JESUITS, or the Society of Jesus, a famous religious order of the Roman Catholic church, founded by Inigo de Loyola, called also Ignatius Loyola. The plan which this fanatic formed of its constitution and laws was suggested, as he gave out, and as his followers still teach, by the immediate inspiration of heaven. But, notwithstanding this high pretension, his design met at first with violent opposition. The pope, to whom Loyola had applied for the sanction of his authority to confirm the institution, referred his petition to a committee of cardinals; and as they represented the establishment as not only unnecessary, but dangerous, Paul refused to grant his approbation. At last, however, Loyola removed all his scruples by an offer which it was impossible for any pope to resist. He proposed, that besides the three vows of poverty, chastity, and monastic obedience, which are common to all the orders of regulars, the members of his society should take a fourth vow of obedience to the pope, binding themselves to go whithersoever he should command them for the service of religion, and without requiring any thing from the holy see for their support. At a time when the papal authority had received a severe shock by the revolt of so many nations from the Romish church; at a time when every part of the popish system was attacked with so much violence and success; the acquisition of a body of men thus peculiarly devoted to the see of Rome, and whom it might set in opposition to all its enemies, was an object of the highest consequence. Paul instantly perceiving this, confirmed the institution of the Jesuits by his bull, granted the most ample privileges to the members of the society, and appointed Loyola to be the first general of the order. The event fully justified Paul’s discernment, in expecting such beneficial consequences to the see of Rome from this institution. In less than half a century, the society obtained establishments in every country that adhered to the Roman Catholic church; its power and wealth increased amazingly; the number of its members became great; their character as well as accomplishments were still greater; and the Jesuits were celebrated by the friends and dreaded by the enemies of the Catholic faith, as the most able and enterprising order in the church.

The constitution and laws of the society were perfected by Laines and Aquaviva, the two generals who succeeded Loyola; men far superior to their master in abilities and in the science of government. They framed that system of profound and artful policy which distinguishes the order. The large infusion of fanaticism mingled with its regulations should be imputed to Loyola its founder. Many circumstances concurred in giving a peculiarity of character to the order of Jesuits, and in forming the members of it not only to take a greater share in the affairs of the world than any other body of monks, butalso to acquire superior influence in the conduct of them.

The primary object of almost all the monastic orders is to separate men from the world, and from any concern in its affairs. In the solitude and silence of the cloister, the monk is called to work out his own salvation by extraor [7:12:553] dinary acts of mortification and piety. He is dead to the world, and ought not to mingle in its transactions. He can be of no benefit to mankind but by his example and by his prayers. The Jesuits, on the contrary, were taught to consider themselves as formed for action. They were chosen soldiers, bound to exert themselves continually in the service of God, and of the pope his vicar upon earth. Whatever tended to instruct the ignorant, whatever could be of use to reclaim or to oppose the enemies of the holy see, was their proper object. That they might have full leisure for this active service, they were totally exempted from those functions the performance of which forms the chief business of other monks. They appeared in no processions; they practised no rigorous austerities; they did not consume one half of their time in the repetition of tedious offices. But they were required to attend to all the transactions of the world, on account of the influence which these might have upon religion; they were directed to study the dispositions of persons in high rank, and to cultivate their friendship; and, by the very constitution as well as genius of the order, a spirit of action and intrigue was infused into all its members.

