necessary laws and directions, frequent admoni- which, in truth, are so great, that all their dootions to moral and divine virtues, the worship and tors have never been able to adjust them; for reverence of the Supreme Being, and resignation Mahomet, or rather his copyist, having put all to his will. One of their most learned commen- the loose verses promiscuously in a book together, tators distinguishes the contents of the Alcoran it was impossible ever to retrieve the order where into allegorical and literal; under the former are in they were delivered. These 23 years which comprehended all the obscure, parabolical, and the angel employed in conveying the Alcoran to enigmatical passages, with such laws as are re- Mahomet, are of wonderful service to his folpealed or abrogated; the latter, such as are clear, lowers; inasmuch as they furnish them with an and in full force. The most excellent moral in answer to such as tax them with those glaring the whole Alcoran, interpreters say, is that in the contradictions of which the book is full, and chapter Al alraf, viz. "Show mercy, do good to all, which they piously father upon God himself; and dispute not with the ignorant;" or, as Mr. alleging that, in the course of so long a time, he Sale renders it, Use indulgence, command that repealed and altered several doctrines and prewhich is just, and withdraw far from the igno- cepts which the prophet had before received of rant. Mahomet, according to the authors of the hiin. M. D'Herbelot thinks it probable, that Keschaf, having begged of the angel Gabriel a when the heresies of the Nestorians, Eutychians, more ample explication of this passage, received &c. had been condemned by cecumenical counit in the following terms: "Seek him who turns cils, many bishops, priests, monks, &c. being thee out, give to him who takes from thee, par- driven into the deserts of Arabia and Egypt, furdon him who injures thee; for God will have nished the impostor with passages, and crude, you plant in your souls the roots of his chief per- ill-conceived doctrines, out of the Scriptures; and fections." It is easy to see that this commentary that it was hence that the Alcoran became so full is borrowed from the Gospel. In reality, the of the wild and erroneous opinions of those herenecessity of forgiving enemies, though frequently tics. The Jews also, who were very numerous inculcated in the Alcoran, is of a later date among in Arabia, furnished materials for the Alcoran; the Mahometans than among the Christians; nor is it without some reason that they boast among those later than among the heathens; and twelve of their chief doctors to have been the to be traced originally among the Jews. (See authors of this work. The Alcoran, while MaExod. xxxiii, 4, 5.) But it matters not so much homet lived, was only kept in loose sheets: his who had it first as who observes it best. The successor, Abubeker, first collected them into a caliph Hassan, son of Hali, being at table, a slave volume, and committed the keeping of it to let fall a dish of meat reeking hot, which scalded Haphsa, the widow of Mahomet, in order to be him severely. The slave fell on his knees re- consulted as an original; and there being a good hearsing these words of the Alcoran, "Paradise | deal of diversity between the several copies alis for those who restrain their anger." "I am ready dispersed throughout the provinces, Ottonot angry with thee," answered the caliph. "And man, successor of Abubeker, procured a great for those who forgive offences against them," number of copies to be taken from that of Haph `continues the slave. "I forgive thee thine," re- sa, at the same time suppressing all the others plies the caliph. "But, above all, for those who not conformable to the original. The chief difreturn good for evil," adds the slave. "I set ferences in the present copies of this book consist thee at liberty," rejoined the caliph; "and I give in the points, which were not in use in the time thee ten dinars." There are also a great number of Mahomet and his immediate successors; but of occasional passages in the Alcoran relating only were added since, to ascertain the reading, after to particular emergencies. For this advantage the example of the Massoretes, who added the Mahomet had, by his piecemeal method of re-like points to the Hebrew texts of Scripture. ceiving and delivering his revelations, that, whenever he happened to be perplexed with any thing, he had a certain resource in some new. morsel of revelation. It was an admirable contrivance to bring down the whole Alcoran only to the lowest heaven, not to earth: since, had the whole been published at once, innumerable objections would have been made, which it would have been impossible him to have solved; but as he received it b parcels, as God saw fit they should be published for the conversion and instruction of the people, he had a sure way to answer all emergencies, and to extricate himself with honour from any difficulty which might occur.

