-CROSS also the descendants of Saul, who were put into the hands of the Gibeonites. 2 Sam. xxi. 9. Before crucifixion, the criminal was generally scourged with cords; sometimes little bones, or pieces of bones, were tied to these scourges, so that the condemned person might suffer more severely. It was also a custom, that he who was to be crucified should bear his own cross to the place of execution. After this manner, we find Christ was compelled to bear his cross; and as he sunk under the burden, Simon the Cyrenian was constrained to bear it after him and with him. But whereas it is generally supposed that our Lord bore the whole cross, i. e. the long and transverse part both, this seems to be a thing impossible; and therefore Lipsius (in his treatise De Supplicio Crucis) has set the matter in a true light, when he tells us that Jesus only carried the transverse beam, because the long beam, or the body of the cross, was either fixed in the ground before, or made ready to be set up as soon as the prisoner came; and from hence he observes, that painters are very much mistaken in the description of our Saviour carrying the whole cross. There were several ways of crucifying; sometimes the criminal was fastened with cords to a tree, sometimes he was crucified with his head downwards. This way, it is said, Peter chose, out of respect to his master, Jesus Christ, not thinking himself worthy to be crucified like him; though the common way of crucifying was by fastening the criminal with nails, one through each hand, and one through both feet, or one through each of them; for this was not always performed in the same manner; the ancients sometimes represent Jesus Christ crucified with four nails, and sometimes with three. The criminal was fixed to the cross quite naked; and, in all probability, the Saviour of sinners was not used with any greater tenderness than others upon whom this punishment was inflicted. The text of the Gospel shows clearly that Jesus Christ was fastened to the cross with nails; and the Psalmist (Ps. xxii. 16) had foretold long before, that they should pierce his hands and his feet; but there are great disputes concerning the number of the nails. The Greeks represent our Saviour as fastened to the cross with four nails; in which particular Gregory of Tours agrees with them, one on each hand and foot. But several are of opinion, that our Saviour's hands and feet were pierced with three nails only, viz. one on each hand, and one through both his feet: and the custom of the Latins is rather for this last opinion; for the generality of the old crucifixes made in the Latin church have only three nails. Nonnus thinks that our Saviour's arms were besides bound fast to the cross with chains; and St. Hilary speaks of the cords wherewith he was tied to it. Sometimes they who were fastened upon the cross lived a good while in that condition. St. Andrew is believed to have continued three days alive upon it. Eusebius speaks of certain martyrs in Egynt, who were kept upon the cross till they were starved to death. Pilate was amazed at Jesus Christ's dying so soon, because naturally he must have lived longer, if it had not been in his power to have laid down his life, and to take it up again. The thighs of the two thieves, who were crucified with our Saviour, were broken, in order to hasten their death, that their bodies might not remain upon the cross on CRUCIFIX the Sabvath-day, John xix. 31. 33; and to com ply with the law of Moses, which forbids the bodies to be left there after sun-set. But, among other nations, they were suffered to remain upon the cross a long time. Sometimes they were de voured alive by birds and beasts of prey. Guards were appointed to observe that none of their friends or relation should take them down and bury them. The Roman soldiers, who had crucified Jesus Christ and the two thieves, continued near the crosses till the bodies were taken down and buried. Invention of the Cross, an ancient feast solemnized on the 3d of May, in memory of St. Helena's (the mother of Constantine) finding the true cross of Christ deep in the ground on Mount Calvary, where she erected a church for the preservation of part of it; the rest being brought to Rome, and deposited in the church of the Holy Cross of Jerusalem. Exaltation of the Cross, an ancient feast held on the 14th of September, in memory of this, that Heraclitus restored to Mount Calvary the true cross, in 642, which had been carried off fourteen years before by Cosroes, king of Persia, upon his taking Jerusalem from the emperor Phocas. The Adoration of the Cross seems to have been practised in the ancient church, inasmuch as the heathens, particularly Julian, reproached the primitive Christians with it; and we do not find that their apologists disclaimed the charge. Mornay, indeed, asserted that this had been done by St. Cyril, but could not support his allega-. tion at the conference of Fontainebleau. St. Helena is said to have reduced the adoration of the cross to its just principle, since she adored Christ in the wood, not the wood itself. With such modifications, some Protestants have been induced to admit the adoration of the cross. John Huss allowed of the phrase, provided it were expressly added, that the adoration was relative to the person of Christ. But, however Roman Catholics may seem to triumph by