down to hell. Their eyes shall see their own destruction; and they shall drink of the wrath of the Almighty. Such will be the disastrous result of atheistical libertinism and impiety. If then you wish to avoid so dreadful a catastrophe, withdraw yourself in time from habits of licentiousness. It is these alone that first suggest a wish that there was no providence to punish wicked actions: it is these that seek to stifle that conviction which the wonderful works of God are calculated to impress on every rational mind, of his own existence; and treacherously insinuate to the corrupted heart, that perhaps there is no God at all; or at least, no future state of reward or punishment. For who can be so grossly stupid as not to recognise in the admirable order and mechanism of the universe, the hand of Him that formed it? And if it was not beneath the dignity of the Supreme Being originally to form his creatures, how should it be unworthy of Him to be their legislator, their protector, and their judge? 2. Abhor the dangerous society of all professed irreligionists. They will not fail to use every artifice to seduce you, and all the captious arguments which their malicious ingenuity can invent, or the wicked spirit that actuates them, can suggest,-in order to your utter ruin.

ATHOCIANS-Sectaries of the third century, who maintained, that the soul died together with the body, and that all sins were alike. (Cent. Magd. cent. 13, c. 5.)

AUDEUS or AUDIUS-was a native of Mesopotamia, noted for his impetuous zeal, and the ardour of his faith. He flourished about the middle of the fourth age. Priests and even bishops he reprehended with much harshness whenever either of the parties appeared to him-to betray a love of money, or to indulge in ease. His censoriousness and excessive insolence rendered him at length insupportable to every one; and, of course, he was frequently affronted, and sometimes treated very roughly. His pride was hurt; and he withdrew himself from the communion of the church.

That audacious freedom which is exerted in attacking superiors, has something in it that appears-to undiscerning and restless spirits-noble and magnanimous. Hence it is not surprising that Audeus should have had many abettors and associates in his schism. Among others, he was joined even by a bishop, who conferred upon him episcopal consecration. deus now commenced author of a sect-the prominent character of which was an invincible aversion for every thing that looked like condescension, which they branded with the odious name of human respect. This was their motive for keeping Easter with the Jews; pretending that the council of Nice had altered the ancient practice of the church out of complaisance to Con

1

stantine, whom they wished to flatter by causing the great so lemnity of Easter to coincide with the anniversary day of his birth. (Eph. Hær. 70. Theodoret. Hær. Fab. I. 4, c. 10.)

As Audeus drew after him a multitude of the common people, the catholic bishops informed the emperor; who banished him into Scythia. From the place of his exile he penetrated into the territories of the Goths, and there established some monasteries, the practice of virginity, and the rules of a solitary life; which continued among them till, in the year 372, all descriptions of christians were expelled out of Gothia by the persecution of Athanaric. Audeus, as St Epiphanius seems to insinuate, did not survive till this period. His sect was governed after his decease by divers bishops of his own creation; but these also dying off, the Audians found themselves reduced to inconsiderable numbers before the year 380. They lived in monasteries, or in country huts in the neighbourhood of some town; had no intercourse of any kind with catholics, because, in their estimation, all catholics were either themselves vicious, or at least communicated with the vicious; and would not so much as speak to a catholic, however virtuous and saintly his demeanour. They even exchanged the name of christian for that of Audian, as Epiphanius and Theodoret assure us.

Audeus, it would seem, at the commencement of his schism, had not fallen into any error against faith, since he no where is reproached for heterodox opinions. The Audians, however, afterwards attributed to the Deity a human form. (See Theodoret, Hær. Fab. 1. 4, c. 9.) They also adopted some of the tenets of the Manichees; holding with them, for instance,that God did not create the elementary fire, nor water; but that they existed independently of any first cause, and were eternal. It appears also, that these sectaries degenerated from their original austerity, and that they insensibly fell into scandalous immoralities. (Theod. ibid.)

B

BACULARIANS-were a sect of Anabaptists formed about the year 1528, and thus denominated, because, to the usual tenets of Anabaptism, they joined that of reputing it a crime to have any other weapon than a staff, or to repel force with force; for, said they, Jesus Christ commands his followers meekly to present their cheek to those that strike them. The love of peace which Christ came to establish upon earth, ought, according to this pacific sect, to extinguish discord, and to put an end to all

litigation. In fact, they deemed it inconsistent with the spirit of christianity to enter into any legal process.

Thus, in Germany, were found Anabaptists who quietly suffered themselves to be despoiled of their possessions, and even of life too, without resistance, while their brother Anabaptists esteemed it a divine thing violently to dispossess of their property all those that did not think as they did, and with fire and sword to spread desolation wherever people might not be disposed to embrace their doctrine. Such were the effects of the reforming principles. With what propriety then, can the pretended reformation be held up to the world as a work of light-necessary for the discernment of the truth. If that truth, in the Roman church, lay involved in a cloud of darkness, what must we think of the private spirit of its adversaries, which could adopt in practice systems of religion diametrically opposite? Is not this the spirit of confusion, and the very essence of religious absurdity?

