cannot be considered as true Christians. This account of the affair is so specious and proba ble, and the consequences deducible from it are so natural and just, that the more equitablo and impartial among the Jesuits have ac knowledged the difficulties that attend the cause they maintain; and taking, at length, refuge in the plea of necessity, allege, that cer tain evils and inconveniences may be lawfully submitted to when they are requisite in order to the attainment of extensive, important, and salutary purposes.

illustrious examples. Hence these missionaries || quently, that all who perform these rites are conclude, that the Chinese converts to Chris-chargeable with insulting the majesty of God, tianity might be permitted to perform these to whom alone all divine worship is due, and ceremonies according to the ancient custom of their country, provided they understood their true nature, and kept always in remembrance, the political views with which they were instituted, and the civil purposes they were designed to serve. By this specious account of things, the conduct of the Jesuits is, in some measure, justified. But, whether this representation be true or false, it will still remain evident, that, in order to render the Christian cause triumphant in China, some such concessions and accommodations as those of the Jesuits seem almost absolutely necessary; and they who desire the end must submit to the use of the means.* The necessity of concession arises from this remarkable circumstance, that, by a solemn law of ancient date, it is positively declared, that no man shall be esteemed a good citizen, or be looked upon as qualified to hold any public office in the state, who neglects the observance of the ceremonies now under consideration. On the other hand, the Dominicans, and the other adversaries of the Jesuits, maintain, that the rites in question form an important branch of the Chinese religion; that the honours paid by the Chinese to Confucius and to the souls of their ancestors, are not of a civil, but of a religious nature; and conse

note.

The public honours paid to Confucius twice a year, used to be performed before his statue, erected in the great hall or temple that is dedicated to his memory. At present they are performed before a kind of table, placed in the most conspicuous part of the edifice, with the following inscription: "The Throne of the Soul of the most holy and the most excellent chief Teacher Confucius." The literati, or learned, celebrate this famous festival in the following manner:-The chief mandarin of the place exercises the office of priest, and the others discharge the functions of deacons, sub-deacons, &c. A certain sacrifice, which consists of wine, blood, fruits, &c. is offered, after the worshippers have prepared themselves for this ceremony by fasting and other acts of abstinence and mortification. They kneel before the inscription, prostrate the body nine times before it, until the head touches the ground, and repeat many prayers; after which the priest, taking in one hand a cup full of wine, and in the other a like cup filled with blood, makes a solemn libation to the deceased, and dismisses the assembly with a blessing. The rites performed by families, in honour of their deceased parents, are nearly of the same nature.

Now, in order to know, with certainty, whether this festival and these rites be of a civil or religious nature, we have only to inquire, whether they be the same with those ceremonies that are performed by the Chinese, in the worship they pay to certain celestial and terrestrial spirits, or genii, which worship is undoubtedly of a religious kind. The learned Leibnitz undertook to affirm, that the services now mentioned were not of the same kind, and, consequently, that the Jesuits were accused unjustly. But that great man does not appear to have examined this matter with his usual sagacity and attention; for it is evident, from a multitude of relations every way worthy of credit, and particularly from the observations made on the Chinese missions by that learned

*See Præf. Novissim. Sinicorum.

XV. The ministerial labours of the Romish missionaries, and more especially of the Jesuits, were crowned in Japan with surprising success, about the commencement of this century, and made an incredible number of converts to the Christian religion.* But this prosperous and

and candid Franciscan, Antonio de S. Maria,* not only that Confucius was worshipped among the idols, and the celestial and terrestrial spirits of the Chinese, but that the oblations and ceremonies ob served in honour of him, were perfectly the same with those that were performed as acts of worship to these idols and spirits. Those who desire a more ample account of this matter may consult the following authors: Budæi Annal. Histor. Philos. p. 287, where he treats de superstitioso Demortuorum apud Sinenses Cultu.-Wolfiii Not. ad Casaubon. p. 342.-Nic. Charmos, Annot. ad Maigrotti Historiam Cultus Sinensis; and more especially Arnaud, Morale Pratique des Jesuites, tom. iii. vi. vii.; and a collection of historical relations, published in 1700, under the following title: Historia Cultus Sinensium, seu varia Scripta de Cultibus Sinarum inter Vicarios Apostolicos et P. P. S. I. controversis.

