of his diocese, in two public instruments addressed to them, dated July the sixth, and December the twenty-third, in the year 1733, upon pain of degradation, to pay as sacred a regard to the indulgences of Mezzabarba, as to the bull Ex illa die, and publicly to read to the people in all churches, on the four most solemn festivals of the year, both the contents of the bull, and the reservations added to it by Mezzabarba.* This was no less than a public challenge. The combatants on the other side hastened to arms. Castorani, vicar to the bishop of Pekin, and heretofore a martyr to the bull Ex illa die, who had spent thirty-three years in his function in China, told his bishop to his face, that he would never pay him obedience in this point. The example of so venerable a man diffused a spirit of rebellion among the clergy. At length it became ripe enough for a resolution to dispatch the good old Castorani to Rome, in order to complain of the Jesuits and the bishop, and solicit the abrogation of Mezzabarba's indulgences. Perhaps the Jesuits and their adherents made their sport of the age and simplicity of this ambassador. He confesses himself to be neither eloquent, nor learned, nor sagacious; and those little pieces of his, that have hitherto appeared in print, confirm the truth of his confession. They discover nothing but a zealous, honest Franciscan friar, neither infected by the air of the court and a knowledge of the world, nor corrupted by the vanity of learning and science. But his want of parts and penetration was amply supplied by his zeal, integrity, experience, constancy, grey hairs, the reputation of a confessor, and seventeen months suffering on account See Castorani observat. and the bull of Benedict XIV. entitled Ex quo singulari, &e. of the bull Ex illa die. A pious simplicity has often got the better of worldly prudence. Castorani arrived at Rome about the end of the year 1734, in the papacy of Clement the twelfth, to whom he immediately opened his commission. The pope left the matter to the examination of several cardinals, and after ten months intreaty, attendance, and solicitation, as Castorani himself relates, his holiness, by a brief, dated September the twenty-sixth 1735, absolutely revoked and annulled the two letters of the bishop of Pekin, who was just then deceased.* This was Castorani's first victory. But he did not rest here. His principal point was to invalidate the indulgences of Mezzabarba. He therefore proceeded in his undertaking with inexpressible zeal, and solicited the pope, that the examination of this affair might be withdrawn from the congregation de propaganda fide, and submitted to the holy office or inquisition, to whose cognizance by right it belonged. His request was granted. This change of his judges was of great consequence to him. The Jesuits had more patrons and friends in the congregation than in the inquisition, where their old adversaries the Dominicans prevail. As soon as he had put his cause into the hands he wished to have it in, he left nothing undone to prosecute it with the utmost vigour. The account he gives himself of his importunate and indefatigable application is so natural, that one cannot but admire his integrity; and he seems to have effected at least as much by unwearied importunities, as by strength of reasoning. He was incessantly begging, attending, writing, remonstrsting and instruct Clementis Papæ XII. Revocatio, annullatio, et cassatio duarum epistolarum pastoralium bon. mem. Francisci Episcopi Pekinensis nuper defuncti circa res sinenses editarum. ing. Even the pope himself was not a day free from his company. He was constantly attending the cardinals, the assessors, and the counsellors of the holy office. Not a clerk of the court was overlooked in his solicitation. Notwithstanding all this, his progress was not equal to his endeavours. The pope was willing, that, in an affair of this importance, the judges should determine nothing hastily. He particularly enjoined, as his successor informs us, that all the clergy residing in Rome, who had been in China, and all the young Chinese, who were come to Rome for instruction and education, should be heard, and judicially examined. This required a considerable time, and Clement the twelfth did not survive the inquiry. Benedict the fourteenth, who now fills the chair, was elected in his room. This prelate is said to be less favourably inclined to the Jesuits, than to any other order under his jurisdiction. His conduct hitherto has confirmed this opinion of him. Poor Castorani, however, seems to have found it a difficult matter to bring him over to his side. He even subjected himself to a severe penalty, if ever they should convict him of deceit or misrepresentation. At length, after seven years impatience, the happy day appeared, which he had been so earnestly labouring for. Benedict the fourteenth, in the year 1742, issued the famous bull, which begins with the words, Ex quo singulari, &c. It was finished on the eleventh of June, and issued out the ninth of August. The only thing omit It was published at Rome from the Printing-Office of the Apostolical Chamber, under the title, Confirmatio et innova vatio Constitutionis, incipientis: Ex illa die; à Clemente Papa XI. in causâ rituum seu cæremoniarum Sinensium editæ, nec