impenetrable secret: and the professed intention of the new order was to
promote, with unequalled and unfettered zeal, the salvation of mankind.
Its progress, nevertheless, was at first remarkably slow. Charles V.,
who is supposed, with his usual sagacity, to have discerned its
dangerous tendency, rather checked than encouraged its advancement; and
the universities of France resisted its introduction into that kingdom.
Thus, roused by obstacles, and obliged to find resources within
themselves, the Jesuits brought all their talents and devices into
action. They applied themselves to every useful function and curious
art; and neither neglected nor despised any mode, however humble, of
gaining employment or reputation. The satirist’s description of the
Greeks in Rome has been aptly chosen to describe their indefatigable and
universal industry:--
_Grammaticus, rhetor, geometres, pictor, aliptes,
Augur, schœnobates, medicus, magus; omnia novit
Græculus._
Juvenal, lib. iii, 76.
“A Protean tribe, one knows not what to call,
Which shifts to every form, and shines in all:
Grammarian, painter, augur, rhetorician,
Rope-dancer, conjuror, fiddler, and physician,--
All trades his own, your hungry Greekling counts.”
GIFFORD.
They laboured with the greatest assiduity to qualify themselves as the
instructers of youth; and succeeded, at length, in supplanting their
opponents in every Catholic kingdom. They aimed, in the next place, to
become the spiritual directors of the higher ranks; and soon established
themselves in most of the courts which were attached to the papal faith,
not only as the confessors, but frequently also as the guides and
ministers, of superstitious princes. The governors of the society
pursuing one uniform system with unwearied perseverance, became entirely
successful; and, in the space of half a century, had in a wonderful
degree extended the reputation, the number, and influence of the order.
When Loyola, in 1540, petitioned the pope to authorize the institution
of the Jesuits, he had only ten disciples; but in 1608 the number
amounted to 10,581. Before the expiration of the sixteenth century they
had obtained the chief direction of the education of youth in every
Catholic country in Europe, and had become the confessors of almost all
its noblest monarchs. In spite of their vow of poverty, their wealth
increased with their power; and they soon rivalled, in the extent and
value of their possessions, the most opulent monastic fraternities.
About the beginning of the seventeenth century, they obtained from the
court of Madrid the grant of the large and fertile province of Paraguay,
which stretches across the southern continent of America, from the
mountains of Potosi to the banks of the river La Plata; and, after every
deduction which can reasonably be made from their own accounts of their
establishment, enough will remain to excite the astonishment and
applause of mankind. They found the inhabitants in the first stage of
society, ignorant of the arts of life, and unacquainted with the first
principles of subordination. They applied themselves to instruct and
civilize these savage tribes. They commenced their labours by collecting
about fifty families of wandering Indians, whom they converted and
settled in a small township. They taught them to build houses, to
cultivate the ground, and to rear tame animals; trained them to arts and
manufactures, and brought them to relish the blessings of security and
order. By a wise and humane policy, they gradually attracted new
subjects and converts; till at last they formed a powerful and well
organized state of three hundred thousand families.
Though the power of the Jesuits had become so extensive, and though
their interests generally prospered during a period of more than two
centuries, their progress was by no means uninterrupted; and, by their
own misconduct, they soon excited the most formidable counteractions.
Scarcely had they effected their establishment in France, in defiance of
the parliaments and universities, when their existence was endangered by
the fanaticism of their own members. John Chastel, one of their pupils,
made an attempt upon the life of Henry IV.; and Father Guiscard, another
of the order, was convicted of composing writings favourable to
regicide. The parliaments seized the moment of their disgrace, and
procured their banishment from every part of the kingdom, except the
provinces of Bourdeaux and Toulouse. From these rallying points, they
speedily extended their intrigues in every quarter, and in a few years
obtained their re-establishment. Even Henry, either dreading their
power, or pleased with the exculpation of his licentious habits, which
he found in their flexible system of morality, became their patron, and
selected one of their number as his confessor. They were favoured by
Louis XIII. and his minister Richelieu, on account of their literary
exertions; but it was in the succeeding reign of Louis XIV. that they
reached the summit of their prosperity. The Fathers La Chaise and Le
Teltier were successively confessors to the king; and did not fail to
employ their influence for the interest of their order: but the latter
carried on his projects with so blind and fiery a zeal, that one of the
Jesuits is reported to have said of him, “He drives at such a rate, that
he will overturn us all.” The Jansenists were peculiarly the objects of
his machinations, and he rested not till he had accomplished the
destruction of their celebrated college and convent at Port Royal.
