is one that is true.--The objection to this is that savages have a religion. But this is because they have heard speak of the true, as appears by Saint Andrew's cross, the deluge, the circumcision, etc.--This comes from the fact that the spirit of man, finding itself inclined to that side by truth, becomes therefore susceptible of all the falsehoods of that...I should not be a Christian were it not for the miracles, said Saint Augustine.
But for the miracles there would have been no sin in not believing in Jesus Christ.
It is not possible to believe reasonably against miracles.
Miracles have so great a force that it was needful that God should warn us not to credit them against him, clear as it may be that there is a God; without this they would have been able to disturb.
And thus so far from these passages, Deut. xiii., making against the authority of miracles, nothing more marks their force. The same with Antichrist; "to seduce if it were possible even the very elect."
Abraham and Gideon are above revelation.
The Jews blinded themselves in judging of miracles by the Scripture.
God has never left his true worshippers.
I prefer to follow Jesus Christ than any other, because he has miracle, prophecy, doctrine, perpetuity, etc.
The Donatists. No miracle which obliged them to say it was the devil.
The more we specialise God, Jesus Christ and the Church.
Jesus Christ worked miracles, then the apostles, and the early saints in great number, because the prophecies not being yet fulfilled, but only in the way of fulfilment by them, miracles were their only witness. It was foretold that the Messiah should convert the nations, and this prophecy could not be fulfilled without the conversion of the nations. Nor could the nations be converted to Messiah unless they saw the final effect of the prophecies concerning him. Till therefore he died and rose again, and had converted the nations, all was not fulfilled, wherefore miracles were needed during that time.
We now need no more miracles against the Jews, for the fulfilment of prophecy is an enduring miracle.
Prophecy is not called _miracle_, as Saint John speaks of the first miracle in Cana, then of what Jesus Christ said to the woman of Samaria, revealing to her all her hidden life. Then he healed the centurion's son, and Saint John calls this the second sign.
Jesus Christ has verified that he was the Messiah, never in verifying his doctrine by Scripture and the prophecies, but always by his miracles.
He proves by a miracle that he remits sins.
Rejoice not that you work miracles, said Jesus Christ, but rather that your names are written in heaven.
If they believe not Moses, neither will they believe one risen from the dead.
Nicodemus recognised by his miracles, that his doctrine was of God.
_Scimus quia venisti a Deo, magister, nemo enim potest facere quæ tu facis, nisi Deus fuerit cum eo._ He judged not of the miracles by the doctrine, but of the doctrine by the miracles.
Here is no country for truth, she wanders unknown among men. God has covered her with a veil which leaves her unrecognised by those who hear not her voice; the way is open for blasphemy even against those truths which are at the least very apparent. If the truths of the Gospel are published, the contrary is also published, and questions are obscured, so that the people cannot discern, and they ask us, "What have you to make you believed rather than others? what sign do you give? you have words only, so have we, if you have miracles, good." That doctrine must be supported by miracle is a truth of which they make a pretext to blaspheme against doctrine. And if miracles happen, it is said that miracles are not enough without doctrine, and that is another way of blaspheming against miracles.
Jesus Christ healed the man born blind, and worked many miracles on the sabbath day, and thus he blinded the Pharisees who said that miracles must be tested by doctrine.
"We have Moses, but as for this man, we know not whence he is." It is wonderful that you know not whence he is, and yet he works such miracles.
Jesus Christ spoke neither against God, nor against Moses.
Antichrist and the false prophets foretold by both Testaments, will speak openly against God, and against Jesus Christ, who is not hidden. Whoever will be a secret enemy, God will not permit that he work miracles openly.
In a public dispute where the two parties declare themselves on the side of God, of Jesus Christ, or the Church, there have never been miracles on the side of the false Christians, while the other party has remained without miracle.
"He hath a devil," John x. 21. "And others said, Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?"
The proofs which Jesus Christ and the Apostles draw from Scripture are not decisive, for they say only that Moses foretold that a prophet would come; but they do not thereby prove that Jesus Christ was that prophet, which is the whole question. These passages, then, serve only to show that we are not contrary to Scripture, and that there is no contradiction, not that there is accord. Now this is enough, there is no contradiction; and there are miracles.
