earth, and reaches to the end of time-book of Job, and Paul's epistles, espe 6. The encouragements and persuasive cially. The ministry of our Lord was helps which Christianity gives us to ful- a perpetual controversy, and the aposfil the duties of the covenant, are much tles came at truth by much disputing, superior to those which were enjoyed Acts xv. 7. xvii. 17. xix. 8. To attend, under any of the former dispensations. however, to religious controversy with Watts's Works, vol. i. ser. 47. 8vo. Gill's advantage, the following rules should be Body of Div. Introd. Robinson's Ser- observed; 1. The question should be mons, p. 147. Ridgley's Div. qu. 35. cleared from all doubtful terms and needless additions.-2. The precise point of enquiry should be fixed.-3. That the object aimed at be truth, and not the mere love of victory.-4. Beware of

DISPERSION of mankind was occasioned by the confusion of tongues at the overthrow of Babel, Gen. xi. 9. As to the manner of the dispersion of the posterity of Noah from the plain of Shi-a dogmatical spirit, and a supposition nar, it was undoubtedly conducted with the utmost regularity and order. The sacred historian informs us, that they were divided in their lands: every one, according to his tongue, according to his family, and according to his nation, Gen. x. 5, 20, 31. The ends of this dispersion were to populate the earth, to prevent idolatry, and to display the divine wisdom and power. See CONFUSION OF TONGUES.

DISPOSITION, that temper of mind, which any person possesses.

that you are always right.-5. Let a strict rein be kept on the passions when you are hard pushed. Vide Robinson's Claude, p. 245, vol. ii; Watts on the Mind, chap. 10.; Beattie on Truth, 347, &c.; Locke on the Understanding, chap. 10. vol. iii.

DISSENTERS, those who separate from the established church. The number of dissenters in this kingdom is very considerable. They are divided into several parties; the chief of which are the Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, Quakers, and Methodists. See those articles, as also NONCONFORMISTS and PURITANS.

In every man, says lord Kaims, there is something original that serves to distinguish him from others, that tends to form a character, and to make him DISSIDENTS, a denomination apmeek or fiery, candid or deceitful, reso-plied in Poland to those of the Luthelute or timorous, cheerful or morose. ran, Calvinistic, and Greek profession. This original bent, termed disposition, The king of Poland engages by the must be distinguished from a principle: pacta conventa to tolerate them in the the latter signifying a law of human free exercise of their religion, but they nature makes part of the common na- have often had reason to complain of ture of man; the former makes part of the violation of these promises. the nature of this or that man.

DISSIMULATION, the act of disDISPUTATION, Religious, is the sembling. It has been distinguished agitation of any religious question, in from simulation thus: Simulation is order to obtain clear and adequate ideas making a thing appear which does not of it. The propriety of religious dispu- exist; dissimulation is keeping that tation or controversial divinity has been which exists from appearing. Moralists a matter of doubt with many. Some art- have observed that all dissimulation is fully decry it, in order to destroy free not hypocrisy. A vicious man, who inquiry. Some hate it, because they do endeavours to throw a veil over his bad not like to be contradicted. Others de- conduct, that he may escape the notice claim against it, to save themselves the of men, is not in the strictest sense of disgrace of exposing their ignorance, or the word a hypocrite, since a man is no the labour of examining and defending more obliged to proclaim his secret their own theses. There are others vices than any other of his secrets. The who avoid it, not because they are con-hypocrite is one who dissembles for a vinced of the impropriety of the thing itself, but because of the evil temper with which it is generally conducted.

The propriety of it, however, will appear, if we consider that every article of religion is denied by some, and cannot well be believed without examination, by any. Religion empowers us to investigate, debate, and controvert each article, in order to ascertain the evidence of its truth. The divine writings, many of them, are controversial; the

bad end, and hides the snare that he may be more sure of his prey; and, not content with a negative virtue, or not appearing the ill man he is, makes a show of positive virtue, and appears the man he is not. See HYPOCRISY.