There are seven principal editions of the Alcoran, two at Medina, one at Mecca, one at Cufa, one at Bassora, one in Syria, and the common, or vulgar edition. The first contains 6000 verses, the others surpassing this number by 200 or 226 verses; but the number of words and letters is the same in alt; viz. 77,639 words, and 323,015 letters. The number of commentaries on the Alcoran is so large, that the bare titles would make a huge volume. Ben Oschair has written the history of them, entitled Tarikh Pen Oschair. The principal among thein are, Reidhaori, Thaalebi, Zamalchschari, and Bacai. 'I he Mahometans have a positive theology built on the Alcoran and tradition, as well as a scholasti cal one built on reason. They have likewise their casuists, and a kind of canon law, wherein they distinguish between what is of divine and what of positive right. They have their beeficiaries, too, chaplains, almoners, and canons, who read a chapter every day out of the Alcoran in their mosques, and have prebends annexed to their office. The hatib of the mosque is what we call the parson of the parish; and the scheiks are the preachers, who take their texts out of the

3. Koran, history of the.-It is the common opinion, that Mahomet, assisted by one Sergius, a monk, composed this book: but the Mussulmans believe it as an article of their faith, that the prophet, who, they say, was an illiterate man, had no concern in inditing it; but that it was given him by God, who, to that end, made use of the ministry of the angel Gabriel; that, however, it was communicated to him by little and little, a verse at a time, and in different places, during the course of 23 years." And hence," say they, "proceed that disorder and confusion visible in the work " | Alcoran.

KURAN

by any former or succeeding impostor. It requires not the eye of a philosopher to discover in every soil and country a prínciple of national pride: and if we look back for many ages on the history of the Arabians, we shall easily perceive that pride among them invariably to have consisted in the knowledge and improvement of their native language. The Arabic, which has been justly esteemed the most copious of the eastern tongues, which had existed from the most remote antiquity, which had been embellished by numberless poets, and refined by the constant exercise of the natives, was the most successful instrument which Mahomet employed in planting his new religion among them. "Admirably adapted by its unrivalled harmony, and by its endless variety, to add painting to expression, and to pursue the imagination in its unbounded flight, it became in the hands of Mahomet an irresistible charm to blind the judgment and to captivate the fancy of his followers. Of that description of men who first composed the adherents of Mahomet, and to whom the Koran was addressed, few, probably, were able to pass a very accurate judgment on the propriety of the sentiments, or on the beauty of the diction: but all could judge of the military abilities of their leader; and in the midst of their admiration, it is not difficult to

4. Koran, Mahometan, faith concerning. It is the general belief among the Mahometans that the Koran is of divine original; nay, that it is eternal and uncreated; remaining, as some express it, in the very essence of God; and the very first transcript has been from everlasting, by God's throne, written on a table of vast bigness, called the preserved table, in which are also recorded the divine decrees, past and future; that a copy from this table, in one volume upon paper, was, by the ministry of the angel Gabriel, sent down to the lowest heaven, in the month of Ramadam, on the night of power, from whence Gabriel revealed it to Mahomet in parcels, some at Mecca, and some at Medina, at different times, during the space of twenty-three years, as the exigency of affairs required; giving him, however, the consolation to show him the whole (which they tell us was bound in silk, and adorned with gold and precious stones of paradise) once a year; but in the last year of his life he had the favour to see it twice. They say, that only ten chapters were delivered entire, the rest being revealed piecemeal, and written down from time to time by the prophet's amanuensis, in such a part of such and such a chapter, till they were completed, according to the direction of the angel. The first parcel that was revealed is generally agreed to have been the first five verses of the ninety-conceive that they would ascribe to his composisixth chapter. In fine, the book of the Alcoran is held in the highest esteem and reverence among the Mussulmans. They dare not so much as touch the Alcoran without being first washed, or legally purified to prevent which an inscription is put on the cover or label,-Let none touch but they who are clean. It is read with great care and respect, being never held below the girdle. They swear by it; take omens from it on all weighty occasions; carry it with them to war; write sentences of it on their banners; adorn it with gold and precious stones; and knowingly will not suffer it to be in the possession of any of a different religion. Some say it is punishable even with death, in a Christian to touch it; others, that the veneration of the Mussulmans leads them to condemn the translating it into any other language, as a profanation; but these seem to be exaggerations. The Mahometans have taken care to have their Scripture translated into the Persian, the Javan, the Malayan, and other languages: though, out of respect to the original, these versions are generally, if not always, interlineated. 5. Koran, success of the, accounted for.--The author of the "View of Christianity and Mahometanism," observes, that, "by the advocates of Mahometanism, the Koran has always been held forth as the greatest of miracles, and equally stupendous with the act of raising the dead. The miracles of Moses and Jesus, they say, were transient and temporary; but that of the Koran is permanent and perpetual, and therefore far surpasses all the miraculous events of preceding ages. We will not detract from the real merits of the Koran; we allow it to be generally elegant and often sublime: but at the same time we reject with disdain its arrogant pretence to any thing supernatural, all the real excellence of the work being easily referrible to natural and visible causes. In the language of Arabia, a language extremely loved and diligently cultivated by the people to whom it was vernacular, Mahomet found advantages which were never enjoyed

