JESUITS.

(Prejudices against.)

It is undeniable that a great many condemn the Jesuits out of mere prejudice. Whatsoever is published against them is almost equally believed by their enemies, both Catholics and Protestants. It is also

true that the accusations are renewed against them, as often as occasion offers, in any new book. In the mean time they who examine, with any sort of equity, the innumerable apologies published by the Jesuits, find, as to some facts, sufficient justifications to make a reasonable enemy drop the charge. I will give an instance of this.

In 1610, there came out a very severe book against the Jesuits, intituled Anti-Coton, in which it was affirmed that the abbot du Bois had maintained, and would prove it to father Coton’s face, that “sentence had been given against him at Avignon, for getting a nun with child.” Father Coton, answering this libel, produced the following letter. “I, whose name is underwritten, do certify that I was in Avignon, all the time the rev father Coton, of the society of Jesus lived there; and that I never heard any one say that he had committed any thing contrary to the dignity and quality of his profession; and, in particular, as to what the Anti-Coton charges upon him. In which Anti-Coton, since I am made the author of a manifest calumny, wherewith the rev father Coton is charged: I frankly aver, that I know nothing of it, and that I have always looked upon the said rev father Coton as a venerable and worthy man: in testimony whereof, I have written and signed this present deposition. From Paris, in my study, the eve of St. Denis the martyr, 1610. Olivier abbot du Bois. And I have sealed it with my seal.” Besides this, he produced four certificates, “seen and acknowledged for authentic, true, and legal, by the royal notaries of the city of Paris.” The first was signed “Lewis Beau, prothonotary of the holy apostolic see, and sealed with his seal, and with those of two subsequent archbishops in the metropolitan city of Avignon, whose vicar-general he had been all the time of father Coton’s sojourning in Avignon.” The second was signed by fifteen persons, “who composed, and represented all

the clergy of Avignon.” The third was signed by the two consuls of Avignon, and their accessor, and sealed with the seal of the consular house. The fourth was given by the bishop of Orange. These four attestations concur, not only in contradicting the author of the Anti-Coton as an infamous calumniator, but also in extolling father Coton’s good and pious conduct. “Besides these certificates, the magistrates of Avignon wrote to this Jesuit in these terms, ‘ If these testimonies of prelates and consuls are not sufficient, we can produce the certificates of the greatest part of the gentlemen, doctors, citizens, merchants, and others of the town.’ ” I know not what could be produced of greater force to justify the accused; and yet, there were a great many, who still believed that the nun was got with child, and that sentence had been passed upon father Coton. They gave more credit to the Anti-Coton, who brought no proof, nor any authentic evidence, than to father Coton, who produced all that the most exact judicial proceedings could require. This could be nothing but the effect of an extravagant prejudice.

The fate of the Jesuits and that of Catiline is much the same. Several accusations were given in against Catiline without any proof; but they met with credit, upon this general argument; " since he has done such a thing, he is very capable of having done this, or that, and that it is very probable he has done the rest.” The historian Sallust has judiciously observed this illusion, which is not a sophism of the schools, but of the town. “Scio fuisse nonnullos qui ita existimarent, juventutem quæ domum Catilinæ frequentabat parum honeste pudicitiam habuisse: sed ex aliis rebus magis quam quod cuiquam id copertum foret, hæc fama valebat. Sallust in Bello Catilin. page m. 33. ⁶⁵—I know there were some, who looked upon the young persons who frequented Catiline’s

