Chapter III — The System of Jansenius Concerning Relatively Victorious Delectation Is Set Forth and Refuted

In the following chapter, as we indicated above, we shall demonstrate that the grace of prayer is given to all. But this position does not please Jansenius; he goes so far as to call it a delusion: It is a delusion to think that the grace to pray is always present to man. For speaking according to his system, he says that even for praying there is needed the relatively victorious delectation, which is not granted to all; therefore he adds that not all have sufficient grace and the power to fulfill the precepts, since many lack the remote grace to pray as they ought, or to pray in any manner at all: Since then very many either do not ask for the grace by which they can fulfill the precepts, or do not ask as is necessary, and God does not grant to all the grace either of praying fervently or of praying at all, it is most evident that many of the faithful lack that sufficient grace and that perpetual power of fulfilling the precepts which some preach. Therefore, before proceeding to prove our position, it is necessary to refute his pernicious system, from which all his errors then derive, and to show that he, not others, has been the deluded one.

The five Propositions of Jansenius, already condemned by the Church as heretical, are well known to all. Now, as Tournely proves, all the aforementioned propositions spring from his system of preponderant delectation, on which Jansenius founds his entire doctrine. And the same says Father Ignatius Graveson: From this baneful principle Jansenius and his disciples deduce these erroneous conclusions (that is, the five Propositions), which are bound to that principle by the closest bond. The same says Father Berti, writing that it is established that from the principle of the two invincible delectations, as from a root, flow almost all the other errors of Jansenius, and especially the five condemned propositions. And Father Fortunato of Brescia, in his work newly brought to light under the title Cornelii Jansenii Systema confutatum, demonstrates with evidence that if the system of Jansenius be admitted, the aforesaid condemned propositions would necessarily have to be admitted.

Let us then set forth the system of Jansenius with precision. He says that the will of man after the sin of Adam cannot operate otherwise than by following either the delectation of grace, which he calls heavenly, or the delectation of concupiscence, which he calls earthly, according as the one prevails over the other. So that if the heavenly delectation is greater, then it necessarily conquers; if the earthly delectation preponderates, then the will must necessarily yield to it.

And here it must be noted that Jansenius does not mean to speak of deliberate or consequent delectation, because in that all Catholic doctors would agree with him, since when delectation is deliberate and embraced not by necessity but freely by the will, then certainly it is necessary that the will operate according to that delectation. Rather, he means the indeliberate. And so is understood the celebrated text of St. Augustine: Quod amplius delectat, secundum id operemur, necesse est. This text must necessarily, as we shall demonstrate below, be understood of deliberate and consequent delectation; but Jansenius falsely understands it (and on it founds his entire doctrine) of indeliberate delectation, antecedent to every act of the will. Hence according to him there is no more sufficient grace, since either it is of less weight and can never suffice, or it surpasses concupiscence, and then it is necessarily efficacious — since he makes the entire efficacy of grace consist in nothing other than the relative preponderance of indeliberate delectation: There will be no sufficient grace, but either efficacious or so inefficacious that the operation cannot even follow from it.

Now, given such a system, all the said five condemned propositions derive from it as so many necessary conclusions. Let us leave the others and speak here only of the First and the Third, which are most pertinent to our purpose. The First says: Aliqua Dei praecepta hominibus justis volentibus et conantibus, secundum praesentes quas habent vires, sunt impossibilia, deest quoque illis gratia qua possibilia fiant. Therefore (says Jansenius), certain precepts are rendered impossible even for the just who wish and strive to observe them, inasmuch as they lack the grace that prevails over concupiscence. He writes: Unless the heavenly delectation be greater than the earthly, it is impossible that we not be overcome by the weakness of our own will. And elsewhere: When carnal delectation prevails, it is impossible for the consideration of virtue to prevail. Although (Jansenius said) grace, speaking absolutely in itself and considered apart from the act and from the circumstances, would be most sufficient to move the will to good, nevertheless speaking relatively — that is, when the carnal delectation is greater than the heavenly (which by preponderating over grace is always united with the act) — then grace is actually insufficient to draw the consent of the will. And as Father Graveson wisely writes, the absolute power that man would have by virtue of grace to observe the precepts, when it derives from a grace inferior to concupiscence, is in act no longer a power but a true impotence, so that the will then absolutely cannot do good — just as a lesser weight cannot overcome a greater one.

But how then can man be blamed if he does not satisfy the precept, when he lacks the help that would at least suffice for him to fulfill it? The objection is strong and too manifestly just, so that Jansenius himself cannot refrain from making it to himself, saying: How are those not excused who lack that help, since without it they could not fulfill the precept? Let us see how he responds. The difficulty is great, and so he tries to dispatch it in several ways. First he responds that impotence excuses when man wishes to fulfill the precept and cannot, but not when he does not wish to fulfill it. But we reply to Jansenius that when the will, according to his principle, must necessarily yield to the indeliberate delectation of concupiscence because it prevails over grace, then it is physically impossible for man to will to fulfill the precept; since given the carnal preponderance, grace no longer has enough active power to overcome it. And Jansenius does not doubt this, saying that the superior delectation intrinsically determines and insuperably moves the will to accept it, the will then being entirely deprived of the relative power to resist. As Father Graveson says: Hence it follows that this necessity, in the doctrine of Jansenius and his disciples, is not a moral necessity, but an antecedent and invincible one, which cannot be admitted without open heresy.

