vows; viz. of voluntary poverty, perpetual chastity, and entire obedience to the general of the society in all things, and likewise to the pope with respect to foreign missions! Surely he would have enriched the Encyclopedia with this prominent fact, so undoubtedly ascertained by Laicus and cardinal de Noailles. How strange again it is, that the penetrating Laicus should have been ignorant, that this very Louis XIV, this professed Jesuit, so far forgot the humility of his religious profession, as to arrogate to himself the worship and honours, which religion appropriates to the Divinity! And yet this important fact, which had escaped all the writers of that royal Jesuit's life, is consigned to posterity for an historical truth, in the seventh volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica, page 432, in the following words: "He (Louis XIV) was so blinded by flattery, that he arrogated to himself the divine honours, paid to the pagan emperors of Rome." The circulation of this fact by Laicus, would at one stroke have crushed the Jesuits, and would have conciliated immortal
honour and credit to the Times. Who can contemplate the historical labours of these three worthies, the historian of the Encyclopedia, the editor of the Times, and the incomparable Laicus, without thinking of the fate of their predecessor Prynne?
It is remarkable, that while the Jesuits were thus insulted by Prynnes and De Thous, and their numerous disciples, they were everywhere befriended by princes and states, who freighted them to foreign missions at the public expense, and who multiplied their colleges and settlements throughout Europe, in which they quietly assisted the clergy in the functions of religion, and successfully conducted those schools, which our famous Bacon so much admired: Consule scholas Jesuitarum, is his well known text; nihil enim quod in usum venit, his melius.—De dign. et augm. Scient. l. 6. He had already said (l. 1) of the Jesuits, "Quorum cum intueor industriam solertiamque, tam in doctrina excolenda, quam in moribus informandis, illud
occurrit Agesilai de Pharnabaso: Talis cum sis, utinam nostor esses."
The testimony of Bacon overbalances ten thousand Encyclopedists, and all their servile transcribers. To cover them with confusion, I finish with citing two of the most celebrated names, that have ever graced any of the various sects, known by the common appellation of protestants—I mean the great Grotius and Leibnitz. The latter maintained a constant correspondence with Jesuits, even with the missioners in China. His letters, which yet exist, prove that he was, and that he gloried in being, their friend; that he rejoiced in their successes, and was grieved by their afflictions and sufferings. The Latin text, which I would wish to transcribe from the learned Grotius, is rather long, and it would be enervated by translation. (See Grotius Hist. 1. iii, p. 273. edit. Amstelod. an. 1658.) Here he employs the nervous style of Tacitus, to describe the origin of the Jesuits, the purity of their morals, their zeal to propagate
Christianity, to instruct youth, the respect which they had justly acquired, their disinterestedness, their prudence in commanding, their fidelity in obeying, their moderation in all their dealings, their progress and increase, &c. &c. "Mores inculpatos, bonas artes, magna in vulgum auctoritas ob vitæ sanctimoniam.—Sapienter imperant, fideliter parent.—Novissimi omnium, sectas priores fama vicere, hoc ipso cæteris invisi.—Medii fœdum inter obsequium et tristem arrogantiam, nec fugiunt hominum vitia, nec sequuntur, &c."
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