this progresse by degrees the Iesuits request was presented to the Court of Parliament that had tenne Aduocates as Montaignes and Fon do confesse in their writinges in respect of 13. aduersaries Mont. ca. 22 Fon. ca. 4. which Fon reports were sixe boysterous mightie limmed bodies to wit the Vniuersities the Sorbons the Mendicants the Hospitals and the Parish priests With other foure Lordes of great authoritie namely the Gouernour of Paris the Cardinall Chastilion as protector of the Vniuersitie the Bishop of Paris and the Abbot of S. Geniueue Now can we be so sencelesse as to thinke that so many both of the better and meaner sort banded against them without cause in a matter of so great importance But what were the commons those which of late memorie plagued the Hugonots out of all measure raced the walls of Patriarch and Popincourt where they had theyr exercise of religion who by order of Lawe procurd the death of Gabaston the Captaine of their garde and protector of theyr attempts together with Cagres both the Father and the sonne So many Sages of the common people sworne enemies to heresie did sette thēselues against the Iesuits lying but yet in the suburbs of our ciuill warres against the Iesuits I say who then vaunted themselues to be the scourge of Hereticks Assuredly it cannot be but that all those great personages who then vndertooke the quarrell against them were perswaded that this Sect was extreamely to be feared as well by the libertie of the French Church and generall estate of Fraunce as of all Christendome Besides these two great parties there was yet another more strong mightie then them both namely Mounsieur Mesnil the Kings Aduocate in the Court of parliament directly opposite to them But for all this great multitude of partakers sayth the Iesuite the matter came not to open triall but was put ouer to coūsell as a plaine argument that the goodnesse of our cause did craue very much fauour Poore foole and young Scholler hadst thou been brought vp in the light of the Royall pallace or read the course of iustice of our kings as thou art nuzled in the dust of the Colledges thou shouldst haue knowne that the high Courts admit no open triall of great causes they haue no time nor leysure duly to informe theyr consciences As appeares by a like course helde by the same Court in the month of Iuly 94. And for this cause Mounsieur Marion pleading against the Iesuits of Lyons in the yeere 97. said that a defectiue and imperfect prudence of the yeere 64. was in some sort the occasion that the affaires of Fraunce degenerated with the time waxed worse and worse As for my selfe I will say more boldly with open face that this matter was in the yeere 64. put ouer to counsell by the wisedome of men but thys counsaile was guided by the hand of God who to take vengeance of our sinnes preserued the Iesuits as a deuoted instrument hung aside in the Temple fit for the future miseries of Fraunce To what purpose is all this saue onely this to shewe you that if I detest abhorre the Sect of Iesuits I haue no small shelters for my oppinion first the venerable censure of Paris the yere 1554. wherein were the greatest Diuines that euer were in Fraunce and by name Picard Maillard Demochares Perionius Ory the Inquisiter for matters of faith The first an admirable preacher whose body after his death being layd forth in his house in the Deanry of S. Germins of Lauxerrois the people of Paris for the sanctimony of his life did striue to kisse his feete the foure other his companions were extreame persecutors of the Heretiks I haue the great decree of the French church in the yeere 61. the iudgement that did second it and finally many men of marke and communalty set against them in the yeere 1564. Amongst these I may speake it for a certainty which I ought to beleeue because I saw it There was two honorable resemblances of antiquitie Solicitors in the cause Bennet the Deane and Courselles the Subdeane of the facultie of the Diuinitie Schooles in Paris The one fourscore yeeres of age the other threescore seauenteene both ready to depart from hence to giue vp an account of theyr actions in another world at which time euery man standes stricte vppon his conscience With them was Faber Sindic one of the wisest men that euer was among the Sorbons In the winding vp of all I will set downe Ma. Noell Brullarte Procurator generall the great Aristides and Cato of his time which liuing in the yeere 50. withstood the receiuing of the Iesuites I tell you this expresly to discouer how like the iugling of the Iesuits of our time is to the former For Fon is so impudent as to report that Ramus Mercerus after they became the Kings Professors reuolted from our auncient Religion and were folicitors in this cause and that if they had not encountred them they had won the field but to auoid sedition the Court was forced warilie to strike saile to the tempest by putting the matter off to counsell Well but yet thou lyest most impudently thou Iesuit Pardon me for it is very fit I should be in choller Neither Ramus nor Mercerus for theyr parts euer stirred in this although they tooke part with their brethren the Kings Professors because they would not separate thēselues from the body of the Vniuersitie Moreouer what likelihood is there that the mindes generally of the Parisiens could be so suddenly changed to take part with the Hugonots Mercerus was so farre from faction that hee had no skill in any thing but Hebrue wherein he spent all his time without intermission and became so great a Superlatiue in that tongue that by the iudgement of the best learned he was preferd before all the Iewes In all worldly matters hee stoode but for a bare Cypher But this is a Iesuiticall priuiledge to vnderset theyr slaunders with the time by newe cogges For if this Iesuit Fon durst he would say that the towne the Vniuersitie and the facultie of Diuinitie in Paris all the foure orders of Mendicants the Parish priests were Hugonots because they hindred the matriculation of this holy Order what other consequence can be deduced from his speech Oh singuler and admirable impudencie yet to be excused because it proceedeth from a Iesuit Neuerthelesse to shew with what truth integrity I mean to confound thē in their lying they caused Versoris Plea to be printed in the yere 94. he to bring the Vniuersity into hatred In the 24. 32. leafe of Versoris Plea saith first formost not that Mercerus but Ramus Gallandius were made solicitors in this cause but this was so far frō all likelihood of truth that euery man tooke it for an hyperbole by reason of the open enmity they caried to all times which accompanied them vnto their death This enmity Rablays the Lucian
to his report This letter did mightily incense me against your iustifications wherupon I desired to see the aunswer hereunto in your Pleas. Tenthly Arnauld alledgeth that the yeere 1591. Monsieur de Chaseron intercepted certayne letters written to the king of Spayne carried by Father Mathew of the Order of the said defendants We aunswere that Arnauld vnder correctioÌ„ of the Court is ill informed for the said father Mathew died three yeers before at Ancona in Italy that is in the yeere 1588. and by consequent could not but by a greater miracle then Saint Dennis go and come into Spayne And addeth moreouer that that Mathew was a Spanish Frier of one of the four orders of the begging Friers I see the same aunswere to be likewise made by Moâ—â—â—gâ—es one of the chiefe men of your Order which made me presently exclaime against Arnauld O straunge impudence of an Aduocate against an innocent Societie But one of the companie interrupting me prayed me to take better aduisement for saith he if there be any impudence herein it is on the Iesuits part nay rather want of common sence For Arnauld was farre from saying that father Clâ—â—dâ—â—s Mathew was the bearer of those letters but an other Iesuite whose Christen name iumpt with Mathew his surname Let vs read his Plea When King Philip saith he by the Iesuits perswasion had sent a garrison of Spaniards into Paris and desired to haue some colourable title for that which he held alreadie by force whom sent he thether but father Mathew the Iesuite whose ChristeÌ„ name was all one with the other Mathewes surname the Iesuit that was the principall instrument of the League in the yeere 1583. This Mathew in fewe daies that hee abode in this Citie being lodged in the Colledge of the Iesuits caused this letter to be there written and signed Marke saith one of the companie who against my will insulted therupoÌ„ the foolish sophistrie of these fellowes For in their Pleas they make Arnauld say that which he neuer meant hauing in plaine termes distinguished betweene the two Mathewes Likewise to alledge that it was a Spanish Frier whose name was Mathew carieth lesse probabilitie because the foure orders of the begging Friers are not called Fathers but Friers or brothers and much lesse Reuerend whereas in this letter the bearer is stiled the Reuerend Father Mathew Which proueth palpably and to the eye that howsoeuer the letter were written in the name of the Sixteen seditious Gouernours and Tyrants of Paris whereof Pigenat was the Superintendent yet came it out of the Iesuits shop who were aswell the composers as the bearers thereof Compare the date of the letter which is of the 2. of Nouember 1591. with the sauage cruelty vsed the same month by those Sixteen against him that was then chiefe President of the Parliament of Paris and two other personages of name who were attached and executed all at one instant it will appeare that in all this buisines there was nothing but proceeded from the Iesuits If all these euidences in writing and confessions by mouth doe not yet satisfie you read the booke of René de la Fon you shall see that he acknowledgeth the Iesuits to haue been the authors originals of our last troubles and of the generall ruine of France But forasmuch as this Pamphlet is of great consequence to our present purpose you must vnderstand that Pasquier in two or three places of his pleadings fortuned to say that the sect of the Iesuits once taking root in France would bring forth a Seminary of diuision betweene the n = * The French and the Spayniard Christian and the Catholique in the end of his pleading protesteth that wheÌ„soeuer this misery should come to passe yet at the least they that should liue in those daies should acknowledge that this age was not vnfurnisht of such as had long before as it were from a high Tower foreseen the tempest to come In the yeere 1597. Monsieur Marion the Kings Aduocate in the court of Parliament of Paris pleading against the Iesuits of Lions recounting the mischiefes which this sect had caused added these words Wherein appeareth a notable example of the true predictioÌ„s which God when he pleaseth inspireth into those whom he loueth For the cause being solemnly pleaded aboue thirtie yeeres agoe for the admittance not of their Order which was neuer approued in Fraunce but of their Colledge into the bodie priuiledges of the Vniuesity the wisest men of that time hauing indeed a singular insight into the course of the world foresaw eueÌ„ in those daies that in tract of time they would kindle the flames of dissension in the midst of the Realme La Fon the Iesuit supposing that he meant it specially by Pasquiers Pleas takes vpon him to aunswere it but in so pleasant a manner as I cannot but acquaint you withall But what are these Diuine Diuiners saith he that prophecied so well so truly so effectually of the Iesuits Is it not possible for vs to diuine at their names and Diuinations although our breasts swell not with the enthusiasmes of these inspired spirits Is not Pasquier one of them And Marion in the prophecies which he alledgeth doth he not directy poynt at those which were vttered by Pasquier If I prophecie truly Pasquier his Pleas haue made me a Prophet This Plea hauing lyen buried for thirtie yeeres and digged vp againe within these three yeeres like an old Image loaden with newe Pardons hath like a ridiculous Pasquill spoken and prophecied backward That which in the yeere 1564. he neither could nor durst say returning out of hell in the yeere 1594. 95. better instructed in things which were past alredy he hath pronouÌ„ced theÌ„ like an Oracle from the tripode from him haue I learnt them But the mischiefe wil be wheÌ„ these pleadings shal be one day brought forth in their originall forme to discouer the new Pardons that are pasted vpon this plastred Pasquin and when the reward of his prophecies shal be branded vpon his backe O mightie and worthie champion meriting to haue his statue set vp in the mids of all your Colledges for hauing so valiantly hunted not to couert but to death the auncient enemie of your Order was there euer man that behaued himselfe better with his perme and his wit Onely this troubleth me that giuing such a braue onset vpon this poore old man he chargeth him at last to haue new forged his pleadings and set downe vnder the yeere 1594. in manner of a prophecie those things which he had seene come to passe through Fraunce the yeere 1564. whereby this honest man doth confesse that all the miseries of Fraunce haue proceeded from the Iesuits for this was the scope of Pasquier his Plea And my selfe also acknowledge that the holy Ghost was minded to speak by the mouth of this Iesuit O how great is the force of truth which cannot but break forth whatsoeuer fig-leaues of cunning cloaking