Before the fall, however, of this honoured seminary, a shaft from its
bow had reached the heart of its proud oppressor. The “Provincial
Letters of Pascal” had been published, in which the quibbling morality
and unintelligible metaphysics of the Jesuits were exposed in a strain
of inimitable humour, and a style of unrivalled elegance. The impression
which they produced was wide and deep, and gradually sapped the
foundation of public opinion, on which the power of the order had
hitherto rested. Under the regency of the duke of Orleans, the Jesuits,
and all theological personages and principles were disregarded with
atheistical superciliousness; but under Louis XV. they partly recovered
their influence at court, which, even under Cardinal Fleury, they
retained in a considerable degree. But they soon revived the odium of
the public by their intolerant treatment of the Jansenists, and probably
accelerated their ruin by refusing, from political rather than religious
scruples, to undertake the spiritual guidance of Madame de la Pampadour,
as well as by imprudently attacking the authors of the “_Encyclopêdie_.”
Voltaire directed against them all the powers of his ridicule, and
finished the piece which Pascal had sketched. Their power was brought to
a very low ebb, when the war of 1756 broke out, which occasioned the
famous law-suit that led to their final overthrow.
In the mean time the king of Portugal was assassinated; and Carvalho,
the minister, who detested the Jesuits, found means to load them with
the odium of the crime. Malagrida, and a few more of these fathers, were
charged with advising and absolving the assassins; and, having been
found guilty, were condemned to the stake. The rest were banished with
every brand of infamy, and were treated with the most iniquitous
cruelty. They were persecuted without discrimination, robbed of their
property without pity, and embarked for Italy without previous
preparation; so that, no provision having been made for their reception,
they were literally left to perish with hunger in their vessels. These
incidents prepared the way for a similar catastrophe in France. In
March, 1762, the French court received intelligence of the capture of
Martinico by the British; and, dreading a storm of public indignation,
resolved to divert the exasperated feelings of the nation, by yielding
the Jesuits to their impending fate. On the sixth of August, 1762, their
institute was condemned by the parliament, as contrary to the laws of
the state, to the obedience due to the sovereign, and to the welfare of
the kingdom. The order was dissolved, and their effects alienated. But
in certain quarters, where the provincial parliaments had not decided
against them, Jesuits still subsisted; and a royal edict was afterward
promulgated, which formally abolished the society in France, but
permitted its members to reside within the kingdom under certain
restrictions.
In Spain, where they conceived their establishment to be perfectly
secure, they experienced an overthrow equally complete, and much more
unexpected. The necessary measures were concerted under the direction of
De Choiseul, by the Marquis D'Ossun, the French ambassador at Madrid,
with Charles III., king of Spain, and his prime minister, the Count
D'Aranda. The execution of their purposes was as sudden as their plans
had been secret. At midnight, March 31st, 1767, large bodies of military
surrounded the six colleges of the Jesuits in Madrid, forced the gates,
secured the bells, collected the fathers in the refectory, and read to
them the king’s order for their instant transportation. They were
immediately put into carriages previously placed at proper stations; and
were on their way to Carthagena before the inhabitants of the city had
any intelligence of the transaction. Three days afterward, the same
measures were adopted with regard to every other college of the order in
the kingdom; and, ships having been provided at the different sea ports,
they were all embarked for the ecclesiastical states in Italy. All their
property was confiscated, and a small pension assigned to each
individual as long as he should reside in a place appointed, and satisfy
the Spanish court as to his peaceable demeanour. All correspondence with
the Jesuits was prohibited, and the strictest silence on the subject of
their expulsion was enjoined under penalties of high treason. A similar
seizure and deportation took place in the Indies, and an immense
property was acquired by the government. Many crimes and plots were laid
to the charge of the order; but whatever may have been their demerit,
the punishment was too summary to admit of justification; and many
innocent individuals were subjected to sufferings beyond the deserts
even of the guilty. Pope Clement III. prohibited their landing in his
dominions; and, after enduring extreme miseries in crowded transports,
the survivors, to the number of two thousand three hundred, were put
ashore on Corsica. The example of the king of Spain was immediately
followed by Ferdinand VI. of Naples, and soon after by the prince of
Parma. They had been expelled from England in 1604; from Venice in 1606;
and from Portugal in 1759, upon the charge of having instigated the
families of Tavora and D'Aveiro to assassinate King Joseph I. Frederick
the Great, of Prussia, was the only monarch who showed a disposition to
afford them protection; but in 1773 the order was entirely suppressed by
Pope Clement XIV., who is supposed to have fallen a victim to their
vengeance. In 1801 the society was restored in Russia by the Emperor
Paul; and in 1804, by King Ferdinand, in Sardinia. In August, 1814, a
bull was issued by Pope Pius VII., restoring the order to all their
former privileges, and calling upon all Catholic princes to afford them
protection and encouragement. This act of their revival is expressed in
all the solemnity of papal authority; and even affirmed to be above the
recall or revision of any judge, with whatever power he may be clothed;
but to every enlightened mind it cannot fail to appear as a measure
altogether incapable of justification, from any thing either in the
history of Jesuitism, or in the character of the present times.
