Sect. 219Heresies Concerning Grace—the Corresponding DogmasHeresies Concerning Grace—the Corresponding Dogmas
I. 1. Against the Manichæans the Church had upheld the principle that sin, inasmuch as it implies guilt, is avoidable. Starting from this, Pelagius and his disciples taught (1) that the notion of sin excludes every necessity which is not a consequence of former sins, and even this necessity was only admitted in a limited sense (St. Augustine, Contra Julianum, op. imp. vi. 19); (2) that the notion of our free will implies the power of avoiding every infraction of the moral law, and the power of fulfilling the moral law perfectly in its entirety. The power of avoiding all evil and doing all good being inherent in man’s nature, the children of Adam are born as perfect as their first parent; hence there is no original sin, and consequently no need of redemption. The Church had taught, against the Manichæans, that there is but one source of both good and evil deeds, viz. our free will, which is of itself indifferent to good or evil, but becomes the principle of good and meritorious actions when energized with Divine grace. The power for good, which the Church attributed to grace, Pelagius attributed to nature. As St. Augustine pointed out, in the Pelagian system God was no more the author of good than of evil, and was as much the author of evil as of good. Internal grace, habitual or actual, found no place in Pelagianism. In fact, the influence of internal grace on free will was declared impossible, as being contrary to the very essence of the latter. Nothing but external action, such as the devil may have in his power, was allowed to God!
Jansenius indicates four stages in the evolution of Pelagianism: (1) Pure heathenism, when no mention is made of grace; (2) semi-heathenism, when nature is called grace; (3) Judaism, when the positive law and doctrine are added as graces; (4) semi-Christianity, when the teaching and example of Christ, the forgiveness of sins, the adoption obtained through Baptism, are brought forward as auxiliary graces. From first to last, however, its fundamental tenet is the natural and essential power of free will to do good or evil independently of any help or interference.
Hence, if man’s free will is the only principle of good actions, man is able to merit, of himself, whatever reward or favour or grace is promised by God to such actions, e.g. eternal life, the “good will” of the Author of life, the forgiveness of sins, the aid of revealed doctrine and precepts. An exception was made for the regnum cælorum, the kingdom of heaven (distinguished from “life eternal”), which was a special reward for the dignity of children of God conferred in baptism. That dignity was considered as a grace completing the meritorious action of the will.
Again, all the aids (= graces) which free will requires or receives in order better to avoid evil and do good, are granted by God on the initiative taken by man: as God punishes evil, so He rewards good, viz. according to every man’s personal merit or demerit. There is no favour, no election, no predestination. In short, the creature is emancipated from the Creator in all things moral.
2. Between the years 412 and 418 several African Synods examined and condemned the new doctrines of Pelagius and his disciples. Their decrees were submitted to and approved by the reigning Popes, and consequently they contain the authoritative teaching of the Church. From the various canons we gather the following points:—
(a) Through original sin human nature loses its original freedom and power to lead a righteous life (bene et recte vivendi), in the sense of not being able to fulfil the whole moral law. The new birth, new life, and infusion of charity by the Holy Ghost in Baptism are necessary to restore to man his original power of doing good. This power, however, is not an empty possibility like that claimed by Pelagius; it is a new power, a new and nobler faculty to bring forth new and salutary works.
(b) The new-born man still retains his natural weakness, and is subject to internal and external temptations. Hence he constantly requires the assistance of actual Divine grace not to be led into temptation and sin.
(c) Sanctifying grace obtained in baptism, and the actual graces freely bestowed by God or obtained by prayer, as a matter of fact do not enable man to fulfil the law with the perfection possible in the original state. Hence he always remains subject to a sort of necessity of falling into sins or imperfections.
(d) The decrees asserted the necessity of grace for leading a life of righteousness; in other words, the necessity of charity in order to perform acts meritorious of eternal life. They were silent as to the “preparatory acts” of faith and prayer, and thus afforded a pretext for new controversies and the new heresy of Semi-Pelagianism.
(e) Grace was explained as the vivifying and energizing working of the Holy Ghost on the soul, especially on the will, giving man a kind of participation in the Divine nature, and conforming the human will to the Divine, and thus constantly directing it to will and accomplish what is pleasing to God.
(f) Grace is an essential element of the power of performing salutary actions. It gives our will the perfect freedom of the children of God, inasmuch as this freedom consists in the power of doing good. The Pelagian freedom claims the power for evil as well as for good; the true freedom of God and of His children is for good only.
