Great; who thus became like the English monarch, head of the national church. He also abolished penal laws against Christians of other perfuafions; and exerted himself to check fuperftition, and to enlighten the inconceivable ignorance of the clergy. But the radical depravation of Christianity by the groffeft idolatry towards faints and pictures of faints ftill overspreads, amidst other inferior corruptions, the Ruffian empire. The Roman pontiffs in this age have been on the whole confiderably fuperior in piety and learning to most of their predeceffors. The ́inteftine divifions in that church have continued. The breach between the Dominicans and the Jefuits remained unclosed: and the latter party obtained a signal triumph over the Janfenifts, by procuring the papal condemnation, A. D. 1713, by the bull denominated Unigenitus, from the word with which it commences, of an hundred and one propofitions, extracted from the annotations of Quenel, a celebrated Jansenist, on the New Testament. Cardinal

M M

Cardinal de Noailles, however, archbishop of Paris, fupported by numbers of his clergy zealous for the liberties of the Gallican church, fteadily refused, in defiance of the indignation of the pontiff and of Louis XIV. to recognize the authority of the bull. The kingdom was divided into two parties. By the aid of penal inflictions and the violence of Louis, the Jefuits at length prevailed. But the downfall of the victors was at hand. A confpiracy for the affaffination of the king of Portugal, A. D. 1758, under the guidance of fome principal Jefuits, occafioned the expulfion of the whole order from that kingdom. The odium pursued them throughout Europe. In 1761 fome fraudulent mercantile transactions, in which the Jesuits had been engaged, drew the attention in France of the civil power. In the following year the pernicious tendency of their writings furnished new charges. Their difcuffions at length dragged to light the hitherto concealed inftitute or rules of their order, replete with maxims fubverfive of social

peace

peace and of morality. Their colleges were feized; their effects were confifcated; the order was extinguished in France, and all its members were banished. In the Spanish empire, within which they had establifhed in Paraguay an independent empire of their own, a fimilar fate overwhelmed them. And, finally, the fuppreffion of the whole order was obtained, A. D. 1773, from the pontiff Clement XIV.

A ftorm was in the mean time gathering against Christianity itself. In England there had arisen a fucceffion of sceptical or deiftical writers, who had in various ways carried on, with little apparent concert, their attacks against the religion of Chrift. Some affailed the outworks, fome the ftrong holds; fome proceeded openly; more, covertly and in difguife. If, on the one hand, they had in many inftances weakened or fubverted the faith of the ignorant, the unfufpecting, or the vicious; they had called forth, on the other, fuch exertions of piety and learning in the friends and for the vindication of Chriftianity, as

in effect to have benefited the caufe which they were folicitous to injure. Their publications fpeedily croffed the channel; and found on the continent, particularly in France, hands ready to fharpen and to brandish every weapon with which they fhould be furnished. It now appears from an accumulation of unquestionable documents, and more especially from the acknowledged works and correfpondence of Frederic king of Pruffia; that Frederic, to whom the title of Great will henceforth be only a deeper brand of infamy; that the foreign enemies of the Gofpel, far from limiting their efforts to defultory and unconnected attacks, have during many years been united in one firm, widelyextended, and regularly-organised confederation, for the exprefs purpose of exterminating by fraud and by force the name of Chriftianity from the earth. In the doctrinal corruption, and the degrading fuperftition, by which the religion of Chrift was disfigured and polluted in the

countries

countries where their principal machinations were pursued; and in the political circumstances of that kingdom, where the meditated explosion took place; they found advantages almoft beyond the power of computation. Of the events which have recently paffed, and are ftill paffing before our eyes, the termination and the confequences are yet in the bofom of Providence. Judging from the present ap pearances of worldly affairs, and, I think we may humbly add, from the word of prophecy; there feems little reason to believe that even that corrupt form of Chriftianity, on which the blow has fallen, will prove to have received either a mortal or a permanent wound; a wound fufficient to prevent it from exercifing at a future period, by a final trial, of fhort and limited duration, but of unparalleled feverity, the faith and conftancy of the universal proteftant church. But with refpect to genuine Christianity, that religion "against which the gates of hell fhall not prevail (k),"