It is stated by Mr. Seymour that the character of the Society is in high esteem for morality at Rome. One of them said to him, “We have been charged with being crafty intriguers—with intermeddling in politics—with swaying princes—with disturbing kingdoms—with embroiling families. We have been charged with everything but one. No man has ever charged us with personal immorality.” And Mr. Seymour adds, that this boast is certainly true as respects the Jesuits of Rome; so true that whereas all men in that city hesitate not to denounce the other Monkish orders as idle, debauched, licentious, they never breathe a whisper against the personal morality of the Jesuits. If morality were confined to the absence of profligacy, I believe that the same might be said of the personal behaviour of the great majority of modern Jesuits; but if we take the term in its wider and nobler sense, as expressing the moral will of God, or the reflection of it in the moral sense, which still remains within the heart, notwithstanding our ruin in the fall: if morality convey to us the idea of purity, truth, honesty, justice, and all those noble principles which should regulate man’s intercourse with man, then I believe it may be shown to demonstration that the Order has sanctioned principles which are sufficient to dissolve every moral tie, and, if extensively prevalent, to break up the whole fabric of society. I do not mean that such principles are boldly stated in their Constitutions and public documents, for, of course, it would not answer their purpose to avow them. But they are maintained and defended by their most celebrated writers, and if we only bear in mind that no Jesuit is permitted to publish any book without first submitting it to his Superior, it is clear that the Society becomes responsible for every publication of its members. The leading principles of the Order strips the writer of his individuality, and every publication of every individual amongst them becomes an authorized document of the Society. It cannot go forth without the imprimatur of the General, and if it has that imprimatur, then the Society becomes responsible for its sentiments. [48]

Let us take one or two specimens of their moral maxims.The reader has doubtless heard of the doctrine of Probability; the principle of which is, that if any writer of repute has recommended a certain conduct, then that conduct becomes probably right. If any author, especially any modern, has advanced a certain opinion, then that opinion becomes probable. It matters not what evidence there is against it. It may be condemned by the concurrent voice of all honest men, but still it is rendered probable if defended by a single individual.

But what results from this probability? and what harm is done if the opinion be accounted probable? It is really almost inconceivable that any men should have had the daring to advance such a maxim as may be found in countless passages in the writings of the Order. It is nothing less than this. That if any opinion be probable it may be adopted with a clear conscience, and if any action be probably right, a man may perform it and be harmless, whatever be its character. Mr. Dalton quotes the following passage, amongst many others, from George De Rhodes:[49]—“The authority of one good doctor is a sufficient reason on which to ground the probability of any opinion; so that every one may safely follow it.” Where, Oh, where is the vaunted certainty of Romish teaching? We hear of men seeking rest in Rome’s authority in order that their soul may be satisfied with certainty. And the human mind requires certainty; the interests of eternity are far too solemn to allow men to rest satisfied if their only hope be in a doubt or an opinion. But who, we may boldly challenge them to answer us, has the certainty now,—the poor unhappy man who is floating hither and thither on a whole sea of Jesuitical probabilities?—or the man who can plant his firm foot on the immoveable rock of the unchanging word of the living God, and fearlessly declare, “This is certain, because it is inspired; this is truth, because God has revealed it in the Bible?”

It seems at first sight that such principles as these must lead to endless perplexity and embarrassment, and so they must if all love of truth be not first extinguished. But on the other hand it is clear that they give unbounded latitude in conduct, and by referring truth to the ever-varying standard of man’s opinion, enable the Jesuit to justify anything. Pascal puts this with great power in his “Provincial Letters.” He supposes a Jesuit father to be conversing with him as follows:—“They, the authors, are very often of different opinions; but that does not signify; every one renders his own probable and sure. We well know that they have not the same sentiments, it is all the better for that. On the contrary, they hardly ever agree. There are very few questions where you will not find that one says yes, and the other no. In all cases of that sort, one and the other of the contrary opinions is probable. But, my father, said I, we must be very much embarrassed in choosing! Not at all, said he, you have only to follow the one that pleases the most. What! if the other is more probable? It does not signify, said he. And if the other is more certain? It does not signify, repeated the father; here it is, well explained. It is Emmanuel Sa, of our Society, in his aphorism De Dubiis:—‘We may do what we think lawful according to a probable opinion, although the contrary may be more certain. The opinion of a grave doctor is sufficient.’ . . . We have certainly large scope, reverend father, said I, thanks to your probable opinions. We have fine liberty of conscience. And you casuists, have you the same liberty in your answers? Yes, said he, we answer as we please, or rather as pleases those who consult us, for here are our rules taken from our fathers, Layman, Vasquez, Sanchez, &c. Here are the words of Layman:—‘A doctor upon being consulted can give advice not only probable, according to his opinion, but contrary to his opinion, if it is estimated probable by others when his contrary advice is found more favourable and more agreeable to the person that consults him. But I say more, it would not be at all wrong that he should give to those who consult him, an opinion held probable by some learned person, even while he himself knew it to be absolutely false.’”