And Jansenius says that without the preponderant delectation of grace, it is as impossible for man to fulfill the precept as it is impossible for one without wings to fly, for a blind man to see, for a deaf man to hear, and for one with broken legs to walk straight: Without which man can no more do good than fly without wings, and elsewhere, than a blind man can see, a deaf man hear, or one with broken legs walk straight. And the same would apply to one who had eyes but was deprived of light, because it is as physically impossible for a blind man without eyes to see as for one who has eyes but is deprived of light; since physical impossibility is none other than that which surpasses natural strength.

So everyone sees how untenable this first response of Jansenius is. Let us examine the second; but the second is even more untenable than the first. He says that all precepts are possible for man insofar as God can give him the grace to make him observe them: All men are said to be able to believe, to be able to love God... for this power is nothing other than a flexible capacity by which they can receive faith and charity. So according to Jansenius, man sins in transgressing them insofar as he is capable of being able to receive the grace to fulfill them. But in this way we could say that even a blind man can see and a deaf man can hear, since God can certainly make them see and hear; but in the meantime it is physically impossible, if God does not grant it, for the blind to see and the deaf to hear. Hence to say that for any precept to be called possible, it suffices that it be possible for man in the case that God should give him the power to fulfill it — this is to speak either vainly or fraudulently, in order to hide the truth. For I ask: What help can anyone ever receive from that grace which he could have but at present does not have? This is the same as saying: Man could observe all the precepts if he could observe them, but for now he cannot. When the sick man, says St. Augustine, needs treatment to heal, he will never be well without the treatment, even though he wishes to be: Nec tamen, cum vult, potest, sed cum fuerit adhibita curatione, sanatus.

Jansenius gives a third response, saying that all the liberty of the will consists in the complacency and in the knowledge of the delightful object: Therefore, having examined the foundations of Augustine on which the entire doctrine of the liberty of the will rests, we judge that nothing other than knowledge and delectation, or the delightful complacency in the object, is what has such power over the free will as to make it will or not will... We are not very concerned here about knowledge, for hardly anyone doubts that it is necessary for willing. So according to Jansenius, the liberty of man consists both in the complacency of the delectation and in the knowledge of the object — or in the indifferent judgment by which man knows the good and evil of the action, as for example in murder one already knows the evil of the fault and the pleasure of revenge. For this reason he says in another place that the wicked sin insofar as through the law they already know the malice of sin: The first effect of the law is set forth: to give knowledge of sin; making use of St. Paul's text, Peccatum non cognovi nisi per legem. A thing that Calvin had already said before him, writing: The end therefore of the law is to render man inexcusable; nor is it badly defined as the knowledge of conscience discerning between right and wrong, to remove the pretext of ignorance. But we respond that it can never be that the indifferent judgment — that is, the knowledge of good and evil, which pertains only to the intellect — can constitute the liberty of the will, which entirely pertains to the will; for liberty consists in nothing other than the free choice the will makes to do or not do a thing. Jansenius gives a fourth response, but the fourth is more incongruous and untenable than all the three preceding ones. He says that to sin, liberty of indifference is not necessary — that is, that man must be free from all necessity of sinning — but the liberty of exercise or of choice suffices, by which one can refrain from the sin to which concupiscence drives him by committing another: By which one can act, and from that act, at least by perpetrating another, abstain. So he places man in such necessity that to avoid one sin he must necessarily commit another; and he says that such liberty already makes him guilty of fault, even though he is necessitated to sin in one way or another. Here is how he explains it more clearly elsewhere: The will of fallen men in no way ceases to be free in sinning, although it is bound by a certain general necessity of sinning; for it will be free as to exercise, as they say, necessitated as to specification.

Against this last response could be alleged all those things we said above against Juvenin (in Chapter II) who holds that certain sinners, though deprived of sufficient grace, still sin by such liberty of exercise. But what sort of liberty is this (we already said it) by which a man can be called guilty, whether he be just or sinner, when he is necessitated to sin in one way or another? The Angelic Doctor says it is heresy to say that the will merits or demerits by operating from necessity, even though it is not violently forced to operate: Some held that the will of man is moved of necessity to choose something, though they did not maintain that the will is forced... But this opinion is heretical, for it takes away the reason of merit and demerit in human actions; for that which a person does of such necessity that he cannot avoid it does not seem to be meritorious or demeritorious. Moreover, when someone is necessitated to commit one or another sin, according to the common teaching of all theologians, in choosing the lesser sin, even though he voluntarily chooses it, he does not sin, because he is deprived of the liberty necessary for the act to be imputed to him as sin. So that, speaking in our case, when by reason of concupiscence superior to grace man were to take hold of the lesser sin, he would not sin. But setting aside all these reflections, the direct answer is that, given the principle of Jansenius concerning relatively victorious delectation, there absolutely cannot be this liberty of exercise, of abstaining from one sin by committing another. His principle is, as we have established above, that when the carnal delectation surpasses the heavenly, then the will is determinately necessitated to consent to it, according as it is physically driven. And therefore in one place he says that the superior delectation removes the indifference of the will; for just as a weight pushes down the pan of a scale that was before in equilibrium, so delectation pushes the will to accept that desire to which it moves it: Since this (carnal delectation) accomplishes by the enticement of its movement that he who before the movement was indifferent to acting and not acting, by the very movement of desire, like a scale to which a weight is added, is pushed to one side. The same he says in another place, where, rejecting those who hold that the superior delectation moves morally, he says that it does not move morally but physically pushes and predetermines the will to embrace the proposed object: For that predetermination is called moral which has its effect only on the part of the object, as one who counsels, commands, asks; but this (delectation) operates in the very power of the will, which by the magnitude of its own sweetness it applies to willing and by applying determines, as causing in it this very thing, that it determine itself, and therefore it predetermines. So according to Jansenius, delectation predetermines the will to embrace the object to which it moves it, before the will determines itself. And that this is the true sentiment of Jansenius, the learned Dirois does not doubt, saying that therefore Jansenius does not differ from the fatalists who made man's will subject to the influence of the planets, so that the will is determined to the choice of its end by some impression which precedes its determination. The same wrote the Archbishop of Vienne, author of the book Bajanism and Jansenism Revived, saying: The Jansenists contend that the will is invincibly determined to act by a delectation superior in degree, without any regard to the future determination of the will itself. Given this, where is the liberty of exercise? Since the preponderant delectation, according to Jansenius, uniquely predetermines the will to accept it, in such a way that just as on a scale the lesser weight must necessarily yield to the greater, so the will must necessarily yield to the relatively victorious delectation. Therefore if someone (for example) is driven by the delectation of taking another's property, it is true that he could abstain from theft out of attachment to his own reputation; but in the case that this attachment either does not exist or is not greater than the delectation of stealing, the attachment to reputation certainly cannot prevail — and there it is: every liberty of exercise then certainly ceases.

