02.054. The Jesuits
The Jesuits
Englishmen! Be not deceived. You are to know that these are the men that marshal the hosts of Antichrist in your midst! Do not, therefore, underrate your danger; it is great!
Dr. Ian R.K. Paisley
ANY view of Popery would be seriously defective which should pass over the Jesuits, who, for many generations, have performed a part so conspicuous in the affairs of Rome. That most peculiar and dangerous class of men have earned for themselves the jealousy and hatred of no small portion of the human race. A fact so remarkable must have a cause sufficient to account for it. Whole nations, and successive generations never rise against an order of men without some sound and urgent reason, and the history of the Jesuits shows that their case forms no exception to the general rule.
They have merely reaped as they sowed. Had the enemy of mankind been permitted to become incarnate and to set up a visible court on earth, the Jesuits would have supplied him with suitable ministers, bodyguard, and officers for all his objects. Gifted, cultivated, discreet, crafty, persevering, and energetic, they lay themselves soul and body on the altar of Rome, and only lived to promote her ambitious and impious projects.
Never was spiritual, government so perfect; never was centralization so complete; every man was a host in himself, alike able to lead and follow-an impersonation of all the higher attributes of wickedness. They seemed spirits of darkness who had got possession of human bodies, so thoroughly were they divested of all the better attributes of man, and so thoroughly the temples of iniquity. There was nothing so atrocious that they were incapable of it, -nothing so arduous that they were not equal to it. -Truth, or principle, whether moral or religious, was ignored among them. Great for evil was their power, while their right hand was uniformly the right hand of falsehood!
They seemed to have been pupils of the Prince of Darkness himself, while so successfully had their studies been conducted that each was fitted to have misled a world of innocents, or to have acted as Premier to Pan demonium! The sense of right and wrong was utterly destroyed within them. Regardless alike of God and man, promises and oaths, the moment that either was found to stand in the way of a deed which might serve the Church, it was given to the winds. The flagrant lie, the deceitful appearance, the poison or the dagger, were hallowed instruments in their hands; in the suggestion of deeds of infamy, or in their perpetration, they were equally at home; they stood -ready, at any hour, to shed the blood of saints, or of kings; everything human and divine was subordinated to this one thing-the Pontifical. glory. They met all difficulties by their never-failing maxim - "The end sanctifies the means," till at length they became the terror of the World, and odious to every friend of virtue. England, always foremost in all that is great and good, to her honour, was the first to expel them. This event occurred in 1604; and, two years afterwards, Venice, among the few things either wise or good she ever did, followed the laudable example. In 1759 they were driven from Portugal; four years’ after from France, and three years subsequently from Spain. In 1775 even Pope Clement XIV. Himself became ashamed of them; they had by this time rendered themselves such objects of fear and aversion throughout Europe that their existence could no longer be tolerated. The result was their formal abolition as an Order; but even this did not amount to much; it was merely an army disbanded, the soldiers still surviving, and ready at any moment, to be reassembled. During the long and dreadful war which desolated Europe, they were but little heard of, having small opportunities to further their plans. No sooner, however, had peace been restored in 1814, when the history of their misdeeds had almost been forgotten, than Pope Pius VII. restored them, and from that time to this they have been carrying on their machinations against mankind with as much zeal, and as little, principle as ever.
England, we regret to say, is; now open to their depredations on her virtue and her religion; and, as might be supposed, they are making the most of it. From the importance Rome attaches to her conversion to the service of Antichrist, their services are eminently concentrated on her. It is felt that to recover England were to possess the whole world; her cities and plains, therefore, are once more the chief theatre of the Papal conflict. The Jesuits are her principal officers. They have been the prime instruments in the events, which a few years back convulsed her, and with them it will be, unless Protestants bestir themselves, to finish what they have so openly and hopefully begun.
Such are the Jesuits; and the fact that such men can be so necessary to the Papal system, and occupy, in its movements, a place of such distinction, alone suffices to furnish against her grounds of an indictment which, if prosecuted, must issue in a decisive condemnation. It is enough to call forth the united virtue of mankind against her, and against this most dangerous class of Popish agency. Unless restrained they will become once more the right hand of the Pontificate, and the terror of the nations.
Englishmen! Be not deceived. You are to know that these are the men that marshal the hosts of Antichrist in your midst! Do not, therefore, underrate your danger; it is great! But if not faithless to your principles, and to your Divine Head, victory will be yours. Your fathers encountered and overthrew them; and it is for you to repeat the deed of your sires. The weapons of the Jesuits are falsehoods, yours are truth; with these march forth in the name and the love of God, and drive them from your borders! Drive them not only from the English Church, but from the English nation.