however, occasioned much disquiet and offence. At length, therefore, they judged it necessary to send one of their brethren to Rome, to solicit the repeal of the decree obtained by the Dominicans.

Martin Martini was the solicitor. He discharged his commission with the greatest dexterity. Instead of applying to the Congregation, who had passed the former sentence, and who he foresaw would hardly retract their own judgment, he went immediately to the then Pope Alexander the Seventh himself, and represented to him, in a writing at large, that those Chinese customs were free from idolatry and superstition, and tended only to the peace and welfare of the empire. The Pope left the decision of the matter to the holy office or Court of Inquisition, undoubtedly at the solicitation of the Jesuit, whose business it was to keep it out of the hands of the Congregation de propaganda fide. The event answered his wishes. The holy office rejected the rites, which the Jesuits had rejected, and permitted those which they had permitted. Their judgment was approved and confirmed by the Pope, on the 23d of March, 1656. The Jesuits at first received this favourable decision as a shield, to be made use of in case of necessity. They did not publish it in China, but retained it privately, by way of answer to any future aggressors. But in time their caution abated, and their shield was converted into a sword. They produced the decree imported by Martini, and maintained it to be a rule for the conduct of all the Romish clergy in China, since it annulled that decree which had been sent by the hands of Moralez. This indiscretion renewed the war. The Dominicans and Franciscans importuned the Pope and his mini

sters with fresh complaints and remonstrances, protested in the most solemn terms, that the ceremonies in question were the worst of abominations, and desired that the holy office would inform them, whether the former decree of Pope Innocent the Tenth was indeed annulled by this new one produced by the Jesuits. The Inquisition gave an answer, which might seem suspicious or forged, had we no authority for the genuineness of it, besides that of the enemies of the church of Rome. But the infallible testimony of Pope Benedict the Fourteenth, who recites it in his famous bull, Ex quo singulari, &c. renders the truth of it beyond all dispute. The Inquisition answered, "that the former decree of Pope Innocent was by no means annulled by this of Pope Alexander; that both were to be observed, each according to its circumstances, and according to the tendency of those questions and doubts which had occasioned it." two decrees, which were both to be in some measure valid, were as different as light and darkness. The one condemns the Chinese ceremonies, the other permits them and both were to be observed by the missionaries in China. There are but two solutions of this difficulty. Either the holy office meant, that if the Dominicans had made a true representation of the Chinese customs, then the decree obtained by

The

I choose here to transcribe the very words of Pope Benedict the Fourteenth : "Respondit sacra Inquisitionis Congregatio, præfatum decretum adhuc vigere habitâ ratione rerum, quæ fuerunt in dubiis expositæ, neque illud fuisse cirtionis, quod anno 1656 exaravit: imo cumscriptum à decreto sacræ Inquisi

esse omnino observandum juxta quæsita, circumstantias et omnia ea, quæ in antedictis dubiis continentur. Declaravit pariter eodem modo esse observandum præanni 1656, juxta quæsita, circumstantias dictum sacræ congregationis decretum et reliqua in ipsis expressa."

them should be in force, and take place of the other; but if the Jesuits had truly represented the nature and tendency of these customs, then the decree imported by them should be valid. Or if this was not their meaning, it could be no other, than that every one might follow his own opinion; whoever was persuaded, that the honours paid to Confucius, and to their ancestors, were idolatrous and superstitious, might adhere to the first decree; and whoever judged them to be innocent and indifferent might follow the second. Whether we admit this, or the other sense, the answer of the holy office amounts to nothing, and leaves every missionary in China to act according to his own persuasion and conscience. This is the practice at Rome: when two powerful parties contend about matters of religion, the judgment pronounced is commonly interpretable in favour of either side. Such are the decisions of that visible head of the church, who pretends to infallibility and extraordinary illumination! This answer, which left both sides in possession of their own opinion, was given in the year 1669, and Clement the Ninth, who was then Pope, made no scruple to honour it with his apostolical sanction.

In the same year commenced the golden age of the church in China. It had been long and severely persecuted. At the death of the Emperor Xung-Chi, the first of the Tartar family now on the throne, his successor Cang-hi, or Cam-hi, was not of the age for government. During his minority, his regents conspired with the nobles to extirpate the Christian doctrine, which had then spread very far. The execution of this design was begun in a manner that struck terror into every Christian teacher and hearer in China. John Adam Schall, the celebrated Ger

