"
See what it is, fathers, to have Jesuits in all places of the
earth! Behold the universal practice which you have introduced, and
which you are anxious everywhere to maintain! It matters nothing
that the tables of Jesus Christ are filled with abominations, provided
that your churches are crowded with people. Be sure, therefore, cost
what it may, to set down all that dare to say a word against your
practice as heretics on the holy sacrament. But how can you do this,
after the irrefragable testimonies which they have given of their
faith? Are you not afraid of my coming out with the four grand
proofs of their heresy which you have adduced? You ought, at least, to
be so, fathers, and I ought not to spare your blushing. Let us,
then, proceed to examine proof the first.
"M. de St. Cyran," says Father Meynier, "consoling one of his
friends upon the death of his mother (tom. i., let. 14), says that the
most acceptable sacrifice that can be offered up to God, on such
occasions, is that of patience; therefore he is a Calvinist." This
is marvellously shrewd reasoning, fathers; and I doubt if anybody will
be able to discover the precise point of it. Let us learn it, then,
from his own mouth. "Because," says this mighty controversialist,
"it is obvious that he does not believe in the sacrifice of the
mass; for this is, of all other sacrifices, the most acceptable unto
God." Who will venture to say now that the do not know how to
reason? Why, they know the art to such perfection that they will
extract heresy out of anything you choose to mention, not even
excepting the Holy Scripture itself! For example, might it not be
heretical to say, with the wise man in Ecclesiasticus, "There is
nothing worse than to love money"; as if adultery, murder, or
idolatry, were not far greater crimes? Where is the man who is not
in the habit of using similar expressions every day? May we not say,
for instance, that the most acceptable of all sacrifices in the eyes
of God is that of a contrite and humbled heart; just because, in
discourses of this nature, we simply mean to compare certain
internal virtues with one another, and not with the sacrifice of the
mass, which is of a totally different order, and infinitely more
exalted? Is this not enough to make you ridiculous, fathers? And is it
necessary, to complete your discomfiture, that I should quote the
passages of that letter in which M.
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