DISSOLUTION, death, or the separation of the body and soul. The dissolution of the world is an awful event, which we have reason to believe, both from the Old Testament and the New, will certainly take place. 1. It is

whom the prophet calls, in the same place, Menacheseh, which the Vulgate and generality of interpreters render Augur.-3. Those who in the same place are called Mecascheph, which the Septuagint and Vulgate translate "a man given to ill practices.”—4. Those whom in the same chapter, ver. 11. he calls Hhober-5. Those who consult the spirits, called Python.-6. Witches, or magicians, called Judeoni.

not an incredible thing, since nothing of a material nature is formed for perpetual duration.-2. It will doubtless be under the direction of the Supreme Being, as its creation was.-3. The soul of man will remain unhurt amidst this general desolation.-4. It will be an introduction to a greater and nobler system in the government of God, 2 Pet. iii. 13.-5. The consideration of it ought to have a great influence on us while in the present state, 2 Pet. iii. 11, 12. See-7. Necromancers, who consult the CONFLAGRATION. dead.-8. Such as consult staves, Hosea, DIVERSION, something that un-iv. 12. called by some Rhabdomancy.bends the mind, by turning it off from 9. Hepatoscopy, or the consideration of care. It seems to be something lighter the liver. than amusement, and less forcible than Different kinds of divination which pleasure. It is an old simile, and a very have passed for sciences, we have had: just one, that a bow kept always bent 1. Aeromancy, divining by the air.will grow feeble, and lose its force. The 2. Astrology, by the heavens.-3. Aualternate succession of business and di- gury, by the flight and singing of birds, version preserve the body and soul in &c.-4. Chiromancy by inspecting the the happiest temper. Diversions must, hand.-5. Geomancy, by observing of however, be lawful and good. The cracks or clefts in the earth.-6. Haplay-house, the gaming-table, the mas-ruspicy, by inspecting the bowels of aniquerade, and midnight assemblies, must mals.-7. Horoscopy, a branch of astrobe considered as inimical to the mo-logy, marking the position of the heavens rals and true happiness of man. The when a man is born.-8. Hydromancy, most rational diversions are conversa-by water.-9. Physiognomy, by the tion, reading, singing, music, riding, &c. countenance. (This, however, is consiThey must be moderate as to the time dered by some as of a different nature, spent in them, and expense of them; and worthy of being rescued from the seasonable, when we have (as Cicero rubbish of superstition, and placed observes) dispatched our serious and among the useful sciences. Lavater has important affairs. See Grove's Regula- written a celebrated treatise on it.)tion of Diversions; Watts's Improve- 10. Pyromancy, a divination made by ment of the Mind, vol. ii. sec. 9. Blair's fire. Thus we see what arts have been Sermons, vol. ii. p. 17. Burder's Ser- practised to deceive, and how designing mon on Amusements; Friend's Even- men have made use of all the four eleing Amusements. ments to impose upon weak minds.

DIVINATION, is a conjecture or surmise formed concerning some future event from something which is supposed to be a presage of it; but between which there is no real connection, only what the imagination of the diviner is pleased to assign in order to deceive.

Divination of all kinds being the offspring of credulity, nursed by imposture, and strengthened by superstition, was necessarily an occult science, retained in the hands of the priests and priestesses, the magi, the soothsayers, the augurs, the visionaries, the priests of the oracles, the false prophets, and other like professors, till the coming of Jesus Christ, when the light of the Gospel dissipated much of this darkness. The vogue for these pretended sciences and arts is nearly past, at least in the enlightened parts of the world. There are nine different kinds of divination mentioned in Scripture. These are, 1. Those whom Moses calls Meonen of Anan, a cloud, Deut. xviii. 10.-2. Those

DIVINE, something relating to God. The word is also used figuratively for any thing that is excellent, extraordinary, and that seems to go beyond the power of nature and the capacity of man. It also signifies a minister, or clergyman. See MINISTER.

DIVINITY, the science of theology. See THEOLOGY.

DIVISIONS, ECCLESIASTICAL. See SCHISM.