after they haue raised tumults in all Countries that theyr designements sort to effect CHAP. 17. ¶ That the Pope hath not power to translate the Crowne of Fraunce from one to another against the dangerous position of the Iesuits and some other discourse tending to the same effect THe Iesuits not content to haue offered violence to our King in time of the troubles doe at this day in the time of peace by theyr pennes offer violence to the Royaltie it selfe Hee that maintaines in Rome that the Pope may transfer Empires and Kingdomes from hand to hand at his pleasure deserueth a Cardinals hat as Father Robert Bellarmine the Iesuite he that maintaines the same position in Fraunce is worthie of a hat of that colour but not of that kinde as the Cardinals Kings die whē it pleaseth God to call them the Roialtie neuer dies Which is the cause that the Parliament Court of Paris when they accompanie the funerall obsequies of our Kinges are not in mourning weedes but in Scarlet the true marke and ensigne of the neuer dying maiestie of the Crowne or Royaltie One of the chiefe flowers of our Crowne is that our Kings cannot incurre the censures of the Church of Rome nor their realme be interdicted nor consequently transposed It is a law not made but bred with vs which we haue not learned receiued or by long instruction imprinted but a law which is drawne inspired and deriued into vs out of the very breasts of our Mother Fraunce wherein we are not nurtured but nursed that if any thunderbolts fortuned to be sent from Rome against the maiestie of our Kings so as in consequence thereof the realme might fall vnder the sentence of Interditement we are not bound to yeeld obedience thereunto Neither yet for all this did our kings euer loose the title of Most Christian nor wee of the Eldest sonnes of the Church The Iesuit hath beene condemned by a decree of the Court he drawes his chaine after him still yet will hee not cease to be a Iesuit that is a Seminarie of diuisions factions and dissentions within our country Let vs then heare what he saith who vnder the name of Montaignes hath publisht the booke of the Truth as hee intitles it but of the forged and lying Truth After hee had discoursed that the Temporall state onely appertained to the King and the Spirituall to the holy Father who claimed no interest in their souerainties hee affirmes that if the king happē at any time to transgresse God hath put a rod into the Popes hand to chastise him and depriue him of his kingdome And this is for the behoofe Mont. cap. 15. of the Truth defended for the good of Princes saith he who most commonlie are reclaimed and brought to their duties rather for feare of their Temporall estate which they euer-more hold deer though otherwise ill giuen then of their Spirituall which they set not by vnlesse their conscience be the better which is not generall to all of them But the Pope is no God no more was Samuell who executed that sentence against Saul So as God had annointed Saul King by the Prophet so doth he send the sentence of his deposition by him and by him translate the kingdome annoint Dauid king In the time of Osias king of Iuda the high priest no more a GOD then Samuell gaue the kingdome from the father to the sonne he being strooken with leprosie for his presumption This transposition of the Crowne was doone by the appointment of the high Priest according as by the Law was ordained and consequently the deposition of the Father Iehoiada was no God but a priest and Gods Lieutenaunt when after he had caused Athalia the Queene to be put to death for her tyrannous gouernment hee put the scepter into the handes of Ioas a prince of the blood and lawfull successor to the Crowne All those were but Gods ministers to execute his decrees as the Pope likewise is And seeing God hath infinite meanes to translate a kingdome by the force and weapons of Pagans as of Moores Turks and other strange Nations making the Assyrians conquerours ouer the Greekes the Greekes ouer the Assyrians both of the Iewes and the Romans of both what milder course could he haue ordained among Christians what way more reasonable or more secure then by the mediation and authoritie of the head of the Church and the common Father of all Christians who beeing specially assisted by God and by men both learned and religious will in likelihood doe nothing preiudiciall to the right of the lawfull successors and will proceede without passion and withall moderation and mildnes in a case of that importance hauing an eye euermore to the honour of God and vnto the publique and priuate good In conclusion by this learned position which our pernitious Iesuit maintaines the Pope hath authoritie to transferre kingdoms frō one hand to another when he seeth cause so to doe and dooing it hee is subiect to no mans controule inasmuch as if God himselfe may doe it then is it lawfull for his Vicar to doe the like the Pope hauing no lesse preheminence ouer Kings in these times of Christianity then the Prophets had in the time of Moses law This fond opinion of thine brings mee to a meruailous straite forcing mee to combate against the authoritie of the holie Sea First if you will argue this position morallie where shall you finde that a King constituting his Lieuetenants generall in Prouinces giueth them in all poynts as ample authoritie as himselfe hath ouer his subiects And to say that God hath transferred his omnipotent power into any man whatsoeuer is a poynt of blaspemie against the Maiestie of GOD. Besides tell mee Sophister where finde you that you ought to beg such examples out of the old Testament to transplant them into the new But with such illusions doe you and your associats surprise the consciences of the weake ignorant multitude For if that reason of yours were of any value or consequence we should by the same bring Circumcision into vse againe at this day because it was vsed vnder the Law of Moses And by the same pretext it shall be lawfull for the subiect to lay violent handes vppon his Soueraigne Iudges 3. because Ehud murthered Eglon King of Moab vnpunished Seeing you terme your selfe a Iesuit let vs follow the footesteps of Iesus Christ for to this marke ought all our cogitations to leuell whereunto restraining our discourse I will make it appeare that I am a true Cathotholicke liegeman to the Pope and thou a true Catholique Impostor VVee consider the power of our Sauiour Christ in two different times one was vvhen for our Redemption hee descended from heauen into the earth the other vvhen after his death and passion hee ascended from earth into heauen The first was the time of his humilitie in respect whereof hee professed that his comming was not to be an vmpire of their
a generall surueigh of his Church from the passion of our sauiour Redeemer Iesus Christ vnto this day where as it were in a great procession the Apostles went formost followed by Popes Patriarches Archbishops and Bishops Curates priestes and all those Ecclesiasticall persons which are calld Seculars because they bee no Monks In the second ranke marched those good olde Fathers the Hermits vvho were the first founders of Monasteries After them traced many great Abbots religious Orders of S. Augustine and S. Benet from whom as from two great conduits flowed all other religious Orders called Regulars In the reareward came the Vniuersities led by their Rectors and the foure faculties of Diuinitie Law Phisick and Arts with all their Officers a huge companie of schollers great and small S. Peter carried the streamer before the first Saint Anthonie before the second and because some haue thought good so to place him Peter Lombard Bishop of Paris and Maister of the Sententences before the third a man framed for this purpose at this time without looking backe towards Maister Iohn Gerson Doctor of Diuinitie and in his time Chancelor of the Vniuersitie of Paris Last of all came the good Ignace with his equipage of Faure Xauier Salmeron Bobadilla Roderic Breet Iay and Codury his first companions And after them Iames Lainez Fraunces Borgia Euerard Marcurian Claudius Aquauiua all of them successiuely Generalls of their order Behind these were the Prouincialls Rectors Fathers Principalls Regents Presidents spirituall temporall coadiutors and schollers admitted All which marching after theyr Captaine Ignace desired to bee marshald vnder the banner of S. Peter first next vnder S. Anthonies lastly vnder the Vniuersities At the first Ignace neuer doubted to be receiued of the Apostles because their preaching administration of the sacraments of Pennace of the Altar and the great vowe of Mission made by the Fathers to the holie Sea seemed to paue the way thether very faire for them this made him steppe boldly to S. Peter You shal be partakers of the whole discourse that passed between them I beseech you let it not displease you to see my Dreame enioy the priuiledge of dreames which make what personages they lust play theyr parts with those that come into our fantasies without respect of any rule or interposition of time which commonly we obserue in other matters S. Peter Good Fathers you are very welcome for the maine scope of our calling hath beene to winne as many soules to God as possibly wee could Ign. This is the marke we aime at by the particular vow of Mission which wee make to your successors in Rome S. Peter This is well done howe are you called Ign. As our vocation craues to wit The societie of Iesus In respect whereof the common people by inspiration of the holie Ghost haue called vs Iesuits a name which at thys day appeares to be miraculously spredde ouer all the world it hath pleased God it should be so S. Pet. Nay rather the deuill which hath vnder your habite gone about to circumuent all the world this is not the first taste we haue taken of his trecheries neither will it be last he watches euerie day to surprize the Church of God How coÌ„meth it to passe We which were fostred euerie day in the companie of Iesus to whom he imparted all his secrets all the while he was debased here in the flesh and after he ascended vp to heauen made vs pertakers of his companie by his holy spirit we I say neuer durst take this name vnto vs but the name of Christians first in the Church of Antioch where our holy brethren Paule and Barnabas did gouerne A title approoued by the Church from our time to this day and do you that desire to be among vs by a new and arrogant title call your selues Iesuits Ign. I beseech you hold vs excused it is not pride but humilitie that prouokes vs to it our Sauiour had two names one proper which is that of Iesus this at that time was a common name to many Iewes though men of base and vile condition the other is that of Christ much more noble and honourable for it appertaind to none but Kings Priests and Prophets Fon. ca. 38. men cald Gods annointed for which cause you haue chosen this name and we contrarywise the other of Iesus for the small account the Iewes made of it as meaner and lower then the other Thus if there be any greater pride in the choice of the one then of the other it may easily be iudged from whence it comes Moreouer we doe not thinke that the name of Christian was imposed vpon you by the Church of Antioch but accidentally by the voice of the common people without iudgement it was receiued to be by a secret inspiratiation of God At this speech a great many saints and deuout men standing in the first ranke began to murmour softly one to another and some mutined out aloud saying that without giuing any further hearing vnto Ignace he and all his followers were to be banished our Church And that by this proposition the foundation of their order there is much Iudaisme in Iesuitisme for iust as the olde Iewes arraigned our Sauiour Iesus Christ so deale these new Iewes at this day with the Apostles The Primitiue Church vsurped not the Name of Iesus although it seemed to them to be common among the Iewes but because the Apostles and other true and faithfull Disciples of Christ Iesus knew the force energie and exceeding greatnes of this holy name Then Saint Mathew and Saint Luke stepping forth defended Mâ—h ca. 1. Luc. ca. 1. that God the Father himselfe gaue this name by the mouth of the holy Ghost his Embassadour expresly sent by him when he told the Virgin Marie that he that should be borne of her pure wombe should be called Iesus a name that signifies a Sauiour because he should be the Sauiour of the world Hereupon Eusebius Bishop of Cesarea Fuseb lib. 1. ca. lib. 2. ca. 6. made a faire commentarie vpon the difference of the two words And Saint Augustine that famous Bishop of Hippon shewes that if God the Father gaue this name of Iesus it was done by a secret mysterie prophecied by his great Prophet Moses whom GOD told hee had chosen him to lead his children of Israel to the land of promise and for this cause did he take another to succeed him in his place before he died Moses made choice of Auses but in the choice Aug tom 1â— hom 27 chaunged the name of Auses into that of Iesus that in time to come saith this notable Affricanian Bishop men might know that not by Moses but by Iesus that is to say not by the law but by grace Gods people should enter the land of promise And as the first Iesus was not the true Iesus but onely a figure of him so the land of promise was not the euerlasting land of promise
