiar facilities of the place as a seaport, may account for its celebrity in marine com merce. It was in a ship of Adramyttium that Paul embarked, when, having appealed to Cæsar, he proceeded from Cæsarea, on the coast of Palestine, to Rome. The agreement with facts, wherever they can be ascertained, which the scriptural narratives present, concurs strongly to evince the hisconfirm the foundations of our faith. In toric credibility of holy writ, and thus to the present case there was a reason why it should be a ship of Adramyttium, since this being a seaport not very distant from Cæsarea, may well have had some of its vessels at the latter place. The vessel appears to have gone to Cæsarea, in order to take in a cargo of Syrian merchandise; having done which, she was about to return home, when the centurion Julius, who had Paul in charge, engaged her commander to carry him and his prisoner along the coast of Asia, hoping that, in some of the harbours they should have to pass, they might find a vessel to transport them to Rome; in which hope he was not disappointed (Acts xxvii. 2-5). All this has an air of probability, and corresponds with fact. ADRIA (G.), the Adriatic Sea, up and down which Paul was driven just previous to his being shipwrecked on his voyage to Mediterranean Sea which lay between Italy, Rome (Acts xxvii. 27). That part of the Illyricum, Epirus, and Greece, was by the ancients called the Adriatic Sea, from the town It was divided into two parts, the north and Adria, which lay on the Venetian coast. the south; the latter being often termed the tic that Paul was tossed about so long, Ionian Sea. It was in the southern Adriaat the north-western extremity of which lies Malta, the island on which the ship was driven, and towards which she would be necessarily borne by the stormy Euroclydon, or north-east wind. The more narrowly the |