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CHAPTER XXV.

ARIANS.

A DENOMINATION of Christians that take their name from Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria, who flourished in the year 315. The propagation of this doctrine was the occasion of the celebrated Council of Nice, assembled by Constantine, in the year 325.Arius acknowledged Christ to be God, in a subordinate sense, and considered his death to be a propitiation for sin. The Arians acknowledge, that the Son was the Word, though they deny its being eternal, contending only that it had been created prior to all other beings. They maintain that Christ is not the eternal God; but in opposition to the Unitarians, they contend for his preexistence, a doctrine which they found on various passages of scripture, particularly these, "Before Abraham was, I am;" and "Glorify me with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." Arians differ amongst themselves as to the extent of the doctrine. Some of them believe. Christ to have been the creator of the world, and on that account has a claim to religious worship; others admit of his pre-existence simply. Hence the appellation of high and low Arians. Dr. Clark, Rector of St. James, in his "Scripture Doctrine of Trinity;" Mr. Henry Taylor, Vicar of Portsmouth, in a work entitled, "Ben Mordecais Apology," Mr. Tomkins, in his "Mediator," and Mr. Hopkins, in his "Appeal to the common sense of all Christian People;" have been deemed among the most able advocates of Arianism. Dr. Price has been one of the last writers in behalf of this doctrine; in his sermons, "On the Christian Doctrine," will be found an able defence of low Arians. See also, a tract published in 1805,

by Basanistes.

CHAPTER XXVI

BAXTERIANS.

IN church history, a sect of Christians, who look up to the celebrated Richard Baxter, as their founder, and who make the te nets of that worthy man the foundation of their faith. The ob ject of Baxter was a hopeless cause: it was to reconcile the opinions of Calvin and Arminius, and his scheme is called the middle scheme. Although the old adage, that the middle path is the

safest, may be true in many things relating to conduct in life, yet where truth and religion are concerned, there can be no middle way. There is no medium between what is true and what is erroneous. Baxter taught, that God elected some whom he determined to save, without any foresight of their good works, and that others, to whom the gospel is preached, have the means of salvation put into their hands. He contended that the merits of Christ's death, of which he appears to have no precise idea, are to be applied to believers only, but all men are in a state capable of salvation. Mr. Baxter also assumed, that there may be a certainty of perseverance here; and yet he cannot tell whether a man may not have so weak a degree of saving grace as to loose it again.

CHAPTER XXVII.

BROWNISTS.

A NAME given for some time to those who were afterwards known in England and Holland under the denomination of Independents. It arose from a Mr. Robert Brown, whose parents resided in Rutlandshire, though he is said to have been born at Northampton; and who, from about 1571 to 1590, was a teacher amongst them in England, and at Middleburgh, in Zealand. He was a man of a family, of zeal, of some abilities, and had a university education. The separation, however, does not appear to have originated in him; for, by several publications of those times, it is clear that these sentiments had, before his day, been embraced and professed in England, and Churches had been gathered on the plan of them. This denomination did not differ in point of doctrine from the Church of England, or from the other Puritans; but they apprehended, that, according to scripture, every church ought to be confined within the limits of a single. congregation, and have the complete power of jurisdiction over its members, to be exercised by the elders within itself, without being subject to the authority of bishops, synods, presbyteries, or any ecclesiastical assembly, composed of the deputies from different churches. Under this name, though they always disowned it, were ranked the learned Henry Ainsworth, author of the Annotations on the Pentateuch, &c. The famous John Robinson, a part of whose congregation from Lyden, in Holland, made the first permanent settlement in North America; and the laborious Canne, the author of the Marginal References in the Bible.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

ANTINOMIANS.

IN church history, a sect of Christians, who reject the moral law as a rule of conduct to believers, disown personal and progressive sanctification, and hold it to be inconsistent for a believer to pray for the forgiveness of sins. Although these principles will, by some, be thought to lead to mischevious consequences and practice, yet there are unquestionably, worthy men and virtuous Christians, who avow Antinomian tenets. To the young, the giddy, and the thoughtless, such sentiments might, if acted upon, be the source of much evil; but these, like the doctrine of necessity, are rarely believed but by persons who have already at tained to virtuous habits,

CHAPTER XXIX.

