logy, he left Europe, and retired to an agreeable solitude within fifty miles of Philadelphia, for the more free exercise of religious contemplation. Curiosity attracted followers, and his simple and engaging manners made them proselytes, They soon settled a little colony, called Euphrate, in allusion to the Hebrews, who used to sing psalms on the borders of the river Euphrates. This denomination seem to have obtained their name from their baptizing their new converts by plunging. They are also called Tumblers, from the manner in which they performed baptism, which is by putting the person, while kneeling, head first under water, so as to resemble the motion of the body in the action of tumbling. They use the trine immersion, with laying on the hands and prayer, even when the person baptized is in the

water.

Their habit seems to be peculiar to themselves, consisting of a long tunic, or coat, reaching down to their heels, with a sash or girdle round the waist, and a cap, or hood, hanging from the shoulders, like the dress of the Dominican friars. The men do not shave the head or beard. The men and women have separate habitations and distinct governments. For these purposes they have erected two large wooden buildings, one of which is occupied by the brethren, the other by the sisters of the society; and in each of them there is a banquetingroom, and an apartment for public worship; for the brethren and sisters do not meet together, even at their devotions. They used to live chiefly upon roots and other vegetables, the rules of their society not allowing them flesh, except on particular occasions, when they hold what they call a love feast; at which time the brethren and sisters dine together in a large apartment, and eat mutton, but no other meat. In each of their little cells they have a bench fixed, to serve the purpose of a bed, and a small block of wood for a pillow. They allow of marriage, and aid their poorer brethren who enter the matrimonial state; but they nevertheless consider celibacy as a virtue. The principal tenets of the Dunkers appear to be these: that future happiness is only to be attained by penance and outward mortification in this life; and that as Jesus Christ, by his meritorious sufferings, became the Redeemer of mankind in general, so each individual of the human race, by a life of abstinence and

restraint, may work out his own salvation. Nay, they go so far as to admit of works of supererogation, and declare that a man may do much more than he is in justice or equity obliged to do, and that his superabundant works may therefore be applied to the salvation of others. This denomination deny the eternity of future punishments, and believe that the dead have the Gospel preached to them by our Saviour, and that the souls of the just are employed to preach the Gospel to those who have had no revelation in this life. They suppose the Jewish sabbath, sabbatical year and year of jubilee, are typical of certain periods, after the general judgment, in which the souls of those who are not then admitted into happiness are purified from their corruption. If any within those smaller periods are so far humbled as to acknowledge the perfections of God, and to own Christ as their only Saviour, they are received to felicity; while those who continue obstinate are reserved in torments until the grand period typified by the jubilee arrives, in which all shall be made happy in the endless fruition of the Deity. They also deny the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity. They disclaim violence even in cases of selfdefence, and suffer themselves to be defrauded or wronged rather than go to law.

Their church government and discipline are the same with the English Antipædobaptists, except that every brother is allowed to speak in the congregation; and their best speaker is usually ordained to be the minister. They have deacons and deaconesses from among their ancient widows and exhorters, who are all licensed to use their gifts statedly. The members of the society are now much dispersed, and the members in the adjacent country differ in no respect from their neighbours in dress or manners; though they maintain the faith of their fathers, and are remarked for their exemplary lives and deportment.

DUTY, any action, or course of actions, which flow from the relations we stand in to God or man; that which a man is bound to perform by any natural or legal obligation. The various moral, relative, and spiritual duties, are considered in their places in this work.

DWIGHT, TIMOTHY, D.D., president of Yale College, America, was born at Northampton, in the county of Hampshire, and state of Massachusetts, on the

4th of May, 1752. His father was a respectable and opulent merchant; a man of sincere and unaffected piety, of excellent understanding, and unexceptionable character. His mother was the third daughter of the celebrated Jonathan Edwards, president of Nassau Hall; and possessed a vigorous and discriminating mind, and a cultivated understanding. She early began to be the instructress of her son, and so great was his eagerness for knowledge, that he learned the alphabet at one lesson; and, at the age of four, read the Holy Scriptures with ease and correctness. "With his father's example before him, enforced and recommended by the precepts of his mother, he was sedulously instructed in the doctrines of religion, as well as in the whole circle of moral duties. She taught him, from the dawn of reason, to fear God and keep his commandments; to be conscientiously just, kind, and affectionate, charitable, and forgiving; to preserve on all occasions, and under all circumstances, the most sacred regard to truth; to relieve the distresses, and supply the wants of the poor and unfortunate. She also aimed, at a very early period, to enlighten his conscience, to make him afraid to sin, and to teach him to hope for pardon through Christ. The impressions thus made upon his mind in infancy were never erased." At the age of six years he was sent to school, where he diligently studied, and made such rapid and extraordinary advances in every kind of knowledge, that at a very early age he was well acquainted with the Greek and Roman classics, history, geography, and astronomy; and whilst he was greatly pleased with the beauties of Homer and Virgil, he entered into the abstract reasonings of Locke and Newton. His conduct and character were at this time highly consistent and moral. At the age of thirteen he was admitted a member of Yale College. After far outstripping his rivals in the career of literature, he was called to become a tutor in Yale College at the age of nineteen. This office he filled with advantage to the institution, and credit to himself. Soon after this appointment his father, however, died; and he was compelled to resign the situation, and to

