notion, productive of feditious, tumultuous, and defperate attempts, equally pernicious to the caufe of religion and the civil interefts of mankind, are pofitions, which a Briton who understands liberty will not fuffer a German ecclefiaftick to affirm without contradiction. There is no hazard in saying Mr. Locke understood liberty, and a British Baptift daylabourer understands it better than the learned Dr. Mofheim. This one principle, which includes the four mentioned before, is fo far from deferving to be called an enthusiastical anabaptiftical errour, that it is a fober first truth of civil and religious liberty, and as fuch hath been fupported by the ableft of politicians and the best of Chriftians, and by many of both, who never had any knowledge of the Baptifts. The freedom of religion from the controul of the magiftrate: the fimplicity and perfection of revelation without the aid of fcholaftical theology: the abfolute exemption of all mankind from the dominion of their clergy: the fufficiency of reafon to judge of revelation are all included in the voluntary baptifm of an adult, and in the maxim, "that the vifible church, which Christ hath established upon earth, is an affembly of true and real faints, and ought therefore to be inacceffible to the wicked and exempt from all inftitutions of human authority." It is this maxim with its contents, and not rebaptizing that hath occafioned most of the perfecutions of this party of Chriftians. Such rebaptizers as did not hold thefe fentiments, as the council of Nice for example, have been careffed and not perfecuted: and fuch as practifed no baptifm at all, as the people called Quakers, or infant-baptism, as the English Independents, but have held thefe fentiments, have drunk deep for the fame reasons of the fame bitter cup (4). It is, however, to be obferved, that not thefe but Anabaptifm hath generally been the oftenfible caufe of the odium caft on this party: but that these are at bottom is pretty clear from the knack of quoting the hiftory of the Munfter Baptifts in this controversy. If authors think rebaptizing hath no connection with government why quote the Munster Baptifts? Some very amiable men, who have not done fo, have yet in their zeal for infant-baptifm defcribed a rejection of it as a crime of deep die, including in it disorder, turbulence, and refiftance of authority, and though they colour too ftrongly, yet there is, as hath been faid before, a bottom of truth, for to be rebaptized, as it is called, is a practical renunciation both of infant-baptifm, and the authority by which it had been administered. The late pious Dr. Daniel Williams afks this queftion (5): What if a child will not agree, but refufe to agree to the covenant to which his infant-baptifm engaged him? To which he gives this answer. (4) NEAL's Hiftory of the Puritans. Vol. ii. Chap. vi. Committee of Accommodation, &c. (5) Vanity of Childhood and Youth. 1. It is a rejecting Chrift our Saviour, and a renouncing the bleffings of the gospel. 2. It is the damning fin. 3. It is the heart of all fin. 4. It is a rebellion continued against my Maker. 5. It is ingratitude and perjury to my Redeemer. 6. It is grofs injuftice to my parents. 7. It is an affront to all the godly. 8. It is a felf-killing cruelty to my own foul." The Baptifts honour the memory of this very good man, and only say in reply: "to refuse to agree to a covenant made in infant-baptifm is no fin, because where there is no law there is no tranfgreffion (6)." The danger of fuch defcriptions as this fometimes doth not lie among the defcribers, for Dr. Williams was a zealous admirer of liberty but in the fhocking ideas which they excite in the minds of intolerant perfons, who confider thefe as fanctions of a cruel difcipline, which the writers either never thought of, or most heartily abhorred. After all, it is very doubtful whether the Doctor thought of the Baptifts when he wrote this, and it is highly probable he meant to cenfure only fuch youths as rejected Christianity in every form, and not merely fuch as embraced the whole except the one fingle ceremony of infant-sprinkling. From what has been faid, it appears, that an hiftory of the Baptifts is an hiftory of the five important articles, in which they always have conftitutionally differed from all established churches of every form. These are, as hath been obferved: a love of civil liberty in oppofition to magiftratical dominion: an affirmation of the fufficiency and fimplicity of revelation in oppofition to fcholaftical theology: a zeal for felf-government in oppofition to clerical authority: a requifition.of the reasonable service of a perfonal profeffion of Chriftianity rifing out of a man's own convictions in oppofition to the practice of force on babes, the whole of which they deem enthufiafm: and the indifpenfible neceffity of virtue in every individual member of a Chriftian church in diftinction from all fpeculative creeds, all rights and ceremonies, and all parochial divifions. A mere ftatement of thefe five points is fufficient to excite a prefumption that in all countries, where Catholick Chriftianity was established by law, the Baptifts must have had a great number of enemies, who had an intereft, an inclination, and a power to render them odious. The theory is too well confirmed by hiftorical facts. This is the clue, that ought to guide the hiftory of Baptifts, and this leads to the churches, which ever fince the Reformation have been improperly denominated Anabaptift. As any hiftory that exhibits thefe juft principles of religion and good government is worth investigating, fo without thefe Anabaptifm is an infipid fubject, not worth the pains of pursuing. Anabaptifm in the Catholick church, which was ordered by (6) HERCULES COLLINS. Believers-Baptifm from Heaven. Answer to Mr. Williams, London. 1691. the That it the council of Nice, and practised a little while wherever the priest found Paulianifts weak enough to submit to it, is a futile fubject of no benefit to fociety. The furious Anabaptifm of Cyprian, and his party, was a wicked exertion of unrighteous dominion, for which the miferable Carthaginians were always notorious. They are not thefe, but another kind of people, whom they oppreffed and perfecuted, that are the proper fubjects of the history of Baptifts, and between whom and the Carthaginian Roman and Afiatick Catholicks the practice of Anabaptifin by the latter formed only a tranfient, momentary, accidental likenefs. was not Anabaptifm, which these ancient Catholicks perfecuted is clear, for they practifed it themselves: and it is equally clear that it was not Anabaptifm, but the maxims above mentioned, which all established churches fince the Reformation have perfecuted with fo much cruelty. The Dutch Baptifts have publifhed creeds, which for the fundamental points as the orthodox call them, even Luther and Calvin might have. fubfcribed; creeds which even the stately Mofheim condefcended to commend and yet it hath happened to them as it happened to the Socinian Baptifts of Poland and Transylvania, who publifhed creeds directly contrary, creeds which the orthodox call blafphemy (7). To the gentle Moravian and Pruffian Baptifts, always, except in cafes of conscience fubmiffive and fupple, and when perfecuted harmless as doves, it hath happened exactly as it happened to the fwordfmen of Munfter: for the fact was, differ how they would, they all practically rebuked the exorbitant pride and tyranny of ecclefiafticks, and denied their dominion both in perfon and in the civil magiftrate their deputy and this, this was the fin, and the only fin for which there was no abfolution (8). Thus that mighty mafs, the horrid herefy of Anabaptifm melts down into five points, and these five points are only one virtue in different views, for to refift tyranny over confcience ought in all ages to be accounted a virtue. The celebrated Mr. Voltaire, who thought, as the Anabaptifts "made no figure in the world, it was not worth while to inquire" into their modern hiftory, and who took his ideas of their ftate at the Reformation from a fuperficial view of pictures drawn by their executioners, who "fhewed them about in cages as wild beasts are shown, and caused their flesh to be torn off with red hot pincers," was fo ftruck with what his good fenfe obliged him to fee, that he paffed unfufpected encomiums on Guelpherbyti. 1751.....Pars (7) KOECHERI Biblist. Theol. Symbol. Catechet. et Liturgica. Altera. Jene. 1769. Cap. viii. De Anabaptiftar. Libris. cclxxv. loofs, &c. Honorificum eft quod de hac confeflione Jo. Laur. "eam Mennoniticas omnes fimplicitate et fanitate vincere.....Ibid. ccccxlii. De Socinianor. Catechis. (8) WIGAND. De Anabaptifmo..............CATROU Hift, des Anabaptiftes. 