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Literature.

I. English Congregationalism.

See the sources of the Westminster Assembly, and the historical works of Neal, Stoughton, and others mentioned in §§ 92, 93, and 94.

John Robinson (Pastor of the Pilgrim Fathers in Leyden, d. 1626): Works, with Memoir by Robert Ashton. London, 1851, 3 vols.

The Grand Debate concerning Presbytery and Episcopacy in the Westminster Assembly (Lond. 1652).

The works of Drs. Goodwin, Owen, Howe, and other patriarchs of Independency.

Benjamin Brook: The Lives of the Puritans from Queen Elizabeth to 1662. London, 1813, 3 vols.

Benjamin Hanbury: Historical Memorials relating to the Independents or Congregationalists, from their Rise to the Restoration of the Monarchy, A.D. 1660. London (Congreg. Union of England and Wales), 1839-1844, 3 vols.

Jos. Fletcher: History of Independency in England since the Reformation. London, 1847-1849, 4 vols.

George Punchard (of Boston): History of Congregationalism from about A.D. 250 to the Present Time. 2d ed. rewritten and enlarged, New York and Boston (Hurd & Houghton), 1865-81, 5 vols. (The first two vols. are irrelevant.)

John Waddington: Congregational History, 1200-1567. London, 1869-78, 4 vols. Second volume from 1567 to 1700, Lond. 1874. (See a searching and damaging review of this work by Dr. Dexter in the "Congreg. Quarterly" for July, 1874, Vol. XVI. pp. 420 sqq.)

Herbert S. Skeats: A History of the Free Churches of England from l688 to l851. London, 1867; 2d. ed. 1860.

II. American Congregationalism.

(1) Sources.

The works of John Robinson, above quoted, especially his Justification of Separation from the Church of England (1610, printed in 1639).

John Cotton (of Boston, England, and then of Boston, Mass.): The Way of the Churches of Christ in New England. Or the Way of Churches Walking in Brotherly Equality or Co-ordination, without Subjection of one Church to another. Measured by the Golden Reed of the Sanctuary. London, 1645. By the same: The Way of Congregational Churches cleared (against Baillie and Rutherford). London, 1648.

Thomas Hooker (of Hartford, Conn.): A Survey of the Summe of Church Discipline. London, 1648.

Robinson, Cotton, and Hooker are the connecting links between English Independency and American Congregationalism. Their rare pamphlets (wretchedly printed, like most works during the period of the civil wars, from want of good type and paper) are mostly found in the Congregational Library at Boston, and ought to be republished in collected form.

Alexander Young: Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers of the Colony of Plymouth, from 1602 to 1628. Boston, 1841.

Alexander Young: Chronicles of the first Planters of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. From 1623 to 1636. Boston, 1846.

George B. Cheever: The Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, in New England, in 1620; reprinted from the original volume, with illustrations. New York, 1848.

Nathanael Morton (Secretary to the Court for the Jurisdiction of New Plymouth): New England's Memorial. Boston, 1855 (6th ed. Congreg. Board of Publication). Reprints of Memorial of 1669, Bradford's History of Plymouth Colony, etc.

(2) Histories.

Benjamin Trumbull, D.D.: A Complete History of Connecticut, Civil and Ecclesiastical, from the Emigration of its first Planters, from England, in the year 1630, to the year 1764. New Haven, 1818, 2 vols.

Leonard Bacon: Thirteen Historical Discourses, on the Completion of Two Hundred Years from the Beginning of the First Church in Sew Haven. New Haven, 1839.

Joseph B. Felt: The Ecclesiastical History of New England; comprising not only Religious, but also Moral and other Relations. Boston, Mass. (Congregational Library Association), 1855-1862, 2 vols.

Joseph S. Clark: A Historical Sketch of the Congregational Churches in Massachusetts from 1620 to 1858. Boston, 1858.

Memorial of the Semi-Centennial Celebration of the Founding of the Theological Seminary at Andover. Andover, Mass. 1859.

Contributions to the Ecclesiastical History of Connecticut; prepared under the Direction of the General Association to Commemorate the Completion of One Hundred and Fifty Years since its First Annual Assembly. New Haven (publ. by Wm. L. Kingsley), 1861.

Daniel Appleton White: New England Congregationalism in its Origin and Purity; Illustrated by the Foundation and Early Records of the First Church in Salem [Mass.]. Salem, 1861. Comp. Reply to the above, by Joseph B. Felt. Salem, 1861.

The first vols. of G. Bancroft's History of the United States (begun in 1834); last ed. 1876, 6 vols.

John Gorham Palfrey: History of New England. Boston, 1859-1874, 4 vols.

Leonard Bacon: The Genesis of the New England Churches. New York, 1874.

Henry Martyn Dexter: As to Roger Williams and his 'Banishment' from the Massachusetts Plantation; with a few further Words concerning the Baptists, the Quakers, and Religious Liberty. Boston, 1876 (Congregational Publishing Society). A vindication of the Massachusetts Colony against the charge of intolerance.

Numerous essays and reviews relating to the Congregational polity and doctrine and the history of Congregational Churches may be found in the volumes of the following periodicals:

American Quarterly Register. Boston, Mass. 1827-1843, 15 vols.

The Christian Spectator. 1st series monthly; 2d series quarterly. New Haven, 1819-1838, 20 vols.

The New-Englander, quarterly (continued). New Haven, 1843-1876, 34 vols.

The Congregational Quarterly (continued). Boston, Mass. 1st series, 1859-1868, 10 vols.; 2d series, 1869-1876, 8 vols.

The Congregational Year-Book. New York, 1854-1859, 5 vols.

Other light is thrown on the Congregational history and polity by Results of Councils, many of which, in cases of peculiar interest, have been published in pamphlet form.

(3) Congregational Polity.

Congregational Order. The Ancient Platforms of the Congregational Churches of New England, with a Digest of Rules and Usages in Connecticut. Publ. by direction of the General Association of Connecticut. Middletown, Conn. 1843. [Edited by Leonard Bacon, David D. Field, Timothy P. Gillet.]

Thomas C. Upham: Ratio Disciplinæ; or, The Constitution of the Congregational Churches, Examined and Deduced from Early Congregational Writers, and other Ecclesiastical Authorities, and from Usage. 2d edition. Portland, 1844.

Preston Cummings: A Dictionary of Congregational Usages and Principles according to Ancient and Modern Authors; to which are added brief Notices of some of the Principal Writers, Assemblies, and Treatises referred to in the Compilation. Boston, 1852.

George Punchard: A View of Congregationalism, its Principles and Doctrines; the Testimony of Ecclesiastical History in its Favor, its Practice, and its Advantages. [1st edition, 1840.] Third edition, revised and enlarged. Boston (Congreg. Board of Publication), 1856.

Henry Martyn Dexter: Congregationalism: What it is; Whence it is; How it Works; Why it is Better than any other Form of Church Government. Boston, 1865; 5th ed. revised, 1879.

Congregationalism has its name from the prominence it gives to the particular congregation as distinct from the general Church. [1586] It aims to establish a congregation of real believers or converts, and it declares such a congregation to be independent of outward jurisdiction, whether it be that of a king or a bishop or a presbytery. Under the first aspect it has several precedents; under the latter aspect it forms a new chapter in Church history, or at least it carries the protest against foreign jurisdiction a great deal farther than the Reformers, who protested against the tyrannical authority of the papacy, but recognized some governmental jurisdiction over local congregations.

CONGREGATIONS IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE.

In the New Testament the word church or congregation [1587] denotes sometimes the Church universal, the whole body of Christian believers spread throughout the world; [1588] sometimes a particular congregation at Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, Rome, or any other place. [1589] The congregations are related to the Church as members to the body. The denominational and sectarian use of the word is foreign to the Scriptures, which know of no sect but the sect called Christians. [1590] Denominations or Confessions are the growth of history and adaptations of Christianity to the differences of race, nationality, and psychological constitution; and after fulfilling their mission they will, as to their human imperfections and antagonisms, disappear in the one kingdom of Christ, which, however, in the beauty of its living unity and harmony, will include an endless variety.

An organized local congregation in the apostolic age was a company of saints, [1591] or a self-supporting and self-governing society of Christian believers, with their offspring, voluntarily associated for purposes of worship, growth in holiness, and the promotion of Christ's kingdom. The Apostolic churches were not free from imperfection and corruption, but they were separated from the surrounding world of unbelievers, and constantly reminded of their high and holy calling.

THE ANTE-NICENE CHURCHES.

In the ante-Nicene age a distinction was made between the church of believers or communicant members and the church of catechumens or hearers who were in course of preparation for membership, but not allowed to partake of the communion. [1592] Public worship was accordingly divided into the service of the faithful (missa fidelium) and the service of the catechumens (missa catechumenorum).

MIXTURE OF THE CHURCH WITH THE WORLD.

With the union of Church and State since Constantine the original idea of a church of real believers was gradually lost, and became identical with a parish which embraced all nominal Christians in a particular place or district. Baptism, confirmation, and attendance at communion were made obligatory upon all residents, whether converted or not, and every citizen was supposed to be a Christian. [1593] The distinction between the Church and the world was well-nigh obliterated, and the Church at large became a secular empire with an Italian sovereign at its head. Hence the complaint of Dante (in Milton's rendering):

'Ah! Constantine, of how much ill was cause,

Not thy conversion, but those rich domains

That the first wealthy Pope received of thee!'

ATTEMPTS TO RESTORE THE PURITY OF THE CHURCH.

Monasticism was an attempt in the Catholic Church itself to save the purity of the congregation by founding convents and nunneries secluded not only from the world, but also from all ties of domestic and social life. It drained the Church of many of its best elements, and left the mass more corrupt.

The Bohemian Brethren and the Waldenses introduced strict congregational discipline in opposition to the ruling Church.

The Reformers of the sixteenth century deplored the want of truly Christian congregations after the apostolic model, and wished to revive them, but Luther and Zwingli gave it up in despair from the want of material for congregational self-government (which can never be developed without an opportunity and actual experiment).

Calvin was more in earnest, and astonished the world by founding in Geneva a flourishing Christian commonwealth of the strictest discipline, such as had not been seen since the age of the Apostles. But it was based on a close union of the civil and ecclesiastical power, which destroyed the voluntary feature, and ended at last in the same confusion of the Church and the world.

The Anabaptists and Mennonites emphasized the voluntary principle and the necessity of discipline, but they injured their cause by fanatical excesses.

The German Pietists of the school of Spener and Francke realized their idea of ecclesiolæ in ecclesia, or select congenial circles within the outward organization of the promiscuous national Church, from which they never separated. Wesley did originally the same thing, but his movement resulted in a new denomination.

The Moravians went farther, and established separate Christian colonies, which in the period of rationalism and infidelity were like beacon-lights in the surrounding darkness.

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN CONGREGATIONALISM.

English and American Congregationalism, or Congregationalism as a distinct denomination, arose among the Puritans during the latter part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It was at first identified with the name of the Rev. Robert Browne, and called Brownism; but, being an unworthy representative and an apostate from his principles, he was disowned. [1594] It had other and more worthy pioneers, such as Barrowe, Greenwood, Johnson, Ainsworth, Penry, and especially John Robinson. [1595] The Independents were, like every new sect, persecuted under the reigns of James and Charles I., and obliged to seek shelter first in Holland and then in the wilderness of New England.

But with the opening of the Long Parliament, which promised to inaugurate a jubilee to all tender consciences, they began to breathe freely, and hastened to return from exile; 'for,' says Fuller, 'only England is England indeed, though some parts of Holland may be like unto it.' [1596] They had a considerable share in the labors of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, especially through Dr. Goodwill and Rev. Philip Nye, who are styled the 'patriarchs' of orthodox Independency. They became the ruling political and religious power in England during the short protectorate of Cromwell, and furnished the majority to his ecclesiastical commission, called the Triers. After the Restoration they were again persecuted, being held chiefly responsible for the execution of King Charles and the overthrow of the monarchy. In 1689 they acquired toleration, and are now one of the most intelligent, active, and influential among the Dissenting bodies in England.

The classical soil of Congregationalism is New England, where it established 'a Church without a bishop and a State without a king.' From New England it spread into the far West, to the shores of the Pacific Ocean, and exerted a powerful influence upon other Churches. Puritan Congregationalism is the father of New England and one of the grandfathers of the American Republic, and it need not be ashamed of its children. [1597] It lacks a proper appreciation of historical Christianity and its claims upon our regard and obedience; but by bringing to light the manhood and freedom of the Christian people, and the rights and privileges of individual congregations, it marks a real progress in the development of Protestantism, and has leavened other Protestant denominations in America; for here congregations justly claim and exercise a much larger share, and have consequently a much deeper interest in the management of their own affairs than in the State Churches of Europe. The Congregational system implies, of course, the power of self-government and a living faith in Christ, without which it would be no government at all. It moreover requires the cementing power of fellowship.

INDEPENDENCY AND FELLOWSHIP.

Anglo-American Congregationalism has two tap roots, independency and fellowship, on the basis of the Puritan or Calvinistic faith. It succeeds in the measure of its ability to adjust and harmonize them. It is a compromise between pure Independency and Presbyterianism. It must die without freedom, and it can not live without authority, Independency without fellowship is ecclesiastical atomism; fellowship without Independency leads to Presbyterianism or Episcopacy. [1598]

It starts from the idea of an apostolic congregation as an organized brotherhood of converted believers in Christ. This was the common ground of the Westminster divines. [1599] But they parted on the question of jurisdiction and the relation of the local congregation to the Church general. The Independents denied the authority of presbyteries and synods, and maintained that each congregation properly constituted is directly dependent on Christ, and subject to his law, and his law only. The whole power of the keys is vested in these individual churches.

At the same time, however, it is admitted and demanded that there should be a free fraternal intercommunion between them, with the rights and duties of advice, reproof, and co-operation in every Christian work.

This fellowship manifests itself in the forms of Councils, Associations (in Massachusetts), Consociations (in Connecticut), on a larger scale in 'the Congregational Union of England and Wales,' and 'the National Council of the Congregational Churches in the United States.' It is this fellowship which gives Congregationalism the character of a denomination among other denominations. But the principle of congregational sovereignty is guarded by denying to those general meetings any legislative authority, and reducing them simply to advisory bodies. [1600]

There were from the start two tendencies among Congregationalists--the extreme Independents or Separatists, of whom the 'Pilgrim Fathers' are the noblest representatives, and the more churchly Independents, who remained in the English Church, and who established on a Calvinistic theocratic basis the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. John Robinson, the Moses of American Independency, who accompanied his flock to the deck of the Speedwell, but never saw the promised land himself, was a separatist from the Church of England, though he disowned Brownism with its extravagances. His colony at Plymouth were Separatists. The settlers of Boston, Salem, Hartford, and New Haven, on the other hand, were simply Nonconformists within the Church of England. Their ministers--John Cotton, Richard Mather, Thomas Hooker, John Davenport, Samuel Stone, and others--were trained in the English Universities, mostly in Cambridge, [1601] and had received Episcopal ordination. They rejected the term Independents, and inconsistently relapsed into the old notion of uniformity in religion, with an outburst of the dark spirit of persecution. But this was only temporary. American Congregationalism at present is a compromise between the two tendencies, and vacillates between them, leaning sometimes to the one, sometimes to the other side.

CONGREGATIONALISM AND CREEDS.

The effect of the Congregational polity upon creeds is to weaken the authority of general creeds and to strengthen the authority of particular creeds. The principle of fellowship requires a general creed, but it is reduced to a mere declaration of the common faith prevailing among Congregationalists at a given time, instead of a binding formula of subscription. The principle of independency calls for as many particular creeds as there are congregations. Each congregation, being a complete self-governing body, has the right to frame its own creed, to change it ad libitum, and to require assent to it not only from the minister, but from every applicant for membership. Hence there are a great many creeds among American Congregationalists which have purely local authority; but they must be in essential harmony with the prevailing faith of the body, or the congregations professing them forfeit the privileges of fellowship. They must flow from the same system of doctrine, as many little streams flow from the same fountain.

In this multiplication of local creeds Congregationalism far outstrips the practice of the ante-Nicene age, where we find varying yet essentially concordant rules of faith in Jerusalem, Cæsarea, Antioch, Aquileja, Carthage, Rome.

With these local creeds are connected 'covenants' or pledges of members to live conformably to the law of God and the faith and discipline of the Church. A covenant is the ethical application of the dogmatic creed.

In the theory of creeds and covenants, as on the whole subject of Church polity, the Regular or Calvinistic Baptists entirely agree with the Congregationalists.

[1586] This term is preferable to Independency. In England both terms are used synonymously. The American Congregationalists rather disclaim the designation Independents, except for a small portion of their ancestors, namely, the 'Pilgrim Fathers' of Plymouth. See below.

[1587] ekklesia, from ekkaleo, to call out, means (like qhl) any public assembly, but especially a religious assembly.

[1588] Matt. xvi. 18; Acts xx. 28; Gal. i. 13; Eph. i. 22, etc.

[1589] Matt. xviii. 17; Acts v. 11; viii. 3; xv. 41 (in the plural, hai ekklesiai); Gal. i. 22; Rom. xvi. 4, 5, etc.

[1590] Comp. Acts xi. 26; xxvi. 28; 1 Pet. iv. 16. There were parties or sects among the Christians at Corinth which assumed apostolic designations, but Paul rebuked them (1 Cor. i, 10-13; iii. 3, 4). The tribes of Israel may be quoted as a Jewish precedent of the divisions in Christendom, but they formed one nation.

[1591] ekklesiai ton hagion, 1 Cor. xiv. 33.

[1592] Comp. the modern American distinction between church proper and congregation.

[1593] The Jews--like the 'untaxed Indians' in the United States--were excluded from the rights of citizenship, and as unmercifully persecuted during the Middle Ages as the Christians were persecuted by the Jews in the apostolic age.

[1594] Robert Browne, a clergyman of the Established Church and a restless agitator, urged a reformation 'without tarrying for any,' a complete separation from the national Church as an anti-Christian institution, and the formation of independent Christian societies. After suffering persecution and exile (he was imprisoned about thirty times), he returned to the Ministry of the national Church, where he led an idle and dissolute life till his death, in 1630, at the age of eighty years.

[1595] See on these early witnesses and martyrs of Independency, Hanbury (Vol. I. chaps. ii.-xxvi.), Brook (Vol. III.), and Punchard (Vol. III.).

[1596] Vol. VI. p. 280.

[1597] I beg leave to quote from an essay which I wrote and published in the midst of our civil war (1863), when New England was most unpopular, the following tribute to its influence upon American history: 'It seems superfluous, even in these days of sectional prejudice, party animosity, and slander, to say one word in praise of New England. Facts and institutions always speak best for themselves. We might say with Daniel Webster, giving his famous eulogy on Massachusetts a more general application to her five sister States: "There they stand: look at them, and judge for yourselves. There is their history--the world knows it by heart: the past at least is secure." The rapid rise and progress of that rocky and barren country called New England is one of the marvels of modern history. In the short period of two centuries and a half it has attained the height of modern civilization which it required other countries more than a thousand years to reach. Naturally the poorest part of the United States, it has become the intellectual garden, the busy workshop, and the thinking brain of this vast republic. In general wealth and prosperity, in energy and enterprise, in love of freedom and respect for law, in the diffusion of intelligence and education, in letters and arts, in virtue and religion, in every essential feature of national power and greatness, the people of the six New England States, and more particularly of Massachusetts, need not fear a comparison with the most favored nation on the globe. But the power and influence of New England, owing to the enterprising and restless character of its population, extends far beyond its own limits, and is almost omnipresent in the United States. The twenty thousand Puritans who emigrated from England within the course of twenty years, from 1620 to 1640, and received but few accessions until the modern flood of mixed European immigration set in, have grown into a race of several millions, diffused themselves more or less into every State of the Union, and take a leading part in the organization and development of every new State of the great West to the shores of the Pacific. Their principles have acted like leaven upon American society; their influence reaches into all the ramifications of our commerce, manufactures, politics, literature, and religion; there is hardly a Protestant Church or Sabbath-school in the land, from Boston to San Francisco, which does not feel, directly or indirectly, positively or negatively, the intellectual and moral power that constantly emanates from the classical soil of Puritan Christianity.'

[1598] Dr. Emmons, one of the leaders of New England Congregationalism, is credited with this memorable dictum: 'Associationism leads to Consociationism; Consociationism leads to Presbyterianism; Presbyterianism leads to Episcopacy; Episcopacy leads to Roman Catholicism; and Roman Catholicism is an ultimate fact' (Prof. Park, in Memoir of Emmons, p. 163). But there would be equal force in the opposite reasoning from Independency to anarchy, and from anarchy to dissolution. Independents have a right to protest against tyranny, whether exercised by bishops or presbyters ('priests writ large'); but there are Lord Brethren as well as Lord Bishops, and the tyranny of a congregation over a minister, or of a majority over a minority, is as bad as any other kind of tyranny.

[1599] 'The Form of Presbyterial Church Government agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster,' and adopted by the General Assembly of Scotland in 1645, thus defines a local Church: 'Particular churches in the primitive times were made up of visible saints, viz., such as, being of age, professed faith in Christ and obedience unto Christ, according to the rules of faith and life taught by Christ and his apostles, and of their children.' The Form of Government ratified by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States in May, 1821, gives this definition (Ch. II. 4): 'A particular church consists of a number of professing Christians, with their offspring, voluntarily associated together for divine worship and godly living, agreeably to the Holy Scriptures, and submitting to a certain form of government.'

[1600] The most serious conflict between the principles of Independency and Fellowship in recent times has grown out of the unhappy Beecher trial, which has shaken American Congregationalism to the very base. See Proceedings of the two Councils held in Brooklyn in 1874 and 1876, which represent both sides of the question (Dr. Storrs's and Mr. Beecher's), though presided over by the same Nestor of American Congregationalism (Dr. Leonard Bacon).

[1601] Masson (Life of Milton, Vol. II. p. 563) says that of seventeen noted ministers who emigrated to New England, fourteen were bred in Cambridge, and only three (Davenport, Mather, and Williams) at Oxford. R. Williams was probably likewise a Cambridge graduate. It was therefore natural that the first college in New England should be called after Cambridge.

Literature.

A | Declaration | of the | Faith and Order | Owned and practised in the | Congregational Churches | in | England; | Agreed upon and consented unto | by their | Elders and Messengers | in | their Meeting at the Savoy, | Octob. 12, 1658. | London | Printed for D.L. And are to be sold in Paul's Churchyard, Fleet | Street, and Westminster Hall, 1659.

A Latin edition appeared in 1662 at Utrecht, under the title, Confessio nuper edita Independentium seu Congregationalium in Anglia.

The Preface, the Platform, and those doctrinal articles which differ from the Westminster Confession are printed in Vol. III. pp. 707 sqq., from the first London edition. The Savoy Declaration, without the Preface, is also given by Hanbury, Memorials, Vol. III. pp. 517 sqq.; and by Dr. A. H. Quint, in the 'Congregational Quarterly' for July and October, 1866 (Vol. VIII. pp. 241-267 and 341-344).

On the Savoy meeting, comp. Hanbury, Memorials, Vol. III. pp. 515 sqq.

THE SAVOY DECLARATION. A.D. 1658.

We now proceed to the general creeds or declarations of faith which have been approved by the Congregational Churches in England and America. They agree substantially with the Westminster Confession, or the Calvinistic system of doctrine, but differ from Presbyterianism by rejecting the legislative and judicial authority of presbyteries and synods, and by maintaining the independence of the local churches. In the course of time the rigor of old Calvinism has relaxed, both in England and America. 'New England theology,' as it is called, attempts to find a via media between Calvinism and Arminianism in anthropology and soteriology. But the old standards still remain unrepealed.

The first and fundamental Congregational confession of faith and platform of polity is the Savoy Declaration, so called from the place where it was composed and adopted. [1602]

The position of the Congregationalists during the short period of their ascendency under Cromwell's Protectorate (1653-1658) was rather anomalous. They were by no means so strongly committed to the voluntary principle and against a national Church as to refuse appointments in the universities and parish churches, with the tithes and other emoluments connected therewith. Dr. Goodwin was President of Magdalen College, Cambridge; Dr. Owen, Dean of Christ Church and Vice-Chancellor at Oxford; Philip Nye, Rector of St. Bartholomew's, London; Joseph Caryl, Rector of St. Mary Magnus; William Greenhill, incumbent of the village of Stepney; William Bridge, town lecturer at Yarmouth; John Howe, parish minister at Torrington, and afterwards court chaplain to Cromwell until his death. [1603] Cromwell himself had no idea of disconnecting the government from religion. Christianity was fully recognized under his rule as part and parcel of the law of the land. It accompanied with its solemn worship the ordinary business of Parliament. Public fasts were frequently appointed by the Protector (to which the Presbyterians objected as an Erastian intrusion), and lasted usually from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon. The rights of patronage were not disturbed; the tithes and other provisions for the support of the clergy and the repair of churches were continued. A commission of Triers, or judicial examiners, one fourth of whom were laymen, was appointed to test the fitness of clerical applicants and to remove unworthy incumbents, and Church boards of gentry and clergy were set up in every county for the supervision of ecclesiastical affairs. The Triers took the place of the late Westminster Assembly in its administrative work, but were less numerous, and included Independents, Presbyterians, and Baptists. Dr. Owen, Goodwin, and Manton belonged to them, besides others of less wisdom and charity. They were subject to a certain Erastian control by the Protector and his Council of State, but left to decide each case according to their best judgment, without imposing any creed or canon or statute. The plan seems to have worked well, and furnished the country, as Baxter says, who was no friend of Cromwell, with 'able, serious preachers, who lived a godly life, of what tolerable opinion soever they were.' Cromwell's Protectorate was too short to develop a full system of ecclesiastical polity. It was a government of experiments in accommodation to existing circumstances. Upon the whole, it was more tolerant than any previous reign, but only to Puritanism and such Protestant sects as recognized the Scriptures and the fundamentals of the Christian faith; while it was intolerant to Romanists, Socinians, and Episcopal royalists, who endangered his government. In his foreign policy Cromwell was the boldest protector of Protestantism and religious liberty that England has ever produced. [1604]

Under these favorable circumstances, and in view of the successful establishment of an exclusively Congregational commonwealth by their transatlantic brethren, the Independents might think of repeating in a milder form the experiment of the Westminster Assembly to secure at least a certain degree of religious uniformity in England, with a limited amount of toleration to orthodox dissenters. Their great protector did not seem to favor such a scheme, but shortly before his death he reluctantly gave his consent to 'the humble petition and advice' of influential members of Parliament to issue a confession of faith for the whole kingdom, yet 'without compelling the people thereto by penalties,' and to extend liberty to all Christian professions, except 'popery or prelacy,' or such as 'publish horrid blasphemies or practice or hold forth licentiousness or profaneness under the profession of Christ.' A notice from the clerk of the Council of State summoned the Congregational churches, in and near London, to a meeting in the Savoy, but it was not held till twenty-six days after Cromwell's death. About two hundred delegates from one hundred and twenty congregations attended the Conference, which lasted from Sept. 29 till Oct. 12, 1658. They agreed unanimously upon the Confession and Order of Discipline. It was regarded by them, in the language of the Preface, 'as a great and special work of the Holy Ghost that so numerous a company of ministers and other principal brethren should so readily, speedily, and jointly give up themselves unto such a whole body of truths that are after godliness.'

The Savoy Declaration is the work of a committee, consisting of Drs. Goodwill, Owen, Nye, Bridge, Caryl, and Greenhill, who had been members of the Westminster Assembly, with the exception of Dr. Owen. It contains a lengthy Preface (fourteen pages), the Westminster Confession of Faith with sundry changes (twenty-two pages), and a Platform of Church Polity (five pages).

1. The Preface is prolix and indifferently written, but deserves notice for inaugurating a more liberal view of the authority of creeds and the toleration of other creeds. The chief ideas are these: To confess our faith is an indispensable duty we owe to God as much as prayer. Public confessions are a means of expressing the common faith, but ought not to be enforced. 'Whatever is of force or constraint in matters of this nature causes them to degenerate from the name and nature of Confessions, and turns them into Exactions and Impositions of Faith.' With this we should acknowledge 'the great principle that among all Christian States and Churches there ought to be vouchsafed a forbearance and mutual indulgence unto saints of all persuasions that keep unto and hold fast the necessary foundations of faith and holiness, in all other matters extra-fundamental, whether of faith or order.'

This was a considerable step beyond the prevailing notion of uniformity, although it falls far short of the modern theory of religious liberty. The Preface goes on to guard itself against the charge of indifference or carelessness.

2. The Declaration of Faith. This is a slight modification of the Westminster Confession. 'To this Confession,' the Preface states, 'we fully assent, as do our brethren of New England and the churches also of Scotland, as each in their general synods have testified. A few things we have added for obviating some erroneous opinions, and made other additions and alterations in method here and there, and some clearer explanations as we found occasion.' The Declaration is divided into thirty-two chapters, in the same order as the Westminster Confession, which has thirty-three chapters. In the exceptions taken the Savoy Council followed the example set by the Long Parliament in its edition of the Westminster Confession. The only important changes refer to matters of Church government and discipline. Chaps. XXX., 'Of Church Censures,' and XXXI., 'Of Synods and Councils,' are omitted altogether. Chaps. XXIII. (XXIV.), 'Of the Civil Magistrates,' XXIV. (XXV.), 'Of Marriage and Divorce,' and XXVI., 'Of the Church,' are modified. Chap. XX., 'Of the Gospel,' in the Savoy Declaration, is inserted, and hence the difference in the numbering of the remaining chapters. The change in Chap. XXIV. is a decided improvement, if we judge it from the American theory of Church and State. A similar and more thorough change was subsequently made by the American Presbyterians in the Westminster Confession.

3. The Declaration of 'the Institution of Churches and the Order appointed in them by Jesus Christ' contains the principles of the Congregational Church polity which we have already explained. Similar Platforms of Discipline, as they are called, have been issued from time to time by the American Congregationalists--at Cambridge, 1648, at Saybrook, 1708, and at Boston, 1865.

THE DECLARATION OF 1833.

This is a popular abridgment of the older confessions, and presents a milder form of Calvinism. It was prepared in 1833 by the Rev. Dr. Redford, of Worcester, and other members of a committee of the 'Congregational Union of England and Wales,' which was organized in 1831. It is annually printed in the 'Congregational Year-Book,' but it disclaims any authority as a standard of subscription. [1605]

Note.--The Rev. Dr. John Stoughton, of London, a leading divine and historian among the English Independents, has kindly supplied me with the following statement concerning the prevailing sentiment of that body on the authority of creeds, a statement which applies largely to American Congregationalists in the present age:

'Looking at the principles of Congregationalism, which involve the repudiation of all human authority in matters of religion, it is impossible to believe that persons holding those principles can consistently regard any ecclesiastical creed or symbol in the same way in which Catholics, whether Roman or Anglican, regard the creeds of the ancient Church. There is a strong feeling among English Congregationalists against the use of such documents for the purpose of defining the limits of religious communion, or for the purpose of checking the exercise of sober, free inquiry; and there is also a widely spread conviction that it is impossible to reduce the expression of Christian belief to a series of logical propositions, so as to preserve and represent the full spirit of gospel truth. No doubt there may be heard in some circles a great deal of loose conversation seeming to indicate such a repugnance to the employment of creeds as would imply a dislike to any formal definition of Christian doctrine whatever; but I apprehend that the prevailing sentiment relative to this subject among our ministers and churches does not go beyond the point just indicated. Many consider that while creeds are objectionable as tests and imperfect as confessions, yet they may have a certain value as manifestoes of conviction on the part of religious communities.

'The Westminster Assembly's Catechism never had the authority in Congregational churches which from the beginning it possessed in the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and its use in schools and families for educational purposes, once very common, has diminished of late years to a very low degree. The Savoy Declaration, which perhaps never had much weight with Congregationalists, is a document now little known, except by historical students. The Declaration of 1833 was prepared by a committee of the Congregational Union, of which the Rev. Dr. Redford, of Worcester, was a member. He, I believe, drew up the Articles, and it was only in accordance with his well-known character as a zealous antagonist of human authority in religion that he introduced the following passages in the preliminary notes:

'"It is not designed, in the following summary, to do more than to state the leading doctrines of faith and order maintained by Congregational churches in general.

'"It is not intended that the following statement should be put forth with any authority, or as a standard to which assent should be required.

'"Disallowing the utility of creeds and articles of religion as a bond of union, and protesting against subscription to any human formularies as a term of communion, Congregationalists are yet willing to declare, for general information, what is commonly believed among them, reserving to every one the most perfect liberty of conscience."

'It would be well to insert a statement made to me by one who from his official position has the best means of ascertaining the state of opinion in our churches:

'"I do not believe that the Declaration of 1833 could now with success be submitted for adoption to an Assembly of the Congregational Union; in part, because not a few would dispute its position, and in part because many more--I believe the majority--without objecting on strictly doctrinal grounds, would object on grounds of policy."

'I may add to this, in the words of the Dean of Westminster, who wrote them on the authority of "a respected Congregational minister," that, beyond care in the matter of ordination, "no measures are adopted or felt to be either desirable or necessary for preserving uniformity of doctrine, excepting only that the trust-deeds of most of their places of worship contain a reference to leading points of doctrine to which the minister may be required to express his assent. In practice this is merely a provision against any decided departure from the faith as commonly received among us, the trustees of the property having it in their power to refuse the use of the building to any minister whose teaching may be contrary to the doctrines contained in the deed. Such cases, however, are extremely rare."

'In some cases trust-deeds make reference to the Declaration of 1833, as containing the doctrines to be taught in substance within the places of worship secured by such deeds; but in most cases a brief schedule of doctrines is employed, of which the following is an example:

'"1. The divine and special inspiration of the holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, and their supreme authority in faith and practice.

