pronounce that word to avoid being the heretic of a name. For, pray, is
this a Scripture word?” “No,” said they. “Is it a word of the Fathers,
the Councils, or the Popes?” “No.” “Is the word, then, used by St.
Thomas?” “No.” “What necessity, therefore, is there for using it, since
it has neither the authority of others nor any sense of itself?” “You
are an opinionative fellow,” said they; “but you shall say it, or you
shall be a heretic, and M. Arnauld into the bargain; for we are the
majority, and should it be necessary, we can bring a sufficient number
of Cordeliers[94] into the field to carry the day.”
On hearing this solid argument, I took my leave of them, to write you
the foregoing account of my interview, from which you will perceive that
the following points remain undisputed and uncondemned by either party.
_First_, That grace is not given to all men. _Second_, That all the
righteous have always the power of obeying the divine commandments.
_Third_, That they require, nevertheless, in order to obey them, and
even to pray, an efficacious grace, which invincibly determines their
will. _Fourth_, That this efficacious grace is not always granted to all
the righteous, and that it depends on the pure mercy of God. So that,
after all, the truth is safe, and nothing runs any risk but that word
without the sense, _proximate_.
Happy the people who are ignorant of its existence!—happy those who
lived before it was born!—for I see no help for it, unless the gentlemen
of the Academy,[95] by an act of absolute authority, banish that
barbarous term, which causes so many divisions, from beyond the
precincts of the Sorbonne. Unless this be done, the censure appears
certain; but I can easily see that it will do no other harm than
diminish the credit[96] of the Sorbonne, and deprive it of that
authority which is so necessary to it on other occasions.
Meanwhile, I leave you at perfect liberty to hold by the word
_proximate_ or not, just as you please; for I love you too much to
persecute you under that pretext. If this account is not displeasing to
you, I shall continue to apprize you of all that happens.—I am, &c.
-----
Footnote 81:
Anthony Arnauld, or Arnaud, priest and doctor of the Sorbonne, was the
son of Anthony Arnauld, a famous advocate, and born at Paris, February
6, 1612. He early distinguished himself in philosophy and divinity,
advocating the doctrines of Augustine and Port-Royal, and opposing
those of the Jesuits. The disputes concerning grace which broke out
about 1643 in the University of Paris, served to foment the mutual
animosity between M. Arnauld and the Jesuits, who entertained a
hereditary feud against the whole family, from the active part taken
by their father against the Society in the close of the preceding
century. In 1655 it happened that a certain duke, who was educating
his grand-daughter at Port-Royal, the Jansenist monastery, and kept a
Jansenist abbé in his house, on presenting himself for confession to a
priest under the influence of the Jesuits, was refused absolution,
unless he promised to recall his grand-daughter and discard his abbé.
This produced two letters from M. Arnauld, in the second of which he
exposed the calumnies and falsities with which the Jesuits had
assailed him in a multitude of pamphlets. This is the letter referred
to in the text.
Footnote 82:
The book which occasioned these disputes was entitled _Augustinus_,
and was written by Cornelius Jansenius or Jansen, bishop of Ypres, and
published after his death. Five propositions, selected from this work,
were condemned by the pope; and armed with these, as with a scourge,
the Jesuits continued to persecute the Jansenists till they
accomplished their ruin.
Footnote 83:
And yet “the question of fact,” which Pascal professes to treat so
lightly, became the turning point of all the subsequent persecutions
directed against the unhappy Port-Royalists! Those who have read the
sad tale of the demolition of Port-Royal, will recollect with a sigh,
the sufferings inflicted on the poor scholars and pious nuns of that
establishment solely on the ground that, from respect to Jansenius and
to a good conscience they would not subscribe a formulary
acknowledging the five propositions to be contained in his book.—(See
Narrative of the Demolition of the Monastery of Port-Royal, by Mary
Anne Schimmelpenninck p. 170, &c.)
Footnote 84:
The Thomists were so called after Thomas Aquinas, the celebrated
“Angelic Doctor” of the schools. He flourished in the thirteenth
century, and was opposed in the following century, by Duns Scotus, a
British, some say a Scottish, monk of the order of St. Francis. This
gave rise to a fierce and protracted controversy, in the course of
which the Franciscans took the side of Duns Scotus, and were called
Scotists; while the Dominicans espoused the cause of Thomas Aquinas,
and were sometimes called Thomists.
Footnote 85:
_Sorbonique_—an act or thesis of divinity, delivered in the hall of
the college of the Sorbonne by candidates for the degree of doctor.
Footnote 86:
The Jansenists, in their dread of being classed with Lutherans and
Calvinists, condescended to quibble on this question. In reality, as
we shall see, they agreed with the Reformers for they denied that any
could actually obey the commandments without efficacious grace.
