zer, and to engage him, by the most seducing | into banishment, and punished some of them promises of opulence and glory, to carry on the with death. Their cause was espoused by ancheat. Jetzer was persuaded, or at least appear- other Donatus, called the Great, the principal ed to be so. But the Dominicans suspecting that bishop of that sect, who, with numbers of his folhe was not entirely gained over, resolved to poi- lowers, was exiled by order of Constans. Many son him; but his constitution was so vigorous, of them were punished with great severity.-Sce that, though they gave him poison five several CIRCUMCELLIONES. However, after the acces times, he was not destroyed by it. One day they sion of Julian to the throne in 362, they were sent him a loaf prepared with some spices, which permitted to return, and restored to their former growing green in a day or two, he threw a piece liberty. Gratian published several edicts against of it to a wolf's whelps that were in the monas-them, and in 377 deprived them of their churches, tery, and it killed them immediately. At another and prohibited all their assemblies. But, nottime they poisoned the host, or consecrated wafer; withstanding the severities they suffered, it ap but, as he vomited it up soon after he had swal- pears that they had a very considerable number lowed it, he escaped once more. In short, there of churches towards the close of this century; were no means of securing him, which the most but at this time they began to decline on account detestable impiety and barbarity could invent, of a schism among themselves, occasioned by the that they did not put in practice; till finding, at election of two bishops in the room of Parmenian, last, an opportunity of getting out of the convent, the successor of Donatus: one party elected Frihe threw himself into the hands of the magis- mian, and were called Primianists; and another, trates, to whom he made a full discovery of this Maximinian, and were called Maximinianists. infernal plot. The affair being brought to Rome, Their decline was also precipitated by the zealous commissaries were sent from thence to examine opposition of St. Augustine, and by the violent the matter; and the whole cheat being fully measures which were pursued against them by proved, the four friars were solemnly degraded order of the emperor Honorius, at the solicitation from their priesthood, and were burnt alive on of two councils held at Carthage, the one in 404, the last day of May, 1509. Jetzer died some time and the other in 411. Many of them were fined, after at Constance, having poisoned himself, as their bishops were banished, and some put to was believed by soine. Had his life been taken death. This sect revived and multiplied under away before he had found an opportunity of the protection of the Vandals, who invaded making the discovery already mentioned, this Africa in 427, and took possession of this proexecrable and horrid plot, which in many of its vince; but it sunk again under new severities, circumstances was conducted with art, would when their empire was overturned, in 534. Nehave been handed down to posterity as a stupen-vertheless, they remained in a separate body tilt dous miracle.

the close of this century, when Gregory, the RoThe Dominicans were perpetually employed man pontiff, used various methods for suppressing in stigmatising with the name of heresy numbers them: his zeal succeeded, and there are few of learned and pious men; in encroaching upon traces to be found of the Donatists after this the rights and properties of others, to augment period. They were distinguished by other aptheir possessions; and in laying the most iniqui-pellations, as Circumcellimes, Montenses or tous snares and stratagems, for the destruction of their adversaries. They were the principal counsellors by whose instigation and advice Leo X. was determined to the public condemnation of Luther. The papal see never had more active and useful abettors than this order, and that of the Jesuits.

Mountaineers, Campeles, Rupites, &c. They held three councils, that of Cita ir. Numidia, and two at Carthage.

The Donatists, it is said, held that baptism conferred out of the church, that is, out of their sect, was null; and accordingly they re-baptized those who joined their party from other churches, DOMINION OF GOD, is his absolute right they also re-ordained their ministers. Donatus to, and authority over, all his creatures, to do seems likewise to have embraced the doctrine of with them as he pleases. It is distinguished from the Arians; though St. Augustine affirms that his power thus: his dominion is a right of mak-the Donatists in this point kept clear of the errors ing what he pleases, and possessing what he makes, of their leader. and of disposing of what he possesses; whereas DORT, Synod of; a national Synod, sumhis power an ability to make what he has a moned by authority of the States-General, the proright to create, to hold what he possesses, and to vinces of Holland, Utrecht and Overyssel exexecute what he has purposed or resolved. cepted, and held at Dort, 1618. The most DONATISTS, ancient schismatics, in Afri-eminent divines of the United Provinces, and ca, so denominated from their leader, Donatus. deputies from the churches of England, Scotland, They had their origin in the year 311, when, in Switzerland, Bremen, Hessia, and the Palatinate, the room of Mensurius, who died in that year, on assembled on this occasion, in order to decide the his return to Rome, Cecilian was elected bishop controversy between the Calvinists and Armiof Carthage, and consecrated, without the con- nians. The synod had hardly commenced its currence of the Numidian bishops, by those of deliberations before a dispute on the mode of proAfrica alone, whom the people refused to acknow-ceeding drove the Arminian party from the aslee, and to whom they opposed Majorinus, who accordingly was ordained by Donatus bishop of Case Nigra. They were condemned in a council held at Rome, two years after their separation; and afterwards in another at Arles, the year following; and again at Milan, before Constantine the Great, in 316, who deprived them of their churches, and sent their seditious bishops

