do not receive ordinary or extraordinary succour of kinds unknown to us? This maxim, Quod facienti, quod in se est, non denegatur gratia necessaria, appears to me to have eternal truth. Thomas Aquinas, Archbishop Bradwardine and others have hinted that, in regard to this, something comes to pass of which we are not aware. (Thom. quest. XIV, De Veritate, artic. XI, ad I et alibi. Bradwardine, De Causa Dei, non procul ab initio.) And sundry theologians of great authority in the Roman Church itself have taught that a sincere act of the love of God above all things, when the grace of Jesus Christ arouses it, suffices for salvation. Father Francis Xavier answered the Japanese that if their ancestors had used well their natural light God would have given them the grace necessary for salvation; and the Bishop of Geneva, Francis of Sales, gives full approval to this answer (Book 4, On the Love of God, ch. 5).
96. This I pointed out some time ago to the excellent M Pélisson, to show him that the Roman Church, going further than the Protestants, does not damn utterly those who are outside its communion, and even outside Christianity, by using as its only criterion explicit faith. Nor did he refute it, properly speaking, in the very kind answer he gave me, and which he published in the fourth part of his Reflexions, also doing me the honour of adding to it my letter. I offered him then for consideration what a famous Portuguese theologian, by name Jacques Payva Andradius, envoy to the Council of Trent, wrote concerning this, in opposition to Chemnitz, during this same Council. And now, without citing many other authors of eminence, I will content myself with naming Father Friedrich Spee, the Jesuit, one of the most excellent in his Society, who also held this common opinion upon the efficacy of the love of God, as is apparent in the preface to the admirable book which he wrote in Germany on the Christian virtues. He speaks of this observation as of a highly important secret of piety, and expatiates with great clearness upon the power of divine love to blot out sin, even without the intervention of the Sacraments of the Catholic Church, provided one scorn them not, for that would not at all be compatible with this love. And a very great personage, whose character was one of the most lofty to be found in the Roman Church, was the first to make me acquainted with it. Father Spee was of a noble family of Westphalia (it may be said in passing) and he died in the odour of sanctity, according
to the testimony of him who published this book in Cologne with the approval of the Superiors.
97. The memory of this excellent man ought to be still precious to persons of knowledge and good sense, because he is the author of the book entitled: Cautio Criminalis circa Processus contra Sagas, which has caused much stir, and has been translated into several languages. I learnt from the Grand Elector of Mainz, Johann Philipp von Schonborn, uncle of His Highness the present Elector, who walks gloriously in the footsteps of that worthy predecessor, the story that follows. That Father was in Franconia when there was a frenzy there for burning alleged sorcerers. He accompanied even to the pyre many of them, all of whom he recognized as being innocent, from their confessions and the researches that he had made thereon. Therefore in spite of the danger incurred at that time by one telling the truth in this matter, he resolved to compile this work, without however naming himself. It bore great fruit and on this matter converted that Elector, at that time still a simple canon and afterwards Bishop of Würzburg, finally also Archbishop of Mainz, who, as soon as he came to power, put an end to these burnings. Therein he was followed by the Dukes of Brunswick, and finally by the majority of the other princes and states of Germany.
98. This digression appeared to me to be seasonable, because that writer deserves to be more widely known. Returning now to the subject I make a further observation. Supposing that to-day a knowledge of Jesus Christ according to the flesh is absolutely necessary to salvation, as indeed it is safest to teach, it will be possible to say that God will give that knowledge to all those who do, humanly speaking, that which in them lies, even though God must needs give it by a miracle. Moreover, we cannot know what passes in souls at the point of death; and if sundry learned and serious theologians claim that children receive in baptism a kind of faith, although they do not remember it afterwards when they are questioned about it, why should one maintain that nothing of a like nature, or even more definite, could come about in the dying, whom we cannot interrogate after their death? Thus there are countless paths open to God, giving him means of satisfying his justice and his goodness: and the only thing one may allege against this is that we know not what way he employs; which is far from being a valid objection.
99. Let us pass on to those who lack not power to amend, but good will. They are doubtless not to be excused; but there always remains a great difficulty concerning God, since it rested with him to give them this same good will. He is the master of wills, the hearts of kings and those of all other men are in his hand. Holy Scripture goes so far as to say that God at times hardened the wicked in order to display his power by punishing them. This hardening is not to be taken as meaning that God inspires men with a kind of anti-grace, that is, a kind of repugnance to good, or even an inclination towards evil, just as the grace that he gives is an inclination towards good. It is rather that God, having considered the sequence of things that he established, found it fitting, for superior reasons, to permit that Pharaoh, for example, should be in such circumstances as should increase his wickedness, and divine wisdom willed to derive a good from this evil.
100. Thus it all often comes down to circumstances, which form a part of the combination of things. There are countless examples of small circumstances serving to convert or to pervert. Nothing is more widely known than the Tolle, lege (Take and read) cry which St. Augustine heard in a neighbouring house, when he was pondering on what side he should take among the Christians divided into sects, and saying to himself,
Quod vitae sectabor iter?
This brought him to open at random the book of the Holy Scriptures which he had before him, and to read what came before his eyes: and these were words which finally induced him to give up Manichaeism. The good Steno, a Dane, who was titular Bishop of Titianopolis, Vicar Apostolic (as they say) of Hanover and the region around, when there was a Duke Regent of his religion, told us that something of that kind had happened to him. He was a great anatomist and deeply versed in natural science; but he unfortunately gave up research therein, and from being a great physicist he became a mediocre theologian. He would almost listen to nothing more about the marvels of Nature, and an express order from the Pope in virtute sanctae obedientiae was needed to extract from him the observations M. Thévenot asked of him. He told us then that what had greatly helped towards inducing him to place himself on the side of the Roman Church had been the voice of a lady in Florence, who had cried out to him from a window: