1657                             THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS                                by Blaise Pascal                          translated by Thomas M'Crie                            LETTER I                                              Paris, January 23, 1656  SIR,    We were entirely mistaken. It was only yesterday that I wasundeceived. Until that time I had laboured under the impression thatthe disputes in the Sorbonne were vastly important, and deeplyaffected the interests of religion. The frequent convocations of anassembly so illustrious as that of the Theological Faculty of Paris,attended by so many extraordinary and unprecedented circumstances, ledone to form such high expectations that it was impossible to helpcoming to the conclusion that the subject was most extraordinary.You will be greatly surprised, however, when you learn from thefollowing account the issue of this grand demonstration, which, havingmade myself perfectly master of the subject, I shall be able to tellyou in very few words.    Two questions, then, were brought under examination; the one aquestion of fact, the other a question of right.    The question of fact consisted in ascertaining whether M.Arnauld was guilty of presumption, for having asserted in his secondletter that he had carefully perused the book of Jansenius, and thathe had not discovered the propositions condemned by the late pope; butthat, nevertheless, as he condemned these propositions wherever theymight occur, he condemned them in Jansenius, if they were reallycontained in that work.    The question here was, if he could, without presumption, entertaina doubt that these propositions were in Jansenius, after the bishopshad declared that they were.    The matter having been brought before the Sorbonne, seventy-onedoctors undertook his defence, maintaining that the only reply hecould possibly give to the demands made upon him in so manypublications, calling on him to say if he held that these propositionswere in that book, was that he had not been able to find them, butthat if they were in the book, he condemned them in the book.    Some even went a step farther and protested that, after all thesearch they had made into the book, they had never stumbled upon thesepropositions, and that they had, on the contrary, found sentimentsentirely at variance with them. They then earnestly begged that, ifany doctor present had discovered them, he would have the goodnessto point them out; adding that what was so easy could not reasonablybe refused, as this would be the surest way to silence the whole ofthem, M. Arnauld included; but this proposal has been uniformlydeclined. So much for the one side.    On the other side are eighty secular doctors and some fortymendicant friars, who have condemned M. Arnauld's proposition, withoutchoosing to examine whether he has spoken truly or falsely- who, infact, have declared that they have nothing to do with the veracityof his proposition, but simply with its temerity.    Besides these, there were fifteen who were not in favor of thecensure, and who are called Neutrals.    Such was the issue of the question of fact, regarding which, Imust say, I give myself very little concern. It does not affect myconscience in the least whether M. Arnauld is presumptuous or thereverse; and should I be tempted, from curiosity, to ascertain whetherthese propositions are contained in Jansenius, his book is neitherso very rare nor so very large as to hinder me from reading it overfrom beginning to end, for my own satisfaction, without consulting theSorbonne on the matter.    Were it not, however, for the dread of being presumptuousmyself, I really think that I would be disposed to adopt the opinionwhich has been formed by the most of my acquaintances, who, thoughthey have believed hitherto on common report that the propositionswere in Jansenius, begin now to suspect the contrary, owing to thisstrange refusal to point them out- a refusal the more extraordinary tome as I have not yet met with a single individual who can say thathe has discovered them in that work. I am afraid, therefore, that thiscensure will do more harm than good, and that the impression whichit will leave on the minds of all who know its history will be justthe reverse of the conclusion that has been come to. The truth isthe world has become sceptical of late and will not believe thingstill it sees them. But, as I said before, this point is of very littlemoment, as it has no concern with religion.    The question of right, from its affecting the faith, appearsmuch more important, and, accordingly, I took particular pains inexamining it. You will be relieved, however, to find that it is ofas little consequence as the former.    The point of dispute here was an assertion of M. Arnauld's inthe same letter, to the effect "that the grace, without which we cando nothing, was wanting to St. Peter at his fall." You and Isupposed that the controversy here would turn upon the greatprinciples of grace; such as whether grace is given to all men? Orif it is efficacious of itself? But we were quite mistaken. You mustknow I have become a great theologian within this short time; andnow for the proofs of it!    To ascertain the matter with certainty, I repaired to my neighbor,M. N-, doctor of Navarre, who, as you are aware, is one of the keenestopponents of the Jansenists, and, my curiosity having made me almostas keen as himself, I asked him if they would not formally decide atonce that "grace is given to all men," and thus set the question atrest. But he gave me a sore rebuff and told me that that was not thepoint; that there were some of his party who held that grace was notgiven to all; that the examiners themselves had declared, in a fullassembly of the Sorbonne, that that opinion was problematical; andthat he himself held the same sentiment, which he confirmed by quotingto me what he called that celebrated passage of St. Augustine: "Weknow that grace is not given to all men."    I apologized for having misapprehended his sentiment and requestedhim to say if they would not at least condemn that other opinion ofthe Jansenists which is making so much noise: "That grace isefficacious of itself, and invincibly determines our will to what isgood." But in this second query I was equally unfortunate. "You knownothing about the matter," he said; "that is not a heresy- it is anorthodox opinion; all the Thomists maintain it; and I myself havedefended it in my Sorbonic thesis."    I did not venture again to propose my doubts, and yet I was as faras ever from understanding where the difficulty lay; so, at last, inorder to get at it, I begged him to tell me where, then, lay theheresy of M. Arnauld's proposition. "It lies here," said he, "thathe does not acknowledge that the righteous have the power of obeyingthe commandments of God, in the manner in which we understand it."    On receiving this piece of information, I took my leave of him;and, quite proud at having discovered the knot of the question, Isought M. N-, who is gradually getting better and was sufficientlyrecovered to conduct me to the house of his brother-in-law, who is aJansenist, if ever there was one, but a very good man notwithstanding.Thinking to insure myself a better reception, I pretended to be veryhigh on what I took to be his side, and said: "Is it possible that theSorbonne has introduced into the Church such an error as this, 'thatall the righteous have always the power of obeying the commandments ofGod?'"    "What say you?" replied the doctor. "Call you that an error- asentiment so Catholic that none but Lutherans and Calvinists impugnit?"    "Indeed!" said I, surprised in my turn; "so you are not of theiropinion?"    "No," he replied; "we anathematize it as heretical and impious."    Confounded by this reply, I soon discovered that I had overactedthe Jansenist, as I had formerly overdone the Molinist. But, not beingsure if I had rightly understood him, I requested him to tell mefrankly if he held "that the righteous have always a real power toobserve the divine precepts?" Upon this, the good man got warm (but itwas with a holy zeal) and protested that he would not disguise hissentiments on any consideration- that such was, indeed, his belief,and that he and all his party would defend it to the death, as thepure doctrine of St. Thomas, and of St. Augustine their master.    This was spoken so seriously as to leave me no room for doubt; andunder this impression I returned to my first doctor and said to him,with an air of great satisfaction, that I was sure there would bepeace in the Sorbonne very soon; that the Jansenists were quite at onewith them in reference to the power of the righteous to obey thecommandments of God; that I could pledge my word for them and couldmake them seal it with their blood.    "Hold there!" said he. "One must be a theologian to see thepoint of this question. The difference between us is so subtle that itis with some difficulty we can discern it ourselves- you will findit rather too much for your powers of comprehension. Content yourself,then, with knowing that it is very true the Jansenists will tell youthat all the righteous have always the power of obeying thecommandments; that is not the point in dispute between us; but markyou, they will not tell you that that power is proximate. That isthe point."    This was a new and unknown word to me. Up to this moment I hadmanaged to understand matters, but that term involved me in obscurity;and I verily believe that it has been invented for no other purposethan to mystify. I requested him to give me an explanation of it,but he made a mystery of it, and sent me back, without any furthersatisfaction, to demand of the Jansenists if they would admit thisproximate power. Having charged my memory with the phrase (as to myunderstanding, that was out of the question), I hastened with allpossible expedition, fearing that I might forget it, to my Jansenistfriend and accosted him, immediately after our first salutations,with: "Tell me, pray, if you admit the proximate power?" He smiled,and replied, coldly: "Tell me yourself in what sense you understandit, and I may then inform you what I think of it." As my knowledge didnot extend quite so far, I was at a loss what reply to make; andyet, rather than lose the object of my visit, I said at random:"Why, I understand it in the sense of the Molinists." "To which of theMolinists do you refer me?" replied he, with the utmost coolness. Ireferred him to the whole of them together, as forming one body, andanimated by one spirit.    "You know very little about the matter," returned he. "So farare they from being united in sentiment that some of them arediametrically opposed to each other. But, being all united in thedesign to ruin M. Arnauld, they have resolved to agree on this termproximate, which both parties might use indiscriminately, thoughthey understand it diversely, that thus, by a similarity of languageand an apparent conformity, they may form a large body and get up amajority to crush him with the greater certainty."    This reply filled me with amazement; but, without imbibing theseimpressions of the malicious designs of the Molinists, which I amunwilling to believe on his word, and with which I have no concern,I set myself simply to ascertain the various senses which they give tothat mysterious word proximate. "I would enlighten you on thesubject with all my heart," he said; "but you would discover in itsuch a mass of contrariety and contradiction that you would hardlybelieve me. You would suspect me. To make sure of the matter, youhad better learn it from some of themselves; and I shall give you someof their addresses. You have only to make a separate visit to onecalled M. le Moine and to Father Nicolai."    "I have no acquaintance with any of these persons," said I.    "Let me see, then," he replied, "if you know any of those whom Ishall name to you; they all agree in sentiment with M. le Moine."    I happened, in fact, to know some of them.    "Well, let us see if you are acquainted with any of the Dominicanswhom they call the 'New Thomists,' for they are all the same withFather Nicolai."    I knew some of them also whom he named; and, resolved to profit bythis council and to investigate the matter, I took my leave of him andwent immediately to one of the disciples of M. le Moine. I beggedhim to inform me what it was to have the proximate power of doing athing.    "It is easy to tell you that, " he replied; "it is merely tohave all that is necessary for doing it in such a manner thatnothing is wanting to performance."    "And so," said I, "to have the proximate power of crossing ariver, for example, is to have a boat, boatmen, oars, and all therest, so that nothing is wanting?"    "Exactly so," said the monk.    "And to have the proximate power of seeing," continued I, "must beto have good eyes and the light of day; for a person with good sightin the dark would not have the proximate power of seeing, according toyou, as he would want the light, without which one cannot see?"    "Precisely," said he.    "And consequently," returned I, "when you say that all therighteous have the proximate power of observing the commandments ofGod, you mean that they have always all the grace necessary forobserving them, so that nothing is wanting to them on the part ofGod."    "Stay there," he replied; "they have always all that isnecessary for observing the commandments, or at least for asking it ofGod."    "I understand you," said I; "they have all that is necessary forpraying to God to assist them, without requiring any new grace fromGod to enable them to pray."    "You have it now," he rejoined.    "But is it not necessary that they have an efficacious grace, inorder to pray to God?"    "No," said he; "not according to M. le Moine."    To lose no time, I went to the Jacobins, and requested aninterview with some whom I knew to be New Thomists, and I beggedthem to tell me what proximate power was. "Is it not," said I, "thatpower to which nothing is wanting in order to act?"    "No," said they.    "Indeed! fathers," said I; "if anything is wanting to thatpower, do you call it proximate? Would you say, for instance, that aman in the night-time, and without any light, had the proximatepower of seeing?"    "Yes, indeed, he would have it, in our opinion, if he is notblind."    "I grant that," said I; "but M. le Moine understands it in adifferent manner."    "Very true," they replied; "but so it is that we understand it."    "I have no objections to that," I said; "for I never quarrel abouta name, provided I am apprised of the sense in which it is understood.But I perceive from this that, when you speak of the righteoushaving always the proximate power of praying to God, you understandthat they require another supply for praying, without which theywill never pray."    "Most excellent!" exclaimed the good fathers, embracing me;"exactly the thing; for they must have, besides, an efficaciousgrace bestowed upon all, and which determines their wills to pray; andit is heresy to deny the necessity of that efficacious grace inorder to pray."    "Most excellent!" cried I, in return; "but, according to you,the Jansenists are Catholics, and M. le Moine a heretic; for theJansenists maintain that, while the righteous have power to pray, theyrequire nevertheless an efficacious grace; and this is what youapprove. M. le Moine, again, maintains that the righteous may praywithout efficacious grace; and this is what you condemn."    "Ay," said they; "but M. le Moine calls that power 'proximatepower.'"    "How now! fathers," I exclaimed; "this is merely playing withwords, to say that you are agreed as to the common terms which youemploy, while you differ with them as to the sense of these terms."    The fathers made no reply; and at this juncture, who should comein but my old friend, the disciple of M. le Moine! I regarded thisat the time as an extraordinary piece of good fortune; but I havediscovered since then that such meetings are not rare- that, infact, they are constantly mixing in each other's society.    "I know a man," said I, addressing myself to M. le Moine'sdisciple, "who holds that all the righteous have always the power ofpraying to God, but that, notwithstanding this, they will never praywithout an efficacious grace which determines them, and which God doesnot always give to all the righteous. Is he a heretic?"    "Stay," said the doctor; "you might take me by surprise. Let us gocautiously to work. Distinguo. If he call that power proximatepower, he will be a Thomist, and therefore a Catholic; if not, he willbe a Jansenist and, therefore, a heretic."    "He calls it neither proximate nor non-proximate," said I.    "Then he is a heretic," quoth he; "I refer you to these goodfathers if he is not."    I did not appeal to them as judges, for they had already noddedassent; but I said to them: "He refuses to admit that wordproximate, because he can meet with nobody who will explain it tohim."    Upon this one of the fathers was on the point of offering hisdefinition of the term, when he was interrupted by M. le Moine'sdisciple, who said to him: "Do you mean, then, to renew our broils?Have we not agreed not to explain that word proximate, but to use iton both sides without saying what it signifies?" To this the Jacobingave his assent.    I was thus let into the whole secret of their plot; and, rising totake my leave of them, I remarked: "Indeed, fathers, I am muchafraid this is nothing better than pure chicanery; and, whatever maybe the result of your convocations, I venture to predict that,though the censure should pass, peace will not be established. Forthough it should be decided that the syllables of that wordproximate should be pronounced, who does not see that, the meaning notbeing explained, each of you will be disposed to claim the victory?The Jacobins will contend that the word is to be understood in theirsense; M. le Moine will insist that it must be taken in his; andthus there will be more wrangling about the explanation of the wordthan about its introduction. For, after all, there would be no greatdanger in adopting it without any sense, seeing it is through thesense only that it can do any harm. But it would be unworthy of theSorbonne and of theology to employ equivocal and captious termswithout giving any explanation of them. In short, fathers, tell me,I entreat you, for the last time, what is necessary to be believedin order to be a good Catholic?"    "You must say," they all vociferated simultaneously, "that all therighteous have the proximate power, abstracting from it all sense-from the sense of the Thomists and the sense of other divines."    "That is to say," I replied, in taking leave of them, "that I mustpronounce that word to avoid being the heretic of a name. For, pray,is this a Scripture word?" "No," said they. "Is it a word of theFathers, the Councils, or the Popes?" "No." "Is the word, then, usedby St. Thomas?" "No." "What necessity, therefore, is there for usingit since it has neither the authority of others nor any sense ofitself.?" "You are an opinionative fellow," said they; "but youshall say it, or you shall be a heretic, and M. Arnauld into thebargain; for we are the majority, and, should it be necessary, wecan bring a sufficient number of Cordeliers into the field to carrythe day."    On hearing this solid argument, I took my leave of them, towrite you the foregoing account of my interview, from which you willperceive that the following points remain undisputed and uncondemnedby either party. First, That grace is not given to all men. Second,That all the righteous have always the power of obeying the divinecommandments. Third, That they require, nevertheless, in order to obeythem, and even to pray, an efficacious grace, which invinciblydetermines their will. Fourth, That this efficacious grace is notalways granted to all the righteous, and that it depends on the puremercy of God. So that, after all, the truth is safe, and nothingruns any risk but that word without the sense, proximate.    Happy the people who are ignorant of its existence! happy thosewho lived before it was born! for I see no help for it, unless thegentlemen of the Acadamy, by an act of absolute authority, banish thatbarbarous term, which causes so many divisions, from beyond theprecincts of the Sorbonne. Unless this be done, the censure appearscertain; but I can easily see that it will do no other harm thandiminish the credit of the Sorbonne, and deprive it of thatauthority which is so necessary to it on other occasions.    Meanwhile, I leave you at perfect liberty to hold by the wordproximate or not, just as you please; for I love you too much topersecute you under that pretext. If this account is not displeasingto you, I shall continue to apprise you of all that happens. I am, &c.                        LETTER II                                              Paris, January 29, 1656  SIR,    Just as I had sealed up my last letter, I received a visit fromour old friend M. N-. Nothing could have happened more luckily formy curiosity; for he is thoroughly informed in the questions of theday and is completely in the secret of the Jesuits, at whose houses,including those of their leading men, he is a constant visitor.After having talked over the business which brought him to my house, Iasked him to state, in a few words, what were the points in disputebetween the two parties.    He immediately complied, and informed me that the principal pointswere two- the first about the proximate power, and the second aboutsufficient grace. I have enlightened you on the first of thesepoints in my former letter and shall now speak of the second.    In one word, then, I found that their difference aboutsufficient grace may be defined thus: The Jesuits maintain thatthere is a grace given generally to all men, subject in such a wayto free-will that the will renders it efficacious or inefficaciousat its pleasure, without any additional aid from God and withoutwanting anything on his part in order to act effectively; and hencethey term this grace sufficient, because it suffices of itself foraction. The Jansenists, on the other hand, will not allow that anygrace is actually sufficient which is not also efficacious; that is,that all those kinds of grace which do not determine the will to acteffectively are insufficient for action; for they hold that a mancan never act without efficacious grace.    Such are the points in debate between the Jesuits and theJansenists; and my next object was to ascertain the doctrine of theNew Thomists. "It is rather an odd one," he said; "they agree with theJesuits in admitting a sufficient grace given to all men; but theymaintain, at the same time, that no man can act with this grace alone,but that, in order to do this, he must receive from God an efficaciousgrace which really determines his will to the action, and which Goddoes not grant to all men." "So that, according to this doctrine,"said I, "this grace is sufficient without being sufficient.""Exactly so," he replied; "for if it suffices, there is no need ofanything more for acting; and if it does not suffice, why- it is notsufficient."    "But," asked I, "where, then, is the difference between them andthe Jansenists?" "They differ in this," he replied, "that theDominicans have this good qualification, that they do not refuse tosay that all men have the sufficient grace." "I understand you,"returned I; "but they say it without thinking it; for they add that,in order to act, we must have an efficacious grace which is notgiven to all, consequently, if they agree with the Jesuits in theuse of a term which has no sense, they differ from them and coincidewith the Jansenists in the substance of the thing. That is verytrue, said he. "How, then," said I, "are the Jesuits united with them?and why do they not combat them as well as the Jansenists, sincethey will always find powerful antagonists in these men, who, bymaintaining the necessity of the efficacious grace which determinesthe will, will prevent them from establishing that grace which theyhold to be of itself sufficient?"    "The Dominicans are too powerful," he replied, "and the Jesuitsare too politic, to come to an open rupture with them. The Societyis content with having prevailed on them so far as to admit the nameof sufficient grace, though they understand it in another sense; bywhich manoeuvre they gain this advantage, that they will make theiropinion appear untenable, as soon as they judge it proper to do so.And this will be no difficult matter; for, let it be once granted thatall men have the sufficient graces, nothing can be more natural thanto conclude that the efficacious grace is not necessary to action- thesufficiency of the general grace precluding the necessity of allothers. By saying sufficient we express all that is necessary foraction; and it will serve little purpose for the Dominicans to exclaimthat they attach another sense to the expression; the people,accustomed to the common acceptation of that term, would not evenlisten to their explanation. Thus the Society gains a sufficientadvantage from the expression which has been adopted by theDominicans, without pressing them any further; and were you butacquainted with what passed under Popes Clement VIII and Paul V, andknew how the Society was thwarted by the Dominicans in theestablishment of the sufficient grace, you would not be surprised tofind that it avoids embroiling itself in quarrels with them and allowsthem to hold their own opinion, provided that of the Society is leftuntouched; and more especially, when the Dominicans countenance itsdoctrine, by agreeing to employ, on all public occasions, the termsufficient grace.    "The Society," he continued, "is quite satisfied with theircomplaisance. It does not insist on their denying the necessity ofefficacious grace, this would be urging them too far. People shouldnot tyrannize over their friends; and the Jesuits have gained quiteenough. The world is content with words; few think of searching intothe nature of things; and thus the name of sufficient grace beingadopted on both sides, though in different senses, there is nobody,except the most subtle theologians, who ever dreams of doubting thatthe thing signified by that word is held by the Jacobins as well as bythe Jesuits; and the result will show that these last are not thegreatest dupes."    I acknowledged that they were a shrewd class of people, theseJesuits; and, availing myself of his advice, I went straight to theJacobins, at whose gate I found one of my good friends, a staunchJansenist (for you must know I have got friends among all parties),who was calling for another monk, different from him whom I was insearch of. I prevailed on him, however, after much entreaty, toaccompany me, and asked for one of my New Thomists. He was delightedto see me again. "How now! my dear father," I began, "it seems it isnot enough that all men have a proximate power, with which they cannever act with effect; they must have besides this a sufficient grace,with which they can act as little. Is not that the doctrine of yourschool?" "It is," said the worthy monk; "and I was upholding it thisvery morning in the Sorbonne. I spoke on the point during my wholehalf-hour; and, but for the sand-glass, I bade fair to have reversedthat wicked proverb, now so current in Paris: 'He votes withoutspeaking, like a monk in the Sorbonne.'" "What do you mean by yourhalf-hour and your sand-glass?" I asked; "do they cut your speeches bya certain measure?" "Yes," said he, "they have done so for some dayspast." "And do they oblige you to speak for half an hour?" "No; we mayspeak as little as we please." "But not as much as you please, said I."O what a capital regulation for the boobies! what a blessed excusefor those who have nothing worth the saying! But, to return to thepoint, father; this grace given to all men is sufficient, is itnot?" "Yes," said he. "And yet it has no effect without efficaciousgrace?" "None whatever," he replied. "And all men have thesufficient," continued I, "and all have not the efficacious?""Exactly," said he. "That is," returned I, "all have enough ofgrace, and all have not enough of it that is, this grace suffices,though it does not suffice- that is, it is sufficient in name andinsufficient in effect! In good sooth, father, this is particularlysubtle doctrine! Have you forgotten, since you retired to thecloister, the meaning attached, in the world you have quitted, tothe word sufficient? don't you remember that it includes all that isnecessary for acting? But no, you cannot have lost all recollection ofit; for, to avail myself of an illustration which will come homemore vividly to your feelings, let us suppose that you were suppliedwith no more than two ounces of bread and a glass of water daily,would you be quite pleased with your prior were he to tell you thatthis would be sufficient to support you, under the pretext that, alongwith something else, which however, he would not give you, you wouldhave all that would be necessary to support you? How, then can youallow yourselves to say that all men have sufficient grace for acting,while you admit that there is another grace absolutely necessary toacting which all men have not? Is it because this is an unimportantarticle of belief, and you leave all men at liberty to believe thatefficacious grace is necessary or not, as they choose? Is it amatter of indifference to say, that with sufficient grace a man mayreally act?" "How!" cried the good man; "indifference! it is heresy-formal heresy. The necessity of efficacious grace for actingeffectively, is a point of faith- it is heresy to deny it."    "Where are we now?" I exclaimed; "and which side am I to takehere? If I deny the sufficient grace, I am a Jansenist. If I admit it,as the Jesuits do, in the way of denying that efficacious grace isnecessary, I shall be a heretic, say you. And if I admit it, as youdo, in the way of maintaining the necessity of efficacious grace, Isin against common sense, and am a blockhead, say the Jesuits. Whatmust I do, thus reduced to the inevitable necessity of being ablockhead, a heretic, or a Jansenist? And what a sad pass arematters come to, if there are none but the Jansenists who avoid cominginto collision either with the faith or with reason, and who savethemselves at once from absurdity and from error!"    My Jansenist friend took this speech as a good omen and alreadylooked upon me as a convert. He said nothing to me, however; but,addressing the monk: "Pray, father," inquired he, "what is the pointon which you agree with the Jesuits?" "We agree in this," hereplied, "that the Jesuits and we acknowledge the sufficient gracegiven to all." "But," said the Jansenist, "there are two things inthis expression sufficient grace- there is the sound, which is only somuch breath; and there is the thing which it signifies, which isreal and effectual. And, therefore, as you are agreed with the Jesuitsin regard to the word sufficient and opposed to them as to thesense, it is apparent that you are opposed to them in regard to thesubstance of that term, and that you only agree with them as to thesound. Is this what you call acting sincerely and cordially?"    "But," said the good man, "what cause have you to complain,since we deceive nobody by this mode of speaking? In our schools weopenly teach that we understand it in a manner different from theJesuits."    "What I complain of," returned my friend" "is, that you do notproclaim it everywhere, that by sufficient grace you understand thegrace which is not sufficient. You are bound in conscience, by thusaltering the sense of the ordinary terms of theology, to tell that,when you admit a sufficient grace in all men, you understand that theyhave not sufficient grace in effect. All classes of persons in theworld understand the word sufficient in one and the same sense; theNew Thomists alone understand it in another sense. All the women,who form one-half of the world, all courtiers, all military men, allmagistrates, all lawyers, merchants, artisans, the whole populace-in short, all sorts of men, except the Dominicans, understand the wordsufficient to express all that is necessary. Scarcely any one is awareof this singular exception. It is reported over the whole earth,simply that the Dominicans hold that all men have the sufficientgraces. What other conclusion can be drawn from this, than that theyhold that all men have all the graces necessary for action; especiallywhen they are seen joined in interest and intrigue with the Jesuits,who understand the thing in that sense? Is not the uniformity ofyour expressions, viewed in connection with this union of party, amanifest indication and confirmation of the uniformity of yoursentiments?    "The multitude of the faithful inquire of theologians: What is thereal condition of human nature since its corruption? St. Augustine andhis disciples reply that it has no sufficient grace until God ispleased to bestow it. Next come the Jesuits, and they say that allhave the effectually sufficient graces. The Dominicans are consultedon this contrariety of opinion; and what course do they pursue? Theyunite with the Jesuits; by this coalition they make up a majority;they secede from those who deny these sufficient graces; theydeclare that all men possess them. Who, on hearing this, would imagineanything else than that they gave their sanction to the opinion of theJesuits? And then they add that, nevertheless, these said sufficientgraces are perfectly useless without the efficacious, which are notgiven to all!    "Shall I present you with a picture of the Church amidst theseconflicting sentiments? I consider her very like a man who, leavinghis native country on a journey, is encountered by robbers, whoinflict many wounds on him and leave him half dead. He sends for threephysicians resident in the neighboring towns. The first, on probinghis wounds, pronounces them mortal and assures him that none but Godcan restore to him his lost powers. The second, coming after theother, chooses to flatter the man- tells him that he has stillsufficient strength to reach his home; and, abusing the firstphysician who opposed his advice, determines upon his ruin. In thisdilemma, the poor patient, observing the third medical gentleman ata distance, stretches out his hands to him as the person who shoulddetermine the controversy. This practitioner, on examining his wounds,and ascertaining the opinions of the first two doctors, embracesthat of the second, and uniting with him, the two combine againstthe first, and being the stronger party in number drive him from thefield in disgrace. From this proceeding, the patient naturallyconcludes that the last comer is of the same opinion with thesecond; and, on putting the question to him, he assures him mostpositively that his strength is sufficient for prosecuting hisjourney. The wounded man, however, sensible of his own weakness,begs him to explain to him how he considered him sufficient for thejourney. 'Because,' replies his adviser, 'you are still inpossession of your legs, and legs are the organs which naturallysuffice for walking.' 'But,' says the patient, 'have I all thestrength necessary to make use of my legs? for, in my present weakcondition, it humbly appears to me that they are wholly useless.''Certainly you have not,' replies the doctor; 'you will never walkeffectively, unless God vouchsafes some extraordinary assistance tosustain and conduct you.' 'What!' exclaims the poor man, 'do you notmean to say that I have sufficient strength in me, so as to want fornothing to walk effectively?' 'Very far from it,' returns thephysician. 'You must, then,' says the patient, 'be of a differentopinion from your companion there about my real condition.' 'I mustadmit that I am,' replies the other.    "What do you suppose the patient said to this? Why, hecomplained of the strange conduct and ambiguous terms of this thirdphysician. He censured him for taking part with the second, to whom hewas opposed in sentiment, and with whom he had only the semblance ofagreement, and for having driven away the first doctor, with whom hein reality agreed; and, after making a trial of strength, andfinding by experience his actual weakness, he sent them both abouttheir business, recalled his first adviser, put himself under hiscare, and having, by his advice, implored from God the strength ofwhich he confessed his need, obtained the mercy he sought, and,through divine help, reached his house in peace.    The worthy monk was so confounded with this parable that hecould not find words to reply. To cheer him up a little, I said tohim, in a mild tone: "But after all, my dear father, what made youthink of giving the name of sufficient to a grace which you say itis a point of faith to believe is, in fact, insufficient?" "It is veryeasy for you to talk about it," said he. "You are an independent andprivate man; I am a monk and in a community- cannot you estimate thedifference between the two cases? We depend on superiors; theydepend on others. They have promised our votes- what would you have tobecome of me?" We understood the hint; and this brought to ourrecollection the case of his brother monk, who, for a similar piece ofindiscretion, has been exiled to Abbeville.    "But," I resumed, "how comes it about that your community is boundto admit this grace?" "That is another question," he replied. "Allthat I can tell you is, in one word, that our order has defended, tothe utmost of its ability, the doctrine of St. Thomas on efficaciousgrace. With what ardor did it oppose, from the very commencement,the doctrine of Molina? How did it labor to establish the necessity ofthe efficacious grace of Jesus Christ? Don't you know what happenedunder Clement VIII and Paul V, and how, the former having beenprevented by death, and the latter hindered by some Italian affairsfrom publishing his bull, our arms still sleep in the Vatican? But theJesuits, availing themselves, since the introduction of the heresyof Luther and Calvin, of the scanty light which the people possess fordiscriminating between the error of these men and the truth of thedoctrine of St. Thomas, disseminated their principles with suchrapidity and success that they became, ere long, masters of thepopular belief; while we, on our part, found ourselves in thepredicament of being denounced as Calvinists and treated as theJansenists are at present, unless we qualified the efficacious gracewith, at least, the apparent avowal of a sufficient. In thisextremity, what better course could we have taken for saving thetruth, without losing our own credit, than by admitting the name ofsufficient grace, while we denied that it was such in effect? Suchis the real history of the case."    This was spoken in such a melancholy tone that I really began topity the man; not so, however, my companion. "Flatter not yourselves,"said he to the monk, "with having saved the truth; had she not foundother defenders, in your feeble hands she must have perished. Byadmitting into the Church the name of her enemy, you have admitted theenemy himself. Names are inseparable from things. If the termsufficient grace be once established, it will be vain for you toprotest that you understand by it a grace which is not sufficient.Your protest will be held inadmissible. Your explanation would bescouted as odious in the world, where men speak more ingenuously aboutmatters of infinitely less moment. The Jesuits will gain a triumph- itwill be their grace, which is sufficient in fact, and not yours, whichis only so in name, that will pass as established; and the converse ofyour creed will become an article of faith."    "We will all suffer martyrdom first," cried the father, "ratherthan consent to the establishment of sufficient grace in the senseof the Jesuits. St. Thomas, whom we have sworn to follow even to thedeath, is diametrically opposed to such doctrine."    To this my friend, who took up the matter more seriously than Idid, replied: "Come now, father, your fraternity has received an honorwhich it sadly abuses. It abandons that grace which was confided toits care, and which has never been abandoned since the creation of theworld. That victorious grace, which was waited for by thepatriarchs, predicted by the prophets, introduced by Jesus Christ,preached by St. Paul, explained by St. Augustine, the greatest ofthe fathers, embraced by his followers, confirmed by St. Bernard,the last of the fathers, supported by St. Thomas, the angel of theschools, transmitted by him to your order, maintained by so many ofyour fathers, and so nobly defended by your monks under PopesClement and Paul- that efficacious grace, which had been committedas a sacred deposit into your hands, that it might find, in a sacredand everlasting order, a succession of preachers, who might proclaimit to the end of time- is discarded and deserted for interests themost contemptible. It is high time for other hands to arm in itsquarrel. It is time for God to raise up intrepid disciples of theDoctor of grace, who, strangers to the entanglements of the world,will serve God for God's sake. Grace may not, indeed, number theDominicans among her champions, but champions she shall never want;for, by her own almighty energy, she creates them for herself. Shedemands hearts pure and disengaged; nay, she herself purifies anddisengages them from worldly interests, incompatible with the truthsof the Gospel. Reflect seriously, on this, father; and take carethat God does not remove this candlestick from its place, leavingyou in darkness and without the crown, as a punishment for thecoldness which you manifest to a cause so important to his Church."    He might have gone on in this strain much longer, for he waskindling as he advanced, but I interrupted him by rising to take myleave and said: "Indeed, my dear father, had I any influence inFrance, I should have it proclaimed, by sound of trumpet: 'BE IT KNOWNTO ALL MEN, that when the Jacobins SAY that sufficient grace isgiven to all, they MEAN that all have not the grace which actuallysuffices!' After which, you might say it often as you please, butnot otherwise." And thus ended our visit.    You will perceive, therefore, that we have here a politicsufficiency somewhat similar to proximate power. Meanwhile I maytell you that it appears to me that both the proximate power andthis same sufficient grace may be safely doubted by anybody,provided he is not a Jacobin.    I have just come to learn, when closing my letter, that thecensure has passed. But as I do not yet know in what terms it isworded, and as it will not be published till the 15th of February, Ishall delay writing you about it till the next post. I am, &c.                     REPLY OF THE "PROVINCIAL"               TO THE FIRST TWO LETTERS OF HIS FRIEND                                                     February 2, 1656  SIR,    Your two letters have not been confined to me. Everybody hasseen them, everybody understands them, and everybody believes them.They are not only in high repute among theologians- they have provedagreeable to men of the world, and intelligible even to the ladies.    In a communication which I lately received from one of thegentlemen of the Academy- one of the most illustrious names in asociety of men who are all illustrious- who had seen only your firstletter, he writes me as follows: "I only wish that the Sorbonne, whichowes so much to the memory of the late cardinal, would acknowledge thejurisdiction of his French Academy. The author of the letter wouldbe satisfied; for, in the capacity of an academician, I wouldauthoritatively condemn, I would banish, I would proscribe- I hadalmost said exterminate- to the extent of my power, this proximatepower, which makes so much noise about nothing and without knowingwhat it would have. The misfortune is that our academic power is avery limited and remote power. I am sorry for it; and still more sorrythat my small power cannot discharge me from my obligations to you,"&c.    My next extract is from the pen of a lady, whom I shall notindicate in any way whatever. She writes thus to a female friend whohad transmitted to her the first of your letters: "You can have noidea how much I am obliged to you for the letter you sent me- it is sovery ingenious, and so nicely written. It narrates, and yet it isnot a narrative; it clears up the most intricate and involved of allpossible matters; its raillery is exquisite; it enlightens those whoknow little about the subject and imparts double delight to thosewho understand it. It is an admirable apology; and, if they would sotake it, a delicate and innocent censure. In short, that letterdisplays so much art, so much spirit, and so much judgment, that Iburn with curiosity to know who wrote it," &c.    You too, perhaps, would like to know who the lady is that writesin this style; but you must be content to esteem without knowingher; when you come to know her, your esteem will be greatly enhanced.    Take my word for it, then, and continue your letters; and letthe censure come when it may, we are quite prepared for receivingit. These words proximate power and sufficient grace, with which weare threatened, will frighten us no longer. We have learned from theJesuits, the Jacobins, and M. le Moine, in how many different waysthey may be turned, and how little solidity there is in thesenew-fangled terms, to give ourselves any trouble about them.Meanwhile, I remain, &c.                        LETTER III                                              Paris, February 9, 1658  SIR,    I have just received your letter; and, at the same time, there wasbrought me a copy of the censure in manuscript. I find that I am aswell treated in the former as M. Arnauld is ill treated in the latter.I am afraid there is some extravagance in both cases and thatneither of us is sufficiently well known by our judges. Sure I amthat, were we better known, M. Arnauld would merit the approval of theSorbonne, and I the censure of the Academy. Thus our interests arequite at variance with each other. It is his interest to makehimself known, to vindicate his innocence; whereas it is mine toremain in the dark, for fear of forfeiting my reputation. Prevented,therefore, from showing my face, I must devolve on you the task ofmaking my acknowledgments to my illustrious admirers, while Iundertake that of furnishing you with the news of the censure.    I assure you, sir, it has filled me with astonishment. Iexpected to find it condemning the most shocking heresy in theworld, but your wonder will equal mine, when informed that thesealarming preparations, when on the point of producing the grand effectanticipated, have all ended in smoke.    To understand the whole affair in a pleasant way, onlyrecollect, I beseech you, the strange impressions which, for a longtime past, we have been taught to form of the Jansenists. Recall tomind the cabals, the factions, the errors, the schisms, theoutrages, with which they have been so long charged; the manner inwhich they have been denounced and vilified from the pulpit and thepress; and the degree to which this torrent of abuse, so remarkablefor its violence and duration, has swollen of late years, when theyhave been openly and publicly accused of being not only heretics andschismatics, but apostates and infidels- with "denying the mysteryof transubstantiation, and renouncing Jesus Christ and the Gospel."    After having published these startling accusations, it wasresolved to examine their writings, in order to pronounce judgement onthem. For this purpose the second letter of M. Arnauld, which wasreported to be full of the greatest errors, is selected. The examinersappointed are his most open and avowed enemies. They employ alltheir learning to discover something that they might lay hold upon,and at length they produce one proposition of a doctrinal character,which they exhibit for censure.    What else could any one infer from such proceedings than that thisproposition, selected under such remarkable circumstances, wouldcontain the essence of the blackest heresies imaginable. And yet theproposition so entirely agrees with what is clearly and formallyexpressed in the passages from the fathers quoted by M. Arnauld that Ihave not met with a single individual who could comprehend thedifference between them. Still, however, it might be imagined thatthere was a very great difference; for the passages from the fathersbeing unquestionably Catholic, the proposition of M. Arnauld, ifheretical, must be widely opposed to them.    Such was the difficulty which the Sorbonne was expected to clearup. All Christendom waited, with wide-opened eyes, to discover, in thecensure of these learned doctors, the point of difference which hadproved imperceptible to ordinary mortals. Meanwhile M. Arnauld gave inhis defences, placing his own proposition and the passages of thefathers from which he had drawn it in parallel columns, so as tomake the agreement between them apparent to the most obtuseunderstandings.    He shows, for example, that St. Augustine says in one passage that"Jesus Christ points out to us, in the person of St. Peter, arighteous man warning us by his fall to avoid presumption." He citesanother passage from the same father, in which he says "that God, inorder to show us that without grace we can do nothing, left St.Peter without grace." He produces a third, from St. Chrysostom, whosays, "that the fall of St. Peter happened, not through any coldnesstowards Jesus Christ, but because grace failed him; and that hefell, not so much through his own negligence as through thewithdrawment of God, as a lesson to the whole Church, that without Godwe can do nothing." He then gives his own accused proposition, whichis as follows: "The fathers point out to us, in the person of St.Peter, a righteous man to whom that grace without which we can donothing was wanting."    In vain did people attempt to discover how it could possibly bethat M. Arnauld's expression differed from those of the fathers asmuch as the truth from error and faith from heresy. For where wasthe difference to be found? Could it be in these words: "that thefathers point out to us, in the person of St. Peter, a righteous man"?St. Augustine has said the same thing in so many words. Is itbecause he says "that grace had failed him"? The same St. Augustinewho had said that "St. Peter was a righteous man," says "that he hadnot had grace on that occasion." Is it, then, for his having said"that without grace we can do nothing"? Why, is not this just what St.Augustine says in the same place, and what St. Chrysostom had saidbefore him, with this difference only, that he expresses it in muchstronger language, as when he says "that his fall did not happenthrough his own coldness or negligence, but through the failure ofgrace, and the withdrawment of God"?    Such considerations as these kept everybody in a state ofbreathless suspense to learn in what this diversity could consist,when at length, after a great many meetings, this famous andlong-looked-for censure made its appearance. But, alas! it has sadlybaulked our expectation. Whether it be that the Molinist doctors wouldnot condescend so far as to enlighten us on the point, or for someother mysterious reason, the fact is they have done nothing morethan pronounce these words: "This proposition is rash, impious,blasphemous, accursed, and heretical!"    Would you believe it, sir, that most people, finding themselvesdeceived in their expectations, have got into bad humor, and beginto fall foul upon the censors themselves? They are drawing strangeinferences from their conduct in favour of M. Arnauld's innocence."What!" they are saying, "is this all that could be achieved, duringall this time, by so many doctors joining in a furious attack on oneindividual? Can they find nothing in all his works worthy ofreprehension, but three lines, and these extracted, word for word,from the greatest doctors of the Greek and Latin Churches? Is thereany author whatever whose writings, were it intended to ruin him,would not furnish a more specious pretext for the purpose? And whathigher proof could be furnished of the orthodoxy of this illustriousaccused?    "How comes it to pass," they add, "that so many denunciationsare launched in this censure, into which they have crowded suchterms as 'poison, pestilence, horror, rashness, impiety, blasphemy,abomination, execration, anathema, heresy'- the most dreadful epithetsthat could be used against Arius, or Antichrist himself; and all tocombat an imperceptible heresy, and that, moreover, without telling aswhat it is? If it be against the words of the fathers that theyinveigh in this style, where is the faith and tradition? If against M.Arnauld's proposition, let them point out the difference between thetwo; for we can see nothing but the most perfect harmony between them.As soon as we have discovered the evil of the proposition, we shallhold it in abhorrence; but so long as we do not see it, or rathersee nothing in the statement but the sentiments of the holy fathers,conceived and expressed in their own terms, how can we possibly regardit with any other feelings than those of holy veneration?"    Such is the specimen of the way in which they are giving vent totheir feelings. But these are by far too deep-thinking people. You andI, who make no pretensions to such extraordinary penetration, may keepourselves quite easy about the whole affair. What! would we be wiserthan our masters? No: let us take example from them, and not undertakewhat they have not ventured upon. We would be sure to get boggled insuch an attempt. Why it would be the easiest thing imaginable, torender this censure itself heretical. Truth, we know, is so delicatethat, if we make the slightest deviation from it, we fall intoerror; but this alleged error is so extremely finespun that, if wediverge from it in the slightest degree, we fall back upon thetruth. There is positively nothing between this obnoxiousproposition and the truth but an imperceptible point. The distancebetween them is so impalpable that I was in terror lest, from pureinability to perceive it, I might, in my over-anxiety to agree withthe doctors of the Sorbonne, place myself in opposition to the doctorsof the Church. Under this apprehension, I judged it expedient toconsult one of those who, through policy, was neutral on the firstquestion, that from him I might learn the real state of the matter.I have accordingly had an interview with one of the most intelligentof that party, whom I requested to point out to me the differencebetween the two things, at the same time frankly owning to him thatI could see none.    He appeared to be amused at my simplicity and replied, with asmile: "How simple it is in you to believe that there is anydifference! Why, where could it be? Do you imagine that, if they couldhave found out any discrepancy between M. Arnauld and the fathers,they would not have boldly pointed it out and been delighted withthe opportunity of exposing it before the public, in whose eyes theyare so anxious to depreciate that gentleman?"    I could easily perceive, from these few words, that those whohad been neutral on the first question would not all prove so on thesecond; but, anxious to hear his reasons, I asked: "Why, then, havethey attacked this unfortunate proposition?"    "Is it possible," he replied, "you can be ignorant of these twothings, which I thought had been known to the veriest tyro in thesematters? that, on the one hand, M. Arnauld has uniformly avoidedadvancing a single tenet which is not powerfully supported by thetradition of the Church; and that, on the other hand, his enemies havedetermined, cost what it may, to cut that ground from under him;and, accordingly, that as the writings of the former afforded nohandle to the designs of the latter, they have been obliged, inorder to satiate their revenge, to seize on some proposition, itmattered not what, and to condemn it without telling why or wherefore.Do not you know how the keep them in check, and annoy them sodesperately that they cannot drop the slightest word against theprinciples of the fathers without being incontinently overwhelmed withwhole volumes, under the pressure of which they are forced to succumb?So that, after a great many proofs of their weakness, they have judgedit more to the purpose, and much less troublesome, to censure thanto reply- it being a much easier matter with them to find monks thanreasons."    "Why then," said I, "if this be the case, their censure is notworth a straw; for who will pay any regard to it, when they see itto be without foundation, and refuted, as it no doubt will be, bythe answers given to it?"    "If you knew the temper of people," replied my friend thedoctor, "you would talk in another sort of way. Their censure,censurable as it is, will produce nearly all its designed effect for atime; and although, by the force of demonstration, it is certain that,in course of time, its invalidity will be made apparent, it is equallytrue that, at first, it will tell as effectually on the minds ofmost people as if it had been the most righteous sentence in theworld. Let it only be cried about the streets: 'Here you have thecensure of M. Arnauld!- here you have the condemnation of theJansenists!' and the Jesuits will find their account in it. How fewwill ever read it! How few, of them who do read, will understand it!How few will observe that it answers no objections! How few willtake the matter to heart, or attempt to sift it to the bottom! Mark,then, how much advantage this gives to the enemies of theJansenists. They are sure to make a triumph of it, though a vainone, as usual, for some months at least- and that is a great matterfor them, they will look out afterwards for some new means ofsubsistence. They live from hand to mouth, sir. It is in this way theyhave contrived to maintain themselves down to the present day.Sometimes it is by a catechism in which a child is made to condemntheir opponents; then it is by a procession, in which sufficient graceleads the efficacious in triumph; again it is by a comedy, in whichJansenius is represented as carried off by devils; at another timeit is by an almanac; and now it is by this censure."    "In good sooth," said I "I was on the point of finding faultwith the conduct of the Molinists; but after what you have told me,I must say I admire their prudence and their policy. I see perfectlywell that they could not have followed a safer or more Judiciouscourse."    "You are right," returned he; "their safest policy has always beento keep silent; and this led a certain learned divine to remark, 'thatthe cleverest among them are those who intrigue much, speak little,and write nothing.'    "It is on this principle that, from the commencement of themeetings, they prudently ordained that, if M. Arnauld came into theSorbonne, it must be simply to explain what he believed, and not toenter the lists of controversy with any one. The examiners, havingventured to depart a little from this prudent arrangement, sufferedfor their temerity. They found themselves rather too vigourouslyrefuted by his second apology.    "On the same principle, they had recourse to that rare and verynovel device of the half-hour and the sand-glass. By this means theyrid themselves of the importunity of those troublesome doctors, whomight undertake to refute all their arguments, to produce bookswhich might convict them of forgery, to insist on a reply, andreduce them to the predicament of having none to give.    "It is not that they were so blind as not to see that thisencroachment on liberty, which has induced so many doctors to withdrawfrom the meetings, would do no good to their censure; and that theprotest of nullity, taken on this ground by M. Arnauld before it wasconcluded, would be a bad preamble for securing it a favourablereception. They know very well that unprejudiced persons place fullyas much weight on the judgement of seventy doctors, who had nothing togain by defending M. Arnauld, as on that of a hundred others who hadnothing to lose by condemning him. But, upon the whole, theyconsidered that it would be of vast importance to have a censure,although it should be the act of a party only in the Sorbonne, and notof the whole body; although it should be carried with little or nofreedom of debate and obtained by a great many small manoeuvres notexactly according to order; although it should give no explanationof the matter in dispute; although it should not point out in whatthis heresy consists, and should say as little as possible about it,for fear of committing a mistake. This very silence is a mystery inthe eyes of the simple; and the censure will reap this singularadvantage from it, that they may defy the most critical and subtletheologians to find in it a single weak argument.    "Keep yourself easy, then, and do not be afraid of being setdown as a heretic, though you should make use of the condemnedproposition. It is bad, I assure you, only as occurring in thesecond letter of M. Arnauld. If you will not believe this statement onmy word, I refer you to M. le Moine, the most zealous of theexaminers, who, in the course of conversation with a doctor of myacquaintance this very morning, on being asked by him where lay thepoint of difference in dispute, and if one would no longer beallowed to say what the fathers had said before him, made thefollowing exquisite reply: 'This proposition would be orthodox inthe mouth of any other- it is only as coming from M. Arnauld thatthe Sorbonne has condemned it!' You must now be prepared to admire themachinery of Molinism, which can produce such prodigiousoverturnings in the Church- that what is Catholic in the fathersbecomes heretical in M. Arnauld- that what is heretical in theSemi-Pelagians becomes orthodox in the writings of the Jesuits; theancient doctrine of St. Augustine becomes an intolerable innovation,and new inventions, daily fabricated before our eyes, pass for theancient faith of the Church." So saying, he took his leave of me.    This information has satisfied my purpose. I gather from it thatthis same heresy is one of an entirely new species. It is not thesentiments of M. Arnauld that are heretical; it is only his person.This is a personal heresy. He is not a heretic for anything he hassaid or written, but simply because he is M. Arnauld. This is all theyhave to say against him. Do what he may, unless he cease to be, hewill never be a good Catholic. The grace of St. Augustine will neverbe the true grace, so long as he continues to defend it. It wouldbecome so at once, were he to take it into his head to impugn it. Thatwould be a sure stroke, and almost the only plan for establishingthe truth and demolishing Molinism; such is the fatality attending allthe opinions which he embraces.    Let us leave them, then, to settle their own differences. Theseare the disputes of theologians, not of theology. We, who are nodoctors, have nothing to do with their quarrels. Tell our friendsthe news of the censure, and love me while I am, &c.                        LETTER IV                                             Paris, February 25, 1656  SIR,    Nothing can come up to the Jesuits. I have seen Jacobins, doctors,and all sorts of people in my day, but such an interview as I havejust had was wanting to complete my knowledge of mankind. Other menare merely copies of them. As things are always found best at thefountainhead, I paid a visit to one of the ablest among them, incompany with my trusty Jansenist- the same who accompanied me to theDominicans. Being particularly anxious to learn something of a disputewhich they have with the Jansenists about what they call actual grace,I said to the worthy father that I would be much obliged to him ifhe would instruct me on this point- that I did not even know whatthe term meant and would thank him to explain it. "With all my heart,"the Jesuit replied; "for I dearly love inquisitive people. Actualgrace, according to our definition, 'is an inspiration of God, wherebyHe makes us to know His will and excites within us a desire to performit.'"    "And where," said I, "lies your difference with the Jansenistson this subject?"    "The difference lies here," he replied; "we hold that Godbestows actual grace on all men in every case of temptation; for wemaintain that unless a person have, whenever tempted, actual graceto keep him from sinning, his sin, whatever it may be, can never beimputed to him. The Jansenists, on the other hand, affirm that sins,though committed without actual grace, are, nevertheless, imputed; butthey are a pack of fools." I got a glimpse of his meaning; but, toobtain from him a fuller explanation, I observed: "My dear father,it is that phrase actual grace that puzzles me; I am quite astranger to it, and if you would have the goodness to tell me the samething over again, without employing that term, you would infinitelyoblige me."    "Very good," returned the father; "that is to say, you want meto substitute the definition in place of the thing defined; that makesno alteration of the sense; I have no objections. We maintain it,then, as an undeniable principle, that an action cannot be imputedas a sin, unless God bestow on us, before committing it, the knowledgeof the evil that is in the action, and an inspiration inciting us toavoid it. Do you understand me now?"    Astonished at such a declaration, according to which, no sins ofsurprise, nor any of those committed in entire forgetfulness of God,could be imputed, I turned round to my friend the Jansenist and easilydiscovered from his looks that he was of a different way ofthinking. But as he did not utter a word, I said to the monk, "I wouldfain wish, my dear father, to think that what you have now said istrue, and that you have good proofs for it."    "Proofs, say you!" he instantly exclaimed: "I shall furnish youwith these very soon, and the very best sort too; let me alone forthat."    So saying, he went in search of his books, and I took thisopportunity of asking my friend if there was any other person whotalked in this manner? "Is this so strange to you?" he replied. "Youmay depend upon it that neither the fathers, nor the popes, norcouncils, nor Scripture, nor any book of devotion employ suchlanguage; but, if you wish casuists and modern schoolmen, he willbring you a goodly number of them on his side." "O! but I care not afig about these authors, if they are contrary to tradition," I said."You are right," he replied.    As he spoke, the good father entered the room, laden with books;and presenting to me the first that came to hand. "Read that," hesaid; "this is The Summary of Sins, by Father Bauny- the fifth editiontoo, you see, which shows that it is a good book."    "It is a pity, however," whispered the Jansenist in my ear,"that this same book has been condemned at Rome, and by the bishops ofFrance."    "Look at page 906," said the father. I did so and read as follows:"In order to sin and become culpable in the sight of God, it isnecessary to know that the thing we wish to do is not good, or atleast to doubt that it is- to fear or to judge that God takes nopleasure in the action which we contemplate, but forbids it; and inspite of this, to commit the deed, leap the fence, and transgress."    "This is a good commencement," I remarked. "And yet," said he,"mark how far envy will carry some people. It was on that very passagethat M. Hallier, before he became one of our friends, banteredFather Bauny, by applying to him these words: Ecce qui tollitpeccata mundi- 'Behold the man that taketh away the sins of theworld!'"    "Certainly," said I, "according to Father Bauny, we may be said tobehold a redemption of an entirely new description."    "Would you have a more authentic witness on the point?" addedhe. "Here is the book of Father Annat. It is the last that he wroteagainst M. Arnauld. Turn up to page 34, where there is a dog's ear,and read the lines which I have marked with pencil- they ought to bewritten in letters of gold." I then read these words: "He that hasno thought of God, nor of his sins, nor any apprehension (that is,as he explained it, any knowledge) of his obligation to exercise theacts of love to God or contrition, has no actual grace forexercising those acts; but it is equally true that he is guilty ofno sin in omitting them, and that, if he is damned, it will not beas a punishment for that omission." And a few lines below, he adds:"The same thing may be said of a culpable commission."    "You see," said the monk, "how he speaks of sins of omission andof commission. Nothing escapes him. What say you to that?"    "Say!" I exclaimed. "I am delighted! What a charming train ofconsequences do I discover flowing from this doctrine! I can see thewhole results already; and such mysteries present themselves beforeme! Why, I see more people, beyond all comparison, justified by thisignorance and forgetfulness of God, than by grace and thesacraments! But, my dear father, are you not inspiring me with adelusive joy? Are you sure there is nothing here like that sufficiencywhich suffices not? I am terribly afraid of the Distinguo; I was takenin with that once already! Are you quite in earnest?"    "How now!" cried the monk, beginning to get angry, "here is nomatter for jesting. I assure you there is no such thing asequivocation here."    "I am not making a jest of it, said I; "but that is what Ireally dread, from pure anxiety to find it true."    "Well then," he said, "to assure yourself still more of it, hereare the writings of M. le Moine, who taught the doctrine in a fullmeeting of the Sorbonne. He learned it from us, to be sure; but he hasthe merit of having cleared it up most admirably. O howcircumstantially he goes to work! He shows that, in order to makeout action to be a sin, all these things must have passed throughthe mind. Read, and weigh every word." I then read what I now give youin a translation from the original Latin: "1. On the one hand, Godsheds abroad on the soul some measure of love, which gives it a biastoward the thing commanded; and on the other, a rebelliousconcupiscence solicits it in the opposite direction. 2. God inspiresthe soul with a knowledge of its own weakness. 3. God reveals theknowledge of the physician who can heal it. 4. God inspires it witha desire to be healed. 5. God inspires a desire to pray and solicithis assistance."    "And unless all these things occur and pass through the soul,"added the monk, "the action is not properly a sin, and cannot beimputed, as M. le Moine shows in the same place and in what follows.Would you wish to have other authorities for this? Here they are."    "All modern ones, however," whispered my Jansenist friend.    "So I perceive," said I to him aside; and then, turning to themonk: "O my dear sir," cried I, "what a blessing this will be tosome persons of my acquaintance! I must positively introduce them toyou. You have never, perhaps, met with people who had fewer sins toaccount for all your life. For, in the first place, they never thinkof God at all; their vices have got the better of their reason; theyhave never known either their weakness or the physician who can cureit; they have never thought of 'desiring the health of their soul,'and still less of 'praying to God to bestow it'; so that, according toM. le Moine, they are still in the state of baptismal innocence.They have 'never had a thought of loving God or of being contritefor their sins'; so that, according to Father Annat, they have nevercommitted sin through the want of charity and penitence. Their life isspent in a perpetual round of all sorts of pleasures, in the course ofwhich they have not been interrupted by the slightest remorse. Theseexcesses had led me to imagine that their perdition was inevitable;but you, father, inform me that these same excesses secure theirsalvation. Blessings on you, my good father, for this way ofjustifying people! Others prescribe painful austerities for healingthe soul; but you show that souls which may be thought desperatelydistempered are in quite good health. What an excellent device forbeing happy both in this world and in the next! I had alwayssupposed that the less a man thought of God, the more he sinned;but, from what I see now, if one could only succeed in bringinghimself not to think upon God at all, everything would be pure withhim in all time coming. Away with your half-and-half sinners, whoretain some sneaking affection for virtue! They will be damned everyone of them, these semi-sinners. But commend me to your arrantsinners- hardened, unalloyed, out-and-out, thorough-bred sinners. Hellis no place for them; they have cheated the devil, purely by virtue oftheir devotion to his service!"    The good father, who saw very well the connection between theseconsequences and his principle, dexterously evaded them; and,maintaining his temper, either from good nature or policy, he merelyreplied: "To let you understand how we avoid these inconveniences, youmust know that, while we affirm that these reprobates to whom yourefer would be without sin if they had no thoughts of conversion andno desires to devote themselves to God, we maintain that they allactually have such thoughts and desires, and that God neverpermitted a man to sin without giving him previously a view of theevil which he contemplated, and a desire, either to avoid the offence,or at all events to implore his aid to enable him to avoid it; andnone but Jansenists will assert the contrary."    "Strange! father," returned I; "is this, then, the heresy of theJansenists, to deny that every time a man commits a sin he is troubledwith a remorse of conscience, in spite of which, he 'leaps the fenceand transgresses,' as Father Bauny has it? It is rather too good ajoke to be made a heretic for that. I can easily believe that a manmay be damned for not having good thoughts; but it never would haveentered my head to imagine that any man could be subjected to thatdoom for not believing that all mankind must have good thoughts!But, father, I hold myself bound in conscience to disabuse you andto inform you that there are thousands of people who have no suchdesires- who sin without regret- who sin with delight- who make aboast of sinning. And who ought to know better about these things thanyourself.? You cannot have failed to have confessed some of those towhom I allude; for it is among persons of high rank that they are mostgenerally to be met with. But mark, father, the dangerous consequencesof your maxim. Do you not perceive what effect it may have on thoselibertines who like nothing better than to find out matter of doubt inreligion? What a handle do you give them, when you assure them, asan article of faith, that, on every occasion when they commit a sin,they feel an inward presentiment of the evil and a desire to avoid it?Is it not obvious that, feeling convinced by their own experience ofthe falsity of your doctrine on this point, which you say is amatter of faith, they will extend the inference drawn from this to allthe other points? They will argue that, since you are nottrustworthy in one article, you are to be suspected in them all; andthus you shut them up to conclude either that religion is false orthat you must know very little about it."    Here my friend the Jansenist, following up my remarks, said tohim: "You would do well, father, if you wish to preserve yourdoctrine, not to explain so precisely as you have done to us whatyou mean by actual grace. For, how could you, without forfeiting allcredit in the estimation of men, openly declare that nobody sinswithout having previously the knowledge of his weakness, and of aphysician, or the desire of a cure, and of asking it of God? Will itbe believed, on your word, that those who are immersed in avarice,impurity, blasphemy, duelling, revenge, robbery and sacrilege, havereally a desire to embrace chastity, humility, and the other Christianvirtues? Can it be conceived that those philosophers who boasted soloudly of the powers of nature, knew its infirmity and itsphysician? Will you maintain that those who held it as a settled maximthat is not God that bestows virtue, and that no one ever asked itfrom him,' would think of asking it for themselves? Who can believethat the Epicureans, who denied a divine providence, ever felt anyinclination to pray to God? men who said that 'it would be an insultto invoke the Deity in our necessities, as if he were capable ofwasting a thought on beings like us?' In a word, how can it beimagined that idolaters and atheists, every time they are tempted tothe commission of sin, in other words, infinitely often during theirlives, have a desire to pray to the true God, of whom they areignorant, that he would bestow on them virtues of which they have noconception?"    "Yes," said the worthy monk, in a resolute tone, "we will affirmit: and sooner than allow that any one sins without having theconsciousness that he is doing evil, and the desire of the oppositevirtue, we will maintain that the whole world, reprobates and infidelsincluded, have these inspirations and desires in every case oftemptation. You cannot show me, from the Scripture at least, that thisis not the truth."    On this remark I struck in, by exclaiming: "What! father, mustwe have recourse to the Scripture to demonstrate a thing so clear asthis? This is not a point of faith, nor even of reason. It is a matterof fact: we see it- we know it- we feel it."    But the Jansenist, keeping the monk to his own terms, addressedhim as follows: "If you are willing, father, to stand or fall byScripture, I am ready to meet you there; only you must promise toyield to its authority; and, since it is written that 'God has notrevealed his judgements to the Heathen, but left them to wander intheir own ways,' you must not say that God has enlightened thosewhom the Sacred Writings assure us 'he has left in darkness and in theshadow of death.' Is it not enough to show the erroneousness of yourprinciple, to find that St. Paul calls himself 'the chief of sinners,'for a sin which he committed 'ignorantly, and with zeal'? Is it notenough, to and from the Gospel, that those who crucified JesusChrist had need of the pardon which he asked for them, although theyknew not the malice of their action, and would never have committedit, according to St. Paul, if they had known it? Is it not enough thatJesus Christ apprises us that there will be persecutors of the Church,who, while making every effort to ruin her, will 'think that theyare doing God service'; teaching us that this sin, which in thejudgement of the apostle, is the greatest of all sins, may becommitted by persons who, so far from knowing that they weresinning, would think that they sinned by not committing it? In fine,it is not enough that Jesus Christ himself has taught us that thereare two kinds of sinners, the one of whom sin with 'knowledge of theirMaster's will,' and the other without knowledge; and that both of themwill be 'chastised,' although, indeed, in a different manner?"    Sorely pressed by so many testimonies from Scripture, to whichhe had appealed, the worthy monk began to give way; and, leaving thewicked to sin without inspiration, he said: "You will not deny thatgood men, at least, never sin unless God give them"- "You areflinching," said I, interrupting him; "you are flinching now, mygood father; you abandon the general principle, and, finding that itwill not hold good in regard to the wicked, you would compound thematter, by making it apply at least to the righteous. But in thispoint of view the application of it is, I conceive, so circumscribedthat it will hardly apply to anybody, and it is scarcely worth whileto dispute the point."    My friend, however, who was so ready on the whole question, that Iam inclined to think he had studied it all that very morning, replied:"This, father, is the last entrenchment to which those of your partywho are willing to reason at all are sure to retreat; but you arefar from being safe even here. The example of the saints is not a whitmore in your favour. Who doubts that they often fall into sins ofsurprise, without being conscious of them? Do we not learn from thesaints themselves how often concupiscence lays hidden snares for them;and how generally it happens, as St. Augustine complains of himself inhis Confessions, that, with all their discretion, they 'give topleasure what they mean only to give to necessity'?    "How usual is it to see the more zealous friends of truth betrayedby the heat of controversy into sallies of bitter passion for theirpersonal interests, while their consciences, at the time, bear them noother testimony than that they are acting in this manner purely forthe interests of truth, and they do not discover their mistake tilllong afterwards!    "What, again, shall we say of those who, as we learn from examplesin ecclesiastical history, eagerly involve themselves in affairs whichare really bad, because they believe them to be really good; and yetthis does not hinder the fathers from condemning such persons ashaving sinned on these occasions?    "And were this not the case, how could the saints have theirsecret faults? How could it be true that God alone knows the magnitudeand the number of our offences; that no one knows whether he is worthyof hatred or love; and that the best of saints, though unconsciousof any culpability, ought always, as St. Paul says of himself, toremain in 'fear and trembling'?    "You perceive, then, father, that this knowledge of the evil andlove of the opposite virtue, which you imagine to be essential toconstitute sin, are equally disproved by the examples of the righteousand of the wicked. In the case of the wicked, their passion for vicesufficiently testifies that they have no desire for virtue; and inregard to the righteous, the love which they bear to virtue plainlyshows that they are not always conscious of those sins which, as theScripture teaches, they are daily committing.    "So true is it, indeed, that the righteous often sin throughignorance, that the greatest saints rarely sin otherwise. For howcan it be supposed that souls so pure, who avoid with so much care andzeal the least things that can be displeasing to God as soon as theydiscover them, and who yet sin many times every day, could possiblyhave every time before they fell into sin, 'the knowledge of theirinfirmity on that occasion, and of their physician, and the desireof their souls' health, and of praying to God for assistance,' andthat, in spite of these inspirations, these devoted souls'nevertheless transgress,' and commit the sin?    "You must conclude then, father, that neither sinners nor yetsaints have always that knowledge, or those desires andinspirations, every time they offend; that is, to use your ownterms, they have not always actual grace. Say no longer, with yourmodern authors, that it is impossible for those to sin who do not knowrighteousness; but rather join with St. Augustine and the ancientfathers in saying that it is impossible not to sin, when we do notknow righteousness: Necesse est ut peccet, a quo ignoratur justilia."    The good father, though thus driven from both of his positions,did not lose courage, but after ruminating a little, "Ha!" heexclaimed, "I shall convince you immediately." And again taking upFather Bauny, he pointed to the same place he had before quoted,exclaiming, "Look now- see the ground on which he establishes hisopinion! I was sure he would not be deficient in good proofs. Readwhat he quotes from Aristotle, and you will see that, after so expressan authority, you must either burn the books of this prince ofphilosophers or adopt our opinion. Hear, then, the principles whichsupport Father Bauny: Aristotle states first, 'that an action cannotbe imputed as blameworthy, if it be involuntary.'"    "I grant that," said my friend.    "This is the first time you have agreed together," said I. "Takemy advice, father, and proceed no further."    "That would be doing nothing," he replied; "we must know whatare the conditions necessary to constitute an action voluntary."    "I am much afraid," returned I, "that you will get atloggerheads on that point."    "No fear of that," said he; "this is sure ground- Aristotle ison my side. Hear now, what Father Bauny says: 'In order that an actionbe voluntary, it must proceed from a man who perceives, knows, andcomprehends what is good and what is evil in it. Voluntarium est- thatis a voluntary action, as we commonly say with the philosopher'(that is Aristotle, you know, said the monk, squeezing my hand); 'quodfit a principio cognoscente singula in quibus est actio- which is doneby a person knowing the particulars of the action; so that when thewill is led inconsiderately, and without mature reflection, to embraceor reject, to do or omit to do anything, before the understandinghas been able to see whether it would be right or wrong, such anaction is neither good nor evil; because previous to this mentalinquisition, view, and reflection on the good or bad qualities ofthe matter in question, the act by which it is done is not voluntary.'Are you satisfied now?" said the father.    "It appears," returned I, "that Aristotle agrees with FatherBauny; but that does not prevent me from feeling surprised at thisstatement. What, sir! is it not enough to make an action voluntarythat the man knows what he is doing, and does it just because hechooses to do it? Must we suppose, besides this, that he 'perceives,knows, and comprehends what is good and evil in the action'? Why, onthis supposition there would be hardly such a thing in nature asvoluntary actions, for no one scarcely thinks about all this. How manyoaths in gambling, how many excesses in debauchery, how many riotousextravagances in the carnival, must, on this principle, be excludedfrom the list of voluntary actions, and consequently neither goodnor bad, because not accompanied by those 'mental reflections on thegood and evil qualities' of the action? But is it possible, father,that Aristotle held such a sentiment? I have always understood that hewas a sensible man."    "I shall soon convince you of that, said the Jansenist, andrequesting a sight of Aristotle's Ethics, he opened it at thebeginning of the third book, from which Father Bauny had taken thepassage quoted, and said to the monk: "I excuse you, my dear sir,for having believed, on the word of Father Bauny, that Aristotleheld such a sentiment; but you would have changed your mind had youread him for yourself. It is true that he teaches, that 'in order tomake an action voluntary, we must know the particulars of thataction'- singula in quibus est actio. But what else does he means bythat, than the circumstances of the action? The examples which headduces clearly show this to be his meaning, for they areexclusively confined to cases in which the persons were ignorant ofsome of the circumstances; such as that of 'a person who, wishing toexhibit a machine, discharges a dart which wounds a bystander; andthat of Merope, who killed her own son instead of her enemy,' and suchlike.    "Thus you see what is the kind of ignorance that renders actionsinvoluntary; namely, that of the particular circumstances, which istermed by divines, as you must know, ignorance of the fact. But withrespect to ignorance of the right- ignorance of the good or evil in anaction- which is the only point in question, let us see if Aristotleagrees with Father Bauny. Here are the words of the philosopher:'All wicked men are ignorant of what they ought to do, and what theyought to avoid; and it is this very ignorance which makes themwicked and vicious. Accordingly, a man cannot be said to actinvoluntarily merely because he is ignorant of what it is proper forhim to do in order to fulfil his duty. This ignorance in the choice ofgood and evil does not make the action involuntary; it only makes itvicious. The same thing may be affirmed of the man who is ignorantgenerally of the rules of his duty; such ignorance is worthy of blame,not of excuse. And consequently, the ignorance which renders actionsinvoluntary and excusable is simply that which relates to the fact andits particular circumstances. In this case the person is excused andforgiven, being considered as having acted contrary to hisinclination.'    "After this, father, will you maintain that Aristotle is of youropinion? And who can help being astonished to find that a Paganphilosopher had more enlightened views than your doctors, in amatter so deeply affecting morals, and the direction of conscience,too, as the knowledge of those conditions which render actionsvoluntary or involuntary, and which, accordingly, charge ordischarge them as sinful? Look for no more support, then, father, fromthe prince of philosophers, and no longer oppose yourselves to theprince of theologians, who has thus decided the point in the firstbook of his Retractations, chapter xv: 'Those who sin throughignorance, though they sin without meaning to sin, commit the deedonly because they will commit it. And, therefore, even this sin ofignorance cannot be committed except by the will of him who commitsit, though by a will which incites him to the action merely, and notto the sin; and yet the action itself is nevertheless sinful, for itis enough to constitute it such that he has done what he was bound notto do.'"    The Jesuit seemed to be confounded more with the passage fromAristotle, I thought, than that from St. Augustine; but while he wasthinking on what he could reply, a messenger came to inform him thatMadame la Marechale of- , and Madame the Marchioness of- , requestedhis attendance. So, taking a hasty leave of us, he said: "I shallspeak about it to our fathers. They will find an answer to it, Iwarrant you; we have got some long heads among us."    We understood him perfectly well; and, on our being left alone,I expressed to my friend my astonishment at the subversion whichthis doctrine threatened to the whole system of morals. To this hereplied that he was quite astonished at my astonishment. "Are younot yet aware," he said, "that they have gone to far greater excess inmorals than in any other matter?" He gave me some strangeillustrations of this, promising me more at some future time. Theinformation which I may receive on this point will, I hope, furnishthe topic of my next communication. I am, &c.                        LETTER V                                                Paris, March 20, 1656  SIR,    According to my promise, I now send you the first outlines ofthe morals taught by those good fathers the Jesuits, "those mendistinguished for learning and sagacity, who are all under theguidance of divine wisdom- a surer guide than all philosophy." Youimagine, perhaps, that I am in jest, but I am perfectly serious; orrather, they are so when they speak thus of themselves in their bookentitied The Image of the First Century. I am only copying their ownwords, and may now give you the rest of the eulogy: "They are asociety of men, or rather let us call them angels, predicted by Isaiahin these words, 'Go, ye swift and ready angels.'" The prediction is asclear as day, is it not? "They have the spirit of eagles they are aflock of phoenixes (a late author having demonstrated that there are agreat many of these birds); they have changed the face ofChristendom!" Of course, we must believe all this, since they havesaid it; and in one sense you will find the account amply verifiedby the sequel of this communication, in which I propose to treat oftheir maxims.    Determined to obtain the best possible information, I did nottrust to the representations of our friend the Jansenist, but soughtan interview with some of themselves. I found however, that he told menothing but the bare truth, and I am persuaded he is an honest man. Ofthis you may judge from the following account of these conferences.    In the conversation I had with the Jansenist, he told me so manystrange things about these fathers that I could with difficultybelieve them, till he pointed them out to me in their writings;after which he left me nothing more to say in their defence thanthat these might be the sentiments of some individuals only, whichit was not fair to impute to the whole fraternity. And, indeed, Iassured him that I knew some of them who were as severe as thosewhom he quoted to me were lax. This led him to explain to me thespirit of the Society, which is not known to every one; and you willperhaps have no objections to learning something about it.    "You imagine," he began, "that it would tell considerably in theirfavour to show that some of their fathers are as friendly toEvangelical maxims as others are opposed to them; and you wouldconclude from that circumstance, that these loose opinions do notbelong to the whole Society. That I grant you; for had such been thecase, they would not have suffered persons among them holdingsentiments so diametrically opposed to licentiousness. But, as it isequally true that there are among them those who hold these licentiousdoctrines, you are bound also to conclude that the holy Spirit ofthe Society is not that of Christian severity, for had such been thecase, they would not have suffered persons among them holdingsentiments so diametrically opposed to that severity."    "And what, then," I asked, "can be the design of the whole as abody? Perhaps they have no fixed principle, and every one is left tospeak out at random whatever he thinks."    "That cannot be," returned my friend; "such an immense bodycould not subsist in such a haphazard sort of way, or without a soulto govern and regulate its movements; besides, it is one of theirexpress regulations that none shall print a page without theapproval of their superiors."    "But," said I, "how can these same superiors give their consent tomaxims so contradictory?"    "That is what you have yet to learn," he replied. "Know thenthat their object is not the corruption of manners- that is nottheir design. But as little is it their sole aim to reform them-that would be bad policy. Their idea is briefly this: They have such agood opinion of themselves as to believe that it is useful, and insome sort essentially necessary to the good of religion, that theirinfluence should extend everywhere, and that they should govern allconsciences. And the Evangelical or severe maxims being best fittedfor managing some sorts of people, they avail themselves of these whenthey find them favourable to their purpose. But as these maxims do notsuit the views of the great bulk of the people, they waive them in thecase of such persons, in order to keep on good terms with all theworld. Accordingly, having to deal with persons of all classes andof all different nations, they find it necessary to have casuistsassorted to match this diversity.    "On this principle, you will easily see that, if they had none butthe looser sort of casuists, they would defeat their main design,which is to embrace all; for those that are truly pious are fond ofa stricter discipline. But as there are not many of that stamp, theydo not require many severe directors to guide them. They have a fewfor the select few; while whole multitudes of lax casuists areprovided for the multitudes that prefer laxity.    "It is in virtue of this 'obliging and accommodating, conduct,' asFather Petau calls it, that they may be said to stretch out ahelping hand to all mankind. Should any person present himselfbefore them, for example, fully resolved to make restitution of someill-gotten gains, do not suppose that they would dissuade him from it.By no means; on the contrary, they would applaud and confirm him insuch a holy resolution. But suppose another should come who wishesto be absolved without restitution, and it will be a particularly hardcase indeed, if they cannot furnish him with means of evading theduty, of one kind or another, the lawfulness of which they will beready to guarantee.    "By this policy they keep all their friends, and defend themselvesagainst all their foes; for when charged with extreme laxity, theyhave nothing more to do than produce their austere directors, withsome books which they have written on the severity of the Christiancode of morals; and simple people, or those who never look below thesurface of things, are quite satisfied with these proofs of thefalsity of the accusation.    "Thus, are they prepared for all sorts of persons, and so readyare they to suit the supply to the demand that, when they happen to bein any part of the world where the doctrine of a crucified God isaccounted foolishness, they suppress the offence of the cross andpreach only a glorious and not a suffering Jesus Christ. This planthey followed in the Indies and in China, where they permittedChristians to practise idolatry itself, with the aid of thefollowing ingenious contrivance: they made their converts concealunder their clothes an image of Jesus Christ, to which they taughtthem to transfer mentally those adorations which they renderedostensibly to the idol of Cachinchoam and Keum-fucum. This charge isbrought against them by Gravina, a Dominican, and is fully establishedby the Spanish memorial presented to Philip IV, king of Spain, bythe Cordeliers of the Philippine Islands, quoted by Thomas Hurtado, inhis Martyrdom of the Faith, page 427. To such a length did thispractice go that the Congregation De Propaganda were obliged expresslyto forbid the Jesuits, on pain of excommunication, to permit theworship of idols on any pretext whatever, or to conceal the mystery ofthe cross from their catechumens; strictly enjoining them to admitnone to baptism who were not thus instructed, and ordering them toexpose the image of the crucifix in their churches: all of which isamply detailed in the decree of that Congregation, dated the 9th ofJuly, 1646, and signed by Cardinal Capponi.    "Such is the manner in which they have spread themselves overthe whole earth, aided by the doctrine of probable opinions, whichis at once the source and the basis of all this licentiousness. Youmust get some of themselves to explain this doctrine to you. They makeno secret of it, any more than of what you have already learned;with this difference only, that they conceal their carnal andworldly policy under the garb of divine and Christian prudence; asif the faith, and tradition, its ally, were not always one and thesame at all times and in all places; as if it were the part of therule to bend in conformity to the subject which it was meant toregulate; and as if souls, to be purified from their pollutions, hadonly to corrupt the law of the Lord, in place of the law of theLord, which is clean and pure, converting the soul which lieth in sin,and bringing it into conformity with its salutary lessons!    "Go and see some of these worthy fathers, I beseech you, and Iam confident that you will soon discover, in the laxity of their moralsystem, the explanation of their doctrine about grace. You will thensee the Christian virtues exhibited in such a strange aspect, socompletely stripped of the charity which is the life and soul of them,you will see so many crimes palliated and irregularities toleratedthat you will no longer be surprised at their maintaining that 'allmen have always enough of grace' to lead a pious life, in the sense ofwhich they understand piety. Their morality being entirely Pagan,nature is quite competent to its observance. When we maintain thenecessity of efficacious grace, we assign it another sort of virtuefor its object. Its office is not to cure one vice by means ofanother; it is not merely to induce men to practise the externalduties of religion: it aims at a virtue higher than that propounded byPharisees, or the greatest sages of Heathenism. The law and reason are'sufficient graces' for these purposes. But to disenthral the soulfrom the love of the world- to tear it from what it holds most dear-to make it die to itself- to lift it up and bind it wholly, only,and forever, to God can be the work of none but an all-powerfulhand. And it would be as absurd to affirm that we have the fullpower of achieving such objects, as it would be to allege that thosevirtues, devoid of the love of God, which these fathers confoundwith the virtues of Christianity, are beyond our power."    Such was the strain of my friend's discourse, which wasdelivered with much feeling; for he takes these sad disorders verymuch to heart. For my own part, I began to entertain a high admirationfor these fathers, simply on account of the ingenuity of their policy;and, following his advice, I waited on a good casuist of theSociety, one of my old acquaintances, with whom I now resolvedpurposely to renew my former intimacy. Having my instructions how tomanage them, I had no great difficulty in getting him afloat.Retaining his old attachment, he received me immediately with aprofusion of kindness; and, after talking over some indifferentmatters, I took occasion from the present season to learn somethingfrom him about fasting and, thus, slip insensibly into the mainsubject. I told him, therefore, that I had difficulty in supportingthe fast. He exhorted me to do violence to my inclinations; but, asI continued to murmur, he took pity on me and began to search out someground for a dispensation. In fact he suggested a number of excusesfor me, none of which happened to suit my case, till at length hebethought himself of asking me whether I did not find it difficultto sleep without taking supper. "Yes, my good father," said I; "andfor that reason I am obliged often to take a refreshment at mid-dayand supper at night."    "I am extremely happy," he replied, "to have found out a way ofrelieving you without sin: go in peace- you are under no obligation tofast. However, I would not have you depend on my word: step this wayto the library."    On going thither with me he took up a book, exclaiming withgreat rapture, "Here is the authority for you: and, by myconscience, such an authority! It is Escobar!"    "Who is Escobar?" I inquired.    "What! not know Escobar! " cried the monk; "the member of ourSociety who compiled this Moral Theology from twenty-four of ourfathers, and on this founds an analogy, in his preface, between hisbook and 'that in the Apocalypse which was sealed with seven seals,'and states that 'Jesus presents it thus sealed to the four livingcreatures, Suarez, Vasquez, Molina, and Valencia, in presence of thefour-and-twenty Jesuits who represent the four-and-twenty elders.'"    He read me, in fact, the whole of that allegory, which hepronounced to be admirably appropriate, and which conveyed to mymind a sublime idea of the exellence of the work. At length, havingsought out the passage of fasting, "Oh, here it is!" he said;"treatise I, example 13, no. 67: 'If a man cannot sleep without takingsupper, is he bound to fast? Answer: By no means!' Will that notsatisfy you?"    "Not exactly," replied I; "for I might sustain the fast bytaking my refreshment in the morning, and supping at night."    "Listen, then, to what follows; they have provided for all that:'And what is to be said, if the person might make a shift with arefreshment in the morning and supping at night?'"    "That's my case exactly."    "'Answer: Still he is not obliged to fast; because no person isobliged to change the order of his meals.'"    "A most excellent reason!" I exclaimed.    "But tell me, pray," continued the monk, "do you take much wine?"    "No, my dear father," I answered; "I cannot endure it."    "I merely put the question," returned he, "to apprise you that youmight, without breaking the fast, take a glass or so in the morning,or whenever you felt inclined for a drop; and that is always somethingin the way of supporting nature. Here is the decision at the sameplace, no. 57: 'May one, without breaking the fast, drink wine atany hour he pleases, and even in a large quantity? Yes, he may: anda dram of hippocrass too.' I had no recollection of the hippocrass,"said the monk; "I must take a note of that in my memorandum-book."    "He must be a nice man, this Escobar," observed I.    "Oh! everybody likes him," rejoined the father; "he has suchdelightful questions! Only observe this one in the same place, no. 38:'If a man doubt whether he is twenty-one years old, is he obliged tofast? No. But suppose I were to be twenty-one to-night an hour aftermidnight, and to-morrow were the fast, would I be obliged to fastto-morrow? No; for you were at liberty to eat as much as you pleasedfor an hour after midnight, not being till then fully twenty-one;and therefore having a right to break the fast day, you are notobliged to keep it.'"    "Well, that is vastly entertaining!" cried I.    "Oh," rejoined the father, "it is impossible to tear one's selfaway from the book: I spend whole days and nights in reading it; infact, I do nothing else."    The worthy monk, perceiving that I was interested, was quitedelighted, and went on with his quotations. "Now," said he, "for ataste of Filiutius, one of the four-and-twenty Jesuits: 'Is a manwho has exhausted himself any way- by profligacy, for example- obligedto fast? By no means. But if he has exhausted himself expressly toprocure a dispensation from fasting, will he be held obliged? Hewill not, even though he should have had that design.' There now!would you have believed that?"    "Indeed, good father, I do not believe it yet," said I. "What!is it no sin for a man not to fast when he has it in his power? And isit allowable to court occasions of committing sin, or rather, are wenot bound to shun them? That would be easy enough, surely."    "Not always so," he replied; "that is just as it may happen."    "Happen, how?" cried I.    "Oh!" rejoined the monk, "so you think that if a person experiencesome inconvenience in avoiding the occasions of sin, he is still boundto do so? Not so thinks Father Bauny. 'Absolution,' says he, 'is notto be refused to such as continue in the proximate occasions of sin,if they are so situated that they cannot give them up without becomingthe common talk of the world, or subjecting themselves to personalinconvenience.'"    "I am glad to hear it, father," I remarked; "and now that we arenot obliged to avoid the occasions of sin, nothing more remains but tosay that we may deliberately court them."    "Even that is occasionally permitted," added he; "the celebratedcasuist, Basil Ponce, has said so, and Father Bauny quotes hissentiment with approbation in his Treatise on Penance, as follows: 'Wemay seek an occasion of sin directly and designedly- primo et perse- when our own or our neighbour's spiritual or temporal advantageinduces us to do so.'"    "Truly," said I, "it appears to be all a dream to me, when Ihear grave divines talking in this manner! Come now, my dear father,tell me conscientiously, do you hold such a sentiment as that?"    "No, indeed," said he, "I do not."    "You are speaking, then, against your conscience," continued I.    "Not at all," he replied; "I was speaking on that point notaccording to my own conscience, but according to that of Ponce andFather Bauny, and them you may follow with the utmost safety, for Iassure you that they are able men."    "What, father! because they have put down these three lines intheir books, will it therefore become allowable to court the occasionsof sin? I always thought that we were bound to take the Scriptureand the tradition of the Church as our only rule, and not yourcauists."    "Goodness!" cried the monk, "I declare you put me in mind of theseJansenists. Think you that Father Bauny and Basil Ponce are not ableto render their opinion probable?"    "Probable won't do for me," said I; "I must have certainty."    "I can easily see," replied the good father, "that you knownothing about our doctrine of probable opinions. If you did, you wouldspeak in another strain. Ah! my dear sir, I must really give yousome instructions on this point; without knowing this, positivelyyou can understand nothing at all. It is the foundation- the very A,B, C, of our whole moral philosophy."    Glad to see him come to the point to which I had been drawinghim on, I expressed my satisfaction and requested him to explainwhat was meant by a probable opinion?    "That," he replied, "our authors will answer better than I can do.The generality of them, and, among others, our four-and-twenty elders,describe it thus: 'An opinion is called probable when it is foundedupon reasons of some consideration. Hence it may sometimes happen thata single very grave doctor may render an opinion probable.' The reasonis added: 'For a man particularly given to study would not adhere toan opinion unless he was drawn to it by a good and sufficientreason.'"    "So it would appear," I observed, with a smile, "that a singledoctor may turn consciences round about and upside down as he pleases,and yet always land them in a safe position."    "You must not laugh at it, sir," returned the monk; "nor needyou attempt to combat the doctrine. The Jansenists tried this; butthey might have saved themselves the trouble- it is too firmlyestablished. Hear Sanchez, one of the most famous of our fathers: 'Youmay doubt, perhaps, whether the authority of a single good and learneddoctor renders an opinion probable. I answer that it does; and this isconfirmed by Angelus, Sylvester, Navarre, Emanuel Sa, &c. It is provedthus: A probable opinion is one that has a considerable foundation.Now the authority of a learned and pious man is entitled to very greatconsideration; because (mark the reason), if the testimony of such aman has great influence in convincing us that such and such an eventoccurred, say at Rome, for example, why should it not have the sameweight in the case of a question in morals?'"    "An odd comparison this," interrupted I, "between the concernsof the world and those of conscience!"    "Have a little patience," rejoined the monk; "Sanchez answers thatin the very next sentence: 'Nor can I assent to the qualification madehere by some writers, namely, that the authority of such a doctor,though sufficient in matters of human right, is not so in those ofdivine right. It is of vast weight in both cases.'"    "Well, father," said I, frankly, "I really cannot admire thatrule. Who can assure me, considering the freedom your doctors claim toexamine everything by reason, that what appears safe to one may seemso to all the rest? The diversity of judgements is so great"-    "You don't understand it," said he, interrupting me; "no doubtthey are often of different sentiments, but what signifies that?Each renders his own opinion probable and safe. We all know wellenough that they are far from being of the same mind; what is more,there is hardly an instance in which they ever agree. There are veryfew questions, indeed, in which you do not find the one saying yes andthe other saying no. Still, in all these cases, each of the contraryopinions is probable. And hence Diana says on a certain subject:'Ponce and Sanchez hold opposite views of it; but, as they are bothlearned men, each renders his own opinion probable.'"    "But, father," I remarked, "a person must be sadly embarrassedin choosing between them!" "Not at all," he rejoined; "he has onlyto follow the opinion which suits him best." "What! if the other ismore probable?" "It does not signify," "And if the other is thesafer?" "It does not signify," repeated the monk; "this is madequite plain by Emanuel Sa, of our Society, in his Aphorisms: 'A personmay do what he considers allowable according to a probable opinion,though the contrary may be the safer one. The opinion of a singlegrave doctor is all that is requisite.'"    "And if an opinion be at once the less probable and the less safe,it is allowable to follow it," I asked, "even in the way ofrejecting one which we believe to be more probable and safe?"    "Once more, I say yes," replied the monk. "Hear what Filiutius,that great Jesuit of Rome, says: 'It is allowable to follow the lessprobable opinion, even though it be the less safe one. That is thecommon judgement of modern authors.' Is not that quite clear?"    "Well, reverend father," said I, "you have given us elbowroom,at all events! Thanks to your probable opinions, we have got libertyof conscience with a witness! And are you casuists allowed the samelatitude in giving your responses?"    "Oh, yes," said he, "we answer just as we please; or rather, Ishould say, just as it may please those who ask our advice. Here areour rules, taken from Fathers Layman, Vasquez, Sanchez, and thefour-and-twenty worthies, in the words of Layman: 'A doctor, onbeing consulted, may give an advice, not only probable according tohis own opinion, but contrary to his own opinion, provided thisjudgement happens to be more favourable or more agreeable to theperson that consults him- si forte haec favorabilior seu exoptatiorsit. Nay, I go further and say that there would be nothingunreasonable in his giving those who consult him a judgement held tobe probable by some learned person, even though he should be satisfiedin his own mind that it is absolutely false.'"    "Well, seriously, father," I said, "your doctrine is a mostuncommonly comfortable one! Only think of being allowed to answeryes or no, just as you please! It is impossible to prize such aprivilege too highly. I see now the advantage of the contrary opinionsof your doctors. One of them always serves your turn, and the othernever gives you any annoyance. If you do not find your account onthe one side, you fall back on the other and always land in perfectsafety."    "That is quite true," he replied; "and, accordingly, we may alwayssay with Diana, on his finding that Father Bauny was on his side,while Father Lugo was against him: Saepe premente deo, fert deus alteropem."*    * Ovid, Appendice, xiii. "If pressed by any god, we will bedelivered by another."    "I understand you," resumed I; "but a practical difficulty hasjust occurred to me, which is this, that supposing a person to haveconsulted one of your doctors and obtained from him a pretty liberalopinion, there is some danger of his getting into a scrape bymeeting a confessor who takes a different view of the matter andrefuses him absolution unless he recant the sentiment of thecasuist. Have you not provided for such a case as that, father?"    "Can you doubt it?" he replied, "We have bound them, sir, toabsolve their penitents who act according to probable opinions,under the pain of mortal sin, to secure their compliance. 'When thepenitent,' says Father Bauny, 'follows a probable opinion, theconfessor is bound to absolve him, though his opinion should differfrom that of his penitent.'"    "But he does not say it would be a mortal sin not to absolvehim" said I.    "How hasty you are!" rejoined the monk; "listen to what follows;he has expressly decided that, 'to refuse absolution to a penitent whoacts according to a probable opinion is a sin which is in its naturemortal.' And, to settle that point, he cites the most illustrious ofour fathers- Suarez, Vasquez, and Sanchez."    "My dear sir," said I, "that is a most prudent regulation. I seenothing to fear now. No confessor can dare to be refractory afterthis. Indeed, I was not aware that you had the power of issuing yourorders on pain of damnation. I thought that your skill had beenconfined to the taking away of sins; I had no idea that it extended tothe introduction of new ones. But, from what I now see, you areomnipotent."    "That is not a correct way of speaking," rejoined the father."We do not introduce sins; we only pay attention to them. I have hadoccasion to remark, two or three times during our conversation, thatyou are no great scholastic."    "Be that as it may, father, you have at least answered mydifficulty. But I have another to suggest. How do you manage whenthe Fathers of the Church happen to differ from any of your casuists?"    "You really know very little of the subject," he replied. "TheFathers were good enough for the morality of their own times; but theylived too far back for that of the present age, which is no longerregulated by them, but by the modern casuists. On this FatherCellot, following the famous Reginald, remarks: 'In questions ofmorals, the modern casuists are to be preferred to the ancientfathers, though those lived nearer to the times of the apostles.'And following out this maxim, Diana thus decides: 'Are beneficiariesbound to restore their revenue when guilty of mal-appropriation of it?The ancients would say yes, but the moderns say no; let us, therefore,adhere to the latter opinion, which relieves from the obligation ofrestitution.'"    "Delightful words these, and most comfortable they must be to agreat many people!" I observed.    "We leave the fathers," resumed the monk, "to those who dealwith positive divinity. As for us, who are the directors ofconscience, we read very little of them and quote only the moderncasuists. There is Diana, for instance, a most voluminous writer; hehas prefixed to his works a list of his authorities, which amount totwo hundred and ninety-six, and the most ancient of them is only abouteighty years old."    "It would appear, then," I remarked, "that all these have comeinto the world since the date of your Society?"    "Thereabouts," he replied.    "That is to say, dear father, on your advent, St. Augustine, St.Chrysostom, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, and all the rest, in so far asmorals are concerned, disappeared from the stage. Would you be so kindas let me know the names, at least, of those modern authors who havesucceeded them?"    "A most able and renowned class of men they are," replied themonk. "Their names are: Villalobos, Conink, Llamas, Achokier,Dealkozer, Dellacruz, Veracruz, Ugolin, Tambourin, Fernandez,Martinez, Suarez, Henriquez, Vasquez, Lopez, Gomez, Sanchez, DeVechis, De Grassis, De Grassalis, De Pitigianis, De Graphaeis,Squilanti, Bizozeri, Barcola, De Bobadilla, Simanacha, Perez deLara, Aldretta, Lorca, De Scarcia, Quaranta, Scophra, Pedrezza,Cabrezza, Bisbe, Dias, De Clavasio, Villagut, Adam a Manden, Iribarne,Binsfeld, Volfangi A Vorberg, Vosthery, Strevesdorf."    "O my dear father!" cried I, quite alarmed, "were all these peopleChristians?"    "How! Christians!" returned the casuist; "did I not tell youthat these are the only writers by whom we now govern Christendom?"    Deeply affected as I was by this announcement, I concealed myemotion from the monk and only asked him if all these authors wereJesuits?    "No," said he; "but that is of little consequence; they havesaid a number of good things for all that. It is true the greater partof these same good things are extracted or copied from our authors,but we do not stand on ceremony with them on that score, moreespecially as they are in the constant habit of quoting our authorswith applause. When Diana, for example, who does not belong to ourSociety, speaks of Vasquez, he calls him 'that phoenix of genius'; andhe declares more than once 'that Vasquez alone is to him worth all therest of men put together'- instar omnium. Accordingly, our fathersoften make use of this good Diana; and, if you understand our doctrineof probability, you will see that this is no small help in its way. Infact, we are anxious that others besides the Jesuits would rendertheir opinions probable, to prevent people from ascribing them allto us; for you will observe that, when any author, whoever he maybe, advances a probable opinion, we are entitled, by the doctrine ofprobability, to adopt it if we please; and yet, if the author does notbelong to our fraternity, we are not responsible for its soundness."    "I understand all that," said I. "It is easy to see that all arewelcome that come your way, except the ancient fathers; you aremasters of the field, and have only to walk the course. But Iforesee three or four serious difficulties and powerful barriers whichwill oppose your career."    "And what are these?" cried the monk, looking quite alarmed.    "They are the Holy Scriptures," I replied, "the popes, and thecouncils, whom you cannot gainsay, and who are all in the way of theGospel."    "Is that all?" he exclaimed; "I declare you put me in a fright. Doyou imagine that we would overlook such an obvious scruple as that, orthat we have not provided against it? A good idea, forsooth, tosuppose that we would contradict Scripture, popes, and councils! Imust convince you of your mistake; for I should be sorry you should goaway with an impression that we are deficient in our respect tothese authorities. You have doubtless taken up this notion from someof the opinions of our fathers, which are apparently at variancewith their decisions, though in reality they are not. But toillustrate the harmony between them would require more leisure than wehave at present; and, as I would not like you to retain a badimpression of us, if you agree to meet with me to-morrow, I shallclear it all up then."    Thus ended our interview, and thus shall end my presentcommunication, which has been long enough, besides, for one letter.I am sure you will be satisfied with it, in the prospect of what isforthcoming. I am, &c.                         LETTER VI                                                Paris, April 10, 1656  SIR,    I mentioned, at the close of my last letter, that my goodfriend, the Jesuit, had promised to show me how the casuists reconcilethe contrarieties between their opinions and the decisions of thepopes, the councils, and the Scripture. This promise he fulfilled atour last interview, of which I shall now give you an account.    "One of the methods," resumed the monk, "in which we reconcilethese apparent contradictions, is by the interpretation of somephrase. Thus, Pope Gregory XIV decided that assassins are not worthyto enjoy the benefit of sanctuary in churches and ought to bedragged out of them; and yet our four-and-twenty elders affirm that'the penalty of this bull is not incurred by all those that kill intreachery.' This may appear to you a contradiction; but we get overthis by interpreting the word assassin as follows: 'Are assassinsunworthy of sanctuary in churches? Yes, by the bull of Gregory XIVthey are. But by the word assassins we understand those that havereceived money to murder one; and, accordingly, such as kill withouttaking any reward for the deed, but merely to oblige their friends, donot come under the category of assassins.'"    "Take another instance: It is said in the Gospel, 'Give alms ofyour superfluity.' Several casuists, however, have contrived todischarge the wealthiest from the obligation of alms-giving. Thismay appear another paradox, but the matter is easily put to rightsby giving such an interpretation to the word superfluity that itwill seldom or never happen that any one is troubled with such anarticle. This feat has been accomplished by the learned Vasquez, inhis Treatise on Alms, c. 4: 'What men of the world lay up to improvetheir circumstances, or those of their relatives, cannot be termedsuperfluity, and accordingly, such a thing as superfluity is seldom tobe found among men of the world, not even excepting kings.' Diana,too, who generally founds on our fathers, having quoted these words ofVasquez, justly concludes, 'that as to the question whether the richare bound to give alms of their superfluity, even though theaffirmative were true, it will seldom or never happen to be obligatoryin practice.'"    "I see very well how that follows from the doctrine of Vasquez,"said I. "But how would you answer this objection, that, in working outone's salvation, it would be as safe, according to Vasquez, to give noalms, provided one can muster as much ambition as to have nosuperfluity; as it is safe, according to the Gospel, to have noambition at all, in order to have some superfluity for the purposeof alms-giving?"    "Why," returned he, "the answer would be that both of these waysare safe according to the Gospel; the one according to the Gospel inits more literal and obvious sense, and the other according to thesame Gospel as interpreted by Vasquez. There you see the utility ofinterpretations. When the terms are so clear, however," hecontinued, "as not to admit of an interpretation, we have recourseto the observation of favourable circumstances. A single examplewill illustrate this. The popes have denounced excommunication onmonks who lay aside their canonicals; our casuists, notwithstanding,put it as a question, 'On what occasions may a monk lay aside hisreligious habits without incurring excommunication?' They mention anumber of cases in which they may, and among others the following: 'Ifhe has laid it aside for an infamous purpose, such as to pickpockets or to go incognito into haunts of profligacy, meaningshortly after to resume it.' It is evident the bulls have no referenceto cases of that description."    I could hardly believe that and begged the father to show me thepassage in the original. He did so, and under the chapter headed"Practice according to the School of the Society of Jesus"- Praxisex Societatis Jesu Schola- I read these very words: Si habitumdimittat ut furetur occulte, vel fornicetur. He showed me the samething in Diana, in these terms: Ut eat incognitus ad lupanar. "Andwhy, father," I asked, "are they discharged from excommunication onsuch occasions?"    "Don't you understand it?" he replied. "Only think what ascandal it would be, were a monk surprised in such a predicamentwith his canonicals on! And have you never heard," he continued,"how they answer the first bull contra sollicitantes and how ourfour-and-twenty, in another chapter of the Practice according to theSchool of our Society, explain the bull of Pius V contra clericos,&c.?"    "I know nothing about all that," said I.    "Then it is a sign you have not read much of Escobar," returnedthe monk.    "I got him only yesterday, father, said I; "and I had no smalldifficulty, too, in procuring a copy. I don't know how it is, buteverybody of late has been in search of him."    "The passage to which I referred," returned the monk, "may befound in treatise I, example 8, no. 102. Consult it at your leisurewhen you go home."    I did so that very night; but it is so shockingly bad that Idare not transcribe it.    The good father then went on to say: "You now understand whatuse we make of favourable circumstances. Sometimes, however, obstinatecases will occur, which will not admit of this mode of adjustment;so much so, indeed, that you would almost suppose they involved flatcontradictions. For example, three popes have decided that monks whoare bound by a particular vow to a Lenten life cannot be absolved fromit even though they should become bishops. And yet Diana avers thatnotwithstanding this decision they are absolved.    "And how does he reconcile that?" said I.    "By the most subtle of all the modern methods, and by the nicestpossible application of probability," replied the monk. "You mayrecollect you were told the other day that the affirmative andnegative of most opinions have each, according to our doctors, someprobability enough, at least, to be followed with a safe conscience.Not that the pro and con are both true in the same sense- that isimpossible- but only they are both probable and, therefore, safe, as amatter of course. On this principle our worthy friend Diana remarks:'To the decision of these three popes, which is contrary to myopinion, I answer that they spoke in this way by adhering to theaffirmative side- which, in fact, even in my judgement, is probable;but it does not follow from this that the negative may not have itsprobability too.' And in the same treatise, speaking of anothersubject on which he again differs from a pope, he says: 'The pope, Igrant, has said it as the head of the Church; but his decision doesnot extend beyond the sphere of the probability of his own opinion.'Now you perceive this is not doing any harm to the opinions of thepopes; such a thing would never be tolerated at Rome, where Diana isin high repute. For he does not say that what the popes have decidedis not probable; but leaving their opinion within the sphere ofprobability, he merely says that the contrary is also probable."    "That is very respectful," said I.    "Yes," added the monk, "and rather more ingenious than the replymade by Father Bauny, when his books were censured at Rome; for,when pushed very hard on this point by M. Hallier, he made bold towrite: 'What has the censure of Rome to do with that of France?' Younow see how, either by the interpretation of terms, by the observationof favourable circumstances, or by the aid of the double probabilityof pro and con, we always contrive to reconcile those seemingcontradictions which occasioned you so much surprise, without evertouching on the decisions of Scripture, councils, or popes."    "Reverend father," said I, "how happy the world is in havingsuch men as you for its masters! And what blessings are theseprobabilities! I never knew the reason why you took such pains toestablish that a single doctor, if a grave one, might render anopinion probable, and that the contrary might be so too, and thatone may choose any side one pleases, even though he does not believeit to be the right side, and all with such a safe conscience, that theconfessor who should refuse him absolution on the faith of thecasuists would be in a state of damnation. But I see now that a singlecasuist may make new rules of morality at his discretion anddispose, according to his fancy, of everything pertaining to theregulation of manners."    "What you have now said," rejoined the father, "would require tobe modified a little. Pay attention now, while I explain our method,and you will observe the progress of a new opinion, from its birthto its maturity. First, the grave doctor who invented it exhibits itto the world, casting it abroad like seed, that it may take root. Inthis state it is very feeble; it requires time gradually to ripen.This accounts for Diana, who has introduced a great many of theseopinions, saying: 'I advance this opinion; but as it is new, I give ittime to come to maturity- relinquo tempori maturandum.' Thus in afew years it becomes insensibly consolidated; and, after aconsiderable time, it is sanctioned by the tacit approbation of theChurch, according to the grand maxim of Father Bauny, 'that if anopinion has been advanced by some casuist, and has not been impugnedby the Church, it is a sign that she approves of it.' And, in fact, onthis principle he authenticates one of his own principles in his sixthtreatise, p. 312."    "Indeed, father! " cried I, "why, on this principle the Churchwould approve of all the abuses which she tolerates, and all theerrors in all the books which she does not censure!"    "Dispute the point with Father Bauny," he replied. "I am merelyquoting his words, and you begin to quarrel with me. There is nodisputing with facts, sir. Well, as I was saying, when time has thusmatured an opinion, it thenceforth becomes completely probable andsafe. Hence the learned Caramuel, in dedicating his FundamentalTheology to Diana, declares that this great Diana has rendered manyopinions probable which were not so before- quae antea non erant,and that, therefore, in following them, persons do not sin now, thoughthey would have sinned formerly- jam non peccant, licet antepeccaverint."    "Truly, father," I observed, "it must be worth one's whileliving in the neighbourhood of your doctors. Why, of two individualswho do the same actions, he that knows nothing about their doctrinesins, while he that knows it does no sin. It seems, then, that theirdoctrine possesses at once an edifying and a justifying virtue! Thelaw of God, according to St. Paul, made transgressors; but this law ofyours makes nearly all of us innocent. I beseech you, my dear sir, letme know all about it. I will not leave you till you have told me allthe maxims which your casuists have established."    "Alas!" the monk exclaimed, "our main object, no doubt, shouldhave been to establish no other maxims than those of the Gospel in alltheir strictness: and it is easy to see, from the Rules for theregulation of our manners, that, if we tolerate some degree ofrelaxation in others, it is rather out of complaisance than throughdesign. The truth is, sir, we are forced to it. Men have arrived atsuch a pitch of corruption nowadays that, unable to make them cometo us, we must e'en go to them, otherwise they would cast us offaltogether; and, what is worse, they would become perfect castaways.It is to retain such characters as these that our casuists havetaken under consideration the vices to which people of variousconditions are most addicted, with the view of laying down maximswhich, while they cannot be said to violate the truth, are so gentlethat he must be a very impracticable subject indeed who is not pleasedwith them. The grand project of our Society, for the good of religion,is never to repulse any one, let him be what he may, and so avoiddriving people to despair.    "They have got maxims, therefore, for all sorts of persons; forbeneficiaries, for priests, for monks; for gentlemen, for servants;for rich men, for commercial men; for people in embarrassed orindigent circumstances; for devout women, and women that are notdevout; for married people, and irregular people. In short, nothinghas escaped their foresight."    "In other words," said I, "they have got maxims for the clergy,the nobility, and the commons. Well, I am quite impatient to hearthem."    "Let us commence," resumed the father, 'with the beneficiaries.You are aware of the traffic with benefices that is now carried on,and that, were the matter referred to St. Thomas and the ancientswho had written on it, there might chance to be some simoniacs inthe Church. This rendered it highly necessary for our fathers toexercise their prudence in finding out a palliative. With what successthey have done so will appear from the following words of Valencia,who is one of Escobar's 'four living creatures.' At the end of along discourse, in which he suggests various expedients, hepropounds the following at page 2039, vol. iii, which, to my mind,is the best: 'If a person gives a temporal in exchange for a spiritualgood'- that is, if he gives money for a benefice- 'and gives the moneyas the price of the benefice, it is manifest simony. But if he givesit merely as the motive which inclines the will of the patron toconfer on him the living, it is not simony, even though the person whoconfers it considers and expects the money as the principal object.'Tanner, who is also a member of our Society, affirms the same thing,vol. iii, p.1519, although he 'grants that St. Thomas is opposed toit; for he expressly teaches that it is always simony to give aspiritual for a temporal good, if the temporal is the end in view.' Bythis means we prevent an immense number of simoniacal transactions;for who would be so desperately wicked as to refuse, when giving moneyfor a benefice, to take the simple precaution of so directing hisintentions as to give it as a motive to induce the beneficiary to partwith it, instead of giving it as the price of the benefice? No man,surely, can be so far left to himself as that would come to."    "I agree with you there," I replied; "all men, I should think,have sufficient grace to make a bargain of that sort."    "There can be no doubt of it," returned the monk. "Such, then,is the way in which we soften matters in regard to thebeneficiaries. And now for the priests- we have maxims prettyfavourable to them also. Take the following, for example, from ourfour-and-twenty elders: "Can a priest, who has received money to say amass, take an additional sum upon the same mass? Yes, saysFiliutius, he may, by applying that part of the sacrifice whichbelongs to himself as a priest to the person who paid him last;provided he does not take a sum equivalent to a whole mass, but only apart, such as the third of a mass.'"    "Surely, father," said I, "this must be one of those cases inwhich the pro and the con have both their share of probability. Whatyou have now stated cannot fail, of course, to be probable, having theauthority of such men as Filiutius and Escobar; and yet, leavingthat within the sphere of probability, it strikes me that the contraryopinion might be made out to be probable too, and might be supportedby such reasons as the following: That, while the Church allowspriests who are in poor circumstances to take money for theirmasses, seeing it is but right that those who serve at the altarshould live by the altar, she never intended that they should barterthe sacrifice for money, and, still less, that they should deprivethemselves of those benefits which they ought themselves, in the firstplace, to draw from it; to which I might add that, according to St.Paul, the priests are to offer sacrifice first for themselves and thenfor the people; and that, accordingly, while permitted toparticipate with others in the benefit of the sacrifice, they arenot at liberty to forego their share by transferring it to another fora third of a mass, or, in other words, for the matter of fourpenceor fivepence. Verily, father, little as I pretend to be a grave man, Imight contrive to make this opinion probable."    "It would cost you no great pains to do that, replied the monk;"it is visibly probable already. The difficulty lies in discoveringprobability in the converse of opinions manifestly good; and this is afeat which none but great men can achieve. Father Bauny shines in thisdepartment. It is really delightful to see that learned casuistexamining with characteristic ingenuity and subtlety the negativeand affirmative of the same question, and proving both of them to beright! Thus in the matter of priests, he says in one place: 'No lawcan be made to oblige the curates to say mass every day; for such alaw would unquestionably (haud dubie) expose them to the danger ofsaying it sometimes in mortal sin.' And yet, in another part of thesame treatise, he says, 'that priests who have received money forsaying mass every day ought to say it every day, and that theycannot excuse themselves on the ground that they are not always in afit state for the service; because it is in their power at all timesto do penance, and if they neglect this they have themselves toblame for it and not the person who made them say mass.' And torelieve their minds from all scruples on the subject, he thus resolvesthe question: 'May a priest say mass on the same day in which he hascommitted a mortal sin of the worst kind, in the way of confessinghimself beforehand?' Villalobos says no, because of his impurity;but Sancius says: 'He may without any sin; and I hold his opinion tobe safe, and one which may be followed in practice- et tuta etsequenda in praxi.'"    "Follow this opinion in practice!" cried I. "Will any priest whohas fallen into such irregularities have the assurance on the same dayto approach the altar, on the mere word of Father Bauny? Is he notbound to submit to the ancient laws of the Church, which debarred fromthe sacrifice forever, or at least for a long time, priests who hadcommitted sins of that description- instead of following the modernopinions of casuists, who would admit him to it on the very day thatwitnessed his fall?"    "You have a very short memory, returned the monk. "Did I notinform you a little ago that, according to our fathers Cellot andReginald, 'in matters of morality we are to follow, not the ancientfathers, but the modern casuists?'"    "I remember it perfectly," said I; "but we have something morehere: we have the laws of the Church."    "True," he replied; "but this shows you do not know anothercapital maxim of our fathers, 'that the laws of the Church losetheir authority when they have gone into desuetude- cum jamdesuetudine abierunt- as Filiutius says. We know the presentexigencies of the Church much better than the ancients could do.Were we to be so strict in excluding priests from the altar, you canunderstand there would not be such a great number of masses. Now amultitude of masses brings such a revenue of glory to God and ofgood to souls that I may venture to say, with Father Cellot, thatthere would not be too many priests, 'though not only all men andwomen, were that possible, but even inanimate bodies, and even brutebeasts- bruta animalia- were transformed into priests to celebratemass.'"    I was so astounded at the extravagance of this imagination thatI could not utter a word and allowed him to go on with hisdiscourse. "Enough, however, about priests; I am afraid of gettingtedious: let us come to the monks. The grand difficulty with them isthe obedience they owe to their superiors; now observe thepalliative which our fathers apply in this case. Castro Palao of ourSociety has said: 'Beyond all dispute, a monk who has a probableopinion of his own, is not bound to obey his superior, though theopinion of the latter is the more probable. For the monk is at libertyto adopt the opinion which is more agreeable to himself- quae sibigratior fuerit- as Sanchez says. And though the order of hissuperior be just, that does not oblige you to obey him, for it isnot just at all points or in every respect- non undequaque justepraecepit- but only probably so; and, consequently, you are onlyprobably bound to obey him, and probably not bound- probabiliterobligatus, et probabiliter deobligatus.'"    "Certainly, father," said I, "it is impossible too highly toestimate this precious fruit of the double probability."    "It is of great use indeed," he replied; "but we must be brief.Let me only give you the following specimen of our famous Molina infavour of monks who are expelled from their convents forirregularities. Escobar quotes him thus: 'Molina asserts that a monkexpelled from his monastery is not obliged to reform in order to getback again, and that he is no longer bound by his vow of obedience.'"    "Well, father," cried I, "this is all very comfortable for theclergy. Your casuists, I perceive, have been very indulgent to them,and no wonder- they were legislating, so to speak, for themselves. Iam afraid people of other conditions are not so liberally treated.Every one for himself in this world."    "There you do us wrong," returned the monk; "they could not havebeen kinder to themselves than we have been to them. We treat all,from the highest to the lowest, with an even-handed charity, sir.And to prove this, you tempt me to tell you our maxims for servants.In reference to this class, we have taken into consideration thedifficulty they must experience, when they are men of conscience, inserving profligate masters. For, if they refuse to perform all theerrands in which they are employed, they lose their places; and ifthey yield obedience, they have their scruples. To relieve them fromthese, our four-and-twenty fathers have specified the services whichthey may render with a safe conscience; such as 'carrying lettersand presents, opening doors and windows, helping their master to reachthe window, holding the ladder which he is mounting. All this,' saythey, 'is allowable and indifferent; it is true that, as to holdingthe ladder, they must be threatened, more than usually, with beingpunished for refusing; for it is doing an injury to the master of ahouse to enter it by the window.' You perceive the judiciousness ofthat observation, of course?"    "I expected nothing less," said I, "from a book edited byfour-and-twenty Jesuits."    "But," added the monk, "Father Bauny has gone beyond this; hehas taught valets how to perform these sorts of offices for theirmasters quite innocently, by making them direct their intention, notto the sins to which they are accessary, but to the gain which is toaccrue from them. In his Summary of Sins, p.710, first edition, hethus states the matter: 'Let confessors observe,' says he, 'thatthey cannot absolve valets who perform base errands, if they consentto the sins of their masters; but the reverse holds true, if they havedone the thing merely from a regard to their temporal emolument.'And that, I should conceive, is no difficult matter to do; for whyshould they insist on consenting to sins of which they taste nothingbut the trouble? The same Father Bauny has established a prime maximin favour of those who are not content with their wages: 'May servantswho are dissatisfied with their wages use means to raise them bylaying their hands on as much of the property of their masters as theymay consider necessary to make the said wages equivalent to theirtrouble? They may, in certain circumstances; as when they are sopoor that, in looking for a situation, they have been obliged toaccept the offer made to them, and when other servants of the sameclass are gaining more than they, elsewhere.'"    "Ha, father!" cried I, "that is John d'Alba's passage, I declare."    "What John d'Alba?" inquired the father: "what do you mean?"    "Strange, father!" returned I: "do you not remember whathappened in this city in the year 1647? Where in the world were youliving at that time?"    "I was teaching cases of conscience in one of our colleges farfrom Paris," he replied.    "I see you don't know the story, father: I must tell it to you.I heard it related the other day by a man of honour, whom I met incompany. He told us that this John d'Alba, who was in the service ofyour fathers in the College of Clermont, in the Rue St. Jacques, beingdissatisfied with his wages, had purloined something to make himselfamends; and that your fathers, on discovering the theft, had thrownhim into prison on the charge of larceny. The case was reported to thecourt, if I recollect right, on the 16th of April, 1647; for he wasvery minute in his statements, and indeed they would hardly havebeen credible otherwise. The poor fellow, on being questioned,confessed to having taken some pewter plates, but maintained thatfor all that he had not stolen them; pleading in his defence this verydoctrine of Father Bauny, which he produced before the judges, alongwith a pamphlet by one of your fathers, under whom he had studiedcases of conscience, and who had taught him the same thing.Whereupon M. de Montrouge, one of the most respected members of thecourt, said, in giving his opinion, 'that he did not see how, on theground of the writings of these fathers- writings containing adoctrine so illegal, pernicious, and contrary to all laws, natural,divine, and human, and calculated to ruin all families, and sanctionall sorts of household robbery- they could discharge the accused.But his opinion was that this too faithful disciple should bewhipped before the college gate, by the hand of the common hangman;and that, at the same time, this functionary should burn thewritings of these fathers which treated of larceny, with certificationthat they were prohibited from teaching such doctrine in future,upon pain of death.'    "The result of this judgement, which was heartily approved of, waswaited for with much curiosity, when some incident occurred which madethem delay procedure. But in the meantime the prisoner disappeared,nobody knew how, and nothing more was heard about the affair; sothat John d'Alba got off, pewter plates and all. Such was theaccount he gave us, to which he added, that the judgement of M. deMontrouge was entered on the records of the court, where any one mayconsult it. We were highly amused at the story."    "What are you trifling about now?" cried the monk. "What doesall that signify? I was explaining the maxims of our casuists, and wasjust going to speak of those relating to gentlemen, when you interruptme with impertinent stories."    "It was only something put in by the way, father," I observed;"and besides, I was anxious to apprise you of an importantcircumstance, which I find you have overlooked in establishing yourdoctrine of probability."    "Ay, indeed!" exclaimed the monk, "what defect can this be thathas escaped the notice of so many ingenious men?"    "You have certainly," continued I, "contrived to place yourdisciples in perfect safety so far as God and the conscience areconcerned; for they are quite safe in that quarter, according toyou, by following in the wake of a grave doctor. You have also securedthem on the part of the confessors, by obliging priests, on the painof mortal sin, to absolve all who follow a probable opinion. But youhave neglected to secure them on the part of the judges; so that, infollowing your probabilities, they are in danger of coming intocontact with the whip and the gallows. This is a sad oversight."    "You are right," said the monk; "I am glad you mentioned it. Butthe reason is we have no such power over magistrates as over theconfessors, who are obliged to refer to us in cases of conscience,in which we are the sovereign judges."    "So I understand," returned I; "but if, on the one hand, you arethe judges of the confessors, are you not, on the other hand, theconfessors of the judges? Your power is very extensive. Oblige them,on pain of being debarred from the sacraments, to acquit all criminalswho act on a probable opinion; otherwise it may happen, to the greatcontempt and scandal of probability, that those whom you renderinnocent in theory may be whipped or hanged in practice. Withoutsomething of this kind, how can you expect to get disciples?"    "The matter deserves consideration," said he; "it will never do toneglect it. I shall suggest it to our father Provincial. You might,however, have reserved this advice to some other time, withoutinterrupting the account I was about to give you of the maxims whichwe have established in favour of gentlemen; and I shall not give youany more information, except on condition that you do not tell meany more stories."    This is all you shall have from me at present; for it wouldrequire more than the limits of one letter to acquaint you with allthat I learned in a single conversation. Meanwhile I am, &c.                        LETTER VII                                                Paris, April 25, 1656  SIR,    Having succeeded in pacifying the good father, who had been ratherdisconcerted by the story of John d'Alba, he resumed the conversation,on my assuring him that I would avoid all such interruptions infuture, and spoke of the maxims of his casuists with regard togentlemen, nearly in the following terms:    "You know," he said, "that the ruling passion of persons in thatrank of life is 'the point of honor,' which is perpetually drivingthem into acts of violence apparently quite at variance with Christianpiety; so that, in fact, they would be almost all of them excludedfrom our confessionals, had not our fathers relaxed a little fromthe strictness of religion, to accommodate themselves to theweakness of humanity. Anxious to keep on good terms both with theGospel, by doing their duty to God, and with the men of the world,by showing charity to their neighbour, they needed all the wisdom theypossessed to devise expedients for so nicely adjusting matters as topermit these gentlemen to adopt the methods usually resorted to forvindicating their honour, without wounding their consciences, and thusreconcile two things apparently so opposite to each other as piety andthe point of honour. But, sir, in proportion to the utility of thedesign, was the difficulty of the execution. You cannot fail, I shouldthink, to realize the magnitude and arduousness of such anenterprise?"    "It astonishes me, certainly," said I, rather coldly.    "It astonishes you, forsooth!" cried the monk. "I can well believethat; many besides you might be astonished at it. Why, don't youknow that, on the one hand, the Gospel commands us 'not to render evilfor evil, but to leave vengeance to God'; and that, on the other hand,the laws of the world forbid our enduring an affront without demandingsatisfaction from the offender, and that often at the expense of hislife? You have never, I am sure, met with anything to all appearancemore diametrically opposed than these two codes of morals; and yet,when told that our fathers have reconciled them, you have nothing moreto say than simply that this astonishes you!"    "I did not sufficiently explain myself, father. I should certainlyhave considered the thing perfectly impracticable, if I had not known,from what I have seen of your fathers, that they are capable ofdoing with ease what is impossible to other men. This led me toanticipate that they must have discovered some method for meetingthe difficulty- a method which I admire even before knowing it, andwhich I pray you to explain to me."    "Since that is your view of the matter," replied the monk, "Icannot refuse you. Know then, that this marvellous principle is ourgrand method of directing the intention- the importance of which, inour moral system, is such that I might almost venture to compare itwith the doctrine of probability. You have had some glimpses of itin passing, from certain maxims which I mentioned to you. For example,when I was showing you how servants might execute certaintroublesome jobs with a safe conscience, did you not remark that itwas simply by diverting their intention from the evil to which theywere accessary to the profit which they might reap from thetransaction? Now that is what we call directing the intention. Yousaw, too, that, were it not for a similar divergence of the mind,those who give money for benefices might be downright simoniacs. But Iwill now show you this grand method in all its glory, as it applies tothe subject of homicide- a crime which it justifies in a thousandinstances; in order that, from this startling result, you may forman idea of all that it is calculated to effect."    "I foresee already," said I, "that, according to this mode,everything will be permitted; it win stick at nothing."    "You always fly from the one extreme to the other," replied themonk: "prithee avoid that habit. For, just to show you that we are farfrom permitting everything, let me tell you that we never suffersuch a thing as a formal intention to sin, with the sole design ofsinning; and if any person whatever should persist in having noother end but evil in the evil that he does, we break with him atonce: such conduct is diabolical. This holds true, without exceptionof age, sex, or rank. But when the person is not of such a wretcheddisposition as this, we try to put in practice our method of directingthe intention, which simply consists in his proposing to himself, asthe end of his actions, some allowable object. Not that we do notendeavour, as far as we can, to dissuade men from doing thingsforbidden; but when we cannot prevent the action, we at least purifythe motive, and thus correct the viciousness of the means by thegoodness of the end. Such is the way in which our fathers havecontrived to permit those acts of violence to which men usually resortin vindication of their honour. They have no more to do than to turnoff their intention from the desire of vengeance, which is criminal,and direct it to a desire to defend their honour, which, accordingto us, is quite warrantable. And in this way our doctors discharge alltheir duty towards God and towards man. By permitting the action, theygratify the world; and by purifying the intention, they givesatisfaction to the Gospel. This is a secret, sir, which wasentirely unknown to the ancients; the world is indebted for thediscovery entirely to our doctors. You understand it now, I hope?"    "Perfectly well," was my reply. "To men you grant the outwardmaterial effect of the action; and to God you give the inward andspiritual movement of the intention; and by this equitablepartition, you form an alliance between the laws of God and the lawsof men. But, my dear sir, to be frank with you, I can hardly trustyour premisses, and I suspect that your authors will tell anothertale."    "You do me injustice, rejoined the monk; "I advance nothing butwhat I am ready to prove, and that by such a rich array of passagesthat altogether their number, their authority, and their reasonings,will fill you with admiration. To show you, for example, thealliance which our fathers have formed between the maxims of theGospel and those of the world, by thus regulating the intention, letme refer you to Reginald: 'Private persons are forbidden to avengethemselves; for St. Paul says to the Romans (12), "Recompense to noman evil for evil"; and Ecclesiasticus says (28), "He that takethvengeance shall draw on himself the vengeance of God, and his sinswill not be forgotten." Besides all that is said in the Gospel aboutforgiving offences, as in chapters 6 and 18 of St. Matthew.'"    "Well, father, if after that he says anything contrary to theScripture, it will not be from lack of scriptural knowledge, at anyrate. Pray, how does he conclude?"    "You shall hear," he said. "From all this it appears that amilitary man may demand satisfaction on the spot from the person whohas injured him- not, indeed, with the intention of rendering evil forevil, but with that of preserving his honour- 'non ut malum pro maloreddat, sed ut conservet honorem.' See you how carefully they guardagainst the intention of rendering evil for evil, because theScripture condemns it? This is what they will tolerate on noaccount. Thus Lessius observes, that 'if a man has received a blowon the face, he must on no account have an intention to avengehimself; but he may lawfully have an intention to avert infamy, andmay, with that view, repel the insult immediately, even at the pointof the sword- etiam cum gladio!' So far are we from permitting any oneto cherish the design of taking vengeance on his enemies that ourfathers will not allow any even to wish their death- by a movementof hatred. 'If your enemy is disposed to injure you,' says Escobar,'you have no right to wish his death, by a movement of hatred;though you may, with a view to save yourself from harm.' Solegitimate, indeed, is this wish, with such an intention, that ourgreat Hurtado de Mendoza says that 'we may pray God to visit withspeedy death those who are bent on persecuting us, if there is noother way of escaping from it.'"    "May it please your reverence," said I, "the Church hasforgotten to insert a petition to that effect among her prayers."    "They have not put in everything into the prayers that one maylawfully ask of God," answered the monk. "Besides, in the presentcase, the thing was impossible, for this same opinion is of morerecent standing than the Breviary. You are not a good chronologist,friend. But, not to wander from the point, let me request vourattention to the following passage, cited by Diana from GasparHurtado, one of Escobar's four-and-twenty fathers: 'An incumbentmay, without any mortal sin, desire the decease of a life-renter onhis benefice, and a son that of his father, and rejoice when ithappens; provided always it is for the sake of the profit that is toaccrue from the event, and not from personal aversion.'"    "Good!" cried I. "That is certainly a very happy hit; and I caneasily see that the doctrine admits of a wide application. But yetthere are certain cases, the solution of which, though of greatimportance for gentlemen, might present still greater difficulties."    "Propose them, if you please, that we may see," said the monk.    "Show me, with all your directing of the intention," returned I,"that it is allowable to fight a duel."    "Our great Hurtado de Mendoza," said the father, "will satisfy youon that point in a twinkling. 'If a gentleman,' says he, in apassage cited by Diana, 'who is challenged to fight a duel, is wellknown to have no religion, and if the vices to which he is openlyand unscrupulously addicted are such as would lead people to conclude,in the event of his refusing to fight, that he is actuated, not by thefear of God, but by cowardice, and induce them to say of him that hewas a hen, and not a man, gallina, et non vir; in that case he may, tosave his honour, appear at the appointed spot- not, indeed, with theexpress intention of fighting a duel, but merely with that ofdefending himself, should the person who challenged him come thereunjustly to attack him. His action in this case, viewed by itself,will be perfectly indifferent; for what moral evil is there in onestepping into a field, taking a stroll in expectation of meeting aperson, and defending one's self in the event of being attacked? Andthus the gentleman is guilty of no sin whatever; for in fact it cannotbe called accepting a challenge at all, his intention being directedto other circumstances, and the acceptance of a challenge consistingin an express intention to fight, which we are supposing the gentlemannever had.'"    "You have not kept your word with me, sir," said I. "This isnot, properly speaking, to permit duelling; on the contrary, thecasuist is so persuaded that this practice is forbidden that, inlicensing the action in question, he carefully avoids calling it aduel."    "Ah!" cried the monk, "you begin to get knowing on my hand, I amglad to see. I might reply that the author I have quoted grants allthat duellists are disposed to ask. But since you must have acategorical answer, I shall allow our Father Layman to give it for me.He permits duelling in so many words, provided that, in acceptingthe challenge, the person directs his intention solely to thepreservation of his honour or his property: 'If a soldier or acourtier is in such a predicament that he must lose either hishonour or his fortune unless he accepts a challenge, I see nothingto hinder him from doing so in self-defence.' The same thing is saidby Peter Hurtado, as quoted by our famous Escobar; his words are: 'Onemay fight a duel even to defend one's property, should that benecessary; because every man has a right to defend his property,though at the expense of his enemy's life!'"    I was struck, on hearing these passages, with the reflection that,while the piety of the king appears in his exerting all his power toprohibit and abolish the practice of duelling in the State, thepiety of the Jesuits is shown in their employing all their ingenuityto tolerate and sanction it in the Church. But the good father wasin such an excellent key for talking that it would have been cruelto have interrupted him; so he went on with his discourse.    "In short," said he, "Sanchez (mark, now, what great names I amquoting to you!) Sanchez, sir, goes a step further; for he showshow, simply by managing the intention rightly, a person may not onlyreceive a challenge, but give one. And our Escobar follows him."    "Prove that, father," said I, "and I shall give up the point:but I will not believe that he has written it, unless I see it inprint."    "Read it yourself, then," he replied: and, to be sure, I readthe following extract from the Moral Theology of Sanchez: "It isperfectly reasonable to hold that a man may fight a duel to save hislife, his honour, or any considerable portion of his property, when itis apparent that there is a design to deprive him of these unjustly,by law-suits and chicanery, and when there is no other way ofpreserving them. Navarre justly observes that, in such cases, it islawful either to accept or to send a challenge- licet acceptare etofferre duellum. The same author adds that there is nothing to preventone from despatching one's adversary in a private way. Indeed, inthe circumstances referred to, it is advisable to avoid employingthe method of the duel, if it is possible to settle the affair byprivately killing our enemy; for, by this means, we escape at oncefrom exposing our life in the combat, and from participating in thesin which our opponent would have committed by fighting the duel!"    "A most pious assassination!" said I. "Still, however, piousthough it be, it is assassination, if a man is permitted to kill hisenemy in a treacherous manner."    "Did I say that he might kill him treacherously?" cried themonk. "God forbid! I said he might kill him privately, and youconclude that he may kill him treacherously, as if that were thesame thing! Attend, sir, to Escobar's definition before allowingyourself to speak again on this subject: 'We call it killing intreachery when the person who is slain had no reason to suspect such afate. He, therefore, that slays his enemy cannot be said to kill himin treachery, even although the blow should be given insidiously andbehind his back- licet per insidias aut a tergo percutiat.' And again:'He that kills his enemy, with whom he was reconciled under apromise of never again attempting his life, cannot be absolutelysaid to kill in treachery, unless there was between them all thestricter friendship- arctior amicitia.' You see now you do not evenunderstand what the terms signify, and yet you pretend to talk likea doctor."    "I grant you this is something quite new to me," I replied; "and Ishould gather from that definition that few, if any, were everkilled in treachery; for people seldom take it into their heads toassassinate any but their enemies. Be this as it may, however, itseems that, according to Sanchez, a man may freely slay (I do notsay treacherously, but only insidiously and behind his back) acalumniator, for example, who prosecutes us at law?"    "Certainly he may," returned the monk, "always, however, in theway of giving a right direction to the intention: you constantlyforget the main point. Molina supports the same doctrine; and whatis more, our learned brother Reginald maintains that we may despatchthe false witnesses whom he summons against us. And, to crown thewhole, according to our great and famous fathers Tanner and EmanuelSa, it is lawful to kill both the false witnesses and the judgehimself, if he has had any collusion with them. Here are Tanner's verywords: 'Sotus and Lessius think that it is not lawful to kill thefalse witnesses and the magistrate who conspire together to put aninnocent person to death; but Emanuel Sa and other authors with goodreason impugn that sentiment, at least so far as the conscience isconcerned.' And he goes on to show that it is quite lawful to killboth the witnesses and the judge."    "Well, father," said I, "I think I now understand pretty well yourprinciple regarding the direction of the intention: but I shouldlike to know something of its consequences, and all the cases in whichthis method of yours arms a man with the power of life and death.Let us go over them again, for fear of mistake, for equivocationhere might be attended with dangerous results. Killing is a matterwhich requires to be well-timed, and to be backed with a good probableopinion. You have assured me, then, that by giving a proper turn tothe intention, it is lawful, according to your fathers, for thepreservation of one's honour, or even property, to accept achallenge to a duel, to give one sometimes, to kill in a private way afalse accuser, and his witnesses along with him, and even the judgewho has been bribed to favour them; and you have also told me thathe who has got a blow may, without avenging himself, retaliate withthe sword. But you have not told me, father, to what length he maygo."    "He can hardly mistake there," replied the father, "for he maygo all the length of killing his man. This is satisfactorily proved bythe learned Henriquez, and others of our fathers quoted by Escobar, asfollows: 'It is perfectly right to kill a person who has given us abox on the ear, although he should run away, provided it is not donethrough hatred or revenge, and there is no danger of giving occasionthereby to murders of a gross kind and hurtful to society. And thereason is that it is as lawful to pursue the thief that has stolen ourhonour, as him that has run away with our property. For, although yourhonour cannot be said to be in the hands of your enemy in the samesense as your goods and chattels are in the hands of the thief,still it may be recovered in the same way- by showing proofs ofgreatness and authority, and thus acquiring the esteem of men. And, inpoint of fact, is it not certain that the man who has received abuffet on the ear is held to be under disgrace, until he has wiped offthe insult with the blood of his enemy?'"    I was so shocked on hearing this that it was with great difficultyI could contain myself; but, in my anxiety to hear the rest, I allowedhim to proceed.    "Nay," he continued, "it is allowable to prevent a buffet, bykilling him that meant to give it, if there be no other way toescape the insult. This opinion is quite common with our fathers.For example, Azor, one of the four-and-twenty elders, proposing thequestion, 'Is it lawful for a man of honour to kill another whothreatens to give him a slap on the face, or strike him with a stick?'replies, 'Some say he may not; alleging that the life of our neighbouris more precious than our honour, and that it would be an act ofcruelty to kill a man merely to avoid a blow. Others, however, thinkthat it is allowable; and I certainly consider it probable, when thereis no other way of warding off the insult; for, otherwise, thehonour of the innocent would be constantly exposed to the malice ofthe insolent.' The same opinion is given by our great Filiutius; byFather Hereau, in his Treatise on Homicide, by Hurtado de Mendoza,in his Disputations, by Becan, in his Summary; by our FathersFlahaut and Lecourt, in those writings which the University, intheir third petition, quoted at length, in order to bring them intodisgrace (though in this they failed); and by Escobar. In short,this opinion is so general that Lessius lays it down as a pointwhich no casuist has contested; he quotes a great many that uphold,and none that deny it; and particularly Peter Navarre, who, speakingof affronts in general (and there is none more provoking than a box onthe ear), declares that 'by the universal consent of the casuists,it is lawful to kill the calumniator, if there be no other way ofaverting the affront- ex sententia omnium, licet contumeliosumoccidere, si aliter ea injuria arceri nequit.' Do you wish any moreauthorities?" asked the monk.    I declared I was much obliged to him; I had heard rather more thanenough of them already. But, just to see how far this damnabledoctrine would go, I said, "But, father, may not one be allowed tokill for something still less? Might not a person so direct hisintention as lawfully to kill another for telling a lie, for example?"    "He may," returned the monk; "and according to Father Baldelle,quoted by Escobar, 'you may lawfully take the life of another forsaying, "You have told a lie"; if there is no other way of shuttinghis mouth.' The same thing may be done in the case of slanders. OurFathers Lessius and Hereau agree in the following sentiments: 'Ifyou attempt to ruin my character by telling stories against me inthe presence of men of honour, and I have no other way of preventingthis than by putting you to death, may I be permitted to do so?According to the modern authors, I may, and that even though I havebeen really guilty of the crime which you divulge, provided it is asecret one, which you could not establish by legal evidence. And Iprove it thus: If you mean to rob me of my honour by giving me a boxon the ear, I may prevent it by force of arms; and the same mode ofdefence is lawful when you would do me the same injury with thetongue. Besides, we may lawfully obviate affronts and, therefore,slanders. In fine, honour is dearer than life; and as it is lawfulto kill in defence of life, it must be so to kill in defence ofhonour.' There, you see, are arguments in due form; this isdemonstration, sir- not mere discussion. And, to conclude, thisgreat man Lessius shows, in the same place, that it is lawful tokill even for a simple gesture, or a sign of contempt. 'A man'shonour,' he remarks, 'may be attacked or filched away in various ways-in all of which vindication appears very reasonable; as, for instance,when one offers to strike us with a stick, or give us a slap on theface, or affront us either by words or signs- sive per signa.'"    "Well, father," said I, "it must be owned that you have made everypossible provision to secure the safety of reputation; but itstrikes me that human life is greatly in danger, if any one may beconscientiously put to death simply for a defamatory speech or a saucygesture."    "That is true," he replied; "but, as our fathers are verycircumspect, they have thought it proper to forbid putting thisdoctrine into practice on such trifling occasions. They say, at least,'that it ought hardly to be reduced to practice- practice vixprobari potest.' And they have a good reason for that, as you shallsee."    "Oh, I know what it will be," interrupted I; "because the law ofGod forbids us to kill, of course."    "They do not exactly take that ground," said the father; "as amatter of conscience, and viewing the thing abstractly, they hold itallowable."    "And why then, do they forbid it?"    "I shall tell you that, sir. It is because, were we to kill allthe defamers among us, we should very shortly depopulate thecountry. 'Although,' says Reginald, 'the opinion that we may kill aman for calumny is not without its probability in theory, the contraryone ought to be followed in practice; for, in our mode of defendingourselves, we should always avoid doing injury to the commonwealth;and it is evident that by killing people in this way there would betoo many murders. 'We should be on our guard,' says Lessius, 'lest thepractice of this maxim prove hurtful to the State; for in this case itought not to be permitted- tunc enim non est permittendus.'"    "What, father! is it forbidden only as a point of policy, andnot of religion? Few people, I am afraid, will pay any regard tosuch a prohibition, particularly when in a passion. Very probably theymight think they were doing no harm to the State, by ridding it ofan unworthy member."    "And accordingly," replied the monk, "our Filiutius hasfortified that argument with another, which is of no slenderimportance, namely, 'that for killing people after this manner, onemight be punished in a court of justice.'"    "There now, father; I told you before, that you will never be ableto do anything worth the while, unless you get the magistrates to goalong with you."    "The magistrates," said the father, "as they do not penetrate intothe conscience, judge merely of the outside of the action, while welook principally to the intention; and hence it occasionally happensthat our maxims are a little different from theirs."    "Be that as it may, father; from yours, at least, one thing may befairly inferred- that, by taking care not to injure thecommonwealth, we may kill defamers with a safe conscience, provided wecan do it with a sound skin. But, sir, after having seen so well tothe protection of honour, have you done nothing for property? I amaware it is of inferior importance, but that does not signify; Ishould think one might direct one's intention to kill for itspreservation also."    "Yes," replied the monk; "and I gave you a hint to that effectalready, which may have suggested the idea to you. All our casuistsagree in that opinion; and they even extend the permission to thosecases 'where no further violence is apprehended from those thatsteal our property; as, for example, where the thief runs away.' Azor,one of our Society, proves that point."    "But, sir, how much must the article be worth, to justify ourproceeding to that extremity?"    "According to Reginald and Tanner, 'the article must be of greatvalue in the estimation of a judicious man.' And so think Layman andFiliutius."    "But, father, that is saying nothing to the purpose; where am I tofind 'a judicious man' (a rare person to meet with at any time), inorder to make this estimation? Why do they not settle upon an exactsum at once?"    "Ay, indeed!" retorted the monk; "and was it so easy, think you,to adjust the comparative value between the life of a man, and aChristian man, too, and money? It is here I would have you feel theneed of our casuists. Show me any of your ancient fathers who willtell for how much money we may be allowed to kill a man. What willthey say, but 'Non occides- Thou shalt not kill?'"    "And who, then, has ventured to fix that sum?" I inquired.    "Our great and incomparable Molina," he replied- "the glory of ourSociety- who has, in his inimitable wisdom, estimated the life of aman 'at six or seven ducats; for which sum he assures us it iswarrantable to kill a thief, even though he should run off'; and headds, 'that he would not venture to condemn that man as guilty ofany sin who should kill another for taking away an article worth acrown, or even less- unius aurei, vel minoris adhuc valoris'; whichhas led Escobar to lay it down, as a general rule, 'that a man maybe killed quite regularly, according to Molina, for the value of acrown-piece.'"    "O father," cried I; "where can Molina have got all this wisdom toenable him to determine a matter of such importance, without any aidfrom Scripture, the councils, or the fathers? It is quite evident thathe has obtained an illumination peculiar to himself, and is far beyondSt. Augustine in the matter of homicide, as well as of grace. Well,now, I suppose I may consider myself master of this chapter of morals;and I see perfectly that, with the exception of ecclesiastics,nobody need refrain from killing those who injure them in theirproperty or reputation."    "What say you?" exclaimed the monk. "Do you, then, suppose that itwould be reasonable that those, who ought of all men to be mostrespected, should alone be exposed to the insolence of the wicked? Ourfathers have provided against that disorder; for Tanner declaresthat 'Churchmen, and even monks, are permitted to kill, for thepurpose of defending not only their lives, but their property, andthat of their community.' Molina, Escobar, Becan, Reginald, Layman,Lessius, and others, hold the same language. Nay, according to ourcelebrated Father Lamy, priests and monks may lawfully prevent thosewho would injure them by calumnies from carrying their ill designsinto effect, by putting them to death. Care, however, must always betaken to direct the intention properly. His words are: 'Anecclesiastic or a monk may warrantably kill a defamer who threatens topublish the scandalous crimes of his community, or his own crimes,when there is no other way of stopping him; if, for instance, he isprepared to circulate his defamations unless promptly despatched. For,in these circumstances, as the monk would be allowed to kill one whothreatened to take his life, he is also warranted to kill him whowould deprive him of his reputation or his property, in the same wayas the men of the world.'"    "I was not aware of that," said I; "in fact, I have beenaccustomed simply enough to believe the very reverse, withoutreflecting on the matter, in consequence of having heard that theChurch had such an abhorrence of bloodshed as not even to permitecclesiastical judges to attend in criminal cases."    "Never mind that," he replied; "our Father Lamy has completelyproved the doctrine I have laid down, although, with a humilitywhich sits uncommonly well on so great a man, he submits it to thejudgement of his judicious readers. Caramuel, too, our famouschampion, quoting it in his Fundamental Theology, p. 543. thinks it socertain, that he declares the contrary opinion to be destitute ofprobability, and draws some admirable conclusions from it, such as thefollowing, which he calls 'the conclusion of conclusions- conclusionumconclusio': 'That a priest not only may kill a slanderer, but thereare certain circumstances in which it may be his duty to do so-etiam aliquando debet occidere.' He examines a great many newquestions on this principle, such as the following, for instance: 'Maythe Jesuits kill the Jansenists?'"    "A curious point of divinity that, father! " cried I. "I holdthe Jansenists to be as good as dead men, according to Father Lamy'sdoctrine."    "There, now, you are in the wrong," said the monk: "Caramuelinfers the very reverse from the same principles."    "And how so, father?"    "Because," he replied, "it is not in the power of the Janseniststo injure our reputation. 'The Jansenists,' says he, 'call the JesuitsPelagians, may they not be killed for that? No; inasmuch as theJansenists can no more obscure the glory of the Society than an owlcan eclipse that of the sun; on the contrary, they have, thoughagainst their intention, enhanced it- occidi non possunt, quianocere non potuerunt.'"    "Ha, father! do the lives of the Jansenists, then, depend on thecontingency of their injuring your reputation? If so, I reckon themfar from being in a safe position; for supposing it should bethought in the slightest degree probable that they might do you somemischief, why, they are killable at once! You have only to draw up asyllogism in due form, and, with a direction of the intention, you maydespatch your man at once with a safe conscience. Thrice happy mustthose hot spirits be who cannot bear with injuries, to be instructedin this doctrine! But woe to the poor people who have offended them!Indeed, father, it would be better to have to do with persons who haveno religion at all than with those who have been taught on thissystem. For, after all, the intention of the wounder conveys nocomfort to the wounded. The poor man sees nothing of that secretdirection of which you speak; he is only sensible of the directionof the blow that is dealt him. And I am by no means sure but aperson would feel much less sorry to see himself brutally killed by aninfuriated villain than to find himself conscientiously stilettoedby a devotee. To be plain with you, father, I am somewhat staggered atall this; and these questions of Father Lamy and Caramuel do notplease me at all."    "How so?" cried the monk. "Are you a Jansenist?"    "I have another reason for it," I replied. "You must know I amin the habit of writing from time to time, to a friend of mine inthe country, all that I can learn of the maxims of your doctors.Now, although I do no more than simply report and faithfully quotetheir own words, yet I am apprehensive lest my letter should fall intothe hands of some stray genius who may take into his head that Ihave done you injury, and may draw some mischievous conclusion fromyour premisses."    "Away!" cried the monk; "no fear of danger from that quarter, I'llgive you my word for it. Know that what our fathers have themselvesprinted, with the approbation of our superiors, it cannot be wrongto read nor dangerous to publish."    I write you, therefore, on the faith of this worthy father'sword of honour. But, in the meantime, I must stop for want of paper-not of passages; for I have got as many more in reserve, and good onestoo, as would require volumes to contain them. I am, &c.                        LETTER VIII                                                  Paris, May 28, 1656  SIR,    You did not suppose that anybody would have the curiosity toknow who we were; but it seems there are people who are trying to makeit out, though they are not very happy in their conjectures. Some takeme for a doctor of the Sorbonne; others ascribe my letters to fouror five persons, who, like me, are neither priests nor Churchmen.All these false surmises convince me that I have succeeded pretty wellin my object, which was to conceal myself from all but yourself andthe worthy monk, who still continues to bear with my visits, while Istill contrive, though with considerable difficulty, to bear withhis conversations. I am obliged, however, to restrain myself; for,were he to discover how much I am shocked at his communications, hewould discontinue them and thus put it out of my power to fulfil thepromise I gave you, of making you acquainted with their morality.You ought to think a great deal of the violence which I thus do tomy own feelings. It is no easy matter, I can assure you, to standstill and see the whole system of Christian ethics undermined bysuch a set of monstrous principles, without daring to put in a word offlat contradiction against them. But, after having borne so much foryour satisfaction, I am resolved I shall burst out for my ownsatisfaction in the end, when his stock of information has beenexhausted. Meanwhile, I shall repress my feelings as much as Ipossibly can for I find that the more I hold my tongue, he is the morecommunicative. The last time I saw him, he told me so many things thatI shall have some difficulty in repeating them all. On the point ofrestitution you will find they have some most convenient principles.For, however the good monk palliates his maxims, those which I amabout to lay before you really go to sanction corrupt judges, usurers,bankrupts, thieves, prostitutes and sorcerers- all of whom are mostliberally absolved from the obligation of restoring their ill-gottengains. It was thus the monk resumed the conversation:    "At the commencement of our interviews, I engaged to explain toyou the maxims of our authors for all ranks and classes; and youhave already seen those that relate to beneficiaries, to priests, tomonks, to domestics, and to gentlemen. Let us now take a cursoryglance at the remaining, and begin with the judges.    "Now I am going to tell you one of the most important andadvantageous maxims which our fathers have laid down in theirfavour. Its author is the learned Castro Palao, one of ourfour-and-twenty elders. His words are: 'May a judge, in a questionof right and wrong, pronounce according to a probable opinion, inpreference to the more probable opinion? He may, even though it shouldbe contrary to his own judgement- imo contra propriam opinionem.'"    "Well, father," cried I, "that is a very fair commencement! Thejudges, surely, are greatly obliged to you; and I am surprised thatthey should be so hostile, as we have sometimes observed, to yourprobabilities, seeing these are so favourable to them. For it wouldappear from this that you give them the same power over men's fortunesas you have given to yourselves over their consciences."    "You perceive we are far from being actuated by self-interest,"returned he; "we have had no other end in view than the repose oftheir consciences; and to the same useful purpose has our great Molinadevoted his attention, in regard to the presents which may be madethem. To remove any scruples which they might entertain in acceptingof these on certain occasions, he has been at the pains to draw outa list of all those cases in which bribes may be taken with a goodconscience, provided, at least, there be no special law forbiddingthem. He says: 'Judges may receive presents from parties when they aregiven them either for friendship's sake, or in gratitude for someformer act of justice, or to induce them to give justice in future, orto oblige them to pay particular attention to their case, or to engagethem to despatch it promptly.' The learned Escobar delivers himself tothe same effect: 'If there be a number of persons, none of whom havemore right than another to have their causes disposed of, will thejudge who accepts of something from one of them, on condition-expacto- of taking up his cause first, be guilty of sin? Certainlynot, according to Layman; for, in common equity, he does no injuryto the rest by granting to one, in consideration of his present,what he was at liberty to grant to any of them he pleased; andbesides, being under an equal obligation to them all in respect oftheir right, he becomes more obliged to the individual who furnishedthe donation, who thereby acquired for himself a preference abovethe rest- a preference which seems capable of a pecuniary valuation-quae obligatio videtur pretio aestimabilis.'"    "May it please your reverence," said I, "after such apermission, I am surprised that the first magistrates of the kingdomshould know no better. For the first president has actually carried anorder in Parliament to prevent certain clerks of court from takingmoney for that very sort of preference- a sign that he is far fromthinking it allowable in judges; and everybody has applauded this as areform of great benefit to all parties."    The worthy monk was surprised at this piece of intelligence, andreplied: "Are you sure of that? I heard nothing about it. Our opinion,recollect, is only probable; the contrary is probable also."    "To tell you the truth, father," said I, "people think that thefirst president has acted more than probably well, and that he hasthus put a stop to a course of public corruption which has been toolong winked at."    "I am not far from being of the same mind," returned he; "butlet us waive that point, and say no more about the judges."    "You are quite right, sir," said I; "indeed, they are not halfthankful enough for all you have done for them."    "That is not my reason," said the father; "but there is so much tobe said on all the different classes that we must study brevity oneach of them. Let us now say a word or two about men of business.You are aware that our great difficulty with these gentlemen is tokeep them from usury- an object to accomplish which our fathers havebeen at particular pains; for they hold this vice in such abhorrencethat Escobar declares 'it is heresy to say that usury is no sin';and Father Bauny has filled several pages of his Summary of Sinswith the pains and penalties due to usurers. He declares them'infamous during their life, and unworthy of sepulture after theirdeath.'"    "O dear! " cried I, "I had no idea he was so severe."    "He can be severe enough when there is occasion for it," saidthe monk; "but then this learned casuist, having observed that someare allured into usury merely from the love of gain, remarks in thesame place that 'he would confer no small obligation on society,who, while he guarded it against the evil effects of usury, and of thesin which gives birth to it, would suggest a method by which one'smoney might secure as large, if not a larger profit, in some honestand lawful employment than he could derive from usurious dealings."    "Undoubtedly, father, there would be no more usurers after that."    "Accordingly," continued he, "our casuist has suggested 'a generalmethod for all sorts of persons- gentlemen, presidents,councillors,' &c.; and a very simple process it is, consisting only inthe use of certain words which must be pronounced by the person in theact of lending his money; after which he may take his interest forit without fear of being a usurer, which he certainly would be onany other plan."    "And pray what may those mysterious words be, father?"    "I will give you them exactly in his own words," said thefather; "for he has written his Summary in French, you know, 'thatit may be understood by everybody,' as he says in the preface: 'Theperson from whom the loan is asked must answer, then, in thismanner: I have got no money to lend, I have got a little, however,to lay out for an honest and lawful profit. If you are anxious to havethe sum you mention in order to make something of it by your industry,dividing the profit and loss between us, I may perhaps be able toaccommodate you. But now I think of it, as it may be a matter ofdifficulty to agree about the profit, if you will secure me acertain portion of it, and give me so much for my principal, so thatit incur no risk, we may come to terms much sooner, and you shalltouch the cash immediately.' Is not that an easy plan for gainingmoney without sin? And has not Father Bauny good reason for concludingwith these words: 'Such, in my opinion, is an excellent plan bywhich a great many people, who now provoke the just indignation of Godby their usuries, extortions, and illicit bargains, might savethemselves, in the way of making good, honest, and legitimateprofits'?"    "O sir!" I exclaimed, "what potent words these must be!Doubtless they must possess some latent virtue to chase away the demonof usury which I know nothing of, for, in my poor judgement, Ialways thought that that vice consisted in recovering more moneythat what was lent."    "You know little about it indeed," he replied. "Usury, accordingto our fathers, consists in little more than the intention of takingthe interest as usurious. Escobar, accordingly, shows you how youmay avoid usury by a simple shift of the intention. 'It would bedownright usury,' says he 'to take interest from the borrower, if weshould exact it as due in point of justice; but if only exacted as duein point of gratitude, it is not usury. Again, it is not lawful tohave directly the intention of profiting by the money lent; but toclaim it through the medium of the benevolence of the borrower-media benevolentia- is not usury.' These are subtle methods; but, tomy mind, the best of them all (for we have a great choice of them)is that of the Mohatra bargain."    "The Mohatra, father!"    "You are not acquainted with it, I see," returned he. "The name isthe only strange thing about it. Escobar will explain it to you:'The Mohatra bargain is effected by the needy person purchasing somegoods at a high price and on credit, in order to sell them over again,at the same time and to the same merchant, for ready money and at acheap rate.' This is what we call the Mohatra- a sort of bargain,you perceive, by which a person receives a certain sum of readymoney by becoming bound to pay more."    "But, sir, I really think nobody but Escobar has employed such aterm as that; is it to be found in any other book?"    "How little you do know of what is going on, to be sure!" criedthe father. "Why, the last work on theological morality, printed atParis this very year, speaks of the Mohatra, and learnedly, too. It iscalled Epilogus Summarum, and is an abridgment of all the summaries ofdivinity- extracted from Suarez, Sanchez, Lessius, Fagundez,Hurtado, and other celebrated casuists, as the title bears. Thereyou will find it said, on p. 54, that 'the Mohatra bargain takes placewhen a man who has occasion for twenty pistoles purchases from amerchant goods to the amount of thirty pistoles, payable within ayear, and sells them back to him on the spot for twenty pistoles readymoney.' This shows you that the Mohatra is not such an unheard-of termas you supposed."    "But, father, is that sort of bargain lawful?"    "Escobar," replied he, "tells us in the same place that thereare laws which prohibit it under very severe penalties."    "It is useless, then, I suppose?"    "Not at all; Escobar, in the same passage, suggests expedients formaking it lawful: 'It is so, even though the principal intentionboth of the buyer and seller is to make money by the transaction,provided the seller, in disposing of the goods, does not exceedtheir highest price, and in re-purchasing them does not go below theirlowest price, and that no previous bargain has been made, expressly orotherwise.' Lessius, however, maintains that 'even though the merchanthas sold his goods, with the intention of re-purchasing them at thelowest price, he is not bound to make restitution of the profit thusacquired, unless, perhaps, as an act of charity, in the case of theperson from whom it had been exacted being in poor circumstances,and not even then, if he cannot do it without inconvenience- sicommode non potest.' This is the utmost length to which they couldgo."    "Indeed, sir," said I, "any further indulgence would, I shouldthink, be rather too much."    "Oh, our fathers know very well when it is time for them to stop!"cried the monk. "So much, then, for the utility of the Mohatra. Imight have mentioned several other methods, but these may suffice; andI have now to say a little in regard to those who are in embarrassedcircumstances. Our casuists have sought to relieve them, accordingto their condition of life. For, if they have not enough of propertyfor a decent maintenance, and at the same time for paying their debts,they permit them to secure a portion by making a bankruptcy with theircreditors. This has been decided by Lessius, and confirmed by Escobar,as follows: 'May a person who turns bankrupt, with a good consciencekeep back as much of his personal estate as may be necessary tomaintain his family in a respectable way- ne indecore vivat? I hold,with Lessius, that he may, even though he may have acquired his wealthunjustly and by notorious crimes- ex injustilia et notorio delicto;only, in this case, he is not at liberty to retain so large anamount as he otherwise might.'"    "Indeed, father! what a strange sort of charity is this, toallow property to remain in the hands of the man who has acquired itby rapine, to support him in his extravagance rather than go intothe hands of his creditors, to whom it legitimately belongs!"    "It is impossible to please everybody," replied the father; "andwe have made it our particular study to relieve these unfortunatepeople. This partiality to the poor has induced our great Vasquez,cited by Castro Palao, to say that 'if one saw a thief going to roba poor man, it would be lawful to divert him from his purpose bypointing out to him some rich individual, whom he might rob in placeof the other.' If you have not access to Vasquez or Castro Palao,you will find the same thing in your copy of Escobar; for, as youare aware, his work is little more than a compilation from twenty-fourof the most celebrated of our fathers. You will find it in histreatise, entitled The Practice of our Society, in the Matter ofCharity towards our Neighbours."    "A very singular kind of charity this," I observed, "to save oneman from suffering loss, by inflicting it upon another! But Isuppose that, to complete the charity, the charitable adviser would bebound in conscience to restore to the rich man the sum which he hadmade him lose?"    "Not at all, sir," returned the monk; "for he did not rob the man-he only advised the other to do it. But only attend to this notabledecision of Father Bauny, on a case which will still more astonishyou, and in which you would suppose there was a much strongerobligation to make restitution. Here are his identical words: 'Aperson asks a soldier to beat his neighbour, or to set fire to thebarn of a man that has injured him. The question is whether, in theessence of the soldier, the person who employed him to commit theseoutrages is bound to make reparation out of his own pocket for thedamage that has followed? My opinion is that he is not. For none canbe held bound to restitution, where there has been no violation ofjustice; and is justice violated by asking another to do us afavour? As to the nature of the request which he made, he is atliberty either to acknowledge or deny it; to whatever side he mayincline, it is a matter of mere choice; nothing obliges him to it,unless it may be the goodness, gentleness, and easiness of hisdisposition. If the soldier, therefore, makes no reparation for themischief he has done, it ought not to be exacted from him at whoserequest he injured the innocent.'"    This sentence had very nearly broken up the whole conversation,for I was on the point of bursting into a laugh at the idea of thegoodness and gentleness of a burner of barns, and at these strangesophisms which would exempt from the duty of restitution the principaland real incendiary, whom the civil magistrate would not exempt fromthe halter. But, had I not restrained myself, the worthy monk, who wasperfectly serious, would have been displeased; he proceeded,therefore, without any alteration of countenance, in his observations.    "From such a mass of evidence, you ought to be satisfied now ofthe futility of your objections; but we are losing sight of oursubject. To revert, then, to the succour which our fathers apply topersons in straitened circumstances, Lessius, among others,maintains that 'it is lawful to steal, not only in a case of extremenecessity, but even where the necessity is grave, though notextreme.'"    "This is somewhat startling, father," said I. "There are veryfew people in this world who do not consider their cases ofnecessity to be grave ones, and to whom, accordingly, you would notgive the right of stealing with a good conscience. And, though youshould restrict the permission to those only who are really andtruly in that condition, you open the door to an infinite number ofpetty larcenies which the magistrates would punish in spite of yourgrave necessity, and which you ought to repress on a higher principle-you who are bound by your office to be the conservators, not ofjustice only, but of charity between man and man, a grace which thispermission would destroy. For after all, now, is it not a violation ofthe law of charity, and of our duty to our neighbour, to deprive a manof his property in order to turn it to our own advantage? Such, atleast, is the way I have been taught to think hitherto."    "That will not always hold true," replied the monk; "for our greatMolina has taught us that 'the rule of charity does not bind us todeprive ourselves of a profit, in order thereby to save ourneighbour from a corresponding loss.' He advances this incorroboration of what he had undertaken to prove- 'that one is notbound in conscience to restore the goods which another had put intohis hands in order to cheat his creditors.' Lessius holds the sameopinion, on the same ground. Allow me to say, sir, that you have toolittle compassion for people in distress. Our fathers have had morecharity than that comes to: they render ample justice to the poor,as well as the rich; and, I may add, to sinners as well as saints.For, though far from having any predilection for criminals, they donot scruple to teach that the property gained by crime may be lawfullyretained. 'No person,' says Lessius, speaking generally, 'is bound,either by the law of nature or by positive laws (that is, by any law),to make restitution of what has been gained by committing a criminalaction, such as adultery, even though that action is contrary tojustice.' For, as Escobar comments on this writer, 'though theproperty which a woman acquires by adultery is certainly gained inan illicit way, yet once acquired, the possession of it is lawful-quamvis mulier illicite acquisat, licite tamen retinet acquisita.'It is on this principle that the most celebrated of our writers haveformally decided that the bribe received by a judge from one of theparties who has a bad case, in order to procure an unjust decisionin his favour, the money got by a soldier for killing a man, or theemoluments gained by infamous crimes, may be legitimately retained.Escobar, who has collected this from a number of our authors, laysdown this general rule on the point that 'the means acquired byinfamous courses, such as murder, unjust decisions, profligacy, &c.,are legitimately possessed, and none are obliged to restore them.'And, further, 'they may dispose of what they have received forhomicide, profligacy, &c., as they please; for the possession is just,and they have acquired a propriety in the fruits of their iniquity.'"    "My dear father," cried I, "this is a mode of acquisition whichI never heard of before; and I question much if the law will hold itgood, or if it will consider assassination, injustice, and adultery,as giving valid titles to property."    "I do not know what your law-books may say on the point," returnedthe monk; "but I know well that our books, which are the genuine rulesfor conscience, bear me out in what I say. It is true they make oneexception, in which restitution is positively enjoined; that is, inthe case of any receiving money from those who have no right todispose of their property such as minors and monks. 'Unless,' says thegreat Molina, 'a woman has received money from one who cannot dispose'of it, such as a monk or a minor- nisi mulier accepisset ab eo quialienare non potest, ut a religioso et filio familias. In this caseshe must give back the money.' And so says Escobar."    "May it please your reverence," said I, "the monks, I see, aremore highly favoured in this way than other people."    "By no means," he replied; "have they not done as much generallyfor all minors, in which class monks may be viewed as continuing alltheir lives? It is barely an act of justice to make them an exception;but with regard to all other people, there is no obligation whateverto refund to them the money received from them for a criminalaction. For, as has been amply shown by Lessius, 'a wicked actionmay have its price fixed in money, by calculating the advantagereceived by the person who orders it to be done and the troubletaken by him who carries it into execution; on which account thelatter is not bound to restore the money he got for the deed, whateverthat may have been- homicide, injustice, or a foul act' (for suchare the illustrations which he uniformly employs in this question);'unless he obtained the money from those having no right to dispose oftheir property. You may object, perhaps, that he who has obtainedmoney for a piece of wickedness is sinning and, therefore, oughtneither to receive nor retain it. But I reply that, after the thing isdone, there can be no sin either in giving or in receiving payment forit.' The great Filiutius enters still more minutely into details,remarking 'that a man is bound in conscience to vary his paymentsfor actions of this sort, according to the different conditions of theindividuals who commit them, and some may bring a higher price thanothers.' This he confirms by very solid arguments."    He then pointed out to me, in his authors, some things of thisnature so indelicate that I should be ashamed to repeat them; andindeed the monk himself, who is a good man, would have beenhorrified at them himself, were it not for the profound respectwhich he entertains for his fathers, and which makes him receivewith veneration everything that proceeds from them. Meanwhile, Iheld my tongue, not so much with the view of allowing him to enlargeon this matter as from pure astonishment at finding the books of menin holy orders stuffed with sentiments at once so horrible, soiniquitous, and so silly. He went on, therefore, withoutinterruption in his discourse, concluding as follows:    "From these premisses, our illustrious Molina decides thefollowing question (and after this, I think you will have got enough):'If one has received money to perpetrate a wicked action, is heobliged to restore it? We must distinguish here,' says this great man;'if he has not done the deed, he must give back the cash; if he has,he is under no such obligation!' Such are some of our principlestouching restitution. You have got a great deal of instruction to-day;and I should like, now, to see what proficiency you have made. Come,then, answer me this question: 'Is a judge, who has received a sumof money from one of the parties before him, in order to pronounce ajudgement in his favour, obliged to make restitution?'"    "You were just telling me a little ago, father, that he was not."    "I told you no such thing," replied the father; "did I expressmyself so generally? I told you he was not bound to makerestitution, provided he succeeded in gaining the cause for theparty who had the wrong side of the question. But if a man has justiceon his side, would you have him to purchase the success of hiscause, which is his legitimate right? You are very unconscionable.Justice, look you, is a debt which the judge owes, and therefore hecannot sell it; but he cannot be said to owe injustice, andtherefore he may lawfully receive money for it. All our leadingauthors, accordingly, agree in teaching 'that though a judge isbound to restore the money he had received for doing an act ofjustice, unless it was given him out of mere generosity, he is notobliged to restore what he has received from a man in whose favourhe has pronounced an unjust decision.'"    This preposterous decision fairly dumbfounded me, and, while I wasmusing on its pernicious tendencies, the monk had prepared anotherquestion for me. "Answer me again," said he, "with a little morecircumspection. Tell me now, 'if a man who deals in divination isobliged to make restitution of the money he has acquired in theexercise of his art?'"    "Just as you please, your reverence," said I.    "Eh! what!- just as I please! Indeed, but you are a prettyscholar! It would seem, according to your way of talking, that thetruth depended on our will and pleasure. I see that, in the presentcase, you would never find it out yourself: so I must send you toSanchez for a solution of the problem- no less a man than Sanchez.In the first place, he makes a distinction between 'the case of thediviner who has recourse to astrology and other natural means, andthat of another who employs the diabolical art. In the one case, hesays, the diviner is bound to make restitution; in the other he isnot.' Now, guess which of them is the party bound?"    "It is not difficult to find out that," said I.    "I see what you mean to say," he replied. "You think that he oughtto make restitution in the case of his having employed the agency ofdemons. But you know nothing about it; it is just the reverse. 'If,'says Sanchez, 'the sorcerer has not taken care and pains todiscover, by means of the devil, what he could not have knownotherwise, he must make restitution- si nullam operam apposuit ut artediaboli id sciret, but if he has been at that trouble, he is notobliged.'"    "And why so, father?"    "Don't you See?" returned he. "It is because men may trulydivine by the aid of the devil, whereas astrology is a mere sham."    "But, sir, should the devil happen not to tell the truth (and heis not much more to be trusted than astrology), the magician must, Ishould think, for the same reason, be obliged to make restitution?"    "Not always," replied the monk: "Distinguo, as Sanchez says, here.If the magician be ignorant of the diabolic art- si sit artisdiabolicae ignarus- he is bound to restore: but if he is an expertsorcerer, and has done all in his power to arrive at the truth, theobligation ceases; for the industry of such a magician may beestimated at a certain sum of money.'"    "There is some sense in that," I said; "for this is an excellentplan to induce sorcerers to aim at proficiency in their art, in thehope of making an honest livelihood, as you would say, by faithfullyserving the public."    "You are making a jest of it, I suspect," said the father: "thatis very wrong. If you were to talk in that way in places where youwere not known, some people might take it amiss and charge you withturning sacred subjects into ridicule."    "That, father, is a charge from which I could very easilyvindicate myself; for certain I am that whoever will be at the troubleto examine the true meaning of my words will find my object to beprecisely the reverse; and perhaps, sir, before our conversationsare ended, I may find an opportunity of making this very amplyapparent."    "Ho, ho," cried the monk, "there is no laughing in your head now."    "I confess," said I, "that the suspicion that I intended tolaugh at things sacred would be as painful for me to incur as it wouldbe unjust in any to entertain it."    "I did not say it in earnest," returned the father; "but let usspeak more seriously."    "I am quite disposed to do so, if you prefer it; that depends uponyou, father. But I must say, that I have been astonished to see yourfriends carrying their attentions to all sorts and conditions of menso far as even to regulate the legitimate gains of sorcerers."    "One cannot write for too many people," said the monk, "nor be toominute in particularising cases, nor repeat the same things toooften in different books. You may be convinced of this by thefollowing anecdote, which is related by one of the gravest of ourfathers, as you may well suppose, seeing he is our present Provincial-the reverend Father Cellot: 'We know a person,' says he, 'who wascarrying a large sum of money' in his pocket to restore it, inobedience to the orders of his confessor, and who, stepping into abookseller's shop by the way, inquired if there was anything new?-numquid novi?- when the bookseller showed him a book on moraltheology, recently published; and turning over the leavescarelessly, and without reflection, he lighted upon a passagedescribing his own case, and saw that he was under no obligation tomake restitution: upon which, relieved from the burden of hisscruples, he returned home with a purse no less heavy, and a heartmuch lighter, than when he left it- abjecta scrupuli sarcina,retento auri pondere, levior domum repetiit.'    "Say, after hearing that, if it is useful or not to know ourmaxims? Will you laugh at them now? or rather, are you not prepared tojoin with Father Cellot in the pious reflection which he makes onthe blessedness of that incident? 'Accidents of that kind,' heremarks, 'are, with God, the effect of his providence; with theguardian angel, the effect of his good guidance; with theindividuals to whom they happen, the effect of their predestination.From all eternity, God decided that the golden chain of theirsalvation should depend on such and such an author, and not upon ahundred others who say the same thing, because they never happen tomeet with them. Had that man not written, this man would not have beensaved. All, therefore, who find fault with the multitude of ourauthors, we would beseech, in the bowels of Jesus Christ, to beware ofenvying others those books which the eternal election of God and theblood of Jesus Christ have purchased for them!' Such are theeloquent terms in which this learned man proves successfully theproposition which he had advanced, namely, 'How useful it must be tohave a great many writers on moral theology- quam utile sit detheologia morali multos scribere!'"    "Father," said I, "I shall defer giving you my opinion of thatpassage to another opportunity; in the meantime, I shall only say thatas your maxims are so useful, and as it is so important to publishthem, you ought to continue to give me further instruction in them.For I can assure you that the person to whom I send them shows myletters to a great many people. Not that we intend to availourselves of them in our own case; but, indeed, we think it will beuseful for the world to be informed about them."    "Very well," rejoined the monk, "you see I do not conceal them;and, in continuation, I am ready to furnish you, at our nextinterview, with an account of the comforts and indulgences which ourfathers allow, with the view of rendering salvation easy, and devotionagreeable; so that, in addition to what you have hitherto learned asto particular conditions of men, you may learn what applies in generalto all classes, and thus you will have gone through a completecourse of instruction." So saying, the monk took his leave of me. Iam, &c.    P.S. I have always forgot to tell you that there are differenteditions of Escobar. Should you think of purchasing him, I wouldadvise you to choose the Lyons edition, having on the title page thedevice of a lamb lying on a book sealed with seven seals; or theBrussels edition of 1651. Both of these are better and larger than theprevious editions published at Lyons in the years 1644 and 1646.                        LETTER IX                                                  Paris, July 3, 1656  SIR,    I shall use as little ceremony with you as the worthy monk didwith me when I saw him last. The moment he perceived me, he cameforward, with his eyes fixed on a book which he held in his hand,and accosted me thus: "'Would you not be infinitely obliged to any onewho should open to you the gates of paradise? Would you not givemillions of gold to have a key by which you might gain admittancewhenever you thought proper? You need not be at such expense; hereis one- here are a hundred for much less money.'"    At first I was at a loss to know whether the good father wasreading, or talking to me, but he soon put the matter beyond doubtby adding:    "These, sir, are the opening words of a fine book, written byFather Barry of our Society; for I never give you anything of my own."    "What book is it?" asked I.    "Here is its title," he replied: "Paradise opened to Philagio,in a Hundred Devotions to the Mother of God, easily practised."    "Indeed, father! and is each of these easy devotions asufficient passport to heaven?"    "It is," returned he. "Listen to what follows: 'The devotions tothe Mother of God, which you will find in this book, are so manycelestial keys, which will open wide to you the gates of paradise,provided you practise them'; and, accordingly, he says at theconclusion, 'that he is satisfied if you practise only one of them.'"    "Pray, then, father, do teach me one of the easiest of them."    "They are all easy," he replied, "for example- 'Saluting theHoly Virgin when you happen to meet her image- saying the littlechaplet of the pleasures of the Virgin- fervently pronouncing the nameof Mary- commissioning the angels to bow to her for us- wishing tobuild her as many churches as all the monarchs on earth have done-bidding her good morrow every morning, and good night in theevening- saying the Ave Maria every day, in honour of the heart ofMary'- which last devotion, he says, possesses the additional virtueof securing us the heart of the Virgin."    "But, father," said I, "only provided we give her our own inreturn, I presume?"    "That," he replied, "is not absolutely necessary, when a person istoo much attached to the world. Hear Father Barry: 'Heart for heartwould, no doubt, be highly proper; but yours is rather too muchattached to the world, too much bound up in the creature, so that Idare not advise you to offer, at present, that poor little slave whichyou call your heart.' And so he contents himself with the Ave Mariawhich he had prescribed."    "Why, this is extremely easy work," said I, "and I should reallythink that nobody will be damned after that."    "Alas!" said the monk, "I see you have no idea of the hardnessof some people's hearts. There are some, sir, who would never engageto repeat, every day, even these simple words, Good day, Good evening,just because such a practice would require some exertion of memory.And, accordingly, it became necessary for Father Barry to furnish themwith expedients still easier, such as wearing a chaplet night andday on the arm, in the form of a bracelet, or carrying about one'sperson a rosary, or an image of the Virgin. 'And, tell me now,' asFather Barry says, 'if I have not provided you with easy devotionsto obtain the good graces of Mary?'"    "Extremely easy indeed, father," I observed.    "Yes," he said, "it is as much as could possibly be done, and Ithink should be quite satisfactory. For he must be a wretched creatureindeed, who would not spare a single moment in all his lifetime to puta chaplet on his arm, or a rosary in his pocket, and thus secure hissalvation; and that, too, with so much certainty that none who havetried the experiment have ever found it to fail, in whatever waythey may have lived; though, let me add, we exhort people not toomit holy living. Let me refer you to the example of this, given at p.34; it is that of a female who, while she practised daily the devotionof saluting the images of the Virgin, spent all her days in mortalsin, and yet was saved after all, by the merit of that singledevotion."    "And how so?" cried I.    "Our Saviour," he replied, "raised her up again, for the verypurpose of showing it. So certain it is that none can perish whopractise any one of these devotions."    "My dear sir," I observed, "I am fully aware that the devotions tothe Virgin are a powerful means of salvation, and that the least ofthem, if flowing from the exercise of faith and charity, as in thecase of the saints who have practised them, are of great merit; but tomake persons believe that, by practising these without reforming theirwicked lives, they will be converted by them at the hour of death,or that God will raise them up again, does appear calculated rather tokeep sinners going on in their evil courses, by deluding them withfalse peace and foolhardy confidence, than to draw them off from sinby that genuine conversion which grace alone can effect."    "What does it matter," replied the monk, "by what road we enterparadise, provided we do enter it? as our famous Father Binet,formerly our Provincial, remarks on a similar subject, in hisexcellent book, On the Mark of Predestination. 'Be it by hook or bycrook,' as he says, 'what need we care, if we reach at last thecelestial city.'"    "Granted," said I; "but the great question is if we will get thereat all."    "The Virgin will be answerable for that," returned he; "so saysFather Barry in the concluding lines of his book: 'If at the hour ofdeath, the enemy should happen to put in some claim upon you, andoccasion disturbance in the little commonwealth of your thoughts,you have only to say that Mary will answer for you, and that he mustmake his application to her.'"    "But, father, it might be possible to puzzle you, were onedisposed to push the question a little further. Who, for example,has assured us that the Virgin will be answerable in this case?"    "Father Barry will be answerable for her," he replied. "'As forthe profit and happiness to be derived from these devotions,' he says,'I will be answerable for that; I will stand bail for the goodMother.'"    "But, father, who is to be answerable for Father Barry?"    "How!" cried the monk; "for Father Barry? is he not a member ofour Society; and do you need to be told that our Society is answerablefor all the books of its members? It is highly necessary and importantfor you to know about this. There is an order in our Society, by whichall booksellers are prohibited from printing any work of our fatherswithout the approbation of our divines and the permission of oursuperiors. This regulation was passed by Henry III, 10th May 1583, andconfirmed by Henry IV, 20th December 1603, and by Louis XIII, 14thFebruary 1612; so that the whole of our body stands responsible forthe publications of each of the brethren. This is a feature quitepeculiar to our community. And, in consequence of this, not a singlework emanates from us which does not breathe the spirit of theSociety. That, sir, is a piece of information quite apropos."    "My good father," said I, "you oblige me very much, and I onlyregret that I did not know this sooner, as it will induce me to payconsiderably more attention to your authors."    "I would have told you sooner," he replied, "had an opportunityoffered; I hope, however, you will profit by the information infuture, and, in the meantime, let us prosecute our subject. Themethods of securing salvation which I have mentioned are, in myopinion, very easy, very sure, and sufficiently numerous; but it wasthe anxious wish of our doctors that people should not stop short atthis first step, where they only do what is absolutely necessary forsalvation and nothing more. Aspiring, as they do without ceasing,after the greater glory of God, they sought to elevate men to a higherpitch of piety; and, as men of the world are generally deterred fromdevotion by the strange ideas they have been led to form of it by somepeople, we have deemed it of the highest importance to remove thisobstacle which meets us at the threshold. In this department Father LeMoine has acquired much fame, by his work entitled Devotion Made Easy,composed for this very purpose. The picture which he draws of devotionin this work is perfectly charming. None ever understood the subjectbefore him. Only hear what he says in the beginning of his work:'Virtue has never as yet been seen aright; no portrait of her hithertoproduced, has borne the least verisimilitude. It is by no meanssurprising that so few have attempted to scale her rocky eminence. Shehas been held up as a cross-tempered dame, whose only delight is insolitude; she has been associated with toil and sorrow; and, in short,represented as the foe of sports and diversions, which are, in fact,the flowers of joy and the seasoning of life.'"    "But, father, I am sure, I have heard, at least, that there havebeen great saints who led extremely austere lives."    "No doubt of that," he replied; "but still, to use the language ofthe doctor, 'there have always been a number of genteel saints, andwell-bred devotees'; and this difference in their manners, mark you,arises entirely from a difference of humours. 'I am far from denying,'says my author, 'that there are devout persons to be met with, paleand melancholy in their temperament, fond of silence and retirement,with phlegm instead of blood in their veins, and with faces of clay;but there are many others of a happier complexion, and who possessthat sweet and warm humour, that genial and rectified blood, whichis the true stuff that joy is made of.'    "You see," resumed the monk, "that the love of silence andretirement is not common to all devout people; and that, as I wassaying, this is the effect rather of their complexion than theirpiety. Those austere manners to which you refer are, in fact, properlythe character of a savage and barbarian, and, accordingly, you willfind them ranked by Father Le Moine among the ridiculous and brutalmanners of a moping idiot. The following is the description he hasdrawn of one of these in the seventh book of his Moral Pictures. 'Hehas no eyes for the beauties of art or nature. Were he to indulge inanything that gave him pleasure, he would consider himself oppressedwith a grievous load. On festival days, he retires to holdfellowship with the dead. He delights in a grotto rather than apalace, and prefers the stump of a tree to a throne. As to injuriesand affronts, he is as insensible to them as if he had the eyes andears of a statue. Honour and glory are idols with whom he has noacquaintance, and to whom he has no incense to offer. To him abeautiful woman is no better than a spectre; and those imperial andcommanding looks- those charming tyrants who hold so many slaves inwilling and chainless servitude- have no more influence over hisoptics than the sun over those of owls,' &c."    "Reverend sir," said I, "had you not told me that Father LeMoine was the author of that description, I declare I would haveguessed it to be the production of some profane fellow who had drawnit expressly with the view of turning the saints into ridicule. For ifthat is not the picture of a man entirely denied to those feelingswhich the Gospel obliges us to renounce, I confess that I know nothingof the matter."    "You may now perceive, then, the extent of your ignorance," hereplied; "for these are the features of a feeble, uncultivated mind,'destitute of those virtuous and natural affections which it oughtto possess,' as Father Le Moine says at the close of that description.Such is his way of teaching 'Christian virtue and philosophy,' as heannounces in his advertisement; and, in truth, it cannot be deniedthat this method of treating devotion is much more agreeable to thetaste of the world than the old way in which they went to workbefore our times."    "There can be no comparison between them," was my reply, "and Inow begin to hope that you will be as good as your word."    "You will see that better by-and-by," returned the monk. "HithertoI have only spoken of piety in general, but, just to show you morein detail how our fathers have disencumbered it of its toils andtroubles, would it not be most consoling to the ambitious to learnthat they may maintain genuine devotion along with an inordinatelove of greatness?"    "What, father! even though they should run to the utmost excess ofambition?"    "Yes," he replied; "for this would be only a venial sin, unlessthey sought after greatness in order to offend God and injure theState more effectually. Now venial sins do not preclude a man frombeing devout, as the greatest saints are not exempt from them.'Ambition,' says Escobar, 'which consists in an inordinate appetitefor place and power, is of itself a venial sin; but when suchdignities are coveted for the purpose of hurting the commonwealth,or having more opportunity to offend God, these adventitiouscircumstances render it mortal.'"    "Very savoury doctrine, indeed, father."    "And is it not still more savoury," continued the monk, "formisers to be told, by the same authority, 'that the rich are notguilty of mortal sin by refusing to give alms out of their superfluityto the poor in the hour of their greatest need?- scio in gravipauperum necessitate divites non dando superflua, non peccaremortaliter.'"    "Why truly," said I, "if that be the case, I give up allpretension to skill in the science of sins."    "To make you still more sensible of this," returned he, "youhave been accustomed to think, I suppose, that a good opinion of one'sself, and a complacency in one's own works, is a most dangerous sin?Now, will you not be surprised if I can show you that such a goodopinion, even though there should be no foundation for it, is so farfrom being a sin that it is, on the contrary, the gift of God?"    "Is it possible, father?"    "That it is," said the monk; "and our good Father Garasse shows itin his French work, entitled Summary of the Capital Truths ofReligion: 'It is a result of commutative justice that all honestlabour should find its recompense either in praise or inself-satisfaction. When men of good talents publish some excellentwork, they are justly remunerated by public applause. But when a manof weak parts has wrought hard at some worthless production, and failsto obtain the praise of the public, in order that his labour may notgo without its reward, God imparts to him a personal satisfaction,which it would be worse than barbarous injustice to envy him. It isthus that God, who is infinitely just, has given even to frogs acertain complacency in their own croaking.'"    "Very fine decisions in favour of vanity, ambition, andavarice!" cried I; "and envy, father, will it be more difficult tofind an excuse for it?"    "That is a delicate point," he replied. "We require to make usehere of Father Bauny's distinction, which he lays down in hisSummary of Sins.- 'Envy of the spiritual good of our neighbour ismortal but envy of his temporal good is only venial.'"    "And why so, father?"    "You shall hear, said he. "'For the good that consists in temporalthings is so slender, and so insignificant in relation to heaven, thatit is of no consideration in the eyes of God and His saints.'"    "But, father, if temporal good is so slender, and of so littleconsideration, how do you come to permit men's lives to be takenaway in order to preserve it?"    "You mistake the matter entirely," returned the monk; "you weretold that temporal good was of no consideration in the eyes of God,but not in the eyes of men."    "That idea never occurred to me," I replied; "and now, it is to behoped that, in virtue of these same distinctions, the world will getrid of mortal sins altogether."    "Do not flatter yourself with that," said the father; "there arestill such things as mortal sins- there is sloth, for example."    "Nay, then, father dear!" I exclaimed, "after that, farewell toall 'the joys of life!'"    "Stay," said the monk, "when you have heard Escobar's definitionof that vice, you will perhaps change your tone: 'Sloth,' he observes,'lies in grieving that spiritual things are spiritual, as if oneshould lament that the sacraments are the sources of grace; whichwould be a mortal sin.'"    "O my dear sir!" cried I, "I don't think that anybody ever took itinto his head to be slothful in that way."    "And accordingly," he replied, "Escobar afterwards remarks: 'Imust confess that it is very rarely that a person falls into the sinof sloth.' You see now how important it is to define things properly?"    "Yes, father, and this brings to my mind your other definitionsabout assassinations, ambuscades, and superfluities. But why haveyou not extended your method to all cases, and given definitions ofall vices in your way, so that people may no longer sin ingratifying themselves?"    "It is not always essential," he replied, "to accomplish thatpurpose by changing the definitions of things. I may illustrate thisby referring to the subject of good cheer, which is accounted one ofthe greatest pleasures of life, and which Escobar thus sanctions inhis Practice according to our Society: 'Is it allowable for a personto eat and drink to repletion, unnecessarily, and solely for pleasure?Certainly he may, according to Sanchez, provided he does not therebyinjure his health; because the natural appetite may be permitted toenjoy its proper functions.'"    "Well, father, that is certainly the most complete passage, andthe most finished maxim in the whole of your moral system! Whatcomfortable inferences may be drawn from it! Why, and is gluttony,then, not even a venial sin?"    "Not in the shape I have just referred to," he replied; "but,according to the same author, it would be a venial sin 'were aperson to gorge himself, unnecessarily, with eating and drinking, tosuch a degree as to produce vomiting.' So much for that point. I wouldnow say a little about the facilities we have invented for avoidingsin in worldly conversations and intrigues. One of the mostembarrassing of these cases is how to avoid telling lies, particularlywhen one is anxious to induce a belief in what is false. In suchcases, our doctrine of equivocations has been found of admirableservice, according to which, as Sanchez has it, 'it is permitted touse ambiguous terms, leading people to understand them in anothersense from that in which we understand them ourselves.'"    "I know that already, father," said I.    "We have published it so often," continued he, "that at length, itseems, everybody knows of it. But do you know what is to be donewhen no equivocal words can be got?"    "No, father."    "I thought as much, said the Jesuit; "this is something new,sir: I mean the doctrine of mental reservations. 'A man may swear,' asSanchez says in the same place, 'that he never did such a thing(though he actually did it), meaning within himself that he did not doso on a certain day, or before he was born, or understanding any othersuch circumstance, while the words which he employs have no such senseas would discover his meaning. And this is very convenient in manycases, and quite innocent, when necessary or conducive to one'shealth, honour, or advantage.'"    "Indeed, father! is that not a lie, and perjury to boot?"    "No," said the father; "Sanchez and Filiutius prove that it isnot; for, says the latter, 'it is the intention that determines thequality of the action.' And he suggests a still surer method foravoiding falsehood, which is this: After saying aloud, 'I swear that Ihave not done that,' to add, in a low voice, 'to-day'; or after sayingaloud, 'I swear,' to interpose in a whisper, 'that I say,' and thencontinue aloud, 'that I have done that.' This, you perceive, istelling the truth."    "I grant it," said I; "it might possibly, however, be found tobe telling the truth in a low key, and falsehood in a loud one;besides, I should be afraid that many people might not have sufficientpresence of mind to avail themselves of these methods."    "Our doctors," replied the Jesuit, "have taught, in the samepassage, for the benefit of such as might not be expert in the useof these reservations, that no more is required of them, to avoidlying, than simply to say that 'they have not done' what they havedone, provided 'they have, in general, the intention of giving totheir language the sense which an able man would give to it.' Becandid, now, and confess if you have not often felt yourselfembarrassed, in consequence of not knowing this?"    "Sometimes," said I.    "And will you not also acknowledge," continued he, "that itwould often prove very convenient to be absolved in conscience fromkeeping certain engagements one may have made?"    "The most convenient thing in the world!" I replied.    "Listen, then, to the general rule laid down by Escobar: 'Promisesare not binding, when the person in making them had no intention tobind himself. Now, it seldom happens that any have such anintention, unless when they confirm their promises by an oath orcontract; so that when one simply says, "I will do it," he meansthat he will do it if he does not change his mind; for he does notwish, by saying that, to deprive himself of his liberty.' He givesother rules in the same strain, which you may consult for yourself,and tells us, in conclusion, 'that all this is taken from Molina andour other authors, and is therefore settled beyond all doubt.'"    "My dear father," I observed, "I had no idea that the direction ofthe intention possessed the power of rendering promises null andvoid."    "You must perceive," returned he, "what facility this affordsfor prosecuting the business of life. But what has given us the mosttrouble has been to regulate the commerce between the sexes; ourfathers being more chary in the matter of chastity. Not but thatthey have discussed questions of a very curious and very indulgentcharacter, particularly in reference to married and betrothedpersons."    At this stage of the conversation I was made acquainted with themost extraordinary questions you can well imagine. He gave me enoughof them to fill many letters; but, as you show my communications toall sorts of persons, and as I do not choose to be the vehicle of suchreading to those who would make it the subject of diversion, I mustdecline even giving the quotations.    The only thing to which I can venture to allude, out of all thebooks which he showed me, and these in French, too, is a passage whichyou will find in Father Bauny's Summary, p. 165, relating to certainlittle familiarities, which, provided the intention is welldirected, he explains "as passing for gallant"; and you will besurprised to find, on p. 148 a principle of morals, as to the powerwhich daughters have to dispose of their persons without the leaveof their relatives, couched in these terms: "When that is done withthe consent of the daughter, although the father may have reason tocomplain, it does not follow that she, or the person to whom she hassacrificed her honour, has done him any wrong, or violated the rulesof justice in regard to him; for the daughter has possession of herhonour, as well as of her body, and can do what she pleases with them,bating death or mutilation of her members." Judge, from that specimen,of the rest. It brings to my recollection a passage from a heathenpoet, a much better casuist, it would appear, than these reverenddoctors; for he says, "that the person of a daughter does not belongwholly to herself, but partly to her father and partly to hermother, without whom she cannot dispose of it, even in marriage."And I am much mistaken if there is a single judge in the land whowould not lay down as law the very reverse of this maxim of FatherBauny.    This is all I dare tell you of this part of our conversation,which lasted so long that I was obliged to beseech the monk tochange the subject. He did so and proceeded to entertain me with theirregulations about female attire.    "We shall not speak," he said, "of those who are actuated byimpure intentions; but, as to others, Escobar remarks that 'if thewoman adorn herself without any evil intention, but merely togratify a natural inclination to vanity- ob naturalem fastusinclinationem- this is only a venial sin, or rather no sin at all.'And Father Bauny maintains, that 'even though the woman knows thebad effect which her care in adorning her person may have upon thevirtue of those who may behold her, all decked out in rich andprecious attire, she would not sin in so dressing.' And, among others,he cites our Father Sanchez as being of the same mind."    "But, father, what do your authors say to those passages ofScripture which so strongly denounce everything of that sort?"    "Lessius has well met that objection," said the monk, "byobserving, 'that these passages of Scripture have the force ofprecepts only in regard to the women of that period, who were expectedto exhibit, by their modest demeanour, an example of edification tothe Pagans.'"    "And where did he find that, father"?    "It does not matter where he found it," replied he; "it isenough to know that the sentiments of these great men are alwaysprobable of themselves. It deserves to be noticed, however, thatFather Le Moine has qualified this general permission; for he willon no account allow it to be extended to the old ladies. 'Youth,' heobserves, 'is naturally entitled to adorn itself, nor can the use ofornament be condemned at an age which is the flower and verdure oflife. But there it should be allowed to remain: it would bestrangely out of season to seek for roses on the snow. The stars alonehave a right to be always dancing, for they have the gift of perpetualyouth. The wisest course in this matter, therefore, for old women,would be to consult good sense and a good mirror, to yield todecency and necessity, and to retire at the first approach of theshades of night.'"    "A most judicious advice," I observed.    "But," continued the monk, "just to show you how careful ourfathers are about everything you can think of, I may mention that,after granting the ladies permission to gamble, and foreseeing that,in many cases, this license would be of little avail unless they hadsomething to gamble with, they have established another maxim in theirfavour, which will be found in Escobar's chapter on larceny, no. 13:'A wife,' says he, 'may gamble, and for this purpose may pilfermoney from her husband.'"    "Well, father, that is capital!    "There are many other good things besides that," said thefather; "but we must waive them and say a little about those moreimportant maxims, which facilitate the practice of holy things- themanner of attending mass, for example. On this subject, our greatdivines, Gaspard Hurtado and Coninck, have taught 'that it is quitesufficient to be present at mass in body, though we may be absent inspirit, provided we maintain an outwardly respectful deportment.'Vasquez goes a step further, maintaining 'that one fulfils the preceptof hearing mass, even though one should go with no such intention atall.' All this is repeatedly laid down by Escobar, who, in onepassage, illustrates the point by the example of those who are draggedto mass by force, and who put on a fixed resolution not to listen toit."    "Truly, sir," said I, "had any other person told me that, Iwould not have believed it."    "In good sooth," he replied, "it requires all the support whichthe authority of these great names can lend it; and so does thefollowing maxim by the same Escobar, 'that even a wicked intention,such as that of ogling the women, joined to that of hearing massrightly, does not hinder a man from fulfilling the service.' Butanother very convenient device, suggested by our learned brotherTurrian, is that 'one may hear the half of a mass from one priest, andthe other half from another; and that it makes no difference though heshould hear first the conclusion of the one, and then the commencementof the other.' I might also mention that it has been decided byseveral of our doctors to be lawful 'to hear the two halves of amass at the same time, from the lips of two different priests, oneof whom is commencing the mass, while the other is at the elevation;it being quite possible to attend to both parties at once, and twohalves of a mass making a whole- duae medietates unam missamconstituunt.' 'From all which,' says Escobar, 'I conclude, that youmay hear mass in a very short period of time; if, for example, youshould happen to hear four masses going on at the same time, soarranged that when the first is at the commencement, the second isat the gospel, the third at the consecration, and the last at thecommunion.'"    "Certainly, father, according to that plan, one may hear massany day at Notre Dame in a twinkling."    "Well," replied he, "that just shows how admirably we havesucceeded in facilitating the hearing of mass. But I am anxious now toshow you how we have softened the use of the sacraments, andparticularly that of penance. It is here that the benignity of ourfathers shines in its truest splendour; and you will be reallyastonished to find that devotion, a thing which the world is so muchafraid of, should have been treated by our doctors with suchconsummate skill that, to use the words of Father Le Moine, in hisDevotion Made Easy, demolishing the bugbear which the devil had placedat its threshold, they have rendered it easier than vice and moreagreeable than pleasure; so that, in fact, simply to live isincomparably more irksome than to live well. Is that not amarvellous change, now?"    "Indeed, father, I cannot help telling you a bit of my mind: Iam sadly afraid that you have overshot the mark, and that thisindulgence of yours will shock more people than it will attract. Themass, for example, is a thing so grand and so holy that, in the eyesof a great many, it would be enough to blast the credit of yourdoctors forever to show them how you have spoken of it."    "With a certain class," replied the monk, "I allow that may be thecase; but do you not know that we accommodate ourselves to all sortsof persons? You seem to have lost all recollection of what I haverepeatedly told you on this point. The first time you are atleisure, therefore, I propose that we make this the theme of ourconversation, deferring till then the lenitives we have introducedinto the confessional. I promise to make you understand it so wellthat you will never forget it."    With these words we parted, so that our next conversation, Ipresume, will turn on the policy of the Society. I am, &c.    P.S. Since writing the above, I have seen Paradise Opened by aHundred Devotions Easily Practised, by Father Barry; and also the Markof Predestination, by Father Binet; both of them pieces well worth theseeing.                        LETTER X                                                Paris, August 2, 1656  SIR,    I have not come yet to the policy of the Society, but shallfirst introduce you to one of its leading principles. I refer to thepalliatives which they have applied to confession, and which areunquestionably the best of all the schemes they have fallen upon to"attract all and repel none." It is absolutely necessary to knowsomething of this before going any further; and, accordingly, the monkjudged it expedient to give me some instructions on the point,nearly as follows:    "From what I have already stated," he observed, "you may judgeof the success with which our doctors have laboured to discover, intheir wisdom, that a great many things, formerly regarded asforbidden, are innocent and allowable; but as there are some sinsfor which one can find no excuse, and for which there is no remedy butconfession, it became necessary to alleviate, by the methods I amnow going to mention, the difficulties attending that practice.Thus, having shown you, in our previous conversations, how werelieve people from troublesome scruples of conscience by showing themthat what they believed to be sinful was indeed quite innocent, Iproceed now to illustrate our convenient plan for expiating what isreally sinful, which is effected by making confession as easy aprocess as it was formerly a painful one."    "And how do you manage that, father?"    "Why," said he, "it is by those admirable subtleties which arepeculiar to our Company, and have been styled by our fathers inFlanders, in The Image of the First Century, 'the pious finesse, theholy artifice of devotion- piam et religiosam calliditatem, etpietatis solertiam.' By the aid of these inventions, as they remark inthe same place, 'crimes may be expiated nowadays alacrius- with morezeal and alacrity than they were committed in former days, and a greatmany people may be washed from their stains almost as cleverly as theycontracted them- plurimi vix citius maculas contrahunt quam eluunt.'"    "Pray, then, father, do teach me some of these most salutarylessons of finesse."    "We have a good number of them, answered the monk; "for thereare a great many irksome things about confession, and for each ofthese we have devised a palliative. The chief difficulties connectedwith this ordinance are the shame of confessing certain sins, thetrouble of specifying the circumstances of others, the penance exactedfor them, the resolution against relapsing into them, the avoidance ofthe proximate occasions of sins, and the regret for having committedthem. I hope to convince you to-day that it is now possible to getover all this with hardly any trouble at all; such is the care we havetaken to allay the bitterness and nauseousness of this verynecessary medicine. For, to begin with the difficulty of confessingcertain sins, you are aware it is of importance often to keep in thegood graces of one's confessor; now, must it not be extremelyconvenient to be permitted, as you are by our doctors, particularlyEscobar and Suarez, 'to have two confessors, one for the mortal sinsand another for the venial, in order to maintain a fair character withyour ordinary confessor- uti bonam famam apud ordinarium tueatur-provided you do not take occasion from thence to indulge in mortalsin?' This is followed by another ingenious contrivance for confessinga sin, even to the ordinary confessor, without his perceiving thatit was committed since the last confession, which is, 'to make ageneral confession, and huddle this last sin in a lump among therest which we confess.' And I am sure you will own that thefollowing decision of Father Bauny goes far to alleviate the shamewhich one must feel in confessing his relapses, namely, 'that,except in certain cases, which rarely occur, the confessor is notentitled to ask his penitent if the sin of which he accuses himself isan habitual one, nor is the latter obliged to answer such aquestion; because the confessor has no right to subject his penitentto the shame of disclosing his frequent relapses.'"    "Indeed, father! I might as well say that a physician has no rightto ask his patient if it is long since he had the fever. Do not sinsassume quite a different aspect according to circumstances? and shouldit not be the object of a genuine penitent to discover the whole stateof his conscience to his confessor, with the same sincerity andopen-heartedness as if he were speaking to Jesus Christ himself, whoseplace the priest occupies? If so, how far is he from realizing sucha disposition who, by concealing the frequency of his relapses,conceals the aggravations of his offence!"    I saw that this puzzled the worthy monk, for he attempted to eluderather than resolve the difficulty by turning my attention toanother of their rules, which only goes to establish a fresh abuse,instead of justifying in the least the decision of Father Bauny; adecision which, in my opinion, is one of the most pernicious oftheir maxims, and calculated to encourage profligate men to continuein their evil habits.    "I grant you," replied the father, "that habit aggravates themalignity of a sin, but it does not alter its nature; and that isthe reason why we do not insist on people confessing it, accordingto the rule laid down by our fathers, and quoted by Escobar, 'that oneis only obliged to confess the circumstances that alter the species ofthe sin, and not those that aggravate it.' Proceeding on this rule,Father Granados says, 'that if one has eaten flesh in Lent, all heneeds to do is to confess that he has broken the fast, withoutspecifying whether it was by eating flesh, or by taking two fishmeals.' And, according to Reginald, 'a sorcerer who has employed thediabolical art is not obliged to reveal that circumstance; it isenough to say that he has dealt in magic, without expressing whetherit was by palmistry or by a paction with the devil.' Fagundez,again, has decided that 'rape is not a circumstance which one is boundto reveal, if the woman give her consent.' All this is quoted byEscobar, with many other very curious decisions as to thesecircumstances, which you may consult at your leisure."    "These 'artifices of devotion' are vastly convenient in theirway," I observed.    "And yet," said the father, "notwithstanding all that, theywould go for nothing, sir, unless we had proceeded to mollify penance,which, more than anything else, deters people from confession. Now,however, the most squeamish have nothing to dread from it, afterwhat we have advanced in our theses of the College of Clermont,where we hold that, if the confessor imposes a suitable penance, andthe penitent be unwilling to submit himself to it, the latter may gohome, 'waiving both the penance and the absolution.' Or, as Escobarsays, in giving the Practice of our Society, 'if the penitentdeclare his willingness to have his penance remitted to the nextworld, and to suffer in purgatory all the pains due to him, theconfessor may, for the honour of the sacrament, impose a very lightpenance on him, particularly if he has reason to believe that thispenitent would object to a heavier one.'"    "I really think," said I, "that, if that is the case, we oughtno longer to call confession the sacrament of penance."    "You are wrong," he replied; "for we always administer somethingin the way of penance, for the form's sake."    "But, father, do you suppose that a man is worthy of receivingabsolution when he will submit to nothing painful to expiate hisoffences? And, in these circumstances, ought you not to retainrather than remit their sins? Are you not aware of the extent ofyour ministry, and that you have the power of binding and loosing?Do you imagine that you are at liberty to give absolutionindifferently to all who ask it, and without ascertaining beforehandif Jesus Christ looses in heaven those whom you loose on earth?"    "What!" cried the father, "do you suppose that we do not know that'the confessor (as one remarks) ought to sit in judgement on thedisposition of his penitent, both because he is bound not todispense the sacraments to the unworthy, Jesus Christ havingenjoined him to be a faithful steward and not give that which isholy unto dogs; and because he is a judge, and it is the duty of ajudge to give righteous judgement, by loosing the worthy and bindingthe unworthy, and he ought not to absolve those whom Jesus Christcondemns.'    "Whose words are these, father?"    "They are the words of our father Filiutius," he replied.    "You astonish me," said I; "I took them to be a quotation from oneof the fathers of the Church. At all events, sir, that passage oughtto make an impression on the confessors, and render them verycircumspect in the dispensation of this sacrament, to ascertainwhether the regret of their penitents is sufficient, and whether theirpromises of future amendment are worthy of credit."    "That is not such a difficult matter," replied the father;"Filiutius had more sense than to leave confessors in that dilemma,and accordingly he suggests an easy way of getting out of it, in thewords immediately following: 'The confessor may easily set his mind atrest as to the disposition of his penitent; for, if he fail to givesufficient evidence of sorrow, the confessor has only to ask him if hedoes not detest the sin in his heart, and, if he answers that he does,he is bound to believe it. The same thing may be said of resolutionsas to the future, unless the case involves an obligation torestitution, or to avoid some proximate occasion of sin.'"    "As to that passage, father, I can easily believe that it isFiliutius' own."    "You are mistaken though," said the father, "for he hasextracted it, word for word, from Suarez."    "But, father, that last passage from Filiutius overturns what hehad laid down in the former. For confessors can no longer be said tosit as judges on the disposition of their penitents, if they are boundto take it simply upon their word, in the absence of all satisfyingsigns of contrition. Are the professions made on such occasions soinfallible, that no other sign is needed? I question much ifexperience has taught your fathers that all who make fair promises areremarkable for keeping them; I am mistaken if they have not oftenfound the reverse."    "No matter," replied the monk; "confessors are bound to believethem for all that; for Father Bauny, who has probed this question tothe bottom, has concluded 'that at whatever time those who have falleninto frequent relapses, without giving evidence of amendment,present themselves before a confessor, expressing their regret for thepast, and a good purpose for the future, he is bound to believe themon their simple averment, although there may be reason to presume thatsuch resolution only came from the teeth outwards. Nay,' says he,'though they should indulge subsequently to greater excess than everin the same delinquencies, still, in my opinion, they may receiveabsolution.' There now! that, I am sure, should silence you."    "But, father," said I, "you impose a great hardship, I think, onthe confessors, by thus obliging them to believe the very reverse ofwhat they see."    "You don't understand it," returned he; "all that is meant is thatthey are obliged to act and absolve as if they believed that theirpenitents would be true to their engagements, though, in point offact, they believe no such thing. This is explained, immediatelyafterwards, by Suarez and Filiutius. After having said that 'thepriest is bound to believe the penitent on his word,' they add: 'It isnot necessary that the confessor should be convinced that the goodresolution of his penitent will be carried into effect, nor eventhat he should judge it probable; it is enough that he thinks theperson has at the time the design in general, though he may veryshortly after relapse. Such is the doctrine of all our authors- itadocent omnes autores.' Will you presume to doubt what has beentaught by our authors?"    "But, sir, what then becomes of what Father Petau himself isobliged to own, in the preface to his Public Penance, 'that the holyfathers, doctors, and councils of the Church agree in holding it asa settled point that the penance preparatory to the eucharist mustbe genuine, constant, resolute, and not languid and sluggish, orsubject to after-thoughts and relapses?'"    "Don't you observe," replied the monk, "that Father Petau isspeaking of the ancient Church? But all that is now so little inseason, to use a common saying of our doctors, that, according toFather Bauny, the reverse is the only true view of the matter.'There are some,' says he, 'who maintain that absolution ought to berefused to those who fall frequently into the same sin, moreespecially if, after being often absolved, they evince no signs ofamendment; and others hold the opposite view. But the only trueopinion is that they ought not to be refused absolution; and, thoughthey should be nothing the better of all the advice given them, thoughthey should have broken all their promises to lead new lives, and beenat no trouble to purify themselves, still it is of no consequence;whatever may be said to the contrary, the true opinion which oughtto be followed is that even in all these cases, they ought to beabsolved.' And again: 'Absolution ought neither to be denied nordelayed in the case of those who live in habitual sins against the lawof God, of nature, and of the Church, although there should be noapparent prospect of future amendment- etsi emendationis futurae nullaspes appareat.'"    "But, father, this certainty of always getting absolution mayinduce sinners- "    "I know what you mean," interrupted the Jesuit; "but listen toFather Bauny, Q. 15: 'Absolution may be given even to him who candidlyavows that the hope of being absolved induced him to sin with morefreedom than he would otherwise have done.' And Father Caussin,defending this proposition, says 'that, were this not true, confessionwould be interdicted to the greater part of mankind; and the onlyresource left poor sinners would be a branch and a rope.'"    "O father, how these maxims of yours will draw people to yourconfessionals!"    "Yes, he replied, "you would hardly believe what numbers are inthe habit of frequenting them; 'we are absolutely oppressed andoverwhelmed, so to speak, under the crowd of our penitents-penitentium numero obruimur'- as is said in The Image of the FirstCentury."    "I could suggest a very simple method," said I, "to escape fromthis inconvenient pressure. You have only to oblige sinners to avoidthe proximate occasions of sin; that single expedient would afford yourelief at once."    "We have no wish for such a relief," rejoined the monk; "quite thereverse; for, as is observed in the same book, 'the great end of ourSociety is to labor to establish the virtues, to wage war on thevices, and to save a great number of souls.' Now, as there are veryfew souls inclined to quit the proximate occasions of sin, we havebeen obliged to define what a proximate occasion is. 'That cannot becalled a proximate occasion,' says Escobar, 'where one sins butrarely, or on a sudden transport- say three or four times a year'; or,as Father Bauny has it, once or twice in a month.' Again, asks thisauthor, 'what is to be done in the case of masters and servants, orcousins, who, living under the same roof, are by this occasion temptedto sin?'"    "They ought to be separated," said I.    "That is what he says, too, 'if their relapses be very frequent:but if the parties offend rarely, and cannot be separated withouttrouble and loss, they may, according to Suarez and other authors,be absolved, provided they promise to sin no more, and are truly sorryfor what is past.'"    This required no explanation, for he had already informed mewith what sort of evidence of contrition the confessor was bound torest satisfied.    "And Father Bauny," continued the monk, "permits those who areinvolved in the proximate occasions of sin, 'to remain as they are,when they cannot avoid them without becoming the common talk of theworld, or subjecting themselves to inconvenience.' 'A priest,' heremarks in another work, 'may and ought to absolve a woman who isguilty of living with a paramour, if she cannot put him awayhonourably, or has some reason for keeping him- si non potesthoneste ejicere, aut habeat aliquam causam retinendi- provided shepromises to act more virtuously for the future.'"    "Well, father," cried I, "you have certainly succeeded in relaxingthe obligation of avoiding the occasions of sin to a verycomfortable extent, by dispensing with the duty as soon as itbecomes inconvenient; but I should think your fathers will at leastallow it be binding when there is no difficulty in the way of itsperformance?"    "Yes," said the father, "though even then the rule is notwithout exceptions. For Father Bauny says, in the same place, 'thatany one may frequent profligate houses, with the view of convertingtheir unfortunate inmates, though the probability should be that hefall into sin, having often experienced before that he has yieldedto their fascinations. Some doctors do not approve of this opinion,and hold that no man may voluntarily put his salvation in peril tosuccour his neighbor; yet I decidedly embrace the opinion which theycontrovert.'"    "A novel sort of preachers these, father! But where does FatherBauny find any ground for investing them with such a mission?"    "It is upon one of his own principles," he replied, "which heannounces in the same place after Basil Ponce. I mentioned it to youbefore, and I presume you have not forgotten it. It is, 'that onemay seek an occasion of sin, directly and expressly- primo et perse- to promote the temporal or spiritual good of himself or hisneighbour.'"    On hearing these passages, I felt so horrified that I was on thepoint of breaking out; but, being resolved to hear him to an end, Irestrained myself, and merely inquired: "How, father, does thisdoctrine comport with that of the Gospel, which binds us to 'pluck outthe right eye,' and 'cut off the right hand,' when they 'offend,' orprove prejudicial to salvation? And how can you suppose that the manwho wilfully indulges in the occasions of sins, sincerely hates sin?Is it not evident, on the contrary, that he has never been properlytouched with a sense of it, and that he has not yet experienced thatgenuine conversion of heart, which makes a man love God as much ashe formerly loved the creature?"    "Indeed!" cried he, "do you call that genuine contrition? It seemsyou do not know that, as Father Pintereau says, 'all our fathersteach, with one accord, that it is an error, and almost a heresy, tohold that contrition is necessary; or that attrition alone, induced bythe sole motive, the fear of the pains of hell, which excludes adisposition to offend, is not sufficient with the sacrament?'"    "What, father! do you mean to say that it is almost an articleof faith that attrition, induced merely by fear of punishment, issufficient with the sacrament? That idea, I think, is peculiar to yourfathers; for those other doctors who hold that attrition is sufficientalong with the sacrament, always take care to show that it must beaccompanied with some love to God at least. It appears to me,moreover, that even your own authors did not always consider thisdoctrine of yours so certain. Your Father Suarez, for instance, speaksof it thus: 'Although it is a probable opinion that attrition issufficient with the sacrament, yet it is not certain, and it may befalse- non est certa, et potest esse falsa. And, if it is false,attrition is not sufficient to save a man; and he that diesknowingly in this state, wilfully exposes himself to the grave perilof eternal damnation. For this opinion is neither very ancient norvery common- nec valde antiqua, nec multum communis.' Sanchez wasnot more prepared to hold it as infallible when he said in his Summarythat 'the sick man and his confessor, who content themselves at thehour of death with attrition and the sacrament, are both chargeablewith mortal sin, on account of the great risk of damnation to whichthe penitent would be exposed, if the opinion that attrition issufficient with the sacrament should not turn out to be true.Comitolus, too, says that 'we should not be too sure that attritionsuffices with the sacrament.'"    Here the worthy father interrupted me. "What!" he cried, "you readour authors then, it seems? That is all very well; but it would bestill better were you never to read them without the precaution ofhaving one of us beside you. Do you not see, now, that, from havingread them alone, you have concluded, in your simplicity, that thesepassages bear hard on those who have more lately supported ourdoctrine of attrition? Whereas it might be shown that nothing couldset them off to greater advantage. Only think what a triumph it is forour fathers of the present day to have succeeded in disseminatingtheir opinion in such short time, and to such an extent that, with theexception of theologians, nobody almost would ever suppose but thatour modern views on this subject had been the uniform belief of thefaithful in all ages! So that, in fact, when you have shown, fromour fathers themselves, that, a few years ago, 'this opinion was notcertain,' you have only succeeded in giving our modern authors thewhole merit of its establishment!    "Accordingly," he continued, "our cordial friend Diana, to gratifyus, no doubt, has recounted the various steps by which the opinionreached its present position. 'In former days, the ancient schoolmenmaintained that contrition was necessary as soon as one hadcommitted a mortal sin; since then, however, it has been thoughtthat it is not binding except on festival days; afterwards, onlywhen some great calamity threatened the people; others, again, that itought not to be long delayed at the approach of death. But ourfathers, Hurtado and Vasquez, have ably refuted all these opinions andestablished that one is not bound to contrition unless he cannot beabsolved in any other way, or at the point of death!' But, to continuethe wonderful progress of this doctrine, I might add, what ourfathers, Fagundez, Granados, and Escobar, have decided, 'thatcontrition is not necessary even at death; because,' say they, 'ifattrition with the sacrament did not suffice at death, it would followthat attrition would not be sufficient with the sacrament. And thelearned Hurtado, cited by Diana and Escobar, goes still further; forhe asks: 'Is that sorrow for sin which flows solely fromapprehension of its temporal consequences, such as having losthealth or money, sufficient? We must distinguish. If the evil is notregarded as sent by the hand of God, such a sorrow does not suffice;but if the evil is viewed as sent by God, as, in fact, all evil,says Diana, except sin, comes from him, that kind of sorrow issufficient.' Our Father Lamy holds the same doctrine."    "You surprise me, father; for I see nothing in all thatattrition of which you speak but what is natural; and in this way asinner may render himself worthy of absolution without supernaturalgrace at all. Now everybody knows that this is a heresy condemned bythe Council."    "I should have thought with you," he replied; "and yet it seemsthis must not be the case, for the fathers of our College ofClermont have maintained (in their Theses of the 23rd May and 6th June1644) 'that attrition may be holy and sufficient for the sacrament,although it may not be supernatural'; and (in that of August 1643)'that attrition, though merely natural, is sufficient for thesacrament, provided it is honest.' I do not see what more could besaid on the subject, unless we choose to subjoin an inference, whichmay be easily drawn from these principles, namely, that contrition, sofar from being necessary to the sacrament, is rather prejudicial toit, inasmuch as, by washing away sins of itself, it would leavenothing for the sacrament to do at all. That is, indeed, exactlywhat the celebrated Jesuit Father Valencia remarks. (Book iv,disp.7, q.8, p.4.) 'Contrition,' says he, 'is by no means necessary inorder to obtain the principal benefit of the sacrament; on thecontrary, it is rather an obstacle in the way of it- imo obstat potiusquominus effectus sequatur.' Nobody could well desire more to besaid in commendation of attrition."    "I believe that, father, said I; "but you must allow me to tellyou my opinion, and to show you to what a dreadful length thisdoctrine leads. When you say that 'attrition, induced by the meredread of punishment,' is sufficient, with the sacrament, to justifysinners, does it not follow that a person may always expiate hissins in this way, and thus be saved without ever having loved Godall his lifetime? Would your fathers venture to hold that?"    "I perceive," replied the monk, "from the strain of yourremarks, that you need some information on the doctrine of our fathersregarding the love of God. This is the last feature of their morality,and the most important of all. You must have learned something of itfrom the passages about contrition which I have quoted to you. Buthere are others still more definite on the point of love to God- Don'tinterrupt me, now; for it is of importance to notice the connection.Attend to Escobar, who reports the different opinions of ourauthors, in his Practice of the Love of God according to ourSociety. The question is: 'When is one obliged to have an actualaffection for God?' Suarez says it is enough if one loves Him beforebeing articulo mortis- at the point of death- without determiningthe exact time. Vasquez, that it is sufficient even at the verypoint of death. Others, when one has received baptism. Others,again, when one is bound to exercise contrition. And others, onfestival days. But our father, Castro Palao, combats all theseopinions, and with good reason- merito. Hurtado de Mendoza insiststhat we are obliged to love God once a year; and that we ought toregard it as a great favour that we are not bound to do it oftener.But our Father Coninck thinks that we are bound to it only once inthree or four years; Henriquez, once in five years; and Filiutius saysthat it is probable that we are not strictly bound to it even oncein five years. How often, then, do you ask? Why, he refers it to thejudgement of the judicious."    I took no notice of all this badinage, in which the ingenuity ofman seems to be sporting, in the height of insolence, with the love ofGod.    "But," pursued the monk, "our Father Antony Sirmond surpassesall on this point, in his admirable book, The Defence of Virtue,where, as he tells the reader, 'he speaks French in France,' asfollows: 'St. Thomas says that we are obliged to love God as soon aswe come to the use of reason: that is rather too soon! Scotus saysevery Sunday; pray, for what reason? Others say when we are sorelytempted: yes, if there be no other way of escaping the temptation.Scotus says when we have received a benefit from God: good, in the wayof thanking Him for it. Others say at death: rather late! As little doI think it binding at the reception of any sacrament: attrition insuch cases is quite enough, along with confession, if convenient.Suarez says that it is binding at some time or another; but at whattime?- he leaves you to judge of that for yourself- he does notknow; and what that doctor did not know I know not who should know.'In short, he concludes that we are not strictly bound to more thanto keep the other commandments, without any affection for God, andwithout giving Him our hearts, provided that we do not hate Him. Toprove this is the sole object of his second treatise. You will find itin every page; more especially where he says: 'God, in commanding usto love Him, is satisfied with our obeying Him in his othercommandments. If God had said: "Whatever obedience thou yieldest me,if thy heart is not given to me, I will destroy thee!" would such amotive, think you, be well fitted to promote the end which God must,and only can, have in view? Hence it is said that we shall love God bydoing His will, as if we loved Him with affection, as if the motive inthis case was real charity. If that is really our motive, so muchthe better; if not, still we are strictly fulfilling the commandmentof love, by having its works, so that (such is the goodness of God!)we are commanded, not so much to love Him, as not to hate Him.'    "Such is the way in which our doctors have discharged men from thepainful obligation of actually loving God. And this doctrine is soadvantageous that our Fathers Annat, Pintereau, Le Moine, and AntonySirmond himself, have strenuously defended it when it has beenattacked. You have only to consult their answers to the MoralTheology. That of Father Pintereau, in particular, will enable youto form some idea of the value of this dispensation, from the pricewhich he tells us that it cost, which is no less than the blood ofJesus Christ. This crowns the whole. It appears, that thisdispensation from the painful obligation to love God, is the privilegeof the Evangelical law, in opposition to the Judaical. 'It wasreasonable,' he says, 'that, under the law of grace in the NewTestament, God should relieve us from that troublesome and arduousobligation which existed under the law of bondage, to exercise anact of perfect contrition, in order to be justified; and that theplace of this should be supplied by the sacraments, instituted inaid of an easier disposition. Otherwise, indeed, Christians, who arethe children, would have no greater facility in gaining the goodgraces of their Father than the Jews, who were the slaves, had inobtaining the mercy of their Lord and Master.'"    "O father!" cried I; "no patience can stand this any longer. It isimpossible to listen without horror to the sentiments I have justheard."    "They are not my sentiments," said the monk.    "I grant it, sir," said I; "but you feel no aversion to them; and,so far from detesting the authors of these maxims, you hold them inesteem. Are you not afraid that your consent may involve you in aparticipation of their guilt? and are you not aware that St. Pauljudges worthy of death, not only the authors of evil things, butalso 'those who have pleasure in them that do them?' Was it not enoughto have permitted men to indulge in so many forbidden things under thecovert of your palliations? Was it necessary to go still further andhold out a bribe to them to commit even those crimes which you foundit impossible to excuse, by offering them an easy and certainabsolution; and for this purpose nullifying the power of thepriests, and obliging them, more as slaves than as judges, toabsolve the most inveterate sinners- without any amendment of life,without any sign of contrition except promises a hundred times broken,without penance 'unless they choose to accept of it', and withoutabandoning the occasions of their vices, 'if they should thereby beput to any inconvenience?'    "But your doctors have gone even beyond this; and the licensewhich they have assumed to tamper with the most holy rules ofChristian conduct amounts to a total subversion of the law of God.They violate 'the great commandment on which hang all the law andthe prophets'; they strike at the very heart of piety; they rob itof the spirit that giveth life; they hold that to love God is notnecessary to salvation; and go so far as to maintain that 'thisdispensation from loving God is the privilege which Jesus Christ hasintroduced into the world!' This, sir, is the very climax ofimpiety. The price of the blood of Jesus Christ paid to obtain us adispensation from loving Him! Before the incarnation, it seems menwere obliged to love God; but since 'God has so loved the world asto give His only begotten Son,' the world, redeemed by him, isreleased from loving Him! Strange divinity of our days- to dare totake off the 'anathema' which St. Paul denounces on those 'that lovenot the Lord Jesus!' To cancel the sentence of St. John: 'He thatloveth not, abideth in death!' and that of Jesus Christ himself: 'Hethat loveth me not keepeth not my precepts!' and thus to renderthose worthy of enjoying God through eternity who never loved Godall their life! Behold the Mystery of Iniquity fulfilled! Open youreyes at length, my dear father, and if the other aberrations of yourcasuists have made no impression on you, let these last, by their veryextravagance, compel you to abandon them. This is what I desire fromthe bottom of my heart, for your own sake and for the sake of yourdoctors; and my prayer to God is that He would vouchsafe to convincethem how false the light must be that has guided them to suchprecipices; and that He would fill their hearts with that love ofHimself from which they have dared to give man a dispensation!"    After some remarks of this nature, I took my leave of the monk,and I see no great likelihood of my repeating my visits to him.This, however, need not occasion you any regret; for, should it benecessary to continue these communications on their maxims, I havestudied their books sufficiently to tell you as much of theirmorality, and more, perhaps, of their policy, than he could havedone himself. I am, &c.                        LETTER XI            TO THE REVEREND FATHERS, THE JESUITS                                                      August 18, 1656  REVEREND FATHERS,    I have seen the letters which you are circulating in opposition tothose which I wrote to one of my friends on your morality; and Iperceive that one of the principal points of your defence is that Ihave not spoken of your maxims with sufficient seriousness. Thischarge you repeat in all your productions, and carry it so far as toallege, that I have been "guilty of turning sacred things intoridicule."    Such a charge, fathers, is no less surprising than it isunfounded. Where do you find that I have turned sacred things intoridicule? You specify "the Mohatra contract, and the story of Johnd'Alba." But are these what you call "sacred things?" Does it reallyappear to you that the Mohatra is something so venerable that it wouldbe blasphemy not to speak of it with respect? And the lessons ofFather Bauny on larceny, which led John d'Alba to practise it atyour expense, are they so sacred as to entitle you to stigmatize allwho laugh at them as profane people?    What, fathers! must the vagaries of your doctors pass for theverities of the Christian faith, and no man be allowed to ridiculeEscobar, or the fantastical and unchristian dogmas of your authors,without being stigmatized as jesting at religion? Is it possible youcan have ventured to reiterate so often an idea so utterlyunreasonable? Have you no fears that, in blaming me for laughing atyour absurdities, you may only afford me fresh subject of merriment;that you may make the charge recoil on yourselves, by showing that Ihave really selected nothing from your writings as the matter ofraillery but what was truly ridiculous; and that thus, in making ajest of your morality, I have been as far from jeering at holy things,as the doctrine of your casuists is far from being the holy doctrineof the Gospel?    Indeed, reverend sirs, there is a vast difference between laughingat religion and laughing at those who profane it by theirextravagant opinions. It were impiety to be wanting in respect for theverities which the Spirit of God has revealed; but it were no lessimpiety of another sort to be wanting in contempt for the falsitieswhich the spirit of man opposes to them.    For, fathers (since you will force me into this argument), Ibeseech you to consider that, just in proportion as Christian truthsare worthy of love and respect, the contrary errors must deservehatred and contempt; there being two things in the truths of ourreligion: a divine beauty that renders them lovely, and a sacredmajesty that renders them venerable; and two things also about errors:an impiety, that makes them horrible, and an impertinence that rendersthem ridiculous. For these reasons, while the saints have evercherished towards the truth the twofold sentiment of love and fear-the whole of their wisdom being comprised between fear, which is itsbeginning, and love, which is its end- they have, at the same time,entertained towards error the twofold feeling of hatred andcontempt, and their zeal has been at once employed to repel, byforce of reasoning, the malice of the wicked, and to chastise, bythe aid of ridicule, their extravagance and folly.    Do not then expect, fathers, to make people believe that it isunworthy of a Christian to treat error with derision. Nothing iseasier than to convince all who were not aware of it before thatthis practice is perfectly just- that it is common with the fathers ofthe Church, and that it is sanctioned by Scripture, by the exampleof the best of saints, and even by that of God himself.    Do we not find God at once hates and despises sinners; so thateven at the hour of death, when their condition is most sad anddeplorable, Divine Wisdom adds mockery to the vengeance which consignsthem to eternal punishment? "In interitu vestro ridebo etsubsannabo- I will laugh at your calamity." The saints, too,influenced by the same feeling, will join in the derision; for,according to David, when they witness the punishment of the wicked,"they shall fear, and yet laugh at it- videbunt justi et timebunt,et super eum ridebunt." And Job says: "Innocens subsannabit eos- Theinnocent shall laugh at them."    It is worthy of remark here that the very first words which Godaddressed to man after his fall contain, in the opinion of thefathers, "bitter irony" and mockery. After Adam had disobeyed hisMaker, in the hope, suggested by the devil, of being like God, itappears from Scripture that God, as a punishment, subjected him todeath; and after having reduced him to this miserable condition, whichwas due to his sin, He taunted him in that state with the followingterms of derision: "Behold, the man has become as one of us!- EcceAdam quasi unus ex nobis!"- which, according to St. Jerome and theinterpreters, is "a grievous and cutting piece of irony," with whichGod "stung him to the quick." "Adam," says Rupert, "deserved to betaunted in this manner, and he would be naturally made to feel hisfolly more acutely by this ironical expression than by a moreserious one." St. Victor, after making the same remark, adds, "thatthis irony was due to his sottish credulity, and that this speciesof rainery is an act of justice, merited by him against whom it wasdirected."    Thus you see, fathers, that ridicule is, in some cases, a veryappropriate means of reclaiming men from their errors, and that itis accordingly an act of justice, because, as Jeremiah says, "theactions of those that err are worthy of derision, because of theirvanity- vana sunt es risu digna." And so far from its being impious tolaugh at them, St. Augustine holds it to be the effect of divinewisdom: "The wise laugh at the foolish, because they are wise, notafter their own wisdom, but after that divine wisdom which shall laughat the death of the wicked."    The prophets, accordingly, filled with the Spirit of God, haveavailed themselves of ridicule, as we find from the examples of Danieland Elias. In short, examples of it are not wanting in thediscourses of Jesus Christ himself. St. Augustine remarks that, whenhe would humble Nicodemus, who deemed himself so expert in hisknowledge of the law, "perceiving him to be pulled up with pride, fromhis rank as doctor of the Jews, he first beats down his presumption bythe magnitude of his demands, and, having reduced him so low that hewas unable to answer, What! says he, you a master in Israel, and notknow these things!- as if he had said, Proud ruler, confess thatthou knowest nothing." St. Chrysostom and St. Cyril likewise observeupon this that "he deserved to be ridiculed in this manner."    You may learn from this, fathers, that should it so happen, in ourday that persons who enact the part of "masters" among Christians,as Nicodemus and the Pharisees did among the Jews, show themselvesso ignorant of the first principles of religion as to maintain, forexample, that "a man may be saved who never loved God all his life,"we only follow the example of Jesus Christ when we laugh at such acombination of ignorance and conceit.    I am sure, fathers, these sacred examples are sufficient toconvince you that to deride the errors and extravagances of man is notinconsistent with the practice of the saints; otherwise we mustblame that of the greatest doctors of the Church, who have been guiltyof it- such as St. Jerome, in his letters and writings againstJovinian, Vigilantius, and the Pelagians; Tertullian, in his Apologyagainst the follies of idolaters; St. Augustine against the monks ofAfrica, whom he styles "the hairy men"; St. Irenaeus the Gnostics; St.Bernard and the other fathers of the Church, who, having been theimitators of the apostles, ought to be imitated by the faithful in alltime coming; for, say what we will, they are the true models forChristians, even of the present day.    In following such examples, I conceived that I could not go farwrong; and, as I think I have sufficiently established thisposition, I shall only add, in the admirable words of Tertullian,which give the true explanation of the whole of my proceeding inthis matter: "What I have now done is only a little sport before thereal combat. I have rather indicated the wounds that might be givenyou than inflicted any. If the reader has met with passages which haveexcited his risibility, he must ascribe this to the subjectsthemselves. There are many things which deserve to be held up inthis way to ridicule and mockery, lest, by a serious refutation, weshould attach a weight to them which they do not deserve. Nothing ismore due to vanity than laughter; and it is the Truth properly thathas a right to laugh, because she is cheerful, and to make sport ofher enemies, because she is sure of the victory. Care must be taken,indeed, that the raillery is not too low, and unworthy of the truth;but, keeping this in view, when ridicule may be employed witheffect, it is a duty to avail ourselves of it." Do you not thinkfathers, that this passage is singularly applicable to our subject?The letters which I have hitherto written are "merely a little sportbefore a real combat." As yet, I have been only playing with the foilsand "rather indicating the wounds that might be given you thaninflicting any." I have merely exposed your passages to the light,without making scarcely a reflection on them. "If the reader has metwith any that have excited his risibility, he must ascribe this to thesubjects themselves." And, indeed, what is more fitted to raise alaugh than to see a matter so grave as that of Christian moralitydecked out with fancies so grotesque as those in which you haveexhibited it? One is apt to form such high anticipations of thesemaxims, from being told that "Jesus Christ himself has revealed themto the fathers of the Society," that when one discovers among themsuch absurdities as "that a priest, receiving money to say a mass, maytake additional sums from other persons by giving up to them his ownshare in the sacrifice"; "that a monk is not to be excommunicatedfor putting off his habit, provided it is to dance, swindle, or goincognito into infamous houses"; and "that the duty of hearing massmay be fulfilled by listening to four quarters of a mass at oncefrom different priests"- when, I say, one listens to such decisions asthese, the surprise is such that it is impossible to refrain fromlaughing; for nothing is more calculated to produce that emotionthan a startling contrast between the thing looked for and the thinglooked at. And why should the greater part of these maxims betreated in any other way? As Tertullian says, "To treat them seriouslywould be to sanction them."    What! is it necessary to bring up all the forces of Scriptureand tradition, in order to prove that running a sword through aman's body, covertly and behind his back, is to murder him intreachery? or, that to give one money as a motive to resign abenefice, is to purchase the benefice? Yes, there are things whichit is duty to despise, and which "deserve only to be laughed at." Inshort, the remark of that ancient author, "that nothing is more due tovanity than derision, with what follows, applies to the case before usso justly and so convincingly, as to put it beyond all question thatwe may laugh at errors without violating propriety.    And let me add, fathers, that this may be done without anybreach of charity either, though this is another of the charges youbring against me in your publications. For, according to St.Augustine, "charity may sometimes oblige us to ridicule the errorsof men, that they may be induced to laugh at them in their turn, andrenounce them- Haec tu misericorditer irride, ut eis ridenda acfugienda commendes." And the same charity may also, at other times,bind us to repel them with indignation, according to that other sayingof St. Gregory of Nazianzen: "The spirit of meekness and charityhath its emotions and its heats." Indeed, as St. Augustine observes,"who would venture to say that truth ought to stand disarmed againstfalsehood, or that the enemies of the faith shall be at liberty tofrighten the faithful with hard words, and jeer at them with livelysallies of wit; while the Catholics ought never to write except with acoldness of style enough to set the reader asleep?"    Is it not obvious that, by following such a course, a wide doorwould be opened for the introduction of the most extravagant andpernicious dogmas into the Church; while none would be allowed totreat them with contempt, through fear of being charged with violatingpropriety, or to confute them with indignation, from the dread ofbeing taxed with want of charity?    Indeed, fathers! shall you be allowed to maintain, "that it islawful to kill a man to avoid a box on the ear or an affront," andmust nobody be permitted publicly to expose a public error of suchconsequence? Shall you be at liberty to say, "that a judge may inconscience retain a fee received for an act of injustice," and shallno one be at liberty to contradict you? Shall you print, with theprivilege and approbation of your doctors, "that a man may be savedwithout ever having loved God"; and will you shut the mouth of thosewho defend the true faith, by telling them that they would violatebrotherly love by attacking you, and Christian modesty by laughingat your maxims? I doubt, fathers, if there be any persons whom youcould make believe this; if however, there be any such, who are reallypersuaded that, by denouncing your morality, I have been deficientin the charity which I owe to you, I would have them examine, withgreat jealousy, whence this feeling takes its rise within them. Theymay imagine that it proceeds from a holy zeal, which will not allowthem to see their neighbour impeached without being scandalized at it;but I would entreat them to consider that it is not impossible that itmay flow from another source, and that it is even extremely likelythat it may spring from that secret, and often self-concealeddissatisfaction, which the unhappy corruption within us seldom failsto stir up against those who oppose the relaxation of morals. And,to furnish them with a rule which may enable them to ascertain thereal principle from which it proceeds, I will ask them if, whilethey lament the way in which the religious have been treated, theylament still more the manner in which these religious have treated thetruth; if they are incensed, not only against the letters, but stillmore against the maxims quoted in them. I shall grant it to bebarely possible that their resentment proceeds from some zeal,though not of the most enlightened kind; and, in this case, thepassages I have just cited from the fathers will serve to enlightenthem. But if they are merely angry at the reprehension, and not at thethings reprehended, truly, fathers, I shall never scruple to tell themthat they are grossly mistaken, and that their zeal is miserablyblind.    Strange zeal, indeed! which gets angry at those that censurepublic faults, and not at those that commit them! Novel charitythis, which groans at seeing error confuted, but feels no grief atseeing morality subverted by that error. If these persons were indanger of being assassinated, pray, would they be offended at oneadvertising them of the stratagem that had been laid for them; andinstead of turning out of their way to avoid it, would they trifleaway their time in whining about the little charity manifested indiscovering to them the criminal design of the assassins? Do theyget waspish when one tells them not to eat such an article of food,because it is poisoned? or not to enter such a city, because it hasthe plague?    Whence comes it, then, that the same persons who set down a man aswanting in charity, for exposing maxims hurtful to religion, would, onthe contrary, think him equally deficient in that grace were he not todisclose matters hurtful to health and life, unless it be from this,that their fondness for life induces them to take in good part everyhint that contributes to its preservation, while their indifference totruth leads them, not only to take no share in its defence, but evento view with pain the efforts made for the extirpation of falsehood?    Let them seriously ponder, as in the sight of God, how shameful,and how prejudicial to the Church, is the morality which your casuistsare in the habit of propagating; the scandalous and unmeasured licensewhich they are introducing into public manners; the obstinate andviolent hardihood with which you support them. And if they do notthink it full time to rise against such disorders, their blindnessis as much to be pitied as yours, fathers; and you and they have equalreason to dread that saying of St. Augustine, founded on the wordsof Jesus Christ, in the Gospel: "Woe to the blind leaders! woe tothe blind followers!- Vae caecis ducentibus! vae caecis sequentibus!"    But, to leave you no room in future, either to create suchimpressions on the minds of others, or to harbour them in your own,I shall tell you, fathers (and I am ashamed I should have to teach youwhat I should have rather learnt from you), the marks which thefathers of the Church have given for judging when our animadversionsflow from a principle of piety and charity, and when from a spiritof malice and impiety.    The first of these rules is that the spirit of piety alwaysprompts us to speak with sincerity and truthfulness; whereas maliceand envy make use of falsehood and calumny. "Splendentia etvehementia, sed rebus veris- Splendid and vehement in words, buttrue in things," as St. Augustine says. The dealer in falsehood isan agent of the devil. No direction of the intention can sanctifyslander; and though the conversion of the whole earth should depend onit, no man may warrantably calumniate the innocent: because none maydo the least evil, in order to accomplish the greatest good; and, asthe Scripture says, "the truth of God stands in no need of our lie."St. Hilary observes that "it is the bounden duty of the advocates oftruth, to advance nothing in its support but true things." Now,fathers, I can declare before God that there is nothing that Idetest more than the slightest possible deviation from the truth,and that I have ever taken the greatest care, not only not tofalsify (which would be horrible), but not to alter or wrest, in theslightest possible degree, the sense of a single passage. So closelyhave I adhered to this rule that, if I may presume to apply them tothe present case, I may safely say, in the words of the same St.Hilary: "If we advance things that are false, let our statements bebranded with infamy; but if we can show that they are public andnotorious, it is no breach of apostolic modesty or liberty to exposethem."    