II. 1. Taking a middle course between the Pelagians, who ascribed the whole work of salvation to the powers of human nature, and the Predestinarians, who ascribed it entirely to God alone, the Semi-Pelagians held that the initial or preparatory acts were in the power of man unaided by grace; and further, that these acts merited the subsequent Divine graces. They thus denied the complete gratuity of grace. In the words, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31), they saw a kind of covenant between God and man: “Give Me thy faith, and My salvation shall be thy reward.” The faith required was, however, nothing but a pious willingness to believe, a simple beginning of faith; it was the act of the soul weakened by sin calling in the Divine Physician.
2. St. Augustine and his disciple Prosper took up arms against this new error. It was condemned in the Indiculus Capitulorum, ascribed of old to Pope Celestine I.; by the popes Gelasius and Hormisdas; and lastly, by the Second Council of Orange. The canons of this council set forth the doctrine of the Church as follows: Grace is not given simply because we ask for it—it is really the cause of our asking for it; in order to free us from sin, God does not expect an act of our will, but the desire to be freed is wrought in us by the infusion of the Holy Ghost; the beginning of faith, the pious willingness to believe, is not in us naturally, but is itself a gift of grace; to the inspiration of the Holy Ghost are also due the initial acts of believing, willing, desiring, striving, seeking, asking; by the mere forces of nature nothing positively leading up to eternal life can be thought of or chosen without the illumination of the Holy Spirit; not only a few, but all require Divine mercy to come to the grace of baptism (canons 3–8). See also §§ 142, 143. The Scripture proofs are clear. “Who distinguisheth thee? or what hast thou that thou hast not received? And if thou hast received, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?” (1 Cor. 4:7). Faith is expressly set down as a gift of grace. “For by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, for it is the gift of God; not of works, that no man may glory” (Eph. 2:8). “This is the work of God that you believe in Him Whom He hath sent” (John 6:29).
III. I. The starting-point of the Reformers’ doctrine on grace is the erroneous principle that original sin destroyed man’s free will. According to Luther, free will was altogether destroyed; according to Calvin, it was so thoroughly vitiated that it is utterly incapable of any spiritual act or aspiration, or of receiving any spiritual impressions; original sin is an evil principle in the soul which infects every thought and action of man, and makes them to be sinful and unfit to contribute either to the justification of the sinner or the sanctification of the just. Hence Calvin taught: “God does not move the will in the manner handed down and believed for many centuries, viz. so that it remains with us to either follow or resist the motion” (Inst. ii. 3). And Scharpius: “We say (in opposition to Bellarmine and the Council of Trent) that after the fall God moves and bends the will of man with such efficacy that when He wills man’s conversion, man must needs follow the Divine will, not indeed compulsorily, but spontaneously” (Scharpius, De Lib. Arb., ii. 3). Luther writes: “Free will (liberum arbitrium) is a fiction … for no one has it in his power to think anything good or evil, but all things, as Wyclif’s article condemned at Constance rightly teaches, come to pass by absolute necessity.… There is no doubt that it was by the teaching of Satan that the name of free will was introduced into the Church” (Assert., art. 36). Again, “Man stands as a beast of burden between God and the devil: if God rides it, it goes whither God wills; if Satan rides it, it goes whither Satan wishes it to go. Nor is it in man’s power to choose his rider; the riders, on the contrary, fight for his possession” (De Servo Arbitrio). This doctrine of the original Reformers was afterwards, like so many others, modified, and by degrees completely abandoned. At the present day the orthodox Lutheran teaching differs little, if at all, from the Catholic doctrine.
Working on a will without freedom and totally depraved, grace produces its own fruit without any co-operation on the part of man: it is likened unto a good tree planted in a bad soil. Side by side with it, depraved nature brings forth its own evil fruit. Man is thus half sinner, half saint, unable to fulfil the law and to please God—even when regenerated through grace. The new life is not justice, but only a striving after justice. No difference is made between the two stages of spiritual life, viz. the preparatory stages of faith, and the perfect life of charity; none between venial and mortal sin, or between simple mortal sin and total falling away from God. Man is made responsible for his acts although he is unable to choose. This repulsive doctrine was early abandoned by the followers of Luther; disciples of Calvin, however, seem to uphold it to this very day.
2. The canons appended to the Sixth Session of the Council of Trent frequently reproduce (for condemnation) the heresies of the Reformers in their own wording. The few we translate here serve the double purpose of throwing a clearer light upon the reformed teaching, and of setting forth the Catholic dogma in its most authentic formulas.
