Who are the Jesuits, and what do they believe?

Thus far we have trodden on ground over which the real character of the Jesuit does not appear-we have only had to do with vows intended to deceive; but were we to pursue their history, we should have to trace in every land the blood-stained footprints of the treacherous and cruel followers of Loyola. Spreading themselves over the world, we find them secretly executing the decrees and private wishes of the Vatican. Their one grand object was to extend the power of the pope, and the one grand fundamental principle of the fraternity was immediate, implicit, unquestioning, unhesitating obedience to him, through their general, who resides in Rome. The organization of their society is by far the most comprehensive of any in existence. "The Jesuit monarchy," it has been said, "covers the globe." In almost every province of the world they have Generals Provincial, who correspond with the General Superior at Rome; so that by means of the confessional, he sees and knows almost everything that is done and said, not only in the Romish church, but in private families, and throughout all parts of the habitable globe. No place is too distant, no difficulties or dangers too great, and no means too nefarious for the Jesuit, if there is the slightest hope of extending the power of the papacy.

The Gunpowder Plot, which was planned to destroy at one blow the nobility and gentry of England, is attributed to Jesuitical influence; and so are many other plots which were intended to accomplish the death of Queen Elizabeth. The gigantic wickedness of the Spanish Armada, and the crowning slaughter of the St. Bartholomew massacre, to say nothing of the many seditions, torturings, poisonings, assassinations, and massacres on a smaller scale, must be attributed to the policy, and to the seed sown by the Jesuits. So mighty did their power become, and so ruinous, that it was often found necessary for the government to suppress them. According to modern history, they were expelled from Portugal in 1759; France 1764; Spain and Spanish America, 1767; the two Sicilies, 1768; and in 1773 suppressed by the pope Ganganelli, Clement XIV. But soon after he had signed the order for their banishment, he fell a victim to their vengeance, and died by poison. In 1801 they were restored by Pius VII.; in 1860 they were dismissed from Sicily; but we need scarcely add, that they soon found ways and means to return. The late pope, Pius IX., confirmed the restoration of the order; so that they now occupy a very proud position in Rome. They have the command of most of the collegiate establishments in the city, and in so many other places, that merely to name them would fill a page.*

Thus was the enfeebled power of popery greatly revived — its deadly wound was healed. By means of the Reformation, many of the most opulent and powerful kingdoms of Europe had thrown off their allegiance to the pope. This was a fatal blow to his grandeur and power. It abridged his dominions, abolished his jurisdiction within their territories, and diminished his revenues. But more than this, it is well known that Charles V. seriously contemplated the reduction, if not the subversion, of the papal power. Such was the low, and almost expiring condition of the papacy, when the army of the Jesuits came to its help, which may be viewed as an illustration of Revelation 13:3, though far from the full accomplishment of those solemn prophecies.

Ignatius Loyola

The Society of the Jesuits, a religious order of the Romish church, was founded by Ignatius Loyola, the son of a Spanish nobleman, born in the year 1491 at Guipuzcoa, in the province of Biscay. In his youth he was employed as a page at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella, but he grew weary of its gaieties, and longed to be engaged in the wars of his country. In 1521 we find him defending Pampeluna against the French; but the young intrepid Loyola was severely wounded in both legs. Fever followed, and the future restorer of the papacy was nearly brought to a premature grave.

On the 15th of August 1534, being the festival of the assumption of the Virgin Mary, in one of the subterranean chapels of Montmartre, and after receiving the sacrament, they all took the usual vows of poverty and chastity; and then took a solemn oath to dedicate themselves to the conversion of the Saracens at Jerusalem, and the care of the Christians, and to lay themselves and their services unreservedly at the feet of the pontiff. "The army thus enrolled was little, and it was great. It was little when counted, it was great when weighed. To foster the growth of this infant Hercules, Loyola had prepared beforehand his book, entitled 'Spiritual Exercises.' This is a body of rules for teaching men how to conduct the work of their own conversion. It consists of four grand meditations, and the penitent, retiring into solitude, is to occupy absorbingly his mind on each in succession, during the space of the rising and setting of seven suns. . . . It professes, like the Koran, to be a revelation. 'The Book of Exercises,' says a Jesuit, 'was truly written by the finger of God, and delivered to Ignatius by the Holy Mother of God.'"*

After some delays, the pope, Paul III., approving the plan of Loyola and his companions, granted a bull in 1540, authorizing the formation of the body under the name of "The Society of Jesus;" and in April of the following year, Ignatius was installed as "The General Superior," who was to be subject to the pope only. The order had now a formal existence. Its members were to dress in black, like the secular clergy; and not being confined to cloisters, they were able to mix themselves up with all classes, and were soon found occupying courts, confessionals, and pulpits, superintending educational establishments, and otherwise securing the affections and co-operation of the young. Crowds of enthusiastic converts flocked to the new standard in all countries, and from all gradations of society.

To celebrate his self-dedication to Our Lady, he withdrew to the adjacent town of Manresa. Holiness, in the view of such men, does not consist in the moral likeness of the soul to Jesus, but in the mortification of the body. Next to his skin he wore alternately an iron chain, a horsehair cloth, and a sash of prickly thorns. Three times a day he laid the scourge resolutely on his bare back. This was not to mortify the deeds of the body, but the poor unoffending body itself. Such is the blinding power of Satan, and such the suited darkness for his purpose. After travelling barefoot to Rome, Jerusalem, and other places rendered sacred by the Saviour's history, he eventually found his way to Paris. Here he met with Francis Xavier, who afterwards became the great apostle of India. Other kindred spirits joining them, a small band of zealous associates gathered round Loyola, which gave origin to the society of Jesus — about eight or nine in all.

