Chapter V: Part 5

§ 163.7. =Labadie and the Labadists.=--Jean de Labadie, the
scion of an ancient noble family, born A.D. 1610, was educated
in the Jesuit school at Bordeaux, entered the order, and became a
priest, but was released from office at his own wish in A.D. 1639,
on account of delicate health. Even in the Jesuit college the
principles that manifested themselves in his later life began to
take root in him. By Scripture study he was led to adopt almost
Augustinian views of sin and grace, as well as the conviction of
the need of a revival of the church after the apostolic pattern.
This tendency was confirmed and deepened by the influence of
Spanish Quietism, which even the Jesuits had favoured to some
extent. In the interest of these views he wrought laboriously
for eleven years as Catholic priest in Amiens, Paris, and other
places, amid the increasing hostility of the Jesuits. Their
persecution, together with a growing clearness in his Augustinian
convictions, led him formally to go over to the Reformed church
in A.D. 1650. He now laboured for seven years as Reformed pastor
at Montauban. In A.D. 1657, owing to political suspicions against
him spread by the Jesuits, he withdrew from Montauban, and,
after two years’ labour at Orange, settled at Geneva, where
his preaching and household visitations bore abundant fruit. In
A.D. 1666 he accepted a call to Middelburg, in Zealand. There he
was almost as successful as he had been in Geneva; but there too
it began to appear that in him there burned a fire strange to
the Reformed church. The French Reformed synod took great offence
at his refusal to sign the Belgic Confession. It was found that
at many points he was not in sympathy with the church standards,
that he had written in favour of chiliasm and the Apokatastasis,
that in regard to the nature and idea of the church and its
need of a reformation he was not in accord with the views of the
Reformed church. The synod in 1668 suspended him from office, and,
as he did not confess his errors, in the following year deposed
him. Labadie then saw that what he regarded as his lifework, the
restoration of the apostolic church, was as little attainable
within the Reformed as within the Catholic church. He therefore
organized his followers into a separate denomination, and was,
together with them, banished by the magistrate. The neighbouring
town of Veere received them gladly, but Middelburg now persuaded
the Zealand council to issue a decree banishing them from that
town also. The people of Veere were ready to defy this order,
but Labadie thought it better to avoid the risk of a civil war
by voluntary withdrawal; and so he went, in August, A.D. 1669,
with about forty followers, to Amsterdam, where he laid the
foundations of an apostolic church. This new society consisted of
a sort of monastic household consisting only of the regenerate.
They hired a commodious house, and from thence sent out spiritual
workers as missionaries, to spread the principles of the “new
church” throughout the land. Within a year they numbered 60,000
souls. They dispensed the sacrament according to the Reformed
rite, and preached the gospel in conventicles. The most important
gain to the party was the adhesion of Anna Maria von Schürman,
born at Cologne A.D. 1607 of a Reformed family, but settled
from A.D. 1623 with her mother in Utrecht, celebrated for her
unexampled attainment in languages, science, and art. When in
A.D. 1670, the government, urged by the synod, forbad attendance
on the Labadists’ preaching, the accomplished and pious
Countess-palatine Elizabeth, sister of the elector-palatine,
and abbess of the rich cloister of Herford, whose intimate friend
Schürman had been for forty years, gave them an asylum in the
capital of her little state.

§ 163.8. In Herford “the Hollanders” met with bitter opposition
from the Lutheran clergy, the magistracy, and populace, and
were treated by the mob with insult and scorn. They themselves
also gave only too good occasion for ridicule. At a sacramental
celebration, the aged Labadie and still older Schürman embraced
and kissed each other and began to dance for joy. In his sermons
and writings Labadie set forth the Quietist doctrines of the
limitation of Christ’s life and sufferings in the mortification
of the flesh, the duty of silent prayer, the sinking of the
soul into the depths of the Godhead, the community of goods, etc.
Special offence was given by the private marriage of the three
leaders, Labadie, Yvon, and Dulignon with young wealthy ladies of
society, and their views of marriage among the regenerate as an
institution for raising up a pure seed free from original sin and
brought forth without pain. The Elector of Brandenburg, hitherto
favourable, as guardian of the seminary was obliged, in answer to
the complaints of the Herford magistracy, to appoint a commission
of inquiry. Labadie wrote a defence, which was published in
Latin, Dutch, and German, in which he endeavoured to harmonize
his mystical views with the doctrines of the Reformed church. But
in A.D. 1671 the magistrates obtained a mandate from the imperial
court at Spires, which threatened the abbess with the ban if she
continued to harbour the sectaries. In A.D. 1672 Labadie settled
in Altona, where he died in A.D. 1674. His followers, numbering
160, remained here undisturbed till the war between Denmark and
Sweden broke out in A.D. 1675. They then retired to the castle of
Waltha in West Friesland, the property of three sisters belonging
to the party. Schürman died in A.D. 1678, Dulignon in A.D. 1679,
and Yvon, who now had sole charge, was obliged in A.D. 1688 to
abolish the institution of the community of goods, after a trial
of eighteen years, being able to pay back much less than he had
received. After his death in A.D. 1707 the community gradually
fell off, and after the property had gone into other hands on
the death of the last of the sisters in A.D. 1725, the society
finally broke up.