3. It would be in vain to deny that many considerable advantages were
derived by mankind from the labours of the Jesuits. Their ardour in the
study of ancient literature, and their labours in the instruction of
youth, greatly contributed to the progress of polite learning. They have
produced a greater number of ingenious authors than all the other
religious fraternities taken together; and though there never was known
among their order one person who could be said to possess an enlarged
philosophical mind, they can boast of many eminent masters in the
separate branches of science, many distinguished mathematicians,
antiquarians, critics, and even some orators of high reputation. They
were in general, also, as individuals, superior in decency, and even
purity of manners, to any other class of regular clergy in the church of
Rome. But all these benefits by no means counterbalanced the pernicious
effects of their influence and intrigues on the best interests of
society.
The essential principles of the institution, namely, that their order is
to be maintained at the expense of the society at large, and that the
end sanctifies the means, are utterly incompatible with the welfare of
any community of men. Their system of lax and pliant morality,
justifying every vice, and authorizing every atrocity, has left deep and
lasting ravages on the face of the moral world. Their zeal to extend the
jurisdiction of the court of Rome over every civil government, gave
currency to tenets respecting the duty of opposing princes who were
hostile to the Catholic faith, which shook the basis of all political
allegiance, and loosened the obligations of every human law. Their
indefatigable industry, and countless artifices in resisting the
progress of reformed religion, perpetuated the most pernicious errors of
Popery, and postponed the triumph of tolerant and Christian principles.
Whence, then, it may well be asked, whence the recent restoration? What
long latent proof has been discovered of the excellence, or even the
expedience, of such an institution? The sentence of their abolition was
passed by the senates, and monarchs, and statesmen, and divines, of all
religions, and of almost every civilized country in the world. Almost
every land has been stained and torn by their crimes; and almost every
land bears on its public records the most solemn protests against their
existence.
JESUS CHRIST, the Son of God, the Messiah, and Saviour of the world, the
first and principal object of the prophecies, prefigured and promised in
the Old Testament, expected and desired by the patriarchs; the hope of
the Gentiles; the glory, salvation, and consolation of Christians. The
name Jesus, or, as the Hebrews pronounce it, יהושוע, _Jehoshua_, or
_Joshua_, Ἰησούς, signifies, _he who shall save_. No one ever bore this
name with so much justice, nor so perfectly fulfilled the signification
of it, as Jesus Christ, who saves even from sin and hell, and hath
merited heaven for us by the price of his blood. It is not necessary
here to narrate the history of our Saviour’s life, which can no where be
read with advantage except in the writings of the four evangelists; but
there are several general views which require to be noticed under this
article.
1. Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ or Messiah promised under the Old
Testament. That he professed himself to be that Messiah to whom all the
prophets gave witness, and who was, in fact, at the time of his
appearing, expected by the Jews; and that he was received under that
character by his disciples, and by all Christians ever since, is
certain. And if the Old Testament Scriptures afford sufficiently
definite marks by which the long announced Christ should be infallibly
known at his advent, and these presignations are found realized in our
Lord, then is the truth of his pretensions established. From the books
of the Old Testament we learn that the Messiah was to authenticate his
claim by _miracles_; and in those _predictions_ respecting him, so many
circumstances are recorded, that they could meet only in one person; and
so, if they are accomplished in him, they leave no room for doubt, as
far as the evidence of prophecy is deemed conclusive. As to MIRACLES, we
refer to that article; here only observing, that if the miraculous works
wrought by Christ were really done, they prove his mission, because,
from their nature, and having been wrought to confirm his claim to be
the Messiah, they necessarily imply a _divine attestation_. With respect
to PROPHECY, the principles under which its evidence must be regarded as
conclusive will be given under that head; and here therefore it will
only be necessary to show the completion of the prophecies of the sacred
books of the Jews relative to the Messiah in one person, and that person
the founder of the Christian religion.
