Shumam, in the tribe of Issachar. David, at the age of seventy, finding no warmth in his bed, was advised by his physicians to procure some young person, who might communicate the heat required. To this end Abishag was presented to him, who was one of the most beautiful women in Israel, 1 Kings i, 3; and the king made her his wife. After his death, Ado. nijah requested her in marriage, for which he lost his life; Solomon perceiving in this a design upon the crown also. Adonijah was his elder brother, an intriguing man, and had as pired to be king before the death of David, and had had his life spared only upon the condition of his peaceable conduct. By this re. quest he convinced Solomon, that he was still actuated by political views, and this brought upon him the punishment of treason. ¡ ABISHAI, the son of Zeraiah, David's sis. ter, who was one of the most valiant men of his time, and one of the principal generals in David's armies. ABLUTION, purification by washing the body, either in whole or part. Ablutions ap. pear to be almost as ancient as external worship itself. Moses enjoined them; the Hea. thens adopted them; and Mohammed and his followers have continued them: thus they have been introduced among most nations, and make a considerable part of all superstitious religions. The Egyptian priests had their diurnal and nocturnal ablutions; the Grecians, their sprinklings; the Romans, their lustrations and lavations; the Jews, their washings of hands and feet, beside their baptisms; the ancient Christians used ablution before communion, which the Romish church still retains before the mass, sometimes after; the Syrians, Copts, &c, have their solemn washings on Good Friday; the Turks their greater and less ablu tions, &c. Lustration, among the Romans, was a solemn ceremony by which they purified their cities, fields, armies, or people, after any crime or impurity. Lustrations might be performed by fire, by sulphur, by water, and by air; the last was applied by ventilation, or fanning the thing to be purified. All sorts of people, slaves excepted, might perform some kind of lustration. When a person died the house was to be swept in a particular manner; new mar. ried persons were sprinkled by the priest with water. People sometimes, by way of purification, ran several times naked through the streets. There was scarcely any action performed, at the beginning and end of which some ceremony was not required to purify themselves and appease the gods. ABNER was the uncle of king Saul, and the general of his army. After Saul's death, he made Ishbosheth king; and for seven years supported the family of Saul, in opposition to David; but in most of his skirmishes came off with loss. While Ishbosheth's and David's troops lay near each other, hard by Gibeon, Abner challenged Joab to select twelve of David's warriors to fight with an equal number of his. Joab consented: the twenty-four engaged; and fell together on the spot. A fierce battle ensued, in which Abner and his troops were routed. Abner himself was hotly pursued by Asahel, whom he killed by a back stroke of his spear. Still he was followed by Joab and Abishai, till he, who in the morning sported with murder, was obliged at even to entreat that Joab would stay his troops from the effusion of blood, 2 Sam. ii. Not long after, Abner, taking it highly amiss for Ishbosheth to charge him with lewd be. haviour toward Rizpah, Saul's concubine, vowed that he would quickly transfer the whole kingdom into the hands of David. He therefore commenced a correspondence with David, and had an interview with him at Hebron. Abnor had just left the feast at which David had entertained him, when Joab, informed of the matter, warmly remonstrated, asserting, that Abner had come as a spy. On his own authori ty he sent a messenger to invite him back, to have some farther communication with the king; and when Abner was come into Joab's presence, the latter, partly from jealousy lest Abner might become his superior, and partly to revenge his brother Asahel's death, mortally stabbed him in the act of salutation. David, to show how heartily he detested the act, honour. ed Abner with a splendid funeral, and composed an elegy on his death, 2 Sam. iii. ABOMINATION. This term was used with regard to the Hebrews, who, being shepherds, are said to have been an abomination to the Egyptians; because they sacrificed the animals held sacred by that people, as oxen, goats, sheep, &c, which the Egyptians esteemed unlawful. This word is also applied in the sacred writings to idolatry and idols, not only because the worship of idols is in itself an abominable thing, but likewise because the ceremonies of idolaters were almost always of an infamous and licentious nature. For this reason, Chrysostom af. firms, that every idol, and every image of a man, was called an abomination among the Jews. The "abomination of desolation" foretold by the Prophet Daniel, x, 27, xi, 31, is supposed by some interpreters to denote the statue of Jupiter Olympius, which Antiochus Epiphanes caused to be erected in the temple of Jerusalem. The second of the passages above cited may probably refer to