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The new Conspiracy against the Jesuits detected and exposed

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A few typographical errors have been corrected. They
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French extracts are reproduced as printed, with hardly any accents.






THE
AGAINST THE JESUITS — DETECTED AND BRIEFLY EXPOSED; — SHORT ACCOUNT OF THEIR INSTITUTE;
WITH A



AND


OBSERVATIONS ON THE DANGER OF SYSTEMS OF


EDUCATION INDEPENDENT OF RELIGION.





B Y R. C. D A L L A S , E S Q. — L O N D O N :







Omnes qui se Societati addixerunt, in virtutum solidarum ac
  perfectarum, et spiritualium rerum studium incumbant.






Institutum Soc. Jesu, ed. Pragæ, 1757, vol. ii, p. 72.










The causes which occasioned the ruin of this mighty body, as well as
  the circumstances and effects with which it has been attended in the
  different countries of Europe, are objects extremely worthy of the
  attention of every intelligent observer of human affairs.






Robertson's Charles V, vol. iii, p. 225.














P R I N T E D F O R J A M E S R I D G W A Y , P I C C A D I L L Y.


1815.






C. WOOD, Printer,


Poppin's Court, Fleet Street.













TO


T H E R I G H T H O N O U R A B L E
G E O R G E C A N N I N G , M. P. — PREFACE. — NEW CONSPIRACY — A G A I N S T T H E J E S U I T S , — INTRODUCTION. — CHAPTER I. — CHAPTER II. — CHAPTER III. — CHAPTER IV. — L E T T E R S
HIS MAJESTY'S AMBASSADOR EXTRAORDINARY TO


THE COURT OF PORTUGAL, &c. &c.






SIR;






Your absence from this country, and the observation of the historian,
  which I have adopted as a motto, will plead my excuse for dedicating this
  volume to you, without a previous intimation of my wish for that honour
  to my work and to myself. "The causes of the ruin of the
  society of Jesuits, with its circumstances and effects, are worthy of
  your attention." I have bestowed a considerable degree of labour in
  making myself acquainted with them, and, having been induced to throw the
  result of my inquiries into the form of a book, I know not to whom I can
  better present it than to a man, who, among the services which he has
  been active in rendering to his country, in her legislation and letters,
  has been the liberal advocate of the catholic body in general, and who, I
  am confident, will be pleased to see any society, or any individual,
  rescued from opprobrium, which time and colouring may have fixed on
  character. You are on the spot, Sir, where the Jesuits were persecuted
  with the greatest virulence; a circumstance, to my apprehension, not
  the most favourable to the investigation of truth, as it may well be
  imagined, that the prejudices, which were raised by the unprincipled and
  unrelenting minister of Joseph I, of Portugal, have too strongly
  enveloped it to be easily removed: but there are minds gifted with a
  discernment approaching to intuition, and, if any man can unweave the
  web, which has been spun around this unfortunate society, to your
  penetration may it be trusted. I have examined the subject with sincerity
  and disinterestedness, and, from conviction, I feel such interest in the
  establishment of the facts which I have stated, and the conclusions which
  I have drawn, that I dare hope that what I here offer to your
  consideration will one day be corroborated by testimony and talents, that shall remove all the doubt
  which the feebleness of my pen may leave upon it.






I have the honour to be,






Sir,






Your most obedient and






humble Servant,






R. C. DALLAS.






September 4, 1815.










Having formerly occupied my thoughts on the subject of promoting the
  knowledge and practice of religion among the Negroes in the West Indies,
  I was naturally led to inquire into the means, which had been
  successfully adopted in the catholic islands. I traced them to the
  enthusiastic labours of the clergy in general, particularly the Jesuits.
  The conduct of the fathers of that society in South America, not only
  excited in me admiration, but the highest esteem, veneration, and
  affection, for that enlightened and persevering body in the Christian
  cause, who had spread over the immense regions of that continent more
  virtue and real temporal happiness than were enjoyed by any other quarter
  of the globe, as well as a well founded hope of eternal felicity, by the
  redemption of mankind through Christ. This undeniable merit made such an
  impression on my mind, that I never gave credit to the horrors, which
  have been attributed to the society.


Among the objects of my attention, during a late residence in France,
  the restoration of the order became an interesting one, affording me some
  pleasing conversations, and inducing me to search into authorities
  respecting the actions and character of men, whom I had learned to
  venerate and to love, the result of which was a confirmation of my early
  predilection. On my return from the continent a short time since, I met
  with a pamphlet lately published, entitled "A Brief Account
  of the Jesuits," the ostensible object of which is to render the order
  odious, but the real one is seen to be an attempt to attach odium upon
  catholics in general, in the present crisis of the catholic question. I
  learned, from a literary friend, that this pamphlet had originally
  appeared as Letters in a newspaper, and that they had been answered in
  the same way, but that the answers had not been republished. These I
  obtained and perused. I received much satisfaction from them, and thought
  them worthy of being preserved. They did not, however, appear to me
  sufficiently full upon the subject, and I therefore resolved to publish
  them in the form of a pamphlet, with a preliminary statement. I
  consequently renewed my inquiries, and the more I inquire the more am I
  satisfied, that my veneration for this body of Christian instructors is
  not misplaced. 


It is perfectly evident to me, that there was an unjust conspiracy,
  which originated in France, to destroy the Jesuits; and that it
  terminated successfully about the middle of the last century. It is not
  an easy task to unfold to its full extent the injustice and various
  iniquities of it, since even respectable historians have been led away by
  the imposing appearance, which the then undetected and half-unconscious
  ingenious agents of jacobinism had, by every expedient of invention, of
  colouring, and of wit, given to the hue and cry raised by those bitter
  enemies of the order, the university and parliaments of France, and by
  some ministers of other governments, particularly by the marquis de
  Pombal, the minister of the king of Portugal. It is not my intention to
  undertake so laborious a task, but I trust, that the following exposition
  will unfold sufficient of the injustice, which has been so
  unfeelingly and indefatigably heaped upon the Jesuits, to convince every
  unprejudiced man, that the suppression of the order has been injurious to
  society, and that the revival of it, far from being dangerous, must be
  beneficial. I am not afraid, that this expression of my sentiment will
  draw upon me any suspicion of disaffection to the state, or the
  established church; my sentiments are well known to my friends, and have
  been more than once publicly professed. The benefit, which I think will
  arise from the restoration of the society, will consist more particularly
  in the active and zealous cultivation of Christian virtues, and a spirit
  of LOYALTY among the catholics of all
  countries, whether protestant or catholic; and, unless we mean to say,
  with some of the furious reformers, that the religion of the catholics is
  to be extirpated altogether, it is absurd to
  say, that they shall not have their best and most active instructors.


When this volume had nearly gone through the press, in the course of
  reading I met with the following curious passage, extracted from a Letter
  to a Noble Lord by a Country Gentleman, entitled "Considerations on the
  Penal Laws," &c. published by the Dodsleys, of Pall-Mall, so long ago
  as 1764, about two years after the suppression of the Jesuits in France,
  and eleven previous to their total suppression by Clement XIV; I insert
  it, as I think it will not be unacceptable to the reader:—"The
  rising generation are now forming their principles on the writings of
  Voltaire, Rousseau, D'Argens, and the philosopher of Sans-Souci; to whom
  may be added a long catalogue of authors of our own country. In France grave magistrates already celebrate and
THE FIRST COURTS OF JUDICATURE echo with the
  praises of Julian and Diocletian; calculations are made, and the
  period is pretended to be fixed, when Christianity is to be no more. The
  powerful weapon of ridicule is employed not against popery alone, but to
  render contemptible the whole Jewish and Christian revelation." The
  grave magistrates, and first courts of judicature, are no
  other than the French parliaments, who, we are informed by a
  member of the lower house, were "ever ready to support the national
  independence[1]:" we see by
  what steps, and we have felt with what success.


In the following pages, I have shown, that those courts of
  judicature (which, far from being the immediate organs of the
  monarchs of France, as the same member asserts, were, for the greater
  part of the last century, in constant opposition to them, and the organs
  of rebellion) had conspired to effect the destruction of the Jesuits;
  and, I suspect, that "the mass of information," which supplies the proofs
  of the nascent revolutionary spirit, and which is to be met with in the
  histories of all Europe, are documents resulting from the piques and
  resentments of Pombal and other arbitrary ministers, who chose to take
  the consciences of their princes under their own care. These documents,
  afforded indeed by a most respected character, are nevertheless open to
  all the objections that arise from the principles and history of the
  intrigues of the ordinances alluded to. There is however some decency in
  recurring to ordinances to found charges upon; the
  enemies of the Jesuits were not always so nice, as the following extract
  from one of their calumniators will show:—"When the Jesuits
  revolutionized Portugal, in 1667, and placed on the throne the infant don
  Pedro, sir Robert Southwell was there, as our ambassador from Charles II.
  His very curious correspondence with the duke of Ormond and lord
  Arlington is extant, and is a precious fragment of a great political
  event. The silent intrigues of the Jesuits do not seem to have been known
  to sir Robert; but, according to the Recueil Chronologique,
  published by the court of Portugal, it is evident
  they were the principal actors, who, having overturned the monarchy,
  afterwards suppressed the democracy, and then, substituting an apparent
  aristocracy, reigned for some time over Portugal, concealed under that
  cloak." This is a fine specimen of the
  warfare carried on against the society. The ambassador's ignorance of the
  intrigues of the Jesuits is not brought forward as a proof of their
  innocence, but as a reason why we should believe Pombal. As to the
  revolutionizing Portugal, and placing don Pedro on the throne, the
  ambassador could have been no stranger to the real causes of don Pedro's
  being proclaimed regent during the life of his brother Alonzo, from the
  incapacity of the latter, and the intrigues, first of his mother, and
  afterwards of his wife, the princess of Nemours.


I would here leave the reader, with this fact fresh on his mind, to
  enter upon the book before him, but that I wish to detain him a moment
  longer to request him to carry also along with him the asseveration of
  the author, that he is entirely unconnected with the individuals of the
  body, whose character it is the object of this volume to place in a just
  point of view. Though familiar with accounts of the society, I am
  unacquainted with a single individual of it. The interest I feel is that
  which has been inspired by their virtues, and by the injustice and
  cruelty of their enemies, which I have ascertained to my complete
  conviction.









C O N T E N T S.




  PAGE


 INTRODUCTION  1


 CHAPTER I.


 Remarks on the Objects of the Author of
"A brief Account of the Jesuits," and
on his mode of conducting his Argument  5


 CHAPTER II.


 Inquiry into the Character of the Authorities
against the Jesuits, and of
those in favour of them; with a notice
of some of the Crimes imputed to
them  23


 CHAPTER III.


 Of the Order of the Jesuits, with the
prominent features of the Institute  173




CHAPTER IV.


 Character of Pombal. Summary Observations,
and a brief notice of the tendency
and danger of Education independent
of Religion  229


 


 THE LETTERS OF CLERICUS  261


 


 APPENDIX.


 The Bull of Clement XIII  335


 The Judgment of the Bishops of France
in favour of the Jesuits  346









ERRATUM, or Omission, Page 81.


At the end of Henry IV's speech, add a reference to Dupleix, the same
  historian referred to in page 72. The speech is
  also to be found in the Memoirs of the Minister Villeroi, the confidant
  of Henry IV, in the Pleadings of Montholon, in the French Mercury of
  1604, and in Matthieu, Henry IV's historiographer, whom that prince
  himself furnished with memoirs for his history. De Thou himself reports
  it, but in a mangled way, and professedly as an extract, yet
  clearly enough to corroborate the substance of it.









THE




&c. &c.



If there were a question whether there should be a change in the
  religion of the state, or whether the sceptre of Great Britain were
  better placed in the hand of a protestant or a catholic prince, my voice,
  slender as it is, should eagerly profess my attachment to the monarchy,
  and to the church of England. But no such question exists, or is likely
  to exist, in the contemplation of British subjects, of any persuasion or
  denomination whatever. It is with this conviction on my mind, that I have
  resolved to publish the result of my inquiries respecting the Jesuits,
  and to show, that they do not merit the virulent slanders with which they
  have been attacked, or the treatment, horrid and inhuman, which they were
  made to suffer. A violent pamphlet, entitled "A brief Account of the
  Jesuits," lately republished from a newspaper, shall serve to direct me
  over the mass of abuse, which I purpose to clear away in such a manner as
  to enable the reader to proceed, without prejudice, to the perusal of the
  following Letters, to which partiality might otherwise be attributed.
  They are replies to some of the charges of the writer of the pamphlet,
  and they also appeared in a newspaper, with the signature of
  Clericus, the assailant having assumed that of Laicus,
  which I mention, as it may be convenient for me to use these names
  occasionally.


I purpose, 1st, to make some remarks on the objects of the author of
  the pamphlet, in his attack upon the Jesuits, and on his mode of conducting his
  argument: 2dly, to examine the character of the authorities against the
  Jesuits, called by the writer historical evidences; and of those in
  favour of them; and to notice some of the charges against the society:
  3dly, to give a brief account of the order, and of the fundamental
  character of it, with the prominent features of the Institute of Loyola,
  contrasted with the libellous Monita Secreta: and, 4thly, to
  conclude with observations arising out of the preceding subjects, and on
  the necessity of making religion the basis of education.












Remarks on the Objects of the Author of "A brief Account of the
  Jesuits," and on his mode of conducting his Argument.




The professed objects of the author of a pamphlet, entitled "A brief
  Account of the Jesuits," as stated in a preface, are "to examine the
  propriety of extending papal patronage and protestant protection to the
  Jesuits, and, as stated in page 2 of the pamphlet, to show, that the
  revival of the order is so pregnant with danger as to call for the
  interference of parliament." The plan he pursues to effect these objects
  is, to give a summary of the history of the order, to furnish some
  historical evidences in support of its correctness, and to argue
  from these for the affirmative of his proposition. The plan is well
  enough laid; but the author has executed it in such a manner as to make it
  evident, that he was not in search of truth, that he deceives himself if
  he thinks he was, that he is only a violent and abusive disputant, that
  he is an enemy to the catholics in general, and that, the question on
  their claims being exhausted, he renovates the combat by attacking them
  through the sides of the Jesuits. When an advocate handles a cause, which
  it is his duty to gain for his client, we know, that he brings
  forward every fact, and urges every argument, that tends to support the
  positions on which his cause hinges, sedulously masking every
  circumstance that contravenes his statement, and avoiding every
  suggestion that weakens his reasoning upon it. But the man, who is in
  pursuit of truth, of whatever nature it be, looks at his object on all
  sides; he handles it, not to make of it what he wishes, but to determine
  what it is; he analyses, he re-composes; he takes the good and the bad as
  he finds them, and truth results from his investigation. Let us see which
  of these two characters belongs to the writer of the pamphlet. Every word
  of his "Historical Summary" is intended to place the
  Jesuits in an odious point of view; nor is a single sentence admitted
  into it by which one could be led to imagine, that any thing good had
  ever originated from them, or that they were not universally demons in
  the shape of men. The writer goes in search of matter to compile his
  Summary, and he finds an account of the Jesuits composed on the authority
  of various publications, which have appeared at different times. In a
  part of this narrative, he finds all that has been said to blacken the
  order, and, also, a genuine passage of their history, which no man of any
  feeling can read without enthusiastic admiration; now, would the writer,
  who was in search of truth, have selected only that which was calculated
  to produce condemnation, without giving his reader an opportunity of
  comparing facts and drawing his own inferences? Yet this is really the
  case with this enemy of the catholic cause, whose Summary is verbatim
  extracted from Robertson's Charles V, as far as it answered the purpose
  of his
  attack. Who, after reading the part selected, would suspect, if he did
  not know it before, that the following paragraph, from the same elegant
  pen, closed the character of the Jesuits, and must have confounded the
  eye of their assailant, since it failed to wring a tribute of praise from
  his heart?—"But as I have pointed out the dangerous tendency of the
  constitution and spirit of the order with the freedom becoming an
  historian, the candour and impartiality no less requisite in that
  character call on me to add one observation: That no class of regular
  clergy in the Romish church has been more eminent for decency, and even
  purity of manners, than the major part of the order of Jesuits. The
  maxims of an intriguing, ambitious, interested policy, might
  influence those, who governed the society, and might even corrupt the
  heart, and pervert the conduct of some individuals, while the
  greater number, engaged in literary pursuits, or employed in the
  functions of religion, was left to the guidance of those common
  principles, which restrain men from vice, and excite them to
  what is becoming and laudable[2]."




The author, in a note, acknowledges, that his Summary does not
  wholly lay claim to originality. It is, in fact, all
  copied: why then did he not cite his authority? and, when he was copying,
  why did he omit to copy the passages that stared him in the face? Clearly
  from an attorney-like motive, because it would have injured his cause,
  and would have prepossessed his reader with an idea, that, whether the
  charges against some of the rulers of the order were well-founded or not,
  the generality of the Jesuits were estimable men, devoting themselves to
  the good of mankind, and who had spread over the earth a very
  considerable share of human happiness: clearly because he foresaw, that
  his reader would argue with himself, that if, in despotic times, only a
  few busied themselves with political affairs, while the body at large
  were good men, engaged in zealously promoting the welfare, both temporal
  and eternal, of their fellow-creatures, it would be unnatural to suppose,
  that, in the present enlightened times, the many would become corrupt, or
  even the few engage again in intrigues dangerous to society; and that he
  would conclude, that the labour of the
  author resolved itself into a new attempt against tolerating the catholic
  religion; while in favour of toleration he would find, in addition to the
  suggestions of his reason, his memory supplied with innumerable,
  irrefragable arguments, which for years past have resounded throughout
  the empire, in the houses of parliament as well as in the remotest
  villages, enforced by princes of the realm with all the energy of
  learning and of eloquence, as well as by individuals of every class of
  men, in speeches, and in writings, in books, pamphlets, and the columns
  of such newspapers as are open to liberal discussion[3].




The writer of the pamphlet, not satisfied with omitting whatever might
  tend to defeat his object, industriously rakes out the most atrocious
  imputations from the avowed enemies of the Jesuits, and classes their
  authorities with genuine history, taking them for granted, never
  examining the hands through which they passed, happy in having one and
  only one great name on his side, that of the celebrated and very
  extraordinary genius, Pascal. When the Provincial Letters were alluded
  to, as attacking a supposed lax system of morals, did not truth require
  that they should be stated to have been the satirical effusions of a
  writer, who had espoused the cause of the Jansenists, the violent
  opposers of the Jesuits; and that the ridicule which they contained had
  been declared by another great wit, who was no enemy to ridicule, nor
  friend to religion (Voltaire), to be completely misapplied. A lover of
  truth, when balancing opinions as proofs, would not have
  failed to quote from him the following passage: "It is true, indeed, that
  the whole book (the Provincial Letters) was built upon a false
  foundation; for the extravagant notions of a few Spanish and Flemish
  Jesuits were artfully ascribed to the whole society. Many
  absurdities might likewise have been discovered among the Dominican and
  Franciscan casuists, but this would not have answered the purpose,
  for the whole raillery was to be levelled only at the Jesuits. These
  letters were intended to prove, that the Jesuits had formed a design to
  corrupt mankind; a design which no sect of society ever had, or can
  have."


With such enemies as the Jansenists, will it be thought extraordinary,
  that a thousand fabrications of those days blackening the Jesuits may be
  referred to? With such enemies as in later times appeared against them,
  in the host of new philosophers and jacobins, is it wonderful that there
  should be modern forgeries? One such suffrage, as that which I have
  quoted from Robertson, is of itself sufficient to outweigh folios of
  charges originating in the jealous passions of a rival sect, in the
  effusions of a mad mistaken philosophy, or in magisterial persecution,
  which, to use the vigorous language of a living genius, in "the
  destruction of the Jesuits, that memorable instance of puerile
  oppression, of jealousy, ambition, injustice, and barbarity, for these
  all concurred in the act, gave to public education a wound, which a whole
  century perhaps will not be able to heal. It freed the phalanx of
  materialists from a body of opponents, which still made them tremble. It
  remotely encouraged the formation of sanguinary clubs, by causing the
  withdrawing of all religious and prudent congregations, in which the
  savage populace of the Faubourg St. Antoine were tamed by the disciples
  of an Ignatius and a Xavier. Such men as Porée and La Rue, Vaniere and
  Jouvenci, in the academic chairs; Bourdaloue, Cheminais, Neuville,
  L'Enfant, in the pulpit; Segaud, Duplessis, and Beauregard[4], in the processions of the
  cross, in the public streets and ways, were, perhaps, alike necessary to
  secure tranquillity in this world and happiness in the next[5]."


In assisting my memory, I have been led to compare the writer's
  extracts from Robertson with the pages of the historian himself, and I
  have found him, not only occasionally disfiguring the style on points of
  little moment, by turning the words, but giving to the author's words a
  sense which they were not intended to bear, by means of Italic types and
  additions. For instance: the historian says, "As it was the professed
  intention of the order of Jesuits to labour with unwearied zeal in
  promoting the salvation of men, this engaged them, of course, in many
  active functions." On reading Robertson's work, would any one imagine,
  that the author meant to insinuate, that the intention was insincere, and
  a mere cloak to political vices? Is it not clear from all he writes, as
  well as from this passage taken singly, that he gave the Jesuits credit
  for their sincerity in devoting themselves to the salvation of men? Yet
  has the writer of the pamphlet, by causing the word professed to
  be printed in Italics, called upon his reader to take his sense of
  Robertson's words, and to believe, that the word professed implies
  deceit, instead of the open and declared intention of the
  Jesuits. Not content with this low falsifying of Robertson's ideas by
  Italic implication, he practises the same trick by an Italic addition of
  some lines of his own to the text of the historian, as follows: "their
  great and leading maxim having uniformly been, to do evil that good might
  come." Can any thing be more reprehensible? 


I will adduce one instance more of the disingenuousness of this
  writer. Speaking, exclusively, of the Jesuits, he charges
  them with "rendering Christianity utterly odious in the vast
  empire of Japan[6]," and with
  "enormities in China Proper." To have implicated other priests would not,
  as Voltaire observed, answer the purpose: the Jesuits, as before, must be
  isolated to be recrushed. Now, in this, as in the other accusations, we
  shall find the anti-catholic writers including other orders. Let us see
  what one of these writers says upon this occasion: after speaking of the
  pride, avarice, and folly of the clergy, he tells us of an execution of
  twenty-six persons, "in the number whereof were two foreign
  Jesuits, and several other fathers of the Franciscan order."
  And a little after, the same writer says, "some Franciscan friars
  were guilty at this time of a most imprudent step: they, during the whole
  of their abode in the country, preached openly in the streets of Macao,
  where they resided; and of their own accord built a church, contrary to
  the imperial commands, and contrary to the advice and earnest
  solicitations of the Jesuits[7]." The authority of the Encyclopedia
  Britannica will not be objected to by the enemies of the catholics; nor,
  I presume, will that of Montesquieu, who gives a very different reason
  for the Christian religion being so odious in Japan: "We have already,"
  says he, "mentioned the perverse temper of the people of Japan. The
  magistrates considered the firmness which Christianity inspires, when
  they attempted to make the people renounce their faith, as in itself most
  dangerous: they fancied that it increased their obstinacy. The law of
  Japan punishes severely the least disobedience. They ordered them to
  renounce the Christian religion: they did not renounce it; this was
  disobedience: they punished this crime; and the continuance in
  disobedience seemed to deserve another punishment[8]." As to the enormities in China, we shall
  find, upon inquiry, that the Jesuits were not more responsible for those.
  The following is an extract from a geographical account of China: "P.
  Michael Rogu, a Neapolitan Jesuit, first opened the mission in China, and
  led the way in which those of his order that followed him have acquired
  so much reputation. He was succeeded by P. Ricci, of the same society,
  who continued the work with such success, that he is considered by the
  Jesuits as the principal founder of this mission. He was a man of very
  extraordinary talents. He had the art of rendering himself agreeable to every
  body, and by that means acquired the public esteem. He had many
  followers. At length, in 1630, the Dominicans and Franciscans took the
  field, though but as gleaners of the harvest after the Jesuits; and now
  it was that contentions broke out." This is not the place to enter
  particularly into the charges brought against the order; all I here mean
  to show is, with what want of candour the Jesuits are reviled; and I
  think, after what has been stated, it cannot be doubted, that the chief
  object of the writer of the pamphlet is to excite a ferment against the
  catholic claims, nor that his mode of conducting his proposed inquiry is
  that of a violent partizan, and not that of a genuine philosopher in
  search of truth. Indeed, he almost assures us of it himself at the
  conclusion of his preface, where he says: "It may, perhaps, appear from
  the inquiry (that is, the attack), that the crimes of the
  order are fundamental, and not accidental." In omitting, therefore, to
  cite documents, which show that they are not fundamental, does he not
  admit, does he not plainly say, I have a point
  to gain, in which candour has no part; and, quocumque modo, it
  must be gained? Such is the case, and I must allow him great
  perseverance in collecting titles of volumes long since forgotten; but to
  the lovers of truth, to the nation at large, and to the parliament in
  particular, or at least as far as my unpractised voice can be heard, I
  exclaim, hunc cavete, et similes ei.












Inquiry into the Character of the Authorities against the Jesuits,
  and of those in favour of them; with a notice of some of the Crimes
  imputed to them.




Having seen how little credit is due to the spirit of the pamphlet
  before us, let us inquire what credit is due to the authorities produced
  against the Jesuits, and take a view of those in favour of them; and
  afterwards briefly notice some of the crimes imputed to them.


In stating the results of my inquiry respecting the authorities, it
  may save some trouble to begin with those on which Robertson founded his
  account of the order. I am persuaded that, had he written at the present
  era, his authorities would have been sought in very
  different sources, and his whole account of the order of Jesus would have
  been very different to what it is. Far from impeaching that elegant
  writer with wilful misrepresentations, or want of caution in selecting
  those authorities, I readily give him credit for seeking the best he
  could obtain when he wrote; and the more, from his taking some pains, in
  a note[9], to inform his
  readers, that he believes his two principal authorities, Monclar and
  Chalotais, to be respectable magistrates and elegant writers. But I
  maintain, that, if he had seen them in the point of view in which they
  have since appeared, as leaders on of the jacobinical philosophy, and of
  the French revolution, it is not likely that he would have honoured their
  fabrications with the weight of historical testimony: that their
  Comptes Rendus were fabrications we shall presently see. Let us
  first view the list; viz. Monclar, Chalotais, D'Alembert, Histoire
  des Jesuites, the French Encyclopedie, Charlevoix, Juan, and Ulloa. As the
  three last names are authorities in favour of the Jesuits, I shall not
  notice them at present. D'Alembert and the Encyclopedie may go together,
  for he and Diderot, who wrote the article Jesuite in that work,
  were the chief directors of it. To men, who have recovered from the stun
  of jacobinism, it is hardly necessary to say, that the destruction of the
  Jesuits was of the first importance to the success of D'Alembert and
  Diderot's philosophical reform of human nature. The article written by
  the latter was completely refuted by a French Jesuit named Courtois, but
  only the writers against the order were read or cited. When the Jesuits
  first appeared in France, the parliament hated them as friends of the
  pope; the university as rival teachers. These two bodies combined to
  exterminate them. The university was perpetually bringing actions against
  them before the parliaments, but they found protection from the throne
  and the ministry. The university was exasperated at the desertion of
  their scholars, who flocked to the Jesuit schools, and at the loss of
  their emoluments called landi, paid by students to the professors:
  the Jesuits taught gratuitously, and the high reputation of the
  celebrated Maldonado enraged the doctors beyond measure. The parliaments
  and the doctors were the chief fomenters of the league; and they were
  seconded by all the religious orders, the Jesuits excepted. The
  parliament, headed by Harlay, made flaming harangues and arrets: the
  doctors of the university and friars exhibited fanatical processions and
  sermons; they pronounced Henry III and Henry IV excommunicated tyrants;
  they canonized Jacques Clement; they rewarded his mother and family; they
  openly preached regicide. Their rage equalled that of the modern
  jacobins. They all, of course, detested the Jesuits, who, we may believe,
  were also obnoxious to the Hugonot party. When the league was expiring,
  by the conversion of Henry IV, the parliaments and university,
  constrained to abjure it, were nevertheless determined upon effecting the
  banishment of the Jesuits before the king could enter on his government. The
  doctors renewed their suits, and employed as advocates Arnaud, Pasquier,
  and Dollé, who went into the courts with certainty of success. Completely
  successful they would have been, but for the wisdom of the minister, the
  duke de Sully, who, though a leader of the Hugonots, and consequently not
  biassed in favour of the Jesuits, indeed evidently their enemy, was too
  nobly minded to give an advantage to their assailants, which his master
  would not have done. He stopped the proceedings, by interposing the
  authority of the absent king, "which," said he, "is not to be compromised
  pour une pique de pretres et de theologiens[10]." The prosecutors and the judges,
  disconcerted for the time, resolved to lose no opportunity to effect
  their object, and they soon found one in the crime of Chatel, in which
  they triumphed without a shadow of proof. Not a Jesuit was ever proved to
  have entered into the league: no writer accuses them of it, the advocates
  just mentioned excepted; and their
  invectives, amassed in Les Extraits des Assertions, are the sole
  foundation of all that is said by Monclar, Chalotais, and the other
  authors of the Comptes Rendus.


It was necessary to enter into this detail to enable the reader to
  trace the foul sources of the chief authorities on which Robertson
  relied: but what shall we think of them, in spite of that historian's
  compliment to the elegance of their pens, when we hear, that these
  procureurs were but the nominal authors of their respective
  Comptes Rendus, the mean instruments of the ingenious atheists,
  who were preparing France for the age of reason, the liberty of
  jacobinism, and the murders of philosophy? That presented by Chalotais
  was written by D'Alembert himself; that of Riquet, procureur general of
  the parliament of Thoulouse, was composed by Comtezat, a notoriously
  debauched priest; that of Monclar, of Aix, was sent to him from Paris,
  with a promise of being the next chancellor of France, if he would adopt
  it, and engage his parliament in the cause. The
  venerable president of that parliament, D'Eguilles, refusing to concur in
  the measure, was, through his means, banished, and his adherents with
  him, by a lettre de cachet. Monclar died repentant, and retracted
  all that he had said in presence of the bishop of Apt, who made a minute
  of the fact. As for Chalotais; would the historian have cited him had he
  seen the following character of that lawyer, drawn by a pen not inferior
  to his own, distinguished by various works of genius, and which was
  employed on one of the most interesting portions of English history, when
  his sovereign, having occasion for his talents in a trying crisis of his
  affairs, called him to his councils?[11] "The procureur general of Bretagne, La
  Chalotais, eager to possess popularity, in order that he might arrive at
  power, enthusiastic in his friendships, violent in
  his hatred, both of which were to him concerns of interest rather than of
  sentiment; blending with these private principles the formidable powers
  of his public ministry, being the oracle of a parliament, which,
  consisting of the first nobility of the country, always acted in concert
  with, and never in opposition to the States; this man had it in his power
  to arm his ambition or his vengeance with the sword of justice; he could
  give a legal sanction to tumult, and make trifles appear of serious
  importance; he could convert the most vapid declamation into the gravest
  denunciation, and, in a word, could assist the party, that he chose to
  espouse, with the whole artillery of decrees and arrets,
  which may be regarded as the ultima ratio of the parliament, on
  the same principle, that cannon are the ultima ratio of kings. The
  instant that such a man took part in the dispute, it might well be
  expected, that the whole province would be immediately thrown into
  universal confusion. In the year 1764, the duke D'Aiguillon, commandant of
  Bretagne, a peer of France, grand nephew of cardinal Richelieu, nephew of
  the then minister, lastly a friend of the Jesuits, and in great favour
  with the dauphin, was denounced in the parliament of Bretagne, by the
  procureur general on his arrival in Paris. This man, who was the violent
  enemy of that society, was also the devoted agent of the king's mistress,
  and of the prime minister, who were leagued together to bring about the
  destruction of the Order."


So much for the reliance to be placed on La Chalotais. There remains
  another authority of Robertson's to be noticed, viz. "The History
  of the Jesuits." He does not mention the name of the author of it, but no
  doubt it was Coudrette's, as he would otherwise have felt it incumbent
  upon him to make some distinction. This man was a decided partizan of the
  French parliaments, and well known to be an inveterate enemy of the
  Jesuits. As his character is well drawn in the following Letters[12], I shall say nothing more
  of him here, than that his work evidently appears unworthy of being
  referred to as an authority.


From what has been already said, and from the neglect shown by
  Robertson to the multitude of other writers adopted as authorities in the
  pamphlet before me, it is but too evident that there long existed a
  conspiracy against a society, whose principles and energy awed infidelity
  and rebellion, and whose superior talents excited jealousy and hatred.
  Let us, however, see what kind of men they are to whom the new accuser of
  the society refers us for proofs of their being such demons as he has
  represented them. We will afterwards take a view of those, who think and
  write differently, and we shall be able to determine on which side
  authority lies.


I will not pretend to go numerically through the catalogue presented
  in the pamphlet. Publications infinitely multiplied deluged
  Europe for the purpose of overwhelming the Jesuits; an infinity of
  references, therefore, if not of authorities, remains at the service of
  their enemies, and it would be useless and tiresome, if not impossible,
  to wade through them. I shall principally notice those on which the
  conspirator before me places his bitterest reliance, such as are most
  inveterate, most profuse and blackening in their accusations; touching
  slightly, however, or not at all, on those sufficiently refuted in the
  succeeding Letters. To refute all that was printed against the devoted
  society of Jesus would require a complete history of the destruction of
  the Order[13], but within the
  limits of this brief exposition it is not possible to go very deep into
  the scrutiny of the malice, and of the means resorted to for the purpose
  of effecting it. To remove some of the thick, poisonous weeds, which
  mantle the surface of the subject, so as to show the body clear beneath, is
  the extent of my present undertaking; and, if I appear concise, one
  consideration is in my favour, namely, that imputations advanced by a
  thousand different writers are not multiplied but repeated,
  and that reverberations of falsehood are still falsehood. We have already
  seen, that even the powers and ingenuousness of a Robertson have been
  unable to extract from them the voice of truth.


France has produced the greatest number of writers against the
  society. The speeches and publications of those in the times of the
  league, as I have said, furnished the original matter to the authors of
  the Comptes Rendus; the theme of regicide, the tales of the
  Jesuits Varade, Gueret, Guignard, the whole guilt of the league, &c.,
  to which more recent matter, particularly lax doctrines of morality, has
  been added. This is all collected in the Extraits des Assertions,
  a work evidently replete with studied fabrications, as is shown by
  Beaumont, archbishop of Paris, Montesquiou, bishop of Sarlat, and in the
  Reponse aux Assertions. I believe,
  that this Reponse and the Apologie de l'Institut are the
  only works written in defence of the society, which the Jesuits publicly
  avowed. These are unanswerable, and should be referred to by
  historians.


The characters of Prynne and De Thou are drawn in the following
  Letters[14]. De Thou was a
  parliamentarian. Of Prynne I shall farther observe, that, besides his
  notoriety as a factious agent, lord Clarendon informs us, that he had
  been looked upon as a man of reproachful character previous to the
  infamous severities of the star chamber, which was the means of his
  obtaining consideration, for those of his profession, and others,
  thought, that persons, in his situation of life, should not be treated so
  ignominiously[15]. His
  character may be viewed in Hume's History[16]; and here let me observe, that it was not
  only the catholics he attacked, but the manners of the times and the
  church; for which he was punished. Prynne was a thorough-paced puritan:
  through him and others of the same stamp the existing house of commons
  were glad to debase the government, and they absolutely reversed the
  sentence, which had been passed on him and other libellers. "The more
  ignoble these men were," says Hume, "the more sensible was the insult
  upon royal authority[17]."
  What writer, valuing his own respectability, would cite such a creature
  as this? One of a sect, who, the writer of the pamphlet himself tells us,
  were united with the Jesuits, to whom their pulpits were open, for the
  purpose of overawing the parliament, and compelling it to destroy the
  king. This too is cited from Prynne, to whom he refers for much
  valuable evidence.


The pamphlet says, "see Rapin." The name has something less barbarous
  in the sound than most of the others cited by the writer. Let
  us see Rapin. We find, in the pages of this historian, the names of
  Jesuit and catholic indiscriminately used, as accused of plots, suffering
  the rack, and confuting the accusations brought against them by the most
  persuasive simplicity of their protestations of innocence, and the
  intrepidity of their deaths. The pretended plots, in the days of
  Elizabeth and of the Stuarts, cited by a writer in 1815, against the
  toleration of the catholics[18]! Well, but see the state trials,
  the actio in proditores, drawn up by our own judges, &c.[19] "Nothing," says Hume, "can be
  a stronger proof of the fury of the times, than that lord Russel,
  notwithstanding the virtue and humanity of his character,
  seconded the house of commons in the barbarous scruple of the sheriffs"
  on the power of the king to remit the hanging and quartering of lord
  Stafford, that innocent victim to his pure attachment to God. Afterwards,
  when lord Russel was himself condemned, the king, in remitting the same
  part of the sentence for treason, said, "he shall find, that I am
  possessed of that prerogative, which, in the case of lord Stafford, he
  thought proper to deny me."


I cannot here refrain from contrasting the intelligence, the spirit,
  and the wisdom of that great and distinguished statesman, Charles James
  Fox, with the tame and adoptive, though virulent, disposition of a
  writer, who, in another part of his pamphlet, has dared to warn every man
  from speaking in favour of the catholic priests of Ireland, lest he
  should be provoked to overwhelm the whole body with damning
  proofs—proofs charitably kept in petto, by this insinuator
  of more than he chooses to say. Speaking of one of the imaginary popish
  plots, Mr. Fox expresses himself thus: "Wherefore, if this question were
  to be decided upon the ground of authority, the reality of the plot would be
  admitted; but there are cases, where reason speaks so plainly, as to make
  all argument drawn from authority of no avail, and this is surely one of
  them." And, a few pages after, we have the following striking passage:
  "Even after the dissolution of his last parliament, when he had so far
  subdued his enemies as to be no longer under any apprehensions from them,
  the king did not think it worth while to save the life of Plunket, the
  popish archbishop of Armagh, of whose innocence no doubt could be
  entertained. But this is not to be wondered at, since, in all
  transactions relative to the popish plot, minds, of a very different cast
  from Charles's, became, as by some fatality, divested of all their wonted
  sentiments of justice and humanity. Who can read, without horror, the
  account of that savage murmur of applause, which broke out upon one of
  the villains at the bar swearing positively to Stafford's having proposed
  the murder of the king? And how is this horror deepened when we reflect,
  that in that odious cry were, probably, mingled the voices of men
  to whose memory every lover of the English constitution is bound to pay
  the tribute of gratitude and respect! Even after condemnation, lord
  Russel himself, whose character is wholly (this instance excepted) free
  from the stain of rancour or cruelty, stickled for the severer mode of
  executing the sentence, in a manner which his fear for the king's
  establishing a precedent of pardoning in cases of impeachment (for this,
  no doubt, was his motive) cannot satisfactorily excuse[20]." Now what does the writer of the
  pamphlet before me say? "It is fashionable, with many reasoners, to treat
  all history as a fable, and to set up for themselves in matters of
  policy, in defiance of the testimony of antiquity. These persons would
  assign the same office to the records of past ages, as they would to the
  stern lights of a vessel, which serve only to throw a light over
  the path which has been passed, and not over that which lies before us. I
  trust, however, that there are yet many among us who have not been so
  taught." It is, indeed, but too fashionable to put up fantastic reasoning
  against authority, and particularly against sacred authority; but reason,
  which knows to distinguish the nature of authority; reason, which is bold
  in the affairs of men, and humble in its permitted intercourse with God;
  reason, as Fox and Hume, and all historians worthy the title, convince
  us, steps not out of its province when it interposes to rectify
  misleading records or historical assertions; and in no case is it more
  eminently required than in the history of the order of Jesus, which
  passion, interest, and ability have united to disfigure. What is meant by
  the allusion to stern lights I am at a loss to conjecture. I am
  not much disposed, in a work of this kind, to go into verbal or
  rhetorical criticism; but when a man writes with such pompous and
  despotic decision as this author does, one has a right to expect of him,
  when he amuses himself with figurative language, a clear notion of what
  he aims at. When, therefore, he insinuates that such reasoners as Hume
  and
  Fox are reprehensible for serving records of past ages like stern
  lights of a vessel, instead of like modern moons to carriages (for
  moons evidently ran in the writer's head), we are puzzled between what he
  says and what he means. From his own words we are bound to take it for
  granted that he means to condemn reasoning, and to approve of a
  pertinacious adherence to records, however inconsistent and
  contradictory; whereas, by his intended simile, he blames the reasoners
  for making use of records; for, if stern lights must serve as a simile,
  records are certainly more analogous to them than to carriage moons,
  which are concurrent aids, that show the driver nothing but the way
  before him, and are not of the least use to those travellers who are
  coming after on the same road; stern lights, on the contrary, are
  intimations at sea, from those who go before to those who follow, of the
  track to be pursued. The truth, I believe, is, that the author does not
  know the use of stern lights, and imagines that mariners illuminate aft
  to amuse fishes in the wakes of their ships. Records, no doubt,
  are moral, as ship lanthorns are physical lights to guide; but treachery
  or ignorance, in either, may mislead, in which case the seaman will
  consult his compass and the inquirer his reason[21].




But to return from this digression to Rapin. We learn from him, that
  Elizabeth herself, whom no one will charge with
  over-tenderness, reprobated the cruelties practised upon the catholics.
  "Meanwhile," says he, "the queen sent for the judges of the realm, and
  sharply reproved them for having been too severe in the tortures
  they had made these men suffer[22]." We have only to reflect on this
  passage of Rapin, to appreciate the evidence furnished
  by the state trials of those days, the actio in proditores, and
  the reporters of "Criminels de Lege Majesté," so often cited by the
  enemies of the Jesuits. It was not only in catholic countries, we see,
  that the rack and other modes of torture were made the tests of truth;
  but they have been so long abhorred by Englishmen, that I fondly believed
  that there was not one among us who would allow himself to cite the
  efficacy of them as a proof in any argument. Their inefficacy,
  indeed, may justly be cited in testimony; for what they extort is in all
  probability false, what they fail to extort is in all probability true.
  If this reasoning be sound, how many blameless, how many virtuous men has
  the hand of party in this country consigned to cruel deaths[23]! In addition to what Rapin
  states of Elizabeth, it is not irrelevant to
  add here what Camden reports of her on the same subject: he tells us
  expressly, that she thought most of the priests were innocent, or, which
  is the same thing, that she did not believe them guilty. His words are,
  Plerosque tamen ex misellis his sacerdotibus exitii in patriam
  conflandi conscios fuisse non credidit[24].


