were marked with a note of infamy, and their perusal prohibited, though with certain restrictions. The pursuit of knowledge was earnestly recommended to the clergy, and honourable marks of distinction, as well as ample rewards, were bestowed on those who made the most remarkable progress in the cultivation of letters. And, to enlarge no farther on this head, the youth, in general, were more carefully instructed in the principles and precepts of their religion, than they had formerly been. Thus it happens, that signal advantages are frequently derived from what are looked upon as the greatest evils, and much wisdom and improvement are daily acquired in the school of opposition and adversity. It is more than probable, that the church of Rome would never have been enriched with the acquisitions we have now been mentioning, had it continued in that state of uninterrupted ease and undisputed authority that nourish a spirit of indolence and luxury; and had not the pretended heretics attacked its territories, trampled upon its jurisdiction, and eclipsed a great part of its ancient majesty and splendour. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of Jesuits. X. The monastic orders and religious societies have been the order called always considered by the Roman pontiffs as the principal support of their authority and dominion. It is chiefly by them that they rule the church, maintain their influence on the minds of the people, and augment the number of their votaries. And, indeed, various causes contribute to render the connection between the pontiff's and these religious communities much more intimate, than that which subsists between them and the other clergy, of whatever rank or order we may suppose them to be. It was therefore judged necessary, when the success of Luther, and the progress of the Reformation, had effaced such a considerable part of the majesty of Rome, to found some new religious fraternity, that should, in a particular manner, be devoted to the interests of the Roman pontiff, and the very express end of whose institution should be to renew the vigour of a declining hierarchy, to heal the deep wound it had received, to preserve those parts of the papal dominions that remained yet entire, and to augment them by new accessions. This was so much the more necessary, as the two famous Mendicant societies, by whose ministry the popes had chiefly governed during many ages, and that with the greatest success and glory, had now lost, on several accounts, a considerable part of their influence and authority, and were thereby less capable of serving the church with efficacy and vigour than they had formerly been. What the pontiff sought for, in this declining state of his affairs, was found in that famous and most powerful society, which, deriving its title from the name of Jesus, were commonly called Jesuits, while they were styled by their enemies Loyolites, and sometimes Inigists,' from the Spanish name of their founder.s This founder was Ignatius Loyola, a Spanish knight, who, from an illiterate soldier, became an unparalleled fanatic; a fanatic, indeed, of a fertile and enterprising genius,' who, after These two orders were the Francis cans and the Dominicans. The Spanish name of the founder of the order of Jesuits was Don Inigo de Guipuscoa. The writers who have given the most particular and circumstantial accounts of the order of the Jesuits, are enumerated by Christoph. Aug. Salig, in his Historia August. Confessionis, tom. ii. P. 73. Many Jesuits have written the life of this extraordinary man; but the greatest part of these biographers seem more intent upon advancing the glory of their founder, than solicitous about the truth and fidelity of their relations; and hence the most common events, and the most trivial actions that concern Ignatius, are converted into prodigies and miracles. The history of this enterprising fanatic has been composed with equal truth and ingenuity, though seasoned with a very large portion of wit and pleasantry, by a French having passed through various scenes of life, came to Rome, and, being there directed by the prudent counsels of persons much wiser than himself, was rendered capable of instituting such an order as the state of the church at that time essentially required." The nature of the tution of the Jesuits. XI. The Jesuits hold a middle rank between the monks order and insti- and the secular clerks, and with respect to the nature of their institute, approach nearer to the regular canons than to any other order. For though they resemble the monks in this, that they live separate from the multitude, and are bound by certain religious vows, yet they are exempt from stated hours of worship, and other numerous and burdensome services that lie heavy upon the monastic orders, that they may have more time to employ in the education of youth, in directing the consciences of the faithful, in edifying the church by their pious and learned productions, and in transacting other matters that relate to the prosperity of the papal hierarchy. Their whole order is divided into three classes. The first comprehends the professed members, who live in what are called the professed houses; the second contains the scholars, who instruct the youth in the colleges; and to the third belong the novices, who live in the houses of probation. The professed members, besides the three ordinary vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, that are common to all the monastic tribes, are obliged to take a fourth, by which they solemnly bind themselves "to go without deliberation or delay wherever the pope shall think fit to send them;" they are also a kind of Mendicants, being without any fixed subsistence, and living upon the liberality of pious and well-disposed people. The other Jesuits, and more particularly the scholars, are possessed of large revenues, and are obliged, in case of urgent necessity, to contribute to the support of the professed members. These latter, who are few in number, considering the multitudes that belong to the other classes, are, generally speaking, men of prudence and learning, deeply skilled in the affairs of the world, and dexterous in transacting all kinds of business from long experience, added to their natural penetration and sagacity; in a word, they are the true and perfect Jesuits. The rest have, indeed, the title, but are rather the companions and assistants of the writer, who calls himself Hercules Rasiel de Selve. This work, which is divided into two volumes, is entitled, Histoire de l'Admirable Don Inigo de Guipuscoa, Chevalier de la Vierge, et Fondateur de la Monarchie des Inighistes; and it has passed already through two editions at the Hague. Not only the Protestants, but also a great number of the more learned and judicious Roman catholics, have unanimously denied that Ignatius Loyola had either learning sufficient to compose the writings of which he is said to be the author, or genius enough to form the society of which he is considered as the founder. They maintain, on the contrary, that he was no more than a flexible instrument in the hands of able and ingenious men, who made use of his fortitude and fanaticism to answer their purposes; and that persons, much more learned than he, were employed to compose the writings which bear his name. See Geddes, Miscellaneous Tracts, vol. iii. p. 429. The greatest part of his works are supposed to have proceeded from the pen of his secretary John de Palanco; see La Croze, Histoire du Christianisme en Ethiopie, p. 55, 271. The Benedictines affirm, that his book of Spiritual Exercises is copied from the work of a Spanish Benedictine monk whose name was Cisneros (sce La Vie de M. de la Croze par Jordan), and the constitutions of the society were probably the work of Lainez and Salmeron, two learned men who were among its first members. See Histoire des Religieux de la Compagnie de Jesus, tom. i. p. 115. Other writers add a fourth class, consisting of the spiritual and temporal coadjutors, who assisted the professed members, and perform the same functions, without being bound by any more than the three simple vows; although, after a long and approved exercise of their employment, the spiritual coadjutors are admitted to the fourth vow, and thus become professed members. This is a feigned name; the real author was Monsieur Le Vier, an ingenious bookseller who lived formerly at the Hague. Jesuits, than real members of that mysterious order: and it is only in a very vague and general sense, that the denomination of Jesuits can be applied to them. But, what is still more remarkable, the secrets of the society are not revealed even to all the professed members. It is only a small number of this class, whom old age has enriched with thorough experience, and long trial declared worthy of such an important trust, that are instructed in the mysteries of the order. The zeal of the Jesuits for the interests of the XII. The church and court of Rome, since the remark able period when so many kingdoms and provinces withRoman pontiff's. drew from their jurisdiction, have derived more influence and support from the labours of this single order, than from all their other emissaries and ministers, and all the various exertions of their power and opulence. It was this famous company, which, spreading itself with an astonishing rapidity throughout the greatest part of the habitable world, confirmed the wavering nations in the faith of Rome, restrained the progress of the rising sects, gained over a prodigious number of Pagans in the most barbarous and remote parts of the globe to the profession of popery, and attacked the pretended heretics of all denominations; appearing almost alone in the field of controversy, sustaining with fortitude and resolution the whole burden of this religious war, and surpassing, by far, the champions of antiquity, both in the subtilty of their reasonings, and the eloquence of their discourses. Nor is this all; for, by the affected softness and complying spirit that reigns in their conversation and manners, by their consummate skill and prudence in civil transactions, by their acquaintance with the arts and sciences, and a variety of other qualities and accomplishments, they insinuated themselves into the peculiar favour and protection of statesmen, persons of the first distinction, and even of crowned heads. Nor did any thing contribute more to give them that ascendancy they have universally acquired, than the cunning and dexterity with which they relaxed and modified their system of morality, accommodating it artfully to the propensities of mankind, and depriving it, on certain occasions, of that severity that rendered it burdensome to the sensual and voluptuous. By this they supplanted, in the palaces of the great, and in the