But let us now proceed to speak of the Third Proposition of Jansenius, which says: Ad merendum, et demerendum in statu naturae lapsae non requiritur in homine libertas a necessitate, sed sufficit libertas a coactione. Jansenius says, then, that for meriting or sinning, the liberty of indifference that excludes necessity is not required, but it suffices that the will not resist. And he goes so far as to assert that it is a paradox to say that an act of the will is free insofar as the will can accept and refuse it. This proposition, also condemned as heretical, springs similarly from the same system; for since the will, when moved by the preponderant delectation, must necessarily obey it, it necessarily follows (according to Jansenius) that for meriting or sinning it is sufficient that man should will to consent to the delectation, even though he cannot cease to will it and is physically necessitated to will it. A doctrine rightly called monstrous by Father Serry: That merit can consist with the necessity of acting. And it had already been called heretical by St. Thomas, whose words, already cited above, I beg leave to repeat here: Some held that the will of man is moved of necessity to choose something, yet they did not maintain that the will is forced. But this opinion is heretical, for it takes away the reason of merit and demerit in human actions; for that which a person does of such necessity that he cannot avoid it does not seem to be meritorious or demeritorious.

And it is rightly called heresy, since it is contrary to all the Divine Scriptures. Fidelis autem Deus est (wrote the Apostle), qui non patietur vos tentari supra id quod potestis; sed faciet etiam cum tentatione proventum, ut possitis sustinere (1 Cor. 10:13). But Jansenius holds that sometimes man is so abandoned by grace that he cannot resist the temptation and is necessitated to succumb to it. Moses said to the people: Mandatum hoc quod ego praecipio hodie, non supra te est (Deut. 30:11). Beatus... qui potuit transgredi, et non est transgressus; facere mala, et non fecit (Sir. 31:10). Therefore it is not enough for meriting that man operate voluntarily; it is also necessary that he operate freely — that is, that he be able to refrain from fulfilling the precepts and not be necessitated to fulfill them. And the same holds conversely for sinning — namely, that he have the grace to abstain and through his own fault does not abstain. Nor is it valid to say, as the impious Theodore Beza responded, that such necessity does not derive from nature but from original sin, through which man voluntarily deprived himself of liberty, and therefore is justly punished in sinning even though he sins by necessity. For we respond that if a servant through his own fault broke his legs, the master would be unjust if, after having forgiven him that fault, he then required him to run and punished him if he did not run. Peccati reum tenere quenquam, quia non fecit quod facere non potuit, summae iniquitatis esse, et insaniae (said St. Augustine).

Moreover, granted that man merited and demerited by operating from necessity, without relative power to the contrary, I would not know how this could be made to conform with the other Scriptures that say: The choice is given to you. Choose today what pleases you, whom you will chiefly serve, whether the gods of the Amorites... But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord (Josh. 24:15). There can be no choice where one operates by necessity and without liberty; hence in the said text the liberty man has from necessity is clearly proved. Full power of choosing either one is shown (says the learned Petavius on this passage), so that the will, as if suspended and placed in the middle, may choose whichever of the two it wishes. The same is said in other places of Scripture:

Testes invoco hodie caelum et terram, quod proposuerim vobis vitam et mortem, benedictionem et maledictionem. Elige ergo vitam, ut et tu vivas, et semen tuum (Deut. 30:19). Deus ab initio constituit hominem, et reliquit illum in manu consilii sui. Adjecit mandata et praecepta sua... Ante hominem vita et mors, bonum et malum; quod placuerit ei dabitur illi (Sir. 15:14-18). Petavius adds on this other passage and says: If Ecclesiasticus were now here to decide the present point, how could he have more clearly expressed the liberty man enjoys from necessity? He could not have used more expressive words, if he lived among us and judged of our life, to describe the nature and property of human liberty and free will. The same is signified by other Scriptures: Vocavi, et renuistis (Prov. 1:24). Ipsi fuerunt rebelles lumini (Job 24:13). Expectavi ut faceret uvas, et fecit labruscas (Isa. 5:2). Vos semper Spiritui Sancto resistitis (Acts 7:51). And it is certainly the work of the Holy Spirit to call, to enlighten minds, and to move wills to good; but how can it be said that one resists the calls, is rebellious to the light, and resists grace, who is destitute of the preponderant grace and therefore must necessarily yield to the concupiscence that prevails?