protectioÌ„ which accordingly he promised to doe And that Ignace being retired into the Monasterie of Mount Cassin to spend forty daies togither in deuotion Maff lib 2. cap. 6. Rib. lib. 2. ca. 12. as soone as he had said Masse Ozius one of his companions that died at Padua appeared vnto him mounting vp to heauen with some other coÌ„panie Splendidiore quam reliqui habitu gloriaque multó illustriore Ignace hearing that Simon Roderic one of his crue was sick going to visit him Rib. lib. 2. ca. 9. he was certified from heauen that he should recouer wherin he was not deceiued He assured Peter Faur of this matter one that gaue much credit to him See here in effect the visions and miracles of Ignace nothing inferiour to those that are spoken of in the Gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles nay rather in some points far exceeding them To make vs way to Paradice we passe through the Sacrament of Baptisme when our Sauiour was baptized by Saint Iohn the Baptist at his comming out of the water he saw the heauens open and the holy Ghost descending in the shape of a Doue and resting vpon his head and therewithall a voice was heard Thou art my deere sonne in whoÌ„ I am well pleased When Ignace deuised to open a way to his company he saw God the Father Iesus Christ his son who said to him Go in peace for I wil take thy part in the citie of Rome WheÌ„ the holy Ghost was represented by the shape of a bird it was inough but me thinks it is more that Ignace saw God the Father and God the Son also in his proper body Iesus Christ was tempted but once one maner of way by the diuel Ignace twice tempted diuersly by very perswasiue speech Iesus Christ fasted fortie daies in the wildernes without meat or drink Ignace fasted only seuen daies to counterpoize the rest of Christs fasting he disciplind himself thrice a day spent seuen houres of the day vpon his knees in praier The man whom our Sauiour singled out for a chosen vessel to himselfe was S. Paule when he wrought his conuersion he appeared not to him but assaulted him only with sharpe speeches Saul Saul why dost thou persecute me and he was three daies blind did neither eate nor drink This miracle is nothing in comparison of Ignace whose soule was caried into heauen where he saw the Trinitie in three persons and one essence and after that was in a traunce seuen whole daies together without sight meat or drinke Beside all this he had one thing in particular shewed to him beyond all that is spoken of in the olde Testament he saw the tooles God himselfe occupied when he fashioned fitted this great frame of the world A blessing neuer bestowed vpon any man but Ignace All we confesse the transubstantiation of the body and bloud of Christ in the SacrameÌ„t of the Alter a matter we cannot see with bodily eies but by the eies of faith Ignace herein passed vs all when at the eleuation of the host he saw Iesus Christ there God man I leaue the shaking of the house where he was by an earth quake like vnto that of Paule and Silas I omit many other visions specified by me heretosore and credit me when I had read ouer Ribadiner I found nothing in his sir-name and his booke but baldarie And as for Maffee I thinke he is transformed into Morpheus which presents sundry shadowes to men a sleepe I doubt not but that God was able to worke all these miracles by Ignace and much greater to if it had so pleasee him he is the same God now that he was in the Apostles daies God without beginning and without end but that he hath done any such thing I â—tterly denie and auouch these to be blasphemous impostures dropt by the Druell himselfe out of the pennes of two Iesuits to snare simple people with their cursed superstition I will make this matter cleare and euident The most pregnant proofes of all are those which we call presumptions of law and of fact which arise out of manie particularities when they meet together and when they do not agree with them this is to deceiue against the common sence and vnderstanding of the people The greatest iudgement that euer was giuen was that of Salomen betweene the true and the supposed mother for which hee was called Salomon the wise yet was this grounded vpon presumption For my part I thinke I haue greater presumptious than that Salomon had to proue that the pretended visions wherewith these two hypocrites bleare your eyes are mists and illusions I will make this matter manifest and omit the scruple tucht by me before that the writers hereof be Iesuits no this is not the point whereupon I meane to rest I could be content to tell you that I make no reckoning of Maffee He hath written so therefore it is true I denie it desire to be enformed who told it him and I will shew you my reason hereafter The reason is because in the historie I build more vpon Ribadiner who saith he was in his young yeeres in Ignace company at Rome and that whatsoeuer he reports he heard it of Lewes Gonsalua to whom Ignace imparted it a yeere before he died Therefore this honest man the Iesuit might well speake of all those things which Ignace did at Rome after he was chosen Generall of their order and of that which fell out before I should be a scrupulous gaine-sayer if I should say that you may not beleeue Ribadiner when he tels you Gonsalua spak it neither is Gonsalua if he were aliue any Saint but such as for whom we keepe no holy-day although he auouch he heard all these tales of Loyola I will tread all these matters vnder foot I do beleeue that Ribadiner heard it of Gonsalua and Gonsalua receiued the newes of all these miracles from Ignace Let vs now giue credit to Ignace in his own cause for none but he can say that Saint Peter appeard to him first and then the Virgin Marie that he was two seuerall times visibly tempted of the diuell that he saw the Trinitie in heauen Christ Iesus in flesh and bodie in the host the soule of Hozius his companion caried to heauen that God shewed him how he made the world that Christ promised him to assist him in Rome all this rests vpon Ignace onely none but he can giue vs testimony of it and this makes me say that if we should beleeue it we were verie heauie headed If I were to rest vpon this point I should haue inough to prooue you ought neither to receiue nor reiect all these miracles but I will proceed When I asquier pleaded the cause one of the fairest parts of it was that with which he stoutly chalenged the Iesuits to choake him with any one miracle that euer Ignace wrought he said that all the holy Fathers Saint Benet
honour you O of our Sauiour IESVS holy crue New Idols of a new and foolish age Freely depart with all your equipage Nay more to passe the time as they trauaile ouer the Alpes I will giue them with all my hart a Latine Poëm that Adrian Turnebus made in fauour of them a fewe months after their cause was pleaded translated since that time verse for verse by Stephen Pasquier ¶ A Poëm of Adrian Turnebus vpon the liberalitie of the Iesuits AMong the most principall and woorthy personages of our age as well for good life behauiour Catholique Religion as for all sorts of good learning we had in the Vniuersitie of Paris that great Clarke Adrian Turnebus the Kings Professor a man praysed and honourd by the pennes of as manie as since his death euer writ of him and among other religious men Genebrard Archbish of Aix in his Chronographie Adrianus Turnebus my Maister saith hee in the Greeke tongue and the Kings Professor at 53. yeeres of age dyed in Paris the 12. of Iune 1565. a Catholick though the hereticks gaue out the cōtrarie of him This learned religious person makes it his glorie that he had Turnebus for his Maister and beares witnesse of his Catholique fayth whose witnes alone is woorth a hundred others I trust the Iesuits will not be grieued to take this honorable commendation that he gaue of them in Latine verse a little before his decease translated then into French verse for verse and printed at Paris ¶ Against Sotericus that will needs read without stipend THou Soteric who freely vaunts to read Perswade thy Lawyer for no fee to pleade Which sells his speech by weight of golden hire And make thy Proctor no reward require But let him cap and curtsie for nothing Try if thou canst the sacred Senate bring To aske the King no stipend for theyr paine Nor benefit If Proctors talke for gaine And euery Lawyer by his breath doe thriue And Senators vpon allowance liue Let each good Order then be kept with them The Courts thy Stoick paradox condemne None thee beleeue that profit doost despise The seates of iustice heere before thine eyes Prosper by gaine and grow maiesticall Take away this the Courts will haue a fall Men will iudge thee a fained hypocrite Not well contented with a little mite But say you gape for dead mens wills and treasure And lie in wait to hunt it out of measure Thus from the poore their almes is swept away Small things you scorne to get some greater pray I wish at meaner gifts you would not grutch Nor heape and hale from Clairemont halfe so much What you by wicked shifts doe scrape and racke Belongs vnto the poore not to your backe Your pietie and bountie doth appeare You craue great gifts shun small Deuotion deere The loue of this hath set your hart on fire None willingly becomes a thiefe for hire But soares aloft in hope to part the spoyle He makes faire shewes and with a goodly foile Drawes them along whom in his nets he shuts And then himselfe with blood and murder gluts Thus while you carelesse seeme to teach for price Whom you may rifle of their goods you tice Kindreds disherited their wealth you share Whereof the lawes and iustice should take care Come now to sale make market of your skills Take treble wages giue vp dead mens wills Abstaine from theft let their bequests goe free No scratching Harpie heereto will agree Then let your labours be no longer vaunted By your Societie our lands are haunted Though foure or fiue doe teach yet in your Cells A thousand heauie-headed Drones there dwells Not apt to teach others nor themselues to learne When ours no maintnaunce haue but what they earne Not one with vs that idle is can liue Why doe you then the name of Maisters giue Vnto your selues in such a Towne where more Maisters haue been then schollers heretofore Mention of this their monthly records make Not a Denier of Schollers will you take And shall such Locusts with so easie sute Lodge in our bosome to deuour our fruit He that no recompence will haue there-while Watcheth the Realme and people to beguile Who will no burden be yet hath no stay Of liuing this of him will wise men say He is a shifter and his gaine is cheated What 's due to him he takes not though entreated What is not due he doth exact See now What tricks your rifled Schollers learne of you Their Legacies haue made you fortunate They be the props and pillars of your state Of Lands and Lordships you desire good store With power of life and death ouer the poore And blockish vulgar sort Then if you please Epicures Gardens you may haue for ease Grammarians Maisters Doctors and the Schooles Schollers Chayres must weepe you make all fooles CHAP. 7. ¶ That the sect of the Iesuits agrees in many things with the heresie of Peter Abelard AFter that Pasquier had by his Plea layde open the impieties and blasphemies of the Iesuite Postell he set himselfe to buckle with their Metaphysicall Maldonat who some fixe weekes or two months before in a great auditorie of young boyes playing with his wit to the dishonour of GOD had read contrarie Lectures In the first he labourd to proue by naturall reasons that there is a God In the second that there is none The Iesuits maintaine at this day by the pen of Rene de la. Fon that the God-head must be prooued by naturall reasons that a man may dispute both pro contra and that hee which thinkes otherwise and relyes onely vppon fayth is impious Thys proposition together with theyr practise which I haue obserued since their comming to abide in Paris makes me remember Peter Abelard who was so toucht to the quick by S. Bernard and I thinke I shall not at all wander from my purpose if I recount you the storie Maff. li. b 1. cap. 16. the better to make comparison betwixt him and the Iesuits especially because Ignace had for his first Regent in Barcelonne one called Ardebal in whose name you shall find Abelard without difference of any one letter Peter Abelard comming of a verie auncient and noble house of Britaine being the eldest of fiue brothers which is no small priuiledge in that countrey gaue ouer all and euerie whit of his goods that he might dedicate himselfe to learning wherein he was verie forward before he went out of the countrey But to the end he might be better furnisht he came to Paris which then began to be the fountaine of all good litterature There he found two Maisters William Campellensis in Philosophy and Anselm in Diuinitie who read diuers lectures in the Bishops Pallace where the Vniuersitie then was Abelard had not studied Philosophie but that as he was of a great but a running wit so he farre out-stript his companions and became equall euen to Campellensis his Regent And as one that was so without taking any
