Prayer, the Great Means of Salvation and of PerfectionChapter III. Exposition and confutation of jansenius’ system of “delectation relatively victorious.” *

The System of Jansenius,

1. In the following chapter we will, as we promised, demonstrate that the grace of prayer is given to all men. But this doctrine does not please Jansenius; he goes so far as to call it an hallucination: “It is an hallucination to think that the grace of prayer is always present to a man.” ' According to his system, he considers that without the delectation relatively victorious we cannot pray; but this delight is not granted to all men, therefore (he adds) all men have not sufficient grace and power to fulfil the

All know the five propositions of Jansenius which were condemned by the Church as heretical.³ Now, as Tournely proves, all these propositions follow if you once grant his system of preponderating delectation, on which Jansenius founds all his doctrine.” F, Ignatius Graveson says the same: “From this pernicious principle Jansenius and his followers derived these erroneous conclusions (the five propositions), which are most intimately connected and form one system with that principle.’ So F. Berti, who says that “from the principle of the two invincible delectations, as from a root, almost all the other Jansenist errors have sprung, and especially the five condemned propositions.”⁶ And Father Fortunato da Brescia, in his lately published book, called A Confutation of the System of Cornelius Jansentus, proves to demonstration that, admitting this system, you must necessarily admit the five condemned propositions,

Let us, therefore, distinctly exhibit this system of Jansenius. He says that the will of man, since the fall of Adam, is unable to do otherwise than to follow either the pleasure of grace (which he calls the celestial delectation), or that of concupiscence (which he calls earthly delectation), according as one prevails over the others. So that if the heavenly delectation is greater, then it necessarily overcomes the other; if the earthly delectation preponderates, then the will necessarily yields to it.

And here we must remark that Jansenius does not hereby intend deliberate or consequent delectation, for thus he would be in accord with all Catholic Doctors; since, when the pleasure we take in a thing is deliberate, and embraced not from necessity but from free choice of the will, then certainly it is necessary that the will should act according to the delectation. But Jansenius intends indeliberate delectation, and in this sense he understands the celebrated saying of St. Augustine: “It is necessary that our act should follow the greater pleasure.” Now, as we shall presently show, this sentence must necessarily be understood of deliberate and consequent delectation; but Jansenius falsely interprets (and on this false interpretation founds his whole doctrine) that it means indeliberate delectation, antecedent to any act of the will. So that, in his system, there is no such thing as sufficient grace; since it is either of too little weight, and necessarily insufficient, or else it preponderates over the concupiscence, and is then necessarily efficacious, since he makes the whole efficacy of grace consist in the relative preponderance of the indeliberate delectation: “There will be no such thing as sufficient grace” (these are his words); “but it will be either efficient, or so inefficient that no act can follow from it.” ?

When this system is once laid down, all the five condemned propositions follow as necessary conclusions from it. Let us omit the others, and speak here exclusively of the first and third, as being most to our purpose.

Refutation of the first proposition.

The first is, “Some commands of God are impossible to just men, who wish to fulfil them and endeavor to do so according to the strength they ‘at present possess. Moreover, grace is wanting to them, whereby these precepts. Quod amplius delectat, secundum id operemur necesse est.”— In Gal. n. 49.

? “Non merit sufficient gratia, sed vol efficax, vol ita inefficax ex qua operatic⁹ nequidem possit sequi.”—De Gr. Cor. 1. 4, ¢. 10. cepts may become possible.”’ Some precepts (says he) become impossible even to the just, who have the will and strive to observe them, in proportion as they want the grace which should prevail over concupiscence: “Unless the heavenly delectation is greater than the earthly, it cannot but happen that we are overcome by the infirmity of our will.’¹⁰ And again: ‘While carnal delectation is in vigor, it is impossible that the thought of virtue should prevail.” * Although, said Jansenius, grace regarded absolutely in itself, and apart from act and circumstance, may be abundantly sufficient to move the will to virtue; nevertheless, relatively considered,— that is, when the carnal delectation is greater than the heavenly (for when the carnal preponderates over grace, it is always accompanied by the act of will),—then grace is completely insufficient to draw to itself the consent of the will. And, as Father Graveson well observes, the absolute power to keep the commandments, which many would have by virtue of grace, whenever it is derived from a grace which is less than the concupiscence, is actually no longer power, but a true impotence; since the will is then entirely unable to act rightly, as the less weight cannot outweigh the greater.

How, then, can a man be blamed for not fulfilling the precept, when he is without grace even sufficient to enable him to do so? The objection is strong, and is most manifestly just; so much so, that Jansenius himself cannot help putting it: “How is it that they are not excused who are without this assistance, since without it they would not be able to fulfil the precept?” Let us see how he answers this question. The difficulty is great, therefore he attempts to disembarrass himself of it in several ways.

1. He answers that inability excuses when a man wishes to fulfil the precept, but cannot; but not when he does not wish to fulfil it. But we answer that when the will, according to his principles, is necessarily obliged to yield to the indeliberate pleasure of the concupiscence, because of its outweighing grace, it is then physically impossible for a man to wish to fulfil the precept; since, supposing the preponderance of the carnal pleasure, grace has no longer sufficient active strength to overcome it. And of this principle Jansenius has no doubt, for he says that the stronger delectation intrinsically determines, and insuperably moves the will to accept it, so that the will is then completely deprived of relative power to resist. ‘Whence it follows,” says Father Graveson, “that this necessity, according to the doctrine of Jansenius and his disciples, is not a moral but an antecedent and invincible necessity, which cannot be admitted without open heresy.”¹¹ Jansenius says, moreover, that except the delectation of grace preponderates, it is as impossible for a man to fulfil the precept as it is “for one without wings to fly, for the blind to see, for the deaf to hear, or for a man with broken limbs to walk straight.”* It would be the same for a man who had eyes but was deprived of light; because it is no more physically impossible for a blind man without eyes

