duct of the different congregations.-(3.) The servants' department, to which the œconomical concerns of the Unity are committed.-(4.) The overseers' department, of which the business is to see that the constitution and discipline of the brethren be every where maintained. No resolution however, of any of these departments, has the smallest force till it be laid before the assembly of the whole elders' conference, and have the approbation of that body. The powers of the elders' conference are indeed very extensive besides the general care which it is commissioned by the synods to take of all the congregations and missions, it appoints and removes every servant in the Unity as circumstances may require; authorises the bishops to ordain presbyters, or deacons, and to consecrate other bishops; and in a word, though it cannot abrogate any of the constitutions of the synods, or enact new ones itself, yet it is possessed of the supreme executive power over the whole body of the united brethren.

Besides this general conference of elders, there is another conference of elders belonging to each congregation, which directs its affairs, and to which the bishops and all other ministers, as well as the

lay members of the congregation, are subject. This body, which is called "The elders' cenference of the congregation," consists,-(1.) Of the minister as president, to whom the ordinary care of the congregation is committed, except when it is very numerous, and then the general inspection of it is entrusted to a separate person, called the congregation-helper.-(2.) Of the warden, whose office it is to superintend, with the aid of council, all outward concerns of the congregation, and to assist every individual with his advice.-(3.) Of a married pair, who care particularly for the spiritual welfare of the married people.-(4.) Of a single clergyman, to whose care the young men are more particularly committed.-And, (5.) Of those women who assist in caring for the spiritual and temporal welfare of their own sex, and who in this conference have equal votes with the men. As the elders' conference of each congregation is answerable for its proceedings to the elders' conference of the unity, visitations from the latter to the former are held from time to time, that the affairs of each congregation, and the conduct of its immediate governors may be intimately known to the supreme executive govern

ment of the whole church. Episcopal consecration does not, in the opinion of the brethren, confer any power to preside over one or more congregations; and a bishop can discharge no office but by the appointment of a synod, or of the elders' conference of the unity. Presbyters amongst them can perform every function of the bishop, except ordination. Deacons are assistants to the presbyters much in the same way as in the church of England; and deaconesses are retained for the purpose of privately admonishing their own sex, and visiting them in their sickness: but though they are solemnly blessed to this office, they are not permitted to teach in public, and far less to administer the ordinances. They have likewise seniores civiles, or lay-elders, in contradistinction from spiritual elders, or bishops, who are appointed to watch over the constitution and discipline of the united brethren; over the observance of the laws of the country in which congregations or missions are established, and over the privileges granted to the brethren by the governments under which they live. They have œconomies, or choir-houses, where they live together in community: the single men,

and single women, widows, and widowers apart, each under the superintendance of elderly persons of their own class. In these houses every person who is able, and has not an independent support, labours in their own occupation, and contributes a stipulated sum for their maintenance. Their children are

educated with peculiar care. In marriage they may only form a connexion with those of their own communion: the brother who marries out of the congregation is immediately cut off from churchfellowship. Sometimes however, a sister is by express licence from the elders' conference permitted to marry a person of approved piety in another communion, yet still to join in their church ordinances as before. A brother may make his own choice of a partner in the society; but as all intercourse between the different sexes is carefully avoided, very few opportunities of forming particular attachments are found; and they usually refer their choice to the church rather than decide for themselves. And as the lot must be cast to sanction their union, each receives his partner as a divine appointment.--They do not consider a literary course of education as at all necessary

to, the ministry, provided there be a thorough knowledge of the word of God, a solid christian experience, and a wellregulated zeal to serve God and their neighbours. They consider the church of Christ as not confined to any particular party, community, or church, and themselves, though united in one body or visible church, as spiritually joined in the bond of christian love to all who are taught of God, and belong to the universal church of Christ, however much they may differ in forms, which they deem non-essentials.

