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Somerset, master of the horse, began to compare the ancient and modern philosophy, and found that he could not find the truth in either. He examined the Hebrew language with great care, and from his enquiry, published a book under the title of Moses Principia, which he laid down as the ground work of all his other compositions.

The design of this work is to prove that Moses laid down a perfect system of philosophy; that the sacred scriptures of the Old Testament had never been rightly translated; that Moses never taught any thing contrary to the planetary system, but really established it; and whereas Sir Isaac Newton instituted the notion of there being a vacuum in nature, he opposed it by asserting there was a plenum. That all heavenly bodies went round the sun by a sort of compressure.

With respect to the terms of acceptance with God, he asserted, that they were clearly revealed by Moses and the prophets; but he strongly opposed the imputation of Christ's righteousness. He leaned more to the Arminian than the Calvinistical side of the Question; but his notions were a mixture of both.

From these sentiments a new sect was formed, which has continued ever since. There are many learned men of this opinion, and three Hebrew Lexicons have been published to support all his sentiments. The Hutchinsonian writers are more severe against their antagonists, than the Papists are against the Protestants 'There is a certain harshness of expression used by them, that does not become the mild doctrines of the gospel. We know but of one single exception to this general charge, and that is, in the lord president Forbes. That learned gentleman has dressed the Hutchinsonians in the most amiable characters indeed. While he illustrates the principles laid down by Hutchinson, he vindicates, at the same time, all the great truths of the Christian religion, and supports divine revelation upon principles little attended to by Christian divines and utterly unanswerable by the Deists. It is certain, that his works have been of more service in promoting the cause of religion and virtue, than one half of the books in the present age.

At present, the Hutchinsonians are rather a sentimental than collective body of people; they are to 'be found among almost all denominations of Protestants, and the notion itself has been the means of reviving the study of the Hebrew language. It has stimulated many persons to enquire into the sacred oracles, and notwithstanding the levity of the present age, yet we are certain, that there are inore

persons in Britain at present acquainted with the oriental languages than ever were known at one time, since the reformation.

As for places of worship, properly speaking, they have none; for those of the lower sort who reside in London, meet, like the Muggletonians, in public houses. We have been present at one of these meetings, in a club-room up stairs, at a noted public house in the Strand. The members consisted, for the most part, of discarded Methodists, Independents, and Sandemanians; but we could not find one person that had made choice of this scheme till he had been expelled out of another. And this leads us to consider the vast impropriety in the conduct of our modern Calvinistical Dissenters, in excom→ municating their members.

The action is weak, foolish, and wicked. It is weak, because they turn out from among them those who have it in their power to expose some things that will not bear a proper scrutiny. It is foolish, because they turn away those who contributed towards supporting their ministers in a state of idleness. And, lastly, it is wicked, because no sooner have they discarded one of their members, than they do all in their power to promote his ruin. Here is a complication of guilt, attended with many aggravating circumstances. Some of them know themselves to be very irregular, and why then should they hunt down those who only go halves with them in a course of practical impiety?

This conduct of some Dissenters has been attended with two consequences: First, it has made the discarded members form schemes of new religions; and then finding nothing but knavery whereever they joined themselves, they have commenced either papists or deists."

At present, when the Hutchinsonians meet in their public assemblies, one of them reads, and another explains a passage of scripture as well as he can; then a third prays; and when they have drank a little porter they are dismissed.

Having already taken notice that most of our new religions are formed of the excommunicated members of other societies; we must now declare these members were once celebrated for their high attainments in piety and divine experience. They were celebrated for traducing the words morality, or good works. Grace, experience, the state of their souls and such like expressions, made the whole of their conversation; but let them be once discarded, they treat with contempt all their boasted experiences, and when they are tired with dabbling in religion, they give themselves up to all manner of profaneness.