this circumstance, as the statue of Jupiter did, in fact, "make desolate," by banishing the true worship of God, and those who performed it, from the temple. But the former passage, considered in its whole connection, bears more immediate reference to that which the evangelists have denominated the "abomi nation of desolation," Matt. xxiv, 15, 16; Mark xiii, 14. This, without doubt, signifies the ensigns of the Roman armies under the command of Titus, during the last siege of Jerusalem. The images of their gods and emperors were delineated on these ensigns; and the ensigns themselves, especially the eagles, which were carried at the heads of the legions, were objects of worship; and, according to the usual style of Scripture, they were therefore an abomination. Those ensigns were placed upon the ruins of the temple after it was taken and demolished; and, as Josephus informs us, the Romans sacri. serenity of the heavens in that climate, and their ficed to them there. The horror with which In general, whatever is morally or ceremo. nially impure, or leads to sin, is designated an abomination to God. Thus lying lips are said to be an abomination to the Lord. Every thing in doctrine or practice which tended to corrupt the simplicity of the Gospel is also in Scripture called abominable; hence Babylon is represent. ed, Rev. xvii, 4, as holding in her hand a cup "full of abominations." In this view, to "work abomination," is to introduce idolatry, or any other great corruption, into the church and worship of God, 1 Kings xi, 7. ABRAM,, a high father; and ABRA HAM, N, father of a great multitude, the son of Terah, born at Ur, a city of Chaldea, A. M. 2008. The account of this eminent patriarch occupies so large a part of the book of Genesis, and stands so intimately connected with both the Jewish and Christian dispensations,--with the one by a political and religious, and with the other by a mystical, relation,-that his history demands particular notice. Our account may be divided into his personal history, and his typical, and mystic character. I. Abraham's PERSONAL history. 1. Chaldea, the native country of Abraham, was inhabited by a pastoral people, who were almost irresistibly invited to the study of the motions of the heavenly bodies, by the peculiar ham, this and other idolatrous superstitions had "went out, not knowing whither he went." 2. Here it may be observed, that the migra- | report of her beauty, was seized and taken into tions of Abraham and his sons show the manner his harem; and God sent great piagues upon in which the earth was gradually covered with his house, which, from their extraordinary people. In those ages some cities had been character, he concluded to be divine judgments. built, and the country to some extent about them This led to inquiry, and on discovering that he cultivated; but wide spaces of unoccupied land was detaining another man's wife by violence, lay between them. A part of society following he sent her back, and dismissed Abraham laden therefore the pastoral life, led forth their flocks, with presents. and, in large family tribes, of which the parent was the head, uniting both the sovereign power and the priesthood in himself, and with a train of servants attached to the tribe by hereditary ties, pitched their camps wherever a fertile and unappropriated district offered them pasture. A few of these nomadic tribes appear to have made the circuit of the same region, seldom going far from their native seats; which would probably have been the case with Abraham, had he not received the call of God to depart to a distant country. Others, more bold, followed the track of rivers, and the sweep of fertile valleys, and at length some built cities and formed settlements in those distant regions; whilst others, either from attachment to their former mode of life, or from necessity, continued in their pastoral occupations, and followed the supplies afforded for their flocks by the still expanding regions of the fertile earth. Wars and violences, droughts, famines, and the constant increase of population, continued to impel these innumerable, but at first, small streams of men into parts still more remote. Those who settled on the sea coast began to use that element, both for supplying themselves with a new species of food, and as a medium of communication by vessels with other countries for the interchange of such commodities as their own lands afforded with those offered by maritime states, more or less distant. Thus were laid the foundations of commerce, and thus the maritime cities were gradually rendered opulent and powerful. Colonies were in time transported from them by means of their ships, and settled on the coasts of still more distant and fertile countries. Thus the migrations of the three primitive families proceeded from the central regions of Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria; and in succession they established numerous communities, the Phenicians, Arabians, Egyptians, Ethiopians, and Lybians southward; the Persians, Indians, and Chinese eastward;the Scythians, Celts, and Tartars northward; and the Goths, Greeks, and Latins westward, even as far as the Peruvians and Mexicans of South America, and the Indians of North America. 