'"2. The unity of God. The Deity of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

'"3. The depravity of man, and the absolute necessity of the Holy Spirit's agency in man's regeneration and sanctification.

'"4. The incarnation of the Son of God, in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ; the universal sufficiency of the atonement by his death; and the free justification of sinners by faith alone in him.

'"5. Salvation by grace, and the duty of all who hear the gospel to believe in Christ.

'"6. The resurrection of the dead and the final judgment, when the wicked 'shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.'"

'The Secretary of our Chapel Building Society informs me that "one reason for the disuse of the Declaration may be its length, and the circumstance that, to put it beyond question that document is meant, it has been thought it would be needful to embody it in the deed, which would add to the cost."

'It has been remarked, on the authority of one already cited, "that, notwithstanding the absence of tests, there is among Independents a marked uniformity of opinion on all important points." Perhaps this statement, still true on the whole, would require more qualification than it did some years ago. There are among us a few men of mental vigor who have departed very considerably from the published creeds of Congregationalism. There may be a larger number whose opinions are of an Arminian cast; but, again to use language supplied by a friend, in whom I place confidence as to this subject: "It would still be fair, I think, to describe our ministry as moderately Calvinistic. An immense majority of the ministers are so. An impression to the contrary has, I am aware, become prevalent; but that is owing, I believe, to the fact that the greater number of the men who have departed from the Calvinistic type hold prominent positions, and have 'the habit of the pen.'" It is a difficult and delicate task to report the state of large religious communities among whose members there exist some diversities of opinion. One person biased by his own predilections will give one account, and another person under an influence of the same kind will give another.

'In what I have said I have endeavored to be as impartial as possible; and, to give the more weight to my statements, I have sought the assistance of official brethren who have wider means of information than I possess, and who may look at things from points of view not exactly identical with my own.'

[1602] The Savoy, in the Strand, London, is remarkable for its historical associations. The palace, on the banks of the Thames, was built by Peter, Earl of Savoy and Richmond, in 1245; enlarged and beautified by Henry, Duke of Lancaster, 1328. King John II., of France, while a prisoner in England, resided there (1357-63). It was burned in Wat Tyler's insurrection, 1381; rebuilt and endowed as a hospital by Henry VII., 1505. It was the city residence of the Bishop of London. The royal chapel was burned down in 1864, but beautifully restored by Queen Victoria, and reopened Nov. 26, 1865. The Congregational meeting of 1658 must not be confounded with the 'Savoy Conference' between Episcopalians and Presbyterians which was held there from April 15 to July 25, 1661.

[1603] Comp. Stoughton, Church of the Commonwealth, ch. ix. pp. 207 sqq. A number of the Baptists likewise accepted preferments under the Protectorate. See ib. p. 242, and Ivimey's list of Baptists who were ejected at the Restoration, History of Baptists, Vol. I. p. 328.

[1604] Comp. Stoughton, 1.c. pp. 81 sqq. Green (History of the English People, p. 573) judges upon the whole quite favorably of Cromwell's ecclesiastical polity: 'In England, Cromwell dealt with the Royalists as irreconcilable enemies; but in every other respect he carried out fairly his pledge of "healing and settling." . . . From the Church, which was thus reorganized, all power of interference with faiths differing from its own was resolutely withheld. Cromwell remained true to his great cause of religious liberty. Even the Quaker, rejected by all other Christian bodies as an anarchist and blasphemer, found sympathy and protection in Cromwell. The Jews had been excluded from England since the reign of Edward the First; and a prayer which they now presented for leave to return was refused by the commission of merchants and divines to whom the Protector referred it for consideration. But the refusal was quietly passed over, and the connivance of Cromwell in the settlement of a few Hebrews in London and Oxford was so clearly understood that no one ventured to interfere with them.'

[1605] See Vol. III. pp. 730 sqq.

Literature.

Special essays relating to the creeds and Church order of American Congregationalists.

The Formation of Creeds. Article by the Rev. Joseph P. Thompson in the 'New-Englander,' Vol. IV. pp. 265-274. 1846.

Congregationalism and Symbolism. Article by the Rev. Wm. G. T. Shedd in the 'Bibliotheca Sacra,' Vol. XV. pp. 661-690. 1858. (An argument showing the need of a more positive creed for Congregationalism.)

Confessions of Faith. Article by the Rev. Edward W. Gilman in the 'Congregational Quarterly,' Vol. IV. pp. 179-191. 1862.

Declaration of Faith and the Confession. Article by the Rev. Edward A. Lawrence. Ib. Vol. VIII. pp. 173-190. 1866.

Ancient Confessions of Faith and Family Covenants. By E. W. G. Ib. Vol. XI. pp. 516-527. 1869.

The National Council (of 1871). Article by Dr. A. H. Quint in the 'Cong. Quarterly,' Vol. XIV. pp. 61, 80. 1872.

The American Congregationalists have from time to time adopted the Westminster standards of doctrine, with the exception of the sections relating to synodical Church government. Formerly the Assembly's Shorter Catechism was taught in all the schools of New England; but of late years those standards have gone much out of use, though they have never been disowned.

THE SYNOD OF CAMBRIDGE, 1648. [1606]

The 'Elders and Messengers of the churches assembled in the Synod at Cambridge, in New England,' in June, 1648, adopted the Westminster Confession one year after its publication, in these words: 'This Synod having perused and considered with much gladness of heart, and thankfulness to God, the Confession of Faith published of late by the reverend Assembly in England, do judge it to be very holy, orthodox, and judicious in all matters of faith; and do therefore freely and fully consent thereunto, for the substance thereof. Only in those things which have respect to Church government and discipline [in some sections of Chaps. XXV., XXX., and XXXI.] we refer ourselves to the Platform of Church Discipline agreed upon by this present assembly; and do therefore think it meet that this Confession of Faith should be commended to the churches of Christ among us, and to the honored court, as worthy of their consideration and acceptance. Howbeit, we may not conceal, that the doctrine of vocation, expressed in Chap. X., § 1, and summarily repeated in Chap. XIII., § 1, passed not without some debate. Yet considering that the term of vocation and others by which it is described are capable of a large or more strict sense or use, and that it is not intended to bind apprehensions precisely in point of order or method, there hath been a general condescendency thereunto. Now by this our professed consent and free concurrence with them in all the doctrinals of religion, we hope it may appear to the world that as we are a remnant of the people of the same nation with them, so we are professors of the same common faith, and fellow-heirs of the same common salvation.'

The Cambridge Synod thus anticipated by ten years the work of the Savoy Conference (1658).

The Cambridge Platform, which is said to be the work of the Rev. Richard Mather, sets forth in substance the same principles of independent Church government and discipline as the Savoy Declaration.

THE SYNOD OF BOSTON, 1680.

The Synod of Elders and Messengers of the New England Congregational churches, held in Boston, Mass., May 12, 1680, adopted and published the Savoy recension of the Westminster Confession, together with the Cambridge Platform. It says, in the preface to its Declaration:

'That which was consented unto by the Elders and Messengers of the Congregational churches in England, who met at the Savoy (being for the most part, some small variations excepted, the same with that which was agreed upon first by the Assembly at Westminster, and was approved of by the Synod at Cambridge, in New England, anno 1648, as also by a General Assembly in Scotland), was twice publicly read, examined, and approved of: that little variation which we have made from the one, in compliance with the other, may be seen by those who please to compare them. But we have (for the main) chosen to express ourselves in the words of those reverend Assemblies, that so we might not only with one heart, but with one mouth, glorify God and our Lord Jesus Christ.' [1607]

THE SYNOD OF SAYBROOK, 1708.

The Elders and Messengers of the churches in the Colony of Connecticut assembled at Saybrook, Sept. 9, 1708, agreed that the Boston Confession should 'be recommended to the honorable general assembly of this Colony, at the next session, for their public testimony thereunto, as the faith of the churches of the Colony.' They also accepted 'the Heads of Agreement assented to [in 1692] by the united ministers [of England], formerly called Presbyterian and Congregational,' and so virtually gave indorsement to three creeds as essentially teaching the same system--the doctrinal part of the Articles of the Church of England, the Westminster Confession or Catechisms, and the Confession agreed on at the Savoy.

THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF BOSTON, 1865. [1608]

The National Council of Congregational churches of the United States, held in the Old South Meeting-house of the city of Boston after the close of the Civil War (which suggested this Council), in the year 1865 (June 14-24), adopted a 'Declaration of Faith.' This Declaration passed through three transformations:

The first draft was prepared by a committee consisting of three divines (two progressive, one conservative), viz., Dr. Joseph P. Thompson (then Pastor of the Church of the Tabernacle, New York), Dr. Edward A. Lawrence (Prof. in the Theol. Seminary of East Windsor [now at Hartford], Conn.), and Dr. George P. Fisher (Prof. of Ecclesiastical History in Yale College). The Committee declined to give a formulated statement of doctrines, but characterized, in a comprehensive way, the doctrines held in common by the Congregational churches, and referred to the ancient Confessions of Westminster and Savoy, as sufficiently answering the end of a substantial unity in doctrine. This draft was read, discussed, and referred to a larger committee.

The second draft was presented by the Rev. J. O. Fiske, of Bath, Maine, and in conformity with the usage of the councils at Cambridge, 1648, at Boston, 1680, and at Saybrook, 1708, expresses adherence to the Westminster and Savoy Confessions for 'substance of doctrine' and the system of truths commonly known as 'Calvinism,' and emphasizes in opposition to modern infidelity the doctrine of the Trinity, the incarnation, the atonement, and other fundamental articles of the common Christian faith.

The third draft was read by the Rev. Alonzo H. Quint, by direction of the business committee, at a meeting of the Council held June 22d, on Burial Hill, Plymouth, on the spot where the first meeting-house of the Pilgrims stood, and which Dr. Bacon declared to be to Congregationalists 'the holiest spot of all the earth.' This paper was substantially approved and referred to a committee of revision to improve the form. This committee reported, Friday, June 23, through the Rev. Dr. Stearns, President of Amherst College, a number of slight verbal alterations. In this improved form the Declaration was twice read 'in a distinct and impressive manner,' and after prayer by the Rev. Dr. Ray Palmer, of New York, unanimously adopted by rising. The singing of Dr. Palmer's well-known hymn, 'My faith looks up to thee,' and the old doxology, 'To God the Father, God the Son,' concluded the solemnity. [1609]

The same Council adopted a new Platform of Discipline, called the Boston Platform of 1865, and published by the Congregational Board. This virtually supersedes the Cambridge and Saybrook Platforms.

THE OBERLIN NATIONAL COUNCIL, 1871.

The Oberlin Council of 1871 is the first of a regular triennial series of National Councils of the Congregational churches in the United States. [1610] It adopted a constitution, one paragraph of which briefly refers to the rule of faith in a very general way. [1611]

Note.--Besides the creeds of General Councils, there are in use among American Congregationalists a great number and variety of creeds, concerning which the Rev. Edward W. Gilman, D.D. (Secretary of the American Bible Society) kindly furnishes the following information:

'1. State Associations and Conferences..

'The usage is various. The General Association of Massachusetts, founded in 1803, accepts as a basis of union "the doctrines of Christianity as they are generally expressed in the Assembly's Shorter Catechism." So do the General Convention of Vermont, founded 1796, and the General Association of New Hampshire, founded 1747. The General Association of New York, founded 1834, has separate Articles of Faith. So has the General Association of Illinois. The General Conferences of Maine and Connecticut have no express doctrinal basis.

'2. County Consociations (of twenty or thirty churches).

' The Lincoln and Kennebec Consociation (Maine), 1808, recommended to its constituent churches Articles of "Union, Faith, and Practice." The Northwestern Consociation (Vermont), 1818, recommended to its churches a uniform Confession and Covenant. The Litchfield South Consociation (Conn.), 1828, prepared a Confession and Covenant for the general use of its churches. The New Haven West Consociation (Conn.) admits only churches which accept the doctrinal part of the Saybrook Platform.

'3. Institutions of Learning.

'The Hollis Professor of Divinity in Harvard College must "declare it as his belief that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are the only perfect rule of faith and practice," and the first incumbent (1722), being examined by the Corporation, declared his assent to the Confession of Faith in the Assembly's Catechism and to the doctrinal Articles of the Church of England. Assent to the Westminster Confession or the Saybrook Platform was required of Professors in Yale College from 1753 to 1823. In the Theological Institution at Andover both Visitors and Professors are required to subscribe a Declaration of Faith drawn up by the founders in 1808, and to renew this declaration at intervals of five years.

'4. Local Churches.

'The types are various, and while each church is at liberty to construct and alter its own formulas, certain tendencies towards uniformity of usage, at different periods, are noticeable.

'(a) Individual Professions. Such were those made by John Cotton, at Charlestown, in 1630, and by John Davenport, at New Haven, in 1639. (See the latter in Ancient Waymarks, published at New Haven in 1853. See also Cong. Quarterly, 1869, Vol. XI. p. 517.)

'(b) Brief general references, either to the holy Scriptures as the only rule of belief and duty, or to the Westminster Catechism or the Boston (i.e., Savoy) Confession, as agreeable to the Scriptures. This usage came in at an early day, and was current at the beginning of this century.

'(c) Articles of Faith, embracing in theological phraseology the outlines of a system of divinity. After the year 1800 these came into general use as formulas for the reception of members, and great reliance was placed upon them as helps in maintaining the purity of the churches against the inroads of false doctrine. Candidates for admission to Church privileges were required to give their assent to the several propositions, which thus in many cases were made tests of worthiness. Dr. Samuel Worcester (Fitchburg, 1798) and Dr. E. D. Griffin, the first pastor of the Park Street Church, Boston (1811), had much to do in shaping the practice of the churches from their day to the present time. Formulas of this class have, however, been subjected to various modifications, by way of accommodation to individual opinions, or for the sake of denying current error, or of emphasizing truths peculiar to the Calvinistic system, but especially in order to secure brevity in the Church service. In this way it has unfortunately sometimes happened that doctrines fundamental to Christianity have failed to find a place in the formal Confession of Faith.

'(d) Creeds divested of theological terms, and clothed in language so clear and simple and general as to prevent no Christian from giving them his prompt and hearty assent. The revisions of the last twenty years have been looking in this direction, and churches are beginning to be formed with no other symbol of faith than the Apostles' Creed.'

[1606] 'The Congregational Order' above quoted contains the Cambridge Platform and the Saybrook Platform, together with the 'Saybrook Confession of Faith,' i.e., the Savoy Confession as previously adopted by the Synod of Boston.

[1607] The changes are very slight, and in part restorations of the Westminster text. They are noted by Dr. Quint in the 'Congregational Quarterly' for July, 1866, p. 266.

[1608] Debates and Proceedings of the National Council of the Congregational Churches, held at Boston, Mass., June 14-24, 1865. From the Phonographic Report by J. M. W. Yerrinton and Henry M. Parkhurst. Boston, Amer. Cong. Association, 1866 (ed. under the care of the Rev. A. H. Quint and the Rev. Isaac P. Langworthy), pp. 95-98, 344-347, 361-363, 401-403.

[1609] The Boston Declaration is printed in Vol. III. p. 734.

[1610] Formerly General Councils or Synods were held only occasionally (1637, 1646, 1648, 1662, 1680, 1708, 1852, 1865), when some controversy or matter of special concern to all the churches seemed to justify them.

[1611] Printed in Vol. III. p. 737.

Literature.

I. On the Anabaptists.

The writings of Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli, Calvin, Bullinger, and other Reformers and older divines against the Anabaptists are polemical.

H. W. Erbkam: Geschichte der Protest. Sekten im Zeitalter der Reformation. Hamburg und Gotha, 1848, pp. 479 sqq.

Cornelius: Geschichte des Münsterischen Aufruhrs. Leipz. 1856 and 1860, 2 vols.

Karl Hase: Das Reich der Wiedertäufer. Neue Propheten. 2d edition, Leipz. 1860.

Bouterweck: Zur Liter. und Geschichte der Wiedertäufer. Bonn, 1865.

Gerh. Uhlhorn: Die Wiedertäufer in Münster, in his Vermischte Vorträge. Stuttgart, 1875, pp. 193 sqq.

Comp. also Schreiber's Biography of Hübmaier, in his Taschenbuch f. Geschichte und Alterthum in Süddeutschland, 1839 and 1840.

II. On the Mennonites.

Menno Simons: Fundamentum, 1539, 1558, etc.; Opera, Amst. 1646, 4to; Opera omnia theologica, Amst. 1681, in 1 vol. fol. (Both editions in Dutch.)

Herm. Schyn: Historia Christianorum qui in Belgio foederato Mennonitæ appellantur. Amst. 1723. The same in Dutch, with additions by Gerardus Maatschoen, Amst. 1743-1745, in 3 vols. 12mo. By the same: Histor. Mennonit. plenior Deductio. 1729.

S. Blaupot Ten Cate: Geschiedenis der Doopsgezinden. Amsterdam, 1839-47. 5 vols. 8vo.

Cramer: The Life of Menno Sim. Amst. 1837 (Dutch)

Harder: Leben Menno Simons. Königsberg, 1846.

Roosen: Menno Simons. Leipz. 1848.

Erbkam: Geschichte der Protest. Sekten, pp. 480, 571.

Gieseler: Kirchengeschichte, Vol. III. Part II. pp. 90 sqq.

Henke: Neuere Kirchengeschichte (herausgegeben von Dr. Gass). Halle, 1874, Vol. I. pp. 414 sqq.

The various branches of the Baptist family of Christians [1612] differ very widely, and have little or no connection except that they agree in rejecting infant baptism and in requiring a personal and voluntary profession of faith in Christ as a necessary condition of baptism. Most of them agree also in opposition to sprinkling, or any other mode of baptism but that by total immersion of the body in water. The largest and most respectable denomination of Baptists took its rise in the great religious commotion of England during the seventeenth century, and differed from the Puritans only in the doctrine of baptism and in the steadfast advocacy of religious freedom. But the Baptist movement began a century earlier on the Continent, and this first stage must at least be briefly noticed.

THE ANABAPTISTS.

The early history of the Anabaptists exhibits a strange chaos of peaceful reforms and violent revolutions--separatism, mysticism, millenarianism, spiritualism, contempt of history, ascetic rigor, fanaticism, communism, and some novel speculations concerning the body of Christ as being directly created by God, and different from the flesh and blood of other men. An impartial history, with a careful critical sifting of these incongruous elements, is still a desideratum.

The modern Anabaptists [1613] figure prominently in the history of the Reformation, and meet us in Germany, Switzerland, Holland, and England. They were Protestant radicals, who rejected infant baptism as an invention of the Roman Antichrist, and aimed at a thorough reconstruction of the Church. They spread mostly among the laboring classes. Some of their preachers had no regular education, despised human learning, and relied on direct inspiration; but others were learned and eloquent men, as Grebel, Manz, Hetzer, Hübmaier, Denk, Röublin, and Rothmann. They were regarded as a set of dangerous fanatics, who could not be tolerated under a Christian government. Their supposed or real connection with the Peasant War, against the tyranny of landholders (1524), and with the bloody and disastrous excesses at Münster (1534), increased the opposition. Their doctrines were condemned in the Lutheran and Reformed Confessions. The Reformers, even the mildest among them (Melanchthon, Bucer, Bullinger, and Cranmer, as well as Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin), felt that their extermination was necessary for the salvation of the churchly Reformation and social order. And yet they must have known worthy men among them; Calvin himself married the widow of an Anabaptist pastor. Protestant and Roman Catholic magistrates vied with each other in cruelty against them, and put them to death by drowning, hanging, and burning.

But it is the greatest injustice to make the Anabaptists as such responsible for the extravagances that led to the tragedy at Münster. Their original and final tendencies were orderly and peaceful. They disowned the wild fanaticism of Thomas Münzer, John Bockelsohn, and Knipperdolling. They were opposed to war and violence. They were the crude harbingers and martyrs of some truths which have germinated in other ages. They upheld the necessity of discipline and congregational organization on the basis of personal faith in Christ, instead of carnal descent and parochial boundaries. They attacked the doctrine of the eternal damnation of unbaptized infants, and the equally horrible doctrine of persecution. Balthasar Hübmaier (Hübmör, or, as he was called by a Latin name, Pacimontanus), the ablest and most learned among the Anabaptists, a pupil of Dr. Eck (Luther's opponent), and for some time Professor of Catholic Theology at Ingolstadt, then a zealous and eloquent Protestant preacher, was perhaps the first who taught the principle of universal religious liberty, on the ground that Christ came not to kill and to burn, but to save, and condemned the employment of force in his kingdom. He held that those only are heretics who willfully and wickedly oppose the holy Scriptures; and even these ought to be treated by no other than moral means of persuasion and instruction. [1614] He was burned at the stake in Vienna, March 10,1528, and died with pious joy; his wife, who encouraged him in his martyr spirit, was three days afterwards drowned in the Danube.

THE MENNONITES.

Menno Simons, a converted Roman Catholic priest, collected the scattered remnant of the Anabaptists into a well-organized, peaceful, and industrious community in Holland and on the borders of Germany (1536). He gave them a strict system of discipline, and endeavored to revive the idea of a pure apostolic congregation consisting of true believers unmixed with the world. He labored in constant peril of life with untiring patience till his death, Jan. 13, 1561. 'For eighteen years,' he says, 'with my poor feeble wife and little children, has it behooved me to bear great and various anxieties, sufferings, griefs, afflictions, miseries, and persecutions, and in every place to find a bare existence, in fear and danger of my life. While some preachers are reclining on their soft beds and downy pillows, we oft are hidden in the caves of the earth; while they are celebrating the nuptial or natal days of their children with feasts and pipes, and rejoicing with the timbrel and the harp, we are looking anxiously about, fearing the barking of the dogs, lest persecutors should be suddenly at the door; while they are saluted by all around as doctors, masters, lords, we are compelled to hear ourselves called Anabaptists, ale-house preachers, seducers, heretics, and to be hailed in the devil's name. In a word, while they for their ministry are remunerated with annual stipends and prosperous days, our wages are the fire, the sword, the death.' [1615]

His followers were called Mennonites after his death. [1616] They acquired at last toleration, first in Holland from Prince William of Orange, 1572, and full liberty in 1626. They spread to the Palatinate, Switzerland, Eastern Prussia, and by emigration to South Russia, Pennsylvania, and other parts of North America. Quite recently several hundred families left their Russian settlements for America because the privilege of exemption from military service was withdrawn. They are a small, quiet, peaceful, industrious, and moral community, like the Quakers. Their historian, Schyn, labors to show that they have no connection whatever with the fanatical and revolutionary Anabaptists of Münster.

The Mennonites were divided during the lifetime of Menno into two parties on questions of discipline: 1, the 'coarse' Mennonites (die Groben), or Waterlanders, who were more numerous, and flourished in the Waterland district of North Holland; 2, the 'refined' Mennonites (die Feinen), who were chiefly Flemings, Frieslanders, and Germans. The latter adhered to the strict discipline of the founder.

The Mennonites acknowledge 'the Confession of Waterland,' which was drawn up by two of their preachers, John Ris (Haus de Rys) and Lubbert Gerardi (Gerritsz), in the Dutch language. [1617]

It consists of forty Articles, and teaches, besides the common doctrines of Protestant orthodoxy, the peculiar views of this community. It rejects oaths (Art. XXXVIII., on the ground of Matt. v. 37 and James v. 10), war (XVIII.), and secular office-holding, because it is not commanded by Christ and is inconsistent with true Christian character; but it enjoins obedience to the civil magistrate as a divine appointment wherever it does not contradict the Word of God and interfere with the dictates of conscience (XXXVII.). The Church consists of the faithful and regenerate men scattered over the earth, under Christ the Lord and King (XXIV.). Infant baptism is rejected as unscriptural (XXXI.); but the Mennonites differ from other Baptists by sprinkling. [1618] On the Lord's Supper they agree with Zwingli. They admit hereditary sin, but deny its guilt (Art. IV.). They hold to conditional election and universal redemption. [1619] But during the Arminian controversy a portion sided with the strict Calvinists. They reject also law-suits, revenge, every kind of violence, and worldly amusements. In many respects they are the forerunners of the Quakers quite as much as of the English and American Baptists.

[1612] Mennonites, Calvinistic Baptists, Arminian Baptists, Dunkers, River Brethren, Seventh-Day Baptists, Six-Principle Baptists, Disciples or Campbellites. The last are very numerous in the West; they reject all creeds on principle.

[1613] Or Rebaptizers, so called by their opponents because they rebaptized those baptized in infancy, while they themselves denied the validity of infant baptism (some of them Catholic baptism in general), and regarded voluntary baptism in years of discretion as the only true baptism. The ancient Anabaptists or Rebaptizers, headed by Cyprian, denied the validity of heretical baptism, and carried the principle of Catholic exclusivism to a logical extreme, which the Roman Church has always rejected.

[1614] Von Ketzern und ihren Verbrennern. A very rare book.

[1615] Schyn, Plenior Deduct, p. 133 (quoted in Introd. to Baptist Tracts on Liberty of Conscience, p. lxxxii.).

[1616] Or Doopsgezinden, i.e., Dippers. In Menno's writings they are called Gemeente Gods, ellendige, weerloze Christenen, broeders, etc., but never Mennonites, See Gieseler, Vol. III. Pt. II. p. 92.

[1617] Schyn gives a Latin translation, in his Historia Mennonitarum, pp. 172-220, under the title, Præcipuorum Christianæ fidei Articulorum brevis Confessio adornata a Joanne Risio et Lubberto Gerardi. He calls it also Mennonitarum Confessio, or Formula Consensus inter Waterlandos. He says the confessions of the other branches of the Mennonites agree with it in all fundamental articles. Winer (Compar. Darstellung, etc., pp. 24, 25), gives a list of Mennonite Confessions and Catechisms.

[1618] One branch of them, the Collegiants or Rhynsburgers, held, however, to the necessity of immersion. They have recently become extinct, having had among them some men of distinction.

[1619] Art. VII. derives sin exclusively from the will of man, and teaches that God predestinated and created all men for salvation (omnes decrevit et creavit ad salutem), that he provided the remedy for all, that Christ died for all, and saves all who believe and persevere.

[Note.--McGlothlin gives as the earliest Anabaptist articles of the sixteenth century two brief Swiss statements of 1527 which bear solely on practical questions. Two of the teachings inculcate communism and that the Lord's Supper be celebrated 'as often as the brethren come together.' The articles of the Moravian Anabaptists forbade the Lord's Supper to persons having property.--Ed.]

Literature.

Confessions of Faith and other Public Documents illustrative of the History of the Baptist Churches of England in the Seventeenth Century. Edited for the Hanserd Knollys Society by Edward Bean Underhill. London (Haddon Brothers & Co.), 1854. Contains reprints of seven Baptist Confessions from 1611 to 1688, the Baptist Catechism of Collins, and several letters and other documents from the early history of Baptists in England.

Thos. Crosby: The History of the English Baptists, from the Reformation to the Beginning of the Reign of King George I. London, 1740. 4 vols. Contains important documents, but also many inaccuracies.

Joseph Ivimey: History of the English Baptists, including an Investigation of the History of Baptism in England. London, 1811-23. In 3 vols. 8vo.

Isaac Backus (d. 1806): History of New England, with especial Reference to the Baptists. In 3 vols. A new edition, by David Weston, was published by the Backus Historical Society, Newton Centre, Mass. 1871.

David Benedict (Pastor of the Baptist Church in Pawtucket, R. I.): A General History of the Baptist Denomination in America and other Parts of the World. Boston, 1813, in 2 vols.; new edition, New York, 1848, in 1 vol. (970 pp.). A chaos of facts.

Francis Wayland: Notes on the Principles and Practices of the Baptist Churches. New York (Sheldon, Blakeman, & Co.), 1857.

Sewall S. Cutting: Historical Vindications; . . . with Appendices containing Historical Notes and Confessions of Faith. Boston (Gould & Lincoln), 1859.

J. M. Cramp: Baptist History, from the Foundation of the Christian Church to the Close of the Eighteenth Century. Philadelphia (American Baptist Publication Society), 1868. For popular use.

J. Jackson Goadby: Bye-Paths in Baptist History: A Collection of Interesting, Instructive, and Curious Information, not generally known, concerning the Baptist Denomination. London, 1874 (pp. 375). Chap. VI. treats of Baptist Confessions of Faith.

The Baptists and the National Centennial: A Record of Christian Work, 1776-1876. Edited by Lemuel Moss, D.D. Philadelphia (Baptist Publication Society), 1876. Contains a chapter on 'Doctrinal History and Position,' by Dr. Pepper, pp. 51 sqq.

William R. Williams: Lectures on Baptist History. Philadelphia, 1877.

The English and American Baptists have inherited some of the principles without the eccentricities and excesses of the Continental Anabaptists and Mennonites. [1620] They are radical but not revolutionary in politics and religion, and as sober, orderly, peaceful, zealous, and devoted as any other class of Christians. They rose simultaneously in England and America during the Puritan conflict, and have become, next to the Methodists, the strongest denomination in the United States.

The great body of Baptists are called Regular or Particular or Calvinistic Baptists, in distinction from the smaller body of General or Arminian or Free-Will Baptists. They are Calvinists in doctrine and Independents in Church polity, but differ from both in their views on the subjects and mode of baptism. They teach that believers only ought to be baptized, that is, dipped or immersed, on a voluntary confession of their faith. They reject infant baptism as an unscriptural innovation and profanation of the sacrament, since an infant can not hear the gospel, nor repent and make a profession of faith. They believe, however, in the salvation of all children dying before the age of responsibility. Baptism in their system has no regenerative and saving efficacy: it is simply an outward sign of grace already bestowed, a public profession of faith in Christ to the world, and an entrance into the privileges and duties of church membership. [1621] They also opposed from the start national church establishments, and the union of Church and State, which one of their greatest writers (Robert Hall) calls 'little more than a compact between the priest and the magistrate to betray the liberties of mankind, both civil and religious.' They advocate voluntaryism, and make the doctrine of religions freedom, as an inherent and universal right of man, a part of their creed.

THE BAPTISTS IN ENGLAND.

In England the Baptists were for a long time treated with extreme severity on account of their supposed connection with the fanatical fraction of the German and Dutch Anabaptists. A number of them who had fled from Holland were condemned to death or exiled (1535 and 1539). Latimer speaks, in a sermon before Edward VI., of Anabaptists who were burned to death under Henry VIII., in divers towns, and met their fate 'cheerfully and without any fear.'

Under Edward VI. they became numerous in the south of England, especially in Kent and Essex. Two were burned--a Dutchman, named George van Pare, and an English woman, Joan Boucher, usually called Joan of Kent. These were the only executions for heresy during his reign. The young king reluctantly and with tears yielded to Cranmer, who urged on him from the Mosaic law the duty of punishing blasphemy and fundamental heresy. Joan of Kent, besides rejecting infant baptism, was charged with holding the doctrine of some German and Dutch Anabaptists, that Christ's sinless humanity was not taken 'from the substance of the Virgin Mary,' who was a sinner, but was immediately created by God. She resisted every effort of Cranmer to change her views, and preferred martyrdom (May 2, 1550). Several of the Forty-two Edwardine Articles were directed against the Anabaptists.

Under Elizabeth a congregation of Dutch Anabaptists was discovered in London; twenty-seven members were imprisoned, some recanted, some were banished from the kingdom. The two most obstinate, John Wielmaker and Henry Terwoort, were committed to the flames in Smithfield, July 22, 1575, notwithstanding the petition of John Foxe, the martyrologist, who begged the queen to spare them, not indeed from prison or exile (which he deemed a just punishment for heresy), but from being 'roasted alive in fire and flame,' which was 'a hard thing, and more agreeable to the practice of Romanists than to the custom of Evangelicals.' [1622] These Dutch Anabaptists were charged with 'most damnable and detestable heresies,' such as that Christ took not flesh from the substance of Mary; that infants ought not to be baptized; that it is not lawful for a Christian man to be a magistrate or bear the sword or take an oath. These are evidently doctrines of the Mennonites, afterwards adopted by the Quakers, and now generally tolerated without any injury to society.

During the reigns of James and Charles the Baptists made common cause with the Puritans, especially the Independents, against the prelatical Church, but withdrew more completely from the national worship, and secretly assembled in woods, stables, and barns for religious worship. They began to organize separate congregations (1633), but were punished whenever discovered. Many fled to Holland, and some to America. Their earliest publications were pleas for liberty of conscience. [1623]

With the Long Parliament they acquired a little freedom, though their views were opposed by Presbyterians and Independents, as well as by Episcopalians. They increased rapidly during the civil wars. In 1644 they numbered seven congregations in London, and forty-seven in the country. Cromwell left them unmolested. He had many of them in his army, and some even held positions in his experimental Broad Church. [1624] Milton is claimed by them, on the ground of a passage unfavorable to infant baptism, but with no more justice than Arians, Unitarians, and Quakers may claim him. [1625]

After the Restoration they were again persecuted by fines, imprisonment, and torture. They suffered more severely than any other Non-conformists, except the Quakers. Among their most distinguished confessors, who spent much time in prison, were Vavasor Powell (d. 1670), Hanserd Knollys (d. 1690), [1626] Benjamin Keach, and John Bunyan (d. 1688).

The Act of Toleration (1689) brought relief to the Baptists, and enabled them to build chapels and spread throughout the country. Since then they have become one of the leading branches of Dissenters in England. They have produced some of the most eminent preachers and authors in the English language, such as John Bunyan, Andrew Fuller, Robert Hall, John Foster, Joseph Angus, C. H. Spurgeon.

ROGER WILLIAMS.

Literature.

See Lives of Roger Williams by Knowles (1834), Gammell (1845, 1846, 1854), and Elton (1852); also Arnold's History of Rhode Island (1860), Vol. I.; Palfrey's History of New England, Vols. I. and II.; Bancroft's History of the U. S., Vol. I.; Masson, Life of Milton, Vol. II. pp. 560 sqq., 573 sq.; Allibone, Dict. of Brit. and Amer. Authors, Vol. III. p. 2747; Dexter, As to Roger Williams and his 'Banishment' from the Massachusetts Plantation (Boston, 1876); J. L. Diman, Monument to R. W. in Providence (Providence, 1877).

