Chapter XLVII: Part 47

FO, or FUH, as the Chinese now call him, was an Indian prince, who was made a god at thirty years of age, and died at seventy-five. His worshippers form one of the three great sects of China, and it is said to be far the most numerous. The worship of this idol, they pretend, was observed a thousand years before the Christian era, and was introduced from India into China within the first century after. Many temples are reared to this deity, some of which are magnificent; and a number of bonzes, or priests, are consecrated to his service. He is represented shining in light, with his hands hid under his robes, to show that he does all things invisibly. The doctors of this sect, like those of Egypt, Greece, and India, teach a double doctrine; the one public, the other private. According to the former, they say, all the good are recompensed, and the wicked punished, in places destined for each. They enjoin all works of charity; and forbid cheating, impurity, murder, and even the taking of life from any creature whatever. For they believe that the souls of their ancestors transmigrate into irrational creatures; either into such as they liked best, or resembled most in their behaviour; for which reason they never kill any such animals; but, while they live, feed them well, and when they die bury them with respect. As they build temples for Fuh, which are filled with images, so also monasteries for his priests, providing for their maintenance, as the most effectual means to partake of their prayers. These priests pretend to know into what bodies the dead are transmigrated; and seldom fail of representing their case to the surviving friends as miserable, or uncomfortable; that they may extort money from them to procure for the deceased a passage into a better state, or pray them out of purgatory, which forms a part of their system.

The interior doctrine of this sect, which is kept secret from the common people, teaches a philosophical atheism, which admits neither rewards nor punishments after death; and believes not in a providence, or the immortality of the soul; acknowledges no other God than the _void_, or _nothing_; and which makes the supreme happiness of mankind to consist in a total inaction, an entire insensibility, and a perfect quietude. Fuh, though the idol of the common people, is considered as a foreign deity in China, imported by the Boudhists from India: great effects are, however, attached to the perpetual reiteration of his name, and even to meditation upon it. It is supposed to render fate favourable, and life secure; to prevent migration into the bodies of inferior animals; and, in fine, to secure a place in the paradise of Fuh, whose land is yellow gold, whose towers are composed of gems, the bridges of pearls, &c.

FOOL, FOLLY, or FOOLISHNESS. The term fool is to be understood sometimes according to its plain, literal meaning, as denoting a person void of understanding; but it is often used figuratively, Psalm xxxviii, 5; lxix, 5. “The fool,” that is, the impious sinner, “hath said in his heart, There is no God,” Psalm xiv, 1. “I have sinned: do away the iniquity of thy servant; for I have done very foolishly,” 1 Chron. xxi, 8. “Fools make a mock at sin,” Prov. xiv, 9. See also the language of Tamar to her brother Amnon: “Do not this folly; for whither shall I cause my shame to go? And as for thee, thou shalt be as one of the fools in Israel,” 2 Sam. xiii, 13; that is, Thou wilt be accounted a very wicked person. Our Lord seems to have used the term in a sense somewhat peculiar in Matthew v, 22: “Whosoever shall say to his brother, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.” But the whole verse shows the meaning to be, that when any one of his professed disciples indulges a temper and disposition of mind contrary to charity, or that peculiar love which the brethren of Christ are bound by his law to have toward each other, John xiii, 34, not only showing anger against another without a cause, but also treating him with contemptuous language, and that with malicious intent, he shall be in danger of eternal destruction.

FOOT. Anciently it was customary to wash the feet of strangers coming off a journey, because generally they travelled barefoot, or wore sandals only, which did not secure them from dust or dirt. Jesus Christ washed the feet of his Apostles, and thereby taught them to perform the humblest services for one another. Feet, in the sacred writers, often mean inclinations, affections, propensities, actions, motions: “Guide my feet in thy paths.” “Keep thy feet at a distance from evil.” “The feet of the debauched woman go down to death.” “Let not the foot of pride come against me.” To be at any one’s feet, signifies obeying him, listening to his instructions and commands. Moses says that “the Lord loved his people; all his saints are in thy hand: and they sat down at his feet,” Deut. xxxiii, 3. St. Paul was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel. Mary sat at our Saviour’s feet, and heard his word, Luke x, 39.

It is said that the land of Canaan is not like Egypt, “where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy _foot_,” Deut. xi, 10. Palestine is a country which has rains, plentiful dews, springs, rivulets, brooks, &c, that supply the earth with the moisture necessary to its fruitfulness. On the contrary, Egypt has no river except the Nile: there it seldom rains, and the lands which are not within reach of the inundation continue parched and barren. To supply this want, ditches are dug from the river, and water is distributed throughout the several villages and cantons: there are great struggles who shall first obtain it; and, in this dispute, they frequently come to blows. Notwithstanding these precautions, many places have no water; and, in the course of the year, those places which are nearest the Nile require to be watered again by means of art and labour. This was formerly done by the help of machines, one of which is thus described by Philo: It is a wheel which a man turns by the motion of his feet, by ascending successively the several steps that are within it. This is what Moses means in this place by saying, that, in Egypt, they water the earth with their feet. The water is thus conveyed to cisterns; and when the gardens want refreshment, water is conducted by trenches to the beds in little rills, which are stopped by the _foot_, and turned at pleasure into different directions.

