own age.

lecturing, I will just run over the principal subjects, and in a few words state the occurrences most worthy of notice in our That the size of the book may not be unnecessarily swelled, authorities will be omitted. For what man of learning is so ignorant of the state of literature, as not to know, that there are innumerable works, from which our dry and insipid narrative might be filled out and made interesting?

§ 2. The Christian name has been propagated with equal zeal, by papists and protestants, in Asia, America, and Africa. I say the Christian name, not the Christian religion. For it is demonstrable, that very many of those whom the Romish missionaries persuade to forsake idolatry, show themselves to be Christians only in name, and as to certain ceremonies and outward forms, not in reality and in spirit; nor do they quit superstition, but only exchange one species of it for another. Among the papists, the Jesuits, and among the Jesuits, the French especially, are represented as explaining genuine Christianity, with distinguished success, to barbarous nations which knew not God. And the fact is not to be denied, provided it is allowable to call those people Christians, who have some knowledge of Christ, however imperfect it may be. At least it is true that the French have gathered large congregations of such Christians in the East Indies, especially in the Carnatic, Madura, and Marawar, on the coast of Malabar, and in China, Tonquin, and elsewhere; and also in some provinces of America, since the time that Anthony Veri assumed the office of superintendent of the sacred missions, and by great efforts procured both men and money adequate for so great an undertaking. But these missionaries have been so far from effacing the former stain upon the character of the Jesuit preachers, that they rather deepened it. For they are represented as pursuing their own honour and emolument rather than the interests of Christ : and as ingeniously corrupting to a strange extent our Saviour's holy religion, in order to obtain more proselytes.

§3. That famous question, whether the Jesuits residing in China advocated the cause of Christ well or ill among that discerning people, who are so exceedingly attached to their ancient rites, was decided in the year 1704, by Clement XI., in a manner adverse to the Jesuits. For he declared it criminal for the new Christians to practise the rites of their ancestors; and especially those rites by which the Chinese honour their de

ceased ancestors and Confucius. But this severe edict was considerably mitigated in the year 1715; and, doubtless, for the sake of appeasing the angry Jesuits. For the pontiff decreed,

that it is allowable for the teachers of the Chinese to designate the divine nature by the word Tien, provided they add the word Tchu, to remove the ambiguity of the word Tien, and to make it appear that the Christian teachers adored the Lord of heaven, (for this is the meaning of the phrase Tien-Tchu,) and not heaven itself. He also allowed those rites to be practised which gave so much offence to the adversaries of the Jesuits; provided all superstition and appearance of religion were avoided, and that these rites were regarded as mere testimonies of respect for their ancestors, or as marks of civil honour. The Chinese Christians, therefore, according to this decree of Clement, may keep in their houses tablets, on which are written in golden letters the names of their ancestors and of Confucius : they may lawfully honour them with lighted candles, with incense, and with tables set out with viands, fruits, and spices: nay, they may address these tablets and the graves of their ancestors as supplicants, prostrating themselves to the ground. The first or more severe edict was carried to China, by Charles Thomas Tournon, in the year 1705; and the second or milder one, by Charles Ambrose Mezzabarba, in the year 1721. But neither of them satisfied the emperor and the Jesuits. Tournon, executing the commands of his master with less prudence than the case required, was, by order of the emperor, thrown into prison, where he died in the year 1710. Mezzabarba, though much more cautious and prudent, returned without effecting his object for the emperor could by no means be persuaded to allow any innovations to be made in the ancient customs and institutions of the country. At present the state of Christianity in China being extremely precarious and dubious, this controversy is entirely suspended. And many considerations induce us to suppose that the pontiff and the accusers of the Jesuits hinder by no obstacles the members of that society from adhering to their own regulations, rather than to those sent them from Rome. For many evils must be patiently borne, in order to avoid that greatest of evils, the overthrow of the Romish religion in China.1

[All these events are stated far more fully in Dr. Mosheim's Most re

§ 4. The English and the Dutch, but especially the former, have made much greater efforts than formerly to spread the knowledge of Christianity among the nations of Asia and America. Among the efforts of this kind by Lutherans, the noblest and most successful is the institution of Frederic IV., king of Denmark; who, in the year 1706, sent out missionaries to preach Christian truth to the Indians on the coast of Malabar. This mission, the purest and best of all, not only still flourishes, being supported by the very best regulations, but also through the munificence of that excellent king, Christian VI., it is daily becoming more and more brilliant. The men who labour in it I admit, make fewer Christians than the papal missionaries; but they make far better ones,- real disciples, and not apes of disciples of Jesus Christ. The Russians have bestowed labour, not in vain, for the conversion of some of the nations bordering on Siberia.

