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CHAPTER V. THE ‘PROVINCIAL LETTERS.’

as the Jansenists then were, or of falling into page 128the use of a common language with the Jesuits. What other course was open to them in such a case than that of saving the truth at the expense of their own credit! and while admitting the name of sufficient grace, denying, after all, that it was sufficient! That was the real history of the business.

This pitiful story of the New Thomist awakens a respondent pity in the writer.  But his Jansenist companion is roused to indignant remonstrance:—

“Do not flatter yourselves,” he exclaims, “that you have saved the truth.  If it had no other protector than you, it would have perished in such feeble hands.  You have received into the Church the name of its enemy, and this is to receive the enemy itself.  Names are inseparable from things.  If the term *sufficient* grace be once admitted, you may talk finely about only understanding thereby a grace insufficient; but this will be of no avail.  Your explanation will be held as odious in the world, where men speak far more sincerely of less important things.  The Jesuits will triumph.  It will be their sufficient grace, and not yours—which is only a name—which will be accepted.  It will be theirs, which is the reverse of yours, that will become an article of faith.”
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