ble, and in good standing with the other sects, they have, in conforming to them, lost much of their former spirituality and simplicity. CIRCULAR LETTER. EDITOR. NORTH CAROLINA, A. D. 1805, The Ministers and Messengers of the Neuse Baptist Association, to the several Churches they represent, sendeth christian salutation. Dearly beloved Brethren Through the providence of God we have had another comfortable meeting, and have had favorable accounts of the work of grace in different churches. We still feel it our duty, by way of letter, to give you some advice in a cautionary manner, with respect to the prevailing evil of the examples and writings of professing men in churches, both ancient and modern; for in them we discover the beast, with the likeness of a lamb's horns, striving to destroy the faith and practice of the christian church. To say but little about their actions may do; for, to do the subject justice, would be beyond the bounds of a circular letter. To give a few hints:-All mankind are imperfect at best, by reason of which they have self ends and interests in view, and will, in a less or greater degree, form their actions in order to obtain them, and so conform to the customs and fashions of the people with whom they converse, laying aside the exhortation of Paul, which is, not to conform to the things of this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of their minds, that they may prove what is that good, acceptable, and perfect will of God; and leaving the example of Christ, they follow the world, laying aside the austere part of religion, they would make it more easy to enter into the kingdom. By this means, they gain the friendship of the rich and the popular; this procures a rich glebe and plump benefice, which is pleasing to the nature of man, and the dissimulation of a Peter may draw away a Barnabas. So weak minds are led astray, and the cross of Christ reproached, which has been the cause of a misapplication and wrong adminis tration of ordinances. The writings of men of this stamp, have the same and a more pernicious tendency. We mean those that are intended as a rule in any part of the faith and practice of a church-such as canons, creeds, confessions of faith, catechisms, and church histories, with all other scribbles of the same complexion. The impropriety of the above may be seen by the differences among them, and the alterations they have met with in the different centuries, and different churches, prove them an improper rule for christians. Another evil attends them:-As their desire was for the after generations, to lead them into the religion and principles of their fathers, therefore it begets strong prejudices on the mind, and lays them liable to many errors and superstitions, and deprives them from seeing any necessity of searching the Scriptures, believing that their fathers were as good, as wise, and as learned as any men, and so take them for their guide, and learn of man, and not of Christ; and trust in man and making flesh their arm, and so bring this curse of God on themselves. Again, we are not to take the writings of any mere man in spiritual things, but search the Scriptures whether it is so or not. Then, before we dare to take these writings as a rule, we must examine their references, and compare their inferences with the spirit of the text, and be at as much trouble as the compiler. Why not take the Scriptures? Again, they are a false representation to the world, recommending their authors as almost divine, and their characters unspotted, swelling their good works to an enormous size, while all their misconduct, imperfections, and failings are slightly mentioned or entirely concealed; and men being fond of applause, are still adopting the same measures, which keeps the presses filled with such performances and sacrilegious speculations, carrying on through church and state, robbing God of his honor, and his poor servants of their money, and perpetuating error from one gencration VOL. III 91 to another. This, we believe, is the foundation upon which bason baptism, giving absolution for sins, preaching funeral sermons, the use of ceremonies at graves, and praying for the dead, first originated, and is still kept up. Another strong objection against the above writings is, that they cast contempt upon the Scriptures, and their authors assuming the prerogative of Christ, they presuppose that the Scriptures are imperfect, and short of being in themselves a sufficient rule for a church; forasmuch as they add traditions that are not to be found in the word of God, and bind them upon their adherents, by which they are led to read and consider those writings more than the Scriptures, thereby lay a greater stress upon them, and so to be like those that seem somewhat in the church, and less regard Christ and his word. This is contempt indeed! And their authors assume the place of Christ, as they make themselves head rulers and lawgivers over the churches, aad thereby get the mastery, and are called Rabbi, robbing God of his glory and Christ of his honor. Another strong reason why we should reject, condemn, and cast away all such pretensions, is, that there is not one text in God's word that gives the least liberty, under any pretension whatever, for such writing; but to the contrary, strictly forbids adding to, or diminishing from, under the