As the object of the society of Jesuits differed from that of the other monastic orders, the diversity was no less in the form of its government. The other orders might be considered as voluntary associations, in which whatever affected the whole body was regulated by the common suffrage of all its members. The executive power was vested in the persons placed at the head of each house or of the whole society; but the legislative authority resided in the community. Affairs of moment, relating to particular houses, were determined in conventual chapters; but such as respected the whole order were considered in general congregations. But Loyola, full of the ideas of implicit obedience, which he had derived from his military profession, provided that the government of his order should be purely monarchical. A general, chosen for life by deputies from the several provinces, possessed power which was supreme and independent, extending to every person and to every case. He, by his sole authority, nominated provincials, rectors, and every other officer employed in the government of the society, and he could remove them at pleasure. In him was vested the sovereign administration of the revenues and funds of the order. Every member belonging to it was at his disposal; and by his uncontrollable mandate he could impose upon them any task, or employ them in whatsoever service he pleased. To his commands they were required to yield not only outward obedience, but even to resign to him the inclinations of their own wills and the sentiments of their own understandings. They were to listen to his injunctions as if these had been uttered by Christ himself. Under his direction they were to be mere passive instruments, like clay in the hands of the potter, or like dead carcasses incapable of resistance. Such a singular form of policy could not fail to impress its character upon all the members of the order, and to give a peculiar force to all its operations. There is not in the annals of mankind any example of such a perfect despotism, exercised not over monks shut up in the cells of a monastery, but over men dispersed amongst all the nations of the earth.

As the constitutions of the order vested in the general absolute dominion over all its members, they carefully provided for his being perfectly informed with respect to the character and abilities of his subjects. Every novice who offered himself as a candidate for entering into the order was obliged to manifest his conscience to the superior, or a person appointed by him; and required to confess not only his sins and defects, but to discover the inclinations, the passions, and the bent of his soul. This manifestation they were required to renew every six months. The society, not satisfied with penetrating in this manner into the innermost recesses of the heart, directed each member to observe the words and actions of the novices. They were constituted spies upon their conduct, and were bound to disclose every thing of importance concerning them to the superior. In order that this scrutiny into their character might be as complete as possible, they served a long noviciate, during which they passed through the several gradations of ranks in the society; and they must have attained the full age of thirty-three years before they could be admitted to take the final vows, by which they became professed members. By these various methods, the superiors, under whose immediate inspection the novices were placed, acquired a thorough knowledge of their dispositions and talents. In order that the general, who was the soul which animated and moved the whole society, might have under his eyε every thing necessary to inform or direct him, the provincials and heads of the several houses were obliged to transmit to him regular and frequent reports concerning the members under their inspection. In these they descended into minute details respecting the character of each person, his abilities natural or acquired, his temper, his experience in affairs, and the particular department for which he was best fitted. These reports, when digested and arranged, were entered into registers kept on purpose, that the general might at one comprehensive view survey the state of the society in every corner of the earth; observe the qualifications and talents of its members; and thus choose, with perfect information, the instruments which his absolute power could employ in any 7 service for which he thought fit to destine them.

As it was the professed intention of the order of Jesuits to labour with unwearied zeal in promoting the salvation of men, this engaged them of course in many active functions. From their first institution, they considered the education of youth as their peculiar province; they 7 aimed at being spiritual guides and confessors; they preached frequently in order to instruct the people; and they set out as missionaries to convert unbelieving nations. The novelty of the institution, as well as the singularity of its objects, procured the order many admirers and patrons. The governors of the society had the address to avail themselves of every circumstance in its favour; and in a short time the number as well as influence of its members increased prodigiously. Before the expiration of the sixteenth century, the Jesuits had obtained the chief direction of the education of youth in every catholic country of Europe. They had become the confessors of almost all its monarchs; an office of no small importance in any reign, but, under a weak prince, superior even to that of the minister himself. They were the spiritual guides of almost every person eminent for rank or power. They possessed the highest degree of confidence and interest with the papal court, as the most zealous and able champions of its authority. The advantages which an active and enterprising body of men might derive from all these circumstances are obvious. They formed the minds of men in their youth, and they retained an ascendant over them in their advanced years. They possessed, at different periods, the direction of the most considerable courts in Europe. They mingled in all affairs; they took part in every intrigue and revolution. The general, by means of the extensive intelligence which he received, could regulate the operations of the order with the most perfect discernment; and, by means of his absolute power, could carry them on with the utmost vigour and effect.