God by making a vowe to liue a Munks life Thou Iugler in matters of Christian religion which playest tricks of passe and repasse to make a child passe by inuisibilities it is it is not to the end thou maist withdraw him both froÌ„ his Fathers presence and also froÌ„ the Magistrats And when thou hast thus done thou hast vp thy generall prouerbe These be the works of thy holy spirit whom thou hast alwaies in thy mouth as harlots are alwaies prating of their chastitie Doost thou thinke thou wrâ—tch though my first proiect was to bring him vp in mine owne calling yet if after he was come out of thy house and come to yeeres of discretion he would haue forsaken the world that I would haue enuied him that felicitie Not to make him a Gypsie to rogue about as thou doost all ouer the world feyning that hee can tell euery man his fortune wheÌ„ he cannot tell his own but to frame him after the mould of our auncient orders of religion and at once to shut him vp in a Cloyster there to leade a solitarie lyfe to giue himselfe to fasting and prayer to weare hayre-cloth so to behaue himselfe that his Cloyster should be a Pallace to him fish as Manna from heauen and hayre-cloth more soft then the finest Holland shirt of Linnen And that after hee had employed his solitarinesse in long watchings and deuotions hee might come out of his Cloyster as a worthy and valiant warriour not to murder Kings not to conquer Realmes and to sel them to him what would offer most but to kill sinne to subdue disordered soules by preaching in the midst of the churches that which appertaines to euerlasting blessednesse I call not to the Iudges of this world for reuenge of this wrong thou detestable coosner the great Iudge of Iudges shall be my auenger euen then when after he hath chastizd the Magistrate either for his feare or for his long winking at thy lewdnes he shall cast thee into the fire as the Father doth the rod when he hath beaten his childe there-with I saw a poore Father in the Iesuits Colledge in Paris play hys part in this sort and to say the truth I coulde haue wished that the good olde man had some-what brideled his choller which me thought past the bounds of modestie but what modestie can a man looke for in a Father that hath his sonne stolne from him There is no remedie but he must needes be out of patience In a worde consider I pray you the first griefe of a poore desolate Father who complaines not that his sonne is become a religious person but that it is wrought by the Iesuits seducing alluring and coosning Did you neuer heare it sayde that it is a great burden to our conscience when wee marry our Chyldren vnder age because it is to teach them to hate theyr vviues before they can vnderstand what it is to loue them So stands the case with these young youths enticed to this spirituall marriage For howe soeuer at theyr first entraunce euery thing laughs vppon them by reason of the charmes and sweet entertainment of theyr ghostlie Fathers yet afterward there settles an imperfection in theyr mindes of a long repentance for their hastinesse and they fall to curse the yere the month the weeke the day the houre and the moment in which they were so deceiued And if there be any that scape this repentance alas they are very few To conclude as long as wee mingle the bringing vp of our youth with this pretended Munkerie wee shall neuer be able to saue our selues from this vnhappy confusion wherof the Cittie of Paris thankes be to God is at this day discharged But I speake to them who being coozned protect as yet this new monster with their authoritie CHAP. 9. ¶ Of the vow of the Iesuits which they call the simple vow INtending to entreate now from henceforward of the Iesuits simple vowe I heere vow not to deale with them but at their owne weapons They haue bin alwaies hetherto so cunning that fewe men haue had any knowledge of theyr dealings Their Bulls and their statuts are to this day printed within their Colledges so that no man knowes the Printers name neither can they easily com into any strangers hands which hath beene the cause that no man heeretofore durst speake so boldly of them But as the force of truth is such that in time it wil be discouerd so the Caball of these Rabbines could not be kept so secret but that in tract of time their bookes haue gotten out of their Colledges vpon which I haue framed thys present discourse I will begin with their simple vowe a vow which I may say is new and monstrous and which cannot be tollerated in our Church without the ouerthrowing thereof at the least in regard of religious Orders and Monasteries By the Lecture which the Iesuit read vs yesterday you vnderstand that the first vow of their Order is that which they call the simple vow by which hee that will vow himselfe to their Societie makes at the first the 3. ordinarie vowes of all other religious Orders namelie of Chastitie Pouertie and Obedience And although in respect of himselfe hee may not after this vow giue ouer his profession yet is it in the power of the General when he will to dismisse him though hee haue beene a Iesuit 25. yeeres and which is more as long as he goes no farder then this simple vow he is capable of all inheritances direct and collaterall notwithstanding the vowe of pouertie hee hath made Let vs not detract any thing from the honour due to the one and to the other but let vs see what discourse Montaignes hath made of these matters By this discourse saith he Montag ca. 50. de sa verite defendue speaking to Arnault two lyes that you haue made shal be refuted The one is that no man euer makes this vow of pouertie but that thereby all hope of succession is lost For it is made in the end of the Nouiceship as hath been said Now if notvvithstanding this vow of Pouertie they retaine sometimes for many yeeres the proprietie of their goods by theyr Superiors leaue and are capable of inheritances be not offended thereat neither call the Iesuits couetous therefore For this retayning is not for them who haue renounced this right as I said before but for the benefite and commoditie of those that are vnder theyr gouernment For if it should chaunce that vpon iust cause they were to be dismist out of the Societie according to the priuiledges thereof they shoulde thereby receiue no wrong but bee able to liue of themselues whereas otherwise beeing depriued thereof they should be driuen eyther to begge or to continue in the Societie not onely to the hurt and preiudice thereof but also to the endangering of their owne bodies yea and theyr soules to It is a nevve Lavve you will say true It is new and vvonderfull sayth
the great Canonist Nauarre It is a new Lawe as also the simple vow of Chastitie is which this Societie makes vvhich hinders marriage to be contracted and disanuls it after it is contracted But it ceaseth not to be right by beeing newe as long as it is ratified by the Prince and head of the Church who made the Lawes of other religious Orders and the rest of the Canon Law The newnes of a thing hinders not the nature of it The newe Raisins are Raisins as well as those of the Vine that Noe planted All right was nevve in the beginning and yet ceast not thereby to be right Sixteene hundred yeeres hence this will bee more auncient then the Canons of the Apostles are at this day which were as young fifteene hundred yeeres a goe as this is now The other lye which is also refuted by this discourse is that the Iesuits cast men off when they are spent with trauaile For as they are not retayned for hope of theyr goods so are they not cast off by reason of theyr pouertie but for some other iust cause Otherwise at the last they must needes dismisse all that make profession because they are depriued of all their goods and they should receiue none that is not rich neither of which they doe If there be any of so obstinate a nature that he wil not be amended after that he hath beene lookt to and medicind a long time it is reason that hee should beare the punishment of his stubbornnesse and that the societie should vse their right VVhich notwithstanding is not done but very sildome and that by the authoritie of the Generall onelie and almost alwaies with the liking of them that are dismist whom we haue not so much emploied as endured and waited for their amendment 10. and sometimes 20. yeeres With such griefe of hart doe they vse this remedie and so deerely loue they the saluation of those that are damageable to thē And so it is plaine that you are in all things altogether vniust to the Iesuits in slaūdering thē that they seduce men by receiuing thē into their society dismissing them out again Some man more scrupulous Chap. 51. of better vnderstanding then you will demaund vvith what conscience they can be dismist and absolued that haue once made vow of religion since the vow is a bond to God which he onely can release as a right belonging properly to him To that I aunswere that a vow binds according to his intent that makes it If any make a vow to fast after the order of the Chartehouse Munks he binds himselfe to fast as the Charterhouse Munks do not as one of an other order who obserueth no such fast They that make vowes in this Societie make them according to the intent and fashion thereof the intent is that they should be in such sort bound to abide in it as that when there shall be any iust occasion they may be dismist and acquited of their bond Wherefore hee that is bound hath no wrong done him if he be constrained to keepe his promise or if hee be dismist because he cannot or will not doe his endeauour to amend himselfe and accomplish it For he hath made his vowe with such a condition volenti non fit iniuria and he that forsakes the Societie without leaue is an Apostata and beares reproach and the marke of his sinne But he that departs by the aduise or good pleasure of his Generall who thinks it meete vpon some necessitie of minde or bodie or of his parents or for the publique good or for some other iust cause that hee should be licenced to giue ouer is thereby absolued from his vowes CHAP. 10. That it cannot be excused but that there is heresie and Macchiauelisme in the Iesuits simple vow THus much the Iesuit Montaignes Now I instantly beseech out holy Father the Pope and adiure all Kings Princes Potentates and Lords which fight vnder his banner in our militant Church that they would open their eies and euerie one particularly examine his conscience for the good of our Christian world With whom haue I here to do with the Iesuits who making aunswer to Arnaults Plea would haue thought they had wrongd their holinesses if according to the ordinary simplicity of others they had intitled their discourse thus A defence against Arnaults Plea but with a proud title they haue set on the front of their booke The truth defended for the Catholik religiō in the Iesuits cause against the Plea of Anthony Arnault I take them at their word wil labour for the Catholike religion with them there is nothing more commaunded vs by God his Church then the performance of our vowes I should abuse both the time my pen if I would proue this by texts out of the old and new Testament and by the authorities of the auncient Doctors of the Church sith deuotion first brought into our Church the orders of Religious Monasteries by which wee enter the three substantiall vowes of Pouertie Chastitie and Obedience This rule hath beene so strictly obserued that the Pope himselfe though hee haue fulnesse of power ouer our consciences yet neuer gaue liberty to himselfe to dispense wholly with a religious person vnlesse it be in fauour of some soueraigne Prince for the succouring of some verie vrgent necessitie in his estate And our Lord being desirous to shew that such dispensations please him not sometimes interposes the rigour of iustice verie manifestly That was seene long since in the Realme of Naples where when all the royall line was ended in Constance who had beene a long time a professed Nun the publique necessity seemed to claime that she should be disuayld that the blood royall might be renewed by her She was absolued from her vow by the holy Sea and presently married to the Emperour Fredericke the second of which marriage Manfrey was borne and of him Conradin But neuer marriage brought greater ruine to Italy then this because the Pope and the Emperour were thereby in continuall diuisions vnder the names of the Guelfes and Gibbilins which lasted an infinite while And as for the children that came thereof Manfrey was slaine in a pitcht field afterward Conradin his sonne taken by Charles of Aniow king of Naples who causd him to be beheaded vpon a scaffold I haue purposely toucht this example to shew how little God likes these vnmunkings what authoritie soeuer he haue giuen to our holy father the Pope who also hath beene drawne thereto with an infinite number of respects before be yeeld But aboue all it is a generall rule in Rome that in all other families not soueraigne the Pope neuer makes a religious man lay but only changes the rigour of the first vow into an other more easie to beare as we saw of late in this our country of France When as the Lord of Bouchage comming of a verie noble house had made himselfe a Capuchin and that after
