power of acting on his body: but by his fall he changed the light, life, and spirit of God, for the light, life, and spirit of the world. He died on the very day of his transgression to all the influences and operations of the Spirit of God upon him, as we die to the influences of this world when the soul leaves the body; and all the influences and operations of the elements of this life were open in him, as they are in any animal, at his birth into this world: he became an earthly creature, subject to the dominion of this outward world, and stood only in the highest rank of animals.

But the goodness of God would not leave man in this condition: redemption from it was immediately granted; and the bruiser of the serpent brought the life, light, and spirit of heaven, once more into the human nature. All men, in consequence of the redemption of Christ, have in them the first spark, or seed, of the divine life, as a treasure hid in the centre of our souls, to bring forth, by degrees, a new birth of that life which was lost in paradise. No son of Adam can be lost, except by turning away from the Saviour within him. The only religion which can save us, must be that which can raise the light, life, and spirit of God, in our souls. Nothing can enter into the vegetable kingdom till it have vegetable life in it, or be a member of the animal kingdom till it have the animal life. Thus all nature joins with the gospel in affirming that no man can enter into the kingdom of heaven till the heavenly life is born in him. Nothing can be our righteousness or recovery, but the divine nature of Jesus Christ derived to our souls.

According to this author, Christ was made man to kindle in the fallen soul a birth of light and love. He always represents the Deity as a God of love, who, from eternity to eternity, can have no will towards his creatures, but to communicate good. He asserts that there is no wrath standing between God and us, but that which is awakened in the dark fire of our own fallen nature; and that to quench this wrath, and not his own, God gave his only-begotten Son to be made man. As, according to Mr. Law's system, all men have in them the first spark, or seed, of

divine life, he believed in a final restoration of all mankind after long periods of suffering and purification.-[Mr. Law's Life Letters-Appeal-Spirit of Prayer and Love-Christian Regeneration, and Perfection, &c.]

From these extracts it will be seen, that Mr. Law and his followers were far from what are considered orthodox sentiments on the doctrines of atonement and justification; confounding the work of Christ with that of the Holy Spirit; looking to a righteousness formed within them, as their title to eternal life, instead of that wrought out for them by the Son of God. Notwithstanding this, we agree with the late Dr. Haweis, that " among these Mystics, some [we would rather say many] were found who loved God out of a pure heart fervently; and though they were ridiculed and reviled for professing a disinterestedness of love without other motives; and as professing to feel in the enjoyment of the temper itself an abundant reward; their holy and heavenly conversation will carry a stamp of real religion upon it, when all their jesuitical opponents, with the time-serving Bossuet at their head, will be weighed in the balances and found wanting."-[Haweis's Church Hist. vol. iii, p. 47.]

This

The term mystical has been sometimes applied to those preachers and writers who are fond of allegorical interpretations, as were the Origenists, which see. false taste, however, will be observed in the above extracts from Mr. Law, which are sufficient to shew how a style, otherwise lucid and elegant, may be rendered confused and unintelligible, by the adopting crude notions and opinions.

Not that all allegories are to be condemned, for Saint Paul used them; but they should be founded on, and not supersede, the first and literal sense for, in that case, they weaken the authority of divine revelation. Thus Woolston attempted to set aside the miracles of Christ, by turning them all into allegory; and it has been said, that Mr. Gibbon's prejudices against Christianity were strengthened by the mystical expositions of Mr. Law, who had lived in his father's family, as above-mentioned.-[R. Adam's R. Ŵ. pp. 426, 428.]

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NANTS, EDICT OF, a decree of Henry IV. in favour of his Hugonot, or Protestant subjects, in the year 1598, about twenty-six years after the horrible Parisian massacre; and the sudden repeal of which decree, by Louis XIV., occasioned the most terrible persecution ever suffered in France. See Hugonots.

NATIVITARIANS, a name given by Danæus to some supposed heretics of the 4th century, who believed that the second person in the Holy Trinity was eternal as God, but not as a son: that is, that his generation was not eternal.-[Turner's Hist. p. 156.]

NAZARENES, or NAZAREANS, a name originally given to Christians in general, on account of Jesus Christ's being of the city of Nazareth; but was, in the second century, restrained to certain judaizing Christians, who blended Christianity and Judaism together. They held that Christ was born of a virgin, and was also in a certain manner united to the divine nature. They refused to abandon the ceremonies prescribed by the law of Moses; but were far from attempting to impose the observance of these ceremonies upon Gentile Christians. They rejected those additions that were made to the Mosaic institutions by the Pharisees and doctors of the law; but admitted the Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament. They also used a spurious gospel, which was called, indiscriminately, the Gospel either of the Nazarenes or of the Hebrews; though others suppose it to have been only a Hebrew or Syriac version of St. Matthew's Gospel. Compare Ebionites. [Mosheim's E. H. vol.i. pp. 213-14.]

