then this choice, this union, his death and intercession, may all be in vain, and rendered abortive; an idea as derogatory to the Divine glory, and as dishonourable to Jesus Christ, as possibly can be.-3. It is argued, from the work of the Spirit, which is to communicate grace and strength equal to the day, Phil. i. 6 2 Cor. i. 21, 22. "If, indeed, divine grace were dependent on the will of man, if by his own power he had brought himself into a state of grace, then it might follow that he might relapse into an opposite state when that power at any time was weakened; but as the perse

over the madness and depravity of mankind Does it not shew us what human beings are capable of when influenced by superstition, bigotry, and prejudice? Have not these baneful principles metamorphosed men into internals; and entirely extinguished all the feelings of humanity, the dictates of conscience, and the voice of reason? Alas! what has sin done to make mankind such curses to one another? Merciful God! by thy great power suppress this worst of all evils, and fet truth, and love, meckness and forbearance universally prevail! Limborch's Introduction to his History of the Inquisition. Memoirs of the Persecutions of the Protes-verance of the saints is not produced by any tants in France, by Lewis De Enarolles. Comber's History of the Parisian Massacre of St. Bartholomew. A. Robinson's History of Persecution. Lockman's History of Popish Persec. Clark's Looking Glass for Persecutors. Doddridge's Sermon on Persecution. Jortin's ditto, ser. 9. vol. iv.-4. Lastly, the declarations and promises Bower's Lives of the Popes. Fox's Mar- of scripture are very numerous in favour of tyrs. Woodrow's History of the Suffer- this doctrine, Job xvii. 9. Psal. xciv. 14. ings of the Church of Scotland. Neal's Psal. cxxv. Jer. xxxii. 40. John x. 28. John History of the Puritans, and of New Eng-xvii. 12. 1 Cor. i. 8, 9. 1 Peter i. 5. Prov. lund. History of the Bohemian Persecutions.

or motives. It is different from conviction. Conviction affects the understanding only; persuasion the will and the practice. It may be considered as an assent to a proposition not sufficiently proved. It is more extensively used than conviction, which last is founded on demonstration natural or supernatural. But all things of which we may be persuaded, are not capable of demonstration. See Blair's Rhetoric, vol. ii. p. 174.

of the means they are to attend to in order to promote their holiness: Christ and his apostles, though they often asserted this doctrine, yet reproved, exhorted, and made use of means. See EXHORTATION, MEANS. -5. Lastly, it is objected that this doctrine gives great encouragement to carnal security and presumptuous sin. To which it is answered, that this doctrine, like many others, may be abused by hypocrites, but cannot be so by those who are truly serious it being the very nature of grace to lead to PETER-PENCE was an annual tribute righteousness, Tit. ii. 10, 12. Their know- of one penny paid at Rome, out of every ledge leads to veneration; their love ani- family at the feast of St. Peter. This, Ina, mates to duty; their faith purifies the heart; the Saxon king, when he went in pilgrimage their gratitude excites to obedience; yea, to Rome about the year 740, gave to the all their principles have a tendency to set pope, partly as alms, and partly in recombefore them the evil of sin, and the beauty pence of a house erected in Rome for of holiness. See Whitby and Gill on the English pilgrims. It continued to be paid Five Points. Cole on the Sovereignty of generally, until the time of king Henry God. Doddridge's Lectures, lec. 179. Tur-VIII. when it was enacted, that henceforth retini Comp. Theologia, lec. 14. p 156. no persons shall pay any pensions, peterEconomia Witsi, lib. iii. c. 13. Toplady's pence, or other impositions, to the use of Works, p. 476, vol. v. Ridgely's Body of the bishop and see of Rome. Div. qu. 79.

for our fellow creatures also. This part of prayer is frequently called intercession. See PRAYER.