§ 163.9. During this age various =fanatical sects= sprang up. In
Thuringia, =Stiefel= and his nephew =Meth= caused much trouble
to the Lutheran clergy in the beginning of the century by their
fanatical enthusiasm, till convinced, after twenty years, of
the errors of their ways. =Drabicius=, who had left the Bohemian
Brethren owing to differences of belief, and then lived in
Hungary as a weaver in poor circumstances, boasted in A.D. 1638
of having Divine revelations, prophesied the overthrow of the
Austrian dynasty in A.D. 1657, the election of the French king as
emperor, the speedy fall of the Papacy, and the final conversion
of all heathens; but was put to death at Pressburg in A.D. 1671
as a traitor with cruel tortures. Even Comenius, the noble
bishop of the Moravians, took the side of the prophets, and
published his own and others’ prophecies under the title “_Lux in
Tenebris_.”--=Jane Leade= of Norfolk, influenced by the writings
of Böhme, had visions, in which the Divine Wisdom appeared to
her as a virgin. She spread her Gnostic revelations in numerous
tracts, founded in A.D. 1670 the Philadelphian Society in
London, and died in A.D. 1704, at the age of eighty-one. The
most important of her followers was =John Pordage=, preacher and
physician, whose theological speculation closely resembles that
of Jac. Böhme. To the Reformed church belonged also =Peter Poiret=
of Metz, pastor from A.D. 1664 in Heidelburg [Heidelberg], and
afterwards of a French congregation in the Palatine-Zweibrücken.
Influenced by the writings of Bourignon and Guyon, he resigned
his pastorate, and accompanied the former in his wanderings
in north-west Germany till his death in 1680. At Amsterdam in
A.D. 1687 he wrote his mystical work, “_L’Économie Divine_”
in seven vols., which sets forth in the Cocceian method the
mysticism and theosophy of Bourignon. He died at Rhynsburg
in A.D. 1719.--From the Lutheran church proceeded Giftheil of
Württemburg [Württemberg], Breckling of Holstein, and Kuhlmann,
who went about denouncing the clergy, proclaiming fanatical views,
and calling for impracticable reforms. Of much greater importance
was =John George Gichtel=, an eccentric disciple of Jac. Böhme,
who in A.D. 1665 lost his situation as law agent in his native
town of Regensburg, his property, and civil rights, and suffered
imprisonment and exile from the city for his fanatical ideas.
He died in needy circumstances in Amsterdam in A.D. 1710. He
had revelations and visions, fought against the doctrine of
justification, and denounced marriage as fornication which
nullifies the spiritual marriage with the heavenly Sophia
consummated in the new birth, etc. His followers called
themselves Angelic Brethren, from Matthew xxii. 20, strove
after angelic sinlessness by emancipation from all earthly lusts,
toils, and care, regarded themselves as a priesthood after the
order of Melchizedec [Melchisedec] for propitiating the Divine
wrath.--Continuation, § 170.

§ 163.10. =Russian Sects.=--A vast number of sects sprang up
within the Russian church, which are all included under the
general name =Raskolniks= or apostates. They fall into two great
classes in their distinctive character, diametrically opposed the
one to the other.

1. The =Starowerzi=, or Old Believers. They originated in
A.D. 1652, in consequence of the liturgical reform of the
learned and powerful patriarch Nikon, which called forth
the violent opposition of a large body of the peasantry, who
loved the old forms. Besides stubborn adhesion to the old
liturgy, they rejected all modern customs and luxuries, held
it sinful to cut the beard, to smoke tobacco, to drink tea
and coffee, etc. The Starowerzi, numbering some ten millions,
are to this day distinguished by their pure and simple lives,
and are split up into three parties:

i. _Jedinowerzi_, who are nearest to the orthodox church,
recognise its priesthood, and are different only in
their religious ceremonies and the habits of their
social life;

ii. The _Starovbradzi_, who do not recognise the
priesthood of the orthodox church; and

iii. the _Bespopowtschini_, who have no priests, but only
elders, and are split up into various smaller sects.

Under the peasant Philip Pustosiwät, a party of Starowerzi,
called from their leader Philippins, fled during the
persecution of A.D. 1700 from the government of Olonez, and
settled in Polish Lithuania and East Prussia, where to the
number of 1,200 souls they live to this day in villages in
the district of Gumbinnen, engaged in agricultural pursuits,
and observing the rites of the old Russian church.

2. At the very opposite pole from the Starowerzi stand the
=Heretical Sects=, which repudiate and condemn everything
in the shape of external church organization, and manifest
a tendency in some cases toward fanatical excess, and in
other cases toward rationalistic spiritualism. As the sects
showing the latter tendency did not make their appearance
till the eighteenth century (§ 166, 2), we have here to
do only with those of the former class. The most important
of these sects is that of the =Men of God=, or Spiritual
Christians, who trace their origin from a peasant, Danila
Filipow, of the province of Wladimir. In 1645, say they,
the divine Father, seated on a cloud of flame, surrounded
by angels, descended from heaven on Mount Gorodin in a
chariot of fire, in order to restore true Christianity in
its original purity and spirituality. For this purpose he
incarnated himself in Filipow’s pure body. He commanded
his followers, who in large numbers, mainly drawn from the
peasant class, gathered around him, not to marry, and if
already married to put away their wives, to abstain from all
intoxicating drinks, to be present neither at marriages nor
baptisms, but above all things to believe that there is no
other god besides him. After some years he adopted as his
son another peasant, Ivan Suslow, who was said to have been
born of a woman a hundred years old, by communicating to him
in his thirtieth year his own divine nature. Ivan, as a new
Christ, sent out twelve apostles to spread his doctrine. The
Czar Alexis put him and forty of his adherents into prison;
but neither the knout nor the rack could wring from them the
mysteries of their faith and worship. At last, on a Friday,
the czar caused the new Christ to be crucified; but on
the following Sunday he appeared risen again among his
disciples. After some years the imprisoning, crucifying, and
resurrection were repeated. Imprisoned a third time in 1672,
he owed his liberation to an edict of grace on the occasion
of the birth of the Prince Peter the Great. He now lived
at Moscow along with the divine father Filipow, who had
hitherto consulted his own safety by living in concealment
in the enjoyment of the adoration of his followers
unmolested for thirty years, supported by certain wealthy
merchants. Filipow is said to have ascended up in the
presence of many witnesses, in 1700, into the seventh and
highest heaven, where he immediately seated himself on
the throne as the “Lord of Hosts,” and the Christ, Suslow,
also returned thither in 1716, after both had reached the
hundredth year of the human existence. As Suslow’s successor
appeared a new Christ in Prokopi Lupkin, and after his
death, in 1732, arose Andr. Petrow. The last Christ
manifestation was revealed in the person of the unfortunate
Czar Peter III., dethroned by his wife Catharine II. in 1762,
who, living meanwhile in secret, shall soon return, to
the terrible confusion of all unbelievers. With this the
historical tradition of the earlier sect of the Men of God
is brought to a close, and in the Skopsen, or Eunuchs, who
also venerate the Czar Peter III. as the Christ that is
to come again, a new development of the sect has arisen,
carrying out its principles more and more fully (§ 210, 4).
Other branches of the same party, among which, as also among
the Skopsen, the fanatical endeavour to mortify the flesh is
carried to the most extravagant length, are the Morelschiki
or Self-Flagellators, the Dumbies, who will not, even
under the severest tortures, utter a sound, etc. The
ever-increasing development of this sect-forming craze,
which found its way into several monasteries and nunneries,
led to repeated judicial investigations, the penitent
being sentenced for their fault to confinement in remote
convents, and the obdurate being visited with severe
corporal punishments and even with death. The chief sources
of information regarding the history, doctrine, and customs
of the “Men of God” and the Skopsen are their own numerous
spiritual songs, collected by Prof. Ivan Dobrotworski of
Kasan, which were sung in their assemblies for worship with
musical accompaniment and solemn dances. On these occasions
their prophets and prophetesses were wont to prophesy, and
a kind of sacramental supper was celebrated with bread and
water. The sacraments of the Lord’s supper and baptism,
as administered by the orthodox church, are repudiated
and scorned, the latter as displaced by the only effectual
baptism of the Spirit. They have, indeed, in order to avoid
persecution, been obliged to take part in the services of
the orthodox national church, and to confess to its priests,
avoiding, however, all reference to the sect.[484]

