ther made with men, consists according || excluded, and we are saved by free to this system, not in our being justified grace.-7. Faith alone receives the by faith, as it apprehends the righte- Lord Jesus and his righteousness, and ousness of Christ, but in this, that God, the subject of this faith is a convinced abrogating the exaction of perfect legal penitent soul; hence we are justified by obedience, reputes or accepts of faith faith alone, and yet the impenitent are itself, and the imperfect obedience of not forgiven.-8. God has freely profaith, instead of the perfect obedience mised that all whom he predestinated of the law, and graciously accounts them to salvation shall not only savingly beworthy of the reward of eternal life."- lieve, but that he by his power shall This opinion was examined at the synod preserve them from a total or a final of Dort, and has been canvassed be- apostacy.-9. Yet the believer, whilst tween the Calvinists and Arminians on he lives in this world, is to pass the various occasions. time of his sojourning here with fear, Towards the close of the seventeenth because his warfare is not accomplishcentury a controversy was agitated ed, and that it is true, that if he draw amongst the English dissenters, in which back, God will have no pleasure in him. the one side, who were partial to the Which with the like cautions God blesswritings of Dr. Crisp, were charged eth as means to the saints persevewith Antinomianism, and the other, who rance, and these by ministers should be favoured Mr. Baxter, were accused of so urged.-10. The law of innocence, or Neonomianism. Dr. Daniel Williams, moral law, is so in force still, as that who was a principle writer on what was every precept thereof constitutes duty, called the Neonomian side, after many even to the believer; every breach things had been said, gives the follow-thereof is a sin deserving of death: this ing as a summary of his faith in reference to those subjects.-" 1. God has eternally elected a certain definite number of men whom he will infallibly save by Christ in that way prescribed by the Gospel.-2. These very elect are not personally justified until they receive Christ, and yield up themselves to him, but they remain condemned whilst unconverted to Christ.-3. By the ministry of the Gospel there is a serious offer of pardon and glory, upon the terms of the Gospel, to all that hear it; and God thereby requires them to comply with the said terms.-4. Ministers ought to use these and other Gospel benefits as motives, assuring men that if they believe they shall be justified; if they turn to God, they shall live; if they repent, their sins shall be blotted out; and whilst they neglect these duties, they cannot have a personal interest in these respective benefits.-5. It is by the power of the Spirit of Christ freely exerted, and not by the power of freewill, that the Gospel becomes effectual for the conversion of any soul to the obedience of faith.-6. When a man believes, yet is not that very faith, and much less any other work, the matter of that righteousness for which a sinner is justified, i. e. entitled to pardon, acceptance and eternal glory, as righteous before God; and it is the imputed righteousness of Christ alone, for which the Gospel gives the believer a right to|| these and all saving blessings, who in this respect is justified by Christ's righteousness alone. By both this and the fifth head it appears that all boasting is

law binds death by its curse on every unbeliever, and the righteousness for or by which we are justified before God, is a righteousness (at least) adequate to that law which is Christ's alone righteousness: and this so imputed to the believer as that God deals judicially with him according thereto.-11. Yet such is the grace of the Gospel, that it promiseth in and by Christ a freedom from the curse, forgiveness of sin, and eternal life, to every sincere believer; which promise God will certainly perform, notwithstanding the threatening || of the law.”

Dr. Williams maintains the conditionality of the covenant of grace; but admits, with Dr. Owen, who also uses the term condition, that "Christ undertook that those who were to be taken into this covenant should receive grace enabling them to comply with the terms of it, fulfil its conditions, and yield the obedience which God required therein."

On this subject Dr. Williams further says, "The question is not whether the first (viz. regenerating) grace, by which we are enabled to perform the condition, be absolutely given. This I affirm, though that be dispensed ordinarily in a due use of means, and in a way discountenancing idleness, and fit encouragement given to the use of means."

