and confined for life in close custody at Toulouse. His followers dispersed themselves over the southern provinces of France, mixed with the Albigenses, and were annihilated together with them. Thus terminated the pretended perpetuity of the protestant system of religion-of those enlightened times; and such was the end of another of Mr Basnage's famed patriarchs of the reformation. (Hist. des Egl. Ref. t. 1, Period 4, c. 6, p. 145. See PETER OF BRUYS.) To his other claims of veneration from protestants, let it be added, that Henry of Bruys was convicted of adultery and other grievous crimes; and that he was ordinarily attended by crowds of profligate women, to whom he preached up the most execrable immorality. These he persuaded to atone for past sins by public immodesties in the church, &c. (Acta. Episcop. Cenonlan. in Vita Hildeberti.). Mosheim, who quotes these acts, has not thought fit to repel the imputation.

HERACLEONITES-sectarists of the second age, and a branch of Valentinians. Their author was one Heracleon, who appeared about the year 140, and disseminated his erroneous principles chiefly in Sicily. St Epiphanius tells us, (Hær. 36) that to the reveries of Valentinus, Heracleon had superadded his own visionary conceits. He admitted two worlds; the one visible and corporeal, the other spiritual and invisible. The last of which only, according to him, was the work of the Divine Word. He labored hard to justify his system by forced and allegorical explications of Holy Scripture, unwarranted either by reason or tradition. Thus did he impose upon the credulity of many, and form the sect denominated from him Heracleonites. His commentaries on the gospels of St John, and of St Luke, were refuted by the famous Origen, and are full of allegories-destitute alike of probability and good sense; always arbitrary, and frequently ridiculous. (Philostorg. de Hær. c. 41. Autor. Append. apud Tert. 4. 49. Aug. de Hær. c. 16. Epiph. Hær. 36. Grabe Spicileg. secundi sæc. p. 80.)

HERMIANS-the followers of one Hermias who flourished in the second age, and adopted the sentiments of Hermogenes. He held the eternity of matter; that God was the soul of the universe, and that consequently he was incumbered with a material body, agreeably to the opinion of the Stoics. Jesus Christ, he said, rising again from the dead had not taken with him into heaven his sacred body, but had reposited it in the sun whence he had originally assumed it. The soul of man, according to the ideas of this new doctor, is composed of elementary fire and subtil air; the birth of children he identifies with the resurrection, and this world he ridiculously supposes to be hell. Thus did Hermias attempt to adulterate the doctrines of chris

tianity, in order to make them tally with the system of the Stoics; which, beyond all doubt, neither he nor other philosophers of the second age would have deemed worth while, had they esteemed the christian religion, as our modern infidels affect to do,-one continued series of chicanery and imposture. (Vide Philastrium, de Hær. c. 55, 56. Tillemont, t. 3, p. 67, &c. See also the ensuing article.)

HERMOGENIANS-received their tenets and their name from Hermogenes, who after having applied himself to the Stoic philosophy, embraced the christian religion; but without abandoning his former erroneous notions.

The Stoic philosophers admitted a Supreme Being, infinitely perfect. This Being they supposed to be what they termed the soul of the universe, intermingled and confounded with matter, imprisoned as it were in a vast variety of bodies, and subject to the blind impetuosity of the elements. While the christians, on the contrary, held an eternal and self-existing principle, sovereignly perfect and uncompounded with matter; which by a simple act of its own will, had brought all things into being; had commanded every thing that now exists to come forth out of nothing, and was instantly obeyed.

The principal error retained by Hermogenes after his conversion to christianity, was-with the Stoics to suppose matter to be eternal and increated, the more easily to account for the origin of evil. He rested his system on the false hypothesisthat evil is a substance, or an absolute entity; and, to render it more plausible, he endeavoured to persuade his followers, that Moses himself, like the Stoic sages, had taught the eternity of matter. Tertullian wrote a book against Hermogenes, in which he combats his adversary's arguments with great energy and success. If, says he, matter be eternal and increated, it is equal with God himself; like him it is a necessary Being, and independent of all others. God is sovereignly perfect, precisely because he is a necessary principle; self-existent, eternal, and, consequently, immutable. It is therefore an absurdity to suppose matter to be-eternal, yet pregnant with evil;-necessary, yet limited and imperfect. With just as much consistency might it be said, that God himself, although a necessary and self-existing principle, is imperfect, limited and feeble. Secondly, it is alike absurd to say, that matter is an eternal and necessary entity, but that its attributes are not so; and that God could alter its state, and give to it a different arrangement from what it had originally. For, eternity or necessary existence implies immutability, and is incompatible with any change. Tertullian also proves, that an eternal and increated being, such as Hermogenes will have matter to be, cannot be essentially evil; consequently, the hypothesis of the eternity of

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matter, would not account for the origin of evil the grand object which Hermogenes, in maintaining the co-eternity of matter, had in view.

HESYCASTES, that is to say, QUIETISTS-were pretended contemplatives among the Greeks, originating with their monks in the eleventh century. In the fervour of their meditation they imagined themselves in ectasy, and fancied that they beheld a heavenly light, which they took to be an emanation from the Divine substance, and the very same with that which the apostles had beheld on occasion of our Blessed Redeemer's transfiguration upon Mount Thabor.

This ridiculous conceit was renewed with greater zeal in the fourteenth century, especially at Constantinople; where it excited much disquisition, occasioned synodical convocations of bishops, produced ecclesiastical censures, and a variety of treatises written pro and con by the contending parties.