2. Let us examine the second, which is still more so. He says that all the commandments are possible to man, just so far as God can give him grace to make him keep them: “All men are said to be able to believe, to be able to love God ... for this power is nothing else than a passive flexibility of capacity, through which they are able to receive faith and charity.”¹² So that, according to Jansenius, man’s sin in breaking the commandments is in proportion to his capacity of receiving grace to fulfil them. But by this rule we might say that the blind can see, and the deaf hear, because God can make them see and hear; but, for all that, it is physically impossible for the blind to see, or the deaf to hear, unless God gives them the power. So that to say that it is sufficient reason to call a precept possible, if it is possible to man in case God gives him the power, is either nonsense or fraud, intended to hide the truth; for, I ask, what help can a man have from that grace which he might have, but has not at the time? It is the same as saying, a man might observe all the precepts if he could observe them; but at present he cannot. When the sick man, says St. Augustine, needs care to cure him, he cannot get well without care, however he may wish it: ‘Nor yet can he become well when he will, but when he is healed by the use of proper care.”

3. Jansenius’ third answer is, that liberty of will consists entirely in knowing the delightful object and in taking pleasure in it: “Wherefore” (these are his words), “after surveying the arguments of Augustine, on which the whole doctrine of free will depends, we think that it is nothing but knowledge and delectation, or a pleasurable complacency in the object which has the power over the free will to make it accept or reject. . . . Concerning knowledge we are not very particular, for scarcely any one doubts that it is necessary to an act of will.”’ So that, according to Jansenius, the liberty of man consists, on the one hand, in his complacency in the delectation; on the other hand, in his knowledge of the object, or, in other words, in that judgment indifferent (equally applicable either to good or evil) whereby he knows the good and evil of the action; as, for instance, in murder, he knows the evil of the sin and the pleasure of the revenge. Hence he says,in another place, that the wicked sin in proportion as they know by means of the law the malice of sin: “The first effect of the law is confessed to be, to give the knowledge of sin;’® and quotes the text of St. Paul: I did not know sin but by the law.¹³ In this he followed Calvin, who said: “The object of the law is to render man inexcusable; and this would not be a bad definition of it—it is the knowledge of the conscience distinguishing between right and wrong, for the purpose of taking away the pretext of ignorance.” * But we may answer that the indifferent judgment, or the knowledge of good and evil which belongs only to the intellect, can never constitute the freedom of choice which belongs altogether to the will; for liberty consists simply in the free choice of the will to do or not to do a thing.

4. Jansenius gives a fourth reply; but this is more incongruous and untenable than any of the former. He says that for sin it is not requisite to have the liberty of indifference, so that a man should be free from all necessity of sinning; but that it is enough to have a liberty of exercise or of choice, so as to be able to abstain from the particular sin to which our concupiscence tempts us, but only by committing another. “So that” (these are his words) “a man may act, and abstain from this particular sin, at least by committing another;” ' whereby he places man in such a dilemma that in order to avoid one sin he must necessarily commit another; and he says that such a liberty is sufficient to make a man guilty, though he may be necessitated to sin in one way or another. Thus he explains himself more clearly in another place: “The will of fallen man by no means ceases to be free in committing sin, although it be bound by a certain general necessity of sinning; for it will be free in its exercise (as they say), necessitated in the kind of thing it is to choose.”” In answer to this we might repeat all that we said in Chap. II. § 2, p. 154, against Giovenino, who says that all sinners, though deprived of sufficient grace, yet sin by this liberty of exercise. But what kind of liberty is this, that a man, whether he be good or bad, could be called guilty, though he is necessitated to sin in one way or another? St. Thomas says that it is heresy to maintain that the will merits or demerits when it acts through necessity, although not compelled by violence to act: “Some have asserted that the will of man is necessarily moved to choose a thing, ... but they still did not assert that the will is forced... . But this opinion is heretical, for it destroys the rule of merit or demerit in human actions; for there seems to be nothing meritorious or otherwise in a man acting from necessity in a way that he cannot help.” ' Moreover, when a man is necessitated to commit one or the other sin, according to the general consent of all theologians, if he chooses the less sin, even though he voluntarily chooses it, he does not sin; because he is without the liberty which is required before an action can be imputed to him as sin. So that, in our case, when, by reason of a concupiscence that outweighs grace, a man has chosen the less of two sins, he does not sin.

But, putting aside all these reflections, the direct answer is, that, supposing Jansenius’ principle of the pleasure relatively preponderating to be true, this liberty of exercise to abstain from one sin by committing another becomes quite impossible. His principle, as we have already explained, is, that when the carnal pleasure outweighs the heavenly, then the will is necessitated to consent to that individual pleasure to which it is physically drawn, And therefore he somewhere says that the superior pleasure destroys the indifference of the will; for as a weight inclines the index of a balance, which before stood in equilibrium, so does the pleasure move the will to consent to that concupiscence to which it tempts it: “Since (the carnal delight) by the persuasion of its motion is the cause that the man, who before the motion was indifferent whether he acted or not, should be by the very motion of the concupiscence impelled to one side or the other, like a balance into which a weight is put.” ' He says the same in another place, where he tries to refute those who will have it that the superior pleasure moves morally; and says that it does not draw and determine the will to accept the object proposed to it morally, but physically: “Since that is called moral predetermination, which is only in the object when it, as it were, counsels, orders, or beseeches; but this (delectation) has its seat in the very power of the will, which it sets in motion by the intensity of the pleasure it gives, and by setting it in motion determines it; since it makes the will determine its own object, and therefore it may be said to predetermine the will.”¹⁷ So that, according to Jansenius, the pleasure predetermines the will to embrace the object to which it moves it, before the will determines itself. And that this is the true meaning of Jansenius the learned Diroys has no doubt, who on this account says that Jansenius does not differ from the astrologers, who make the will of man subject to the influence of the planets; “so that the will is determined in the choice of its object by any impression which may happen to precede its determination. The Archbishop of Vienne says the same in his book Baianism and Jansenism Revived: “The Jansenists content that by a pleasure superior in degree the will is invincibly determined in its operation, without any respect to the future determination of the will itself.”¹⁸