Along with the power of the order, its wealth continued to increase. Various expedients were devised for eluding the obligation of the vow of poverty. The order acquired ample possessions in every catholic country; and, [7:12:554]by the number as well as magnificence of its public buildings, together with the value of its property, moveable or real, it vied with the most opulent of the monastic fraternities. Besides the sources of wealth common to all the regular clergy, the Jesuits possessed one which was peculiar to themselves. Under pretext of promoting the success of their missions, and of facilitating the support of their missionaries, they obtained a special license from the court of Rome to trade with the nations which they laboured to convert. In consequence of this, they engaged in an extensive and lucrative commerce both in the East and West Indies. They opened warehouses in different parts of Europe, in which they vended their commodities. Not satisfied with trade alone, they imitated the example of other commercial societies, and aimed at obtaining settlements. They accordingly acquired possession of a large and fertile province in the southern continent of America, and reigned as sovereigns over some hundred thousand subjects.

Unhappily for mankind, the vast influence which the order of Jesuits acquired by all these different means was often exerted with the most pernicious effect. Such was the tendency of that discipline observed by the society in forming its members, and such were the fundamental maxims in its constitution, that every Jesuit was taught to regard the interest of the order as the capital object to which every consideration was to be sacrificed. This spirit of attachment to their order, the most ardent perhaps that ever influenced any body of men, is the characteristic principle of the Jesuits, and serves as a key to the genius of their policy as well as the peculiarities in their sentiments and conduct.

As it was for the honour and advantage of the society, that its members should possess an ascendancy over persons in high rank or of great power, the desire of acquiring and preserving such a direction of their conduct with greater facility led the Jesuits to propagate a system of relaxed and pliant morality, which accommodates itself to the passions of men, justifies their vices, tolerates their imperfections, and authorizes almost every action that the most audacious or crafty politician would wish to perpetrate.

As the prosperity of the order was intimately connected with the preservation of the papal authority, the Jesuits, influenced by the same principle of attachment to the interests of their society, were the most zealous patrons of those doctrines which tend to exalt ecclesiastical power upon the ruins of civil government. They attributed to the court of Rome a jurisdiction as extensive and absolute as was claimed by the most presumptuous pontiffs in the dark ages. They contended for the entire independence of ecclesiastics on the civil magistrates. They published such tenets concerning the duty of opposing princes -who were enemies of the catholic faith, as countenanced the most atrocious crimes, and tended to dissolve all the ties which connect subjects with their rulers.

As the order derived both reputation and authority from the zeal with which it stood forth in defence of the Romish church against the attacks of the Reformers, its members, proud of this distinction, considered it as their peculiar function to combat the opinions and to check the progress of the Protestants. They made use of every art, and employed every weapon against them. They set themselves in opposition to every gentle or tolerating measure in their favour; and they incessantly stirred up against them all the rage of ecclesiastical and civil persecution.

Monks of other denominations have indeed ventured to teach the same pernicious doctrines, and have held opinions equally inconsistent with the order and happiness of civil society. But, from reasons which are obvious, they either delivered such opinions with greater reserve or propagated them with less success. Whoever recollects the events which have happened in Europe during two centuries, will find that the Jesuits may justly be considered as responsible for most of the pernicious effects arising from that corrupt and dangerous casuistry, from those extravagant tenets concerning ecclesiastical power, and from that intolerant spirit, which have been the disgrace of the church of Rome throughout that period, and which have brought so many calamities upon civil societv.

But, amidst many bad consequences flowing from the institution of this order, mankind, it must be acknowledged, have derived from it some considerable advantages. As the Jesuits made the education of youth one of their capital objects, and as their first attempts to establish colleges for the reception of students were violently opposed by the universities in different countries, it became necessary for them, as the most effectual method of acquiring the public favour, to surpass their rivals in science and industry. This prompted them to cultivate with extraordinary ardour the study of ancient literature. It put them upon various methods for facilitating the instruction of youth; and, by the improvements which they made in education, they contributed so much towards the progress of polite learning, that upon this account they have merited well of society. Nor has the order of Jesuits been successful only in teaching the elements of literature; it has likewise produced eminent masters in many branches in science, and can alone boast of a greater number of ingenious authors than all the other religious fraternities taken together.