virtue of such distinction, and mitigations, it is well known they have no great place in their own practice. Imbert, the prior of Gascony, was severely persecuted in 1683 for telling the people, that, in the ceremony of adoring the cross, practised in that church on Good Friday, they were not to adore the wood, but Christ, who was crucified on it. The curate of the parish told them the contrary. It was the wood; the wood they were to adore. Imbert replied, it was Christ, not the wood: for which he was cited before the archbishop of Bourdeaux, suspended from his functions, and even threatened with chains and perpetual imprisonment. It little availed him to cite the bishop of Meaux's distinction; it was answered, that the church allow ed it not. CROSS-BEARER, in the Romish Church, the chaplain of an archbishop, who bears a cross before him on solemn occasions. Cross-bearers also denote certain officers in the inquisition, who make a vow before the inquisitors, or their vicars, to defend the Catholic faith, though with the loss of fortune and life. Their business is also to provide the inquisitors with necessaries. CRUCIFIX, a cross, upon which the body of Christ is fastened in effigy, used by the Roman catholics, to excite in their minds a strong idea of our Saviour's passion. CRUCIFIXION OF CHRIST. See CROSS. | others tends greatly to obstruct personal reformaCRUSADE. See CROISADE. tion. They who are so officiously occupied about their neighbours, have little leisure, and less inclination, to observe their own defects, or to mind their own duty. From their inquisitive researches, they find, or imagine they find, in the behaviour of others, an apology for their own failings; and the favourite result of their inquiries generally is, to rest satisfied with themselves. We should consider, also, that every excursion of vain curiosity about others is a subtraction from that time and thought which are due to ourselves, and to God. In the great circle of human affairs, there is room for every one to be busy and well employed in his own province, without encroaching upon that of others. It is the province of superiors to direct, of inferiors to obey: of the learned to be in CURATE, the lowest degree in the church of England; he who represents the incumbent of a church, parson, or vicar, and officiates in his stead: he is to be licensed and admitted by the bishop of the diocese, or by an ordinary having episcopal jurisdiction; and when a curate hath the approbation of the bishop, he usually appoints the salary too; and, in such case, if he be not paid, the curate hath a proper remedy in the ecclesiastical court, by a sequestration of the profits of the benefice; but if the curate be not licensed by the bishop, he is put to his remedy at common law, where he must prove the agreement, &c. A curate, having no fixed estate in his curacy, not being instituted and inducted, may be removed at pleasure by the bishop or in-structive; of the ignorant to be docile; of the old cumbent. But there are perpetual curates as well as temporary; who are appointed where tithes are impropriate, and no vicarage endowed: these are not removeable, and the impropriators are obliged to find them; some whereof have certain portions of the tithes settled on them. Curates must sub-able duties stand ready to be performed; innumerscribe the declaration according to the Act of Uniformity, or are liable to imprisonment. Though the condition of curates be somewhat ameliorated by a late act, it must be confessed that they are still, in many respects, exposed to hardships; their salaries are not equal to many dissenting ministers, who have nothing to depend on but the liberality of their people. Can there be a greater reproach to the dignified ecclesiastics of this country, than the comparatively miserable pittance allowed the curates, who do all the labour? Surely they must be a set of useless beings, to reap so little wages; or else they are unjustly treated. to be communicative; of the young to be advisable and diligent. In all the various relations which subsist among us in life, as husband and wife, masters and servants, parents and children, relations and friends, rulers and subjects, innumer able calls to activity present themselves on every hand, sufficient to fill up with advantage and honour the whole time of man."-Blair's Serm. vol. iv. ser. 8; Clark's Serm. ser. on Deut. xxix. 29; Seed's Post. Serm. ser. 7. CURSE, the action of wishing any tremendous evil to another. In Scripture language, it signifies the just and lawful sentence of God's law, condemning sinners to suffer the full punishment of their sin, Gal. iii. 10. CURSING and Swearing. See SWEARING. CUSTOM, a very comprehensive term, denoting the manners, ceremonies, and fashions of a people, which having turned into habit, and passed into use, obtain the force of laws. Custom and habit are often confounded. By custom, we mean a frequent reiteration of the same act; and by habit, the effect that custom has on the mind or the body. See HABIT. CURIOSITY, a propensity or disposition of the soul which inclines it to inquire after new objects, and to delight in viewing them. Curiosity is proper, when it springs from a desire to know our duty, to mature our judgments, to enlarge our minds, and to regulate our conduct; but impro- "Viewing man," says Lord Kames, "as a