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St Aidan, (1. 3, Hist. Eccl.)-a deviation from the catholic custom in keeping Easter. This he is willing to excuse in him, only on the ground of inculpable ignorance and unintentional insubordination. See more upon the subject in the article QUARTO-DECIMANS; also upon episcopacy, in that of AERIUS.

CYRENAICS-appeared about the middle of the second century. They pretended, that we ought not to pray; because our blessed Saviour had assured us, he knew what each one stood in need of. (Hofman's Lexicon.)

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DADOES-head of the Messalians. (See that article.)

DAVID of DINANT-disciple of Amauri whose principles he wrote a book to defend. At that time there were still in France some remnants of the Cathari or Manichees, who denied the authority of churchmen and rejected the ceremonial institutions together with the sacraments; they called in question-the resurrection, the distinction of virtue and vice, and other points of faith; and thought they recognised the proofs of their opinions in the system of Amauri, which they accordingly embraced. They pretended that God the Father had assumed our human nature in the person of Abraham, and God the Son in the person of Jesus Christ: that the kingdom of Jesus Christ was at an end, and by consequence the sacraments were now deprived of their former efficacy, and the ministers of God were left without jurisdiction and lawful authority, in as much as the reign of the Holy Spirit was now come; and, finally, that religion ought henceforth to be confined wholly to the interior.

Hence these sectaries concluded, that all the actions of the body were in themselves indifferent. Indeed, sectarists in general-men for the most part of a character-ardent and impetuous, and of strong and untamed passions, never fail to deduce these consequences from principles like those of Amauri; and, with them, have never been at a loss to justify their most lawless excesses. Accordingly the Davidians indulged without restraint in every species of licentiousness, and formed a sect which for some time practised its infamies in secret, but was at length detected by the depositions of some of its supposed proselytes, and quickly suppressed by the severity of the laws enforced against these lawless miscreants. The memory of Amauri was justly stigmatized; and his bones were taken from the tomb,

and burnt to ashes. The works of David of Dinant were also committed to the flames.

DAVID-GEORGIANS-the followers of one David George, a glazier, or according to some, a painter of Gand, who after the example of other reformers began to dogmatise in 1525. He was first an Anabaptist, and then proclaimed himself the Messiah, commissioned from above to people heaven which, for want of persons qualified by their virtues to be admitted there, remained empty. This maniac reprobated marriage with the Adamites; denied the resurrection with the Saducees, and with Manés, held that sin did not defile the soul. The law of selfrenunciation established by Jesus Christ, he ridiculed; esteeming all pious exercises useless, and reducing all religion to a kind of pretended contemplation. He died at Basil, where he went by the name of John Bruch, in the year 1556. He left behind him some disciples, to whom he had promised, that after three years he would rise again; at the expiration of which term, the protestant magistrates of Basil, informed of the pernicious tendency of his errors, caused him in fact to rise again, and ordered his remains, together with his impious writings, to be burnt by the hands of the common hangman. Some remnants

of this ridiculous and impure sect are said still to subsist in Holstein, particularly at Friderichstadt. The pretended spirit of reform produced many other sects equally extravagant and impious, and shews what ignorance, combined with hypocrisy and fanaticism, is capable of attempting under the sacred plea of correcting abuses in religion.

DEISTS-From the Deists themselves we look in vain for an adequate definition of Deism. They tell us, that a Deist is one who acknowledges the existence of a God, and believes in natural religion.

1. To this mutilated definition they should add-and who rejects all revelation. Whoever admits any revelation in religion, no longer classes among Deists.

2. The Deist acknowledges the existence of a God; but of what description? Is it the universal nature of Spinosa, or the soul of the universe admitted by the Stoics; an indolent and passive divinity like those of Epicurus, or a vicious one like the Pagan gods;-a God without Providence, or a Supreme Being who is the great Creator, the Legislator, and the Judge of men? Hardly shall we find two individual Deists, who are agreed upon this solitary article of their very meagre creed.

3. What do they understand by their natural religion? Why, they will tell you that form of worship which human reason left to itself, teaches us to render unto God. But, unfortunately for their fine-spun system, human reason, in fact,

never is left to itself, unless perhaps in the fictitious hypothesis of some poor savage-abandoned from his very birth by the cruelty of an unnatural parent, to herd with the beasts of the forest; will then the Deist have the goodness to inform us ;what religion in particular would a human creature thus brutified adopt? Most probably his ideas on this head, if any at all, would be eccentric as the circumstances of his education. If there exist a religion exclusively entitled to the epithet of natural, why did not Plato, Socrates, Epicure, and Cicero, recognise it equally with the Deists of our day? For our part, we acknowledge ourselves too dull to comprehend-why a religion which never had a being upon earth, and never could have been devised but by philosophers, enlightened from their early infancy through the medium of christian revelation, should of excellence be denominated natural.

4. This chimerical religion consists, say they, in adoring God, and living a life of honour and integrity. But-how are we to adore God! Merely by an interior worship, or by sensible signs;-by the Jewish sacrifices, or those of the heathens ;—according to the caprice of individuals, or agreeably to some stated form?--All this, it would seem, is matter of indifference in the eyes of Deisst; and in this hypothesis, all the absurdities, and all the crimes perpetrated through a motive of religion by ancient or more modern infidels, constitute this natural religion of Deism. Moreover, all are reputed men of integrity and honor, with the Deists, that observe the laws of their country, however unjust and unnatural these may be. The Chinese, for instance, -in selling, in exposing, and even murdering his children; the Arabian-in plundering and ill-treating strangers; the Algerine-in pirating on the open seas. If all this is consistent with Deistical integrity, their morality is as pliant as their symbol of belief.

