§ 6. The Gross or more moderate Anabaptists, consist of the Waterlanders, Flandrians, Frisians, and Germans, who entered into the union already mentioned. They are generally called Waterlanders. They have forsaken the more rigid and singular opinions of Menno, (whom, however, most of them respect and venerate,) and have approximated to the customs and opinions of other Christians. They are divided into two communities, the Frieslanders and the Waterlanders; neither of which has any bishops, but only Elders and Deacons. Each congregation is independent, and has its consistory, composed of the Elders and Deacons. But the supreme power belongs to the people; without whose consent no business of great importance is transacted. Their elders are learned men; some of them doctors of physic, and others masters of arts. And they now support a professor at Amsterdam, who teaches both the sciences and theology.

§ 7. One of these communities of Waterlanders', in the year 1664, became split into two parties; which still continue, and which bear the names of Galenists and Apostoolians, from the names of their [first] teachers. Galenus Abrahams de Haan, a doctor of physic, and a minister among the Mennonites at Amsterdam, a man whom even his enemies applaud for his eloquence and penetration, taught, in accordance with the views of the Arminians, that the Christian religion was not so much a body of truths to be believed, as of precepts to be obeyed; and he would have admission to the church, and to the title and privileges of brethren, be open to all persons, who merely believed the books of the Old and New Testaments to be divinely inspired, and lived pure and holy lives. He adopted this principle, because he himself entertained different views from the other Mennonites, respecting the divine nature of Jesus Christ, and the redemption of the human race by his merits and death, and was inclined to the side of the Socinians".

7 [This is either a mistake or a slip of the pen in Dr. Mosheim. This schism did not occur in the community of the Waterlanders, but in that of the Flemings; and among them only at Amsterdam. The church of the Flemings at Amsterdam, in which were the two preachers Galenus Abrahams de Haan and Samuel Apostool, became at

this time divided. Some years afterwards, the Waterlander church in the above named city, united with the Galenists. Such is the note of the Dutch translator of this work. Tr.]

8 [Galenus Abrahams was accused of this by his opposers. The Court of Holland (the States General) investigated the subject, and acquitted this

Against him, Samuel Apostool, besides others, who was likewise a distinguished minister of the church at Amsterdam, very strenuously defended, not only the sentiments held by most of the Mennonites in common with other Christians, respecting the divinity of our Saviour, and the influences of his death, but also the well known peculiar sentiment of this sect, respecting the visible church of Christ on earth. The consequence of this contest was a schism, which some prudent and influential men still labour in vain to remove. The Galenists are equally ready, with the Arminians, to admit all sorts of persons into their church who call themselves Christians; and they are the only Anabaptists, [in Holland,] who refuse to be called Mennonites. The Apostoolians admit none to membership, who do not profess to believe the doctrines contained in the public formula of their religion1o.

minister, on the 14th of September, 1663. See Wagenaer, Amsterdam, part ii. p. 195, and 237. Note of the Dutch translator.-To the history of the Orthodox or Non-Remonstrant Mennonites, belongs, The Faith of the true Mennonites or Baptists, gathered from their public Confessions, by Cornelius Ris, minister of the Mennonites at Hoorn, with an explanatory Introduction and Appendix; Hamburg, 1776. 4to. (in German.) This is properly a translation of the Dutch original, which was published in 1773. It exhibits many correct views in genuine Christianity, in both its theoretical and practical parts; and is free from the doctrine, which is peculiar only to some of the Mennonites, respecting the origin of Christ's human nature. Note of the Dutch translator. Tr.]

See, respecting both [these men], Herman Schyn's Deductio plenior His toria Mennonit. cap. xv. p. 318. and cap. xviii. p. 237.

10 Caspar Commelin, Description of the City of Amsterdam, (in Dutch), vol. i. p. 500, &c. Stoupa, La Religion des Hollandois, p. 20. &c. Henry Lewis Bentheim's Holländischer Schul-und Kirchenstaat, pt. i. ch. xix. p. 830.As this chapter of Dr. Mosheim's history embraces only the Dutch Baptists, or Mennonites, it seems proper to add

here a brief narrative of the English Baptists. Most of the Anabaptists mentioned in English history, prior to the reign of James I, appear to have been either Dutch and other foreign Anabaptists, who endeavoured to establish themselves in England, or small companies of converts made by them in the country. Yet there were probably many individuals among the people, who questioned, or denied, the propriety of infant baptism; and there are some intimations of attempts, by such persons to hold conventicles, in the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth. But the first regular congregation of English Baptists, appears to have originated from certain English Puritans, who returned from Holland after the death of their pastor, Rev. John Smith, who died in 1610. See vol. iii. p. 578, note 8. These were General or Arminian Baptists; and may be supposed to have derived many of their opinions from the Mennonites. From this time onward, churches of General Baptists were formed, here and there, in different parts of England. But in general, they made no great figure, and do not appear to have had much connexion. or to have professed one uniform faith. The Particular or Calvinistic Baptists trace their origin to a congregation of Independents, established in London in the year 1616. This

CHAPTER VII.

