CALVINISTS

mination, there are considerable shades of differ ence.

CALVINISTS out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ, They admit that the Holy Spirit, as calling men Some think that Calvin, though right in the by the ministry of the Gospel, may be resisted; main, yet carried things too far: these are comand that where this is the case, "the fault is not monly known by the name of Moderate Calvinin the Gospel, nor in Christ offered by the Gos-ists. Others think he did not go far enough; and pel, nor in God calling by the Gospel, and also conferring various gifts upon them; but in the called themselves. They contend, however, that where men come at the divine call, and are converted, it is not to be ascribed to themselves, as though by their own free will they made themselves to differ, but merely to him who delivers them from the power of darkness, and translates them into the kingdom of his dear Son, and whose regenerating influence is certain and effi

cacious,"

these are known by the name of High Calvinists. It is proper to add, that the Calvinistic system includes in it the doctrine of three co-ordinate persons in the Godhead, in one nature, and of two natures in Jesus Christ, forming one person. Justification by faith alone, or justification by the imputed righteousness of Christ, forms also an essential part of this system. They suppose that, on the one hand, our sins are imputed to Christ, and on the other, that we are justified by the imputation of Christ's righteousness to us; In proof of this doctrine the Calvinists allege, that is, Christ, the innocent, was treated by God among others, the following Scripture passages: as if he were guilty, that we, the guilty, might, -"Whom he did predestinate, them he also call-out of regard to what he did and suffered, be al; and whom he called, them he also glorified. treated as if we were innocent and righteous. That ye may know what is the exceeding great- Calvinism originally subsisted in its greatest ness of his power, to us-ward who believe, accord-purity in the city of Geneva; from which place it ing to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead.-Not of works lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works.-God, that commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined into our hearts, &c.-I will take away the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them hearts of flesh."-Rom. viii. 29. Eph. i. 19, 90. 2 Cor. iv. 6. Ezek. xxxvi. 26.

5. Lastly: They maintain that those whom God has effectually called, and sanctified by his Spirit, shall never finally fall from a state of grace. They admit that true believers may fall partially, and would fall totally and finally but for the mercy and faithfulness of God, who keepeth the feet of his saints; also, that he who bestoweth the grace of perseverance, bestoweth it by means of reading and hearing the word, meditation, exhortations, threatenings, and promises; but that none of these things imply the possibility of a believer's falling from a state of justification.

In proof of this doctrine, they allege the following among other Scripture passages:-"I will put my fear in their hearts, and they shall not depart from me. He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved.-The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting life.-This is the Father's will, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing-This is life eternal, to know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him; and be cannot sin because he is born of God. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever, Amen."-Jer. xxxii. 40. Mark xvi. 16. John iv. 14. vi. 40. xvii. 3. 1 John iii. 9. ii. 19. Jude 24, 25.

was first propagated into Germany, France, the United Provinces, and Britain. In France it was abolished by the revocation of the edict of Nantz It has been the prevailing religion in the United Provinces ever since 1571. The theological system of Calvin was adopted and made the public, rule of faith in England under the reign of Edward VI. The Church of Scotland also was modelled by John Knox, agreeably to the doctrine, rites, and form of ecclesiastical government established at Geneva. In England, Calvinism had been on the decline from the time of queen Elizabeth until about sixty years ago, when it was again revived, and has been on the increase ever since. The major part of the clergy, indeed, are not Calvinists, though the articles of the church of England are Calvinistical. It deserves to be remarked, however, that Calvinism is preached in a considerable number of the churches in Lon don in nearly all the dissenting meetings of the Presbyterians, Baptists, and Independents; and in all the chapels of Whitfield, Lady Huntingdon, and others of that class. In Scotlalu it continues also to exist as the established religion; and within a few years it has much revived in that country, through the influence of Mr. Haldane and others but as those among whom this revival has taken place are not of the established church, they have been treated with inuifference by the clergy, and called Haldanists.

Calvin considered every church as a separate and independent body, invested with the power of legislation for itself. He proposed that it should be governed by presbyteries and synods composed of clergy and laity, without bishops or any clerical subordination; and maintained that the province of the civil magistrate extended only to its protection and outward accommodation. He acknowledged a real though spiritual presence of Christ in the eucharist; and he confined the pri vilege of communion to pious and regenerate be lievers. These sentiments, however, are not imbibed by all who are called Calvinists. See Calvin's Institutes; Life of Calvin; Brine's Tracts; Jonathan Edwards's Works; Gill's Cause of God and Truth; Toplady's Historic Proof and Works at large; Assembly's Cate chism; Fuller's Calvinistic and Socinian Sys

Such were the doctrines of the old Calvinists, and such in substance are those of the present times. In this, however, as in every other deno-tems Compared,

CANDOUR

CAMALDOLITES, an order founded by St. Romuald, an Italian fanatic, in the eleventh century. The manner of life he enjoined his disciples to observe was this:-They dwelt in se parate cells, and met together only at the time of prayer. Some of them, during the two Lents in the year, observed an inviolable silence, and others for the space of a hundred days. On Sundays and Thursdays they fed on herbs, and the rest of the week only on bread and water.

