UC-NRLF B 5 flOfl 0fl7 '•; £ l Y [ LISRARY i UN ;--?2».?$rY OF V 'CALIFORNIA y £-*•■--■ i x) GET MAN! ABBEY, GETHSEMANI, P.O.KY. iS PUBLISHED BY KEATING & BROWN The Garden of Devotion and Piety, in which are gathered rfiost sweet flowers and most delicious fruits, very proper to re- fresh and nourish such as seek after perfection, and the imitation of God's holy Saints. Book I. Written originally in Italian, and now translated into English from the Eighth Edition published by authority at Naples. 12mo. 3s. A Treatise on the Love of God, by St. Francis of Sales. A new translation. 8vo. pp. 596. Cloth boards. 10s. "In his (St. F.de Sales') Treatise on the Love of God, he paints his own soul. He describes the feeling sentiments of divine love, its state of fervour, of dryness, of trials, sufferings, and darkness ; in explaining which, he calls in philosophy to his assistance. He wrote on this sublime subject what he had learned by his own experience."— Alban Butler. Christianity; or the Evidences and Characters of the Christian Religion. By the late Rt. Rev. Dr. W. Poynter, D.D., V. A. of the London District. Second Edition, 12mo. Cloth boards. -4.%. This work is divided into Four Parts: — Paut I. Means of ascertaining the Truths of the Revealed Doctrines of Christianity. Part II. Means of ascertaining what are the Genuine Doctrines and Precepts of Christianity. Part III. The Establishment and Propagation of the Christian Religion. Part IV, The Church of Christ, The Depository and Dispenser of the M)Stei Christianity. Tin' Following of Christ, in Four Books, to which are added Practice] H< flection* Md I Prayer at the end of e:u h Chapter, and a Classified Tabic of Contents, suitable to the dlfltffl ' Life and Spiritual Necessities of the Faithful. TYenalatad by the Rev. James .Joins. Second Edition* l.Smo. Cloth boards The Paill BoOKj or I Series of I nstruction OB souk most important Duties of Youth, by the Author ol' " Alton Park.' l'Jmo. Cloth boards. 6r, Hy the popular medium of entertaining narrati\e an.t animated OOBVSIISUoOi - I mural precepts are i run hated, ami the prejudices end I i an. i cental t. s.> natural to misled <>r aneeltleated yoathi sndsnsnb* • i. ourselves, hbena are corrected author, in \i.m\ PaBKi idtoSSSSd I hiellv the ell v. it id i'l.uessofeocist>' I I'ki/.k Hook is adapted to the n :annei>, uMoim. md >lw The Protestant Principle of appealing to the Holy Scrip- tures, subversive of Protestant Doctrine, and confirmatory of the Roman Catholic Faith, with illustrative references to the Fathers, Councils, and Protestant writers. 12mo. Cloth bds. 6s. 6d. The History of the Variations of the Protestant Churches, by J. B. Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, translated from the French. 2 vols. 8vo. boards. 16s. " By an idea as new as it is profound, Bossuet places himself with the Roman Church, as a simple spectator of the violent debates of innumerable sects ; he confines himself to noticing their disputes with each other; and then over- throws each of them separately, by an exposition of their acts, public and con- tradictory of their particular symbols of faith." A Series of Familiar Discourses for every Sunday and Festival of the year, by the Rev. E. Peach, 2 vols. 8vo. boards. 18s, The Way of Salvation, in Meditations for every day in the year, from the Italian of B. Alphonsus Liguori. By the Rev. James Jones. 12mo. Cloth boards. 3s. 6d. This venerable author, before whose name the Church has solemnly inscribed the title of Blessed, has produced, besides his great Theological work, a great variety of others also invaluable : Some to arouse the Sinner from the sleep of death, and to confirm and direct the Penitent : others to assist the reli- gious, who in peaceful seclusion aspire to perfection, and this to lead those safely, who live amidst the dangers of the world, in the Way of Salvation. . The Characters of Real Devotion; from the French of M. l'Abbe Grou, New Edition, revised and corrected. To which is now added from the same Author, a short Treatise on the perfect Oblation of the whole being to God. 18mo. Sewed. Is. 6d. A criterion easy of access and simple in its construction, by which a false may be easily distinguished from a true devotion, and the fatal illusion dispersed, has here been happily delineated by the late Abbe Grou, whose name is placed amongst the most approved ascetical writars of the Eighteenth century. The Papist Misrepresented and Represented; or a two-fold Character of Popery. Selected from the original of 1683. By the Rev. John Gother, and republished by the late Ven. & R. R. Dr. Challenor, D.D. Twenty-eighth Edition. 18mo. 9d. The Misrepresenter sums up the superstitions, idolatries, cruelties, trea- cheries, and wicked principles laid to the charge of Catholics ; the Representer lays open that religion which those termed Papists own and profess, the chief articles of their faith, and the principal grounds and reasons which attach them to it. 8 Parables of Pere Bonaventure Girardeau, S. J. l2mo. 2s. Our Blessed Lord, by his divine example, consecrated the use of Para- bles, as the most effectual means of assisting human dulness in the concep- tion of moral truths and duties : Nathan's Parable, which caused David in- stanter to pronounce sentence against himself, has become proverbial. Pere Girardeau has successfully followed the plan of Nathan ; many a reader, at the end of his Parable, has blushed with self-conviction, who unconsciously, at the beginning, smiled at the prospect of undisturbed amusement. Christian Instructions for Youth; adapted to every con- dition of life; interspersed with impressive and edifying examples, from historical and other authentic sources, from the French. Third Edition revised, 18mo. Cloth boards. 35. 6d. Historical illustrations are appended which agreeably and persuasively enforce every truth proposed and virtue inculcated. Father Hatton's Memoirs of the Reformation of England, in two parts. Collected chiefly from Acts of Parliament and Pro- testant Historians. 8vo. boards. 4s. This well arrayed collection of historical documents of indisputable au- thority, illustrative of the first cause, means employed to promote, and moral consequences derived from the Reformation, affords a sure guide to a correct estimation of its claim to apostolicity, and to the religious, civil, and moral benefits that have resulted from it to Great Britain. Catechism op Martin Luther, extracted from his works compiled by Louis Ussleber, 1744. 18mo. Ad. In these extracts from Luther's works he exhibits the same determination ami energy in condemning Lutheran doctrines, a< he at other times em p] maintaining them. Christian Truths proved by Heathenish and PauVQtOJ Kyii.i n< I I, 1'JiiH). Sewed \tl. The most regular and dignified way of ptOI m | I hnstianity. is tha- was adopted by our Saviour, when nicetim: after his NM disciple-, a! Kuuuaus, he gently reproved and rnmiud thc : r ifclhll Of faith. •• beginning it Moeei end the Prophe to i hi e x po un ded to them tonal] thi tUMI the thfclgl that were o .lucrum | hiui." and in the parable • • Lazarus, He said , " If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, neithti will thi\ believe if one rose aj;am from the dead." TO tlie simple Liaelite in whom there is no .-.ule, that is jud< evldeneei bof hi noottag with thi sophisticated Infldol of thr promt age who doubts the authenticity of tin- Holy Scriptures, the evid, n cord drawn from heathen and philosophical MthOTMl he accredits, must prove a valuable auxiliary. History of the United Kingdom op Great Britain and Ireland, from the earliest Ages to the Treaty of Amiens in 1800. By a Member of the Ursuline Community at Cork. 2 vols. 12mo. Sewed, 5s. 6d- The above, as well as the following history, has been warmly recommended by the late Dr. Milner. Mvlius's History of England, Third Edition. From the in- vasion of Julius Caesar to the end of the reign of George IV. To which is now added the ancient and modern Geography, accom- panied by three maps of the Roman, Saxon, and Modern divisions of the country, and an abstract of the British Constitution, toge- ther with an explanatory Index of technical and other terms. 6s. 6d. Mfditations on the Great Truths of Religion, and on the Mysteries of the Life and Passion of our Divine Lord. 18mo. Sewed. 2s. Though written beneath the shades of a cloister, the author, experienced and successful in fitting the sex to liveholily in the world, has adopted this instruc- tive and pathetic book to the habits and circumstances of those especially who desire to combine a Christian with a social life. The Hind and the Panther, in Three Parts. By John Dryden, 18mo. boards. l 2s. 6d. •? What weight of ancient witness can prevail, If private reason holds the public scale.'' British Catholic Colonial Quarterly Intelligencer, No. III. 8vo. 2s. 6d. No. IV. is in progress. It is principally during a translation from slavery to Christianity, or to Anarchy in our West India colonies— from a commercial to a political existence in the scale of nations in the East-Indies, that the Editors wish to submit to the consideration of the Roman Catholic Church of Great Britain, the immense im- portance of the Roman Catholics in the Colonies having every facility of in- struction in the principles of the Declaration of 1826 ; and every reason to believe that the British government at home is not indifferent to their having such instruction, and will be satisfied of their claim to protection so long as it is satisfied that they are steady to those principles. Missionary intelligence of course forms a leading feature of this publication. At Press. Alton Park, a Second Edition, revised and improved, in one volume 12mo. A VINDICATION or CATHOLIC MORALITY QETHSEMANI ABBEY GETHSEMANI.P.O. KY. s ''• -> N \ W V V VINDICATION OF CATHOLIC MORALITY, OK. A REFUTATION OF THE CHARGES BROUGHT AGAINST IT B*OFTHE«* SISMONDI, OF OETHS^> IS HIS "HISTORY OP THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS DURING l}iy MIDDLE A< »Y TBI COUNT ALEXANDER MANZONI. AND NOW TRANSLATED PROM THE ITALIAN EDITION OF PARIS, iita damnetur" Tkiitii i . ApoL * 'P .ONDO W 6 q f£/7er>$si+<*>tA^ PI BLI8HBD i:v KBA WNG AND BROM N 801 ' tfBE, i in 1886 LOAN STAQC Sxnsz CONTENTS. Chapter Page Preface by the Editor v The Author's Preface . . I I. On Unity of Faith 13 II. On the different Influence of the Catholic Religion in various times and places III. On the Distinction between Moral Philosophy and Theology IV. On the Decrees of the Church — On the Decisions of the Fathers, and on Casuists 61 V. On the Harmony that exists between Catholic Mo- rality and that which right reason teaches in be just .. .. .. b.'j VI. The Distinction between Mortal and Venial 8 VII. On Religious Animosity VIII. On the Doctrine of Penance .. Oti IX On the Delay of Conversion \ On the SuliMxteiire of the Cloiv\. o>n*ulcrrd as a cause Of Immorality .... \ I On Indulgences MI. On the Circumstances that decide our S;i Damnation a3 794 vi CONTENTS. Chapter Page XIII. On the Precepts of the Church 183 XIV. Of Detraction 199 XV. On the Motives of Alms-deeds 215 XVI. On Sobriety and Abstinence, Continence and Vir- ginity .. .. , 230 XVII. On Modesty and Humility 241 XVIII. On the Secret of Morality; on Scruples; and on Spiritual Directors .. .. .. .. 259 XIX. On the Objections to Catholic Morality, derived from the Character of the Italians . . . . 269 PREFACE BY THE EDITOR. In presenting to the British Public a version of a work, the object of which is to defend the prin- ciples of the Catholic Religion, it is obvious that a translator labours under considerable disadvantage. Not to allude to the fact, that treatises of controversy seldom present any thing either agreeable or interesting to the great mass of readers, there is in this case an additional difficulty, arising from the religion and tlu early prejudices imbibed in their education by the great majority of our countryini'ii, the effect of which has been to produce a certain abhorrence and suspi- cion in regard to whatever has any relation with (a tholicism. That a work, therefore, praAtring to com bat these prejudices, and to eradicate a conviction, of which many would deem it almost a sin to examine even the foundation, should be received with a de- tain degree Qf Coldness, is natural ; while on the other Vlll EDITOR S PREFACE. hand, to refuse it an attentive perusal would be nei- ther consistent with justice, nor becoming the libera- lity of the age in which we live. Assuredly, it is not worth my while to reason with those who are the victims of a heartless frivolity ; who can feel no interest in exa- mining any of those great questions, upon the solution of which mankind have in all ages believed their wel- fare to depend ; who condemn without examination, and approve without a reason ; whose whole mind is absorbed in material pursuits, or in the base enjoy- ment of animal pleasures. To awaken such as these, no voice of mine could aught avail ; a power less than almighty could never raise them from the stillness of moral death, to which the fever of their passions has brought them. But there are others, who, though they disapprove of the cause I advocate, feel quite as much as I could wish the immense importance of com- ing to a right conclusion concerning it. To such as these I appeal, these I implore to enter into discussion with me: a discussion, not of angry words, not of per- sonal abuse ; a discussion, springing not from a de- sire of obtaining a paltry victory over an antagonist, still less from that wretched fondness for debate, that leads some to argue upon every subject — to spend time, perhaps, or to exhibit a certain logical skill — but from a profound desire to elicit truth, from an awful sense of individual responsibility, and from a sincere regard for the happiness and the welfare of mankind. If, when interrogated as to the possession of such feelings as these, their hearts respond in affirmation, gladly EDITOR S PREFACE. IX shall 1 submit the following pages to their judgment : I shall feel that the pains I have bestowed upon them have not been thrown away ; and I shall console my- self with the reflection, that I may have assisted a fellow-creature in his earnest and sincere enquiry after truth. But the discussion, upon which we are about to enter, is not only one of immense importance, one of paramount duty, it involves also questions of the high- est and most delightful interest at the present moment. It is now three hundred years since the Catholic Re- ligion was banished from this kingdom, as it was from many other kingdoms of Europe : and what has been the result ? I do not ask what has been the moral result upon the religious and social condition of men ; that inquiry would lead me into a field far too wick- for us to traverse at present ; but what has been the result as to the conviction of men ? Is it clearly esta- blished, that the Catholic Religion is an antiquated system of superstition or delusion, or has that faith obtained a triumph ? Was the Reformation an effort of a truly enlightened mind, to throw off a ma» or corruption, with which the beauty and simplicity of the Christian Church had been defiled, or has it been proved to have been a guilty act of rebellion, the off- spring of an KgHOmnl md unstable judgment, the d very of which has placed the claims of Catholicism in a more prominent and secure portion than the\ occupied befall ? TlftCM are in|ei rci-e their holy religion. lly degrees the priest- came out of their hiding-places, our nohh 1 and our gentry began once more to hold up their head- j en- couraged by the benignity of thi> new ( yru-. the\ XU EDITOR S PREFACE. began to collect the scattered stones of our ruined Sion ; they even dared to attempt the rebuilding of the tem- ple of God. In a very few years, no less than eight Catholic Colleges were founded in England, to say nothing of Scotland, nothing of Ireland. Chapels too were raised in almost all our principal towns; and what is more wonderful still, convents were founded, in which virgins consecrated to the Lord, night and day chaunted the divine praises. The French Revo- lution meanwhile had scattered the flock and smitten the shepherds in the Most Christian kingdom : while it purified the Church there, it sent forth a crowd of holy priests, who, constant to their God, preferred banishment to the rights of citizenship, in a state where they could only be purchased by the denial of Jesus Christ ; they sought in foreign climates that pro- tection which it was vain to expect at home. " When they persecute you in one city, flee ye to another/' was the advice of our divine Redeemer ; and the whole history of the Church exhibits a succession of cases in which this counsel has been followed. Hence there is no instance of a persecution which has not tended to propagate the faith: the martyrdom of those who died for religion confirmed it at home, while the ge- nerous devotion of those who preferred banishment to apostacy, enabled them to extend the kingdom of their Redeemer abroad : and what is more remarkable still, there has never been a persecution, when there has not been also some friendly asylum provided by God in some foreign clime for his suffering children. And EDITOR S PREFACE. Xlll to mark his divine power in characters still more strik- ing, this asylum has often been prepared amongst tnose who, to all human expectation, would have seemed the least likely to afford it. There are, per- haps, no examples of what I have just stated more splendid than those which the persecutions of the last fifty years have exhibited. When an impious fac- tion, whose aim it was to overthrow the Religion of Christ and the very frame of society, had obtained, in the inscrutable ways of Providence, that decree, from the centre of Catholic Unity, which doomed to de- struction that most sacred band of the soldiers of the Church, the Society of Jesus: it was not in any Catholic kingdom these holy men found a refuge ; it was amongst Greek schismatics in Russia that the Almighty provided it. When the venerable Pontiff' Pin- VI. had expired, the victim of a malice quite internal, and when the infidel armies of France held possession of Italy, so that to hold a conclave for the appointment of a successor was a thing impossible, no Catholic power was found to remedy the evil : but the arm of the Almighty was not shortened; he sent forth the Russian General Suwarrow ; in six weeks not i French soldier remained to impede the proceedings of the Church ; the conclave was held at \ \ -nice, and the expenoei irere furnished by Protestant England I Piui Vli. was elected, but he found the tiara a thorm irown. Hardly was he seated in the Peter, when Napoleon overthrew hi- temporal 90?e- •\ The saintly BidlOp Of the Catho'. 1) XIV EDITOR S PREFACE was thrown into a dungeon ; from one prison he was dragged to another ; he drank the cup of affliction to the dregs : but it was reserved for the armies of Pro- testant England, of Protestant Prussia, and of schis- matical Russia, to restore him to his sovereign rights. In the same way, it was not a Catholic land that afforded a place of refuge for the persecuted clergy of France : it was for England that this honour was des- tined. Yes, honour, immortal honour to our beloved country, for the noble and generous hospitality she proffered to those valiant confessors of the faith ! But was this heroic act of charity to remain unre- quited ? Was it in vain that Christ had declared, that a cup of cold water presented to his thirsty disciple should not fail to have its reward ? that he would regard the deed of love offered to one of his members, as done to himself? No : Truth itself cannot deceive. The justice of God, an attribute so full of terror to the wicked, affords motives of infinite consolation to the good. Our Lord sees all that which is done for him- self, and he does not resemble the ungrateful children of this world; he rewards to the utmost possible extent every such thought word, and work. Oh T ravishing thought ! would to God that it might open the eyes of our souls to behold his infinite beauty. This divine justice forgot not the bounty of England towards his Church : God crowned her arms with success ; he raised her name to the highest point of honour and glory. But he did more : he began to EDITOR S PREFACE. \\ withdraw the veil from before her eyes ; that veil, that for three centuries had obscured the light of truth. Yes, he began to remove the judicial blind- ness, which the sins of our forefathers had drawn down upon their posterity. Once more he permitted the only saving faith of his Catholic Church to be freely proclaimed to the people of England. The virtues of the French clergy, and their zealous labours, did much to remove the prejudices in which a Protes- tant education had involved our countrymen. How many can trace the first favourable impressions they ever experienced in regard to Catholicism to the sight of these blessed men ! While speaking of them, it would be the deepest ingratitude in the writer of this Pn not to acknowledge that it was to a holy French priest that he owed the light of divine faith. Great was the prejudice with which he regarded that zealous man, when first they beheld each other; but this prejudice, each hour of mutual intercourse tended to dissipate. The beams of Catholic light brightly shone frotn him, as he proceeded on in his even and unbending course: his arguments were works rather than word- . and the youth, as yet untaught the BOphistriec false philosophy, beheld, and acknowledged hi hi* ftpOBtolic Conduct, the character of a true minister oi Chnst, and an overpowering evidence of his divine OOnSOlmg faith* Pilled With admiration, but with douht, lie spared no eflbrl to investigate the truth. Amid the ma/.e af controversy, and tin- jh rj in which each new discovery involved him. I b2 XVI EDITOR 5 PREFACE. ship with the holy man served as a conducting star, that never left him until it had safely guided his feet to the humble crib of the Redeemer, whom he found as the shepherds of old, in the arms of his blessed Mother. — He embraced the Faith. How gladly would he have run to convey in person the joyful tidings to his saintly friend ! but circumstances beyond his con- trol interposed to prevent it ; a great distance inter- vened, to pass which was not in his power. The venerable priest meanwhile had well nigh reached the end of his course ; he had fought the good fight ; he lay upon that bed from which he was never more to rise. As he lay, he thought him of that great ac- count he was so soon about to render for the exercise of his sacred ministry ; that ministry, in which it be- hoved him to reconcile sinners to God. He thought of all those with whom he had spent hours of friend- ship, and of sweet intercourse : had they profited by his example ? had the work of his mission been fulfill- ed in them ? had he never been backward in declaring to them the truth ? could he resign his soul into the hands of his Creator, with the hope of carrying but one strayed sheep to the feet of his Judge ! Doubt- less in the great accounting day many, yes, many such, will proclaim him to have been their faithful shepherd. But assuredly, it is not alone the unwor- thy pastor who trembles at the hour of death ! There is a fear that springs from humility, no less than from the consciousness of guilt: his hope was therefore mingled with fear. But it is not the way of that EDITO 11 s P R E F A CI-;. XV11 Divine Being, who has declared himself the God of all consolation, to leave his faithful servants without Comfort in their last trial. It was then, in a moment of this humble dread, that God cheered up the vene- rable priest ; a letter arrived from his young friend, recounting in grateful expressions his conversion to the Faith. The old man read it with eagerness : he pressed it to his heart : he shed a flood of tears, but they were tears of joy and of consolation : he clasped his hands, he raised his dying eyes to heaven, blessing that God whom he had never forsaken, whom he had served alike in prosperity and adversity. " I die con- tented," he exclaimed ; " thou hast made my friend a Catholic Christian ; I die contented !" These were almost the last words his attendant heard him otter* The following night he departed to our Lord. Without Invitation, therefore, I assert, that never - the era of what is called the Reformation has the con- troversy between Protestantism and Catholicism assum- ed so interesting a complexion ; never has it come so home- to every breast; never was it so imperative OH each individual to make a decision as to his own line Of Conduct Under these eireumstances, I think I need no apology for presenting to the English public i work which may tend to elucidate que which the minds of SO many are now carne>tl\ en d, With regard to the work itself* it was writ- ten by the well-known Man/.oni, about lour years ago, in vindication of the Moral Doctrine* of th. Church from the charges broi. QSt them 1>\ tht XV111 EDITOR S PREFACE. celebrated Sismondi, in his History of the Italian Re- publics during the Middle Ages. Having mentioned the name of Manzoni, it would seem superfluous to say any thing to recommend to the notice of the reader a work coming from the pen of such a writer as the author of the " Promessi Sposi" a romance, which is as superior to any thing of Sir Walter Scott in its tendency to improve and exalt the mind and heart, as it is equal to his most perfect compositions in point of style and genius. Those who are acquainted with the admirable romance I allude to, and with the other works and poetical pieces composed by Manzoni, will be prepared to expect the consummate talent with which he has treated the several questions discussed in the work before us : they will be no less delighted to find, that not only his talent, but his poetic feeling and his profound observation, every where shine forth in this book ; controversy, conducted by him, has no longer any thing of the tedious or the dry, for he seems to have invested reasoning, the most abstract and me- taphysical, with all the charms and graces of which a work of the deepest feeling is susceptible. Whether the translator has done justice to the admir- able book which he has endeavoured to present in an English version, is quite another question. That is one upon which it is not for him to pronounce ; it is one which he leaves to the indulgence and the courtesy of his readers to answer : of both the one and the other he feels that he has great need, and he only hopes that EDITOR S PREFACE. XIX his undertaking may not be pronounced altogether a failure. Those who could read the work in its ori- ginal language, would feel no desire to peruse it in a translation, for they know how difficult it is for the most skilful translator to do justice to his subject ; but if the ideas, the sentiments, and the arguments of an author, are presented in their full force to those readers who are unacquainted with the original language, the task of a translator may be acknowledged to have been accomplished, even though he fail to transfuse into the translation all the accidental beauties of the original. If that has been done in the present case, any pains be- stowed will have been amply recompensed. I will say no more ; I only hope my poor recommendation will not have indisposed any one from forming a closer acquaintance with a work, the perusal of which, I am quite confident, cannot fail to gratify and to im- prove him who reads it. 2 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. simple man, is nobler and more important than the loftiest and most sublime conception that springs from the mind of a profound thinker ; persuaded that when we find a disparity between the opinions of another and our own, we ought to cherish feel- ings of esteem and affection for him, precisely be- cause our corrupt inclinations might unjustly lead us to the contrary, it will certainly be contrary to my intention if I have not observed the most scru- pulous respect towards the author in this little work : I trust, however, that I have done so, and I protest beforehand against any unfavourable in- terpretation of my words. But I feel, nevertheless, that to every work of this kind there is a sort of odium attached, which it is difficult to remove entirely. To take the book of a justly celebrated living writer, to repeat his sentences, to stop and examine them one by one, and attempt to show that he is wrong in almost all, affecting the critic at every passage, is a thing which, in the long-run, is almost sure to leave an impression of presumption, and of a mean, arbi- trary spirit of disputation. To prevent this im- pression, I shall not say to the reader every time I AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 3 venture to contradict, Am I not right ? for I know and feel that the being right is not, for the most part, sufficient to justify an attack, still less to en- noble it ; but I will say, consider the nature of the argument. This is not an abstract discussion, but a deliberation : it ought to lead us not to receive one set of notions rather than another, but to choose a line of conduct ; for if the morality taught by the Church should lead to corruption, we ought to reject it. This is the consequence the Italians would deduce from the reflections which I am about to refute. I hold that this consequence would be the greatest misfortune for my countrymen, and when I feel that I have a deliberate opinion on such a question, it is my duty to declare it, for no duty is beneath ns. The reader will find sometimes that the confu- tation embraced more than the artiele confuted : in this ease I beg of him to observe that I do not in- tend to attribute more to the author than what he has expressly said ; hut I thought that theonly wa\ to arrive at an useful result, was to take a more general \ iew of the question, and instead iA' defend- ing only that part of an artiele of morality which I, <2 4 author's PREFACE. was controverted, to show the reasonableness of the whole, since that is the question on which it is im- portant to form an opinion, and it is that which We must admit or refuse entirely. I have done this the more willingly, because it should clearly appear that my object is to establish important truths, and that confutation is an object altogether subordinate. It appears to me uncourteous, though not per- haps unjust, to notice what we conceive to be error in a work of great magnitude and impor- tance, without alluding to its merits ; it is repre- senting a thing that has various aspects only in one point of view, and that one unfavourable. As I only quote the " History of the Italian Repub- lics," to contradict a part of it, I am anxious briefly to express my esteem for so many other portions of a work, the least merit of which consists in the laborious and correct researches, which con- stitute the greatest merit in various others of a similar kind ; a work which is original on a subject that has been so often discussed ; original, I say, because it is treated as all histories ought to be, but as very few are treated. It is too often the case, that we read in the most celebrated historians AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 5 descriptions of long periods of time, with a succession of various and important facts, yet we find hardly any thing but the changes they produced in the interests and miserable policy of a few men : na- tions are almost excluded from the history. The mode of treating it, already adopted by some writ- ers, taking as their ground- work the manners and customs of nations, their mode of government, and the moral effects of their legislation, has been ap- plied in Sismondi's history to a vast and compli- cated argument, kept, however, within fair and just proportions. The facts are well connected as to time and character, so that we can easily and distinctly confront them with the theories that in- clude them all : and these are extensive enough without falling into that indeterminate and general character which puts the historian out of the reach of criticism, because it makes it almost impos- sible to find out his mistakes, although it leaves the reader uncertain whether lie has been pern- ing a true and important observation, or an in- genious hypothesis. Without concurring in all the opinions of our author, we cannot bu! how many questions of politics, jurisprudence, and 6 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. rature, he has considered frequently in a new and interesting, and what is more important, in a noble and generous point of view: how many truths he has re-established, which had fallen into a species of oblivion through the indolence or base conni- vance of historians, who too often condescended to justify the abuse of power, and flattered even the dead. He has almost always endeavoured to trans- fer public esteem from success to j ustice ; and the attempt is so excellent, that it is every man's duty to give him his suffrage, however weak it may be, that he may have numbers with him, if nothing else, in a cause which has always needed support. I state, however, distinctly, that I differ from the author in every case in which he dissents from the faith, and from catholic morality, for I hold these to be an infallible rule, and after a minute examination of each, I am convinced that truth is on their side. Whoever has long and seriously studied the Holy Scriptures, the fountain of morality, and has carefully read the great catholic moralists, and medi- tated on himself and others, far removed from the noise of the world, will find these ' Observatio?is' > superficial; and I am very far from objecting to AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 7 this judgment, for I know they are so. Although partial discussions may bring some detached truth to light, yet the evidence, the beauty, and the pro- found depth of catholic morality are fully displayed only in treatises in which the divine law, and man, for whom it was made, are considered in all their mutual relations. In such a view as that the mind goes on from one truth to another ; the unity of reve- lation is such, that the least part becomes a proof of the whole, by the wonderful subordination dis- covered throughout ; difficult things mutually ex- plain each other, and from many paradoxes results an evident system. That which is, and that which ought to be, the misery and corruption of our na- ture, and yet the idea of perfection and of order that we find ever living equally in all of us, good and evil, the words of divine wisdom, and the vain discourses of mortals, the wakeful joy of the just, the sorrows and the consolations of the penitent, the terrors or the headlong course of the wicked, the triumphs of justice and those of injuMice, the de- signs of men brought to their accomplishment . a thousand obstacle-*, or o\crthro\\n by a single »n-ccn obstacle, the faith that expecteth the 8 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. promise, and that feeleth the vanity of what passeth away, even unbelief itself — all are explained by the Gospel, and all confirm the truth of the Gospel : the revelation of a passed state, of which man car- ries within his own breast the sad testimony, with- out possessing of himself either the tradition or the secret of it, and that of a future, of which there but remained to us a vague idea of terror and de- sire ; — this it is, that makes clear to us the things we behold : mysteries reconcile contradictions, and the visible is explained by the invisible. The more we examine this religion, the more we see it is that which has revealed man to man, and that it supposes in its founder the most universal, thorough, and prophetic knowledge of every senti- ment we have. When I read the works of the great Catholic moralists, such as the sermons of Massillon and Bourdaloue, or the writings of such men as Fenelon or Bossuet, I feel the insignificance of the observations contained in the present volume, and I am sensible of the advantages which the authority of the priesthood gave to them, aided as it was by a commanding genius, a long course of study, and a purely Christian life. AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 9 The apologists of the Catholic religion are treated •with singular injustice : a favourable ear is always lent to whatever is said against them, but when they endeavour to reply, they are told that their cause is not interesting enough, the world has something else to think about, and the time for theological controversy is gone by. Our cause is not interesting ! — but we have a proof of the con- trary, in the eagerness with which objections have always been received against it It is not interest- ing ! — when, in all the questions that concern a man most deeply, it presents itself so naturally, that it is easier to reject than to forget it. It is not inte- resting ! — yet there is no age that does not furnish monuments of a profound veneration, a prodigious love, and of an ardent and unwearied hatred in re- gard of it. It is not interesting ! — when the void that its removal would leave in the world is bo horrible and immense, that the greater Dumber <>f those who will not receive it themselves, say it ifl | good tiling for the people, that is, for nine-tenths of the human race. Onreanse is not interesting ! — and yet it remains to be decided, whether million^ of men should abandon the morality they B S 10 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. fess, or study it more, and observe it more faith- fully. It is thought by many that this carelessness is the result of mature deliberation, and of a state of high civilization, which is to be the last and most terrible enemy to religion ; but, on the contrary, this enemy is the first it meets with in its marvellous career. No sooner had it made its appearance, than it was despised by the world, and considered not worth examining. The Apostles, in the tranquil extasy of the Spirit, revealed truths which were to become the meditation, the consolation, and the light of the sublimest intellects, and to lay the basis of a civili- zation whichwas to extend its dominion not only over Europe, but over the entire universe, and they were called drunkards. (Acts li. 13.) St. Paul caused to be heard, in the Areopagus, words of wis- dom that have rendered the humblest Christian so superior to the sages of heathenism, and the sages replied, they would hear him at another time. (Acts xvii. 32.) They thought they had more im- portant things to reflect on than God and man, than sin and redemption. If this enemy still lives, AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 11 it is because the Church was promised not that she should destroy all her enemies, but that she should not be destroyed by them. To speak of dogmas, of rites and sacraments, in opposition to the faith, is called philosophy ; but if we speak of them in defence, it is called a theologi- cal dispute, acting the part of an ascetick or a preacher ; and it is pretended that the discussion then assumes a miserable and pedantic character. Yet we cannot defend religion without justifying what is condemned in it, and without showing the importance and reasonableness of that which forms its essence. When we speak of Christianity, we must not have out the sacraments. Why should we be ashamed to confess the things on which our hopes are placed ? Why should we not bear testi- mony, in the time of youth, and in the Vigour of our days, to those things that we shall call upon to aid us at the moment of death and tenor r But I am beginning a defence, and anticipating censures thai have not, and perhaps will not, be made-. It would he ridiculous pride in me to at- tempt to give this little work the intcnM which belongs to die cause which it undertakes to defend 12 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. I hope I have written it with right intentions ; and I now give it to the public with the tranquillity of one who is persuaded that it may be sometimes a man's duty to speak for the truth, though it be not always in his power to secure its triumph. OBSERVATIONS ON CATHOLIC MORALITY. CHAPTER I. On Unity op Faith. " L'unite de foi, qui ne peut resulter que d'une w asservissement absolu de la raison a la croyance, et u qui en consequence ne se trouve dans aucune autre u religion au meme degre que dans la Catholique, b'e u bien tous les membres de cette eglise a recevoir let " memes dogmes, a se soumettre aux memes decisions, " a se former par les memes enseignemens." — I list des Repub. Ital. tome xvi. p. 410. That unity of faith, which is found 10 the highest degree, that is in absolute perfection, in the Catholic Church, is an evangelical mark whieh Bhe claims; for she has not invented this units, but received it: to DftSS o\cr many passages in 14 ON UNITY OF FAITH. the scriptures wherein this is taught, I shall quote one in which is found not only the thing itself but the express words : — St. Paul in his epistle to the Ephesians, after having mentioned various gifts and offices which are in the Church, asserts that the end of them is, " the unity of the faith, and the know- ledge of the Son of God." (Ephes. iv. 13.*) Our author does not state the reasons why he thinks that unity of faith can only result from the absolute subjection of reason to belief. If it were so, we could not reconcile the passage just quoted from St. Paul, and another, where he expressly affirms that there is " one faith ,1 ,*|* with that in his epistle to the Romans, where he says, "your service is reasonable." J But not only do these passages agree, but they also explain and confirm each other. Faith certainly includes the subjection of reason, and this submission is desired by reason itself; for acknowledging certain principles to be incontestable, it is placed in this alternative, either to believe certain inevitable consequences which it does not understand, or to renounce those principles ; hav- ing acknowledged that the Christian religion is * Donee occurramus omnes in unitatem fidei, in agnitioncm Filii Dei.— Ad Ephes. iv. 13. % | One Lord, one faith, one baptism. — Unus Dominus, una fides, unum baptisma. — Ad Ephes. iv. 5. | Rationabile obsequium vestrum. — Rom. xii. 1. ON UNITY OF FAITH. 