house, as men of ill fame; but it was not a knowledge of them, but something else which gave rise to this opinion.” There was published at the Hague, about eleven years ago, a book intituled, the Religion of the Jesuits. The author confesses that the prejudice against these gentlemen is so general, that whatever attestations of innocence they fortify themselves with, it is impossible to undeceive the world. “We must know,” says he, “that nothing so horrible can be said against the Jesuits, though ever so doubtful, but it becomes probable from their character, and the consideration of what they are capable of.” He gives two examples of this: one is, " the report spread, not only at Heidelburg, but through all Europe, that they had suborned a false spirit from the other world, who cried every night in the ears of the old duke that there was no salvation for him, unless he would exterminate heresy and heretics out of his new dominions, according to the counsel of the fathers Jesuits: the duke, tired with these visions, resolved to enquire into the matter. He declared himself to one of his officers, who engaged to conjure the spirit most effectually, without either prayers or holy water. The officer hid himself under the prince’s bed, and when the spirit came, he so hacked and hewed him with his hanger, that it is said he died of his wounds. The officer who had done the exploit, had the indiscretion to tell his wife of it, against the duke’s express commands. The wife was no more retentive than the husband; and thus the thing was divulged. The Jesuits have tried all manner of ways to clear themselves. The duke has issued rigorous injunctions in his estates against speaking of it. The Jesuits have procured certificates under the hands of the Protestants themselves, concerning the falsity of the story. But all to no purpose. They will never destroy the suspicions which these stories, whether true or false, have imprinted in the people’s minds, because they are known to be capable of this juggle, by others of the same stamp.” He mentions some of them in general, I mean without circumstances of time, and place, and persons: and after having advised us to reject their certificates from the Palatinate, he concludes thus: Religion des Jésuites, page 79. ⁶⁶ “However, be this little story true or be it false, we know what they can do, and that is enough to make the thing probable.” The other example is, that the Jesuits had “plotted to poison the emperor in the sacrament.” This prince was cautioned of it, “and would not communicate the next day, but forced the Jesuit to take the poisoned Host, of which he died. The emperor and court of Vienna, according to its devotion, ordered under terrible penalties the few persons that were privy to it, to keep the thing a secret. It was not, however, well kept; or at least it spread a little, and a gentleman of honour swore that the thing happened for certain in Vienna. We do not give this for a truth,” pursues the author, and indeed, to say all, we are not much inclined to believe it: but, be it ever so false, the Jesuits will never be able to destroy the suspicion of it, because of the character of the society, which is known all the world over.” He adds several reflexions, tending to persuade his readers that this story of Vienna is certain; and then proceeds: “The thing after all may be false; but it will ever be thought probable, considering the ordinary conduct of these good fathers. “They who believe the story of Vienna false, will however believe it probable. If it be false, it will at least serve to justify what I have just now said, that the hatred against the society is extreme, even in the church of Rome.”

Without so many repetitions, we might easily have taken his thought. He means, that a man need only confidently publish whatever he pleases against the Jesuits, to be assured that abundance of people will

believe it. I believe him in the right; at least, that in this he will prove a good prophet. It was doubtless on this presumption that he published the story of Vienna, though he believed it false. But if other authors have taken the same method, what will become of all the facts which the enemies of the Jesuits have published? Should we not have reason to believe, that they have divulged several which they knew to be false or doubtful, and which nevertheless would in their reckoning appear as certain, and be received by the public as undoubted truths? I cannot think the rules of morality will allow the making so ill a use of public prejudice: they command us to be equitable towards all, and never to represent people worse than they are. I own to this author, that the readiness wherewith the public swallows all that is said against the Jesuists, is “a sign of excessive aversion to that society;” and I deny not but this aversion affords most reasonable consequences, which blast their reputation. He has reason to add, “that the good fathers would not do amiss to explain to us this riddle; how it comes to pass that, being so good, so officious and so amiable, they are notwithstanding so terribly hated, while the Jansenists and Jacobins are not so cried down in the world as the Jesuits are?” But he might perhaps be embarrassed, should we require of him the explication of another riddle: how it comes to pass that there are ministers, accomplished in all kinds of virtues, as they pretend, who are hated as a pest in all the communions different from their own, and who have innumerable enemies in their own, and of whom nothing could be published, but what would appear probable. I question, however, whether this writer had all the prudence of a nice disputant, when he insisted so much upon this great disposition of the public to believe whatever is printed against the Jesuits. This is more proper than he imagines to keep their own friends fast to them, who will easily believe that this prejudice has been made too much use of, in publishing the most ill grounded stories.