*Two peculiar circumstances contributed to facilitate the progress of the Romish religion in Ja.. pan. The first was the uncharitable severity and cruelty of the Japanese bonzas or priests toward the sick and indigent, compared with the humanity, zeal, and beneficence of the missionaries. These bonzas represented the poor and infirm not as objects of pity, but as wretches loaded with the displeasure of the gods, and abandoned to present and future misery by the judgments of Heaven; and inspired the rich with a contempt and abhorrence of them. The Christian religion, therefore, which declares that po verty and afflictions are often surer marks of the di vine favour than grandeur and prosperity, and that the transitory evils which the righteous endure here, shall be crowned with everlasting glory and felicity hereafter, was every way proper to comfort this unhappy class of persons, and could not but meet with a most favourable reception among them. Add to this, that the missionaries were constantly employed in providing them with food, medicine, and habitations. A second circumstance that was advantage ous to Christianity (that is, to such a form of Christianity as the popish missionaries preached in Japan,) was a certain resemblance or analogy between it and some practices and sentiments which prevailed among the Japanese. The latter look for present and future felicity only through the merits of Xaca Amida, and other of their deities, who, after a long course of severe mortifications freely undertaken had voluntarily, also, put an end to their lives. They sainted many melancholy persons who had been guilty of suicide, celebrated their memories, and im. plored their intercession and good offices. They used processions, statues, candles, and perfumes in their worship; as also prayers for the dead, and auri cular confession; and had monasteries founded for devout persons of both sexes, who lived in celibacy, solitude, and abstinence; so that the Japanese religion was not an inapplicable preparation for popery. Beside these two circumstances, another may be mentioned, which we take from the letters of the Je suits themselves, who inform us, that the princes of

*See vol. ii. Epist. Leibnitz.

leled in the annals of the Christian history. This cruel persecution raged for many years with unrelenting fury, and only ended with the extinction of Christianity throughout that mighty empire. That religion, which had been suffered to make such a rapid and triumphant progress in Japan, was at length considered as detrimental to the interests of the monarchy, inconsistent with the good of the people, and derogatory from the majesty of their high priest, whom they revered as a person descended from the gods; and, on these accounts, it was judged unworthy not only of protection, but even of toleration. This judg ment was followed by the fatal order, by which all foreigners that were Christians, and more especially the Spaniards and Portuguese, were commanded to quit the kingdom; and the natives, who had embraced the Gospel, were required to renounce the name and doctrine of Christ, on pain of death presented to them in the most dreadful forms. This tremendous order was the signal for the perpetration of such horrors as the most sanguine and atrocious imagination will scarcely be able to con ceive. Innumerable multitudes of the Japanese Christians of each sex, and of all ages, ranks, and stations, expired with magnanimous constancy, amidst the most dreadful torments, rather than apostatize from the faith they had embraced. And here it may not be amiss to observe, that both the Jesuits and their adver