senper, when it wishes to know more of God, of the sitive being, and perceiving the influence of nodecrees, the origin of evil, the state of men, or the velty upon him, would one suspect that custom nature of things, than it is designed for us to has an equal influence? and yet our nature is know. The evil of this is evident. It reproaches equally susceptible of both: not only in different God's goodness; it is a violation of Scripture, objects, but frequently in the same. When an obDeut. xxii. 29; it robs us of our time; it often ject is new, it is enchanting; familiarity renders makes us unhappy; lessens our usefulness, and it indifferent; and custom, after a longer famiproduces mischief. To cure this disposition, let liarity, makes it again desirable. Human nature, us consider the divine command, Phil. iv. 6, that diversified with many and various springs of ac every thing essential is revealed; that God can- tion, is wonderful, and, indulging the expression, not err; that we shall be satisfied in a future intricately constructed. Custom hath such influstate, Isa. xiii. 7. Curiosity concerning the af-ence upon many of our feelings, by warping and fairs of others, is exceedingly reprehensible. "It interrupts," says an elegant writer, "the order, and breaks the peace of society. Persons of this disposition are dangerous troublers of the world. Crossing the lines in which others move, they create confusion, and awaken resentment. Hence, many a friendship has been broken; the peace of many a family has been overthrown; and much bitter and lasting discord has been propagated through society. Such a disposition is entirely the reverse of that amiable spirit of charity our Lord inculcates. Charity, like the sun, brightens every object on which it shines; a censorious dis-power of custom. position casts every character into the darkest shade it will bear. It is to be further observed, that all impertinent curiosity about the affairs of varying them, that we must attend to its operations, if we would be acquainted with human nature. A walk upon the quarter-deck, though intolerably confined, becomes, however, so agreeable by custom, that a sailor, in his walk on shore, confines himself commonly within the same bounds. I knew a man who had relinquished the sea for a country life: in the corner of his garden he reared an artificial mount, with a level summit, resembling, most accurately, a quarterdeck, not only in shape, but in size and here was his choice walk." Such we find is often the CYNICS, a sect of ancient philosophers, who valued themselves upon their contempt of riches and state, arts and sciences, and every thing, in DÆMONIAC DEMONIAC and tub. One day entering Plato's house, at a time when there was a splendid entertainment for several persons of distinction, he jumped, in all his dirt, upon a very rich couch, saying, "I trample on the pride of Plato!"-"Yes," replied Plato, "but with still greater pride, Diogenes He had the utmost contempt for all the human noon-day, with a lighted lantern in his hand, telling the people "he was in search of an honest man." But with all his maxims of morality, he held some very pernicious opinions. short, except virtue and morality. They owe their origin and institution to Antisthenes of Athens, a disciple of Socrates; who being asked of what use his philosophy had been to him, replied, "it enables me to live with myself." Diogenes was the most famous of his disciples, in whose life the system of this philosophy appears in its greatest perfection. He led a most whim-race; for he walked the streets of Athens at sical life, despising every kind of convenience; a tub served him for a lodging, which he rolled before him wherever he went; yet he was not the more humble on account of his ragged cloak, bag, DAMIANISTS, a denomination in the sixth century, so called from Damian, bishop of Alexandria. Their opinions were the same as the Angelites, which see. DEMONS, a name given by the ancients to certain spirits or genii, which they say, appeared to men, either to do them service, or to hurt them. Several of the heathen philosophers held that there were different kinds of dæmons; that some of them were spiritual substances, of a more noble origin than the human race, and that others had once been men. D. beings did at times enter into the sons and daugh ters of men, and distinguished themselves in that station by capricious freaks, deeds of wanton mischief, or prophetic enunciations. But in the instances in which they supposed this to happen, it is evident no such thing took place. Their accounts of the state and conduct of those persons whom they believed to be possessed in this supernatural manner, show plainly that what they ascribed to the influence of dæmons was merely the effect of natural diseases. Whatever they relate concerning the larvati, the cerriti, and the lymBut these dæmons who were the more imme-phatici, shows that these were merely people diate objects of the established worship among disordered in mind, in the same unfortunate situthe ancient nations, were human spirits, such as ation with those madmen, idiots, and melancholy were believed to become dæmons, or deities, after persons, whom we have among ourselves. Festheir departure from their bodies. tus describes the larvati as being furiosi et It has been generally thought, that by demons mente moti. Lucian describes dæmoniacs as we are to understand devils, in the Septuagint lunatic, and as staring with their eyes, foaming at version of the Old Testament. Others think the the mouth, and being speechless. It appears still word is in that version certainly applied to the more evident that all the persons spoken of as ghosts of such dead men as the heathens deified, possessed with devils in the New Testament, in Deut. xxxii. 