her husbands part yet is it not permitted him to marry againe in our Catho Apostlick Romane Church but he must beare his part of penaunce for the sinne coÌ„mitted by his wife So hath our Church thought these two bodies indiuisible I wot well that som think that the wife beeing conuinced of adulterie in court of iustice the husband may marry another wife But in whether of the two is there greater error them that so thinke or the Iesuit They cleauing onely to the letter imagine that God hath giuen libertie to marry againe because that in all other cases saue adulterie he hath forbidden the seuering of man wife yet the Church neuer thought that the breach of mariage was intended in these words for marriage is a Sacrament that cannot be dissolued but by death onely there may be a separation of bodies Wherein the Auncients were so resolute that they thought some as Tertullian vppon coÌ„maundement some as Ierome vppon counsaile that neither of the married parties might make any second marriage as if their marriage had not beene dissolued by the death of the former wife or husband I speake this not to approoue their oppinions for Tertullians was condemned by the Church and Ieroms contrould by many great personages but to shew you that at the least as long as we liue the sacrament of marriage may not be dissolued no not for adulterie What new monster then is that which our Iesuits bring into the Church that he which becomes one of theyr order may breake off his marriage without sinning thereby against his wife So that vppon a bare discontentment of the husband the poore desolate wife shall remaine vnmarried according to the lawes of Iesuitisme yet may not marry another husband because the Lawes of Christianitie forbids it I haue heard it said of other Orders Monasteries that it hath faln out sometimes that some intemperate and ill aduised men haue become Munks rather by despaire then deuotion because they could not obtaine that folly which they sought for of theyr Mistresses but to the breach of marriage saue for adulterie vppon the onely discontentment of the husband possessed with a sottish deuotion there neuer was any that opend a gappe but the Iesuits men without Christ since first our Christian Religion began If they so much abhorre marriage whence comes it that hauing attaind to their last vow they call themselues Fathers A title indeed not so arrogant as that of Iesuit but yet full of ambition pride At the least I am sure that S. Ierome would not haue thought well of it who vpon the fourth to the Galathians saith that the word Abba signifieth Father in Hebrue and that our Sauiour hath declared that the name of Father appertaines not to any but to GOD his Father therefore it was not to be liked that in some Monasteries there were that were called Abbats or Fathers I thinke his meaning was to speake to the heads of the Munks which were calld Abbats what would he say now if he should see the Iesuits of the great vow take this title of Fathers For in other Orders we call theyr Superiour Abbat as him whom the Religious persons must acknowledge for their Father and as for them they are called Brothers as if they were all his chyldren This name Father appertaines not but to the principall dignities of the Church as Pope Patriarck and Abbat and whereas euery Iesuit of the great vow takes it as his portion they shewe thereby that vnder the feyned simplicitie of theyr Friers weede they couer meruailous arrogancie I know they will tell mee that the Capuchins who seeme to be an order not to be reproued doe the like and I will aunswere them that this fault of the Capuchins may not serue them for a warrant Diogenes the Cynick making a shew of despising the world was as proud as Plato when he vaunted in his beggerie that he trode Platos pride vnder his feete and I will not say that there is no ambition vnder a Capuchins gray patcht gowne But yet there may be some excuse for him For hee among them that first thought to bring som reformation into S. Fraunces order meant to make them Munks like the good old Hermits whom of old they called Fathers As in deede when we reade theyr liues we call them the liues of the Fathers and when I see the Iesuits beggerie brought to that passe the Capuchins is I shall easily be perswaded to excuse this title of Fathers in them But a man may see in them a verie manifest ambition because that beeing not content to call themselues so they make the worde Reuerend to be added thereto which belongs not to any but to Cardinalls and Bishops Looke vppon Bellarmins works printed before hee was a Cardinall for example his booke of Pardons their title is R. P. Roberti Bellarmini c. which is by abridgement that which we call Reuerend father Looke on the life of Frauncis Borgia the third Generall of their Order translated out of Spanish into Latine by Andrew Scot a Iesuit The priuiledge to Troguse the Printer at Antwerp imports that hee had leaue to print Vitam Francisci Borgiae tertij Societ Iesu Generalis à Reuerendo Patre Andrea Shòtto Latinè scriptam The life of Frauncis Borgia the third Generall of the Societie written in Latine by the Reueuerend Father Andrew Scot. And truly I am sorry for the loue I beare them that they haue so ambitiously desired this name of father because it hath been a cause that certaine curious fellowes haue employed their time in writing Anagrams vppon these two wordes SECTA IESVITARVM wherein they haue found matter of shame and reproch As it fell out the other day when I was in coÌ„pany where there was speech of that title which they haue taken a good fellow said that there was no reason we should enuie them that title of fathers sith they tooke so good order to be so To which another replied that it was not so because the conceit that ariseth from these vvordes SECTA IESVITARVM refutes that slauÌ„der whereunto he for his part gaue great credit For if the prognostication of our fortunes and manners said he depend vppon names according to the rule that Ierâ—â—â— Cardan hath giuen in his books Do Sabtilitate there is as much and more reason to iudge the like of Anagrams which a man may finde in the names without loosing any one letter as we fay in that of king Frauncis the first of that name FRANCOIS DE VALOIS DE FACON SVIS ROYAL And in that of Estienne Iodelle a great Poet Io le Delien est né And if that which is to be found in these two words SECTA IESVIT ARVM be true it is an absolute impossibilitie for them to be Fathers TVTE MARES VICIAS non scortum non tibi coniunx Dic Iesita mihi quî Pater esse potes With women you lie not but with males rather Speake Iesuit
are none but the fathers of the last vow bound to the Pope in this Mission they make account that the holy Sea is infinitely beholding to thē for it There Generall can do more For he is permitted by their constitutions to send as well some of them of the great vow as of the other whither soeuer he will without partialitie or exception of any person Idem Generalis in Missionibus omnē hababit potestatem in tamen nulla ratione repugnando 9. Par. const ca. 3. art 9. quae à sede Apostolica vt in septima parte dicitur proficiscuntur Mittere ergo poterit omnes sibi subditos siue professionem emiserint siue non emiserint quos mittendos iudicauerit ad quaslibet mundi partes ad quoduis tempus vel definitum vel indefinitum prout ei videbitur ad quamuis actionem ex his quibus ad proximorū auxilium Societas solet exercendant Poterit etiam missos reuocare in omnibus denique vt ad maiorem Dei gloriam fore senserit procedere The said Generall saith the Latin shall haue all authoritie in Missions yet without derogating any way frō those which are granted by the Sea Apostolick as it is said in the seuenth part It is lawful for him therfore to send any of his inferiors whether they haue made profession of the vow or not whom he shal think meet to any part of the world for what time he please prefixed or not prefixed for any purpose in which the Society is wont to be employed for the good of their neighbours It is lawfull for him also to call home them that are sent and to doe in all things as the shall thinke it most conuenient for Gods glory I doe not thinke it straunge that their Generall may countermaund them that are sent by the Pope because he had leaue to do it by the Bull of 1549. But concerning that point which depends only vpon their constitutions that the Generall may send whither he will not only the fathers profest but all other inferiors of his order I cannot choose but he greatly offended at the matter For to grant such libertie is to giue too much to their Generall and too little to our holy Father the Pope Therfore as oft as they trumpet out to vs this vow of Mission by which their fathers of the great vow are bound to the holy Sea they mocke both him vs. For this vow is superfluous their constitutions being such for their Generall as I haue shewed you Of which constitutions also they haue no Pope for warrant and they are extraordinarily punishable for hauing vsurped this priuiledge vpon the holy Sea of their owne priuate authoritie CHAP. 17. ¶ Of the blindfold obedience which the Iesuits owe the Pope which at this day they impudently denie by theyr new bookes PAsquiier pleading for the Vniuersitie of Paris against the Iesuits obiected to them that they yeelded a certaine particuler submission to the Pope that was vtterly contrarie to the liberties of our Ch. of Fraunce A submission that first brought in a schissme into the Church betwixt the popish Iesuit the true catholique French-man Besides of such consequence that if any quarrell should happen betwixt the Popes our Kings the Iesuits would be as sworne enemies to the Crowne of Fraunce as any that we foster in Fraunce When this obiection was made against them Verseris theyr Aduocate answered neuer a word to it as you may see by his Plea But as the time hath refined theyr wits so they haue bethought themselues of a buckler for this blow by a new kind of Sophistrie saying that they make no other particular vow to the Pope then that of Mission and that in all other poynts they are conformable to vs. So they would haue defended themselues in the yeere 1594. when their cause was pleaded the second time in the Parliament at Paris as you may vnderstand by that which I alleaged out of their defences And Montaignes in his book of the Truth defended faith that their vow is containd in these wordes of their profession Mont. c. 24. after the three vowes of Religion Insuper promitto specialem obedientiam summo Pontifici circa Missiones Which signifieth nothing els but that they which are profest promise to obey their holy father the Pope specially without delay or excuse to goe into any part of the world to the Indies or to the Turks among the Infidels and heretiques to conuert them or to the Christians to ayde them But aboue all he best pleaseth me which made The most humble supplication and request to the King for the Societie of Iesus who after he had daubd ouer his cause with many hypocriticall reasons when he comes to this poynt of obedience to the Pope his booke beeing shut vp as if by ouer-sight he had forgot to aunswere it adds by way of an appendix beside the Booke about some twentie lines to this effect Addition to page 56. The same Author hath taught our enemies to take vp matter of reproch about a vow that the profest of our Societie make to the holy Sea vppon which they haue glozed that wee promise to obey it wholy in all thinges whatsoeuer it shall commaund and that if the Pope be a Spaniard we will be so to if he please which glosse is not onely contrarie to the truth but also beside the purpose and matter This vow my Liege containes nothing but a promise readily to employ our selues when it shall please the holy Sea among the Infidels Pagans and Hereticks to conuert thē to the fayth The words of the vow are Further I promise speciall obedience to our holy Father in the matter of Mission This vow contains no other particular obligation cannot be but commendable in a time wherein there is so great need of good labourers to succor the church in danger And it weakens not nor hinders in any poynt the submission obedience allegeance which all subiects owe to their Princes the French to the King of Fraunce the Polanders to the King of Poland and so of others What cause haue they then to cry out that wee make a vowe to obey wholy in all thinges whatsoeuer shall be commaunded and that this vow will make vs Spanyards if the Pope please What agreement is there of such an antecedent with such a consequent Let the word Spayne goe I will make no aduantage of it eyther for or against the Iesuit Euery Prince playes his part vpon this great stage of the world as well as he can for the aduauncement of his estate A thing which is not vnseemly for him according to the rules of state matters which giue Princes leaue to loue treasons and hate Traytors Some such a one may haue ayded himselfe by the seruice of the Iesuits in our late troubles who shall one day find that they are very dangerous officers in his Country that by experience of that which
