previous consent of the church. As the lot must be cast to sanction their union, each receives his partner as a divine appointment. Though the Moravians are united in one body, they are by no means illiberal in their views towards other Christians, who hold what they conceive to be the essentials of religion, and pay divine adoration to Jesus Christ. In doctrine they appear to incline to Sabellianism. They address all their prayers to Jesus, or the Lamb, and they have been accused, not without reason, of adopting a phraseology in their hymns and prayers not consistent with the rules of decency and chastity. They are, however, a very harmless and unoffending people. They appear to be Arminians, in opposition to Calvinism, and they reject the use of the term Trinity, and some other popular and unscriptural terms and phrases. In zeal, tempered with modesty, and in silent perseverance in attempting to convert the heathen world to Christianity, the Moravians are unequalled. While some other bodies of Christians are filling the world with pompous details of their missionary labours, and every day and hour sounding the trumpet of their own fame to all the world, the Moravian missionaries are quietly and successfully pursuing their labour of love in almost every part of the known world.

They have settlements in various parts, particularly in the fol lowing places: begun 1732, in the Danish West India islands; in St. Thomas, New Hernhut, Nisky, in St. Croix, Friedensburg, Friedenstal; in St. Jan, Bethany, and Emmaus. In 1734, North America, Fairfield in Upper Canada, and Goshen on the river Muskingum. In 1736, at the Cape of Good Hope, Bavians Kloof. In 1738, in South America among the Negro slaves at Paramaribo, and at Sommelsdyk; among the free negroes at Bambey on the Sarameca, and among the native Indians at Hope on the river Corentyn. In 1754, in Jamaica, two settlements in Elizabeth parish. In 1756, in Antigua, at St. Johns, Grace-Hill and Grace-Berry. In 1760, near Tranquebar in the East Indies, Brethren's Garden. In 1764, on the coast of Labrador, Nain, Okkak, and Hopedale. In 1765, in Barbadoes, Sharron, near Bridgetown. In the same year, in Russian part of Asia, Sarepta. In 1775, in St. Kitts, at Basseterre. In 1789, in Tobago, Signal Hill. By the latest accounts published, most of these settlements appear to be in a flourishing state. Whoever wishes to see a morę detailed account of the Moravians, will do well to consult Crantz's Ancient and Modern History of the United Brethren; the same author's History of the Mission in Greenland, La Trobe's edition of Spangenburg's Exposition of Christian Doctrines; also Rimius's Narrative of Moravians Compared and Detected; and the Periodical Accounts of the Missions of the United Brethren.

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CHAPTER XXII.

SABBATARIANS.

A SECT of Christians, chiefly Baptists, who observe the Jewish, or Saturday Sabbath, from a persuasion that it being one of the ten commandments, which they contend are all in their nature moral, was never abrogated by the New Testament. They say that Saturday must at least be deemed of equal validity for public worship with any day, never particularly set apart by Jesus Christ and his Apostles. Those of this sect who are what are denominated Particular Baptists, hold, in common with most other christians of the present day, all of the other doctrines of grace as they are sometimes called, viz. the Trinity, Atonement, Predestination, &c. &c.

In England, this sect is by no means numerous. They have only two congregations in London, the one of General Baptists, and the other of Particular or Calvinistic Baptists. In America, however, as we are informed by Morse, author of the American Geography, there are many christians of this persuasion, particularly in Rhode-Island, New-Jersey, and at Ephrata in Pennsyl

vania.

This tenet, frivolous and unimportant as it may appear, has contributed its quota to the odium theologicum of modern divinity, and has been productive of several weighty controversies. Drs. Chandler and Kennicott; Messrs. Amner, Palmer, and Estlin, in behalf of the Sunday Christians; and Mr. Cornthwaite on the side of the Sabbatarians; have all displayed their ingenuity and talents on this very important question. In taking a serious view of the authority on which the Sabbatarians fix their belief with respect to the Sabbath, reason says they have as much right to contend for it as any other denomination has for the Christian Sabbath. As that, appears to be an institution of man, the other, is agreeable to Moses the inspired and meekest man of his day who says he received it from God. He says that the Almighty Maker of our system completed in six days all his works of creation, and rested from his labour, which is the first Sabbath on record. Moses received a confirmation of it at Sinai's burning mount, in one of the ten commandments which seems, from the place confirmed, and from the Divine author of all events, to give it as high a standing as any other day set apart by any sect or denomination. In North America, the civil law allows every person to worship Almighty God agreeably to the dictates of his

own conscience, and no one is restricted by law to any mode of worship, but when any person espouses the tenets of any society and becomes a member of their church, he voluntarily submits to the doctrine and discipline of that church. It does not become us to say who is right or who is wrong with respect to the Sabbath. This subject has been ably advocated and reprobated by men of the greatest abilities, the soundest judgment, and deepest penetration. But we quit the subject and leave the world to judge as they please.

CHAPTER XXIII.

FRIEND OR QUAKER.