§ 164. PHILOSOPHERS AND FREETHINKERS.[485]

The mediæval scholastic philosophy had outlived itself, even in the pre-Reformation age; yet it maintained a lingering existence side by side with those new forms which the modern spirit in philosophy was preparing for itself. We hear an echo of the philosophical ferment of the sixteenth century in the Italian Dominican Campanella, and in the Englishman Bacon of Verulam we meet the pioneer of that modern philosophy which had its proper founder in Descartes. Spinoza, Locke, and Leibnitz were in succession the leaders of this philosophical development. Alongside of this philosophy, and deriving its weapons from it for attack upon theology and the church, a number of freethinkers also make their appearance. These, like their more radical disciples in the following century, regarded Scripture as delusive, and nature and reason as alone trustworthy sources of religious knowledge.

§ 164.1. =Philosophy.=--=Campanella= of Stilo in Calabria
entered the Dominican order, but soon lost taste for Aristotelian
philosophy and scholastic theology, and gave himself to the
study of Plato, the Cabbala, astrology, magic, etc. Suspected
of republican tendencies, the Spanish government put him in
prison in A.D. 1599. Seven times was he put upon the rack for
twenty-four hours, and then confined for twenty-seven years in
close confinement. Finally, in A.D. 1626, Urban VIII. had him
transferred to the prison of the papal Inquisition. He was set
free in A.D. 1629, and received a papal pension; but further
persecutions by the Spaniards obliged him to fly to his protector
Richelieu in France, where in A.D. 1639 he died. He composed
eighty-two treatises, mostly in prison, the most complete being
“_Philosophia Rationalis_,” in five vols. In his “_Atheismus
Triumphatus_” he appears as an apologist of the Romish system,
but so insufficiently, that many said _Atheismus Triumphans_ was
the more fitting title. His “_Monarchia Messiæ_” too appeared,
even to the Catholics, an abortive apology for the Papacy. In
his “_Civitas Solis_,” an imitation of the “Republic” of Plato,
he proceeded upon communistic principles.--=Francis Bacon of
Verulam=, long chancellor of England, died A.D. 1626, the great
spiritual heir of his mediæval namesake (§ 103, 8), was the
first successful reformer of the plan of study followed by the
schoolmen. With a prophet’s marvellous grasp of mind he organized
the whole range of science, and gave a forecast of its future
development in his “_De Augmentis_” and “_Novum Organon_.”
He rigidly separated the domain of _knowledge_, as that of
philosophy and nature, grasped only by experience, from the
domain of _faith_, as that of theology and the church, reached
only through revelation. Yet he maintained the position:
_Philosophia obiter libata a Deo abducit, plene hausta ad Deum
reducit_. He is the real author of empiricism in philosophy and
the realistic methods of modern times. His public life, however,
is clouded by thanklessness, want of character, and the taking of
bribes. In A.D. 1621 he was convicted by his peers, deprived of
his office, sentenced to imprisonment for life in the Tower, and
to pay a fine of £40,000; but was pardoned by the king.[486]--The
French Catholic =Descartes= started not from experience, but from
self-consciousness, with his “_Cogito, ergo sum_” as the only
absolutely certain proposition. Beginning with doubt, he rose
by pure thinking to the knowledge of the true and certain in
things. The imperfection of the soul thus discovered suggests
an absolutely perfect Being, to whose perfection the attribute
of being belongs. This is the ontological proof for the being of
God.--His philosophy was zealously taken up by French Jansenists
and Oratorians and the Reformed theologians of Holland, while
it was bitterly opposed by such Catholics as Huetius and such
Reformed theologians as Voetius.[487]--=Spinoza=, an apostate
Jew in Holland, died A.D. 1677, gained little influence over his
own generation by his profound pantheistic philosophy, which has
powerfully affected later ages. A violent controversy, however,
was occasioned by his “_Tractatus Theologico-politicus_,” in
which he attacked the Christian doctrine of revelation and the
authenticity of the O.T. books, especially the Pentateuch, and
advocated absolute freedom of thought.[488]

