Letters to His Son 1752 | Page 6

regard, or rather submission, which the
Sovereign is pleased to show the Church. Is the King a slave to the
Church, though a tyrant to the laity? The least resistance to his will
shall be declared damnable. But if he will not acknowledge the
superiority of their spiritual over his temporal, nor even admit their
'imperium in imperio', which is the least they will compound for, it
becomes meritorious not only to resist, but to depose him. And I
suppose that the bold propositions in the thesis you mention, are a
return for the valuation of 'les biens du Clerge'.

I would advise you, by all means, to attend to two or three of their
public disputations, in order to be informed both of the manner and the
substance of those scholastic exercises. Pray remember to go to all
those kind of things. Do not put it off, as one is too apt to do those
things which one knows can be done every day, or any day; for one
afterward repents extremely, when too late, the not having done them.
But there is another (so-called) religious society, of which the minutest
circumstance deserves attention, and furnishes great matter for useful
reflections. You easily guess that I mean the society of 'les R. R. P. P.
Jesuites', established but in the year 1540, by a Bull of Pope Paul III. Its
progress, and I may say its victories, were more rapid than those of the
Romans; for within the same century it governed all Europe; and, in the
next, it extended its influence over the whole world. Its founder was an
abandoned profligate Spanish officer, Ignatius Loyola; who, in the year
1521, being wounded in the leg at the 'siege of Pampeluna, went mad
from the smart of his wound, the reproaches of his conscience, and his
confinement, during which he read the lives of the Saints.
Consciousness of guilt, a fiery temper, and a wild imagination, the
common ingredients of enthusiasm, made this madman devote himself
to the particular service of the Virgin Mary; whose knight-errant he
declared himself, in the very same form in which the old knight-errants
in romances used to declare themselves the knights and champions of
certain beautiful and incomparable princesses, whom sometimes they
had, but oftener had not, seen. For Dulcinea del Toboso was by no
means the first princess whom her faithful and valorous knight had
never seen in his life. The enthusiast went to the Holy Land, from
whence he returned to Spain, where he began to learn Latin and
philosophy at three-and- thirty years old, so that no doubt but he made
great progress in both. The better to carry on his mad and wicked
designs, he chose four disciples, or rather apostles, all Spaniards, viz,
Laynes, Salmeron, Bobadilla, and Rodriguez. He then composed the
rules and constitutions of his order; which, in the year 1547, was called
the order of Jesuits, from the church of Jesus in Rome, which was
given them. Ignatius died in 1556, aged sixty-five, thirty-five years
after his conversion, and sixteen years after the establishment of his
society. He was canonized in the year 1609, and is doubtless now a
saint in heaven.

If the religious and moral principles of this society are to be detested, as
they justly are, the wisdom of their political principles is as justly to be
admired. Suspected, collectively as an order, of the greatest crimes, and
convicted of many, they have either escaped punishment, or triumphed
after it; as in France, in the reign of Henry IV. They have, directly or
indirectly, governed the consciences and the councils of all the Catholic
princes in Europe; they almost governed China in the reign of Cangghi;
and they are now actually in possession of the Paraguay in America,
pretending, but paying no obedience to the Crown of Spain. As a
collective body they are detested, even by all the Catholics, not
excepting the clergy, both secular and regular, and yet, as individuals,
they are loved, respected, and they govern wherever they are.
Two things, I believe, contribute to their success. The first, that passive,
implicit, unlimited obedience to their General (who always resides at
Rome), and to the superiors of their several houses, appointed by him.
This obedience is observed by them all to a most astonishing degree;
and, I believe, there is no one society in the world, of which so many
individuals sacrifice their private interest to the general one of the
society itself. The second is the education of youth, which they have in
a manner engrossed; there they give the first, and the first are the
lasting impressions; those impressions are always calculated to be
favorable to the society. I have known many Catholics, educated by the
Jesuits, who, though