tions every imaginary beauty of inspired language. The shepherd and the soldier, though awake to the charms of those wild but beautiful compositions in which were celebrated their favourite occupations of love or war, were yet little able to criticise any other works than those which were addressed to their imagination or their heart. To abstract reasonings on the attributes and the dispensations of the Deity, to the comparative excellencies of rival religions, to the consistency of any one religious system in all its parts, and to the force of its various proofs, they were quite inattentive. In such a situation, the appearance of a work which possessed something like wisdom and consistence; which prescribed the rules and illustrated the duties of life; and which contained the principles of a new and comparatively sublime theology, independently of its real and permanent merit, was likely to excite their astonishment, and to become the standard of future composition. In the first periods of the literature of every country, something of this kind has happened. The father of Grecian poetry very obviviously influenced the taste and imitation of his country. The modern nations of Europe all possess some original author, who, rising from the darkness of former ages, has begun the career of composition, and tinctured with the character of his own imagination the stream which has flowed through his posterity. But the prophet of Arabia had in this respect advantages peculiar to himself. His compositions were not to his followers the works of man, but the genuine language of Heaven which had sent him. They were not confined, therefore, to that admiration which is so liberally bestowed on the earliest pròductions of genius, or to that fond attachment with which men every where regard the original compositions of their country; but with their admiration they blended their piety. To know and to feel the beauties of the Koran, was in some respect to share in the temper of heaven; and he who was most affected with admiration in

the perusal of its beauties, seemed fitly the object | when they would represent to us the happiness of of that mercy which had given it to ignorant man. | heaven, they describe it, not by any thing minute The Koran, therefore, became naturally and ne- and particular, but by something general and cessarily the standard of taste. With a language great; something that, without descending to any thus hallowed in their imaginations, they were determinate object, may at once, by its beauty and too well satisfied either to dispute its elegance, or immensity, excite our wishes, and elevate our afimprove its structure. In succeeding ages, the fections. Though in the prophetical and evanadditional sanction of antiquity or prescription, gelical writings, the joys that shall attend us in a was given to these compositions which their fa- divine state, are often mentioned with ardent adthers had admired; and while the belief of its miration, they are expressed rather by allusion divine original continues, that admiration, which than by similitude, rather by indefinite and figuhas thus become the test and the duty of the rative terms, than by any thing fixed and deterfaithful, can neither be altered nor diminished. minate. 'Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neiWhen, therefore, we consider these peculiar ad- ther have entered into the heart of man the things vantages of the Koran, we have no reason to be which God hath prepared for them that love him.' surprised at the admiration in which it is held. 1 Cor. ii. 9. What a reverence and astonishment But if, descending to a more minute investigation does this passage excite in every hearer of taste of it, we consider its perpetual inconsistence and and piety! What energy, and at the same time, absurdity, we shall indeed have cause for astonish- what simplicity in the expression! How sublime, ment at that weakness of humanity, which could and at the same time hory obscure, is the imagery! ever have received such compositions as the work Different was the conduct of Mahomet in his deof the Deity." scriptions of heaven and paradise. Unassisted by the necessary influence of virtuous intentions and divine inspiration, he was neither desirous, nor indeed able, to exalt the minds of men to sublime conceptions, or to rational expectations. By attempting to explain what is inconceivable, to describe what is ineffable, and to materialize what in itself is spiritual, he absurdly and impiously aimed to sensualize the purity of the divine essence. Thus he fabricated a system of incoherence, a religion of depravity, totally repugnant to the nature of that Being, who, as he pretended, was its object; but therefore more likely to accord with the appetites and conceptions of a corrupt and sensual age. That we may not appear to exalt our Scriptures thus far above the Koran by an unreasonable preference, we shall produce a part of the second chapter of the latter, which is deservedly admired by the Mahometans, who wear it engraved on their ornaments, and recite it in their prayers, 'God! there is no God but he; the living, the self-subsisting neither slumber nor sleep seizeth him : to him belongeth whatsoever is in heaven, and on earth. Who is he that can intercede with him but through his good pleasure? He knoweth that which is past, and that which is to come. His throne is extended over heaven and earth, and the preservation of both is to him no burden, He is the high, the mighty.' Sale's Koran, vol. ii, p. 30. To this description who can refuse the praise of magnificence? Part of that magnificence, however, is to be referred to that verse of the psalmist whence it was borrowed: He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep,' Psal cxxi. 1. But if we compare it with that other passage of the inspired psalmist (Psal, cii. 24— 27.) all its boasted grandeur is at once obscured, and lost in the blaze of a greater light! 'O, my God, take me not away in the midst of my days; thy years are throughout all generations. Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed. But thou art the same, ard thy years shall have no end.' The Koran, therefore upon a fair examination, far from supporting its arrogant claim to a supernatural work, sinks below the level of many compositions confessedly of human original