Granting this system, how is the liberty of exercise possible? since, according to Jansenius, the preponderating pleasure by itself predetermines the will to accept it; so that, as in the balance the less weight necessarily gives way to the larger, so does the will necessarily yield to the preponderating pleasure. So that, for instance, if any one is drawn by this pleasure to take another man’s property, it is true that he may be led to abstain from thieving by love for his own reputation; but in cases where this love either does not exist, or is not greater than the pleasure of stealing, the love of reputation certainly cannot conquer, and then evidently all liberty of exercise ceases,

Refutation of the third proposition.

But let us now pass on to the third proposition of Jansenius: “To merit and demerit in a state of fallen nature, man does not require freedom from necessity, but freedom from compulsion.” * He says then that, in order to merit or to sin, the liberty of indifference, which excludes necessity, is not wanted, but it is enough if the will is not repugnant. And he goes so far as to assert that it is a paradox to say that the act of will is free, so far forth as the will is at liberty to accept or refuse the object. This proposition, also condemned as heretical, follows similarly from his system; for, supposing that the will, when moved by a preponderating pleasure, must necessarily obey it, it necessarily follows (as Jansenius shows) that it is sufficient for merit or demerit that a man should be willing to consent to the pleasure, although he cannot do otherwise than be willing, and is even physically necessitated to be so. F. Serry well maintains that it is a monstrous doctrine to say “that merit can coexist with the necessity of acting.” * And it was before this called heretical by St. Thomas, whose words, already quoted, I shall be pardoned for repeating here: “Some have asserted that the will of man is necessarily moved to choose a thing; but they still did not assert that the will is forced. But this opinion is heretical, for it destroys the rule of merit and demerit in human actions; for there seems to be nothing meritorious or otherwise in a man acting from necessity in any way that he cannot help.” ?

And with reason it is called heresy, for it is contrary to Holy Scripture: God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able; but will also make with the temptation issue, that you may be able to bear it? But Jansenius says that at times man is so completely deprived of grace that he cannot resist temptations, and is necessitated to succumb to them. .

Moses said to the people: This commandment that I command thee this day is not above thee.” Again, Blessed is he that could have transgressed, and hath not transgressed, and could do evil things, and hath not done them.’ Therefore it is not sufficient for merit that a man should act willingly, but it is necessary that he also act freely; that is, that he should be able to neglect the commandments, and should not be necessitated to fulfil them; and, vice versa in sin, that he should have the grace to abstain, and that it should be his own fault if he does not, abstain.

Nor is the reply of the impious Theodore Bea valid here; he says that the necessity does not depend on nature, but on original sin, by which man voluntarily deprived himself of liberty, and is therefore justly punished for sinning, though he be necessitated to sin; for it may be answered that if a servant had by his own fault broken his leg, his master would be unjust if, after having forgiven the fault, he commanded him to run, and punished him for not running. “To hold a man guilty of sin,” says St. Augustine, ‘because he has not done what he could not do, is abominable iniquity and folly.” ?

Moreover, supposing that man could merit or demerit when acting by necessity, without any balance of power to do otherwise, Ido not know how it could be reconciled with Holy Scripture, which says: You have your choice; choose this day that which pleaseth you, whom you would rather serve, whether... the gods of the Amorites, etc.;... but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.’ A choice cannot be given where men act from necessity, and without liberty; so that this text clearly proves that man is free from necessity. “A full power of choosing either side,” says Petavius on this passage, “is clearly shown;

The same is said in other parts of Scripture: I call heaven and earth to witness this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing.—Choose, therefore, life, that both thou and thy seed may live." God made man from the beginning, and left him in the hand of his own counsel, He added His commandments and precepts... . Before man is life and death, good and evil; that which he shall choose shall be given him.’ On the latter passage Petavius says: “If the teacher had now to decide the present point, how could he more clearly express the freedom from necessity which man enjoys? If he lived among us, and judged from our point of view, he could not describe in more precise terms the nature and property of human liberty and of free will than he has done here.” *

There are other texts to the same purpose: J called, and you refused.” They have been rebellious to the light. I looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it hath brought forth wild grapes.’ You always resist the Holy Ghost.” It is certainly the work of the Holy Spirit to call men, to enlighten their minds, and to move the will to good; but how can it be said that he refuses the call, that he rebels against the light, that he resists grace, who is destitute of preponderating grace, and therefore must necessarily yield to the prevailing concupiscence?

Ii.

True Doctrine of St. Augustine on the “Victorious Delecta-
sion” and on Free Will.