Of the fairness of their trials in still later times, those of Charles
  II, we have specimens in Hume's History. Why was not Hume quoted by the
  writer of the pamphlet? We find more of Jesuits in his pages than in
  Rapin's, and something against them too; but Hume, like Robertson, was
  guided by principle on this subject; that is, he stated the
  character of the order from the pictures which he had received of it;
  but, at the same time, he exposed the injustice of the trials in which
  the Jesuits were involved, and the invalidity of the evidence produced
  against them. The whole of his sixty-seventh chapter is, in fact, however
  unintended, a memorial in favour of the Jesuits, and a philippic on their
  enemies. As these pages may fall into the hands of some persons who may
  not have the opportunity or the leisure to read this portion of his
  history, I shall make the following extract, as a testimony of the horrid
  injustice practised in former times; and I am very much mistaken if any
  man of feeling and sound intellect will read it without indignation
  against the Oateses and Bedloes of the present day.—"But even
  during the recess of parliament there was no interruption to the
  prosecution of the catholics accused: the king found himself obliged to
  give way to this popular fury. Whitebread, provincial of the Jesuits,
  Fenwic, Gavan, Turner, and Harcourt, all of them of
  the same order, were first brought to their trial. Besides Oates and
  Bedloe, Dugdale, a new witness, appeared against the prisoners. This man
  had been steward to lord Aston, and, though poor, possessed a character
  somewhat more reputable than the other two; but his account of the
  intended massacres and assassinations was equally monstrous and
  incredible. He even asserted, that two hundred thousand papists in
  England were ready to take up arms. The prisoners proved, by sixteen
  witnesses from St. Omers, students, and most of them young men of family,
  that Oates was in that seminary at the time when he swore that he was in
  London: but, as they were catholics, and disciples of the Jesuits, their
  testimony, both with the judges and jury, was totally disregarded. Even
  the reception, which they met with in court, was full of outrage and
  mockery. One of them saying, that Oates always continued at St. Omers, if
  he could believe his senses; 'you papists,' said the chief
  justice, 'are taught not to believe your senses.' It must be confessed,
  that Oates, in opposition to the students of St. Omers, found means to
  bring evidence of his having been at that time in London: but this
  evidence, though it had, at that time, the appearance of some solidity,
  was afterwards discovered, when Oates himself was tried for perjury, to
  be altogether deceitful. In order farther to discredit that witness, the
  Jesuits proved, by undoubted testimony, that he had perjured himself in
  father Ireland's trial, whom they showed to have been in Staffordshire at
  the very time when Oates swore that he was committing treason in London.
  But all these pleas availed them nothing against the general prejudices.
  They received sentence of death; and were executed, persisting to their
  last breath, in the most solemn, earnest, and deliberate, though
  disregarded, protestations of their innocence[25]."




I must not forget, that I am still producing the authorities quoted
  against the Jesuits. Having been led by these into adducing the
  favourable testimony of Hume, I mean not to dissemble his objections to
  the order: these are, their zeal for proselytism, and their
  cultivation of learning for the nourishment of superstition. The zeal
  for proselytism, in itself, can be no crime; and, if unconnected with the
  treasons, persecutions, and vices, so abundantly charged upon the
  catholics, it is a natural sentiment of the mind. It is indeed that
  propensity, which, so violently condemned in catholics, has been the
  chief propagator of every sect since the reformation to the present
  moment, and not without symptoms of rebellion, and even of king-killing.
  Some instances, to show this, will not be uninteresting here. The heads
  of the reformers, in Scotland, as we are informed by Hume, being
  desirous to propagate their principles, entered privately
  into a bond, or association, and called themselves the congregation
  of the Lord, in contradistinction to the
  established church, which they denominated the congregation of Satan. The
  tenour of the bond was as follows:—"We, perceiving how Satan, in
  his members, the antichrist of our time, does cruelly rage, seeking to
  overthrow and to destroy the gospel of Christ and his congregation,
  ought, according to our bounden duty, to strive, in our master's cause,
  even unto the death, being certain of the victory in him. We do therefore
  promise, before the majesty of God and his congregation, that we, by his
  grace, shall, with all diligence, continually apply our whole power,
  substance, and our very lives, to maintain, set forward, and establish,
  the most blessed word of God and his congregation; and shall labour, by
  all possible means, to have faithful ministers, truly and purely to
  minister Christ's gospel and sacraments to the people: we shall maintain
  them, nourish them, and defend them, the whole congregation of Christ,
  and every member thereof, by our whole power, and at the hazard of our
  lives, against Satan, and all wicked power,
  who may intend tyranny and trouble against the said congregation: unto
  which holy word and congregation we do join ourselves; and we forsake and
  renounce the congregation of Satan, with all the superstitions,
  abomination, and idolatry thereof; and moreover shall declare ourselves
  manifestly enemies thereto, by this faithful promise before God,
  testified to this congregation by our subscriptions.—At Edinburgh,
  the third of December, 1557."—Hume adds; "Had the subscribers of
  this zealous league been content only to demand a toleration of the new
  opinions, however incompatible their pretensions might have been with the
  policy of the church of Rome, they would have had the praise of opposing
  tyrannical laws enacted to support an establishment prejudicial to civil
  society: but, it is plain, that they carried their views much farther;
  and their practice immediately discovered the spirit by which they were
  actuated. Supported by the authority, which they thought
  belonged to them as the congregation of the Lord, they ordained, that
  prayers in the vulgar tongue should be used in all the parish churches of
  the kingdom; and, that preaching and the interpretation of the scriptures
  should be practised in private houses, till God should move the prince to
  grant public preaching by faithful and true ministers. Such bonds of
  association are always the forerunners of rebellion; and this violent
  invasion of the established religion was the actual commencement of it[26]."


Whatever the catholic zeal may have produced, nothing can exceed the
  insolence and seditious spirit of the reformers. Knox's usual appellation
  of the queen of Scotland, the unfortunate Mary, was Jezebel. "The
  political principles of that man, which he communicated to his brethren,
  were as full of sedition as his theological were of rage and bigotry[27]." Was there no treason, was
  there no regicide doctrine in the following brutal speech, which he
  addressed to her? "Samuel feared not to slay Agag, the fat and delicate
  king of Amalek, whom king Saul had saved: neither spared Elias Jezebel's
  false prophets, and Baal's priests. Phineas was no magistrate, yet feared
  he not to strike Cozbi and Zimri. And so, madam, your grace may see, that
  others than chief magistrates may lawfully inflict punishment on such
  crimes as are condemned by the law of God[27]."


Is it not the zeal for proselytism, that daily thins the established
  church of England, and increases the congregations of the innumerable
  denominations of sectaries, which are tolerated in this country, and of
  which each, if it could, would make its own universal? Even in private
  and temperate characters, a conformity of soul is one of the bases
  of friendship. The desire of impressing our sentiments and opinions upon
  the minds of those we love is the source of intercourse; we should be
  dumb without it. It is not wonderful, that this spring of the social
  system should extend to the principles of religion; and to say, that a
  Christian is zealous to make a Pagan a Christian is to bestow the highest
  praise upon him. If the reformed missionaries deserve this praise, it
  cannot be refused to the Jesuits. Nothing, in fact, can be more laudable
  than such a zeal, and all that can be objected to it is foreign to its
  real nature. The treasons and crimes, which have been imputed to the
  Jesuits, Hume himself has shown were falsely charged to them. Vice is not
  inherent in any profession of faith; it is inherent in the corrupted
  nature of man. Compare a Knox with a Bordaloue, a Prynne with a
  Beauregard or a Bossuet, and we shall be blind if we do not perceive the
  difference between the zeal which actuates the Christian, and that which
  leads to treason and to crime. 


Hume's other objection to the Jesuits was, "their cultivation of
  learning for the nourishment of superstition." Now we very well know how
  far his idea of superstition extended, and that it did not fall short of
  the whole system of revealed religion. It is not necessary to dwell long
  upon this objection. The superstition which is injurious to mankind, must
  be the offspring of ignorance; and, no one denies, that ignorance and
  superstition were very prevalent in the dark ages of the world, and even
  long after the revival of letters; no one denies, that weak and
  illiterate minds, of whatever persuasion, are yet prone to it. What is
  meant by the superstition nourished by learning can only be the
  impression of mysteries, which the understanding, however puzzled, finds
  sufficient grounds to entertain, and on which to build hopes of an
  immaterial and immortal connexion with the Supreme Being. This kind of
  superstition, or rather this religious impression, has ever been
  cherished by the noblest minds, and forms a prominent part of the
  character of learned men of all persuasions. Attached, myself, to
  the church of England, it is, nevertheless, clear to me, that the
  Reformation has generated the most absurd superstitions; and I cannot
  conceive that there is a man, of unbiassed mind and good sense, who would
  not rather embrace all that has been retrenched from the catholic creed,
  than adopt the spurious abominations and blasphemies which, every where,
  under the screen of toleration, disgrace the world. But I am not here
  entering into a defence of the Roman church, or into a derision of the
  vagaries which have sprung from imaginary rationality, or misapplied
  enthusiasm; my only purpose was to speak of Hume's authority; and I shall
  quit the subject of superstition to turn to that of casuistry, to which
  he also alludes.


And here it is that the deadliest blow is aimed against the Jesuits.
  If their system of morality makes virtues of "prevarication, perjury, and
  every crime, when it serves ghostly purposes," the reproach is
  fatal. On this head, the writer of the pamphlet gives us a string of
  casuists, to confound the order at once. Desirous either of clearing away
  or substantiating this charge, and recollecting the remark of Voltaire,
  which I have already cited, that "the extravagant notions of a few
  Spanish and Flemish Jesuits were artfully ascribed to the whole
  society," I inquired more particularly into the character and objects
  of the casuists of the order; and, the more I reflected, the more I was
  convinced of the malignity of the adversaries of the society, on whom the
  charge might well be turned, changing Hume's derisive epithet of
  ghostly into two other qualifying words, viz.
rebellious and revolutionary; for who will deny that
  prevarication, perjury, and every crime, have been
  resorted to, and justified for rebellious and revolutionary purposes?


In such a number of casuistical writers, it may be imagined, that some
  have erred. The Jesuits never wished to defend them. It may be presumed,
  that the number of errors was not great, since their enemies found
  it necessary to commit so many falsifications to make up the volume of
  Assertions. In many instances, the author of that
  book attributes to the casuist, opinions which he only cites to refute.
  In moral theology the Jesuits had two rules, from which few of them ever
  deviated; one was, to follow the opinions which were most common;
  the other, never to defend an opinion when prohibited or condemned by the
  holy see. Some of their casuists taught doctrines, which, in their time,
  were the most usual in schools, but which were afterwards condemned or
  prohibited at Rome. Their enemies imputed these doctrines to them as
  crimes. The Dominican and Franciscan casuists might have been equally
  charged; but, as Voltaire observed, it would not have answered the
  purpose.


The chief casuists, collected to answer the purpose in the new
  conspiracy against the Jesuits, are the following: Lamy, Moya, Bauny,
  Berruyer, Casnedi, and Benzi. Since, next to the Monita Secreta,
  that infamous forgery so completely exposed in the subsequent
  Letters, the writer of the pamphlet relies on the immoral doctrines to be
  found in the writings of these priests, let us see on what foundation
  they stand. I shall first observe, that the Apology for the
  Casuists, said to be published by the Jesuits, so far from being
  avowed as a work of their own, was disavowed by the superiors of the
  order, and condemned by the pope and many prelates. It was written by
  Pere Pirot, who seemed, in a manner, determined to justify Pascal's
  Satires, by defending certain opinions, in spite of their having been
  condemned, as D'Avrigny informs us, in his Memoires Chronologiques et
  Dogmatiques pour servir à l'Histoire Ecclesiastique depuis 1600 jusqu'en
  1716, &c.[28] The
  author laments the hard fate of religious societies, of which he
  observes, que toute faute personelle dans le jugement du public
  devient une faute generale, et les enfans portent l'iniquité de leurs
  peres jusqu'à la troisieme et la quatrieme generation.




The Course of Theology, by Lamy, is
  classed with the Apology, as justifying murder, &c. This
  author was a Neapolitan, whose name was Amici,
  and the work, from which the charge in question is extracted, consists of
  nine volumes folio! The proposition attributed to him, to blacken him as
  a Jesuit, was not his, nor ever adopted by him. It had been taught, long
  before, by the celebrated casuist Navarre, and others totally unconnected
  with the Jesuits. Amici mentions it, and alleges the reasons which had
  been given in support of it, but adds, nolumus a nobis (hæc) ita sint
  dicta ut communi sententiæ adversentur, sed tantum disputandi gratia
  proposita. The proposition was omitted altogether in the second
  edition of his work, and, being formally condemned by Alexander VII, in
  1665, was never after defended by any catholic divine.


Moya seems to have been a very virtuous man,
  though, perhaps, rather indiscreet in his zeal for the credit of his
  society. The facts are these: a book had been published by one
  Gregory Esclapey, reproaching the Jesuits with teaching many erroneous
  doctrines. To this work Moya published an answer, under the name of
  Guimenius, in which he professedly abstains from all inquiry into the
  merits of the doctrines; but, being imputed to the Jesuits by their
  adversary, he undertakes to show, that they were not responsible for
  them, as they did not originate with them, having been taught by the
  older divines, previous to the existence of the order. The doctrines were
  condemned at Rome in 1666, and Moya, in the third edition of his work,
  proves the justice of the condemnation, by entering into a refutation of
  them.


Bauny lived at the same time. He was the
  intimate friend and confidant of the famous cardinal de la Rochefoucault,
  archbishop of Sens, and reformer of the Benedictines. He was afterwards a
  zealous missionary in Bretagne, under the bishop of St. Pol de Leon. He
  died of his missionary labours. If he treated other with lenity, it is
  certain he did not spare himself. His "Somme des Pechés" was written, as
  he informs us, by the positive order of a bishop, probably the bishop of
  St. Pol, and it was published by order of the bishop, unaccompanied by
  the sanction or approbation of any Jesuit; nor was it used in their
  schools, consequently, its doctrines are nowise attributable to the
  society. It contains several relaxed propositions, deservedly censured by
  the French clergy in 1642.


Berruyer is stated by the pamphlet-writer to
  have been convicted of blasphemy, and condemned by Benedict XIII and
  Clement XIII. This is not true; he never was convicted of blasphemy. He
  was not a casuist. His "Histoire da Peuple de Dieu" was censured and
  condemned by Benedict XIV and Clement XIII. He was a man of much
  erudition, and master of an agreeable and graceful style, but fond of
  extraordinary opinions. The chief faults imputed to him are, that he disparages the simplicity and majesty of the
  inspired books, by rhetorical tropes and figures, and modern phraseology;
  and that he discourses on the humanity of the Redeemer in a manner that
  seems to favour the ancient heresy of the Nestorians. The French Jesuits
  disavowed the work, and submitted unanimously to the condemnation of it.
  It is rather surprising, that this author should have been cited among
  the casuists by the writer of the pamphlet, who, if he had read the
  imputed blasphemy, would have found in it something of protestant
  principles, pushed even beyond the reform adopted by our church, refusing
  the Virgin Mary the title to her being mother of our Saviour in his
  divine nature. But what does this signify? It is enough to have heard
  that the book was condemned by a pope, no matter which; it could not have
  been condemned without being blasphemous; and who could suspect, that a
  Jesuit had any correspondent sentiment with protestants? 


Casnedi was of a noble and ancient Milanese
  family; a man of great learning, zeal, and piety. He maintained, that the
  moral merit or demerit of an action depended upon the belief and
  intention of the agent. A very simple and incontrovertible proposition;
  but, being expressed in ardent terms, not unlike those used by the
  fanatical orators of the present day, it makes a flaming show among the
  articles of impeachment now instituted against the whole society of
  Jesus.


Benzi is represented in several French and
  Italian libels in the foul colours copied by the writer of the pamphlet.
  He was a respectable and much injured man. He was universally revered in
  Venice, where he was a distinguished director and preacher. Far from
  teaching the horrors imputed to him, he merely gave an opinion, in
  writing, on being consulted, whether certain trespasses were to be
  considered as cases reserved or not reserved. It was merely
  a questio juris, a technical opinion, and not a decision on the
  subject matter. Malice and calumny did the rest.


This, I believe, is the triumphant list of casuists drawn up,
  rank and file, to confront and confound the whole society to which they
  are said to have belonged. The philosopher Bayle tells us, that the
  writers in those days "had only to publish boldly whatever they chose
  against the Jesuits, they might be certain of convincing an infinite
  number of people. The prejudice against them had become so general, that,
  let them bring forward what proofs they might, it was not possible for
  them to undeceive the world." And he adds; "But I cannot imagine how the
  rules of morality suffer such an abuse of public prejudice[29]." Had he lived till now, he would have
  seen, that there are heads of the nineteenth century which can
  imagine it very virtuous to excite, foment, and augment prejudice on
  the same subject, in order to gratify the vanity of writing, or the
  unfounded spleen of a less relenting philosophy than his own.


The great sources of such historical proofs as have been
  amassed by the new conspiracy against the Jesuits being proved to be
  impure and unworthy of credit, it becomes as unnecessary as it is
  disgusting to wade through the mud and filth of the mass of obscure
  pamphlets referred to by the writer of the pamphlet, such as "Prynne's
  hidden Works of Darkness," and "Rome's Masterpiece," "Remarks of a
  Portugueze," "A true and certain Relation of sundry Machinations and
  Plots of the Jesuits," "The Anatomy of Popish Tyranny," "Recit des
  desseins les plus Secrets des Jesuites," "Jesuites Marchands," "Recueil
  des Procès contre les Jesuites," "Idée generale des Vices," &c.
  &c. There is, however, one more of the catalogue, which I will
  notice, to prove still farther the dishonesty of the means taken by the
  new conspirators to blacken the Jesuits; it is "Le Franc Discours, or
  the Memorial presented to Henry IV against them." Did it not become an
  inquirer into the truth of the accusations, to state the answer of Henry
  IV to the accusers of the Jesuits? An answer which, in itself alone, is
  enough to vindicate the society, and unveil the immense and complicated
  engine so long since put in motion for its destruction; and so
  irresistibly and successfully employed, in the course of time, by the
  framers of it. Pius VII is not the first, who has recalled the Jesuits;
  the great and good Henry IV recalled them, after they had been banished
  from his kingdom by the machinations of their enemies. Then it was, that
  he was memorialed; that remonstrance upon remonstrance was laid before
  him: but Henry was not easily imposed upon by passionate asseverations,
  nor made the dupe of envious persecutions. On the parliament delaying to
  give effect to his edict for the re-establishment of the Jesuits, he
  informed them, that he was determined to be obeyed; but he admitted a
  deputation of some of their members, with their first president,
  Harlay, at their head, who went to the palace to state anew their
  remonstrances. Dupleix, a French historian, says, that Harlay made a long
  harangue to the king, which "was rather an invective, filled with all the
  abuse and outrage in the pleadings of Pasquier and Arnaud; in the
  Catechism of Pasquier, and in the work entitled Franc Avis,
  against the society, than the speech of a statesman[30]." Henry's reply lies at this moment
  before me on the table, and, I think, I should be wanting to the cause of
  truth and justice, if I neglected to insert it here. It is rather long
  for a quotation, but it cannot be tedious, and I am certain, that every
  unprejudiced reader will be gratified with the perusal of it.




"It is very kind, it is very kind of you to be so careful of my person
  and my kingdom. I know your meaning perfectly; but you do not know mine.
  You have started difficulties, to your thinking, very great
  and considerable, and little know, that I have thought on and considered
  them all these eight or nine years past; and that the best resolutions
  for the time to come are taken from reflections on things past, which I
  am acquainted with better than any person whatever. You set up for mighty
  statesmen, and understand state affairs no more than I do the drawing the
  report of a cause. As to the affair of Poissy[31] things would have gone much better for
  the catholics, if all of you had acted your part as well as a Jesuit or
  two, who, very luckily, happened to be there. There clearly appeared, not
  the ambition, but the abilities of the Jesuits; and I do not understand
  how you can make those ambitious, who refuse dignities and prelacies, and
  make a vow to God never to aspire to any preferment; and, who seek
  nothing in this world besides serving all that are willing to employ
  them, without any view of interest or recompence. If the name
  of Jesuit displease you, why not find fault with those, who stile
  themselves religious of the Trinity; why not say, that your daughters are
  as much religious as the nuns, called here daughters of God[32]; and that you are as much
  of my order of the Holy Ghost as my knights and myself? For my part, I
  would as soon, or rather, be called Jesuit, than Augustinian or
  Dominican. As to the churchmen, who except against them, ignorance has
  always borne a grudge to learning; and I observed, when I began to speak
  of re-establishing the Jesuits, that two sorts of persons opposed this
  design; those of the pretended reformed religion, and churchmen of
  irregular conduct, which has gained them still greater credit and
  reputation. If the Sorbonne you talk of has condemned them, it was, quite
  like you, without knowing them; and, if the old Sorbonne would not own
  them out of jealousy, the new Sorbonne is very proud of, and esteems
  them; if they were not fixed in France before, God
  has reserved for me the honour, which indeed I esteem a favour, of
  settling them; and, if they were only provisionally admitted heretofore,
  they shall henceforward have a permanent settlement, both by edict and
  arret. The will of my predecessors kept them here, mine shall establish
  them. The university opposed them, either because they excelled others
  (witness the vast concourse of scholars to their colleges), or because
  they were not incorporated in the university, which will not be refused
  when I order it; and when I shall see that they stand in need of being
  better regulated. You say, that the greatest men of your parliament have
  learned nothing from them: if the oldest are the most learned, you are
  certainly right; they had ended their studies before the Jesuits had
  opened their schools. Other parliaments, I am credibly informed, do not
  say so; nor, indeed, does all yours. They teach better than others; that
  is the true reason why, since their absence, your University is quite
  abandoned, and students flock after these masters to Douay, and
  other places, within and without my kingdom. You say, they engage the
  brightest geniuses, they examine and pick out the best for their society:
  I commend them for it. When I raise troops, I chuse those who are likely
  to turn out the best soldiers. Were there no room for favour amongst you,
  would you admit any, but what were worthy of being members, and of having
  a seat in your parliament? I heartily wish you received such only as are
  quite deserving, and that virtue were always the badge and distinctive
  mark in posts of honour. If the Jesuits served the public with ignorant
  masters and preachers, you would despise them; and now, that they employ
  in your service men of wit and capacity, you are not pleased. As to the
  great estates, you say, they possessed, it is all calumny and imposture;
  and I very well know, by the account of the estates re-annexed to the
  crown, that seven or eight masters could not be maintained at Bourges and
  Lyons; whereas, when the Jesuits were there, they were thirty or forty
  in
  number. But should there be any difficulty in this respect, I have
  provided against it in my edict. To call them a factious society,
  for being concerned in the league, is a reproach that falls only
  on the times. They thought they did well: many others were concerned,
  with whom they were mistaken and deluded; and they own now, that they
  have found my intentions quite contrary to what they had preconceived.
  But, I am inclined to believe, they acted with less malice than others,
  and that the same disposition, with the favours they receive from me,
  will make them as affectionate to me, even more so, than they ever were
  to the league. It is objected, they get footing in cities and
  towns by all means they can: so do others: I myself got into my kingdom
  as well as I could. It must be owned, that, with their wonderful patience
  and regular way of life, they may compass what they will; and their
  great care not to change or alter any thing in their institute will be
  the cause of their stability and long continuance. The vow of
  obedience they make to the pope will not subject them more to
  his will, than the oath of allegiance they have taken to me will bind
  them not to undertake any thing against their natural sovereign. But
  their vow does not extend to every thing, as is vainly pretended; they
  only make a vow of obeying the pope, when he is pleased to send them to
  labour for the encouragement of infidels; and, in fact, the Indies are
  converted by them. As to the opinion of the pope, I know he esteems them
  greatly; so do I. But you do not tell me, that the pope was upon the
  point of seizing cardinal Bellarmine's Works, at Rome, for not allowing
  him as great an extent of jurisdiction as other divines do: and you
  studiously conceal what the Jesuits have lately maintained, that, though
  the pope could not err, Clement might be mistaken. Upon the whole, I am
  persuaded, that they say no more than others of the papal authority; and
  that, if opinions are to be tried, you must quarrel with those of the
  catholic church. It is said, that the king of Spain employs Jesuits; I
  tell you, that I am determined to do the same; why should France
  fare worse than Spain? Since all the world judges them useful to the
  public, let me tell you, I think them necessary to my kingdom. As to the
  doctrine, imputed to them, of withdrawing churchmen from obedience to
  sovereigns, or teaching subjects to attempt on their lives, it is proper
  to see, on one side, what they say, and, on the other, what they teach
  their scholars. What convinces me there is no such thing is, that, for
  these thirty years past, that they have taught in France, above fifty
  thousand scholars have been brought up in their colleges, have conversed
  and lived with them, and not one has yet been found, in that vast number,
  who pretends to have heard any such discourse among them, or any thing
  coming up to the doctrine with which they are reproached. What is more,
  ask protestant ministers, that have lived and studied under them, how the
  Jesuits live: to be sure, they will not spare them, were it only to
  justify their leaving the society. I know the question has been put to
  many, and nothing could ever be got from them, but that their
  conduct and morals were without exception. Barriere was not encouraged,
  as you pretend, by any Jesuit. The first notice of that attempt I had
  from a Jesuit: another told him, he would be damned if he dared to go
  upon any such design. Châtel never accused them, nor could any torments
  extort any charge against Varade, or any other Jesuit. If any one had
  been accused, how came you to spare him? The other Jesuit, that was
  seized, was taken up on account of some printed papers found in his
  chamber. After all, though a Jesuit had done that foul deed, which I am
  resolved to forget, must all the Jesuits suffer, must all the apostles be
  banished for one Judas? At that time God was pleased to humble and to
  save me, for which I give him thanks: he teaches me to forgive all
  offences; and I have done it, freely and willingly, for his sake. I pray
  daily for my enemies; so far am I from remembering what is past, as you
  advise me to do, not very like good Christians, for which I do not thank
  you. The Jesuits are natives of my kingdom, and
  born my subjects; I will not harbour any suspicion against those whom
  their birth has placed under my government; and, if there should be any
  danger of their communicating my secrets to the enemies of France, I will
  take care to let them know only what I think fit. Let me manage this
  affair; I have gone through many others much more difficult: and now I
  charge you to think of nothing farther, than doing what I bid and command
  you to do."




With such a speech in existence, is it not a disgrace to any man to
  cite against the society the remonstrance that gave occasion to it? I
  have done, then, with this writer's impure and disgraceful authorities;
  and I should here proceed immediately to the respectable, the noble, the
  brilliant list of authorities in favour of the Jesuits, but that I feel
  it proper previously to notice another attack upon them, from a very
  unexpected quarter, from one whom we are almost compelled to consider as
  an unbiassed assailant, since (besides being a gentleman
  and a member of the legislature) he does, in the very act of aiming the
  blow which he gives, profess the highest admiration, respect, and regard
  for them. "I am ready to admit," says sir John Hippisley, "the merit of
  that body of catholics, as far as they are exercised in the secular walk
  of philosophical and classical instruction; their schools and seminaries
  have been the most celebrated," &c. Again; "It pains me to speak, in
  these terms, of a community, comprehending many highly respected
  ecclesiastics, and, in the bosom of which, many of my valuable friends
  have received their education," &c. But sir John's "sense of duty
  overcomes his individual partialities[33]."


In consistency with these professions, sir John seems desirous of
  confining his objections to some particulars; but he was unable to
  conceal how willing he is to lay his axe to the tree, root and branch; for
  he inserts a note to his speech, in which, not satisfied with protestant
  objections, he luxuriates in the citation of the "burning of more than
  fifty publications of Jesuit authors by the common hangman;" in
  the naming of the authors, whose books were burned; and in recording the
  very terms of the sentence: seront lacerés et brulés, dans la cour du
  palais, par l'executeur de la haute justice (the high office
  translated by sir John common hangman) comme seditieux,
  destructifs de toute principe de la morale Chretienne, enseignant une
  doctrine meurtrière et abominable, non-seulement contre la sureté de la
  vie des citoyens, mais même contre celle des personnes sacrées des
  souverains. To which is added, a reference to a Portuguese
  work, for a complete list of the books burned. So much for sir John's
  sorrow in speaking, in the milder terms of his harangue, on his
  particular objections, and for the preference he would have given
  to having his statement reserved for the consideration of a
  select committee. The reader, long before he arrives at this preference of secret publicity, will have
  learned, from good authority, how to appreciate both the sentence and the
  judges that pronounced it; which sir John, by his recording it, appears
  not to have been able to do, in spite of the number of his
  friends, to whom he might have applied for information of the spirit
  that inflamed the parliament of Paris. But let us see the particular
  objections made by Sir John Hippisley. Sir John states, that the general
  of the order being a Russian, the acknowledgment of him by Jesuits in
  other states is an instance of dependence upon foreign jurisdiction. From
  this objection, it is to be presumed, that sir John credits the complete
  despotism, and other horrors, which have been attributed to the character
  of the general, as well as the prostitution of reason and virtue in all
  the members of the order, in consequence of the vow of obedience. And he
  evidently apprehends, that, if we go to war with Russia, the constitution
  of Great Britain will be endangered by the plots of Jesuits in this
  country! "We are," says he, "at this hour, on terms of amity with
  Russia; within how short a period was it otherwise?" In neither country
  is catholicism the established religion, yet sir John sees, that Jesuits
  may busy themselves so foully with Greeks and Lutherans, that the pope
  will be brought in. The objection is really absurd; but, on the
  despotism of the general, and the blind obedience of the
  companions of the order, I shall make some remarks, when I consider the
  institute itself; at present, I shall only repeat, that these are
  calumnies to which no man would be a dupe, who had ever cast his eye over
  the pages of that almost inspired body of religious and moral statutes.
  The general, as well as the members of the community, is bound by those
  laws. A general congregation may be assembled, without his consent, and
  in defiance of him, to make laws against him: and "blind obedience is a
  sacrifice of passion, not of reason; Jesuits are to obey blindly, only
  when they see clearly, that they may do so without a crime, nay, without
  the slightest fault." The obedience which all religious, as well as
  Jesuits, paid to their chief superior, who generally resided at Rome, was
  well understood to relate merely to their professional duties. It was
  first made an object of jealousy, exclusively with regard to the Jesuits,
  at the time that the parliaments were studying every mode of making them
  odious; and, before that time, the native country of their general was a
  matter of indifference. The native country of the pope was never alleged
  as a motive for rejecting his authority. The obedience of the Jesuits was
  voluntary; and they knew, from their institute, that it never could
  supersede the duty which they owed to the government under which they
  lived. Can sir John adduce a single instance of a Jesuit's betraying the
  country, or the government, which protected him? The first superiors of
  the French Jesuits were Spaniards and Italians. The superior of the
  Venetian Jesuits, during the famous contest between that state and Paul
  V, was a Frenchman.


In friendly consideration for the instructors of his numerous valuable
  friends, sir John informs the House of Commons, that, though the
  empress of Russia countenanced the re-organization of the society within
  her dominions, "it was in a degraded state, to suit the views of her
  policy;" and, in a note, he informs the world at large, that "a
  correspondent of great consideration observed, that the empress was well
  pleased with the opportunity of snapping her fingers (narguer) at
  the courts of Versailles and Madrid, and showing them and the world at
  large, that she could render the institution tractable by her superior
  authority and management; that is, that she could tame wild beasts, which
  they were forced to destroy[34]." It is not for me to divine by what
  means sir John, or his correspondent, obtained such possession of the
  secrets of Catherine's mind, as to be able to decide, in the face of the
  world, that her conduct, in saving the Jesuits, was guided by petty
  motives of private interest, and especially the secret desire de
  narguer, in plain English to jeer and jibe, to fleer and flout, the
  French and Spanish courts; but, if so, it evidently supposes some
  previous cause of dissatisfaction with those courts. What that cause was
  it is for sir John or his correspondent to state: to the generality of
  men, I believe, it remains a mystery. I am ignorant of any such cause,
  and, being in the class of ordinary observers, I ascribe the conduct of
  the empress to the more generous motives, which she and her two
  successors have avowed to the world. These are, the duty of providing for
  their catholic subjects suitable ministers and teachers; their knowledge
  that the Jesuits of White Russia are such;
  their abhorrence of the injustice, which would strip them of their
  property, of their civil state and profession, and abolish their
  canonical existence, without any proof of crime or misdemeanour; and,
  finally, their royal word and faith pledged to maintain inviolably the
  status quo of the catholic religion and its ministers, as settled
  in the pacta conventa of the cession of White Russia to their
  dominion[35]. These motives
  have something in them honourable, generous,
  and dignified. I revere the empress, who, acting upon them, could at once
  read a lesson of justice to other monarchs, and rescue from destruction a
  remnant of the persecuted society. Instead of attributing to her the
  paltry spirit de narguer, I will, with sir John's permission,
  apply to her the praise which Cicero addressed to Cæsar, in his oration
  for Marcellus: "Nobilissimam familiam, jam ad paucos redactam, pene ab
  interitu vindicasti!" Sir John will not refuse her this compliment, when
  he discovers the extraordinary inaccuracy into which he has been betrayed
  by his informer. He asserts[36], that Catherine "secured the
  tractability of these restless men by the sine qua non of
  the residence of their general, a subject, within the state." It
  is true, that their general could not conveniently reside in any other
  state; but my information emboldens me to affirm, that no restraint
  whatever was laid upon the Jesuits, in the election of their generals;
  that they have already elected five in Russia, all of whom have been
  foreigners. The three first were Poles, of whom one, named by sir
  John, F. Carew, was of British extraction. Their late general, Gruber,
  was an Austrian; the present superior is a Prussian, and is actually
  expected at Rome.


In a detail of restrictions he mentions the superintendence of the
  seminaries being consigned to the ministry of public inspection, and
  asserts, that priests of the Greek national church are directed to
  attend the Jesuit colleges, to instruct the pupils of the Greek communion
  in religion. I am unacquainted with the weight of authority to be allowed
  to sir John's correspondent; but, certainly, the result of my inquiries
  differs widely from the information communicated by
  him. The Jesuits have, ever since their establishment in Russia, been
  treated with unsuspecting liberality. The integrity of their institute
  has been scrupulously maintained, and the authority given to the catholic
  archbishop of Mohilow has ever been exactly confined within the limits
  prescribed by the council of Trent. By a law of the present emperor, all
  colleges were subjected to the control of the university of Petersburgh.
  The Jesuits, feeling the inconvenience of this, soon had their own chief
  college of Polosk erected into a university, by which they became
  exempted from the temporary control. They have an establishment at
  Petersburgh, called the "College of Nobles," into which young noblemen
  only are admitted as pensioners, and these are educated in the regular
  collegiate discipline, whatever be their religion. They attend at divine
  service, and at public catechisms and instructions. The majority of them
  are of the national religion, and, if their parents or they themselves
  desire it, the superior of the Jesuits permits a priest of
  the Greek church to come to the college on Sunday, where he explains the
  national catechism to them in a private room. Beyond this he has nothing
  to do in the house. This practice may be known at court, but it was
  neither enjoined nor recommended by the court. This is the account I have
  collected of the Jesuits in Russia, and, I am persuaded, that they are
  not more restricted than the catholics in general, whom sir John appears
  to attack through the Jesuits, for in this long note (page 36), which
  seemed exclusively designed for the exposure of their Russian
  degradation, he slides unexpectedly into an exposure of "the
  restrictions, which attach generally upon the exercise of the
  Roman catholic discipline." In this I have here no part to take, the
  general question has passed through abler hands than mine; my subject
  confines me to the society of the Jesuits, and in so doing calls upon me
  to notice the advertisement prefixed to sir John Hippisley's Speech. In
  that advertisement we find it to be sir John's opinion, that the bull of
  Pius VII, by which the order of Jesuits is restored, should not be
  published without the rescript of Clement XIV, by which it was
  suppressed, as a pendant; and, in a style of triumphant irony, he leaves
  it to the consideration of an author favourable to the society[37], on comparing the
  pontifical acts, "whether he can advantageously take the field against
  the memorable rescript of Ganganelli, and enter the lists with the living
  writers of his own communion, who espouse that deliberate
  pontifical act; for," says he, "it does not appear, that the denunciation
  pronounced by the bull of Pius VII has extinguished the ardour of the
  opponents of the constitution, which he has so solemnly re-embodied. Two
  publications on the subject have issued from the French press, since the
  date of this bull, namely, Du Pape et des Jesuites, and, Les
  Jesuites tels qu'ils ont été dans l'Ordre Politique, Religieux, et
  Moral. The first is ascribed to the pen of a
  Pere de l'Oratoire, the other announced as the work of M. S***,
  Ancien Magistrat. A perusal of these tracts," continues sir John,
  "and especially the brief of Pius VII, will lead to the discovery,
  whether the society have been most successfully attacked or defended by
  the French writers or by Mr. Plowden."


The Jesuits are more obliged to sir John for this position of the
  subject than, I believe, he meant they should be. I cannot judge of Mr.
  Plowden's success, not having seen his publication, but I think and hope
  to find it complete, from sir John's own statement in this advertisement.
  I am also unacquainted with the two overpowering French pamphlets
  alluded to; but their titles and authors are enough to convince me, that
  the new conspiracy against the Jesuits extends to France, that I am
  answering the pamphlets without seeing them, and that they are nothing
  more than the crambe repetita, the dying echoes, of the
  Jansenists, parliamentarians, and jacobins. Can sir John
  have read the accounts, to be found in various authors, of the
  persecution of the Jesuits, and not suspect the very appellations of
  Father of the Oratory, and Ancient Magistrate? If he does
  me the honour to read this sketch, he will, I hope, know what value to
  set upon them. But what surprises me most is, that he does not seem to be
  aware, that the Jesuits had always enemies in their own communion,
  for, by underlining these words, he shows, that he thinks it a strong
  proof of guilt when Roman catholics espouse the suppression of the order.
  A moment's reflection will bring to his mind, that the most powerful of
  the ancient conspiracy against the Jesuits were, at least, professed
  catholics; the Arnauds, the Pasquiers, the Monclars, the Chalotais; not
  to mention the D'Alemberts, Diderots, Condorcets, who, indeed, though
  educated catholics, were professed atheists or deists. The same may be
  said of Vatel, and some others cited by sir John. Vatel was a fanatical
  deist; Dupin a notorious Jansenist; Pereira a devoted creature of Pombal.
  Envious men, and philosophers, do not spare others because they are of
  the same religious communion. If this motive prevailed, much sparring and
  abuse would be saved among protestants as well as among catholics. But,
  to come to the principal point of view, in which sir John's advertisement
  has happily placed the cause of the Jesuits.


History shows us, that, however extensive and complete the power of
  the popes may have been in former remote periods, they had a very
  difficult part to sustain in later times, and that they were often
  obliged to court the catholic monarchs, and to yield, that they might not
  be forced[38]. This was
  peculiarly the case with Clement XIV, whose philosophical name,
  Ganganelli, sir John significantly shoots at us through the rifle of
  Italics, and it was his avowed policy, even before his elevation to
  the pontificate, that the Jesuits were to be sacrificed, in spite of
  their innocence, in spite of their religious and moral virtues, in spite
  of his own attachment and approbation, to the necessity of preserving the
  favour of the monarchs of Europe. "Portugal," says he, "will never give
  up her opinion, in which I see other kingdoms that will confirm and
  support her. Kings no longer live unconnected with one another, as
  formerly; they form friendships, and act in concert; so that, if we are
  unfortunate enough to offend one, we may offend all; and, instead of
  having one enemy to deal with, we have all Europe upon us[39]."—"Little minds imagine, that one
  must be displeased with a certain religious society, if one does not
  support them in defiance of kings. But, besides that resisting the
  potentates would only multiply storms for them, one would not, through
  partiality to them, embroil oneself with all the catholic princes[40]." This is pretty plain language, but what follows is in more direct
  terms, and, I think, is a decisive proof of the motives, which influenced
  the writer in the suppression of the Jesuits, when the tiara was placed
  upon his head: "Now it is, that we must make use of that wisdom of the
  serpent which Jesus Christ recommends to his apostles. It is no doubt
  grievous, that a religious brotherhood intended for colleges, seminaries,
  and missions, and who have written much on the truths of religion, should
  be deserted at a time when incredulity has broken loose with fury against
  the religious orders; but the question to be decided before God is,
  whether it is better to contend with the sovereigns than to give up a
  religious society. For my part, I think, on seeing the storm that gathers
  howling from all quarters, and which we perceive already over our heads,
  that it is right for us to act ourselves without waiting, and to
  sacrifice what is most agreeable rather than incur the anger of the
  sovereigns, which we cannot too much dread. Let our holy father, and
  his secretary of state, love the Jesuits sincerely, I subscribe with all
  my heart to the attachment they have for the society; but I shall always
  say, notwithstanding my veneration for St. Ignatius, and the esteem in
  which his disciples are held, that it is very dangerous, nay, very rash,
  to, support the Jesuits in the present circumstances[41]." These sentiments of cardinal
  Ganganelli would not serve well for a pendant to the brief of Clement
  XIV, yet, for the sake of truth and justice, they should be always
  printed together, and go down side by side to posterity. Where now is
  "the formidable array of pontiffs," which show that Ganganelli "is not
  the solitary impugner," among popes, of the order of Jesuits? Ganganelli
  tells you, that they were tossed on a stormy sea, where they were obliged
  to manage their sails dexterously, that they might not sink themselves;
  and, in the very rescript which sir John has hung by the side of Pius
  VII's bull in his appendix, he declares, that it blew
  so hard from the four quarters, France, Spain, Portugal and Sicily (see
  page 24), that he was under the necessity of throwing the Jesuits
  overboard: "Our dear sons in Jesus Christ," says he, "having made known
  their demands and wills in this matter."


Clement XIV vainly flattered himself, that, by making ample
  concessions to the importunity of the combined ministers, by persecuting
  the Jesuits in detail, contrary to his own conviction, he should, in the
  end, escape the necessity of crushing them altogether. It was the policy
  of Pontius Pilate. His whole reign was one series of vexatious treatment;
  even outrages against them. From the first day of his pontificate they
  were the only Christians excluded from access to the common father. His
  condescension only betrayed his weakness, and enhardened the ministerial
  conspirators. When, at length, he found it impossible to resist them,
  without incurring the loss of his states, "he gave sentence, that it
  should be as they required[42]." He resorted to the principle of the
  high priest, in St. John, chap. ii, verse 50, the expediency of which is
  so clearly announced in his Letters[43]. But here three things sorely distressed
  him: the incongruity and injustice of condemning the Jesuits without a
  trial, which he knew the ministers would not permit; the approbation of
  their institute by the council of Trent; and the concurring approbation
  of the order by nearly twenty popes, especially the very recent
  constitution, or bull, of his immediate predecessor, Clement XIII,
  solemnly published, and received by the whole church. The applicants for
  the destruction of the order undertook to remove his scruples.


