Note 90 — LETTER I.

New Thomists. It is more difficult to trace or remember the various sects into which the Roman Church is divided, than those of the Protestant Church. The New Thomists were the disciples of Diego Alvarez, a theologian of the order of St. Dominic, who flourished in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He was sent from Spain to Rome in 1596, to defend the doctrine of grace against Molina, and distinguished himself in the Congregation De Auxiliis. The New Thomists contended for efficacious grace, but admitted at the same time, a sufficient grace, which was given to all, and yet not sufficient for any actual performance without the efficacious. The ridiculous incongruity of this doctrine is admirably exposed by Pascal in his second letter.