6. Koran, the style and merits of the, examined."The first praise of all the productions of genius (continues this author) is invention; that quality of the mind, which, by the extent and quickness of its views, is capable of the largest conceptions, and of forming new combinations of objects the most distant and unusual. But the Koran bears little impression of this transcendant character. Its materials are wholly borrowed from the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, from the Talmudical legends and apocryphal gospels then current in the East, and from the traditions and fables which abounded in Arabia. The materials collected from these several sources are here heaped together with perpetual and heedless repetitions, without any settled principle or visible connexion. When a great part of the life of Mahomet had been spent in preparatory meditation on the system he was about to establish, its chapters were dealt out slowly and separately during the long period of twenty-three years. Yet, thus defective in its structure, and no less objectionable in its doctrines, was the work which Mahomet delivered to his followers as the oracles of God. The most prominent feature of the Koran, that point of excellence in which the partiality of its admirers has ever delighted to view it, is the sublime notion it generally impresses of the nature and attributes of God. If its author had really derived these just conceptions from the inspiration of that Being whom they attempt to describe, they would not have been surrounded, as they now are, on every side, with error and absurdity. Buit might be easily proved, that whatever it justly defines of the divine attributes was borrowed from our Holy Scripture; which, even from its first promulgation, but especially from the completion of the New Testament, has extended the views and enlightened the understandings of mankind; and thus furnished them with arms which have too often been effectually turned against itself by its ungenerous enemies. In this instance, particularly, the copy is far below the great original, both in the propriety of its images and the force of its descriptions."

7. Koran, the sublimity of the, contrasted. "Qur Holy Scriptures are the only compositions that can enable the dim sight of mortality to penetrate into the invisible world, and to behold a glimpse of the divine perfections. Accordingly,

and still lower does it fall in our estimation, when | Prideaux's Life of Mahomet; White's Sermons compared with that pure and perfect pattern which at Bampton Lectures; Foster's Mahometanism we justly admire in the Scriptures of truth. It Unveiled; Whitaker's Origin of Arianism; is, therefore, abundantly apparent, that no mira- and article MAHOMETANISM. cle was either externally performed for the support, or is internally involved in the composition of the Mahometan revelation." See Sale's Koran;

KTISTOLATRÆ, a branch of the Monophysites, which maintained that the body of Christ before his resurrection was corruptible

