has been the general minister of the whole order. The Cordeliers are a branch of the Franciscans in France. The Reformati in Italy, and the Recollects, formerly numerous in France, belong to the brethren of the Ob who follow the reforms introduced by Peter of Alcantara, and go with their feet entirely bare. They are numerous in Spain and Portugal, but not in Italy. The branches of the Ŏbservants, under their common general, form two families: the Cismontane, who have sixtysix provinces, now generally in a feeble state, in Italy and Upper Germany, in Hungary, Poland, Palestine, and Syria: and the Ultramontane, with eighty-one provinces, in Spain, Portugal, Asia, Africa, America, and the Islands. That portion of the Franciscans who wear shoes, or the conventuals, are much less numerous. Before the French revolution they had thirty provinces, with one hundred convents, and 15,000 monks. They are now found only here and there in the south of Germany, in Switzerland, and Italy, where they have given up begging, and serve as profes with a cord round the waist, to which a rope with a knotted scourge is suspended, is the common dress of all the Franciscans. In 1528, Matthew, of Bassi, founded the order of the Capuchins, a branch of the Minorites, still more strict than the Observantines, who have had a separate general since 1619, and in the eighteenth century they numbered 1700 convents, and 25,000 members. Assisi, in Naples. He was the son of a merchant, who having led a dissolute life, was reclaimed by a fit of sickness, and afterwards fell into an extravagant devotion, which more resembled alienation of mind than religion. The order was distinguished by vows of abso-servance. The strictest are the Alcantarines, lute poverty, and a renunciation of all the pleasures of the world, and was intended to serve the church, by the care of the religious state of the people, so neglected by the secular clergy of the time. Learning and intellectual accomplishments its members were not to aim at. They were strictly prohibited from possessing any property whatever. The rule of the order sanctioned by the Pope in 1210 and 1223, destined them to beg and preach. They had granted to them extensive privileges, which soon became equally burdensome to the clergy and laity, particularly as they were subject to no authority but that of the Pope. They often encroached on the rights of the lawful pastors. Indulgences were granted to them more frequently than to any other order: hence the phrase portiuncula indulgence. The order soon comprised thousands of monasteries, all established by alms and contribu-sors in the colleges. A coarse woollen frock, tions. The rule of poverty, so strictly enjoined by the founder, was somewhat relaxed, and the monasteries were allowed to hold property; a change which was not effected without divisions within the order itself. Learning, also, did not long remain excluded from their monasteries, and distinguished scholars, as Bonaventura, Alexander de Hale, Duns Scotus, Roger Bacon, and others, obtained a celebrity which justified the admission of the Minorites to the chairs of the universities. They defended the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary, against the Dominicans, the animosity against whom was perpetuated in the disputes between the Scotists and the Thomists. With these, their rivals, they were from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, the confessors of princes and the rulers of the Christian world. They were then superseded by the Jesuits, but by a prudent compromise with them, they contrived to retain more power than the Dominicans. Several Franciscans have risen to the highest honours in the church; the Popes Nicholas IV., Alexander V., Sextus IV. and V., and Clement XIV. were from this order. Some of its members declared this to be an unpardonable departure from the rules, and therefore formed particular fraternities, such as the Cæsarinians and the Celestines in the thirteenth, and the Spirituals in the fourteenth century. In 1363, they were united by St. Paul, in the fraternity of the Soccolanti, or sandal wearers. In 1415, they were constituted by the Pope a separate branch of the Franciscans, under the name of Observantines, which, in 1517, when Leo X. effected an accommodation between the different parties, retained the ascendency. Since that time the general of the Observantines St. Francis himself collected nuns in the year 1209, who were sometimes called Damiantines, from their first church at St. Damian, in Assisi. St. Clare was their first prioress; hence they were also called Nuns of St. Clare. These nuns were also divided into branches, according to the severity of their rules. In the eighteenth century there were 28,000 Franciscan nuns in six hundred convents. They were formerly supported by the alms collected by the monks; they now live on the revenues of their convents. Several smaller orders, or sub-orders, were formed, among whom the Tertiarians were the most numerous in the thirteenth century. The whole number of Franciscans and Capuchins, in the eighteenth century, amounted to 115,000 monks, in 7000 convents. At present it is probably not one-third so great, as they have been suppressed in most countries. The order flourishes in America. FRATERNITY, in the Roman Catholic countries, signifies a society for the improvement of devotion. Of these there are several sorts, as-1. The fraternity of the Rosary, founded by St. Dominic. It is divided into two branches called the common rosary, and the perpetual rosary; the former of whom are obliged to confess and