They themselves, at least, fail not to make the most of this plea, that they may be furnished with one general common-place to invalidate the accusations. Heretofore, they used to answer all the books that were written against them; at last, they are weary of it. The reason they allege for their silence is, that they are no more obliged to confute the satires of their enemies, than the king of France is to answer the gazettes of Amsterdam. “Why should not he allow” it is father Tellier who speaks “the Jesuits to neglect answering libels which, in their opinion, are no less fabulous and contemptible than the gazettes of Amsterdam, and the historical or prophetical systems of Mr Jurieu? Ought they to be more tender in point of reputation, than the powers whom God has placed over us? Ought they not, or at least may they not be permitted, after these great examples, to despise what only touches their particular honour.” Here are more reasons of theirs, taken from the insignificancy of their answers, and the disposition of one part of the public to take for truth whatever is said against them. “We no sooner answer one of their satires, than they have half a dozen more ready to be published. They keep magazines full of them; they have them remitted from all parts of the world. Those that were refuted a hundred years ago, or which the world laughed at though they were not refuted, they revive again at present, with the same confidence as if they were new pieces, or had remained unanswered. And the generation that shall come after them, forty or fifty years hence, will do the same with those satires invented in our days; as despicable and as despised as they are. What use will it be, for instance,

to the Jesuits of China to have been the first and almost the only men, who submitted without the least resistance to the apostolical vicars, in 1684, when this has not hindered their enemies from publishing, the last summer, by the pen of their secretary, the Holland Gazetteer, that the holy father was extremely provoked against the Jesuits, because they would not acknowledge the bishops he had sent to China. Can it be doubted that, some years hence, this lie will come again upon the stage? In like manner, what advantage will it be to the Jesuits of Germany, to have had an attestation, signed by four of the principal counsellors of the elector Palatine, all Protestants, in which they declare that the story of a Jesuit, counterfeiting a voice from heaven, to deceive this prince and to excite him to the destruction of heresy, is a pure fable? Will this act hereafter hinder any good Protestant, who shall continue the history of the Jesuits, from making a chapter of this chimerical adventure, upon the credit of the Holland Gazetteer? Why should we not expect this, when we see the gravest authors of the party seriously tell us the story of the packers of Amiens, with all the circumstances that are capable of making a story ridiculous....After this, let not the Holland Gazetteer repent his publishing, for example, that it was the Jesuits, who by their avarice and wicked councils, engaged the emperor in the last Hungarian war; that the people of Vienna, enraged against them on this account, massacred several of them when they would have escaped, upon the approach of the Ottoman army: that it was they who burnt Stockholm the last year, (a little before, it was four disguised Turks that did it), &c. Let him not repent his publishing these follies, and a hundred more of the same nature; nor let him change his style for the future. If they are at present despised, at least he may assure himself that the time will come when they shall be very good memoirs for him who shall write the twentieth or thirtieth tome of the Practical Morality.” You see with how much art they take advantage of the prejudice of their enemies; and how they verify the maxim, ' misfortune is good for something.’ They turn the hatred of the world against them to their advantage, Fruuntur diis iratis. It is certain their enemies would hurt them more, if they observed some measure in the blows they give them; for, whilst they promiscuously heap on well-grounded accusations with those that are otherwise, they favour the accused; they give him a handle for rendering those suspected, which are really true. A man must be very blind not to foresee that several libels, which daily appear against the society, will put weapons into their hands. Did they pay the authors for publishing such stories, they might be said to employ their money well.

Opinions adopted and extended by the Jesuits.