NAZARITES, among the Israelites, were either persons devoted by their parents from the womb, and so called perpetual Nazarites; or they devoted themselves by vow to observe the law of the Nazarites for a certain time: that law was, not to shave the head, nor to drink wine or strong drink. -[Jennings's Jewish Antiq. book i. chap. 8.]

NECESSARIANS, or NECESSITARIANS, believers in the doctrine of Necessity whether natural or moral, philosophical or theological. The following is a sketch of the reasonings of the most eminent writers in favour of this doctrine during the last century :

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Mr. Leibnitz, an eminent German philosopher, who was born in 1646, attempted to give the doctrine of predestination a more pleasing and philosophical aspect. He considered all the worlds which com pose the universe as one system, whose greatest possible perfection is the ultimate end of the Creator. As he laid down this as the supreme object of God's mor government, and the scope to which al his dispensations were directed, he co cluded that it must be accomplished; and hence the doctrine of necessity, to ful the decrees of predestination; a necessity physical and mechanical in the motions material and inanimate things; but mon and spiritual in the voluntary determin tions of intelligent beings, in consequence of propellent motives, which produce ther effects with certainty, though those effet: are contingent, and by no means offspring of an absolute and blind fatality

the

Mr. L. farther observes, that if it said that the world might have be without sin and misery, such a wor would not have been the best; for & things are linked together in each possib world. The universe, whatever it m be, is all of a piece, like an ocean: least motion produces its effect to a distance, though the effect becomes la sensible in proportion to the distan God having settled every thing befor hand, having foreseen all good and e actions, &c., every thing did ideally tribute before its existence to his creaur plan; so that no alteration can be ma in the universe, any more than in number, without destroying its numeris individuality: and, therefore, if the le evil which happens in the world we wanting, it would not be that w which, all things duly considered, the wise Creator has chosen and account the best. Colours are heightened shadows, and a dissonance well place renders harmony more beautiful. De any one sufficiently prize the happiness health, who has never been sick? Is not generally necessary that a little e should render a good more sensible, a consequently, greater?-[Leibnitz's Ess de Theodicée, Letters, &c. E. H. vol. v. pp. 364-5.]

Moshe

President Edwards's scheme of m necessity is as follows:-That the wil

in every case necessarily determined by the strongest motives, and that this moral necessity may be as absolute as natural necessity; i. e. a moral effect may be as perfectly connected with its moral cause, as a naturally necessary effect is with its natural cause. He rejects the notion of liberty, as implying any self-determining power in the will, any indifference or contingency; and defines liberty to be the power, opportunity, and advantage, which any one has to do as he pleases. This liberty is supposed to be consistent with moral certainty or necessity. He supports his scheme by the connexion between cause and effect-by God's certain foreknowledge of the volitions of moral agents, which is proved to be inconsistent with such a contingence of those volitions as excludes all necessity.

Mr. E. argues that God himself is a necessary being; that is, He necessarily exists. He is also necessarily wise and good. He "cannot lie;" he "cannot deny himself;" he cannot do wrong.The human soul of Christ was also necessarily holy it was predicted that he should be so; that he should obey, suffer, die, and rise again. Yet Christ was a moral agent-the subject of commands, promises, and rewards. John xii. 49, 50. Heb. xii. 2.

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The sins of Judas, Pilate, and the Jews were foreseen, predicted, certain; it was therefore necessary that the fact should correspond; yet they were no less wicked and subject to a righteous punishment. Acts i. 16-25; ii. 23; iii. 18.

Nor is sin in any degree excused by the moral inability of man, which is indeed the source and foundation of his guilt. Jonathan Edwards's Enquiry into the Freedom of the Will, Parts i. and iii.]

Lord Kames has the following hypothesis:—That, comparing together the moral and material world, every thing is as much the result of established laws in the one as in the other. There is nothing in the whole universe which can properly be called contingent; but every motion in the material, and every determination and action in the moral world, are directed by immutable laws: so that, while those laws remain in force, not the smallest link in the chain of causes and effects can be broken, nor any one thing be otherwise than it is. That, as man must act with consciousness and spontaneity, it is necessary that he should have some sense of things possible and contingent. Hence the Deity has wisely implanted a delusive

sense of liberty in the mind of man, which fits him to fulfil the ends of action to better advantage than he could do, if he knew the necessity which really attends him.

