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

As the Pope and our vows undertaken against the Lutherans wish and command. Thus Crusius. Georgius Baderus, the provincial of the Jesuits throughout Bavaria, did not blush to say openly, as reported by Hafenmüller: "By the councils of our people, the Evangelical preachers have been expelled from the city of Vienna; therefore, our people now also teach there in peace, and possess matters according to the vows of their heart. We will enjoy the same happiness if the political magistrate ejects the Lutherans, who strive to drag us into the indignation of the lords." Thus Baderus. The Spanish Jesuit Petrus Ribadeneira teaches publicly that it cannot be sufficiently expressed in words with what hatred Lutherans are to be pursued by Catholics. From these things, I believe—as if from the claw from the lion, from the hiss from the serpent, from the nose from the rhinoceros, and here from the singular holiness of the Pope and the more than paternal affection of the Jesuits toward Lutherans and their children—you can easily judge and, even if I were silent, understand what is to be hoped for from their institution. Let us approach closer, however, and see openly how properly, how strenuously, how seriously they torque this sphere of wickedness and wheel of love, by which they drive men mad more than Plautus would.

The Jesuits, intending to either gently lead or violently drag the children of the Lutherans to their idol-mania, are attentive to a miracle for every opportunity, even the most minute:

Men with six hands of the Geryonian race.
If Argus should guard them, who was all-eyed,
He would never guard them.

For they lie in wait on so many paths, coax in so many ways, attack with so many battering rams, entice with so many rewards, and tire out with so many punishments, that of those who have been committed to them, not even the thousandth—even if he should mount the four-horse chariot of Jupiter—could have escaped their misfortune thus far. This is something which, both in the School and outside the School, always hangs over their necks like the sword of Dionysius.

In the School, as soon as new prey falls into the nets...