THE NEVV HERESIE OF THE JESUITS Publickly maintain'd at PARIS in the Colledge of CLERMONT by Conclusions Printed 12. Decemb. 1661. Denounced to all the BISHOPS OF FRANCE Translated out of the French Original Lucae 5. 39. Nemo bibens vetus statim vult novum dicit enim vetus melius est LONDON Printed in the Year of our Lord 1662. THE NEW HERESIE OF THE JESUITS Publikely maintained at Paris in the Colledge of Clermont by Conclusions Printed the 12 of December 1661. Denounced to all the Bishops of France AS it is the duty of Bishops to cut off whilst they are yet in the bud the Errors that tend to the ruine of Faith so is it no less the part of Divines to make Discovery of them and stir up their pastoral vigilance by giving them a timely advice thereof For which Reason My Lords you will not I am confident disapprove the Information given you of a New Heresie publikely maintained by the Jesuites in their Colledge of Paris by Conclusions printed and defended the 12 of December past which bear in Front this Title Assertiones Catholicae de Incarnatione contra saeculorum omnium ab Incarnato verbo praecipuas haereses Catholike Assertions of the Incarnation against the principal Heresies of all Ages since Christ Whereby they sufficiently intimate that excepting some subtleties of the Schools they would have us take for Catholike truths whatever else they advance in opposition to these Heresies They propose then for the Heresie of the 10 th Age the Schism of the Grecians and pretend by the following words to prescribe us what we ought to beleeve that we fall not into this Heresie X. SAECULUM Romanae Ecclesiae Caput contra Graecos Schismaticos HOc tandem saeculo Schisma Phocii invalcscens Graecos ab Ecclesiae capite dis-junxit Christum nes ita caput agnoscimus ut illius regimen dum in caelos abiit primum Petro tum dâ—inde successoribus commiserit eandem quam habebat ipse infallibilitatem concesserit quoties ex Cathedrâ loquerentur Datur ergo in Ecclesia Romana Controversiarum Fidei Judex infallibilis etiam extra Concilium generale tam in questionibus Juris quam Facti Vnde post Innocentii X. Alexandri VII Constitutiones fide divinâ credi potest librum cui titulus est Augustinus Jansenii esse haereticum quinque Propositiones exeo decerptas esse Jansenii in sensu Jansenii damnatas Propugnabuntur Deo duce auspice Virgine in Aula Collegii Claromontani Societatis Jesu die 12 Decembris Anno 1661. X. AGE The Head of the Roman Church against the Schismatick Grecians IT was in this Age that the Schism of Photius growing strong cut off the Grecians from the Head of the Church for our parts we acknowledge Jesus Christ to be in such sort the Head that he hath left the government first to S. Peter and afterwards to his Successors and that he hath bequeathed unto them as often as they shall speak out of their Chair the same infallibility which he himself had Wherefore there is in the Church of Rome an infallible judge of Controversies of Faith even out of a General Council as well in Questions of right as matters of Fact for which reason now after the Constitutions of Innocent X and Allexander VII one may believe with Divine Faith that the Book of Jansenius intituled Augustinus is Heretical and that the five Propositions extracted out of it are of Jansenius and condemned in his sense This Conclusion contains two parts One the Primacy of the Pope in which all Catholicks agree The other the Infallibility which the Jesuits attribute to him Nor is the question concerning that Infallibility which some Divines maintain and which regards only the judgements of Popes touching the truths revealed by God in the Holy Scripture and Tradition It is well known what the opinions of the Gallican Church and School of Paris are upon this Subject and what is to be understood by their words Sententia Parisiensium when one meets with them in the Books even of Jesuits upon this matter It is also known that those among some modern Doctors who would be most favourable to Popes as Dr. Du Val were nevertheless of Opinion that it is not a point of Faith that the Pope is Infallible Non est de Fide summum Pontificem esse infallibilem and that the contrary opinion is neither erroneous nor rash Non est erroneum neque temerarium temeritate opinionis dicere summum pontificem in decernendo errare posse But these same Divines how passionate soever they were to exalt the authority of the Sovereign Bishops do acknowledge as a thing certain unquestionable and agreed on by all Catholicks that in matters of fact they are not infallible but may be deceived and so really have been in sundry occasions All Catholicks are of Agreement sayes Cardinal Bellarmin that the Pope acting as Pope with advice of his Council nay even of a general Council may be deceived in particular affairs depending on the information and attestation of Men. And applying this general Maxime to a particular fact altogether conformable to that of Jansenius to wit whether the Heresie of the Monothelites were contain'd in the Letters of Honorius as the VI general Council confirmed by so many Popes had determined A General Council sayes he that is a lawful one cannot erre in the definition of dogmatical points of Faith wherein the VI Council likewise was free from