ability to comprehend what was spoken, while in fact he was obdurately bent on not expressing assent, from the design to establish a plea for the indulgence of a selfish purpose. Invincible ignorance should be a natural malformation of the intellect (except in cases where physical means of knowledge are absent), which prevents a fact being recognised and a truth being felt, just as insanity in the eyes of the law exempts an individual from its consequences, as incapacitated for discriminating between right and wrong. There is, however, this capital distinction between the methods by which the relative pleas are established, that, whereas legal tribunals apply objective tests to confirm the existence of insanity, it is enough that invincible ignorance should be persistently alleged by a party for it to be admitted, with all its consequent exemptions. The scope of a rule can be found only within the terms in which it is laid down; and our contention is, that in the definitions and exemplifications given by Father Gury in regard to invincible ignorance, no term can be found which would render it necessary, before the validity of this plea is admitted, that there should be aught adduced in its support besides the obdurately persistent insistance of the party interested in not acquiescing in a particular proposition, or in not admitting a particular fact. No language can be more precise than Gury's as to the degree of relief from obligations ensured by invincible ignorance. 'Invincible ignorance,' says he, 'wholly removes all voluntary element, for nothing can possibly be voluntary where there is no cognition. . . . according to the axiom, Nothing can be willed unless it be previously contem-plated. Therefore, no deed proceeding from invincible ignorance can ever be made the ground for accusation against the doer." The case of the Jesuit missionaries in China, judged by these grave sentences, would therefore stand thus:-For Christians to adopt Pagan customs, when to omit doing so might be attended. with some inconvenience, is quite legitimate; only they must say to themselves inwardly that they mean merely to conform to a local practice, irrespective of its intimate relation to heathen observances. Again, it is not at all essential for a Christian to believe explicitly in the Trinity or the Incarnation; should, therefore, missionaries boast of numerous converts, none of whom have been indoctrinated in these dogmatic points, there would be no ground for charging the missionaries with laxness, as they would only have omitted to teach what was not essential, or for denying to these neophytes the character of thorough Christians, their ignorance on these points of established secondary importance being plainly invincible; consequently in all they did in China the Jesuit Fathers must be held wholly beyond reproach.* Let us now see what we can learn in reference to Mental Reservations, the second capital count in the popular indictment against Jesuit principles. Une chose des plus embarrassantes qui s'y trouve, exclaims our Jesuit of the Provinciales', 'est d'éviter le mensonge et surtout quand on voudrait faire accroire une chose fausse. C'est à quoi sert admirablement notre doctrine des équivoques. Mais savez-vous bien comment il faut faire quand on ne trouve point de mots équivoques?' 'Non, mon père. Je m'en doutais bien,' dit-il; cela est nouveau ; c'est la doctrine des Réservations Mentales.' Father Gury carefully points out that Mental Reservations are of two kinds, the strictly and the latently mental. The first are absolutely unlawful, as involving the use of terms from which the hearer never could infer the concealed sense of the speaker. But for grave reasons' it is lawful at times to make use of latent reservations, as also of equivocal terms,' it being quite essential, however, that the terms be such as may make it possible for the listener to understand a matter as it really is, and not as it may sound.'† In other words, it is a condition sine quâ non for this device to pass muster, that it should be carefully constructed out of terms into which a double meaning can possibly be imported. Consistently with this ruling, we learn that no oath need be binding, of which it can be alleged that a sense of pressure conduced at the time to its having been sworn. Coercion may very fairly be taken as an extenuating circumstance for departure from an engagement; but it is startling to find it enunciated as a principle, in the standard Handbook for the instruction of Roman Catholic youths in Moral Obligations, that an oath may be repudiated with perfect impunity, if only the person who has sworn pleads to having been at the time influenced in his mind by some apprehension of possibly injurious consequences, unless he did so swear. It is well to follow out Gury's doctrine as to the force of solemnly contracted promises. In the section about Contracts *Gury reverts to this matter in the Casus Conscientia' (p. 60). Can a missionary,' he asks, 'for purposes of concealment assume the dress of ministers of a false religion so that he may seem one of them?' which is answered in the affirmative, the same qualifying grounds of distinction as above being adduced; 'for dresses primarily serve for covering the body, and are not merely declaratory signs of some sect.' This ruling meets the case of the Jesuit who in Sweden occupied a chair of Protestant divinity. † Gury, vol. i. p. 280. Quomodo præcisè distinguatur restrictio latè mentalis a restrictione strictè mentali ?' We we find this query: 'If a donation has been promised on oath, but has not yet been delivered, is it still binding?' which is answered negatively,* on the ground that, as the deed is incomplete, it is void in substance, and consequently no oath in reference thereto can be held to have binding force. Father Gury and he is in accord with the divines of his Orderhas, however, more to say in limitation of the obligations following on oaths. He lays it down, that according to more probable opinion no oath is binding if made with the intention indeed of swearing, but not of binding,'t though he admits that to go deliberately through the semblance of an oath without any intention to keep it does involve a venial sin amounting to a lie, with a taking in vain of God's name.' To remove all doubt as to what is implied, this explanation is given: 'The binding force of an oath has to be interpreted according to the tacit conditions either included or implied (subintellectas) therein; which are: 1st, if I could have done so without grave injury; 2nd, if matters had not notably changed; 3rd, if the rights and will of the superior were not contrary; 4th, if the other had kept his faith; 5th, if the other does not waive his right.' Whatever may be said for several of these relieving conditions, the first virtually puts it within every one's power to repudiate his oath whenever he sees fit to allege that its observance would be accompanied by what he himself thinks to be serious discomfort; for here again, no qualification limits the faculty of the interested party to impart, of his own mere will, a justification to the action that may suggest itself as pleasant for adoption. The prohibitions against spiritual advisers interfering to make so-called penitents entertain a rigid sense of duty are elaborately explicit. Though he might have grounds to entertain doubts as to the sincerity of the penitent,' the Confessor is yet simply to accept his statements. Even in the case of 'having certain knowledge that a sin has been kept back or denied,' the Confessor is not to extract its admission unless in a roundabout manner, but he shall grant absolution because the penitent must be believed, whether speaking for or against himself; and if he really did commit the sin in question, it may be presumed he has forgotten it, or confessed it to another, or has some great cause for keeping it secret, or that the informers were deceived.'