PETITION, according to Dr. Watts, PERSON, an individual substance of a is the fourth part of prayer, and includes a rational intelligent nature. Some have been desire of deliverance from evil, and a reoffended at the term persons as applied to quest of good things to be bestowed. On the Trinity, as unwarrantable. The term both these accounts, petitions are to be ofperson, when applied to Deity, is certainiyfered up to God, not only for ourselves, but used in a sense somewhat different from that in which we apply it to one another; but when it is considered that the Greek words Υποςτασις and Προσωπον, to which it anPETROBRUSSIANS, a sect founded swers, are, in the New Testament, applied about the year 1110, in Languedoc and to the Father and Son, Heb. i. 3. 2 Cor. iv. Province, by Peter de Bruys, who made 6. and that no single term, at least, can be the most laudable attempts to reform the found more suitable, it can hardly be con-abuses, and to remove the superstitions that demned as unscriptural and improper. There have been warm debates between the Greek and Latin churches about the words hypostasis and persona; the Latin concluding that the word hypostasis signified substance or essence, thought that to assert that there were three divine hypostases was to say that there were three Gods. On the other hand, the Greek church thought that the word person did not sufficiently guard against the Sabellian notion of the same individual Being sustaining three relations; whereupon each part of the church was ready to brand the other with heresy, till by a free and mutual conference in a synod at Alexandria, A. || D. 362, they made it appear that it was but a mere contention about the grammatical sense of a word; and then it was allowed by men of temper on both sides, that either of the two words might be indifferently used. See Marci Medulla, 1 5. § 3. Ridgley's Divinity, qu. 11. Hurrion on the Spirit, p. 140. Doddridge's Lectures, lec. 159. Gill on the Trinity, p. 93. Watts' Works, vol. v. p. 48, 208. Gill's Body of Divinity, vol. i. p. 205, 8vo. Edwards' History of Redemption, p. 51, note. Hora Sol. vol. ii. p.

disfigured the beautiful simplicity of the
Gospel; though not without a mixture of
fanaticism. The following tenets were held
by him and his disciples: 1. That no per-
sons whatever were to be baptized before
they were come to the full use of their
reason.-2. That it was an idle superstition
to build churches for the service of God,
who will accept of a sincere worship where-
ever it is offered: and that, therefore, such
churches as had already been erected were
to be pulled down and destroyed-3. That
the crucifixes, as instruments of superstition,
deserved the same fate.-4. That the real
body and blood of Christ were not exhibited
in the eucharist, but were merely repre-
sented in that ordinance.-5. That the ob
lations, prayers, and good works of the
living, could be in no respect advantageous
to the dead. The founder of this sect, after
a laborious ministry of twenty years. was
burnt in the year 1130, by an enraged po-
pulace, set on by the clergy, whose traffic
was in danger from the enterprising spirit
of this new reformer

PETROJOANNITES were followers of Peter John, or Peter Joannis, that is, Peter the son of John, who flourished in the twelfth century. His doctrine was not known till after his death, when his body

was taken out of his grave, and burnt. His opinions were, that he alone had the knowledge of the true sense wherein the apostles preached the Gospel; that the reasonable soul is not the form of man; that there is no grace infused by baptism; and that Jesus Christ was pierced with a lance on the cross before he expired.

PHARISEES, a famous sect of the Jews, who distinguished themselves by their zeal|| for the tradition of the elders, which they derived from the same fountain with the written word itself; pretending that both were delivered to Moses from Mount Sinai, and were therefore both of equal authority. From their rigorous observance of these traditions, they looked upon themselves as more holy than other men, and therefore separated themselves from those whom they thought sinners or profane, so as not to eat or drink with them; and hence from the Hebrew word pharis, which signifies "to separate," they had the name of Pha risees or Separatists.