15 revealed by God, it cannot doubt any part of that revelation : the doubt would not only be irreligious, but absurd. But let us suppose for a moment that unity of faith were not expressed in the Scriptures ; even then the reason which has received faith ought to adopt unity: there is no necessity for submitting itself to belief to do this, as it would follow from a logical necessity. Faith consists in the assent given by the under- standing to revelation, as coming from God. I be- lieve that the author, when he used the word faith, applied this idea to it, as it is impossible to attach any other. Now, it is repugnant to reason to sup- pose that God should reveal things inconsistent with each other — if truth is one, faith ought to be one also, because it is founded on truth. The con- nection of these ideas is clearly shown in the text quoted above, tw One Lord, one faith, one baptism." Frotn the unity of God necessarily results the unity of faith, and from this the unity of what is essential in Ins worship. Bacon ap p eal e d to hold this as a fundamental truth, when he said: u Among the attributes of the true God it is numbered that be is a jealous God ; wherefore Us worship does not allow of either mixture or association*"* • later ittribota Mltemreri Dei ponitur quod sit Dens zelo- typos; Itaqui coitus qui -non fen mixturam, nee consortium. — Fnuic. Bacomt Strwmmu I .///...<.. I 16 ON UNITY OF FAITH. The ideas of faith and plurality are so repugnant, that words are wanting to express their union ; we can justly say different religions, opinions, or reli- gious beliefs, but not different faiths. By religion is meant a body of traditions, precepts, and cere- monies, and it is easily seen that of these there may be more than one. So, in opinions, weconsider rather the persuasion of the person who believes, than the truth of the thing believed. But by faith is meant a persuasion founded on divine revela- tion; and although people of various forms of worship believe that their opinions have this foundation, we have no expression in our lan- guage to signify the co- existence of several revela- tions, because reason knows it to be impossible. Many persons of different religions may think they have faith; but a man cannot admit that they all have it. If this is a grammatical quibble, let it be so, as the simple argument by which it is proved that unity of faith supposes no other sub- jection of reason than to the laws of ratiocina- tion, is quite sufficient. I do not mean to say, however, that faith results from reasoning alone : it is also a sentiment of the heart; and on that account it is called by the Church a virtue. This quality is denied to it by Voltaire in the article ' Vertu' in his Philosophical Dictionary, in a short dialogue ; but the appellation ON UNITY OF FAITH. 17 ' he has given to one of the speakers shews a great want of courtesy, and an absence of that calmness with which philosophical subjects should be ex- amined. " Un honnete homme" maintains against u un excrement de theologie," that faith is not a virtue, with this argument : "Est-ce vertu de croire? Ou ce que tu crois te semble vrai, et en ce cas il n'y a nul merite a le croire ; ou il te semble faux et alors il est impossible que tu le croies." It is difficult for any one to make a more super- ficial observation than this one of Voltaire. In order to exclude from faith all co-operation of the will, he considers it nothing but the conclusion of the understanding which acknowledges a thing to be true or false. He regards this conclusion as a necessary consequence from the proofs brought for- ward, not admitting any other power to determine it than the proof's themselves. He considers the mind, in fact, as a mere passive instrument, on which probabilities work conviction or disbelief, as if the Church had said that faith were a virtue of the intellect. It is a virtue in man, and in order to see how it is so, we must observe the share that the whole moral man has in receiving or rejecting it. Voltaire puts aside two important features: the ait of the will which determines the mind to examine, and the disposition of the mind which has >o much influence in Admitting or rejecting the modi 18 ON UNITY OF FAITH. belief, and consequently Relief itself. As to the former, the truths of faith are in many parts so opposed to pride and the sensual appetites, that the mind feels a kind of fear and horror of them, and seeks for something to distract it, which, in fact, leads it away from those enquires that would bring it to discover what it does not wish to find. Every one will recognise this disposition in himself when he reflects on the great activity of the fancy in seeking a variety of subjects to occupy its attention when the mind is engrossed by disagreeable ideas. The desire to place the mind in an agreeable situa- tion has such a manifest influence on those opera- tions of the fancy, that when an idea presents itself to us which we know to be important, but on which we do not like to dwell, we are apt to say to our- selves, I will not think of it ; and we do say so, although we are convinced that putting it off will only be a source of trouble to us at a future time : so great is our desire to exclude any painful sensa- tion now. This seems to me to be one of the reasons why writings which have combated reli- gion with ridicule have been so much in vogue, as they encourage a disposition common to mankind, by associating to weighty and pressing ideas, a series of ideas opposed to them and diverting. This inclination being in the mind, the will exer- cises a difficult act of virtue by applying it to the ON UNITY OF FAITH. 19 examination of religious truths ; and the mere determination to make this examination supposes not only an impression of probability received, but a holy fear of the divine judgment, and a love of those truths which overcome, or at least combat worldly inclinations. That the love or dislike of what is proposed for belief has a powerful influence on the mode of ex- amining it, and on the admission or exclusion of proofs, is a known fact which is proved daily. Suppose any news arrives in a city which has the misfortune of being unhappily divided into fac- tions ; it is believed by some and disbelieved by others according as it affects their passions or interests. Fear acts on belief as well as hope ; sometimes inducing it to refuse credence to any thing that threatens it, and at others persuading it to give more faith than it deserves, which often happens where there is a way opened to avoid it.* • I think that J. J. Rousseau is pfOQg when hi rid those who admire Alexander's courage in drinking the medicine brought tO him by his physician Philip, alter he had received ■ letter from Parnieiiio, ad\ i-ing him to beware of the j»1i\ who had been corrupted by the giftl and promises of Darin-, ;md bid engaged to take away hi- life. Kousscau -ays in the second "I I'.nule that this anecdote being related at table by a boy, DAill J persons blamed Alexander for his nuhneM, while OtbCTf admired his firmness and coinage. To which the bo\ replied, that it seemed to him. that ii there were the least Inmnett OT < ; Of Alevuidei % it was no more than on extra- 20 ON UNITY OF FAITH. It is on this account that expressions like the following are so common ; — examine candidly ; judge without prejudice, dispassionately, calmly ; do not suffer yourself to be led away with, §c. ; which signify freedom of the judgment from the passions. The strength of mind which maintains this liberty, is doubtless a virtuous disposition ; it is derived from a love of truth, independent of any pleasure or pain that may be produced on the vagance. As they all agreed it was an extravagance, Rousseau was getting warm and about to answer, when a lady near him whispered softly in his ear. " Taistoi, Jean-Jaques, ils ne t'entendront pas." The company did not therefore hear the explanation. Rousseau gives it to his readers, but in that angry and mysterious manner which he too often uses, especially in Emile, where it seems at times that he wishes them to know that he does not esteem any of them worthy of hearing the truth or capable of understanding it : where he frequently endeavours to make them guess at what might as easily be said plainly and agreeably ; and where, instead of adopting simplicity, perspicuity, and mildness in proportion to the superiority of his genius, he affects with his readers a harsh, imperious, and contemptuous tone, reproving preceptors, as if he had a greater desire to irritate and humiliate mankind than to instruct them. His words are as follows ' — " Quelques lecteurs, mecontens du tais toi, Jean-Jaques, demanderont, je le prevois, ce que je trouve enfin de ci beau dans Taction d' Alexandre. Infor- tunes ! S'il faut vqus le dire, comment le comprendrez-vous? C'est qu'Alexandre croyait a la vertu ; c'est qu'il le croyait sur sa tete ; sur sa propre vie ; c'est que sa grande ame etoit faite pour y croire. Oh ! que cette medecine avalee etoit une belle profession de foi ! Non, jamais mortel n'en fit une si sublime." In spite of all this I think that courage is the most conspicuous part of this action. A belief in virtue was not sufficient ; it was necessary to believe in the virtue of the physician Philip, ON UNITY OF FAITH. 21 senses. We see, therefore, with what wisdom is the name of virtue given to faith. As the human mind would never have been able of itself to dis- cover many of the truths of religion, if God had not revealed them ; and as our corrupt will has not of itself that power of which we have just spoken ; so faith is called by the Church a virtue, and the gift of God. Returning from this long digression to the pas- sage in question, I confess I do not clearly under- and in order to have implicit confidence in it at that moment, it was also necessary calmly to bring to the recollection and judgment some circumstances in favour of his fidelity, and to rest assured that they were more weighty than the probability of such an attempt; (for Parmenio's letter certainly constituted a pro- bability;) it was QeceSMry 10 have sutheient firmness to prevent the idea that he was about to take poison from disturbing this examination ; Kn short, to have courage. The feeling that inducts a timid person to imagine or magnify danger, is the same that makes him fly from real danger, that is, a fear of death or bodily pain, which o verpow e re hit faculties, and acts m i passioa, by taking away tranquillity from his mind. To preserve this tran- quillity in the face of real or supposed danger. || the « eOUflge. If Alexander had thought it probable that Philip Wished 10 give him poison in his medicine, it would have been the great- esl rashness to have taken it j tins is unqoestionabls \ but n uV letter had come into the hands of a cowardly man, it would haw- put him into such a state o! doubt and anxiety, that he would no t have re fl ected , but instantly made up his mind to a\oid the risk at all basards, even though he were persuaded o4 the virtue oi tin physician up to that period he would ha\. ,iuries, examined evidence, hid the medicine analysed, sician, SAd have d nug but swallow the di. 22 ON UNITY OF FAITH. stand the sense of the proposition " that the unity of the faith is not found to exist in any other re- ligion in the same degree as in the Catholic. r ' How can there be degrees in unity of faith ? Either these other religions maintain their faith to be true, and will maintain that it alone is true, or they ad- mit the possibility of some other faith, and in that case are not certain of their own, and have not faith. Whenever a religious system approaches the prin- ciple of unity, that is, when it excludes from its bosom all opinions contrary to those which it pro- fesses, it is because it is sensible of the absurdity of calling one proposition true, and yet receiving another totally opposed to it. Every time a reli- gious system departs from the principle of unity, it is because, not being able to find conclusive arguments to establish the certainty of its faith, it grants to others the same tolerance it requires for itself; it dares not exclude others, because they might on the same principle exclude it. That the Catholic Church is not subject to these fluctuations, but possesses unity of faith in the high- est degree, is a proof of the perpetual certainty of faith to be found in her, and of that immutability which is put forth by Catholics as a character of the truth of the faith which they profess. 23 CHAPTER II. On the Different Influence of the Catholic Religion in various Times and Places. " Toutefois l'influence de la religion Catholiquen'est n point la meme en tout temps et en tout lieu ; elle a " opere fort differemment en France etenAllemagne de nt les causes qui ont change le caractere de- I;; liens, depuis fasscn issement de leura repul)lii|ues? T> Four causes are assigned ; hut the first i> the onl\ one I propose to discuss, namely, religion. The author, SndeftTOIlring U> explain how such a cause could operate the above named change, glances at an objection that would naturally be brought 24 INFLUENCE OF CATHOLIC RELIGION against his argument — from the Unity of Faith, seeing that " it binds,'" as he expresses himself ex- cellently well, " all the members of the Catholic re- ligion to receive the same dogmas, to obey the same decisions, and to be taught by the same precepts f it therefore seems that this religion ought rather to be a cause of conformity among the different nations who profess it, than of dissension. " Yet," 1 he adds, " the influence of the Catholic religion is not the same in all times and places : it has ope- rated very differently in France and Germany to what it has done in Italy and Spain." To account for this diversity of influence, not- withstanding the unity of faith held by all Catho- lics, I think only three kinds of causes can be found. I. Rules or customs of discipline) which are no part of faith. II. Imperceptible and partial alterations of doc- trine, or the omission and violation of essential and universal discipline, which, leaving the principle of unity unbroken in theory, may yet induce a nation, or a part of it, either for a longer or shorter time, and either through ignorance or malice^ to speak and act as if they had renounced unity. III. Particular circumstances in history, civili- zation, interests, or climate, not exactly connected with religion, but so much so with the men who IN VARIOUS TIMES AND PLACES. 25 profess it, that the influence of religion is consi- derably affected by them, and is either circum- scribed, hindered, or promoted amongst some more than amongst others. If our author had sought under these three heads for the causes of the different effects, which he says religion has produced in Italy, I should have taken care not to argue the point with him ; be : cause either his reasons would have seemed to be conclusive, and I should have been glad to have been instructed by him, as I have been in many other parts of his history ; or they would not have convinced me, and it would have been one of those cases in which I consider silence to be better than demonstration. But as the causes that he assigns for the pernicious influence of Religion on the Ita- lians, arc for the most part not customs and opini- ons peculiar to themselves, but moral maxims or ecclesiastical rules, revered and cherished by all Ca- tholics as well in France and Germany, as in Italy and Spain, the man who condemns them would at the same time condemn the Catholic Faith, which is B CQBSequence of the Utmost importance to prevent. The author hiniM-lf, when he repeatedly men- tions the Church in the course of his reflections, leaves us in doubt as to whether he intends to attribute to her the doctrine he censures, or merely C 26 INFLUENCE OF CATHOLIC RELIGION to the Church in Italy. It is neither practicable nor useful to arrive at the precise meaning of his words in this case, so I shall content myself with shewing the universality and reasonableness of those rules and maxims which are Catholic. I shall frequently quote French writers, not only because of their decided superiority in these matters, but because their authority is of great use in shewing that these doctrines are not peculiar to Italy, and if France differs from her, it is in hav- ing produced men who have more eloquently— that is, with greater powers of reasoning — sup- ported and defended them. But the most striking proof of the universality of these moral maxims will be derived from the Scrip- tures, where they are found for the most part in so many words; so that we may boldly affirm, that they neither are nor can be controverted by Catholics, of whatever nation they may be. The rules of the Church with regard to mora- lity may be divided into two classes, that is to say : Decisions on points of morality, which form the testimony of the Church, that she inculcates the morality which was confided to her by Jesus Christ, and no other ; a testimony which obliges the faithful to consent to it : or, laws to regulate IN VARIOUS TIMES AND PLACES. 27 the exercise of the authority conferred on the Church by its Founder ; to apply spiritual reme- dies, which have their origin in Him alone. On both these points we may ask the testimony of a Catholic in France and Germany, with the cer- tainty that he will confess that they exist in vigour in both nations. I shall quote, when necessary, the Council of Trent as the most recent and speak- ing testimony of the uniformity of doctrine, which becomes a proof of its perpetuity. " Le Concile de Trent travailla avec autant d'ardeur a reformer la discipline de TEglise, qua empecher toute reforme dans ses croyances et ses enseignemens." * No Catholic could express with greater precision and force the firmness of the fathers of that council, in rejecting every idea of reform in faith, as a thing at once impossible Bad impious. Now there were bishopH from all these four nations at the Council of Trent ; and as they came to it with the evidence of their particular ehurclu a Cm Controverted points of faith or morality, so they returned home with the testimony of the Q n ivewal Church. Ever since that time, therefore, the Council of Trent has become the iniidc to which all Catholics have recourse; and in order to prove the faith of all ages, treasured up and interspersed • HiM. only to cite that council, which has reproduced? and, so to speak, classed it afresh. The great Bossuet, in his ' Exposition of the Catholic Faith,' appeals to this council as the foundation of all those points of morality and essential discipline, which are censured in the chapter which is the sub- ject of the present observations, and were censured in his own times, although with arguments totally different. The same Bossuet, in his correspondence with Leibnitz, always rejects the proposition to examine the Council of Trent again, as inadmissible. " Je voudrois bien seulement vous supplier de me dire, si vous pouvez douter que les decrets d.u Concile de T rente soient autant requs en France et en Allemagne parmi les Catholiques qu'en Espagne et en Italie, en ce qui regarde la foi ; et si vous> avez jamais oui un seul Catholique qui se crut libre a recevoir ou a ne pas recevoir la foi de ce concile."* Now the decrees of the Council of Trent regard- ing morality that will be quoted in these observa- tions relate to points which, by the consent of all Catholics, constitute a part of faith. As to abuses and popular errors, it is necessary * Lettrea M. Leibnitz du 10 Janvier 1692, (Euvres Posth* de Bossuet, torn. i. p. 349. IN VARIOUS TIMES AND PLACES. 29 to state once for all, that they are not to be im- puted to the Church, which has neither approved nor sanctioned them. I trust I shall prove that they are not legitimate consequences of the faith or morality of the Church ; and if any persons have deduced them from the Church, it is not in her power to prevent false reasoning, or to destroy the logic of the passions. Although these evils seem to me to be less in reality than they are represented, I shall not fail to notice them shortly, but only to defend the Church, upon which it is wished the blame should fall. If any one is determin- ed to believe that these abuses are peculiar to Italy, I shall not take the trouble to turn him from his opinion. Let it be observed, however, that the quotations from French writers will in many placet prove quite the contrary to be the fad ; and we shall see how they have, while establishing the truths of the Catholic faith, com- bated the same errors and delusions as existing in France Would it were not so ! for can it ever be a source of national pride to a Christian, to sec the Church less lowly in one part of the world than in another ? Wherever the faithful are to be found upright, enlightened, and irreproachable, they are our ) and ur ought to make them our modeU, it sre do not wish them to become one day our con- demnation. 30 CHAP. III. On the Distinction between Moral Philosophy and Theology. " II y a sans doute une liaison intime entre la religion " et la morale, et tout honnete homme doit reconnoitre " que le plus noble homage que la creature puisse ren- " dre a sonCreateur, c'est de s'elever a luipar ses vertus. ' c Cependant la philosophic morale est une science abso- u lument distincte de la theologie ; elle a ses bases dans " la raison et dans la conscience, elle porte avec elle sa r build on it foundation. We cannot advance one step without finding it in our iray i to may pretend not to use it) or avoid it, by not coming in immediate contact — we i";i\ do this in words hut not in I 32 DISTINCTION BETWEEN MORAL I know that this distinction between moral phi- losophy and theology is commonly received; for by means of it so many difficulties are overcome and so many jarring theories are reconciled : but this consent, nevertheless, is not an objection. I am also aware that many distinguished men have adopted it, and even made it the foundation of a part of their system. I will take an example from the work of a man far removed from the common herd : " Comme dans cet ouvrage je ne suis point theologien, mais ecrivain politique, il prennoit y avoir des choses qui ne seroient entierement vraies que dans une faqon de penser humaine, n^ayant point ete considerees dans le rapport avec verites plus sublimes." — (Es- prit des Lois, liv. xxiv. chap. 1.) Although these are the words of Montesquieu, they are not the less void of sense ; because, if things be found really true according to a human mode of thinking, they will be true according to any other mode of think- ing. That possible contradiction that he supposes between them and more sublime truths either does not exist, or if it exists, will shew the things in question to be not entirely true. If thev have any connection with more sublime truths, it is necessary to examine this connection, because it ought to be the criterion of their truth. The illusion that has given rise to this phrase, as well as to so many others, has been already noticed and exposed half a PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 33 century ago by that profound and keen observer of the human heart, the celebrated Nicolle. Examining the value of the words so frequently used, fc humanly speaking,"* he says : " II semble, a nous entendre parler, qu'il y ait comme trois classes de sentimens, les uns justes, les autres injustes, et les autres hu- mains; et trois classes de jugemens, les uns vrais, les autres faux, et les autres humains. Cependant il n'en est pas ainsi. Tout jugement est ou vrai ou faux, tout sentiment est ou juste ou injuste; et il faut necessairement que ceux que nous appelons jugemens et sentimens humains se reduisent a Pune ou a Tautre de ces classes." (Danger des en tret i en < desHommes; premiere partie, chap, v.) Nicolle thus reduces the question to its simplest terms, and shews in a masterly manner the reasons why men thus dehlde themselves. When we say that a tiling is (rue humanly speaking, we do not mean to put it forth B8 an hypothesis, hut consequences are de- duced IVoni it as it' it were really true. The expres- sion then amounts to this ; 1 feel that the maxim I cherish is opposed to religion — I do not wish to oppose religion, or to abandon the maxim; but not being able to make them logically agree, I adopt .1 term which leaves the question untouched in the abstract,— to get rid of it, in fact, aecordin my desires. Whoever asks if it Is sufficient thai i principle should be true humanly speaking, 34 DISTINCTION BETWEEN MORAL late his conduct by improves by his question, that the expression is useless. Why do we never say, " ac- cording to the Ptolemaic system ?" or, " according to the ancient chemistry ?" because in these things no one has an interest in setting out on a false hypothesis. Without presuming to "criticise Montesquieu, it may easily be seen that the use of these ex- pressions, common to so many writers of his time, did not arise from an error in the under- standing. The Catholic Religion was at that time maintained in France by force ; now by a law, which will last as long as the tuorld endures. Force always produces cunning to oppose it ;* * The reader will understand that the word law is used here to signify, not what ought to be done, but that which men, gene- rally speaking (if they are not sustained by a supernatural princi- ple and strength), do as certainly as if they were compelled by a law. A splendid exception to this is found in the primitive Christians, who, in their combats with persecutors, united in a wonderful degree, sincerity, patience, and resistance. — What divine wisdom in the precept, to avoid persecution ! As it can only be escaped by death or apostacy, man ought not to expose himself to a trial so much beyond his strength ; but when inevit- able, he ought to endure it. According to worldly wisdom, we can hardly imagine a scheme which gives less hope of success, than that which excluded the advantages both of power and cun- ning, the advantages which are derived from taking time, and deceiving the oppressor : the scheme of Christianity left to its defenders no other alternative when in the presence of an enemy, than to die without injuring him. Every worldly-wise man would have foreboded that this doctrine must infallibly and in a short time, ruin its partisans, unless, taught by experience, they PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 35 and those writers who wished to overthrow religion without compromising themselves, did not say that it was false, but endeavoured to establish principles incompatible with it, and maintained that these principles were independent of it. Not daring publicly to demolish the edifice of Christia- nity, they erected another edifice by the side of it, which, according to their notions, would render it impossible for the former to stand.* But this moral philosophy " has its basis in reason and conscience; it carries conviction with it; and after having enlightened the mind by an inquiry into its principles, it satisfies the heart by the discovery of what is truly beautiful, just, and writ- able." Has it a firm foundation ? Does it produce an universal and lasting conviction ? Does it put forth principles avowed by all who profess it? Does it in all times and p] W in what is beautiful. Changed their mode of propagating it. The marvel is, that this dOCtrine. DM boss diffused md established by adhering faithfully to these very rules. * Thll Chapter was written before 1 knew that the same sub- ject lias been recently diSCtl BOO by a most ic-pi-etable vindieafor <»i religion, (Analisl rationale do listeeni • dt* foademeoti tu-w iteieno dell 1 ineredalits* DieeeftenkNM vi. cap. 8.) i have nevertheless thOUghl ii right to leave it as it i rather In treat of what is opportune, than what is new; and nothing is more suitable than what rel.r ;t eo in bated recently by ■ dietingnjehad traitor. 36 DISTINCTION BETWEEN MORAL just, and suitable ? In this case it may be distinct from theology : it has no more need of it, or rather it will be theology itself. But if it varies according to times and places, it will not be one, and cannot therefore be put in comparison with religious morality, which is one. Here it will be right to ask, what is this moral philosophy about which so much is said, since undoubtedly there are many systems so called. There are two leading features in morality ; its principle, and the rules of those actions which are the application of it : the history of moral opinions presents in both the most monstrous variety. As to such rules, it will be sufficient to recollect the absurd systems of practical morality that have been maintained by whole nations. Locke has quoted an immense number of examples, to prove that there 'are no rules of morality innate and im- printed naturally on the mind of man.* * (On the Understanding, Book 1. Chap. 2.) — After Locke, some persons wished to deduce a much more ample consequence from these and similar facts, namely, that the sentiment of mora- lity does not exist in man. Helvetius cites many instances to prove that in a!l ages and in different countries, probity can only be the habit of performing actions useful to our own nation. — Disc. II. Chap. xiii. One writer, in combating with reason and dignity this sophism which confounds the idea of justice with its application, seems almost to disapprove even of inquiry into these facts. Philosophic de Kant par C. Villers, p. 378, and more expressly Mad. de Stael de l'Allemagne, 3d Part, Chap. 2. PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 37 He sought for his examples for the most amongst rude and uncivilized people, but he would not have failed to find them among nations the most culti- vated and famed for learning. Did the pagans find in their hearts and minds the true standard of " Qu'est ce done qu'un systeme qui inspire a un homme aussi vir- tueux que Locke de l 'avidite pour de tels faits?" But she herself seemed to feel that this was not an objection, as she immediately adds " Que ces faits soient tristes ou non, pourra-t-on dire Vim- portant est de savoir sHls sont vrais." Thus it is j the only thing we should seek after in facts is truth, and he who is afraid to examine them gives a strong proof that he is not sure of his own principles. But, continues this celebrated lady : " lis peuvent etre vrais, mais que signifient-ils ?" They signify that there is no principle of practical morality innate; a truth neither unimportant nor commonly received before the time of Locke, who, by bring- ing it forward, and proving it, has destroyed an error, and ren- dered a service to mankind j for there is no moral error which is harmless. This truth was the thesis or Locke, but it must be confessed that his reasonings seem to lean to the consequences of which we have spoken. He has not deduced them expressly, but lie has not prevented them i he has proved thai nun vary prodi- giously in the application of the idea of justice, but he has not observed that they agree in having a general perception that there are things just and unjust, actions praiseworthy and repre- hensible. Those persons who alter him established this truth, have, I will not say confuted a g reat error in his system, but have Certainty filled Dp Ul important vacuum. Hut if we O0tlfron( this truth with that which was i i>y Locke, a ttlJWl COflUqiailKH |s deduced, which is the i divine law, in order to have a holy and infallible rule of morality. The universal perception of morality prove* the aptitude <>! man to receive an Ulllwenal rule for its | the haiue iUJj,'er that indited tin- law, h id previously formed the heart of man to understand and acknowledge it. And th. 88 DISTINCTION BETWEEN MORAL justice and injustice ? Did those Romans, who heard with a shudder that one of their fellow- citizens had been beaten with rods,' but thought it an act of common justice to cast alive to wild beasts a fugitive slave, who could not endure the harsh treatment of a cruel master ? Without citing other examples, we shall content ourselves with saying, that the ancient historians and moralists abound with them. What, then, is this moral conviction, if it is not inherent in all men ? It may be so complete, as to determine a man to commit an action of the greatest atrocity under the persuasion that he is doing right, and prevent him from feel- ing any remorse after having committed it : this may extend to whole nations, but is nevertheless a false conviction. And in order to shew clearly that it is so, the testimony of religion is not neces- sary : it will be sufficient that some circumstances should cease, that some interest should change, or some custom be abolished. As to the principle of morality, the differences are no longer between the Mingrelians, Peruvians, strous errors of those persons who interpreted it of themselves prove the necessity of this law, and that it is the only one ; for all else is confusion and blindness; and the mistakes they make in establishing others are so great, as to cause men, albeit as blind as themselves, to condemn them, when the particular causes have ceased which made them take one error rather than another for the truth. PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 39 and Tupinambians — the question is between a few men intent on studying it, and who affect to lay aside all interests, all authority and custom, that they may discover the truth. They agree in admit- ting there is a principle of morality, and a motive of justice applicable to all the relations of men; but when they come to point it out, one sees it in interest, another in the idea of duty, and another in conscience ; and His observable, that these dis- cussions are not of a kind to point the road to any agreement, or of such a nature as to make even a step towards a common centre. Such as these have, it is true, a progressive movement, and at every stage there are discovered points of ton tact which form a part of the science ; lome things arc agreed upon, which are no longer brought into discussion. But here, on the contrary, different ay* tems fall and rise again, always preserving their characteristic differences — men dispute, and each one reiterates his own arguments, as if they wen peremptory; and he continues to do so, although it be proved that they art' not suited to Overthrow the opposition of his antagonists: which in fact forma the prevailing character of interminable dis- putes.* • Prom Hum to time, writerp in iprinftog up, who ridfoita tboM ditettnUmaj which is the more ssty in proportion belong to arbitrary systems on tin- one side, or i«» the d foeltagi oi nan i d tiir other— tiro gretfl • to the 40 DISTINCTION BETWEEN MORAL It is then evident that moral philosophy is not a science in itself, that it has no fixed basis, nor greater number of literary men. The very phraseology of dif- ferent systems furnishes burlesque writers with materials to work upon without much labour. In every system, according to the number of ideas to be classified, it becomes necessary to invent terms which shall express their relation and aspect. These phrases not being in common use, although frequently used by philosophers to adorn a lecture or a treatise, are generally repeated with some importance, because they represent the cardinal ideas of the system ; and it suffices but to collect them together in burlesque writing, in order to throw thousands of readers into convulsions of laughter. Nothing more tends to make men ridicule any thing than to remind them that it is to other men serious and important, for every one thinks it a sign of his own superiority to be diverted at that which occupies and governs the mind of another. We see this daily among men of every sort, for where it is known that one man has a particular attachment to an idea, others make use of it to ridicule him, either by contradicting or agreeing with him, but always in such a manner, that his peculiar partiality shall be displayed as fully as possible; this practice may be easily combined with politeness, which, when separate from religious charity, is rather a rule of warfare than a treaty of peace among mankind. From the ' Nt Christianity Increeeoi and extends tln» cause; (ot having lorhidden certain actions, which by a Cor- ruption ol the moral sense, had been held by other people to be good, end having commanded others, it has produced in multi- tudes | lived judgment OJUim independent 42 DISTINCTION BETWEEN MORAL propose the finest sentiments and actions, giving at the same time motives to prefer them. Now none of those systems can do this : each of them is, so to speak, obliged to make a selection, and what it gains on one side it loses on the other. If, in order to avoid this difficulty, we recur to a middle sys- tem, it will modify the two faults, but will never- theless have them both. Let us, however, enter into a fuller examination, in order to elucidate this proposition. In proportion as a system of moral philoso- phy adapts itself to general opinion, by conse- crating some maxims which men have always praised and admired, by preferring what is right to what is pleasing, by self-denial, and doing good without hope of reward or fame, it becomes the more difficult to find in the understanding any reasonable foundation for such doctrine. In fact, if we examine what is the quality in any splendid action that excites our admiration, and makes us denominate it such, we shall find it to be no other than the difficulty (I mean not so much the diffi- culty of carrying it into execution, which arises from external obstacles, but that which lay in the way of determining to execute it) — the utility and justice of the action will be conditions without which it would not be splendid, but they are not those which make it so. This is so true, that if. PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 43 while we are admiring the resolution taken by a man under certain circumstances, any one discovers that it is to his advantage to act thus, and that he was aware of this when he decided on it, our admi- ration ceases; the resolution will be called good, useful, just, or wise, but no longer admirable or splendid ; we say that the man has been fortunate, honest, or penetrating, but no one will call him great. We also see a proof of this given by envy, which, although it cannot deny an action to be good, yet labours to find motives by which it shall appear, that the person who has performed it found it to his advantage, or that it was very easy to do it : and easy undertakings are never admired. But why do the finest actions appear difficult to the greater part of mankind, unless it is because they do not find 10 reason sufficient motives to under- take them resolutely, but rather find in their love motives to the contrary ? Hence it follows thai the more a system of morality has for its object the beauty of actions, the less will it furnish argu- ments to prove that it is reasonable to embrace and follow it. Hut if a system is founded in mere reasoning, if it does not aim at eliciting from man any other determinations than those which it can \n-o\c to him he ought to take for his own temporal advan- tage, this dissatisfies and offends anoth 44 DISTINCTION BETWEEN MORAL that exists in all men, who will not renounce their esteem for that which is beautiful without being useful, nay, which even is beautiful on that very account. I know that in the theory of morality, founded on interest, all the most magnanimous actions, and those which are most independent of what is called utility, are explained by saying that men of great mind take pleasure in them. But for a moral theory to be complete, it is not enough to explain how some persons may have performed them ; it is also necessary for it to give reasons and inducements to perform them: other- wise, the most perfect part of the morality becomes an exception to the rule ; it is the inheritance of some men who separate themselves from the com- mon mode of reasoning, and is almost an extra- vagance of taste.