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encouragement from past circumstances, if experience, as to preclude present exerwe can but if we are so dependent on past tions, or always expect to have exactly the dinance, we shall be disappointed. God has same assistance in every state, trial, or orwisely ordered it, that, though he never will leave his people, yet he will suspend or bestow comfort in his own time: for this very reason, that we may rely on him, and not on the circumstance or ordinance-3. It is an abuse of experience, when introduced at improper times, and before improper persons. It is true, we ought never to be ashamed of our profession. but to be always talking to irreligious people respecting experience, which they know, nothing of, is, swine. Bunyan's as our Saviour says, casting pearls before Buck's Treatise on Experience; Gurnall's Pilgrim's Progress cxxx.; Edwards on the Affections, and his Christian Armour; Dr. Owen on Psalm Thoughts on the Revival of Religion in New England; Dorney's Contemplations.

perfect. It is, however, to be lamented, that while the best of men have a mixture in their experience, there are others whose experience (so called) is entirely counterteit. They have been alarmed and have changed the ground of their confidence, have had their imaginations heated and delighted || by impressions and visionary representations; they have recollected the promises of the Gospel, as if spoken to them with peculiar appropriation, to certify them that their sins were forgiven; and having seen and heard such wonderful things, they think they must doubt no more of their adoption|| into the family of God. They have also frequently heard all experience profanely ridiculed as enthusiasm; and this betrays them into the opposite extreme, so that they are emboldened to despise every caution as the result of enmity to internal religion, and to act as if there were no delusive or counterfeit experience. But the event too plainly shews their awful mistake, and that they grounded their expectations upon the account given of the extraordinary operations of the Holy Spirit on the mind of the prophets, semblies of religious persons, who meet for EXPERIENCE MEETINGS, are asrather than on the promises of his renewing influences in the hearts of believers. each other. It has been doubted by some the purpose of relating their experience to When, therefore, they lose the impressions whether these meetings are of any great with which they once were elated, they re- utility: and whether they do not in some lapse nearly into their old course of life, measure force people to say more than is their creed and confidence alone excepted.”|| true, and puff up those with pride who are Christian experience may be considered able to communicate their ideas with facilias genuine, 1. When it accords with the ty; but to this it may be answered, 1 That revelation of God's mind and will, or what the abuse of a thing is no proof of the evil he has revealed in his word. contrary to this, however pleasing, cannot old did not neglect this practice, Ps lxvi. Any thing of it-2. That the most eminent saints of be sound, or produced by Divine agency.2. When its tendency is to promote humili- prudent relation of experience, the Christian 16. Mal. iii. 16.-3. That, by a wise and ty in us that experience, by which we learn our own weakness, and subdues pride, of the same joys and sorrows with hin self is led to see that others have participated must be good.-3. When it teaches us to he is excited to love and serve God; and bear with others, and to do them good.-4. animated to perseverance in duty, by findWhen it operates so as to excite us to be ing that others, of like passions with himardent in our devotion, and sincere in our seif, are zealous, active, and diligent.-4. regard to God. A powerful experience of That the Scriptures seem to enjoin the frethe Divine favour will lead us to acknow- quent intercourse of Christians, for the purledge the same, and to manifest our grati-pose of strengthening each other in reliude both by constant praise and genuine piety.

gious services, Heb. x. 24, 25 Col iii. 16. Matt xviii 20. See CONFERENCE.

satisfaction or atonement is made for some EXPIATION, a religious act, by which crime, the guilt removed, and the obligation to punishment cancelled, Lev. xvi. See PROPITIATION.