But how is it, says Jansenius, that what I have said was already said before by St. Augustine — namely, that we must necessarily do what most delights us, according to the Saint's oft-quoted text: Quod amplius delectat secundum id operemur, necesse est? But before answering Jansenius, it must be premised that St. Augustine, because he had to refute in his time several heresies then current on the matter of grace, all different from each other, had to speak of it differently and at great length, and therefore in many places he spoke obscurely. Hence it has happened that not only has each of the Catholic schools claimed him as on its side, though they are of different opinions among themselves; but even Calvin and Jansenius, whose errors have already been condemned by the Church, have had the audacity to call him their supporter. Calvin, writing against Pighius, says: We follow nothing but Augustine... Even if Pighius bursts, he cannot wrest from us that Augustine is ours. Jansenius then cites St. Augustine as his only master, so much so that he entitled his work with the single name of Augustinus. And all the Jansenists call themselves by no other name than Augustinians. From this premise I wish here to infer nothing else than that many passages of St. Augustine, lest one err, must be explained by comparing them with other texts of his, where the Saint declares his true sentiment. Let us now come to the point.

We already indicated above that the aforesaid doctrine of St. Augustine must not and cannot be understood of indeliberate delectation antecedent to every cooperation of the human will, but must be understood of the deliberate and consequent kind; for in the case that man freely accepts the delectation, then certainly it is necessary that he operate according to it. And this is proved by what the Holy Doctor says in other places, where he conflates delectation with love, or better says, explains that the superior delectation is nothing other than that deliberate love and that affection which by our free choice predominates in us, of which delectation we freely taking complacency, it is then necessary that we operate according to it. So that in substance the Saint means nothing other than that it is necessary that the will operate according to what it deliberately loves most; since in one place he says that delectation is like a weight of the soul that draws it: Delectatio quippe quasi est pondus Animae. In another place he then says that this weight that draws the soul is each one's love: Amor meus, pondus meum. He explains this more clearly in another place, where he writes that our attention in this must be that we so order ourselves with God's help, that we be not offended by lower things, but take delight only in higher ones. Here is how he clearly speaks of deliberate delectation, freely accepted. In another place he says the same: Quid est trahi voluptate? Delectare in Domino, et dabit tibi petitiones cordis tui. In another: See how the Father draws: by teaching He delights, not by imposing necessity. In another: If it delights to enjoy, the illicit delectation must be restrained; as when we fast, the appetite of the palate arises: it does not happen without delectation (that is, indeliberate), but we restrain it by the right of dominant reason. So that according to St. Augustine, the delectation that incites to the illicit is well restrained freely by man with dominant reason and with the help of grace. Hence the Saint exhorts us: Let justice so delight, that it conquers even licit delectations. This is made clearer by what the Holy Doctor adds in the same place as the controverted text, for after having said there: Quod amplius delectat secundum id operemur, necesse est, he says: It is certainly manifest that we live according to what we have pursued; but we shall pursue what (note) we have loved. And so if from opposite sides there stand two things, the precept of justice and the habit of the flesh, and both are loved, there we shall pursue what we have loved more. So that when the Saint says it is necessary that we operate according to what most delights us, he means nothing other than that necessarily the will must operate according to what it loves most. Nor is it valid to say with Jansenius that what most delights is most loved, for this is not always true; and in this St. Augustine himself contradicts him, speaking of himself in his Confessions: Non faciebam quod et incomparabili affectu magis placebat et mox ut vellem, possem. By which he gives us to understand that he was already moved by God to good with an incomparable indeliberate affection, through which virtue already pleased him more than vice, and he could well have practiced it had he wished; but he, resisting grace, refused virtue and abandoned himself to vice.

Moreover, if St. Augustine had believed it necessary to operate according to the greater delectation, he could not have said: Titillat delectatio illicita concupiscientiae, pugna, resiste, noli consentire, et impletur hic: Post concupiscentias tuas non eas. Furthermore he says elsewhere that of two persons who have the same impure temptation, it sometimes happens that one consents and the other resists; and why? He answers that one wishes to observe chastity and the other does not: Si eadem tentatione (note: eadem) ambo tententur, et unus ei cedat atque consentiat, alter perseveret; quid aliud apparet, nisi unum voluisse, alterum noluisse a castitate deficere? Moreover, the Saint having said it is necessary that we operate according to what most delights, the question can already be raised whether he means to speak of deliberate or indeliberate delectation. Now we say: If the Saint meant it of the indeliberate, he would consequently be denying that for the will to be truly free, it is necessary that it be free not only from violence but also from necessity. But we read that the Saint in a thousand places teaches the opposite, saying that man in good as in evil operates without necessity. Therefore, in speaking of the predominant victorious delectation, it must necessarily be understood that he speaks of the deliberate and consequent kind. And what are these places? Here they are — there are a thousand: Voluntas nostra nec voluntas esset, nisi esset in nostra potestate; non enim est nobis liberum, quod in potestate non habemus. In another place, mentioning the Gospel of St. Matthew, Chapter 7, where the good fruits that come from the good tree and the bad from the bad are spoken of, he says: Hoc ergo Dominus dicens, facite hoc, aut facite illud, ostendit esse in potestate quid facerent... Qui enim servare legem non vult, in potestate ejus est, si velit. Calvin responds that St. Augustine was here speaking of innocent man, but Bellarmine wisely reproves him, saying that the Saint was there treating of that Gospel where the Lord spoke against the Jews and said: A fructibus eorum cognoscetis eos. Hence it can never be said that St. Augustine meant there to speak of Adam. And the same thing that the Saint said writing against the Manicheans, he repeats writing against the Pelagians, saying: Ubi dicitur noli hoc, et noli illud, et ibi ad aliquid faciendum vel non faciendum in Divinis monitis opus voluntatis exigitur, satis liberum demonstratur arbitrium. Here Jansenius (that great partisan of Calvin) objects that St. Augustine speaks of necessity by violence, not of simple necessity. But Jansenius similarly errs, because the Saint did not disagree with the Pelagians on this point, readily conceding to them that the will was free both from coercive and from simple necessity; hence, writing against Julian, he did not hesitate to say: Liberum in hominibus esse arbitrium utrique dicimus. Liberum autem esse quenquam ad agendum bonum sine adjutorio Dei etc. vos dicitis; hinc estis Pelagiani. Therefore, when St. Augustine says utrique dicimus, he admitted the same liberty to act and not act that the Pelagians established, who certainly required it exempt from all necessity; so that there is no doubt the Saint held that the will was free not only from violence but from all necessity. He only contradicted the Pelagians in that they held the will free to do good even without grace.