DIVORCE, is the dissolution of marriage, or separation of man and wife. Divorce a mensa et thoro, i. e. from bed and board,-in this case the wife has a suitable maintenance allowed her out of her husband's effects. Divorce a vinculo matrimonii, i. e. from the bonds of matrimony, is strictly and properly divorce. This happens either in consequence of criminality, as in the case of adultery, or through some essential impediment; as consanguinity, or affinity within the degrees forbidden, pre-contract, impotency, &c. of which impedi

Dominic sent Gilbert de Fresney, with tions. A person named Jetzer, who twelve of the brethren, into England, was extremely simple, and much inwhere they founded their first monas-clined to austerities, and who had tatery at Oxford, in the year 1221, and soon after another at London. In the year 1276, the mayor and aldermen of the city of London gave them two whole streets, by the river Thames, where they erected a very commodious convent; whence that place is still called Blackfriars, from the name by which the Dominicans were called in England. St. Dominic at first only took the habit of the regular canons; that is, a black cassock and rochet: but this he quitted, in 1219, for that which they have ever since worn, which, it is pretended, was shown by the Blessed Virgin herself to the beatified Renaud d'Orleans. This order has been diffused throughout the whole known world. They reckon three popes of this order, above sixty cardinals, several patriarchs, a hundred and fifty archbishops, and about eight hundred bishops, besides masters of the sacred palace, whose office has been constantly discharged by a religious of this order ever since St. Dominic, who held it under Honorius III. in 1218.

ken their habit as a lay-brother, was chosen as the instrument of the delusions they were contriving. One of the four Dominicans, who had undertaken the management of this plot, conveyed himself secretly into Jetzer's cell, and about midnight appeared to him in a horrid figure, surrounded with howling dogs, and seeming to blow fire from his nostrils, by the means of a box of combustibles which he held near his mouth. In this frightful form he approached Jetzer's bed, told him that he was the ghost of a Dominican, who had been killed at Paris, as a judgment of Heaven for laying aside his monastic habit; that he was condemned to purgatory for this crime; adding, at the same time, that by his means he might be rescued from his misery, which was beyond expression. This story, accompanied with horrible cries and howlings, frighted poor Jetzer out of the little wits he had, and engaged him to promise to do all that was in his power to deliver the Dominican from his torment. Upon this the impostor told him, that Of all the monastic orders, none en- nothing but the most extraordinary morjoyed a higher degree of power and tifications, such as the discipline of the authority than the Dominican friars, whip, performed during eight days by whose credit was great, and their in- the whole monastery, and Jetzer's lying fluence universal. But the measures prostrate in the form of one crucified they used in order to maintain and ex- in the chapel during mass, could contend their authority were so perfidious tribute to his deliverance. He added, and cruel, that their influence began to that the performance of these mortificadecline towards the beginning of the tions would draw down upon Jetzer the sixteenth century. The tragic story of peculiar protection of the Blessed VirJetzer, conducted at Bern, in 1509, for gin; and concluded by saying, that he determining an uninteresting dispute would appear to him again, accompabetween them and the Franciscans, re-nied with two other spirits. Morning lating to the immaculate conception, will reflect indelible infamy on this order. In order to give the reader a view of the impious frauds which have sometimes been carried on in the church of Rome, we shall here insert an account of this stratagem.

The Franciscans maintained that the Virgin Mary was born without the blemish of original sin; the Dominicans asserted the contrary.

The doctrine of the Franciscans, in an age of darkness and superstition, could not but be popular; and hence the Dominicans lost ground from day to day. To support the credit of their order, they resolved, at a chapter held at Vimpsen, in the year 1504, to have recourse to fictitious visions and dreams, in which the people at that time had an easy faith; and they determined to make Bern the scene of their opera

was no sooner come, than Jetzer gave an account of this apparition to the rest of the convent, who all unanimously advised him to undergo the discipline that was enjoined him, and every one consented to bear his share of the task imposed. The deluded simpleton obeyed, and was admired as a saint by the multitudes that crowded about the convent; while the four friars that managed the imposture magnified, in the most pompous manner, the miracle of this apparition in their sermons, and in their discourses. The night after, the apparition was renewed with the addition of two impostors, dressed like devils, and Jetzer's faith was augmented by hearing from the spectre all the secrets of his life and thoughts, which the impostors had learned from his confessor. In this and some subsequent scenes (the detail of whose enormities, for the sake