But it is in the new world that the Jesuits exhibited the most wonderful display of their abilities, and contributed most effectually to the benefit of the human species. The conquerors of that unfortunate portion of the globe had nothing in view but to plunder, to enslave, and to exterminate its inhabitants. The Jesuits alone made humanity the object of their settling there. About the beginning of the seventeenth century, they obtained admission into the fertile province of Paraguay, which stretches across the southern continent of America, from the bottom of the mountains of Potosi to the confines of the Spanish and Portuguese settlements on the banks of the river La Plata. They found the inhabitants in a state very little different from that which takes place amongst men when they first begin to unite together; strangers to the arts, subsisting precariously by hunting or fishing, and hardly acquainted with the first principles of subordination and government. The Jesuits set themselves to instruct and to civilize these savages. They taught them to cultivate the ground, to rear tame animals, and to build houses. They brought them to live together in villages. They trained them to arts and manufactures. They made them taste the sweets of society, and accustomed them to the blessings of security and order. These people became the subjects of their benefactors, who governed them with a tender attention, resembling that with which a father directs his children. Respected and beloved almost to adoration, a few Jesuits presided over some hundred thousand Indians. They maintained a perfect equality amongst all the members of the community. Each of them was obliged to labour, not for himself alone, but for the public. The produce of their fields, together with the fruits of their industry of every species, were deposited in common storehouses, from which each individual received every thing necessary for the supply of his wants. By this institution, almost all the passions which disturb the peace of society, and render the members of it unhappy, were extinguished. A few magistrates, chosen for the most part by the Indians themselves, watched over the public tranquillity, and secured obedience to the laws. The sanguinary punishments frequent under other governments were unknown. An admonition from a Jesuit, a slight mark of infamy, or, upon some singular occasion, a few lashes with a whip, were sufficient to maintain good order amongst these innocent and happy people.
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But even in this meritorious effort of the Jesuits for the good of mankind, the genius and spirit of their order mingled and were discernible. They plainly aimed at establishing in Paraguay an independent empire, subject to the society alone, and which, by the superior excellence of its constitution and police, could scarcely have failed to extend its dominion over all the southern continent of America. With this view, in order to prevent the Spaniards or Portuguese in the adjacent settlements, from acquiring any dangerous influence over the people within the limits of the province subject to the society, the Jesuits endeavoured to inspire the Indians with hatred and contempt of these nations. They cut off all intercourse between their subjects and the Spanish or Portuguese settlements. They prohibited any private trader of either nation from entering their territories. When they were obliged to admit any person in a public character from the neighbouring governments, they did not permit him to have any conversation with their subjects; and no Indian was allowed even to enter the house where these strangers resided, unless in the presence of a Jesuit. In order to render any communication between them as difficult as possible, they industriously avoided giving the Indians any knowledge of the Spanish or of any other European language; but encouraged the different tribes which they had civilized to acquire a certain dialect of the Indian tongue, and laboured to make that the universal language throughout their dominions. As all these precautions, without military force, would have been insufficient to render their empire secure and permanent, they instructed their subjects in the European arts of war. They formed them into bodies of cavalry and infantry, completely armed and regularly disciplined. They provided a great train of artillery, as well as magazines stored with all the implements of war. Thus they established an army so numerous and well appointed, as to be formidable in a country where a few sickly and ill-disciplined battalions composed all the military force kept on foot by the Spaniards or Portuguese.

