be left open to stimulate a generous youth to excel. Command a man to utter what he has no inclination to propagate, and what he does not even believe; threaten him, at the same time, with all the miseries of life, if he dare to follow his own ideas, and to promulge his own sentiments, and you pass a sentence of death on all he says. He does declaim; but all is languid and cold, and he lays his system out as an undertaker does the dead.

of proselytes to the opinion; but the answer of Demarets, professor of theology at Groningen, published the year following, put a stop to its progress, though Pereyra made a reply.

His system was this. The Jews he calls Adamites, and supposes them to have issued from Adam; and gives the title Preadamites to the Gentiles, whom he supposes to have been a long time before Adam. But this being expressly contrary to the first words of Genesis, Pereyra had recourse to the fabulous antiquities of the Egyp

Since the reformers, we have had multitudes who have entered into their views with disinterested-tians and Chaldeans, and to some

idle rabbins, who imagined there had been another world before that described by Moses. He was apprehended by the inquisition in Flanders, and very roughly used, though in the service of the dauphin. But he appealed from their sentence to Rome, whither he went in the time of Alexander VII, and where he printed a retraction of his book of Preadamites. The arguments against the Preadamites are these. The sacred history of Moses assures us that Adam and Eve were the first persons that were created on the earth, Gen. i, 26. Gen. ii, 7. Our Saviour confirmed this when he said, "From the beginning of the

ness and success; and, in the present times, both in the church and among Dissenters, names could be mentioned which would do honour to any nation; for though there are too many who do not fill up that important station with proportionate piety and talents, yet we have men who are conspicuous for their extent of knowledge, depth of experience, originality of thought, fervency of zeal, consistency of deportment, and great usefulness in the Christian church. May their numbers still be increased, and their exertions in the cause of truth be eminently crowned with the Divine blessing! See Robinson's Claude, vol. ii, preface; and books recommended under ar-creation God made them male

ticle MINISTER.

PREADAMITE, a denomination given to the inhabitants of the earth conceived by some people to have lived before Adam.

and female," Mark x, 6. It is undeniable that he speaks this of Adam and Eve, because in the next verse he uses the same words as those in Gen. ii. 24. "Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave unto his wife." It is also clear from Gen.

Isaac de la Pereyra, in 1655, published a book to evince the reality of Preadamites, by which he gained a considerable number iii, 20. where it is said, that VOL. II.

Rr

"Adam called his wife's name || ders all our efforts useless. PredesEve, because she was the mother of all living;" that is, she was the source and root of all men and women in the world; which plainly intimates that there was no other woman that was such a mother. Finally, Adam is expressly called twice, by the apostle Paul, the first man, 1st Cor. xv, 45, 47. PRECEPT, a rule given by a superior: a direction or command. PREDESTINARIANS, those who believe in predestination. See

PREDESTINATION.

tinarians deny these consequences, and endeavour to prove this doctrine from the consideration of the perfections of the Divine nature, and from scripture testimony. If his knowledge, say they, be infinite and unchangeable, he must have known every thing from eternity. If we allow the attribute of prescience, the idea of a decree must certainly be believed also; for how can an action that is really to come to pass be foreseen if it be not determined? God knew evPREDESTINATION is the ery thing from the beginning; but decree of God, whereby he hath this he could not have known if he for his own glory fore-ordained had not so determined it. If, also, whatever comes to pass. The God be infinitely wise, it cannot verb predestinate is of Latin origi- be conceived that he would leave nal (pradestino), and signifies in things at random, and have no that tongue to deliberate before- plan. He is a God of order, and hand with one's self how one shall this order he observes as strictly act; and, in consequence of such in the moral as in the natural deliberation, to constitute, fore-or- world, however confused things dain, and predetermine, where, may appear to us. To conceive when, how, and by whom any thing otherwise of God is to degrade shall be done, and to what end it him, and is an insult to his perfecshall be done. So the Greek word tions. If he, then, be wise and unπροοριξω, which exactly answers to the changeable, no new idea or purpose English word predestinate, and is can arise in his mind; no alterarendered by it, signifies to resolve tion of his plan can take place upon before-hand with one's self what condition of his creatures acting shall be done, and before the thing in this or that way. To say that resolved on is actually effected; this doctrine makes him the auto appoint it some certain use, and thor of sin is not justifiable. We direct it to some determinate end. all allow omnipotence to be an atThis doctrine has been the occa- tribute of Deity, and that by this sion of considerable disputes and attribute he could have prevented controversies among divines. On sin from entering into the world, the one side it has been observed, had he chosen it; yet we see he that it is impossible to reconcile it did not. Now he is no more with our ideas of the justice and the author of sin in one case than goodness of God, that it makes the other. May we not ask, Why God to be the author of sin; de- does he suffer those inequalities of stroys moral distinction, and ren-Providence? Why permit whole nations to lie in idolatry for ages?fore is plain from John iii, 13. John Why leave men to the most cruel barbarities? Why punish the sins of the fathers in the children? In a word, Why permit the world at large to be subject to pains, crosses, losses, evils of every kind, and that for so many thousands of years? And, yet, will any dare call the Deity unjust? The fact is, our finite minds know but little of the nature of Divine justice, or any other of his attributes. But, supposing there are difficulties in this subject (and what subject is without?), the scripture abounds with passages which at once prove the doctrine, Matt. xxv, 34. Rom. viii, 29, 30. Eph. i, 3, 6, 11. 2d Tim. i, 9. 2d Thess. ii, 13. 1st Pet. i, 1, 2. John vi, 37. John xvii, 2 to 24. Rev. xiii, 8. Rev. xvii, 8. Dan. iv, 35. 1st Thess. v, 19. Matt. xi, 26. Exod. iv, 21. Prov. xvi, 4. Acts xiii, 48. The moral uses of this doctrine are these. 1. It hides pride from man. -2. Excludes the idea of chance. -3. Exalts the grace of God.-4. Renders salvation certain. -5. Affords believers great consolation. See DECREES OF GOD; NECESSITY; King, Toplady, Cooper, and Tucker, on Predestination; Burnet on 17 Art.; Whitby and Gill on the Five Points; Wesley's Pred. by these arguments.