It is not enough, however, to tell nothing but the truth; wemust not always tell everything that is true; we should publish onlythose things which it is useful to disclose, and not those which canonly hurt, without doing any good. And, therefore, as the first ruleis to speak with truth, the second is to speak with discretion. "Thewicked," says St. Augustine, "in persecuting the good, blindlyfollow the dictates of their passion; but the good, in theirprosecution of the wicked, are guided by a wise discretion, even asthe surgeon warily considers where he is cutting, while the murderercares not where he strikes." You must be sensible, fathers, that inselecting from the maxims of your authors, I have refrained fromquoting those which would have galled you most, though I might havedone it, and that without sinning against discretion, as others whowere both learned and Catholic writers, have done before me. All whohave read your authors know how far I have spared you in this respect.Besides, I have taken no notice whatever of what might be broughtagainst individual characters among you; and I would have beenextremely sorry to have said a word about secret and personalfailings, whatever evidence I might have of them, being persuaded thatthis is the distinguishing property of malice, and a practice whichought never to be resorted to, unless where it is urgently demandedfor the good of the Church. It is obvious, therefore, that, in whatI have been compelled to advance against your moral maxims, I havebeen by no means wanting in due consideration: and that you havemore reason to congratulate yourself on my moderation than to complainof my indiscretion.    The third rule, fathers, is: That when there is need to employ alittle raillery, the spirit of piety will take care to employ itagainst error only, and not against things holy; whereas the spirit ofbuffoonery, impiety, and heresy, mocks at all that is most sacred. Ihave already vindicated myself on that score; and indeed there is nogreat danger of falling into that vice so long as I confine my remarksto the opinions which I have quoted from your authors.    In short, fathers, to abridge these rules, I shall only mentionanother, which is the essence and the end of all the rest: That thespirit of charity prompts us to cherish in the heart a desire forthe salvation of those against whom we dispute, and to address ourprayers to God while we direct our accusations to men. "We oughtever," says St. Augustine, "to preserve charity in the heart, evenwhile we are obliged to pursue a line of external conduct which to manhas the appearance of harshness; we ought to smite them with asharpness, severe but kindly, remembering that their advantage is moreto be studied than their gratification." I am sure, fathers, thatthere is nothing in my letters from which it can be inferred that Ihave not cherished such a desire towards you; and as you can findnothing to the contrary in them, charity obliges you to believe that Ihave been really actuated by it. It appears, then, that you cannotprove that I have offended against this rule, or against any of theother rules which charity inculcates; and you have no right to say,therefore, that I have violated it.    But, fathers, if you should now like to have the pleasure ofseeing, within a short compass, a course of conduct directly atvariance with each of these rules, and bearing the genuine stamp ofthe spirit of buffoonery, envy, and hatred, I shall give you a fewexamples of it; and, that they may be of the sort best known andmost familiar to you, I shall extract them from your own writings.    To begin, then, with the unworthy manner in which your authorsspeak of holy things, whether in their sportive and gallant effusions,or in their more serious pieces, do you think that the parcel ofridiculous stories, which your father Binet has introduced into hisConsolation to the Sick, are exactly suitable to his professed object,which is that of imparting Christian consolation to those whom God haschastened with affliction? Will you pretend to say that the profane,foppish style in which your Father Le Moine has talked of piety in hisDevotion made Easy is more fitted to inspire respect than contempt forthe picture that he draws of Christian virtues? What else does hiswhole book of Moral Pictures breathe, both in its prose and poetry,but a spirit full of vanity, and the follies of this world? Take,for example, that ode in his seventh book, entitled, "Eulogy onBashfulness, showing that all beautiful things are red, or inclined toredden." Call you that a production worthy of a priest? The ode isintended to comfort a lady, called Delphina, who was sadly addicted toblushing. Each stanza is devoted to show that certain red things arethe best of things, such as roses, pomegranates, the mouth, thetongue; and it is in the midst of this badinage, so disgraceful in aclergyman, that he has the effrontery to introduce those blessedspirits that minister before God, and of whom no Christian shouldspeak without reverence:           "The cherubim- those glorious choirs-             Composed of head and plumes,           Whom God with His own Spirit inspires,             And with His eyes illumes.           These splendid faces, as they fly,           Are ever red and burning high,           With fire angelic or divine;           And while their mutual flames combine,           The waving of their wings supplies           A fan to cool their ecstasies!           But redness shines with better grace,           Delphina, on thy beauteous face,           Where modesty sits revelling-           Arrayed in purple, like a king," &c.    What think you of this, fathers? Does this preference of theblushes of Delphina to the ardour of those spirits, which is neithermore nor less than the ardour of divine love, and this simile of thefan applied to their mysterious wings, strike you as being veryChristian-like in the lips which consecrate the adorable body of JesusChrist? I am quite aware that he speaks only in the character of agallant and to raise a smile; but this is precisely what is calledlaughing at things holy. And is it not certain, that, were he to getfull justice, he could not save himself from incurring a censure?although, to shield himself from this, he pleads an excuse which ishardly less censurable than the offence, "that the Sorbonne has nojurisdiction over Parnassus, and that the errors of that land aresubject neither to censure nor the Inquisition"; as if one could actthe blasphemer and profane fellow only in prose! There is anotherpassage, however, in the preface, where even this excuse fails him,when he says, "that the water of the river, on whose banks he composeshis verses, is so apt to make poets, that, though it were convertedinto holy water, it would not chase away the demon of poesy." To matchthis, I may add the following flight of your Father Garasse, in hisSummary of the Capital Truths in Religion, where, speaking of thesacred mystery of the incarnation, he mixes up blasphemy and heresy inthis fashion: "The human personality was grafted, as it were, or seton horseback, upon the personality of the Word!" And omitting manyothers, I might mention another passage from the same author, who,speaking on the subject of the name of Jesus, ordinarily written thus,                               +                             I.H.S.observes that "some have taken away the cross from the top of it,leaving the characters barely thus, I.H.S.- which," says he, "is astripped Jesus!"    Such is the indecency with which you treat the truths of religion,in the face of the inviolable law which binds us always to speak ofthem with reverence. But you have sinned no less flagrantly againstthe rule which obliges us to speak of them with truth anddiscretion. What is more common in your writings than calumny? Canthose of Father Brisacier be called sincere? Does he speak withtruth when he says that "the nuns of Port-Royal do not pray to thesaints, and have no images in their church?" Are not these mostoutrageous falsehoods, when the contrary appears before the eyes ofall Paris? And can he be said to speak with discretion when he stabsthe fair reputation of these virgins, who lead a life so pure andaustere, representing them as "impenitent, unsacramentalists,uncommunicants, foolish virgins, visionaries, Calagans, desperatecreatures, and anything you please," loading them with many otherslanders, which have justly incurred the censure of the lateArchbishop of Paris? Or when he calumniates priests of the mostirreproachable morals, by asserting "that they practise novelties inconfession, to entrap handsome innocent females, and that he wouldbe horrified to tell the abominable crimes which they commit." Is itnot a piece of intolerable assurance to advance slanders so blackand base, not merely without proof, but without the slightestshadow, or the most distant semblance of truth? I shall not enlarge onthis topic, but defer it to a future occasion, for I have somethingmore to say to you about it; but what I have now produced is enough toshow that you have sinned at once against truth and discretion.    But it may be said, perhaps, that you have not offended againstthe last rule at least, which binds you to desire the salvation ofthose whom you denounce, and that none can charge you with this,except by unlocking the secrets of your breasts, which are onlyknown to God. It is strange, fathers, but true, nevertheless, thatwe can convict you even of this offence; that while your hatred toyour opponents has carried you so far as to wish their eternalperdition, your infatuation has driven you to discover theabominable wish that, so far from cherishing in secret desires fortheir salvation, you have offered up prayers in public for theirdamnation; and that, after having given utterance to that hideousvow in the city of Caen, to the scandal of the whole Church, youhave since then ventured, in Paris, to vindicate, in your printedbooks, the diabolical transaction. After such gross offences againstpiety, first ridiculing and speaking lightly of things the mostsacred; next falsely and scandalously calumniating priests andvirgins; and lastly, forming desires and prayers for theirdamnation, it would be difficult to add anything worse. I cannotconceive, fathers, how you can fail to be ashamed of yourselves, orhow you could have thought for an instant of charging me with a wantof charity, who have acted all along with so much truth andmoderation, without reflecting on your own horrid violations ofcharity, manifested in those deplorable exhibitions, which make thecharge recoil against yourselves.    In fine, fathers, to conclude with another charge which youbring against me, I see you complain that among the vast number ofyour maxims which I quote, there are some which have been objectedto already, and that I "say over again, what others have said beforeme." To this I reply that it is just because you have not profitedby what has been said before that I say it over again. Tell me nowwhat fruit has appeared from all the castigations you have received inall the books written by learned doctors and even the wholeUniversity? What more have your Fathers Annat, Caussin, Pintereau, andLe Moine done, in the replies they have put forth, except loading withreproaches those who had given them salutary admonitions? Have yousuppressed the books in which these nefarious maxims are taught?Have you restrained the authors of these maxims? Have you becomemore circumspect in regard to them? On the contrary, is it not thefact that since that time Escobar has been repeatedly reprinted inFrance and in the Low Countries, and that your fathers Cellot,Bagot, Bauny, Lamy, Le Moine, and others, persist in publishingdaily the same maxims over again, or new ones as licentious as ever?Let us hear no more complaints, then, fathers, either because I havecharged you with maxims which you have not disavowed, or because Ihave objected to some new ones against you, or because I havelaughed equally at them all. You have only to sit down and look atthem, to see at once your own confusion and my defence. Who can lookwithout laughing at the decision of Bauny, respecting the person whoemploys another to set fire to his neighbour's barn; that of Cellot onrestitution; the rule of Sanchez in favour of sorcerers; the plan ofHurtado for avoiding the sin of duelling by taking a walk through afield and waiting for a man; the compliments of Bauny for escapingusury; the way of avoiding simony by a detour of the intention, andkeeping clear of falsehood by speaking high and low; and such otheropinions of your most grave and reverend doctors? Is there anythingmore necessary, fathers, for my vindication? And, as Tertulliansays, "can anything be more justly due to the vanity and weakness ofthese opinions than laughter?" But, fathers, the corruption ofmanners, to which your maxims lead, deserves another sort ofconsideration; and it becomes us to ask, with the same ancient writer:"Whether ought we to laugh at their folly, or deplore theirblindness?- Rideam vanitatem, an exprobrem caecitatem?" My humbleopinion is that one may either laugh at them or weep over them, as oneis in the humour. "Haec tolerabilius vel ridentur, vel flentur, " asSt. Augustine says. The Scripture tells us that "there is a time tolaugh, and a time to weep"; and my hope is, fathers, that I may notfind verified, in your case, these words in the Proverbs: "If a wiseman contendeth with a foolish man, whether he rage or laugh, thereis no rest."    P.S.- On finishing this letter, there was put in my hands one ofyour publications, in which you accuse me of falsification, in thecase of six of your maxims quoted by me, and also with being incorrespondence with heretics. You will shortly receive, I trust, asuitable reply; after which, fathers, I rather think you will not feelvery anxious to continue this species of warfare.                        LETTER XII             TO THE REVEREND FATHERS, THE JESUITS                                                    September 9, 1656  REVEREND FATHERS,    I was prepared to write you on the subject of the abuse with whichyou have for some time past been assailing me in your publications, inwhich you salute me with such epithets as "reprobate," "buffoon,""blockhead," "merry- Andrew," "impostor," "slanderer," "cheat,""heretic," "Calvinist in disguise," "disciple of Du Moulin,""possessed with a legion of devils," and everything else you can thinkof. As I should be sorry to have all this believed of me, I wasanxious to show the public why you treated me in this manner; and Ihad resolved to complain of your calumnies and falsifications, whenI met with your Answers, in which you bring these same charges againstmyself. This will compel me to alter my plan; though it will notprevent me from prosecuting it in some sort, for I hope, whiledefending myself, to convict you of impostures more genuine than theimaginary ones which you have ascribed to me. Indeed, fathers, thesuspicion of foul play is much more sure to rest on you than on me. Itis not very likely, standing as I do, alone, without power or anyhuman defence against such a large body, and having no support buttruth and integrity, that I would expose myself to lose everythingby laying myself open to be convicted of imposture. It is too easyto discover falsifications in matters of fact such as the present.In such a case there would have been no want of persons to accuseme, nor would justice have been denied them. With you, fathers, thecase is very different; you may say as much as you please againstme, while I may look in vain for any to complain to. With such awide difference between our positions, though there had been noother consideration to restrain me, it became me to study no littlecaution. By treating me, however, as a common slanderer, you compel meto assume the defensive, and you must be aware that this cannot bedone without entering into a fresh exposition and even into a fullerdisclosure of the points of your morality. In provoking thisdiscussion, I fear you are not acting as good politicians. The warmust be waged within your own camp and at your own expense; and,although you imagine that, by embroiling the questions with scholasticterms, the answers will be so tedious, thorny, and obscure, thatpeople will lose all relish for the controversy, this may not,perhaps, turn out to be exactly the case; I shall use my bestendeavours to tax your patience as little as possible with that sortof writing. Your maxims have something diverting about them, whichkeeps up the good humour of people to the last. At all events,remember that it is you that oblige me to enter upon thiseclaircissement, and let us see which of us comes off best inself-defence.    The first of your Impostures, as you call them, is on theopinion of Vasquez upon alms-giving. To avoid all ambiguity, then,allow me to give a simple explanation of the matter in dispute. Itis well known, fathers, that, according to the mind of the Church,there are two precepts touching alms: 1st, "To give out of oursuperfluity in the case of the ordinary necessities of the poor";and 2nd, "To give even out of our necessaries, according to ourcircumstances, in cases of extreme necessity." Thus says Cajetan,after St. Thomas; so that, to get at the mind of Vasquez on thissubject, we must consider the rules he lays down, both in regard tonecessaries and superfluities.    With regard to superfluity, which is the most common source ofrelief to the poor, it is entirely set aside by that single maximwhich I have quoted in my Letters: "That what the men of the worldkeep with the view of improving their own condition, and that of theirrelatives, is not properly superfluity; so that such a thing assuperfluity is rarely to be met with among men of the world, noteven excepting kings." It is very easy to see, fathers, that,according to this definition, none can have superfluity, provided theyhave ambition; and thus, so far as the greater part of the world isconcerned, alms-giving is annihilated. But even though a man shouldhappen to have superfluity, he would be under no obligation, accordingto Vasquez, to give it away in the case of ordinary necessity; forhe protests against those who would thus bind the rich. Here are hisown words: "Corduba," says he, "teaches that when we have asuperfluity we are bound to give out of it in cases of ordinarynecessity; but this does not please me- sed hoc non placet- for wehave demonstrated the contrary against Cajetan and Navarre." So,fathers, the obligation to this kind of alms is wholly set aside,according to the good pleasure of Vasquez.    With regard to necessaries, out of which we are bound to give incases of extreme and urgent necessity, it must be obvious, from theconditions by which he has limited the obligation, the richest manin all Paris may not come within its reach one in a lifetime. Ishall only refer to two of these. The first is: That "we must knowthat the poor man cannot be relieved from any other quarter- haecintelligo et caetera omnia, quando SCIO nullum alium opem laturum."What say you to this, fathers? Is it likely to happen frequently inParis, where there are so many charitable people, that I must knowthat there is not another soul but myself to relieve the poor wretchwho begs an alms from me? And yet, according to Vasquez, if I have notascertained that fact, I may send him away with nothing. The secondcondition is: That the poor man be reduced to such straits "that he ismenaced with some fatal accident, or the ruin of his character"-none of them very common occurrences. But what marks still more therarity of the cases in which one is bound to give charity, is hisremark, in another passage, that the poor man must be so ill off,"that he may conscientiously rob the rich man!" This must surely bea very extraordinary case, unless he will insist that a man may beordinarily allowed to commit robbery. And so, after having cancelledthe obligation to give alms out of our superfluities, he obliges therich to relieve the poor only in those cases when he would allow thepoor to rifle the rich! Such is the doctrine of Vasquez, to whom yourefer your readers for their edification!    I now come to your pretended Impostures. You begin by enlarging onthe obligation to alms-giving which Vasquez imposes onecclesiastics. But on this point I have said nothing; and I amprepared to take it up whenever you choose. This, then, has nothing todo with the present question. As for laymen, who are the onlypersons with whom we have now to do, you are apparently anxious tohave it understood that, in the passage which I quoted, Vasquez isgiving not his own judgement, but that of Cajetan. But as nothingcould be more false than this, and as you have not said it in somany terms, I am willing to believe, for the sake of your character,that you did not intend to say it.    You next loudly complain that, after quoting that maxim ofVasquez, "Such a thing as superfluity is rarely if ever to be met withamong men of the world, not excepting kings," I have inferred from it,"that the rich are rarely, if ever, bound to give alms out of theirsuperfluity." But what do you mean to say, fathers? If it be true thatthe rich have almost never superfluity, is it not obvious that theywill almost never be bound to give alms out of their superfluity? Imight have put it into the form of a syllogism for you, if Diana,who has such an esteem for Vasquez that he calls him "the phoenix ofgenius," had not drawn the same conclusion from the same premisses;for, after quoting the maxim of Vasquez, he concludes, "that, withregard to the question, whether the rich are obliged to give almsout of their superfluity, though the affirmation were true, it wouldseldom, or almost never, happen to be obligatory in practice." Ihave followed this language word for word. What, then, are we tomake of this, fathers? When Diana quotes with approbation thesentiments of Vasquez, when he finds them probable, and "veryconvenient for rich people," as he says in the same place, he is noslanderer, no falsifier, and we hear no complaints ofmisrepresenting his author; whereas, when I cite the same sentimentsof Vasquez, though without holding him up as a phoenix, I am aslanderer, a fabricator, a corrupter of his maxims. Truly, fathers,you have some reason to be apprehensive, lest your very differenttreatment of those who agree in their representation, and differonly in their estimate of your doctrine, discover the real secret ofyour hearts and provoke the conclusion that the main object you havein view is to maintain the credit and glory of your Company. Itappears that, provided your accommodating theology is treated asjudicious complaisance, you never disavow those that publish it, butlaud them as contributing to your design; but let it be held forthas pernicious laxity, and the same interest of your Society promptsyou to disclaim the maxims which would injure you in publicestimation. And thus you recognize or renounce them, not accordingto the truth, which never changes, but according to the shiftingexigencies of the times, acting on that motto of one of theancients, "Omnia pro tempore, nihil pro veritate- Anything for thetimes, nothing for the truth." Beware of this, fathers; and that youmay never have it in your power again to say that I drew from theprinciple of Vasquez a conclusion which he had disavowed, I beg toinform you that he has drawn it himself: "According to the opinionof Cajetan, and according to my own- et secundum nostram- (he says,chap. i., no. 27), one is hardly obliged to give alms at all whenone is only obliged to give them out of one's superfluity." Confessthen, fathers, on the testimony of Vasquez himself, that I haveexactly copied his sentiment; and think how you could have theconscience to say that "the reader, on consulting the original,would see to his astonishment that he there teaches the very reverse!"    In fine, you insist, above all, that if Vasquez does not bindthe rich to give alms out of their superfluity, he obliges them toatone for this by giving out of the necessaries of life. But youhave forgotten to mention the list of conditions which he declaresto be essential to constitute that obligation, which I have quoted,and which restrict it in such a way as almost entirely to annihilateit. In place of giving this honest statement of his doctrine, you tellus, in general terms, that he obliges the rich to give even what isnecessary to their condition. This is proving too much, fathers; therule of the Gospel does not go so far; and it would be an error,into which Vasquez is very far, indeed, from having fallen. To coverhis laxity, you attribute to him an excess of severity which wouldbe reprehensible; and thus you lose all credit as faithful reportersof his sentiments. But the truth is, Vasquez is quite free from anysuch suspicion; for he has maintained, as I have shown, that therich are not bound, either in justice or in charity, to give oftheir superfluities, and still less of their necessaries, to relievethe ordinary wants of the poor; and that they are not obliged togive of the necessaries, except in cases so rare that they almostnever happen.    Having disposed of your objections against me on this head, itonly remains to show the falsehood of your assertion that Vasquez ismore severe than Cajetan. This will by very easily done. That cardinalteaches "that we are bound in justice to give alms out of oursuperfluity, even in the ordinary wants of the poor; because,according to the holy fathers, the rich are merely the dispensers oftheir superfluity, which they are to give to whom they please, amongthose who have need of it." And accordingly, unlike Diana, who says ofthe maxims of Vasquez that they will be "very convenient and agreeableto the rich and their confessors," the cardinal, who has no suchconsolation to afford them, declares that he has nothing to say to therich but these words of Jesus Christ: "It is easier for a camel togo through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter intoheaven"; and to their confessors: "If the blind lead the blind, bothshall fall into the ditch." So indispensable did he deem thisobligation! This, too, is what the fathers and all the saints havelaid down as a certain truth. "There are two cases," says St.Thomas, "in which we are bound to give alms as a matter of justice- exdebito legali: one, when the poor are in danger; the other, when wepossess superfluous property." And again: "The three-tenths whichthe Jews were bound to eat with the poor, have been augmented underthe new law; for Jesus Christ wills that we give to the poor, notthe tenth only, but the whole of our superfluity." And yet it does notseem good to Vasquez that we should be obliged to give even a fragmentof our superfluity; such is his complaisance to the rich, such hishardness to the poor, such his opposition to those feelings of charitywhich teach us to relish the truth contained in the following words ofSt. Gregory, harsh as it may sound to the rich of this world: "When wegive the poor what is necessary to them, we are not so muchbestowing on them what is our property as rendering to them what istheir own; and it may be said to be an act of justice rather than awork of mercy."    It is thus that the saints recommend the rich to share with thepoor the good things of this earth, if they would expect to possesswith them the good things of heaven. While you make it your businessto foster in the breasts of men that ambition which leaves nosuperfluity to dispose of, and that avarice which refuses to part withit, the saints have laboured to induce the rich to give up theirsuperfluity, and to convince them that they would have abundance ofit, provided they measured it, not by the standard of covetousness,which knows no bounds to its cravings, but by that of piety, whichis ingenious in retrenchments, so as to have wherewith to diffuseitself in the exercise of charity. "We will have a great deal ofsuperfluity," says St. Augustine, "if we keep only what isnecessary: but if we seek after vanities, we will never have enough.Seek, brethren, what is sufficient for the work of God"- that is,for nature- "and not for what is sufficient for your covetousness,"which is the work of the devil: "and remember that the superfluitiesof the rich are the necessaries of the poor."    I would fondly trust, fathers, that what I have now said to youmay serve, not only for my vindication- that were a small matter-but also to make you feel and detest what is corrupt in the maximsof your casuists, and thus unite us sincerely under the sacred rulesof the Gospel, according to which we must all be judged.    As to the second point, which regards simony, before proceeding toanswer the charges you have advanced against me, I shall begin byillustrating your doctrine on this subject. Finding yourselvesplaced in an awkward dilemma, between the canons of the Church,which impose dreadful penalties upon simoniacs, on the one hand, andthe avarice of many who pursue this infamous traffic on the other, youhave recourse to your ordinary method, which is to yield to men whatthey desire, and give the Almighty only words and shows. For what elsedoes the simoniac want but money in return for his benefice? And yetthis is what you exempt from the charge of simony. And as the nameof simony must still remain standing, and a subject to which it may beascribed, you have substituted, in the place of this, an imaginaryidea, which never yet crossed the brain of a simoniac, and would notserve him much though it did- the idea, namely, that simony lies inestimating the money considered in itself as highly as the spiritualgift or office considered in itself. Who would ever take it into hishead to compare things so utterly disproportionate andheterogeneous? And yet, provided this metaphysical comparison be notdrawn, any one may, according to your authors, give away a benefice,and receive money in return for it, without being guilty of simony.    Such is the way in which you sport with religion, in order togratify the worst passions of men; and yet only see with whatgravity your Father Valentia delivers his rhapsodies in the passagecited in my letters. He says: "One may give a spiritual for a temporalgood in two ways- first, in the way of prizing the temporal morethan the spiritual, and that would be simony; secondly, in the wayof taking the temporal as the motive and end inducing one to give awaythe spiritual, but without prizing the temporal more than thespiritual, and then it is not simony. And the reason is that simonyconsists in receiving something temporal as the just price of whatis spiritual. If, therefore, the temporal is sought- si petaturtemporale- not as the price, but only as the motive determining usto part with the spiritual, it is by no means simony, even althoughthe possession of the temporal may be principally intended andexpected- minime erit simonia, etiamsi temporale principaliterintendatur et expectetur." Your redoubtable Sanchez has beenfavoured with a similar revelation; Escobar quotes him thus: "If onegive a spiritual for a temporal good, not as the price, but as amotive to induce the collator to give it, or as an acknowledgementif the benefice has been actually received, is that simony? Sanchezassures us that it is not." In your Caen Theses of 1644 you say: "Itis a probable opinion, taught by many Catholics, that it is not simonyto exchange a temporal for a spiritual good, when the former is notgiven as a price." And as to Tanner, here is his doctrine, exactly thesame with that of Valentia; and I quote it again to show you how farwrong it is in you to complain of me for saying that it does not agreewith that of St. Thomas, for he avows it himself in the very passagewhich I quoted in my letter: "There is properly and truly nosimony," says he, "unless when a temporal good is taken as the priceof a spiritual; but when taken merely as the motive for giving thespiritual, or as an acknowledgement for having received it, this isnot simony, at least in point of conscience." And again: "The samething may be said, although the temporal should be regarded as theprincipal end, and even preferred to the spiritual; although St.Thomas and others appear to hold the reverse, inasmuch as theymaintain it to be downright simony to exchange a spiritual for atemporal good, when the temporal is the end of the transaction."    Such, then, being your doctrine on simony, as taught by yourbest authors, who follow each other very closely in this point, itonly remains now to reply to your charges of misrepresentation. Youhave taken no notice of Valentia's opinion, so that his doctrinestands as it was before. But you fix on that of Tanner, maintainingthat he has merely decided it to be no simony by divine right; and youwould have it to be believed that, in quoting the passage, I havesuppressed these words, divine right. This, fathers, is a mostunconscionable trick; for these words, divine right, never existedin that passage. You add that Tanner declares it to be simonyaccording to positive right. But you are mistaken; he does not saythat generally, but only of particular cases, or, as he expressesit, in casibus a jure expressis, by which he makes an exception to thegeneral rule he had laid down in that passage, "that it is notsimony in point of conscience," which must imply that it is not soin point of positive right, unless you would have Tanner made soimpious as to maintain that simony, in point of positive right, is notsimony in point of conscience. But it is easy to see your drift inmustering up such terms as "divine right, positive right, naturalright, internal and external tribunal, expressed cases, outwardpresumption," and others equally little known; you mean to escapeunder this obscurity of language, and make us lose sight of youraberrations. But, fathers, you shall not escape by these vainartifices; for I shall put some questions to you so simple, thatthey will not admit of coming under your distinguo.    I ask you, then, without speaking of "positive rights," of"outward presumptions," or "external tribunals"- I ask if, accordingto your authors, a beneficiary would be simoniacal, were he to givea benefice worth four thousand livres of yearly rent, and to receiveten thousand francs ready money, not as the price of the benefice, butmerely as a motive inducing him to give it? Answer me plainly,fathers: What must we make of such a case as this according to yourauthors? Will not Tanner tell us decidedly that "this is not simony inpoint of conscience, seeing that the temporal good is not the price ofthe benefice, but only the motive inducing to dispose of it?" Will notValentia, will not your own Theses of Caen, will not Sanchez andEscobar, agree in the same decision and give the same reason for it?Is anything more necessary to exculpate that beneficiary fromsimony? And, whatever might be your private opinion of the case, durstyou deal with that man as a simonist in your confessionals, when hewould be entitled to stop your mouth by telling you that he actedaccording to the advice of so many grave doctors? Confess candidly,then, that, according to your views, that man would be no simonist;and, having done so, defend the doctrine as you best can.    Such, fathers, is the true mode of treating questions, in order tounravel, instead of perplexing them, either by scholastic terms, or,as you have done in your last charge against me here, by alteringthe state of the question. Tanner, you say, has, at any rate, declaredthat such an exchange is a great sin; and you blame me for havingmaliciously suppressed this circumstance, which, you maintain,"completely justifies him." But you are wrong again, and that inmore ways than one. For, first, though what you say had been true,it would be nothing to the point, the question in the passage to whichI referred being, not if it was sin, but if it was simony. Now,these are two very different questions. Sin, according to your maxims,obliges only to confession- simony obliges to restitution; and thereare people to whom these may appear two very different things. Youhave found expedients for making confession a very easy affair; butyou have not fallen upon ways and means to make restitution anagreeable one. Allow me to add that the case which Tanner charges withsin is not simply that in which a spiritual good is exchanged for atemporal, the latter being the principal end in view, but that inwhich the party "prizes the temporal above the spiritual," which isthe imaginary case already spoken of. And it must be allowed hecould not go far wrong in charging such a case as that with sin, sincethat man must be either very wicked or very stupid who, when permittedto exchange the one thing for the other, would not avoid the sin ofthe transaction by such a simple process as that of abstaining fromcomparing the two things together. Besides, Valentia, in the placequoted, when treating the question- if it be sinful to give aspiritual good for a temporal, the latter being the mainconsideration- and after producing the reasons given for theaffirmative, adds, "Sed hoc non videtur mihi satis certum- But thisdoes not appear to my mind sufficiently certain."    Since that time, however, your father, Erade Bille, professor ofcases of conscience at Caen, has decided that there is no sin at allin the case supposed; for probable opinions, you know, are always inthe way of advancing to maturity. This opinion he maintains in hiswritings of 1644, against which M. Dupre, doctor and professor atCaen, delivered that excellent oration, since printed and wellknown. For though this Erade Bille confesses that Valentia's doctrine,adopted by Father Milhard and condemned by the Sorbonne, "iscontrary to the common opinion, suspected of simony, and punishable atlaw when discovered in practice," he does not scruple to say that itis a probable opinion, and consequently sure in point of conscience,and that there is neither simony nor sin in it. "It is a probableopinion, he says, "taught by many Catholic doctors, that there isneither any simony nor any sin in giving money, or any othertemporal thing, for a benefice, either in the way ofacknowledgement, or as a motive, without which it would not begiven, provided it is not given as a price equal to the benefice."This is all that could possibly be desired. In fact, according tothese maxims of yours, simony would be so exceedingly rare that wemight exempt from this sin even Simon Magus himself, who desired topurchase the Holy Spirit and is the emblem of those simonists that buyspiritual things; and Gehazi, who took money for a miracle and maybe regarded as the prototype of the simonists that sell them. Therecan be no doubt that when Simon, as we read in the Acts, "offeredthe apostles money, saying, Give me also this power"; he saidnothing about buying or selling, or fixing the price; he did no morethan offer the money as a motive to induce them to give him thatspiritual gift; which being, according to you, no simony at all, hemight, had be but been instructed in your maxims, have escaped theanathema of St. Peter. The same unhappy ignorance was a great lossto Gehazi, when he was struck with leprosy by Elisha; for, as heaccepted the money from the prince who had been miraculously cured,simply as an acknowledgement, and not as a price equivalent to thedivine virtue which had effected the miracle, he might have insistedon the prophet healing him again on pain of mortal sin; seeing, onthis supposition, he would have acted according to the advice ofyour grave doctors, who, in such cases, oblige confessors to absolvetheir penitents and to wash them from that spiritual leprosy ofwhich the bodily disease is the type.    Seriously, fathers, it would be extremely easy to hold you up toridicule in this matter, and I am at a loss to know why you exposeyourselves to such treatment. To produce this effect, I have nothingmore to do than simply to quote Escobar, in his Practice of Simonyaccording to the Society of Jesus; "Is it simony when two Churchmenbecome mutually pledged thus: Give me your vote for my election asProvincial, and I shall give you mine for your election as prior? Byno means." Or take another: "It is not simony to get possession of abenefice by promising a sum of money, when one has no intention ofactually paying the money; for this is merely making a show of simony,and is as far from being real simony as counterfeit gold is from thegenuine." By this quirk of conscience, he has contrived means, inthe way of adding swindling to simony, for obtaining benefices withoutsimony and without money.    But I have no time to dwell longer on the subject, for I mustsay a word or two in reply to your third accusation, which refers tothe subject of bankrupts. Nothing can be more gross than the manner inwhich you have managed this charge. You rail at me as a libeller inreference to a sentiment of Lessius, which I did not quote myself, buttook from a passage in Escobar; and, therefore, though it were truethat Lessius does not hold the opinion ascribed to him by Escobar,what can be more unfair than to charge me with themisrepresentation? When I quote Lessius or others of your authorsmyself, I am quite prepared to answer for it; but, as Escobar hascollected the opinions of twenty-four of your writers, I beg to ask ifI am bound to guarantee anything beyond the correctness of mycitations from his book? Or if I must, in addition, answer for thefidelity of all his quotations of which I may avail myself? This wouldbe hardly reasonable; and yet this is precisely the case in thequestion before us. I produced in my letter the following passage fromEscobar, and you do not object to the fidelity of my translation: "Maythe bankrupt, with a good conscience, retain as much of his propertyas is necessary to afford him an honourable maintenance- ne indecorevivat? I answer, with Lessius, that he may- cum Lessio asseroposse." You tell me that Lessius does not hold that opinion. Butjust consider for a moment the predicament in which you involveyourselves. If it turns out that he does hold that opinion, you willbe set down as impostors for having asserted the contrary; and if itis proved that he does not hold it, Escobar will be the impostor; soit must now of necessity follow that one or other of the Societywill be convicted of imposture. Only think what a scandal! You cannot,it would appear, foresee the consequences of things. You seem toimagine that you have nothing more to do than to cast aspersionsupon people, without considering on whom they may recoil. Why didyou not acquaint Escobar with your objection before venturing topublish it? He might have given you satisfaction. It is not so verytroublesome to get word from Valladolid, where he is living in perfecthealth, and completing his grand work on Moral Theology, in sixvolumes, on the first of which I mean to say a few words by-and-by.They have sent him the first ten letters; you might as easily havesent him your objection, and I am sure he would have soon returned youan answer, for he has doubtless seen in Lessius the passage from whichhe took the ne indecore vivat. Read him yourselves, fathers, and youwill find it word for word, as I have done. Here it is: "The samething is apparent from the authorities cited, particularly in regardto that property which he acquires after his failure, out of whicheven the delinquent debtor may retain as much as is necessary forhis honourable maintenance, according to his station of life- ut nonindecore vivat. Do you ask if this rule applies to goods which hepossessed at the time of his failure? Such seems to be the judgementof the doctors."    I shall not stop here to show how Lessius, to sanction hismaxim, perverts the law that allows bankrupts nothing more than a merelivelihood, and that makes no provision for "honourablemaintenance." It is enough to have vindicated Escobar from such anaccusation- it is more, indeed, than what I was in duty bound to do.But you, fathers, have not done your duty. It still remains for you toanswer the passage of Escobar, whose decisions, by the way, havethis advantage, that, being entirely independent of the context andcondensed in little articles, they are not liable to yourdistinctions. I quoted the whole of the passage, in which "bankruptsare permitted to keep their goods, though unjustly acquired, toprovide an honourable maintenance for their families"- commenting onwhich in my letters, I exclaim: "Indeed, father! by what strangekind of charity would you have the ill-gotten property of a bankruptappropriated to his own use, instead of that of his lawful creditors?"This is the question which must be answered; but it is one thatinvolves you in a sad dilemma, and from which you in vain seek toescape by altering the state of the question, and quoting otherpassages from Lessius, which have no connection with the subject. Iask you, then: May this maxim of Escobar be followed by bankrupts witha safe conscience, or no? And take care what you say. If you answer,"No," what becomes of your doctor, and your doctrine of probability?If you say, "Yes," I delate you to the Parliament.    In this predicament I must now leave you, fathers; for my limitswill not permit me to overtake your next accusation, which respectshomicide. This will serve for my next letter, and the rest willfollow.    In the meanwhile, I shall make no remarks on the advertisementswhich you have tagged to the end of each of your charges, filled asthey are with scandalous falsehoods. I mean to answer all these in aseparate letter, in which I hope to show the weight due to yourcalumnies. I am sorry, fathers, that you should have recourse tosuch desperate resources. The abusive terms which you heap on mewill not clear up our disputes, nor will your manifold threatshinder me from defending myself You think you have power andimpunity on your side; and I think I have truth and innocence on mine.It is a strange and tedious war when violence attempts to vanquishtruth. All the efforts of violence cannot weaken truth, and only serveto give it fresh vigour. All the lights of truth cannot arrestviolence, and only serve to exasperate it. When force meets force, theweaker must succumb to the stronger; when argument is opposed toargument, the solid and the convincing triumphs over the empty and thefalse; but violence and verity can make no impression on each other.Let none suppose, however, that the two are, therefore, equal to eachother; for there is this vast difference between them, that violencehas only a certain course to run, limited by the appointment ofHeaven, which overrules its effects to the glory of the truth which itassails; whereas verity endures forever and eventually triumphs overits enemies, being eternal and almighty as God himself.                        LETTER XIII        TO THE REVEREND FATHERS OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS                                                   September 30, 1656  REVEREND FATHERS,    I have just seen your last production, in which you have continuedyour list of Impostures up to the twentieth and intimate that you meanto conclude with this the first part of your accusations against me,and to proceed to the second, in which you are to adopt a new modeof defence, by showing that there are other casuists besides thoseof your Society who are as lax as yourselves. I now see the precisenumber of charges to which I have to reply; and as the fourth, towhich we have now come, relates to homicide, it may be proper, inanswering it, to include the 11th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, and18th, which refer to the same subject.    In the present letter, therefore, my object shall be tovindicate the correctness of my quotations from the charges of falsitywhich you bring against me. But as you have ventured, in yourpamphlets, to assert that "the sentiments of your authors on murderare agreeable to the decisions of popes and ecclesiastical laws,"you will compel me, in my next letter, to confute a statement atonce so unfounded and so injurious to the Church. It is of someimportance to show that she is innocent of your corruptions, inorder that heretics may be prevented from taking advantage of youraberrations, to draw conclusions tending to her dishonour. And thus,viewing on the one hand your pernicious maxims, and on the other thecanons of the Church which have uniformly condemned them, peoplewill see, at one glance, what they should shun and what they shouldfollow.    Your fourth charge turns on a maxim relating to murder, whichyou say I have falsely ascribed to Lessius. It is as follows: "That ifa man has received a buffet, he may immediately pursue his enemy,and even return the blow with the sword, not to avenge himself, but toretrieve his honour." This, you say, is the opinion of the casuistVictoria. But this is nothing to the point. There is noinconsistency in saying that it is at once the opinion of Victoria andof Lessius; for Lessius himself says that it is also held by Navarreand Henriquez, who teach identically the same doctrine. The onlyquestion, then, is if Lessius holds this view as well as his brothercasuists. You maintain "that Lessius quotes this opinion solely forthe purpose of refuting it, and that I, therefore, attribute to hima sentiment which he produces only to overthrow- the basest and mostdisgraceful act of which a writer can be guilty." Now I maintain,fathers, that he quotes the opinion solely for the purpose ofsupporting it. Here is a question of fact, which it will be veryeasy to settle. Let us see, then, how you prove your allegation, andyou will see afterwards how I prove mine.    To show that Lessius is not of that opinion, you tell us that hecondemns the practice of it; and in proof of this, you quote onepassage of his (l. 2, c. 9, n. 92), in which he says, in so manywords, "I condemn the practice of it." I grant that, on looking forthese words, at number 92, to which you refer, they will be foundthere. But what will people say, fathers, when they discover, at thesame time, that he is treating in that place of a question totallydifferent from that of which we are speaking, and that the opinionof which he there says that he condemns the practice has no connectionwith that now in dispute, but is quite distinct? And yet to beconvinced that this is the fact, we have only to open the book towhich you refer, and there we find the whole subject in its connectionas follows: At number 79 he treats the question, "If it is lawful tokill for a buffet?" and at number 80 he finishes this matter without asingle word of condemnation. Having disposed of this question, heopens a new one at 81, namely, "If it is lawful to kill for slanders?"and it is when speaking of this question that he employs the words youhave quoted: "I condemn the practice of it."    Is it not shameful, fathers, that you should venture to producethese words to make it be believed that Lessius condemns the opinionthat it is lawful to kill for a buffet? and that, on the ground ofthis single proof, you should chuckle over it, as you have done, bysaying: "Many persons of honour in Paris have already discoveredthis notorious falsehood by consulting Lessius, and have thusascertained the degree of credit due to that slanderer?" Indeed! andis it thus that you abuse the confidence which those persons of honourrepose in you? To show them that Lessius does not hold a certainopinion, you open the book to them at a place where he is condemninganother opinion; and these persons, not having begun to mistrustyour good faith and never thinking of examining whether the authorspeaks in that place of the subject in dispute, you impose on theircredulity. I make no doubt, fathers, that, to shelter yourselvesfrom the guilt of such a scandalous lie, you had recourse to yourdoctrine of equivocations; and that, having read the passage in a loudvoice, you would say, in a lower key, that the author was speakingthere of something else. But I am not so sure whether this savingclause, which is quite enough to satisfy your consciences, will be avery satisfactory answer to the just complaint of those "honourablepersons," when they shall discover that you have hoodwinked them inthis style.    Take care, then, fathers, to prevent them by all means from seeingmy letters; for this is the only method now left to you to preserveyour credit for a short time longer. This is not the way in which Ideal with your writings: I send them to all my friends; I wisheverybody to see them. And I verily believe that both of us are in theright for our own interests; for, after having published with suchparade this fourth Imposture, were it once discovered that you havemade it up by foisting in one passage for another, you would beinstantly denounced. It will be easily seen that if you could havefound what you wanted in the passage where Lessius treated of thismatter, you would not have searched for it elsewhere, and that you hadrecourse to such a trick only because you could find nothing in thatpassage favourable to your purpose.    You would have us believe that we may find in Lessius what youassert, "that he does not allow that this opinion (that a man may belawfully killed for a buffet) is probable in theory"; whereasLessius distinctly declares, at number 80: "This opinion, that a manmay kill for a buffet, is probable in theory." Is not this, word forword, the reverse of your assertion? And can we sufficiently admirethe hardihood with which you have advanced, in set phrase, the veryreverse of a matter of fact! To your conclusion, from a fabricatedpassage, that Lessius was not of that opinion, we have only to placeLessius himself, who, in the genuine passage, declares that he is ofthat opinion.    Again, you would have Lessius to say "that he condemns thepractice of it"; and, as I have just observed, there is not in theoriginal a single word of condemnation; all that he says is: "Itappears that it ought not to be easily permitted in practice- In praxinon videtur facile permittenda." Is that, fathers, the language of aman who condemns a maxim? Would you say that adultery and incest oughtnot to be easily permitted in practice? Must we not, on thecontrary, conclude that as Lessius says no more than that the practiceought not to be easily permitted, his opinion is that it may bepermitted sometimes, though rarely? And, as if he had been anxiousto apprise everybody when it might be permitted, and to relievethose who have received affronts from being troubled with unreasonablescruples from not knowing on what occasions they might lawfully killin practice, he has been at pains to inform them what they ought toavoid in order to practise the doctrine with a safe conscience. Markhis words: "It seems," says he, "that it ought not to be easilypermitted, because of the danger that persons may act in this matterout of hatred or revenge, or with excess, or that this may occasiontoo many murders." From this it appears that murder is freelypermitted by Lessius, if one avoids the inconveniences referred to- inother words, if one can act without hatred or revenge and incircumstances that may not open the door to a great many murders. Toillustrate the matter, I may give you an example of recent occurrence-the case of the buffet of Compiegne. You will grant that the personwho received the blow on that occasion has shown, by the way inwhich he has acted, that he was sufficiently master of the passions ofhatred and revenge. It only remained for him, therefore, to see thathe did not give occasion to too many murders; and you need hardly betold, fathers, it is such a rare spectacle to find Jesuits bestowingbuffets on the officers of the royal household that he had no greatreason to fear that a murder committed on this occasion would belikely to draw many others in its train. You cannot, accordingly, denythat the Jesuit who figured on that occasion was killable with asafe conscience, and that the offended party might have convertedhim into a practical illustration of the doctrine of Lessius. And verylikely, fathers, this might have been the result had he beeneducated in your school, and learnt from Escobar that the man whohas received a buffet is held to be disgraced until he has taken thelife of him who insulted him. But there is ground to believe thatthe very different instructions which he received from a curate, whois no great favourite of yours, have contributed not a little inthis case to save the life of a Jesuit.    Tell us no more, then, of inconveniences which may, in manyinstances, be so easily got over, and in the absence of which,according to Lessius, murder is permissible even in practice. Thisis frankly avowed by your authors, as quoted by Escobar, in hisPractice of Homicide, according to your Society. "Is it allowable,"asks this casuist, "to kill him who has given me a buffet? Lessiussays it is permissible in speculation, though not to be followed inpractice- non consulendum in praxi- on account of the risk ofhatred, or of murders prejudicial to the State. Others, however,have judged that, by avoiding these inconveniences, this ispermissible and safe in practice- in praxi probabilem et tutamjudicarunt Henriquez," &c. See how your opinions mount up, by littleand little, to the climax of probabilism! The present one you haveat last elevated to this position, by permitting murder without anydistinction between speculation and practice, in the followingterms: "It is lawful, when one has received a buffet, to return theblow immediately with the sword, not to avenge one's self, but topreserve one's honour." Such is the decision of your fathers of Caenin 1644, embodied in their publications produced by the universitybefore parliament, when they presented their third remonstranceagainst your doctrine of homicide, as shown in the book then emittedby them, on page 339.    Mark, then, fathers, that your own authors have themselvesdemolished this absurd distinction between speculative and practicalmurder- a distinction which the university treated with ridicule,and the invention of which is a secret of your policy, which it maynow be worth while to explain. The knowledge of it, besides beingnecessary to the right understanding of your 15th, 16th, 17th, and18th charges, is well calculated, in general, to open up, by littleand little, the principles of that mysterious policy.    In attempting, as you have done, to decide cases of consciencein the most agreeable and accommodating manner, while you met withsome questions in which religion alone was concerned- such as those ofcontrition, penance, love to God, and others only affecting theinner court of conscience- you encountered another class of cases inwhich civil society was interested as well as religion- such asthose relating to usury, bankruptcy, homicide, and the like. And it istruly distressing to all that love the Church to observe that, in avast number of instances, in which you had only Religion to contendwith, you have violated her laws without reservation, withoutdistinction, and without compunction; because you knew that it isnot here that God visibly administers his justice. But in thosecases in which the State is interested as well as Religion, yourapprehension of man's justice has induced you to divide your decisionsinto two shares. To the first of these you give the name ofspeculation; under which category crimes, considered in themselves,without regard to society, but merely to the law of God, you havepermitted, without the least scruple, and in the way of trampling onthe divine law which condemns them. The second you rank under thedenomination of practice, and here, considering the injury which maybe done to society, and the presence of magistrates who look after thepublic peace, you take care, in order to keep yourselves on the safeside of the law, not to approve always in practice the murders andother crimes which you have sanctioned in speculation. Thus, forexample, on the question, "If it be lawful to kill for slanders?" yourauthors, Filiutius, Reginald, and others, reply: "This is permitted inspeculation- ex probabile opinione licet; but is not to be approved inpractice, on account of the great number of murders which might ensue,and which might injure the State, if all slanderers were to be killed,and also because one might be punished in a court of justice forhaving killed another for that matter." Such is the style in whichyour opinions begin to develop themselves, under the shelter of thisdistinction, in virtue of which, without doing any sensible injuryto society, you only ruin religion. In acting thus, you consideryourselves quite safe. You suppose that, on the one hand, theinfluence you have in the Church will effectually shield frompunishment your assaults on truth; and that, on the other, theprecautions you have taken against too easily reducing yourpermissions to practice will save you on the part of the civil powers,who, not being judges in cases of conscience, are properly concernedonly with the outward practice. Thus an opinion which would becondemned under the name of practice, comes out quite safe under thename of speculation. But this basis once established, it is notdifficult to erect on it the rest of your maxims. There is an infinitedistance between God's prohibition of murder and your speculativepermission of the crime; but between that permission and thepractice the distance is very small indeed. It only remains to showthat what is allowable in speculation is also so in practice; andthere can be no want of reasons for this. You have contrived to findthem in far more difficult cases. Would you like to see, fathers,how this may be managed? I refer you to the reasoning of Escobar,who has distinctly decided the point in the first six volumes of hisgrand Moral Theology, of which I have already spoken- a work inwhich he shows quite another spirit from that which appears in hisformer compilation from your four-and-twenty elders. At that time hethought that there might be opinions probable in speculation, whichmight not be safe in practice; but he has now come to form an oppositejudgment, and has, in this, his latest work, confirmed it. Such is thewonderful growth attained by the doctrine of probability in general,as well as by every probable opinion in particular, in the course oftime. Attend, then, to what he says: "I cannot see how it can bethat an action which seems allowable in speculation should not be solikewise in practice; because what may be done in practice dependson what is found to be lawful in speculation, and the things differfrom each other only as cause and effect. Speculation is that whichdetermines to action. Whence it follows that opinions probable inspeculation may be followed with a safe conscience in practice, andthat even with more safety than those which have not been so wellexamined as matters of speculation."    Verily, fathers, your friend Escobar reasons uncommonly wellsometimes; and, in point of fact, there is such a close connectionbetween speculation and practice, that when the former has oncetaken root, you have no difficulty in permitting the latter, withoutany disguise. A good illustration of this we have in the permission"to kill for a buffet," which, from being a point of simplespeculation, was boldly raised by Lessius into a practice "which oughtnot easily to be allowed"; from that promoted by Escobar to thecharacter of "an easy practice"; and from thence elevated by yourfathers of Caen, as we have seen, without any distinction betweentheory and practice, into a full permission. Thus you bring youropinions to their full growth very gradually. Were they presentedall at once in their finished extravagance, they would beget horror;but this slow imperceptible progress gradually habituates men to thesight of them and hides their offensiveness. And in this way thepermission to murder, in itself so odious both to Church and State,creeps first into the Church, and then from the Church into the State.    A similar success has attended the opinion of "killing forslander," which has now reached the climax of a permission without anydistinction. I should not have stopped to quote my authorities on thispoint from your writings, had it not been necessary in order to putdown the effrontery with which you have asserted, twice over, inyour fifteenth Imposture, "that there never was a Jesuit who permittedkilling for slander." Before making this statement, fathers, youshould have taken care to prevent it from coming under my notice,seeing that it is so easy for me to answer it. For, not to mentionthat your fathers Reginald, Filiutius, and others, have permitted itin speculation, as I have already shown, and that the principle laiddown by Escobar leads us safely on to the practice, I have to tell youthat you have authors who have permitted it in so many words, andamong others Father Hereau in his public lectures, on the conclusionof which the king put him under arrest in your house, for havingtaught, among other errors, that when a person who has slandered us inthe presence of men of honour, continues to do so after being warnedto desist, it is allowable to kill him, not publicly, indeed, for fearof scandal, but in a private way- sed clam.    I have had occasion already to mention Father Lamy, and you do notneed to be informed that his doctrine on this subject was censuredin 1649 by the University of Louvain. And yet two months have notelapsed since your Father Des Bois maintained this very censureddoctrine of Father Lamy and taught that "it was allowable for a monkto defend the honour which he acquired by his virtue, even bykilling the person who assails his reputation- etiam cum morteinvasoris"; which has raised such a scandal in that town that thewhole of the cures united to impose silence on him, and to oblige him,by a canonical process, to retract his doctrine. The case is nowpending in the Episcopal court.    What say you now, fathers? Why attempt, after that, to maintainthat "no Jesuit ever held that it was lawful to kill for slander?"Is anything more necessary to convince you of this than the veryopinions of your fathers which you quote, since they do not condemnmurder in speculation, but only in practice, and that, too, "onaccount of the injury that might thereby accrue to the State"? Andhere I would just beg to ask whether the whole matter in disputebetween us is not simply and solely to ascertain if you have or havenot subverted the law of God which condemns murder? The point inquestion is, not whether you have injured the commonwealth, butwhether you have injured religion. What purpose, then, can it serve,in a dispute of this kind, to show that you have spared the State,when you make it apparent, at the same time, that you have destroyedthe faith? Is this not evident from your saying that the meaning ofReginald, on the question of killing for slanders, is, "that a privateindividual has a right to employ that mode of defence, viewing itsimply in itself"? I desire nothing beyond this concession toconfute you. "A private individual," you say, "has a right to employthat mode of defence" (that is, killing for slanders), "viewing thething in itself'; and, consequently, fathers, the law of God, whichforbids us to kill, is nullified by that decision.    It serves no purpose to add, as you have done, "that such a modeis unlawful and criminal, even according to the law of God, on accountof the murders and disorders which would follow in society, becausethe law of God obliges us to have regard to the good of society." Thisis to evade the question: for there are two laws to be observed- oneforbidding us to kill, and another forbidding us to harm society.Reginald has not, perhaps, broken the law which forbids us to doharm to society; but he has most certainly violated that which forbidsus to kill. Now this is the only point with which we have to do. Imight have shown, besides, that your other writers, who have permittedthese murders in practice, have subverted the one law as well as theother. But, to proceed, we have seen that you sometimes forbid doingharm to the State; and you allege that your design in that is tofulfil the law of God, which obliges us to consult the interests ofsociety. That may be true, though it is far from being certain, as youmight do the same thing purely from fear of the civil magistrate. Withyour permission, then, we shall scrutinize the real secret of thismovement.    Is it not certain, fathers, that if you had really any regard toGod, and if the observance of his law had been the prime and principalobject in your thoughts, this respect would have invariablypredominated in all your leading decisions and would have engagedyou at all times on the side of religion? But, if it turns out, on thecontrary, that you violate, in innumerable instances, the mostsacred commands that God has laid upon men, and that, as in theinstances before us, you annihilate the law of God, which forbidsthese actions as criminal in themselves, and that you only scrupleto approve of them in practice, from bodily fear of the civilmagistrate, do you not afford us ground to conclude that you have norespect to God in your apprehensions, and that if you yield anapparent obedience to his law, in so far as regards the obligationto do no harm to the State, this is not done out of any regard tothe law itself, but to compass your own ends, as has ever been the waywith politicians of no religion?    What, fathers! will you tell us that, looking simply to the law ofGod, which says, "Thou shalt not kill," we have a right to kill forslanders? And after having thus trampled on the eternal law of God, doyou imagine that you atone for the scandal you have caused, and canpersuade us of your reverence for Him, by adding that you prohibit thepractice for State reasons and from dread of the civil arm? Is notthis, on the contrary, to raise a fresh scandal? I mean not by therespect which you testify for the magistrate; that is not my chargeagainst you, and it is ridiculous in you to banter, as you havedone, on this matter. I blame you, not for fearing the magistrate, butfor fearing none but the magistrate. And I blame you for this, becauseit is making God less the enemy of vice than man. Had you said that tokill for slander was allowable according to men, but not accordingto God, that might have been something more endurable; but when youmaintain that what is too criminal to be tolerated among men may yetbe innocent and right in the eyes of that Being who is righteousnessitself, what is this but to declare before the whole world, by asubversion of principle as shocking in itself as it is alien to thespirit of the saints, that while you can be braggarts before God,you are cowards before men?    Had you really been anxious to condemn these homicides, youwould have allowed the commandment of God which forbids them to remainintact; and had you dared at once to permit them, you would havepermitted them openly, in spite of the laws of God and men. But,your object being to permit them imperceptibly, and to cheat themagistrate, who watches over the public safety, you have gone craftilyto work. You separate your maxims into two portions. On the oneside, you hold out "that it is lawful in speculation to kill a man forslander"; and nobody thinks of hindering you from taking a speculativeview of matters. On the other side, you come out with this detachedaxiom, "that what is permitted in speculation is also permissible inpractice"; and what concern does society seem to have in thisgeneral and metaphysical-looking proposition? And thus these twoprinciples, so little suspected, being embraced in their separateform, the vigilance of the magistrate is eluded; while it is onlynecessary to combine the two together to draw from them the conclusionwhich you aim at- namely, that it is lawful in practice to put a manto death for a simple slander.    It is, indeed, fathers, one of the most subtle tricks of yourpolicy to scatter through your publications the maxims which youclub together in your decisions. It is partly in this way that youestablish your doctrine of probabilities, which I have frequentlyhad occasion to explain. That general principle once established,you advance propositions harmless enough when viewed apart, but which,when taken in connection with that pernicious dogma, become positivelyhorrible. An example of this, which demands an answer, may be found inthe 11th page of your Impostures, where you allege that "severalfamous theologians have decided that it is lawful to kill a man fora box on the ear." Now, it is certain that, if that had been said by aperson who did not hold probabilism, there would be nothing to findfault with in it; it would in this case amount to no more than aharmless statement, and nothing could be elicited from it. But you,fathers, and all who hold that dangerous tenet, "that whatever hasbeen approved by celebrated authors is probable and safe inconscience," when you add to this "that several celebrated authors areof opinion that it is lawful to kill a man for a box on the ear," whatis this but to put a dagger into the hand of all Christians, for thepurpose of plunging it into the heart of the first person that insultsthem, and to assure them that, having the judgement of so many graveauthors on their side, they may do so with a perfectly safeconscience?    What monstrous species of language is this, which, in announcingthat certain authors hold a detestable opinion, is at the same timegiving a decision in favour of that opinion- which solemnly teacheswhatever it simply tells! We have learnt, fathers, to understandthis peculiar dialect of the Jesuitical school; and it isastonishing that you have the hardihood to speak it out so freely, forit betrays your sentiments somewhat too broadly. It convicts you ofpermitting murder for a buffet, as often as you repeat that manycelebrated authors have maintained that opinion.    