There

There are but few instances where it is otherwise, and where that does happen, it should be ascribed more to a gracious Providence, than to any thing else. This should caution young people to be upon their guard against the force of temptation, which will be sure to assault them if they are not serious in the matter of religion. If they can overcome the temptation, it will be to their everlasting honour: of which we shall give a single instance, wishing we had it in our power to produce many more. About sixteen years ago, a person of an extraordinary turn, had read almost every book that he could lay hold of; and what was still more remarkable, he remembered almost every thing he read. Instructed in his early youth in the principles of Christianity, he had always the highest value for every thing of a serious nature. Brought up a Dissenter, and, in sentiment a Calvinist; he entered into communion with the Independents. He had not been long among them when he began to point out to their leaders the necessity they were under of reforming many abuses; and, among other things, that of providing for the poor. This was strongly opposed, and one of their ministers observed, that as they paid the poor's rates, so the parishes ought to take care. of those who were in want.

Another proposal was made by this person in the meeting, which met with the same fate as the former. It was, that the ministers should keep a list of the names of his people, their places of abode, and their circumstances; and that they should intimate upon their removal, what places they went to. That the minister should visit every person, at least four times in the year, to enquire into his circumstances, and to invite such as were poor, to come to the meeting, and in a tender and an affectionate manner, be relieved by their brethren.

This was a dreadful proposal, and every means were thought of, to get rid of this troublesome guest. The worst of all was, he had done rather more good than any of them, so that it was difficult to

fix the charge, so as to get him excommunicated. They had frequent consultations concerning these matters during the compass of six months; and at last, two favourable opportunities presented themselves.

London was at this time in an uproar, concerning the playing at blindman's-buff, and this obnoxious Independent went frequently to see their madness. As he was always free in his conversation, and sometimes imprudently satirical, he frequently ridiculed his brethren; so that he was reputed to be a Sandimanian. The next plea against him was, that in consequence of having a large family, most of whom had been loug confined to sick beds, he had been under the necessity of contracting some debts. A peremptory demand of payment was made upon him, at a time when it was well known it was not in his power to comply, and thus the affair was. brought to a conclusion. The offender was ordered to make his appearance before the congregation: but as he made it a fixed rule never to go where his temper might be ruffled, and well knowing what was plotting against him, he was immediately excommunicated.

As for this mean exercise of clerical power, the man would have made no account of it, but no sooner were they got quit of him, than they went about wherever he was known, and traduced his character in such a manner, that he was left with his family in distress. But notwithstanding that more than heathenish cruelty, yet this man never despised true religion. He gave up all connection with religious societies, and minded only religion itself. He considered religion as a living principle, which must be reduced to actions, and, traduced as a heathen, he went on in an uniform course of duty.

As what has been here advanced is the most solemn matter of fact, so it is hoped it will have a proper effect, and teach people, in the words of the apostle, to be well grounded in their own minds, be- fore they change their religious sentiments...

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all the sects we have hitherto treated of, this bears the nearest resemblance to that of the Mystics, only that this sect has been long confined to the Roman Catholic church, whereas the Mystics joined the Protestants.

The founder of this sect was one Michael de Molinos, a Romish priest, and a man of some learning, who lived in France, and afterwards in Italy, towards the latter end of the sixth century.

The name is taken from an absolute state of rest and inaction, which the soul is supposed to be in, when arrived at the state of perfection. This state of perfection is called by them the inactive life.

To arrive at this, a man is first to pass through the progressive way, that is, through a long course of uniform obedience, imposed by the fear of hell. Hence he is to proceed into the illuminative way before he arrives at perfection. He must go through combats and violent pains, that is, not only the usual business of the soul, and the common privations of grace, but also infernal pains.

He must believe himself to be damned, and the persuasion that he is so, must if he lives, be upon him several years.

St. Francis de Salis, a Jesuit, says, the Quietists are so fully persuaded of this, that they will not suffer any body to convince them to the contrary. And indeed it is needless to make the experiment, for enthusiasts are seldom convinced, even by the most rational arguments that can be made use of, but remain obstinate to the last. They shut their eyes against the truth.

These men believe that they shall be amply repaid for all their sufferings, by the embraces of God, which they imagine will raise them to a state equal to their maker.