Furthermore, St. Augustine, speaking of the liberty of the will and the efficacy of grace, says it is a difficult thing to reconcile the one with the other: Ista quaestio, ubi de arbitrio voluntatis, et de Dei Gratia disputatur ita est ad discernendum difficilis, ut quando defenditur liberum arbitrium negari Dei Gratia videatur, quando autem asseritur Dei Gratia, liberum arbitrium putetur auferri. If St. Augustine had supposed that the will was not free from simple necessity but only from violence, it was not difficult but very easy to understand how grace operated. He said it was difficult to understand precisely because he held that efficacious grace certainly obtained its effect in good acts, while at the same time the will, doing them freely, operated without any necessity that determined it to be unable to do or will anything other than those acts to which grace moved it. For the rest, the Holy Doctor held it as certain that in the observance of the precepts, man with the help of ordinary grace was free to fulfill them, or at least to obtain the greater help to fulfill them; otherwise (as he said) God would not have imposed such precepts on him: Neque enim imperaret hoc Deus ut faceremus, si impossibile judicaret, ut hoc ab homine fieret. Let us note other texts of St. Augustine where he confirms the same sentiment — that the human will is free from all necessity: Non enim peccatum esset, quod non fieret voluntate; ac per hoc et poena injusta esset, si homo voluntatem non haberet liberam, hoc est si necessario tam bene quam male operaretur. Elsewhere he says: Quis enim non clamet stultum esse, praecepta dare ei, cui liberum non est quod praecipitur facere, et iniquum esse eum damnare, cui non fuit potestas jussa complere. Elsewhere: The movement by which the will turns from the immutable good, if it arises from nature or necessity, can in no way be blameworthy. And after saying that prevenient grace is necessary for doing good, he adds: Consentire autem vocationi Dei, vel ab ea dissentire, propriae voluntatis est. By which he clearly teaches that the will can freely obey grace and resist it. Nor is it valid to say with Jansenius that St. Augustine by this means nothing else than that consenting and dissenting is the proper office of the will; for it is impossible to believe that the Holy Doctor would have uselessly undertaken to prove that consent and dissent belong to the will and not to the intellect — something that even the unlearned can distinguish. All the more so since the Saint in the said place first said: Neminem habere in potestate, quid ei veniat in mentem, and then wrote the aforementioned words, Consentire autem etc. Hence it is seen that he speaks undoubtedly of the free power the will has to dissent or consent to what comes to mind. In another place he says: Nemo nisi Deus facere arborem potest (meaning the good trees that bear good fruit and the bad that bear bad fruit), sed habet unusquisque in voluntate aut eligere quae bona sunt, aut quae mala etc. Hoc ergo Dominus dicens, aut facite hoc, aut facite illud, ostendit esse in potestate quid facerent. In another place, explaining the help sine quo, he says: Sine quo voluntas velle non possit; sic tamen ut velle et nolle, uti vel non uti, in ejus libero arbitrio relinquatur. From all this it is seen too clearly how far St. Augustine was from the sentiment of Jansenius — that the human will is not free from necessity in operating, and much less that it is necessitated to follow the superior delectation, which by its impulse invincibly moves and determines it.

But to conclude according to our intent — to prove that the Lord gives to everyone the grace, either proximate or remote, of prayer for observing the precepts, since otherwise the transgression of them could not be imputed to him as fault — it suffices to see what the contradictory propositions of the two mentioned Propositions of Jansenius are. The First said: Aliqua Dei praecepta hominibus justis volentibus et conantibus secundum praesentes quas habent vires, sunt impossibilia, deest quoque illis gratia, qua possibilia fiant. The Catholic proposition contradictory to the error is therefore this: None of God's precepts is impossible, at least for the just who wish to observe them and strive to do so; nor is there lacking to them, even according to the forces they at present have, the grace (either proximate, or at least remote) by which they can at least mediately obtain the greater help for fulfilling them. And here let it again be noted that to avoid the condemned error, it does not suffice to grant the absolute possibility of observing the precept, because such possibility is admitted even by the Jansenists. Rather, one must also admit the relative possibility — relative to the actual carnal delectation that surpasses that of grace — of satisfying the precept when it urges, or at least of obtaining the grace necessary to observe it; since precisely in this consists the error of Jansenius: in denying the possibility not absolute, but relative.

The Third Proposition of Jansenius then said: Ad merendum et demerendum in statu naturae lapsae non requiritur in homine libertas a necessitate, sed sufficit libertas a coactione. The Catholic contradictory, therefore, is this: For meriting and demeriting, even in the state of fallen nature, both for the just and for sinners, there is required liberty not only from violence but also from simple necessity; since according to Catholic doctrine, the voluntary, whenever it is necessary, is not free with that liberty that suffices in the present life for meriting or demeriting. But for meriting or demeriting, the will must be free from any necessity of having to consent determinately to one of the two sides.

