the whole world. Luke xx. 24. Rev. xxii. 16. 1 Tim. ii. 5, 6. 1 John ii.-VII. That there is one Holy Spirit, the precious gift of God, freely given to such as obey him; Eph. iv. 4. Acts v. 32, that thereby they may be thoroughly sanctified, and made able (without which they are altogether unable) to abide stedfast in the faith, and to honour the Father, and his Son Christ, the author and finisher of their faith. 1 Cor. vi. 11. There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one; 1 John v. 7, which Spirit of promise such have not yet received, (though they speak much of him) that are so far out of Love, Peace, Long-suffering, Gentleness, Meekness and Temperance, (the fruits of the Spirit, Gal. v. 22, 23,) as they breathe out much cruelty, and great envy against the liberties, and peaceable living of such as are not of their judgment, though holy as to their conversation." There is a studious adherence to scriptural language throughout the whole of this Confession; and although the text relating to the three heavenly witnesses is quoted, each subscriber is left to put his own interpretation upon it; and the word Trinity is not once mentioned, nor is the slightest allusion made to the doctrine. Mr. Whiston first met with this paper at Mr. Copper's Meeting-house, at Tunbridge Wells, in July, 1748; and was so struck with it, that he procured a copy for insertion in the "Memoirs" of his own "Life and Writings," where it occupies from p. 561 to p. 575. But the Baptists, in the time of the Commonwealth, were a very miscellaneous body; and though there were then, as

there are in the present day, sections of that denomination, preeminently distinguished, among their contemporary religionists, by the largeness of their views, and the liberality of their feelings, there were others, who diverged into the opposite extremes of fanaticism and narrow-mindedness.

The

During the time which elapsed, between the commencement of the civil war, in the reign of Charles I., and the Restoration of the Stuart family, the Church of England was laid prostrate. Presbyterians, who were at first the most powerful body among the Nonconformists, expected, by the aid of the Scotch, to succeed in establishing their form of Church Government, upon the ruins of Episcopacy; and for a time their efforts for this purpose seemed likely to be crowned with success. But they soon discovered, that they had formidable rivals to contend with in the Independents, and the various classes of Sectarics which sprang up, and claimed their share in the division of the spoil. We have already seen, how numerous and diversified were the religious bodies, to which those times gave birth; and if we are to believe a tenth part of the following description of the religious teachers of that day, extracted from a pamphlet which made its appearance in the year of the Restoration, we can scarcely wonder, that a large portion of the more sober inhabitants of the kingdom were prepared to hail any change which might take place, as an alteration for the better. "They are motley and mongrel predicants, centaurs in the Church, half clericks and half laicks, the by-blows of the clergy, gifted hypocrites, severe momusses, a whining peo

ple, triobolary Christians, new dwinding divines, the prophetical pigmies of this age, unordained, unblest, untried, unclean spirits, whose calling, commission and tenure, depends on popularity, flattery and beggary; their excellency consists in tautologizing, in praying extempore, that is, out of all time, without order or method; being eminent in nothing above the plebeian pitch and vulgar proportion. They spin out their sermons at their wheels, or weave them up at their looms, or dig them out with their spades, weigh or measure them in their shops, or stitch and cobble them with their thimble and lasts; or thrash them out with their flayls, and afterward preach them in some barn to their dusty disciples, who, the better to set off the oddness of their silly teachers, fancy themselves into some imaginary persecution, as if they were driven into dens, and caves, and woods. Their holy and learned academies, where they first conned this chymical new divinity, and are since come to so great proficiency, were Munster's Revelations, Geneva's Calvinism, Amsterdam's Toleration, and New England's Preciseness." The pamphlet, from pp. 49 and 50 of which the above extract is made, bears the following title. "A Briefe Description or Character of the Religion and Manners of the Phanatiques in generall. Scil. Anabaptists, Independents, Brownists, Enthusiasts, Levellers, Quakers, Seekers, FifthMonarchy-Men, and Dippers: shewing and refuting their Absurdities by due Application, reflecting much also on Sir John Præcisian, and other Novelists. Non seria semper. London, printed, and are to be sold by most Stationers. 1660." In this

pamphlet, although the Socinians are not mentioned as a separate body in the title-page, an attempt is made to fix the charge of Socinianism on some of the religious denominations, to which a specific reference is made. The author says, for instance,* "If they use the ancient doxology giving glory to the Trinity, as the Greek and Latin Churches ever did, their Socinian and Arian ears are so offended, as if Christians should ask them leave to own the blessed Trinity." In another place,† he describes the affections of the Phanatiques, as "apt to run out into much disorder and confusion in rustical impertinencies, and pitiful rhapsodies of confused stuff, spitting out their poison like the Racovian Catechism, and such like primers of the devil:" and having censured such as he deemed the more extravagant Phanatiques, he adds, "Some, though ficry, yet are orderly and patient in government; though they excel in gifts, yet are not swelled with tumours. But these are as unsavoury salt, that is good for nothing, unless it be new-boiled in an Independent, or Levelling cauldron, over a Socinian furnace, with a popular fire."§ The pamphlet, from which these extracts are made, bears strong internal evidence of being the production of one, who bore no good will to sectarianism, under any of its forms; and to whom high Calvinism was as offensive as low Arianism, or Socinianism. Many of its statements, too, are of a grossly exaggerated character: but it affords no bad specimen of the estimate,

formed of the opponents of the Trinity, by a zealous Episcopalian, at the time of the Restoration.

Certain London Pastors, in an Address published in the year, 1660, complained, that the state of religion in those times was corrupted by many dreadful errors, such as a denial of the Deity of Christ, and the Holy Ghost, and of a Trinity of persons in the Godhead. They asserted also that these errors had long been openly professed;* and had the Presbyterians acquired the ascendancy at which they aimed, there can be little doubt, that stringent measures would have been adopted for the suppression of these presumed errors. But Episcopacy triumphed, and it became the policy of the successful party, to guard against a reaction, in favour of the Presbyterian form of Church Government. With this view several legislative measures were passed, the object of which was to produce a compulsory conformity: and the most unscrupulous means were resorted to, for the purpose of attaining that object. The Presbyterian Divines, during the palmy days of the Westminster Assembly, had done all in their power to check the spread of what they were pleased to call "heresy and blasphemy;" and were not disposed to tolerate any opinions, but those which made the nearest approximation to their own. was now their turn to submit to the iron yoke of oppression; and to feel what it was, to be deprived of that liberty of thought and action in religious matters, which, in the day of their power, they had been so eager to withhold from others.

* Sandii Nucleus Hist. Eccles. Colon. 1676, 4to. p. 431.

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