The Jesuits have carried very far the consequences of several doctrines which were hatched before their time, and which expose kingdoms to continual revolutions. The opinion, that the authority of kings is inferior to that of the people, and that they may be punished by the people, in certain cases, has been taught and practised in all countries, in all ages, and in all Christian communions that have made any figure in the world. History affords us instances every where of kings deposed at the instigation, or with the approbation, of the clergy. The opinion, that sovereigns have received the sword from God to punish heretics, is yet more universal than the former, and has been reduced to practice among Christians from the days of Constantine to ours, in all the Christian communions that have had the power in their hands; and a man scarcely dare write in Holland against such an opinion. These two doctrines, therefore, were not

invented by the Jesuits; but they have drawn the most odious consequences from them, and such as are most prejudicial to public peace: for, from the conjunction of these two principles, they have concluded, and that as they think by consequential reasoning, that a heretical prince ought to be deposed, and Heresy extirpated by fire and sword, if it cannot be done any other way.

If sovereigns have received the sword to punish heretics, say they, it is evident that the people, the true sovereign of their monarchs, according to the first principle, ought to punish them when they persist in heresy. But the gentlest punishment that can be inflicted on a heretic is, doubtless, imprisonment, banishment, confiscation of goods; and consequently an heretical king ought at least to be dethroned by the people, his sovereign and superior; since, according to the first principle, monarchs are only delegates to whom the people, not being able to exercise its sovereignty in person, recommend the functions and exercise of it, with restrictions, and an inalienable right of resuming them, when they acquit themselves ill. Now there is no case in which they ought more reasonably to be divested of them, than when they deserve the punishment which the sovereign, according to the second principle, is ordered by God to inflict on heretics. But as it is not ordinarily possible by judicial processes to take from them the goods which they have fairly forfeited by virtue of the laws, which God will have established against heresy: as, I say, they have most commonly power enough in their hands to maintain themselves in the exercise of royalty; an exercise which is nothing but usurpation, as long as they are heretics; it follows, that recourse must be had to artifice, in order to bring them to the punishments which they have rightly incurred; that is to say, conspiracies may be formed against their persons; since, otherwise, God would have given the

sword to the people, as a true sovereign, for the punishment of heretics, in vain. On the other hand, if sovereigns have received the sword to punish the breakers of the two tables of the decalogue, it follows, that they ought to proceed with greater severity against heretics, who violate the first table, than against murderers and thieves, who only violate the second; for the infractions of the first are immediate treason against the divine majesty, and affront God directly; whereas the infractions of the second offend him only in an indirect manner. It is, therefore, the duty of ecclesiastics to excite sovereigns to the punishment of heretics, violators of the first table of the commandments; and if princes are negligent in this part, that negligence deserves to be more exclaimed against, than a neglect in punishing murderers and robbers.

It ought also to be represented that, if the inevitable danger of ruining the state, oblige them to grant heretics a toleration, they are bound to keep their word no longer than the danger lasts; and this danger ceasing, they ought to resume the sword for the extirpation of heresy, just as they would resume it against robbers and murderers, when the danger which forced them to make a truce with these is once over. In a word, if God have given the sword into the sovereign’s hand for the punishment of heresy, the granting it impunity will render them as criminal before God, as the granting impunity to theft, adultery, and murder; and the only thing that can excuse them would be that, for the avoiding a greater evil, the infallible ruin of the state and church, they were forced to promise the suspension of the penal laws; whence it follows, that they are obliged to their first engagement as soon as that danger is passed; for every oath that engages to the disobedience of the laws of God, is essentially null.

Thus you see upon what foundation the Jesuits

have built a system which hath rendered them so odious, and which has given so just a horror for the maxims that several among them have vented. They have built upon a foundation which they found ready to their hands; they have raised consequence upon consequence, quite out of sight, without being astonished at the hideousness of the objects; they have believed, on one hand, that this would turn to the advantage of the church; and, on the other, that they did nothing against the art of right reasoning. I shall not examine whether logic, in effect, did not lead them through all these consequences; the matter would be too odious. I content myself with saying that France, having seen two of her kings successively murdered, under the pernicious pretence that they were favourers of heretics, thought she could no better ruin this wretched gradation of consequences than by overturning the first principle it depends upon. For this reason the third estate of the kingdom resolved to condemn, as pernicious, all doctrines which make the authority of monarchs depend on any thing besides God. This was a leap too far on the other side. Mankind have since hit upon a medium.—Ed. ⁶⁷

Again: It was not the Jesuits who invented the mental reservations, nor the other opinions that Mr Pascal has charged upon them, nor even the philosophical sin. They found all this in other authors, either expressly, or in such a manner, as a doctrine is in the principle that produces it by consequences.