It follows, then, that he judged miracles to be certain proofs of what he taught, and that the Jews were bound to believe him. And as a fact, it was the miracles especially which made the unbelief of the Jews so blameworthy.
There is a reciprocal duty between God and men. We must forgive him this saying: _Quid debui_. "Accuse me," said God in Isaiah.
God must accomplish his promises, etc.
Men owe it to God to receive the Religion which he sends them. God owes it to men not to lead them into error. Now they would be led into error, if the workers of miracles should announce a doctrine which did not appear visibly false to the light of common sense, and if a greater worker of miracles had not already given warning not to believe in them.
Thus if there were division in the Church, and the Arians, for example, who no less than Catholics said they were founded on Scripture, had worked miracles, and the Catholics had worked none, men had been led into error.
For, as a man, who announces to us the secret things of God is not worthy to be believed on his private testimony, and on that very ground the wicked doubt him; so when a man as a sign of the communion which he has with God raises the dead, foretells the future, moves the seas, heals the sick, there is none so wicked as not to yield, and the incredulity of Pharaoh and the Pharisees is the effect of a supernatural hardening.
When, therefore, we see miracles and doctrine not open to suspicion both on one side, there is no difficulty. But when we see miracles and suspicious doctrine on the same side we must see which is the clearest. Jesus Christ was suspected.
Barjesus was blinded. The power of God is above that of his enemies.
The Jewish exorcists were beaten by devils, who said, "Jesus we know, and Paul we know, but who are ye?"
Miracles are for doctrine, and not doctrine for miracles.
But if miracles are true we cannot persuade men of all doctrine, for that will not come to pass: _Si angelus_..._Rule._ We must judge of doctrine by miracles, we must judge of miracles by doctrine. All this is true, but there is no contradiction.
For we must distinguish the times.
You are glad to know general rules, thinking by that to introduce difficulties, and render all useless. We shall stop you, my good father; truth is one, and strong.
It is impossible from the duty God owes us, that a man, concealing his evil doctrine, and only allowing the good to appear, pretending that he is in conformity with God and the Church, should work miracles to insinuate insensibly a false and subtle doctrine. This cannot be.
Still less, that God who knows the heart, should work miracles in favour of such an one.
There is much difference between temptation and leading into error.
God tempts, but he leads not into error. To tempt is to present occasions which impose no necessity; if we love not God we shall do a certain thing. To lead into error, is to place a man in a necessity of forming and following false conclusion.
This is what God cannot do, which nevertheless he would do, if in an obscure question he wrought miracles on the side of falsehood.
In the Old Testament, when they would turn you from God, in the New when they would turn you from Jesus Christ.
Such are the occasions on which we exclude certain miracles from credence. There need be no other exclusions.
But it does not therefore follow that they had the right to exclude all the prophets who came to them. They would have sinned in not excluding those who denied God, and would also have sinned in excluding those who denied him not.
So soon, then, as we see a miracle we should at once either acquiesce or have signal marks against it. We must see if it denies either a God, or Jesus Christ, or the Church.
Miracles avail not for conversion, but for condemnation. I P. ix.
113, a. 10, ad. 2.
_Si tu es Christus, dic nobis._ _Opera quæ ego facio in nomine patris mei, hæc testimonium perhibent de me._ _Sed non vos creditis quia non estis ex ovibus meis. Oves mei vocem meam audiunt._ Joh. vi. 30. _Quod ergo tu facis signum ut videamus, et credamus tibi? Non dicunt: Quam doctrinam prædicas?_ _Nemo potest facere signa quæ tu facis, nisi Deus fuerit cum illo._ 2 Mach. xiv. 15. _Deus qui signis evidentibus suam portionem protegit._ _Volumus signum videre de cœlo tentantes eum._ Luc. xi. 16.
_Generatio prava signum quærit; sed non dabitur._ _Et ingemiscens ait; Quid generatio ista signum quærit._ Marc. viii.
