stinct statements of Taylor, Milton,
Paley, and Johnson; now, would any one give ever so little weight to
these statements, in forming a real estimate of the veracity of the
writers, if they now were alive? Were a man, who is so fierce with
St. Alfonso, to meet Paley or Johnson tomorrow in society, would he
look upon him as a liar, a knave, as dishonest and untrustworthy?
I am sure he would not. Why then does he not deal out the same
measure to Catholic priests? If a copy of Scavini, which speaks
of equivocation as being in a just cause allowable, be found in
a student's room at Oscott, not Scavini himself, but the unhappy
student, who has what a Protestant calls a bad book in his
possession, is judged for life unworthy of credit. Are all Protestant
text-books at the University immaculate? Is it necessary to take for
gospel every word of Aristotle's Ethics, or every assertion of Hey or
Burnett on the Articles? Are text-books the ultimate authority, or
are they manuals in the hands of a lecturer, and the groundwork of
his remarks? But, again, let us suppose, not the case of a student,
or of a professor, but of Scavini himself, or of St. Alfonso; now
here again I ask, if you would not scruple in holding Paley for an
honest man, in spite of his defence of lying, why do you scruple at
St. Alfonso? I am perfectly sure that you would not scruple at Paley
personally; you might not agree with him, but you would call him a
bold thinker: then why should St. Alfonso's person be odious to you,
as well as his doctrine?

Now I wish to tell you why you are not afraid of Paley; because, you
would say, when he advocated lying, he was taking _special cases_.
You would have no fear of a man who you knew had shot a burglar dead
in his own house, because you know you are _not_ a burglar: so you
would not think that Paley had a habit of telling lies in society,
because in the case of a cruel alternative he thought it the lesser
evil to tell a lie. Then why do you show such suspicion of a
Catholic theologian, who speaks of certain special cases in which an
equivocation in a penitent cannot be visited by his confessor as if
it were a sin? for this is the exact point of the question.

But again, why does Paley, why does Jeremy Taylor, when no practical
matter is before him, lay down a maxim about the lawfulness of lying,
which will startle most readers? The reason is plain. He is forming a
theory of morals, and he must treat every question in