EXPOSITIONS. See COMMENTARIES. gaining or acquiring any thing by force. ExEXTORTION, the act or practice of tortioners are included in the list of those ven, 1 Cor. x 6 who are excluded from the kingdom of hea

Christian experience, however, may be abused. There are some good people who certainly have felt and enjoyed the power of religion, and yet have not always acted with prudence as to their experience. 1. Some brast of their experience, or talk of them as if they were very extraordinary ; whereas, were they acquainted with others, they would find it not so. That a man may make mention of his experience, is no way improper, but often useful; but to hear persons always talking of themselves, seems to indicate a spirit of pride, and craments of the Romish church; the fifth EXTREME UNCTION, one of the sathat their experience cannot be very deep. in order, administered to people danger-2. Another abuse of experience is, de-ously sick by anointing them with holy oil, pendence on it. We ought certainly to take and praying over them.

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FAITH is that assent which we give to some placing it before, others after repenta proposition advanced by another, the truthance. Perhaps the following remarks on the of which we do not immediately perceive from our reason and experience; or it is a judgment or assent of the mind, the motive whereof is not any intrinsic evidence, but the authority or testimony of some other, who reveals or relates it. The Greek word ПT, translated faith, comes from the verb Пe, to persuade; the nature of faith being a persuasion and assent of the mind, arising from testimony or evidence.

1. Divine faith, is that founded on the authority of God, or it is that assent which we give to what is revealed by God. The objects of this, therefore, are matters of revelation.

2. Human faith, is that whereby we believe what is told us by men. The objects hereof are matters of human testimony or evidence.

3. Historical faith, is that whereby we assent to the truths of revelation as a kind of certain and infallible record, James ii. 17, or to any fact recorded in history.

4. The faith of miracles, is the persuasion a person has of his being able, by the Divine power, to effect a miracle on another, Mat. xvii. 20. 1 Cor. xiii. 2. or another on himself, Acts xiv. 9. tained chiefly in the time of Christ and his This obapostles.

subject may be considered as consistent with truth and Scripture: 1. Regeneration is the work of God enlightening the mind, and changing the heart, and in order of time precedes faith.-2. Faith is the consequence of regeneration, and implies the perception of an object. It discerns the evil of sin, the holiness of God, gives credence to the testimony of God in his word, and seems to prethat of which we have no clear perception, cede repentance, since we cannot repent of after thought, or sorrowing for sin, the evil or no concern about.-3. Repentance is an nature of which faith perceives, and which is a turning from sin, which faith sees, and immediately follows faith.4. Conversion repentance sorrows for, and seems to follow, and to be the end of all the rest.

As to the properties or adjuncts of faith, principal grace: it stands first in order, and we may observe, 1. That it is the first and takes the precedence of other graces, Mark xvi. 16. Heb. xi. 6.-2. It is every way pre cious and valuable, 1 Pet. ii. 1.-3. It is called in scripture, one faith; for though there special or saving faith, Eph. iv. 5.-4. It is are several sorts of faith, there is but one to all the regenerate, Tit. i. 4-5. It is also denominated common faith; common 5. A temporary faith, is an assent to true, real, and unfeigned, Acts viii. 37. Rom. x. 10-6. It cannot be finally lost as to the evangelical truths, as both interesting and grace of it, Phil. i. 6. Luke xxii. 32.-7. It desirable, but not farther than they are accompanied with temporal advantages; and-8. It appropriates and realizes; or, as the is progressive, Luke xvii. 5. 2 Thes. i. 3. which is lost when such advantages dimi. apostle says, is the substance of things hoped nish or are removed, Mat. xi. 24. Luke for, and the evidence of things not seen, Heb. xi. 1.

viii. 13.

6. Faith in respect to futurity, is a moral principle, implying such a conviction of the reality and importance of a future state, as is sufficient to regulate the temper and conduct.