“If any one saith that man’s free will, moved and awakened (excitatum) by God, does in no manner (nihil) co-operate when it assents to God, Who excites and calls it, thereby disposing and preparing itself to receive the grace of justification; and (if any one say) that it cannot dissent if it wished, but that, as some inanimate thing, it does nothing whatever and only remains passive, let him be anathema” (can. 4).
“If any one saith that, after the sin of Adam, man’s free will was lost and extinguished, let him be anathema” (can. 5).
“If any one saith that all works done before justification, in whatever way they may be done, are truly sins, or deserve the hatred of God; or that, the more vehemently one strives to dispose himself for grace, the more grievously he sins, let him be anathema” (can. 7).
“If any one saith that the commandments of God are impossible to be observed by man, even when justified and constituted in grace, let him be anathema” (can. 18).
“If any one saith that man, once justified, can sin no more nor lose grace …; or, on the contrary, that he can during his whole life avoid all sins, even venial ones, except by a special privilege of God, as the Church holds of the blessed Virgin, let him be anathema” (can. 23).
“If any one saith that the just, in every good work, sins at least venially, or, what is more intolerable, mortally, and therefore deserves eternal punishment; and that, if he is not damned, it is only because God does not impute to him these works unto damnation, let him be anathema” (can. 25).
“If any one saith that, when grace is lost through sin, faith also is always lost with it; or that the faith which remains is not a true faith, although it be not living; or that he who has faith without charity is not a Christian, let him be anathema” (can. 28).
“If any one saith that the justified man sins when, for the sake of an eternal reward he performs good works, let him be anathema” (can. 31).
IV. The errors of the Reformers were partly reproduced by some Catholic theologians unwilling to break with the Church. Baius (Michael Bay, of Louvain) admitted free will in man, and taught that grace enabled him to perform good and meritorious works. But in many other points he followed the Reformers. We subjoin some of the seventy-nine propositions extracted from his writings and condemned by Pius V. (Bulla, Ex omnibus afflictionibus, Oct. 1, 1567), by Gregory XIII. (1579), and by Urban VIII. (1641).
25. “All the works of infidels are sins, and all the virtues of philosophers are vices.”
27. “Free will (liberum arbitrium), without the help of God’s grace, has only power for sin.”
28. “It is a Pelagian error to say that free will has the power to avoid any sin;”
35. “Every action of the sinner or the slave of sin is a sin.”
46. “A sinful act is not necessarily a voluntary act (Ad rationem peccati non pertinet voluntarium).”
67. “Man sins, even unto damnation, in actions which he performs by necessity.”
70. “Man in the state of mortal sin and under the penalty of eternal damnation, may have true charity; and even perfect charity is consistent with the guilt (reatus) of eternal damnation.”
74. “Concupiscence in the regenerated, who fall back into mortal sin, and in whom it dominates, is a sin, as also are other bad habits.”
V. Jansenius went a step beyond Baius, by trying to introduce Calvin’s errors in a more refined form. We must limit ourselves to giving the famous five propositions taken from the Augustinus of Jansenius, and condemned by Innocent X. (1653), Alexander VII. (1656), and Clement XI. (1705). Supra, p. 190.
1. “Some of God’s precepts are impossible to the just, who wish and strive (to keep them), considering the powers (vires) they actually have; the grace by which they may be made possible is also wanting.”
2. “In the state of fallen nature one never resists interior grace.”
3. “In order to merit or demerit in the state of fallen nature, freedom from necessity (liberty to choose) is not required in man, but freedom from external compulsion (coactio) is sufficient.”
4. “The Semi-Pelagians admitted the necessity of a prevenient (prævenientis) interior grace for each act, even for the beginning of faith; they were heretics because they pretended this grace to be such that the human will could either resist or obey it.”
5. “It is Semi-Pelagian to say that Christ died or shed His blood for all men without exception (omnino omnibus).”
VI. Jansenius had published his doctrines in a strictly scientific form; Quesnel brought them before the public in the attractive garb of popular writings, occasionally reverting to the harsher errors of Baius, which Jansenius had tried to soften down in his system. One hundred and one propositions taken from Quesnel’s works were condemned by Clement XI. in the Bull Unigenitus (1713).
VII. The last manifestation of Jansenism censured by the Church was the pseudo-synod of Pistoja. Eighty-one propositions of the Synod were condemned by Pope Pius VI. in the Bull Auctorem fidei (1794).
