body to take up arms and throw off their allegiance to the Stuart family. A declaration of this kind was published at Sanquhar, in which it was asserted that the "true Presbyterian Church and covenant nation" were bound to renounce the authority of a king who, though descended from their ancient sovereigns, "had long since departed from what he ought to be, by his perjury and usurpation in spiritual things and tyranny in matters civil." Cameron, Cargill, and other names famous in the history of the Covenanters, were subscribed. The soldiery were immediately sent in search of the daring band who thus arrayed themselves against a powerful and merciless government. A sharp encounter took place at Airsmoss, between a body of 120 dragoons and 66 of Covenanters. Cameron and his brother died upon the field; his head and hands were cut off and placed over one of the gates of Edinburgh. "And there," said Murray, who had ordered the exhibition, "is the head and hands that lived praying and preaching, and died praying and fighting." His severed limbs were carried to his father, who was then a prisoner in the Tolbooth, to increase his sorrow. The old man kissed them: "I know them; they are my son's, my dear son's," he cried, "good is the will of the Lord."

James the Second now ascended the throne, with the devotion of an apostate, and the heart of a grand inquisitor. The insurrection of the earl of Argyle was a pretext for new cruelties, and to the last year of his reign, there was scarcely an interval of rest to the Covenanters. One of the last sufferers was Renwick, a minister, who was hanged at Edinburgh in the very year which brought in the prince of Orange and the revolution. His dying words have never been forgotten in his native land. "I must tell you, dear friends and spectators, I die a Presbyterian Protestant. Lord! I die in the faith that thou wilt not leave Scotland, but that thou wilt make the blood of thy witnesses the seed of the Church, and return again and be glorious in our land! I own the covenant, the solemn league, and all the faithful contendings for the covenanted reformation. I leave my testimony, approving the preaching in the fields, and the defending the same by arms. I leave my testimony to all those truths that have been sealed with bloodshed, on scaffolds, fields, or seas, for the cause of Christ. I leave my testimony against popery, prelacy, erastianism, and against all usurpations and encroachments upon Christ's rights;

VOL. I.

M

and in particular against this absolute power, usurped by this usurper, which belongs to no mortal, but is the incommunicable prerogative of Jehovah !"

The revolution of 1688, which rescued England from popery, delivered the Covenanters from their persecutors, and restored the Presbyterian Church. In July 1689, an Act was passed by the Scotch parliament, by which prelacy was abolished. In the next session, the king and queen renounced the spiritual supremacy, "as inconsistent with Presbyterian government." And thus, to use the words of a Scotch historian, an end was put to a most cruel and bloody persecution, and the Church of Scotland restored to the freedom of her General Assemblies, Synods, Presbyteries and Church Sessions. (Crookshank, Hist. Ch. Scotland, vol. ii. 496.) We may add, that the sufferings of the covenanters still shed a lustre over the Church which justly reveres their memory.

DOCETE,

an obscure section of the great Gnostic heresy. They taught that the body in which our Lord suffered was not properly his own; that he had, indeed, no proper manhood, and that he died only in appearance upon the cross; hence their name (Docetæ, from Soxeiv, to seem). Tertullian reduces the heretics in the apostolic times to two-the Docetæ and the Ebionites. Theodoret gives the same account of them. Little more is known of the Docetæ. See article GNOSTICS.

DONATISTS.-There were two eminent persons of the name

of Donatus, African bishops in the fourth century, from one or other of whom the Donatists took their name. They were rather a faction in the Church than a religious sect; the question between them and the Catholic Church turning chiefly upon the limits and amount of episcopal authority. But they made a considerable figure in the history of the Church, and some account of them may not be unacceptable in these pages. This new faction started up in Africa, and though it arose from small beginnings, it afflicted the Church most grievously for more than a century. Its history may be briefly told.

Mensurius (bishop of Carthage) dying in the year 311, the

archdeacon Cæcilianus was chosen by the greater part of the clergy and people to fill his place; and he was consecrated to the bishopric by the bishops of Africa Minor, without waiting for the assembly of the Numidian bishops. This hasty proceeding gave great offence to the Numidian prelates, who had always been present at the consecration of the bishops of Carthage; they therefore assembled, and called Cæcilianus before them to give an account of his conduct. The flame thus kindled, was greatly augmented by several Carthaginian presbyters, particularly Botrus and Celesius, who were competitors with Cæcilianus. Lucilla also, an opulent lady, who had been reprimanded by Cæcilianus for her superstitious practices, conceived a bitter hatred to him, and distributed large sums of money amongst the Numidians, to encourage their opposition to the new bishop. Thus divisions arose insensibly.