2. To be under any one’s feet, to be a footstool to him, signifies the subjection of a subject to his sovereign, of a slave to his master. To lick the dust of one’s feet, is an abject manner of doing homage. In Mr. Hugh Boyd’s account of his embassy to the king of Candy, in Ceylon, there is a paragraph which singularly illustrates this, and shows the adulation and obsequious reverence with which an eastern monarch is approached. Describing his introduction to the king, he says, “The removal of the curtain was the signal of our obeisances. Mine, by stipulation, was to be only kneeling. My companions immediately began the performance of theirs, which were in the most perfect degree of eastern humiliation. They almost literally licked the dust; prostrating themselves with their faces almost close to the stone floor, and throwing out their arms and legs; then, rising on their knees, they repeated, in a very loud voice, a certain form of words of the most extravagant meaning that can be conceived, that the head of the king of kings might reach beyond the sun; that he might live a thousand years,” &c. Nakedness of feet was a sign of mourning. God says to Ezekiel, “Make no mourning for the dead, and put on thy shoes upon thy feet,” &c. It was also a mark of respect: “Put off thy shoes from off thy feet; for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground,” Exodus iii, 5. The rabbins say that the priests went barefoot in the temple. “If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day,” Isaiah lviii, 13; if thou forbear walking and travelling on the Sabbath day, and do not then thine own will. We know that journeys were forbidden on the Sabbath day, Matt. xxiv, 20; Acts i, 12. Kissing the feet was often practised as a mark of affection and reverence.

FORNICATION, whoredom, or the act of incontinency between single persons; for if either of the parties be married, the sin is adultery.

FOREHEAD, _Mark on the_, Ezekiel ix, 4. Mr. Maurice, speaking of the religious rites of the Hindoos, says, Before they can enter the great pagoda, an indispensable ceremony takes place, which can only be performed by the hand of a brahmin; and that is, the impression of their foreheads with the _tiluk_, or mark of different colours, as they may belong either to the sect of Veeshnu, or Seeva. If the temple be that of Veeshnu, their foreheads are marked with a longitudinal line, and the colour used is vermilion. If it be the temple of Seeva, they are marked with a parallel line, and the colour used is turmeric, or saffron. But these two grand sects being again subdivided into numerous classes, both the size and the shape of the _tiluk_ are varied, in proportion to their superior or inferior rank. In regard to the _tiluk_, I must observe, that it was a custom of very ancient date in Asia to mark their servants in the forehead. It is alluded to in these words of Ezekiel, where the Almighty commands his angels to “go through the midst of the city, and set a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh for the abominations committed in the midst thereof.” The same idea occurs also in Rev. vii, 3. The divers sects of the Hindoos have a distinguishing mark of the sect, by which they are known, on the forehead, of powdered sandal wood, or of the slime of the Ganges. The mark of the Wischnites consists of two nearly oval lines down the nose, which runs from two straight lines on the forehead. The mark of the Schivites consists of two curved lines, like a half moon with a point on the nose. It is made either with the slime of the Ganges, with sandal wood, or the ashes of cow dung.

FOUNTAIN is properly the source or springhead of waters. There were several celebrated fountains in Judea, such as that of Rogel, of Gihon, of Siloam, of Nazareth, &c; and allusions to them are often to be met with in both the Old and New Testament. Dr. Chandler, in his travels in Asia Minor, says, “The reader, as we proceed, will find frequent mention of fountains. Their number is owing to the nature of the country and the climate. The soil, parched and thirsty, demands moisture to aid vegetation; and a cloudless sun, which inflames the air, requires for the people the verdure, with shade and air, its agreeable attendants. Hence fountains are met with, not only in the towns and villages, but in the fields and gardens, and by the sides of the roads, and of the beaten tracks on the mountains. Many of them are the useful donations of humane persons while living, or have been bequeathed as legacies on their decease.” As fountains of water were so extremely valuable to the inhabitants of the eastern countries, it is easy to understand why the inspired writers so frequently allude to them, and thence deduce some of their most beautiful and striking similitudes, when they would set forth the choicest spiritual blessings. Thus Jeremiah calls the blessed God, “the fountain of living waters,” Jer. ii, 13. As those springs or fountains of water are the most valuable and highly prized which never intermit or cease to flow, but are always sending forth their streams; such is Jehovah to his people: he is a perennial source of felicity. Zechariah, pointing in his days to the atonement which was to be made in the fulness of time, by the shedding of the blood of Christ, describes it as a fountain that was to be opened in which the inhabitants of Jerusalem might wash away all their impurities: “In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness,” Zech. xiii, 1. Joel predicted the salvation which was to come out of Zion, under the beautiful figure of “a fountain which should come forth out of the house of the Lord, and water the plain of Shittim,” Joel iii, 18. The Psalmist, expatiating on the excellency of the loving-kindness of God, not only as affording a ground of hope to the children of men, but also as the source of consolation and happiness, adds, “Thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures; for with thee is the fountain of life,” Psalm xxxvi, 7–9. In short, the blessedness of the heavenly state is shadowed forth under this beautiful figure; for as “in the divine presence there is fulness of joy, and at God’s right hand, pleasures for evermore,” Psalm xvi, 11; so it is said of those who came out of great tribulation, that “the Lamb that was in the midst of the throne shall lead them unto living fountains of water, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes,” Rev. vii, 17.

