DIVIDE. DIVIDE, Divi'DABLE, DIVI'DANT, Divi'DEDLY, DIVIDEND, DIVI'DENT, DIVIDER, DIVI'DING, DIVIDUAL, DIVI'SIBLE, DIVI'SIBLENESS, DIVISIBILITY, DIVI'SIBLY, DIVISION, Fr. diviser; Sp. dividir; It. dividere; Lat. dividere; from di, or dis, and the Hetruscan verb, iduo, (whence idus,) that is, partior, to part or portion; Becman conjectures iduo, to be eis ôów, into two; and Martinius, that it is from dos, that is, proprius, proper or peculiar to; so that iduare may mean, to put, place or set ἴδια or κατ ̓ ἴδιαν, that is, seorsim, separately, asunder. To part or portion, to share, to distribute, to distinguish; to DIVI'SIVE. set or put or place, to keep or hold, apart; to separate, to sunder, to sever; to disunite, to cause to be at disunion or discord. In mareis and in mores. in myres and in wateres Dom hynges dývýden. Piers Plouhman. Vision, p. 224. For thilke thing that simply is one thing without any diuision, the errour and foly of mankind diuideth and departeth it and misleadeth it, and transporteth from very and parfite good, to goods Chaucer. The third Booke of Boecius, fol. 225. This aier in perieris three Diuided is of suche degree; Beneth is one, and one amidde, that be false and vnperfite. To which aboue is the thridde. And he said unto him, man, who made me a judge, or a divider over you? Bible Modern Version. Luke, ch. xii. 14. Then with his waning wings displaied wide, Himselfe vp high he lifted from the ground, And with strong flight did forcibly diuide The yielding ayre. Spenser. Faerie Queene, book i. can. 11. The reason of the ancient incorporealists, will evince that the humane soul and mind, cannot possibly be any body whatsoever, though never so fine, thin, and subtle; whose parts are by motion dividable and separable from one another. Cudworth. Intellectual System, fol. 781. Shakspeare. Timon of Athens, fol. 90. If therefore, God be every where it cannot possibly be, that he should possibly be so dividedly; because then himself would not be every where, but only a part of him here and a part of him there, throughout the whole world; himself being not one vndivided thing. Cudworth. Intellectual System, fol. 783. Shall I set there So deepe a share (Dear wounds) and only now In sorrow draw no dividend with you! Crashaw. Charitas Nimia, or the Dear Bargain. My first question (Reuerend father) is concerning bishops, how they ought to behaue themselues toward their clerks, or of such oblations as the faithfull offer vpon the altar: what portions or dividends ought to be made thereof. Fox. Martyrs, fol. 105. Gregorie's Answers to Austin. Hate is of all things the mightiest divider, nay, is division itself. DIVII Milton. Works, vol. i. fol. 209. Discipline of Divorce, Another time when Cæsar had made a law for the dividing of the lands of Campania unto the souldiers, divers of the senate were angry with him for it, and among other, Lucius Gellius (a very old man) said he would never grant it while he lived. Cicero pleasantly answered again, alas, tarry a little, the good old man will not trouble you long. Sir Thomas North. Plutarch, fol. 720. Cicero. So that a man may say his religion is now no more within himself, but is become a dividual movable, and goes and comes near him, according as that good man frequents the house. Milton. Works, vol. i. fol. 154. Of Unlicens'd Printing. For in as much as that infinite word is not diuisible into parts, it could not in part, but must needs be wholly incarnate, and consequently wheresoeuer the word is, it hath with it manhood, else should the word be in part or somewhere God only and not man, which is impossible. Hooker. Ecclesiastical Polity, book v. fol. 302. The composition of bodies, whether it be of divisibles or indivisibles, is a question which must be rank'd with the indissolvibles. Glanville. The Vanity of Dogmatizing, ch. v. Do what they can; actual infinite extension every where, equality of all bodies, impossibility of motion, and a world more of the most palpable absurdities, will press the assertors of infinite divisibility. Id. Ib. Besides body, which is impenetrably and divisibly extended, He could not run division with more art Ford. Lover's Melancholy, act i. sc. 1. For, first, with its [the mind] subtle divisive power, it will analyse and resolve this concrete phantasmatical whole, and take notice of several distinct intellectual objects in it. Cudworth. Morality, book iv. ch. iii. While she with cheerful, but impartial grace (Born for no One, but to delight the race Of men) like Phœbus, so divides her light, It was found by ordinances of the dean formerly made, that married canons should not be bound to be present at the common table in their college of petty canons, but should be permitted to be by themselves, with their families, and to have convenient victuals and that besides in all dividends and common profits, the same account should be had of the married as of others. Strype. Life of Archbishop Grindal, Anno 1561. The known properties of matter are, that it is not necessary or self-existent, but dependent, finite, (nay, that it fills but a few very small and inconsiderable portions of space,) that it is divisible, passive, unintelligent, and consequently incapable of any active powers. Clarke. Attributes, p. 135. Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion. Preface. I would fain have instanc'd any thing in our notion of spirit more perplexed, or nearer a contradiction, than the very notion of body includes in it; the divisibility in infinitum of any finite extension, involving us, whether we grant or deny it, in consequences impossible to be explicated or made in our apprehensions consistent. Locke. On Human Understanding, book ii. ch. xxiii. The experience of all corrupt ages has abundantly shown, that men's presumptious reproaching each other upon account of such things as these; has been the great cause of all the schisms and divisions, of all the contentions and animosities, which have overrun and in great measure destroyed the Christian world. Clarke. Sermon 13. vol. iii. Ulysses is no more; Dead lies the hero in some land unknown, That power, by which the several parts of matter, such as stone, wood, or the like, firmly hold together, so as to make them hard and not easily dividable, is certainly no necessary effect of matter, but depends on the mere arbitrary pleasure of God, who exerts every moment an immediate act of his power, in thus binding, and retaining its parts together. Pearce. Sermon 2. vol. i. A good deal more than double the whole dividend of the East DIVIDE India company, the nominal masters to the proprietors in these funds. Burke, On the Nabob of Arcot's Debts. DIVINE. While through the pores nutritive portions tend, Their equal aliment dividual share, And similar to kindred parts adhere. Brookes. Universal Beauty, book iv. To this I answer that as we must suppose matter to be infinitely divisible, it is very unlikely, that any two, of all these particles, are exactly equal and alike. Edwards, (Ion.) On the Freedom of the Will, part iv. sec. 8. No priestly dogmas, invented on purpose to tame and subdue the rebellious reason of mankind, ever shocked common sense more than the doctrine of the infinite divisibility of extension, with its consequences. Hume. Essays, vol. ii. part ii. p. 158. sec. 12. Academical or Sceptical Philosophy. From a principle of gratitude I adhered to the coalition; my vote was counted in the day of battle; but I was overlooked in the division of the spoil. Gibbon. Memoirs of his own Life. DIVINE-SPEAKING, DIVINELY-INSPIRED, DIVINITY-ACT, DIVINITY-BOOK, DIVINITY-CHAIR, DIVINITY-CHAPEL, DIVINITY-CRITIC, DIVINITY-DISPUTATION, DIVINITY-DISPUTER, DIVINITY-LECTURE, DIVINITY-MATTER, DIVINITY-PROFessor, DIVINITY-READER, DIVINITY-SHIP. presaging. DIVINE. Fr. deviner; Sp. divinar; It. indouinare; Lat. divinare; Fr. adj. devin; It. and Sp. devino; Lat. divinus, from divus; Gr. dios. Godlike. Divinus was sometimes used (says Vossius) as a substantive pro vate, a prophet; because they were supposed to be able to understand and declare the will of the Gods (divúm voluntatem) from certain signs or tokens. And hence, to Divine, is To foretell, to presage, to foreknow, to prognosticate; and also, to conjecture or surmise, to guess, to presume, to anticipate. Adj. divine, Godlike, having the powers or attributes of God; superhuman, supernatural; preeminent, supremely excellent; by Milton, divining, A Divine is applied in common to a Professor of divinity or sacred theology; to one whose duty it is to study and expound the divine will as declared in Holy Writ; a Clergyman. Divine, the verb, is used by Drayton and Spenser ; as, to cause to be divine, to consecrate, to sanctify. And Dauid þe douhty pat devinede how Urye Mighte slilokeste [most slily] be slayn. Piers Plouhman. Vision, p. 179. And it was don whanne we gheden to preier, that a damysel that hadde a spirit of dyuynacioun mette us which ghaf greet wynnynge to hir lordes in dyuynyng. Wiclif. The Dedis of Apostles, ch. xvi. The paleis ful of peple up and doun, Chaucer. The Knightes Tale, v. 2517. Id. The firste Booke of Troilus, fol. 152. Then saied shee, this is (qd she) the olde question of the purueighaunce of God, and Marcus Tullius, when he deuided the deuinacions, that is to sayne, in his bookes that hee wrote of deuinacions, hee mooued greatlie this question. Id. The fifth Booke of Boecius, fol. 239. What say we of hem that beleven on divinales, as by slight or by noise of briddes or of bestes, or by sorte of geomancie, by dreames, by