12. They asked a sign with a bad intent. _Et non poterat facere._ And nevertheless he promises them the sign of Jonah, the great and incomparable evidence of his resurrection.
_Nisi videritis signa non creditis._ He does not blame them for not believing without there having been miracles, but without their having been themselves witnesses of them.
Antichrist _in signis mendacibus_, says St Paul. 2 Thess. ii.
_Secundum operationem Satanæ. In seductione ii qui pereunt eo quod charitatem veritatis non receperunt ut salvi fierent. Ideo mittet illis Deus operationem erroris ut credant mendacia._ As in the passage of Moses: _Tentat enim vos Deus, utrum diligatis eum_.
_Ecce prædixi vobis, vos ergo videte._ The Church has three kinds of enemies, the Jews, who have never been of her body; the heretics, who have withdrawn from it; and bad Christians, who rend her from within.
These three different kinds of enemies generally assail her in different ways, but here they assail her in the same fashion. As they are all without miracles, and as the Church has always had miracles against them, they have all had the same interest in eluding them; and all avail themselves of this pretext, that we must not judge of doctrine by miracles, but of miracles by doctrine. There were two parties among those who heard Jesus Christ, those who followed his doctrine by reason of his miracles; others who said...There were two parties in the time of Calvin. There are now the Jesuits, etc.
Miracles are the test in doubtful matters, between Jew and Gentile, Jew and Christian, catholic and heretic, slanderer and slandered, between the two crosses.
But miracles would be useless to heretics, for the Church, authorised by miracles which have already obtained credence, tells us that they have not the true faith. There is no doubt that they are not in it, because the first miracles of the Church exclude belief in theirs.
Thus there is miracle against miracle, and the first and greatest are on the side of the Church.
_Controversy._ Abel, Cain;--Moses, the Magicians;--Elijah, the false Christ, the Pharisees;--Saint Paul, Barjesus;--the Apostles, the Exorcists;--the Christians and the infidels;--Catholics, heretics;--Elijah, Enoch, Antichrist.
In the trial by miracles truth always prevails. The two crosses.
Miracles are no longer needful, because they have already been. But when we listen no more to tradition, when the pope alone is proposed to us, when he has been taken by surprise, and when the true source of truth, which is tradition, is thus excluded, the pope, who is its guardian, is thus prejudiced, truth is no longer allowed to appear; then, since men speak no longer of truth, truth herself must speak to men. This is what happened in the time of Arius.
Religion is adapted to every kind of intellect. Some consider only its establishment, and this Religion is such that its very establishment is enough to prove its truth. Some trace it as far as the apostles; the more learned go back to the beginning of the world; the angels see it better still, and from earlier time.
1. Objection. _An angel from heaven._ We must not judge of truth by miracles, but of miracles by truth.
Therefore miracles are useless.
Now they serve, and cannot be against the truth.
Therefore what Father Lingende says, that God will not allow a miracle to lead into error...When there shall be a dispute in the same Church, miracle will decide.
2. Objection.
_But Antichrist will work miracles._ The Magicians of Pharaoh did not lead into error. Thus on Antichrist we cannot say to Jesus Christ: You have led me into error. For Antichrist will work them against Jesus Christ, and thus they cannot lead into error. Either God will not permit false miracles, or he will procure greater.
If in the same Church a miracle should occur on the side of those in error, men would be led into error.
A schism is visible, a miracle is visible. But a schism is more a mark of error than a miracle is a mark of truth, therefore a miracle cannot lead into error.
But apart from schism the error is not so visible as the miracle is visible.
Therefore miracle may lead into error.
_Ubi est Deus tuus?_--Miracles show him and are a light to him.
Joh. vi. 26. _Non quia vidisti signum, sed quia saturati estis._ 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, only follow him indeed because he consoles them and satisfies them with worldly goods, disparage his miracles when they are contrary to their own convenience.
Joh. ix: _Non est hic homo a Deo, quia sabbatum non custodit_. _Alii: Quomodo potest homo peccator hæc signa facere?_ Which is the most clear?
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 strange miracles are done.