This charge, fathers, you will never be able to repel; nor willyou be much helped out by those passages from Vasquez and Suarezthat you adduce against me, in which they condemn the murders whichtheir associates have approved. These testimonies, disjoined fromthe rest of your doctrine, may hoodwink those who know little aboutit; but we, who know better, put your principles and maximstogether. You say, then, that Vasquez condemns murders; but what sayyou on the other side of the question, my reverend fathers? Why, "thatthe probability of one sentiment does not hinder the probability ofthe opposite sentiment; and that it is warrantable to follow theless probable and less safe opinion, giving up the more probable andmore safe one." What follows from all this taken in connection, butthat we have perfect freedom of conscience to adopt any one of theseconflicting judgements which pleases us best? And what becomes ofall the effect which you fondly anticipate from your quotations? Itevaporates in smoke, for we have no more to do than to conjoin foryour condemnation the maxims which you have disjoined for yourexculpation. Why, then, produce those passages of your authors which Ihave not quoted, to qualify those which I have quoted, as if the onecould excuse the other? What right does that give you to call me an"impostor"? Have I said that all your fathers are implicated in thesame corruptions? Have I not, on the contrary, been at pains to showthat your interest lay in having them of all different minds, in orderto suit all your purposes? Do you wish to kill your man?- here isLessius for you. Are you inclined to spare him?- here is Vasquez.Nobody need go away in ill humour- nobody without the authority of agrave doctor. Lessius will talk to you like a Heathen on homicide, andlike a Christian, it may be, on charity. Vasquez, again, willdescant like a Heathen on charity, and like a Christian on homicide.But by means of probabilism, which is held both by Vasquez andLessius, and which renders all your opinions common property, theywill lend their opinions to one another, and each will be held boundto absolve those who have acted according to opinions which each ofthem has condemned. It is this very variety, then, that confounds you.Uniformity, even in evil, would be better than this. Nothing is morecontrary to the orders of St. Ignatius and the first generals ofyour Society than this confused medley of all sorts of opinions,good and bad. I may, perhaps, enter on this topic at some futureperiod; and it will astonish many to see how far you havedegenerated from the original spirit of your institution, and thatyour own generals have foreseen that the corruption of your doctrineon morals might prove fatal, not only to your Society, but to theChurch universal.    Meanwhile, I repeat that you can derive no advantage from thedoctrine of Vasquez. It would be strange, indeed, if, out of all thethat have written on morals, one or two could not be found who mayhave hit upon a truth which has been confessed by all Christians.There is no glory in maintaining the truth, according to the Gospel,that it is unlawful to kill a man for smiting us on the face; but itis foul shame to deny it. So far, indeed, from justifying you, nothingtells more fatally against you than the fact that, having doctorsamong you who have told you the truth, you abide not in the truth, butlove the darkness rather than the light. You have been taught byVasquez that it is a Heathen, and not a Christian, opinion to holdthat we may knock down a man for a blow on the cheek; and that it issubversive both of the Gospel and of the Decalogue to say that wemay kill for such a matter. The most profligate of men willacknowledge as much. And yet you have allowed Lessius, Escobar, andothers, to decide, in the face of these well-known truths, and inspite of all the laws of God against manslaughter, that it is quiteallowable to kill a man for a buffet!    What purpose, then, can it serve to set this passage of Vasquezover against the sentiment of Lessius, unless you mean to show that,in the opinion of Vasquez, Lessius is a "Heathen" and a"profligate"? and that, fathers, is more than I durst have saidmyself. What else can be deduced from it than that Lessius "subvertsboth the Gospel and the Decalogue"; that, at the last day, Vasquezwill condemn Lessius on this point, as Lessius will condemn Vasquez onanother; and that all your fathers will rise up in judgement oneagainst another, mutually condemning each other for their sad outrageson the law of Jesus Christ?    To this conclusion, then, reverend fathers, must we come atlength, that, as your probabilism renders the good opinions of some ofyour authors useless to the Church, and useful only to your policy,they merely serve to betray, by their contrariety, the duplicity ofyour hearts. This you have completely unfolded, by telling us, onthe one hand, that Vasquez and Suarez are against homicide, and on theother hand, that many celebrated authors are for homicide; thuspresenting two roads to our choice and destroying the simplicity ofthe Spirit of God, who denounces his anathema on the deceitful and thedouble-hearted: "Voe duplici corde, et ingredienti duabus viis!- Woebe to the double hearts, and the sinner that goeth two ways!"                        LETTER XIV             TO THE REVEREND FATHERS, THE JESUITS                                                     October 23, 1656  REVEREND FATHERS,    If I had merely to reply to the three remaining charges on thesubject of homicide, there would be no need for a long discourse,and you will see them refuted presently in a few words; but as I thinkit of much more importance to inspire the public with a horror at youropinions on this subject than to justify the fidelity of myquotations, I shall be obliged to devote the greater part of thisletter to the refutation of your maxims, to show you how far youhave departed from the sentiments of the Church and even of natureitself. The permissions of murder, which you have granted in such avariety of cases, render it very apparent, that you have so farforgotten the law of God, and quenched the light of nature, as torequire to be remanded to the simplest principles of religion and ofcommon sense.    What can be a plainer dictate of nature than that "no privateindividual has a right to take away the life of another"? "So well arewe taught this of ourselves," says St. Chrysostom, "that God, ingiving the commandment not to kill, did not add as a reason thathomicide was an evil; because," says that father, "the law supposesthat nature has taught us that truth already." Accordingly, thiscommandment has been binding on men in all ages. The Gospel hasconfirmed the requirement of the law; and the Decalogue only renewedthe command which man had received from God before the law, in theperson of Noah, from whom all men are descended. On that renovation ofthe world, God said to the patriarch: "At the hand of man, and atthe hand of every man's brother, will I require the life of man. Whososheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for man ismade in the image of God." (Gen. ix. 5, 6.) This general prohibitiondeprives man of all power over the life of man. And so exclusively hasthe Almighty reserved this prerogative in His own hand that, inaccordance with Christianity, which is at utter variance with thefalse maxims of Paganism, man has no power even over his own life.But, as it has seemed good to His providence to take human societyunder His protection, and to punish the evil-doers that give itdisturbance, He has Himself established laws for depriving criminalsof life; and thus those executions which, without this sanction, wouldbe punishable outrages, become, by virtue of His authority, which isthe rule of justice, praiseworthy penalties. St. Augustine takes anadmirable view of this subject. "God," he says, "has himself qualifiedthis general prohibition against manslaughter, both by the lawswhich He has instituted for the capital punishment of malefactors, andby the special orders which He has sometimes issued to put to deathcertain individuals. And when death is inflicted in such cases, itis not man that kills, but God, of whom man may be considered asonly the instrument, in the same way as a sword in the hand of himthat wields it. But, these instances excepted, whosoever killsincurs the guilt of murder."    It appears, then, fathers, that the right of taking away thelife of man is the sole prerogative of God, and that, havingordained laws for executing death on criminals, He has deputed kingsor commonwealths as the depositaries of that power- a truth whichSt. Paul teaches us, when, speaking of the right which sovereignspossess over the lives of their subjects, he deduces it from Heaven inthese words: "He beareth not the sword in vain; for he is the ministerof God to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." (Rom. 13. 4.) Butas it is God who has put this power into their hands, so He requiresthem to exercise it in the same manner as He does himself; in otherwords, with perfect justice; according to what St. Paul observes inthe same passage: "Rulers are not a terror to good works, but to theevil. Wilt thou, then, not be afraid of the power? Do that which isgood: for he is the minister of God to thee for good." And thisrestriction, so far from lowering their prerogative, exalts it, on thecontrary, more than ever; for it is thus assimilated to that of Godwho has no power to do evil, but is all-powerful to do good; and it isthus distinguished from that of devils, who are impotent in that whichis good, and powerful only for evil. There is this difference onlyto be observed betwixt the King of Heaven and earthly sovereigns, thatGod, being justice and wisdom itself, may inflict deathinstantaneously on whomsoever and in whatsoever manner He pleases;for, besides His being the sovereign Lord of human life, it certainthat He never takes it away either without cause or without judgement,because He is as incapable of injustice as He is of error. Earthlypotentates, however, are not at liberty to act in this manner; for,though the ministers of God, still they are but men, and not gods.They may be misguided by evil counsels, irritated by false suspicions,transported by passion, and hence they find themselves obliged to haverecourse, in their turn also, to human agency, and appoint magistratesin their dominions, to whom they delegate their power, that theauthority which God has bestowed on them may be employed solely forthe purpose for which they received it.    I hope you understand, then, fathers, that, to avoid the crimeof murder, we must act at once by the authority of God, andaccording to the justice of God; and that, when these two conditionsare not united, sin is contracted; whether it be by taking away lifewith his authority, but without his justice; or by taking it away withjustice, but without his authority. From this indispensable connectionit follows, according to St. Augustine, "that he who, without properauthority, kills a criminal, becomes a criminal himself, chiefly forthis reason, that he usurps an authority which God has not given him";and on the other hand, magistrates, though they possess thisauthority, are nevertheless chargeable with murder, if, contrary tothe laws which they are bound to follow, they inflict death on aninnocent man.    Such are the principles of public safety and tranquillity whichhave been admitted at all times and in all places, and on the basis ofwhich all legislators, sacred and profane, from the beginning of theworld, have founded their laws. Even Heathens have never ventured tomake an exception to this rule, unless in cases where there was noother way of escaping the loss of chastity or life, when theyconceived, as Cicero tells us, "that the law itself seemed to putits weapons into the hands of those who were placed in such anemergency."    But with this single exception, which has nothing to do with mypresent purpose, that such a law was ever enacted, authorizing ortolerating, as you have done, the practice of putting a man todeath, to atone for an insult, or to avoid the loss of honour orproperty, where life is not in danger at the same time; that, fathers,is what I deny was ever done, even by infidels. They have, on thecontrary, most expressly forbidden the practice. The law of the TwelveTables of Rome bore, "that it is unlawful to kill a robber in thedaytime, when he does not defend himself with arms"; which, indeed,had been prohibited long before in the 22d chapter of Exodus. Andthe law Furem, in the Lex Cornelia, which is borrowed from Ulpian,forbids the killing of robbers even by night, if they do not put us indanger of our lives.    Tell us now, fathers, what authority you have to permit what alllaws, human as well as divine, have forbidden; and who gave Lessiusa right to use the following language? "The book of Exodus forbids thekilling of thieves by day, when they do not employ arms in theirdefence; and in a court of justice, punishment is inflicted on thosewho kill under these circumstances. In conscience, however, no blamecan be attached to this practice, when a person is not sure of beingable otherwise to recover his stolen goods, or entertains a doubt onthe subject, as Sotus expresses it; for he is not obliged to run therisk of losing any part of his property merely to save the life of arobber. The same privilege extends even to clergymen." Suchextraordinary assurance! The law of Moses punishes those who kill athief when he does not threaten our lives, and the law of theGospel, according to you, will absolve them! What, fathers! hasJesus Christ come to destroy the law, and not to fulfil it? "The civiljudge," says Lessius, "would inflict punishment on those who shouldkill under such circumstances; but no blame can be attached to thedeed in conscience." Must we conclude, then, that the morality ofJesus Christ is more sanguinary, and less the enemy of murder, thanthat of Pagans, from whom our judges have borrowed their civil lawswhich condemn that crime? Do Christians make more account of thegood things of this earth, and less account of human life, thaninfidels and idolaters? On what principle do you proceed, fathers?Assuredly not upon any law that ever was enacted either by God or man-on nothing, indeed, but this extraordinary reasoning: "The laws,"say you, "permit us to defend ourselves against robbers, and torepel force by force; self-defence, therefore, being permitted, itfollows that murder, without which self-defence is oftenimpracticable, may be considered as permitted also."    It is false, fathers, that, because self-defence is allowed,murder may be allowed also. This barbarous method ofself-vindication lies at the root of all your errors, and has beenjustly stigmatized by the Faculty of Louvain, in their censure ofthe doctrine of your friend Father Lamy, as "a murderous defence-defensio occisiva." I maintain that the laws recognize such a widedifference between murder and self-defence that, in those very casesin which the latter is sanctioned, they have made a provisionagainst murder, when the person is in no danger of his life. Readthe words, fathers, as they run in the same passage of Cujas: "It islawful to repulse the person who comes to invade our property; butwe are not permitted to kill him." And again: "If any shouldthreaten to strike us, and not to deprive us of life, it is quiteallowable to repulse him; but it is against all law to put him todeath."    Who, then, has given you a right to say, as Molina, Reginald,Filiutius, Escobar, Lessius, and others among you, have said, "that itis lawful to kill the man who offers to strike us a blow"? or, "thatit is lawful to take the life of one who means to insult us, by thecommon consent of all the casuists," as Lessius says. By whatauthority do you, who are mere private individuals, confer uponother private individuals, not excepting clergymen, this right ofkilling and slaying? And how dare you usurp the power of life anddeath, which belongs essentially to none but God, and which is themost glorious mark of sovereign authority? These are the points thatdemand explanation; and yet you conceive that you have furnished atriumphant reply to the whole, by simply remarking, in your thirteenthImposture, "that the value for which Molina permits us to kill athief, who flies without having done us any violence, is not sosmall as I have said, and that it must be a much larger sum than sixducats!" How extremely silly! Pray, fathers, where would you havethe price to be fixed? At fifteen or sixteen ducats? Do not supposethat this will produce any abatement in my accusations. At all events,you cannot make it exceed the value of a horse; for Lessius is clearlyof opinion, "that we may lawfully kill the thief that runs off withour horse." But I must tell you, moreover, that I was perfectlycorrect when I said that Molina estimates the value of the thief'slife at six ducats; and, if you will not take it upon my word, weshall refer it to an umpire to whom you cannot object. The person whomI fix upon for this office is your own Father Reginald, who, in hisexplanation of the same passage of Molina (l.28, n. 68), declares that"Molina there determines the sum for which it is not allowable to killat three, or four, or five ducats." And thus, fathers, I shall haveReginald, in addition to Molina, to bear me out.    It will be equally easy for me to refute your fourteenthImposture, touching Molina's permission to "kill a thief who offers torob us of a crown." This palpable fact is attested by Escobar, whotells us "that Molina has regularly determined the sum for which it islawful to take away life, at one crown." And all you have to lay to mycharge in the fourteenth Imposture is, that I have suppressed the lastwords of this passage, namely, "that in this matter every one ought tostudy the moderation of a just self-defence." Why do you notcomplain that Escobar has also omitted to mention these words? But howlittle tact you have about you! You imagine that nobody understandswhat you mean by self-defence. Don't we know that it is to employ "amurderous defence"? You would persuade us that Molina meant to saythat if a person, in defending his crown, finds himself in danger ofhis life, he is then at liberty to kill his assailant, inself-preservation. If that were true, fathers, why should Molina sayin the same place that "in this matter he was of a contraryjudgement from Carrer and Bald," who give permission to kill inself-preservation? I repeat, therefore, that his plain meaning isthat, provided the person can save his crown without killing thethief, he ought not to kill him; but that, if he cannot secure hisobject without shedding blood, even though he should run no risk ofhis own life, as in the case of the robber being unarmed, he ispermitted to take up arms and kill the man, in order to save hiscrown; and in so doing, according to him, the person does nottransgress "the moderation of a just defence." To show you that I amin the right, just allow him to explain himself: "One does notexceed the moderation of a just defence," says he, "when he takes uparms against a thief who has none, or employs weapons which give himthe advantage over his assailant. I know there are some who are of acontrary judgement; but I do not approve of their opinion, even in theexternal tribunal."    Thus, fathers, it is unquestionable that your authors have givenpermission to kill in defence of property and honour, though lifeshould be perfectly free from danger. And it is upon the sameprinciple that they authorize duelling, as I have shown by a greatvariety of passages from their writings, to which you have made noreply. You have animadverted in your writings only on a single passagetaken from Father Layman, who sanctions the above practice, "whenotherwise a person would be in danger of sacrificing his fortune orhis honour"; and here you accuse me with having suppressed what headds, "that such a case happens very rarely." You astonish me,fathers: these are really curious impostures you charge me withal. Youtalk as if the question were whether that is a rare case? when thereal question is if, in such a case, duelling is lawful? These are twovery different questions. Layman, in the quality of a casuist, oughtto judge whether duelling is lawful in the case supposed; and hedeclares that it is. We can judge without his assistance whether thecase be a rare one; and we can tell him that it is a very ordinaryone. Or, if you prefer the testimony of your good friend Diana, hewill tell you that "the case is exceedingly common." But, be it rareor not, and let it be granted that Layman follows in this theexample of Navarre, a circumstance on which you lay so much stress, isit not shameful that he should consent to such an opinion as that,to preserve a false honour, it is lawful in conscience to accept ofa challenge, in the face of the edicts of all Christian states, and ofall the canons of the Church, while in support of these diabolicalmaxims you can produce neither laws, nor canons, nor authoritiesfrom Scripture, or from the fathers, nor the example of a singlesaint, nor, in short, anything but the following impious synogism:"Honour is more than life; it is allowable to kill in defence of life;therefore it is allowable to kill in defence of honour!" What,fathers! because the depravity of men disposes them to prefer thatfactitious honour before the life which God hath given them to bedevoted to his service, must they be permitted to murder one anotherfor its preservation? To love that honour more than life is initself a heinous evil; and yet this vicious passion, which, whenproposed as the end of our conduct, is enough to tarnish the holiestof actions, is considered by you capable of sanctifying the mostcriminal of them!    What a subversion of all principle is here, fathers! And whodoes not see to what atrocious excesses it may lead? It is obvious,indeed, that it will ultimately lead to the commission of murder forthe most trifling things imaginable, when one's honour is consideredto be staked for their preservation- murder, I venture to say, evenfor an apple! You might complain of me, fathers, for drawingsanguinary inferences from your doctrine with a malicious intent, wereI not fortunately supported by the authority of the grave Lessius, whomakes the following observation, in number 68: "It is not allowable totake life for an article of small value, such as for a crown or for anapple- aut pro pomo- unless it would be deemed dishonourable to loseit. In this case, one may recover the article, and even, if necessary,kill the aggressor, for this is not so much defending one's propertyas retrieving one's honour." This is plain speaking, fathers; and,just to crown your doctrine with a maxim which includes all therest, allow me to quote the following from Father Hereau, who hastaken it from Lessius: "The right of self-defence extends towhatever is necessary to protect ourselves from all injury."    What strange consequences does this inhuman principle involve! andhow imperative is the obligation laid upon all, and especially uponthose in public stations, to set their face against it! Not thegeneral good alone, but their own personal interest should engage themto see well to it; for the casuists of your school whom I have citedin my letters extend their permissions to kill far enough to reacheven them. Factious men, who dread the punishment of their outrages,which never appear to them in a criminal light, easily persuadethemselves that they are the victims of violent oppression, and willbe led to believe at the same time, "that the right of self-defenceextends to whatever is necessary to protect themselves from allinjury." And thus, relieved from contending against the checks ofconscience, which stifle the greater number of crimes at theirbirth, their only anxiety will be to surmount external obstacles.    I shall say no more on this subject, fathers; nor shall I dwell onthe other murders, still more odious and important to governments,which you sanction, and of which Lessius, in common with many othersof your authors, treats in the most unreserved manner. It was to bewished that these horrible maxims had never found their way out ofhell; and that the devil, who is their original author, had neverdiscovered men sufficiently devoted to his will to publish themamong Christians.    From all that I have hitherto said, it is easy to judge what acontrariety there is betwixt the licentiousness of your opinions andthe severity of civil laws, not even excepting those of Heathens.How much more apparent must the contrast be with ecclesiasticallaws, which must be incomparably more holy than any other, since it isthe Church alone that knows and possesses the true holiness!Accordingly, this chaste spouse of the Son of God, who, in imitationof her heavenly husband, can shed her own blood for others, butnever the blood of others for herself, entertains a horror at thecrime of murder altogether singular, and proportioned to thepeculiar illumination which God has vouchsafed to bestow upon her. Sheviews man, not simply as man, but as the image of the God whom sheadores. She feels for every one of the race a holy respect, whichimparts to him, in her eyes, a venerable character, as redeemed byan infinite price, to be made the temple of the living God. Andtherefore she considers the death of a man, slain without theauthority of his Maker, not as murder only, but as sacrilege, by whichshe is deprived of one of her members; for, whether he be a believeror an unbeliever, she uniformly looks upon him, if not as one, atleast as capable of becoming one, of her own children.    Such, fathers, are the holy reasons which, ever since the timethat God became man for the redemption of men, have rendered theircondition an object of such consequence to the Church that sheuniformly punishes the crime of homicide, not only as destructive tothem, but as one of the grossest outrages that can possibly beperpetrated against God. In proof of this I shall quote some examples,not from the idea that all the severities to which I refer ought to bekept up (for I am aware that the Church may alter the arrangement ofsuch exterior discipline), but to demonstrate her immutable spiritupon this subject. The penances which she ordains for murder maydiffer according to the diversity of the times, but no change oftime can ever effect an alteration of the horror with which sheregards the crime itself.    For a long time the Church refused to be reconciled, till the veryhour of death, to those who had been guilty of wilful murder, as thoseare to whom you give your sanction. The celebrated Council of Ancyraadjudged them to penance during their whole lifetime; and,subsequently, the Church deemed it an act of sufficient indulgenceto reduce that term to a great many years. But, still more effectuallyto deter Christians from wilful murder, she has visited with mostsevere punishment even those acts which have been committed throughinadvertence, as may be seen in St. Basil, in St. Gregory of Nyssen,and in the decretals of Popes Zachary and Alexander II. The canonsquoted by Isaac, bishop of Langres (tr. 2. 13), "ordain seven years ofpenance for having killed another in self-defence." And we find St.Hildebert, bishop of Mans, replying to Yves de Chartres, "that hewas right in interdicting for life a priest who had, inself-defence, killed a robber with a stone."    After this, you cannot have the assurance to persist in sayingthat your decisions are agreeable to the spirit or the canons of theChurch. I defy you to show one of them that permits us to killsolely in defence of our property (for I speak not of cases in whichone may be called upon to defend his life- se suaquae liberando); yourown authors, and, among the rest, Father Lamy, confess that no suchcanon can be found. "There is no authority," he says, "human ordivine, which gives an express permission to kill a robber who makesno resistance." And yet this is what you permit most expressly. I defyyou to show one of them that permits us to kill in vindication ofhonour, for a buffet, for an affront, or for a slander. I defy youto show one of them that permits the killing of witnesses, judges,or magistrates, whatever injustice we may apprehend from them. Thespirit of the church is diametrically opposite to these seditiousmaxims, opening the door to insurrections to which the mob isnaturally prone enough already. She has invariably taught her childrenthat they ought not to render evil for evil; that they ought to giveplace unto wrath; to make no resistance to violence; to give untoevery one his due- honour, tribute, submission; to obey magistratesand superiors, even though they should be unjust, because we oughtalways to respect in them the power of that God who has placed themover us. She forbids them, still more strongly than is done by thecivil law, to take justice into their own hands; and it is in herspirit that Christian kings decline doing so in cases of high treason,and remit the criminals charged with this grave offence into the handsof the judges, that they may be punished according to the laws and theforms of justice, which in this matter exhibit a contrast to your modeof management so striking and complete that it may well make you blushfor shame.    As my discourse has taken this turn, I beg you to follow thecomparison which I shall now draw between the style in which you woulddispose of your enemies, and that in which the judges of the landdispose of criminals. Everybody knows, fathers, that no privateindividual has a right to demand the death of another individual;and that though a man should have ruined us, maimed our body, burntour house, murdered our father, and was prepared, moreover, toassassinate ourselves, or ruin our character, our private demand forthe death of that person would not be listened to in a court ofjustice. Public officers have been appointed for that purpose, whomake the demand in the name of the king, or rather, I would say, inthe name of God. Now, do you conceive, fathers, that Christianlegislators have established this regulation out of mere show andgrimace? Is it not evident that their object was to harmonize the lawsof the state with those of the Church, and thus prevent the externalpractice of justice from clashing with the sentiments which allChristians are bound to cherish in their hearts? It is easy to see howthis, which forms the commencement of a civil process, must staggeryou; its subsequent procedure absolutely overwhelms you.    Suppose then, fathers, that these official persons have demandedthe death of the man who has committed all the above-mentioned crimes,what is to be done next? Will they instantly plunge a dagger in hisbreast? No, fathers; the life of man is too important to be thusdisposed of; they go to work with more decency; the laws havecommitted it, not to all sorts of persons, but exclusively to thejudges, whose probity and competency have been duly tried. And isone judge sufficient to condemn a man to death? No; it requiresseven at the very least; and of these seven there must not be onewho has been injured by the criminal, lest his judgement should bewarped or corrupted by passion. You are aware also, fathers, that, themore effectually to secure the purity of their minds, they devotethe hours of the morning to these functions. Such is the care taken toprepare them for the solemn action of devoting a fellow-creature todeath; in performing which they occupy the place of God, whoseministers they are, appointed to condemn such only as have incurredhis condemnation.    For the same reason, to act as faithful administrators of thedivine power of taking away human life, they are bound to form theirjudgement solely according to the depositions of the witnesses, andaccording to all the other forms prescribed to them; after whichthey can pronounce conscientiously only according to law, and canjudge worthy of death those only whom the law condemns to thatpenalty. And then, fathers, if the command of God obliges them todeliver over to punishment the bodies of the unhappy culprits, thesame divine statute binds them to look after the interests of theirguilty souls, and binds them the more to this just because they areguilty; so that they are not delivered up to execution till after theyhave been afforded the means of providing for their consciences. Allthis is quite fair and innocent; and yet, such is the abhorrence ofthe Church to blood that she judges those to be incapable ofministering at her altars who have borne any share in passing orexecuting a sentence of death, accompanied though it be with thesereligious circumstances; from which we may easily conceive what ideathe Church entertains of murder.    Such, then, being the manner in which human life is disposed of bythe legal forms of justice, let us now see how you dispose of it.According to your modern system of legislation, there is but onejudge, and that judge is no other than the offended party. He is atonce the judge, the party, and the executioner. He himself demandsfrom himself the death of his enemy; he condemns him, he executeshim on the spot; and, without the least respect either for the soul orthe body of his brother, he murders and damns him for whom JesusChrist died; and all this for the sake of avoiding a blow on thecheek, or a slander, or an offensive word, or some other offence ofa similar nature, for which, if a magistrate, in the exercise oflegitimate authority, were condemning any to die, he would himselfbe impeached; for, in such cases, the laws are very far indeed fromcondemning any to death. In one word, to crown the whole of thisextravagance, the person who kills his neighbour in this style,without authority and in the face of all law, contracts no sin andcommits no disorder, though he should be religious and even apriest! Where are we, fathers? Are these really religious, andpriests, who talk in this manner? Are they Christians? are they Turks?are they men? or are they demons? And are these "the mysteriesrevealed by the Lamb to his Society"? or are they not ratherabominations suggested by the Dragon to those who take part with him?    To come to the point, with you, fathers, whom do you wish to betaken for?- for the children of the Gospel, or for the enemies ofthe Gospel? You must be ranged either on the one side or on the other;for there is no medium here. "He that is not with Jesus Christ isagainst him." Into these two classes all mankind are divided. Thereare, according to St. Augustine, two peoples and two worlds, scatteredabroad over the earth. There is the world of the children of God,who form one body, of which Jesus Christ is the king and the head; andthere is the world at enmity with God, of which the devil is theking and the head. Hence Jesus Christ is called the King and God ofthe world, because he has everywhere his subjects and worshippers; andhence the devil is also termed in Scripture the prince of thisworld, and the god of this world, because he has everywhere his agentsand his slaves. Jesus Christ has imposed upon the Church, which is hisempire, such laws as he, in his eternal wisdom, was pleased to ordain;and the devil has imposed on the world, which is his kingdom, suchlaws as he chose to establish. Jesus Christ has associated honour withsuffering; the devil with not suffering. Jesus Christ has told thosewho are smitten on the one cheek to turn the other also; and the devilhas told those who are threatened with a buffet to kill the man thatwould do them such an injury. Jesus Christ pronounces those happywho share in his reproach; and the devil declares those to beunhappy who lie under ignominy. Jesus Christ says: Woe unto you whenmen shall speak well of you! and the devil says: Woe unto those ofwhom the world does not speak with esteem!    Judge, then, fathers, to which of these kingdoms you belong. Youhave heard the language of the city of peace, the mysticalJerusalem; and you have heard the language of the city of confusion,which Scripture terms "the spiritual Sodom." Which of these twolanguages do you understand? which of them do you speak? Those who areon the side of Jesus Christ have, as St. Paul teaches us, the samemind which was also in him; and those who are the children of thedevil- ex patre diabolo- who has been a murderer from the beginning,according to the saying of Jesus Christ, follow the maxims of thedevil. Let us hear, therefore, the language of your school. I put thisquestion to your doctors: When a person has given me a blow on thecheek, ought I rather to submit to the injury than kill theoffender? or may I not kill the man in order to escape the affront?Kill him by all means- it is quite lawful! exclaim, in one breath,Lessius, Molina, Escobar, Reginald, Filiutius, Baldelle, and otherJesuits. Is that the language of Jesus Christ? One question more:Would I lose my honour by tolerating a box on the ear, without killingthe person that gave it? "Can there be a doubt," cries Escobar,"that so long as a man suffers another to live who has given him abuffet, that man remains without honour?" Yes, fathers, without thathonour which the devil transfuses, from his own proud spirit into thatof his proud children. This is the honour which has ever been the idolof worldly-minded men. For the preservation of this false glory, ofwhich the god of this world is the appropriate dispenser, theysacrifice their lives by yielding to the madness of duelling; theirhonour, by exposing themselves to ignominious punishments; and theirsalvation, by involving themselves in the peril of damnation- aperil which, according to the canons of the Church, deprives them evenof Christian burial. We have reason to thank God, however, forhaving enlightened the mind of our monarch with ideas much purerthan those of your theology. His edicts bearing so severely on thissubject, have not made duelling a crime- they only punish the crimewhich is inseparable from duelling. He has checked, by the dread ofhis rigid justice, those who were not restrained by the fear of thejustice of God; and his piety has taught him that the honour ofChristians consists in their observance of the mandates of Heavenand the rules of Christianity, and not in the pursuit of thatphantom which, airy and unsubstantial as it is, you hold to be alegitimate apology for murder. Your murderous decisions being thusuniversally detested, it is highly advisable that you should nowchange your sentiments, if not from religious principle, at least frommotives of policy. Prevent, fathers, by a spontaneous condemnationof these inhuman dogmas, the melancholy consequences which mayresult from them, and for which you will be responsible. And toimpress your minds with a deeper horror at homicide, remember that thefirst crime of fallen man was a murder, committed on the person of thefirst holy man; that the greatest crime was a murder, perpetrated onthe person of the King of saints; and that, of all crimes, murder isthe only one which involves in a common destruction the Church and thestate, nature and religion.    I have just seen the answer of your apologist to my ThirteenthLetter, but if he has nothing better to produce in the shape of areply to that letter, which obviates the greater part of hisobjections, he will not deserve a rejoinder. I am sorry to see himperpetually digressing from his subject, to indulge in rancorous abuseboth of the living and the dead. But, in order to gain some creditto the stories with which you have furnished him, you should nothave made him publicly disavow a fact so notorious as that of thebuffet of Compiegne. Certain it is, fathers, from the deposition ofthe injured party, that he received upon his cheek a blow from thehand of a Jesuit; and all that your friends have been able to do foryou has been to raise a doubt whether he received the blow with theback or the palm of the hand, and to discuss the question whether astroke on the cheek with the back of the hand can be properlydenominated a buffet. I know not to what tribunal it belongs to decidethis point; but shall content myself, in the meantime, withbelieving that it was, to say the very least, a probable buffet.This gets me off with a safe conscience.                        LETTER XV            TO THE REVEREND FATHERS, THE JESUITS                                                    November 25, 1656  REVEREND FATHERS,    As your scurrilities are daily increasing, and as you areemploying them in the merciless abuse of all pious persons opposedto your errors, I feel myself obliged, for their sake and that ofthe Church, to bring out that grand secret of your policy, which Ipromised to disclose some time ago, in order that all may know,through means of your own maxims, what degree of credit is due to yourcalumnious accusations.    I am aware that those who are not very well acquainted with youare at a great loss what to think on this subject, as they findthemselves under the painful necessity, either of believing theincredible crimes with which you charge your opponents, or (what isequally incredible) of setting you down as slanderers. "Indeed!"they exclaim, "were these things not true, would clergymen publishthem to the world- would they debauch their consciences and damnthemselves by venting such libels?" Such is their way of reasoning,and thus it is that the palpable proof of your falsifications cominginto collision with their opinion of your honesty, their minds hang ina state of suspense between the evidence of truth, which they cannotgainsay, and the demands of charity, which they would not violate.It follows that since their high esteem for you is the only thing thatprevents them from discrediting your calumnies, if we can succeed inconvincing them that you have quite a different idea of calumny fromthat which they suppose you to have, and that you actually believethat in blackening and defaming your adversaries you are working outyour own salvation, there can be little question that the weight oftruth will determine them immediately to pay no regard to youraccusations. This, fathers, will be the subject of the present letter.    My design is not simply to show that your writings are full ofcalumnies; I mean to go a step beyond this. It is quite possible for aperson to say a number of false things believing them to be true;but the character of a liar implies the intention to tell lies. NowI undertake to prove, fathers, that it is your deliberate intention totell lies, and that it is both knowingly and purposely that you loadyour opponents with crimes of which you know them to be innocent,because you believe that you may do so without falling from a state ofgrace. Though you doubtless know this point of your morality as wellas I do, this need not prevent me from telling you about it; which Ishall do, were it for no other purpose than to convince all men of itsexistence, by showing them that I can maintain it to your face,while you cannot have the assurance to disavow it, without confirming,by that very disavowment, the charge which I bring against you.    The doctrine to which I allude is so common in your schools thatyou have maintained it not only in your books, but, such is yourassurance, even in your public theses; as, for example, in thosedelivered at Louvain in the year 1645, where it occurs in thefollowing terms: "What is it but a venial sin to culminate and forgefalse accusations to ruin the credit of those who speak evil of us?"So settled is this point among you that, if any one dare to oppose it,you treat him as a blockhead and a hare-brained idiot. Such was theway in which you treated Father Quiroga, the German Capuchin, whenhe was so unfortunate as to impugn the doctrine. The poor man wasinstantly attacked by Dicastille, one of your fraternity; and thefollowing is a specimen of the manner in which he manages the dispute:"A certain rueful-visaged, bare-footed, cowled friar-cucullatusgymnopoda- whom I do not choose to name, had the boldness todenounce this opinion, among some women and ignorant people, and toallege that it was scandalous and pernicious against all good manners,hostile to the peace of states and societies, and, in short,contrary to the judgement not only of all Catholic doctors, but of alltrue Catholics. But in opposition to him I maintained, as I dostill, that calumny, when employed against a calumniator, though itshould be a falsehood, is not a mortal sin, either against justiceor charity: and, to prove the point, I referred him to the wholebody of our fathers, and to whole universities, exclusively composedof them whom I had consulted on the subject; and among others thereverend Father John Gans, confessor to the Emperor; the reverendFather Daniel Bastele, confessor to the Archduke Leopold; FatherHenri, who was preceptor to these two princes; all the public andordinary professors of the university of Vienna" (wholly composed ofJesuits); "all the professors of the university of Gratz" (allJesuits); "all the professors of the university of Prague" (whereJesuits are the masters);- "from all of whom I have in my possessionapprobations of my opinions, written and signed with their ownhands; besides having on my side the reverend Father Panalossa, aJesuit, preacher to the Emperor and the King of Spain; FatherPilliceroli, a Jesuit, and many others, who had all judged thisopinion to be probable, before our dispute began." You perceive,fathers, that there are few of your opinions which you have been atmore pains to establish than the present, as indeed there were fewof them of which you stood more in need. For this reason, doubtless,you have authenticated it so well that the casuists appeal to it as anindubitable principle. "There can be no doubt," says Caramuel, "thatit is a probable opinion that we contract no mortal sin bycalumniating another, in order to preserve our own reputation. Forit is maintained by more than twenty grave doctors, by GaspardHurtado, and Dicastille, Jesuits, &c.; so that, were this doctrine notprobable, it would be difficult to find any one such in the wholecompass of theology."    Wretched indeed must that theology be, and rotten to the verycore, which, unless it has been decided to be safe in conscience todefame our neighbor's character to preserve our own, can hardlyboast of a safe decision on any other point! How natural is it,fathers, that those who hold this principle should occasionally put itin practice! corrupt propensity of mankind leans so strongly in thatdirection of itself that, the obstacle of conscience once beingremoved, it would be folly to suppose that it will not burst forthwith all its native impetuosity. If you desire an example of this,Caramuel will furnish you with one that occurs in the same passage:"This maxim of Father Dicastille," he says, "having beencommunicated by a German countess to the daughters of the Empress, thebelief thus impressed on their minds that calumny was only a venialsin, gave rise in the course of a few days to such an immense numberof false and scandalous tales that the whole court was thrown into aflame and fill ed with alarm. It is easy, indeed, to conceive what afine use these ladies would make of the new light they had acquired.Matters proceeded to such a length, that it was found necessary tocall in the assistance of a worthy Capuchin friar, a man ofexemplary life, called Father Quiroga" (the very man whom Dicastillerails at so bitterly), "who assured them that the maxim was mostpernicious, especially among women, and was at the greatest pains toprevail upon the Empress to abolish the practice of it entirely." Wehave no reason, therefore, to be surprised at the bad effects ofthis doctrine; on the contrary, the wonder would be if it had failedto produce them. Self-love is always ready enough to whisper in ourear, when we are attacked, that we suffer wrongfully; and moreparticularly in your case, fathers, whom vanity has blinded soegregiously as to make you believe that to wound the honour of yourSociety is to wound that of the Church. There would have been goodground to look on it as something miraculous, if you had not reducedthis maxim to practice. Those who do not know you are ready to say:How could these good fathers slander their enemies, when they cannotdo so but at the expense of their own salvation? But, if they knew youbetter, the question would be: How could these good fathers forego theadvantage of decrying their enemies, when they have it in theirpower to do so without hazarding their salvation? Let none, therefore,henceforth be surprised to find the Jesuits calumniators; they canexercise this vocation with a safe conscience; there is no obstacle inheaven or on earth to prevent them. In virtue of the credit theyhave acquired in the world, they can practise defamation withoutdreading the justice of mortals; and, on the strength of theirself-assumed authority in matters of conscience, they have inventedmaxims for enabling them to do it without any fear of the justice ofGod.    This, fathers, is the fertile source of your base slanders. Onthis principle was Father Brisacier led to scatter his calumnies abouthim, with such zeal as to draw down on his head the censure of thelate Archbishop of Paris. Actuated by the same motives, Father D'Anjoulaunched his invectives from the pulpit of the Church of St.Benedict in Paris on the 8th of March, 1655, against thosehonourable gentlemen who were intrusted with the charitable fundsraised for the poor of Picardy and Champagne, to which they themselveshad largely contributed; and, uttering a base falsehood, calculated(if your slanders had been considered worthy of any credit) to dryup the stream of that charity, he had the assurance to say, "that heknew, from good authority, that certain persons had diverted thatmoney from its proper use, to employ it against the Church and theState"; a calumny which obliged the curate of the parish, who is adoctor of the Sorbonne, to mount the pulpit the very next day, inorder to give it the lie direct. To the same source must be traced theconduct of your Father Crasset, who preached calumny at such a furiousrate in Orleans that the Archbishop of that place was under thenecessity of interdicting him as a public slanderer. In thismandate, dated the 9th of September last, his lordship declares: "Thatwhereas he had been informed that Brother Jean Crasset, priest ofthe Society of Jesus, had delivered from the pulpit a discourse filledwith falsehoods and calumnies against the ecclesiastics of thiscity, falsely and maliciously charging them with maintaining impiousand heretical propositions, such as: That the commandments of Godare impracticable; that internal grace is irresistible; that JesusChrist did not die for all men; and others of a similar kind,condemned by Innocent X: he therefore hereby interdicts theaforesaid Crasset from preaching in his diocese, and forbids all hispeople to hear him, on pain of mortal disobedience." The above,fathers, is your ordinary accusation, and generally among the firstthat you bring against all whom it is your interest to denounce.And, although you should find it as impossible to substantiate thecharge against any of them, as Father Crasset did in the case of theclergy of Orleans, your peace of conscience will not be in the leastdisturbed on that account; for you believe that this mode ofcalumniating your adversaries is permitted you with such certaintythat you have no scruple to avow it in the most public manner, andin the face of a whole city.    A remarkable proof of this may be seen in the dispute you had withM. Puys, curate of St. Nisier at Lyons; and the story exhibits socomplete an illustration of your spirit that I shall take theliberty of relating some of its leading circumstances. You know,fathers, that, in the year 1649, M. Puys translated into French anexcellent book, written by another Capuchin friar, On the duty whichChristians owe to their own parishes, against those that would leadthem away from them, without using a single invective, or pointingto any monk or any order of monks in particular. Your fathers,however, were pleased to put the cap on their own heads; and withoutany respect to an aged pastor, a judge in the Primacy of France, and aman who was held in the highest esteem by the whole city, FatherAlby wrote a furious tract against him, which you sold in your ownchurch upon Assumption Day; in which book, among other variouscharges, he accused him of having made himself scandalous by hisgallantries," described him as suspected of having no religion, as aheretic, excommunicated, and, in short, worthy of the stake. To thisM. Puys made a reply; and Father Alby, in a second publication,supported his former allegations. Now, fathers, is it not a clearpoint either that you were calumniators, or that you believed all thatyou alleged against that worthy priest to be true; and that, on thislatter assumption, it became you to see him purified from all theseabominations before judging him worthy of your friendship? Let us see,then, what happened at the accommodation of the dispute, which tookplace in the presence of a great number of the principal inhabitantsof the town on the 25th of September, 1650. Before all these witnessesM. Puys made a declaration, which was neither more nor less than this:"That what he had written was not directed against the fathers ofthe Society of Jesus; that he had spoken in general of those whoalienated the faithful from their parishes, without meaning by that toattack the Society; and that, so far from having such an intention,the Society was the object of his esteem and affection." By virtueof these words alone, without either retraction or absolution, M. Puysrecovered, all at once, from his apostasy, his scandals, and hisexcommunication; and Father Alby immediately thereafter addressedhim in the following express terms: "Sir, it was in consequence ofmy believing that you meant to attack the Society to which I havethe honour to belong that I was induced to take up the pen in itsdefence; and I considered that the mode of reply which I adopted wassuch as I was permitted to employ. But, on a better understanding ofyour intention, I am now free to declare that there is nothing in yourwork to prevent me from regarding you as a man of genius,enlightened in judgement, profound and orthodox in doctrine, andirreproachable in manners; in one word, as a pastor worthy of yourChurch. It is with much pleasure that I make this declaration, and Ibeg these gentlemen to remember what I have now said."    They do remember it, fathers; and, allow me to add, they were morescandalized by the reconciliation than by the quarrel. For who canfail to admire this speech of Father Alby? He does not say that heretracts, in consequence of having learnt that a change had takenplace in the faith and manners of M. Puys, but solely because,having understood that he had no intention of attacking yourSociety, there was nothing further to prevent him from regarding theauthor as a good Catholic. He did not then believe him to beactually a heretic! And yet, after having, contrary to his conviction,accused him of this crime, he will not acknowledge he was in thewrong, but has the hardihood to say that he considered the method headopted to be "such as he was permitted to employ!"    What can you possibly mean, fathers, by so publicly avowing thefact that you measure the faith and the virtue of men only by thesentiments they entertain towards your Society? Had you noapprehension of making yourselves pass, by your own acknowledgement,as a band of swindlers and slanderers? What, fathers! must the sameindividual without undergoing any personal transformation, butsimply according as you judge him to have honoured or assailed yourcommunity, be "pious" or "impious," "irreproachable" or"excommunicated," "a pastor worthy of the Church," or "worthy of thestake"; in short, "a Catholic" or "a heretic"? To attack yourSociety and to be a heretic are, therefore, in your language,convertible terms! An odd sort of heresy this, fathers! And so itwould appear that, when we see many good Catholics branded, in yourwritings, by the name of heretia, it means nothing more than thatyou think they attack you! It is well, fathers, that we understandthis strange dialect, according to which there can be no doubt thatI must be a great heretic. It is in this sense, then, that you sooften favour me with this appellation! Your sole reason for cutting meoff from the Church is because you conceive that my letters havedone you harm; and, accordingly, all that I have to do, in order tobecome a good Catholic, is either to approve of your extravagantmorality, or to convince you that my sole aim in exposing it hasbeen your advantage. The former I could not do without renouncingevery sentiment of piety that I ever possessed; and the latter youwill be slow to acknowledge till you are well cured of your errors.Thus am I involved in heresy, after a very singular fashion; for,the purity of my faith being of no avail for my exculpation, I have nomeans of escaping from the charge, except either by turning traitor tomy own conscience, or by reforming yours. Till one or other of theseevents happen, I must remain a reprobate and a slanderer; and, letme be ever so faithful in my citations from your writings, you will goabout crying everywhere: "What an instrument of the devil must thatman be, to impute to us things of which there is not the least mark orvestige to be found in our books!" And, by doing so, you will onlybe acting in conformity with your fixed maxim and your ordinarypractice: to such latitude does your privilege of telling lies extend!Allow me to give you an example of this, which I select on purpose; itwill give me an opportunity of replying, at the same time, to yourninth Imposture: for, in truth, they only deserve to be refuted inpassing.    About ten or twelve years ago, you were accused of holding thatmaxim of Father Bauny, "that it is permissible to seek directly (primoet per se) a proximate occasion of sin, for the spiritual ortemporal good of ourselves or our neighbour" (tr.4, q.14); as anexample of which, he observes: "It is allowable to visit infamousplaces, for the purpose of converting abandoned females, even althoughthe practice should be very likely to lead into sin, as in the case ofone who has found from experience that he has frequently yielded totheir temptations." What answer did your Father Caussin give to thischarge in the year 1644? "Just let any one look at the passage inFather Bauny," said he, "let him peruse the page, the margins, thepreface, the appendix, in short, the whole book from beginning to end,and he will not discover the slightest vestige of such a sentence,which could only enter into the mind of a man totally devoid ofconscience, and could hardly have been forged by any other but aninstrument of Satan." Father Pintereau talks in the same style:"That man must be lost to all conscience who would teach so detestablea doctrine; but he must be worse than a devil who attributes it toFather Bauny. Reader, there is not a single trace or vestige of itin the whole of his book." Who would not believe that personstalking in this tone have good reason to complain, and that FatherBauny has, in very deed, been misrepresented? Have you ever assertedanything against me in stronger terms? And, after such a solemnasseveration, that "there was not a single trace or vestige of it inthe whole book, " who would imagine that the passage is to be found,word for word, in the place referred to?    Truly, fathers, if this be the means of securing yourreputation, so long as you remain unanswered, it is also,unfortunately, the means of destroying it forever, so soon as ananswer makes its appearance. For so certain is it that you told alie at the period before mentioned, that you make no scruple ofacknowledging, in your apologies of the present day, that the maxim inquestion is to be found in the very place which had been quoted;and, what is most extraordinary, the same maxim which, twelve yearsago, was "detestable," has now become so innocent that in your ninthImposture (p. 10) you accuse me of "ignorance and malice, inquarrelling with Father Bauny for an opinion which has not beenrejected in the School." What an advantage it is, fathers, to haveto do with people that deal in contradictions! I need not the aid ofany but yourselves to confute you; for I have only two things to show:first, That the maxim in dispute is a worthless one; and, secondly,That it belongs to Father Bauny; and I can prove both by your ownconfession. In 1644, you confessed that it was "detestable"; and, in1656, you avow that it is Father Bauny's. This doubleacknowledgement completely justifies me, fathers; but it does more, itdiscovers the spirit of your policy. For, tell me, pray, what is theend you propose to yourselves in your writings? Is it to speak withhonesty? No, fathers; that cannot be, since your defences destroy eachother. Is it to follow the truth of the faith? As little can this beyour end; since, according to your own showing, you authorize a"detestable" maxim. But, be it observed that while you said themaxim was "detestable," you denied, at the same time, that it wasthe property of Father Bauny, and so he was innocent; and when you nowacknowledge it to be his, you maintain, at the same time, that it is agood maxim, and so he is innocent still. The innocence of this monk,therefore, being the only thing common to your two answers, it isobvious that this was the sole end which you aimed at in puttingthem forth; and that, when you say of one and the same maxim, thatit is in a certain book, and that it is not; that it is a goodmaxim, and that it is a bad one; your sole object is to whitewash someone or other of your fraternity; judging in the matter, notaccording to the truth, which never changes, but according to your owninterest, which is varying every hour. Can I say more than this? Youperceive that it amounts to a demonstration; but it is far frombeing a singular instance, and, to omit a multitude of examples of thesame thing, I believe you will be contented with my quoting only onemore.    You have been charged, at different times, with anotherproposition of the same Father Bauny, namely:. "That absolutionought to be neither denied nor deferred in the case of those wholive in the habits of sin against the law of God, of nature, and ofthe Church, although there should be no apparent prospect of futureamendment- etsi emendationis futurae spes nulla appareat." Now, withregard to this maxim, I beg you to tell me, fathers, which of theapologies that have been made for it is most to your liking; whetherthat of Father Pintereau, or that of Father Brisacier, both of yourSociety, who have defended Father Bauny, in your two differentmodes- the one by condemning the proposition, but disavowing it tobe Father Bauny's; the other by allowing it to be Father Bauny's,but vindicating the proposition? Listen, then, to their respectivedeliverances. Here comes that of Father Pintereau (p. 8): "I knownot what can be called a transgression of all the bounds of modesty, astep beyond all ordinary impudence, if the imputation to FatherBauny of so damnable a doctrine is not worthy of that designation.Judge, reader, of the baseness of that calumny; see what sort ofcreatures the Jesuits have to deal with; and say if the author of sofoul a slander does not deserve to be regarded from henceforth asthe interpreter of the father of lies." Now for Father Brisacier:"It is true, Father Bauny says what you allege." (That gives the liedirect to Father Pintereau, plain enough.) "But," adds he, indefence of Father Bauny, "if you who find so much fault with thissentiment wait, when a penitent lies at your feet, till his guardianangel find security for his rights in the inheritance of heaven; ifyou wait till God the Father swear by himself that David told a lie,when he said by the Holy Ghost that 'all men are liars,' fallibleand perfidious; if you wait till the penitent be no longer a liar,no longer frail and changeable, no longer a sinner, like other men; ifyou wait, I say, till then, you will never apply the blood of JesusChrist to a single soul."    What do you really think now, fathers, of these impious andextravagant expressions? According to them, if we would wait "tillthere be some hope of amendment" in sinners before granting theirabsolution, we must wait "till God the Father swear by himself,"that they will never fall into sin any more! What, fathers! is nodistinction to be made between hope and certainty? How injurious is itto the grace of Jesus Christ to maintain that it is so impossiblefor Christians ever to escape from crimes against the laws of God,nature, and the Church, that such a thing cannot be looked for,without supposing "that the Holy Ghost has told a lie"; and, ifabsolution is not granted to those who give no hope of amendment,the blood of Jesus Christ will be useless, forsooth, and would neverbe applied to a single soul!" To what a sad pass have you come,fathers by this extravagant desire of upholding the glory of yourauthors, when you can find only two ways of justifying them- byimposture or by impiety; and when the most innocent mode by whichyou can extricate yourselves is by the barefaced denial of facts aspatent as the light of day!    This may perhaps account for your having recourse so frequently tothat very convenient practice. But this does not complete the sum ofyour accomplishments in the art of self-defence. To render youropponents odious, you have had recourse to the forging of documents,such as that Letter of a Minister to M. Arnauld, which youcirculated through all Paris, to induce the belief that the work onFrequent Communion, which had been approved by so many bishops anddoctors, but which, to say the truth, was rather against you, had beenconcocted through secret intelligence with the ministers of Charenton.At other times, you attribute to your adversaries writings full ofimpiety, such as the Circular Letter of the Jansenists, the absurdstyle of which renders the fraud too gross to be swallowed, andpalpably betrays the malice of your Father Meynier, who has theimpudence to make use of it for supporting his foulest slanders.Sometimes, again, you will quote books which were never inexistence, such as The Constitution of the Holy Sacrament, fromwhich you extract passages, fabricated at pleasure and calculated tomake the hair on the heads of certain good simple people, who haveno idea of the effrontery with which you can invent and propagatefalsehoods, actually to bristle with horror. There is not, indeed, asingle species of calumny which you have not put into requisition; noris it possible that the maxim which excuses the vice could have beenlodged in better hands.    But those sorts of slander to which we have adverted are rathertoo easily discredited; and, accordingly, you have others of a moresubtle character, in which you abstain from specifying particulars, inorder to preclude your opponents from getting any hold, or finding anymeans of reply; as, for example, when Father Brisacier says that"his enemies are guilty of abominable crimes, which he does not chooseto mention." Would you not think it were impossible to prove acharge so vague as this to be a calumny? An able man, however, hasfound out the secret of it; and it is a Capuchin again, fathers. Youare unlucky in Capuchins, as times now go; and I foresee that youmay be equally so some other time in Benedictines. The name of thisCapuchin is Father Valerien, of the house of the Counts of Magnis. Youshall hear, by this brief narrative, how he answered your calumnies.He had happily succeeded in converting Prince Ernest, the Landgrave ofHesse-Rheinsfelt. Your fathers, however, seized, as it would appear,with some chagrin at seeing a sovereign prince converted without theirhaving had any hand in it, immediately wrote a book against thefriar (for good men are everywhere the objects of your persecution),in which, by falsifying one of his passages, they ascribed to him anheretical doctrine. They also circulated a letter against him, inwhich they said: "Ah, we have such things to disclose" (withoutmentioning what) "as will gall you to the quick! If you don't takecare, we shall be forced to inform the pope and the cardinals aboutit." This manoeuvre was pretty well executed; and I doubt not,fathers, but you may speak in the same style of me; but take warningfrom the manner in which the friar answered in his book, which wasprinted last year at Prague (p.112, &c.): "What shall I do," hesays, "to counteract these vague and indefinite insinuations? Howshall I refute charges which have never been specified? Here, however,is my plan. I declare, loudly and publicly, to those who havethreatened me, that they are notorious slanderers and most impudentliars, if they do not discover these crimes before the whole world.Come forth, then, mine accusers! and publish your lies upon thehouse-tops, in place of telling them in the ear, and keepingyourselves out of harm's way by telling them in the ear. Some maythink this a scandalous way of managing the dispute. It wasscandalous, I grant, to impute to me such a crime as heresy, and tofix upon me the suspicion of many others besides; but, by asserting myinnocence, I am merely applying the proper remedy to the scandalalready in existence."    Truly, fathers, never were your reverences more roughly handled,and never was a poor man more completely vindicated. Since you havemade no reply to such a peremptory challenge, it must be concludedthat you are unable to discover the slightest shadow of criminalityagainst him. You have had very awkward scrapes to get throughoccasionally; but experience has made you nothing the wiser. For, sometime after this happened, you attacked the same individual in asimilar strain, upon another subject; and he defended himself afterthe same spirited manner, as follows: "This class of men, who havebecome an intolerable nuisance to the whole of Christendom, aspire,under the pretext of good works, to dignities and domination, byperverting to their own ends almost all laws, human and divine,natural and revealed. They gain over to their side, by their doctrine,by the force of fear, or of persuasion, the great ones of the earth,whose authority they abuse for the purpose of accomplishing theirdetestable intrigues. Meanwhile their enterprises, criminal as theyare, are neither punished nor suppressed; on the contrary, they arerewarded; and the villains go about them with as little fear orremorse as if they were doing God service. Everybody is aware of thefact I have now stated; everybody speaks of it with execration; butfew are found capable of opposing a despotism so powerful. This,however, is what I have done. I have already curbed their insolence;and, by the same means, I shall curb it again. I declare, then, thatthey are most impudent liars- mentiris impudentissime. If thecharges they have brought against me be true, let them prove it;otherwise they stand convicted of falsehood, aggravated by thegrossest effrontery. Their procedure in this case will show who hasthe right upon his side. I desire all men to take a particularobservation of it; and beg to remark, in the meantime, that thisprecious cabal, who will not suffer the most trifling charge whichthey can possibly repel to lie upon them, made a show of enduring,with great patience, those from which they cannot vindicatethemselves, and conceal, under a counterfeit virtue, their realimpotency. My object, therefore, in provoking their modesty by thissharp retort, is to let the plainest people understand that, if myenemies hold their peace, their forbearance must be ascribed, not tothe meekness of their natures, but to the power of a guiltyconscience." He concludes with the following sentence: "Thesegentry, whose history is well known throughout the whole world, are soglaringly iniquitous in their measures, and have become so insolent intheir impunity, that if I did not detest their conduct, and publiclyexpress my detestation too, not merely for my own vindication, butto guard the simple against its seducing influence, I must haverenounced my allegiance to Jesus Christ and his Church."    Reverend fathers, there is no room for tergiversation. You mustpass for convicted slanderers, and take comfort in your old maxim thatcalumny is no crime. This honest friar has discovered the secret ofshutting your mouths; and it must be employed on all occasions whenyou accuse people without proof. We have only to reply to each slanderas it appears, in the words of the Capuchin: "Mentiris impudentissime-You are most impudent liars." For instance, what better answer doesFather Brisacier deserve when he says of his opponents that they are"the gates of hell; the devil's bishops; persons devoid of faith,hope, and charity; the builders of Antichrist's exchequer"; adding, "Isay this of him, not by way of insult, but from deep conviction of itstruth"? Who would be at the pains to demonstrate that he is not "agate of hell," and that he has no concern with "the building up ofAntichrist's exchequer"?    In like manner, what reply is due to all the vague speeches ofthis sort which are to be found in your books and advertisements on myletters; such as the following, for example: "That restitutions havebeen converted to private uses, and thereby creditors have beenreduced to beggary; that bags of money have been offered to learnedmonks, who declined the bribe; that benefices are conferred for thepurpose of disseminating heresies against the faith; that pensionersare kept in the houses of the most eminent churchmen, and in thecourts of sovereigns; that I also am a pensioner of Port-Royal; andthat, before writing my letters, I had composed romances"- I, whonever read one in my life, and who do not know so much as the names ofthose which your apologist has published? What can be said in reply toall this, fathers, if you do not mention the names of all thesepersons you refer to, their words, the time, and the place, except-Mentiris impudentissime? You should either be silent altogether, orrelate and prove all the circumstances, as I did when I told you theanecdotes of Father Alby and John d'Alba. Otherwise, you will hurtnone but yourselves. Your numerous fables might, perhaps, have doneyou some service, before your principles were known; but now thatthe whole has been brought to light, when you begin to whisper asusual, "A man of honor, who desired us to conceal his name, has toldus some horrible stories of these same people"- you will be cutshort at once, and reminded of the Capuchin's "Mentirisimpudentissime." Too long by far have you been permitted to deceivethe world, and to abuse the confidence which men were ready to placein your calumnious accusations. It is high time to redeem thereputation of the multitudes whom you have defamed. For what innocencecan be so generally known, as not to suffer some injury from thedaring aspersions of a body of men scattered over the face of theearth, and who, under religious habits, conceal minds so utterlyirreligious that they perpetrate crimes like calumny, not inopposition to, but in strict accordance with, their moral maxims? Icannot, therefore, be blamed for destroying the credit which mighthave been awarded you, seeing it must be allowed to be a muchgreater act of justice to restore to the victims of your obloquy thecharacter which they did not deserve to lose, than to leave you in thepossession of a reputation for sincerity which you do not deserve toenjoy. And, as the one could not be done without the other, howimportant was it to show you up to the world as you really are! Inthis letter I have commenced the exhibition; but it will requiresome time to complete it. Published it shall be, fathers, and all yourpolicy will be inadequate to save you from the disgrace; for theefforts which you may make to avert the blow will only serve toconvince the most obtuse observers that you were terrified out of yourwits, and that, your consciences anticipating the charges I had tobring against you, you have put every oar in the water to preventthe discovery.                        