CANON

from the dark jealousy of a suspicious mind, it is no less removed, on the other, from that easy credulity which is imposed on by every specious pretence. Its manners are unaffected, and its professions sincere. 'It conceals faults, but it does not invent virtues.' In fine, it is the happy medium between undistinguishing credulity and universal suspicion." See LIBERALITY.

CANON, a word used to denote the authoriz ed catalogue of the sacred writings. "The Greek CAMBRIDGE MANUSCRIPT, a copy of word xvwv," says Dr. Owen, "which gives rise to the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles, in Greek the term canonical, seems to be derived from the and Latin. Beza found it in the monastery of Hebrew p kaneh, which in general signifies Irenæus, at Lyons, in 1562, and gave it to the any reed whatever, 1 Kings xiv. 15. Isa. xliii. 3, university of Cambridge in 1582. It is a quarto, and particularly a reed made into an instrument, and written on vellum: sixty-six leaves of it are wherewith they measured their buildings, containmuch torn and mutilated; and ten of these are ing six cubits in length, Ezek. xl. 7. xliii. 16; and supplied by a later transcriber. From this and hence indefinitely it is taken for a rule or mea the Clermont copy of St. Paul's epistles, Beza sure. Besides, it signifies the beam and tongue of published his larger annotations in 1582. See a balance, Isa. xlvi. 6. They weighed silver Dr. Kipling's edition of it. on the cane;' that is, saith the Targum, 'in the balance.' This also is the primary and proper signification of the Greek word. Hence its me taphorical use, which is most common, wherein it signifies a moral rule. Aristotle calls the law KOVOVE THE TORIT, the rule of the administration; and hence it is that the written word of God being in itself absolutely right, and appointed to be the rule of faith and obedience, is eminently call'canonical.'"

CAMERONIANS, a sect in Scotland, who separated from the Presbyterians in 1666, and continued long to hold their religious assemblies in the fields. They took their name from Richard Cameron, a famous field preacher, who, refusing to accept the indulgence to tender consciences, granted by king Charles II., thinking such an acceptance an acknowledgment of the king's supremacy, made a defection from his bre-ed thren, and even headed a rebellion, in which he The ancient canon of the books of the Old was killed. The Cameronians adhere rigidly to Testament, ordinarily attributed to Ezra, was di the form of government established in 1648. vided into the law, the prophets, and the hagio There are not, it is said, above fourteen or fifteen graphia, to which our Saviour refers, Luke xxiv. congregations among them, and these not large. 45. The same division is also mentioned by Jo CAMERONIANS, or CAMERONITES, the sephus. This is the canon allowed to have been denomination of a party of Calvinists in France, followed by the primitive church till the council who asserted that the will of man is only deter- of Carthage; and, according to Jerome, this conmined by the practical judgment of the mind; sisted of no more than twenty-two books, answer that the cause of men's doing good or evil pro-ing to the number of the Hebrew alphabet, though ceeds from the knowledge which God infuses into at present they are classed into twenty-four dis them; and that God does not move the will phy-visions. That council enlarged the canon very sically, but only morally, in virtue of its depend- considerably, taking into it the apocryphal books; ence on the judgment. They had this name from which the council of Trent further enforced, enJohn Cameron, who was born at Glasgow in joining them to be received as books of holy Scrip1590, and who was professor there, and after-ture, upon pain of anathema. The Romanists, in wards at Bordeaux, Sedan, and Saumur. The synod of Dort was severe upon them; yet it seems the only difference was this:-The synod had defined that God not only illuminates the understanding, but gives motion to the will, by making an internal change therein. Cameron only admitted the illumination whereby the mind is morally moved; and explained the sentiment of the synod of Dort so as to make the two opinions consistent, CANDOUR is a disposition to form a fair and impartial judgment on the opinions and actions of others; or a temper of mind unsoured by envy, unruffled by malice, and unseduced by prejudice, sweet without weakness, and impartial without rigour. Candour is a word which, in the present day, is found exceedingly convenient. To the infidel it is a shelter for his scepticism, to the ignorant for his ignorance, to the lukewarm for his indifference, and to the irreligious for their error. "True candour is different from that guarded, inoffensive language, and that studied openness of behaviour, which we so frequently meet with among men of the world. It consists not in fairness of speech only, but in fairness of heart. It is not blind attachinent, external courtesy, or a time-serving principle. Exempt, on the one hand,

