The New Conspiracy Against the Jesuits Detected and Briefly Exposed Part 11

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

[78] Inst.i.tute, vol. i, p. 373.

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

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

"Conferet sec.u.m viros, qui consilio polleant, habere, quorum opera in iis quae statuenda sunt . . . uti possit."--Ibid., vol. i, p. 425.

[81] "Vir sit (generalis) . . . in omni virtutum genere exemplum . . . ac _praecipue_ in eo _splendor charitatis_ . . . sit conspicuus."--Inst.i.tutum Const., vol. i, p. 135.

"Advertendum quod primo in _charitate ac dulcedine_, qui peccant, sunt admonendi."--Ibid. vol. i, p. 375.

[82] "Conferet etiam, circ.u.mspecte et ordinate prec.i.p.aere . . . ita ut subditi se potius ad _dilectionem_ majorem quam ad timorem suorum superiorem possint componere."--Ibid., vol. i, p. 426.

"Ut in spiritu _amoris_ et non c.u.m perturbatione timoris procedatur, curandum est."--Ibid., vol. i, p. 407.

[83] "Juret unusquisque, priusquam det (_suffragium_) quod eum nominat, quem sent.i.t in Domino magis idoneum."--Ibid., vol. i, p. 431.

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

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

[86] See Part IX, chap. iv, of the Const.i.tutions, ent.i.tled "De auctoritate vel providentia quam Societas habere debet erga praepositum Generalem," vol.

i, p. 439.

[87] Ibid.

[88] "Erit etiam summi momenti, ut perpetu felix societatis status conservetur, diligentissime ambitionem, malorum omnium in quavis republica vel congregatione matrem submovere."--Inst.i.tutum Const., vol. i, p. 446.

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

[89] Inst.i.tutum Const., vol. i, p. 490.

[90] Inst.i.tutum Const., vol. i, p. 422.

[91] When Dr. Priestley went to Paris, to enjoy personally the happy improvement of human affairs, at the conclusion of the eighteenth century, the glorious star of reason was culminating. He was known to be a materialist, consequently very naturally taken for an atheist, or at least a naturalist, if I may use the expression, and the arms of the fraternity were open to receive a man so highly distinguished for his chemical discoveries. They eagerly entered into discourse with one, who had denied man a soul, and, after pouring forth their own sublime theories of eternal sleep and energies of nature, they gave him a pause to utter _his_ sublimities; and presently the room echoed with laughter and information that the doctor _believes: Le docteur croit, le docteur Priestley croit_.

Some, who had not heard the conversation, ran to inquire what he believed.

_Comment! croit-il l'immortalite de l'ame? Point de tout; il convient que l'homme n'a point d'ame. Bien! que croit-il donc? Il croit, l'immortalite du corp. Que diable! quelle bizarerie! Mais, chez docteur, expliquez nous cela_. The doctor discoursed on matter, and necessity, and of Jesus Christ as a mere man. Finding that he believed _something_ their astonishment was great; and, for some time, _le docteur croit_ was a bye-word.

[92] Genie du Christianisme, tom. viii.

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

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

302.

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

d'Amsterdam_, 1751, p. 63.

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

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

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

While the minister Pombal was persecuting the Jesuits in Portugal, Almada, his agent at Rome, filled that capital and all Italy with outrageous libels against the suffering victims, composed and distributed chiefly by a knot of friars of different orders, who were in his pay, and printed at the press of Nicolas Pagliarini. Some of the former were banished, and the latter was condemned to the galleys. His punishment was remitted by the meek pontiff Clement XIII, and the culprit escaped to Lisbon, where he was employed, honoured, and rewarded by Pombal. I have before me two of these libels, printed in 1760, of which, one is an Italian translation of the _Monita Secreta_, preceded by a preface of 137 pages, and followed by a long appendix. The performance, like that of Laicus, is a wild, incoherent a.s.semblage of impostures and insults, all written, as the author acknowledges, _con uno stile ba.s.so e andante_, because he professes to write for the lower cla.s.ses of readers, _per illuminare il minuto populo_.

In fact, his manner and language are almost as low and groveling as those of that eminent adept in the _stile ba.s.so e andante_, Laicus of the Times.

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

[100] See Letter II.

[101] Ibid.

[102] See Letter II.

[103] See Letter II.

[104] Ibid.

[105] See Letter II.

[106] Ibid.

[107] See Letter II.

[108] See Letter III.

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

[110] See Letter III.

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

[112] See Letter III.

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

_Where London's column, pointing at the skies,_ _Like a tall bully, lifts the head, and lies._

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

[114] It must be acknowledged, that this calumny has been too hastily placed to the credit of Laicus. He has not the honour of the invention.

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

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

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