This sect was one of the most ancient and most considerable among the Jews, but its original is not very well known; however, it was in great repute in the time of our Saviour, and most probably had its original at the same time with the traditions.

notions respecting the soul; but Bishop Bull, in his Harmonia Apostolica, has clearly proved that they held a resurrection of the body, and that they supposed a certain bone to remain uncorrupted, to furnish the matter of which the resurrection body was to be formed. They did not, however, believe that all mankind were to be raised from the dead. A resurrection was the privilege of the children of Abraham alone, who were all to rise on Mount Zion; their uncorruptible bones, wherever they might be buried, being carried to that mountain below the surface of the earth. The state of future felicity in which the Pharisees believed was very gross: they imagined that men in the next world, as well as in the present, were to eat and drink, and enjoy the pleasures of love, each being re-united to his former wife. Hence the Sadducees, who believed in no resurrection, and supposed our Saviour to teach it as a Pharisee, very shrewdly urged the difficulty of disposing of the wo man who had in this world been the wife of seven husbands. Had the resurrection of Christianity been the Pharisaical resurrection, this difficulty would have been insurmountable; and accordingly we find the people, and even some of the Pharisees themselves, struck with the manner in which

The extraordinary pretences of the Pha-our Saviour removed it. risees to righteousness, drew after them the common people, who held them in the highest esteem and veneration. Our Saviour frequently, however, charges them with hypocrisy, and making the law of God of no effect through their traditions, Matt. ix. 12. Matt xv. 1, 6. Matt. xxiii. 13, 33. Luke xi. 39, 52. Several of these traditions are particularly mentioned in the Gospel; but they had a vast number more,|| which may be seen in the Talmud, the whole subject whereof is to dictate and explain those traditions which this sect imposed to be believed and observed.

This sect seems to have had some confused notions, probably derived from the Chaldeans and Persians, respecting the preexistence of souls; and hence it was that Christ's disciples asked him concerning the blind man, John ix. 2. "Who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind ?” And when the disciples told Christ that some said he was Elias, Jeremias, or one of the prophets, Matt. xvi. 14. the meaning can only be, that they thought he was come into the world with the soul of Elias, Jeremias, or some other of the old prophets transmigrated into him. With the Essenes The Pharisees, contrary to the opinion they held absolute predestination, and with of the Sadducees, held a resurrection from the Sadducees freewill; but how they rethe dead, and the existence of angels and conciled these seemingly incompatible docspirits. Acts xxiii. ch. viii. But, accord- trines is no where sufficiently explained. ing to Josephus, this resurrection of theirs The sect of the Pharisees was not extinwas no more than a Pythagorean resurrec-guished by the ruin of the Jewish commontion, that is, of the soul only, by its trans-wealth. The greatest part of the modern migration into another body, and being Jews are still of this sect, being as much de born anew with it. From this resurrection voted to traditions, or the oral law, as their they excluded all who were notoriously ancestors were wicked, being of opinion that the souls of such persons were transmitted into a state of everlasting woe. As to lesser crimes, they held they were punished in the bodies which the souls of those who committed them were next sent into.

Josephus, however, either mistook the faith of his countrymen, or which is more probable, wilfully misrepresented it, to render their opinions more respected by the Roman philosophers, whom he appears to have, on every occasion, been desirous to please. The Pharisees had many Pagan

PHILADELPHIAN SOCIETY, a sect or society of the seventeenth century; so called from an English female, whose name was Jane Leadley. She embraced, it is said, the same views and the same kind of religion as Madam Bourignon (see BoURIGNONISTS.) She was of opinion that all dissentions among Christians would cease, and the kingdom of the Redeemer become, even here below, a glorious scene of charity, concord, and felicity, if those who bear the name of Jesus, without regarding the forms of doctrine or discipline that distinguish

Frederic II. king of Prussia, who wished to be thought a philosopher, and who, of course, deemed it expedient to talk and write against a religion which he had never studied, and into the evidence of which he had probably never deigned to enquire. This royal adept was one of the most zealous of Voltaire's coadjutors, till he discovered that the Philosophists were the altar. This, indeed, was not originally Voltaire's intention. He was vain; he loved to be caressed by the great; and, in one word, he was, from natural disposition, an aristocrat, and an admirer of royalty. But when he found that almost every sovereign but Frederic disapproved of his impious projects, as soon as he perceived their issue,

particular communions, would all join in committing their souls to the care of the internal guide, to be instructed, governed, and formed by his divine impulse and suggestions. Nay, she went still farther, and declared, in the name of the Lord, that this desirable event would actually come to pass, and that she had a divine commission to proclaim the approach of this glorious communion of saints, who were to be gath-waging war with the throne as well as with ered in one visible universal church or kingdom before the dissolution of this earthly globe. This prediction she delivered with a peculiar degree of confidence, from a notion that her Philadelphian society was the true kingdom of Christ, in which alone the Divine Spirit resided and reigned. She believed, it is said, the doctrine of the final restoration of all intelligent beings to perfec-he determined to oppose all the govern tion and happiness.