“But what,” says Jansenius, “if Augustine before me has maintained this same theory, that we must necessarily do that which pleases us most, according to the well-known passage, ‘It is necessary that we act according to that which delights us most?’ Now, before we answer Jansenius, we must premise that St. Augustine, who had to confute several heresies of his time, all on the subject of grace, and all contrary to one another, had to speak of it diffusely and upon different points of view, and is therefore in several places obscure. Hence it has come to pass that not only each of the Catholic schools boasts of having him on its side, though their opinions are quite different, but also Calvin and Jansenius, whose errors have been condemned by the Church, have presumed to call him their patron. Calvin, writing against Pighius, says, “We follow nothing but Augustine., . . . Pighius may squeak as he pleases, he will never make us allow that Augustine is not on our side.” ? And Jansenius puts forward Augustine as his sole teacher, so that he even called his book by the title of “Augustinus.” And the Jansenists only call themselves Augustinians. From these premises we only wish to infer that many passages of St. Augustine require explanation by comparison with other passages of his works, where he declares his true opinion, if we would not be misled. Now let us come to the point.

We have already explained at the beginning of the chapter that this sentence of St. Augustine ought not and cannot be understood of indeliberate pleasure, antecedent to any co-operation of the will, but ought to be understood of deliberate and consequent pleasure; for in cases where man freely consents to the pleasure, then, certainly, it is necessary that he should act upon it. And this is proved by what Augustine says in other places, where he confounds pleasure with love, or, rather, explains that the superior pleasure is nothing else than that deliberate love, and that affection, which, by our own free choice, predominates in us; in which pleasure, if we deliberately take delight, then it is necessary that we act upon it. So, that in substance, he simply says that the will must act upon that which it deliberately loves the most; for in one place he says that the pleasure is, as it were, the weight of the soul, which drags it along with it—“for pleasure is, as it were, the weight of the soul;”! and in another place, that this weight which draws each man’s soul is his love—“My love is my weight.”²⁵ This he explains more clearly in another place, where he says we ought to be careful, ‘by God’s help, to be so disposed as not to be tripped up by inferior things, and to take pleasure only in the higher things.”²⁶ See how clearly he speaks of deliberate pleasure, freely accepted. In another place, “What is it to be drawn by pleasure? To delight in the Lord; and he will give thee the petitions of thy heart.” * Again, “See how the Father draws! He delights us by teaching, not by laying us under necessity.” Again, “If we wish to enjoy the pleasures of heaven, we must bridle unlawful pleasure; as when we fast, the appetite rises against us; this it does by pleasure (i.e., indeliberate), but we restrain it by the law of the governing reason.” * So that, according to St. Augustine, the pleasure which incites us to break the law may be freely repressed by man by means of the dominant reason, and by the help of grace. Hence he exhorts us: “Let justice so delight you as to conquer even lawful pleasures.” *

This is made still clearer by the context of the passage on which we are now disputing, where, after saying, “We must needs act upon the greater pleasure,” he adds, “It is clear that our life must be according to our pursuits, and our pursuits must be according to our affections (mark this). Therefore, if there are two contradictory things, the command of justice and the carnal habit, and both of them are loved, we shall pursue that which we love most.” * So that when he says we must needs act according to that which delights us most, he only means that the will must necessarily act on that which it loves best; nor will it do to say, with Jansenius, that what gives most pleasure is most loved; for this is not always true, and St. Augustine expressly contradicts it when, in his Confessions, he says of himself, “I did not do that in which my affections took incomparably more pleasure, and which as soon as I would, I could do;”’ by which he means that he was already moved by God with an indeliberate affection, which made virtue incomparably more pleasant to him than vice, and that he might easily have been virtuous if he would; but that he resisted grace, and refused to be virtuous, and abandoned himself to vice.

Further, if St. Augustine had believed that it was necessary for us to act upon the greater pleasure, he could never have said, “When the unlawful pleasure of concupiscence tickles you, fight, resist, do not consent; and the saying is fulfilled, Go not after thy desires.”” Still further, he says elsewhere that of two persons who have the same temptation to impurity, it sometimes happens that one consents to it and the other resists; and why? because, he says, one wills to observe chastity, the other wills not: “If both are tempted by the same (mark the word same) temptation, and one yields and consents to it, while the other perseveres; what else is shown, but that one willed to fail, the other willed not to fail in chastity ?” *

Moreover, when he says that it is necessary that we should act upon that which best pleases us, it may be asked whether he speaks of deliberate or indeliberate pleasure. Now, we say that if he had meant indeliberate pleasure, he would have been obliged, in consequence, to deny that the will, in order to be truly free, need be free not only from violence, but also from necessity. But there are a thousand places where he teaches the reverse, and says that man, whether in good or in evil, acts without necessity; therefore, when he speaks of the predominant pleasure overcoming, he must necessarily mean the deliberate or consequent pleasure. To quote a few of these numerous passages:

“Our will would be no will at all if it were not in our own power; for that is not free to us which we have not in our power.” '

In another place, speaking of the passage of St. Matthew where our Lord talks of good fruit springing from a good tree, and bad fruit from a bad tree,’ he says, “When, therefore, our Lord says this, do this or do that, he shows that it is in the power of man to do it; for he that will not keep the law can keep it if he will.”³⁰ Calvin objects that Augustine is here speaking of man in the state of innocence; but Bellarmine well observes that St. Augustine is here explaining a passage where our Lord is speaking against the Jews, and says of them, Ye shall know them by their fruits. So that it can never be supposed that St. Augustine meant to apply the remark to Adam. Moreover. he repeats what he had said against the Manichees, when writing against the Pelagians: “Whenever it is said, ‘Do not this and do not that,’ and whenever an act of will is required of us to do or not to do something which God commands or forbids, in such places the will is shown to be sufficiently free.”' Here Jansenius replies (like a partisan of Calvin, as he is) that St. Augustine is speaking of necessity violently imposed on us, not of simple necessity. But here again Jansenius is mistaken; for on this point St. Augustine agreed with the Pelagians, and conceded to them that the will was free both from coercive and from simple necessity; hence in his book against Julian he did not scruple to say, “Both of us affirm that the will in man is free. But you say that any one is free to do good without God’s help; hence you are a Pelagian”*? When St. Augustine says, “Both of us affirm,’³² he admitted the same liberty to do or not to do which the Pelagians maintained, and they certainly maintained it to be exempt from any necessity whatever; so that there is no doubt that he held the will to be free not only from violence, but from any necessity whatever; he only contradicted the Pelagians in this point, that they maintained the will to be free to do good even without grace.

