their guide. On the contrary, a great variety of religious sects has risen in the reformed Churches. And if some are confident that they behold the true Church descending in one to the exclusion of the rest, still the historian is bound to trace the course of all who profess to be followers of the Lord Jesus. These have been found, since the reformation, among

THE ROMAN CATHOLICS, or ADHERENTS TO THE POPE, THE GREEK AND EASTERN CHURCHES, and

THE PROTESTANT, or REFORMED CHURCHES.

THE ROMAN CHURCH.

The effect of the Reformation upon the Roman Pontiffs, was to excite them to the greatest efforts to retain their power and extend their dominion in the earth. They removed a few evils which had been most severely animadverted upon by the reformers, and prosecuted the most ingenious methods to strengthen the internal constitution of their falling Church. Colleges and schools were established that their youth might be more enlightened; and wield, with more dexterity the weapons of controversy. But they prevented the circulation of all books which exposed the foundation of their superstitions; raised the edicts of Pontiffs, and the records of oral tradition, far above the authority of the scriptures; proclaimed the Vulgate edition of the Bible authentic; forbade the use of any other, or any interpretation of scripture which should differ from that of the Church and ancient doctors; and ordered the sacred volume to be taken away from the common people.* Finding their power and resources diminished at home, they grasped after the most amazing dominion among distant Pagan nations. They suffered no opportunity, also, to pass unimproved, by which they might regain what Luther and his companions had so triumphantly wrested from them.

The two great instruments which they employed to effect their purposes, were the Order of the Jesuits and the Inquisition.

The order of the Jesusits was founded in 1540, by Ignatius Loyola, a wild fanatic. Before the close of the reformation, the ancient Franciscan and Dominican orders had lost much of their influence and authority; so that the rise

* In the French church they were never able to carry this order into execution. There the common people have ever had the Bible.

of some new order seemed necessary to save the sinking Church. Loyola, ambitious of founding one which should be more potent than any which had existed, presented his plan Pope Paul V., and declared it revealed from heaven. Paul was afraid of the establishment, and refused his approbation, until Ignatius added to the three vows of poverty, chastity, and monastic obedience, a fourth of entire subservience to the Pope; binding the members of his order to go, without reward, in the service of religion, whithersoever the Pope should direct them. This procured, at once, the Pope's sanction, and the most ample privileges. The Jesuits were established, and in less than half a century, filled every country on the globe with their order. In 1608, they numbered 10,581. În 1710, 19,998.

Their form of government was a perfect despotism. A general of the order was appointed by the Pope for life, to whom regular reports were annually made from every branch, and to whom every individual was perfectly known and entirely submissive. Their discipline was altogether novel. Other monks had sought the solitude of the cloister; and practised rigorous austerities; had their peculiar habit, and appeared dead to the world. But the Jesuits were never distinguished from men of the world. They had no peculiar dress or employment. They mingled in all the active scenes of life;—were physicians, lawyers, merchants, mathematicians, musicians, painters, artists, that they might have the easier access to men of every rank and condition, and promote the purposes of the Pope without being known. Every candidate for the order was obliged to confess all the secrets of his heart, every thing relating to his temper, passions, inclinations, and life, to his superior; and was required to serve for a considerable period, and to pass through several gradations of rank before he could become a professed member. Every Jesuit was compelled to act as a spy upon the conduct of every other Jesuit. The rules of their order were hidden from strangers, and even from the greater part of their own number. They became instructors of youth in all the schools of Europe; confessors and spiritual guides to merchants, nobles, and sovereigns; they mingled in every transaction, and gave laws to empires. They established houses of trade in most parts of the world, and amassed vast treasures. And wherever they went, in whatever they were engaged, they were active missionaries of the Romish faith; being actuated by an

astonishing attachment to their order and the Church of Rome, and a most bitter and violent opposition to the Protestant religion. They were, for a long period, the pest of the world; and they were denounced by one state and another. But their superior knowledge, soft manners, and a morality which authorized the most atrocious crimestreachery, robbery, murders, for the promotion of a good end, especially the good of the Roman Church, they continued exceedingly popular; and the Pontiffs found them of such eminent service, as to absolve them from every crime, and protect them from every adversary.

The first, and by far the most distinguished of all their missionaries was Francis Xavier. In 1541, he sailed to the Portuguese settlements in India; and, in a short period, baptized several thousands of the natives into the Romish faith. Meeting with such success, he prepared to go to China, and attempted the conversion of that vast empire; but was suddenly cut off, in 1552, in the 46th year of his age, and in sight of his object. Had Xavier been possessed of the true knowledge of the Gospel, thousands might have risen up and called him blessed. He no doubt had a true missionary spirit, and the best missionary habits. His labors were wonderful.

