LETTERS

Calumniare audacter; semper aliquid adhærebit.

THE

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

In God's name, Laicus, who are you, and what is your aim? The order of Jesuits, you tell us, has beentotally abolished. Every personof 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, whatfalsehoods, 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 theTimes, 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 skulkfrom 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 theexclusion billfound 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 themerit 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 oldRequisitoires,Comptes Rendus, andArrêtsof the French parliaments, from which I traced it to the Jansenists, to the Calvinists, to theTuba Magna, to Scioppius, to Hospinian, to theMonarchia Solipsorum, and to the lyingMonita 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 bethe 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 theinfamyof the slander, which their courts had employed to effect it.Il falloitdenigrerles Jesuites; car sans cela, les parlemens n'en seroient jamais venus à bout, were the words used by the late amiable and learned president Des Brosses in my hearing. But you, Sir, are not content to suck in the black bile of the old Gallic magistrates; you emulate the savage cruelty of Nero towards the primitive Christians—you dress up your Jesuits in the semblance of wild beasts, to entice your dogs to devour them.

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

It is curious to observe, how your accusations turn to the credit of the Jesuits. The strict obedience, which was enjoined and practised in their society, is with you their crime; with every man of sense, it is their commendation. It was, in fact, the bond, which cemented them together, which supplied the place of monastic restrictions, incompatible with their various duties. Without it, they would soon have fallen into disorder, they would have been contemned; but they would not have been employed, nor trusted, nor even persecuted.Another of their crimes is theirardent 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 thisadmitted fact stands in direct contradiction to that other crimination, where you execrate their government, asperfect 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, theMonita 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 inItalics, that the Jesuits had obtained fromthe 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, thatthe 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 ofSPLENDIDE MENDAX, until you produceundeniable 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 thesplendide mendaxfrom 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 thedestruction 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.

Flebis, et insignis tota cantaberis urbe.

Hor.Sat. i, l. 2.

Mean time your antagonist is

CLERICUS.

SIR;

In my last, I engaged myself to say a word on yourMonita 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 singleyear. And the contriver of them, you tell us, was Laines, whom you incautiously allow to have been a man ofsuperior 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 commercialspeculations 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 yourMonita 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 theymade 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 despicableMonita? 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 fabricatedSecreta 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 readhis Letters in the Times. The libel, however, though condemned and prohibited at Rome by the Congregation of the Index on the 10th of May, 1616, was industriously propagated, meeting every where its merited contempt. It was victoriously refuted by Gretser, who died in 1625, seventy-five years before the work was discovered, if the admirable Laicus is to be believed. This refutation, which was not wanted, may be read in Gretser's works, edit. of Ratisbon, 1634[98].

Laicus affirms, that an edition of theMonitawas 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 theHouse of Hanover, in 1714, a negotiation had been on foot for the repeal of the penal laws. It miscarried, principally from the still subsisting attachment to the House of Stuart, and partly from the enmity openly professed against the Jesuit missionaries by a small number of catholics, priests and laymen, who insisted, that they should be excepted from the expected act of grace. During the first years of George I, several angry libels and invectives were industriously circulated, purposely to indispose the public against them; and it is observable, that the same jealousy and party rancour had influenced the negotiations instituted in favour of catholics in the reign of Charles II, and even during the usurpation of Cromwell. The edition of Laicus's cherished libel, in 1722, if it be a reality, was probably published on the same principles; and this reflection will soon lead me to detect the ultimate view of Laicus and his associates in the present effusions of slander, which they are scattering abroad. This point may be reserved for future examination.