Are we then to place our souls under the guidance of such teachers? Are we to abandon the pure, the clear, the unerring truth of Scripture, at the bidding of one who is ready to declare black white, and white black, at the bidding of his Church? I solemnly appeal to any Roman Catholic into whose hands this Lecture may ever fall, Can this be Christianity? Can such a system be from God? Is this the Divine and eternal truth which you are seeking in the Church of Rome? Nay, more! Can you place the smallest confidence in any Jesuit, priest or confessor, when you find it boldly asserted that he may give you an opinion as to the great concerns of your soul’s salvation, which at the very time he gives it he knows in his own heart to be absolutely false?

But their principles of equivocation, mental restriction, and the direction of intention, are equally subversive of all that is trustworthy amongst men.

By equivocation they mean the use of terms of so ambiguous a character that the hearer receives them in one sense, while the speaker employs them in another.

By mental restriction is intended the suppression of certain parts of a sentence, so as to give to the remainder a meaning opposed to truth. Pascal quotes the following passage from one Sanchez: “A man may swear,” says he, “that he has not done a thing, although in fact he has done it, meaning within himself that he did not do it on a certain day, or before he was born, or understanding some other similar circumstance, without permitting it to appear in any way through the words employed! and this,” he adds, “is very convenient on many occasions, and is always perfectly right when it is necessary for the health, the honour, or the interests.”

By the direction of intention is meant the proposing to oneself an object of intention entirely at variance with the act committed: as, e.g., the Jesuits in South India encouraged their converts to bow down before heathen idols, on the principle that though the act of adoration was given to the idol, the intention was directed to a small crucifix which each of the worshippers had concealed about his person. Thus, argues Pascal, with his keen satire, “They content the world by permitting the sinful action, and they satisfy the Gospel by purifying the intention.” “You give to men,” says he, “the outward and material effects of the action, and you render to God the interior and spiritual movement of the intention: so that by this equitable division you produce an alliance between the human law and the Divine.” Now there is nothing in the whole catalogue of crime which may not be justified by such a monstrous principle. Pascal quotes passages to show that a man may even commit murder, provided only that his intention be to preserve his honour, and not to take revenge upon his enemy; nor is there any one of the blackest crimes that have ever disgraced humanity, which may not be justified, if we are to admit the idea that the act can be separate from the will; that the heart can be pure, while the hand is defiled in blood, or the intention acceptable to God, while the outward action is in direct opposition to his law.

Such are specimens of the principles of moral conduct advanced by the writers of the Society. It is clear at a moment’s glance that they are destructive of every moral obligation, and give unbounded license to every kind of crime. Now, it is a question of very great interest, how far is the Church of Rome as a body identified with those principles of the Jesuits? I do not say how far are Romanists as individuals, because I am fully aware that a conscientious Romanist would recoil from them with as much aversion as ourselves. It is not a nice point of controversial theology, but a simple matter of right and wrong; and whatever men may think on such a subject as transubstantiation, no honourable man can approve of mental restriction. I take it for granted therefore, that the great body of Roman Catholic Englishmen condemn them. But how does the Church as a Church stand affected by them? It has been already shewn that as the Society claims an absolute control over all Jesuit authors, it becomes thereby responsible for their sentiments. But still this does not reach the Popedom; the Company may be guilty, and not Popery. But not so when we find that on August 4, 1814, Pope Pius VII. issued a Bull in which, by Pontifical authority, he solemnly sanctioned the re-establishment of the Order. It is true that this Bull was in flat contradiction to that of Clement XIV., so that one infallible Pope was in direct opposition to another. [55] But that is not our concern—it is not our business to decide which of the two infallibles was wrong,—all that we may leave to those who believe in their infallibility. The one important fact for us is this, that Pope Pius VII. re-established the Order in 1814, and that his Bull remains to this day unretracted in the archives of the Vatican. It is also important to observe that he did it with these moral enormities fully in view. Of course, as an infallible person, he must have known Jesuit doctrine through the simple power of his own infallibility; but even if that had failed him, he had in the archives of the Vatican the language of Clement stating distinctly:—“And further, concerning the use and exposition of certain maxims, which the Holy See has with reason proscribed, as scandalous and manifestly contrary to good morals.” So that our heavy charge against the Popedom is, that with all these facts clearly in view, the Pope put his seal and sanction upon the Company. He ordained that these letters of his should be “inviolably observed in all time coming,” and accordingly to this hour they are in force. He declares that he should “consider it a great crime against God if, amidst these dangers of the Christian republic, he neglected the aids which the especial providence of God had placed at his disposal;” a crime, that is, to neglect the aid of an Order which breaks down truth by the doctrine of probabilities, and gives a loose rein to every sinful action by the licentious theory, that in the midst of crime the intention may be pure. Are these, then, the weapons, and are these the principles, on which the Church of Rome relies for the maintenance of power? and if they be,—I ask the question fearlessly, Can it be the Church of God? Do not now perplex your minds by a few hard texts, or the nice subtilties of acute controversialists. But look at the great, broad, and admitted features of Jesuitical morality; and then look at the Papacy leaning for support on that very Order, though all its principles are open and exposed before the world, and decide, can that Papacy be the Spouse of Christ?—can that be the truth of God, which leans on such a system for its support?—can he be the Vicar of our blessed Lord who gives his unqualified sanction to a Society acting on such principles? to a body of men the very essence of whose system is that they are ready to declare black white, and white black, at a bidding of the Pope? [57]