he tells us himself, to show what ought to be believed on these subjects, but merely what Augustine believed. But, as the doctrine of Augustine (which differed little from that of St. Thomas [Aquinas], which was embraced by the Dominicans,) was accounted almost sacred and divine, in the Romish church, on account of the high character and merits of the author of it; and, at the same time, was almost diametrically opposite to the common sentiments of the Jesuits; this work of Jansenius could not but appear to them as a silent although a most effectual confutation of their sentiments. Hence, they not only attacked it with their own writings, but also instigated the pontiff, Urban VIII., to condemn it. Nor were their efforts unsuccessful. First, the inquisitors at Rome, in 1641, prohibited the reading of it; and then, in 1642, Urban himself, in a public decree, pronounced it contaminated with several errors long since rejected by the church.

§40. The Jesuits and the Romish edicts were opposed by the doctors of Louvain, and by the other admirers of Augustine, who were always very numerous in the Low Countries. Hence there arose an extremely embarrassing, and, to the Belgic provinces, a most mischievous controversy." It had scarcely commenced when it spread into the neighbouring France; where John du Verger de Hauranne, abbot of St. Cyran or Sigeran, an intimate friend of Jansenius, a man of an accomplished and elegant mind, and no less respected for the purity of his morals and the sanctity of his life than for his erudition, had already inspired great numbers with attachment to Augustine and hatred of the Jesuits. The greatest part of the learned in this most

6

[Thus Jansenius, in his Augustinus, tom. ii. Introductory Book, cap. xxix. p. 65, says: "Non ego hic de nova aliqua sententia reperienda disputo sed de antiqua Augustini.-Quæritur, non quid de naturæ humanæ statibus et viribus, vel de Dei gratia et prædestinatione sentiendum sit : sed quid Augustinus olim ecclesiæ nomine et applausu -tradiderit, prædicaverit, scriptoque multipliciter consignaverit."]

[The principal adherents to Jansenius in the Netherlands, were James Boonen, the archbishop of Mechlin; Libertus Fromond, a pupil, friend, and successor of Jansenius, in the professorial chair at Louvain; and Henry

Calen, a canon of Mechlin, and archpriest of Brussels. Schl.]

He is esteemed by all the Jansenists, as highly as Jansenius himself; and he is said to have aided Jansenius in composing his Augustinus. The French especially, who are partial to the doctrines of Augustine, reverence him as a father and an oracle, and extol him above Jansenius himself. His life and history have been duly written by Claude Lancelot, Mémoires touchant la Vie de M. S. Cyran; published at Cologne, (or rather at Utrecht,) 1738, 2 vols. 8vo. Add the Recueil de plusieurs Pièces pour servir à l'Histoire de PortRoyal, p. 1-150. Utrecht, 1740, 8vo.

flourishing kingdom had connected themselves with the Jesuits: because their doctrines were more grateful to human nature, and better accorded with the nature of the Romish religion and the interests of that church, than the Augustinian principles. But the opposite party embraced, besides some bishops of high reputation for piety, the men of the best and most cultivated minds almost throughout France; Anthony Arnauld, Peter Nicole, Blaise Pascal, Pascal Quesnel, and the numerous other famous and excellent men, who are denominated the Port-Royal authors; likewise a great number of those who looked on the vulgar piety of the Romish church, which is confined to the confession of sins, frequent attendance on the Lord's Supper, and some external works, as far short of what Christ requires of his followers; and who believed that the soul of a Christian, who would be accounted truly pious, ought to be full of genuine faith and love to God. Thus, as the one party had the advantage of numbers and power, and the other that of talent and pious fervour, it is not difficult to understand why this controversy is still kept up, although it is now a whole century since its commencement.7

§ 41. The attentive reader of this protracted contest will be amused to see the artifices and stratagems with which the one party conducted their attack, and the other their defence. The Jesuits came forth, armed with decrees of the pontiff, mandates

Arnaud d'Andilly, Mémoires au sujet de l'Abbé de S. Cyran; printed in the Vies des Religieuses de Port-Royal, tom. i. p. 15-44. Bayle, Dictionnaire, tom. ii. [p. 531, artic. Garasse, note D. Tr.] Dictionnaire des Livres Jansénistes, tom. i. p. 133, &c. See also, respecting his early studies, Gabrial Liron, Singularités Histor. et Littér. tom. iv. p. 507, &c. [Jo. Verger de Hauranne was born at Bayonne, in 1581, became abbot of St. Cyran in 1620, was thrown into prison by Richelieu in 1638, released in 1643, and died the same year, aged 62. He held much the same sentiments with Jansenius and spread them extensively by conversation. His works are: Somme des Fautes, &c. de Garasse, (a Jesuit writer,) 3 vols. 4to: Spiritual Letters, 2 vols. 4to: Apology for Roche-Posay, &c., and Question Royale. Tr.]