flourishing state of the church was somewhat || executed with a degree of barbarity unparalinterrupted by the prejudices that the priests and grandees of the kingdom had conceived against the new religion, prejudices which proved fatal in many places, both to those who embraced it, and to those who taught it. The cause of Christianity did not, however, suffer only from the virulence and malignity of its enemies; it was wounded in the house of its friends, and received some detriment from the intestine quarrels and contentions of those to whom the care of the rising church was committed. For the same scenes of fraternal discord, that had given such offence in the other heathen countries, were renewed in Japan, where the Dominicans, Franciscans, and Augustinians, were at perpetual variance with the Jesuits. This variance produced, on both || sides, the heaviest accusations, and the most bitter reproaches. The Jesuits were charged, by the missionaries of the three 'orders now mentioned, with insatiable avarice, with show-|| ing an excessive indulgence, both to the vices and superstitions of the Japanese, with crafty and low practices unworthy of the ministers of Christ, with an ambitious thirst after authority and dominion, and other misdemeanors of a like nature. These accusations were not only exhibited at the court of Rome, but were spread abroad in every part of Christendom. The disciples of Loyola were by no means silent under these reproaches; but, in their turn, charged their accusers with imprudence, igno- || rance of the world, obstinacy, asperity of man-saries in the missions expiated, in some meaners, and a disgusting rusticity in their way of sure, if I may so express myself, by the agonies living; adding, that these circumstances ren- they endured, and the fortitude with which they dered their ministry rather detrimental than suffered, the faults they had committed in the advantageous to the cause of Christianity, exercise of their ministry. For it is well known, among a people 'remarkable for their penetra- that the greatest part of them died magnanition, generosity, and magnificence. Such then mously for the cause of Christ by the hands of were the contests that arose among the mis- the executioner, and that some of them even sionaries in Japan; and nothing but the amaz-expired with triumphant feelings of satisfaction ing progress that Christianity had already made,|| and the immense multitude of those who had embraced it, could have prevented these contests from being fatal to its interests. As the case stood, neither the cause of the Gospel, nor its numerous professors, received any essential damage from these divisions; and, if no|| other circumstance had intervened to stop its progress, an expedient might have probably been found out, either to heal these divisions, or at least to appease them so far as to prevent|| pan a strong prejudice against the Spaniards, them from being attended with mischievous and calamitous consequences.*

XVI. But a new and dreadful scene of opposition arose, in 1615, to blast the hopes of those who wished well to the cause of Christianity in Japan; for, in that year, the emperor issued, against the professors and ministers of that divine religion, a persecuting edict, which was

the maritime parts of Japan were so fond of this new commerce with the Portuguese, that they strove who should oblige them most, and encouraged the missionaries, less perhaps from a principle of zeal, than from views of interest. See Varenius' Descrip. Japon. lib. iii. cap. vi. x. and the Modern Univ. History.

See the writers on this subject enumerated by Fabricius, in his Lux Evangelii, p. 678, as also Charlevoix, Histoire Generale de Japon, tom. ii. liv.

and joy.

Historians are not entirely agreed with respect to the real causes of this merciless persecution. The Jesuits consider it as having been occasioned, in part, by the imprudence of the Dominicans and Franciscans; while the latter impute it, in a great measure, to the covetous, arrogant, and factious spirit of the Jesuits. Both parties accuse the English and Dutch of having excited in the emperor of Ja

Portuguese, and the Roman pontiff, to the end

*There is a concise and sensible account of this tedious dispute in the sixth discourse that is subjoin. Japan, sect. iv. But it will also be proper to see ed to the English edition of Kæmpfer's History of what is said on the other side, by an author, who, in his long and circumstantial narration, has not omitted any incident, however minute, that tends, in the least, to exculpate the Jesuits, or to procure them indulgence; that author is Charlevoix; see his Histoire Generale de Japon, tom. ii. liv. xii. The other historians that may be consulted with utility on this subject, are enumerated by Fabricius, in his Lux Evangelii, cap. x. p. 678. Add to these the Acta Sanctorum, tom. i. Mens. Februar. p. 723, where we find not only a history of the commencement and progress of Christianity in Japan, but also an account of the lives and martyrdom of those wh first suffered for the cause of the Gospel in that kingdom. See likewise Mammachii Origines et Antiquitat. Chris tian. tom. ii. p. 376.

to prevent the execution of this pious design, among which we may reckon, principally, the peculiar situation of the Lutheran princes, of whom very few had any territories, forts, or settlements, beyond the limits of Europe.

dant opportunities of spreading abroad the knowledge of Christianity among the unenlightened nations. Nor were these opportunities entirely neglected, notwithstanding the reports that have generally prevailed, of their being much more zealous in engrossing the riches of the Indians than in effecting their conversion, though it may, perhaps, be granted, that neither of these nations exerted themselves, to the extent of their power, in this salutary undertaking. In 1647, the propagation of the Gospel in foreign parts was committed, by an act of the English parliament, to the care and inspection of a society composed of persons of eminent rank and merit. The civil wars that ensued suspended the execution of the plans that were laid for carrying on this salutary work. In 1661, under the sway of Charles II.. the work was resumed, and the society re-esta

