Part 80

It is probable that I shall not lose my law suit if I do not bring it.

If it were true that grave authors and reasons would suffice, I say that they are neither grave nor reasonable. What! a husband may make profit of his wife according to Molina. Is the reason he gives reasonable, and the contrary one of Lessius reasonable also?

Would you dare thus to trifle with the edicts of the King, as by saying that to go for a walk in a field and wait for a man is not to fight a duel;

That the Church has indeed forbidden duelling, but not taking a walk?

And usury too, but not....

And simony, but not....

And vengeance, but not....

And unnatural crime, but not....

And quam primum, but not....

Take away probability, and you can no longer please the world, give probability, and you can no longer displease it.

Universal.--Morals and language are special but universal sciences.

Probability.--The zeal of the saints to seek the truth, was useless if the probable is certain.

The fear of the saints who have always followed the surest way.

Saint Theresa having always followed her confessor.

Probability.--They have some true principles, but they abuse them. Now the abuse of truth should be as much punished as the introduction of falsehood.

As if there were two hells, one for sins against charity, the other for sins against justice.

Men who do not keep their word, without faith, without honour, without truth, double hearted, double tongued, like the reproach once flung at that amphibious creature in the fable, who kept itself in a doubtful position between the fish and the birds.

It is of importance to kings and princes to be supposed pious, and therefore they must take you for their confessors.

State super vias et interrogate de semitis antiquis, et ambulate in eis. Et dixerunt: Non ambulabimus, sed post cogitationem nostram ibimus. They have said to the nations: Come to us, we will follow the opinions of the new authors, reason shall be our guide, we will be as the other nations who follow each their natural light. Philosophers have....

All religions and sects in the world have had natural reason for a guide. Christians alone have been obliged to take their rules from without themselves, and to acquaint themselves with those which Jesus Christ left to men of old time to be transmitted to the faithful. This constraint is wearisome to these good fathers. They desire like the rest of the world to have liberty to follow their imaginations. In vain we cry to them, as the prophets to the Jews of old: "Enter into the Church, enquire of the ways which men of old have left to her, and follow those paths." They have answered, as did 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 nations round about us."

Can it be any thing but the desire to please 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 they might fight, looking at the matter in itself?

The whole society of their casuists cannot give assurance to a conscience in error, and therefore it is important to choose safe guides.

Thus they will be doubly guilty, both in having followed ways which they should not follow, and in having hearkened to teachers to whom they should not hearken.

Casuists submit the decision to corrupt reason, and the choice of decisions to corrupt will, so that all that is corrupt in the nature of man may help to rule his conduct.

They allow lust free play, and restrict scruples, whereas they should do the exact contrary.

Must we slay in order that the wicked may cease to be? This is to make two wicked instead of one. Vince in bono malum. Saint Augustine.

The servant does not know what the master does, for the master tells him only the act and not the purpose; this is why he is so often slavishly obedient and often sins against the purpose. But Jesus Christ tells us the purpose.

And you destroy this purpose.