Further, St. Augustine says that it is difficult to reconcile the liberty of the will with the efficacy of grace: “This question, wherein we discuss the choice of the will, and the grace of God, is so difficult to determine that when we defend free will we seem to deny the grace of God; and when we assert the grace of God, we are supposed to destroy free will.” * If St. Augustine had supposed that the will was not free from simple necessity, but only from violence, it would not have been difficult, but the easiest thing possible, to understand how grace acted; when, therefore, he said that it was difficult to understand, it was because he. held that efficacious grace certainly produced its effect in good acts; and, on the other hand, that the will did these acts freely, working without any necessity to prevent it from being able to do or to wish any acts different from those to which it was moved by grace. For the rest, the holy Father held it as certain that man, with the help of ordinary grace, was able to fulfil the commandments, or, at any rate, to procure by prayer greater help to enable him to fulfil them; otherwise (as he said) God would not have imposed these commandments on him: “Nor would he have commanded us to do this if he had considered it impossible to be done by man.””

We will quote some more passages of St. Augustine, where he reiterates the doctrine that the will of man is free from any necessity: “For that would not be sin which was not done by the will; and therefore punishment would also be unjust, if man had not free will; that is, if he acted well or ill through necessity.” ® Again, ‘Who would not exclaim that it is folly to give commands to a man who is not free to do what is commanded; and that it is injustice to condemn the man

«Ista quzstio, ubi de arbitrio voluntatis et de Dei gratia disputatur, ita est ad discernendum difficilis, ut, quando defenditur arbitrium, negari Dei gratia videatur, quando asseritur Dei gratia, liberum arbitrium putetur auferri.”—De Gr. Cor. c. 47. who had no power to fulfil the command ?”³⁶ Again, “If the motion whereby the will turns aside from the unchangeable good is natural and necessary, it can by no means be culpable.”” Then, after saying that previous grace is necessary to enable us to do good, he adds, ‘But to consent to the call of God, or to dissent from it, is in the power of our own will.” * Here he plainly teaches that the will can freely obey grace or resist it. Nor does it avail to say with Jansenius that St. Augustine only means that to consent and dissent is the proper office of the will; for we can never believe that the holy Doctor would have taken such useless pains to prove that consent and dissent belong to the will and not to the intellect, a thing which any illiterate man can tell. Especially as St. Augustine’s words, just before the last quoted sentence, are as follows: “No one has it in his power to determine what shall come into his mind, but to consent, etc.” * So that it is clear that he is speaking of the free power of the will to consent or dissent from that which comes into the head. In another place he says, “No one but God can make the tree” (he is speaking of the good trees that produce good fruit, and of the bad trees which produce bad fruit); “but every man’s will has power to choose either good or bad. When, therefore, our Lord says, Do this or do that, he shows that it is in men’s power to choose what to do.” Elsewhere, in explanation of the help sine quo, he says, “Without it the will cannot will; but still it is left to the free will either to will or not to will, to use the help or not to use it.”'

From all this it is very clearly seen how far St Augustine was from the opinion of Jansenius, that the will of man in its action is not free from necessity, much less that it is obliged to follow the preponderating pleasure, which by its impulse invincibly moves and determines it.

Iii.

Continuation of the Refutation of Jansenius and of His
Adherents.

Now, let us apply this to the point we have in view, namely, to prove that God gives every one either proximate grace, or the remote grace of prayer, to enable him to observe the precepts; since otherwise the transgression of the law could never be imputed to him as a fault. Let us then see what are the two propositions that are exactly opposite to those of Jansenius.

His first is, ‘Some precepts of God are impossible to the just man who wishes and tries to fulfil them with his present strength; nor does God give him grace to make them possible.”’³⁷ Hence the Catholic proposition, contradictory of this, is as follows: “Not any of the precepts of God is impossible, at least to the just man, who wishes to observe them, and who endeavors to do so; nor, even with his present strength, is he without the grace (either proximate, or at least remote) whereby he may at least obtain greater assistance to enable him to fulfil them. And here we must again observe that to avoid the condemned error it is not enough to grant the absolute possibility of observing the precept, for the Jansenists themselves admit this possibility; but we must also admit the possibility (relatively to the actual carnal delectation which preponderates over the delectation of grace) to fulfil the commandment when it is incumbent on us to do so, or at least to obtain grace to keep it; since the error of Jansenius consists precisely in denying, not the absolute, but the relative possibility.

Jansenius’ third proposition is that “in order to merit ill or well in the state of fallen nature, man need not have freedom from necessity, but only freedom from compulsion.”³⁸ Hence the Catholic proposition is the contradictory: to merit ill or well, even in the state of fallen nature, man, whether just or unjust, requires freedom, not only from compulsion, but also from simple necessity; since, according to the Catholic doctrine, the voluntary, whenever it is necessary, is not free in such a sense as is sufficient to merit ill or well in this life; but to merit ill or well the will must be free from any necessity whatever of being obliged to consent to either of two things determinately.

Moreover, F. Fortunate da Brescia (a man universally celebrated by the learned of these days, especially by Muratori), in his late work entitled Confutation of the System of Cornelius Jansenius, says that if this system could possibly be true, God’s law would be either foolish or unjust; for, according to it, if the heavenly pleasure predominates, then the will, quite independently of the law, is obliged to follow the precise impulse of the pleasure, and thus the law is useless; or, if the earthly pleasure predominates, then the law is unjust, for God imposes a commandment which it is physically impossible for man to obey, since the will must necessarily yield to the temptation.