This doctrine is almost an unavoidable result of the definition of liberty, by which it is asserted that, to the end any action be free, the agent must have a power of determining himself to the right or left, without being necessitated by any foreign cause. Now this definition is that which is most commonly received in the church of Rome, and as we have seen in their society a greater number of patrons of these

opinions than in other communities, and that in their hands the loose maxims grew daily more fruitful by the earnestness with which they disputed on these points, they have been formally and expressly impleaded. Wretched fruits of disputation! their method of studying has had at least as great a share in it as the corruption of the heart. Before they come to read moral divinity, they have dictated one or more courses of philosophy; they have accustomed themselves to cavil upon every thing; they have wrangled a thousand times upon the “ens rationis;” they have heard as often the questions maintained pro and con about universals, and many other things of the same nature; their heads are so turned to objection and distinction, that, when they come to handle matters of morality, they find themselves wholly disposed to perplex them. Distinctions offer to them in shoals; arguments, ad hominem, oblige you to fortify yourself on every hand, and to abate one thing to-day, another thing to-morrow. All this is very dangerous. Dispute as long as you please about logical questions; but in morality be content with good sense, and with that light which the reading of the gospel sheds on your mind. If you go about to dispute after a scholastic manner, you will not readily find a clew to the labyrinth. It was a very good saying of a certain person, that the books of the Casuists teach nothing but the art of cavilling with God. These advocates in the court of conscience find out more distinctions and subtleties than the lawyers in the civil courts. They make the tribunal of conscience a sort of moral laboratory, in which the most solid truths evaporate into smoke, volatile salts, and vapour. What Cicero said of the subtleties of logic, admirably agrees with those of the Casuists. “Dialectici ad extremum ipsi se compungunt suis acuminibus, et multa quæ- rendo reperiunt non modo ea quæ jam non possint ipsi dissolvere, sed etiam quibus ante exorsa et potius detexta prope detexantur. The logicians at last wound themselves with their own edge, and, by enquiring after many things, find not only what they cannot themselves give a solution of, but what overthrows all they have before been raising.” A man is caught in webs of his own spinning; he is lost, and knows not how to turn himself; nor has he any way to disengage, but by relaxing in almost every article. They, who have read father Pirot’s book, will own that it is easier to censure it, and perceive that it contains dangerous doctrines, than answer his objections.

Doctrine of the Jesuit Mariana.

John Mariana wrote a book which Spain and Italy suffered to go abroad, and which was burnt at Paris by a decree of the parliament, because of the pernicious doctrine it contained. There is nothing more seditious, nor more capable of exposing kingdoms to frequent revolutions, and even the lives of princes to the knife of assassins, than this book of John Mariana.

The title of it is, “de Rege et Regis Institutione,” and it was printed at Toledo in the year 1598, with the king’s licence, and the usual approbations. The author having proposed in the sixth chapter of the first book, to consider whether it be lawful to kill a tyrant, enters on this subject with a narrative of the tragical end of Henry III. He admires the courage of James Clement, and says there were different opinions about the action of this young monk: some commended it, and thought it worthy of immortality; others blamed it, because they were of opinion that it is never lawful for a mere private man to kill a prince declared king by the nation, and anointed with the sacred oil according to custom, although this prince become a wicked man and a tyrant. “De facto monachi non una opinio fuit, multis laudantibus atque immortalitate dignum judicantibus: vitupérant alii prudentiæ & eruditionis laude præstantes, fas

