γ) Practically it makes no difference whether a man is positively condemned to eternal damnation, as Calvin and the Jansenists assert, or negatively excluded from Heaven, as held by the orthodox theologians whom we have just quoted. The alleged distinction between positive and negative reprobation is “a distinction without a difference.” For an adult to be excluded from Heaven simply means that he is damned. There is no such thing as a middle state or a purely natural beatitude. Lessius justly says that to one reprobated by God it would be all the same whether his reprobation was positive or negative, because in either case he would be inevitably lost.(680) READINGS:—*Ruiz, _De Praedestinatione et Reprobatione_, Lyons 1628.—Ramirez, _De Praedestinatione et Reprobatione_, 2 vols., Alcalá 1702.—*Lessius, _De Perfectionibus Moribusque Divinis_, XIV, 2.—*IDEM, _De Praedestinatione et Reprobatione_ (_Opusc._, Vol. II, Paris 1878).—Tournely, _De Deo_, qu. 22 sqq.—Schrader, _Commentarii_, I-II, _De Praedestinatione_, Vienna 1865.—J. P. Baltzer, _Des hl. Augustinus Lehre über Prädestination und Reprobation_, Vienna 1871.—Mannens, _De Voluntate Dei Salvifica et Praedestinatione_, Louvain 1883.—O. Rottmanner, O. S. B., _Der Augustinismus_, München 1892.—O. Pfülf, S. J., “_Zur Prädestinationslehre des hl. Augustinus_,” in the Innsbruck _Zeitschrift für kath. Theologie_, 1893, pp. 483 sqq.—B. J. Otten, S. J., _A Manual of the History of Dogmas_, Vol. I, St. Louis 1917, pp. 281, 378, 382 sqq. Chapter III. Grace In Its Relation To Free-Will When we speak of the relation of grace to free-will, we mean efficacious grace; merely sufficient grace, as such, does not involve consent. The Protestant reformers and the Jansenists denied the freedom of the human will under the influence of efficacious grace. Catholic theologians have always staunchly upheld both the freedom of the will and the efficacy of grace, but they disagree in explaining the mutual relations between grace and free-will. Section 1. The Heresy of The Protestant Reformers And The Jansenists 1. THE HERETICAL ERRORS OF LUTHER, CALVIN, AND JANSENIUS CONTRASTED WITH THE ORTHODOX TEACHING OF THE CHURCH.—Luther and Calvin asserted that the freedom of the will was irretrievably lost by original sin. Jansenius taught that the will is overcome by efficacious grace in exactly the same way as it is overpowered by concupiscence in the absence of grace. Against both these heresies the Church has always maintained that the will remains free under the influence of efficacious grace. a) Luther taught(681) that original sin has so completely annihilated man’s free-will that he resembles a horse compelled to go in whatever direction it is driven (according as “God or the devil rides him”),(682) and that the grace of Christ, far from restoring man’s liberty, compels him to act with intestine necessity.