And in this way all the threats and admonitions of the Scriptures would be useless, and there would be no human action which could merit reward or punishment, since all the actions of man would be done through necessity. So that whenever any one exhorted us to do well, we might answer with Eusebius against the Fatalists, “These powers are not mine, O Doctor; for they will do it if the fates so desire” (.2., if the carnal delight does not preponderate); ‘that which is fated will necessarily come to pass.”* I must necessarily follow the pleasure that prevails.

The same author says, further, that if we admit this system, we must also admit Manicheism, which supposed two principles, a good and an evil; and says that as all the acts of men were derived from one or the other principle, the man was obliged to follow that which prevailed. Nor does it do to say that the necessity in the system of the preponderating pleasure is not derived from a good or evil principle, as the Manicheans held, but depends on the sin of Adam, which is its cause; for the question is not through what principle the will acts necessarily when it is moved, but whether the will after Adam’s fall has remained free from necessity in its actions. And this is what the Jansenists deny, who hold that the will merits well and ill, though it is necessitated to will that to which the preponderating pleasure determines it. But, as F. Fortunate well observes, the books of Arnold, Irénée, Ventrochio, and the other Jansenists, were condemned for this very error of maintaining Jansenius’ principle of the invincibility of the pleasure which is superior in degree. And we know that it was for this reason that the theology of Gio- “Non sunt potestates hae meae, O Doctor! Faciam enim, si fata volunt. . . aderit necessario quod fatatum est.” —Prep. ev. 1. 6, c. 6. venino was prohibited; for though he did not expressly hold the system we are discussing, yet he imprudently spoke too obscurely on the point: “The physical nature of efficacious grace consists simply in the preponderance of the pleasure which the mind takes in goodness.”’ Still he did not use the phrase “relatively preponderating,” though he proves his proposition by the often-quoted text of St. Augustine: “We must act according to that which pleases us most.” And for this cause his work was so long prohibited, and has at last been allowed because of the addition of a compendium, entitled The True Doctrine of the Church, extracted from the theology of Tourneley, who has amply and well confuted the system.

F. Fortunate concludes: “It is clear, then, that the system of Jansenius is favorable to them (Luther and Calvin), and so cannot be maintained by a Catholic without violating his faith. For we cannot preserve our faith and religion while defending a system on the admission of whose fundamental principles the reception of condemned doctrines necessarily follows.”³⁹ Tourneley meant the same when he said, “Since the Church condemned the five propositions in the sense of Jansenius, they must be condemned as parts of Jansenius’ theory of the superior and relatively preponderating pleasure, which is the foundation of his whole system,” ®

Nor will it avail to say that the system of Jansenius is one thing, which supposes that the pleasure which relatively preponderates is indeliberate, that is, that it comes to us without any assent of the will; but that it is quite a different thing to say that the pleasure, though it relatively preponderates by the superiority of its degree, yet is deliberate; that is, it preponderates not by itself and by its own strength (as the maintainers of this system say), but it preponderates by being reinforced by the power of the consenting will. And hence they say that though the preponderating pleasure certainly and infallibly overcomes, yet it does not do so necessarily, as Jansenius maintained.

This will not avail, because, as Tourneley well replies, that grace, or that pleasure which is infallibly efficacious, and invincibly determines the will by its preponderating power, cannot but necessitate the will to consent. And he proves it thus, “That grace necessitates which supposes the will to be destitute of real power to resist it; but of this nature is grace, which is infallibly efficacious, because of the superiority of the degree of its strength. For grace of this kind supposes that the will has only inferior strength to resist; but it is a contradiction to say that superior strength, acting as such, can be overcome by inferior; otherwise it would be necessary that the inferior strength should act beyond the degree of its

power of acting. Nor does it avail to reply, that though the power of grace relatively preponderating is superior to that of the concupiscence taken by itself, it is not superior to that of the concupiscence joined with that of the will, because, as Tourneley says, such a power of the will could only be admitted with respect to evil which a man can do by himself, as when he overcomes one vice by another, or at least with respect to good of the natural order; but not with respect to supernatural good, such as the conquest of a strong concupiscence, which cannot be effected without God’s grace,

Hence the Fathers of Diospolis required every Pelagian, among other things, “to confess that when we fight against temptations and unlawful concupiscence, the victory comes not from our own will, but from the help of God.” * And the reason is, as St. Thomas teaches, that no active principle can produce an effect exceeding the sphere of its activity; so that no natural principle or cause can produce a supernatural effect: “No act exceeds the proportion of its active principle; and hence we see that in natural things nothing can by its own operation produce an effect which exceeds the power of its activity, but can only by its own operation produce an effect proportionate to its power.”? So that the natural power of the human will, although united to the power of grace, cannot, when the latter is inferior to the power of the concupiscence, contribute to produce a supernatural effect, such as the conquest of a violent concupiscence that preponderates over grace. And, in fact, the Jansenists say, we are contented if you grant to us that the delectation certainly overcomes by reason of its Superior power, See how one of them, the Abbot de Bourzéis, speaks: “It is sufficient for us if this single truth be granted, that as often as we consent to the grace of God, it always arises from the right love which God inspires, being superior in strength to the perverse love; and in consequence of this superiority always most certainly overcoming it.”' Hence Tourneley, speaking of the two systems, of pleasure absolutely preponderating, and of pleasure relatively preponderating, concludes, “We have known orthodox theologians who test efficacious grace by its pleasure being absolutely and simply preponderating over all other pleasures; and who call that sufficient grace which has just power enough to overcome the lust actually opposed to it. But we have only met with Jansenists who maintain that no grace can overcome unless it is relatively preponderating in degree, and who admit no other sufficient grace than one that is inferior in strength to the superior concupiscence which opposes it.”?

