Part 2

Here, then, I will cite a passage from a work of the greatest authority, Rodriguez on Christian Perfection: Rodriguez was himself a Jesuit, and speaks thus of the Constitution in question: first there is this heading, “That though our rules do not oblige under penalty of sin, yet nevertheless we ought exactly to observe them”; and then he proceeds, “Our Rules and Constitutions,” he is speaking of the Society of Jesus, “do not oblige us under pain of mortal sin, nor even of venial, no more than the commands of our Superiors, unless it be, as our Constitutions declare, when they command on God’s part or by virtue of holy obedience. Yet we ought to take heed, lest for this reason we come to neglect them, &c. Our holy founder would not on the one side bind us so fast as might give us an occasion of sin, and on the other, being desirous to move us to an exact observance of them, with all possible perfection, he gives us this wholesome advice. _Let the love of God_, says he, _succeed in the place of the fear of offending __him_, _and let it be the desire of your greater perfection_, _and the greater glory of God_, _that moves us to perform your duty herein_. He says also, in the beginning of our Rules and Constitutions, that the interior law of charity, which the Holy Ghost has writ in our hearts, ought to move us to an exact observance of them.” (Third Part, Treat. 6, chap, iii, p. 350, ed. Lond., 1699.)

How are we ever to arrive at the sense of a document, if we are not to be guided by the understanding of those whose position enables them to speak with most knowledge of its subject-matter, [intention, and end]? Ask the meaning of the chapter in whatever quarter of the Church you will, and but one reply will be made.

I cannot at all agree with you, that having this meaning the chapter is misplaced; on the contrary, I know not where a more fit place could be found for it.

Since you are doubtful as to the meaning of “obligare ad peccatum” in the place to which I have referred you, I can hardly hope that you will look more favourably upon the expression in two other places in which it occurs, viz.,—Pars. ix, cap. iv, § 5, and cap. v, § 6. But I have to submit to you the following sentence from the Protestant Bishop Sanderson’s Prælectiones: “omnis enim obligatio aut ad culpam est aut ad pœnam, vel etiam utramque.” (Præl. vi, p. 154, ed. Lond., 1686.) I shall never be induced to give this a bad meaning.

I imagined that you referred the pronoun “ea” to “peccatum mortale vel veniale,” because I found that Dr. Wordsworth did so in rendering the passage as you do; he, with much cleverness, altered _ea_ into _id_.

I regret the length to which my letter has extended; I had indeed hoped that our correspondence by this time would have been brought to a more agreeable issue.

With reference to an expression at the conclusion of your letter, I must protest against your supposing that the Catholic faith is simply commensurate with our judgments, like Protestantism, and has no surer basis than opinion.

I remain, my dear Sir, Yours faithfully, HENRY WALLER.

Rev. Edward Hoare.

* * * * *

Ramsgate, January 5, 1852.

My dear Sir,

I am sorry that you do not think me candid in the consideration of the Constitution, for I have heartily desired to ascertain the truth, and perhaps you will allow me to suggest that where there is a difference of opinion it is scarcely fair to attribute it to want of fairness of mind in the discussion.

The fact is, that I have given the subject much anxious study, and you will perhaps be surprised when I tell you, that my opinion is less shaken than it was when I wrote last, so that when I had to revise the proof I erased a part of the note that I had previously written, and have now simply stated your opinion and added the Latin.

With reference to your last letter I think that you can scarcely have referred to the two passages which you mention as containing the expression—“obligatio ad peccatum;” for in the one (ix, iv, 5.) the words are—“sub pœnâ peccati,” and the other (ix, v, 6.) is the very one already under discussion.

I have not the edition of Bishop Sanderson to which you refer, but if you think it worth while to let me know the prelection in which the words occur, I will endeavour to examine them, though I am not sure I shall be able, as I have not all of them within reach.

I cannot imagine what I should have said which has led to the idea—“that the Catholic faith is commensurate with our judgments, and has no surer basis than opinion;” the basis of the Gospel is the revealed word of God, and that remains the same whatever be man’s opinion.

I remain, dear Sir, Very faithfully yours, EDWARD HOARE.

