CHAPTER II.

JANSENISM (1595-1700).

Two Divisions: The Trials of the Church.-The Popes and the Defenders of the Church.

SI. THE TRIALS OF THE CHURCH IN THE SEVENTEENTH

CENTURY.

The Persecutions.

THE Church only pursues her course amidst innumerable trials, and never is the testimony of blood wanting to the faith which she teaches. In all centuries she has had her martyrs. In the seventeenth paganism, schism, and heresy showed, as always, their hatred in shedding the blood of the faithful Christians. In Japan persecution was so violent that Christianity disappeared for some time from these islands. Among other martyrs, Europe produced three whom the Church honours with a special worship.

A humble Capuchin, St. Fidelis, born at Sigmaringen, a little town situated on the Danube, having set to work to preach among the Frisons, who had embraced the errors of Calvin, he effected amongst them numerous conversions; but his very success irritated the enemies of the faith. One day as he was preaching in a church a musket-shot was fired at him. He succeeded in

his mouth and jaws in pulling out his teeth. After which they made a large hole in the nape of the neck and tore out his tongue; they flayed him from the neck to the waist; lastly, after having stabbed him with their swords in the shoulders, neck, arms, and hands, they threw him thus mutilated on the public road whilst he still breathed. During these horrible torments he ceased not to repeat the names of Jesus and Mary. At last, in order to imitate the example of his Divine Master, he prayed for his executioners and gave up his soul to God, the 16th May, 1657. Pius IX. beatified him in 1853, and Poland expects the most happy fruits from the solemn canonization for which she is hoping.

Thirty Years' War (1618-1648).

The half of Europe had been steeped in blood by civil war in the sixteenth century; in the seventeenth Protestantism excited a long war in which Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and France took part, whilst persecution against the Catholics raged violently in England, Scotland, and Ireland. The Thirty Years' war terminated by the treaties of Munster and Osnabruck in Westphalia. These treaties consecrated the political existence of Protestantism, which up to that time, had not been recognised, and gave to the Protestants of Germany a position equal to that of the Catholics, so that, from a religious point of view, Protestantism found itself more powerful than before the war, although two Catholic powers, of which one was victorious, France, were the principal intervening parties. Thus was reversed the very constitution of Christianity, which placed the Pope and the Emperor at the head of Christian Society, and which made Catholicity the only religion of Europe. It was the inauguration of the political dogma of religious indifference in matters of Government. From

attempt to make free-will agree with action at the expense of grace, and to sustain a doctrine contrary to that of St. Thomas. Theologians divided themselves into Thomists and Molinists. The Dominicans and the Jesuits generally followed different standards, and the discussion became so hot that Clement VIII. was obliged to interfere. He commenced by imposing silence on the two parties, and created the silence congregation de Auxiliis (of the helps of grace) to examine into the affair. The examination only terminated under the pontificate of Paul V., who left to each one the liberty of following his own opinion, with a formal prohibition of qualifying with heresy or rashness the contrary sentiment.

Jansenism.

A short time after appeared the most subtle and the most wily heresy which has ever existed. Grace was again the subject attacked, and the errors of Baius had prepared the way. Jansenius, Bishop of Ypres, in Flanders, who was imbued with the errors of Baius, died (in 1638), leaving a great work entitled Augustinus, in which he meant to explain the doctrine of St. Augustine on Grace. This work, which only appeared at Louvain in 1640, contained heretical propositions which were immediately condemned by Urban VIII. Innocent X. (1644-1655) successor of Urban, formally condemned five propositions extracted from the book; it is sufficient to remark that one of them pretends "that some of the commandments "of God are impossible to accomplish," and that "it is "an error to say that Jesus Christ died and shed His "blood for all men." But the condemnation of the Pope, which was received everywhere with respect, gave place to subtle distinctions among those who favoured