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.
LETTER IV
Paris, February 25, 1656
SIR,
Nothing can come up to the Jesuits. I have seen Jacobins, doctors,
and all sorts of people in my day, but such an interview as I have
just had was wanting to complete my knowledge of mankind. Other men
are merely copies of them. As things are always found best at the
fountainhead, I paid a visit to one of the ablest among them, in
company with my trusty Jansenist- the same who accompanied me to the
Dominicans.
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