2. In the first chapter, it is recommended as peculiarly important, to have connections with Hospitals, Prisons &c. In this city at this time, an order of female professed, holding the nearest intercourse with the Jesuits, has possession of two of our most important public institutions, for the sick. In one, if not both, there are mass altars, at the expense of the public; and the compensation given, to these females, (of the order, two of whose members were witnesses to the will forged by the late Rector of the Cathedral) is kept secret, while the public is made to believe that nothing is paid for their services.
3. In Chapter viii. the method is pointed out by which the sons of widows may be induced to join this monstrous fraternity. Now it so happens, that both Mr. Whitefield the last Archbishop, and Mr. Eccleston the present one, were widows’ sons! And what is worse, of Protestant extraction. And what is final and conclusive, if the best proof in our reach is to be credited, both Jesuits!
These are only specimens, of the exact and minute fulfilment, of lies forged two hundred years ago, as they would persuade us by an expelled Jesuit in impotent, and sheer malice! The least that can be said is that our priests and prelates, and their——sisters, have been most unfortunate in their accidental confirmations of those falsehoods!
V. We now come to the last supposition, of which the case seems to admit; namely, that the Secreta Monita, is the work of some implacable enemy of the Society, who never was a member of it, but has here exhibited the principles by which he believed, or at least wished to persuade others, that its secret affairs were conducted.
In refutation of such an opinion, if any one ever held an opinion so entirely absurd, it may in general be observed, that the whole amount of proof for two centuries, and the universal consent of all disinterested persons, to the sufficiency of that proof, cannot be set aside by the suggestion even of probable conjectures, still less by such as are highly improbable, indicating a different state of case. Now all the learned, both Protestants and Catholics, so that they were not Jesuits, have constantly and with one accord, received this book as authentic in the fullest sense. Every person who has written expressly on the subject of the Jesuits, not being one of their creatures,—all who have had occasion to touch incidently on the subject, all compilers of current opinion, and received truth in the present and past ages, unanimously agree, that these secret counsels, are the mystery of iniquity, by which this association has produced so much harm. Surely something above conjecture and assertion are wanting to rebut this unanimous consent.
It may also be observed, that he who will carefully examine this system, will see, that organized as human society has been, and without pronouncing on the merit or demerit of the system itself; it is in the highest degree clear, that if the Jesuits had adopted such rules of conduct as these, they must have produced great and lasting effects. On the other hand, if we look back at what the Jesuits have done and suffered, we see in these rules, the clearest exposition of their greatness and their overthrow. To my mind, no proofs of genuineness could be more complete, than those which thus spring up, from the very nature of the case, and stamp themselves indelibly upon it.—And this is most remarkably true, if we remember, that the production and publication of this work, occurred within less than sixty years after the origin of the order,—before the developement of its greatness, and its general infamy for its crimes; and has come down side by side with it, through successive ages crying to the world, at once with the voice of prophecy, and the undeniable truth of history!
The difficulties which must have existed in the way of any attempt to compile such a work as this, from the most abundant sources even, are so very great, that it is next to impossible any man could have done it, without committing such and so many blunders as to render detection certain. That an obscure and now forgotten person should have accomplished such a work, is not capable of belief. That such a person should have completed and issued such a work before the great mass of the publications from which they say he pretended to draw it, were written, is childish folly to assert. And that these mighty and terrible Jesuits afterwards wrote these works to confirm what the Secreta Monita, had before said, or to give a colour to the allegation, that it was so compiled, no one will be mad enough to pretend.
The new state of the world out of which this order arose made it different from all things that had existed before. In compiling this work, the author must know all their peculiarities, must understand their entire design, must enter into their prejudices—must see through their code of morals—must be perfect master of their grand scheme, and all the means by which it was to be compassed. See their peculiarities, their contempt of all other orders, their asserting contrary to all other orders, that the Church was a monarchy (chap. ix. 16.) their devotion to the education of youth, their special intrigues with the great; their snares for widows and servants—the singular privileges, personal and social, of the order, the peculiar difficulties that they had met with, in different places, and the especial hatreds they had already conceived, their whole plan, and their whole profound, sagacious, corrupt, complicated, and secret machinery! Who could know, who could gather out of scattered volumes even if they existed, or by private industry and opportunities, such a system as this! It is out of all the bounds of belief, that such a system could be so formed, and then so fitted, as this has fitted.
But if any choose to think otherwise, then let them rest satisfied that he who should gather up, out of a thousand sources the true principles and policy of any order of men, from their own writings and actions, would thus give the most complete and comprehensive view of it, that could by possibility be produced. It would then stand forth, a living, moving, acting creature; and not, as in the naked principles, dogmatically laid down, a great, but inanimate outline. Let them rest assured moreover, that he who did this, in the case in hand, with no very ample materials, at the period the work was done, if ever, has accomplished a work, the like of which cannot be produced out of all the annals of the world, for perfect accuracy and immeasurable success. If such a man ever lived, we may safely pronounce him, the most remarkable of his race, and mourn that he has left behind no trace of his being, but this stupendous triumph.
VI. There is in this case one peculiar circumstance which gives to the authenticity of the Secreta Monita, the seal of absolute certainty, while it casts the darkest shade over the society. Why have the Jesuits any secret rules or instructions, or principles of conduct or objects of effort? Why this secrecy? And how, at so early a period of their history, as the end of the sixteenth century, was the author of this work, supposing him to have been no Jesuit, to have known with such certainty, the existence and the nature of such secrets?