In sum, Father Fortunato of Brescia (a man commonly celebrated by modern scholars, and especially by Muratori), in his work newly brought to light under the title Cornelii Jansenii Systema confutatum, says that if the system of Jansenius were ever true, the Divine law would either be vain or unjust; for according to such a system, if the heavenly delectation preponderates, then the will, even if there were no law, is necessitated to follow determinately the impulse of the delectation — and so the law would be vain. If then the earthly delectation preponderates, then the law would be unjust, since God would be imposing a precept physically impossible for man to observe, given that the will must then necessarily yield to the temptation. And in this way all the threats and admonitions of the Divine Scriptures would be useless; and there would no longer be any human action that would merit reward or punishment, since everything would be done by men from necessity. Hence to whoever exhorted us to live well, we could reply what Eusebius wrote against the fatalists: These powers are not mine, O teacher; for I shall do, if the fates will (that is, if the carnal delectation does not preponderate); what is fated will necessarily come to pass — I must necessarily follow the delectation that prevails. Furthermore he says that in admitting such a system one must also admit Manichaeism, which established two principles, good and evil, and said that all actions proceeding from one or the other principle, man must necessarily follow whichever prevailed. Nor does it help to say that such necessity in the system of victorious delectation does not derive from a good or evil principle, as the Manicheans held, but depends on the sin of Adam, which was its cause; for the question here is not by what principle the will then necessarily operates when moved, but whether the will after the sin of Adam has remained free from the necessity of operating — and this is what the Jansenists deny, who hold that the will merits and demerits even though necessitated to will whatever the superior delectation determines it to. But as Father da Brescia rightly observes, the books of Arnauld, Irene, Ventrochio, and other Jansenists were condemned precisely because in them the principle of Jansenius of the two invincible delectations according to superiority of degree was established. And therefore we know also that the Theology of Juvenin was prohibited, who, although he did not expressly hold the aforesaid system, nevertheless spoke too obscurely on this point and imprudently, saying: Natura physica gratiae efficacis non in alio posita est, quam in victrici delectatione, qua mens circa bonum afficitur. He did not actually say relatively victorious, but then proved his proposition with the oft-mentioned doctrine of St. Augustine, Quod amplius nos delectat, secundum id operemur necesse est. And therefore his work was prohibited for so long; and it was lastly permitted only because a compendium was added to it, entitled The True Doctrine of the Church, drawn from the Theology of the learned Honoratus Tournely, who at length and excellently refuted the aforesaid system. Father da Brescia finally concludes, saying thus: It is left manifest that the Jansenian system plainly favors those (that is, Luther, Calvin, and Jansenius); and therefore can in no way be defended by a Catholic man without the crime of violating the Faith. For a system cannot be defended with safe Faith and sound Religion, whose fundamental principles once admitted, it is necessary to approve the condemned dogmas. And the same Tournely meant to say, writing: Since the Church condemned the five Propositions in the sense of Jansenius, it is necessary that they were condemned in the very system of Jansenius — namely, of the superior and relatively victorious delectation, which is the foundation of his entire system. Nor is it valid to say that the system of Jansenius, which supposes the relatively victorious delectation to be indeliberate — that is, coming into us without any assent of the will — is one thing, and the system of delectation also relatively victorious by superiority of degree, but deliberate, is another; since this latter does not conquer alone and by its own forces, as the supporters of such a system say, but conquers by being strengthened by the forces of the consenting will. And therefore they say that the preponderant delectation, although it certainly and infallibly conquers, does not however conquer necessarily, as Jansenius held. This is not valid, for Tournely rightly responds that grace (or delectation) which is infallibly efficacious and invincibly determines the will by the preponderance of its forces cannot but necessitate the consent of the will. And he proves it thus: That grace is a necessity which supposes the will destitute of the true power of resisting; but such is the grace infallibly efficacious from the gradual superiority of forces. For such grace supposes the will to have nothing for resisting but inferior forces. But it is repugnant that superior forces, acting as superior, be overcome by inferior ones, otherwise it would be necessary that the inferior forces operate beyond the degrees of their activity. Nor is it valid to reply that the forces of the relatively victorious grace are indeed superior when compared with concupiscence taken by themselves alone, but not when compared with the forces of concupiscence joined with those of the will; for (responds the same Tournely) such forces of the will could be admitted only with respect to evil, which man can do by himself — overcoming at least one vice with another vice — or barely with respect to good of the natural order, but not with respect to supernatural good or to overcoming a strong concupiscence, which cannot be done without Divine grace. For this reason the Fathers of Diospolis required of the Pelagians that among other points each should confess this: That he acknowledge that when we fight against the temptations and illicit concupiscences, 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 its activity; hence a natural principle or cause cannot produce a supernatural effect: Nullus actus (these are the words of the Angelic Doctor) excedit proportionem principii activi. Et ideo videmus in rebus naturalibus, quod nulla res potest perficere effectum per suam operationem, qui excedat virtutem activam, sed solum potest producere per operationem suam effectum suae virtuti proportionatum. So that the natural forces of the human will, even when united with the forces of grace that are inferior to the forces of concupiscence, cannot contribute to producing a supernatural effect, such as overcoming a violent concupiscence preponderant over grace. And in fact the Jansenists say: Let it be granted us that delectation most certainly conquers by reason of its superior forces, and this suffices for us. Here is how one of them, the Abbe de Bourzeis, speaks: Nobis enim sufficit, quod haec sola nobis veritas concedatur, nimirum quoties Gratiae Dei consentimus, id oriri semper ex eo quod rectus amor, quem Deus nobis inspirat, viribus superior est perverso amori, et quia viribus superior est, idcirco eum certissime superat. Therefore Tournely, speaking of the two systems — the one of absolutely victorious delectation and the other of relatively victorious delectation — concludes thus: Novimus quidem orthodoxos Theologos, qui vim Gratiae efficacem colligunt ex ipsius delectatione absolute ac simpliciter victrice; quique in gratia sufficiente pares vires agnoscunt ad appositam actualem cupiditatem superandam. Verum qui gratiam velint esse victricem relative ex superioritate graduum quippe non aliam sufficientem admittunt gratiam quam viribus inferiorem oppositae superiori concupiscentiae, non alios quam Janseniani Systematis Defensores novimus.

