Do not you know how the keep them in check, and annoy them so desperately that they cannot drop the slightest word against the principles of the fathers without being incontinently overwhelmed with whole volumes, under the pressure of which they are forced to succumb? So that, after a great many proofs of their weakness, they have judged it more to the purpose, and much less troublesome, to censure than to reply- it being a much easier matter with them to find monks than reasons." "Why then," said I, "if this be the case, their censure is not worth a straw; for who will pay any regard to it, when they see it to be without foundation, and refuted, as it no doubt will be, by the answers given to it?" "If you knew the temper of people," replied my friend the doctor, "you would talk in another sort of way.Their censure, censurable as it is, will produce nearly all its designed effect for a time; and although, by the force of demonstration, it is certain that, in course of time, its invalidity will be made apparent, it is equally true that, at first, it will tell as effectually on the minds of most people as if it had been the most righteous sentence in the world.
Let it only be cried about the streets: 'Here you have the censure of M.
Arnauld!- here you have the condemnation of the Jansenists!' and the Jesuits will find their account in it.How few will ever read it! How few, of them who do read, will understand it! How few will observe that it answers no objections! How few will take the matter to heart, or attempt to sift it to the bottom! Mark, then, how much advantage this gives to the enemies of the Jansenists.They are sure to make a triumph of it, though a vain one, as usual, for some months at least- and that is a great matter for them, they will look out afterwards for some new means of subsistence.
They live from hand to mouth, sir.It is in this way they have contrived to maintain themselves down to the present day.Sometimes it is by a catechism in which a child is made to condemn their opponents; then it is by a procession, in which sufficient grace leads the efficacious in triumph; again it is by a comedy, in which Jansenius is represented as carried off by devils;at another time it is by an almanac; and now it is by this censure." "In good sooth," said I "I was on the point of finding fault with the conduct of the Molinists; but after what you have told me, I must say I admire their prudence and their policy.I see perfectly well that they could not have followed a safer or more Judicious course." "You are right," returned he; "their safest policy has always been to keep silent; and this led a certain learned divine to remark, 'that the cleverest among them are those who intrigue much, speak little, and write nothing.' "It is on this principle that, from the commencement of the meetings, they prudently ordained that, if M.Arnauld came into the Sorbonne, it must be simply to explain what he believed, and not to enter the lists of controversy with any one.The examiners, having ventured to depart a little from this prudent arrangement, suffered for their temerity.They found themselves rather too vigourously refuted by his second apology."On the same principle, they had recourse to that rare and very novel device of the half-hour and the sand-glass.
By this means they rid themselves of the importunity of those troublesome doctors, who might undertake to refute all their arguments, to produce books which might convict them of forgery, to insist on a reply, and reduce them to the predicament of having none to give."It is not that they were so blind as not to see that this encroachment on liberty, which has induced so many doctors to withdraw from the meetings, would do no good to their censure; and that the protest of nullity, taken on this ground by M.Arnauld before it was concluded, would be a bad preamble for securing it a favourable reception.They know very well that unprejudiced persons place fully as much weight on the judgement of seventy doctors, who had nothing to gain by defending M.Arnauld, as on that of a hundred others who had nothing to lose by condemning him.But, upon the whole, they considered that it would be of vast importance to have a censure, although it should be the act of a party only in the Sorbonne, and not of the whole body; although it should be carried with little or no freedom of debate and obtained by a great many small manoeuvres not exactly according to order; although it should give no explanation of the matter in dispute; although it should not point out in what this heresy consists, and should say as little as possible about it, for fear of committing a mistake.This very silence is a mystery in the eyes of the simple; and the censure will reap this singular advantage from it, that they may defy the most critical and subtle theologians to find in it a single weak argument."Keep yourself easy, then, and do not be afraid of being set down as a heretic, though you should make use of the condemned proposition.It is bad, I assure you, only as occurring in the second letter of M.Arnauld.If you will not believe this statement on my word, I refer you to M.le Moine, the most zealous of the examiners, who, in the course of conversation with a doctor of my acquaintance this very morning, on being asked by him where lay the point of difference in dispute, and if one would no longer be allowed to say what the fathers had said before him, made the following exquisite reply: 'This proposition would be orthodox in the mouth of any other- it is only as coming from M.Arnauld that the Sorbonne has condemned it!' You must now be prepared to admire the machinery of Molinism, which can produce such prodigious overturnings in the Church- that what is Catholic in the fathers becomes heretical in M.Arnauld- that what is heretical in the Semi-Pelagians becomes orthodox in the writings of the Jesuits; the ancient doctrine of St.Augustine becomes an intolerable innovation, and new inventions, daily fabricated before our eyes, pass for the ancient faith of the Church." So saying, he took his leave of me.This information has satisfied my purpose.I gather from it that this same heresy is one of an entirely new species.It is not the sentiments of M.Arnauld that are heretical; it is only his person.
This is a personal heresy.He is not a heretic for anything he has said or written, but simply because he is M.Arnauld.This is all they have to say against him.Do what he may, unless he cease to be, he will never be a good Catholic.The grace of St.Augustine will never be the true grace, so long as he continues to defend it.It would become so at once, were he to take it into his head to impugn it.That would be a sure stroke, and almost the only plan for establishing the truth and demolishing Molinism;such is the fatality attending all the opinions which he embraces.Let us leave them, then, to settle their own differences.These are the disputes of theologians, not of theology.We, who are no doctors, have nothing to do with their quarrels.Tell our friends the news of the censure, and love me while I am, &c.