courts of princes, the Dominicans and other rigid doctors, who had formerly held there the tribunal of confession and the direction of consciences, and engrossed to themselves an exclusive and irresistible influence in those retreats of royal grandeur, from whence issue the counsels that govern mankind. An order of this nature could not but be highly adapted to promote the interests of the court of Rome; and this, indeed, was its great end, and the leading purpose which it never lost sight of; employing every where its utmost vigilance and art to support the authority of the Roman pontiffs, and to save them from the contempt, of which they must have been naturally apprehensive, in consequence of a revolution that opened the eyes of a great part of mankind. W All these circumstances placed the order of Jesuits in a conspicuous point of light. Their capacity, their influence, and their zeal for the papacy, had a very advantageous retrospect upon themselves, as it swelled the sources of their opulence, and procured to their society an uncommon, and indeed an excessive degree of veneration and respect. But it is also true, that these signal honours and advantages exposed them, at the same Before the order of Jesuits was instituted, the Dominicans alone directed the consciences of all the European kings and princes. And it was by the Jesuits that the Dominicans were deprived of a privilege so precious to spiritual ambition. See Peyrat, Antiquités de la Chapelle de France, livr. i. p. 322. time, to the envy of other religious orders; that their enemies multiplied from day to day; and that they were often involved in the greatest perplexities and perils. Monks, courtiers, civil magistrates, public schools, united their efforts to crush this rising fabric of ambition and policy, and a prodigious number of books were published to prove, that nothing could be more detrimental to the interests of religion, and the well-being of society, than the institution of the Jesuits. In France, Poland, and other countries, they were declared public enemies of their country, traitors, and parricides, and were even banished with ignominy. But the prudence, or rather the cunning and artifice of the disciples of Loyola, calmed this storm of opposition, and, by gentle and imperceptible methods, restored the credit and authority of their order, delivered it from the perils with which it had been threatened, and even put it in a state of defence against the future attempts of his adversaries. XIII. The pontiffs of this century that ruled the Roman Pontiffs. church after the decease of Alexander VI. were Pius III., Julius II., Leo X., Adrian VI., whose characters and transactions have been already taken notice of; Clement VII., of the house of Medicis; Paul III., of the illustrious family of Farnese: See the Histoire des Religieux de la Compagnie de Jesus, tom. III. passim; Boulay, Hist. Academ. Paris, tom. vi. p. 559648, et passim; as well as almost all the writers who have given accounts of the sixteenth century. The character and spirit of the Jesuits were admirably described, and their transactions and fate foretold, with a sagacity almost prophetic, so early as the year 1551, in a sermon preached in Christ Church, Dublin, by Dr. George Brown, bishop of that see; a copy of which was given to Sir James Ware, and may be found in the Harleian Miscellany, vol. v. p. 566. The remarkable passage that relates to the Jesuits is as follows: But there are a new fraternity of late sprung up, who call themselves Jesuits, which will deceive many, who are much after the Scribes' and Pharisees' manner. Amongst the Jews they shall strive to abolish the truth, and shall come very near to do it. For these sorts will turn themselves into several forms; with the heathens a heathenist, with the Atheists an Atheist, with the Jews a Jew, with the Reformers a Reformade, purposely to know your intentions, your minds, your hearts, and your inclinations, and thereby bring you at last to be like the fool that said in his heart, There was no God. These shall spread over the whole world, shall be admitted into the councils of princes, and they never the wiser; charming of them, yea, making your princes reveal their hearts and the secrets therein, and yet they not perceive it; which will happen from falling from the law of God by neglect of fulfilling the law of God, and by winking at their sins; yet in the end, God, to justify his law, shall suddenly cut off this society, even by the hands of those who have most succoured them, and made use of them; so that, at the end, they shall become odious to all nations. They shall be worse than Jews, having no resting-place upon earth, and then shall a Jew have more favour than a Jesuit."