I. 1. Against the Manichæans the Church had upheld the principle that sin, inasmuch as it implies guilt, is avoidable. Starting from this, Pelagius and his disciples taught (1) that the notion of sin excludes every necessity which is not a consequence of former sins, and even this necessity was only admitted in a limited sense (St. Augustine, Contra Julianum, op. imp. vi. 19); (2) that the notion of our free will implies the power of avoiding every infraction of the moral law, and the power of fulfilling the moral law perfectly in its entirety. The power of avoiding all evil and doing all good being inherent in man’s nature, the children of Adam are born as perfect as their first parent; hence there is no original sin, and consequently no need of redemption. The Church had taught, against the Manichæans, that there is but one source of both good and evil deeds, viz. our free will, which is of itself indifferent to good or evil, but becomes the principle of good and meritorious actions when energized with Divine grace. The power for good, which the Church attributed to grace, Pelagius attributed to nature. As St. Augustine pointed out, in the Pelagian system God was no more the author of good than of evil, and was as much the author of evil as of good. Internal grace, habitual or actual, found no place in Pelagianism. In fact, the influence of internal grace on free will was declared impossible, as being contrary to the very essence of the latter. Nothing but external action, such as the devil may have in his power, was allowed to God!
Jansenius indicates four stages in the evolution of Pelagianism: (1) Pure heathenism, when no mention is made of grace; (2) semi-heathenism, when nature is called grace; (3) Judaism, when the positive law and doctrine are added as graces; (4) semi-Christianity, when the teaching and example of Christ, the forgiveness of sins, the adoption obtained through Baptism, are brought forward as auxiliary graces. From first to last, however, its fundamental tenet is the natural and essential power of free will to do good or evil independently of any help or interference.
Hence, if man’s free will is the only principle of good actions, man is able to merit, of himself, whatever reward or favour or grace is promised by God to such actions, e.g. eternal life, the “good will” of the Author of life, the forgiveness of sins, the aid of revealed doctrine and precepts. An exception was made for the regnum cælorum, the kingdom of heaven (distinguished from “life eternal”), which was a special reward for the dignity of children of God conferred in baptism. That dignity was considered as a grace completing the meritorious action of the will.
Again, all the aids (= graces) which free will requires or receives in order better to avoid evil and do good, are granted by God on the initiative taken by man: as God punishes evil, so He rewards good, viz. according to every man’s personal merit or demerit. There is no favour, no election, no predestination. In short, the creature is emancipated from the Creator in all things moral.
2. Between the years 412 and 418 several African Synods examined and condemned the new doctrines of Pelagius and his disciples. Their decrees were submitted to and approved by the reigning Popes, and consequently they contain the authoritative teaching of the Church. From the various canons we gather the following points:—
(a) Through original sin human nature loses its original freedom and power to lead a righteous life (bene et recte vivendi), in the sense of not being able to fulfil the whole moral law. The new birth, new life, and infusion of charity by the Holy Ghost in Baptism are necessary to restore to man his original power of doing good. This power, however, is not an empty possibility like that claimed by Pelagius; it is a new power, a new and nobler faculty to bring forth new and salutary works.
(b) The new-born man still retains his natural weakness, and is subject to internal and external temptations. Hence he constantly requires the assistance of actual Divine grace not to be led into temptation and sin.
(c) Sanctifying grace obtained in baptism, and the actual graces freely bestowed by God or obtained by prayer, as a matter of fact do not enable man to fulfil the law with the perfection possible in the original state. Hence he always remains subject to a sort of necessity of falling into sins or imperfections.
(d) The decrees asserted the necessity of grace for leading a life of righteousness; in other words, the necessity of charity in order to perform acts meritorious of eternal life. They were silent as to the “preparatory acts” of faith and prayer, and thus afforded a pretext for new controversies and the new heresy of Semi-Pelagianism.
(e) Grace was explained as the vivifying and energizing working of the Holy Ghost on the soul, especially on the will, giving man a kind of participation in the Divine nature, and conforming the human will to the Divine, and thus constantly directing it to will and accomplish what is pleasing to God.
(f) Grace is an essential element of the power of performing salutary actions. It gives our will the perfect freedom of the children of God, inasmuch as this freedom consists in the power of doing good. The Pelagian freedom claims the power for evil as well as for good; the true freedom of God and of His children is for good only.
