# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 12 06_S59
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

59

is*) and (with the exception) of the three other essential (vows), of poverty, of chastity and of obedience — no Constitutions, Declarations or any rule of living can carry with it the obligation to a mortal or venial sin: except when the Superior should command it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ or by virtue of obedience; which can happen in those things or persons in which it shall be judged what will be in accordance with the particular advantage of each individual or with the general advantage: and in the place of the fear of offense let there come love and the desire of all perfection, and that a greater honor ("major gloria") and praise of Christ, our Creator and Lord, may follow." (L. c. Vol. I. fol. 414. 415.) It is remarkable that, while every chapter of the Constitutions is otherwise accompanied with further official explanations, this one, a pillory of the Jesuit order, has been left without such explanations! To carry out such a Constitution further, they naturally did not think advisable. The execution they preferred to leave to practice. And in this it has not been lacking. An official interpretation is found, however, in the Institutum also. In the general Index of the Institutum the chapter cited is furnished with the following interpreting summary: "The Superiors can make it binding to sin by virtue of obedience, when this brings great advantage."†) (See Index under the title: Obedientia et obedire.) The "Herold des Glaubens" will hopefully see, especially from this last passage, that the Jesuits, and indeed the whole order, hold the principle, and have expressed it also in clear and unmistakable words, "that a good end sanctifies an otherwise evil means." Would to God that the "Herold" might not only know this from here, but also learn to be ashamed either of his ignorance or of his shameless denial; for whatever the "Herold" may now bring forward, even the most ignorant and simple can see from the incontrovertible testimonies adduced above that we told the truth when we laid that immoral principle, destroying all morality, to the charge of the Jesuits.

*) The vow rendered by the Jesuits to the Pope reads in the confirming bull of Pope Paul III of the year 1540 as follows: "Everything whatever that the popes for the time being may command for the profit of souls and the propagation of the faith, and into whatever provinces they may wish to send us, we are to carry out at once, without delay and without any excuse, so far as in us lies." (L. c. Vol. I. fol. 7.)

†) Perhaps many a one, not only Protestant, but even a better Catholic, will scarcely trust his eyes at these sentences, or will distrust us, and fear that we followed here some derived and uncertain sources. We testify, however, hereby, that the library of our local Concordia College possesses the Institutum according to the authorized Prague edition, and that we have made our excerpts from it ourselves and have given them in a literal translation. We are ready to communicate the passages cited also in the language of the original, namely in Latin, if it is desired.

Since now everyone who enters the Jesuit order must swear to hold to the Institutum in everything, we are really doing something superfluous when we still bring forward testimonies from the writings of individual Jesuits for their more than lax morality. But in order to afford Mr. "Herold" the fullest satisfaction, we will do even this superfluous thing.

Thus writes Leonhard Leß, died 1623 at Louvain: "It is no mortal sin to swear falsely without the intention to swear, when one is driven to an oath unjustly and the falsity of the oath is wholly hidden. Because one neither has the intention of calling God to witness, but only pretends so, nor, in reasonable judgment, can be regarded as perjured, since the falsity of it is wholly hidden, and because one has a just cause to swear otherwise in one's mind." (Lib. 2. d. justit. c. 42. dub. 8. n. 42.)

The same Leß: "I say fourthly, it is no reprehensible opinion that a guilty man does not sin mortally if he denies his crime, especially when it is a matter on which the death penalty is set, so long as there is yet hope to escape, even if he were asked in due form of law. The same is held by Petrus Navarra, Emanuel a Saa under the word 'Guilty man' and some others among the more recent (Jesuits)." (Lib. 2. c. 31. dub. 3. n. 16.)

Paulus Laymann of Zweibrücken, died 1635 at Constance, writes: "He who, pressed by violent fear or without any intention of binding himself thereby, had said to a woman: 'I will take you to myself,' can afterwards, questioned on oath by the judge, deny that he said such words; understood, namely: in the sense in which one believes he has voluntarily promised to take her in marriage." (Lib. 4. tract. 13. c. 14. n. 7.)

Franciscus Toletus, the first cardinal taken from the Jesuits, died 1596, writes: "When a guilty man is asked before a court, both whether he has done it and also whether he has accomplices and partners in guilt, he can rightly, even if he has done it and has had partners in guilt, say he has not done it, he has had no partners in guilt, if he only brings forth such words as according to his inner intention have a true sense, e. g. that he has the intention to say: 'I have not done it,' namely — 'in prison;' and 'I have had no partners in guilt,' namely — 'in other crimes.'" (Lib. 4. Instruct. Sacerd. c. 58.)

Vinc. Filliucius of Siena, died at Rome 1622, writes: "The intention determines the worth of an action*)... I ask, with what precaution is ambiguity to be used? Answer: that an ambiguity be rightly framed, two ways can be given for persons who are endowed with judgment. The first is to have the intention of uttering the words as they outwardly sound, and for greater safety, when one begins, e. g., to say: 'I swear,' to put quietly in the mind the restriction between: 'that I today,' then to add with a loud voice: 'did not commit that thing'; or: 'I swear,' and to put in between: 'that I say,' and then likewise to conclude with a loud voice: 'that I have not done this or that.' For so the whole speech is perfectly true ... For uneducated people, who do not understand how to express a proper ambiguity, it is enough if they have the intention of affirming or denying in a sense which really contains the truth, for which it is necessary that they know at least in general that they can deny the thing (the matter) in some true sense." (Tract. 25. c. 11. n. 331. 328.)

In a history of Jansenism published in the year 1700, edited by a Roman Catholic, the author relates that a Jesuit at Bordeaux defended the proposition: "that one is bound to submit in everything to what the Pope decides, with so blind an obedience that, if he should command us to deny Christ, we should have to obey him, and that we should not sin if we thus out of obedience denied Christ." †) (Histoire generale du Jansenisme. Tom. 3. p. 39.) However incredible that sounds, it is nevertheless quite credible, since even the famous Jesuit Cardinal Robert Bellarmine (died 1621) has written: "To say that it can happen that the Pope commands something which is not good or which is useless, is not absurd; although it is not the business of subordinates to judge about it, but simply to obey. The Catholic faith teaches that all virtue is good, every vice evil. But if the Pope should err, by commanding vices or forbidding virtues, then the Church is bound to believe that the vices are good, the virtues evil, unless it would sin against conscience. For the Church is bound, in

*) Here the "Herold" has the principle, that the end sanctifies the means and makes an otherwise evil deed good, literally expressed. We are willing, however, gladly to concede to him, if he desires it, that this principle has been set up not only by Jesuits, but also by other Roman Catholic writers.

†) Good prospects for a union of the Jesuitical Catholics, to be entered into if need be with the free men and scoffers now gaining the upper hand!