piety which they inculcate. For in the view of the Jansenists there is nothing entirely sound and uncorrupted in the practice and institutions of the Romish church. In the first place, they complain that the whole body of the clergy have forsaken altogether the duties of their office. They moreover assert, that the monks are really apostates; and they would have them be brought back to their pristine sanctity, and to that strict course of life which the founders of the several orders prescribed. They would also have the people well instructed in the knowledge of religion and christian piety. They contend, that the sacred volume, and the books containing the forms of public worship, should be put into the hands of the people in the vernacular tongue of each nation, and should be diligently read and studied by all. And lastly, they assert that all the people should be carefully taught that true piety towards God does not consist in external acts and rites, but in purity of heart and divine love. These things, considered in a general view, no one can censure, unless he is himself vicious, or a stranger to the principles of christianity. But if we descend to particulars, and inquire how they trained their people for heaven, it will appear that Jansenian piety leaned greatly towards insupportable superstition and the harsh and fanatical opinions of the so called mystics; and therefore, that it is not entirely without reason they were branded by their adversaries with the title of Rigorists. Their doctrine respecting penitence Those who wish for a fuller knowledge of that gloomy piety, which the Jansenists commonly prescribed to their people, and which was indeed coincident with the patterns set by those that anciently inhabited the desert parts of Egypt, Lybia, and Syria, but was equally remote from the prescriptions of Christ and of right reason, may read only the Letters, and the other writings of the abbot of St. Cyran, whom the Jansenists regard almost as an oracle. He may be called a frank, ingenuous man, sincere in his intercourse with God, superior to most teachers of piety among the Romanists; he may also be called a learned man, and very well acquainted with the opinions and the affairs of the ancients : but, with the Jansenists, to pronounce him the greatest and best, the perfect pattern of holiness, and the most correct teacher of true piety, is what no one can do, unless he affixes new meanings to these terms, and meanings unknown in the sacred writings. That we may not seem to do injustice to so great a man, we will confirm these remarks by some specimens of his wisdom and virtue. This honest man undertook, in a long work, to confute the heretics, that is, the protestants. And for this purpose, was necessary for him to examine the books written by this wicked class of men. But before he proceeded to read any of them, with Martin de Barcos, his nephew, a man very like to his uncle, he was accustomed to expel the devil out of them by the sign of the cross. What the weak consciences of certain persons; and on the death of Anne de Bourbon, in 1679, it was wholly subverted. From this time the Augustinian party were harassed with the same injuries and persecutions as before; which some avoided by a voluntary exile; others endured with fortitude and magnanimity; and others warded off by such means as they could. The head and leader of the sect, Anthony Arnauld', to avoid the fury of his enemies, fled in the year 1679 into the Low Countries; to the great injury of the Jesuits. For this man, possessing extraordinary eloquence and acuteness of mind, instilled his doctrines into the minds of the greatest part of the Belgians; and also induced that portion of the Romish church that was situated among the Dutch to join the Jansenist party, by the influence of John Neercassel, bishop of Castorie, and Peter Codde, archbishop of Sebaste. This Dutch [catholic] church remains to the present day firmly fixed in its purpose, and being safe under the powerful protection of the Dutch government, it despises the indignation of the pontiffs, which it incurs in a very high degree. § 45. The Jansenists, or as they choose to be called, Augustinians, were so very odious to the Jesuits, not merely on account of their doctrine respecting divine grace, (which was in reality the Augustinian doctrine, and almost identical with that of the followers of Calvin, only differently coloured and displayed,) but there were many other things in them, which the defenders of the Romish church cannot approve and tolerate. For it was under Jansenist leaders that all those contests in the Romish church, which we have mentioned above, originated, and have been continued down to our times, in numberless publications printed in the Low Countries and in France'. But there is hardly any thing in them which the Jesuits and the loyal subjects of the Roman pontiffs regard as more intolerable than the system of morals and of practical 1 For an account of this great man see Bayle, Dictionnaire, [art. Arnauld,] tom. i. p. 337, and Histoire Abrégée de la Vie et des Ouvrages de M. Arnaud; Cologne, 1695. 