Such were the laws, the policy, and the genius of this formidable order, of which, however, a perfect knowledge has only been of late attainable. Europe had observed, for two centuries, the ambition and power of the order. But whilst it felt many fatal effects of these, it could not fully discern the causes to which they were to be imputed. It was unacquainted with many of the singular regulations in the political constitution or government of the Jesuits, which formed the enterprising spirit of intrigue that distinguished its members, and elevated the body itself to such a height of power. It was a fundamental maxim with the Jesuits, from their first institution, not to publish the rules of their order. These they kept concealed as an impenetrable mystery. They never communicated them to strangers, nor even to the greater part of their own members. They refused to produce them when required by courts of justice; and, by a strange solecism in policy, the civil power in different countries authorized or connived at the establishment of an order of men, whose constitution and laws were concealed with a solicitude which alone was a good reason for excluding them. During the prosecutions carried on against them in Portugal and France, the Jesuits were so inconsiderate as to produce the mysterious volumes of their institute. By the aid of these authentic records, the principles of their government may be delineated, and the sources of their power investigated, with a degree of certainty and precision which, previously to that event, it was impossible to attain. The pernicious effects, however, of the spirit and constitution of this order rendered it early obnoxious to some of the principal powers in Europe, and gradually brought on its downfall. The Emperor Charles V. saw it expedient to check its progress in his dominions; it was expelled from England by a proclamation of James I. in 1604, from Venice in 1606, from Portugal in 1759, from France in 1764, from Spain and Sicily in 1767, and it was totally suppressed and abolished by Pope Clement XIV. in 1773. In 1801, Pius VII. reestablished the society of Jesuits, but only for Russia; and in 1814, the same pope re-established it throughout the whole earth. The following judicious and discriminating character of the order is from the masterly pen of Sir James Mackintosh, and forms the conclusion of the eighth chapter of his Historical View of the Reign of James II.

“The party which had now the undisputed ascendant was denominated Jesuits, as a term of reproach, by the enemies of that famous society in the church of Rome, as well as among the Protestant communions. A short account of their origin and character may facilitate a faint conception of the admiration, jealousy, fear, and hatred, the profound submission or fierce resistance, which that formidable name once inspired. Their institution originated in pure zeal for religion, glowing in the breast of Loyola, a Spanish soldier; a man full of imagination and sensibility, in a country where wars, rather civil than foreign, waged against unbelievers for ages, had rendered a passion for spreading the catholic faith a national point of honour, and blended it with the pursuit of glory as well as with the memory of past renown. The legislative forethought of his successors gave form and order to the product of enthusiasm, and bestowed laws and institutions on their society which were admirably fitted to its various ends. Having arisen in the age of the reformation, they naturally became the champions of the church against her new enemies. Being established in the period of the revival of letters, instead of following the example of the unlettered monks, who decried knowledge as the mother of heresy, they joined in the general movement of mankind; they cultivated polite literature with splendid success; they were the earliest, and, perhaps, the most extensive reformers of European education, which, in their schools, made a larger stride than it has at any succeeding moment; and, by the just reputation of their learning, as well as by the weapons with which it armed them, they were enabled to carry on a vigorous contest against the most learned impugners of the authority of the church. Peculiarly subjected to the see of Rome by their constitution, they became ardently devoted to its highest pretensions, in order to maintain a monarchical power, of which they felt the necessity for concert, discipline, and energy in their theological warfare.

