societies, associations, and let your voice and prayer simultaneously be heard from all parts of that vast empire on which the sun never sets, ringing like thunder in the ears of the vacillating government of this country-banish the Jesuits from the soil of England. Be firm, united, and uncompromising in your demand, for it is a just and holy one, and a duty you no less owe to God, your country, your neighbour, and yourselves; and no ministry, no government, even with a factious opposition of priest-ridden members to back them, will dare resist such a manifestation of popular feeling, or provoke the chance of a rebellion of the united Protestants of England. A rebellion of Roman Catholics might be deplored; but it would be as a drop of water in the ocean, compared with the unanimous rising of the Protestants of this country against the Romanizing policy of their rulers-a movement and a revolution which would shake the whole world to its very centre.

DOCTRINES AND MORALITY

OF

THE JESUITS.

ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD.

66

THE Jesuit Filliucius teaches us that we are not required to make any effort in order to attain to a knowledge of our duties and of our obligations. "It seldom happens," he tells us, or rather it never happens, that a man is under any indispensable requisition to prepare for the grace of emerging from his ignorance."

""*

But why does Filliucius plead thus the cause of ignorance? Pulton, another Jesuit, shall reply. The reason is, that where there is no knowledge of God, there can be no sint.

This conclusion has been admitted by the Cardinal

* Raro aut nunquam tenetur homo se præparare ad gratiam ut tollat ignorantiam.-Filliuc. Quest. Mor., tom. ii., tr. 21, c. 10, p. 44, col. 1, n. 372.

Non dari potest peccatum sine aliqua Dei notitiâ.-Pult. n a Thesis defended at Liége, Feb. 19, 1687. Conclus. 19.

E

Sfondrate, without a blush. He has recognised and taught it more openly than even Molina, his master. "To be ignorant," he says, "of the being of a God, ought to be regarded as a great blessing and favour; for, as sin is essentially an offence committed against God, it follows that a man who is without a knowledge of him, has neither offence, sin, nor eternal punishment to fear."*

Who would have imagined that a priest and cardinal of Rome could advance such an impious doctrine? The book in which this blasphemy was taught was printed at Rome, under the direction of Cardinal Albani, afterwards Pope Clement XI.

Conceiving, with Sfondrate and Molina, that to know nothing of the being of a God is a great favour and blessing from heaven, how could Albani suffer men to seek the knowledge of God by reading the Sacred Volume?

Preston and Sabran, both Jesuits, tell us, that, 'supposing a man to have no knowledge of God, it is impossible for him to commit sin."+ But how impossible? Hear Fathers Blondel and Eberson,

* Deum ignorare........id quoque magna beneficii et gratiæ pars fuit: cum enim peccatum sit essentialiter offensio et injuria Dei, sublata Dei cognitione, necessario sequitur nec injuriam, nec peccatum, nec æternam pœnam esse.-Sfondr, Nod. Præd. Dissol., part i., parag. 2, p. 152.

+ Facta igitur hypothesis, quod Deus sub nullo conceptu cognoscatur, impossibile erit peccare.-In a Thesis maintained at Liége, in October, 1681. Conclus. 11.

other Jesuits: "It is necessary," they inform us, "to the commission of sin, that we have some knowledge of God."* And this is a point so indisputable, that the Jesuit Roderic de Arriaga, one of their authors of the greatest authority, asserts that, "in case of such ignorance, a man does not in anywise sin mortally in committing homicide, though it was his intention to commit it."+

Let it not be imagined that the Jesuits disavowed this doctrine of Arriaga's; on the contrary, he was a man on whom they lavished their fullest praise. "He was worthy," they inform us,

'on account of the fineness of his mind, his eminent doctrine, and commendable virtues, to be ranked amongst the greatest luminaries of the Society."‡

SINS OF IGNORANCE.

THE Jesuit Merat tells us that, "there are some general principles of the law of nature, of which a

* Requiritur ad peccatum aliqua notitia Dei.-In a Thesis maintained at Liége, May 11, 1689. Conclu. 20.

+ Ergo talis homo ignorans Deum non peccabit mortaliter, etiamsi alium occidat, et putet se malefacere.-In his Course of Theology, tom. i. Treatise on the Trinity and Unity of the Godhead, disp. 2,

sect. 3, p. 31.

Vir omnium judicio ob subtilitatem ingenii, doctrinæ præstantiam, et virtutis commendationem, inter prima Societatis lumina merito collocandus. In the Library of their Authors, page 729.

man may be invincibly ignorant, not indeed through the whole of his life, but during a short time, and even for a considerable time; such, for instance, as that he ought not to steal, to commit murder or adultery; or that it is his duty to worship the Almighty, to respect his parents, and the like."*

The Jesuit fathers, Darell and Skinner, in a Thesis defended at Liége, June 20, 1691, conclusion 20th, maintained that, "a sin, however enormous and repugnant to nature it may be, is not mortal" (i. e., is only trivial and excusable) “when it is committed by a person invincibly ignorant of God, or who, in committing it, does not consider that there is a God, or that sin is offensive in his sight"!

Platelle, another Jesuit, asserts the same: "However enormous, or repugnant to nature, a sin may be that is committed by a man invincibly ignorant of God, or that God is offended by such an act, that sin is not mortal; for as there is in it neither virtual nor implicit contempt of God, it is compatible with perfect love, and the friendship of the Deity."+

"If any one," says Father de Rhodes, "commit

*Principalia aliqua universalia legis naturæ, ut sunt hæc, non esse furandum, occidendum, adulterandum, parentes honorandos, et similia; etsi non possunt ignorari invincibiliter toto humanæ vitæ tempore, possunt tamen aliquo brevi, imo etiam satis longo.Merat's Disputations on the Theological Summary of St. Thomas, tom. ii. Treatise on Sins, disp. 9, sec. 7, page 577, col. 2.

† Peccatum quamtumvis graviter rationi repugnans, commissum