II. 1. Taking a middle course between the Pelagians, who ascribed the whole work of salvation to the powers of human nature, and the Predestinarians, who ascribed it entirely to God alone, the Semi-Pelagians held that the initial or preparatory acts were in the power of man unaided by grace; and further, that these acts merited the subsequent Divine graces. They thus denied the complete gratuity of grace. In the words, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31), they saw a kind of covenant between God and man: “Give Me thy faith, and My salvation shall be thy reward.” The faith required was, however, nothing but a pious willingness to believe, a simple beginning of faith; it was the act of the soul weakened by sin calling in the Divine Physician.
2. St. Augustine and his disciple Prosper took up arms against this new error. It was condemned in the Indiculus Capitulorum, ascribed of old to Pope Celestine I.; by the popes Gelasius and Hormisdas; and lastly, by the Second Council of Orange. The canons of this council set forth the doctrine of the Church as follows: Grace is not given simply because we ask for it—it is really the cause of our asking for it; in order to free us from sin, God does not expect an act of our will, but the desire to be freed is wrought in us by the infusion of the Holy Ghost; the beginning of faith, the pious willingness to believe, is not in us naturally, but is itself a gift of grace; to the inspiration of the Holy Ghost are also due the initial acts of believing, willing, desiring, striving, seeking, asking; by the mere forces of nature nothing positively leading up to eternal life can be thought of or chosen without the illumination of the Holy Spirit; not only a few, but all require Divine mercy to come to the grace of baptism (canons 3–8). See also §§ 142, 143. The Scripture proofs are clear. “Who distinguisheth thee? or what hast thou that thou hast not received? And if thou hast received, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?” (1 Cor. 4:7). Faith is expressly set down as a gift of grace. “For by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, for it is the gift of God; not of works, that no man may glory” (Eph. 2:8). “This is the work of God that you believe in Him Whom He hath sent” (John 6:29).
III. I. The starting-point of the Reformers’ doctrine on grace is the erroneous principle that original sin destroyed man’s free will. According to Luther, free will was altogether destroyed; according to Calvin, it was so thoroughly vitiated that it is utterly incapable of any spiritual act or aspiration, or of receiving any spiritual impressions; original sin is an evil principle in the soul which infects every thought and action of man, and makes them to be sinful and unfit to contribute either to the justification of the sinner or the sanctification of the just. Hence Calvin taught: “God does not move the will in the manner handed down and believed for many centuries, viz. so that it remains with us to either follow or resist the motion” (Inst. ii. 3). And Scharpius: “We say (in opposition to Bellarmine and the Council of Trent) that after the fall God moves and bends the will of man with such efficacy that when He wills man’s conversion, man must needs follow the Divine will, not indeed compulsorily, but spontaneously” (Scharpius, De Lib. Arb., ii. 3). Luther writes: “Free will (liberum arbitrium) is a fiction … for no one has it in his power to think anything good or evil, but all things, as Wyclif’s article condemned at Constance rightly teaches, come to pass by absolute necessity.… There is no doubt that it was by the teaching of Satan that the name of free will was introduced into the Church” (Assert., art. 36). Again, “Man stands as a beast of burden between God and the devil: if God rides it, it goes whither God wills; if Satan rides it, it goes whither Satan wishes it to go. Nor is it in man’s power to choose his rider; the riders, on the contrary, fight for his possession” (De Servo Arbitrio). This doctrine of the original Reformers was afterwards, like so many others, modified, and by degrees completely abandoned. At the present day the orthodox Lutheran teaching differs little, if at all, from the Catholic doctrine.
Working on a will without freedom and totally depraved, grace produces its own fruit without any co-operation on the part of man: it is likened unto a good tree planted in a bad soil. Side by side with it, depraved nature brings forth its own evil fruit. Man is thus half sinner, half saint, unable to fulfil the law and to please God—even when regenerated through grace. The new life is not justice, but only a striving after justice. No difference is made between the two stages of spiritual life, viz. the preparatory stages of faith, and the perfect life of charity; none between venial and mortal sin, or between simple mortal sin and total falling away from God. Man is made responsible for his acts although he is unable to choose. This repulsive doctrine was early abandoned by the followers of Luther; disciples of Calvin, however, seem to uphold it to this very day.
2. The canons appended to the Sixth Session of the Council of Trent frequently reproduce (for condemnation) the heresies of the Reformers in their own wording. The few we translate here serve the double purpose of throwing a clearer light upon the reformed teaching, and of setting forth the Catholic dogma in its most authentic formulas.
