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"You approach that famous point of free will which is a mortal rock. You face the insinuations of the Pelagians and the semi-Pelagians." "But, my Reverend-" replied Aramis, a little amazed by the shower of arguments that poured upon his head. "How will you prove," continued the Jesuit, without allowing him time to speak, "that we ought to regret the world when we offer ourselves to God?
V. The semi-Pelagians also erred in saying that Christ died or shed His blood for all men universally. It would be needless for us to touch these propositions, even by way of explanation. We have endeavoured to state them from the original Latin as clearly as we can, so that they may bear some definite meaning even to the non-theological reader.
The semi-Pelagians held that man could turn to God by his own strength, but that divine grace was necessary to enable him to persevere. One heretic of this period deserves a special word of record. Vigilantius was a Gallic priest, remarkable for his eloquence and learning, and he devoted himself to an effort to reform the Church in Spain.
Consult the Synod of Orange, by which the Priests of Marseilles were confuted. But those that believe predestination is a consequence of prescience, or that grace is given to all men, or in fine that it may be refilled, are certainly not Semi-Pelagians." They carried their calumnies so far, as even to accuse him of Judaism.
The sentiments of the Remonstrants are very different from Semi-Pelagianism, for the Priests of Marseilles, who were called Semi-Pelagians, or the remains of the Pelagians, in speaking of the necessity of grace, denied that grace preceded good motions in the foul, at least in some men: the Remonstrants, on the contrary, maintain, that all that is spiritually good in us, even the beginning of it flows from antecedent grace.
III. In order to render human actions meritorious or otherwise, liberty from necessity is not required, but only liberty from constraint. IV. The semi-Pelagians, while admitting the necessity of prevenient grace—or grace preceding all actions—were heretics, inasmuch as they said that this grace was such as man could, according to his will, either resist or obey.
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