Note 76 — HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS. BY THE TRANSLATOR. (continued 2)

A disingenuous attempt has been sometimes made to identify these nefarious maxims with certain principles held by some of our reformers. There is an essential difference between the natural right claimed, we do not say with what justice, for subjects to proceed against their rulers as tyrants, and the right assumed by the pope to depose rulers as heretics. And it is equally easy to distinguish between the disallowed acts of some fanatical individuals who have taken the law into their own hands, and the atrocious deeds of such men as Chatel and Ravaillac, who could plead the authority of Mariana the Jesuit, that “to put tyrannical princes to death is not only a lawful, but a laudable, heroic, and glorious action.” (Dalton’s Jesuits; their Principles and Acts, London, 1843.) The Church of St. Ignatius at Rome is or was adorned, it seems, with pictures of all the assassinations mentioned in Scripture, which they have, most presumptuously, perverted in justification of their feats in this department. (D’Alembert, Dest. of the Jesuits, p. 101.)