BRETHREN

BROWNISTS

BOURIGNONISTS, the followers of Antoi- | viii. 2, 14, and maintained that the true children

nette Bourignon, a lady in France, who pretended to particular inspirations. She was born at Lisle, in 1616. At her birth she was so deformed, that it was debated some days in the family whether it was not proper to stifle her as a monster; but her deformity diminishing, she was spared; and afterwards obtained such a degree of beauty, that she had her admirers. From her childhood to her old age she had an extraordinary turn of mind. She set up for a reformer, and published a great number of books filled with very singular notions; the most remarkable of which are entitled The Light of the World, and The Testimony of Truth. In her confession of faith, she professes her belief in the Scriptures, the divinity and atonement of Christ. She believed also that man is perfectly free to resist or receive divine grace; that God is ever unchangeable love towards all his creatures, and does not inflict any arbitrary punishment; but that the evils they suffer are the natural consequence of sin; that religion consists not in outward forms of worship nor systems of faith, but in an entire resignation to the will of God. She held many extravagant notions, among which, it is said, she asserted that Adam, before the fall, possessed the principles of both sexes; that in an ecstacy, God represented Adam to her mind in his original state; as also the beauty of the first world, and how he had drawn from it the chaos; and that every thing was bright, transparent, and darted forth life and ineffable glory, with a number of other wild ideas. She dressed like a hermit, and travelled through France, Holland, England, and Scotland. She died at Fanekir, in the province of Frise, October 30, 1680. Her works have been printed in 18 vols. 8vo.

of God were invested with perfect freedom from the jurisdiction of the law. They held that all things flowed by emanation from God; that rational souls were portions of the Deity; that the universe was God; and that by the power of contemplation they were united to the Deity, and acquired hereby a glorious and sublime liberty, both from the sinful lusts and the common instincts of nature, with a variety of other enthusiastic notions. Many edicts were published against them; but they continued till about the middle of the fifteenth century.

BRETHREN AND CLERKS OF THE COMMON LIFE, a denomination assumed by a religious fraternity towards the end of the fifteenth century. They lived under the rule of St. Augustine, and were said to be eminently useful in promoting the cause of religion and learning.

BRETHREN, WHITE, were the followers of a priest from the Alps, about the beginning of the fifteenth century. They and their leader were arrayed in white garments. Their leader carried about a cross like a standard. His apparent sanctity and devotion drew together a number of followers. This deluded enthusiast practised many acts of mortification and penance, and endeavoured to persuade the Europeans to renew the holy war. Boniface IX. ordered him to be apprehended, and committed to the flames; upon which his followers dispersed.

BRETHREN, UNITED. See MORAVIANS. BREVIARY, the book containing the daily service of the church of Rome.

This

Henry V. in 1415, opposite to Richmond, now called Sion House; the ancient inhabitants of which, since the dissolution, are settled at Lisbon.

BRIDGETINS, or BRIGITTINS, an order denominated from St. Bridget, or Brigit, a Swedish lady, in the fourteenth century. Their rule is BOYLE'S LECTURES; a course of eight nearly that of St. Augustine. The Brigittins serrions, preached annually; set on foot by the profess great mortification, poverty, and self-dehonourable R. Boyle, by a codicil annexed to his nial; and they are not to possess any thing they will, in 1691, whose design, as expressed by the can call their own, not so much as an half-penny; institutor, is to prove the truth of the Christian nor even to touch money on any account. religion against infidels, without descending to order spread much through Sweden, Germany, any controversies among Christians, and to an- and the Netherlands. In England we read of swer new difficulties, scruples, &c. For the sup-but one monastery of Brigittins, and this built by port of this lecture he assigned the rent of his house in Crooked Lane to some learned divine within the bills of mortality, to be elected for a term not exceeding three years. But, the fund proving precarious, the salary was ill paid; to remedy which inconvenience, archbishop Tennison procured a yearly stipend of 501. for ever, to be paid quarterly, charged on a farm in the parish of Brl, in the county of Bucks. To this appointment we are indebted for many excellent de- BROWNISTS, a sect that arose among the fences of natural and revealed religion, among puritans towards the close of the sixteenth cenwhich may be mentioned those of Clarke, Kid-tury; so named from their leader, Robert Brown. der, Bentley, Burnet, Berriman, Whiston, &c. BRANDENBURG, CONFESSION OF. A formulary or confession of faith, drawn up in the city of Brandenburg by order of the elector, with a view to reconcile the tenets of Luther with those of Calvin, and to put an end to the disputes occasioned by the Confession of Augsburg. See AUGSBURG CONFESSION.