§ 164.2. =John Locke=, died A.D. 1704, with his sensationalism
took up a position midway between Bacon’s empiricism and
Descartes’ rationalism, on the one hand, and English deism and
French materialism, on the other. His “Essay concerning Human
Understanding” denies the existence of innate ideas, and seeks
to show that all our notions are only products of outer or
inner experience, of sensation or reflection. In this treatise,
and still more distinctly in his tract, “The Reasonableness of
Christianity,” intended as an apology for Christianity, and even
for biblical visions and miracles, as well as for the messianic
character of Christ, he openly advocated pure Pelagianism
that knows nothing of sin and atonement.[489]--=Leibnitz=,
a Hanoverian statesman, who died A.D. 1716, introduced the new
German philosophy in its first stage. The philosophy of Leibnitz
is opposed at once to the theosophy of Paracelsus and Böhme and
to the empiricism of Bacon and Locke, the pantheism of Spinoza,
and the scepticism and manichæism of Bayle. It is indeed a
Christian philosophy not fully developed. But inasmuch as at
the same time it adopted, improved upon, and carried out the
rationalism of Descartes, it also paved the way for the later
theological rationalism. The foundation of his philosophy is the
theory of monads wrought out in his “_Theodicée_” against Bayle
and in his “_Nouveaux Essais_,” against Locke. In opposition to
the atomic theory of the materialists, he regarded all phenomena
in the world as eccentricities of so called monads, _i.e._
primary simple and indivisible substances, each of which is
a miniature of the whole universe. Out of these monads that
radiate out from God, the primary monad, the world is formed
into a harmony once for all admired of God: the theory of
pre-established harmony. This must be the best of worlds,
otherwise it would not have been. In opposition to Bayle, who
had argued in a manichæan fashion against God’s goodness and
wisdom from the existence of evil, Leibnitz seeks to show that
this does not contradict the idea of the best of worlds, nor that
of the Divine goodness and wisdom, since finity and imperfection
belong to the very notion of creature, a metaphysical evil from
which moral evil inevitably follows, yet not so as to destroy the
pre-established harmony. Against Locke he maintains the doctrine
of innate ideas, contests Clarke’s theory of indeterminism,
maintains the agreement of philosophy with revelation, which
indeed is above but not contrary to reason, and hopes to prove
his system by mathematical demonstration.[490]--Continuation,
§ 171, 10.

§ 164.3. =Freethinkers.=--The tendency of the age to throw off
all positive Christianity first showed itself openly in England
as the final outcome of Levellerism (§ 162, 2). This movement
has been styled naturalism, because it puts natural in place of
revealed religion, and deism, because in place of the redeeming
work of the triune God it admits only a general providence of the
one God. On philosophic grounds the English deists affirmed the
impossibility of revelation, inspiration, prophecy, and miracle,
and on critical grounds rejected them from the Bible and history.
The simple religious system of deism embraced God, providence,
freedom of the will, virtue, and the immortality of the soul. The
Christian doctrines of the Trinity, original sin, satisfaction,
justification, resurrection, etc., were regarded as absurd and
irrational. Deism in England spread almost exclusively among
upper-class laymen; the people and clergy stood firmly to their
positive beliefs. Theological controversial tracts were numerous,
but their polemical force was in great measure lost by the
latitudinarianism of their authors.--The principal English deists
of the century were

1. =Edward Herbert of Cherbury=, A.D. 1581-1648, a nobleman
and statesman. He reduced all religion to five points: Faith
in God, the duty of reverencing Him, especially by leading
an upright life, atoning for sin by genuine repentance,
recompense in the life eternal.

2. =Thomas Hobbes=, A.D. 1588-1679, an acute philosophical
and political writer, looked on Christianity as an oriental
phantom, and of value only as a support of absolute monarchy
and an antidote to revolution. The state of nature is a
_bellum omnium contra omnes_; religion is the means of
establishing order and civilization. The state should decide
what religion is to prevail. Every one may indeed believe
what he will, but in regard to churches and worship he must
submit to the state as represented by the king. His chief
work is “Leviathan; or, The Matter, Form, and Power of a
Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil.”

3. =Charles Blount=, who died a suicide in A.D. 1693, a rabid
opponent of all miracles as mere tricks of priests, wrote
“Oracles of Reason,” “_Religio Laici_,” “Great is Diana
of the Ephesians,” and translated Philostratus’ “Life of
Apollonius of Tyana.”

4. =Thomas Browne=, A.D. 1635-1682, a physician, who in his
“_Religio Medici_” sets forth a mystical supernaturalism,
took up a purely deistic ground in his “Vulgar Errors,”
published three years later.

Among the opponents of deism in this age the most notable are
Richard Baxter (§ 162, 3) and Ralph Cudworth, A.D. 1617-1688,
a latitudinarian and Platonist, who sought to prove the leading
Christian doctrines by the theory of innate ideas. He wrote
“Intellectual System of the Universe” in A.D. 1678. The pious
Irish scientist, Robert Boyle, founded in London, in A.D. 1691,
a lectureship of £40 a year for eight discourses against deistic
and atheistic unbelief.[491]--Continuation, § 171, 1.

§ 164.4. A tendency similar to that of the English deists was
represented in Germany by =Matthias Knutzen=, who sought to found
a freethinking sect. The Christian “Coran” contains only lies;
reason and conscience are the true Bible; there is no God, nor
hell nor heaven; priests and magistrates should be driven out of
the world, etc. The senate of Jena University on investigation
found that his pretension to 700 followers was a vain boast.--In
France the brilliant and learned sceptic =Peter Bayle=,
A.D. 1647-1706, was the apostle of a light-hearted unbelief.
Though son of a Reformed pastor, the Jesuits got him over to the
Romish church, but in a year and a half he apostatised again. He
now studied the Cartesian philosophy, as Reformed professor at
Sedan, vindicated Protestantism in several controversial tracts,
and as refugee in Holland composed his famous “_Dictionnaire
Historique et Critique_,” in which he avoided indeed open
rejection of the facts of revelation, but did much to unsettle
by his easy treatment of them.--Continuation, § 171, 3.

