been already given under the article _Church of England and Ireland_.
The “Articles of Religion” are there said to have been amended and
completed in the year 1571; and the Rev. Henry J. Todd, in his very able
work on this subject, has shown their Melancthonian origin and character
by extracts from the “_Articles of Religion_,” “set out by the
Convocation, and published by the king’s authority,” in 1536;--from
those of 1540;--from Cranmer’s “_Necessary Erudition of any Christian
Man_,” published in 1543;--from the _Homilies on Salvation, Faith, and
Good Works_, in 1547, which three were, according to Bishop Woolton’s
unimpeached testimony (in 1576) composed by Archbishop Cranmer;--from
the “_Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum_,” “composed under the
superintendence of the same watchful primate, in 1551;”--from the
“_Articles of Religion_” formed in 1552, almost wholly by
Cranmer;”--from “_Catechismus Brevis, Christianæ Disciplinæ Summam
continens_,” in 1553, which was published in English, as well as Latin,
and commonly called “Edward the Sixth’s Catechism;” and from Bishop
Jewel’s celebrated “_Apologia Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ_,” “published in 1562
by the queen’s authority, thus recognised as a national Confession of
Faith, and as such has been printed in the _Corpus Confessionum Fidei_.”
“Such,” says Mr. Todd, “are the several public documents or
declarations, produced or made before the establishment of the
_Thirty-nine Articles of Religion_, from which I have given extracts, to
which the framers of these Articles directed their attention, with the
spirit of which they concur, and the words of which they almost
literally adopt. There will also be found, as chronologically preceding
these, considerable extracts from the _Confession of Augsburg_, the
whole article from the Saxon Confession, _De Remissione Peccatorum, et
Justificatione_, [respecting the forgiveness of sins, and
justification,] and such passages in our _Liturgy_ as concern the points
which the Articles and Homilies exhibit.” No one who has perused these
documents will require any additional argument to convince him, that, in
its very foundations, the English Confession of Faith was most
explicitly in favour of general redemption. We cannot therefore be
surprised at all the old orthodox divines of the church of England, from
1610 to 1660, refusing to be called ARMINIANS; for they repeatedly
declared that their own church openly professed similar doctrines to
those promulgated by the Dutch professor, long before his name was known
in the world. In this assertion they were perfectly correct; and by
every important fact in our ecclesiastical history, as connected with
doctrinal matters, their views are confirmed. If the Articles were
actually of a Calvinistic complexion, as they are now often represented
to be, what could have induced Whitaker and other learned Calvinists to
waste so much valuable time and labour in fabricating the Lambeth
Articles in 1595? Those worthies avowed, that the original Thirty-nine
Articles were not doctrinal enough for their purpose.--When four choice
divines, two of them professors of divinity at Cambridge, were sent to
the synod of Dort as deputies from the English church, and one from the
church of Scotland, though their political instructions went the full
length of assisting in the condemnation and oppression of the Arminians,
personally considered as a troublesome party in the republic, yet they
had different instructions respecting their doctrines. On the second
article, discussed in that synod, “the extent of Christ’s redemption,”
Balcanqual, the deputy from the church of Scotland, informs the English
ambassador at the Hague, that a difference had arisen among the British
deputies: “The question among us is, whether the words of Scripture,
which are likewise the words of our confession, be to be understood of
all particular men, or only of the elect who consist of all sorts of
men? Dr. Davenant and Dr. Ward are of Martinius of Breme his mind, _that
it is to be understood of all particular men_: the other three [Bishop
Carleton, Dr. Goad, and Dr. Balcanqual] take the other exposition, which
is that of the writers of the reformed churches.” The ambassador wrote
home for instructions, and received orders for the British deputies “to
have those conclusions concerning Christ’s death, and the application of
it to us, couched in manner and terms as near as possibly may be to
those which were used in the primitive church, by the fathers of that
time, against the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians, and not in any new
phrase of the modern age; and that the same may be as agreeable to the
confessions of the church of England and other reformed churches, and
with as little distaste and umbrage to the Lutheran churches, as may
be.” Archbishop Abbott expressed his approbation of their “cautelous
moderation” in withholding their “hand from pressing in public any
rigorous exclusive propositions in the doctrine of the extent of our
Saviour Christ’s oblation.” The history of this affair, which cannot be
here detailed, shows, that, however willing the three deputies were to
condemn the remonstrants, the resistance of the two more moderate
divines was approved by the authorities at home, and their opinions on
this subject were recorded in such theses as no true Calvinist could
consistently subscribe. During our civil troubles in 1643, the Assembly
of Divines at Westminster revised the first fifteen of the Thirty-nine
Articles “with a design,” as Neal in his “_History of the Puritans_”
candidly declares, “to render their sense more express and determinate
in favour of Calvinism.” This they found to be a hopeless task, as the
ancient creed was too incorrigible to be bent to their views; and they
found it much easier to frame one after their own hearts, some account
of which the reader will find in a subsequent paragraph.--All these
facts go to prove, that the best informed Calvinists have always viewed
the English articles as not sufficiently high in doctrine, unless, as in
the case of the seventeenth, they be allowed to interpret them by
interpolations or qualifying epithets.