BRETHREN AND SISTERS OF THE FREE SPIRIT, an appellation assumed by a sect which sprung up towards the close of the thirteenth century, and gai.ied many adherents in Italy, France, and Germany. They took their denomination from the words of St. Paul, Rom.

BRIEFS (Apostolical) are letters which the pope dispatches to princes and other magistrates concerning any public affair.

BROTHERS, LAY, among the Romanists, are illiterate persons, who devote themselves in some convent to the service of the religious.

He was educated at Cambridge, and was a man of good parts and some learning. He began to inveigh openly against the ceremonies of the church, at Norwich, in 1580: but being much opposed by the bishops, he, with his congregation, left England, and settled at Middleburgh, in Zealand, where they obtained leave to worship God in their own way, and form a church a cording to their own model. They soon, however, began to differ among themselves; so that Brown, growing weary of his office, returned to England, in 1589, renounced his principles of separation, and was preferred to the rectory of a church in Northamptonshire. He died in pri

son, in 1630. The revolt of Brown was attended | after him, Mr. Ainsworth, author of the learned with the dissolution of the church at Middleburgh; but the seeds of Brownism which he had sown in England were so far from being destroyed, that Sir Walter Raleigh, in a speech in 1592, computes no less than 20,000 of this sect.

Commentary on the Pentateuch. Their church flourished near 100 years. Among the Brownists, too, were the famous John Robinson, a part of whose congregation from Leyden, in Holland, made the first permanent settlement in North America; and the laborious Canne, the author of the marginal references to the Bible.-Fuller's Church History of England, B. 9. p. 166; Strype's Life of Parker, p. 326; Neale's History of the Puritans, vol. i. p. 375; Mosheim's Eccl. History, vol. iv. p. 98; Hornbeck's History of Brownism. BUCHANITES, a set of enthusiasts who sprung up in the west of Scotland about 1783, and took their name from a Mrs. Buchan of Glasgow, who gave herself out to be the woman spoken of in the Revelations; and that all who believed in her should be taken up to heaven without tasting death, as the end of the world was near. They never increased much; and the death of their leader, within a year or two afterwards, occasioned their dispersion, by putting an end to their hopes of reaching the New Jerusalem without death.

BUDNÆANS, a sect in Poland, who disclaimed the worship of Christ, and ran into many wild hypotheses. Budnæus, the founder, was publicly excommunicated in 1584, with all his disciples, but afterwards he was admitted to the communion of the Socinian sect.

BULLS, (Popish,) are letters called apostolic by the Canonists, strengthened with a leaden seal, and containing in them the decrees and com

BURGHER SECEDERS, a numerous and respectable class of dissenters from the church of Scotland, who were originally connected with the associate presbytery; but, some difference of sentiment arising about the lawfulness of taking the Burgess oath, a separation ensued in 1739; in consequence of which, those who pleaded for the affirmative obtained the appellation of Burgher, and their opponents that of Anti-burgher Seceders. See SECEDERS.