chirking of dores, or cracking of houses, by gnawing of rattes, and swiche maner wetchednesse? Id. The Persones Tale, vol. ii. p. 335. He [Sphinx] was ordained on the hill tabide And specially all, that did faile, To expoune, his misty deuinale. Lidgate. The Story of Thebes, part i. fol. 373. Els what difference is there betwene the prescience of thilke iape, worthy deuinyng of Tiresie deuinour, that saied. All that I say (qd he) either it shall be, or else it shall not be. Chaucer. The first Booke of Boecius, fol. 242. Id. The fifth Booke of Troilus, fol. 192. Id. The Knightes Tale, v. 2523. Id. Ib. v. 2813. Ye gaue me ones a diuine responsaile Chaucer. The Romant of the Rose, fol. 146. Philosophy is knowing of deuinely and maly things ioyned with study of good liuing, and this stant in two thyngs, that is cunning and opinion. Id. The thirde Booke of the Testament of Loue, fol. 308. And right thus were men wont to tech The maisters of diuinite Id. The Romant of the Rose, fol. 146. To this science been priuee The whiche vnto the people preche The feith of holy churche and teche. Gower. Conf. Am. book vii. fol. 142. Whervpon thei diuined that the mariage of the prince, should euer be a blot in the duke's iye, or mariage of the duke, a mote in the iye of the prince. Hall. Henry VI. The ninth Yere. Name you theim diuinacions? nay name theim diabolicall deuices, say you they be prognosticacions? nay they be pestiferous publyshinges. Id. Henry IV. The third Yere. Syne all these were mynystris of God in mortall, Fabyan. Prologues, p. 6. But finally a woman diuineresse, or contrarie, a soothsayer, that was had in great reputation of hir craftes, made the very declaracion of the saide letters. Golden Boke, ch. xxvi. M. 2. Lo where to commeth thy blandishyng promyse, Of Goddes secretes makyng thyselfe so wyse. Sir Thomas More. Workes, C. 3. A Ruful Lamentació. There is no creature but that it needeth other creatures, and thoughe thei bee of lesse perfection than itself, as philosophers and diuines prouen. Id. Ib. fol. 18. The Life of John Picus. He fled to his wyse men of the worlde, to his diuiners and charmers. Joye. Exposicion of Daniel, ch. v. He seconde person in diuinenesse is, Hakluyt. At length out of the river it [a harp] was reared, Great joy he promis'd to his thoughts, and now Milton. Paradise Lost, book ix. l. 845, Notwithstanding in the end they agreed between themselves, this controversie should be decided by the flying of birds, which do give a happy divination to things to come. Sir Thomas North. Plutarch, fol. 19. Romvlvs. After that Alexander had left his trust and confidence in the DIVI Gods, his mind was so troubled and afraid, that no strange thing happened unto him (how little soever it was) but he took it straight for a sign and prediction from the Gods: so that his tent was always full of priests and soothsayers, that did nothing but sacrifice and purifie, and tend upon divinements. Sir Thomas North. Plutarch, fol. 589. Alexander the Great. Attributing so much to their divinators ut ipse metus fidem faciat, that fear it selfe and conceipt, cause it to fall out: If he fore-tell sicknesse such a day, that very time they will be sick. Burton. Anatomy of Melancholy, fol. 166. Cicero, Plautus, Pausanias, and others, have remembred divers sorts of lots, used by the Romans, Grecians, and other nations : as in the division of grounds or honours; and in thing to be undertaken the two first kinds were called diversory; the third divinatory; and unto one of these three all may be reduced. Ralegh. History of the World, book ii. ch. xvi. sec. 2. Touching diviners of things to come, which is held a species of witchcraft, we may read they were frequent among the Romans; they had colleges for their augurs, and aruspices. Howell. Letter 23. book iii. The world cries you up to be an excellent divine and philsopher; first, by calling to mind, that afflictions are the proportion of the now is the time for you to make an advantage of both of the best Theophiles of the other, by a well-weigh'd consideration, that crosses and troubles are entail'd upon mankind as much as any other inheritance. Howell. Letter 41. book ii. For, beeing as she is divinely wrought, There is none of Hercules's followers in learning, I mean, the more industrious and severe enquirers into truth, but will dispise those delicacies and affectations, as indeed capable of no divineness. Bacon. On Learning, by G. Wats, book i. ch. iv. And turning him aside The goodly maid (full of divinities, Spenser. Faerie Queene, book iii. can. 5. Converse with those divinity-disputers as long as you will, you will hardly find one in a hundred discreet enough to be employed in any great affair either of war or peace. Hobbes. Works, fol. 558. Behemoth, part