The following objection, among others, was made by several ministers in 1692 against Dr. Williams's Gospel Truth Stated, &c. "To supply the room of the moral law, vacated by him, he turns the Gospel into a new Law, in keeping of which we shall be justified for the

sake of Christ's righteousness, making || God in his word commands sinners to qualifications and acts of ours a disposing repent and believe in Christ, nor whether subordinate righteousness, whereby we he promises life to believers, and threatbecome capable of being justified byens death to unbelievers; but whether Christ's righteousness."

it be the Gospel under the form of a To this among other things he an- new law that thus commands or threatswers, "The difference is not, 1. ens, or the moral law on its behalf, and Whether the Gospel be a new law in whether its promises to believing renthe Socinian, Popish, or Arminian sense. der such believing a condition of the This I deny. Nor, 2. Is faith, or any things promised. In another controother grace or act of ours, any atone-versy, however, which arose about forty ment for sin, satisfaction to justice, merit-years afterwards among the same deing qualification, or any part of that scription of people, it became a question righteousness for which we are justified whether God did by his word (call it at God our Creator's bar. This I deny law or Gospel) command unregenerate in places innumerable. Nor, 3. Whether sinners to repent and believe in Christ, the Gospel be a law more new than is or to do any thing which is spiritually implied in the first promise to fallen good. Of those who took the affirmaAdam, proposed to Cain, and obey-tive side of this question, one party ated by Abel, to the differencing him from his unbelieving brother. This I deny. 4. Nor whether the Gospel be a law that allows sin, when it accepts such graces as true, though short of perfection, to be the conditions of our personal interest in the benefits purchased by Christ. This I deny. 5. Nor whether the Gospel be a law, the promises whereof entitle the performers of its conditions to the benefits as of debt. This I deny.

"The difference is, 1. Is the Gospel a law in this sense; viz. God in Christ thereby commandeth sinners to repent of sin, and receive Christ by a true operative faith, promising that thereupon they shall be united to him, justified by his righteousness, pardoned, and adopted; and that, persevering in faith and true holiness, they shall be finally saved; also threatening that if any shall die impenitent, unbelieving, ungodly, rejecters of his grace, they shall perish without relief, and endure sorer punishments than if these offers had not been made to them?-2. Hath the Gospel a sanction, i. e. doth Christ therein enforce his commands of faith, repentance and perseverance, by the aforesaid promises and threatenings, as motives of our obedience? Both of these I affirm, and they deny; saying the Gospel in the largest sense is an absolute promise without precepts and conditions, and the Gospel threat is a bull.-3. Do the Gospel promises of benefits to certain graces, and its threats that those benefits shall be withheld and the contrary evils inflicted for the neglect of such graces, render those graces the condition of our personal title to those benefits? This they deny, and I affirm," &c.

It does not appear to have been a question in this controversy, whether

tempted to maintain it on the ground of the Gospel being a new law, consisting of commands, promises, and threatenings, the terms or conditions of which were repentance, faith, and sincere obedience. But those who first engaged in the controversy, though they allowed the encouragement to repent and believe to arise merely from the grace of the Gospel, yet considered the formal obligation to do so as arising merely from the moral law, which, requiring supreme love to God, requires acquiescence in any revelation which he shall at any time make known. Witsius's Irenicum; Edwards on the Will, p. 220; Williams's Gospel Truth; Edwards's Crispianism Unmasked; Chauncey's Neonomianism Unmasked; Adams's View of Religions.

NESTORIANS, the followers of Nestorius, the bishop of Constantinople, who lived in the fifth century. They believed that in Christ there were not only two natures, but two persons, or UTOOTAGES; of which the one was divine, even the eternal word; and the other, which was human, was the man Jesus: that these two persons had only one aspect that the union between the Son of God and the son of man was formed in the moment of the virgin's conception, and was never to be dissolved: that it was not, however, an union of nature or of person, but only of will and affection. (Nestorius, however, it is said, denied the last position:) that Christ was therefore to be carefully distinguished from God, who dwelt in him as in his temple; and that Mary was to be called the mo ther of Christ, and not the mother of God.

