shalt trample under foot." Indeed, all the an- | women weeping for this infamous god, even in cient expositors agree, that some species of ser- his temple. pent is meant, although they cannot determine Fabulous history gives the following account what particular serpent the sacred writer had of Adonis: He was a beautiful young shepherd, in view. The learned Bochart thinks it ex. the son of Cyniras, king of Cyprus, by his own tremely probable that the holy Psalmist in this daughter Myrrha. The goddess Venus fell in verse treats of serpents only; and, by conse-love with this youth, and frequently met him quence, that both the terms Sne and mean some kind of snakes, as well as D and pan; because the coherence of the verse is by this view better preserved, than by mingling lions and serpents together, as our translators and other interpreters have commonly done; nor is it easy to imagine what can be meant by tread. ing upon the lion, and trampling the young lion under foot; for it is not possible in walking to tread upon the lion, as upon the adder, the basilisk, and other serpents.

v, 7.

To ADJURE, to bind by oath, as under the penalty of a fearful curse, Joshua vi, 26; Mark 2. To charge solemnly, as by the authority, and under pain, of the displeasure of God, Matt. xxvi, 63; Acts xix, 13.

ADONAI, one of the names of God. This word in the plural number signifies my Lords. The Jews, who either out of respect or superstition, do not pronounce the name of Jehovah, read Adonai in the room of it, as often as they meet with Jehovah in the Hebrew text. But the ancient Jews were not so scrupulous. Neither is there any law which forbids them to pronounce any name of God.

on mount Libanus. Mars, who envied this
rival, transformed himself into a wild boar, and,
as Adonis was hunting, struck him in the groin
and killed him. Venus lamented the death of
Adonis in an inconsolable manner.
The east-
ern people, in imitation of her mourning, ge.
nerally established some solemn days for the
bewailing of Adonis. After his death, Venus
went to the shades, and obtained from Proser-
pine, that Adonis might be with her six months
in the year, and continue the other six in the
infernal regions. Upon this were founded
those public rejoicings, which succeeded the
lamentations of his death. Some say that
Adonis was a native of Syria; some, of Cy-
prus; and others, of Egypt.

ADOPTION. An act by which one takes another into his family, owns him for his son, and appoints him his heir. The Greeks and Romans had many regulations concerning adoption. It does not appear that adoption, properly so called, was formerly in use among the Jews. Moses makes no mention of it in his laws; and the case of Jacob's two grandsons, Gen. xlviii, 14, seems rather a substitution.

2. Adoption in a theological sense is that act of God's free grace by which, upon our being justified by faith in Christ, we are received into the family of God, and entitled to the inherit. ance of heaven. This appears not so much a

ADONIS. The text of the Vulgate in Ezek. viii, 14, says, that the Prophet saw women sit. ting in the temple, and weeping for Adonis; but according to the reading of the Hebrew text, they are said to weep for Thamuz, or Tammuz, the hidden one. Among the Egyp-distinct act of God, as involved in, and necestians Adonis was adored under the name of sarily flowing from, our justification; so that Osiris, the husband of Isis. But he was some. at least the one always implies the other. Nor times called by the name of Ammuz, or Tam- is there any good ground to suppose that in the muz, the concealed, probably to denote his death New Testament the term adoption is used with or burial. The Hebrews, in derision, some- any reference to the civil practice of adoption times call him the dead, Psalm cvi, 28; Lev. by the Greeks, Romans, or other Heathens, and xix, 28; because they wept for him, and repre- therefore it is not judicious to illustrate the sented him as dead in his coffin; and at other texts in which the word occurs by their fortimes they denominate him the image of jeal.malities. The Apostles in using the term appear ousy, Ezek. viii, 3, 5, because he was the object of the jealousy of Mars. The Syrians, Phoenicians, and Cyprians, called him Adonis; and Calmet is of opinion that the Ammonites and Moabites designated him by the name of Baal-peor.

