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<body><p>What makes us not believe in the true miracles, is want of love. John: <i>Sed vos non creditis, quia non estis ex ovibus.</i><a id="FNanchor_329_333"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_329_333" class="fnanchor pginternal">[329]</a> What makes us believe the false is want of love. II Thess. ii.</p>
<p>The foundation of religion. It is the miracles. What then? Does God speak against miracles, against the foundations of the faith which we have in Him?</p>
<p>If there is a God, faith in God must exist on earth. Now the miracles of Jesus Christ are not foretold by Antichrist, but the miracles of Antichrist are foretold by Jesus Christ. And so if Jesus Christ were not the Messiah, He would have indeed led into error. When Jesus Christ foretold the miracles of Antichrist, did He think of destroying faith in His own miracles?</p>
<p>Moses foretold Jesus Christ, and bade to follow Him. Jesus Christ foretold Antichrist, and forbade to follow him.<a id="Page_244" class="pageno" title="[Pg 244]"/></p>
<p>It was impossible that in the time of Moses men should keep their faith for Antichrist, who was unknown to them. But it is quite easy, in the time of Antichrist, to believe in Jesus Christ, already known.</p>
<p>There is no reason for believing in Antichrist, which there is not for believing in Jesus Christ. But there are reasons for believing in Jesus Christ, which there are not for believing in the other.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00855"><a id="p_826"/>826</h4>
<p>Judges xiii, 23: "If the Lord were pleased to kill us, He would not have shewed us all these things."</p>
<p>Hezekiah, Sennacherib.</p>
<p>Jeremiah. Hananiah, the false prophet, dies in seven months.</p>
<p>2 Macc. iii. The temple, ready for pillage, miraculously succoured.—2 Macc. xv.</p>
<p>1 Kings xvii. The widow to Elijah, who had restored her son, "By this I know that thy words are true."</p>
<p>1 Kings xviii. Elijah with the prophets of Baal.</p>
<p>In the dispute concerning the true God and the truth of religion, there has never happened any miracle on the side of error, and not of truth.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00856"><a id="p_827"/>827</h4>
<p><i>Opposition.</i>—Abel, Cain; Moses, the Magicians; Elijah, the false prophets: Jeremiah, Hananiah; Micaiah, the false prophets; Jesus Christ, the Pharisees; St. Paul, Bar-jesus; the Apostles, the Exorcists; Christians, unbelievers; Catholics, heretics; Elijah, Enoch, Antichrist.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00857"><a id="p_828"/>828</h4>
<p>Jesus Christ says that the Scriptures testify of Him. But He does not point out in what respect.</p>
<p>Even the prophecies could not prove Jesus Christ during His life; and so, men would not have been culpable for not believing in Him before His death, had the miracles not sufficed without doctrine. Now those who did not believe in Him, when He was still alive, were sinners, as He said Himself, and without excuse. Therefore they must have had proof beyond doubt, which they resisted. Now, they had not the prophecies, but only the miracles. Therefore the latter suffice, when the doctrine is not inconsistent with them; and they ought to be believed.<a id="Page_245" class="pageno" title="[Pg 245]"/></p>
<p>John vii, 40. <i>Dispute among the Jews as among the Christians of to-day.</i> Some believed in Jesus Christ; others believed Him not, because of the prophecies which said that He should be born in Bethlehem. They should have considered more carefully whether He was not. For His miracles being convincing, they should have been quite sure of these supposed contradictions of His teaching to Scripture; and this obscurity did not excuse, but blinded them. Thus those who refuse to believe in the miracles in the present day on account of a supposed contradiction, which is unreal, are not excused.</p>
<p>The Pharisees said to the people, who believed in Him, because of His miracles: "This people who knoweth not the law are cursed. But have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him? For we know that out of Galilee ariseth no prophet." Nicodemus answered: "Doth our law judge any man before it hear him, [and specially, such a man who works such miracles]?"</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00858"><a id="p_829"/>829</h4>
<p>The prophecies were ambiguous; they are no longer so.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00859"><a id="p_830"/>830</h4>
<p>The five propositions were ambiguous; they are no longer so.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00860"><a id="p_831"/>831</h4>
<p>Miracles are no longer necessary, because we have had them already. But when tradition is no longer minded; when the Pope alone is offered to us; when he has been imposed upon; and when the true source of truth, which is tradition, is thus excluded; and the Pope, who is its guardian, is biased; the truth is no longer free to appear. Then, as men speak no longer of truth, truth itself must speak to men. This is what happened in the time of Arius. (Miracles under Diocletian and under Arius.)</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00861"><a id="p_832"/>832</h4>
<p><i>Miracle.</i>—The people concluded this of themselves; but if the reason of it must be given to you ...</p>
<p>It is unfortunate to be in exception to the rule. The same must be strict, and opposed to exception. But yet, as it is certain that there are exceptions to a rule, our judgment must though strict, be just.<a id="Page_246" class="pageno" title="[Pg 246]"/></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00862"><a id="p_833"/>833</h4>
<p>John vi, 26: <i>Non quia vidisti signum, sed quia saturati estis.</i></p>
<p>Those who follow Jesus Christ because of His miracles honour His power in all the miracles which it produces. But those who, making profession to follow Him because of His miracles, follow Him in fact only because He comforts them and satisfies them with worldly blessings, discredit His miracles, when they are opposed to their own comforts.</p>
<p>John ix: <i>Non est hic homo a Deo, quia sabbatum non custodit. Alii: Quomodo potest homo peccator hæc signa facere?</i></p>
<p>Which is the most clear?</p>
<p>This house is not of God; for they do not there believe that the five propositions are in Jansenius. Others: This house is of God; for in it there are wrought strange miracles.</p>
<p>Which is the most clear?</p>
<p><i>Tu quid dicis? Dico quia propheta est. Nisi esset hic a Deo, non poterat facere quidquam.</i><a id="FNanchor_330_334"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_330_334" class="fnanchor pginternal">[330]</a></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00863"><a id="p_834"/>834</h4>
<p>In the Old Testament, when they will turn you from God. In the New, when they will turn you from Jesus Christ. These are the occasions for excluding particular miracles from belief. No others need be excluded.</p>
<p>Does it therefore follow that they would have the right to exclude all the prophets who came to them? No; they would have sinned in not excluding those who denied God, and would have sinned in excluding those who did not deny God.</p>
<p>So soon, then, as we see a miracle, we must either assent to it, or have striking proofs to the contrary. We must see if it denies a God, or Jesus Christ, or the Church.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00864"><a id="p_835"/>835</h4>
<p>There is a great difference between not being for Jesus Christ and saying so, and not being for Jesus Christ and pretending to be so. The one party can do miracles, not the others. For it is clear of the one party, that they are opposed to the truth, but not of the others; and thus miracles are clearer.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00865"><a id="p_836"/>836</h4>
<p>That we must love one God only is a thing so evident, that it does not require miracles to prove it.<a id="Page_247" class="pageno" title="[Pg 247]"/></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00866"><a id="p_837"/>837</h4>
<p>Jesus Christ performed miracles, then the apostles, and the first saints in great number; because the prophecies not being yet accomplished, but in the process of being accomplished by them, the miracles alone bore witness to them. It was foretold that the Messiah should convert the nations. How could this prophecy be fulfilled without the conversion of the nations? And how could the nations be converted to the Messiah, if they did not see this final effect of the prophecies which prove Him? Therefore, till He had died, risen again, and converted the nations, all was not accomplished; and so miracles were needed during all this time. Now they are no longer needed against the Jews; for the accomplished prophecies constitute a lasting miracle.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00867"><a id="p_838"/>838</h4>
