supplied her with scholars, and politicians, and artificers in every art. So far as they were useful, it found devotees and workers of miracles to impose upon the superstitious. If champions of her cause were wanted to hazard their lives in Protestant countries, it could furnish a host, who, while they suffered the most cruel deaths, as traitors against the state, could believe themselves, and make others believe, that they were martyrs for their religion. And because the splendour of the triple crown had been diminished by the loss of so many provinces in Europe, they extended their views far beyond its limits, and compassed sea and land to make proselytes to the pope. They negotiated with great address, and often with some success, with the Greek church and all its different sectaries. A zeal for missions among the heathen was suddenly excited among them, and which, for many years, left every thing of the kind in the Protestant world far behind! Their able missionaries penetrated the confines of China and Japan on the East, and sought out the Indians in the newly discovered world in the West, and thus had a fair promise to be the founders of new empires! So that the sovereign pontiff might be complimented with more of truth than the Spanish monarch, that the sun never set on his dominions.

But the most essential service which the Jesuits rendered to the papacy, was their management of the public mind in Europe. The spirit of inquiry which had been excited even in Roman Catholic countries, had nearly proved fatal to the most valuable interests of Rome; but they contrived either to calm it, or to divert it to other objects. Some of the more flagitious excesses and gross vices of the religious orders were removed, or covered with the robe of decency; and persons of far greater respectability of character were sometimes placed in the higher stations of the church. The yoke of superstition and discipline was made much lighter, and easier to be borne. The casuistry of the Jesuits, as well as their pliant rule of morals, was most characteristic of this order, and under their able management, a great license both in belief and manners was rendered easily compatible with the rigid forms of the Romish church; and the consciences of men were, by a thousand artifices, reconciled to themselves, or kept from giving up their pretensions to religion, though the most evil propensities were indulged.

The doctrines of the Roman church were supposed to have been settled for ever by the council of Trent. It was during the long sittings of this council, that the Jesuits arose; and their policy, or the policy which created them, is very visible in its

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conclusions. The greatest ambiguity was designedly adopted in its decrees, that every party in the Romish church might be comprehended, or, at least, not offended; and except the sole doctrine of "justification by faith alone," it were difficult to point out what doctrine was positively and without easy evasion excluded from the Roman faith. The doctrines of grace and predestination were generally indeed denied by those champions of popery who most opposed the reformers; but every shade of opinion in stating these doctrines, and reconciling them with the moral agency of man, appeared among their theologians at the council of Trent; and a great body among them was still staunch for the orthodoxy of Augustin, and the other fathers who had opposed the Pelagian heresies. It is remarkable too, that the dispute respecting the apostolical institution of the episcopal office, was as fiercely contended, as it was afterwards among the Protestants. As the latter argued against it, in order to maintain the divine right of Presbyterianism, or of the congregational form of church government; so, the thorough Papists opposed it, in order to set above all competition the successor of the prince of the apostles.' Many jarring and conflicting opinions on various other topics were also broached; but the artifice of the Roman court, and the rising spirit of Jesuitism, contrived to flatter and to soothe all, that all might appear satisfied, so that the vaunted uniformity of the Roman Catholic faith might be urged with effect against the divisions of the Protestants. The Jesuits, however, were always true to their point—the full assertion of the pope's authority, and the purging of the Romish church from every leaven of the Augustinian doctrines, as assimilating too much to the reforming principles, and as totally opposed to that system of metaphysics and ethics which their wisdom was introducing. Thus, the church of Rome became more Pelagian than ever, under their management and administration.

Among the Dominicans and Augustines, and afterwards among the Jansenists of France, the ancient doctrines of the Christian church, before it was spoiled by the philosophy of the school of Alexandria, were still maintained, that the eternal decrees of God, relating to the salvation of men, are not conditional in the obvious sense of the word, or pending on something to be supplied on the part of man; but as to those that are saved, are efficacious in the production of that condition to which salvation is applied, and in this sense only are conditional; that in the view of the Divine acceptance as to eternal salvation, "there are no remains of purity and goodness in fallen

nature; that the influences of Divine grace are always effective of the decreed purpose of God; and, to the destined end, cannot but overcome the opposition and resistance in the guilty nature of man, and therefore, in this view, God wills not the salvation of all men.

In these doctrines, they coincided exactly with the early reformers, or rather, the early reformers coincided with them. The difference between them was, that the Augustinians laboured under the notion that Divine grace was efficacious in producing an inherent righteousness in them, which it rewarded with salvation; the reformers, on the other hand, taught the wholesome and comfortable doctrine of "justification by faith alone, in the merits of Christ "that on this the confidence of the soul was to rest entire, and regard inherent righteousness as the fruits of salvation already given and applied.

In opposition to the Augustinians, the Jesuits embodied into a system the more common doctrines of the Roman Catholic church, and indeed of the Greek church also, since the prevalence of the Alexandrian philosophy. They taught " that the natural dominion of sin in the human mind, and the hidden corruption it has produced in our internal frame, are less universal and dreadful than the Augustinians represented that human nature is far from being deprived of all power of doing good-that the succours of grace are administered to all mankind in a measure sufficient to lead them to eternal life and salvation-that the operations of grace offer no violence to the faculties and powers of nature, and therefore may be resisted · and that God from all eternity has appointed everlasting rewards and punishments, as the portion of man in a future world, not by an absolute, arbitrary, and unconditional decree, but in consequence of that divine and unlimited prescience, by which he foresaw the actions, merits, and character of every individual1."

