42 The Origin of the Jesuits. 



agreed to yield the same unqualified submission as though he were 

 Christ himself. They were to promote the interests of the Catholic 

 faith by every means in their power, by public preaching and pri- 

 vate exhortation : they were to divest their speech of the ornaments 

 of eloquence, and to use a simple evangelical language for pointing 

 out the beauty and rewards of virtue and the deformities and punish- 

 ment of vice : and all they did was to be done with a view to the 

 glory of God and the maintenance of his true worship. 



After some faint opposition on his part they elected Ignatius their 

 chief, under the title of general ; and he was commissioned to propose 

 these resolutions to the Pope for his sanction, and afterwards to draw 

 up a more extensive code of laws and regulations founded on these 

 principles r and adapted to the usages of the society. Ignatius sub- 

 mitted these rules to the Pope for his approbation, who referred them 

 to three Cardinals for examination. 



The chief of these was Bartholomew Guidiccioni, who not only 

 opposed the new institution with his utmost endeavours, but wrote a 

 book in which its dangerous tendency was ably set forth* This op- 

 position for some time delayed the consent of the Pope, Paul III. ; 

 but it by no means diminished the vigilance or slackened the exer- 

 tions of Ignatius and his disciples. The scruples of the Pope 

 were at length overcome by an additional vow made by the professors 

 for the new order, obedience to the sovereign Pontiff. In their 

 petition to Paul they promised " to fight under his standard, to be his 

 soldiers as they were those of God, and to obey him in all things."* 

 This' was too flattering to be rejected at a time, when the holy see 

 was in extreme need of able and zealous advocates devoted to its 

 will and seeking aggrandisement from the maintenance of its su- 

 preme authority. In defiance of the protest of the Cardinals, a bull 

 was issued on the 27th of September, 1540, confirming the institution, 

 with this restriction, that their numbers should be limited to sixty. 



On Friday, the 27th of April, 1541, Loyola, and such of his com- 

 panions as were at Rome, took their solemn vows at the church of 

 St. Paul, outside of the town the vow of obedience to the Pope being 

 made by Loyola only, in his own name, for himself and his disciples, 

 which he, was fully competent to do in' his capacity of general and 

 especial keeper of their consciences. This was the first recognised 

 institution of the famous " Society of Jesus,'' E the best regulated as 

 well as the most extensive of all the monastic orders, and from 

 whose exertions mankind have derived great benefits, as they 

 have also received! much injury. And it perhaps may be doubted, 

 whether the knowledge they so widely diffused, though in its 

 first stage calculated only to advance their own particular interests 

 and the papal power, has not mainly contributed in its growth 

 to remove blindness from the eyes of nations and to awaken 

 them to a sense of their town rights, to free them from the bond- 

 age of ecclesiastical despotism, and the accompanying evil of civil 

 tyranny. 



We must attribute their very rapid progress partly to the favour 



* Foynder's History, Chap. 1. 



