To this it may be replied, that if it || be allowed that the saints shall know that some whom they loved on earth are not in heaven, this will give them no uneasiness: since that affection which took its rise principally from the relation which we stood in to persons on earth, or the intimacy, that we have contracted with them, will cease in another world, or rather run in another channel, and be excited by superior motives; namely, their relation to Christ; that perfect holiness which they are adorned with; their being joined in the same blessed society, and engaged in the same employment, together with their former usefulness one to another in promoting their spiritual welfare, as made subservient to the happiness they enjoy there. And as for others, who are excluded from their society, they will think themselves obliged, out of a due regard to the justice and holiness of God to acquiesce in his righteous judgments. Thus, the inhabitants of heaven are represented as adoring the divine perfections, when the vials of God's wrath were poured out upon his enemies, and saying, Thou art righteous, O Lord, because thou hast judged thus: true and righteous are thy judgments, Rev. xvi. 5, 7.

"Another question has been sometimes asked, víz. Whether there shall be a diversity of languages in heaven, as there is on earth? This we cannot pretend to determine. Some think that there shall; and that, as persons of all nations and tongues shall make up that blessed society, so they shall praise God in the same language which they before used when on earth; and that this worship may be performed with the greatest harmony, and to mutual edification, all the saints shall, by the immediate power and providence of God, be able to understand and make use of every one of those different languages, as well as their own. This they found on the apostle's words, in which he says, That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord; which they suppose has a respect to the heavenly state, because it is said to be done both by those that are in heaven, and those that are on earth, Phil. ii. 10, 11. But though the apostle speaks by a metonymy of different tongues, that is, persons who speak different languages being subject to Christ, he probably means thereby persons of different nations, whether they shall praise him in their own language in heaven, or no. Therefore some

conjecture that the diversity of languages shall then cease, inasmuch as it took its first rise from God's judicial hand, when he confounded the speech of those who presumptuously attempted to build the city and tower of Babel; and this has been ever since attended with many inconveniences. And, indeed, the apostle seems expressly to intimate as much, when he says, speaking concerning the heavenly state, that tongues shall cease, 1 Cor. xiii. 8. that is, the present variety of languages.-Moreover, since the gift of tongues was bestowed on the apostles for the gathering and building up the church in the first ages thereof, which end, when it was answered, this extraordinary dispensation ceased; in like manner it is probable that hereafter the diversity of languages shall cease."

"I am sensible," says Dr. Ridgley, "there are some who object to this, that the saints understanding all languages, will be an addition to their honour, glory, and happiness. But to this it may be answered, that though it is, indeed, an accomplishment, in this world, for a person to understand several languages, that arises from the subserviency thereof to those valuable ends that are answered thereby; but this would be entirely removed, if the diversity of languages be taken away in heaven, as some suppose it will."

"There are some, who, it may be, give too much scope to a vain curiosity, when they pretend to enquire what this language shall be, or determine, as the Jews do, and with them some of the fathers, that it shall be Hebrew, since their arguments for it are not sufficiently conclusive, which are principally these, viz. That this was the language with which God inspired man at first in paradise, and that which the saints and patriarchs spake, and the church generally made use of in all ages till our Saviour's time; and that it was this language which he himself spake while here on earth; and since his ascension into heaven, he spake to Paul in the Hebrew tongue, Acts xxvi. 14. And when the inhabitants of heaven are described in the Revelations as praising God, there is one word used by which their praise is expressed, namely, Hallelujah, which is Hebrew; the meaning whereof is, Praise ye the Lord. But all these arguments are not sufficiently convincing, and therefore we must reckon it no more than a conjecture."

