214

HISTORY OF THE ROMISH CHURCH.

SECT. II.

ter of doctrine and the matter of fact; that is to say, they acknowledged themselves bound to believe, that the five propositions were justly condemned by the pontiff; but they maintain

popes in former times had prudently suppressed || ter to the extent of their desires; for while the the controversies excited by Baius and the doctrine was condemned, the man escaped. Dominicans. But the vivacity, inconstancy, Jansenius was not named in the bull, nor did and restless spirit of the French doctors, the pontiff even declare that the five proposithrew all into confusion, and disconcerted the tions were maintained, in the book entitled measures of the pontiffs. The opposers of the Augustinus, in the sense in which he had condoctrine of Augustine selected five proposi- demned them. Hence the disciples of Augustions out of the work of Jansenius already men- tine and Jansenius defended themselves by a tioned, which appeared to them the most erro- distinction invented by the ingenious and subneous in their nature, and the most pernicious tle Arnaud, in consequence of which they conin their tendency; and, being set on by the in-sidered separately in this controversy the matstigation, and seconded by the influence of the Jesuits, employed their most zealous endeavours and their most importunate entreaties at the court of Rome, to have these propositions condemned. On the other hand, a greated, that the pope had not declared, and conpart of the Gallican clergy used their utmost efforts to prevent this condemnation; and, for that purpose they sent deputies to Rome, to entreat Innocent to suspend his final decision until the true sense of these propositions should be deliberately examined, since the ambiguity of style, in which they were expressed, rendered them susceptible of a false interpretation. But these entreaties were ineffectual: the interest and importunities of the Jesuits prevailed; and the pontiff, without examining the merits of the cause with a suitable degree of impartiality and attention, condemned, by a public bull, on the 31st of May, 1653, the propositions of Jansenius. These propositions contained the following doctrines: 1. "That there are divine precepts which good men, notwithstanding their desire to observe them, are, nevertheless, absolutely unable to obey; nor has God given them that measure of grace, which is essentially necessary to render them capable of such obedience: 2. That no person, in this corrupt state of nature, can resist the influence of divine grace, when it operates upon the mind: 3. That, in order to render human actions meritorious, it is not requisite that they be exempt from necessity, but only that they be free from constraint: 4. That the Semi-Pelagians err grievously in maintaining, that the human will is endowed with the power of either receiving or resisting the aids and influences of preventing grace: 5. That whosoever affirms, that Jesus Christ made expiation, by his sufferings and death, for the sins of all mankind, is a Semi-Pelagian."-Of these propositions the pontiff' declared the first four only heretical; but he pronounced the fifth rash, impious, and injurious to the Supreme Being.f

XLIV. This sentence of the supreme ecclesiastical judge was indeed painful to the Jansenists, and in consequence highly agreeable to their adversaries. It did not however either drive the former to despair, or satisfy the lat

Augustine, Leibnitz, and a considerable number of modern philosophers, who maintain the doctrine of necessity, consider this necessity, in moral actions, as consistent with true liberty, because it is consistent with spontaneity and choice. According to them, constraint alone and external force destroy merit and imputation.

This bull is still extant in the Bullarium Romanum, tom. vi. p. 456. It has also been published, togeth er with several other pieces relating to this controversy, by Du-Plessis D'Argentre, in his Collectio Judiciorum de novis Erroribus tom. iii. p. ii.

