Father. Again; he expressly tells us himself, that "the Son can do nothing of himself; that the Father showeth him all things that he doth; and that he giveth him to have life in himself," John, v. 19, 20, 26. which expressions, if applied to him as God, not as mediator, will reduce us to the disagreeable necessity of subscribing either to the creed of Arius, and maintain him to be God of an inferior nature, and thus a plurality of Gods, or to embrace the doctrine of Socinus, who allows him only to be a God by office. But if this title belong to him as mediator, every difficulty is removed. And, lastly, it is observed, that though Jesus be God, and the attributes of eternal existence ascribed to him, yet the two attributes, eternal and son, are not once expressed in the same text as referring to eternal generation. See article SON OF GOD; Owen on the Person of Christ; Pearson on the Creed; Ridgley's Body of Divinity, p. 73, 76. 3d edition; Gill's Ditto, p. 205, vol. i. 8vo. edition; Lambert's Sermon's, ser. 13. text John, xi. 35.; Hodson's Essay on the Eternal Filiation of the Son of God; Watts's Works, vol. v. p. 77. GEMARA. See TALMUD. GENERAL CALL. See CALLING. GENERATION, ETERNAL, is a termed used as descriptive of the Father's communicating the Divine Nature to the Son. The Father is said by some divines to have produced the Word, or Son, from all eternity, by way of generation; on which occasion the word generation raises a peculiar idea: that procession which is really affected in the way of understanding is called generation, because, in virtue thereof, the Word becomes like to Him from whom he takes the original; or, as St. Paul expresses it, the figure or image of his substance; i. e. of his being and nature. And hence it is, they say, that the second person is called the Son; and that in such a way and manner as never any other was, is, or can be, because of his own divine nature, he being the true, proper, and natural Son of God, begotten by him before all worlds. Thus, he is called his own Son, Rom. viii. 3. his only begotten Son, John, iii. 16. Many have attempted to explain the manner of this generation by different similitudes; but as they throw little or no light upon the subject, we shall not trouble the reader with them. Some, GENEROSITY, the disposition which however, suppose that the term Son of prompts us to bestow favours which God refers to Christ as mediator; and are not the purchase of any particular that his sonship does not lie in his di- merit. It is different from humanity. vine or human nature, separately con- Humanity is an exquisite feeling we sidered, but in the union of both in one possess in relation to others, so as to person. See Luke, i. 35. Matt. iv. 3. grieve for their sufferings, resent their John, i. 49. Matt. xvi. 16. Acts, ix. injuries, or to rejoice at their prosperity; 20, 22. Rom. i. 4. It is observed, that and as it arises from sympathy, it reit is impossible that a nature properly quires no great self-denial, or self-comdivine should be begotten, since beget- mand; but generosity is that by which ting, whatever idea is annexed to it, we are led to prefer some other person must signify some kind of production, to ourselves, and to sacrifice any interderivation, and inferiority; consequent-est of our own to the interest of another. ly, that whatever is produced must have a beginning, and whatever had a beginning was not from eternity, as Christ is said to be, Is. ix. 6. Col. i. 16, 17. That the sonship of Christ respects him as mediator will be evident, if we compare John, x. 30. with John, xiv. 28. In the former it is said, "I and my Father are one;" in the latter, "My Father is greater than I." These declarations, however opposite they seem, equally respect him as he is the Son; but if his sonship primarily and properly signify the generation of his divine nature, it will be difficult, if not impossible, according to that scheme, to make them harmonize. Considered as a distinct person in the Godhead, without, in which sense it frequently occurs respect to his office as mediator, it is impossible, that, in the same view, he should be both equal and inferior to his GENIUS, a good or evil spirit or dæmon, who the ancients supposed was set over each person to direct his birth, accompany him in his life, and to be his guard. Genius signifies that aptitude which a man naturally possesses to perform well and easily that which others can do but indifferently, and with a great deal of pain. GENTILE, in matters of religion, a Pagan, or worshipper of false gods. The origin of this word is deduced from the Jews. who called all those who were not of their name gojim i. e. gentes, which in the Greek translations of the Old