taking the negative side, whether the Jesuits have taught that ’the end justifies the means.’  It may not be possible to find this maxim in these precise words in Jesuit writings; but that they have always taught that for the ‘greater glory of God,’ identified by them with the extension of Roman Catholic (Jesuit) influence, the principles of ordinary morality may be set aside, seems certain.  The doctrine of philosophical sin, in accordance with which actual attention to the sinfulness of an act when it is being committed is requisite to its sinfulness for the person committing it, was widely advocated by members of the society.  The repudiation of some of the most scandalous maxims of Jesuit writers by later writers, or the placing of books containing scandalous maxims on the Index, does not relieve the society or the Roman Catholic Church from responsibility, as such books must have received authoritative approval before publication, and the censuring of them does not necessarily involve an adverse attitude toward the teaching itself, but way be a more measure of expediency.” (A.  H. Newman, in New Schaff-Herzog Encycl., 6, 146.)

18.  Luther, Repudiates the Ten Commandments?

In Luther’s correspondence with Weller there occurs a remark to the effect that Weller must put the Decalog out of his mind.  Similar statements occur in great number throughout Luther’s writings.  In some of these statements Luther speaks in terms of deep scorn and contempt of the Law, and considers it the greatest affront that can be offered Christians to place them under the Law of Moses.  He declares that Moses must be regarded by Christians as if he were a heretic, excommunicated by the Church, and assigns him to the gallows.  Some of the strongest invectives of this kind are found in his exposition of the Epistle to the Galatians.  These stern utterances of Luther against the Law serve the Catholics as the basis for their charge that Luther is the most destructive spirit that has arisen within the Church.  He is said to have destroyed the only perfect norm of right and wrong by his violent onslaughts on Moses.  Once the commandments of God are abrogated, the feeling of duty and responsibility, they argue, is plucked from the hearts of men, and license and vice rush in upon the world with the force of a springtide.

The reader will remember what has been said in a previous chapter about Luther’s labors to expound and apply the divine Law, also about the intimate and loving relation which he maintained to the Ten Commandments to the end of his life.  Luther has spoken of Moses as a teacher of true holiness in terms of unbounded admiration and praise.  Ho declares the writings of Moses the principal part of our Bible, because all the prophets and apostles have drawn their teaching from Moses and have expanded the teaching of Moses.  Christ Himself has appealed to Moses as an authority in matters of religion.  The greatest distinction