The manner in which they celebrated the festival of this false deity was as follows: They represented him as lying dead in his coffin, wept for him, bemoaned themselves, and sought for him with great eagerness and inquietude. After this, they pretended that they had found him again, and that he was still living. At this good news they exhibited marks of the most extravagant joy, and were guilty of a thousand lewd practices, to convince Venus how much they congratulated her on the return and revival of her favourite, as they had before condoled with her on his death. The Hebrew women, of whom the Prophet Ezekiel speaks, celebrated the feasts of Tammuz, or Adonis, in Jerusalem; and God showed the Prophet these

to have had before them the simple view, that our sins had deprived us of our sonship, the favour of God, and the right to the inheritance of eternal life; but that, upon our return to God, and reconciliation with him, our forfeited privileges were not only restored, but greatly heightened through the paternal kindness of God. They could scarcely be forgetful of the affecting parable of the prodigal son; and it is under the same view that St. Paul quotes from the Old Testament, Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty."

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Adoption, then, is that act by which we who were alienated, and enemies, and disinherited, are made the sons of God, and heirs of his eternal glory. "If children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ;" where it is to be remarked, that it is not in our own

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right, nor in the right of any work done in us, or which we ourselves do, though it should be an evangelical work, that we become heirs; but jointly with Christ, and in his right.

3. To this state belong, freedom from a servile spirit, for we are not servants but sons; the special love and care of God our heavenly Father; a filial confidence in him; free access to him at all times and in all circumstances; a title to the heavenly inheritance; and the Spirit of adoption, or the witness of the Holy Spirit to our adoption, which is the foundation of all the comfort we can derive from those privileges, as it is the only means by which we can know that they are ours.

4. The last mentioned great privilege of adoption merits special attention. It consists in the inward witness or testimony of the Holy Spirit to the sonship of believers, from which flows a comfortable persuasion or conviction of our present acceptance with God, and the hope of our future and eternal glory. This is taught in several passages of Scripture:

St. Paul, "the full assurance of faith," and "the full assurance of hope," may warrant the use of the word. But as there is a current and generally understood sense of this term, imply. ing that the assurance of our present acceptance and sonship implies an assurance of our final perseverance, and of an indefeasible title to heaven; the phrase, a comfortable persuasion, or conviction of our justification and adoption, arising out of the Spirit's inward and direct testimony, is to be preferred.

There is, also, another reason for the sparing and cautious use of the term assurance, which is, that it seems to imply, though not necessarily, the absence of all doubt, and shuts out all those lower degrees of persuasion which may exist in the experience of Christians. For, our faith may not at first, or at all times, be equally strong, and the testimony of the Spirit may have its degrees of clearness. Nevertheless, the fulness of this attainment is to be pressed upon every one: "Let us draw near," says St. Paul to all Christians, "with full assurance of faith."

Rom. viii, 15, 16, "For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the It may serve, also, to remove an objection Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Fa- sometimes made to the doctrine, and to correct ther. The Spirit itself beareth witness with an error which sometimes pervades the stateour spirit that we are the children of God." In ment of it, to observe that this assurance, perthis passage it is to be remarked, 1. That the suasion, or conviction, whichever term be Holy Spirit takes away "fear," a servile dread adopted, is not of the essence of justifying of God as offended. 2. That the "Spirit of God" faith; that is, justifying faith does not consist here mentioned, is not the personified spirit or in the assurance that I am now forgiven, genius of the Gospel, as some would have it, through Christ. This would be obviously conbut "the Spirit itself," or himself, and hence tradictory. For we must believe before we he is called in the Galatians, "the Spirit of his can be justified; much more before we can be Son," which cannot mean the genius of the assured, in any degree, that we are justified :Gospel. 3. That he inspires a filial confidence this persuasion, therefore, follows justification, in God, as our Father, which is opposed to and is one of its results. But though we must "the fear" produced by the "spirit of bondage." not only distinguish, but separate, this persua4. That he excites this filial confidence, and sion of our acceptance from the faith which enables us to call God our Father, by witness-justifies, we must not separate it, but only dising, bearing testimony with our spirit, "that we are the children of God."

