preach only particular redemption. Mr. Whitefield's principles nearly approach to CALVINISM, and Mr. Wesley's to ARMINIANISM, each of which see.

MILLENARIANS, or CHILIASTS, a name given to those in the primitive ages who believe that the saints will reign on earth with Christ a thousand years after the first resurrection, before the final completion of beatitude. The former appellation is of Latin original, the latter of Greek, and both are of the same import. The antient Millenarians held that, after the coming of Antichrist, and the destruction of all nations, which shall follow, there shall be a first resurrection of the just alone-that all who shall be found upon earth, both good and bad, shall continue alive; the good to obey the just that are risen, as their princes; the bad to be conquered by the just, and to be subject to them; that Jesus Christ will then descend from heaven in his glory-that the city of Jerusalem will be rebuilt, enlarged, embellished, and its gates stand opeu night and day. They applied to this New Jerusalem what is said in the Apoc. chap. xxi.; and to the temple all that is written in Ezek. xxxvi. Here they pretended Jesus Christ will fix the seat of his empire, and reign a thousand years with the saints, patriarchs, and prophets, who will enjoy perfect and uninterrupted felicity.-These opinions were founded on several passages of scripture, which the antient Millenarians took in a literal sense, particularly Revelations xx. 1-6. The antient Millenarians were divided in opinion: some pretended that the saints should pass their time in corporeal delights, others that they should only exercise themselves in spiritual plea

sures.

MORAVIANS, are supposed to have arisen under Nicholas Lewis, Count of Zinzendorf, a German nobleman who died in 1760. They were also called Hernhunters, from Hernhuth, the name of the village where they first settled. The followers of count Zinzendorf are called Moravians, because the first converts to this system were some Moravian families. The society themselves however assert, that they are descended from the old Moravian and Bohemian brethren, who existed as a distinct sect sixty years prior to the reformation. They also style themselves the Unitas Futrum, or United Brethren; and, in

general, profess to adhere to the Augsburgh confession of faith.*

MYSTICS, are those who profess a pure and sublime devotion, with a disinterested love of God, free from selfish considerations. Passive contemplation is the state of perfection to which they aspire: of this sect there have been many singular characters, especially Madame Bourignon, a French lady. Fenelon, the amiable archbishop of Cambray, favoured the sentiments of this female devotee, for which he was severely reprimanded by the pope. The mystics suppose, that certain passages of scripture have three mystical senses. Thus, according to them, the word Jerusalem, which is the name of the capital of Judea, signifies allegorically, the church militant, morally, a believer, and anagogically, heaven. The passage also in Genesis, Let there be light, and there was light,' which is, according to the letter, corporeal light, signifies allegorically, the Messiah, morally, grace, and anagogically, or mysteriously, beatitude, or the light of glory.

QUAKERS appeared in England about the year 1650. The origin will be best given in their own words; The beginning of the seventeenth century is known to have been a time of great dissension in England, respecting religion; many pious persons having been dissatisfied with the settlement of the church of England in the reign of queen Elizabeth. Various societies of dissenters had accordingly arisen; some of whom evinced their sincerity by grievous sufferings under the intolerance of those who governed church affairs. But these societies, notwithstanding their honest zeal, seemed to have stopped short in their progress towards a complete reformation, and, degenerating into formality, to have lost their most enlightened members, and still to lament the want of something more instructive, and consolatory to the soul, than the most rigorous of their ordinances had ever produced. Thus, dissatisfied and disconsolate, they were ready to follow

* When the first reformers were assembled at Augsburgh in Germany, the Prorestant princes employed Melancthon, a divine of great learning and moderation, to draw up a confession of their faith, expressed in terms as little offensive to the Roman Catholics, as a regard for truth would permit. And this creed, from the place where it was presented, is called the Confession of Augsburgh..

any teacher, who seemed to be able to direct them to that light of peace of which they felt the need. Many in succession engaged their attention; until finding the insufficiency of them all, they withdrew from the community of every visible church, and dwelt retired, and attentive to the inward state of their own minds."

GEORGE FOX was one of the first among them who was imprisoned. He was confined at Nottingham, in the year 1649, for having publicly opposed a preacher who had asserted, that the more sure words of prophecy, mentioned 2 Pet. i. 19. was the scripture; Fox declaring that it was the Holy Spirit; and in the following year, being brought before two justices in Derbyshire, one of them scoffing at him for having bidden him, and those about him, tremble at the word of the Lord, occasioned the imputation of Quakers, an appellation which soon became and has remained the most usual denomination; but they themselves adopted, and have transmitted to us, the endearing appellation of Friends. It is difficult to give a specific statement of their tenets, but they may be found in a well writteu Apology by Robert Barclay, a learned quaker, who died in Scotland, 1690.