Testament is rendered in the New Testament; as in Matt. vi. 32. "All these things the nations or Gentiles seek:" Whence the Latin ries; meekness restrains our angry passions; candour our severe judgments; but gentleness corrects whatever is offensive in our manner, and, by a constant train of humane attentions, studies to alleviate the burden of com church also used gentes in the same GENTLENESS, softness or mildness of disposition and behaviour. Little as this disposition is thought of by many, we find it considered in Scripture as a characteristic of the true Christian. "The wisdom that is from above," saith St. James, "is gentle," ch. iii. 17. "This gentleness, indeed, is to be distinguished from passive tameness of spirit, and from unlimited compliance with the manners of others. That passive tameness, which submits without a struggle to every encroachment of the violent and assuming, forms no part of Christian duty; but, on the contrary, is destructive of general happiness and order. That unlimited complaisance, which on every occasion falls in with the opinions and manners of others, is so far from being a virtue, that it is itself a vice, and the parent of many vices. It overthrows all steadiness of principle, and produces that sinful conformity with the world which taints the whole character. In the present corrupted state of human manners, always to assent and to comply, is the very worst maxim we can adopt. True gentleness, therefore, is to be carefully distinguished from the mean spirit of cowards and the fawning assent of sycophants. It renounces no just right from fear; it gives up no important truth from flattery: it is, indeed, not only consistent with a firm mind, but it necessarily requires a manly spirit and a fixed principle, in order to give it any real value. It stands opposed to harsh ness and severity, to pride and arrogance, to violence and oppression: it is properly that part of charity which makes us unwilling to give pain to any of our brethren. Compassion prompts us to relieve their wants; forbearance prevents us from retaliating their inju || GENUFLECTION, the act of bowing or bending the knee, or rather of kneeling down. The Jesuit Rosweyd, in his Onomasticon, shows that genuflection, or kneeling, has been a very ancient custom in the church, and even under the Old Testament dispensation; and that this practice was observed throughout all the year, excepting on Sundays, and during the time from Easter to Whitsuntide, when kneeling was forbidden by the council of Nice. Others have shown, that the custom of not kneeling on Sundays had obtained from the time of the apostles, as appears from St. Irenæus and Tertullian; and the Ethiopic church, scrupulously attached to the ancient ceremonies, still retains that of not kneeling at divine service. The Russians esteem it an indecent pos ture to worship God on the knees. The Jews usually prayed standing. Baronius is of opinion that genuflection was not established in the year of Christ 58, from that passage in Acts, xx. 36, where St. Paul is expressly mentioned to kneel down at prayer; but Saurin shows that nothing can be thence concluded. The same author remarks, also, that the primitive Christians carried the practice of genuflection so far, that some of them had worn cavities in the floor where they prayed: and St. Jerome relates of St. James, that he had contracted a hardness on his knees equal to that of camels. GHOST, HOLY. See HOLY GHOST. GIFT OF TONGUES, an ability given to the apostles of readily and intelligibly speaking a variety of languages which they had never learnt. This was a most glorious and important attestation of the Gospel, as well as a suitable, and indeed, in their circumstances, a necessary furniture for the mission for which the apostles and their assistants were designed. Nor is there any reason, with Dr. Middleton, to understand it as merely an occasional gift, so that a person might speak a language most fluently one hour, and be entirely ignorant of it in the next; which neither agrees with what is said of the abuse of it, nor would have been sufficient to answer the end proposed. See Acts, ii. See Gill and Henry in Loc.; Jortin's Remarks, vol. i. p. 15-21; Essay on the Gift of Tongues; Middleton's Miscel. Works, vol. ii. p. 379; Doddridge's | rise. The name was adopted by this sect, on the presumption that they were the only persons who had the true knowledge of Christianity. Accordingly they looked on all other Christians as simple, ignorant, and barbarous persons, who explained and interpreted the sacred writings in a low, literal, and un GILBERTINES, a religious order: thus called from St. Gilbert, of Sempringham, in the county of Lincoln, who founded the