These particular instructions must be guarded and kept with careful attention by the superiors, communicated with prudent caution to a few of the professors; in the meantime there does not exist any other thing so good for the Society; but we are charged with the most profound silence, and to make a false show, should they be written by any one though founded in the experience we have had. As there are various professors who are in these secrets, the Society has fixed the rule, that those who know these reserved instructions that they cannot pass in any one religious Order, whether it be of the Carthusians, to cause them to retire from that in which they live, and the inviolable silence with which they are to be guarded, all of which has been confirmed by the Holy See.
Much care must be taken that they do not get out; for these counsels in the hands of strange persons to the Society, because they will give a sinister interpretation invidious to our situation. If (unless God does not permit) we reach success, we must openly deny that the Society shelters such thoughts and to take care that it is so affirmed by those of the Society, that they are ignorant by not having been communicated, which they can protest with truth, that they know nothing of such instructions; and that there does not exist other than the general printed or manuscripts, which they can present, to cause any doubt to vanish.
The superiors must with prudence and discretion, inquire if any of the Society have shown these instructions to strangers; for neither for himself, or for another, they must be copied by no one, without permission of the General or of the Provincial; and when it is feared that anyone has given notice of these instructions, we shall not be able to guard so rigorous a secret; and we must assert to the contrary, all that is said in them, it will be so given to be understood, that they only show to all, to be proved, and afterwards they will be dismissed.