may beleeue that the commaundement is verie iuâ—â— seeing that is was giuen vnto him And who seeth not that this may well be resembled to a dead bodie or to staffe that receiueth no motion but by an other mans hand yea to be short that this commaundement or law is wâ—â—hout eies And that therefore to commit this absoâ—â—â—â— comaundement to an Vsher or vnder officâ—â— and that vnder the maske of Gods supposed presence is properly to put a sword into a madde mans hand And when I consider this vow me thinkes I see the Anabaptists who said that they were sent from God to reforme all things from good to better and so to reestablish them And as men that hammer such matters in their heads they caused a booke of reformation to be published and dispersed And they had for their king Iohn Luydon and vnder him certaine false Prophets who were their Superiours who made the people beleeue that they â—â—lked and conferred with God sometimes by dreames sâ—metimes by lies and forgeries and that they vndertooke nothing but by Reuelation from him Afterwards they breathed their holy Ghost into the mouthes of those whom they found best fitted for their furious opinions distributing and diuiding thâ—â— thorow their Prouinces as their Apostles to draw and bring vnto them the most simple and easie to beleeue By meanes whereof they brought to their lure and whistle almost all Germanie especially within the tâ—â—â— of Munster where they had established and set vp their monstrous gouernment one while commaunding murthers and massacrings and an other while executing them with their owne hands in which they pretended nothing but inspiration from God And going about to make as a pray vnto themselues all the Kings Princes and Potentates of thâ—â— part of the world they published that they were expresly sent from GOD to driue them away Whâ—â—â—upon they made account to murther them if men had not preuented their purposes and practises Now then tell 〈◊〉 prâ—y you what doth the great vowe of the Iesuites towardâ— their Superiours else import but the obedience of the Anabaptists For further proofe whereof let vs set before vs a General of their Order who eyther thoroâ—â—â— certaine vnruly passion or particular ignoraunce went but verie ill fauouredly to make himselfe a Reformer as well of our religion as of all politique states who also being in the middle of his companions spake vnto them after this manner My little children you know that I being here present with you to commaund you our Lord Iesus Christ is in my mouth and therefore that you ought thorowly and in euerie respect to yeeld obedience God powred out his holy Spirie vpon out good Father Ignace the better therby to sustaine c vpholde his Church which was readie to fall by reason of the errours of the Lutherans errors I say which are spred thorow al Europe to the great griefe of al good Catholicks Now then â—ith iâ— hath pleased God to make vs the Successors of that holy-man so it behâ—â—â—â—â—th vs that aâ— he himselfe so we also should be the first workemen vneâ—ly to root out the same Wee see heresies raigne in many Realmes where also the subiect armeth himselfe against his King In some other places we behold Princes tyrannizing ouer their Subiects Here a Queene â—â—â—ogither hereticall not farre from her A King professing the same thing and other some feeding vs with farre shewes allurements the more deeply to deceiue vs. It belongeth to vs yea to vs I say to defend the cause of God and of poore subiects not in some small sâ—â—â—blance as our forefathers haue done but in good earnest They that in former time occupied themselues therein haue drawen a false skinne ouer the wound and by consequent haue marred all But we shall doe a meritorious work to vnburthen countries kingdomes therof We must needs become executione of the soueraigne iustice of Almightie God which will neuer be grieued or offended with any thing that we as Arbitrers and Executors of his good will and pleasure shall doe to the preiudice of such Kings as rule wickedly and suffer their kingdomes to fall vnto them whom in our consciences we shal know to be worâ—me thereof How be it you thinke not your selues strong inough in your selues to execute my commaundements yet at least let this be a lesson vnto you that you may teach in the midst of Gods Church Wherein also you must imploy all the best meanes you haue least the danger disease and Gangrene get so deepe a roote that it will not easily be remooued Wee shall at the length finde good store of workemen and Surgions to helpe vs forward herein But aboue al things apply refer to this all holy and necessarie prouision of ConfessioÌ„ of Masse of CoÌ„municating to the end that we may with greater assurance of their consciences proceed on in this holy worke and busmes The necessitie of the affaires of Christendome commaundeth it and the dutie of oâ—â— charge bindeth vs thereto These are the aduices and councels that I haue receiued from our Sauiour and Redeemer Iesus Christ who suffered his death and passion for vs and for whose sake as it were in counterchaunge we ought rather to die then not to ridde our selues of these wicked Princes And these euen these I say are the aduises which I haue from God whose Vicegerencie I exercise and execute ouer you though I be vnworthie I leaue heere to your owne considerations the places examples and authorities of holy Scripture which are mistaken and this Monsiure might alleage For of this assure your selues these Atheologians or maimed Diuines will no more faile therein then the Negromancers do in the inuocation of their spirits and diuels or in their healing of diseases And yet all these matters tend but to Anabaptistrie or else to the commaundements of that old dotard of the Mountaine mentioned in our Chroniclers and called the Prince of the Assasines who charmed and charged his subiects to kill handsmooth our Princes that went into the East to recouer the holy Land Whereupon also there hath remayned amongst vs and that euen to this day the word Assasine as proper against all murthering Traitors But is not all this found in our Iesuits And is not this doctrine scattered in the midst of that holy Order Haue we not seene the splintors shiuers of it When the last Prince of Orange was not at the first time slaine in Antwerpe was not this by the instigation of the Iesuits And when at the second time he was slaine in the yeere 1584. by Balthazar Girrard borne in the countie of Burgundie And where also Peter Pan a Cooper dwelling at Ipres vvas sent to kill Maurice Prince of Orange and Earle of Nassaw the other princes sâ—â—â—ue of whom I pray you did they take counsell As 〈◊〉 Girrard before hee was examined he confessed that he went to a Iesuit whose name hee knew not but that he was of a
read of Balaams Asse and this Ignatius his Mule without the which he had most furiously executed his disseignment Therefore I finde no whit strange the resignation he hath made of the same furie vnto his successors with whom I list not dispute whether it be fit or no but send them after his example vnto a Mule for resolution At this word the Iesuit woulde needes lay himselfe open Excuse me I pray you quoth he me thinks you deliuer not the vvhole matter For Ribadinere one of them of whom you borrowed this historie sayth that Ignatius at that time was surprised with a remembrance of his old Adam Homo quippe militaris fallaci veri honoris irâ—itatione olim elusus he was falne into this foolish opinion of reuenge but that afterwards arriuing at our Ladies Church of Mountserrat hee hung before her alter all his weapons after hee had confessed himselfe by writing of all his sinnes three dayes together Ibi optimo confessario totius vitae suae crimina per triduum ex scripto confessus est illique homini omnium primo animi sui propositum aperuit iumentum reliquit gladium pugionemque quibus Mundo meruerat ante aram beatissimae Matris Dei apendi iussit which was in the yeere 1522. Truly replyed the Aduocate I heeded not those 4. or 5. lines when I perused Ribadinere and I thank you hartilie for putting mee in minde of them for I will vse but this one poynt to shewe your Sect to be most wicked and most vnhappy that hauing this faire goodlie mirror of your Father and Author before your eyes your heads haue entertaind no other obiects but the disquiet of the Realmes you liue in especially of our countrey of Fraunce as I will proue immediatly CHAP. 11. ¶ Of the holy League brought by the Iesuits the yere 1585. into Fraunce and that they are the cause of the Hugonots new-footing among vs. HEtherto I haue discoursed vnto you of the murders paricids and massacres of Kings princes now I will shewe you the ruine and desolation of kingdoms procured by them and beginne first with our owne It is not for a King of Fraunce saith the Iesuit in his Most humble Request to reuenge the quarrell of a King of Nauarre nor fits it the Churches eldest sonne to be sencible of what was done against an opinion contrarie to the Church Goodly words which I remember often so wel they please mee as though the Iesuits had onely warred against the King now liuing and no way touched the last Henry the third not onely adorned with the title of Most Christian a title long agoe bestowed on our kings but who among the most Christian was in particuler the most Catholick We saw him in the beginning of his raigne follow the Iesuits beeing charmed by them and holding them the soundest Catholicks afterwards the Priers Minims of Nigeon hard by Paris where hee had his chamber for his priuate prayers by night on festiuall dayes and for his deuotion at theyr Mattins at certaine other seasons then haunted hee the Capuchins and Feuillants and with a like zeale instituted the brotherhood of the Penitentiaries Whippers and after all this the congregation of the Hieronimits at our Ladies of Vincennes where hee and his companions changed theyr habits as Munks on those dayes and feasts whereon they were confined thether I know well that his enemies imputed all this to hypocrisie for his ill hap or to say more truly their vnhappie shifts would haue led men to turne all his actions to the worst If you say that the greatest part of such as ioyned with him did it for hypocrisie onely to please him I belieue you say most truly but as for him I doubt not but he did it onely to please God It were a want of common sence to auerre that a King nourished in the midst of delights and fulnes of all pleasures would haue chosen this painfull course had hee not beene drawne vnto it by true zeale and deuotion hee who otherwise had tenne thousand means to credit him selfe by such leud hypocrisies may fall into the harts of meane companions who by religions maske striue to seaze on new greatnes but not into theirs whose auncient right assures it them alreadie Then must the Iesuite the hypocrite raze this clause out of his paper that the warre whereof I will hereafter speake was vndertaken against a King of any other opinion then the coÌ„mon it resteth to know by whom the warre was vndertaken Some charge Princes and great Lords with it therein altogether are deceiued I will deliuer it at large vnto you After the decree of the yeere 1564. had passed we liued in some rest throughout all Fraunce vntil the yere 1567. about which time the enteruiew had at Bayon betweene vs and the Spanyard vndid vs. For it put iealousies perhaps not without cause into the hart of such as were not thorowly setled Ielousies that bred in Fraunce tenne thousand mischiefes which to remember makes my haire to stare Nowe let vs examine the Iesuits carriage during this loose generall corruption A surceasing from Armes being appointed in councel the yeere 64 they thought also to haue had leysure enough for the venting their ambition WheÌ„ their cause was pleaded that irregular profession of theirs was onelie dealt against the wiser sort foresaw as in a clowde that this Impostume could not chuse in time but yeelde a malignant and lothsome matter though to poynt at it in particuler none either could or durst because that outward simplicitie wherewith they shadowed their inward thoughts surprised euen such as wished theÌ„ most euill for they imagined the Iesuits would haue forwarded our Religion by good examples zealous prayers wholesome manners holy exhortations and not by Armes But stayed they in these termes nothing lesse they brought into their houses the knowledge of State matters they made themselues Iudges of Princes actions disposing them at their owne pleasure they contriued warres thereby to compasse their dessignes and the Pulpits out of which they preached were to no other vse but as Drums Fifes and Trumpets to incense our Princes in theyr combats one against another And especially we are not to doubt of their beeing the Authors solicitors and cherishers of our last troubles a thing which not onely they denie not but make theyr boast of in their bookes as you may find in that of the Iesuit La Fon. I vndertake not in this place to recite at large the storie of these troubles this only I wil tel you that before the yere 1576 wee neuer had put the word League in vse it was onely familiar in Italie the chiefe harbor of Iesuits VVhen the Parliament was held at Blois a Lord of some note in Paris whom I will not name whose hart was wholly Iesuited and who on festiuall dayes left his own Parish-church to be present at their Masses sent to the Deputies of Paris these instructions following In this