The works of Williams were republished by the Narragansett Club (First Series, Vol. I., Providence, 1866), and by Underhill for the Hanserd Knollys Society (London, 1848).

In America the Baptists trace their origin chiefly but not exclusively to Roger Williams (b. probably in Wales, 1599, [1627] d. in Providence, R. I., 1683), the founder of Rhode Island. Originally a clergyman in the Church of England, he became a rigid separatist, a radical come-outer of all Church establishments, an 'arch-individualist,' and an advocate of 'soul-liberty' in the widest acceptation of the term. He was a pious, zealous, unselfish, kind-hearted, but eccentric, 'conscientiously contentions,' and impracticable genius, a real troubler in Israel, who could not get along with any body but himself; and this accounts for his troubles, which, however, were overruled for good. Cotton Mather compared him to a windmill, which, by its rapid motion in consequence of a violent storm, became so intensely heated that it took fire and endangered the whole town.

Pursued out of his land by Bishop Laud, as he says, he emigrated with a heavy heart, in company with his wife Mary, to the colony of Massachusetts, and arrived after a tedious and tempestuous voyage in February, 1631.

He first exercised his ministerial gifts as an assistant to the pastor of Plymouth Colony, and acquired a knowledge of the Indian language. In 1633 he removed to Salem as assistant of Mr. Skelton, and in 1635 he was ordained pastor of Salem Church. But he was even then in open opposition to the prevailing views and customs of the colony, and refused to take the oath of fidelity. Besides this, he was charged with advocating certain opinions supposed to be dangerous, viz., that the magistrate ought not to punish offenses against the first table; that an oath ought not to be tendered to an unregenerate man; that a regenerate man ought not to pray with the unregenerate, though it be his wife or child; that a man ought not to give thanks after the sacrament nor after meat. He was unwilling to retract, and advised his church to withdraw from communion with the other churches of the colony, 'as full of anti-Christian pollution.' For these reasons the court banished Williams (Oct., 1635). The question of toleration was implied in the first charge; he denied the jurisdiction of the civil magistrate over matters of conscience and religion, and defended this principle afterwards in a book, 'The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience,' against John Cotton (1644). [1628] His views on baptism were developed afterwards; but they would only have aggravated his case, and in fact his rebaptism brought upon him the sentence of excommunication from the church of Salem, of which he was still nominally a member. [1629]

The banishment was the best thing that could have happened to Williams: it led to the development of his heroic qualities, and gave him a prominent position in American history. He left Salem with a few friends, and made his way in dreary winter through 'a howling wilderness' to the wigwams of his Indian friends, and was sorely tossed in frost and snow among barbarians for fourteen weeks, 'not knowing what bread or bed did mean.' In June, 1636, he founded with five families who adhered to him the town of Providence. He scrupulously bought the land from the Indians, and acted as pastor of this democratic settlement. In 1638 he became a Baptist; he was immersed by Ezekiel Hollyman, and in turn immersed Hollyman and ten others. This was the first Baptist church on the American Continent. But a few months afterwards he renounced his rebaptism on the ground that Hollyman was unbaptized, and therefore unauthorized to administer the rite to him. He remained for the rest of his life a 'Seeker,' cut loose from all existing Church organizations and usages, longing for a true Church of God, but unable to find one on the face of the whole earth. He conceived 'that the apostasy of Antichrist hath so far corrupted all that there can be no recovery out of that apostasy till Christ send forth, new apostles to plant churches anew.'

In 1643 he went to England, and obtained through the Commissioners of Plantation a charter which allowed the planters to rule themselves according to the laws of England, 'so far as the nature of the case would admit.' In 1663 he accepted for the colony another and more successful charter, a patent from the English crown similar to that of Massachusetts, to which he had formerly objected. He kept up friendly relations with the Indians, and twice saved the Massachusetts colony from danger, thus returning good for evil. His fame rests on his advocacy of the sacredness of conscience. Bancroft goes too far when in his eloquent eulogy he calls him 'the first person in modern Christendom who asserted in its plenitude the doctrine of the liberty of conscience, the equality of opinions before the law.' The Anabaptists and Mennonites had done the same a hundred years before. But Williams planted the first civil government on the principle of universal 'soul-liberty,' and was followed by William Penn in his Quaker colony in Pennsylvania. Roger Williams has been called 'that noble confessor of religious liberty, that extraordinary man and most enlightened legislator, who, after suffering persecution from his brethren, persevered, amidst incredible hardships and difficulties, in seeking a place of refuge for the sacred ark of conscience.' [1630]

In the other colonies the Baptists were more or less persecuted till the time of the Revolution, but after that they spread with great rapidity.

The American Baptists differ from their English brethren by a stricter discipline and closer communion practice. They are very zealous in missions, education, and other departments of Christian activity. In theology they cultivate especially biblical studies with great success.

BAPTIST CONFESSIONS.

The Baptists, like the Congregationalists, lower the authority of general creeds to mere declarations of faith prevailing at the time in the denomination, to which no one is bound to give assent beyond the pleasure of his conviction; and they multiply the number and elevate the authority of local or congregational creeds and covenants, by which the members of particular congregations voluntarily bind themselves to a certain scheme of doctrine and duty. Notwithstanding the entire absence of centralization in their government, and the unrestrained freedom of private judgment, the Calvinistic Baptists have maintained as great a degree of essential harmony of faith as they themselves deem desirable.

'The Baptist creeds,' says Dr. Joseph Angus, in behalf of English Baptists, [1631] 'were prepared in the first instance for apologetic and defensive purposes. They merely describe the doctrines held by the bodies from which they emanated. They were never imposed on ministers and members of the churches of either section of the Baptists. Even when adopted, as they sometimes were, by any church, as an expression of its sentiments, all sister churches were left free, and in the particular church a considerable latitude of judgment was allowed in interpreting them. They have never been accepted as tests, and merely represent in a general way the sentiment of the body. In trust deeds or in the rules of associations they never appear. Property in trust is held for the use of evangelical Christians maintaining the doctrines commonly held by Particular (or General) Baptists; sometimes these doctrines are enumerated in the briefest possible way--the trinity, the atonement, etc.--and sometimes they are not enumerated at all. Of course, in the event of an appeal to law, the creeds and confessions would be evidence of the faith of the body. Substantially the two sections of the Baptist body believe as of old. But their confessions are not authoritative except as evidence and in matters of property; while in the interpretation of them it is a principle to allow as much freedom as is consistent with a substantial agreement in the same general truth.'

'Confessions of faith,' says Dr. Osgood, with special reference to the Baptists in the United States, [1632] 'have never been held as tests of orthodoxy, as of any authoritative or binding force; they merely reflect the existing harmony of views and the scriptural interpretations of the churches assenting to them. "We believe," says Wayland, "in the fullest sense, in the independence of every individual church of Christ. We hold that each several church is a Christian society, on which is conferred by Christ the entire power of self-government. No church has any power over any other church. No minister has any authority in any church except that which has called him to be its pastor. Every church, therefore, when it expresses its own belief, expresses the belief of no other than its own members. If several churches understand the Scriptures in the same way, and all unite in the same confession, then this expresses the opinions and belief of those who profess it. It, however, expresses their belief because all of them, from the study of the Scriptures, understand them in the same manner, and not because any tribunal has imposed such interpretations upon them. We can not acknowledge the authority of any such tribunal. We have no right to delegate such an authority to any man or to any body of men. It is our essential belief that the Scriptures are a revelation from God, given . . . to every individual man. They were given to every individual that he might understand them for himself, and the word that is given him will judge him at the great day. It is hence evident that we can have no standards which claim to be of any authority over us."' [1633]

I. The Confession of the Seven Churches in London. Dr. Daniel Featley, a prominent Episcopalian of the Puritan party and member of the Westminster Assembly (from which, however, he was expelled for informing the king of its proceedings), had a public disputation with the Baptists in 1644, and published it, with a dedication to the Parliament, under the title, 'The Dippers dipt; or, the Anabaptists Duck'd and Plung'd over Head and Ears at a Disputation in Southwark.' [1634]

This gave rise to a Confession of Faith, on the part of seven London churches, with an Epistle Dedicatory to the two houses of Parliament. It appeared in 1644 (three years before the Westminster Confession), and again with some additions and changes in 1646, under the title, 'A Confession of Faith of Seven Congregations or Churches of Christ in London, which are commonly (but unjustly) called Anabaptists.' [1635] This document consists of fifty-two (51) Articles, and shows that in all important doctrines and principles, except on the sacraments and Church government, the Baptists agreed with the orthodox Reformed Churches. The concluding paragraph admits the fallibility of human confessions, and the readiness of Baptists to receive further light, but also their determination 'to die a thousand deaths rather than do any thing against the least tittle of the truth of God, or against the light of our own consciences.'

II. The Confession of Somerset, 1656. It was signed by the delegates of sixteen churches of Somerset and the adjoining counties. It consists of forty-six Articles. [1636]

III. The Confession of 1688. This is by far the most important and authoritative. It has superseded the two earlier confessions, and is to this day held in the highest esteem. It appeared first in 1677, at London, under the title, 'A Confession of Faith put forth by the Elders and Brethren of many congregations of Christians baptized upon profession of their faith.' It was reprinted in 1688, 1689, and approved and recommended by the ministers and messengers of above a hundred congregations met in London, July 3-11, 1689. [1637] It has been often reprinted. [1638] 'It is still generally received by all those congregations that hold the doctrine of personal election and the certainty of the saints' final perseverance.' [1639] In America it was adopted by the Baptist Association which met in Philadelphia, Sept. 25, 1742, and hence is known also by the name of the Philadelphia Confession.

This Confession consists of thirty-two chapters, beginning with the holy Scriptures and ending with the last judgment. It is simply the Baptist recension of the Westminster Confession, as the Savoy Declaration is the Congregational recension of the same Westminster Confession. It follows the Westminster Confession in sentiment and language, with very few verbal alterations, except in the doctrine of the Church and the Sacraments. The Preface sets forth that the Confession of Westminster is retained in substance for the purpose of showing the agreement of the Baptists with the Presbyterians and Congregationalists 'in all the fundamental Articles of the Christian religion,' and also to convince all that they have 'no itch to clog religion with new words, but do readily acquiesce in that form of sound words which has been, in consent with the holy Scriptures, used by others before us; hereby declaring before God, angels, and men our hearty agreement with them in that wholesome Protestant doctrine which with so clear evidence of Scripture they have asserted.' The Appendix is a defense of the Baptist theory against Pædobaptists.

The Confession differs from that of the Westminster in the chapters on the Church and on the sacraments. It omits the chapter 'Of Church Censuses' (XXX.) and 'Of Synods and Councils.' The chapter 'Of the Church' (XXV.) is adapted to the independent polity; and the chapter 'Of Baptism' is altered to suit the Baptist theory, limiting the right of baptism to those 'who do actually profess repentance towards God, faith in and obedience to our Lord Jesus,' and declaring 'immersion or dipping of the person in water' to be 'necessary to the due administration of this ordinance' (XXIX.). A chapter, 'Of the Gospel and the Extent of Grace thereof,' is inserted from the Savoy Declaration as Ch. XX. (which causes the change of the numbering of the chapters which follow). [1640]

IV. In 1693 a Catechism based on this Confession was drawn up by William Collins, at the request of the General Assembly which met at London in June of that year. It is taken chiefly from the Westminster Shorter Catechism, and follows closely its order and method. It is also called 'Keach's Catechism.' Benjamin Keach was with Collins among the signers of the Confession of 1688, and seems to have had much to do with the work. It is the only Catechism which has found general acceptance among Baptists in England and America. [1641]

During the seventeenth century there were also some private confessions written by John Bunyan, Vavasor Powell, Benjamin Keach, and Elias Keach.

V. The New Hampshire Confession was prepared about 1833 or 1834, by the Rev. J. Newton Brown, of New Hampshire (d. 1868), the editor of a 'Universal Cyclopædia of Religious Knowledge.' It is shorter and simpler than the Confession of 1688, and presents the Calvinistic system in a milder form. It has been accepted by the Baptists of New Hampshire and other Northern and Western States, and is now the most popular creed among American Baptists. [1642]

[1620] Their older scholars claim an origin earlier than the Continental or the English Reformation, going back to the Waldenses and Albigenses, and to the Lollard movement following, in Britain, the labors of Wycliff. The tradition of the Holland Mennonites gave them a Waldensian ancestry. But these points are disputed, and no historical connection can be traced.

[1621] The Campbellites, or Disciples, differ from the other Baptists by identifying baptismal immersion with regeneration, or teaching a concurrence of both acts.

[1622] See Foxe's letter to Queen Elizabeth, in Latin, in Append. III. to Neal's History (Vol. II. p. 439).

[1623] See the Tracts on Liberty of Conscience, republished for the Hanserd Knollys Society by E. B. Underhill (London, 1846), which contains seven Baptist works on this subject from 1614 to 1661. On Roger Williams, see below.

[1624] Samuel Richardson, a Baptist, who knew him personally, speaks very highly of Cromwell, as a man who 'aimeth at the general good of the nation and just liberty of every man, who is faithful to the saints, who hath owned the poor despised people of God, and advanced many to a better way and means of living.' See Tracts on Liberty of Conscience, p. 240.

[1625] 'Milton, it seems, withdrew at last from all Church organizations, regarding them with equal respect and indifference, except the Romanists, whom he excludes from toleration as idolaters and enemies of toleration. With his illustrious friend, the younger Sir Henry Vane, whom, as understanding the true relations of Church and State, he praises in one of his most beautiful sonnets, he joined the 'Seekers,' a body looking for a more perfect Church yet to come. Roger Williams, the friend of both poet and statesman, joined them in his last years in occupying the same ground. In 1673, the year before his death, Milton published a treatise on 'True Religion, Heresy, Schism, Toleration, and the Best Means against the Growth of Popery,' in which he defines heresy to be 'a religion taken up and believed from the traditions of men and additions to the Word of God.' In this sense Popery is the only or the greatest heresy; its very name, Roman Catholic, a contradiction; one of the Pope's bulls as universal particular, or catholic schismatic; while Protestants are free from heresy, which is in the will and choice professedly against the Scriptures. He represents four classes of Protestants--Lutherans, Calvinists, Anabaptists, and Socinians--as agreed in the articles essential to salvation, and says: 'The Lutheran holds consubstantiation; an error, indeed, but not mortal. The Calvinist is taxed with predestination, and to make God the author of sin, not with any dishonorable thought of God, but it may be overzealously asserting his absolute power, not without plea of Scripture. The Anabaptist is accused of denying infants their right to baptism; again, they say they deny nothing but what Scripture denies them. The Arian and Socinian are charged to dispute against the Trinity; they affirm to believe the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost according to Scripture and the Apostolic Creed. As for terms of trinity, trini-unity, co-essentiality, tri-personality, and the like, they reject them as scholastic notions, not to be found in Scripture, which, by a general Protestant maxim, is plain and perspicuous abundantly to explain its own meaning in the properest words belonging to so high a matter and so necessary to be known; a mystery indeed in their sophistic subtleties, but in Scripture a plain doctrine. Their other opinions are of less moment. They dispute the satisfaction of Christ, or rather the word satisfaction, as not Scriptural, but they acknowledge him both God and their Saviour. The Arminian, lastly, is condemned for setting up free-will against free-grace; but that imputation he disclaims in all his writings, and grounds himself largely upon Scripture only.'

[1626] Knollys fled to Massachusetts (1638), and preached for some time in the extreme northern part of the colony, but, being exposed to danger as a Baptist and Separatist, he returned to England in 1641. The society for the republication of scarce old Baptist tracts is called after him.

[1627] The accounts of the year of his birth vary from 1598 to 1606. He was a protégé of the celebrated judge, Sir Edward Coke. Historians differ as to whether he was Rodericus Williams, from Wales, who entered Jesus College, Oxford, in 1624, or Rogerus Williams, whose name appears in the subscription-book of Pembroke College, Cambridge, in 1626. Elton and Masson take the former, Arnold and Dexter the latter view, which better agrees with his Christian name.

[1628] This book was anonymously published in London, when Williams was there occupied in obtaining a charter for Rhode Island, and is exceedingly rare, only six copies being known to exist; but it has been reprinted from the copy in the Bodleian Library by Edward Bean Underhill, together with the Answer to Cotton's Letter and a Memoir of Williams (London, 1848, pp. 439 and xxxvi.). It is written in a kindly and moderate spirit, free from the controversial bitterness of the age, in the form of a conference between Truth and Peace. Williams begins with this sentence: 'The blood of so many hundred thousand souls of Protestants and Papists, spilt in the wars of present and former ages, for their respective consciences, is not required nor accepted by Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.' He maintains that civil government has nothing whatever to do with spiritual matters, over which God alone rules, and that religious liberty should be extended not only to all Christian denominations and sects, but even to 'the most Paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or anti-Christian consciences and worships' (p. 2). John Cotton, his chief opponent, wrote in reply 'The Bloudy Tenent washed, and made white in the Bloud of the Lambe: being discussed and discharged of blood-guiltiness by just Defense' (London, 1647). Williams defended his position in 'The Bloody Tenent yet more Bloody by Mr. Cotton's endeavour to wash it white in the Blood of the Lambe' (London, 1652, 4to, pp. 373). John Cotton (1585-1652), who emigrated to America two years after Williams (1633), was one of the patriarchs of New England, and, together with Hooker and Stone, constituted the 'glorious triumvirate' that supplied the Puritans in the wilderness with their three great necessities--'Cotton for their clothing, Hooker for their fishing, and Stone for their building.'--Cotton Mather's Magnalia, Vol. III. p. 20.

[1629] Dr. Dexter's monograph is a learned and elaborate partisan defense of the action of the young Colony, which, he says, 'was reluctantly compelled to choose between the expulsion of Williams and the immediate risk of social, civil, and religious disorganization' (p. 88). He takes the ground that Williams was banished, not on religious, but on political grounds. But religion and politics were inseparably interwoven in the New England theocracy.

[1630] Mrs. P. S. Elton, in The Piedmontese Envoy; or, The Men, Manners, and Religion of the Commonwealth: A Tale (London, 1852), puts this eulogy into the mouth of John Milton; hence it is sometimes falsely quoted as Milton's (Allibone, Vol. III. p. 2747).

[1631] In a letter to the author.

[1632] Letter to the author.

[1633] F. Wayland, Principles and Practices of Baptist Churches, pp. 13, 14.

[1634] London, 3d ed. 1645; 7th ed. 1660. The spirit of this book may be judged from the title and the following passage of the Epistle Dedicatory: 'Of all heretics and schismatics, the Anabaptists ought to be most carefully looked into, and severely punished, if not utterly exterminated and banished out of the Church and Kingdom. . . . They preach and print and practice their heretical impieties openly; they hold their conventicles weekly in our chief cities and suburbs thereof, and there prophesy by turns; . . . they flock in great multitudes to their Jordans, and both sexes enter into the river, and are dipt after their manner with a kind of spell, containing the heads of their erroneous tenets. . . , And as they defile our rivers with their impure washings, and our pulpits with their false prophecies and fanatical enthusiasms, so the presses sweat and groan under the load of their blasphemies.'

[1635] Printed in Underhill's Collection, pp. 11-48. The title-pages, which are all given by Underhill, slightly differ in the three editions of 1644, '46, and '51. I have before me a copy of the fourth ed., London, 1652, which has been for more than two hundred years in the family of the Rev. Dr. Holme, a Baptist clergyman of New York. It has the same title as the third ed., but, only fifty-one Articles; Art. XXXVIII., on the support of the ministry by the congregation, being omitted.

[1636] Underhill, pp. 74-106.

[1637] The following certificate was prefixed: 'We, the ministers and messengers of, and concerned for, upwards of one hundred congregations in England and Wales, denying Arminianism, being met together in London, from the third day of the seventh month to the eleventh of the same, 1689, . . . have thought meet for the satisfaction of all other Christians that differ from us in the point of baptism, to recommend to their perusal the confession of our faith, . . . which confession we own, as containing the doctrine of our faith and practice; and do desire that the members of our churches respectively do furnish themselves therewith.' Signed by thirty-seven persons in the name of the whole assembly.

[1638] Editions of 1699, 1719, 1720, etc. An American ed. was issued by Benj. Franklin, and one at Pittsburgh (S. Williams), 1831. It is also reprinted by Crosby, Vol. III. Append. II. pp. 56-111; Underhill, pp. 169-246.

[1639] Dr. Angus.

[1640] See Vol. III. pp. 738 sqq.

[1641] Underhill says, p. xv.: 'It is the only Catechism of value among Baptists.' He gives it from the 16th Engl. ed., pp. 247-270, but says nothing of Keach's co-authorship, and ascribes to him another Catechism ('The Child's Instructor: a New and Easy Primer,' 24mo, 1664), for which he was imprisoned under Charles II. The American Baptist Publication Society publishes it under the title, 'The Baptist Catechism commonly called Keach's Catechism; or, A Brief Instruction in the Principles of the Christian Religion, agreeably to the Confession of Faith put forth by upwards of a hundred congregations in Great Britain, July 3, 1689, and adopted by the Philadelphia Baptist Association, Sept. 22, 1742.' Here the name of Collins is omitted. But the Catechism is literally the same as the one in Underhill's Collection.

[1642] It is printed in Vol. III. pp. 742 sqq.

IN ENGLAND.

[See Literature on p. 845.]

The General or Arminian Baptists differ from the Particular or Calvinistic Baptists in rejecting unconditional election and the perseverance of saints, and in maintaining the freedom of will and the possibility of falling from grace. So far they followed the Mennonites. They assign greater power to a general assembly of associated churches, and hold three orders--bishops or messengers, pastors or elders, and deacons; while the Particular Baptists, like the Congregationalists, recognize only two--bishops or pastors and deacons (elders being a title applicable to the first or to both).

I. The first Confession of Arminian Baptists was published by English refugees in Holland, under the title, 'A Declaration of Faith of English People remaining at Amsterdam in Holland,' Amsterdam, 1611. [1643] It was drawn up by Smyth and Helwisse. It consists of twenty-seven (26) Articles. The first Article confesses the doctrine of the Trinity in the spurious words of 1 John v. 7. Election is conditioned by foreknown faith, reprobation by foreknown unbelief, and the perseverance of saints is denied. [1644] The Church of Christ is defined (Art. X.) to be 'a company of faithful people separated from the world by the Word and Spirit of God, being knit unto the Lord, and one unto another, by baptism, upon their own confession of the faith.' Baptism is confined to adults, but nothing is said of immersion. The duty of obedience to the magistrate is very earnestly enjoined (Art. XXIV.).

II. The 'London Confession' was approved by more than twenty thousand Baptists, and was presented to Charles II., July 26, 1660. It contains twenty-five Articles. [1645]

III. The 'Orthodox Creed' was published in 1678, by the General Baptists of Oxfordshire and the parts adjacent. It makes a near approach to Calvinism, with a view to unite the Protestants in the fundamental articles against the errors of Rome. [1646]

IN AMERICA.

Literature.

I. D. Stewart: The History of the Free-will Baptists for Half a Century. Dover, 1862 sqq. (Vol. I. from 1780 to 1830). Comp. also the Lives of Randall, Stinchfield, Colby, Thornton, Marks, Bowles, Phinney, and Elias Smith; the Records of Yearly Meetings and Quarterly Meetings, and sundry articles in the religious periodicals and other publications of the Free-will Baptists issued from their Printing Establishment at Dover, New Hampshire.

The American General Baptists are called Free-will Baptists or Free Baptists. They trace their origin to Benjamin Randall (1749-1808), who was converted by one of the last sermons of Whitefield at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Sept. 28, 1770. He was at first a Congregationalist, but in 1776 he united himself with a regular Baptist church in South Berwick, Maine, and entered the ministry. In 1780 he organized, in New Durham, New Hampshire, a Baptist church, which became the nucleus of a new denomination, holding the doctrines of conditional election, free will, and open communion. In government it is congregational.

In 1827 the Free-will Baptists organized a General Conference in New England, and opened correspondence with the Arminian Baptists in England and North Carolina.

Their Confession of Faith, together with a directory of discipline, was prepared by order of the General Conference of 1832, approved 1834, revised by a committee in 1848, 1865, and 1868. It is the clearest and ablest exposition of the principles of the Free-will Baptists. [1647]

[1643] It is reprinted in Crosby's History, Vol. II. Appendix I. pp. 1-9, and in Underhill's Collection, pp. 1-10. A manuscript copy exists in the archives of the Mennonite church at Amsterdam, to which the original subscriptions of forty-two names are appended, preceded by the modest remark, 'We subscribe to the truth of these Articles, desiring further instruction.'

[1644] Art. V.: 'God before the foundation of the world hath predestinated that all that believe in him shall be saved, and all that believe not shall be damned; all which he knew before. And this is the election and reprobation spoken of in the Scriptures, . . . and not that God hath predestinated men to be wicked, and so be damned, but that men being wicked shall be damned.' Art. VII.: 'Men may fall away from the grace of God, and from the truths which they have received and acknowledged.'

[1645] Underhill, pp. 107-120.

[1646] Ibid. pp. 121-168.

[1647] It is published at Dover. N. H., under the title, Treatise, on the Faith and Practice of the Free-will Baptists, and forms a little book of fifty pages. The doctrinal part is printed in Vol. III. pp. 749 sqq.

Literature.

I. Sources.

Geo. Fox (founder of the Society of Friends, d. 1690): Works (containing his Journal, Letters, and Exhortations), London, 1694-1706, in 3 vols. fol.; also Philadelphia, in 8 vols. 8vo.

Robert Barclay (the standard divine of the Quakers, d. 1690): Works, edited by William Penn, London, 1692, under the title, 'Truth Triumphant through the Spiritual Warfare, Christian Labors and Writings of that Able and Faithful Servant of Jesus Christ, Robert Barclay,' etc. The principal of these works are: Apologia Theologiæ vere Christianæ, first in Latin, Amst. 1675; then in English, by the author himself; also in German, Dutch, French, and Spanish. The full title of the English edition is, 'An Apology for the True Christian Divinity, being an Explanation and Vindication of the Principles and Doctrines of the People called Quakers.' (I have a very elegant copy of the eighth edition, Birmingham, 1765.) A Catechism and Confession of Faith, approved of and agreed unto by the General Assembly of the Patriarchs, Prophets, and Apostles, Christ himself Chief Speaker in and among them. (The answers wholly biblical.) 1673. The same, in Latin (Catechesis et Fidei Confessio, etc.). Rotterdam, 1676. Treatise on Christian Discipline, etc.

William Penn (d. 1718): A Summary of the History, Doctrine, and Discipline of Friends (London, 1692); Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People called Friends (London, 1694); 'Quakerism a New Nickname for Old Christianity;' 'The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience Debated and Defended,' etc. Some of Penn's tracts were translated into German by Seebohm (Pyrmont, 1792 and 1798).

II. historical.

Gerard Croese: History of the Quakers, containing the Lives, Tenets, Sufferings, Trials, Speeches, and Letters of all the most Eminent Quakers from the First Rise of the Sect. London, 1696, 8vo.

William Sewel (d. 1725): History of the Rise, Increase, and Progress of the Christian People called Quakers. London, 1725, fol.; 6th edition, 1834, in 2 vols.; also in Dutch and German. (Charles Lamb pronounced this book 'far more edifying and affecting than any thing of Wesley and his colleagues.')

Joseph Besse: Collection of the Sufferings of the People called Quakers, for the Testimony of a Good Conscience. London, 1753, 2 vols. fol.

John Gough: The History of the Quakers. Dublin, 1789, 4 vols. 8vo.

Sam. M. Janney: History of the Friends. Philadelphia, 1859-1867, 4 vols.

Biographies of G. Fox, by Jonah Marsh (1848), S. M. Janney (1853), W. Tallack (1868).

Biographies of W. Penn, by Marsiliac (1791), Clarkson (1813), Ellis (1852), Janney (1852), Hepworth Dixon (1856).

III. Explanatory and Apologetic.

Thos. Clarkson (d. 1846): A Portraiture of Quakerism. London, 1806; 2d ed. 1807, 3 vols.

Joseph John Gurney (d. 1847): Observations on the Distinguishing Views and Practices of the Society of Friends. 7th edition, London, 1834; 2d American from the 7th London edition, New York, 1869.

Thos. Evans: An Exposition of the Faith of the Religious Society of Friends. Philadelphia, 1828. Approved by the Quakers at a meeting held in Philadelphia, Oct. 19, 1827, and often printed. (Manchester edition, 1867.)

The Ancient Testimony of the Religious Society of Friends,... revived and given forth by the Yearly Meeting held in Philadelphia in the Fourth Month, 1843. Philadelphia, at Friends' book-store. A summary of orthodox Quakerism, chiefly from the writings of Barclay.

W. I. Allinson: Art. Friends, in M'Clintock and Strong's Cyclop., Vol. III. pp. 667 sqq. (New York, 1870).

Friends' Review, a Religious, Literary, and Miscellaneous Journal. Philadelphia, so far twenty-nine vols. till 1876 (edited by Henry Hartshorne).

IV. Polemical and Critical.

For a full account of the literature against the Quakers, see Jos. Smith's Bibliotheca anti-Quakeriana; or, A Catalogue of Books adverse to the Society of Friends. Alphabetically arranged. With Biographical Notices of the Authors, together with the Answers which ham been given to some of them by Friends and others. London, 8vo, pp. 474.

Möhler (R. C.): Symbolik, pp. 488-532; Rud. Hofmann: Symbolik, pp. 514-520; Schenckenburger, Lehrbegriffe der kleineren protest. Kirchenparteien, pp. 69-102.

HISTORICAL SKETCH.

The Religious Society of Friends, as they call themselves--or Quakers, as they are usually called [1648] --originated in the Puritan commotion which roused all the religious energies of England.

It was founded by George Fox (1624-1690), one of the oddest saints in Christendom, a self-taught and half-inspired man of genius, who was called by a higher power from the shepherd's staff to the evangelism of the baptism by fire and by the Spirit. In early youth he felt inclined to ascetic retirement, like the hermits of old. He was a thorough mystic, and desired to get at the naked truth without the obstruction of church, sacrament, ceremonies, theology, and ordinary study, except the Scriptures spiritually understood. He loved to commune with nature and nature's God, to walk in the inward light, to enjoy the indwelling Christ, and to receive inspirations from heaven. He spent much time in fasting and prayer, he wrestled with the devil, and passed through deep mental distress, doubt, and despondency. His moral character was beyond reproach--pure, truthful, unworldly, just, temperate, meek, and gentle, yet bold and utterly regardless of conventional usage and propriety. He began his public testimony in his twenty-third year, and traveled through England, Holland, and the American colonies, preaching and praying with pentecostal fervor and power, revealing hidden truths, boldly attacking pride, formality, and worldliness, and exhorting to repentance, humility, and mercy. He sometimes interrupted the clergymen at public service, and the lawyers in court, and warned them against the wrath to come. He was a stern ascetic, clad in leather, and wearing long hair. He addressed every body 'thou' or 'thee,' and sublimely ignored all worldly honors and dignities. [1649] He was nine times thrown into prison for breaches of the peace and blasphemy, and suffered much hardship and indignity with imperturbable temper; but towards the close of his meteoric career he enjoyed comparative rest. His 'Journal' gives an account of his labors, and is, in the language of Sir James Mackintosh, 'one of the most extraordinary and instructive narratives in the world.' Fox was providentially provided with the best aid in founding his society.

Robert Barclay (1648-1690) was the apologist and theologian of the Quakers, the only one known to fame. Descended from a noble family in Scotland, and educated in Paris, he became a convert first to Romanism, then to Quakerism (1667). He had therefore the advantage of an experimental as well as theoretical knowledge of the Scotch Calvinistic and the Roman Catholic creeds. He made various missionary journeys in company with William Penn; he walked through the streets of Aberdeen in sackcloth and ashes, and was several times imprisoned, but spent his last years in peace on his estate of Ury.

William Penn (1644-1718), the statesman and politician of the Quakers, and the founder of Pennsylvania, was the son of an admiral, and enjoyed the favor of James II. (his father's friend), which he used in the cause of justice and mercy. [1650] He himself was expelled for his religion from the University of Oxford and his father's house, and was twice imprisoned, but ably defended the liberty of conscience, and was acquitted. By his influence more than twelve hundred Quakers were set at liberty. In 1680 he obtained from the king, in payment of a claim of £16,000, an extensive tract of land west of the Delaware River, and organized a colony on the basis of perfect freedom of religion (1682). The city of Philadelphia, or brotherly love, became the chief asylum of persecuted Quakers, a century afterwards the cradle of American independence, and in 1876 the theatre of the most remarkable centennial ever celebrated by any nation. Penn was twice in America, but died in England. He made a treaty with the Indians, of which Voltaire said that it was the only treaty never sworn to and never broken. The United States government would have fared better with the aborigines of the country if it had followed the humane example of Roger Williams and William Penn.

The Quakers, during the first forty years of their history, were more severely persecuted than any sect of Christians had ever been, with the exception of the Waldenses, and bore it with unflinching heroism. Their eccentricities and fanatical excesses, their utter disregard for the courtesies and conventionalities of civilized life, their fierce abuse of the national churches (or 'steeple-houses') and clergymen, their opposition to tithes, salary, the oath, and military service, provoked the combined hostility of magistrates, ministers, and people. Their places of worship were invaded by the populace armed with staves, cudgels, and pitchforks; the windows broken by stones and bullets; their religious services rudely interrupted by hallooing and railing; their property destroyed or sold; their persons ridiculed, buffeted, assailed with stones and filth, dragged by the hair through the streets, or thrown into loathsome prisons and punished as heretics and blasphemers.

