nominal and external,-not that harmony of faith and sentiments which St Paul so energetically recommended to the faithful. (Philipp. i. 27, ii. 2, &c.) Jews and even Pagans themselves, without prejudice to their conscience, might fraternize with this society of protestants.

COLLUTHIANS were sectaries of the fourth age, the disciples of Colluthus a priest and curate of Alexandria. This priest, scandalized at the condescension with which St Alexander, patriarch of that see, at first had treated Arius, in order the more effectually to reclaim him, formed a schism, and even presumed himself to ordain priests-without having ever received the episcopal character; arrogating to himself this power-to enable him, he said, to oppose with effect the progress of Arianism. He moreover held, that Almighty God had not created the wicked; and denied that human afflictions originated from Him. Colluthus was condemned in a council convoked by Osius at Alexandria in 319.

COLLYRIDIANS-were a kind of devotees to the blessed Virgin. They paid her a very fanciful sort of religious veneration, which consisted in offering cakes termed in Greek COLLYRIDES; and hence the sect derived its name. In this ceremony the women performed the office of priesthood. They had a chariot with a quadrangular table in it, which they covered with a cloth; and at a stated season of the year they presented a loaf; offered it up in the name of the Virgin Mary; and then each of them partook of the oblation. This practice St Epiphanius justly censured as idolatrous, and also as contrary to the prohibition of the apostle, who formally excludes the sex from discharging any sacerdotal function.

THE CONSCIENTIOUS-an ancient sect of religionists, so called from their acknowledging no other law, no other rule of conduct, but the dictate of their own conscience. This doctrine was renewed in the seventeenth century by Matthew Thoutsen a German, who exchanged this error for the more impious system of Atheism. (See Fatalism discussed, vol. 1.)

COPHTS or EGYPTIANS-a sect of Jacobites or Monophusites, who admit only one nature in Jesus Christ. They are subject to the patriarch of Alexandria. Dioscorus patriarch of that see, a man of great influence, and much respected in Egypt, notwithstanding the condemnation of Eutyches in the council of Chalcedon in 451, remained obstinately attached to his cause and erroneous doctrine. He succeeded in persuading his clergy and the people, that the council of Chalcedon by condemning Eutyches, had justified and adopted the heresy of Nestorius ;

although in fact this council equally reprobated and anathematized them both. The severities and the violence which the emperors of Constantinople employed, in order to enforce the decrees of the council, alienated the affections of the people in Egypt; who were excluded in consequence, from all civil, ecclesiastic and military dignities; and conceived the most violent hatred against their persecutors, and even against catholicity itself. Great numbers retired with their schismatical patriarch at their head, into Upper Egypt; and when the Saracens or Mahometan Arabs undertook about the year 660 the invasion of Egypt, the Cophts or schismatic Egyptians treacherously surrendered into their hands the fortified places, and thus obtained of them the public exercise of their religion. The Mahometans, however, quickly forgot their services, and deprived them of this privilege, which they were compelled to redeem by dint of money. They are now reduced to the inconsiderable number of about fifteen thousand; though they are said to have amounted to no less than six hundred thousand at the period of the Saracen conquest.

Ever since the Arabic became the vulgar language in Egypt, the nations have wholly laid aside their original Cophtic tongue, which is a compound of the Greek and ancient Egyptian. Nevertheless, they continue to celebrate the divine office in that language, and have it translated into the vulgar tongue, in order to prevent their being ignorant of what is said. They have three different liturgies;-those of St Basil, St Gregory Nazianzen, and St Cyril of Alexandria: they were all translated into the Cophtic language from the original Greek. The last of the above liturgies bears the nearest resemblance with that of St Mark, which is supposed to be the same in use before the schism of Dioscorus, or anterior to the fifth age. The catholics of Egypt continued to use it, as long as they subsisted under the united persecutions of the Cophts and infidel Mahometans. The schismatics corrupted their liturgies in one instance only, by inserting their error of the unity of nature in Jesus Christ. It is the only doctrinal error with which they have been charged in every other point of christian doctrine, they hold precisely the same articles with the church of Rome. In their liturgies and their confessions of faith, they acknowledge seven sacraments. Immediately after baptism, they give the child confirmation, as also the communion under the species of wine alone. The real presence of Jesus Christ in the eucharist, and transubstantiation, they with equal ardor uphold; and the sacrifice of the mass. This is a fact which their liturgies abundantly demonstrate. Confession is not in frequent use among them; once or twice in the year at most, suffices. However, they ascribe to penitence and absolution the efficacy of pardon, and generally accompany them with certain unctions. In their

:

liturgies are mentioned also-the invocation of saints, and prayer for the dead. Nor have there ever been any other changes introduced into these liturgies, but that alluded to above; as is manifest from their perfect agreement in all other points with those of the Greeks, the Syrians, the Armenians and Nestorians; with whom the Cophts have had as little communication, as with the church of Rome. Consequently, with the reserve of one single article, namely, the unity of nature in Jesus Christ, the Cophtic church has preserved exactly the same religious creed with the Roman catholic; and before the council of Chalcedon, and the schism of Dioscorus, this belief was that of the universal church. It is then without foundation that protestants accuse this faith of novelty, and as the invention of more modern times. Its doctrines, we beg leave to repeat, are fairly recognisable in the different schismatical churches of the Greeks, of the Syrian Jacobites, and the Nestorians in Persia and the Indies, as well as those of the Egyptians and Ethiopians. These churches-equally, for the most part, at enmity with each other, as with the church of Rome, cannot with any semblance of probability be suspected to have changed-by common consent-their faith, their liturgies and their discipline. Providence seems to have preserved them, only to attest the antiquity of those doctrines, which protestants have made the pretended motives of their separation from the catholic church. The latter are, in fact, the only sectaries in the universe, who profess that creed which they vainly affect to stile-the ancient and primitive belief! This circumstance alone ought to have its weight with sober minded protestants, and make them re-examine, with modest diffidence, their very feeble claim to church antiquity.