It is not possible to dwell upon all the wilful falsehoods of the second Letter, with the same extent which I have given to the fable of theMonita. 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 didLaicus 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, thatprotestant Jesuitswould 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 byJesuits? Strange, that the discovery of such a crime should have been reserved for Laicus, ninety-one years after the death of that pontiff[99]! Who, before Laicus, ever wrote,that the assassin of Henry III of France wasinstigatedby Jesuits? Wait another number of theTimes, 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 ofHenry IV; and the whole guilt of their proceedings against Henry IV is exclusively ascribed to Jesuits. And yet this very monarch, whom Laicus callsthe greatest and best king of France, was perhaps, of all men that ever wore a crown, the warmest friend and protector of the Jesuits. Possibly I may be wrong in this assertion; because the glory of Henry IV, in this particular, is certainly rivalled, if not exceeded, by the illustrious favour and protection afforded to the persecuted Jesuists by the late empress Catharine of Russia, and by the present magnanimous emperor Alexander. Henry IV condescended to refute in public the passionate imputations of the president Harlay against the Jesuits. His son, Louis XIII, and his grandson, the famous Louis XIV, imitated his example, in their esteem of the society; and because this was undeniable, behold Laicus, by a bold effort of genius, has transformed the renowned monarch, Louis XIV, into a Jesuit professed of four vows. How a Frenchman must scout such ribaldry! But enough of these extravagancies.In reading them, I began to suspect, that Laicus's aim might be to ridicule the revilers of Jesuits, by imputing to the latter things evidently false, clearly inconsistent, absolutely impossible. Thus, I well remember it, when the absurd tale of the Jesuit king Nicolas of Paraguay amused the Laicuses of the day, the writer of one of the Holland gazettes, in his description of that king's battle against the Spanish and Portuguese troops, endeavoured to turn the fable into ridicule by asserting, that king Nicolas had displayed much bravery, and had fought until three capuchins were shot under him in the action. But I apprehend, that Laicus and his prompters do not rave merely for sport. Their real views will gradually appear: they are not quite unknown to

CLERICUS.

SIR;

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

I have searched your third Letter in quest of evidence, of proof, of historical support; and I find, that the two most prominent names in it are Prynne and De Thou. I may here remark, that it is highly illiberal and unjust to uphold imputations of guilt, even against the worst of culprits, solely upon the asseverations of their declared enemies; and, if these enemies stand otherwise convicted of malicious calumnies, this circumstance alone must go far towards the acquittal of the accused. Now, it is well known,that Prynne and De Thou wrote in the most turbulent times, amidst the distractions and rage of civil wars, occasioned in England and in France by restless sectaries; that they were both inflamed with party rage, and never spared their adversaries. If, then, their testimony is to be admitted as irrefragable, in the present times, in one point, why not in another? If, without a shadow of proof, we must believe with Prynne and you, that the Irish massacre and the British civil wars were to be imputed to Jesuits, and especially to Cuneus, the pope's nuncio, and cardinal Barberini (who, by the way, never were Jesuits), we must also believe every thing written by that foul mouthed lawyer against Charles I, against episcopacy, and against the famous archbishop Laud. But we know, that the fellow's ears were twice bored and cropped in the pillory for his defamatory libels, and that his cheeks were seared with the letters S. L. (seditious libeller.) I believe my readers will agree, that the stigma might, with propriety, be transferred to the unblushing front of the retailer of his falsehoods.Before I speak of De Thou, I will mention only a few of your insufferable fabrications, which hardly Prynne himself would have ventured to utter. 1. "In matters both offaithand 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 haverepeatedlyattacked the decrees of general councils, especially that of Trent[101]." It should seem, that, in a protestant country,attacksupon catholic councils would not be deemed very enormous sins. But, since they have beenrepeatedlycommitted by Jesuits, it would have been easy for Laicus to convict them, at least, in one instance. Why has it been omitted? 3. "The society has prisons,independent of secular authority, in which refractory members are put to death; arightwhich 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 thisright? Did secular sovereigns quietly acquiesce in such a glaring usurpation of their most undoubted right? Of what avail could such a privilege have been to the Jesuits, who always had the power to dismiss refractory members from their society, as they dismissed Jerom Zarowicz, Antonio de Dominis, abbé Raynal, and many others? Poor Laicus cannot answer one of these questions. He has disclaimed all pretension to novelty; he is satisfied with copying malignity; and, to the shame of the Encyclopedia Britannica, he has transcribed this impudent forgery from vol. ix of that work (page510,art. Laines), where, without a shadow of proof or of probability, it is roundly stated, that "Laines,general of the Jesuits, procured from pope Paul IV the privilege of having prisons independent of the secular authority, in which they (the Jesuits) put to death refractory brethren." 4. "One peculiar object of the society is to direct and aid the operations of the Inquisition[103]." It is not easy to ascertain the precise source of this falsehood. Probably it is not borrowed from foreign libels, because, in all catholic countries, it was universally known, that Jesuits never had any concern in the administration, or proceedings, of the Inquisition. 5. "The Jesuits usurped the sovereignty of Paraguay, and held the Indians in slavery[104]." This has been a thousand times said; and it has been as often demonstrated, to the satisfaction of impartial inquirers, that the Jesuits were the steady friends and defenders of the liberty of the Indians, and that the success of their missions in South America was a glorious triumph ofhumanity 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 Portuguesehistory 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 thispoint 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 thelearned 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 ifheshould 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 mostwonderful Jesuit. You have already sported him as the associate of Campion to assassinate queen Bess in 1581, that is, one hundred and four years before James II became king of England; and it is very certain, that he died and was fairly buried at Rome, in the month of April, 1610; that is, twenty-three years before king James II was born. I omit many other Jesuitical pranks, which you allege, relative to English history, because every reader may find the refutation of them, only by looking into Dr. Milner's celebrated Letters to Dr. Sturges, where the profligacy of Elizabeth and her ministers, and the futility of the assassination-plots, with which they charged Jesuits and other priests, are evinced to demonstration. It is now time to think of De Thou.