<p>"Though ye believe not Me, believe at least the works."<a id="FNanchor_331_335"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_331_335" class="fnanchor pginternal">[331]</a> He refers them, as it were, to the strongest proof.</p>
<p>It had been told to the Jews, as well as to Christians, that they should not always believe the prophets; but yet the Pharisees and Scribes are greatly concerned about His miracles, and try to show that they are false, or wrought by the devil. For they must needs be convinced, if they acknowledge that they are of God.</p>
<p>At the present day we are not troubled to make this distinction. Still it is very easy to do: those who deny neither God nor Jesus Christ do no miracles which are not certain. <i>Nemo facit virtutem in nomine meo, et cito possit de me male loqui.</i><a id="FNanchor_332_336"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_332_336" class="fnanchor pginternal">[332]</a></p>
<p>But we have not to draw this distinction. Here is a sacred relic.<a id="FNanchor_333_337"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_333_337" class="fnanchor pginternal">[333]</a> Here is a thorn from the crown of the Saviour of the world, over whom the prince of this world has no power, which works miracles by the peculiar power of the blood shed for us. Now God Himself chooses this house in order to display conspiciously therein His power.</p>
<p>These are not men who do miracles by an unknown and doubtful virtue, which makes a decision difficult for us. It is God Himself. It is the instrument of the Passion of His only Son, who, being in many places, chooses this, and makes men come from all quarters there to receive these miraculous alleviations in their weaknesses.<a id="Page_248" class="pageno" title="[Pg 248]"/></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00868"><a id="p_839"/>839</h4>
<p>The Church has three kinds of enemies: the Jews, who have never been of her body; the heretics, who have withdrawn from it; and the evil Christians, who rend her from within.</p>
<p>These three kinds of different adversaries usually attack her in different ways. But here they attack her in one and the same way. As they are all without miracles, and as the Church has always had miracles against them, they have all had the same interest in evading them; and they all make use of this excuse, that doctrine must not be judged by miracles, but miracles by doctrine. There were two parties among those who heard Jesus Christ: those who followed His teaching on account of His miracles; others who said.... There were two parties in the time of Calvin.... There are now the Jesuits, etc.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00869"><a id="p_840"/>840</h4>
<p>Miracles furnish the test in matters of doubt, between Jews and heathens, Jews and Christians, Catholics and heretics, the slandered and slanderers, between the two crosses.</p>
<p>But miracles would be useless to heretics; for the Church, authorised by miracles which have already obtained belief, tells us that they have not the true faith. There is no doubt that they are not in it, since the first miracles of the Church exclude belief of theirs. Thus there is miracle against miracle, both the first and greatest being on the side of the Church.</p>
<p>These nuns,<a id="FNanchor_334_338"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_334_338" class="fnanchor pginternal">[334]</a> astonished at what is said, that they are in the way of perdition; that their confessors are leading them to Geneva; that they suggest to them that Jesus Christ is not in the Eucharist, nor on the right hand of the Father; know that all this is false, and therefore offer themselves to God in this state. <i>Vide si via iniquitatis in me est.</i><a id="FNanchor_335_339"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_335_339" class="fnanchor pginternal">[335]</a> What happens thereupon? This place, which is said to be the temple of the devil, God makes His own temple. It is said that the children must be taken away from it. God heals them there. It is said that it is the arsenal of hell. God makes of it the sanctuary of His grace. Lastly, they are threatened with all the fury and vengeance of heaven; and God overwhelms them with favours. A man would need to have lost his senses to conclude from this that they are therefore in the way of perdition.</p>
<p>(We have without doubt the same signs as Saint Athanasius.)<a id="Page_249" class="pageno" title="[Pg 249]"/></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00870"><a id="p_841"/>841</h4>
<p><i>Si tu es Christus, dic nobis.</i><a id="FNanchor_336_340"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_336_340" class="fnanchor pginternal">[336]</a></p>
<p><i>Opera quæ ego facio in nomine patris mei, hæc testimonium perhibent de me. Sed vos non creditis quia non estis ex ovibus meis. Oves meœ vocem meam audiunt.</i><a id="FNanchor_337_341"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_337_341" class="fnanchor pginternal">[337]</a></p>
<p>John vi, 30. <i>Quod ergo tu facis signum ut videamus et credamus tibi?—Non dicunt: Quam doctrinam prædicas?</i></p>
<p><i>Nemo potest facere signa quæ tu facis nisi Deus.</i><a id="FNanchor_338_342"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_338_342" class="fnanchor pginternal">[338]</a></p>
<p>2 Macc. xiv, 15. <i>Deus qui signis evidentibus suam portionem protegit.</i></p>
<p><i>Volumus signum videre de cœlo, tentantes eum.</i> Luke xi, 16.</p>
<p><i>Generatio prava signum quærit; et non dabitur.</i><a id="FNanchor_339_343"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_339_343" class="fnanchor pginternal">[339]</a></p>
<p><i>Et ingemiscens ait: Quid generatio ista signum quærit?</i> (Mark viii, 12.) They asked a sign with an evil intention.</p>
<p><i>Et non poterat facere.</i><a id="FNanchor_340_344"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_340_344" class="fnanchor pginternal">[340]</a> And yet he promises them the sign of Jonah, the great and wonderful miracle of his resurrection.</p>
<p><i>Nisi videritis, non creditis.</i><a id="FNanchor_341_345"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_341_345" class="fnanchor pginternal">[341]</a> He does not blame them for not believing unless there are miracles, but for not believing unless they are themselves spectators of them.</p>
<p>Antichrist <i>in signis mendacibus</i>, says Saint Paul, 2 Thess. ii.</p>
<p class="c1">Secundum operationem Satanæ, in seductione iis qui pereunt eo quod charitatem veritatis non receperunt ut salvi fierent, ideo mittet illis Deus optationes erroris ut credant mendacio.</p>
<p>As in the passage of Moses: <i>Tentat enim vos Deus, utrum diligatis eum.</i><a id="FNanchor_342_346"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_342_346" class="fnanchor pginternal">[342]</a></p>
<p><i>Ecce prædixi vobis: vos ergo videte.</i><a id="FNanchor_343_347"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_343_347" class="fnanchor pginternal">[343]</a></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00871"><a id="p_842"/>842</h4>
<p>Here is not the country of truth. She wanders unknown amongst men. God has covered her with a veil, which leaves her unrecognised by those who do not hear her voice. Room is opened for blasphemy, even against the truths that are at least very likely. If the truths of the Gospel are published, the contrary is published too, and the questions are obscured, so that the people cannot distinguish. And they ask, "What have you to make you believed rather than others? What sign do you give? You have only words, and so have we. If you had miracles, good and well." That doctrine ought to be supported by miracles is a truth, which they misuse in order to revile doctrine. And if miracles happen, it is said that miracles are<a id="Page_250" class="pageno" title="[Pg 250]"/> not enough without doctrine; and this is another truth, which they misuse in order to revile miracles.</p>
<p>Jesus Christ cured the man born blind, and performed a number of miracles on the Sabbath day. In this way He blinded the Pharisees, who said that miracles must be judged by doctrine.</p>