Their sentiments concerning God, are wonderfully pure and disinterested. They say they love him for himself, on account of his own perfection, independently of any rewards or punishments. The soul, says he, acquiesces in the will of God, even at the time when he precipitates it into hell. Nay, instead of begging mercy on this occasion; one of them, whose name was B. Angelo de Foligy, cried out, "Haste Lord to cast me into hell, do not de

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In this state it has no occasion for prayers, or hymns, or vows: because, where the spirit labours, and the mouth is open, the soul is the most weak and impotent. The soul of the spirit is as it were laid in the boson, and between the arms of God; where without the making motion or exerting any action, it waits and receives the Divine grace. It then becomes happy, quitting the existence it had before. It is now changed, and it is transformed, and, as it were, sunk and swallowed up in the Divine being, in so much, as not to know its being distinguished

from God himself.

Bishop Burnet gives the following account of the Quietists, or Molinists, in one of his letters from Rome.

"The new method of Molinos doth so much prevail in Naples, that it is believed he hath above twenty thousand followers in this city; and since this has made some noise in the world, and yet is generally but little understood, I will give you some account of him: He is a Spanish priest that seems to be but an ordinary divine, and is certainly a very ill reasoner when he undertakes to prove his opinion: He hath writ a book, which is entitled il Guida Spirituale, or, The Spiritual Guide, which is a short abstract of the Mystical Divinity; the substance of the whole is reduced to this, that in our prayers and other devotions, the best methods are to retire the mind from all gross images, and so to form an act of faith, and thereby to present ourselves before God: and then to sink into a silence and cessation of new acts, and to let God act upon us, and so to follow his conduct: This way he prefers to the multiplication of many new acts, and different forms of devotion, and he makes small account of corporal

austerities,

austerities, and reduces all the exercises of religion | put in prison, whose doctrine consisted chiefly in to this simplicity of mind.

He thinks this is not only to be proposed to such as live in religious houses, but even to secular persons and by this he hath proposed a great reformation of men's minds and manners: he hath many priests in Italy, but chiefly in Naples, that dispose those who confess themselves to them, to follow his methods. The Jesuits have set themselves much against this conduct, as foreseeing that it may much weaken the empire that superstition hath over the minds of the people, that it may make religion become a more plain and simple thing, and may also open a door to enthusiasm: they also pretend that his conduct is factious and seditious, that this may breed a schism in the church. And because he saith, in some places of his book, that the mind may rise up to such a simplicity in its acts, that it may rise in some of its devotions to God immediately, without contemplating the humanity of Christ, they they have accused him, as intending to lay aside the doctrine of Christ's humanity, though it is plain that he speaks only of the purity of some single acts: Upon all those heads they have fet themselves much against Molinos; and they have also pretended that some of his disciples, have infused it into their penitents, that they may go and communicate as they find themselves disposed without going first to confession, which they thought weakened much the yoke, by which the priests subdued the consciences of the people to their conduct: yet he was much supported both in the kingdom of Naples and Sicily; he hath also many friends and followers at Rome. So the Jesuits, as a provincial of the order assured me, finding they could not ruin him by their own force, got a great king that is now extremely in the interests of their order to interpose, and to represent to the pope the danger of such in

novations.

It is certain the pope understands the matter very little, and that he is possessed with a great opinion of Molino's sanctity; yet upon the complaints of some cardinals, that seconded the zeal of that king, he and some of his followers were put in the Inquisition, where they have been now for some months, but still they are well used, which is believed to flow from the good opinion that the pope hath on him, who saith still, that though he may err, yet he is certainly a good man: Upon this imprisonment Pasquin said a pleasant thing in one week, one man had been condemned to the gallies for somewhat he had said, another had been hanged for somewhat he had writ, and Molinos was

this, that men ought to bring their minds to a state of inward quietness, from which the name of Quietists was given to all his followers: The Pasquinade upon all this, was, If we speak we are sent to the gallies, if we write we are hanged, if we stand quiet we are put up in the Inquisition, what must we do then? Yet his followers at Naples are not daunted, but they believe he will come out of this trial victorious.'