Cromwell, who had a tender feeling for all 'godly' radicals and enthusiasts, was rather pleased with George Fox, with whom he had an interview (1654); he allowed him to keep on his hat, and to speak about the mysteries of spiritual experience; and, although he disapproved his disorderly conduct, he pressed his hand and said, 'Come again to my house; if thou and I were together but an hour in every day, we should be nearer one to the other.' But Cromwell could not control the local magistrates and the rabble.

Under Charles II. the Quakers fared much worse, and notwithstanding the influence of Penn upon James II., who favored them for political reasons in the interest of the Roman Catholics, they continued to suffer until the Act of Toleration, in 1689, or rather until 1696, when by a special Act of Parliament their solemn affirmation was recognized as equivalent to an oath.

During the period from 1650 to 1689, according to the patient researches of their historian, Joseph Besse, no less than 13,258 Quakers suffered fine, imprisonment, torture, and mutilation in England, Scotland, and Ireland, 219 were banished, and 360 perished in prisons, some almost literally rotting in pestilential cells.

In New England they were not treated any better: 170 instances of hard usage are enumerated, 47 were banished, and 4 hanged (three men and one woman, Mary Dyer). In explanation, though not in justification, of this severity of the Puritan colony towards them, we should remember those offenses against public decency which led some Quaker men and women to invade churches during divine service, and to promenade the streets of Boston, Cambridge, and Salem in sackcloth and ashes, even in puris naturalibus, for 'a sign and wonder' (in imitation of Isa. xx. 2, 3), to symbolize the 'naked truth,' and to utter a prophetic 'testimony' against the 'hireling priests,' the tyrannical magistrates, and the wicked and perverse generation, warning them of the impending judgments of the Lord, who would come with fire and sword. [1651] Even Roger Williams, in his debate with the Quakers at Newport (1672), with all his liberality, condemned such conduct. [1652]

Notwithstanding these persecutions, the Society of Friends spread rapidly, and numbered about 70,000 members towards the close of the seventeenth century. They afterwards diminished in England, but increased in America, though not as much as other denominations. On the Continent they had only a few adherents in Holland and Germany.

The fanatical heat of the martyr period of the Quakers cooled down with the cessation of persecution. They became a sober, quiet, orderly, and peaceful community. The oddities which they still retain are perfectly harmless, and form an interesting chapter in the history of morals. Quakerism is not so much a new theology as a new mode of Christian life, representing the utmost simplicity in opposition to show, ornament, and amusement.

QUAKER CONFESSIONS.

The Quakers are more radical than the Independents and the Baptists. They utterly broke with historical Christianity, and reject its visible ordinances, which the Independents and the Baptists retained. They kept aloof from the Puritans, and would have nothing whatever to do with the national English or any other Church or sect in Christendom. They oppose all outward authority in religion, though it be the letter of the Bible itself.

With such views they can not consistently recognize any binding standards of doctrine which might obstruct the freedom of interpretation of the divine Word under the direct illumination of the Spirit.

Nevertheless, with all their radicalism, the Quakers retained the substance of the Christian faith, and, following the example of the early Christians, they set forth their tenets in a number of apologies against the misrepresentations of their enemies. The first 'Confession and Profession of Faith in God' was published by Richard Farnsworth in 1658. Similar apologetic documents followed in 1659 and 1661 by George Fox the Younger, in 1662 by John Crook, in 1664 by William Smith, in 1668 by William Penn, in 1671 by Whitehead and Perm, in 1698 by Penn and others, in 1671, 1675, and 1682 by George Fox. [1653]

The ablest and most authoritative exposition of the belief of the Quakers is the 'Apology' of Robert Barclay, written in his quiet retreat in Ury, Scotland, 1675, and addressed to Charles II. It is his most elaborate work, and is still held in the highest estimation by the orthodox Friends. He pays the school-divinity the compliment that, although it takes up almost a man's whole life-time to learn, it 'brings not a whit nearer to God, neither makes any man less wicked or more righteous.' 'Therefore,' he continues, 'hath God laid aside the wise and the learned and the disputers of this world, and hath chosen a few despicable and unlearned instruments as he did fishermen of old, to publish his pure and naked truth, and to free it of those mists and fogs wherewith the clergy hath clouded it.' Nevertheless, Barclay makes use of a considerable amount of learning--classical, patristic, and modern--for the defense of his views.

The 'Catechism' of Barclay (written in 1673) treats in fourteen chapters of the doctrines of the Christian faith, and answers the questions in the language of the Bible, without addition or comment, evidently for the purpose of showing the entire harmony of the Quakers with the written Word of God. Their distinctive peculiarities are skillfully put into the question, and the Scripture passages are so selected as to confirm them. [1654] To the Catechism is added a brief 'Confession of Faith,' in twenty-three Articles, which is almost entirely composed of Scripture passages.

THE DISTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF THE FRIENDS.

The Friends are few in number, but honorably distinguished for their philanthropy, their consistent advocacy of religious freedom and the universal rights of men, their zeal in behalf of prison reform, the abolition of slavery and war. In private and social life they excel in simplicity, honesty, neatness, temperance, self-control, industry, and thrift. Their oddities in dress and habits are the shadows of virtues.

In theology and religion they are on the extreme border of Protestant orthodoxy, and reject even a regular ministry and the visible sacraments; yet they strongly believe in the supernatural and the constant presence and power of the Holy Spirit. They hold the essentials of the evangelical faith, the divine inspiration and infallibility of the Scriptures (though they disparage the letter and the human means of interpretation), the doctrine of the Trinity (in substance, though not in name), [1655] the incarnation, the divinity of Christ, the atonement by his blood, the regeneration and sanctification by the Spirit, everlasting life and everlasting punishment. And while they deny the necessity of water baptism and the Lord's Supper as a participation of the elements of bread and wine, and regard such rites as a relapse into the religion of forms and shadows, they believe in the inward substance or invisible grace of the sacraments, viz., the baptism of the Spirit and fire, and the vital communion with Christ by faith. They belong to the supernaturalistic line of Protestant dissenters, while the Socinians and Unitarians tend in the opposite rationalistic direction.

Several of the peculiar views and practices of the Quakers were anticipated by Carlstadt, the Zwickau Prophets, the Mennonites, and especially by Caspar von Schwenkfeld, a pious and retiring nobleman of Silesia (born 1490, banished 1548, d. 1561 at Ulm). Schwenkfeld embraced and preached the doctrines of the Lutheran Reformation with zeal till 1524, when he adopted, as by a higher revelation, a peculiar view of the Lord's Supper, explaining the words of institution to mean, My body is this bread, i.e., spiritual nourishment for the soul. [1656] He also taught the deification of Christ's flesh, and opposed bibliolatry and all outward ecclesiasticism. A small remnant of his sect that was banished from Germany still survives in the eastern counties of Pennsylvania. [1657] There is, however, no historical connection between George Fox and these predecessors. His views were entirely his own. The history of the Roman Catholic Church furnishes a parallel in the quietism of Miguel de Molinos (1627-1698), who taught that Christian perfection consists in the sweet repose of all the mental faculties in God, and in indifference to all the actions of the body. He was condemned as a heretic by Pope Innocent XI. (1687), and shut up for life in a monastic prison.

Quakerism is a system of mystic spiritualism. It is the only organized sect of mystics in England and America. The strong practical common-sense of the English race is constitutionally averse to mystic tendencies. Quakerism is an extreme reaction against ecclesiasticism, sacerdotalism, and sacramentalism. It demonstrates the paramount importance of the spirit in opposition to the worship of the letter; the superiority and independence of the inward and invisible in opposition to the overestimate of the external and visible; and the power of silence against the excess of speech.

Christianity undoubtedly is spirit and life, and may exist under different forms, or if necessary without form, like the spirit in the disembodied state. But the normal condition is a sound spirit in a sound body, and while God is independent of his own ordinances, we are bound to them. The Quakers make the exception the rule, but by the law of reaction formalism takes revenge. Their antiformalism becomes itself a stereotyped form, and their peculiar hats and coats are as distinctive as the clerical surplice and gown. When they leave their Society they usually join the Episcopal Church, the most formal among the Protestant denominations.

THE INNER LIGHT.

The ruling principle of Quakerism is the universal inner light. [1658] It is also called the seed, the Word of God, the gift of God, the indwe1ling Christ. This is not to be confounded with reason or conscience, or any natural faculty of man. [1659] It is supernatural and divine in its origin; it is a direct illumination of the mind and heart by the Spirit of God for the purpose of salvation. It is the light of the Logos, which shines 'in darkness' and 'lighteth every man that cometh into the world,' [1660] It is Christ himself dwelling in man as the fountain of life, light, and salvation. It is the primary source of all religious truth and knowledge. It opens the sense of spiritual mysteries; it convinces and converts; it gives victory over sin, and brings joy and peace. It is communicated to men without distinction of race or religion or education, not indeed in the same measure, but in a degree sufficient to save them if they obey it, and to condemn them if they reject it. 'The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men.' [1661] A day of merciful visitation comes to every human being at least once in his life, and marks a critical turning-point which determines his character in this world and his eternal fate in the world to come. To many the voice from heaven speaks often.

Cornelius was, under the divine influence of that light before the arrival of Peter and the hearing of the gospel. Socrates traced his better impulses to the divine monitor in his breast, who from childhood checked his evil passions without coercion. [1662] The savage Indians of North America followed the light when, after having been long engaged in war, they sacrificed a spotless white dog to the Great Spirit and threw their tomahawks into the lake. [1663]

If Christ died for all men, his benefits must in some way be offered to all. He is the personal Light of the whole world, which shines into all parts of the human family backward to Adam and forward to the end of time. As many are sinners without ever having heard of Adam and the fall, so many are partakers of Christ without any external knowledge of him or the Scriptures. Else idiots, infants, and the saints who died before Christ's advent could not be saved. Historical knowledge can not save without experimental knowledge, but experimental knowledge may save without historical knowledge.

The inner light agrees with the teaching of the Bible, though not confined to its letter. It is the true interpreter of the Bible, which without it remains a sealed book. It holds in this respect the same position which the Roman Catholic Church assigns to unwritten tradition, with this important difference, that tradition is an outward, objective authority, and confined to the visible Church, while the inner light is subjective, and shines upon all men.

Quakerism thus boldly breaks through the confines of historical Christianity and the means of grace, indefinitely expands the sphere of revelation, and carries the saving power of Christ, even in this present life, into the regions of heathen darkness. It must consistently regard all virtuous and pious heathen as unconscious Christians, who, like the Athenians of old, 'unknowingly' worship an 'unknown God.' Justin Martyr, the first Christian philosopher, advanced the idea that the 'Logos spermaticos,' i.e., the Eternal Word of God, before his incarnation, scattered the divine seed of truth and righteousness among the Greeks as well as the Jews. Zwingli taught the salvation of many heathen and of all children dying in infancy. But these were isolated private opinions; the doctrinal standards of the orthodox Churches--Greek, Latin, and Protestant--know of no Christ and no salvation outside of Christendom and without the written or preached gospel. The Quakers teach the absolute universality, not indeed of salvation, but of the offer and the opportunity of salvation.

This doctrine is the corner-stone of their system. [1664] It is the source of their democracy, their philanthropy, their concern for the lowest and most neglected classes of society, their opposition to slavery, war, and violence, their meekness under suffering, their calmness and serenity of temper. But the same doctrine explains also their comparative disregard of the written Scriptures, the visible Church, the ministry, the means of grace, the forms of worship, and their indifference to heathen missions. There is, however, more recently among orthodox Friends a growing disposition to aid in the circulation of the Bible, the work of foreign missions, and to associate with evangelical Christians of other Churches.

BARCLAY'S THESIS.

Barclay reduces the doctrinal system of the Friends to fifteen propositions or theological theses, which are briefly as follows: [1665]

1. The Foundation of Knowledge.--The height of happiness is in the true knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ (John xvii. 3).

2. Immediate Revelation.--This comes from the Son of God (Matt. xi. 27) through the testimony of the Spirit.

This is the inner light which has already been sufficiently explained.

3. The Holy Scriptures.--They contain the revelations of the Spirit of God to the saints. They are a declaration of the fountain, but not the fountain itself; they are the secondary rule of faith and morals, subordinate to the Spirit from which they derive all their excellency and certainty (John xvi. 13).

4. The Condition of Man after the Fall.--All men are by nature fallen, degenerated, and spiritually dead, but hereditary sin is not imputed to infants until they make it their own by actual transgression. Socinianism and Pelagianism are rejected, but also the doctrine of the 'Papists and most Protestants,' that a man without the grace of God may be a true minister of the gospel.

5. Universal Redemption by Christ.--God wills all men to be saved; Christ died for all men; the light is sent to every man for salvation, if not resisted.

On this point the Quakers side with Lutherans and Arminians against Calvinists, but go far beyond them.

6. Objections to the universality of redemption refuted.

7. Justification.--Man is regenerated and justified when he receives the inner light. It is not by our works that we are justified, but by Christ who is both the gift and the giver, and the cause producing the effects in us.

The Quakers closely connect justification with sanctification, and approach the Roman view, with this difference, that they teach justification in our works, not on account of our works. Penn distinguishes between legal justification, that is, the forgiveness of past sins through Christ, the alone propitiation, and moral justification or sanctification, whereby man is made inwardly just through the cleansing and sanctifying power and Spirit of Christ.

8. Perfection.--Man may become free from actual sinning, and so far perfect; yet perfection admits of growth, and there remains a possibility of sinning. [1666]

The Methodists have substantially adopted this view, and call it entire consecration or perfect love.

9. Perseverance.--Those who resist the light, or disobey it after receiving it, fall away (Heb. vi. 4-6; Tim. i. 6); but it is possible in this life to attain such a stability in the truth from which there can be no total apostasy.

This is a compromise between Calvinism and Arminianism.

10. The Ministry.--Those and only those are qualified ministers of the gospel who are illuminated and called by the Spirit, whether male or female, whether learned or unlearned. These ought to preach without hire or bargaining (Matt. x. 8), although they may receive a voluntary temporal support from the people to whom they administer in spiritual things.

11. Worship.--It consists 'in the inward and immediate moving and drawing of the Spirit, which is neither limited to places or times or persons.' All other worship which man appoints and can begin and end at his pleasure is superstition, will-worship, and idolatry.

All forms and even sacred music are excluded from the naked spiritualism of Quaker worship. It is simply reverent communion of the soul with God, uttered or silent. I once attended a Quaker meeting in London whose solemn silence was more impressive than many a sermon. I felt the force of the word, 'There was silence in heaven for the space of half an hour.' At another meeting I heard one man and several women exhort and pray in a tremulous voice and with reverential awe, as if in the immediate presence of the great Jehovah. All depends upon the power of the Holy Spirit.

12. Baptism.--It is 'a pure and spiritual thing, a baptism of the Spirit and of fire,' by which we are purged from sin (1 Pet. iii. 21; Rom. vi. 4; Col. ii. 12; Gal. iii. 27; John iii. 30). Of this the water-baptism of John was a figure commanded for a time. The baptism of infants is a human tradition, without Scripture precept or practice.

13. The Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ is likewise inward and spiritual, of which the breaking of bread at the last Supper was a figure. It was used for a time, for the sake of the weak, even by those who had received the substance, as the washing of feet and the anointing of the sick with oil was practiced; all which are only the shadows of better things. (John vi. 32-35; 1 Cor. x. 16, 17.)

This doctrine of the sacraments is a serious departure from the universal consensus of Christendom and the obvious intention of our Saviour. It can only be accounted for as a protest against the opposite extreme, which substitutes the visible sign for the invisible grace.

14. The Power of the Civil Magistrate.--It does not extend over the conscience, which God alone can instruct and govern, provided always that no man under pretense of conscience do any thing destructive to the rights of others and the peace of society. All civil punishments for matters of conscience proceed from the spirit of Cain the murderer.

Here the Quakers, like the Baptists, commit themselves most unequivocally to the doctrine of universal religious liberty as a part of their creed.

15. Salutations and Recreations.--Under this head are forbidden the taking off the hat to a man, the bowings and cringings of the body, and 'all the foolish or superstitious formalities' which feed pride and vanity and belong to the vain pomp and glory of this world; also all unprofitable and frivolous plays and recreations which divert the mind from the fear of God, from sobriety and gravity. Penn said of Fox that he was 'civil beyond all forms of breeding.'

The Apology of Barclay is a commentary on these propositions.

Note.--The Hicksites.--In the year 1827 a schism took place among the Friends in Philadelphia, and extended to most of the yearly meetings in America, but had no influence in England. Since then the Quakers are divided into 'orthodox' Quakers and 'Hicksites,' although the latter refuse to be called by any other name but that of 'Friends' or 'Quakers.' The founder of this rupture was Elias Hicks, born in Hempstead, Long Island, March 19, 1768; died in Jericho, N.Y., Feb. 27, 1830.

He took strong ground against slavery, and abstained from all participation in the fruits of slave labor. He was for a long time an acceptable preacher, but early in the present century he advocated radical Unitarian and other heterodox doctrines, which shocked the majority of the Quakers and led to commotion, censure, and schism. The first separation took place in the Yearly Meeting at Philadelphia, and then a similar one in New York, Baltimore, Ohio, and Indiana. Many espoused the cause of Hicks, in the interest of religious liberty and progress, without indorsing his heretical opinions on the articles of the Trinity, the divinity, and the atonement of Christ.

The extreme left of the Hicksites broke off in 1853 in Chester County, Pa., and organized a separate party under the name of Progressive Friends. They opened the door to all who recognize the equal brotherhood of the human family, without regard to sex, color, or condition, and engage in works of beneficence and charity. They disclaim all creeds and disciplinary authority, and are opposed to every form of ecclesiasticism.

The Hicksite movement drove the orthodox Quakers more closely to the Scriptures, and called forth several official counter-demonstrations.

On the 'Hicksite' Quakers, see Elias Hicks, Journal of his Life and Labors, and his Sermons, Phila. 1828; and Janney (a Hicksite), History of the Society of Friends, Vol. IV.

[1648] The name 'Friends' designates a democratic brotherhood in Christ. The name 'Quakers' is sometimes wrongly derived from the warning of Fox to the magistrates 'to quake for fear' and 'to tremble at the Word of the Lord' (Isa. lxvi. 2). It comes rather from their own tremulous utterance of emotion in prayer and exhortation. Barclay (Apology, p. 310, on Prop. XI.) speaks of the trembling motion of the body under the power of the truth, by which Quakers are exercised as in the day of battle, and says: 'From this the name of Quakers, i.e., Tremblers, was first reproachfully cast upon us; which, though it be none of our choosing, yet in this respect we are not ashamed of it, but have rather reason to rejoice therefore, even that we are sensible of this power that hath oftentimes laid hold of our adversaries and made them yield unto us.' Allinson says (1.c. p. 668): 'The epithet Quakers was given in derision, because they often trembled under an awful sense of the infinite purity and majesty of God, and this name, rather submitted to than accepted by them, has become general as a designation.'

[1649] 'The Lord forbade him,' says Sewel, 'to put off his hat to any man, high or low; he was required to Thou and Thee every man and woman without distinction, and not to bid people Good-morrow or Good-evening; neither might he bow or scrape his leg to any one.'

[1650] The charges of Lord Macaulay against Penn's integrity have been repelled by W. E. Forster (William Penn and Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1850) and J. Paget (Edinburgh, 1858).

[1651] Palfrey, History of New England, Vol. II. pp. 461-485; Dexter, As to Roger Williams,' etc., pp. 124 sqq. One such case of Oriental teaching by signs occurred also in England, and is mentioned by Fox himself in his Journal: 'The Lord made one to go naked amongst you, a figure of thy nakedness, and as a sign, before your destruction cometh, that you might see that you were naked and not covered with the truth.' See Stoughton, The Church of the Commonwealth, p. 360.

[1652] He wrote a curious book, George Fox digg'd out of his Burrowes, etc., which was republished by the Narragansett Club, 1872, with an introduction by Prof. Diman. Comp. Dexter, 1.c. p. 138.

[1653] On these earlier confessions, see Evans, pp. xii. sqq.

[1654] Comp. Ch. XI., concerning Baptism, and Bread and Wine. I will select, as a specimen, the questions on the Lord's Supper:

'Ques. I perceive there was a baptism of water, which was John's baptism, and is therefore by John himself contradistinguished from Christ's: was there not likewise something of the like nature appointed by Christ to his disciples, of eating bread, and drinking wine, in remembrance of him?

'Ans. For I have received of the Lord, that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread; and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat; this is my body which is broken for you; this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood; this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. 1 Cor. xi. 23-25.

'Ques. How long was this to continue?

Ans. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come. 1 Cor. xi. 26.

'Ques. Did Christ promise to come again to his disciples?

'Ans. And I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you. Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. John xiv. 18, 23.

'Ques. Was this an inward coming?

'Ans. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. John xiv. 20.

'Ques. But it would seem this was even practiced by the church of Corinth, after Christ was come inwardly: was it so, that there were certain appointments positively commanded, yea, and zealously and conscientiously practiced by the saints of old, which were not of perpetual continuance, nor yet now needful to be practiced in the Church?

'Ans. If I then your Lord and Master have washed your feet, ye ought also to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. John xiii. 14, 15.

'For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us, to lay upon you no greater burthen than these necessary things: that ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication; from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well: Fare ye well. Acts xv. 28, 29.

'Is any man sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. James v. 14.

'Ques. These commands are no less positive than the other; yea, some of them are asserted as the very sense of the Holy Ghost, as no less necessary than abstaining from fornication, and yet the generality of Protestants have laid them aside, as not of perpetual continuance: but what other Scriptures are there, to show that it is not necessary for that of bread and wine to continue?

'Ans. For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Rom. xiv. 17.

'Let no man therefore judge you in meat or drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days. Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances (touch not, taste not, handle not: which all are to perish with the using), after the commandments and doctrines of men? Col. ii. 16, 20-22.

'Ques. These Scriptures are very plain, and say as much for the abolishing of this, as to any necessity, as aught that can be alleged for the former: but what is the bread then, wherewith the saints are to be nourished?

'Ans. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven,' etc.

Then follows the whole section, John vi. 32-35, 48-58.

[1655] I can not find the term Trinity in Fox's Journal nor in Barclay's Apology, but both teach very clearly that Christ is God, and that the Holy Spirit is God, that all knowledge of the Father comes through the Son, and all knowledge of the Son through the Holy Spirit.

[1656] He understood soma and haima to be the subject, and touto the predicate.

[1657] See Erbkam, Geschichte der protest. Sekten im Zeitalter der Reformation, pp. 357 sqq., and Kadelbach, Geschichte K. v. Schwenkfeld's, etc. (Lauban, 1861). The German Catechism of the Schwenkfeldians of Pennsylvania, by Christopher Schultz, Senior (translated by Daniel Rupp, Stippackville, Pa. 1863), teaches Schwenkfeld's peculiar doctrine of the Lord's Supper, but not the deification of Christ's flesh.

[1658] Penn (in the Preface to Fox's Journal, p. xiv.) calls it 'the fundamental principle which is as the corner-stone of their fabric, and, to speak eminently and properly, their characteristic or main distinguishing point or principle, viz., the light of Christ within, as God's gift for man's salvation. This is as the root of the goodly tree of doctrines that grew and branched out from it.' Fox's Journal is full of it; see the list of passages in Vol. II. pp. 551 sq. of the 6th ed. (Leeds, 1836).

[1659] Barclay (Apol. p. 74) rejects the errors of Pelagians and Socinians, and teaches the corruption of human nature in consequence of the fall, but maintains, in opposition to Augustine, Luther, and Calvin, that God does not impute sin to infants until they commit actual transgression. Gurney says (l.c. p. 6): 'Never did they [the Quakers] dare to consider this light as a part of fallen man's corrupt nature; never did they hesitate to ascribe it to the free and universal grace of God through Christ Jesus our Lord.'

[1660] John i. 9. The difference in the construction of erchomenou eis ton kosmon does not affect the universality, which is sufficiently sustained by panta anthropon but the question is whether John means the light of reason or the light of grace, and in the latter case whether it is sufficient for salvation or merely preparatory to it. When Fox, on his second visit to Cromwell (in 1656), quoted this passage, he was met with the objection that John meant 'the natural light;' but he 'showed him the contrary--that it was divine and spiritual, proceeding from Christ, the spiritual and heavenly man' (Journal, Vol. I. p. 383).

[1661] Titus ii. 11. Other passages quoted by Quakers for their favorite doctrine are, Gen. vi. 3; Deut. xxx. 14; Rom. x. 3; Luke ii. 10; Rom. ii. 14, 15; Col. i. 23; Eph. v. 13; Acts x. 35.

[1662] Apol. Soc. He calls his daimonion (in Jowett's translation) 'a voice which comes to me and always forbids me to do something which I am going to do, but never commands me to do any thing, and which stands in the way of my being a politician.' He goes on to say that in politics he would have perished long ago without doing any good either to the people or to himself. The case of Socrates is not mentioned by Barclay, but by Gurney, p. 42: 'When Socrates, as compared with his fellow-countrymen, attained to an eminent degree of disinterestedness, integrity, justice, and charity; when he obeyed the counsels of that unknown monitor who so frequently checked him in the hour of temptation; when he bore so clear a testimony to virtue as to be persecuted to death for virtue's sake--on what scriptural grounds can any man deny that he was made a partaker, to a certain degree, of a divine influence?'

[1663] Gurney, p. 42.

[1664] Hence their name, 'Professors of the Light,' 'Friends of Light,' 'Children of Light.'

[1665] See them in full, Vol. III. p. 749.

[1666] Penn (Preface to Fox's Journal, p. xiv.) says that the Friends 'never held a perfection in wisdom and glory in this life, or from infirmities or death, as some have with a weak or ill mind imagined and insinuated against them.'

See the Literature on the Bohemian Brethren, § 75, p. 565, and the Waldenses, p. 568.

Doctrinal and Confessional.

I. Zinzendorf: Ein und zwanzig Discourse über die Augsburgische Confession, 1747-1748 (never published through the trade, and therefore rare). Also the other writings of Zinzendorf, and especially his hymns and spiritual poems, collected and published by Albert Knapp, with a spirited sketch of bis life and character (Stuttg. 1845).

Aug. Gottlieb Spangenberg: Idea Fidei Fratrum oder Kurzer Begriff der christlichen Lehre in den evang. Brüdergemeinen. Barby, 1778, 1782; Gnadau, 1833; English ed. Lond. 1784. Accepted as authority. By the same: Declaration über die zeither gegen uns ausgegangenen Beschuldigungen. Berlin, 1772.

Hermann Plitt (Pres. of the Morav. Theol. Seminary in Gnadenfeld): Evangelische Glaubenslehre nach Schrift und Erfahrung. Gotha, 1864, 2 vols. Not authoritative. By the same: Zinzendorf's Theologie. Gotha, 1869-1874, 3 vols.

The hymns and liturgies of the Moravian Church.

Edm de Schweinitz (Morav. Bishop): The Moravian Manual. Publ. by authority of the Synod. 2d enlarged ed. Bethlehem, Pa. 1869.

II. Among the early opponents of the Moravians we mention Fresenius, Fabricius, Georgius, and the celebrated commentator, J. A. Bengel (Abriss der sogen. Brüdergemeinde, in welchem die Lehre und die ganze Sache geprüft, das Gute und Böse dabei unterchieden, etc. Stuttg. 1751; republ. Berlin, 1859).

III. Modern representations by divines not of the Moravian Church.

Möhler: Symbolik, pp. 533 sqq.; Schneckenburger: Vorlesungen über die kleineren protest. Kirchenparteien, pp. 152-171; R. Hofmann: Symbolik, pp. 533 sqq.

Historical.

I. Biographies of Count Zinzendorf.

Spangenberg: Leben des Grafen Zinzendorf. Barby, 1772-1775, 8 vols. Thorough, reliable, and prolix.

J. G. Müller (brother of the Swiss historian, John von M.): Bekenntnisse merkmürdiger Männer von sich selbst. 3 vols. 1775.

L. C. von Schrautenbach: Der Graf v. Zinz. und die Brüdergemeinde seiner Zeit, herausgeg. v. F. W. Kölbing. Gnadau, 1851. Written in 1782, but not for publication, and kept as MS. in the Archives of the Moravian Church till 1851. One of the most interesting works on Zinzendorf, setting forth the philosophy of his religion.

Varnhagen von Ense: Leben Zinzendorf's. Berlin, 1830; 2d ed. 1846. The view of an outsider, similar to Southey's Life of Wesley.

J. W. Verbeck: Gr. Zinzendorf's Leben und Charakter. Gnadau, 1845. An extract from Spangenberg.

F. Bovet: Le Comte de Zinzendorf. Paris, 1860.

G. Burkhardt: Zinzendorf und die Brüdergemeinde, in Herzog's Real-Encykl. Vol. XVIII. pp. 508-592 (Gotha, 1864), and published as a separate volume.

II. Histories of the Moravian Church.

Many MS. sources in the Archives of Herrnhut, Saxony, especially the 'Lissa Folios,' relating to the history of the Ancient Bohemian and Moravian Church; the 'Diarium der Gemeinde zu Herrnhut' down to 1736; the journals and letters of Zinzendorf; and the history both of the Ancient and Renewed Church, by John Plitt, from 1722 to 1836, in 9 vols.

The Büding'sche Sammlung. Büdingen and Leipzig, 1742-1744, 3 vols. A collection of documents.

The Barby'sche Sammlung. Barby, 1760, 2 vols. A continuation of the former.

David Cranz: Alte und neue Brüderhistorie (down to 1769). Barby, 1772; continued by Hegner, in 3 parts, 1791-1816. Engl. transl. by La Trobe, London, 1780.

Die Gedenktage der erneuerten Brüderkirche (Memorial Days of the Renewed Brethren's Church). Gnadau, 1820.

Bp. Holmes: History of the United Brethren. Lond. 1825, 2 vols.

A. Bost: Histoire de l'Église des Frères de Bohème et Moravie. Paris, 1844, 2 vols. Abridged English transl. publ. by the Relig. Tract Soc. of London, 1848.

Bp. E. W. Cröger: Geschichte der erneuerten Brüderkirche (down to 1822). Gnadau, 1852-1854, 3 vols. (The same wrote also a Geschichte der alten Brüderkirche. Gnadau, 1865 and 1866, 2 vols.)

Verbeek: Geschichte der alten und neuen Brüder-Unität. Gnadau, 1857.

H. Plitt: Die Gemeine Gottes in ihrem Geiste und ihren Formen mit Beziehung auf die Brüdergemeine. Gotha, 1859.

Dr. Nitzsch: Kirchengeschichtliche Bedeutung der Brüdergemeinde. Berlin, 1853.

Missionary.

The missionary literature of the Moravians is very large and important, and embraces the works of Cranz on Greenland (1767); Oldendorp (1777) on Danish Missions; Heckewelder (1817) on Indian Missions; L. Kölbing, Uebersicht der Missionsgeschichte der evang. Brüderkirche (1832 and 1833); Bp. von Schweinitz, Life of David Zeisberger (Phila. 187O). Comp. the Missionary Manual and Directory of the Unitas Fratrum, Bethlehem, Pa. 1875.

HISTORICAL SKETCH.

We must distinguish between the old Bohemian and Moravian Brethren who belonged to the Slavonic race, and the new Moravians who are chiefly German or of German descent. The connecting link between the two was the celebrated educator, John Amos Comenius (1592-1671), the Jeremiah of the former, and the John the Baptist of the latter, who, hoping against hope for the resurrection of the Bohemian Unitas Fratrum, nearly crushed to death by persecution, left behind him their order of discipline, and made provision for the ordination of two bishops, that through them the succession might be preserved in a quiescent state, until, in 1735, it was transferred to the renewed Church.

The new Moravian Church [1667] took its origin from the remnant (the ' Hidden Seed') of the Bohemian and Moravian Brethern, to whom Count Zinzendorf (1700-1760), under the guidance of a special providence, gave an hospitable refuge on his estates at Berthelsdorf, in Upper Lusatia, Saxony. The asylum was called Herrnhut (the Lord's Protection), and became the mother church and the centre of the denomination.

The little colony of immigrants from Moravia soon increased, by the accession of German families of the pietistic school of Spener, to the number of three hundred souls. It was organized on the basis of the Ratio Disciplinæ of Comenius. David Nitschmann was consecrated the first bishop by Daniel Ernst Jablonsky (court chaplain in Berlin) and Christian Sitkov, the surviving bishops of the old succession (March 13, 1735). This consecration was performed secretly in the presence of only two members of the Bohemian congregation in Berlin, for the sole purpose of sending ordained ministers to the distant missions and colonies. It was not intended to establish an episcopal form of government, separate and distinct from the national Lutheran Church, but this separation was the natural consequence. The second bishop was Count Zinzendorf himself, who gave up his office at the Saxon court and his worldly prospects to devote himself entirely to the Church of his own planting. [1668] With all his eccentricities he was one of the purest and most remarkable men in the history of Christianity, a religious and poetic genius, and a true nobleman by nature and divine grace as well as by rank. He had but one all-absorbing passion--Christ and him crucified. [1669] From his childhood, when he used to write letters to his beloved Saviour, this sacred fire burned in him, and continued to burn till he was called to see him face to face. He early conceived the idea, by planting in the spirit of Spener a true Church in the nominal Church, to reform the Church at home, and to carry the gospel to the heathen. We may call him the German Wesley; he was an organizer like John Wesley, and a true hymnist like his brother Charles. The Oxford Methodists started with a legalistic type of piety, but they received a new inspiration from the childlike, cheerful, serene, and sublime trust in God which characterized the Moravians with whom they came in contact.

