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the next to His priesthood, which, however, includes an exposition of the doctrine of the Eucharist. To examine these writers in detail would be to go over again the ground we have already traversed. But one or two specimens shall be given both of the scientific and devotional treatment of the subject during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; and, as the Parisian Sorbonne was at that time the great theological school of the Church, they shall be taken from the works of French divines, most of whom were among its professors.

And first we may notice a famous controversy carried on in France between two of the most distinguished writers of the seventeenth century. Among the many questions, philosophical and theological, on which Malebranche and Arnauld were opposed to each other, one was that so often alluded to in these pages, on the motive of the Incarnation.1 In his Treatise on Nature and Grace, the great Oratorian maintains that Jesus Christ, though His birth among men occurred in the fulness of time, is, in the eternal counsels, the Beginning of the ways of God, the Firstborn of all creation, and the predestined Model whereon our humanity was formed after the image of His. The Word and Wisdom of God, foreseeing among all possible creatures none other that was worthy, offered Himself, to establish as Sovereign Priest an everlasting worship

Malebranche, Traité de la Nature et de la Grâce. Arnauld replied in his Réflexions Philosophiques et Theologiques.

in honour of His Father and to present a Victim deserving of His acceptance. The world was created for the sake of the Church, that is of Christ who is its Head, and man was formed after the image of Christ to be the ornament of this visible temple. So far Malebranche said no more than had often been said before him. But he goes on to observe, that it was requisite for the fulfilment of this design that man should be subject on earth not only to trials and afflictions, but to the movements of concupiscence, in order to illustrate the victories of grace; and that the sin of the first man was necessary, because for making the elect merit that glory which shall be one day theirs, no means could be comparable to leaving them for a while immersed in sin (de les laisser tous envelopper dans le pêche pour leur faire à tous miséricorde en Jésus Christ), inasmuch as the glory they acquire by resisting concupiscence through the grace of Christ is greater than any other. This need not, and perhaps did not, mean more than St. Paul's statement, that God has concluded all under sin, or in unbelief, that He may have mercy upon all; or than the somewhat poetical exclamation of the Roman ritual, O certe necessarium Adø peccatum quod Christi morte deletum est. Indeed Malebranche seems to have moulded his language on

such expressions as these.

Still he certainly laid him

self open to the retort, which was actually made, that

1 Rom. xi, 32; Gal. iii. 22.

on this theory the Fall was not simply permitted but predestined by God, and that "humanity was sacrificed for Christ, not Christ for humanity." Arnauld, however, by no means contented himself with objecting to this part of his opponent's system. He appealed to the authority of Aquinas-which is of course on his side-against the Scotist idea of the Incarnation as independent of the Fall; and, with less prudence, asserted in reliance on Thomassin-what is unquestionably incorrect that the Fathers are unanimous in making the decree of the Incarnation depend on the prevision of sin. It was not to be expected that theologians, whose characteristic principle it was to grudge the universality of redemption, should appreciate what must have appeared to them the very superfluous charity of assuming a nature which did not need to be redeemed. And Arnauld, highly as we may and must respect him as a man and a writer, was, unhappily, deeply imbued with the theological idiosyncracies of his school. He seems on some points to have had the better of his antagonist, whose antipathy to the Jansenistic scheme of predestination did not preserve him from starting another theory, on the relations of grace to the human Soul of Christ, equally arbitrary and in its results equally objectionable.' But, on the whole, we may fairly consider Malebranche as representing in this dispute the patristic and Catholic tradition, while

'Some account of the controversy may be found in Sainte Beuve's Port Royal (Paris, 1859), tom. v. ch. 6. The author seems, strangely enough, to imagine that Malebranche first invented the idea of the Incarnation being predestined independently of the purpose of redemption.

the great champion of Jansenism, like the Lutherans and Calvinists before him, adopts the narrower system which had found favour with some of the Schoolmen, and which till of late has generally prevailed in the more orthodox Protestant theology.

Tournely, the last of the great writers mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, lived in the last century. He was a vigorous, not to say bitter, controversialist. On the doctrines of grace he was vehemently opposed to Thomist opinions, but he adopts the Thomist view of the atonement in its extremest form, treating the question throughout, like Grotius, in reference to the Socinians. Indeed he candidly informs us, that out of the many opinions debated among Catholic divines he has chosen that which appeared to him best adapted "for repressing Socinian impiety." With the great multitude of theologians, he denies any antecedent necessity for the Incarnation, either in itself or assuming the creation or the fall of man. But on the hypothesis of the restoration of fallen man, while admitting in words that by the extraordinary power of God we might have been saved without condign satisfaction, he yet insists that by the ordinary power of God this was impossible; and the ordinary power is explained to mean the laws of Divine justice, which are part of the Divine Nature. And, as he also agrees with the Thomists that there could be no condign satis.action except that of Christ, we may regard him

Honoratus Tournely, Prælect. Theol. de Incarn. Verbi Divini. Parisiis,

ation of fallen man.

as accepting practically the Anselmic view of an absolute necessity for the Incarnation, assuming the restorHe maintains, with Grotius, that the punishment of Christ was strictly and literally substituted for ours, and that He endured the vindictive justice of God in our place, though not, as Lutherans inferred, the torments of the damned. It follows of course that it was not a matter of mercy, but of strict justice, on God's part to accept the satisfaction offered for us, and that He could not do otherwise. Under the term satisfaction, Tournely comprehends the payment of a debt, the appeasing of Divine wrath, and the expiation of the liabilities of sin.

Le Grand, a disciple and continuator of Tournely, follows on the whole his master's teaching, and, like him, directs his argument mainly against the Socinians. But in simplicity of method, moderation of tone, and absence of controversial asperity, his Treatise on the Incarnation' contrasts very favourably with Tournely's Prælections, and in some important points their conclusions are different. Moreover, Le Grand is always very careful, which Tournely is not, to distinguish between his own opinions and the doctrine of the Church. He not only rejects any absolute necessity for the Incarnation, either antecedently or after the Fall, but adds that fallen man might have been otherwise restored, though there could not have been any other condign satisfaction, nor could God have otherwise "expressed His vindic

1 Tractatus de Incarn. Verb. Divini. Parisiis, 1750.

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