I am obliged to sir John for drawing my attention to Ganganelli's
  brief, which I might otherwise have passed over without much scrutiny.
  He is of opinion, that it should accompany the bull of the reigning
  pontiff; but some connoisseurs may think, that it will show to more
  advantage exhibited between the just mentioned bull apostolicum of
  Clement XIII and that of Pius VII: it would thus have a pendant on each
  side, eliciting, by a double contrast, all the effects of art. The bull
  apostolicum formed a principal objection to the grand plan of
  destruction, not easy to be evaded. It was so recent, so public, so
  solemn, so decisive. It was a distinct and specific approbation and
  confirmation of the society of Jesus; it repeated the sentiments of all
  popes from Paul III; it was solicited by hundreds of bishops; it was
  formally communicated to the college of cardinals, and was applauded by
  them all; it was accepted by every catholic bishop; it had every
  character of a formal judgment of the whole catholic church. Clement XIV
  and his advisers dared not to contradict it by another bull; it would
  have been a great scandal. The cardinals could not have concurred in it.
  The inferior, and less authoritative, mode of
  brief, or private letter, or rescript, in which it was not usual
  to consult the cardinals, was adopted. In this, the difficulty presented
  by the apostolicum of Clement XIII is overleaped in a short and
  peremptory way, by an absurd declaration of its having been extorted
  rather than granted, without any proof, and in defiance of the number
  of circumstances which demonstrate the contrary. As sir John appears to
  be unacquainted with this famous constitution of Clement XIII, published
  in the beginning of 1765, and as it is perhaps the best written official
  document which Rome has, for many years, sent forth, it shall be inserted
  in the Appendix in its original language[44].


The more I consider Ganganelli's rescript, the more am I surprised at
  the pitiful attempts made to lay down something like an apology for
  injustice, and the more am I disgusted with its want of principle. It
  opens with a long narration of the suppression of various small
  religious associations by ancient popes, but it leaves us quite in the
  dark as to the justice or injustice of those several suppressions. It
  informs us, that several complaints had been made, at several times, to
  several popes, of the Jesuits; but it omits to tell us, that those
  complaints had always been either rejected, or refuted, or disregarded,
  by those several popes, whose public acts attest that they were, one and
  all, friends and supporters of the society[45]. The brief then recites the jus,
  or leading maxim, on which the whole procedure hinges, and which, in
  spite of the Roman canon, recorded in the Acts of
  the Apostles, solves the pope's first difficulty, or scruple, of
  punishing without trial: it is this; that the slow and fallible method
  of proceeding before courts of justice must be avoided; that
  reliance must be placed WHOLLY on
  that plenitude of power, which popes possess in so eminent a degree, as
  vicars of Christ upon earth, and as sovereign moderators of the Christian
  republic; and that regular orders, which they propose to
  suppress, ought not to be allowed the faculty of producing any
  arguments in their defence, or of clearing themselves from the heavy
  accusations brought against them. These are the words of the brief,
  as given by sir John in the translation of it in the Appendix to his
  Speech; in other words, the accused may be punished without being
  heard. This requires no comment; every British heart will suggest a
  just one.


Let us now see how Ganganelli gets over the difficulty arising from
  the approbation of the council of Trent. To the eternal disgrace of this
  brief, then, we find the operative or suppressing clause made to depend
  upon a paltry sophism. Stating the demands and wishes of
  his dear sons, the kings and ministers, with the addition of pressing
  solicitations from some bishops and other persons, Clement, for a salvo
  to his conscience, declares (page 25), "that to choose the wisest course,
  in an affair of so much importance, he determined not to be precipitate,
  but to take due time to examine attentively, weigh
  carefully, and wisely debate upon it." What was done?
  "First of all," continues the brief, "we proposed to examine upon
  what grounds rested the common opinion, that the institute of the clerks
  of the company of Jesus had been approved and confirmed in a special
  manner by the council of Trent! And we found, that, in the said council,
  nothing more was done, with regard to the said society, than to except it
  from the general decree respecting other orders. The same council
  declared, that it meant not to make any change or innovation in the
  government of the clerks of the company of Jesus, that they might
  not be hindered from being useful to God and his church, according to the
  intent of the pious institute approved by the holy see." If the lines
  in italics are not an especial approval and confirmation of the
  institute, then must I confess, that I know not the meaning of the words
  approval and confirmation. To my understanding they convey
  a most decided approbation and confirmation of the institute. Well, what
  succeeds the imprimis? What does the pontiff next examine, weigh,
  and debate attentively, carefully, and wisely? The reader will look in
  vain for the second head of wise deliberation; the actuating assertion
  immediately follows: "actuated by so many and important
  considerations," &c. &c., and impelled by fear, for that
  is the import of the following sentences, "WE DO
  SUPPRESS AND ABOLISH THE SAID COMPANY." The only possible apology,
  that can be made for Clement, in this rescript, is, that he acted, as
  lawyers term it, under duress. After his own avowal, while a cardinal,
  can any man doubt, that he imagined that the intrigues going on in
  France, Spain, Portugal, and Sicily, against the Jesuits, would prove
  fatal to the power of Rome, if the society were protected? The whole of
  the preamble of his rescript consists of the approbation of his
  predecessors, and the appeals of the intriguers of the nations around him
  against the Jesuits. At last, the Inquisition[46] of Spain (see page 20), press so
  strongly, that Sixtus V determines to examine the matter; but he is saved
  the misfortune by death, and his successor, Gregory XIV, approves of the
  institution of the society in its utmost extent, confirms their
  privileges, and ordains that, under pain of excommunication, all
  proceedings against the society should be quashed (page 21). In short,
  neither in the multifarious preamble, nor in the short actuating clause,
  does Clement XIV once advance an opinion of his own adverse to the
  society; but throughout lends himself to the representations of foreign
  cabals, to which he at last confessedly sacrifices them.


All, then, that this rescript proves is, that powerful parties
  prevailed, in certain states, against the Jesuits, and that Clement XIV,
  notwithstanding the approval and confirmation of the
  council of Trent, evinced by their declaration, as above cited;
  notwithstanding the approval and confirmation of successive popes;
  notwithstanding his own approval and regret (all clearly inserted in this
  rescript); found himself compelled, by the pressure of unjust and
  arbitrary power, to withhold his confirmation, to suppress and abolish a
  society, to whom he knew it was doubtful, whether religion and piety or
  science and letters were more indebted.


Such is the analysis of the luminous brief of destruction, so
  triumphantly referred to by sir John Hippisley; such the sanction of
  peace and amity with the philosophical
  ministers, Pombal, Choiseul, Aranda, &c. The pontifical domain was to
  be saved; the portions of it already seized, Avignon, Benevento,
  Ponte-Corvo, &c., to be restored; the turbulent Jesuits extinct,
  harmony and concord were to bless the earth! How were these glorious
  prospects realized? Every succeeding year involved the Roman see in fresh
  troubles: new invasions of its spiritual and temporal rights continued to
  distress the succeeding pontiff, Pius VI, and, at last, conducted him to
  death in a dungeon, although, to save his domain from the grasp of
  violence, he had consented, that Ganganelli's brief should subsist
  unaltered.


It is now evident, that the suppression of the Jesuits was the result
  of the conspiracy formed against them; in Spain and Sicily by the
  Inquisition, in Portugal by Pombal, and in France by the Jansenists, the
  parliaments, and philosophers: how just and wise we have seen; let us now
  inquire whence results their restoration by Pius VII. "The
  catholic world demands, with unanimous voice, the re-establishment of the
  society of Jesus. We daily receive, to this effect, the most pressing
  petitions, from our venerable brethren, the archbishops and bishops[47], and the most distinguished
  persons, especially since the abundant fruits, which this society has
  produced in the above countries (Russia and Sicily), have been generally
  known." There is a striking contrast between the simplicity and direct
  language of this bull, and the artful and complicated expositions with
  which Ganganelli labours in his brief to lull his own conscience, and to
  justify, in the sight of others, the act he thought to be necessary. And
  why is the re-establishment of the society demanded? From a hope, that
  they may counteract the evils, which the neglect of religious education
  has suffered to spread over the world, and from a conviction that they
  were put down by the disciples of a false philosophy combining with the
  vilest of passions. In regard to protestant countries, their principles
  of loyalty are conclusive in their favour; and, in spite of the popish
  plots, it has been proved, that their religious doctrines never led them,
  as a body, to interfere in political affairs. These motives for their
  re-establishment, and my last observation, naturally remind me, that it
  is time to state the authorities, so highly honourable to the society,
  which I have been induced to examine and collect; there are, however, two
  other circumstances mentioned by sir John Hippisley, which I cannot pass
  over without notice. He objects to students for the priesthood among the
  Jesuits being sent abroad, to Sicily, to obtain ordination, instead of
  receiving it at the hands of their own national prelates. It appears, by
  this, that sir John is not aware that, in an order, it is requisite to
  obtain ordination through a superior of the order. 


In all religious orders, candidates for priesthood must be presented
  by their proper religious superior to some bishop. The prelate may
  examine the candidate; and, if he has no canonical objection, he promotes
  him to orders on the title of religious poverty; the superior, or the
  order, remaining answerable for his maintenance. But no priest of the
  regulars can assume any exercise of ministerial functions, in preaching,
  or administering sacraments, without licence of the diocesan prelate, who
  may examine, suspend, and correct him, incurring thus a certain
  responsibility. Of this subjection of regulars to the established
  prelates, surely, sir John must have been aware; why, then, endeavour to
  alarm us with the prospect of Jesuits colonizing in the south of Italy,
  for the purpose of overspreading these islands? I have reason, upon
  recent inquiry, to suspect, that sir John has been misled by his Sicilian
  informer, as to the voyagers for the priesthood; and the supposed system
  of seeking furtive ordinations beyond the seas will
  vanish before a plain relation of a few trifling facts. In 1806 an
  ecclesiastical student, on account of his health, embarked for
  Naples in a neutral ship, which touched at Palermo, where he remained,
  having learned that Buonaparte had seized on Naples: he was joined, the
  next year, by another student, who went abroad from the same motive, that
  of health. To be of use to their catholic countrymen, whose number was
  daily increasing, by the arrival of new regiments, they entered into holy
  orders, though, it appears, they were not allowed to officiate as priests
  among them. These recovered their health, and returned home. In the
  course of the three ensuing years, one priest, and ten students, who were
  impressed with a strong desire to study in a catholic university, went
  also, at different times, to Palermo, where they experienced a similar
  disappointment in their zeal. Two of the students left Sicily before they
  were ordained, and one died before ordination, leaving nine, the whole
  number ordained. The priest also died abroad. So
  that, instead of nineteen, there were altogether only nine, who obtained
  orders: one of these is the distinguished president of the new seminary
  of education in Ireland. For the last six years, not one catholic student
  has had a thought of following their example. Such trifling occasional
  emigrations of a few students will neither alarm nor surprise those who
  know, that, for more than two centuries, the penal laws have driven all
  English and Irish catholics, who were not content to live in ignorance at
  home, to seek education abroad; that this had become an invariable
  custom; and that every year scores of British subjects went abroad.


Sir John also objects to the Jesuits' appropriating any pecuniary
  resource, arising from the wreck of their society, to the uses of a
  seminary of education; he thinks it opposite to the principle, which gave
  birth to the institution of Maynooth; and is for seizing, and bestowing
  on Maynooth, thirty thousand pounds of their money, which they are said
  to have generously transmitted to Ireland, for the establishment of a
  place of education (page 39 of the printed Speech). How would this agree
  with that spirit of humanity, benevolence, and hospitality, to say
  nothing at present of justice, which prompted the genius of Britain to
  give an asylum to these persecuted servants of God, against the
  relentless fury of jacobins and philosophers? Besides, the institution of
  Maynooth, and the establishment intended differ widely: the college of
  Maynooth is particularly designed for clerical education; that to which
  the thirty thousand pounds is to be devoted is to be a seminary for
  general learning; an establishment, which must be attended with most
  salutary consequences to Ireland, where it will prevent emigration of the
  catholic youth, and where, with religion and knowledge, it will
  undoubtedly confirm and spread the spirit of loyalty. It would be,
  I was going to say, madness; it would surely be unwise, to check, on
  old worn-out prejudices, the happy growth of a spirit, which has, in that
  country, met much to struggle with, and only wants to be enlightened to
  show itself as firm and ardent as in any part of the empire.


After all, I have good grounds to know, that sir John is misinformed
  respecting the source of the gift of thirty thousand pounds to the new
  seminary: no money has been recently transmitted from the society here
  to Ireland. The sum, on which the new house of education is rising,
  was not secured by the Jesuits from the wreck of the society: it
  is, strictly, the private property of a free Briton. This, I am
  informed, on good authority, is the fact; but, supposing it had been
  saved by the Jesuits from the ruin of their continental establishments,
  from which they were so cruelly turned adrift, and plundered by despots,
  because they were Englishmen; nay, supposing every guinea of it had been
  coined at the mint of king Nicolas of Paraguay, could this
  authorize sir John to assume the despotic principle of a foreign
  minister, a Pombal, a Choiseul, and to decide at once, de son
  chef, in the land of liberty, that his unoffending fellow subjects,
  who, under the safeguard of the laws, are prosecuting an honourable
  profession, shall again be stripped and subjected to arbitrary
  confiscation? If the Ganganellian maxim, that "the accused may be
  plundered without being heard," be tolerated at Rome, in the
  "plenitude of power, which the pope possesses, as moderator of the
  Christian republic," it is far otherwise in this happy land, where men,
  no longer persecuted for their religious opinions, maintaining their
  sworn allegiance to their king, are sure for their persons and
  property to find safety in the laws, and protection from the
  sovereign.


I have spoken of sir John Hippisley's opinions freely; I trust I have
  not done it coarsely. I was greatly surprised to find him taking the part
  he does. Of Clement XIV I feel inclined to speak more harshly than I
  have. I remember being pleased with his Letters when I was a boy, upon
  the same principle that I was pleased with the meeting of the Etats
  Generaux, in 1789, at Versailles, where I was a spectator: a
  philosophical pope, and a philosophical senate, were mental bon
  bons, adapted to the puerile taste of my understanding; but, grown
  old, I have no relish for either. Ganganelli degraded the tiara, and
  helped to prepare the French revolution.


I now return to our authorities. I have anticipated several great
  names incidentally, while engaged in canvassing those cited against the
  Jesuits; to these I have now to add the empress Catherine of Russia; of
  many popes, Clement XIII in particular, and the very destroyer of the
  society, Clement XIV; M. D'Eguilles, president of the parliament of
  Thoulouse; the abbé Proyart, author of a work entitled, Louis XVI
  dethroné avant d'etre Roi; Montesquieu, Haller, Muratori, Buffon,
  Grotius, Leibnitz, Bacon, Frederick the Great, Johnson, Bausset,
  Richelieu, Raynal, Juan, and Ulloa; with a multitude of historians
  and biographers, to say nothing of the Jesuit writers themselves. But the
  most striking testimony in favour of the society, is a formal judgment
  given by the bishops of France on certain articles proposed for their
  examination, by Louis XV, relative to the doctrine, the government, the
  conduct, and usefulness of the French Jesuits. How any man can withstand
  such an array of testimony, I am at a loss to conceive; and still more
  how he can venture, at this time of day, to arm himself with the
  calumnies and horrors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to
  attack a body of men, and a code of regulations, nowise accountable for
  the errors and crimes of individuals, at periods when men, in general,
  were as inveterate on the score of religious doctrines, as they have
  lately been on that of liberty and equality; when the Catholic and the
  Hugonot were alike ferocious and cruel, in the maintenance of their
  respective systems, though they scarcely equalled the fury and the
  horrors demonstrated by the deists, atheists, and democratical despots,
  who preceded the settled tyranny, which has
  been just overthrown by the united force of Europe. The Jesuits were,
  indeed, the great preachers of the Christian religion, such as it had
  been received for ages; but they are no more answerable for the opinions
  on regicide, murder, and other horrid doctrines of former distracted
  times, than are the Washingtons and Franklins for the atrocities of the
  Robespierres and Marats in our own days of political insanity.


It will perhaps be thought necessary, that I should give something
  more than the illustrious names I have cited; I shall therefore proceed
  to prove, that I have not pressed them into the cause of the Jesuits, but
  enrolled them on their voluntary appearance. I shall omit those, whom I
  have already incidentally quoted, and arrange the others in the order in
  which I have mentioned them. 


CATHERINE II, OF RUSSIA.


Catherine, when at Mohiloff, found, that the people of that part of
  her dominions professed the catholic religion, and that they were very
  much attached to the order of Jesuits. She appointed a catholic
  archbishop of Mohiloff, and gave him a Jesuit as a coadjutor. She
  permitted, at the same time, the establishment of a seminary of Jesuits,
  the direction of which was confided to father Gabriel Denkiewitz,
  appointed vicar-general of his order. In the year 1783, she sent the
  archbishop of Mohiloff's coadjutor, whose name was Benelawski, to Rome,
  as minister from the court of Russia, who carried a letter from her to
  Pius VI, demanding the re-establishment of the society of Jesuits, which,
  though at the time disavowed at Petersburgh, through deference to the
  Greek Christians, was actually written with her own hand. The following
  passages are extracted from the letter: "I know, that your holiness is
  under considerable embarrassments. Your dignity cannot
  harmonize with politics, so long as politics are at variance with
  religion. The motives, which have induced me to grant protection to the
  Jesuits, are founded in reason and justice, as well as on the hope of
  their becoming useful to my states. This assemblage of peaceable and
  inoffensive men shall live in my empire, because, of all catholic
  societies, they are the best qualified to instruct my subjects, and to
  inspire them with sentiments of humanity and the genuine principles of
  the Christian religion. I am resolved to support these priests against
  every power whatever; and, in so doing, I only perform my duty, as I am
  their sovereign, and look upon them as faithful, useful, and innocent
  subjects. I am so much the more desirous of seeing four of them invested
  with the power of confirming at Moscow and Petersburgh, as the two
  catholic churches of those cities are confided to their care[48]." The pope made the
  circumstance known to the French and Spanish
  ambassadors, who consulted their respective courts, neither of which,
  however, chose openly to interfere. It was an embarrassing situation for
  Pius VI; the suppression of the order was too recent; he wished neither
  to treat the memory of Clement XIV with disrespect, nor to embroil
  himself with France or Spain; and, in complying with the request of
  Catherine, he acted with circumspection and without parade. In
  considering this event, an obvious remark presents itself: for upwards of
  thirty years past, the society of the Jesuits have been established in
  Russia, yet we hear nothing of that empire being disturbed either with
  religious or civil broils, fomented by them; though I should not be
  surprised, if, on reflection, the death of Paul were to be imputed, by
  the modern conspirators, to their machinations. On the contrary, the
  internal tranquillity of that country was never more apparent, and the
  improvement of the mind has made rapid strides. The placing of the
  Jesuits in her dominions is a proof of the sagacity of Catherine,
  and I doubt whether Russia was ever more indebted to any sovereign than
  for this step, which was at once magnanimous, wise, and popular.


CLEMENT XIII.


I should not have thought of enrolling a pope among the authorities in
  favour of the Jesuits, it being natural to suppose, that every pope was a
  friend to the society, had I not found a list of them arrayed against
  them by sir John Hippisley, on the authority of Ganganelli's rescript.
  Now, that the sovereign pontiffs interfered in the proceedings and
  writings of the members of the society; that they blamed them for the
  dissentions in which their zeal involved them with their enemies in all
  parts of the world; and that they have condemned some of the fanatical
  (for this is a term as appropriate to catholic as puritan zealots), I say
  some of the fanatical maxims formerly preached by individuals is not
  denied, and has been already noticed in these pages; and
  this is all that can be gathered from the rescript; but that this renders
  the popes impugners of the order is far from being the fact, and
  for this reason it is I have been induced to cite this pontiff, as well
  as his successor, in the catalogue of authorities. By the word
  impugner, I presume, that sir John means assailant; now,
  that the disapproval of some casuists, and the blaming of untimely or
  misplaced zeal of some of the society was no assailing of the order, the
  following words of Clement XIII, addressed to the archbishops and bishops
  of France, will, I think, sufficiently prove: "But the thing, which gives
  the deepest wound to the public weal, and to the faithful, which is the
  greatest insult to the apostolic see and to you, is the persecution they
  have raised against the society of Jesus, which has ever supplied the
  church with many able champions, and now, by the credit of a prevailing
  faction, is oppressed and dissipated. Its institute, that institute,
  which the Roman catholic church, assembled in the
  council of Trent, approved of; that institute upon which our predecessors
  have bestowed so many solemn encomiums; which has hitherto found
  protection and received the most signal marks of favour from the kings of
  France; that institute, which you yourselves, not so much out of
  gratitude as from a principle of equity, have celebrated and publicly
  declared, that it was of very singular service to you in your respective
  dioceses, is now loaded with antiquated and groundless calumnies, is
  treated as a pest, which had crept into the church, and is publicly
  burned with all the marks of infamy[49]."


GANGANELLI.


Enough has been said of Clement XIV, in the foregoing pages, to
  entitle me to place him among the authorities in favour of the Jesuits,
  though the solemn act, by which he
  extirpated the order, may be said to involve him among their assailants.
  The motives and grounds of that act are clear, and his private opinion of
  the order is no less manifest. Men, who approve of this act of Clement,
  are not aware that they are approving of a corrupt maxim, with which the
  enemies of the Jesuits calumniate the society. Besides, the destruction
  of the order was a certain evil, and the good to arise from it, the
  security and inviolability of the holy see, was far from being a certain
  consequence; the contrary has been proved by subsequent events. The
  growth of one generation sufficed to strip the tiara of the veneration
  due to it, and to threaten every crown in Europe with ruin. Philosophical
  universities and academies were every where, on the continent,
  substituted for the colleges of the Jesuits; religion and reason no
  longer went hand in hand in education; the latter, with all her spurious
  offspring, was held up as the grand object and distinguishing character
  of man; the former was neglected, or ridiculed, and soon
  lost even its name in that of superstition. In 1773, Clement XIV
  abolished the order: in 1793, a king of France was beheaded; Reason was
  deified, and altars erected to her in various countries; anarchy followed
  impiety; demons were chosen to rule, or rather to confound all order. A
  successor of Ganganelli was torn from Rome, to die in captivity; and
  others have, since, been degraded into tools of the most absolute and
  heathenish tyranny that ever existed on the earth. It is very evident,
  therefore, that the preservation of the power of Rome did not depend upon
  the destruction of the order of the Jesuits, but, rather, that the
  rescript of 1773 was a warrant for the imprisonment, if not the death, of
  Pius VI, and the subsequent overthrow of the holy see. That rescript was,
  therefore, the result of a short-sighted policy. It is impossible to read
  Ganganelli's Letters, and deny that he was highly intellectual, virtuous,
  religious, and amiable; nor would I confound the philosophy which he
  cultivated, with that which is destructive of religious hope and
  political order; but his whole conduct, in the affair of the Jesuits,
  proves, that his soul was not formed to the honours of martyrdom, as he
  was ready to act against his own conviction, and to sacrifice principle
  to convenience; a maxim peculiarly impugned by Jesuits, and by catholics
  in general.


In addition to the proofs of his good opinion of the society already
  given, I will here insert a passage to be found in the twelfth volume of
  the Annual Register. In addressing the courts of Paris, Madrid, and
  Naples, after his elevation to the pontificate, he states, that, "in
  regard to the Jesuits, he could neither blame nor annihilate an
  institute, which had been applauded and confirmed by nineteen of his
  predecessors; that he could the less do it, because it had been
  authentically confirmed by the council of Trent; and that, by the French
  maxims, the general council was above the pope: that, if it was
  desired, he would call a council, in which every thing should be
  discussed with justice and equity, and the Jesuits heard in their own
  defence; that he owed to the Jesuits, as to all the religious orders,
  justice and protection; that, besides, the states of Germany, the king of
  Sardinia, and the king of Prussia, had written to him in their behalf;
  and that he could not, by their destruction, content some princes,
  without displeasing others." Nevertheless, without calling a council,
  without hearing their defence, he destroyed them; and, certainly, it will
  ever be a matter of astonishment, that, in a cause of such magnitude, a
  Roman pontiff, whatever motives may have impelled him to pronounce the
  suppression, could so far assimilate himself with the ministers of
  Portugal, Spain, Naples, and France, as to overlook that primary maxim,
  which Rome, whether Pagan or Christian, had in all ages respected: "It is
  not the manner of the Romans to deliver any man to die, before that he,
  which is accused, have the accusers face to face, and have licence to
  answer for himself concerning the crime laid against him[50]."


The writer of some anecdotes annexed to his Letters, relates one,
  which shows the notoriety of the fact, that his suppression of the
  Jesuits was not the effect of a bad opinion of the order: as it is
  applicable to the subject I will insert it here. "While the bells were
  ringing, and cannon firing, to celebrate his exaltation, the general of
  the Jesuits observed, with a sigh, there tolls our passing-bell.
  Not," says the writer, "that Ganganelli was hostile to the
  Jesuits, but because he thought it was necessary to attend to the
  representations of the sovereigns."


THE PRESIDENT D'EGUILLES.


This gentleman was the Aristides of the French magistracy. I have
  already mentioned him, when speaking of Monclar's Compte
  Rendu[51]. His opinion of
  the persecution of the society will be seen in the following passage,
  which was addressed by him to Louis XV. "If the church be incessantly
  outraged, by the judgments passed against the institute of the Jesuits,
  the throne is still more pointedly attacked, upon the two principal
  motives, which instigate the enemies of the Jesuits to work their
  destruction. The first of these motives is, plainly, to deprive a
  society, which is entirely devoted to the interests of its king, of the
  education of youth; but more especially of the youth of the nobility. The
  second, which is equally as dangerous, is, to astound all the other
  bodies of the kingdom by the terrible fall of that, which seemed the most
  unlikely to be shaken; and thus to make them sensible, that the hatred of
  the parliaments is more to be dreaded than the protection of the king to
  be coveted."




ABBE PROYART.


In his work entitled "Louis XVI dethroned before he was King," speaks
  of the Jesuits in these words: "The Jesuits, considered only in the light
  of public teachers, were, during their existence, the first supports of
  the throne."—"The destruction of the Jesuits was the ruin of the
  precious edifice of national education, and gave a general shock to
  public morality." The abbé, from his many testimonies in favour of the
  Jesuits, being suspected to be one of their order, openly declares, "that
  he never belonged to the society, and that he owed them only truth and
  justice, for that he was not even indebted to them for his
  education."


VOLTAIRE.


I have already cited Voltaire, but I place him in the list here, for
  the purpose of inserting some farther extracts from his Letters. When
  he was solicited by the Jansenistical
  magistrates to join with them in accusing the Jesuits of the crime of
  regicide, he gave this remarkable answer, in his Letter to the Atheist
  Damilaville: "I should rouse posterity in their behalf, if I accused them
  of a crime, of which Europe, and Damiens himself, have acknowledged them
  innocent." Writing, in 1765, three years after the suppression of the
  Jesuits, to the same Damilaville, he thus exults in the realized
  expectations of D'Alembert: "Victory declares for us on every side. I can
  assure you, that, in a short time, the rabble alone will remain under the
  standard of our enemies." In subsequent letters he declares, that "a
  general revolution was making its appearance in every quarter; that
  philosophy was gaining strength in the north of Germany; that similar
  revolutions were taking place in Poland, Italy, and Spain." Such was the
  rapid effect of the substitution of philosophical to religious education!
  However borne away by the charms of philosophy, Voltaire
  was greatly attached to the Jesuits, and had the highest opinion of them:
  this he fully expresses in a letter to father de la Tour, principal of
  the college of Louis le Grand, where he was himself educated, which has
  been already cited.


MONTESQUIEU.


Montesquieu, mentioning the government of Paraguay, then under the
  guidance of the Jesuits, as an instance, among other extraordinary
  institutions formed to exalt nations to virtue, alludes to the imputed
  ambition of the society to govern; to which he replies, "but it will ever
  be a glorious ambition to govern men by rendering them happy. It is
  glorious to the society to have been the first to give, in those regions,
  the idea of religion united with humanity. By repairing the devastations
  of the Spaniards, they have begun to heal one of the most dangerous
  wounds the human race ever received. They have drawn wild people from
  woods, secured them regular maintenance, and clothed their nakedness; but
  even, had they done no more than add to the stock of industry among men,
  that would have been doing a great deal[52]."


BUFFON.


"The missions," says this celebrated natural philosopher, "have formed
  more men, in the barbarous nations, than the victorious armies of the
  princes, who subjugated them. It is only in this way, that Paraguay has
  been conquered: the gentleness, the good example, the charity, and the
  exercise of virtue constantly maintained by the missionaries, made their
  way to the hearts of the savages, and conquered their distrust and their
  ferocity. They would frequently come, of their own
  accord, and beg to be made acquainted with the law, which rendered men so
  perfect; to that law they submitted and entered into society. Nothing can
  do more honour to religion than to have civilized those nations and laid
  the foundations of an empire, with no other arms than those of virtue[53]."


HALLER.


"The enemies of the society," says Haller, "disparage their best
  institutions: they accuse them of inordinate ambition, on seeing a kind
  of empire formed by them in distant regions; but what plan can be more
  delightful, or more advantageous to humanity, than to assemble human
  beings scattered widely among the gloomy forests of America, to win them
  from the savage state, a state of wretchedness, to put an end to their
  cruel and destructive wars, to enlighten their minds with the truths of
  religion, and to form them into a society like the state of mankind in
  the golden age? Is this not taking up the character of legislator for the
  happiness of men? The ambition, that produces so much good, cannot but be
  a laudable passion. No virtue ever attains that purity, which men are apt
  to exact; but neither is any virtue disfigured by the passions, while
  these serve to promote the general happiness[54]."


MURATORI.


It is hardly necessary to observe, that Muratori's character for
  talents, piety, and virtue, stands very high in the estimation of the
  learned. He was a celebrated Italian writer, a fellow of the chief
  academies of Italy, of the royal society of London, and of the imperial
  academy of Olmutz, and he was consulted as the oracle of the age by the
  literati of Europe. He was born in 1672 and died in 1750. He was
  unconnected with the society of the Jesuits, and the high praises he
  bestows upon them could, therefore, only have been dictated by a just
  esteem and admiration. The following extracts are from his work entitled,
  Il Cristianessimo felice nella missioni dé Padri dellà Compagnia di
  Gesu nel Paraguai; a work which may serve as a commentary on the
  edicts, declarations, and manifestoes, of the court of Portugal under the
  dictatorship of Pombal. "I could wish, that some one among the enemies of
  the church of Rome, who carry their aversion to the Jesuits so far as to
  asperse the zeal of those admirable missionaries, and their purity of
  intention, in the laborious functions, which they discharge among the
  infidels, would only accompany them awhile in their apostolic excursions,
  to see and examine what they do, and what they suffer for the salvation
  of souls. He would undoubtedly, and that very soon, lay aside former
  prejudices, and, perhaps, what he had seen would suffice to make him
  renounce his error." After enumerating, briefly, the charges against the
  Jesuits of America, such as their making themselves petty princes;
  engrossing the commerce of Paraguay; becoming dangerously wealthy and
  powerful; bribing governors; robbing the Indians, under cover of pleasing
  God, &c. &c., he says, "This is an abstract of the defamatory
  reports spread about the world, either by word of mouth, or printed
  libels, against the missionaries of Paraguay. I will advance nothing
  without clear proofs. I am not afraid of affirming, that all these
  imputations are calumnies and detestable forgeries, suggested by envy and
  malice." He then proceeds to prove them to be such[55].




GROTIUS, LEIBNITZ, BACON.


This triumvirate of religion and genuine philosophy were friends and
  admirers of the Jesuits; they are cited or referred to in the following
  Letters, I shall therefore be satisfied with naming them here.


FREDERIC THE GREAT.


"Frederic," says the elegant scholar already twice quoted[56], "in spite of his sceptical
  vanity, appeared sometimes to be convinced of the dangerous principles of
  all those false philosophers, whose adulatory attentions he was weak
  enough to be pleased with. In one of these moments, in which his good
  sense retained the ascendency over his self-love, when the news reached
  him of the proscription of the Jesuits in France, by the confidential
  agents of supreme authority: 'Poor souls,' said he, 'they have destroyed
  the foxes, which defended them from the jaws of the wolves, and
  they do not perceive that they are about to be devoured.'" Whomever the
  king of Prussia meant by the wolves, it is well known, that the same
  parliament that devoured the Jesuits in 1764, were equally disposed to
  devour the episcopal body in 1765.


DR. JOHNSON. DEAN KIRWAN.


It is very common to speak of superstition as a shade in the character
  of Johnson; and, no doubt, a modern philosopher will object to the
  authority of one so bigoted as to declare, "that monasteries have
  something congenial to the mind of man." Such objections, however, shall
  not divert me from enrolling him here; for, the opinion he expressed
  relative to the destruction of the Jesuits was the result, not of any
  superstitious motive, but of that penetration, which was not to be
  blunted by the opposition of prejudices. Mrs. Piozzi tells us, that, when
  he was at Rouen, "he conversed with the abbé Rofette about the
  destruction of the Jesuits, and condemned it loudly, as a blow to
  the general power of the church, and likely to be followed with many and
  dangerous innovations, which might, at length, become fatal to religion
  itself, and shake even the foundations of Christianity." With Dr. Johnson
  let me place Dean Kirwan, who often declared, that he imbibed the noble
  ambition of benefiting mankind in the college of the English Jesuits, at
  St. Omer's[57].


BAUSSET.


Bausset, bishop of Meth, in a Life of Fenelon, published so lately as
  the year 1809, passes a comprehensive and eloquent eulogium on the
  society, of which the following sentences form but a part: "Wherever the
  Jesuits were heard of they preserved all classes of society in a spirit
  of order, wisdom, and consistency. Called, at the commencement of the
  society, to the education of the principal families of the state, they
  extended their cares to the inferior
  classes, and kept them in the happy habits of religious and moral
  virtue."—"They had the merit of attracting honour to their
  religious character, by a severity of manners, a temperance, a nobility,
  and a personal disinterestedness, which even their enemies could not deny
  them. This is the fairest answer they can make to satires, which accuse
  them of relaxed morality."—"These men, who were described as so
  dangerous, so powerful, so vindictive, bowed, without a murmur, under the
  terrible hand that crushed them[58]."


JUAN AND ULLOA.


The very names of these travellers suggest the virtues and the praises
  of the Jesuits. It was from their volumes that Robertson took his account
  of the settlement of Paraguay, and I do not think it necessary here to
  extend their testimony.




RICHELIEU.


When the four ministers of Charenton presented very heavy accusations
  against the Jesuits to Louis XIII, cardinal Richelieu answered them all:
  for the sake of brevity, I shall extract only his reply on the charge of
  regicide. "As to what you say of their doctrine, with respect to the
  power they attribute to the pope over kings, you would have spoken very
  differently of it, if, instead of learning it from the private
  writings of a few particulars, you had collected it from the mouth of
  their general, who, in the year 1610, made a public and solemn
  declaration, by which he not only disapproves, but forbids all those of
  his order, under very severe penalties, to teach or maintain it lawful,
  under what pretext of tyranny soever, to attempt upon the persons of
  kings and princes." 


ABBE RAYNAL.


To the foregoing testimonies, let us add that of one of the bitterest
  enemies of Christianity. "The magnificence of the ceremonies," says
  Raynal, "attracts the Indians to the churches, where they find pleasure
  and piety united. There it is that religion is amiable, and it is at
  first in her ministers that she there gains love. Nothing equals the
  purity of the morals, the mild and tender zeal, the paternal solicitude,
  of the Jesuits of Paraguay. Every pastor is truly the father, as well as
  the director of his parishioners. There his authority is not felt, for he
  orders, prohibits, and punishes, only what is punished, prohibited, and
  ordered by the religion, which all of them, as well as he, worship and
  cherish."—"A government in which nobody is idle, nobody works to
  excess; in which food is wholesome, plentiful, and impartially partaken
  by all the citizens, who are conveniently lodged, conveniently clothed;
  in which old persons, widows, orphans, and
  the sick, find a succour unknown in any other part of the globe; in which
  every one marries according to inclination, and without interest; and
  where large families are a comfort, without a possibility of becoming a
  burthen; in which the debauchery inseparable from idleness, that equally
  corrupts opulence and poverty, never accelerates the degradation, or
  rather the decline of human life; in which factitious passions are never
  excited, and well-regulated desires never thwarted; in which the
  advantages of commerce are enjoyed; without danger of contagion from the
  vices attendant on luxury; in which well-stored magazines, and mutual
  gratuitous succours among nations, rendered brothers by the same
  religion, afford a secure resource against the want that the uncertainty
  or inclemency of the seasons may produce; in which criminal justice has
  never been under the melancholy necessity of condemning a single criminal
  to death, to ignominy, or to punishment of any duration; and in which the
  very name of a tax or of a lawsuit is unknown." Listen, I
  pray, to this account, from a quarter so unsuspected, of "the
  slavery in which the Jesuits held the Indians of Paraguay, and the
  atrocities which they exercised there;" for such is the language
  of their assailant, whom one must be surprised to find unacquainted with
  the writings of such an author as Raynal.


THE BISHOPS OF FRANCE.


There are forty-five names of bishops subscribed to a reply made by
  them to certain articles proposed for their examination by Louis XV.
  Their judgment is given at considerable length, and the testimony of it
  is too valuable to be abridged. I have already referred the reader to the
  document, printed at length, in the Appendix, at the end of this volume;
  to enable him, however, to judge here of the importance of it, I will
  insert the articles in this place. 


The first is: "Of what use the Jesuits may be in France; the
  advantages or inconveniences that may attend the various functions, which
  they exercise under our authority."


The second: "How the Jesuits behave, in their instructions, and in
  their own conduct, with regard to certain opinions, which strike at the
  safety of the king's person; as, likewise, with regard to the received
  doctrine of the clergy of France, contained in the declaration of the
  year 1682; and, in general, with regard to their opinions on the other
  side of the Alps."


The third: "The conduct of the Jesuits, with regard to their
  subordination to bishops; and whether, in the exercise of their
  functions, they do not encroach on the pastoral rights and
  privileges."


The fourth: "Whether it may not be convenient to moderate and set
  bounds to the authority, which the general of the
  Jesuits exercises in France."


The replies fully substantiate the utility of the society, the purity
  of their doctrine, the regularity of their conduct, and the consistency
  of their government with their duty to their king and country[59].


Such, then, is the nature of the authorities, that rank in favour of
  the Jesuits; and the reader, by comparing them with the inveterate and
  corrupt spirits, which have been dragged from obscurity to destroy them a
  second time, will be able to estimate their respective value, and the
  motives of the new conspirators against them.


Perhaps enough has incidentally appeared, in the preceding pages, to
  inform the reader of the chief crimes imputed to the society of the
  Jesuits, and to satisfy his mind of the falsehood of the imputations, as
  well as of the baseness and wickedness of the means contrived for
  attaching them upon those devoted victims. Many of the imputations are
  also removed in the following Letters. And when I consider, that the
  judgment of the bishops of France affords, on these points, a complete
  refutation of the slanders which have been lavished upon the society, I
  feel, that I should be wasting time, and abusing the attention of my
  reader, with unnecessary repetition. A brief notice, however, of some of
  the principal charges against the society, may not be unacceptable here.
  Let us inquire into those of ambition, commerce, and sedition.


In the searches which I have made, it appears to me, both from
  narrative of facts, and from reasoning on the nature of things, that the
  society of the Jesuits have been most basely slandered, as well as
  inhumanly treated. What was their ambition? The glory of God, and
  the edification of man. But, say their enemies, how were these pursued?
  and were they always the real objects? The Jesuits are accused of shaping
  their course to the richest and most commodious countries; with extending
  the limits of the church to enlarge the circle of their commerce; with
  preaching sedition; with raising, on the cross, a throne to their
  ambition rather than to Christ. What do we learn from reason, and from
  fact? The roads to all ecclesiastical honours, all political employments,
  are shut to Jesuits, who renounce the former by a formal vow, and are
  prohibited the latter by the most rigorous penalties[60]. The countries, where we hear of
  Jesuits, are inhabited by cannibals, by Hurons, Iroquois, Canadians,
  Illinoise, Negroes, Ethiopians, Laplanders, Tartars; they are barren
  deserts, eternal snows, burning sands, gloomy forests; there did these
  ambitious men live on wild herbs and bitter roots, and cover
  themselves with leaves, or the skins of wild beasts; there did they run
  from cave to cave by day, and sleep at night in the hollows of rocks. Are
  these the abodes of luxury and wealth? It is indeed a glorious ambition
  to make men happy, to teach, and to save: such is the ambition displayed
  by the Jesuits, and the throne they raised on the cross was one of faith,
  hope, and charity.


With respect to commerce. By the canons of the church, it is forbidden
  to ecclesiastics, and, certainly, for good reasons. Commerce is a
  profession, a pursuit, to which men devote their time, for the purpose of
  obtaining a livelihood, and of amassing fortunes. It is a pursuit
  inconsistent with the habits and duties of the ministers of religion.
  This is the imputation meant to be thrown on the Jesuits, and which
  Pombal, their great enemy, and the enemy of every virtue, endeavoured to
  fix upon them. It was not difficult for them to repel this charge. They
  had a depôt at Lisbon, where they kept effects, which served them
  instead of money. These things were sold, as a proprietor of land would
  sell his corn, to support the brothers of the order in America, who,
  having no income, could only be supplied with commodities, in those
  savage countries. If this did not militate against the spirit that
  prohibits commerce to priests, as little did the kind of traffic which
  was superintended by the missionaries in Paraguay, and which was, in
  fact, a species of piety. With what delight does one read the account of
  it, in the Voyage of Juan and Ulloa. "The Jesuits take upon them the sole
  care of disposing of the manufactures and products of the Guaranies
  Indians, designed for commerce; these people being naturally careless and
  indolent, and, doubtless, without the diligent inspection and pathetic
  exhortations of the fathers, would be buried in sloth and indigence. The
  case is very different in the missions of the Chiquitos, who are
  industrious, careful, and frugal; and their genius so happily adapted to
  commerce, as not to stand in need of any factors. The priests in the
  villages of this nation are of no expense to the crown, the Indians
  themselves rejoicing in maintaining them, and join in cultivating a
  plantation, filled with all kinds of grain and fruits, for the priest;
  the remainder, after this decent support, being applied to purchase
  ornaments for the churches. That the Indians may never be in any want of
  necessaries, it is one part of the minister's care to have always in
  readiness a stock of different kinds of tools, stuffs, and other goods;
  so that all who are in want repair to him, bringing, by way of exchange,
  wax, of which there are here great quantities, and other products. And
  this barter is made with the strictest integrity, that the Indians may
  have no reason to complain of oppression, and that the high character of
  the priests, for justice and sanctity, may be studiously preserved. The
  goods received in exchange are, by the priests, sent to the superior of
  the missions, who is a different person from the superior of the
  Guaranies; and, with the produce, a fresh stock of goods is laid in. The
  principal intention of this is, that the
  Indians may have no occasion to leave their own country, in order to be
  furnished with necessaries; and, by this means, are kept from the
  contagion of those vices, which they would naturally contract in their
  intercourse with the inhabitants of other countries, where the depravity
  of human nature is not corrected by such good examples and laws[61]." This is the commerce, the
  only commerce carried on by the Jesuits; a commerce, that the apostles
  themselves would have maintained as a duty. I speak of the society, and
  of their spirit as a body; for I am not ignorant of the scandal which was
  brought upon them by the conduct of P. Lavalette, who, under pretence of
  augmenting the revenues of St. Peter's, ruined the mission at Martinique,
  and the cause of the Jesuits in France. What numerous body can be
  answerable for every individual of it? The circumstances attending the
  conduct of Lavalette are not very clear; but to contend for his
  innocence is not necessary to the character of the order, the purity and
  integrity of which, however, derive a new demonstration from the very
  effect produced by his misconduct, be the guilt of that what it may, for
  it exonerates all the other Jesuit missionaries from the charge of
  trading. This charge had long existed, previous to Lavalette's affair:
  long before had hatred been upon the watch, and calumny active: long
  before had both the old and new world been full of Jesuit missionaries,
  and every where were they exposed to the scrutinizing looks of their
  enemies: no sooner was Lavalette denounced, than all eyes were turned
  upon him, and immediately all Europe rang with his name. Scarcely had
  that of the bold navigator, who discovered, or that of the sanguinary
  captain, who conquered America, travelled so rapidly, or with so much
  noise. Innumerable libels issued from the press, and nothing equalled the
  celebrity of the subject. What is the evident inference? This: that,
  although their enemies were so vigilant in observing, so skilful in detecting, so eager to expose such of the
  missionaries, who, in spite of their institute, should become merchants,
  yet Lavalette was the only one that had ever afforded them a shadow of
  proof for such a charge.


