who also assert that they denied a future judgment and future punishment m.

VI. We find a solitary trace of Univer▲ D. 1190. salism, at this time, among the mocks of France. At the city of Nevers, which stands on the river Loire, about a hundred and forty miles south of Paris, one Rainold presided as abbot over the monastery of St. Martin; and he was accused in a council, held this year, at Sens, of maintaining two errors: 1, That the bread of the sacrament was corruptible, and that it was digested, like other bread; and 2, that all men will eventually be saved, as Origen had taught. What was the result of the complaint I know

not.

A. D. 1200, to 1210.

VII. It is, perhaps, impossible to determine whether we ought to rank Amalric, or Amauri, an eminent professor of logic and theology at Paris, among the Universalists. Like the celebrated Wickliffe, he was charged with holding the pantheistical tenet that the Universe is God; but it is certain that the whole tenor of the doctrine attributed to him, opposes that proposition, at least in its exceptionable sense. "According to Fleury, “he held that, in order to be saved, every person must "believe that he is a meinber of Jesus Christ; but that "the pope condemning this opinion, he retracted it be"fore his death. Fleury also ascribes to the followers ❝of Amauri an opinion which is said to have taken its "rise from a book by Joachim, entitled The Everlasting

Gospel, viz. that Jesus Christ abolished the old law, "and that in his time commenced the dispensation of "the holy spirit, in which confession, baptism, the

m See Gabrielis Prateoli Marcossii Vita Hæreticorum, Art. Albanenses, Albigenses, &c. And Berti Breviarium Hist. Eccl. Cent. viii. -xii. cap. 3. And Notitiæ Eccl. Pars Tertia, per Sodalet. Academ. Bambergensem, &c. Priestley's Hist. of the Christian Church, Period xviii. Sect. ix p. 136, 137. • Lenfant's Hist. of the Council of Constance, Book iii. ch. 42, Art. 28, vol. i. p. 419.

He

"eucharist, and other sacraments, would have no place; "but that persons might be saved by the interior grace "of the Holy Spirit, without any external acts. "moreover says that Amauri denied the resurrection, "said that heaven and hell were in men's own breasts, "that the pope was Antichrist, and Rome Babylon P." I shall now set down, in their own words, the catalogue which other Catholic writers have made of his errors: "1, Amalric said that the body of Christ was not other"wise present in the bread of the sacrament, than as it " is in other bread, and in every thing else; so that he "denied transubstantiation. 2, He said God had spok"en by Ovid, as much as by Augustine. 3, He denied "the resurrection of the body, and likewise heaven and "hell; saying that whoever enjoyed the knowledge of "God in himself, enjoyed also heaven in himself, and "that on the contrary whoever committed deadly sin, "experienced hell in himself. 4, He asserted that to "dedicate altars to the saints, to burn incense to images, and to invoke the saints, was Idolatry. 5, He "affirmed, not only with the Armeni, that Adam and "Eve would never have cohabited, had they continued "in their first state, but also that there would have "been no difference of sex, and that the multiplication "of mankind would have been like that of the angels; "thus contradicting what is written in Genesis; God "created man in his own image; in his image created "he him, male and female. 6, He asserted that "God is not to be seen in himself, but in his creatures, as the light is seen in the air. 7, He said that "what would otherwise be mortal sin, would, if done "in charity, be no sin: thus promising impunity to "sinners. 8, He affirmed that those ideas which are

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P Priestley's Hist. of the Christ. Church, Period xix. Sect. xi. pp 296-299.

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"in the divine mind, are both capable of being created, "and actually are created; when Augustine on the contrary has declared, that there is nothing in the "divine mind, but what is eternal and incommunicable. "9, He fancied that the soul of the contemplative, or happy saint would lose itself, as to its own nature, "and return into that ideal existence which it had in "the divine mind. 10, He taught that all creatures, "in the end, would return into God, and be converted "into him; so that they will be one, individually, with "him." As this account is given by his enemies, we must make an allowance in his favor; and it is not an unreasonable conclusion that he only opposed the corruptions and errors of the Church, that he adopted some mystic notions which then prevailed concerning spiritual union with Deity, and that he believed that finally God would become "all in all." With regard to the resurrection, he may have made, like the celebrated Locke, some distinctions which gave his adversaries occasion to charge him with denying it.