take charge of his mother and a large family. Thus he passed five years of his life, during which he twice consented to serve the town as their representative in the state legislature. In May, 1795, he was elected president of Yale College. This was a situation eminently adapted to him, and one in which he was enabled to advance the interests of learning and religion. When Dr. Dwight entered upon his arduous duties, the students were infected with infidelity; but in consequence of the efforts of his wisdom, prudence, zeal, and learning, alike firm and well principled, he succeeded to a great degree in exterminating opinions so inimical to the best interests of society. He soon afterwards became a preacher at Greenfield, and notwithstanding the variety of his college engagements, he found time regularly to compose two sermons every week. Afflicted by a disorder in his eyes, he was compelled, in after years, to employ an ama nuensis to pen from his lips his sermons. As a preacher, he was distinguished by the originality and copiousness of his ideas; the simplicity, fulness, and force of his language; and the dignity, propriety, and seriousness of his manner. As a professor of theology he was equally eminent; he was well read in the most eminent fathers and theologians, ancient and modern; he was a good biblical critic; and his sermons, consisting of five volumes, octavo, should be possessed by every student in divinity. He also wrote "Travels in New England and New York, four volumes, octavo; “The Conquest of Canaan," a poem, one vol. duodecimo; and a pamphlet on "The Dangers of the Infidel Philosophy." Dr. Dwight continued to discharge the duties of his station, both as a minister and president of the college, to the age of sixty-five; when, after a long and painful illness, he expired on January the 11th, 1817. He was endowed by nature with uncommon talents; and these, enriched by industry and research, and united to amiability and consistency in his private life, unquestionably entitle Dr. Dwight to a rank among the first men of this age. Two additional volumes of Dr. Dwight's sermons have recently been reprinted in London, octavo, 1828.

EASTER, the ecclesiastical festival commemorative of the resurrection of Christ The Greek waoxa, and the Latin pascha, from which come the French páques, the Italian pasqua, and the name of the same festival in several other languages, originated in the circumstance that Christ was typified by the paschal lamb, ordained by Moses to be slain at the feast of the passover: the feast being considered as a continuation, in its fulfilment, of the Jewish festival. The English name Easter, and the German Ostern, are derived from the name of the Teutonic goddess Ostera (AngloSaxon Eostre), whose festival was cele brated by the ancient Saxons with peculiar solemnities, in the month of April, and for which, as in many other instances, the first missionaries in these parts substituted the paschal feast. As early as the second century there were keen disputes respecting the day on which this feast should be kept: the Eastern Church persisting in observing it on the same day with the Jews; while the Western celebrated it on Sunday, as the day of Christ's resurrection. The dispute was finally settled at the council of Nice, in 325, which ordained that it should be kept always on a Sunday: only as it was a moveable feast, no small difficulty long continued to be felt as to its adjust ment.

EBION, the reputed founder of the sect of the Ebionites, but with respect to whom it has often been disputed whether such a person ever really existed, or whether this sect did not derive its name from the Hebrew word wax, signifying poor. It is certain that the Ebionites did take credit to themselves for being named after the first believers who made themselves poor; and their opponents reproached them with this name as being expressive of the poverty of their doetrines and of the mean opinion which they entertained of Christ.. But, notwithstanding these verbal allusions, Dr. Burton is of opinion, that it is by no means improbable that there was such a person as Ebion; and that if not a disciple of Cerinthus, he was at least contemporary with him. Whether he published his doctrines in Rome and Cyprus, as is said by Epiphanius, may perhaps be doubted; but that he disse

minated them in Asia, and in the neighbourhood of Ephesus, can hardly admit of a dispute. Though he and Cerinthus are named as the leaders of two distinct sects, it does not appear that there was any great difference of opinion between them.