sembly. The Arminians insisted upon beginning with a refutation of the Calvinistic doctrines, especially that of reprobation; whilst the synod determined, that, as the remonstrants were ac cused of departing from the reformed faith, they ought first to justify themselves by a scriptural proof of their own opinions. All means to suade the Arminians to submit to this procedure

per

DOXOLOGY

DRUIDS

and to the Holy Ghost, world without end, amen." Part of the latter clause, "as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be," &c. was inserted some time after the first composition. DRAGOONING, one of the methods used by papists after the revocation of the edict of Nantz, under Lewis XIV., for converting refractory here tics, and bringing them within the pale of their church. If the reader's feelings will suffer him to peruse the account of these barbarities, he wil find it under the article PERSECUTION, in this

having failed, they were banished the synod for | words: "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, their refusal. The synod, however, proceeded in their examination of the Arminian tenets, condemned their opinions, and excommunicated their persons; whether justly or unjustly, let the reader determine. Surely no one can be an advocate for the persecution which followed, and which drove these men from their churches and country into exile and poverty. The authority of this synod was far from being universally acknowledged, either in Holland or in England. The provinces of Friesland, Zealand, Utrecht, Guelderland, and Groningen, could not be persuaded to adopt their decisions; and they were opposed by king James I. and archbishop Laud, in England.

work.

DREAD, is a degree of permanent fear, an habitual and painful apprehension of some tremendous event. It keeps the mind in a perpetual alarm, in an eager watchfulness of every circum stance that bears any relation to the evil appre hended.

DRUIDS, the priests or ministers of religion among the ancient Gauls, Britons, and Germans. They were chosen out of the best families; and the honours of their birth, joined with those of their function, procured them the highest venera

DOSITHEANS, an ancient sect among the Samaritans, in the first century of the Christian æra: so called from Dositheus, who endeavoured to persuade the Samaritans that he was the Messiah foretold by Moses. He had many followers, and his sect was still subsisting at Alexandria in the time of the patriarch Eulogius, as appears from a decree of that patriarch published by Photius. In that decree, Eulogius accuses Dosi-tion among the people. They were versed in theus of injuriously treating the ancient patriarchs and prophets, and attributing to himself the spirit of prophecy. He makes him contemporary with Simon Magus; and accuses him of corrupting the Pentateuch, and of composing several books directly contrary to the law of God.

astrology, geometry, natural philosophy, politics, and geography; they were the interpreters of religion, and the judges of all affairs indifferently. Whoever refused obedience to them was declated anpious and accursed. We know but little as to their peculiar doctrines, only that they believed the immortality of the soul, and, as is generally also supposed, the transmigration of it to other bodies; though a late author makes it appear highly probable that they did not believe this last, at least not in the sense of the Pythagoreans. The chief settlement of the Druids in Britain was in the isle of Anglesey, the ancient Mona, which they might choose for this purpose, as it is well stored with precious groves of their favourite oak. They were divided into several classes or branches, such as the priests, the poets, the augurs, the civil judges, and instructors of youth. Strabo, however, does not comprehend all these different orders under the denomination of druids: he only distinguishes three kinds; bardi, poets; the rates, priests and naturalists; and the druids, who, besides the study of nature, applied thenselves likewise to morality.

DOUBTS and Fears, are terms frequently used to denote the uncertainty of mind we are in respecting our interest in the divine favour. The causes of our doubts may be such as these: personal declension; not knowing the exact time, place, or means of our conversion; improper views of the character and decrees of God; the fluctuation of religious experience as to the enjoyment of God in prayer, hearing, &c.; the depth of our affliction; relapses into sin; the fall of professors; and the hidings of God's face. While some are continually harassed with doubts and fears, there are others who tell us they know not what it is to doubt; yea, who think it a sin to doubt; so prone are men to run to extremes, as if there were no medium between constant full assurance and perpetual doubt. The true Christian, perhaps, steers between the two. He is not always doubting, nor is he always living in the Their garments were remarkably long; and full exercise of faith. It is not unlawful at cer- when employed in religious ceremonies, they liketain seasons to doubt. "It is a sin," says one, wise wore a white surplice. They generally car "for a believer to live so as not to have his evi- ried a wand in their hands, and wore a kind of dences clear; but it is no sin for him to be so ornament, enchased with gold, about their necks honest and impartial as to doubt, when in fact his called the druid's egg. They had one chief, of evidences are not clear." Let the humble Chris- arch-druid, in every nation, who acted as high tian, however, beware of an extreme. Prayer, priest, or pontifex maximus. He had absolute conversation with experienced Christians, read-authority over the rest, and commanded, decreed, ing the promises, and consideration of the divine goodness, will have a tendency to remove unne

cessary doubts.

