CHAPTER I.
Remarks on the Objects of the Author of "A brief Account of the Jesuits," and on his mode of conducting his Argument.
The professed objects of the author of a pamphlet, entitled "A brief Account of the Jesuits," as stated in a preface, are "to examine the propriety of extending papal patronage and protestant protection to the Jesuits, and, as stated in page 2 of the pamphlet, to show, that the revival of the order is so pregnant with danger as to call for the interference of parliament." The plan he pursues to effect these objects is, to give a summary of the history of the order, to furnish some historical evidences in support of its correctness, and to argue from these for the affirmative of his proposition. The plan is well enough laid; but the author
has executed it in such a manner as to make it evident, that he was not in search of truth, that he deceives himself if he thinks he was, that he is only a violent and abusive disputant, that he is an enemy to the catholics in general, and that, the question on their claims being exhausted, he renovates the combat by attacking them through the sides of the Jesuits. When an advocate handles a cause, which it is his duty to gain for his client, we know, that he brings forward every fact, and urges every argument, that tends to support the positions on which his cause hinges, sedulously masking every circumstance that contravenes his statement, and avoiding every suggestion that weakens his reasoning upon it. But the man, who is in pursuit of truth, of whatever nature it be, looks at his object on all sides; he handles it, not to make of it what he wishes, but to determine what it is; he analyses, he re-composes; he takes the good and the bad as he finds them, and truth results from his investigation. Let us see which of these two characters belongs to the writer of the pamphlet. Every word of his
"Historical Summary" is intended to place the Jesuits in an odious point of view; nor is a single sentence admitted into it by which one could be led to imagine, that any thing good had ever originated from them, or that they were not universally demons in the shape of men. The writer goes in search of matter to compile his Summary, and he finds an account of the Jesuits composed on the authority of various publications, which have appeared at different times. In a part of this narrative, he finds all that has been said to blacken the order, and, also, a genuine passage of their history, which no man of any feeling can read without enthusiastic admiration; now, would the writer, who was in search of truth, have selected only that which was calculated to produce condemnation, without giving his reader an opportunity of comparing facts and drawing his own inferences? Yet this is really the case with this enemy of the catholic cause, whose Summary is verbatim extracted from Robertson's Charles V, as far as it answered the purpose of
his attack. Who, after reading the part selected, would suspect, if he did not know it before, that the following paragraph, from the same elegant pen, closed the character of the Jesuits, and must have confounded the eye of their assailant, since it failed to wring a tribute of praise from his heart?—"But as I have pointed out the dangerous tendency of the constitution and spirit of the order with the freedom becoming an historian, the candour and impartiality no less requisite in that character call on me to add one observation: That no class of regular clergy in the Romish church has been more eminent for decency, and even purity of manners, than the major part of the order of Jesuits. The maxims of an intriguing, ambitious, interested policy, might influence those, who governed the society, and might even corrupt the heart, and pervert the conduct of some individuals, while the greater number, engaged in literary pursuits, or employed in the functions of religion, was left to the guidance of those common principles, which restrain men from
vice, and excite them to what is becoming and laudable[[2]]."
The author, in a note, acknowledges, that his Summary does not wholly lay claim to
originality. It is, in fact, all copied: why then did he not cite his authority? and, when he was copying, why did he omit to copy the passages that stared him in the face? Clearly from an attorney-like motive, because it would have injured his cause, and would have prepossessed his reader with an idea, that, whether the charges against some of the rulers of the order were well-founded or not, the generality of the Jesuits were estimable men, devoting themselves to the good of mankind, and who had spread over the earth a very considerable share of human happiness: clearly because he foresaw, that his reader would argue with himself, that if, in despotic times, only a few busied themselves with political affairs, while the body at large were good men, engaged in zealously promoting the welfare, both temporal and eternal, of their fellow-creatures, it would be unnatural to suppose, that, in the present enlightened times, the many would become corrupt, or even the few engage again in intrigues dangerous to society; and that he
would conclude, that the labour of the author resolved itself into a new attempt against tolerating the catholic religion; while in favour of toleration he would find, in addition to the suggestions of his reason, his memory supplied with innumerable, irrefragable arguments, which for years past have resounded throughout the empire, in the houses of parliament as well as in the remotest villages, enforced by princes of the realm with all the energy of learning and of eloquence, as well as by individuals of every class of men, in speeches, and in writings, in books, pamphlets, and the columns of such newspapers as are open to liberal discussion[[3]].
The writer of the pamphlet, not satisfied with omitting whatever might tend to defeat his object, industriously rakes out the most atrocious imputations from the avowed enemies of the Jesuits, and classes their authorities with genuine history, taking them for granted, never examining the hands through which they passed, happy in having one and only one great name on his side, that of the celebrated and very extraordinary genius, Pascal. When the Provincial Letters were alluded to, as attacking a supposed lax system of morals, did not truth require that they should be stated to have been the satirical effusions of a writer, who had espoused the cause of the Jansenists, the violent opposers of the Jesuits; and that the ridicule which they contained had been declared by another great wit, who was no enemy to ridicule, nor friend to religion (Voltaire), to be completely misapplied. A lover of truth, when
balancing opinions as proofs, would not have failed to quote from him the following passage: "It is true, indeed, that the whole book (the Provincial Letters) was built upon a false foundation; for the extravagant notions of a few Spanish and Flemish Jesuits were artfully ascribed to the whole society. Many absurdities might likewise have been discovered among the Dominican and Franciscan casuists, but this would not have answered the purpose, for the whole raillery was to be levelled only at the Jesuits. These letters were intended to prove, that the Jesuits had formed a design to corrupt mankind; a design which no sect of society ever had, or can have."