17; Ps. cvi. 37. That demon were either mad or epileptic, and precisely in often bears the same meaning in the New Tes- the same condition with the madmen and epitament, and particularly in Acts xvii. 18; 1 Cor. leptics of modern times. The Jews, among other x. 21; 1 Tim. iv. 1; Rev. ix. 13, is shown at reproaches which they threw out against our large by Mr. Joseph Mede (see Works, p. 623, Saviour, said, He hath a devil, and is mad; et seq.) That the word is applied always to why hear ye him? The expression he hath a human spirits in the New Testament, Mr. Far- devil and is mad, were certainly used on this *mer has attempted to show in his essay on Dæmo-occasion as synonymous. With all their viruniacs, p. 208, et seq. As to the meaning of the word Dæmon in the fathers of the Christian church, it is used by them in the same sense as it was by the heathen philosophers, especially the latter Platonists; that is, sometimes for departed human spirits, and at others for such spirits as had never inhabited human bodies. In the fathers, indeed, the word is more commonly taken in an evil sense, than in the ancient philosophers. DÆMONIAC, a human being whose volition and other mental faculties are overpowered and restrained, and his body possessed and actuated by some created spiritual being of superior power. Such seems to be the determinate sense of the word; but it is disputed whether any of mankind ever were in this unfortunate condition. That the reader may form some judgment, we shall lay before him the arguments on both sides. 1. Dæmoniacs; arguments against the existence of. Those who are unwilling to allow that angels or devils have ever intermeddled with the concerns of human life, urge a number of specious arguments. The Greeks and Romans of old, say they, did believe in the reality of demoniacal possession. They supposed that spiritual lence, they would not surely ascribe to him at once two things that were inconsistent and contradictory. Those who thought more favourably of the character of Jesus, asserted concerning his discourses, in reply to his adversaries, These are not the words of him that hath a damon ; meaning, no doubt, that he spoke in a more rational manner than a madman could be expected to speak. The Jews appear to have ascribed to the influence of dæmons, not only that species of madness in which the patient is raving, and furious, but also melancholy madness. Of John, who secluded himself from intercourse with the world, and was distinguished for abstinence and acts of mortification, they said, He hath a dæmon. The youth, whose father applied to Jesus to free him from an evil spirit, describing his unhappy condition in these words, Have mercy on my son, for he is a lunatic, and sore vexed with a domon; for oft times he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water, was plainly epileptic. Every thing, indeed, that is related in the New Testament concerning dæmoniacs, proves that they were people affected with such natural diseases as are far from being uncommon among man DEMONIAC DÆMONIAC kind in the present age. When the symptoms tament, show that our Saviour and his apostles of the disorders cured by our Saviour and his did not consider the idea of dæmoniacal possession apostles as cases of dæmoniacal possession cor- as being merely a vulgar error concerning the respond so exactly with those of diseases well origin of a disease or diseases produced by natural known as natural in the present age, it would be causes. The more enlightened cannot always absurd to impute them to a supernatural cause. avoid the use of metaphorical modes of expression; It is much more consistent with common sense which, though founded upon error, yet have been and sound philosophy to suppose that our Saviour so established in language by the influence of and his apostles wisely, and with that conde- custom, that they cannot be suddenly dismissed. scension to the weakness and prejudices of those But in descriptions of characters, in the narrawith whom they conversed, which so eminently tion of facts, and in the laying down of systems distinguished the character of the Author of our of doctrine, we require different rules to be obholy religion; and must always be a prominent served. Should any person, in compliance with feature in the character of the true Christian, popular opinions, talk in serious language of the adopted the vulgar language in speaking of those existence, dispositions, declarations, and actions unfortunate persons who were groundlessly ima- of a race of beings whom he knew to be absogined to be possessed with demons, though they lutely fabulous, we surely could not praise him well knew the notions which had given rise to for integrity; we must suppose him to be either such modes of expression to be ill founded, than exulting in irony over the weak credulity of those to imagine that diseases which arise at present around him, or