§ What room for equivocation is afforded by this ruling the following exemplification will show. Anna having been guilty of adultery, Gury, vol. i. p. 483. Gury, vol. i. p. 200, Non valet probabilius juramentum factum cum animo quidem jurandi sed non se obligandi, nec vice versa.' Ibid. vol. ii. p. 355. § Ibid. vol. ii. p. 355. F and and being interrogated by her husband, who has formed a suspicion, answers, the first time, that she has not violated wedlock; the second time, having in the interval obtained absolution, she replies, I am guiltless of such crime. The third time, she absolutely denies the adultery, and says, I have not committed it, meaning within herself such particular adultery as I am bound to reveal, or, I have not committed an act of adultery that has to be revealed to you. Is Anna to be blamed?'* Gury's reply, too long to give here, justifies each answer of the adulterous woman, supporting his ruling by a grave array of Jesuit authorities, amongst which figure Suarez and St. Liguori. In illustration of the equivocation that has been practised by the Order in its corporate capacity, the facts connected with the purported condemnation by its General of the doctrines on Tyrannicide, and the Supremacy of the Pope over Princes, maintained by Suarez in his treatise, 'Defensio Fidei Catholicæ,' are of interest. The first edition appeared at Coimbra in 1613; and in September, 1614, Paul V. conveyed to Suarez, in a Brief, his Pontifical approbation of its contents. Despite this august sanction, the treatise excited controversy, and in 1618 it was even condemned by the Parliament of Paris to be burnt by the public hangman. Thereupon the Jesuits came forward with a Brief alleged to have been issued by their General Acquaviva, as early as August, 1614-that is, a month before the Pope's congratulatory Epistle - prohibiting all public discussion by members of the Order on the two points that had given rise to the objectionable propositions. This Brief has been reprinted in the Institutes† and reads there as a general instruction to all Provincials not to tolerate within their jurisdictions any disquisition as to the Pope's Supremacy or Tyrannicide, without special authority from Rome. But Juvencus, in his History, printed with official approval a century later in Rome, informs us incidentally that this Brief never was a general instruction, but was addressed to France alone, having been written solely to allay the unpleasant controversy there awakened by Suarez's propositions. This statement at once deprives the document of the character sought to be given it by Jesuit apologists. There is, See Gury, Casus Conscientiæ,' Restrictio Mentalis, p. 129. + Inst. S. J., vol. ii. p. 5. 'Præceptum Provincialibus circa editionem Librorum.' Abunde jam provisum fuerat a Præp. Gen. Societatis ne tractarentur a nostris scriptoribus hujus generis argumenta . . . Exstabat editum ante annos quatuor, super ea re decretum, quod in Hispaniam tamen et in Lusitaniam non perlatum erat, quia nulla ibi lis ejusmodi morebatur, atque decretum Acquaviva a Patribus Gallis fuerat procuratum, sic ad eos, proprie putabatur.'—Juv., p. 88, lib. xii. Romæ, 1710. however, however, something more to be observed. By this document most certainly all publications on the said topics are professedly prohibited for the future, without special permission from Rome. Suarez's volume has been re-issued,-in 1619 at Cologne, in 1655 at Mayence-without a trace of such special permission, and without disapproval from the General. Had the special sanction then been given clandestinely? If it had not, why did the Order never reprove the new issues? It is certain that at no time has the Order levelled a word of public censure against Suarez. On the contrary, he is proclaimed as a light of the first magnitude in the firmament of doctrine by Father Gury, in his most recent editions:- Inter Theologos post D. Thomam eminens, a Paulo V. et Bened. XIV. doctor eximius nuncupatus, et apud omnes ingenio, doctrinâ, et sapientiá admodum commendatus.' We shall have occasion to advert to certain propositions of quite modern date as to the Pope's Supremacy over Princes; and then it may possibly be deemed that the principles embodied in the objectionable doctrines, on account of which Suarez's treatise was publicly burnt, are to be found at the present day in the approved writings of the great organs of Jesuit learning and doctrine. In our former article we dwelt on some matters which apparently countenance the allegation, that clandestine affiliation is a thing not absolutely repudiated by the Society. It is not without relevancy to this point, and specially to Mental Reservation, that clandestine conversions to, and protracted clandestine professions of, the Roman Catholic faith, are declared quite permissible practices under certain circumstances. At page 60 of the 'Casus Conscientiæ,' we read the following interesting case:'Paternus, a Protestant clergyman and in extreme peril of death, having come to believe the Catholic religion to be alone true, has requested a priest to be called in, but that he should come dressed as a layman, to avert all suspicion of the convert's being about to abjure heresy. To this priest Paternus opens his mind, attaching however two conditions; that in the event of his succumbing to the illness, he be allowed to die concealing the Catholic faith and the baptism he had received; and that, in the event of recovery, he be allowed to postpone his public profession until such time as this could be done free from any injury to his estate. both conditions the priest assents readily.' The question is, Was the priest justified in doing so? and Gury's argumentation is eminently typical of the spirit pervading all Jesuit doctrinewhich finds expression in the apparently emphatic affirmation of a rigid principle, coupled with the immediate introduction of terms which practically make the observance of the affirmed prin F 2 Το ciple |