EBIONITES.

IN church history, heretics of the first century, so called from their leader Ebion. They held the same errors with the Nazarenes; united the ceremonies of the Mosaic institution with the precepts of the Gospel; observed both the Jewish Sabbath and Christian Sunday, and in celebrating the Eucharist made use of unleavened bread. They abstain from the flesh of animals, and even from milk. In relation to Jesus Christ, some of them held that he was born, like other men, of Joseph and Mary, and acquired sanctification only by his good works. Others of them allowed that he was born of a virgin, but denied that he was the Word of God, or had any existence before his human generation. They said he was, indeed, the only true prophet; but yet a mere man, ho by his virtues had arrived at being called Christ and the Son of God. They also supposed that Christ and the devil were two principles, which God had opposed to each other. Of the New Testament they only received the Gospel of St. Matthew, which they called the Gospel according to the Hebrews. See the article NAZARENES.

CHAPTER XXX.

GNOSTICS.

IN church history, a sect of Christians so called from their pretentions to be more enlightened than others, and from their affecting to be able to bring back mankind to the knowledge of the true God. The opinions held by these people have not been completely ascertained. They were fond of speculation, and like many of the Gnostics of modern times, held public worship and positive institutions in little esteem.

CHAPTER XXXI.

BEHMENISTS.

In church history, a sect of Christians who derived their name from Jacob Behmen, a German mystic and enthusiast, whose distinguishing tenets were, that man has the immortal spark of life which is common to angels and devils, that divine life of the light and spirit of God makes the difference between an angel and devil; the latter having distinguished this divine life in himself; but that man can only attain to the heavenly life of the second principle, through the new birth of Jesus Christ; that the life of the third principle is of the external and visible world. Thus, the life of the first and third principles is common to all men, but the life of the second principle only to a true Christian or child of God. Behmen was a pious man, and his principles were adopted by our countryman William Law, a worthy divine of the church of England, but in General, to a bye-stander, the Behmenites seem to try how they can talk on religion so as not to be intelligible.

CHAPTER XXXII.

JANSENISTS.

In church history, a sect of the Roman Catholics in France who followed the opinions of Jansenius (bishop of Ypres, and doctor of divinity of the universities of Louvain and Douay,) in relation to grace and predestination,

In the year 1640, the two universities just mentioned, and particularly father Molina and father Leonard Celsus, thought fit to condemn the opinions of the Jesuits on grace and free will. This having set the controversy on foot, Jansenius opposed to the doctrine of the Jesuits the sentiments of St. Augustine, and wrote a treatise on grace which he entitled Augustinus. This treatise was attacked by the Jesuits, who accused Jansenius of maintaining dangerous and heretical opinions; and afterwards, in 1642, obtained of Pope Urban VIII. a formal condemnation of the treatise wrote by Jansenius; when the partizans of Janseniųs gave out that this bull was spurius, and composed by a person entirely devoted to the Jesuits. After the death of Urban VIII. the af fair of Jansenism began to be more warmly controverted, and gave birth to a great number of polemical writings concerning grace; and what occasioned some mirth, were the titles which each party have to their writings: one writer published the Torcle of St. Augustine; another found Snuffers for St. Augustine's Torch; and father Vernon formed a A Gag for the Jansenists, &c. In the year 1650, sixty-eight bishops of France subscribed a letter to pope Innocent X. to obtain an inquiry into and condemnation of the five following propositions, extracted from Jansenius's Augustinus: 1. Some of God's commandments are impossible to be observed by the righteous, even though they endeavour with all their power to accomplish them. 2. In the state of corrupted nature, we are incapable of resisting inward grace.3. Merit and demerit, in a state of corrupted nature, do not de pend on a liberty which excludes necessity, but on a liberty which excludes constraint. 4. The Semi-pelagians admitted the necessity of an inward preventing grace for the performance of each particular act, even for the beginning of faith; but they were heretics in maintaining that this grace was of such a nature that the will of man was able either to respect or obey it. 5. It is Semi-pelagianism to say, that Jesus Christ died, or shed his blood, for all mankind in general.

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