pain of his curse. And now, brethren, we have endeavored to lay before you the nature and tendency of those very pernicious performances. We hope you will duly consider them, and avoid the evil by a close search of God's word, and strict attention thereto, as the rule of your lives, knowing that you are to receive nothing without searching the Scriptures to see whether it is approved of by God or not. In this you stand justifiable in the sight of God and man. This, by the grace of God, will support you against the gross and prevailing error of the present day; this will lead you into the peaceable paths of righteousness, and make them pleasant to your souls; these are the paths in which the Patriarchs, Prophets, and Apostles went-they are now with God at rest. May the Lord bring us all thither for Christ's sake! FRANCIS OLIVER, Moderator. ESSAY ON THE CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY, TERMINATING IN POPERY-No. I. UPON THE POLYTHEISM FROM NOAH TO THE BIRTH OF CHRIST. THE church of S. Maria Rotunda, in the city of Rome, was reared by M. Agrippa, son-in-law to Augustus Cesar, and was called by him the Pantheon. In this building, in niches all round its walls, stood the images of all the gods of the Pagan world. In honor of them it was reared, and to them consecrated. But Boniface IV. diminished the edifice somewhat, and re-consecrated it to the worship of the Virgin Mary, and all the saints, male and female. In the niches which held the images of every god, now stand the images of every saint and saintess in the Roman Calender. The most authentic records of remote antiquity give to Ninus, the son of Nimrod, and founder of Ninevelt, the honor or dishonor of first contriving a false God. In a public assembly of the Babylonians he passionately extolled his father, by them called Belus, the founder of their empire; and presented to them a statue of him, to which he commanded them to pay the same reverence as was due to his father alive. He appointed the statue to be a common sanctuary to the miserable, and decreed that every offender who fled to it should be exempt from punishment. This privilege procured such veneration for the statue, that he whom it represented was revered as a god, and called, according to some, Jupiter; and according to others, Saturn of the Babylonians. This happened in the two thousandth year of the world, and the last year but one of Noah's life. So idolatry began. All nations did not worship Belus. Other nations chose for themselves gods after their own hearts. "The Africans worshipped the heavens; the Persians, fire, water, and the winds; the Lybians, the sun and moon; the Thebans, sheep and weasels; the Babylonicus of Memphis, a whale; the inhabitants of Mendis, a goat; the Thessalians, storks; the Syrophenicians, doves; the Egyptians, dogs, cats, crocodiles, and hawks; nay, leeks, onions, and garlic." Of the latter people the satirical Juvenal says "O sanctas gentes, quibus haec nascuntur in hortis Religious nations, sure, and bless'd abodes, Where every orchard is o'errun with gods! But worse than all, murderers, adulterers, thieves, drunkards, and robbers were deified and adored. In the Roman Pantheon the gods were distributed into six classes & the Celestial, the Terrestrial, the Marine, the Infernal, the Minuti or Semones, and the Indigetes or Adscriptitii. Amongst the celestial Jupiter stood first, next Apollo, Mars, Mer cury, and Bacchus; the goddesses of the same rank were Juno, Vesta, Minerva or Pallas, Venus, Luna, and Bellona. In the great arch of the Pantheon was drawn the image of the father of the gods and king of men-"Jupiter, placed on a throne of ivory, under a rich canopy, with a beard, holding thunder in his right hand, which he brandishes against the giants at his feet; his sceptre made of imperishable cypress, symbol of the eternity of his empire. On his sceptre sits an eagle, called his armor-bearer, because it brought him thunder in his battles with the giants. He wears golden shoes, and is covered with a woolen cloak." Thus appeared Jupiter in ancient Rome. The names of Jupiter in the different nations which acknowledged him, cannot easily be enumerated. The Greeks called him Ammon, or Hammon, which signifies sandy. He obtained this name in Lybia, because in the form of a ram he opened the sands of the desert and water flowed on the petition of Bacchus. The Assyrians and Babylonians called him Belus. In different places and languages from this root he was called Beel, Baal, Beelphegor, Beelzebub, and Beelzemen. He was called in Rome Capitolinus, Tarpeius, Optimus Maximus, Custos. In other countries he was called Diespiter, Dodonoeus, Elicius, Feretrius Fulminator, Gragus, Genitor, Imperator, Opitulus, Olympius, Pistor, Regnator, Stator, Soter, the Saviour, Ultor, Zeus, &c. &c. Out of one god they frequently made many. Thus the Sun, according to the aspect in which he was viewed, be came a new god. "The vernal Sun was the infant Horus, and the midsummer Sun was Hercules. In autumn he was worshipped as the dying Adonis, and in winter as the dead Osiris. The priests of the Nile gave the figure of every sign to the Sun. Every new month then afforded a new deity. On entering Aries the Sun was worshipped as a ram, as Ammon; on entering Taurus he was worshipped as the bull, and became the celebrated Apis." A volume