Secundus of Tigisi, primate of the adjoining province of Numidia, and the seventy prelates who assembled with him in council at Carthage, A.D. 311, now declared Cæcilianus to be unduly elected, and notified to the rest of Africa that they had appointed Majorinus in his room. Cæcilianus refusing to submit to the judgment of the Council, the Carthaginian Church was divided into two factions, and suffered under the contests of two rival bishops, Cæcilianus and Majorinus.

The Numidians alleged two important reasons to justify their sentence against Cæcilianus: first, that Felix of Aptungus, the principal bishop who assisted at his consecration, was a traditor (one of those who, during the persecution under Diocletian, had delivered the sacred writings and the pious books of the Christians to the magistrates to be burned), and that, as he had thus apostatized from the service of Christ, it was not possible that he could impart the Holy Ghost to the new bishop.

A second reason for their sentence against Cæcilianus was drawn from the extreme harshness and even cruelty displayed in his conduct, while he was a deacon, towards the Christian confessors and martyrs during the persecution under Diocletian; these he had abandoned, in the most merciless manner, to all the extremities of hunger and want, leaving them without food in their prisons, and even denying them that relief with which others were willing to succour them.

To these accusations were added the insolent contumacy of the

new prelate, who refused to obey their summons, and to appear before them in Council, to justify his conduct.

No one opposed Cæcilianus with such bitterness and vehemence as Donatus, bishop of Casa-Nigræ; and hence the whole faction is called after him, as most writers think, though some are of opinion that the sect derived its name from another Donatus, surnamed the Great, who succeeded Majorinus, bishop of Carthage.

This controversy in a short time spread far and wide, not only throughout Numidia, but even through all the imperial provinces in Africa, which entered so zealously into this ecclesiastical war, that in most cities there were two bishops, one at the head of Cæcilianus's party, and the other acknowledged by the followers of Majorinus.

Roman Africa was a district of great extent: according to Bingham's calculation, it contained six provinces, and 466 bishops, who were able to settle their ordinary affairs among themselves. The supporters of Majorinus seem, at first, to have taken it for granted that so it would be, and at a later period some of their party speak of the views of Donatus as accepted 'by nearly the whole world." Perhaps the dispute might have. been settled among themselves had it not been for the appeal which the Donatists made to the civil power.

In 313 the Donatists brought this controversy before Constantine, who commissioned Melchiades, bishop of Rome, and three bishops of Gaul, to examine and inquire into the matter. The result of this examination was favourable to Cæcilianus, who was entirely acquitted of the crimes laid to his charge. The accusations adduced against Felix, by whom he was consecrated, were at that time left out of the question; but in the year 314, the cause of that prelate was examined separately by Elianus, proconsul of Africa, by whose decision he was absolved. The Donatists, whose cause necessarily suffered by these proceedings, complained much of the judgment pronounced by Melchiades and Elianus. The small number of bishops that had been appointed jointly with Melchiades to examine their cause, particularly excited their reproaches and even their contempt. They looked upon the decision of seventy venerable Numidian prelates as infinitely more respectable than that pronounced by nineteen bishops (for such was the number assembled at Rome),

who, besides the inferiority of their number, were not sufficiently acquainted with African affairs to be competent judges in the question.

The indulgent emperor, willing to remove these specious complaints, ordered a much more numerous assembly to meet at Arles, composed of bishops from Italy, Germany, Gaul, and Spain. Here again the Donatists lost their cause, but they renewed their efforts by appealing to the immediate judgment of the emperor, who condescended so far as to admit their appeal ; and he himself examined the whole affair in the presence of the contending parties, at Milan, in the year 316.

The issue of this third trial was not more favourable to the Donatists than that of the two preceding councils, whose decision the emperor confirmed.

The Donatist party, however, persevered, notwithstanding it now became manifest that the rest of Christendom held them to be in the wrong; party-spirit kept them together, and fortified them against what they called the Transmarine Churches. They loaded Constantine with the bitterest reproaches, and complained that Osius, bishop of Cordova, who was honoured with his friendship, and was intimately connected with Cæcilianus, had, by corrupt insinuations, engaged him to pronounce an unrighteous sentence. The emperor was indignant, and deprived the Donatists of their churches in Africa, and banished their seditious bishops; some were even put to death. Hence arose violent commotions and tumults in Africa, for the Donatists were exceedingly numerous and powerful. Constantine endeavoured to allay these disturbances by kindness and negotiations, but his efforts were fruitless.

These unhappy disturbances gave rise to a confederacy of desperate ruffians, who passed under the name of Circumcelliones. This furious set of men was composed of the rough and savage populace, who embraced the party of the Donatists, and maintained their cause by force of arms, filling the African provinces with slaughter and rapine, and committing the most enormous acts of perfidy and cruelty against the followers of Cæcilianus: it is evident they were Christians in nothing but the name.

This outrageous multitude contributed to render the sect of the Donatists an object of the utmost abhorrence, though it does not appear that the bishops of that faction (those, at