Saint Chrysostom, morals, unbelievers)."

    The Jesuits have not made the truth uncertain, but they have
made their own ungodliness certain.

    Contradiction has always been permitted, in order to blind the
wicked; for all that offends truth or love is evil. This is the true
principle.

    903. All religions and sects in the world have had natural
reason for a guide. Christians alone have been constrained to take
their rules from without themselves, and to acquaint themselves with
those which Jesus Christ bequeathed to men of old to be handed down to
true believers. This constraint wearies these good Fathers. They
desire, like other people, to have liberty to follow their own
imaginations. It is in vain that we cry to them, as the prophets
said to the Jews of old: "Enter into the Church; acquaint yourselves
with the precepts which the men of old left to her, and follow those
paths." They have answered like the Jews: "We will not walk in them;
but we will follow the thoughts of our hearts"; and they have said,
"We will be as the other nations."

    904. They make a rule of exception.

    Have the men of old given absolution before penance? Do this as
exceptional. But of the exception you make a rule without exception,
so that you do not even want the rule to be exceptional.

    905. On confessions and absolutions without signs of regret.

    God regards only the inward; the Church judges only by the
outward. God absolves as soon as He sees penitence in the heart; the
Church when she sees it in works. God will make a Church pure
within, which confounds, by its inward and entirely spiritual
holiness, the inward impiety of proud sages and Pharisees; and the
Church will make an assembly of men whose external manners are so pure
as to confound the manners of the heathen. If there are hypocrites
among them, but so well disguised that she does not discover their
venom, she tolerates them; for, though they are not accepted of God,
whom they cannot deceive, they are of men, whom they do deceive. And
thus she is not dishonoured by their conduct, which appears holy.
But you want the Church to judge neither of the inward, because that
belongs to God alone, nor of the outward, because God dwells only upon
the inward; and thus, taking away from her all choice of men, you
retain in the Church the most dissolute and those who dishonour her so
greatly that the synagogues of the Jews and sects of philosophers
would have banished them as unworthy and have abhorred them as
impious.

    906. The easiest conditions to live in according to the world
are the most difficult to live in according to God, and vice versa.
Nothing is so difficult according to the world as the religious
life; nothing is easier than to live it according to God. Nothing is
easier, according to the world, than to live in high office and
great wealth; nothing is more difficult than to live in them according
to God, and without acquiring an interest in them and a liking for
them.

    907. The casuists submit the decision to the corrupt reason, and
the choice of decisions to the corrupt will, in order that all that is
corrupt in the nature of man may contribute to his conduct.

    908. But is it probable that probability gives assurance?

    Difference between rest and security of conscience. Nothing
gives certainty but truth; nothing gives rest but the sincere search
for truth.

    909. The whole society itself of their casuists cannot give
assurance to a conscience in error, and that is why it is important to
choose good guides.

    Thus they will be doubly culpable, both in having followed ways
which they should not have followed, and in having listened to
teachers to whom they should not have listened.

    910. Can it be anything but compliance with the world which
makes you find things probable? Will you make us believe that it is
truth and that, if duelling were not the fashion, you would find it
probable that they might fight, considering the matter in itself.?

    911. Must we kill to prevent there being any wicked? This is to
make both parties wicked instead of one. Vince in bono malum.*
(Saint Augustine.)

    * Rom. 12. 2 "But overcome evil with good."

    912. Universal.- Ethics and language are special, but universal
sciences.

    913. Probability.- Each one can employ it; no one can take it
away.

    914. They allow lust to act, and check scruples; whereas they
should do the contrary.

    915. Montalte.- Lax opinions please men so much, that it is
strange that theirs displease. It is because they have exceeded all
bounds. Again, there are many people who see the truth, and who cannot
attain to it; but there are few who do not know that the purity of