DCXOLOGY, a hymn used in praise of the Almighty, distinguished by the titles of the Greater and the Less. Both the doxologies are used in the church of England; the former being repeated after every psalm, and the latter used in the communion service. Doxology the Greater, or the angelic hymn, was of great note in the ancient church. It began with the words the angels sung at the birth of Christ, "Glory to God," &c. Dorology the Less, was anciently only a single sentence without a response, running in these

and punished at pleasure. They worshipped the Supreme Being under the name of Esus or lesus, and the symbol of the oak; and had no other temple than a wood or a grove, where all their re ligious rites were performed. Nor was any person permitted to enter that sacred recess unless he car ried with him a chain in token of his absolute dependence on the Deity. Indeed, their whole religion originally consisted in acknowledging that the Supreme Being, who made his abode in these sacred groves, governed the universe; and, that every creature ought to obey his laws and pay him divine homage. They considered the oak as the emblem, or rather the peculiar re

sidence, of the Almighty; and accordingly chap. | Euphrate, in allusion to the Hebrews, who used lets of it were worn, both by the druids and peo- to sing psalms on the border of the river Eu ple, in their religious ceremonies: the altars were phrates. This denomination seems to have obstrewed with its leaves, and encircled with its tained their name from their baptizing their new branches. The fruit of it, especially the mistle- converts by plunging. They are also called tumtoe, was thought to contain a divine virtue, and to blers, from the manner in which they performed bapbe the peculiar gift of Heaven. It was, there- tism, which is by putting the person, while kneelfore, sought for on the sixth day of the moon ing, head first under water, so as to resemble the with the greatest earnestness and anxiety and motion of the body in the act of tumbling. They when found, was hailed with such rapture of joy, use the trine immersion, with laying on the as almost exceeds imagination to conceive. As hands and prayer, even when the person baptized soon as the druids were informed of the fortunate is in the water. discovery, they prepared every thing ready for the sacrifice under the oak, to which they fastened two white bulls by the horns; then the archdruid, attended by a prodigious number of people, ascended the tree, dressed in white; and, with a consecrated golden knife, or pruning-hook, cropped the mistletoe, which he received in his robe, amidst the rapturous exclamations of the people. Having secured this sacred plant, he descended the tree; the bulls were sacrificed; and the Deity invoked to bless his own gift, and render it efficacious in those distempers in which it should be administered.

Their habit seems to be peculiar to themselves, consisting of a long tunic, or coat, reaching down to their heels, with a sash or girdle round the waist, and a cap, or hood, hanging from the shoulders, like the dress of the Dominican friars. The men do not shave the head or beard. The men and women have separate habitations and distinct governments. For these purposes they have erected two large wooden buildings, one of which is occupied by the brethren, the other by the sisters of the society; and in each of them there is a banqueting room, and an apartment for public worship; for the brethren and sisters do DRUNKENNESE, intoxication with strong not meet together, even at their devotions. They Liquor. It is either casual or habitual; just as it live chiefly upon rocts and other vegetables, the is one thing to be drunk, and another to be a rules of their society not allowing them flesh, ex drunkard. The evil of drunkenness appears in cept on particular occasions, when they hold what the following bad effects: 1. It betrays most con- they call a love-feast; at which time the brethren stitutions either to extravagance of anger, or sins and sisters dine together in a large apartinent, of lewdness.-2. It disqualifies men for the du- and eat mutton; but no other meat. In each of ties of their station, both by the temporary disor- their little cells they have a bench fixed, to serve der of their faculties, and at length by a constant the purpose of a bed, and a small block of wood incapacity and stupefaction.-3. It is attended for a pillow. The Dunkers allow of no interwith expense, which can often be ill spared.-4. course between the brethren and sisters, not even It is sure to occasion uneasiness to the family of by marriage. The principal tenets of the Dunkers the drunkard.-5. It shortens life.-6. It is a appear to be these: that future happiness is only most pernicious awful example to others.-7. It is to be attained by penance and outward mortificahardly ever cured.-8. It is a violation of God's tion in this life; and that, as Jesus Christ by his word, Prov. xx. 1. Eph. v. 18. Is. v. 11. Rom. meritorious sufferings, became the Redeemer of xiii. 13. "The appetite for intoxicating liquors ap-mankind in general, so cach individual of the hupears to me," says Paley, "to be almost always man race, by a life of abstinence and restraint, acquired. One proof of which is, that it is apt to may work out his own salvation. Nay, they go return only at particular times and places; as so far as to admit of works of supererogation, after dinner, in the evening, on the market-day, and declare that a man may do much more than in such a company, at such a tavern." How he is in justice or equity obliged to do, and that careful, then, should we be, lest we form habits his superabundant works may therefore be apof this kind, or choose company who are addicted plied to the salvation of others. This denomina to it; how cautious and circumspect should we tion deny the eternity of future punishments, and act, that we be not found guilty of a sin which believe that the dead have the Gospel preached to degrades human nature, banishes reason, insults them by our Saviour, and that the souls of the God, and exposes us to the greatest evils! Paley's just are employed to preach the Gospel to those Mor. Phil. vol. ii. ch. 2. Flavel's Works, vol. ii.who have had no revelation in this life. They P. 349; Buck's Anecdotes, vol. i. p. 82, 5th edition; Lamont's Ser, vol. i. ser. 15, 16.

