And is it not certain, that, were he to get
full justice, he could not save himself from incurring a censure?
although, to shield himself from this, he pleads an excuse which is
hardly less censurable than the offence, "that the Sorbonne has no
jurisdiction over Parnassus, and that the errors of that land are
subject neither to censure nor the Inquisition"; as if one could act
the blasphemer and profane fellow only in prose! There is another
passage, however, in the preface, where even this excuse fails him,
when he says, "that the water of the river, on whose banks he composes
his verses, is so apt to make poets, that, though it were converted
into holy water, it would not chase away the demon of poesy." To match
this, I may add the following flight of your Father Garasse, in his
Summary of the Capital Truths in Religion, where, speaking of the
sacred mystery of the incarnation, he mixes up blasphemy and heresy in
this fashion: "The human personality was grafted, as it were, or set
on horseback, upon the personality of the Word!" And omitting many
others, I might mention another passage from the same author, who,
speaking on the subject of the name of Jesus, ordinarily written thus,
+
I.H.S.
observes that "some have taken away the cross from the top of it,
leaving the characters barely thus, I.H.S.- which," says he, "is a
stripped Jesus!"
Such is the indecency with which you treat the truths of religion,
in the face of the inviolable law which binds us always to speak of
them with reverence.
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