were predicted of the Messiah, and it is impossible that any other person can be invested with the same. Be satisfied that any Messiah but Christ is impossible; for Christ having come, the time is past for the advent of any other. Understand, finally, that any Messiah beyond the person of Christ is an impossibility, because all the tokens of the real Messiah have already been fulfilled in him. If you will repent with all your heart, and sincerely admit this conviction, happy indeed will you be in renouncing your error; for, with a knowledge of the truth, you will abandon the shadows of the Synagogue for the light of the Church, the horrors of heresy for the beauty of faith. Take comfort; for, although chastisement may have placed you in the right road, it will, in the end, have been the instrument of opening your eyes; and you will find your God so merciful, that although, as Jews, you rejected him for your Father, on your repentance he will again receive you as his children, having redeemed you by his own precious blood. Prove yourselves, in the true sense of the word, good Jews; for if "Jew" means one who makes acknowledgment, you ought to acknowledge your errors if you would be thought truly to remain Jews. The honour you have lost by coming under the sentence of the Inquisition, and the property that has been confiscated on account of your heresy you will recover, accompanied with great grief of heart, on account of its not being by misfortune that you have incurred so much suffering, but for your sins and offences against a God to whom you are so much indebted. LXXI. And you, unhappy man, who stand here among these penitents, if you would obtain remission for your sins, open your eyes in time, that the fire in which your body is to be consumed may not extend, at the same time, to consume your soul. O beloved son of my heart, redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, educated in the bosom of the Church, bathed in the holy waters of baptism, O that I could with the best blood of my veins cure you of your blindness! for, were that possible, I would shed the last drop to remove your illusion, and rescue your soul from the power of the Devil, who renders you thus obstinate. How bitterly do I grieve at your misery; and how deeply is my soul plunged in sorrow at beholding you in imminent peril of eternal condemnation! Consider, my son, begotten in the gospel, born among Catholics, and illuminated by the light afforded you by so many learned men, consider how greatly you are deceived, and that if you have the misfortune to die in this condition, a consuming fire awaits your soul, to envelop it in flames to all eternity, after a temporal fire has already consumed your body. You are convicted of being a Jew from direct evidence; and you have yourself confessed your guilt, thinking to diminish the crime by confession. Besides this, you have lapsed into the abominable error of Atheism. Now reconcile, if you can, these two things, of being at the same time an Atheist and a Jew. If at this day salvation could be obtained by the Law of Moses, which it cannot, you are in the wretched condition of being out of the pale of salvation; for you will die a heretic to the very law you profess. You are a Sadducean Jew, as you have yourself acknowledged. Are you ignorant, that even at the time when your law still existed, the opinions of the Sadducees were considered heretical, inasmuch as they denied the doctrine of the resurrection, and consequently the immortality of the soul? You are still in a worse state, for you do not only deny the immortality of the soul, but are so blind as to deny having a soul. You affirm that there is no other happiness beyond this world that life is the only true salvation-and that perdition is not in hell, for there is no such place, but death is the sole destruction. If you believe (however erroneously) this to be the fact, why do you seek to lose a life in which alone happiness consists in your opinion? How can it be your pleasure to die, if death in your judgment is the only perdition? Suffer yourself to be persuaded by one who ardently desires your salvation. Entreat the mercy of the tribunal of the Holy Office, which with so much compassion has waited two years, and has so patiently borne with your vacillation, at one time repenting, at another time retracting, and finally settling down into the miserable dogma of Atheism. Confess your errors, not with the desire of preserving your life, but with the simple view to the salvation of your soul. But if you are determined to die in your present state, I summon you hence to the day of Judgment, when both of us, having risen from the dead, shall appear in the presence of the true God. You will return to life as a Jew and a Heretic, in which state you died: I, on the other hand, hope for the divine mercy by returning to life as a Catholic, because, I trust through the divine goodness, I shall die in the law of Jesus Christ, in which alone salvation can be obtained. We both of us have to appear, at the resurrection, in the presence of the Supreme Judge; and you will then see that God may reprove me for the greatness of my sins, but will not, for being false to my faith. He may reproach me for my defective observance thereof, but not for my want of sincerity therein; unless God were unjust, which he is not. But as to you, he will not only judge you on account of your crimes, but will condemn you for the observance of the law in which you died. Imagine yourself in the presence of God, free from any other sin than that of persevering in the law of Moses; and imagine a Christian in the same divine presence, free from any crime but the observance of the law of Christ. If God were to condemn the Christian for the love of his law, and grant salvation to the Jew for a similar observance on his part, God would not act with justice, nor would it be reconcileable with those reasons which we Catholics urge in proof of his justice. For in that case the Catholic might reason with God as follows-" Upright Judge, "I believe in Christ, because he fulfilled all those signs that you revealed by your Prophets, that 'your Son should be invested with. I acted as you "commanded me; and you now condemn me for so doing. Why will you condemn me for being "obedient ?" Assuredly this statement will not admit of any contradiction. Consequently, it is 66 impossible that God will condemn the Catholic for remaining a Christian. 66 Now let us suppose the Jew, whom God condemns for his observance of the law of Moses, attempting to argue with God against his judgment. He would say: "O God, I believed in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; I observed the law you gave to Moses, then why condemn me?" But then God might reply: "You speak untruly; for Abraham, "Isaac and Jacob believed, and expected a future "Messiah who was to be my Son, and was to possess "all those signs, that I promised, whereby he might "be known. This Son came into the world, and "in him were apparent all the tokens revealed in "the Scriptures. You were so far from acknow"ledging or believing him, that you crucified him. "The law given to Moses was to come to an end with "the advent of my Son, and he was to promulgate "another, which was to spread throughout the whole "world; and you saw with your own eyes the signs of "the time in which this law was to be promulgated '(John xv. 22). If my Son had not come "into the world, and the prophecies had not been accomplished, you might be excused, by saying that you observed the law that I gave for ever, and that you believed in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and "Jacob. But now that every thing has been satis'factorily fulfilled, I am just in condemning you, and 66 66 66 66 you are rebellious in remaining a Jew." My brother, however frightful this may be that I am now reciting to you, such will be indeed your lot on that day. Such is the mesh in which you, of your own choice, |