Two Orations on the Political Question: Whether the Children of Lutherans Can Be Sent to Jesuit Schools with a Clear Conscience

This page continues the denunciation of the Jesuits as a Trojan Horse sent to destroy German faith and liberty.

You can rightfully use of them what the poet said about the Fury:

A thousand arts of harming, a breast teeming with crime.

For these men, feigning distinguished piety, while meanwhile raging with audacity, panting for crime, nefariously plotting the plague of Germany, and threatening us and the truly Christian and Lutheran world with iron and flame, have devised countless ways to extirpate the Lutheran religion (for this was the end for which this society, gathered from a promiscuous and nefarious rabble of men, was introduced by that warlike soldier in the year 1540). Furthermore, they seized the province of educating and instructing the youth; they erected most extensive schools and colleges partly in Germany, so that, as if through tunnels, they might subvert the true religion, of which they are the most bitter enemies, and through the youth and young boys, by whose continuous succession the Republic is preserved—as the elders gradually die off—they might raise the Papist superstition as if by a fulcrum, and bring it back to its former splendor and stench. Lo, you have a Jesuit horse, far more pregnant than the Trojan one, and therefore also more deadly.

The Germans, however, even if at no time have there been lacking Laocoons—that is, political men and those most expert in human affairs—nor even Chemnitius, Mylius, and Hunnius Prominent Lutheran theologians of the late 16th and early 17th centuries.—that is, theologians perfectly filled with hatred for the Pope and his new creatures—who seriously warned that these black tails were not to be touched, nor were those companions to be received within the limits of Germany: nevertheless, in many places they themselves, blind and demented by the wine of the Babylonian whore, who is said to inebriate many kings, received and accepted the enemy into their bosom like snakes, about to lose their lives sooner than them, thus indeed:

The fatal machine climbs the walls,
pregnant with men and pregnant with arms and deceitful spirits.

From this Jesuit horse, countless numbers proceed daily, who, like Harpies, besiege the courts of Emperors, Kings, and Princes, approach the houses of the powerful and wealthy, creep into all corners, search out and shake down everything, even consciences themselves, so that no impediment can be placed in the way of the Jesuit course, or anything be attempted or thought against their "flattery of the Pope" παπποκολακεία papal sycophancy and the absolute power of his father. Those who should have seriously restrained and beaten back this madness in every way, and killed it in the very bud—they not infrequently, whether out of ignorance or negligence it matters little, aid them as if with gathered troops, and by joining together, confirm them more and more with their own help; and those who were permitted to be sent to the farthest Garamantes A legendary tribe in the deep Sahara, used here to mean "the ends of the earth". and beyond the Frozen Ocean, they carry into the middle of Germany on their own shoulders, especially those parents who, enticed by I know not what holiness of these associates, persuaded by the diligence in educating students which they boast of, and moved by the singular paucity of expenses which they think are required here, send their own to the schools of the Jesuits as if to the most extensive emporia of good letters and workshops of all piety, choosing and finding mustard for pepper, spurge for rose, and aloe for honey. This calamity of the Lutheran foundation is so great that it cannot be expressed in words or bewailed with tears. And yet they believe that the affairs of Germany are not overturned in this, nor does any damage redound to parents or children from it; nay, they stupidly think they have found something far greater than what the boys say they found in the bean, and have provided excellently for their own.

Wherefore, so that this error and terror of parents may appear to all like the ass's ears of Midas, and so that the means and remedies by which this poison may be cast out from the bowels of Germany and pushed outside may be sought and prepared all the more maturely by everyone, I have decided in this half-hour to show briefly that Lutheran parents can neither send nor banish their children to the schools of the Jesuits with a good conscience or with any profit to them, regarding the studies, morals, life, and doctrine of the Jesuits—not as much as the matter itself requires. For a month would hardly suffice. But as much as your patience in listening and my stammering in speaking will permit, I will inquire into and report those things which historians and the annals of our times have consigned to literary monuments about these companions, and have consecrated to posterity so that it may be on guard against them: and this with the best faith. For to lie is neither for a good man nor a sensible one, and it brings repentance to the noble and reproof to the foolish. For which cause

I will not stain my speech with a lie.
For
Unprofitableness has followed
those who speak evil
and I will always lead my own to experience itself, which is truly the "test of mortals."

While I weave this task of mine, this "Hour" or "Garden," with a thread and style that is somewhat rougher, you, magnificent Prorector, noble Barons and Lords, magnificent, most noble, reverend, most learned, most excellent, and most renowned men, and you, most select young men, inspire me with the breeze of your clemency and benevolence, and lighten this burden of mine in some part, so that, refreshed by these as if by most welcome Etesian winds, I may be able to walk worthily in this heat, and gather the honey useful to the Church and the Republic (although I know that the stings of the drones will not be lacking), and be able to set it apart for the benefit of the erring parents. And if I feel that this is kindly and benevolently granted and conceded to me by you (and how could I not feel it from you, whom nature has produced for this clemency and benevolence, will has exercised, and fortune has preserved), I will certainly ensure that you avoid the schools of the Jesuits more than the fountain of Salmacis.

The man who washes in the fountain of Salmacis exits a half-man,
his body softens immediately upon touching those waters.

Or even from the water of the river of the Cicones,

which, when drunk, makes the bowels stony,
which brings marble upon things touched.

I will ensure that all do so, unless they want to rush voluntarily and knowingly to their own destruction.