non revocatio, rescissio, abolitio, cassatio, annullatio ac damnatio permissionum super iisdem ritibus seu cæremoniis in quadam Pastorali epistola Caroli Ambrosii ted in this severe law, to expose and mortify the Jesuits and their adherents, is the mention of their name. But it is easy to apprehend whom his holiness points at, when he speaks of a disobedient, crafty, malicious and insidious set of men. He revokes, annuls, abolishes, rejects and totally condemns the indulgences of Mezzabarba, as tenets extorted from the patriarch under the apprehension of a violent death, never approved by the holy See, and contradictory to the bull of pope Clement the eleventh, and commands them to be considered no otherwise, than as if they had never been granted. He denounces his heavy displeasure and all the punishments which the church usually inflicts upon the transgressors of her laws, against the clergy of every rank, and the Jesuits in particular, if they should presume to depart in the least degree from the constitution Ex illa die. He enjoins the superiors of every order of monks immediately to expel those members of their society, who should dare to violate his ordinance, and to recal them to Europe, that they might be duly punished. In the last place he prescribes an oath, by which all Missionaries in China oblige themselves strictly to adhere to the bull of Clement the eleventh, and by no means to suffer their couverts to observe any of the ceremonies permitted by Mezzabarba. The conclusion of the bull is with some authority said to be penned by the pope himself. The language of it is strong, edifying, pathetic, apostolical, and well worthy of a great prelate. "We hope in God," says he, among other things, "that the preachers of the Gospel in China will banish from Mediobarbæ, Patriarchæ Alexandrini, olim Commissarii et Visitatoris Apostolici in Sinarum imperio contentarum, cum præscriptione novæ formulæ juramenti per Missionarios illarum partium præsentes et futuros præstandi. their breasts that groundless ap- This latter part of our memoirs must be matter of great admiration to those, who read it attentively. Castorani, a poor mendicant friar, whom the Jesuits had cansed to be fettered with nine chains, engages in a contest with the most powerful society in the church of Rome, with that society, before whom the pope himself and kings have been made to tremble, and not only gains the victory, but exposes and humbles them in a manner they had never before experienced. Such is the mischief the meanest and most impotent enemy is capable of effecting, when either despised or too heavily oppressed! We seem now to be arrived at the end of the Chinese controversy, which has lasted upwards of an hundred years. And doubtless this must have terminated it, had any other order in the church of Rome, but that of the Jesuits, been the parties concerned. But this society is not so easily disheartened by bulls from the bishops of Rome. They have always a fund of inventions in reserve, whereby to evade or repair all the damage a pope can inflict. It is currently reported, that they pay no more regard to this bull of Benedict the fourteenth, than to that of Clement the eleventh, and continue to permit their converts to do that which the pope so expressly forbids. Another Franciscan deputy is arrived at Rome within the last year or two from China, loaded with authentic evidence and testimony of the contumacy of the Jesuits, and of the calamities they bring upon their opposers. Perhaps this may produce a third bull against them, the third buli may possibly hurt the two former by its vehememce. The Roman theatre is subject to many changes, and it is a thing not unusual entirely to drop the best laws, in order to save the pains and trouble of executing them. Matters seem at least to be ripening for a new scene in this celebrated drama. The Jesuits are gradually insinuating themselves into the strong and advantageous situation they were in at the court of Pekin, in the reign of the emperor Cam-hi. His successor Yong-Tching, who persecuted the Christian religion, and favoured the Jesuits merely for his own purposes, died in the year 1737 Kien-Long, one of his sons, mounted the throne in his stead. He was but twenty-five years of age, when the empire fell into his hands, and began his reign with various acts of clemency. The Bonzes were the only body of men that experienced his displeasure. He expressed his zeal against them in a public writing, in which he cautions his subjects against their vices and deceits.