even from the common instincts of nature.

From these, and such like doctrines, the brethren under consideration drew this conclusion: That the person who had ascended to God in this manner, and was absorbed by contemplation in the abyss of Deity, became thus a part of the Godhead-commenced God-was the Son of God in the same sense and manner that Christ was; and was thereby raised to a glorious independence, and freed from the obligation of all laws, human and divine.

In consequence of this, they treated with contempt the ordinances of the gospel, and every external act of religious worship; looking upon prayer, fasting, baptism, and the sacrament of the Lord's supper, as the first elements of piety, adapted to the capacity of children, and as of no sort of use to the perfect man, whom long meditation had raised above all external things, and carried into the bosom and essence of the Deity.

They rejected with horror every kind of industry and labour, as an obstacle to divine contemplation, and to the ascent of the soul towards

the Father of spirits.*

*Mosheim, vol. iii. p. 122-124. Necessity of Separation, p. 153. Also Neal's Puritans, p. 428.

N

BROWNISTS, the name given for some time to those who were afterwards known in England and Holland under the denomination of Independents. It arose from a Mr. Robert Brown, whose parents resided in Rutlandshire, though he is said to have been born at Northampton; and who from about fifteen hundred and seventy-one to fifteen hundred and ninety, was a teacher amongst them in England, and at Middleburgh, in Zealand. He was a man of family, of zeal, of some abilities, and had had a university education. The separation, however, does not appear to have originated in him: for by several publications of those times, it is clear that these sentiments had, before his day, been embraced, and professed in England, and churches gathered on the plan of them.† Nor did they call themselves Brownists; but considered it rather as a nick-name given them by their adversaries. Nor did Brown continue with them; but, after all that he had preached and written against the church, accepted a living in it, at Achurch, in Northamptonshire.

This denomination did not differ in point of doctrine from

Examination of Barrow, Canne's Giffard's Plain Declaration, pp. 1, 2.

the church of England, or from the other puritans; but they apprehended that, according to scripture, every church ought to be confined within the limits of a single congregation, and have the compleat power of jurisdiction over its members, to be exercised by the elders within itself, without being subject to the authority of bishops, synods, presbyteries, or any ecclesiastical assembly, composed of the deputies from different churches.

Under this name, though they always disowned it, were ranked the learned Henry Ainsworth, author of the Annotations on the Pentateuch, &c.; the famous John Robinson, a part of whose congregation from Leyden, in Holland, made the first permanent settlement in North America; and the laborious Canne, the author of the Marginal References to the Bible.

"Much is said (say they) of the reformation of the church. There has been indeed great reformation of the things in the church; but very little of the church, to speak truly and properly. The people are the church; and to make a reformed church, there must first be a reformed people. This should have been endeavoured by the preach

ing of repentance from dead works, and faith in Christ; that the people, as the Lord gave grace, being first fitted for, and made capable of ordi-. nances, might afterwards have communicated in the pure use of them. Others, endeavouring yet a farther reformation, have sued, and do sue to kings, queens, and parliaments, for the rooting out of prelacy, and such evils as grow from it; which, if obtained, would be the further profanation of God's ordinances. Is it not strange that men in the reforming of the church should forget the church, that is, the people; and labour to set Christ as a king over those to whom he hath not been a prophet? Men cannot submit to the discipline of Christ, who have not first been prepared in some measure by his doctrine, and taught with meekness to submit to his yoke.”*

It has been observed by a late advocate of this denomination, and who has corrected many errors of former historians, "Our children at school are taught to read as their lesson the account of the protestant sufferings, during the persecutions of Mary, of Gardiner, and of Bonner; and thus from their infancy they imbibe a just abhorrence of their characters, and their

✦ J. Robinson's Justification of Separation, pp. 300, 301,

*Strype's Annals, vol. ult. + Epist. Viror. Præstant. &c. Bachus's Hist. of New England, vol. i. p. 40. Viz. Copping, Thacker, Greenwood, Barrow, Penry, and Dennis. Some account of Mr. Henry Ainsworth, prefixed to a new edition of his two Treatises, printed at Edinburgh, 1789, p. 10. Mosheim, vol. iv. p. 199.

CAL

MAINIANS, a denomination which sprang up about the year one hundred and thirty, so called on account of their great respect for Cain. They pretended that the virtue which had produced Abel, was of an order inferior to that which had produced Cain; and that this was the reason why Cain had the victory over Abel, and killed him for they admitted a great number of genii, which they called virtues, of different ranks and orders. They had a great veneration for the inhabitants of Sodom, Esau, Corah, Dathan, and Abiram; and in particular for Judas, under pretence that the death of Jesus Christ had saved mankind, and that he betrayed him for that end. They even made use of a gospel of Judas, to which they paid great respect.

The morals of this denomi-, nation were said to be the same with those of the Carpocratians. See Carpocra

tians.

CALIXTINS, a branch of the Hussites, in Bohemia and Moravia, in the fifteenth century. The principal point in which they differed from the church of Rome, was the use of the chalice, (calix) or communicating in both kinds. Ca

lixtins was also a name given to those among the Lutherans who followed the opinions of George Calixtus, a celebrated divine in the seventeenth century, who endeavoured to unite the Romish, Lutheran, and Calvinistic churches in the bonds of charity and mutual benevolence. He maintained, (1.) That the fundamental doctrines of christianity, by which he meant those elementary principles whence all its truths flow, were preserved pure in all three communions, and were contained in that ancient form of doctrine that is vulgarly known by the name of the apostles' creed :-(2.) That the tenets and opinions which had been constantly received by the ancient doctors during the first five centuries, were to be considered as of equal truth and authority with the express declarations and doctrines of scripture.†

CALVINISTS. [They derive their name from John Calvin, an eminent reformer, who was born at Nogen, in Picardy, in the year fifteen hundred and nine. He first studied the civil law, and was afterwards made professor of divinity at Geneva, in the year fifteen hundred and thirty-six. His genius, learning,

Historical Dictionary, vol. i. (See Cainians.) Broughton, vol. i. p. 190 ↑ Broughton, vol, i. p. 192. Mosheim, vol. iv. p. 150, 451,