defence of this canon, say, that it is the same with that of the council of Hippo, held in 393; and with that of the third council of Carthage in 397, at which were present forty-six bishops, and among the rest St. Augustine. Their canon of the New Testament, however, perfectly agrees with ours. It consists of books that are well known, some of which have been universally acknowledged: such are the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, thirteen epistles of St. Paul, first of St. Peter, and first of St. John; and others, concerning which doubts were en tertained, but which were afterwards received as genuine; such are the Epistle to the He brews, that of James, the second of Peter, the second and third of John, that of Jude, and the Revelation. These books were written at dif ferent times; and they are authenticated, not by the decrees of councils, or infallible authority, but by such evidence as is thought sufficient in the case of any other ancient writings. They were extensively diffused, and read in every Christian society; they were valued and preserved with care by the first Christians: they were cited by Christian writers of the second, third, and fourth centuries, as Irenæus, Clement the Alexandran

CANONIZATION

Tertullian, Origen, Eusebius &c.; and their genuineness is proved by the testimony of those who were contemporary with the apostles themselves. The four Gospels, and most of the other books of the New Testament, were collected either by one of the apostles, or some of their disciples and successors, before the end of the first century. The catalogue of canonical books furnished by the more ancient Christian writers, as Origen, about A. D. 210, Eusebius and Athanasius in 315, Epiphanius in 370, Jerome in 382, Austin in 394, and many others, agrees with that which is now received among Christians.

See articles BIBLE, CHRISTIANITY, SCRIPTURES; Blair's Canon of Scripture; Jones's Canonical Authority of the New Test.; Michaelis's Lect. on the New Test.; Du Pin's Canon of Script. v.i.; Prideaux's Connexions, v. i.; Dr. Owen on the Hebrews, Introd.; Alexander on the Canon.

CARE

the holy father decrees his canonization, and appoints the day.

On the day of canonization, the pope officiates in white, and their eminences are dressed in the same colour. St. Peter's church is hung with rich tapestry, upon which the arms of the pope, and of the prince or state requiring the canonization, are embroidered in gold and silver. A great number of lights blaze all round the church, which is crowded with pious souls, who wait with devout impatience till the new saint has made his public entry, as it were, into paradise, that they may offer up their petitions to him without danger of being rejected.

The following maxin with regard to canonization is now observed, though it has not been followed above a century, viz. not to enter into the inquiries prior to canonization till fifty years, at least, after the death of the person to be canonized. By the ceremony of canonization, it ap pears that this rite of the modern Romans has something in it very like the apotheosis or deification of the ancient Romans, and in all probability takes its rise from it; at least, several ceremonics of the same nature are conspicuous in both.

CANON, a person who possesses a prebend revenue allotted for the performance of divine service in a cathedral or collegiate church. Canons are of no great antiquity. Pachier observes, that the name was not known before Charlemagne; at least, the first we hear of are in Gregory de Tours, who mentions a college of canons instituted by Baldwin XVI. archbishop of that city, in the time of Clotharius I. The common opinion attributes the institution of this order to CAPUTIATI, a denomination which apChrodegangus, bishop of Mentz, about the mid-peared in the twelfth century, so called from a dle of the eighth century.

CANON, in an ecclesiastical sense, is a rule either of doctrine or discipline, enacted especially by a council, and confirmed by the authority of the sovereigu. Canons are properly decisions of matters of religion, or regulations of the policy and discipline of a church made by councils, either general, national, or provincial; such are the canons of the council of Nice, of Trent, &c. CANONICAL HOURS are certain stated times of the day consigned more especially by the Romish church to the offices of prayer and devotion; such are matins, iquds, &c. In England the canonical hours are from eight to twelve in the forenoon; before or after which marriage cannot be legally performed in any church. CANONICAL LETTERS, in the ancient church, were testimonies of the orthodox faith, which the bishops and clergy sent each other to keep up the catholic communion, and distinguish orthodox Christians from heretics.

CANONICAL LIFE, the rule of living prescribed by the ancient clergy who lived in Community. The canonical life was a kind of inedium between the monastic and clerical lives.

CAPUCHINS, religious of the order of St. Francis. They are clothed with brown or grey; always barefooted; never go in a coach, nor ever shave their beards.

singular kind of cap which distinguished their party. They wore upon their caps a leaden image of the Virgin Mary, and declared publicly that their purpose was to level all distinctions, to abrogate magistracy, and to remove all subordina tion among mankind, and to restore that primitive liberty, that natural equality, which were the inestimable privilege of the first mortals.

