"
"Most excellent!" exclaimed the good fathers, embracing me;
"exactly the thing; for they must have, besides, an efficacious
grace bestowed upon all, and which determines their wills to pray; and
it is heresy to deny the necessity of that efficacious grace in
order to pray."
"Most excellent!" cried I, in return; "but, according to you,
the Jansenists are Catholics, and M. le Moine a heretic; for the
Jansenists maintain that, while the righteous have power to pray, they
require nevertheless an efficacious grace; and this is what you
approve. M. le Moine, again, maintains that the righteous may pray
without efficacious grace; and this is what you condemn."
"Ay," said they; "but M. le Moine calls that power 'proximate
power.'"
"How now! fathers," I exclaimed; "this is merely playing with
words, to say that you are agreed as to the common terms which you
employ, while you differ with them as to the sense of these terms."
The fathers made no reply; and at this juncture, who should come
in but my old friend, the disciple of M. le Moine! I regarded this
at the time as an extraordinary piece of good fortune; but I have
discovered since then that such meetings are not rare- that, in
fact, they are constantly mixing in each other's society.
"I know a man," said I, addressing myself to M. le Moine's
disciple, "who holds that all the righteous have always the power of
praying to God, but that, notwithstanding this, they will never pray
without an efficacious grace which determines them, and which God does
not always give to all the righteous.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25