ANA 
9. Amyris baifamifera, or fweet amyris, or white tam¬ 
ale-wood, or rofe-wood : leaves two-paired. It grows to 
a conliderable lize, and is one of the moft valuable timber- 
trees in the ifland of Jamaica, but not common. The 
wood is white, and of a curled grain when young, but 
grows of a dirty clouded afli-colour with age : it bears a 
fine polith, and has a pleafant fmell. It is heavy, and in 
great repute among cabinet-makers. All the parts of this 
tree are full of warm aromatic particles, and may be ufed 
in baths and fomentations. The berries are oblong, and 
have much of the taffe of the balfarn copaiba. An infu- 
f’ion of the leaves has a very pleafant flavour, is highly 
cephalic, ftrenghens the nerves, and isparticularly reflo- 
rative to'weak eyes. 'There are feveral fpecies of amyris 
in Jamaica, the leaves and bark of which are impregnated 
with a fine balfamic juice ; and, if the body was tapped at 
the proper feafon, might be found to tranfude a thick 
liquor refembling that of the Gilead balfarn, to which the 
tatie of this bark, and wood of the fmaller branches, bears 
a very exaft relation. See Ximenia. 
AN, art. lane, Sax. een, Dut. eine, Ger. ] The article 
indefinite, ufed before a vowel, or h mute. One, but with 
lefs emphafis ; as, there Hands a houfe.—Since lie cannot 
be always employed in ftudy, reading, and converfation, 
there will be many an hour, belides what his exercifes will 
take up. Locke. —Any, or fomej as, an elephant might 
fwim in this water : 
A wit’s a feather, and a chief a rod; 
An honeft man’s the nobleft work of God. Pope. 
Sometimes it fignifies, like a, fome particular (late ; but 
this is now difufed.—It is certain that odours do, in a (mail 
degree, nourifh ; efpecially the odour of wine; and we 
fee men an' hungred do love to fmell hot bread. Bacon. 
^—An is fometimes, mold authors, a contraction oiandif: 
He can’t flatter,, he ! 
An honelt mind and plain ; he mull fpeak truth. 
An they will take it, fo ; if not, he’s plain. Shakefpeare. 
Sometimes a contraction of and before if: 
Well I know 
The clerk will ne’er wear hair on’s face that had it. 
•-He will an ’ if he live to be a man. Shakefpeare. 
Sometimes it is a- contraction of as if. —My next pretty 
correfpondent, like Shakefpeare’s lion in Pyramus and 
Thifbe, roars an' it were any nightingale. Addifon. 
A'NA, adv. [av«] A word ufed in-the preferiptions of 
phyfic, importing the like quantity ; as, wine and honey, 
a or ana 5 ii; that is, of wine and honey each two ounces. 
In the fame weight innocence and prudence take, 
Ana, of each does the juft mixture make. Cowley. 
Ana, f. in matters of literature, a Latin termination, 
adopted into the titles of feveral books in other languages. 
Anas, or books in ana , are collections of the memorable 
fayings of perfons of learning and wit ; much the fame 
“with what we otherwife call table-talk. Wolfius has given 
the hiltcry of books in ana, in the preface to the Cafau- 
boniana; He there obferves, that, though fuch titles be 
new, the thing itfelf is very old ; that Xenophon’s books 
of the deeds and fayings of Socrates, as well as the dia¬ 
logues of Plato, are Socratiana ; that the apophthegms-of 
the philofophers called by Diogenes Laertius the fentences 
of Pythagoras and thefe of Epiftctus, the works of Athe- 
nteus, Siobeus, and divers others, are fomany anas. Even- 
the Gemara of the Jews, with feveral other oriental w rit¬ 
ings, according to Wolfius, properly belong to the fame- 
clafs. To this head of ana may likewife be referred the 
Orphica,- the Pythagoraea, dEfopica, Perrhonea, &c. Sca- 
ligerana was the firlt piece that appeared with a title in ana. 
It was compofed by I fan de Vafian, ayoung Champanois, 
recommended to Jof. Scaliger by Cafaubon. Being much 
with Scaliger, who was daily vifited by the men of learn¬ 
ing at Leyden, De VaflTan wrote down whatever things of 
2 
ANA 5 o 5 
any moment he heard Scaliger fay. And thus arofe the 
Scaligerana, which was not printed till many years after, 
at Geneva in 1666. Putin. Let. 431. Soon after came 
the Perroniana, Thuana, Naudaeana, Patineana, Soberi- 
ana, Menagiana, Anti-Menagiana, Furetiana, Chevracana, 
Leibnitziana, Arlequiniana, Poggiana, &c. 
