_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 Ministere 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 abbe 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 Caesar what is due to Caesar, 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 adhaerebit.
* * * * *
{261}
THE
LETTERS
OF
CLERICUS TO LAICUS.
* * * * *
LETTER I.
_Jesuitae, qui se maxime nobis opponunt, aut necandi, aut si hoc commode
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 _Arrets_ 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 a 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, abbe 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
apostolicae et_ {297} _synodo Tridentinae, totique rei catholicae parum
aequus._ 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 vitae sanctimoniam_.--_Sapienter imperant, fideliter
parent.--Novissimi omnium, sectas priores fama vicere, hoc ipso caeteris
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 saepe 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,
_Arrets_ 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 societe des gens-de-lettres_, though friendly to the
Jansenists, styles Coudrette _un ennemi acharne des Jesuits_. The other, by
the well known abbe 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 abbe 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 Papae 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 a 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, nulla ex iis praetermissa, nulla
neglecta, curas suas dirigere debeat, atque omnibus incurrentibus in
ecclesia necessitatibus providere. Harum partium inter praecipuas, 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, praecipue vero
ab ecclesia fidei suae et custodiae concredita, omnia, quae 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, a fel. record.
praedecessoribus nostris Paulo III et Julio itidem III, Paulo IV, Gregorio
XIII, et Gregorio XIV, Paulo V, diligenti examine perpensum, approbatum,
saepius confirmatum, et ab iisdem pluribusque aliis ad novemdecim
praedecessoribus nostris ornatum peculiaribus favoribus et gratiis;
episcoporum, non modo hujus, sed superiorum etiam aetatum praeconio
commendatum, ut maxime frugiferum, et fructuosum, et ad promovendum Dei
cultum, honorem, et gloriam, aeternamque animarum salutem procurandam
aptissimum; potentissimorum, piissimorumque regum, et clarissimorum in
Christiana republica principum praesidio, et tutela usque munitum; cujus ex
disciplina novum prodiere viri in sanctorum, vel beatorum numerum relati,
quorum tres martyrii gloriam sunt consequuti; a pluribus sanctitate claris
viris, quos beatos in coelo novimus sempiterna perfrui gloria, collaudatum;
quod ecclesia universa longo duorum saeculorum spatio in suo sinu aluit et
fovit, ejusque professoribus praecipuam sacri ministerii partem semper
commisit magno cum emolumento animarum; quod ipsa denique catholica
ecclesia in Tridentina synodo declaravit ut pium; hoc idem institutum
novissime fuerunt, qui per pravas interpretationes, tum privatis {337}
sermonibus, tum scriptis etiam typis in lucem editis irreligiosum, et
impium appellare, contumeliis lacerare, probo et ignominia afficere non
sunt veriti, atque eo devenerunt, ut privata sua 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, subdole 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, eoque decepta
sit flagitiosius, quo diuturnius, ad annos scilicet amplius ducentos, cum
maximo animarum detrimento, sinui suo tantam haerere labem, et maculam
sustinuerit. Huic tanto malo, quod eo longius dissimulatum, tanto altius
radices agit, viresque acquirit in dies, diutius differre remedium,
justitia, quae sua cuique asserere et fortiter tueri jubet, et pastoralis
nostra erga ecclesiam sollicitudo non sinit.