However undecided we may be as to this and some other circumstances, this we may be assured of, that the happi

raven will be eternal. Whether || are represented as the ingredients of e progressive or not, and that the torment of the wicked, Rev. xiv. s shall always be increasing in 10, 11. Rev. xx. 10. That as the body is their knowledge, joy, &c. is not so clear. to be raised, and the whole man to be Some suppose that this indicates an im- condemned, it is reasonable to believe perfection in the felicity of the saints there will be some corporeal punishfor any addition to be made; but others ment provided, and therefore probably think it quite analogous to the dealings material fire. On the negative side it of God with us here; and that, from is alleged, that the terms above-menthe nature of the mind itself, it may be tioned are metaphorical, and signify no concluded. But however this be, it is more than raging desire or acute pain; certain that our happiness will be com- and that the Divine Being can sufficientplete, 1 Pet. v. 10. 1 Pet. v. 4. Heb. xi. ly punish the wicked, by immediately 10. Watts's Death and Heaven; Gill's acting on their minds, or rather leaving Body of Divinity, vol. ii. p. 495; Sau- them to the guilt and stings of their own rin's Sermons, vol. iii. p. 321; Top- conscience. According to several paslady's Works, vol. iii. p. 471; Bates's sages, it seems there will be different Works; Ridgley's Body of Divinity, degrees of punishment in hell, Luke xii. 47. Rom. ii. 12. Matt. x. 20, 21. Matt. xii. 25, 32. Heb. x. 28, 29.

ques. 90.

HEBREWS. See JEWS.

As to its duration, it has been observed that it cannot be eternal, because there is no proportion between temporary crimes and eternal punishments; that the word everlasting is not to be taken in its utmost extent; and that it signifies no more than a long time, or a time whose precise boundary is unknown. But in answer to this it is al

HELL, the place of divine punishment after death. As all religions have supposed a future state of existence after this life, so all have their hell, or place of torment, in which the wicked are to be punished. Even the heathens had their tartara; and the Mahometans, we find, believe the eternity of rewards and punishments; it is not, therefore, a sentiment peculiar to Chris-leged, that the same word is used, and tianity.

There have been many curious and useless conjectures respecting the place of the damned: the ancients generally supposed it was a region of fire near the centre of the earth. Mr. Swinden endeavoured to prove that it is seated in the sun. Mr. Whiston advanced a new and strange hypothesis; according to him, the comets are so many hells, appointed in their orbits alternately to carry the damned to the confines of the sun, there to be scorched by its violent heat; and then to return with them beyond the orb of Saturn, there to starve them in those cold and dismal regions. But, as Dr. Doddridge observes, we must here confess our ignorance; and shall be much better employed in studying how we may avoid this place of horror, than in labouring to discover where it is.

Of the nature of this punishment we may form some idea from the expressions made use of in Scripture. It is called a place of torment, Luke xvi. 21. the bottomless pit, Rev. xx. 3 to 6. a prison, 1 Pet. iii. 19. darkness, Matt. viii. 12. Jude 13. fire, Matt. xiii. 42, 50. a worm that never dies, Mark ix. 44, 48, the second death, Rev. xxi. 8. the wrath of God, Rom. ii. 5. It has been debated whether there will be a material fire in hell. On the affirmative side it is observed, that fire and brimstone

that sometimes in the very same place, to express the eternity of the happiness of the righteous, and the eternity of the misery of the wicked; and that there is no reason to believe that the words express two such different ideas, as standing in the same connection. Besides, it is not true, it is observed, that temporary crimes do not deserve eternal punishments, because the infinite majesty of an offended God adds a kind of infinite evil to sin, and therefore exposes the sinner to infinite punishment; and that hereby God vindicates his injured majesty, and glorifies his justice See articles DESTRUCTIONISTS and UNIVERSALISTS. Berry St. Lect. vol. ii. p. 559, 562; Dawes on Hell, ser. x.; Whiston on ditto; Swinden, Drexelius, and Edwards on ditto. A late popular writer has observed, that in the 35th sermon of Tillotson, every thing is said upon the eternity of hell torments that can be known with any certainty.

HELL, Christ's descent into. That Christ locally descended into hell, is a doctrine believed not only by the papists, but by many among the reformed. 1. The text chiefly brought forward in support of this doctrine is the 1st Peter, iii. 19. "By which he went and preached to the spirits in prison;" but it evidently appears that the "spirit" there mentioned was not Christ's human soul, but a divine nature, or rather the Holy

Spirit (by which he was quickened, and raised from the dead;) and by the inspiration of which, granted to Noah, he preached to those notorious sinners who are now in the prison of hell for their disobedience.