EBIONITES, ancient heretics, forming a modification of the Gnostics, who rose in the very first age of the church, and formed themselves into a sect in the second century, denying the divinity of Jesus Christ. It has been supposed, with some plausibility, that this sect was originally formed among the Essenes; and indeed Epiphanius tells us that they resembled the Ossæi in their doctrine. Now, according to this writer, the Ossai were the same as the Osseni (Esseni), whom he describes as a Jewish sect.

They altered and corrupted, in many things, the purity of the faith held among the first adherents to Christianity. For this reason, Origen distinguishes two kinds of Ebionites in his answer to Celsus; the one believed that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin; and the other that he was born after the manner of other men. The first were orthodox in every thing, except that to the Christian doctrine they joined the ceremonies of the Jewish law, as did the Jews, Samaritans, and Nazarenes; together with the traditions of the Pharisees. They differed from the Nazarenes in several things, chiefly as to what regards the authority of the sacred writings; for the Nazarenes received all for Scripture contained in the Jewish canon; whereas the Ebionites rejected all the prophets, and held the very names of David, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, in abhorrence. They also rejected all Paul's epistles, whom they treated with the utmost disrespect. They received nothing of the Old Testament but the Pentateuch. They agreed with the Nazarenes, in using the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, otherwise called the Gospel of the twelve apostles; but they corrupted their copy in numerous places; and particularly left out the genealogy of our Saviour, which was preserved entire in that of the Nazarenes, and even in those used by the Cerinthians. Besides the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, the Ebio

nites had adopted several other books under the titles of James, John, and the other apostles; they also made use of the travels of Peter, which are supposed to have been written by Clement; but had altered them so, that there was scarce anything of truth left in them. They even made that father tell a number of falsehoods, the better to authorize their own practices.

ECCLESIASTICAL, an appellation given to whatever belongs to the church: thus we say ecclesiastical polity, jurisdiction, history, &c.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY, a narration of the transactions, revolutions, and events that relate to the church. As to the utility of church history, Dr. Jortin, who was an acute writer on this subject, shall here speak for us: he observes, 1. That it will show us the amazing progress of Christianity through the Roman empire, through the East and West, although the powers of the world cruelly opposed it. 2. Connected with Jewish and Pagan history, it will show us the total destruction of Jerusalem, the overthrow of the Jewish church and state; and the continuance of that unhappy nation for 1700 years, though dispersed over the face of the earth, and oppressed at different times by Pagans, Christians, and Mahometans. 3. It shows us that the increase of Christianity produced, in the countries where it was received, the overthrow and extinction of paganism, which, after a feeble resistance, perished about the sixth century. 4. It shows us how Christianity hath been continued and delivered down from the apostolical to the present age. 5. It shows us the various opinions which prevailed at different times amongst the fathers and other Christians, and how they departed, more or less, from the simplicity of the Gospel. 6. It will enable us to form a true judgment of the merit of the fathers, and of the use which is to be made of them. 7. It will show us the evil of imposing unreasonable terms of communion, and requiring Christians to profess doctrines not propounded in Scriptural words, but inferred as consequences from passages of Scripture, which one may call systems of consequential divinity. 8. It will show us the origin and progress of popery; and, lastly, it will show us, 9. The origin and progress of the Reformation.

Ecclesiastical history is a very import

ant branch of study, but one which is attended with many difficulties. The widely-spread and diversified circumstances of the Christian Church, even from the earliest period, render it difficult to arrive at satisfactory views of many events in which it was concerned. Those events were seldom recorded at the time, or by the persons who lived on the spot. The early writers who undertook to give the history of the church, were not well skilled in the laws of historic truth and evidence, nor always well fitted to apply those laws. Opinions and statements scattered over the pages of the fathers and their successors, are often vague, discordant, and unsatisfactory, presenting almost endless perplexity, or matter of debate. While these and other causes contribute to render ecclesiastical history very difficult, they who have devoted themselves to it in modern times, look at the subjects of their investigation through mediums which tend to colour or distort most of the facts passing under their review. Their associations and habits of thinking lead them unconsciously to attach modern ideas to ancient terms and usages. The word church, for instance, almost invariably suggests the idea of a body allied to the state, and holding the orthodox creed. The heretics of church history are generally regarded as men of erroneous principles and immoral lives. Councils are bodies representative, and clothed with something approaching to infallible authority. Bishops are not regarded as pastors of particular congregations, but ecclesiastical rulers of provinces. All these things tend greatly to bewilder and perplex an inquirer into the true state of the profession of Christianity during a long succession of ages; and from their distracting influence, even the strongest minds can scarcely be protected. Impartiality is commonly professed, and, in most instances, honestly intended, but very rarely exercised.