Ut igitur tam gravem injuriam a 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 aequi, bonique rationes longe lateque diffusas, nostra authoritate
apostolica compescamus; ut clericis regularibus societatis Jesu, id a nobis
pro justitia exigentibus, suus maneat status, eadem nostra authoritate
firmius constabilitus; eorumque nunc temporis summe afflictis rebus aliquod
afferamus levamen: ut demum venerabilium fratrum nostrorum episcoporum, qui
ex omnibus regionibus catholicis eandem societatem nobis per litteras {338}
magnopere commendarunt, et ex ea maximas utilitates in suis quisque
dioecesibus se capere profitentur, justis desideriis obsecundemus; motu
proprio, et ex certa scientia, deque apostolicae potestatis plenitudine,
omnium praedecessorum nostrorum inhaerendo vestigiis, hac nostra perpetuo
valitura constitutione, eodem modo, ratione et forma, quibus ipsi
edixerunt, et declararunt, nos quoque edicimus, et declaramus; institutum
societatis Jesu summopere redolere pietatem et sanctitatem, tum ob
praecipuum finem, quo maxime spectat, defensionem scilicet, propagationemque
catholicae religionis, tum ob media, quae adhibet ad ejusmodi finem
consequendum, quod vel ipsa nos hactenus docuit experientia; cum ex eadem
disciplina tam multos ad hanc usque aetatem prodiisse novimus orthodoxae
fidei propugnatores, sacrosque praecones, qui invicto animi robore terra
marique subiere pericula, ut ad gentes inmanitate barbaras evangelicae
doctrinae lumen afferrent, et quotquot idem profitentur laudabile
institutum, partim intentos juventuti religione et bonis artibus erudiendae,
partim operam dare spiritualibus exercitiis tradendis, partim assidue
versari in sacramentis praecipue poenitentiae et eucharistiae administrandis
et ad eorum frequentiorem usum fidelibus excitandis; tum homines in agris
degentes divini verbi pabulo recreare; ac propterea idem institutum
societatis Jesu ad haec eximia perpetranda, divina providentia, excitatum,
ipsi quoque approbamus, et praedecessorum nostrorum approbationes ejusdem
instituti apostolica auctoritate nostra confirmamus: vota, quibus iidem
clerici regulares societatis Jesu juxta idem eorum institutum se devovent
Deo, grata illi et accepta esse declaramus: spiritualia exercitia, {339}
quae ab iisdem clericis regularibus traduntur fidelibus a mundi strepitu
semotis per dies aliquot, ut de aeterna fui ipsorum salute serio et unice
cogitent, ut maxime conducibilia ad reformandos mores, et ad Christianam
pietatem hauriendam nutriendamque, magnopere probamus, et laudamus:
congregationes praeterea, seu sodalitia, non modo adolescentium, qui ad
scholas ventitant societatis Jesu, sed quaevis alia, sive scholarium tantum,
sive aliorum Christi fidelium tantum, sive utrorumque simul sub invocatione
beatae Mariae, seu quovis alio titulo erecta, et quae in iis pia opera
ferventi studio exercentur, probamus, praecipuamque erga beatam Dei
Genitricem semper Virginem Mariam devotionem, quae in iis sodalitiis alitur,
et promovetur, magnopere commendamus, nostrorumque fel. record.
praedecessorum Gregorii XIII, Sixti V, Gregorii XV, et Benedicti XIV
constitutiones, quibus ea sodalitia approbarunt, nos apostolica auctoritate
nostra confirmamus, caeterasque omnes constitutiones a Romanis pontificibus
praedecessoribus nostris in ejusdem instituti societatis Jesu functionum
approbationem, et laudem conditas, quarum singulas hic haberi volumus pro
insertis, auctoritate itidem nobis a Deo tradita, apostolicae confirmationis
nostrae robore, per hanc nostram constitutionem, munitas volumus, et si opus
sit, velut a nobis ex integro conditas, editasque censeri praecipimus, et
mandamus.
Nulli ergo omnino hominum liceat hanc paginam nostrae approbationis, et
confirmationis infringere, vel ei ausu temerario contraire: si quis autem
hoc attentare praesumpserit, indignationem Omnipotentis Dei et beatorum
Petri et Pauli apostolorum ejus se noverit incursurum. {340}
Datum Romae apud Sanctam Mariam Majorem*, anno incarnationis Dominicae
millesimo septingentesimo sexagesimo quarto, septimo idus Januarii,
pontificatus 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 a Feste Annuntiationis B. Mariae, quod incidit
in diem 25 Martii, adeoque septimus idus Januarii 1764, coincidit cum 7
Januarii hujus anni 1765, secundum nostram computandi rationem.
_Translation._
CLEMENT, BISHOP, SERVANT OF THE SERVANTS OF GOD, FOR A PERPETUAL RECORD.