L

LABADISTS were so called from their is never to be seen but in a secret place of his founder, John Labadie, a native of France. He palace, amidst a great number of lamps, sitting was originally in the Romish communion; but cross-legged on a cushion, and decked all over leaving that, he became a member of the reform-4 with gold and precious stones, where at a dised church, and performed with reputation the tance the people prostrate themselves before him, ministerial unctions in France, Switzerland, and it not being lawful for any so much as to kiss his Holland. He at length erected a new commu- feet. He returns not the least sign of respect, nity, which resided successively at Middleburg, nor ever speaks even to the greatest princes; but in Zealand, Amsterdam, Hervorden, and at Al- only lays his hand upon their heads, and they are tona, where he died about 1674. After his death, fully persuaded they receive from thence a full his followers removed their wandering commu- forgiveness of all their sins. nity to Wiewert, in the district of North Holland, where it soon fell into oblivion. If we are to judge of the Labadists by their own account, they did not differ from the reformed church so much in their tenets and doctrines as in their manners and rules of discipline; yet it seems that Labadie had some strange notions. Among other things, he maintained that God might and did, on certain occasions, deceive men; that the faithful ought to have all things in common: that there is no subordination or distinction of rank in the true church; that in reading the Scriptures greater attention should be paid to the internal inspiration of the Holy Spirit than to the words of the text; that the observation of Sunday was a matter of indifference; that the contemplative life is a state of grace and union with God, and the very height of perfection.

LAITY, the people as distinguished from the clergy. See CLERGY.

LÄMA, GRAND, a name given to the sovereign pontiff or high priest of the Thibetian Tartars, who resides at Patoli, a vast palace on a mountain near the banks of Barampooter, about seven miles from Lahassa. The foot of this mountain is inhabited by twenty thousand lamas, or priests, who have their separate apartments round about the mountain, and according to their respective quality are placed nearer or at a greater distance from the sovereign pontiff. He is not only worshipped by the Thibetians, but also is the great object of adoration for the various tribes of heathen Tartars who roam through the vast tract of continent which stretches from the banks of the Wolga to Corbea, on the sea of Japan. He is not only the sovereign pontiff, the vicegerent of the Deity on earth, but the more remote Tartars are said to absolutely regard him as the Deity himself, and call him God, the everlasting Father of heaven. They believe him to be immortal, and endowed with all knowledge and virtue. Every year they come up from different parts to worship and make rich offerings at his shrine: even the emperor of China, who is a Manchou Tartar, does not fail in acknowledgments to him in his religious capacity; and actually entertains, at a great expense, in the palace of Pekin, an inferior lama, deputed as his nuncio from Thibet. The grand lama, it has been said.

The Sunniasses, or Indian pilgrims, often visit Thibet as a holy place; and the lama always entertains a body of two or three hundred in his pay. Besides his religious influence and authority, the grand lama is possessed of unlimited power throughout his dominions, which are very extensive. The inferior lamas, who form the most numerous as well as the most powerful body in the state, have the priesthood entirely in their hands; and besides fill up many monastic orders which are held in great veneration among them. The whole country, like Italy, abounds with priests; and they entirely subsist on the great number of rich presents which are sent them from the utmost extent of Tartary, from the empire of the Great Mogul, and from almost all parts of the Indies.

The opinion of those who are reputed the most orthodox among the Thibetians, is, that when the grand lama seems to die, either of old age or infirmity, his soul, in fact, only quits a crazy habitation to look for another younger or better; and is discovered again in the body of some child by certain tokens, known only to the lamas or priests, in which order he always appears.

Almost all nations of the east, except the Mahometans, believe the metempsychosis as the most important article of their faith; especially the inhabitants of Thibet and Ava, the Peguans, Siamese, the greatest part of the Chinese and Japanese, and the Moguls and Kalmucks, who changed the religion of Schamanism for the worship of the grand lama. According to the doctrine of this metempsychosis, the soul is always a action, and never at rest; for no sooner does she leave her old habitation, than she enters a new one. The dalai lama, being a divine person, can find no better lodging than the body of his successor; or the Foe, residing in the dalai lama, which passes to his successor; and this being a god, to whom all things are known, the dalai lama is therefore acquainted with every thing which happened during his residence in his former body."

This religion is said to have been of three thousand years' standing; and neither time nor the influence of men has had the power of shaking the authority of the grand lama. This theocracy, extends as fully to temporal as to spiritual concerns.

Though, in the grand sovereignty of the lamas, the temporal power has been occasionally sepa