<p>"We have Moses: but, as for this fellow, we know not from whence he is."<a id="FNanchor_344_348"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_344_348" class="fnanchor pginternal">[344]</a> It is wonderful that you know not whence He is, and yet He does such miracles.</p>
<p>Jesus Christ spoke neither against God, nor against Moses.</p>
<p>Antichrist and the false prophets, foretold by both Testaments, will speak openly against God and against Jesus Christ. Who is not hidden ... God would not allow him, who would be a secret enemy, to do miracles openly.</p>
<p>In a public dispute where the two parties profess to be for God, for Jesus Christ, for the Church, miracles have never been on the side of the false Christians, and the other side has never been without a miracle.</p>
<p>"He hath a devil." John x, 21. And others said, "Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?"</p>
<p>The proofs which Jesus Christ and the apostles draw from Scripture are not conclusive; for they say only that Moses foretold that a prophet should come. But they do not thereby prove that this is He; and that is the whole question. These passages therefore serve only to show that they are not contrary to Scripture, and that there appears no inconsistency, but not that there is agreement. Now this is enough, namely, exclusion of inconsistency, along with miracles.</p>
<p>There is a mutual duty between God and men. We must pardon Him this saying: Quid debui?<a id="FNanchor_345_349"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_345_349" class="fnanchor pginternal">[345]</a> "Accuse me," said God in Isaiah.</p>
<p>"God must fulfil His promises," etc.</p>
<p>Men owe it to God to accept the religion which He sends. God owes it to men not to lead them into error. Now, they would be led into error, if the workers of miracles announced a doctrine which should not appear evidently false to the light of common sense, and if a greater worker of miracles had not already warned men not to believe them.</p>
<p>Thus, if there were divisions in the Church, and the Arians, for example, who declared themselves founded on Scripture just as the Catholics, had done miracles, and not the Catholics, men should have been led into error.<a id="Page_251" class="pageno" title="[Pg 251]"/></p>
<p>For, as a man, who announces to us the secrets of God, is not worthy to be believed on his private authority, and that is why the ungodly doubt him; so when a man, as a token of the communion which he has with God, raises the dead, foretells the future, removes the seas, heals the sick, there is none so wicked as not to bow to him, and the incredulity of Pharaoh and the Pharisees is the effect of a supernatural obduracy.</p>
<p>When, therefore, we see miracles and a doctrine not suspicious, both on one side, there is no difficulty. But when we see miracles and suspicious doctrine on the same side, we must then see which is the clearest. Jesus Christ was suspected.</p>
<p>Bar-jesus blinded.<a id="FNanchor_346_350"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_346_350" class="fnanchor pginternal">[346]</a> The power of God surpasses that of His enemies.</p>
<p>The Jewish exorcists<a id="FNanchor_347_351"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_347_351" class="fnanchor pginternal">[347]</a> beaten by the devils, saying, "Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?"</p>
<p>Miracles are for doctrine, and not doctrine for miracles.</p>
<p>If the miracles are true, shall we be able to persuade men of all doctrine? No; for this will not come to pass. <i>Si angelus</i>.<a id="FNanchor_348_352"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_348_352" class="fnanchor pginternal">[348]</a> ...</p>
<p>Rule: we must judge of doctrine by miracles; we must judge of miracles by doctrine. All this is true, but contains no contradiction.</p>
<p>For we must distinguish the times.</p>
<p>How glad you are to know the general rules, thinking thereby to set up dissension, and render all useless! We shall prevent you, my father; truth is one and constant.</p>
<p>It is impossible, from the duty of God to men, that a man, hiding his evil teaching, and only showing the good, saying that he conforms to God and the Church, should do miracles so as to instil insensibly a false and subtle doctrine. This cannot happen.</p>
<p>And still less, that God, who knows the heart, should perform miracles in favour of such a one.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00872"><a id="p_843"/>843</h4>
<p>The three marks of religion: perpetuity, a good life, miracles. They destroy perpetuity by their doctrine of probability; a good life by their morals; miracles by destroying either their truth or the conclusions to be drawn from them.</p>
<p>If we believe them, the Church will have nothing to do with perpetuity, holiness, and miracles. The heretics deny them, or deny the conclusions to be drawn from them; they do the<a id="Page_252" class="pageno" title="[Pg 252]"/> same. But one would need to have no sincerity in order to deny them, or again to lose one's senses in order to deny the conclusions to be drawn from them.</p>
<p>Nobody has ever suffered martyrdom for the miracles which he says he has seen; for the folly of men goes perhaps to the length of martyrdom, for those which the Turks believe by tradition, but not for those which they have seen.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00873"><a id="p_844"/>844</h4>
<p>The heretics have always attacked these three marks, which they have not.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00874"><a id="p_845"/>845</h4>
<p><i>First objection</i>: "An angel from heaven.<a id="FNanchor_349_353"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_349_353" class="fnanchor pginternal">[349]</a> We must not judge of truth by miracles, but of miracles by truth. Therefore the miracles are useless."</p>
<p>Now they are of use, and they must not be in opposition to the truth. Therefore what Father Lingende<a id="FNanchor_350_354"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_350_354" class="fnanchor pginternal">[350]</a> has said, that "God will not permit that a miracle may lead into error...."</p>
<p>When there shall be a controversy in the same Church, miracle will decide.</p>
<p><i>Second objection</i>: "But Antichrist will do miracles."</p>
<p>The magicians of Pharaoh did not entice to error. Thus we cannot say to Jesus respecting Antichrist, "You have led me into error." For Antichrist will do them against Jesus Christ, and so they cannot lead into error. Either God will not permit false miracles, or He will procure greater.</p>
<p>[Jesus Christ has existed since the beginning of the world: this is more impressive than all the miracles of Antichrist.]</p>
<p>If in the same Church there should happen a miracle on the side of those in error, men would be led into error. Schism is visible; a miracle is visible. But schism is more a sign of error than a miracle is a sign of truth. Therefore a miracle cannot lead into error.</p>
<p>But apart from schism, error is not so obvious as a miracle is obvious. Therefore a miracle could lead into error.</p>
<p><i>Ubi est Deus tuus?</i><a id="FNanchor_351_355"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_351_355" class="fnanchor pginternal">[351]</a> Miracles show Him, and are a light.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00875"><a id="p_846"/>846</h4>
<p>One of the anthems for Vespers at Christmas: <i>Exortum est in tenebris lumen rectis corde.</i><a id="Page_253" class="pageno" title="[Pg 253]"/><a id="FNanchor_352_356"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_352_356" class="fnanchor pginternal">[352]</a></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00876"><a id="p_847"/>847</h4>
<p>If the compassion of God is so great that He instructs us to our benefit, even when He hides Himself, what light ought we not to expect from Him when He reveals Himself?</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00877"><a id="p_848"/>848</h4>
<p>Will <i>Est et non est</i> be received in faith itself as well as in miracles? And if it is inseparable in the others ...</p>
<p>When Saint Xavier<a id="FNanchor_353_357"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_353_357" class="fnanchor pginternal">[353]</a> works miracles.—[Saint Hilary. "Ye wretches, who oblige us to speak of miracles."]</p>
<p>Unjust judges, make not your own laws on the moment; judge by those which are established, and by yourselves. <i>Væ qui conditis leges iniquas.</i><a id="FNanchor_354_358"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_354_358" class="fnanchor pginternal">[354]</a></p>