With such enemies as the Jansenists, will it be thought extraordinary, that a thousand fabrications of those days blackening the Jesuits may be referred to? With such enemies as in later times appeared against them, in the host of new philosophers and jacobins, is it wonderful that there should be modern forgeries?
One such suffrage, as that which I have quoted from Robertson, is of itself sufficient to outweigh folios of charges originating in the jealous passions of a rival sect, in the effusions of a mad mistaken philosophy, or in magisterial persecution, which, to use the vigorous language of a living genius, in "the destruction of the Jesuits, that memorable instance of puerile oppression, of jealousy, ambition, injustice, and barbarity, for these all concurred in the act, gave to public education a wound, which a whole century perhaps will not be able to heal. It freed the phalanx of materialists from a body of opponents, which still made them tremble. It remotely encouraged the formation of sanguinary clubs, by causing the withdrawing of all religious and prudent congregations, in which the savage populace of the Faubourg St. Antoine were tamed by the disciples of an Ignatius and a Xavier. Such men as Porée and La Rue, Vaniere and Jouvenci, in the academic chairs; Bourdaloue, Cheminais, Neuville, L'Enfant, in the pulpit;
Segaud, Duplessis, and Beauregard[[4]], in the processions of the cross, in the public streets and ways, were, perhaps, alike necessary to secure tranquillity in this world and happiness in the next[[5]]."
In assisting my memory, I have been led to compare the writer's extracts from Robertson with the pages of the historian himself, and I have found him, not only occasionally disfiguring the style on points of little moment, by turning the words, but giving to the author's words a sense which they were not intended to bear, by means of Italic types and additions. For instance: the historian says, "As it was the professed intention of the order of Jesuits to labour with
unwearied zeal in promoting the salvation of men, this engaged them, of course, in many active functions." On reading Robertson's work, would any one imagine, that the author meant to insinuate, that the intention was insincere, and a mere cloak to political vices? Is it not clear from all he writes, as well as from this passage taken singly, that he gave the Jesuits credit for their sincerity in devoting themselves to the salvation of men? Yet has the writer of the pamphlet, by causing the word professed to be printed in Italics, called upon his reader to take his sense of Robertson's words, and to believe, that the word professed implies deceit, instead of the open and declared intention of the Jesuits. Not content with this low falsifying of Robertson's ideas by Italic implication, he practises the same trick by an Italic addition of some lines of his own to the text of the historian, as follows: "their great and leading maxim having uniformly been, to do evil that good might come." Can any thing be more reprehensible?
I will adduce one instance more of the disingenuousness of this writer. Speaking, exclusively, of the Jesuits, he charges them with "rendering Christianity utterly odious in the vast empire of Japan[[6]]," and with "enormities in China Proper." To have implicated other priests would not, as Voltaire observed, answer the purpose: the Jesuits, as before, must be isolated to be recrushed. Now, in this, as in the other accusations, we shall find the anti-catholic writers including other orders. Let us see what one of these writers says upon this occasion: after speaking of the pride, avarice, and folly of the clergy, he tells us of an
execution of twenty-six persons, "in the number whereof were two foreign Jesuits, and several other fathers of the Franciscan order." And a little after, the same writer says, "some Franciscan friars were guilty at this time of a most imprudent step: they, during the whole of their abode in the country, preached openly in the streets of Macao, where they resided; and of their own accord built a church, contrary to the imperial commands, and contrary to the advice and earnest solicitations of the Jesuits[[7]]." The authority of the Encyclopedia Britannica will not be objected to by the enemies of the catholics; nor, I presume, will that of Montesquieu, who gives a very different reason for the Christian religion being so odious in Japan: "We have already," says he, "mentioned the perverse temper of the people of Japan. The magistrates considered the firmness which Christianity inspires, when they attempted to make the people renounce their faith, as in
itself most dangerous: they fancied that it increased their obstinacy. The law of Japan punishes severely the least disobedience. They ordered them to renounce the Christian religion: they did not renounce it; this was disobedience: they punished this crime; and the continuance in disobedience seemed to deserve another punishment[[8]]." As to the enormities in China, we shall find, upon inquiry, that the Jesuits were not more responsible for those. The following is an extract from a geographical account of China: "P. Michael Rogu, a Neapolitan Jesuit, first opened the mission in China, and led the way in which those of his order that followed him have acquired so much reputation. He was succeeded by P. Ricci, of the same society, who continued the work with such success, that he is considered by the Jesuits as the principal founder of this mission. He was a man of very extraordinary talents. He had the art of rendering himself agreeable
to every body, and by that means acquired the public esteem. He had many followers. At length, in 1630, the Dominicans and Franciscans took the field, though but as gleaners of the harvest after the Jesuits; and now it was that contentions broke out." This is not the place to enter particularly into the charges brought against the order; all I here mean to show is, with what want of candour the Jesuits are reviled; and I think, after what has been stated, it cannot be doubted, that the chief object of the writer of the pamphlet is to excite a ferment against the catholic claims, nor that his mode of conducting his proposed inquiry is that of a violent partizan, and not that of a genuine philosopher in search of truth. Indeed, he almost assures us of it himself at the conclusion of his preface, where he says: "It may, perhaps, appear from the inquiry (that is, the attack), that the crimes of the order are fundamental, and not accidental." In omitting, therefore, to cite documents, which show that they are not fundamental, does he not admit,
does he not plainly say, I have a point to gain, in which candour has no part; and, quocumque modo, it must be gained? Such is the case, and I must allow him great perseverance in collecting titles of volumes long since forgotten; but to the lovers of truth, to the nation at large, and to the parliament in particular, or at least as far as my unpractised voice can be heard, I exclaim, hunc cavete, et similes ei.