not by his silence condemned our Accusers and giuen most assured testimonie of our innocencie If since that time it haue condemned vs that proceeded not of the due and formall pleadings of the Aduocates or of any aduantage of law which our aduersaries had against vs it is an inconuenience vvhich hath condemned vs in costs but not ouer-throwne our cause And vvithin a fewe leaues after In Iuly 1594 at what time the processe was reuiued by two pleading Aduocates they charged vs with Barriere and framed many like imputatiōs to agranate this crime against our credite and reputation But all these were but blunt assertions not sharpe proofes proceeding frō the tongue and not from the truth the Court made no reckoning of them and by their silence cleered acquited vs. Rene de la Fon followeth his steppes and goeth about to proue in like manner that the cōdemning of Chastell is the acquiting of all their Societie in as much as hee being racked and tortured appeached none of them But theyr intelligence was very bad in this matter For albeit this wretched fellow by his aunswers and interrogatories to him ministred spared the names of particulers yet did he accuse the whole Order in generall as I wil verifie hereafter more at large Moreouer these Iesuits seeme to be both of them altogether ignorant in the course of Iudgements pronounced by those high Courts The Court saith the first hath not forthwith proceeded to iudgemēt in this cause notwithstanding the sharp accusations wherewith we were charged Ergo by his silence it pronounced vs guiltlesse Furthermore Barriere his fact was laid to our charge yet the Court would not presently condemne vs Ergo the Court intended by silence to acquite vs thereof I beseech you seeing you professe your selues to be Logicians to haue the start of all men in scholasticall Diuinitie by what principles can you make good these conclusions Yet are they not strange to proceede from a Iesuits pen. For these reuerent Fathers are in place and authoritie to cōdemne Kings without hearing them and to abandon their realmes and lay thē open for a pray to him that can possesse himselfe thereof◠as they did to the last King High and soueraigne Courts obserue another manner of proceeding They heare the Counsell on both parties yet rest not thereupon but in such important causes as this especially they remit their iudgement or sentence to their better leysure and to theyr second thoughts The like course was held in their cause Arnauld and Dole vrged in their Declarations the tragical historie of Barriere the Court gaue no credite therevnto and not without good consideration In as much as it was requisite for them to view Barriere his triall or processe which was made at Melun by Lugoly that they might be throughly informed of what had there passed But alas Iesuit what is become of thy wit Thou doost acknowledge this Court to consist of the greatest ornaments of the Law which the world yeeldeth as elsewhere also that referring both parties to counsell they had proceeded without passion or partialitie and yet in the instant thou changest thy note challenging it to haue done iniustice in grounding their sentence against you vpon Chastell who had not accused you Iudges proceede indirectly when eyther they want skill to iudge or that their iudgements are corrupted by hatred fauour or other such partial affections Neither of these defects can be shewed in the managing of your cause as your selfe confesse therefore it is presumption in vs both in you to assay by Sophistrie out of your shallowe braine to elude this sentence in mee to endeuour by reasons and arguments to maintaine and vphold the fame Let it suffice vs that it is a Decree or Arrest and it is our part therefore to rest our iudgements there-vppon In all causes especially in those of weight and importance like this GOD is in the midst of the Iudges to inspire and direct them Many times a man that hauing heard a case pleaded on both sides prepared himselfe in his minde either to acquite or condemne this or that partie yet when hee heares the first Iudge deliuer his opinion hee changeth his mind yea oftentimes it falleth out that one word vttered by the first giueth new light to him that secondeth when as happely he that spake it dreamt not thereon and when it cōmeth to the casting of the Bell for by that by-word doe the Lavvyers terme the vp-shot or conclusion of all they gather and collect out of the precedent opinions a generall ayre or abstract whereuppon this sentence is built Doost thou think that Chastells fact was the sole occasion of your fall thou art deceiued The Court had wisely referred the cause to counsell giuiuing thereby to vnderstand that it meant not to proceed therein eyther with passion or rash hastines two great enemies of iustice In the meane time hapned this damnable act committed by one of your schollers the principals which were before disposed to your condemning were taken in hand a fresh in the handling of Chastels cause your cause is adiudged all vnder one The indignitie and detestation therof awaked iustice in the hearts of the Iudges which in your cause might peraduenture haue slept had it not beene thereby stirred and excited And in all this there is nothing wrought by man but by a speciall iudgement of God which wee ought to proclayme through the whole world It is well knowne that your Colledge was the fountayne and seminarie of all those calamities which we endured during the last troubles There was the rebellion plotted and contriued there was it fully and wholly nourished and maintayned your Prouincials your Rectors your deuout Superiours were the first that troad that path they that first and last dealt with this merchandise Your Colledge was the retreat or Randeuous of all such as had vowed and sold themselues aswell to the destruction of the State as to the murther of the King in which your doings you at that time gloried and triumpht both in your Sermons and Lectures The true hearted subiects who had the Flower de Luce imprinted in their breasts beheld this tyranny and sighed in their soules for they durst not giue breath to their sighes all their recourse was to God that it would please him to haue compassion on their miserable estate God suffered you to raigne fiue yeeres and more swaying both people Magistrate and Prince to trie whether there were any hope of your amendment in time The King was no sooner entred into Paris but the iust hatred of the people towards you brake forth the Vniuersitie of Paris stirreth against you and reuiueth their former suite which had beene referred to Counsell in the yeere 1564. the occasion thereof was founded vpon your owne fresh practises and lewd misdemeanours the cause is pleaded by two worthie Lawyers Arnauld and Dole heard with patience discreetly not iudged forthwith by reason of the waightines besides the heat and
choler of those which prosecuted the cause against them might in time coole and asswage as the manner of French men is The Iudges neuer stirre in any cause but as they are vrged thereunto otherwise they should doe themselues wrong and men might say they were rather soliciters then Iudges In this pause the iudgement of your cause was likely to haue beene forgotten when on a sodain beyond all imagination this fact of Chastels came to paste whereby the humors both of the Iudges and of the parties are stirred a fresh This was the houre of Gods wrath who hauing long temporized with your sinnes thought it good to make Chastell a spurre in the hearts of the Iudges to incite them to doe iustice aswell vpon you as vpon him and that you might all serue for an example for posteritie to wonder at To the accomplishing of this worke he permitted that Chastell who had beene nurtured and brought vp in your schoole should assay to put in practise your deuout Lectures and exhortations against the King not in the countrie but in the Citie of Paris and that his dwelling should be not in any obscure corner of the Town but in the verie hart of the City standing as it were in the midst of two other Townes moreouer in a house right opposit to the gate of the Palace the ancient habitation of our Kings of the supreme and soueraigne Iustice of Fraunce This house belonged to the father who was so infortunate as not to reueale to the Magistrate the damnable intention of his sonne wherof he had knowledge as himselfe confessed God made speciall choise of that place of purpose to make the punishment more notorious For in like offences of high Treason the Iudges are in dutie bound to their Soueraigne to cause the habitations of the malefactors to be raced and pulled downe and there to be engrauen a memoriall of the whole proceeding for which cause this house was ruinated raced by order in the place thereof a Pyramis or piller raised bearing the memoriall not onely of Chastells offence but of the Iesuits also and this to stand in opposite view of this great and Royall Pallace To the end that our posteritie may know hereafter how highly Fraunce is beholding to this holy Societie of Iesus Was there euer I say not in Fraunce but in the whole world a more famous or notorious punishment then this CHAP. 20. ¶ Of the Pyramis which is raysed before the Pallace of Paris and of the sentence giuen in Rome by the renowmed Pasquill concerning the restauration of the Iesuits sued for by themselues TEll me Marble saith the hypocriticall Iesuit in his most humble petition speaking of the Pyramis to record and testifie to posteritie the happines of a great King and the misfortune of a great offender what hast thou to doe with a poore guiltlesse Societie hast thou not inough of thy iust burthen but thou must charge thy selfe with his slaunder and defamation that had no hand at all in this fact But sith thy backe hath a tongue to vtter falshoode let thy tongue aunswere me and speake the truth Who hath engrauen vpon thy backe that the Iesuits did prouoke or perswade an vnhappie Frenchman to murther the most Christian King of France what witnes what deposition what confirmation hast thou hereof seeing thou doest take vpon thee to witnesse it to depose it to confirme it so assuredly to all the world Hast thou heard more without eares seen more without eyes then fiue twentie thousand eares as many eyes were able to heare or see at that executiō of iustice in the place of the Greue Dost thou in a brauerie say more then that offender durst say being vrged therunto with such rigorous tortures Assuredly the force of a strong fancie or imagination is great and wonderfull not only to cause these prodigious effects in our minds but euen in our bodies themselues For so we read that Craesus his sonne beeing dumbe recouered speech seeing his father in daunger to be slaine and Cippus a King of Italy sitting to behold the fight of the Buls with a fixt and stedfast apprehension fell a sleepe and when he awaked he felt his forehead planted with a paire of hornes One Lucius Cossitius greedily and furiously apprehending the pleasure which he expected of his wife that should be the first night of his mariage was chaunged into a woman Which makes me greatly feare least this honest Iesuit reading in this Pyramis the generall condemnation of his brother-hood should be transformed into a stone as Niobe was when she saw her children slaine For I alreadie perceiue by him that he hath lost the eyes both of his bodie and mind setting forth with such eagernes the innocencie of his Order and bearing vs in hand that this sentence was builded vpon no other ground but Chastels offence Seing therefore that of a wilfull blindnes thou art ignorant euen in that which the walles themselues can testifie and teach and that thou framest thy speech to a stone I thinke it best that thou shouldest be aunswered by a stone but a most auncient and authentique stone the great and venerable Pasquils of Rome who suiteth and resembleth you in many poynts For as you iudge Kings and Princes by certayne texts of Scripture wrested and misunderstood so hath Pasquill beene allowed from all memorie to do the like by Popes and Cardinals vpon the same texts ordered after his owne liking and appetite And as you by meanes of confession come to to the knowledge of a thousand secrets as well of the publique State as of priuate families so is be priuiledged by aunciēr foundation to receiue intelligence from all countries whereby he layeth open to the world that which men presumed to be hidden from all knowledge Considering which sympathie argreement betwixt you him I make no doubt but you will be the rather inclined to beleeue him For do not think but this cause hath beene by him handled in Rome and with mature deliberation adiudged that for the interest you haue in him he hath left nothing vndone aswell to disanull the sentence and deface the Pyramis as to restore you into Fraunce howsoeuer his endeuours haue wanted successe Heare therefore what he hath written to thee in Italian which I haue translated into French as faithfully as I could it may bee thou wilt rest satisfied thereby Thrice reuerend Father I haue perused at large the humble remonstrance and petition preferred by you to the Most Christian King Henrie the fourth of that name as also the notes and instructions deliuered to Father Magius to present vnto his Maiestie for your re-establishment which wrought in me great pleasure and displeasure both at one instant Pleasure to see the choise and varietie of good words that abound in you displeasure to vnderstand in what euill manner your Fatherhoods haue beene entreated If I mistake not the chiefe marke you ayme at is to
