"
This, father, struck me as very strange reasoning; for where is
the person of whom as much may not be said at any time? And what
endless trouble and confusion would ensue, were it allowed to go on!
"If," says Pope St. Gregory, "we refuse to believe a confession of
faith made in conformity to the sentiments of the Church, we cast a
doubt over the faith of all Catholics whatsoever." I am afraid,
father, to use the words of the same pontiff when speaking of a
similar dispute this time, "that your object is to make these
persons heretics in spite of themselves; because to refuse to credit
those who testify by their confession that they are in the true faith,
is not to purge heresy, but to create it- hoc non est haeresim
purgare, sed facere." But what confirmed me in my persuasion that
there was, indeed, no heretic in the Church, was finding that our
so-called heretics had vindicated themselves so successfully that
you were unable to accuse them of a single error in the faith, and
that you were reduced to the necessity of assailing them on
questions of fact only, touching Jansenius, which could not possibly
be construed into heresy. You insist, it now appears, on their being
compelled to acknowledge "that these propositions are contained in
Jansenius, word for word, every one of them, in so many terms," or, as
you express it, "Singulares, individuae, totidem verbis apud Jansenium
contentae."
Thenceforth your dispute became, in my eyes, perfectly
indifferent.
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