INDEX.

85, 120

Augsburg, Confession of 75, 76, 126

HISTORY OF ALL CHRISTIAN SECTS

AND DENOMINATIONS.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON EXISTING CREEDS AT VARIANCE WITH CHRISTIANITY-ATHEISTS--PANTHEISTS-DEISTS

THEOPHILANTHROPISTS-PAGANS.

ATHEISTS.

BEFORE entering upon an acccount of the various sects and denominations, into which the Christian world is divided, it will be interesting to glance at the opinions of those, who reject all revealed religion, and to review the present condition of Judæism and Mahommedanism. Indeed, a complete survey of the interesting field we propose to examine could not well be taken, without departing so far from our main subject as to include these topics.

To delineate the nature, point out the foundation, and calculate the tendency of every individual creed, would be an endless task. Our design is simply to enumerate the leading tenets of the several parties, which attract our notice; and, in accomplishing this purpose, it will be our earnest endeavor to avoid all uncharitable reflections and prejudiced misrepresentations.

As the idea of a Supreme Being is the foundation of all religion, we will first consider the opinions of those, who reject or profess to reject this idea, and who are consequently without any religion. The term atheist is derived from two Greek words, &, without, and Osos, God; and signifies one who denies the existence of a God, or a Providence; and in this sense the appellation occurs in

the New Testament, Ephes. ii. 12:-"Without God (or Atheist) in the world.”

Plato distinguishes three sorts of Atheists: such as deny absolutely that there are any Gods; others, who admit the existence of the Gods, but deny that they concern themselves with human affairs, and so disbelieve a Providence; and lastly, such as believe in the Gods and a Providence, but think that they are easily appeased, remitting the greatest crimes for the slightest supplication.

It is to be hoped that direct Atheists are few. Some persons question the reality of such a character; and others insist that pretensions to Atheism have their origin in pride, or are adopted as a cloak to licentiousness, while in not a few instances the motive is merely an affectation of eccentricity. In the seventeenth century, Benedict Spinoza was a noted defender of what comes under Plato's classification of Atheistic notions. Spinoza was a Jew of Amsterdam, born in 1634. In his work on ethics, he undertakes to deduce by mathematical reasoning from a few axioms, the principles," that there can be no substance but God; whatever is is in God, and nothing can be conceived without God.” Hence his scheme is called with justice Pantheistic, from the Greek words nur, the whole, and ɛos, God.

In 1619, Lucilio Vanini, an Italian, of eccentric character, was burned at Toulouse, for his Atheistical tenets. Being pressed to make public acknowledgment of his crime, and to ask pardon of God, the king, and justice, he replied, that he did not believe there was a God; that he never offended the king; and as for justice, he wished it at the devil! He confessed that he was one of the twelve who parted in company from Naples to spread their doctrines in all parts of Europe.

Lord Bacon, in his Essays, justly remarks, that "a little philosophy inclineth a man's mind to Atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion for while the mind of man looketh upon second causes scattered, it may rest in them and go no farther; but when it beholdeth the chain of them confederated and

:

linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and Deity." And Dean Sherlock remarks respecting the origin of Atheism, that "The universal Deluge and the confusion of languages, had so abundantly convinced mankind of a Divine power and Providence, that there was no such creature as an Atheist till their ridiculous idolatries had tempted some men of wit and thought rather to own no God than such as the Heathens worshipped."

"Of all the false doctrines and foolish opinions," says Dr. Balguy, "which ever infested the mind of man, nothing can possibly equal that of Atheism, which is such a monstrous contradiction to all evidence, to all the powers of understanding, and the dictates of common sense, that it may be well questioned whether any man can really fall into it by a deliberate use of his judgment. All nature so clearly points out, and so loudly proclaims a Creator of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, that whoever hears not its voice, and sees not its proofs, may well be thought wilfully deaf and obstinately blind. If it be evident, selfevident, to every man of thought, that there can be no effect without a cause, what shall we say of that manifold combination of effects, that series of operations, that system of wonders, which fill the universe; which present themselves to all our perceptions, and strike our minds and our senses on every side? Every faculty, and every object of every faculty, demonstrate a Deity. The meanest insect we can see, the minutest and most contemptible weed we can tread upon, is really sufficient to confound Atheism and baffle all its pretensions. How much more that astonishing variety and multiplicity of God's works with which we are continually surrounded! Let any man survey the face of the earth, or lift up his eyes to the firmament; let him consider the nature and instinct of brute animals, and afterwards look into the operations of his own mind: will he presume to say or suppose that all the objects he meets with are nothing more than the result of unaccountable accident and blind chance? Can he possibly conceive that such wonderful order should spring out of confusion; or that such perfect beauty should be eve