8vo. On the transition of the Dutch church to the Jansenist party, see Lafitau, Vie de Clément IX. tom. i. p. 123, &c. Respect ing Codde, Neercassel, Varlet, and other defenders of the Jansenist cause in Holland, see Dictionnaire des livres Jansenistes, tom. i. p. 48. 121. 353. tom. ii. p. 406. tom. iv. p. 119, &c. and in many other places. 2 See above, century xvi. History of the Romish church, § 31, &c. piety which they inculcate. For in the view of the Jansenists there is nothing entirely sound and uncorrupted in the practice and institutions of the Romish church. In the first place, they complain that the whole body of the clergy have forsaken altogether the duties of their office. They moreover assert, that the monks are really apostates; and they would have them be brought back to their pristine sanctity, and to that strict course of life which the founders of the several orders prescribed. They would also have the people well instructed in the knowledge of religion and christian piety. They contend, that the sacred volume, and the books containing the forms of public worship, should be put into the hands of the people in the vernacular tongue of each nation, and should be diligently read and studied by all. And lastly, they assert that all the people should be carefully taught that true piety towards God does not consist in external acts and rites, but in purity of heart and divine love. These things, considered in a general view, no one can censure, unless he is himself vicious, or a stranger to the principles of christianity. But if we descend toparticulars, and inquire how they trained their people for heaven, it will appear that Jansenian piety leaned greatly towards insupportable superstition and the harsh and fanatical opinions of the so called mystics; and therefore, that it is not entirely without reason they were branded by their adversaries with the title of Rigorists 3. Their doctrine respecting penitence 3 Those who wish for a fuller knowledge of that gloomy piety, which the Jansenists commonly prescribed to their people, and which was indeed coincident with the patterns set by those that anciently inhabited the desert parts of Egypt, Lybia, and Syria, but was equally remote from the prescriptions of Christ and of right reason, may read only the Letters, and the other writings of the abbot of St. Cyran, whom the Jansenists regard almost as an oracle. He may be called a frank, ingenuous man, sincere in his intercourse with God, superior to most teachers of piety among the Romanists; he may also be called a learned man, and very well acquainted with the opinions and the affairs of the ancients : but, with the Jansenists, to pronounce him the greatest and best, the perfect pattern of holiness, and the most correct teacher of true piety, is what no one can do, unless he affixes new meanings to these terms, and meanings unknown in the sacred writings. That we may not seem to do injustice to so great a man, we will confirm these remarks by some specimens of his wisdom and virtue. This honest man undertook, in a long work, to confute the heretics, that is, the protestants. And for this purpose, it was necessary for him to examine the books written by this wicked class of men. But before he proceeded to read any of them, with Martin de Barcos, his nephew, a man very like to his uncle, he was accustomed to expel the devil out of them by the sign of the cross. What especially was injurious both to church and state. They made penitence to consist principally in voluntary punishments; which a sinner should inflict on himself in proportion to his offences. For they maintained, that since man is by nature most corrupt, and most wretched, he ought to retire from the weakness did this manifest! This very holy man, forsooth, was persuaded, that the enemy of mankind had taken up his residence in these writings of the heretics: but it is difficult to tell where he supposed the arch fiend to lie concealed, whether in the paper or in the letters, or between the leaves, or lastly, in the sentiments themselves. Let us hear Claude Lancelot, in his Mémoires touchant la Vie de M. l'Abbé de S. Cyran, tom. 1. p. 226. He says: "Il lisoit ces livres avec tant de pieté, qu'en les prenant il les exorcisoit toujours en faisant le signe de la croix dessus, ne doutant point que la Demon n'y residoit actuellement." He was so charmed with Augustine, as to receive for divine all his sentiments, without discrimination; and even those which all good men, among the catholics themselves, regard as faults in that father. Among others, may be mentioned that dangerous doctrine, that the saints are the legitimate proprietors of the whole world, and that the wicked unjustly possess, according to the divine law, those things of which they are lawful proprietors, according to human laws. Thus, in Nicholas Fontaine's Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire de Port-Royal, tom. i. p. 