taking advantage of their weakfrom natural causes, were produced in days of oldness, with the dishonesty and selfish views of an by the intervention of dæmons, or that evil spi-impostor. And if he himself should pretend to rits still continue to enter into mankind in all any connexion with this imaginary system of becases of madness, melancholy, or epilepsy. Be-ings; and should claim, in consequence of his sides, it is by no means a sufficient reason for re- connexion with them, particular honours from his ceiving any doctrine as true, that it has been contemporaries-whatever might be the dignity generally received through the world. Error, like of his character in all other respects, nobody could an epidemical disease, is communicated from one hesitate to brand him as an impostor. In this to another. In certain circumstances, too, the light must we regard the conduct of our Saviour influence of imagination predominates, and re- and his apostles, if the idea of dæmoniacal posstrains the exertions of reason. Many false opi- session were to be considered merely as a vulgar nions have extended their influence through a error. They talked and acted as if they believed very wide circle, and maintained it long. On that evil spirits had actually entered into those every such occasion as the present, therefore, it who were brought to them as possessed with debecomes us to inquire not so much how generally vils, and as if those spirits had been actually exany opinion has been received, or how long it has pelled by their authority out of the unhappy perprevailed, as from what cause it has originated, sons whom they had possessed. They demanded, and on what evidence it rests. When we con- too, to have their professions and declarations betemplate the frame of Nature, we behold a grand lieved, in consequence of their performing such and beautiful simplicity prevailing through the mighty works, and having thus triumphed over whole: notwithstanding its immense extent, and the powers of hell. The reality of dæmoniacal though it contains such numberless diversities of possession stands upon the same evidence with being, yet the simplest machine constructed by the Gospel system in general. Nor is there any human art does not display greater simplicity, or thing unreasonable in this doctrine. It does not a happier connexion of parts. We may, there- appear to contradict those ideas which the genefore, infer by analogy, from what is observable of ral appearance of Nature and the series of events the order of Nature in general to the present case, suggest, concerning the benevolence and wisdom that to permit evil spirits to intermeddle with the of the Deity, by which he regulates the affairs of concerns of human life, would be to break through the universe. We often fancy ourselves able to that order which the Deity appears to have esta- comprehend things to which our understanding blished through his works: it would be to intro- is wholly inadequate; we persuade ourselves, at duce a degree of confusion unworthy of the wis- times, that the whole extent of the works of the dom of Divine Providence. Deity must be well known to us, and that his designs must always be such as we can fathom. We are then ready, whenever any difficulty arises to us in considering the conduct of Providence, to model things according to our own ideas; to deny that the Deity can possibly be the author of things which we cannot reconcile; and to assert that he must act on every occasion in a manner consistent with our narrow views. This is the pride of reason; and it seems to have suggested the strongest objections that have been at any time urged against the reality of dæmoniacal possession. But the Deity may surely connect one order of his creatures with another. We perceive mutual relations and a beautiful connexion to prevail through all that part of Nature which falls within the sphere of our observation. The inferior animals are connected with mankind, and subjected to their authority, not only in instances in which it is exerted for their ad II. Dæmoniacs; arguments for the existence of. In opposition to these arguments, the following are urged by the Dæmonianists. In the days of our Saviour, it would appear that dæmoniacal possession was very frequent among the Jews and neighbouring nations. Many were the evil spirits whom Jesus is related in the Gospels to have ejected from patients that were brought unto him as possessed and tormented by those malevolent dæmons. His apostles too, and the first Christians, who were most active and successful in the propagation of Christianity, appear to have often exerted the miraculous powers with which they were endowed on similar occasions. The dæmons displayed a degree of knowledge and malevolence which sufficiently distinguished them from human beings; and the language in which the dæmoniacs are mentioned, and the actions and sentiments ascribed to them in the New Tes 4. vantage, but even where it is tyrannically abused | plunged in thick darkness, because hitherto the to their destruction. Among the evils to which light was not created. Moses, at the command mankind' have been subjected, why might not of God, brought darkness upon Egypt, as a plague their being liable to dæmoniacal possession be to the inhabitants of it. The Septuagint, our one? While the Supreme Being retains the