error but it may erre in questions of Fact Generale Concilium legitimum non potest errare ut neque erravit hoc sextum in dogmatibus Fidei definiendis tamen errare potest in questionibus de Facto And Cardinal Baronius sayes the same upon the same subject of the sixth Oecumenical Council The Condemnation even of General Councils is not received with so much rigour in what concerns mens persons and their writings For no man doubts but that whoever he be he may be deceived in matters of Fact in which occasion the saying of St. Paul is appliable we can do nothing against truth but for truth In his enim quae facti sunt unumquemque contingere posse falli nemini dubium est All other Divines even the more wedded to the interest of the Court of Rome have hitherto contain'd themselves within these bounds But the Jesuits will neither admit Bounds nor Examples in their excesses and extravagancieâ— It is not enough for them to make the Pope infallible in the manner as some other Divines have done they must needs have it that Jesuus Christ hath given him the same infallibility which Himself enjoyed here on earth and as this infallibility of Jesus Christ reached to all things and not only to matters revealed but also to such as till then had not been reveal'd and which he revealed by uttering them so they will have the Pope to become infallible not only in proposing to the Church the truths comprised in Divine Revelation but also
unto him Confertim autem percussit cum Angelus Domini eo quod non dedisset honorem Deo And yet how much lesse criminal was the flattery of that people then this of the Jesuites theirs might have passed for a sudden transport of joy not regulated by reason and sometimes the Holy Scripture it self gives the Name of God to Supream Judges and Princes But here is given to the Pope deliberately upon a laid Defign and by way of establishing a Dogmatical Assertion of Theologie not an empty and insignificant name but one of the most glorious Attributes of God and most incommunicable to a creature to wit that his Word should have entailed upon it such an infallibility as to deserve that submission of divine Faith which cannot without Idolatry be rendred to any but the first and soveraign Verity For the like cannot be said in this question which those who maintain the Popes infallibility in matters of Faith are wont to answer That in beleeving the decisions of the Pope they do not build their Faith on the word of a man because he doth but propose what hath been formerly revealed by God in Holy Scripture and Tradition and so their faith relies still on the Word of God Nothing I say like this can be applied to the matter in hand in regard whereof the Jesuites pretend That the Pope is as infallible as Jesus Christ and that his decision is an Object of Divine Faith For when the Pope shall propose a fact of the 17 th Age as that certain Heretical Propositions were taught by an Author of those times it cannot be pretended that he proposes a matter revealed in Scripture or Tradition He may well say I judge it to be thus but he cannot say God hath revealed it He may speak as from himself but he cannot say God hath spoken Dominus locutus est And as it is a man that speaks and not God all they who hold that one may beleeve with divine Faith a decision of this nature do most visibly commit the like abominable excess which that blinded people did by crying out with them Voces Dei non hominis And albeit the Popes piety be a sufficient Antidote to preserve him from being poisoned with this sacrilegious opinion nevertheless they who present this poison unto him cannot excuse themselves from being as guilty towards him as were those wretched Sycophants towards their King of whose death they were the cause by their impious flatteries For a man is not then only esteemed a murderer either of the soul or body when effectively he takes away the life of one or the other but also when he lays a cause which of its own nature is sufficient to work the death of either though the effect do not follow So S. Cyprian calls those Christians Parricides who through fear of persecution offered up to the Idols their sucking Infants because although they could not really deprive them of the life of Grace which they had received in Baptism by this Idolatry whereunto they were in no sort consenting as S. Austin remarks they did notwithstanding what lay in them to bereave them of it In illis quidem interfectionem non faciunt sed quantum in ipsis est interfectores fiunt Flatter not your selves saith S. Austin speaking to those who give occasion to others of committing sin upon account that your brother is not dead by the scandal you gave him it is true he is not dead and yet you are murderers Et ille vivit tu homicida es One may say the same to the Jesuites in respect of the Pope whom they go about to poison with so pestiferous an opinion Non sibi blandiantur quia ille non est mortuus ille vivit isti homicidae sunt But it is not the Pope only before whose feet they cast this stumbling block but even the generality of the faithful by perswading them to build their belief on the word of a man and to submit their judgements thereunto as to the first Verity which as hath been shewed cannot be done without