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Title: The New Conspiracy
with a short account of their institute; and observations
on the danger of systems of education independent of
religion
Author: R. C. Dallas
Release Date: October 3, 2010 [EBook #33836]
Language: English
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French extracts are reproduced as printed, with hardly any accents.
* * * * *
THE
NEW CONSPIRACY
AGAINST THE JESUITS
DETECTED AND BRIEFLY EXPOSED;
WITH A
SHORT ACCOUNT OF THEIR INSTITUTE;
AND
OBSERVATIONS ON THE DANGER OF SYSTEMS OF
EDUCATION INDEPENDENT OF RELIGION.
* * * * *
BY R. C. DALLAS, ESQ.
* * * * *
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.
* * * * *
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR JAMES RIDGWAY, PICCADILLY.
1815.
C. WOOD, Printer,
Poppin's Court, Fleet Street.
* * * * *
{v}
TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
GEORGE CANNING, M. P.
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 {vi} 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
{vii} 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 {viii} 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._
* * * * *
{ix}
PREFACE.
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 {x} 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 {xi} 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. {xii}
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 {xiii} 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 {xiv}
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 {xv} 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, {xvi} 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 {xvii} 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 {xviii} 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 {xix} 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.
* * * * *
{xxi}
CONTENTS.
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
{xxii}
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 259
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.
* * * * *
{1}
THE
NEW CONSPIRACY
AGAINST THE JESUITS,
_&c._ _&c._
INTRODUCTION.
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 {2} 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 {3} 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.
* * * * *
{5}
CHAPTER I.
_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 {6} 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 {7} "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 {8} 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 {9} vice,
and excite them to what is becoming and laudable[2]."
{10}
The author, in a note, acknowledges, that his Summary does not _wholly_ lay
claim to {11} 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 {12} 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].
{13}
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 {14} 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? {15} 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; {16} 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 {17} 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? {18}
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 {19} 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 {20} 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 {21} 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, {22} 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.
* * * * *
{23}
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._
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 {24} 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 {25} 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 {26} 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 {27} 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 {28}
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 {29} 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, {30}
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, {31}
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 {32} 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. {33} 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 {34} 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 {35} _Re__ponse 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 {36} 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 {37} 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 {38} Hume, "can be a
stronger proof of the fury of the times, than that lord Russel,
notwithstanding {39} 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 {40} 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 {41} 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, {42} 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 {43} 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 {44} 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 {45} 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].
{46}
But to return from this digression to Rapin. We learn from him, that
Elizabeth herself, {47} 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 {48} 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 {49} 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 {50} 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, {51} 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 {52} 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]."
{53}
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_ {54} _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 {55} 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, {56} 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 {57} 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 {58} 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. {59}
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 {60} 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 {61} 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, {62} 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 {63} 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_.
{64}
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 {65}
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 {66} 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 {67} 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? {68}
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
{69} 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 {70} 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 {71} "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 {72} 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 {73} 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
{74} 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 {75} 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 {76} 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 {77} 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 {78} 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 {79} 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 {80} 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. {81} 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
{82} 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 {83} 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 {84} 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, {85} 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 {86} 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 {87} 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 {88} 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 {89} 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 {90} 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 {91} 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 {92} 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 {93}
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, {94} 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_. {95} 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, {96} 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 {97} 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 {98} 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 {99} 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, {100} 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
{101} 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, {102} 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 {103} 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, {104} 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 {105} 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 {106} 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 {107} 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_ {108} _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 {109} 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 {110} 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 {111} 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 {112} 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 {113} 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. {114}
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 {115} 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 {116} 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 {117} 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, {118} 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 {119} 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 {120} 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 {121} 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 {122} 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. {123}
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 {124} 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 {125} 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 {126} 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 {127} 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, {128} 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, {129} 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, {130} 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 {131} 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
{132} 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 {133} 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 {134} 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."
{135}
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 {136} 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 {137} 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 {138} 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 {139} 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 {140} 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 {141} 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 {142} 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].
{143}
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 {144} 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
{145} 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 {146} 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.
{147}
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." {148}
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 {149} 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 {150} 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. {151}
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 {152} 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 {153} 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
{154} 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 {155} 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
{156} 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. {157}
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 {158}
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 {159} 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 {160}
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 {161}
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 {162} 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 {163}
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
{164} 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, {165} 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,
{166} 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 {167} 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. {168}
"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 {169} 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 {170} 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
{171} 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 {172} 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!
* * * * *
{173}
CHAPTER III.
_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, {174} 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 {175} 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 {176} 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 {177} 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; {178} 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 {179} 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 {180} 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 {181}
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 {182} 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 {183} 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
{184} 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 {185} 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 {186} 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.
