SEPARATISTS. This name has for some years been generally applied to a particular sect in these countries. It originated with a few Christians in Dublin, about the year 1803, who had their attention strongly directed to the principles of Christian fellowship. Convinced that the authority of the apostolic word was divine and unchangeable, not to be annulled or weakened by the lapse of time, by the customs of nations, or by the laws of earthly legislators, they set out in the attempt to return fully to the course marked out for Christians in the New Testament. There they perceived that all the first Christians in any place were connected together in the closest brotherhood, and that this connection, grounded on the apostolic gospel which they believed, was altogether regulated by the apostolic precepts, the commands of the divinely-commissioned ambassadors of Christ; and they also perceived that the same divine rule which regulated their fellowship in the gospel with each other, forbade them to maintain any religious fellowship with others. From the practice consequent on this, they received the name of Separatists, a designation since applied to them, by an act of parliament passed in the year 1833, for their relief in the matter of oaths. To give even a concise account of the tenets and practices by which they are distinguished from most other religionists in these countries, would require more space than could be allotted to this article; but among them the following principal may be noted. They hold that the only true God is made known to men exclusively in the gospel of his son Jesus Christ; that those alone who believe the divine testimony there revealed know the true God, whose distinguishing glory is displayed in the fullest harmony of perfect righteousness and perfect mercy, as the Saviour of sinful creatures, and the justifier of the ungodly, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, through the propitiation for sin which he made by his obedience unto death, and the divine acceptance of which is proved by his resurrection from the dead. They hold that forgiveness of all sin, acceptance in the sight of God, and eternal life, come to the guiltiest of sinners, as such, and are assured in the divine word to every one, without distinction, who believes the testimony concerning Jesus of Nazareth. They understand by the faith with which justification and eternal life are connected, nothing else but the belief of the things declared to all[7:20:103] alike in the gospel; and by repentance, nothing but the change of mind which takes place on a sinner’s believing the gospel. Both these they hold to be solely the work of God in his people; the Spirit of God working by his revealed word, in them to will and to do; and they acknowledge God to be the sole author and agent of every thing that is good, and that every thing which comes from the sinner himself, either before his conversion to God, or after it, is essentially evil. As a church they assemble on the first day of the week, as the memorial day of Christ’s resurrection, to show forth his death, the only ground of their hope, by taking bread and wine, as the symbols of his body broken and his blood shed for the remission of sins; to join in the exercises of prayer and praise; to contribute to the necessities of the poor; to express their fraternal affection by saluting each other with an holy kiss; and to attend, as occasion requires, to the discipline appointed by the apostles for removing any evil which may appear among them. For a full account of their doctrines on baptism, the clerical character, and 'other subjects, see Essays and Correspondence of the late John Walker, London, 1838, two vols. 8vo.