lent excesses of Munster, they answer, If it were so, it is no disgrace to the principle, unless it could be proved to favour such excèsses; nor to those who hold it, unless they be guilty of the same things: but they deny that it is so; for that the disturbances in question did not originate with the people called Anabaptists; that those who bore this name practised sprinkling; and that antipædobaptism was known many centuries before they existed. The Baptists subsist under two denominations; viz. the Particular, or Calvinistical; and the General, or Arminian. The former is by far the most numerous. Some of both denominations allow of mixed communion with pædobaptists; others disallow it: and some few of them observe the seventh day of the week as the sabbath, apprehending the law that enjoined it not to have been repealed by Christ or his apostles. A considerable number of the General Baptists have gone into Socinianism or Arianism, on account of which several of their ministers and churches who disapprove of these principles, have within the last forty years formed themselves into a distinct connection, called The New Association. The churches in this union keep up a friendly acquaintance, in some outward things, with those from whom they have separated; but in things more essential disclaim any connection with them; particularly as to changing ministers, and the admission of members.* The Baptists in America, and in the East and West-Indies, are chiefly Calvinists, and hold occasional fellowship with the particular baptist churches in England. Those in Scotland having imbibed a considerable part of the principles of Messrs. Glass & Sandeman, have no communion with the others. When the English Baptists engaged in a mission to the east, however, they very liberally contributed towards it, especially to the translating of the scriptures in the Bengalee language.† For an account of them see Rippon's Baptist Register, vol. ii. p. 361.] BARDESANISTES, a denomination in the second century, the followers of Bardesanes, a native of Edessa, and a man of a very acute and penetrating genius. The sum of his doctrine was as follows: 1. That there is a supreme [* Rippon's Baptist Register, vol. i. p. 172–175. † Gale's Reflections on Wall's History. Stennet's Answer to Addington. Booth's Pædobaptism Examined, second edition. M'Lean on the Commission.] God, pure and benevolent, absolutely free from all evil and imperfection; and there is also a prince of darkness, the fountain of all evil, disorder, and misery. 2. That the supreme God created the world without any mixture of evil in its composition: he gave existence also to its inhabitants, who came out of his forming hand pure and incorrupt, endued with subtle etherial bodies, and spirits of a celestial nature. 3. That when the prince of darkness had enticed men to sin, then the supreme God. permitted them to fall into sluggish and gross bodies, formed of corrupt matter by the evil principle. He permitted also the depravation and disorder which this malignant being introduced both into the natural and moral world, designing by this permission to punish the degeneracy and rebellion of an apostate race; and hence proceeds the perpetual conflict between reason and passion in the mind of man. 4. That on this account Jesus descended from the upper regions, clothed not with a real, but with a celestial and aërial body, and taught man kind to subdue that body of corruption which they carry about with them in this mortal life; and by abstinence, fasting, and contemplation, to disengage themselves from the servitude and dominion of that malignant matter which chained down the soul to low and ignoble pursuits. 5. That those who submit themselves to the discipline of this divine teacher, shall, after the dissolution of this terrestrial body, mount up to the mansions of felicity, clothed with etherial vehicles, or celestial bodies. This denomination was a branch of the Gnostics.* See Gnostics. BARLAAMITES, a denomination in the sixteenth century, followers of Barlaam. He was by birth a Neapolitan, and monk of the order of St. Basil. He maintained that the light which surrounded Christ on Mount Tabor, was neither the divine essence, nor flowed from it.† BASILIDIANS, a denomi nation in the second century, from Basilides, chief of the Egyptian Gnostics. He acknowledged the existence of one supreme God, perfect in goodness and wisdom, who * Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. p. 179, 180. ↑ Barlaam was opposed by Palamas, archbishop of Thessalonica, who asserted that the light seen upon Tabor was an uncreated light, and co-eternal with God. of forming a world from that confused mass, and of creating an order of beings to people it. This design was carried into execution, and was approved by the supreme God, who, to the animal life with which only the inhabitants of this new world were at first endowed, added a reasonable produced from his own substance seven beings, or aions,* of a most excellent nature. Two of these aions, called Dynamis and Sophia, (i. e. power and wisdom) engendered the angels of the highest order. These angels formed a heaven for their habitation, and brought forth