communicate every first Sunday in the month, and the latter to repeat the rosary | Among other errors inculcated in this book, it is pretended that St. Francis was the angel mentioned in Rev. xiv. 6, and had promulgated to the world the true and everlasting gospel; that the gospel of Christ was to be abrogated in 1260, and to give place to this new and everlasting gospel, which was to be substituted in its room; and that the ministers of this great reformation were to be humble and barefooted friars, destitute of all worldly employments. Some say they even elected a pope of their church; at least they appointed a general with superiors, and built monasteries, &c. Besides the opinions of Oliva, they held that the sacraments of the church were invalid, because those who administered them had no longer any power or jurisdiction. They were condemned again by Pope John XXII., in consequence of whose cruelty they regarded him as the true antichrist; but several of them returning into Germany, were sheltered by Lewis, duke of Bavaria, the emperor. continually. 2. The fraternity of the Seapulary, whom it is pretended, according to the Sabbatine bull of Pope John XXII, the Blessed Virgin has promised to deliver out of hell the first Sunday after their death. 3. The fraternity of St. Francis's girdle are clothed with a sack of a grey colour, which they tie with a cord; and in processions walk barefooted, carrying in their hands a wooden cross. 4. That of St. Austin's leathern girdle comprehends a great many devotees. Italy, Spain, and Portugal are the countries where are seen the greatest number of these fraternities, some of which assume the name of arch-fraternity. Pope Clement VII. instituted the arch-fraternity of charity, which distributes bread every Sunday among the poor, and gives portions to forty poor girls on the feast of St. Jerome, their patron. The fraternity of death buries such dead as are abandoned by their relations, and causes inasses to be celebrated for them. FRATRICELLI, an enthusiastic sect of Franciscans, which rose in Italy, and particularly in the marquisate of Ancona, about the year There are authentic records, from which it 1294. The word is an Italian diminutive, sig- appears, that no less than 2000 persons were nifying fraterculi, or "little brothers," and was burnt by the inquisition, from the year 1318 here used as a term of derision, as they were to the time of Innocent VI. for their inflexible most of them apostate monks, whom the Ita-attachment to the order of St. Francis. The lians call fratelli, or fratricelli. For this reason, the term fratricelli, as a nickname, was given to many other sects, as the Catharists, the Waldenses, &c., however different in their opinions and their conduct. But this denomination, applied to the austere part of the Franciscans, was considered as honourable. See FRANCISCANS. The founders of this sect were P. Maurato and P. de Fossombroni, who having obtained of Pope Celestin V, a permission to live in solitude, after the manner of hermits, and to observe the rule of St. Francis in all its rigour, several idle vagabond monks joined them, who, living after their own fancies, and making all perfection to consist in poverty, were soon condemned by Pope Boniface VIII. and his successor, and the inquisitors ordered to proceed against them as heretics, which commission they executed with their usual barbarity. Upon this, retiring into Sicily, Peter John Oliva de Serignan had no sooner published his comment on the Apocalypse, than they adopted his tenets. They held the Romish church to be Babylon, and proposed to establish another far more perfect one; they maintained that the rule of St. Francis was the Evangelical rule observed by Jesus Christ and his apostles. They foretold the reformation of the church, and the restoration of the true gospel of Christ by the genuine followers of St. Francis; and declared their assent to almost all the doctrines which were published under the name of the Abbot Joachim, in the "Introduction to the everlasting gospel," a book published in 1250, and explained by one of the spiritual friars, whose name was Gerhard. severities against them were again revived, towards the close of the fifteenth century, by Pope Nicholas V. and his successors. However, all the persecutions which this sect endured were not sufficient to extinguish it; for it subsisted until the times of the reformation in Germany, when its remaining votaries adopted the cause and embraced the doctrine and discipline of Luther. FRAUDS, PIOUS, artifices and falsehoods made use of in propagating the truth, and endeavouring to promote the spiritual interests of mankind. These have been more particularly practised in the church of Rome, and considered not only as innocent, but commendable. Neither the term nor the thing signified, however, can be justified. The terms pious and fraud, form a solecism; and the practice of doing evil that good may come, is directly opposite to the injunction of the Sacred Scriptures. Rom. iii. 8. In order to give the reader a view of the pious frauds which have been carried on in the Church of Rome, we here insert the following specimen : The Franciscans maintained that the Virgin Mary was born without the blemish of original sin; the Dominicans asserted the contrary. The doctrine of the Franciscans, in an age of darkness and superstition, could not but be popular; and hence the Dominicans lost ground from day to day. To support_the credit of their order, they resolved, at a chapter held at Vimpsen, in the year 1504, to have recourse to fictitious visions and dreams, in