Let none suppose, however, that the two are, therefore, equal to each
other; for there is this vast difference between them, that violence
has only a certain course to run, limited by the appointment of
Heaven, which overrules its effects to the glory of the truth which it
assails; whereas verity endures forever and eventually triumphs over
its enemies, being eternal and almighty as God himself.
LETTER XIII
TO THE REVEREND FATHERS OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS
September 30, 1656
REVEREND FATHERS,
I have just seen your last production, in which you have continued
your list of Impostures up to the twentieth and intimate that you mean
to conclude with this the first part of your accusations against me,
and to proceed to the second, in which you are to adopt a new mode
of defence, by showing that there are other casuists besides those
of your Society who are as lax as yourselves. I now see the precise
number of charges to which I have to reply; and as the fourth, to
which we have now come, relates to homicide, it may be proper, in
answering it, to include the 11th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, and
18th, which refer to the same subject.
In the present letter, therefore, my object shall be to
vindicate the correctness of my quotations from the charges of falsity
which you bring against me. But as you have ventured, in your
pamphlets, to assert that "the sentiments of your authors on murder
are agreeable to the decisions of popes and ecclesiastical laws,"
you will compel me, in my next letter, to confute a statement at
once so unfounded and so injurious to the Church.
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