nicans, Franciscans and Jesuits." To this conjecture, whether correct or not, may be added the following very curious note in Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History.* "The character and spirit of the Jesuits were admirably described, and their transactions and fate foretold, with a sagacity almost prophetic, so early as the year 1551, in a sermon preached in Christ Church, Dublin, by Dr. George Brown, bishop of that see; a copy of which was given to Sir James Ware, and may be found in the Harleian Miscellany, (vol. v. p. 566). The remarkable passage that relates to the Jesuits is as follows; "But 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. Amongst 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 * Vol. iv. 191. + Ignatius Loyola, a Spanish knight, after wearing the sword, became desirous of founding a religious order; and went to Rome. Assisted by more learned men than himself, he established this order, one principal characteristic of which is implicit devotedness to the pope. Patronized by the pope, Loyola's associates took the name of Jesuits, or the company of Jesus, in the year 1540.-Ed. an atheist, with the the Jews a Jew, with the reformers a reformade, 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 by the hands of those who have most succoured them, and made use of them; so that, at the end, they shall become odious to all nations. They shall be worse than Jews, having no resting-place upon earth, and then shall a Jew have more favour than a Jesuit."-This singular passage, I had almost said prediction, seems to be accomplished in part, by the present suppression of the Jesuits in France."* * The above note, by the translator of Mosheim, was written A. D. 1762. After the suppression of the order, till its re-establishment under Pius VII. it was perpetuated under feigned names. In France the Jesuits existed as Fathers of the Faith, in Sicily and Germany as Redemptorists.-Ed. P. 233. " L'église étendue et visible, l'église véritable, et l'église Romaine, sont souvent la même chose dans votre stile."-As correct notions on the subject of the church are of unspeakably vast importance, perhaps no apology will be required for long extracts from those accurate writers, Hooker, author of " Ecclesiastical Polity," and Bingham, author of " Antiquities of the Christian Church." The coincidence between their sentiments and those of the moderator of the Waldensian church, will then at once appear. "That church of Christ which we properly term his body mystical, can be but one; neither can that one be sensibly discerned by any man, inasmuch as the parts thereof are some in heaven already with Christ, and the rest that are on earth (albeit their natural persons be visible) we do not discern under this property whereby they are truly and infallibly of that body. Only our minds, by intellectual conceit are able to apprehend, that such a real body there is, a body collective, because it containeth an huge multitude; a body mystical, because the mystery of their conjunction is removed altogether from sense ...... They who are of this society have such marks and notes of distinction from all others, as are not object unto our sense; only unto God, who seeth their hearts, and un derstandeth all their secret cogitations, unto him they are clear and manifest." Hooker then proceeds to distinguish between the mystical church and the visible church; and observes, "This visible church in like sort is but one, continued from the first beginning of the world to the last end: which company being divided into two moieties, the one before, the other since the coming of Christ, that part which, since the coming of Christ, partly hath embraced, and partly shall hereafter embrace the christian religion, we term as by a more proper name the church of Christ...... the unity of which visible body and church of Christ, consisteth in that uniformity which all several persons thereunto belonging have, by reason of that one Lord, whose servants they all profess themselves, that one faith which they all acknowledge, that one baptism wherewith they are all initiated....... In whomsoever these things are, the church doth acknowledge them for her children; them only she holdeth for aliens and strangers, in whom these things are not found ...... All men are of necessity either christians or not christians. If by external profession they be christians, then are they of the visible church of Christ...... yea, although they be impious idolaters, wicked hereticks, persons excommunicable, yea, and cast out for notorious improbity....... Is it then possible that the self-same men should belong both to the synagogue of satan, and to the church of Jesus Christ? Unto that church which is his mystical body, not possible; because that body consisteth of none but only true Israelites, true sons of Abraham, true servants and saints of God. Howbeit of the visible body and church of Jesus Christ, those may be and oftentimes are, in respect of the main parts of their outward profession; who, in regard of their inward disposition of mind, yea of external conversation, yea even of some parts of their very profession, are most worthily both hateful in the sight of God himself, and in the eyes of the sounder part of the visible church most execrable ...... For lack of diligent observing the difference, first, between the church of God mystical and visible, then between the visible sound and corrupted, sometimes more sometimes less, the oversights are neither few nor light that have been committed They ask us where our church did lurk, in what cave of the earth it slept, for so many hundreds of years together, before the birth of Martin Luther? As if we were of opinion that Luther did erect a new church of Christ. No; the church of Christ which was from the beginning, is, and continueth unto the |