After his death, Matthew Ricci and a host of Jesuits, pressed into the regions of Siam, Tonkin, Cochin-China, and the vast empire itself. Ricci recommended himself to the emperor by his mathematical knowledge, and obtained patronage for his religion. Converts were multiplied, and the Catholic religion for a season prevailed to a great extent. The emperor built a magnificent Church for the Jesuits within the imperial precints. Others pushed their conquests into India. On the coast of Malabar, one missionary boasted of a thousand converts baptized in a single year. Others, still more adventurous, penetrated into Japan, where they numbered, at one time, more than 600,000 Christians. In Abyssinia, also, they acquired an astonishing influence, which was retained for a season by the tortures of the Inquisition. But in South America was their greatest success. The whole of that vast continent they brought under the dominion of the Pope. In Paraguay, where perhaps they did more good than any where else, 300,000 families were said to be taught by them agriculture and the arts; to be both civilized and Christianized.

Their amazing efforts excited other monastic orders, the

Dominicans, Franciscans, and Capuchins, who found that they were, for their supineness, sinking in repute, to similar enterprises. They also induced the Popes, and others, to institute immense and splendid missionary establishments in Europe. In 1622, Pope Gregory XV. founded at Rome the magnificent college, "De propaganda fide." Its object was the propagation of the Catholic religion in every quarter of the globe. Its riches were immense, and adequate to the greatest undertakings. By it a vast number of youth were educated, and sent to the pagan nations, feeble and worn out missionaries were supported, and books were published and dispersed beyond number. Its exploits are almost incredible. In 1627, another college was founded through the munificence of John Baptist Viles, a Spanish nobleman, for the education of missionaries. And in France was established in 1663, the congregation of the priests of foreign missions; and the Parisian Seminary for the missions abroad. All these sent forth legions of Jesuits and friars, to all parts of the globe.

But alas! while they put Protestant Christians to the blush, for their backwardness in Heathen missions, all their labors were to but little profit. Little or no instruction did these missionaries ever give, relating to the character and love of God, to sin and holiness, and the way of salvation by Jesus Christ. Their great object was to persuade the Heathen to receive and practise the religious ceremonies of the Church of Rome; and this they did, to a great extent, by a compromising plan, in which they made it appear that there was no great difference between the Christian and Pagan systems. They taught the Chinese that the Christian religion came from Tien, the Chinese name for God, and that there was no great difference between the worship of the saints and the Virgin Mary, and the Chinese worship of their ancestors. Jesus Christ and Confucius were placed upon a level, and their religions were nearly amalgamated. The Hindoos were taught that Jesus Christ was a Brahmin, and that the Jesuits were Brahmins, sent from a distant country to reform them. The Capuchin converts in Africa were suffered to retain the abominable superstitions of their ancestors. In South America the profligate and the worthless characters of the Spaniards and Portuguese, utterly forbade any good moral influence from their instructions. Yet among such a crowd of missionaries, some few, like Xavier, may have truly sought the salvation

of souls, through whose labors and prayers, some may have been gathered into the spiritual kingdom of our Lord and Savior. If so, it has given joy in heaven.

While the Roman Church was thus engaged in foreign missions, she was also deeply involved in almost uninterrupted cabals to crush the Protestants and regain her former dominion in Europe. A few amicable conferences were first held; but her genius rather led her to violence and blood. She declared that the Protestants in Germany had forfeited the privileges secured to them, in the peace of religion, by departing from the confession of Augsburg; and through the bigoted house of Austria, she made war upon them in 1618; overcame, and awfully oppressed them. The cries of the suffering affected every heart, but that of the bigot Ferdinand, who exclaimed, "I had rather see the kingdom a desert, than damned." Their cruel oppressions called forth the interposition of the noble Gustavus of Sweden. He appeared in Germany with a small army in 1629, and fell in the battle of Lutzen in 1632. But his generals persevered; till worn out with a thirty years' war, all parties agreed in the treaty of Westphalia in 1648, in which the Roman Church confirmed anew to the Lutherans all their rights and privileges.

This was the last open war which the Church of Rome made upon the Protestants; but in every other possible way, by bribes, by the subtleties of controversy, by the axe and the fire, she continually harrassed the men of every country. In Hungary a violent persecution raged for ten years. In Poland, all who differed from the Pope, were treated as the offscouring of the earth, for more than a century. The Waldenses, were ever the objects of persecution, and were hunted in their dens and caves, and native mountains, and put to the most cruel deaths. From Spain, a million of Moors or Saracens, descendants of the former conquerors of the country, a sober, industrious, wealthy people, nominally Christian, but strongly attached to Mahomet, were banished from the kingdom; and the Church acquired immense possessions. An almost equal number of Jews were also driven out, whose estates too were confiscated by the Roman Church. The eyes of many in that hapless country, were opened upon the truth, by their connection with Germany during the reign of Charles V.; but they were silenced by racks, gibbets, and stakes. All the divines who accompanied Charles into his retirement, were