that they alone might engross the commerce of that vast monarchy, and be unrivalled in their credit among that powerful people. The English and Dutch allege, on the other hand, that they never attempted to undermine, by any false accusations, the credit of the Roman This was by no means the case with the Catholics in that kingdom, but only detected princes and states who professed the reformed the perfidious plots the Spaniards had laid religion. The English and Dutch, more espe against it. Almost all the historians, who have cially, whose ships covered the ocean, and sailgiven accounts of this country, concur in af-ed to the most distant corners of the globe, and firming, that certain letters, intercepted by the who, moreover, in this century, had sent colo Dutch, and other circumstances of a very strik-nies to Asia, Africa, and America, had abun ing and alarming kind, had persuaded the emperor, that the Jesuits, as also the other missionaries, had formed seditious designs against his government, and aimed at nothing less than exciting their numerous disciples to rebellion, with a view to reduce the kingdom of Japan under the dominion of Spain.* A discovery of this nature could not but make the most dreadful impressions upon a prince naturally suspicious and cruel, such as the emperor then reigning was; and, indeed, as soon as he had received this information, he concluded, with equal precipitation and violence, that he could not sit secure on his throne, while the smallest spark of Christianity remained unextinguished in his dominions, or any of its professors breathed under his government. It is from this remarkable period, that we must date the severe edict by which all Europeans are forbidden to approach the Japanese dominions, and in conse-blished. In 1701, this respectable society requence of which all the terrors of fire and sword ceived singular marks of protection and favour are employed to destroy whatever carries the from king William III. who enriched it with remotest aspect or shadow of the Christian doc- || new donations and privileges.* Since that trine. The only exception from this general period, even to the present time, it has been law is made in favour of some Dutch merchants, distinguished by ample marks of the munifiwho are allowed to import annually a certain cence of the kings of England, and of the li quantity of European commodities, and have berality of persons of all ranks and orders, and a factory, or rather a kind of prison, allowed has been, and continues to be, eminently useful them, in one of the extremities of the kingdom, in facilitating the means of instruction to the where they are strictly watched, and rigour-nations immersed in pagan darkness, and more ously precluded from all communication with especially to the Americans. Nor are the lauthe natives, but what is essentially necessary to dable efforts of the United Provinces, in the the commerce they are permitted to carry on. advancement and propagation of Christian XVII. The example of the Roman Catholic knowledge, to be passed over in silence, since states could not but excite a spirit of pious emu- they also are said to have converted to the lation in Protestant countries, and induce them Gospel a prodigious number of Indians, in the to propagate a still purer form of Christianity islands of Ceylon and Formosa, on the coast among those unhappy nations that lay grovel- of Malabar, and in other Asiatic settlements, ling in the darkness of Paganism and idolatry. which they either had acquired by their own Accordingly the Lutherans were, on several industry, or obtained by conquest from the occasions, solicited by persons of eminent me- Portuguese. Some historians, perhaps, may rit and rank in their communion, to embark in have exaggerated, in their relations, the numthis pious and generous undertaking. Justi- ber of proselytes made by the Dutch; it is nenian Ernest, baron of Wells, distinguished him-vertheless most certain, that, as soon as that self by his zealous appearance in this good cause, having formed the plan of a society that was to be intrusted with the propagation of the Gospel in foreign parts, and to bear the name of Jesus, the divine founder of that religion which its members were anxious to promote.

But several circumstances concurred

*The_discoveries made by the Dutch were against the Portuguese, with whom they were then at war; so that, instead of Spain, our author should have said Portugal. See Kæmpfer's Japan, and the Modern Universal History.

|

nation had gained a firm footing in the East Indies, they planned with wisdom, and executed, at a great expense, various schemes for instructing the natives of those distant regions in the doctrines of the Gospel.

* See Humphrey's Account of the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.

See Epist. de Successu Evangelii apud indos Orientales, ad Johan. Leusdenium script.

↑ See Braun's Veritable Religion des Hollandois, p. 71, 267, &c. This treatise, which was published at Amsterdam, in 1677, was intended as an answer † See Molleri Cimbria Literata, tom. iii. as also a to a malignant libel of one Stoup, entitled la ReliGerman work of the learned Arnold, entitled, Kir-gion des Hollandois, in which that writer proposed chen und Ketzer Historie, part ii. book xvii. c. xv. to persuade the world that the Dutch had scarcely sect. 23. part iii. cap. xv. sect. 18. any religion at all.

