soon after we have committed a mortal sin, supposing a due confession be first made." We will conclude this subject with an extract of a letter from Mon. Charles Brulart, de Genlis, Archbishop of Ambrun, to Mon, de Arlai, Archbishop of Paris *.

"The pulpit of my Metropolitan Church," says this illustrious prelate, "having been, for more than a century, appropriated to their college," (the college of the Jesuits,) "they have preached before me that the sacrament of penitence, with a fear of punishment entirely unaccompanied with any emotion of the love of God is sufficient for our justification. They have taught that, supposing a man to be guilty of all the sins of the damned in hell, yet if he make confession, with a promise to his confessor of amendment, he may communicate immediately."

ON LOVING OUR NEIGHBOUR,

AND OUR DUTY TOWARDS HIM.

In the preceding chapter, the Jesuits have taught us, that all our duties and obligations to God may be comprised in a few external performances, and

* Dated June 28, 1686.

that to fear without loving him is sufficient. They have even instructed us to offend and insult him, rather than to render to him that holy obedience and just homage which he has a right to expect from us. Hence, as they evince so little respect for the Almighty, we need not wonder that they are sparing in their tender regard for mankind.

When a certain lawyer once asked Jesus Christ what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus Christ referred him to the law: What does that say? The man replied, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, &c., and thy neighbour as thyself;" to which the Saviour rejoined, "This do, and thou shalt live." But no, say the Jesuits, this is not necessary. You shall live though you do no such thing. Thus it was that the devil, concealed under the form of the most beautiful of animals, formerly spoke. "Ye shall not surely die," said he to our first parents, though you eat of the fruit which under pain of death has been forbidden. So have the Jesuits ever taught: do not imagine that you shall die unless you love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength; be satisfied with not hating him,—that is the import of the injunction.

Be content also, they add, not to hate your neighbour, for this is all that Jesus Christ intends by

*Luke x. 25-28.

+ Gen. iii. 4.

the words, my commandment is, that you love one another*. Precisely the same is the meaning of St. Paul, when he remarks, he who loves his brother has fulfilled the lawt. Nothing more is to be understood than that a man who does not hate his brother has obeyed the precept which includes all the law and the prophets.

But some one not belonging to the Society of Jesus will remark, this interpretation is absolutely false, for Jesus Christ, who enjoins us to love our neighbour, has given us clearly to understand that he means more than not to hate him.

The com

mandment, says he, that I give you, is, that you love one another as I have loved you§. Now the Saviour did not think it enough not to hate us, but he loved us so as to die for us, and that when we were enemies to him by wicked works. Whence St. John concludes that we ought also to lay down our lives for the brethren T.

But the Jesuits reply, "these are hard sayings, and we cannot hear them." A reply not put into their mouths by their enemies, for the purpose of rendering them odious, but furnished by their own conduct; for they have ventured to revise and improve the gospel, and have taught, on the subject of loving one another, a doctrine contrary to that of Jesus Christ

* John xv. 17. § John xv. 12.

† Rom. xiii. 8.
Rom. v. 10.

Matt. xxii. 40. ¶2 John iii. 16.

H

To be convinced of this, let us attend to Father Tambourin.

"As it is certain," he says, "that we are required to love our neighbour, agreeably to the words of Christ, by St. Matthew, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, so to me it appears equally certain that we are not bound to love him by any internal act directed expressly to him." ""* Now we should have supposed, from a first view of the words, thou shalt love thy neighbour, that we were required to love him really; but such a conclusion would be entirely wrong. The words of the gospel must be retained, but the sense of them reversed. Thou shalt love, that is to say, thou shalt not love inwardly. This is exactly in the style of "a Just excommunication," when an unjust excommunication is intended; and of a "real duty," put for one that is imaginary and false +.

Father Lamy, as deeply read in the Scriptures as Father Tambourin, has an argument not less refined than the above. "We are not bound by this precept," he observes, "to love our neighbour otherwise, or more than ourselves. Now as it is not required of us to love ourselves in a sense implying any internal

* Ita mihi certum videtur non adesse obligationem eum diligendi per aliquem actum internum expresse tendentem in ipsum proximum.-Tambourin's Explic. of the Decalogue, part 2, L. 5, ch. 1, p. 1, col. 1, n. 1.

Instr. Past. des. 40, p. 115.

act, consequently we are not enjoined to love our neighbour in any such manner.' He also adds (and the remark is truly excellent), "If it were our duty to love our neighbour thus, a large proportion of us should stand condemned for not having exercised this internal act of charity towards all men; a supposition which would be improbable and absurd." Thus we see, that as the number of the chosen is very great, the way which leads to life very broad, and many there be that find it§, it follows that we are under no obligation to love one another with an inward feeling or emotion.

Who would have imagined that a doctrine so impious and ridiculous would have found any partisans, except among the Jesuits, by whom it was invented? It is, however, a fact, that Sieur le Roux, Professor of Theology at Rheims, following the steps of Tambourin and Lamy, has unblushingly asserted in the face of the world, and dictated to his pupils, "that St. John in declaring that he who loves not his brother abideth in death, does not speak of any

* Vi hujus præcepti non tenemur diligere proximum aliter vel plus quam nos ipsos. Atqui nos ipsos non tenemur diligere actu interno charitatis; ergo nec proximum.-Lamy's Theological Works, tom. 4, disp. 28, sect. 1, n. 13, page 377.

Multi damnarentur ex eo quod hujusmodi actum internum charitatis erga omnes homines non elicuerint, quod est argumentum ab absurdo et improbabili.-Theological Works, tom. 4, disp. 28.

Matt. xx. 16.

§ Matt. vii. 13, 14.