iii. And the eighth œcumenical council professeth to observe and keep the laws delivered not onely from the Apostles and orthodox Synods acumenical and topical, but even πρὸς τινὸς θεηγόρου πατρὸς διδασκαλου τῆς ἐκκλησίας, by any divine-speaking father, a doctour of the church. Hammond. Works, vol. ii. part ii. fol. 254. The Dispatcher Dispatcht. Writing to Macarius, a priest of Alexandria, he tells him that the knowledge of the true and divine religion and piety, does not much need the ministry of man; and that he might abundantly draw this forth from the divine books and letters: for truly the holy and divinely-inspired Scriptures are sufficient for the preaching of the truth. Taylor. Polemical Discourses, fol. 414. Of the sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures. Even this affirmation, which he confesseth, brought in this belief, is it self not now believed to be Saint Austine's, for I take it, he must mean his tract of the assumption, counted not his, by your own divinity-criticks, the Lovaine doctors, which have set it forth at Cullen. Hammond. Works, vol. ii. part i. fol. 662. The Lord Falkland's Reply. DIVINE. He discharged it with great sufficiency and admirable diligence, leaving his beloved studies to interest himself not only in moderating at divinity-disputations, which was then an immediate part of his task, but in presiding at the more youthful exercises of sophistry, themes, and declamations. The Life of Dr. Hammond. By John Fell. Let us therefore out of these divinity-inspir'd discourses, seek the solutions of our questions. Hammond. Works, vol. ii. part i. fol. 654. The Lord Falkland's Reply. In this conflict it was the lot of Dr. Hammond to have Master Vines for his antagonist; who instead of tendering a scholastick disputation, read from a paper a long divinity-lecture, wherein were interwoven several little cavels and exceptions, which were meant for arguments. The Life of Dr. Hammond. By John Fell. Caluine being admitted one of their preachers and a diuinitiereader amongst them, considered how dangerous it was that the whole estate of that church should hang still on so slender a thread, as the liking of an ignorant multitude is, if it haue power to change whatsoeuer itselfe listeth. Hooker. Ecclesiastical Polity. Preface, B. The University of Oxford would force a batchelor-of-divinityship upon him; and many are the superstitious writings he left to posterity. Fuller. Worthies. Kent. Eager to read the rest, Achates came, But besides this native institution, a foreign and exotic sect of diviners had gradually grown in fashion, the Haruspices of Tuscany; whose skill and province reached to three things, exta, fulgura, and ostenta, entrails of cattle, thunders, and monstrous births. Bentley. Of Free-Thinking, p. 225. Therefore there was plainly wanting a divine revelation, to recover mankind out of their universally degenerated estate, into a state suitable to the original excellency of their nature: which divine revelation, both the necessities of men and their natural notions of God, gave them reasonable ground to expect and hope for. Clarke. On the Attributes, p. 154. Some of our most eminent divines have made use of this Platonick notion, so far as it regards the subsistence of our passions after death, with great beauty and strength of reason. Spectator, No. 90. Dryden. On the Death of Amyntas. When we had once look'd into our-selves, and distinguish'd well the nature of our own affections, we shou'd probably be fitter judges of the divineness of a character, and discern better what affections were suitable or unsuitable to a perfect being. Shaftesbury. A Letter concerning Enthusiasm, sec. 5. It is a thing very destructive of religion, and the cause of almost all the divisions among Christians; when young persons at their first entring upon the study of divinity, look mane and perhaps modern forms of speaking, as the rule of their Clarke. On the Trinity. Introduction, xxi. faith. upon hu He was a more moderate Calvinian than either of his two DIVINE. predecessors (Holland and Humphrey) in the divinity-chair were, which he expressed by countenancing the sublapsarian way of pre- DIVINAdestination. TION. Wood. Athena Oxonienses, vol. i. fol. 431. At length Dr. Hutton having lived to the age of 75, died on the 17th of May in 1632, and was buried in the divinity-chappel (the north isle remotest from the choir) belonging to the cathedral of Ch. Ch. before mentioned, Id. Ib. vol. i. fol. 571. What I have here ventured to repeat, is addressed chiefly to those who you call ignorant; such, I mean as being otherwise engag'd in the world, have had little time perhaps to bestow upon inquirys into divinity-matters. Shaftesbury. Miscellaneous Reflections, misc. 5. ch. iii. It cannot be