The accusation of preaching sedition, and sowing the seeds of revolt,
  is equally unmerited. It is true, that the Jesuits were assiduous in
  preventing all personal intercourse between the Indians and the Spaniards
  and Portugueze, for which they were charged with a seditious intention of
  throwing off the Spanish government. I know not that the throwing off of
  governments should shock modern philosophers, or the modification of
  religion disturb their brain; but I know, that very different motives are
  assigned for this assiduity of the Jesuits, in excluding the Europeans
  from the Indians; motives, which merit honour here and crowns of glory
  hereafter. The reader will thank me for communicating them in the simple
  and affecting language of the Spanish travellers last cited. "The missionary fathers will not allow any of
  the inhabitants of Peru, whether Spaniards or others, Mestizos or even
  Indians, to come within their missions in Paraguay. Not with a view of
  concealing their transactions from the world; or that they are afraid
  lest others should supplant them of part of the products and
  manufactures; nor for any of those causes, which, even with less
  foundation, envy has dared to suggest; but for this reason, and a very
  prudent one it is, that their Indians, who being as it were new born from
  savageness and brutality, and initiated into morality and religion, may
  be kept steady in this state of innocence and simplicity. These Indians
  are strangers to sedition, pride, malice, envy, and other passions, which
  are so fatal to society. But, were strangers admitted to come among them,
  their bad examples would teach them what at present they are happily
  ignorant of; but should modesty, and the attention they pay to the
  instructions of their teachers, be once laid aside, the shining
  advantages of these settlements would soon come to nothing; and such a
  number of souls, who now worship the true God in the beauty of holiness,
  and live in tranquillity and love (of which such slender traces are seen
  among civilized nations), would be again seduced into the paths of
  disorder and perdition."—"Hence it is, that the Jesuits have
  inflexibly adhered to their maxim of not admitting any foreigners among
  them: and in this they are certainly justified by the melancholy example
  of the other missions of Peru, whose decline from their former happiness
  and piety is the effect of an open intercourse[62]." It is also true, that the Indians did
  revolt, if that term can be applied to an act rendered unavoidable by the
  horrid avarice and despotism, which had conspired to sacrifice these
  happy and innocent tribes; but so far were the Jesuits from being
  instigators of the revolt, that they were in danger of being the victims
  of it, of which they were well aware. The facts would form a long and
  interesting narrative; but it is only necessary, at
  present, to state a few particulars. A notion had been generated in the
  imagination of Pombal, the Portugueze minister, that, in the region of
  those happy settlements, there were mines of gold, unknown to the
  inhabitants. On these he cast his eyes, and commenced an intrigue for
  exchanging that territory with Spain, for others, at the immense distance
  of three hundred leagues. This being effected, he resolved, that the
  whole Indian population of Paraguay should be transported. The Jesuits
  were ordered to dispose the people to transmigrate. They, at first,
  ventured to represent modestly the difficulty of such a removal, and to
  conjure the officers of government to consider, what an undertaking it
  was, to transport, over such wildernesses, thirty thousand souls, with
  their cattle and effects, to a distance of nearly a thousand miles: they
  were sharply told, that obedience and not expostulation was expected. The
  consequences present a history, that might draw tears from the most
  obdurate. Now would have been the time for the Jesuits to establish
  their empire, had the project imputed to them been founded. What was
  their conduct? Rather than become rebels, these faithful and humble
  subjects laboured earnestly to prevail upon the Indians to obey the
  mandate. Their exertions, however great, were not satisfactory, and new
  commands for haste were issued; a few months were allowed for an
  undertaking, which, if it could be executed at all, required years. This
  precipitation ruined the whole. The poor creatures, who were to be torn
  from their habitations, driven to extremities, began to distrust their
  own missionaries, and suspected them of acting in concert with the
  officers of Spain and Portugal. From that moment they looked upon them
  only as so many traitors, who were seeking to deliver them up to their
  old inveterate enemies. In the course of a short time, peace, order, and
  happiness, gave way to war, confusion, and misery. Those Indians,
  previously so flexible, so docile, insensibly lost that spirit of
  submission and simplicity, which had distinguished them, and they every
  where prepared to make a vigorous resistance. The contest lasted a
  considerable time, during which the Indians experienced some success, but
  were ultimately defeated; some of them burnt their towns and betook
  themselves in thousands to the woods and mountains, where they perished
  miserably. After surveying all the plains, searching all the forests,
  digging all the mountains, sounding all the lakes and rivers, to
  establish the limits of the country, no mines were found, and the
  director of the scheme, Gomez, finding himself the dupe of his mad
  imagination and puerile credulity, wished it possible to conceal his
  shame and prevent his disgrace, by having the treaty between the two
  courts annulled. He even descended so low as to beseech the Jesuits
  themselves to endeavour to effect the annulling of it. They, of course,
  paid no attention to the entreaties of a man, whose insatiable avidity
  had caused the ruin of thirty thousand of their fellow creatures; and it
  was not till Charles III succeeded to the crown of Spain, that the
  treaty, of which he had never approved, was
  annulled. There was now an end to the war in Paraguay, so fatal to its
  once happy, pious, and virtuous population, who, in consequence of it,
  lost not only their property, but their innocence, their piety, their
  docility, their gentleness, their simplicity, which were superseded by
  European debauchery, hypocrisy, and perfidy; vices that formed a new and
  almost insurmountable obstacle to the progress of religion, in those
  immense regions, where, for so many years, it had flourished[63].


Having shown the pious nature of the ambition, which inflamed the zeal
  of the Jesuits; the paternal nature of the commerce, which consisted in
  necessary commodities, taken in barter for the provision of their
  establishments, and not in rich products, of various countries, freighted
  on wealthy speculations; and having shown also that their
  conduct, in excluding Europeans from the Paraguay settlements, was not
  the effect of a seditious disposition, I should now conclude this
  chapter, did I not, as I proceed, feel more and more a desire to remove
  the prejudices, which an extraordinary combination of passions and
  talents, operating on the progress of human affairs, has spread over the
  character of men, who appear to me to have been actuated by the sublimest
  motives, such as might be attributed to angels; the glory of God, and the
  benefit of mankind. The picture drawn by the abbé Barruel of one of the
  ex-Jesuits, who was murdered at Avignon, in one of the revolutionary
  massacres, is a genuine and convincing representation of a celestial
  spirit, which never could have been nourished in a corrupt society, which
  must have owed its qualities to an exalted one. This portrait cannot but
  be viewed with love and admiration, and the reader would think an apology
  for placing it before him superfluous. 


"Avignon and the Comtat had been declared, by the assembly, united to
  France. Jourdan, surnamed Coup-tête, was at Avignon with his
  banditti. The unfortunate persons shut up in the prisons were devoted by
  him to death. An immense pit was opened to serve as their grave, and
  loads of sand were carried thither to cover the bodies. There were six
  hundred prisoners in the castle: the hour was fixed for putting them to
  death and throwing them, one after the other, into the pit. There was, at
  Avignon, a virtuous priest, one of those men for whom we feel, on earth,
  a veneration, like that paid to the saints in heaven. His name was
  Nolhac; he had formerly been rector of the noviciat of the Jesuits at
  Thoulouse, and was now eighty years old. For thirty years he had been the
  parish priest of St. Symphorien, a parish, which he had taken in
  preference, from its being that of the poor. During all these years,
  spent in the town, he had been the father and refuge of the indigent, the
  consoler of the afflicted, the adviser and friend of the inhabitants,
  and he would not listen to their entreaties, to quit the place, on the
  arrival of the jacobins with Jourdan and his banditti. He could never
  resolve to leave his parishoners, deprived of their minister, in the
  beginning of the troubles of the schism, and far less to leave them,
  deprived of the consolations of religion, while under the tyranny of the
  banditti. Martyrdom, the glory of shedding his blood for Jesus Christ,
  for his church, or for the faithful, were, to him, but the accomplishment
  of desires and wishes, which, all his life, had been formed in his soul,
  and with which he knew how to inspire his disciples, when he was
  directing them in the paths of perfection. His life itself had
  been but a martyrdom, concealed by a countenance always serene, and
  always beaming angelic joy, with peace of conscience. His body, clothed
  with the hair-shirt, had needed the strong constitution, with which
  nature had endowed him, to support him under the mortifications,
  watchings, and fasts he endured, through all the activity of a minister
  and the austerity of an anchorite. Daily at prayer and
  meditation long before light; daily visiting the sick and the poor, whom
  he never left without administering, together with spiritual
  consolations, temporal comforts, confided to his hands by the faithful;
  always poor as to himself, but rich for others, it was at length time to
  consummate the sacrifice of a life wholly devoted to charity and to his
  God.


"M. Nolhac, whom the banditti themselves had hitherto held sacred, was
  sent prisoner to the castle the very day before that on which the six
  hundred victims were to be put to death. His appearance among those
  unhappy persons, who all knew and revered him, was that of a consoling
  angel; his first words were those of an apostle of souls, sent in order
  to prepare them for appearing before the judge of the quick and the dead:
  'I come to die with you, my children: we are all going together to appear
  before God. How I thank him for having sent me to prepare your souls to
  appear at his tribunal! Come, my children, the moments
  are precious; to-morrow, perhaps to-day, we shall be no longer in this
  world; let us, by a sincere repentance, qualify ourselves to be happy in
  the other. Let me not lose a single soul among you. Add to the hope, that
  God will receive myself into his bosom, the happiness of being able to
  present you to him, as children all of whom he charges me to save, and to
  render worthy of his mercy.' They throw themselves at his knees, embrace,
  and cling to them. With tears and sobs they confess their faults: he
  listens to them, he absolves them, he embraces them with that tenderness,
  which he always manifested to sinners. He had the satisfaction of finding
  them all impressed by his paternal exhortations. Already had that
  unspeakable pleasure, that peace which only God can give, as in Heaven he
  ratifies the absolution of his minister on Earth, taken place of fear on
  their countenances, when the voices of the banditti were heard calling
  out those, who were to be the first victims, for whom they waited at the
  gate of the fort. There, on the right and on the left, stood two
  assassins, each having an iron bar in his hands, with which they struck
  their victims, as they came out, with all their force and killed them.
  The bodies were then delivered to other executioners, who mangled the
  limbs and disfigured them with sabres, to render it impossible for the
  children and friends of the persons to distinguish them. After this, the
  remains were thrown into the infernal pit, called the ice-house.
  Meanwhile, M. Nolhac, within the prison, continued exhorting and
  embracing the unhappy prisoners, and encouraging them to go as they were
  called. He was fortunate enough to be the last, and to follow into the
  presence of his God the six hundred souls, who had carried to Heaven the
  tidings of his heroic zeal and unshaken fortitude[64]."—Nolhac was a Jesuit!












Of the Order of the Jesuits, with the prominent features of the
  Institute.




How many men are there, who never knew more of Jesuits than their
  name, that have, from the hideous caricatures, which have been drawn of
  them, imbibed such prejudices, and admitted such horrible impressions
  against the society, as to render it a wonder, and with some a scandal,
  that any person should dare to make the slightest attempt towards their
  vindication. On the perusal of this volume, I trust, that the wonder and
  the scandal will appear to be, that men should have so suffered their
  reason to be imposed upon, and their feelings betrayed, as to be tamely
  led into the views of the destroyers, not only of this
  religious order, but of religion itself, and of social order. I will
  endeavour here to give a faithful miniature of the noble original, which,
  under distorted features, we have been invited to ridicule and to detest.
  I do not, however, pretend to offer to the reader a deep-reasoned
  discussion, but only a slight sketch of the much traduced institute of
  the Jesuits, and of the pursuits and past successes of the men, who
  devoted themselves to it.


Jesuits were never much known in this kingdom. They were never more
  than a small detachment of missionary priests, privately officiating to
  the scattered catholics, like other priests, sent from the English
  seminaries of Rome, Douay, Valladolid, and Lisbon. They were
  distinguished only by more pointed severity of the ancient penal
  statutes, which the wisdom and liberality of the legislature has
  considerably relaxed. This greater severity arose, not from their
  conduct, but from the general prejudice against their order; and, in
  England, this prejudice kept pace with the esteem in
  which they were held in all catholic countries. Formerly, every enemy of
  catholic religion was their foe declared. Their perseverance and their
  successes still provoked new hostilities. It is the remark of Spondanus,
  that no set of men were ever so violently opposed, or ever so
  successfully triumphed over opposition. Their assiduity, in their
  multifarious relations to the public, in all countries, where they had
  settlements; in their schools and seminaries, in pulpits and
  confessionals, in hospitals and workhouses, in the cultivation of
  sciences, in national and foreign missions; all this professional
  business afforded them a large field for exertion, and enabled them to
  recommend themselves to kings, prelates, and magistrates, by signal
  services to the public, and thus to blunt the stings of envy and the
  shafts of malice. The small number, which frequented England for nearly
  two hundred years, in the face of the penal laws, had no such field of
  action. They were confined to administer the rites of religion to their
  brethren in private houses; they were necessitated
  to live separate; they were forced to disguise their profession and
  character, and frequently their very names; they lived under the laws,
  and they were not protected by the laws; they knew, that the distorted
  character, drawn of them by their foreign enemies, obtained ready credit
  in this country, without inquiry or examination; and, as they could
  neither act nor speak in their own defence, it has happened, that the
  notion of a Jesuit is to this day vulgarly (I take the word in its
  full meaning) associated with the idea of every crime.


In foreign countries, the Jesuits formed a conspicuous body, to which
  no man was wholly indifferent. They could not be viewed with the eye of
  contempt. They were highly esteemed, and they were bitterly hated. In all
  catholic countries, the esteem and respect, which they enjoyed, were
  fully established. They were every where considered as pure and holy in
  their morals and conduct, eminently zealous for religion, and highly
  serviceable to the public. Their enemies, at all times, were either open
  separatists from the catholic church, or secret enemies of it, who formed
  parties for its destruction; or they were rivals, who vied with them in
  some branches of the public administration of religion. From these
  sources proceeded, at different times, that undigested mass of
  criminations, unsubstantiated by proof, which are so inconsistently
  collected in the new conspiracy against the Jesuits. It is evidently
  folly to imagine, that a large body of men, connected with the public by
  a thousand links, surrounded by jealous enemies, could possibly be a band
  of unprincipled knaves, impostors, and miscreants. The universal favour
  of the bulk of so many polished nations forbids, at once, such an idea.
  Popes, kings, prelates, magistrates, everywhere protected and employed
  them. Bishops and their clergy everywhere regarded them as their most
  useful auxiliaries in the sacred ministry, because they professedly
  exercised every duty of it, except that of governing the church;
  and this they renounced by vow. The
  people, in all towns, even in villages, felt their gratuitous services. A
  hundred years ago, if the public voice had been individually collected in
  Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, and Poland, undoubtedly, they
  would rather have parted with any other, perhaps with most other
  religious bodies, than with the society of Jesuits alone. A hundred years
  ago, all the continental sovereigns in Europe would have concurred in the
  same sentiment. With them they advised in all concerns of religion; to
  them they listened as preachers; to them they intrusted the instruction
  of their children, their own consciences, their souls. In those days, not
  only kings, but ministers of kings, and the great bulk of their nobles
  and people, believed in religion. They were sons of men, who had fought
  hard battles in France and Germany, in defence of catholic unity, against
  confederate sects, who had conspired to overturn it. Voltaire had not yet
  appeared among them. Religion was not yet presented to them as an object
  of ridicule. They deemed of religion with reverence and awe,
  and they believed it to be the firmest support of the state and of the
  throne. They venerated its ministers, and among them the Jesuits, because
  they knew, that their institute was well calculated to form its followers
  to the active service of the altars, which they respected.


An idea of the institute of the Jesuits cannot be formed without
  consulting the original code; and the first inspection of it shows the
  author to have been a man of profound thinking, and eminently animated
  with the spirit of religious zeal. Ad majorem Dei gloriam was the
  motto of Ignatius of Loyola, the main principle of all his conduct. He
  conceived, that a body of men, associated to promote God's greater glory,
  must profess to imitate, not one or two, but, universally, all the
  astonishing virtues of the Redeemer; and, in planning his institute, he
  compressed them all into one ruling motion of zeal, which, in his
  ideas, was the purest emanation of charity, the summit of Christian
  perfection. He everywhere employs his first principle, as the universal
  bond, or link, that must unite his society with God, and with their
  neighbours; and every prescription of his institute is a direct
  consequence of it. The greater glory of God is the first object
  that occurs on opening the institute. It is the first thing, on which
  every candidate is questioned; and, if he be accepted, the first thing to
  which he is applied. This alone decides upon the admission and dismission
  of subjects; this regulates their advancement in virtue and letters, the
  preservation of their health, the improvement of their talents, the
  distribution and allotment of their employments. Masters must teach, and
  students must learn, only to advance the greater glory of God: this is
  the rule of superiors, who command; the motive of subjects, who obey:
  this alone is considered in the establishment of domestic discipline, in
  the formation of laws and rules: it is the bond, which connects all, the
  spring, which moves all; every impulse given to the society must proceed from this; this alone must
  accelerate or slacken its progress; for this alone it must be maintained;
  every person in it, every thing in it, prayer and action, labour and
  rest, rules and exceptions, punishments and rewards, favours and
  refusals; in a word, every thing in the institute of Ignatius has one
  motive, one end, one common motto, The greater glory of God; with
  this it commences, with this it ends.


Whatever may be the sentiments of persons, of different religious
  persuasions, of this plan of sanctity, certain it is, that the idea of it
  presents something noble; and, in the principles of the catholic church,
  it embraces the height of sanctity. To men acting upon such a principle,
  no virtue could ever be foreign, because every virtue in its turn might
  be wanted to promote God's greater glory. The aim of Ignatius was, first,
  to form them into perfect Christians; and hence he prescribes and
  requires, in all his associates, the full practice of evangelical
  poverty, perfect purity, and intire obedience to lawful authority; and
  these virtues must be sanctioned by vow. He requires, that all and each
  should emulate the other great evangelical counsels, such as
  mortification of the senses, refusal of dignities and honourable
  distinctions, perfect disinterestedness in their several functions,
  &c. He conceived, that God's glory would be procured by the practice
  of these exalted virtues; but, faithful to his principle, he judged that
  God's greater glory required the communication, the diffusion of
  them among his neighbours. He earnestly wished to bring all men to know
  and adore the Son of God; and, in forming his associates for this
  ministry, he was not content to teach them to be saints, he would make
  them apostles. To the other obligations, which he laid upon them, he
  added the solemn vow of missions, binding them, whenever required, to
  carry the name of God, in the primitive spirit, to the extremities of the
  globe.


It would be an extravagant exaggeration to assert, that all the
  followers of Ignatius emulated such high gifts: but it has been
  allowed, in general, by the best judges in the catholic church, and, in
  great measure, by persons of other communions, that a large portion of
  the founder's original spirit was infused into the society, which he
  formed; and that Jesuits, cultivated by the mode of government and rules
  of life which he established, achieved feats in every country, which
  religion must revere, and sound policy commend. Their institute does not
  stop short of any perfection, which the author of it thought attainable
  by human weakness. He prescribes in it a variety of means, which his
  followers must employ, to yield service to all, who surround them; and,
  though all could not be performed by each, he strongly confided, that his
  order would never be destitute of men qualified to execute every thing
  that he prescribed. Some things are exacted of all and each, others are
  to be suited to the different talents of the men employed; and the common
  education, which he gives to all, qualifies each to succeed in his
  respective department. Every person, conversant in the affairs of the
  catholic church, will allow, that, by the constant attention of the
  superiors, not any means of helping the public, which the founder had
  prescribed, was neglected by the body of Jesuits; and the general utility
  resulting from all this was precisely the thing, that distinguished this
  body in the catholic church, and won for it the protection of popes and
  bishops, the countenance of kings and princes, the respect and esteem of
  nations.


As St. Ignatius, in his pursuit of absolute perfection, thought no
  virtue foreign to his institute, so he judged no service, which churchmen
  could yield to the public, foreign to his society. Without pretending to
  enumerate the various duties and occupations, which he recommends to its
  members, I select only a few, upon which he enters into more detailed
  instructions, and to which he specially calls the attention of all
  superiors, the zeal of all their subjects. They are, good example;
  prayer; works of charity to the poor, the imprisoned, the
  diseased; the writing of books of piety and religious instruction; the
  use of the sacrament of penance; preaching; pious congregations;
  spiritual retreats; national and foreign missions; and education of youth
  in public and gratuitous schools. In the catholic scheme of religion,
  each of these things is deemed important; and the united voice of all,
  who knew Jesuits, gives them the full credit of having, during their
  existence in a body, cultivated, with success, each of these several
  branches. Their preachers were heard and admired in every country; their
  tribunals of penance were crouded; the sick and dying were always secure
  of their attendance, when demanded; their books of devotion were
  everywhere read with confidence; the good example, resulting from the
  purity of their morals, secured them, even in the last fatal persecution,
  from inculpation, it disabled the malice of calumny. In the impossibility
  of criminating living Jesuits, their worst enemies could only revile the
  dead. Hospitals, workhouses, and lazarets, were the constant scenes of
  their zeal; their attendance on them was reckoned an appropriate duty of
  their society. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the
  plague successively ravaged every country in Europe, many hundreds of
  Jesuits are recorded to have lost their lives in the service of the
  infected. Several perished, in the same exercise of charity, in the last
  century, at Marseilles and Messina; and, during the late retreat of the
  French army from Moscow, not less than ten Jesuits died of fatigue and
  sickness, contracted in the hospitals crouded with those French
  prisoners, who, a little before, had ejected them from their principal
  college, at Polosk, after having plundered it of every valuable. It would
  be tedious to insist upon every point; but something I must say on the
  articles of missions and public schools, the two principal scenes of
  their zeal.


With respect to missions, the Jesuits might truly apply to themselves
  the verse,






Quæ regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?


Æn. lib. i.








Their perseverance in this field of zeal was universally admired; it
  secured success during more than two centuries; and the latest missionary
  expeditions of their society proved, that the original spirit was not
  decayed. Whoever had caught it from the institute of Ignatius was a
  scholar without pride; a man disengaged from his own conveniences;
  indifferent to his employment, to country, to climate; submissive to
  guidance; capable of living alone, and of edifying in public; happy in
  solitude, content in tumult; never misplaced. In a word, great purity of
  manners, cultivated minds, knowledge without pretensions, close study
  without recompence, obedience without reasoning though not without
  reason, love of labour, willingness to suffer, and, finally, fervor of
  zeal; such were the qualifications, which Ignatius's discernment directed
  his successors in government to seek, to select, or to form; and it is an
  acknowledged truth, that, at every period of the society, they always
  found men of this description to lead out their sacred expeditions to the
  four quarters of the world. These men planted Christian
  faith in the extremities of the East, in Japan, in the Molucca islands;
  they announced it in China, in the hither and further India, in Ethiopia
  and Caffraria, &c. Others, in the opposite hemisphere, appeared on
  the snowy wastes of North America; and, presently, Hurons were civilized,
  Canada ceased to be peopled only by barbarians. Others, almost in our own
  days, nothing degenerate, succeeded to humanize new hard-featured tribes,
  even to assemble them in Christian churches, in the ungrateful soil of
  California, to which angry Nature seems to have denied almost every
  necessary for the subsistence of the human species. They were but a
  detachment from the body of their brethren, who, at the same time, were
  advancing, with rapid progress, through Cinaloa, among the unknown hordes
  of savages, who rove through the immense tracts to the north of Mexico,
  which have not yet been trodden by the steps of any evangelical herald.
  Others, again, in greater numbers, from the school of Ignatius, with the
  most inflexible perseverance, amidst every species of
  opposition, continued to gather new nations into the church, to form new
  colonies of civilized cannibals, for the kings of Spain and Portugal, in
  the horrid wilds of Brazil, Maragnon, and Paraguay. Here truly flowed the
  milk and honey of religion and human happiness. Here was realized more
  than philosophy had dared to hope, more than Plato, in his republic, or
  the author of Utopia, had ever ventured to imagine. Here was given the
  demonstration, from experience, that pure religion, steadily practised,
  is the only source of human happiness. The new settlements, called
  Reductions, of Brazil and Paraguay, were real fruits of the zeal
  of the Jesuits. Solipsian empires, and gold mines to enrich the society,
  existed only in libels[65].




The Jesuits were advancing, with gigantic strides, to the very centre
  of South America, they were actually civilizing the Abiponian barbarians,
  when their glorious course was interrupted by the wretched policy of
  Lisbon and Madrid. The missionaries of South America were all seized like
  felons, and shipped off, as so many convicts, to the ports of old Spain,
  to be still farther transported to Corsica, and, finally, to the coasts
  of the pope's states. One of these venerable men, Martin Dobrizhoffer,
  who had spent eighteen years among the South American tribes, has given,
  in his Historia de Abiponibus, the best account, that exists, of
  the field of his arduous mission. His work is here mentioned, because it
  is not unknown in England, and his testimony[66] proves the persuasion of the best men at
  Buenos Ayres, in 1767, when the Jesuits were dismissed, that, if they had
  been at all times properly supported, by the courts of Lisbon and Madrid,
  especially against the self interested European
  settlers, not a barbarian, not an infidel, would then have been left in
  the whole extent of South America. "This," says the author, "was boldly
  advanced from the pulpit at Buenos Ares, in the presence of the royal
  governor, and of a thronged auditory, and it was proved with a strength
  of argument, that subdued all doubt, and wrought universal conviction."
  The impression must have been strengthened by the subsequent dissolution
  of all the Reductions, in consequence of the inability of the
  royal officers to substitute other missionaries to those, whom they had
  ejected[67].


Different was the providence of the superiors in the old society, to
  perpetuate the race and regular succession of those wonderful men. If
  they had sent out from Europe subjects already formed to every virtue and
  every science, their virtues and their learning would have been almost
  useless, without the knowledge and practical use of the barbarous idioms
  of the Indian tribes. Every young Jesuit in Europe was first trained,
  during two full years of noviciate, to the exact practice of religious
  virtues. He was next applied, during five years, still in strict domestic
  discipline, to the several studies of poetry, rhetoric, logic, physics,
  metaphysics, natural history, and mathematics. Seven years of preparation
  qualified these proficients to commence schoolmasters, during five or six
  succeeding years, in the several colleges of their respective provinces.
  It was generally at this period of their religious career, that
  several young Jesuits, instead of being employed to teach schools, were
  detached from the several European provinces, to the Asiatic colleges of
  Goa, or Macao, or to the American colleges of Mexico, Buenos Ayres, or
  Cordova in Tucumaw, where, in expectation of priesthood, they made a
  close study of the barbarous languages, which they were afterwards to
  speak in their missions. These were usually selected from the number of
  those, who had spontaneously solicited such a destination; and the number
  of these pious volunteers being always considerable, the succession of
  missionaries in the society of Jesuits could never fail. But it is time
  to say something of their schools.


The education of youth in schools is one of the prominent features of
  the Jesuits' institute. Their founder saw, that the disorders of the
  world, which he wished to correct, spring chiefly from neglect of
  education. He perceived, that the fruits of the other spiritual functions
  of his society would be only temporary,
  unless he could perpetuate them through every rising generation, as it
  came forward in succession. Every professed Jesuit was bound by a special
  vow, to attend to the instruction of youth; and this duty was the
  peculiar function, the first important mission, of the younger members,
  who were preparing themselves for profession. Even the two years of
  noviciate mainly contributed to the same purpose. They were not lost to
  the sciences, since novices were carefully taught the science upon which
  they all depend. The religious exercises of that first period tended to
  give them that steadiness of character and virtue, without which no good
  is achieved in schools. They then acquired a fondness for retirement, a
  love of regularity, a habit of labour, a disgust of dissipation, a custom
  of serious reflection, docility to advice, a sentiment of honour and
  self-respect, with a fixed love of virtue; every thing requisite to
  support and advance the cultivation of letters and of science in future
  years. It has been already observed, that the serious
  studies, which filled five years after the noviciate, were calculated, in
  conjunction with strict religious discipline, to form them for the
  serious business of conducting a school of boys during the five or six
  years, which were to succeed: and, in the discharge of this duty, they
  were bound to know and to follow, under the direction of a prefect of
  studies in every college, the excellent documents prescribed in the
  institute for masters.


It is not possible in a short compass to enumerate these instructions;
  but the mention of a few may suffice to prove, that nothing was
  forgotten. The object of Ignatius, in charging his society with the
  management of boys and youths, as it is announced in various parts of the
  institute, was to form and perfect their will, their conscience, their
  morals, their manners, their memory, imagination, and reason. Docility is
  the first virtue required in a child: and, to subdue stiff tempers, the
  remedies prescribed in the Jesuits' institute are, impartiality in the
  master, honourable distinctions, and
  mortifying humiliations, applied with judgment and discretion: then,
  steady attention to maintain the established discipline and economy of
  the school, which is a constant, and therefore a powerful check upon the
  unruly. To secure it, says the text, hope of reward and fear of disgrace
  are more powerful than blows; and, if the latter become unavoidable,
  punishment must never be inflicted with that precipitation, which gives
  to justice an air of violence. In inquiring into trespasses, too nice and
  minute investigation must be avoided, because it inspires mistrust. The
  art of dissembling small faults is often a safe means to prevent great
  ones. Gentle means must always be first employed; and, if ever fear and
  repentance must be impressed, the hand of some indifferent person must be
  called into action; the hand of the master must be used only to impress
  gratitude and respect. If his hand is never to be the instrument of pain,
  his voice must never be the organ of invective. He must employ instruction, exhortation, friendly
  reproach, but never contumelious language, haughtiness, and affronts: he
  must never utter words to boys, which would degrade them in the eyes of
  their companions, or demean them in their own. In the distribution of
  rewards, no distinction must be known, but that of merit. The very
  suspicion of partiality to character, fortune, or rank, would frustrate
  the effect of the rewards bestowed, and provoke indocility, jealousy, and
  disgust, in those who received none. Nothing so quickly overturns
  authority, and withers the fruit of zealous labours, even in virtuous
  masters, as the appearance of undue favour. The masters's equal attention
  is due to all; he must interest himself equally for the progress of all;
  he must never check the activity of any by indifference, much less
  irritate their self-love by contempt.


It were easy to multiply, from the institute, instructions prescribed
  to masters, to insure success in this first part of education, the bridling of the rebel will of youth; but
  Ignatius knew, that these things would never be enforced by young
  masters, who had not learned the art of bridling their own. Discipline
  might bind boys to outward respect, but only religion and virtue can make
  them love the yoke; and no yoke is ever carried with perseverance unless
  it be borne with pleasure. Religion is the most engaging and most
  powerful restraint upon rising and growing passions; and to imprint it
  deeply in the heart was the main business of the Jesuit schools. The rest
  was accessory and subordinate. The principles of religion were there
  instilled, while the elements of learning were unfolded. Maxims of the
  Gospel were taught together with profane truths; the pride of science was
  tempered by the modesty of piety; the master's labour was directed, as
  much to form the conscience, as to improve the memory, and regulate the
  imagination of his disciples. The institute directed him to instil a
  profound respect for God; to begin and end his lessons by prayer; to
  cherish the piety of the devout; to avail himself of
  it as a means to attract the thoughtless to imitation; and, by a special
  rule, he was charged to instruct his scholars in all duties of religion
  by weekly catechisms, carefully adapted to their capacity. The
  ecclesiastical historian, Fleury, remarks, in the preface to his
  historical catechism, that, if the youth of his age was incomparably
  better instructed than the youth of past ages, the obligation was owing
  principally to the catechisms of the Jesuits' school. He had heard them
  during the six years of his education in Clermont college.


Ignatius places herein the capital point of education: and he well
  knew, that where the grand motives of religion are not employed, an
  assembly of men will commonly be a collection of vice, especially in
  unexperienced youth, when growing passions always seek communication, in
  order to authorise themselves by example. To this point, then, he directs
  the rules of his subjects employed in education; to this he calls
  the attention of every professor, the vigilance of every prefect of
  studies, of every master, the solicitude of every rector, the inspection
  of every provincial. The wise framers of the Ratio Studiorum,
  which is adopted into the institute, explaining his ideas still farther,
  require every master to study the temper and character of his pupils; to
  distract their passions by application; to fire their little hearts with
  laudable emulation. For this, they must encourage the diffident and
  modest, curb the forward and presumptuous: for this they must assign to
  merit alone those scholastic appellations of dignity, those titles of
  emperor and prætor, puerile indeed in themselves, but not
  less important to boys than are the sounds of titles, and colours of
  ribbands to men. On the same principle, in much frequented colleges, each
  class was divided into two rival classes, usually distinguished by the
  opposite banners of Rome and Carthage, which mutually dreaded, provoked,
  and defied each other, in classical duels, or in general trials of skill,
  each whetting his memory on the edge of that of his rival;
  and then would often flow those precious tears of emulation, which
  watered rising genius, expanding it to fertility. Hence, again, are
  prescribed those public and solemn annual rewards, distributed with pomp
  and show, which reduced the self-love of youth to the love of virtue;
  which enamoured them of study by the prospect of success, and, by raising
  a desire of pleasing, really taught them how to please.


The institute proceeds to remove from youth every species of bad
  example. It directs the prefect and the master how to dissolve growing
  friendships, that might be dangerous; it forbids the public explanation
  of books, or of single passages, which might mislead active imaginations;
  it ordains a scrutiny of all books, that come into the pupil's use; it
  charges the master to watch every trespass against the rules of civility
  and good manners. Falsehood and detraction, swearing, and foul words, are
  to be quickly corrected, or not tolerated within the college. It
  is, again, the master's particular duty to form the manners of his pupils
  to decency, modesty, and politeness; to correct their errors in language,
  their faults in pronunciation, their awkwardness in gestures, their
  coarseness in behaviour, not less than to cultivate their memory and
  regulate their imagination. For this purpose the institute, without
  neglecting modern languages, prescribes, for the justest reasons, the
  study of Latin and Greek, in the purest models of Athens and ancient
  Rome. It joins to these the study of history, and its concomitants,
  geography, chronology, and mythology; and all this must precede the
  introduction of youth into the regions of eloquence and poetry, where
  sportive imagination may amuse and feed itself for a while with brilliant
  images and expressive language: but the institute teaches how to reduce
  all this to the standard of reason and sound judgment, by the succeeding
  study of philosophy and mathematics; and these, in their turn, are the
  preparation for the deeper discussions of theology, which lifts the soul
  out of the narrow sphere of human science, and enables the mind, and,
  still more, the heart, to make excursions into the immensity of God.


The short sketch, which is here presented, of education among the
  Jesuits, is enough to convince us, that no system was ever more solid,
  more calculated to produce eminent men, in every department of civil and
  ecclesiastical life. Undoubtedly it did produce a succession of them
  during two hundred years; and it thus verified the decisive sentence of
  Bacon, Ad pædagogicam quod attinet, brevissimum foret dictu. Consule
  scholas Jesuitarum[68].
  Perhaps the real value of the system is still better proved by the
  miserable state of degradation, into which public education and public
  morals have sunk in catholic countries, since its utter suppression.




But the founder of the Jesuits is not satisfied with suggesting what
  is right; he provides, what is still more necessary, proper masters to
  enforce it. He gives them two years of only spiritual, and five others of
  spiritual and literary education, to train them to their important task.
  With this he trusts, that their conduct will be irreproachable, that they
  will be worthy to be trusted with the grand interests of letters and of
  morals. He expects them to be docile, modest, and willing to be guided by
  their elders, who have successfully completed their course. They must be
  young enough to gain the confidence of children, and firm enough to
  command respect. To animate them to assiduity in duty, they must be
  provided with all necessary books; they must be stimulated to zeal by the
  prospect of God's greater glory; they must, therefore, be
  perfectly weaned from self-interest; they are required to yield continual
  service to persons, from whom they must receive none; they must impart
  virtue and knowledge, but never sell either; they must
  inspire gratitude, and never profit by it; they must prove themselves
  deserving of every thing, and accept nothing[69].


The society, in every period of its existence, possessed, in every
  country, many excellent and distinguished professors and masters, in
  every science which it professed to teach; and the uniformity and
  steadiness of their education raised the bulk of its masters much above
  the rate of decent mediocrity. It is apparent, that, in the conducting of
  public education throughout a large kingdom, a body of men, well
  compacted together, and properly trained to the work, must possess
  superior advantages; and the world has long since agreed, that no other
  body of men ever did, or could furnish so many able and useful teachers,
  as the society of Jesuits constantly presented for the public service.
  There were, no doubt, elsewhere, masters, able to balance, perhaps to
  eclipse, the reputation of those of the society; but these men were
  seldom found, except in the first chairs of great universities; they did
  not diffuse learning throughout a kingdom, and the succession of them was
  not uniformly continued. The Jesuits were universally spread throughout a
  country, and every town had a chance of enjoying their best masters. Even
  in the first universities it has been allowed, that the Jesuits' schools
  were of use to the other colleges, and reciprocally received great
  advantages from them. The spirit of laudable emulation stimulated both to
  generous exertions, and the general interests of learning were thereby
  promoted.


During the five or six years which the Jesuits employed in teaching,
  many of them obtained renown, and all, it may be presumed, had acquired
  the ready use of the Latin language; had discovered the bent of their
  talents; and had attained maturity of judgment and love of application.
  At the end of their course these masters, aged from twenty-five to thirty
  years, were now once more remanded to the benches, and applied, during
  four years, to the study of theology, under able professors, in the
  principal city and college of their province; thus forming a perpetual
  colony of forty or fifty mature and improved students, such as rival
  colleges could seldom equal. "At Paris," says cardinal de Maury, "the
  great college of the Jesuits was a central point, which attracted the
  attention of all the best writers, and of persons of distinction in every
  rank. It was a kind of permanent literary tribunal, which the celebrated
  Piron, in his emphatic language, used to style La chambre ardente des
  reputations literaires; always dreaded by men of letters, as the
  principal source and focus of public opinion in the capital[70]." What the cardinal asserts
  of Paris, was equally true of Rome, Vienna, Lisbon, and other great
  cities, which possessed the colleges of higher studies of the society. I
  conclude with remarking, that, if any part of what is prescribed in the
  institute had been retrenched from the education of Jesuits, their
  society would not have deserved such commendations from Piron and
  cardinal de Maury[71].


If the outlines of education, which have been here traced from the
  book of the Jesuits' institute[72], do not win approbation, they may be
  presented to the reader, at least, as an object of curiosity. Serious men
  will, perhaps, think them more deserving of attention than are many of
  the ephemeral vagaries, which modern adventurers in the art of training
  youth daily obtrude upon the public. The Jesuits' system is recommended
  by the experimental success of two centuries; and, whether the plan was
  originally conceived, or only adopted and methodised, by Ignatius and his
  followers, certain it is, that, from the close of the council of Trent to
  the opening of the Gallic revolution, the main principles, on which it
  rests, even the practical details of it, with little variation, pervaded
  the education of the catholic clergy in all distinguished seminaries,
  whether directed by Jesuits or by others; and they may, therefore, be
  regarded as the source of all the virtue and learning
  which adorned the catholic church in that period, and which the Gallic
  revolutioners were sworn to destroy. If these antichristian conspirators
  first doomed the Jesuits to annihilation, it was because their schools
  were widely diffused through Europe, and were marked by them as hotbeds
  of every thing which they chose to term fanaticism, bigotry, and
  superstition; that is to say, zeal, faith, and devotion. These were to be
  extirpated, to make room for fanaticism, bigotry, and superstition of
  another kind; those of equality, reason, and philosophy. And mark with
  what avidity they seized upon the spurious maxim, which had been
  attributed to the Jesuits, "that it was lawful to do evil, that their
  expected good might come:" falsehood, forgery, blasphemy, false witness,
  murder, regicide; every crime that a bad heart could suggest, a perverted
  head direct, or a venal arm perpetrate, was resorted to, to attain that
  summum bonum, jacobinism. They had before them the Monita
  Secreta and the Institute, and they chose the former for the basis of
  their constitutions. I need not repeat the infamous doctrines collected
  in that forgery, which was published at the end of the pamphlet, that
  induced me to undertake to write these pages, and of which Clericus has
  given us an account in the following Letters; suffice it to say, by way
  of contrast, that horrors are there piled high one upon another, and said
  to be the secret code of regulations of men, who profess to take the
  institute of Ignatius for their guide, a code replete with piety and
  virtue. I have already said enough to silence the remark, that men may
  profess only and not act, for I have shown, that, if ever men acted up to
  their professions, the Jesuits have; but it will be an agreeable task to
  put some of the points of the institute, which have been distorted, into
  the view in which truth requires they should be seen.


First, let us glance an eye over the contents of this institute. It
  contains, not only what the founder wrote, but likewise all the papal
  bulls and briefs granted to the society;
  all the decrees and canons of the several congregations, which form laws
  in the society; several instructions, precepts, and ordinations, issued
  by different generals, and adopted by general congregations, for
  universal practice; the general Ratio Studiorum; the privileges
  granted to the society by the holy see; the particular rules prescribed
  for every office in the society, and for every class of men in it, as
  priests, missionaries, preachers, students, &c. The groundwork of all
  this is what the founder himself wrote; viz. an Examen
  Generale to be proposed to candidates for admittance;
  Constitutiones Societatis Jesu; an epistle De Virtute
  Obedientiæ; a book of Spiritual Exercises; and, finally, many
  of the particular rules of offices. The Prague edition of the Institute,
  anno 1757, two small folio volumes, lies before me, and I have taken a
  good deal of fruitless trouble to find out some propositions denounced by
  the enemies of the Jesuits, without reference to the page or chapter. I
  have found nothing but what reflects honour on the code. The
  objects of it are the glory of God, the general good of man, and the
  preservation of the society. In pursuance of the first of these, the
  members make vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience; they mortify their
  senses, renounce worldly honours, and preach the Gospel. The means they
  use for the second consist of example, prayer, works of charity, pious
  publications, preaching, educating youth, and sending forth missions. For
  the third object, their preservation, they have appropriate rules of
  union, discipline, reputation, freedom from party, and moderation[73].


