Page:Pastoral Letter Promulgating the Jubilee - Spalding.djvu/22

Rh ferent measures of censure, according to their intrinsic nature and their extrinsic bearings: some are censured much more mildly than others; and some even more from the too general or dangerous interpretation of which they are susceptible, or which they have actually received from their authors, than from intrinsic reasons founded upon the strict construction of the text, itself, apart from its surroundings. All who are familiar with the course usually adopted by the Holy See, in condemning thus in globo whole series of propositions extracted from the writings of suspected or heretical authors, will discover, at a glance, the equity and justice of this statement.

Those who are so indignant at the plain speaking of the Papal denunciation, would do well to reserve a portion of their anger for the inspired Apostle of the gentiles, who stigmatizes error and vice with at least equal point and boldness. In the following passage, he graphically portrays the pernicious errors and the glaring wickedness of these very "last days" upon which we are so sadly fallen;—every epithet in it is a picture drawn from life, and the whole is a word-painting of marvellous truth and power; prophecy revealing the mystery of iniquity, "which is now working," to his eagle glance, and inspiration pointing his pen:—

"Know this also, that in the last days dangerous times shall come: men will be lovers of self, covetous, boastful, haughty, blasphemous, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked; without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, cruel, unkind; traitors, headstrong, puffed up, and lovers of pleasure more than of God: having indeed an appearance of piety, but denying the power thereof; … always learning and never attaining to the knowledge of the truth. But as Jannes and Mambres resisted Moses, so these also resist the truth, men corrupted in mind, reprobate concerning the faith. But they shall not advance further; for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs was also." (II. Timothy iii. 1 seq.)