* There is in men a power which impels them to disapprove of whatever appears to them to be false; and as they cannot disapprove of disinterested vir- tues, they wish to have a system, into which they * The anonymous writer of the life of Helvetius, after having .spoken of some of his traits of beneficence, remarks that he said to his servant, who was witness of them : *' I forbid you to repeat what you have seen, even after my death." This writer would not recollect such a circumstance, if he were not of opinion that the desire of concealing the good we do is a virtuous disposition. It is so without doubt; but in the system of Helvetius, it is im- possible to classify it among the virtues. PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 45 enter as reasonable. I think the more we observe, the more we shall see that human morals are agi- tated between these two points, though we may seek in vain to reconcile them : every system has a part of its foundation in human nature, that is in reason or in sentiment : the difficulty consists in making these two coincide, and in finding a point where they may unite as closely as possible. This point is to be found in theological morality. Imagine any sentiment of perfection, it is found in the gospel : elevate the desires of the soul purified to the utmost from the passions, to the ideal sum- mit of moral beauty, and they will not go beyond the region of the gospel. And at the same time, we shall not find any feeling of perfection to which with the gospel we cannot assign a motive which is rational, convincing, and naturally allied with the whole of revelation. Is it beautiful to forgive injuries, to have an im- mutable, calm, and fraternal heart towards him who hates us? — Who doubts it? But why should I possess this, if every day draws me to opposite sentiments? Ilecause you can only hate your bro- ther as the cause of evil to you ; if he is not that cause, your hatred becomes unreasonable and un- just ; now he has done you no harm ; your will alone can really hurt you: he has done himself an injury, and detCHTei your companion. [f an 46 DISTINCTION BETWEEN MORAL offence wounds you, it is because you give to tem- poral things a value they do not possess ; because you do not habitually feel that God is your only good, and that no man nor thing can take him from you. Your hatred, then, arises from the cor- ruption of your own heart ; from the wandering of your intellect : purify the one and correct the other, and you will no longer hate. Besides, you allow it to be your most sacred duty to love God above all things ; you ought, therefore, to desire that he should be glorified and obeyed. Would you dare to wish that any reasonable crea- ture should deny homage to him, or rebel against his laws ? This idea makes you shudder, and you will therefore desire that every man should serve God, and be in the right way. If you do this, you wish to every man perfection and the highest felicity ; you love every man as yourself. Is it beautiful to give up our life for the sake of truth and justice, to do it without having witnesses to admire us, without complaining, with the certainty that deluded men will follow us with execrations, and that the feeling of the righteousness of our cause will not find a place out of our own bosom, whereon it may lean or diffuse itself ? There is no one who would not weep with admiration, at hearing that a man had quitted the world thus. But who will prove that it is reasonable to do this ? PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 47 What is the motive to induce us to renounce that feeling which governs our whole being ; that desire that other immortal souls like our own should sym- pathize with our deepest and holiest feelings ? Be- cause, when there is no other way for us to fulfil justice than by suffering death, we are sure that God has marked out that way for us to come to him ; because the present life has not its fulfilment within itself ; because the desire we feel to be ap- proved will not be satisfied till we see that God approves of us ; because every sacrifice that we can make is light in comparison with the ineffable sacri- fice of the God-Man, whom we ought to resemble if we desire to partake of his kingdom. These are the motives by which millions of weak creatures, assisted by that divine aid which renders all duties easy, have found that the most admir- able and difficult resolution, that of djitlg amid tormentfl for the sake of truth, was the most rea- sonable, and the only reasonable duty, and ha\e therefore embraced it. Wonderful history of reli- gion ! in which the act of \irtue most superior to human strength, is perhaps thai of which the €X- ampks are most common. We cannot imagine one virtuous ad fot which the GosjX'l does not give motives : we cannot ima- gine a \icious sentiment which, according to the ( iospelj doel art suppose ■ false idea li 48 DISTINCTION BETWEEN MORAL Christian in any case what is the most reasonable and useful resolution, he will answer, that which is most honest and generous. But this is not all : from the systems of moral philosophy there arises another essential defect, one indeed which is irremediable. When, however, we look at these systems in this point of view, and compare them with the morality of religion, we shall find the latter is not only exempt from this* but on the contrary possesses a peculiar perfection. In the principle of morality, we do not seek merely a speculative truth, but we wish to find a series of rules for the conduct of our life. Now, all the principles of human morality are barren, and without application ; not but that if a principle is given, they can deduce rules ; but because these rules are not incontestable, universal, and per- petual, rules which all ought to acknowledge, when they have admitted the principle. Let us briefly enter into the examination of one of these which is perhaps the most diffused in our times, that which reduces all moral obligation to mere self-interest, properly understood ; a principle which supposes that private always coincide with public interests, so that a man, by assisting others, contributes to his own happiness, and vice-versa, (Essai sur Flndifference en Matiere de Religion, 3d edit. torn. i. note to p. 476-7.) Let us suppose a PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 49 man convinced of this principle, and sincerely dis- posed to regulate himself by it ; let us suppose him selecting an action ; what is he to do to find the rule ? — he will examine his interests. What will he do thoroughly to understand it ? — he will glance at all the chances of pleasure or pain that this action will cause him. Has he a knowledge of the future ? — does he know the effect of ef- fects, the circumstances independent of his action, which will operate upon him in consequence of it ; the opinions and caprices of men, and the possible change even of his own sentiments? We do not speak of the time and trouble this research would require, but let us ask if it can had to any result? This principle, then, is only applicable to the past ; it is a principle of observation, and not of rules. You will say to me, In examining all the actions of men, we see that virtuous ones have increased the happiness of those who performed them ; whilst vicious ones haw carried their punish- ment along with them. Ik it so; I allow this. but this is not the question s I ask, Which of two actions, between which I must choose, will make me the happier ? Do you refer me back to my experience? — this is not enough. To the ex- perienoe of all ages? — but I am not acquainted with it ; nor would even that be sufficient for because I want to know the effects of an action 50 DISTINCTION BETWEEN MORAL upon myself, merely from the circumstances in which I am placed. Do you refer me to universal consent? — this does not exist ; and even if it did exist, it would be no authority for me ; for I must then suppose that men do not err when they agree in deciding an action to be good or evil, and that their unanimous observations are also applicable to my case. But as, according to this system, in every vir- tuous action two conditions are realized, the good of the person who performs it, and the public benefit ; so, as I cannot foresee the former, nor deduce from it the rule for the action, I will at least seek for it in the benefit conferred upon the public, with the cer- tainty, that if I contribute to that, I shall have found my own private happiness. But it is useless to say more, to show that this too is impossible to arrive at ; for to discover the extent of pleasure or pain which my determination will cause to others, is beyond the power of the human mind. Let us, however, sup- pose that a man arrived at it, that he knew an action was certainly useful to others, and made up his mind to perform it ; let us suppose, that on account of this action (and the hypothesis is not strange) he was hated, persecuted, and tormented ; does his action become bad, because he did not know how to combine his own interest with that of others ? A good con- science, you answer, sustains and rewards him, and PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 51 thus puts his own interest in security. But I ask, is the voice of conscience sure and perpetual ? does it, in consequence of all actions useful to the pub- lic, infuse a pleasure infallibly superior to all the evils that may result from them to their authors, and a sorrow for all hurtful actions, superior to any advantages springing from them ? If this be af- firmed, we must then recur to conscience alone to regulate ourselves, independently of every other pleasure or pain ; because the pain and pleasure of the conscience being infallible, and always prepon- derant, will give us, according to this system, a certain criterion of virtue. If this be not affirmed, if it be said that the retribution of the conscience may fail, first with respect to time, since a man may have pleasure in an evil action and pain in an useful one, and die before the remorse or the ap- probation of his conscience brings him punishment or reward; if it be said that this retribution is un- certain, because it depends on the circumstances, ideas, and temperament of the man on whom it ojKTates, it will be a necessary consequence, that the certain knowledge of an action being useful to the public is not sufficient to declare it virtuous, and tO prove to any one that he ought to undertake it, since it cannot be prowd that it will be useful to himself. For if it be said that this voi< Conscience, although neither infallible nor pn d2 52 DISTINCTION BETWEEN MORAL derant, is yet to be calculated on, as it is a known fact that it experiences pleasure and pain according to actions, and from that circumstance gives a probability of reward or punishment, a consequence would be derived from it, that, to equal external circumstances, the obligations are not equal; because the knowledge of the public injury may oblige a man to abstain from it, who, knowing himself to be of delicate conscience, foresees that a dimi- nution of happiness will accrue to him from having caused it ; but not the man who, feeling himself hardened against remorse, promises himself tran- quillity of mind; and the two extremes of the system, public interest and private interest, will combine in the former case, but not in the latter. Such are the consequences of this system, besides many others noticed by moralists : an absurd sys- tem, because it is founded on the supposition that the public advantage always coincides with the private interests of the agent in this life ; a suppo- sition which is contradicted in a thousand instances by reality, and which, even if it were true, could not be demonstrated and put forth as a principle for the future, seeing that every man has not the ne- cessary data to certify its truth in his own case. And as one error is the cause of another, this sys- tem is inapplicable in practice, for the same reasons which make it absurd in principle, PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 53 Let it be also noticed, that this system is nothing more than the adulteration of a great truth proposed by religion ; namely, that by living righteously, we obtain supreme felicity. An arbitrary philo- sophy has desired (if I may use such an expres- sion) to take from this calculation the cypher of the future life, and thus the calculation is found false. It is therefore clear, that rules of conduct cannot be deduced from this principle when they are wanted ; I repeat certain rules. Although a person may find such a rule in his own case, and may rest upon it, he cannot transform it into a precept, nor will it be such as to oblige all tfaote who admit the principle, to recognise it under pe- nalty of being un reasonable. This failure is common to all the other system human morality, because in all of them the rule* of conduct are not expressed in the principle, nor are they necessarily derived from it. To establish them in an incontestable 1 manner, a prophetic know- ledge of all the effects of actions is nccess; an acquaintance with all their relations to the gene- ra] order of things, Admitting that the idea of duty is the principle of moral obligations, we must) in order to have the rules, either say that man knows all his duties in even case, or on that the rules ought to eome to 01 fr 54 DISTINCTION BETWEEN MORAL another source ; admitting that to be conscience* we must either say that this never deceives us, and then refer the rules to each mans conscience, or confess also here that they do not spring from the principle. Religious morality alone can give rules at once practical, incontestable, and indissolubly united to its principle, because it alone can acknowledge an infallible principle of authority, which is God, and can alone communicate to man the rules derived from and revealed by this principle. Whoever admits this, is obliged to receive the rules, and must needs be certain that they are just, because he who gave them knows all the possible relations of sentiments and actions with eternal and immutable justice.* A principle this is of unexceptionable authority ; a rule to which every act and every thought are submitted; a spirit of perfection, that in every doubtful case urges the choice to the better part ; promises superior to every conceivable temporal interest ; a model of holiness, set forth in the God- * Here we see the absurdity of pretending to make exceptions to the divine law, under the pretext of greater utility; which supposes a more extensive acquaintance with it in man than in God. Man only sees a portion of things ; God has come to assist his infirmity, and has given him rules, in following which he is sure to do that which he would have chosen, if he had seen every thing. The man who dispenses with them, puts the little he knows in opposition to the infinite wisdom of God, and decides in favour of his own opinion*. PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 55 Man : efficacious means to assist us to imitate his example, provided in the Sacraments instituted by Him, in which if any one have the misfortune not to recognize the Divine authority, he cannot at least shut his eyes to the fact, that they are naturally adapted to lead men to every virtue : such a prin- ciple is the morality of the Catholic Church : a morality which alone has been able to make us know what we are ; which alone has given birth to hope, from the knowledge of evils which are, hu- manly speaking, irremediable; a morality which all would wish to see practised by others, and which, being practised, would afford to all the highest de- gree of perfection and happiness that can be en- joyed on this earth ; a morality, to which the world itself has been unable to refuse a perpetual testi- mony of admiration and applause. It is but too true, that since the promulgation of Christianity some philosophers have laboured to discover another system. They have occupied themselves with seeking out a tiieory of duties : like, those who, being with a thirsty multitude, (Hid knowing a large stream to be at hmid, sto}> to make, by eheniical process, a few < water which do not satisfy. When tlnv have lighted upon some important moral truth, they have forgotten thai it lias been taught them, that it was a portion or :l consequence of the catii-hi.Mii ; 56 DISTINCTION BETWEEN MORAL they have not perceived that they only lengthened the way to arrive at it ; and that, instead of pre- senting a new law, they deprived of its authority a law already promulgated. * The Church was not ignorant of their attempts, or of the results of them ; but was this to be an example for her ? W as she to imitate them, when she was obliged to admonish and compassionate them ? Was it not for the Church, to whom Jesus * The man who did not reflect that the moral sciences do not follow the progress of others, (because they are not dependent merely on the intellect, nor propose truths, which being once ac- knowledged, are no more contradicted, serving as a stepping-stone to other truths) would be at a loss to explain how the doctrine of Helvetius should have been able to succeed in France, that of the great moralists of the seventeenth century. Struck with the inferiority of the former, he would not know which of the two modes of accounting for this circumstance was the least strange to admit, whether that Helvetius, a moralist by profession, did not care to inform himself of the actual state of the science, and of the opinions of writers the most renowned and recent ; or that, on reading their works, he did not see how the questions he has brought forward were completely solved by them, and that the solution was what he must necessarily have found to be the most magnanimous and useful, that which he would have desired every one to adopt in relation to himself; and that he had not perceived how, in their books, every thing harmonizes with the knowledge a man has of himself, how their principles are without any excep- tion of time or persons, how their perfection is demonstrated, and how the true mode of treating moral questions in an useful, gene- ral, and honest point of view, was to adopt those principles, and apply them to the observations which society presents. PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 57 Christ had consigned a perfect system of morality, to retain it in her own possession ? Was it for her to cease the language of Peter : " To whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words of eternal life.'" (John vi. 69.) Was it for her to leave off repeating, " he who gathereth not with me, scattereth ?" (Lukexi. 6.) Was she for a moment to suppose that there were two " ways" two " truths" two " lives ?" Precepts have been entrusted to her, and should she, as a faithless depositary, or an un- believing administratrix, dispense doubts ? Was she to put aside the eternal word, and to entangle herself in human learning, to arrive forsooth at the conclusion that virtue is more reasonable than vice ; that God ought to be worshipped and obeyed, and that we ought to love our brethren ? Did the Eternal Word take upon him this mortal flesh, and undergo the unspeakable agonies of redemption, in order to merit for the society he founded a place among the schools of philosophy? Was it for tier, who l>\ her very first instructions could ele- vate the simple peasant, who was ignorant of ewr\ thing but of hope, to the highest pinnacle of mo- rality; to that point at which Hossuet found him- self, after having gone through a vast circle of Sublime meditation; was it for her, instead (rf railing her follower above the maze iA' human rea- sonings, to cast him hack upon a path that le.i 58 DISTINCTION BETWEEN MORAL a hundred different conclusions ? The wearied stranger has wandered from his way, and seeks for refuge in the city " that crowns the mountain top," (Matt. v. 14); was it for her to shut her gates against him? Hungering after righteous- ness, certainty, authority, and hope, he has re- course to the Church ; and shall the Church not break to him that bread which multiplies in her hands ? No : it is not thus the Church betrays her children ; we cannot fear that we shall be for- saken by her : but there does remain to us the salutary fear that we may abandon her ; nor should this fear do aught but increase our faith in Him, who alone can keep us stedfast to this " pillar and ground of the truth." (1 Tim. iii. 15.) Forget we now the eighteen centuries of her existence, of the vsuccession of her pastors and sovereign pontiffs, of her continuation in the same doctrines, eighteen centuries during which are counted so many tri- umphs, so many persecutions, so many painful separations, and not one only transaction, that we have need of experience ? The first Christians had it not, and yet they believed ; the word of that God to whom u a thousand years are but as yesterday when it is past," was sufficient for them. I shall not enlarge further on the superiority of religious morality ; an argument that has been discussed by the most eminent men, and that is na- PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 59 turally allied to all the works which speak of this morality. The detached pieces that Pascal has left, alone contain more important discoveries in general morality than many volumes. * Besides, the sole object of the present work is to exhibit this superiority. Let us now briefly recapitulate the results of the comparison we have drawn in this chapter. Philosophy has not been able to agree upon one sole principle and upon one sole rule, which are the two essential parts of morality. It has there- fore no unity, and is consequently unfit to bear a comparison with revelation. By examining the systems of moral pbilaopby in their turn, we shall find that none of them arc • Pascal, because he was a profound observer of the evils in man, has been many times accu-ed of gloom and BKNNMI and yet perhaps this charge has never been brought against Hel- vetia^, though he represents human nature in the saddest and most melancholy point Of view. This difference in judgment is the more strange, inasmuch as Pascal, who had studied himself too deeply to be a despiser of others, breathes nothing but com- passion for himself and others, resignation, love, and hope; from time to time with joy and calmness lifting up to heawn that eve Of his which had been disturbed and confused by the cont. t ion of the abyss of the human heart; while the reflects Helvetius are often bitter, an-iv, impatient . or ruddy jovlul. 1'aseal is morose, because he shews the which displease us more than the evils. Ilelvctwis, on t! trary, seeks for every moral blot an inadequate cause; instead of combating the passions, he (hitters them, teaching men to DUte their vices (,, ., un d not to their own corruption. 60 MORAL PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. able to reconcile the perfection of beauty with the perfection of reason ; hence they all must appear greatly deficient even in the estimation of their own partisans: whilst, on the other hand, theo- ogical morality unites these two conditions in the highest degree. The systems of moral philosophy give no certain rules that are necessarily derived from their prin- ciple, while those proposed by moral theology pos- sess these qualities ; its principle is the authority of God, and its rules are the commandments of God. When it is admitted that the morality of the Gospel comes from God, it must be admitted that it is the strict duty of the Church to adopt and maintain it to the exclusion of every other system. When, moreover, we come to examine it in compa- rison with others, its perfections always prove its divine origin. 61 CHAPTER IV. On the Decrees of the Church. — On the Decisions op the Fathers, and on Casuists. i( Elle (FEglise) substitua l'autorite de ses decrets, " et les decisions des peres aux lumieres de la raison " et de la conscience, l'etude des casuistes a celle de u la philosophic morale." P. 413-14. The Church founds her authority on the words of Jesus Christ : she claims to be the depositary and interpreter of the scriptures and of tradition: she protests, not only that she has taught nothing but what is derived from Jesus Christ, but that she has opposed, and is ever ready to oppose every novelty that men have attempted to introduce ; that she is ready to cancel as soon ai written every word that a profane hand would dare to add to the divine writings. She 1ms oevqr pretended to ss any authority to invent principles of CB8C P tial morality; but on the contrary, it ia her glory not to possess such a power ; to be able to say that all truth has been taught her even from her ven beginning; that she has always had the neeessarj instructions and means in order to save her ehil- 62 ON DECREES OF THE CHURCH. dren; and that she has an authority that cannot increase, because it has never been found to fail. She affirms in consequence, that her decrees are conformable to the Gospel, and that she only re- ceives the decisions of the fathers as far as they also are conformable to it, and are a testimony of the continuance of the same faith and the same mora- lity. If the Church speaks the truth, it cannot be said that she substitutes her decrees and deci- sions for the light of reason and conscience, as we cannot call that a substitute for the law, which ex- plains its spirit, and determines its execution : it should rather be confessed that she regulates both by an infallible model, which is no other than the Gospel itself ; and he who refuses to believe this assertion of the Church, must tell us what are those maxims of morality she proposes, that are not derived from the Gospel, that are opposed to it, or even indifferent to its spirit. This inquiry will only place in a clearer point of view the won- derful immutability of the Church in her ever- evangelical morality, and the infinite distance there is between her and all the philosophical sects, in which there is nothing but building up and pulling down, assertion and denial; in which those have been esteemed the wisest, who have confessed the most doubts. As to the casuists, I shall begin by confessing I DECISIONS OF THE FATHERS. 63 have not read them, I do not say all, for that would be impossible, but not even one of them ; and I have no other idea of them, but what is de- rived from the confutation and censure directed against many of them. But a knowledge of their works is not necessary to establish the point which interests the Church with respect to them ; and that is, that the doctrines of the casuists cannot be attributed to the Church ; she is not responsible for private opinions, nor does she pretend that none of her sons can err : this pretension would contradict the prophecies of her divine Founder. She has never proposed the casuists as her rule of morality ; indeed, it would have been impossible to do so, their decisions being a collection of opinions fre- quently at variance with one another, and fre- quently contradicted. The history of casuistry may give rise to two important observations : the one is, that the pn>- positions, wicked even to extravagance, which have been put forth by some casuists, arc founded 00 arbitrary systems, independent of religion. Some among them were formed in the schools of profane moral philosophers, and lost themselves in quoting Aristotle and Seneca, where Jesus Christ himself had spoken. The principle on which it seems these persons founded .1 great part of their autho- rity (that Of probability) is a principle altogether 64 ON CASUISTS. philosophical : they have never, so far as I know, attempted to prove that it was derived from revela- tion, and they would have been much puzzled if they had. This is the spirit that FJeury observed in their writings : " II s'est a la fin trouve des casuistes qui ont fonde leur morale plutot sur le raisonnement humain que sur TEcriture et la tradi- tion, comme si Jesus-Christ ne nous avoit pas en- seigne toute verite aussi bien pour les moeurs que pour la foi; comme si nous en etions encore a chercher avec les anciens philosophes." — (Moeurs des Chretiens, 4e partie, 64 Multitude des Doc- teurs.) The other observation is, that the writers and the authority, which, in the Church, were raised against these propositions, constantly op- posed to them the Scriptures and tradition. The excesses of a part of the casuists were caused then by a departure from the rule which the Church follows and proposes, and it is to these that we must recur, in order to bring back morality to its true principles.' 65 CHAPTER V. On the Harmony that exists between Catholic Morality and that which right Reason teaches us to be just. tf La morale fut absolument denaturee entre les " mains des casuistes ; elle devint etrangere au cceur " comme a la raison : elle perdit de vue la souffrance "que chaeune de nos fautes pouvoit causer a quel- iC qu'une des creatures, pour n'avoir d'autres lois que st les volontees supposees du Createur : elle repoussa rt la base que lui avoit donnee la nature dans le cceur " de tous les hommes pour s'en former une tout arbi- " traire." P. 414. Although I am not here undertaking a defend of the casuists, yet I cannot but exclaim against a sweeping condemnation which includes them all. Their number is so great, that it is almost impossible but that there should have been among them who haw treated Christian morality with sincerity and ability ; and those a ho ha\r unmasked and condemned the false maxim some casuist, have not failed to make a distinc- tion an long the multitude, and to render JUSti the good. As, however, the Church is accused, a little 66 CATHOLIC MORALITY. above, of having substituted the study of the casuists for that of moral philosophy ; and as the not admitting any other law than the will of the Creator (not supposed, but revealed), is not a pri- vate maxim of the casuists, but one solemnly inculcated by the Church, it is against her that these censures are in fact directed. Be that as it may ; I think it right to place in its proper light the spirit of the Church in this particular, to show that what really proceeds from her is most wise, and to prevent any thing being attributed to her that is not hers. If the intention of our author has not been to censure the Church, so much the bet- ter ; I shall have had an opportunity of rendering homage to her, without contradicting any body. The Church did not form the groundwork of her morality, but found it in the word of God : u I am the Lord thy God." (Exod. xx. 2.) This is the foundation and the sanction of the divine law, and consequently of the morality of the Church. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. (Ps. xc. 10. Eccl. i. 16. Prov. i. 7. Ibid. ix. 10.) Behold the groundwork on which alone the Church must needs build. But in doing this, was it possible for her to put aside the natural basis of morality, that is to say, those sentiments of rectitude to which all men have a natural disposition ? Certainly not, inasmuch as CATHOLIC MORALITY. 67 these sentiments can never be in contradiction with the law of God, from which indeed they are de- rived. The law is only made to confirm them, to announce to man that he can and ought to follow them ; to give him the means of discerning between that which God has put into his heart, and that which sin has introduced there. For whilst these two voices are speaking within us, it is too often the case, that when a man opens his inward ears, he hears not any distinct and certain answer, but the confused sound of a melancholy contest. Hence, to make morality conformable to the divine law, is but to make it conformable to a pure heart and to sound reason ; and this is what the Church has done; and she alone was able to do it, as the infallible interpreter of this law. For of what use II it. that the rule be perfect, if the hand of him who holds it trembles ? What would the holiness of the law avail, if the intepreta- tion of it were left to the passionate judgment of (hose who ought to obey it, and if God had not rendered it independent of the fluctuations of the human mind, hv entrusting it to that Church, which he has promised to assist ? If, thcn,.i feeling for the sufferings of another ; if the duty of not grie\ ing one created to the image of (rod, be one of (ho sentiments impressed In God Upon the heart Of man, the Chureh \ull certainly 68 CATHOLIC MORALITY. not have lost sight of it in her moral instructions, because she will not have. lost sight of the divine law. Such is, in fact, the case. Throughout the Universal Church, it is taught in her catechetical instructions, that the guilt of sin is aggravated in proportion to the injury we voluntarily inflict upon our neighbour by it. The Church teaches that a number of actions are sins, to which no other culpability can be assigned, than the injury they cause to others. The intention to afflict a man is always a sin ; the most lawful act, or the exercise of the most un- deniable right, becomes a fault if it be directed to this horrible object. The Church, then, has had this sentiment in view, and has given her sanction to it, by teaching that the evil done to another becomes infallibly an evil to the man who does it ; which is not, and cannot be taught by Nature. The Church desires that her children should tutor their minds to triumph over pain, and not to lose themselves in weak and distrustful complain- ings : to this end, she presents them with a divine example of fortitude, and more than human calm- ness under sufferings. It is her wish that her chil- dren be severe towards themselves, but merciful and tender towards their brethren ; and to make them so, she presents to them the same example, CATHOLIC MORALITY. 69 the God-Man, who wept at the thought of the evils that would come upon the city in which he was about to suffer the most cruel death. (Lukexix. 41.) Ah ! most assuredly the feeling of commiseration is not forgotten by that Church, which in the divine words of charity, preserves, ever united, and as it were mingled, the love of God and man : that Church, which carries her horror of bloodshed so far, as even to declare that if one of her minis- ters were to shed it for the defence of his country, he would contaminate his hands, and render them unworthy to offer up the Victim of Peace. So great is her desire that all men should see that her ministry is one of perfection, that if there be hor- rible circumstances in which it be lawful for man to combat man, she at least has not instituted mi- nisters to do that which is lawful, but that which is holy ; that, when it is thought certain evils can only be remedied by other evils, she at least will have no part therein: for her only end is to our desires to God, and she rejects all that 18 not holy, and considers sorrow as such, only when it is voluntary, only when it is an atoneax when offered by the soul that sufiR 70 CHAPTER VI. The Distinction between Mortal and Venial Sin. " La distinction des peches mortels d'avec les peches " veniels efFaca celle que nous trouvions dans notre u conscience entre les offences plus graves et plus par- c< donnables. On y vit ranger les uns a cote des autres., u les crimes qui inspirent Ja plus profonde horreur " avec les fautes que notre foiblesse peut a peine « eviter." P. 414. For this observation, the declaration premised in the former chapter will suffice. It seems our author admits with the Catholic Church the distinction between mortal and venial sins in their own nature, since he divides offences into those that are more grievous, and those that are more pardonable, referring for the distinction between them to conscience. We may therefore believe that his censure only falls on the application of the maxim, that is, on the designation of parti- cular sins. In reference to which, I beg leave to observe that conscience, if deprived of the light of revelation, can never form an authority to which to recur in order to reform the judgment of the MORTAL AND VENIAL SIN. 71 Church, or any other judgment : it would be merely appealing from the conscience of one man to that of another. When it is asserted, that the distinction between mortal and venial sins effaced that which was written in the conscience between heavier and more trivial offences, it sounds as if the Church, in teaching this distinction, had found one already existing in the minds of men anterior to this, ex- actly defined and universally received, and that for this she had substituted her own. But the fact is, on the contrary, that the voice of conscience (a> we have often repeated) differs according to times, places, and individuals: to some it makes that ap- pear a serious offence, which in the eyes of others is only a slight fault, or no fault at all, or perhaps a virtue; whilst others held (and these by no means the least reflecting) that all faults were equal, and consequently did not find this distinc- tion in their conscience) but even regarded it chimera* It was then to enlighten and regulate conscience that the Church iraa instituted ; and the natural conscience of man being neither alwav> right) nor unanimous, nor infallible) it irere al>- Burd to argue that the Church should be amenable to BUCfa a tribunal. What then ought to be the criterion 1>\ which 72 THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN the Church should judge of the weight of offen- ces ? Assuredly the word of God. The observation had long ago been made by one of those who had meditated and written the most on moral ideas, the great Saint Augustine, that " some things would be considered very tri- vial, if they were not declared in the Scriptures to be much more weighty than they appear to us ;" and hence he deduced that " we ought to decide on the comparative guilt of sins according to the judgment of God, and not according to that of man.'"* " Let us not therefore take,' 1 says he in another place, " false balances, to weigh that which we desire, and in the manner we desire ; deciding according to our own fancy, that this is grievous, and this trivial ; but let us take the divine balance out of the Scriptures, as from the treasury of the Lord, and in it weigh what is a grievous fault : nay, rather let us not weigh, but acknowledge what has been weighed by our Lord."-)* * Sunt autemquadam quae levissima putarentur nisi in Scrip- turis demonstrarentur opinione graviora. St. August. Enchirio de Fide, &c. c. 79. Quae sint autem levia, quae gravia peccata> non humano, sed divino sunt pensandajudicio." Ibid, c, 78. f " Non afferamus stateras dolosas, ubi appendamus quod vo- lumus, et quomodo volumus, pro arbitrio nostro dicentes, hoc grave, hoc laeve est i se afferamus divinam stateram de Scrip- turis santis tamquam de thesauris dominicis, et in ilia quod sit gravius appendamus ; immo non appendamus sed a Domine appensa recognoscamus." St. Aug. de Baptismo contra Dona- tistas, lib. ii. 9. MORTAL AND VENIAL SIN. 73 In good truth, therefore, the appeal is from conscience to revelation ; that is, from the uncer- tain to the certain ; from the wandering and the tempted, to the incorruptible and the holy. If, then, with a conscience reformed and en- lightened by revelation, we observe what the Church teaches on the comparative guilt of of- fences, we shall only find new motives to admire the wisdom of the Church, and her fidelity to the divine word, of which she is the depositary and the interpreter. We shall discover that those things which she calls great sins, all proceed from a disposition of mind directly at variance with that sentiment of love and adoration which ire owe to God, or with the love we owe to all nun, who an our brethren both by creation and by redemption: we shall find that the Church has not numbered amongst the greater sins any sentiment that does not proceed from a proud and corrupt heart, and that is not incompatible with Christian justice ; any disposition that is not carnal or violent ; that does not tend to debase a man, to turn him aside from theglorioua end of his existence) and tool literate from his mind the divine traces of the image of his Creator; and above all, any disposition, which does not Involve, according to the express declaration of the Scriptures, exclusion from the kingdom of heaven* But hi specifying these dis- 74 THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN positions, the Church has very rarely pronounced the precise point at which such acts become grie- vous sins. She knows and teaches that God alone sees to what extent the heart of man departs from Him ; and excepting when the outward action is an unequivocal expression of this disposition, she can only say, " Who can understand his sins?"* (P«. xviii. 12.) Besides dispositions, there are actions, for the commission of which, eternal death is pronounced in the Scriptures : on the enormity of these there can be no dispute. Besides these moreover, the Church has declared that certain acts of disobedience to the laws, which she has established through the authority given to her by Jesus Christ, are mortal sins. There is not, however, one of these decisions that need shrink from the examination of a serious, dispas- sionate, and christian mind ; nor one that is not manifestly and directly conducive to the fulfilment of the divine law. Here it will not be foreign to our purpose to dwell for a few moments on one of them. It is a mortal sin, not to hear Mass on a holiday of obligation. I am well aware that the mere announcement of such a precept will excite laughter in many. But * '* Delicta quis intelligit ?" Ps. xviii. 12. MORTAL AND VENIAL SIX. 75 woe to us if we abandon all that has been the sub- ject of derision. What serious idea or noble sen- timent has ever been able to escape it ? Accord- ing to the judgment of many persons, that action only can be a sin which tends directly to the tem- poral injury of mankind ; but the Church has not laid down her laws in conformity with an opinion so perfectly frivolous and thoughtless : the Church teaches other duties, and when she regulates her decisions agreeably to her doctrines, we must at least allow that she is consistent ; if these decisions seem unreasonable, it must be proved that her whole doctrine is false ; nor must she be judged with a spirit not her own, and which she repr It is very well known that the Church does not so much place the fulfilment of the precept in the material attendance of the faithful at the sacrifice, as in tin* readiness of the will to assist at it : she declare! the sick exempt from the obligation, as well as all those who are kept away by necessary occu- pations*; while she holds those to be transgressors of it, who are indeed present in body, hut whose hearts are far off by voluntary distractions: so true it is, that even in the most essential things sin desires chu tlv to have right the hearts of the faithful. This being premised, let us examine what disp sitions are deemed a transgression of this precept. 'The sanctilieation of the Lord's day is one of ... L> 76 THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN those commandments, which the Lord himself has given to man. Unquestionably no divine command needs an apology; still we cannot but see the beauty and propriety of this, which specially conse- crates one day to the noblest and most important of our duties ; which recalls a man to his Creator. The poor man, worn down by fatigue, bent to the earth, and uncertain whether it will yield him a miserable sustenance, forced to measure by his labour the day, which is not long enough for him : the rich man, anxious for the most part to spend it so as to get through it quickest ; surrounded by those things in which the world affirms that hap- piness consists, and yet every moment filled with wonder at not finding himself happy ; undeceived by the very objects from which he expected com- plete satisfaction, and longing after other objects, which, when attained, will in like manner undeceive him ; the man overwhelmed by misfortune, and the man intoxicated by prosperity ; the man wal- lowing in pleasures, and the man absorbed in the abstractions of science ; the statesman ; the private individual ; in fact, all of us find, in every object that surrounds us, an obstacle in our approach to the Divinity, a power which tends to attach us to those things for which we were not created, and to make vis forget our noble origin, and the important end for which we were sent into the world. Here, MORTAL AND VENIAL SIN. 77 then, appears manifest the divine wisdom of that precept which takes us off from mortal cares, to call us back to the contemplation of celestial things; which employs so many of even the unlearned man's days in a school of the sublimest philosophy ; which sanctifies the repose of the body, rendering- it the type of that repose of eternal enjoyment, for which we all pant, and which our soul feels itself capable of enjoying; of that precept which unites us in one temple, where our common prayers, reminding us of our common wants and miseries, make us feel that we are brethren. The Church, the constant guardian of this precept, dictates to her children the mode of following it in the most perfect and consistent manner. And among the means she selects, was it possible for her to forget that rite, of all others the most necessary ; consti- tuting the very essence of Christian worship, for it is no other than the sacrifice of Jesus Christ him- self; that sacrifice, on which rests all faith, all knowledge, all rule, all hope? Can the Chris- tian) who voluntarily abstains from such ■ sacri- fice on such a day, be the " just man who lives by faith r (Rom. i. 17, &c.) Is it possible for him to display In a more barefaced manner bo* little he cares for the divine precept of sanctification P [s it not evident thai he has an aversion to Christi ifl his heart, and that he has renounced th 78 MORTAL AND VENIAL SIN. est, the most sacred, and the most consoling object that faith presents ; that he has renounced Jesus Christ ? To pretend that the Church should not denounce the man who cherished such dispositions as a transgressor, were to desire her to forget that end for which she was instituted, and to allow us to fall back into the deadly air of heathenism. 