SECT. I.

CEN T. suggested expedients in perplexing and compliXVII. cated cases. It would be endless to enumerate all the circumstances that have been complained of in the proceedings of the Jesuits. These that have been now mentioned, have ruined their credit in the esteem of the other missionaries, who consider their artful and insidious dealings as every way unsuitable to the character and dignity of the ambassadors of CHRIST, whom it becomes to plead the cause of God with an honest simplicity, and an ingenuous openness and candour, without any mixture of dissimulation or fraud. And, accordingly, we find the other religious orders, that are employed in the foreign missions, proceeding in a very different method in the exercise of their ministry. They attack openly the superstitions of the Indians, in all their connexions and in all their consequences, and are studious to remove whatever may seem adapted to nourish them. They shew little regard to the ancient rites and customs in use among the blinded nations, and little respect for the authority of those by whom they were established. They treat with a certain indifference and contempt the Pagan priests, grandees, and princes, and preach, without disguise, the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, while they attack, without hesitation or fear, the superstitions of those nations they are called to convert.

in India.

Christianity VII. These missionaries of the court of Rome propagated spread the fame of the Christian religion through the greatest part of Asia during this century. To begin with India; it is observable, that the ministerial labours of the Jesuits, Theatins, and Augustinians contributed to introduce some rays of divine truth, mixed, indeed, with much darkness and superstition, into those parts of that vast region that had been possessed by the Portuguese before their expulsion from thence by the Dutch.

But

XVII. SECT. I.

But of all the missions that were established in CENT. these distant parts of the globe, none has been more constantly and universally applauded than that of Madura, and none is said to have produced more abundant and permanent fruit. It was undertaken and executed by ROBERT DE NOBILI [b], an Italian Jesuit, who took a very singular method of rendering his ministry successful. Considering, on the one hand, that the Indians beheld with an eye of prejudice, and aversion all the Europeans, and, on the other, that they held in the highest veneration the order of Brachmans as descended from the Gods; and that, impatient of other rulers, they paid an implicit and unlimited obedience to them alone, he assumed the appearance and title of a Brachman, that had come from a far country, and, by besmearing his countenance and imitating that most austere and painful method of living that the Sanianes or Penitents observe, he at length persuaded the credulous people that he was, in reality, a member of that venerable Order []. By this stratagem, he

[4] Others call this famous missionary Robert de Nobilibus. [] Urban Cerri, Etât present de l'Eglise Romaine, p. 173.

Nobili, who was looked upon by the Jesuits as the chief apostle of the Indians after Francois Xavier, took indredible pains to acquire a knowledge of the religion, custons, and language of Madura, sufficient for the purposes of his ministry. But this was not all: for, to stop the mouths of his opposers, and particularly of those who treated his character of Brachman as an impostor, he produced an old, dirty parchment, in which he had forged, in the ancient Indian characters, a deed, shewing that the Brachmans of Rome were of much older date than those of India, and that the Jesuits of Rome descended, in a direct line, from the God Brama. Nay, Father Jouvenci, a learned Jesuit, tells us in the History of his Order, something yet more remarkable; even that Robert de Nobili, when the authenticity of his smoaky parchment was called in question by some Indian unbelievers, declared upon oath, before the assembly of the Brachmans

SECI.

CENT.he gained over to Christianity twelve eminent Brachmans, whose example and influence engaged a prodigious number of the people to hear the instructions, and to receive the doctrine, of this famous missionary. On the death of ROBERT, this singular mission was for some time at a stand, and seemed even to be neglected [k]. But it was afterwards renewed, by the zeal and industry of the Portuguese Jesuits, and is still carried on by several missionaries of that Order, from France and Portugal, who have inured themselves to the terrible austerities that were practised by ROBERT, and that are thus become, as it were, the appendages of that mission. These fictitious Brachmans, who boldly deny their being Europeans or Franks [], and only give themselves out for inhabitants of the northern regions, are said to have converted a prodigious number of Indians to Christianity; and, if common report may be trusted to, the congregations they have already founded in those countries grow larger and more numerous from year to year. Nor, indeed, do these accounts appear, in the main, unworthy of credit [m]; though we must not be too ready to receive,

Brachmans of Madura, that he (Nobili) derived really and truly his origin from the God Brama. Is it not astonishing that this Reverend Father should acknowledge, is it not monstrous that he should applaud, as a piece of pious ingenuity, this detestable instance of perjury and fraud? See Jouvenci Histoire des Jesuites.-Norbert, Memoires Historiques sur les Missions des Malab. tom. ii. p. 145.

[Urban Cerri Etát present de l'Eglise Romaine, p. 173. [] The Indians distinguish all the Europeans by the general denomination of Franks, or (as they pronounce the word). Prangbis.