<p>Miracles endless, false.</p>
<p>In order to weaken your adversaries, you disarm the whole Church.</p>
<p>If they say that our salvation depends upon God, they are "heretics." If they say that they are obedient to the Pope, that is "hypocrisy." If they are ready to subscribe to all the articles, that is not enough. If they say that a man must not be killed for an apple, "they attack the morality of Catholics." If miracles are done among them, it is not a sign of holiness, and is, on the contrary, a symptom of heresy.</p>
<p>This way in which the Church has existed is that truth has been without dispute, or, if it has been contested, there has been the Pope, or, failing him, there has been the Church.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00878"><a id="p_849"/>849</h4>
<p>The five propositions<a id="FNanchor_355_359"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_355_359" class="fnanchor pginternal">[355]</a> condemned, but no miracle; for the truth was not attacked. But the Sorbonne ... but the bull....</p>
<p>It is impossible that those who love God with all their heart should fail to recognise the Church; so evident is she.—It is impossible that those who do not love God should be convinced of the Church.</p>
<p>Miracles have such influence that it was necessary that God should warn men not to believe in them in opposition to Him, all clear as it is that there is a God. Without this they would have been able to disturb men.</p>
<p>And thus so far from these passages, Deut. xiii, making against the authority of the miracles, nothing more indicates their influence. And the same in respect of Antichrist. "To seduce, if it were possible, even the elect."<a id="Page_254" class="pageno" title="[Pg 254]"/><a id="FNanchor_356_360"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_356_360" class="fnanchor pginternal">[356]</a></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00879"><a id="p_850"/>850</h4>
<p>The history of the man born blind.</p>
<p>What says Saint Paul? Does he continually speak of the evidence of the prophecies? No, but of his own miracle. What says Jesus Christ? Does He speak of the evidence of the prophecies? No; His death had not fulfilled them. But He says, <i>Si non fecissem</i>.<a id="FNanchor_357_361"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_357_361" class="fnanchor pginternal">[357]</a> Believe the works.</p>
<p>Two supernatural foundations of our wholly supernatural religion; one visible, the other invisible; miracles with grace, miracles without grace.</p>
<p>The synagogue, which had been treated with love as a type of the Church, and with hatred, because it was only the type, has been restored, being on the point of falling when it was well with God, and thus a type.</p>
<p>Miracles prove the power which God has over hearts, by that which He exercises over bodies.</p>
<p>The Church has never approved a miracle among heretics.</p>
<p>Miracles a support of religion: they have been the test of Jews; they have been the test of Christians, saints, innocents, and true believers.</p>
<p>A miracle among schismatics is not so much to be feared; for schism, which is more obvious than a miracle, visibly indicates their error. But when there is no schism, and error is in question, miracle decides.</p>
<p><i>Si non fecissem quæ alius non fecit.</i> The wretches who have obliged us to speak of miracles.</p>
<p>Abraham and Gideon confirm faith by miracles.</p>
<p>Judith. God speaks at last in their greatest oppression.</p>
<p>If the cooling of love leaves the Church almost without believers, miracles will rouse them. This is one of the last effects of grace.</p>
<p>If one miracle were wrought among the Jesuits!</p>
<p>When a miracle disappoints the expectation of those in whose presence it happens, and there is a disproportion between the state of their faith and the instrument of the miracle, it ought then to induce them to change. But with you it is otherwise. There would be as much reason in saying that, if the Eucharist raised a dead man, it would be necessary for one to turn a Calvinist rather than remain a Catholic. But when it crowns the expectation, and those, who hoped that God would bless the remedies, see themselves healed without remedies ...<a id="Page_255" class="pageno" title="[Pg 255]"/></p>
<p><i>The ungodly.</i>—No sign has ever happened on the part of the devil without a stronger sign on the part of God, or even without it having been foretold that such would happen.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00880"><a id="p_851"/>851</h4>
<p>Unjust persecutors of those whom God visibly protects. If they reproach you with your excesses, "they speak as the heretics." If they say that the grace of Jesus Christ distinguishes us, "they are heretics." If they do miracles, "it is the mark of their heresy."</p>
<p>Ezekiel.—They say: These are the people of God who speak thus.</p>
<p>It is said, "Believe in the Church";<a id="FNanchor_358_362"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_358_362" class="fnanchor pginternal">[358]</a> but it is not said, "Believe in miracles"; because the last is natural, and not the first. The one had need of a precept, not the other. Hezekiah.</p>
<p>The synagogue was only a type, and thus it did not perish; and it was only a type, and so it is decayed. It was a type which contained the truth, and thus it has lasted until it no longer contained the truth.</p>
<p>My reverend father, all this happened in types. Other religions perish; this one perishes not.</p>
<p>Miracles are more important than you think. They have served for the foundation, and will serve for the continuation of the Church till Antichrist, till the end.</p>
<p>The two witnesses.</p>
<p>In the Old Testament and the New, miracles are performed in connection with types. Salvation, or a useless thing, if not to show that we must submit to the Scriptures: type of the sacrament.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00881"><a id="p_852"/>852</h4>
<p>[We must judge soberly of divine ordinances, my father.</p>
<p>Saint Paul in the isle of Malta.]</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00882"><a id="p_853"/>853</h4>
<p>The hardness of the Jesuits, then, surpasses that of the Jews, since those refused to believe Jesus Christ innocent only because they doubted if His miracles were of God. Whereas the Jesuits, though unable to doubt that the miracles of Port-Royal are of God, do not cease to doubt still the innocence of that house.<a id="Page_256" class="pageno" title="[Pg 256]"/></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00883"><a id="p_854"/>854</h4>
<p>I suppose that men believe miracles. You corrupt religion either in favour of your friends, or against your enemies. You arrange it at your will.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00884"><a id="p_855"/>855</h4>
<p><i>On the miracle.</i>—As God has made no family more happy, let it also be the case that He find none more thankful.</p>
<hr class="c2"/>
<p><a id="Page_257" class="pageno" title="[Pg 257]"/></p>
<h2 id="pgepubid00885"><a id="SECTION_XIV"/>SECTION XIV</h2>
<h3 id="pgepubid00886">APPENDIX: POLEMICAL FRAGMENTS</h3>
<h4 id="pgepubid00887"><a id="p_856"/>856</h4>
<p><i>Clearness, obscurity.</i>—There would be too great darkness, if truth had not visible signs. This is a wonderful one, that it has always been preserved in one Church and one visible assembly [of men]. There would be too great clearness, if there were only one opinion in this Church. But in order to recognise what is true, one has only to look at what has always existed; for it is certain that truth has always existed, and that nothing false has always existed.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00888"><a id="p_857"/>857</h4>
<p>The history of the Church ought properly to be called the history of truth.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00889"><a id="p_858"/>858</h4>
<p>There is a pleasure in being in a ship beaten about by a storm, when we are sure that it will not founder. The persecutions which harass the Church are of this nature.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00890"><a id="p_859"/>859</h4>
<p>In addition to so many other signs of piety, they<a id="FNanchor_359_363"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_359_363" class="fnanchor pginternal">[359]</a> are also persecuted, which is the best sign of piety.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00891"><a id="p_860"/>860</h4>