Footnote 87:
_Molinist._ The Jesuits were so called, in this dispute, after Lewis
Molina, a famous Jesuit of Spain, who published a work, entitled
_Concordia Gratiæ et Liberi Arbitrii_, in which he professed to have
found out a new way of reconciling the freedom of the human will with
the divine prescience. This new invention was termed _Scientia Media_,
or middle knowledge. All who adopted the sentiments of Molina, whether
Jesuits or not, were termed Molinists.
Footnote 88:
_Pierre le Moine_ was a doctor of the Sorbonne, whom Cardinal
Richelieu employed to write against Jansenius. This Jesuit was the
author of several works which display considerable talent, though
little principle. His book on Grace was forcibly answered, and himself
somewhat severely handled, in a work entitled “An Apology for the Holy
Fathers,” which he suspected to be written by Arnauld. It was Le Moine
who, according to Nicole, had the chief share in raising the storm
against Arnauld, of whom he was the bitter and avowed enemy.
Footnote 89:
_Father Nicolai_ was a Dominican—an order of friars who professed to
be followers of St. Thomas. He is here mentioned as a representative
of his class; but Nicole informs us that he abandoned the principles
of his order, and became a Molinist, or an abettor of Pelagianism.
Footnote 90:
_New Thomists._ It is more difficult to trace or remember the various
sects into which the Roman Church is divided, than those of the
Protestant Church. The New Thomists were the disciples of Diego
Alvarez, a theologian of the order of St. Dominic, who flourished in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He was sent from Spain to
Rome in 1596, to defend the doctrine of grace against Molina, and
distinguished himself in the Congregation _De Auxiliis_. The New
Thomists contended for _efficacious grace_, but admitted at the same
time, a _sufficient grace_, which was given to all, and yet not
sufficient for any actual performance without the efficacious. The
ridiculous incongruity of this doctrine is admirably exposed by Pascal
in his second letter.
Footnote 91:
_Jacobins_, another name for the Dominicans in France, where they were
so called from the street in Paris, Rue de St. Jacques, where their
first convent was erected, in the year 1218. In England they were
called Black Friars. Their founder was Dominick, a Spaniard. His
mother, it is said, dreamt, before his birth, that she was to be
delivered of a wolf with a torch in his mouth. The augury was realized
in the barbarous humor of Dominick, and the massacres which he
occasioned in various parts of the world, by preaching up crusades
against the heretics. He was the founder of the Inquisition, and his
order was, before the Reformation, what the Jesuits were after it—the
soul of the Romish hierarchy, and the bitterest enemies of the truth.
Footnote 92:
This is a sly hit at the Dominicans for combining with their natural
enemies the Jesuits, in order to accomplish the ruin of M. Arnauld.
Footnote 93:
_Distinguo._ “I draw a distinction”—a humorous allusion to the endless
distinctions of the Aristotelian school, in which the writings of the
Casuists abounded, and by means of which they may be said to have more
frequently eluded than elucidated the truth. M. le Moine was
particularly famous for these _distinguos_, frequently introducing
three or four of them in succession on one head; and the disciple in
the test is made to echo the favorite phrase of his master.
Footnote 94:
_Cordeliers_, a designation of the Franciscans, or monks of the order
of St. Francis.
Footnote 95:
The Royal Academy, which compiled the celebrated dictionary of the
French language, and was held at that time to be the great umpire in
literature.
Footnote 96:
The edition of 1657 had it, _Rendre la Sorbonne meprisable_—“Render
the Sorbonne contemptible”—an expression much more just, but which the
editors durst not allow to remain in the subsequent editions.
LETTER II.
OF SUFFICIENT GRACE.
PARIS, _January 29, 1656_.
SIR,—Just as I had sealed up my last letter, I received a visit from our
old friend M. N——. Nothing could have happened more luckily for my
curiosity; for he is thoroughly informed in the questions of the day,
and is completely in the secret of the Jesuits, at whose houses,
including those of their leading men, he is a constant visitor. After
having talked over the business which brought him to my house, I asked
him to state, in a few words, what were the points in dispute between
the two parties.
He immediately complied, and informed me that the principal points were
two—the _first_ about the _proximate power_, and the _second_ about
_sufficient grace_. I have enlightened you on the first of these points
in my former letter, and shall now speak of the second.
In one word, then, I found that their difference about sufficient grace
may be defined thus: The Jesuits maintain that there is a grace given
generally to all men, subject in such a way to free-will that the will
renders it efficacious or inefficacious at its pleasure, without any
additional aid from God, and without wanting anything on his part in
order to acting effectively; and hence they term this grace
_sufficient_, because it suffices of itself for action. The Jansenists,
on the other hand, will not allow that any grace is actually sufficient
which is not also efficacious; that is, that all those kinds of grace
which do not determine the will to act effectively are insufficient for
action; for they hold that a man can never act without _efficacious
grace_.
