ing that Protestants can, with any degree of propriety or consistency, advocate the zeal of the Jesuits in diffusing such a Religion, and making Converts to it; but if they can establish that Religion to be indeed the Religion of the Word of God, they will then act with far greater honesty by espousing it themselves, and ceasing to be mere nominal Protestants.

If it be meant to be asserted in this age of liberal opinions, that there is no essential difference between Popery and Protestantism, and that one is about as good as the other, let such an opinion be fairly avowed; and the Religion of the Reformation, which is at present established in this country, may at least stand a chance of faring as well in the argument as the Religion of the Church of Rome. As it is, however, the faith of the Reformed Church is avowed, indeed, by the writer of the work which has given occasion to these pages; while, from the beginning to the end of that work, a studied and systematic Defence of Popery, in the persons of its friends and adherents, is conducted with no ordinary degree of ardor and feeling. MR. DALLAS has even gone further than an avowal of attachment to THE REFORMATION in general: he has professed an attachment to THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND in particular: how far he has established those claims, has been already examined at some length; but the inquiry will not have been without its use, if it shall have proved that such professions are utterly incompatible with a Defence of the civil and religious system of the Jesuits: since it will at the same time prove that Education, as administered by Jesuits, and as administered by Protestants, are two things utterly distinct in their nature and consequences, and can no more accord with each other than light can harmonize with darkness, or sin with holiness.

We now come to the celebrated SECRETA MONITA; since Mr. Dallas, in considering the beauties of the Jesuits' Institute, adverts to the contrast between that Institute and those Secret Instructions (see p. 211).

He says little upon this subject in his work, beyond assert

"doctrines," and "a forgery;", and contents himself with referring to the account given of them in the Letters which appeared in the Pilot Newspaper, and the Popish Magazine. On turning to those Letters we find it asserted, that the SECRETA MONITA were published by "a Jesuit, who was dismissed "with ignominy from the Society in Poland for misconduct :" that "the walls of Cracow were soon covered with sheets of revengeful insults; and in the year 1616, this outcast of 2 "the Society published his fabricated SECRETA MONITA, with a view to cover his own disgrace, or to gratify his revenge.” The writer then quotes CORDARA, whom he calls "an elegant Historian, well known in the republic of letters" (though probably none of his readers ever heard of such a name before), in order to prove that it was an "ineptly silly "work" after this he informs us, that it was condemned at Rome, and placed in the celebrated Index of prohibited books in the year 1616 (which, by the way, is primâ facie in its favor), and that it was at length victoriously refuted by GRETSER: after which, MR. DALLAS himself returns to the charge ("ecce iterum Crispinus"), and gives the coup-degrace to the unfortunate SECRETA MONITA, by affirming, in a note, that he has "discovered after some search, that JE“ROME ZAROWICH was the name of the Jesuit who forged "the SECRETA MONITA;" though it is not a little extraordinary that the author of the Letters in the Pilot should not have made the same discovery, since he expressly names that very Jesuit as dismissed from the Society, but without attempting to lay the sin of this forgery to his charge.

Such is the sum of the evidence produced by Mr. DalLAS and his Clerical coadjutor against the authenticity of the SECRETA MONITA.

Now, it is somewhat remarkable, that, in a work in the British Museum, these SECRETA MONITA should be copied in Manuscript at the end of a printed work which bears for its title, "Ha Formula diversarum Provisionum à Gaspare "Passarello summo Studio in unum collectæ, et per Ordinem

"in suis Locis annotatæ." That, work was printed at Venice, in 1596, and the SECRETA MONITA which follow it, are (as has been observed) in Manuscript, and appear evidently to have been entered in it by a Jesuit for his own private use: they contain the solemn caution, at the end, about their being carefully guarded, communicated but to few, and those only the well-tried members of the Society; and also the injunction that they must be denied to be the Rules of the Society, if ever they should be imputed to it.

The English Edition of the SECRETA MONITA printed in 1658, is by no means of rare occurrence; and the statement prefixed to that Edition affirms that when Christian Duke of Brunswick took possession of Paderborn in Westphalia, he seized on the Jesuits' College there, and gave their Library, together with all their collection of Manuscripts, to the Capuchins, who discovered the SECRETA MONITA among the archives of the Rector, and that other copies were also found at Prague and elsewhere.