same about the year 1148; the monks of which observed the rule of St. Augustine, and were accounted canons, and the nuns that of St. Bene-edifying signification. At first, the Gnosdict. The founder of this order erected a double monastery, or rather two different ones, contiguous to each other; the one for men, the other for women, but parted by a very high wall. St. Gilbert himself founded thirteen monasteries of this order; viz. four for men alone, and nine for men and women together, which had in them 700 brethren, and 1500 sisters. At the dissolution, there were about twenty-five houses of this order in England and Wales. tics were the only philosophers and wits of those times, who formed for themselves a peculiar system of theology, agreeable to the philosophy of Pathagoras and Plato; to which they accommodated all their interpretations of Scripture. But Gnostics afterwards became a general name, comprehending divers sects and parties of heretics, who rose in the first centuries; and who, though they differed among themselves as to circumstances, yet all agreed in some common principles. They corrupted the doctrine of the Gospel by a profane mixture of the tenets of the ori GLASSITES. See SANDEMANIANS. GLORY, praise, or honour, attributed to God, in adoration or worship. The state of felicity prepared for the righ-ental philosophy, concerning the origin teous. See HEAVEN. The glory of God is the manifestation of the divine perfections in creation, providence, and grace. We may be said to give glory to God when we confess our sins, when we love him supremely, when we commit ourselves to him, are zealous in his service, improve our talents, walk humbly, thankfully, and cheerfully before him, and recommend, proclaim, and set forth his excellencies, to others. Jos. vii. 19. Gal. ii. 20. John, xv. 8. Ps. 1. 23. Mat. v. 16. GNOSIMACHI, a name which distinguished those in the seventh century who were professed enemies to the Gnosis; i. e. the studied knowledge or science of Christianity, which they rested wholly on good works; calling it a useless labour to seek for knowledge in the Scripture. In short, they contended for the practice of morality in all simplicity, and blamed those who aimed at improving and perfecting it by a deeper knowledge and insight into the doctrines and mysteries of religion. The Gnosimachi were the very reverse of the Gnostics. GNOSTICS (from Ivermes, knowing,) ancient heretics, famous from the first rise of Christianity, principally in the east. It appears from several passages of Scripture, particularly 1 John, ii. 18.; 1 Tim. vi. 20; Col. ii 8; that many persons were infected with the Gnostic heresy in the first century; though the sect did not render itself conspicuous, either for numbers or reputation, before the time of Adrian, when some writers erroneously date its of evil and the creation of the world, with its divine truths. Such were the Valentinians, Simonians, Carpocratians, Nicholaitans, &c. Gnostics sometimes also occurs in a good sense, in the ancient ecclesiastical writers, particularly Clemens Alexandrinus, who, in the person of his Gnostic, describes the characters and qualities of a perfect Christian. This point he labours in the seventh book of his Stromata, where he shows that none but the Gnostic, or learned person, has any true religion. He affirms, that, were it possible for the knowledge of God to be separated from eternal salvation, the Gnostic would make no scruple to choose the knowledge; and that if God would promise him impunity in doing of any thing he has once spoken against, or offer him heaven on those terms, he would never alter a whit of his measures. In this sense the father uses Gnostics, in opposition to the heretics of the same name; affirming, that the true Gnostic is grown old in the study of the holy Scripture, and that he preserves the orthodox doctrine of the apostles, and of the church; whereas the false Gnostic abandons all the apostolical traditions, as imagining himself wiser than the apostles. Gnostics was sometimes also more particularly used for the successors of the Nicolaitans and Carpocratians, in the second century, upon their laying aside the names of the first authors. Such as would be thoroughly acquainted with all their doctrines, reveries, and visions may consult St. Irenæus, Tertul lian, Clemens Alexandrinus, Origen, deal of their cons, or emanations, under and St. Epiphanius; particularly the the terms the word, the life, the light, first of these writers, who relates their &c. They divided all nature into three sentiments at large, and confutes them. kinds of beings, viz. hylic, or material; Indeed he dwells more on the Valen- psychic, or animal; and pneumatic, or tinians than