So that, to conclude, we do not intend now to blame the opinion that the will, even when it follows the greater delectation, yet always acts freely, that is, without necessity, and with true power (not merely nominal or hypothetical power) to act in a contrary way; but we only reject the opinion of those who say that when one of the two pleasures, the carnal or the heavenly, preponderates by being greater in degree than the other, then man has no more power to resist and to overcome it, because the greater force always overcomes the less,

Nevertheless, I cannot in this place neglect to mention the difficulty that I find in this system of the preponderating delectation. Its defenders say, as also F. John Laurence Berti, that the efficacy of grace, as they maintain it, does not differ in substance from the efficacy as taught by the Thomists, though founded on different principles; for the Thomists make the efficacy of grace consist in a physical predetermination, but the Jansenists in the preponderating pleasure. That which is done by physical premonition according to the Thomists, the same is done by victorious delectation according to the Augustinians; namely, the liberty of the will is moved to give consent in actu secundo. Further, both opinions teach that man still has the power, in actu primo, to act in Opposite directions; so that the will always acts freely and without necessity.⁴⁵

But I observe that, as the principles and the reasons of these two opinions are different, so also are their consequences.

According to the Thomists, the reason of the efficacy of grace is because the created will is in a state of passive potentiality, able to receive the motions of grace; so that to come to actual operation it must be moved by God, as the first agent and first free cause, who, by his predetermination, adapts and determines the potentiality (of the will) into actuality. This only relates to the act; but as for the power of capability, the Thomists say that man has the grace of potentiality wholly complete, and in proximate preparation, so as to be able to act virtuously. Thus F. Gone, “The grace which gives the power gives the full complement, and all the strength or sufficiency which is requisite, so far as the actus primus is concerned,” So, also, Cardinal Gotti: “Sufficient grace gives proximate power, and complete power within the limits of potentiality.”⁴⁶ And thus all other Thomists in general; and if any of them apparently speak otherwise, it is only of the actus secundus, not primus.

On the other hand, the reason of the principle of those who maintain the opinion of the pleasure superior in degree is because (as they say) whereas at first, in the state of innocence, man only required “sufficient grace” to do well, since his will, being then sound and in perfect balance, could easily act with only sufficient grace, without needing efficacious grace,—now, on the other hand, since the fall of Adam, the will, being injured and inclined to evil, has need of “efficacious grace,” which, by means of the victorious pleasure, adapts it for acting virtuously. But (I say) according to this reason for the system, granting that the will of man has become so weak that, in its present state, it cannot act without

I know that the supporters of this opinion have no objection to grant this, and to say that, in our present state, sufficient grace does not give complete and prepared power. “Sufficient grace,” says F. Macedo, one of this school, “does not give power proximately complete and prepared.” * And elsewhere, speaking of the grace of Adam innocent and of Adam fallen, he says, The first supposed (a power) prepared and free; the second a power crippled, hindered, and enslaved.” *

So, supposing that grace, when inferior to the concupiscence, does not give complete and prepared power to observe the commandments, it can, in truth, be no longer called sufficient. So that, in fact, F. Berti, who defends such a system of the relatively victorious delectation, finds no difficulty in further granting that such inferior grace ought properly to be called inefficacious, and not sufficient. So that on this system, they who do not receive from God grace that is efficacious, by means of the delectation relatively victorious over that of the concupiscence, have not even grace sufficient to enable them to fulfil the commandments. F. Berti thus writes in defence of his opinion: first, he states the three objections of his opponents, which are as follows: “There are three things which savor of the Jansenist dogma, and are the fountain and source of the five condemned propositions; to which the new Jansenists, the chief of whom are two (doubtless pretended) Augustinians, make no objection” (these two are F. Bellelli and F. Berti, against whom the Archbishop of Vienne wrote). ‘The first of these three things is, that they do not make efficacious grace consist simply in a victorious delectation, but in a delectation relatively preponderating, etc. The second is, that they deny the existence of a power proximately prepared in the case of a delectation of a lower grade, requiring for this, as regards the power and the actus primus, a stronger delectation; and therefore inefficacious grace (or the assistance sine quo, which they preach about) is not really sufficient grace, either in the Molinist sense or the Thomist sense; since sufficient grace, by the common consent of Catholics, confess power proximately prepared. The third thing that follows from this is, that they deny the existence of such a thing as sufficient grace; the very name of which they fraudulently abstain from sing, and call it rather inefficacious than insufficient.”* Such are the objections. Now for F. Berti’s answer: “I most firmly and unhesitatingly declare that the three doctrines just cited are no way erroneous, nor principles of the five condemned propositions; but that some people, moved indeed by a laudable zeal for refuting Jansenius, but nevertheless carried away by the prejudice of their private judgment, have made no distinction between what is Catholic and what is erroneous and condemned; and that from these people’s lucubrations, some anonymous sciolist” (the Archbishop of Vienne, to wit), “and some other men of scanty learning and fat wits, have taken occasion to calumniate the unshaken doctrines of Augustine (which, whether they admit it or not, are the same as ours) as monstrous heresies.”’

Now I confess myself also to be precisely one of these scantily learned and gross-minded men; for I cannot understand how the propositions of F. Berti hold together; since in their consequences they appear clearly repugnant to one another. If he had said that to observe the divine law we have need of efficacious grace, but that sufficient grace, which is given to all, gives the proximate power to enable us to pray, and by prayer to obtain the greater assistance necessary for the actual observance of the commandments, we should quite agree; for this is our opinion, which we shall set forth and prove in the next chapter.

