But by this time they had made fearful progress in the art of flattering the bad passions, and winking at the vices, of those who had recourse to their ministry in order to make, as they believed, their peace with God. Escobar collected in six large volumes the doctrines of different Jesuit casuists, those preceptors of immorality and prevarication; and his book was for a time the only code followed by the generality of the Jesuits.[225] However, I will not assert that they taught downright immorality, to corrupt mankind merely for the sake of corrupting them. No; if this has sometimes been the case with individuals, it was never so with a sect. They had another end in view. As we said, they aspired to be the general confessors, for their own private purposes; concealing their designs under the mask of piety, they gave out that it was essential for the good of religion that they should have the direction of all consciences; and, as an inducement to penitents to resort to them, they offered doctrines in conformity to the wishes of persons of all sorts. Hence all their casuists were not licentious and indulgent to vice. A few of them were strict, severe, and indeed teachers of evangelical precepts, and those they held out to the few penitents who were of a more rigid morality, and quoted them when accused of teaching relaxed doctrines; while for the multitude, who are generally more loose in their morals, they had the bulk of their casuists. Father Petau calls this “an obliging and accommodating conduct.” So, for example, if the Jesuit confessor perceives that a penitent feels inclined to make restitution of ill-gotten money, he will certainly encourage him to do so, praise him for his holy resolution, insist to be himself the instrument of the restitution, taking care, however, that it should be known again. But if another person accuse himself of theft, but shew no disposition to make restitution, be sure that the Jesuit confessor will find in some book or other of his brother Jesuits some sophistry to set his conscience at rest, and persuade him that he may safely retain what he has stolen from his neighbour.
The existence of books to which those pernicious maxims have been consigned, having put it out of the power of the Jesuits to impugn their genuineness; in order to exculpate their Society, they have cast a reproach upon the teachers of their own Church, and even blasphemed Christianity. “The probabilism,” says their historian, “was not born with the Jesuits; at the moment of their establishment probabilism reigned in the schools.”[226] And again, “Ever since the origin of Christianity, the world had complained of the austerity of certain precepts; the Jesuits came to bring relief from these grievances.”[227]
But, that our readers may judge for themselves of the character of Jesuitical morality, we shall lay before them some of their doctrines; and in doing so (be it observed), we shall quote as our authorities none but Jesuit authors, and such as have been approved and are held in veneration by the Society.
It is evident that, in the confessional, everything depends upon the conception formed of transgression and sin. Now, according to the Jesuitical doctrines, we do not sin, unless we have a clear perception and understanding of the sin as sin, and unless our will freely consent to it.[228] The following are the consequences which the Jesuit casuists have deduced from that principle:—
“A confessor perceives that his penitent is in invincible ignorance, or at least in innocent ignorance, and he does not hope that any benefit will be derived from his advice, but rather anxiety of mind, strife, or scandal. Should he dissemble? Suarez affirms that he ought; because, since his admonition will be fruitless, ignorance will excuse his penitent from sin.”[229]
“Although he who, through inveterate habit, inadvertently swears a falsehood, may seem bound to confess the propensity, yet he is commonly excused. The reason is, that no one commonly reflects upon the obligation by which he is bound to extirpate the habit; ... and, therefore, since he is excused from the sin, he will also be excused from confession. Some maintain that the same may be said of blasphemy, heresy, and of the aforesaid oath; ... and, consequently, that such things, committed inadvertently, are neither sins in themselves, nor the cause of sins, and therefore need not necessarily be confessed.”[230]
“Wherever there is no knowledge of wickedness, there is also of necessity no sin. It is sufficient to have at least a confused notion of the heinousness of a sin, without which knowledge there would never be a flagrant crime. For instance, one man kills another, believing it indeed to be wrong, but conceiving it to be nothing more than a trifling fault. Such a man does not greatly sin, because it is knowledge only which points out the wickedness or the grossness of it to the will. Therefore, criminality is only imputed according to the measure of knowledge.”
“If a man commit adultery or suicide, reflecting indeed, but still very imperfectly and superficially, upon the wickedness and great sinfulness of those crimes; however heinous may be the matter, he still sins but slightly. The reason is, that as a knowledge of the wickedness is necessary to constitute the sin, so is a full clear knowledge and reflection necessary to constitute a heinous sin. And thus I reason with Vasquez: In order that a man may freely sin, it is necessary to deliberate whether he sins or not. But he fails to deliberate upon the moral wickedness of it, if he does not reflect, at least by doubting, upon it during the act. Therefore he does not sin, unless he reflects upon the wickedness of it. It is also certain that a full knowledge of such wickedness is required to constitute a mortal sin. For it would be unworthy the goodness of God to exclude a man from glory, and to reject him for ever, for a sin on which he had not fully deliberated; but if reflection upon the wickedness of it has only been partial, deliberation has not been complete; and therefore the sin is not a mortal sin.”[231]
The practical consequences of this doctrine have been admirably represented by Pascal in his happiest vein of irony. “Oh, my dear sir,” says he to the Jesuit who had exposed to him the afore-mentioned doctrine, “what a blessing this will be to some persons of my acquaintance! I must positively introduce them to you. You have never, perhaps, in all your life, met with people who had fewer sins to account for! In the first place, they never think of God at all; their vices have got the better of their reason; they have never known either their weakness or the physician who can cure it; they have never thought of ‘desiring the health of their soul,’ and still less of ‘praying to God to bestow it;’ so that, according to M. le Moine, they are still in the state of baptismal innocence. They have ‘never had a thought of loving God, or of being contrite for their sins;’ so that, according to Father Annat, they have never committed sin through the want of charity and penitence. Their life is spent in a perpetual round of all sorts of pleasures, in the course of which they have not been interrupted by the slightest remorse. These excesses had led me to imagine that their perdition was inevitable; but you, father, inform me that these same excesses secure their salvation. Blessings on you, my good father, for this new way of justifying people! Others prescribe painful austerities for healing the soul; but you shew that souls which may be thought desperately diseased are in quite good health. What an excellent device for being happy both in this world and in the next! I had always supposed that the less a man thought of God, the more he sinned; but, from what I see now, if one could only succeed in bringing himself not to think upon God at all, everything would be pure with him in all time coming. Away with your half-and-half sinners, who retain some sneaking affection for virtue! They will be damned, every soul of them. But commend me to your arrant sinners—hardened, unalloyed, out-and-out, thorough-bred sinners. Hell is no place for them; they have cheated the devil, by sheer devotion to his service.”[232]
But if you are not such an arrant hardened sinner but that your conscience warns you of your guilt, then come to the doctrine of probability, the A B C of the Jesuitical code of morality, which will set your troublesome conscience at rest. Listen!