JESUIT LAXITY AND CHRISTIAN INDIGNATION.
“Such is the way in which our teachers have discharged men from the ‘painful’ obligation of actually loving God. And so advantageous a doctrine is this, that our Fathers Annat, Pintereau, Le Moine, and A. Sirmond even, have defended it vigorously when assailed by any one. You have only to consult their answers in the ‘Moral Theology;’ that of Father Pintereau, in particular (second part), will enable you to judge of the value of this dispensation by the price which it has cost, even the blood of Jesus. This is the crown of such a doctrine.” (A quotation is then given from Father Pintereau to the effect that it is a characteristic of the new Evangelical law, in contrast to the Judaical, that “God has lightened the troublesome and arduous obligation of exercising an act of perfect contrition in order to be justified.”) “‘O father,’ said I, ‘no patience can stand this any longer. One cannot hear without horror such sentiments as I have been listening to.’ ‘They are not my sentiments,’ said the monk. ‘I know that well; but you have expressed no aversion to them; and far from detesting the authors of such maxims, you cherish esteem for them. Do you not fear that your consent will make you a participator in their guilt? Was it not sufficient to allow men so many forbidden things under cover of your palliations? Was it necessary to afford them the occasion of committing crimes that even you cannot excuse by the facility and assurance of absolution which you offer them? . . . The licence which your teachers have assumed of tampering with the most holy rules of Christian conduct amounts to a total subversion of the Divine law. They violate the great commandment which embraces the law and the prophets; they strike at the very heart of piety; they take away the spirit which giveth life. They say that the love of God is not necessary to salvation; they even go the length of professing that this dispensation from loving God is the special privilege which Jesus Christ has brought into the world. This is the very climax of impiety. The price of the blood of Jesus, the purchase for us of a dispensation from loving Him! Before the incarnation we were under the necessity of loving God. But since God has so loved the world as to give His only Son for it, the world, thus redeemed by Him, is discharged from loving Him! Strange theology of our time!—to take away the anathema pronounced by St Paul against those “who love not the Lord Jesus Christ;” to blot out the saying of St John, that “he that loveth not abideth in death;” and the words of Jesus Christ Himself, “He that loveth me not keepeth not my commandments!” In this manner those who have never loved God in life are rendered worthy of enjoying Him throughout eternity. Behold the mystery of iniquity accomplished! Open your eyes, my father; and if you have remained untouched by the other distortions of your Casuists, let this last by its excess compel you to abandon them.’” [150a]