1594 hath inserted saith he the whole article in Latine I called for the booke found it true as he told me Another brought me Montaignes his booke reade this place saith he heere you shall find the foundation and originall of our last troubles In this booke I finde that Father Claudius Mathew and Aimond Auger were sometimes in high fauour with Henry the third in so much as oftentimes hee tooke them into his Coach after hee addeth That sathan hauing cast into the Realme the Apple of strife suspition and ielousie all things changed their course and then was brewed that vineger and gall of ciuile dissentions which since that time wee haue seene and tasted As to all texts there want no comments so in the reading of this place thys fellow said vnto me that two words sufficed to a good vnderstander and that this alteration fell out by meanes of the repulse which these two blessed Fathers receiued of the King when he saw them begin to set their hands to matters of State and that they played as did Narses the Eunuch whom the Empresse commaunding to goe and spin her distaffe he made aunswere that he would spin her such a quill as shee or her husband should neuer be able to vnwind And indeed kept promise with her by bringing the Lombards into Italie Euen so these two honest Iesuits beeing estranged from the grace and fauour of the King would let him know they could skill of somwhat else then to say ouer our Ladies Psalter And to speake freely what I think I neuer knew mon of a better conscience then are those of your Societie nor that lesse feared to incur the censures of Rome First Father Henrie Sammiere a stirring pragmaticall fellow confessed that about the yeere 1580 or 81 if I mistake not he was sent by you into diuers Countries to treate or commune about the generall reuolt which you intended to stirre vp against the late King of Fraunce And albeit I maintained that it was neyther true nor probable in as much as you had no cause at that time to attempt it he bad me seeing I beleeued not his words to looke but vpon the arraignment and triall of William Parry an Englishman vvho was executed the third of March 1584. that there I should finde at the latter end of a certaine Letter which he wrote to the Queene during his imprisonment That shee should finde the King of Fraunce had enough to doe as home when shee neede of his helpe Parry as Sammiere told me departed out of England in 1582 and came into Fraunce where hee was dealt withall by our Societie to destroy the Queene of England and to make an innouation in the State and when he obiected that it would hardly be brought to passe in as much as she were like to be ayded and assisted by the King of Fraunce we made him aunswer that we would cut out the King of Fraunce so much worke that his hands should be full of his owne busines without stirring to ayde or succour another Whereby it appeares that euen in those daies our web was on the loome I had not at that time the acts of Parry his tryall but hauing since procured them I haue read the Letter haue found all true that Sammiere reported Who in a good meaning proceeded further and confessed that himselfe and Roscieux were sent in 1584. to the King of Spaine and Father Claudius Mathew to Pope Gregorie the 13. to vnderstand what summes of mony they were willing to contribute towards the charges maintenaunce of the holy League whereunto Roscieux replyed Yea but this honest Munk telleth you not what a cast of his office he shewed me For hee and I riding post together he perceiuing one night that I beeing wearied with trauaile was buried in a dead sleepe caused fresh poast-horse to be brought him and away hee went leauing me in bed for a pawne and such speede and diligence he vsed as that our whole busines was by him almost dispatched with the King of Spayne before I could ouertake him To bring this processe to a conclusion I caused to be brought vnto me the pleadings of Arnauld Aduocate for the Vniuersitie and Dole who was retaind for the Curats of Paris The aunswere to the same vnder the name of the Colledge of Clairmont Frauncis de Montaignes his booke De la veritè Defendue against Arnauld and certaine other bookes or euidences seruing to the state of the cause I belieued Sammier for so much as concerned himselfe but as for Father Claudius Matthew I would not the memorie of him should be touched vpon another mans confession Wherefore I had recourse to the litterall proofe and read Arnauldus his pleadings wherein he toucheth him to the quick and the aunswere thereunto contained in that Plea which is as followeth And whereas Arnauldus alledgeth that Claudius Matthew of the Order of the said Defendants hath beene the Authour and contriuer of the League the said Defendants aunswere that Claudius Matthew hauing spent his whole time in their Colledges amongst children liuing euer in the course of a Scholler could not haue iudgement policie industrie and authoritie requisite for the contriuing and knitting of so great strong a League And be it that the saide Mathew endeuoured to fortifie the sayd League as many others of all estates cōditions haue likewise doone that prooues not therefore that he was the Authour or beginner thereof Besides this is but one particular And fiue or sixe lines after There was not one of them at the first acquanted with his actions and had they beene yet could they not haue hindered them inasmuch as hee vvas their Superiour Comparing Arnaulds obiection with this colde and faint solution mee thought you were agreed that Fraunce should thinke her selfe beholding to none but your selues for her last troubles And desiring more fullie to informe my conscience as touching the Reuolt which happened in Paris euen in the Sorbon it selfe the seauenth of Ianuarie 1589 there came a crew of Diuines beeing men of credit and reputation who certified me that in truth they were at that time assembled to debate the matter that all the auncienter sort were of a cōtrarie opinion howsoeuer the younger were not the greater part whereof had beene schollers to the Iesuits of Paris So as the voyces being numbred and not weighed it was carried away by pluralitie Neuerthelesse they did not as yet altogether loose the reynes to rebellion but determined to suspend the effect of thys their conclusion vntill such time as it were confirmed and ratified by the Sea Apostolick But the day following Father Iames Commolet a Iesuit sounded the drum within Paris And that I might be assured if not of the whole yet of the greatest part of the premisses by the annuall Letters of the Iesuits of the yeere 1589 and moreouer by their Pleas I went directly to theyr Letters and found in those which were written from your Colledge of
Beutiuolio in Bologna in Italy whereof there remaynes no memorie but the rubbish called at this day the ruines of Beutiuolio Secondly that there be sale made of all and singuler the temporall goods of the Iesuits of Fraunce and the money thence arising to be employed to the redeeming or recouering of those demaines of the Crowne which our King hath beene forced to alienate and sell for the maintenance of the warres whereof they were Authors At these words all the companie stood amazed for he tooke the matter in a farre other sence then we expected and some muttering there was about thin sale of their goods Wherupon he said further Let not this opinion of mine seem any whit â—â—eâ—unge vnto you If you had beene bred vp vnder the same law that I haue been you would not thinke it so The possessions where with they are indowed in Fraunce is in respect eyther of their Monasteries which they call houses or of their Colledges In the first respect they can enioy none for their owne statuted forbid it in the fecond much lesse because they were neuer receiued or allowed in Fraunce for true and lawfull Colledges capable of legacies and charitable contributions further then as they promised in the assembly at Poissi 1561. to renounce all their vowes to raunge themselues as all other Colledges did vnder the obedieÌ„ce of their Ordinaries which they neyther haue nor would performe since that time and consequently neyther may nor ought to be reputed Colledges If you will returne to the common auncient rules of the Roman law which we are with all diligence to embrace the common lawes of a countrey being not against it there you shall finde that if a Testator bequeath any Legacie to a Colledge the Legacie is good and sufficient if the Colledge be approued by the Magistrates if not it is to be conuerted to the behoofe and benefit of some other Colledge which is authorized The Iesuits cause was referred to Counsell in the yeere 1564. in which meane time their qualitie was suspended vntill in 1594. it was adiudged flat against them they being condemned to auoyde the Realme of Fraunce Wherefore we may by the sequell truly pronounce that all the charitable deuotions bestowed vpon theÌ„ are to be conuerted to another vse for the benefit of the common-wealth The Iesuits were authors of the troubles the troubles were the causes that some part of the Crowne-land was sold which consequently ought by them to be made good that they may be the Scorpions of Fraunce in whose death she may find a medicine and remedie for their veâ—emous bitings Christian charitie wherewith they abound as themselues boast the pouerty of their order which they proclaime quite thorow their statutes the necessitie wherein our State now is the execution of iustice for example will haue it so for the discharge of their owne consciences With this word Maister Pierre dis Coignet concluded and was in some sort seconded by the Faster his companion not for any deepe vnderstanding that was in him but for that rule which is common to men in miserie who are much eased when they haue copartners in their affliction he also would gladly haue seene the Iesuits kept poore and Fasting like himselfe Whervnto Signior Morforio and my selfe would in no wise condescend in so much as the processe was at the point to be broken off we supposing it to be but a matter compacted betweene the two Doctors of Fraunce By meanes whereof Morforio after a little altercation began to speake To what purpose saith hee are all thsee censures Rectè quidem sed quorsum quaeso tam recte I say not but they are wisely handled but to what end Here is much good talke spent to little purpose You argue the matter as if the Iesuits had now in their hands all those lands or possessions which haue beene by way of almes bestowed vpon them I tell you they are almost all sold and turned into money Their money is in diuers banks out of your Realme to relieue them in a rainie day in case they should be forced to forgoe the countrey of Fraunce And if at all they haue any certayne reuenew that consisteth wholly in benefices which they haue caused to be vnited to their Colledges and are not capable of alienation Haue they sold them say you replied Maister Pierre by what right could they doe so By authoritie from their Generall onely which we neyther approoue nor receiue in Fraunce Our lawes are farre other in that poynt of the sale and alienation of possessions belonging eyther to the Church or to Societies in common In a word all these pretended sales are void in law Wherat I brake into these words You open a gap to an inconuenience that would spread far at one blow extend to the hurt of a number who haue no hand at all in this quarrell Whereby you should bring another Chaos or confusion into the countrey of Fraunce and therefore I referre you to the auncient law of the Romans Communis error facit ius A common error makes a right Finally after much wrangling and contention it was concluded and agreed amongst vs to leaue the matter as we found it and that both the Pyratnis and the sentence of the Parliament should stand without any alteration in eyther This was all I could obtayne of the companie and that not without some bitter words at litle Maister Pierre his hand who tolde me in mine eare that he saw I was at the poynt to turne Iesuit to vphold mine ancient greatnes in the Citie of Rome with men in highest place and authoritie Of all which proceeding I thought good to aduertise your Fatherhood Right reuerend Father as he that is wholy deuoted to your seruice Beseeching you not to proclayme your innocency henceforward because some turn it to a scoffe others to a scorne It is a puddle which if you did well you should let rest for the more you stir it the more wil your doings stink Your selfe are the first and last iudge to giue sentence against your Order I speake to you by name that are the author of the Most humble Petition to King Henry the fourth wherein you acknowledge that he is more barbarous then the Barbarians themselues who setteth himselfe against his Soueraigne And your Montaignes confesseth Mont. ca. 34 that to band himselfe against his Prince is the humor of an heretique Enter into your owne consciences and tel me if this humor did not raigne in you my Maisters during the last troubles of Fraunce In conclusion I would aduise you to giue order that those of your Societie forbeare to write any more or if they doe that they be more discreet hereafter vpon paine of being expelled out of your number CHAP. 21. ¶ Of the diuision which seemes to be in the Parliaments or iurisdictions of Fraunce as concerning the Iesuits and what may be the cause thereof THe Aduocate hauing ended his long discourse