“Those ignorant confessors are to be blamed who always think that they do well in obliging their penitents to make restitution, because it is at all times more safe.”[238]
By this abominable doctrine the confessors were made to answer yes or no, as might be most agreeable to their penitents; and these might oblige the confessor to absolve them of their sins, if they only themselves believed that they were not sins. Imagine what an arrant knave the person inclined to do evil must have become, when, to the firm belief that the absolution of the confessor cleanses from all crimes, was superadded the certainty that this confessor must absolve him almost according to his own wishes. We shudder to think of it!
The doctrine of equivocation came in aid of that of probabilism. By the former, according to Sanchez, “it is permitted to use ambiguous terms, leading people to understand them in a different sense from that in which we understand them.”[239] “A man may swear,” according to the same author, “that he never did such a thing (though he actually did it), meaning within himself that he did not do so on such a day, or before he was born, or understanding any other such circumstances, while the words which he employs have no such sense as would discover his meaning.”[240] And Filiutius proves that in so speaking one does not even lie, because, says he, “it is the intention that determines the quality of the action; and one may avoid falsehood if, after saying aloud I swear that I have not done that, he add in a low voice, to-day; or after saying aloud, I swear, he interpose in a whisper, that I say, and then continue aloud, that I have done that, and this is telling the truth.”
With mental reservation and probabilism, they have sanctioned all sorts of crimes. The varlet might help his master to commit rape or adultery, provided he do not think of the sin, but of the profit he may reap from it—so says father Bauny. If a servant think his salary is not an adequate compensation for services, he may help himself to some of his master’s property to make it equal to his pretensions—so teaches the same father. You may kill your enemy for a box on the ear, as Escobar asserts in the following words:—“It is perfectly right to kill a person who has given us a box on the ear, although he should run away, provided it is not done through hatred or revenge, and there is no danger of giving occasion thereby to murders of a gross kind and hurtful to society. And the reason is, that it is as lawful to pursue the thief that has stolen our honour, as him that has run away with our property. For, although your honour cannot be said to be in the hands of your enemy in the same sense as your goods and chattels are in the hands of the thief, still it may be recovered in the same way—by shewing proofs of greatness and authority, and thus acquiring the esteem of men. And, in point of fact, is it not certain that the man who has received a buffet on the ear is held to be under disgrace, until he has wiped off the insult with the blood of his enemy?”
In short, you may be a fraudulent bankrupt, thief, assassin, profligate, impious atheist even, with a safe conscience, provided always you confess to a Jesuit confessor. It is doubtless in this that we are to see the efficacy of that miraculous gift, which we read at page 13 Loyola had received from heaven, and transmitted to his successors—the gift of healing troubled consciences; and this is even boldly asserted by themselves. In the Imago primi Sæculi, S. 3, ch. 8, are words to this effect:—“With the aid of pious finesse and holy artifice of devotion, crimes may be expiated now-a-days alacrius, with more joy and alacrity, than they were committed in former days; and a great many people may be washed from their stains almost as cleverly as they contracted them.” After this quotation, we need not trouble the reader with any more regarding the doctrine of the Jesuits on social duties. We only beg of him, in order that he may well understand all the enormity of these doctrines, to look at them from the point of view of the Papists, who consider the confessional as the only way of salvation, and who blindly obey their spiritual fathers, especially if they flatter their passions, and promise them paradise as the reward of their vices.
It is also of importance that our readers should be made acquainted with the doctrine of the Jesuits regarding religious duties, and the love which is due to God, that they may the better judge of the character of those champions of Romanism, those monks who are labouring hard to make proselytes to their religion—the only true one, as they pretend, out of which there is no salvation.
Father Antony Sirmond, in his book on The Defence of Virtue, has the following passage:—“St Thomas says that we are obliged to love God as soon as we come to the use of reason; that is rather too soon! Scotus says, every Sunday; pray, for what reason? Others say, when we are sorely tempted; yes, if there be no other way of escaping the temptation. Sotus says, when we have received a benefit from God; good, in the way of thanking him for it. Others say, at death—rather late! As little do I think it binding at the reception of any sacrament; attrition, in such a case, is quite enough, along with confession—if convenient. Suarez says, that it is binding at some time or another; but at what time? He does not know; and what that doctor does not know, I know not who should know.”[241]
And father Pinter can crown those execrable doctrines by the impious assertion, that the dispensation from the painful obligation to love God is purchased for us through the merits of Christ’s blood. “It was reasonable,” says that sacrilegious Jesuit, “that under the law of grace in the New Testament, God should relieve us from that troublesome and arduous obligation which existed under the law of bondage, to exercise an act of perfect contrition, in order to be justified; and that the place of this should be supplied by the sacraments instituted in aid of an easier exercise; otherwise, indeed, Christians, who are the children, would have no greater facility in gaining the good graces of their Father than the Jews, who were the slaves, had in obtaining the mercy of their Lord and Master.”[242]
And men guilty of all sorts of crimes—men who pretend that no love is due to God, that not even attrition is necessary for the remission of sins—such men shall be made worthy of the eternal blessedness through some idolatrous practices! Such is the doctrine taught by Jesuits, and, we must add, by most of the Roman Catholic clergy, some of whom we are going to bring under our reader’s eye. We beg permission to quote Pascal again. Our readers will certainly prefer the trenchant, sarcastic style of the celebrated Jansenist to our imperfect manner of narration. In a dialogue which he pretends to have had with a Jesuit, the father addresses him in the following words:—