sequently that they were bound not to believe, that these propositions were to be found in Jansenius' book, in the sense in which they had been condemned.† They did not however enjoy long the benefit of this artful distinction. The restless and invincible hatred of their enemies pursued them in every quarter where they looked for protection or repose, and at length engaged Alexander VII., the successor of Innocent, to declare, by a solemn bull, issued in 1656, that the five condemned propositions were the tenets of Jansenius, and were contained in his book. The pontiff did not stop here; but to this flagrant instance of imprudence added another still more shocking, for, in 1665, he sent into France the form of a declaration, that was to be subscribed by all those who aspired to any preferment in the church, and in which it was affirmed, that the five propositions were to be found in the book of Jansenius, in the same sense in which they had been condemned by the church. This declaration, whose temerity and contentious tendency appeared in the most odious colours, not only to the Jansenists, but also to the wiser part of the French nation, produced deplorable divisions and tumults. It was immediately opposed with vigour by the Jansenists, who maintained, that in matters of fact the pope was fallible, especially when his decisions were merely personal, and not confirmed by a general council; and, in consequence, that it was neither obligatory nor necessary to subscribe this papal declaration, which had only a matter of fact for its object. The Jesuits, on the contrary, audaciously asserted, even openly, in the city of Paris, and in the face of the Gallican church, that faith and confidence in the papal decisions relating to matter of fact, had no less the characters of a well-grounded and divine faith, than when these decisions related merely to matters of doctrine and opinion. It is to be remarked, on the other hand, that all the Jansenists were by no means so resolute and intrepid as those above-mentioned. Some of them declared. that they would neither subscribe nor reject the Form in question, but would show their

seemly features of the gloomy devotion that was for merly practised by fanatical hermits in the deserts from the dictates of reason and the amiable spirit of Syria, Libya, and Egypt, but is entirely foreign of Christianity,) have only to peruse the epistles and other writings of the abbot of St. Cyran, who is the meaning man; and his piety, such as it was, carried great oracle of the party. This abbot was a wellin it the marks of sincerity and fervour; he was also superior, perhaps, as a pastor, to the greatest part of the Roman catholic doctors; and his learning, more very considerable; but to propose this man as a comespecially his knowledge of religious antiquity, was

steadiness in the principles of Jansenism; and, || they merited in a peculiar manner, by their secured under the protection of the Dutch go-doctrine concerning repentance and penance, vernment, defy the threats, and hold in deri- whose tendency, considered both in a civil and sion the resentment, of the Romish pontiffs.* religious point of view, is singularly pernicious; XLVI. It is not only on account of their embracing the doctrine of Augustine concerning divine grace (a doctrine which bears a striking resemblance to that of the Calvinists,) that the Jansenists have incurred the displeasure and resentment of the Jesuits. They are charged with many other circumstances, which appear intolerable to the warm votaries of the church of Rome. And, indeed, it is certain, that the various controversies, which have been mentioned above, were excited in that church principally by the Jansenists, and have been propa-plete and perfect model of genuine piety, and as a gated and handed down by them, even to our most accurate and accomplished teacher of Christian times, in a prodigious multitude of their books virtue, is an absurdity peculiar to the Jansenists, and can be adopted by no person who knows what published both in France and in the Nethergenuine piety and Christian virtue are. That we lands. But that which offends most the Je- may not seem to detract rashly, and without reason, suits, and the other creatures of the pontiff, is from the merit of this eminent man, it will not be the austere severity that reigns in the system improper to confirm what we have said by some instances. This good abbot, having undertaken to vanof moral discipline and practical religion adopt- quish the heretics, (i. e. the protestants,) in a prolix ed by the Jansenists. For the members of this and extensive work, was obliged to read, or at least sect cry out against the corruptions of the to look into the various writings published by that church of Rome, and complain that neither impious tribe; and this he did in company with his nephew Martin de Barcos, who resembled him entireits doctrines nor morals retain any traces of ly in his sentiments and manners. But before he their former purity. They reproach the clergy would venture to open a book composed by a proteswith an universal depravation of sentiments tant, he constantly marked it with the sign of the and manners, and an entire forgetfulness of the cross, to expel the evil spirit. What weakness and superstition did this ridiculous proceeding discover! dignity of their character, and the duties of for the good man was persuaded that Satan had fixtheir vocation. They censure the licentious-ed his residence in the books of the protestants; but ness of the monastic orders, and insist upon the it is not so easy to determine where he imagined the wicked spirit lay, whether in the paper, in the letters, necessity of reforming their discipline accord-between the leaves, or in the doctrines of these infer ing to the rules of sanctity, abstinence, and nal productions. Let us see the account that is self-denial, that were originally prescribed by given of this matter by Lancelot, in his Memoires touchant la Vie de M. l'Abbe de S. Cyran, tom. i. p. their respective founders. They maintain, also, 226. His words are as follow: "Il lisoit ces livres that the people ought to be carefully instructed in all the doctrines and precepts of Christianity, and that, for this purpose, the Scriptures and public liturgies should be offered to their perusal in their mother tongue; and, finally, they look upon it as a matter of the highest moment to persuade all Christians that true piety does not consist in the observance of pompous rites, or in the performance of external acts of devotion, but in inward holiness and divine love.

