sages, and found them misrepresented by the jesuits, should pronounce them guilty of the doctrines imputed to them, by the author of the Assertions. It cannot be expected of many, that they should read the three ponderous volumes, to which the writer has referred; if, however, any person should be disposed to give a serious consideration to the subject, he should, at least, read the pages, not very numerous, that compose the Examen du Procès Verbal, which concludes the work. Greatly sur prised indeed will the writer of these lines be, if a single person, who reads them, should not concur with him in thinking that the persons, who drew up the procès verbal, possessed no ordinary share of intrepidity.

LXXV. 7.

Their alleged Advocation of the Pope's Divine Right to Temporal Power in Spiritual Concerns.

ONE further charge against the jesuits, requires notice. It is objected to them, that the president de Thou discovers, in many parts of his History, a spirit of hostility towards them.-But this does not prejudice them in the opinion of any person acquainted with the history of France during that period. While the president was employed on his immortal work, France was just delivered from the horrors of the league, and a numerous and powerful party fomented within the kingdom, by Philip II, still abetted its views. In the prosecution of them, the leaguers had availed themselves,

nence.

and their remaining partisans still continued to avail themselves, of the ultramontane doctrines on the pope's deposing power. To these, the regular clergy, were supposed to be particularly favourable; now, among the regulars, the talents, activity and popularity of the jesuits, had elevated them, both in merit and in public opinion, to a considerable emiThis exposed them to the president's severities, from which the obscurer destinies of others protected them. But it has been proved to demonstration, that their conduct was more moderate than that of any other religious body engaged in the league. It is evident that they were soon taken into favour by Henry IV, and that he warmly protected them but it is not so generally known, that the chancellor l'Hôpital*, whose mind was as loyal, whose principles were as friendly to civil and religious liberty as those of de Thou, and whose talents for business were greatly superior, was favourable to the jesuits, and a decided encourager of their schools.

:

This leads us to consider the general charge of ultramontane doctrine respecting the temporal power of the pope in spiritual concerns, which has been often brought against the sons of Loyola. Upon this charge, we beg leave to present our readers with the following short exculpatory observations.

1. It is certain that the belief of the pope's right to direct supreme temporal power was once prevalent in every state, and among every description of

* See the Life of the Chancellor l'Hôpital, by the writer of these pages.

men in christendom. This opinion the jesuits did not introduce; they found it fully established: it would therefore be monstrous to attribute the origination of it to them.

2. Especially as so far from introducing, they were the first who opposed it. Bellarmine, one of their most eminent lights, absolutely denied, that the pope, by divine right, possessed directly, out of his own state, any temporal power: he taught that the temporal power of the pope was merely indirect, being confined to a right of exercising a temporal power, or of causing it to be exercised, when this was absolutely necessary to effect a great spiritual good, or to prevent a great spiritual evil. This was a considerable reduction of the power ascribed, till that time, to the pope; and it gave great offence to the Roman see*.

3. Even this mitigated doctrine was never taught by the jesuits in any state by the government of which it was not avowedly tolerated. It was tolerated, and the jesuits therefore taught it in Rome, Spain, Germany, Hungary, Poland and several states of Italy: but it was not tolerated, and the jesuits therefore did not teach it in France, or the Venetian states.

4. Where it was formally proscribed by the state, it was formally proscribed by the jesuits. Several

* Ayant pris un sentiment mitoyen touchant le pretendu pouvoir du pape sur le temporel des rois, il ne plut ni à Rome ni en France.-L'Advocat, art. Bellarmine.

instances of this will be produced in the following

section *.

5. Tothis, England unhappily forms an exception. There, the deposing doctrine was proscribed by the state; and, for a period,-much too long,-was not disavowed either by the jesuits or the general body of the clergy: but the cause of this protracted delay of the disavowal, is its excuse. The heap of sanguinary, penal and disabling laws, passed by Elizabeth, and the three first princes of the house of Stuart, against the catholics, drove all persons educated for the priesthood, to the territories of the pope or the Spanish monarch. This rendered them, in a great measure, dependent, for their subsistence and education, on those powers; they were therefore taught the doctrines of their schools. This circumstance we may lament, but no person of candour who does lament it, will ever be inattentive to its exculpating cause.

6. He will also acknowledge, that no sooner did England cease to be cruel, than every idea of the pope's temporal power began to vanish. The catholics crowded to take the oaths prescribed by the acts of 1778, 1791 and 1793; and the jesuits took them as readily and unreservedly as the others t.

* See the excellent defence of the society against this charge, in father Griffet's Réponse aux Assertions, vol. iii. ch. ii. art. 2.

+ After all, the indirect power of the pope, though a doctrine absolutely insupportable in argument, was not found to be in practice quite so mischievous as it is generally described.

7. It should be added, that the constitutions of the order most explicitly prohibited to its members every kind of interference in state concerns, o. temporal matters; and that this was specially prohibited by Aquaviva, general of the order, to the English jesuits: therefore, if Persons or any other individual offended in this respect, the offence was his own, the order was blameless.

8. It is idle to pursue the subject further. To quarrel with the jesuits of the nineteenth century because some of the order advocated the pope's

It had even this advantage, that, on several occasions, during the boisterous governments of the feudal princes,it often proved an useful restraint, in the absence of every other, both on the king and the great nobility, and protected the lower ranks of society from their violence and oppression. Add to this,— that, when the pope proceeded to extremities against any sovereign, the clergy generally rallied round the monarch, and the people adhered to the clergy. This produced a suspence of aggression:-the pontiff had time to think of his rashness, the monarch of his violence; and some expedient was devised which led to good.

Contraries often meet in extremes.-Many a bitter word has been applied to the deposing doctrine of Persons and Mariana: but it bears a nearer affinity to the whiggish doctrine of resistance, than is generally supposed. The whigs maintain that the people, where there is an extreme abuse of power,-of which abuse, the people themselves are to be the judges, may dethrone the offending monarch. The good fathers assigned the same power to the people, in the same extreme case, but contended that, if there were any doubts of the existence of the extremity, the pope should be the judge. Of the two systems, when all christendom was catholic, was not the last, speaking comparatively, the least objectionable?