HISTORY OF THE SOCINIANS AND ARIANS.

§ 1. Flourishing state of the Socinians.—§ 2. Socinians at Altorf.—§ 3. Adversities of the Polish Socinians.-§ 4, 5. Fate of the Exiles.-§ 6. The Arians.

§ 1. THE condition of the Socinians, at the commencement of this century, seemed in many respects to rest on a firm basis. For they not only enjoyed the fullest religious liberty in Transylvania and Luzko [in Volhinia], but they had, in Poland, a distinguished school at Rakow, furnished with teachers eminent for learning and talents, a printing establishment, numerous congregations, and many patrons, who were men of the highest rank. Elated with this prosperity, they thought proper to make great efforts to extend their church, or to obtain friends and patrons in other countries. And it may be shown by numerous proofs that emissaries of the Polish Socinians, in the beginning of this century, were active in Holland, England, Germany, and Prussia, and that they endeavoured to make proselytes among the great and the learned. For while most other sects endeavour first to make friends among the common people, this sect, which exalts reason alone, has the peculiarity, that it does not much seek the favour and friendship of women, the illiterate, and persons of inferior rank, but labours to recommend itself especially to persons of high rank and eminent talents.

§ 2. Though these missions were, for the most part, committed to men of birth and genius, yet their results, in most places, did not answer the expectations of their projectors. No where did there seem to be a greater prospect of success, than in the university of Altorf, in the territory of Nuremberg. For here Earnest Sohner, a physician and Peripatetic philosopher, a man of great acuteness and subtilty, and a professor of philosophy, who had joined the Socinians while he resided in

Holland, found it the more easy to instil into the minds of his hearers the doctrines of his new brethren, because he was in high reputation for learning and genuine piety, But after his death in 1612, this new Socinian party, being deprived of their guide and head, could not manage their affairs so craftily, as to elude the vigilance of the other professors of the university. Hence, the whole matter being fully exposed in 1616, this already mature and daily increasing pest was suddenly arrested and destroyed, by the zealous and dextrous severity of the Nuremberg magistrates. The foreigners, who were infected with the heresy, saved themselves by flight: the infected citizens of Nuremberg allowed themselves to be reclaimed, and returned to correct principles'.

§ 3. Neither could the Socinian sect long hold that high ground which they appeared to occupy in Poland'. The chief pillar that supported it, was removed in the year 1638, by a decree of the Polish diet. For in this year, some students of the school at Rakow wantonly threw stones at a wooden statue of our Saviour extended on the cross, and demolished it. For this offence the Papists took such severe revenge, that they procured the fatal law to be enacted at Warsaw, which commanded the school at Rakow to be broken up, the instructors to be banished in disgrace, the printing establishment to be destroyed, and the Socinian church to be shut up. All this was executed forthwith, and without abatement, in spite of all the efforts which the powerful patrons of the sect could put forth. This first calamity was the harbinger of that dire

1 A very full and learned history of this whole business, derived chiefly from unpublished documents and papers, was drawn up by a late divine of the university of Altorf, Gustavus George Zeitner, entitled Historia Crypto-Socinismi Altorfinæ, quondam Academie infesti arcana; which was published by Gebauer, Leipsic, 1729, 2 vols. 4to. [Sohner kept up a brisk correspondence with the Polish Socinians; who sent a number of Polish youth to Al orf with their private tutors, to aid in spreading Socinian principles. It was intended, not only to diffuse these principles in and around Altorf, but to communicate them also to other Ger

man universities. See Schroeckh's Kirchengesch. seit der Reformation, vol. v. p. 625, &c. Tr.]

2 On the flourishing state of the Socinian cause, especially of the Racovian school, under the rectorship of Martin Ruarus, see Jo. Möller's Cimbria Litterata, tom. i. p. 572; in his life of Ruarus, a very learned man of Holstein, who, it appears, had embraced Socinianism.

Epistola de Wissowatii rita, in Sand's Bibliotheca Antitrinitaria, p. 233. Gust. Geo. Zeltner's Historia Crypto-Socinismi Altorfini, vol. i. p.

299.