any other sect of Gnostics; spiritual. On the like principle they but he shows the general principles also distinguished three sorts of men; whereon all their mistaken opinions were material, animal, and spiritual. The founded, and the method they followed first, who were material, and incapable in explaining Scripture. He accuses of knowledge, inevitably perished, both them of introducing into religion certain soul and body; the third, such as the vain and ridiculous genealogies, i. e. a Gnostics themselves pretended to be, kind of divine processions or emana- were all certainly saved; the psychic, tions, which had no other foundation but or animal, who were the middle between in their own wild imagination. The the other two, were capable either of Gnostics confessed, that these æons, or being saved or damned, according to emanations, were no where expressly their good or evil actions. With regard delivered in the sacred writings; but to their moral doctrines and conduct, insisted that Jesus Christ had intimated they were much divided. The greatest them in parables to such as could under- part of this sect adopted very austere stand them. They built their theology rules of life, recommended rigorous abnot only on the Gospels and the epistles stinence, and prescribed severe bodily of St. Paul, but also on the law of Mo- mortifications, with a view of purifying ses and the prophets. These last were and exalting the mind. However, some peculiarly serviceable to them, on ac- maintained that there was no moral difcount of the allegories and allusions ference in human actions; and thus conwith which they abound, which are ca- founding right with wrong, they gave a pable of different interpretations; though loose rein to all the passions, and asserttheir doctrine concerning the creation ed the innocence of following blindly all of the world by one or more inferior their motions, and of living by their tubeings of an evil or imperfect nature, multuous dictates. They supported led them to deny the divine authority of their opinions and practice by various the books of the Old Testament, which authorities: some referred to fictitious contradicted this idle fiction, and filled and apocryphal writings of Adam, Abrathem with an abhorrence of Moses and ham, Zoroaster, Christ, and his aposthe religion he taught; alleging, that he tles; others boasted that they had dewas actuated by the malignant author of duced their sentiments from secret docthis world, who consulted his own glory trines of Christ, concealed from the vuland authority, and not the real advan- gar; others affirmed that they arrived tage of men. Their persuasion that evil at superior degrees of wisdom by an inresided in matter, as its centre and ate vigour of mind; and others asserted source, made them treat the body with that they were instructed in these myscontempt, discourage marriage, and re- terious parts of theological science by ject the doctrine of the resurrection of Theudas, a disciple of St. Paul, and by the body, and its re-union with the im- Matthias, one of the friends of our Lord. mortal spirit. Their notion, that ma- The tenets of the ancient Gnostics were levolent genii presided in nature, and revived in Spain, in the fourth century, occasioned diseases and calamities, wars by a sect called the Priscillianists. At and desolations, induced them to apply length the name Gnostic, which origithemselves to the study of magic, in nally was glorious, became infamous, by order to weaken the powers, or suspend the idle opinions and dissolute lives of the influence of these malignant agents. the persons who bore it. The Gnostics considered Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and inferior to the Father, who came into the world for the rescue and happiness of miserable mortals, oppressed by matter and evil beings; but they rejected our Lord's bumanity, on the principle that every thing corporeal is essentially and intrinsically evil; and therefore the greatest part of them denied the reality of his sufferings. They set a great value on the beginning of the Gospel of St. John, where they fancied they saw a great GOD, the self-existent, infinitely perfect, and infinitely good Being, who created and preserves all things that have existence. As the Divine Being possesses a nature far beyond the comprehension of any of his creatures, of course that nature is inexplicable. "All our knowledge of invisible objects is obtained by analogy; that is, by the resemblance which they bear to visible objects; but as there is in nature no exact resemblance of the nature of God, an atteinpt to explain the divine nature is absurd and impracticable. All simi- virtue; and by these means lay themlitudes, therefore, which are used in at-selves under an indispensable obligation tempting to explain it must be rejected." to instruct them, and watch over their Yet, though we cannot fully understand conduct. his nature, there is something of him we GODLINESS, strictly taken, is right may know. He hath been pleased to worship or devotion; but in general it discover his perfections, in a measure, imports the whole of practical religion, by the works of creation and the Scrip- || 1 Tim. iv. 8. 