4. After the famine Abraham returned to Canaan, and pitched his tents between Bethel and Hai, where he had previously raised an altar. Here, as his flocks and herds, and those of Lot, had greatly increased, and strifes had arisen between their herdsmen as to pasturage and water, they peaceably separated. Lot returning to the plain of the Jordan, which before the destruction of Sodom was as "the garden of God," and Abraham to Mamre, near Hebron, after receiving a renewal of the promise, that God would give him the whole land for a possession. The separation of Abraham and Lot still farther secured the unmingled descent of the Abrahamitic family. The territories of the kings of the cities of the plain were a few years afterward invaded by a confederacy of the petty kings of the Euphrates and the neighbouring countries, and Lot and his family were taken prisoners. This intelligence being brought to Abraham, he collected the men of his tribe, three hundred and eighteen, and falling upon the kings by night, near the fountains of Jericho, he defeated them, retook the spoil, and recovered Lot. On his return, passing near Salem, supposed to be the city afterward called Jerusalem, he was blessed by its king Melchizedec, who was priest of the most high God; so that the knowledge and worship of Jehovah had not quite departed at that time from the Canaanitish nations. To him Abraham gave a tithe of the spoil. The rest he generously restored to the king of Sodom, refusing, in a noble spirit of independence, to retain so much as a "shoe lachet," except the portion which, by usage of war, fell to the young native sheiks, Aner, Eschal, and Mamre, who had joined him in the expedition. 3. Abraham, knowing the dissolute character of the Egyptians, directed Sarah to call herself his sister, which she was, although by another mother; fearing that if they knew her to be his wife, they would not only seize her, but kill him. This circumstance indicates the vicious state of morals and government in Egypt at this early period. In this affair Abraham has been blamed for want of faith in God; but it was perhaps no more than an act of common prudence, as the seraglio of the Egyptian monarch was supplied by any means, however violent and lawless. Sarah, upon the 5. After this he had another encouraging vision of God, Gen. xv, 1; and to his complaint that he was still childless, and that his name and property would descend to the stranger Eliezer, who held the next rank in his tribe, the promise was given, that he himself should have a son, and that his seed should be countless as the stars of heaven. And it is emphatically added, "He believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him for righteousness." He was then fully assured, that he stood before God, a pardoned and accepted man, "whose iniquities were forgiven," and to whom "the Lord did not impute sin." Still the fulfilment of the promise of a son was delayed; and Sarah, perhaps despairing that it would be accomplished in her person, and the revelation which had been made merely stating that this son should be the fruit of Abraham's body, without any reference to her, she gave to him, according to the custom of those times, one of her handmaids, an Egyptian, to be his secondary wife, who brought forth Ishmael. Children born in this manner had the privileges of legitimacy; | of his flock, in confirmation that a well he had but fourteen years afterward, when Abraham opened should be his own property; and they was a hundred years old, and Sarah ninety, called the place Beer-sheba, or "the well of the Lord appeared to him again, established his swearing," because of the covenant there raticovenant with him and with his seed, changed fied with oaths. Here Abraham planted a his name to Abraham, "the father of many grove, built an altar, and for some time resided, nations," promised that Sarah herself should Gen. xx, xxi. bring forth the son to whom the preceding promises had referred; instituted circumcision as the sign of the covenant; and changed the name of his wife from Sarai, my princess, to Sarah, the princess, that is, of many people to descend from her. 8. More than twenty years after this, (A. M. 2133,) God, for the final trial and illustration of Abraham's faith, directed him to offer up his son Isaac. Abraham took his son, and two servants, and went toward mount Moriah. When within sight of the mountain, Abraham 6. At this time Abraham occupied his former left his servants, and ascended it with his son encampment near Hebron. Here, as he sat in only; and there having bound him, he prethe door of his tent, three mysterious strangers pared for the affecting sacrifice; but when he appeared. Abraham, with true Arabian hospi- was about to give the blow, an angel from heatality, received and entertained them. The chief ven cried out to him, "Lay not thine hand upon of the three renewed the promise of a son to be the lad, neither do thou any thing to him. Now born from Sarah, a promise which she received I know that thou fearest God, since thou hast