Which is the most clear?
_Tu quid dicis? Dico quia propheta est.--Nisi esset hic a Deo, non poterat facere quidquam._ There is much difference between not being for Jesus Christ, and saying it, and not being for Jesus Christ, yet feigning to be so. The one party can work miracles, not the others, for it is clear that the one party are against the truth, but not that the others are; and thus miracles are the more clear.
"If you believe not in me, believe at least in the miracles." He puts them forward as the strongest.
He had said to the Jews as well as to the Christians, that they should not always believe the prophets; but nevertheless the pharisees and scribes made much of his miracles, and tried to show that they were false or worked by the devil, since they were bound to be convinced, if they admitted that these were of God.
We are not in these days obliged so to discriminate. Yet it is very easy to do so; those who deny neither God nor Jesus Christ work no miracles which are not quite certain.
_Nemo facit virtutem in nomine meo, et cito possit de me male loqui._ But we have not to use this discrimination. Here is a sacred relic, here is a thorn from the crown of the Saviour of the world, on whom the prince of this world has no power, which works miracles by the immediate power of the blood that was shed for us. Thus God has himself chosen this house wherein openly to show forth his power.
Here are not men who work miracles by an unknown and doubtful virtue, obliging us to a difficult discrimination; it is God himself, it is the instrument of the passion of his only Son, who being in many places chose this, and made men come from all sides, there to receive miraculous succour in their weaknesses.
If the devil were to favour the doctrine which destroys him, he would be divided against himself, as Jesus Christ said. If God favoured the doctrine which destroys the Church, he would be divided against himself. _Omne regnum divisum._ For Jesus Christ acted against the devil, and destroyed his empire over the heart, of which exorcism is the figure, to establish the kingdom of God. And so he adds: _Si in digito Dei, regnum Dei ad vos_.
Either God has confounded the false miracles or he has foretold them, and both by the one and the other he has raised himself above the supernatural in regard to us, and has raised us also.
Jer. xxiii. 32. The _miracles_ of the false prophets. In the Hebrew and Vatable they are called _trifles_.
_Miracle_ does not always mean miracle. 1 Kings xiv. 15. _Miracle_ signifies _fear_, and is the same in Hebrew.
The same plainly in Job xxxiii. 7.
So in Isaiah xxi. 4. Jeremiah xliv. 12.
_Portentum_ means _images_, Jer. l. 38, and it is the same in Hebrew and Vatable. Isaiah viii. 18. Jesus Christ says that he and his will be in _miracles_.
Jesus Christ said that the Scriptures bear witness of him, but he did not show in what respect.
Even the prophecies could not prove Jesus Christ during his life, and thus if miracles had not sufficed without doctrine, men would not have been blameworthy who did not believe in him before his death. Now those who did not believe in him during his life were sinners, as he says himself, and without excuse. Therefore they must have resisted a conclusive proof. Now they had not our proof, but only miracles, therefore miracles are enough when doctrine is not contrary, and they ought to be believed.
John vii. 40. _Controversy among the Jews as among Christians of our day._ The one party believed in Jesus Christ, the other believed not, because of the prophecies which said he should be born in Bethlehem.
They should have enquired more diligently whether he was not. For his miracles being convincing, they ought to have been quite certain of these alleged contradictions of his doctrine to the Scripture, and this obscurity did not excuse, but blinded them. Thus those who refuse to believe miracles in our day on account of an alleged but unreal contradiction, are not excused.
When the people believed on him because of his miracles, the pharisees said: "This people, which doeth not the law, is accursed, but there is none of the princes or the pharisees who has believed on him, for we know that out of Galilee ariseth no prophet." Nicodemus answered, "Doth our law judge any man before it heareth him?"
Judges xiii. 23. "If the Lord were pleased to kill us, he would not have shewed us all these things."
Hezekiah, Sennacherib.
Jeremiah, Hananiah, the false prophet, died in seven months.
