CHAP. The objectionable character of their in the native lan guage. been accustomed to practise upon mankind. It has been conceded to be "just possible that they may sometimes, though seldom, have been set up and encouraged, with a design to do good; but the good they aim at, requires that the belief of them should be perpetual, which is hardly possible; and the detection of the fraud is sure to disparage the credit of all pretensions of the same nature. Christianity has suffered more injury from this cause, than from all the other causes put together."2 The subsequent history of the Jesuit missions in India, will practically illustrate this judicious remark. To proceed. In 10. The difficulty of carrying on this deception would have appeared insurmountable to publications most men, but it served only to stimulate the zeal of R. de Nobili. The man that could conceive such a design, was not likely to feel much scruple about the means to be used for its accomplishment. Claiming a divine origin, he had crossed the Rubicon; and he was resolved to push forward with all possible celerity, making every compromise, and adopting every expedient, that he thought essential to success. the literary part which he and his brethren had to act, they were well qualified to sustain their assumed character; for their knowledge was of a very superior order to that of the brahmins: and had they used it merely as the handmaid of religion, it would have been applied to a legitimate purpose, and the divine blessing might have been expected to rest on their endeavours. They appear, however, to have substituted their literature for the Gospel, instead of employing it for the development and commendation of Ibid. sacred truth. This is a serious imputation, but it is amply borne out by an appeal to the works which they published in the native tongue. In these, some mention is made, indeed, of Scriptural facts and characters; but the truth is so disguised with Oriental allegories and extravagant tales; there is so frequent a departure from the simple circumstances which they undertake to relate; such a tissue of hyperbole runs through the entire web of their narration; and the whole is clothed in so glowing a strain of poetic language; that it must have been impossible for the natives to acquire from them any thing like a correct idea of the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel, or even a competent acquaintance with scripture history. One of the principal of these works, was the Inyána Upadesam of Robert de Nobili. Although its style does not entitle it to rank among compositions of the first order in the superior dialect of the country, commonly called high Tamul; yet it gives such an elaborate disquisition on the attributes of the Deity, and the phraseology of the schools is rendered into the native language with such peculiar felicity and precision, that it proved very acceptable to the more erudite brahmins. The chief merit of this performance is, the description it contains of the wisdom, goodness, 3 immateriality, and other 3 This is a doctrine of primary importance in a work intended for the instruction of heathen; and the following passage, which forms the concluding paragraph of the third Lecture, and contains the exposition of this, which is called the third attribute, may not be unacceptable to the reader, as a specimen of the work. "If we consider the Omnipotent to be self-existent and eternal, we cannot say that he has a body like our bodies: for when a being exists connected with a body composed of limbs finite in their nature, there must exist some one by whom A. D. 1606. СНАР. attributes of God. Its principal defect is, the omission of His justice. The distinct exposition of this attribute is never given by these missionaries; and the most charitable reason that could be conjectured for the omission is, that, being desirous to allure their proselytes by the idea of an All-merciful Being, they feared to alarm them with the representations of His righteous dealings with guilty man. They thought it those limbs were formed and united together. Therefore a self-existent being cannot be corporeal, and, consequently, the self-existent Lord of all cannot be admitted to be a corporeal being. Thus, it is established, that immateriality is the third attribute of the Deity. As this is so, to admit that the Omnipotent has a female on his head (as Siva), or on his breast (as Vishnu), that in one place he contracts marriage, and in another, frequents the house of a prostitute, and that he amuses himself with these, and idle vagaries like these, there is no doubt, can arise only from defect of understanding, and must be productive of the greatest turpitude. As the Omnipotent is self-existent, eternal, and immaterial, it will be proper to describe what form he really has, and this I shall explain in the fourth lecture." The concluding sentence of the lecture here promised, will give a summary of the author's argument, some parts of which, though not ill-adapted to the lascivious mind of a brahmin, are too offensive for the delicacy and propriety of a Christian's feelings. They are, therefore, omitted. "If we admit that the only God is of the male or female sex, because he created male and female, we ought to say that God is also a dog, fox, and the like, because he created dogs, foxes, and the like. To confute this blasphemous notion, it is sufficient to say that the statuary and potter cannot be the statue or vessel of which they are the equivocal cause, and that the sun cannot be identified with the brightness united with a particle of earth. Thus, also, because the Almighty is the equivocal cause of the distinction of male and female, and of all other things, we ought not to say or think that he is either male or female. Therefore, let us admit that as that sole goodness, which is the Almighty, contains in itself in the highest degree, as has been already shewn, all the virtue pertaining to the infinite number of existent beings, so, also, that same Almighty Being, who is the manifestation of goodness, is the equivocal cause of all things." more expedient, therefore, to include this with a variety of other qualities, under the general attribute of goodness. Their policy in this matter has been extenuated on the plea of our ignorance of the subject, seeing that all the attributes of God, as various as His energies, are beyond the grasp of the human intellect. Since, therefore, it is argued, He is naturally incomprehensible, every attempt to investigate His essence, or to determine His qualities, can, at best, be only an approximation to the truth.* This reasoning were excusable, if we had not the word of God to teach us better. But since, in the volume of inspiration, He has revealed to mankind all that they need to know of His nature and His will, in order to guide them, by the path of holiness, to the world of glory; no circumstances whatever can justify a Christian teacher in withholding or disguising any portion of the Divine Word. This is to imagine, that the Author of revealed truth cannot be left to vindicate or commend it. It is to forget that the world by wisdom, its own wisdom, never did, and never could, know God; and that it is by the very preaching which proud philosophers have always deemed foolishness, that He purposes to save those who believe.5 These missionaries thought proper to take a different course, and it will be seen how completely the Almighty confounded their jesuitical policy. To omit the attribute of justice, is to deprive the Gospel of its strongest sinew. It is only by showing how God is just, that He can be faithfully exhibited as the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.6 Robert de Nobili composed another work, A. D. 1606. III. CHAP. entitled, Mantra-málei, which contained the principal part of the Roman liturgy; but he introduced so many Sanscrit terms, that the service was as unintelligible to the native proselytes generally, as the brahminical Vedas are to the majority of Hindoos, or the Latin liturgy to the mass of the Roman Church in all parts of the world. Romish writers have expressed themselves scandalized by such an attempt to further the cause of their church, and pronounced it an equivocation not to be justified. They have lamented in strong terms, that it should have been thought necessary by the Jesuits to assume a title that ranks above the first nobility of the land, and, much more, to maintain it with an ostentation and a conduct opposed to the rules of Christian humility and holiness." Others, however, have undertaken to vindicate de Nobili's perjury. M. Urban Cerri, secretary to the congregation de Propagandâ, writing to Pope Innocent on the subject, affirmed, that that Jesuit was not guilty of falsehood in calling himself a brahmin. It is true, he and his brethren were priests, as well as the brahmins; but when it is argued that he used the term, Brahmana, in this restricted sense, and that, therefore, he spake the truth; it must be remembered, that this was not the sense in which he knew the brahmins would understand him, or in which he desired to be understood. For, in that acceptation of the word, it would not have imposed upon them, nor rendered the Jesuits more acceptable to them than the priests of every other religion, or of every caste of 7 Memoires du P. Norbert, Tom. i. liv. 1. sec. 7, &c. 8 Anno 1676. See his Account, &c. p. 104, &c. Also Asiatic Researches, Vol. xiv. art. 1. |