-This singular passage, I had almost said prediction, seems to be accomplished in part, by the present supression of the Jesuits in France, (I write this note in the year 1762 ;) and by the universal indignation which the perfidious stratagems, iniquitous avarice, and ambitious views of that society, have excited among all the orders of the French nation, from the throne to the cottage. It was from a foolish ambition of resembling Cæsar (a very singular model for a Christian pontiff) that this pope, whose name was Rovere, assumed the denomination of Julius II. It may indeed be said, that Cæsar was sovereign pontiff (pontifex maximus), and that the pope of Rome enjoyed the same dignity, though with some change in the title. a The sentiments and character of Paul III. have given rise to much debate, even in our time, especially between the late cardinal Quirini, and Keisling, Schelhorn, and some other writers. The cardinal has used his utmost efforts to defend the probity and merit of this pontiff; while the two learned men above mentioned represent him as a perfidious politician, whose predominant qualities were dissimulation and fraud. See Quirinus, De Gestis Pauli III. Farnesii, Brixiæ, 1745, in 4to. Among the res gestre of Paul III. were two bastards, whose offspring, Farnese and Sforza, were made cardinals in their infancy. See Keislingii Epist. de Gestis Pauli III. Schelhorn. Amonitates Hist. Eccles, et Liter. But the licentious exploits of this pope do not end here. He was reproached in a book published before his death under the name of Ochino, with having poisoned his mother and his nephew, with having ravished a young virgin at Ancona, with an incestuous and adulterous commerce with his daughter Julius III., whose name was John Maria Giocci; Marcellus II.; Paul IV., whose name, before his elevation to the pontificate, was John Peter Caraffa; Pius IV., who was ambitious of being looked upon as a branch of the house of Medicis, and who had been known, before his promotion, by the name of John Angeli de Medicis; Pius V., a Dominican, called Michael Ghisleri, a man of an austere and melancholy turn of mind, by which, and other similar qualities, he obtained a place in the kalendar; Gregory XIII., who was known previously by the name of Hugo Buoncampagno; Sextus V., otherwise named Felix Peretti di Montalto, who, in pride, magnificence, intrepidity, and strength of mind, and in other great virtues and vices, surpassed by far all his predecessors; Urban VIII; Gregory XIV.; Innocent IX.; the shortness of whose reigns prevented them from acquiring reputation, or falling into reproach. Among these pontiffs there were better and worse; but they were all men of exemplary characters, when compared with the greatest part of those who governed the church before the reformation. The number of adversaries, both foreign and domestic, that arose to set limits to the despotism of Rome, and to call in question the authority and jurisdiction of its pontiff, rendered the college of cardinals and the Roman nobility more cautious and circumspect in the choice of a spiritual ruler; nor did they almost dare, in these critical circumstances of opposition and danger, to intrust such an important dignity to any ecclesiastic, whose barefaced licentiousness, frontless arrogance, or inconsiderate youth, might render him peculiarly obnoxious to reproach, and furnish thereby new matter of censure to their adversaries. It is also worthy of observation, that from this period of opposition, occasioned by the ministry of the reformers, the Roman pontiffs have never pretended to such an exclusive authority as they had formerly usurped; nor could they, indeed, make good such pre Constantia, who died of poison administered by the pope, to prevent any interruption in his odious amours. It is said, in the same book, that being caught in bed with his nicce Laura Farnese, who was the wife of Nic. Quercei, he received from this incensed husband a stab of a dagger, of which he bore the marks to his death. See Sleidan, Comment. de Statu Relig. et Republicæ, Carolo Quinto Cæsare, lib. xxi. p. 667, edit. Argentor. This was the worthy pontiff, who was scarcely seated in the papal chair, when he bestowed the cardinal's hat on the keeper of his monkeys, a boy chosen from among the lowest of the populace, and who was also the infamous object of his unnatural pleasures. See Thuan. lib. vi. & xv.; Hoffing, Hist. Eccl. tom. v. p. 572; and more especially Sleidan, Histor. lib. xxi. folio, m. 609. When Julius was reproached by the cardinals for introducing such an unworthy member into the sacred college, a person who had neither learning, nor virtue, nor merit of any kind, he impudently replied by asking them, "What virtue or merit they had found in him, that could induce them to place him (Julius) in the papal chair ?" Nothing could exceed the arrogance and ambition of this violent and impetuous pontiff, as appears from his treatment of Queen Elizabeth. See Burnet's History of the Re formation. It was he who, by a bull, pre- e Pius V. and Sextus V. made a much greater figure in the annals of fame than the other pontiffs here mentioned; the former on account of his excessive severity against heretics, and the famous bull In Coena Domini, which is read publicly at Rome every year on the festival of the holy sacrament; and the latter, in consequence of many services rendered to the church, and numberless attempts carried on with spirit, fortitude, generosity, and perseverance, to promote its glory, and maintain its authority.-Several modern writers employed their pens in describing the life and actions of Pius V. so soon as they saw him canonised, in the year 1712, by Clement XI. Of his bull, entitled, In Coena Domini, and the tumults it occasioned, there is an ample account in Giannone's Histoire Civile de Naples, tom. iv. p. 248. The life of Sextus V. has been written by Gregory Leti, and translated into several languages; it is however a very indifferent work, and the relations it contains are, in many places, inaccurate and unfaithful. |