esse negantes cuiquam privata auctoritate regem consensu populi renunciatum, sacroque oleo de more delibutum sanctumque adeo perimere, sit ille quamvis perditis moribus, atque in tyrannidem degenerant.” Mariana, de Rege & Regis Institutione, lib. i, cap. vi, pag. 54. ⁶⁸ We may clearly perceive, that Mariana is one of those who approved the action of James Clement; for he rejects the principle upon which wise and learned men condemned it. Besides, he affects to extol the courage and undaunted steadiness of this assassin, without dropping one word that tends to render him odious to the reader. This observation admirably discovers the whole venom of the doctrine of this Jesuit; for it is certain that he only begins with the example of Henry III, that he might descend from the thesis to the hypothesis, and to show the people a notable case of tyranny, that so at all times, when they should find themselves in the like condition, they might think that their circumstances warranted them to make use of the knife against their monarchs. But if it be once lawful to do this, when people live under such a prince as Henry III, I know not what monarchs ought not to fear that they shall be assassinated or dethroned: for oftentimes the good and evil of two conditions are counterbalanced when they are compared together. If the faults of government are not the same as they were under Henry III, yet it will be said, that all things duly considered, they are equal, and thence people will conclude, that they are in the same condition which the Jesuit has described. However let us go on with the explication of his system.

Mariana relates the reasons of those who blamed James Clement, that is to say, according to him, the reasons of those who teach that every one must patiently submit to the tyrannical yoke of his lawful sovereign; and before he answers them, he produces the arguments of the contrary party, built upon this

fundamental principle, that the authority of the people is superior to that of kings. This is his beloved position, for proof of which he spends two whole chapters. Having alleged the reasons of each party, he declares—I, That according to the opinions of divines and philosophers, a prince who, by main force, and without the general consent of the people, is possessed of the sovereign power, is one whom every private person has a right to kill: “Perimi à quocunque, vita & principatu spoliari posse.—May be killed by any one, and deprived of his life and crown.” II. That if a prince, who is lawfully created, or who is a lawful successor to his ancestors, overturn the religion and public laws, without hearkening to the remonstrances of the nation, may be made away by the safest and surest method. III. That the shortest and surest way of doing it, is to assemble the states, and in this assembly to depose him, and there to order that an army be raised against him, if it be necessary for removing his tyranny. IV. That such a prince may be lawfully put to death, and that each private person, who shall have the courage to attempt to kill him, has a right to do it. V. That if an assembly of the states cannot be held, and it appear nevertheless to be the will of the people that the tyrant should be dispatched, there is no private person but may lawfully kill this prince to satisfy the desire of the people: “Qui votis publicis favens eum perimere tentavit, haud quaquam inique eum fecisse existimabo. He who to accomplish what is wished by the people, shall attempt to kill him, I shall not judge him to have acted at all unjustly.” VI. That the judgment of a private person, or of many, is not sufficient; but one must be governed by the voice of the people, and also consult grave and learned men. VII. That, indeed, it shows greater courage to rise up openly against the tyrant; but there is no less prudence to attack him secretly, and destroy him in the snares that are laid for him. “Est quidem majoris virtutis & animi simultatem aperte exercere, palam in hostem reipublicæ irrnere: sed non minoris prudentiæ, fraudi & insidiis locum captare, quod sine motu contingat minori certe periculo publico atque private.” He advises therefore, either that he should be attacked in his own palace with open force, or that a conspiracy should be formed against him; he will have it that open war, crafty devices, frauds, and treacheries, are equally lawful; and if the conspirators, adds he, are not killed in the attempt, they ought to be admired as heroes all their life time; if they perish in it, then they fall victims acceptable to God and men, and their efforts deserve immortal praises. VIII. That although there seems to be no difference between an assassin who kills with the stab of a knife, and one who poisons; yet because Christianity has abrogated the laws of the Athenians, which ordered criminals to drink a poisoned cup; Mariana does not approve that a tyrant should be killed by poison mixed with his meat; but if any would make use of poison, he would have it applied to his clothes or to his saddle. “Ergo me auctore neque noxium medicamentum hosti detur, neque lethale venenum in cibo & potu temperetur in ejus pernicem. Hoc tamen temperamento uti, in hac quidem disputatione licebit, si non ipse qui perimitur venenum haurire cogitur, quo intimis medullis concepto pereat: sed exterius ab alio adhibeatur nihil adjuvante eo qui perimendus est. Nimirum cum tanta vis est veneni, ut sella eo aut veste delibuta vim interficiendi habeat.”