FOX, שועל, Judges xv, 4; Nehemiah iv, 3; xi, 27; Psalm lxiii, 10; Cant. ii, 15; Lam. v, 11; Ezek. xiii, 4; Matt. viii, 20; Luke ix, 58; xiii, 32. Parkhurst observes that this is the name of an animal, probably so called from its burrowing, or making holes in the earth to hide himself or dwell in. The LXX render it by ἀλώπηξ, the Vulgate, _vulpes_, and our English version, _fox_. It is recorded, in Judges xv, 4, 5, that “Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst between two tails; and when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives.” Dr. Shaw thinks jackals to be the animals here intended; observing, that “as these are creatures by far the most common and familiar, as well as the most numerous of any in the eastern countries, we may well perceive the great possibility there was for Samson to take, or cause to be taken, three hundred of them. The fox, properly so called,” he adds, “is rarely to be met with, neither is it gregarious.” So Hasselquist remarks: “Jackals are found in great numbers about Gaza; and, from their gregarious nature, it is much more probable that Samson should have caught three hundred of them, than of the solitary quadruped, the fox.”

2. At the feast of Ceres, the goddess of corn, celebrated annually at Rome about the middle of April, there was the observance of this custom, to fix burning torches to the tails of a number of foxes, and to let them run through the circus till they were burnt to death. This was done in revenge upon that species of animals, for having once burnt up the fields of corn. The reason, indeed, assigned by Ovid, is too frivolous an origin for so solemn a rite; and the time of its celebration, the seventeenth of April, it seems, was not harvest time, when the fields were covered with corn, _vestitos messibus agros_; for the middle of April was seed time in Italy, as appears from Virgil’s Georgics. Hence we must infer that this rite must have taken its rise from some other event than that by which Ovid accounted for it; and Samson’s foxes are a probable origin of it. The time agrees exactly, as may be collected from several passages of Scripture. For instance: from the book of Exodus we learn, that before the passover, that is, before the fourteenth day of the month Abib, or March, barley in Egypt was in the ear, Exod. xii, 18; xiii, 4. And in chapter ix, 31, 32, it is said, that the wheat at that time was not grown up. Barley harvest, then, in Egypt, and so in the country of the Philistines, which bordered upon it, must have fallen about the middle of March. Wheat harvest, according to Pliny, was a month later: “_In Egypto hordeum sexto a satu mense, frumenta septimo metuntur._” [In Egypt barley is reaped in the sixth month from the time of its being sown, wheat in the seventh.] Therefore wheat harvest happened about the middle of April; the very time in which the burning of foxes was observed at Rome. It is certain that the Romans borrowed many of their rites and ceremonies, both serious and ludicrous, from foreign nations; and Egypt and Phenicia furnished them with more perhaps than any other country. From one of these the Romans might either receive this rite immediately, or through the hands of their neighbours, the Carthaginians, who were a colony of Phenicians; and so its true origin may be referred back to the story which we have been considering.

Bochart has made it probable that the איים spoken of in Isaiah xiii, 22; xxxiv, 14; and Jer. 1, 39, rendered by our translators “the beasts of the islands,” an appellation very vague and indeterminate, are _jackals_; and that the θωὲς of the Greeks, and the _beni ani_ of the Arabians are the same animal; and though he takes that to have been their specific name, yet he thinks, that, from their great resemblance to a fox, they might be comprehended under the Hebrew name of a fox, _shual_; which is indeed almost the same with _sciagal sciugal_, the Persian names of the jackal. Scaliger and Olearius, quoted by Bochart, expressly call the jackal a fox; and Mr. Sandys speaks of it in the same manner: “The jackals, in my opinion, are no other than foxes, whereof an infinite number,” &c. Hasselquist calls it the little eastern fox; and Kæmpfer says that it might not be improperly called the wolf-fox. It is therefore very conceivable that the ancients might comprehend this animal under the general name of fox.

3. To give an idea of his own extreme poverty, the Lord Jesus says, Luke ix, 58, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” And he calls Herod, the tetrarch of Galilee, a fox, Luke xiii, 32; thereby signifying his craft, and the refinements of his policy. In illustration of the pertinency of this allusion, we may quote a remark of Busbequius: “I heard a mighty noise, as if it had been of men who jeered and mocked us. I asked what was the matter; and was answered, ‘Only the howlings of certain beasts which the Turks call, _ciagals_, or _jackals_.’ They are a sort of wolves, somewhat bigger than foxes, but less than common wolves, yet as greedy and devouring. They go in flocks, and seldom hurt man or beast; but get their food more by craft and stealth than by open force. Thence it is that the Turks call subtle and crafty persons by the metaphorical name of _ciagals_.”

FRANKINCENSE, לבונה, Exod. xxx, 34, &c. λίϐανος, Matt. ii, 11; Rev. xviii, 13, a dry, resinous substance, of a yellowish white colour, a strong fragrant smell, and bitter, acrid taste. The tree which produces it is not known. Dioscorides mentions it as procured from India. What is here called the pure frankincense is, no doubt, the same with the _mascula thura_ of Virgil, and signifies what is first obtained from the tree.