with a laugh of incredulity, for which she was not withheld thine only son from me." Abramildly reproved. As Abraham accompanied ham, turning, saw a ram entangled in the bush them toward the valley of the Jordan, the same by his horns; and he offered this animal as a divine person, for so he manifestly appears, burnt offering, instead of his son Isaac. This announced the dreadful ruin impending over memorable place he called by the prophetic the licentious cities among which Lot had taken name, Jehovah-jireh, or the Lord will see-or up his abode. No passage, even in the sacred provide, Gen. xxii, 1-14, having respect, no writings, exhibits a more exalted view of the doubt, to the true sacrifice which, in the fuldivine condescension than that in which Abra-ness of time, was to be offered for the whole ham is seen expostulating on the apparent in- world upon the same mountain. justice of involving the innocent in the ruin of the guilty: "Shall the city perish, if fifty, if forty-five, if forty, if thirty, if twenty, if ten righteous men be found within its walls?" "Ten righteous men shall avert its doom." Such was the promise of the celestial visitant; but the guilt was universal, the ruin inevitable; and the violation of the sacred laws of hospitality and nature, which Lot in his horror attempted to avert by the most revolting expedient, confirmed the justice of the divine sentence. 7. Sarah having conceived, according to the divine promise, Abraham left the plain of Mamre, and went south to Gerar, where Abimelech reigned; and again fearing lest Sarah should be forced from him, and himself be put to death, her beauty having been, it would appear, preternaturally continued, notwithstand ing her age, he here called her, as he had done in Egypt, his sister. Abimelech took her to his house, designing to marry her; but God having, in a dream, informed him that she was Abraham's wife, he returned her to him with great presents. This year Sarah was delivered of Isaac; and Abraham circumcised him, ac. cording to the covenant stipulation; and when he was weaned, made a great entertainment. Sarah, having observed Ishmael, son of Hagar, mocking her son Isaac, said to Abraham, "Cast out this bondwoman and her son, for Ishmael shall not be heir with Isaac." After great reluctance, Abraham complied; God having informed him that this was according to the appointments of his providence, with respect to future ages. About the same time, Abimelech came with Phicol, his general, to conclude an alliance with Abraham, who made that prince a present of seven ewe lambs out 9. Twelve years afterward, Sarah, wife of Abraham, died in Hebron. Abraham came to mourn and to perform the funeral offices for her. He addressed the people at the city gate, entreating them to allow him to bury his wife among them; for, being a stranger, and having no land of his own, he could claim no right of interment in any sepulchre of that country. He, therefore, bought of Ephron, one of the inhabitants, the field of Machpelah, with the cave and sepulchre in it, at the price of four hundred shekels of silver, about forty-five pounds sterling. And here Abraham buried Sarah, with due solemnities, according to the custom of the country, Gen. xxiii. This whole transaction impressively illustrates the dignity, courtesy, and honour of these ancient chiefs; and wholly disproves the notion that theirs was a rude and unpolished age. 10. Abraham, having grown old, sent Eliezer, his steward, into Mesopotamia, with directions to obtain a young woman of his own family, as a wife for his son Isaac. Eliezer executed his commission with fidelity, and brought back Rebecca, daughter of Bethuel, grand-daughter of Nahor, and, consequently, Abraham's niece, whom Isaac married. Abraham afterward mar ried Keturah; by whom he had six sons, Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah; who became heads of different people, which dwelt in Arabia, and around it. He died, aged a hundred and seventy-five years, and was buried, with Sarah his wife, in the cave of Machpelah, which he had purchased of Ephron, Gen. xxiv, xxv, A. M. 2183, before Christ 1821. II. From the personal history of Abraham we may now proceed to the consideration of the TYPICAL circumstances which were connected with it. [miliation and exaltation was thus opened to him; and served to keep the great truth in mind, that the true burnt offering and sacrifice for sin was to be something higher than the immolation of lambs and bulls and goats,-nay, something more than what was merely human. 