Determined, however, to have a heresy made out, let it cost what
it may, you have attempted, by the following manoeuvre, to shift the
question from the point of fact, and make it bear upon a point of
faith. "The Pope," say you, "declares that he has condemned the
doctrine of Jansenius in these five propositions; therefore it is
essential to the faith to hold that the doctrine of Jansenius touching
these five propositions is heretical, let it be what it may." Here
is a strange point of faith, that a doctrine is heretical be what it
may. What! if Jansenius should happen to maintain that "we are capable
of resisting internal grace" and that "it is false to say that Jesus
Christ died for the elect only," would this doctrine be condemned just
because it is his doctrine? Will the proposition, that "man has a
freedom of will to do good or evil," be true when found in the
Pope's constitution, and false when discovered in Jansenius? By what
fatality must he be reduced to such a predicament, that truth, when
admitted into his book, becomes heresy? You must confess, then, that
he is only heretical on the supposition that he is friendly to the
errors condemned, seeing that the constitution of the Pope is the rule
which we must apply to Jansenius, to judge if his character answer the
description there given of him; and, accordingly, the question, "Is
his doctrine heretical?" must be resolved by another question of fact,
"Does it correspond to the natural sense of these propositions?" as it
must necessarily be heretical if it does correspond to that sense, and
must necessarily be orthodox if it be of an opposite character.
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