Gal. iv, 4-6, But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons; and because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." Here also are to be noted, 1. The means of our redemption from under (the curse of) the law, the incarnation and sufferings of Christ. 2. That the adoption of sons follows upon our actual redemption from that curse, or, in other words, upon our pardon. 3. That upon our being pardoned, the "Spirit of the Son" is "sent forth into our hearts," producing the same effect as that mentioned in the Epistle to the Romans, viz. filial confidence in God,

crying, Abba, Father." To these texts are to be added all those passages, so numerous in the New Testament, which express the confidence and the joy of Christians; their friendship with God; their confident access to him as their God; their entire union and delightful intercourse with him in spirit.

This has been generally termed the doctrine of assurance, and, perhaps, the expressions of

tinguish it, from justification itself. With that come in as concomitants, adoption, the "Spirit of adoption," and regeneration.

ADORATION, the act of rendering divine honours; or of addressing God or any other being as supposing it to be God. (See Worship.) The word is compounded of ad, “to," and os, "mouth;" and literally signifies to apply the hand to the mouth; manum ad os admovere, "to kiss the hand;" this being in eastern countries one of the great marks of respect and submission. To this mode of idolatrous worship Job refers, xxxi, 26, 27. See also 1 Kings xix, 18.

The Jewish manner of adoration was by prostration, bowing, and kneeling. The Chris. tians adopted the Grecian, rather than the Roman, method, and always adored uncovered. The ordinary posture of the ancient Christians was kneeling; but on Sundays, standing.

ADORATION is also used for certain extraordinary acts of civil honour, which resemble those paid to the Deity, yet are given to men.

We read of adorations paid to kings, princes, emperors, popes, bishops, abbots, &c, by kneeling, falling prostrate, kissing the feet, hands, garments, &c.

The Persian manner of adoration, introduced by Cyrus, was by bending the knee, and falling

on the face at the prince's feet, striking the ing one's hand in presence of another as a earth with the forehead, and kissing the ground. token of reverence. The Jews adored by kiss. This was an indispensable condition on the parting their hands, and bowing down their heads; of foreign ministers and ambassadors, as well whence in their language kissing is properly as the king's own vassals, of being admitted to used for adoration. This illustrates a passage audience, and of obtaining any favour. This in Psalm ii, "Kiss the Son lest he be angry;" token of reverence was ordered to be paid to that is, pay him homage and worship. their favourites as well as to themselves, as we It was the practice among the Greek Chris learn from the history of Haman and Mordecai, tians to worship with the head uncovered, in the book of Esther; and even to their sta. 1 Cor. xi; but in the east the ancient custom of tucs and images; for Philostratus informs us worshipping with the head covered was retained. that, in the time of Apollonius, a golden statue ADRAMMELECH, the son of Sennacherib, of the king was exposed to all who entered king of Assyria. The king returning to NineBabylon, and none but those who adored it veh, after his unhappy expedition made into were admitted within the gates. The ceremony, Judea against king Hezekiah, was killed by his which the Greeks called porkuveir, Conon re- two sons, Adrammelech and Sharezer, whilst fused to perform to Artaxerxes, and Callis- at his devotions in the temple of his god Nis. thenes to Alexander the Great, as reputing it roch, Isaiah xxxvii, 38; 2 Kings xix. It is impious and unlawful. not known what prompted these two princes to The adoration performed to the Roman and commit this parricide; but after they had comGrecian emperors consisted in bowing or kneel-mitted the murder, they fled for safety to the ing at the prince's feet, laying hold of his purple robe, and then bringing the hand to the lips. Some attribute the origin of this practice to Constantius. They were only persons of rank or dignity that were entitled to the honour. Bare kneeling before the emperor to deliver a petition, was also called adoration.

It is particularly said of Dioclesian, that he had gems fastened to his shoes, that divine honours might be more willingly paid him, by kissing his feet. And this mode of adoration was continued till the last age of the Greek monarchy. When any one pays his respects to the king of Achen in Sumatra, he first takes off his shoes and stockings, and leaves them at

the door.

