"
"They are not my sentiments," said the monk.
"I grant it, sir," said I; "but you feel no aversion to them; and,
so far from detesting the authors of these maxims, you hold them in
esteem. Are you not afraid that your consent may involve you in a
participation of their guilt? and are you not aware that St. Paul
judges worthy of death, not only the authors of evil things, but
also 'those who have pleasure in them that do them?' Was it not enough
to have permitted men to indulge in so many forbidden things under the
covert of your palliations? Was it necessary to go still further and
hold out a bribe to them to commit even those crimes which you found
it impossible to excuse, by offering them an easy and certain
absolution; and for this purpose nullifying the power of the
priests, and obliging them, more as slaves than as judges, to
absolve the most inveterate sinners- without any amendment of life,
without any sign of contrition except promises a hundred times broken,
without penance 'unless they choose to accept of it', and without
abandoning the occasions of their vices, 'if they should thereby be
put to any inconvenience?'
"But your doctors have gone even beyond this; and the license
which they have assumed to tamper with the most holy rules of
Christian conduct amounts to a total subversion of the law of God.
They violate 'the great commandment on which hang all the law and
the prophets'; they strike at the very heart of piety; they rob it
of the spirit that giveth life; they hold that to love God is not
necessary to salvation; and go so far as to maintain that 'this
dispensation from loving God is the privilege which Jesus Christ has
introduced into the world!' This, sir, is the very climax of
impiety.
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