XVIII. The inward parts of Africa remain || of Rome. But it is abundantly known, that still in the darkness of Paganism, as they have these_colonists, more especially the Spaniards been hitherto inaccessible to the most adventu- and Portuguese, are the most worthless and rous of the Europeans. But in the maritime profligate set of men that bear the Christian provinces of that great peninsula, and more name; and this fact is confirmed by the testiespecially in those where the Portuguese have monies of Roman catholic writers of great their settlements, there are several districts in merit and authority, who cannot be suspected which the religion of Rome has prevailed over of partiality in this matter. Even the clergy the savage superstitions of that barbarous are not excepted from this general condemnaregion. It is nevertheless acknowledged, by tion; but, as we learn from the same credible the more ingenuous historians, even among the testimonies, surpass even the idolatrous naRoman Catholics, who have given accounts of tives in the ridiculous rites which they perform the African colonies, that, of the proselytes in the worship of God, as well as in the licenmade there to the Gospel, a very small num- tiousness of their manners, and the enormity ber deserve the denomination of Christians, of the crimes they commit without reluctance. since the greatest part of them retain the Those of the ancient inhabitants of America, abominable superstitions of their ancestors, who either have submitted to the European and the very best among them dishonour their yoke, or live near the colonies, have imbibed profession by various practices of a most vici- some faint knowledge of the Romish religion. ous and corrupt nature. Any progress that from the Jesuits, Franciscans, and other eccleChristianity made in these parts must be chiefly siastics; but these feeble rays of instruction are attributed to the zealous labours of the Capu- totally clouded by the gloomy suggestions of chin missionaries, who, in this century suffer- their native superstition, and the corrupt ined the most dreadful hardships and discourage- fluence of their barbarous customs and manments in their attempts to bring the fierce and ners. As to those Indians who live more resavage Africans under the Christian yoke. mote from the European settlements, and These attempts succeeded so far, as to gain wander about in the woods without any fixed over to the profession of the Gospel the kings of habitation, they are absolutely incapable either Benin and Awerri,* and also to engage the of receiving or retaining any adequate notions cruel and intrepid Anna Zingha, queen of of the Christian doctrine, unless they be preMetamba, and all her subjects, to embrace, in viously reclaimed from that irregular and de1652, the Christian faith. The African mis- sultory manner of life, and civilized by an insions were allotted to this austere order by the tercourse with persons, whose humane and incourt of Rome, and by the society de propa-sinuating manners are adapted to attract their gandâ fide, for wise reasons, since none could be so fitted for an enterprise attended with dreadful hardships, difficulties, and perils, as a set of men whose monastic institute had familiarized them to the severest acts of mortification, abstinence, and penance, and thus prepared them for the bitterest scenes of trial and adversity. Although the Capuchins seem to have been alone honoured with this sacred, but arduous commission, it does not appear that the other orders beheld, with the smallest sentiment of envy, their dear-bought glory.

XIX. The extensive continent of America swarms with colonies from Spain, Portugal, and France, all which profess the Christian religion as it has been disfigured by the church * Called by some Ouverne.

love, and excite their imitation. This the Jesuits, and other ecclesiastics who have been sent in later times to convert these wandering savages, have found by a constant and uniform experience.* Hence the former have erected cities, and founded civil societies, cemented by government and laws, like the European states, in several Indian provinces both in South and North America; and it is on this account that they discharge the double functions of magistrates and doctors among these their new subjects and disciples, whose morals and sentiments, it is said, they endeavour to preserve pure and uncorrupted, by permitting few or no Europeans to approach them. These arduous and difficult attempts have furnished to the disciples of Loyola ample matter of boasting, and a lucky occasion of extolling the zeal, the dexterity, and industry of their order. But it has appeared, from relations

For a more ample account of this queen, and her conversion, Dr. Mosheim refers the reader (in his note [r]) to Urban Cerri's Etat present de 'Eglise Romaine, p. 222, and to the third and fourth volumes of Father Labat's Relation Histori-worthy of credit, that these exploits of the que de l'Afrique Occidentale, in the former of which, he tells us, there is a French translation of Ant. Cavazzi's account of Africa. All these citations are inaccurate. Cerri makes no mention of Zingha, or

of Metamba; nor are they mentioned by Labat, in any of the five volumes of his Historical Relation; nor is Cavazzi's account translated in that work. In general it may be observed, that the missions in Africa were greatly neglected by the Portuguese,

and that the few missionaries sent thither were men absolutely void of learning, and destitute of almost every qualification that was necessary to the prosecution of such an important undertaking. See Labat's Preface, as also the Modern Univeral History.

