CHAP. 23. UNIVERSALISTS. 401 and causing them to yield in submission to God. Fourteen times he crossed the Atlantic, and finally died in the midst of his labors at Newburyport, Mass. Sept. 30, 1770, aged 55. "He loved the world that hated him; the tear And he that forged and he that threw the dart, Cowper. More from the higher classes of the community followed Whitefield than Wesley. The Countess of Huntingdon, a lady of great rank and wealth, becoming pious, selected him as her chaplain; opened her house in the park where he preached to the nobility on Sabbath evenings; built chapels in various parts of England, and filled them with his preachers, and erected in Wales a college for the education of pious young men for the ministry. Her chapels suffered but little at her death. Great efforts were made by her friends to sustain them. In most of these the church ritual has been adopted. Her seminary at Wales has been superseded by a large and better at Chesunt in Hertfordshire. Mr. Whitefield never marshalled his followers into a distinct sect as did Mr. Wesley. He ever remained in communion with the church of England, though he commonly engaged in extemporaneous prayer. His Calvinism was high, and as his preachers were illiterate men, they ran into the extremes of Antinomianism, and gave offence to the Independents and Presbyterians who followed the old Puritans. After the death of Whitefield, the Calvinistic Methodists formed a union, but have never been reduced to much order. Some of their congregations, especially the Tabernacle and Tottenham court chapel, have been the largest in England. In some of them the liturgy has been used; and in others not. They are chiefly under the guidance of their ministers and a board of managers. In England there are about sixty places of worship, and in Wales three hundred. The preachers in Wales are chiefly itinerant. UNIVERSALISTS. The doctrine that all mankind will, through the merits of Christ, finally be admitted into the kingdom of heaven, has had but very few advocates in the Christian world, considering its adaptedness to gratify the human heart. Origen, in the third century, seems to have entertained some views of this nature, but he thought that "the sentiment ought to be kept secret among such as may be fit to receive it, and not publicly exposed." None of the reformers, unless it be the Socinians, adopted it The first open advocate of any importance in modern times, of Universalism, was Dr. Chauncey, of Boston. He considered that Christ died for all men, and that it was the purpose of God that all should finally be saved, and that in this state or another, all would be reduced by God to a willing subjection to his moral government. These sentiments he advanced only in an anonymous volume published in London in 1784. His work met with a very able answer from Dr. Jonathan Edwards of New Haven. In England, similar sentiments were advanced by Mr. James Kelly, one of the preachers of Mr. Whitefield. He believed in strict imputation and extended it to all mankind-supposing that through the death of Christ, all were perfectly restored to the divine favor. He rejected water baptism and the sacrament. Numbers adhered to him. One of his followers, Mr Murray, emigrated to America, and established some congregations. These are still maintained by some active preachers, and several churches have of late been added to them. The doctrine of universal salvation, or restoration, was also defended in England by Mr. Winchester and Mr. Vidler. They were met powerfully by Rev. Andrew Fuller. Dr. Joseph Huntington, of Coventry, Ct. left a manuscript behind him, entitled "Calvinism Improved," advocating the salvation of all, which was published. But it called forth a very able answer from Dr. Nathan Strong, of Hartford, in which he shewed that the doctrine of eternal misery is fully reconcilable with the benevolence of God. The Universalists have of late increased rapidly in the United States, especially in Massachusetts. CHAP. 25. PROTESTANT MISSIONS. 403 CHAPTER XXIV. Protestant Missions. Neglected by the Reformers. First attended to by the Puritans in North America. Eliot. Mayhews, Brainard. Danish Missions. Swartz, Hands Egede. Moravian Missions. Wesleyan Methodist Missions. Baptist. London, Edinburgh, Church Missionary Society. Buchanan. Martyn. American Board. Bible, Tract, and Education Societies. Concluding Remarks. We have traced the Christian Church down through eighteen hundred years, and seen her engrossing the attention of but a small part of the human race. In the mean time, far the greater part of mankind have been totally ignorant of her existence; while myriads, who have known her, have united in treating her with contumely and scorn. The last command of Christ was felt in all its proper authority by the Apostles and first Christians, and the Gospel received, under their efforts, an amazing extension. The ten heathen persecutions, in some measure broke the spirit of the followers of the Lamb, and the patronage of Constantine corrupted their principles; and when the world had broken into the Church, she was then engaged for centuries in building up a temporal kingdom, forgetful of the spiritual wants and woes of the heathen. The eighth century was an age of missionaries," and twilight shone upon the north of Europe, through the apostolic labors of Boniface, Willebrod, Villehad, Llefewyn, and others; but Mahometanism soon destroyed the churches in the East, and "gross darkness" covered those in the West. When Luther broke the power of the Roman hierarchy, and wrested from its dominions the fairest states of Europe, a prodigious effort was made by the prostrate power to regain what it had lost at home, from among pagan nations. We have sufficiently noticed its missionary proceedings. 