7. Another Edition, and which is supposed to have been the last that appeared in England, was published in 1746. This, as well as the last preceding Edition, has the Latin, and English, on opposite pages; and are both preserved in the British Museum.
8. In the year 1727, a French edition of the Secreta Monita was published at Cologne under the title Les Mysteries les plus secret des Jesuites contenus en diverses Pieces originales.
9. In the year 1831, the first American edition of the Secreta Monita was published at Princeton N. J. with the original Latin on one page, and a very diffuse English translation on the other. This edition is said on the title page to be printed verbatim from the English edition of 1725; which is one not contained in the above list, and will therefore be added, by the reader as an additional testimony. In the advertisement to this edition a statement is made, which I suppose relates to the edition, numbered 4 in the above series. If however the statement relates to a different edition, it forms an additional support to the proof in the case. The story in substance is that a bookseller in Amsterdam, by name John Schipper, bought a copy of the Secreta Monita at Antwerp, and reprinted it. The Jesuits hearing that he had such a work, demanded it of him, but he had sent it to Holland. A Jesuit of Amsterdam, soon afterwards learned from Van Eyk, a Catholic Bookseller that Schipper was printing a book that concerned the Society; he replied that if it was only the Rules of the Society he should not be under any concern: but desired him to ascertain what it was. When the Bookseller discovered that it was the Secreta Monita, the father greatly agitated said, it must be denied that this piece comes from the Society. As soon however as the book appeared, the whole edition nearly was bought up by the Jesuits. From one of the few copies not suppressed, the book was reprinted, with this story prefixed, there said to be taken from two Roman Catholics of Credit.
Now, here is 1. the Venice Edition of 1596, or thereabouts; 2. the English edition of 1658, taken from the Paderborn and Prague copies;—3. Dr. Compton’s edition of 1669, to which let us add the other English editions of 1722, 1725 and 1746, and the first American edition of 1831, as all drawn from the same source, though this is entirely gratuitous; 4. the Amsterdam edition of 1717, to which add the other two Amsterdam editions, mentioned in the first American edition, which is also gratuitous; 5. the several editions, (supposing them to be reprints of each other, which is gratuitous,) found in German in the British Museum; 6. the French edition of 1727. At the least we produce six separate, and wholly independent proofs, from six different sources that this is a perfectly genuine and authentic record. These records are found in the Latin, German, French and English Languages. They extend over a period exceeding two hundred years. They were found in five or six sovereign states, the most of which, professed the Catholic faith and one of them, Venice, under the very eyes of the Sovereign Pontiff. And they all agree, in every fact, stated by each. Now it would be the most incredible event ever established by proof, if this various and concurring evidence should be proven to have accidentally conduced all to the very same result and still all be false. It would on the other hand be the most extraordinary circumstance ever conceived of, that so many persons, in so distant places, and so separated by ages, should conspire, and succeed in practising such a fraud as this, upon the minds of men. Indeed it is hard to imagine, how the genuineness and perfect authenticity of any record, could be established on more irrefragable proofs.
IV. There are however those who deny that the Secreta Monita is authentic: but make the allegation contained in the second of the three suppositions made above. This brings us to consider, whether as they say, this book may not be the work of some expelled Jesuit, and therefore false.
It may be observed that, it would not by any means follow that because the Jesuits had expelled a man, therefore all his statements must necessarily be false. Perhaps the contrary would be quite as fair a conclusion; unless indeed, all the allegations of history against this order be false. It would seem, amongst the most probable events, that an upright man, who chanced to become possessed of their real designs, would desire to leave them as fast as he could; and would thus subject himself to expulsion, if that were their way of treating the refractory.
But an expelled Jesuit is, I apprehend, a rarer being, even than a candid one. They know little of priests, little of Rome, nothing of the spirit of the Society of Jesus, as they profanely call themselves, who can for one moment suppose, that the high and trusty dignitaries of the order, (and none else knew their secrets,)—would escape with expulsion, and the power to reveal them. The cord, the bowl, the dagger, are instruments not perfectly unknown to this fraternity; and none ever knew better, that the dead speak not. The light of history must be put out, and the ferocious spirit that even in this free land gnashes on us with its hideous teeth must be more warily concealed, before such stories about expelled Jesuits can gain credence.
But if this were the work of expelled Jesuits,—the order must have been peculiarly unhappy. For, from the proofs adduced, there must have been at the least four of them, widely separated in country and distant by generations from each other! This Venetian Jesuit about 1596, and this Jesuit at Amsterdam in 1717, nearly a hundred and twenty years after him: these Jesuits at Prague and Paderborn about the middle of the seventeenth century, and those French Jesuits at Cologne far into the eighteenth, eighty years apart; how could it be, that so many of them should have been expelled as if for the very purpose of miraculously writing falsehoods, that were perfectly identical! Upon the whole, this is a better story than that for which some are silly enough to say they have the unanimous consent of the fathers, about the miraculous translation of the Septuagint, by seventy men, in seventy cells who in an incredibly short time turned all the old Testament from Hebrew into Greek, all using identically the same words!
The story originally set on foot by one Cordara, (as quoted by Mr. Dallas, the English defender of this order,) and afterwards repeated by the Jesuit Gretser, that the Secreta Monita, was the production of an expelled Polish Jesuit, by name Jerome Zarowich; and that it was written by him in 1616; is not only absurd, but is contradicted by himself. It is absurd to suppose that any one man could have produced the whole copies of the work, under the circumstances already stated. It is equally absurd, to call a man the Author of a work in 1616, which was in existence about 1596, as is shown above, in a distant country. But Gretser himself says, that the Secreta Monita, was put into the Index of prohibited books, and its perusal condemned at Rome in 1616; which proves clearly, that it could not have been at that very time in a process of composition, at Cracow in Poland, hundreds of leagues from Rome!—This admission shows, however, the great antiquity of the work; and its being put into the Prohibitory Index, shows the great anxiety of the Jesuits to have it suppressed; and confirms the story told in the first American edition, about one of the Amsterdam editions. Those who wish to see Gretser demolished, may examine Dr. Jones’ Defence of the Bellum Papale.
These persons however call this work, a mere forgery: not giving the expelled Jesuit, even a pretext for his alleged libel on the society. This however is as ridiculous, as it is shamelessly false.