COMBER
426
COMMANDMENT
had entered the Dominican order; the EccUsiastet Grw- CUM (Par. 1674), containing a Latin translation of select works of Basil the Great and Basil bishop of Seleuda ; and new editions of the works of Maximos Confessor (Paris, 1676, 2 vols. fol. : this work was left incom- plete in consequence of the death of Combefis) and of Basil the Great. The edition of Gregory of Nazian- zos, and of the works of those Byzantine writers who wrote after Theophanes, were prepared by Combefis, bat not finished. The latter was published by Du Fresno (Paris, 1685) ; the former was made use of by the Maurine Lonvard for his edition of Gregory. Com- befis died March 23, 1679. See Wetzer n. Welte,^tn:A- en-Lex. ii, 701 sq.; Quetif and Echard, Script, Ord, Prcedic. ii, 678 sq.
Comber, Thomas, a learned English divine, was bom at Westerham, Kent, March 19, 1644. It is said that he could read Greek at ten years old. Admitted B.A. at Cambridge in 1662, he was made Prebendary of York in 1677, dean of Durham in 1691, and died in 1699. His chief works are : Companion to the Temple (new edit., Oxford, 1841, 7 vols. 8vo, one of the most complete works extant on the Book of Common Pray- er) •.—Short Discourses on the Common Prayer (1684, 8vo) : — Roman Forgeries in the Councils of ika first fow Centuries (London, 1689, 4to). His Memoirs^ by his great grandson, T. Comber, were published in London in 1799 (8vo).— Hook, Eccles, Biography, iv, 166; Kip- pis, Biogrcqthia Britemnica, iv, 45.
Comber, Thomas, grandson of the preceding, passed M.A. at Cambridge in 1770, and LL.D. in 1777. He died rector of Buckworth in 1778. Besides the JJfi of his grandfather, mentioned above, he wrote Tie Heathen Rejection of Christianity in the first Ages considered (Lond. 1747, 8vo) i-^Examinaiion of Middle- ton^s Discourse against Miracles (8vo): — Treatise of LoMDS^from the Greek ofSyUmrgius (1776, 8vo).
ComeniUB (properly Komensky)^ John Amos, was bom at Comna, in Moravia, March 28, 1592. Hav- ing studied at*Herbom and Heidelberg, he entered the ministry of the Bohemian Brethren's Church, and took charge (1616) of the parish of Prerau, as also of the rectorship of its theological seminary. In 1618 he re- moved to Fulneck, where he filled the same offices. Driven from his native country in the Bohemian anti- Beformation, he settled at Lissa, in Poland, where he superintended the high school of the Brethren. In 1632 he became one of their bishops, and, as soch, pre- pared the way for their renewal as a church, caring in particular for the continuance of their episcopal suc- cession. His skill as an educator, especially his new method of teaching Latin, gave him great celebrity, and he traveled through a large part of Protestant Europe to improve the methods of education, being called to England for this purpose in 1641, and to Sweden in 1642. He became closely connected with the mystic Antoinette Bourignon (q. v.), and in 1657 published Lux in Tenebris (4to), in which he reported the '* visions" of Kotter, Poniatovia, and Drabicius. In after years, however, he regretted this connection, and acknowledged that *'he had l^en entangled in an inextricable labyrinth." He settled finally at Am- sterdam, where he died in 1631. His principal works are : JTteatrum divinum (Prague, 1616) : — Labyrinth der Welt (Prague, 1681 ; Berlin, 1787) :-^anua linguarum reserata (Lissa, 1631), translated into many languages, and, among others, into Persian and Arabic, an ele- mentary encyclopedia divided into 100 chapters and 1000 paragraphs : — Opera didaciica onmia (Amst. 1657, fol.) : — Ratio disdpliwB ordinisque ecd. in Unitate Fro- trum Bohemorum (Lissa, 1632 ; Amstcrd. 1660 ; Halle, 17(^2 ; in German by Koppen ; in English by SeifTerth, Ch, Const, of the Boh. Brethren (Lond. 1867).
Comer, John, one of the early Baptist ministers
<n America, was bom in Boston, Aug. 1, 1704. He was
renticed to a glover, but at seventeen, by the influ-
ence of Increase Mather, he was released by his flus- ter, and soon entered Harvard College, whence he re- moved, after a few years, to Yale. In 1721 he joiaai the Congregationalist Church at Cambridge, bat ■ 1725 became a Baptist, connecting himself with Mz. Callender's church in Boston. In the same year he began preaching, and in 1726 he was ordained co-pss- tor at Newport In 1729 a dispute about the *'Uy^ on of hands" in admitting baptized members into tht Church led to his dismissal f^om his charge. In ITS he became pastor at Old Rehoboth, about ten mSa from Providence, where he died of consumptkm, Msj 23, 1734. He left a Diary m MS., which is of grot interest for the early history of the Baptist Chmch ia America. — Sprague, Annals^ vi, 42.
Comforter. See Holt Spirit.
Coming (irapowria, being pretent) of Chbisi, t phrase employed, (1.) literally, in reference to oar Lord's first appearance in the flesh (1 John v, 20; 1 John vii), or to his fature appearance at the last (kj to fulfil his promises to raise the dead and judge the world in righteousness (Acts i, 11 ; iii, 20, 21 ; 1 Tbea. iv, 15 ; 2 Tim. iv, 1 ; Heb. ix, 28).
(2.) Metaphorically, Christ is said to come when las Gospel is introduced or preached in anj x»Iace by la ministers (John xv, 22; Ephes. ii, 17}; when hu church or kingdom is visibly or powerfully mtablisbwi in the world (Matt, xvi, 28) ; when he bestowa upoa believers the influence of Ids spirit, and the necolir tokens of his love (John xiv, 18, 23, 28) ; when be a- ecutes his judgment on wicked communities who reject or corrupt his Gospel (2 Thess. ii, 8) ; and when ik providence calls us away from the world by death, as preparatory to the judgment of the last day (Matt xxiv, 42). The basis of this metaphorical usage is regard to the coming of Chrbt is the same as In rela- tion to the coming of God; that as he governs the world, every specific act of his providence and author- ity indicates his presence in a more striking znanB9 to human conception, on the principle that no ageet can act where he is not. See Eschatologt.