Then thus continued he———'Since unjust fate
Envies my race of glory longer date,
Yet, as a wounded general, e'er he dies,
To his sad troops, sighs out his last advice,
(Who, though they must his fatal absence moan,
By those great lessons conquer, when he's gone)
So I to you my last instructions give,
And breathe out counsel with my parting life:
Let each to my important words give ear,
Worth your attention, and my dying care.
'First, and the chiefest thing by me enjoined,
The solemnest tie, that must your order bind,
Let each without demur, or scruple pay
A strict obedience to the Roman sway:[1]
To the unerring chair all homage swear,
Although a punk, a witch, a fiend sit there.
Whoe'er is to the sacred mitre reared,
Believe all virtues with the place conferred;
Think him established there by Heaven, though he
Has altars robbed for bribes the choice to buy,
Or pawned his soul to hell for simony;
Though he be atheist, heathen, Turk, or Jew,
Blasphemer, sacrilegious, perjured too:
Though he be bawd, pimp, pathick, panderer,
Whate'er old Sodom's nest of lechers were;
Though tyrant, traitor, poisoner, parricide,
Magician, monster, all that's bad beside;
Fouler than infamy; the very lees,
The sink, the jakes, the common-sewer of vice;
Strait count him holy, virtuous, good, devout,
Chaste, gentle, meek, a saint, a god, who not?
'Make fate hang on his lips, nor Heaven have
Power to predestinate without his leave;
- ↑ The three vows of the Jesuits laid down by Loyola were poverty, chastity, and strict obedience to the chief of the order. It was the last which made Paul III. withhold his sanction from the institution; but his scruples were removed by the addition of a fourth vow, of implicit submission to himself.
