470 



EP WORTH ESQUIMAUX. 



f<'v-il shell:- whicli have been ascertained in this 

 formation, only forty-two are of living species, or 

 iibout 3$ per cent. None of the associated remains 

 uf the mammalia found in these deposits belong to 

 living species; about forty belonged to the division 

 I'achydertnata, which has now only four living re- 

 presentations on the globe. 



EPWOKTH; a market-town and parish in Lin- 

 colnshire, 160 miles N.W. from London. The 

 ctiift employment of the inhabitants is in the dress- 

 ing of flax, large quantities of which are grown in 

 the neighbourhood. The parish is the birth-place 

 of John Wesley, the founder of the Methodists. 

 His father held the rectory of it for about sixty 

 years. Population in 1841, 1843. 



ERASTIANS; a party in ecclesiastical polity, 

 who maintain that the church possesses no power 

 in itself, and that the office of her rulers consists 

 solely in instructing and persuading the people ; 

 that all they have a right to do, is to propose truths 

 to be believed, and duties to be practised, which 

 they may enforce by motives calculated to impress 

 their consciences and hearts ; but that they have 

 no authority to call them to account for their con- 

 duct, and to deprive such as they deem unworthy, 

 of their privileges. Such authority churches have 

 possessed, and still may possess, but only as having 

 it conferred by the civil power, or being tolerated 

 by it in the exercise of an assumed right. Such 

 authority a state may confer upon the church, for 

 the purpose of maintaining due order in society, 

 but it then only delegates what it has at all times 

 a right to limit and control, and even to recal. 

 And if a church shall, without such formal delega- | 

 tion, assume powers of government and discipline, j 

 it is an usurper, and unwarrantably encroaches on \ 

 the authority of the magistrate; for the power of 

 the sovereign is supreme in things both temporal 

 and spiritual. These are the leading doctrines of 

 Erastianism. Erastus promulgated them during 

 the sixteenth century, chiefly at Heidelberg, and 

 in his Theses and Tractatus de Excommunicatione. 

 He was a physician, but devoted much of his at- 

 tention to theology. His boldness in the interpre- 

 tation of scripture, is as remarkable as his ingenu- 

 ity in deriving arguments from natural law, and 

 the principles of jurisprudence. The passage in 

 Matt, xviii. 1", which apparently contradicts his fa- 

 vourite doctrine, he without difficulty interprets in 

 a way confirmatory of it. The church, he says, 

 means the assembly of the Jewish elders, the only 

 legitimate magistracy among the Jewish people ; j 

 and the verse just means that if private methods 

 of getting justice failed, they were to carry the 

 case before a Jewish tribunal ; and if the culprit 

 was obstinate, and refused to yield to the deter- 

 mination of such a court, he was to be treated as a J 

 heathen would be, and dragged before the Roman 

 authorities. 



Erastus never founded a sect, but his doctrines 

 found patrons in many churches, and with the gen- 

 erality of princes. L. Molinaeus was the most vio- 

 lent of the authors who have written in defence of 

 them. To a certain extent they are acted upon in 

 the church of England ; and in opposing them the 

 church of Scotland engaged in some of her most 

 perilous struggles, and shed not a little of her best 

 blood. The Reformed churches have loudly testi- 

 fied .against them; but the Lutheran churches 

 tamely yielded up their independence, and sub- 

 mitted to the Erastian yoke of the civil power. 

 The consequences of what thus took place in these 



last named churches have been described by Dr 

 Mo-helm, who in general seems inclined to net as 

 their apologist, and to explain away or conceal the 

 evils to be found in them. Yet in this case the 

 picture he gives is unfavourable. After describing 

 the inroads and final triumph of Erastianism, he 

 adds: "Nor will it appear surprising, when this is 

 duly considered, that the manners of the Luther- 

 ans are so remarkably depraved, and that in a 

 church which is deprived of almost all authority 

 and discipline, multitudes affront the public by 

 their audacious irregularities, and transgress, with 

 a frontless impudence, through the prospect of im- 

 punity." 



Erastus brought forward his doctrines as an ef- 

 fectual check to the tyranny of the church of Rome, 

 and to that imitation of it which was to be found 

 among Protestants. His doctrines, however, have 

 never been properly systematized. Some hold that 

 all established churches are necessarily chargeable 

 with Erastianism ; and among polemics, it is banded 

 about from one party to another us a term of 

 reproach. It is not to be wondered at that there 

 are few churchmen inclined to speak favourably 

 either of the name or of the thing signified by it. 

 See Turrettini Theoloyi'i, loc. 18. overt. 29. 

 Limborch Tlieologia, lib. 7. cap. 18. Dick'* /.< 

 tares, vol. iv. p. 385. Mosheim, cent. l(i. chap. I. 



ERRATIC BLOCKS, OR BOULDERS. De- 

 tached fragments of rocks, generally rounded ami 

 transported from a distance, are found in great mini 

 bers scattered over the earth's surface, and embed- 

 ded in the diluvial covering. They vary in size, from 

 a few pounds weight, to several tons. These stones 

 are frequently accumulated near the masses from 

 which they have been originally detached ; but they 

 are as often found scattered over districts at a dis- 

 tance, and various fragments of different rocks will 

 thus be found accumulated and mingled together, 

 sometimes at distances of many hundred miles from 

 their parent rocks. These transportations point 

 out the agency of currents, and immense irruptions 

 of the ocean, passing over the land in particular 

 directions, and with such impetus as to transport 

 large and ponderous bodies. From the posi- 

 tion of these boulders, the direction of such cur- 

 rents may often be distinctly ascertained. Thus in 

 the valley of Mid Lothian, fragments from all the 

 hills to the north westward are found accumulated 

 on the south-eastern shores of the frith. In 

 Switzerland immense granite blocks from the Alps 

 rest on the limestone strata of Mount Jura, and frag- 

 ments from the Scandinavian rocks in the north occur 

 in great numbers strewed over the south of Europe. 

 The same indications of a transport of boulders 

 from north to south, is also to be seen on the con- 

 tinent of America. When fragments of rocks have 

 been surrounded with ice, and a thaw has taken 

 place, they have been thus rendered so buoyant as 

 to float in water, and in this manner partial trans- 

 portations of boulders may be accounted for. 



ESCARPMENT ; a geological term for the ab- 

 rupt face of a ridge of high land; from the French, 

 escarper, to cut. deep. 



ESQUIMAUX, (a.) The Esquimaux are exten- 

 sively spread. Richardson and Franklin found 

 them along the whole coast of the American Polar 

 Sea; Kotzebue in the channel near Behring's 

 Straits. Their stature is much lower than the 

 European, five feet nine inches being consideied 

 gigantic; the usual height is from four to five feet. 

 Though the trunk of the body is thick, the extre- 



