him RODRIGUEZ and BOBADILLA; the latter having fallen ill, XAVIER was substituted. MASCARENHAS carried these two Missionaries with himz into Portugal: they departed from Rome, 15th March, 1540, above six months before the approbation of the Institution. RODRIGUEZ remained in Portugal, and XAVIER went to India. IGNATIUS now engaged for unlimited obedience to the Pope; PAUL III. flattered by this promise, began to shew himself more favorable. At length, upon the most urgent solicitations, and upon assurances of the most entire submission, PAUL III. by a Bull of the 27th of September, 1540, confirmed the Institution. Upwards of forty Bulls have followed, in which they have procured exemptions from all jurisdictions, as well ecclesiastical as civil; and from all tithes, and imposts on them and their property. The Institution is a universal conspiracy against the rights of Bishops, Rectors, Universities, Corporate Bodies, Princes, Magistrates, and every power both spiritual and temporal! the exorbitant privileges with which they have clothed themselves, are only fit to overturn every state, and to spread distress and confusion in all places. It is decided by the Bulls, that the government of the Society is purely monar chical, and it will appear that, from the origin of their esta blishment, the Jesuits have proposed to swallow up all other, Orders, authorities, and possessions; in a word, to concentrate all power in the Society, and to become universal Mo narchs. Every other Establishment has Assemblies, where all which concerns them is decided in Chapters, but in the Houses of the Society nothing is so decided. POPE GREGORY XIV. by his Bull of 1591, declares that IGNATIUS desired that the form of government in his Society should be MONARCHICAL, and that every thing should be decided by the will of the General alone. One of the first privileges that IGNATIUS sought from the Pope was, that his disciples should not be com pelled to take part in the public service of the Church*: in a word, in the privileges obtained by the Jesuits, we observe merely a plan formed with address, and dictated by ambition, not only to establish an absolute monarchy in the Society, but to raise the Society to the monarchy of the whole world, in subjecting every other authority to itself. No sooner had IGNATIUS obtained the approbation of his Institution, than he spread his companions over the whole world. LAINEZ had already penetrated to the Court of the Emperor CHARLES V. †: he was even employed to negotiate the marriage of the daughter of the King of Portugal with PHILIP II. the son of that Emperor, and he accompanied the new Queen into Spain. He thus opened that kingdom to his Society; and it is certain that the Jesuits, having attached themselves to PHILIP II. succeeded at last in obtaining for him the crown of Portugal. IGNATIUS and his companions had promised the Pope, in their Petitions of 1540 and 1543, to fight under his standard; to be his soldiers, as they were those of God; and to obey him in all things. PAUL III. in consequence, loaded them with favors: he sent LAINEZ, and SALMERON, to the Council of Trent, and LE JAY went there also in the character of Theologian to the Bishop of Augsburgh. The remarkable protection afforded them by the Pope,, and the zeal displayed by them against the Protestants, induced many Princes to admit them into their State's, and to assign them establishments. In 1540, when they presented their petitions to PAUL III. they only appeared in the number of ten. In 1543 they were not more than twenty-four. In 1545 they had only ten Houses: but in 1549 they had two Provinces; one in Spain, and the other in Portugal, and twenty-two Houses, and at *See Bull of PAUL III. dated 27th of September, 1540:"Teneantur "tamen singuli privatim ac particulariter, et non communiter ad di"cendum officium." + See Histoire des Religieux de la Compagnie de Jesus. 880 MELCHIOR CANO'S PREDICTION AS TO THE JESUITS.. the death of IGNATIUS in 1556, they had twelve large Provinces. In 1608 RIBADENEIRA reckoned 29 Provinces, and two vice Provinces, 21 Houses of Profession, 293 Colleges, 33 Houses of Probation, 93 other residences, and 10,581 Jesuits. In the Catalogue printed at Rome in 1629 are found 35 Provinces, 2 vice Provinces, 33 Houses of Profession, 578 Colleges, 48 Houses of Probation, 88 Seminaries, 160 Residences, 106 Missions, and, in all, 17,655 Jesuits, of whom 7870 were Priests *. At last (according to the calculation of Father JOUVENCY) they had in 1710, 24 Houses of Profession, 59 Houses of Probation, 340 Residences, 612 Colleges, of which above 80 were in France, 200 Missions, 157 Seminaries and Boarding Houses, and 19,998 Jesuits! When they thought to establish themselves at Salamanca in 1548 †, MELCHIOR CANO, a Dominican distinguished