See Dr. Jortin's Charge on the Use and Importance of Ecclesiastical History, in his Works, vol. vii. ch. 2.

For ecclesiastical historians, see Eusebius's Eccl. Hist. with Valesius's notes; Baronii Annales Eccl.; Spondani Annales Sacri; Parei Universalis Hist. Eccl.; Lampe, Dupin, Spanheim, and Mosheim's Eccl. Hist.; Fuller's and Warner's Eccl. Hist. of England; Jortin's Remarks on Eccl. Hist.; Millar's Propagation of Christianity; Gillies's

Historical Collections; Dr. Erskine's Sketches, and Robinson's Researches. The most recent are, Dr. Campbell's, Gregory's, Milner's, and Dr. Haweis's; Schroek's, Neander's, and Jones's, all of which have their excellencies. See also Bogue and Bennett's History of the Dissenters. For the history of the Church under the Old Testament, the reader may consult Millar's History of the Church; Prideaux and Shuckford's Connections; Dr. Watts's Scripture History; Fleury's History of the Israelites, and especially Jahn's History of the Hebrew Commonwealth.

ECLECTICS, a name given to some ancient philosophers, who, without attaching themselves to any particular sect, took what they judged good and solid from each. One Potamon, of Alexandria, who lived under Augustus and Tiberius, and was weary of doubting of all things, with the Sceptics and Pyrrhonians, was the person who formed this sect.

ECLECTICS, or modern Platonics, a sect which arose in the Christian Church towards the close of the second century. They professed to make truth the only object of their inquiry, and to be ready to adopt from all the different systems and sects such tenets as they thought agreeable to it. They preferred Plato to the other philosophers, and looked upon his opinions concerning God, the human soul, and things invisible, as conformable to the spirit and genius of the Christian doctrine. One of the principal patrons of this system was Ammonius Saccas, who at this time laid the foundation of that sect, afterwards distinguished by the name of the New Platonics in the Alexandrian school.

ECSTACY, or EXSTASY, a transport of the mind, which suspends the functions of the senses by the intense contemplation of some extraordinary object. ECTHESIS, a confession of faith, the form of an edict, published in the year 639, by the Emperor Heraclius, with a view to pacify the troubles occasioned by the Eutychian heresy in the Eastern Church. However, the same prince revoked it, on being informed that Pope Severinus had condemned it, as favour ing the Monothelites; declaring, at the same time, that Sergius, patriarch of Constantinople, was the author of it. See EUTYCHIANS. EDIFICATION. This word signifies a building up. Hence we call a

building an edifice. Applied to spiritual things, it signifies the improving, adorning, and comforting the mind; and a Christian may be said to be edified when he is encouraged and animated in the ways and works of the Lord. The means to promote our own edification are, prayer, self-examination, reading the Scriptures, hearing the Gospel, meditation, attendance on all appointed ordinances. To edify others, there should be love, spiritual conversation, forbearance, faithfulness, benevolent exertions, and uniformity of conduct.

EDWARDS, JONATHAN (usually styled PRESIDENT EDWARDS), was descended from an ancient family in North America. He was born at Windsor, in the province of Connecticut, on the 5th of October, 1703. His father was a pious and faithful minister at Windsor; and his mother was a daughter of the celebrated Rev. Solomon Stoddard, of Northampton, and as remarkable for her mental, as for her personal attractions. Jonathan was their only son, though they had a numerous family. At the age of twelve years he had developed great penetration and deep thought. He was then admitted into Yale College, and, at the age of seventeen, received the degree of Bachelor of Arts.

He remained at college seven years; and, at the expiration of that period, being duly prepared, entered into the important work of the ministry, and delivered his first sermon at New York, in 1722, where he continued for eight months. In 1723 he took his degree of Master of Arts, and was tutor of Yale College; but, in the course of two years, resigned his office for the purpose of assisting his aged grandfather, who much required his assistance; and, at the age of twenty-three, became the colleague with that revered relative at Northampton, where he continued for upwards of two years. While there, he generally spent between thirteen and fourteen hours of every day in his study. Shortly after leaving Northampton, he united himself to a female in every respect worthy of him, and by whom he had a large family. To the education of his children he was particularly attentive, and made the care of their souls his first consideration; instructed them himself in the first elements of Christianity, and rendered his instructions pleasing, by his happy method of communicating knowledge. Those instruc