One of the chief promoters of the Nestorian cause was Barsumas, created bishop of Nisibis, A. D. 435. Such was his zeal and success, that the Nesto

rians who still remain in Chaldea, Per- this little patriarch, have, since the sia, Assyria, and the adjacent countries, year 1559, been distinguished by the geconsider him alone as their parent and neral denomination of Elias, and reside founder. By him Pherozes, the Per- constantly in the city of Mousul. Their sian monarch, was persuaded to expel spiritual dominion is very extensive, those Christians who adopted the opi- takes in a great part of Asia, and comnions of the Greeks, and to admit the prehends also within its circuit the AraNestorians in their place, putting them in | bian Nestorians, and also the Christians possession of the principal seat of ec- of St. Thomas, who dwell along the clesiastical authority in Persia, the see coast of Malabar. It is observed, to the of Seleucia, which the patriarch of the lasting honour of the Nestorians, that of Nestorians had always filled even down all the Christian societies established in to our time. Barsumas also erected a the East, they have been the most careschool at Nisibis, from which proceeded ful and successful in avoiding a multithose Nestorian doctors who in the fifth tude of superstitious opinions and pracand sixth centuries spread abroad their tices that have infected the Greek and tenets through Egypt, Syria, Arabia, Latin churches. About the middle of India, Tartary, and China. the seventeenth century, the Romish missionaries gained over to their communion a small number of Nestorians, whom they formed into a congregation or church; the patriarchs or bishops of which reside in the city of Amida, or Diarbeker, and all assume the denomination of Joseph. Nevertheless, the Nestorians in general persevere to our own times in their refusal to enter into the communion of the Romish church, notwithstanding the earnest entreaties and alluring offers that have been made the pope's legate to conquer their inflexible constancy

NEW JERUSALEM CHURCH. See SWEDENBORGIANS.

In the tenth century, the Nestorians in Chaldea, whence they are sometimes called Chaldeans, extended their spiritual conquests beyond Mount Imaus, and introduced the Christian religion in to Tartary properly so called, and especially into that country called Karit, bordering on the northern part of China. The prince of that country, whom the Nestorians converted to the Christian faith, assumed, according to the vulgar tradition, the name of John after his baptism, to which he added the sur-by naine of Presbyter, from a principle of modesty; whence, it is said, his successors were each of them called Prester John until the time of Gengis Khan. NEW PLATONICS, or AMMONIBut Mosheim observes, that the famous ANS, so called from Ammonius Saccas, Prester John did not begin to reign in who taught with the highest applause that part of Asia before the conclusion in the Alexandrian school, about the of the eleventh century. The Nesto- conclusion of the second century. This rians formed so considerable a body of learned man attempted a general reChristians, that the missionaries of conciliation of all sects, whether philoRome were industrious in their endea- sophical or religious. He maintained vours to reduce them under the papal that the great principles of all philosoyoke. Innocent IV. in 1246, and Ni-phical and religious truth were to be cholas IV. in 1278, used their utmost efforts for this purpose, but without success. Till the time of pope Julius III. the Nestorians acknowledged but one patriarch, who resided first at Bagdad, and afterwards at Mousul; but a division arising among them, in 1551 the patriarchate became divided, at least for Ammonius supposed that true philoa time, and a new patriarch was conse-sophy derived its origin and its concrated by that pope, whose successors fixed their residence in the city of Ormus, in the mountainous parts of Persia, where they still continue, distinguished by the name of Simeon; and so far down as the seventeenth century, these patriarchs persevered in their communion with the church of Rome, but seem at present to have withdrawn themselves from it. The great Nestorian pontiffs, who form the opposite party, and look with a hostile eye on

found equally in all sects, and that they differed from each other only in their method of expressing them, in some opinions of little or no importance; and that by a proper interpretation of their respective sentiments they might easily be united in one body.