other angelic beings of a nature somewhat soul, giving at the same time inferior to their own. Many to the angels the empire over other generations of angels them. followed these. New heavens were also created, until the number of angelic orders, and of their respective heavens, amounted to three hundred and sixty-five, and thus equalled the days of the year. All these are under the empire of an omnipotent Lord, whom Basilides called Abraxas. The inhabitants of the lowest heavens, which touched upon the borders of the eternal, malignant, and self-animated matter, conceived the design These angelic beings, advanced to the government of the world which they had created, fell by degrees from their original purity, and soon manifested the fatal marks of their depravity and corruption. They not only endeavoured to efface in the minds of men their knowledge of the supreme Being, that they might be worshipped in his stead; but also began to war against each other, with an ambitious view to enlarge every * The word aion, from expressing only the duration of beings, was by a metonymy employed to signify the beings themselves. Thus the supreme Being was called aion; and the angels were distinguished by the title of aions. All this will lead us to the true meaning of that word among the Gnostics. They had formed to themselves the notion of an invisible world, composed of entities, or virtues, proceeding from the supreme Being, and succeeding each other at certain intervals of time, so as to form an eternal chain, of which our world was the terminating link. To the beings which formed this eternal chain, the Gnostics assigned a certain term of duration, and a certain sphere of action. Their terms of duration were at first called aions; and they themselves were afterwards metonymically distinguished by that title. + Basilides supposed this lower world to have been made by angels, Many embraced this opinion, because they thought it below the supreme Being to meddle with matter, in order to give it form and beauty. They judged it unworthy of him to make perishing and mortal beings. Above all, they could not endure the supposition that God is the author of the many evils which are in the world. one the bounds of his respec- BAXTERIANS, so called from the learned and pious Mr. Baxter maintains that there may be a certainty of perseverance here; and yet he cannot tell whether a man may not have so weak a degree of saving grace as to lose it again. In order to prove that the death of Christ has put all in a state capable of salvation, the following arguments are alleged by this learned author. 1. It was the nature of all mankind which Christ assumed at his incarnation, and the sins of all mankind were the occasion of his suffering. 2. It was to Adam, as the common father of lapsed manMosheim, vol. i. p. 181, 182, 183. Lardner's Works. kind, that God made the promise. (Gen. iii, 15.) The conditional new covenant does equally give Christ, pardon, and life, to all mankind, on condition of acceptance. The conditional grant is universal; Whosoever believeth shall be saved. 3. It is not to the elect only, but to all mankind, that Christ has commanded his ministers to proclaim his gospel, and offer the benefits of his procuring. There are, Mr. Baxter allows, certain fruits of Christ's death which are proper to the elect only:-(1.) Grace eventually worketh in them true faith, repentance, conversion, and union with Christ, as his living members.--(2.) The actual forgiveness of sin, as to the spiritual and eternal punishment. Rom. iv. 1-34. −(3.) Our reconciliation with God, and adoption and right to the heavenly inheritance. Psal. iv. 6-16.-(4.) The Spirit of Christ to dwell in us, and sanctify us, by a habit of divine love. Rom. viii. 9-13. Gal. v. 6. (5.) Employment in holy, acceptable service, and prayer, with a promise of being heard through Christ. Heb. ii. 5, 6. John xiv. 13.-(6.) Well grounded hopes of salvation, peace of access in conscience, and spiritual communion with the church mystical in heaven and earth. Rom. v. 12. Heb. xii. 22. (7.) A special interest in Christ, and intercession with the Father. Rom. viii. 32, 33. (8.) Resurrection unto life, and justification in judgment; glorification of the soul at death, and of the body at the resurrection. Phil. iii. 20, 21. 2 Cor. v. 1, 2, 3. Rom. viii. 17-32. Christ has made a conditional deed of gift of those benefits to all mankind; but the elect only accept and possess them. Hence he infers that, though Christ never absolutely intended, or decreed, that his death should eventually put all men in possession of those benefits; yet he did intend and decree that all men should have a conditional gift of them by his death.* For an account of Mr. Baxter's sentiments respecting the trinity, see Trinitarians; see also Neonomians. BEHMENISTS, a name given to those mystics who adopt the explications of the mysteries of nature and grace as given by Jacob Behmen.This writer was born in the year fifteen hundred and seventy-five, at Old Seidenburg near Gorlitz, in Upper Lusatia. He * Baxter's Catholic Theology, p. 51, 52, 53. Watts's Posthumous Works. Baxter's End of Doctrinal Controversies, p. 154, 155. |