BEL 
are: i. Sommaire d’un Cours d’Architecture militaire, ci¬ 
vile, & hydraulique, in nmo, 3720. Nouveau Cours de 
Mathentatiques, &c. in qto, 1725. 3. La Science des In- 
genieurs, in 4to, 1729. 4. Le Bombardier Franyois, in 
4to, 1734. 5. Architecture Hydraulique, 4 vols. in 4to, 
173.^. 6. Didtionnaire portatif de lTiigenieur, in Svo. 7. 
Traite des Fortifications, 4 vols. in 410. Betides feveral 
ieces inferted in the volumes of the Memoirs of the Aca- 
emy of Sciences, for the years 1737, 1750, 1753, and 1756. 
To BELI'E, v.a. [from 'be and lie. ] To counterfeit; to 
feign; to mimic. To give the lie to ; to charge with falfe- 
hood: 
Sure there is none but fears a future (late; 
And, when the mod obdurate fvvear they do not, 
Their trembling hearts belie their boaftful tongues. Dryd. 
To calumniate ; to raife falfe reports of any man. To 
give a falfe reprefentation of any thing. To fill with lies. 
This feems to be its meaning here: 
’Tis flander, vvhofe breath 
Rides on the polling winds, and doth belie 
All corners of the world. Shahefpeare. 
BELIEF', f. [from believe.'] Credit given to fomething, 
which we know not of ourfelves, on account of the autho¬ 
rity by which it is delivered : 
Thofe comforts that fltall never ceafe, 
Future in hope, but prefent in belief. Wot ton. 
The theological virtue of faith, or firm confidence of the 
truths of religion.—No man can attain belief by the bare 
contemplation of heaven and earth; for that they neither 
are fufficient to give us as much as the lead fpark of light 
concerning the very principal myderies of our faith. Hook- 
er. —Religion; the body of tenets held by the profedors 
of faith.—In the heat of general perfecution, whereunto 
Chritlian belief was fubjeCt upon the fird promulgation, it 
much confirmed the weaker minds, when relation was 
made how God had been glorified through the fufferings 
of martyrs. Hooker. —Perfuation; opinion. The thing be¬ 
lieved ; the objeCt of belief.—Superditious prophecies are 
not only the belief of fools, but the talk fometimes of wife 
men. Bacon. —Creed ; a form containing the articles of faith. 
Belief has no relation to any particular kind of means 
or arguments, but may be produced by any means what¬ 
ever. Thus we are faid to believe our fenfes, to believe 
our reafon, to believe a witnefs, &c. And hence, in rhe¬ 
toric, all forts of proofs, from whatever topics deduced, 
are called Tnre k, becaufe apt to get belief or perfuafion 
touching the matter in hand. Belief, in its more redrain¬ 
ed and technical fenfe, invented by the fchoolmen, denotes 
that kind of alfent which is grounded only on the autho¬ 
rity or tedimony of Come perfon or perfons, afferting or 
atteding the truth of any matter propcfed. In this fenfe, 
belief dands oppofed to knowledge and fcience. We do not 
fay we believe that fnow is white, or that the whole is 
equal to its parts; but we fee and know them to be fo. 
That the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right 
angles, or that all motion is naturally rectilinear, are not 
faid to be things credible, but fcientifical; and the com- 
prehenfion of Inch truths is not belief, but fcience. But 
when a thing propounded to us is neither apparent to our 
fenfe, nor evident to our underdanding ; neither certainly 
to be collected from any clear and neceffary connection 
with the caufe from which it proceeds, nor with the ef¬ 
fects which it naturally produces; nor is taken up upon 
any real arguments, or relation thereof to other acknow¬ 
ledged truths; and yet, notwithdanding, appears as true, 
not by manifefiation, but by an attedation, of the truth, 
and moves us to alfent, not of itfelf, but in virtue of a 
tedimony given to it: this is faid to be properly credible ; 
and an affent to this is the proper notion of belief or faith. 
BEI.IE'NE, a town of Egypt, twelve miles S. of Girge. 
BELIEV'ABLE, adj. Credible; that which may be 
credited or believed. 