The articles of their faith seem to be nearly the same as those of the church of England. The occasion of their separation was not, therefore, any fault they found with the faith, but only with the discipline and form of government of the churches in England. They equally charged corruption on the episcopal and presbyterian forms; nor would they join with any other reformed church, because they were not assured of the sanctity and regeneration of the members that composed it. They condemned the solemn celebration of marriages in the church, maintaining that matrimony being a political contract, the confirmation thereof ought to come from the civil magistrate; an opinion in which they are not singular. They would not allow the children of such as were not members of the church to be baptized. They rejected all forms of prayer, and held that the Lord's prayer was not to be recited as a prayer, being only given for a rule or model whereon all our prayers are to be formed. Their form of church government was nearly as follows: When a church was to be gathered, such as desired to be members of it made a confession of their faith in the presence of each other, and signed a covenant, by which they obliged themselves to walk together in the order of the Gospel. The whole power of admitting and excluding mem-mandments of the pope. bers, with the decision of all controversies, was lodged in the brotherhood. Their church officers were chosen from among themselves, and separated to their several offices by fasting, prayer, and imposition of hands. But they did not allow the priesthood to be any distinct order. As the vote of the brethren made a man a minister, so the same power could discharge him from his office, and reduce him to a mere layman again; and as they maintained the bounds of a church to be no greater than what could meet together in one place, and join in one communion, so the power of these officers was prescribed within the same limits.-The minister of one church could not administer the Lord's Supper to another, nor baptize the children of any but those of his own society. Any lay brother was allowed the liberty of giving a word of exhortation to the people; and it was usual for some of them after sermon to ask questions, and reason upon the doctrines that had been preached. In a word, every church on their model is a body corporate, having full power to do every thing in themselves, without being accountable to any class, synod, convocation, or other jurisdiction whatever. The reader will judge how near the Independent churches are allied to this form of government. See INDEPENDENTS. The laws were executed with great severity on the Brownists; their books were prohibited by queen Elizabeth, their persons imprisoned, and some hanged. Brown himself declared on his death-bed that he had been in thirty-two different prisons, in some of which he could not see his hand at noon-day. They were so much persecuted, that they resolved at last to quit the country. Accordingly many retired and settled at Amsterdam, where they formed a church, and chose Mr. Johnson their pastor, and

BURIAL, the interment of a deceased person. The rites of burial have been looked upon in all countries as a debt so sacred, that such as neglected to discharge them were thought accursed. Among the Jews, the privilege of burial was denied only to self-murderers, who were thrown out to putrefy upon the ground. In the Christian church, though good men always desired the privilege of interment, yet they were not, like the heathens, so concerned for their bodies, as to think it any detriment to them if either the barbarity of an enemy, or some other accident, deprived them of this privilege. The primitive church denied the more solemn rites of burial only to unbaptized persons, self-murderers, and excommunicated persons, who continued obstinate and impenitent in a manifest contempt of the church's censures. The place of burial among the Jews was never particularly determined. We find they had graves in the town and country, upon the highway or in gardens, and upon mountains. Among the Greeks, the temples were made repositories for the dead, in the primitive ages: yet, in the latter ages, the Greeks as well as the Romans buried the dead without the cities, and chiefly by the highways. Among the primitive Christians, burying in cities was not allowed for the first three hundred years, nor in churches for many ages after;

the dead bodies being first deposited in the atrium | In the famous bishop Hall's will we find this or churchyard, and porches and porticos of the church hereditary burying-places were forbidden till the twelfth century. See FUNERAL RITES. As to burying in churches, we find a difference of opinion: some have thought it improper that dead bodies should be interred in the church. Sir Matthew Hale used to say that churches were for the living, and churchyards for the dead.

C.

CABBALA, a Hebrew word, signifying tradi- | tion: it is used for a mysterious kind of science pretended to have been delivered by revelation to the ancient Jews, and transmitted by oral tradition to those of our times: serving for interpretation of the books both of nature and Scripture. CABBALISTS, the Jewish doctors who profess the study of the cabbala. They study principally the combination of particular words, letters, and numbers; and by this, they say, they see clearly into the sense of Scripture. In their opinion, there is not a word, letter, number, or accent, in the law, without some mystery in it; and they even pretend to discover what is future by this vain study.

Dr. Smith has given us the following description of the Cabbalistic rabbies.

passage; after desiring a private funeral, he says, "I do not hold God's house a meet repository for the dead bodies of the greatest saints." Mr. Hervey, on the contrary, defends it, and supposes that it tends to render our assemblies more awful: and that, as the bodies of the saints are the Lord's property, they should be reposed in his house.

marks of reprobation; as the inhabitants of Sodom, Esau, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. They had, in particular, great veneration for Judas, under the pretence that the death of Christ had saved mankind.

had been constantly received by the ancient doctors, during the first five centuries, were to be considered as of equal truth and authority with the express declarations and doctrines of Scripture.

CALIXTINS, a branch of the Hussites in Bohemia and Moravia, in the fifteenth century. The principal point in which they differed from the church of Rome was the use of the chalice (calix), or communicating in both kinds. Calixtins was also a name given to those among the Lutherans who followed the opinions of George Calixtus, a celebrated divine in the seventeenth century, who endeavoured to unite the Romish, Lutheran, and Calvinistic churches in the bonds of charity and mutual benevolence. He maintained, 1. That the fundamental doctrines of They have employed the above methods of in- Christianity, by which he meant those elementerpretation, which have rendered the Scripture a tary principles whence all its truths flow, were convenient instrument of subserviency to any preserved pure in all three communions, and were purpose which they might choose. Disregarding contained in that ancient form of doctrine that is the continuity of subject, and the harmony of vulgarly known by the name of the apostles' parts, in any Scriptural composition, they select-creed.-2. That the tenets and opinions which ed sentences, and broken pieces of sentences, and even single words and detached letters; and these they proposed to the ignorant and abused multitude as the annunciations of truth and authority. To ascertain the native sense of the sa- CALL, CALLING, generally denotes God's cred writers, however momentous and valuable, invitation to man to participate the blessings of was no object of their desire. Attention to the salvation: it is termed effectual, to distinguish it just import of words, to the scope of argument, from that external or common call of the light of and to the connexion of parts, was a labour from nature, but especially of the Gospel, in which which they were utterly averse, and which they men are invited to come to God, but which has impiously despised. Instead of such faithful and no saving effect upon the heart: thus it is said, honest endeavours to know the will of God, they "Many are called, but few chosen." Matt. xxii. stimulated a sportive fancy, a corrupt and often 14. Effectual calling has been more particularly absurd ingenuity, to the invention of meanings defined to be the work of God's Spirit, whereby the most remote from the design of the inspired convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening writer, and the most foreign from the dictates of our minds with the knowledge of Christ, and rean unsophisticated understanding. No part of newing our wills, he doth persuade and enable the Scriptures was safe from this profanation. us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us The plainest narrative, the most solemn com- in the Gospel. This may further be considered mand, the most clear and interesting declaration as a call from darkness to light, 1 Pet. ii. 9; from of doctrine, were made to bend beneath this ir bondage to liberty, Gal. ii. 13; from the fellowreverent violence. History the most true, the ship of the world to the fellowship of Christ, 1 Cor. most ancient, and the most important in the i. 9; from misery to happiness, I Cor. vii. 15; from world, was considered merely as the vehicle of sin to holiness, 1 Thess. iv. 7; finally, from all mystic allegory. The rule of faith, and the created good to the enjoyment of eternal felicity, standard of indissoluble duty, were made flexible 1 Pet. v. 10. It is considered in the Scripture as and weak as the spider's web, and the command- a holy calling, 2 Tim. i. 9; a high calling, Phil. ments of God were rendered void. See Dr. iii. 14; a heavenly calling, Heb. iii. 1; and withSmith's Sermon on the Apostolic Ministry com-out repentance, as God will never cast off any pared with the Pretensions of spurious Re- who are once drawn to him, Rom. xi. 29. ligion and false Philosophy.

CAINITES, a sect who sprung up about the year 130; so called, because they esteemed Cain worthy of the greatest honours. They honoured those who carry in Scripture the most visible

It has been a matter of dispute whether the Gospel call should be general, i. e. preached to all men indiscriminately. Some suppose that, as the elect only will be saved, it is to be preached only to them; and, therefore, cannot invite all to come

CALVINISTS

CALVINIST'S

before the foundation of the world, unto eternal glory, according to his immutable purpose, and of his free grace and love, without the least foresight of faith, good works, or any conditions performed by the creature; and that the rest of mankind he was pleased to pass by, and ordain to dishonour and wrath, for their sins, to the praise of his vindictive justice.

to Christ. But to this it is answered, that an unknown decree can be no rule of action, Deut. xxix. 29. Prov. ii. 13; that, as we know not who are the elect, we cannot tell but he may succeed our endeavours by enabling those who are addressed to comply with the call, and believe; that it is the Christian minister's commission to preach the Gospel to every creature, Mark xvi. 15; that the inspired writers never confined themselves to preach to saints only, but reasoned with and persuaded sinners, 2 Cor. v. 11:-and, lastly, that a general address to men's consciences has been greatly successful in promoting their conversion, Acts ii. 23, 41. But it has been asked, if none but the elect can believe, and no man has any ability in himself to comply with the call, and as the Almighty knows that none but those o whom he gives grace can be effectually called, of what use is it to insist on a general and external call? To this it is answered, that, by the external call, gross enormous crimes are often avoided; habits of vice have been partly conquered; and much moral good at least has been produced. It is also observed, that though a man cannot convert himself, yet he has a power to do some things that are materially good, though not good in all those circumstances that accompany or flow from regeneration such were Ahab's humility, 1 Kings xxi. 29; Nineveh's repentance, Jer. iii. 5; and Herod's hearing of John, Mark vi. 20. On the whole, the design of God in giving this common call in the Gospel is the salvation of his people, the restraining of many from wicked practices, and the setting forth of the glorious work of redemption by Jesus Christ. See Gill and Ridgley's Body of Div.; Witsius on the Cov.; and Bennet's Essay on the Gospel Dis-through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of pensation.