79 CHAPTER VII. On Religious Animosity. (i Les casuistes presentment a Texecration des " hommes, au premier rang entre les plus coupables, " les heretiques, les schismatiques, les blasphemateurs. " Quelqaefois ils reussirent a allumer contre eux la iC haine la plus violente." P. 414. There are few things that corrupt a people so much as a habit of hatred : would that this senti- ment were not perpetually kept alive by almost every thing that influences the mind and the spirit. Interest, opinion, prejudice, even truth itself, be- come to men an occasion of hating each other; hardly an individual can be found who does not cherish in his heart hatred or contempt for whole classes of his brethren: hardly a misfortune can happen to a man, that is not a source of joy to many ; often not so much that it is an\ advant •_ to them, as, which is a far baser motive, that it gratifies a feeling of hatred. I confess, it surprises me not a little, to find the casuists classed amongst the corrupters of a nation in this respect ; the more n hitherto the oalj oensure directed at: 80 ON RELIGIOUS ANIMOSITY. them was, that they were for j ustifying every act and every body, teaching men not to hate even vice itself. But whosoever he be, whether casuist or not, that would teach a man to hate his brother, that man causes him to become, in the sight of God, guilty of murder ;* he directly opposes the "second commandment" which is u like unto the first , ,r> of which our Lord has said, " there is no other greater commandment. "f He places himself in di- rect opposition to the perpetual teaching of the Church, which has never ceased to proclaim, that u the very sign of life is in the love of the bre- thren.'''' % Here let me observe, that among the causes that could have produced the supposed change in the character of the Italians, this one of religious hatred, admitting it to exist at all, is what has had the least share in doing so ; since there is perhaps no Christian nation in which the feeling of antipathy under pretext of religion has had less occasion to be called forth, or to influence the conduct of men. * " Omnis qui odit fratrem suum homicida est." I Johniii. 15. — Every man who hateth his brother is a murderer. f " And the second is like unto it : Thou shalt love thy neigh- bour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. " Mark xii. 31. | " We know that we have passed from death unto life, be- cause we love the brethren." 1 John iii. 14«. ON RELIGIOUS ANIMOSITY. 8 I Investigating this department of history, we ha\ e rather to lament over France and Germany in reference to this. Ah ! yes, amid the horrid feuds that have divided the Italians, this at least has never been known to have excited them : nor have the passions that gave birth to their enmities dared to screen themselves behind the veil of the sanctuary. Too often do we find in our annals, feuds trans- mitted from one generation to another, on account of some wretched interests, and revenge preferred to private security : we find, at every step, two parties in the same nation furiously contending for supe- riority and dominion, whicli by a striking example have fallen to the lot of neither. We find a fierce obstinacy struggling to retain those as dang dare*, who might have been ardent and faithful friends: we find a frightful series of days of cala- mity, but none at least equal to those of Capri, where Zuingli us was slain (31st Oct. 1531), of Jarnac (16th Mar. 1569), or of Prague (8th Nov. Lfl True it is, there will one dav rise up against thi^ Unhappy land, much blood calling for vengcaiuv ; of that, however, shod on the score of" religion, but little Little, I say, in comparison with that which has defiled other parts of Europe. The furious animosities and inisfortun r nations give to us the melancholy advantage ofcal quantity of Mood mall; but the blood of on 82 ON RELIGIOUS ANIMOSITY. shed by the hand of his brother, is too much for all ages, and for the whole earth. We cannot but reflect here on the injustice com- mitted by so many writers, in attributing these horrid feelings, of religious hatred and their effects to Catholics alone ; an injustice which is evident to any one who merely skims over the history of these dissensions. Still, however, this partiality may be useful to the Church ; the cry of horror raised by all ages against them being principally directed against Catholics, they ought always to have it in their ears, and they will thus be led to mildness and mercy ; not only by the voice of the Church, but also by that of the world. I know it has been said by many, that these enmi- ties and massacres, although detested by the Church, may yet be imputed to her ; because, as she teaches her children to hate error, she disposes their minds to extend that feeling to the men who profess it. To this it may be answered, that not only every religion, but every system of philosophy, teaches us to detest errors against the essential duties of men ; and there is no Christian sect which does not hold in detestation every error against the fundamental points of Christianity. But in order to justify the Church, there is no necessity of recurring to examples: suffice it to examine her maxims. It is a standing doctrine of the Church, that we ought ON RELIGIOUS ANIMOSITY. 83 to hate error, but to love him who errs. Is there any contradiction between these two precepts? No one will affirm that there is. Still it is difficult to draw the line between sin and the sinner; it is hard to hate the former, and yet to cherish for the latter a love, not merely apparent, but real and active.* It is difficult! But what just thing is easy to corrupt man ? Whence then arises the difficulty of reconciling two precepts, if they be both just ? Is it right to hate error ? Certainly it is, and there is no necessity to prove it. Is it right to love him who errs ? Assuredly it is, for the same reason that it is right to love all men ; because God, from whom we receive all thingfl and hope all tl God, to whom we ought to direct all our ac has so loved them, as to give for then his only begotten Son (John, Hi. 16); because it is a horrible tiling not to love those whom God has piv. Dated to his glory J and would it not be a proof of the most wicked and foolish temerity to affirm of any one living man in particular, that he N of that blessed number, and that he is thu eluded from all hope in the infinite Hurry of God • The fritqeeeei irho stood ready to cast tin stone at Stephen, laid their clothes at a Ji * Mv little children, lei us not lore In wotd, n !>ut in deed mid in truth." 1 John in. Is. 84 ON RELIGIOUS ANIMOSITY. man's feet : he turned not away struck with horror, but, consenting to the death of that just man, staid to take care of them. (Acts vii. 57-9; viii. 1)— If a Christian had then cherished in his heart a feeling of hatred for that young man, whose early perversion might appear a manifest sign of his being of the number of the reprobate, if that Christian had then murmured the curse, that seems so just in the mouth of the oppressed ; alas ! that Christian would have cursed the great Vessel of Election !* Whence then does the difficulty arise in recon- ciling these two commandments, if not from our corruption, which is the cause of every strife that arises between duties ? To overcome this difficulty is the triumph of Catholic morality ; for this alone can conquer it ; this alone, by prescribing with the fulness of its authority all just tilings, leaves no doubt as to any duty, destroying that series of inductions by which men arrive at sacrificing one principle to another. This sanctifies them all, and places them beyond dispute. No good Catholic can ever think he has a right to hate his brother : the divine Law-giver, of whom he boasts to be a follower, knew that there would be unjust men, provokers of evil, men who are enemies of the faith, and yet he had nothing more to command " Vas electionis est mihi iste." — Acts ix. 15. ON RELIGIOUS ANIMOSITY. 85 him in reference to them than this, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 1 ' It is one of the brightest characteristics of Catholic morality, one of the grandest results of its authority, that it has anticipated every sophism of the passions by a precept and by an express declaration. So when it was disputed whether men of a different colour from Europeans should be considered as men or not, the Church, by pouring on their heads the water of regeneration, put to silence,as far as in her lay, these shameful dis- cussions, and declared them to be brethren in Christ Jesus ; men called to partake of his inheritam X . More than this, Catholic morality even removea those causes, that opposed an obstacle to the fulfil- ment of these two great duties, the hatred of error and the love of men, for she forbids all pride, attachment to earthly things, and all that tends to destroy charity. She also furnished us with the means ineeivl\ rdueated in this school, eK \;:t fl hi- I volenoe tos sphere far beyond sil opp o s iti o n , in- terests) or objections j and this perfection] even n 86 ON RELIGIOUS ANIMOSITY. this life, receives a great reward. To all his moral victories there succeeds a consoling calm ; and to love in God all those whom we would hate accord- ing to the reason of the world, becomes, to a soul that was born to love, a sentiment of ineffable de- light. Notwithstanding this, a writer, certainly of no mean order, has been found with the hardihood to avow, that the attempt to reconcile opposition against error with peace towards men, was not only difficult, but impracticable. " La distinction entre la tolerance civile et la tolerance theologique est puerile et vaine ; ces deux tolerances sont inseparables, et Ton ne peut admettre Tune sans Fautre. Les anges meme ne vivroient pas en paix avec les hommes qu^ls regardoient comme les ennemis de Dieu." — Rousseau Emile, liv. iv. note 40, What consequences follow from this principle ! The primitive Christians then ought not to have be- lieved, that to depart from God and to worship idols rendered a man the enemy of his Creator. They were wrong then in contending with paganism ; be- cause it were imprudent and foolish to preach against a religion that does not render those who profess it the enemies of God ! and when St. Paul reminded the faithful of the mercy which God had ON RELIGIOUS ANIMOSITY. 87 shewn them when they were still his enemies, * thus endeavouring to increase their gratitude and faith, he proposed to them a false and antisocial idea ! But why should it be impossible for men to live in peace with those who are the enemies of God, he- lieving, as they do, that God commands them so to do, and reflecting, that they know not whether they themselves are worthy of love or hatred ,-f- but certain that they will become the enemies of God by breaking his peace ? Why should it Ik- impossible, when they reflect that they will one day be asked, whether their faith was given them that they might dispense with charity ; and that thev will have no right to expect mercy, if thev have denied it to others. Whv, in fine, should it be impossible, when they are forced to confess thai faith 18 a gift; one too, for the use of w Inch thev themselves ought to tremble ? These and similar reasons might have been ad- duced tO the man who had started such an < tion on the first appraianer i)[' Christianity; but that in these days such an objection should be made by a man like Rousseau seems almost in- # " For il. \\ Inn we w.'tv enemies, we | tO G<*1 liv the death nt his Son, mueh more, heuu; leeomV |, he saw V keeping in< ii in nun .i much more certain and di i« ■< I < fill eof < .il.imil \ Hid iiijii.Ii.t is Ii Ii alive tlllil in. ii urc In from becomine, In I Iciiif more amiable l>y having false ideas. lc L.i S.iini Uarthclemy ifu pa fu.il pro < i ire le ealhnliei ,me, .id ;i celebrated writer i.il. ui- ii | » i In . 1 1 tin «»f reasoning, (< 'on i oonatqueace would have l»< •< >n more fooli l> and more unjuit The recollection of thai atrocioui night ihould .« i vr lo I..UII ih iimliition and the spii il of faction; 1 1 1. ■ .dm M0f [>0W6r, in iilioiilni.il ion lollir law:, dial dreadful and foolish policy which leaches ih<- violn lion of |n ilice ui evei y step to obtain some fancied advantage; and thai when ihese accumulated violn i ions li.iv e created ionic imminenl dangci , ii then hecomes lawful to Iry . -v.-i \ expedient l<» save oiii ill H. Ii recollection should serve to banish trea . h. i v and fraud, provocation and rancour, di« In if of power win. h in.il. . men plol and dare everything, in. I the iiii.Iii. love of life, which sels aside all law io pre .i \. ii . for those and similai pai sion i were I lie true causes of I he massacre for which lhal night i nil 1. 1, mi I ,i i .. ili. n again repeal the great principle, that ON Kl I [0101 I WlMOMl | . oj in ;i il« ut iii u* we should look For its legitimate sequences, not those tint \wt\y be ded need from u h\ the passions ; ami l>\ applj me it t«» i shall tind, how hi m this |lflQ n is ahoxeall hum. in theories, on MOOUnt of the illimitable ehara< that distinguish it. It exeludes even hurtful ion seipienee, and it e\* hides ii |>\ (hat same authorits whieh renders saeied its own prineiples , (his was ., triumph to he aehieved In itsrll'alone : it', therefore, l»\ proeeeding from one chain of reasoning to anoth* r, a man arrives at a eonehision (hat won hi eonMitute an iiijusihr, lu' ma\ Ik- sure that lu- has iv:imiii> and if hi- is sineere. In- liiuU in ivlnoon Ik i elf| warn in • (hat Ik- has ,.,,ne a- h.i\ In-* .iiim- w Ik i appt ais, 1 1 u i * sin- |iro\ kKs a pi-olulation and a tlnvat. It is not (Ik n ivasonahlc to r.i-l (Ik Maine up<»n Uovelation, I* ■« an i men hate and ill otb i . but n ibould ba itafttd on tin oontrtr] , fchpl there is such a natural dispo; it ion in mankind t.» kii< and to injure one another, thai a pretext has b i M bund fa It m n in tin truth w hit h i ( miiii lauds 1 1 o 1 1 1 to lov *• our another, M A rul«J without BXOtption "li.il w.-nld (Ik \ no! ha\«-doiie bid tbtj dm Lved th h pn ta it from pi tot Ipl intro s(s |,» u 1 1 it I, (his , oiuni iikIiik -ut w i < not « - n liall> allied, I ilnii' in w Iik h (Ik pa I utio l\ , and in fa< i w hat have lhe\ n »i don. I Ik ( atholii i lijrion Ii i 92 ON RELIGIOUS ANIMOSITY. ever be, the direct and natural cause of dissension ; but in the hand of a man in a rage every thing is a weapon : this does not break forth while men are peaceable and quiet, but always in ferocious and brutal times, when all the hostile passions are in- flamed ; and I think I may add without being con- tradicted by history, in times distinguished by great indifference to the essentials of religion,* and by a peculiar eagerness for all those things which a sincere love to religion considers vanity. Every time we find in history an example of the benign influence of religion, we cannot but acknow- ledge a cause that produces its own effect. What an example of this was the " truce of God!" It was the voice of concord and piety, making itself heard above the cries of provocation and revenge ; it was the voice of the Gospel, and it issued from the * It is well known that the constable Montmorenci was mor- tally wounded at St. Denis while fighting on the Catholic side. Davila thus relates his end, u He died without perturbation of mind and with the greatest constancy ; so that when a priest ap- proached the bed on which he lay to administer consolation to him, he turned to him with a serene countenance, and begged he , would not disturb him, for it would have been a sad thing to have known how to live for eighty years, and not to know how to die for a quarter of an hour." (Istoria delle Guerre civili di Francia, lib. 4. What a catholic is here ! He trusts in himself; at the end of a long life only looks on it with satisfaction ; never thinks of invoking the mercy of God, and refuses the ministry instituted to dispense it. ON RELIGIOUS ANIMOSITY. 93 mouths of Bishops and Priests. But in order to account for the vexations committed under pretext of religion, we must necessarily suppose a state of ignorance or bad faith, irritation of mind, pre-exist- ing motives for hatred, objects which are concealed, and a degree of passion that so far clouds the under- standing, as to make it consent to what is forbidden by that very law which it regards as its guide. Saint Ambrose broke in pieces and sold the sacred vessels to ransom the Illyrian slaves, most of whom were Arians; St. Martin of Tours went to Treves, to intercede with the emperor in behalf of the Pris- cillianists, and considered as excommunicated Itha- cius and the other bishops who had stirred him op to treat them with severity ; St. Augustine suppli- cated the proconsul of Africa for mercy towards the Donatists, who we all know gave the Church so much trouble. ' We pray you," said he, 'that those- ma\ not be slain, for whom we pray God that they may repent."'* These were true Catholics, and ecclesiastical his- tory abounds with such examples. And amongst the many which even modern times have produced, there is one which I cannot pass by, being as it isoneof n til>i vilr sit ih'ijiic oontemptibile fili honombi liter diler- t i^mir quod vos rognmus nc occiduntur. pro quituis rogMMM Doiiiiiium ut < onigantur. AugWt Donato, procons. Afr. 1 r. t. ii. p. B7CS * tin. Maur. 94 ON RELIGIOUS ANIMOSITY. the most splendid perhaps, and yet during the course of the last half century it has been too often attempted not only to deprive the Church of the glory of it, but even to place it in the most ignominious light. I allude to the conduct of the Catholic clergy in America. The minds of the Spaniards were com- pletely brutalized by rage at the obstacles they had met with ; by their avarice, which became rapacious in proportion to the expectations of a heated imagi- nation; by fear, to which even the most determined minds are subject, rendering them cruel when not supported by a conviction of duty, and in a word by all the passions of conquest; while on the other hand the Americans had, as we may say, none to plead their cause but the ecclesiastics ; and these had no other arguments to adduce in their favour, but those furnished by the Gospel and the Church. Let me here quote the well-known passage of Robertson, replete as it is with importance, no less from the impartiality of the historian, than the accuracy and extent of research that led him to form his opinion. " With still greater injustice, r> says he, "have many authors represented the intolerant spirit of the Ro- man Catholic religion as the cause which led to the extermination of the Americans, accusing the Spa- nish ecclesiastics of animating their countrymen to the slaughter of that innocent people, as idolaters and enemies of God. But the first missionaries who ON RELIGIOUS ANIMOSITY. 95 visited America, though weak and illiterate, were pious men. They early espoused the defence of the natives, and vindicated their character from the aspersions of their conquerors, who, describing them as incapable of being formed to the offices of civil life, or of comprehending the doctrines of religion, contended that they were a subordinate race of men on whom the hand of nature had set the mark of ser- vitude. From the accounts which I have given of the humane and persevering zeal of the Spanish missionaries in protecting the helpless flock com- mitted to their charge, they appear in a light which reflects lustre on their functions. They were mins- ters of peace, who endeavoured to wrest the rod from the hands of oppressors. To their powerful inter- position the Americans wen- indebted far every regulation tending to mitigate the rigour of their fate. The clergy in the Spanish settlements, regu- lar as well as secular, are still considered by the Indians as their natural guardians, to whom the\ have recourse under the hardships and reactions to which they are too often exposed." (lli.M. of Aim rica, Book 8, part 5.) What a religion 18 this, in which imdl nun, armed only with piety, resist the strong in favour of their brethren I in which ignorant men detect and unravel tin- sophisms, that passion would oppose tOJU In an expedition where nothing was thought * 96 ON RELIGIOUS ANIMOSITY. conquest and gold, these men only speak of duty and mercy ; they cited the conquerors to the tribunal of God, and declared oppression to be wicked and irreligious. The world, with all its passions, sent against the Indians enemies whom they had never offended ; religion sent them friends whom they had never known. These friends were hated and persecuted, sometimes even obliged to conceal them- selves; nevertheless they ameliorated the condition of the conquered, and by their constancy and suf- ferings, bore testimony to religion that it was not assuredly a pretext for cruelty ; that these crimes were perpetrated in spite of its protests. The mer- ciless destroyers were well content to pass for men of zeal ; but the ministers of religion would not per- mit them to assume that disguise, and they have been forced to find their excuse in every principle but that of religion ; they have been compelled to take refuge in pretexts of convenience, of political utility, and of the impossibility of following the divine law exactly ; they have been obliged to assert the great evils that would have ensued if men had been just ; that it was necessary to oppress men cruelly, for otherwise it would have been impossible to oppress them at all.* * Only one ecclesiastic disgraced his office by exciting his com- panions to shed blood, and this was the notorious Valverde. But in examining his conduct, as described by Robertson, it is evident ON RELIGIOUS ANIMOSITY. 97 If to represent a persecuting intolerance as a con- sequence of the spirit of Christianity be a calumny refuted by the doctrines of the Church, it is still more unjust to represent it as a vice peculiar to in my opinion that it did not arise from religious fanaticism. Pizarro had formed the perfidious design of seizing the Inca Ata- hualpa, in order to reign in Peru and glut himself with gold. Hav- ing decoyed the Inca to an interview under the mask of friendship, he sent Valverde to meet him, who made a long harangue in which the mysteries and the history of the holy and pure religion of Christ were spoken of only to come to the absurd conclusion, that the Inca ought to submit to the king of Castile as his lawful sove- reign. The answer and indignation of Atahualpa were Yalverde's pretext for calling his countrymen to arms against the Peruvian-. " As for Pizarro," to use the words of Robertson, " during this long conference he had with difficulty restrained his soldiers, eager to seize the rich spoils of which they had now so ne.ir a view, and he immediately gave the signal ol assault." Pizarro himself, as he intended, made the Inca prisoner, who after undergoing a most absurd mockery of a trial was condemned to die, while '* Valverde prostituted the authority of his sacred function to confirm the sentence, and \gf his signature warranted it to be just." (Ibid. Hook (5 ) Now is it not evident, that any pretext was sufficient tor men who had made up their minds to be unjust, for men who bad force to achieve their desigoi and a rich booty to excite their desire; rhat Valverde was t he horrid instrument, but not tin I nafor ot the injustice ; that his conduct shows rat her a bt» nivancc with the ambition and avarice ol Pi/airo, than any thing like reliL-ious |,inatiei-in ? Marmontel, it is true, in his ' 1 Wished to attribute to this passion th 1 1 ol the en | o! the Spaniards, hut he could only do s ( » hy misrepresenting the lie pretend rO was I'.ir from having any intention to deceive or oppre.* . he pa-s, Atahlia]pa*l cruelty, anil denies \ know not en what antl: the orders given hy him to put his rival brother HUSSC and then loads the chain \ w uli other it 98 ON RELIGIOUS ANIMOSITY. Christians. Was it the truths of Christianity that rendered the Pagan emperors cruel ? Was it the profession of them that produced that unopposed his own invention, as if he were not already bad enough, and wishing to make him odious, renders his story improbable by ascribing to him vices which are incompatible with one another. Thus when History fails to prove certain general maxims enough, Romances are written, which prove them too much. Common sense alone is sufficient to show that it is not in the nature of man, however fanatical he may be, to conceive a violent hatred against men who do not profess Christianity, merely because they are ignorant of it. Besides, if the disposition of the Spanish ecclesi- astics were such as to make them receive impulses of this sort from religion, how came it, that all the others spoke and acted not only differently, but exactly the reverse ? If the conduct of Valverde were conformable to the mode in which his fellow citi- zens understood religion, how was it that (as Robertson assures us) it was condemned by all their historians? It is but just to observe that the work of Marmontel, whatever be its value in an historical point of view, is calculated to leave an impression of horror against violence and blood ; an impression that ought never to be weakened, whatever be the means by which it has been produced. In this case it acquired new strength from the conduct of Marmontel, who always acted consistently with his own sentiments. But it is also proper to account for political and moral evils by their right causes, instead of falsely ascribing them to arbitrary ones, in order to prevent as much as possible that most false and dangerous impression, that Religion is at variance with Humanity. Not to say, that the religion outraged by Valverde has been ably vindicated, not only by nearly all the ecclesiastics who accompanied the different expeditions, but also by the thousands of missionaries who, carrying the true faith to savages and unbelievers of every description, went forth as 'lambs among wolves.' (Luke x. 3.) The history of these wonderful enterprises of love is too vast and extended to be treated of in a note ; suffice what has already been said. ON RELIGIOUS ANIMOSITY. 99 and remorseless cruelty, which shed the blood of so many millions of, I will not say innocent persons, but persons who carried virtue to the highest point of perfection ; and that directed the anger of the world against those "of whom the world was not worthy ." (Heb. xi. 38.) At the beginning of the second century an aged man was brought before the emperor at Antioch, who, after asking him some questions, demanded at length if he persisted in declaring that he carried Jesus Christ in his heart. The aged man having answered in the affirmative, the emperor commanded him to be bound and taken to' Rome, to be thrown alive to wild beasts. He was loaded with irons, and after a long journey arrived at Rome, when he was immediately led to the amphitheatre and torn to pirns by Wild beasts for the amusement of the Roman people, (Tillemont, S. Ignace.) The old man was no other than Saint Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, disciple of the Apostles; his Hft had ren- dered an honourable testimony to such a school. The same courage he had displayed when Wftfufog to his sentence, accompanied him throughout Ufl journey; ever calm like one of those resolute feelings arising from the most mature deliberation, in which every obstacle has been foreseen and weighed; it made him listen to the roaring (A' the wild Insists With Joy: that death so ignominious, that death so f2 100 ON RELIGIOUS ANIMOSITY. certain, whose presence strikes terror even inta hearts the most prepared to meet it, had nothing to terrify him : so strongly had the Holy Spirit for- tified his heart, so strongly did he love! The emperor was Trajan. No sooner is it asserted of a Christian, that by an unjust and erroneous zeal he has usurped a right over the lives of others, however pious he may have been in every other respect, however irreprehensible, and even active in doing good, still the blood he has shed is deemed more than a counterpoise for all his virtues : a whole life of merit is not enough to make amends for one single act of violence. Why then, in the favourable estimate given of Trajan's cha- racter, is not the blood of Ignatius and of so many other innocent persons brought up against him? Why is he held forth as an example, and why are his times still praised, as they were by Tacitus, when he says, that it was then lawful to feel what you pleased, and to say what you felt?* Why? but because we follow for the most part the opinions of others, and the Pagans, who formed theirs of Trajan, did not think that the spilling of Christian blood detracted any thing from the humanity and justice of a prince. It is Religion that has made it diffi- cult for us to allow him the title of just and humane; that Religion, which has revealed to us, that in the * "Raratemporum felicitate, ubi sentire quae velis, et quae sen- tias dicere licet." — Histr. lib. i. ON RELIGIOUS ANIMOSITY. 101 sufferings of an immortal soul there is something ineffable; which .has taught us to regard and respect in every man the image of God and the price of redemption. When mention is made of men con- demned to the flames under pretext of religion, were any one to allege, by way of extenuating the atrocity of the sentence, that the judges were fanatics, the world has its reply ready — they had no right to be so; should it be urged that they were deceived the world answers, that no man ought to be deceived' who pretends to dispose of the life of another; if it be alleged that at least they thought they ren- dered homage to religion, the world rejoins that such an opinion is blasphemy. Alas! who was it then, I pray, taught the world that God is only honoured by mildness and love, by giving our own lives up for those oi" others, far from taking life away, and that the free-will of man is the only faculty from which God deigns to receive homage at all? To account for the savage persecutions against the Christians, we are almost forced to imagine that regard for human life was unknown to the Pagans; that it was a sentiment altogether new and revealed by the Gospel : for on reviewing their histon \v< behold incredible atrocities committed without any Strong impulse; princes, we see, without fanaticism, tiding the desire of the people tor punishments. 102 ON RELIGIOUS ANIMOSITY. not from any political motive, not through fear or anger, but I might almost say through indifference; for the cruel death of thousands of persons could not be an object of much consideration to men, who could put to death a thousand slaves at one feast; and to assert this of them is truly to do them no Avrong. Pliny's famous letter to Trajan, and the answer of the latter, are proofs of this spirit of Paganism. Pliny, who had been appointed proconsul of Bythi- nia, consults the emperor on the case of the Chris- tians; explains his former conduct, speaks of an anonymous information by which he has discovered others, and requests instructions. The emperor approves of Pliny's conduct, forbids him to seek out the Christians, but commands him to punish them when denounced; pardoning those who deny they are so, and substantiate their denial by sacrificing to the Gods. In fine, he orders him to take no account of anonymous accusations for any crime, "since," says he, "it would besetting a bad exam- ple, and one unworthy the age we live in?* * " Actum quern debuisti, mi secunde, in excutiendis causis eorum, qui Christian*! ad te delati fuerant secutus es.... — Con- quirendi non sunt, si deferantur et arguantur, puniendi sunt; ita tamen, ut qui negaverit se Christianum esse, idque re ipsa mani- festum fecerit, id est supplicando diis nostris, quamvis suspectus in praeteritum fuerit, veniam ex pcenitentia impetret. Sine auctore vero propositi libelli nullo crimine locum habere debent : nam et pessimi exempli, nee nostri sseculi est." — Trajanus Plinio,in Plin. Epist. 9a ON RELIGIOUS ANIMOSITY. 103 But in point of barbarity, what could be un- worthy of an age, in which the laws had not de- cided on the necessity of an accuser making himself known ; in which a prince commands, not deeds, but opinions, to be punished ; and though, indeed, he forbids the men to be searched for, yet he orders a magistrate to use the power of the law against them, and begins, notwithstanding, by declaring that he cannot, in this case, give a certain and uni- versal rule;* of an age in which a magistrate, eminent for the cultivation of his mind and the mildness of his character, asks for instructions, whether a man were to be punished for the map name of Christian, when HO other crime had been laid to his charge J or, whether he was to be pu- nished for Crimea that were inseparably connected with this name; whether he was to make any dis- tinction in point of age, or treat children, how young, like adults? Qf an age, in which such a man relates, that he had caused those who pen in confessing themselves Christians to be led to punishment, " not douht'mij" says he, that what- rrrr if iras they confessed, their bifle.vil nacy oittjhf, fit all emits, to be punished f <>t .hi a«re, in which this man, having ascertained from his emjuiries that the Christians met, not t<» plot • Neqiieeimn in wtuwi RUB ali.juid .juoii ivrtain lormilin hmbeat coottfai] potest — ib. 104 ON RELIGIOUS ANIMOSITY. mischief, but to animate each other to the exercise of every virtue, could feel no remorse on account of those i obstinate' persons he had put to death, but was even capable of torturing two women in order to gain further information ? He expresses great concern at the multitude of the Christians; but consoles himself with the hope that he may stop the evil in its course, rejoicing that sacrifices are again offered in the temples, and that the number of those who bought the flesh offered to idols is increased.* In these hopes and fears it is impossible to dis- cern a single idea of morality, or of any thing of the kind. The blood of a fellow creature, the pangs of a violent death, the feelings of a mans family when he is dragged from it to suffer punish- ment, are thrown into the scale along with- — we * Nee mediocriter haesitari, sit ne aliquod discrimen aetatum, an quamlibet teneri nihil a robustioribus different .... nomen ipsum, etiam si flagitiis careat, aut flagitia cohaerentia nomini pu- niantur — perseverantes duci jussi : neque enim dubitabara, qua- Hcumque esset quod faterentur, pertinaciam certe et inflexibilem obstinationem debere puniri — adfermabant .... se sacramento non in scelus aliquod obstringere, sed ne furta, ne latiocinia, ne adulteria committerent, ne fidem fallerent, ne depositum appellati abnegarent. Quo magis necessarium credidi, ex duabis ancillis, quae ministrae dicebantur, quid esset veri et per tormenta quaerere. Visa est enim mihi res digna consultatione, maxime propter peri- clitantium numerum. Certe satis constat jam desolata templa coepisse celebrari, et sacra solemnia diu intermissa repeti : pas- simque venire victimas, quarum adhuc rarissimus emptor inve- niebatur. Plin. Trajan. Epis. 97. ON RELIGIOUS ANIMOSITY. 105 know not what. Assuredly can it not be urged that it was fidelity to an ancient law of the empire that furnished the motive for those persecutions, seeing they were begun and discontinued according to the disposition or caprice of the different empe- rors, prefects, and pro-consuls, and when the law itself was so confused that Pliny did not know how to apply it. Besides, were not these laws the work of man ? How comes it, then, that the Roman emperors, who were able to abolish or violate the most fundamental laws and those which they had themselves established, so respectfully yielded their deference to such an one as this? What, in fine, was unworthy of an age, in which a venerable bishop, devoured by w ild beasts, was a pastime for the peeplej and in which a prince, celebrated for his benignity, could afford his people such a pastime? True it is, Christian annals transmit but too many instances of cruelty committed under the pre- text of religion; but this we may safely assert, that th y who perpetrated them were unfaithful to the laws they professed, and were condemned by them. In the persecutions of the Pagans, nothin attributed to the inconsistency of the jRTsccutors, or to their disregard crhaps, that 1 ha\e totl Bgl 106 ON RELIGIOUS ANIMOSITY. the argument in this digression : but it will not have been without its use, if it has afforded us an op- portunity of observing how too many writers, in their estimate of Christians and heathens, are far from deciding by an impartial judgment ; if it has contributed to remove still further from Catholic morality the horrible stain of blood, which has been so often affixed to it, reminding us, that whatever violence has been used in the defence of this religion of peace and mercy, it was altogether opposed to its spirit, uninteruptedly professed in all ages by the true worshippers of Him, who so severely re- buked his disciples when they wished to call down fire from heaven on the cities which refused to re- ceive him;* of Him who commanded his Apostles to " shake off the dust from their feet "\ as they de- parted from them, " and to abandon the obstinate? Let then those true Christians be in everlasting honour who in all times, and in spite of passion and power, have inculcated the meek lesson of mild- ness, from the illustrious Lactantius, who has left it written that " religion was to be defended by * They went and entered into a village of the Samaritans — and they did not receive him — And when his disciples, James and John, saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them? But he turned and rebuked them, and said, ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. — Luke ix. 52, 5. t Matt.x. 14. ON RELIGIOUS ANIMOSITY. 107 dying and not by slaying,"* even to those in later times, who have found themselves in circumstances where courage was necessary to manifest a feeling so essentially evangelical. Be they in honour, seeing that it is no longer allowed for us to reap honour by professing these principles, living, as we do, in an age and country, when opposite sentiments cannot be maintained without infamy, and in which, if men have not (would that they had !) renounced hatred, they have, at least, learned that religion cannot sanction it; when, if expediency, or the violence of passion be ever urged as an excuse for cruelty and oppression, it is admitted that religion is too pun to allow of such a pretext ; that religion disdains to lead men to good but by means of what is good. * Defeudenda enim est religio non occidendo sed moriemlo ; non s.iMtii led pititiitia ; non scelcre sed fide; ilia enim inalo- rum sunt, h.i'C honorum. Kr nOCOMC est bonum in reliirione \m Nkri, non ninlum. Nam si sanguine, si tormentis, si malo re Dem defender© velis, jam HOD delendetur ilia, sed pollmtur atque vinlabitur. Nihil tain voluntariuin quani religio, in qua B ; im - mui itcriflcantii trenai est, y-un rablitai jam nnllattt. — Ii€.F Lactantii Divin. Institut. lib. v. c. 20. 108 CHAPTER VIII. On the Doctrine of Penance. " La doctrine de la penitence causa une nouvelle « subversion dans la morale, deja confondue par la " distinction arbitraire des peches. Sans doute c'etoit " une promesse consolante que celle du pardon du ciel « pour le retour a la vertu ; et cette opinion est telle- " ment conforme aux besoins et aux faiblesses de " 1 homme qu'elle a fait partie de toutes les religions. " Mais les casuistes avaient denature cette doctrine en tf imposant des formes precises a la penitence, a la con- ' « fession, et a Tabsolution. Un seul acte de foi et de " ferveur fut declare suffisant pour efFacer une longue (l liste de crimes/' — Page 415. As I do not pretend to sufficient erudition to discuss the assertion of our author, that the pro- mise of the pardon of heaven for a return to virtue is an opinion which forms a part of every religious system, I shall pass it by altogether. From what little I have gathered from books on different re- ligions, and on the Pagan religion in particular, I am inclined to think that many proposed to their followers expiatory ceremonies which, by their own virtue, purified those who performed them from ON THE DOCTRINE OF PENANCE. 