Love to Christ, 1 Pet. i. 8. Gal. v. 6.-2. The evidence or effects of faith, are, 1. Confidence, Eph. iii. 12.-3. Joy, Rom. v. 11. Phil. i. 25.-4. Prayer, Heb. iv. 16.-5. AtHeb. iv. 2-6. Zeal in the promotion of tention to his ordinances, and profit by them. his glory, 1 Cor. xv. 58. Gal. vi. 9.-7. Holiness of heart and life, Matt. vii. 20. 1 John

ii. 3. Acts xv. 9. James ii. 18. 20. 22. See

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7. Faith in Christ, or saving faith, is that principle wrought in the heart by the Divine Spirit, whereby we are persuaded that Christ is the Messiah; and possess such a desire and expectation of the blessings he Articles ASSURANCE and JUSTIFICATION, has promised in his Gospel, as engages the in this work and Polhill on Precious mind to fix its dependence on him, and sub- Faith; Lambert's Sermons, ser. 13, 14 &c. ject itself to him in all the ways of holy Scott's Nature and Warrant of Faith obedience, and relying solely on his grace Faith; Rotherham's Essay on for everlasting life. Romaine's Life, Walk, and Triumph of These are the ideas which are generally annexed to the defini-Dore's Letters on Faith; A. Hall on the Faith tion of saving faith; but, accurately speak- Faith and Influence of the Gospel; Gooding, faith is an act of the understanding, giv-win's Works, v. iv. ing credit to the testimony of the Gospel; and desire, expectation, confidence, &c. are rather the effects of it, than faith itself, though inseparably connected with it. Much has been said as to the order or place in thich faith stands in the Christian system, system,

FAITH, ARTICLE OF See ARTICLE
FAITH, CONFESSION OF. See CoN-

FESSION.

FAITH, IMPLICIT. See IMPLICIT
FAITH.

FAITHFULNESS, See FIDELITY.

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this history, from what appeared externally to sense: both, therefore, are to be conjoined, the serpent as the instrument, and the devil as the primary cause. Man suffered himself to be seduced by perverse and con

FAITHFULNESS OF GOD, is that periection of his nature whereby he infalfibly fulfils his designs, or performs his word It appears, says Dr. Gill, in the perform-fused notions of good and evil, prompted by ance of what he has said with respect to a desire of a greater degree of perfection, the world in general, that it shall not be and swayed by his sensual appetite, in condestroyed by a flood, as it once was, and tradiction to his reason, Gen. iii. 6. And for a token of it, has set his bow in the thus it appears possible, how, notwithstandclouds; that the ordinances of heaven should ing the divine image with which man is keep their due course, which they have adorned, he might fall; for, though includ done for almost 6000 years, exactly and ing in it knowledge, it did not exclude from punctually; that all his creatures should it confused notions, which are those arising be supported and provided for, and the from sense and imagination, especially when elements all made subservient to that end, off our guard and inattentive, blindly followwhich we find do so according to his sove-ing the present impression. From this one reign pleasure, Gen. ix. Isa. liv. 9. Ps. cxlv. Deut. xi. 14, 15. 2 Pet. iii.

2. It appears in the fulfilment of what he has said with respect to Christ. Whoever will take the pains to compare the predictions of the birth, poverty, life, sufferings, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, with the accomplishment of the same, will find a striking demonstration of the faithfulness of God.

sin arose another, and then another from the connection of causes and effects, till this repetition brought on a habit of sin, consequently a state of moral slavery; called by divines a death in sin, a spiritual death, a defect of power to act according to the law, and from the motive of the divine perfections, as death in general is such a defect of power of action; and this defect or inability, with all its consequences, man entailed on his posterity, remaining upon them, till one greater man remove this, and reinstate them in all they forfeited in Adam.