[m] The Jesuits seem to want words to express the glory that has accrued to their Order from the remarkable success and the abundant fruits of this famous mission, as also the dreadful sufferings and hardships their missionaries have sustained in the course of their ministry. See the Lettres Curieuses et Edifiantes ecrites des Missions Etrangeres, tom. i. p. 9. 32. 46.

receive, as authentic and well attested, the rela-C EN T. tions that have been given of the intolerable hard

ships

50, 55. where father Martin observes (p. 9.), that this mission surpasses all others; that each missionary baptizes, at least, a thousand converts every year (p. 11.); that, nevertheless, Baptism is not indiscriminately administered, or granted with facility and precipitation to every one that demands it (p. 12.); that those who present themselves to be baptized, are accurately examined until they exhibit sufficient proofs of their sincerity, and are carefully instructed during the space of four months in order to their reception; that, after their reception, they live like angels rather than like men; and that the smallest appearance of mortal sins is scarcely, if ever, to be found among them. If any one is curious enough to inquire into the causes that produce such an uncommon degree of sanctity among these new converts, the Jesuits allege the two following; the first is modestly drawn from the holy lives and examples of the missionaries, who (p. 15.) pass their days in the greatest austerity, and in acts of mortification that are terrible to nature (see tom. xii. p. 236. tom. xv. p. 211.) who are not allowed, for instance, the use of bread, wine, fish, or flesh, but are obliged to be satisfied with water and vegetables, dressed in the most insipid and disgusting, manner, and whose clothing, with the other circumstances of life, are answerable to their miserable diet. The second cause of this unusual appearance, alleged by the Jesuits, is the situation of these new Christians, by which they are cut off from all communication and intercourse with the Europeans, who are said to have corrupted, by their licentious manners, almost all the other Indian proselytes to Christianity. Add to all this,

is an

other considerations, which are scattered up and down in the Letters above cited, tom. i. p. 16, 17. tom. ii. p. 1. tom. iii. p. 217. tom. v. p. 2. tom. vi. p. 119. tom. ix. p. 126.- -Malura is a separate kingdom situated in the midst of the Indian Peninsula beyond the Ganges *. There accurate map of the territory comprehended in the mission of Madura, published by the Jesuits in the xvth tome of the Lettres Curicuses et Edilantes, p. 65. The French Jesuits set on foot, in the kingdom of Carnate and in the adjacent provinces, a mission like that of Madura (Lettres Cur, tom. v. p. 3. 24.) and, towards the conclusion of this century, other missionaries of the same Order formed an enterprise of the same nature in the dominions of the king of Marava (tom.

*This is a mistake. Madura is in the Indian Peninsula within Ganges, and not beyond it. Its princip d producis rice, which is one of theprincipal instruments made use of by the rich Jesuits in the conversion of the poor Indians.

XVII. SECT I.

CENT ships and sufferings that have been sustained by SECT. I. these Jesuit-Brachmans in the cause of CHRIST.

XVIL

In the

of Siam, Tonquin,

&c.

Many imagine, and not without good foundation, that their austerites are, generally speaking, more dreadful in appearance than in reality; and that, while they outwardly affect an extraordinary degree of self-denial, they indulge themselves privately in a free, and even luxurious use of the creatures, have their tables delicately served, and their cellars exquisitively furnished, in order to refresh themselves after their labours.

VIII. The knowledge of Christianity was first kingdoms conveyed to the kingdoms of Siam, Tong-king, and Kochinchina, by a mission of Jesuits, under the direction of ALEXANDER of RHODES, a native of Avignon [n], whose instructions were received with uncommon docility by a prodigious number of the inhabitants of these countries. An account

(tom. ii. p. 1. tom. x. p. 79.) The Jesuits themselves however acknowledge (tom. vi. p. 3. 15, 66, 107.) that this latter establishment succeeded much better than that of Carnate. The reason of this may perhaps be, that the French Jesuits, who founded the mission of Carnate, could not endure, with such constancy and patience, the austere and mortified manner of living which an institution of this nature required, nor imitate the rigid self-denial of the Brachmans, so well as the missionaries of Spain and Portugal.-Be that as it may, all these missions, that formerly made such a noise in the world, were suspended and abandoned, in corsequence of a papal mandate issued out in the year 1744, by Benedict XIV. who declared his disapprobation of the mean and perfidious me thods of converting the Indians that were practised by the Jesuits, and pronounced it unlawful to make use of frauds or insidious artifices in extending the limits of the Christian church. See Norbert, Memoires Historiques pour les Missions Orientales, tom. i. & iv. Mammachius has given an account of this matter, and also published the mandate of Benedict, in his Orig. et Antiq. Christian. tom. ii. p. 245. See also Lock- ́ man's Travels of the Jesuits, &c. translated from the Lettres Edifiantes, &c. vol. i. p. 4. 9. 2d edit.

[] See the Writings of Alexander de Rhodes, who was undoubtedly a man of sense and spirit, and more especially his Travels, which were published in 4to. at Paris, in the 7ears 1666, and 1682.