See the authors mentioned by Fabricius, in his Lux Evangelii Orbem Terrarum collustrans, cap. xlvii. xlix. p. 769.-There is a cursory account of the state of the Romish religion, in that part of America which is possessed by the European cathoics, in Cerri's work above-mentioned.

Jesuits, in the internal and more inaccessible provinces of America, are not so much carried on with a view to the propagation of Christianity, as with an intention of gratifying their own insatiable avarice and boundless ambition; and, accordingly, they are reported to send yearly to the members of their order, in Eu

*A great variety of facts are alleged as a prooi of this, in the Letters in which the French Jesuits gave their friends in Europe an account of the success and fruits of their mission, and which were regularly published at Paris.

That this was by no means the only, nor even the principal reason of cutting off all communication between the Indians and Europeans, will appear evident from the contents of the following

note.

rope, immense quantities of gold, drawn from several American provinces where they have power and property, but chiefly from Paraguay, which belongs to them alone.*

*While Father Labat was at Rome, Tamburini,

XX. The cause of Christianity was promoted with greater wisdom, and consequently with better success, in those parts of America where the English formed settlements during this century; and, though it had the greatest at that time general of the Jesuits, asked him seve: ignorance, stupidity, and indolence to conquer, ral questions relating to the progress of Christianity it quickly made a considerable progress. The in America; to which, with equal courage and can- English Independents who retired to America dour, he gave immediately this general answer: " that because they dissented from the established re the Gospel had made little or no real progress in that country; that he had never met with one adult per- ligion of their country, claimed the honour of son among the Americans who could be regarded as carrying thither the first rays of divine truth, a true proselyte to Christianity; and that the mis- and of beginning a work that has been since sionaries could scarcely pretend to any other exploits (of a spiritual kind) than their having baptized continued with such pious zeal and such abunsome children at the point of death." [Labat's dant fruit; and indeed this claim is founded in Voyage en Espagne et en Italie, tom. viii.] He justice. Several families of this sect that had added, that," in order to make the Americans Chris-been settled in Holland, removed thence into tians, it was previously necessary to make them men." This bold Dominican, who had been himself a missionary in the American islands, was inclined to give Tamburini some seasonable advice concerning the immense wealth and authority that the Jesuits had acquired in those parts of the world; but the cunning old man eluded artfully this part of the conversation, and turned it upon another subject. Labat gave, on another occasion, a still greater proof of his undaunted spirit and presence of mind; for when, in an audience granted him by Clement XI. that pontiff praised, in pompous terms, the industry and zeal of the Portuguese and Spanish missionaries in promoting the salvation of the Americans, and reproached the French with inactivity and

indifference in a matter of such high importance, our resolute Dominican told him plainly, " that the Spaniards and Portuguese boasted of the success of their labours without any sort of foundation; since it was well known, that, instead of converts, they had only made hypocrites, all their disciples among the Indians having been forced, by the dread of punishment and the terrors of death, to embrace Christianity;" adding, "that such as had received baptism continued as open and egregious idolaters as they had been before their profession of Christianity." To this account we might add the relations of a whole cloud of witnesses, whose testimonies are every way worthy of credit, and who declare unanimously the same thing. See, among others, a remarkable piece, entitled, Memoire touchant l'Etablissement considerable des Peres Jesuites dans les Indes d'Espagne, which is subjoined to Frezier's Relation du Voyage de la Mer du Sud. See also Voyage aux Indes Occidentales, par F. Coreal, tom. i1. p. 67, and Mammachius, Orig. et Antiquit. Christian. tom. ii. p. 337. There is a particular account of the Jesuits of Paraguay, given by Don Ulloa, in his Voyage d'Amerique, tom. i. p. 540; but this account is partial in their favour. They are also zealously and artfully defended in an account of the mission of Paraguay, published by Muratori.