109 their sins, without rendering it necessary for them to return to virtue ; and that the idea, as well as the term conversion, belongs essentially and solely to the Christian religion. But this question, how- ever important, is not necessarily involved in the argument, and we may defend the Catholic doc- trine of penance, in the fullest manner, from the censures in the above passage, without alluding to it : in fact, these very censures will afford an op- portunity of demonstrating the eminent reasonable- ness and perfection of the doctrine. These charges may be reduced to the three fol- lowing : namely, that by imposing precise forms of penance, the true doctrine of it had been disfigured; that these forms were imposed by the casuists; and that a single act of faith and fervour was deemed Sufficient to cancel a long list of crimes. Let us examine them, one by one, not in that order in which they are stated above, but in that which -(•fins mare suited to their full development, in the investigation it is n e c essa ry to undertake in es plaining what is the real doctrine of the Church, I. Who hat Jived the precise forms of Penance? ing that the gosjK'l has cxpressl) conferred Upon its ministers the power iA' remitting and i\ 110 ON THE DOCTRINE OF PENANCE. taining sin, it follows of necessity that there must be some precise form for executing this power : but whose province was it to ordain and impose these forms? Under the supposition that this power was usurped by the Casuists, the whole economy of the spiritual government must have been changed ; not to say that it is impossible to conceive that they, who were no constituted body, and possessed no legislative organ, could have agreed in establish- ing these forms according to the same principles and the same rules. Again, how can it be sup- posed that all Churches should have received them from persons without authority, that the authori- ties themselves submitted to them, since no one be- lieved himself to be exempt? How is it that the Popes themselves came to suffer a law to be imposed on them by the mere will of the Casuists, under the operation of which they themselves confessed their sins at the feet of an inferior, asking absolu- tion of him, and submitting to the penance he or- dained ? Besides, would it not outrage all proba- bility to imagine that the Greeks — separated, alas ! too much from the Catholic Church, and separated too some centuries before the Casuists were even heard of — should have adopted from them the forms of penance, which they hold in common with us in all its essential parts? When was it that the ON THE DOCTRINE OF PENANCE. Ill Casuists committed this act of usurpation? And, lastly, how was the authority to bind and loose ex- excised before the Casuists invented the mode ? The forms of penance, of confession, and of abso- lution, have been laid down by the Church from its very origin, as all history attests : nor could it be other- wise ; for without them it would have been impos- sible to exercise the authority to remit or retain sin : indeed, it is impossible to imagine forms more sim- ple, and more conformable to the spirit of this au- thority. Equally so is it to conceive that any but the Church herself could have interfered with the re- gulation of such a practice. II. Conditions of Penance, according to the Cath<>li< Doctrine. Let us now examine the doctrine which is accimd of having corrupted morality, and ne if it be the doctrine of the Church. A ringh ad of faith and fervour was declared sufjieioit fa hint out a h»ig list of crimes. Of this opinion one part has Ikvii con- demned, and neither the other part nor the whole proposition have ever Ikvii taught. Aj tO the former, it is sufficient to recollect that the Council of Trent condemned the doctrine* that 112 ON THE DOCTRINE OF PENANCE. " the sinner is justified by faith alone," as soon as it was proposed. * As to the second, I will make bold to assert, not only that no council or papal decree, but net even any devotional tract, has ever said that a single act of faith and fervour is enough to cancel sins. It is, however, a doctrine of the Church that they may be cancelled by contrition, accompanied by the inten- tion of submitting, as soon as possible, to the tribunal of penance. He who thinks this is a mere question of words, deceives himself : it is a question of ideas, if ever there was one. Fervour signifies only the force and intensity of a sentiment ; it generally supposes a pious feeling, but does not express its precise object — contrition, on the other hand, expresses a positive sentiment. To attribute to fervour the effect of blotting out sins would therefore be to assert a confused and in- determinate idea, without relation to the effect : when it is attributed to contrition, a sentiment is specified, which, according to the Scriptures, and all the ideas of right reason enlightened by them, " Si quis dixerit sola fide impium justificari, ita ut intelligat nihil aliud requiri, quod ad justificationis gratiam consequendam cooperetur, et nulla ex parte necesse est eum suae voluntatis motu praeparari, atque disponi; anathema sit." — Sess. vi. de Justificatione, Canon xi. ON THE DOCTRINE OF PENANCE. 113 disposes the mind of the sinner to receive the grace of justification. In order then to have a just idea of the Catholic faith in this matter, we must ex- amine what contrition is ; and we shall discover it from the definitions of the Church. " Contrition is a grief of the mind, and a detestation of sin com- mitted, accompanied by a resolution to sin no more. .... The holy synod declares, that this contrition contains not only a cessation from sin, and the re- solution and commencement of a new life, but a hatred of the past Besides, it teaches, that although it sometimes happens that this contrition be perfect through charity, and thus reconcile I man to God before the sacrament of penance be ac- tually received; yet the reconciliation ought not to be attributed to the contrition alone, without the desire of complying with the sacrament which is in- cluded in it."* Reason alone, it is certain, could never have * Contritio, quae primum locum inter dictos pcenitentis actus liabet, auiini dolor ae drtotatio Ml (fa pCOCttO nWUHllMO, ruin propotito doh peoeandl them without fear of being repulsed The sinner will 120 ON THE DOCTRINE OF PENANCE. approach without dread to the man who confesses that he too is a sinner; to the man who on hearing his offences gives him assurance, that he who con- fesses his sin is dear to God, who sees in the repent- ing sinner the grace of him who calls back the hearts of men to himself. No, the sinner need not dread the man who beholds in him the wandering sheep borne home on the shoulders of the Good Shepherd, who regards the man at his feet as an object of joy to the heavenly choirs: ah! no he need not dread the man who handles his wounds with compassion and respect, who sees them already moistened with that divine blood, which he is about to invoke over them. O, astonishing wisdom of the Religion of Christ ! It imposes on the penitent certain works of satis- faction, by which the change in his heart may become more evident, and that he may perform acts contrary to those lie practised in his errors; acts, by which he may be strengthened in virtuous habits, and in the victory over himself; acts, by which he main- tains charity in his heart, and compensates in a measure for the evil he has done. For Religion not only will not grant him pardon, unless he remedies, as far as in him lies, the injury he has done his neighbour, but she also subjects him to penance for every kind of sin, which is nothing less than an increase of every virtue. She enjoins her ministers to ascertain as much as possible the reality of this ON THE DOCTRINE OF PENANCE. 121 repentance and resolution of amendment, an enquiry this, which must tend not only to prevent an en- couragement of vice by the facility of pardon, but also to give a more consoling ground of confidence to the man who truly repents; yes ! she is all anx- iety and pity. And if her ministers without reason forgive him who is not really changed, she warns them that instead of absolving him, they will them- selves be bound; so great is her care lest man should change into poison the remedies that God in his mercy has bestowed upon our weakness. The man who is admitted to penance with these dispositions, is certainly in the road to virtue; he who has heard the consoling word from the minister of the Lord that he is absolved, feels re-established in the possession of innocence, he begins anew to walk in the right way with cheerful step, and with the greater fervour in proportion as he reflects on the hitter fruits he has gathered in the paths of nee, in proportion as he feels that virtuous sentiments and actions ue the means that Religion presents to him to increase his confidence, thai his footsteps in thai crooked way are blotted out. Religion, then, receives a man bom the world in a State <>f crime, and she restores him to it in a of virtue, nor was it in the power of any other than Religion to effect nidi ■ change* What m G 122 ON THE DOCTRINE OF PENANCE. mind could ever have conceived ; where is the man who would have ventured to institute an order of men, whose object should be to wait for the sinner, to seek him out, to teach virtue, to call back to it him who applied to them, to speak to him with that sincerity which in the world is not found, to put him on his guard against every delusion, and to console him in proportion as he amends? The world complains that too many exercise this office as a mere profession, and by this term, which in other states throws no dishonour on the most no- ble functions, it shews to us what a distance it places between this and every other calling, how it feels that the institution of this office is so august, that what is universally allowed in others, is absolutely to be rejected in this. But forsooth, is the race of holy ministers worthy of their functions extinct? No; God has not abandoned his Church: He preserves in it men who have not, and desire not any other occupation than to sacrifice themselves for the salvation of their brethren, and who look to this as the only reward for their perils, their sufferings, their laborious lives, sometimes even a violent death, and often a lingering martyrdom. Let the world then, however' fain to complain of a different sort, at least look on these with veneration and gratitude : in every zealous, humble, and disinterested minister, ON THE DOCTRINE OF PENANCE. 123 let it acknowledge a man truly great; let it call to mind with astonishment and admiration, those Eu- ropeans who traversed the deserts of America to speak of God to the savages; let it listen to the end of those soldiers of Christ, who, without any hope of worldly advantage, bent their course to China, to preach Jesus Christ, and there suffered martyrdom, and this too within the last few years, and let it glory in them as it does in all those who risk their lives for a noble cause. If it does not do this, if it derides those whom it cannot censure, if it forgets them, or calls them men of weak, miserable, and prejudiced minds, we shall then at least dis- cover that what the world hates, is not the fault* of the ministers of religion, but the ministry itself. Bui it is not for those only who have cast off the yoke of the divine law, and who desire to take it again, that the sacrament of penance is profitable and necessary; it is so no less for the just. In Constant war with their interior depraved inclina- tions, and with all the powers of evil, they are re minded by Religion to reflect in the bitterness ol their hearts on their imperfections, to watch <>\ g3 124 ON THE DOCTRINE OF PENANCE. their vices in the bud, this it is, that " preserves the treasure of innocence in earthen vessels.*"* An institution, then, which obliges men to judge themselves with severity, to measure their disposi- tions and their actions by the rule of perfection, which gives them the strongest motives to exclude from this judgment all hypocrisy, by teaching them that it is noticed and examined by God himself, is an institution in the highest degree conducive to morality. How is it that such an institution should have been unknown to so many writers ? How is it, that so often there has been attributed to it a spirit so perfectly opposed to its own ? It is impossible not to feel a painful sensation, when we read a work that professes a love of truth and perfection, and where the most studied reflec- tions are directed to the eliciting of moral senti- ment and through it of religious feeling, to find the following proposition ; that Catholicism accords absolution to the mere confession of sins.-f* * " But we have this treasure in earthen vessels." 2 Cor. iv. 7. f " Le Catholicisme, en admettant les pratiques a compenser les crimes, en faisant acheter l'absolution par des aveux, et les faveurs par des offrandes, blessoit trop ouvertement les plus sim- ples notions de la raison pour pouvoir resister au progres des lu- mieres." Education pratique, trad, de l'anglais par M. Pictet. Geneve de l'impr. de la Bibliot. Britan. Preface du Traducteur. ON THE DOCTRINE OF PENANCE. 125 We speak not here of deductions, or of far- fetched and complicated influences, but we speak of a fact : any one may learn from any Catholic whether the confession (aveu) of sin alone is suffi- cient to obtain absolution ; every Catholic will an- swer, no ; every Catholic will repeat with the Council of Trent, " If any one denies, that for the entire and perfect remission of sins, three acts are required of the penitent as the matter of the sacra- ment of penance, namely, contrition, confession, page viii, and in the 2nd edition, at page vii. Doubtless, such a religion would shock the most simple notions of reason. But, supposing this were true of Catholicism, still would it remain to be explained, how such men as Pascal and Bossuet could have consented to it, and how it is that all Catholics are so void of the most simple notions of reason. But not being the fart, t! planation is unnecessary. We do not enlarge on the other two charges brought againtl Catholicism, became they arc not immediately connected with the argument, and the refutation of them is naturally involved in that of the first ; seeing that the practises of worship an.; faction, made on the conditions we have so often nu i. in tlirm.se Ives, calculated to atone for mii and to obtain and, without these essential conditions, they are neither DTO] nor Vtllied in the doctrine ot tin- Chinch. 1 have adduced this example, because it is important to show one in which i: deal that the aversion to the maxims ot the Church i< fa on an erroneous supposit ion ; and I have selected this in parti- cular, hecunei In ■ book where I would wiao every to breathe peace and goodwill, I deemed it right to quote Mil t o whom I Hlght pay a tritmtC even while I i.imbated their opinx 126 ON THE DOCTRINE OF PENANCE. and satisfaction, let him be anathema.* More- over, to receive this sacrament without these dispo- sitions, is a sacrilege and an additional heinous sin. So true it is, that absolution is not necessarily ac- corded to mere confession, that it is sometimes de- nied after confession, whilst it is sometimes given without it, as in the case of the dying who are not in a state to make it, but give evidence that they are so disposed. Let us consider, but for a moment, the spirit of the Church as evinced in her doctrine concerning the sacraments, and we shall see how the whole economy of them is directed to the sanctification of the soul, and how much the Church abhors the substitution of empty practices for the conversion of the heart. The Catholic faith makes a distinc- tion in the sacraments, not less proper than impor- tant, calling some sacraments for " the living, 1 "' that is, for those who are in the state of grace, and others for " the dead," that is, for those who are dead in trespasses and sins. Both are instituted by Jesus Christ, and in order to sanctification ; but it is not lawful to approach the former, if we are not * " Si quis negaverit ad integram et perfectam remissionem re- quiri tres actus in pcenitente, quasi materiam sacramenti poeni- tentiae, videlicet, contritionem, confessionem, et satisfactionem ..anathema sit." Cone. Trid. sess. xiv., can. iv. ON THE DOCTRINE OF PENANCE. 127 in a state of grace, and why ? because, according to the Church, the first and indispensable step to every degree of sanctification is to return to God, to love justice, and to hate sin. There is in man a superstitious tendency, which induces him to confide in mere external forms, and to recur to religious ceremonies in order to stifle re- morse, without atoning for the sins he has committed or renouncing his passions : Paganism, I think, ex- actly accommodated itself to this tendency. But what religion was it that essentially, perpetually, and evidently opposed this disposition ? None but the Catholic religion, undoubtedly. As all the sa- craments are efficacious means of sanctification. why would it not be lawful to have recour them indiscriminately, it' the men performance <>t acts of worship wen allowed to compensate Rot crimes? What means of Banotification could be easier than that of the Eucharist, which communi- cates, in reality, the Divine Victim, and unites man to holiness itself? Set the Church declares it bo be, not only useless, but sacrilegious for any one to receive this sacrament, who is not in a state oi . He who is the atonement itself, Incomes a condemnation in the heart of an evil man. The Church obliges sinners who wish to come to this fountain of j^raee to pass through those sacrament* which reconcile them to God ! penance, to which it 128 ON THE DOCTRINE OF PENANCE. is not lawful to approach without sorrow for sin, and a resolution to begin a new life, and Baptism, which in those who are come to the use of reason, requires the same dispositions. Could the Church show more plainly that she not only counts as no- thing, but that she even refuses to receive external performances, when they are not evidences of a sin- cere love of virtue ? Whence could an opinion so contrary to the spirit of the Church have originated ? I think it has arisen from an equivocal expression. Confession being the most apparent part of the sacrament of penance, it has become a custom to call, improperly, the whole sacrament, confession. But let it be ob- served, that this inaccuracy in speaking has not corrupted the idea, because the necessity of contri- tion, confession, and satisfaction, is so universally taught, that it may positively be affirmed, that there is no catechism which does not inculcate it, nor any child admitted to confession who is igno- rant of it. 129 CHAPTER IX. On the delay of Conversion. u La vertu au lieu d'etre la tache constante de toute " la vie, ne fut plus qu'un compte a regler a l'article " de la mort. II n'y eut plus aucun pecheur si aveucle " par ses passions, qu'il neprojetat de donner, avant de " mourir, quelques jours au soin de son salut ; et dans " cette confiance, il abandonnoit la bride a ses penchaiM " deregles. Les casuistes avoient depasse leur but " nourrissant une telle confiance; ce fut en vain qu'ils " precherent alors contre le retard de la co nv er sio n, Of 1 ctoient eux-memes les createurs de ce dereglement u dr-prit, inconnu aux anciens moralistes ; l'habitude ( toit prise de ne considerer que la mort du pecheur. " et non sa vie, et elle devint universelle." Pag. i 1 5 •UG. This last objection to the Catholic doctriiu penance is as much as to siiy that a means has been proposed for the remission of sins so easy, so much at the command of the sinner at all times, that. tain of pardon (if we may so express it), he has Ixvn induced to continue in \ ice, and procrastinate Ilia repentance tg the last ; ami that in this pray, not <>nl\ has he sprin |,is whole life in violation of the maxims of religion, hut religion herself has , , , 130 ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION. raged him to do evil, and that in consequence morality has been overthrown. , This lamentable effect, it would seem, is attributed without any discrimination to the doctrine itself, to the opinions of the people, and to the instructions of the clergy, which are in fact the three points to be considered in the present disquisition. Let us ex- amine them one by one, that they may appear in their right light, first stating the propositions, which it is evident ought to be the result of this examina- tion. 1st. The doctrine of the Church on this point is the only one conformable to the Holy Scriptures; it is the only one that can be reconciled with reason and morality. 2dly. The abuse of the doctrine is not chargeable upon the doctrine itself; it is an abuse in practise, and not one in theory ; it is individual and not general in its operation ; nor can it be rooted out in a manner serviceable to mankind but by the right knowledge and the love of the doctrine itself. 3rdly. The clergy (taken as a body) do not teach the false view of the doctrine, neither do they dis- semble the correct one. With regard to the Doctrine, In all moral questions it is necessary that we ex- ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION. 131 amine the nature of any doctrine controverted. To form a j udgment of it merely from its effects, is in my opinion at least an incomplete, nay, a fallacious mode of proceeding, and on many accounts ; because it supposes that there are no moral principles in Revelation and reason to which this doctrine can be reduced ; because it supposes their effects to be so complicated or so extensive, that it is impossible to estimate them, I do not say with precision, but even with that degree of approach towards reality, which it is necessary that they should exhibit, under the idea that they are to be taken as proofs and wle proofs; and finally, because as it is not pretended that they are all derived from the doctrine, they ought not all to be imputed tO it; and here we are intro- duced to another point for investigation; let me say a word in explanation. The possible perfection to which man may he brought, ought to be the end and scope of all moral doctrine; to effect this end, there must be a co-o]>cr;ition between the doctrine and the will of mankind ; hence in every case where we find the Killing off from this .standard of perfection e\i-t ing to a greater or a lc- the fault ma\ ari>< from ;i defect ill one or both of these particular ascertain which is of infinite importance* It u possihk- for the will to turn aside to the commission of evil, even after having received an excellent < trine as a maxim, still more so after ha\ ing 132 ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION. a bad doctrine. To impute to a doctrine the evils which take place where it is held, is certainly very like accusing one man alone of the guilt which may possibly belong to another, or in which it is at least presumable that the other is an accomplice ; and it is doing this without having examined either the one or the other. A code of morality which would undertake by its mere promulgation to conduct all men infallibly to goodness, would be very properly rejected on any proof of a failure in its operation. But as the Catholic Church holds out no such promise in regard to her morality, such a test in reference to her would be most unjust. No, her system demands minute examination ; and before her principles are pro- nounced to be faulty, it must be clearly established that evil effects have naturally resulted from her doctrine.* * The necessity of examining the doctrine is insisted upon ; be- cause this examination is but too much neglected, and because many persons, after having reminded us of the faults committed by Catholics, fancy that they have established the condemna- tion of their religion. This strange mode of reasoning is not un- common on all questions connected with morality: wherever there are opposite parties, each one imagines he has established his own views, when he has shown the errors of the other ; each one compares his adversary's cause with some fancied standard of per- fection, hence he finds but little difficulty in proving how far dis- tant he is from it ; but we are too apt to forget that our judgment in such matters ought to be formed only after maturely weighing the comparative evils resulting from the two opposite propositions. ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION. 133 In the preceding chapter it has been shown that the Catholic doctrine of conversion is the only rea- sonable one; but as the very idea of conversion naturally presupposes its possibility at any moment Hence arise those eternal disputes in which each person exposes to view that side of the question which favours his own argument, and thus obtains a seeming triumph ; whilst he leaves his adver- sary full scope for triumphing in his turn, the moment he places it in another point of view. We are reminded of instances of brutal violence sanctioned by custom or the laws, of trifles held in esteem, while things of impor- tance are passed over, of discoveries of science and genius treated as the ravings of insanity, of voluminous disquisitions of the M authors to prove some absurd proposition, while they even erred in the method they took to prove it; we are told to look at good actions affording cause for persecution, and evil ones for prosperity; facts are heaped upon facts, and all that we may receive with submission their inevitable conclusion, *' So muck for your good old times T while they rapidly pass to the discovery of a grand argument in favour of the spirit of the moderns. On the other side we arc reminded of schemes underta ; forward the interests Of justice and humanity, yet carried on by means the most ferocious and the most dreadful 5 of the exaltation of the passions, represented as | means of social perfection j <>i wisdom placed by many in voluptuousness and virtue in pride ; and here again as every where else, the persecution ol virtue and the triumph <>l vice; and the catalogue is sununed in a tone of triumph with the sentence, " So much for your enlightened aire and these are to be our reasons for wishing for times gone by Footttll admiration | v. mi re-rets | in which that leisure is eon ■Wiled, that ought to be devoted to the study of the per] COITllptiOll Of man and o! the true means to remedy it. ami application ot this science to all institutions and all timet. These rellections are here e,i\en hut in a OOrtOfJ WV\ would they have been given at all, but that they ere too overlooked. 134 ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION. of life, we might with truth assert that the present proposition has been proved by the preceding. But as this possibility has been brought forward as the origin of maxims and of habits fatal to morality, it becomes necessary to discuss it by itself. When we have gone through our examination of the doctrine we shall not shrink from looking into facts ; and in so doing we shall endeavour to use all possible pre- cision in the recapitulation of numerous, varied and complicated events, above all things aiming at sin- cerity ; for if we sought to deceive ourselves or others, our only gain would be that of being either wilfully blind or impostors : neither of them a very desirable gain. The point controverted may be stated thus: Is it possible for a man, as long as he is in this life, from a sinner to become a just man by detesting his sins, by making amends for them, by begging pardon of God, by resolving to commit them no more, and by trusting in the mercy of God and the merits of Jesus Christ for their remission ? When the sinner is thus justified, is he in a state of salvation ? The Church declares that he is. Let us consult the Scriptures, let us consult rea- son, and let us search for the principles and legitimate consequences of this and the contrary doctrine. Leaving, for the sake of brevity, the essential connexion of this doctrine with the whole of the ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION. 135 Scriptures and numerous passages where it is under- stood, we shall notice one only, which is conclusive. "The justice of the just shall not deliver him, in what day soever he shall sin : and the wickedness of the wicked shall not hurt him, in what day soever he shall turn from his wickedness And if I shall say to the wicked, thou shalt surely die; and he do penance for his sin, and do judgment and justice, and if that wicked man restore the pledge, and render what he had robbed, and walk in the com- mandments of life, and do no unjust thing, he shall surely live and shall not die. None of his sins, which he hath committed shall be imputed to him : he hath done judgment and justice, he shall surely live." (Ezekiel xxxiii. 12, 16, 18, 21.) To the Scriptures then must be attributed the principle and all the consequences of this doctrine. It is of them that we mud demand account, orxatber it is to them that we are indebted for having revealed to us the essential point of morality contained in those words. In fact, if justice oonaiata in the con- formity of our will (and of our actions as a mvessan consequence) to the law of God, the dinner who obtains pardon and Incomes conformed to it, Ixromes just. [f justice be a positive state of the human mind; it' com ersion, if the application of the i of (iod through the merits of the mediator be not I vain fiction, the man who has entered into this 136 ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION. state is actually the friend of God, and deserving of reward. If the time of probation be confined to this life, if rewards and punishments have a reference to this time, (and all religious morality is founded upon this maxim, and all philosophers from first to last have regarded this maxim as a boon conferred by Religion, as a supplement filling up what was wanting in human motives to effect the encrease of moral good, and the diminution of moral evil,) the man, who at the end of this term of probation is in a state of justice, must needs be in a state of salvation. Nor let us lose sight of the intrinsic and extrinsic conditions of conversion spoken of in the preceding chapter, and we shall be in a situation to say whether reason can refuse these principles of morality, or admit any others. What then are the legitimate consequences of these principles in their practical application to the con- duct of life? They alone suffice for producing consequences the most moral, that can enter into the conceptions of the human mind; but to be better convinced of this, let us examine the doctrine in all its parts. If on the approaching danger of an inundation a man were told of the necessity of removing to a place of safety, and were to ask whether he would be sure to perish if he did not retire at that moment, ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION. 137 what would be the answer that would naturally be given to him ? "No, it is not certain that you will perish by delaying your removal; the water itself may perhaps wash a plank near you, on which you may save yourself: it would be folly to deny a pos- sibility which is in the nature of things, nor would you suffer yourself to be misled by such a threat. But you put the question amiss, you are wrong in looking at so important a matter in an unreasonable point of view ; the longer you delay, the more diffi- cult your safety becomes; you should consider this difficulty and act accordingly, whereas, if you examine the possibility alone, you leave aside the most important part of the question ." Just so is it with respect to the salvation of the soul. Conversion is always possible, saith the Church, nor can she say otherwise; but it is difficult, and this difficulty increases in proportion as time passes away, as sins accumulate, as vicious habits increase, and as tin- patience of God is wearied and beconio deaf to the sinner's call ; consequently the difficult v is greatest when we are alxmt to die. The Church not only does not Hatter sinners that the) ina\ Come this difficulty, but she even warns them that they know not whether they will have it in their power to encounter It, n uncertain are the dm the mode of our death. 138 ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION. Hence the rules of conduct, which a reasonable man (and Religion like every system founded on truth, addresses herself to the reason) may derive from this doctrine are reduced to one, which our heavenly Master himself has given as the result of his instructions, "Be ye therefore ready, for in an hour when ye think not, the Son of Man will come." (Luke xii. 40.) It is therefore reasonable to live in such a manner that we may present ourselves before God with con- fidence at any moment; conversion, therefore, is as necessary for sinners at every moment, as perseve- rance is for the just; a conclusion this, than which it were impossible to conceive one more moral, more powerful, or more universal in its application to every action. So far therefore is it from being true that this doctrine has a reference solely to the hour of death, that it is eminently calculated to influence the whole conduct of life. But it will be objected, " what matters it whether immoral consequences be legitimately derived or not, seeing that they have been deduced, and that men have regulated their lives upon them ? You urge that wicked Catholics have reasoned falsely : be it so, but it is nevertheless this doctrine that has ever afforded them a source of mistaken confidence, and hence it is that they have spent their lives in crime, animated by the hope of dying well," ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION. 139 Supposing even that this were the case, I ask still, what am I to do ? Either it must be proved to be beneficial for men to be left without any doctrine on the means of a return to God, on his judgments, and on the rewards and punishments of a future life, or else that one should be delivered to them altogether different from that asserted by Revelation, and freed from all possibility of misconstruction. Let any man or sect come forward who dares to arrogate the power of doing this, and shall not the Church withstand him ? Shall she not say, because; as you assert, men have deduced criminal con- sequences from a true and holy doctrine, is it fat you to deliver one that is arbitrary ? If their incli- nations were not corrected by an infallible rule, to what extent of error will they not stray with a false one P But supposing such a one gave not ear to the remonstrance of the Church, nay, that hedisregarded all these difficulties and reasoned thus: "Catholics have been taught that as long as the sinner lives he may be converted and justified. They haw Ikcu told, it is true, that it ban al>Mirdit\ to render their own salvation more difficult, with similar cautions. Hut in spite of all these limitations the effect has Ixvn that there never was a sinnerm blinded by his passions, who did not intend to devote some days previous to his death to the cart 140 ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION. of his salvation; and with this belief gave loose to his disorderly inclinations. A remedy, therefore, and not a palliation, is wanting, we must go to the root of the evil, in other words, we must get rid of a doctrine which is necessarily ill-understood, and which (human nature being what it is) certainly produces evil results. Still in such matters we can- not remain without a doctrine of some kind: a middle doctrine is impossible; it is therefore neces- sary to establish the opposite doctrine, which is, that it is impossible for a man to return to God, it being evident that the possibility once admitted, it is of necessity applicable to every moment of life, even of course to the last. "Catholics have also been taught that a man's eternal doom depends on the state in which he departs this life. True, it has also been taught that the character of a man's death results for the most part from the nature of his life, in a word, a happy death is so great a blessing, that a whole life may well be employed in praying for it and in deserving it : not only is it not promised to the wicked, but 'tis threat- ened that they shall die in their sins: that on the contrary, the way to be sure of dying well is to live well, and other maxims of a like nature : but in spite of all this, men have fallen into the habit of only looking at the death of the sinner and not at his life, and the habit has become universal. We ought ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION. 141 therefore to teach, that a man's doom does not depend on the state in which he departs this life/' Let him then deliver this doctrine, but let him also tell us what will be the consequences derived from it in the moral conduct of the human race Man cannot return to God ! for the sinner then there remains nought but despair; a state incompatible witli every sentiment of piety, humanity, or dignity ; a horrible state, in which a man, were it possible for him to remain in it and to be quiet, could adopt no other rule than that of purchasing for himself as much pleasure as lie could, no matter at what cost. Man cannot return to God! away then with rcpen- tance, away with prayer, away with hope, away with redemption, away with the gospel: away then with the admonition of the sinner, erase to urge him to a change of life on supernatural motive. The doom of man depends not on the state in which he departs this life! away then with your distinctions between justice and injustice; for what would he that justice that could not restore a man to the friendship of his God, and what would be the friendship of that Qod that could consign such a justified sinner to eternal woes! No longer would it be true that there rewards and punishments for the actions of this mental life, \'<>v weave no longer to believe that I is a State in which a man can either til Of the other: alas' in one word, there will no 1, | 142 ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION. be one certain or overruling motive to act uprightly for a single moment of our lives. Such would be some of the consequences that must naturally result from such a doctrine, and with justice would they be deduced, could it once be promulgated and received, for alas ! men are better logicians, when they reason on false prin- ciples of morality, than on true ones ; and 'tis ob- vious, for the consequences derived from them are less opposed to man's corrupt nature, and the un- derstanding walks in them without being arrested at each step by contending passions. Under the dominion of the Catholic religion, 'tis passion that leads a man astray, but under that of the antago- nist doctrine, the more he reasoned, the more he would err. In the Catholic doctrine the surest way to prevent immoral consequences, is to refer men back to the doctrine ; but here it is in the doc- trine, that the immorality would consist. Such a doctrine is, however, so contrary to reason and to every sentiment of religion, that it has never been proposed, nor could it ever be received. Nor have we noticed it, but to prove that there is no alterna- tive between the doctrine of the Church and an absurdity. Let us now examine the state, or rather, the na- ture of those erroneous opinions, which have ex- isted in Catholic countries on this subject, embra- ()\ THE DELAY OF CONVERSION'. 143 cing various times and places, and let us ascertain to what extent these disorders have reached, springing as they do, not from the doctrine, but in spite of it, and in opposition to it. II. With regard to opinions. Erroneous opinions cannot be charged upon the doctrine. This, I think, I have already demonstrated, and the proposition is only repeated here in order to keep up the train of ideas. Neither do they arise from the teaching of it of this we will speak more at large bye ami 1>. They arise bom the penremon <>f the heart ; in fact, the man who is determined to live contrary to the law. vet cannot persuade himself that the law Ifl false, endeavours to reconcile as he can his actions with his belief. Man requires to he at peace with big understanding ; to act according to reason is alwa\s the course he would adopt, but when he is determined to act according to his PJBM10HBJ it is h\ means of sophist r\ that he makes |>eace between them and his reason. Religion teaches him that (iod is merciful wards him who repent^, and he says, I am d mined to repent -ome da\ or other. This delusion is a practical and not a s| K rulati\e 144 ON THE DELAY OF CON VERSION . error : the difference between the two is great. By practical errors, I mean those into which a man vo- luntarily falls, owing to circumstances, in order to justify, in some way, to his reason, the evil he has already resolved to commit ; and by speculative errors, those which are habitually entertained, even when there is no impulse of interest. These ope- rate at all times, and are powerful causes of perver- sion : the mildest man may be drawn by an errone- ous opinion into crime, to which he would not be led without it. Practical errors, on the contrary, are only admitted by minds already corrupted, and exist only while the passions are in a state of ex- citement ; they result, not from discussion, delibe- ration, or argument, but they are rather a mode of getting rid of an argument. If a man stopped to reason upon conversion, he would be forced to conclude upon the necessity ol immediate conversion ; but in order to avoid a conclusion, from which he shrinks, he says to him- self, I will reform at a future time : he does not fol- low up the train of thought, but seeks a distraction. Hence arises another essential difference. Errors of this kind are individual and not general in their operation ; I mean, they are not propagated by way of discussion, nor are they regarded as principles pub- licly recognized, or as a part of universal science. To a man disposed to be vicious, there is hardly ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION. 145 any thing which does not furnish an excuse, nor is it his object that others should participate in it, still less is he disposed to argue the point, for he is well aware that he is incapable of maintaining his position. This error is not propagated by making proselytes : a gross error indeed it is, and many fall into it, yet it can boast of no false teach- ers or deluded disciples. Finally, it can only be eradicated by the knowledge and love of the doctrine, of which it is the perversion. In order to remove abuses in a manner service- able to mankind, it is necessary to put things in a better condition without them, than they were in with them. I hope I have succeeded in demon- strating, that to substitute any other for the Catholic doctrine of conversion, would lx> but to cres succession of errors, still worse in their effects, and no less certain and universal in their operation: the Only means of diminishing which, is to dlffuSI , tO Btudy, and to love that religion which com- mands the practice of virtue, teaches us in what it consists, whi| r i( points out and opens all the \\a\ I that lead to it. Whin we inflect for a monu i the holy maxims of this religion, we ascertain to what a pitch of ignorance, forget fulness, and blind I man must have arri\ed, when he can live m aiekedneSI from the h<»}>c of repent ine; at a future day. It suffices not to do violence to the Scriptures 146 ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION. and to tradition, in order to derive from them any countenance for such a hope ; it is out of the ques- tion ; both the one and the other strive against it ; both pronounce sentence against it ; the man who would indulge such a hope must shut his ears to the voice of the Scriptures and of tradition, he must banish it from his recollection. No sooner does a man approach them with an understanding and a heart opened to receive them, than he feels he has no hope, unless he employs every portion of that time for which he must give an account to God, in walking in the law of God, and that there is no time allowed for sin ; that it is always necessary to ' walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time ; 1 (Ephes. v. 5, 16) ' and that the only reasonable conduct is to labour to make our calling and election sure. 1 (2 Peter, i. 10.) III. With Regard to the Inculcation of the Doctrine. The clergy do not teach a false doctrine, neither do they conceal the truth. Every one must perceive that the accused are too numerous to be brought to trial; still we may boldly defy our accusers to make good their charge, in reference to the instructions of the great mass of the clergy, to their sermons, or their devotional ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION. 147 works, with at most a very few exceptions, which we shall notice in their proper place. Let us take two or three passages of a few celebrated authors, as a specimen of their mode of inculcating it. u Mais serons-nous fort contens d'We penitence commencee a Tagonie, qui n'aura jamais ete eprou- vee, dont jamais on nWra vu aucun fruit ; d'We penitence imparfaite; d'We penitence nulle, dou- teuse, si vous le voulez ; sans forces, sans re- flexions, sans loisir pour en reparer les defauts ? * " lis meurent, ces pecheurs inveteres, coninu' ils ont vecu ; ils ont vecu dans le peehe, et Qfl meurent dans le peche; ils ont vecu dans la haiiu de Dieu, et ils meurent dans la haine de Dieu ; ils ont vecu en paicn-. el ils meurent en prouves : voila ce que lYxprrience nous apprend... De prtendre que dee habitudes oontract&e du Unite la rie m d&ruisenl aux approchee de la mart, et que dans on moment on se fasse alors un autiv esprit, un autre cMtively by Mich men as these, constituted, exclusively, the instruction of the Church on this subject. Let it not be objected that these are French .hi thors, whereas the question is, as to the effects ,,| the Catholic Religion in Italy. On the contrary, it ii quite to the point to quote French authors, as it is proved by them that it is not in Italy alone that this mental disorder, as our author very pie; * Massillon, "Sermon pour !