1 Mosheim, cent. xvi. sect. iii. part 1. As the famous Jesuit Molina stated these doctrines "The decree of predestination to eternal glory was founded upon a previous knowledge and consideration of the merits of the elect: that the grace from whose operation these merits are derived, is not efficacious by its own intrinsic power only, but also by the consent of our own will; and because it is administered in those circumstances in which the Deity, by that branch of his knowledge which is called scientia media, foresees that it will be efficacious. This kind of prescience, denominated in the school scientia media, is that foreknowledge of future contingents, that arises from an acquaintance with the nature and faculties of rational beings; the circumstances in which they shall be placed; the objects that shall be presented to them; and the influence that these circumstances and objects must have on their actions."

It was to be expected that the Jesuits, having embraced a low system respecting Grace and its operations, would entertain sentiments equally low respecting the demands of the Holy Law. This was indeed the case, and they carried their principle of accommodation so far, that they became the teachers of a system of ethics that every decent moralist must reprobate, and of which, on some occasions, the church of Rome itself appeared ashamed1.

If something must be allowed to the exaggeration of enemies, still it will be granted that the moral precepts inculcated by the Jesuits were very lax and unscriptural,

"The Jesuits," Dr. Mosheim remarks, " under the connivance, nay, sometimes by the immediate assistance of the Roman pon→ tiffs, have perverted and corrupted such of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, as were left entire by the council of Trent." "They endeavoured to diminish the authority and importance of the Holy Scriptures; they have extolled the power of human nature, changed the sentiments of many with respect to the necessity and efficacy of Divine grace; represented the mediation and sufferings of Christ as less powerful and meritorious than they are said to be in the sacred writings; turned the Roman pontiff into a terrestrial deity, and put him almost upon an equal footing with the Divine Saviour; and, finally, rendered, as far as in them lay, the truth of the Christian religion dubious, by their fallacious reasoning, and their subtle but pernicious sophistry." The effects of the system moulded by the Jesuits, under

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They inculcated the following maxims: "That persons void of the love of God, may expect eternal life in heaven, if they avoid all enormous crimes, through the dread of future punishment. That persons may transgress with safety, who have a probable reason for transgressing; i. e. any plausible argument or authority""as of some eminent doctor” for the sin which they are inclined to commit. That actions intrinsically evil, and directly contrary to the Divine laws, may be innocently performed, by those who have so much power over their minds, as to join, even ideally, a good end to this wicked action, or to speak in the style of the Jesuits who are capable of directing their attention aright. That philosophical sin is of a very light and trivial nature, and does not deserve the pains of hell. Philosophical sin is any " action contrary to right reason, which is done by a person ignorant of the revealed law of God, or who does not think of him during the time this action is committed." "That the transgressions committed by a person blinded by the seduction of lust, agitated by the impulse of tumultuous passions, and destitute of all sense and impression of religion, are not imputable to the transgressor before the tribunal of God, and may often be as involuntary as the actions of a madman. That the person who takes an oath, &c. may, to elude the obligation, add to the form of words, certain mental additions and tacit reservations."

various degrees of modification, were very great, not only in Roman Catholic countries, but in every part of Europe. The doctrines of revelation, even where they were acknowledged, seemed to lose their importance; and the sacred oracles were less studied, less talked of, and more seldom referred to by popular writers. However cherished in secret, religion was evidently become less and less a concern of society. We lose, at a certain period, the very phraseology of Scripture, which was formerly so affectionately, though sometimes very injudiciously, intermixed in the common conversation, and in the current style of authors. The pedantry of classical allusion follows; at first coarse, and partaking of the rudeness of the age; but afterwards more refined and elegant. But Scripture and Christian theology is evidently gone out of fashion; and the heathen moralists are more magnified than the apostles of Christ. Thus did the scheme of the Jesuits prepare the way for that infidel philosophy which, in our day, has threatened the dissolution of all Christian churches.

The Jesuits were, however, long the best supports of the papacy; and when, by the efforts of the enemies which their wealth, ambition, and dangerous projects had raised against them, they were suppressed in the Roman Catholic countries,most unwillingly indeed on the part of the popes, the Roman church seemed to have no power left, but was delivered, bound, into the hands of her spoilers. The description of the Jesuits, in a sermon preached by Dr. Brown, archbishop of Dublin, as early as the year 1651, has often been quoted as almost prophetic. "There are a new fraternity of late sprung up who call themselves Jesuits, which will deceive many, who are much after the scribes' and pharisees' manner among the Jews. They shall strive to abolish the truth, and shall come very near to do it. For these sorts will turn themselves into several forms; with the heathens a heathenist, with the atheists an atheist, with the Jews a Jew, with the reformers a reformer, purposely to know your intentions, your minds, your hearts, and your inclinations; and thereby bring you at last to be like the fool that said in his heart, There is no God.' These shall spread over the whole world, shall be admitted into the councils of princes, and they never the wiser; charming of them, yea, making your princes reveal their hearts and the secrets therein, and yet they not perceive it; which will happen from falling from the law of God, by neglect of fulfilling the law of God, and by winking at their sins: yet in the end, God, to justify his law, shall suddenly cut off this society, even