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195 Puritans
PURITANS A name given in the primitive church to the Novatians, because they would never admit to communion any one, who from dread of death, had apostatized from the faith; but the word has been chiefly applied to those who were professed favourers of a farther degree of reformation and purity in the church before the act of uniformity, in 1662. After this period, the term Nonconformists became common, to which succeeds the appellation Dissenter. "During the reign of queen Elizabeth, in which the royal prerogative was carried to its utmost limits, there were found many daring spirits who questioned the right of the sovereign to prescribe and dictate to her subjects what principles of religion they should profess, and what forms they ought to…
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194 Paedobaptists
PAEDOBAPTISTS Those who baptise their children. The word comes from infant, baptism.
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193 Calvinists
CALVINISTS Those who embrace the doctrine and sentiments of Calvin, the celebrated reformer of the Christian church from Romish superstition and doctrinal errors. John Calvin was born at Nogen, in Picardy, in the year 1509. He first studied the civil law, and was afterwards made professor of divinity at Geneva, in the year 1536. His genius, learning, eloquence, and piety, rendered him respectable even in the eyes of his enemies. The name of Calvinists seems to have been given at first to those who embraced not merely the doctrine, but the church government and discipline established at Geneva, and to distinguish them from the Lutherans. But since the meeting of the synod of Dort, the name has been chiefly applied to those who embrace his…
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192 Remonstrants
REMONSTRANTS A title given to the Arminians, by reason of the remonstrance which, in 1610, they made to the states of Holland against the sentence of the Synod of Dort, which condemned them as heretics. Episcopius and Grotius were at the head of the Remonstrants, whose principles were first openly patronised in England by archbishop Laud. In Holland, the Calvinists presented an address in opposition to the remonstrance of the Arminians, and called it a counter-remonstrance.
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191 Synergists
SYNERGISTS So called from the Greek which signifies co-operation. Hence this name was given to those in the sixteenth century who denied that God was the sole agent in the conversion of sinful man, and affirmed that man co-operated with divine grace in the accomplishment of this salutary purpose.
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190 Amyraldism
AMYRALDISM A name given by some writers to the doctrine of universal grace, as explained and asserted by Amyraldus or Moses. Amyrault, and others, his followers, among the reformed in France, towards the middle of the seventeenth century. This doctrine principally consisted of the following particulars, viz. that God desires the happiness of all men, and none are excluded by a divine decree; that none can obtain salvation without faith in Christ; that God refuses to none the power of believing, though he does not grant to all his assistance that they may improve this power to saving purposes; and that they may perish through their own fault. Those who embraced this doctrine were called Universalists; though it is evident they rendered grace universal in…