This writer's character is well drawn by the learned professor of Lovain, Dr. Paquot:—Thuanus audax nimium; hostis Jesuitarum imcabilis; calumniator Guisiorum; protestantium exscriptor, laudator, amicus; sedi apostolicæ etsynodo Tridentinæ, totique rei catholicæ parum æquus.De Thou was fully animated with the general and prevalent spirit of the parliament of Paris, in which he held the rank ofpresident 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 ownimagination. He professes to write the history only of his own times; and, consequently, his story rests upon his own credit, unsupported by vouchers: hisipse dixitis the whole proof. He is wonderfully fond of detailing conspiracies against princes, and, in these fabulous tales, he completely sacrifices the dignity of the historian; he sinks into a romancer and a comedian. He leads his conspirator through cities and provinces, to gather associates; the pope, or the king of Spain, or some cardinal, directs the plot; he has at his finger-ends the closest secrets of the conspiracy; he recites letters, which were never written; and, most commonly, Jesuits, but sometimes Dominicans, even Capuchins, are his principal actors. These men give anticipated absolution to the assassin; they promise him the crown and palm of martyrdom; they impart to him the pope's benediction; and, to use your odious cant, they give him the sacrament upon it. All this is sweet reading to bigoted sectaries; and, with them, the word of De Thou is paramount to demonstrative proof.

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

Having already mentioned the writer of the historical and biographical articles in the Encyclopedia Britannica, I here recommend to Laicus to cultivate a more intimate correspondence with that accurate compiler, if he be still engaged in historical pursuits. They will thus reciprocally gather improvement by communication of their respective discoveries; they will mutually support each other, and advance the common cause in which they are engaged. How strange it is, that the historian of the Encyclopedia, so well informed of whatever concerns Jesuits, should not have known, that Louis XIV was a professed member of that order, bound by four solemnvows;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 thedivine honours, paid to the paganemperors of Rome." The circulation of this fact by Laicus, would at one stroke have crushed the Jesuits, and would have conciliated immortalhonour and credit to theTimes. Who can contemplate the historical labours of these three worthies, the historian of the Encyclopedia, the editor of theTimes, 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, illudoccurrit 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 propagateChristianity, to instruct youth, the respect which they had justly acquired, their disinterestedness, their prudence in commanding, their fidelity in obeying, their moderation in all their dealings, their progress and increase, &c. &c. "Mores inculpatos, bonas artes, magna in vulgum auctoritas ob vitæ sanctimoniam.—Sapienter imperant, fideliter parent.—Novissimi omnium, sectas priores fama vicere, hoc ipso cæteris invisi.—Medii fœdum inter obsequium et tristem arrogantiam, nec fugiunt hominum vitia, nec sequuntur, &c."

You may hear once more fromCLERICUS.

You may hear once more from

CLERICUS.

Ecce iterum Crispinus, et est mihi sæpe vocandusIn partes.Juv.Sat. 4.

Ecce iterum Crispinus, et est mihi sæpe vocandus

In partes.

Juv.Sat. 4.