2 Macc. iii. The temple, ready for pillage, miraculously succoured.--2 Macc. xv.
1 Kings xvii. The widow to Elijah, who had restored her son. "By this I know that thy words are true."
1 Kings xviii. Elijah, with the prophets of Baal.
Never in a contention concerning the true God or of the truth of Religion has any miracle happened on the side of error and not of truth.
_Miracle._--The people believe this of themselves, but if the reason must be given you...It is troublesome to be an exception to the rule. We ought strictly to hold the rule and oppose the exception, yet as it is certain there are exceptions to every rule, we ought with this strictness to be just.
Is it not enough that miracles are done in one place, and that God's providence is shown on one people?
Good breeding goes so far as to have no politeness, and true piety to have politeness for others.
This is not well bred.
The incredulous are the most credulous. They believe the miracles of Vespasian in order that they may not believe those of Moses.
_On the Miracle._--As God has made no family more happy, he should also find none more grateful.
The Church has always been assailed by contrary errors, but perhaps never at the same time, as now; and if she suffer more because of the multiplicity of errors, she receives this advantage from it, that they destroy each other.
She complains of both, but much the most of the Calvinists, because of the schism.
It is certain that many of the two opposite parties are deceived; they must be disabused.
Faith embraces many truths which seem contradictory. _There is a time to laugh, and a time to weep, etc._ _Responde, ne respondeas, etc._ 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, a new death, all things double, and the same names remaining.
And finally, the two natures which are in the righteous man, for they are the two worlds, and a member and image of Jesus Christ. And thus all the names suit them, righteous, sinners; dead though living, living though dead, elect, reprobate, etc.
There are then a great number of truths in faith and in morals, which seem contrary to each other, which yet all subsist together in a wonderful order.
The source of all heresies is the exclusion of some of these truths.
And the source of all the objections made by heretics against us is the ignorance of some of these truths.
And for the most part it happens that, unable to conceive the relation of two opposite truths, and believing that admission of one involves the exclusion of the other, they embrace the one and exclude the other, thinking that we on the other hand...Now exclusion is the cause of their heresy, and ignorance that we hold the other truth causes their objections.
1st example: Jesus Christ is God and man. The Arians, unable to reconcile these things which they believe incompatible, say that he is man, and so far they are Catholics. But they deny that he is God, and so far they are heretics. They assert that we deny his humanity, and so far they are ignorant 2nd example, on the subject of the Holy Sacrament. We believe that the substance of bread being changed, and consubstantially 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 figure of that 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.
The heresy of our day, not conceiving that this sacrament contains at one and the same time both the presence of Jesus Christ and a figure of his presence, that it is a sacrifice and a commemoration of a sacrifice, believes that neither of these truths can be admitted without, by this very reason, the exclusion of the other.
They adhere to this only point, that this sacrament is figurative, and so far they are not heretics. They think that we exclude this truth, hence it comes that they found so many objections on those passages of the Fathers which assert it. Lastly they deny the presence, and so far they are heretics.
3rd example. Indulgences.
Therefore the shortest way to hinder heresies is to teach all truths, and the surest means of refuting them is to declare them all. For what will the heretics say?
If the ancient Church was in error, the Church is fallen; if she is so now it is not the same thing, for she has always the superior maxim of tradition from the hand of the ancient Church; and thus this submission and conformity to the ancient Church prevails and corrects all. But the ancient Church did not postulate the future Church, and did not regard her, as we postulate and regard the ancient.
All err the more dangerously because they follow each a truth, their fault is not that they follow an error, but that they do not follow another truth.
That which hinders us in comparing what formerly took place in the Church with what we now see, is that we are wont to regard Saint Athanasius or Saint Theresa and others as crowned with glory, and acting in regard to us as gods. Now that time has cleared our vision we see that they are so. But when this great saint was persecuted he was a man called Athanasius, and Saint Theresa was a nun. "Elias was a man like ourselves and subject to the same passions as ourselves," says Saint Peter, to disabuse Christians of that false notion that we must reject the examples of the saints as disproportioned to our state. They were saints, say we, they are not like us. What was the case then? 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 at last the pope. What did they say to those who resisted his condemnation? That they were disturbing the peace, that they were creating a schism, etc.