which the people at that time had an easy faith; and they determined to make Bern the scene of their operations. A person named Jetzer, who was extremely simple, and much inclined to austerities, and who had taken their habit as a lay brother, was chosen as the instrument of the delusions they were contriving. One of the four Dominicans, who had undertaken the management of this plot, conveyed himself secretly into Jetzer's cell, and about midnight appeared to him in a horrid figure, surrounded with howling dogs, and seemed to blow fire from his nostrils, by the means of a box of combustibles which he held near his mouth. In this frightful form he approached Jetzer's bed, told him that he was the ghost of a Dominican, who had been killed at Paris, as a judgment of Heaven, for laying aside his monastic habit; that he was condemned to purgatory for this crime; adding at the same time, that by his means he might be rescued from his misery, which was beyond expression. This story, accompanied with horrible cries and howlings, frighted poor Jetzer out of the little wits he had, and engaged him to promise to do all that was in his power to deliver the Dominican from his torment. Upon this the impostor told him, that nothing but the most extraordinary mortifications, such as the discipline of the whip, performed during eight days by the whole monastery, and Jetzer's lying prostrate in the form of one crucified in the chapel during mass, could contribute to his deliverance. He added, that the performance of these mortifications would draw down upon Jetzer the peculiar protection of the Blessed Virgin; and concluded by saying, that he would appear to him again, accompanied with two other spirits. Morning was no sooner come than Jetzer gave an account of this apparition to the rest of the convent, who all unanimously advised him to undergo the discipline that was enjoined him, and every one consented to bear his share of the task imposed. The deluded simpleton obeyed, and was admired as a saint by the multitudes that crowded about the convent; while the four friars that managed the imposture, magnified in the most pompous manner, the miracle of this apparition in their sermons, and in their discourses. The night after, the apparition was renewed, with the addition of two impostors, dressed like devils, and Jetzer's faith was augmented by hearing from the spectre all the secrets of his life and thoughts, which the impostors had learned from his confessor. In this and some subsequent scenes (the detail of whose enormities, for the sake of brevity, we shall here omit) the impostor talked much to Jetzer of the Dominican order, which he said was peculiarly dear to the Blessed Virgin: he added, that the Virgin knew herself to be conceived in original sin; that the doctors who taught the contrary were in purgatory; that the Blessed Virgin abhorred the Franciscans for making her equal with her Son; and that the town of Bern would be destroyed for harbouring such plagues within her walls. In one of these apparitions Jetzer imagined that the voice of the spectre resembled that of the prior of the convent, and he was not mistaken; but, not suspecting a fraud, he gave little attention to this. The prior appeared in various forms, sometimes in that of St. Barbara, at others in that of St. Bernard : at length he assumed that of the Virgin Mary, and for that purpose, clothed himself in the habits that were employed to adorn the statue of the Virgin in the great festivals. The little images, that on these days are set on the altars, were made use of for angels, which, being tied to a cord that passed through a pulley over Jetzer's head, rose up and down, and danced about the pretended Virgin to increase the delusion. The Virgin, thus equipped, addressed a long discourse to Jetzer, in which, among other things, she told him that she was conceived in original sin, though she had remained but a short time under that blemish. She gave him, as a miraculous proof of her presence, a host, or consecrated wafer, which turned from white to red in a moment; and after various visits, in which the greatest enormities were transacted, the Virgin-prior told Jetzer, that she would give him the most affecting and undoubted marks of her Son's love, by imprinting on him the five wounds that pierced Jesus on the cross, as she had done before to St. Lucia and St. Catharine. Accordingly she took his hand by force, and struck a large nail through it, which threw the poor dupe into the greatest torment. The next night this masculine virgin brought, as he pretended, some of the linen in which Christ had been buried, to soften the wound; and gave Jetzer a soporific draught, which had in it the blood of an unbaptized child, some grains of incense and of consecrated salt, some quicksilver, the hairs of the eye-brows of a child; all which with some stupifying and poisonous ingredients, were mingled together by the prior with magic ceremonies, and a solemn dedication of himself to the devil in hope of his succour. The draught threw the poor wretch into a sort of lethargy, during which, the monks imprinted on his body the other four wounds of Christ in such a manner that he felt no pain. When he awakened, he found to his unspeakable joy, those impressions on his body, and came at last to fancy himself a representative of Christ in the various parts of his passion. He was, in this state, exposed to the admiring multitude on the principal altar of the convent, to the great mortification of the Franciscans. The Dominicans gave him some other draughts, that threw him into convulsions; which