avec tant de piete, qu'en les prenant il les exorcisoit toujours en faisant la signe de la croix dessus, ne doutant point que le demon n'y residoit actuelle. ment." His attachment to Augustine was so exces. sive, that he looked upon as sacred and divine even those opinions of that great man, which the wiser part of the Romish doctors had rejected as erroneous the extravagant and pernicious tenet, that the saints and highly dangerous. Such, (among others,) was are the only lawful proprietors of the world, and that the wicked have no right, by the divine law, to those things which they possess justly, in consequence of the decisions of human law. To this purpose is the following assertion of our abbot, as we find it in These sentiments of the Jansenists, on a ge- Fontaine's Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire de neral view, seem just and rational, and suitaPort-Royal, tom. i. p. 201. "Jesus Christ n'est encore ble to the spirit and genius of Christianity; but, entre dans la possession de son royaume temporel, et des biens du monde qui lui appartiennent, que par when we examine the particular branches into cette petite portion qu'en tient l'eglise par les benefi which they extend these general principles, the ces de ses clercs, qui ne sont que les fermiers et les consequences they deduce from them, and the depositaires de Jesus Christ." If, therefore, we are to give credit to this visionary man, the golden age manner in which they apply them, in their is approaching, when Jesus Christ, having pulled rules of discipline and practice, we shall find, down the mighty from their seats, and dethroned the that the piety of this famous party is deeply kings and princes of the earth, shall reduce the whole tinged both with superstition and fanaticism; the government of priests and monks, who are the world under his sole dominion, and give it over to that it more especially favours the harsh and princes of his church.-After we have seen such senenthusiastical opinion of the Mystics; and, in timents as these maintained by their oracle and consequence, that the Jansenists are not unde-chief, it is natural to be surprised when we hear the servedly branded by their adversaries with the appellation of Rigorists. This denomination

* It must, however, be observed, that, notwithstanding the ascendency which the Jansenists have in Holland, the Jesuits, for some time past, have by artifice and disguise gained a considerable footing among the Romish churches that are tolerated by the republic.

† See Hist. Eccles. Rom. sæc. XVI. sect. xxxi.

They who desire to form a just notion of the dismal piety of the Jansenists, (which carries the un

Jansenists boasting of their zeal in defending sove

reign states, and, in general, the civil rights of mankind, against the stratagems and usurpations of the pontiff's.

The notions of the abbot of St. Cyran concerning prayer, which breathe the fanatical spirit of mysti cism, will farther confirm what we have said of his propensity to enthusiasm. It was, for example, a favourite maxim with him, that the Christian who prays, ought never to recollect the good things he stands in need of in order to ask them of God, since true prayer does not consist in distinct notions and clear ideas of what we are doing in that soleinn act,

PART I.