3. It appears in the performance of the promises which he has made to his people. In respect to temporal blessings, i Tim. iv. 8. Psal. lxxxiv. 11. Is. xxxiii. 162. To spiritual, 1 Cor. i. 9. In support- In the fall of man we may observe, 1. ing them in temptation, 1 Corinth. x. 13. The greatest infidelity-2. Prodigious pride. Encouraging them under persecution, 1 Pet.-3. Horrid ingratitude.-4. Visible coniv. 12, 13. Isa. xli. 10. Sanctifying afflic- tempt of God's majesty and justice.-5. tions, Heb. xii. 4-12. Directing them in Unaccountable folly -6. A cruelty to himdifficulties, 1 Thess. v. 24. Enabling them self and to all his posterity. Infidels, howto persevere. Jer. xxxi. 40. Bringing them ever, have treated the account of the fall to glory, 1 John, ii. 25. and its effects, with contempt, and consid4. It appears in the fulfilling of his ered the whole as absurd; but their obthreatenings. The curse came upon Adam ||jections to the manner have been ably anaccording as it was threatened. He fulfill-swered by a variety of authors; and as to ed his threatening to the old world in des- the effects, one would hardly think any troying it. He declared that the Israelites body could deny. For that, man is a fallen should be subject to his awful displeasure,|| creature, is evident, if we consider his if they walked not in his ways: it was ac- misery as an inhabitant of the natural cordingly fulfilled. Deut. xxviii. See IM-world; the disorders of the globe we inha

MUTABILITY.

FALL OF MAN, the loss of those perfections and that happiness which his Maker bestowed on him at his creation,|| through transgression of a positive command, given for the trial of a man's obedience, and as a token of his holding every thing of God, as lord paramount of the creation, with the use of every thing in it, exclusive of the fruit of one tree This positive law he broke by eating the forbidden fruit: first the women, then the man: and thus the condition or law of the covenant being broken, the covenant itself was broken. The woman was enticed by an evil genius, under the semblance of a serpent, as appears from its reasoning the woman into the transgression of the law, of which a brute beast is incapable. Hence the evil genius is called a murderer and a liar from the beginning, John viii. 44. Rom. v. 12, the old serpent, Rev. xii. 9. xx. 2. Moses relates

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bit, and the dreadful scourges with which it is visited; the deplorable and shocking circumstances of our birth; the painful and dangerous travail of women; our natural uncleanliness, helplessness, ignorance, and nakedness; the gross darkness in which we naturally are, both with respect to God and a future state; the general rebellion of the brute creation against us; the various poisons that lurk in the animal, vegetable and mineral world, ready to destroy us the heavy curse of toil and sweat to which we are liable; the innumerable calamities of life, and the pangs of death Again, it is evident, if we consider him as a citizen of the moral world: his commission of sin; his omission of duty; the triumph of sensual appetites over his intellectual faculties; the corrup tions of the powers that constitute a good head, the understanding, imagination, meinory, and reason: the depravity of the

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who passed their time in temples (fana): and being often seized with a kind of enthusiasm, as if inspired by the Divinity, shewed

their arms with knives, shaking the head, &c. Hence the word was applied among us to the Anabaptists, Quakers, &c. at their first rise, and is now an epithet given to modern prophets, enthusiasts, &c. and we believe unjustly to those who possess a considerable degree of zeal and fervency of devotion.

powers which form a good heart, the will, conscience, and affections; his manifest alienation from God; his amazing disregard even of his nearest relatives; his unaccount-wild and antic gestures, cutting and slashing able unconcern about himself; his detestable tempers; the general outbreaking of human corruption in all individuals; the universal overflowing of it in all nations. Some striking proofs of this depravity may be seen in the general propensity of mankind to vain irrational, or cruel diversions: in the universality of the most ridiculous, impious, inhuman, and diabolical sins; in FARNOVIANS, a sect of Socinians, so the aggravating circumstances attending called from Stanislaus Farnovius, who sepa the display of this corruption; in the many rated from the other Unitarians in the ineffectual endeavours to stem its torrent; year 1568. He asserted that Christ had in the obstinate resistence it makes to divine been engendered or produced out of nothing grace in the unconverted; the amazing by the Supreme Being, before the creation struggles of good men with it; the tes- of this terrestrial globe, and warned his distimony of the heathens concerning it; and ciples against paying religious worship to the preposterous conceit which the uncon- the Divine Spirit. This sect did not last verted have of their own goodness. Dict. long; for having lost their chief, who died of the Bible; Fletcher's Appeal to Mat-in 1615, it was scattered, and reduced to ters of Fact; Berry Street Lectures, vol. i. 180, 189; South's Sermons, vol. i. 124, 150; Bates's Harmony of Div. Att. p. 98; Boston's Fourfold State, part 1. FALSEHOOD, untruth, deceit. See

LYING.