3 Q2 fuch fuch as he fuppofed the very worst of them. The Anabaptifts, faid he, "laid open that dangerous truth which is implanted in every breast, that mankind are all born equal, faying, that if popes had treated princes like their fubjects, princes had treated the common people like beafts. It must be acknowledged, adds he, that the demands made by the Anabaptifts, and delivered in writing, were extremely juft. The manifesto published by these favages in the name of the men who till the earth might have been figned by Lycurgus (9)." Mr. Voltaire was a well-bred man, and a lover of liberty, and he could not pass by a little fhrine erected to it without bowing as he went along: but the favage worshippers made no figure in the world! Is not this alfo laying open a fecret dangerous to the glory of fome panegyrifts, who write more for wealth and fame than difinterestedly for the good of all mankind! СНАР. XXXV. The State of Baptifm in the Oriental Churches. 'HE innumerable Chriftians of the Eaft, who are not in communion Roman may be divided into claffes. The first confists of fuch as in ages paft diffented from the Greek church, and formed fimilar hierarchies which yet fubfift independent of one another as well as of the Greek and Roman communities. The fecond confifts of thofe, who never were of any hierarchy, and who have always retained their original freedom. The number of fuch orientals is very great, for they live dispersed all over Syria, Arabia, Egypt, Perfia, Nubia, Ethiopia, India, Tartary, and other Eaftern countries. is remarkable, that, although they differ as Europeans do on fpeculative points of divinity, yet they all administer baptism by immersion, and there is no inftance of the contrary. It (9) Works. London. 1770. &c. General Hiftory. Vol. iv. Chap.cx. Of the Anabaptifts............. Additions to General Hiftory. Vol. xxii. Of the Anabaptifs. NESTORIANS. NESTORIANS. The Neftorians, fo called from Neftor patriarch of Conftantinople, were separated from the Greek church in the fifth century, and they have continued an independent hierarchy to this day. In theory, they hold the doctrine of the Trinity, but they confider Jefus as a mere man, who is called God only on account of the inhabitation of the fecond perfon in him (1). In worship they have preferved themfelves from fuperftition more than any other eastern hierarchies have (2). Their church government is facerdotal, and the patriarch, who ufually refides at Moful a large city in Mefopotamia, near the Tigris, and not far from the ruins of the ancient Nineveh, hath under his jurifdiction more than four hundred and thirty metropolitan and epifcopal churches, and he usually writes himself patriarch of the Eaft, or patriarch of the Chaldeans, or Affyrians (3). The oriental liturgies were evidently taken from those of the ancient Greeks, and baptifm feems to continue among the Neftorians nearly in that state in which it was when they feceded from the church (4). The ceremony begins by making a Catechumen, which was originally done by inftruction, but is now performed by impofition of the hand, and figning with the fign of the crofs, for the church fuppofes parents have educated their children. Then the candidate goes into the baptiftery, which they call Jordan, where the priest reads leffons and prayers, after which the auditors are difmiffed, the gates fhut, and the Catechumen repeats the Nicene creed. Next, the Catechumen-oil, and the baptifmal water are bleffed, after which a deacon anoints the Catechumen all over, and then leads him to the priest, who, ftanding on the weft fide of Jordan,. (1) Jos. SIMON. ASSEMANI Bibliot. Oriental. Clem. Vaticana. Tom. iii. P. ii. Romæ. 1728. Cap. vii. Neftorianor. vet. et. recent. errores. Sect. iv. De Chrifto Dom. Exempla unionis Dei verbi cum homine Jefu hæc ab illis afferri: Dei cum templo, regis cum purpura, ignis cum ferro, ftolæ cum corpore, coronæ cum capite, regis cum legato....et cætera hujufmodi, quæ unionem affectivam vel accidentalem, non naturalem et hypoftaticam fignificant.....DION. PETAVII De theolog. dogmat. Tom. v. Antwerpice. 1700. De incarnat. Lib. i. Cap. ix. S. 2. Quamobrem incarnationis myfterium nihil effe aliud exiftimabat [Neftorius] quam vono, id eft habitationem Dei in homine, velut in domicilio fuo, vel in templo: quemadmodum in Mose, ac prophetis reliquis habitaffe dicitur. (2) MOSHEIM. Hift. Eccles. Cent. xvi. Sect. iii. P. i. (3) ASSEMAN. ut fup. Tom. iii. P. ii. Cap. xii. S. v. Notitia eccles. metrop. et epifcop. quæ funt patriarcha Neftoriano fubje&tæ, ordine alphabetico. Cap. xi. De patriarch. Neftor. S. iii. 6. Loca, ubi domicilium fixere Patriarch. Neftor.....4. Mofulana urbs. &c. (4) EUSEB. RENAUDOT. Liturg. Orient. Collectio. Parifiis. 1716. Tom. ii. P. 49. Statim collatione illarum inftituta, omnes [liturgias orientales, Syrorum, Egyptiorum, Armenorum, Æthiopum, et fi qui funt alii in oriente Chriftiani] ex eodem fonte prodiiffe manifeftum eft, ita: ut liturgiæ orientales, nulla excepta, Græcis fuam debeant originem,. turns |