Such is the code which has been so misrepresented. It is impossible,
  within the bounds of a pamphlet, and, indeed, I have already stretched
  into the latitude of a book, to give an adequate notion of it, and to
  combat the opinions which have gone abroad against it. These opinions
  are so many adopted prejudices, the
  refutation of which is completely given in the Apologie de
  l'Institut, to which I must refer the reader, who will find in it
  many extracts from the institute itself; and I shall here briefly notice
  the vow of obedience, and the imputed despotism of the general, about
  which so much has been said.


"Their blind obedience! To be as unresisting as a dead body, or
  as tractable as a stick in the hands of an old man![74]." This language, taken disjointedly, is
  among the bugbears held up by the new conspirators against the Jesuits.
  It must surely be allowed, that obedience is necessary in every
  institution, where training the mind is an object, and the institute is
  not reprehensible for excluding wilful argumentation, while it allows
  every one the use of his reason. Blind obedience is not required
  for the commission of a crime, but in duties known to be pious and moral,
  in actions evidently laudable. Nor is the expression of the text cæca
  obedientia, but cæca quadam obedientia[75]. The rule is for the better training of
  the young and the inexperienced; and what school does not proceed upon it
  to the extent required by the institute, which excepts whatever is
  criminal, or morally wrong? It literally prescribes, that this
  kind of blind obedience shall, nevertheless, be conformable
  to justice and to charity; omnibus in rebus ad quas potest cum
  charitate se obedientia extendere[76]. Nay, the order of the superior is not
  only to be examined, to see that it is free from a capital sin, but from
  any sin whatever; in omnibus quæ a superiore disponuntur ubi definiri
  non possit (quemadmodum dictum est) aliquod peccati genus
  intercedere[77]. In a
  word, discussion is not forbidden by the institute, but in cases where it
  is evident that there is no sin; ubi non cerneretur
  peccatum[78]; a doctrine
  continually repeated on this head, quemadmodum dictum est, that
  is, in quibus nullum manifestum est peccatum[79]. Where now is the horror of this
  obedience? It will seem a paradox to say, that the rigour of it arises
  from the mildness of the Jesuit government: but it is not less the fact;
  for, as all violent measures and corporal punishments are excluded from
  the society, a prompt moral obedience is absolutely necessary to its
  existence. It thus becomes an amiable, as well as an indispensable
  law.


But the despotism of the general? The obedience, which the Jesuits owe
  their general, is the same as that which they pay to their ordinary
  superiors. It flows from the same source, and tends to the same end.
  Having demonstrated the slavery of it to be a chimera, the despotism of
  the general naturally vanishes with it. The nature of the
  society required, that it should be under a single chief: to have given
  to separate houses independent chiefs would have destroyed the great
  objects depending upon a union of councils. It was no cenobitical order
  devoted chiefly to working out their own salvation; but one, whose
  members were to be spread over the whole world, to promote the glory of
  God and the good of man. The institute, however, takes great care, that
  the chief should not be a despot: it gives him no slaves, nor even
  subjects, but friends, children, and counsellors[80]; mildness is the sceptre it bestows upon
  him, and charity the throne[81]; it equally prohibits the
  superior to govern by violence and the inferior to obey through fear[82]. The general is elected by
  the whole society, who first swear to choose only him, whom they believe
  to be the most worthy of the office[83]. There is nothing arbitrary or
  changeable in the authority of the general: it is subjected
  by the institute to stable and invariable laws, and his duties are
  minutely prescribed. If he deviates from them, it provides for his
  removal[84]. Far from being a
  despot, he is not even exempted from the superintendance of a monitor
  chosen by the society, who observes his conduct, tells him of his faults,
  points out his duties, and is consequently compelled not to excuse him in
  any point[85]. In spiritual
  affairs, the general is subject to the pope; in temporal matters, to the
  government under which he lives; and, in what concerns himself
  personally, or the society solely, to a general meeting of the order[86]. Though elected for life,
  he may be deposed for several reasons stated in the institute; and the
  same hands that clothed him with power may strip him of it[87]. It has been said, that the motive for
  appointing a single chief was the facility it offers for promoting more
  certainly the ends of ambition. The institute strongly condemns ambition
  in individuals, and still more strongly in the general[88]. One great charge against the
  power of the general is, that his authority may injure that of
  sovereigns, by withdrawing their subjects from their obedience: on the
  contrary, he is expressly forbidden, by the institute, to take from a
  state any Jesuit whatever, without the knowledge of the sovereign[89]. The annulling of contracts
  is another source of abuse, founded on a mistaken passage in the
  institute, where it is said; "Although the general, by his open letters
  to particular superiors, confers on them an ample power in that respect,
  yet that power may be restricted and limited by private letters." This
  passage has no reference to contracts, and relates only to the power
  given openly to local superiors to dismiss improper persons; and there
  can be no objection to the private limiting of that power. But the most
  obnoxious charge of all is, that the general of the Jesuits maintains
  spies everywhere, for the purpose of diving into the secrets of courts,
  and into the affairs of private families. The institute
  contains a rule directly the reverse of this assertion, a rule by which
  he is expressly prohibited from meddling in affairs that do not concern
  the society, even under any pretext of piety or religion[90].


After all, then, the general of the Jesuits is not such a monster as
  he has been painted, and it is absurd to suppose, that a learned and
  sensible old man, who, about to give an account of his ministry to God,
  has but a few years to fill the office, should consider it as the spring
  of every kind of crime; it is absurd to suppose, that the brethren of the
  order, who have sacrificed every thing on earth to the hope of finding
  under the empire of the institute the greatest perfection of the
  Christian character, should believe, that they are obliged, by virtue of
  that very institute, to commit the greatest sins man is capable of; and
  it is absurd to suppose, that, if a general were mad
  enough to abuse his power, there would not be found a pope wise enough,
  or Jesuits virtuous enough to depose him, conformably to the laws of the
  church and of the institute.


Formerly, when the Jesuits had powerful protectors, the practice was
  to turn them into ridicule; now, that they have powerful enemies, the
  object is to stigmatize them with every vice. Nothing is more difficult,
  or more delicate, than to parry ridicule; but, to refute abuse, one has
  only to expose it.


In the present state of the continental powers, it seems hardly
  possible, that the society of Jesuits should recover its ancient
  importance, but their destruction must ever be lamented; and, since their
  unrelenting enemies have tempted the public curiosity to inquire into
  their history, this chapter shall be closed with a brief account of the
  final catastrophe of that small portion of their body, which for two hundred years was connected with England,
  by the common bonds of country, language, and blood.


About the year 1590, the English Jesuits obtained, from the liberality
  of Philip II of Spain, the foundation of their principal college at St.
  Omer; and, soon after, the bishop of that city conferred upon them an
  ancient abbey, with its demesnes, situated in the neighbouring small town
  of Watten. A few years later, they acquired the foundation of their
  college at Liege, from Maximilian the elector of Bavaria, and likewise a
  smaller settlement in the city of Ghent. In these several houses, they
  applied themselves to the education of British catholic youth, and to the
  formation of missionaries. In 1762, the two first-mentioned of these
  establishments were subjected to confiscation by the unsparing
  arrêts of the parliament of Paris. The inhabitants could obtain no
  mercy, on the consideration of being foreigners admitted on the public
  faith; they were all ejected, without the smallest allowance for their
  support, or even for their return to their native soil. They presented
  themselves to the Austrian government of the Netherlands, at Bruxelles;
  they were admitted under an octroi, the most solemn act of that
  government, and they established themselves in the city of Bruges. In
  1773, on the appearance of pope Clement XIV's destructive brief, they
  were once more unmercifully pillaged, in despite of the public faith,
  pledged in the octroi; and here the fangs of fiscal avarice were
  sharpened to an uncommon edge, because it was the persuasion of that
  despotic government, that, being Jesuits, they deserved no pity, and,
  being English, they must be rich. At the same period, their large college
  at Liege was stript of all its income, by the two courts of Munich and
  Rome, and the inmates of the house were also here turned adrift, without
  any allowance for their personal subsistence. In this utter distress, a
  few of these persecuted men, who remained at Liege, not quite dispirited
  by their calamities, were encouraged by the prince bishop of Liege, to
  form, within the old college, a school and a seminary of priests. The
  plan was sanctioned by a brief of pope Pius VI; they found friends, and
  unremitting labour and industry during twenty years advanced their work
  to a degree of consistency, which merited the approbation and confidence
  of the public. But all this was of no avail. Utter destruction was to be
  their doom. In 1794, when the French armies, by one general sweep,
  overturned, in the Low Countries, every thing that related to the
  religion of Jesus Christ, they were finally dislodged and scattered;
  their house and all their valuables were left to the disposal of those
  outrageous freebooters; waggon-loads of their best books were converted
  into wadding for the cannon; their mathematical and optical cabinet was
  pillaged; they retired in sorrow, each to seek a refuge, with hardly a
  hope of seeing better days. Thus terminated the English province of the
  society of Jesus. A few of these ancient men, who have weathered the
  whole storm, are still alive, comforting their old age with the late
  public testimony of the head of the church, that they deserved a better
  fate. Having availed themselves of the indulgence of the British
  government, on leaving the Netherlands they sought an asylum in their own
  country. They here subsist, in the security of conscious innocence,
  fearless of the prejudices and malice of a few unprovoked foes, who know
  not how to harrass them but by the old weapons of misrepresentation and
  slander. They have pledged their allegiance to their king and country, in
  the comprehensive oath of 1791; they meddle not with general or county
  politics; they seek no offices of state, that remaining stumbling
  block in the way of the catholic nobility and gentry; they attend solely
  to their own professional concerns; and, as peaceable and loyal subjects,
  they may justly expect protection for their persons and for their
  property. Friends of the government and of the country, friends of
  monarchy, friends of public tranquillity, friends of order and subordination, friends of religion,
  friends of morality, friends of letters, shall they not be protected?
  Ignorance, prejudice, and passion, shall not prevail against such
  men.












Character of Pombal. Summary Observations, and a brief notice of
  the tendency and danger of Education independent of Religion.




The success of the old conspiracy against the Jesuits will not be
  wondered at, when we reflect upon the character of the age in which it
  was formed, and on the means that were used to mature it. Ignorance was
  the lot of the generality of men: despotism pervaded courts, and tools
  were never wanting to shape events to the will of the powerful. Of the
  parliaments, the university, and of the Jansenists, enough has been said
  to show the inveteracy and malignity with which they carried on their
  unjust persecutions of the society, and to expose the causes of
  their conduct; but, in the mention which has occasionally been made of
  the Portuguese minister Carvalho, marquis of Pombal, the great persecutor
  of the Jesuits, too little has been said to account for his hatred of
  them; I will, therefore, here, make him the subject of a few pages.


During the reign of John V, the Jesuits were in high favour at the
  court of Lisbon. That king expired in the arms of the famous Malagrida.
  Carvalho was then a real or pretended friend of the society. The Jesuits,
  whom king John consulted, recommended him, with little forecast, for the
  embassies of London and Vienna, and, afterwards, to his successor, Joseph
  I, as prime minister. He soon, however, betrayed his jealousy of the
  power and credit of the Jesuits; and he determined to effect their ruin.
  The first opportunity of persecuting them arose from the treaty with
  Spain, for an exchange of lands and fixing new boundaries in South
  America, the motive of which we have already seen. The
  disorder, that ensued among the Indians, the marquis imputed to the
  influence and ambition of the Jesuits; whence arose the absurd fable of
  the Jesuit king Nicolas, and of the project and attempt to usurp the
  dominion of South America, which, with great industry and many foul arts,
  he propagated all over Europe. The insurrection of the Paraguay Indians
  is usually called the first cause of Pombal's hatred of the Jesuits. In
  his ambitious views of engrossing all authority and power, he dreaded
  opposition from the king's brother, don Pedro, who was greatly attached
  to the order. A dispensation had been obtained from Rome to allow don
  Pedro to marry his niece, and Pombal, with confidence of success,
  endeavoured to prevent the marriage. He strove to inspire the king with
  jealousy of his brother, suggested various reasons why the princess ought
  to be given to some foreign prince, and recommended William duke of
  Cumberland in preference to all others. The king consulting his
  confessor, F. Moreira, that Jesuit prevailed upon his master to reject
  the proposal. On that occasion, the marquis vowed vengeance, not only
  against the prince and F. Moreira, but against the whole order of
  Jesuits. Another grand cause of his rage against the society was but too
  well known to the missionaries. The greatest obstacle to the success of
  their missions among the Indians had always been the prevalence and
  violence of the rich European settlers, and more frequently still of the
  royal governors. They had often succeeded, by their credit at Madrid and
  Lisbon, to protect the poor Indians from personal outrage and slavery,
  yet it was always a difficult struggle. Pombal had made his brother, who
  was called Xavier Mendoza, governor general of Maragnon, in the Brazils,
  and never had the country before known a tyrant so despotic and
  outrageous. The pious queen dowager, Mariana of Austria, greatly favoured
  the missions. When any Jesuits sailed for Brazil, she regularly exhorted
  them to attend seriously to the propagation of religion, and directed
  them to inform her exactly of whatever obstacles they
  might experience from the king's officers, and the Portuguese settlers,
  promising redress for their injuries and concealment of their names. In
  full confidence of her protection the missionaries often preferred
  serious complaints against Xavier Mendoza, and the wrongs of the poor
  Indians were frequently redressed. The minister's anger at these
  accusations of his brother, of which he could not discover the authors,
  almost drove him mad: but the queen dying, he contrived to get possession
  of her private papers, and discovered the channel of intelligence. His
  increased rage against the missionaries and Jesuits in general may be
  imagined. The conduct of the Jesuits, after the earthquake in 1755,
  afforded him fresh grounds of enmity. They spread themselves through the
  city and the adjacent country, everywhere inviting the people to
  repentance. Their sermons were everywhere attended by multitudes, their
  confessionals were thronged. Penitential processions were instituted, the
  city was edified. In their discourses, they attributed the public
  calamity to a special visitation of Divine Providence, with the design of
  chastising the increasing depravity of morals in all ranks, and inviting
  them to repentance. The court was pleased with the exertions of the
  Jesuits. The king, in particular, thanked their provincial, and ordered
  the repairs of their professed house to be undertaken and defrayed by the
  royal treasury. This mark of royal favour sorely mortified the minister:
  he complained of the fanaticism of the Jesuits, especially of Malagrida,
  who had printed a discourse on the subject of the earthquake, which was
  read and highly commended by the king. His majesty had signified his
  intention of making a spiritual retreat, or exercise, for a week, under
  the direction of that celebrated father. The marquis, after innumerable
  other artifices to discredit the Jesuits, and their doctrine of an
  interfering Providence, assured the king, that a conspiracy was formed to
  overturn the government; that, unless Malagrida were withdrawn, a public
  sedition would ensue. The king, intimidated, at length consented to
  his removal; but the crafty minister, dreading the resentment of the
  whole city, applied, the same day, to the pope's nuncio, and stating the
  king's authority and positive request, prevailed upon him to order
  Malagrida to retire from Lisbon to Setubal. He then forbade processions,
  or other marks of public penance and devotion, publicly alleging, that
  the misfortune of the city was to be attributed solely to natural causes;
  and by these and other means he succeeded in keeping the weak king in
  constant dread of imaginary plots, conspiracies, and insurrections. The
  king was soon completely subdued; every thing was abandoned to the
  disposal of the minister, his authority and power became absolute, and he
  soon displayed his real character in such a series of despotic and
  tyrannical deeds as the annals of mankind cannot equal. These may be
  found fully detailed in the four volumes of his life, printed at Florence
  in 1785; in Memoires du Marquis de Pombal; in Anecdotes du
  Ministère du Marquis de Pombal; and in various other publications.
  His power with the king expired in 1777, when he was imprisoned,
  impeached, and convicted, by the unanimous voices of his judges, of
  enormous crimes, deserving capital punishment. The queen was prevailed
  upon, by the intercession of some of the foreign courts, to remit the
  sentence: he was only banished to Pombal, where he died in 1783. "Who
  would think," said the abbé Garnier, in his funeral oration for Joseph I,
  "that one man, by abusing the confidence and authority of a good king,
  could, for the space of twenty years, silence every tongue, close every
  mouth, shut up every heart, hold truth captive, lead falsehood in
  triumph, efface every trace of justice, force respect to be paid to
  iniquity and barbarity, and enslave public opinion from one end of Europe
  to the other?" Such was Sebastian Joseph Carvalho, marquis of Pombal, the
  enemy of the Jesuits, and prime promoter of their destruction. The very
  enmity of such a man is a strong negative proof of innocence and virtue.
  


But the cry was up; the society was to be destroyed; envy, hatred, and
  malice led the chace; atheism, deism, and philosophy, with their
  attendants, ridicule and sophistry, joined in the pursuit, and the victim
  was hunted down. The founders, or rather the finishers and embellishers
  of the modern school of reason, could not endure men, who preached
  doctrines and maintained principles so opposite to their own new-fangled
  systems. They knew, that respect for revealed truths, and reverence for
  established authority, the two objects of their detestation, were the
  main pivots on which the whole system of the education of the Jesuits
  turned. Deum timete, regem honorificate, "Fear God and honour the
  king," was their adopted maxim: religion and loyalty were never disunited
  by them, and the revolutionary conspirators had determined to subvert
  both. These everywhere opened schools of philosophy, as they affected to
  term it; that is, schools of impiety and irreligion; where God, his
  mysteries and his laws, were cited to the tribunal of proud and depraved
  reason; where it was a rule to reject what
  was not comprehended, to ridicule whatever checked and restrained
  youthful passions, to begin by examining every thing incoherently, and to
  end by believing nothing. Infinite were the arts by which these odious
  maxims were infused; and they were all sweetened by previous lessons of
  libertinism and dissoluteness, which soiled the imagination by the most
  obscene productions, and corrupted the heart by the most abominable
  maxims. They were multiplied under the titles of poems, histories,
  dissertations, romances; they imposed upon the simple by affected doubts
  of the most established truths; by impudent assertions, that religion is
  now abandoned to the weak, the ignorant, the vulgar. The interest of vice
  soon inveigled their disciples to re-echo the cry, that lessons, drawn
  from belief and fear of the Supreme Being, are no more than the accents
  of fanaticism, superstition, and bigotry[91]. Jesuits were the avowed
  heralds of these degrading lessons, they were not philosophers.
  "No," says D'Alembert, one of the fathers of the new system, "the Jesuits
  have been teaching philosophy two hundred years, and they
  have never yet had a philosopher in their body."


In the meaning of these writers, the charge must be fully admitted.
  Never did Jesuits harbour within their walls the maxims or the doctrines
  of modern sophisters. They acknowledged no philosophy, that appeared to
  infringe revelation or morals; but not on that account did they forego a
  modest claim to the title of philosophers. Those among them, who best
  deserved it, were actively employed in detecting, exposing, and refuting
  the fallacies of the modern Voltairian school; and, without affecting the
  peculiarity of the name, they were satisfied with being philosophers in
  the ancient acceptation of the term; that is, while they inculcated
  respect for divine revelation, and for established authority, they never
  ceased, during two hundred years, to furnish a succession of professors,
  who unfolded the principles of natural and of moral knowledge. And what
  branch of human science was banished from their schools?
  Their public lessons might be called elementary by deep
  proficients; but they were accommodated to the capacity of the bulk of
  their youthful auditors; their object was to awaken in them the love of
  science, to lay the foundation on which the edifice of deep knowledge was
  afterwards to rise. It is allowed, that the most distinguished scholars
  in every branch, in past times, generally had been trained in the
  Jesuits' schools; and can it be said, with truth, that none of the
  masters, who had taught them, ever rose to eminence; that none of them
  were philosophers? That they never affected to assume the title is
  allowed: their philosophy was more circumspect. On their first principle
  they accepted, and they taught others to accept, without hesitation, the
  oracles of the church of Christ; they never blushed for their faith, or,
  as it was miscalled, their credulity. They believed sublime truths, that
  surpassed comprehension, because they feared God, who attests them, and
  knew that he cannot deceive. Fixed in this first principle, they
  conceived no incongruity in joining to it eager researches into the
  secrets of nature, steady pursuit of improvement in every human science.
  If eminence in these justly confers the title of philosopher, it
  is strange, that the doctors of the new antichristian school should have
  overlooked the names of innumerable Jesuits in every branch of science,
  who were respected as philosophers, until faith in divine revelation was
  reckoned to depreciate all literary merit. It would be tedious to
  rehearse the multitude of names, which might be adduced; but I must
  observe, that the succession of them was never discontinued; and that, in
  the very last state of the society, there were men among them revered and
  consulted by the most eminent professors and academicians, who disdained
  to be mere disciples of Voltaire and D'Alembert. The best mathematicians
  of Italy bowed to the names of Ricati and Lecchi. The most eminent
  astronomers frequented the observatories of the Jesuits at Rome,
  Florence, and Milan, directed by the fathers Boscovich, Ximenes, and
  La Grange. Fathers Meyer and Hall were celebrated through Germany, and
  the Polish Jesuit Poczobult, the royal astronomer at Wilno, was known
  wherever astronomy was cultivated. The celebrated M. La Lande, and our
  own astronomer, Dr. Maskelyne, did not disdain his correspondence. La
  Lande, in particular, in his writings, mentions these Jesuit philosophers
  with honour.


It is the remark of M. Chateaubriand[92], that, without any prejudice to other
  literary societies, the Jesuits were truly styled Gens de Lettres,
  because the whole circle of sciences was more or less cultivated among
  them. It was a rare case to meet with a Jesuit devoid of scientific
  knowledge. Their reputation, in this point of view, contributed much to
  the esteem in which the society was formerly held, before the strange
  concurrence of causes, which has not been hitherto explained, had
  operated upon the catholic princes to discard them, and, in
  so doing, to open volcanoes beneath their thrones.


The destruction of the Jesuits was, literally, the destruction of that
  education, in catholic countries, by which order was established on its
  best and surest foundation, the belief of future rewards and punishments,
  and the conviction, that man was on earth but a transient being, whose
  chief object was to work out his salvation and eternal happiness in
  another world; a conviction, that could only be impressed upon the mind
  by the truths of revelation. It is no part of my object here to enter
  into a dissertation upon the comparative excellencies and defects of
  religious systems; but I maintain, that the distinguishing faculty of
  comprehending religious subjects, and the disposition to be influenced by
  them, interwoven in the nature of man, are proofs, that it is intended by
  God that he should be principally and generally influenced by religious
  motives; and that morality, with all its beauty, to be valuable, must
  originate in that source. Let even temperate
  philosophers say what they will of morality, independent of religion,
  there is one striking advantage to states arising from the latter, which
  the former cannot yield. Contentment and resignation are the fruits of
  religion; insulated morality generates discontent, and has a perpetual
  tendency to doubt the justice of the inequality of conditions in this
  life; very naturally too, if the short race of it be all to which our
  hopes and fears can extend. There is also a gradation in morality; there
  is a confined and a refined morality. Suum cuique tribuitur
  is a maxim of confined morality; the refined moralist is a
  cosmopolite; and, still more refined, he denies the rights of meum
  and tuum; and the government that suffers one man to enjoy more
  than another is an unjust government, consequently man ought to seek a
  just one, and so we have the revolutionary system. It is only religion,
  it is only the Christian religion, which can reconcile morality to the
  state of man. This is the beautiful morality which binds him in social
  order, which gives to Cæsar what is due to Cæsar,
  and, in securing to every man the rights he has obtained of property,
  calls upon him to rectify the selfishness of corrupted nature; to do as
  he would be done by, to love his brother as himself, and still farther to
  assimilate himself to his Master and to his God, by loving his enemies.
  Divine morality! which could have flowed only from a divine source!
  Divine legislation! dictated by God himself! It is unfortunate, that the
  nature of man will not permit the spirit, and even the outward forms, of
  a religion so adapted to the actual condition of the human species to be
  universal; and, that the different views taken of the text, by the
  variance of the human understanding, should diverge into incongruous
  systems, and excite religious dissentions. But, however this may be
  deplored, it is still more deplorable, that it should ever enter into the
  mind of man to establish systems of education, in which that which should
  be the foundation of it is totally excluded from it; that the end of
  knowledge should be separated from the means of it; that the rudiments
  of instruction should be devoted solely to the acquisition of worldly
  arts, of which the operation is to be left to the direction of ignorance
  and selfishness. It is astonishing, with the experience men have so
  lately and so dearly gained, that there can be found one to approve of a
  system, in this country, the archetype of which has desolated Europe and
  ruined France. In attributing the explosion of the French revolution to
  the deistical and atheistical philosophers, I do not hesitate to
  attribute the long continuation of it to the change that took place in
  the forms of education; to the universities of Buonaparte[93], to the confining of men's interests to
  the duration of life. In this country,
  there is a system in full operation, and patronized by some of the first
  characters of the state, by which a very large portion of the people
  will, in a few years, consist of persons able to read, write, and keep
  accounts, who will have no knowledge, or an erroneous one, of the duties
  and sanctions of religion, and whose morality will consequently be
  dependent on their reasoning faculties; and I am very much mistaken if
  those faculties will not lead to similar conceptions and similar effects
  as those produced by the reasoning faculties of 1788 and 1789. This
  opinion cannot be mistaken for one of intolerance. I think it would have
  been happier had the whole nation been of one accord in every point of
  religion; and I see, in the church of England, sufficient inducements to
  have restrained minds, sensible of the danger of innovation, from making
  a few points of mysterious doctrines a plea for separating from her; but
  while I say this, I am far from thinking that men should be compelled
  into modes of worship, I am only sorry to see them dissenting. I
  am an advocate for the toleration of conscientious scruples; but
  there is one thing which I think no government ought to tolerate, and
  that is public schools openly professing to banish religious instruction;
  for they must prove seminaries of malcontents and democrats. The luxury
  and aristocracy of a few well educated rich atheists and deists afford no
  objection; it is of the low and of the indigent that these schools are
  formed, of persons who may be rendered the most valuable or the most
  pernicious part of the community. Homo sum: he is not a man, who
  can be an enemy to the mental improvement of his fellow creatures. The
  ignorance of the lower classes is deplorable; it is the moral duty of
  those in higher stations, it is the noble task of governments to raise
  them on the scale of intellect; education cannot be too general, but let
  it be in the true spirit of education. We are creatures, who depend
  greatly, perhaps wholly, on instruction. We can in general do little of
  ourselves. We must at first have guides, and, to borrow
  the pithy expression of the famous bishop of Down, Jeremy Taylor, "if our
  guides do not put something into our heads, while children, the Devil
  will." The arts of reading and writing are mere mechanical instruments:
  to render them a blessing the soul must be fashioned into a spring of
  thought and action, and it behoves the fashioner to temper it justly. How
  desirable soever it might be, that the rising generation, enjoying the
  same constitution, should be united in the same mode of worship, yet, as
  that blessing seems unattainable in the present state of the world, it
  would be some consolation, if the various dissenters from the established
  church would hold themselves bound to insist upon the Christian religion,
  according to their own views of it, being taught in the new schools; and,
  I am free to confess, that the dissenting ministers in general are not
  deficient of zeal in impressing their religious principles on the minds
  of their followers; and it is but justice to say, that the world at large
  have been indebted to many of them, to Watts, to Hartley, and to
  others: nor do I think, that the generality of dissenters can possibly
  approve of that plan, which, assembling poor children to be taught
  reading, writing, and figures, sends them to learn the relation between
  the Creator and his creature, the corruption of human nature, and the
  means of salvation, in a garret or a cellar, where want and ignorance, or
  low debauchery, are to be their preceptors. It is a mistaken benevolence,
  and good men of all communions should deprecate the evil, and resolve to
  avert it by the establishment of schools where the principal objects of
  education should be the principal things attended to, that the secondary
  ones may be made subservent to them; where, while the duties of man to
  God, to himself, and to society, are inculcated, the scholar may exercise
  his powers with books and pens to advantage, and without danger to the
  state. Nor, without previous oral instruction, should the Bible itself be
  put into the hands of readers, whether children or ignorant adults. Bible
  societies, consisting, beyond all doubt, of pious men, will diffuse good
  or evil over the world according to the prudence with which the sacred
  volumes are distributed. In theology, as in natural philosophy, the
  uninformed mind cannot, of itself, embrace even the most incontrovertible
  truths: the raising of the dead and the rotation of the earth are alike
  incomprehensible; what is not immediately intelligible is not impressive,
  but when once we have been taught to observe the motion of the heavenly
  bodies, and are made sensible, that the power, which could assign
  certainty of operation to nature, must be equal to the suspension of it,
  astronomy and religion open upon us, and we fly to Newton and the
  Testament; and, seeing truths unfold themselves, we willingly take much
  on trust in both; certain that books, where we find so many
  demonstrations, are not intended to deceive us in any one point, and the
  resurrection of our Saviour becomes sooner solved than the precession of
  the equinox.


It is impossible to contemplate the advantages arising to
  our fellow creatures and to society from Dr. Bell's system of education
  for the poor, without delight and without grateful feelings to the
  author, and, I may add, the still active director of it. Thousands upon
  thousands will bless him, while he yet lives, and a perpetual series of
  millions will revere his memory after he shall have joined the myriads of
  spirits from whom he shall himself learn the celestial allelujahs, and
  those things which it has not entered the mind of man to conceive.


It would be unjust not to pay a tribute of praise, also, to the
  founders of an institution, who, though dissenting in tenets, have
  adopted Dr. Bell's plan for a religious education, according to their
  principles: I allude to the Fitzroy free school for the instruction of
  six hundred children.


Catholic schools, on a similar plan, have also been established, for
  the education of the poor children of catholic parents. These are superintended by zealous priests, who give
  religious instruction gratuitously to the pupils. All such establishments
  merit encouragement, not only from members of their own communion, but
  from all, who by influence or wealth are able to aid them.


In making religion the basis of education, no inference can be drawn,
  that the temporal interests and rights of mankind are to be neglected.
  Man, born to sorrow, having but a short time to live, is assuredly more
  concerned in securing an eternal than a temporal happiness; but he is
  sufficiently long in his transit to render his situation on earth of
  importance, and the ease and contentment of every individual should be
  the object of all governments: for this are communities formed, for this
  are laws made, for this does the sovereign execute the laws, and for this
  are individuals required to bear and to forbear. Evil must arise, and
  afflictions must be borne, but that government is the best imagined, and
  the most wisely administered, by which the large mass of the people are
  enabled to pass through the years of probation with the greatest comfort,
  and are presented with opportunities of bettering their conditions and
  promoting their families. But I do not mean to interweave, here, an essay
  upon government and civil rights; the contemplation of the admirable
  system of education among the Jesuits led to these observations on the
  systems of general education, and in concluding them with expressly
  stating my opinion of the grand object of national community my view is,
  to leave no room for attributing the sentiments of loyalty and of
  religion, which, in such a work as this, have naturally fallen from my
  pen, to servility or bigotry.


My subject is now come to its close: it is not to be denied, that the
  restoration of the order of Jesuits has excited alarm; for we already see
  a new conspiracy formed against it, possessing all the malignity, if not
  all the talent, or power, of the old one. But who are the persons
  alarmed? They can be such only as have a similarity
  of spirit and of views to those of the former enemies of the society (sir
  John Hippisley nevertheless excepted, whose alarm must have a very
  different spring); men, who have already dared to warn the clergy of
  England against instituting schools, in which children are to be
  instructed in the national religion, because of the hostile feelings
  which will be excited between them and the children of the anti-church
  institutions[94]; jacobinical
  philosophers, materialists, votaries of reason and eternal sleep, and,
  perhaps, some clergy, as before, of their own communion, whose interest
  may be affected, and who have not penetration and virtue enough to see
  and enjoy the motive and the justice of their restoration to religion and
  to letters: "ignorance," said Henry IV, in his speech to Harlay before
  cited, "has always borne a grudge to learning." I trust, however, and
  believe, that I have proved enough to convince the reader,
  that the Jesuits have been calumniated; that their destruction was
  effected by the malice and envy of their enemies, on the one hand, and by
  the pusillanimity of their proper protector on the other; that, as far as
  authority extends, there is a great and brilliant balance in their
  favour; that, on the ground of reasoning, the proof of their virtue as
  well as of their religion does not fall short of demonstration in the
  account of their institute; that they are not at war with protestant
  governments, whose catholic subjects they are well known long to have
  trained up in loyalty; and, that the small number now in this country
  have completed those proofs of loyalty by a solemn oath of allegiance to
  the king.







THE



OF
C L E R I C U S. — L E T T E R S





Calumniare audacter; semper aliquid adhærebit.









THE



OF
CLERICUS TO LAICUS. — LETTER I. — LETTER II. — LETTER III. — LETTER IV. — LETTER V.








Jesuitæ, qui se maxime nobis opponunt, aut necandi, aut si hoc
  commodè fieri non potest, ejiciendi, aut certe mendaciis et calumniis opp
  imendi sunt.—Calv. Axiom.—Vide Becan. tom. i, opusc.
  xvii, aphor. 15[95].




In God's name, Laicus, who are you, and what is your aim? The order of
  Jesuits, you tell us, has been totally abolished. Every person
  of moderate information knows, that to
  accomplish that abolition, which was not total, all the artifices of
  calumny were exhausted. Neither Calvin, nor Le Courayer, nor even Laicus,
  could have added a mite to the torrent of abuse of Jesuits, which
  inundated Europe about fifty years ago, when the complete overthrow of
  that order was finally planned and determined. The Jesuits fell; and
  within a few years Rome was sacked and pillaged; two successive pontiffs
  were lodged in dungeons; every French infidel, every fanatical gospeller
  throughout Europe, exulted in the discomfiture of the scarlet whore; the
  papacy was, on every side, pronounced to be extinct. But, behold, by the
  unerring operation of Providence, the papacy is again seated on the seven
  hills, and its old champions, the Jesuits, are once more called forth to
  sustain the assaults of calumny. But what inept calumny, what falsehoods, what inconsistencies, what
  contradictions, have you, Laicus, raked together, to stifle the new life,
  which they are only beginning to enjoy! Thus in days of old conspired the
  Jewish pharisees to murder Lazarus, as soon as the Son of God had raised
  him from the tomb.—John xii, 10. Consider, Sir—you need not
  be so precipitate. Many years must yet pass, many powers must concur, to
  recruit, to drill, to marshal a new body of Jesuits, capable of achieving
  the mischief, which your virulent declamation imputes to their
  predecessors. I have spent some years of my life in foreign countries; I
  there read every libel against the Jesuits, that came in my way; but I
  never found one so perfectly contemptible as your two tottering columns
  in the Times, newspaper, of January the 27th.
  They will not support either themselves, or the credit of the publication
  which has received them. And yet this infamous trash must be noticed,
  because it is calculated to do harm. I say again, who are you? Tell me,
  if you dare. If you have written truth, why should you skulk from the
  light? But, alas! Omnis, qui male agit, odit lucem.—John
  iii, 20.


I need not ask again, what is your aim? Your two columns plainly tell
  it. It is not to convey information to discerning men; it is to poison
  the minds of the undiscriminating vulgar; it is to raise a popular cry,
  which, in this country, has more than once either intimidated virtuous
  ministers, or favoured the projects of bad ones. There is, you know it,
  even in this enlightened nation, a mass of fanaticism and bigotry, which
  may easily be called into action. If you are forty-five years old, you
  may remember, that, in 1780, one extravagant religionist made the streets
  stream with blood, and nearly wrapped the capital in flames. If you have
  read history, you know that the projectors of the exclusion bill
  found the profligacy of Titus Oates quite sufficient to raise an enormous
  ferment throughout the nation, and to procure the legal murder of twenty
  harmless Jesuits, gentlemen and priests. You distinctly disclaim the merit
  of novelty. Right: you dare not deviate an inch from the old beaten track
  of inflammatory calumny and defamation. Your whole tale has been long
  prepared and fashioned to your hands. Nothing in it is yours, but the
  inconsistencies, contradictions, and scurrilous language, with which you
  have pieced it together. It is copied from one or more of the ten
  thousand libels, which overspread Europe fifty years ago, when the
  confederate ministers of the catholic courts, the Pombals, the Choiseuls,
  the Arandas, the Tanuccis, the Caunitzes, the Spinellis, the Marefoschis,
  &c. had finally determined to assassinate the whole body of the
  Jesuits. I have read almost every word of your two flimsy columns in the
  old Requisitoires, Comptes Rendus, and Arrêts of the
  French parliaments, from which I traced it to the Jansenists, to the
  Calvinists, to the Tuba Magna, to Scioppius, to Hospinian, to the
  Monarchia Solipsorum, and to the lying Monita Secreta: yet
  this last is the only one of your foul sources, that you have the
  hardiness to cite, probably because you know it to be the most
  malicious. It shall be specially noticed hereafter. Now all this was long
  ago refuted to the satisfaction of dispassionate men: even many of the
  French parliamentarians saw cause to regret their own deed. I have heard
  several of their leading men lament it, and some of them fairly
  acknowledge the infamy of the slander, which their courts had
  employed to effect it. Il falloit denigrer les Jesuites; car
  sans cela, les parlemens n'en seroient jamais venus à bout, were the
  words used by the late amiable and learned president Des Brosses in my
  hearing. But you, Sir, are not content to suck in the black bile of the
  old Gallic magistrates; you emulate the savage cruelty of Nero towards
  the primitive Christians—you dress up your Jesuits in the semblance
  of wild beasts, to entice your dogs to devour them.


And could you not, then, see the inconsistency of representing the
  whole body of Jesuits, as men systematically trained to every vice and
  crime, and of acknowledging, at the same time, that they governed the
  consciences of all monarchs, and of all their grandees; that they ruled
  courts; that they were every where trusted, respected, and employed? They
  enjoyed this credit during two hundred years, in all catholic countries,
  and, if we must believe you, in all countries not professedly catholic,
  that is, in protestant countries; and yet you require us to admit, that
  all the sovereigns, prelates, and magistrates of those nations, had
  neither the discernment to discover, nor the power to control the course
  of their wickedness. Indeed, Sir, the best refutation of your fable would
  be, a comparison of the state of religion, morality, order, and
  subordination in catholic countries, while Jesuits, as you tell us, were
  their teachers, preachers, and directors, with the face of public morals,
  after their enemies had accomplished their destruction. Another complete
  refutation of your inconsistent charge arises from the remarkable
  circumstance, that, in all the countries where Jesuits were consigned to
  jails, exile, infamy, and beggary, not a crime could be alleged or proved against a single Jesuit; not one
  was ever interrogated or suffered to plead his cause. Horrid to tell!
  they were all everywhere condemned, everywhere punished unheard, untried.
  This is a fact of public notoriety[96].


It is curious to observe, how your accusations turn to the credit of
  the Jesuits. The strict obedience, which was enjoined and practised in
  their society, is with you their crime; with every man of sense, it is
  their commendation. It was, in fact, the bond, which cemented them
  together, which supplied the place of monastic restrictions, incompatible
  with their various duties. Without it, they would soon have fallen into
  disorder, they would have been contemned; but they would not have been
  employed, nor trusted, nor even persecuted. Another of their crimes
  is their ardent attachment to their order. I allow it was
  singular. They had a tender feeling for the good reputation of their
  society, and they all well understood, that it depended upon the good
  conduct of every individual[97]. But who cannot see, that this admitted
  fact stands in direct contradiction to that other crimination, where you
  execrate their government, as perfect and unexampled despotism? It
  is not possible, that a large body of well educated men should be
  enamoured of slavery. It is a truth, that the government of the Jesuits
  was the most gentle, and yet the most effective, that ever existed; and
  this, if you had sense to comprehend it, arose in a great measure from
  the perfection of their obedience. Let this suffice for your
  inconsistencies.


Among your direct falsehoods, I rank your assertion, that their
  constitutions were framed by Laines and Acquaviva, both generals of the
  society: that the former was the author of your favourite libel, the
  Monita Secreta, and that it was brought to light at the end of the
  seventeenth century. This point shall be resumed. To mention all your
  falsehoods, I must copy your two columns: but I cannot omit arraigning
  you as a shameless impostor, for your assertion in Italics, that
  the Jesuits had obtained from the holy see a special licence to trade.
  In fact, there never was a more idle calumny, than that Jesuits ruled the
  papal court, and possessed enormous wealth. It was an object of laughter
  even with those who re-echoed the tale in the loudest tone. The Jesuits
  never possessed a single post in the Roman court, to which power and
  influence were attached. Some of these belonged to more ancient orders;
  and, in those orders, the Jesuits generally found rivals and opponents.
  Not having the sources of power, they never possessed any other
  influence, either at Rome or elsewhere, than that which virtue and
  abilities occasionally give to individuals.


To these enormous, I would rather say abnormous, misshapen lies, I
  add, in finishing, your assertion, that the Jesuits took part in every
  intrigue, in every revolution. You are not ignorant, it seems, that
  revolutions are always preceded by intrigues. Now, Laicus, you must
  patiently submit to be branded with the title of SPLENDIDE MENDAX, until you produce undeniable
  proof, that the Jesuits were concerned in the intrigues, which produced
  the several revolutions of Denmark, Sweden, and Russia, of the United
  Provinces in 1570, of Portugal in 1640, of England in the same year, and
  again in 1688, and, more recently, in the revolution, which wrested the
  American States from the British crown. I will rub off the splendide
  mendax from your forehead when you prove, that any one of these
  revolutions was contrived, or conducted, by Jesuits. It is a remarkable
  circumstance, that, amidst the fiercest rage of unceasing wars, the two
  great rival houses of Bourbon and Austria vied with each other in esteem
  and affection for the Jesuits. During the reigns of Philip II, and his
  three immediate successors in Spain; during the reigns of Maximilian, of
  the three Ferdinands, and Leopold, in Germany; during the reigns of Henry
  IV, and of the three Louises, who succeeded him, in France, the Jesuits
  obtained their most distinguished settlements in those various kingdoms.
  If ever a history of the destruction of the Jesuits be written, it
  will show, that, purposely to bring forward the grand revolution, from
  which Europe is now struggling to recover, they were expelled from all
  the situations, in which European monarchs and prelates, the guardians of
  church and state, had placed them. This is the only revolution, in which
  Jesuits ought to be named. And here I advise you to meddle no more with
  this matter. Melius non tangere, clamo. Inquiry, or even chance,
  may betray your real name. If this happen, I shall add with the poet,






Flebis, et insignis tota cantaberis urbe.


Hor. Sat. i, l. 2.






Mean time your antagonist is






CLERICUS.