15. The confession of the reformed Gallican churches was prepared by
order of a synod at Paris in 1559; and presented to Charles IX. in 1561,
by the celebrated Beza, in a conference with that monarch at Poissy. It
was published for the first time in 1566, with a preface by the French
clergy to the pastors of all Protestant churches; and afterward, in
1571, it was solemnly ratified and subscribed in the national synod of
Rochelle. It is extended to forty articles; but they are in general
concise, and embrace the usual topics of the other Protestant
confessions, including the doctrines of election, and justification by
faith only.
16. The Protestants in Scotland having presented a petition to
parliament in 1560, requesting the public condemnation of Popery, and
the legal acknowledgment of the reformed doctrine and worship, they were
required to draw up a summary of the doctrines which they could prove to
be consonant with Scripture, and which they were anxious to have
established. The ministers on whom this duty was devolved, being well
acquainted with the subject, prepared the required summary in the course
of four days, and laid it before parliament, when, after having been
read first before the Lords of the Articles, and afterward twice (the
second time article by article) before the whole parliament, it received
their sanction as the established system of belief and worship. It
consists of twenty-five articles, and coincides with all the other
Protestant confessions which affirm the doctrine of election, and reject
that of consubstantiation; for although it is not so explicit as some of
them respecting the unconditional nature of election, yet a distinct
recognition of this doctrine pervades the whole of it; and though it has
no separate article on justification, it no less plainly recognises this
fundamental principle of the Protestant faith.
17. The tenets of Arminius having obtained considerable prevalence in
Holland toward the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Calvinists,
or Gomarists, as they were then called, appealed to a national synod,
which was convened at Dort in 1618, by order of the states-general; and
attended by ecclesiastical deputies from England, Switzerland, Bremen,
Hesse, and the Palatinate, beside the clerical and lay representatives
of the reformed churches in the United Provinces. The canons of this
synod, contained in five chapters, relate to what are commonly called
the _five points_; namely, particular and unconditional election;
particular redemption, or the limitation of the saving effects of
Christ’s death to the elect only; the total corruption of human nature,
and the total moral inability of man in his fallen state; the
irresistibility of divine grace; and the final perseverance of the
saints; all of which are declared to be the true and the only doctrines
of Scripture.
18. The Remonstrants, as the Dutch Arminians are generally called, did
not present a confession of faith to the synod of Dort, but only their
sentiments on the five points enumerated in the preceding paragraph,
with corresponding _rejections of errors_ under each of those points.
However, in the first year of their exile, they applied themselves
diligently to this task, and soon produced an ample confession,
principally composed by the celebrated Episcopius. In the preface they
give copious reasons for such a record of their opinions; which
Courcelles has thus expressed in a more summary manner:--“They did not
publish it for the purpose of making it a standard of schism, by which
they might separate themselves from men who held other opinions; nor for
the purpose of having it esteemed by those under their pastoral care as
a secondary rule of faith;--which is in these days with many persons a
most pernicious abuse of this kind of confessions. But it was published
solely with the intention to stop the mouths of those who calumniously
assert, that the Remonstrants cherish within their bosoms portentous
dogmas which they dare not divulge. For there is no cause for doubting,
whether under such circumstances and for this purpose, it is not lawful
for men to publish a confession of their faith, especially as St. Peter
admonishes us ‘always to be ready to give an answer to every man that
asketh us a reason of the hope that is in us with meekness and fear.’”