FRIEND is taken for one whom we love and esteem above others, to whom we impart our minds more familiarly than to others, and that from a confidence of his integrity and good will toward us: thus Jonathan and David were mutually friends. Solomon, in his book of Proverbs, gives the qualities of a true friend. “A friend loveth at all times:” not only in prosperity, but also in adversity; and, “there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” He is more hearty in the performance of all friendly offices; he reproves and rebukes when he sees any thing amiss. “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.” His sharpest reproofs proceed from an upright, and truly loving and faithful soul. He is known by his good and faithful counsel, as well as by his seasonable rebukes. “Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart, so does the sweetness of a man’s friend by hearty counsel:” by such counsel as comes from his very heart and soul, and is the language of his inward and most serious thoughts. The company and conversation of a friend is refreshing and reviving to a person, who, when alone, is sad, dull, and inactive. “Iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.” The title, “the friend of God,” is principally given to Abraham: “Art not thou our God, who gavest this land to the seed of Abraham, thy friend, for ever?” And in Isaiah xli, 8, “But thou Israel art the seed of Abraham, my friend.” “And the Scripture was fulfilled, which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed to him for righteousness; and he was called the friend of God,” James ii, 23. This title was given him, not only because God frequently appeared to him, conversed familiarly with him, and revealed his secrets to him, “Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?” Gen. xviii, 17; but also because he entered into a covenant of perpetual friendship both with him and his seed. Our Saviour calls his Apostles “friends:” “But I have called you friends;” and he adds the reason of it, “for all things that I have heard of my Father, I have made known unto you,” John xv, 15. As men use to communicate their counsels and their whole mind to their friends, especially in things which are of any concern, or may be of any advantage for them to know and understand, so I have revealed to you whatever is necessary for your instruction, office, comfort, and salvation. And this title is not peculiar to the Apostles only, but is common with them to all true believers. The friend of the bridegroom is the brideman; he who does the honours of the wedding, and leads his friend’s spouse to the nuptial chamber. John the Baptist, with respect to Christ and his church, was the friend of the bridegroom; by his preaching he prepared the people of the Jews for Christ, John iii, 29. Friend is a word of ordinary salutation, whether to a friend or foe: he is called friend who had not on a wedding garment, Matt. xxii, 12. And our Saviour calls Judas the traitor friend. Some are of opinion that this title is given to the guest by an irony, or antiphrasis; meaning the contrary to what the word importeth; or that he is called so, because he appeared to others to be Christ’s friend; or was so in his own esteem and account, though falsely, being a hypocrite. However, this being spoken in the person of him who made the feast, it is generally taken for a usual compellation, and that Christ, following the like courteous custom of appellation and friendly greeting, did so salute Judas, which yet left a sting behind it in his conscience, who knew himself to be the reverse of what he was called. The name of friend is likewise given to a neighbour. “Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go to him at midnight, and say, Friend, lend me three loaves?” Luke xi, 3.

FRIENDS, or QUAKERS, a religious society which began to be distinguished about the middle of the seventeenth century. Their doctrines were first promulgated in England, by George Fox, about the year 1647; for which he was imprisoned at Nottingham, in the year 1649, and the year following at Derby. Fox evidently considered himself as acting under a divine commission, and went, not only to fairs and markets, but into courts of justice and “steeple houses,” as he called the churches, warning all to obey the Holy Spirit, speaking by him. It is said, that the appellation of Quakers was given them in reproach by one of the magistrates, who, in 1650, committed Fox to prison, on account of his bidding him, and those about him, to _quake_ at the word of the Lord. But they adopted among themselves, and still retain, the kind appellation of Friends.

From their first appearance, they suffered much persecution. In New-England they were treated with peculiar severity, imprisoned, scourged, (women as well as men,) and at Boston four of them were even hanged, among whom was one woman; and this was the more extraordinary and inexcusable, as the settlers themselves had but lately fled from persecution in the parent country! During these sufferings, they applied to King Charles II, for relief; who, in 1661, granted a mandamus, to put a stop to them. Neither were the good offices of this prince in their favour confined to the colonies; for in 1672, he released, under the great seal, four hundred of these suffering people who were imprisoned in Great Britain. To what has been alleged against them, on account of James Naylor and his associates, they answer that their extravagancies and blasphemies were disapproved at the time, and the parties disowned; nor was Naylor restored till he had given signs of a sincere repentance, and publicly condemned his errors.

In 1681, Charles II, granted to W. Penn the province of Pennsylvania. Penn’s treaty with the Indians, and the liberty of conscience which he granted to all denominations, even those which had persecuted his own, do honour to his memory. In the reign of James II, the Friends, in common with other English Dissenters, were relieved by the suspension of the penal laws. But it was not till the reign of William and Mary that they obtained any thing like a proper legal protection. An act was passed in the year 1696, which, with a few exceptions, allowed to their affirmation the legal force of an oath, and provided a less oppressive mode for recovering tithes under a certain amount; which provisions, under the reign of George I, were made perpetual. For refusing to pay tithes, &c, however, they are still liable to suffer in the exchequer and ecclesiastical court, both in Great Britain and Ireland.

