was useless, if the probable is trustworthy. The fear of the saints who
have always followed the surest way (Saint Theresa having always
followed her confessor).

917

Take away _probability_, and you can no longer please the world; give
_probability_, and you can no longer displease it.

918

These are the effects of the sins of the peoples and of the Jesuits. The
great have wished to be flattered. The Jesuits have wished to be loved
by the great. They have all been worthy to be abandoned to the spirit of
lying, the one party to deceive, the others to be deceived. They have
been avaricious, ambitious, voluptuous. _Coacervabunt tibi
magistros._[377] Worthy disciples of such masters, they have sought
flatterers, and have found them.

919

If they do not renounce their doctrine of probability, their good maxims
are as little holy as the bad, for they are founded on human authority;
and thus, if they are more just, they will be more reasonable, but not
more holy. They take after the wild stem on which they are grafted.

If what I say does not serve to enlighten you, it will be of use to the
people.

If these[378] are silent, the stones will speak.

Silence is the greatest persecution; the saints were never silent. It is
true that a call is necessary; but it is not from the decrees of the
Council that we must learn whether we are called, it is from the
necessity of speaking. Now, after Rome has spoken, and we think that she
has condemned the truth, and that they have written it, and after the
books which have said the contrary are censured; we must cry out so much
the louder, the more unjustly we are censured, and the more violently
they would stifle speech, until there come a Pope who hears both
parties, and who consults antiquity to do justice. So the good Popes
will find the Church still in outcry.

The Inquisition and the Society[379] are the two scourges of the truth.

Why do you not accuse them of Arianism? For, though they have said that
Jesus Christ is God, perhaps they mean by it not the natural
interpretation, but as it is said, _Dii estis_.

If my Letters are condemned at Rome, that which I condemn in them is
condemned in heaven. _Ad tuum, Domine Jesu, tribunal appello._

You yourselves are corruptible.

I feared that I had written ill, seeing myself condemned; but the
example of so many pious writings makes me believe the contrary. It is
no longer allowable to write well, so corrupt or