{187} 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
{188} 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 {189} 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].
{190}
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 {191} 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 {192} 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 {193} 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 {194} 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, {195} 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 {196} 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
{197} 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 {198}
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 {199} 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 {200} 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 {201} 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 {202} 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 {203} 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.
{204}
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 {205} 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 {206} 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 {207} 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 {208} 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 {209} 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 {210} 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 {211} 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 {212}
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 {213} 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 {214} 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 {215} 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; {216} _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 {217} 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 {218} 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 {219} 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 {220} 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 {221}
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 {222} 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 {223} 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 {224} 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, {225}
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 {226} 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, {227} 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 {228} 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.
* * * * *
{229}
CHAPTER IV.
_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 {230} 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 {231} 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 {232} 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 {233}
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 {234} 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
{235} 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 {236}
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. {237}
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 {238} 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]. {239} 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 {240} 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
{241} 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. {242} 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, {243} 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 {244} 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 {245} 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, {246} 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 {247} 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 {248} 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, {249} 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 {250} 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, {251} 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 {252} 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 {253} 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 {254}
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, {255} 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?
{256} 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 {257} 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
LETTERS
OF
CLERICUS.
* * * * *
Calumniare audacter; semper aliquid adhærebit.
* * * * *
{261}
THE
LETTERS
OF
CLERICUS TO LAICUS.
* * * * *
LETTER I.
_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 {262} 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 {263} 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 {264}
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 {265} 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 {266} 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, {267} 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 {268} 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. {269} 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 {270} 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 {271} 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 {272}
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 {273} 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.
* * * * *
{274}
LETTER II.
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 {275} 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 {276}
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 {277} 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 {278} 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].
{279}
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 {280} 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. {281}
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 {282} 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, {283} 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 {284} 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. {285} 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.
* * * * *
{286}
LETTER III.
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
{287} 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, {288} 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. {289} 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, {290} 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, {291} 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 {292} 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
{293} 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 {294} 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 {295} 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 {296} 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_ {297} _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 {298}
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. {299}
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 {300} 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 {301} 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 {302} 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 {303}
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 foedum inter obsequium et tristem arrogantiam, nec fugiunt
hominum vitia, nec sequuntur_, &c."
You may hear once more from
CLERICUS.
* * * * *
{304}
LETTER IV.
_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 {305} 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_, {306} _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 {307} 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 {308} 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 {309} 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].
{310}
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!
{311} 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_ {312} _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 {313} 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 {314} 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, {315} 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 {316} 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.
* * * * *
{317}
LETTER V.
_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 {318} 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. {319}
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 {320} 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 {321} 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 {322} 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 {323} 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; {324} 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
{325} 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. {326} 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 {327} 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 {328} 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].
{329}
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 {330} 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 {331} 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.
* * * * *
APPENDIX;
CONTAINING
THE BULL OF CLEMENT XIII,
AND THE
JUDGMENT OF THE BISHOPS OF FRANCE,
IN FAVOUR OF THE JESUITS.
* * * * *
{335}
APPENDIX.
* * * * *
No. I.
_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 {336} 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 coelo 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 {337}
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 {338}
magnopere commendârunt, et ex ea maximas utilitates in suis quisque
dioecesibus 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 poenitentiæ 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, {339}
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. {340}
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 {341} 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 {342} 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 {343}
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 {344} 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,
{345} 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.
* * * * *
{346}
No. II.
_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:--
{347}
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 Borromoeus, 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. {348}
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 {349} 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_ {350}
_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, {351} 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 {352} 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 {353} 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 {354} 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 {355} 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 {356} 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 {357} 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, {358} 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, {359} 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. {360}
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_ {361} _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 {362} 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], {363} 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
{364} 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 {365} 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 {366} 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 {367} 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, {368} 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, {369} 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 {370}
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 {371} 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.
{372}
-------------- 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.
* * * * *
{373}
_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, {374} 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.
THE END.
* * * * *
C. WOOD, Printer,
Poppin's Court, Fleet Street.
* * * * *
NOTES
[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
proedium non alicui certo collegio ab eo qui disponit, relinquit
determinare applicatum vel annexum, sive mobilia cujusmodi sunt pecunia,
triticum et quoevis 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."
* * * * *
Corrections made to printed original.
Page 104. "It opens with a long narration": 'uarration' in original.
Page 107. "the addition of pressing solicitations": 'additition' in
original.
Page 320. "sounded in the present times": 'preset' in original.
Page 338. "et prædecessorum nostrorum": 'prædecessorm' in original.
Page 361. "profess obedience to all their superiors' commands": 'to to'
(over line break) in original.
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