Deism, therefore, may fairly be defined-the doctrine of those who admit the existence of a God-without explaining their notions of the divinity;-a worship without determining its form ; -a natural law-without any knowledge of its precepts: and who reject revelation without so much as investigating the proofs of its existence. In a word, it is a system of irreligion without the semblance of conviction, the unhallowed privilege of believing and of acting as one pleases. If it be pretended, that the system is backed with argument, this is mere delusion; it all consists in sophistical objections against revelation,-in sophistry as shallow and inconclusive, as its doctrine is devoid of reason and destitute of truth.

The Deists acknowledge protestants to be their progenitors; but think them timid reasoners in not daring to advance-when there was no obstacle to impede their progress on their way to truth. The first Deists appeared, in fact, immediately after

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the Socinians, and were previously protestants. In England, they began to shew themselves under the protectorship of Cromwell, in the midst of the contests between High-churchmen, the Puritans and Independents. Their irreligious system passed thence into Holland and France, where it quickly generated Atheism. For it is a well-known fact, that all the fashionable infidels in those countries, after preaching Deism for fifty years, ultimately professed the still more impious code of Atheism in almost all their succeeding publications.

DESTRUCTIONISTS-maintain that the wicked shall not be tormented for ever, but only for a limited duration till they shall have suffered punishment apportioned to their crimes; after which they shall be finally destroyed. The protestant self-interpreting principle will easily bear them out against the not less arbitrary expositions of their brother reformists. They have an equal right to put what gloss they please, on those scriptural texts which militate in opposition to their respective systems: and here we will take our leave of them, and leave them to wrangle with each other for the superiority of their individual private sense, without the possibility of ever solving the question in debate-by appealing to their so much boasted rule of faith ;-a rule, indeed, confessedly inadequate to establish uniformity of doctrine, or to settle the unstable mind in any thing like a well grounded security with reference to the vital concern of religious orthodoxy. It gives a latitude which every sectarian is at liberty to abuse-to the evident endangering of christianity itself! Its votaries are perpetually tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine-ever wavering in faith, and adulterating the gospel maxims which they once revered as the oracles of truth. If then it be asked what is the rule of faith to christians? The answer is very plain and obvious: Hear the church: for, if he will not hear the church-it is the precept of our Lord and Saviour (Matt xviii. 17.)-let him be to the thee as the heathen and the publican.— But-how must I recognise this true church in order to submit to its unerring guidance? Its distinctive marks are-unity of faith, sanctity of doctrine and morals, catholicity and succession from the apostles. These peculiar characters of the church of Christ are luminous as the light of heaven: open your eyes; and, in despight of prejudice itself, you must behold it. Consult your common creed wherein this church is designated under the odious epithet of catholic. In the Nicene symbol too, you profess that you believe-one holy, catholic and apostolic church! frightful; bigotry will exclaim! Do you then refer us to the long exploded religion of Roman catholics? I say not so, unless it can be fairly proved-that these two epithets are inseparable. See the article CATHOLICS.

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DOCETES-those sectaries in globo, who maintained that Jesus, Christ had not assumed any real body, but only a fantastic one. (Clem. Alex. Strom. 1. 7, Theodoret, l. 5, Hæret. Fab.)

DONATISTS-Commenced a schism in Africa in the year 311, and were so called from their leader Donatus. The pretended plea for their separation from the catholic church, was the election of Cecilian to the episcopal see of Carthage upon the demise of Mensurius. Although the election had been perfectly regular, a powerful intrigue set on foot by the silly resentment of a certain lady called Lucilla, and supported by the disappointed. ambition of Botrus and Celesius who had themselves aspired to that dignity, intruded one Majorinus in his place. This extraordinary procedure they endeavoured to accredit by the plea, that the ordination of Cecilian having been performed by Felix of Aptongum, whom the schismatical party falsely charged with having delivered up the Holy Scriptures and sacred vessels to the persecutors, was consequently null and invalid. The bishops who espoused the cause of Majorinus, were headed by Donatus of Case-Nigræ.

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Pope Melchiades in a council held at Rome, at which assisted Maternus of Cologne, Neticius of Autun, and Marinus of Arles, together with fifteen Italian bishops; as also Cecilian and Donatus, each of them accompanied by ten bishops of their party, pronounced in favor of Cecilian. This took place in 313.

In 314 the Donatists were again condemned in a synod at Arles, and finally, by an imperial edict of Constantine in 316. They now became more obstinate in their schism; and, to palliate their obstinacy, they adopted certain doctrinal errors. In the first place, they contended, that the true church had absolutely perished, except in those districts of Africa where Donatism was professed; complimenting the catholic church, like our modern sectarists, with the honorable epithet of-whore of Babylon. 2. That baptism and the other sacraments, administered out of the true church, that is, out of their own society, were void and of no effect; and, in conformity with this maxim, they rebaptised their proselytes from catholicity. To propagate the sect, every species of seduction was employed: dark insinuations, captious arguments, open violence; the most atrocious cruelty, persecution and imposture-till such lawless methods of proceeding were ultimately suppressed by the just severity of the imperial edicts under Constantine and succeeding emperors.

The Donatists are also designated in ecclesiastial history under the names of Circumcellions, of Urbanists, Petilianists, &c. &c. either from some characterizing peculiarities, or from the various leaders of the sect who occasionally distinguished themselves. The Circumcellions were likewise denominated Rockmen, Mountaineers, &c. and were chiefly wild and ignorant

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