But our reply
will show at once our innocence, and the malignity of these persons
who have ascribed to us a set of impious tenets, of which they are
themselves the sole inventors."
Truly, father, when I found that they had spoken in this way
before the appearance of the papal constitution- when I saw that
they afterwards received that decree with all possible respect, that
they offered to subscribe it, and that M. Arnauld had declared all
this in his second letter, in stronger terms than I can report him,
I should have considered it a sin to doubt their soundness in the
faith. And, in fact, those who were formerly disposed to refuse
absolution to M. Arnauld's friends, have since declared that, after
his explicit disclaimer of the errors imputed to him, there was no
reason left for cutting off either him or them from the communion of
the Church. Your associates, however, have acted very differently; and
it was this that made me begin to suspect that you were actuated by
prejudice.
You threatened first to compel them to sign that constitution,
so long as you thought they would resist it; but no sooner did you see
them quite ready of their own accord to submit to it than we heard
no more about this. Still however, though one might suppose this ought
to have satisfied you, you persisted in calling them heretics,
"because," said you, "their heart belies their hand; they are
Catholics outwardly, but inwardly they are heretics.
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