The true Friends are orthodox, as to the leading doctrines of Christianity, but express themselves in peculiar phrases. They hold special revelations of the Holy Spirit, yet not to the disparagement of the written word, which they regard as the infallible rule of faith and practice. They reject a salaried ministry, and interpret the sacraments mystically. They are advocates of the interior spiritual life of religion, to which, indeed, they have borne constant testimony; and they are distinguished by probity, philanthropy, and a public spirit. [In the United States, the Friends are divided into the Orthodox, (so called,) and Hicksites, or followers of the late Elias Hicks. The latter are considered as having departed from the original doctrines of the Friends, and very far from the leading doctrines of Christianity, as held by Protestant Christians in general.]

FROG, צפרדע; Arabic, _akurrak_; Greek, βάτραχος; Exod. viii, 2–14; Psalm lxxviii, 45; cv, 30; Rev. xvi, 13. When God plagued Pharaoh and his people, the river Nile, which was the object of great admiration to the Egyptians, was made to contribute to their punishment. “The river brought forth frogs abundantly;” but the circumstance of their coming up into the bed chambers, and into the ovens and kneading troughs, needs explanation to us, whose domestic apartments and economy are so different from those of the ancient nations. Their lodgings were not in upper stories, but in recesses on the ground floor; and their ovens were not like ours, built on the side of a chimney, and adjacent to a fireplace, where the glowing heat would frighten away the frogs, but they dug a hole in the ground, in which they placed an earthen pot, which having sufficiently heated, they stuck their cakes to the inside to be baked. To find such places full of frogs when they came to heat them in order to bake their bread, and to see frogs in the beds where they sought repose, must have been both disgusting and distressing in the extreme. Frogs were reckoned unclean by the Hebrews.

FRONTLETS. Leo of Modena thus describes them: The Jews take four pieces of parchment, and write, with an ink made on purpose, and in square letters, these four passages, one on each piece: 1. “Sanctify unto me all the first-born,” &c, Exodus xiii, 1–10. 2. “And when the Lord shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites,” &c, verses 11–16. 3. “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord,” &c, Deut. vi, 4–9. 4. “If you shall hearken diligently unto my commandments,” &c, Deut. xi, 13–21. This they do in obedience to these words of Moses: “These commandments shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes.” These four little pieces of parchment are fastened together, and a square formed of them, on which the letter ש is written; then a little square of hard calf’s skin is put upon the top, out of which come two leathern strings an inch wide, and a cubit and a half, or thereabouts, in length. This square is put on the middle of the forehead, and the strings being girt about the head, make a knot in the form of the letter ד: they then are brought before, and fall on the breast. It is called _teffila-schel-rosch_, or the _tephila_ of the head. The most devout Jews put it on both at morning and noon-day prayer; but the generality of the Jews wear it only at morning prayer. Only the chanter of the synagogue is obliged to put it on at noon as well as morning.

It is a question, whether the use of frontlets, and other phylacteries, was literally ordained by Moses. They who believe their use to be binding, observe, that the text of Moses speaks as positively of this as of other precepts; he requires the commandments of God to be written on the doors of houses, as a sign on their hands, and as an ornament on their foreheads, Exod. xiii, 16. If there be any obligation to write these commandments on their doors, as the text intimates, there is the same for writing them on their hands and foreheads. On the contrary, others maintain that these precepts should be taken figuratively and allegorically, as denoting that the Jews should very carefully preserve the remembrance of God’s law, and observe his commands; that they should always have them before them, and never forget them. Prior to the Babylonish captivity, no traces of them appear in the history of the Jews. The prophets never inveigh against the omission or neglect of them, nor was there any question concerning them in the reformation of manners at any time among the Hebrews. The almost general custom in the east of wearing phylacteries and frontlets, determines nothing for the antiquity or usefulness of this practice. The Caraite Jews, who adhere to the letter of the law, and despise traditions, call the rabbinical Jews bridled asses, because they wear these tephilim and frontlets. See PHYLACTERY.

FRUIT, the product of the earth, as trees, plants, &c. “Blessed shall be the fruit of thy ground and cattle.” The fruit of the body signifies children: “Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body.” By fruit is sometimes meant reward: “They shall eat of the fruit of their own ways,” Prov. i, 31; they shall receive the reward of their bad conduct, and punishment answerable to their sins. The fruit of the lips is the sacrifice of praise or thanksgiving, Heb. xiii, 15. The fruit of the righteous, that is, the counsel, example, instruction, and reproof of the righteous, is a tree of life, is a means of much good, both temporal and eternal; and that not only to himself, but to others also, Prov. xi, 30. Solomon says, in Prov. xii, 14, “A man shall be satisfied with good by the fruit of his mouth;” that is, he shall receive abundant blessings from God as the reward of that good he has done, by his pious and profitable discourses. “Fruits meet for repentance,” Matt. iii, 8, is such a conduct as befits the profession of penitence.

