questioned. The honourable exception to the general injustice of such acts is afforded by France (which was not always, especially in earlier times, so guiltless), in the censures and condemnations issued by all orders of her clergy, and by most, if not all, her universities, against the infamous and shameless doctrines of the Jesuits, which prevailed with increasing extension and power about the middle of the seventeenth century. In the bosom of the most arrogant and most corrupt church in Christendom was permitted, for her own more perfect exposure, to arise a society, which should exhibit the quintessence of her spirit, and again proclaim to the world how those who like not to retain God in their knowledge are given over to a reprobate mind. This notorious order, by placing before themselves supremely and exclusively the end, and that not the best, found themselves hurried into the use of means which, if they must justify, they must, for that purpose, advance and maintain the most palpable contradictions of the divine law; and they did not shrink from the frightful necessity; but fearlessly and obtrusively, in multiplied acts, and under their own hand and seal, published to the world immoralities and impieties, of which it is difficult to conceive that any decent or even prudent heathen could allow himself to appear as the author, much

less the advocate. Although the persevering encroachments of this unprincipled society furnished considerable provocation, we are convinced that a virtuous indignation against such consummate and shameless wickedness was the principal motive which incited their assailants to rise with so much unanimity and force against offenders whom they yet acknowledged to belong to their own body. La Théologie Morale des Jésuites, et Nouveaux Casuistes représentée par leur Pratique et par leurs Livres: Condamnée il y a déjà long-temps par plusieurs Censures, Décrets d'Universitez, et Arrests de Cours Souverains: Nouvellement combattue par les Curez de France; et censurée par un grand nombre de Prélats, et par des Facultez de Théologie Catholiques: &c., Cologne, 1668,-is a collection and a record of the various acts of opposition to the most corrupt society of the Jesuits, by the principal authorities, more especially the ecclesiastic, in France. Those in particular are specified which proceeded from the Universities of Paris, of Caen, of Rheims, of Thoulouse, of Poictiers, of Valence, of Bourdeaux, and of Bourges, against a work of Sanctarel. There are several Arrests of Parliament against the rebellious and regicide doctrines of Mariana and Bellarminus, with whom others of the same order, twenty of whom are named, are affirmed to agree. Some

additional interest will be excited in the English reader by the censures of the archbishop of Paris, and other archbishops and bishops of France, as well as of the Sorbonne, against certain books of two English Jesuits, the well-known one, Matthias Wilson, better known under the assumed name of Edward Knott or Nicholas Smith; and John Floyde. Eleven propositions, as generally taught in Ireland, are denounced by Patrick Cahil, of Dublin, and condemned. Not to detain ourselves longer by the condemnation of Caramuel, Mascarenhas, Escobar, Bauny, justified by large extracts, we proceed to observe, that so little were these hardened offenders intimidated or abashed by the reception which they experienced, that they justified themselves in a publication, entitledApologie pour les Casuistes, contre les Calomnies des Jansénistes. Imprimé à Paris, en 1657*. Various writings, particularly a course of Letters (Ecrits), amounting to nine, by the Curés of Paris and other places, were levelled against this publication. Many prelates of the kingdom, with the Faculty of Theology of Paris, joined in the attack; and the very head of the church, of which both parties were avowed subjects, Alexander VII., was induced to fulminate against this obnoxious

*The History of the Jesuits affirms the name of the writer to be Father PIROT. Vol. ii., p. 126.

work a Decree, of the date of August 21, 1659, which takes its regular place, not indeed in the next (although among the Decrees), but in all subsequent Indexes; furnishing an additional instance of the self-contradictions, and of the humiliating submissions, to which the policy of ecclesiastic Rome at times reduces her sovereign. But these worthy sons of their militant founder were not thus to be silenced. They retorted in a work, entitled AMADEI GUIMENII LOMARENSIS olim primarii Sacræ Theologiæ Professoris opusculum singularia universæ fere Theologia Moralis complectens; adversus quorumdam expostulationes, &c. Lugd. M.DC.LXIV. Cum Appr. et Superiorum permissu.* A Censure of the Parisian Faculty of Theology was passed against this work, dated Feb. 3, 1665, of which it will be sufficient, and important, to transcribe, ipsissimis verbis, one Censura. Having given some simple references, they observe, Ha Propositiones (quas Sacra Facultas verbis tantum initialibus designandas de industria judicavit, ut et modestia pudori castarum aurium, ac mentium consuleret) sunt turpes, &c.†

The Jesuits gained something of a triumph by

*The true name, MATTHEW MOYA. Id., ibid., p. 131.

And yet the Jesuit could justify his vilest propositions by the authority of Aquinas, Cajetan, Scotus, and others. See CLAUDE, Defence of the Reformation, Part i., ch. iii., § 9.

a Brief of Alexander VII., enjoining upon the French ecclesiastics a condemnation of Jansenism, dated Feb. 17, 1665 *. The triumph was confirmed and strengthened by another Constitution, expressly condemning the Censure of A. Guimenius by the Theologic Faculty of Paris, as presumptuous, rash, and scandalous, June 16, 1665†.

But a fresh wind blew upon the Vatican, and turned the clouds of infallibility to a direction. precisely the opposite; and, in the same and the next year, were two separate Papal Decrees passed, condemning forty-five propositions maintained by the Jesuits, without mentioning their name. Nay, at no greater distance than the year 1680, the very Parisian Censure which was so formally condemned, was as formally adopted and repeated by the Italian Pontiff, in the person of Innocent XI.; and the pernicious and destructive doctrine of Guimenius was condemned and prohibited by apostolic authority, Sept. 15 §. For what I add

* See Bullarium Magnum.

+ Constitut., &c. Col. Agripp., 1686, pp. 119 et seq.

Id., pp. 125 et seq.

§ Id., pp. 175 et seq. This and the two foregoing Constitutions do not appear in my edition of the Bullarium. I have, however, the original document-La Morale justement condamnée dans le Livre du P. Moya, Jesuite, &c., par Inn. XI. A Rome, 1681;-and thereto appended, Epistola P. Moya ad SS. Dom. Inn. XI., containing his defence of himself as reported by Claude.