To have one in our bosom implies kindness, secrecy, intimacy (Gen. xvi, 5 ; 2 Sam. xii, 8). Christ is in (n'c, into) the bosom of the Father; that is, possesses the closest intimacy with, and most perfect knowledge of, the Father (John i, 18). Our Saviour is said to carry his lambs in his bosom, which touchingly represents his tender care and watchfulness over them (Isa. xl. 11). See Abraham's Bosom.
Bo'sor (Boffdp), the Graxized form of the name of a place and of a man.
1. A city, both large and fortified, on the east of Jordan, in "the land of Gilead (Galaad), named with Bozrah (Bosora), Carnaim, and other places, in 1 Mace, v, 26, 36. It is probably the Bezer (q. v.) of Num. iv, 43 (see Grimm, E.reg. Handb. in loc).
2. The Aramaic mode of pronouncing the name of Beor (q. v.), the father of Balaam (2 Pet. ii, 15), in accordance with the substitution, frequent in Chaldee,
I of 2 for S (see Gesenius, Tkes. p. 1144).
Bos'ora (Boaapa and Booojfya), a strong city in Gilead, taken by Judas Maccabaeus (1 Mace, v, 26, 28), doubtless the same as the Bozrah (q. v.) of Moab (Jer. xlviii, 24). But see Schwarz, Palest, p. 223.
Boss (~J, gab, literally the bach or gibbous part of any thing, spoken elsewhere of earthen bulwarks ["bodies"] or ramparts, Job xiii. 12; the vault ["em- inent place," etc.] of a brothel, Ezek. xvi, 24; xxxi, 39; the eye-"6>-ows," Lev. xiv, 9; the rim or "nave" of a wheel, 1 Kings vii, 33), the exterior convex part of a buckler, Job xv, 26 (comp. Schultens, Comm. in loc). See Shield.
Bossuet, Jacques Benigne, bishop of Meaux, was born at Dijon, Sept. 27, 1627, of an eminent legal family. He studied first at Dijon, under the Jesuits, and thence proceeded to Paris, where he soon sur-
BOSSUET
858
BOSTON"
passed his teachers by his acquirements. He took the doctor's bonnet May 16, 1652, and in the same year was received into priest's orders. He passed some time in retreat at St. Lazare, and afterward re- moved to Metz, of winch cathedral he was canon. Daring his frequent visits to Paris on affairs connected with the chapter of Metz, he preached often with mar- vellous effect. His sermons were almost entirely ex- tempore ; he took to the pulpit a few notes on paper, but a mind filled, by previous meditation, with his subject. From 1660 to 1GG9 Bossuet gradually rose to his high pitch of eminence among the divines of the Gallican Church. During that period he composed his celebrated Exposition de la doctrine Caiholique, which had to wait nine years for the pope's "imprimatur." The points on which he chiefly lays stress are the an- tiquity and unity of the Catholic Church; the accu- mulated authorities of fathers, councils, and popes ; ami the necessity of a final umpire in matters of doc- trine and discipline. On all these points, however, he was ably answered by the venerable John Claude and other ministers of the French Calvinists, as well as by Archbishop Wake, who, in his "Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England," exposes much management and artifice in the suppression and alter- ation of Bossuet's first edition. In 1669 he was nomi- nated to the see of Condom ; and it was about this time that his celebrated Funeral Discourses were deliv- ered. These sermons are only six in number, but, according to Laharpe, *'ce sont des chefs-d'oeuvre dune eloquence qui ne pouvait pas avoir de modele dans l'antiquite, et que personnc n'a egalee depuis." But, in truth, these "orations are rather master- pieces of rhetorical skill than specimens of Christian preaching." The king having, in 1670, appointed him preceptor of the dauphin, Bossuet resigned his bishop- ric, his duties at court being incompatible with his ideas of what the episcopal office demanded of him. His office with the dauphin being completed in 1681, he was presented to the see of Meaux, and in the fol- lowing year produced his Traitede la Communion sous Irs di ux Especes. In 1688 appeared the Histoire des Vari- ations dp VegUsi Protestante. The first live books nar- rate the rise and progress of the Reformation in Ger- main- ; the 6th treats of the supposed sanction given by Luther and Melancthon to the adulterous marriage of the Landgrave of Hesse ; the 7th and 8th books con- tain the ecclesiastical history of England during the reigns of Henry VIII and of Edward VI, and a con- tinuation of that of German y. The French Calvinists are discussed in book ix, and the assistance afforded to them by Queen Elizabeth, on the avowed principle that subjects might levy war against their sovereign on account of religious differences (a doctrine which Bossuet asserts to have been inculcated by the reform- ers), forms the groundwork of book x. Book xi treats of the Albigenses and other sects from the 0th to the 12th centuries, who are usually esteemed precursors of the reformed. Books xii and xiii continue the Hu- guenot history till the synod of Gap. Book xiv gives an account of the dissensions at Dorr, Charenton, and : and book xvand last endeavors to prove the divine authority, and therefore the infallibility of the true ( Jhurch, and to exhibit the marks by which Borne asserts her claim to that title. Basnage, Jurieu, and Bishop linnet replied to the Variations, but perhaps the sharpest reply is Archbishop Wake's (given in Gib- Bon's Prest rvativi ay linsi Popery), in which Bossuet is convicted not merely of inaccuracy, but also of false quotations. In 1689 Bossuet published the Explica- tion >/ V Apocalypse, and in the same year the first of til- Avertissemens <mx Protestans; the five others fol- lowed in tie- subsequent year. These Avertissemens are replies to tie- pastoral letters of Jurieu, attacking tic Histoire d i Variations. While the bishop was writ- ing these replies the general answer to the Variations by Basn.ige appeared, to which he rejoined in his De-