2. The fruits of the Spirit are those gracious habits which the Holy Spirit of God produces in those in whom he dwelleth and worketh, with those acts which flow from them, as naturally as the tree produces its fruit. The Apostle enumerates these fruits in Galatians v, 22, 23. The same Apostle, in Eph. v, 9, comprehends the fruits of the sanctifying Spirit in these three things; namely, goodness, righteousness, and truth. The fruits of righteousness are such good works and holy actions as spring from a gracious frame of heart: “Being filled with the fruits of righteousness,” Phil. i, 11. Fruit is taken for a charitable contribution, which is the fruit or effect of faith and love: “When I have sealed unto them this fruit,” Rom. xv, 28; when I have safely delivered this contribution. When fruit is spoken of good men, then it is to be understood of the fruits or works of holiness and righteousness; but when of evil men, then are meant the fruits of sin, immorality, and wickedness. This is our Saviour’s doctrine, Matt. vii, 16–18.

3. Uncircumcised fruit, or impure, of which there is mention in Lev. xix, 23, is the fruit for the first three years of a tree newly planted; it was reputed unclean, and no one was permitted to eat of it in all that time. In the fourth year it was offered to the Lord; after which it was common, and generally eaten. Various reasons are assigned for this precept. As (1.) Because the first-fruits were to be offered to God, who required the best: but in this time the fruit was not come to perfection. (2.) It was serviceable to the trees themselves, which grew the better and faster; being early stripped of those fruits which otherwise would have derived to themselves, and drawn away, much of the strength from the root and tree. (3.) It tended to the advantage of men, both because the fruit was then waterish, undigestible, and unwholesome; and because hereby men were taught to bridle their appetites, a lesson of great use and absolute necessity in a godly life.

FUEL. In preparing their victuals, the orientals are, from the extreme scarcity of wood in many countries, reduced to use cow dung for fuel. At Aleppo, the inhabitants use wood and charcoal in their rooms, but heat their baths with cow dung, the parings of fruit, and other things of a similar kind, which they employ people to gather for that purpose. In Egypt, according to Pitts, the scarcity of wood is so great, that at Cairo they commonly heat their ovens with horse or cow dung, or dirt of the streets; what wood they have, being brought from the shores of the Black Sea, and sold by weight. Chardin attests the same fact: “The eastern people always used cow dung for baking, boiling a pot, and dressing all kinds of victuals that are easily cooked, especially in countries that have but little wood;” and Dr. Russel remarks, in a note, that “the Arabs carefully collect the dung of the sheep and camel, as well as that of the cow; and that the dung, offals, and other matters, used in the bagnios, after having been new gathered in the streets, are carried out of the city, and laid in great heaps to dry, where they become very offensive. They are intolerably disagreeable, while drying, in the town, adjoining to the bagnios; and are so at all times when it rains, though they be stacked, pressed hard together, and thatched at top.” These statements exhibit, in a very strong light, the extreme misery of the Jews, who escaped from the devouring sword of Nebuchadnezzar: “They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets; they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills,” Lam. iv, 5. To embrace dunghills, is a species of wretchedness, perhaps unknown to us in the history of modern warfare; but it presents a dreadful and appalling image, when the circumstances to which it alludes are recollected. What can be imagined more distressing to those who lived delicately, than to wander without food in the streets? What more disgusting and terrible to those who had been clothed in rich and splendid garments, than to be forced, by the destruction of their palaces, to seek shelter among stacks of dung, the filth and stench of which it is almost impossible to endure? The dunghill, it appears from Holy Writ, is one of the common retreats of the mendicant. This imparts great force and beauty to a passage in the song of Hannah: “He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory,” 1 Sam. ii, 8. The change in the circumstances of that excellent woman, she reckoned as great, (and it was to her as unexpected,) as the elevation of a poor despised beggar from a nauseous and polluting dunghill, rendered tenfold more fetid by the intense heat of an oriental sun, to one of the highest and most splendid stations on earth.

2. Dung is used as fuel in the east only when wood cannot be had; for the latter, and even any other combustible substance, is preferred when it can be obtained. The inhabitants of Aleppo, according to Russel, use thorns and fuel of a similar kind for those culinary purposes which require haste, particularly for boiling, which seems to be the reason that Solomon mentions the “crackling of thorns under a pot,” rather than in any other way. The same allusion to the use of thorns for boiling occurs in other parts of the sacred volume: thus, the Psalmist speaks of the wicked, “Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath.” The Jews are sometimes compared in the prophets to “a brand plucked out of the burning,” Amos iv, 11; Zech. iii, 2; a figure which Chardin considers as referring to vine twigs, and other brushwood which the orientals frequently use for fuel, and which, in a few minutes, must be consumed if they are not snatched out of the fire; and not to those battens, or large branches, which will lie a long time in the fire before they are reduced to ashes. If this idea be correct, it displays in a stronger and more lively manner the seasonable interposition of God’s mercy, than is furnished by any other view of the phrase. The same remark applies to the figure by which the Prophet Isaiah describes the sudden and complete destruction of Rezin, and the son of Remaliah; only in this passage, the firebrands are supposed to be smoking; that is, in the opinion of Harmer, having the steam issuing with force from one end, in consequence of the fire burning violently at the other. The words of the prophet are: “Take heed and be quiet; fear not, neither be faint-hearted, for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah,” Isaiah vii, 4. It is not easy to conceive an image more striking than this; the remains of two small twigs burning with violence at one end, as appears by the steaming of the other, are soon reduced to ashes; so shall the kingdoms of Syria and Israel sink into ruin and disappear.