a kinde of Idolatry Insomuch that the Jesuites are near upon the same impiety with those Hereticks who would have Divine honours exhibited to the Blessed Virgin for as the true respect and veneration due to her as the most holy of Creatures took not any thing off from the crime of those Hereticks and their followers even so the reverence which all the faithful ought to bear to the Head of the Church will in no sort exempt them from a heavy sin before almighty God if through the deceit of the Jesuites they give unto the words of a man how eminent soever he may be in the Church that soveraign difference of divine Faith which cannot without impiety be given to any thing but the Word of God himself Worldly men make small accompt of these kind of sins because being wholy buried in flesh and blood none but grosse and material Objects make Impression on them Deluded devotes permit themselves to be easily carried away with these excesses because they imagin it to be a part of their false Piety to imbrace blindly whatever contibutes to the honour and advantage of those things and persons for which they ought to have a respect and from this root are sprung all those opinions which they call pious without ever examining whether they be true or false as if a falsity could be the object of piety or that God who is truth could be honoured with the unclean Sacrifice of a Lie But you My Lord know that all those who have been nourished with the true spirit of Christianity make a far different judgement hereof they equally hate a lie to whose advantage soever it redound whether of the Pope or the Blessed Virgin or of Jesus Christ himself which yet would a little startle a man to hear had not St. Austin expresly taught it For this Holy Father fears not to maintain that if a lye or calomny which one makes use of to take away the temporal life of Man be a detestable crime That is yet a far greater which tends to the destruction of his spiritual life as all manner of lyes in matter of Religion even though employed in giving false praises to Jesus Christ For which reason the same Father says that a Christian would commit a notorious folly who would not rather expose himself to all manner of indignities even those that strike the greatest horror into pious Souls then condescend to the insolence of a person that would force him to corrupt the holy Gospel thereby to bestow false praises upon Jesus Christ Since then according to the Judgement of this great Father it would be a crime of abomination to give false honours to Jesus Christ himself who being God is above all our praise and honours how much more abominable is it to give a mortal Man invironed with infirmities as the Scripture sayes the honours that appertain to God alone
Honorius are Heretical and he that denies it especially after having asserted this General Maxime bears in his forehead the most notorious mark of an Heretick according to S. Paul which is to be condemned by his own proper judgement Nor will it serve to have recourse to the pretended falsifying of the Acts of the sixth Council and of the letters of Leo the second For as this pretension is both unsustainable ridiculous and extravagant as in the last Assembly of the Clergy the Bishops even most addicted to the Jesuites did acknowledge if there were no other then this poor evasion to excuse men from beleeving with Divine Faith that Honorius was justly anathematiz'd and his Letters legally condemned as full of Heresies one must needs have renounced all common sense to make any other judgement of this Pope or not to hold his Letters for heretical But as it is the property of Error to destroy it self the same person that by this new Opinion of the Jesuites should be ingaged of necessitie to maintain these Letters of Honorius to be Heretical by the same principle would be obliged to acknowledge the falsity of his own opinion For how could he beleeve that all the Popes wer indued with this infallibility of Jesus Christ speaking out of their chair seeing Honorius fell into an error in a conjecture where it is hard to conceive how he should not speak out of his chair since he spoke as Judge of controversies of Faith for the adjusting the greatest variance that then raigned in the Church and which had divided all the Patriarks of the East And nevertheless without insisting on the judgement of the Sixth Council and supposing which yet is most absurd that the Acts of it were corrupted how can any one pretend that Honorius in this occasion was assisted with the Infallibility of Jesus Christ since having by his Letters approved the letter of Sergius Patriarch of Constantinople either he understood it rightly and then he fell into an Error of right by approving an heretical Opinion of one only Will in Jesus Christ which he must have acknowledged to have been contained in the letter of Sergius Or else he mis-understood the said letter taking in a Catholike sence that which Sergius writ in an heretical one in which case he must needs have erred at least in a matter of Fact So that the Jesuites can in no sort avoid being Heretikes for if it be an heresie as questionless it is to ascribe to the Popes speaking out of their chair the same infallibility which Jesus Christ hath as well