“While the nations of the Spanish peninsula hastened with barbaric chivalry to spread religion by the sword in the newly explored regions of the East and the West, the Jesuits alone, the great missionaries of that age, either repaired or atoned for the evils caused by the misguided zeal of their countrymen. In India they suffered martyrdom with heroic constancy'. They penetrated through the barrier which Chinese policy opposed to the entrance of strangers; they cultivated the most difficult of languages with such success as to compose hundreds of volumes in it; and, by the public utility of their scientific acquirements, they obtained toleration, patronage, and personal honours, from that jealous government: and the natives of America, who generally felt the superiority of the European race only in a more rapid or a more gradual destruction, and to whom even the excellent Quakers dealt out little more than penurious justice, were, under the paternal rule of the Jesuits, reclaimed from savage manners, and instructed in the arts and duties of civil life. At the opposite point of society they were fitted, by their release from conventual life, and their allowed intercourse with the world, for the perilous office of secretly guiding the conscience of princes. They maintain the highest station as a religious body in the literature of catholic countries. No other association ever sent forth so many disciples who reached such eminence in departments so [7:12:556]various and unlike. While some of their number ruled the royal penitents at Versailles or the Escurial, others were teaching the use of the spade and the shuttle to the naked savages of Paraguay; a third body daily endangered their lives in an attempt to convert the Hindus to Christianity; a fourth carried on the controversy against the reformers; a portion were at liberty to cultivate polite literature, and the greater part continued to be employed either in carrying on the education of catholic Europe, of which they were the first improvers, or in the government of their society, in ascertaining the ability and disposition of the junior members, so that well-qualified men might be selected for the extraordinary variety of offices in their immense commonwealth. The most famous constitutionalists, the most skilful casuists, theablest schoolmasters, the most celebrated professors, the best teachers of the humblest mechanical arts, the missionaries who could most bravely encounter martyrdom, or who with most patient skill could infuse the rudiments of religion into the minds of ignorant tribes or prejudiced nations, were the growth of their fertile schools. The prosperous administration of such a society for two centuries is probably the strongest proof afforded from authentic history that an artificially formed system of government and education is capable, under some circumstances, of accomplishing greater things than the general experience of it would warrant us in expecting from it. Even here, however, the materials were supplied and the first impulse given by enthusiasm; and in this memorable instance the defects of such a system are discoverable. The whole ability of the members being constantly, exclusively, and intensely directed to the various purposes of the order, the mind of the Jesuits had not the leisure or liberty necessary for works of genius, or even for discoveries in science, to say nothing of original speculations in philosophy, which are interdicted by implicit faith. That great society, which covered the world for two hundred years, has no names which can be opposed to those of Pascal and Racine, produced by the single community of Port Royal, which was in a state of persecution during the greater part of its short existence. But this remarkable peculiarity amounts perhaps to little more than that they were more eminent in active than in contemplative life. A far more serious objection is the manifest tendency of such a system, while it produces the precise excellences aimed at by its mode of cultivation, to raise up all the neighbouring evils with a certainty and abundance, a size and malignity, unknown to the freer growth of nature. The mind is narrowed by the constant concentration of the understanding; those who are habitually intent on one object, learn at last to pursue it at the expense of others equally or more important. The Jesuits, the reformers of education, sought to engross it, as well as to stop it at their own point. Placed in the front of the battle against the Protestants, they caught a more than ordinary portion of that theological hatred against their opponents which so naturally springs up where the greatness of the community, the fame of the controversialist, and the salvation of mankind, seem to be at stake. Affecting more independence in their missions than other religious orders, they were the formidable enemies of episcopal jurisdiction; and thus armed against themselves the secular clergy, especially in Great Britain, where they were the chief missionaries. Intrusted with the irresponsible guidance of kings, they were too often betrayed into a compliant morality; excused probably to themselves by the great public benefits which they might thus obtain by the numerous temptations which seemed to palliate royal vices, and by the real difficulties of determining, in many instances, whether there was more danger of deterring such persons from virtue by unreasonable austerity, or of alluring them into vice by unbecoming relaxation. This difficulty is indeed so great, that casuistry has, in general, vibrated between these extremes, rather than rested near the centre. To exalt the papal power, they revived the scholastic doctrine of the popular origin of government, that rulers might be subject to