sistence from the eastern nations, that it was taught to the Egyptians by Hermes, that it was brought from them to the Greeks, and preserved in its original purity by Plato, who was the best interpreter of Hermes and the other oriental sages. He maintained that all the different religions which prevailed in the world were in their original integrity, conformable to this ancient philoso phy: but it unfortunately happened that the symbols and fictions under which,

according to the ancient manner, the ancients delivered their precepts and doctrines, were in process of time erroneously understood, both by priests and people, in a literal sense; that in consequence of this, the invisible beings and demons whom the Supreme Deity had placed in the different parts of the universe as the ministers of his providence, were by the suggestions of superstition converted into gods, and worshipped with a multiplicity of vain ceremonies. He therefore insisted that all the religions of all nations should be restored to their primitive standard: viz. The ancient philosophy of the east: and he asserted that his project was agreeable to the intentions of Jesus Christ, whom he acknowledged to be a most excellent man, the friend of God; and affirmed that his sole view in descending on earth, was to set bounds to the reigning superstition, to remove the errors which had crept into the religion of all nations, but not to abolish the ancient theology from which they were derived.

Taking these principles for granted, Ammonius associated the sentiments of the Egyptians with the doctrines of Plato; and to finish this conciliatory scheme, he so interpreted the doctrines of the other philosophical and religious sects, by art, invention, and allegory, that they seemed to bear some semblance to the Egyptian and Platonic systems.

the first deacons. Many of the primitive writers believed that Nicholas was rather the occasion than the author of the infamous practices of those who assumed his name, who were expressly condemned by the Spirit of God himself, Rev. ii. 6. And, indeed, their opinions and actions were highly extravagant and criminal. They allowed a community of wives, and made no distinction between ordinary meats and those offered to idols. According to Eusebius, they subsisted but a short time; but Tertullian says, that they only changed their name, and that their heresies passed into the sect of the Cainites.

NOETIANS, Christian heretics in the third century, followers of Noetius, a philosopher of Ephesus, who pretended that he was another Moses sent by God, and that his brother was a new Aaron. His heresy consisted in affirming that there was but one person in the Godhead; and that the Word and the Holy Spirit were but external denominations given to God in consequence of different operations; that, as Creator, he is called Father; as incarnate, Son; and as descending on the apostles, Holy Ghost.

NONCONFORMISTS, those who refuse to join the established church. Nonconformists in England may be considered of three sorts. 1. Such as absent themselves from divine worship in the established church through total irWith regard to moral discipline, religion, and attend the service of no Ammonius permitted the people to live other persuasion.-2. Such as absent according to the law of their country, themselves on the plea of conscience; and the dictates of nature; but a more as Presbyterians, Independents, Bapsublime rule was laid down for the wise. tists, &c.-3. Internal Nonconformists, They were to raise above all terrestrial or unprincipled clergymen, who apthings, by the towering efforts of holy plaud and propagate doctrines quite incontemplation, those souls whose origin consistent with several of those articles was celestial and divine. They were they promised on cath to defend. The ordered to extenuate by hunger, thirst, word is generally used in reference to and other mortifications, the sluggish those ministers who were ejected from body, which restrains the liberty of the their livings by the act of Uniformity, immortal spirit, that in this life they in 1662. The number of these was might enjoy communion with the Su- about two thousand. However some preme Being, and ascend after death, affect to treat these men with indifferactive and unencumbered, to the uni-ence, and suppose that their consciences versal Parent, to live in his presence for

ever.

NEW TESTAMENT. See INSPIRATION, and SCRIPTURE.

NICENE CREED. See CREED. NICOLAITANS, heretics who assumed this name from Nicholas of Antioch; who, being a Gentile by birth, first embraced Judaism and then Christianity; when his zeal and devotion recommended him to the church of Jerusalem, by whom he was chosen one of

were more tender than they need be, it must be remembered, that they were men of as extensive learning, great abilities, and pious conduct as ever appeared. Mr. Locke, if his opinion have any weight, calls them "worthy, learned, pious, orthodox divines, who did not throw themselves out of service, but were forcibly ejected." Mr. Bogue thus draws their character: "As to their public ministration," he says, "they were orthodox, experimental, serious,

of this intolerant spirit, that it is supposed near eight thousand died in prison in the reign of Charles II. It is said, that Mr. Jeremiah White had carefully collected a list of those who had suffered between Charles II. and the revolution, which amounted to sixty thousand. The same persecutions were carried on in Scotland; and there, as well as in England, many, to avoid persecution, fled from their country.