The patriarchs of Moravianism--Zinzendorf, Nitschmann, and Spangenberg--like the patriarchs of Methodism, labored in both hemispheres at a time when the stagnant State Churches of Germany and England cared little or nothing for their children in America. They founded Bethlehem (1741) and Nazareth in Pennsylvania, and other colonies which remain to this day. Zinzendorf endeavored to unite the other German denominations and sects in Pennsylvania into one Church, but in vain. [1670]

The Moravian brotherhood is par excellence a missionary society at home and abroad. It has but few regularly organized congregations scattered in Christian lands, but in an age of indifferentism and rationalism they were like cities of refuge and oases in the wilderness, with fresh fountains and green pastures for multitudes who flocked to them for refreshment. [1671] They are still holding up the model of living congregations of real Christians. Besides, they have mission stations, called Diaspora (1 Pet. i. 1), for those who wish to derive spiritual benefit from them without severing their connection with the established Churches. These half-members may be compared to the Jewish proselytes of the gate as distinguished from the proselytes of righteousness. The Moravians, however, are free from the spirit of proselytism, and endeavor to promote peace and union among the Christians at home. But they are aggressive abroad, and concentrate their energies on foreign missions. Their chief glory lies in the extraordinary zeal and self-denial with which, since 1732, they have labored for the conversion of the most ignorant and degraded heathen in Greenland, Labrador, among the American Indians, and the African negroes and Esquimaux, at a time when orthodox Protestant Christendom had not yet awoke to a sense of its long-neglected duty. To the small band of Moravians belongs the first place of honor in the work of foreign missions.

DISCIPLINE AND WORSHIP.

The Moravian congregations in Germany are select communities of converted Christians, ecclesiæ in ecelesia, separate and distinct from the national Churches and the vanities of the surrounding world. [1672] They have a strict discipline, but they are free from gloomy asceticism, and cherish a cheerful and trustful piety with love for music and social refinement. Their educational institutions attract pupils from all directions.

The form of government is a kind of Episcopal Presbyterianism, under the supreme legislative power of synods, and an executive administration of an elective board of bishops and elders, called the 'Unity's Elders' Conference.' The bishops ordain deacons and presbyters: they represent the whole Unitas Fratrum, are official members of the synods, and have usually a seat in the governing boards. They claim an unbroken succession, but lay no stress on it, and fully recognize the validity of Presbyterian orders.

The home churches are divided into three provinces, Continental, British, and American. In 1857 these were declared independent in local and provincial affairs, but they continue to be united in doctrine and the work of foreign missions.

In worship, the Moravians combine liturgical and extemporaneous prayer. At all the liturgical services music forms a prominent feature. Their liturgy and hymn-book are of a superior order. They have greatly enriched the treasures of German hymnology, and produced also one of the best English hymnists in James Montgomery (1771-1854), 'the Cowper of the nineteenth century.' Love-feasts are held preparatory to the communion, in imitation of the ancient Agapæ. Foot-washing was formerly practiced, but has been discontinued since the beginning of the present century. The former use of the lot in connection with marriage has been practically abandoned; and in connection with the appointment of ministers it has been restricted or is left discretional.

DOCTRINES.

The Moravians acknowledge no exclusive and compulsory symbols. They are essentially unionistic, and seek union in harmony of spirit, life, and worship, rather than in a logical statement of doctrine. [1673] Their most authoritative creed is the Easter Litany, which dates from 1749, and is still used annually in all Moravian churches, but as an act of worship, not as a formula for subscription. [1674] They have always laid the chief stress on the atoning death of Christ, and the personal union of the soul with him, but more in a devotional and practical than doctrinal way. Christ crucified and living in them is the all in all of their religion, their only comfort in life and death; but they have not formulated any particular theory of the atonement or of the unio mystica. They prefer the chiaroscuro of mystery and the personal attachment to Christ to all scientific theology.

Historically and nationally, they are more nearly related to the Lutheran denomination than to any other. They sustain to it a relation similar to that which the Wesleyans sustain to the Church of England. They professed from the start their agreement with the Augsburg Confession. Spangenberg, the exponent of their doctrinal system, begins the preface to his Idea Fidei Fratrum with the declaration that his book is no new confession, but that the Confessio Augustana of 1530 is and shall remain their confession.

But we should remember that this indorsement of the doctrinal articles of the Augsburg Confession, though no doubt sincere, was partly a matter of policy and necessity to secure toleration in Lutheran countries. [1675] It had no force outside of Germany and Scandinavia, and even there no subscription to this document was ever required. [1676] The Moravians never adopted the other Lutheran symbols, least of all the Formula of Concord, which strict Lutherans regard as a legitimate development of the Augustana. They never wished to be considered, nor were they recognized as Lutherans, but were violently assailed by them for their alleged doctrinal latitudinarianism and various excesses during their early history. Even the Pietists for a period made common cause with their orthodox enemies against the new sect, though less on doctrinal grounds. The Moravians claim to be the legitimate descendants and heirs of the Bohemian Brethren, who were closely connected with the Waldenses, and had their own Confessions and Catechisms before and after the Reformation. They admitted to their communion Lutherans, Pietists, Calvinists, Anglicans, without inquiring into their creed, if only they were devout Christians. In England they were recognized by Parliament, with the concurrence of the bench of bishops, as 'an ancient Episcopal Church' (1749), and allowed to settle in the American colonies. They also freely associated with Wesleyans. They were the advocates of a conservative evangelical union of three chief types of doctrine [1677] --the old Moravian or Bohemian, the Lutheran, and the Reformed--living in brotherly harmony as a true unitas fratrum, and having their common centre in Christ. They rise above the boundaries of nationality and sect, and represent a real catholicity or universalism of creed with Christ as the only fundamental article. 'I know of no other foundation,' says Zinzendorf, 'but Christ, and I can associate with all who build on this foundation.' He was at one time even open to a project of union with the Greek and Latin Churches and all sorts of Christian sects, but he learned that the union here below must be spiritual and inward.

It is a remarkable fact that the great German theologian, Schleiermacher, was cradled in the Moravian community, and conceived there his love for Christian union and personal devotion to Christ, which guided him through the labyrinth of speculation and skepticism, and triumphed on his death-bed. He shook almost every dogma of orthodoxy, and was willing, if necessary; to sacrifice all, if he could only retain a perfect and sinless Saviour.

Zinzendorf's theology and piety passed through a process of development--first a sound evangelical stage (1723-1742), then a period of sickly sentimentalism (1743-1750), and, last, a period of purification and reconstruction (1750-1760). [1678] These phases are reflected in the history of his followers. Encouraged by his own unguarded language, in poetry and prose, about the luxurious reveling in the wounds of the Lamb, [1679] and the personal intimacy with the Saviour, they ran into wild and dangerous excesses of an overheated imagination. As is often the case in the history of religious enthusiasm, the spirit was about to end in the flesh. [1680] But Zinzendorf himself, honestly confessing his share of responsibility, recalled his followers from the abyss to the purity and simplicity of the gospel.

The purified and matured system of the Moravians is best exhibited in Spangenberg's Idea Fidei, which occupies a similar position among them as Melanchthon's Loci in the Lutheran Church. It is also set forth from time to time in the Synodical Results. The Synod of 1869 issued the following summary of such doctrines as are deemed most essential to salvation:

'1. The doctrine of the total depravity of human nature: that there is no health in man, and that the fall absolutely deprived him of the divine image.

'2. The doctrine of the love of God the Father, who has "chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world," and "so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

' 3. The doctrine of the real godhead and the real manhood of Jesus Christ: that God, the Creator of all things, was manifested in the flesh, and has reconciled the world unto himself; and that "he is before all things, and by him all things consist."

'4. The doctrine of the atonement and satisfaction of Jesus Christ for us: that he "was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification;" and that in his merits alone we find forgiveness of sins and peace with God.

'5. The doctrine of the Holy Ghost and the operations of his grace: that it is he who works in us the knowledge of sin, faith in Jesus, and the witness that we are children of God.

'6. The doctrine of the fruits of faith: that faith must manifest itself as a living and active principle, by a willing obedience to the commandments of God, prompted by love and gratitude to him who died for us.

'In conformity with these fundamental articles of faith, the great theme of our preaching is Jesus Christ, in whom we have the grace of the Lord, the love of the Father, and the communion of the Holy Ghost. We regard it as the main calling of the Brethren's Church to proclaim the Lord's Death, and to point to him, "as made of God unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption."' [1681]

[1667] Also called the Unitas Fratrum, the United Brethren, the Moravian Brethern; in German, Brüdergemeine, or Herrnhuter. They must not be confounded with the Methodist 'United Brethren in the United States,' founded by Rev. William Otterbein in 1800.

[1668] It is an interesting fact that Frederic William I., king of Prussia, advised Zinzendorf to get the old Moravian Episcopal ordination, and that Zinzendorf conferred on the subject with Bishop Jablonsky, and with his friend, the Archbishop of Canterbury (John Potter).

[1669] 'Ich habe nur eine Passion, und die ist Er, nur Er.'

[1670] On the unionistic labors of Count Zinzendorf in Pennsylvania from 1742 to 1748, see an interesting article of the Rev. L. F. Reichel (mostly from unpublished MSS.) in Schaff's Deutscher Kirchenfreund for 1849, pp. 93-107.

[1671] Hase (Kirchengeschichte, p. 636, 9th ed.): 'Die Frömmigkeit ist in Herrnhut eine Manier geworden, aber viele stille oder gebrochene Herzen hatten hier eine Heimath, und der alte Christus in den Zeiten des Unglaubens ein Heiligthum.'

[1672] The Moravian settlements in the United States were organized on the same exclusive principle, but have recently been thrown open to other people.

[1673] Burkhardt (in Herzog, Vol. XVIII. p. 589) says: 'Die Brüdergemeinde stellt nie ein äusserlich formulirtes Bekenntniss nach aussen hin auf, das sie von anderen evangelischen Glaubensgenossen trennen könnte. Sie wird es und kann es nie thun, denn nicht Abschluss und Scheidung, sondern Union ist ihr Princip. Aber nur jene wahre und positive Union auf Grund der heiligen Schrift und der lebendigen Herzens-Erfahrung, die allein die Herzen vereinigt.' Bishop Schweinitz says {Manual, p. 95): 'The Renewed Church of the Brethren has no Confession of Faith as such, that is, no document bearing this name.'

[1674] See the Moravian Litany in Vol. III. p. 793.

[1675] After ten years' banishment from Saxony, Zinzendorf secured in 1748 recognition of his congregation as Augsburgische Religionsverwandte (Addicti Augustanæ Conf.)--a title under which the Reformed, or Calvinists, were included in the Treaty of Westphalia.

[1676] Manual, p. 95: 'This acknowledgment, according to the declaration of the General Synod, does not bind the conscience of any member, much less is it of any weight in those provinces of the Unity where the Augsburg Confession has no other value than as being the creed of one (the Lutheran) among many Churches enjoying equal rights' (Synod. Results of 1857, p. 96).

[1677] Lehrtropen (tropoi paideias), as Zinzendorf called them. He meant different educational ways of God adapted to the varieties of national and individual character. The Lutheran type prevailed among the Moravians in Saxony, the Reformed in Holland and England. The Moravian type furnished the historical base and a peculiar element in discipline rather than doctrine.

[1678] See especially Plitt and Burkhardt.

[1679] Or 'Lambkin,' Lämmlein, as the favorite phrase was. The side-wound was made especially prominent.

[1680] Bishop Schweinitz thus describes this period (Moravian Manual, pp. 35 sq.): 'The relation between Christ and his Church was described in language more highly figurative, and under images more sensuous, than any thing found even in the Song of Solomon. A mania spread to spiritualize, especially the marriage relation, and to express holy feelings in extravagant terms. Hymns abounded, treating of the passion of Jesus, apostrophizing the wound in his side, degrading sacred things to a level with the worst puerilities, and pouring forth sentimental nonsense like a flood; while services, in themselves devotional and excellent, were changed into occasions for performances more in keeping with the stage of a common theatre than with the sanctity of the house of God. In short, fanaticism rioted among ministers and people, and spread from Herrnhaag and Marienborn to other churches both on the Continent of Europe and in England. Those in America escaped, or were but slightly affected. This continued for about five years, reaching its climax in 1749. It is possible that immoralities of life may have occurred in single instances, although there are no positive proofs of this; the great majority of the Brethren, however, were preserved from such extremes.' Similar antinomian excesses occurred in the Moravian congregations in England (1751), and turned Wesley and Whitefield against their old friends, whom they charged with neglecting to preach the law either as a schoolmaster or as a rule of life, with irreverent sentimentalism and superstitions fopperies. See Tyerman, Life of John Wesley, Vol. II. pp. 95 sqq. (Harper's ed.).

[1681] Bishop Schweinitz, in M'Clintock and Strong's Cyclop. Vol. VI. p. 587. Comp. his Compend of Doctrine in XVII. Articles, compiled from the authorized publication in the Moravian Manual, pp. 95-100. A popular statement is contained in the Catechism of Christian Doctrine for the Instruction of Youth in the Church of the United Brethren, and the Epitome of Christian Doctrine for the Instruction of Candidates for Confirmation (various editions in German and English).

Literature.

I. Doctrinal Standards.

John Wesley (1703-1791): Sermons on Several Occasions; and Explanatory Notes on the New Test. In many eds., London, Bristol, New York, Cincinnati, etc. Best ed. of the Sermons by Thomas Jackson, Lond. 1825, New York, 1875.

Richard Watson (1781-1833): Theological Institutes: or a View of the Evidences, Doctrines, Morals, and Institutions of Christianity. First ed. Lond. 1822-28, in 6 parts; best ed., with an Analysis by John M'Clintock, New York, in 2 vols. (29th ed. 1875).

W. B. Pope (Theol. Tutor, Didsbury College, Manchester): A Compendium of Christian Theology: being Analytical Outlines of a Course of Theological Study, Biblical, Dogmatic, Historical. London (Wesleyan Conference Office), 1875 (752 pp.). By the same: The Peculiarities of Methodist Doctrine. London, 1873.

D. D. Whedon, D.D. (Ed. of the 'Methodist Quarterly Review,' and of a Popular Commentary on the New Test.): Doctrines of Methodism. In 'Bibliotheca Sacra' for April, 1862, pp. 241-274. Andover, Mass.

W. F. Warren: System. Theologie. Bremen, 1865, Vol. I.

The Doctrines and Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 1872. Ed. by Bishop Harris. New York (Nelson & Phillips) and Cincinnati (Hitchcock & Walden).

Catechisms of the Methodist Episcopal Church. New York (Nelson & Phillips). Especially No. 3, which is designed 'for an advanced grade of study.' Approved by the General Conference, 1852. Two German Catechisms by the Rev. Dr. William Nast, 1868.

II. Other Sources for the Doctrines and History of Methodism.

The Complete Works of John Wesley (first ed. Bristol, 1771 sqq., in 32 small vols. full of typographical errors; 3d and best ed. with the author's last corrections, ed. by Thomas Jackson, Lond. 1831, 14 vols.; New York, 7 vols.).

The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley. Ed. by G. Osborn, D.D. Lond. 1872, 13 vols.

The Works of John Fletcher (Lond. 1815, 10 vols.; New York, 1831, 4 vols.).

The Sermons and Journals of George Whitefield (1756, 1771).

The Journals of Bishop Asbury (new ed. N. Y. 1854, 3 vols.).

III. Biographies.

John Wesley, by Coke and Moore (Lond. 1792); by John Hampson (1791, 3 vols.); by Robert Southey (with Notes by Sam. T. Coleridge, 3d ed. Lond. 1846; Amer. ed. with Notes by Coleridge, Alex. Knox, and Daniel Curry, N.Y. 1847, 2 vols.); by Richard Watson (Lond. 1831; Amer. ed. with Notes by T. O. Summers); by L. Tyerman (Lond. and New York, 1872, 3 vols.); Isaac Taylor: Wesley and Methodism (Lond. and New York, 1855); James H. Rigg: The Living Wesley as he was in his Youth and his Prime (Lond. 1875; New York ed. with Introduction by Dr. Hurst, of Drew Theol. Seminary). Comp. Dr. Rigg's article on the Churchmanship of John Wesley, in the 'Contemporary Review' for Sept. 1876.

Charles Wesley (1708 to 1788), by Thomas Jackson (Lond. 1841, 2 vols.).

George Whitefield (the founder of 2 Methodism, b. 1714, d. 1770), by J. Gillie (Lond. 1772, 1813); by Robert Philip (Lond. 1830; also in German, with a Preface by Tholuck, Leipz. 1834); by L. Tyerman (London and New York, 1877, 2 vols.; the best).

The Oxford Methodists: Memoirs of Clayton, Ingham, Gambold, Hervey, and Broughton. By L. Tyerman. London and New York, 1873.

Early Methodist Preachers. Ed. by Thomas Jackson (Lond. 1839, 2 vols.).

IV. General Histories of Methodism.

Dr. Abel Stevens (History of Methodism, New York and Lond. 1858-61, 3 vols.; History of the Methodist Episcopal Church, N. Y. 1866-67, 4 vols.; Centenary of American Methodism, N. Y. 1865); Dr. George Smith (Lond. 1857-62, 3 vols.: illustrated popular edition, 1864), and a number of other works. For a concise summary, see Stevens's art. 'Methodism,' in Johnson's 'Univers. Cyclop.' Vol. III. (1876). Also for popular use, James Porter: The Revised Compendium of Methodism. New York, 1875. Jacoby: Geschichte des Methodismus. Bremen, 1870.

Comp. The Wesleyan Methodist Magazine. London (Wesleyan Conference Office), 1778 to 1876 (xcix. vols.).

The Methodist Quarterly Review. New York (Nelson & Phillips), Vols. LVIII. till 1876.

M'Clintock and Strong's Cyclopædia (New York, 1867-81, 10 vols. (three supplementary vols. promised), is edited by Methodists, and pays special attention to Methodist and Arminian articles.

V. Bibliographical, Critical, and Polemical.

For the anti-Methodist literature, see H. C. Decanver: Catalogue of Works in Refutation of Methodism from its Origin, in 1729, to the Present Time, Phila. (John Penington), 1846. Contains in alphabetical order the titles of 227 books and sermons against Methodism, most of which are forgotten.

G. Osborn: Outlines of Wesleyan Bibliography. London, 1869.

M. Schneckenburger: Lehrbegriffe der kleineren protest. Kirchenparteien. 1863, pp. 103-151.

Joh. Jüngst: Amerikanischer Methodismus in Deutschland und R. Pearsall Smith. Gotha, 1875. By the same: Wesen und Berechtigung des Methodismus. Gotha, 1876.

CHARACTER OF METHODISM.

Methodism is the most successful of all the younger offshoots of the Reformation. In one short century it has become one of the largest denominations in England, and the largest in the United States, with missionary stations encircling the globe.

The founders were admirably qualified for their work, and as well fitted together as the Reformers. John Wesley was one of the greatest preachers and organizers, and in the abundance of his labors perhaps the most apostolic man that England ever produced. As a revivalist of practical religion he may be called the English Spener, as an organizer the Protestant Ignatius Loyola. His brother Charles occupies, next to Watts, the first place in English hymnology, and sang Methodism into the hearts of the people. Whitefield, the orator and evangelist, kindled a sacred fire in two hemispheres which burns to this day. Their common, single, and sole purpose was to convert sinners from the service of Satan to the service of God, by means of incessant preaching, praying, and working. For this end they were willing to spend and be spent, to be ridiculed, reviled, pelted and hooted by mobs, maltreated by superiors, and driven from the church into the street; for this they would in another age have suffered torture, mutilation, and death itself as cheerfully as the Puritans did before them. The practical activity of these great and good men was equaled only by that of the Reformers in the theoretic sphere. During the fifty years of his itinerant ministry, John Wesley traveled 'a quarter of a million of miles, and preached more than forty thousand sermons.' [1682] Charles Wesley composed over six thousand religious poems, [1683] in the study, in the pulpit, on horseback, in bed, and in his dying hour. [1684] Whitefield, besides traveling through England, Ireland, and Scotland, made seven evangelistic voyages to America, turning the ship into a church, and 'preached in four-and-thirty years upwards of eighteen thousand sermons, many of them to enormous crowds, and in the teeth of brutal persecution.' [1685] A day before his death he preached his last sermon of nearly two hours' length in the open air, 'weary in the work, but not of the work' of his Lord. Fletcher labored in a more restricted sphere, as Vicar of Madely, but just as faithfully and devotedly, visiting his people and the poor ignorant colliers early and late, in rain and snow, studying intensely, living all the while on bread and cheese or fruit, and exhibiting an angelic type of character, so that Wesley, from a personal acquaintance of more than thirty years, gave him the testimony that 'he never heard him speak an improper word or saw him do an improper action,' and that he never knew a man 'so inwardly and outwardly devoted to God, so unblamable in every respect.' [1686] The pioneers of American Methodism were animated by the same zeal. Bishop Asbury, 'in the forty-five years of his American ministry, preached about 16,500 sermons, or at least one a day, and traveled about 270,000 miles, or 6000 a year, and presided in no less than 224 annual conferences, and ordained more than 4000 preachers.' [1687] He was ordained bishop (1784) when the number of American Methodists fell below 15,000, and he died (1816) when it exceeded 211,000, with more than 700 itinerant preachers.

Methodism owes its success to this untiring zeal in preaching the gospel of the new birth and a 'full and free salvation' to the common people, in churches, chapels, and the open air, and to its peculiar methods and institutions--itinerancy, missionary bishops, presiding elders, lay helpers, class-meetings, camp-meetings, conferences, and systematic collections. Methodism, as Dr. Chalmers characterized it, is 'Christianity in earnest.' It works powerfully upon the feelings; it inspires preachers and members with enthusiasm; it gives every man and woman too a distinct vocation and responsibility; it 'keeps all at work and always at it,' according to Wesley's motto; it knows nothing of churches without ministers, or ministers without charges, as long as there are sinners to be converted in any corner of the globe. Methodism is better organized than any other Protestant denomination, and resembles in this respect the Church of Rome and its great monastic orders. It is a powerful rival of that Church. It has an efficient machinery with an abundance of steam, and is admirably adapted for pioneer work in a new country like America. It is a well-disciplined army of conquest, though not so good an army of occupation, since it allows so many 'to fall away from grace,' not only temporarily, but even 'totally and finally.' Till 1872 the laity was excluded from participation in Church government (and is so still in England), but was compensated by a large liberty in the sphere of worship, in class-meetings, band-meetings, love-feasts, which tend to develop the social and emotional element in religion.

METHODISM AND PURITANISM.

Methodism forms the third great wave of the Evangelical Protestant movement in England, and represents the idea of revival. The Reformation destroyed the power of the papacy. Puritanism aimed at a more thorough Reformation in Church and State, and controlled for a time the civil and religious life of the nation. Methodism kept aloof from politics, and confined itself to the sphere of practical religion. Puritanism was animated by the genius of Calvinism; Methodism, in its main current, by the genius of Arminianism. Both made a deep and lasting impression upon the national Church from which they proceeded, and moulded the character of American Christianity. The Methodist revival checked the progress of skepticism and infidelity which had begun to set in with deism. It brought the life and light of the gospel to the most neglected classes of society.

If evangelical Christianity to-day has a stronger hold on the Anglo-Saxon race in both hemispheres than on any other nation, it is chiefly due to the influence of Puritanism and Methodism.

RELATION TO THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

Methodism is a daughter of the Church of England, and was nursed in the same University of Oxford which, a century later, gave rise to the Tractarian school in the opposite direction towards Rome. The 'Holy Club' of the fourteen Oxford students associated for prayer, holy living, and working, began, like Dr. Pusey and his friends, with a revival of earnest, ascetic, and ritualistic High-Churchism, and received the name 'Methodists' for its punctual and methodical habits of devotion. Wesley was at first so exclusive an Episcopalian that he shrank from street-preaching and lay-preaching, and, at least on one occasion, even rebaptized Dissenters. But his contact with the simple-hearted, trustful, and happy German Moravians (Peter Böhler, Nitschmann, and Spangenberg) whom he met on his voyage across the Atlantic, in the Colony of Georgia, and after his return, led to his second 'conversion,' which took place May 24, 1738, and imparted to his piety a cheerfully evangelical and, we may say, a liberal Broad-Church character. [1688]

He now entered upon his independent evangelistic career, yet with no idea of forming a separate denomination. His object was simply to revive experimental piety within the limits of the Anglican Church, as Spener and Francke had done before within the Lutheran Confession in Germany. Although badly treated by bishops and other clergy, he had no quarrel with the authorities in Church or State, but only with sin and Satan. His aim was to build the city of God and to save souls within the establishment, if possible; without it, if necessary. He performed indeed some uncanonical acts which led ultimately to secession, but he did it from necessity, not from choice. He never made common cause with Dissenters. He lived and died in the Church of his fathers. His brother Charles was even more conservative, and took great offense at his violation of the canons.

Had the Church of England been as wise and politic as the Church of Rome, she would have encouraged and utilized the great revival of the eighteenth century for the spread of vital Christianity at home and abroad, and might have made the Wesleyan society an advocate of her own interests as powerful as the order of the Jesuits is of the Papacy. Now, after a century of marvelous success, the founder of Methodism is better appreciated, and has been assigned (1876) a place of honor among England's mighty dead in Westminster Abbey.

The English Wesleyans continue to hold a middle position between the Established Church and the Dissenters proper, but tend latterly more to Free-Churchism.

AMERICAN METHODISM.

In the United States the Methodists were made an independent organization with an episcopal form of government by Wesley's own act. As a Tory and a believer in political non-resistance, he at first wrote against the American 'rebellion,' but accepted the providential result; and, considering himself as a 'Scriptural Episcopos,' he ordained, on the second day of September, 1784, two presbyters (Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Vasey) and one superintendent or bishop, viz., the Rev. Thomas Coke, LL.D. (a presbyter of the Church of England), for his American mission, which then embraced 83 traveling preachers and 14,988 members. [1689] This was a bold and an irregular act, but a master-stroke of policy, justified by necessity and abundant success. [1690]

Bishop Coke, assisted by the Rev. P. W. Otterbein, of the German Reformed Church, ordained, according to Wesley's direction, Francis Asbury to the office of joint superintendent, and twelve others to the office of presbyters, at the first General Conference held in Baltimore (Dec. 27, 1784). These were the first Protestant bishops in America, with the exception of Dr. Samuel Seabury, who was consecrated a few weeks before (Nov. 14, 1784), at Aberdeen, as bishop of the Protestant Episcopal diocese in Connecticut. [1691] In a short time the society, thus fully organized, overtook older denominations, and kept pace with the rapid progress of the young republic.

The separation from the mother Church of England was complete, but her blood still flows in the veins of Methodism and shows itself in a half-way assent to her doctrinal standards (as far as they admit of an Arminian interpretation), to her liturgy (as far as it does not encourage sacerdotalism and ritualism or interfere with the freedom of worship), and to her episcopacy (as based upon expediency, and not on the divine right of succession).

BRANCHES OF METHODISM.

The Methodist Christians in England and America are divided into a number of distinct ecclesiastical organizations--the 'Wesleyans,' the 'Methodist Episcopal Church,' the 'Primitive Methodists,' the 'Primitive Wesleyans of Ireland,' the 'Bandroom Methodists,' the 'Methodist Protestant Church,' the 'Welsh Calvinistic Methodists,' the 'Free Methodist Church,' the 'African (Bethel and Zion) Methodist Episcopal Church,' etc. To the Methodist family belong also the 'Evangelical Association' (or 'Albright's Brethren,' so called from Jacob Albright, a Pennsylvania German, who founded this society in 1800), and the 'United Brethren in Christ' (founded by Philip William Otterbein, a German Reformed minister, d. in Baltimore, 1813).

The great parent body, however, are the Wesleyans in England and the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States. They far outnumber all the other branches put together. The Methodist Episcopal Church was divided in 1844 on the question of slavery into 'the Methodist Episcopal Church' (North), and 'the Methodist Episcopal Church, South,' but measures have been inaugurated (1876) for reuniting them. Similar schisms for the same cause rent other Churches before the civil war, but have been healed or will be healed, since the war has removed the difficulty. The Roman Catholic, and next to it the Protestant Episcopal Church, owing to their conservatism, were least affected by the disturbing question of slavery, and remained intact.

The differences between the various branches of Methodism refer to the episcopate, the relative powers of the bishops and the general conference, lay representation, and other matters of government and discipline which do not come within the scope of this work. The doctrinal creed is the same in all, with the exception of the Whitefieldian Methodists, who are Calvinists, while all the rest are Arminians.

Note.--The Cyclopædia of M'Clintock and Strong, Vol. VI. p. 159, gives the following list of Methodist denominations, with the date of their organization and estimate of their ministers and church members in 1872:

GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.

Denominations Date of Organization. Number of Ministers. Number of Church Members Wesleyan Methodists 1739 3,157 557,995 Welsh Calvinistic Methodists (1745) 207 58,577 New Connection Methodists 1797 260 35,706 Primitive Methodists 1810 943 161,229 Primitive (Ireland) Methodists 1816 85 14,247 Bible Christians 1815 254 26,241 United Methodist Free Churches 1828-49 312 68,062 Wesleyan Reform Union 1849 20 9,393 Totals 5,238 931,450

AMERICA.

Denominations Date of Organization. Number of Ministers. Number of Church Members Methodist Episcopal Church (in 1872) 1784 10,742 1,458,441 Methodist Church (Non-Episcopal) 1866 624 75,000 United Brethern 1800 . . . . . . . . Evangelical Association (Albrights) 1800 632 78,716 African Methodist Episcopal 1816 600 20,000 African Methodist Episcopal (Zion) 1819 694 164,000 Canada Wesleyans 1828 . . . . 69,597 Eastern British American Wesleyan Methodists 1854 ? 147 16,118 Methodist Episcopal Church of Canada 1828 228 21,103 Methodist Protestants, South 1830 2,858 600,900 Free Methodists 1860 about 90 6,000 Primitive Methodists about 20 2,000 Totals 17,308 2,591,875

* This does not include the colored membership now separately organized as the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, South.

[1682] Tyerman, John Wesley, Vol. III. p. 658 (Harper's ed.). Dr. Rigg (The Living Wesley, Hurst's ed. p. 208) remarks that Wesley rode ordinarily sixty miles a day, and not seldom eighty and ninety miles, besides preaching twice or thrice.

[1683] Osborn's edition contains 7600 poems of Wesley, including those of John, who composed all the translations from the German.

[1684] When hardly able to articulate any more, he dictated to his wife these lines:

'In age and feebleness extreme,

Who shall a helpless worm redeem?

Jesus, my only hope thou art,

Strength of my failing flesh and heart;

Oh could I catch a smile from thee,

And drop into eternity!'

[1685] Tyerman, Vol. III. p. 78.

[1686] See Wesley's Funeral Sermon on the death of John W. Fletcher, who was a French Swiss by birth (de la Fléchière), born at Nyon, Canton de Vand, 1729, educated at Geneva, died at Madeley, 1785. His chief works is Checks to Antinomianism, against Calvinism.

[1687] Stevens, Centenary of American Methodism (N. Y. 1865), p. 94.

[1688] 'At the first,' says Dr. Rigg ('Contemporary Review' for 1876, pp. 656 sq.), 'with Wesley faith had meant the intellectual acceptance of the creeds, together with the submission of the will to the laws and services of the Church. . . . Until he met with Böhler, he had not embraced, scarcely, it would seem, had conceived the idea of faith as being, in its main element, personal trust and self-surrender, as having for its central object the atonement of Jesus Christ, and as inspired and sustained by the supernatural aid and concurrence of the Holy Spirit. . . . Wesley confessed that Böhler's teaching was true gospel teaching. . . . Here ended his High-Church stage of life. Here began his work as an evangelist and Church revivalist. All dates from his final acceptance of Böhler's teaching as to the nature of faith.' Dr. Stevens says (Centenary, p. 31): 'Methodism is indebted to Moravianism for not only some of the most important features of its moral discipline, but for the personal conversion of both the Wesleys.' But Wesley was converted before as much so as Luther was when he entered the convent of Erfurt several years before he experienced his second or evangelical conversion to the doctrine of justification by faith alone. On the other hand, some of the Oxford Tractarians were converted over again, or backward, when they joined the Church of Rome.

[1689] The first Methodist society in America was formed in 1766, in the city of New York, among a few Irish emigrants, by Philip Embury, a local preacher, and by his cousin, Mrs. Barbara Heck, a true 'mother in Israel.' Hence Methodism celebrated its centenary in 1866 with great festivities.

[1690] He also ordained a few presbyters for Scotland and England to assist him in administering the sacraments, on the plea that the regular clergy often refused to admit his people to the Lord's table. At the Conference of 1788 he consecrated (according to Samuel Bradburn's statement) one of his preachers as a superintendent or bishop. He had long before been convinced by Stillingfleet's 'Irenicon' and Lord King's 'Primitive Church' that bishops and presbyters were originally one order, and that diocesan episcopacy was not founded on divine right. In a letter to his brother Charles (1785) he calls the uninterrupted episcopal succession 'a fable which no man ever did or can prove.'--Rigg, 1.c. p. 669. For a full discussion of Wesley's ordination acts, see Stevens, History of Methodism, Vol. II. pp. 209 sqq., and Tyerman, John Wesley. Vol. III. pp. 426 sqq.

[1691] Bishop White, of Pennsylvania, was not consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury until Feb. 4, 1787, the consecration being delayed and nearly frustrated by certain impediments.

The American Methodists have three classes of doctrinal standards.

