A name which, among the ancients, seemed to have denoted a principle of fortuity, whereby things came to pass without being necessitated thereto; but what and whence that principle is, they do not seem to have ever precisely thought. It does not appear that the antiquity of the word is very high. It is acknowledged, on all hands, that word, from whence the Romans took their fortuna, was a term invented long after the times of Hesiod and Homer, in whose writings it no where occurs. The philosophical sense of the word coincides with what is vulgarly called chance. It is difficult to ascertain what it denotes in the minds of those who now use the word. It has been justly observed, that they who would substitute the name of providence in lieu of that of fortune, cannot give any tolerable sense to half the phrases wherein the word occurs.
Despite a stated reliance on the plain meaning of the Bible and the dictates of common sense, Buck's Theological Dictionary, first published in London in 1802, seeks to provide a textual basis for the evangelical community. By combining brief essays on orthodox belief and practice with historical entries on various denominations, Buck provided an interpretive lens that allowed antebellum Protestants to see Christianity's almost two millennia as their own history.Wikipedia
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