•• I un.li poilf tie la iecon reaching 001 sion, that we have caused you to |X)stpone it, and tO live in M,,> Is it by -peaking t0 you of the picba <>f mercy, that ire haw- taught yo 152 ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION. spise them? We have told you, 'come, let us adore, and bow down ; let us fall prostrate before the Lord our Maker : we have said to you, to-day if you shall hear his voice, harden not your heart ,"* (Ps. xcv. 6. 8.) ; and you are counting upon a futurity we cannot promise you, and which we would endeavour to make you distrust ; and yet we forsooth are the authors of your obstinacy ! Of a truth, we are pure from your blood.'"* Thus would they answer, if words were neces- sary to justify the preaching of the gospel before the face of the world : or they might repel the accusa- tion, by the charges brought against them from another quarter, of terrifying men with horrible and gloomy ideas of death and judgment, in order to induce them to repent. But if the Church has so little confidence in death-bed conversions, why does she manifest so much anxiety to assist the dying sinner ? It is just because she has so little confidence, that she uses all her endeavours ; it is because the enterprize is difficult, that she employs all the charity of her heart and tongue. One ray of hope to save an err- ing child, is enough to keep the Church by his side ; but does she hereby teach a man to be satisfied * " Quapropter contestor vos hodierna die, quia mundus sum a sanguine omnium " Wherefore I call you to witness this day, that I am free from the blood of all men. Acts xx. 26. ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION. 153 with only one ? Ought those benevolent persons, who administer assistance to a man rescued from a river with little or no signs of life, to be accused of encouraging men to drown themselves ? And be it here observed, the language of the Church on this subject seems two-fold : she would strike terror into the minds of sinners, who, in the vigour of their health, live without God, flattering themselves with a confused idea of conversion at a distant period, whilst she seeks to give confidence to the dying. In this there is no contradiction, but rather we discern the dealings of prudence and of truth, for in both cases the sinner is disposed U) look but at one side of the question, and what the Church presents to his view is the side he for«_ To the former, so possessed with the idea of a pos- sibility, it is useful to represent the difficulty, while to the latter, who are so deeply impressed with the difficulty alone, one of the greatest obstacles to hifl conversion is his distrust of the mercy of Cod. Hitherto we have been shaking of the general in- struction of the Church, and we shall not |>erhaj» find a single example of any author in the Church who has taught directly the re\crse; hut truth de- mands that we explain the wav in which error ha- bMO Sometimes indirectly countenanced. Among the many disadvantages arrisin^ fa rhetoric*] style, (in the sense at least in whiel 154 ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION. word is understood by most people,) disadvantages, owing to which, it is often in opposition to the spirit of close reasoning and morality, one of the most common and striking, is that of exaggerating the good or evil in any thing, forgetting the relation which it may bear to others ; hence the complexion of truth is either weakened or destroyed, by an en- deavour to carry it too far. Such a style, which pleases many, who fancy they discern in it great powers of mind, where in fact there is nothing but weakness and an inability to embrace all the important rela- tions of a subject ; such a style, I say, has carried some away, who, through a wish to magnify some religious practice, have gone the length of attributing to it the power of ensuring to sinners their conver- sion at the hour of death. A false and pernicious assumption, an ill-judged flight of eloquence, mis- called popular, for that alone should be called popu- lar which tends to enlighten and to improve the people, not to foment their passions and their preju- dices. True it is, that those who sometimes gave way to these pitiable flights of exaggeration, failed not for the most part to mix some corrective with them ; but this afforded no adequate remedy for the evil communicated, seeing that men (if I may use the expression) willingly devour the honey, while they reject the wholesome bitter. But be it observed of such men as these, that, besides being uniformly ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION. 155 contradicted by all others, they even contradicted themselves, for such language was quite incompati- ble with their general doctrine; and had they seri- ously held it, and applied it to all cases, no longer could they have preached the gospel; it would have become a dead letter. It is to be hoped that in our day, at least, such irregularities have entirely ceased. To show the effect of " the habit of only looking at the death of the sinner" the author adduces I proof which we relate in his own words: u l* funeste influence de cette doctrine se fait sent Italie d\ine manlere eclatante, toutes les fois cjik quelque grand criminel est condamne a un supplier capital. La sok*n nite du jugement, el la certitude de la peine, frappent toujour* fa plus endurci ok terreur, puis de repentir. Aucun incendiaire, aucun brigand, aucun empeieoaneui m monte im Fecha- faud mi avoir i'ait,avec unecomponction prot'ondt. une bonne COnfeaaioPi une bonne communion. faire ensuiteune bonne mort ; son eonfesseur de< M Genbe nnhfianff que Fame (hi penitent a dej -on eheniin vers le ciel, et la populace se dispute au pied de l'echafaud les reliques tin noineau saint, ilu nouvcau martyr, (lout lea crimes l"avoicnt pen' L^lacee dYU'roi }>endant des ;iiiiiirs." I had never even heard of this Strang- More I read theaUne passage, but 1 156 ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION. ing my own ignorance to serve as an answer to an assertion, I leave the matter to those who know the state of Italy better than I do. The fact is of so public a nature, that it will be easy to establish the truth. I lay this down, however, as a maxim, that wheresoever such a superstition may exist, nothing was ever more repugnant to the doctrine of the Church. She receives, it is true, the criminal who is snatched by the hand of the law from the society of men, or from life : she interposes her ministry be- tween the judge and the executioner, for there is no situation in which a soul may be sanctified or con- soled, in which some natural repugnance is to be overcome, or a variety of painful feelings, leading to no temporal reward; there is, I say, no such situation that does not constitute a post of honour for the minister of the Church. In this position he places himself, and will continue to place himself, so long as those laws shall remain, that are enacted in the belief that certain crimes can only be diminished by the death of the criminal. Who can describe the anguish of that man, who, with the scaffold before his eyes, looks into his conscience, but finds only the recollection of his crimes ? Of that man, who is awaiting the stroke of death, to be endured not for the cause of God, but to expiate his passions ? And yet the Church was to refuse her endeavours to ON THE DELAY OF CONVERSION. 157 render this suffering beneficial to the unhappy be- ing, who was compelled to endure it ! It was a case, in which she was to forsake a man, in which she had no mercy to promise ! Ah ! no, she stretches open her arms to him, for she forgets not that even for him the blood of Christ was shed, and that it should not have been shed in vain she humbly hopes. But certainty she promises neither to him nor to others, and he, who would rashly lay hold on it, presumes upon her charity to trample under foot her doctrine. 158 CHAPTER X. On the Subsistence op the Clergy, considered as a cause of immorality. " Je ne parlerai point du scandaleux trafic des in- ce diligences, et du prix honteux que le penitent payoit te pour obtenir Tabsolution du pretre ; le concile de " Trente prit a tache d'en diminuer Tabus ; cependant iC encore auj our d'hui le pretre vit des peches du peuple " et de ses terreurs ; le pecheur moribond prodigue, " pour payer des messes et des rosaires, l'argent qu'il " a sou vent rassemble par des voies iniques ; il apaise Ci au prix de Tor sa conscience, et il etablit aux yeux t( du vulgaire sa reputation de piete." Pag. 416-417. Let us for a moment admit that the fact (which nevertheless we shall examine in the sequel) is as is stated above; let us admit that it exists at the pre- sent moment, and in Italy, for if we extended the admission to all times and places, it would amount to an acknowledgment that the religion of Jesus Christ had only produced an increase of wickedness and superstition upon the earth ; a proposition if possible more ridiculous than impious : one which would go far beyond even that of our author, who only speaks of the effects of the Catholic Religion in Italy. Let us admit then the fact, in order to draw ON THE SUBSISTENCE OF THE CLERGY. 159 from it some useful result, not an argument for declamation ; let us suppose that a man were com- missioned to propose a remedy for this sad state of things. How would he begin ? His first care would, doubtless, be to learn whether this custom were de- rived from a law, or whether it were an abuse. I know it is not the first time that this distinction has been mentioned, still it is necessary to repeat it, whenever we are unable to embrace the whole ques- tion without keeping it in view. If it be said to be the effect of a law, that law must be pnxluced to prove it : but the assumption is impossible, and ac- knowledged to be false by our author, who, in ac- cusing Italy of it, as contrasted with France ami Germany, does, in faet, make the admission, that Catholics as such are not hound hv it, and con- sequently, that it is not founded on any law of the Church. If it he said that it is an abuse, then it remains lor the individual supjx)sed no longer to bring objections against the law; hut t<> search far the origin of the evil in its non-e\ecut ion, and at once, the question assumes a totally nei character. He must enquire what the obstacles are which im- pede the natural effects of the law, or entirely jmv- vent tluin ; hi- should m vk in the law itself the means for securing its fulfilment. \\\ terpetua] doctrine of the Church on purgatory, 00 the assistance- that the souls detained in thai state receive from the pi > of the faithful, and principally from the acceptable MCrifice of the altar, after enjoining the bishops to • Mnssiiion, Discours ShumLu\. i.t. iv > passion des pauvres. 166 ON THE SUBSISTENCE OF teach and maintain this doctrine, adds, " those things which have an appearance of vain curiosity and superstition, or savour of filthy lucre, we prohibit as a scandal and a stumbling-block to the faithful. ,,# This is not the place for noticing these stumbling blocks, or for rebuking those who have thrown them on the path of salvation : nor indeed does such a task belong to one, who has no claim to authority in the economy of God^s Church. But to deny that such things have existed, to justify them by any spe- cious reasonings, or to represent that as necessary, to the church, which is a source of spiritual desolation and of shame, would be at once repugnant to truth and to the dictates of religion. Nor, on the other hand, can I admit that any feature in the argument has been left unnoticed in passing them over in silence, seeing that the reasons have already been stated, why it may be affirmed that though, doubt- less abuses, have existed, still so execrable an one as * Cum Catholica Ecclesia Spiritu Sancto edocta ex sacris Uteris, et antiqua Patrum traditione, in sacris Conciliis, et novis- sime in hac cecumenica Synodo docuerit Purgatorium esse, animas- que ibi detentas fidelium suffragiis, potissimum vero acceptabili altaris Sacrificio juvari; praecipit Sancta Synod us Episcopis, ut sanam de Purgatorio doctrinam a Sanctis Patribus, et a sacris Conciliis traditam a Christi fidelibus credi, teneri, doceri, et ubique praedicari diligenter studeant. — Ea vero quae ad curiositatem quam- dam aut superstitionem spectant, vel turpe lucrum sapiunt, tam- quam scandala, et fidelium offendicula prohibeant. Cone. Trid. sess. xxv. Decret. de Purgatorio. THE CLERGV. 167 that of substituting donations for duties, and of quieting the conscience at the price of gold, is an abuse that never did possess an existence. On the contrary, the Church has ever spoken her mind by means of her councils, her popes, and her bishops: one example of zeal and sincerity, among a thousand others, may be found in the synodal discourses of the bishop we have just quoted, of that Massillon, who was doubtless one of the brightest lights that ever shone on earth for the instruction of the human race, and whose eloquence is perhaps unequalled.* The most violent and subtle enemy of the Church could never represent the horrible effects of avarice, when it has entered the heart o a minister of the sanctuary, with more vehemence or point; nor could any BOD of the Church, ho v. docile and tender be might be, deplore them with deeper sorrow and humility, or a livelier desire to B6I BUCh B deformity removed. Hut we at least do not believe it so easy a m. to 0008688 this spirit of impartiality, for in judging Of the failings of priests, ue are but too apt tO yield to those unhappy prejudices which arise from a fooling, which is alas! too general, of aversion for their holy ministry. They, who point out to us the narrow path of sal vat ion, who combat our inclinations, • Uesnli's tin- i.Tini! a, course, see th • re*. 168 ON THE SUBSISTENCE OF and who, by their very habit, remind us that there is a Judge, whose ministers they are, that there is a ministry to bind and to loose, and that there is an example they are appointed to hold forth to our imitation; alas! they present an occasion too tempt- ing for our corrupt senses to suffer it to escape ; the aversion of flesh and blood for the law is too deep- rooted not to extend itself to those who preach obe- dience to it, while it suggests the insinuation that they at least follow it not, and have, therefore, the less right to oblige us to do so, who learn it from them. It is this aversion which in part leads us to blame them all for a fault that is co (fined to a very few, which urges us to say, that nothing would be more worthy of our respect than the ministry of the Church, if only there were any who discharged the office worthily, while we shut our eyes to any indi- vidual who is presented to our view as one that does discharge it worthily, or we misrepresent the vir- tues, the existence of which we cannot deny. Hence, if the zealous conduct of a priest, whose voluntary poverty and generosity are too evident, forbids the suspicion of avarice, he will at least be accused of wishing to rule men, to direct or influence them, and thus to secure honour. If his conduct be so far removed from intrigues, so candid and so simple as to rebut this insinuation, he is iX least a restless fanatic, or an intolerant zealot. If his conduct THE CLERGY. 169 breathe nothing but love, tranquillity and patience, it is attributed to prejudice, to littleness of mind, or an unenlightened judgment; admirable reasons by which the world accounts for the very perfection of all virtue, and for the brightest triumph of the reasoning power of man. Yes ! there are priests, who despise those riches, of which they announce the vanity and the danger ; priests who would blush to receive a gift from the poor man, but would defraud themselves to succour him in his need ; who receive from the rich with a noble modesty and an inward feeling of repugnance, who when they stretch out their hand, console them- selves only with the thought that they shall soon open it again to distribute among the poor that money, which in their eves i- tar from compensating a minis- try that can have no adequate reward hut in the love Of their God. Tluv pa->s through the world, and hear its jr>ts on the covctousnc>> of the priest8, they hear them, and they could lift up their voice and show their pure hands, and a heart only anxious for those treasures which neither moth nor ruM doth COITUpf (Matt. vi. 20); covetous onh of the salva tion of'thdr brethren; but thej forbear, the] silent, th \ devour with eager joy, the Boornful insults tXCOWj and have either ordered or advised remedies A consequence here presents itself, no less Singular • M L' indulgcnzu v una remission** rii c-uella peni temporal*?, !» quale |mt lo | in n-stu da seontarsi, in questa o ncll' u'.i divina ^iisti/ia dopo rimessa la eolpa hi pma rti ma.'' (i) Com- pemlio drlla dotttiua ClIstiSJMl cavata dal fltBfhJIWO Honiai Milano lsl 1. pif, i2 172 ON INDULGENCES. than true; every complaint against the excess in granting indulgences is in fact an act of homage to the Catholic doctrine of satisfaction. Because an indulgence being a commutation of punishment and a diminution of satisfactory works, whoever regards the diminution as excessive, declares in plain terms that the satisfaction is just and useful, while he ad- mits that if we take away satisfaction altogether, we should be carrying the principle of an indulgence to the utmost possible length, thus changing an excess that has sometimes been committed in practice into a rule of action, converting a passing abuse into a perpetual law, and at once depriving it of all those correctives which an abuse necessarily carries with it, inasmuch as abuses seldom openly and directly strike at the letter of the law. 3. Does the excess in the granting of indulgences operate against the principles of morality ? No never : " The regulations established in the dispensation of indulgences," says Bossuet, " was a point of discipline. 1 ' This being granted, an excess in the granting of indulgences is evidently an abuse: but the Catholic Church is so constituted, that an abuse cannot affect the principles of morality, because these are not matters of discipline, but of faith. Every essential principle of morality being an article of faith, they can only be destroyed by a doctrine that establishes a contrary principle. Let us now OX INDULGENCES. 173 examine the matter, and we shall find that the prin- ciples of morality remain untouched, even though there be the greatest possible excess in the granting of indulgences. There are two essential maxims which we must mention, one in the words of Massillon, and the other in those of Bossuet; not because they are the only authors that inculcate them, for all others do the same, nor is there a single dissentient voice, but that we may not lose an opportunity of convey- ing such an important idea, especially when expressed with such accuracy and elegance. Ne nous flat tons point que nos fautes soient piees, si elles n'ont pas ete detestees; necrovons pas que les graces de V Eglise nous aient purifies, si elles ne nous ont pas chgngta; ne comptons sur son in- dulgence qu'autant que nous pouvons compter BUT un sincere repentir.* The oonvenaon of the heart, then, is a necessary disposition for the gaining of an indulgence. Mais il se faut bien garder de s'hnaginer que r intention de PEglise soit de nous deeharger par Pindulgence de V obligation de satisfaire a Dieu : au Oemtraire, P esprit dc PKgliso est de nfacOOfder Pin- dulgence qifa ceux (jui m* mettent en devoir de satisfaire de lour cot-' u la justice divine, autant que • Massillon, Maiulcnunt potff lu publication du Jubilo, 10 1791 174 ON INDULGENCES. Tinfirmite humaine le permet : et T indulgence ne laisse pas de nous etre fort necessaire en cet etat, puisqu' ay ant, comme nous avons, tout sujet de croire que nous sommes bien eloignes d* avoir satis- fait selon nos obligations, nous serions trop ennemis de nous-memes, si nous h'avions recours aux graces et a T indulgence de TEglise.* In order, therefore, to gain an indulgence, it is necessary that we be disposed to satisfy the Divine Justice as far as human infirmity permits, which dis- position cannot be sincere unless accompanied by a life of penitence. ' These two dispositions presumed ; the most ample indulgence attached to the most trivial work is in perfect accordance with all the principles of mo- rality ; because the justice of God is not outraged by the remission of punishment obtained on such con- ditions. To controvert the notions we have of this justice, it would be necessary to say that indulgences obtain the remission of punishment without the conversion of the heart and a desire to satisfy, but such an impiety as this, thank heaven, is not taught by any one in the Church. But, you will object, how are we to reconcile the mercy of God with the chastisement reserved for those who are not in a situation to obtain pardon by adopting such easy means ? * Bossuet, instructions necessaires pour le Jubile. Art. 1. ON INDULGENCES. 175 Here be it observed, that it is almost impossible to find a case in which a member of the Church is deprived of all means of recourse to the indulgences of the Church. But even supposing such a case, the Church is far from saying that punishment is reserved for such an individual: she dispenses the ordinary means of mercy, which God has entrusted to her, but she pretends not to circumscribe or to measure his infinite mercy: she never asserts that " Quei che leva e quando e cui gli place." — " He, who lifteth up both when and whom he will,"* cannot grant pardon to an earnest desire to obtain it by means of the Church, even though every avenue to obtaining it through this direct means be closed. 4. If an excess in the g rant tag of an indulgence does not operate in violation of the principlM o4 morality, what effect does it produce? An injurious effect doubtless, like all other cesses, and we need not fatigue ourseUes In -carch- ing for it, Becillg that we are told by the Council of Trent that its effect is to enervate discipline. "The holy synod desires that moderation should he used in granting indulgences, according to the ancient and approved custom i)\' the Church, by too great condecension ecclesiastical discipline should be enervatcd.^-f* • Dunte. PllipUttlo (unto 1 1 v. 95. f Sacrosmieta Synodns.. in his ( imliilpriiti;- ' dendis BIOdtiltkMIMBi juvt.i caterem 91 pVObttUB 176 ON INDULGENCES. In fact, if an indulgence affords facilities for the fulfilment of the duty of satisfaction, the excess of it would amount almost to a total exoneration from this obligation; and the same merciful reason for which God has imposed satisfaction on us, affords a motive for moderation in the granting of indulgences, "de peur," says Bossuet, " que sortant trop promptement des liens de la justice, nous ne nous abandonnions a une temeraire confiance, abusant de la facilite du pardon.'" Exposition de la Doctrine de l'Eglise, But is this supposed excess to be found in the examples quoted by our author ? To answer this question is not my business, nor is the answer of the least importance, seeing that it has been already ex- plained how the principle of an indulgence is to be reconciled with the principles of morality, which was the case in point. consuetudinem, adhiberi cupit; ne nimia facilitate ecclesiastica disciplina enervetur. Sess. xxv. Deer, de Indulg. 177 CHAPTER XII. On the Circumstances that Decide our Salvation or Damnation. (John xx. 23.) But no one has ever understood that salvation is so dependent on absolution that it cannot be hoped for the man, who has it not in his power to receive this distinguished blessing. Besides that it is possible for a man to preserve, throughout his whole life, his baptismal innocence, by not falling into any mortal sin that would deprive him of the grace of God, (and although the world discerns them not, those just souls have not ceased who pass through it un- contaminated by its customs and vices,) besides all this it is the express doctrine of the Church and the faith of all Catholics, that the repentance of him, who is unable to receive absolution, but who heartily desires it, and is truly contrite, will be accepted by God. OUR SALVATION OR DAMNATION. 179 When God gave his ministers power to absolve from sin, can we imagine that it was ever his design to make pardon impossible in certain cases? Or were the gifts he bestowed upon his Church to lessen his omnipotence and his mercy ? Or because he had vouchsafed to make an instrument of the hand of man, was his own arm shortened that it could not save* those whom he had converted to himself? Even had this false persuasion existed, it was doubtless not to be traced to the first or third of those causes here adduced. Not to the power attributed to repentance, because this power would render ab- solution less necessary to a soul already returned to God, nor to the power attributed to indul for no one ever thought that they could remit the pain of eternal damnation. As to flHgk monies, I say nothing about them, as I do not exactly know what are here alluded to. The Church is so far from surmising that the eternal lot of a dying man can ever be decided h\ chance, and not by his moral conduct, that she ifl not even acquainted with the term chance (/i not intend to sj>eak \ rccisely ol those which, in tlic strict sense, and in cutechctictl 'm. i;:u-. , are termed ' the Commandments of the Church,' !>nt rather, under il more eom|>iehen-i\e \ iew olthej \c.Ttd Of llDCtiO— d hy her, and it is m this sense that we also shall take them. 184 ON THE PRECEPTS OF THE CHURCH. 1. The Church professes to give no precept that does not ordain an action which is virtuous in itself, or is else a means of purifying, sanctifying, and elevating the soul ; in a word, of facilitating the fulfilment of the divine law. If this be denied, let the vicious or indifferent precepts of the Church be adduced : if it be conceded, how ridiculous it is to talk of her having " placed her command- ments side by side with the great table of virtues and vices? seeing that she has put them in their proper place. Moreover, . the assertion that the knowledge of virtue and vice, is naturally imprinted in our hearts, is not to be taken for granted, but forms a question to be discussed here, if it had not already been treated in a foregoing chapter. 2. It is not true to assert that the Church has not given to her own commandments the same sanction as that which accompanies the command- ments of God, for they also come from God, and she would distrust the authority given to her by her Divine Founder, if she acted otherwise. " He that heareth not the Church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. (Matt, xviii. 17) Not only so, but she does make salvation dependent on the observance of her commands; because the transgression of them, can only proceed from a heart that is obstinate and careless of that true life ON THE PRECEPTS OF THE CHURCH. 185 which is only given to him who sighs after it, who values it, and who seeks after it in the way ap- pointed by Jesus Christ. This is her perpetual doctrine, so manifest and so universal, that every Catholic can attest the fact. But the essential point we have to examine is, the effect attributed to these commandments, which, it is pretended, are a kind of horrible substitute for the eternal laws of morality, and an excuse for dis- obeying them without remorse ; this is the point of view, and the only one, in which they are considered in the passage quoted at the head of this chapter. And here two objects present themselves for our consideration : the fact itself, and its dependence on the essential principles of the (lunch. The fact is a most important part of moral ti-tics. And here I shall endeavour to point out, what appear to me, the maxims that should be kepi in view, and the enquiries that should be made, in order to come to a knowledge of it. That religion commands only what is holy, is a proposition which, I think, no one will call in question; hence, a sincere and entire fulfilment of the dictatei <>r religion is incompatible with any crime; and as the man who is determined to be vicious cannot reconcile his actions with religion, as it i^ in- either forsakes it altogether, or tri alter it ; he becomes either impious or su|)erstitiQUS, 186 ON THE PRECEPTS OF THE CHURCH. In the former case, his hatred to the precepts, he is unwilling to observe, leads him to wish they were mere human fictions, and his remorse at hav- ing violated them, will sometimes even change this desire into a conviction. But there is another species of error into which he may fall : he perceives that crime excludes him from the portion of the just, still he cannot cease to believe in the promise, and he is unwilling to re- nounce it : he endeavours to forget that ' whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, is guilty of all ? (James ii. 10.) he would fain be faithful to those portions of it, which do not require the sacrifice of his darling sin. He knows that it is an act of duty to obey certain com- mandments, and by doing so, he flatters himself that he will not be quite out of the path of duty, and that he may still keep one foot in the way of salvation ; he thinks he is not quite forsaken by God, seeing he still observes some little that God commands. And the darkness of his mind may be so excessive, as to lead him to fancy that such acts as these, unaccompanied though they be, by the love of justice, are a sort of expiation, (for where will a mind stop that is a slave to the pas- sions ?) and he will mistake for religious feeling, what is nothing more than the delirium of impiety. Now, in order to decide whether a downright ON THE PRECEPTS OF THE CHURCH. 187 contempt for religion, or such a superstition as this, be the more common error of Italian criminals, it is no difficult task to conceive what enquiries ought to be made; to visit the prisons, to enquire of their inmates, sentenced to those dungeons for black offences, whether they cherish feelings of re- spect for the Church, or speak of her with derision; to demand of those, whose duty it is to question and examine them ; to enquire of the parish priests, (though you will suspect them, forsooth, of partiality) if those who gave themselves up to vice were distinguished by the observance of the precepts of the Church ; in short, to take the most accurate information. As it is not in my power to do all this, I can only advance an opinion, which is founded, I confess, on the tendency we all have to form a general judgment on facte that have a re- lation tO it, even though the instances he not suffi- ciently numerous or certain to enable us to demon- strate its truth to others If my opinion, then, be ttlkedj it is this, that amongst those of my coun- trymen who have fallen into an unhappy career of ciimc, but little wSH you now lind of super>tition, too much of absolute carelessness about ever) thing connected nritfa religion. Nor would it Btiffioe to induce DM 10 abandon this opinion, to Urge that our author has advanced one totally opposite to it, MBing that) whatever be the weight o\' his autho 188 ON THE PRECEPTS OF THE CHURCH. rity, a decision, on an assemblage of facts, cannot be admitted but after many proofs and much rea- soning. I am but too well aware, that many foreigners view Italy with an evil eye, and receive with avidity every thing that can be urged to prove the superstition of my country, without stopping to make a single enquiry ; but I am not so per- suaded of the justice or wisdom of such conduct. Without, therefore, claiming any superior power for my own judgment, I submit my opinion to the candid examination of those who are capable of enquiring and of sifting into the matter. Although the object of this work is not the de- fence of Italy, but that of religion, still, I cannot but protest against the interpretation that may be given to the instance adduced by our author, by those foreigners who are accustomed to believe even worse than what they have been told of this much calumniated country ; and who, when they hear of assassins observing the abstinences of the Church, fill their heads with the notion, that Italy is inha- bited by a race of men, something between the robber and the monk. Should any accident throw this little work into the hands of such an one, it is for him to say, whether it be asking too much to request that he would make some further enquiry before he forms such an opinion of a nation. But to come to the connection of such facts as ON THE PRECEPTS OF THE CHURCH. 189 these with the principles of the Church ; the im- pression, which for the honour and truth of religion it is most important to remove, is that which may arise against the spirit and precepts of the Church, from seeing these precepts represented as opposed to the laws of morality, from seeing abstinence placed hand in hand with murder, and (in other passages which I have not thought it necessary to quote,) devotion towards sacred images, with liber- tinism, an observance of the fasts of the Church, with perjury, as if these things were, in a manner, cause and effect ; for it is pretended that the degree of wickedness is, I might say, in progressive ratio to the degree of fidelity to the precepts of the Church. Monstrous assumption ! which it is al- most degrading to notice ; for where is the connec- tion between these two things? the ideal, Bfl well as the nanus are repugnant to each other ; there is no point where they agree, the distance between them is that between gd and evil. No, never has the Church pretended to substitute her laws for those of morality, nor is it possible to conceive any pre- cepts more in oonformity with all the perfect and eternal principles of morality ; nor would it be ought but the raying of impiety, (bra Christian to imagine himself excused from them bj theex- terior observance of an) of these precepts ; a deli- rium this, so extravagant, that we inav almost question its existence Jh 190 ON THE PRECEPTS OF THE CHURCH. It is one thing to admit that wicked men have maintained an external fidelity to the commands given by the Church to facilitate the fulfilment of all justice, while, at the same time, they trampled under foot those more weighty commandments on which the preservation of society depends ; and it is quite another to assert that this fidelity has en- couraged them to trample the latter under foot. They have observed, indeed, the easier part of the law, they have only committed those sins which they could not refuse to their corrupt inclinations; they have not added a contempt for all the precepts of religion to the violation of some of them, for this contempt offered them not a sufficient inducement to commit the sin ; this is precisely the clue to their state of mind. But even supposing there were the ivicked and vicious individual, who felt himself exempted from the rules of morality, in proportion to his regularity in observing the com- mandments of the Church, it would still remain to be proved, what support could be found for such a system, in the maxims and precepts of the Church; it would still be necessary to show the point from whence he started, in order to arrive at such a de- lusion, to declare what institutions could keep in order a mind and heart like those which such an individual is supposed to possess. Talk of the devotion with which an assassin abstains from meat ! Devotion indeed ! Alas ! such a feeling, ON THE PRECEPTS OF THE CHURCH. 191 combining, as it does, self-denial with love, is im- measurably distant from the heart of him, who has resolved the death of a brother ! But, oh ! he keeps abstinence ! and what then ? Has the Church in commanding him to be temperate, to abstain from flesh on certain days, to overcome his appe- tites and to mortify his unruly body, ever given him any sanction for the commission of murder ? Or was the Church to abstain from commanding all men to keep a bridle on gluttony, because there are some brutal enough to commit murder ? Was she to impose no more penance, for fear of encou raging sin? What evil can result from having two different commandments, so long as they do not contradict each other ? It is impossible to ima- gine any system of morality, or rule of lite, in whUh their will not be obligations of various kinds and different importance : ]>erfect morality is that in which every obligation is derived from one prin- ciple, and each directed to one common end, and that amost holy one. Such is the morality of the Chinch, nor can anv such he found elsewhere. [| it then, I ask, to he believed that the Church has never obtained this remits this holy end! In the passage we are controverting, mention i» made hut of one of the many |x>ssible relations between her precepts and general morality, the fulfilment of them, combined with a p e r seve rance in a 192 ON THE PRECEPTS OF THE CHURCH. But is it just that a code of discipline instituted, en- forced, and revered by such an illustrious society as the Catholic Church, should receive no attention, but as it is obeyed by some murderer, some prosti- tute, some perjurer? Can it be denied that virtuous Catholics are observers of the Church's precepts? and if so, is it possible that such observance should have no influence on their conduct ? Oh ! no, we are told that an honourable obedience can never be in conformity with reason, nor the love of the rule which would make us prefer what is prescribed, to what we should rather choose, nor abstinence, which frees the soul from sensual inclinations, nor the ve- neration of devout images, lifting the mind up as it does to heavenly things, prevailing from that very power which the senses possess to turn it to evil, nor the habit of worshipping God, of vigilance, and of self-denial, nor in fact, any of the effects the legislator had in view : oh ! no, all this was a result that never could be obtained! Neither was it pos- sible for any Catholic to become more faithful to that celestial morality to which our corrupt propen- sities ought to be sacrificed, in proportion to his re- gularity in observing the commands of the Church. But the world itself bears witness that there have been such, if in no other way, by laughing at their scruples: yes, the world, that affects to pity them as much for their fear of injuring others by word or ON THE PRECEPTS OF THE CHURCH. 193 deed, and of omitting the least work of charity, as for their fear of tasting a forbidden food. Would there be less crime by abolishing the com- mandments of the Church? No: but there would be fewer religious sentiments, fewer works indepen- dent of temporal impulses and ends, fewer works directed to the state of perfection for which man was created, that state which will be fully developed in a future life, but which every one is required to aim at in this. History is filled with the notice of bad men, who were far from obeying these precept B, or performing any acts of piety. When examples are found of a wicked life mingled with religious practices, dictated by a certain feeling, I know not what, and not by any human motive, writers imme- diately seize hold of them; nor are they perhaps out of order in so doing, seeing that the union of things so contrary as wickedness and Christian observances, and the continuance of a certain respect towards a religion which never commanded ought but what was good in that heart which makes choice iA' evil, 19 hut too striking a fact tor observation, as a melan- choly phenomenon of human nature. Louis \l , as we are informed' l>\ Bossuet, honour! ■v (he most abandoned men? To this question we may reply with confidences Bering thai He who cannot err has already provided the words lor our pur- pose: "Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, h crites I for ye pay tithe of meat) and anise, and CUimnin, and have omitted the weight iei matt« is ot the law, judgment, innrv, and faith" Thus sjM)ke the Son of God ; and what I con- trast be t ween the Importance of the preo pts I 198 ON THE PRECEPTS OF THE CHURCH. gressed, and those obeyed ! Yet we see what was the advice he gave to those deluded men. He does not undervalue the lesser command, or even the scrupulous fulfilment of it,* although he puts it in comparison with the most weighty precepts of the law ; nay, even that the consideration of judg- ment, mercy, and faith, may not suppose a dis- regard of the former ; and that it may be evident that the sin consists in the transgression of the lat- ter, not in the observance of the former ; that what- ever is commanded is holy, and that whatever is pious is also useful, He adds : " These it be- hoved you to do, but not to leave the other un- done.'