THIRD SECTION.

CHURCH HISTORY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.[492]

I. The Catholic Church in East and West.

§ 165. THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.

During the first half of the century the Roman hierarchy suffered severely at the hand of Catholic courts, while in the second half storms gathered from all sides, threatening its very existence. Portugal, France, Spain, and Italy rested not till they got the pope himself to strike the deathblow to the Jesuits, who had been his chief supporters indeed, but who had now become his masters. Soon after the German bishops threatened to free themselves and their people from Rome, and what reforms they could not effect by ecclesiastical measures the emperor undertook to effect by civil measures. Scarcely had this danger been overcome when the horrors of the French Revolution broke out, which sought, along with the Papacy, to overthrow Christianity as well. But, on the other hand, during the early decades of the century Catholicism had gained many victories in another way by the counter-reformation and conversions. Its foreign missions, however, begun with such promise of success, came to a sad end, and even the home missions faded away, in spite of the founding of various new orders. The Jansenist controversy in the beginning of the century entered on a new stage, the Catholic church being driven into open semi-Pelagianism, and Jansenism into fanatical excesses. The church theology sank very low, and the Catholic supporters of “_Illumination_” far exceeded in number those who had fallen away to it from Protestantism.

§ 165.1. =The Popes.=--=Clement XI.=, 1700-1721, protested in
vain against the Elector Frederick III. of Brandenburg assuming
the crown as King Frederick I. of Prussia, on Jan. 18th,
A.D. 1701. In the Spanish wars of succession he sought to remain
neutral, but force of circumstances led him to take up a position
adverse to German interests. The new German emperor, Joseph I.,
A.D. 1705-1711, scorned to seek confirmation from the pope, and
Clement consequently had the usual prayer for the emperor omitted
in the church services. The relations became yet more strained,
owing to a dispute about the _jus primarum precum_, Joseph
claiming the right to revenues of vacancies as the patron. In
A.D. 1707, the pope had the joy of seeing the German army driven
out, not only of northern Italy, but also of Naples by the French.
Again they came into direct conflict over Parma and Piacenza,
Clement claiming them as a papal, the emperor claiming them as
an imperial, fief. No pope since the time of Louis the Bavarian
had issued the ban against a German emperor, and Clement ventured
not to do so now. Refusing the invitation of Louis XIV. to go
to Avignon, he was obliged either unconditionally to grant the
German claims or to try the fortune of war. He chose the latter
alternative. The miserable papal troops, however, were easily
routed, and Clement was obliged, in A.D. 1708, to acknowledge
the emperor’s brother, the Grand-duke Charles, as king of Spain,
and generally to yield to Joseph’s very moderate demands. Clement
was the author of the constitution _Unigenitus_, which introduced
the second stage in the history of Jansenism. After the short
and peaceful pontificate of =Innocent XIII.= A.D. 1721-1724,
came =Benedict XIII.=, A.D. 1724-1730, a pious, well-meaning,
narrow-minded man, ruled by a worthless favourite, Cardinal
Coscia. He wished to canonize Gregory VII., in the fond hope
of thereby securing new favour to his hierarchical views,
but this was protested against by almost all the courts. All
the greater was the number of monkish saints with which he
enriched the heavenly firmament. He promised to all who on their
death-bed should say, “Blessed be Jesus Christ,” a 2,000 years’
shortening of purgatorial pains. His successor =Clement XII.=,
A.D. 1730-1740, deprived the wretched Coscia of his offices, made
him disgorge his robberies, imposed on him a severe fine and ten
years’ imprisonment, but afterwards resigned the management of
everything to a greedy, grasping nephew. He was the first pope to
condemn freemasonry, A.D. 1736. =Benedict XIV.=, A.D. 1740-1758,
one of the noblest, most pious, learned, and liberal of the popes,
zealous for the faith of his church, and yet patient with those
who differed, moderate and wise in his political procedure, mild
and just in his government, blameless in life. He had a special
dislike of the Jesuits (§ 156, 12), and jestingly he declared, if,
as the curialists assert, “all law and all truth” lie concealed
in the shrine of his breast, he had not been able to find the key.
He wrote largely on theology and canon law, founded seminaries
for the training of the clergy, had many French and English
works translated into Italian, and was a liberal patron of
art. To check popular excesses he tried to reduce the number
of festivals, but without success.--Continuation, in Paragraphs
§ 165, 9, 10, 13.

§ 165.2. =Old and New Orders.=--Among the old orders that of
=Clugny= had amassed enormous wealth, and attempts made by its
abbots at reformation led only to endless quarrels and divisions.
The abbots now squandered the revenues of their cloisters at
court, and these institutions were allowed to fall into disorder
and decay. When, in A.D. 1790, all cloisters in France were
suppressed, the city of Clugny bought the cloister and church
for £4,000, and had them both pulled down.--The most important
new orders were:

1. =The Mechitarist Congregation=, originated by Mechitar the
Armenian, who, at Constantinople in A.D. 1701, founded a
society for the religious and intellectual education of his
countrymen; but when opposed by the Armenian patriarch, fled
to the Morea and joined the United Armenians (§ 72, 2). In
A.D. 1712 the pope confirmed the congregation, which, during
the war with the Turks was transferred to Venice, and in
A.D. 1717 settled on the island St. Lazaro [Lazzaro]. Its
members spread Roman Catholic literature in Armenia and
Armenian literature in the West. At a later time there was
a famous Mechitarist college in Vienna, which did much by
writing and publishing for the education of the Catholic
youth.