2. Christ, when on the cross, promised the penitent thief his presence that day in paradise; and accordingly, when he died, he committed his soul into his heavenly Father's hand: in heaven therefore, and not in hell, we are to seek the separate spirit of our Redeemer in this period, Luke xxiii. 43, 46.

3. Had our Lord descended to preach to the damned, there is no supposable reason why the unbelievers in Noah's time only should be mentioned rather than those of Sodom, and the unhappy multitudes that died in sin. But it may be said, do not both the Old and New Testaments intimate this? Ps. xvi. 10. Acts ii. 34. But it may be answered, that the words, "thou wilt not leave my soul in hell," may be explained (as is the manner of the Hebrew poets) in the following words: "Neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption." So the same words are used, Ps. lxxxix. 48.-"What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave?" In the Hebrew (1) the word commonly rendered hell properly signifies "the invisible state,' as our word hell originally did; and the other word (wɔ1) signifies not always the immortal soul, but the animal frame in general, either living or dead. Bishop Pearson and Dr. Barrow on the Creed; Edwards's Hist. of Redemption, notes, p. 351, 377; Ridgley's Body of Div. p. 308, 3d edit. Doddridge and Guise on

1 Pet. iii. 19.

Greek version of the Old Testament, commonly called the Septuagint, or that of the Seventy.

Salmasius and Vossius are of a different sentiment with respect to the Hellenists: the latter will only have them to be those who adhered to the Grecian interests. Scaliger is represented in the Scaligerana as asserting the Hellenists to be the Jews who lived in Greece and other places, and who read the Greek Bible in their synagogues, and used the Greek language in sacris; and thus they were opposed to the Hebrew Jews, who performed their public worship in the Hebrew tongue; and in this sense St. Paul speaks of himself as a Hebrew of the Hebrews, Phil. iii. 5, 6. i. e. a Hebrew both by nation and language. The Hellenists are thus properly distinguished from the Hellenes, or Greeks, mentioned John xii. 20. who were Greeks by birth and nation, and yet proselytes to the Jewish religion.

HEMEROBAPTISTS, a sect among the ancient Jews, thus called from their washing and bathing every day, in all seasons; and performing this custom with the greatest solemnity, as a religious rite necessary to salvation.

Epiphanius, who mentions this as the fourth heresy among the Jews, observes, that in other points these heretics had much the same opinion as the Scribes and Pharisees; only that they denied the resurrection of the dead, in common with the Sadducees, and retained a few other of the improprieties of these last.

The sect who pass in the East under the denomination of Sabians, calling themselves Mendai Tiahi, or the disciples of St. John, and whom the Europeans entitle the Christians of St. John, because they yet retain some HELLENISTS, a term occurring in knowledge of the Gospel, is probably the Greek text of the New Testament, of Jewish origin, and seems to have been and which in the English version is ren- derived from the ancient Hemerobapdered Grecians, Acts vi. 1. The critics tists; at least it is certain that Jolin, are divided as to the signification of the whom they consider as the founder of word. Some observe, that it is not to be their sect, bears no sort of similitude to understood as signifying those of the re- John the Baptist, but rather resembles ligion of the Greeks, but those who the person of that name whom the anspoke Greek. The authors of the Vul- cient writers represent as the chief of gate version render it like our Græci, the Jewish Hemerobaptists. These ambut Messieurs Du Port Royal, more ac-biguous Christians dwell in Persia and curately, Juifs Grecs, Greek or Grecian Jews; it being the Jews who spoke Greek that are here treated of, and who are hereby distinguished from the Jews called Hebrews, that is, who spoke the Hebrew tongue of that time.

The Hellenists, or Grecian Jews, were those who lived in Egypt, and other parts where the Greek tongue prevailed: it is to them we owe the

Arabia, and principally at Bassora; and their religion consists in bodily washings, performed frequently and with great solemnity, and attended with certain ceremonies which the priests mingle with this superstitious service.