Such are the points in debate between the Jesuits and the Jansenists;
and my next object was to ascertain the doctrine of the New
Thomists.[97] “It is rather an odd one,” he said; “they agree with the
Jesuits in admitting a _sufficient grace_ given to all men; but they
maintain, at the same time, that no man can act with this grace alone,
but that, in order to this, he must receive from God an efficacious
grace which really determines his will to the action, and which God does
not grant to all men.” “So that, according to this doctrine,” said I,
“this grace is _sufficient_ without being sufficient.” “Exactly so,” he
replied; “for if it suffices, there is no need of anything more for
acting; and if it does not suffice, why—it is not sufficient.”
“But,” asked I, “where, then, is the difference between them and the
Jansenists?” “They differ in this,” he replied, “that the Dominicans
have this good qualification, that they do not refuse to say that all
men have the _sufficient grace_.” “I understand you,” returned I; “but
they say it without thinking it; for they add that, in order to action,
we must have an _efficacious grace which is not given to all_;
consequently, if they agree with the Jesuits in the use of a term which
has no sense, they differ from them, and coincide with the Jansenists in
the substance of the thing.” “That is very true,” said he. “How, then,”
said I, “are the Jesuits united with them? and why do they not combat
them as well as the Jansenists, since they will always find powerful
antagonists in these men, who, by maintaining the necessity of the
efficacious grace which determines the will, will prevent them from
establishing that grace which they hold to be of itself sufficient?”
“The Dominicans are too powerful,” he replied, “and the Jesuits are too
politic, to come to an open rupture with them. The Society is content
with having prevailed on them so far as to admit the name of _sufficient
grace_, though they understand it in another sense; by which manœuvre
they gain this advantage, that they will make their opinion appear
untenable, as soon as they judge it proper to do so. And this will be no
difficult matter; for, let it be once granted that all men have the
sufficient graces, nothing can be more natural than to conclude, that
the efficacious grace is not necessary to action—the sufficiency of the
general grace precluding the necessity of all others. By saying
_sufficient_ we express all that is necessary for action; and it will
serve little purpose for the Dominicans to exclaim that they attach
another sense to the expression; the people, accustomed to the common
acceptation of that term, would not even listen to their explanation.
Thus the Society gains a sufficient advantage from the expression which
has been adopted by the Dominicans, without pressing them any further;
and were you but acquainted with what passed under Popes Clement VIII.
and Paul V., and knew how the Society was thwarted by the Dominicans in
the establishment of the sufficient grace, you would not be surprised to
find that it avoids embroiling itself in quarrels with them, and allows
them to hold their own opinion, provided that of the Society is left
untouched; and more especially, when the Dominicans countenance its
doctrine, by agreeing to employ, on all public occasions, the term
_sufficient grace_.
“The Society,” he continued, “is quite satisfied with their
complaisance. It does not insist on their denying the necessity of
efficacious grace; this would be urging them too far. People should not
tyrannize over their friends; and the Jesuits have gained quite enough.
The world is content with words; few think of searching into the nature
of things; and thus the name of _sufficient grace_ being adopted on both
sides, though in different senses, there is nobody, except the most
subtle theologians, who ever dreams of doubting that the thing signified
by that word is held by the Jacobins as well as by the Jesuits; and the
result will show that these last are not the greatest dupes.”[98]
I acknowledged that they were a shrewd class of people, these Jesuits;
and, availing myself of his advice, I went straight to the Jacobins, at
whose gate I found one of my good friends, a staunch Jansenist (for you
must know I have got friends among all parties), who was calling for
another monk, different from him whom I was in search of. I prevailed on
him, however, after much entreaty, to accompany me, and asked for one of
my New Thomists. He was delighted to see me again. “How now! my dear
father,” I began, “it seems it is not enough that all men have a
_proximate power_, with which they can never act with effect; they must
have besides this a _sufficient grace_, with which they can act as
little. Is not that the doctrine of your school?” “It is,” said the
worthy monk; “and I was upholding it this very morning in the Sorbonne.
I spoke on the point during my whole half-hour; and but for the
_sand-glass_, I bade fair to have reversed that wicked proverb, now so
current in Paris: ‘He votes without speaking, like a monk in the
Sorbonne.’”[99] “What do you mean by your half-hour and your
sand-glass?” I asked; “do they cut your speeches by a certain measure?”