<p>The Church is in an excellent state, when it is sustained by God only.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00892"><a id="p_861"/>861</h4>
<p>The Church has always been attacked by opposite errors, but perhaps never at the same time, as now. And if she suffer more because of the multiplicity of errors, she derives this advantage from it, that they destroy each other.</p>
<p>She complains of both, but far more of the Calvinists, because of the schism.<a id="Page_258" class="pageno" title="[Pg 258]"/></p>
<p>It is certain that many of the two opposite sects are deceived. They must be disillusioned.</p>
<p>Faith embraces many truths which seem to contradict each other. <i>There is a time to laugh, and a time to weep</i>,<a id="FNanchor_360_364"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_360_364" class="fnanchor pginternal">[360]</a> etc. <i>Responde. Ne respondeas</i>,<a id="FNanchor_361_365"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_361_365" class="fnanchor pginternal">[361]</a> etc.</p>
<p>The source of this is the union of the two natures in Jesus Christ; and also the two worlds (the creation of a new heaven and a new earth; a new life and a new death; all things double, and the same names remaining); and finally the two natures that are in the righteous, (for they are the two worlds, and a member and image of Jesus Christ. And thus all the names suit them: righteous, yet sinners; dead, yet living; living, yet dead; elect, yet outcast, etc.).</p>
<p>There are then a great number of truths, both of faith and of morality, which seem contradictory, and which all hold good together in a wonderful system. The source of all heresies is the exclusion of some of these truths; and the source of all the objections which the heretics make against us is the ignorance of some of our truths. And it generally happens that, unable to conceive the connection of two opposite truths, and believing that the admission of one involves the exclusion of the other, they adhere to the one, exclude the other, and think of us as opposed to them. Now exclusion is the cause of their heresy; and ignorance that we hold the other truth causes their objections.</p>
<p>1st example: Jesus Christ is God and man. The Arians, unable to reconcile these things, which they believe incompatible, say that He is man; in this they are Catholics. But they deny that He is God; in this they are heretics. They allege that we deny His humanity; in this they are ignorant.</p>
<p>2nd example: On the subject of the Holy Sacrament. We believe that, the substance of the bread being changed, and being consubstantial with that of the body of our Lord, Jesus Christ is therein really present. That is one truth. Another is that this Sacrament is also a type of the cross and of glory, and a commemoration of the two. That is the Catholic faith, which comprehends these two truths which seem opposed.</p>
<p>The heresy of to-day, not conceiving that this Sacrament contains at the same time both the presence of Jesus Christ and a type of Him, and that it is a sacrifice and a commemoration of a sacrifice, believes that neither of these truths can be admitted without excluding the other for this reason.</p>
<p>They fasten to this point alone, that this Sacrament is typical;<a id="Page_259" class="pageno" title="[Pg 259]"/> and in this they are not heretics. They think that we exclude this truth; hence it comes that they raise so many objections to us out of the passages of the Fathers which assert it. Finally, they deny the presence; and in this they are heretics.</p>
<p>3rd example: Indulgences.</p>
<p>The shortest way, therefore, to prevent heresies is to instruct in all truths; and the surest way to refute them is to declare them all. For what will the heretics say?</p>
<p>In order to know whether an opinion is a Father's ...</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00893"><a id="p_862"/>862</h4>
<p>All err the more dangerously, as they each follow a truth. Their fault is not in following a falsehood, but in not following another truth.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00894"><a id="p_863"/>863</h4>
<p>Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00895"><a id="p_864"/>864</h4>
<p>If there is ever a time in which we must make profession of two opposite truths, it is when we are reproached for omitting one. Therefore the Jesuits and Jansenists are wrong in concealing them, but the Jansenists more so, for the Jesuits have better made profession of the two.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00896"><a id="p_865"/>865</h4>
<p>Two kinds of people make things equal to one another, as feasts to working days, Christians to priests, all things among them, etc. And hence the one party conclude that what is then bad for priests is also so for Christians, and the other that what is not bad for Christians is lawful for priests.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00897"><a id="p_866"/>866</h4>
<p>If the ancient Church was in error, the Church is fallen. If she should be in error to-day, it is not the same thing; for she has always the superior maxim of tradition from the hand of the ancient Church; and so this submission and this conformity to the ancient Church prevail and correct all. But the ancient Church did not assume the future Church, and did not consider her, as we assume and consider the ancient.<a id="Page_260" class="pageno" title="[Pg 260]"/></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00898"><a id="p_867"/>867</h4>
<p>That which hinders us in comparing what formerly occurred in the Church with what we see there now, is that we generally look upon Saint Athanasius,<a id="FNanchor_362_366"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_362_366" class="fnanchor pginternal">[362]</a> Saint Theresa, and the rest, as crowned with glory, and acting towards us as gods. Now that time has cleared up things, it does so appear. But at the time when he was persecuted, this great saint was a man called Athanasius; and Saint Theresa was a nun. "Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are," says Saint James, to disabuse Christians of that false idea which makes us reject the example of the saints, as disproportioned to our state. "They were saints," say we, "they are not like us." What then actually happened? Saint Athanasius was a man called Athanasius, accused of many crimes, condemned by such and such a council for such and such a crime. All the bishops assented to it, and finally the Pope. What said they to those who opposed this? That they disturbed the peace, that they created schism, etc.</p>
<p>Zeal, light. Four kinds of persons: zeal without knowledge; knowledge without zeal; neither knowledge nor zeal; both zeal and knowledge. The first three condemned him. The last acquitted him, were excommunicated by the Church, and yet saved the Church.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00899"><a id="p_868"/>868</h4>
<p>If Saint Augustine came at the present time, and was as little authorised as his defenders, he would accomplish nothing. God directs His Church well, by having sent him before with authority.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00900"><a id="p_869"/>869</h4>
<p>God has not wanted to absolve without the Church. As she has part in the offence, He desires her to have part in the pardon. He associates her with this power, as kings their parliaments. But if she absolves or binds without God, she is no longer the Church. For, as in the case of parliament, even if the king have pardoned a man, it must be ratified; but if parliament ratifies without the king, or refuses to ratify on the order of the king, it is no longer the parliament of the king, but a rebellious assembly.<a id="Page_261" class="pageno" title="[Pg 261]"/></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00901"><a id="p_870"/>870</h4>
<p><i>The Church, the Pope. Unity, plurality.</i>—Considering the Church as a unity, the Pope, who is its head, is as the whole. Considering it as a plurality, the Pope is only a part of it. The Fathers have considered the Church now in the one way, now in the other. And thus they have spoken differently of the Pope. (Saint Cyprian: <i>Sacerdos Dei.</i>) But in establishing one of these truths, they have not excluded the other. Plurality which is not reduced to unity is confusion; unity which does not depend on plurality is tyranny. There is scarcely any other country than France in which it is permissible to say that the Council is above the Pope.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00902"><a id="p_871"/>871</h4>
