He has checked, by the dread of
his rigid justice, those who were not restrained by the fear of the
justice of God; and his piety has taught him that the honour of
Christians consists in their observance of the mandates of Heaven
and the rules of Christianity, and not in the pursuit of that
phantom which, airy and unsubstantial as it is, you hold to be a
legitimate apology for murder. Your murderous decisions being thus
universally detested, it is highly advisable that you should now
change your sentiments, if not from religious principle, at least from
motives of policy. Prevent, fathers, by a spontaneous condemnation
of these inhuman dogmas, the melancholy consequences which may
result from them, and for which you will be responsible. And to
impress your minds with a deeper horror at homicide, remember that the
first crime of fallen man was a murder, committed on the person of the
first holy man; that the greatest crime was a murder, perpetrated on
the person of the King of saints; and that, of all crimes, murder is
the only one which involves in a common destruction the Church and the
state, nature and religion.
I have just seen the answer of your apologist to my Thirteenth
Letter, but if he has nothing better to produce in the shape of a
reply to that letter, which obviates the greater part of his
objections, he will not deserve a rejoinder. I am sorry to see him
perpetually digressing from his subject, to indulge in rancorous abuse
both of the living and the dead.
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