^ * The law did not command the payment of tithe of the smaller herbs. Archbishop Martini's note on the above passage, f Matthew xxiii. 23. 199 CHAPTER XIV. Or Detraction. i( La morale proprement dite n'a cependant jamais te cesse d'etre Fobjet des predications del'Eglise; mais " l'interet sacerdotal a corrompu dans Tltalie moderne u tout ce qu'ila touche. La bienveillance mutuelle est " le fondement des vertus sociales ; le casuiste la re- " duisant en precepte, a declare qu'on pechoit en di- u sant du mal de son prochain ; il a empeche chacun l( d'exprimer le juste jugement qui doit discerner la " vertu du vice, il a impose silence aux accens de la " verite ; mais en accoutumant ainsi a ce que les mots " n'exprima8sent point la pensee, il n'a fait que redou- " bier la secrete defiance de chaque homme a 1'egard M de tous les autres." P. 419, 420. Thk doctrine that forbids us to speak evil of our neighbour) is so manifestly the doctrine of the Church, that the casuists, who have professed it. may safely throw the whole responsibility < UpOO ber, If, then, the Church he intcrro^at. the reasons that have induced her to make it a pre- cept, her reply will be, that it is not she who has made it a precept : that it b God who has glVO) it 200 OF DETRACTION. to her : that besides its intimate connection with the whole teaching of the gospel, this precept is fre- quently intimated in the most express terms in both the Old and New Testaments. Let one example suffice, for brevity's sake : "Be not deceived those who speak evil shall not inherit the king- dom of God." (1 Cor. vi. 9, 10.) But has this sentence need of j ustification ? or is there any one who would wish to substitute a contrary one for it ? A charge is here brought against it, that it has prevented men from expressing that just judgment which should distinguish virtue from vice ; thus imposing silence on the voice of truth, and increas- ing the motives of distrust between man and man. But our author surely does not wish that a ques- tion so complex and intricate should be looked at only in one point of view. Even though a precept were an obstacle to some good, it would be but fair to weigh all its effects, and to compare them with the evil it prevents ; for it would be very singular if a prohibition, the object of which is to make men spare each other, were only an obstacle to what is useful. Are the love of truth, and the desire to form a correct judgment between virtue and vice, the usual and the principal motives that urge us to speak evil of our neighbour ? And are the ordinary OF DETRACTION. 201 effects of so doing, to bring truth to light, to se- cure honour to virtue, and detestation to vice ? A single glance at society is sufficient to convince us of the contrary, while it exhibits the true motives, the real character, and the common effects of de- traction. How is it, that in the idle conversations of the world, when the vanity of each, who would occupy others with himself, finds an obstacle to his object in the vanity of all the rest, who are aiming at the same thing, endeavouring, as they do, by every secret twist and turn, sometimes even without dis- guise, to attract that attention which is bo rarely granted : how is it, I pray, that such BUCCM tends the man, the point of whose conversation is turned to the detraction of his neighbour, it* it be not that so many passions sigh for relief from such discourse? And what passions 1 Passions, such as pride, which whispers oui own superiority while we behold the degradation of others; which reconciles us to our own del suggesting that others have the same, or evei. worse' Miserable condition of man ' SagCf afn I perfection, he refuses the assistance proffered In religion, to assist his advance towards thai abso- lute perfection f<»r which he was created, whilst he wearies himself for the attainment of i ne I hut comparative: he pants not to be a good man, but 202 OF DETRACTION. to be good only when compared with the evil ; his aim is to compare his speed with others, not to reach the goal. Passions, such as envy, which is insepa- rable from pride ; envy, which rejoices at evil as charity rejoices at good ; envy, which breathes more freely when a fair reputation is tarnished, and when it is proved that there is some virtue or some talent wanting. Passions, such as hatred, which makes us so ready to believe evil ; such as interest, that makes us dislike competitors : these, and such as these, may be numbered amongst the passions which naturally dispose us to the hearing and the uttering of detraction, which partly explain the brutal pleasure a man has in ridiculing and con- demning others, and the facility with which he convinces himself of the existence of evil, while he refuses to admit the existence of a good action or of an upright intention, without a rigid inquiry. It is not surprising that religion will have nothing to do with such passions as these, or with that which puts them in operation ; or how should materials so vile, and so incapable of any combina- tion, enter into that structure of love and of humi- lity, of worship and of reason, that she desired to erect in the hearts of all men ? There is in detraction a character of meanness, which renders it a sort of secret accusation, and even in this point of view forms a striking contrast with OF DETRACTION. 203 the spirit of the gospel, which is all candour and dignity; which abhors all the secret ways by which a man inflicts an injury without exposing himself to view, while in those combats that are necessary for the defence of justice, she enjoins as much as pos- sible a conduct which is the dictate of a courageous spirit. He who censures the absent, does so, for the most part, without any personal risk; he declares war against one who cannot defend himself, while he stoops to flatter, in a manner more degrading than ingenious, the man who listens to him. Thou s/ta/f not curse the deaf man, (Levit. xix. 14.) is one of the merciful and profound injunctions of the Mo- saic law; and Catholic moralists, in applying it to the absent, have shown that they felt the true spirit of a religion which requires, that when a man i> bound to combat another, he should do so without abandoning charity on the one hand, or the rules of the nicest courtesy on the other. Detraction, say some, is a kind of censorship that keeps men in the path of duty. No doubt, hut in the same way that a tribunal composed of JU< prejudiced against a prisoner, where he was neither confronted with his accusers nor heard in his own defence, where the counsel who undertook his de- fence would he discouraged ami ridiculed, n charge believed to he tine; in the same way that such a tribunal would tend to diminish crhnr. 204 OF DETRACTION. it is a truth, found by experience, that men are accustomed to yield belief to ill-natured reports upon grounds, which, in a question where it was their interest to examine, would fail to exhibit the slightest appearance of probability. Detraction injures the speaker, the hearer, and but too often, him who is the object of it. Sup- posing that it lashes an innocent person, (and what- ever be the number of human faults, the number of unjust accusations and insinuations is always still greater), what a temptation is it not for him ! Reluctantly determined to tread the thorny path of virtue, he proposed, as his motive, the approbation of men ; he was full of that opinion, so common, and yet so false, that virtue is always known and appre- ciated: suddenly he sees it disregarded, and he begins to think that it is but an empty name : his soul, hitherto pampered with the cheering and tran- quillizing ideas of applause and concord, no sooner tastes the bitterness of being hated, than the sandy foundation, on which his virtue was built, gives way : happy if he be taught by that experience, that the praise of men is no certain reward, nor indeed any adequate reward at all for virtue. Ah, yes ! if distrust reigns among men, the facility of detraction is one of the principal causes. He who has seen a man put on the smile of friend- ship while pressing the hand of another, and yet the OF DETRACTION. 205 moment his back was turned has heard him charge him with evil actions, suggesting motives, entering as it were into the sanctuary of his thoughts, or at least censuring his conduct, must naturally distrust all men; he must believe that the expressions of esteem and disapprobation in their mouths, proceed from baseness or malignity. If, on the contrary, detraction were banished, confidence would increase, and along with it benevolence and peace : if every man when he embraced another, could be sure that he would not afterwards become the object of hi> censure or derision, he would do so with a readier spirit, a purer and more unrestrained sense of charity. Many people imagine that areluctanee in suppos- ing the existence of evil, springs from excestivi simplicity or inexperience, aa if it were a mark of dose observation to conclude that every man in every case chose the worst part: whereas, on tlu contrary, a disposition to judge with indulgence, to examine into hasty accusations, and to compassionate real faults, requires a habit of reflection, not only on the complicated motives that influence human actions, but on the very nature and weakness of man lie who is informed of the har>h judgment that has been, witheuj itifldent foundation, pronoti against him, Wd^ at once, in the keenest manner, a ' injustice inflicted from a quarter win • 20b* OF DETRACTION. was far from suspecting it. He has acted in the situa- tion, in which he was placed, under the influence of circumstances, of sentiments, and of opinions, of which he alone perceived all the bearings: with these the detractor was not acquainted, he judged ab- stractedly of an action by rules, the just application of which he was unable to determine; or perhaps he found fault with a man, because he did not act as he himself would have done, or because he had not the same passions. And even when a man is forced to acknowledge within himself that the censures passed upon him were not void of truth, he is still much more often affected with a feeling of animosity than of any desire of amendment ; far from endea- vouring to reform himself, he examines into the conduct of his detractor, to see if he can find any weak side open to his recrimination : impartiality is a rare virtue in all, but especially so amongst those who have been offended. Thus are the foundations laid of a miserable warfare, a restless activity in examining and disclosing the faults of each other, which increases the disregard of our own. Can we then be surprised, that when our interests clash with those of another, there should be so much anger and hostility, and such a propensity to mu- tual injury? We have been prepared for it by thinking and saying so much about it ; we are accustomed in our conversation not to forgive, to OF DETRACTION. 207 rejoice in the degradation of another, even to injure those who are not our rivals ; we treat strangers as enemies, and how is it possible for us to assume the sweetness and the looks, in a moment of trial, that demands all the self-possession of one long inured to restraint ? The Church, whose aim it is to establish the reign of fraternal charity, requires men to think no evil, to mourn when they see it, to speak of the absent with that delicate attention which self-love accustoms them to use towards those who are pre- sent. To regulate actions, she restrains the tongue ; and to regulate this, she sets a watch over the heart. There are two kinds of religious injunctions. which are sometimes separated and condemned, but which ought, on the contrary, to be united and ad- mired. Of the first kind are constant prayer, watch- fulness over the senses, a perpetual striving against the excessive love of this world, a reference of e\ ei \ thing to the glory of God, a mortification of c\rr\ immoderate desire, and tin* like. Of such as these it is said that they are miserable, painful restraint^ upon the freedom of the mind, without conducing to any uscfnl raSlllf ; practices only fitfor the eklSfe i Of the BeCOtld kind are those remedies, fMflttfftfful it is true to Beshand blood, l)iit required by justice, and admitting of no exception; remedies which imply sacrifices at once repugnant to tin- mii «> sacrifices) which our servile hearts consider b 208 OF DETRACTION. but which reason pronounces nothing beyond what strict justice demands. When mention is made of these, we are immediately told that we ought to take men as they are, and not expect perfection from human nature. But it is because religion knows the weakness of the nature in which she is about to operate, that she affords it assistance and strength ; it is because the combat is terrible, that it is her object to make a man's whole life a preparation for it ; it is because we have a mind, which any strong impression disturbs, which the importance and urgency of making a selection between actions, rob of its calm, precisely at the moment when they increase the necessity of it : yes, for this very reason that habit exercises a species of dominion over us, it is that religion would devote our whole life to inure us to command ourselves, to give reason a dominion over the passions, and to secure a lasting and solid peace of mind. From the earliest ages, and by her first Apostles, Religion has been com- pared to a warfare. Keeping this figure in view, it may be pronounced of him, who perceives not and appreciates not the unity of her maxims and disci- pline, that he is like the man who would feel sur- prise that soldiers should be inured to the tactics of war, its fatigues and privations, in the absence of the enemy during a time of peace. Human systems of philosophy, requiring appa- OF DETRACTION. 209 rently much less from a man, are in fact beyond comparison more exacting. What is it but a mere nothing that they contribute towards the education of the mind, indisposed as it is for good, while the actions which they prescribe are solitary and iso- lated : they often require the end without pointing out the means ; they treat men as beings devoid of courage, to whom they speak but of peace ; and yet most inconsistently whom they would conduct, un- prepared, into the presence of an enemy the most terrible. But the combat is not to be eluded by keeping it out of sight : the moment of conflict between a sense of duty and motives of interest, between habit and necessity, will come ; and a man suddenly finds himself with a violent inclination that must be overcome, without having ever inured him- self to overcome the most trilling feeling He ma} have been, perhaps, taught to repress it, from a motive of human interest or sensual prudence; but now it is precisely interest that renders his position so difficult. The path of virtue has been painted to him as a smooth and gentle path, strewed with flowers: he has been told that he had but to makr a choice of pleasures, and now he finds himself placed between justice and pleasure, be t wee n s great morti« lieation and a heinOUS sin. Religion, on the Other hand, strengthening her pupil against the senses and sudden surprises, urging him, without oeat 210 OF DETRACTION. to demand those succours which are never refused, imposes indeed a great responsibility upon him ; but she has placed him in a situation to fulfil what it requires, and in demanding of him a great sa- crifice, she in fact confers upon him an additional boon. Religion, demanding greater perfection in man, demands, in fact, that which is the more easy of accomplishment ; it is her wish that he should arrive at a great height ; but she has constructed the steps for his ascent ; she guides his hand : hu- man systems of philosophy, contenting themselves with a much lower scale, require in fact an under- taking far more arduous; they require a leap, beyond the compass of human power. And here I think it but fair to state, that I am far from taxing our author with being ignorant of the mischief arising from detraction, or with wish- ing to undertake its apology ; though the natural course of my argument obliged me to prove that the doctrine of the Church was eminently moral and evangelical, and that to speak evil of our neigh- bour was a sin. But are we to suppose, therefore, that the ob- ject of the Church was to stifle that just judgment which would pronounce between virtue and vice ? Certainly not. She wishes to remove proud, frivo- lous, unjust, and useless accusations, the judgment of the intention which God alone sees, that which is some- OF DETRACTION. 211 times but indistinctly felt, even in the very heart in which it is conceived; but as for the judgment to be pronounced upon actions, her object is to regulate, not to suppress it. She even commands it in nearly every case in which she does not condemn it ; that is, when it does not lead us to depreciate or dishonour ; when it is to save our neighbour from the treachery of the wicked, and when justice and expediency demand it. Undoubtedly in these cases Christian prudence is most necessary ; but religion teaches us how to obtain it : guided 1>\ this, a man may conduct himself under those diffi- cult circumstances, in which both to be silent and to speak may have some appearance of evil ; in which he has to contend with the evil-minded, and yet at the same time can give no evidence that be is not guided by malevolence. The sigh of the hypocrite) who npwfo evil of the man whom he hates; his protestations of grief at the faults of the man whose character he is blackening ; his assurances that be npralri but bona duty, are a double homage to the conduct and the sentiments which religion prescribes. Hut so averse is the Church from imposing silence oa the iccenti sf truth, irhen the uttering of them indeed springs from charity, and is she from the neglect of any means by which men may mutually improve each other, that she con 212 OF DETRACTION. demns human respects ; that she herself has given birth to the very word that indicates this dispo- sition of mind. Thus has she provided a remedy for the timid soul against the fear with which force, the imposing multitude of adversaries, their deri- sion, or the long -established sway of worldly max- ims might inspire it : thus has she invested with freedom of speech the man to whom the truth is known. She has also commanded fraternal correction, by a wonderful combination of words, in which the idea of correction, against which our natural feel- ings revolt, is immediately united with that of brotherhood, which suggests the tenderest senti- ments of affection, a sense of our own weakness, and a willingness to receive correction, on the part of Him, who has corrected his brother. So far is religion from preventing any of those advantages that may arise from the free and dispassionate ex- pression of the truth, and from a just discernment between virtue and vice. Let me here make a reflection, which is implied in many parts of this work, and which I shall treat more at large hereafter. Whenever we think that we find in religion an obstacle to any senti- ment, action, or institution, which is just and useful, generous, and tending to social improve ment, if we carefully examine the case, we shall OF DETRACTION. 213 find, either that the obstacle does not exist, and we only thought so from not having sufficiently apprehended the objects of religion, or that the thing itself which appeared so desirable, does not bear the character which at first sight it appeared to have. And not to mention the common delu- sions which arise from the weakness of our under- standing, there is a continual temptation to hv- pocrisy, from which the purest minds, and those most desirous of good, are not exempt ; to an hy- pocrisy which associates the idea of a greater good and a generous inclination with the desires of our ruling passions : so that when a man examines himself, he will find that he cannot always be wire of the absolute rectitude of his motives, and that he does not always discern how far they may be influ- enced by pride or prejudice. If, therefore, we condemn the rules of morality, because they ap- !<> fall short of our own views, we run the risk of yielding to improper feelings, the existence of which we are unwilling to acknowledge even to ourselves; feelings which perhaps we combat, al though We be unable entirely to subdue them in this life. Let us observe, in conclusion, that if the in crease of distrust were the effect of the prohibition against detraction, it follows, that as this prohi bition is preached throughout the whole Cathofi 214 OF DETRACTION. world,* so either distrust would be increased every- where, or else the injunctions of the Church are better observed in Italy than elsewhere ; which would on the other hand be a proof of a better moral state. I know not whether the Italians be more given to the distrust of one another than other Europeans, but this I know, that they complain of not being enough so; and that, as compared with all other nations, they say that their fault is in being too credulous and confiding. If, however, distrust were universal amongst us, I think it ought to be attributed to any thing but the ab- stinence from detraction ; for unfortunately we are but too far from having eradicated that evil habit. * See, for instance, a Sermon by Massillon on Detraction, for Monday the 4\ any one; at any rate, I believe there is no vestige of it in Italy. As to the motive, the Chureh only maintains and promulgate! it, such as it has been proposed b\ -J esus Christ ; and there is, perhaps, no precept in the gospel to whieh a promise of recompense is so frequently annexed as to this. In the gOSpd, eharitv is called laying up treasures in heaven: it is enmpaivd to a friend that will introduce us into everlasting habitations ; in the gospel the kingi 216 ON THE MOTIVES OF ALMS-DEEDS. is promised to the blessed of the Father, who shall have fed, clothed, received, or visited, those whom the King in the day of his glory will not disdain even to call his brethren ; mindful that he en- dured privations and sufferings like them ; mindful, that even He was treated as a stranger in the eyes of the unthinking rich men of this world. * The language of the whole sacred volume is the same : There can no good come to him that giveth no alms.-f What need of further quotations? The very words that are here represented as a precept of the casuists, are those of Scripture : The mer- ciful man doeth good to his own soul. I More- over, this is the motive proposed for the fulfilment of all things commanded : nor are the sanctions of religion founded on any other. By what motive would the man be influenced, who wished to lay aside all idea of reward, and who gave to the poor merely with the view of re- lieving his fellow-creature ? By a desire to benefit his own soul in another sense ; for it is impossible for a man to do it from any other motive, and dis- interestedness cannot consist in its exclusion. It will not, I think, be foreign to the argu- ment, or without some advantage, to inquire what * Matt. xix. 2L Luke xvi. 9. Matt. xxv. 34, and fol- lowing. t Ecclesiasticus xii. 3. X Proverbs xi. 17. ON THE MOTIVES OF ALMS-DEEDS. 217 should be the reasonable idea attached to disinte- restedness, and to point out at the same time a de- lusion which has caused this term to be applied in an exaggerated and absurd sense, especially as this inquiry is naturally allied to the question so much agitated at the present time, viz. what place in- terest should hold in morality. The delusion we have mentioned then deserves the greatest attention, both because it has entered into some enlightened minds, and is often mingled with the opinions formed with respect to the motives of actions, and because (if I may be allowed to say so) it is that which has suggested the objection made to Catholic morality in the motives for alms-giving. The idea of disinterestedness has arisen from the following observations. Man has an inclination for pleasure; many things that give pleasure are ban- proper; the man who has it in his power to pro- cure thcni, may overcome his inclination and Attain from them ; he may always determine on doing what is right, or even what is the mo>t per feet, independent of the pleasure or pain that ac companies it. Again, when a virtuous action i rics frith it Mtktbotionfl of ;i certain kind, (as sen- sible pleasure, applause, power, riches, \e.. in a word, satisfactions that do not proceed from the improvement of the khiI) a man may leav< them out of the question, and exclude them from the L 218 ON THE MOTIVES OF ALMS-DEEDS. motives that determine him to perform that action. This disposition and its application to the conduct of life is called disinterestedness. But for this disposition to be reasonable, that is, for it to be capable of being demonstrated and reduced to a principle, it supposes the persuasion that the happiness of man consists in justice. Such a persuasion, elevated to the rank of Christian hope, produces contentment in the midst of the greatest sacrifices and trials ; not that the soul wishes to remain in such a situation, but under the unavoida- ble circumstances in which it is placed, and having to choose between a pleasure that injures and pre- pares it for misery, and a suffering which perfects and prepares it for complete and perpetual joy, it feels that the greatest possible satisfaction, as well as the state most allied with peace and repose, depends upon the choice of the latter. On the other hand, in order to arrive at that ex- aggeration of the idea alluded to above, the mind passes through, as it would appear to me, the following train of thought. When that which is right is so conformable to the inclinations that the mind receives it without opposition, there is no disinterestedness in doing it; for this sentiment only exists in those cases (and they are beyond all comparison the most frequent) where we renounce some pleasure that is within our ON THE MOTIVES OF ALMS-DEEDS. 219 reach, or subject ourselves to some pain we might avoid, in order to fulfil what is right or what is the most perfect. The greater and the more universal the renouncement of pleasures, so much the more disinterested, the more virtuous is the determination ; and on the contrary, all pleasures which are looked upon as motives will diminish its merit and give it an appearance of egotism ; all pleasures or the ex- pectation of them, of whatever kind they be, or whenever expected, every thing that by analysis signifies pleasure, as promise, reward, our well-being or happiness, will render a determination less dis- interested, and consequently less virtuous. Here lies the root of the error, here it begins; here \w run OOUtlter to an eternal law of the human mind, to a condition of the understanding, the love of oundf; bare it a perfection pro poood which is im- possible and contrary to nature. The sense of dis- approbation that is attached to the idea of pleasure.-. h;is only arisen lVoni (lie knowledge that many pleasures arc opposed to what is right ; hut to attach thil reding bo the abstract idea of pleasure and satisfaction, is to make use of ■ noble sentiment to authorise an error, Is to reject an idea vrhea sepa- rated from the only quality that rendered it objec- tionahle. Hecause men have applied the name of hitentl to that which signifies temporal goods, h l2 220 ON THE MOTIVES OF ALMS -DEEDS. the sake of these, strifes have been engendered amongst men, and duties have been betrayed, the word interest has been deservedly disgraced ; but, removed from the sphere of this life, the idea of con- demnation no longer is attached to it, it loses all its degradation, it assumes altogether another meaning, indicating as it does, treasures that partake not of injustice, contention, or deceit, treasures associated with qualities the very opposite. Deceit, I say, for this is one of the essential con- ditions that render temporal interests a motive so worthy of our reprobation ; for if they be evil they are so because they are false ; if they were true and real goods, that is, if they were a means of real hap- piness, we could not blame the man who attached himself to them ; he would make a just application of a law which admits neither of transgression nor resistance, for man is not free in desiring happiness, but in selecting the means to obtain it. What does the Christian mean by the good of his soul ? Looking to a future life, he means by it the enjoyment of perfect felicity, a repose that shall consist in the possession of absolute order, in loving God perfectly, and having no desire but to do his will ; to be free from all pain, because free from all inclination to do evil, and from all strife. Looking to the present life, he means that happiness that consists in perfecting ourselves, the beginning and ON THE MOTIVES OF ALMS-DEEDS. 221 \ progress of which is no other than an advancing of ourselves in order, and in the hope of attaining to the other state. This is the sense of that profound instruction that St. Paul gave to Timothy and to us all. " Piety is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come." (1 Tim. iv. 8.) It is impossible to propose nobler ends for the moral conduct of man. As self-denial and a contempt for pleasures are the continual precept and the spirit of the gospel, it was easy for the human mind, so prone to abuse every thing, to destroy the nature of this spirit by exaggerating it, and to carry the delusion even into religion itself, by imagining that to apply the idea of self-denial to a future life, and thus to carry it beyond the bounds fixed in the gotpd would be to render the gospel perfect. In fact* doctrines of this kind were often broilgl it forward in the Church, but never without being condemned. 4 • Such was the doctrine, as is well known, which formed the subject of tin- oontroTertj between PenHon and Bonnet Tin names of the two great opponents have often drawn the attention of posterity to this controversy, and the opinions on it have be€n manifold and various. That m OBgll them which declared it to h.' a frivolous question has, to my mind, the least tl MneOj and yet this was the opinion of Voltaire. (Si.'cle de Louis xiv. chap. 38, du Quietismc); and certainly, il enquiry into the motives that Influence our win. into d and the mode of reducing all the sentiments of the mind I standard of truth be regarded as HvoloilK, this will be 80 too, as it 222 ON THE MOTIVES OF ALMS-DEEDS. Never, therefore, must we contemplate the des- truction of the love of ourselves ; our object must be is of the same class. But, in that case, what study can be of im- portance to man ? The philosophers who followed Voltaire con- tinued to discuss this point of morality, but in other terms, and they considered it as fundamental. (See among others, Woldemar par Jacobi, trad, de V Allemand par Ch. Wanderbourg, T. i. page 151, etc.) The controversy concerning interest as the basis of morality, concerning the love of virtue for its own sake, and a variety of others, maybe reduced for the most part to that of quietism ; that is to say, to decide whether a desire of our own happiness ought to enter into virtuous resolutions. It seems to me that the ques- tion was thoroughly sifted between the two theologians, and that a certain confusion always subsists in the language of other mo- ralists, from the use of the word interest in an ambiguous sense, not specifying whether it means what is useful in this life or that which embraces the whole existence of the immortal soul. To those who oppose the morality of interest without explaining themselves clearly on this point, we can always propose this dilemma; you either hold that it is a man's interest to be virtuous, and if so, why do you dispute ? Or you do not hold this, and then the command to follow virtue, would be a command to man to injure himself, which is absurd. The error of the others does not consist in pretending that interest and duty should agree, but in pretending that they necessarily do so agree in this life. In the dispute between these two eminent bishops, nothing less was agitated than the putting the love of God in opposition to a necessary law of the mind, and destroying the harmony between revealed truths, and truths intuitively perceived. It is unneces- sary to add, that this consequence was far from Fenelon's intention; and the manner in which he terminated this dispute, the rest of his works, and the whole of his life, are a proof of the sincerity with which he never ceased to protest that he had no intention of proposing or accepting any proposition that should violate the faith of the Church in the smallest degree. ON THE MOTIVES OF ALMS-DEEDS. 223 to direct it to a right and noble end instead of one that is false and servile ; this it is that religion has so eminently accomplished ; religion by placing her recompense beyond the present life, has opened to this sentiment a path on which to spend its infinite force, without ever clashing with the most trivial duty. Thus has she been able to carry her follower to the highest degree of disinterestedness, inducing him to renounce not only those pleasures which are directly injurious to others, but also many others, which the morality of the world (in its short-sighted policy) would permit and approve. Hence is it, that Jons Christ, in suggesting a motive for alms-giving, not only commands the action, but also that we keep it secret; taking away the human inducement, the love of praise, he substitutes that of reward in a future life. "Let thine alms l)e in secret, and thy Father, who seeth in secret, himself shall reward thee openly." (Matt. vi. 4.) It was not the object of religion to eun by vanity, nor was it her wish th;it a man ihould receive in the present state a reward that is for the other, or (hat he should reap Dp the I demoted to its eultivation alone, ;i harvest whieh. when CUf down, withereth and filleth not tin ; (Pi. ewi\. 8, 7.) She wiahee not nuavK that poor lu- relieved, hut that m>u1s should I enlightened, and taught endurance 224 ON THE MOTIVES OF ALMS-DEEDS. Of what importance is it, says the world, not un- frequently, from what motives spring actions that are useful, provided they abound ? A question this, that betrays a prodigious want of reflection, while it is one to which it is easy enough to reply : is it then a matter of no importance that men should not be diverted from the end of their creation, that they should not be deceived, that they should not be accustomed to the love of those goods, for the sake of which they will one day find themselves forced into a conflict with one another, of those goods, which when enjoyed increase indeed the thirst of possessing them, without giving the power to multi- ply them ; for this admirable power belongs but to those spiritual goods of which Christian happiness is composed. An objection of an opposite kind has been not unfrequently brought against Catholic morality, namely, that it lays not sufficient stress upon the love of ourself when it commands self-denial, and to love our neighbour as ourselves. But self-denial does not imply a renouncement of happiness, but a resistance to those vicious inclinations which were produced in us by sin, and which would lead us away from true felicity ; and to love our neighbours as ourselves is to desire and procure for our neigh- bours, as far as lies in our power, the same good we would desire for ourselves; that is an eternal and ON THE MOTIVES OF ALMS-DEEDS. 225 an infinite good. Worldly desires are directed to finite things, which, generally speaking, are only, enjoyed by one man at the expense of others ; and whoever proposed them as the objects of his desires, would fall into a contradiction if he attempted to procure them for others as for himself. But religion could prescribe an unlimited love towards our neigh - Ixxir, because she taught that this love is never in opposition with the love a man owes to himself. On the other hand, if we take away from alms- giving the motive of relieving a fellow-creature, we establish an isolated doctrine, and one altogether repugnant to Catholic morality. Alms-giving de- taches the heart from the love of worldly goods, and at the same time cherishes a sense of charity these two effects are not only not at variance, but mutually confirm each other. The human mind finds it, however, so difficult to avoid extremes, that it may be |x>ssil)le some have conceived it more perfect in relieving the poor to stifle the natural feeling of compassion, rather than to sanctify it. If any have fallen into so mistaken an exaggl r» tion, in Italy, at least as far as I am aware, it is altogether unknown; and when Father Scgncri declared that there are hut tWO'gates to heaven, that ofpatientl) enduring our own sufferings, and that of Compassionating the sufferings of others, he did l3 226 ON THE MOTIVES OF ALMS-DEEDS. but express the universal doctrine of Christian teachers. And the ministers of the gospel, when they exhort us to relieve the poor, always represent to us the misery of their situation; and in denounc- ing the neglect of this duty they never fail to con- demn hardheartedness and cruelty, as dispositions at once unjust and contrary to the gospel. When Jesus Christ multiplied the loaves to feed the multitudes that followed him, the work of om- nipotence was preceded by an ineffable movement of compassion in the heart of the God-man. " I have compassion on the multitude,'"' says he, " be- cause they continue with me now three days and have nothing to eat ; and I will not send them away empty, lest they faint by the way." (Matt. xv. 32.) And was it for the Church to cease for a single mo- ment to propose the sentiments of Jesus Christ for a model ? Ask the zealous and compassionate priests who visit the cottages of the poor, and after administering with tears of tenderness and consolation to their most urgent wants, find other cases which they can only relieve by mingling their tears with those of the poor man : ask these men if, when they apply to the rich for means to fulfil their charitable intentions, they only speak to them of their own souls; ask them if they speak not of the miseries, the sufferings, the dangers of the destitute ; ask them whether those ON THE MOTIVES OF ALMS-DEEDS. 227 who listen to entreaties so holy and so touching, listen to them with cold insensibility; ask them whether the image of suffering and of hunger is excluded from those feelings that move them to divide with the poor those riches which are so often a snare, and but the price of pleasures that close the memory and steel the heart against the woes of him who suffers. Did St. Charles, who took off his own garment! to clothe the poor, who lived among those infected with the plague, to render them every assistance, forgetful only of his own danger, think of nothing but the good of his own soul ? Did St. Jerome Eniilian, who sought out the orphan children of miiidicants, to i'tvd and to instruct them, wi; much eagenKM H8 an ambitious man would court the education of a kind's son, did they, I say, think of nothing but their own souls? And was the thought Of relieving their fellow-men altogether overlooked in a life solely consecrated to them ? Was it t. man who dwells far from the spectacle of mi-. shed a tear at the recital of some tale of woe, and foi those whom an insatiable charity ur^ed IdmvL f victim of want, and to spend their MihManee in i\ - lieving it, to j>ossessaheart untouched by symp Passing over the innumerable acts of charit\ with .vhieh tin- history of Catholicism is filled, I miiiih myself to one which is remarkable as an 228 ON THE MOTIVES OF ALMS-DEEDS. instance of delicacy and compassion, and I select it with the more pleasure, because being of recent occurrence, it is a consoling evidence of a spirit which never ceases to live. A lady whom we have often beheld amongst ourselves, whose name we shall repeat to our children — a lady brought up in luxury, but long accustomed to deprive herself of it, and to regard riches only as a means of relieving her fellow- creatures, coming one day out of a country church, after hearing a sermon on the love of our neighbour, visited a miserable cottage, where a poor woman lay sick, whose body was disgusting and loathsome to behold ; not content with rendering her those painful attentions, which even servants deem an act of com- passion, but full of an overpowering impulse of charity, she embraced her, kissed her cheek, placed herself by her side, shared the bed of pain and loneli- ness, repeatedly calling her by the name of sister. (Life of the virtuous Milanese matron, Teresa Trotti Bentivogli Arconati, pag. 82.) Surely the idea of relieving a fellow-creature was not wanting in that Christian embrace ! To eat the bread provided by another's bounty ; to obtain wherewith to sooth the pains of the body, and to prolong a life of suffering, suffices not to relieve the wants of him who is weighed down by the pressure of disease or of misfortune : such an one feels that he requires also sympathy and social communion, ON THE MOTIVES OF ALMS-DEEDS. 229 while the solitude wherein he is left, the thought that he is a burthen to his fellow man, the look of the person who renders him assistance, the never seeing a smile, are perhaps the bitterest of his sorrows. But the heart which thinks of these wants and satisfies them, which overcomes the repugnance of the senses, and only regards the immortal soul that suffers and is purified, affords the finest testi- mony for the doctrines to which it owes its instruc- tion, while it exhibits a living proof, that they never fail to inspire the most ardent and generous feelings of universal charity. 