LETTER XVI            TO THE REVEREND FATHERS, THE JESUITS                                                     December 4, 1656  REVEREND FATHERS,    I now come to consider the rest of your calumnies, and shall beginwith those contained in your advertisements, which remain to benoticed. As all your other writings, however, are equally well stockedwith slander, they will furnish me with abundant materials forentertaining you on this topic as long as I may judge expedient. Inthe first place, then, with regard to the fable which you havepropagated in all your writings against the Bishop of Ypres, I begleave to say, in one word, that you have maliciously wrested themeaning of some ambiguous expressions in one of his letters which,being capable of a good sense, ought, according to the spirit of theGospel, to have been taken in good part, and could only be takenotherwise according to the spirit of your Society. For example, whenhe says to a friend, "Give yourself no concern about your nephew; Iwill furnish him with what he requires from the money that lies inmy hands," what reason have you to interpret this to mean that hewould take that money without restoring it, and not that he merelyadvanced it with the purpose of replacing it? And how extremelyimprudent was it for you to furnish a refutation of your own lie, byprinting the other letters of the Bishop of Ypres, which clearlyshow that, in point of fact, it was merely advanced money, which hewas bound to refund. This appears, to your confusion, from thefollowing terms in the letter, to which you give the date of July30, 1619: "Be not uneasy about the money advanced; he shall want fornothing so long as he is here"; and likewise from another, datedJanuary 6, 1620, where he says: "You are in too great haste; whenthe account shall become due, I have no fear but that the littlecredit which I have in this place will bring me as much money as Irequire."    If you are convicted slanderers on this subject, you are no lessso in regard to the ridiculous story about the charity-box of St.Merri. What advantage, pray, can you hope to derive from theaccusation which one of your worthy friends has trumped up againstthat ecclesiastic? Are we to conclude that a man is guilty, because heis accused? No, fathers. Men of piety, like him, may expect to beperpetually accused, so long as the world contains calumniators likeyou. We must judge of him, therefore, not from the accusation, butfrom the sentence; and the sentence pronounced on the case (February23, 1656) justifies him completely. Moreover, the person who had thetemerity to involve himself in that iniquitous process, wasdisavowed by his colleagues, and himself compelled to retract hischarge. And as to what you allege, in the same place, about "thatfamous director, who pocketed at once nine hundred thousand livres," Ineed only refer you to Messieurs the cures of St. Roch and St. Paul,who will bear witness, before the whole city of Paris, to hisperfect disinterestedness in the affair, and to your inexcusablemalice in that piece of imposition.    Enough, however, for such paltry falsities. These are but thefirst raw attempts of your novices, and not the master-strokes of your"grand professed." To these do I now come, fathers; I come to acalumny which is certainly one of the basest that ever issued from thespirit of your Society. I refer to the insufferable audacity withwhich you have imputed to holy nuns, and to their directors, thecharge of "disbelieving the mystery of transubstantiation and the realpresence of Jesus Christ in the eucharist." Here, fathers, is aslander worthy of yourselves. Here is a crime which God alone iscapable of punishing, as you alone were capable of committing it. Toendure it with patience would require an humility as great as thatof these calumniated ladies; to give it credit would demand a degreeof wickedness equal to that of their wretched defamers. I propose not,therefore, to vindicate them; they are beyond suspicion. Had theystood in need of defence, they might have commanded abler advocatesthan me. My object in what I say here is to show, not their innocence,but your malignity. I merely intend to make you ashamed of yourselves,and to let the whole world understand that, after this, there isnothing of which you are not capable.    You will not fail, I am certain, notwithstanding all this, tosay that I belong to Port-Royal; for this is the first thing you sayto every one who combats your errors: as if it were only at Port-Royalthat persons could be found possessed of sufficient zeal to defend,against your attacks, the purity of Christian morality. I know,fathers, the work of the pious recluses who have retired to thatmonastery, and how much the Church is indebted to their truly solidand edifying labours. I know the excellence of their piety and theirlearning. For, though I have never had the honour to belong to theirestablishment, as you, without knowing who or what I am, would fainhave it believed, nevertheless, I do know some of them, and honour thevirtue of them all. But God has not confined within the precincts ofthat society all whom he means to raise up in opposition to yourcorruptions. I hope, with his assistance, fathers, to make you feelthis; and if he vouchsafe to sustain me in the design he has led me toform, of employing in his service all the resources I have receivedfrom him, I shall speak to you in such a strain as will, perhaps, giveyou reason to regret that you have not had to do with a man ofPort-Royal. And to convince you of this, fathers, I must tell youthat, while those whom you have abused with this notorious slandercontent themselves with lifting up their groans to Heaven to obtainyour forgiveness for the outrage, I feel myself obliged, not beingin the least affected by your slander, to make you blush in the faceof the whole Church, and so bring you to that wholesome shame of whichthe Scripture speaks, and which is almost the only remedy for ahardness of heart like yours: "Imple facies eorum ignominia, etquaerent nomen tuum, Domine- Fill their faces with shame, that theymay seek thy name, O Lord."    A stop must be put to this insolence, which does not spare themost sacred retreats. For who can be safe after a calumny of thisnature? For shame, fathers! to publish in Paris such a scandalousbook, with the name of your Father Meynier on its front, and underthis infamous title, Port-Royal and Geneva in concert against the mostholy Sacrament of the Altar, in which you accuse of this apostasy, notonly Monsieur the abbe of St. Cyran, and M. Arnauld, but also MotherAgnes, his sister, and all the nuns of that monastery, alleging that"their faith, in regard to the eucharist, is as suspicious as thatof M. Arnauld," whom you maintain to be "a down-right Calvinist." Ihere ask the whole world if there be any class of persons within thepale of the Church, on whom you could have advanced such an abominablecharge with less semblance of truth. For tell me, fathers, if thesenuns and their directors had been "in concert with Geneva againstthe most holy sacrament of the altar" (the very thought of which isshocking), how they should have come to select as the principal objectof their piety that very sacrament which they held in abomination? Howshould they have assumed the habit of the holy sacrament? taken thename of the Daughters of the Holy Sacrament? called their church theChurch of the Holy Sacrament? How should they have requested andobtained from Rome the confirmation of that institution, and the rightof saying every Thursday the office of the holy sacrament, in whichthe faith of the Church is so perfectly expressed, if they hadconspired with Geneva to banish that faith from the Church? Whywould they have bound themselves, by a particular devotion, alsosanctioned by the Pope, to have some of their sisterhood, night andday without intermission, in presence of the sacred host, tocompensate, by their perpetual adorations towards that perpetualsacrifice, for the impiety of the heresy that aims at itsannihilation? Tell me, fathers, if you can, why, of all themysteries of our religion, they should have passed by those in whichthey believed, to fix upon that in which they believed not? and howthey should have devoted themselves, so fully and entirely, to thatmystery of our faith, if they took it, as the heretics do, for themystery of iniquity? And what answer do you give to these clearevidences, embodied not in words only, but in actions; and not in someparticular actions, but in the whole tenor of a life expresslydedicated to the adoration of Jesus Christ, dwelling on our altars?What answer, again, do you give to the books which you ascribe toPort-Royal, all of which are full of the most precise terms employedby the fathers and the councils to mark the essence of that mystery?It is at once ridiculous and disgusting to hear you replying tothese as you have done throughout your libel. M. Arnauld, say you,talks very well about transubstantiation; but he understands, perhaps,only "a significative transubstantiation." True, he professes tobelieve in "the real presence"; who can tell, however, but he meansnothing more than "a true and real figure"? How now, fathers! whom,pray, will you not make pass for a Calvinist whenever you please, ifyou are to allowed the liberty of perverting the most canonical andsacred expressions by the wicked subtleties of your modernequivocations? Who ever thought of using any other terms than those inquestion, especially in simple discourses of devotion, where nocontroversies are handled? And yet the love and the reverence in whichthey hold this sacred mystery have induced them to give it such aprominence in all their writings that I defy you, fathers, with allyour cunning, to detect in them either the least appearance ofambiguity, or the slightest correspondence with the sentiments ofGeneva.    Everybody knows, fathers, that the essence of the Genevan heresyconsists, as it does according to your own showing, in their believingthat Jesus Christ is not contained in this sacrament; that it isimpossible he can be in many places at once; that he is, properlyspeaking, only in heaven, and that it is as there alone that heought to be adored, and not on the altar; that the substance of thebread remains; that the body of Jesus Christ does not enter into themouth or the stomach; that he can only be eaten by faith, andaccordingly wicked men do not eat him at all; and that the mass is nota sacrifice, but an abomination. Let us now hear, then, in what way"Port-Royal is in concert with Geneva." In the writings of theformer we read, to your confusion, the following statement: That"the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ are contained under the speciesof bread and wine"; that "the Holy of Holies is present in thesanctuary, and that there he ought to be adored"; that "Jesus Christdwells in the sinners who communicate, by the real and veritablepresence of his body in their stomach, although not by the presence ofhis Spirit in their hearts"; that "the dead ashes of the bodies of thesaints derive their principal dignity from that seed of life whichthey retain from the touch of the immortal and vivifying flesh ofJesus Christ"; that "it is not owing to any natural power, but tothe almighty power of God, to whom nothing is impossible, that thebody of Jesus Christ is comprehended under the host, and under thesmallest portion of every host"; that "the divine virtue is present toproduce the effect which the words of consecration signify"; that"Jesus Christ, while be is lowered and hidden upon the altar, is, atthe same time, elevated in his glory; that he subsists, of himself andby his own ordinary power, in divers places at the same time- in themidst of the Church triumphant, and in the midst of the Churchmilitant and travelling"; that "the sacramental species remainsuspended, and subsist extraordinarily, without being upheld by anysubject; and that the body of Jesus Christ is also suspended under thespecies, and that it does not depend upon these, as substancesdepend upon accidents"; that "the substance of the bread is changed,the immutable accidents remaining the same"; that "Jesus Christreposes in the eucharist with the same glory that he has in heaven";that "his glorious humanity resides in the tabernacles of theChurch, under the species of bread, which forms its visiblecovering; and that, knowing the grossness of our natures, heconducts us to the adoration of his divinity, which is present inall places, by the adoring of his humanity, which is present in aparticular place"; that "we receive the body of Jesus Christ uponthe tongue, which is sanctified by its divine touch"; "that itenters into the mouth of the priest"; that "although Jesus Christhas made himself accessible in the holy sacrament, by an act of hislove and graciousness, he preserves, nevertheless, in thatordinance, his inaccessibility, as an inseparable condition of hisdivine nature; because, although the body alone and the blood aloneare there, by virtue of the words- vi verborum, as the schoolmensay- his whole divinity may, notwithstanding, be there also, as wellas his whole humanity, by a necessary conjunction." In fine, that "theeucharist is at the same time sacrament and sacrifice"; and that"although this sacrifice is a commemoration of that of the cross,yet there is this difference between them, that the sacrifice of themass is offered for the Church only, and for the faithful in hercommunion; whereas that of the cross has been offered for all theworld, as the Scripture testifies."    I have quoted enough, fathers, to make it evident that there wasnever, perhaps, a more imprudent thing attempted than what you havedone. But I will go a step farther, and make you pronounce thissentence against yourselves. For what do you require from a man, inorder to remove all suspicion of his being in concert andcorrespondence with Geneva? "If M. Arnauld," says your Father Meynier,p.93, "had said that, in this adorable mystery, there is nosubstance of the bread under the species, but only the flesh and theblood of Jesus Christ, I should have confessed that he had declaredhimself absolutely against Geneva." Confess it, then, ye revilers! andmake him a public apology. How often have you seen this declarationmade in the passages I have just cited? Besides this, however, theFamiliar Theology of M. de St. Cyran having been approved by M.Arnauld, it contains the sentiments of both. Read, then, the wholeof lesson 15th, and particularly article 2d, and you will there findthe words you desiderate, even more formally stated than you have doneyourselves. "Is there any bread in the host, or any wine in thechalice? No: for all the substance of the bread and the wine istaken away, to give place to that of the body and blood of JesusChrist, the which substance alone remains therein, covered by thequalities and species of bread and wine."    How now, fathers! will you still say that Port-Royal teaches"nothing that Geneva does not receive," and that M. Arnauld has saidnothing in his second letter "which might not have been said by aminister of Charenton"? See if you can persuade Mestrezat to speakas M. Arnauld does in that letter, on page 237. Make him say that itis an infamous calumny to accuse him of denying transubstantiation;that he takes for the fundamental principle of his writings thetruth of the real presence of the Son of God, in opposition to theheresy of the Calvinists; and that he accounts himself happy forliving in a place where the Holy of Holies is continually adored inthe sanctuary"- a sentiment which is still more opposed to thebelief of the Calvinists than the real presence itself; for, asCardinal Richelieu observes in his Controversies (p. 536): "The newministers of France having agreed with the Lutherans, who believethe real presence of Jesus Christ in the eucharist; they have declaredthat they remain in a state of separation from the Church on the pointof this mystery, only on account of the adoration which Catholicsrender to the eucharist." Get all the passages which I haveextracted from the books of Port-Royal subscribed at Geneva, and notthe isolated passages merely, but the entire treatises regardingthis mystery, such as the Book of Frequent Communion, theExplication of the Ceremonies of the Mass, the Exercise during Mass,the Reasons of the Suspension of the Holy Sacrament, the Translationof the Hymns in the Hours of Port-Royal, &c.; in one word, prevailupon them to establish at Charenton that holy institution ofadoring, without intermission, Jesus Christ contained in theeucharist, as is done at Port-Royal, and it will be the most signalservice which you could render to the Church; for in this case it willturn out, not that Port-Royal is in concert with Geneva, but thatGeneva is in concert with Port-Royal and with the whole Church.    Certainly, fathers, you could not have been more unfortunatethan in selecting Port-Royal as the object of attack for not believingin the eucharist; but I will show what led you to fix upon it. Youknow I have picked up some small acquaintance with your policy; inthis instance you have acted upon its maxims to admiration. IfMonsieur the abbe of St. Cyran, and M. Arnauld, had only spoken ofwhat ought to be believed with great respect to this mystery, and saidnothing about what ought to be done in the way of preparation forits reception, they might have been the best Catholics alive; and noequivocations would have been discovered in their use of the termsreal presence and transubstantiation. But, since all who combat yourlicentious principles must needs be heretics, and heretics, too, inthe very point in which they condemn your laxity, how could M. Arnauldescape falling under this charge on the subject of the eucharist,after having published a book expressly against your profanations ofthat sacrament? What! must he be allowed to say, with impunity, that"the body of Jesus Christ ought not to be given to those whohabitually lapse into the same crimes, and who have no prospect ofamendment; and that such persons ought to be excluded, for sometime, from the altar, to purify themselves by sincere penitence,that they may approach it afterwards with benefit"? Suffer no one totalk in this strain, fathers, or you will find that fewer peoplewill come to your confessionals. Father Brisacier says that "wereyou to adopt this course, you would never apply the blood of JesusChrist to a single individual." It would be infinitely more for yourinterest were every one to adopt the views of your Society, as setforth by your Father Mascarenhas, in a book approved by yourdoctors, and even by your reverend Father-General, namely: "Thatpersons of every description, and even priests, may receive the bodyof Jesus Christ on the very day they have polluted themselves withodious crimes; that, so far from such communions implying irreverence,persons who partake of them in this manner act a commendable part;that confessors ought not to keep them back from the ordinance, but,on the contrary, ought to advise those who have recently committedsuch crimes to communicate immediately; because, although the Churchhas forbidden it, this prohibition is annulled by the universalpractice in all places of the earth."    See what it is, fathers, to have Jesuits in all places of theearth! Behold the universal practice which you have introduced, andwhich you are anxious everywhere to maintain! It matters nothingthat the tables of Jesus Christ are filled with abominations, providedthat your churches are crowded with people. Be sure, therefore, costwhat it may, to set down all that dare to say a word against yourpractice as heretics on the holy sacrament. But how can you do this,after the irrefragable testimonies which they have given of theirfaith? Are you not afraid of my coming out with the four grandproofs of their heresy which you have adduced? You ought, at least, tobe so, fathers, and I ought not to spare your blushing. Let us,then, proceed to examine proof the first.    "M. de St. Cyran," says Father Meynier, "consoling one of hisfriends upon the death of his mother (tom. i., let. 14), says that themost acceptable sacrifice that can be offered up to God, on suchoccasions, is that of patience; therefore he is a Calvinist." Thisis marvellously shrewd reasoning, fathers; and I doubt if anybody willbe able to discover the precise point of it. Let us learn it, then,from his own mouth. "Because," says this mighty controversialist,"it is obvious that he does not believe in the sacrifice of themass; for this is, of all other sacrifices, the most acceptable untoGod." Who will venture to say now that the do not know how toreason? Why, they know the art to such perfection that they willextract heresy out of anything you choose to mention, not evenexcepting the Holy Scripture itself! For example, might it not beheretical to say, with the wise man in Ecclesiasticus, "There isnothing worse than to love money"; as if adultery, murder, oridolatry, were not far greater crimes? Where is the man who is notin the habit of using similar expressions every day? May we not say,for instance, that the most acceptable of all sacrifices in the eyesof God is that of a contrite and humbled heart; just because, indiscourses of this nature, we simply mean to compare certaininternal virtues with one another, and not with the sacrifice of themass, which is of a totally different order, and infinitely moreexalted? Is this not enough to make you ridiculous, fathers? And is itnecessary, to complete your discomfiture, that I should quote thepassages of that letter in which M. de St. Cyran speaks of thesacrifice of the mass as "the most excellent" of all others, in thefollowing terms? "Let there be presented to God, daily and in allplaces, the sacrifice of the body of his Son, who could not find amore excellent way than that by which he might honour his Father." Andafterwards: "Jesus Christ has enjoined us to take, when we aredying, his sacrificed body, to render more acceptable to God thesacrifice of our own, and to join himself with us at the hour ofdissolution; to the end that he may strengthen us for the struggle,sanctifying, by his presence, the last sacrifice which we make toGod of our life and our body"? Pretend to take no notice of allthis, fathers, and persist in maintaining, as you do in page 39,that he refused to take the communion on his death-bed, and that hedid not believe in the sacrifice of the mass. Nothing can be too grossfor calumniators by profession.    Your second proof furnishes an excellent illustration of this.To make a Calvinist of M. de St. Cyran, to whom you ascribe the bookof Petrus Aurelius, you take advantage of a passage (page 80) in whichAurelius explains in what manner the Church acts towards priests,and even bishops, whom she wishes to degrade or depose. "TheChurch," he says, "being incapable of depriving them of the power ofthe order, the character of which is indelible, she does all thatshe can do: she banishes from her memory the character which shecannot banish from the souls of the individuals who have been onceinvested with it; she regards them in the same light as if they werenot bishops or priests; so that, according to the ordinary language ofthe Church, it may be said they are no longer such, although theyalways remain such, in as far as the character is concerned- obindelebilitatem characteris." You perceive, fathers, that this author,who has been approved by three general assemblies of the clergy ofFrance, plainly declares that the character of the priesthood isindelible; and yet you make him say, on the contrary, in the very samepassage, that "the character of the priesthood is not indelible." Thisis what I would call a notorious slander; in other words, according toyour nomenclature, a small venial sin. And the reason is, this bookhas done you some harm by refuting the heresies of your brethren inEngland touching the Episcopal authority. But the folly of thecharge is equally remarkable; for, after having taken it forgranted, without any foundation, that M. de St. Cyran holds thepriestly character to be not indelible, you conclude from this that hedoes not believe in the real presence of Jesus Christ in theeucharist.    Do not expect me to answer this, fathers. If you have got nocommon sense, I am not able to furnish you with it. All who possessany share of it will enjoy a hearty laugh at your expense. Nor willthey treat with greater respect your third proof, which rests upon thefollowing words, taken from the Book of Frequent Communion: "In theeucharist God vouchsafes us the same food that He bestows on thesaints in heaven, with this difference only, that here He withholdsfrom us its sensible sight and taste, reserving both of these forthe heavenly world." These words express the sense of the Church sodistinctly that I am constantly forgetting what reason you have forpicking a quarrel with them, in order to turn them to a bad use; for Ican see nothing more in them than what the Council of Trent teaches(sess. xiii, c. 8), namely, that there is no difference betweenJesus Christ in the eucharist and Jesus Christ in heaven, exceptthat here he is veiled, and there he is not. M. Arnauld does not saythat there is no difference in the manner of receiving Jesus Christ,but only that there is no difference in Jesus Christ who isreceived. And yet you would, in the face of all reason, interprethis language in this passage to mean that Jesus Christ is no moreeaten with the mouth in this world than he is in heaven; upon whichyou ground the charge of heresy against him.    You really make me sorry for you, fathers. Must we explain thisfurther to you? Why do you confound that divine nourishment with themanner of receiving it? There is but one point of difference, as Ihave just observed, betwixt that nourishment upon earth and in heaven,which is that here it is hidden under veils which deprive us of itssensible sight and taste; but there are various points ofdissimilarity in the manner of receiving it here and there, theprincipal of which is, as M. Arnauld expresses it (p.3, ch.16),"that here it enters into the mouth and the breast both of the goodand of the wicked," which is not the case in heaven.    And, if you require to be told the reason of this diversity, I mayinform you, fathers, that the cause of God's ordaining these differentmodes of receiving the same food is the difference that exists betwixtthe state of Christians in this life and that of the blessed inheaven. The state of the Christian, as Cardinal Perron observesafter the fathers, holds a middle place between the state of theblessed and the state of the Jews. The spirits in bliss possessJesus Christ really, without veil or figure. The Jews possessedJesus Christ only in figures and veils, such as the manna and thepaschal lamb. And Christians possess Jesus Christ in the eucharistreally and truly, although still concealed under veils. "God," saysSt. Eucher, "has made three tabernacles: the synagogue, which hadthe shadows only, without the truth; the Church, which has the truthand shadows together; and heaven, where there is no shadow, but thetruth alone." It would be a departure from our present state, which isthe state of faith, opposed by St. Paul alike to the law and to openvision, did we possess the figures only, without Jesus Christ; forit is the property of the law to have the mere figure, and not thesubstance of things. And it would be equally a departure from ourpresent state if we possessed him visibly; because faith, according tothe same apostle, deals not with things that are seen. And thus theeucharist, from its including Jesus Christ truly, though under a veil,is in perfect accordance with our state of faith. It follows that thisstate would be destroyed, if, as the heretics maintain, Jesus Christwere not really under the species of bread and wine; and it would beequally destroyed if we received him openly, as they do in heaven:since, on these suppositions, our state would be confounded, eitherwith the state of Judaism or with that of glory.    Such, fathers, is the mysterious and divine reason of this mostdivine mystery. This it is that fills us with abhorrence at theCalvinists, who would reduce us to the condition of the Jews; and thisit is that makes us aspire to the glory of the beatified, where weshall be introduced to the full and eternal enjoyment of Jesus Christ.From hence you must see that there are several points of differencebetween the manner in which he communicates himself to Christiansand to the blessed; and that, amongst others, he is in this worldreceived by the mouth, and not so in heaven; but that they alldepend solely on the distinction between our state of faith andtheir state of immediate vision. And this is precisely, fathers,what M. Arnauld has expressed, with great plainness, in thefollowing terms: "There can be no other difference between thepurity of those who receive Jesus Christ in the eucharist and thatof the blessed, than what exists between faith and the open visionof God, upon which alone depends the different manner in which he iseaten upon earth and in heaven." You were bound in duty, fathers, tohave revered in these words the sacred truths they express, instead ofwresting them for the purpose of detecting an heretical meaningwhich they never contained, nor could possibly contain, namely, thatJesus Christ is eaten by faith only, and not by the mouth; themalicious perversion of your Fathers Annat and Meynier, which formsthe capital count of their indictment.    Conscious, however, of the wretched deficiency of your proofs, youhave had recourse to a new artifice, which is nothing less than tofalsify the Council of Trent, in order to convict M. Arnauld ofnonconformity with it; so vast is your store of methods for makingpeople heretics. This feat has been achieved by Father Meynier, infifty different places of his book, and about eight or ten times inthe space of a single page (the 54th), wherein he insists that tospeak like a true Catholic it is not enough to say, "I believe thatJesus Christ is really present in the eucharist," but we must say,"I believe, with the council, that he is present by a true localpresence, or locally." And, in proof of this, he cites the council,session xiii, canon 3d, canon 4th, and canon 6th. Who would notsuppose, upon seeing the term local presence quoted from threecanons of a universal council, that the phrase was actually to befound in them? This might have served your turn very well, beforethe appearance of my Fifteenth Letter; but, as matters now stand,fathers, the trick has become too stale for us. We go our way andconsult the council, and discover only that you are falsifiers. Suchterms as local presence, locally, and locality, never existed in thepassages to which you refer; and let me tell you further, they are notto be found in any other canon of that council, nor in any otherprevious council, not in any father of the Church. Allow me, then,to ask you, fathers, if you mean to cast the suspicion of Calvinismupon all that have not made use of that peculiar phrase? If this bethe case, the Council of Trent must be suspected of heresy, and allthe holy fathers without exception. Have you no other way of making M.Arnauld heretical, without abusing so many other people who neverdid you any harm, and, among the rest, St. Thomas, who is one of thegreatest champions of the eucharist, and who, so far from employingthat term, has expressly rejected it- "Nullo modo corpus Christi estin hoc sacramento localiter.- By no means is the body of Christ inthis sacrament locally"? Who are you, then, fathers, to pretend, onyour authority, to impose new terms, and ordain them to be used by allfor rightly expressing their faith; as if the profession of the faith,drawn up by the popes according to the plan of the council, in whichthis term has no place, were defective, and left an ambiguity in thecreed of the faithful which you had the sole merit of discovering?Such a piece of arrogance, to prescribe these terms, even to learneddoctors! such a piece of forgery, to attribute them to generalcouncils! and such ignorance, not to know the objections which themost enlightened saints have made to their reception! "Be ashamed ofthe error of your ignorance," as the Scripture says of ignorantimpostors like you, "De mendacio ineruditionis tuae confundere."    Give up all further attempts, then, to act the masters; you haveneither character nor capacity for the part. If, however, you wouldbring forward your propositions with a little more modesty, they mightobtain a hearing. For, although this phrase, local presence, hasbeen rejected, as you have seen, by St. Thomas, on the ground that thebody of Jesus Christ is not in the eucharist, in the ordinaryextension of bodies in their places, the expression has, nevertheless,been adopted by some modern controversial writers, who understand itsimply to mean that the body of Jesus Christ is truly under thespecies, which being in a particular place, the body of Jesus Christis there also. And in this sense M. Arnauld will make no scruple toadmit the term, as M. de St. Cyran and he have repeatedly declaredthat Jesus Christ in the eucharist is truly in a particular place, andmiraculously in many places at the same time. Thus all your subtletiesfall to the ground; and you have failed to give the slightestsemblance of plausibility to an accusation which ought not to havebeen allowed to show its face without being supported by the mostunanswerable proofs.    But what avails it, fathers, to oppose their innocence to yourcalumnies? You impute these errors to them, not in the belief thatthey maintain heresy, but from the idea that they have done youinjury. That is enough, according to your theology, to warrant youto calumniate them without criminality; and you can, without eitherpenance or confession, say mass, at the very time that you chargepriests, who say it every day, with holding it to be pure idolatry;which, were it true, would amount to sacrilege no less revoltingthan that of your own Father Jarrige, whom you yourselves ordered tobe hanged in effigy, for having said mass "at the time he was inagreement with Geneva."    What surprises me, therefore, is not the little scrupulositywith which you load them with crimes of the foulest and falsestdescription, but the little prudence you display, by fixing on themcharges so destitute of plausibility. You dispose of sins, it is true,at your pleasure; but do you mean to dispose of men's beliefs too?Verily, fathers, if the suspicion of Calvinism must needs falleither on them or on you, you would stand, I fear, on very ticklishground. Their language is as Catholic as yours; but their conductconfirms their faith, and your conduct belies it. For if youbelieve, as well as they do, that the bread is really changed into thebody of Jesus Christ, why do you not require, as they do, from thosewhom you advise to approach the altar, that the heart of stone and iceshould be sincerely changed into a heart of flesh and of love? Ifyou believe that Jesus Christ is in that sacrament in a state ofdeath, teaching those that approach it to die to the world, to sin,and to themselves, why do you suffer those to profane it in whosebreasts evil passions continue to reign in all their life andvigour? And how do you come to judge those worthy to eat the breadof heaven, who are not worthy to eat that of earth?    Precious votaries, truly, whose zeal is expended in persecutingthose who honour this sacred mystery by so many holy communions, andin flattering those who dishonour it by so many sacrilegiousdesecrations! How comely is it, in these champions of a sacrifice sopure and so venerable, to collect around the table of Jesus Christ acrowd of hardened profligates, reeking from their debauchcries; and toplant in the midst of them a priest, whom his own confessor hashurried from his obscenities to the altar; there, in the place ofJesus Christ, to offer up that most holy victim to the God ofholiness, and convey it, with his polluted hands, into mouths asthoroughly polluted as his own! How well does it become those whopursue this course "in all parts of the world," in conformity withmaxims sanctioned by their own general to impute to the author ofFrequent Communion, and to the Sisters of the Holy Sacrament, thecrime of not believing in that sacrament!    Even this, however, does not satisfy them. Nothing less willsatiate their rage than to accuse their opponents of havingrenounced Jesus Christ and their baptism. This is no air-builtfable, like those of your invention; it is a fact, and denotes adelirious frenzy which marks the fatal consummation of your calumnies.Such a notorious falsehood as this would not have been in hands worthyto support it, had it remained in those of your good friend Filleau,through whom you ushered it into the world: your Society has openlyadopted it; and your Father Meynier maintained it the other day tobe "a certain truth" that Port-Royal has, for the space of thirty-fiveyears, been forming a secret plot, of which M. de St. Cyran and M.d'Ypres have been the ringleaders, "to ruin the mystery of theincarnation- to make the Gospel pass for an apocryphal fable- toexterminate the Christian religion, and to erect Deism upon theruins of Christianity." Is this enough, fathers? Will you be satisfiedif all this be believed of the objects of your hate? Would youranimosity be glutted at length, if you could but succeed in makingthem odious, not only to all within the Church, by the charge of"consenting with Geneva, of which you accuse them, but even to all whobelieve in Jesus Christ, though beyond the pale of the Church, bythe imputation of Deism?    But whom do you expect to convince, upon your simple asseveration,without the slightest shadow of proof, and in the face of everyimaginable contradiction, that priests who preach nothing but thegrace of Jesus Christ, the purity of the Gospel, and the obligationsof baptism, have renounced at once their baptism, the Gospel, andJesus Christ? Who will believe it, fathers? Wretched as you are, doyou believe it yourselves? What a sad predicament is yours, when youmust either prove that they do not believe in Jesus Christ, or mustpass for the most abandoned calumniators. Prove it, then, fathers.Name that "worthy clergyman" who, you say, attended that assembly atBourg-Fontaine in 1621, and discovered to Brother Filleau the designthere concerted of overturning the Christian religion. Name thosesix persons whom you allege to have formed that conspiracy. Name theindividual who is designated by the letters A. A., who you say "wasnot Antony Arnauld" (because he convinced you that he was at that timeonly nine years of age), "but another person, who you say is stillin life, but too good a friend of M. Arnauld not to be known tohim." You know him, then, fathers; and consequently, if you are notdestitute of religion yourselves, you are bound to delate that impiouswretch to the king and parliament, that he may be punished accordingto his deserts. You must speak out, fathers; you must name the person,or submit to the disgrace of being henceforth regarded in no otherlight than as common liars, unworthy of being ever credited again.Good Father Valerien has taught us that this is the way in whichsuch characters should be "put to the rack" and brought to theirsenses. Your silence upon the present challenge will furnish a fulland satisfactory confirmation of this diabolical calumny. Yourblindest admirers will be constrained to admit that it will be "theresult, not of your goodness, but your impotency"; and to wonder howyou could be so wicked as to extend your hatred even to the nuns ofPort-Royal, and to say, as you do in page 14, that The SecretChaplet of the Holy Sacrament, composed by one of their number, wasthe first fruit of that conspiracy against Jesus Christ; or, as inpage 95, that "they have imbibed all the detestable principles of thatwork"; which is, according to your account, a lesson in Deism." Yourfalsehoods regarding that book have already been triumphantly refuted,in the defence of the censure of the late Archbishop of Parisagainst Father Brisacier. That publication you are incapable ofanswering; and yet you do not scruple to abuse it in a more shamefulmanner than ever, for the purpose of charging women, whose piety isuniversally known, with the vilest blasphemy.    Cruel, cowardly persecutors! Must, then, the most retiredcloisters afford no retreat from your calumnies? While theseconsecrated virgins are employed, night and day, according to theirinstitution, in adoring Jesus Christ in the holy sacrament, youcease not, night nor day, to publish abroad that they do not believethat he is either in the eucharist or even at the right hand of hisFather; and you are publicly excommunicating them from the Church,at the very time when they are in secret praying for the whole Church,and for you! You blacken with your slanders those who have neitherears to hear nor mouths to answer you! But Jesus Christ, in whomthey are now hidden, not to appear till one day together with him,hears you, and answers for them. At the moment I am now writing,that holy and terrible voice is heard which confounds nature andconsoles the Church. And I fear, fathers, that those who now hardentheir hearts, and refuse with obstinacy to hear him, while he speaksin the character of God, will one day be compelled to hear him withterror, when he speaks to them in the character of a judge. Whataccount, indeed, fathers, will you be able to render to him of themany calumnies you have uttered, seeing that he will examine them,in that day, not according to the fantasies of Fathers Dicastille,Gans, and Pennalossa, who justify them, but according to the eternallaws of truth, and the sacred ordinances of his own Church, which,so far from attempting to vindicate that crime, abhors it to such adegree that she visits it with the same penalty as wilfull murder?By the first and second councils of Arles she has decided that thecommunion shall be denied to slanderers as well as murderers, till theapproach of death. The Council of Lateran has judged those unworthy ofadmission into the ecclesiastical state who have been convicted of thecrime, even though they may have reformed. The popes have eventhreatened to deprive of the communion at death those who havecalumniated bishops, priests, or deacons. And the authors of adefamatory libel, who fail to prove what they have advanced, arecondemned by Pope Adrian to be whipped,- yes, reverend fathers,flagellentur is the word. So strong has been the repugnance of theChurch at all times to the errors of your Society- a Society sothoroughly depraved as to invent excuses for the grossest of crimes,such as calumny, chiefly that it may enjoy the greater freedom inperpetrating them itself. There can be no doubt, fathers, that youwould be capable of producing abundance of mischief in this way, hadGod not permitted you to furnish with your own hands the means ofpreventing the evil, and of rendering your slanders perfectlyinnocuous; for, to deprive you of all credibility, it was quite enoughto publish the strange maxim that it is no crime to calumniate.Calumny is nothing, if not associated with a high reputation forhonesty. The defamer can make no impression, unless he has thecharacter of one that abhors defamation as a crime of which he isincapable. And thus, fathers, you are betrayed by your ownprinciple. You establish the doctrine to secure yourselves a safeconscience, that you might slander without risk of damnation, and beranked with those "pious and holy calumniators" of whom St. Athanasiusspeaks. To save yourselves from hell, you have embraced a maximwhich promises you this security on the faith of your doctors; butthis same maxim, while it guarantees you, according to their idea,against the evils you dread in the future world, deprives you of allthe advantage you may have expected to reap from it in the present; sothat, in attempting to escape the guilt, you have lost the benefitof calumny. Such is the self-contrariety of evil, and so completelydoes it confound and destroy itself by its own intrinsic malignity.    You might have slandered, therefore, much more advantageouslyfor yourselves, had you professed to hold, with St. Paul, that evilspeakers are not worthy to see God; for in this case, though you wouldindeed have been condemning yourselves, your slanders would at leasthave stood a better chance of being believed. But, by maintaining,as you have done, that calumny against your enemies is no crime,your slanders will be discredited, and you yourselves damned intothe bargain; for two things are certain, fathers: first, That itwill never be in the power of your grave doctors to annihilate thejustice of God; and, secondly, That you could not give more certainevidence that you are not of the Truth than by your resorting tofalsehood. If the Truth were on your side, she would fight for you-she would conquer for you; and whatever enemies you might have toencounter, "the Truth would set you free" from them, according toher promise. But you have had recourse to falsehood, for no otherdesign than to support the errors with which you flatter the sinfulchildren of this world, and to bolster up the calumnies with which youpersecute every man of piety who sets his face against thesedelusions. The truth being diametrically opposed to your ends, itbehooved you, to use the language of the prophet, "to put yourconfidence in lies." You have said: "The scourges which afflictmankind shall not come nigh unto us; for we have made lies our refuge,and under falsehood have we hid ourselves." But what says theprophet in reply to such? "Forasmuch," says he, "as ye have put yourtrust in calumny and tumult- sperastis in calumnia et in tumultu- thisiniquity and your ruin shall be like that of a high wall whosebreaking cometh suddenly at an instant. And he shall break it as thebreaking of the potter's vessel that is shivered in pieces"- with suchviolence that "there shall not be found in the bursting of it ashred to take fire from the hearth, or to take water withal out of thepit." "Because," as another prophet says, "ye have made the heart ofthe righteous sad, whom I have not made sad; and ye have flattered andstrengthened the malice of the wicked; I will therefore deliver mypeople out of your hands, and ye shall know that I am their Lord andyours."    Yes, fathers, it is to be hoped that if you do not repent, Godwill deliver out of your hands those whom you have so long deluded,either by flattering them in their evil courses with your licentiousmaxims, or by poisoning their minds with your slanders. He willconvince the former that the false rules of your casuists will notscreen them from His indignation; and He will impress on the mindsof the latter the just dread of losing their souls by listening andyielding credit to your slanders, as you lose yours by hatchingthese slanders and disseminating them through the world. Let no man bedeceived; God is not mocked; none may violate with impunity thecommandment which He has given us in the Gospel, not to condemn ourneighbour without being well assured of his guilt. And,consequently, what profession soever of piety those may make wholend a willing ear to your lying devices, and under what pretencesoever of devotion they may entertain them, they have reason toapprehend exclusion from the kingdom of God, solely for having imputedcrimes of such a dark complexion as heresy and schism to Catholicpriests and holy nuns, upon no better evidence than such vilefabrications as yours. "The devil," says M. de Geneve, "is on thetongue of him that slanders, and in the ear of him that listens to theslanderer." "And evil speaking," says St. Bernard, "is a poison thatextinguishes charity in both of the parties; so that a singlecalumny may prove mortal to an infinite numbers of souls, killingnot only those who publish it, but all those besides by whom it is notrepudiated."    Reverend fathers, my letters were not wont either to be so prolix,or to follow so closely on one another. Want of time must plead myexcuse for both of these faults. The present letter is a very longone, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter. You knowthe reason of this haste better than I do. You have been unlucky inyour answers. You have done well, therefore, to change your plan;but I am afraid that you will get no credit for it, and that peoplewill say it was done for fear of the Benedictines.    I have just come to learn that the person who was generallyreported to be the author of your Apologies, disclaims them, and isannoyed at their having been ascribed to him. He has good reason,and I was wrong to have suspected him of any such thing; for, in spiteof the assurances which I received, I ought to have considered that hewas a man of too much good sense to believe your accusations, and oftoo much honour to publish them if he did not believe them. Thereare few people in the world capable of your extravagances; they arepeculiar to yourselves, and mark your character too plainly to admitof any excuse for having failed to recognize your hand in theirconcoction. I was led away by the common report; but this apology,which would be too good for you, is not sufficient for me, who professto advance nothing without certain proof. In no other instance haveI been guilty of departing from this rule. I am sorry for what I said.I retract it; and I only wish that you may profit by my example.                        LETTER XVII              TO THE REVEREND FATHER ANNAT, JESUIT                                                     January 23, 1657  REVEREND FATHER,    Your former behaviour had induced me to believe that you wereanxious for a truce in our hostilities, and I was quite disposed toagree that it should be so. Of late, however, you have poured forthsuch a volley of pamphlets, in such rapid succession, as to make itapparent that peace rests on a very precarious footing when it dependson the silence of Jesuits. I know not if this rupture will provevery advantageous to you; but, for my part, I am far from regrettingthe opportunity which it affords me of rebutting that stale chargeof heresy with which your writings abound.    It is full time, indeed, that I should, once for all, put a stopto the liberty you have taken to treat me as a heretic- a piece ofgratuitous impertinence which seems to increase by indulgence, andwhich is exhibited in your last book in a style of such intolerableassurance that, were I not to answer the charge as it deserves, Imight lay myself open to the suspicion of being actually guilty. Solong as the insult was confined to your associates I despised it, as Idid a thousand others with which they interlarded their productions.To these my Fifteenth Letter was a sufficient reply. But you nowrepeat the charge with a different air: you make it the main pointof your vindication. It is, in fact, almost the only thing in theshape of argument that you employ. You say that, "as a complete answerto my fifteen letters, it is enough to say fifteen times that I am aheretic; and, having been pronounced such, I deserve no credit." Inshort, you make no question of my apostasy, but assume it as a settledpoint, on which you may build with all confidence. You are seriousthen, father, it would seem, in deeming me a heretic. I shall beequally serious in replying to the charge.    You are well aware, sir, that heresy is a charge of grave acharacter that it is an act of high presumption to advance, withoutbeing prepared to substantiate it. I now demand your proofs. Whenwas I seen at Charenton? When did I fail in my presence at mass, or inmy Christian duty to my parish church? What act of union withheretics, or of schism with the Church, can you lay to my charge? Whatcouncil have I contradicted? What papal constitution have Iviolated? You must answer, father, else- You know what I mean. Andwhat do you answer? I beseech all to observe it: First of all, youassume "that the author of the letters is a Port-Royalist"; then youtell us "that Port-Royal is declared to be heretical"; and, therefore,you conclude, "the author of letters must be a heretic." It is noton me, then, father, that the weight of this indictment falls, buton Port-Royal; and I am only involved in the crime because you supposeme to belong to that establishment; so that it will be no difficultmatter for me to exculpate myself from the charge. I have no more tosay than that I am not a member of that community; and to refer you tomy letters, in which I have declared that "I am a private individual";and again in so many words, that "I am not of Port-Royal, as I said inmy Sixteenth Letter, which preceded your publication.    You must fall on some other way, then, to prove me heretic,otherwise the whole world will be convinced that it is beyond yourpower to make good your accusation. Prove from my writings that I donot receive the constitution. My letters are not very voluminous-there are but sixteen of them- and I defy you or anybody else todetect in them the slightest foundation for such a charge. I shall,however, with your permission, produce something out of them toprove the reverse. When, for example, I say in the Fourteenth that,"by killing our brethren in mortal sin, according to your maxims, weare damning those for whom Jesus Christ died, do I not plainlyacknowledge that Jesus Christ died for those who may be damned, and,consequently, declare it to be false "that he died only for thepredestinated," which is the error condemned in the fifth proposition?Certain it is, father, that I have not said a word in behalf ofthese impious propositions, which I detest with all my heart. And eventhough Port-Royal should hold them, I protest against your drawing anyconclusion from this against me, as, thank God, I have no sort ofconnection with any community except the Catholic, Apostolic and RomanChurch, in the bosom of which I desire to live and die, in communionwith the Pope, the head of the Church, and beyond the pale of whichI am persuaded there is no salvation.    How are you to get at a person who talks in this way, father? Onwhat quarter will you assail me, since neither my words nor mywritings afford the slightest handle to your accusations, and theobscurity in which my person is enveloped forms my protectionagainst your threatenings? You feel yourselves smitten by an invisiblehand- a hand, however, which makes your delinquencies visible to allthe earth; and in vain do you endeavour to attack me in the personof those with whom you suppose me to be associated. I fear you not,either on my own account or on that of any other, being bound by notie either to a community or to any individual whatsoever. All theinfluence which your Society possesses can be of no avail in mycase. From this world I have nothing to hope, nothing to dread,nothing to desire. Through the goodness of God, I have no need ofany man's money or any man's patronage. Thus, my father, I elude allyour attempts to lay hold of me. You may touch Port-Royal, if youchoose, but you shall not touch me. You may turn people out of theSorbonne, but that will not turn me out of my domicile. You maycontrive plots against priests and doctors, but not against me, forI am neither the one nor the other. And thus, father, you neverperhaps had to do, in the whole course of your experience, with aperson so completely beyond your reach, and therefore so admirablyqualified for dealing with your errors- one perfectly free- onewithout engagement, entanglement, relationship, or business of anykind- one, too, who is pretty well versed in your maxims, anddetermined, as God shall give him light, to discuss them, withoutpermitting any earthly consideration to arrest or slacken hisendeavours.    Since, then, you can do nothing against me, what good purposecan it serve to publish so many calumnies, as you and your brethrenare doing, against a class of persons who are in no way implicatedin our disputes? You shall not escape under these subterfuges: youshall be made to feel the force of the truth in spite of them. Howdoes the case stand? I tell you that you are ruining Christianmorality by divorcing it from the love of God, and dispensing with itsobligation; and you talk about "the death of Father Mester"- aperson whom I never saw in my life. I tell you that your authorspermit a man to kill another for the sake of an apple, when it wouldbe dishonourable to lose it; and you reply by informing me thatsomebody "has broken into the poor-box at St. Merri!" Again, whatcan you possibly mean by mixing me up perpetually with the book On theHoly Virginity, written by some father of the Oratory, whom I neversaw any more than his book? It is rather extraordinary, father, thatyou should thus regard all that are opposed to you as if they were oneperson. Your hatred would grasp them all at once, and would holdthem as a body of reprobates, every one of whom is responsible for allthe rest.    There is a vast difference between Jesuits and all theiropponents. There can be no doubt that you compose one body, unitedunder one head; and your regulations, as I have shown, prohibit youfrom printing anything without the approbation of your superiors,who are responsible for all the errors of individual writers, andwho "cannot excuse themselves by saying that they did not observethe errors in any publication, for they ought to have observedthem." So say your ordinances, and so say the letters of yourgenerals, Aquaviva, Vitelleschi, &c. We have good reason, therefore,for charging upon you the errors of your associates, when we find theyare sanctioned by your superiors and the divines of your Society. Withme, however, father, the case stands otherwise. I have notsubscribed to the book of the Holy Virginity. All the alms-boxes inParis may be broken into, and yet I am not the less a good Catholicfor all that. In short, I beg to inform you, in the plainest terms,that nobody is responsible for my letters but myself, and that I amresponsible for nothing but my letters.    Here, father, I might fairly enough have brought our dispute to anissue, without saying a word about those other persons whom youstigmatize as heretics, in order to comprehend me under thecondemnation. But, as I have been the occasion of their ill treatment,I consider myself bound in some sort to improve the occasion, and Ishall take advantage of it in three particulars. One advantage, notinconsiderable in its way, is that it will enable me to vindicatethe innocence of so many calumniated individuals. Another, notinappropriate to my subject, will be to disclose, at the same time,the artifices of your policy in this accusation. But the advantagewhich I prize most of all is that it affords me an opportunity ofapprising the world of the falsehood of that scandalous report whichyou have been so busily disseminating, namely, "that the Church isdivided by a new heresy." And as you are deceiving multitudes into thebelief that the points on which you are raising such a storm areessential to the faith, I consider it of the last importance toquash these unfounded impressions, and distinctly to explain here whatthese points are, so as to show that, in point of fact, there are noheretics in the Church.    I presume, then, that were the question to be asked: Whereinconsists the heresy of those called Jansenists? the immediate replywould be, "These people hold that the commandments of God areimpracticable to men, that grace is irresistible, that we have notfree will to do either good or evil, that Jesus Christ did not die forall men, but only for the elect; in short, they maintain the fivepropositions condemned by the Pope." Do you not give it out to allthat this is the ground on which you persecute your opponents? Haveyou not said as much in your books, in your conversations, in yourcatechisms? A specimen of this you gave at the late Christmas festivalat St. Louis. One of your little shepherdesses was questioned thus:    "For whom did Jesus Christ come into the world, my dear?"    "For all men, father."    "Indeed, my child; so you are not one of those new heretics whosay that he came only for the elect?"    Thus children are led to believe you, and many others besideschildren; for you entertain people with the same stuff in your sermonsas Father Crasset did at Orleans, before he was laid under aninterdict. And I frankly own that, at one time, I believed you myself.You had given me precisely the same idea of these good people; sothat, when you pressed them on these propositions, I narrowlywatched their answer, determined never to see them more, if they didnot renounce them as palpable impieties.    This, however, they have done in the most unequivocal way. M. deSainte-Beuve, king's professor in the Sorbonne, censured thesepropositions in his published writings long before the Pope; and otherAugustinian doctors, in various publications, and, among others, ina work On Victorious Grace, reject the same articles as both hereticaland strange doctrines. In the preface to that work they say that thesepropositions are "heretical and Lutheran, forged and fabricated atpleasure, and are neither to be found in Jansenius, nor in hisdefenders. " They complain of being charged with such sentiments,and address you in the words of St. Prosper, the first disciple of St.Augustine their master, to whom the semi-Pelagians of France hadascribed similar opinions, with the view of bringing him intodisgrace: "There are persons who denounce us, so blinded by passionthat they have adopted means for doing so which ruin their ownreputation. They have, for this purpose, fabricated propositions ofthe most impious and blasphemous character, which they industriouslycirculate, to make people believe that we maintain them in thewicked sense which they are pleased to attach to them. But our replywill show at once our innocence, and the malignity of these personswho have ascribed to us a set of impious tenets, of which they arethemselves the sole inventors."    Truly, father, when I found that they had spoken in this waybefore the appearance of the papal constitution- when I saw thatthey afterwards received that decree with all possible respect, thatthey offered to subscribe it, and that M. Arnauld had declared allthis in his second letter, in stronger terms than I can report him,I should have considered it a sin to doubt their soundness in thefaith. And, in fact, those who were formerly disposed to refuseabsolution to M. Arnauld's friends, have since declared that, afterhis explicit disclaimer of the errors imputed to him, there was noreason left for cutting off either him or them from the communion ofthe Church. Your associates, however, have acted very differently; andit was this that made me begin to suspect that you were actuated byprejudice.    You threatened first to compel them to sign that constitution,so long as you thought they would resist it; but no sooner did you seethem quite ready of their own accord to submit to it than we heardno more about this. Still however, though one might suppose this oughtto have satisfied you, you persisted in calling them heretics,"because," said you, "their heart belies their hand; they areCatholics outwardly, but inwardly they are heretics."    This, father, struck me as very strange reasoning; for where isthe person of whom as much may not be said at any time? And whatendless trouble and confusion would ensue, were it allowed to go on!"If," says Pope St. Gregory, "we refuse to believe a confession offaith made in conformity to the sentiments of the Church, we cast adoubt over the faith of all Catholics whatsoever." I am afraid,father, to use the words of the same pontiff when speaking of asimilar dispute this time, "that your object is to make thesepersons heretics in spite of themselves; because to refuse to creditthose who testify by their confession that they are in the true faith,is not to purge heresy, but to create it- hoc non est haeresimpurgare, sed facere." But what confirmed me in my persuasion thatthere was, indeed, no heretic in the Church, was finding that ourso-called heretics had vindicated themselves so successfully thatyou were unable to accuse them of a single error in the faith, andthat you were reduced to the necessity of assailing them onquestions of fact only, touching Jansenius, which could not possiblybe construed into heresy. You insist, it now appears, on their beingcompelled to acknowledge "that these propositions are contained inJansenius, word for word, every one of them, in so many terms," or, asyou express it, "Singulares, individuae, totidem verbis apud Janseniumcontentae."    Thenceforth your dispute became, in my eyes, perfectlyindifferent. So long as I believed that you were debating the truth orfalsehood of the propositions, I was all attention, for that quarreltouched the faith; but when I discovered that the bone of contentionwas whether they were to be found word for word in Jansenius or not,as religion ceased to be interested in the controversy, I ceased to beinterested in it also. Not but that there was some presumption thatyou were speaking the truth; because to say that such and suchexpressions are to be found word for word in an author, is a matter inwhich there can be no mistake. I do not wonder, therefore, that somany people, both in France and at Rome, should have been led tobelieve, on the authority of a phrase so little liable to suspicion,that Jansenius has actually taught these obnoxious tenets. And, forthe same reason, I was not a little surprised to learn that thissame point of fact, which you had propounded as so certain and soimportant, was false; and that, after being challenged to quote thepages of Jansenius in which you had found these propositions "word forword," you have not been able to point them out to this day.    I am the more particular in giving this statement, because, inmy opinion, it discovers, in a very striking light, the spirit of yourSociety in the whole of this affair; and because some people will beastonished to find that, notwithstanding all the facts abovementioned, you have not ceased to publish that they are hereticsstill. But you have only altered the heresy to suit the time; for nosooner had they freed themselves from one charge than your fathers,determined that they should never want an accusation, substitutedanother in its place. Thus, in 1653, their heresy lay in the qualityof the propositions; then came the word for word heresy; after that wehad the heart heresy. And now we hear nothing of any of these, andthey must be heretics, forsooth, unless they sign a declaration to theeffect "that the sense of the doctrine of Jansenius is contained inthe sense of the five propositions."    Such is your present dispute. It is not enough for you that theycondemn the five propositions, and everything in Jansenius thatbears any resemblance to them, or is contrary to St. Augustine; forall that they have done already. The point at issue is not, forexample, if Jesus Christ died for the elect only- they condemn that asmuch as you do; but, is Jansenius of that opinion, or not? And hereI declare, more strongly than ever, that your quarrel affects me aslittle as it  affects the Church. For although I am no doctor, anymore than you, father, I can easily see, nevertheless, that it hasno connection with the faith. The only question is to ascertain whatis the sense of Jansenius. Did they believe that his doctrinecorresponded to the proper and literal sense of these propositions,they would condemn it; and they refuse to do so, because they areconvinced it is quite the reverse; so that, although they shouldmisunderstand it, still they would not be heretics, seeing theyunderstand it only in a Catholic sense.    To illustrate this by an example, I may refer to the conflictingsentiments of St. Basil and St. Athanasius, regarding the writingsof St. Denis of Alexandria, which St. Basil, conceiving that hefound in them the sense of Arius against the equality of the Fatherand the Son, condemned as heretical, but which St. Athanasius, onthe other hand, judging them to contain the genuine sense of theChurch, maintained to be perfectly orthodox. Think you, then,father, that St. Basil, who held these writings to be Arian, had aright to brand St. Athanasius as a heretic because he defended them?And what ground would he have had for so doing, seeing that it was notArianism that his brother defended, but the true faith which heconsidered these writings to contain? Had these two saints agreedabout the true sense of these writings, and had both recognized thisheresy in them, unquestionably St. Athanasius could not haveapproved of them without being guilty of heresy; but as they were atvariance respecting the sense of the passage, St. Athanasius wasorthodox in vindicating them, even though he may have understoodthem wrong; because in that case it would have been merely an error ina matter of fact, and because what he defended was really the Catholicfaith, which he supposed to be contained in these writings.    I apply this to you, father. Suppose you were agreed upon thesense of Jansenius, and your adversaries were ready to admit withyou that he held, for example, that grace cannot be resisted, thosewho refused to condemn him would be heretical. But as your disputeturns upon the meaning of that author, and they believe that,according to this doctrine, grace may be resisted, whatever heresy youmay be pleased to attribute to him, you have no ground to brand themas heretics, seeing they condemn the sense which you put on Jansenius,and you dare not condemn the sense which they put on him. If,therefore, you mean to convict them, show that the sense which theyascribe to Jansenius is heretical; for then they will be hereticalthemselves. But how could you accomplish this, since it is certain,according to your own showing, that the meaning which they give to hislanguage has never been condemned?    To elucidate the point still further, I shall assume as aprinciple what you yourselves acknowledge- that the doctrine ofefficacious grace has never been condemned, and that the pope hasnot touched it by his constitution. And, in fact, when he proposedto pass judgement on the five propositions, the question ofefficacious grace was protected against all censure. This is perfectlyevident from the judgements of the consulters to whom the Popecommitted them for examination. These judgements I have in mypossession, in common with many other persons in Paris, and, among therest, the Bishop of Montpelier, who brought them from Rome. It appearsfrom this document that they were divided in their sentiments; thatthe chief persons among them, such as the Master of the Sacred Palace,the commissary of the Holy Office, the General of the Augustinians,and others, conceiving that these propositions might be understoodin the sense of efficacious grace, were of opinion that they ought notto be censured; whereas the rest, while they agreed that thepropositions would not have merited condemnation had they borne thatsense, judged that they ought to be censured, because, as theycontended, this was very far from being their proper and naturalsense. The Pope, accordingly, condemned them; and all parties haveacquiesced in his judgement.    It is certain, then, father, that efficacious grace has not beencondemned. Indeed, it is so powerfully supported by St. Augustine,by St. Thomas, and all his school, by a great many popes and councils,and by all tradition, that to tax it with heresy would be an act ofimpiety. Now, all those whom you condemn as heretics declare that theyfind nothing in Jansenius, but this doctrine of efficacious grace. Andthis was the only point which they maintained at Rome. You haveacknowledged this yourself when you declare that "when pleading beforethe pope, they did not say a single word about the propositions, butoccupied the whole time in talking about efficacious grace." Sothat, whether they be right or wrong in this supposition, it isundeniable, at least, that what they suppose to be the sense is notheretical sense; and that, consequently, they are no heretics; for, tostate the matter in two words, either Jansenius has merely taughtthe doctrine of efficacious grace, and in this case he has noerrors; or he has taught some other thing, and in this case he hasno defenders. The whole question turns on ascertaining whetherJansenius has actually maintained something different from efficaciousgrace; and, should it be found that he has, you will have the honourof having better understood him, but they will not have the misfortuneof having erred from the faith.    