But we cannot agree; because, while speaking of prayer, he says well that every one of the faithful, by means of this sufficient grace, if he puts no impediment in the way, can pray, and by prayer obtain the immediate assistance to enable him actually to fulfil the commandments. ‘To each of the faithful” (these are his words), “unless he freely puts an obstacle in the way, the grace of prayer is given, by which he may obtain the aid immediately sufficient to fulfil the commandments.” And, further, he says in another place that the said sufficient grace, common to all the faithful, although only remotely sufficient for the observance of the precepts, is, nevertheless, proximately sufficient for prayer, by which efficacious grace is then obtained: “In him who has the little will (that is, the will which is furnished by the sufficient grace) there is a power proximately sufficient for prayer, and remotely sufficient for the observance of the commandments, which he will be able proximately to fulfil, when by prayer he has obtained a strong will” (which strong will is furnished by efficacious grace).’ He says then, and says wisely, that for the observance of the commandments, it cannot be said that sufficient grace gives to all the proximate power actually to fulfil them; for (as he well observes in the place just cited, $ 4) the proximate power to observe the precepts is that which needs nothing further to enable it to act; hence he writes in the same section (4), near the beginning, that the complete and prepared power can only be had from efficacious grace: “Efficacious grace alone gives the complete and ready power.” * Hence he adds that, in order that the sufficient grace may be said to be proximately sufficient for actual operation, “it is requisite that it should not need any further means in order to act. So that, according to the reasoning of F. Berti, though the sufficient grace does not supply all the faithful with proximate power to keep the commandments, yet it supplies all with power proximately sufficient to pray. Therefore each of the faithful, by the aid of “sufficient grace’ alone, can actually pray, without the need of any further assistance, that is, of efficacious grace.

But then I do not know how this agrees with what he says in another place: “No one without grace, efficacious in itself, has the power of praying united with the act.” Therefore, according to this second proposition, the “sufficient grace’ does not give really, but only in name, the power proximately sufficient for prayer. It only gives the power remotely sufficient, if there is need of efficacious grace to make the power of praying issue in act. Either, therefore, for actual prayer, “efficacious grace” is requisite, and then it cannot be said that the sufficient grace gives the power proximately sufficient; or else “sufficient grace” gives the power proximately sufficient for actual prayer; and then there is no need of the efficacious grace of the preponderating pleasure, which he seeks to establish. But St. Augustine also, says F. Berti, requires an overpowering pleasure to enable us to pray: “Augustine teaches that for prayer a certain knowledge is requisite, and an overpowering pleasure.” * I have examined the passage referred to, which is as follows: “Let us understand, if we can, that the good Lord God sometimes does not give even to his saints either the certain knowledge of some good work, or an overpowering delight in it, in order that they may understand that the light wherewith their darkness is enlightened comes not from themselves, but from him, and so also the sweetness by which their land yields its fruit.” St. Augustine does not say that an overpowering delight is requisite for prayer; he only says that sometimes God does not give even to his saints either the certain knowledge or the overpowering delight of some just work, in order that they may know that from him, and not from themselves, they have the light to illumine them, and the sweetness to make them bear fruit.

Therefore St. Augustine does not here primarily speak of the sufficient grace by which a man can work, but does not always work; nor does he say that man with only sufficient grace, and without efficacious grace, cannot actually pray; but he speaks only of efficacious grace, which, by means of an overpowering delight, infallibly causes him to do well. Secondly, he does not speak here of prayer, but of just works; which properly means the observance of the precepts or of the counsels; since prayer, though it is a good work, of its own nature is not a work, but the means of obtaining the aid necessary to execute good works.

We also hold, as we said before, that efficacious grace is necessary for the observance of the commandments; but we say that for actual prayer, whereby we may obtain efficacious grace, the sufficient grace which God gives to all the faithful is enough. And thus we do no violence to the truth that God’s commandments are not impossible to any one; since every man, by means of the sufficient grace only, can perform such an easy thing as distance of gratuitous efficacious grace, which is necessary for the actual performance of difficult things—such as the observance of the commandments. Thus says Cardinal Noris, whose words I will quote in the next chapter, and before him St. Augustine: “By the fact that we most firmly believe that God does not command impossibilities, we are admonished in easy matters what to do, and in difficult matters what to ask for.”⁵⁶ Otherwise, if sufficient grace were not enough for actual prayer, and the addition of efficacious grace were always necessary, and if this were ‘denied to any man—as, in fact, efficacious grace is denied to many—I cannot see how the commandments of God could be said to be possible to such a person, and how God could demand of him the observance of his law (at the time when he denies him even the efficacious grace to enable him actually to pray), and how with justice he could condemn him to hell for not observing it. This is precisely that which made Jansenius say that some precepts were impossible even from the first; because he erroneously said that some men want the grace to make the precepts possible to them. But it is not so; because God gives to all men (we are not here considering the case of infidels and obstinate sinners) the proximate grace to enable them actually to pray, as we shall prove in the next chapter. And so no one will be able to make the excuse that the observance of the precepts was impossible to him; for though he had not efficacious grace for their actual observance, he had, nevertheless, grace proximately sufficient for actual prayer, by means of which he would have obtained from God efficacious grace, according to his promise of hearing whoever prays to him; and with this he certainly might have observed the precepts. And the Council of Trent has expressly declared this against Luther, who asserted that the observance of God’s law was impossible even to the faithful. “God,” it says, “does not command impossibilities; but by commanding, he admonishes you to do what you can, and to ask for what you cannot do; and by his help he enables you to do it.” *