Are you inclined to spare him?- here is Vasquez.
Nobody need go away in ill humour- nobody without the authority of a
grave doctor. Lessius will talk to you like a Heathen on homicide, and
like a Christian, it may be, on charity. Vasquez, again, will
descant like a Heathen on charity, and like a Christian on homicide.
But by means of probabilism, which is held both by Vasquez and
Lessius, and which renders all your opinions common property, they
will lend their opinions to one another, and each will be held bound
to absolve those who have acted according to opinions which each of
them has condemned. It is this very variety, then, that confounds you.
Uniformity, even in evil, would be better than this. Nothing is more
contrary to the orders of St. Ignatius and the first generals of
your Society than this confused medley of all sorts of opinions,
good and bad. I may, perhaps, enter on this topic at some future
period; and it will astonish many to see how far you have
degenerated from the original spirit of your institution, and that
your own generals have foreseen that the corruption of your doctrine
on morals might prove fatal, not only to your Society, but to the
Church universal.
Meanwhile, I repeat that you can derive no advantage from the
doctrine of Vasquez. It would be strange, indeed, if, out of all the
that have written on morals, one or two could not be found who may
have hit upon a truth which has been confessed by all Christians.
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