CARAITES, a Jewish sect, which adheres. closely to the text and letter of the Scriptures, rejecting the rabbinical interpretations and the cabbala. The Talmud appearing in the beginning of the sixth century, those of the best sense among the Jews were disgusted at the ridiculous fables with which it abounded. But about the year 750, Anan, a Babylonish Jew, declared openly for the written word of God alone, exclusive of all tradition; and this declaration produced a schism. Those who maintained the Talmud, being almost all rabbins, were called rabbinists; and the others, who rejected traditions, were called Caraites, or Scripturists, from the word cara, which in the Babylonish language signifies Scripture.

CARDINAL, one of the chief governors of the Romish church, by whom the pope is elected CANONICAL OBEDIENCE is that sub-out of their own number, which contains six mission which, by the ecclesiastical laws, the inferior clergy are to pay to their bishops, and the religious to their superiors.

bishops, fifty priests, and fourteen deacons : these constitute the sacred college, and are chosen by the pope.

See POPE.

CANONIZATION, a ceremony in the Ro- CARDINAL VIRTUES: justice, prudence, mish church, by which persons deceased are temperance, and fortitude, are called the four carhunked in the catalogue of the saints. It suc-dinal virtues, as being the basis of all the rest. ceeds beatification. Before a beatified person is See JUSTICE, &c. canonized, the qualifications of the candidate are strictly examined into, in some consistories held for that purpose, after which one of the consistoral advocates, in the presence of the pope and cardinals, makes the panegyric of the person who is to be proclaimed a saint, and gives a particular detail of his life and miracles; which being done,

CARE, concern, or anxiety of mind arising from the uncertainty of something future, or the oppression of the present calamity. Caution, attention to a particular subject; regard and support, when followed with the particle of. Prudence signifies wisdom applied to practice; discretion is the effect of prudence, and means a

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 of power universe was God; and that by the 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 enthu siastic 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 fif teenth 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 fol lowers. This deluded enthusiast practised many acts of mortification and penance, and endeavoured to persuade the Europeans to renew the holy Boniface IX. ordered him to be appre war. hended, 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.

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 sertions, 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. This 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 terin 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 50%. for ever, to be paid quarterly, charged on a farm in the parish of Brill, in the county of Bucks. To this appointinent we are indebted for many excellent defences of natural and revealed religion, among which 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 gained many adherents in Italy, France, and Germany. They took their denomination from the words of St. Paul, Rom.

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

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

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

BROWNISTS, a sect that arose among the puritans towards the close of the sixteenth cen

He was educated at Cambridge, and was a man of good parts and some learning. He began w inveigh openly against the ceremonies of the church, at Norwich, in 1580: but being much opposed by the bishops, he, with his congrega tion, left England, and settled at Middleburgh, in Zealand, where they obtained leave to worship God in their own way, and form a church ao 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 pr

BROWNISTS

son. in 1630. The revolt of Brown was attended 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.

BURIAL

after him, Mr. Ainsworth, author of the learned 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; m 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 condeinned the solemu 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 BURIAL, the interment of a deceased person. one place, and join in one communion, so the The rites of buriai have been looked upon in all power of these officers was prescribed within the countries as a debt so sacred, that such as neglectsame limits.-The minister of one church could ed to discharge them were thought accursed. not administer the Lord's Supper to another, nor Among the Jews, the privilege of burial was debaptize the children of any but those of his own nied only to self-murderers, who were thrown out society. Any lay brother was allowed the liberty to putrefy upon the ground. In the Christian of giving a word of exhortation to the people; and church, though good men always desired the priit was usual for some of them after sermon to ask vilege of interment, yet they were not, like the questions, and reason upon the doctrines that heathens, so concerned for their bodies, as to think had been preached. In a word, every church on it any detriment to them if either the barbarity of their model is a body corporate, having full power an enemy, or some other accident, deprived them to do every thing in themselves, without being of this privilege. The primitive church denied accountable to any class, syncd, convocation, or the more solemn rites of burial only to unbaptized other jurisdiction whatever. The reader will persons, self-murderers, and excommunicated judge how near the Independent churches are persons, who continued obstinate and impenitent allied to this form of government. See INDE- in a manifest contempt of the church's censures. PENDENTS. The laws were executed with great The place of burial among the Jews was never severity on the Brownists; their books were pro- particularly determined. We find they had hibited by queen Elizabeth, their persons impri- graves in the town and country, upon the highsoned, and some hanged. Brown himself de-way or in gardens, and upon mountains. Among clared 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

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 hun dred years, nor in churches for many ages after;