in matters of right as of fact in such sort that their decision even in matters of Fact may be believed by divine Faith then they must needs be Hereticks because they are engaged to maintain not an heresie only but a blasphemy And if they pretend this opinion is true they are likewise Heretikes because they impugn faith by impugning the decision of so many Popes and General Councels touching the condemnation of Honorius whom according to their erroneous Opinion one is bound to beleeve by divine Faith to have been most justly condemned since it was by the sentence of Judges as infallible both in matters of right and of fact as Jesus Christ himself My Lords I dwell too long upon the refutation of so visible a folly but permit me to lay before you one other pernicious consequence thereof Your Lordships have seen the design of their Conclusions and how glorious a Title they prefix before them Assertiones Catholicae contra saeculorum omnium praecipuas Haereses What can a man rationally conceive when he sees what Doctrines in pursuance of that Title they oppose to these heresies but that their meaning is to obtrude them upon us for Catholick truths maintained by the Church against Hereticks and which we are bound to embrace under pain of Heresie and of falling off from the Communion of the Church Wherefore according to the Jesuites the Catholike Church can never receive the Grecians back into Communion nor reunite its members cut off by so deplorable a Schism otherwise then by obliging them to confess that Jesus Christ hath given to the Popes the same infallibility which he himself had in all they propose to the whole Church even particular Facts And as all Heretikes of these latter Ages have embraced the Error of the Grecians touching the Primacy of the Holy Seat so likewise neither can we open the Church doors to any of them upon other terms then by extorting from them a profession of this new Article of Faith But admitting the Church should not tye them to such hard measure yet what a World of Obstacles are by this opinion cast in the way of their conversion What scandall doth it not give them What a fair pretext doth it afford their Ministers to decry the Catholick Church in their Sermons to their abused flock and render it odious and contemptible and confirm them in their ancient reproach and calumny so often cast upon Catholicks of equalling the Pope with God almighty It is well known that this was the principal Engine to work so many people to a revolt from the Church Is it possible that even Religious persons should concur with them in so pernitious a design and furnish them with armes to fight against us giving them a just occasion to look upon the submission which all faithful Christians yield to the Pope as an insupportable yoak imposed on their consciences even in matters that no ways concern the Catholick Faith nor whereof the knowledg doth in any sort contribute to Salvation This is it My Lords that hath chiefly forced us to speak in this ranconter It was absolutely necessary that Catholick Divines should make all hast to cry out against this impiety lest these uncircumcised should take occasion to insult over the Hosts of the living God We were obliged to prevent them that it might appear to all the World that these excesses were no lesse detested in the Catholick Church out of the love of truth then they seemed to detest them upon the accompt of justifying their guilty separation But if to have exposed their complaints to the publick be enough to acquit Divines of the duty incumbent on them it will not suffice for the honour of the Church and an entire reparation of this scandal that they alone should speak in this occasion 'T is your part My Lords who ought to be inflamed with a pious zeal for the purity of Christian Doctrine whereof you are the Depositaries for the safety of Souls whereof you are the Spiritual Fathers for the Sanctity of the Church whereof you are the Bridegrooms for the honour of Jesus Christ whose chief Ministers you are to consider before Almighty God what service you owe him in an occasion of this importance where the Faith of the Church is violated by a capital error that strikes at the very roots thereof where the Faithful are in danger to be poysoned by an
certain facts which we are sure were never revealed by God as whether such Propositions be found in a Book compos'd in the 17 th AGE These are not consequences drawn by others out of their Doctrine They themselves infer them and make them passe for Catholick Assertions according to the Title of their Conclusions There is then in the Church an infallible Judge of controversies of Faith even out of a General Council as well for questions of right as of fact And that we may not doubt of their meaning by questions of Fact though the word it self of Fact taken in opposition to that of Law or Right doth sufficiently clear it they alleage for an example and a consequence of this new infallibility of Jesus Christ communicated to the Pope that after the foresaid Constitutions one may beleive with Divine Faith that Jansenius his book is heretical and that the five Propositions are truly this Authors Vnde post Innocentij X Alexandri VII Constitutiones fide divina credi pâ—test librum