Transcriber’s Note: A list of changes made to the text to correcttypos, etc., is given at the end.
The original of this book was printed with the Latin andEnglish on opposite pages. This isn’t terribly practical for an e-text, soinstead, the chapters are presented first in Latin, followed by the Englishtranslation (and the original page numbering has been removed, as it wouldno longer be accurate or helpful).
SECRETA MONITA
SOCIETATIS JESU.
THE
SECRET COUNSELS
OF THE
SOCIETY OF JESUS,
IN LATIN AND ENGLISH.
THE LATIN BEING THE TEXT USED IN FORMER EDITIONS:
THE ENGLISH, A NEW AND MORE LITERAL VERSION.
TO WHICH IS PREFIXED
A DISCOURSE
ON THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE WORK,
BY
ROBERT J. BRECKINRIDGE.
SECOND AMERICAN EDITION.
BALTIMORE:
EDWARD J. COALE & CO.
1835.
Entered
According to Act of Congress,
In the year Eighteen Hundred and Thirty-five,
By EDWARD J. COALE & Co.
In the Clerk’s office of the District Court
Of Maryland.
TO
The present ARCHBISHOP of BALTIMORE;
Who is said,
By his friends, to be a person of talents and learning;
And who is believed,
By many, to belong to the
ORDER OF JESUITS;
THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED:
Under the conviction, that his duty, as a gentleman,
a scholar, and a christian,
Requires him,
To refute the book if false;
or,
To admit its genuineness, if it is true:
By his obedient servant,
THE EDITOR.
Baltimore, July 22, 1835.
I. It is certainly of the greatest importance, in determining the valueof the Secreta Monita as evidence in estimating the characterof the Society of Jesus, to come to some satisfactory conclusionas to the authenticity of the work itself. If it can be shownto be really what it purports to be, then indeed the most secret principlesof the most extraordinary and most universally execrated fraternitythat ever appeared amongst men, are plainly laid open to thepublic view; and all may see the profound source of all those active,extended and unceasing operations, by which these persons kept solarge a part of the world in ceaseless commotion for so many years.If indeed the work be not perfectly authentic, that is, if insteadof being the real Secret counsels of the order emanating fromits very head, revealed by accident; it should appear to be arevelation made by an expelled Jesuit, as some of them say,or a mere supposititious composition as others pretend, compiledfrom their various authors and embodying what an enemy mightsuppose they would say, if they officially propounded their realsecret instructions, the case would perhaps appear to be somewhatweakened. But even then, if an expelled member had written it,it might all be true; and while the power to show it was not,if indeed it was not, would be complete in the society, its failureto do so, added to inherent evidence of genuineness, in thework itself, might establish its reality on as unquestionable groundsas if it had the imprimatur of the general himself upon its face.Or if the last supposition can be considered as possible, a compilationof