Four lands of persons: zeal without knowledge, knowledge without zeal, neither knowledge nor zeal, zeal and knowledge. The first three condemned him, the last absolved him, were excommunicated by the Church and yet saved the Church.
The three notes of Religion: perpetuity, a good life, miracles.
They destroy perpetuity by probability, good life by their morality, miracles in destroying either their truth or their consequence.
If we believe them, the Church has nothing to do with perpetuity, a holy life, or miracles.
Heretics deny them or deny the consequences; they do the same. But those must be devoid of sincerity who deny them or again have lost their senses if they deny the consequences.
_Perpetuity._--Is your character founded on Escobar?
Perhaps you have reasons for not condemning them; it is enough that you approve of those I address to you on the subject.
Would the pope be dishonoured by gaining his light from God and tradition; and does it not dishonour him to separate him from this sacred union and...Tertullian: _Nunquam Ecclesia reformabitur._ Perpetuity.
Molina.
Novelty.
Heretics have always assailed these three notes which they have not.
Those wretches, who have obliged me to speak on the foundations of Religion.
Sinners purified without penitence, just men sanctified without charity, all Christians without the grace of Jesus Christ, God without power over the will of men, a predestination without mystery, a redemption without certainty.
Sinners without penitence, just men without charity, a God without power over the wills of men, a predestination without mystery.
Those who love the Church complain that they see morals corrupted, but laws at least exist. But these corrupt the laws. The model is spoiled.
There is a contradiction; for on the one side they say tradition must be followed, and would not dare disavow it, and on the other they will say whatever pleases them. The former will always be believed in, and indeed it would be going against them not to believe it.
_Politics._--We have found two obstacles to the design of comforting men. The one the interior laws of the Gospel, the other the exterior laws of the State and of Religion.
We are masters of the one set of laws, the others we have dealt with in this wise: _Amplienda, restringenda, a majori ad minus._ _Junior._ _Generals._--It is not enough for them to introduce such morals into our churches, _templis inducere mores_. Not only do they wish to be tolerated in the Church, but as though they had become the stronger, they would expel those who are not of them...Mohatra. He who is astonished at this is no theologian.
Who would have told your generals that the time was so near when they would give laws to the Church universal, and would call the refusal of such disorders war, _tot et tanta mala pacem_.
They cannot have perpetuity, and they seek universality; therefore they make the whole Church corrupt, that they may be saints.
You abuse the credence which the people has in the Church, and make them believe untruth.
I suppose that men believe the miracles: You corrupt Religion either in favour of your friends, or against your enemies. You dispose of all at your will.
So that if it be true on the one hand that some lax religious, 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 depositories of the divine word, have preserved it unchangeably against the efforts of those who have striven to ruin it.
And thus the faithful have no pretext to follow that laxity which is only offered them by the stranger hands of these casuists, instead of the sound doctrine which is presented to them by the fatherly hands of their own pastors. And the wicked and heretics have no reason to put forward these abuses as marks of the defective providence of God over his Church, since the Church having her true existence in the body of the hierarchy, it is so far from the present condition of things being a proof that God has abandoned her to corruption, that it has never so plainly appeared as at the present day that God visibly defends her from corruption.
For if some of these men, who by an extraordinary vocation have made profession of retirement from the world, and have adopted the religious dress, that they might live in a more perfect state than ordinary Christians, have fallen into disorders which horrify ordinary Christians, and have become among us what the false prophets were among the Jews; this is a private and personal matter, which we must indeed deplore, but from which we can conclude nothing against the care which God takes for his Church; since all these things are so clearly foretold, and it has been long since announced that temptations would arise on account of such persons, so that when we are well instructed we see therein rather the notes of the guidance of God than his forgetfulness in regard to us.
You are ignorant of the prophecies if you do not know that all this must needs happen, princes, prophets, pope, and even the priests.
And yet the Church must abide. By the grace of God we are not so far gone. Woe to these priests. But we hope that God will of his mercy grant us that we be not among them.