If it were true, that the faith which catholics profess at the present day, was not always the faith of the true church, the change must have taken place before the days of Eutyches. But we have proved under the article NESTORIUS, that this faith was general before the first council of Ephesus, and even anterior to that of Nice; and that even at that early period it could not be of recent date. Consequently, the faith of the church of Rome is the faith of the primitive christians. Why then, may we ask, did the first reformers cause a schism? And why should not the protestants of our times return to the communion of that church which, in reality, professes no other creed than that of primitive christianity? How frivolous, how void of common decency and of common sense, is Dr Tillotson's apology for separation; resting it, as he does, upon the pretended difficulty of salvation in the Roman church!

Let

our readers judge impartially, and seriously consider—on what ground they stand.

CYNICS were a sect of philosophers-the followers of Antisthenes-who discarded every rule of morality and decorum. The name was given also to the Turlupins, who abandoned themselves publicly and without remorse, to the most shameful enormities.

CULDEES-if we may credit Mr Brewster (see the article in the British Encyclopedia)-were a sect of perfect christians established in our British isles, who held at an early period the doctrines of protestantism, and particularly Presbyterianism. This fanciful progeniture of the reformation we shall not so easily concede to the learned, and not much less prejudiced ingenuity of its author; although we conceive, that even should we grant him what he wishes to make good, it would follow only, that he had discovered an invisible society, brought down almost from the apostolic ages through the medium of a few scattered individuals, probably, perhaps, by no means certainly, existing in different parts of Christendom, nearly till the dawn of the reformation. What kind of a church by the bye, would this constitute? Such a one, at the very best, as the great St Augustine was willing to allow the Donatists to be; cooped up, as he observes, in a corner of the Roman empire, while the true church of Christ embraced within its pale a large proportion of the then known world.

But the most probable account of the Culdees states, that they were monks who flourished in Ireland and Scotland in the middle ages. They were called Culdees, that is, servants of God, from the Latin words cultores Dei-because they employed much of their time in preaching and teaching, and in prayer. No mention is made of them by Nennius in the seventh, or by Bede in the eighth age-notwithstanding the confident assertions of Mr Brewster. They seem not to have been known before the ninth century, when we find them at St Andrew's; though we are not ignorant that Hector Boetius, and other Scottish writers, pretend them to have been as ancient as christianity itself, in Scotland. In England, they appear never to have had any settlement, except at St Peter's, in York. Their rule was borrowed from that of St Basil who, every body knows, was no Presbyterian. (See Usher's Antiq. Eccl. Brit. fol. 333, 334, 346, 638, 659. Collier Eccl. Hist. vol. 1, p. 180; and Tanner's Preface to Notitia Monast. Butler's Lives of SS. vol. 5, p. 174. Ed. Edin.)

In the latter ages, the Benedictine and other religious orders had several monasteries and provinces in Ireland: but the regular canons of St Augustine were far the most flourishing in that country, as the Benedictines were in England. The bishops and parsons of Ireland were mostly taken out of their body. (Butler, ibid.) What then becomes of Mr Brewster's

grand succession of Presbyterians? The latter gentlemen, moreover, do not appear to have had any mighty veneration for their supposed monkish ancestry; since they have uniformly treated every thing that had the slightest vestige in it of monachism-with indignity and contempt.

Bede indeed, iuforms us, (l. 3, c. 4, Hist. Eccl.) that from St Columba, who never was himself made bishop, the whole island of Hy-its bishops not excepted-by an unusual law was subject to the abbot. Of this passage the Calvinists avail themselves; as if it made against the superiority of bishops in the church. But Usher (Antiq. Eccl. Brit. c. 16) justly observes, that this superiority was only of civil jurisdiction-not of order. For the Ulster annals mention, that this little island had always a bishop, resident either in or near the monastery. Also Adamnan, in his life of St Columba (1. 3) says, that St Columba himself refused to officiate at the altar in the presence of a bishop, who out of humility had concealed his character; nor would he receive the communion with him; but through respect for his dignity compelled him to celebrate the divine mysteries alone. And Bishop Lloyd, in his historical account of church-government, demonstrates, (c. 5, 67) that no other than the episcopal was ever established among the Picts, Scots, or Saxons. Veneration for St Columba introduced a superiority of civil jurisdiction over the bishops; who were chosen from amongst his monks and disciples, and retained their former respect for their old superior the abbot. Perhaps his princely extraction too, may have contributed something towards this extraordinary privilege; which was continued to be enjoyed also by succeeding abbots.

The unimportance of keeping Easter with these suppositious Culdees at an undue season, in opposition to the practice of the universal church, Mr Brewster, doubtless, is better qualified to appreciate, than the first general council of Nice, which deemed it necessary to require of all christians an acquiescence in this particular, under pain of retrenchment from catholic communion. Obedience to lawful superiors, Mr Brewster cannot be ignorant, is better than sacrifice, and that it is grievous as the sin of witchcraft to rebel. Contumacy in this one point-without insisting on the many other still more important charges against these favorite Culdees, enumerated by Mr Brewster without a proof, would have sufficed completely to do away the merit of their otherwise exemplary virtues. If they were not canonically condemned by the catholic church, it was-either because their errors were not known, or-far more probably-because they have existed only in the inventive imagination of late reformers. Nor are the words of Bede in his approbation of the maxim by which he says, the disciples of St Columba regulated their practice, to be taken in their literal protestant sense; otherwise he would never have blamed, as in fact he did even in the great