BAIUS or BAY-was a native of the county of Haynault, taught philosophy at Louvain, and proceeded doctor in 1550. The year following, he was appointed to deliver lectures upon holy scripture. Baius now formed the project of confining the study of theology principally to holy writ, and to the thorough knowledge of the ancient fathers, for whom innnovators seemed still to entertain some sentiments of veneration; and resolved to adopt their method in handling points of controversy, in lieu of that of the schools for which protestants had no great relish. With this view, he studied with intense application the writings of St Augustine, and took him for his model; esteeming this father of all others the most accurately luminous, on the subjects which he had treated. From the works of this enlightened father and doctor of the church concerning grace, Baius wished to collect materials for his new system of free-will-against the ancient Stoics, the Manichees, and the reformers of modern times; Luther, Calvin, &c. His system was as follows:

God, according to Baius, in creating man, acted with perfect liberty. Man himself he created a free agent; and Adam sinned by an act of his own free-will: consequently, he was not impelled by any law of destiny, as the ancient Stoics maintain

ed.

Our first parent was originally in a state of justice, and of innocence adorned with every virtue: consequently human nature in its origin was not depraved, as was asserted by the Manichees.

Adam, by his sin, lost that absolute control which he previously had over his senses; and he forfeited the grace which was necessary in order to his perseverance in righteousness. Therefore God was not the author of the sins of men, accord

ing to the impious assertion of Luther and Calvin; but man himself, said Baius, by placing his affections upon the creature, and this through his own evil propensity and inclination. In this consisted the liberty of man, according to Baius,—that he was not influenced by any foreign cause; his will was not compelled; he sinned because he acted voluntarily; he obeyed his own passion and not any foreign agent. This, in Baius's ideas, was all that was required to constitute free will. Besides, he observed, in things regarding the present life, man in every sense of the word, was free to choose and determine for himself. Freewill, therefore, he concluded, is not extinct. (Lib. Arbitr. c. 11.)

Baius, it is true, acknowledges that catholic divines who before him had undertaken to refute heresy, had thought differently concerning freewill, and made it to consist in the power of doing or of not doing any thing, at discretion; that is,-in an exemption from all necessity whatever. But he imagined they had not in strictness adhered to the sentiments of St Augustine, who, he was pleased to say, placed freewill in an exemption only, from all exterior necessity, without insisting on the power of not doing what it actually does perform, or of doing what it does not actually do. (Ibid. c. 8.)

”

It was

Such was the doctrine which Baius and Hessels taught at Louvain respecting grace--and the privileges of man. adopted by many theologians, but censured by the Popes Pius V. and Gregory XIII. also by the faculty of theology at Paris, and by other catholic universities. Baius and the Louvain doctors acknowledged they were wrong, and subscribed the condemnation of their errors as required in the papal bulls; and thus tranquillity was gradually restored between the contending parties.

Baius and Hessels, or their friends, maintained some other opinions not according with the sentiments of theologians in general-regarding the merit of good works, the conception of the blessed Virgin, and other points which it seems unimportant here to notice.

But although the faculty of Louvain seemed now completely tranquillized, disputes were again renewed with warmth-on occasion of the doctrine of Lessius and Hemelius, both of the society of St Ignatius, concerning grace and predestination. Nothing could be more diametrically opposed to the tenets of Baianism, than were the principles of Lessius. This divine contended, that after the fall of Adam, Almighty God bestowed on all men sufficient means of preservation against sin, and abundant succours to obtain eternal life; that Holy Scripture was full of precepts and exhortations to induce sinners to repentance: whence Lessius inferred that God, who never commands impossibilities, gave them sufficient graces for their conversion.

In his opinion, St Augustine did not seem to have explained the meaning of the apostle in those words to Timothy God willeth that all men may be saved-when he said St Paul meant only, --that God actually did save all those that are saved. Lessius moreover taught, that all those passages in Holy Scripture, which assert that it is impossible for certain persons to repent in: order to their amendment, signify only-extremely difficult: and he maintained, that the person who is invincibly ignorant regarding faith, is bound to observe the precepts of natural religion, that is--the ten commandments; and has it in his power so to do: unless we are prepared to say with sectaries, that freewill unto good is now extinct. He held also, that predestination to eternal life was the effect of merit foreseen; and laid no great stress upon St Augustine's thinking otherwise. Other opinions relative to Holy Scripture Lessius taught-in opposition to the Louvain doctors; but, as irrelevant to the errors of Baianism, we will not enter into discussion regarding them.

In the university of Louvain, the name of Augustine was revered. Hence it is not surprising, if what appeared to the fa culty in the least to derogate from the authority of that father, was enough to spread alarm. It censured, accordingly, thirty propositions extracted from the works of Lessius; and the censure was notified in form to all the churches in the Low Countries. The pope's nuncio interfered, and imposed silence on the parties; allowing Lessius to teach a doctrine which the Roman church, the mistress of all other churches, had not condemned,→→ provided no imputation was thrown on those of a different opinion; and granting a like privilege in favor of the Louvain doctors. The compromise was mutually accepted; but other contestations succeeded-between the Society and the Dominicans in Spain, in which Molina and his antagonists displayed their syllogistic skill to great advantage. Nor had the controversy respecting grace and predestination at Louvain quite subsided. The friends of Baius now pretended, that the censured propositions, if taken in a certain acceptation, contained the doctrine of St Augustine. On the other hand, Lessius and his followers insisted, that their sentiments were not in opposition to that father; while Janson and his disciple Jansenius combated 1the principles of Lessius, by the sole authority of St Augustine as understood by themselves. Jansenius read profoundly all his voluminous works no less than ten times over, and those against the Pela gians thirty times. The result of his researches was, that he persuaded himself St Augustine thought as he did. Lessius and Molina, he contended, were attempting to renew the principles of Pelagianism.

Jansenius's famous work did not appear in print till after his decease, in 1640. Refutations and apologies were undertaken en routine by the most celebrated writers of the age. Urban