nesses are to be wholly disregarded, who charge his life and doctrine with many blemishes *. § 4. Nearly at the same time, Antoinette Bourignon de la Porte, a lady of Flanders, boasted that she was inspired of God, and instructed supernaturally, to restore the christian religion, which had become extinct and lost among the disputes and contentions of the different sects. This woman, who pos sessed a voluble tongue, uncommonly ardent feelings, and an inexhaustible imagination, filled the provinces of Holland, and also Jutland, (where she spent some years,) with the fame of her flights of fancy; and she persuaded some among the learned, as well as the ignorant and unlearned, to believe her declarations. After various sufferings and conflicts, she died at Franeker in Friesland, in the year 1680. It would require a prophet and diviner, to make out from her writings, which are numerous, a neat and consistent system of theology. For that divine light which guides persons of this character, never proceeds in a regular and methodical way; and it spreads a thick darkness before the minds of those who investigate truth, not by feeling, but by the understanding. Yet a reflecting person, who is versed in church history, may easily discover that this woman, who had not full command of her reason, derived a large part of her oracles from the writings of the mystic doctors; and what she derived from these sources, the extravagance of her fancy made worse than they were before. Neglecting all the details of her system, the substance of it is, that 4 See Jo. Möller's Cimbria Litterata, tom. iii. p. 35, &c. ; and Isagoge ad Histor. Chersones. Cimbrica, pt. ii. cap. v. p. 125. &c. Add Godfrey Arnoid's Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie, vol. i. pt. i. book xvii. ch. xxxi. p. 1186. Weismann's Hist. Eccl. Sæculi XVII. p. 927, and others. Concerning the two celebrated companions and colleagues of Labadie, Peter du Lignon and Peter Yvon, see Möller's Cimbria Litterata, tom. ii. p. 472, 1020. [Labadie exhibited through life the character of an indiscreet reformer. To lash the vices of the people, and to purge the churches of their offences against purity, was his great business. But it was his misfortune always to get into difficulty. The irreligious abhorred him, and the pious were dissatisfied with him. Hence he removed from place to place, was at length excommunicated by the French churches in Holland, and set up a church of his own. But this church rendered itself so odious, that it was persecuted, and driven from place to place, so long as Labadie was at the head of it. The charges against him were very numerous and weighty, and respected both his orthodoxy and his morals; but it is questionable whether, if fairly tried, he would be found to be anything more than a rash, indiscreet, enthusiastical man. Tr.] religion consists in an internal emotion or sensation of the soul, and not in either knowledge or practice. Among her patrons, the most distinguished were, Christian Bartholomew de Cordt, a priest of the Oratory at Mechlin, a Jansenist, who died on the island of Nordstrand in Jutland; and Peter Poiret, a man of penetrating genius, and well versed in the Cartesian philosophy, who has clearly evinced by his own example, that knowledge and ignorance, reason and superstition, are not so mutually repulsive that they cannot reside in the same breast, and by their united energies engender monstrous productions'. § 5. Of the same, or at least similar views, the same plans, and the same general character, was Jane Leade, who, near the end of the century, blinded not only many of the common people in England, but also some of the better informed, by her visions, her prophecies, her promises, and her doctrines; and thus gave rise to the Philadephian Society. For she believed in general, that all contentions among christians would wholly cease, and that the church of Christ would become the only, the perfectly united, and the most beautiful church here on earth; provided all would commit their souls to the internal teacher, to be moulded, enlightened, and governed by him, neglecting all other doctrines, precepts, and opinions. And she did not hesitate to give assurance, in the name of God, that such a church as she had conceived of, would be established before the end of the world. And the honest woman might