denied (nor am I much concerned to dissemble it) that here he possess'd another man's place, who by the iniquity of the times was wrongfully ejected; I mean Dr. Collins the famous and learned divinity-professor of that university. Tillotson. Sermon 24. his station in the English college became public professor, and He [Gregory Martin] went to Rheimes in France where fixing one of the divinity-readers there. Wood. Athene Oxonienses, vol. i. fol. 212. But not to one in this benighted age That burns in Shakespeare's or in Milton's page, Gray. Stanzas to Mr. Bentley. The wounded prince by ev'ry chief of note Cowper. Homer. Iliad, book iv. § 2. What, then, is it that leads us so often to divination? Cowardice; the dread of events. Hence we flatter the diviners. "Pray, sir, shall I inherit my father's estate ?"-" Let us see: let us sacrifice upon the occasion."-" Nay, sir, just as fortune pleases." Then, if he says, you shall inherit it, we give him thanks, as if we received the inheritance from him. The consequence of this is, that they play upon us. Carter. Epictetus, book ii. ch. vii. The grosser pagans contented themselves with divinizing lust, incest, and adultery; but the predestinarian doctors have divinized cruelty, wrath, fury, vengeance, and all the blackest vices. Ramsay. On Natural and Revealed Religion, part ii. p. 401. A belief in the existence of DIVINATION, or the art of foretelling events, however variously manifested, appears to be, except among Christians, coextensive with a belief in the Divinity, from which it derives its name. On this account, the Stoics considered the two propositions inseparable. Sunt Di; ergo est Divinatio. The fallacy of this conclusion is finely demonstrated by Cicero, whose second Book on this intricate subject is of insurpassable value, in exposing the knavery and absurdity of pretenders to supernatural knowledge. The connection of the greatest of truths with the most shameless of impostures, can only be accounted for by the progress of tradition. That, in the infancy of creation, the intercourse between the Creator and his works would be more immediate than afterwards, is a probable supposition, even if it were not expressly confirmed by the testimony of Sacred History. The decreasing necessities and advancing sins of a world approaching to maturity, hastened the period when, according to the Mythologists, Astræa fled to heaven, or when, in the expressive lanlonger strive with man. guage of inspiration, the Spirit of God would no That, in the primitive ages, some means of communication between God and man, from the history of Cain and Abel; and the same with which we are now unacquainted, existed, appears circumstance instructs us, that these means were connected with sacrifice, an extensive source of Divination in later ages. After the degeneracy of mankind had DIVINA- banished those real tokens of the Divine interest with TION. which they had been originally favoured, they no less endeavoured to obtain counsel and information by the same external observances; but, finding them no longer efficient, they invented a multitude of superstitious ceremonies, which, in the progress of religious corruption, and beneath the influence of idolatry, became the hydra Divination. On the supposition of this traditional origin, and on no other, can we account for the minute resemblance which we discover between methods of Divination, utterly untraceable to natural reason, but prevalent in the most distant regions of the globe; and the acknowledged antiquity and universality of this pretended art, renders it impossible to assign its origin to any period below the immediate influence of primeval tradition. Vetus opinio est (says Cicero, in the opening of his Treatise de Divinatione) jam usque ab heroicis ducta temporibus, eaque et populi Romani et omnium gentium firmata consensu, versari quandam inter homines Divinationem, quam Græci paνTIK appellant, id est, præsensionem, et scientiam rerum futurarum. By the heroic times we know that the ancients understood a period antecedent to all historical records; and indeed the fable in which the origin of Divination is involved, would sufficiently prove its very high antiquity. Prometheus, in the Play of that title by Eschylus, (474,) lays claim to the invention of various kinds of Divination, viz. Oneirocriticks, or the interpretation of dreams; omens derived from sounds; (λncovas Te dvoкpiτHs, an expression of somewhat ambiguous signification ;) Augury, or the observation of birds; Extispicy, the observation of entrails; Symbolomancy, Divination by objects occurring on the road; and Pyromancy, by which conjectures were made from the motions of the sacrificial flame. Divination, therefore, as a regular and systematic science, had existence long