LETTER II.
SIR;
In my last, I engaged myself to say a word on your Monita 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 single
year. And the contriver of them, you tell us, was Laines, whom you incautiously allow to have been a man of superior 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 commercial
speculations 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 your Monita 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 they
made 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 despicable Monita? 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 fabricated Secreta 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 read
his 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 the Monita was 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 the
House 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 the Monita. 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 did
Laicus 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, that protestant Jesuits would 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 by Jesuits? 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 was instigated by Jesuits? Wait another number of the Times, 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 of
Henry IV; and the whole guilt of their proceedings against Henry IV is exclusively ascribed to Jesuits. And yet this very monarch, whom Laicus calls the 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.