The history of this controversy is to be found entire, or in part, in a great number of books. The following may

supersede all the rest: Gabriel Gerberon, Histoire Générale du Jansénisme, Amsterd. 1700, 3 vols. 8vo, and Lyons, 1708, 5 vols. 12mo. The Abbé du Mas, (a senator of Paris, who died 1722,) Histoire des cinq Propositions de Jansénius, Liege, 1694, 8vo. Du Mas favours the Jesuits; Gerberon favours the Jansenists. Michael Leydecker, Historia Jansenismi Libri vi. Utrecht, 1695, 8vo. Voltaire, Siècle de Louis XIV. tom. ii. p. 264, &c. Many books on this subject, by both parties, are mentioned in the Bibliothèque Janseniste, ou Catalogue Alphabétique des principaux Livres Jansénistes, published in 1735, 8vo, and said to be the work of Dominic Colonia, a learned Jesuit. See Recueil des Pièces pour servir à l'Histoire de Port-Royal, p. 325, &c. But as already remarked, this book, much enlarged, appeared under the title of Dictionnaire des Livres Jansénistes, Antw. 1752, 4 vols. 8vo.

of the king, the most odious comparisons, the support of great men, the good-will of most of the bishops, and, lastly, force and bayonets. The Jansenists enervated those decrees and mandates by the most subtle distinctions and interpretations, nay, by the same sophistry which they condemned in the Jesuits; odious comparisons they destroyed by other comparisons equally odious to the menaces of great men and bishops they opposed the favour of the multitude; and physical force they vanquished by divine power, that is, by the miracles of which they boasted. Perceiving that their adversaries were not to be overcome by the soundest arguments and proofs, they endeavoured to conciliate the favour of the pontiffs, and of the people at large, by their meritorious and splendid deeds, and by their great industry. Hence they attacked spiritedly those enemies of the church, the protestants, and endeavoured to circumvent them with contrivances and sophisms that were entirely new applied themselves to the education of youth of all classes, and imbued them with the elements of the liberal arts and sciences; they composed very neat and elegant treatises on grammar, philosophy, and the other branches of learning; they gained a hold upon the highest, the middle, the lowest walks of life, by devotional and practical treatises composed in the most elegant manner; they hit upon a style, pure, easy, agreeable, and translated with uncommon skill not a few of the ancient writers: and lastly, they sought to persuade, and actually did persuade, very many to believe that God himself espoused their cause, and had, by many prodigies and miracles, placed the truth of the Augustinian doctrine beyond all controversy. As all these things have great

That the Jansenists or Augustinians have long resorted to miracles, in support of their cause, is very well known. And they themselves confess, that they have been saved from ruin, when nearly in despair, by means of miracles. See Mémoires de Port-Royal, tom. i. p. 256, tom ii. p. 107. The first of these miracles were those said to have been performed, in the convent of PortRoyal, from the year 1656, onwards, in the cure or several afflicted persons, by means of a thorn from that crown, which the Roman soldiers placed on the head of our most holy Saviour. See Recueil de plusieurs Pièces pour servir à l'Histoire de Port-Royal, p. 228. 448.

Fontaine, Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire de Port-Royal, tom. ii. p. 131, &c. Other miracles followed in the year 1661. Vies des Religieuses de Port-Royal, tom. i. p. 192; and in the year 1664; Mémoires de Port-Royal, tom. iii. p. 252. The fame of these miracles was great, and very useful to the Augustinians, in the seventeenth century; but at present, it is quite hushed. In our age, therefore, when hard pressed, they have resisted the fury of their enemies by new and more numerous prodigies. If we may believe them, the first occurred on the 31st of May, 1725, in the person of a certain woman named de la Fosse; who was suddenly cured of a bloody flux,

influence with mankind, they often rendered the victory of the Jesuits quite dubious; and perhaps the Jansenists would have triumphed if the cause of the Jesuits had not been the cause of the church; the safety of which depends, in a great measure, on those opinions which the Jesuits approve.

