“Very true,” they replied; “but so it is that we understand it.”
“I have no objections to that,” I said; “for I never quarrel about a name, provided I am apprized of the sense in which it is understood. But I perceive from this, that when you speak of the righteous having always the proximate power of praying to God, you understand that they require another supply for praying, without which they will never pray.”
“Most excellent!” exclaimed the good fathers, embracing me; “exactly the thing; for they must have, besides, an efficacious grace bestowed upon all, and which determines their wills to pray; and it is heresy to deny the necessity of that efficacious grace in order to pray.”
“Most excellent!” cried I, in return; “but, according to you, the Jansenists are Catholics, and M. le Moine a heretic; for the Jansenists maintain that, while the righteous have power to pray, they require nevertheless an efficacious grace; and this is what you approve. M. le Moine, again, maintains that the righteous may pray without efficacious grace; and this is what you condemn.”
“Ay,” said they; “but M. le Moine calls that power proximate power.”
“How now! fathers,” I exclaimed; “this is merely playing with words, to say that you are agreed as to the common terms which you employ, while you differ with them as to the sense of these terms.”
The fathers made no reply; and at this juncture, who should come in but my old friend the disciple of M. le Moine! I regarded this at the time as an extraordinary piece of good fortune; but I have discovered since then that such meetings are not rare—that, in fact, they are constantly mixing in each other’s society.[[92]]
“I know a man,” said I, addressing myself to M. le Moine’s disciple, “who holds that all the righteous have always the power of praying to God, but that, notwithstanding this, they will never pray without an efficacious grace which determines them, and which God does not always give to all the righteous. Is he a heretic?”
“Stay,” said the doctor; “you might take me by surprise. Let us go cautiously to work. Distinguo.[[93]] If he call that power proximate power, he will be a Thomist, and therefore a Catholic; if not, he will be a Jansenist, and therefore a heretic.”
“He calls it neither proximate nor non-proximate,” said I.