ANABAPTiS'Cl ON,_/i the lame with Acaftiston. 
ANABAP'TISTS, [ Anabaptife , Fr. of ctvtx. PaAQu’, 
Gr. i. e. to rebaptize.] a name which has been indiicri- 
minately applied to Chriftians of very different principles 
and practices; though many of them objeft to the deno¬ 
mination, and hold nothing in common, befides the opinion 
that baptifm ought always to be performed by immerfion, 
and not adminiftered before the age of difcretion. 
The Donatifts may be conlidered as a kind of Anabap-- 
tifts in the earlier age's, though not then denoted by this 
name ; for they contended, that thofe Cliriftians of the 
catholic church who joined themfelves to their refpeCtive 
parties fhould be rebaptized. But we mult not clafs un¬ 
der the fame denomination thofe biihops of Alia and A- 
frica, who, in the third century, maintained, that baptifm 
adminiftered by thofe whom they called heretics was not 
valid, and-therefore that fuch of them as returned into 
their churches ought to be rebaptized. Nor do the Eng- 
li/h and Dutch Baptifts coulider the denomination as at all 
applicable to their feet : by whom the baptilm appointed 
by Chrift is held to be “ nothing fhort of immerfion, upon' 
a perfonal profeilion of faith ;” of which profeffion infants 
being incapable, and l'prinkling being no adequate fym'bot 
of the thing intended, the baptizing of proielytes to their 
communion, who in their infancy had undergone the ce¬ 
remony of l'prinkling, cannot, it is urged, be interpreted a 
repetition of the baptifmal ordinance. 
Anabaptifts, in a ftriCt and proper fenfe, appear to be 
thofe who not only rebaptize, when they arrive at an adule 
age, perfons that were baptized in their infancy, but alfo,. 
as often as any perfon comes from one of their feCts to 
another, or as often as any one is excluded from their com¬ 
munion and again received into the bofom of their church, , 
they baptize him. And fuch were many of the German 
Baptifts. But the (ingle opinion common to all the lefts' > 
to which the name of .nnabaptifs has been indifcriminately. 
applied, is that of the invalidity of infant baptifm, in what¬ 
ever way adminiftered : and hence the general denomina¬ 
tion of Antipcedobaptijls ; which includes Anabaptifts, Bap- - 
tilts, Mennonites, Waterlandians, &c. as diftingurfhed by 
their relpective peculiarities ; though Anabnptijt's feems to - 
have been adopted by mod writers as the general term. 
The Anabaptifts appear to have made Tittle noife, or to 
have been-little noticed, before the-time, of the reform¬ 
ation in Germany. The meft prudent and rational part 
of them confidered it pofflble, by human vvifdom, in- 
duftry, and vigilance, to purify the Church from the con¬ 
tagion of the wicked, provided tire manners and fpirit of 
the primitive Chriftians-could but recover their loft digni¬ 
ty and luftre ; and feeing the attempts of Luther, fecond- 
ed by feveral perfons of eminent- piety, prove fo fuccefsful, 
they hoped that the happyperied was arrived in which 
the reftoration of the church to purity was to be aecom- 
plifhed, under the divine protection, by the labours and 
counfels of pious and eminent men. Others, far from 
being fatisfied with the plan of reformation prepofed by 
Luther, looked upon it as much beneath the fublimity of 
their views ; and -confequently undertook a more perfect 
reformation, orj to exprefs more properly their viiionary 
enterprife, - they propoled to found a new church, entirely 
fpiritual, and truly divine. 
This fteCt’ was foon joined by great numbers, and by 
many perfons whofe characters and capacities were very 
different, though their views feemed to turn upon the 
fame objeft. Their progrefs was rapid; for, in’a very 
fhort time, their difeourfes, vilions, and predictions, ex¬ 
cited commotions in a great part of Europe, and drew 
into their communion a prodigious multitude, whofe ig¬ 
norance rendered them eafy victims to the illufions of en- 
thufiafuii. . 
