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.'" "What do you mean by your half-hour and your sand-glass?" Iasked; "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 Iadmit 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 Ido, 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.