A SOCIETY of dissenters from the Church of England obtained the latter appellation in the middle of the seventeenth century; the former they had before applied, and continue to apply to themselves. The first preacher of this society was George Fox, a man of humble birth and illiterate. The undertaking to which he considered himself called, that of promulgating a more simple and spiritual form of Christianity than any of those which prevailed, and of directing the attention of Christians to immediate revelation, required little more reading than the Bible. A constant reference to the scriptures, with great zeal, courage, and perseverance, in preaching and suffering, did more than literature could have done to spread his doctrine among the middling and lower classes.

The most prominent feature in the Friends' view of Christianity is this: seeing no man knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him, and seeing the revelation of the Son is in and by the Spirit; therefore the testimony of the Spirit is that alone by which the true knowledge of God is revealed. In this doctrine they agree, in substance, with the church of England, and all others who acknowledge the efficacy of grace. For, in whatever way this is afforded to Christians, it is power fully given to know and to do the will of God; and the communication of grace may be termed, in strict consistency with the sense of the New Testament, a revelation of Christ in the Spirit. The Friends receive the holy scriptures as having proceeded from the revelations of the Holy Spirit; they account them the secondary rules for Christians, subordinate to the Word, and therefore not the Word of God. According to these, they profess their belief in one God, as Father, Word, and

Holy Spirit; in Mediator, the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ; in the conception, birth, life, miracles, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus; and in the remission of sins thereby purchased for the whole world of fallen mankind. Christ's redemption they believe to be perfected in us by his second coming in spirit; in which they who obey him are, through the obedience of faith, restored from their state of alienation and reconciled to God.They affirm that for this end there is given to every man a measure of the light of Christ, (called by their early preachers, the light within,) a manifestation of the Spirit to profit withal; which discovers sin, reproves for it, leads out of it, and, if not resisted, will save from it, and lead on the Christian to perfection. In public worship, they profess to wait on God in this gift, in order to have their conditions made manifest, in silence and retirement of mind. They look for an extraordinary motion of it for social worship, and considering the qualifications of a minister as a further gift which God confers and of which the church ought to judge in the same spirit, they do not limit its exercise to any description

persons. They suffer some inconvenience hereby, as they acknowledge; but they prefer bearing this to the establishing of any form of worship, save the forementioned waiting in silence. They do not baptize formally, or use the sign of the communion; they say, the one has ceased as to obligation, and the true administration of the other is by the Spirit alone. They deem it unlawful for christians to swear at all; and their affirmation in civil cases is made legal instead of an oath. They refuse to "learn war or lift up the sword," as well as to contribute directly to military proceedings. Yet, as they inculcate implicit submission, actively or passively to Cæsar, they neither resist nor evade the legal appropriations of their substance by him, as well to these as to ecclesiastical purposes. Against the claims of the clergy, as well as many other things, apparently lawful, they say, in their phraseology, they have a testimony to bear. Some peculiarities mark them out from their fellow-citizens. Simplicy in dress, in some instances nearly amounting to an adherance to their origi nal though not prescribed costume; simplicity of language, thou to one person, and without compliments; simplicity in their manner of living; the non-observance of fasts and feasts; the rejection of those which they call the unchristian names of days and months: and the renunciation of the theatres and other promiscuous amusements, gaming and the usual outward signs of mourning and rejoicing, may be considered as their shibboleth. They marry among themselves by a ceremony, or contract, religiously conducted, and bury their dead in the most simple manmer. They maintain their poor, and enforce their own rules by

means of an excellent system of discipline, founded by G. Fox. They receive approved applicants into their society by an act of monthly meetings, or particular congregation, and without subscription of articles. They disown, in the same manner, after repeated admonitions, not officially only, but actually extended, offenders against morality, or their peculiar rules.

CHAPTER XXIV.

INDEPENDENTS, OR CONGREGATIONALISTS.

IN church history, a sect of Protestant Dissenters, which first made its appearance in Holland, in the year 1616. Mr. John Robinson appears to be the first founder of this sect. The appellation of Independents was applied to and adopted by this denomination of Christians, from their maintaining that Christian congregations are so many independent religious societies, having a right to be governed by their own laws, without being subject to any further or foreign jurisdiction. This term was publickly acknowledged in the year 1644, by those English Dissenters, who held similar sentiments respecting church government to the In. dependents in Holland; but on account of the ill use that many made of the term, by a perversion of its original meaning and religious designation, the English Independents renounced it, and adopted that of Congregationalists, or Congregational Brethren. The term Independent is still, however, applied to various sects of Protestant Dissenters, and seems justly applicable to almost every sect of non-conformists in this country. The doctrines of the Independents are the same as those of the Brownists. It is said that the only difference between these sects were that the Brownists were illiberal in their views concerning other denominations, while the Independents entertained enlarged conceptions of church communion, and allowed that other churches, though different from them in points of discipline, might properly be called Christian churches. It is, however, to be feared that the Independents, properly so called, being Calvinists as to points of faith, do not cherish very liberal sentiments concerning the salvation of those who differ from them in most of their articles of belief. A spirit which seems to be a natural effect of the creed of the Geneva Reformer.

See BROWNISTS and PRESBYTERIANS.

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