201, he says: "Jesus Christ n'est encore entré dans la possession de son Royaume temporel et des biens du monde, qui luy appartiennent, que per cette petite portion qu'en tient l'Eglise par les bénéfices de ses Clercs, qui ne sont que les fermiers et les dépositaires de Jésus Christ." So then, if we believe him, a golden age is coming, in which Jesus Christ will dethrone all kings and princes, and seizing upon the whole world, will transfer it entire to his church, of which the leaders are the priests and monks. Will the Jansenists now come forth and proclaim that they make it their greatest care to secure civil governments against the machinations of the Roman pontiffs? Respecting prayer, he philosophizes entirely in the spirit of those who are called mystics. For he denies that those who would pray, should consider beforehand what they would ask of God; because prayer does not consist in the thoughts and conceptions of the mind, but in a sort of blind impulse of divine love. Lancelot, Mémoires touchant la Vie de l'Abbé de S. Cyran, tom. ii. p. 44, says: : "Il ne croyoit pas, que l'on dût faire quelque effort pour s'appliquer à quelque point ou à quelque pensée particulière — parce que la — véritable priere est plutôt un attrait de son amour qui emporte notre cœur vers lui et nous enlève comme hors de nous-mêmes, que non pas une occupation de notre Esprit qui se remplisse de l'idée de quelque objet quoique divin." He, therefore, prays best, who asks for nothing, and excludes all thoughts from his mind. Jesus Christ and his disciples knew nothing of this sublime philosophy: for he directs us to pray in a set form of words; and they, the apostles, frequently acquaint us with the subject matter of their prayers. But of all his errors, this undoubtedly was the worst, that he had no doubts but that he was an instrument of God, by which the Divine Being operates and works; and that he held, generally, that a pious man should follow the impulses of his mind, suspending all exercise of his judgment. And the opinion was most deeply fixed in the minds of all the Jansenists, that God himself acts and operates on the mind, and reveals to it his pleasure, when all movements of the understanding and the will are restrained and hushed. Hence, whatever thoughts, opinions, or purposes occur to them, in that state of quietude, they unhesitatingly regard as oracular manifestations and instructions from God. See Mémoires de Port-Royal, tom. iii. p. 246, &c. world and from business, and to expiate, as it were, his inherent corruption by continual hardships and tortures of the body, by fasting, by hard labour, by prayer, and by meditation; and the more depravity any one has, either by nature, or contracted by habit, the more distress and anguish of body he should impose on himself. And in this matter they were so extravagant, that they did not hesitate to call those the greatest saints, and the sacred victims of penitence, consumed by the fire of divine love, who intentionally pined away and died under these various kinds of sufferings and hardships; nay, they taught that this class of suicides were able to appease the wrath of God, and to merit much for the church and for their friends, with God, by means of their pains and sufferings. This appears from numerous examples, but especially from that of Francis de Paris, [or the Abbé de Paris,] the worker of so many miracles in the Jansenist school, who brought on himself a most cruel death, in order to appease the wrath of God". § 46. A striking example of this gloomy and extravagant devotion was exhibited in the celebrated female convent, called Port Royal in the Fields [Port Royal des Champs], situated in a deep and narrow valley not far from Paris. Henry IV., in the very commencement of this century, gave the superintendence of it to Jaqueline, (one of the daughters of the celebrated jurist Anthony Arnauld,) who afterwards bore the name of Maria Angelica de S. Magdalena. She at first lived a very dissolute life, such as was common at that time in the French nunneries; but in the year 1609 the fear of God came upon her, and she entered upon a very different course of life and afterwards becoming intimate, first with Francis de Sales, and then, in 1623, with the abbot of St. Cyran, she conformed both herself and her convent to their views and prescriptions. The consequence was, that this religious house, for nearly a century, 4 See John Morin's Comment. de Pænitentia, Præf. p. 3, &c. in which there is a tacit censure of the Jansenian notions of penitence. On the other hand, see the Abbé de S. Cyran, in the Mémoires de Port-Royal, tom. iii. p. 483. The Jansenists reckon the restoration of true penitence among the principal merits of St. Cyran and they call him the second father of the doctrine of penitence. See Mémoires de Port-Royal, tom. iii. p. 445. 504, &c. Yet this very penitence of his was not the least of the causes, for which he was thrown into prison, by order of cardinal Richelieu. See ibid. tom. i. p. 233, &c. 452, &c. |