“Yes,” said he, “they have done so for some days past.” “And do they
oblige you to speak for half an hour?” “No; we may speak as little as we
please.” “But not as much as you please,” said I. “O what a capital
regulation for the boobies! what a blessed excuse for those who have
nothing worth the saying! But, to return to the point, father; this
grace given to all men is _sufficient_, is it not?” “Yes,” said he. “And
yet it has no effect without _efficacious grace_?” “None whatever,” he
replied. “And all men have the sufficient,” continued I, “and all have
not the efficacious?” “Exactly,” said he. “That is,” returned I, “all
have enough of grace, and all have not enough of it—that is, this grace
suffices, though it does not suffice—that is, it is sufficient in name,
and insufficient in effect! In good sooth, father, this is particularly
subtle doctrine! Have you forgotten, since you retired to the cloister,
the meaning attached, in the world you have quitted, to the word
_sufficient_?—don’t you remember that it includes all that is necessary
for acting? But no, you cannot have lost all recollection of it; for, to
avail myself of an illustration which will come home more vividly to
your feelings, let us suppose that you were supplied with no more than
two ounces of bread and a glass of water daily, would you be quite
pleased with your prior were he to tell you that this would be
sufficient to support you, under the pretext that, along with something
else, which, however, he would not give you, you would have all that
would be necessary to support you? How, then, can you allow yourselves
to say that all men have sufficient grace for acting, while you admit
that there is another grace absolutely necessary to acting which all men
have not? Is it because this is an unimportant article of belief, and
you leave all men at liberty to believe that efficacious grace is
necessary or not, as they choose? Is it a matter of indifference to say,
that with sufficient grace a man may really act?” “How!” cried the good
man; “indifference!—it is heresy—formal heresy. The necessity of
_efficacious grace_ for acting effectively, is a point of _faith_—it is
heresy to deny it.”
“Where are we now?” I exclaimed; “and which side am I to take here? If I
deny the sufficient grace, I am a Jansenist. If I admit it, as the
Jesuits do, in the way of denying that efficacious grace is necessary, I
shall be a heretic, say you. And if I admit it, as you do, in the way of
maintaining the necessity of efficacious grace, I sin against common
sense, and am a blockhead, say the Jesuits. What must I do, thus reduced
to the inevitable necessity of being a blockhead, a heretic, or a
Jansenist? And what a sad pass are matters come to, if there are none
but the Jansenists who avoid coming into collision either with the faith
or with reason, and who save themselves at once from absurdity and from
error!”
My Jansenist friend took this speech as a good omen, and already looked
upon me as a convert. He said nothing to me, however; but, addressing
the monk: “Pray, father,” inquired he, “what is the point on which you
agree with the Jesuits?” “We agree in this,” he replied, “that the
Jesuits and we acknowledge the sufficient grace given to all.” “But,”
said the Jansenist, “there are two things in this expression _sufficient
grace_—there is the sound, which is only so much breath; and there is
the thing which it signifies, which is real and effectual. And,
therefore, as you are agreed with the Jesuits in regard to the word
_sufficient_, and opposed to them as to the sense, it is apparent that
you are opposed to them in regard to the substance of that term, and
that you only agree with them as to the sound. Is this what you call
acting sincerely and cordially?”
“But,” said the good man, “what cause have you to complain, since we
deceive nobody by this mode of speaking? In our schools we openly teach
that we understand it in a manner different from the Jesuits.”
“What I complain of,” returned my friend, “is, that you do not proclaim
it everywhere, that by sufficient grace you understand the grace which
is _not_ sufficient. You are bound in conscience, by thus altering the
sense of the ordinary terms of theology, to tell that, when you admit a
sufficient grace in all men, you understand that they have not
sufficient grace in effect. All classes of persons in the world
understand the word sufficient in one and the same sense; the New
Thomists alone understand it in another sense. All the women, who form
one-half of the world, all courtiers, all military men, all magistrates,
all lawyers, merchants, artisans, the whole populace—in short, all sorts
of men, except the Dominicans, understand the word _sufficient_ to
express all that is necessary. Scarcely any one is aware of this
singular exception. It is reported over the whole earth, simply that the
Dominicans hold that all men have the _sufficient graces_. What other
conclusion can be drawn from this, than that they hold that all men have
all the graces necessary for action; especially when they are seen
joined in interest and intrigue with the Jesuits, who understand the
thing in that sense? Is not the uniformity of your expressions, viewed
in connection with this union of party, a manifest indication and
confirmation of the uniformity of your sentiments?
“The multitude of the faithful inquire of theologians: What is the real
condition of human nature since its corruption? St. Augustine and his
disciples reply, that it has no sufficient grace until God is pleased to
bestow it. Next come the Jesuits, and they say that all have the
effectually sufficient graces. The Dominicans are consulted on this
contrariety of opinion; and what course do they pursue? They unite with
the Jesuits; by this coalition they make up a majority; they secede from
those who deny these sufficient graces; they declare that all men
possess them. Who, on hearing this, would imagine anything else than
that they gave their sanction to the opinion of the Jesuits? And then
they add that, nevertheless, these said sufficient graces are perfectly
useless without the efficacious, which are not given to all!