Such is the system of this Jesuit. The last part of it is very absurd; it is a ridiculous distinction, for he who drinks poison without knowing it, and believing it to be good food, does not any ways contract the guilt of those who destroy themselves; and yet to preserve a tyrant from so great a crime, Mariana would not have him made to drink or eat poison.

Moreover, if it were true, that in drinking off the poison without knowing of it, he would be guilty of his own death; he would be no less guilty in putting on a poisoned shirt: and yet Mariana makes no scruple to consent, that his clothes should be poisoned, his saddles, or any other things which act from without upon the inward parts. I say therefore, that the eighth article of this Jesuit is unworthy of a man who understands reasoning; and I am surprised, that a man who had so much good sense, and so much logic, should trifle so childishly. Abating this, many people are persuaded that his system is finely contrived, that the parts of it are well connected together, and that he proceeds naturally from one consequence to another. Suppose once they say, that a king holds of the people, as being his supreme judge, and that he is accountable to them, all the rest will follow of course; and therefore the author who refuted Mariana, laid down a principle quite opposite to this, viz. that sovereign princes depend only upon God, to whom alone it belongs to call them to an account. I shall not enter upon the discussion of this question; but shall only observe, that as the doctrines of Mariana are very destructive of the public good, it had been better that he had argued inconsequently, than to follow, like a good logician, the consequences of his principle.—Art. Mariana.

Chastity of the Jesuits.

I will observe upon this occasion some very notable singularities which are to be found in Alegambe, concerning the chastity of certain Jesuits. He says, that father Gil, who died in 1622, aged seventy-three years, knew not any woman by sight, so strict a watch did he keep over his senses that they should not fix upon these objects. He was afraid of himself: he could scarcely bear to touch himself; and he thanked God that he had a bad sight, because that

had afforded him great assistance to chastity. Father Costerus declared, that his chastity was never overcome by any irregular motion, nor by any obscene imagination. Father Coton, who was confessor to a very lewd prince, whose court followed the maxim, Regis ad exemplum lotus componitur orbis, died a virgin, and preserved his inward purity in such a manner, that he had a horror for every thing that might be offensive to this virtue; and he had so nice a sense in this respect, that persons who came near him after having violated the laws of chastity would excite in him the sensation of intolerable disgust. Father Spiga, who died in the year 1594, aged seventy-four years, was accounted a virgin, he had never looked upon any woman, and could not distinguish his own nieces one from another, although he had been their confessor; and nothing could induce him to enter into their house, when he knew they were alone. I am surprised, that Alegambe should not know what is related of Possevin the Jesuit, “That having to read Tibullus, upon account of his fine Latin, he prayed to God kneeling on the ground, that the verses of this poet about love might not inspire him with love.” Mr Menage, who relates this, had said just before, that he heard father Sirmond say, that having read the judgment which Photius gave of the romance of Achilles Statius, whereby it appeared, that this romance was full of obscenity, he would never read it. To this purpose I will add, that Melchior Canus, who was no friend to the Jesuits, made himself merry one day at their cost, at the king of Spain’s court. He said, that they carried about them a herb which mortified nature in such a manner, that by the efficacy of this simple they could safely converse with women. Philip II taking this in a literal sense, had a mind to know what this herb was, and having given order that the Jesuits should be pressed to name it he learned that it was called the " Fear of God.” " Philip II, says he, their great protector, and a prince of fine wit, jesting, asked them one day, how they could be chaste, having private and familiar conversations with all the fine ladies of his magnificent court, we have, said they, as it is reported by their historian, a herb which we carry about us, by which we avoid the danger of incontinence, and resist all its attacks. Being pressed by the monarch to name it, they answered, that it was the Fear of God; but I assure you, if they had it then, I am very certain they have lost the seed of it now, and that it does not grow in their garden.”—Art. Mariana.

