"
Yes, fathers, it is to be hoped that if you do not repent, God
will deliver out of your hands those whom you have so long deluded,
either by flattering them in their evil courses with your licentious
maxims, or by poisoning their minds with your slanders. He will
convince the former that the false rules of your casuists will not
screen them from His indignation; and He will impress on the minds
of the latter the just dread of losing their souls by listening and
yielding credit to your slanders, as you lose yours by hatching
these slanders and disseminating them through the world. Let no man be
deceived; God is not mocked; none may violate with impunity the
commandment which He has given us in the Gospel, not to condemn our
neighbour without being well assured of his guilt. And,
consequently, what profession soever of piety those may make who
lend a willing ear to your lying devices, and under what pretence
soever of devotion they may entertain them, they have reason to
apprehend exclusion from the kingdom of God, solely for having imputed
crimes of such a dark complexion as heresy and schism to Catholic
priests and holy nuns, upon no better evidence than such vile
fabrications as yours. "The devil," says M. de Geneve, "is on the
tongue of him that slanders, and in the ear of him that listens to the
slanderer." "And evil speaking," says St. Bernard, "is a poison that
extinguishes charity in both of the parties; so that a single
calumny may prove mortal to an infinite numbers of souls, killing
not only those who publish it, but all those besides by whom it is not
repudiated.
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