Separation of Church and State. See Church AND State.
Separation of Eastern and Western Church- es. See Schism.
Separatism, a term used to denote the disposition and practice by which persons withdraw from estab- lished communities or dissent from settled and common views or beliefs. This article is concerned with the re- ligious, or more specifically the ecclesiastical, form of separatism onlv.
The strict meaning of the phrase "religions separat- ism," which is also its only admissible meaning, makes it denote a tendency to break away from accejited re- ligious views or a scttle<l Church organization without sufficient cause. The imperfections and faults of the Church constitute the ordinary plea by which the ac- tion resulting from such tendency is defended ; but as separatists never attempt to purify the Church from within, it is evident that the real motives by which
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they are actuated are personal indifference towards the Church, an alienation from the Church through the in- fluence of rival institutions, or other reasons found in themselves. History shows that pride and perverse views have been the usual motives from which separa- tists have acted. All true reformers have continued in their churches until thrust out, e. g. Luther, Wesley, etc. The term sepcn-afist (q. v.) occurs for the first time in the history of Protestantism, though it applies to movements in the ancient and Middle- Age churches as well (e. g. Donatism). Separations on the grounds al- ready indicated were not unknown in any period of the history of the organized Church. In Protestantism the churches of England and Scotland furnished several kinds of separatists during the 16th and 17th centuries, especially the Inilependents and the Brownists (q. v.). The term, however, became a party name for the first time in (iermany, being originally employed in the Wetterau, then in Wiirtemberg, and subsequently in Bremen. In the latter place, a Lutheran student of theology named Theodore Schermer became the head of a small clique (1G99) which taught a kind of purga- tory, rejected infant baptism and all public worship, and recommended the disuse of the Lord's supper be- cause of the abuses attendant on its observance. They led a retired and pious life, wholly apart from the Church. The most able refutation of their peculiar views was written by J. W. Jager, of Tubingen (1715). Other minor separatist movements occurred about this time, which are involved in the disputes growing out of the Pietist controversy.
The congregations of the Inspired ( q. v. ) demand special notice in this connection. These persons de- nounced all ecclesiastical organization as a work of the devil, which they cursed through inspiration of the spirit, and resolutely avoided. They justified their sep- aration by various reasons: 1, that the Church is cor- rupt and has been divorced from Christ; 2, the minis- trations of unregenerate persons are without effect; 3, onlv spiritual ties can bind a Christian to the Church ; 4, infant baptism has no support in Scripture; 5, an inward and powerful impulse led them to withdraw from public worship, and secured to them a wondrous rest and peace of conscience ; 6, separation insures ex- emption from many temptations; 7, it is favorable to the cultivation of an impartial love for all pious per- sons, and for them only ; 8, it secures solitude, quiet- ness, love for the cross, and a self-denying temper, all of wiiich are necessary to the welfare of the soul. They argued that only separation could deliver from the chilling and baleful infiuences existing in the Church, and declared that persons once earnest to purifj' the Church had, without exception, sunk into indifference and spiritual sloth because they had not come out from the mystical and apocalyptical Babylon. Their oppo- nents replied by showing that in the Saviour's parable the wheat and tares were made to grow together until the harvest ; that Christ and the apostles did not avoid the services of the corrupt Temple, though thej' super- seded it when its work was done; and that Protestant- ism had not assumed an independent organization by its voluntarj' action, but onl}' when necessity, conse- quent on its expulsion from a Church corrupt in its ver}' principles, had compelled that measure. God's kingdom is a leaven; but the separation of the good from the bad is reserved for the day of judgment. The simple duty of each individual is to guard himself and his surroundings from the evil. On the Inspirationists see Weissmann, Introd. in Afemoj-ab. Eccles. Hist. Sa- crm (Stuttg. 1719), pt. ii, si«c. xvii, p, 1'2()4 sq,, No, 9. On the Separatists generally, Schlegel, Kirchenf/esch. d. \Hlen ./(i/uhiimkiis, ii, 1054 sq. — Ilcrzog, Real-Ency- klo]). s. v.
Separatists, a general term which may be con- sidered as meaning dissenters from the Church of Eng- land, but also applied at different periods to certain sects as the special name by which they chose to be known.
1 . In the reign of bloody Mary, the name was given to two congregations of Protestants who refused to con- form to the service of the mass. Mr. Rose was minister of the one which met in Bow -church Yard, London, where thirty of them were apprehended in the act of receiving the Lord's supper, and narrowly escaped be- ing committed to the flames. The other and much larger congregation was discovered at Islington, and Mr. Rough, its minister, and several others were burned by order of bishop Bonner.