230 CHAPTER XVI. On Sobriety and Abstinence, Continence and Virginity. " La sobriete, la continence, sont des vertus domes- (i tiques qui conservent les facultes des individus, et " assurent la paix des families ; le casuiste a mis a la " place les maigres, les jeunes, les vigiles, les vceux de « virginite et de chastete ; et a cote de ces vertus " monacales, la gourmandise et Timpudicite peuvent t'e\ cry kind, and enemies to all humiliation and suffering, pharisaically follow this part of penance alone, it u an isolated practice, whirl), Ixing totally different from the rest of their conduct, does not harmonize with it ; thus affording the world an opportunit\ ot following its inclination to turn religion into ridi- cule. Abstinence from flesh-meat is only <\ means of observing the fating pmoribed by the church- 232 ON SOBRIETY AND ABSTINENCE, but if this be made a means of refinement, then certainly an exterior observance, an illusive me- mento, or so to say, an empty boast of penance, which is seen to spring up amidst a life devoted to pleasure and indulgence* presents a contrast be- tween the intention of the law and the spirit of the obedience ; between the difficulty of its observance and the merit of it, that affords a subject for ri- dicule. But to make every occasion for ridicule vanish from before those who love to reflect, (for there are some men who never cease laughing at a thing they have once thought ridiculous) it will suffice to view abstinence in connection with another order of ideas; placing it in the position and amid the associations which belong to it, in which it was the intention of religion in her enactments to place it : it will suffice to observe it in connection with the conduct of the human mind, with the ends and motives the Church had in view when she ordained it, without forgetting the cases in which it produces its effect, and we shall find, not only that the idea of the ridi- culous will quickly vanish, but the beauty, the wisdom, and the importance of these laws, will be- come evident. It is a fact as notorious as it is humiliating, that the excess of eating has a degrading influence upon the mind. A series of grave, well-regulated, mag- CONTINENCE AND VIRGINITY. 233 nanimous, and benevolent sentiments, may be in- terrupted by a feast, and a sort of carnal enthu- siasm may be produced in the seat of thought itself; an exaltation of the senses, which causes indifference to things of the greatest importance ; which de- stroys or weakens all perception of the beautiful, while it leads to egotism and sensuality. Sobriety preserves the faculties of individuals, as our author has well observed ; but this effect is not sufficient for religion, nor is she contented with a virtue which was known also to the heathen : having revealed to man the profound evils of his nature, she has also provided a remedy for them. She beholds in the pleasures of the table, even those which are consis- tent with sobriety, a sensual tendency, that leads many astray, and she points out the danger before the evil has actually commenced. She commands abstinence as an indispensable precaution for him who lias to sustain the war against k ' the law of his members;* she commands it as an expiation for the faults into which human frailty hurries even the best of ns ; and also as a source of charit\ , that the privations of the faithful may serve to satisfy the wants of the necessitous; thus distri l)ii ting food among men, and causing the sad con- trast between profusion without hunger, and hun- ger without bread, to disappear from the face of Christian KM let) 234 ON SOBRIETY AND ABSTINENCE, These prescriptions being so necessary for man- kind at all times, it was fitting that precepts in- culcating them should be inculcated by religion, and precisely such has been the case. Among the only people whose civilization was founded on ideas of universal justice, of the dignity of human na- ture, and of the progress of good, that is to say, in a legitimate worship, these commands existed even from the earliest times of their tran- sition from a state of domestic bondage to that of a nation ; and the tradition of fasting has de- scended from Moses even to our day, as a peniten- tial rite, and a means of elevating the mind to the contemplation of the things of God, and to a stead- fast adherence to his law. In the days of Samuel, the Israelites trans- gressed ; but when they repented and returned to the Lord, and put away the strange gods from among them, they offered sacrifice unto the Lord and fasted.* Their idolatry consisted in the adoration of co- vetousness, and in the excessive enjoyment of earthly delights ; and in order to break through the dominion of the sensual appetites, and to return to God, it was necessary to begin by adopting a * " Then the children of Israel did put away Baalim and Ash- torath, and served the Lord only .... and fasted on that day." 1 Sam. vii. 4-6. CONTINENCE AND VIRGINITY. 235 course of voluntary privations. Hence, when the children of Israel returned from the land of their oppressors, and were on their way to Jerusalem, the magnanimous Esdras, who led them, prepared them for the journey by prayer and fasting, that he might make them again religious and tempe- rate, separating them from the tumultuous and servile joys of the Gentiles. (1 Esdras viii. 50.) Fasting is found throughout the Old Testament ; and St. John, the forerunner of the new, is both an example and a preacher of it ; and He, who was the expectation and fulfilment of the one, the founder and the pattern of the other, and the salvation of us all, Jesus Christ himself, commands it, regulating it and removing from it all hypocritical severity and me- lancholy ostentation ; presenting it in a social and consoling form, teaching its spirit, and setting us an example how we should perform it, (Matt. vi. Hi-ltt). And COIlld the Church need a higher au- thority than this to warrant her in p re se rvi ng it? The apostles were t lie first to follow it. Parting and prayer preceded the imposition of hands that oonfeoed on Paul his mission t<> the Gentiles, ( Acta xiii. 8); and, to use the words of Massillon, " lu ligicm was nursed in the cradle of fasting and al>- Btinenee " * Prom that day to this, where can we find ;m\ ■ rmoB rarli « the firsts 236 ON SOBRIETY AND ABSTINENCE, period or interval of its suspension ? All tradition speaks of it constantly ; and although we may find the external observance of fasting joined with an ir- religious life, yet it is impossible to find a Christian life that is not accompanied by fasting. Martyrs and kings, bishops and simple believers, follow and love this law. That it should be in force amongst Christians, is but a natural consequence of the prin- ciples of their divine religion. We read of Fruc- tuosus, bishop of Tarragona, that as he was led to martyrdom, he refused a draught of liquid that was offered to him to assuage his thirst ; he refused it, alleging that the hour of fasting was not past. — (Fleury, Mceurs des Chretien, 3. Jeunes.) Who does not feel veneration for a law thus reverenced by a man who was on the point of shedding his blood as a testimony for the truth ? Who does not perceive that fasting itself had assisted in prepar- ing him for the sacrifice, and that, in order to die like Jesus Christ, he had imitated him during his life ? But setting aside these admirable examples, fast- ing and abstinence are naturally connected with what is most worthy and pure in the ordinary life of a Christian. If we behold a man just, exact in his duties, active in doing good, bearing unavoidable misfortunes with patience, firm, but not hasty in repressing injustice, tolerant and merciful, we find CONTINENCE AND VIRGINITY. 237 the use of abstinence harmonizes with such conduct. St. Paul compares the Christian to one that runs in a race, and who, to obtain a corruptible crown, ob- serves the strictest temperance. (1 Cor. ix. 25.) The agility and vigour it produced in his frame were so evident, and the means so suited to the act, that no one thought that mode of life unreasonable in such an one, or was surprised at it ; and shall we who are instructed in the spiritual views of Christianity, blind our eyes to the necessity and the beauty of those institutions which tend to raise the mind above the impulses of the senses ? This is the proper view to take of abstinence; these are its effects, and if the world does not behold them, it is because those who practise them in the spirit of fidelity conceal themselves behind the mantle of humility, and the world cares not to Beds for them, but only looks at abstinence when the practise of if presents a contrast to the rest of a man's conduct. There are transitory institutions, the objed *»t which is only t<> prepare the way For another order of things, the object ofwhich i*> no sooner fulfilled than they are removed ; there are also those which arc so identified with the object in new, that they cannot bcaboli.slu-il ; they pass through rel>ellious or careless generations; remain immoveable in the midst of a people who forget or deride them, waiting for the homage of an obedient and reflecting race of men ; 238 ON SOBRIETY AND ABSTINENCE, for they are suited to all times. Of this nature are most of the ecclesiastical laws in reference to absti- nence (I do not here speak of fasting, for that is of divine institution) ; of this nature, for example, are the vigils of the Church. To celebrate the commemora- tion of the great mysteries of religion, and those great events to which the whole attention of the Christian should be directed, and to prepare for it by penance and privations, is an institution so essen- tially Christian, that its institution is blended with the origin of religion, nor has it ever been for a moment suspended. Abstinence from flesh-meat is a means prescribed by the Catholic Church to facilitate the observance of penance. If there be any who combine the ob- servance of this ordinance with intemperance and the indulgence of the appetites, it is but one of the many proofs of the ingenuity of man in evading the most salutary laws, while it affords an occasion for reflecting on the danger of riches, of which we have been warned by Jesus Christ, when we behold what a stumbling-block they can produce even in those very means that were provided to effect our salvation. But notwithstanding the outcry and derision that has been so long directed against this precept, the Church has been careful not to remove a monument of her ancient simplicity and rigour, determined not to obliterate all traces of penance for the sake of pleas- CONTINENCE AND VIRGINITY. 239 ing her enemy the world. If there be some who elude the force of her precept, there are not wanting some among rich men, who obey with sincerity, and in the spirit of penitence : among the poor also, who are compelled to be temperate, there are not wanting those who ennoble it by a cheerful and ready will, and who find means to mortify their body still more on those days when the Church prescribes a particu- lar fast : such as these she considers her brightest ornament and her chosen sons. How vain then it is to regard these pious prac- tices as substitutes for sobriety ! far from dispensing with the exercise of that virtue, they but presuppose its existence, while they supply the means for bring- ing it to perfection. The Bame may be said of vows of virginity and chastity in the relation they bear to the virtue of Continence: how can they be called a substitute for the latter when they constitute (if I may use the expression) it* beau ideal f [tis unnecessary to add that virginity, which was praised and recommended by St. Paul, who himself set an example ol while it has been approved and regulated by the fathers of the Church in i very age, could not have been the invention of the CasuifltSi Hut if it be |)ossible tor immodesty to take root in the heart In the Mile of chastity, and intemperance • [lend I Cor. vii. v. \ mil. 240 ON SOBRIETY AND ABSTINENCE. by that of abstinence, what does this prove but that the corruption of man is so great that the means provided by the God-man himself have not totally extirpated it; that he has furnished us with arms by which we may conquer, but that he does not dis- pense with the combat : and who will venture to assert that better means could be provided ? It cannot, in my opinion, conduce to any useful end to blame the Church for advising and commanding practices involving the most perfect exercise of a virtue ; because the external compliance with such advice or precept is not always accompanied by an interior esteem of that virtue : for this objection to have any weight it would be necessary to prove that sobriety and continence remove from the heart the roots of the contrary inclinations. 241 CHAPTER XVII. On Modesty and Humility. says he, "of complex ideas which any two men use to express precisely the same collection of ideas."* This diversity, or rather latitude of signi- fication, is found more especially in words intended to express moral dispositions. * On the Understanding, Book 3. chap. 10. On the Abuse of Words, s. 22. ON MODESTY AND HUMILITY. 243 It is, nevertheless, certain that men understand each other when they hear or use any of these words, and they approximate, if they do not quite agree, as to their signification : if this were not the case they could not argue at all, whence it has been said that there are no disputes about mere words, but that they all refer to ideas. This is explained in my opinion by observing, that in each of these expres- sions defining moral ideas there is one prominent and general idea which all acknowledge, although there may be indefinite modifications in the applica- tion of it, according to the diversity of minds ; in short, an idea which is always uppermost, and governs (so to speak) the assemblage of ideal define which, the expression is applied. Now, in reference to the sentiments, actions, thoughts, and that whole behaviour, to ex pro ai which the word Modesty is made use of, the idea that strikes me ai being the predominant one, ii no other than a con- fession that we are at a greater or ten distance from perfection ; and fa OBJ opinion this is the most accurate definition of it, and that which comprehends the most fully all KhoaaCMei in which thifl term is applied. Leaving this for a moment) I arrive at one no less general, and perhaps still more capabl for I think that in these matters two sort> ol nitknu may be given; tboae which elicit and i the predominant idea we have been alluding to, and 244 ON MODESTY AND HUMILITY. which may be called historical definitions ; and definitions which give the reason of this idea, and by reducing it to precise notions that may be safely applied, limit and fix the sense that men ought to annex to the term they use, if they mean to express a correct idea ; which latter may be called rational definitions. This distinction will appear more clear in the application we shall make of it to our defini- tion of modesty ; for I think a precise one of the second kind may be given. If the first definition be admitted, I would ask : when a man is praised for his modesty, because he shows a feeling of his own imperfection, is he per- suaded of it or is he not ? If he is not, then his modesty, so far from being a virtue, is rather a vice, a fiction, a hypocritical pretence. If he is persuaded of it, he either is right or he is in error ; in this second case he judges from ignorance, or he is deceived; now that sentiment which a more judicious examination, a greater knowledge of the truth, or an increase of light would induce us to abandon, cannot be a virtue : otherwise we must say that there are virtues opposed to truth, or in other words, that virtue is sometimes a chimera. If then, when we praise a man for his modesty, we do not mean to say he is an imposter or a fool, we are obliged to conclude that his modesty springs from a knowledge of himself, and that in a knowledge of ON MODESTY AND HUMILITY. 245 himself a man may always find abundant cause for modesty; I say always, because otherwise there would be cases in which a man might reasonably entertain a feeling opposed to this virtue, nay, in proportion as he advanced in virtue he ought to divest himself of modesty, since it is certain he would be approaching nearer to perfection : in other words, the improvement of a man would afford a reason for his abandonment of a virtue, which is in fine an absurdity. Now this invariable rule for modesty is found in the twofold idea which Revelation has given us of ourselves, and on which the precept of humility is founded, for that virtue is nothing but an intimate knowledge of ourselves ; and this two- fold idea is, that man is corrupt and disposed to evil, and that every thing good in him is the gift of God ; so that every one can say to himself with truth, that which it is his duty to say : " What hast thou, that thou hast not received? and if thou hast received it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it r (1 Cor. iv. 7.) It is for tins last reason alone that Jesus Christ, although he was absolutely perfect, was on this mt\ account sovereignly humble; for, knowing himself in the most perfect degree, and not l>eing subj those passions which arewont to make men err in tbeh judgment of themselves, he saw with the most \h\\\ < I clearness that those infinite perfections with which 246 ON MODESTY AND HUMILITY. his human nature was endowed, were the gifts of God. In its relation, therefore, with mankind at large, we shall give a clear and reasonable idea of modesty, when we define it to be the expression of humility, and the behaviour of a man who feels that he is liable to error and delusion, and that all his good qualities are gifts which he may lose through his weakness and corruption. If we do not suppose this idea, modesty is but the offspring of knavery or stupidity ; if we do suppose it, modesty is a virtue and a dictate of right reason: by the aid of this idea we can account for the uniform judgment of mankind in its favour ; and this judgment expresses but the natural conclusion of the reasoning faculties. We praise the modest man, not only because, humbling himself and retiring, he leaves us as it were a wider scope for exalting and exhibiting our- selves, no assuredly we do not praise him merely as a competitor withdrawing from the contest ; un- doubtedly interested motives arising from our own passions have an influence, of which we ourselves are not always aware; in the approbation or disapproba- tion we express of others : but if we examine our- selves we shall find that we each possess a disposition to approve, independent of this interested motive, and grounded upon the intrinsic beauty of that which we approve of. Nor would it be difficult to find ON MODESTY AND HUMILITY. 247 examples that demonstrate the reality of this dis- position, but that it is unnecessary, inasmuch as every man feels that he possesses it : it is a fact. We do not praise modesty merely as a rare and difficult quality, for there are bad habits which are only acquired by a few persons, and that with dif- ficulty, and yet no one approves of them. Nor do we praise modesty only because it com- bines these two characteristics the useful to ourselves and the difficult of attainment. The old man of the mountain derived an advantage from the credulity and devotion of the individual who, at his signal threw himself down a precipice ; and he could not fail to observe the violent effort that such an act of obedience implied, and yet it was not possible for him to feel esteem for this man, whom he knew better than any one else to be the wretched dupe of fiis imposture. But we do both admire and praise the modest man; beca u se, notwithstanding the strong tendency every body has to esteem himself highly, he has been brought to judge himself with truth and im- partiality, aiul because he has Uvn brought to sub- ject himself to a law which obliges him to n this difficult and painful homage to truth. Modest] in fact, pleases us as a thing at onee useful, tlifHcultj aikl true; and if we examine all rational ideal cerning it, they will ooindde with this one. 248 ON MODESTY AND HUMILITY. Modesty is one of the most amiable qualities of a superior man : it is in fact observed to increase in proportion to his superiority ; and this is well explained by the ideas suggested by religion. Su- periority is nothing more than a great advancement in the knowledge and love of truth : the first renders a man humble, the second makes him modest. Take an example : a man fears praise and shrinks from it, and he does so though praise is naturally agreeable to our nature, and there appears, at first sight, no impropriety in seeking occasions in which it is spontaneously offered to us. His behaviour in this respect is approved by all those who prize vir- tue : why so, but because his behaviour is reason- able ? The modest man feels that praise reminds him only of the bright part of his character, which is exactly that part which he is most disposed to consider and magnify, while he knows he ought not to look at one side only if he wishes to judge fairly ; he feels that praise easily induces him to ascribe to himself that which is the gift of God ; to suppose in himself some excellence springing from his own strength, which would be a manifest error ; where- fore he avoids it, he conceals his best actions and preserves his noblest sentiments in the secret recesses of his own heart : he knows that whatever induces him to display them is pride and a love of being observed, distinguished, and esteemed — not for what he is, but for something far superior. ON MODESTY AND HUMILITY. 249 But he allows the excellence that is in him to appear, when truth and charity demand it ; he ren- ders a testimony of it where he is sure of not deceiv- ing himself or others : the conduct of St. Paul is a splendid instance of this, when the good of his ministry obliged him to reveal to the Corinthians the magnificent gifts of God to him. Constrained to speak of what might extol him in the eyes of others, he gives God all the glory, spontaneously confessing infirmities and miseries the most humi- liating in an Apostle, the dignity of whose mis-ion seems to exclude not only the idea of a fall, but .even of temptation. In a mind exalted to the sublime intelligence of " hidden words which it is not lawful lor man to utter," (2 Cor. xii. 4); who would have imagined that there still survived the strife of tho sensual appetite ? He himself speaks of it ; be descends from the pure and exalted visions of tlu third beaven, to reveal what he'enduredon the arena, where he was forced to struggle with carnal tempta- tions: constrained to reveal the .secret of his mind. he revealfl it whole and entire, that he mav U entirety known. (Ibid \ii. etc.) Modesty then being humility reduced to f tier, it can have no fellowship with pride, which ifl us very contrary ; nor can then be itich i thing as just pride. The man who f. vU satisfied with him- self, who does not acknowledge he has in him m :5 250 ON MODESTY AND HUMILITY. the law of the members warring against the law of the mind, and who ventures to think he will be able to select that which is best in difficult cases by means of his own strength, is miserably deceived ; the man who puts himself before others is rash; he is a party, and he makes himself a judge. But if by a just pride we mean merely the acknowledgment of the good that is done, without attributing it to ourselves, or being elevated by it, this will be a lawful feeling, and one which it is our duty to cherish ; humility does not exclude this, for it is humility ; but the con- trary conduct is proscribed by Catholic morality as false and presumptuous, because whoever thinks, that when judging himself as he really is, he could have any thing to boast of, any thing in regard to which he must act the part of a hypocrite in order to be humble, is nothing more than a contempti- ble arrogant being : and- it is such a sentiment as this which is rightly denominated pride. Not that I would cavil about a word, but that this has been ever employed to express a sentiment false and vici- ous in all its degrees. And since the external con- duct may in many cases happen to be the same in him who cherishes the feeling of humility, and in him who does not cherish it, it is important to preserve the proper meaning of that word, which is destined to specify that sentiment which we call pride. Pride then can never be just, since it can never be ON MODESTY AND HUMILITY. 251 either a support to human weakness, or a consolation in adversity. No, these admirable fruits spring from humility alone ; it is humility that shields us against our weakness, by reminding us of its existence every moment : that it is which makes us watch and pray to Him who ordains and imparts virtue; that it is " which makes us lift up our eyes unto the hills from whence cometh our help." (Ps. cxxi. 1.) And in adversity, consolations are reserved for the humble soul that acknowledges herself worthy to suffer, and feels a sense of joy, arising from submission to the divine will. Looking at her faults, adversity ap- pears like the retribution of a God that will par- don, and not like the stroke of a blind power ; she increases in dignity and purity, because every pain suffered with resignation cancels some of the spot- that rendered her lets fair: and what more- She groWfl to love adversity itself, because it render- \wv "conformed to the image of the Son of God,*" (Rom. viii. °.<)) ; and, instead of abandoning her- self to vain and empty complaints, she return- thanks amid circumstances under which, if -lu nere left to benelf, she would utter nought but the Lamentation of despair or the ory of revolt. l>ut as for pride! when God shall ha\e humhled tlu proud man as one stricken and wounded, will pride be any healing balsam for him? To what can it 252 ON MODESTY AND HUMILITY. serve him in the midst of adversities, but to fill him with hatred for them as unjust ; to excite in his breast a restless and painful comparison between that which he would fain persuade himself he de- serves, and that which it is his lot to endure ? The secret of the repose of man in this life consists in the conformity of his will with that of God ; and who is further removed from this blessed disposition than the afflicted proud man ? Pride is loquacious in misfortune, when it finds listeners, and it exhausts itself to prove that things ought not to have been as God has ordained them ; its silence is generally forced, it is bitter, and it dis- likes even the feeling of commiseration. The boasted consolations of the man who makes sure of finding within himself a remedy in the midst of , adversity, unless they be grounded on resignation and hope, are no better than an artifice of pride, which conceals a state of dejection that might be agreeable to the ill-natured pride of others. God •eholds the joy with which they endured them, the patience with which they expected the manifestation of truth, though they looked not for it in this life ; the delight with which they consoled themselves while alone- with God, while their consolation consisted of continual thanksgiving, and all this because they were humble : it is after sueli a iwicw aft this that one is profoundly convinced that the great, the real misfortune of this unhappy man, was no Other than his own pride. Had he learned to Ik hold in the inju- tier of a few men, the justice of his God, it would have lost all its bitterness: but he expected perfect equity from man, he wished to subject the opinion- which others formed of himself to the tribunal of hi- own mind; till at last this idea of injustice, em in- creasing as he combated it, became the pn d 256 ON MODESTY AND HUMILITY. all-absorbing idea, which he applied to all men ; it was a worm that never died. He thought all men were occupied about him, that everybody was his enemy, and that the sole aim of the human race was to render him dishonoured and unhappy. Oh, miser- , able phenomenon of human nature, by which the principal idea of pride, that of being the object of the attention of others, becomes a source of wretch- edness ! He drunk the cup of glory to its dregs ; but how sad, how painful was the intoxication that followed ! The glances of the stranger whom he meets by the way; the curiosity of his very admirers; a single word whispered in his presence — all is a conspiracy, all a deep-laid plot ! And if the unhappy man, in describing his an- guish, seems at times to calm his mind by an ob- servation of contempt for the vain opinions of others, and of confidence in his own conscience, the very next sentence is sure to exhibit the pain returning in all its force. He writes, to throw off this load of hatred, and appeals to men, all of whom he thinks wicked : but to what hand can he entrust his work, that is not an enemy ? He re- members God, and resolves to seek for justification in the balance of the sanctuary ; but he finds, un- expectedly, the chancel-gate closed, and considers it a sign of repulse from God himself. (See Histoire du precedent ecrit, annexed to the Dialogues, en- ON MODESTY AND HUMILITY. 257 titled : {Rousseau juge de Jean-Jaques.) Un- happy man ! if he had but drawn nigh to the altar as he proposed ; if he had but approached in the sincerity of his heart, remembering that He is there adored who " opened not his mouth ;" He who was u as a sheep before her shearers— dumb ;*** He who says, " Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest :"*f* He, whose divinity he had so magnificently con- fessed : ah ! there would have been consolation even for him, according to the multitude of his sorrows within him. I Ah! yes, if, during the remainder of our life, sufferings and difficulties should await us, if for us the day of trial be drawing nigh, let us pray that it may find us grounded in humility ; so that we be ready to bow with submission under the hand of God, when it shall please Him to smite us. Prom what has been said of humility, it ix sarily follows, that it* there be a sentiment, that would destroy all insolent contempt for our fellow - creatures, that sentiment can he no other than hu- mility. Contempt arises from entering Into com- petition with others, and from giving the pi rence to ourselves : now it is ini|x>ssible that such a sentiment can evef take root in a heart taught to ' fiiiah Hi- 7, f Mutt. xi. 28. J Ps 258 ON MODESTY AND HUMILITY. consider and to deplore its own misery; to ac- knowledge that every virtue proceeds from God, and that, without the restraining power of God, we are liable to fall into all kinds of sin. 259 CHAPTER XVIII. On the Secret op Morality — on Scruples of Conscience — and on Spiritual Directors. " La morale est devenue non seulement leur science, u mais leur secret ( des docteurs dogmatiques). Le de- " pot en est tout entier entre les mains des confesseurs U et des directeurs des consciences." Pag. 421. If it were true that confessors in Italy had made a secret of morality, it is clear they would have forgotten that they were commanded to preach on the house-tops, (Matt. x. 27); and the Christian religion, of which the peculiar character is to have DO doctrine but what is openly taught, and no mystery that is not equally proposed to all, would have become in their band* like the rites of heathen- ism, in which only one part of the science is revealed to the initiated, while the other remains | mvstcry concealed from all but the priests, in order that the imagination of their credulous votaries might conceive the truth of their doctrine, and the entire body of its proofs to Ik concealed in that very pail which was hidden from them. Hut what hooks are there of ours that served exclusively for the teachers of the Church - 260 ON THE SECRET OF MORALITY, &C. And how do they manage to transmit the secret ? Has not our author said but a little above that la morale proprement dite n'a pas cesse d'etre Fobjet des predications de FEglise? What is it that the priests speak of from the altar, as well as all the treatises on morality, which it is in the power of every one to consult ? What is the object of our catechetical instructions ? "Le fidele scrupuleux doit, en Italie, abdiquer la plus belle des facultes de Fhomme, celle d' etudier et de connoitre ses devoirs." — Ibid. And yet the clergy in Italy declaim against neg- ligence in the study of that law by which we shall all be judged ; they never cease to inculcate on parents the obligation of instructing their children in all their duties, and of girding them early with " the sword of the spirit which is the word of God," (Ephes. vi. 17), that they may not be unprepared in the day of battle; and the whole course of Catholic instruction tends to diffuse the maxim, that the endeavour to know his duties, is not only one of the noblest attributes of man, but his very first and most imperative duty. " On lui recommande de s'interdire une pensee qui pourroit Fegarer, un orgueil humain qui pour- roit le seduire.'' 1 — Ibid. Who would wish to exculpate the Italian clergy from this charge ? If the fact be so, we have only ON THE SECRET OF MORALITY, &C. 261 to desire that it may always be so ; that these recommendations may be universal and constant, being as they are the dictates at once of true know- ledge and of charity ; and that the clergy may never hold any other language, for it is the language of the gospel. As to the rest, if a Christian be what is called scrupulous, (in the strict sense of the term), the • advice which would be given him in Italy as else- where, would be not to give way to excessive and tedious reflection on every thought and action, but rather to repose on the cheering and consoling ideas of confidence in God and in his mercy. With respect to scruples, let me here make two observations, which if they do not apply to the particular point in question, are nevertheless con- nected witli the general argument It is a common reflection among Catholic mora- lists, that scruples arise from spiritual pride. This reflection, QO leM acute than true, U one ot'the main proofs of the delicacy and profoundness which gioUS morality lias hit rocluceil into the study of the human mind, and the unravelling of the intricate mazes <>f tin- passions. The second observation is, that this moral disease i> ;i proof at once, r tin- leu responsible The merest suspicion of this weakness will sometime- lead a man to the most inconsiderate thoughts, and he Will be ready to exclaim, " Let us break their bands asunder, anil cast awav their cords tVom iiv " (IN. ii. :$.) It i> therefore of the utmost importance to sepa- rate the Voice Of pride from that of rea-on: to pn \ ent then Eromdanling us when united, and to consider 264 ON THE SECRET OF MORALITY, &CC calmly what ought to be the reasonable and digni- fied conduct of a Christian in this matter. There are in the priesthood two kinds of autho- rity, which it behoves us to reflect upon; that which comes from God and forms the essence of their mission, the authority of teaching, of bind- ing and loosing ; and that which may be given by men from a regard to the first, to this or that priest : this is derived from the veneration and confidence of the faithful, which disposes them to obey the priest, even when he is not engaged in the immediate exercise of his sacred office ; but as for the other, it is essential to Christianity, and submission to it, is not slavery, but a duty no less conformable to right reason, than becoming the dignity of man. There is no act of this authority which is not an act of ser- vice, in which the priest appears not, but as the minister of a divine authority, to which he bows equally with the rest of the faithful ; nor is there one which is repugnant to the freedom of a Christian. Yes ! we do kneel before the priest, and we re- count to him our faults; we listen to his corrections and counsels, and we receive our penance from him. But when the priest, trembling in spirit at his own unworthiness, and at the mighty dignity of his functions, has extended over our heads his conse- crated hands ; when filled with confusion at behold- ing himself chosen to be a dispenser of the blood of ON THE SECRET OF MORALITY, &C. 265 the New Testament, amazed that he is called upon at every turn to utter words that create life, though a sinner himself he has absolved a sinner, when we raise ourselves from his feet, we feel we have com- mitted no act to degrade : why need we ? Were we prostrate there forsooth to crave for aught of human hope ? was it of himself that we spoke to him ? was the posture of humility assumed in order to rise with still greater pride ? in order to domineer over our brethren ? On what had we conferred but on miseries common to all, on mercies of which all have equal need ? Yes, we knelt at the feet of a man, but he represented Jesus Christ ! we knelt, but it was to lay aside all that tends to debase the soul, the yoke of the passions, the love of the punning goods of this world, the fear of its judgments ! He knelt at the feet of the priest, but it was to purchase the privilege of freemen and of the children of God ! As to the second kind of authority, it is founded on the most reasonable principles, hut is liable to have and has is abuses. In order to avoid judging rashly on this point, 1 think a Christian should never lose sight of two facts: the one i^, that men may abuse the most sacred things; the other, that the world often designates even the most nored things as abuses. When \\ c are accused of super- stition, <>r fanaticism, of an overbe a ring disposition, or of servility, let us he ivad\ to admit that the N 266 ON THE SECRET OF MORALITY, &C. charge may be but too well founded, but having done so, let us carefully examine whether it is or not ; for these charges are often applied to actions and sentiments enjoined by the Gospel. To recur to our spiritual guide in situations of doubt and of difficulty, is not to become the slave of a man, it is but to make a noble use of our own liberty. The man who is to be the judge of his own case, and who desires to act according to the divine law, cannot but perceive that his judgment is liable to be warped by interest and prejudice, and he acts the part of a wise man in recurring to a counsellor who, from the nature of his office, must have medi- tated on the divine law, and be more fitted to apply it without partiality ; in recurring, I say, to a man who should be nourished by prayer, who, from being accustomed to the contemplation of heavenly things, and to self-denial, should have learnt better than another how to weigh things in the balance of the sanctuary. But a man is always to judge of the advice given to him, and his decision depends on his own con- viction ; so true it is that he will be called to an account, not only for this, but also for the choice of his adviser. The Church has never ceased to preach, that < if the blind lead the blind, both fall into the ditch; (Matt.xv. 14.) ON THE SECRET OF MORALITY, &c. 267 It is but too true, alas ! that the miserable and opposite tendencies to a servile and overbearing disposition, have strong hold upon our sinful hearts. Weak and irresolute, we like to throw the burden of our souls upon others, and we are con- tented with any thing that spares us the trouble of reflecting : on the other hand, when a man reposes his confidence in our judgment, we are too fond of extending the dominion of our poor will, and we are tempted to think more of that than of the service we may render to others, and to forget that man was created for a nobler end than to exercise do- minion over others. This weakness of human nature may produce evils both in seeking and in giving counsel ; it ought, therefore, to furnish ad- ditional motives for confusion and watchfulness in Christians; tut far be it from us to abandon the guides whom God has given us, to cast away ■ the Bait of the earth,' (Matt. v. 1:).) to refuse assistance Ixrause there may be danger of abusing it, to see nought but overbearing intriguers unongthe many zealous and disinterested pastors, who tremble when they advise; far be it from us to entertain such thoughts, which would tend in a great measure to render of no avail the ministry that was instituted for our welfare. Et celui mtrnc qui a i U vraiment et purement vertueu*,ne mnmtt ee rmdrewmpU des regies 268 ON THE SECRET OF MORALITY, &c. The precepts of the Decalogue ; the maxims and spirit of the Gospel ; the commandments of the Church, these are the rules which the virtuous Catholic proposes to himself, and of which he can give an account at any moment. 269 CHAPTER XIX. On the Objections to Catholic Morality, de- rived from the Character of the Italians. " Aussi seroit-il impossible de dire a quel degre une u fausse instruction religieuse a ete funeste a la morale u en Italic II ny a pas en Europe un peuple qui soit u plus constamment occupe de ses pratiques religieu- \ a iiKin exact Study, and I nioiv nn< '•mHIIIUUkU 274 OBJECTIONS TO CATHOLIC MORALITY. enough to disprove its existence ? Because hypo- crisy imitates the works of virtue, is that any proof that wherever these are found, they are a sure test of hypocrisy ? Were this the case there would be no line of conduct left for a Catholic to pursue ; for if he neglected all practices of devotion, he might be justly accused of not being faithful to his law ; and if he did not neglect them, he would deserve to be treated with suspicion ! Doubtless there may be two motives for their performance, that of deceiving ourselves or others, and that of doing our duty; of participating in the fruits of faith, and of sanctifying ourselves : what reason have we for thinking that the latter, which is the motive for which they were instituted, should never operate in Italy ? It is not, however, worth my while to prove that it does operate, or that there are, amongst us, men who are governed by such high motives, men to whom we could not refuse our confidence, without entertaining the horrid disbelief of the very existence of virtue; men who quit the temple where they have been pouring forth their prayers, with hearts more humane, more disinterested, more firm, more sincere, more courageous in combating themselves; men who return from the sacraments confirmed, and, as it were, renovated in virtue. Let us look around us, OBJECTIONS TO CATHOLIC MORALITY. 275 before we think ourselves authorized to reject the practices of devotion, and to condemn religious fer- vour, because it is not an unfailing guarantee of sincerity ; and our eyes will soon light upon one of those men, who will one day rise up in judgment against us, and who are a living testimony of the beauty of Catholic Morality, and of the possibility of reducing it to practice. Deo Gratias. FINIS. 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