DULCINISTS, the followers of Dulcinus, a layman of Novara in Lombardy, about the beginning of the fourteenth century. He taught tant the law of the Father, which had continued till Moses, was a law of grace and wisdom; but that the law of the Holy Ghost, which began with himself, in 1307, was a law entirely of love, which would last to the end of the world.

DUNKERS, a denomination which took its tise in the year 1721. It was founded by a German, who, weary of the world, retired to an agreeable solitude within fifty miles of Phanelphia, for the more free exercise of religious contemplation. Curiosity attracted followers, and his simple and engaging manners made them provelytes They soon settled a little colony, called

suppose the Jewish sabbath, sabbatical year, and year of jubilee, are typical of certain periods, after the general judgment, in which the souls of those who are not then admitted into happiness are purified from their corruption. If any within those smaller periods are so far humbled as to acknowledge the perfections of God, and to own Christ as their only Saviour, they are received to felicity; while those who continue obstinate are reserved in torments until the grand period tvpified by the jubilee arrives, in which all shall be made happy in the endless fruition of the Deity. They also deny the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity. They disclaim violence even in cases of self-defence, and suffer themselves to be defrauded or wronged rather than go to law.

Their church government and discipline are the same with the English Baptists, except that

EBIONITES

ECCLESIASTICAL

New York was surrendered to the English. The church was dependent for the ordination of its ministers, &c. on the Classis of Amsterdam, in Holland, till 1757, when the first Classis was formed in this country. Its government is com mitted to Consistories, Classes, and Synoda There are in connexion with this body one hun dred and fifty pastors, one hundred and eight five churches, and eleven thousand seven hundred communicants. They have a College and Theological Seminary under their control at New Brunswick, New Jersey.-B.

every brother is allowed to speak in the congregation; and their best speaker is usually ordained to be the minister. They have deacons and deaconess's from among their ancient widows and exhorters, who are all licensed to use their gifts statedly. They have, in the United States probably forty or fifty churches, to be found, for the most part, in the states west of the Allegheny. DUTCH (REFORMED) CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES.-The city and state of New York was first settled by this people. The oldest church was formed about the year 1639. The first minister was the Rev. Evorardus DUTY, any action, or course of actions Bogardus. The place of worship first erected which flow from the relation we stand in to God was in the fort at New York, in 1612; the se- or man: that which a man is bound to per cond in what is now called the Bowery. Others form by any natural or legal obligation. The were soon formed in Albany, Esopus, on Long various moral, relative, and spiritual duties, are Island, &c. The Dutch Reformed was the es- considered in their places in this work. tablished religion of the colony till 1664, when

over.

E.

