out and vanish’ (ib. vol. i. p. 230).
’The Jesuit fathers have methods of acquiring
in this world, and making their neophytes acquire,
heaven without diminution, or rather with augmentation,
of this life’s indulgences’ (ib.
vol. i. p. 313). ’The Jesuit fathers used
to confer Paradise; they now have become dispensers
of fame in this world’ (ibid. p. 363).
’When they seek entrance into any place, they
do not hesitate to make what promises may be demanded
of them, possessing as they do the art of escape by
lying with equivocations and mental reservations’
(ib. vol. ii. p. 147). ’The Jesuit
is a man of every color; he repeats the marvel of the
chameleon’ (ibid. p. 105). ’When
they play a losing game, they yet rise winners from
the table. For it is their habit to insinuate
themselves upon any condition demanded, having arts
enough whereby to make themselves masters of those
who bind them by prescribed rules. They are glad
to enter in the guise of galley-slaves with irons
on their ankles; since, when they have got in, they
will find no difficulty in loosing their own bonds
and binding others’ (ibid. p. 134).
’They command two arts: the one of escaping
from the bonds and obligations of any vow or promise
they shall have made, by means of equivocation, tacit
reservation, and mental restriction; the other of
insinuating, like the hedgehog, into the narrowest
recesses, being well aware that when they unfold their
piercing bristles, they will obtain the full possession
of the dwelling and exclude its master’ (ibid.
p. 144). ’Everybody in Italy is well aware
how they have wrought confession into an art.
They never receive confidences under that seal without
disclosing all particulars in the conferences of their
Society; and that with the view of using confession
to the advantage of their order and the Church.
At the same time they preach the doctrine that the
seal of the confessional precludes a penitent from
disclosing what the confessor may have said to him,
albeit his utterances have had no reference to sins
or to the safety of the soul’ (ib. vol.
ii. p. 108). ’Should the Jesuits in France
get hold of education, they will dominate the university,
and eradicate sound letters. Yet why do I speak
of healthy literature? I ought to have said good
and wholesome doctrine, the which is verily mortal
to that Company’ (ibid. p. 162).
’Every species of vice finds its patronage in
them. The avaricious trust their maxims, for
trafficking in spiritual commodities; the superstitious,
for substituting kisses upon images for the exercise
of Christian virtues; the base fry of ambitious upstarts,
for cloaking every act of scoundreldom with a veil
of holiness. The indifferent find in them a palliative
for their spiritual deadness; and whoso fears no God,
has a visible God ready made for him, whom he may
worship with merit to his soul. In fine, there
is nor perjury, nor sacrilege, nor parricide, nor