America* in 1620, in order, as they alleged, to transmit their doctrine pure and undefiled to future ages; and there they laid the foundations of a new state. The success that attended this first emigration engaged great numbers of the Puritans, who groaned under the oppression of the bishops, and the severity of a court by which this oppression was authorized, to follow the fortunes of these religious adventurers; and this produced a second emiBut, notwithstanding the gration in 1629.

and generosity of their proceedings, were much alarnied at this treaty. It was one of the fundamental laws of this new state, (which was founded under the mask of a Christian mission,) that no bishop or governor, nor any officer, civil, military, or ecclesiastical, nor even any individual, Spaniard or Portuguese, should be admitted into its territories, to the end that the proceedings and projects of the Jesuits might still remain an impenetrable secret. The members of their order were alone to be instructed in this profound and important mystery. The use of the Spanish language was prohibited in this new territory, in order to prevent more effectually all communication between the Indians and that nation. The Indians were trained to the use of arms, furnished with artillery, instructed in the art of war, taught to behold the Jesuits as their sovereigns and their gods, and to look upon all white people, except the Jesuits, as demoniacs, atheists, and moreover, as their barbarous and mortal enemies. Such was the state of affairs when, in 1752, the united troops of Spain and Portugal marched toward the eastern borders of the river Uragai, to make the exchanges of certain villages that had been agreed upon in the treaty above-mentioned. Upon this, the Jesuits, not being sufficiently prepared for their defence, demanded a delay of the execution of the granted: but, as the Spanish general, Gomez Frere Andrada, perceived that the holy fathers employed this delay in arming the Indians, and confirming them in their rebellion, he wrote to his court, and thence received new orders to proceed to the execu tion of the treaty. A war ensued between the Spanish and Portuguese on one side, and the Indians, animated by the Jesuits, on the other, in which the Spanish general lost his life, and of which the other circumstances are well known. This was the real and original cause of the disgrace of the Jesuits at the court of Portugal. Those who desire a more particular account of this matter, will find it in a famous pamphlet, drawn from an authentic memorial, published by the court of Lisbon, and printed in 1758, under the following title: La Republique des Jesuites au Paraguay Renversee, ou Relation Authentique de la Guerre que ces Religieur ont ose soutenir contre les Monarques d'Espagne et de Portugal en Amerique, pour y defendre les domaines dont ils avoient usurpe la Souveraine au Paraguay sous pretexte de Religion. *This colony settled in that part of America which was afterwards called New Plymouth.

When Dr. Mosheim wrote this note, the im-treaty under various pretexts. This delay was portant discovery that placed the ambitious, despotic, and rebellious proceedings of the Jesuits in Paraguay in the plainest and most striking light, had not been yet made. The book of Muratori deceived, for some time, the over-credulous, and induced even the enemies of the Jesuits to suspect that their conduct at Paraguay was not so criminal as it had been represented; so that, notwithstanding the accusations that had been brought against these missionaries by the writers mentioned by our historian: notwithstanding a memorial sent to the court of Spain in 1730, by Don Martin de Barua, at that time Spanish governor of Paraguay, in which the Jesuits are charged with the most ambitious projects and the most rebellious designs, represented as setting up an independent government, accused of carrying on a prodigious trade, and other things of that nature; and notwithstanding the circumstantial evidence of various known facts that supported these accusations in the strongest manner; a great proportion of the public had not just ideas upon the subject. The illusion, however, did not last long. In 1750, the courts of Madrid and Lisbon entered into a treaty for fixing the limits of their respective dominions in SouthAmerica. The Jesuits, who had formed an independent republic in the heart of those dominions, composed of the Indians, whom they had gained by the Insinuating softness and affected mildness, humility, ||

† See Neal's Hist. of the Puritans, vol. ii. p. 128. and also a German work entitled, Englische Refor Hist. by Ant. W. Bohm, b. vi. c. v.

See Mather's History of New-England, p. 12 – Neal, vol. ii.