There is no glory in maintaining the truth, according to the Gospel,
that it is unlawful to kill a man for smiting us on the face; but it
is foul shame to deny it. So far, indeed, from justifying you, nothing
tells more fatally against you than the fact that, having doctors
among you who have told you the truth, you abide not in the truth, but
love the darkness rather than the light. You have been taught by
Vasquez that it is a Heathen, and not a Christian, opinion to hold
that we may knock down a man for a blow on the cheek; and that it is
subversive both of the Gospel and of the Decalogue to say that we
may kill for such a matter. The most profligate of men will
acknowledge as much. And yet you have allowed Lessius, Escobar, and
others, to decide, in the face of these well-known truths, and in
spite of all the laws of God against manslaughter, that it is quite
allowable to kill a man for a buffet!
What purpose, then, can it serve to set this passage of Vasquez
over against the sentiment of Lessius, unless you mean to show that,
in the opinion of Vasquez, Lessius is a "Heathen" and a
"profligate"? and that, fathers, is more than I durst have said
myself. What else can be deduced from it than that Lessius "subverts
both the Gospel and the Decalogue"; that, at the last day, Vasquez
will condemn Lessius on this point, as Lessius will condemn Vasquez on
another; and that all your fathers will rise up in judgement one
against another, mutually condemning each other for their sad outrages
on the law of Jesus Christ?
To this conclusion, then, reverend fathers, must we come at
length, that, as your probabilism renders the good opinions of some of
your authors useless to the Church, and useful only to your policy,
they merely serve to betray, by their contrariety, the duplicity of
your hearts.
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