would not define the names of all the gods of the Pagan world, and volumes would not record the feats, pranks, amors, debaucheries, murders, &c. of the gods of the two thousand years before the christian era. In worshipping God men looked to the heavens. The heavens, under the name of Jupiter, were worshipped by the ancient Etruscans. Him the Pelasgians invoked as "the dweller in ether, and the driver of the clouds." "Aspice hoc sublime candens quem invocant omnes Jovem." (Behold this lofty and bright expanse, whom they call Jove.) Or, as Virgil sings, -Ab jove principium musae: Jovis omnia plena." From the adoration of the heavens in general, the mind in its descent next took hold of the Sun under the name of Apollo; next, the Moon, under the name of Diana; then the stars. The Egyptian Osiris was the Sun, or universal fire; and their Isis, the Moon; or, in other words, Osiris with them represented active power, and Isis passive nature. According to Thales, "wherever there was motion there was soul;" hence not only the heavenly bodies were personified, but almost all animated nature. From worshipping the heavens they descended to the worship of ants and roots. Benefactors and heroes after their decease were first admired and then adored. Frequently these were blended with the worship of the heavenly bodies, insomuch that the same names are given to departed heroes and the host of heaven. Thus Hercules, amongst the Egyptians and Phenicians, was the midsummer sun in the fulness of his strength; and amongst the Greeks he was a piratical adventurer who sailed, depredated, and plundered upon the Grecian seas. It is an arduous task to form an acquaintance with the complicated machinery of ancient mythology; for when to the gods and goddesses are added the priests and priestesses and all the paraphernalia of their groves, fanes, rites, ceremonies, and hieroglyphics, the acquisition of a foreign language is an easy matter in comparison of an accurate knowledge of the polytheism of the ancient nations. This idolatry filled the world with every species of crime. When amors, intrigues, debaucheries, rapes, and murders were the pastimes of the gods worshipped by the great mass of human kind, what must have been the morals of such worshippers!!! From such premises we may judge whether Paul's picture of the Pagan morals be too high wrought: "Filled with all injustice, forni cation, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, cunning, bad disposition, whisperers, revilers, haters of God, insolent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil pleasures, disobedient to parents, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful.", After this peep into the polytheism of the Pagan world,* which so often corrupted and distressed the Jews, let us take a peep into that Pagan philosophy which corrupted christianity soon after its birth. But before we touch upon the philosophy, let us just glance at the priesthood of this idolatry. The priesthood of polytheism had an inner and an outer religionone for the common people, and one for the initiated. As a late writer has remarked, "Amongst simple tribes, where there is no regular priesthood, there is nothing complex in the rites of worship and little consistency in the scheme of belief. They worship nature when visible and present to their senses, and make scarcely any use of representive symbols. These are introduced with temples, and are necessary in a service no longer carried on in the face of nature. The priesthood seem always to have been aware of the origin of hero worship and of the political motives on account of which their deceased kings and legislators were admitted among the number of the gods; but this they concealed from the common people, and encouraged in them the gross worship of every idol in the most unnatural and complicated rites." But knowing that the adoration of the heavenly bodies was the more ancient worship, and that even these were only the representatives of one great being, "the father of all the gods and men," they communicated this their confused notion of but one divinity, to the initiated. Those initiated into their mysteries, amongst whom were many of their legislators and magistrates, were in.ormed of the grounds. of the vulgar worship and the reasons for tolerating it. These were very similar to what some of the high and low priests of nature of modern times have to offer for themselves. 'Christianity is necessasary,' say they, for the uneducated, unphilosophic mind-for the common people: but as for us philosophers, we "Look through Nature up to Nature's God," and need not a written revelation nor the institutes of religion to direct our minds or regulate our conduct. Thus did the priests of polytheism teach those in the inner temple introduced into the mysteries of their high school, while the great mass in the outer court were encouraged in all the gross notions of demon worship down to the idolatry of reptiles. Hence came the philosophers of the Pagan world to have "an outward and an inward philosophy." The gross superstitions presented to the vulgar, and more refined mysteries reserved for the initiated," being the policy of the priesthood, it is not unreasonable, to expect that this should give a turn to the reasonings of their philosophers. But this must be postponed till our next. EDITOR. |