for they make repentance consist chiefly in those voluntary sufferings, which the transgressor inflicts upon himself, in proportion to the nature of his crimes and the degree of his guilt. As their notions of the extent of man's original corruption are greatly exaggerated, they prescribe remedies to it that are of the same nature. They look upon Christians as bound to expiate this original guilt by acts of mortification performed in solitude and silence, by torturing and macerating their bodies, by painful labour, excessive abstinence, continual prayer and contemplation; and they hold every person obliged to increase these voluntary pains and sufferings, in proportion to the degree of corruption derived by each from nature, or contracted by a vicious and licentious course of life. They even carry these austerities to so high a pitch, that they do not scruple to call those holy self-tormentors, who have gradually put an end to their days by excessive abstinence or labour, the 'sacred victims of repentance, that have been consumed by the fire of divine love.' Not satisfied with this fanatieal language, they go still farther, and superstitiously maintain, that the conduct of these self-murderers is peculiarly meritorious in the eye of Heaven; and that their sufferings, macerations, and labours, appease the anger of the Deity, and not only contribute to their own felicity, but draw down abundant blessings upon their friends and upon the church. We might confirm this account by various examples, and more especially by that of the famous abbe de Paris, the great wonder-worker of the Jansenists, who put himself to a most painful death, in order to satisfy the justice of an incensed

but in a certain blind impulse of divine love. Such is the account given of the abbot's sentiments on this head by Lancelot, tom. ii. p. 44.-" Il ne croyoit pas, (says that author,) que l'on put faire quelque effort pour s'appliquer a quelque point, ou a quelque pensee particuliere-parce que la veritable priere est plutot un attrait de son amour, qui emporte notre eœur vers lui, et nous enleve comme hors de nous memes, qu'une occupation de notre esprit, qui se remplisse de l'idee de quelque objeti quoi que divin." According to this hypothesis, the man prays best who neither thinks nor asks, in that act of devotion. This is, indeed, a very extraordinary account of the matter, and contains an idea of prayer which seems to have been quite unknown to Christ, and his apostles; for the former has commanded us to address our prayers to God in a set form of words; and the latter frequently tell us the subjects of their petitions and supplications.

But, of all the errors of this Arch-Jansenist, not one was so pernicious as the fanatical notion he entertained of his being the residence of the Deity, the instrument of the Godhead, by which the divine nature itself essentially operated. It was in conse quence of this dangerous principle, that he recommended it as a duty incumbent on all pious men to follow, without consulting their judgment or any other guide, the first motions and impulses of their minds, as the dictates of Heaven. And, indeed, the Jansenists, in general, are intimately persuaded, that God operates immediately upon the minds of those who have composed, or rather suppressed, all the motions of the understanding and of the will, and that to such he declares, from above, his intentions and commands; since whatever thoughts, inelinations, or designs, arise within them, in this calm state of tranquillity and silence, are to be considered as the direct suggestions and oracles of the divine wisdom. See, for a farther account of this pestilential doctrine, the Memoires de Port Royal, tom. iii. p. 246.

God:* such was the picture he had formed of
the best of beings in his disordered fancy.
XLVII. A striking example of this austere,
forbidding, and extravagant species of devo-
tion, was exhibited in that celebrated female
convent called Port-Royal in the Fields, which
was situated in a retired, deep, and gloomy
vale, not far from Paris. Henry IV. commit-
ted the inspection and government of this aus-
tere society, about the commencement of this
century, to Jaqueline, daughter of Antoine
Arnaud,† who, after her conversion, assumed
the name of Marie Angelique de la Sainte-
Madelaine. This lady had at first led a very
dissolute life, which was the general case of
the cloistered fair in France about this period;
but a remarkable change happened in her sen-
timents and manners, in 1609, when she re-
solved no more to live like a nun, but to con-
secrate her future days to deep devotion and
penitential exercises. This holy resolution
was strengthened by her acquaintance with
the famous Francois de Sales, and the abbot
The last of these pious con-
of St. Cyran.
nexions she formed in 1623, and regulated
both her own conduct and the manners of her
convent by the doctrine and example of these
devout men. Hence it happened, that, during
the whole course of this century, the convent
of Port-Royal excited the indignation of the
Jesuits, the admiration of the Jansenists, and
the attention of Europe. The holy virgins
observed, with the utmost rigour and exact-
ness, that ancient rule of the Cistercians, which
had been almost every where abrogated on
account of its excessive and intolerable aus-
terity: they even went beyond its most cruel
demands. Such was the fame of this devout