So that to conclude: here we do not intend to reprove the opinion which says that the will, even when it follows the greater delectation, always nonetheless operates freely — that is, without necessity, and with a true power (not merely a nominal or hypothetical power) to operate in the contrary direction. We only reject the opinion of those who hold that when one of the two delectations, heavenly or carnal, is victorious because it surpasses the other in degree, then no power remains to man to resist and overcome it, for the reason that the greater force without fail overcomes the lesser.

I cannot, however, on this point omit stating the doubt I find in this system of relatively victorious delectation. Its defenders say, as does Father Gianlorenzo Berti, that the efficacy of grace, in the way they establish it, does not in substance differ from the efficacy taught by the Thomists, though by different principles; for the Thomists make the efficacy of grace consist in physical predetermination, while they make it consist in preponderant delectation. What the predetermination does (they say) in the second act, in applying the liberty of the will to consent, the delectation does the same. For the rest, both the one and the other school teaches that there remains to man the power in the first act to operate in the opposite direction, so that the will always operates freely and without necessity.

But I reflect that just as the principles of these two positions are different, and their reasons different, so too their consequences are different. The reason for the efficacy according to the Thomists is that the created will is in passive potency, being in potency to receive the motion of grace; hence to come to the act of operation, it is necessary that it be moved by God as the first agent and first free cause, who applies and determines the potency to the act by predetermination. This is as regards the act, but as regards the potency, the Thomists say that man has the grace of potency fully complete and proximately disposed for being able to do good. Thus Father Gonet: The grace that gives the power gives the entire complement and the entire virtue or sufficiency required on the part of the first act. Thus also Cardinal Gotti: Sufficient grace gives the proximate and disposed power in the order of potency. And so all the other Thomists commonly; and if any of them seems to speak otherwise, he speaks of the second act, not of the first.

The reason, on the other hand, of the principle of those who sustain the opinion of delectation superior in degree is that (as they say) whereas before, in the state of innocent nature, the sole sufficient grace sufficed for man to do good, since the free will being sound and standing in perfect equilibrium could well operate with the sole sufficient grace without need of efficacious grace; but at present, after the fall of Adam, the will having been left wounded and inclined to evil, it needs efficacious grace, which by means of the victorious delectation applies it to putting good into act. But according to this reason of such a system, given that (I say) man's will has remained so infirm that to operate in the present state it needs efficacious grace, it cannot be said that man has, even in the first act, neither in the composite nor divided sense, by virtue of sufficient grace, the complete and proximately disposed power to observe the precepts, or to be able to do any good act, not even a mediate one, by which he might dispose himself to then obtain the greater help for fulfilling the law.

I already know that the supporters of this opinion do not balk at conceding this, saying that at present sufficient grace does not give the complete and disposed power: Sufficient grace (writes Father Macedo, one of such supporters) does not give the proximately complete and disposed power. And in another place, speaking of the grace of innocent Adam and of fallen Adam, he says: The first supposed it disposed and free, the second impeded and enslaved.

Indeed, given that a grace inferior to concupiscence does not give the complete and disposed power to observe the precepts, it cannot truly be called sufficient any longer. Just as in fact the mentioned Father Berti, who defends such a system of relatively victorious delectation, encounters no difficulty in conceding also that such inferior grace should properly be called inefficacious grace, and not sufficient. So that according to such a system, those who do not receive from God efficacious grace by means of the relatively victorious delectation do not even have sufficient grace to be able to fulfill the precepts. Here is what Father Berti writes in the defense he makes of his position; first he sets forth there the three objections his adversaries make to him, which are the following: Three things are there which savor of Jansenian dogma and are the source and origin of the five condemned propositions, from which the new Jansenists (that is, Father Bellelli and Father Berti, against whom the Archbishop of Vienne writes), do not at all shrink. The first of these is that they locate efficacious grace not only in victorious delectation, but in relatively victorious delectation, etc. The second, that they deny in the delectation of inferior degree the proximately disposed power, requiring for this from the part of the potency and first act a more robust delectation; and therefore inefficacious grace (or the help sine quo proclaimed by them) is not true sufficient grace, neither in the Molinist nor in the Thomist sense, since sufficient grace in the common sense of Catholics confers the very proximately disposed power. The third, which follows from this, is that they do away with true sufficient grace, from the very name of which they fraudulently shrink; calling it rather inefficacious than sufficient. This is what his opponents object to him; here is how he answers them: But I most firmly and without any hesitation declare that the three doctrinal points just mentioned are in no way erroneous, nor principles of the condemned propositions; but that some, moved by zeal for refuting Jansenius, yet carried away by prejudice for their own opinion, have not at all distinguished what is Catholic from what is erroneous and condemned, and from the lucubrations of these the ignorant Anonymous (that is, the aforesaid Archbishop of Vienne) and whatever others there be, men of scant erudition and dull understanding, have seized the occasion of calumniating the unshaken dogmas of Augustine (which, whether they will or not, are the same as ours) as monstrosities of heresies.

