I can hardly think you will get any one to believe you; but if any fuch there be, who really think that I had a design to cancel the charity which I owe your fociety, by decrying it's maxims, I would beg of them to examine diligently and attentively how they came to think fo. For, though they may imagine that it proceeds from their zeal, which cannot bear (without being scandalifed) to fee [or hear] their neighbour accufed, yet I would intreat the favour of them to reflect, that it is not impoffible but it may come from fomething else; and very probably from a fecret diflike or antipathy often lurking about us, which an unhappy gall of bitterness within us ftirs up against fuch as oppofe the lukewarmnefs, and degeneracy of manners. But to give them a rule whereby they may certainly know from what fpring their zeal flows, I would ask them, if, at the fame time that they are uneafy to fee a religious body of men treated in such a manner, they are not more uneafy to find this religious body of men treat truth in fuch a manner? If they are enraged not against my letters only, but more fo against the maxims that are quoted therein; I must confess, that their anger may proceed from fome

zeal,

zeal, though something obscure, and then the paffages which they find here will be fufficient to open their eyes: but if their refentment runs only against the reproof and not against the things reproved, I declare folemnly, Fathers, I fhall never be induced to fay otherwise, than that they are grosly deceived, and their zeal a very blind one.

A ftrange fort of zeal, to be in a rage against the prosecutors of public crimes, but not fo, against thofe that commit them! What new charity is this, that is uneafy to fee palpable errors oppofed, yet undisturbed to see those very errors overturn morality! If those men were in danger of being affaffinated, would they take it ill to be told of the fnare that was laid for them? And instead of going out of the way to avoid it, go on complaining of the little charity of him who laid open the criminal defigns of the affaffins! Are they angry when they are told not to eat of a dish because it is poisoned, or not to go into a town because it has the plague? What is the reason then, that they think it is want of charity to lay open the tenets that are prejudicial to religion, and on the other hand think it want of charity to conceal what is prejudicial to their life and health?

health? It is this: the love and affection which they have for life makes them take in good part every thing that may contribute to it's preservation but the indifference which they have for truth, makes them not only careless to defend her themselves, but angry at others, whom they fee contending to demolish falfhood.

Let fuch therefore reflect (as in the fight of GOD) how much the morality, which your cafuifts have spread through the face of the whole earth, is fhameful and destructive to the Church: how far this licentiousness, which is introduced by them into the moral world, is immoderately fcandalous and uncontroled and how much the confident affurance with which you defend them, is obftinately refractory and violent and if they do not think that it is time to rise up in oppofition to fuch monftrous disorders, their blindness, Fathers, will be as much to be lamented as your own; for both you and they will have equal reafon to dread what St. AUGUSTIN fays upon the words of our SAVIOUR: "Wo to blind guides! Wo to the "blind followers! Væ cæcis ducentibus ! Va "cæcis fequentibus !”

But that you may no longer give bad impreffions to others, or be liable to receive any yourselves, I fhall inform you (but 1 blush at my attempt to instruct those in their duty, by whom I ought to be instructed in mine) what figns, marks, or characteristics, the Fathers of the Church have left us, whereby we may know if rebukes proceed from the fpirit of PIETY and CHARITY, or from the fpirit of IMPIETY and HATRED. The firft of these rules is, that the spirit of piety inclines a man always to speak with TRUTH and SINCERITY, whereas ENVY and HATRED make use of FALSHOOD and CALUMNY:

Splendentia et vehementia, fed rebus veris," fays St. AUGUSTIN.

Whoever makes use

of a lie, acts by the fpirit of the devil. There is no DIRECTION of the INTENTION that can sanctify calumny: and though you could convert or gain the whole earth by it, it must not be done by blackening the innocent and the reafon is this, we must not do the least evil, in order to procure the greatest good; and becaufe "the truth of "GOD does not stand in need of our lies," as the Scripture faith. And St. HILARY affirms, "That it is the duty of the defend"ers of truth to advance nothing but what is "true." And

And, Fathers, I can protest before God, that there is nothing I abominate more than to give the leaft offence to truth: and I have taken a very particular care, not only not to falfify, (which would have been horrible indeed) but not so much as to vary or alter in the least the sense of any one paffage that I have quoted. So that if I dared in this particular to make ufe of St. HILARY's words, I could fay with him, "If the things we say are FALSE let our affertions pass for INFAMOUS ; but if we make it appear "that these things are notorious and visible to all the world, it is no offence to mo

defty, or abuse of apoftolic liberty to treat "them with CONTEMPT."

But it is not enough, Fathers, to say nothing but what is true; we must likewise take care not to fay every thing that is true. For fo much only ought to be told, which when discovered will be of use, and not that which can be of none, but on the contrary may ferve to do mischief. And therefore as the first rule obliges to fpeak truth, the fecond is, to do it with difcretion. "The wick"ed (fays St. AUGUSTIN) perfecute the "good, by following blindly the paffion "which provokes or fpurs them on; whereas VOL. II. C

the