But, notwithstanding all these dreadful and furious attacks upon the Dissenters, they were not extirpated. Their very persecution was in their favour. The infamous characters of their informers and persecutors; their piety, zeal, and fortitude, no doubt, had influence on considerate minds; and, indeed, they had additions from the established church, which "several clergymen in this reign deserted as a persecuting

affectionate, regular, faithful, able, and popular preachers. As to their moral qualities, they were devout and holy; faithful to Christ and the souls of men; wise and prudent; of great liberality and kindness; and strenuous advocates for liberty, civil and religious. As to their intellectual qualities, they were learned, eminent, and laborious." These men were driven from their houses, from the society of their friends, and exposed to the greatest difficulties. Their burdens were greatly increased by the Conventical act, whereby they were prohibited from meeting for any exercise of religion (above five in number) in any other manner than allowed by the liturgy or practice of the Church of England. For the first offence the penalty was three months imprisonment, or pay five pounds; for the second offence, six months imprisonment, or ten pounds; and for the third offence, to be banish-church, and took their lot among them.* ed to some of the American plantations for seven years, or pay one hundred pounds; and in case they returned, to suffer death without benefit of clergy. By virtue of this act, the gaols were quickly filled with dissenting Protestants, and the trade of an informer was King William coming to the throne, very gainful. So great was the severity the famous Toleration Act passed, by of these times, says Neale, that they which they were exempted from sufferwere afraid to pray in their families, ifing the penalties above-mentioned, and above four of their acquaintance, who came only to visit them, were present: some families scrupled asking a blessing on their meat if five strangers were at table.

In addition to this, king James suddenly altered his measures, granted a universal toleration, and preferred Dissenters to places of trust and profit, though it was evidently with a view to restore popery.

permission given them to worship God, according to the dictates of their own consciences. In the latter end of Queen Anne's reign they began to be a little alarmed. An act of parliament passed, But this was not all (to say nothing of called the Occasional Conformity Bill, the Test act:) in 1665, an act was which prevented any person in office brought into the House to banish them under the government entering into a from their friends, commonly called the meeting-house. Another, called the Oxford Five Mile Act, by which all Schism Bill, had actually obtained the dissenting ministers, on the penalty of || royal assent, which suffered no Disforty pounds, who would not take an senters to educate their own children, oath (that it was not lawful, upon any but required them to be put into the pretence whatever, to take arms against hands of Conformists; and which furthe king, &c.) were prohibited from bade all tutors and schoolmasters being coming within five miles of any city, present at any conventicle, or dissenttown corporate, or borough, or any place ing place of worship; but the very day where they had exercised their ministry, this iniquitous act was to have taken and from teaching any school. Some place, the Queen died (August 1, 1714.) few took the oath; others could not, consequently suffered the penalty.

But his majesty king George I. being fully satisfied that these hardships were In 1673, "the mouths of the high brought upon the Dissenters for their church pulpiteers, were encouraged to steady adherence to the Protestant sucopen as loud as possible. One, in his cession in his illustrious house against sermon before the House of Commons, a tory and jacobite ministry, who were told them, that the Nonconformists paving the way for a popish pretender, ought not to be tolerated, but to be cur-procured the repeal of them in the fifth ed by vengeance. He urged them to set fire to the faggot, and to teach them by scourges or scorpions, and open their eyes with gall."

Such were the dreadful consequences

year of his reign; though a clause was left that forbade the mayor or other magistrate to go into any meeting for religious worship with the ensigns of his office. See Bogue's Charge at Mr.