Seduction of Youth.

Renatus Ayrault, eldest son of Peter Ayrault, was the cause of great uneasiness to his father. He was born at Paris on the 11th of November, 1567, and was put to school to the Jesuits. Peter Ayrault had a good opinion of them then, and was so fond of them, that he would hardly have undertaken the Parisian clergy’s cause against them at that time, as he actually did afterwards in the year 1564. Perceiving in this his eldest son a lively wit, great memory, and many other good qualities, he earnestly intreated the provincial of the Jesuits and the rector of the college of Clermont, when he committed his son to their care, not to solicit him in any manner to enter their order; and assured them he had other children whom he intended to dedicate to the church, but that he designed this son should succeed him in his post, and intended him for the support of his family. They promised to grant his request, but the young gentleman’s great abilities soon made the Jesuits desirous of having a subject of this importance in their society, and at length after he had studied rhetoric two years under father James Sirmond, they gave him the habit of their order in 1586.

His father, without whose consent or privacy this was done, made a great stir about it; he accused them of seduction, and summoned them to deliver up his son. They answered that they knew not what was become of him. Ayrault obtained a decree of parliament, whereby the Jesuits of the college of Clermont were ordered not to receive Renatus Ayrault into their order, and to notify this prohibition to the other colleges. This decree was not obeyed, the young man was removed from place to place, his name was changed, and he was sent into Lorrain, Germany, and Italy. Henry III caused his Ambassador and the protector of his affairs, to solicit the Pope; Ayrault wrote to his holiness about it; the pope caused the list of all the Jesuits in the world to be shewn him; Renatus Ayrault going under another name, did not appear in this list.

Three years of trouble and enquiry having been employed to no purpose, the father had recourse to his pen, and wrote a book concerning the paternal power, and addressed it to his son Renatus; Renatus answered it, but his superiors did not think fit to publish his answer. They employed Richeome provincial of the Jesuits of Paris, to refute Peter Ayrault’s book. Renatus’s adventures are as follows: he entered into the order at Triers, on the 12th of June, 1586, and went afterwards to Fulda, where he renewed his study of rhetoric. He passed through Germany, and was detained there by the Protestants; he then went to Rome, where he studied philosophy a year under Mutius Vitelleschi; and continued this study the year following at Milan, and finished it at Dijon. Having taught the classes in the same city during four years, with great success, he left it when the Jesuits were banished from several cities of the kingdom, in the year 1594, went into Piedmont, where he taught for two years. He came afterwards to Avignon, where he studied divinity four years, after which he returned to

Rome, whence he was sent to Milan to teach rhetoric; this he did for some years, and returned afterwards into France, where he passed through the most illustrious employments of his order. He taught philosophy, preached, and was superior of a college: he was rector at Rheims, Dijon, Sens, Dole, and Bezançon; he was the provincial’s assistant, and procurator of the province of Champagne, and afterwards of that of Lyons, at Rome. Lastly, he died at La Fleche, on the 18th of December, 1644. His father, by a deed executed before a notary and witnesses, deprived him of his blessing in the year 1593, but he did not keep his resentment till his death, for a writing was found among his papers in winch he gave him his blessing. It was signed with his own hand, and contained as follows: “God give his peace, and his love, and his grace to my son Renatus Ayrault. I give him my blessing in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; and I forgive him every thing wherein he may have offended me. And I pray God to assist him with his holy spirit, whatever state or calling he may undertake.”

Art. Ayrault.