commandments. Third, That they require, nevertheless, in order to obey
them, and even to pray, an efficacious grace, which invincibly
determines their will. Fourth, That this efficacious grace is not
always granted to all the righteous, and that it depends on the pure
mercy of God. So that, after all, the truth is safe, and nothing
runs any risk but that word without the sense, proximate.

    Happy the people who are ignorant of its existence! happy those
who lived before it was born! for I see no help for it, unless the
gentlemen of the Acadamy, by an act of absolute authority, banish that
barbarous term, which causes so many divisions, from beyond the
precincts of the Sorbonne. Unless this be done, the censure appears
certain; but I can easily see that it will do no other harm than
diminish the credit of the Sorbonne, and deprive it of that
authority which is so necessary to it on other occasions.

    Meanwhile, I leave you at perfect liberty to hold by the word
proximate or not, just as you please; for I love you too much to
persecute you under that pretext. If this account is not displeasing
to you, I shall continue to apprise you of all that happens. I am, &c.

                        LETTER II

                                              Paris, January 29, 1656

  SIR,

    Just as I had sealed up my last letter, I received a visit from
our old friend M. N-. Nothing could have happened more luckily for
my curiosity; for he is thoroughly informed in the questions of the
day and is completely in the secret of the Jesuits, at whose houses,
including those of their leading men, he is a constant visitor.
After having talked over the business which brought him to my house, I
asked him to state, in a few words, what were the points in dispute
between the two parties.

    He immediately complied, and informed me that the principal points
were two- the first about the proximate power, and the second about
sufficient grace. I have enlightened you on the first of these
points in my former letter and shall now speak of the second.

    In one word, then, I found that their difference about
sufficient grace may be defined thus: The Jesuits maintain that
there is a grace given generally to all men, subject in such a way
to free-will that the will renders it efficacious or inefficacious
at its pleasure, without any additional aid from God and without
wanting anything on his part in order to act effectively; and hence
they term this grace sufficient, because it suffices of itself for
action. The Jansenists, on the other hand, will not allow that any
grace is actually sufficient which is not also efficacious; that is,
that all those kinds of grace which do not determine the will to act
effectively are insufficient for action; for they hold that a man
can never act without efficacious grace.

    Such are the points in debate between the Jesuits and the
Jansenists; and my next object was to ascertain the doctrine of the
New Thomists. "It is rather an odd one," he said; "they agree with the
Jesuits in admitting a sufficient grace given to all men; but they
maintain, at the same time, that no man can act with this grace alone,
but that, in order to do this, he must receive from God an efficacious
grace which really determines his will to the action, and which God
does not grant to all men." "So that, according to this doctrine,"
said I, "this grace is sufficient without being sufficient."
"Exactly so," he replied; "for if it suffices, there is no need of
anything more for acting; and if it does not suffice, why- it is not
sufficient."

    "But," asked I, "where, then, is the difference between them and
the Jansenists?" "They differ in this," he replied, "that the
Dominicans have this good qualification, that they do not refuse to
say that all men have the sufficient grace." "I understand you,"
returned I; "but they say it without thinking it; for they add that,
in order to act, we must have an efficacious grace which is not
given to all, consequently, if they agree with the Jesuits in the
use of a term which has no sense, they differ from them and coincide
with the Jansenists in the substance of the thing. That is very
true, said he. "How, then," said I, "are the Jesuits united with them?
and why do they not combat them as well as the Jansenists, since
they will always find powerful antagonists in these men, who, by
maintaining the necessity of the efficacious grace which determines
the will, will prevent them from establishing that grace which they
hold to be of itself sufficient?"

    "The Dominicans are too powerful," he replied, "and the Jesuits
are too politic, to come to an open rupture with them. The Society
is content with having prevailed on them so far as to admit the name
of sufficient grace, though they understand it in another sense; by
which manoeuvre they gain this advantage, that they will make their
opinion appear untenable, as soon as they judge it proper to do so.
And this will be no difficult matter; for, let it be once granted that
all men have the sufficient graces, nothing can be more natural than
to conclude that the efficacious grace is not necessary to action- the
sufficiency of the general grace precluding the necessity of all
others. By saying sufficient we express all that is necessary for
action; and it will serve little purpose for the Dominicans to exclaim
that they attach another sense to the expression; the people,
accustomed to the common acceptation of that term, would not even
listen to their explanation. Thus the Society gains a sufficient
advantage from the expression which has been adopted by the
Dominicans, without pressing them any further; and were you but