before any probable Grecian history. Prometheus, according to Servius, (ad Virg. Ecl. vi. 42,) instructed the Assyrians in Astrology; and the Assyrians are generally regarded in classical antiquity as the great masters and authors of the occult sciences. As Assyria was among the countries which were first peopled, this general testimony is an additional argument in favour of the hypothesis, that the art of Divination has descended from primitive tradition; and it is remarkable, that the first instance supposed to be mentioned in Scripture of this superstitious usage, respects the images of Laban, who was a native of Padan Aram, a district bordering on that country. Divination is distributed by most authors on the subject into natural and artificial; the former of these is only granted to individuals especially favoured by the Deity, and consists in express revelations, prophetical powers, and significant dreams. Artificial Divination is attainable by all possessed of diligence and patience, to say nothing of a little credulity. It consists in the careful observation of external phenomena, which possess mysterious sympathies with future or occult events; and, as such connections pervade the whole frame of nature, hence naturally arise those ingenious varieties, Astrology, Aeromancy, Meteoromancy, Pyromancy, Hydromancy, Geomancy, Chiromancy, Rhabdomancy, Physiognomancy, Necromancy, and 10,000 others, alike imposing, profound, and veritable. Although all the most usual methods of artificial Divination are, doubtless, of very high antiquity, and the greater part were, probably, invented .T .T. TION. before any very extensive dispersion of mankind had DIVINAtaken place, peculiarities of situation had certainly some influence on their several cultivation. The Assyrians, Egyptians, and Ethiopians, on account of their clear sky and level country, were always attached to Astrology; to the latter, indeed, but without any probability, Lucian ascribes the discovery of the art. (De Astrolog. ch. iii.) In Etruria, the frequency of sacrifice and the temperament of the air, gave popularity to Extispicy and Meteoromancy. In Egypt, a belief in oracular dreams had prevailed at an early period, as we find from the readiness with which the butler and baker of Pharaoh disclosed their dreams to Joseph: and the existence of a kind of Scyphomancy, or Divination with a cup, is supposed to be alluded to in Genesis, xliv. 5, but the passage will admit of various senses. In the time of Herodotus, individuals were not allowed to exercise the art of Divination in Egypt; all knowledge of this kind was to be sought from the public oracles, (ii. 83.) Phonicia was particularly fruitful in superstitions of this, as of every other nature. On this account we meet with a great variety of terms in Scripture, the precise import of which it is not easy to assign. The general term wn, which the LXX render by the verb oiwview, and the Vulgate by auguror, probably refers to a mode of Divining by serpents, the Ophiomancy of the Greeks, or that mentioned by Ostanes in Pliny, (Hist. Nat. xxx. 2,) effected by basins; n equally signifying a " serpent” and “brass.", opvoкÓTTOL, LXX, somnia observantes, Vulgate, either from ry, 66 an eye," and may therefore mean any kind of observers; or from, "to answer," and may therefore express the consulters or retailers of oracles. Dop is a word of which no satisfactory explanation has been given. Perhaps it is simply generic. —an is rendered malefici, pápμako; they were, perhaps, pretenders to magic rather than to Divination. 737 17, "the enchanter," is, perhaps, to be referred to the same class, although some regard him as an Astrologer. Necromancy and Rhabdomancy are also prohibited in Scripture; this latter mode of exploring futurity is probably the same with lots, which, perhaps, originally were nothing more than small sticks; such a species of Divination existed among the Scythians and among the Teutonic nations; and the "mingling of arrows" mentioned by Ezekiel, xxi. 21, (for so most critics understand the passage,) as practised by the King of Babylon, was a ceremony of the same kind. On this subject Archbishop Newcome observes, "Seven Divining arrows were kept in the temple of Mecca; but generally, in Divination, the idolatrous Arabs made use of three only. On one was written, 'My lord hath commanded me;' on another, My lord hath forbidden me; and the third was blank. If the first was drawn, they looked upon it as an approbation of the enterprise in question; if the second, they made a contrary conclusion; but if the third happened to be drawn, they mixed them, and drew over again, till a decisive answer was given by one of the others." Jerome's observation on the same passage is not very dissimilar, "They wrote on |