Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 837 pages of information about Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2.

Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 837 pages of information about Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2.
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
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Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.