<p>The Pope is head. Who else is known of all? Who else is recognised by all, having power to insinuate himself into all the body, because he holds the principal shoot, which insinuates itself everywhere? How easy it was to make this degenerate into tyranny! That is why Christ has laid down for them this precept: <i>Vos autem non sic.</i><a id="FNanchor_363_367"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_363_367" class="fnanchor pginternal">[363]</a></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00903"><a id="p_872"/>872</h4>
<p>The Pope hates and fears the learned, who do not submit to him at will.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00904"><a id="p_873"/>873</h4>
<p>We must not judge of what the Pope is by some words of the Fathers—as the Greeks said in a council, important rules—but by the acts of the Church and the Fathers, and by the canons.</p>
<p><i>Duo aut tres in unum.</i><a id="FNanchor_364_368"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_364_368" class="fnanchor pginternal">[364]</a> Unity and plurality. It is an error to exclude one of the two, as the papists do who exclude plurality, or the Huguenots who exclude unity.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00905"><a id="p_874"/>874</h4>
<p>Would the Pope be dishonoured by having his knowledge from God and tradition; and is it not dishonouring him to separate him from this holy union?</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00906"><a id="p_875"/>875</h4>
<p>God does not perform miracles in the ordinary conduct of His Church. It would be a strange miracle if infallibility existed in one man. But it appears so natural for it to reside<a id="Page_262" class="pageno" title="[Pg 262]"/> in a multitude, since the conduct of God is hidden under nature, as in all His other works.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00907"><a id="p_876"/>876</h4>
<p>Kings dispose of their own power; but the Popes cannot dispose of theirs.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00908"><a id="p_877"/>877</h4>
<p class="c1">Summum jus, summa injuria.</p>
<p>The majority is the best way, because it is visible, and has strength to make itself obeyed. Yet it is the opinion of the least able.</p>
<p>If men could have done it, they would have placed might in the hands of justice. But as might does not allow itself to be managed as men want, because it is a palpable quality, whereas justice is a spiritual quality of which men dispose as they please, they have placed justice in the hands of might. And thus that is called just which men are forced to obey.</p>
<p>Hence comes the right of the sword, for the sword gives a true right. Otherwise we should see violence on one side and justice on the other (end of the twelfth <i>Provincial</i>). Hence comes the injustice of the Fronde,<a id="FNanchor_365_369"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_365_369" class="fnanchor pginternal">[365]</a> which raises its alleged justice against power. It is not the same in the Church, for there is a true justice and no violence.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00909"><a id="p_878"/>878</h4>
<p><i>Injustice.</i>—Jurisdiction is not given for the sake of the judge, but for that of the litigant. It is dangerous to tell this to the people. But the people have too much faith in you; it will not harm them, and may serve you. It should therefore be made known. <i>Pasce oves meas</i>,<a id="FNanchor_366_370"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_366_370" class="fnanchor pginternal">[366]</a> non <i>tuas</i>. You owe me pasturage.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00910"><a id="p_879"/>879</h4>
<p>Men like certainty. They like the Pope to be infallible in faith, and grave doctors to be infallible in morals, so as to have certainty.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00911"><a id="p_880"/>880</h4>
<p>The Church teaches, and God inspires, both infallibly. The work of the Church is of use only as a preparation for grace or condemnation. What it does is enough for condemnation, not for inspiration.<a id="Page_263" class="pageno" title="[Pg 263]"/></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00912"><a id="p_881"/>881</h4>
<p>Every time the Jesuits may impose upon the Pope, they will make all Christendom perjured.</p>
<p>The Pope is very easily imposed upon, because of his occupations, and the confidence which he has in the Jesuits; and the Jesuits are very capable of imposing upon him by means of calumny.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00913"><a id="p_882"/>882</h4>
<p>The wretches who have obliged me to speak of the basis of religion.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00914"><a id="p_883"/>883</h4>
<p>Sinners purified without penitence; the righteous justified without love; all Christians without the grace of Jesus Christ; God without power over the will of men; a predestination without mystery; a redemption without certitude!</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00915"><a id="p_884"/>884</h4>
<p>Any one is made a priest, who wants to be so, as under Jeroboam.<a id="FNanchor_367_371"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_367_371" class="fnanchor pginternal">[367]</a></p>
<p>It is a horrible thing that they propound to us the discipline of the Church of to-day as so good, that it is made a crime to desire to change it. Formerly it was infallibly good, and it was thought that it could be changed without sin; and now, such as it is, we cannot wish it changed! It has indeed been permitted to change the custom of not making priests without such great circumspection, that there were hardly any who were worthy; and it is not allowed to complain of the custom which makes so many who are unworthy!</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00916"><a id="p_885"/>885</h4>
<p><i>Heretics.</i>—Ezekiel. All the heathen, and also the Prophet, spoke evil of Israel. But the Israelites were so far from having the right to say to him, "You speak like the heathen," that he is most forcible upon this, that the heathen say the same as he.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00917"><a id="p_886"/>886</h4>
<p>The Jansenists are like the heretics in the reformation of morality; but you are like them in evil.<a id="Page_264" class="pageno" title="[Pg 264]"/></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00918"><a id="p_887"/>887</h4>
<p>You are ignorant of the prophecies, if you do not know that all this must happen; princes, prophets, Pope, and even the priests. And yet the Church is to abide. By the grace of God we have not come to that. Woe to these priests! But we hope that God will bestow His mercy upon us that we shall not be of them.</p>
<p>Saint Peter, ii: false prophets in the past, the image of future ones.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00919"><a id="p_888"/>888</h4>
<p>... So that if it is true, on the one hand, that some lax monks, and some corrupt casuists, who are not members of the hierarchy, are steeped in these corruptions, it is, on the other hand, certain that the true pastors of the Church, who are the true guardians of the Divine Word, have preserved it unchangeably against the efforts of those who have attempted to destroy it.</p>
<p>And thus true believers have no pretext to follow that laxity, which is only offered to them by the strange hands of these casuists, instead of the sound doctrine which is presented to them by the fatherly hands of their own pastors. And the ungodly and heretics have no ground for publishing these abuses as evidence of imperfection in the providence of God over His Church; since, the Church consisting properly in the body of the hierarchy, we are so far from being able to conclude from the present state of matters that God has abandoned her to corruption, that it has never been more apparent than at the present time that God visibly protects her from corruption.</p>
<p>For if some of these men, who, by an extraordinary vocation, have made profession of withdrawing from the world and adopting the monks' dress, in order to live in a more perfect state than ordinary Christians, have fallen into excesses which horrify ordinary Christians, and have become to us what the false prophets were among the Jews; this is a private and personal misfortune, which must indeed be deplored, but from which nothing can be inferred against the care which God takes of His Church; since all these things are so clearly foretold, and it has been so long since announced that these temptations would arise from people of this kind; so that when we are well instructed, we see in this rather evidence of the care of God than of His forgetfulness in regard to us.<a id="Page_265" class="pageno" title="[Pg 265]"/></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00920"><a id="p_889"/>889</h4>