* See Morin's Com. de Pœnitentia, præf. p. 3, in
which there is a tacit censure of the penance of the
Jansenists.-See, on the other hand, the Memoires
de Port-Royal.-The Jansenists, among all the meri-
torious actions of the abbot of St. Cyran, find none
more worthy of admiration and applause than his
restoring from oblivion the true system of peniten-
tial discipline; and they consider him as the second
author or parent of the doctrine of penance. This
very doctrine, however, was one of the principal
der of cardinal Richelieu.
reasons of his being committed to prison by the or-

An eminent lawyer, and father to the famous Arnaud, doctor of the Sorbonne.

The dissolute life imputed to this abbess by Dr. Mosheim is an egregious mistake, which seems to have proceeded from his misunderstanding a passage in Bayle's Dictionary, vol. i. p. 338, note f, the fourth French edition.

§ There is a prodigious multitude of books still extant, in which the rise, progress, laws, and sanctity, of this famous convent, are described and extolled by eminent Jansenists, who, at the same time, deplore its fate in the most doleful strains. Of this multitude we shall mention those only which may easily be procured, and which contain the most moestablishment.-The Benedictines of St. Maur have dern and circumstantial accounts of that celebrated given an exact, though dry history of this convent in their Gallia Christiana, tom. vii. A more elegant and agreeable account of it, charged, however, with imperfection and partiality, was composed by the famous poet Racine, under the title of Abrege de l'Histoire de Port-Royal, and was published, after having passed through many editions, in the year 1750, at Amsterdam, among the works of his son Lonis Racine, tom. ii. The external state and form of this convent are professedly described by Moleon, in his Voyages Liturgiques, p. 234.-Add to these, Nic. Fontaine's Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire de

language and the principles of science; but the far greatest part exhausted both the health of their bodies and the vigour of their minds in servile industry and rural labour, and thus pined away by a slow kind of death. What is singularly surprising is, that many of these voluntary victims of an inhuman piety were persons illustrious both by their birth and stations, who, after having distinguished themselves in civil or military employments, debased themselves so far in this penitential retreat, as to assume the character, offices, and labours, of the lowest servants.

sisterhood, that multitudes of pious persons || ployed in teaching youth the rudiments of were ambitious to dwell in the neighbourhood of Port-Royal, and that a great part of the Jansenist Penitents, or self-tormentors, of both sexes, built huts without its precincts, where they imitated the manners of those austere and gloomy fanatics, who, in the fourth and fifth centuries, retired into the wild and uncultivated places of Syria and Egypt, and were commonly called the Fathers of the Desert. The end which these penitents had in view was, by silence, hunger, thirst, prayer, bodily labour, watchings, sorrow, and other voluntary acts of self-denial, to efface the guilt, and remove the pollution which the soul had derived from natural corruptions or evil habits.* They did not, however, all observe the same discipline, or follow the same kind of application and labour. The more learned consumed their strength in composing laborious productions filled with sacred and profane erudition, and some of these have, no doubt, deserved well of the republic of letters: others were em

Port-Royal, published in 1738.-The Memoires (by Du-Fosse) pour servir a l'Histoire de Port-Royal; and the Recueil de plusiers Pieces pour servir a l'Histoire de Port-Royal. The editor of this last compilation promises, in his preface, farther collections of pieces relative to the same subject, and seems to insinuate, that a complete history of Port-Royal, drawn from these and other valuable and authentic records, will sooner or later see the light. See, beside the authors