with more confidence give this assurance, as she fully believed that her Philadelphian Society was that very church of Christ, in which alone the Holy Spirit resided and reigned. Her other discoveries, among which was the noted restoration of all things, need not be related. Leade was less fortunate than Bourignon 5 See Jo. Möller, who treats expressly and fully respecting her, in his Cimbria Litterata, tom. ii. p. 85, &c. and in his Introduct. in Historia Chersonesi Cimbrica, pt. ii. p. 151, &c. Peter Bayle, Dictionnaire Hist. et Crit. tom. i. p. 639. Godf. Arnold, Kirchenund Ketzerhistorie, vol. ii. p. 153, &c. and others. See concerning him, Möller's Cimbria Litterata, tom. ii. p. 149. 7 Poiret systematized and explained the wild and incoherent rhapsodies of Bourignon, in a great work, which he entitled, L'Economie divine, ou Système universel; first published in French, Amsterd. 1686, 7 vols. 8vo. and afterwards published in Latin. Respecting this celebrated mystic philosopher, whose various writings procured him notoriety, see the Bibliotheca Bremens. Theol. Philol. tom. iii. pt. i. p. 75. in this respect, that she had not so eloquent and sagacious a counsellor as Poiret, to plead her cause. For her principal associates, John Pordage, a physician, and Thomas Bromley, were more distinguished for piety and a contemplative turn of mind, than for their power of reasoning and their eloquence. Pordage in particular, even surpassed our Boehmen, whom he greatly admired, in obscurity; and instead of enlightening his readers, shocks them with his uncouth phraseology'. 8 See Jo. Wolf. Jaeger, Historia sacra et civilis Sæculi XVII. decenn. x. p. 90, &c. Peter Poiret, Bibliotheca Mysticor. p. 161, 174, 283, 286, and others. Jane Leade, who died 1704, in the 81st year of her age, spent nearly her whole life in reading and recommending the writings of Boehm, and in penning down her own revelations and new results of divine truths. She was rich, and printed the whole at her own cost. Hence great numbers of her writings came before the public. The Philadelphian Society was established by her in 1697 the causes and reasons for its institution, she published in 1698. Her writings fill eight vol His umes.-Pordage was first a preacher, but afterwards being deposed for his fanaticism, he became a physician. He was the most zealous promoter of the Boehmist doctrines and of the Philadelphian Society in England. principal work was his Divine and true Metaphysics, in 3 vols. 8vo. He also wrote a Theologia Mystica; and died in 1698.-Bromley was his pupil and adherent, and wrote much on the Bible. In Holland, one Lot Fisher, a physician, was a promoter of the Philadelphian Society; and he caused all the above works to be splendidly published in Dutch. Schl.] A BRIEF SKETCH OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. CHAPTER I. § 1. Preface.-§ 2. Prosperous events of the church generally, and especially of the Popish church.-§ 3. The Jesuits and their institutions in China.§ 4. Protestant missions.-§ 5. Adverse events. Private enemies of christianity. § 6. Atheists: Deists.-§ 7. Romish church the pontiffs.—§ 8. Prospects of peace between the Evangelical and the Papists frustrated.--§ 9. Intestine discords of the Romish church. Jansenist contests.-§ 10. Quesnel. The bull Unigenitus.—§ 11. Commotions from it in France.-§ 12. Supports of the Jansenists in France. Francis de Paris.-§ 13. State of the eastern church.-§ 14. External state of the Lutheran church.-§ 15. Its internal state.-§ 16. Intestine foes.--§ 17. The Herrenhutters. Zinzendorf. § 18. Cultivation of philosophy among the Lutherans.-§ 19. The Wertheim translation.-§ 20. Pietistic controversies.-§ 21. State of the Reformed Church.-§ 22. Projects for union between the Lutherans and the Reformed. § 23. State of the English church.-§ 24. Various sects in England. Whitefield.-§ 25. State of the Dutch church.-§ 26. Controversy in Switzerland respecting the Formula Consensus.—§ 27. The Socinians. Arians. § 1. THE ecclesiastical history of the century now passing, affords matter for a volume, rather than for a few pages; and may expect, among those who come after us, an ingenuous and faithful historian of its own. But that the present summary may not be defective, and that myself, and perhaps others, may have a thread to guide our lectures, I will just run over |