Commencement of the Order of Jesuits

Now it is remarkable as showing the far-reaching truth here, that Cain was the one who took the lead in two innovations. He was the first to set up natural religion. Cain was not what people call an irreligious man, if thereby be meant that he had no religion. He was what answers in our day to a man that goes regularly to his church or his chapel. It was simply the religion of nature, and raised no question in his soul whether his offering became his own state or was according to the mind of God. People generally do not consider this at all. "Their fathers went there;" that is enough for most. They were christened, confirmed, and took the sacrament; or they became members, as others call it, of the church and congregation. It was all assumed to be the proper thing for a decent man. The Jesuits go rather farther, as they say, for God's greater glory: the alleged ground for their heartless, unscrupulous, and wicked ambitions. For they are sworn to obey their General, if he declares that any means promote that object; as the General acts for, and not merely with, the pope; sometimes far in advance of the pope, but still it is all nominally to promote their lord the pope's glory.

The Rise of the Jesuits

Before taking our leave, finally, of the reign of Charles V., we must just notice two memorable events which occurred during that reign, because of the relation they bore to the Reformation, and the great religious struggle which was then agitating all classes of society. We refer to the Council of Trent and the rise of the Jesuits. Having said a little about the former, we will only at present speak of the latter.

We can easily conceive that the enemies of the Reformation were now at their wits' end. What was to be done? That which had been looked forward to for thirty years, as the sure means of crushing it, had not only failed, but ceased to be an opposing power, while the Reformation was rapidly increasing its area and multiplying its adherents. The pope had lost immensely in dignity, influence, and revenues in the contest, and the imperial power could no more be appealed to. The friars, black, white, and grey, were dispersed and their monasteries destroyed: what was next to be done? was a grave question for the evil heart of Jezebel, and those with whom she took counsel. Men-at-arms had failed; peace and persuasion must be our tactics now, suggested the presiding spirit. An army must be raised whose uniform should be the priestly garb, whose vows must be poverty, chastity, the care of Christians, and the conversion of infidels; and the character of whose mission must be persuasive and pacific. Under these appearances a counter-work to the Reformation must be immediately instituted. This plausible proposal was unanimously agreed to; and never was suggestion more plainly from beneath-even from the depths of Satan; and never was there one more satanically executed, as the history of the Jesuits proves. The springs of human feeling, sympathy, and pity seem to have been dried up in every member of that society, and the hell-inspired springs of bigotry and cruelty, which have no parallel in history, most surely possessed them.

It is perfectly plain from these counsels to his monks, that Antony was not only a sincere Christian, but that he had a good knowledge of the Lord and of redemption, though so completely turned aside by a deceived heart. We are never safe unless moving on the direct lines of the truth of God. The system which this man introduced in his false dreams of perfection in the flesh, became, in process of time, the very hot-bed of profligacy and vice. And thus it continued for more than a thousand years. It was not until the sixteenth century, that the divine light of the blessed Reformation, bursting upon a scene of dense moral darkness, revealed the deep-seated corruption and the flagrant enormities of the different monastic orders. The monks at that time, like swarms of locusts, covered all Europe; they proclaimed everywhere, as history informs us, the obedience due to holy mother church, the reverence due to the saints, and more especially to the Virgin Mary, the efficacy of relics, the torments of purgatory, and the blessed advantages arising from Indulgences. But as the monks lost their popularity and influence at the Reformation, a new order was necessary to fill their place and do their evil work: and such was found in the Society of Jesus founded by Ignatius Loyola — the Jesuits. But we must take another glance at the early history of monasticism.

25 Divisions prove the infirmity of human nature: only that it is much more excusable in Protestants just coming out of the dark obscurity and superstition men were immersed in during the middle ages, than in Greece and Rome whose common starting-point was pure Christianity. And men must not suppose differences do not exist among Romanists. The Dominicans resisted with all their force the doctrine of the immaculate conception of Mary (now made by the present pope a matter of faith); so that there was the most important body of Romanists (till the Jesuits arose), the inventors and directors of the Inquisition, judges thus of heretical pravity, unsound on what is now declared to be an article of faith. The Augustinians believe in predestination; the Roman Catholic priests deny it. Nay, so far did these disputes go, that the Dominicans in the seventeenth century charged the Jesuits with maintaining the idolatry of the Chinese in their missions in China. For years the inquiry was pursued before the pope, and the practices sanctioned by the Jesuits at last condemned by Pope Clement XI in 1704. The decree was mitigated in 1715. Now the allowance of heathen idolatry in Christians was a much graver difference than the details on which Protestants differ, while agreeing in fundamental truth.

A. Before I answer, let me briefly state my judgment as to the history of Wesleyanism. The ruinous condition of the Church, a century ago, gave rise, through divine grace, to a remarkable movement. Some truly devoted men felt impelled to preach, and to call men to repentance. But instead of adhering to the word, certain of them framed for themselves a system of doctrines and discipline — doctrines which, while admitting salvation by Jesus, have put aside many of the most precious truths in connection with it — a discipline admirably suited, in a worldly point of view, like that of the Jesuits, for the aggrandisement of their society (for indeed it is a society, not a church), but in the highest degree injurious to the souls of men. I am perfectly convinced that Christians who are not members of their body, but who well know them, will not be found to confirm the testimony which the Wesleyans bear to themselves.

The book is called “The Manual of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. Sixth ed.” The chief professed object of this Confraternity is “The honour due to the person of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament of His Body and Blood.” (Page 7.) Its form of government is very similar to, if not the same as, the order of the Jesuits — a Superior General, and a council, also Superiors of various wards, in short, a most perfect organisation. The Superior General must be a bishop or a priest. The greatest care is to be observed in admitting a member. Each is to be fully instructed, name and full address kept, &c.