EASTER, the day on which the Christian | prophets, and held the very names of David, Solochurch commemorates our Saviour's resurrec-mon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, in abhor tion. It is called by the Greeks Pasga; and by rence. They also rejected all St. Paul's epistles, the Latins Pascha, a Hebrew word, signifying whom they treated with the utmost disrespect. passage, applied to the Jewish feast of the Pass-They received nothing of the Old Testament It is called Easter in English, from the but the Pentateuch. They agreed with the Saxon goddess Eostre, whose festival was held Nazarenes, in using the Hebrew Gospel of St. in April. The Asiatic churches kept their Easter Matthew, otherwise called the Gospel of the upon the very same day that the Jews observed their twelve apostles; but they corrupted their copy in passover, and others on the first Sunday after the abundance of places; and particularly had left first full moon in the new year. This controver- out the genealogy of our Saviour, which was sy was determined in the council of Nice, when preserved entire in that of the Nazarenes, and it was ordained that Easter should be kept upon even in those used by the Corinthians. Besides one and the same day, which should always be the Hebrew Gospel of St. Matthew, the EbionSunday, in all Christian churches in the world. ites had adopted several other books under the EBIONITES, ancient heretics, who rose in title of St. James, John, and the other apostles; the church in the very first age thereof, and form- they also made use of the travels of St. Peter, ed themselves into a sect in the second century, which are supposed to have been written by St. denying the divinity of Jesus Christ. Origen Clement; but had altered them so, that there takes them to have been so called from the He- was scarce any thing of truth left in them. They brew word ebion, which in that language signifies even made that saint tell a number of falsehoods, poor; because, says he, they were poor in sense the better to authorize their own practices. and wanting understanding. Eusebius, with a view to the same etymology, is of opinion they were thus called, as having poor thoughts of Jesus Christ, taking him for no more than a mere man. It is more probable the Jews gave this ap-ration of the transactions, revolutions, and events pellation to the Christians in general out of con- that relate to the church. As to the utility of church tempt; because, in the first times, there were few history, Dr. Jortin, who was an acute writer on but poor people that embraced the Christian reli- this subject, shall here speak for us: he observes gion. The Ebionites were little else than a 1. That it will show us the amazing progress branch of the Nazarenes; only that they altered Christianity through the Roman empire, through and corrupted, in many things, the purity of the the East and West, although the powers of the faith held among the first adherents to Christian- world cruelly opposed it. 2. Connected with ity. For this reason, Origen distinguishes two Jewish and Pagan history, it will show us the kinds of Ebionites in his answer to Celsus: the total destruction of Jerusalem, the overthrow of one believed that Jesus Christ was born of a vir- the Jewish church and state; and the contin gin; and the other, that he was born after the ance of that unhappy nation for 1700 years manner of other men. The first were orthodox though dispersed over the face of the earth, atad In every thing, except that to the Christian doc- oppressed at different times by Pagans, Chris trine they joined the ceremonies of the Jewish tians, and Mahometans, 3. It shows us that law, with the Jews, Samaritans, and Nazarenes, the increase of Christianity produced, in the together with the traditions of the Pharisees. countries where it was received, the overthrow They differed from the Nazarenes, however, in and extinction of paganism, which, after a feeble several things, chiefly as to what regards the au- resistance, perishei aut the sixth century. 4 thority of the sacred writings; for the Nazarenes It shows us how Christianity has been continue received all for Scripture contained in the Jewish and delivered down from the apostolical to the canon; whereas the Ebionites rejected all the present age. 5. It shows us the various opinions

ECCLESIASTICAL, an appellation giver. to whatever belongs to the church; thus we say ecclesiastical polity, jurisdiction, history, &c. ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY, a nat

of

which prevailed at different times amongst the fathers and other Christians, and how theydeparted more or less from the simplicity of the Gospel. 6. It will enable us to form a true judgment of the merits of the fathers, and of the use which is to be made of them. 7. It will show us the evil of imposing unreasonable terms of communion, and requiring Christians to profess doctrines not propounded in Scriptural words, but inferred as consequences from passages of Scripture, which one may call systems of consequential divinity. & It will show us the origin and progress of popery; and, lastly, it will show us 9. The origin and progress of the Reformation. See Dr. Jortin's Charge on the Use and Importance of Ecclesiastical History, in his Works, vol. ii. ch. 2.

For ecclesiastical historians, see Eusebius's Eccl. Hist. with Valesius's notes; Baronii Annales Eccl.; Spondani Annales Sacri; Parei Universalis Hist. Ecc.; Lampe, Dupin, Spanheim, and Mosheim's Eccl. Hist.; Fuller's and Warner's Eccl. Hist. of England; Jortin's Remarks on Eccl. Hist.; Millar's Propagation of Christianity; Gillies's Historical Collections; Dr. Erskine's Sketches, and Robinson's Researches. ELCESAITES, ancient heretics, who made The most recent are, Dr. Campbell's, Gregory's, their appearance in the reign of the emperor TraMilner's, and Dr. Howeis's; all which have their jan, and took their name from their leader, Elceexcellencies. See also Bogue and Bennet's His-sai. They kept a mean between the Jews, tory of the Dissenters. For the history of the church under the Old Testament, the reader may consult Miller's History of the Church; Prideaur's and Shuckford's Connections; Dr. Watts's Scripture History; and Fleury's History of the Israelites.