SIR;


In my last, I engaged myself to say a word on your Monita
  Secreta. This rancid libel, indeed, refutes itself. No man of common
  sense will allow even the possibility of a large body of men being
  governed, or of attaining credit and power by such absurd maxims, under
  the inspection of so many powerful princes, wise ministers, and learned
  prelates. Certainly these lords of church and state could not be so
  blind, during one hundred and fifty years, as to tolerate, to cherish a
  gang of thieves, and to intrust to them the public instruction of the
  people, and the education of youth. Such a set of maxims would not have
  held together a band of professed forgers or swindlers, during a single
  year. And the contriver of them, you tell
  us, was Laines, whom you incautiously allow to have been a man of
  superior abilities in the science of government. The folly of
  imputing such trash to Laines must appear evident to all who know, that
  he was one of the most distinguished divines and preachers of his age;
  that he was deputed, in three different pontificates, as pontifical
  theologian to the council of Trent; that his harangues were considered
  almost as oracular by the fathers of that venerable assembly; that his
  manners were as saintly as his learning was extensive, that he was
  specially selected by Pius IV to confute the Hugonots in the conference
  at Poissy; that, on his return from that embassy, he refused the dignity
  of cardinal, with which the pope offered to distinguish his eminent
  merit; and, that he ended his career in 1565, seven years after he had
  been elected general of the young society. Now, say, what time could a
  man so busied in theological and missionary labours in Italy and France,
  command to conduct commercial speculations in India, as you in your
  odious libel assert?


But alas, why should Laicus spare Laines, when he has dared to
  blaspheme the great, the renowned Francis Xavier, as a monster of
  cruelty, as an extortioner of Indian wealth? As if such senseless insult,
  at the distance of two hundred and sixty years, could disparage the
  revered merit, or obliterate the tribute of admiration and praise, which
  mankind have agreed to give him, and which sober protestants have not
  refused: such are Baldeus and Hackluyt, cited in the wonderful life of
  that famous apostle, by Bouhours, translated into English by our
  Dryden.—See p. 766, 767.


The maxims of Xavier and Laines, consigned in your Monita
  Secreta, were first brought to light, you tell us, at the close of
  the seventeenth century, about one hundred and forty years after the
  decease of the supposed author; and yet you have not a shadow of proof to
  allege, that they made any sensation in the world; that any
  prince, prelate, or magistrate, that any man whatever gave credit to
  them. Would you know, Sir, the origin of your despicable Monita?
  Not in the days of Laines, not at the close, but in the early years of
  the seventeenth century, a Jesuit was dismissed with ignominy from the
  society in Poland, an uncommon circumstance but judged due to his
  misconduct. The walls of the city of Cracow were soon covered with sheets
  of revengeful insults; and, in the year 1616, this outcast of the society
  published his fabricated Secreta Monita, with a view to cover his
  own disgrace, or to gratify his revenge. "Whether he attained either of
  these objects," says the elegant historian, Cordara (a name well known in
  the republic of letters), "I cannot determine; but certain it is, nothing
  was ever more ineptly silly, than this work: Quo opere, ut modeste
  dicam, nihil ineptius."—Vid. Cordara, Hist. Soc. Jes. page 29.
  Cordara would have made an exception in favour of Laicus, if he had lived
  to read his Letters in the Times. The libel,
  however, though condemned and prohibited at Rome by the Congregation of
  the Index on the 10th of May, 1616, was industriously propagated, meeting
  every where its merited contempt. It was victoriously refuted by Gretser,
  who died in 1625, seventy-five years before the work was discovered, if
  the admirable Laicus is to be believed. This refutation, which was not
  wanted, may be read in Gretser's works, edit. of Ratisbon, 1634[98].




Laicus affirms, that an edition of the Monita was dedicated to
  sir Robert Walpole in 1722. Though every assertion of such a writer may
  be doubted, yet, admitting the truth of this, which I cannot disprove, a
  probable reason for it may, I think, be assigned. From the period of the
  accession of the House of Hanover, in 1714, a negotiation
  had been on foot for the repeal of the penal laws. It miscarried,
  principally from the still subsisting attachment to the House of Stuart,
  and partly from the enmity openly professed against the Jesuit
  missionaries by a small number of catholics, priests and laymen, who
  insisted, that they should be excepted from the expected act of grace.
  During the first years of George I, several angry libels and invectives
  were industriously circulated, purposely to indispose the public against
  them; and it is observable, that the same jealousy and party rancour had
  influenced the negotiations instituted in favour of catholics in the
  reign of Charles II, and even during the usurpation of Cromwell. The
  edition of Laicus's cherished libel, in 1722, if it be a reality, was
  probably published on the same principles; and this reflection will soon
  lead me to detect the ultimate view of Laicus and his associates in the
  present effusions of slander, which they are scattering abroad. This
  point may be reserved for future examination. 


It is not possible to dwell upon all the wilful falsehoods of the
  second Letter, with the same extent which I have given to the fable of
  the Monita. The power of the general of the Jesuits is nicely
  ascertained in the volumes of the Institute; and, indeed, a true account
  of it cannot be drawn from any other source. Now I assert, that every
  word written upon it in the Institute, stands directly in contradiction
  to your description of it in your second Letter. It was said of an
  ancient painter, Nulla dies sine linea: I say of your wild rant,
  Nulla linea sine mendacio. In the books of the Institute, the
  general's power is balanced and checked in a stile, that has been admired
  by the deepest men in the science of legislation, cardinal Richelieu and
  others; and all this has been repeatedly sanctioned, confirmed, and
  extolled by popes, who, according to you, were at once governed and
  opposed, ruled and thwarted, overswayed and disobeyed, and sometimes
  murdered by Jesuits. What idiots these popes must have been! In what
  chapter of the Institute did Laicus discover the power or the practice
  of admitting men of all religions into the society? Could men, of various
  religious persuasions have ever coalesced into one regular system of
  propagating exclusively the Roman catholic religion, which, as well as
  persecution of protestants and their own aggrandisement, you allow to
  have been at all times the main object of Jesuits? Who can believe, that
  protestant Jesuits would ever have submitted to persecute
  protestants? Who can imagine unanimity of mind, heart, and action among
  men, who disagreed in the fundamental principle? In what historian, or in
  what tradition, has Laicus found, that pope Innocent XIII was murdered,
  or murdered by Jesuits? Strange, that the discovery of such a
  crime should have been reserved for Laicus, ninety-one years after the
  death of that pontiff[99]!
  Who, before Laicus, ever wrote, that the assassin of Henry III of France
  was instigated by Jesuits? Wait another number of the Times, Laicus will improve: he will roundly assure us,
  that the miserable Jacques Clement actually was a Jesuit. No man
  conversant in the history of France ever doubted of the civil wars of the
  sixteenth century having originated with the rebellious Hugonots; but no
  man before Laicus ever attributed all the horrors of that dismal period
  to Jesuits. The famous league opposed the succession of the Bourbons in
  the person of Henry IV; and the whole guilt of their
  proceedings against Henry IV is exclusively ascribed to Jesuits. And yet
  this very monarch, whom Laicus calls the greatest and best king of
  France, was perhaps, of all men that ever wore a crown, the warmest
  friend and protector of the Jesuits. Possibly I may be wrong in this
  assertion; because the glory of Henry IV, in this particular, is
  certainly rivalled, if not exceeded, by the illustrious favour and
  protection afforded to the persecuted Jesuists by the late empress
  Catharine of Russia, and by the present magnanimous emperor Alexander.
  Henry IV condescended to refute in public the passionate imputations of
  the president Harlay against the Jesuits. His son, Louis XIII, and his
  grandson, the famous Louis XIV, imitated his example, in their esteem of
  the society; and because this was undeniable, behold Laicus, by a bold
  effort of genius, has transformed the renowned monarch, Louis XIV, into a
  Jesuit professed of four vows. How a Frenchman must scout such ribaldry!
  But enough of these extravagancies. In reading them, I
  began to suspect, that Laicus's aim might be to ridicule the revilers of
  Jesuits, by imputing to the latter things evidently false, clearly
  inconsistent, absolutely impossible. Thus, I well remember it, when the
  absurd tale of the Jesuit king Nicolas of Paraguay amused the Laicuses of
  the day, the writer of one of the Holland gazettes, in his description of
  that king's battle against the Spanish and Portuguese troops, endeavoured
  to turn the fable into ridicule by asserting, that king Nicolas had
  displayed much bravery, and had fought until three capuchins were shot
  under him in the action. But I apprehend, that Laicus and his prompters
  do not rave merely for sport. Their real views will gradually appear:
  they are not quite unknown to






CLERICUS.














SIR;


At the close of your first Letter, you promise to refer, in your next,
  to the evidences for the statements, which you have made. I was curious
  to see upon what historical evidence such a mass of forgeries could rest.
  In labouring through your second Letter, I discovered much intrinsic
  evidence, that you are a still improving adept in the art of bold and
  unsupported assertion, but not a shadow of proof, that your rants were
  ever believed by any man before yourself. The only authority cited in it
  is of one Collado, who asserted, that the conduct of the Jesuits was the
  occasion of the abolition of Christianity in Japan; but whoever has read
  the history of Christianity in those islands will deny
  the position, upon grounds more certain than those on which it is
  advanced. The whole of your second Letter is no more than an unconnected
  congeries of the grossest impostures. In my second I marked out a few; I
  shall presently indicate some others; and I shall leave my readers to
  determine, whether you have substantiated your first calumnies, only by
  the production of new ones.


I have searched your third Letter in quest of evidence, of proof, of
  historical support; and I find, that the two most prominent names in it
  are Prynne and De Thou. I may here remark, that it is highly illiberal
  and unjust to uphold imputations of guilt, even against the worst of
  culprits, solely upon the asseverations of their declared enemies; and,
  if these enemies stand otherwise convicted of malicious calumnies, this
  circumstance alone must go far towards the acquittal of the accused. Now,
  it is well known, that Prynne and De Thou wrote in the most
  turbulent times, amidst the distractions and rage of civil wars,
  occasioned in England and in France by restless sectaries; that they were
  both inflamed with party rage, and never spared their adversaries. If,
  then, their testimony is to be admitted as irrefragable, in the present
  times, in one point, why not in another? If, without a shadow of proof,
  we must believe with Prynne and you, that the Irish massacre and the
  British civil wars were to be imputed to Jesuits, and especially to
  Cuneus, the pope's nuncio, and cardinal Barberini (who, by the way, never
  were Jesuits), we must also believe every thing written by that foul
  mouthed lawyer against Charles I, against episcopacy, and against the
  famous archbishop Laud. But we know, that the fellow's ears were twice
  bored and cropped in the pillory for his defamatory libels, and that his
  cheeks were seared with the letters S. L. (seditious libeller.) I believe
  my readers will agree, that the stigma might, with propriety, be
  transferred to the unblushing front of the retailer of his falsehoods.
  Before I speak of De Thou, I will mention
  only a few of your insufferable fabrications, which hardly Prynne himself
  would have ventured to utter. 1. "In matters both of faith and
  practice, the members of the society are bound to obey the society, and
  not the church[100]." In
  what part of their Institute is this canon found? It was unknown to the
  council of Trent, and to the several popes, whose confirmation and
  commendation that Institute obtained. 2. "They have invariably opposed
  episcopacy, and they have repeatedly attacked the decrees of
  general councils, especially that of Trent[101]." It should seem, that, in a
  protestant country, attacks upon catholic councils would not be
  deemed very enormous sins. But, since they have been repeatedly
  committed by Jesuits, it would have been easy for Laicus to convict them,
  at least, in one instance. Why has it been omitted? 3. "The society has
  prisons, independent of secular authority, in which
  refractory members are put to death; a right which Laines obtained
  for them[102]." Quere, from
  whom did he obtain it? From the pope? In what bullarium then may the
  grant be found? Did Jesuits ever attempt to use this right? Did
  secular sovereigns quietly acquiesce in such a glaring usurpation of
  their most undoubted right? Of what avail could such a privilege have
  been to the Jesuits, who always had the power to dismiss refractory
  members from their society, as they dismissed Jerom Zarowicz, Antonio de
  Dominis, abbé Raynal, and many others? Poor Laicus cannot answer one of
  these questions. He has disclaimed all pretension to novelty; he is
  satisfied with copying malignity; and, to the shame of the Encyclopedia
  Britannica, he has transcribed this impudent forgery from vol. ix of that
  work (page 510, art. Laines), where, without a shadow of
  proof or of probability, it is roundly stated, that "Laines, general of
  the Jesuits, procured from pope Paul IV the privilege of having prisons
  independent of the secular authority, in which they (the Jesuits) put to
  death refractory brethren." 4. "One peculiar object of the society is to
  direct and aid the operations of the Inquisition[103]." It is not easy to ascertain the
  precise source of this falsehood. Probably it is not borrowed from
  foreign libels, because, in all catholic countries, it was universally
  known, that Jesuits never had any concern in the administration, or
  proceedings, of the Inquisition. 5. "The Jesuits usurped the sovereignty
  of Paraguay, and held the Indians in slavery[104]." This has been a thousand times said;
  and it has been as often demonstrated, to the satisfaction of impartial
  inquirers, that the Jesuits were the steady friends and defenders of the
  liberty of the Indians, and that the success of their missions in South
  America was a glorious triumph of humanity and religion,
  hardly to be equalled in the history of the Christian church. 6. "They
  formed two conspiracies against king Joseph of Portugal, and his whole
  family[105]." In spite of
  the prepotency of the cruel minister Pombal, truth has prevailed, and the
  world remains convinced, that not even one conspiracy was ever formed
  against king Joseph of Portugal, either by Jesuits, or by any other
  persons. 7. "The Jesuits beheaded eighty Frenchmen and hung five hundred
  friars for maintaining the rights of Anthony king of Portugal, in the
  island of Tercera, where they had compelled him to take refuge, after
  having disposed of his crown[106]." All this is a blundering confusion
  of the adventures of the bastard Portuguese prince Antonio, prior of
  Crato, and of the history of king Alfonso, who, a hundred years later,
  was deposed and confined in the island of Tercera. Whoever has looked
  into Portuguese history may remember, that Antonio's
  pretensions to the crown were settled, not by Jesuits, but by the duke of
  Alva, at the head of a Spanish army of twenty thousand men. He may have
  read, that several persons were executed in Tercera, for supporting
  Antonio's cause, by the commanders of a Spanish armament; but no man has
  read, that five hundred friars were put to death, or ever existed at one
  time, in the island of Tercera. Whatever the case may be, the Jesuits had
  no concern in what befel the pretender Antonio, or king Alfonso, or the
  poor friars of Tercera. 8. "The Jesuits deposed the grand duke of Muscovy
  with great bloodshed, for a creature of their own[107]." When did all this happen, and who
  was the grand duke? Laicus will not easily answer these questions. 9. "A
  memoir of cardinal Noailles leaves no doubt of Louis XIV having taken the
  four vows of the Jesuits[108]." On this point the policy of the
  Jesuits appears to have been defective. If they had sent good father
  Louis XIV to a foreign mission, for instance, to Canada or Brazil, in
  execution of his fourth vow, and had bestowed his crown upon some other
  creature of their own, as they had transferred that of poor king Anthony,
  probably they might have ruled Europe with less trouble. Father Louis XIV
  was not always disposed to be a submissive subject[109].


I mention two facts more, because they are new—not related by
  Prynne, nor even by the learned writer of the historical articles
  in the Encyclopedia Britannica, whose words, in his article "Jesuits,"
  you have so exactly copied into your Letters. 10. "Pope Urban VIII," you
  say, "transmitted a bull to the Jesuits' vice-provincial, Stillington,
  commanding all catholics to be aiding in the civil war, for which they
  should receive indulgences, such as power of releasing others from
  purgatory, and of eating fish at prohibited times, and if he
  should be killed, of being placed in the Martyrology[110]." The gross absurdity of this
  narration is evident without a comment[111]. The other is still more
  extraordinary. 11. You invite us to consult "the important memorial
  presented by Parsons the Jesuit, to king James II, for bringing in
  popery[112]." This Parsons
  is a most wonderful Jesuit. You have already sported
  him as the associate of Campion to assassinate queen Bess in 1581, that
  is, one hundred and four years before James II became king of England;
  and it is very certain, that he died and was fairly buried at Rome, in
  the month of April, 1610; that is, twenty-three years before king James
  II was born. I omit many other Jesuitical pranks, which you allege,
  relative to English history, because every reader may find the refutation
  of them, only by looking into Dr. Milner's celebrated Letters to Dr.
  Sturges, where the profligacy of Elizabeth and her ministers, and the
  futility of the assassination-plots, with which they charged Jesuits and
  other priests, are evinced to demonstration. It is now time to think of
  De Thou.


This writer's character is well drawn by the learned professor of
  Lovain, Dr. Paquot:—Thuanus audax nimium; hostis Jesuitarum
  imcabilis; calumniator Guisiorum; protestantium exscriptor, laudator,
  amicus; sedi apostolicæ et synodo Tridentinæ, totique rei
  catholicæ parum æquus. De Thou was fully animated with the general
  and prevalent spirit of the parliament of Paris, in which he held the
  rank of president a mortier; and this spirit led them at all times
  to advance their own importance, by favouring every party that opposed
  either the church or the crown. Their constant aim was to balance the
  power of the monarch, and to depress the spiritual authority of the holy
  see and the bishops. During the active administration of Louis XIV, they
  were confined to their proper functions of civil and criminal justice;
  but in the times, which preceded and followed that reign, they were
  leaguers, and favourers of the Hugonots, and abettors of the Fronde, and,
  lastly, open protectors of the Jansenists. De Thou never publicly seceded
  from the catholic church; he was satisfied with insulting it. His
  abilities were great; the elegance of his style is engaging: but, as he
  wrote solely to favour the Hugonots, his narrations are compiled only
  upon their memoirs, or they are sports of his own imagination. He
  professes to write the history only of his own times; and, consequently,
  his story rests upon his own credit, unsupported by vouchers: his ipse
  dixit is the whole proof. He is wonderfully fond of detailing
  conspiracies against princes, and, in these fabulous tales, he completely
  sacrifices the dignity of the historian; he sinks into a romancer and a
  comedian. He leads his conspirator through cities and provinces, to
  gather associates; the pope, or the king of Spain, or some cardinal,
  directs the plot; he has at his finger-ends the closest secrets of the
  conspiracy; he recites letters, which were never written; and, most
  commonly, Jesuits, but sometimes Dominicans, even Capuchins, are his
  principal actors. These men give anticipated absolution to the assassin;
  they promise him the crown and palm of martyrdom; they impart to him the
  pope's benediction; and, to use your odious cant, they give him the
  sacrament upon it. All this is sweet reading to bigoted sectaries; and,
  with them, the word of De Thou is paramount to demonstrative proof. 


I have sketched De Thou's character, because he stands foremost among
  the modern corrupters of history, too successfully followed by Voltaire,
  by Hume, by Robertson, and a throng of servile imitators in France and in
  England, whose historical romances have so much contributed to render
  religion odious, and to plunge mankind into scepticism and
  infidelity.


Having already mentioned the writer of the historical and biographical
  articles in the Encyclopedia Britannica, I here recommend to Laicus to
  cultivate a more intimate correspondence with that accurate compiler, if
  he be still engaged in historical pursuits. They will thus reciprocally
  gather improvement by communication of their respective discoveries; they
  will mutually support each other, and advance the common cause in which
  they are engaged. How strange it is, that the historian of the
  Encyclopedia, so well informed of whatever concerns Jesuits, should not
  have known, that Louis XIV was a professed member of that order, bound by
  four solemn vows; viz. of voluntary poverty,
  perpetual chastity, and entire obedience to the general of the society in
  all things, and likewise to the pope with respect to foreign missions!
  Surely he would have enriched the Encyclopedia with this prominent fact,
  so undoubtedly ascertained by Laicus and cardinal de Noailles. How
  strange again it is, that the penetrating Laicus should have been
  ignorant, that this very Louis XIV, this professed Jesuit, so far forgot
  the humility of his religious profession, as to arrogate to himself the
  worship and honours, which religion appropriates to the Divinity! And yet
  this important fact, which had escaped all the writers of that royal
  Jesuit's life, is consigned to posterity for an historical truth, in the
  seventh volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica, page 432, in the following
  words: "He (Louis XIV) was so blinded by flattery, that he arrogated to
  himself the divine honours, paid to the pagan emperors of
  Rome." The circulation of this fact by Laicus, would at one stroke
  have crushed the Jesuits, and would have conciliated immortal honour and
  credit to the Times. Who can contemplate the
  historical labours of these three worthies, the historian of the
  Encyclopedia, the editor of the Times, and the
  incomparable Laicus, without thinking of the fate of their predecessor
  Prynne?


It is remarkable, that while the Jesuits were thus insulted by Prynnes
  and De Thous, and their numerous disciples, they were everywhere
  befriended by princes and states, who freighted them to foreign missions
  at the public expense, and who multiplied their colleges and settlements
  throughout Europe, in which they quietly assisted the clergy in the
  functions of religion, and successfully conducted those schools, which
  our famous Bacon so much admired: Consule scholas Jesuitarum, is
  his well known text; nihil enim quod in usum venit, his
  melius.—De dign. et augm. Scient. l. 6. He had already said (l.
  1) of the Jesuits, "Quorum cum intueor industriam solertiamque, tam in
  doctrina excolenda, quam in moribus informandis, illud occurrit
  Agesilai de Pharnabaso: Talis cum sis, utinam nostor esses."


The testimony of Bacon overbalances ten thousand Encyclopedists, and
  all their servile transcribers. To cover them with confusion, I finish
  with citing two of the most celebrated names, that have ever graced any
  of the various sects, known by the common appellation of
  protestants—I mean the great Grotius and Leibnitz. The latter
  maintained a constant correspondence with Jesuits, even with the
  missioners in China. His letters, which yet exist, prove that he was, and
  that he gloried in being, their friend; that he rejoiced in their
  successes, and was grieved by their afflictions and sufferings. The Latin
  text, which I would wish to transcribe from the learned Grotius, is
  rather long, and it would be enervated by translation. (See Grotius Hist.
  1. iii, p. 273. edit. Amstelod. an. 1658.) Here he employs the nervous
  style of Tacitus, to describe the origin of the Jesuits, the purity of
  their morals, their zeal to propagate Christianity, to
  instruct youth, the respect which they had justly acquired, their
  disinterestedness, their prudence in commanding, their fidelity in
  obeying, their moderation in all their dealings, their progress and
  increase, &c. &c. "Mores inculpatos, bonas artes, magna in
  vulgum auctoritas ob vitæ sanctimoniam.—Sapienter imperant,
  fideliter parent.—Novissimi omnium, sectas priores fama vicere, hoc
  ipso cæteris invisi.—Medii fœdum inter obsequium et tristem
  arrogantiam, nec fugiunt hominum vitia, nec sequuntur, &c."






You may hear once more from






CLERICUS.


















Ecce iterum Crispinus, et est mihi sæpe vocandus


In partes.


Juv. Sat. 4.






What! Laicus once more! And is he not then prostrate on the ground,
  gagged and muzzled beyond the possibility of barking? His ignorance, his
  falsehoods, his sophistry, have been sufficiently branded; yet,
  spider-like,






Destroy his slander and his fibs—in vain,


The creature's at its dirty work again.


Pope.






Undoubtedly he never deserved, and never would have received even a
  first answer, if it had not been apparent, that his venal pen was guided
  and paid by mischief-makers of deeper views: and hence arises the
  necessity of noticing this fourth effusion, to disable the retailers of
  his falsehoods from vainly boasting, that
  slander unanswered is acknowledged truth. I write not to Laicus, but to
  his prompters, and to his readers, if there be any left.


They may observe, that the imputations in this fourth Letter are
  two—king-killing continually practised, and immoral doctrines
  continually taught by Jesuits: and to this is added a short summary of
  authorities, by which all this trash is upheld. It would be an easy, but
  now uninteresting task, to disprove these several imputations; and this
  has long since been victoriously done. It may suffice to know, that they
  were all advanced by party men, maddened by civil and religious rage:
  they are registered only in the murky pages of antiquated libels, and
  they are here reproduced for the dishonest purpose of blackening virtue,
  which triumphed over them, when they were fresh. Pamphlets of Hugonots,
  libels of loose catholics, declamations of rival teachers, who
  apprehended their own humiliation in the success of the Jesuits,
  Plaidoyers, Requisitoires, and harangues of
  Pasquiers and Harlays, sworn enemies of the society,
  Arrêts of their courts of parliament, ever intent to curtail the
  spiritual authority of the church, and to abridge the power of the
  reigning monarch, in order to advance their own. Such are the men, such
  the passions, which invented accusations of regicide against the Jesuits
  in France during the horrid confusion of the Hugonotic wars. At the
  return of public tranquillity, they all sunk into oblivion during the
  period of one hundred and fifty years, until Jansenism and Deism renewed
  them, in 1760, and the ensuing years, as a powerful engine to accomplish
  the utter destruction of their known and common enemies. It is needless
  to disprove each imputed fact: I will only, for a sample, refute the
  first, which stands in Laicus's foul calendar. It is the assertion, that
  the Jesuit Varade was implicated in the guilt of the assassins of Henry
  IV, Barriere and Chatel. Now Varade was defended and cleared by an
  advocate, to whom no reply could be made: this was Henry IV himself, who,
  in his famous answer to the parliamentary president Harlay,
  vindicated the honour and the innocence of that Jesuit and of all his
  associates, in a strain of eloquence, which Harlay and his coadjutors
  felt to be irresistible. The royal orator concluded his victorious
  defence of his friends, by advising all his hearers to forget the past
  excesses of civil discord, and not to exasperate smothered passions, by
  mutual reproaches, into new crimes. The employers of Laicus would do well
  to follow this advice.


Though Henry IV was not the model of a perfect king, I have always
  thought his conduct towards the Jesuits a strong proof, that his return
  to the religion of his forefathers was sincere. The parliament, which had
  opposed him, while he headed the Hugonot party, opposed him now from the
  motives above alleged, and determined to deprive him of the services of
  the Jesuits, on whom they knew that he greatly depended, for the
  re-establishment of the catholic religion. They drove the Jesuits from
  France with every mark of ignominy, before Henry was strong enough to
  support them. When his power was consolidated, he restored
  them to their country, and he chose one of them for his preacher,
  confessor, and bosom friend. This was the celebrated father Cotton, whom
  Laicus impudently names in his list of Jesuit regicides. In such rage of
  faction, it is no wonder that the parliament erected a pillar to the
  infamy of the persecuted Jesuits. It was not quite so tall as the British
  monument, which still attests to the heavens, in the words of the lord
  mayor, Patience Ward, that the city of London was burnt by the malice of
  the catholics, in 1666. The difference is, that in calmer times the
  Gallic column, with all the calumnies of Harlay, was erased, but Patience
  Ward, who had been put into the pillory for perjury, still lies
  uncontradicted[113]. To the
  article of regicides I add, that the attempt on the life
  of Louis XV, in 1757, was not imputed to Jesuits, either by parliaments,
  or by Jansenists. The calumny in the fourth Letter is, I imagine, the
  undisputed property of Laicus or his prompters[114].




On the second head of accusation—immoral doctrine—I wish
  to be short. The purity of the Jesuits' doctrine and morals was solemnly
  attested by the most qualified judges, a special assembly of fifty
  cardinals, archbishops, and bishops, of the Gallic church, convened by
  Louis XV; and their report was confirmed by many other prelates, who were
  not deputed to that assembly. A stronger proof of their innocence was the
  absolute inability of their enemies to convict a single Jesuit of four
  thousand, who were spread through France, of any immoral principle,
  doctrine, or practice. The parliament still pursued their beaten track.
  Il faut denigrer les Jesuites was their maxim. Envy, with her
  hundred jaundiced eyes, was every where on the watch to discover a flaw.
  Malice, with her hundred envenomed tongues, stood ready to echo it
  through the globe. Fruitless industry! The poor parliament was
  reduced to spare the living Jesuits, not from any regard for truth, but
  because they knew, that their calumnies would not be believed. They
  therefore impeached the doctrine and morals of all deceased Jesuits, who
  had existed during two hundred years, and they intrusted the delicious
  task of blackening the dead to the impure pens of Jansenists, headed
  principally by Dom. Clemencet. From this man's foul laboratory proceeded
  the Extraits des Assertions, a monstrous compilation of forged and
  falsified texts, purporting to contain the uniform doctrine, taught
  invariably at all times by the whole society of Jesus, and to exhibit a
  fair picture of their morals. The parliament sanctioned, and addressed
  this abominable book to every bishop, and to every college in France.
  Every bishop in France felt himself and religion insulted by it; and
  almost every bishop condemned and forbade it to be kept or read. The
  celebrated archbishop of Paris, De Beaumont, in particular, demonstrated
  the forgeries and artful falsifications, which it contained, and it was
  moreover solidly refuted by La Reponse aux Assertions. This
  laboured piece of Jansenistical malice seems to be unknown to Laicus and
  his associates, though he has copied and cited several of the vile
  libels, which were industriously circulated, to convey the indecent
  impurities of the book Des Assertions to every corner of France.
  In this point the shameless Laicus has faithfully imitated his models, or
  rather he has confined himself to one, whom he calls Coudrette; and, with
  his usual effrontery, he turns this obscure man into a repentant Jesuit,
  acknowledging and expiating his crimes by an unreserved confession of
  their foulness. His magic pen has already changed into Jesuits three such
  perfect disparates, as Louis XIV, the miserable Jacques Clement,
  and the weak English archpriest Blackwell. It has, upon motives equally
  invidious, transformed to Jesuits two churchmen of the first rate merit,
  the cardinals Allen and Barberini, because these two prelates were, at
  different periods, concerned in the religious affairs of England, and
  were thereby obnoxious to the then prevailing sects, though neither of
  them had any other connexion with Jesuits, than the intercourse of
  friendship and esteem. But Coudrette a Jesuit! How can this be credited?
  New personages in comedies are introduced to excite new interest; and was
  Coudrette ever before named in this island? Indeed his name is so very
  obscure, that it is difficult to find, even a Frenchman, who ever heard
  it. It has however obtained a small niche in two French historical
  dictionaries, the first of which, par une societé des
  gens-de-lettres, though friendly to the Jansenists, styles Coudrette
  un ennemi acharné des Jesuits. The other, by the well known abbé
  Feller, a man of very general information, asserts, that Coudrette had
  been from his youth, de tres bonne heure, a violent partisan of
  Jansenism, closely connected with the abbé Boursier, one of the heroes of
  the sect. In 1735 and 1738, during the ministry of cardinal de Fleury, he
  was confined by a lettre de cachet first at Vincennes, then in the
  Bastille, for his intrigues, cabals, and libels against the church; and
  of course he was canonized as a saint in the Nouvelles
  Ecclesiastiques, the well known Jansenistical gazette.
  When the parliaments denounced open war against the Jesuits, he came
  forward a volunteer in the cause, and printed his Histoire general des
  Jesuites in the course of 1761: but Coudrette and his history were
  perfectly forgotten in France before 1762. How could a copy of it have
  escaped into England? It has found its proper repository on the shelves
  of Laicus, or his employer[115].


I have done with Laicus and his authorities. He promises a commentary
  upon his own performance. It has not, I believe, yet appeared, even in
  the Times. Mine shall be very short.


Though I have proved Laicus and his associates to be unprincipled
  impostors, I have said nothing of them and their assertions, but what
  every man of virtue and information knows to be true. Every prince, every
  observer knows, that the overthrow of the society of Jesus was the first
  link in the concatenation of causes, which produced the late horrible
  successes of rebellion and infidelity. They all know, that the Jesuits,
  when their body was intire, were among the most active supporters of
  religion, learning, good order, and subordination to established powers,
  though, perhaps, professing religious creeds different from their own.
  Above all, they know, that Jesuits were every where staunch and steady
  friends of monarchy. Who then will wonder, that the renowned
  Catherine of Russia protected them in their greatest distress,
  unbendingly maintaining the full integrity of their institute, even in
  the smallest points? Who will be surprised, that the
  heroic Alexander continues to distinguish them by fresh favours? Who will
  cavil at Pius VII, in this new dawn of public tranquillity, for his
  endeavours to recover their services? Who will blame other princes for
  imitating his example? Possibly the good pontiff may conceive himself
  more bound than other princes, to make some compensation to the few
  remaining Jesuits, because he was a witness of the aggravated cruelties
  inflicted upon them and their superiors, at the time of the suppression
  by his predecessor Clement XIV. But the motives and the conduct of these
  princes present matter too ample to be treated at present by






CLERICUS.


















Servetur ad imum


Qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet.


Horace.






SIR;


I might spare myself the trouble of answering your fifth, concluding
  Letter, because I believe it will be read by few, and credited by none.
  You seem afraid of being called an alarmist. Good Sir, be easy. No man of
  common information, or of common sense, will catch the alarm of danger
  from your pretended conclusions. Your impotent cries of danger to church
  and state are like the cries of a madman, who should scream out "Fire,
  Fire," in the midst of a deluge[116]. Thus, even if your pretended
  conclusions descended in a right order of logic from your premises, the
  slightest view of the present state of things would convince every
  thinking man of the inutility of taking precautions, where no danger can
  possibly exist. But what must every thinking man conclude, when he knows,
  that your miserable inferences descend from a mass of forgeries,
  calumnies, imputations equally groundless and malicious; when he traces
  them up to a string of gratuitous suppositions, wantonly assumed and
  totally devoid of proof? If he has looked into my four Letters, he has
  recoiled with disgust from that sink of ribaldry, inconsistency,
  contradiction, and falsehood, which provoked them; and he has said, that
  though Clericus has swept away only a part of the dirt, which you have
  collected, he has sufficiently showed, that the rest, which he has left
  untouched, is equally odious and noisome. In fact, upon a slight review
  of your audacious criminations, I cannot discover even one, which is
  supported by truth; no, not one, which I would not undertake to brand
  with the stigma of falsehood. 


And what then can engage me to meddle with your final observations and
  inferences? Certainly not the apprehension, that men of sense and
  knowledge will ever acquiesce in them; but because they are all intended
  to feed some of the worst passions, that canker the human heart, to
  gratify disappointed anger, fretful jealousy, and revengeful spite. That
  these sour passions are apt to rankle in narrow hearts is not a novelty.
  I have caught them, in late years, venting themselves against your
  enemies the Jesuits, through newspapers and other prints, in tales nearly
  as absurd and fictitious, as was the alarming story in the reign of
  Charles II, of thirty thousand pilgrims and lay brothers, embodied at St.
  Andero, ready to invade old England under the conduct of the general of
  the Jesuits. Now your monstrous stories coming upon the back of these
  fables, must lead every man of sense to conclude, that not the
  consideration of public security, but the accomplishment of some private
  view must have prompted this wantonness of slander. But supposing for
  an instant, that all and each of your random accusations of ancient
  Jesuits were as true, as all and each are undeniably false; allowing that
  your columns in the Times could arrest a reader, unacquainted with
  continental history, in a state of hesitation and doubt; yet he must at
  least say: "These bad men, like the ancient giants, have been
  exterminated, they have long since disappeared, we have survived their
  criminal practices, why is the alarm bell sounded in the present
  times?"—"But," cries Laicus, "there once was a body of English
  Jesuits, and, during the whole term of their existence, 'our fathers
  spent restless nights and uneasy days. Dr. Sherlocke, living under dread
  of popery and arbitrary power, could enjoy no repose, when every morning
  threatened to usher in the last dawn of England's liberty.' I trust this
  quotation will not be without its use[117]." "Yes, these English Jesuits laid
  upon us 'a yoke, which was too heavy for our fathers to
  bear,' and the pope is again trying to fasten it upon our shoulders."
  &c.[118]


I allow it, Sir; there formerly existed a body of English Jesuits. It
  was violently crushed and annihilated more than forty years ago. I look
  in vain for the yoke, which they imposed upon our fathers: I have read
  something of the yoke, which they themselves bore. It is described in
  letters of blood, in the penal statutes of Elizabeth and the first James.
  During a full century, half the gibbets of England witnessed the
  unrelenting severity of persecution, which these injured men quietly and
  meekly endured. They were a body of catholic priests, always esteemed and
  cherished by English catholics; and, at every period of their existence,
  they counted in their society many members of the best and most ancient
  families among the British gentry. They risked their lives by treading on
  their native soil. They devoted themselves to administer the comforts
  of religion in secret to their suffering brethren; and they then slunk
  back to their hiding holes in the hollows of walls and roofs of houses.
  They never possessed a single house, school, or chapel, in which they
  could recommend themselves to their countrymen, by the peaceable
  functions of their profession: they were never otherwise known to the
  British public than when, surprised by priest-catchers, they were dragged
  to jail, and from jail to the gallows. Thus lived the Jesuits, in this
  their free country, from the twenty-second year of Elizabeth to the
  thirtieth of Charles II. This is all the progress that they made, in a
  full century, towards their own aggrandizement, which, says
  Laicus, "is the main object of all their labours[119]."


When the scene of blood was finally closed, in 1680, by the execution
  of eight innocent Jesuits in one year, not to mention a dozen others,
  who died in jail, many of them under sentence of death, the Jesuits still
  remained an inoffensive body of catholic missionary priests. Their object
  was to assist their catholic brethren; and, having obtained some
  foundations from the liberality of foreign potentates, they applied
  themselves to give to the expatriated youth of their own country the
  education, which the partiality of the laws denied them at home. In these
  pacific occupations they persevered, without experiencing any jealousy on
  the part of government, even during the two rebellions of 1715 and 1745;
  because, since the accession of the House of Brunswick, it has been a
  principle with our monarchs never to persecute any man for conscience,
  never to harass inoffensive subjects.


At the present day, that royal principle, with all its consequences,
  and they extend far, is widely diffused throughout the empire. Every man
  in it acknowledges the impossibility of converting the millions of his
  majesty's catholic subjects to any other assignable mode of faith; and
  every thinking man must feel the importance and, at the present day, the
  necessity, of attaching these millions to the common cause of the empire,
  and to the cordial support of one common government. Sound policy will
  always forbear to sour and to fret subjects, by jealous suspicions and
  invidious distinctions. It will always incline wise rulers of states to
  provide, for their subjects, ministers of religion, who are firmly
  attached to their government, and who may feel that they have nothing to
  fear from it, while they do not provoke its sword. Such was the conduct
  of continental governments in past times; and they everywhere judged it
  prudent to intrust, in a great measure, the national education of their
  youth to the active order of Jesuits, who, at the same time, were
  preachers, and catechists, and confessors, and visitors of hospitals and
  prisons; and who always had in reserve a surplus of apostles, armed with
  a cross and a breviary, ready to fly to every point of the heavens, to
  the extremities of the globe, to create in the wilds of America and Asia
  new empires for the God of the Gospel, new
  nations of subjects for France, Portugal, and Spain. The political
  services rendered by Jesuits to those crowns have often been
  acknowledged; yet, alas! how have they been requited? When the venerable
  missioners of the society of Jesuits were dragooned out of Portuguese and
  Spanish America, the loss of millions of Indians, whom they had
  civilized, nay, the loss of the territorial possession was loudly
  predicted to those misguided courts. The first part of the prediction has
  long since been fulfilled. All the power of France, Spain, and Portugal,
  could not replace the old tried missioners of Canada, California,
  Cinaloa, Mexico, Maragnon, Peru, Chili, and Paraguay. The Jesuits were
  destroyed; the civilized natives, deprived of their protectors,
  disbanded, and relapsed into barbarism.


Equally impotent and unavailing was all the mighty power of France,
  Spain, Portugal, and Austria to fill the void, left by the discarded
  Jesuits, in the quiet ministry of schools at home. Cast a retrospect on
  the former state of Europe. There were, in all considerable towns,
  colleges of Jesuits, now, alas! struck to ruins, in which gratuitous
  education was given. They were temples, in which the language of religion
  hallowed the language of the Muses. They were seminaries where future
  senators, magistrates and officers, prelates, priests, and cenobites,
  &c., received their first, that is, the most important part of
  education. Not even an attempt was made to supply the room of the ejected
  instructors, excepting, perhaps, for form sake, in a few great cities;
  and here what a woful substitution! The Jesuits of Clermont college, in
  Paris, had, for two hundred years, quietly instructed and trained the
  flower of the French nobility, to religion, patriotism, and letters.
  Within a few years after the expulsion of the old masters, Clermont
  college vomited forth, from its precincts into France, Robespierre, and
  Camille des Moulins, and Tallien, and Noel, and Freron, and Chenier des
  Bois, and Porion, and De Pin, and other sanguinary demagogues
  of that execrable period; names of monsters, now consigned to everlasting
  infamy. The game was, indeed, by this time, carried rather farther than
  the Pombals, the Choiseuls, the Arandas, and others, who had planned the
  ruin of the Jesuits, had either designed or foreseen; but the mound was
  thrown down, and how could the torrent be withstood?


What thinking man shall now wonder, that the much tried pontiff, Pius
  VII, having, during his captivity, seriously pondered the connexion of
  causes and effects, should wish to retrieve the ancient order of things,
  should even hasten to second the wishes and requests of his fellow
  sufferers—I mean the surviving princes and prelates, who so sorely
  rue the mistakes of their immediate predecessors? It is very remarkable,
  that the false policy of these latter was first discerned and publicly
  disapproved by two acute sovereigns, who were not of the Roman communion,
  the magnanimous Catherine of Russia, and the far famed Frederic III, of
  Prussia. These sovereigns were not ignorant of the various artifices,
  which had distorted the good sense of the catholic princes. They knew how
  to elude and disappoint them, when they were practised upon themselves.
  The empress Catherine especially, in despite of Rome, Versailles, Lisbon,
  and Madrid, maintained, with a resolute and strong hand, the several
  houses of Jesuits, which she found in her new Polish dominions; she would
  not suffer even the smallest alteration to be made, in any of their
  statutes or practices. Her two successors have settled them in their
  capital, and in other parts of their empire; and at this day, the
  glorious Alexander, far from mistrusting those fathers, openly cherishes
  and favours them, at once as blameless ministers of the catholic
  religion, and as trusty servants of government, earnestly labouring to
  endear the new sceptre of the czars to the catholic Poles, lately united
  to their empire[120].




Most undoubtedly, next to the purity of religion, the best and dearest
  interest of the Jesuits always was, and always must be, public
  tranquillity, order, and subordination of ranks. In tumults and
  confusion, they must unavoidably be sacrificed. To favour the daring
  projects of civil and religious innovators, their body was devoted to
  destruction; and the extinction of it was presently followed by the
  universal uproar of the Gallic revolution. Hence their name is odious to
  Buonaparte. In his progress through Germany, he drove them from Ausburg,
  and Friburg, and other towns, where the magistrates and inhabitants had
  succeeded to preserve a small remnant of their body, though without hope
  of perpetuating it by succession. In 1805 the court of Naples, convinced
  of its past error, reinstated the Jesuits, to the universal joy of the
  capital; and immediately Napoleon seized the kingdom, and
  dismissed them. Other princes have equally regretted the rash deed of
  their destruction. Even the emperor Joseph II once assured me in private
  conversation, that he much lamented the suppression of the order of the
  Jesuits. He repeatedly said, that, in his mother's time, in which it was
  accomplished, he was never consulted upon the measure, and that he would
  never have acceded to it.