Some of the opinions of Amalric, or Amauri, as he is generally called, were condemned by the University of Paris, and likewise by pope Innocent III. and just before his death, the author was compelled to retract them. But he left disciples; and in A. D. 1209, a council was called at Paris, in which ten priests or students of divinity were condemned to the flames, and four to perpetual imprisonment. At the same time, the name of Amauri, who had died in peace, was anathematized, and his bones were dug up and thrown upon a dunghill.

VIII. I present to the reader the followA. D. 1230, ing account entire, as it stands in a Cathto 1234. olic historian. I add no remarks, because every reflecting person will discover much

Summa Conciliorum, per M. L. Bail, Tom. i. p. 432,

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incongruity between the different parts of the statement; and every one who is at all acquainted either with the habitual language of the old Romish authors concerning heretics, or with the odious representations that are even now given, in our own country, concerning Universalists, will readily understand the present case. Among all the sects which started up, during the thirteenth century, there was none more de"testable than that of the Stadings, which showed itself "by the outrages and cruelties which it exercised, in "Germany, A. D. 1230, against the catholics, and "especially against the church-men. Those impious "persons honored Lucifer, and inveighed against God "himself, believing that he had unjustly condemned "that angel to darkness, that one day he would be re“established, and that they should be saved with him. "Whereupon they taught, that until that time, it was "not requisite to do any thing which was pleasing to "God, but quite the contrary. They were persuaded "that the Devil appeared in their assemblies. They "therein committed infamous things, and uttered strange "blasphemies. It is said, that after they had received "the eucharist, at Easter, from the hands of the [cath"olic] priest, they kept it in their mouths without swal"lowing it, in order to throw it away. Those heretics "spread themselves in the bishopric of Breme, and in "the frontiers of Friezland and Saxony; and getting to "a head, they massacred the ecclesiastics and monks, "pillaged the churches, and committed a world of dis"orders. Pope Gregory IX. excited the bishops and "lords of those countries to make war against them, in "order to extirpate that wicked race. The archbishop "of Breme, the duke of Brabant and the count of Hol"land, having raised forces, marched, in the year 1234, "to engage them. They made a vigorous defence, "but were at last defeated and cut to pieces. Six

the spot;

the rest perished

"in several ways, and they were all routed; so that "there were but few left, who were converted and re"turned to their obedience the next year'."

A. D, 1315, &c.

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IX. "The sect of the Lollards spread "through Germany, and had for their lead"er, Walter Lollard, who began to disperse "his errors about the year 1315. They "despised the sacraments of the [catholic] church, "and derided her ceremonies and her constitutions, "observed not the fasts of the church, nor its abstinen"ces, acknowledged not the intercession of the [de"ceased] saints, and believed that the damned in hell, " and the evil angels, should one day be saved. Trith"emius, who recites the errors of these sectaries, says "that Bohemia and Austria were infected with them; "that there were above twenty four thousand persons in Germany who held these errors; and that the greater part defended them with obstinacy, even unto death".” X. In England, Langham, Archbishop A. D. 1368. of Canterbury, convened a council in A. D. 1368, and with the advice of his divines, gave judgment against thirty propositions which were taught in his province. Among them "the following opinions were condemned: 1. Every man ought to "have the free choice of turning to God, or from him; "and according to this choice he will be saved or “damned. 2. Baptism is not necessary to the sal❝vation of infants. 3. No person will be damned for original sin only. 4. Grace, as it is commonly explained, is an illusion; and eternal life may be acquired by the force of nature. 5. Nothing can be "bad merely because it is forbidden. 6. The fruit

Du Pin's Eccl. Hist. Vol. xi. ch. ix. p. 153. Eccl. Hist. Vol. xii. ch. viii. p, 113.

• Du Pin's