"'Flatter not yourselves,' said [my companion] to the monk [(the Dominican or "New Thomist")], 'with having saved the truth; had she not found other defenders, in your feeble hands she must have perished. By admitting into the Church the name of her enemy, you have admitted the enemy himself. Names are inseparable from things. If the term sufficient [(suffisante)] grace be once established, it will be vain for you to protest that you understand by it a grace which is not sufficient [(insuffisante)]. Your protest will be held inadmissible. Your explanation would be scouted as odious in the world, where men speak more ingenuously about matters of infinitely less moment. The Jesuits will gain a triumph—it will be their grace, which is sufficient in fact, and not yours, which is only so in name, that will pass as established, and the converse of your creed will become an article of faith."
Blaise Pascal, Provincial letters no. 2, as translated by M'Crie, but with M'Crie's italics modified to match the French (GBWW, 1st (1952) ed., vol. 33, p. 12). For the French, see vol. 4 pp. 171-172 of the standard 1904-1914 Brunschvicg edition of the Œuvres. Headline from the previous paragraph. According to Pascal, the Dominicans agreed with the Jansenists as to the substance of the matter, but insisted upon using the terminology of the Jesuits, and thus obscured the said concurrence. From the first Provincial, "Have we not agreed not to explain that word, . . . but to use it . . . without saying what [exactly] it signifies?"
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