The practice of adoration may be said to be still subsisting in England, in the custom of kissing the king's or queen's hand.

mountains of Armenia, and their brother, Esarhaddon, succeeded to the crown.

ADRAMMELECH was also one of the gods adored by the inhabitants of Sepharvaim, who were settled in the country of Samaria, in the room of the Israelites, who were carried beyond the Euphrates. The Sepharvaites made their children pass through the fire in honour of this idol, and another, called Anammelech, 2 Kings xvii, 31. The Rabbins say, that Adrammelech was represented under the form of a mule; but there is much more reason to believe that Adrammelech meant the sun, and Anammelech the moon; the first signifying the magnificent king, the second the gentle king,-many eastern nations adoring the moon as a god, not as a goddess.

ADRAMYTTIUM, a city on the west coast of Mysia, in Lesser Asia, over against the isle of Lesbos. It was in a ship belonging to this place, that St. Paul sailed from Cesarea to proceed to Rome as a prisoner, Acts xxvii, 2. It is now called Edremit.

of Dalmatia and Albania on the other. But in St. Paul's time it was extended to all that portion of the Mediterranean between Crete and Sicily. Thus Ptolemy says that Sicily was bounded on the east by the Adriatic, and Crete in a similar manner on the west; and Strabo says that the Ionian Gulf was a part of what, in his time, was called the Adriatic Sea.

Adoration is also used in the court of Rome, in the ceremony of kissing the pope's feet. It is not certain at what period this practice was introduced into the church: but it was probably borrowed from the Byzantine court, and ac- ADRIA. This name, which occurs in Acts companied the temporal power. Dr. Maclaine, xxvii, 27, is now confined to the gulf lying in the chronological table which he has sub-between Italy on the one side, and the coasts joined to his translation of Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, places its introduction in the eighth century, immediately after the grant of Pepin and Charlemagne. Baronius traces it to a much higher antiquity, and pretends that examples of this homage to the vicars of Christ occur so early as the year 204. These prelates finding a vehement disposition in the people to fall down before them, and kiss their feet, pro- ADULLAM, a city in the tribe of Judah, to cured crucifixes to be fastened on their slippers; the west of Hebron, whose king was slain by by which stratagem, the adoration intended for Joshua, Josh. xii, 15. It is frequently menthe pope's person is supposed to be transferred tioned in the history of Saul and David; and to Christ. Divers acts of this adoration we find is chiefly memorable from the cave in its neigh. offered even by princes to the pope; and Gre-bourhood, where David retired from Achish, gory XIII, claims this act of homage as a duty. Adoration properly is paid only to the pope when placed on the altar, in which posture the cardinals, conclavists, alone are admitted to kiss his feet. The people are afterward admit. ted to do the like at St. Peter's church; the ceremony is described at large by Guicciardin. Adoration is more particularly used for kiss

king of Gath, when he was joined by the distressed and discontented, to the number of four hundred, over whom he became captain, 1 Sam. xxii, 1. Judas Maccabeus encamped in the plain of Adullam, where he passed the Sabbath day, 2 Mac. xii, 38. Eusebius says that, in his time, Adullam was a very great town, ten miles to the east of Eleutheropolis.

On this law of Moses, Michaëlis has the fol

ADULTERY, the violation of the marriage | carried out, with these symptoms upon her, and bed. The law of Moses punished with death died instantly, with all the ignominious circumboth the man and the woman who were guilty stances related in the curses. of this crime, Lev. xx, 10. If a woman was betrothed to a man, and was guilty of this in-lowing remarks:famous crime before the marriage was completed, she was, in this case, along with her paramour, to be stoned, Deut. xxii, 22-24.

