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Pascal, Blaise

"The Provincial Letters"

Allow me, then,
to ask you, fathers, if you mean to cast the suspicion of Calvinism
upon all that have not made use of that peculiar phrase? If this be
the case, the Council of Trent must be suspected of heresy, and all
the holy fathers without exception. Have you no other way of making M.
Arnauld heretical, without abusing so many other people who never
did you any harm, and, among the rest, St. Thomas, who is one of the
greatest champions of the eucharist, and who, so far from employing
that term, has expressly rejected it- "Nullo modo corpus Christi est
in hoc sacramento localiter.- By no means is the body of Christ in
this sacrament locally"? Who are you, then, fathers, to pretend, on
your authority, to impose new terms, and ordain them to be used by all
for rightly expressing their faith; as if the profession of the faith,
drawn up by the popes according to the plan of the council, in which
this term has no place, were defective, and left an ambiguity in the
creed of the faithful which you had the sole merit of discovering?
Such a piece of arrogance, to prescribe these terms, even to learned
doctors! such a piece of forgery, to attribute them to general
councils! and such ignorance, not to know the objections which the
most enlightened saints have made to their reception! "Be ashamed of
the error of your ignorance," as the Scripture says of ignorant
impostors like you, "De mendacio ineruditionis tuae confundere.


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