Our country has happily escaped the horrors of modern revolution; but
  our country has had its alarms. To prevent the recurrence of them, it
  must surely be sound policy to trust, favour, and protect all those
  persons, who, from a motive of self-preservation, as well as of duty,
  will always employ their influence among the lower orders of society, to
  maintain peace and tranquillity in the several religious classes, which
  form the bulk of the people, however denominated. With regard to the
  numerous body of catholics, this line of conduct has been uniformly
  pursued by their Irish bishops, by the English apostolic
  vicars, and by all the missionary priests, Jesuits, and other regulars,
  who have appeared among us: and, I add, in finishing, that, in this
  respect, they would all be co-operators and steady allies of the bishops
  and clergy of the establishment, who can have no greater interest, at the
  present day, than to preserve general tranquillity. Protestant and
  catholic prelates, with their respective dependants, all equally
  professing zeal for purity of doctrine, though differing in their tenets,
  would thus be friends usque ad aras, and general peace would be
  the precious fruits of their agreement. Thus we have often seen catholic
  and protestant legions, Austrians and British, arrayed under the same
  banners, and successfully pursuing their warfare against a common enemy.
  This matter is susceptible of extension, but Laicus would not understand
  it. I finish this Letter, as I ended the first, seriously advising him to
  meddle no more with this subject.






CLERICUS.









A P P E N D I X ; — T H E B U L L O F C L E M E N T X I I I , — JUDGMENT OF THE BISHOPS OF FRANCE, — APPENDIX. — No. I. — No. II. — T H E E N D. — NOTES
CONTAINING



AND THE



IN FAVOUR OF THE JESUITS.


















Sanctissimi in Christo Patris et Domini nostri Domini Clementis
  Divina Providentia Papæ XIII, Constitutio qua institutum Societatis Jesu
  denuo approbatur.




Clemens Episcopus Servus Servorum Dei, ad perpetuam rei memoriam.


Apostolicum pascendi Dominici Gregis munus beatissimo apostolo Petro,
  ejusque successori Romano pontifici delatum à Christo Domino, nulla
  locorum, nulla temporum conditio, nullus humanarum rerum respectus, nulla
  denique ratio circumscribere, aut suspendere potest, quominus idem
  Romanus pontifex ad omnes ejusdem officii partes, nullâ ex iis
  prætermissâ, nullâ neglectâ, curas suas dirigere debeat, atque omnibus
  incurrentibus in ecclesia necessitatibus providere. Harum partium inter
  præcipuas, postrema non est regularium ordinum approbatorum ab apostolica
  sede tutelam genere, ac fortibus piisque viris, qui eisdem regularibus
  ordinibus sese solemni sacramento addixerunt, suamque pro tuenda, atque
  amplificanda catholica religione, agroque
  dominico excolendo, strenuam operam impendunt, alacritatem addere et
  animum, languidos et infirmos excitare, et corroborare, jacentibus
  afflictisque consolationem afferre, præcipue verò ab ecclesia fidei suæ
  et custodiæ concreditâ, omnia, quæ in animarum ruinam in dies
  suboriuntur, scandala summovere.


Institutum societatis Jesu ab homine conditum, cui ab universali
  ecclesia idem, qui sanctis viris cultus et honor tribuitur, à fel.
  record. prædecessoribus nostris Paulo III et Julio itidem III, Paulo IV,
  Gregorio XIII, et Gregorio XIV, Paulo V, diligenti examine perpensum,
  approbatum, sæpius confirmatum, et ab iisdem pluribusque aliis ad
  novemdecim prædecessoribus nostris ornatum peculiaribus favoribus et
  gratiis; episcoporum, non modò hujus, sed superiorum etiam ætatum
  præconio commendatum, ut maxime frugiferum, et fructuosum, et ad
  promovendum Dei cultum, honorem, et gloriam, æternamque animarum salutem
  procurandam aptissimum; potentissimorum, piissimorumque regum, et
  clarissimorum in Christiana republica principum præsidio, et tutela usque
  munitum; cujus ex disciplina novum prodiêre viri in sanctorum, vel
  beatorum numerum relati, quorum tres martyrii gloriam sunt consequuti; à
  pluribus sanctitate claris viris, quos beatos in cœlo novimus
  sempiternâ perfrui gloriâ, collaudatum; quod ecclesia universa longo
  duorum sæculorum spatio in suo sinu aluit et fovit, ejusque professoribus
  præcipuam sacri ministerii partem semper commisit magno cum emolumento
  animarum; quod ipsa denique catholica ecclesia in Tridentina synodo
  declaravit ut pium; hoc idem institutum novissimè fuerunt, qui per pravas
  interpretationes, tum privatis sermonibus, tum scriptis etiam typis in
  lucem editis irreligiosum, et impium appellare, contumeliis lacerare,
  probo et ignominiâ afficere non sunt veriti, atque eò devenerunt, ut
  privatâ suâ non contenti opinione, hujusmodi virus de regione in
  regionem, nullis non adhibitis artibus, derivare, atque undequaque
  diffundere sint aggressi, neque adhuc cessant, incautis, si quos
  inveniant, Christi fidelibus, ut in proprios pertrahant sensus, subdolè
  propinare: quo in ecclesiam Dei nihil injurium magis, nihil
  contumeliosius, quasi adeo erraverit turpiter, ut, quod impium, et
  irreligiosum est, solemniter existimaverit Deo carum et pium, eòque
  decepta sit flagitiosiùs, quo diuturnius, ad annos scilicet amplius
  ducentos, cum maximo animarum detrimento, sinui suo tantam hærere labem,
  et maculam sustinuerit. Huic tanto malo, quod eo longiùs dissimulatum,
  tanto altiùs radices agit, viresque acquirit in dies, diutius differre
  remedium, justitia, quæ sua cuique asserere et fortiter tueri jubet, et
  pastoralis nostra erga ecclesiam sollicitudo non sinit.


Ut igitur tam gravem injuriam à sponsa ecclesia divinitus nobis
  concredita, atque etiam ab hac apostolica sede propulsemus, et hujusmodi
  injustas, irreligiosasque voces in animarum perniciem, et seductionem, et
  contra omnes æqui, bonique rationes longe lateque diffusas, nostrâ
  authoritate apostolicâ compescamus; ut clericis regularibus societatis
  Jesu, id a nobis pro justitia exigentibus, suus maneat status, eâdem
  nostrâ authoritate firmiùs constabilitus; eorumque nunc temporis summè
  afflictis rebus aliquod afferamus levamen: ut demum venerabilium fratrum
  nostrorum episcoporum, qui ex omnibus regionibus catholicis eandem
  societatem nobis per litteras magnopere commendârunt, et ex ea maximas
  utilitates in suis quisque diœcesibus se capere profitentur, justis
  desideriis obsecundemus; motu proprio, et ex certa scientia, deque
  apostolicæ potestatis plenitudine, omnium prædecessorum nostrorum
  inhærendo vestigiis, hâc nostrâ perpetuò valiturâ constitutione, eodem
  modo, ratione et formâ, quibus ipsi edixerunt, et declarârunt, nos quoque
  edicimus, et declaramus; institutum societatis Jesu summopere redolere
  pietatem et sanctitatem, tum ob præcipuum finem, quo maxime spectat,
  defensionem scilicet, propagationemque catholicæ religionis, tum ob
  media, quæ adhibet ad ejusmodi finem consequendum, quod vel ipsa nos
  hactenus docuit experientia; cum ex eadem disciplina tam multos ad hanc
  usque ætatem prodiisse novimus orthodoxæ fidei propugnatores, sacrosque
  præcones, qui invicto animi robore terrâ marique subiêre pericula, ut ad
  gentes inmanitate barbaras evangelicæ doctrinæ lumen afferrent, et
  quotquot idem profitentur laudabile institutum, partim intentos juventuti
  religione et bonis artibus erudiendæ, partim operam dare spiritualibus
  exercitiis tradendis, partim assiduè versari in sacramentis præcipuè
  pœnitentiæ et eucharistiæ administrandis et ad eorum frequentiorem
  usum fidelibus excitandis; tum homines in agris degentes divini verbi
  pabulo recreare; ac propterea idem institutum societatis Jesu ad hæc
  eximia perpetranda, divinâ providentiâ, excitatum, ipsi quoque
  approbamus, et prædecessorum nostrorum approbationes ejusdem instituti
  apostolicâ auctoritate nostrâ confirmamus: vota, quibus iidem clerici
  regulares societatis Jesu juxta idem eorum institutum se devovent Deo,
  grata illi et accepta esse declaramus: spiritualia exercitia, quæ ab
  iisdem clericis regularibus traduntur fidelibus à mundi strepitu semotis
  per dies aliquot, ut de æternâ fui ipsorum salute seriò et unicè
  cogitent, ut maxime conducibilia ad reformandos mores, et ad Christianam
  pietatem hauriendam nutriendamque, magnopere probamus, et laudamus:
  congregationes præterea, seu sodalitia, non modo adolescentium, qui ad
  scholas ventitant societatis Jesu, sed quævis alia, sive scholarium
  tantum, sive aliorum Christi fidelium tantum, sive utrorumque simul sub
  invocatione beatæ Mariæ, seu quovis alio titulo erecta, et quæ in iis pia
  opera ferventi studio exercentur, probamus, præcipuamque erga beatam Dei
  Genitricem semper Virginem Mariam devotionem, quæ in iis sodalitiis
  alitur, et promovetur, magnopere commendamus, nostrorumque fel. record.
  prædecessorum Gregorii XIII, Sixti V, Gregorii XV, et Benedicti XIV
  constitutiones, quibus ea sodalitia approbârunt, nos apostolicâ
  auctoritate nostrâ confirmamus, cæterasque omnes constitutiones à Romanis
  pontificibus prædecessoribus nostris in ejusdem instituti societatis Jesu
  functionum approbationem, et laudem conditas, quarum singulas hic haberi
  volumus pro insertis, auctoritate itidem nobis à Deo traditâ, apostolicæ
  confirmationis nostræ robore, per hanc nostram constitutionem, munitas
  volumus, et si opus sit, velut à nobis ex integro conditas, editasque
  censeri præcipimus, et mandamus.


Nulli ergo omnino hominum liceat hanc paginam nostræ approbationis, et
  confirmationis infringere, vel ei ausu temerario contraire: si quis autem
  hoc attentare præsumpserit, indignationem Omnipotentis Dei et beatorum
  Petri et Pauli apostolorum ejus se noverit incursurum. 


Datum Romæ apud Sanctam Mariam Majorem*, anno incarnationis Dominicæ
  millesimo septingentesimo sexagesimo quarto, septimo idus Januarii,
  pontificatûs nostri anno septimo.






C. Card. Pro-Datarius. N. Card. Antonellus.






Visa, De Curia J. Manassei.






L. Eugenius.






(Loco Plumbi.)






Registrata in Secretaria Brevium.






* Curia Romana annum inchoat à Feste Annuntiationis B. Mariæ, quod
  incidit in diem 25 Martii, adeoque septimus idus Januarii 1764, coincidit
  cum 7 Januarii hujus anni 1765, secundùm nostram computandi rationem.


Translation.


Clement, Bishop, Servant of the Servants of God, for a perpetual record.


The apostolic office of feeding the Lord's flock, conferred by the
  Lord Christ on the most blessed apostle Peter and his successor the Roman
  pontiff, no state of time or place, no regard of human affairs, in short,
  no consideration whatever, can so circumscribe or suspend as that the
  same Roman pontiff may not direct his care to all the duties of the said
  office, without exception or omission, and provide for all the wants
  which may occur in the church. Among those duties it is not the least to
  give protection to the regular orders
  approved by the apostolic see, and to those worthy and pious men, who
  have, by a solemn vow, devoted themselves to the regular orders,
  strenuously labouring for the defence and increase of the catholic
  religion, and in cultivating the Lord's vineyard, to invigorate and
  encourage, to animate and confirm the languid and weak, to console the
  downcast and afflicted, but chiefly to remove from the church, entrusted
  to his faith and custody, all scandals, which from time to time spring up
  to the destruction of souls.


The institute of the society of Jesus, composed by a man held in
  honour by the universal church, which sanctifies holy men, has, by our
  predecessors of happy memory Paul III and Julius III, Paul IV, Gregory
  XIII and Gregory XIV, and Paul V, been diligently examined, approved, and
  often confirmed, and by them and nineteen others of our predecessors
  honoured with peculiar favours; has been publicly extolled by bishops,
  not only of this age but former ones, as extremely efficient in promoting
  the worship, honour, and glory of God, and eminently adapted to the
  salvation of souls; and has been patronised by the most powerful and
  pious kings, and most celebrated princes in the Christian republic: from
  its discipline nine persons have been numbered among the saints, three of
  whom obtained the glory of martyrdom; it has received the united praises
  of many men renowned for sanctity, now enjoying eternal glory in heaven;
  the church has cherished it in her bosom for the long space of two
  centuries, and has ever committed the chief part of the sacred ministry
  to its professors, with great gain of souls; finally, it was pronounced
  pious by the catholic church herself in the council of Trent: yet there
  have lately appeared some, who, by wicked
  interpretations, have dared, not only in conversation but in writings and
  publications, to call this very institute irreligious and impious, to
  revile it, and represent it as wicked and shameful; and have gone such
  lengths, that, not content with their own private thoughts, they have
  endeavoured, using every art, to convey the like poison from country to
  country, and to pour it out everywhere; nor have they yet ceased,
  where-ever they can find any of the faithful off their guard, to instil
  craftily their own notions into their minds; than which there can be
  nothing more injurious, nothing more offensive to the church of God, as
  if she had so shamefully erred, as solemnly to deem what is impious and
  irreligious devout and acceptable to God, and had been the more
  scandalously imposed upon for having so long, namely, for more than two
  hundred years, with the greatest loss of souls, suffered such a stain to
  remain in her bosom. Neither justice, which commands that all should
  receive what belongs to them and be protected in their rights, nor my
  pastoral solicitude for the church, can suffer any farther delay in
  putting a stop to this so great evil, which shoots its roots the deeper
  the longer it remains unnoticed.


In order, therefore, that we may remove so serious an injury from the
  espoused church divinely committed to our charge, and also from this
  apostolic see; and that, by our apostolic authority, we may check such
  unjust and impious assertions, spread far and wide to the seduction and
  ruin of souls, and entirely regardless of equity and reason; that the
  constitution of the regular clerks of the society of Jesus may remain
  undisturbed, according to their appeal to us for justice, and be more
  firmly established by the same our authority, and that we may afford them
  consolation in the present grievous state of their affairs; and, lastly,
  that we may comply with the just desires of our venerable brothers the
  bishops, who, from every part of the catholic world, have written to us
  letters greatly extolling the said society, all declaring that they were
  of the greatest use to them in their respective dioceses; of our own
  accord and certain knowledge, and by the plenitude of the apostolic
  power, following the footsteps of all our predecessors, in this our
  constitution to be in perpetual force, in the same mode and form in which
  they have proclaimed and declared we also proclaim and declare, that the
  institute of the society of Jesus is replete with piety and holiness, as
  well on account of the chief end it has in view, namely, the defence and
  propagation of the catholic religion, as on account of the means which it
  directs to be used for that end, hitherto confirmed to us by experience
  itself; for we know that, even down to these times, its discipline has
  produced many defenders of the orthodox faith, and pious preachers, who,
  with unshaken constancy of mind, have encountered dangers by sea and by
  land to bear the light of the gospel to barbarous nations; and, indeed,
  those who profess the said laudable institute are always earnestly
  employed, some in educating youth in the practice of religion and the
  learned sciences, others in the direction of spiritual exercises, others
  again in the assiduous administration of the sacraments, especially those
  of penance and the eucharist, in exciting the faithful to a frequent use
  of them; likewise in refreshing the inhabitants of country places with
  the divine food of the word of God: and as it evidently appears, that the
  said institute of the society of Jesus has been established by the Divine
  Providence for these great ends, we also approve it,
  and, in virtue of our apostolical authority, we confirm the approbation
  of our predecessors bestowed on the said institute: we declare, that the
  vows by which the said regular clerks of the society of Jesus devote
  themselves, according to the said institute, to God, are acceptable and
  pleasing to him: we approve in the highest degree of the spiritual
  exercises, which the regulars of this society recommend to the use of the
  faithful, who occasionally retire from the noise of the world to meditate
  in serious solitude on the means of obtaining eternal salvation, as being
  highly conducive to the reformation of manners, and to the establishing
  and nourishing of Christian piety: we likewise approve of their
  congregations or associations; and not only of those for the use of
  youth, who attend the schools of the society of Jesus, but also of all
  other congregations, whether established for scholars only, or for others
  of the faithful in Christ, of either or both at once, dedicated to the
  blessed Mary, under whatever title they are formed, in which pious works
  are fervently practised, especially that particular devotion towards the
  blessed Virgin, which these institutions nourish and promote; and we, in
  virtue of our apostolical authority, confirm the constitutions of our
  predecessors of happy memory, Gregory XIII, Sextus V, Gregory XV, and
  Benedict XIV, by which they approved of these associations, together with
  all other constitutions enacted by our predecessors the Roman pontiffs,
  in approbation of the offices of the said institute, each one of which we
  wish to be considered as here inserted and confirmed by the strength of
  our apostolic authority transmitted to us by God, as well as effectually
  protected by this our constitution; and, if it be necessary, we desire
  and order, that they may be considered as fresh constitutions, enacted
  and promulged by us in due form.


It is not, therefore, allowable for any person to infringe, upon any
  account, this decree of our approbation and confirmation, or rashly to
  attempt to oppose its authority: and, if any one should be so
  presumptuous as to attempt it, be it known to him, that he will incur the
  indignation of Almighty God, and of the blessed apostles Peter and
  Paul.


Given at Rome, at St. Mary the Greater, &c. &c.












The Judgment of the Bishops of France, concerning the Doctrine, the
  Government, the Conduct, and Usefulness of the French Jesuits.






Most Gracious Sovereign,




The noble sentiments of faith and religion, which have ever
  distinguished our kings, have induced your majesty, after the example of
  your august predecessors, to suspend the decision of an affair so closely
  connected with the doctrine and discipline of the church, till you had
  taken the advice of the bishops of your realm.


As the time your majesty was pleased to allow us for examining the
  points in question was very short, we applied ourselves to the task with
  more than ordinary diligence and assiduity; it being one of our chief
  duties to concur with your majesty's pious views in whatever it may
  please you to propose for the good of religion, or for the maintaining of
  good order and tranquillity in the kingdom. We have therefore examined,
  with all the care which the importance of the subject required, the
  different articles, concerning which your majesty has done us the honour
  to consult us, and we think it our duty to communicate our sentiments in
  the following manner:— 


Article I. "Of what use the Jesuits may be in
  France: the advantages or inconveniences that may attend the various
  functions, which they exercise under our authority."


The end for which the Jesuits' order was first instituted being the
  education of youth; the ministerial labours, catechising, preaching, and
  administring the sacraments; the propagation of the Gospel; the
  conversion of infidel nations; and the gratuitous exercise of all manner
  of works of charity towards their neighbour; it is evident this
  institution is calculated both for the good of religion and the advantage
  of the state.


This consideration induced pope Paul III to approve the new order by
  the bull Regimini, 1540; and the popes, his successors, by long
  experience, being sensible of the great advancement of religion, owing
  chiefly to the labours of the Jesuits, favoured them with the most
  distinguishing marks of their good-will and protection. The fathers of
  the council of Trent call it a holy institution, and, by an extraordinary
  privilege, dispense with the religious of this society in the general law
  they had made for other orders concerning their vows. The great promoter
  of piety and church discipline, St. Charles Borromœus, took care to
  inform the fathers of that council how much he esteemed this order, and
  how desirous the pope was to favour those religious, on account of the
  visible advantages arising to the church from their zealous endeavours.
  The ambassadors sent by other princes to represent them in that council
  had the same favourable opinion of the Jesuits, as plainly appears from
  their proposing the establishment of these religious in Germany, as the
  most efficacious means to restore religion and piety in the empire. 


However, it cannot be denied, but the novelty and singularity of this
  order, the many privileges granted them by the popes, and the great
  extent and generality of the exercises in which they are conversant,
  according to their calling, exposed them to the jealousy and opposition
  of other religious orders. The universities, the mendicant orders, and
  others, tried all means to hinder their establishment in France: your
  majesty's parliaments, in their remonstrances, laid open the many
  inconveniences, that might attend their being admitted into this kingdom:
  Eustace de Bellay, the then bishop of Paris, opposed them, and even the
  clergy of France, in their assembly at Poissy, anno 1561, expressed a
  diffidence and apprehension, that the Jesuits might encroach upon their
  rights; for, though they consented to their admission, they did it with
  such restrictions and limitations as then seemed proper to secure the
  rights and jurisdiction of the bishops.


Anno 1574, the clergy of your kingdom, having been apprised of the
  credit and the approbation this institution had gained in the council of
  Trent, in conformity to the judgment of that general assembly, declare by
  their deputies, upon the article concerning the profession of novices
  after one year's probation, that, by this rule, their intention was
  not any way to derogate from or to make any change in the good
  constitutions of the clerks of the society of Jesus, approved by the holy
  apostolic see.


It appears even, that the Jesuits, by their behaviour, had got the
  better of those prejudices, which had formerly been conceived against
  their order, seeing that, in the year 1610, when so great a storm was
  raised against them, Henry de Gondy, bishop of Paris, gives their character in words very different from
  those of his predecessor, Eustace de Bellay, viz. that the
  order of the Jesuits was greatly serviceable both to church and state, on
  account of their learning, piety, and exemplary behaviour.


Hence it was, that, in the general assembly of the states, anno 1614
  and 1615, both the clergy and the nobility so pressingly desired the
  re-establishment of the Jesuits, for the instruction of youth, in the
  city of Paris, and the erection of other colleges in the different towns
  of the kingdom: this they recommended to their deputies as a matter of
  the greatest concernment, desiring they would most earnestly address his
  majesty, in order to obtain a favourable and speedy answer; the
  assembly being sensible how greatly the order of the Jesuits, by their
  learning and industry, had contributed, and, with God's assistance, would
  again contribute towards the maintaining of faith and religion, the
  extirpation of heresies, the restoration of piety and morality,
  &c. Again, in the assembly of the clergy, anno 1617, we find the
  Jesuits' schools proposed as the most proper means to revive and imprint
  piety and religion in the minds of the people.


Nothing, perhaps, is better calculated to convince us how high an idea
  your majesty's royal predecessors had of the usefulness of this body of
  men, than the patents, which they were pleased to grant, for the erecting
  many of their colleges in your dominions: this was particularly
  remarkable in the letters patent, granted by your majesty's great
  grandfather Louis XIV, of glorious memory, for their establishment in the
  college of Clermont, wherein he says, that in this he had no other
  view than to support, countenance, and encourage
  those religious in their laborious employments for the education of youth
  in all useful sciences, and particularly in the knowledge of whatever may
  concern their duty towards God, and towards those who are placed over
  them for the government of the people. But this he afterwards
  expressed in a more emphatic manner, when he was pleased to give his own
  august name to that college.


The Jesuits are also of great service in our dioceses, by enforcing
  and giving new life and vigour to piety and religion, by their sermons,
  their spiritual instructions, their missionary excursions, their
  congregations, spiritual retreats, &c., performed with our
  approbation and authority.


For these reasons we are persuaded, that to deprive the people of
  their instruction would be extremely prejudicial to our dioceses. And, in
  particular with regard to the education and instruction of youth, it
  would be a very difficult task to find persons capable of serving the
  public to equal advantage, especially in the country towns, where there
  are no universities.


The religious of other orders, who, by their vows and state of life,
  are not devoted to this kind of labour, as they are little conversant in
  the method of teaching, and strangers to that disagreeable confinement
  and subjection, which is inseparable from that employment, are too much
  taken up with the other necessary observances of their order to give that
  constant and due attendance, which is requisite for the education of
  youth.


As to other clerks regular and priests living in community, they have
  not a sufficient number of persons to supply the place of the Jesuits.
  The secular clergy, indeed, with the allowance of the bishop,
  may undertake this employment: but, not having been brought up to it from
  their youth, they would not much relish this kind of life, nor have they
  equal experience or skill in the business. Add to this, that, as most of
  our dioceses have not near a sufficient number of priests to answer all
  the duties of the ministry, it would not be possible for us to fill up
  the places that would become vacant by the removal of the Jesuits.


Shall we then have recourse to the laity? alas! few of these are to be
  found of that turn of mind as willingly to embrace so laborious and
  disagreeable an employment as is that of teaching; fewer still, whose
  talents and qualifications are equal to it.


The Jesuits in France are possessed of a hundred colleges: if these
  were removed, where could we find a sufficient number of schoolmasters
  and professors of equal parts to fill up the vacancies in all these
  colleges? As the Jesuits make up one community and incorporated body of
  men, they have this peculiar advantage, that, amongst all the religious,
  whom they train up to this exercise, they can make choice of such as are
  most likely to succeed and to answer the expectation of the public; and,
  if any one should misbehave, in a moment's warning they can provide
  another in his room; an advantage not to be expected in religious orders
  that are not so strictly addicted to this employment; nor amongst
  persons, who, though otherwise duly qualified, still want numbers for the
  business; much less amongst laymen, who, by their state of life, are free
  to choose for themselves, and no way concerned about their
  successors.


Adhering, therefore, to the judgment of the vicars of Christ and of
  the council of Trent concerning the society of Jesus, and in conformity
  to the testimony, which the clergy of your majesty's kingdom, the kings
  your august predecessors, and your whole kingdom, have given of the
  usefulness of the Jesuits in France, we are persuaded, that, if due care
  be taken to prevent any abuse, that may insinuate itself in the exercise
  of their functions, this religious body cannot but be of very great
  service both to church and state.


In our examination of the third article, we shall have the honour to
  present your majesty with some regulations, which we conceive to be the
  best adapted for preventing all such abuses.


Article II. "How the Jesuits behave in their
  instructions and in their own conduct, with regard to certain opinions
  which strike at the safety of the king's person; as likewise with regard
  to the received doctrine of the clergy of France, contained in the
  declaration of the year 1682; and in general with regard to their
  opinions on the other side of the Alps."


Our history informs us, that, in the infancy of the society in France,
  the Calvinists used their utmost endeavour to hinder the growth of a body
  of men raised on purpose to oppose their errors, and to stop the
  spreading contagion: to this end they dispersed into all parts a
  multitude of pamphlets, in which the Jesuits were arraigned, as
  professing a doctrine inconsistent with the safety of his majesty's
  sacred person; being well assured, that the imputation of so atrocious a
  crime was the shortest and securest way to bring about their ruin. These
  libels soon raised a prejudice against the Jesuits in the minds of
  all those, who had any interest in opposing their establishment in
  France, and some communities even joined in the impeachment. The crimes,
  which are now laid to their charge, in the numberless writings, that
  swarm in all parts of your majesty's dominions, are no other than those
  which were maliciously forged and published above one hundred and fifty
  years ago. It is not from such libels as these, that we are to form a
  just idea or rational judgment of the Jesuits' doctrine or behaviour:
  such wild and groundless accusations did not deserve our attention, and
  the little notice we took of them may be a convincing proof to your
  majesty of the Jesuits' innocence.


And, indeed, the inviolable fidelity of the bishops of your kingdom,
  and their sincere attachment to the crown, is too well known to leave any
  room for suspecting, that they could be either so blinded as not to
  discover that, which, as is pretended, is visible to the whole world; or,
  if they had perceived it, that they should so far have forgot their duty
  to God, to religion, to your majesty, as to encourage such treasonable
  doctrine by a criminal silence, and trust the most sacred functions of
  the ministry to persons convicted of publicly professing the same.


We will not here pretend to refute or to give an exact account of a
  doctrine, which will not bear the light, and can no way be exposed to the
  public without danger of infection; of which we may truly say, what St.
  Paul said of a certain vice, "that its very name should never be heard
  amongst Christians." And it is with the greatest grief we see all the
  particulars of this damnable doctrine publicly explained in the French
  tongue, and purposely dispersed in all parts of your kingdom in
  an infinity of libels, the reading of which has done more prejudice to
  your majesty's subjects than could possibly have been caused by reading
  the fanatic authors themselves, who have treated of that subject. We
  shall only observe, that, in order to render the Jesuits more odious to
  the public, care has been taken to hold them forth as the first broachers
  of a doctrine, that was published long before they had a being. Their
  enemies have spared no pains to confound and perplex all our ideas
  concerning this doctrine, jumbling together, at all events, right or
  wrong, truth and falsehood, in order to bring the Jesuits in guilty: they
  are ever urging against them a certain period of our history, which, as
  it equally involves all states and conditions[121], ought to be blotted out of our
  annals, and never more be mentioned amongst us.


Whatever may be objected against the foreign Jesuits Mariana,
  Santarel, Suarez, and Busembaum, this is most certain, that the decree of
  their general, Acquaviva, appeared so satisfactory to your parliament of
  Paris, that, in the year 1614, they desired to have the same renewed; and
  it is well known, that, when those books first appeared in France, the
  Jesuits, in their declarations to the parliaments, disowned them in so
  clear, precise, and express terms, as did honour to their body, and
  gained them the applause of the whole nation. Lastly, their behaviour in
  the year 1682, and the declarations, which they have lately made to us,
  and which they desire to have registered at the respective offices in our
  spiritual courts, as a lasting and authentic testimony of their loyalty
  and fidelity, leave no room to doubt of their abhorrence and detestation
  of any doctrine or opinion that may in any
  wise intrench upon the safety of the sacred person of sovereigns; or of
  their entire acquiescence to the maxims established by the clergy of your
  kingdom, in the four articles of 1682.


We must likewise observe to your majesty, that the instructions of the
  Jesuits in our dioceses are all performed in public; innumerable persons,
  of all conditions, are witnesses of what they teach; and we have the
  honour to assure your majesty, that they never were accused at our
  tribunals of teaching any such doctrine as is now imputed to them. Let us
  inquire of those, who have been brought up in their colleges, who have
  frequented their missions, their congregations, their retreats, we are
  persuaded there is not a man in the nation, who can attest, that he ever
  heard them teach a doctrine contrary to the safety of your majesty's
  person, or to the received maxims of the kingdom. On the contrary, in
  justice to their character, we must all confess, that the constant theme
  and subject of their school exercises is to celebrate the memorable deeds
  and heroic actions of our monarchs, and their whole study to impress in
  their hearers the most dutiful sentiments of loyalty and respect towards
  your majesty.


Article III. "The conduct of the Jesuits with
  regard to their subordination to bishops; and whether, in the exercise of
  their functions, they do not encroach on the pastoral rights and
  privileges."


It cannot be denied but that, if the Jesuits were to avail themselves
  of the many and great privileges which, at different times, have been
  granted to them by the see apostolic, they could not be said to live
  subordinate, either to bishops or to their ecclesiastical superiors. But
  we are to observe, that these privileges
  were granted them by a communication and participation of such as had
  been granted to the mendicant orders, and to the other religious, long
  before they came into the world; and, with regard to these, we find a
  decree in the explanation of their rule (art. xii, p. 447), that
  they are to make use of their privileges with the greatest caution and
  moderation, and with no other view than for the spiritual advantage of
  their neighbour; for, being bound by their fourth vow, immediately upon
  the first notice of his holiness's command, to embark, in order to preach
  the Gospel to the most remote and barbarous nations, these privileges
  become absolutely necessary in places where neither bishops nor other
  pastors are to be found. We may also take notice, both with regard to the
  bull of Paul III, and those of his successors, that there is a wide
  difference between their approbation of the first plan of the institute,
  or of the additions that were afterwards made for the perfecting of the
  same, and the privileges granted to that society, which are merely
  accessory to the institute; for these bulls, being written in the
  ordinary style of the court of Rome, the dispositions made by them cannot
  be brought into precedent, or have any other force than that which is
  allowed them by the pope's decretals and the laws of the kingdom, both
  which have long since declared, that privileges granted by the court of
  Rome, contrary to the jurisdiction of bishops, or derogatory to the due
  subordination of the faithful to their pastors, are of no effect without
  their consent, and, if they any way concern the state, without the
  approbation of the sovereign.


However, we find, even to the year 1670, that the Jesuits, as well as
  the other mendicant orders, used their best endeavours to
  maintain these privileges, against the common law and the jurisdiction of
  bishops, on pretence, that the discipline of the council of Trent, which
  had abolished them, was not received in France. We read in the acts of
  our bishopricks, that attempts to this purpose were made by the Jesuits
  at Quimper, at Agen, at Sens, and at Rhodez, where, in conjunction with
  the mendicant orders, they carried on their suits at law for a long time
  against the bishops of those dioceses.


But since that time the Jesuits are not known to have formed any such
  pretensions; on the contrary, they have renounced all those privileges,
  which may any way seem to intrench, either on the established maxims of
  the kingdom, or on the liberties of the Gallican church; and, as they
  still persist in that renunciation, and have expressed the same, in the
  clearest terms, in the declaration, which they lately presented to us,
  nothing more can reasonably be demanded of them with regard to this
  article.


But to prevent any abuse, that possibly may hereafter arise, and to
  keep religious orders in due subjection and subordination to their
  ordinaries, after having examined, with all diligence, the complaints
  that at different times have been made by the bishops, concerning the
  attempts of the Jesuits, and of other religious, contrary to the rights
  of pastors and the episcopal jurisdiction, we have agreed on the
  following regulations, grounded on the canon law and the discipline of
  the Gallican church.


1. That the Jesuits and all other religious, who pretend to be
  exempted from the jurisdiction of their bishops, and to hold an immediate
  dependence on the see apostolic, shall not be allowed to preach or
  confess in our dioceses, without having been examined by the
  bishop, or his vicars, or others, whom he may appoint for that purpose,
  and without being approved by him; which approbation he may limit or
  revoke, as he shall think fit.


2. That they shall not be permitted to receive children to their first
  communion, though they be their own scholars, without the consent of the
  curate or bishop of the diocese; and, during the fifteen days of Easter,
  they shall not hear any annual confessions without their permission.


3. That they shall send all their penitents, even their own scholars
  and pensioners, to receive the paschal communion in the parish church,
  unless they have a dispensation from the curate or bishop.


4. That they shall not confess any person that is in danger of death
  without advertising the curate thereof.


5. That in the missionary excursions, which they make with our
  consent, they shall take care that the curates be not defrauded of their
  dues.


6. That they shall not admit any priest, whether secular or regular,
  though otherwise approved, to assist them in the labour of their
  missions, without the express consent of the bishop.


7. In their lessons of divinity, whether public or private, they shall
  teach the four propositions of the French clergy, assembled 1682; and, as
  often as the bishop of the diocese or the archbishop shall require it,
  they shall be bound to let them see their books or lectures of
  philosophy, or of moral or scholastic divinity, which they make use of in
  their seminaries or other houses where they teach, either in public or
  private.


8. They shall not publicly defend any theses, without having them
  first examined and approved by the bishop.


9. Whenever it shall seem good to the bishop, he shall be allowed to
  see and examine the books they make use of for the instruction of their
  own colleges or other houses.


10. In teaching the rudiments of the Christian religion, they shall
  use the catechism of the diocese where they live. In one word, the
  bishops shall have full inspection and superintendence over all their
  instructions, whether public or private.


11. They shall not gather any congregation, or set on foot any
  confraternity or retreat, without the consent of the bishop, who is to
  judge whether the faithful may not thereby be hindered from duly
  frequenting their parish churches, a thing so earnestly recommended by
  the sacred canons.


12. These congregations shall never be allowed to meet at the hours
  when the office or divine service is performed in the parish church; and
  the bishop shall regulate these meetings as he shall judge most expedient
  for the advancement of piety and religion in his diocese; and, when he
  shall think fit, may repeal any such licence before granted.


13. They shall not be allowed to publish any indulgence without having
  it first examined and approved by the bishop. By all which we do not
  intend any way to derogate from any other rights, which the French clergy
  may have over the Jesuits or other regulars.


14. In the exercise of the different duties of their calling they
  shall not encroach upon the rights of chapters, curates, universities, or
  any body of men, who are permitted to teach in this kingdom. 


We are sensible of the great advantages that must attend the due
  execution of these regulations, for the maintaining of true faith and
  morality, for preserving the liberties of the Gallican church, and
  securing to bishops, chapters, universities, and to all orders of men,
  the invaluable possession of their rights and privileges; for which
  reason we humbly implore your majesty's authority and protection, which
  alone can give them due sanction and stability, to the end that all your
  subjects may teach one and the same doctrine, and, by a due subordination
  of all the parts, may contribute to the good order, peace, and well being
  both of church and state.


Article IV. "Whether it may not be convenient
  to moderate and set bounds to the authority which the general of the
  Jesuits exercises in France."


We have examined the Jesuits' institute with the greatest care and
  attention, as to what concerns the authority of the general, or the
  obligation of obedience in the subjects; and have the honour to assure
  your majesty, that we have found these as much limited and restrained by
  the Jesuits' rule as by that of any other order. For instance; parte vi,
  Declarat Constitut. tom. i, p. 408, it is said, Let our obedience be
  always most perfect, as well in the execution as in our will and
  judgment, performing all that is commanded with the greatest alacrity,
  spiritual joy, and perseverance; persuading ourselves, that all is right
  which is commanded; denying and rejecting, by a kind of blind
  obedience, any private judgment or opinion of our own to the contrary.
  And thus we are to behave with regard to whatever our superior may
  command, when it does not appear to be any way
  sinful, as has been elsewhere observed by us.


Hence it plainly appears, that the Jesuits are never bound to obey
  their general's orders, when, by obeying him, they would be found guilty
  of the least sin at God's tribunal. We find, that most other religious
  orders, according to the stile of their rule, profess obedience to all their superiors' commands, which are not repugnant to
  faith or morality. But what danger can be apprehended, either to the
  church or state, from that obedience, which is not sinful on any account,
  which is neither prejudicial to religion nor hurtful to the rights or
  properties of any of your majesty's subjects? We may add, that this rule
  of obedience doth not particularly concern the general, but equally
  regards all other subordinate superiors, who, by virtue of their
  subjects' vow, have equal claim to their obedience: whence it also
  appears, that St. Ignatius did not think fit to vest the general with any
  other authority over the whole society than that which the superior of
  every religious community ought to have over his subjects.


Those expressions, that they are to abandon themselves to the
  disposition of their superior, as if they were a dead body, &c.
  cannot give offence to any but such as are strangers to the language of
  the ascetick writers, and who are not able to form an idea of any
  perfection or Christian accomplishment, that doth not suit with their own
  state and condition. We should never end were we to lay before your
  majesty what we find in the fathers and masters of a spiritual life, or
  in the rules of other religious orders, concerning this article of
  obedience; it may suffice to observe, that they all make use of the like
  or even harder expressions; all propose the same examples and
  comparisons, or others to the same purpose.


But, after all, it is evident, by the fundamental law and constitution
  of the society, that a general congregation has a far greater power and
  authority over the general than he can pretend to over the society. The
  same general assembly, or representative body of the order, which creates
  him general, names also and appoints his assistants, who have a watchful
  eye upon his behaviour, and, when they observe any great fault in his
  conduct, or defect in his administration, are bound by oath to inform
  against him, and to denounce him to the society; and if the case be
  notorious and scandalous, or if there be danger in delay, the provincials
  or superiors of provinces may convene themselves without waiting for the
  summons or writs[122] from
  the assistants, and immediately proceed to the arraignment, trial, and
  deposition of the general[123], whom also, if they
  judge it necessary, they may dismiss and eject out of the society. There
  is not, perhaps, to be found a general of any other religious body, who
  has so absolute and perpetual a dependence on his order; it being well
  known, that the general of the Jesuits has not power to dispose of the
  least thing in his own behalf or to his private advantage, nor can so
  much as command any other diet or apparel, than that which is assigned
  him by the society[124].


It is true, indeed, that the general alone can dispose of all the
  places and employments of the order, but this he cannot do without taking
  the advice of his counsel[125]; and nothing, perhaps, discovers the
  wisdom of St. Ignatius more than his having left all places of trust in
  his order to the free disposal of the general, by which means he has
  secured the subjects from that partiality and injustice which might be
  apprehended from their immediate and subaltern superiors, who, by the
  intercession and solicitation of friends, relations, or benefactors, are
  too often prevailed upon to prefer persons of little merit to others more
  deserving. He has effectually banished from his order all intrigues and
  cabals for the gaining of preferment, evils which are not easily guarded
  against, and are often the cause of fatal divisions in
  communities, of scandalous law-suits, of jealousies, hatred, and the
  entire subversion of union, charity, and the primitive spirit of the
  order. St. Ignatius has, with great judgment, provided against this
  disorder, and secured the peace and regularity of the whole body, by
  stripping all the places of preferment in this society of those temporal
  advantages, which are commonly annexed to them in other orders, whence
  the most ambitious person amongst them will hardly think it worth his
  while to make interest for a place, which carries with it no natural
  allurement of ease or convenience, and has little else but the empty name
  of superiority to recommend it.


In an order, that was to be wholly devoted to the service of the
  public, it was necessary, that such a plan of government should be
  established as should leave no room for subjects to doubt, but that all
  the places and employments were given to persons the most deserving, and,
  according to the best rules of human prudence, the most capable of
  filling them to advantage. This assurance frees them from all anxiety and
  solicitude concerning the dispositions of superiors, either with regard
  to themselves or others, and they have no other concern but to comply
  faithfully with the duties of their institute, to perfect themselves and
  benefit their neighbour in that employment, which is assigned them by
  their superior, whose orders and appointment they respectfully embrace as
  the disposition of Divine Providence.


With regard to the authority of the general over the temporalities of
  the order, we find[126],
  that he has power to make all kinds of contracts in behalf
  of the colleges and houses of the society, though he is not allowed to
  convert any thing to his own private use or advantage[127]. He cannot transfer the revenues of
  one college to another, nor assign any part of them for the maintenance
  of Profest Houses[128], which are not to have any rents, but
  are entirely to subsist upon charity. The donations, which are made to
  the body, without being assigned to any determinate use, are at the
  general's disposal[129],
  who may sell them, and annex them to any house, as he shall judge most
  expedient for promoting God' honour and the good of religion; but with
  this caution, that, when such donations are made by persons who enter
  into the society, they be not alienated from the province[130], unless, perhaps, the great distress
  of some house in another province should call for immediate relief. And,
  with regard to places that are subject to the dominion of different
  princes, the general is not allowed to make any such translation of
  property from one territory to another, without their consent[131], but he can never
  appropriate to his own use, or make over to his relations, any part of
  that which is given to the society, without incurring certain danger of
  being deposed from his office[132]. Hence it is plain, that the general is
  no more than a kind of steward and administrator of the goods and
  possessions belonging to the society, the property whereof is wholly
  vested in the colleges and other houses.


It doth not appear to us, that this manner of administration can be
  any way prejudical to the colleges of the order; neither can it with
  reason give umbrage to the state, or cause any distrust in the
  government, their general having no power to dispose of the possessions
  belonging to the colleges in your majesty's dominions, contrary to the
  laws and established customs of your kingdom; nor can it be supposed,
  that such an attempt would ever escape the vigilance of our magistrates,
  the faithful depositaries of your majesty's authority.