* He gently revoked the orders issued by his father against the Christians and their teachers, and restored the church in China in great measure to her former prosperity and peace. And as to the Jesuits, he gave them fresh encouragement, embraced eagerly every opportunity of shewing them favour, and did this, to an extraordinary degree, of his own accord, without any solicitation of theirs. This disposition of his to those cunning and ingenious ecclesiastics is said to improve with his years. What will become of their antagonists, and of the bull Ex quo singulari, if they gain as absolute an ascendant over the heart of this monarch, as they enjoyed over that of his grandfather. To this prosperity the Jesuits received an accession about three years ago, which they had long wished for, and solicited in vain at the court of Rome. They have made it their endeavour for many years past, to get all the bishopricks in the heathen countries into their own hands, that they might reserve to themselves the sole power over their converts, and have a check upon the other missionaries, who are not of their society. Some of the vacant Sees they have been promoted to Lettres edifiantes et curieuses ecrites des Missions etrangeres, Tom. XXIII. Preface, page iv. v. vi. through the interest of the kings of Portugal, who have obtained the power of nominating the bishops of Asia. The popes have constantly resisted their most pressing applications for the bishopricks in China, particularly for that of Pekin. His present holiness is doubtless of the same opinion with his predecessors in this respect. Notwithstanding this, in the year 1745, he promoted a Jesuit to the See of Pekin, with all its extensive jurisdiction. This prelate was a Portuguese, named Polycarp de Souza, recommended with the warmest importunity by Don Emanuel de Sampajo, the Portuguese Ambassador. And the pope, though he seems to fear as well as to hate the society of Jesuits, yet upon many accounts honours his Portuguese Majesty; therefore the same Benedict the fourteenth, who had so heavily mortified that society by his bull Ex quo singulari, did what none of his predecessors thought it prudent to do, accepted the recommendation of a Jesuit. What can be expected in these circumstances? The Jesuits being at present as powerful in the church, as at the court of Pekin, it is easy to conjecture the fate of their adversaries, and of the bull, in which they are so effectually exposed. The attentive reader will draw many useful inferences from the facts here related. How sick and feeble is the head of the church of Rome! How powerful and refractory are the orders, over which she pretends to an absolute sway! How little regard is paid to the pope by that society, which is bound to pay him the greatest! How much division and discord do we observe in a church which boasts of her unity and peace! How miserably distracted is the court of Rome! How many arts are invented to elude the strongest decrees of the pope! How fre quent is the change of those constitutions, which ought to be immutable! How inconvenient and defective is the government of that church? Certainly, if our Saviour subjected Christians in all parts of the earth to the dominion church?―Certainly, and inspection of a single bishop, he has laid a duty upon one man, to. which an hundred are not equal, and has chosen one of the most imperfect forms of government. JOHN LAURENCE DE MOSHEIM. Gottingen, April 6, 1748. ORIGINAL ESSAYS, COMMUNICATIONS, &c. ་་་་་་ ON THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. No. I. THE Scriptures most explicitly ascribe the renovation of the heart of man to the influence of the Holy Spirit in connexion with divine truth. Though the Gospel of peace is singularly adapted to the circumstances and felt necessities of human nature, yet such is the inherent opposition of the heart to its spiritual and humbling doctrines, that nothing short of Almighty energy will incline any sinner to embrace it. "Paul may plant and Apollos water; but God alone can give the increase." "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." It was by divine influence that the heart of Lydia was so opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul. The Corinthians were sanctified by the Spirit of God. And to the Philippians, it was given in the behalf of Christ to believe. It is a deeply-humbling fact, that without the influence of the Spirit of Christ, the most explicit declarations of the divine mercy and grace, as revealed in the Gospel, produce no salutary effect-that motives in themselves the most interesting and suitable have no proper influence, and that arguments the most cogent, fail to convince and persuade, unless ་་་་ accompanied by his enlightening agency. Such is the adaptation of the truths of revelation to the universal properties and wants of our nature, and so powerful are the moral principles which are there exhibited, that in a wellconstituted mind they could not fail to produce the conviction of the judgment, and the surrender of the heart. But, alas! our minds are not well constituted. The will of man is in direct opposition to the holy dictates of divine revelation, and has become the bitter spring of rebellion against the authority and the will of God. It is absolutely necessary then that this influential faculty be subjugated to the government of heaven. It was the lamentation of our Lord in the days of his flesh, that he had laboured in vain, and had spent his strength for naught and in vain, Isaiah xlix. 4. And what a striking proof have we thus afforded us of the absolute necessity of the Spirit's agency, to overcome that fearful repugnance to the will of God, which is so prevalent in the heart of man. If even He who " 'spake as never man spake," was so unsuccessful, who will trust to the mere preaching of the word, however clearly and forcibly he may declare it. But after the Redeemer was raised from the dead, and exalted to the right hand of the majesty on high, it was solemnly announced that a numerous host of devoted subjects |