But the most distinguishing feature of this denomination is, their earnest and unremitted labour in attempt ing to convert the heathen. They seem to have considered themselves, within the last seventy years, as a church of missionaries. And though other denominations have of late emulated their zeal, yet are they far behind them. In modesty, meekness, patience, and silent perseverance in this great work, they are unequalled. The following are the names of their settlements in heathen countries:-Begun in 1732, in the Danish West India Islands. In St. Thomas, New Herrnhut, Nisky; in St. Croix, Friedensburg, Friedensthal; in St. Jan, Bethany, and

Emmaus.-In 1733, in Greenland, New Herrnhut, Lichtensels,and Lichtenau,-In 1734, North America, Fairfield in Upper Canada, and Goshen, on the river Muskingum.In 1736, at the Cape of Good Hope, Bavians Kloof, (renewed in 1792.)-In 1738, in South America, among the negro slaves at Paramaribo and 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. John's, Grace bill, and Grace Bay.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, Sharon, near Bridge-town.-In the same year, in the Russian part of Asia, Sarepta.-In 1775, in St. Kitt's at Basseterre.— In 1789, in Tobago, Signall hill, renewed in 1798.

The East India missions are at present suspended. The most flourishing at this time are those in Greenland, Antigua, St. Kitt's, the Danish West India Islands, and the Cape of Good Hope. A new awakening has appeared of late among the Arawacks and free Negroes in South Ame

rica, the Esquimeaux on the Coast of Labrador, and in Barbadoes: the latest accounts (1802) give the most pleasing hopes of success in those places.*]

MUGGLETONIANS, a denomination which arose in England about the year 1657; so called from their leader, Lodowick Muggleton, a journeyman taylor, who, with his associate Reeves,† set up for great prophets, and declared that their message was wholly spiritual; and that whoever despised or rejected it committed the unpardonable sin against the holy Ghost. They asserted, that they were the Lord's two last true witnesses and prophets spoken of in the eleventh chapter of the Revelation, who should appear a little before the coming of Christ, and the end of the world. Among other things, they denied the doctrine of the trinity; and affirmed that God the Father, who was a spiritual man from all eternity, in time came down, and suffered upon earth in a human

form. They declared that it was revealed to them that Elijah was taken up in a whirlwind to heaven, for the purpose of representing the person of God the Father while he dwelt on earth.

MYSTICS. [This is a name not confined to any particular division of christians; but has been generally given to those who maintain that the scriptures have a mystic and hidden sense, which must be sought after in order to understand their true import; and who, laying but little stress on outward things, profess to aspire after a pure and sublime devotion-an infused and passive contemplation, through a silent and inward attention to the operations of the Spirit of God upon the mind.] They derived their origin from Dionysius, the Areopagite, who was converted to christianity in the first century by the preaching of Paul at Athens. To support this idea, they attributed to this great man various treatises which are generally ascribed to writers

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who lived at a later period; particularly to a famous Grecian Mystic, who, it is said, wrote under the protection of the venerable name of Dionysius, the Areopagite.*

This denomination appeared in the third century, increased in the fourth, and in the fifth gained ground in the eastern provinces. In the year 824 the supposed works of Dionysius kindled the flame of Mysticism in the western provinces. In the twelfth century they took the lead in their method of expounding the scriptures; in the thirteenth they were the most formidable antagonists of the schoolmen; towards the close of the fourteenth they resided and propagated their sentiments in almost every part of Europe; in the fifteenth and sixteenth many persons of distinguished merit embraced their tenets; and in the seventeenth the radical principle of Mysticism was adopted by the Behmenists, Bourignonists, Quietists, and Quakers.

The ancient Mystics were distinguished by their professing pure, sublime, and perfect devotion, with an entire disinterested love of God; and by their aspiring to a state of passive contemplation.

The first promoters of these sentiments have been supposed to proceed from the well known doctrine of the Platonic school, (which was adopted by Origen and his disciples) that the divine nature was diffused through all human souls; or in other words, that the faculty of reason, from which proceeds the health and vigour of the mind, was an emanation from God into the human soul, and comprehended in it the principles and elements of all truth human and divine. They denied that men could by labour or study excite this celestial flame in their breasts; and therefore highly disapproved of the attempts of those who, by definitions, abstract theorems, and profound speculations, endeavoured to form distinct notions of truth, and discover its hidden nature. On the contrary, they maintained that silence, tranquillity, repose, and solitude, accompanied with such acts of mortification as might tend to extenuate and exhaust the body, were the means by which the hidden and internal word was excited to produce its latent virtues, and to instruct men in the knowledge of divine things; and accordingly reasoned thus: "They