§ 42. Various circumstances lead to the conclusion that Urban VIII., and afterwards Innocent X., were desirous of suppressing these dangerous commotions in their commencement; as the former pontiffs had wisely suppressed the contests between Baius and the Dominicans. But they were unable to do it in consequence of the highly excitable and fervid tempers of the French. The adversaries of the Augustinian doctrines extracted from the work of Jansenius five propositions which were thought to be the worst; and instigated especially by the Jesuits, they never ceased from urging Innocent to condemn them. A large part of the French clergy most earnestly resisted such a measure by representatives whom they sent to Rome, and wisely suggested that it was of the first importance to distinguish the different constructions that might be put upon those propositions, since they were ambiguous, and would admit of a true as well as a false interpretation. But Innocent X., overcome by the incessant and importunate clamours of the Jesuits, without maturely considering the case, hastily condemned those propositions in a public edict, dated May 31st, 1653.

when she had supplicated relief, from a host carried by a priest of the Jansenian sect. Two years afterwards, in 1727, the tomb of Gerhard Rousse, a canon of Avignon, was ennobled by very splendid miracles. Lastly, in the year 1731, the bones of Francis de Paris [commonly called the Abbé de Paris], which were interred at St. Medard, were famed for numberless miracles: and what warm disputes there have been, and still are, respecting these, every one knows. It is also said, that Paschasius Quesnel, Levier, Desangins, and Tournus, those great ornaments of the sect, have often afforded relief to the sick, who relied on their merits and intercession. See, Jésus Christ sous l'Anathème et sous l'Excommunication; a celebrated Jansenist book, written against the Bull Unigenitus, art. xvii. p. 61, art. xviii. p. 66, ed. Utrecht. A great part of the Jansenists contend for the reality of these

miracles, with good faith: for this sect abounds with persons who are by no means corrupt, but whose picty is unenlightened, and to whom the truth and divinity of their cause appear so manifest, that they readily believe it cannot possibly be neglected by the Deity. But it is incredible that so many persons of distinguished penetration, as formerly were, and still are, followers of this sect, should not know that the powers of nature, or the operation of medicines, or the influence of the imagination, accomplished these cures, which deceivers, or men blinded by party zeal, have ascribed to the almighty power of God. Such persons, therefore, must be of the opinion, that it is lawful to promote a holy and righteous cause, by means of deceptions, and to take advantage of the misapprehensions of the multitude, in order to confirm the truth.

The substance of the first proposition was: That there are some commands of God, which righteous and good men are absolutely unable to obey, though disposed to do it; and that God does not give them so much grace that they are able to observe them.— Secondly: That no person in this corrupt state of nature can resist divine grace operating upon the mind. Thirdly: That in order to earn praise or blame before God, a man has no occasion to be exempt from necessity, but only from coercion.- Fourthly: That the Semi-Pelagians erred greatly by supposing that the human will has the power both of admitting and of rejecting the operations of internal preventing grace.-Fifthly: That whoever affirms that Jesus Christ made expiation by his sufferings and death for the sins of all mankind, is a Semi-Pelagian.-The first four of these propositions Innocent pronounced to be directly heretical; but the fifth, he declared to be only rash, irreligious, and injurious to God."

§ 43. This sentence of the supreme ecclesiastical judge was indeed painful and perplexing to the friends of Jansenius, and grateful and agreeable to their enemies; yet it did not fully satisfy, the latter nor entirely dishearten the former. For Jansenius himself had escaped condemnation; the pontiff not having declared that the heretical propositions were to be found in his Augustinus in that sense in which they were condemned. The Augustinians, therefore, under the guidance of the very acute Anthony Arnauld, distinguished in this controversy between the point of law and the point of fact; (questionem juris and questionem facti ;) that is, they maintained that we ought to believe those propositions to be justly condemned by the pontiff; but that it was not necessary to believe, nor

This Bull is extant, in the Bullarium Romanum, tom. v. p. 486. It is also published, together with many public Acts relating to this subject, by Charles du Plessis d'Argentre, in his Collectio Judiciorum de novis Erroribus, tom. iii. pt. ii. p. 261. &c. [Dr. Mosheim mistook, in regard to the sentence pronounced on the several propositions. The Bull says of the first: "Temerariam, impiam, blasphemam, anathemate damnatam, et hæreticam declaramus, et uti talem damnamus." Of the second and the third, it says simply: "Hæreti

cam declaramus, et uti talem damnamus." Of the fourth, it says: "Falsam et hæreticam declaramus, et uti talem damnamus." And of the fifth, it says; "Falsam, temerariam, scandalosam, et intellectam eo sensu, ut Christus pro salute dumtaxat prædestinatorum mortuus sit Impiam, blasphemam, contumeliosam, divinæ pietati derogantem, et hæreticam declaramus, et uti talem damnamus." So that the sentence on the fifth proposition was the most severe; and that on the first, next to it in severity. Tr.]