2. =Frères Ignorantins=, or Christian Brothers, founded
in A.D. 1725 by De la Salle, canon of Rheims, for the
instruction of children, wrought in the spirit of the
Jesuits through France, Belgium, and North America. After
the expulsion of the Jesuits from France in A.D. 1724, they
took their place there till themselves driven out by the
Revolution in A.D. 1790.[493]

3. The =Liguorians or Redemptorists=, founded in A.D. 1732
by Liguori, an advocate, who became Bishop of Naples in
A.D. 1762. He died in A.D. 1787 in his ninety-first year,
was beatified by Pius VII. in A.D. 1816, and canonized by
Gregory XVI. in A.D. 1839, and proclaimed _doctor ecclesiæ_
by Pius IX. in A.D. 1871 as a zealous defender of the
immaculate conception and papal infallibility. His devotional
writings, which exalt Mary by superstitious tales of
miracles, were extremely popular in all Catholic countries.
His new order was to minister to the poor. He declared
the pope’s will to be God’s, and called for unquestioning
obedience. Only after the founder’s death did it spread
beyond Italy.--Continuation, § 186, 1.

§ 165.3. =Foreign Missions.=--In the accommodation controversy
(§ 156, 12), the Dominicans prevailed in A.D. 1742; but the
abolishing of native customs led to a sore persecution in
China, from which only a few remnants of the church were
saved. The Italian Jesuit Beschi, with linguistic talents of
the highest order, sought in India to make use of the native
literature for mission purposes and to place alongside of it
a Christian literature. Here the Capuchins opposed the Jesuits
as successfully as the Dominicans had in China. These strifes
and persecutions destroyed the missions.--The Jesuit state of
Paraguay (§ 156, 10) was put an end to in A.D. 1750 by a compact
between Portugal and Spain. The revolt of the Indians that
followed, inspired and directed by the Jesuits, which kept the
combined powers at bay for a whole year, was at last quelled,
and the Jesuits expelled the country in A.D. 1758.--Continuation
§ 186, 7.

§ 165.4. =The Counter-Reformation= (§ 153, 2).--Charles XII. of
Sweden, in A.D. 1707, forced the Emperor Joseph I. to give the
Protestants of =Silesia= the benefits of the Westphalian Peace
and to restore their churches. But in =Poland= in A.D. 1717,
the Protestants lost the right of building new churches, and in
A.D. 1733 were declared disqualified for civil offices and places
in the diet. In the Protestant city of Thorn the insolence of
the Jesuits roused a rebellion which led to a fearful massacre
in A.D. 1724. The Dissenters sought and obtained protection
in Russia from A.D. 1767, and the partition of Poland between
Russia, Austria, and Prussia in A.D. 1772 secured for them
religious toleration. In =Salzburg= the archbishop, Count Firmian,
attempted in A.D. 1729 a conversion of the evangelicals by force,
who had, with intervals of persecution in the seventeenth century,
been tolerated for forty years as quiet and inoffensive citizens.
But in A.D. 1731 their elders swore on the host and consecrated
salt (2 Chron. xiii. 5) to be true to their faith. This “covenant
of salt” was interpreted as rebellion, and in spite of the
intervention of the Protestant princes, all the evangelicals,
in the severe winter of A.D. 1731, 1732, were driven, with
inhuman cruelty, from hearth and home. About 20,000 of them
found shelter in Prussian Lithuania; others emigrated to America.
The pope praised highly “the noble” archbishop, who otherwise
distinguished himself only as a huntsman and a drinker, and by
maintaining a mistress in princely splendour.

§ 165.5. In =France= the persecution of the Huguenots continued
(§ 153, 4). The “pastors of the desert” performed their duties at
the risk of their lives, and though many fell as martyrs, their
places were quickly filled by others equally heroic. The first
rank belongs to Anton Court, pastor at Nismes from A.D. 1715; he
died at Lausanne A.D. 1760, where he had founded a theological
seminary. He laboured unweariedly and successfully in gathering
and organizing the scattered members of the Reformed church,
and in overcoming fanaticism by imparting sound instruction.
Paul Rabaut, his successor at Nismes, was from A.D. 1730 to
1785 the faithful and capable leader of the martyr church. The
judicial murder of =Jean Calas= at Toulouse in A.D. 1762 presents
a hideous example of the fanaticism of Catholic France. One of
his sons had hanged himself in a fit of passion. When the report
spread that it was the act of his father, in order to prevent
the contemplated conversion of his son, the Dominicans canonized
the suicide as a martyr to the Catholic faith, roused the mob,
and got the Toulouse parliament to put the unhappy father to the
torture of the wheel. The other sons were forced to abjure their
faith, and the daughters were shut up in cloisters. Two years
later Voltaire called attention to the atrocity, and so wrought
on public opinion that on the revision of the proceedings by the
Parisian parliament, the innocence of the ill-used family was
clearly proved. Louis XV. paid them a sum of 30,000 livres; but
the fanatical accusers, the false witnesses, and the corrupt
judges were left unpunished. This incident improved the position
of the Protestants, and in A.D. 1787 Louis XVI. issued the Edict
of Versailles, by which not only complete religious freedom
but even a legal civil existence was secured them, which was
confirmed by a law of Napoleon in A.D. 1802.

§ 165.6. =Conversions.=--Pecuniary interests and prospect of
marriage with a rich heiress led to the conversion, in A.D. 1712,
of Charles Alexander while in the Austrian service; but when he
became Duke of Württemburg [Württemberg] he solemnly undertook
to keep things as they were, and to set up no Catholic services
in the country save in his own court chapel. Of other converts
Winckelmann and Stolberg are the most famous. While Winckelmann,
the greatest of art critics, not a religious but an artistic
ultramontane, was led in A.D. 1754 through religious indifference
into the Romish church, the warm heart of Von Stolberg was
induced, mainly by the Catholic Princess Gallitzin (§ 172, 2)
and a French emigrant, Madame Montague, to escape the
chill of rationalism amid the incense fumes of the Catholic
services.--Continuation, § 175, 7.