His lordship observes, that in the material world, it is found that the representations of external objects and their qualities conveyed by the senses, differ sometimes from what philosophy discovers those objects and their qualities to be. Were man endowed with a microscopic eye, the bodies which surround him would appear as different from what they do at present, as if he were transported into another world. His ideas, upon that supposition, would be more agreeable to strict truth, but they would be far less serviceable in common life. Analogous to this in the moral world, the Deity has implanted in mankind the delusive notion of liberty of indifference, that they may be led to the proper exercise of that activity for which they were designed. [Lord Kames's (H. Home's) Essays on the Principles of Morality, &c.]

Pres. Edwards's scheme differs from that of Lord K. in the following particulars:

(1) Lord K. supposes such a necessity with respect to men's actions, as is really inconsistent with liberty. Mr. E. thinks that the moral necessity he defends is not inconsistent with the utmost liberty which can be conceived.-(2) Lord K. supposes that the terms unavoidable, impossible, &c., are equally applicable to the case of moral and natural necessity. Mr. E. maintains that such a necessity as attends the acts of the will, may, with more propriety, be called certainty; it being no other than the certain connexion between the subject and predicate of the proposition which affirms their existence.-(3) Lord K. supposes, that if mankind could clearly see the real necessity of their actions, they would not appear to themselves or others praise-worthy, culpable, or accountable for them. Mr. E. asserts, that moral necessity is perfectly consistent with praise and blame, rewards and punishments. Lastly, Lord K. agrees with Mr. E. in supposing that praise or blame rests ultimately on the disposition or frame of mind.

The Baron De Montesquieu, in his Persian Letters, observes, that as God makes his creatures act just according to his own will, he knows every thing he thinks fit to know. But though it is in his power to see every thing, yet he does not always make use of that power: he

generally leaves his creatures at liberty to act or not act, that they may have room to be guilty or innocent. In this view he renounces his right of acting upon his creatures, and directing their resolutions: but when he chooses to know any thing, he always does know it; because he need only will that it shall happen as he sees it, and direct the resolutions of his creatures according to his will. Thus he fetches the things which shall happen from among those which are merely possible, in fixing by his decrees the future determinations of the will of his creatures, and depriving them of the power of acting or not acting, which he has bestowed upon them.-[Baron Montesquieu's Persian Letters, pp. 114-155.]

It has been already stated, (under Materialists) that Dr. Priestley was a strong advocate for philosophical, or rather mechanical, necessity. The following is what he calls" the true state of the question," respecting human liberty:-"I allow to man all the liberty or power that is possible in itself, and to which the ideas of mankind ever go, which is the power of doing whatever they will or please,. uncontrolled by any foreign principle or cause. All the liberty (or rather power) that I say a man has not is, that of doing several things, when all the previous circumstances, including the state of his mind, and his view of things, are precisely the same." Man, in the same state of mind, and the same view of things, would make always the same choice. "This being admitted, there will be a necessary connexion between all things past, present, and to come, in the way of cause and effect."-[Priestley on Philos. Necess. §1.]-But herein Dr. P. differs materially from President Edwards, who supposes, that mechanical necessity is precisely the same as natural necessity, coercion, or constraint, which he therefore considers as entirely subversive of moral freedom. Hence. Mr. E. denies, that motives act upon the mind, as weights do upon the scale, by a mechanical operation. Indeed, all Calvinists maintain, that motives govern the will by a moral, and not by a mechanical influence; for, though they allow that moral causes, as really and as necessarily produce moral effects, as mechanical causes produce mechanical effects, yet they deny that moral and mechanical necessity are the same.

Dr. P. himself distinguishes his scheme from that of Mr. E. and the Calvinists, in the following particulars :—

1. No Necessarian supposes, that any of the human race will suffer eternally; but that future punishments will answer the same purpose as temporal ones are found to do; all of which tend to good, and are evidently admitted for that pur pose.

2. The Necessarian believes that his own dispositions and actions are the ne cessary and sole means of his present and future happiness; so that, in the mos proper sense of the words, it depends entirely on himself, whether he be virtuou or vicious, happy or miserable.

3. The Calvinistic system excludes the popular notion of free-will; viz. the berty or power of doing what we pleas [This, by the way, Calvinists absolute deny.] which is (according to Dr.P. perfectly consistent with the doctrine philosophical necessity, and indeed resul from it.

4. The Necessarian rejects origin sin, the deity and atonement of Christ divine influences, and other points Calvinism. He believes nothing of th actions of any man being necessary sinful; but, on the contrary, thinks th the very worst of men are capable of nevolent intentions in many things the do; and, likewise, that very good me are capable of falling from virtue, an consequently of sinking into final pe dition.