man Jesuit, who was then seventyfour years of age, at the head of the Chinese mission, and in a considerable post at court, was in the year 1664 thrown into a dungeon, and narrowly escaped a most cruel death. The next year it was unanimously resolved by all the ministers of state, that the Christian law was false, and dangerous to the empire, and therefore it was forbidden under pain of death. Upon this the Christians, and their pastors, endured a variety of sufferings. In 1669 the young Emperor took the reins of government himself, and immediately the horrid storm against the Christians ceased. This prince had uncommon talents: he was particularly the patron of arts and sciences, and hence the church derived its prosperity during his long and glorious reign. Most of the Jesuits in China were well versed in those parts of learning and mechanics, which Cam-hi esteemed. He therefore invited them to court, availed himself of their advice in council, gave them considerable employments, with large salaries, and even entrusted them with a share in the government. This favour of his to the Jesuits procured for the church all the protection it stood in need of, and promoted its increase. It flourished considerably more, when several French Jesuits arrived, who by their engaging address, by being conversant in the Chinese language, as well as that of the Tartars, by their skill in mathematical learning, in politics, in mechanics, in medicine, and in other branches of knowledge, entirely won the Emperor's heart. They soon discovered the monarch's inclinations and views, and by employing all their genius and sagacity in pleasing and entertaining him, at last became necessary to him. They were his instructors, whom he daily attended to; his friends, his physicians, and his counsellors:

they served him as painters, turners, watchmakers, founders, accomptants, astronomers, and masters of the ordinance. In short, they directed every thing at the court of Pekin. The Christian faith and its professors shared in this extraordinary prosperity of the Jesuits. The Emperor, to gratify his favourites, published in the year 1692 that celebrated edict, by which the Christian religion was declared to be good and salutary, and all his subjects were permitted to embrace it. At their request he sent an embassy to the Pope, built them a magnificent church within the walls of his palace, and commanded all his vicegerents and ministers to act with tenderness towards the Christians. There was but one instance in which he disappointed them they flattered themselves with the hopes of persuading him at last to be a Christian; and he greatly encouraged these hopes by attending closely to their instruction, by praising their doctrine, and by his signal favours to them, their fellow-labourers, and their followers. But he died without the pale of the church in the year 1722. As far as could be conjectured from his life and actions, he was of that persuasion, which among the Tartars is called the faith of the great Genghizkam. This religion consists of some few tenets, which, excepting the command of the Sabbath, bear great affinity to the ten commandments of Moses.

But the Christian Church in China, in the midst of this visible prosperity, during the reign of Cam-hi, continued internally divided and torn. The Jesuits pursued their own manner of converting, and the other missionaries were offended at it, and preached a very different Gospel. Hence arose two congregations, which hated and despised each other. The Jesuitical Christians honoured

their ancestors and Confucius: the rest abhorred this practice as a species of idolatry. The latter treated the former as pretended or half Christians, and these again treated them as insolent contemners of the laws of the empire. The disorder was incurable, because the last answer of the holy Inquisition had left both parties at liberty to act as they thought fit. The Dominicans, and their associates, had not interest to procure a fresh decree, and the Jesuits were too prudent to desire one.

The former, therefore, endured with regret an evil they could not redress, and waited for a favourable opportunity to revive the contest they could not continue. In the year 1684, fortune favoured them with such an opportunity. A society of clergy had been instituted at Paris in 1663, for the propagation of Christianity among the infidel nations.* The members of this society provide for the education and instruction of youth, in a house appropriated to the purpose, in order for their mission as apostles of Christ to those that have not yet heard of the Gospel. The members themselves accept this office, if called to it by the head of the church, or by those who, under him, have the care of the conversion of the heathens. These missionaries are celebrated at Rome, as zealous, faithful, and indefatigable men, and frequently the bishops or legates of the Pope into the infidel countries are chosen from their body. Some of them arrived in the year 1684 in China. The most distinguished among these was Charles Maigrot, a doctor of the Sorbonne, whom the Pope had dignified with the title of Apostolical Vicar, and whom the Jesuits themselves confess to have been a man of great

Congregatio Sacerdotum externarum misGallia Christiana, tom. vii. p. 1039. sionum.

piety and integrity. He became afterwards Bishop of Conon. The new missionaries were barely arrived in China, when the Dominicans and their associates, who had hitherto been forced to silence and submission, laid before them their complaints against the Jesuits and their couverts. They were heard with attention and favour. But it was proper to attack the Jesuits with caution. Maigrot and his brethren took several years to consider the matter in dispute; at length, after a full examination, they joined the party against the Jesuits, and begun with declaring, that the Chinese words, Tien, and Chang-Ti, were improper to denote the true God, whom Christians adore, since they signify no more than the visible heaven; and in the next place, that no Christian could, with a safe conscience, comply with the Chinese custom honouring Confucius and their ancestors. This declaration was the rupture which occasioned that long and bitter animosity between the Jesuits their fellow-labourers in China, transmitted through many changes to the present time. Mai grot used every argument and remonstrance to bring the Jesuits over to his opinion. But it was a vain expectation, that a body of men would be flexible, who possess the heart of the greatest monarch on earth, enjoy affluence, dignity, and respect, and are besides, in their own opinion, so much more wise and meritorious than other men. They persisted in their conduct, and threw out menaces of the Emperor's and the Pope's displeasure. Maigrot was so little disheartened at this, that it rather animated him. He commenced the war, and ventured to become the aggressor in the year 1693. A manifesto of his was published, in which, by virtue of his apostolical office, he interdicted, to all Christians and their