2 Pet. i. 6. It is difficult, as tures of truth; these, therefore, we Saurin observes, to include an adequate ought to study, in order that we may idea of it in what is called a definition. obtain the most becoming thoughts of It supposes knowledge, veneration, him. For an account of the various at- affection, dependence, submission, gratitributes or perfections of God, the tude, and obedience; or it may be rereader is referred to those articles in duced to these four ideas; knowledge this work. in the mind, by which it is distinguished There are various names given to the from the visions of the superstitious; Almighty in the Scriptures, though pro- rectitude in the conscience, that distinperly speaking, he can have no name; guishes it from hypocrisy; sacrifice in for as he is incomprehensible, he is not the life, or renunciation of the world, by nominable; and being but one, he has which it is distinguished from the unno need of a name to distinguish him; meaning obedience of him who goes as nevertheless, as names are given him in a happy constitution leads him; and, the Scriptures, to assist our ideas of his lastly, zeal in the heart, which differs greatness and perfection, they are wor- from the languishing emotions of the thy of our consideration. These names lukewarm." The advantages of this are, El, which denotes him the strong disposition, are honour, peace, safety, and powerful God, Gen. xvii. 1. Eloah, usefulness, support in death, and proswhich represents him as the only proper pect of glory; or, as the apo tle suns object of worship, Psal. xlv. 6, 7. Shad- || up all in a few words, "It is profitable dai, which denotes him to be all-suffi- unto all things, having the promise of cient and all-mighty, Exod. vi. 3. the life that now is, and of that which is Hheelion, which represents his incom- to come,” 1 Tim. iv. 8. Suurin's Serm., parable excellency, absolute supremacy vol. v. ser. 3. Eng. trans.; Barrow's over all, and his peculiar residence in Works, vol. i. p. 9.; Scott's Christian the highest heavens, Psalm 1. 11. Adoni, Life; Scougall's Life of God in the Soul which makes him the great connector, of Man. supporter, lord, and judge, of all creatures, Psal. cx. 1. Jah, which may denote his self-existence, and giving of being to his creatures, or his infinite comeliness, and answerableness to himself, and to the happiness of his creatures, Exod. xv. 2. Ehjeh, I am, or I will be, denotes his self-existence, absolute independency, immutable eternity, and all-sufficiency, to his people, Exod. iii 14. Jehovah, which denotes his selfexistence, absolute independence, unsuccessive eternity, and his effectual and marvellous giving of being to his creatures, and fulfilling his promises. Gen. i. 4, &c. In the New Testament, God is called Kurios, or Lord, which denotes his self-existence, and his establishment of, and authority over all things, and Theos, which represents him as the maker, pervader, and governing observer of the universe. GODFATHERS AND GODMOTHERS, persons who, at the baptism of infants, answer for their future conduct, and solemnly promise that they will renounce the devil and all his works, and follow a life of piety and GOOD, in general, is whatever increases pleasure, or diminishes pain in us; or, which amounts to the same, whatever is able to procure or prescrve to us the possession of agreeable sensations, and remove those of an opposite nature. Moral good denotes the right conduct of the several senses and passions, or their just proportion and accommodation to their respective objects and relations. Physical good is that which has either generally, or for any particular end, such qualities as are expected or desired. GOOD FRIDAY, a fast of the Christian church, in memory of the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ. It is observed on the Friday in Passion Week, and it is called, by way of eminence, good; because of the good effects of our Saviour's sufferings. Among the Saxons it was called Long Friday; but for what reason does not appear, except on account of the long fasting and long offices then used. See HOLY DAYS. GOODNESS, the fitness of a thing to produce any particular end. Perfection, kindness, benevolence. GOODNESS OF GOD, relates to |