Arnauld's proposition, let them point out the difference between the
two; for we can see nothing but the most perfect harmony between them.
As soon as we have discovered the evil of the proposition, we shall
hold it in abhorrence; but so long as we do not see it, or rather
see nothing in the statement but the sentiments of the holy fathers,
conceived and expressed in their own terms, how can we possibly regard
it with any other feelings than those of holy veneration?"
Such is the specimen of the way in which they are giving vent to
their feelings. But these are by far too deep-thinking people. You and
I, who make no pretensions to such extraordinary penetration, may keep
ourselves quite easy about the whole affair. What! would we be wiser
than our masters? No: let us take example from them, and not undertake
what they have not ventured upon. We would be sure to get boggled in
such an attempt. Why it would be the easiest thing imaginable, to
render this censure itself heretical. Truth, we know, is so delicate
that, if we make the slightest deviation from it, we fall into
error; but this alleged error is so extremely finespun that, if we
diverge from it in the slightest degree, we fall back upon the
truth. There is positively nothing between this obnoxious
proposition and the truth but an imperceptible point. The distance
between them is so impalpable that I was in terror lest, from pure
inability to perceive it, I might, in my over-anxiety to agree with
the doctors of the Sorbonne, place myself in opposition to the doctors
of the Church.
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