his succour. The draught threw the poor wretch into a sort of lethargy, during which the monks imprinted on his body the other four wounds of Christ in such a manner that he felt no pain. When he awakened, he found, to his unspeakable joy, those impressions on his body, and came at last to fancy himself a representative of Christ in the various parts of his passion. He was, in this state, exposed to the admiring multitude on the principal altar of the convent, to the great mortification of the Franciscans. The Dominicans gave him some other draughts, that threw him into convulsions; which were followed by a pipe into the mouths of two images, one of Mary, and another of the child Jesus, the former of which had tears painted upon its cheeks in a lively manner. The little Jesus asked his mother, by means of this voice (which was that of the prior's,) why she wept? and she answered, that her tears were owing to the impious manner in which the Franciscans attributed to her the honour that was due to him, in saying that she was conceived and born without sin.

of brevity, we shall here omit) the impostor talked much to Jetzer of the Dominican order, which he said was peculiarly dear to the Blessed Virgin: he added, that the Virgin knew herself to be conceived in original sin; that the doctors who taught the contrary were in purgatory; that the Blessed Virgin abhorred the Franciscans for making her equal with her Son; and that the town of Bern would be destroyed for harbouring such plagues within her walls. In one of these apparitions Jetzer imagined that the voice of the spectre resembled that of the prior of the convent, and he was not mistaken; but, not suspecting a fraud, he gave little attention to this. The prior appeared in various forms, sometimes in that of St. Barbara, at others in that of St. Bernard: at length he assumed that of the Virgin Mary, and, for that purpose, clothed himself in the habits that were employed to adorn the statue of the Virgin in the great festivals. The little images, that on these days are set on the altars, were made use of for angels, which, being tied to a cord that passed through a pulley over Jetzer's head, rose up and down, and danced about The apparitions, false prodigies and the pretended Virgin to increase the abominable stratagems of these Domidelusion. The Virgin, thus equipped, nicans were repeated every night; and addressed a long discourse to Jetzer, in the matter was at length so grossly which, among other things, she told him over-acted, that, simple as Jetzer was, that she was conceived in original sin, he at last discovered it, and had almost though she had remained but a short killed the prior, who appeared to him time under that blemish. She gave him, || one night in the form of the Virgin with as a miraculous proof of her presence, a crown on her head. The Dominicans a host, or consecrated wafer, which fearing, by this discovery, to lose the turned from white to red in a moment; fruits of their imposture, thought the and after various visits, in which the best method would be to own the whole greatest enormities were transacted, matter to Jetzer, and to engage him, the Virgin-prior told Jetzer that she by the most seducing promises of opuwould give him the most affecting and lence and glory, to carry on the cheat. undoubted marks of her Son's love, by || Jetzer was persuaded, or at least apimprinting on him the five wounds that peared to be so. But the Dominicans pierced Jesus on the cross, as she had suspecting that he was not entirely done before to St. Lucia and St. Catha- gained over, resolved to poison him; rine. Accordingly she took his hand by but his constitution was so vigorous, force, and struck a large nail through that, though they gave him poison five it, which threw the poor dupe into the several times, he was not destroyed by greatest torment. The next night this it. One day they sent him a loaf premasculine virgin brought, as he pre-pared with some spices, which, growing tended, some of the linen in which Christ had been buried, to soften the wound; and gave Jetzer a soporific draught, which had in it the blood of an unbaptized child, some grains of incense and of consecrated salt, some quicksilver, the hairs of the eye-brows of a child; all which, with some stupifying and poisonous ingredients, were mingled together by the prior with magic ceremonies, and a solemn dedication of himself to the devil in hope of

green in a day or two, he threw a piece of it to a wolf's whelps that were in the monastery, and it killed them immediately. At another time they poisoned the host, or consecrated wafer; but, as he vomited it up soon after he had swallowed it, he escaped once more. In short, there were no means of securing him, which the most detestable impiety and barbarity could invent, that they did not put in practice: till finding, at last, an opportunity of getting out of the