alludes.

And here it is that the deadliest blow is aimed against the Jesuits. If
their system of morality makes virtues of "prevarication, perjury, and
every crime, when it serves _ghostly_ purposes," the reproach is fatal. On
this head, the writer {61} of the pamphlet gives us a string of casuists,
to confound the order at once. Desirous either of clearing away or
substantiating this charge, and recollecting the remark of Voltaire, which
I have already cited, that "the extravagant notions of a few Spanish and
Flemish Jesuits were _artfully_ ascribed _to the whole society_," I
inquired more particularly into the character and objects of the casuists
of the order; and, the more I reflected, the more I was convinced of the
malignity of the adversaries of the society, on whom the charge might well
be turned, changing Hume's derisive epithet of _ghostly_ into two other
qualifying words, _viz._ _rebellious_ and _revolutionary_; for who will
deny that _prevarication_, _perjury_, and _every crime_, have been resorted
to, and justified for rebellious and revolutionary purposes?

In such a number of casuistical writers, it may be imagined, that some have
erred. The Jesuits never wished to defend them. It may be presumed, that
the number of errors was not great, {62} since their enemies found it
necessary to commit so many falsifications to make up the volume of
ASSERTIONS. In many instances, the author of that book attributes to the
casuist, opinions which he only cites to refute. In moral theology the
Jesuits had two rules, from which few of them ever deviated; one was, to
follow the opinions which were most _common_; the other, never to defend an
opinion when prohibited or condemned by the holy see. Some of their
casuists taught doctrines, which, in their time, were the most usual in
schools, but which were afterwards condemned or prohibited at Rome. Their
enemies imputed these doctrines to them as crimes. The Dominican and
Franciscan casuists might have been equally charged; but, as Voltaire
observed, it would not have _answered the purpose_.

The chief casuists, collected to _answer the purpose_ in the new conspiracy
against the Jesuits, are the following: Lamy, Moya, Bauny, Berruyer,
Casnedi, and Benzi. Since, next to the _Monita Secreta_, that infamous
forgery so {63} completely exposed in the subsequent Letters, the writer of
the pamphlet relies on the immoral doctrines to be found in the writings of
these priests, let