This confession is of a more practical character than any of the
preceding: it inculcates, at great length, all the most important duties
of Christianity, and, in the words of the preface, “directs all things
to the practice of Christian piety. For we believe that true divinity is
merely practical, and not either simply or for its greatest or chief
part speculative; and therefore whatever things are delivered therein
ought to be referred thither only,--that a man may be the more strongly
and fitly inflamed and encouraged to a diligent performance of his duty,
and keeping of the commandments of Jesus Christ.” In the English
translator’s address to the reader in 1676, it is said, “Touching the
worth of this book, as a summary of Christian religion, if Doctor Jeremy
Taylor’s judgment be of credit with thee, I am credibly informed he
should prefer it to be one of those two or three which, next the Holy
Bible, he would have preserved from the supposed total destruction of
books. A high encomium from the mouth of so learned and pious a divine!”
But though its contents were chiefly practical, one expression in it,
respecting the propriety of tolerating in a Christian community a man
who denied the eternal generation of Jesus Christ, produced a
controversy in Holland, as well as in this country, in which the famous
Bishop Bull eminently distinguished himself. See DORT and REMONSTRANTS.
19. The only other confession of which we shall take notice is that of
the Westminster assembly, which met in 1643, and at which five ministers
and three elders as commissioners from the general assembly of the
church of Scotland attended, agreeably to engagements between the
convention of estates there, and both houses of parliament in England.
This confession is contained in thirty-three chapters, and in every
point of doctrine, fully accords with the sentiments of the synod of
Dort; and on some points going rather beyond it, as with respect to a
supposed election of angels. It was approved and adopted by the general
assembly in 1647; and two years after, ratified by act of parliament, as
“the public and avowed confession of the church of Scotland.” By act of
parliament in 1690, it was again declared to be the national standard of
faith in Scotland; and subscription to it as “the confession of his
faith,” specially required of every person who shall be admitted “a
minister or preacher within this church.” Subscription to it was also
enjoined by the act of union in 1707, on all “professors, principals,
regents, masters, and others bearing office,” in any of the Scottish
universities.
CONFLAGRATION, a general burning of a city, or other considerable place.
But the word is more ordinarily restrained to that grand period, or
catastrophe of our world, wherein the face of nature is expected to be
changed by a deluge of fire, as it was anciently by that of water. The
ancient Chaldeans, Pythagoreans, Platonists, Epicureans, Stoics, Celts,
and Etrurians, appear to have had a notion of the conflagration; though
whence they should derive it, unless from the sacred books, it is
difficult to conceive; except, perhaps, from the Phenicians, who
themselves had it from the Jews. The Celts, whose opinions resembled
those of the eastern nations, held, that after the burning of the world,
a new period of existence would commence. The ancient Etrurians, or
Tuscans, also concurred with other western and northern nations of
Celtic origin, as well as with the Stoics, in asserting the entire
renovation of nature after a long period, or great year, when a similar
succession of events would again take place. The cosmogony of an ancient
Etrurian, preserved by Suidas, limits the duration of the universe to a
period of twelve thousand years; six thousand of which passed in the
production of the visible world, before the formation of man. The Stoics
also maintained that the world is liable to destruction from the
prevalence of moisture or of drought; the former producing a universal
inundation, and the latter, a universal conflagration. “These,” they
say, “succeed each other in nature, as regularly as winter and summer.”
The doctrine of conflagration is a natural consequence of the general
system of Stoicism; for, since, according to this system, the whole
process of nature is carried on in a necessary series of causes and
effects, when that operative fire, which at first, bursting from chaos,
gave form to all things, and which has since pervaded and animated all
nature, shall have consumed its nutriment; that is, when the vapours,
which are the food of the celestial fires, shall be exhausted, a
deficiency of moisture must produce a universal conflagration. This
grand revolution in nature is, after the doctrine of the Stoics, thus
elegantly described by Ovid:--
“_Esse quoque in fatis reminiscitur, affore tempus
Quo mare, quo tellus, correptaque regia cœli
Ardeat; et mundi moles operosa laboret._”
METAMOR. lib. i, 256.
or, as Dryden has translated the passage,--
“Rememb’ring in the fates a time when fire
Should to the battlements of heaven aspire;
When all his blazing worlds above should burn,
And all the inferior globe to cinders turn.”
