By the direction of intention is meant the proposing to oneself an object of intention entirely at variance with the act committed: as, _e.g._, the Jesuits in South India encouraged their converts to bow down before heathen idols, on the principle that though the act of adoration was given to the idol, the intention was directed to a small crucifix which each of the worshippers had concealed about his person. Thus, argues Pascal, with his keen satire, “They content the world by permitting the sinful action, and they satisfy the Gospel by purifying the intention.” “You give to men,” says he, “the outward and material effects of the action, and you render to God the interior and spiritual movement of the intention: so that by this equitable division you produce an alliance between the human law and the Divine.” Now there is nothing in the whole catalogue of crime which may not be justified by such a monstrous principle. Pascal quotes passages to show that a man may even commit murder, provided only that his intention be to preserve his honour, and not to take revenge upon his enemy; nor is there any one of the blackest crimes that have ever disgraced humanity, which may not be justified, if we are to admit the idea that the act can be separate from the will; that the heart can be pure, while the hand is defiled in blood, or the intention acceptable to God, while the outward action is in direct opposition to his law. Such are specimens of the principles of moral conduct advanced by the writers of the Society. It is clear at a moment’s glance that they are destructive of every moral obligation, and give unbounded license to every kind of crime. Now, it is a question of very great interest, how far is the Church of Rome as a body identified with those principles of the Jesuits? I do not say how far are Romanists as individuals, because I am fully aware that a conscientious Romanist would recoil from them with as much aversion as ourselves. It is not a nice point of controversial theology, but a simple matter of right and wrong; and whatever men may think on such a subject as transubstantiation, no honourable man can approve of mental restriction. I take it for granted therefore, that the great body of Roman Catholic Englishmen condemn them. But how does the Church _as a Church_ stand affected by them? It has been already shewn that as the Society claims an absolute control over all Jesuit authors, it becomes thereby responsible for their sentiments. But still this does not reach the Popedom; the Company may be guilty, and not Popery. But not so when we find that on August 4, 1814, Pope Pius VII. issued a Bull in which, by Pontifical authority, he solemnly sanctioned the re-establishment of the Order. It is true that this Bull was in flat contradiction to that of Clement XIV., so that one infallible Pope was in direct opposition to another. {55} But that is not our