Being particularly anxious to learn something of a dispute
which they have with the Jansenists about what they call actual grace,
I said to the worthy father that I would be much obliged to him if
he would instruct me on this point- that I did not even know what
the term meant and would thank him to explain it. "With all my heart,"
the Jesuit replied; "for I dearly love inquisitive people. Actual
grace, according to our definition, 'is an inspiration of God, whereby
He makes us to know His will and excites within us a desire to perform
it.'"
"And where," said I, "lies your difference with the Jansenists
on this subject?"
"The difference lies here," he replied; "we hold that God
bestows actual grace on all men in every case of temptation; for we
maintain that unless a person have, whenever tempted, actual grace
to keep him from sinning, his sin, whatever it may be, can never be
imputed to him. The Jansenists, on the other hand, affirm that sins,
though committed without actual grace, are, nevertheless, imputed; but
they are a pack of fools." I got a glimpse of his meaning; but, to
obtain from him a fuller explanation, I observed: "My dear father,
it is that phrase actual grace that puzzles me; I am quite a
stranger to it, and if you would have the goodness to tell me the same
thing over again, without employing that term, you would infinitely
oblige me."
"Very good," returned the father; "that is to say, you want me
to substitute the definition in place of the thing defined; that makes
no alteration of the sense; I have no objections.
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