1. The Twenty-five Articles of Religion. [1692] They were prepared by John Wesley, from the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England (together with an abridgment of the Book of Common Prayer), for the American Methodists, and were adopted by the Conference in Baltimore, 1784, with the exception of Article XXIII., which recognizes the United States as 'a sovereign and independent nation,' and which was adopted in 1804. These articles are now unalterably fixed, and can neither be revoked nor changed. [1693]

2. John Wesley's Sermons and Notes on the New Testament. They are legally binding only on the British Wesleyans, but they are in fact as highly esteemed and as much used by American Methodists, and constitute the life of the denomination. When eighty-one years of age (Feb. 28, 1784), Wesley, in his famous Deed of Declaration, which is called the Magna Charta of Methodism, bequeathed the property and government of all his chapels in the United Kingdom (then 359 in number) to the 'Legal Hundred,' i.e., a conference of one hundred of his traveling preachers and their successors, on condition that they should accept as their basis of doctrine his Notes on the New Testament and the four volumes of Sermons which had been published by him or in his name in or before 1771. [1694] These sermons are fifty-eight in number, and cover the common faith and duties of Christians, [1695] but contain at the same time the doctrines which constitute the distinctive creed of Methodism. [1696] The Notes on the New Testament are for the most part a popular version of Bengel's Gnomon.

3. The Book of Discipline and several Catechisms, one published in 1852, another in 1868 (by Dr. Nast), are at least secondary standards for the American Methodists.

The distinctive features of the Methodist creed are not logically formulated, like those of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches. It allows a liberal margin for further theological development. John Wesley, though himself an able logician and dialectician, sought Christianity more in practical principles and sanctified affections than in orthodox formulas, and laid greater stress on the oecumenical consensus which unites than on the sectarian dissensus which divides the Christians. The General Rules, or recognized terms of membership, for the origina1 Methodist 'societies' (not churches), are ethical and practical, and contain not a single article of doctrine. They require 'a desire to flee the wrath to come and be saved from sin,' and to avoid certain specific vices.

Nevertheless Methodists claim to have more doctrinal harmony than many denominations which impose a minute creed. There is a Methodist system of doctrine and a Methodist theology, however elastic they may be. But there is a difference of opinion among their standard writers as to the degree of originality and completeness of this system and its relation to other confessions. We may distinguish an American and an English view on the subject.

An ingenious attempt has recently been made to raise the Methodist creed to the importance and dignity of a fourth confession or symbolical system alongside of the Roman Catholic, the Lutheran, and the Calvinistic, and far above them. According to Dr. Warren, Catholicism makes salvation dependent upon a meritorious co-operation of man with God, and is essentially pagan; Calvinism makes salvation depend exclusively on the eternal decree and free grace of God, and views Christianity from the stand-point of the Old Testament; Lutheranism derives salvation from the personal relation of man to the means of grace (the Word and Sacraments), and views Christianity from the stand-point of justification by faith alone; Methodism makes salvation exclusively dependent upon man's own free relation to the illuminating, renewing, and sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit, and represents the stand-point of Christian perfection. Calvin retains the Christians under the dispensation of the Father, Luther under the dispensation of the Son, Wesley leads them into the dispensation of the Spirit. The first confines salvation to the favorite number of the elect; the second binds it to the baptismal font, the altar, and the pulpit; the third offers it freely to all. Calvin's ideal Christian is a servant of God, Luther's a child of God, Wesley's a perfect man in the full stature of Christ. [1697]

English Methodists claim for their system a humbler position, and represent it, in accordance with the intention of the founders, as a liberal evangelical modification of the Anglican creed, with some original doctrines to which they attach great importance. [1698]

[1692] See Vol. III. pp. 766 sqq. Comp. also Emory, History of the Discipline, ch. i. § 2; Comfort, Exposition of the Articles (New York, 1847); Jimeson, Notes on the Twenty-five Articles (Cincinnati, 1853).

[1693] 'The General Conference shall not revoke, alter, or change our Articles of Religion, nor establish any new standards or rules of doctrine contrary to our present existing and established standards of doctrine.' This article can not be amended (Discipline, p. 51). The General Conference is the highest of the five judicatories, and the only legislative body of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

[1694] Tyerman, Vol. III. pp. 417 sqq.

[1695] Thirteen discourses are on the Sermon on the Mount, chiefly ethical; two are funeral discourses (on the death of Whitefield and Fletcher); one on the cause and cure of earth-quakes; one on the use of money.

[1696] On Salvation by Faith; Scriptural Christianity; Original Sin; Justification by Faith; Free Grace; the Witness of the Spirit (three sermons); on Christian Perfection. It is singular there is not one sermon on the Freedom of the Will.

[1697] Syst. Theol. Vol. I. pp. 90, 99, 119, 140, 149, 166. Dr. Warren (who is now President of the Methodist University in Boston) wrote this able book (which is as yet, 1876, unfinished) while in Germany, and under the stimulus of the generalizing theories of some German divines. Zinzendorf had made a somewhat similar distinction between the Lutheran, Reformed, and Moravian types of doctrine (Lehrtropen), but comprehended them all in his brotherhood. James Martineau, from the Unitarian point of view, represents Luther, Calvin, and Wesley as the representatives of the orthodox gospel in three dialects (Studies of Christianity, London, 1873, pp. 399 sq.).

[1698] Professor William B. Pope, of Didsbury College, Manchester, one of the leading Wesleyan divines, makes the following statement concerning the creed of the English Methodists (in the Introduction to his translation of Winer's Comparative View of the Doctrines and Confessions of the various Communities of Christendom, Edinb. 1873, pp. lxxvi.-lxxviii.): 'It may be said that English Methodism has no distinct articles of faith. At the same time it is undoubtedly true that no community in Christendom is more effectually hedged about by confessional obligations and restraints. Reference has been made to the distinction of creeds, confessions, and standards. Methodism combines the three in its doctrinal constitution after a manner on the whole peculiar to itself. Materially if not formally, virtually if not actually, implicitly if not avowedly, its theology is bound by the ancient oecumenical Creeds, by the Articles of the English Church, and by comprehensive standards of its own, the peculiarity of its maintenance of these respectively having been determined by the specific circumstances of its origin and consolidation--circumstances with which it is not our business here to enter. In common with most Christian Churches it holds fast the Catholic Symbols; the Apostolical and Nicene are extensively used in the Liturgy, and the Athanasian, not so used, is accepted so far as concerns its doctrinal type. The doctrine of the Articles of the Church of England is the doctrine of Methodism. This assertion must, of course, be taken broadly, as subject to many qualifications. For instance, the Connection has never avowed the Articles as its Confession of Faith; some of those Articles have no meaning for it in its present constitution; others of them are tolerated in their vague and doubtful bearing, rather than accepted as definitions; and, finally, many Methodists would prefer to disown any relation to them of any kind. Still the verdict of the historical theologian, who takes a comprehensive view of the estate of Christendom, in regard to the history and development of Christian truth, would locate the Methodist community under the Thirty-nine Articles. He would draw his inference from the posture towards them of the early founders of the system; and he would not fail to mark that the American branch of the family, which has spread simultaneously with its European branch, has retained the Articles of the English Church, with some necessary modifications, as the basis of its Confession of Faith. Setting aside the Articles that have to do with discipline rather than doctrine, the Methodists universally hold the remainder as tenaciously as any of those who sign them, and with as much consistency as the great mass of English divines who have given them an Arminian interpretation. That is to say, where they diverge in doctrine from the Westminster Confession, Methodism holds to them; while this Confession rather expresses their views on Presbyterian Church government. It may suffice to say generally on this subject, that so far as concerns the present volume [of Winer], every quotation from the English Articles may stand, if justly interpreted, as a representative of the Methodist Confession.

'Finally, we have the Methodist Standards, belonging to it as a society within a Church, which entirely regulate the faith of the community, but are binding only upon its ministers. Those Standards are to be found in certain rather extensive theological writings which have none of the features of a Confession of Faith, and are never subscribed or accepted as such. More particularly, they are some Sermons and Expository Notes of John Wesley; more generally, these and other writings, catechisms, and early precedents of doctrinal definition; taken as a whole, they indicate a standard of experimental and practical theology to which the teaching and preaching of its ministers are universally conformed. What that standard prescribes in detail it would be impossible to define here. . . . Suffice that the Methodist doctrine is what is generally termed Arminian, as it regards the relation of the human race to redemption; that it lays great stress upon the personal assurance which seals the personal religion of the believer; and that it includes a strong testimony to the office of the Holy Spirit in the entire renewal of the soul in holiness, as one of the provisions of the covenant of grace upon earth. It may be added, though only as an historical fact, that a rigorous maintenance of this common standard of evangelical doctrine has been attended by the preservation of a remarkable unity of doctrine throughout this large communion.'

Dr. Whedon, the editor of the 'Methodist Quarterly Review,' in a notice of Pope's Winer (October No., 1873, pp. 680 sqq.), enters 'his firm, fraternal protest against being recorded before the eyes of the world as training under the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England,' and says, 'The entire body of Methodists of the United States no more hold the Thirty-nine Articles, doctrinally, than they do the Westminster Confession. They reject a large share of both for the same reason, namely, that they are, in their proper interpretation, Calvinistic. Nor does this Confession express their views on Presbyterian Church government: for the Confession affirms the divine obligation of Presbyterianism, and the large body of American Methodists believe in the right of a voluntary episcopacy.'

THE SEMI-ANGLICAN DOCTRINES.

The Twenty-five Articles represent the doctrines which Methodism holds in common with other evangelical Churches, especially with the Church of England. They are an abridgment of the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, with a view to simplify and to liberalize them. Wesley omitted the political articles, which apply only to England, and those articles which are strongly Augustinian, especially Article 17, of Predestination (which teaches unconditional election to salvation and the perseverance of the elect), Art. 13, of Works before Justification (which are said to have the nature of sin), and Art. 8 (which indorses the three Creeds). On the other hand, Art. 10, of Free Will, which teaches (with Augustine, Luther, and Calvin) the natural inability of man to do good works without the grace of God, is literally retained (Meth. Art. 8).

Minor doctrinal changes were made in Art 2 (Art. 2), where the clauses 'begotten from everlasting of the Father,' and 'of her [the Virgin's] substance,' are omitted (either as doubtful or lying outside of a creed); [1699] in Art. 9 (7), where the last clauses, which affirm the continuance of original sin in the regenerate, are left out (as inconsistent with Wesley's view of perfection); in Art. 16 (12), where 'sin after justification' is substituted for 'sin after baptism' (to avoid the doctrine of baptismal regeneration); in Art. 25 (16), of the Sacraments, where the words 'sure witnesses and effectual,' before 'signs of grace,' are stricken out (which betrays a lowering of the doctrine of the Sacraments); in Art. 34 (22), where 'traditions of the Church' are changed into 'Rites and Ceremonies.'

These omissions and changes are significant, and entirely consistent with Methodism, but they are negative rather than positive. Wesley eliminated the latent Calvinism from the Thirty-nine Articles, but did not put in his Arminianism, nor his peculiar doctrines of the Witness of the Spirit and Christian Perfection, leaving them to be derived from other documents of his own composition.

THE ARMINIAN DOCTRINES.

The five points in which Arminius differed from the Calvinistic system are clearly and prominently brought out in Wesley's writings, though mostly in the form of popular and practical exposition and exhortation. He put the name of Arminius on his periodical organ, and struck the keynote to the Arminian tone of Methodist preaching. The Arminian features of Methodism are, freedom of the will (taken in the sense of liberum arbitrium, or power of contrary choice) as necessary to responsibility; self-limitation of divine sovereignty in its exercise and dealings with free agents; foreknowledge as preceding and conditioning foreordination; universality of redemption; resistibility of divine grace; possibility of total and final apostasy from the state of regeneration and sanctification.

Calvinism and Methodism agree in teaching man's salvation by God's free grace, in opposition to Pelagianism and Semipelagianism. But Calvinism traces salvation to the eternal purpose of God, and confines it to the elect; Methodism makes it dependent on man's free acceptance of that grace which is offered alike to all and on the same terms. Calvinism emphasizes the divine side, Methodism the human. [1700] Herein Methodism entirely agrees with Arminianism, and is even more emphatically opposed to the doctrines of absolute predestination, limited atonement, and the perseverance of saints than Arminius was, who left the last point undecided.

Wesley began the thunder against the imaginary horrors and blasphemies of Calvinism which has since resounded from innumerable Methodist pulpits. He defines predestination to be 'an eternal, unchangeable, irresistible decree of God, by virtue of which one part of mankind are infallibly saved, and the rest infallibly damned; it being impossible that any of the former should be damned, or that any of the latter should be saved;' and then he goes on to show that this doctrine makes all preaching useless; that it makes void the ordinance of God; that it tends directly to destroy holiness, meekness, and love, the comfort and happiness of religion, zeal for good works, and the whole Christian revelation; that it turns God into a hypocrite and deceiver; that it overturns his justice, mercy, and truth, and represents him 'as worse than the devil, more false, more cruel, and more unjust.' 'This,' he says, 'is the blasphemy clearly contained in the horrible decree of predestination, and for this I abhor it (however I love the persons who assert it).' To this decree he sets over the other decree, 'I will set before the sons of men life and death, blessing and cursing; and the soul that chooseth life shall live, as the soul that chooseth death shall die.' The elect are all those who 'suffer Christ to make them alive.' [1701]

The vehemence of this opposition to the doctrine of predestination must be explained in part from the subjective and emotional nature of Methodist piety, which exposes it much more to an antinomian abuse of this doctrine than is the case with the calm intellectual tendency, of Calvinism.

On the other hand, however, the 'evangelical' Arminianism of Wesley, as it is called, differs from the Dutch Arminianism, as developed by Episcopius and Limborch, and inclines as much towards Augustinianism as Arminianism inclines towards Pelagianism. In this respect it resembles somewhat the Lutheran anthropology of the Formula of Concord, though it differs altogether from its christology and sacramentalism.

1. Methodism holds a much stronger view of original sin than Arminianism, and regards it not simply as a disease or weakness, [1702] but as a total depravity that unfits man altogether for co-operation with the grace of God towards conversion. Wesley, Fletcher, and Watson describe this natural corruption in consequence of Adam's fall in the darkest colors, almost surpassing the descriptions of Augustine, Luther, and Calvin; but they deny the personal responsibility of Adam's posterity for his fall or the doctrine of original guilt; and herein they agree with the Arminians and the Quakers.

2. Methodism teaches the freedom of will as a gift of prevenient grace, which is given to every man as a check and antidote to original sin; while Arminianism, with its milder view of the fall, allows man a certain freedom of will in a weakened state as an inherent and inherited power of nature.

3. Methodism lays greater stress on the subjective experience of conversion and regeneration. Its preaching is essentially radical evangelistic revival preaching, which rouses the sinner to a sense of his danger, and the paramount necessity of an immediate, sudden, and radical change of heart and life.

THE ORIGINAL DOCTRINES OF METHODISM.

To these modifications of Arminianism must be added a few doctrines which Methodism claims as its own contributions to the better understanding of the Christian system.

1. The doctrine of the universality of divine grace, not only in its intention, but in its actual offer. Herein Methodism resembles the Quaker doctrine of universal light. It is assumed--on the ground of Paul's parallel between the first and second Adam (Rom. v.)--that all men are born into an order of saving grace, as well as into an order of sin. Adam brought a universal seed of death, but Christ brought a universal seed of life, which is available for all who do not reject it. [1703] For by virtue of the universal atonement, man, though born in sin, is held guiltless until he arrives at the point of personal responsibility.

While Romanism and Lutheranism save those only who are brought into contact with the Church and the Sacraments, Calvinism those only who are elect from eternity, Methodism brings the opportunity of salvation to all men in this present life, though in different forms and degrees, so that they are actually saved if they do not incur the guilt of rejecting salvation by unbelief. Hence all children are saved if they die before they commit actual sin. Though born in sin, they are not held guilty before the age of responsible agency. They are saved by the same power of the universal atonement which saves adults; though there is a difference of opinion as to the regeneration of infants before death. [1704] On the same ground all heathen may be saved who do not neglect their opportunities. Ability and opportunity are the measure of responsibility, and God requires no more from man than he empowers him to perform. Christ's atonement covers the deficiency of ability in the case of infants, and the deficiency of opportunity in the case of the heathen.

Fletcher distinguishes three dispensations in this general economy of grace: the dispensation of the Father, embracing the heathen and Mohammedans, who know God only from his general revelation in nature, providence, and the conscience; the dispensation of the Son, for those who live within the limits of Christendom and the reach of the gospel; and the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, for those who have an experimental knowledge of the regenerating and sanctifying Spirit. Wesley, Watson, and Pope teach essentially the same view of the universality of grace.

2. The next distinctive doctrine of Methodism is the Witness of the Spirit or the assurance of salvation (Rom. viii. 15, 16). It is a double and concurrent witness of God's Spirit and of our spirit concerning our justification. The former is objective and divine, and antecedes; the latter is subjective and human, and follows. The Holy Spirit bears testimony to our spirit that by faith we are the children of God. This testimony is immediate and direct, and follows the work of justification and regeneration. On the ground of this testimony the believer feels assured of his present acceptance with God, and has a hope of his final salvation, but he is at the same time guarded against carnal security by the fear of a total and final fall from grace. Hence there are so many backsliders, who constitute a special class among Methodists. [1705]

Herein the Methodist doctrine differs from the Calvinistic doctrine of assurance which is based, not on subjective feeling, but on the divine promises and the unchangeable decree of God's election, and which covers not only the present state, but the whole process to its final completion, conditioned by the perseverance of saints as the final test of genuine conversion. [1706]

3. The last and crowning doctrine of Methodism, in which the Quakers likewise preceded it, is Perfectionism. It is regarded as a mighty stimulus to progressive holiness, and forms the counterpart of the doctrine of apostasy, which acts as a warning against backsliding. It is derived from such passages as Matt. v. 48; Phil. iii. 15; Heb. vi. 1; x. 14; 1 John iii. 6; v. 18. Methodist perfection is not a sinless perfection or faultlessness, which Wesley denied, [1707] but a sort of imperfect perfection, from which it is possible to fall again temporarily or forever. [1708] It is entire sanctification or perfect love (1 John ii. 5; iv. 12), which every Christian may and ought to attain in this present life. From this state all voluntary transgressions or sinful volitions are excluded, though involuntary infirmities may and do remain; in this state all the normal qualities are possessed and enjoyed in their fullness. As to the attainment of perfection, it comes according to the prevailing view from gradual growth in grace, according to others by a special act of faith. [1709]

[1699] Emory, in his History of the Discipline, inserts the clause, 'begotten of everlasting from the Father,' as adopted in 1784, but omitted in 1786 and in later editions, perhaps by typographical error. A Methodist correspondent (Rev. D. A. Whedon) suggests to me that Wesley may have made a distinction between the eternal Sonship and the eternal Generation, and may have maintained the former, but questioned the latter as referring to the manner rather than the fact. Prof. Pope, the latest Methodist writer on Dogmatics, avoids this question as belonging to the transcendental mysteries (Christ. Theol. p. 272).

[1700] Dr. Warren, 1.c. p. 140, states the difference in an extreme form, which would subject Methodism to the charge of downright Pelagianism: 'Nach der Methodistischen Auffassung des Heilsverhältnisses Gottes und des Menschen hängt das Heil oder Nicht-Heil eines jeden Menschen lediglich von seinem eigenen freien Verhalten gegenüber den erleuchtenden, erneuernden und heiligenden Einwirkungen des heiligen Geistes ab. Verhält man sich gegenüber diesen Einwirkungen empfänglich, so wird man hier, und einst dort, selig werden; verschliesst man sein Herz gegen dieselben, so wird man hier, und auf ewig im Tode verbleiben. Mit dieser Grundanschauung hängen alle sonstigen Eigenthümlichkeiten des Methodismus, wie z. B. seine eigenthümliche Freiheitslehre, seine Betonung der Wirksamkeit des heiligen Geistes, seine Lehre von der christlichen Vollkommenheit, und dergleichen, eng zusammen. Seinem innersten Geist und Wesen nach ist er eine Auffassung des Christenthums vom Standpunkte der christlichen Vollkommenheit oder der völligen Liebe.'

[1701] Sermon liv., on Free Grace (Rom. viii. 32), preached at Bristol. It follows immediately after the eulogistic funeral discourse on the Calvinistic Whitefield. His brother Charles wrote a polemical poem on 'The Horrible Decree,' in which his poetic genius left him, as may be inferred from the following specimens:

'O Horrible Decree,

Worthy of whence it came!

Forgive their hellish blasphemy,

Who charge it on the Lamb.'

'To limit Thee they dare,

Blaspheme Thee to Thy face,

Deny their fellow-worms a share

In Thy redeeming grace.'

In another poem, on 'Predestination,' he prays:

'Increase (if that can be)

The perfect hate I feel

To Satan's Horrible Decree,

That genuine child of hell;

Which feigns thee to pass by

The most of Adam's race,

And leave them in their blood to die,

Shut out from saving grace.'

How infinitely superior to these polemical effusions is his genuine hymn:

'Jesus, lover of my soul,'

which a Calvinist may sing as heartily as a pious Methodist will join in his antagonist's (Toplady's):

'Rock of Ages, cleft for me.'

[1702] Episcopius calls the peccatum originis an infirmitas or calamitasor malum, but not a malum culpæ and malum poenæ. Limborch calls it malum naturale, not peccatum nostri respectu. See Winer, Comp. Symb. pp. 60 sqq.

[1703] 'No man living,' says Wesley, 'is without some preventing grace, and every degree of grace is a degree of life. There is a measure of free will supernaturally restored to every man, together with that supernatural light which enlightens every man that cometh into this world.' 'That by the offense of one, judgment came upon all men (all born into the world) unto condemnation, is an undoubted truth, and affects every infant as well as every adult person. But it is equally true that by the righteousness of One, the free gift came upon all men (all born into the world--infants and adults) unto justification.' D. D. Whedon (Biblioth. Sacra, 1862, p. 258): 'Under the redemptive system, the man is born into the world, from Adam, a depraved being. It is as a depraved being that he becomes an Ego. But instantly after, in the order of nature, he is met by the provisions of atonement.' 'Every human being,' says Warren, 'has a measure of grace (unless he has cast it away), and those who faithfully use this intrusted gift will be accepted of God in the day of judgment, whether Jew or Greek, Christian or heathen. In virtue of Christ's mediation between God and the fallen race, all men since the first promise, Gen. iii. 15, are under an economy of grace, and the only difference between them as subjects of the moral government of God is that, while all have grace and light enough to attain salvation, some, over and above this, have more and others less' (Vol. I. pp. 146 sq.). Pope (pp. 239-248) distinguishes this doctrine from the Augustinian, Pelagian, Semipelagian, Tridentine, Lutheran, Calvinistic, and Arminian, and says that there is no doctrine which 'so irresistibly and universally appeals for its confirmation to the common conscience and judgment of mankind.'

[1704] Dr. D. D. Whedon (Biblioth. Sacra, 1862, p. 258) remarks on this point: 'That the dying infant is saved, and saved by the atonement, we all agree. But his precise condition, as affected by the atonement, while a living infant, seems to be a somewhat undecided matter. Probably a large majority of the Methodist Episcopal Church have, for some time past, held, without much discussion, that the living infant was both unjustified and unregenerate, and yet upon his death he obtained both blessings. This making death the condition of justification and regeneration appears to many hardly logical, and not without danger. Mr. Wesley's earlier expressions of opinion indicated a holding of the churchly doctrine of baptismal regeneration in infancy. His later indications of opinion indicate that he held all infants to be members of the kingdom of heaven; and he also held that regeneration is a condition to membership in the kingdom of heaven; but he does not expressly draw the inference that all infants are regenerate. Fletcher maintained the doctrine both of infant justification and regeneration. Dr. Fisk held to infant justification. Our baptismal service first declares, in its Scripture lesson of infants, that "of such is the kingdom of God," and yet declares "that none can enter into the kingdom of God unless he be regenerate." But neither here is the inference expressly drawn. The subject is a matter of calm discussion, and perhaps the number of those holding the doctrine of infant regeneration has decidedly increased.'

[1705] Comp. the three sermons of Wesley on the Witness of the Spirit (x.-xii.), Vol. I. pp. 85 sqq. He traced this doctrine to his contact with some Moravians on his voyage to Georgia (1735), whose childlike trust and serene cheerfulness led him to exclaim: 'I, who went to America to convert others, was never myself converted to God.' He meant conversion from legal bondage to evangelical freedom and a sense of assurance of pardon. He subsequently visited Count Zinzendorf and the Moravians in Germany to study their discipline (1739). Watson (Vol. II. p. 271) distinguishes four views on the testimony of the Spirit, and thus states his own, which agrees with Wesley's: 'It is twofold; a direct testimony or "inward impression on the soul, whereby the Spirit of God witnesses to my spirit that I am a child of God; that Christ hath loved me, and given himself for me, that I, even I, am reconciled to God" (Wesley's Sermons); and an indirect testimony, arising from the work of the Spirit in the heart and life, which St. Paul calls the testimony of our own spirit; for this is inferred from his expression, "And the Spirit beareth witness with our spirit, etc." This testimony of our own spirit, or indirect testimony of the Holy Spirit by and through our own spirit, is considered confirmatory of the first testimony.' Pope (p. 465): 'Assurance is the fruit, not the essence of faith. . . .Perfect faith must be assured of its object. . . . The internal assurance of faith is a privilege that all may claim and expect; seasons of darkness and depression and uncertainty are only the trial of that faith of assurance.'

[1706] The Westminster Confession, Ch. XVIII., says that true believers 'may in this life be certainly assured that they are in a state of grace, and may rejoice in hope of the glory of God, which hope shall never make them ashamed.' This assurance is 'founded upon the divine truth of the promises of salvation, the testimony of the Spirit witnessing with our spirit that we are the children of God.' It is not of 'the essence of faith,' and may be 'shaken, diminished, and intermitted,' yet revived again in due time and keep us from utter despair.

[1707] In his sermons on Temptation, Vol. II. p. 215, and on Perfection, Vol. I. p. 356; Vol. II. p. 168: 'The highest perfection,' he says, 'which man can attain while the soul dwells in the body, does not exclude ignorance and error and a thousand infirmities.'

[1708] Meth. Catech. No. 3, p. 37: 'It is the privilege of every believer to be wholly sanctified, and to love God with all his heart in the present life; but at every stage of Christian experience there is danger of falling from grace, which danger is to be guarded against by watchfulness, prayer, and a life of faith in the Son of God.'

[1709] Wesley has two sermons on Christian Perfection, one on Phil. iii. 12 (Vol. I. p. 355), and one on Heb. vi. 1 (Vol. II. p. 167). He distinguishes, (1) angelic, (2) Adamic, (3) absolute perfection--all of which he denies to man in his present state--and (4) the relative perfection, which he claims for him under the gospel dispensation, namely, perfect love to God. From 1 John iii. 6 and v. 18, he reasons, 'A Christian is so far perfect as not to commit sin' (Vol. I. p. 365). He affirms that several persons have enjoyed this blessing of freedom from sin without interruption for many years, and not a few unto their death, as they have declared with their last breath (Vol. II. p. 174). Pope says (p. 527): 'The Spirit is imparted in this fullness for the perfect consecration of the soul to the Triune God: this is called the love of God perfected in us. The commandment requires from us in return the perfect love of the soul to God and man; and this perfection, promised to faith working by love, is abundantly attested as the possible and attained experience of Christians.' Pope distinguishes the Methodist theory of perfection from the ascetic, the fanatical, the Pelagian, the mystical, the Romanist, the imputationist (modern Calvinistic), and the Arminian (p. 535); and he mentions five characteristic marks of the Methodist doctrine, the chief of which is entire consecration to God in perfect love (p. 540).

WHITEFIELD.

George Whitefield labored with Wesley until 1741, when they parted on the question of predestination and free will; the former taking the Calvinistic, the latter, with his brother and the majority of Methodists, the Arminian side, and henceforth they pursued different paths, like Paul and Barnabas. Personally they became cordial friends again, and their friendship continued until death. This should not be forgotten when we read the bitter predestinarian controversy which their friends and followers carried on and renewed from time to time. When Whitefield heard of the dangerous illness of Wesley, who had already written his own epitaph, he sent him an affectionate letter (Dec. 3, 1753), saying, 'I pity myself and the Church, but not you. A radiant throne awaits you, and ere long you will enter into your Master's joy.' [1710] When Whitefield died in Newburyport (Sept. 30, 1770), Wesley preached his funeral sermon (Nov. 18) at Whitefield's Chapel in Tottenham Court Road and at the Tabernacle, near Moorfields, on the text Numb. xxiii. 10, 'Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!' Without alluding to their temporary separation, he speaks of him in the highest terms as an eminent instrument of God, who in the business of salvation put Christ; as high as possible, and man as low as possible, and who brought a larger number of sinners from darkness to the light than any other man. He praises his 'unparalleled zeal, his indefatigable activity, his tenderness of heart towards the afflicted, and charitableness to the poor, his deep gratitude, his most generous aud tender friendship, his modesty, frankness, patience, courage, and steadfastness to the end.' [1711]

Whitefield was free from sectarian spirit and cared little for organization. His sole purpose was to convert sinners to Christ, and to revive Churches to new zeal and energy. [1712] His labors were crowned with signal success. The day of judgment alone will reveal the number of his converts, and the amount of good which he kindled by his flaming sermons among Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and other denominations, as well as among the crowds of ungodly people who were attracted by his eloquence. [1713]

But although most of his converts fell in with existing denominations, a considerable number of them formed three separate organizations. One of them, called 'the Whitefield Methodists,' were lost among the Independents. The other two still remain.

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON'S CONNECTION.

Selina, Countess of Huntingdon (1707-1791), a lady of true nobility of heart and intellect as well as rank, devoted, after the death of her husband and four children, her time and fortune to the spread of vital religion among the nobility and the court as well as the common people. She purchased halls and theatres in London, Bristol, and Dublin, built over sixty chapels, supported ministers, founded a college at Trevecca, in Wales, and stirred up others to similar liberality. She dispensed with her luxurious equipage and sold even her jewels for the benefit of this work. She took Whitefield, with whose Calvinism she sympathized, under her special patronage, and made him her chaplain, and exercised a sort of leadership over his congregations. Hence they became known as the 'Countess of (or Lady) Huntingdon's Connection.

Whitefield bequeathed to the Countess his benevolent institutions and lands in Georgia, and this resulted in a mission to America.

The ministers of this connection are almost identical in doctrine and Church polity with the Independents, but in public worship they use to some extent the Anglican Liturgy. Their principal institution is Chesunt College, in Herts.

THE WELSH CALVINISTIC METHODISTS.

Literature

The History, Constitution, Rules of Discipline, and Confession of Faith of the Calvinistic Methodists in Wales. Drawn up by their own Associated Ministers. Third ed. Mold, 1840.

John Hughes: History of Welsh Methodism, (in Welsh). Liverpool, 1856, 3 vols.

William Williams: Welsh Calvinistic Methodism. An Historical Sketch (in English). London, 1872.

Whitefield's preaching through Wales, and the kindred labors of Howell Harris, of Trevecca, Griffith Jones, Daniel Rowlands, Howell Davies, and William Williams--most of them clergymen of the Established Church who joined the Methodists--produced a powerful and extensive revival, and resulted in a new connection in 1743, and more fully in 1785, when the Rev. Thomas Charles, of Bala, one of the most zealous and useful preachers of his day, joined it. [1714]

For many years the Welsh Methodists existed without a settled form of government or doctrinal confession.

In 1823 it was unanimously agreed at the Associations of Aberystwith and Bala to issue in the Welsh language such a document, together with a sketch of the origin and early history of the denomination. An English edition was published in 1827.

The Confession of Faith consists of forty-four chapters, and accords substantially in spirit and arrangement with the Westminster Confession, though it is far inferior to it in ability and accuracy.

The articles in which it differs from the Wesleyan scheme are Arts. V., XII., and XXXIV., which are as follows:

V.--Of the Decree of God.

God, from eternity, according to the counsel of his own will, and for the manifestation and exaltation of his glorious attributes, decreed all things which he should perform in time and to eternity, in the creation and governing of his creatures, and in the salvation of sinners of the human race; yet in such a manner that he is neither the Author of sin, nor does he force the will of his creatures in the fulfillment of his decree; and this decree of God is not depended on any thing in a creature, nor yet on the foreknowledge of God; but rather God knows that such and such circumstances will take place, because he has ordained that it should be so. God's decree is infinitely wise, perfectly righteous, and existing from eternity; it is a free, an ample, a secret, gracious, holy, good, an unchangeable and effectual decree.

XII.--Of the Election of Grace.

God from eternity elected and ordained Christ to be a Covenant Head, a Mediator, and a Surety to his Church; to redeem and to save it. God also elected in Christ a countless multitude out of every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, to holiness and everlasting life; and every means were employed to effect this purpose most securely. This election is eternal, righteous, sovereign, unconditional, peculiar or personal, and unchangeable. It wrongs none, though God has justly left some without being elected, yet he has not wronged them: they are in the same condition as if there had been no election; and had there been no election, no flesh had been saved.

XXXIV.--Of Perseverance in Grace.

Those whom God has made acceptable in the Beloved, whom he has effectually called, and whom the Spirit sanctifies, can not completely and forever fall from a state of grace, but they shall assuredly be supported unto the end, and they shall be saved. Their perseverance depends not on their own will, but on the unchangeableness of the purpose of God, the election of grace, the power of the Father's love, the sufficiency of the propitiation of Christ, the success of his intercession, union with him, the indwelling of the Spirit within them, the seed of God implanted in their souls, the nature and strength of the covenant, and the promise and oath of God. Founded on these things, perseverance is certain and unfailing. Though they may, through the temptations of Satan and the world, the great power of their indwelling corruption, and the neglect of using the means for their support, fall into sins, and remain in them for some time, and thus displease God, grieve the Holy Spirit, injure their grace, lose their comfort, harden their hearts, sting their consciences, draw a temporal judgment upon themselves, harm others, and disgrace the cause of God, yet they shall be kept by the power of God through faith to salvation, though their falls will be felt most bitterly by them.

Those who continue to live quietly in sin, and comfort themselves that they are in a gracious state, show evident signs that they are self-deceivers. For by perseverance in grace is not meant the continuing to enjoy and to inherit external Gospel privileges merely; but a continuance in holiness, diligence, watchfulness, a holy temper and walk, and a scrupulous observance of every duty. There is nothing more opposed to sin than a perseverance in grace; and whosoever shall thus continue in grace to the end shall be saved.