“If any one saith that man’s free will, moved and awakened (excitatum) by God, does in no manner (nihil) co-operate when it assents to God, Who excites and calls it, thereby disposing and preparing itself to receive the grace of justification; and (if any one say) that it cannot dissent if it wished, but that, as some inanimate thing, it does nothing whatever and only remains passive, let him be anathema” (can. 4).
“If any one saith that, after the sin of Adam, man’s free will was lost and extinguished, let him be anathema” (can. 5).
“If any one saith that all works done before justification, in whatever way they may be done, are truly sins, or deserve the hatred of God; or that, the more vehemently one strives to dispose himself for grace, the more grievously he sins, let him be anathema” (can. 7).
“If any one saith that the commandments of God are impossible to be observed by man, even when justified and constituted in grace, let him be anathema” (can. 18).
“If any one saith that man, once justified, can sin no more nor lose grace …; or, on the contrary, that he can during his whole life avoid all sins, even venial ones, except by a special privilege of God, as the Church holds of the blessed Virgin, let him be anathema” (can. 23).
“If any one saith that the just, in every good work, sins at least venially, or, what is more intolerable, mortally, and therefore deserves eternal punishment; and that, if he is not damned, it is only because God does not impute to him these works unto damnation, let him be anathema” (can. 25).
“If any one saith that, when grace is lost through sin, faith also is always lost with it; or that the faith which remains is not a true faith, although it be not living; or that he who has faith without charity is not a Christian, let him be anathema” (can. 28).
“If any one saith that the justified man sins when, for the sake of an eternal reward he performs good works, let him be anathema” (can. 31).
IV. The errors of the Reformers were partly reproduced by some Catholic theologians unwilling to break with the Church. Baius (Michael Bay, of Louvain) admitted free will in man, and taught that grace enabled him to perform good and meritorious works. But in many other points he followed the Reformers. We subjoin some of the seventy-nine propositions extracted from his writings and condemned by Pius V. (Bulla, Ex omnibus afflictionibus, Oct. 1, 1567), by Gregory XIII. (1579), and by Urban VIII. (1641).
25. “All the works of infidels are sins, and all the virtues of philosophers are vices.”
27. “Free will (liberum arbitrium), without the help of God’s grace, has only power for sin.”
28. “It is a Pelagian error to say that free will has the power to avoid any sin;”
35. “Every action of the sinner or the slave of sin is a sin.”
46. “A sinful act is not necessarily a voluntary act (Ad rationem peccati non pertinet voluntarium).”
67. “Man sins, even unto damnation, in actions which he performs by necessity.”
70. “Man in the state of mortal sin and under the penalty of eternal damnation, may have true charity; and even perfect charity is consistent with the guilt (reatus) of eternal damnation.”
74. “Concupiscence in the regenerated, who fall back into mortal sin, and in whom it dominates, is a sin, as also are other bad habits.”
V. Jansenius went a step beyond Baius, by trying to introduce Calvin’s errors in a more refined form. We must limit ourselves to giving the famous five propositions taken from the Augustinus of Jansenius, and condemned by Innocent X. (1653), Alexander VII. (1656), and Clement XI. (1705). Supra, p. 190.
1. “Some of God’s precepts are impossible to the just, who wish and strive (to keep them), considering the powers (vires) they actually have; the grace by which they may be made possible is also wanting.”
2. “In the state of fallen nature one never resists interior grace.”
3. “In order to merit or demerit in the state of fallen nature, freedom from necessity (liberty to choose) is not required in man, but freedom from external compulsion (coactio) is sufficient.”
4. “The Semi-Pelagians admitted the necessity of a prevenient (prævenientis) interior grace for each act, even for the beginning of faith; they were heretics because they pretended this grace to be such that the human will could either resist or obey it.”
5. “It is Semi-Pelagian to say that Christ died or shed His blood for all men without exception (omnino omnibus).”
VI. Jansenius had published his doctrines in a strictly scientific form; Quesnel brought them before the public in the attractive garb of popular writings, occasionally reverting to the harsher errors of Baius, which Jansenius had tried to soften down in his system. One hundred and one propositions taken from Quesnel’s works were condemned by Clement XI. in the Bull Unigenitus (1713).
VII. The last manifestation of Jansenism censured by the Church was the pseudo-synod of Pistoja. Eighty-one propositions of the Synod were condemned by Pope Pius VI. in the Bull Auctorem fidei (1794).
Seção 74% da obra, de A Manual of Catholic Theology (Wilhelm & Scannell, sobre a Dogmatik de Scheeben). Ver o original.