PERCY
937
PERDITION
gave to other authors is often acknowledged by them, and especially by Mr. Nichols, in several of his works. When Percy became a bishop he tlioiight it his duty to devote himself entirely to his diocese. He resided from that time almost constantly at the palace of Dromore, where he lived grcatlj' respected and beloved. After a life in the main prosperous and happy, he tasted of some of the afflictions of mortality. In 1782 he lost an only son. His eyesight failed him, and he became at length totally blind. He died at the palace of Dro- more September 30, 1811. The memory of bishop Percy has been honored by the foundation of a literary association called the Percy Society. (J. H. W.)
Percy, William, D.D., a somewhat noted Epis- copal clergj'man, was born in Warwickshire, England, in 1744; was educated at Edmund Hall, Oxford, and after having taken holy orders in 1767, filled a number of ecclesiastical posts in the Church of England until 1816, when he came to America, and was made rector of St. Paul's Church, Radcliffeborough, South Carolina. In 1819 lie returned to England, and died at London. He published. An Apolo'jyfor the Kjnsco]xil Church., in a series of letters on the nature, ground, and founda- tion of the Episcopacj' : — The Clergyman s and People' s Remembrancer. See Sprague, Annals of the Amer. Pul- pit, vol. Episcopalians, p. 293-96.
Perdiccas (ITspcii/c/fftf) flourished as a prothono- tary at Ephesus in the 14th century (1347), and is the author of a poem which was inserted in a compilation of Allatius, entitled Su/tjuiKra (published at Amster- dam in 1653). The sul)ject is the miraculous events connected with Christ's history, principally those of which Jerusalem was the theatre. But besides Jeru- salem, ho visits Bethany, Bethpage, and Bethlehem. In this poem (which consists of 260 verses of that kind termed politici) he writes as if from personal inspec- tion, but, if this were really the case, he is wanting iu clearness and distinctness of delineation. While some of the details are curious, his geographj"^ is singularlj' inaccurate. Tims he places Galilee on the northern skirts of the Mount of Olives. If we may trust a con- jecture' hazarded bj' Fabricius, he attended a synod held at Constantinople A.D. 1347, at which were pres- ent two of the same name, Theodorus and Georgius Perdiccas (Allatius, I. c. ; Fabricius, Bibl. Grcec. iv, 663; viii, 99). — Smith, Diet, of Gr. and Rom. Blogr. and Mythol. iii, 189.
Perdition. This word is never used in the Old Testament and but rarely in the New, but the idea which it convej's runs through the whole of Scripture. Various Hebrew words, and especially the word "l^N, " to destroj'," are translated bj' the Greek words «V(^'- 'Xtia and oXiSipor, and the primary meaning in most cases is waste, loss, disappearance, or physical dissolu- tion; sometimes, however, the meaning appears to be sorrow, shame, or degradation.
I. Let us examine in what sense nations and cities have been subjected to perdition. God is the ruler of the nations of the world, and if thej' provoke him to anger they are threatened with destruction. Thus God determines to destroy man (Gen. vi, 7) for his wickedness, and only Noah and his family are saved. Sodom and the neighlwring cities are destroyed (Gen. xix), and only Lot and his daughters are permitted to escape. In these cases apparentlj^ supernatural means are taken for carrying out God's purpose, but in other cases man is made the instrument of destruction, as in the case of the Canaanitish nations. Sometimes the prevalent idea is the desolation of the country when the people have left it (Ezek. vi, 14 ; Jer. xlviii, 3). Often it has reference to great national calamities and reverses (Obad. 13; Esth. viii, 6; Isa. xlvii, 11); and occasionally it expresses the extinction of a single familj' (1 Kings xiii, 34). Sometimes the nations who have been tlnis " destroj'ed" rise up again, and some- times they seem to come to an end altogether.
II. We now pass to the case oi individuals ; and here we have to distinguish several kinds of destruction or perdition.
1. There is present perdition, or the lost state of the soul until it partakes of a present salvation. The Son of Man came to seek that which was lost (Luke xix, 10). The idea here presented is that of a soul which has fallen from its high estate and has become a wreck, but it is capable of renovation and restoration by the power of Jesus Christ ; and the idea is well illustrated by the story of the son who " was lost and is found," and bj' the parables of the lost sheep and the lost piece of money.
2. Temporal calamity and death are often included under the term destruction (Prov. i, 27 ; xi, 10 ; Rom. ix, 22 ; and perhaps 1 Cor. xv, 18). But when we read of the destruction coming on the wicked (Psa. cxlv, 20), and that they are "reserved unto the day of destruction" (Job xxi, 30), we perceive that there must be a third meaning given to the word liefore us. We read in four passages of " Hades and destruction," as if this involved something beyond death (Job xxvi, 6; xxviii, 22; Prov. xv, 12; xxvii, 20). We find that some are to be destroyed "forever" (Psa. Iii, 5); we read of him who after death can " destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matt, x, 28), and that men may gain the whole world and lose their own souls, and be rejected or cast away. We find that there is a broad road leading to destruction and trod hy many, which however may be avoided; this cannot be mere physical death, for no man can avoid that. It must therefore be something beyond death, and must be the end of a misspent existence, and so we read of some that their "end is destruction" (Phil, iii, 19), and that while some men are awZoftivoi, or in the way to be saved, others are n-KoWv^tvoi, or in the way to be destro3'ed (1 Cor. i, 18 ; 2 Cor. ii, 15 ; iv, 3). The author of this final destruction is God (James iv, 12) ; whereas the two kinds of perdition previously named seem con- nected with the power of Satan, who is called Abaddon or Apollyon. Final destruction is the alternative to salvation, and appears to be especially set forth in the New Testament as the lot of those wlio deliljcratel}- re- ject or recede from the Gospel (Phil, i, 28; Heb. x, 39; 2 I'et. ii), and it will be awarded in the time of judg- ment (2 Pet. iii, 7).