were followed by putting a pipe into the mouths of two images, one of Mary, and another of the child Jesus, the former of which had tears painted upon its cheeks in a lively manner. The little Jesus asked his mother, by means of this voice (which was that of the prior) why she wept? and she answered, that her tears were owing to the impious manner in which the Franciscans attributed to her the honour that was due to him, in saying that she was conceived and born without sin. The apparitions, false prodigies, and abominable stratagems of these Dominicans were; repeated every night; and the matter was at length so grossly overacted, that, simple as Jetzer was, he at last discovered it, and had almost killed the prior, who appeared to him one night in the form of the Virgin with a crown on her head. The Dominicans, fearing, by this discovery, to lose the fruits of their imposture, thought the best method would be to own the whole matter to Jetzer, and to engage him, by the most seducing promises of opulence and glory, to carry on the cheat. Jetzer was persuaded, or at least appeared to be so. But the Dominicans, suspecting that he was not entirely gained over, resolved to poison him; but his constitution was so vigorous, that though they gave him poison five several times, he was not destroyed by it. One day they sent him a loaf prepared with some spices, which growing green in a day or two, he threw a piece of it to a wolf's whelps that were in the monastery, and it killed them immediately. At another time they poisoned the host, or consecrated wafer; but as he vomited it up soon after he had swallowed it, he escaped once more. In short, there were no means of securing him, which the most detestable impiety and barbarity could invent, that they did not put in practice; till finding, at last, an opportunity of getting out of the convent, he threw himself into the hands of the magistrates, to whom he made a full discovery of this infernal plot. The affair being brought to Rome, commissaries were sent from thence to examine the matter; and the whole cheat being fully proved, the four friars were solemnly degraded from their priesthood, and were burnt alive on the last day of May, 1509. Jetzer died some time after at Constance, having poisoned himself, as was believed by some. Had his life been taken away before he had found an opportunity of making the discovery already mentioned, this execrable and horrid plot, which in many of its circumstances was conducted with art, would have been handed down to posterity as a stupendous miracle. FREE AGENCY is the power of following one's inclination, or whatever the soul does, with the full bent of preference and desire. Many and long have been the disputes on this subject; not that man has been denied to be a free agent, but the dispute has been in what it consists. See articles LIBERTY and WILL. A distinction is made by writers between free agency and what is called the Arminian notion of free will. The one consists merely in the power of following our prevailing inclination; the other in a supposed power of acting contrary to it, or at least of changing it. The one predicates freedom of the man; the other, of a faculty in man, which Mr. Locke, though an anti-necessarian, explodes as an absurdity. The one goes merely to render us accountable beings; the other arrogantly claims a part, yea, the very turning point of salvation. According to the latter, we need only certain helps or assistances, granted to men in common, to enable us to choose the path of life; but, according to the former, our hearts being by nature wholly depraved, we need an almighty and invincible Power to renew them. Sec NECESSITY. FREETHINKER, a person who rejects revelation; a deist. The term originated in the 18th century, and contains a sneer at believers, like the French esprit fort, and the German rationalist. Freethinking first appeared in England in the reigns of James II. and William III. In 1718 a weekly paper, entitled the "Freethinker," was published. Collins, Toland, Tindal, Morgan, rank among the champions of the sect; but Bolingbroke and Hume are the most distinguished. France, Voltaire, D'Alembert, Diderot, and Helvetius, led the opposition against revealed religion. In Germany the same spirit became fashionable in the reign of Frederic the Great, and obtained a most extensive influence through the medium of the press, the universities, and even of the pulpit. In FREE-WILL BAPTISTS, in North America, a denomination first founded in 1780, but which has since spread into various parts of the country, and has churches in twelve of the States, and in the Canadas. They have about 700 churches; 560 preachers; and 30,500 communicants. They have quarterly and annual meetings, to which delegates are sent, and where difficult points are settled. They reject the Calvinistic doctrine regarding the Five Points; and some have imbibed Arian notions. FRENCH CHURCH. See CHURCH, GALLICAN. FRENCH PROPHETS. They first appeared in Dauphiny and Vivarais. In the year 1688, five or six hundred Protestants, of both sexes, gave themselves out to be prophets, and inspired of the Holy Ghost. They soon became so numerous, that there were many thousands of them inspired. They were people of all ages and sexes without distinction, though the greatest part of them were from six or seven to twenty-five years of age. They had strange fits, which came upon them with tremblings and faintings, as in a swoon, which made them stretch out their arms and legs, and stagger several times before they dropped down. They struck themselves with their