DR. COMPTON, the celebrated and excellent Bishop of London, published an English Translation of the SECRETA MONITA in the year 1669; and he was not likely to have been imposed upon by a forgery, or to have wasted his time in misleading the public.

The Amsterdam Edition of the SECRETA MONITA, entitled, "Machiavelli Mus Jesuiticus," was published in the year 1717, addressed to John Krausius a Jesuit, and is in the British Museum, which also contains German Editions of the SECRETA MONITA.

In the year 1722, the SECRETA MONITA were again published in London, and dedicated to Sir Robert Walpole; and a second Edition of the same work appeared in the year 1746, which was probably the last that has appeared in this country. Both these Editions have the original Latin on one page, and the English Translation on the opposite page, and they may be found in the British Museum.

争

at Cologne A. D. 1727, in a volume entitled Les Mystères les plus secrets des Jesuits contenus en diverses Pièces originales,

12mo.

With regard to GRETSER'S denial of the authenticity of the SECRETA MONITA, it may be observed, that he was a thorough-paced Jesuit, who made no scruple of denying any thing which affected the credit or reputation of his Order. He was the creature of Cardinal Bellarmine, another Jesuit, who was remarkable for a resolute adherence to the interests of the

Society, which he supported and defended “ per fas atque "nefas." Whoever is desirous of judging of the degree of credit due to the statements of GRETSER, has only to advert to the writings of DR. JAMES, formerly the Keeper of the Bodleian Library; who has, on the clearest evidence, in his Defence of the Bellum Papale, convicted that Author of the grossest falsehood. GRETSER has even been reproached, by the Roman Catholics themselves, with having uniformly evinced a greater desire to maintain his point in controversy, than to elucidate the subject in hand, much less to elicit the real truth.

He printed at Ingoldstadt, in 1609, a Defence of CardiNAL BELLARMINE, by which he has made his own, all the errors and excesses of that Jesuit and others, invalidating the authority and independence of Sovereign Princes: and he maintained the same doctrines himself, in a work published by him in 1610 at Mayence, and entitled Vespertilio heretico-politicus; where, among other things, he says, "We are not so timid and cowardly as to be deterred from openly asserting that the "Roman Pontiff can, when necessity requires, absolve Catholic Subjects from their oath of Allegiance; nay, we add, that, "if this be done by the Pope with prudence and care, it is a "meritorious work. What more need to be said? This is

66

66

clearly established by Bellarmine in his Disp. de Potest. "Pont. and by other writers." See pp. 158 and 159 *.

* The passage in the original runs thus: "Tam timidi et trepidî “non sumus, ut asserere palàm vereamur Romanum Pontificem posse,

At best, therefore, the testimony of GRETSER in opposition to the SECRETA MONITA, would have been no more than the testimony of a Jesuit; but when we consider his peculiar zeal and ardour in the cause of the Society; and the inveterate habit of falsehood which he had contracted, it will be too much to expect that we should now reject the SECRETA MONITA, because such a writer has declared against this work:

In addition to the observations which have been adduced in support of the SECRETA MONITA, there appears to be some collateral evidence in favor of their genuineness from the cir cumstance of their being little else than an echo of the debased morality and corrupt casuistry of the Jesuits, as well as a practical exposition of their pernicious principle of the lawfulness of doing evil that good may come. It may be asserted without the hazard of refutation, that the SECRETA MONITA contain no Regulation which the Jesuits have not promulgated under another form, nor one which they have not actually reduced to practice. It is no more than a summary of Rules resulting from their various doctrines; which Rules, although they may strike the more forcibly from being thus collected into a single focus, may all (if taken separately, and reduced to their primitive elements) be plainly shewn to emanate from doctrines which have been avowed and acted upon by the Members of that Order, from its earliest origin.

Another circumstance which may be noticed, as furnishing farther collateral evidence to the authority of the SERCETA MONITA is the fact, that the Jesuits were always known to possess and act upon other rules, than those which were publicly avowed by them, and which secret Rules were understood to be confided to their Rectors and Superiors alone. The University of Paris, so far back as the year 1624, reproached the Jesuits with being "governed by private laws neither

"si necessitas exigat, subditos Catholicos solvere juramento fidelitatis: "et addimus, si hoc à Pontifice prudenter et circumspectè fiat, esse opus meritorium. Quid vis amplius? Liquet hoc ex Disp. de Potest.. "Pont. apud Bellarminum, et apud alios scriptores."

66