for his learning and piety, perceived some unfortunate presages which appeared to threaten the Romish Church with the greatest evils, and publicly declared, that he saw in the Society‡" the marks which the Apostle had assigned to the fol "lowers of Antichrist;" and when TURRIAN, one of his friends who had become a Jesuit, besought him to abstain from persecuting the Order, and alledged the approbation which the Holy See had conceded, he only replied, that "he "thought himself obliged to warn the people as he did, in "order that they might not suffer themselves to be seduced." The authority of MELCHIOR CANO made a great impression upon the inhabitants of Salamanca: the Jesuits were pointed out and driven away: they would no longer confide to them the education of their youth, nor the instruction of the religious: in a word, the Magistrates, in concert with the University, determined to banish them from the city as a corrupt race §. See the Memorial of the University of Paris to the King in 1724. + See Continuation of Fleury, Vol. xxix. lib. 145. See Morale Pratique, Vol. i. Preface and first Chapter. § See Histoire des Religieux de la Comp. de Jesus, 1. ii. n. 61. MELCHIOR CANO, when a Bishop, persisted in the judgment which he had at first pronounced against the Society: indeed, this Prelate, whom THE KING OF PORTUGAL, in his Manifesto of June, 1759, states to have distinguished himself by his science and virtues, expressed himself in these terms in his letter to the Confessor of the EMPEROR CHARLES V. "God grant that it may not happen to me as it is fabled ❝ to have happened to Cassandra, whose predictions obtained 66 no credit until after the capture and burning of Troy. If "the Members of the Society continue as they have begun, grant there may not come a time when Kings will wish to resist them, and will find no means of doing so *." The Jesuits, however, were only then in their infancy. God Among other privileges which PAUL III. granted, was that by which he exempted the Society and the persons and property of all its members, from every kind of superintend ence, jurisdiction, and punishment of Ordinaries: he further prohibited all Archbishops and Bishops, and every other authority, as well ecclesiastical as secular, from obstructing or molesting the companions of Ignatius, their houses, churches, or collegest. With such arms as these, nothing could resist them in countries professing a devoted submission to all the Decrees of the Popes. CHAP. II. EARLY EFFORTS OF THE JESUITS TO ESTABLISH FROM the year 1540, immediately after the approval of the *See the King of Portugal's Manifesto, accompanying his Circular Letter to the Bishops in 1759, where he cites this passage. + See this Bull as given by the Jesuits themselves. They enume rate forty Bulls, but they are in fact much more numerous. nions in different parts of the world, had sent some Disciples to Paris under the care of EGUIA; and afterwards under that of DOMINIQUE: but the King having ordered all the subjects of CHARLES V. to quit the kingdom, the greater part of this small society, which consisted of the Emperor's subjects, with, drew to Louvain*. In 1545, however, there were thirteen in the College of the Lombards, either Bursars or Students, and, under the guidance of VIOLE, but without being known: they found a powerful protector in GUILLAUME DU PRAT, Bishop of Clermont, natural son of the famous DU PRAT, Chancellor, Cardinal, and Legate, who had offered 120,000 livres for the purchase of the Popedom, and who had left great wealth to his son this Prelate had first established some Jesuits in his town of Billon; he afterwards lodged those who were in Paris, in his Hotel de Clermont, and left them a considerable legacy. IGNATIUS had insinuated himself at Rome into the favor of the Cardinal of Lorraine, who promised to protect his Institution at the Court of France, on his return: accordingly, at the instance of this Cardinal, HENRY II. of France issued Letters Patent† in January, 1550, by which he approved and confirmed the Bulls obtained by the Jesuits; and gave them permission to erect, with the funds which might be granted them, a House and College in the City of Paris only, and not in other cities, there to live according to their Rules and Statutes; and commanded his Parliament to sanction such Letters, and permit the Brethren to enjoy the said privileges. 1 The Jesuits presented their Letters Patent to the Parlia ment, which determined that the subject should be referred to the Crown Lawyers for their opinion: M. BRUSLART, the Attorney General, whom PASQUIER and DU BOULAY call the Cato of his age, consulted with his colleagues, M. DE Maril * Sée Dupin, 16 Siècle, part iii. chap. 4. + See an Extract from them in the Report of the Assembly of Poissy in-15617 |