When any man among the Jews, prompted by jealousy, suspected his wife of the crime of adultery, he brought her first before the judges, and informed thein that, in consequence of his suspicions, he had privately admonished her, but that she was regardless of his admonitions. If before the judges she asserted her innocency, he required that she should drink the waters of jealousy, that God might by these means discover what she attempted to conceal, Num. v, 12, &c. The man then produced his witnesses, and they were heard. After this, both the man and the woman were conveyed to Jerusalem, and placed before the sanhedrim; the judges of which, by threats and other means, endeavoured to confound the woman, and make her confess. If she persisted in denying the fact, she was led to the eastern gate of the court of Israel, stripped of her own clothes, and dressed in black, before great numbers of her own sex. The priest then told her, that if she was really innocent, she had nothing to fear; but if guilty, she might expect to suffer all that the law had denounced against her, to which she answered, "Amen, amen." The priest then wrote the terms of the law in this form:-"If a strange man hath not come near you, and you are not polluted by forsaking the bed of your husband, these bitter waters, which I have cursed, will not hurt you: but if you have polluted yourself by coming near to another man, and gone astray from your husband,-may you be accursed of the Lord, and become an example for all his people; may your thigh rot, and your belly swell till it burst; may these cursed waters enter into your belly, and being swelled therewith, may your thighs putrefy."

After this, the priest filled a pitcher out of the brazen vessel, near the altar of burnt offerings, cast some dust of the pavement into it, mingled something with it as bitter as wormwood, and then read the curses, and received her answer of Amen. Another priest, in the meantime, tore off her clothes as low as her bosom-made her head bare-untied the tresses of her hair-fastened her clothes, which were thus torn, with a girdle under her breasts, and then presented her with the tenth part of an ephah, or about three pints, of barley meal. The other priest then gave her the waters of jealousy, or bitterness, to drink; and as soon as the woman had swallowed them, he gave her the meal in a vessel like a frying-pan into her hand. This was stirred before the Lord, and part of it thrown into the fire of the altar. If the wife was innocent, she returned with her husband, and the waters, so far from injuring her, increased her health, and made her more fruitful; but if she was guilty, she grew pale immediately, her eyes swelled; and, lest she should pollute the temple, she was instantly

"This oath was, perhaps, a relic of some more severe and barbarous consuetudinary laws, whose rigours Moses mitigated; as he did in many other cases, where an established usage could not be conveniently abolished altogether. Among ourselves, in barbarous times, the ordeal, or trial by fire, was, notwithstanding the parity of our married people, in common use; and this, in point of equity, was much the same in effect, as if the husband had had the right to insist on his wife submitting to the hazardous trial of her purity, by drinking a poisoned potion; which, according to an ancient superstition, could never hurt her if she was innocent. And, in fact, such a right is not altogether unexampled; for, according to Oldendorp's History of the Mission of the Evangelical Brethren, in the Caribbee Islands, it is actually in use among some of the savage nations in the interior parts of Western Africa.

"Now, when in place of a poisoned potion like this, which very few husbands can be very willing to have administered to their wives, we see, as among the Hebrews, an imprecationdrink, whose avenger God himself promises to become, we cannot but be struck with the contrast of wisdom and clemency which such a contrivance manifests. In the one case, (and herein consists their great distinction,) innocence can only be preserved by a miracle; while, on the other, guilt only is revealed and punished by the hand of God himself.

By one of the clauses of the oath of purgation, (and had not the legislator been perfectly assured of his divine mission, the insertion of any such clause would have been a very bold step indeed,) a visible and corporeal punishment was specified, which the person swearing imprecated on herself, and which God himself was understood as engaging to execute. To have given so accurate a definition of the punishment that God meant to inflict, and still more one that consisted of such a rare disease, would have been a step of incomprehensible boldness in a legislator who pretended to have a divine mission, if he was not, with the most assured conviction, conscious of its reality.

"Seldom, however, very seldom, was it likely that Providence would have an opportunity of inflicting the punishment in question. For the oath was so regulated, that a woman of the utmost effrontery could scarcely have taken it without changing colour to such a degree as to betray herself.

"In the first place, it was not administered to the woman in her own house, but she was under the necessity of going to that place of the land where God in a special manner had his abode, and took it there. Now, the solemnity of the place, unfamiliarized to her by daily business or resort, would have a great effect upon her mind. In the next place, there was offered unto God what was termed an execration offering, not in order to propitiate his