3. The scarcity of fuel in the east obliges the inhabitants to use, by turns, every kind of combustible matter. The withered stalks of herbs and flowers, the tendrils of the vine, the small branches of myrtle, rosemary, and other plants, are all used in heating their ovens and bagnios. We can easily recognise this practice in these words of our Lord: “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, that Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?” Matt. vi, 28–30. The grass of the field, in this passage, evidently includes the lilies of which our Lord had just been speaking, and, by consequence, herbs in general; and in this extensive sense the word χόρτος is not unfrequently taken. These beautiful productions of nature, so richly arrayed, and so exquisitely perfumed, that the splendour even of Solomon is not to be compared with theirs, shall soon wither and decay, and be used as fuel to heat the oven and the bagnio. Has God so adorned these flowers and plants of the field, which retain their beauty and vigour but for a few days, and are then applied to some of the meanest purposes of life; and will he not much more clothe you who are the disciples of his own Son, who are capable of immortality, and destined to the enjoyment of eternal happiness?

FULNESS. “The fulness of time” is the time when the Messiah appeared, which was appointed by God, promised to the fathers, foretold by the prophets, expected by the Jews themselves, and earnestly longed for by all the faithful: “When the fulness of the time was come, God sent his Son,” Gal. iv, 4. The fulness of Christ is the superabundance of grace with which he was filled: “Of his fulness have all we received,” John i, 16. And whereas men are said to be filled with the Holy Ghost, as John the Baptist, Luke i, 15; and Stephen, Acts vi, 5; this differs from the fulness of Christ in these three respects: (1.) Grace in others is by participation, as the moon hath her light from the sun, rivers their waters from the fountain: but in Christ all that perfection and influence which we include in that term is originally, naturally, and of himself. (2.) The Spirit is in Christ infinitely and above measure, John iii, 34; but in the saints by measure according to the gift of God, Eph. iv, 16. The saints cannot communicate their graces to others, whereas the gifts of the Spirit are in Christ as a head and fountain, to impart them to his members. “We have received of his fulness,” John i, 16. It is said, that “the fulness of the Godhead dwells in Christ bodily,” Col. ii, 2; that is, the whole nature and attributes of God are in Christ, and that really, essentially, or substantially; and also personally, by nearest union; as the soul dwells in the body, so that the same person who is man is God also. The church is called the fulness of Christ, Eph. i, 23. It is the church which makes him a complete and perfect head; for though he has a natural and personal fulness as God, yet, as Mediator, he is not full and complete, without his mystical body, (as a king is not complete without his subjects,) but receives an outward, relative, and mystical fulness from his members.

FUNERAL RITES. See BURIAL.

FURNACE, a fireplace for melting gold and other metals. “The fining pot is for silver, the furnace for gold,” Prov. xvii, 3. It signifies also a place of cruel bondage and oppression, such as Egypt was to the Israelites, who there met with much hardship, rigour, and severity, to try and purge them, Deut. iv, 20; Jer. xi, 4; the sharp and grievous afflictions and judgments, wherewith God tries his people, Ezek. xxii, 18; xx, 22; also a place of torment, as Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace, Dan. iii, 6, 11. On the last we may remark, that this mode of putting to death is not unusual in the east in modern times. After speaking of the common modes of punishing with death in Persia, Chardin says, “But there is still a particular way of putting to death such as have transgressed in civil affairs, either by causing a dearth, or by selling above the tax by a false weight, or who have committed themselves in any other manner: they are put upon a spit and roasted over a slow fire, Jer. xxix, 22. Bakers, when they offend, are thrown into a hot oven. During the dearth in 1668, I saw such ovens heated in the royal square in Ispahan, to terrify the bakers, and deter them from deriving advantage from the general distress.”

GABBATHA, a place in Pilate’s palace, from whence he pronounced sentence of death upon Jesus Christ, John xix, 13. This was probably an eminence, or terrace, paved with marble, for the Hebrew means _elevated_.

GABRIEL, one of the principal angels of heaven. He was sent to the Prophet Daniel, to explain to him the visions of the ram and goat, and the mystery of the seventy weeks, which had been revealed to him, Dan. viii, 15; ix, 21; xi, 1, &c. The same angel was sent to Zechariah, to declare to him the future birth of John the Baptist, Luke i, 11, &c. Six months after this he appeared to a virgin, whose name was Mary, of the city of Nazareth, as related Luke i, 26, &c.

GAD was the name of the son of Jacob and Zilpah, Leah’s servant, Gen. xxx, 9–11. Leah, Jacob’s wife, gave him also Zilpah, that by her she might have children. Zilpah brought a son, whom Leah called Gad, saying, “A troop cometh.” Gad had seven sons, Ziphion, Haggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Eri, Arodi, and Areli, Genesis xlvi, 16. Jacob, blessing Gad, said, “A troop shall overcome him, but he shall overcome at the last,” Gen. xlix, 19; and Moses, in his last song, mentions Gad as “a lion which teareth the arm with the crown of the head,” &c, Deut. xxxiii, 20, 21. The tribe of Gad came out of Egypt in number forty-five thousand six hundred and fifty. After the defeat of the kings Og and Sihon, Gad and Reuben desired to have their lot in the conquered country, and alleged their great number of cattle. Moses granted their request, on condition that they would accompany their brethren, and assist in the conquest of the land beyond Jordan. Gad had his inheritance between Reuben south, and Manasseh north, with the mountains of Gilead east, and Jordan west.