Seneca, speaking of the same event, says expressly, “_Tempus advenerit
quo sidera sideribus incurrent, et omni flagrante materia uno igne,
quicquid nunc ex deposito lucet, ardebit_;” that is, “the time will come
when the world will be consumed, that it may be again renewed; when the
powers of nature will be turned against herself, when stars will rush
upon stars, and the whole material world, which now appears resplendent
with beauty and harmony, will be destroyed in one general
conflagration.” In this grand catastrophe of nature, all animated
beings, (excepting the Universal Intelligence,) men, heroes, demons, and
gods, shall perish together. Seneca, the tragedian, who was of the same
school with the philosopher, writes to the same purpose:--
“_Cœli regia concidens
Certos atque obitus trahet:
Atque omnes pariter deos
Perdet mors aliqua, et chaos._”
“The mighty palace of the sky
In ruin fall’n is doomed to lie;
And all the gods, its wreck beneath,
Shall sink in chaos and in death.”
The Pythagoreans also maintained the dogma of conflagration. To this
purpose Hippasus, of Metapontum, taught that the universe is finite, is
always changing, and undergoes a periodical conflagration. Philolaus,
who flourished in the time of Plato, maintained that the world is liable
to destruction both by fire and water. Mention of the conflagration is
also several times made in the books of the Sibyls, Sophocles, Lucan,
&c. Dr. Burnet, after F. Tachard and others, relates that the Siamese
believe that the earth will at last be parched up with heat, the
mountains melted down, and the earth’s whole surface reduced to a level,
and then consumed with fire. And the Bramins of Siam do not only hold
that the world shall be destroyed by fire, but also that a new earth
shall be made out of the cinders of the old. The sacred Scriptures
announce this general destruction of the world by fire in a variety of
passages.
2. Various are the sentiments of authors on the subject of the
conflagration; the cause whence it is to arise, and the effects it is to
produce. Divines ordinarily account for it metaphysically; and will have
it take its rise from a miracle, as a fire from heaven. Philosophers
contend for its being produced from natural causes; and will have it
effected according to the laws of mechanics: some think an eruption of a
central fire sufficient for the purpose; and add, that this may be
occasioned several ways; namely, either by having its intensity
increased, (which, again, may be effected either by being driven into
less space by the encroachments of the superficial cold, or by an
increase of the inflammability of the fuel whereon it is fed,) or by
having the resistance of imprisoning earth weakened; which may happen
either from the diminution of its matter, by the consumption of its
central parts, or by weakening the cohesion of the constituent parts of
the mass, by the excess or the defect of moisture. Others look for the
cause of the conflagration in the atmosphere; and suppose that some of
the meteors there engendered in unusual quantities, and exploded with
unusual vehemence, from the concurrency of various circumstances, may be
made to effect it, without seeking any farther. The astrologers account
for it from a conjunction of all the planets in the sign Cancer; “as the
deluge,” say they, “was occasioned by their conjunction in Capricorn.”
This was an opinion adopted by the ancient Chaldeans. Lastly: others
have recourse to a still more effectual and flaming machine; and
conclude the world is to undergo its conflagration from the near
approach of a comet, in its return from the sun. It is most natural to
conclude, that, as the Scriptures represent the catastrophe as the work
of a moment, no gradually operating natural cause will be employed to
effect it, but that He who spake and the world was created, will again
destroy it by the same word of his power; setting loose at once the
all-devouring element of fire to absorb all others. Beyond this, all is
conjecture.
CONFUSION OF TONGUES is a memorable event, which happened in the one
hundred and first year, according to the Hebrew chronology, after the
flood, B. C. 2247, at the overthrow of Babel; and which was
providentially brought about, in order to facilitate the dispersion of
mankind, and the population of the earth. Until this period, there had
been one common language, which formed a bond of union, that prevented
the separation of mankind into distinct nations.