hands, they fell on their backs, shut their eyes, and heaved with their breasts. They remained a while in trances, and, coming out of them with twitchings, uttered all which came in their mouths. They said they saw the heavens open, the angels, paradise, and hell. Those who were just on the point of receiving the spirit of prophecy, dropped down, not only in the assemblies, crying out mercy, but in the fields, and in their own houses. The least of their assemblies made up 400 or 500, and some of them amounted to even 3000 or 4000 persons. When the prophets had for a while been under agitations of body, they began to prophesy. The burden of their prophecies was, "Amend your lives; repent ye: the end of all things draws nigh!" The hills resounded with their loud cries for mercy, and imprecations against the priests, the church, the pope, and against the antichristian dominion, with predictions of the approaching fall of popery. All they said at these times was heard and received with reverence and awe. In the year 1706, three or four of these prophets came over into England, and brought their prophetic spirit along with them, which discovered itself in the same ways and manners, by ecstacies, and agitations, and inspirations under them, as it had done in France; and they propagated the like spirit to others, so that before the year was out there were 200 or 300 of these prophets in and about London, of both sexes, of all ages; men, women, and children: and they had delivered, under inspiration, 400 or 500 prophetic warnings. The great things they pretended by their spirit was, to give warning of the "near approach of the kingdom of God, the happy times of the church, the millennium state." Their message was, (and they were to proclaim it as heralds to the Jews, and every nation under heaven, beginning in England,) that the grand jubilee, the acceptable year of the Lord, the accomplishment of those numerous Scriptures concerning the "new heaven and the new earth," the kingdom of the Messiah," the "marriage of the Lamb," the "first resurrection," or "the New Jerusalem descending from above," were now even at the door; that this great operation was to be wrought on the part of man by spiritual arms only, proceeding from the mouths of those who should, by inspiration, or the mighty gift of the Spirit, be sent forth in great numbers to labour in the vineyard; that this mission of his servants should be witnessed to by signs and wonders from heaven, by a deluge of judgments on the wicked universally throughout the world, as famine, pestilence, earthquakes, &c.; that the exterminating angels shall root out the tares, and there shall remain upon earth only good corn; and the works of men being thrown down, there shall be but one Lord, one faith, one heart, one voice among mankind. They declared, that all the great things they spoke of would be manifest over the whole earth within the term of three years. These prophets also pretended to the gift of languages, of discerning the secrets of the heart, the gift of ministration of the same spirit to others by the laying on of hands, and the gift of healing. To prove they were really inspired by the Holy Ghost, they alleged the complete joy and satisfaction they experienced, the spirit of prayer which was poured forth upon them, and the answer of their prayer by God. FRIAR, or BROTHER, a term common to the monks of all orders. In a more peculiar sense, it is restrained to such monks as are not priests: for those in orders are usually dignified with the appellation of father. FRIENDSHIP, a mutual attachment subsisting between two persons, and arising not merely from the general principle of benevolence, from emotions of gratitude for favours received, from views of interest, nor from instinctive affection or animal passion; but from an opinion entertained by each of them that the other is adorned with some amiable or respectable qualities. Various have been the opinions respecting friendship. Some have asserted that there is no such thing in the world; others have excluded it from the list of Christian virtues; while others, believing the possibility of its existence, suppose that it is very rare. To the two former remarks we may reply, that there is every reason to believe that there has been, and is such a thing as friendship. The Scriptures present us both with examples of, and precepts concerning it. David and Jonathan, Paul and Timothy, our Lord and Lazarus, as well as John, are striking instances of friendship. Solomon exhorts us in language so energetic, as at once shows it to be our duty to cultivate it. "Thine own friend and thy father's friend forsake not." "Make sure of thy friend, for faithful are the wounds of a friend," &c. The genius and injunctions of the Christian religion seem also to inculcate this virtue; for it not only commands universal benevolence to men, but promotes the strongest love and friendship between those whose minds are enlightened by divine grace, and who behold in each other the image of their Divine Master. As friendship, however, is not enjoyed by every one, and as the want of it arises often from ourselves, we shall here subjoin, from an eminent writer, a few remarks, by way of advice respecting it. 1. We must not expect perfection in any with whom we contract fellowship.-2. We must not be hurt by differences of opinion arising in intercourse with our friends.-3. It is material to the preservation of friendship, that openness of temper and obliging manners on both hands be cultivated.-4. We must not listen rashly to evil reports against our friends.-5. We |