Whether it be that the Molinist doctors would not condescend so far as to enlighten us on the point, or for some other mysterious reason, the fact is they have done nothing more than pronounce these words: "This proposition is rash, impious, blasphemous, accursed, and heretical!" Would you believe it, sir, that most people, finding themselves deceived in their expectations, have got into bad humor, and begin to fall foul upon the censors themselves?
They are drawing strange inferences from their conduct in favour of M.
Arnauld's innocence."What!" they are saying, "is this all that could be achieved, during all this time, by so many doctors joining in a furious attack on one individual? Can they find nothing in all his works worthy of reprehension, but three lines, and these extracted, word for word, from the greatest doctors of the Greek and Latin Churches? Is there any author whatever whose writings, were it intended to ruin him, would not furnish a more specious pretext for the purpose? And what higher proof could be furnished of the orthodoxy of this illustrious accused? "How comes it to pass," they add, "that so many denunciations are launched in this censure, into which they have crowded such terms as 'poison, pestilence, horror, rashness, impiety, blasphemy, abomination, execration, anathema, heresy'-the most dreadful epithets that could be used against Arius, or Antichrist himself; and all to combat an imperceptible heresy, and that, moreover, without telling as what it is? If it be against the words of the fathers that they inveigh in this style, where is the faith and tradition? If against M.Arnauld's proposition, let them point out the difference between the two; for we can see nothing but the most perfect harmony between them.
As soon as we have discovered the evil of the proposition, we shall hold it in abhorrence; but so long as we do not see it, or rather see nothing in the statement but the sentiments of the holy fathers, conceived and expressed in their own terms, how can we possibly regard it with any other feelings than those of holy veneration?" Such is the specimen of the way in which they are giving vent to their feelings.But these are by far too deep-thinking people.You and I, who make no pretensions to such extraordinary penetration, may keep ourselves quite easy about the whole affair.What!
would we be wiser than our masters? No: let us take example from them, and not undertake what they have not ventured upon.We would be sure to get boggled in such an attempt.Why it would be the easiest thing imaginable, to render this censure itself heretical.Truth, we know, is so delicate that, if we make the slightest deviation from it, we fall into error; but this alleged error is so extremely finespun that, if we diverge from it in the slightest degree, we fall back upon the truth.There is positively nothing between this obnoxious proposition and the truth but an imperceptible point.The distance between them is so impalpable that I was in terror lest, from pure inability to perceive it, I might, in my over-anxiety to agree with the doctors of the Sorbonne, place myself in opposition to the doctors of the Church.Under this apprehension, I judged it expedient to consult one of those who, through policy, was neutral on the first question, that from him I might learn the real state of the matter.I have accordingly had an interview with one of the most intelligent of that party, whom Irequested to point out to me the difference between the two things, at the same time frankly owning to him that I could see none.He appeared to be amused at my simplicity and replied, with a smile: "How simple it is in you to believe that there is any difference! Why, where could it be? Do you imagine that, if they could have found out any discrepancy between M.Arnauld and the fathers, they would not have boldly pointed it out and been delighted with the opportunity of exposing it before the public, in whose eyes they are so anxious to depreciate that gentleman?" I could easily perceive, from these few words, that those who had been neutral on the first question would not all prove so on the second; but, anxious to hear his reasons, I asked: "Why, then, have they attacked this unfortunate proposition?""Is it possible," he replied, "you can be ignorant of these two things, which I thought had been known to the veriest tyro in these matters? that, on the one hand, M.Arnauld has uniformly avoided advancing a single tenet which is not powerfully supported by the tradition of the Church; and that, on the other hand, his enemies have determined, cost what it may, to cut that ground from under him; and, accordingly, that as the writings of the former afforded no handle to the designs of the latter, they have been obliged, in order to satiate their revenge, to seize on some proposition, it mattered not what, and to condemn it without telling why or wherefore.