teachers, the use of the names Tien or Chang-Ti, and the worship of Confucius, and their ancestors, under pain of excommunication. This might be truly styled a piece of spiritual heroism; that a stranger, who wanted both money and friends, and was neither a bishop nor plenipotentiary from the Pope, should dare to bid defiance to men, who enjoyed all the intimacy of friendship from the sovereign of the country, and that he should venture this, without applying to his principal at Rome, and by his own authority supersede a decree of the holy Inquisition, and that confirmed by a Pope! Religious zeal makes no difficulty of surmounting ordinary rules; this seems to be his only excuse. He was sensible himself that his conduct would require much apology. In the same year, therefore, in which he published his injunction, he sent it to Rome with a letter to the Pope, and an humble petition, that judgment might be passed at Rome, whether he had done well or ill. In his letter to the Pope he complained strongly of the Jesuits, and assured his Holiness that it would draw tears from his eyes to see the mischief and abominations introduced into the church in China by these ecclesiastics. These papers and complaints were seconded very powerfully, in the year 1696, by the personal appearance and application of Charmot, a fellow-labourer of his. He earnestly solicited the Pope, and the Court of Inquisition, for a due examination and judicial decision of the affair, and was vigorously assisted in his solicitation by the enemies of the Jesuits, that is, by a very considerable number of persons of rank and abilities in all parts and countries of the Romish communion. The matter was delayed for some years at Rome, doubtless because the Jesuits employed all

their friends and interest to prevent an inquiry. At last Pope Innocent the Twelfth, who then filled the chair, was prevailed with, and appointed in the year 1699 a Committee of the most learned and principal members of the holy office, maturely to examine and adjust this dispute. But he died in 1700, before the Committee had time to make any progress in it.

His successor, Clement the Eleventh, immediately upon his promotion to the Papal See, ordered them to proceed. He was more favourably inclined to the society of the Jesuits than his predecessor. And had he followed his inclination, he would have saved them their anxiety about the event, by dissolving the Committee. But the Pope is not always at liberty to indulge his own humour. The affair was become too important to be laid aside. The church of Rome was alarmed, and all Europe waited impatiently to see on which side the victory would be conferred. Both parties employed the ablest hands to set forth their cause in public writings. The Society at Paris, to which Maigrot, Charmot, and the other combatants of that party belonged, warmly espoused the cause of their members, and printed a strong address to the Pope, in which they represented the Jesuits in China as deceivers and corrupters of the faith these, on the other hand, delivered a paper, which commanded attention and respect, and seemed alone more powerful than all the writing and complaints of their adversaries. The great Emperor Cam-hi sent a testimony under his own hand, that the customs rejected by Maigrot were mere political ceremonies, upon which the peace and welfare of the empire in some measure depended. And a thousand Chinese, believers as well as unbelievers, learned and unlearned,

taking its course. After six years had been spent in consulting and deliberating, judgment was at length pronounced. On the 20th of November, in the year 1704, the holy office decreed, "That the two Chinese words Tien and Chang-Ti should no longer be applied to God, but that instead of them the word Tien-Chu, which signifies Lord of Heaven, should be introduced; that the tables upon which was written in Chinese letters King-Tien, or the Honour of Heaven, should be removed from the Christian churches; that Christians should by no means assist at those sacrifices, which are offered in spring and autumn, at the time of the equinox, to Confucius and their ancestors; that they should likewise absent themselves from those houses and temples, which are built in honour of Confucius, in order to pay to that philosopher the worship due to him from the literati of the empire; that they should thenceforward upon no account pay that worship, which is paid by the Chinese to their ancestors, where or in what manner soever it be offered; and in the last place, that those tablets of their forefathers, upon which was written, in Chinese letters, The Seat of the Soul or Spirit of N. should be removed from the houses of all Christians."

These severe injunctions were softened by some little indulgences. The new converts were permitted to appear along with their relations in the halls of their forefathers, and to be spectators of the ceremonies there performed, but without partaking in them in the least. The Inquisition judged, this might be done to avoid hatred and bitterness, especially after a