considered; Hill's Logica Wesleinsis; Edwards on the Will; Polhill on the Decrees; Edwards's Veritas Redux; Saurin's Sermons, vol. v, ser. 13; Dr. Williams's Sermon on Predestination.

PRE-EXISTENCE OF JESUS CHRIST, is his existence before he was born of the Virgin Mary. That he really did exist be

vi, 50, &c. John xvii. John viii, 58. 1st John i, 4; but there are various opinions respecting this existence. Some acknowledge, that in Jesus Christ there is a divine nature, a rational soul, and a human body. His body, they think, was formed in the Virgin's womb; his human soul, they suppose, was the first and most excellent of all the works of God; was brought into existence before the creation of the world, and subsisted in happyunion in heaven with the second person in the Godhead, till his incarnation. These divines differ from those called Arians, for the latter ascribe to Christ only a created deity, whereas the former hold his true and proper divinity: they differ from the Socinians, who believe no existence of Christ before his incarnation: they differ from the Sabellians, who only own a trinity of names: they differ, also, from the generally received opinion, which is, that the human soul began to exist in his mother's womb, in exact conformity to that likeness unto his brethren, of which St. Paul speaks, Heb. ii, 17. The writers in favour of the pre-existence of Jesus Christ's human soul recommend their thesis

1. Christ is represented as his Father's messenger, or angel, being distinct from his Father, sent by his Father long before his incarnation, to perform actions which seem to be too low for the dignity of pure Godhead. The appearances of Christ to the patriarchs are described like the appearances of an angel, or man

really distinct from God; yet such a one, in whom God, or Jehovah, had a peculiar indwelling, or with whom the Divine nature had a personal union.

demption between the Father and the Son is therefore represented as being made before the foundation of the world. To suppose that simple Deity or the divine essence, which is the same in all the three personalities, should make a covenant with itself is inconsistent.

2. Christ, when he came into the world, is said, in several passages of scripture, to have divested himself of some glory which he had before his incarnation. Now if there had existed before this time nothing but his divine nature, this divine nature could not properly divest itself of any glory. I have glorified thee on earth; I have finished the work thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. -Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich, John xvii, 4, 5. 2d Cor. viii, 9. It cannot be said of God that he became poor: he is infinitely self-sufficient; he is necessarily and eternally rich in perfections and glories. Nor can it be said of Christ as man, that he was rich, if he were never in a richer state before, than while he was on earth. It seems needful that the soul of Christ should pre-exist, that it might have an opportunity to give its previous actual consent to the great and painful undertaking of atonement for our sins. It was the human soul of Christ that endured the weakness and pain of his infant state, all the labours and fatigues of life, the reproaches of men, and the sufferings of death. The divine nature is incapable of i, 13. and it was with this he praysuffering. The covenant of re-ed his Father would glorify him.

Christ is the angel to whom God was in a peculiar manner united, and who in this union made all the divine appearances related in the Old Testament.

God is often represented in scripture as appearing in a visible. manner, and assuming a human form. See Gen. iii, 8. xvii, 1. xxviii, 12. xxxii, 24. Exod. ii, 2. and a variety of other passages.

The Lord Jehovah, when he came down to visit men, carried some ensign of divine majesty : he was surrounded with some splendid appearance. Such a light often appeared at the door of the tabernacle, and fixed its abode on the ark, between the cherubims. It was by the Jews called the Shekinah, i. e. the habitation of God. Hence he is described as dwelling in light, and clothed with light as with a garment. In the midst of this brightness there seems to have been sometimes a human shape and figure. It was probably of this heavenly light that Christ divested himself when he was made flesh. With this he was covered at his transfiguration in the Mount, when his garments were white as the light; and at his ascension into heaven, when a bright cloud received, or invested him: and when he appeared to John, Rev.