2. GAD, a prophet, David’s friend, who followed him when persecuted by Saul. The Scripture calls him a prophet and David’s seer, 2 Sam. xxiv, 11. The first time we find him with this prince is when he fled into the land of Moab, 1 Sam. xxii, 5, to secure his father and mother in the first year of Saul’s persecution. The Prophet Gad warned him to return into the land of Judah. After David had determined to number his people, the Lord sent to him the Prophet Gad, to offer him his choice of three scourges: seven years’ famine, or three months’ flight before his enemies, or three days’ pestilence. Gad also directed David to erect an altar to the Lord, in the threshing floor of Ornan or Araunah, the Jebusite, 2 Sam. xxiv, 13–19; and he wrote a history of David’s life, cited in 1 Chron. xxix, 29.

GADARA, a city which gave name to the country of the Gadarenes; situated on a steep rocky hill on the river Hieromax, or Yermuck, about five miles from its junction with the Jordan. It was a place of considerable note in the time of Josephus, and the metropolis of Peræa, or the country beyond Jordan. It was also celebrated for its hot baths. The vicinity was likewise called the country of the Gergesenes, from Gerasa, or Gergesa, another considerable city in the same neighbourhood. Thus the miracle of our Lord performed here is represented by St. Mark to have been done in the country of the Gadarenes, Mark v, 1; and by St. Matthew, in that of the Gergesenes, Matt. viii, 28.

GALATIA, a province of the Lesser Asia, bounded on the west by Phrygia, on the east by the river Haylys, on the north by Paphlagonia, and on the south by Lycaonia. The Galatians are said to have been descended from those Gauls, who, finding their own country too strait for them, left it, after the death of Alexander the Great, in quest of new settlements. Quitting their own country, they migrated eastward along the Danube till they came where the Saave joins that river; then dividing themselves into three bodies, under the conduct of different leaders, one of these bodies entered Pannonia; another marched into Thrace; a third into Illyricum and Macedonia. The party which proceeded into Thrace, crossed the Bosphorus into the Lesser Asia, and hiring themselves to Nicomedes, king of Bithynia, assisted him to subdue his brother Zipetes, with whom he was then at war; and as a reward of their services they received from him a country in the middle of Asia Minor, which from them was afterward called _Gallo-Græcia_, and, by contraction, Galatia. As their inland situation in a great measure cut them off from all intercourse with more civilized nations, the Galatians long remained a rude and illiterate people. And as a proof of this, it is mentioned by Jerom, that when the Apostle Paul preached the Gospel among them, and for many ages afterward, they continued to speak the language of the country from whence they came out.

2. Paul and Barnabas carried the light of the Gospel into the regions of Galatia at a very early period; and it appears from the epistle which the former subsequently wrote to the churches in that country, that they had at first received it with great joy, Gal. iv, 15. But some Judaizing teachers getting access among them soon after the Apostle’s departure, their minds became corrupted from the simplicity that was in Christ Jesus; and, though mostly Gentiles, they were beginning to mingle circumcision, and other Jewish observances, with their faith in Christ, in order to render it more available to their salvation. This occasioned Paul’s writing his epistle to those churches; and his object throughout nearly the whole of it is to counteract the pernicious influence of the doctrine of those false teachers particularly as it respected the article of justification, or a sinner’s acceptance with God. And in no part of the Apostle’s writings is that important doctrine handled in a more full and explicit manner; nor does he any where display, such a firm, determined, and inflexible opposition to all who would corrupt the truth from its simplicity. He begins by expressing his astonishment that they were so soon turned aside “unto another gospel,” but instantly checking himself, he recals the word and declares, “it is not another gospel,” but a perversion of the Gospel of Christ. “And though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.” There are in his epistle several other things equally pointed and severe, particularly his expostulation on the folly and absurdity of their conduct in subjecting themselves to the Jewish yoke of bondage, Gal. iii, 1. “The erroneous doctrines of the Judaizing teachers,” says Dr. Macknight, “and the calumnies they spread for the purpose of discrediting St. Paul’s apostleship, no doubt occasioned great uneasiness of mind to him and to the faithful in that age, and did much hurt, at least for a while, among the Galatians. But in the issue these evils have proved of no small service to the church in general; for by obliging the Apostle to produce the evidences of his apostleship, and to relate the history of his life, especially after his conversion, we have obtained the fullest assurance of his being a real Apostle, called to the office by Jesus Christ himself; consequently we are assured that our faith in the doctrines of the Gospel, as taught by him, (and it is he who hath taught the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel most fully,) is not built on the credit of a man, but on the authority of the Spirit of God, by whom St. Paul was inspired in the whole of the doctrine which he has delivered to the world.”