The Quakers have places of worship, where they regularly assemble on the sabbath, though sometimes without vocal prayer, or any religious or practical exhortation. They reject water-baptism and the Lord's supper, have no distinct order of ministers, and are firm advocates for the Arminian system of doctrine. Their internal government is much admired; their own poor are supported without parochial aid, and their industry and sobriety are deserving of imitation. They also reprobate the destructive practice of war, the infamous traffic of slaves, and profess their abhorrence of religious persecution. Refusing to pay tithes, they suffer the loss of their goods and of their liberty, rather than comply with the demand, aud their losses are emphatically termed by them sufferings. As the quakers cannot be made to take an oath in a court of justice, their affirmation is permitted in all civil, but not in criminal cases. Towards the close of the 16th century, the respectable William Penn, who founded Pennsylvania, introduced and established a large and flourishing colony of them in America, where they are now very

numerous.

The Keithian Quakers, are a party which separated from the Quakers, in Pennsylvania, in the year 1691. They were headed by the famous George Keith, from whom they derived their name. Those who persisted in their separation after their leader deserted them, practised baptism, and received the Lord's supper. This party were also called Quaker Baptists, because they retained the language, dress, and manners, of the Quakers.

SANDEMANIANS. A sect which originated in Scotland about the year 1728, where it is at this time distinguished by the name of Glassites, after its founder, Mr. JOHN GLAS. He was a minister in the established church in that country; but being charged with a design of subverting the national covenant, and sapping the foundation of all national establishments of religion, he was expelled by the synod from the church of Scotland. This sect took its name from Mr. ROBERT SANDEMAN, an elder in one of the Scottish churches. The practices, in which this denomination differ from the generality of other Christians, are, their weekly administration of the Lord's supper; their love-feasts, of which every member is not only allowed, but required to partake, and which consist of their dining together at each others houses in the interval between the morning and the afternoon service; their kiss of charity, on the admission of a new member, and other occasions; their weekly collection before the Lord's supper for the support of the poor, and other necessary expenses; mutual exhortation; abstinence from blood, and from things strangled; and the washing of each others feet. Every one, it is said, considers all that he has in his possession and power liable to the calls of the poor and the church. They also hold it to be unlawful to lay up treasures upon earth, by setting them apart for any distant, future, and uncertain use. They allow of public and private diversions, so far as they are not connected with circumstances really sinful. They have a plurality of elders, pastors, or bishops, in each church. In the choice of them, the want of learning, or engagement in trade, is no sufficient objection, if qualified according to the instructions given by Paul to Timothy and Titus: but second marriages disqualify for the office. In discipline they are strict and severe; and in their families it is said, there is but little social worship: for conceiving

it unlawful to join in prayer with one who is not a brother or sister, and finding no express precept or precedent in the scriptures for family prayer, that which by other Christians is held sacred as a part of moral obligation, is by them very commonly disregarded.

SABBATARIANS, are a body of Christians who keep the seventh day Sabbath, and are to be found principally, if not wholly, among the Baptists. The common reasons why Christians observe the first day of the week as the sabbath are, that on this day Christ rose from the dead; that the apostles assembled, preached, and administered the Lord's supper, and that it has been kept by the church for several ages, if not from the time when Christianity was first promulgated. The Sabbatarians, however, think these reasons unsatisfactory, and assert that the change of the sabbath, from the seventh to the first day of the week, was effected by Constantine, upon his conversion to the Christian religion.

SHAKERS. The first who acquired this denomination were Europeans, a part of whom came from England to New York in the year 1774; and, being joined by others, they settled at Nisqueunia, above Albany, whence they have spread their doctrine, and increased to a considerable number. Anna Leese, whom they style the Elect Lady, was the head of this party. They assert that she was the mother spoken of in the twelfth chapter of Revelations, and that she speaks seventy-two tongues; and though these tongues are unintelligible to the living, she converses with the dead who understand her language. They add further that she is the mother of all the elect, that she travails for the whole world, and that no blessing can descend to any person but only by and through her, and that in the way of her being possessed of their sins, by their confessing and repenting of them one by one, according to her direction. They vary in their exercises. Their heavy dancing, as it is called, is performed by a perpetual springing from the house floor, about four inches up and down, both in the men's and women's apartment, moving about with extraordinary transport, singing sometimes one at a time, sometimes more. This elevation affects the nerves, so that they have intervals of shuddering as if they were in a strong fit of the ague. They some