<p>Tertullian: <i>Nunquam Ecclesia reformabitur.</i></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00921"><a id="p_890"/>890</h4>
<p>Heretics, who take advantage of the doctrine of the Jesuits, must be made to know that it is not that of the Church [<i>the doctrine of the Church</i>], and that our divisions do not separate us from the altar.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00922"><a id="p_891"/>891</h4>
<p>If in differing we condemned, you would be right. Uniformity without diversity is useless to others; diversity without uniformity is ruinous for us. The one is harmful outwardly; the other inwardly.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00923"><a id="p_892"/>892</h4>
<p>By showing the truth, we cause it to be believed; but by showing the injustice of ministers, we do not correct it. Our mind is assured by a proof of falsehood; our purse is not made secure by proof of injustice.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00924"><a id="p_893"/>893</h4>
<p>Those who love the Church lament to see the corruption of morals; but laws at least exist. But these corrupt the laws. The model is damaged.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00925"><a id="p_894"/>894</h4>
<p>Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00926"><a id="p_895"/>895</h4>
<p>It is in vain that the Church has established these words, anathemas, heresies, etc. They are used against her.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00927"><a id="p_896"/>896</h4>
<p>The servant knoweth not what his lord doeth, for the master tells him only the act and not the intention.<a id="FNanchor_368_372"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_368_372" class="fnanchor pginternal">[368]</a> And this is why he often obeys slavishly, and defeats the intention. But Jesus Christ has told us the object. And you defeat that object.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00928"><a id="p_897"/>897</h4>
<p>They cannot have perpetuity, and they seek universality; and therefore they make the whole Church corrupt, that they may be saints.<a id="Page_266" class="pageno" title="[Pg 266]"/></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00929"><a id="p_898"/>898</h4>
<p><i>Against those who misuse passages of Scripture, and who pride themselves in finding one which seems to favour their error.</i>—The chapter for Vespers, Passion Sunday, the prayer for the king.</p>
<p>Explanation of these words: "He that is not with me is against me."<a id="FNanchor_369_373"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_369_373" class="fnanchor pginternal">[369]</a> And of these others: "He that is not against you is for you."<a id="FNanchor_370_374"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_370_374" class="fnanchor pginternal">[370]</a> A person who says: "I am neither for nor against", we ought to reply to him ...</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00930"><a id="p_899"/>899</h4>
<p>He who will give the meaning of Scripture, and does not take it from Scripture, is an enemy of Scripture. (Aug., <i>De Doct. Christ.</i>)</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00931"><a id="p_900"/>900</h4>
<p><i>Humilibus dat gratiam; an ideo non dedit humilitatem?</i><a id="FNanchor_371_375"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_371_375" class="fnanchor pginternal">[371]</a></p>
<p><i>Sui eum non receperunt; quotquot autem non receperunt an non erant sui?</i><a id="FNanchor_372_376"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_372_376" class="fnanchor pginternal">[372]</a></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00932"><a id="p_901"/>901</h4>
<p>"It must indeed be," says Feuillant, "that this is not so certain; for controversy indicates uncertainty, (Saint Athanasius, Saint Chrysostom, morals, unbelievers)."</p>
<p>The Jesuits have not made the truth uncertain, but they have made their own ungodliness certain.</p>
<p>Contradiction has always been permitted, in order to blind the wicked; for all that offends truth or love is evil. This is the true principle.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00933"><a id="p_902"/>902</h4>
<p>All religions and sects in the world have had natural reason for a guide. Christians alone have been constrained to take their rules from without themselves, and to acquaint themselves with those which Jesus Christ bequeathed to men of old to be handed down to true believers. This constraint wearies these good Fathers. They desire, like other people, to have liberty to follow their own imaginations. It is in vain that we cry to them, as the prophets said to the Jews of old: "Enter into the Church; acquaint yourselves with the precepts which the men of old left to her, and follow those paths." They have answered like the Jews: "We will not walk in them; but we will follow the thoughts of our hearts"; and they have said, "We will be as the other nations."<a id="Page_267" class="pageno" title="[Pg 267]"/><a id="FNanchor_373_377"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_373_377" class="fnanchor pginternal">[373]</a></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00934"><a id="p_903"/>903</h4>
<p>They make a rule of exception.</p>
<p>Have the men of old given absolution before penance? Do this as exceptional. But of the exception you make a rule without exception, so that you do not even want the rule to be exceptional.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00935"><a id="p_904"/>904</h4>
<p class="c1">On confessions and absolutions without signs of regret.</p>
<p>God regards only the inward; the Church judges only by the outward. God absolves as soon as He sees penitence in the heart; the Church when she sees it in works. God will make a Church pure within, which confounds, by its inward and entirely spiritual holiness, the inward impiety of proud sages and Pharisees; and the Church will make an assembly of men whose external manners are so pure as to confound the manners of the heathen. If there are hypocrites among them, but so well disguised that she does not discover their venom, she tolerates them; for, though they are not accepted of God, whom they cannot deceive, they are of men, whom they do deceive. And thus she is not dishonoured by their conduct, which appears holy. But you want the Church to judge neither of the inward, because that belongs to God alone, nor of the outward, because God dwells only upon the inward; and thus, taking away from her all choice of men, you retain in the Church the most dissolute, and those who dishonour her so greatly, that the synagogues of the Jews and sects of philosophers would have banished them as unworthy, and have abhorred them as impious.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00936"><a id="p_905"/>905</h4>
<p>The easiest conditions to live in according to the world are the most difficult to live in according to God, and vice versa. Nothing is so difficult according to the world as the religious life; nothing is easier than to live it according to God. Nothing is easier, according to the world, than to live in high office and great wealth; nothing is more difficult than to live in them according to God, and without acquiring an interest in them and a liking for them.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00937"><a id="p_906"/>906</h4>
<p>The casuists submit the decision to the corrupt reason, and the choice of decisions to the corrupt will, in order that all<a id="Page_268" class="pageno" title="[Pg 268]"/> that is corrupt in the nature of man may contribute to his conduct.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00938"><a id="p_907"/>907</h4>
<p>But is it <i>probable</i> that <i>probability</i> gives assurance?</p>
<p>Difference between rest and security of conscience. Nothing gives certainty but truth; nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00939"><a id="p_908"/>908</h4>
<p>The whole society itself of their casuists cannot give assurance to a conscience in error, and that is why it is important to choose good guides.</p>
<p>Thus they will be doubly culpable, both in having followed ways which they should not have followed, and in having listened to teachers to whom they should not have listened.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00940"><a id="p_909"/>909</h4>
