This appears to be a very easy and prompt way of putting an
end to controversies of fact, when one has got the right side of the
question.
How comes it, then, father, that you do not follow this plan?
You said, in your book, that the five propositions are in Jansenius,
word for word, in the identical terms- iisdem verbis. You were told
they were not. What had you to do after this, but either to cite the
page, if you had really found the words, or to acknowledge that you
were mistaken. But you have done neither the one nor the other. In
place of this, on finding that all the passages from Jansenius,
which you sometimes adduce for the purpose of hoodwinking the
people, are not "the condemned propositions in their individual
identity," as you had engaged to show us, you present us with
Constitutions from Rome, which, without specifying any particular
place, declare that the propositions have been extracted from his
book.
I am sensible, father, of the respect which Christians owe to
the Holy See, and your antagonists give sufficient evidence of their
resolution ever to abide by its decisions. Do not imagine that it
implied any deficiency in this due deference on their part that they
represented to the pope, with all the submission which children owe to
their father, and members to their head, that it was possible he might
be deceived on this point of fact- that he had not caused it to be
investigated during his pontificate; and that his predecessor,
Innocent X, had merely examined into the heretical character of the
propositions, and not into the fact of their connection with
Jansenius.
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