Now just such a one, of scant learning and dull understanding, I confess myself to be, since I do not understand how Father Berti's propositions can be reconciled with each other, since their consequences appear clearly to be the one repugnant to the other. If he said that for observing the Divine precepts efficacious grace is needed, but that sufficient grace, which is given to all, gives the proximate power to pray, and that through prayer one then obtains the greater and necessary help for actually observing the precepts, we would be in agreement — since this is precisely our position, which we shall set forth and prove in the following chapter. But no, because when speaking of prayer he does say that each of the faithful, if he does not freely place an obstacle, has the grace of prayer by which he can obtain the help immediately sufficient for fulfilling the commandments: Cuilibet fideli (these are his words) nisi libere ponat obicem, adest gratia orationis, qua possit impetrare auxilium immediate sufficiens ad implenda mandata. And he says more elsewhere — that the aforesaid sufficient grace, common to every faithful person, although it is remotely sufficient for the observance of the precepts, is nevertheless proximately sufficient for prayer, by which efficacious grace is then obtained — writing thus: In him who has a small will (which is the will supplied to all by sufficient grace) there is a power proximately sufficient for praying, and remotely sufficient for the observance of the precepts, which he will be able to proximately fulfill when through prayer he has obtained a robust will — which robust will is supplied by efficacious grace. He says, then, and wisely says, that as regards the observance of the precepts, it cannot be said that sufficient grace gives to all the proximate power to actually observe them; because (as he rightly reflects in the place cited shortly before) the proximate power to observe the precepts is that which needs no other means to pass into act, hence he writes in the same place, near the beginning, that the complete and disposed power can be had only from efficacious grace alone: Gratia efficax sola dat potentiam completam, et expeditam. Therefore he adds that for sufficient grace to be called proximately sufficient for operating in act, it is required that it need no other means to pass into act. So that, according to Father Berti's reasoning, sufficient grace does not provide every faithful person with the proximate power to observe the precepts, but it does provide all with the power proximately sufficient for praying. Therefore each faithful person with sufficient grace alone can actually pray without need of any other means — that is, of efficacious grace.

But I then do not know how this accords with what he says in another place: Nullus absque gratia per se efficaci habet potentiam orandi conjunctam cum actu. Therefore according to this other proposition, sufficient grace does not truly but only nominally give the power proximately sufficient for praying; it gives the power only remotely sufficient, since efficacious grace is needed for the power of praying to pass into act. Either, then, efficacious grace is required for actually praying, and then sufficient grace cannot be said to give the power proximately sufficient; or sufficient grace gives the power proximately sufficient for actually praying, and then there is no need of the efficacious grace of preponderant delectation, as he requires. But even St. Augustine, says Father Berti, requires the victorious delectation for actually praying, saying: Augustine teaches that a certain knowledge and victorious delectation is necessary for praying. I wished to examine the text of the Holy Doctor, which says thus: Intelligamus, si possumus, Dominum Deum bonum ideo etiam Sanctis suis alicujus operis justi aliquando non tribuere, vel certam scientiam, vel victricem delectationem, ut cognoscant non a seipsis, sed ab Illo sibi esse lucem, qua illuminentur tenebrae eorum, et suavitatem qua det fructum suum terra eorum. St. Augustine does not say that victorious delectation is necessary for praying; here he says nothing other than that God sometimes does not give even to His saints either the certain knowledge or the victorious delectation of some just work, so that they may know that from Him, and not from themselves, they have the light that illuminates them and the sweetness that makes them bear fruit. Therefore the Saint here, first of all, does not speak of sufficient grace, with which man can operate but does not always operate, nor does he say that man with sufficient grace alone, without efficacious grace, cannot actually pray; but he speaks of efficacious grace alone, which by means of the victorious delectation infallibly makes man do good. Second, he does not here speak of prayer but of the just work, which properly means the observance of the precepts or counsels; for prayer, although it is a good work, is by its nature not the work itself but the means for obtaining the help to carry out the good work.

We too hold, as has been said above, that for the observance of the precepts efficacious grace is necessary; but we say that for actually praying, and through prayer obtaining the efficacious grace, sufficient grace which God grants to every faithful person is enough. And thus it is well preserved that the Divine precepts are impossible to no one, since every man with sufficient grace alone can do the easy things, such as praying, and through prayer will obtain the help of gratuitous and necessary efficacious grace to actually do the difficult things, which is the observance of the precepts. This is precisely how Cardinal de Noris speaks, whose words I shall cite in the following chapter; and before him St. Augustine taught the same, saying: Eo ipso quod firmissime creditur Deum impossibilia non praecipere, hinc admonemur et in facilibus quid agamus, et in difficilibus quid petamus. Otherwise, if sufficient grace did not suffice for actually praying but efficacious grace were always needed, and this were denied to someone — as in fact the efficacious grace is denied to many — I do not know how the Divine precepts could be called possible for that person, and how God could demand of him (while also denying him the efficacious grace for actually praying) the observance of His law, and then justly condemn him to hell if he does not observe it. This is precisely what made Jansenius say that certain precepts were impossible even for the just, because he erroneously said that some lack the grace by which the precepts are made possible for them. But no, because God gives to all (let us here set aside the infidels and the obstinate) the proximate grace for actually praying, as we shall prove in the following chapter; and so no one can claim the excuse that the observance of the precepts was impossible for him if he does not observe them; for although he did not have the efficacious grace to observe them in act, he nonetheless had the proximate sufficient grace to actually pray, by means of which he would have obtained from God, according to His promise to hear those who pray, the efficacious grace with which he would certainly have observed the precepts. And this is precisely what the Council of Trent declared against Luther, who asserted that the observance of the Divine law was impossible even for the faithful, saying: Deus impossibilia non jubet, sed jubendo monet et facere quod possis, et petere quod non possis, et adjuvat ut possis.