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AND THEIR REFUTATION. 335
his whole blood for his salvation." And the Assembly of the
Galilean Clergy, in 1714, declared that all the faithful, both just
and sinners, are bound to believe that Jesus Christ has died for
their salvation.
17. Now, when the Jansenists held that our Redeemer did
not die for all the faithful, but only for the elect, they say, then,
he had no love for us. One of the principal motives which
induces us to love our Saviour and his Eternal Father, who has
given him to us, is the great work of Redemption, by which we
know that for love of us the Son of God sacrificed himself on
the Cross :
" He loved us, and delivered himself up for us"
(Ephes. v, 2). It was this same love that inclined the Eternal
Father to give up his only begotten Son :
" God so loved the
world as to give up his only begotten Son" (John iii, 16). This
was the chief incentive St. Augustin made use of to inflame
Christians with the love of Jesus :
"
Ipsum dilige ; qui
ad hoc de-
scendit, ut pro tua salute sufferret" (43). When the Jansenists,
then, believe that Christ died solely for the elect, how can they
have for him an ardent affection, as having died for love of them,
when they cannot be sure that they are among the number of
the predestined? They must, consequently, be in doubt that
Christ died for love of them.
18. This belief of theirs, that Christ did not die for all the
faithful, is also totally destructive of Christian hope. Christian
hope, as St. Thomas defines it, is an expected certainty of eternal
life :
"
Spes est expectatio certa beatitudinis" (44). We are,
therefore, bound to hope that God will surely save us, trusting to
the promises of salvation, through the merits of Jesus Christ,
who died to save us, if we correspond to his grace. This is what
Bossuet states, also, in the Catechism which he composed for his
Diocese of Meaux : Q. Why do you say that you hope
for the
eternal life which God has promised ? A. Because the promise
of God is the foundation of our hope (45).
19. A modern writer, in a work entitled
"
Christian Confi
dence," says that we should not found the certainty of our hope
on the general promise made by God to all believers, that he will
give them eternal life, if they faithfully correspond to his Grace,
(43) St. August. Tract. 2, in Ep.l, Jo. (45) Bossuet Catech. Meldens. 3,
(44) St. Thorn. 2, 2, q. 18, a. 4. p. 161, n. 117.