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Some years after the cardinals had condemned the opinions of Molinos, most of them were driven out of Italy; but this persecution caused them to increase rather than decrease. Some of the Polish clergy became converts to their opinions, which induced the famous Bossuet, bishop of Meaux, to write. against them. They might, indeed, have suffered much in France, but the clergy were too much engaged in persecuting the Protestants. However, no sooner was that persecution over, than the priests, who are seldom found idle while any one opposes them, let loose all their fury upon their own brethren the Molinists; for however mad these Molinists might have been in their speculative notions, yet they never denied the papal supremacy, nor did they refrain from any of the rites and ceremonies of the church of Rome. They set up no separate form of worship; they made no schism in that church; but the Roman Catholics punish people as well for their thoughts, as for their words or actions.

Some of these Quietists fled into Holland, where they published several books, but they still attended the Romish chapels in that country; for we do not find that any of them ever embraced the Protestant religion.

But notwithstanding all this, the Romanists never considered them as sound in the faith, nor did they always agree among themselves, so that it would be impossible to form a system of their speculative notions, without running into a variety of wild, absurd contradictions.

Many of these Quietists went up into Germany, where they were persecuted with as much violence by the Lutheran clergy as they had been formerly by the Romish priests. The pulpits thundered out against them; the learned wrote books and drew up long lists of their heresies; and then gave them by derision the name of Pietists, and their religion

Pietism.

These people are taxed in general as being indifferent to all the exteriors of religion, and in Germany despising the symbolical books of the Luthe

rans.

rans.

Their notions concerning the trinity are said not to be orthodox, and they look upon creation and providence as an inundation from the Deity. They are accused of being Millenarians; of pre-read their raptures of enthusiasm. tending that all religion consists in the contemplation of God; that in this state the soul is no ways guilty of the offences committed by the body; and that all actions are necessary, good or bad.

to this system, God and the whole world is but one complete being. They have many other wild notions, and there are many persons in the world who

Jacob Bohem, a native of Poland, having read some of the books written by the Quietists, resolved to turn author himself. He was by trade a shoemaker, but he had acquired some knowledge in reading cabbalistical and chemical books. His mind was well turned for enthusiasm and fanaticism; he bragged of visions and dreams, which he displayed in matters of divinity and philosophy; all which he pretended to clear up in a book intitled. "The Grand Mystery," which is a theological, chemical comment on Genesis, wrote in the German language. This being printed, made a vast number of enthusiasts.

It is likely that this shoemaker, notwithstanding the superior genius he pretended to, did not well understand his own meaning. For he is alway absurd and often ambiguous, like one who has but confused notions of the subject. His followers endeavoured to clear up his notions, by substituting some of their own. Thus, for instance, they owned a perfect unity in the Divine essence; and yet they imagined, it contained a three-fold principle of all things. Thus fire was God; the light of the fire, the knowledge and wisdom of God, the son of God; and the Holy Ghost, is the unity by which the light enlightens. This opinion was embraced by many of the ancient Heretics, as well as by some of the Heathen philosophers; for according

It does not appear, that there are any of them among the Roman Catholics in the present age; but vast numbers of sects have sprung from them in Germany; for almost every town or city has its meeting for them. They have no forms of worship, but in that particular pretty much resemble the Quakers. Indeed, it would be unnecessary for for them to have forms of worship, seeing they ne-ver pray but when they imagine themselves to be divinely inspired. It is the same in their sermons, . which are always rhapsodies of wild nonsense com-municated as it were by madmen..

Although in some things they bear a near resemblance to the Mystics, yet those of the latter persuasion whom we have now in England, are far from being so extravagant as these. It is certain, however, that the English Mystics have given encouragement to the printing of some of Jacob Bohem's books, but what success they have | had we know not.

Thus we have given the best account we could procure of the Quietists, which is extracted from impartial histories written of them; and here it appears, that a system of enthusiasm, consisting of dreams and visions, has been embraced by a great number of Protestants, even after the Roman Catholics, who broached it, had returned back to the bosom of their holy mother church. Enthusiasm will be always sure to gain a great number of followers, but reason and good sense, we are sorry to say, seldom make many converts.

WE

ACCOUNT OF THE PRE-ADAMITES.

E have already taken notice of some ancient Heretics who were called Adamites, and who were such abominable wretches, that they met naked in their assemblies, and committed the most indecent lascivious actions. This brought much

trouble to the Christians, who because they also met in the nights, were all included under the general censure. But the sect we are now going to treat of, were very different; for their notions were purely of a speculative nature.

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