2. There has been a considerable difference of opinion as to the nature
of this confusion, and the manner in which it was effected. Some learned
men, prepossessed with the notion that all the different idioms now in
the world did at first arise from one original language, to which they
may be reduced, and that the variety among them is no more than must
naturally have happened in a long course of time by the mere separation
of the builders of Babel, have maintained, that there were no new
languages formed at the confusion; but that this event was accomplished
by creating a misunderstanding and variance among the builders, without
any immediate influence on their language. But this opinion, advanced by
Le Clerc, &c, seems to be directly contrary to the obvious meaning of
the word שפה, _lip_, used by the sacred historian; which, in other parts
of Scripture signifies _speech_, Psalm lxxxi, 5; Isaiah xxviii, 11;
xxxiii, 19; Ezekiel iii, 5. It has been justly remarked, that unanimity
of sentiment, and identity of language, are particularly distinguished
from each other, in the history: “The people is one, and they have all
one language,” Gen. xi, 6. It has been also suggested, that if
disagreement in opinion and counsel were the whole that was intended, it
would have had a contrary effect; they would not have desisted from
their project, but strenuously have maintained their respective
opinions, till the greater number of them had compelled the minority
either to fly or to submit. Others have imagined, that this was brought
about by a temporary confusion of their speech, or rather of their
apprehensions, causing them, while they continued together and spoke the
same language, to understand the words differently: Scaliger is of this
opinion. Others again account for this event, by the privation of all
language, and by supposing that mankind were under a necessity of
associating together, and of imposing new names on things by common
consent. Another opinion ascribes the confusion to such an indistinct
remembrance of the original language which they spoke before, as made
them speak it very differently; so that by the various inflections,
terminations, and pronunciations of divers dialects, they could no more
understand one another, than they who understand Latin can understand
those who speak French, Italian, or Spanish, though all these languages
arise out of it. This opinion is adopted by Casaubon, and by Bishop
Patrick in his Commentary, and is certainly much more probable than
either of the former: and Mr. Shuckford maintains, that the confusion
arose from small beginnings, by the invention of new words in either of
the three families of Shem, Ham, and Japhet, which might contribute to
separate them from one another; and that in each family new differences
of speech might gradually arise, so that each of these families went on
to divide and subdivide among themselves. Others, again, as Mr. Joseph
Mede and Dr. Wotton, &c, not satisfied with either of the foregoing
methods of accounting for the diversity of languages among mankind, have
recourse to an extraordinary interposition of divine power, by which new
languages were framed and communicated to different families by a
supernatural infusion or inspiration; which languages have been the
roots and originals from which the several dialects that are, or have
been, or will be, spoken, as long as this earth shall last, have arisen,
and to which they may with ease be reduced.
3. It is, however, unnecessary to suppose, that the primitive language
was completely obliterated, and entire new modes of speech at once
introduced. It was quite sufficient, if such changes only were effected,
as to render the speech of different companies or different tribes
unintelligible to one another, that their mutual coöperation in the mad
attempt in which they had all engaged might be no longer practicable.
The radical stem of the first language might therefore remain in all,
though new dialects were formed, bearing among themselves a similar
relation with what we find in the languages of modern Europe, derived
from the same parent stem, whether Gothic, Latin, or Sclavonian. In the
midst of these changes, it is reasonable to suppose that the primitive
language itself, unaltered, would still be preserved in some one at
least of the tribes or families of the human race. Now in none of these
was the transmission so likely to have taken place, as among that branch
of the descendants of Shem, from which the patriarch Abraham proceeded.
Upon these grounds, therefore, we may probably conclude, that the
language spoken by Abraham, and by him transmitted to his posterity, was
in fact the primitive language, modified indeed and extended in the
course of time, but still retaining its essential parts far more
completely than any other of the languages of men. If these conclusions
are well founded, they warrant the inference, that, in the ancient
Hebrew, there are still to be found the traces of the original speech.
Whether this ancient Hebrew more nearly resembled the Chaldean, the
Syrian, or what is now termed the Hebrew, it is unnecessary here to
inquire; these languages, it has never been denied, were originally and
radically the same, though, from subsequent modifications, they appear
to have assumed somewhat different aspects.
CONGREGATIONALISTS, a denomination of Protestants who reject all church
government, except that of a single congregation under the direction of
one pastor, with their elders, assistants, or managers. In one
particular, the Congregationalists differ from the Independents: the
former invite councils, which, however, only tender their advice; but
the latter are accustomed to decide all difficulties within themselves.
See INDEPENDENTS.