PHILANTHROPY, compounded of 40s and avopamos, which signify the love of mankind. It differs from benevolence only in this: that benevolence extends to every being that has life and sense, and is of course susceptible of pain and pleasure; whereas philanthropy cannot comprehend more than the human race. It differs from friendship, as this affection subsists only between a few individuals, whilst philanthropy comprehends the whole human species. It is a calm sentiment, which perhaps hardly ever rises to the warmth of affection, and certainly not to the heat of passion.

PHILLIPISTS, a sect or party among the Lutherans, the followers of Philip Melancthon. He had strenuously opposed the Ubiquists, who arose in his time; and, the dispute growing still hotter after his death, the university of Wittenburg, who espoused Melancthon's opinion, were called by the Flacciaus, who attacked it, Phillipista.

ments on earth, rather than forfeit the glory with which he had flattered himself of vanquishing Christ and his apostles in the field of controversy.

He now set himself, with D'Alembert and Diderot, to excite universal discontent with the established order of things. For this purpose they formed secret societies, assumed new names, and employed an enigmatical language. Thus, Frederic was called Luc; D'Alembert, Protagoras, and sometimes Bertrand; Voltaire, Raton; and Diderot, Platon; or its anagram, Tonpla; while the general term for the conspirators was Cacoucc. In their secret meetings they professed to celebrate the mysteries of Mythra; and their great object, as they professed to one another, was to confound the wretch, meaning Jesus Christ. Hence their secret watch-word was Ecrasez l'Infame, "Crush Christ." If we look into some of the books expressly written for general circulation, we shall there find the following doctrines; some of them standing alone in all their naked horPHILOSOPHISTS, a name given to seve- rors, others surrounded by sophistry and ral persons in France who entered into a meretricious ornaments, to entice the mind combination to overturn the religion of Jesus, into their net before it perceives their naand eradicate from the human heart every ture. "The Universal Cause, that god of religious sentiment. The man more partí- the philosophers, of the Jews, and of the cularly to whom this idea first occurred was Christians, is but a chimera and a phanVoltaire, who being weary (as he said him- tom. The phenomena of nature only prove self) of hearing people repeat that twelve the existence of God to a few prepossessmen were sufficient to establish Christiani-ed men: so far from bespeaking a God, ty, resolved to prove that one might be they are but the necessary effects of matter sufficient to overturn it. Full of this pro- prodigiously diversified. It is more reasonject, he swore before the year 1730 to dedi- able to admit, with Manes, of a two-fold cate his life to its accomplishment; and, god, than of the God of Christianity. We for some time, he flattered himself that he cannot know whether a God really exists, should enjoy alone the glory of destroying or whether there is the smallest difference the Christian religion. He found, however, between good and evil, or vice and virtue. that associates would be necessary; and Nothing can be more absurd, than to befrom the numerous tribe of his admirers lieve the soul a spiritual being. The imand disciples he chose D'Alembert and mortality of the soul, so far from stimulatDiderot as the most proper persons to co-ing man to the practice of virtue, is nothing operate with him in his designs. But Voltaire was not satisfied with their aid alone. He contrived to embark in the same cause

but a barbarous, desperate, fatal tenet, and contrary to all legislation. All ideas of justice and injustice, of virtue and vice, of