HENOTICON, a famous edict of the emperor Zeno, published A. D. 482, and intended to reconcile and re-unite the Eutychians with the Catholics. It

was procured of the emperor by means of Acacius, patriarch of Constantinople, with the assistance of the friends of Peter Mongus and Peter Trullo. The sting of this edict lies here; that it repeats and confirms all that has been enacted in the councils of Nice, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, against the Arians, Nestorians, and Eutychians, without making any particular mention of the council of Chalcedon. It is in the form of a letter, addressed by Zeno to the bishops, priests, monks, and people of Egypt and Libya. It was opposed by the Catholics, and condemned in form by pope Felix II.

of the essential doctrines of Christianity, publicly and obstinately avowed. It must be acknowledged, however, that particular modes of belief or unbelief, not tending to overturn Christianity, or to sap the foundations of morality, are by no means the object of coercion by the civil magistrate. What doctrines shall therefore be adjudged heresy, was left by our old constitution to the determination of the ecclesiastical judge, who had herein a most arbitrary latitude allowed him; for the general definition of an heretic, given by Lyndewode, extends to the smallest deviations from the doctrines of the holy church: "Hæreticus est qui dubitat de fide catholica, et qui negligit servare ea quæ Romana ecclesia statuit, seu servare decreverat:" or, as the statute, 2 Hen. IV. cap. 15,

HENRICIANS, a sect so called from Henry, its founder, who, though a monk and hermit, undertook to reform the superstition and vices of the clergy. For this purpose he left Lausanne, in Swit-expresses it in English, "teachers of zerland, and, removing from different places, at length settled at Tholouse, in the year 1147, and there exercised his ministerial function; till, being overcome by the opposition of Bernard, abbot of Clairval, and condemned by pope Eugenius III. at a council assembled at Rheims, he was committed to a close prison in 1148, where he soon ended his days.-This reformer rejected the baptism of infants, severely censured the corrupt manners of the clergy, treated the festivals and ceremonies of the church with the utmost contempt, and held private assemblies for inculcating his peculiar doctrines.

HERACLEONITES, a sect of Christians, the followers of Heracleon, who refined upon the Gnostic divinity, and maintained that the world was not the immediate production of the Son of God, but that he was only the occasional cause of its being created by the demiurgus. The Heracleonites denied the authority of the prophecies of the Old Testament; maintained that they were mere random sounds in the air; and that St. John the Baptist was the only true voice that directed to the Messiah. HERESIARCH, an arch heretic, the founder or inventor of an heresy; or a chief of a sect of heretics.

HERESY. This word signifies sect or choice; it was not in its earliest acceptation conceived to convey any reproach, since it was indifferently used either of a party approved, or of one disapproved by the writer. See Acts v. 17. xv. 3. Afterwards it was generally used to signify some fundamental error adhered to with obstinacy, 2 Pet. ii. 1. Gal. v. 20.

According to the laws of this kingdom, heresy consists in a denial of some

erroneous opinions, contrary to the faith and blessed determinations of the holy church." Very contrary this to the usage of the first general councils, which defined all heretical doctrines with the utmost precision and exactness; and what ought to have alleviated the punishment, the uncertainty of the crime, seems to have enhanced it in those days of blind zeal and pious cruelty. The sanctimonious hypocrisy of the Canonists, indeed, went, at first, no farther than enjoining penance, excommunication, and ecclesiastical deprivation, for heresy; but afterwards they proceeded boldly to imprisonment by the ordinary, and confiscation of goods in pios usus. But in the mean time they had prevailed upon the weakness of bigoted princes to make the civil power subservient to their purposes, by making heresy not only a temporal but even a capital offence; the Romish ecclesiastics determining, without appeal, whatever they pleased to be heresy, and shifting off to the secular arm the odium and drudgery of executions, with which they pretended to be too tender and delicate to intermeddle. Nay, they affected to intercede on behalf of the convicted heretic, well knowing that at the same time they were delivering the unhappy victim to certain death. See ACT OF FAITH.Hence the capital punishments inflicted on the ancient Donatists and Manichæans by the emperors Theodosius and Justinian; hence, also, the constitution of the emperor Frederic, mentioned by Lyndewode, adjudging all persons, without distinction, to be burnt with fire, who were convicted of heresy by the ecclesiastical judge. The same emperor, in another constitution, ordained,