H. Waller, Esq.

* * * * *

8, New Square, Lincoln’s Inn, January 8, 1852.

My dear Sir,

I greatly regret my carelessness in having given you such faulty references. Instead of referring to the _Constitutions_, part ix, c. iv, § 8, and c. v, § 6, I should have referred to the _Declarations_ corresponding to those passages. In the first passage, where the Constitutions have, as you say, “obligando sub pœnâ peccati,” the corresponding declaration says, “nec Societas approbabit, si Pontifex præcepto quod ad peccatum obliget, non compelleret.” As to part ix, c. v, § 6, to which I referred you in a previous letter, I find that the declaration has the same expression as the Constitution. There is still another place in the Constitutions in which “ad peccatum obligare” occurs, viz., pars vi, cap. iii, § 8, and here it is again correctly rendered in the translation published by Rivington; thus the author of that translation has twice given the phrase its true meaning. In the declaration on the Examen Generale the expression also occurs,—“obligatio vera dicendi in examine, ad peccatum esse debet,” (cap. iii, § 1.) and the meaning is plain. I have quoted from the Prague edition of 1757. I am aware that the edition published by Rivington does not contain the declarations.

My reference for the sentence out of Sanderson might have been more complete. It is to be found in the Prælectiones de Conscientiæ Obligatione, præl. vi, § 6, p. 156 of the ed. Lond. 1696; the sentence is a parenthesis and independent of the context:—“Nemo potest jure obligari ad id faciendum, cujus omissio non potest ei imputari ad culpam nec debet ei imputari ad pœnam; (omnis enim obligatio aut ad culpam est aut ad pœnam, vel etiam utramque) sed rei impossibilis omissio non potest alicui imputari ad culpam.” I have found the same expression in the other work of Sanderson, De Juramenti Obligatione. I must beg you to excuse the length of the following extract:—“Præter illam obligationis distinctionem ex origne natam, per respectum ad Jus unde oritur obligatio: est et alia ab objecto sumpta per respectum scil. ad debitum solvendum, quo tendit et in quod fertur obligatio. Duplex autem est debitum. Debitum officii, quod quis ex præcepto juris tenetur facere: et Debitum supplicii, quod quis ex sanctione juris tenetur pati, si officium suum neglexerit. Priori sensu dicimus mutua caritatis officia esse debita, quia lex Dei illa præcipit, juxta illud, Rom. xiii. _Nihil cuiquam debete_, _nisi ut diligatis invicem_. Posteriori sensu dicimus peccata esse debita ut in oratione Dominica, _Dimitte nobis_, &c. et mortem æternam esse debitam, juxta illud, Rom. vi. _Stipendium peccati mors_. Observandum tamen debitum posterius contrahi ex insoluto priori: ita ut siquis Debitum officii plenarie dissolveret, faciendo id quod lex imperat, non teneretur aliquo debito supplicii ad patiendum id quod lex minatur. Respondet duplici huic debito duplex item obligatio scil. ad officium faciendum; et obligatio ad supplicium preferendum: _vel quod communiter dicitur et eodem recidit_, _obligatio ad culpam_, _et obligatio ad pænam_.”—(De Juramenti Obligatione, præl. 1, § 12, ed. Lond. 1696.)

What I said at the end of my last letter had reference to an expression of yours with regard to the faith—“our difference of opinion”—which seemed to me objectionable, as being what is called latitudinarian; it was, perhaps, unduly observed upon by me.

I remain, my dear Sir, Yours faithfully, HENRY WALLER,

Rev. Edw. Hoare.

* * * * *

Ramsgate, January 9, 1852.

My dear Sir,

I am much obliged to you for your letter, and I shall have much pleasure in referring to as many of the passages named as I can find in my own library or borrow from my friends, but it cannot be with the view of altering my lecture, as that is already published. The Latin of the Constitution is subjoined in a note, so that if I am wrong I am open to the correction of all Latin scholars.

I remain, dear Sir, Very faithfully yours, EDWARD HOARE.

H. Waller, Esq.

* * * * *

Manor Road, Upper Holloway, Jan. 13, 1852.

My dear Sir,

I have procured your Lecture, and read the statement which led to our correspondence, together with the note which you have subjoined as the result of it.