translation of the Bible, and indeed most others, sovereignty of the universe, he may employ what-in explaining Moses's account of this darkness, ever agents he thinks proper in the execution of render it "a darkness which may be felt ;" and his purposes; he may either commission an an- the Vulgate has it, "palpable darkness;" that is, gel, or let loose a devil; as well as bend the a darkness consisting of black vapours and exhahuman will, or communicate any particular im- lations, so condensed that they might be perpulse to matter. All that revelation makes ceived by the organs of feeling or seeing; but known, all that human reason can conjecture, some commentators think that this is carrying 'concerning the existence of various orders of the sense too far, since, in such a medium as this, spiritual beings, good and bad, is perfectly con- mankind could not live an hour, much less for sistent with, and even favourable to, the doctrine the space of three days, as the Egyptians are said of dæmoniacal possession. It is mentioned in the to have done, during the time this darkness lastNew Testament in such language, and such nar-ed; and, therefore, they imagine that instead of ratives are related concerning it, that the Gospels a darkness that may be felt, the Hebrew phrase cannot be well regarded in any other light than may signify a darkness wherein men went gropas pieces of imposture, and Jesus Christ must be ing and feeling about for every thing they wantconsidered as a man who took advantage of the ed. Let this, however, be as it may, it was an weakness and ignorance of his contemporaries, if awful judgment on the Egyptians; and we may this doctrine be nothing but a vulgar error; it naturally conclude that it must have also spread teaches nothing inconsistent with the general darkness and distress over their minds as well as conduct of Providence; in short, it is not the their persons. The tradition of the Jews is, that caution of philosophy, but the pride of reason that in this darkness they were terrified by the appasuggests objections against this doctrine. See the ritions of evil spirits, or rather by dreadful sounds essays of Young, Farmer, Worthington. Dr. and murmurs which they made. What made it Lardner, Macknight, Fell, Burgh, &c. on De- still worse, was the length of time it continued: moniacs; Seed's Posthumous Sermons, ser. vi. three days, or as Bishop Hali expresses it, six and article DEMONIAC in Enc. Brit. nights in one. DAMNATION, condemnation. This wordTM During the last three hours that our Saviour is used to denote the final loss of the soul; but it hung upon the cross, a darkness covered the face is not always to be understood in this sense in the of the earth, to the great terror and amazement sacred Scripture. Thus it is said in Rom. xiii. 2, of the people present at his execution. This ex"They that resist shall receive to themselves traordinary alteration in the face of nature, says damnation, i. e. condemnation, "fom the rulers, Dr. Macknight, in his Harmony of the Gospels, who are not a terror to good works, but to the was peculiarly proper, whilst the Sun of Rightevil." Again, in 1 Cor. xi. 29: "He that eatetheousness was withdrawing his beams from the and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh land of Israel, and from the world; not only bedamnation to himself;" i. e. condemnation; ex- cause it was a miraculous testimony borne by poses himself to severe temporal julgments from God himself to his innocence, but also because it God, and to the judgment and censure of the was a fit emblem of his departure and its effects, wise and good. Again, Rom. xiv. 23: "He at least till his light shone out anew with addithat doubteth is damned if he eat ;" i. e. is con- tional splendour in the ministry of his apostles. demned both by his own conscience and the The darkness which now covered Judea, and the word of God, because he is far from being satis-neighbouring countries, beginning about. noon, fied that he is right in so doing. DANCERS, a sect which sprung up about 1373 in Flanders, and places about. It was their custom all of a sudden to fall a dancing, and, holding each other's hands, to continue thereat, till, being suffocated with the extraordinary violence, they fell down breathless together. During these intervals of vehement agitation they pretended they were favoured with wonderful visions. Like the Whippers, they roved from place to place, begging their victuals, holding their secret assemblies, and treating the priesthood and worship of the church with the utmost contempt. Thus we find, as Dr. Haweis observes, that the French Convulsionists and the Welch Jumpers have had predecessors of the same stamp. There is nothing new under the sun. Haweis and Mosheim's Ch. Hist. Cent. 14. DARKNESS, the absence, privation, or want of natural light. In Scripture Inguage it also signifies sin, John iii. 19; troub. Is. viii. 22; obscurity, privacy, Matt. x. 27 orgetfulness, contempt, Ecc. vi. 4. Darkness, says Moses, was upon the face of the deep, Gen. i. 2; that is to say, the chaos was and continuing till Jesus expired, was not the DAVIDISTS, the adherents of David George, a native of Delft, who, in 1525, began to preach a new doctrine, publishing himself to be the true Messiah; and that he was sent of God to fill heaven, which was quite empty for want of peo |