converted in the same century; but relapsing for the most part to their former idolatry, were about the year 1156 regained to Christianity by Pope Adrian the Fourth; and by the preaching of St. Meinardus in the 12th age, Courland, Samogitia, and Livonia, received the faith of Christ. In the 13th century, Pope Innocent the Fourth sent the Dominicans to preach to the Tartars, and by them and the Franciscans, in several parts of the world, many infidels received the light of faith. In the 14th century, Lithuania was converted,3 while between that and the beginning of the next age, St. Vincent Ferrerius brought over to the Roman Catholic faith 25,000 Jews and Moors; and in the 15th age, the inhabitants of the Canary Islands were brought over to Christ, and the Portuguese very successfully preached the Roman Catholic faith in the kingdoms of Congo and Angola. St. Francis Xavier, in the 16th century, sent by Pope Paul the Third, and carrying the light of the gospel to the coasts of Malabar, Travancore, and the Pearl Fishery in the East Indies, to the Molucca, Del Moro, and Japan Islands, by his preaching and miracles, brought many hundred thousands to the

6

1 Heylin, p. 524. Atlas Geog. p. 262, 263.

2 Vincent. 1. 9.

3 Heyl. Cos. p. 524.

St. Antonin. 3. Part. Hist. Tit. 23. c. viii. § 4.

5 Heyl. Cos. p. 996. 998.

6 Van Dale, Moyle, Le Clerk, and others, reject all miracles after the apostolical age, or consider them as very doubtful; most Protestants, I believe, look upon them as

.

4

Roman Catholic faith; and the Spaniards preached Christ to the infidels of the Philippine Islands with no less success.2 And Martinus a Valentia, a preacher of the order of St. Francis, with twelve companions in the empire of Mexico, in the course of seven years, baptised upwards of a million of infidels; while St. Lewis Bertrand, a Dominican friar, famous for sanctity and miracles, according to the history of his time, converted an innumerable multitude of barbarians in the southern continent of America, insomuch, that the inhabitants of Terra Firma, of New Granada, of New Andalusia, of Popayan, and of Peru, are, in a manner, all Christians; and the Jesuits planted the Roman Catholic faith in Brazil and Paraguay. By the zealous labours of Roman Catholic missionaries in the last century, in several parts of Asia, as in China, the kingdoms of Tonquin, of Cochin China, of Madure, and of Thibet, and the Marian Islands, there have been great numbers brought over to the Roman Catholic faith, as well as in North America,

extremely suspicious, after Constantine, with perhaps the exception of Julian's defeat in his attempt to rebuild the temple; and St. Chrysostom observes, that "there were no footsteps of the power of miracles left in the church in his time."-De Sacerd. L. 4. See Bishop DOUGLASS'S Criterion of Miracles.

1 See the Saint's Life by Butler.

2 Lettres Edifiantes, &c. Recueil XI. Let. 3.

3 Thom, a Jesu de Conv. Om. Gent. 1. 4. c. v.
See his Life by Butler.

in New Mexico, Canada, and California, and several other parts of the infidel world.1

But the Roman Catholic Church, by heresy or schism, in almost every age, lost great numbers of her children, of which the Valentinians, Manicheans, Donatists, Arians, Pelagians, the Greek Schismatics, the Waldenses, and Albigenses, the Hussites, and in the 16th century the Protestants, who took the name of Reformers, are a convincing proof. The Pope, or Bishop of Rome, whom all antiquity assures us to be the lawful successor of St. Peter, the first bishop of that famous city, is held by Roman Catholics to be head of the Church by divine right.3 A list of them all, succeeding one another, from St. Peter to Pius the Seventh, the present Pope, may be seen in Ecclesiastical

1

The members of this church have doubtless been very zealous and exemplary all along in their endeavours to propagate their faith in foreign parts, and spread the knowledge of Christianity among those who were sitting in heathen darkness. This honour cannot in justice be denied them; and, indeed, to have been less zealous in the cause, had been inconsistent with their doctrine, that there is no salvation ("nemo salvus esse potest,") out of the pale of their Church. At the same time, to appreciate the object and value of many of their conversions, and the means by which they were effected, Dr. Mosheim's Eccles. Hist. or Dr. Jortin's Remarks on Eccles. Hist. may be consulted by the reader.

2 See Berti's Eccl. Hist.

3 That St. Peter was ever at Rome has been warmly disputed by some learned Protestants. See the arguments on both sides in Broughton's Histor. Libr. v. 1. under the Art. Ch. of Rome.

Histories. To them questions of great importance concerning faith, morals, or discipline, which could not be settled by the other Roman Catholic bishops, were brought.

3

2

Thus we are informed by church history, that St. Polycarp was sent to Rome in the 2d century to Pope Anicetus, concerning the time of celebrating Easter, by the Asiatics,' whom Pope Victor, in the same age, threatened to excommunicate, for not keeping it on the same day with the Latin Church, to which point they afterwards acceded; and historians assure us, that the question much agitated in Africa, about rebaptising those baptised by heretics, was, in the third century, carried to, and decided by, Pope Stephen. But when the ordinary authority of individual pastors, or of the head of the church, was found insufficient to suppress public errors in faith, it had been the practice of the principal pastors in all ages to assemble; and the faithful looked up to their united authority for a final decision upon the matter in question. These assemblies were called Synods, or Councils, and their authority was in proportion to the extent and dignity of that part of the universal church which they represented. There was no appeal from the sentence of a General Council; its decisions in faith were believed infallible, being considered as irrefragable testimonies of the doctrines which were

1 St. Iren. b. 3. c. iii. Euseb. b. 5. c. xxiv. Berti's Eccl. Hist. 2d age.

2 Euseb. Hist. 1. 5. c. xxv.

3 Vincent. Lerin. Common. c. ix.

taught and professed in the respective churches of those pastors, from their first establishment. For, as faith consists in believing whatever has been revealed by God to his prophets, apostles, and other inspired writers of the scriptures, because it was revealed by him, it must be immutable, and it belongs to the church to bear testimony to this revelation, and to lay it open to her children. Thus, in the fourth century, when Arius, with his numerous followers, denied the divinity of Jesus Christ, the first General Council of Nice condemned his heresy, and confirmed the Catholic faith on this head, which is clearly pointed out in the Nicene Creed, composed for that purpose in the Council, which, with an addition of some words in the next General Council, the first of Constantinople against the Macedonians, for impugning the divinity of the Holy Ghost, has been since that time used in the Liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church, and makes up the first twelve of the 24 Articles of Pope Pius's Creed, to be seen below, p. 14. beginning at the words, "I believe in one God," until "Amen," p. 15.

In like manner, when Martin Luther, in the beginning of the 16th century, began to preach doctrines, contrary to the belief of every kingdom in Europe, which then was all Roman Catholic, the General Council of Trent was convoked, in order to point out the dogmas of faith against Luther, Calvin, and other reformers, who followed their example, and to correct real moral abuses, which had become too prevalent, and stood much in need

VOL. IF