878

Injustice.—­Jurisdiction is not given for the sake of the judge, but for that of the litigant.  It is dangerous to tell this to the people.  But the people have too much faith in you; it will not harm them, and may serve you.  It should therefore be made known. Pasce oves meas,[366] non tuas.  You owe me pasturage.

879

Men like certainty.  They like the Pope to be infallible in faith, and grave doctors to be infallible in morals, so as to have certainty.

880

The Church teaches, and God inspires, both infallibly.  The work of the Church is of use only as a preparation for grace or condemnation.  What it does is enough for condemnation, not for inspiration.

881

Every time the Jesuits may impose upon the Pope, they will make all
Christendom perjured.

The Pope is very easily imposed upon, because of his occupations, and the confidence which he has in the Jesuits; and the Jesuits are very capable of imposing upon him by means of calumny.

882

The wretches who have obliged me to speak of the basis of religion.

883

Sinners purified without penitence; the righteous justified without love; all Christians without the grace of Jesus Christ; God without power over the will of men; a predestination without mystery; a redemption without certitude!

884

Any one is made a priest, who wants to be so, as under Jeroboam.[367]

It is a horrible thing that they propound to us the discipline of the Church of to-day as so good, that it is made a crime to desire to change it.  Formerly it was infallibly good, and it was thought that it could be changed without sin; and now, such as it is, we cannot wish it changed!  It has indeed been permitted to change the custom of not making priests without such great circumspection, that there were hardly any who were worthy; and it is not allowed to complain of the custom which makes so many who are unworthy!

885

Heretics.—­Ezekiel.  All the heathen, and also the Prophet, spoke evil of Israel.  But the Israelites were so far from having the right to say to him, “You speak like the heathen,” that he is most forcible upon this, that the heathen say the same as he.

886

The Jansenists are like the heretics in the reformation of morality; but you are like them in evil.

887

You are ignorant of the prophecies, if you do not know that all this must happen; princes, prophets, Pope, and even the priests.  And yet the Church is to abide.  By the grace of God we have not come to that.  Woe to these priests!  But we hope that God will bestow His mercy upon us that we shall not be of them.

Saint Peter, ii:  false prophets in the past, the image of future ones.

888

...  So that if it is true, on the one hand, that some lax monks, and some corrupt casuists, who are not members of the hierarchy, are steeped in these corruptions, it is, on the other hand, certain that the true pastors of the Church, who are the true guardians of the Divine Word, have preserved it unchangeably against the efforts of those who have attempted to destroy it.