the people, while the people themselves, on all questions so difficult as those which relate to the limits of obedience, were to listen with reverential submission to the judgment of the sovereign pontiff, the common pastor of sovereigns and subjects, the unerring oracle of humble Christians in all cases of perplexed conscience. The ancient practice of excommunication, which, in its original principle, was no more than the expulsion from a community of an individual who did not observe its rules, being stretched so far as to interdict intercourse with offenders, and, by consequence, to suspend duty towards them, became, in the middle age, the means of absolving nations from obedience to excommunicated sovereigns. Under these specious colours both popes and councils had been guilty of alarming encroachments on the civil authority. The church had indeed never solemnly adopted the principle of these usurpations into her rule of faith or of life, though many famous doctors gave them a dangerous continuance. She had not condemned, or even disavowed, those equally celebrated divines who resisted them; and though the court of Rome undoubtedly patronized opinions so favourable to its power, the catholic church, which had never pronounced a collective judgment on them, was still at liberty to disclaim them, without abandoning her haughty claim of exemption from fundamental error. On the Jesuits, as the most staunch of the polemics who struggled to exalt the church above the state, and who ascribed to the supreme pontiff an absolute power over the church, the odium of these do ’ ctrines principally fell. Among reformed nations, and especially in Great Britain, the greatest of them, the whole order was regarded as incendiaries, perpetually plotting the overthrow of protestant governments, and as immoral sophists, who employed their subtle casuistry to silence the remains of conscience in tyrants of their own persuasion. Nor was the detestation of Protestants rewarded by general popularity in catholic countries. All other regulars envied their greatness; the universities dreaded their acquiring a monopoly of education. Monarchs, the most zealously catholic, though they often favoured individual Jesuits, often also looked with fear and hatred on a society who would reduce them to the condition of vassals of the priesthood; and in France, the magistrates, who preserved their integrity and dignity in the midst of general servility, maintained a more constant conflict with these formidable adversaries of the independence of the state and the church. The kings of Spain and Portugal envied their well-earned authority, in the missions of Paraguay and California, over districts which they had conquered from the wilderness. The impenetrable mystery in which a part of their constitution was enveloped, though it strengthened their association, and secured the obedience of its members, was an irresistible temptation to abuse power, and justified the apprehensions of temporal sovereigns, while it opened an unbounded scope for heinous accusations. Even in the eighteenth century, when many of their peculiarities had become faint, and they were perhaps little more than the most accomplished, opulent, and powerful of religious orders, they were charged with spreading secret confraternities over France. Their greatness became early so invidious as to be an obstacle to the advancement of their members; and it was generally believed that if Bellarmine had belonged to any other than the most powerful order in Christendom, he would have been raised to the chair of Peter. The court of Rome itself, for w hom they had sacrificed all, dreaded auxiliaries who were so potent that they might easily become masters. These champions of the papal monarchy were regarded with [7:12:557]jealousy by popes whose policy they aspired to dictate or control. Temporary circumstances at this time created a more than ordinary alienation between the Jesuits and the Roman court. They, in their original character of a force raised for the defence of the church against the Lutherans, always devoted themselves to the temporal sovereign who was at the head of the catholic party; they were attached to Philip II. at the time when Sextus V. dreaded his success; and they now placed their hopes on Louis XIV., in spite of his patronage, for a time, of the independent maxims of the Gallican church. On the other hand, Odeschalchi, who governed the church under the name of Innocent XI., feared the growing power of France, resented the independence of the Gallican church, and was, to the last degree, exasperated by the insults offered to him in his capital by the command of Louis. He was born in the Spanish province of Lombardy, and, as an Italian sovereign, he could not be indifferent to the bombardment of Genoa, and to the humiliation of that respectable republic, by requiring a public submission from the doge at Versailles. As soon, then, as James became the pensioner and creature of Louis, the resentments of Odeschalchi prevailed over his zeal for the extension of the church.

" The Jesuits had treated himself, and those of his predecessors who hesitated between them and their opponents, with offensive liberty. While they bore sway at Versailles and St James’s, they were on that account less obnoxious to the Roman court. Men of wit remarked at Paris, that things would never go well till the pope became a Catholic, and King James a Huguenot. Such were the intricate and dark combinations of opinions, passions, and interests, which placed the nuncio in opposition to the most potent order of the church, and completed the alienation of the British nation from James, by bringing on the party which now ruled his councils the odious and terrible name of Jesuits.”