From this silly fanaticism of the Grecian monks, many protestants have taken occasion to declaim against the contemplative life. But a paroxysm of folly in the mystics of Mount Athos, demonstrates only the weakness of their own brain. Certainly, a person may acquire a habit of meditating upon holy things, without forfeiting the use of reason; and one may be a fool, without the gift of contemplation. The church in approving the religious institute of monks and nuns, does not approve fanaticism or superstition.

HETERODOX, Or DIFFERING IN OPINION-is an epithet equally applicable to false doctrines and false teachers in matters of religion. A false teacher is one, who disseminates and maintains sentiments not according with the truths which God hath revealed. In a religion of which the Divinity himself is the author, we cannot be at variance with revelation-without falling into error. Revelation, notwithstanding, is not witness in its own cause; nor does Almighty God any longer make known to us immediately and personally, what he requires us to believe. What then is the medium through which we are to attain the perfect certitude of any doctrine being revealed? This in effect, is the principal and fundamental point, in which catholics and protestants are at issue with each other. The latter, with some semblance of plausibility, maintain that holy scripture is the medium by which Almighty God has been pleased to instruct us concerning revelation; that whoever believes holy scripture, which is the word of God, believes in fact -all that God has revealed; and that, consequently, he cannot be guilty of heterodoxy, or of culpable error. Catholics on the other hand, contend, that holy scripture, which they equally believe to be the word of God, cannot possibly be the organ of

revelation to all. In fact, this divine book does not actually go in quest of infidels who are utter strangers to it; it neither instructs, nor so much as speaks to those that cannot read. Let us make the supposition-that an infidel by some lucky rencounter, lights upon a bible translated into his own language; whence must he derive his conviction of its being the word of God; that whatever is contained in this book is true, and that he is bound to believe it with divine faith? If he is so persua

ded, it is because some missionary has assured him of it; in which case his faith rests upon the word of the missionary, and not upon the written word of God. From the times of the apostles down to the present day, there is no instance of a single infidel being brought to the faith-solely by reading the holy scripture. Hence, St Paul affirms, that faith comes not by reading, but by the hearing: fides ex auditu.

From the above præmissæ catholics conclude, that the mean established by Almighty God-of coming to the knowledge of what he has revealed, is the testimony of his church, or the constant and uniform instruction of pastors divinely commissioned, and whose mission is authentic and incontestible. Such, in fact, is the method by which Almighty God has enlightened and converted all those infidel nations that have at any time embraced the christian religion. Hence again, they infer, that whatever dogma is contrary to what this church teaches and maintains-is heterodox, and an error which excludes its authors and abettors from all rational hope of salvation. Common sense, I think, must give the verdict in favour of the catholic system, however prejudice and the bigotry of education may incline another way.

HUSSITES followers of John Huss, and of Jerome of Prague. They were both condemned to the stake, and executed at Constance for their seditious opinions, in 1415. Huss, deeply tainted with the doctrines of Wicklef, taught that the church consisted exclusively, of the just and predestinate; reprobates and sinners, according to him, making no part of this society. Hence he concluded, that a bad pope, for instance, was no longer the vicar of Jesus Christ; that bishops and priests living in the state of sin, forfeited of course, all claim to jurisdiction and ministerial power. This doctrine he extends even to the persons of civil magistrates and princès: those that are vicious and govern ill, he says, are ipso facto stript of all authority. Vast numbers adopted his sentiments in Bohemia and Moravia. The consequences of such pernicious tenets are obvious. The moment any subject establishes himself judge of the conduct of his superiors as well spiritual as temporal, and that it appears to him exceptionable, he has nothing to do but rise in arms to effect their extirpation.

Thus did this pretender to reform, under the specious plea of opposing the abuses to which the authority of the Roman pontiffs, sometimes carried to excess, gave occasion,-aim a mortal blow at the very vitals of all subordination in church and state. He held that christians were not obliged to obey their prelates, but when their orders appeared to themselves reasonable and just; that their rule of faith was scripture alone; with other doctrinal innovations since adopted by the protestants. From the censures of the archbishop of Prague, and of the pope, he appealed to the general council of Constance; to which the king of Bohemia commanded him to give an account of his doctrine, after first obtaining for him of the emperor Sigismund-a promise of a free and safe passage through his dominions on his way to Constance, as well as on his return from the council; provided he should be there found orthodox, or retract his errors. Huss, on the contrary, obstinately refused to obey the council, and continued openly to disseminate his seditious principles. For this treasonable and inflammatory conduct he was-by the civil magistrate of Constance and not by the council-sentenced to the flames. Neither the emperor nor the council on this occasion did any thing inconsistent with good faith. The council condemned his errors and left to the emperor the part of inflicting on the criminal the punishment awarded by the law; and the emperor did no more than avenge his own cause and that of every crowned head, in directing him to be legally punished when found guilty and pertinacious in his treasonable maxims. This is a right inalienable in all sovereigns, and it is an absurdity to imagine, that Sigismund ever had the most distant idea of despoiling himself of it.

Mosheim, the great advocate and admirer of John Huss, himself acknowledges, that the declaration which he made against the infallibility of the catholic church, was sufficient to entitle him to the epithet of false teacher. Was then the catholic church to alter its belief, in order with consistency to absolve a person of that description? Mosheim again, allows (Hist. Eccles.) that the Hussites of Bohemia rebelled against the emperor Sigismund-after he became their lawful sovereign; and chose to take up arms rather than submit to the decrees of the council of Constance; pretending that Huss had been condemned unjustly. Was it them in character for an ignorant banditti, as they certainly were, to undertake to decide as judges-what was orthodox doctrine and what not? They did not long agree even among themselves; and soon formed two independent parties; the one denominated Calixtins-because they insisted upon being allowed the privilege of the chalice at communion; requiring, moreover, that the clergy should imitate the conduct of the apostles, and that mortal sins should be punished in a