2 Saint Peter ii. False prophets in the past the image of the future.
Is _Est and non est_ received in faith as well as in miracles, and is it inseparable in the others?...When Saint Xavier works miracles...Saint Hilary.--These wretches who have obliged us to speak of miracles.
_Væ qui conditis leges iniquas._ Unjust judges, make not your laws on the moment, judge by those which are established, and by yourselves.
To weaken your adversaries you disarm the whole Church.
If they say that our safety depends on God, they are heretics.
If they say they are under obedience to the pope, that is hypocrisy.
If they are ready to assent to all the articles, that is not enough.
If they say that no man should be killed for an apple, they assail the morality of Catholics.
If miracles are wrought among them, it is no mark of holiness, but rather a suspicion of heresy.
The hardness of the Jesuits therefore surpasses that of the Jews, since those refused to believe Jesus Christ innocent only because they doubted if his miracles were of God. But on the contrary, though the Jesuits cannot doubt that the Port Royal miracles were of God, they still continue to doubt the innocency of that house.
Men never commit evil so fully and so gaily as when they do so for conscience sake.
Experience shows us a vast difference between devoutness and goodness.
The two contrary reasons. We must begin with that; without that we understand nothing and all is heretical; in the same way we must even add at the close of each truth that the opposite truth is to be remembered.
If there was ever a time in which it were necessary to make profession of two contraries, it is when we are reproached for omitting one. Therefore the Jesuits and the Jansenists are wrong in concealing them, but the Jansenists most, for the Jesuits have better made profession of the two.
M. de Condran. There is, he says, no comparison between the union of the saints and that of the Holy Trinity. Jesus Christ says the opposite.
That we have treated them as kindly as is possible while keeping ourselves in the mean, between the love of truth and the duty of charity.
That piety does not consist in never opposing our brethren, it would be very easy, etc.
It is false piety to keep peace to the prejudice of the truth. It is also false zeal to keep truth and wound charity.
Neither have they complained.
Their maxims have their time and place.
He will be condemned indeed who is so by Escobar.
Their vanity tends to grow out of their errors.
Conformed to the fathers by their faults, and to the martyrs by their sufferings.
Moreover they do not disavow any of...They had only to take the passage, and disavow it.
M. Bourseys. At least they cannot disavow that they are opposed to the condemnation.
I have re-read them since, for I had not known them...The world must be blind indeed if it believe you.
If men knew themselves, God would heal and pardon. _Ne convertantur, et sanem eos, et dimittantur eis peccata._ Isaiah. Matt. xiii.
Truth is so obscure in these days, and falsehood so established, that unless we love the truth we shall be unable to know it.
As Jesus Christ remained unknown among men, so his truth remains among ordinary opinions without external difference. Thus the Eucharist among ordinary bread. All faith consists in Jesus Christ and in Adam, and all morals in lust and in grace.
"I have reserved me seven thousand." I love the worshippers unknown to the world and even to the prophets.
To trust in forms is superstition, but to refuse to submit to forms is pride.
As peace in States has for its sole object the safe preservation of the property of the people, so the peace of the Church has for its sole object the safe preservation of truth, her property and the treasure where her heart is. And as to allow the enemy to enter into a State, and pillage without opposition, for fear of troubling repose, would be to work against the good of peace, because peace, being only just and useful for the security of property, it becomes unjust and harmful when it suffers property to be destroyed, while war in the defence of property becomes just and necessary. So in the Church, when truth is assailed by the enemies of faith, when men would tear it from the heart of the faithful, and cause error to reign there, to remain in peace is rather to betray than to serve the Church, to ruin rather than defend. And as it is plainly a crime to trouble peace where truth reigns, so is it also a crime to rest in peace when truth is destroyed. There is then a time when peace is just, and another when it is unjust. And it is written that there is a time for peace and a time for war, and it is the interest of truth to discern them. But there is not a time for truth and a time for error, and it is written, on the contrary, that the truth of God abideth for ever; and this is why Jesus Christ, who said that he came to bring peace, said also that he came to bring war. But he did not say that he came to bring both truth and falsehood. Truth is then the first rule and the ultimate end of things.