<p>Can it be anything but compliance with the world which makes you find things probable? Will you make us believe that it is truth, and that if duelling were not the fashion, you would find it probable that they might fight, considering the matter in itself?</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00941"><a id="p_910"/>910</h4>
<p>Must we kill to prevent there being any wicked? This is to make both parties wicked instead of one. <i>Vince in bono malum.</i><a id="FNanchor_374_378"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_374_378" class="fnanchor pginternal">[374]</a> (Saint Augustine.)</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00942"><a id="p_911"/>911</h4>
<p><i>Universal.</i>—Ethics and language are special, but universal sciences.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00943"><a id="p_912"/>912</h4>
<p><i>Probability.</i>—Each one can employ it; no one can take it away.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00944"><a id="p_913"/>913</h4>
<p>They allow lust to act, and check scruples; whereas they should do the contrary.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00945"><a id="p_914"/>914</h4>
<p><i>Montalte.</i><a id="FNanchor_375_379"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_375_379" class="fnanchor pginternal">[375]</a>—Lax opinions please men so much, that it is strange that theirs displease. It is because they have exceeded all<a id="Page_269" class="pageno" title="[Pg 269]"/> bounds. Again, there are many people who see the truth, and who cannot attain to it; but there are few who do not know that the purity of religion is opposed to our corruptions. It is absurd to say that an eternal recompense is offered to the morality of Escobar.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00946"><a id="p_915"/>915</h4>
<p><i>Probability.</i>—They have some true principles; but they misuse them. Now, the abuse of truth ought to be as much punished as the introduction of falsehood.</p>
<p>As if there were two hells, one for sins against love, the other for those against justice!</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00947"><a id="p_916"/>916</h4>
<p><i>Probability.</i><a id="FNanchor_376_380"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_376_380" class="fnanchor pginternal">[376]</a>—The earnestness of the saints in seeking the truth was useless, if the probable is trustworthy. The fear of the saints who have always followed the surest way (Saint Theresa having always followed her confessor).</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00948"><a id="p_917"/>917</h4>
<p>Take away <i>probability</i>, and you can no longer please the world; give <i>probability</i>, and you can no longer displease it.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00949"><a id="p_918"/>918</h4>
<p>These are the effects of the sins of the peoples and of the Jesuits. The great have wished to be flattered. The Jesuits have wished to be loved by the great. They have all been worthy to be abandoned to the spirit of lying, the one party to deceive, the others to be deceived. They have been avaricious, ambitious, voluptuous. <i>Coacervabunt tibi magistros.</i><a id="FNanchor_377_381"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_377_381" class="fnanchor pginternal">[377]</a> Worthy disciples of such masters, they have sought flatterers, and have found them.</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00950"><a id="p_919"/>919</h4>
<p>If they do not renounce their doctrine of probability, their good maxims are as little holy as the bad, for they are founded on human authority; and thus, if they are more just, they will be more reasonable, but not more holy. They take after the wild stem on which they are grafted.<a id="Page_270" class="pageno" title="[Pg 270]"/></p>
<p>If what I say does not serve to enlighten you, it will be of use to the people.</p>
<p>If these<a id="FNanchor_378_382"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_378_382" class="fnanchor pginternal">[378]</a> are silent, the stones will speak.</p>
<p>Silence is the greatest persecution; the saints were never silent. It is true that a call is necessary; but it is not from the decrees of the Council that we must learn whether we are called, it is from the necessity of speaking. Now, after Rome has spoken, and we think that she has condemned the truth, and that they have written it, and after the books which have said the contrary are censured; we must cry out so much the louder, the more unjustly we are censured, and the more violently they would stifle speech, until there come a Pope who hears both parties, and who consults antiquity to do justice. So the good Popes will find the Church still in outcry.</p>
<p>The Inquisition and the Society<a id="FNanchor_379_383"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_379_383" class="fnanchor pginternal">[379]</a> are the two scourges of the truth.</p>
<p>Why do you not accuse them of Arianism? For, though they have said that Jesus Christ is God, perhaps they mean by it not the natural interpretation, but as it is said, <i>Dii estis</i>.</p>
<p>If my Letters are condemned at Rome, that which I condemn in them is condemned in heaven. <i>Ad tuum, Domine Jesu, tribunal appello.</i></p>
<p>You yourselves are corruptible.</p>
<p>I feared that I had written ill, seeing myself condemned; but the example of so many pious writings makes me believe the contrary. It is no longer allowable to write well, so corrupt or ignorant is the Inquisition!</p>
<p>"It is better to obey God than men."</p>
<p>I fear nothing; I hope for nothing. It is not so with the bishops. Port-Royal fears, and it is bad policy to disperse them; for they will fear no longer and will cause greater fear. I do not even fear your like censures, if they are not founded on those of tradition. Do you censure all? What! even my respect? No. Say then what, or you will do nothing, if you do not point out the evil, and why it is evil. And this is what they will have great difficulty in doing.</p>
<p><i>Probability.</i>—They have given a ridiculous explanation of certitude; for, after having established that all their ways are sure, they have no longer called that sure which leads to heaven without danger of not arriving there by it, but that which leads there without danger of going out of that road.<a id="Page_271" class="pageno" title="[Pg 271]"/></p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00951"><a id="p_920"/>920</h4>
<p>... The saints indulge in subtleties in order to think themselves criminals, and impeach their better actions. And these indulge in subtleties in order to excuse the most wicked.</p>
<p>The heathen sages erected a structure equally fine outside, but upon a bad foundation; and the devil deceived men by this apparent resemblance based upon the most different foundation.</p>
<p>Man never had so good a cause as I; and others have never furnished so good a capture as you....</p>
<p>The more they point out weakness in my person, the more they authorise my cause.</p>
<p>You say that I am a heretic. Is that lawful? And if you do not fear that men do justice, do you not fear that God does justice?</p>
<p>You will feel the force of the truth, and you will yield to it ...</p>
<p>There is something supernatural in such a blindness. <i>Digna necessitas.<a id="FNanchor_380_384"/><a href="18269-h-12.html#Footnote_380_384" class="fnanchor pginternal">[380]</a> Mentiris impudentissime</i> ...</p>
<p><i>Doctrina sua noscitur vir</i> ...</p>
<p>False piety, a double sin.</p>
<p>I am alone against thirty thousand. No. Protect, you, the court; protect, you, deception; let me protect the truth. It is all my strength. If I lose it, I am undone. I shall not lack accusations, and persecutions. But I possess the truth, and we shall see who will take it away.</p>
<p>I do not need to defend religion, but you do not need to defend error and injustice. Let God, out of His compassion, having no regard to the evil which is in me, and having regard to the good which is in you, grant us all grace that truth may not be overcome in my hands, and that falsehood ...</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00952"><a id="p_921"/>921</h4>
<p><i>Probable.</i>—Let us see if we seek God sincerely, by comparison of the things which we love. It is <i>probable</i> that this food will not poison me. It is <i>probable</i> that I shall not lose my action by not prosecuting it ...</p>
<h4 id="pgepubid00953"><a id="p_922"/>922</h4>
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