[1710] See the whole letter in Tyerman, J. Wesley, Vol. II. p. 175.

[1711] Sermon LIII. Vol. I. pp. 470 sqq.

[1712] In this unselfish zeal he has a worthy successor in our day in Mr. Moody.

[1713] 'Whitefield's preaching was such as England never heard before--theatrical, extravagant, often commonplace, but hushing all criticism by its intense reality, its earnestness of belief, its deep, tremulous sympathy with the sin and sorrow of mankind. It was no common enthusiast who could wring gold from the close-fisted Franklin and admiration from the fastidious Horace Walpole, or who could look down from the top of a green knoll at Kingswood on twenty thousand colliers, grimy from the Bristol coal-pits, and see as he preached the tears "making white channels down their blackened cheeks."'--Green, History of the English People, p. 718 (Engl. ed.). Dr. Abel Stevens, an Arminian Methodist, calls Whitefield 'the most eloquent, the most flaming preacher that the Christian Church has known since its apostolic age, whose eloquence sanctified, wakened the whole British empire' (Centenary of Amer. Methodism, p. 24).

[1714] Charles graduated at Oxford as A.B. in 1778, labored seven years as a clergyman of the Established Church, united himself with the Calvinistic Methodists in 1785, and drew up in 1790 a series of Rules for conducting Associations or Quarterly Meetings. He was one of the founders of the British and Foreign Bible Society.

Literature.

I. Sources.

Edward Irving: Works, collected and edited by his nephew, the Rev. G. Carlyle. London, 1864-65, 5 vols.

Michael Hohl: Bruchstücke aus dem Leben und den Schriften E. Irving's. St. Gallen, 1839; 2d ed. 1850.

Mrs. M. O. W. Oliphant: The Life of Edward Irving, Minister of the National Scotch Church, London, illustrated by his Journals and Correspondence. London and New York (Harpers), 1862.

A Testimony to the King of England, and another to the Bishops of England. London, 1836. (Anonymous. Prepared by the Apostles.)

A Testimony addressed to all Patriarchs, Archbishops, and Bishops, and the Reigning Sovereigns of Christendom. 1837. (Anonymous.)

Liturgy and other Divine Offices of the Church. London, 1842. Drawn up by the 'Apostles,' and enlarged from time to time.

C. M. Carré: The First and Last Days of the Church of Christ. London, 1851.

Readings upon the Liturgy. (By one of the Apostles.) London, 1852.

The Catechism. (The English Episcopal Catechism enlarged.)

Thomas Carlyle (one of the Apostles): The Door of Hope for Britain, and The Door of Hope for Christendom. London, 1853. By the same: Apostles Given, Lost, Restored: Pleadings with my Mother.

Rev. William Dow (one of the Apostles, originally a Scotch Presbyt.): First Principles of the Doctrine of Christ. Edinb. 1856. By the same: A Series of Discourses on practical and Doctrinal Subjects. Edinb. 1853; 2d series, Edinb. 1860.

Rev. J. S. Davenport: Edward Irving and the Catholic Apostolic Church. New York, 1863. By the same: Christian Unity and its Recovery. New York, 1866. By the same: Letter to Bishop Whitehouse: The Church and the Episcopate. Montreal, 1873.

W. W. Andrews: The True Constitution of the Church and its Restoration. New York, 1854. By the same: Review of Mrs. Oliphant's Life of E. Irving, in the 'New-Englander' for July and Oct. 1863. By the same: The Catholic Apostolic Church, its History, Organization, Doctrine, and Worship, in the 'Bibliotheca Sacra' for Jan. and April, 1866. Andover, Mass. By the same: The True Marks of the Church. Hartford, 1867.

Rev. Nicholas Armstrong (one of the Apostles): Sermons on Various Subjects. 2d ed. London, 1870. By the same: Homilies on the Epistles and Gospels. London, 1870.

Rev. T. Groser: Sermons, 1st and 2d series. London, 1871 and 1874.

Apostles' Doctrine and Fellowship. Anonymous. London, 1871.

The Purpose of God in Creation and Redemption. Anonymous. 4th ed. Edinburgh, 1874.

Readings for the Sundays and Holydays of the Church's Year. Anonymous. London, 1875.

The Dispensation of the Parousia. Hartford, 1876.

Various writings of Henry Drummond (one of the Apostles), Chas. Böhm, C. Rothe, A. Köppen, Ernst Gaab, Rosstäuscher (author of an essay 'On the Gift of Tongues,' and a history of the movement under the title Der Aufbau der Kirche Christi auf den ursprünglichen Grundlagen), and especially H. W. J. Thiersch (the Tertullian of this modern Montanism, and its most learned minister in Germany, who wrote Lectures on Catholicism and Protestantism, 1848, on the Canon of the N. T., 1845, on the Church in the Apostolic Age, 1852, and other excellent works).

II. Criticisms.

De Quincey, in Literary Reminiscences, Vol. II.

Thomas Carlyle, in 'Fraser's Magazine' for Jan. 1835.

Articles on Irving in 'Edinburgh Review' for Oct. 1862; 'North British Review' for Aug. 1862; 'Blackwood's Magazine' for Nov. 1858, and June, 1862; 'London Quarterly Review' for Oct. 1862; 'Methodist Quarterly Review,' Jan. 1849, 1863.

Philip Schaff: Der Irvingismus und die Kirchenfrage, in his 'Deutscher Kirchenfreund,' Jahrg. III. 1850, pp. 49 sqq, 81 sqq. 161 sqq. 223 sqq. Mercersburg, Pa.

G. W. Lehmann: Ueber die Irvingianer. Hamburg, 1853.

Comp. J. L. Jacobi: Die Lehre der Irvingiten oder der sogenannten apostolischen Gemeinde verglichen mit der heiligen Schrift. Berlin, 1868.

EDWARD IRVING.

Edward Irving, the herald and pioneer of the 'Catholic Apostolic Church,' was born at Annan, in Scotland, 1792, and died in the vigor of manhood at Glasgow, Dec. 8, 1834, where he lies buried in the crypt of the cathedral. He belonged to the Presbyterian Church, and for several years (1819-1822) labored in Glasgow as the assistant of the great and good Dr. Chalmers.

In 1822 he accepted a call to the Caledonian Chapel, Hatton Garden, London, and at once became the most powerful and popular preacher of the metropolis. He was at that time overflowing with bodily and spiritual life and energy. He excelled in the noblest gifts of eloquence, cultivated on the models of Hooker and Jeremy Taylor. Lofty thoughts clothed in gorgeous, semi-poetic language, devotional fervor, a solemn manner, a sonorous voice, a quaint antique style, a broad Scotch accent, an imposing figure, bushy hair flowing down in ringlets, a beaming face (which reminded Sir Walter Scott of that of the Saviour on Italian pictures), all combined to attract large and intelligent audiences, and to secure their closest attention, as if they listened to a messenger from the presence of the great Jehovah. De Quincey judged him to be, more than any man he ever saw, 'a son of thunder, and unquestionably by many degrees the greatest orator of our times.' He attracted people from all classes--noblemen, statesmen, and authors. When on a visit to Edinburgh and Glasgow, he roused the population at sunrise from their beds to hear his discourses. He shook the kingdom with his eloquence.

While he ruled like a monarch from his pulpit, he was a docile pupil of Coleridge, and received from the suggestive conversations of the old sage seeds of truth which seriously modified his Scotch Calvinistic creed. He now made more account of the incarnation and the true humanity of Christ, maintaining that he assumed our fallen, i.e., temptable, mortal, corruptible nature, yet without sin itself, into complete fellowship with his divine person. This exposed him to the charge of denying the sinlessness of our Saviour, which was far from his thoughts. He also gave a large place to the hope of the glorious return of Christ, and the revival of the miraculous gifts of the Spirit in the Church.

In these views he was greatly strengthened by the sudden reappearance of what he believed to be the supernatural gifts of tongues, prophesying, and healing. These manifestations first occurred in the spring of 1830 in the west of Scotland, on the shores of the Clyde, among some pious Presbyterian men and women, who believed that their organs of speech were made use of by the Spirit of God for the utterance of his thoughts and intentions. Several persons from London, on hearing of these things, visited Scotland, and, on their return, held prayer-meetings in private houses, attended by devout members of different denominations. They united in supplications for the restoration of spiritual gifts. In April, 1831, the same manifestations took place among members of the Church of England and friends of Irving in London. The 'prophesyings' were addressed to the audience in intelligible English, and resembled the solemn exhortations of Quakers moved by the Spirit. The speaking in tongues consisted of soliloquies of the speaker, or dialogues between him and God which no one could understand. The burden of the prophetic utterances was the judgments impending on the apostate Church, the speedy coming of Christ, and the duty of preparing his way. [1715]

Similar manifestations of ecstatic utterances in seasons of powerful religious excitement appeared among the Montanists in the second century, the persecuted Protestants in France, called the 'Prophets of Cevennes,' and among the early Quakers.

These extraordinary proceedings naturally led to a rupture between Irving and the Presbytery of London (1832). He was turned out of the church built for him in Regent Square, and ultimately deposed from the ministry of the Church of Scotland by the Presbytery of Annan (1833), from which he had received his first license to preach.

On being driven from Regent Square, he was followed by the larger part of his congregation to Newman Street; and the following year, when his Presbyterian orders had been taken from him, he humbly submitted to reordination by one whom he received as an apostle. He never rose beyond the position of an 'angel,' or pastor, in the new Church, and, after less than two years of great labors and sufferings, passed from this world of trial into the regions of light.

He is little mentioned in the writings of his followers, and is regarded by them merely as a forerunner or John the Baptist, not as the founder of their community. His brilliant meteoric career, lofty character, and sad end created profound interest and sympathy. Dr. Chalmers, on hearing of his death, said that 'he was one in whom the graces of the humble Christian were joined to the virtues of the old Roman.' Thomas Carlyle, his countryman and early friend, thus characterizes Irving: 'He was appointed a Christian priest, and strove with the whole force that was in him to be it. I call him, upon the whole, the best man I have ever, after trial enough, found in this world, or now hope to find.' [1716]

THE CATHOLIC APOSTOLIC CHURCH.

This remarkable man, whose purity and piety can be as little doubted as his genius and eloquence, whatever may be thought of his soundness and judgment, gave the strongest if not the first impulse to the religious movement which, since its organization, is usually called after his name, but which calls itself 'The Catholic Apostolic Church.' [1717] It took full shape and form after his death, as it claims, under supernatural direction. It is one of the unsolved enigmas of Church history: it combines a high order of piety and humility of individual members with astounding assumptions, which, if well founded, would require the submission of all Christendom to the authority of its inspired apostles.

The modern 'Apostolic' Church believes and teaches that the Lord, who will soon appear in glory, has graciously restored, or at least begun to restore his one true Church, by reviving the primitive supernatural offices and gifts, which formed the bridal outfit of the apostolic age, but were soon afterwards lost or marred by the ingratitude and unbelief of Christendom. It claims to have apostles, prophets, and evangelists for the general care of the Church, and angels (or bishops), presbyters (or priests), and deacons for the care of particular congregations. All officers are called by the Holy Ghost through the voice of the prophets, except the deacons, who are chosen by the congregation as its representatives. They form a more complete hierarchy than that of the Episcopal or even the Greek and Roman Churches, whose bishops never claimed to be inspired apostles, but only successors of the apostles.

If the twelve modern apostles were truly called by Christ and endowed with all the powers and functions of that unique office, men will naturally look for sufficient evidence of the fact. But nine of these apostles died before 1876, and their vacancies have not been filled, nor are they expected to be filled. The Church, then, is relapsing into the same destitute condition which, according to their own theory, preceded this movement. [1718] Their only hope is in the speedy return of our Lord.

To this apostolic hierarchy corresponds a highly ritualistic worship, with a solemn liturgy, based upon the Anglican and ancient Greek liturgies, and with an elaborate symbolism, derived from a fanciful interpretation of the Jewish tabernacle as a type of the worship of the Christian Church in the wilderness.

In this hierarchical constitution and ritualistic worship consists the chief peculiarity of this community. Its ministers and members have accordingly a very high idea of the Church and of the Sacraments. They are strict believers in baptismal regeneration and the real presence, though neither in the Roman nor the Lutheran sense. They reject transubstantiation and consubstantiation as well as the merely symbolical presence, and hold to the spiritual real presence of Calvin, but combine with it the view of Irenæus and other early fathers, that the elements, after being consecrated by the invocation of the Holy Ghost, have a heavenly and spiritual, as well as a material character, and are antitypes of the body and blood of Christ. They regard the eucharist as the centre of Christian worship, and not only as a sacrament, but also as a sacrifice in the patristic sense of a thank-offering, and they connect with it a commemoration of the departed. They are, upon the whole, the highest of High-Churchmen. They are in this respect the very antipodes of the Plymouth Brethren, the lowest of Low-Churchmen and the most independent of Independents, although both agree in their antagonism to the historical Churches and their expectation of the speedy coming of the Lord.

Yet, on the other hand, the Irvingites are unquestionably Protestant, and accept the positive results of the Reformation. They reject the Pope, not indeed as the Antichrist or 'the man of sin,' who will be revealed in the last times as the outgrowth of unbelief and lawlessness, but as an antichristian usurper of supreme authority in the Church. In their general belief they are as orthodox as any other denomination. They receive the whole Scriptures with devout reverence as their supreme guide. They lay stress on the oecumenical creeds, and embody them in their liturgical services. In catechetical instruction they use the Anglican Catechism, with an additional part inculcating their peculiar views about the constitution and order of the Christian Church. They manifest a catholic spirit, and sustain, as individuals, fraternal relations with members of other denominations. Upon the whole, they have most sympathy with the Episcopal Church, from which they received the majority of their original members. Of their apostles, eight were Anglicans (including two clergymen and two members of Parliament), three Presbyterians, and one Independent. Their main strength is in London, where they have seven churches, after the model of the seven churches in Asia Minor. They have also congregations in many of the principal cities in England and Scotland, and in some parts of the Continent of Europe, especially North Germany; while in Roman Catholic countries and in America they have made little or no progress.

The Irvingite movement has directed the attention of many serious minds to a deeper study of the supernatural order and outfit of the Apostolic Church, the divisions and reunion of Christendom, and the eschatological questions connected with the second advent.

STATEMENT OF THE REV. W. W. ANDREWS.

With these remarks we introduce a fuller inside account of the Catholic Apostolic Church, which was kindly prepared for this work by the Rev. W. W. Andrews, of Wethersfield, Conn. He has been thoroughly acquainted with the movement from the beginning, and is highly esteemed by all who know him as a Christian gentleman and scholar:

'The body of Christians who call themselves by the name of the Catholic Apostolic Church, not as exclusively their own, but because it is the proper designation of the one Catholic Church, is distinguished from all other Christian communions by the claim to the possession of gifts and ministries which, after having been long lost or suspended in their exercise, they believe to be now again restored to prepare the way for the coming and kingdom of the Lord.

History.

'The history of this religious movement can be given in few words. About the beginning of the second quarter of the present century, there was much prayer in many countries, but especially in Great Britain, for the outpouring of the Holy Ghost; and early in the year 1830 supernatural manifestations occurred in several parts of Scotland, in devout members of the Presbyterian Church, in the form of tongues, prophesyings, and healings. The following year similar manifestations took place in London, first in members of the Church of England, and afterwards among other religious bodies.

'Towards the end of the year 1832, by which time the supernatural character and divine origin of these spiritual phenomena had been abundantly attested, and a considerable number of persons had become believers, another and most important step was taken in the restoration of the apostolic office. The will of God that certain men should serve him as apostles was made known through supernatural utterances of the Holy Ghost by prophets, as when, at Antioch, he said, "Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them." The apostolate to the Gentiles, begun in the calling of Paul, but then left unfinished, the Lord now, at the end of the dispensation, set his hand to restore; and by the middle of the year 1835 the full number was completed, and they entered as a twelvefold Apostolic College on the work of caring for the whole Christian Church. As Great Britain had been chosen of God to be the centre of this catholic movement, one of the first duties laid upon the restored apostles was the preparing of a Testimony to the Bishops of the Church of England and Ireland, and of another to the King's Privy Council, in which they pointed out the sins and perils of those lands, and testified to the coming of the Lord as the only hope of mankind, and to the work of the Holy Ghost as the necessary means of preparation.

'A year or two later, they addressed a more full and complete testimony, of the same general character, to all the Rulers in Church and State throughout Christendom. They did this, because it was their duty, from the nature of their office, to seek the blessing of the whole flock of God. Apostles alone have universal jurisdiction, as they alone receive their commission directly from the Lord; and it belonged to them, when restored towards the close of the long history of the Church, to take up those questions in respect to doctrine, organization, and worship which had broken the unity of Christendom; and having examined the creeds and rites and usages of every part, to separate the evil from the good, and to stamp with their apostolic authority every fragment of divine truth and order which had been preserved. This they have been doing for more than forty years, and the results to which they have arrived may be thus briefly stated.

Doctrines.

'They hold the holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments (the Old Testament as received from the Jews, without the Apocrypha) to contain the sum and substance of all divine revelations, and therefore to be the supreme and infallible standard of doctrine.

'But they also believe that Christ's promise to be with his Church to the end of the world has not been made void, and that the Holy Spirit has borne a living witness to the one faith in all generations; and they have adopted the three great creeds commonly called the Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian, as expressing more clearly than any others the belief of the Universal Church. The great doctrines of the holy Trinity, the incarnation, the atoning death and bodily resurrection of the Lord, his ascension and high priestly work in heaven, the descent of the Holy Ghost to draw men to Christ, and to regenerate, sanctify, and endow with heavenly gifts them that believe, together with the second personal coming of the Lord to judge the quick and the dead, and to administer eternal retributions, they hold in their plain and obvious import, in harmony with the whole Orthodox Church, Greek, Roman, and Protestant.

'These creeds they have appointed to be used in divine worship: the Apostles', at the daily morning and evening services; the Nicene, in the ordinary celebrations of the eucharist on the Lord's Day; and the Athanasian, four times in the year, at the great festivals of Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and All-Saints. They use the Nicene Creed in the form in which the Western Church receives it, retaining the Filioque, but not condemning the Eastern Church for using it in the form in which it was left by the Council of Constantinople.

'In respect to the great central truth of the incarnation, the key to all the purposes and works of God, they teach that the second Person in the adorable Godhead, the only and eternally begotten Son, became man by assuming our entire humanity--body, soul, and spirit --under the conditions of the fall, but without sin, through the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost. They reject, therefore, the dogma of the immaculate conception of the mother of the Lord as against the truth of holy Scripture, which declares the whole human race to have been involved in the fall of the first Adam. They teach that by being born of a mother of the fallen race, he took the common nature of man, with all its infirmities, burdens, and liabilities, so that he could be tempted in all points like as we are, and be dealt with in all things by the Father as the representative of mankind. But they also make prominent the work of the Holy Ghost in effecting the incarnation, holding that it was through his presence and power that the Son of God was conceived of the Virgin Mary, and afterwards anointed for his public ministry; so that while it was a divine person who became incarnate, he had no advantage of his Godhead in his earthly life, but did every thing as man upheld, guided, and energized by the Holy Ghost.

'They hold, with the Church of England, and all the great leaders of the Reformation, that the death of the Lord Jesus Christ was "a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world" (and not merely for those of the elect); and on this ground they stand aloof both from the rationalism which denies its vicarious and expiatory nature, and from the Roman doctrine of the mass, which teaches that the sacrifice of the cross needs to be supplemented by the sacrifices of the eucharist, in which the Lamb of God is continually immolated afresh.

'But they go beyond the theology of the Reformation in respect to the Church, which they look upon as the fruit of the death and resurrection of Christ, and of the descent of the Holy Ghost which followed his ascension; and as differing, therefore, fundamentally in its spiritual essence and prerogatives from all the companies of the faithful in the preceding dispensations. They believe that in rising from the dead he became the fountain of a new life, the head of a redeemed humanity, of which those who believe in him are made partakers by the operations of the Holy Ghost working in and through the ordinances of his Church. The Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper are the divinely appointed means of conveying and nourishing this new life of his resurrection, by the implanting and energizing of which the whole multitude of the faithful are made to be the One Body of Christ.

'As to the structure and endowments of the Church, they hold that its original constitution contains the abiding law for all generations. The fourfold ministry of apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors, first fulfilled by the Lord himself when upon earth, was continued in his Church after he had gone into heaven, because it was the necessary instrumentality of conveying his manifold grace and blessing, and of bringing his Body to the stature of his fullness (Eph. iv. 11-16). The Holy Ghost was given to be the permanent possession of his people; and the apostles reject the common distinction between ordinary and extraordinary gifts as wholly unscriptural, and as restraining the manifestations of the Spirit. They lay great stress upon the connection of the descent of the Comforter with the glorifying of the Lord Jesus (John vii. 39), and teach that the object of his mission was to reveal the glory and manifest the energies of the Man whom God had exalted from the weakness and dishonor of the grave to his own right hand. Supernatural gifts and miraculous workings are therefore in accordance with the nature of the dispensation, which began with the resurrection of the Lord, and is to end with the resurrection of his saints.

Worship.

'Its chief features are the celebration of the Eucharist on every Lord's day; services at six in the morning and five in the evening of every day in the year, requiring for their complete fulfillment the three ministries of angel, priests, and deacons; the observance of the great feasts of the Church, excluding those in honor of particular saints; and a monthly service by the seven churches in London gathered into one as a symbol of the Universal Church, which is also observed in all the congregations throughout the world.

'The holy Eucharist is made to be the centre of worship, of which Christ, the great High-Priest in the heavens, is the leader, and the Mosaic ritual the shadow and type. The showing to the Father of that one sacrifice of the cross, which is the basis of all intercession, is effected by the Lord himself, by his own bodily presence in heaven; and the Church is enabled to do the same upon the earth by means of that sacrament in which he places in her hands the symbols and spiritual reality of his body and blood. The eucharist is regarded as the antitype of the priestly act of Melchizedek in bringing forth bread and wine to Abraham, the father of the faithful, from whom he received the tenth of all; and in the offertory, both the tithes and the offerings of the people are brought up and presented to God as an act of worship.

'As the death of the cross was itself the fulfillment of all the bloody sacrifices of the Law, the commemoration of it in the holy Supper becomes the distinguishing Christian rite, from which all other acts of worship, especially the daily morning and evening services--the antitype of the daily services of the Tabernacle--derive their life and power. All the purest and most catholic parts of all the rituals of Christendom have been gathered up and woven together, to form, with such additions as the present exigencies of the Church demand, a comprehensive and organic system of worship, at once purely Scriptural, and embodying the richest liturgical treasures of the past. Among the errors and superstitions which have been weeded out are transubstantiation, the worship of the Virgin Mary and of saints and angels, the use of images and pictures, and prayers for deliverance from purgatorial fires. But in rejecting the corruption of the truth, the truth itself has not been cast away; and the doctrine of the real presence (as a spiritual mystery involving no physical change of the elements), the thankful and reverential mention of the Mother of the Lord ("And with the holy angels, and with thy Church in all generations, we call her blessed"), and continual supplications and intercessions in behalf of the faithful departed, that they "may rest in the peace of God, and awake to a joyful resurrection," all have place in the services appointed by the apostles.

Organization and Unity of the Church.

'The unity of the Church is held as a fundamental fact, resulting from the acts and operations of God, and not from the agreements and confederacies of men. There is one Body of Christ, embracing all who have been baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost (though, like the unfruitful branches of the vine, many may at last be cut out and cast away); and, in the absence of the Head, the harmonious intercommunion of the members is secured by the inworking of the One Spirit, and by a ministry proceeding immediately from the Head, and having jurisdiction over all the parts. The distinction between the Church Universal and the local or particular churches which compose it, is sharply drawn in the organization which has been developed under the rule of the apostles. The apostles themselves are the great Catholic ministry, through which guidance and blessing are conveyed to the whole body, and they are assisted in their work by prophets, evangelists, and pastors.

'But each particular church, when fully organized, is under the rule of an angel, or chief pastor or bishop, with presbyters and deacons helping him in their subordinate places. It is his office to stand continually at his own altar at the head of his flock, carrying on the worship of God, cherishing and directing the gifts of the Holy Ghost, and exercising the pastoral charge over all the souls committed to his care. The threefold ministry of Episcopacy (and, in a lower form, of Presbyterianism) is here united with the central authority which Rome has wrongfully sought to attain by exalting her bishop to the place of universal headship.

The Second Coming.

'In respect to eschatology, they hold, with the Church of the first three centuries, that the second coming of the Lord precedes and introduces the millennium; at the beginning of which the first resurrection takes place, and at the close the general resurrection, with the final judgment and its eternal retributions to the righteous and the wicked. This period of a thousand years will be marked by the presence of the Lord and his risen and translated saints upon or in near proximity to the earth, then freed, at least partially, from the curse; by the re-establishment of the tribes of Israel in their own land, in fulfillment of the promises to their fathers, with Jerusalem rebuilt, to be the metropolitan centre of blessing to all nations; and by the bringing of all the families of mankind into the obedience and order and blessedness of the kingdom of God.

'The restoration of the primitive gifts and ministries, like the ministries of Noah and of John the Baptist at the close of the antediluvian and Jewish dispensations, is to prepare for the ushering in of this next stage of God's actings. The order of events is to be as follows: The immediate and special work of the apostles is to gather and make ready a company of first-fruits, described (Rev. vii. 1-8) as sealed with the seal of the living God--the gift of the Holy Ghost bestowed by the hands of the apostles (Eph. i. 13; Acts xix. 1-5)--and as organized after a twelvefold law, of which the type was given in the structure of the twelve tribes of Israel. They are sealed while the angels are holding back the winds of judgment, before the great tribulation (Rev. vii. 14) is let loose upon the earth, that in them the Lord's words may be fulfilled, and they be counted worthy to escape all the things that are coming to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man (Luke xxi. 36).

'But the taking away of the first-fruits is only the first stage of the mighty work to be done in the bringing of this dispensation to a close. It is to be followed by the revelation of the Man of Sin, the infidel Antichrist, who will be successfully resisted for a time by the two witnesses (Rev. xi. 3-12), but will at length prevail over them, and for a short time rule the nations with the tyrannizing power and lurid splendors of the pit. In the midst of the terrors of that great tribulation the harvest will be reaped, and all the faithful gathered into the garner of the great Husbandman; and thereupon will be the vintage of wrath (Rev. xiv. 15-20), and the Lord will come forth to tread the wine-press of his Father's indignation, and to cast the beast and the false prophet into the lake of fire.

Prospects.

'They regard the failure of their labors to gather the Churches of Christendom into their communion as being after the analogy of the failures at the close of all preceding dispensations, and as furnishing no argument against the reality of their divine mission.

'The apostles do not, therefore, expect to have a large following at this stage of God's work. As a sheaf of first-fruits to the harvest, such will be the relation of the few who receive their testimony to the great multitude who will be saved out of the fiery trial of the time of the Antichrist. Nor does their faith fail because many of their brethren have been taken away by death, and it has pleased God to leave their places unfilled; for they look upon this as an indication that their present work is nearly finished, and that the Lord will soon take those who shall be found ready, to stand with him upon Mount Zion, safe in his hiding-place, while he pours out the vials of his wrath upon the earth. It would seem that the two apostolates at the beginning and the end of the dispensation form the company of the four-and-twenty elders who sit on thrones around the throne of the great King (Rev. iv. 4), partakers of his dominion, and associated with him in his work of judgment and rule.

Relation to other Churches.

'This brief statement of the position and doctrines of the "Catholic Apostolic Church" shows the grounds of their refusal to be called by any other name than belongs to the whole community of the baptized. They are a part of the one Church, differing from their brethren in being gathered under the proper ministries of the Church universal, and in being organized according to the original law of the Church as defined by St. Paul when speaking of the Body of Christ (1 Cor. xii.). They hold the one faith, the one hope, and the one baptism; and, without departing from the exact and literal teachings of the New Testament, they have added to these the larger statements of truth which have been the fruits of God's presence with his Church through all her generations.

'Having its origin among the Protestant Churches, and retaining all the great truths pertaining to the cross of Christ, for which the Reformation was a noble and successful struggle, this Catholic work has laid under contribution the rich stores of the Greek and Roman communions, and is leading the Church on into still deeper knowledge of the purposes of God contained in holy Scripture, by means of the living ministers of Christ and the revelations of the Holy Ghost, to the end of preparing her as a bride for the marriage of the Lamb.'

[1715] See A Brief Account of a Visit to some of the Brethren in the West of Scotland, London, 1831 (J. Nisbet); Robert Baxter (first a believer in the divine origin and then in the satanic origin of these gifts): Narrative of Facts characteristic of the Supernatural Manifestations in Members of Mr. Irving's Congregation and other Individuals, in England and Scotland, and formerly in the Writer himself, Lond. (Nisbit), 1833; Hohl, 1.c. (quoted in my Hist. of the Apost. Ch. § 55, p. 198). Comp. also Stanley, Comment. on the Epp. to the Corinthians, 4th ed. London, 1876, pp. 250 sqq.

[1716] When he adds, 'Oh foulest Circean draught, thou poison of popular applause! madness is in thee, and death; thy end is Bedlam and the grave,' he seems to cast a reflection on Irving's character which is not justified by facts; for Mrs. Oliphant's Life shows him to have willingly sacrificed popularity to his convictions.

[1717] 'They do not lay claim to the name Catholic Apostolic as exclusively their own, but they use it as a proper designation of the one body of Christ, of which they are an organic part, and they refuse to be called by any other. They do this on the ground that it is wrong to affix to the Church the name of an eminent leader, like Luther or Calvin or Wesley; or one founded upon some feature of Church polity, such as Episcopal, Presbyterian, or Congregational; or one derived from some peculiar doctrine or rite, as Baptist or Free-will Baptist; or one expressing geographical limitations, such as Roman, Greek, Anglican, or Moravian. The essential characteristic of a thing should be expressed by its name, and the Church has for its three chief features, Unity, as the only organism of which Christ is head; Catholicity, as having a universal mission; and Apostolicity, as sent by Christ into the world, even as he was sent by the Father. It is a significant fact that this name, adopted in the Nicene Creed, has practically every where been changed, as into the Roman Catholic, the Greek Orthodox, the Protestant Episcopal, or something still narrower and more sectarian.'--W. W. Andrews, in Biblioth. Sacra, 1.c.

[1718] From a conversation with a learned minister of that Church, to whom I mentioned this difficulty, I infer that he at least--I do not know how many more--regards its testimony as a partial failure, or merely as a temporary provision, to be superseded by a better one. Another writes to me in answer to the same question: 'We are quite ready to admit failure, great failure, so far as to the present effects of the movement upon Christendom. But intrinsically, and in relation to God's plans, we do not think it a failure.'

Literature.

Report of the Proceedings of the Conference, held at Freemasons' Hall, London, from August 19th to September 2d inclusive, 1846. Published by Order of the Conference. London (Partridge & Oakey, Paternoster Row), 1847.

Comp. also the Proceedings of the Seven General Conferences of the Alliance, held at London, 1851, Paris, 1855, Berlin, 1857, Geneva, 1861, Amsterdam, 1867, New York, 1873, and Basle, 1879, all published in English, some also in the German, French, Dutch, and other languages.

The General Conference of New York, the first held on American soil, was the most important, and its proceedings (published by Harper & Brothers, N. Y. 1874) form an interesting panoramic view of the intellectual and spiritual state of the Christian world at that time.

CHARACTER AND AIM OF THE ALLIANCE.

The 'Evangelical Alliance' is not an ecclesiastical organization, and has, therefore, no authority to issue and enforce an ecclesiastical creed or confession of faith. It is a voluntary society for the manifestation and promotion of Christian union, and for the protection of religious liberty. Its object is not to bring about an organic union of Churches, nor a confederation of independent Churches, but to exhibit, and to strengthen union and co-operation among individual members of different Protestant denominations without interfering with their respective creeds and internal affairs. It aims to realize the idea of such a Christian union as is consistent with denominational distinctions and varieties in doctrine, worship, and government. It may ultimately lead to a closer approximation of the Churches themselves, but it may and does exist without ecclesiastical union; and ecclesiastical union would be worthless without Christian union. It is remarkable that our Lord, in his sacerdotal prayer, which is the magna charta of Christian union, makes no reference to the Church or to any outward organization. The communion of saints has its source and centre in their union with Christ, and this reflects his union with the Father.

The Alliance extends to all nationalities and languages, but is confined, so far, to Christians who hold what is understood to be the Scriptural or evangelical system of faith as professed by the Churches of the Reformation and their legitimate descendants. It thus embraces Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, Methodists, Moravians, and other orthodox Protestants, but it excludes Roman and Greek Catholics on the one hand, and the antitrinitarian Protestants on the other. The Quakers, though unwisely excluded by Art. IX., are in full sympathy with one of the two chief objects of the Alliance--the advocacy of religious liberty.

THE CONFERENCE OF 1846.

