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such extremes as to injure, if not wholly destroy the very obligation of moral obedience.
The sect of Antinomians sprung up in England during the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, but the original founder was Agricola, a disciple of Luther. Some of their teachers maintained, as one of the essential and distinctive characters of the elect, that they cannot do any thing displeasing to God, or prohibited by the law.
In Germany and other parts of the continent, there are many Antinomians who condemn the moral code as a rule of life, and yet profess a strict regard for the interests of practical religion.
PAPISTS.
The Papists are so denominated from their leading tenet—the infallibility and supremacy of the Pope. By the infallibility of the Pope is understood that he cannot err in ecclesiastical matters; and by his supremacy is meant his authority over all the churches. The Roman Catholics, or Papists, profess to believe, 1st, In seven sacraments—baptism, confirmation, the eucharist, penance, extreme unction, or the anointing the sick in the prospect of death, orders, and matrimony. With respect to the Eucharist, or Lord's Supper, they hold the doctrine of transubstantiation, or that the bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of Christ; the paying divine worship to the host or consecrated wafer, and the allowing communion only in one kind, viz., bread, to the laity. 2d, In works of supererogation, or that the good works of saints are meritorious enough to supply the deficiency of others. 3d, In the celibacy, or single life of the clergy. 4th, In the worship of images and sacred relics. And, 5th, In the celebration of divine service in an unknown tongue. On the second article of their creed, enumerated above, is founded their doctrine of Indulgences, the sale of which, by a Dominican friar in the sixteenth century, eventually brought about the Reformation. Many of the adherents of Popery, in the present day, reject some of the above tenets, and especially the supremacy of the Pope, distinguishing themselves by the name of Catholic Dissenters.
Among the Roman Catholics there are to be found several monastic orders, such as the Augustines, the Benedictines, the Carmelites, the Dominicans, the Franciscans, &c., and also a variety of sects, such as the Jesuits, the Jansenists, the Molinists, and others, some of whom were sects of celebrity.