§ 165.7. =The Second Stage of Jansenism= (§ 157, 5).--=Pasquier
Quesnel=, priest of the Oratory at Paris, suspected in 1675 of
Gallicanism, because of notes in his edition of the works of
Leo the Great, fled into the Netherlands, where he continued his
notes on the N.T. Used and recommended by Noailles, Archbishop
of Paris, and other French bishops, this “Jansenist” book was
hated by the Jesuits and condemned by a brief of Clement XI.
in A.D. 1708. The Jesuit confessor of Louis XIV., Le Tellier,
selected 101 propositions from the book, and induced the king to
urge their express condemnation by the pope. In the =Constitution
Unigenitus= of A.D. 1713, Clement pronounced these heretical,
and the king required the expulsion from parliament and church
of all who refused to adopt this bull, which caused a division
of the French church into _Acceptants_ and _Appellants_. As many
of the condemned propositions were quoted literally by Quesnel
from Augustine and other Fathers, or were in exact agreement
with biblical passages, Noailles and his party called for an
explanation. Instead of this the pope threatened them with
excommunication. In A.D. 1715 the king died, and under the Duke
of Orleans’ regency in A.D. 1717, four bishops, with solemn
appeal to a general council, renounced the papal constitution
as irreconcilable with the Catholic faith. They were soon
joined by the Sorbonne and the universities of Rheims and Nantes,
Archbishop Noailles, and more than twenty bishops, all the
congregations of St. Maur and the Oratorians with large numbers
of the secular clergy and the monks, especially of the Lazarists,
Dominicans, Cistercians, and Camaldulensians. The pope, after
vainly calling them to obey, thundered the ban against the
Appellants in A.D. 1718. But the parliament took the matter
up, and soon the aspect of affairs was completely changed. The
regent’s favourite, Dubois, hoping to obtain a cardinal’s hat,
took the side of the Acceptants and carried the duke with him,
who got the parliament in 1720 to acknowledge the bull, with
express reservation, however, of the Gallican liberties, and
began a persecution of the Appellants. Under Louis XV. the
persecution became more severe, although in many ways moderated
by the influence of his former tutor, Cardinal Fleury. Noailles,
who died in 1729, was obliged in 1728 to submit unconditionally,
and in A.D. 1730 the parliament formally ratified the bull. Amid
daily increasing oppression, many of the more faithful Jansenists,
mostly of the orders of St. Maur and the Oratory, fled to the
Netherlands, where they gave way more and more to fanaticism. In
1727 a young Jansenist priest, Francis of Paris, died with the
original text of the appeal in his hands. His adherents honoured
him as a saint, and numerous reports of miracles, which had been
wrought at his grave in Medardus churchyard at Paris, made this a
daily place of pilgrimage to thousands of fanatics. The excited
enthusiasts, who fell into convulsions, and uttered prophecies
about the overthrow of church and state, grew in numbers and,
with that mesmeric power which fanaticism has been found in all
ages to possess powerfully influenced many who had been before
careless and profane. One of these was the member of parliament
De Montgeron, who, from being a frivolous scoffer, suddenly, in
1732, fell into violent convulsions, and in a three-volumed work,
“_La Vérité des Miracles Opérés par l’Intercession de François
de Paris_,” 1737, came forward as a zealous apologist of the
party. The government, indeed, in 1732 ordered the churchyard
to be closed, but portions of earth from the grave of the saint
continued to effect convulsions and miracles. Thousands of
convulsionists throughout France were thrown into prison, and
in 1752, Archbishop Beaumont of Paris, with many other bishops,
refused the last sacrament to those who could not prove that
they had accepted the constitution. The grave of “St. Francis,”
however, was the grave of Jansenism, for fanatical excess
contains the seeds of dissolution and every manifestation of it
hastens the catastrophe. Yet remnants of the party lingered on
in France till the outbreak of the Revolution, of which they had
prophesied.