CALVINISTS, those who embrace the doctrine and sentiments of Calvin, the celebrated reformer of the Christian church from Romish superstition and doctrinal errors.

John Calvin was born at Nogen, in Picardy, in the year 1509. He first studied the civil law, and was afterwards made professor of divinity at Geneva, in the year 1536. His genius, learning, eloquence, and piety, rendered him respectable even in the eyes of his enemies.

The name of Calvinists seems to have been given at first to those who embraced not merely the doctrine, but the church government and discipline established at Geneva, and to distinguish them from the Lutherans. But since the meeting of the Synod of Dort, the name has been chiefly applied to those who embrace his leading views of the Gospel, to distinguish them from the Arminians.

In proof of this they allege, among many other Scripture passages, the following: "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then, it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God, that showeth mercy. Thou wilt say, then, Why doth he yet find fault; for who hath resisted his will? Nay, but O man! who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour?-Hath God cast away his people whom he foreknew? Wot ye not what the Scripture saith of Elias? Even so at this present time, also, there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then it is no more of works. What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for, but the election hath obtained it, and the rest are blinded.-Whom he did predestinate, them he also called. We give thanks to God always for you brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation,

the truth.-As many as were ordained to eternal life, believed." Eph. i. 4. Rom. ix. xi. 1--6. viii. 29, 30. 2 Thess. ii. 13. Acts xiii. 48. They think also that the greater part of these passages, being found in the epistolary writings, after the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, who was promised to guide the apostles into all truth, is an argument in favour of the doctrine.

They do not consider predestination, however, as affecting the agency or accountableness of creatures, or as being to them any rule of conduct. On the contrary, they suppose them to act as freely, and to be as much the proper subjects of calls, warnings, exhortations, promises, and threatenings, as if no decree existed. The connection in which the doctrine is introduced by the divines at Dort, is to account for one sinner's believing and being saved rather than another; and such the Calvinists say, is the connection which it occupies in the Scriptures.

The leading principles taught by Calvin were With respect to the conditional predestination the same as those of Augustine. The main doc-admitted by the Arminians, they say that an trines by which those who are called after his name are distinguished from the Arminians, are reduced to five articles; and which, from their being the principal points discussed at the Synod of Dort, have since been denominated the five points. These are, predestination, particular redemption, total depravity, effectual calling, and the certain perseverance of the saints.

The following statement is taken principally from the writings of Calvin and the decisions at Dort, compressed in as few words as possible. 1. They maintain that God hath chosen a certain number of the fallen race of Adam in Christ

election upon faith or good works foreseen, is not that of the Scriptures; for that election is there made the cause of faith and holiness, and cannot, for this reason, be the effect of them. With regard to predestination to death, they say, if the question be, Wherefore did God decree to punish those who are punished? the answer is, On account of their sins. But if it be, Wherefore did he decree to punish them rather than others? there is no other reason to be assigned, but that so it seemed good in his sight. Eph. i. 3, 4. John vi. 37. Rom. viii. 29, 30. Acts xiii. 48, 1 Pet. i. 1. Rom. ix. 15, 16. xi. 5, 6.

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CALVINISTS

2. They maintain that though the death of Christ be a most perfect sacrifice, and satisfaction for sins, of infinite value, abundantly sufficient to expiate the sins of the whole world; and though on this ground the Gospel is to be preached to all mankind indiscriminately; yet it was the will of God that Christ, by the blood of the cross, should efficaciously redeem all those, and those only, who were from eternity elected to salvation, and given to him by the Father.