But it may appear dangerous to some, that so many thousands of your
  majesty's subjects should have a dependence upon one man, and be engaged
  to a foreigner by motives of conscience and inclination; and it may seem,
  that, in times of trouble and intestine divisions, the danger is still
  more to be apprehended. In answer to this objection we beg leave to
  observe, that, in your majesty's dominions, there are other religious
  orders far more numerous than the Jesuits, and who, by their vow of
  obedience, have no less dependence on their foreign generals; whence it
  is highly unreasonable, that the Jesuits should be marked out as the only
  object of our fears and jealousies on that account: to say the truth,
  there is no society or body of men in the nation, who may not give
  trouble to the state, and some cause of fear, should they deviate
  from their duty, or forget the obedience due to their lawful superiors.
  Are we then immediately to suppress all these most serviceable
  corporations, and deprive ourselves of that which is a real good and
  advantage to the whole kingdom, for the apprehension of a remote and
  imaginary evil? The Jesuits certainly are not less bound by your
  majesty's laws than the rest of your subjects; and, if from things past
  we may be allowed to form a judgment of their future behaviour, we have
  little or no reason to fear any disturbance from that quarter. It is well
  known, that, in the year 1681, during our disputes with Rome concerning
  benefices, the pope's briefs were conveyed into the hands of the Jesuits
  in France, with express orders, both from his holiness and from their
  general, to disperse them immediately about the kingdom; but they,
  without much deliberation, on the 20th of June, produced the packet in
  open court, and, by their candid behaviour in that critical conjuncture,
  deserved that remarkable compliment from the first president, M. de
  Novion, that it was lucky those papers had fallen into the hands of
  persons of their prudence and discretion: that they had too good heads to
  be imposed upon, and hearts too loyal to be corrupted[133]. We are also assured by the general
  advocate, Talon, that no one could reasonably tax the Jesuits, whose
  behaviour on that occasion was fully justified by the bitter reproach and
  severe reprimand they afterwards underwent, both from the pope and their
  own general[134]. This
  one short passage of our history may convince us, more effectually than
  all the reasonings in the world, that the Jesuits, according to their
  rules, do not profess any other obedience to their general than is
  consistent with their duty towards their king and country.


We are moreover convinced, that this obedience of the Jesuits to their
  general, as prescribed by their rule, and their fourth vow, by which they
  cannot be fully bound to the order till they have attained the age of
  thirty-three, are the two essential principles, and, as it were, the
  foundation stones, on which the whole edifice of their constitution is
  raised: these cannot be changed without overthrowing the whole building;
  neither can any alteration be made in them without forming a new
  constitution, very different from that to which the Jesuits have bound
  themselves by vow. These two fundamental articles discover to us the
  extraordinary wisdom of their founder, who, with great judgment and
  forecast, has thus provided against the growth of any dangerous
  irregularity in the order, and secured such a constant tenor of
  government, as was necessary to qualify the religious subjects for the
  great duties of their calling.


It was, doubtless, for these reasons, that the council of Trent so
  highly commended and approved of this institute: that the late pope,
  Benedict XIV, in the bull Devotum, anno 1746, called them most
  wise laws and institutions, ex præscripto sapientissimarum legum et
  constitutionum, &c.: that the clergy of France, anno 1574, stiled
  them good and sound regulations: lastly, that the great Bossuet
  assures us, that in this rule he discovered numberless strokes of
  consummate wisdom[135].
  Which testimonies are greatly confirmed by the
  example of those other religious orders, which have sprung up in the
  church since the first establishment of the Jesuits, whose founders have
  framed good part of their rule after the model of this institute.


All which things considered, we are of opinion, that no alteration can
  be made in the Jesuits' rule, with regard to the power and authority of
  the general. And your majesty will give us leave to observe, that, if it
  were expedient to make such a reform, it would neither be agreeable to
  the ecclesiastical law, nor to the avowed practice of all ages, nor in
  particular to the discipline of the church of France and the established
  maxims of your courts of parliament, to undertake an affair of this
  nature without the concurrence and joint consent of his holiness the
  supreme pastor of the church, of the bishops of France, and of a general
  congregation of the Jesuits: we might add, without the consent of all the
  professed Jesuits, as such an alteration in their dependence on their
  general would affect the very vitals of the order, and change the whole
  constitution.


For these one hundred and fifty years, our history affords one only
  instance (of 1681) in which this authority of their general might have
  been any way prejudicial to the state; and if, on that occasion, the
  loyalty of the French Jesuits underwent a very severe trial, it had no
  other effect than to convince the whole kingdom how well they deserved
  that honourable testimony of your parliament, that their prudence guarded
  them against all surprise, and their loyalty against corruption.


But nothing, perhaps, can be of greater weight in this matter than the
  judgment of your majesty's royal predecessor Henry IV,
  of glorious memory[136],
  who, in the midst of all his troubles, when the kingdom was in the
  greatest ferment, and he beset by persons, who spared no pains to instil
  into his mind the greatest distrust of the Jesuits, desired no other
  security for their good behaviour than this alone, that he might have one
  of that body ever near his person in quality of preacher to his majesty,
  and that a French assistant should be established with the general at
  Rome.


Your majesty is still possessed of the same security; and, since we
  are taught by the experience of a hundred and fifty years, that this is
  abundantly sufficient for the purpose, there can be no need of any
  farther caution or new regulation; especially as the Jesuits, in the late
  declaration, which they had the honour to present your majesty, have
  assured us in the most express terms, that, if their general was to
  require any thing of them contrary to the laws of your kingdom or to the
  obedience and respect due to your majesty, they neither could nor would
  pay any regard to such commands; and that their vow of obedience, as it
  is explained in their rule, doth no way bind them to such a compliance.
  This so peremptory declaration of the Jesuits, and the wise dispositions
  of the edict in 1603, leave no room to apprehend any danger from the
  general's abusing his authority to the prejudice of your majesty's
  kingdom. We are, &c.






The cardinal de Luynes.


—————— de Gesvres.


—————— de Rohan.


The archbp. of Cambray.


——————— Reims.


——————— Narbonne.



——————— Embrun.


——————— Ausch.


——————— Bourdeaux.


——————— *.


——————— Arles.


——————— Toulouse.


The bishop of Langres.


—————— Mans.


—————— Valence.


—————— Macon.


—————— Bayeux.


—————— Amiens.


—————— Noyon.


—————— S. Papoul.


—————— Comminges.


—————— S. Malo.


—————— Die.


—————— Apollonie.


—————— S. Paul-de-Leon.


—————— Chartres.


—————— Rhodez.


—————— Sarlat.


—————— Orleans.


—————— Meaux.


—————— Arras.


—————— Blois.


—————— Metz.


—————— Angouleme.


—————— Verdun.


—————— Senlis.


—————— Angers.


—————— Digne.


—————— Autun.


—————— Vence.


—————— Evreux.


The coadjutor of Strasbourg.


The bishop of Leictoure.


—————— Troyes.


—————— Nantes.






General Agents for the Clergy.






M. l'abbé de Broglie.


M. l'abbé de Juigné.













A Copy of the Letter of the Archbishop of Paris,
dated January 1, 1762.




Most Gracious Sovereign,




If, in company of the other prelates, I did not add my name to the
  answer which they had the honour to present your majesty, it was not that
  I differed in the least from their judgment as to the four articles,
  which your majesty was pleased to propose to their examination,
  concerning the usefulness, the doctrine, the conduct, and the government
  of the Jesuits. I am very sensible that, in point of virtue and learning,
  there is no bishop in the nation to whom I ought not to give the
  precedency; and, in this view, would willingly have subscribed after all
  my brother bishops: but there is a regard due to the dignity of the see,
  to which your majesty has graciously been pleased to call me, and I must
  not take a step, that may interfere with those prerogatives, which, after
  the example of your august predecessors, you think it your duty to
  maintain. No other consideration could have prevented my setting my hand
  to a testimony so much to the advantage of the Jesuits of your kingdom:
  and, whilst I have the honour to assure your majesty of my entire
  adherency to that solemn act, I once more beg leave to implore your
  justice and supreme authority in behalf of a religious body, eminent
  for learning and piety, and well deserving your royal protection, for the
  great services, which, during the two last ages, they have rendered both
  to church and state.






(Signed)  CHRISTOPHER,


Archbishop of Paris.
















C. WOOD, Printer,


Poppin's Court, Fleet Street.














[1] See Substance of a Speech of Sir
  John Coxe Hippisley, Bart. published by Murray, 1815.


[2] Robertson's Charles V, vol. iii, p.
  225.—To supply the malicious omission of the pamphlet writer, I
  will here insert the historian's report of the Jesuits in South America.
  "But it is in the new world that the Jesuits have exhibited the most
  wonderful display of their abilities, and have contributed most
  effectually to the benefit of the human species. The conquerors of that
  unfortunate quarter of the globe had nothing in view but to plunder, to
  enslave, and to exterminate its inhabitants. The Jesuits alone have made
  humanity the object of their settling there. About the beginning of the
  last century they obtained admission into the fertile province of
  Paraguay, which stretches across the southern continent of America, from
  the bottom of the mountains of Potosi to the confines of the Spanish and
  Portuguese settlements on the banks of the river de la Plata. They found
  the inhabitants in a state little different from that which takes place
  among men when they first begin to unite together: strangers to the arts;
  subsisting precariously by hunting or fishing; and hardly acquainted with
  the first principles of subordination and government. The Jesuits set
  themselves to instruct and to civilize these savages. They taught them to
  cultivate the ground, to rear tame animals, and to build houses. They
  brought them to live together in villages. They trained them to arts and
  manufactures. They made them taste the sweets of society, and accustomed
  them to the blessings of security and order. These people became the
  subjects of their benefactors, who have governed them with a tender
  attention, resembling that with which a father directs his children.
  Respected and beloved almost to adoration, a few Jesuits presided over
  some hundred thousand Indians. They maintained a perfect equality among
  all the members of the community. Each of them was obliged to labour, not
  for himself alone, but for the public. The produce of their fields,
  together with the fruits of their industry of every species, were
  deposited in common store houses, from which each individual received
  every thing necessary for the supply of his wants. By this institution,
  almost all the passions, which disturb the peace of society, and render
  the members of it unhappy, were extinguished. A few magistrates, chosen
  by the Indians themselves, watched over the public tranquillity, and
  secured obedience to the laws. The sanguinary punishments, frequent under
  other governments, were unknown: an admonition from a Jesuit; a slight
  mark of infamy; or, on some singular occasion, a few lashes with a whip,
  were sufficient to maintain good order among these innocent and happy
  people."—Charles V, p. 219.


[3] The author of the following
  Letters, who owed the publication of them to the liberality of the editor
  of the Pilot, complained of the refusal of the
  editor of the Times to admit into that paper a
  vindication of character, though he had opened his pages to the blaster
  of it. As newspapers in modern times have erected themselves into a kind
  of tribunal of the dernier resort, the editors should not forget the
  indispensable maxim of all courts of justice, and concede alteri parti
  occasionem audiri should be a standing rule with them, or they must
  submit to pass for the star-chambers of jacobinism, or of some other
  party.


[4] D'Alembert said to one of his
  intimates, with whom he had been to hear the celebrated sermon preached
  by P. Beauregard against the apostles of infidelity, "These men die
  hard."


[5] The passage above cited, though not
  published with his name, is well known to have proceeded from the pen of
  M. de Lally Tolendal.


[6] It is well known, that the Dutch,
  at this time, did every thing in their power to undermine the Portuguese
  in Japan, and that they fabricated tales of the Jesuits to alarm the
  government, which, they said, was to be subverted, the emperor to be
  dethroned, and the people made slaves to the pope. In consequence of
  these slanders, no Christian was suffered in the empire; when, to
  preserve their commerce, the Dutch abjured Christianity, and, in proof of
  their sincerity, consented to tread publicly upon the cross at certain
  times.


[7] Encyclopedia Britannica.


[8] Spirit of Laws, book v, chap.
  14.


[9] Robertson's Charles V, vol. iii,
  page 224.


[10] See Sully's Memoirs.


[11] This passage is also from the
  pen of M. Lally Tolendal.—When I was at Paris, in the autumn of
  1814, he was engaged on the Life of Charles I, of England. After the
  return of Bonaparte, Louis XVIII appointed him one of his ministers.


[12] See Letter IV.


[13] This, if well executed, would be
  a very interesting work, and it is not impossible, that it may be
  attempted.


[14] See Letter III.


[15] Lord Clarendon, vol. i, page
  73.


[16] Hume's History of England, vol.
  vi, page 297, &c.


[17] Hume's History of England, vol.
  vi, page 378.


[18] On the subject of the popish
  plots, see Dr. Milner's Letters to a Prebendary.


[19] As to the judges of those times,
  see what a picture is drawn of a chief justice by the most celebrated of
  our historians:—"To be a Jesuit, or even a catholic, was of itself
  a sufficient proof of guilt. The chief justice (sir William Scroggs), in
  particular, gave sanction to all the narrow prejudices and bigoted fury
  of the populace. Instead of being counsel for the prisoners, as his
  office required, he pleaded the cause against them, browbeat their
  witnesses, and on every occasion represented their guilt as certain and
  uncontroverted. He even went so far as publicly to affirm, that the
  papists had not the same principles which protestants have, and therefore
  were not entitled to that common credence, which the principles
  and practices of the latter call for. And, when the jury brought in their
  verdict against the prisoners, he said, 'You have done, gentlemen, like
  very good subjects, and very good Christians, that is to say, like very
  good protestants.'"—Hume's History of England, vol. viii, ch. 67,
  p. 91. See also what the same author says in his third appendix: "Timid
  juries, and judges, who held their offices during pleasure, never failed
  to second all the views of the crown. And, as the practice was anciently
  common, of fining, imprisoning, or otherwise punishing the jurors, merely
  at the discretion of the court, for finding a verdict contrary to the
  direction of these dependent judges, it is obvious, that juries were then
  no manner of security to the liberty of the subject."—Vol. v, p.
  458. And, if these be not enough, take conviction from the pen of one of
  the most penetrating geniuses of the age: "The proceedings on the popish
  plot," says Mr. Fox, in his History of James II, "must always be
  considered as an indelible disgrace upon the English nation, in which
  king, parliament, judges, juries, witnesses, prosecutors, have all their
  respective, though certainly not equal shares. Witnesses, of such a
  character as not to deserve credit in the most trifling cause, upon the
  most immaterial facts, gave evidence so incredible, or, to speak more
  properly, so impossible to be true, that it ought not to have been
  believed if it had come from the mouth of Cato: and, upon such evidence,
  from such witnesses, were innocent men condemned to death and executed.
  Prosecutors, whether attornies and solicitors-general, or managers of
  impeachment, acted with the fury which, in such circumstances, might be
  expected; juries partook, naturally enough, of the national ferment; and
  judges, whose duty it was to guard them against such impressions, were
  scandalously active in confirming them in their prejudices, and inflaming
  their passions. The king, who is supposed to have disbelieved the whole
  plot, never once exercised his glorious prerogative of mercy. It is said
  he dared not. His throne, perhaps his life, was at stake."—History
  of James II, by the right honourable Charles James Fox, page 33.


[20] Fox's History of James II, page
  40.


[21] I was unwilling to interrupt the
  reader at the last quotation from Mr. Fox, but I beg leave here to say a
  few words relative to the insinuated calumny on the catholic priests of
  Ireland, to which I then alluded. As I have before observed, it is easy
  to see, that this attack, under cover of assailing the Jesuits, is aimed
  at catholics in general. The priests in Ireland are charged, in the
  pamphlet, with great venality and corruption of morals, and this, the
  writer says, may be affirmed without the fear of contradiction. To notice
  this slander is allowing myself to be led from my particular subject into
  the general one; I will not, therefore, dwell upon it, but, referring the
  reader to a volume of indisputable authority, though written by a
  catholic (Dr. Milner's Inquiry into certain vulgar Opinions, Letter
  xviii), for an interesting account of the Irish clergy and of the Irish
  poor, I will content myself with extracting a note, or rather reference,
  from page 182 of the book. "If, gentlemen, you are not under the
  influence of very gross prejudice, you will, in receiving representations
  of the necessitous state of Ireland, maturely weigh the allegations of
  men, who have stigmatized, and still stigmatize as the last of mankind,
  some of the most deserving and useful men in the community. There are
  among them preachers and teachers of the first excellence: there are men
  of profound erudition, men of nice classical taste, and men of the best
  critical acumen. They are not formed, it is true, to shine in the
  drawing-room or at the tea-table; nor are such qualifications very
  desirable in churchmen; for you well know, that the refined manners of
  fashionable life are often as incompatible with Christian morality, as
  the grosser vices of the vulgar herd. Their manners are, in general,
  decent; but their exertions are great, their zeal is indefatigable. See
  them in the most inclement seasons, at the most unseasonable hours, in
  the most uncultivated parts, amidst the poorest and most wretched of
  mankind! They are always ready at a call; nothing can deter them; the
  sense of duty surmounts every obstacle! And there is no reward for them
  in this world! The good effects of their zeal are visible to every
  impartial and discerning mind; notwithstanding the many great
  disadvantages under which it labours. For instance, you may often find a
  parish so extensive and populous as to require two or three clergymen
  properly to serve it, and yet the poverty of the parish is such as to be
  scarcely able to maintain one in a tolerably decent manner. I could point
  out many other disadvantages, but I forbear at present,"
  &c.—"After all, the good effects are so conspicuous, that, I
  repeat it, the lower orders of Irishmen are better instructed in the
  doctrines of Christianity than the lower orders of Englishmen."


I cannot speak of the catholic priests in Ireland from my own
  knowledge, but the information I have received, from friends well
  acquainted with the subject, fully corroborates this character of them.
  With such a character, already drawn before the public with genuine marks
  of candour, is it possible that any writer to the public should, in
  calumniating it, say, that there was no fear of his being contradicted?
  Was he not contradicted, if I may use the expression, by anticipation?
  But uncongenial records are useless things, like stern lights.


[22] Rapin's History of England, vol.
  ii, page 344.


[23] Hume says, that Campion was put
  to the rack, and, confessing his guilt, was publicly executed. The
  confession of guilt is not so clearly proved as the putting to the rack.
  In the life of Campion the confession is denied; and what Hume himself
  says immediately before is strong against the imputed guilt, that he and
  Parsons were sent to explain the bull of Pius, and to teach that the
  subjects of Elizabeth were not bound by it to rebel against
  her.—See vol. v, chap. xli, page 238.


[24] Page 327, edition 1615.


[25] Hume's History of England, vol.
  viii, chap. lxvii, page 110.


[26] Hume's History of England, vol.
  v, chap. xxxviii, page 22, &c.


[27] Hume.


[28] Tom. ii, p. 375.


[29] Bayle, article Loyola.


[30] Dupleix's History of France.


[31] An assembly of the clergy was
  held at Poissy, in 1561, where James Laynez, then general of the Jesuits,
  refuted the impieties of Beza, in the presence of the French court.


[32] Filles Dieu.


[33] See the Substance of a Speech of
  Sir John Coxe Hippisley, Bart., &c.


[34] Sir John informs us (ibid. page
  37), that "there is evidence fully on record" to show, that Frederic III,
  of Prussia, acted, with respect to the Jesuits, upon the "same principles
  which influenced the measures of the empress Catherine." According to the
  principles I have thought myself bound to ascribe to her, this
  concurrence is not unlikely; but, it is very unlikely, that he preserved
  them in his dominions through the sad ambition of showing a power of
  managing them. He had declared, that he retained them, in order to
  furnish the good seed to catholic princes, who might one day wish
  to recover the plant.


[35] The fifth article of the
  pacta conventa, confirmed by the empress's edict of September 5,
  1772, runs in these words:—"Catholici utriusque ritûs in his
  provinciis inhabitantes, quæ augustissimæ Russiarum imperatrici ex pacto
  convento cesserunt, ad civilem statum quod attinet, omnibus
  possessionibus bonisquæ suis fruentur. In iis vero quæ ad religionem
  spectant, omnino conservabuntur in statu quo: videlicet, in
  eodem libero exercitio cultûs et disciplinæ suæ, cum omnibus templis et
  bonis ecclesiasticis, eodem modo quo possidebantur cum ii
  catholici sub dominium majestatis suæ imperialis venerunt. Nec majestas
  sua imperialis nec ejus successores utentur unquam suprema potestate et
  auctoritate in detrimentum statûs quo catholicæ Romanæ ecclesiæ in
  commemoratis provinciis." This fifth article was afterwards formally
  accepted and agreed to by the empress, the king of Poland, and the pope,
  in the diet of Poland, September 18, 1773, five weeks after the
  suppression of the society at Rome. The nuncio Garampi had laboured in
  vain to obtain the exclusion of the Jesuits from the benefit of it.


[36] Additional note, page 36.


[37] Mr. Plowden, whose book, I am
  sorry to say, I have not read.


[38] "Popes," says the very pontiff
  on whom sir John relies, "are pilots, steering almost always through
  boisterous seas, and, of course, must spread or shorten sail according to
  the weather."—Ganganelli's Letters, Letter cxii.


[39] Ganganelli's Letters, Letter
  cxii.


[40] Ibid.


[41] Letter cxii.


[42] St Luke, chap. xxiii. verse
  24.


[43] Letter cxii.


[44] Appendix No. I.


[45] Urban VII is placed at the head
  of the roll of the pontiffs hostile to the Jesuits. If sir John will take
  the trouble of looking into Sacchinus's History, part v, book x, page
  505, he will there read, that, as soon as pope Urban VII was elected, he
  discharged from prison an innocent Jesuit, whom his violent predecessor,
  Sixtus V, had confined, publicly declaring him to be free from guilt, and
  suspicion of guilt. This, says the historian, was the first, and it was
  also the last, act of government of pope Urban VII, who presently was
  taken ill, and died on the twelfth day after his election, September 27,
  1590.


[46] After this, under the hand of
  Ganganelli, when pope, what can we think of those, who attempt to mislead
  the public mind by asserting, that the Jesuits were connected with the
  Inquisition?


[47] This is directly in
  contradiction to sir John Hippisley's remark of the influence of the
  Jesuits being considered as so exceptionable, even by prelates of their
  own community.


[48] Castéra's History of Catherine
  II.


[49] Clement XIII's Letter of the 9th
  July, 1763, to the archbishops and bishops of France.


[50] Acts of the Apostles chap. xxv,
  verse 16.


[51] See page 29.


[52] Spirit of Laws, Book IV, chap.
  vi.


[53] Dissertation on the Varieties of
  the Human Species.


[54] Tracts on several interesting
  Subjects in Politics and Morals.


[55] See the English edition of his
  work, called "A Relation of the Missions of Paraguay," pages 113, 181,
  et passim.


[56] M. Lally Tolendal.


[57] See the Life prefixed to his
  Sermons.


[58] Bausset's Life of Fenelon, vol.
  i, page 21, &c.


[59] Appendix, No. II.


[60] See the Institute, vol. ii, p.
  74.


[61] Juan and Ulloa, Vol. II. chap.
  xv, p. 179 and 180.


[62] Juan and Ulloa, Vol. II, chap.
  xv, p. 182 and 184.


[63] See Memoirs of the Ministry of
  Carvalho, Marquis de Pombal.


[64] Barruel's Histoire du Clergé
  pendant la Revolution Françoise, page 152.


[65] Infinite are the false reports,
  made by interested writers, of the missions of South America. The solid
  refutation of them may be found in many Spanish works, but more agreeably
  in the Histoire du Paraguay of Charlevoix, the voyage of Juan and
  Ulloa, and the Cristianesimo Felice of Muratori, already
  cited.


[66] See vol. i, page 58.


[67] In 1768, when the Jesuit
  missionaries from Spanish America arrived at Cadiz, a number of them,
  natives of northern countries, were shipped off to Ostend, to make their
  way to their respective homes. Their poor garments were almost worn to
  rags. A new hat was given to each, with a very small pittance in money,
  proportioned to the distance to which he was to travel. Those, who came
  from California, reported, that, before they were brought away from
  Mexico, the priests, who had been sent into California, to take their
  abandoned stations, returned in the ship, in which they had been sent
  out, refusing, one and all, to dwell in such a country.


[68] De dign. et aug. Scient. I.
  7.


[69] It was a law of the society,
  with which the general could not dispense, that no rewards or alms were
  to be demanded or accepted, whereby the spiritual and literary duties of
  the institute might seem to be recompensed. Even the usual honorary
  retributions, attached to spiritual functions, and regulated by the
  canons, were excluded. Hence, when clergymen of other descriptions had
  preached a course of sermons in royal chapels, they were usually, and
  very justly, complimented with some considerable benefice, frequently a
  mitre: when Jesuits had performed the same duty with success, they were
  thanked in the king's name, and informed, that his majesty would be glad
  to hear them another year. Perhaps this law of the Jesuits, and their
  renunciation of church dignities by vow, were among the motives, which
  engaged princes to employ them so much in spiritual concerns.


[70] Cardinal de Maury's "Eloge de M.
  l'Abbe Radonvilliers, prononcé le 7 Mai, 1807."


[71] See cardinal de Maury's "Essai
  sur l'Eloquence, Panegyriques, Eloges, &c." vol. ii, printed at
  Paris, 1810.


[72] They are found, principally, in
  the fourth part of their "Constitutions," in the rules of provincials,
  rectors, prefects of schools, masters, and scholastics, and in their
  Ratio Studiorum.


[73] See the chapter of part x,
  entitled "De modo quo conservari et augeri totum corpus Societatis in suo
  bono statu possit," vol. i, p. 445, of the Prague folio edition.


[74] Institute, vol. ii, p. 408,
  Prague folio edition.


[75] Institute, vol. ii, p. 408,
  Prague folio edition.


[76] Ibid. vol. i, p. 407.


[77] Ibid. vol. i, p. 408.


[78] Institute, vol. i, p. 373.


[79] Ibid, vol. i, p. 408.


[80] "Filiis suis, ut convenit,
  compati noverit."—Institutum Const., Pars IX, vol. ii, c. i, p.
  4.


"Conferet secum viros, qui consilio polleant, habere, quorum operâ in
  iis quæ statuenda sunt . . . uti possit."—Ibid., vol. i, p.
  425.


[81] "Vir sit (generalis) . . . in
  omni virtutum genere exemplum . . . ac præcipuè in eo splendor
  charitatis . . . sit conspicuus."—Institutum Const., vol. i, p.
  135.


"Advertendum quod primo in charitate ac dulcedine, qui peccant,
  sunt admonendi."—Ibid. vol. i, p. 375.


[82] "Conferet etiam, circumspectè et
  ordinatè precipære . . . ita ut subditi se potius ad dilectionem
  majorem quàm ad timorem suorum superiorem possint
  componere."—Ibid., vol. i, p. 426.


"Ut in spiritu amoris et non cum perturbatione timoris
  procedatur, curandum est."—Ibid., vol. i, p. 407.


[83] "Juret unusquisque, priusquam
  det (suffragium) quod eum nominat, quem sentit in Domino magis
  idoneum."—Ibid., vol. i, p. 431.


[84] "Si accidiret ut valde negligens
  vel remissus esset, &c. . . . tunc enim coadjutor vel vicarius qui
  generalis officio fungatur, est eligendus."—Institutum Const., vol.
  i, p. 439.


[85] "Habet ergo societas cum
  præposito generali (et idem cum inferioribus fieri possit) aliquem qui
  accedens ad Deum in oratione, postquam divinam bonitatem consulerit et
  æquum esse id judicaverit, cum modestia debita ac humilitate, quid
  sentiat in ipso præposito requiri ad majus obsequium et gloriam Dei,
  admonere teneatur."—Ibid., Pars IX, c. iv, n. 4, p. 439.


[86] See Part IX, chap. iv, of the
  Constitutions, entitled "De auctoritate vel providentia quam Societas
  habere debet erga præpositum Generalem," vol. i, p. 439.


[87] Ibid.


[88] "Erit etiam summi momenti, ut
  perpetuò felix societatis status conservetur, diligentissimè ambitionem,
  malorum omnium in quavis republica vel congregatione matrem
  submovere."—Institutum Const., vol. i, p. 446.


"Qui autem de ambitione hujusmodi convictus esset, activo et passivo
  suffragio privetur, ut inhabilis ad eligendum alium (generalem), et ut
  ipse eligatur."—Ibid., vol. i, p. 430.


[89] Institutum Const., vol. i, p.
  490.


[90] Institutum Const., vol. i, p.
  422.


[91] When Dr. Priestley went to
  Paris, to enjoy personally the happy improvement of human affairs, at the
  conclusion of the eighteenth century, the glorious star of reason was
  culminating. He was known to be a materialist, consequently very
  naturally taken for an atheist, or at least a naturalist, if I may use
  the expression, and the arms of the fraternity were open to receive a man
  so highly distinguished for his chemical discoveries. They eagerly
  entered into discourse with one, who had denied man a soul, and, after
  pouring forth their own sublime theories of eternal sleep and energies of
  nature, they gave him a pause to utter his sublimities; and
  presently the room echoed with laughter and information that the doctor
  believes: Le docteur croit, le docteur Priestley croit. Some, who
  had not heard the conversation, ran to inquire what he believed.
  Comment! croit-il l'immortalité de l'ame? Point de tout; il convient
  que l'homme n'a point d'ame. Bien! que croit-il donc? Il croit,
  l'immortalité du corp. Que diable! quelle bizarerie! Mais, chez docteur,
  expliquez nous cela. The doctor discoursed on matter, and necessity,
  and of Jesus Christ as a mere man. Finding that he believed
  something their astonishment was great; and, for some time, le
  docteur croit was a bye-word.


[92] Genie du Christianisme, tom.
  viii.


[93] By his edicts on this subject,
  the youth of France were to be brought up at his schools throughout the
  empire; these schools, in every town and village, were all dignified with
  the appellation of university, the masters of which were appointed by the
  principal of the school at Paris, and to be under his control. The
  mathematics and a military spirit were ordered to be the chief things
  attended to: all boys, of whatever age, wore uniforms and immense
  cornered hats.


[94] A writer in the Times, cited in
  the Quarterly Review of Oct. 1811, p. 302.


[95] The Jansenistical apostate monk,
  Le Courayer, alleges a powerful motive to enforce this doctrine: it is
  this; "By destroying the credit and reputation of the Jesuits, Rome must
  be subverted: and when this is once effected, Religion will reform
  itself."—Hist. du Conc. de Trente, ed. d'Amsterdam, 1751, p.
  63.


[96] That the ministers Pombal,
  Choiseul, Aranda, Tanucci, &c. should have adopted this summary mode
  of execution at Lisbon, Paris, Madrid, Naples, &c. creates now little
  surprise, devoted as they were to the views of the philosophers.


[97] It will be readily allowed, that
  the form of limited monarchy is best calculated to insure the happiness
  of subjects. Besides this general advantage, many other features of the
  Jesuits' institute strongly conspired to produce union of minds and
  hearts among the members. One main cause of it, however, was accidental,
  and extrinsic to their government and statutes. This was the unceasing
  pressure of unmerited outward hostility, which, of course, closed them
  into a more compact phalanx. In the last persecution, a thousand
  stratagems were devised to create disunion among them, and to engage them
  to solicit their own dissolution. Their enemies were everywhere
  disappointed and enraged. They were reduced to assassinate the body,
  which they could not decompose. In every country, they employed merciless
  soldiers, and still more unfeeling lawyers, to tear off the Jesuits'
  cassocks; and everywhere they found the country watered with the Jesuits'
  tears. Jesuits were everywhere fond of their profession. Can this be a
  crime?


[98] After some search I have
  discovered, that Jerom Zarowicz, or Zarowich, was the name of the
  discharged Polish Jesuit, who forged and published the Monita
  Secreta in 1616. Subsequent editions, as might be expected, were
  swelled with fresh matter. Henry a Sancto Ignatio, a Flemish Carmelite
  friar, and an avowed partisan of the Jansenists Arnaud and Quesnel,
  trumpeted forth the Monita in his Tuba Magna, a violent
  invective against the Jesuits, which he printed at Strasburg in 1713, and
  again in 1717, just at the period when Quesnel was condemned by the
  famous bull Unigenitus.


While the minister Pombal was persecuting the Jesuits in Portugal,
  Almada, his agent at Rome, filled that capital and all Italy with
  outrageous libels against the suffering victims, composed and distributed
  chiefly by a knot of friars of different orders, who were in his pay, and
  printed at the press of Nicolas Pagliarini. Some of the former were
  banished, and the latter was condemned to the galleys. His punishment was
  remitted by the meek pontiff Clement XIII, and the culprit escaped to
  Lisbon, where he was employed, honoured, and rewarded by Pombal. I have
  before me two of these libels, printed in 1760, of which, one is an
  Italian translation of the Monita Secreta, preceded by a preface
  of 137 pages, and followed by a long appendix. The performance, like that
  of Laicus, is a wild, incoherent assemblage of impostures and insults,
  all written, as the author acknowledges, con uno stile basso e
  andante, because he professes to write for the lower classes of
  readers, per illuminare il minuto populo. In fact, his manner and
  language are almost as low and groveling as those of that eminent adept
  in the stile basso e andante, Laicus of the Times.


[99] Not having elsewhere met with
  this monstrous calumny, I incautiously ascribed the invention of it to
  Laicus. But in one of the Italian libels, mentioned in the last note, the
  writer, having informed the minuto populo of Italy, that the
  Jesuits are professed poisoners, gives the proof in these words: "Perhaps
  pope Innocent XIII was snatched from us by Jesuitical barbarity. There
  would be no doubt of it, if only the surgeon of that pope, who is still
  alive (in 1760), would be pleased to declare, that the Jesuits had
  infused poison through the sore in the old pontiff's leg. But he is
  silent, through dread of the Jesuits' vengeance." This is called
  illuminating the minuto populo. Laicus catches the ray, and
  reflects it, with lustre improved, upon our minuto populo, when he
  assures them, that Innocent XIII was UNIVERSALLY
  UNDERSTOOD to have been murdered by the Jesuits. Such is the
  progress of genius.


[100] See Letter II.


[101] Ibid.


[102] See Letter II.


[103] See Letter II.


[104] Ibid.


[105] See Letter II.


[106] Ibid.


[107] See Letter II.


[108] See Letter III.


[109] Voltaire, in his History of
  Louis XIV, had the assurance to write, that our king James II was a
  Jesuit. Abbé Millot, a pitiful imitator of Voltaire, who had been
  dismissed from the society of the Jesuits, obtained a seat in the French
  academy, and published Elemens de l'Histoire de France. In this
  meagre work, not to be outdone by his master, he has the impudence to
  advance, that St. Louis IX, king of France, was a Dominican friar. All
  this passes for history with certain readers, who are not quite among the
  minuto populo.


[110] See Letter III.


[111] Urban VIII was elected pope
  in 1625. I have before me an authentic list of all the superiors of the
  Jesuits in England from 1623 downwards to 1773, in which no name like
  Stillington appears.


[112] See Letter III.


[113] Pope, indeed, has
  contradicted the calumny in his energetic verse,






Where London's column, pointing at the skies,


Like a tall bully, lifts the head, and lies.






In spite of which, the column is still allowed to disgrace the first
  city in the world, though it totters, and daily nods destruction around
  it.—Ed.


[114] It must be acknowledged, that
  this calumny has been too hastily placed to the credit of Laicus. He has
  not the honour of the invention. Calumny it certainly is. Whoever knows
  the angry temper of the parliament of Paris, in 1757, when their
  opposition to the king, and their fury against the archbishop De Beaumont
  and the Jesuits, were wound up to an uncommon height, must allow, that
  they would have been delighted with the detection of the slightest
  symptom, the most distant presumption of guilt, in any Jesuit. The
  wretched culprit Damiens was frequently interrogated with this view. He
  constantly denied that he had any accomplice, but owned, that he had
  conceived the idea of his crime, from frequently hearing the table talk
  of members of the parliament, on whom he waited; his design being, as he
  pretended, only to make the king more attentive to the voice and
  complaints of the people. Notwithstanding the certainty of this, one of
  the above mentioned Italian libels, written per il minuto populo,
  informs them roundly, that the Jesuits were accomplices of Damiens, and
  that two Jesuits were privately hanged for it in the
  Bastille. But why was not Laicus equally trusted with the secrets
  of that state prison? Possibly he has learned this lesson from his oracle
  Coudrette. He cannot however glory in the invention.


[115] It may be suspected, that
  Coudrette is really the writer, to whom, suppressing his name, Robertson
  so often refers his readers, in his account of Jesuits, in the Life of
  Charles V. Perhaps he was ashamed to name such an author. But he had
  already forfeited his title to historical impartiality, by acknowledging,
  that his unfavourable account of the Jesuits is derived from the
  Comptes Rendus and Requisitoires of La Chalotais, attorney
  general of the parliament of Bretagne, who, not less than Coudrette, was
  truly un ennemi acharné des Jesuites.


[116] "They," said Dr. Johnson,
  "who would cry out Popery in the present day, would have cried
  Fire in the time of the deluge."


[117] See Letter V.


[118] See Letter V.


[119] See Letter V.


[120] The preservation of the
  society of Jesus in the Russian empire, in spite of innumerable
  solicitations, schemes, and intrigues employed to procure its
  suppression, would form a curious morsel of particular history,
  highly honourable to the court of Petersburg and creditable to the
  Jesuits.


[121] The French League.


[122] Si acciderit aliquod ex
  peccatis (avertas id Deus), quæ sufficiunt ad præpositum officio
  privandum, simul atque res per sufficientia testimonia, vel ipsius
  affirmationem constaret, juramento adstringantur assistentes ad id
  societati denuntiandum.—Cap. V. art. iv, p. 440.


[123] Et si res devulgata et
  communiter manifesta esset, non expectatâ quatuor assistentium
  confirmatione, provinciales alii alios vocando convenire debent, et ipso
  primo die quo in locum hujusmodi congregationis ingredientur, ubi aderunt
  quatuor qui convocarunt, cum aliis congregatis, rem is aggrediatur cui
  omnia notoria sunt, et accusatio dilucidè explicetur. Et postquam auditus
  fuerit præpositus, foras egredi debebit, et antiquissimus ex
  provincialibus simul cum secretario aut alio assistente, de latâ re
  scrutinium faciat, et primò quidem an constet de peccato quod objicitur,
  deinde an ejusmodi sit ut propter id officio privari debeat; et idem
  suffragia promulget, quæ ut sufficiant duas tertias partes excedent; et
  tunc statim de alio eligendo agatur, et si fieri potest, non inde priùs
  egrediatur quàm societas præpositum generalem habeat.—Ibid. p.
  440.


[124] Prima ad res externas
  pertinet vestitûs, victûs et expensarum quarumlibet, quæ omnia vel
  augere, vel imminuere poterit societas prout præpositum ipsum ac se
  decere et Deo gratius fore judicabit et tunc societatis ordinationi
  acquiescere oportebit.—Cap. IV, art. ix, p. 439, tom. i.


[125] Numero autem hujusmodi
  assistentium quidem quatuor......... et quidem illi ipsi esse poterunt de
  quibus supradictum......... quamvis autem res graviores ab iis tractandæ
  sint, statuendi tamen facultas, postquam eos audierit, penès præpositum
  generalem erit.—Cap. VI, art. i, p. 444, tom. ii.


[126] Est item penès præpositum
  generalem omnis facultas agenda quosvis contractus emptionum aut
  venditionum quorumlibet bonorum temporalium mobilium tàm domorum quàm
  collegiorum societatis, et imponendi aut redimendi quoslibet census super
  bonis stabilibus ipsorum collegiorum, in eorumdem utilitatem et bonum,
  cum facultate sese liberandi, restitutâ pecuniâ quæ data fuerit. Alienare
  autem aut omninò dissolvere collegia vel domos jàm creatas societatis
  sine generali ejus congregatione præpositus generalis non
  poterit.—Cap. III. col. ii, p. 336, tom. i.


[127] Cum autem quidquam privatæ
  utilitatis ex redditibus quærere vel in suum usum convertere non possit,
  est valde probabile quòd majori cum puritate ac Spiritu constantiùs ac
  diuturniùs procedat in iis quæ ad bonum regimen collegiorum ad majus Dei
  ac Domini nostri obsequium provideri convenit.—Cap. I, tit. i, p.
  392.


[128] Transferre vel differre domos
  vel collegia jam creata, aut in usum societatis professæ redditus eorum
  convertere præpositus generalis, ut in 4 part. dictum est, non
  poterit.—Cap. IV, art. xlviii, p. 438.


[129] De his vero quæ societati ita
  relinquuntur ut ipsa pro suo arbitratu et regat et disponat (sive illa
  bona stabilia sint; ut domus aliqua vel prœdium non alicui certo
  collegio ab eo qui disponit, relinquit determinare applicatum vel
  annexum, sive mobilia cujusmodi sunt pecunia, triticum et quœvis
  alia mobilia) idem generalis disponere poterit, aut vendendo, aut
  retinendo, aut huic vel illi loco id quod videbitur applicando, prout ad
  majorem Dei gloriam senserit expedire.—Cap. III, art. vi, p. 437.
  col. ii, tit. 2.


[130] Declaratum est ut hæc bona
  tantùm in eâdem provinciâ et non alibi generalis debeat distribuere, pag.
  493, item, pag. 702, ibid. eadem provincia in quâ, 1 cap. 30, partis
  constitutionum distribuenda esse dicuntur bona nostrorum quæ illi
  societati dare volunt, intelligenda est, in quâ sunt ipsa bona, non autem
  in quâ quis societatem ingreditur, aut versatur. Sumitur autem provinciæ
  nomen more societatis, prout scilicet uni præposito provinciali
  subest.


[131] Quod si in eâdem provinciâ
  plura sint dominia diversis principibus subjecta, adjecit congregatio
  diligenter servandam esse eamdem constitutionem ut scilicet in
  transferendis hujusmodi fratrum nostrorum bonis ex uno Dominio in aliud
  ejusdem provinciæ societatis, ratio haberetur regum, principum et aliorum
  potestatum, ne in eis causa ulta offensionis detur, sed ad majorem
  ædificationem omnium et spiritualem animarum profectum et gloriam Dei
  omnia cedant.—Tom. i. p. 511.


[132] Sexta locum habet in
  quibusdam casibus (quos speramus per Dei bonitatem, aspirante ipsius
  gratiâ, nunquam eventuros) cujusmodi essent peccata mortalia in externum
  actum prodeuntia, ac nominatìm, copula carnalis: vulnerare quemdam: ex
  redditibus collegiorum aliquid ad proprios sumptus assumere: vel pravam
  doctrinam habere. Si quid ergo horum acciderit, potest ac debet societas
  (si de re sufficientissimè constaret) eum officio privare, ac si opus
  est, à societate removere. In omnibus præ occulis habendo quod ad majorem
  Dei gloriam et universale bonum societatis fore judicabitur.—Cap.
  XII, art. vii, p. 440, tom. i.


[133] Page 215, tome iv, dés
  Mémoires du Clergé.


[134] Page 451 du même volume.


[135] Maximes et Réflections sur la
  Comédie, ed. de 1674, p. 138, 139.


[136] Henry IV finished the letter,
  which he deigned to the general assembly, with these words: "Vos hortamur
  ad retinendam instituti vestri integritatem et splendorem."