It is matter of thankfulness to God, then, father, that there isin reality no heresy in the Church. The question relates entirely to apoint of fact, of which no heresy can be made; for the Church, withdivine authority, decides the points of faith, and cuts off from herbody all who refuse to receive them. But she does not act in thesame manner in regard to matters of fact. And the reason is that oursalvation is attached to the faith which has been revealed to us,and which is preserved in the Church by tradition, but that it hasno dependence on facts which have not been revealed by God. Thus weare bound to believe that the commandments of God are notimpracticable; but we are under no obligation to know what Janseniushas said upon that subject. In the determination of points of faith,God guides the Church by the aid of His unerring Spirit; whereas inmatters of fact He leaves her to the direction of reason and thesenses, which are the natural judges of such matters. None but God wasable to instruct the Church in the faith; but to learn whether this orthat proposition is contained in Jansenius, all we require to do is toread his book. And from hence it follows that, while it is heresy toresist the decisions of the faith, because this amounts to an opposingof our own spirit to the Spirit of God, it is no heresy, though it maybe an act of presumption, to disbelieve certain particular facts,because this is no more than opposing reason- it may be enlightenedreason- to an authority which is great indeed, but in this matternot infailible.    What I have now advanced is admitted by all theologians, asappears from the following axiom of Cardinal Bellarmine, a member ofyour Society: "General and lawful councils are incapable of error indefining the dogmas of faith; but they may err in questions offact." In another place he says: "The pope, as pope, and even as thehead of a universal council, may err in particular controversies offact, which depend principally on the information and testimony ofmen." Cardinal Baronius speaks in the same manner: "Implicitsubmission is due to the decisions of councils in points of faith;but, in so far as persons and their writings are concerned, thecensures which have been pronounced against them have not been sorigourously observed, because there is none who may not chance to bedeceived in such matters." I may add that, to prove this point, theArchbishop of Toulouse has deduced the following rule from the lettersof two great popes- St. Leon and Pelagius II: "That the properobject of councils is the faith; and whatsoever is determined by them,independently of the faith, may be reviewed and examined anew: whereasnothing ought to be re-examined that has been decided in a matter offaith; because, as Tertullian observes, the rule of faith alone isimmovable and irrevocable."    Hence it has been seen that, while general and lawful councilshave never contradicted one another in points of faith, because, as M.de Toulouse has said, "it is not allowable to examine de novodecisions in matters of faith"; several instances have occurred inwhich these same councils have disagreed in points of fact, wherethe discussion turned upon the sense of an author; because, as thesame prelate observes, quoting the popes as his authorities,"everything determined in councils, not referring to the faith, may bereviewed and examined de novo." An example of this contrariety wasfurnished by the fourth and fifth councils, which differed in theirinterpretation of the same authors. The same thing happened in thecase of two popes, about a proposition maintained by certain monksof Scythia. Pope Hormisdas, understanding it in a bad sense, hadcondemned it; but Pope John II, his successor, upon re-examining thedoctrine understood it in a good sense, approved it, and pronounced itto be orthodox. Would you say that for this reason one of thesepopes was a heretic? And must you not consequently acknowledge that,provided a person condemn the heretical sense which a pope may haveascribed to a book, he is no heretic because he declines condemningthat book, while he understands it in a sense which it is certainthe pope has not condemned? If this cannot be admitted, one of thesepopes must have fallen into error.    I have been anxious to familiarize you with these discrepanciesamong Catholics regarding questions of fact, which involve theunderstanding of the sense of a writer, showing you father againstfather, pope against pope, and council against council, to lead youfrom these to other examples of opposition, similar in their nature,but somewhat more disproportioned in respect of the parties concerned.For, in the instances I am now to adduce, you will see councils andpopes ranged on one side, and Jesuits on the other; and yet you havenever charged your brethren for this opposition even with presumption,much less with heresy.    You are well aware, father, that the writings of Origen werecondemned by a great many popes and councils, and particularly bythe fifth general council, as chargeable with certain heresies, and,among others, that of the reconciliation of the devils at the day ofjudgement. Do you suppose that, after this, it became absolutelyimperative, as a test of Catholicism, to confess that Origenactually maintained these errors, and that it is not enough to condemnthem, without attributing them to him? If this were true, what wouldbecome of your worthy Father Halloix, who has asserted the purity ofOrigen's faith, as well as many other Catholics who have attempted thesame thing, such as Pico Mirandola, and Genebrard, doctor of theSorbonne? Is it not, moreover, a certain fact, that the same fifthgeneral council condemned the writings of Theodoret against St. Cyril,describing them as impious, "contrary to the true faith, and taintedwith the Nestorian heresy"? And yet this has not prevented FatherSirmond, a Jesuit, from defending him, or from saying, in his lifeof that father, that "his writings are entirely free from the heresyof Nestorius."    It is evident, therefore, that as the Church, in condemning abook, assumes that the error which she condemns is contained in thatbook, it is a point of faith to hold that error as condemned; but itis not a point of faith to hold that the book, in fact, contains theerror which the Church supposes it does. Enough has been said, Ithink, to prove this; I shall, therefore, conclude my examples byreferring to that of Pope Honorius, the history of which is so wellknown. At the commencement of the seventh century, the Church beingtroubled by the heresy of the Monothelites, that pope, with the viewof terminating the controversy, passed a decree which seemedfavourable to these heretics, at which many took offence. Theaffair, nevertheless, passed over without making much disturbanceduring his pontificate; but fifty years after, the Church beingassembled in the sixth general council, in which Pope Agathon presidedby his legates, this decree was impeached, and, after being read andexamined, was condemned as containing the heresy of theMonothelites, and under that character burnt, in open court, alongwith the other writings of these heretics. Such was the respect paidto this decision, and such the unanimity with which it was receivedthroughout the whole Church, that it was afterwards ratified by twoother general councils, and likewise by two popes, Leo II and AdrianII, the latter of whom lived two hundred years after it had passed;and this universal and harmonious agreement remained undisturbed forseven or eight centuries. Of late years, however, some authors, andamong the rest Cardinal Bellarmine, without seeming to dread theimputation of heresy, have stoutly maintained, against all thisarray of popes and councils, that the writings of Honorius are freefrom the error which had been ascribed to them; "because," says thecardinal, "general councils being liable to err in questions offact, we have the best grounds for asserting the sixth council wasmistaken with regard to the fact now under consideration; and that,misconceiving the sense of the Letters of Honorius, it has placed thispope most unjustly in the rank of heretics." Observe, then, I prayyou, father, that a man is not heretical for saying that Pope Honoriuswas not a heretic; even though a great many popes and councils,after examining his writings, should have declared that he was so.    I now come to the question before us, and shall allow you to stateyour case as favourably as you can. What will you then say, father, inorder to stamp your opponents as heretics? That "Pope Innocent X hasdeclared that the error of the five propositions is to be found inJansenius?" I grant you that; what inference do you draw from it? That"it is heretical to deny that the error of the five propositions is tobe found in Jansenius?" How so, father? Have we not here a question offact exactly similar to the preceding examples? The Pope hasdeclared that the error of the five propositions is contained inJansenius, in the same way as his predecessors decided that the errorsof the Nestorians and the Monothelites polluted the pages of Theodoretand Honorius. In the latter case, your writers hesitate not to saythat, while they condemn the heresies, they do not allow that theseauthors actually maintained them; and, in like manner, youropponents now say that they condemn the five propositions, butcannot admit that Jansenius has taught them. Truly, the two casesare as like as they could well be; and, if there be any disparitybetween them, it is easy to see how far it must go in favour of thepresent question, by a comparison of many particular circumstances,which as they are self-evident, I do not specify. How comes it topass, then, that when placed in precisely the same predicament, yourfriends are Catholics and your opponents heretics? On what strangeprinciple of exception do you deprive the latter of a liberty whichyou freely award to all the rest of the faithful? What answer will youmake to this, father? Will you say, "The pope has confirmed hisconstitution by a brief." To this I would reply, that two generalcouncils and two popes confirmed the condemnation of the letters ofHonorius. But what argument do you found upon the language of thatbrief, in which all that the Pope says is that "he has condemned thedoctrine of Jansenius in these five propositions"? What does thatadd to the constitution, or what more can you infer from it?Nothing, certainly, except that as the sixth council condemned thedoctrine of Honorius, in the belief that it was the same with thatof the Monothelites, so the Pope has said that he has condemned thedoctrine of Jansenius in these five propositions, because he was ledto suppose it was the same with that of the five propositions. And howcould he do otherwise than suppose it? Your Society publishednothing else; and you yourself, father, who have asserted that thesaid propositions were in that author "word for word," happened tobe in Rome (for I know all your motions) at the time when thecensure was passed. Was he to distrust the sincerity or the competenceof so many grave ministers of religion? And how could he help beingconvinced of the fact, after the assurance which you had given himthat the propositions were in that author "word for word"? It isevident, therefore, that in the event of its being found thatJansenius has not supported these doctrines, it would be wrong to say,as your writers have done in the cases before mentioned, that the Popehas deceived himself in this point of fact, which it is painful andoffensive to publish at any time; the proper phrase is that you havedeceived the Pope, which, as you are now pretty well known, willcreate no scandal.    Determined, however, to have a heresy made out, let it cost whatit may, you have attempted, by the following manoeuvre, to shift thequestion from the point of fact, and make it bear upon a point offaith. "The Pope," say you, "declares that he has condemned thedoctrine of Jansenius in these five propositions; therefore it isessential to the faith to hold that the doctrine of Jansenius touchingthese five propositions is heretical, let it be what it may." Hereis a strange point of faith, that a doctrine is heretical be what itmay. What! if Jansenius should happen to maintain that "we are capableof resisting internal grace" and that "it is false to say that JesusChrist died for the elect only," would this doctrine be condemned justbecause it is his doctrine? Will the proposition, that "man has afreedom of will to do good or evil," be true when found in thePope's constitution, and false when discovered in Jansenius? By whatfatality must he be reduced to such a predicament, that truth, whenadmitted into his book, becomes heresy? You must confess, then, thathe is only heretical on the supposition that he is friendly to theerrors condemned, seeing that the constitution of the Pope is the rulewhich we must apply to Jansenius, to judge if his character answer thedescription there given of him; and, accordingly, the question, "Ishis doctrine heretical?" must be resolved by another question of fact,"Does it correspond to the natural sense of these propositions?" as itmust necessarily be heretical if it does correspond to that sense, andmust necessarily be orthodox if it be of an opposite character. For,in one word, since, according to the Pope and the bishops, "thepropositions are condemned in their proper and natural sense," theycannot possibly be condemned in the sense of Jansenius, except onthe understanding that the sense of Jansenius is the same with theproper and natural sense of these propositions; and this I maintain tobe purely a question of fact.    The question, then, still rests upon the point of fact, and cannotpossibly be tortured into one affecting the faith. But thoughincapable of twisting it into a matter of heresy, you have it inyour power to make it a pretext for persecution, and might, perhaps,succeed in this, were there not good reason to hope that nobody willbe found so blindly devoted to your interests as to countenance such adisgraceful proceeding, or inclined to compel people, as you wish todo, to sign a declaration that they condemn these propositions inthe sense of Jansenius, without explaining what the sense of Janseniusis. Few people are disposed to sign a blank confession of faith. Nowthis would really be to sign one of that description, leaving you tofill up the blank afterwards with whatsoever you pleased, as you wouldbe at liberty to interpret according to your own taste the unexplainedsense of Jansenius. Let it be explained, then, beforehand, otherwisewe shall have, I fear, another version of your proximate power,without any sense at all- abstrahendo ab omni sensu. This mode ofproceeding, you must be aware, does not take with the world. Men ingeneral detest all ambiguity, especially in the matter of religion,where it is highly reasonable that one should know at least what oneis asked to condemn. And how is it possible for doctors, who arepersuaded that Jansenius can bear no other sense than that ofefficacious grace, to consent to declare that they condemn hisdoctrine without explaining it, since, with their present convictions,which no means are used to alter, this would be neither more norless than to condemn efficacious grace, which cannot be condemnedwithout sin? Would it not, therefore, be a piece of monstroustyranny to place them in such an unhappy dilemma that they must eitherbring guilt upon their souls in the sight of God, by signing thatcondemnation against their consciences, or be denounced as hereticsfor refusing to sign it?    But there is a mystery under all this. You Jesuits cannot move astep without a stratagem. It remains for me to explain why you donot explain the sense of Jansenius. The sole purpose of my writingis to discover your designs, and, by discovering, to frustrate them. Imust, therefore, inform those who are not already aware of the factthat your great concern in this dispute being to uphold the sufficientgrace of your Molina, you could not effect this without destroying theefficacious grace which stands directly opposed to it. Perceiving,however, that the latter was now sanctioned at Rome and by all thelearned in the Church, and unable to combat the doctrine on its ownmerits, you resolved to attack it in a clandestine way, under the nameof the doctrine of Jansenius. You were resolved, accordingly, to getJansenius condemned without explanation; and, to gain your purpose,gave out that his doctrine was not that of efficacious grace, sothat every one might think he was at liberty to condemn the onewithout denying the other. Hence your efforts, in the present day,to impress this idea upon the minds of such as have no acquaintancewith that author; an object which you yourself, father, haveattempted, by means of the following ingenious syllogism: "The popehas condemned the doctrine of Jansenius; but the pope has notcondemned efficacious grace: therefore, the doctrine of efficaciousgrace must be different from that of Jansenius." If this mode ofreasoning were conclusive, it might be demonstrated in the same waythat Honorius and all his defenders are heretics of the same kind."The sixth council has condemned the doctrine of Honorius; but thecouncil has not condemned the doctrine of the Church: therefore thedoctrine of Honorius is different from that of the Church; andtherefore, all who defend him are heretics." It is obvious that noconclusion can be drawn from this; for the Pope has done no morethan condemn the doctrine of the five propositions, which wasrepresented to him as the doctrine of Jansenius.    But it matters not; you have no intention to make use of thislogic for any length of time. Poor as it is, it will last sufficientlylong to serve your present turn. All that you wish to effect by it, inthe meantime, is to induce those who are unwilling to condemnefficacious grace to condemn Jansenius with less scruple. When thisobject has been accomplished, your argument will soon be forgotten,and their signatures, remaining as an eternal testimony incondemnation of Jansenius, will furnish you with an occasion to make adirect attack upon efficacious grace by another mode of reasoning muchmore solid than the former, which shall be forthcoming in proper time."The doctrine of Jansenius," you will argue, "has been condemned bythe universal subscriptions of the Church. Now this doctrine ismanifestly that of efficacious grace" (and it will be easy for youto prove that); "therefore the doctrine of efficacious grace iscondemned even by the confession of his defenders."    Behold your reason for proposing to sign the condemnation of adoctrine without giving an explanation of it! Behold the advantage youexpect to gain from subscriptions thus procured! Should youropponents, however, refuse to subscribe, you have another trap laidfor them. Having dexterously combined the question of faith withthat of fact, and not allowing them to separate between them, nor tosign the one without the other, the consequence will be that,because they could not subscribe the two together, you will publish itin all directions that they have refused the two together. And thusthough, in point of fact, they simply decline acknowledging thatJansenius has maintained the propositions which they condemn, whichcannot be called heresy, you will boldly assert that they have refusedto condemn the propositions themselves, and that it is this thatconstitutes their heresy.    Such is the fruit which you expect to reap from their refusal, andwhich will be no less useful to you than what you might have gainedfrom their consent. So that, in the event of these signatures beingexacted, they will fall into your snares, whether they sign or not,and in both cases you will gain your point; such is your dexterityin uniformly putting matters into a train for your own advantage,whatever bias they may happen to take in their course!    How well I know you, father! and how grieved am I to see thatGod has abandoned you so far as to allow you such happy success insuch an unhappy course! Your good fortune deserves commiseration,and can excite envy only in the breasts of those who know not whattruly good fortune is. It is an act of charity to thwart the successyou aim at in the whole of this proceeding, seeing that you can onlyreach it by the aid of falsehood, and by procuring credit to one oftwo lies either that the Church has condemned efficacious grace, orthat those who defend that doctrine maintain the five condemnederrors.    The world must, therefore, be apprised of two facts: first, Thatby your own confession, efficacious grace has not been condemned;and secondly, That nobody supports these errors. So that it may beknown that those who refuse to sign what you are so anxious to exactfrom them, refuse merely in consideration of the question of fact, andthat, being quite ready to subscribe that of faith, they cannot bedeemed heretical on that account; because, to repeat it once more,though it be matter of faith to believe these propositions to beheretical, it will never be matter of faith to hold that they are tobe found in the pages of Jansenius. They are innocent of all error;that is enough. It may be that they interpret Jansenius toofavourably; but it may be also that you do not interpret himfavourably enough. I do not enter upon this question. All that Iknow is that, according to your maxims, you believe that you may,without sin, publish him to be a heretic contrary to your ownknowledge; whereas, according to their maxims, they cannot, withoutsin, declare him to be a Catholic, unless they are persuaded that heis one. They are, therefore, more honest than you, father; they haveexamined Jansenius more faithfully than you; they are no lessintelligent than you; they are, therefore, no less crediblewitnesses than you. But come what may of this point of fact, theyare certainly Catholics; for, in order to be so, it is not necessaryto declare that another man is not a Catholic; it is enough, in allconscience, if a person, without charging error upon anybody else,succeed in discharging himself.    Reverend Father, if you have found any difficulty in decipheringthis letter, which is certainly not printed in the best possible type,blame nobody but yourself. Privileges are not so easily granted tome as they are to you. You can procure them even for the purpose ofcombating miracles; I cannot have them even to defend myself. Theprinting-houses are perpetually haunted. In such circumstances, youyourself would not advise me to write you any more letters, for itis really a sad annoyance to be obliged to have recourse to anOsnabruck impression.                        LETTER XVIII              TO THE REVEREND FATHER ANNAT, JESUIT                                                       March 24, 1657  REVEREND FATHER,    Long have you laboured to discover some error in the creed orconduct of your opponents; but I rather think you will have toconfess, in the end, that it is a more difficult task than youimagined to make heretics of people who, are not only no heretics, butwho hate nothing in the world so much as heresy. In my last letter Isucceeded in showing that you accuse them of one heresy after another,without being able to stand by one of the charges for any length oftime; so that all that remained for you was to fix on their refusal tocondemn "the sense of Jansenius," which you insist on their doingwithout explanation. You must have been sadly in want of heresies tobrand them with, when you were reduced to this. For who ever heardof a heresy which nobody could explain? The answer was ready,therefore, that if Jansenius has no errors, it is wrong to condemnhim; and if he has, you were bound to point them out, that we mightknow at least what we were condemning. This, however, you have neveryet been pleased to do; but you have attempted to fortify yourposition by decrees, which made nothing in your favour, as they gaveno sort of explanation of the sense of Jansenius, said to have beencondemned in the five propositions. This was not the way toterminate the dispute. Had you mutually agreed as to the genuine senseof Jansenius, and had the only difference between you been as towhether that sense was heretical or not, in that case the decisionswhich might pronounce it to be heretical would have touched the realquestion in dispute. But the great dispute being about the sense ofJansenius, the one party saying that they could see nothing in itinconsistent with the sense of St. Augustine and St. Thomas, and theother party asserting that they saw in it an heretical sense whichthey would not express. It is clear that a constitution which does notsay a word about this difference of opinion, and which only condemnsin general and without explanation the sense of Jansenius, leavesthe point in dispute quite undecided.    You have accordingly been repeatedly told that as yourdiscussion turns on a matter of fact, you would never be able to bringit to a conclusion without declaring what you understand by thesense of Jansenius. But, as you continued obstinate in your refusal tomake this explanation, I endeavored, as a last resource, to extortit from you, by hinting in my last letter that there was somemystery under the efforts you were making to procure thecondemnation of this sense without explaining it, and that your designwas to make this indefinite censure recoil some day or other uponthe doctrine of efficacious grace, by showing, as you could easily do,that this was exactly the doctrine of Jansenius. This has reducedyou to the necessity of making a reply; for, had you pertinaciouslyrefused, after such an insinuation, to explain your views of thatsense, it would have been apparent to persons of the smallestpenetration that you condemned it in the sense of efficacious grace- aconclusion which, considering the veneration in which the Church holdsholy doctrine, would have overwhelmed you with disgrace.    You have, therefore, been forced to speak out your mind; and wefind it expressed in your reply to that part of letter in which Iremarked, that "if Jansenius was capable of any other sense thanthat of efficacious grace, he had no defenders; but if his writingsbore no other sense, he had no errors to defend." You found itimpossible to deny this position, father; but you have attempted toparry it by the following distinction: "It is not sufficient," sayyou, "for the vindication of Jansenius, to allege that he merely holdsthe doctrine of efficacious grace, for that may be held in two ways-the one heretical, according to Calvin, which consists inmaintaining that the will, when under the influence of grace, hasnot the power of resisting it; the other orthodox, according to theThomists and the Sorbonists, which is founded on the principlesestablished by the councils, and which is, that efficacious grace ofitself governs the will in such a way that it still has the power ofresisting it."    All this we grant, father; but you conclude by adding:"Jansenius would be orthodox, if he defended efficacious grace inthe sense of the Thomists; but he is heretical, because he opposes theThomists, and joins issue with Calvin, who denies the power ofresisting grace." I do not here enter upon the question of fact,whether Jansenius really agrees with Calvin. It is enough for mypurpose that you assert that he does, and that you now inform methat by the sense of Jansenius you have all along understood nothingmore than the sense of Calvin. Was this all you meant, then, father?Was it only the error of Calvin that you were so anxious to getcondemned, under the name of "the sense of Jansenius?" Why did you nottell us this sooner? You might have saved yourself a world of trouble;for we were all ready, without the aid of bulls or briefs, to joinwith you in condemning that error. What urgent necessity there was forsuch an explanation! What a host of difficulties has it removed! Wewere quite at a loss, my dear father, to know what error the popes andbishops meant to condemn, under the name of "the sense ofJansenius." The whole Church was in the utmost perplexity about it,and not a soul would relieve us by an explanation. This, however,has now been done by you, father- you, whom the whole of your partyregard as the chief and prime mover of all their councils, and who areacquainted with the whole secret of this proceeding. You, then, havetold us that the sense of Jansenius is neither more nor less thanthe sense of Calvin, which has been condemned by the council. Why,this explains everything. We know now that the error which theyintended to condemn, under these terms- the sense of Jansenius- isneither more nor less than the sense of Calvin; and that,consequently, we, by joining with them in the condemnation of Calvin'sdoctrine, have yielded all due obedience to these decrees. We are nolonger surprised at the zeal which the popes and some bishopsmanifested against "the sense of Jansenius." How, indeed, could theybe otherwise than zealous against it, believing, as they did, thedeclarations of those who publicly affirmed that it was identicallythe same with that of Calvin?    I must maintain, then, father, that you have no further reasonto quarrel with your adversaries; for they detest that doctrine asheartily as you do. I am only astonished to see that you areignorant of this fact, and that you have such an imperfectacquaintance with their sentiments on this point, which they have sorepeatedly expressed in their published works. I flatter myselfthat, were you more intimate with these writings, you would deeplyregret your not having made yourself acquainted sooner, in thespirit of peace, with a doctrine which is in every respect so holy andso Christian, but which passion, in the absence of knowledge, nowprompts you to oppose. You would find, father, that they not only holdthat an effective resistance may be made to those feebler graces whichgo under the name of exciting or inefficacious, from their notterminating in the good with which they inspire us; but that they are,moreover, as firm in maintaining, in opposition to Calvin, the powerwhich the will has to resist even efficacious and victorious grace, asthey are in contending against Molina for the power of this grace overthe will, and fully as jealous for the one of these truths as they arefor the other. They know too well that man, of his own nature, hasalways the power of sinning and of resisting grace; and that, since hebecame corrupt, he unhappily carries in his breast a fount ofconcupiscence which infinitely augments that power; but that,notwithstanding this, when it pleases God to visit him with His mercy,He makes the soul do what He wills, and in the manner He wills it tobe done, while, at the same time, the infallibility of the divineoperation does not in any way destroy the natural liberty of man, inconsequence of the secret and wonderful ways by which God operatesthis change. This has been most admirably explained by St.Augustine, in such a way as to dissipate all those imaginaryinconsistencies which the opponents of efficacious grace suppose toexist between the sovereign power of grace over the free-will andthe power which the free-will has to resist grace. For, according tothis great saint, whom the popes and the Church have held to be astandard authority on this subject, God transforms the heart of man,by shedding abroad in it a heavenly sweetness, which surmounting thedelights of the flesh, and inducing him to feel, on the one hand,his own mortality and nothingness, and to discover, on the other hand,the majesty and eternity of God, makes him conceive a distaste for thepleasures of sin which interpose between him and incorruptiblehappiness. Finding his chiefest joy in the God who charms him, hissoul is drawn towards Him infallibly, but of its own accord, by amotion perfectly free, spontaneous, love-impelled; so that it would beits torment and punishment to be separated from Him. Not but thatthe person has always the power of forsaking his God, and that hemay not actually forsake Him, provided he choose to do it. But howcould he choose such a course, seeing that the will always inclines tothat which is most agreeable to it, and that, in the case we nowsuppose, nothing can be more agreeable than the possession of that onegood, which comprises in itself all other good things? "Quod enim(says St. Augustine) amplius nos delectat, secundum operemur necesseest- Our actions are necessarily determined by that which affords usthe greatest pleasure."    Such is the manner in which God regulates the free will of manwithout encroaching on its freedom, and in which the free will,which always may, but never will, resist His grace, turns to Godwith a movement as voluntary as it is irresistible, whensoever He ispleased to draw it to Himself by the sweet constraint of Hisefficacious inspirations.    These, father, are the divine principles of St. Augustine andSt. Thomas, according to which it is equally true that we have thepower of resisting grace, contrary to Calvin's opinion, and that,nevertheless, to employ the language of Pope Clement VIII in his paperaddressed to the Congregation de Auxiliis, "God forms within us themotion of our will, and effectually disposes of our hearts, byvirtue of that empire which His supreme majesty has over the volitionsof men, as well as over the other creatures under heaven, according toSt. Augustine."    On the same principle, it follows that we act of ourselves, andthus, in opposition to another error of Calvin, that we have meritswhich are truly and properly ours; and yet, as God is the firstprinciple of our actions, and as, in the language of St. Paul, He"worketh in us that which is pleasing in his sight"; "our merits arethe gifts of God," as the Council of Trent says.    By means of this distinction we demolish the profane sentimentof Luther, condemned by that Council, namely, that "we co-operate inno way whatever towards our salvation any more than inanimate things";and, by the same mode of reasoning, we overthrow the equally profanesentiment of the school of Molina, who will not allow that it is bythe strength of divine grace that we are enabled to cooperate withit in the work of our salvation, and who thereby comes into hostilecollision with that principle of faith established by St. Paul:"That it is God who worketh in us both to will and to do."    In fine, in this way we reconcile all those passages ofScripture which seem quite inconsistent with each other such as thefollowing: "Turn ye unto God"- "Turn thou us, and we shall be turned"-"Cast away iniquity from you"- "It is God who taketh away iniquityfrom His people"- "Bring forth works meet for repentance"- "Lord, thouhast wrought all our works in us"- "Make ye a new heart and a newspirit"- "A new spirit will I give you, and a new heart will Icreate within you," &c.    The only way of reconciling these apparent contrarieties, whichascribe our good actions at one time to God and at another time toourselves, is to keep in view the distinction, as stated by St.Augustine, that "our actions are ours in respect of the free willwhich produces them; but that they are also of God, in respect ofHis grace which enables our free will to produce them"; and that, asthe same writer elsewhere remarks, "God enables us to do what ispleasing in his sight, by making us will to do even what we might havebeen unwilling to do."    It thus appears, father, that your opponents are perfectly atone with the modern Thomists, for the Thomists hold with them both thepower of resisting grace, and the infallibility of the effect ofgrace; of which latter doctrine they profess themselves the moststrenuous advocates, if we may judge from a common maxim of theirtheology, which Alvarez, one of the leading men among them, repeats sooften in his book, and expresses in the following terms (disp. 72,n. 4): "When efficacious grace moves the free will, it infalliblyconsents; because the effect of grace is such, that, although the willhas the power of withholding its consent, it nevertheless consentsin effect." He corroborates this by a quotation from his master, St.Thomas: "The will of God cannot fail to be accomplished; and,accordingly, when it is his pleasure that a man should consent tothe influence of grace, he consents infallibly, and evennecessarily, not by an absolute necessity, but by a necessity ofinfallibility." In effecting this, divine grace does not trench upon"the power which man has to resist it, if he wishes to do so"; itmerely prevents him from wishing to resist it. This has beenacknowledged by your Father Petau, in the following passage (Book i,p.602):. "The grace of Jesus Christ insures infallible perseverance inpiety, though not by necessity; for a person may refuse to yield hisconsent to grace, if he be so inclined, as the council states; butthat same grace provides that he shall never be so inclined."    This, father, is the uniform doctrine of St. Augustine, of St.Prosper, of the fathers who followed them, of the councils, of St.Thomas, and of all the Thomists in general. It is likewise, whateveryou may think of it, the doctrine of your opponents. And, let meadd, it is the doctrine which you yourself have lately sealed withyour approbation. I shall quote your own words: "The doctrine ofefficacious grace, which admits that we have a power of resistingit, is orthodox, founded on the councils, and supported by theThomists and Sorbonists." Now, tell us the plain truth, father; if youhad known that your opponents really held this doctrine, the interestsof your Society might perhaps have made you scruple before pronouncingthis public approval of it; but, acting on the supposition that theywere hostile to the doctrine, the same powerful motive has induced youto authorize sentiments which you know in your heart to be contrary tothose of your Society; and by this blunder, in your anxiety to ruintheir principles, you have yourself completely confirmed them. Sothat, by a kind of prodigy, we now behold the advocates of efficaciousgrace vindicated by the advocates of Molina- an admirable instanceof the wisdom of God in making all things concur to advance theglory of the truth.    Let the whole world observe, then, that, by your own admission,the truth of this efficacious grace, which is so essential to allthe acts of piety, which is so dear to the Church, and which is thepurchase of her Saviour's blood, is so indisputably Catholic thatthere is not a single Catholic, not even among the Jesuits, whowould not acknowledge its orthodoxy. And let it be noticed, at thesame time, that, according to your own confession, not the slightestsuspicion of error can fall on those whom you have so oftenstigmatized with it. For so long as you charged them withclandestine heresies, without choosing to specify them by name, it wasas difficult for them to defend themselves as it was easy for you tobring such accusations. But now, when you have come to declare thatthe error which constrains you to oppose them, is the heresy of Calvinwhich you supposed them to hold, it must be apparent to every one thatthey are innocent of all error; for so decidedly hostile are they tothis, the only error you charge upon them, that they protest, by theirdiscourses, by their books, by every mode, in short, in which they cantestify their sentiments, that they condemn that heresy with theirwhole heart, and in the same manner as it has been condemned by theThomists, whom you acknowledge, without scruple, to be Catholics,and who have never been suspected to be anything else.    What will you say against them now, father? Will you say that theyare heretics still, because, although they do not adopt the sense ofCalvin, they will not allow that the sense of Jansenius is the samewith that of Calvin? Will you presume to say that this is matter ofheresy? Is it not a pure question of fact, with which heresy hasnothing to do? It would be heretical to say that we have not thepower, of resisting efficacious grace; but would it be so to doubtthat Jansenius held that doctrine? Is this a revealed truth? Is itan article of faith which must be believed, on pain of damnation? Oris it not, in spite of you, a point of fact, on account of which itwould be ridiculous to hold that there were heretics in the Church?    Drop this epithet, then, father, and give them some other name,more suited to the nature of your dispute. Tell them, they areignorant and stupid- that they misunderstand Jansenius. These would becharges in keeping with your controversy; but it is quite irrelevantto call them heretics. As this, however, is the only charge from whichI am anxious to defend them, I shall not give myself much trouble toshow that they rightly understand Jansenius. All I shall say on thepoint, father, is that it appears to me that, were he to be judgedaccording to your own rules, it would be difficult to prove him not tobe a good Catholic. We shall try him by the test you have proposed."To know," say you, "whether Jansenius is sound or not, we mustinquire whether he defends efficacious grace in the manner ofCalvin, who denies that man has the power of resisting it- in whichcase he would be heretical; or in the manner of the Thomists, whoadmit that it may be resisted- for then he would be Catholic."judge, then, father, whether he holds that grace may be resistedwhen he says: "That we have always a power to resist grace,according to the council; that free will may always act or not act,will or not will, consent or not consent, do good or do evil; and thatman, in this life, has always these two liberties, which may be calledby some contradictions." Judge. likewise, if he be not opposed tothe error of Calvin, as you have described it, when he occupies awhole chapter (21st) in showing "that the Church has condemned thatheretic who denies that efficacious grace acts on the free will in themanner which has been so long believed in the Church, so as to leaveit in the power of free will to consent or not to consent; whereas,according to St. Augustine and the council, we have always the powerof withholding our consent if we choose; and according to St. Prosper,God bestows even upon his elect the will to persevere, in such a wayas not to deprive them of the power to will the contrary." And, in oneword, judge if he does not agree with the Thomists, from the followingdeclaration in chapter 4th: "That all that the Thomists have writtenwith the view of reconciling the efficaciousness of grace with thepower of resisting it, so entirely coincides with his judgement thatto ascertain his sentiments on this subject we have only to consulttheir writings."    Such being the language he holds on these heads my opinion is thathe believes in the power of resisting grace; that he differs fromCalvin and agrees with the Thomists, because he has said so; andthat he is, therefore, according to your own showing, a Catholic. Ifyou have any means of knowing the sense of an author otherwise than byhis expressions; and if, without quoting any of his passages, youare disposed to maintain, in direct opposition to his own words,that he denies this power of resistance, and that he is for Calvin andagainst the Thomists, do not be afraid, father, that I will accuse youof heresy for that. I shall only say that you do not seem properlyto understand Jansenius; but we shall not be the less on thataccount children of the same Church.    How comes it, then, father, that you manage this dispute in such apassionate spirit, and that you treat as your most cruel enemies,and as the most pestilent of heretics, a class of persons whom youcannot accuse of any error, nor of anything whatever, except that theydo not understand Jansenius as you do? For what else in the world doyou dispute about, except the sense of that author? You would havethem to condemn it. They ask what you mean them to condemn. Youreply that you mean the error of Calvin. They rejoin that they condemnthat error; and with this acknowledgement (unless it is syllablesyou wish to condemn, and not the thing which they signify), youought to rest satisfied. If they refuse to say that they condemn thesense of Jansenius, it is because they believe it to be that of St.Thomas, and thus this unhappy phrase has a very equivocal meaningbetwixt you. In your mouth it signifies the sense of Calvin; in theirsthe sense of St. Thomas. Your dissensions arise entirely from thedifferent ideas which you attach to the same term. Were I madeumpire in the quarrel, I would interdict the use of the wordJansenius, on both sides; and thus, by obliging you merely toexpress what you understand by it, it would be seen that you asknothing more than the condemnation of Calvin, to which theywillingly agree; and that they ask nothing more than the vindicationof the sense of St. Augustine and St. Thomas, in which you againperfectly coincide.    I declare, then, father, that for my part I shall continue toregard them as good Catholics, whether they condemn Jansenius, onfinding him erroneous, or refuse to condemn him, from finding thathe maintains nothing more than what you yourself acknowledge to beorthodox; and that I shall say to them what St. Jerome said to John,bishop of Jerusalem, who was accused of holding the eight propositionsof Origen: "Either condemn Origen, if you acknowledge that he hasmaintained these errors, or else deny that he has maintained them- Autnega hoc dixisse eum qui arguitur; aut si locutus est talia, eum damnaqui dixerit."    See, father, how these persons acted, whose sole concern waswith principles, and not with persons; whereas you who aim atpersons more than principles, consider it a matter of no consequenceto condemn errors, unless you procure the condemnation of theindividuals to whom you choose to impute them.    How ridiculously violent your conduct is, father! and how illcalculated to insure success! I told you before, and I repeat it,violence and verity can make no impression on each other. Never wereyour accusations more outrageous, and never was the innocence ofyour opponents more discernible: never has efficacious grace beenattacked with greater subtility, and never has it been moretriumphantly established. You have made the most desperate effortsto convince people that your disputes involved points of faith; andnever was it more apparent that the whole controversy turned upon amere point of fact. In fine, you have moved heaven and earth to makeit appear that this point of fact is founded on truth; and neverwere people more disposed to call it in question. And the obviousreason of this is that you do not take the natural course to make thembelieve a point of fact, which is to convince their senses and pointout to them in a book the words which you allege are to be found init. The means you have adopted are so far removed from thisstraightforward course that the most obtuse minds are unavoidablystruck by observing it. Why did you not take the plan which I followedin bringing to light the wicked maxims of your authors- which was tocite faithfully the passages of their writings from which they wereextracted? This was the mode followed by the cures of Paris, and itnever fails to produce conviction. But, when you were charged bythem with holding, for example, the proposition of Father Lamy, that a"monk may kill a person who threatens to publish calumnies againsthimself or his order, when he cannot otherwise prevent thepublication," what would you have thought, and what would the publichave said, if they had not quoted the place where that sentiment isliterally to be found? or if, after having been repeatedly demanded toquote their authority, they still obstinately refused to do it? or if,instead of acceding to this, they had gone off to Rome and procureda bull, ordaining all men to acknowledge the truth of their statement?Would it not be undoubtedly concluded that they had surprised thePope, and that they would never have had recourse to thisextraordinary method, but for want of the natural means ofsubstantiating the truth, which matters of fact furnish to all whoundertake to prove them? Accordingly, they had no more to do than totell us that Father Lamy teaches this doctrine in Book 5, disp.36,n.118, page 544. of the Douay edition; and by this means everybody whowished to see it found it out, and nobody could doubt about it anylonger. This appears to be a very easy and prompt way of putting anend to controversies of fact, when one has got the right side of thequestion.    How comes it, then, father, that you do not follow this plan?You said, in your book, that the five propositions are in Jansenius,word for word, in the identical terms- iisdem verbis. You were toldthey were not. What had you to do after this, but either to cite thepage, if you had really found the words, or to acknowledge that youwere mistaken. But you have done neither the one nor the other. Inplace of this, on finding that all the passages from Jansenius,which you sometimes adduce for the purpose of hoodwinking thepeople, are not "the condemned propositions in their individualidentity," as you had engaged to show us, you present us withConstitutions from Rome, which, without specifying any particularplace, declare that the propositions have been extracted from hisbook.    I am sensible, father, of the respect which Christians owe tothe Holy See, and your antagonists give sufficient evidence of theirresolution ever to abide by its decisions. Do not imagine that itimplied any deficiency in this due deference on their part that theyrepresented to the pope, with all the submission which children owe totheir father, and members to their head, that it was possible he mightbe deceived on this point of fact- that he had not caused it to beinvestigated during his pontificate; and that his predecessor,Innocent X, had merely examined into the heretical character of thepropositions, and not into the fact of their connection withJansenius. This they stated to the commissary of the Holy Office,one of the principal examiners, stating that they could not becensured according to the sense of any author, because they had beenpresented for examination on their own merits; and without consideringto what author they might belong: further, that upwards of sixtydoctors, and a vast number of other persons of learning and piety, hadread that book carefully over, without ever having encountered theproscribed propositions, and that they have found some of a quiteopposite description: that those who had produced that impression onthe mind of the Pope might be reasonably presumed to have abused theconfidence he reposed in them, inasmuch as they had an interest indecrying that author, who has convicted Molina of upwards of fiftyerrors: that what renders this supposition still more probable is thatthey have a certain maxim among them, one of the best authenticated intheir whole system of theology, which is, "that they may, withoutcriminality, calumniate those by whom they conceive themselves to beunjustly attacked"; and that, accordingly, their testimony being sosuspicious, and the testimony of the other party so respectable,they had some ground for supplicating his holiness, with the mostprofound humility, that he would ordain an investigation to be madeinto this fact, in the presence of doctors belonging to bothparties, in order that a solemn and regular decision might be formedon the point in dispute. "Let there be a convocation of able judges(says St. Basil on a similar occasion, Epistle 75); let each of thembe left at perfect freedom; let them examine my writings; let themjudge if they contain errors against the faith; let them read theobjections and the replies; that so a judgement may be given in dueform and with proper knowledge of the case, and not a defamatory libelwithout examination."    It is quite vain for you, father, to represent those who would actin the manner I have now supposed as deficient in proper subjection tothe Holy See. The popes are very far from being disposed to treatChristians with that imperiousness which some would fain exerciseunder their name. "The Church," says Pope St. Gregory, "which has beentrained in the school of humility, does not command with authority,but persuades by reason, her children whom she believes to be inerror, to obey what she has taught them." And so far from deeming it adisgrace to review a judgement into which they may have beensurprised, we have the testimony of St. Bernard for saying that theyglory in acknowledging the mistake. "The Apostolic See (he says,Epistle 180) can boast of this recommendation, that it never stands onthe point of honour, but willingly revokes a decision that has beengained from it by surprise; indeed, it is highly just to prevent anyfrom profiting by an act of injustice, and more especially beforethe Holy See."    Such, father, are the proper sentiments with which the popes oughtto be inspired; for all divines are agreed that they may be surprised,and that their supreme character, so far from warranting themagainst mistakes, exposes them the more readily to fall into them,on account of the vast number of cares which claim their attention.This is what the same St. Gregory says to some persons who wereastonished at the circumstance of another pope having suffered himselfto be deluded: "Why do you wonder," says he, "that we should bedeceived, we who are but men? Have you not read that David, a king whohad the spirit of prophecy, was induced, by giving credit to thefalsehoods of Ziba, to pronounce an unjust judgement against the sonof Jonathan? Who will think it strange, then, that we, who are notprophets, should sometimes be imposed upon by deceivers? Amultiplicity of affairs presses on us, and our minds, which, bybeing obliged to attend to so many things at once, apply themselvesless closely to each in particular, are the more easily liable to beimposed upon in individual cases." Truly, father, I should supposethat the popes know better than you whether they may be deceived ornot. They themselves tell us that popes, as well as the greatestprinces, are more exposed to deception than individuals who are lessoccupied with important avocations. This must be believed on theirtestimony. And it is easy to imagine by what means they come to bethus overreached. St. Bernard, in the letter which he wrote toInnocent II, gives us the following description of the process: "It isno wonder, and no novelty, that the human mind may be deceived, and isdeceived. You are surrounded by monks who come to you in the spirit oflying and deceit. They have filled your ears with stories against abishop, whose life has been most exemplary, but who is the object oftheir hatred. These persons bite like dogs, and strive to make goodappear evil. Meanwhile, most holy father, you put yourself into a rageagainst your own son. Why have you afforded matter of joy to hisenemies? Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they beof God. I trust that, when you have ascertained the truth, all thisdelusion, which rests on a false report, will be dissipated. I praythe spirit of truth to grant you the grace to separate light fromdarkness, and to favour the good by rejecting the evil." You see,then, father, that the eminent rank of the popes does not exemptthem from the influence of delusion; and I may now add, that it onlyserves to render their mistakes more dangerous and important thanthose of other men. This is the light in which St. Bernardrepresents them to Pope Eugenius: "There is another fault, so commonamong the great of this world that I never met one of them who wasfree from it; and that is, holy father, an excessive credulity, thesource of numerous disorders. From this proceed violent persecutionsagainst the innocent, unfounded prejudices against the absent, andtremendous storms about nothing (pro nihilo). This, holy father, isa universal evil, from the influence of which, if you are exempt, Ishall only say you are the only individual among all your compeers whocan boast of that privilege."    I imagine, father, that the proofs I have brought are beginning toconvince you that the popes are liable to be surprised. But, tocomplete your conversion, I shall merely remind you of someexamples, which you yourself have quoted in your book, of popes andemperors whom heretics have actually deceived. You will remember,then, that you have told us that Apollinarius surprised Pope Damasius,in the same way that Celestius surprised Zozimus. You inform us,besides, that one called Athanasius deceived the Emperor Heraclius,and prevailed on him to persecute the Catholics. And lastly, thatSergius obtained from Honorius that infamous decretal which was burnedat the sixth council, "by playing the busybody," as you say, "aboutthe person of that pope."    It appears, then, father, by your own confession, that those whoact this part about the persons of kings and popes do sometimesartfully entice them to persecute the faithful defenders of the truth,under the persuasion that they are persecuting heretics. And hence thepopes, who hold nothing in greater horror than these surprisals, have,by a letter of Alexander III, enacted an ecclesiastical statute, whichis inserted in the canonical law, to permit the suspension of theexecution of their bulls and decretals, when there is ground tosuspect that they have been imposed upon. "If," says that pope tothe Archbishop of Ravenna, "we sometimes send decretals to yourfraternity which are opposed to your sentiments, give yourselves nodistress on that account. We shall expect you eitherto carry themrespectfully into execution, or to send us the reason why you conceivethey ought not to be executed; for we deem it right that you shouldnot execute a decree which may have been procured from us byartifice and surprise." Such has been the course pursued by the popes,whose sole object is to settle the disputes of Christians, and notto follow the passionate counsels of those who strive to involvethem in trouble and perplexity. Following the advice of St. Peterand St. Paul, who in this followed the commandment of Jesus Christ,they avoid domination. The spirit which appears in their whole conductis that of peace and truth. In this spirit they ordinarily insert intheir letters this clause, which is tacitly understood in them all:"Si ita est; si preces veritate nitantur- If it be so as we have heardit; if the facts be true." It is quite clear, if the popesthemselves give no force to their bulls, except in so far as theyare founded on genuine facts, that it is not the bulls alone thatprove the truth of the facts, but that, on the contrary, evenaccording to the canonists, it is the truth of the facts which rendersthe bulls lawfully admissible.    In what way, then, are we to learn the truth of facts? It mustbe by the eyes, father, which are the legitimate judges of suchmatters, as reason is the proper judge of things natural andintelligible, and faith of things supernatural and revealed. For,since you will force me into this discussion, you must allow me totell you that, according to the sentiments of the two greatest doctorsof the Church, St. Augustine and St. Thomas, these three principles ofour knowledge, the senses, reason, and faith, have each their separateobjects and their own degrees of certainty. And as God has beenpleased to employ the intervention of the senses to give entrance tofaith (for "faith cometh by hearing"), it follows, that so far fromfaith destroying the certainty of the senses, to call in questionthe faithful report of the senses would lead to the destruction offaith. It is on this principle that St. Thomas explicitly statesthat God has been pleased that the sensible accidents should subsistin the eucharist, in order that the senses, which judge only ofthese accidents, might not be deceived.    We conclude, therefore, from this, that whatever the propositionmay be that is submitted to our examination, we must first determineits nature, to ascertain to which of those three principles it oughtto be referred. If it relate to a supernatural truth, we must judge ofit neither by the senses nor by reason, but by Scripture and thedecisions of the Church. Should it concern an unrevealed truth andsomething within the reach of natural reason, reason must be itsproper judge. And if it embrace a point of fact, we must yield tothe testimony of the senses, to which it naturally belongs to takecognizance of such matters.    So general is this rule that, according to St. Augustine and St.Thomas, when we meet with a passage even in the Scripture, the literalmeaning of which, at first sight, appears contrary to what thesenses or reason are certainly persuaded of, we must not attempt toreject their testimony in this case, and yield them up to theauthority of that apparent sense of the Scripture, but we mustinterpret the Scripture, and seek out therein another senseagreeable to that sensible truth; because, the Word of God beinginfallible in the facts which it records, and the information of thesenses and of reason, acting in their sphere, being certain also, itfollows that there must be an agreement between these two sources ofknowledge. And as Scripture may be interpreted in different ways,whereas the testimony of the senses is uniform, we must in thesematters adopt as the true interpretation of Scripture that viewwhich corresponds with the faithful report of the senses. "Twothings," says St. Thomas, "must be observed, according to the doctrineof St. Augustine: first, That Scripture has always one true sense; andsecondly, That as it may receive various senses, when we havediscovered one which reason plainly teaches to be false, we must notpersist in maintaining that this is the natural sense, but searchout another with which reason will agree.    St. Thomas explains his meaning by the example of a passage inGenesis where it is written that "God created two great lights, thesun and the moon, and also the stars," in which the Scripturesappear to say that the moon is greater than all the stars; but as itis evident, from unquestionable demonstration, that this is false,it is not our duty, says that saint, obstinately to defend the literalsense of that passage; another meaning must be sought, consistent withthe truth of the fact, such as the following, "That the phrase greatlight, as applied to the moon, denotes the greatness of thatluminary merely as it appears in our eyes, and not the magnitude ofits body considered in itself."    An opposite mode of treatment, so far from procuring respect tothe Scripture, would only expose it to the contempt of infidels;because, as St. Augustine says, "when they found that we believed,on the authority of Scripture, in things which they assuredly knewto be false, they would laugh at our credulity with regard to its morerecondite truths, such as the resurrection of the dead and eternallife." "And by this means," adds St. Thomas, "we should render ourreligion contemptible in their eyes, and shut up its entrance intotheir minds.    And let me add, father, that it would in the same manner be thelikeliest means to shut up the entrance of Scripture into the minds ofheretics, and to render the pope's authority contemptible in theireyes, to refuse all those the name of Catholics who would notbelieve that certain words were in a certain book, where they arenot to be found, merely because a pope by mistake has declared thatthey are. It is only by examining a book that we can ascertain whatwords it contains. Matters of fact can only be proved by the senses.If the position which you maintain be true, show it, or else ask noman to believe it- that would be to no purpose. Not all the powerson earth can, by the force of authority, persuade us of a point offact, any more than they can alter it; for nothing can make that to benot which really is.    It was to no purpose, for example, that the monks of Ratisbonprocured from Pope St. Leo IX a solemn decree, by which he declaredthat the body of St. Denis, the first bishop of Paris, who isgenerally held to have been the Areopagite, had been transported outof France and conveyed into the chapel of their monastery. It is notthe less true, for all this, that the body of that saint always lay,and lies to this hour, in the celebrated abbey which bears his name,and within the walls of which you would find it no easy matter toobtain a cordial reception to this bull, although the pope has thereinassured us that he has examined the affair "with all possiblediligence (diligentissime), and with the advice of many bishops andprelates; so that he strictly enjoins all the French (districtepraecipientes) to own and confess that these holy relics are no longerin their country." The French, however, who knew that fact to beuntrue, by the evidence of their own eyes, and who, upon opening theshrine, found all those relics entire, as the historians of thatperiod inform us, believed then, as they have always believed since,the reverse of what that holy pope had enjoined them to believe,well knowing that even saints and prophets are liable to be imposedupon.    It was to equally little purpose that you obtained against Galileoa decree from Rome condemning his opinion respecting the motion of theearth. It will never be proved by such an argument as this that theearth remains stationary; and if it can be demonstrated by sureobservation that it is the earth and not the sun that revolves, theefforts and arguments of all mankind put together will not hinderour planet from revolving, nor hinder themselves from revolvingalong with her.    Again, you must not imagine that the letters of Pope Zachary,excommunicating St. Virgilius for maintaining the existence of theantipodes, have annihilated the New World; nor must you supposethat, although he declared that opinion to be a most dangerous heresy,the King of Spain was wrong in giving more credence to ChristopherColumbus, who came from the place, than to the judgement of thepope, who had never been there, or that the Church has not derived avast benefit from the discovery, inasmuch as it has brought theknowledge of the Gospel to a great multitude of souls who mightotherwise have perished in their infidelity.    You see, then, father, what is the nature of matters of fact,and on what principles they are to be determined; from all which, torecur to our subject, it is easy to conclude that, if the fivepropositions are not in Jansenius, it is impossible that they can havebeen extracted from him; and that the only way to form a judgementon the matter, and to produce universal conviction, is to examine thatbook in a regular conference, as you have been desired to do long ago.Until that be done, you have no right to charge your opponents withcontumacy; for they are as blameless in regard to the point of fact asthey are of errors in point of faith- Catholics in doctrine,reasonable in fact, and innocent in both.    Who can help feeling astonishment, then, father, to see on the oneside a vindication so complete, and on the other accusations sooutrageous! Who would suppose that the only question between yourelates to a single fact of no importance, which the one partywishes the other to believe without showing it to them! And whowould ever imagine that such a noise should have been made in theChurch for nothing (pro nihilo), as good St. Bernard says! But this isjust one of the principal tricks of your policy, to make peoplebelieve that everything is at stake, when, in reality, there isnothing at stake; and to represent to those influential persons wholisten to you that the most pernicious errors of Calvin, and themost vital principles of the faith, are involved in your disputes,with the view of inducing them, under this conviction, to employ alltheir zeal and all their authority against your opponents, as if thesafety of the Catholic religion depended upon it; Whereas, if theycame to know that the whole dispute was about this paltry point offact, they would give themselves no concern about it, but would, onthe contrary, regret extremely that, to gratify your private passions,they had made such exertions in an affair of no consequence to theChurch. For, in fine, to take the worst view of the matter, eventhough it should be true that Jansenius maintained these propositions,what great misfortune would accrue from some persons doubting of thefact, provided they detested the propositions, as they have publiclydeclared that they do? Is it not enough that they are condemned byeverybody, without exception, and that, too, in the sense in which youhave explained that you wish them to be condemned? Would they bemore severely censured by saying that Jansenius maintained them?What purpose, then, would be served by exacting this acknowledgment,except that of disgracing a doctor and bishop, who died in thecommunion of the Church? I cannot see how that should be accountedso great a blessing as to deserve to be purchased at the expense of somany disturbances. What interest has the state, or the pope, orbishops, or doctors, or the Church at large, in this conclusion? Itdoes not affect them in any way whatever, father; it can affect nonebut your Society, which would certainly enjoy some pleasure from thedefamation of an author who has done you some little injury. Meanwhileeverything is in confusion, because you have made people believethat everything is in danger. This is the secret spring giving impulseto all those mighty commotions, which would cease immediately were thereal state of the controversy once known. And therefore, as thepeace of the Church depended on this explanation, it was, Iconceive, of the utmost importance that it should be given that, byexposing all your disguises, it might be manifest to the whole worldthat your accusations were without foundation, your opponentswithout error, and the Church without heresy.    Such, father, is the end which it has been my desire toaccomplish; an end which appears to me, in every point of view, sodeeply important to religion that I am at a loss to conceive how thoseto whom you furnish so much occasion for speaking can contrive toremain in silence. Granting that they are not affected with thepersonal wrongs which you have committed against them, those which theChurch suffers ought, in my opinion, to have forced them tocomplain. Besides, I am not altogether sure if ecclesiastics oughtto make a sacrifice of their reputation to calumny, especially inthe matter of religion. They allow, you, nevertheless, to say whateveryou please; so that, had it not been for the opportunity which, bymere accident, you afforded me of taking their part, the scandalousimpressions which you are circulating against them in all quarterswould, in all probability, have gone forth without contradiction.Their patience, I confess, astonishes me; and the more so that Icannot suspect it of proceeding either from timidity or fromincapacity, being well assured that they want neither arguments fortheir own vindication, nor zeal for the truth. And yet I see themreligiously bent on silence, to a degree which appears to mealtogether unjustifiable. For my part, father, I do not believe that Ican possibly follow their example. Leave the Church in peace, and Ishall leave you as you are, with all my heart; but so long as you makeit your sole business to keep her in confusion, doubt not but thatthere shall always be found within her bosom children of peace whowill consider themselves bound to employ all their endeavours topreserve her tranquillity.                        LETTER XIX          FRAGMENT OF A NINETEENTH PROVINCIAL LETTER,                 ADDRESSED TO FATHER ANNAT  REVEREND SIR,    If I have caused you some dissatisfaction, in former Letters, bymy endeavours to establish the innocence of those whom you werelabouring to asperse, I shall afford you pleasure in the present bymaking you acquainted with the sufferings which you have inflictedupon them. Be comforted, my good father, the objects of your enmityare in distress! And if the Reverend the Bishops should be inducedto carry out, in their respective dioceses, the advice you havegiven them, to cause to be subscribed and sworn a certain matter offact, which is, in itself, not credible, and which it cannot beobligatory upon any one to believe- you will indeed succeed inplunging your opponents to the depth of sorrow, at witnessing theChurch brought into so abject a condition.    Yes, sir, I have seen them; and it was with a satisfactioninexpressible! I have seen these holy men; and this was the attitudein which they were found. They were not wrapt up in a philosophicmagnanimity; they did not affect to exhibit that indiscriminatefirmness which urges implicit obedience to every momentary impulsiveduty; nor yet were they in a frame of weakness and timidity, whichwould prevent them from either discerning the truth, or following itwhen discerned. But I found them with minds pious, composed, andunshaken; impressed with a meek deference for ecclesiasticalauthority; with tenderness of spirit, zeal for truth, and a desireto ascertain and obey her dictates: filled with a salutary suspicionof themselves, distrusting their own infirmity, and regretting that itshould be thus exposed to trial; yet withal, sustained by a modesthope that their Lord will deign to instruct them by his illuminations,and sustain them by his power; and believing that that of theirSaviour, whose sacred influences it is their endeavour to maintain,and for whose cause they are brought into suffering, will be at oncetheir guide and their support! I have, in fine, seen themmaintaining a character of Christian piety, whose power . . . . . ... . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    I found them surrounded by their friends, who had hastened toimpart those counsels which they deemed the most fitting in theirpresent exigency. I have heard those counsels; I have observed themanner in which they were received, and the answers given: andtruly, my father, had you yourself been present, I think you wouldhave acknowledged that, in their whole procedure, there was the entireabsence of a spirit of insubordination and schism; and that their onlydesire and aim was to preserve inviolate two things- to theminfinitely precious- peace and truth.    For, after due representations had been made to them of thepenalties they would draw upon themselves by their refusal to sign theConstitution, and the scandal it might cause in the Church, theirreply was . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .                THE END OF THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS.