The Jesuits

Transcribed from the 1852 J. H. Jackson edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
BY THE REV. EDWARD HOARE, MA., INCUMBENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, RAMSGATE.
Second Edition.
LONDON: J. H. JACKSON, ISLINGTON GREEN, AND PATERNOSTER-ROW; HATCHARD, PICCADILLY; AND SEELEYS, FLEET STREET.
1852.
Protestant Associations , or other parties , desirous of circulating large numbers of this pamphlet , may obtain them at a considerable reduction , by applying to the Publisher .
The first edition of the following pages was prepared as a Lecture for the Islington Protestant Institute. The delivery of that Lecture has led to a more careful study of the subject, so that in this second edition there is a considerable quantity of additional information, which I trust may be found important.
One gentleman has done me the honour of noticing the first edition, and publishing a pamphlet in order to show that the constitution quoted on page 32 should be rendered as the reader will find it there. It is a matter of great regret to me that he should have thought it right to say of the remainder of the lecture, that “statements which few surely can believe, will, he trusts, produce in the minds of readers an effect the very reverse of that intended.” If he had pointed out any inaccuracy, I should have been only too happy to correct it; and any proof of error on my part would have been much more satisfactory to his readers than a general and unsupported insinuation. In the present edition he will find, I believe, a clear reference to every important extract; and abundant opportunity is afforded him, if possible, to disprove my statements.
E. H.
Ramsgate , Feb. 12, 1852.
Of all the various human combinations that have ever risen to adorn or to disgrace humanity, the Society of the Jesuits is perhaps the most remarkable. The great men of the world have constructed mighty schemes for its government, and the utmost powers of the human mind have again and again been called out in order to combine men for the attainment of some given end; but of all these varied schemes, I believe it may be safely affirmed that there never yet has been known one so admirably suited to its end, so beautifully adjusted in its parts, so wonderfully adapted to the real condition of society, or possessing so extraordinary a capability of applying its movements, so as to meet the ways and wishes of all those countless characters upon whom its action is employed. The question whether such an institution is a curse or a blessing to the human race must, of course, depend on two things, viz., the object to which its efforts are directed, and the principles by which they are controlled. If that object be the honour of the Lord Jesus Christ, and if those principles be in harmony with the Word of God, then, clearly, so varied and effective an instrumentality must act most powerfully for the benefit of man; but if, on the other hand, its object be to pervert the truth and impede its progress,—if, again, the principles of its action be flatly opposed, not merely to the Word of God, but also to the most elementary maxims of even natural morality,—then it is equally clear that the perfection of the instrument merely adds to its fatal power, and just in proportion to the completeness of the machinery will be the deadliness of the blight which it will produce upon society.