The call to the London Conference of 1846 for the formation of an Evangelical Alliance against infidelity was sufficiently liberal to encourage all orthodox Protestants to attend without doing any violence to their confessional conscience. But the High-Church elements, from aversion to miscellaneous ecclesiastical company, kept aloof, and left the enterprise in the hands of the evangelical Low-Church and Broad-Church ranks of Protestantism. The meeting was overwhelmingly English, and controlled by Episcopalians, Scotch Presbyterians, and English Dissenters. Next to them, America was best represented, and exerted the most influence. The delegation from the Continent was numerically small, but highly respectable. The whole number of attendants was over eight hundred ministers and laymen, from about fifty distinct ecclesiastical organizations of Protestant Christendom, among them many scholars and ministers of the highest Christian standing in their respective Churches and countries. Those who took the most active part in the proceedings were Sir Culling Eardley Smith (President), E. Bickersteth, B. W. Noel, W. M. Bunting, J. Angell James, Dr. Steane, Wm. Arthur, T. Binney, O. Winslow, Andrew Reed, of England; Norman Macleod, W. Cunningham, W. Arnot, R. Buchanan, James Begg, James Henderson, Ralph Wardlaw, of Scotland; Drs. Samuel H. Cox, Lyman Beecher, W. Patton, Robert Baird, Thomas Skinner, E. W. Kirk, S. S. Schmucker, of the United States; Drs. Tholuck, W. Hoffmann, E. Kuntze, of Germany; Adolphe Monod, Georges Fisch, La Harpe, of France and Switzerland. The meeting was one of unusual enthusiasm and interest. One of its most eloquent speakers, Dr. Samuel H. Cox, of New York, characterized it as an assembly

'Such as earth saw never,

Such as Heaven stoops down to see.'

The late Dr. Norman Macleod wrote during the meeting, in a private letter recently brought to light: [1719] 'I have just time to say that our Alliance goes on nobly. There are one thousand members met from all the world, and the prayers and praises would melt your heart. Wardlaw, Bickersteth, and Tholuck say that in their whole experience they never beheld any thing like it. . . . It is much more like heaven than any thing I ever experienced on earth.'

THE DOCTRINAL BASIS.

The part of the proceedings with which we are concerned here is the attempt made to set forth the doctrinal consensus of evangelical Christendom as a basis for the promotion of Christian union and religious liberty.

The Rev. Edward Bickersteth, Rector of Walton, Herts, and one of the leaders of the evangelical party in the Established Church of England, moved the adoption of the doctrinal basis, and Dr. S. H. Cox, a Presbyterian of New York, supported it in a stirring speech, on the third day (Aug. 21). After considerable discussion and some unessential modifications, the basis was adopted on the fifth day (Aug. 24), nemine contradicente; the vast majority raising their hands in approval, the rest abstaining from voting. The chairman then gave out the hymn,

'All hail the great Immanuel's name,

Let angels prostrate fall.'

It 'was sung by the Conference with a depth of devotional feeling which, even during the meetings of the Conference, had never been surpassed.' [1720]

The doctrinal basis is expressly declared 'not to be a creed or confession in any formal or ecclesiastical sense, but simply an indication of the class of persons whom it is desirable to embrace within the Alliance.' It consists of nine articles: (1) the divine inspiration and supreme authority of the Holy Scriptures; (2) the right and duty of private judgment in the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures; (3) the unity and trinity of the Godhead; (4) the total depravity of man in consequence of the fall; (5) the incarnation of the Son of God, his atonement, and his mediatorial intercession and reign; (6) justification by faith alone; (7) the work of the Holy Spirit in conversion and sanctification; (8) the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, the judgment of the world by Jesus Christ, with the eternal blessedness of the righteous and the eternal punishment of the wicked; (9) the divine institution of the Christian ministry, and the perpetuity of Baptism and the Lord's Supper.

The basis is merely a skeleton: it affirms 'what are usually understood to be evangelical views' on the nine articles enumerated. To give an explicit statement of these views would require a high order of theological wisdom and circumspection. For the practical purpose of the Alliance, the doctrinal basis has upon the whole proved sufficient, though some would have it more strict, others more liberal, since it excludes the orthodox Quakers. It has been variously modified and liberalized by branch Alliances in calling General Conferences. The American branch, at its organization in New York, Jan., 1867, adopted it with a qualifying preamble, subordinating it to the more general consensus of Christendom, and allowing considerable latitude in its construction. [1721]

[1719] Memoir, by his Brother, 1876, Vol. I. p. 260 (N.Y. ed.). The letter to his sister dated Aug. 4, 1846, should be dated Aug. 24.

[1720] Proceedings, p. 193.

[1721] See Vol. III. p. 821.

Philip Schaff: The Antagonisms of Creeds, in the "Contemporary Review," London, Oct 1876, (Vol. XI. pp. 836-850). The Consensus of the Reformed Confessions, In the "Proceedings of the First Gen. Pres. Council," Edinburgh, 1877; separately issued, New York, 1877.

The Creeds of orthodox Christendom have passed before us. A concluding summary of the points of agreement and disagreement will aid the reader in forming an intelligent judgment on the possibility, nature, and extent of an ultimate adjustment of the doctrinal antagonisms which are embodied and perpetuated in the symbols of the historic Churches. The argumentation from Scripture, tradition, and reason belongs to the science of Symbolics.

A. The Catholic Consensus of Greek, Latin, and Evangelical Christendom.

The Consensus is contained in the Scriptures, and in the oecumenical Creeds which all orthodox Churches adopt. It may be more fully and clearly specified as follows:

I.--RULE OF FAITH AND PRACTICE.

The Divine Inspiration and Authority of the Canonical Scriptures in matters of faith and morals. (Against Rationalism.)

II.--THEOLOGY.

1. The Unity of the Divine essence. (Against Atheism, Dualism, Polytheism.)

2. The Trinity of the Divine Persons.

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the Maker, Redeemer, and Sanctifier.

(Against Arianism, Socinianism, Unitarianism.)

3. The Divine perfections.

Omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, wisdom, holiness, justice, love, and mercy.

4. Creation of the world by the will of God out of nothing for his glory and the happiness of his creatures. (Against Materialism, Pantheism, Atheism.)

5. Government of the world by Divine Providence.

III.--ANTHROPOLOGY.

1. Original innocence.

Man made in the image of God, with reason and freedom, pure and holy; yet needing probation, and liable to fall.

2. Fall: sin and death.

Natural depravity and guilt; necessity and possibility of salvation. (Against Pelagianism and Manichæism.)

3. Redemption by Christ.

IV.--CHRISTOLOGY.

1. The Incarnation of the eternal Logos or second Person in the Holy Trinity.

2. The Divine-human constitution of the Person of Christ.

3. The life of Christ.

His superhuman conception; his sinless perfection; his crucifixion, death, and burial; resurrection and ascension; sitting at the right hand of God; return to judgment.

4. Christ our Prophet, Priest, and King forever.

5. The mediatorial work of Christ, or the atonement.

'He died for our sins, and rose for our justification.'

V.--PNEUMATOLOGY.

1. The Divine Personality of the Holy Spirit.

2. His eternal Procession (ekporeusis, processio) from the Father, and his historic Mission (pempsis, missio) by the Father and the Son.

3. His Divine work of regeneration and sanctification.

VI.--SOTERIOLOGY.

1. Eternal predestination or election of believers to salvation.

2. Call by the gospel.

3. Regeneration and conversion. Necessity of repentance and faith.

4. Justification and sanctification.

Forgiveness of sins and necessity of a holy lire.

5. Glorification of believers.

VII.--ECCLESIOLOGY AND SACRAMENTOLOGY.

1. Divine origin and constitution of the Catholic Church of Christ.

2. The essential attributes of the Church universal.

Unity, catholicity, holiness, and indestructibility of the Church. Church militant and Church triumphant.

3. The ministry of the gospel.

4. The preaching of the gospel.

5. Sacraments: visible signs, seals, and means of grace.

6. Baptism for the remission of sins.

7. The Lord's Supper for the commemoration of the atoning death of Christ.

VIII.--ESCHATOLOGY.

1. Death in consequence of sin.

2. Immortality of the soul.

3. The final coming of Christ.

4. General resurrection.

5. Judgment of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ.

6. Heaven and Hell.

The eternal blessedness of saints, and the eternal punishment of the wicked.

7. God all in all (1 Cor. xv. 28).

B. Consensus and Dissensus of the Greek and Roman Churches.

(a) CONSENSUS.

I. The articles of the oecumenical Creeds, excepting the Filioque of the Latin recension of the Nicene Creed and the et filio of the Athanasian Creed.

II. Most of the post-oecumenical doctrines, which are not contained in the oecumenical Creeds, and from which Protestants dissent, viz.:

1. The authority of ecclesiastical tradition, as a joint rule of faith with the Scriptures.

2. The worship (timetike proskunesis) of the Virgin Mary, the Saints, their pictures (not statues), and relics.

3. The infallibility of the Church--that is, the teaching hierarchy (ecclesia docens). The Roman Church lodges infallibility in the papal monarchy, the Greek Church in the (seven) oecumenical Councils, and the patriarchal oligarchy as a whole. [1722]

4. Justification by faith and works, as joint conditions.

5. The Seven Sacraments or Mysteries, with minor differences as to confirmation and unction.

6. Baptismal regeneration (in an unqualified sense), and the necessity of water-baptism for salvation.

7. Priestly absolution by divine authority.

8. Transubstantiation (metousiosis), and the adoration of the consecrated elements.

9. The sacrifice of the Mass for the living and the dead.

This forms the centre of worship. Preaching is subordinate.

10. Prayers for the departed.

On the authority of the Apocryphal books of the Old Testament, transubstantiation, Purgatory, and a few other points, the Greek doctrine is not so clearly developed and formulated; but, upon the whole, much nearer the Roman view than the Protestant.

As to the popular use of the Bible, there is this important difference, that the Greek Church has never prohibited it, like the Roman, and that the Russian Church has recently favored it, and thus opened the way for a wholesome progress and possible reformation

(b) DISSENSUS.

I. The eternal Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son (Filioque): denied by the Greek, taught by the Latin Church.

II. The papal supremacy and infallibility: rejected by the Greek Church as an antichristian usurpation, asserted by the Latin Church as its corner-stone.

III. The immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary: proclaimed as a dogma by the Pope, 1854: [1723]

IV. The marriage of the lower clergy: allowed by the Greek, forbidden by the Latin Church.

V. Withdrawal of the eucharistic cup from the laity.

VI. A number of rites and ceremonies.

Greek rites: threefold baptismal immersion, instead of pouring or sprinkling; use of leavened, instead of unleavened, bread in the eucharist; the invocation of the Holy Ghost for the benediction of the sacred elements; infant communion; anointing baptized infants; the repetition of holy unction (to euchelaion) in sickness.

C. Consensus and Dissensus of the Greek Church and the Evangelical Churches.

(a) CONSENSUS.

I. They believe the Scriptures and the doctrines of the oecumenical Creeds. (See A.)

II. They reject:

1. The supremacy and infallibility of the Pope.

2. The immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary.

3. The withdrawal of the cup from the laity.

4. The enforced celibacy of priests and deacons.

(The Greek Church, however, prohibits the second marriage of the lower clergy, and requires the celibacy of the bishops.)

(b) DISSENSUS.

I. The double Procession of the Holy Spirit. [1724]

II. In the post-oecumenical doctrines mentioned sub B. (a), II., the Greek Church sides with Rome against Protestantism.

D. Consensus and Dissensus of the Roman Catholic and the Evangelical Protestant Churches.

(a) CONSENSUS. (See sub A.)

(b) DISSENSUS.

I. Scripture and Tradition, as a rule of faith.

Roman Catholic doctrine:

The necessity of ecclesiastical tradition (culminating in the infallible decisions of the papal see), as a joint rule of faith and as the sole interpreter of Scripture.

Protestant doctrine:

The absolute supremacy and sufficiency of the Scriptures as a guide to salvation.

II. Other differences concerning the Scriptures.

1. Extent of the Canon:

The Apocrypha of the Old Testament are included in the Roman, excluded from the Protestant Canon.

2. Authority of the Latin Vulgate:

Put on a par with the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures by Rome; while Protestantism claims divine authority only for the original Scriptures of the inspired authors.

3. Popular use and circulation of the Bible:

Discouraged (and relatively forbidden) by Rome; encouraged by Protestantism, which goes hand in hand with the Word of God, and must stand or fall with it.

III. Objects of Worship.

Roman Catholic doctrine:

1. God (latria);

2. The Virgin Mary (hyperdulia);

3. Angels and Saints (dulia);

4. Images and Relics of Saints. Protestant doctrine:

God alone. All other worship is gross or refined idolatry.

The Roman Catholic Christian approaches Christ through human mediators, and virtually substitutes the worship of Mary for the worship of Christ; the Protestant approaches Christ directly, and prays to him as his only and all-sufficient High-Priest and Intercessor with the Father.

IV. Primitive State.

Difference (asserted by Roman Catholics, denied by Protestants) between the image of God (imago, eikon, tslm), i.e., the natural perfection of the first man as a rational and free being, and similitude of God (similitudo, homoiosis, dmdt), i.e., supernatural endowment of man with righteousness and holiness together with the immortality of the body.

V. Original Sin.

Roman Catholic doctrine:

Original sin is a negative defect (carentia justitiæ originalis), or the loss of the similitude--not of the image--of God, and is entirely removed by baptism.

Protestant doctrine:

Original sin is a positive corruption and total depravity, involving the loss of (spiritual) freedom, and retains the character of sin after baptism.

VI. Justification by faith and good works (Roman Catholic);--or by faith alone (Protestant).

1. Different conceptions of justification (dikaiosis, justificatio): a gradual process of making the sinner righteous (identical with sanctification);--or a judicial and declaratory act of God (acquittal of the penitent sinner on the ground of Christ's merits and on condition of faith in Christ), followed by sanctification.

2. Different conceptions of faith: intellectual assent and submission to divine authority;--or personal trust in Christ and living union with him.

3. Different position assigned to works: condition of justification;--or evidence of justification.

4. Assurance of justification and salvation: denied (except on the ground of a special revelation) by Roman Catholics; asserted by Protestants (though in different degrees).

Paul and James. Basis of reconciliation: faith operative in love. [1725]

VII. Good works of believers.

The meritoriousness of good works (meritum ex congruo and meritum ex condigno): Works of supererogation, not commanded, but recommended (consilia evangelica), with corresponding extra merits, which constitute a treasury at the disposal of the Pope for the dispensation of indulgences.

Here is the root of the ascetic and monastic system (vota monastica: voluntary obedience, poverty, and celibacy), and the chief difference between Roman Catholic and Evangelical ethics.

VIII. The Church.

1. Identification of the Church of Christ with the Church of Rome--the fundamental error (the proton pseudos) of the papacy.

2. Distinction of the invisible Church (one and universal under the sole headship of Christ), and the visible Church (existing in many organizations or denominations): asserted by Protestants; denied by Roman Catholics.

3. Different conception and application of the attributes of the Church; unity, holiness, catholicity, apostolicity, indefectibility, infallibility, and exclusiveness, especially the last (extra ecclesiam nulla salus, which is made to mean extra ecclesiam Romanam).

IX. The Pope.

The infallible head of the Universal Church, the Vicar of Christ on earth, by virtue of his office as the successor of Peter.

This is the cardinal doctrine of Romanism, but rejected by Greeks and Protestants as an antichristian usurpation of the prerogative of Christ.

X. Sacraments in general.

1. Definition: visible signs of invisible grace instituted by the express command of Christ in the New Testament (Protestant);--or simply by the authority of the Church (Roman Catholic).

2. Number: seven (Roman Catholic);--or two (Baptism and the Lord's Supper).

3. Effect: ex opere operato (i.e., by virtue of the objective act);--or through faith (as the subjective condition).

XI. Baptism.

Its effect on original sin; its relation to regeneration; its necessity for salvation; and several ritual differences.

XII. The Eucharist. Romanism holds, Protestantism denies:

1. Transubstantiation and the adoration of the elements.

2. The withdrawal of the cup from the laity.

3. The Eucharist as a sacrifice, i.e., an actual though unbloody repetition of Christ's sacrifice on the cross by the priest for the sins of the living and the dead (the souls in purgatory).

The celebration of the Mass is the centre of Roman Catholic worship.

XIII. The other five Sacraments: Confirmation, Penance, Matrimony, Ordination, Extreme Unction.

Maintained by Rome as sacraments proper; rejected by Protestants, or admitted only as semi- or quasi-sacramental acts.

1. Confirmation.

Retained by the Lutheran, Anglican, and the German Reformed Churches (as supplementary to infant baptism after a course of catechetical instruction). Rejected by other Protestant Churches, in which a voluntary union with the Church by a public profession of faith takes the place of confirmation.

2. Penance (sacramentum pænitentiæ).

Auricular confession and priestly absolution; satisfaction for venial sins; indulgences. The Lutheran (and Anglican) standards approve private confession to the minister; other Churches leave it entirely optional; all Protestants deny the efficacy of priestly absolution except as an official declaration of God's forgiving mercy to the penitent

3. Ordination.

A separate priesthood and clerical celibacy (Roman Catholic); the general priesthood of the laity and the right of the laity to participate in Church government (Protestant).

4. Matrimony.

Differences in matrimonial legislation, mixed marriages, and divorce.

5. Extreme unction.

Rejected by Protestants, who in James v. 14 emphasize the praying rather than 'the anointing with oil' (a physical remedy).

XIV. Purgatory.

A temporary middle place and state (until the final judgment) between heaven and hell for the purification of imperfect Christians, which may be advanced by prayers and masses in their behalf.

Protestantism holds that there are only two conditions in the other world, but with various degrees of bliss or misery.

The indulgences closely connected with purgatory were the first occasion, though not the cause, of the Reformation.

E. Doctrinal Differences among Evangelical Protestants.

I.--LUTHERANISM AND CALVINISM.

1. Baptismal Regeneration.

Baptism a means of regeneration (as concurrent with the sacramental act), and hence necessary for salvation;--or only a sign and seal of regeneration (whether concurrent or preceding or succeeding, according to God's free pleasure).

2. The Encharistic presence.

Corporeal real presence (in, with, and under the elements) for all communicants;--or spiritual real (dynamic and effective) presence for believers only.

3. Christological.

The extent of the communicatio idiomatum. [1726] The ubiquity of Christ's body: asserted by the Lutheran Church (as a dogmatic support to its doctrine of the eucharistic multipresence); denied by the Reformed (as inconsistent with the limitations of humanity and the fact of Christ's ascension to heaven).

4. Predestination and the perseverance of saints.

No difference between Luther and Calvin, who were both Augustinians, but between their followers. (Synergism of Melanchthon in his later period. Semi-Augustinianism of the Formula of Concord. Extreme Calvinism of the Synod of Dort.)

II.--CALVINISM AND ARMINIANISM.

1. Election: unconditional;--or conditional.

2. Extent of redemption: limited to the elect;--or unlimited to all men.

3 and 4. Nature of faith and grace: irresistible;--or resistible.

5. Perseverance of saints;--or the possibility of total and final apostasy.

III.--CONGREGATIONALISM.

1. Conception of a Christian congregation or local church: a self-governing body of converted believers voluntarily associated for spiritual ends.

2. Independence of such a church of foreign jurisdiction.

3. Duty of voluntary fellowship with other churches.

IV.--BAPTIST DOCTRINES.

1. Congregationalism as sub III.

2. Baptism.

(a) Its subjects: only responsible converts on the ground of a voluntary profession of their faith.

(b) Its mode: total immersion of the body.

3. Universal liberty of conscience as a sphere over which civil government has no control. ('Soul-liberty.') [1727]

V.--QUAKER DOCTRINES.

1. Universal diffusion of the inner light for the salvation of men.

2. Immediate revelation superior to, though concordant with, the outward testimony of the Scriptures.

3. The ministry of the gospel depending on inspiration, and not confined to a class or sex.

4. The sacraments are spiritual acts, not visible rites and ceremonies, as under the old dispensation.

5. Worship is purely inward, and depends upon the immediate moving of the Holy Spirit.

6. Universal religious liberty.

VI.--METHODIST DOCTRINES.

1. Universal offer of salvation in different dispensations.

2. Witness of the Spirit, or assurance of present acceptance with God.

3. Christian perfection, or perfect sanctification.

F. Orthodox Protestantism and Heterodox Protestantism.

I. Socinianism (Unitarianism). Denies the following oecumenical doctrines:

1. The Trinity.

2. The Incarnation and eternal Divinity of Christ.

3. Original sin and guilt.

4. The vicarious atonement.

II. Universalism departs from the orthodox doctrines of the-1. Nature and extent of sin and its consequences.

2. Endless punishment. (Difference between Restorationism and Universalism proper).

III. Swedenborgianism asserts:

1. A new revelation and a new Church (the New Jerusalem).

2. Intercourse with the spirit world.

3. It limits the number of the canonical Scriptures.

4. It claims to unlock the deeper inner sense of the Scriptures.

5. It dissents from the evangelical doctrines of the tripersonality of the Godhead, the incarnation, the atonement, justification, the Church, the sacraments, and the resurrection.

[1722] We say as a whole; for the Greek Church does not claim infallibility for any individual patriarch, and has herself condemned, in oecumenical Synods, as heretics not only Pope Honorius, of Rome, but also several of her own patriarchs, e.g., Nestorius, of Constantinople; Dioscurus, of Alexandria; Peter the Fuller, of Antioch; Sallustius, of Jerusalem; Cyril Lucar, of Constantinople.

[1723] The Greek Archbishop Lykurgos, of Syra and Tenos (d. 1876), declared, while in England, in a conference with the Bishop of Ely, Feb. 4, 1870: 'The Orthodox Church considers the immaculate conception to be blasphemous. It destroys the doctrine of the Incarnation.' But in practice the worship of the blessed Virgin is carried as far in the Greek Church as in the Latin.

[1724] In this doctrine the Protestant Confessions side with the Latin Church, or at least they do not oppose it. The eternal procession of the Spirit was no topic of controversy in the period of the Reformation, and may be regarded as an open question subject to further exegetical and theological investigation. A number of Episcopalians in England and America would be willing to expunge the Filioque from the Nicene Creed, or to compromise with the Orientals on the single procession of the Spirit from the Father through the Son. See the Theses of the Bonn Conference of 1875, at the close of Vol. II.

[1725] Gal. v. 6, (pistis di agapes energoumene, is to be explained as the dynamic middle, not as the passive, 'completed in love' (the fides formata of Roman Catholic commentators).

[1726] That is, whether it includes also the genus majestaticum, or the communication of the attributes of the divine nature to the human nature of Christ--affirmed by the Lutheran symbols, denied by the Reformed. See pp.319 sqq.

[1727] President Anderson, of Rochester University (article Baptists in Johnson's Cyclopædia, Vol. I. p. 383), enumerates four distinctive doctrinal principles of the Baptists: (1) immersion; (2) believers only to constitute a visible church; (3) responsible converts only entitled to baptism; (4) separation of Church and State, and independence of each individual church as a body of baptized believers of any other body, whether ecclesiastical or political. But the second article is held also by the Congregationalists, and the fourth can not be called an article of faith.

Literature.

Richardson: Memoirs of A. Campbell, new ed., Cinti., 1888--A Debate between Rev. A. Campbell and Rev. N. L. Rice on Christian Baptism and Eccles. Creeds as Terms of Communion, Nov. 15-Dec. 2, 1843, Lexington, 1844, pp. 912.-- I. Errett: Our Position, a tract, Cinti., 1901.-- J. H. Garrison: The Old Faith Restated, St. Louis, 1891.-- B. B. Tyler: Hist. of the Disciples of Christ, Am. Ch. Hist. Series, N.Y., 1894.-F. D. Powers: Art. in Schaff-Herzog Enc., III., 443 sq.-- J. S. Lamar: Life of I. Errett, 2 vols., Cinti., 1894.-- W. T. Moore: Compar. Hist. of the Disciples of Christ, N.Y., 1909, pp. 830.-- Summerbell: The Christians and the Disciples, Dayton, 1906.-- Errett Gates: The Disciples of Christ, in "Story of the Chh.," Chaps. XI-XIV., N.Y., 1905.-- P. Ainslie: The Message of the Disciples for the Union of the Church, N.Y., 1913, pp. 210. Gives the "Declaration and Address" in full. Also The Scandal of Christianity, N. Y., 1929.-- J. K. Kellems: A. Campbell and the Disciples, N.Y., 1930, pp. 409.

A large and influential Christian body whose historic position has been antagonism to all Church creeds containing articles formulated by non-biblical writers is the group known as The Disciples of Christ. In the number of its members, the fifth Protestant ecclesiastical body in the United States, it arose early in the nineteenth century in Western Pennsylvania under the leadership of Thomas Campbell, a Seceder minister from North Ireland and his son, Alexander Campbell. Born in Ireland, Sept. 12, 1788, Alexander came to America, 1809, settled in the Western part of Pennsylvania and died March 4, 1866, in Bethany, West Virginia, where he had established a college. Seeking relief from the restraints of ecclesiastical formularies and a return to the so-called implicity and ordinances of "original Christianity," Thomas, then a Presbyterian minister, formed "the Christian Association of Washington," Pennsylvania, and issued, 1809, a "Declaration and Address" to which the Disciples go back as the justification and basis of their existence as a distinct group. In 1811, he and his followers joined themselves in an independent organization at Brush Run, Pa. Two years later, the organization united with the Redstone Baptist Association. A division arising in this body over the principles of the "Church Reformation," as the movement led by the Campbells was called, the followers of the Campbells constituted themselves an independent body, 1827. Four years later, this body was enlarged by the accession of a number of churches which followed Rev. Barton W. Stone, once a member of the Presbytery of Lexington, Kentucky. The members of the Kentucky churches preferred to call themselves by the simple name "Christians" and for this reason the "Disciples" have often gone by that name.

Alexander Campbell, the real founder of the new movement, was ordained 1812 and immersed a few months later. He was a man of intellectual vigor and independence of thought, of positiveness of conviction and statement, and became abundant in labors. His views were set forth not only in the pulpit but through the columns of two periodicals, the Christian Baptist and the Millennial Harbinger, and in public discussions on the platform. These discussions, which aroused wide attention in Southern Ohio and the South West, were carried on with Robert Owen, 1829, and Archbishop Purcell of the Roman Catholic Church, 1837, both in Cincinnati, and with the noted Presbyterian polemic theologian, Dr. Nathan L. Rice, in Lexington, Ky., 1843. The last discussion, which lasted sixteen days, had Henry Clay as its chairman. Campbell was accused of being "contentious" and "disputatious" while his skill as a debater was generally recognized.

The distinctive tenets of the Disciples, as set forth in the Declaration and Address, are the "alone-sufficiency and all-sufficiency of the Bible"--to use the language of Alexander Campbell--and the unadulterated evil of Christian creeds and the denominational divisions in Christendom. With other Christians, they hold to the doctrines of the trinity, original sin, Christ's atonement and resurrection, the necessity of repentance and regeneration, and the two future states. They reject--to follow the Declaration and Address--human opinions and the inventions of men as having any authority in the Church of God and profess "to stand upon the ground on which the Church stood at the beginning . . . and to take up things just as the Apostles left them." The Society, so it was affirmed, "was formed for the sole purpose of promoting simple evangelical Christianity and to promote only such measures as, reduce to practice the original form of Christianity expressly exhibited in the sacred page. . . . Everything not taught and enjoined in the Bible is of no authority and nothing is to be made a term of communion among Christians which is not as old as the New Testament." Creeds of human composition are a calamity and have been the cause of the historic divisions in the Church and "divisions among Christians is a horrid evil. Although the Church of Christ must necessarily exist in particular and distinctive societies, locally separate one from another, yet ought there to be no schisms, no uncharitable divisions, among them." Further, by the Declaration and Address, the society rejected the application to itself of the name "Church" and its members desired to be regarded "merely as voluntary advocates of Church reformation; and, tired of the jarrings and janglings of a party spirit, to restore unity, peace and purity to the whole Church of God,"--a large, if not ambitious, and certainly most laudable purpose. In accordance with these affirmations, whereby the Scriptures are not only treated as the sole standard of Christian teaching but its language the sole organ through which it is to be conveyed and all human formularies intended to state and summarize those teachings are set aside as evil in their consequences, the Disciples have been inclined to look upon themselves as pioneers in the movement of Christian unity and Church union. For twenty years the body has had within itself an Association for the Promotion of Christian Unity. In spite of their formal declarations and wishes, the Disciples are a distinct ecclesiastical body, following the congregational scheme of church government and observing usages distinguishing them from many Christian bodies such as the weekly observance of the Lord's Supper and baptism by immersion, though denying baptismal regeneration. Whether such usages, the doctrines explicitly held in common with all Christians and their opposition to creeds, constitute a confessional formulary or not, seems to admit of two answers. The large volume of Kellems, 1930, ascribes to Alexander Campbell a doctrinal system no less positive than are the systems of other ecclesiastical bodies. By their evangelical activity and warm manifestation of union among themselves, the Disciples of Christ have not only reached large bodies of people but won the fellowship of other Christian communions and have shown that a Church's efficiency and solidarity does not necessarily depend upon an explicit formulary of human composition. The most prominent personage among the Disciples since Alexander Campbell has been James A. Garfield, President of the United States.

The Universalist Churches of the United States, starting in New England, have modified the orthodox Christian system as expressed in the historic creeds but while differing among themselves, they retain reverence for Christ as a divine teacher, the belief in the immortality of the soul and suitable awards after death for conduct in this world. A movement towards the union of Congregational and Universalist churches has had advocates as in California, 1930. The New England Convention of Universalist Churches, meeting in Winchester, New Hampshire, 1803, adopted a Profession of Belief in three articles. Eddy, in his Hist. of Universalism, says that "while the Profession was sufficiently definite to exclude the possibility of mistaking its most prominent thought, the reconciliation of all souls to God, it was sufficiently liberal to be acceptable alike to Trinitarians and to Unitarians, to the believer in future punishment and to the believer that the consequences of sin are confined to this life." In 1899 the General Convention, meeting in Boston, added to the Winchester Profession, clauses giving "The Conditions of Fellowship." At a meeting of the Convention in Winchester, 1903, celebrating the adoption of the Profession, its three articles were spoken of "as the first explicit statement in a creed of what is known as liberal Christianity."

"The Profession of Belief and Conditions of Fellowship are as follows" [1728]

Art. I. We believe that the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments contain a revelation of the character of God and of the duty, interest and final destination of mankind. Art. II. We believe that there is one God, whose nature is Love revealed in one Lord Jesus Christ, by one Holy Spirit of Grace, who will finally restore the whole family of mankind to holiness and happiness. Art. III. We believe that holiness and true happiness are inseparably connected, and that believers ought to be careful to maintain order and practice good works; for these things are good and profitable unto men.

The Conditions of Fellowship shall be as follows: 1. The acceptance of the essential principles of the Universalist Faith to wit: 1 The Universal Fatherhood of God; 2 The Spiritual authority and leadership of His Son, Jesus Christ; 3 The trustworthiness of the Bible as containing a revelation from God; 4 The certainty of just retribution for sin; 5 The final harmony of all souls with God.

The Winchester Profession is commended as containing these principles but neither this nor any other precise form of words is required as a condition of fellowship, provided always that the principles above stated be professed.

2. The acknowledgment of the authority of the General Convention and assent to its laws.

[1728] Minutes of the Winchester Convention, Washington, 1929. In 1878 the Universalists of Boston and vicinity put forth a statement of belief in 9 articles which was not adopted by the convention. See R. Eddy: Hist. of Universalism, in Am. Church Hist, series, X; 255-507.--Ed.

The Unitarian Churches are a free association of societies which lay stress upon practical aims and require no subscription to a doctrinal formula. The nearest approach to such a formula is the declaration written by James Freeman Clarke and published by the Unitarian Sunday School Union, affirming "belief in the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, the leadership of Jesus, salvation by character, the progress of mankind upward and onward forever." Founded in 1825, the American Unitarian Association announced its object to be "to diffuse the knowledge and promote the interest of pure Christianity." The older Unitarians, represented by Channing, while they rejected binding creedal formulas, the doctrines of the Trinity and total depravity and what was called the bleak Calvinism of New England, held to the exaltation of Christ and the immortality of the soul. Twenty of the original congregations of Massachusetts, including the Plymouth church, allied themselves with the movement. Humanistic efforts have been emphasized. In Boston, which became the home of literary culture, many of its representatives broke loose entirely from the historic New England ecclesiastical system and abandoned Christianity as a supernatural revelation for the philosophy known as transcendentalism. By the middle of the 19th century, Unitarianism had become synonymous with religious liberalism, basing its conclusions in part upon the results of German rationalistic criticism. Outside of Massachusetts, its following has been small and its churches include groups which join with the name Unitarian extreme tenets of religious liberalism. President Eliot of Harvard pronounced "independent thought the chief feature of Unitarianism."

In 1865, largely under the influence of Dr. Bellows of New York City, "the National Conference of Unitarian and Other Christian Churches" was organized and passed the following resolution:

"To secure the largest unity of the spirit and the widest practical co-operation of our body, it is hereby understood that all the resolutions and declarations of this convention are expressions only of its majority, committing in no degree those who object to them, claiming no other than a moral authority over the members of the convention, or the churches represented here, and are all dependent wholly for their effect upon the consent they command on their own merits from the churches here represented or belonging within the circles of our special fellowship."

The words used in the preamble "The obligations of all disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ" led to a warm discussion and the formation of "The Free Religious Association." At a meeting of the National Conference, 1894, the following preamble concerning faith and fellowship was adopted and has been interpreted in some sections to include in the fellowship of the Unitarian churches, members of the Brahmo Somaj of India and all others who "sympathize with the spirit and practical aims" of the Unitarians: [1729]

"The Conference of Unitarian and other Christian Churches was formed in the year 1865, with the purpose of strengthening the churches and societies which should unite in it for more and better work for the kingdom of God. These churches accept the religion of Jesus, holding, in accordance with his teaching, that practical religion is summed up in love to God and love to man. The Conference recognizes the fact that its constituency is Congregational in tradition and polity. Therefore, it declares that nothing in this constitution is to be construed as an authoritative test; and we cordially invite to our working fellowship any who, while differing from us in belief, are in general sympathy with our spirit and our practical aims."

[1729] Batchelor in Christian Register, 1906, p. 202, 203. See J. H. Allen: The Unitarian Movement since the Reformation, in Am. Ch. Hist. Series, X, pp. 1-249, N.Y., 1894; G. W. Cooke: Unitarianism in America, Boston, 1902. E. Emerton: Unitar. Thought, N.Y., 1911.