I cannot but feel surprised at the character of that note. There has been such an acknowledgment, on your part, of doubt on the subject, that I think I was justified in expecting some reference to it, and to the grounds of it, and then, either an admission of continued doubt, or, if so it be, a statement of the considerations which removed it. Under all the circumstances I feel that, should I think proper to do so, I shall be justified in giving publicity to the correspondence which has taken place. Very deeply lamenting its most painful issue,

I remain, dear Sir, Yours faithfully, HENRY WALLER.

Rev. Edward Hoare.

* * * * *

Hampstead, Jan. 16th, 1852.

My dear Sir,

With reference to your letter of the 13th, forwarded to me from Ramsgate, I think it due to myself to inform you that I had nothing whatever to do with any portion of the note in question, except the passage extending to the end of the Latin quotation, which is exactly what I told you in my last letter I intended to insert. The remainder was added through a very great mistake on the part of —, but it was not in the copy which I transmitted to the press, and I was as much surprised as you were when I saw it in the published lecture.

Should you publish my correspondence, you will of course take care to acquaint your readers with its private character, and to inform them that the letters, having been written without the least idea of publication, do not contain any attempt at a complete discussion of the subject, but are merely the expression of my varying thoughts during the process of careful investigation.

I remain, dear Sir, Very faithfully yours, EDWARD HOARE.

H. Waller, Esq.

FOOTNOTES.

{3} Const., part vi, chap. i.

{4} “Since the delivery of the lecture, a Roman Catholic gentleman has complained of the use then made of this Constitution, and stated that it means “that the Constitutions do not bind under pain of mortal or venial sin, unless,” &c. I cannot undertake to decide what may have been the _intentions_ of the author, but I can fearlessly appeal to the opinion of any Latin scholar as to the grammatical accuracy of the translation given above. The original is as follows:—‘Cum exoptet Societas universas suas Constitutiones, declarationes, ac vivendi ordinem, omnino juxta nostrum Institutum, nihil ulla in re declinando, observari; optet etiam nihilominus suos omnes securos esse, vel certè adjuvari, ne in laqueum ullius peccati, quod ex vi Constitutionum hujusmodi, aut ordinationum proveniat, incidant: Visum est nobis in Domino præter expressum votum, quo Societas Summo Pontifici, pro tempore existenti, tenetur, ac tria alia essentialia paupertatis, castitatis, et obedientiæ, nullas Constitutiones, Declarationes, vel ordinem ullum vivendi, posse obligationem ad peccatum mortale vel veniale inducere; nisi Superior ea in nomine Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, vel in virtute obedientiæ juberet: quod in rebus, vel personis illis, in quibus judicabitur, quod ad particulare uniuscujusque, vel ad universale bonum multum conveniet, fieri poterit: [et loco timoris offensæ, succedat amor et desiderium omnis perfectionis; et ut major gloria et laus Christi Creatoris ac Domini Nostri consequatur].’ With the single additional remark, that the version thus excepted against is by no means an exclusively Protestant one, but has been adopted by most competent Roman Catholic authorities, I would earnestly recommend to my readers, of either communion, the perusal of the third letter in the Rev. Canon Wordsworth’s ‘Sequel to Letters to M. Gordon,’ where this very Constitution and this same objection are fully discussed and disposed of. Supposing, however, that the criticism, the logic, and the historical research of that eminently learned divine should fail to satisfy the Roman Catholic reader, let him substitute for the above _supposed_ doubtful passage the following, respecting which there can be no dispute: ‘They should permit themselves to be moved and directed, under Divine Providence, by their Superiors, just as if they were a corpse, which allows itself to be moved and handled in any way, or as the staff of an old man, which serves him whenever and in whatever thing he who holds it in his hand pleases to use it.—_Const._, part vi, chap. i.’”

{7} Vide Summa, 2. 2. quœst. clxxxvi, art. ix, where St. Thomas, in treating of this very question of the obligatory force of the rules of Religious, uses the phrase nine times.

{8} There is a Review of Dr. Wordsworth’s “Sequel,” in the _Dublin Review_ for July, 1848.

{14} “Thou shalt hear a voice behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it.”