343 Account of the Christia7is on the Malabar Coast, [Oct. 



after its celebrntion, by order of the synod itself, and printed at the 

 end of the History of the Archbishop's visitation by Antonio de 

 Gouvea, an Augustinian monk, and Professor of Divinity at Goa. 

 The value of this document is very great to the protestant church- 

 es of the west, not only as recording the tyrannical violence with 

 which tlie Romanists endeavoured to impose their yoke on a foreign 

 church, the diocese of another Patriarchate, but chiefly as bearing 

 ample testimony to the great number of points of doctrine and dis- 

 cipline, in which they differ equally with ourselves from the corrup- 

 tions of Rome. We are accused of innovation and modern heresy ; 

 but here, according to the written testimony of our adversaries 

 themselves, is a church wonderfully preserved by the merciful pro- 

 vidence of the Divine Saviour in the midst of a heathen land from 

 the earliest and purest ages — in all probability from the days of the 

 Apostles, without any communication or intercourse with the church- 

 es of Europe ; and yet agreeing in very many of the most essential 

 points in which the protestants of Europe have resisted the corrup- 

 tions of the Romanists. Those points, as collected from Gouvea's 

 history are briefly these. *' They are said, 1. Not to adore Images; 

 2, To hold but three Sacraments, baptism, the eucharist, and 

 orders ; 3. To make no use of oils. 4. To have had no know- 

 ledge of confirmation or extreme unction. 5. To abhor auricu- 

 lar confession. 6. To hold many enormous errors about the 

 " eucharist, insomuch that the author of the history saith, he is 

 inclined to believe, that the hereticks of our times, (meaning 

 " Protestants) the revivers of all forgotten errors, and ignorances, 

 might have had their doctrine about the eucharist from them. 

 7. To ordain such as have been married several times, and those 

 who had married widows, and to approve of her priests marrying 

 " as often as they have a mind. 8. That she abhors the Pope and 

 the church of Rome as Anti-christian, in pretending to a superiori- 

 " ty and jurisdiction over all other churches."* 



The Synod was opened by the Archbishop, declaring the objects 

 for which it was convened to be the extirpation of heresy and error, 

 the reduction of the churches of St. Thomas to the obedience of the 

 See of Rome, and the general reformation of abuses both among 

 the clergy and the people. The first day of the session was chiefly 

 occupied with the celebration of High Mass, which was performed 

 with great solemnity, and the enaction' of certain regulations for the 

 conduct of the Synod in its future deliberations. 



• Geddeg. 