BEL 867 
To BELIE'VE, v.a. [ gelyfan , Sax.] To credit upon 
the authority of another, or from fome other reafon than 
olir perfonal knowledge.—Adherence- to a propofition 
which they are perfuaded, but do not know, to be true, is 
not feeing, but believing. Locke. —To put confidence in the 
veracity of any one.—The people may hear when I fpeak 
with thee, and believe thee for ever. Exodus. 
To Believe, v. n. To have a firm perfuafion of any 
thing ; to exercife the theological virtue of faith : 
Now God be prais’d, that to believing fouls 
Gives light in darknefs, comfort in defpair. Shakefpeare. 
With the particle in, to hold as an objeft of faith.'— Bo- 
lieve in the Lord your God, fo (hall you be edablilhed. a* 
C/iron. —With the particle upon, to trud, to place a full 
confidence in, to red upon with faith.—To them gave he 
power to become the fons of God, even to them that be~ 
lieve on his name. John.—l believe, is fometimes ufed as a 
way of (lightly noting fome want of certainty or exadt- 
nefs.—Though they are, I believe, as high as mod deeples 
in England, yet a perfon, in his drink, fell down, without 
any other hurt than the breaking of an arm. Addifon. 
BELIEV'ER, f He that believes, or gives credit. A 
profedor of Chridianity.—Myderies held by 11s have no 
power, pomp, or wealth, but have been maintained by the 
univerfal body of true believers, from the days of the apof- 
tles, and will be to the refurreCtion ; neither will the gates 
of hell prevail againd them. Swift. 
Believers was an appellation given toward the clofe of 
the fird century to thofe Chridians who had been admitted 
into the church by baptifm, and indructed in all the myf- 
teries of religion. They had alfo accefs to ail the parts 
of divine worfhip, and were authorifed to vote in the ec~ 
clefiadical ademblies. They were thus called in contra- 
didindtion to the catechumens, who had not been bapti¬ 
zed, and were debarred from thefe privileges. 
BELIEV'INGLY, adv. After a believing manner. 
BELI'KE, adv. [from like, as by likelihood.] Probably; 
likely ; perhaps.—There came out of the fame woods a 
horrible foul bear, which fearing, belike, while the lion was 
prefent, came furioufly towards the place where I was. 
Sidney. It is fometimes ufed in a fenfe of irony, as it may 
be ftppofed. —We think, belike, that he will accept what the 
meaned of them would difdain. Hooker. 
BE'LIO, a river of Lulitania, called otherwife Limeeas , 
Limeas, Limias, and Lethe, or the ‘river of oblivion:’ the 
boundary of the expedition of Decimus Brutus. The 
foldiers refilling out of fuperdition to crofs, he fnatched 
an enfign out of the hands of the bearer, and paded over, 
by which his army was encouraged to follow. Livy. He 
was the fird Roman who ever proceeded fo far, and ven¬ 
tured to crofs. The reafon of the appellation, according 
to Strabo, is, that in a military expedition a (edition ari- 
fing between the Celtici and Turduli after eroding that ri¬ 
ver, in which the general was dain, they remained difper- 
fed there ; and from this circumdance it came to be called 
the river of Lethe or Oblivion. Now called El Lima, in 
Portugal, running wedward into the Atlantic, to the foutli 
of the Minho. 
BELIS A'RIUS, the celebrated general of the emperor 
Judinian’s army, who overthrew the Perfians in the Ead, 
the Vandals in Africa, and the Goths in Italy; which fee 
under Rome. After all his grSat exploits, he was falfely 
accufed of a confpiracy againd the emperor. The real 
confpirators had been detected and feized, with daggers 
hidden under their garments. One of them died by his 
own hand, and the other was dragged from the fanCtuary. 
Preffed by remorfe, or tempted by the hopes of fafety, he 
accufed two officers of the houfehold of Belifarius; and 
torture forced them to declare that they had aCted accord¬ 
ing to the fecret indruCtions of their patron. Poderity 
will not hadily believe, that an hero, who in the vigour 
of life had difdained the faired offers of ambition and re¬ 
venge, fhould doop to the murder of his prince, whom 
he could not long expert to furvive. His followers were 
impatient 
