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CHAPTER V. THE ‘PROVINCIAL LETTERS.’

power*?” was all that he could say to him. He had charged his memory carefully with the expression, all the more that he did not understand it. The Jansenist smiled, and said coldly, “Tell me in what sense you use the expression, and I will tell you what I believe about it.” But this was just what he could not do. So he gave the haphazard answer, that he used it “in the sense of the Molinists.” “Which of the Molinists?” was the rejoinder. “All of them together, as being one body, and having one and the same mind,” was the second answer at random: upon which he is assured he is very ill informed; that the Molinists, instead of being at one, are hopelessly divided, but that being united in the design to ruin M. Arnauld, they have all agreed to use page 122this term, understanding it in different senses, and so by an apparent agreement to form a compact body in order to crush him more confidently.

The ingenuous inquirer hesitates to believe in such wickedness. He professes himself to be animated by a pure desire of understanding the subject, and asks still that the mysterious word proximate may be explained to him. His Jansenist friend professes a willingness to enlighten him, but says that his explanation would be liable

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