But now, when you have come to declare that
the error which constrains you to oppose them, is the heresy of Calvin
which you supposed them to hold, it must be apparent to every one that
they are innocent of all error; for so decidedly hostile are they to
this, the only error you charge upon them, that they protest, by their
discourses, by their books, by every mode, in short, in which they can
testify their sentiments, that they condemn that heresy with their
whole heart, and in the same manner as it has been condemned by the
Thomists, whom you acknowledge, without scruple, to be Catholics,
and who have never been suspected to be anything else.
What will you say against them now, father? Will you say that they
are heretics still, because, although they do not adopt the sense of
Calvin, they will not allow that the sense of Jansenius is the same
with that of Calvin? Will you presume to say that this is matter of
heresy? Is it not a pure question of fact, with which heresy has
nothing to do? It would be heretical to say that we have not the
power, of resisting efficacious grace; but would it be so to doubt
that Jansenius held that doctrine? Is this a revealed truth? Is it
an article of faith which must be believed, on pain of damnation? Or
is it not, in spite of you, a point of fact, on account of which it
would be ridiculous to hold that there were heretics in the Church?
Drop this epithet, then, father, and give them some other name,
more suited to the nature of your dispute.
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