In short, according to Dr. P., the thre doctrines of Materialism, Philosophic Necessity, and Unitarianism, are con dered as essential parts of one syste The scheme of necessity is the immedia result of the materiality of man; and th man is wholly material, is eminently su servient to the mere humanity of Chr For if no man have a soul distinct from his body, Christ could not have a sou which had existed before his body; the doctrine of the pre-existence of (of which the pre-existence of Christ is branch) will be effectually overturned[Priestley on Philos. Necessity, § 12.]

2

Since the above writers, the same ground has been gone over again Belsham, Toplady, and others, who han examined the question, both on the p ciples of reason, and of scripture; the question may, perhaps, be broug into a narrow compass. Admitting to be the subject of necessity, which thes writers all maintain, that necessity arise, either from the constitution of thing and the machinery of nature, or from th all-controlling will and power of Go

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In neither case may it be possible perfectly to harmonize necessity with freeagency; (for what do we know of the nature of God, or of Spirits?) but the philosophical Necessarian is compelled to remove almost the whole apparatus of Christianity, to maintain his favourite principle: for, if there be no evil in sin, there can be no room for punishmentno necessity of atonement; and, in consequence, no occasion for the incarnation of the Son of God!

So far as this question stands connected with the doctrine of the divine decrees, the reader may refer to the article Predestinarians.

NEGROES, a most unfortunate portion of mankind, who have been cruelly sacrificed to the luxury and avarice of Europeans. Their native country is Africa, and particularly West Africa, from whence many millions have been carried into the colonies of Europe in a state of slavery. Those who remain are in a state of the grossest ignorance and superstition; but their superstition has some peculiarities worth reciting.

A late traveller, Mr. Park, has given the following sketch of the religion of these Pagans:

"The belief of one God, and a future state of rewards and punishments, is entire and universal among the Africans. It is remarkable, however, that (except on the appearance of a new moon) the Pagan natives do not think it necessary to offer up prayers and supplications to the Almighty. They represent the Deity, indeed, as the creator and preserver of all things; but, in general, they consider him as a being so remote, and of so exalted a nature, that it is idle to imagine the feeble supplications of wretched mortals can reverse the decrees, or change the purposes of unerring wisdom. If they be asked, for what reason then do they offer up a prayer on the appearance of the I new moon? the answer is, that custom has made it necessary: they do it because = their fathers did it before them. The concerns of the world, they believe, are committed by the Almighty to the superintendance and direction of subordinate spirits, over whom they suppose certain magical ceremonies have great influence. A white fowl, suspended from the branch of a particular tree; a snake's head, or a few handsful of fruit, are offerings which the Negroes often present to deprecate the wrath, or to conciliate the favour of these tutelary agents. But it is not often

that they make their religious opinions the subject of conversation. When interrogated in particular concerning their idea of a future state, they express themselves with great reverence; but endeavour to shorten the discussion, by observing, that no man knows any thing about it." [Park's Travels, p. 309.]

The presents to the Deity just mentioned, are commonly called grisgris, (or gregres) which are offered through the medium of fetiches, (demons, or evil spirits.) Sometimes they are rags or tufts of grass, tied round a stick, in the form of a doll, which they often place in little thatched huts, called devil-houses, about a yard and a half high. These they consider as charms against ghosts and witchcraft, of which they are terribly afraid. Sometimes, in order to serve the purposes of superstition, or of some artful chief, a mysterious figure is dressed up in a form of horror, as the devil of the Bulloms, or of the Bassa country; and is secreted among the bushes, from whence he comes out often during the night dances, to frighten home the women and children.

The Negroes, like the antient Greeks, people their woods and rivers with imaginary demons, who are also supposed to reside even in animals, trees, and stones, all which, therefore, become occasionally fetiches, or grisgris, which are often accompanied with some Arabic characters and astrological signs. These form parts of a system of necromancy, at present but little understood; and which is known among the negroes in the West Indies by the name of Obi.

Their sacrifices are often attended with sprinkling the blood of fowls or animals, and with libations of palm oil, which are never offered to the Supreme Being, whom they consider too good to hurt them; but to their supposed demons, of whom they have a very different opinion.-[Ency. Brit. in Grisgris. Discoveries in Africa, 12mo. (1799) pp. 170, 234. Missionary Register, 1816, p. 146.-1818, pp. 116, 242.-1820, pp. 135, 165.]

NEONOMIANS, (from neos, new, and nomos, law) the advocates of a new law; that is, the gospel under the idea of a new, gracious, and remedial law, holding out the hope of acceptance by a sincere obedience, though necessarily defective and imperfect. It has been more fully stated thus: "that our blessed Saviour, instead of the sinless obedience required by the moral law, has now given us a new law of grace, which only requires faith, with