History of Jesuits

It was some time before the contingency of exposure here provided against actually happened. But in the
beginning of the seventeenth century the accidents of war dragged these Secret Instructions from the darkness
in which their authors had hoped to conceal them from the knowledge of the world. The Duke of Brunswick,
having plundered the Jesuits’ college at Paderborn in Westphalia, made a present of their library to the Capuchins
of the same town. Among the books which had thus come into their possession was found a copy of the
Secret Instructions. Another copy is said to have been discovered in the Jesuits’ college at Prague. Soon
thereafter reprints and translations appeared in Germany, Holland, France, and England. The authenticity of
the work was denied, as was to be expected; for any society that was astute enough to compile such a book
would be astute enough to deny it. To only the fourth or highest order of Jesuits were these Instructions to be
communicated; the others, who were ignorant of them in their written form, were brought forward to deny on
oath that such a book existed, but their protestations weighed very little against the overwhelming evidence on
the other side. The perfect uniformity of the methods followed by the Jesuits in all countries favored a presumption
that they acted upon a prescribed rule; and the exact correspondence between their methods and the
secret advices showed that this was the rule. Gretza, a well-known member of the society, affirmed that the
Secreta Monita was a forgery by a Jesuit who had been dismissed with ignominy from the society in Poland,
and that he published it in 1616. But the falsehood of the story was proved by the discovery in the British
Museum of a work printed in 1596, twenty years before the alleged forgery, in which the Secreta Monita is
copied.15
Since the first discovery in Paderborn, copies of the Secreta Monita have been found in other libraries, as in
Prague, noted above. Numerous editions have since been published, and in so many languages, that the idea
of collusion is out of the question. These editions all agree with the exception of a few unimportant variations
in the reading.16 “These private directions,” says M. l’Estrange, “are quite contrary to the rules, constitutions,
and instructions which this society professeth publicly in those books it hath printed on this subject. So
that without difficulty we may believe that the greatest part of their governors (if a very few be excepted
especially) have a double rule as well as a double habit—one for their private and particular use, and another
to flaunt with before the world.”17
Footnotes
1 Secreta Monita, cap. 6, see. 6.
2 Ibid., cap. 6, sec. 8.
3 Secreta Monita, cap. 6., sec. 10.
4 Secreta Monita, cap. 7, sec. 23.
5 Secreta Monita, cap. 7, sec. 24.
6 Secreta Monita, cap. 9, sec. 1.
7 Ibid., sec. 4.
8 Ibid., sec. 5.
9 Contractus et possessiones”—leases and possessions.
(Lat. et Ital. ed., Roma. Con approv.)
10 Secreta Morita, cap. 9, seca 7—10.
11 Ostendendo etiam Deo sacrificium gratissimum fore si parentibus insciis
et invitis aufugerit.” (Lat. ed., cap. 9, sec. 8. L’Estrange’s tr., sec. 14.)
12 A Master Key to Popery, p. 70.
13 Secreta Monita, cap. 9, sec. 18, 19.
14 Ibid., cap. 16 (L’Estrange’s tr.); printed as the Preface in the Latin
edition.
15 Secreta Monita; Lend., 1850. Pref. by H. M. W., p. 9.
16 Among the various editions of the Secreta Monita we mention the following: — Bishop Compton’s translation;
Lond., 1669. Sir Roger L’Estrange’s translation; Lond., 1679; it was made from a French copy,
printed at Cologne, 1678. Another edition, containing the Latin text with an English translation, dedicated to
Sir Robert Walpole, Premier of England: Lond., 1723. This edition says, in the Preface, that Mr. John Schipper,
bookseller at Amsterdam, bought a copy of the Secreta Monita, among other books, at Antwerp, and reprinted