The time of the Messiah’s appearance in the world, as predicted in the
Old Testament, is defined, says Keith, by a number of concurring
circumstances, which fix it to the very date of the advent of Christ.
The last blessing of Jacob to his sons, when he commanded them to gather
themselves together that he might tell them what should befall them in
the last days, contains this prediction concerning Judah: “The sceptre
shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until
Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be,” Gen.
xlix, 10. The date fixed by this prophecy for the coming of Shiloh, or
the Saviour, was not to exceed the time during which the descendants of
Judah were to continue a united people, while a king should reign among
them, while they should be governed by their own laws, and while their
judges should be from among their brethren. The prophecy of Malachi adds
another standard for measuring the time: “Behold, I send my messenger,
and he shall prepare the way before me; and the Lord, whom ye seek,
shall come suddenly to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant,
whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts,”
Mal. iii, 1. No words can be more expressive of the coming of the
promised Messiah; and they as clearly imply his appearance in the second
temple before it should be destroyed. In regard to the advent of the
Messiah before the destruction of the second temple, the words of Haggai
are remarkably explicit: “The desire of all nations shall come, and I
will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of Hosts. The glory of
this latter house shall be greater than of the former, and in this place
will I give peace,” Hag. ii, 7. The Saviour was thus to appear,
according to the prophecies of the Old Testament, during the time of the
continuance of the kingdom of Judah, previous to the demolition of the
temple, and immediately subsequent to the next prophet. But the time is
rendered yet more definite. In the prophecies of Daniel, the kingdom of
the Messiah is not only foretold as commencing in the time of the fourth
monarchy, or Roman empire, but the express number of years that were to
precede his coming are plainly intimated: “Seventy weeks are determined
upon thy people, and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression,
and to make an end of sin, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and
to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and
prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy. Know, therefore, and understand,
that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build
Jerusalem, unto Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks and threescore
and two weeks,” Dan. ix, 24, 25. Computation by weeks of years was
common among the Jews, and every seventh was the sabbatical year;
seventy weeks, thus amounted to four hundred and ninety years. In these
words the prophet marks the very time, and uses the very name of
Messiah, the Prince; so entirely is all ambiguity done away. The
plainest inference may be drawn from these prophecies. All of them,
while, in every respect, they presuppose the most perfect knowledge of
futurity; while they were unquestionably delivered and publicly known
for ages previous to the time to which they referred; and while they
refer to different contingent and unconnected events, utterly
undeterminable and inconceivable by all human sagacity; accord in
perfect unison to a single precise period where all their different
lines terminate at once,--the very fulness of time when Jesus appeared.
A king then reigned over the Jews in their own land; they were governed
by their own laws; and the council of their nation exercised its
authority and power. Before that period, the other tribes were extinct
or dispersed among the nations. Judah alone remained, and the last
sceptre in Israel had not then departed from it. Every stone of the
temple was then unmoved; it was the admiration of the Romans, and might
have stood for ages. But in a short space, all these concurring
testimonies to the time of the advent of the Messiah passed away. During
the very year, the twelfth of his age, in which Christ first publicly
appeared in the temple, Archelaus the king was dethroned and banished;
Coponius was appointed procurator; and the kingdom of Judea, the last
remnant of the greatness of Israel, was debased into a part of the
province of Syria. The sceptre was smitten from the tribe of Judah; the
crown fell from their heads; their glory departed; and, soon after the
death of Christ, of their temple one stone was not left upon another;
their commonwealth itself became as complete a ruin, and was broken in
pieces; and they have ever since been scattered throughout the world, a
name but not a nation. After the lapse of nearly four hundred years
posterior to the time of Malachi, another prophet appeared who was the
herald of the Messiah. And the testimony of Josephus confirms the
account given in Scripture of John the Baptist. Every mark that denoted
the time of the coming of the Messiah was erased soon after the
crucifixion of Christ, and could never afterward be renewed. And with
respect to the prophecies of Daniel, it is remarkable, at this remote
period, how little discrepancy of opinion has existed among the most
learned men, as to the space from the time of the passing out of the
edict to rebuild Jerusalem, after the Babylonish captivity, to the
commencement of the Christian era, and the subsequent events foretold in
the prophecy.