FALSE CHRISTS. See MESSIAH. FAMILIARS OF THE INQUISITION, persons who assist in apprehending such as are accused, and carrying them to prison. They are assistants to the inquisitor, and called familiars, because they belong to his family. In some provinces of Italy they are called cross bearers; and in others the scholars of St. Peter the martyr; and wear a cross before them on the outside garment. They are properly bailiffs of the inquisition and the vile office is esteemed so honourable, that noblemen in the kingdom of Portugal have been ambitious of belonging to it. Nor is this surprising, when it is considered that Innocent III. granted very large indulgencies and privileges to these familiars; and that the same plenary indulgence is granted by the Pope to every single exercise of this office, as was granted by the Lateran council to those who succoured the Holy Land. When several persons are to be taken up at the same time, these familiars are commanded to order matters that they may know nothing of one another's being apprehended; and it is related, that a father and his three sons and three daughters, who lived together in the same house, were carried prisoners to the inquisition without knowing any thing of one another's being there till seven years afterwards, when they that were alive were released by an act of faith. See art. ACT OF FAITH.

FAMILY PRAYER. See PRAYER. FAMILY OF LOVE, or FAMILISTS. See Love.

nothing.

FASTING, abstinence from food, more particularly that abstinence which is used on a religious account.

The Jews had every year a stated and solemn fast on the 10th day of the month Tisri, which generally answered to the close of our September. This solemnity was a day of strict rest and fasting to the Israelites. Many of them spent the day before in prayer, and such like penitential exercises. On the day itself, at least in later times, they made a ten fold confession of their sins, and were careful to end all their mutual broils. See Lev. xvi. Num. xxix. 7, 12. Lev. xxiii. 23, 32. Individuals also fasted on any extraordinary distress. Thus David fasted during the sickness of his adulterous child, 2 Sam. xii. 21. when he was threatened with ruin, 1 Kings xii. 27. Daniel, when he understood that the Jewish captivity drew to an end, 9th and 10th chapters of Nehemiah Joshua, &c.

Ahab,

However light some think of religious fasting, it seems it has been practised by mest nations from the remotest antiquity. The Egyptians, Phœnicians, and Assyrians, had their fasts as well as the Jews. Porphyry affirms that the Egyptians, before their stated sacrifices, always fasted a great many days'; sometimes for six weeks. The Greeks observed their fasts much in the same manner. At Rome, kings and emperors fasted themselves. Numa Pompilius, Julius Cæsar, Augustus, Vespasian, and others, we are told, had their stated fast days: and Julian the apostate was so exact in this observation, that he outdid the priests themselves. The Pythagorians frequently fasted rigidly for a long time; and Pythagorus, their master, continued his fast, it is said, for forty days together. The Brachmans, and the Chinese, have also

FANATICS, wild enthusiasts, visionary persons, who pretend to revelation and in-their stated fasts. spiration. The ancients called those fanatici

Every one knows how much fasting has

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been considered as an important rite in the and allotted to every person what shall befal church of Rome, and the extremes they him. The Greeks called it apμs as have run into in this respect. See article it were a chain or necessary series of ABSTINENCE. The church of England things indissolubly linked together. It is also has particular seasons for fasting, espe- also used to express a certain unavoidable cially that of Lent, which is to be observed designation of things, by which all agents, as a time of humiliation before Easter, the both necessary and voluntary, are swayed general festival of our Saviour's resurrec- and directed to their ends. tion. Fast days are also appointed by the vided into physical and divine. 1. Physical legislature upon any extraordinary occasions fate is an order and series of natural causes, Fate is diof calamity, war, &c. See articles ROGA-appropriated to their effects: as, that fire TION, LENT.

other, &c and the effects of it are all the warms: bodies communicate motion to each events and phenomena of nature.-2. Divine fate is what is more usually called providence. See PROVIDENCE, NECESSITY.

