187 CHAPTER I. 66 ALTHOUGH it does not enter into the plan of this essay to trace the history of Loyola's Institute, we may, for a moment, look onwards to a time dating about a century after his death; and shall then find a state of feeling and opinion, in relation to the Society, prevailing, not merely on the Protestant side of the European community, but on that of most Catholic nations, which offers a problem that can be solved only on one of the following suppositions, or, by taking into the account a part of each. The high merits and indefatigable labours of very many of the Company of Jesuits being admitted, while nevertheless it had drawn upon itself the darkest suspicions, or even the vehement hatred of Catholic governments and people, it must be supposed-Either that these suspicions and that this odium were altogether unwarrantable and groundless; or, That being in the main well founded, the Society had, within the brief period of a few years, lost the spirit and forgotten the intentions of its founder, and had undergone a moral degeneracy more rapid than has taken place in any parallel instance, and of which no intelligible account can be given; or, That the suspicions and hatred of mankind being, as above supposed, but too warrantable, the Society, instead of having, in the usual sense of the word, degenerated, or of its having departed from the course prescribed for it, had only developed the principles of its constitution; and, while rendering itself odious to states, and an object of indignant dread throughout the world, it had, nevertheless, faithfully given effect to the spirit and letter of its code. This last supposition we assume to be the only one which can be adhered to consistently with the facts of the case; and it is moreover believed that an analysis of this code, or of what we have termed the canonical writings of the Society, exhibits clearly, and incontestibly, those germs of evil which have rendered, and which must ever render Jesuitism a vicious institution, and must make it a source of mischief, moral and political, in the bosom of nations. What may be regarded as the canonical writings of the Jesuit Society, comprise, - The Spiritual Exercises; -The Letter on Obedience, addressed to the Portuguese Jesuits;- The Constitutions, with the original notes thereon; and the Directorium; of each of which some account must be given, with a brief descriptive analysis of its purport. The book entitled Exercitia Spiritualia, was, as to its rudiments, if not more, the earliest produce of Loyola's mind; nor is it on that account merely entitled to the earliest place in an examination of the documents of his Institute; for it has always been regarded by the Society itself as the nucleus of the system, and has been made use of as the Text-book of initiation: in truth, it might be designated, not unfairly, as the Bible of Jesuitism. The most approved Jesuit writers have not hesitated, in terms more or less distinct, to claim for it, the sanction of inspiration; and a living writer of the highest repute, in commending a translation of it to the English public, does not seem to shrink from such a supposition; although the adroit use of a parenthesis saves him from the necessity of plainly avowing his own conviction in this particular. "It is a plan," he says, (that laid down in the Spiritual Exercises) "framed by a master-mind, (unless we admit a higher solution) capable of grappling with the most arduous and complicated task." Loyola, as we have seen, required every one of his early colleagues in turn, and not excepting those of them who were far his superiors in accomplishments and in general intelligence, to pass regularly through the course of discipline which this book prescribes; and from that time to this, it has been the door, and the only door, into the Society. Moreover, it is enjoined upon those who, not intending to become members of the Society, but seeking only their personal advancement in piety, wish to place themselves, for a time, under the spiritual direction of a Jesuit father, that they should submit themselves to this course. In the Directorium, or book of instructions for those whose duty it may be to superintend the initiatory discipline of candidates, and which was drawn up, digested, and sanctioned, by Loyola's successor, Aquaviva, the "Spiritual Exercises" are held forth as of primary authority and utility, and as of universal application; and in the "Constitutions of the Society," the same place of primary importance is assigned to them. We are bound, therefore, to regard this book as containing, what the Society declares it to contain - namely, the very substance, or germinating rudiment of Loyola's Institute. Wonders of moral cure have been accomplished by it, we are assured, in the course of three centuries; and similar wonders are formally warranted to result, invariably, from a due use of it still, if employed under an authentic direction. As sure is it to produce its result that is to say, an entire conversion from sin to holiness as sure, even in the most despe rate instances, as is Euclid, to bring every rationally constituted mind to one and the same conclusion. "The mind may struggle against the first axiom, or rather demonstrable truth in the series; but once satisfied of this, resistance is as useless as unreasonable; the next consequence is inevitable, conclusion follows conclusion, and the triumph is complete. The passions may entrench themselves at each step, behind new works, but each position carried is a point of successful attack upon the next, and grace at length wins the very citadel. Many is the fool who has entered into a retreat to scoff, and remained to pray.' No book whatever, perhaps, could be named which would so much surprise and disappoint the natural expectations of a reader who, entirely uninformed of its contents, should open it with some vague conception of its purport, engendered by the title, and by a knowledge, not very exact, of the character and temperament of the writer. The "Spiritual Exercises" of St. Ignatius Loyola! a Spanish devotee of the most ardent temperament a man whose tears of joy and penitence flowed like a perennial brook the chivalrous champion too, of "the Blessed Virgin; "-a man of habitual ecstacy, and who was favoured with visions the most extraordinary. What then shall be the "Spiritual Exercises" of such a saint, composed at the very moment of his first fervours in the religious life? The very contrary are they of what it is so natural to expect. There are to be found in this book no rhapsodies, no outbursts of devout feeling, no imaginative revellings in scenes of paradisiacal pleasure: there is in it no enthusiasm, no fanaticism, no presumptuous intrusion upon the mysteries of heaven: nothing in it is expanded, nothing is elaborated, in the way of descrip * Preface to the Spiritual Exercises by Dr. Wiseman. tion; the book is enlivened by no eloquence, is deepened by no pathos. There is in it nothing savouring of Dante, nothing even of Bonaventura; nothing of St. Bernard, nothing of St. Basil, nothing of Thomas à Kempis: nothing after the fashion of the modera mystics. The "Spiritual Exercises" is simply a book of drilling ; and it is almost as dry, as cold, and as formal as could be any specification of a system of military training and field manoeuvres. But is it, therefore, a book to be contemned, or to be hastily glanced at? This will not be thought by those who know what has been its actual influence within a Society like that of the Jesuits. If indeed we may believe that the world will outlive, not Jesuitism merely, but every scheme founded upon analogous principles, and if this book shall still be preserved on the shelves of the antiquary, it will be looked into with equal amazement and perplexity. Strange will it seem that it should have been attempted, or even conceived of as possible, to bring into existence a permanent religious condition—a condition embracing all the compass of the most intense theopathy, by the means of a drill-book of mechanical devotion a drill-book to be got through with in so many days-in twenty-eight! Strange that it should have been thought possible to connect any such mechanism as this with the heaven-born freedom of the Christian system; and how strange that such an attempt should, to so great an extent, have been successful! The philosophers of a future time will perhaps attempt to unravel these perplexities by recurring to the fact, first, that the influence of Romanism, through a course of ages, had been a preparation of the human mind for yielding itself to a scheme of this very kind; and then, that this scheme, mechanical as it is, and diametrically opposed as it is to the spirit of Christi |