§ 5. While the glory of Jesus Christ has been increasing in the remotest parts of our world, through the labours, the perils, and the anxious solicitudes of these missionaries, great numbers in Europe have made it their business to obscure this glory and to tread it in the dust. There is no country of Europe, and scarcely any body of Christians, in our age, which does not nourish in its bosom persons who endeavour either to blot out all religion and all fear of God, or at least to sink the dignity and lessen the influence of Christianity. Nowhere does this pest to the human race more abound, nowhere does it more boldly come forth to the light of day, than in the free states of Holland and England. Nor is it rare to meet, especially in England, with books which impudently deride and set at nought, not only the whole religion of Christ, but also the honour, worship, and majesty of the Divine Being, and all virtue and morality. Infamous for the publication of such books are, John Toland, Anthony Collins, Matthew Tindal, Thomas Woolston, (a strange specimen of ingenuity abused, who attempted, with an effrontery quite absurd, to shake the credibility of our Saviour's miracles,) Thomas Morgan, John Chubb, John Mandeville, and several

cent Ecclesiastical History of China (in German), Rostock, 1748, 8vo. In opposition to this, was published at Augsburg in 1758, 8vo, and at Innspruck, The most recent events in China; with a solid confutation of many unjust and erroneous statements of Dr. Mosheim, in his

Most recent Eccl. Hist. of China, written from Pekin, by R. P. Floriano Bahr, then rector of the Jesuits' college in China. But this refutation only makes the correctness of Mosheim's book appear the more manifest. Schl.]

others. And not long will any country of Europe, especially those which have abandoned Roman sacred rites, be free from writers of this character, if the booksellers continue to exercise the power which now they have, in giving all sorts of crackbrained and senseless papers a chance of escaping destruction by means of the press.

§ 6. The sects of Atheists, that is, of people who deny that a Being infinitely wise and powerful exists, at whose pleasure this universe was framed, and by whose nod it is preserved, are almost extinct. For at the present day, those actuated by this frenzy, omitting all disputation, agree to the doctrines of Spinoza, and consider this whole material world as an automaton, which, by means of some internal energy, originates and produces various movements, all of which are the result of necessity. The tribe of Deists, or of persons who assail the truth of all revealed religions, and especially of the Christian religion, disagree very much, and are divided into various sects. The best of them though these are bad enough are those who endeavour to merge Christianity in natural religion, maintaining that Christ only republished the lost and obliterated precepts of nature or correct reason. Of this class are Tindal, Chubb, Mandeville, Morgan, and many others among the English; if indeed they really believed what their words express. To the same class belongs Muralt, or whoever may be the unfortunately eloquent and ingenious author of the recent French work, entitled, What is essential in Religion.2 For, according to his opinion, the whole system of religion is comprised in these three propositions: There is a God: He watches over human affairs: The soul is immortal. And to inculcate these three truths, by his precepts and example, was the object of Christ's mission.

§ 7. The Romish church in this century has been governed by Clement XI.3, Innocent XIII.^, Benedict XIII.3, Clement XII., Benedict XIV. All these may be pronounced holy, wise, and learned men, if compared with the pontiffs of former times. The most distinguished of them for learning and erudition are Clement XI. and the present pontiff, Benedict XIV., whose former name was Prosper de Lambertini.

The

most distinguished for piety, or rather for a show of it, was Benedict XIII. This last-named pontiff attempted, by means of a council which he held in the Lateran palace in 1725, the acts and decrees of which have been published, to correct the greater evils in the church, and to reform the very corrupt morals of the clergy of every rank. But the event did not answer his expectations. Nor will Benedict XIV. be more successful, who is now attempting the same thing, though by different means. Moreover the modern pontiffs differ exceedingly from their predecessors, in the extent of their prerogatives, and in their power and influence. For the civil powers and states, though they treat the pontiffs personally with high respect and honour, yet are continually depressing and humbling the court of Rome, which they wisely discriminate from the pontiff. This appears, among other things, from the contests of the pontiffs in the present age with the kings of France, Portugal, Sardinia, and Naples; from no one of which the pontiffs have been able to get free without giving

way.

§ 8. A reconciliation of the protestants with the papists, if we except some feeble efforts of certain individuals, has not been seriously and earnestly attempted; nor indeed was it hardly possible. For those who formerly attempted this thing, endeavoured principally to gain over the protestants by explaining away and lowering down the [most offensive] Romish doctrines; but Clement XI. deprived the pacificators of this their principal resource by publishing that very noted decree, called the Bull Unigenitus. For this has shown most clearly, that on most of the points which obliged our ancestors to separate from the Romish communion, the present doctrine of the papists is precisely the same that it formerly appeared to be. This disclosure being made, it became manifest, that those who had formerly offered us peace on very conciliatory terms, had only laid a trap for us, by their pretended expositions of the Romish faith, and that no confidence whatever could be reposed on the promises of such men.

§ 9. The intestine discords, which greatly disquieted the Romish community in the preceding century, were so far from being composed and settled in this, that they have rather acquired new strength, and raged with increased animosity. The Jesuits still contend with the Dominicans and others,