Religious fasting consists, 1. "In abstinence from every animal indulgence, and from food, as far as health and circumstances will admit-2. In the humble confession of our sins to God, with contrition or sorrow for them.-3. An earnest authors who have preserved in their writFATHERS, a term applied to ancient deprecation of God's displeasure, and hum-ings traditions of the church. ble supplication that he would avert his Chrysostom, St. Basil, &c. are called Greek judgments.-4. An intercession with Godfathers, and St Augustine and St. Ambrose, Thus St. for such spiritual and temporal blessings Latin fathers. upon ourselves and others which are need-than the twelfth century is dignified with the No author who wrote later ful." It does not appear that our Sa- title of father. viour instituted any particular fast, but left it optional. Any state of calamity and thers is barren and unimproving; that Some suppose that the study of the fasorrow, however, naturally suggest this. though there are some excellent things inThe propriety of it may appear, 1. From terspersed in their writings, yet the instrucmany examples recorded in scripture. 2. By plain and undeniable inferences from repay the toil of breaking up the ground; tion to be derived from them will hardly scripture, Mat. vi. 16.-3. From divine that a lifetime would hardly suffice to read commands given on some occasions, though them with care, and digest them completethere are no commands which prescribe ly. Others have such an high opinion of it as a constant duty.-4. It may be argued from its utility. are these-1. A natural expression of our They suppose, that as some of them were The end or uses of it preting scripture against their decision. the fathers, as to be almost afraid of intersorrow. 2. A help to devotional exercis companions, disciples, or successively followes.-3. Keeping the body in subjectioners of the apostles, it is highly probable 4. May be rendered subservient to charity. that they must have been well informed, How far or how long a person should that their sentiments must be strongly illusabstain from food, depends on circum-trative of the doctrines of the New Testastances. The great end to be kept in ment; and that as controversies have inview is, humiliation for, and abstinence creased, and dogmas received since their from sin. "If," says Marshall, "abstin-time, they must be much less entangled ence divert our minds, by reason of a gnawing appetite, then you had better recent commentators. Perhaps it is best to with decisions merely human, than more eat sparingly, as Daniel in his greatest fast," Dan. x. 2, 3. They, however, who, in steer between these two opinions. If a times of public distress, when the judg-tunity to wade through them, let him; but person have ability, inclination, and opporments of God are in the earth, and if not, referring to them occasionally may when his providence seems to call for suffice. humiliation, will not relinquish any of their sary, which is this: that though the judg One caution, however, is necessensual enjoyments, nor deny themselves ment of antiquity in some disputable points in the least, cannot be justified; since certainly may be useful, yet we ought never good men in all ages, more or less, have humbled themselves on such occasions scriptures. In many cases they may be con to put them on the same footing as the and reason as well as scripture evidently sidered as competent witnesses; but we prove it to be our duty, Matt. ix 15. 1 Cor vii. 5. Bennet's Christ. Oration; vol. ii. p. Jortin's Works, vol. vii. chap. 2.; Kett's must not confide in their verdict as judges. 18, 25; Tillotson's Sermons, ser. 39; Serm. at Brampton Lec.; ser. 1.; WarburSimpson's Essay on Fasting; Marshallton's Julian; Šimpson's Strictures on Reon Sanct. p. 273, 274.

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FATE (fatum), denotes an inevitable necessity depending upon a superior cause. The word is formed a fando, " from speaking," and primarily implies the same with effutum, viz. a word or decree pronounced by God, or a fixed sentence whereby the Deity has prescribed the order of things

of the Fathers, p. 167.; Law's Theory;
ligious Opinions, latter end; Daille's Use
cred Literature, p. 312.
Dr. Clarke's View of the Succession of Sa-

subjects a person to blame, but not to pun-
FAULT, a slight defect or crime which
ishment; a deviation from, or transgression
of a rule in some trifling circumstance.

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