But it matters not; you have no intention to make use of this
logic for any length of time. Poor as it is, it will last sufficiently
long to serve your present turn. All that you wish to effect by it, in
the meantime, is to induce those who are unwilling to condemn
efficacious grace to condemn Jansenius with less scruple. When this
object has been accomplished, your argument will soon be forgotten,
and their signatures, remaining as an eternal testimony in
condemnation of Jansenius, will furnish you with an occasion to make a
direct attack upon efficacious grace by another mode of reasoning much
more solid than the former, which shall be forthcoming in proper time.
"The doctrine of Jansenius," you will argue, "has been condemned by
the universal subscriptions of the Church. Now this doctrine is
manifestly that of efficacious grace" (and it will be easy for you
to prove that); "therefore the doctrine of efficacious grace is
condemned even by the confession of his defenders."
Behold your reason for proposing to sign the condemnation of a
doctrine without giving an explanation of it! Behold the advantage you
expect to gain from subscriptions thus procured! Should your
opponents, however, refuse to subscribe, you have another trap laid
for them. Having dexterously combined the question of faith with
that of fact, and not allowing them to separate between them, nor to
sign the one without the other, the consequence will be that,
because they could not subscribe the two together, you will publish it
in all directions that they have refused the two together.
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