They considered themselves as chosen soldiers, bound to the service of God, and to pay a most implicit obedience to the Pope, his vicar on earth.

During the prosecution, carried on against them in France and Portugal, they broke through one of their most 'essential rules and produced the mysterious volumes, or journals of their institution, in evidence for their justification. This became a death blow to the whole system, as they had heretofore been kept an impenetrable secret, to all but the higher ranks of their order. There is a most remarkable passage in a sermon of archbishop Brower, preached in Dublin, in the year 1551, which is well vouched, and though long, is worthy of being perpetuated. It is mentioned by Buck, in his Dictionary, 1st vol. to whom I am indebted for much information on this head. "But there are a new fraternity of late sprung up, who call themselves Jesuits, who will deceive many, much after the Scribes and Pharisees' manner. Among 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 an Atheist, an Atheist ; with the Jews, a Jew; with the reformers, a reformer, 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 be spread over the whole world; shall be admitted into the councils of princes, and they never the wiser; charming 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 it; 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."

Their destruction was introduced by the charge of a conspiracy to assassinate the king of Portugal, in which they were accused with having a hand; whether with justice, or not, it is not necessary to our subject to say. The court, alarmed at the influence of this powerful body of men, who had thus insinuated themselves into (almost) every cabinet of Europe, and dreading their intrigues, proceeded to abolish the whole order throughout Portugal, in the year 1759, notwithstanding the great devotion of that court to the authority of the holy see, who had incorporated and patronized this society as a chief instrument of its power, and an essential mean of its influence in the world.

The indignation of Europe was greatly roused on this occasion, and the different courts took part with Portugal against the society. France having been for some years distracted with disputes between their parliaments and clergy, on account of the famous Bull unigenitus, (issued against the Jansinests, with whom the Jesuits had an irritating dispute,) which had been obtained and enforced by them, followed the example thus set her; and, in 1764, finally dissolved the society in France, and declared its members incapable of holding any clerical or municipal office. Their colleges were seized ; -their effects confiscated; and the order annihilated for ever. Spain and Sicily did the same in 1767, and Pope Clement, the XIV. totally suppressed and abolish

ed the whole order in 1773, though much against his will.

I mention, particularly, the dissolution of this religious order, because it has been justly considered, as one of the principal supports of the Catholic Hierarchy, since the institution of that society.*-an important instrument in the hands of the Papacy;-and by which the see of Rome had influenced and governed the politics of Europe for more than two centuries.

The loss of this order was a severe blow to the apostasy and its adherents, although brought about by those monarchs, who had been greatly devoted to the interests of the Popes, and was finally accomplished by the Pope himself, as a last struggle to maintain his influence with the powers of Europe, being violently urged to this mortifying instance of self denial, by the combined interests of France, Spain, and Portugal.

So true are all the predictions of sacred writ, though at the time of their promulgation, there did not appear the least probability, or scarcely a possibility of their

The Jesuits are the firmest supporters, the most excellent apologists, and the most devoted servants of the holy see. Deprived of their assistance, it resembles a despot stripped of his Pretorian guards. They formed, if we may so say, the noblesse of the Papal monarchy. And it was a truth indistinctly perceived every where, a truth, which the illustrious Montesquieu had clearly expressed, and which experience has, since his time, incontestibly demonstrated, that no monarchy could exist without its attendant nobility. Thus, since the abolition of the society of Jesuits, the Papal authority has been seen gradually tending towards its ruin; and it is probably owing more to this very cause, than to the progress of knowledge, that its rapid and easy overthrow ought to be attributed.t

† Memoires Histor. et philoses sur Pie VI. et son pontif. &c.

being verified. "And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast (that is, those powers that before had but one mind, and had given their power and strength unto the beast) these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire, for God hath put it in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.*

From 1764 to 1775, the disputes between Great Britain, (another of the ten kingdoms) and her colonies

* But although the fall of the Papal power would probably have been effected, without the intervention of the French revolution, from the natural progress of knowledge, it is not unworthy of observation, that whilst those powers, which hitherto had been the avowed supporters of Papal pretensions against the spread of heresy and schism, had become rebellious against Papal rights, consecrated by sacred prescription, and, in some cases, menaced even the personal authority of the Pontiff; the schismatic princes of the north affected to treat the holy see with unequivocal marks of deference and distinction. Frederick the great, and Catharine (of Russia) regarding the Pope, less as a fallen and vanquished enemy, than a respectable relic of a worn out superstition, sometimes amused themselves by the singularity of affectionate correspondence, and the interchange of benevolent offices with the holy Father. The king of Poland had bowed with resignation, when the code of the enlightened Zamoiski, restraining the jurisdiction of the Papal see, and abridging the privileges of the clergy and the monastic orders, had met the indignation of the Pontiff, and through the ecclesiastical influence, the refusal of the diet. Gustavus III. had published an edict, giving full toleration to the Catholics of Sweden, and had paid his respects to the holy father in the seat of his spiritual empire: and the stern independents of the other hemisphere, every way remote from the modern Babylon, had solicited and obtained, through the organs of congress, a consecrated primate for the Catholic part of their community."+

New Ann. Reg. 1798, p. 298, 299.

began, and were carried on to such a crisis, by the obstinate and unreasonable determination of the British cabinet to bring them to unconditional submission, as to produce the war of 1776, by which she lost the thirteen American colonies, who, with the aid of the king of France, secured their independence, and in 1783 were acknowledged, by the crown of Great Britain, as separated from her jurisdiction, and an independent nation, under the style and title of " the United States of America."

By this glorious and important revolution, an asylum for all the oppressed of the earth, of every nation, and every party, was not only secured in this free and fertile region, but the principles of rational liberty were established and made known to the world, and the inestimable fact (till now scarcely credited) of a people governing themselves, strictly speaking, verified by actual experi

ment.

But before we proceed any further in our intended investigation, it will tend to cast much light on our future observations, to take a short review of the state of things in Germany and France, for some years before and at this time, as far as relates to the project of a reform of the governments, by many who called themselves philosophers and friends of the human race.

When king James, of England, abdicated the crown, and with his followers took refuge in France, they carried with them the knowledge of Free Masonry ; and for their amusement erected several lodges in that kingdom, which, in a few years, spread over the conti

nent.

The known principle of secrecy, fundamental in the institution of this society, which, in England, had ever been, at least politically, innocent, was made use of