above-mentioned, Lancelot's Memoires touchant la Vie de l'Abbe de St. Cyran. All these authors confine their relations to the external form and various revolutions of this nunnery. Its internal state, its rules of discipline, the manners of its virgins, and the incidents and transactions that happened between them and the holy neighbourhood of Jansenists, are described and related by another set of writers. See the Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire de PortRoyal, et a la Vie de Marie Angelique D'Arnaud, published at Utrecht in 1742; also the Vies interessantes et edifiantes des Religieuses de Port-Royal, et de plusieurs Personnes qui leur etoient attachees; and, for an account of the suppression and abolition of this convent, see the Memoires sur la Destruction de l'Abbaye de Port Royal des Champs. If we do not mistake, all these histories and relations have been much less serviceable to the reputation of this famous convent than the Jansenist party are willing to think. When we view Arnaud, Tillemont, Nicole, Le Maitre, and the other authors of PortRoyal, in their learned productions, they then ap pear truly great; but, when we lay aside their works, and, taking up these histories of Port-Royal, see these great men in private life, in the constant practice of that austere discipline of which the Jansenists boast so foolishly, they shrink almost to no thing, appear in the contemptible light of fanatics, and seem totally unworthy of the fame they have acquired. When we read the Discourses that Isaac le Maitre, commonly called Sacy, pronounced at the bar, together with his other ingenious productions, we cannot refuse him the applause that is due to such an elegant and accomplished writer: but when we meet with this polite author at Port-Royal, mix ed with labourers and reapers, and with the spade or the sickle in his hand, he certainly makes a ludicrous or comical figure, and can scarcely be looked upon as perfectly right in his head.

Among the most eminent of these penitents was Isaac le Maitre, a celebrated advocate at Paris, whose eloquence had procured him a shining reputation, and who, in 1637, retired to Port-Royal, to make expiation for his sins. The retreat of this Cyran. See the Memoires pour l'Histoire de PortRoyal, tom. i. p. 223. The example of Le Maitre was followed by some persons of the highest distinc tion, and by a great number of persons of all ranks.

eminent man raised new enemies to the abbot of St.

See the Vies des Religieuses de Port Royal, t. i. p.

141

This celebrated retreat of the devout and austere Jansenists was subject to many vicissitudes during the whole course of this century: at one time it flourished in unrivalled glory; at another, it seemed eclipsed, and on the brink of ruin. At length, however, the period of its extinction approached. The nuns obstinately refused to subscribe the declaration of pope Alexander VII., that has been so often mentioned; on the other hand, their convent and rule of discipline were considered as detrimental to the interests of the kingdom, and a dishonour to some of the first families in France; hence Louis XIV., in 1709, instigated by the violent counsels of the Jesuits, ordered the convent to be suppressed, the whole building to be levelled with the ground, and the nuns to be removed to Paris. And, lest there should still remain some secret fuel to nourish the flame of superstition in that place, he ordered the very carcases of the nuns and devout Jansenists to be dug up and buried elsewhere.

XLVIII. The other controversies that disturbed the tranquillity of the church of Rome, were but light blasts when compared with this violent hurricane. The old debate, however, between the Franciscans and Dominicans, concerning the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary, which was maintained by the former, and denied by the latter, gave much trouble and perplexity to the pontiffs, and more especially to Paul V., Gregory XV., and Alexander VII. The kingdom of Spain was so agitated and divided into factions by this controversy, in the former part of this century, that solemn embassies were sent to Rome, both by Philip III., and his successor, with a view to engage the Roman pontiff to determine the question, or, at any rate, to put an end to the contest by a public edict. But, notwithstanding the weighty solicitations of these monarchs, the oracle of Rome pronounced nothing but ambiguous words; and its high priests prudently avoided coming to a plain and positive decision of the affair. If they were awed, on one hand, by the warm remonstrances of the Spanish court, which favoured the sentiment of the Franciscans, they were restrained, on the other, by the credit and influence of the Dominicans: so that, after the most earnest entreaties and importunities, all that could be obtained from the pontiff, by the court of Spain, was a declaration, intimating that the opinion of the Franciscans had a high degree of probability on its side, and forbidding the but this declaration was accompanied with Dominicans to oppose it in a public manner;