CALVINISTS

who, being their public head. his sin invol ved the corruption of all his posterity, and which corruption extends over the whole soul, and ren. ders it unable to turn to God, or to do any thing truly good, and exposes it to his righteous displeasure, both in this world and that which is to come.

therefore it is said that he hath bound us. Nevertheless, from him not the punishment only came upon us, but also the infection distilled from him abideth in us, to the which the punishment is justly due."

The resolutions of the divines at Dort on this head, contain the following positions. “Such as man was after the fall, such children did he beget -corruption, by the righteous judgment of God, being derived from Adam to his posterity-not by imitation, but by the propagation of a vicious nature. Wherefore, all men are conceived in sin, and are born the children of wrath, unfit for every good connected with salvation, prone to evil, dead in sins, and the servants of sin; and without the Holy Spirit regenerating them, they neither will nor can return to God, amend their depraved nature, nor dispose themselves for its amendment."

The explanation of original sin, as given by Calvin, is as follows:-"Original sin seems to be the inheritable descending perverseness and corCalvin does not appear to have written on this ruption of our nature, poured abroad into all the subject as a controversy, but his comments on parts of the soul, which first maketh us deserving Scripture agree with the above statement. The of God's wrath, and then also bringeth forth those following positions are contained in the resolu- works in us, called, in Scripture, the works of the tions of the synod of Dort, under this head of flesh. These two things are distinctly to be noted, doctrine :-"The death of the Son of God is the that is, that, being thus in all parts of our nature only and most perfect sacrifice and satisfaction corrupted and perverted, we are now, even for for sins, of infinite value and price, abundantly such corruption, only holden worthy of damnation, sufficient to expiate the sins of the whole world. and stand convicted before God, to whom nothing -The promise of the Gospel is, that whosoever is acceptable but righteousness, innocence, and believeth in Christ crucified shall not perish, but purity. And yet we are not bound in respect of have everlasting life; which promise, together another's fault; for where it is said that by the with the command to repent and believe, ought sin of Adam we are made subject to the judg promiscuously and indiscriminately to be publish- ment of God, Rom. v. 18. it is not to be so taken, ed and proposed to all people and individuals, to as if we, innocent and undeserving, did bear the whom God in his good pleasure sends the Gos-blame of his fault; but, as in consequence of is pel.-Whereas, many who are called by the Gos-offence, we are ultimately clothed with the curse, pel do not repent nor believe in Christ, but perish in unbelief; this proceeds not from any defect or insufficiency in the sacrifice of Christ offered on the cross, but from their own fault. As many as truly believe, and are saved by the death of Christ from their sins, and from destruction, have to ascribe it to the mere favour of God, which he owes to none, given them in Christ from eternity. For it was the most free counsel, and gracious will and intention of God the Father, that the quickening and saving efficacy of the most precious death of his Son should exert itself in all the elect, to give unto them only justifying faith, and by it to conduct them infallibly to salvation: that is, it was the will of God that Christ by the blood of the cross, whereby he confirmed the new covenant, should efficaciously redeem out of every people, tribe, nation and language, all those, and those only, who were from eternity elected to salvation, and given to him by the Fa- In proof of this doctrine, the Calvinists allege, ther." among other Scripture passages, the following: These positions they appear to have considered" By one man sin entered into the world, and as not only a declaration of the truth, but an an-death by sin: and so death passed upon all men, swer to the arguments of the Remonstrants. for that all have sinned.-By one man's disobeIn proof of the doctrine, they allege among others the following Scripture passages: "Thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.-The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.-I lay down my life for the sheep. --He died not for that nation only, but that he might gather together in one the children of God that are scattered abroad.--He gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. He loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it, and present it to himself, &c.-And they sang a new song, saying Thou art worthy; for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation." John xvii. 2. x. 11, 15. xi. 52. Tit. ii. 14. Eph. v, 25-27. Rev. v. 9. 3. They maintain that mankind are totally depraved, in consequence of the fall of the first man,

dience many were made sinners. I was born in sin, and shapen in iniquity.-God saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, and that every imagination of his heart was only evil continually.-God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God. Every one of them is gone back; they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doth good, no not one. -And you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins, Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others." Rom. v. 12-19. Ps. li. 5. Gen. vi. 5. Ps, liii. 2,3, Rom. iii. Eph. ii. 1-3.

4. They maintain that all whom God hath predestinated unto life, he is pleased, in his appointed time, effectually to call by his word and Spirit