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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 Judaism 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, à, without, and feos, 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 evident 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 nav, the whole, and Oeos, 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 Athe ism, that "The universal Deluge and the confusion of lan guages, had so abundantly convinced mankind of a Divine power and Providence, that there was no such person 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."

Dr. Priestley, in one of his Fast sermons, observes, that when he visited France, in 1774, "All her philosophers and men of letters were absolute infidels; and that he was represented by one of them in a mixed strain of censure and compliment, as the only man of talent he had met with, who had any faith in the Scriptures. Nay, Voltaire himself, who was then living, was considered by them as a weak-minded man, because, though an unbeliever in revelation, he believed in a God!"

Atheism, being purely negative, is not a religion, nor have Atheists ever associated as a body for religious worsh p-the wisest do not attempt to prove this negative, but require proofs of the Deists, and other spiritual worshippers-they usually take the name of Materialists, and attempt to account for mental phenomena by the properties and combination of matter, admitting with all men, that much in nature is beyond the powers of humanity to comprehend.

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