us

glory and infamy, are purely arbitrary, and [riodical publications, established a general dependent on custom. Conscience and re-intercourse by means of hawkers and pedmorse are nothing but the foresight of those lars with the distant provinces, and instituphysical penalties to which crimes expose ted an office to supply all schools with teach The man who is above the law, can ers; and thus did they acquire unprececommit, without remorse, the dishonest act dented dominion over every species of litethat may serve his purpose. The fear of rature, over the minds of all ranks of peoGod, so far from being the beginning of ple, and over the education of youth, wisdom, should be the beginning of folly. without giving any alarm to the world. The command to love one's parents is more The lovers of wit and polite literature were the work of education than of nature. Mo- caught by Voltaire; the men of science desty is only an invention of refined volup- were perverted; and children corrupted in tuousness. The law which condemns mar- the first rudiments of learning, by D'Alemried people to live together, becomes bar- bert and Diderot: stronger appetites were barous and cruel on the day they cease to fed by the secret club of Baron Holbach: love one another." These extracts from the imaginations of the higher orders were the secret correspondence and the public set dangerously afloat by Montesquieu; and writings of these men, will suffice to shew the multitude of all ranks were surprised, us the nature and tendency of the dreadful confounded, and hurried away by Rosseau. system they had formed. Thus was the public mind in France.completely corrupted, and which, no doubt, greatly accelerated those dreadful events which have since transpired in that country.

PHILOSOPHY, properly denotes love, or desire of wisdom (from res and Qiα) Pythagoras was the first who devised this name, because he thought no man was wise but God only; and that learned men ought to be considered as lovers of wisdom than really wise.-1. Natural Philosophy is that art or science which leads us to contemplate the nature, causes, and effects of the material works of God.-2. Moral Philosophy is the science of manners, the knowledge of our duty and felicity. The various articles included in the latter are explained in their places in this work.

The Philosophists were diligently employed in attempting to propagate their sentiments. Their grand Encyclopædia was converted into an engine to serve this purpose. Voltaire proposed to establish a colony of Philosophists at Cleves, who, protected by the king of Prussia, might publish their opinions without dread or danger; and Frederic was disposed to take them under his protection, till he discovered that their opinions were anarchical as well as impious, when he threw them off, and even wrote against them. They contrived, however, to engage the ministers of the court of France in their favour, by pretending to have nothing in view but the enlargement of science, in works which spoke indeed respectfully of revelation, while every discovery which they brought forward was PHOTINIANS, a sect of heretics, in the meant to undermine its very foundation. fourth century, who denied the divinity of When the throne was to be attacked, and our Lord. They derive their name from even when barefaced atheism was to be pro- Photinus, their founder, who was bishop of mulgated, a number of impious and licen- Sermium, and a disciple of Marcellus. Photious pamphlets were dispersed (for some tinus published in the year 343, his notions time none knew how) from a secret society respecting the Deity, which were repugnant formed at the Hotel d'Holbach, at Paris, of both to the orthodox and Arian systems. which Voltaire was elected honorary and He asserted that Jesus Christ was born of perpetual president. To conceal their real the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary; that design, which was the diffusion of their infia certain divine emanation, which he called del sentiments, they called themselves the Word, descended upon him; and that, Economists. See ECONOMISTS. The because of the union of the Divine Word books, however, that were issued from this with his human nature, he was called the club were calculated to impair and overturn || Son of God, and even God himself; and religion, morals, and government and that the Holy Ghost was not a person, but which indeed, spreading over all Europe. merely a celestial virtue proceeding from imperceptibly took possession of public the Deity. opinion. As soon as the sale was sufficient to pay the expences, inferior editions were printed and given away, or sold at a very low price; circulating libraries of them formed, and reading societies instituted. While they constantly denied these produc tions to the world, they contrived to give them a false celebrity through their confidential agents and correspondents, who were not themselves always trusted with the entire secret. By degrees they got possession nearly of all the reviews and pe

PHRYGIANS, or CATAPHRYGIANS, a sect in the second century; so called, as being of the country of Phrygia. They were orthodox in every thing, setting aside this that they took Motannus for a prophet, and Priscilla and Maximilla for true prophetesses, to be consulted in every thing relating to religion: as supposing the Holy Spirit had abandoned the church. See MONTANISTS.

PHYLACTERY, in the general, was a name given by the ancients, to all kinds of