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

Destroy his slander and his fibs—in vain,The creature's at its dirty work again.Pope.

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 ofhis falsehoods from vainly boasting, that slander unanswered is acknowledged truth. I write not to Laicus, but to his prompters, and to his readers, if there be any left.

They may observe, that the imputations in this fourth Letter are two—king-killing continually practised, and immoral doctrines continually taught by Jesuits: and to this is added a short summary of authorities, by which all this trash is upheld. It would be an easy, but now uninteresting task, to disprove these several imputations; and this has long since been victoriously done. It may suffice to know, that they were all advanced by party men, maddened by civil and religious rage: they are registered only in the murky pages of antiquated libels, and they are here reproduced for the dishonest purpose of blackening virtue, which triumphed over them, when they were fresh. Pamphlets of Hugonots, libels of loose catholics, declamations of rival teachers, who apprehended their own humiliation in the success of the Jesuits,Plaidoyers,Requisitoires, and harangues ofPasquiersandHarlays, sworn enemies of the society,Arrêtsof 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 presidentHarlay, 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. Whenhis 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, thatthe attempt on the life of Louis XV, in 1757, was not imputed to Jesuits, either by parliaments, or by Jansenists. The calumny in the fourth Letter is, I imagine, the undisputed property of Laicus or his prompters[114].

On the second head of accusation—immoral doctrine—I wish to be short. The purity of the Jesuits' doctrine and morals was solemnly attested by the most qualified judges, a special assembly of fifty cardinals, archbishops, and bishops, of the Gallic church, convened by Louis XV; and their report was confirmed by many other prelates, who were not deputed to that assembly. A stronger proof of their innocence was the absolute inability of their enemies to convict a single Jesuit of four thousand, who were spread through France, of any immoral principle, doctrine, or practice. The parliament still pursued their beaten track.Il faut denigrer les Jesuiteswas their maxim. Envy, with her hundred jaundiced eyes, was every where on the watch to discover a flaw. Malice, with her hundred envenomed tongues, stood ready to echo it through the globe. Fruitless industry!The poor parliament was reduced to spare the living Jesuits, not from any regard for truth, but because they knew, that their calumnies would not be believed. They therefore impeached the doctrine and morals of all deceased Jesuits, who had existed during two hundred years, and they intrusted the delicious task of blackening the dead to the impure pens of Jansenists, headed principally by Dom. Clemencet. From this man's foul laboratory proceeded theExtraits 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 byLa Reponse auxAssertions. 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 bookDes Assertionsto 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 perfectdisparates, 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 theintercourse of friendship and esteem. But Coudrette a Jesuit! How can this be credited? New personages in comedies are introduced to excite new interest; and was Coudrette ever before named in this island? Indeed his name is so very obscure, that it is difficult to find, even a Frenchman, who ever heard it. It has however obtained a small niche in two French historical dictionaries, the first of which,par une societé des gens-de-lettres, though friendly to the Jansenists, styles Coudretteun ennemi acharné des Jesuits. The other, by the well known abbé Feller, a man of very general information, asserts, that Coudrette had been from his youth,de tres bonne heure, a violent partisan of Jansenism, closely connected with the abbé Boursier, one of the heroes of the sect. In 1735 and 1738, during the ministry of cardinal de Fleury, he was confined by alettre de cachetfirst 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 theNouvelles Ecclesiastiques, the well knownJansenistical gazette. When the parliaments denounced open war against the Jesuits, he came forward a volunteer in the cause, and printed hisHistoire general des Jesuitesin the course of 1761: but Coudrette and his history were perfectly forgotten in France before 1762. How could a copy of it have escaped into England? It has found its proper repository on the shelves of Laicus, or his employer[115].

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

Though I have proved Laicus and his associates to be unprincipled impostors, I have said nothing of them and their assertions, but what every man of virtue and information knows to be true. Every prince, every observer knows, that the overthrow of the society of Jesus was the first link in the concatenation of causes, which produced the late horrible successes of rebellion and infidelity. They all know, that the Jesuits, when their body was intire, were among the most active supporters of religion, learning, good order, and subordination to established powers, though, perhaps, professing religious creeds different from their own. Above all, they know, that Jesuits were every wherestaunch 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 besurprised, 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

Back to Index Next