The controversy was revived in the Latin Church, about the close of the sixteenth century, both in the Low Countries and in Spain. In 1588, Lewis Molina, a Spanish Jesuit, published lectures on “The Concord of Grace and Free-Will;” and this work, filled with the jargon of the schools, gave rise to disputes which continued to agitate the Church during the whole of the succeeding century. Molina conceived that he had discovered a method of reconciling the divine purposes with the freedom of the human will, which would settle the question forever. According to his theory, God not only foresaw from eternity all things possible, by a foresight of intelligence, and all things future by a foresight of vision; but by another kind of foresight, intermediate between these two, which he termed _scientia media_, or middle knowledge, he foresaw what _might_ have happened under certain circumstances or conditions, though it never may take place. All men, according to Molina, are favored with a general grace, sufficient to work out their salvation, if they choose to improve it; but when God designs to convert a sinner, he vouchsafes that measure of grace which he foresees, according to the middle knowledge, or in all the circumstances of the case, the person will comply with. The honor of this discovery was disputed by another Jesuit, Peter Fonseca, who declared that the very same thing had burst upon his mind with all the force of inspiration, when lecturing on the subject some years before.[4] Abstruse as these questions may appear, they threatened a serious rupture in the Romish Church. The Molinists were summoned to Rome in 1598, to answer the charges of the Dominicans; and after some years of deliberation, Pope Clement VIII. decided against Molina. The Jesuits, however, alarmed for the credit of their order, never rested till they prevailed on the old pontiff to re-examine the matter; and in 1602, he appointed a grand council of cardinals, bishops, and divines, who convened for discussion no less than seventy-eight times. This council was called _Congregatio de Auxiliis_, or council on the aids of grace. Its records being kept secret, the result of their collective wisdom was not known with certainty, and has been lost to the world.[5] The probability is, that like Milton’s “grand infernal peers,” who reasoned high on similar points, “They found no end, in wandering mazes lost.” Those who appealed to them for the settlement of the question, had too much reason to say, as the man in Terence does to his lawyers—“_Fecistis probe; incertior sum multo quam dudum._”[6]