66 The Reformers were too much engaged in the immense revolution which they were effecting at home, to think much of those who were bowing to idols in distant lands. Their geograpical knowledge too was small; and their intercourse with pagans, almost as little as with the inhabitants of another planAs commerce opened to the view of Europe the numberless tribes of men, they formed an acquaintance with their et. spiritual wants, and when they saw, they pitied. The love of Christ was not a cold, inactive principle in their breasts. Their operations however were slow and small. Centuries rolled away and little was done. And even now Protestant nations have reason to blush and be ashamed in view of their diminutive operations in the conversion of the world. The 16th century, presents us with but two feeble efforts of the Protestants among the heathen; one of the Swedes among the Laplanders, to whom they gave the New Testament, the other, of fourteen students from Geneva, who went to the Indians of South America, but soon perished. The 17th century, when the greatest efforts might have been expected, as the Protestant churches had become firmly established, wealthy and numerous; was almost equally barren of incidents, excepting with the Dutch and the band of emigrants to North America. The former carried with them the Gospel in their widely extended commerce in the East. Had they pursued a course of thorough instruction, the good they had done would have been incalculably great, and India might now have presented some of the fairest churches of Christendom. But they baptized and admitted to the profession of Christianity every individual who could repeat the Lord's prayer, the ten commandments, a morning and evening prayer, and say grace before and after meals. In 1688, 180,364 of the inhabitants of Jaffnapatam had thus received Christianity. In the city of Batavia, a church was opened and 100,000 persons were thus brought into its connexion. Numerous churches were also collected in like manner in Sumatra, Timor, Celebes and the Molucca islands, which the Dutch were careful to furnish with the Bible in their own language. But what could be expected of Christians thus formed, without a change of heart? They must have been then, as the remnant of them are now, mere pagans, with a nominal profession of the religion of Jesus. A more spiritual and evangelical work was attempted and carried on in the latter part of the century, by the emigrants to North America. About twenty nations of Indians came under the influence of the English Colonists. These Indians were polytheists. Like most pagans they believed in two superior deities; good and evil, Kitchhan and Hobbamok. Their priests called powaws, were supposed to have much secret communication with them. They had no temples, excepting in the country of the Narragansetts, where was one. They were CHAP. 24. ELIOT. MAYHEWS. BRAINARD. 405 much subjected to the delusions of witchcraft. Their powaws pretended to perform wonders, and inflicted upon themselves the most horrible severities. The Indians had some notions of another life, and happiness or misery, according as they were good or bad. Their ignorance and wickedness early excited the compassion of the pious Puritans. The heart of the Rev. John Eliot, who had emigrated from England in 1631, and settled at Roxbury, was particularly affected. The wretchedness of the heathen; the design of emigration; the seal of the colony, on which was pictured a poor indian with a label in his mouth, "Come over and help us"; pressed him to do something. He saw in them many things resembling Jewish customs, and thought they might be descendants of the dispersed Israelites, concerning whom their was a promise of conversion. The Indians had no written language, but Mr. Eliot soon learned their barbarous dialect, and preached with great success. The sachems and powaws became alarmed, lest they should lose all their influence over the people, and threatened to kill him if he did not desist. But he did not fear them, and always said to them, "I am about the work of the great God, and my God is with me; so that I neither fear you nor all the sachems in the country. I will go on, and do you touch me if you dare." It was his custom to take care of his own flock and go on a missionary tour once a fortnight, through various parts of Massachusetts and Plymouth, preaching Christ. His fatigue and dangers were great, but he never sunk before them. "I have not," he says in a letter, " been dry night or day, from the third day of the week unto the sixth; but so travelled; and at night pull off my boots, wring my stockings, and on with them again and so continue. But God steps in and helps. I have considered the word of God, 1 Tim. II. 3. " endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." In 1660, an Indian church was formed at Natick, and numbers were admitted to the Lord's table, who had stood as catecumens or been propounded ten years. These abandoned polygamy, drunkenness, and other sins. Other churches were soon after formed in other places. And that they might be built up in a most holy faith, Mr. Eliot translated and published in their language the whole Bible, perhaps the greatest * *The longest word is in Mark, 1. 40. Wuttappesittukgussunnoohwehtunkquoh. |