1. Abraham himself with his family may be regarded as a type of the church of God in future ages. They indeed constituted God's ancient church. Not that many scattered patriarchal and family churches did not remain: such was that of Melchizedec; and such probably was that of Nahor, whom Abraham left 4. The transaction of the expulsion of Ha. behind in Mesopotamia. But a visible church gar was also a type. It was an allegory in relation was established between Abraham's action, by which St. Paul teaches us to underfamily and the Most High, signified by the stand that the son of the bondwoman reprevisible and distinguishing sacrament of circum-sented those who are under the law; and the cision, and followed by new and enlarged reve- child of the freewoman those who by faith in lations of truth. Two purposes were to be Christ are supernaturally begotten into the answered by this,-the preservation of the true family of God. The bondwoman and her son doctrine of salvation in the world, which is the being cast out, represented also the expulsion great and solemn duty of every branch of the of the unbelieving Jews from the church of church of God,-and the manifestation of that God, which was to be composed of true believtruth to others. Both were done by Abraham. ers of all nations, all of whom, whether Jews Wherever he sojourned he built his altars to or Gentiles, were to become "fellow heirs." the true God, and publicly celebrated his worship; and, as we learn from St. Paul, he lived in tents in preference to settling in the land of Canaan, though it had been given to him for | a possession, in order that he might thus proclaim his faith in the eternal inheritance of which Canaan was a type; and in bearing this testimony, his example was followed by Isaac and Jacob, the "heirs with him of the same promise," who also thus "confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims," and that "they looked" for a continuing and eternal city in heaven. So also now is the same doctrine of immortality committed to the church of Christ; and by deadness to the world ought its mem. bers to declare the reality of their own faith in it. 2. The numerous natural posterity promised to Abraham was also a type of the spiritual seed, the true members of the church of Christ, springing from the Messiah, of whom Isaac was the symbol. Thus St. Paul expressly distinguishes between the fleshly and the spiritual seed of Abraham; to the latter of which, in their ultimate and highest sense, the promises of increase as the stars of heaven, and the sands of the sea shore, are to be referred, as also the promise of the heavenly Canaan. 3. The intentional offering up Isaac, with its result, was probably that transaction in which Abraham, more clearly than in any other, "saw the day of Christ, and was glad." He received Isaac from the dead, says St. Paul, "in a figure." This could be a figure of nothing but the resurrection of our Lord; and, if so, Isaac's being laid upon the altar was a figure of his sacrificial death, scenically and most impressively represented to Abraham. The place, the same ridge of hills on which our Lord was crucified; the person, an only son, to die for no offence of his own; the sacrificer, a father; the receiving back, as it were, from death to life; the name impressed upon the place, importing, "the Lord will provide," in allusion to Abraham's own words to Isaac, "the Lord will provide a lamb for a burnt offering;" all indicate a mystery which lay deep beneath this transaction, and which Abraham, as the reward of his obedience, was permitted to behold. "The day" of Christ's hu III. But Abraham appears before us invested with a MYSTIC character, which it is of great importance rightly to understand. 1. He is to be regarded as standing in a federal or covenant relation, not only to his natural seed, but specially and eminently to all believers. "The Gospel," we are told by St. Paul, "was preached to Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed." "Abraham believed in God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness;" in other words, he was jus tified. A covenant of gratuitous justification through faith was made with him and his be lieving descendants; and the rite of circumcision, which was not confined to his posterity by Sarah, but appointed in every branch of his family, was the sign or sacrament of this covenant of grace, and so remained till it was dis placed by the sacraments appointed by Christ. Wherever that sign was it declared the doctrine, and offered the grace, of this covenantfree justification by faith, and its glorious results-to all the tribes that proceeded from Abraham. This same grace is offered to us by the Gospel, who become "Abraham's seed," his spiritual children with whom the covenant is established, through the same faith, and are thus made "the heirs with him of the same promise." 2. Abraham is also exhibited to us as the representative of true believers; and in this especially, that the true nature of faith was exhibited in him. This great principle was marked in Abraham with the following charac ters-An entire unhesitating belief in the word of God;-an unfaltering trust in all his promises;-a steady regard to his almighty power, leading him to overlook all apparent difficulties and impossibilities in every case where God had explicitly promised;—and habitual and cheerful and entire obedience. The Apostle has described faith in Heb. xi, 1; and that faith is seen living and acting in all its energy in Abraham. A few miscellaneous remarks are suggested by some of the circumstances of Abraham's history: 1. The ancient method of ratifying a covenant by sacrifice is illustrated in the account given in Gen. xv, 9, 10. The beasts were slain |