§ 165.8. =The Old Catholic Church in the Netherlands.=--The
first Jesuits appeared in Holland in A.D. 1592. The form of piety
fostered by superior and inferior clergy in the Catholic church
there, a heritage from the times of the Brethren of the Common
Life (§ 112, 9), was directed to the deepening of Christian
thought and feeling; and this, as well as the liberal attitude
of the Archbishop of Utrecht, awakened the bitter opposition of
the Jesuits. At the head of the local clergy was Sasbold Vosmeer,
vicar-general of the vacant archiepiscopal see of Utrecht. Most
energetically he set himself to thwart the Jesuit machinations,
which aimed at abolishing the Utrecht see and putting the church
of Holland under the jurisdiction of the papal nuncio at Cologne.
On the ground of suspicions of secret conspiracy Vosmeer was
banished. But his successors refused to be overruled or set
aside by the Jesuits. Meanwhile in France the first stage of
the Jansenist controversy had been passed through. The Dutch
authorities had heartily welcomed the condemned book of their
pious and learned countryman; but when the five propositions
were denounced, they agreed in repudiating them, without, however,
admitting that they had been taught in the sense objected to by
Jansen. The Jesuits, therefore, charged them with the Jansenist
heresy, and issued in A.D. 1697 an anonymous pamphlet full of
lying insinuations about the origin and progress of Jansenism
in Holland. Its beginning was traced back to a visit of Arnauld
to Holland in A.D. 1681, and its effects were seen in the
circulation of prayer-books, tracts, and sermons, urging diligent
reading of Scripture, in the depreciation of the worship of Mary,
of indulgences, of images of saints and relics, rosaries and
scapularies (§ 186, 2), processions and fraternities, in the
rigoristic strictness of the confessional, the use of the
common language of the country in baptism, marriage, and extreme
unction, etc. The archbishop of that time, Peter Codde, in order
to isolate him, was decoyed to Rome, and there flattered with
hypocritical pretensions of goodwill, while behind his back his
deposition was carried out, and an apostolic vicar nominated for
Utrecht in the person of his deadly foe Theodore de Cock. But
the chapter refused him obedience, and the States of Holland
forbad him to exercise any official function, and under threat
of banishment of all Jesuits demanded the immediate return of
the archbishop. Codde was now sent down with the papal blessing,
but a formal decree of deposition followed him. Meanwhile the
government pronounced on his rival De Cock, who avoided a trial
for high treason by flight, a sentence of perpetual exile. But
Codde, though persistently recognised by his chapter as the
rightful archbishop, withheld on conscientious grounds from
discharging official duties down to his death in A.D. 1710. Amid
these disputes the Utrecht see remained vacant for thirteen years.
The flock were without a chief shepherd, the inferior clergy
without direction and support, the people were wrought upon
by Jesuit emissaries, and the vacant pastorates were filled by
the nuncio of Cologne. Thus it came about that of the 300,000
Catholics remaining after the Reformation, only a few thousands
continued faithful to the national party, while the rest became
bitter and extreme ultramontanes, as the Catholic church of
Holland still is. Finally, in A.D. 1723, the Utrecht chapter
took courage and chose a new archbishop in the person of
Cornelius Steenowen. Receiving no answer to their request for
papal confirmation, the chapter, after waiting a year and a
half, had him and also his three successors consecrated by a
French missionary bishop, Varlet, who had been driven away by
the Jesuits. But in order to prevent the threatened loss of
legitimate consecration for future bishops after Varlet’s death
in A.D. 1742, a bishop elected at Utrecht was in that same year
ordained to the chapter of Haarlem, and in A.D. 1758 the newly
founded bishopric of Deventer was so supplied. All these, like
all subsequent elections, were duly reported to Rome, and a
strictly Catholic confession from electors and elected sent
up; but each time, instead of confirmation, a frightful ban
was thundered forth. This, however, did not deter the Dutch
government from formally recognising the elections.--Meanwhile
the second and last act of the Jansenist tragedy had been played
in France. Many of the persecuted Appellants sought refuge in
Holland, and the welcome accorded them seemed to justify the
long cherished suspicion of Jansenism against the people of
Utrecht. They repelled these charges, however, by condemning the
five propositions and the heresies of Quesnel’s book; but they
expressly refused the bull of Alexander VII. and its doctrine
of papal infallibility. This put a stop to all attempts at
reconciliation. The church of Utrecht meanwhile prospered. At
a council held at Utrecht in A.D. 1765 it styled itself “The
Old Roman Catholic Church of the Netherlands,” acknowledged the
pope, although under his anathema, as the visible head of the
Christian church, accepted the Tridentine decrees as their creed,
and sent this with all the acts of council to Rome as proof of
their orthodoxy. The Jesuits did all in their power to overturn
the formidable impression which this at first made there;
and they were successful. Clement XIII. declared the council
null, and those who took part in it hardened sons of Belial.
But their church at this day contains, under one archbishop
and two bishops, twenty-six congregations, numbering 6,000
souls.[494]--Continuation, § 200, 3.

§ 165.9. =Suppression of the Order of Jesuits, A.D. 1773.=--The
Jesuits had striven with growing eagerness and success after
worldly power, and instead of absolute devotion to the interests
of the papacy, their chief aim was now the erection of an
independent political and hierarchical dominion. Their love
of rule had sustained its first check in the overthrow of the
Jesuit state of Paraguay; but they had secured a great part of
the world’s trade (§ 156, 13), and strove successfully to control
European politics. The Jansenist controversy, however, had called
forth against them much popular odium; Pascal had made them
ridiculous to all men of culture, the other monkish orders were
hostile to them, their success in trade roused the jealousy of
other traders, and their interference in politics made enemies
on every hand. The Portuguese government took the first decided
step. A revolt in Paraguay and an attempt on the king’s life were
attributed to them, and the minister Pombal, whose reforms they
had opposed, had them banished from Portugal in A.D. 1759, and
their goods confiscated. =Clement XIII.=, A.D. 1758-1769, chosen
by the Jesuits and under their influence, protected them by a
bull; but Portugal refused to let the bull be proclaimed, led the
papal nuncio over the frontier, broke off all relations with Rome,
and sent whole shiploads of Jesuits to the pope. France followed
Portugal’s example when the general Ricci had answered the king’s
demand for a reform of his orders: _Sint ut sunt, aut non sint_.
For the enormous financial failure of the Jesuit La Valette,
the whole order was made responsible, and at last, in A.D. 1764,
banished from France as dangerous to the state. Spain, Naples,
and Parma, too, soon seized all the Jesuits and transported them
beyond the frontiers. The new papal election on the death of
Clement XIII. was a life and death question with the Jesuits,
but courtly influences and fears of a schism prevailed. The
pious and liberal Minorite Ganganelli mounted the papal throne
as =Clement XIV.=, A.D. 1769-1774. He began with sweeping
administrative reforms, forbad the reading of the bull _In cœna
Domini_ (§ 117, 3), and, pressed by the Bourbon court, issued in
A.D. 1773 the bull _Dominus ac Redemtor Noster_ suppressing the
Jesuit order. The order numbered 22,600 members and the pope felt,
in granting the bull, that he endangered his own life. Next year
he died, not without suspicion of poisoning. All the Catholic
courts, even Austria, put the decree in force. But the heretic
Frederick II. tolerated the order for a long time in Silesia, and
Catherine II. and Paul I. in their Polish provinces.--=Pius VI.=,
A.D. 1775-1799, in many respects the antithesis of his
predecessor, was the secret friend of the exiled and imprisoned
ex-Jesuits. After the outbreak of the French Revolution, a
proposal was made at Rome, in A.D. 1792, for the formal
restoration of the order, as a means of saving the seriously
imperilled church, but it did not find sufficient encouragement.