cui titulus est Jansenij Augustinus esse haereticum quinque propositiones ex eo decerptas esse Jansenii Behold the Proposition which they publickly advance in the face of the greatest City of the World nor will it be amisse to take notice of the origin and date thereof For these same men that now so boldly maintain it had for some time agoe laid the seeds of it in their other writings and it was easily discernable that their whole conduct was to be built upon this error They had severally exposed the Inferences in one place and the Principles in an other but still with certain windings and intricacy of words that might as occasion served be a cloak to them It is now in fine that they discover to the Church without any maske what they pretend to establish Let the whole Church then hear and take notice that the 12 of December in the year 1661. was the day on which the Jesuits brought to light this monstrous opinion whereof they had been so long in labour that this was the day on which they proposed as a Catholick assertion that the Pope speaking out of his Chair hath the same infallibilitie with Jesus Christ not only in questions of Right but also in those of Fact and consequently that one may believe with Divine Faith that the five propositions are the opinions of Jansenius It is not conceived needful My Lords to use many words to make appear that there is not here a simple Error nor a simple Heresie but a Source of Errors and as one may say a General Heresie which overthrows all Religion For your Lordships know that the first and principal ground of Christian Religion is this that our Faith doth not depend on the word of Men but on the word of God who is truth it self that this is it which makes it inconcussible and wholly Divine whereas it would be purely humane did it rely upon any Authority lesse than That of God or that we could not bear the like Testimony to our selves which St. Paul did to the Christians of Thessalonaâ—a to have received the word which God was pleased to propose to us by his Church not as the word of Men but as the word of God as it trâ—ly is Non ut verbum hominum sed sicut est vere verbum Dei All whatsoever is comprehended under the notion of Faith saith St. Bernard is founded upon the solid truth perswaded us by the Oracles of God confirmed by miracles and consecrated by the Child-bearing of a Virgin by the bloud of our Redeemer and the glory of Jesus raised from the dead Totum quod in Fide est certâ ac solidâ veritate subnixum oraculis miraculis divinitus persuasum stabilitum consecratum partu Virginis sanguine Redemptoris gloriâ Resurgentis Whoever then saith A thing not revealed nor attested by God as that certain Propositions are truly such an Authors of these later ages is an object of Divine Faith because the Pope hath declared it either establishes for the ground of Faith an authority purely human and the word of a man which is as much as to overthrow Faith or makes a God of the Pope and of his word a divine word and Holy Scripture which is not only an Heresie but a horrible impietie and a kinde of Idolatry For Idolatrie doth not consist onely in giving to man the name of God but much more in ascribing to him the attributes proper to God and the honour which is due only to him Now this submission of our understandings and intellective faculties implied in each Act of Faith is nothing els than the adoration which we exhibite to the primary Truth and so whoever pays it to the word of Man what rank soever he holds in the Church whoever professes he believes a thing with Divine Faith on no other motive then because a Man hath said it places a Man in the Throne of God transferres the honour due only to the Creator to a Creature and for as much as lies in him makes a kinde of Idol of the Vicar of Jesus Christ And that my Lords which will give you a greater horror of this Impiety is this that the Authors thereof imagin'd they should be able to foster it under favour of the respect which all the Catholicks bear the Pope and that no man would have the boldness to oppose it for fear of incurring his displeasure whereas on the contrary could any one commit a greater outrage against the first Minister of Jesus Christ then to imagine he could be honoured by a Blasphemy so injurious to Jesus Christ that it could be pleasing to him to be made equall to his Master by sharing with him the same Infallibility which he possesseth and that men should yield to his words that Supream Worship of Divine Faith which is due to God alone S. Paul and S. Barnabe perceiving the people went about to give them the same honours which they were wont to pay to their false Gods tore in pieces their garments thereby to express the extream displeasure which they resented and cast themselves into the midst of the Assembly to hinder it And we may with reason believe that the Pope himself were he truly advertised of this horrible excess would not fail to imploy his whole Authority to suppress these profane worshippers and would abhor it as a crime able to cause the loss of himself in the sight of God to give way to the least compliance in so detestable a flattery He would with trembling reflect on the just vengeance of God upon that last King of the Jewes for only suffering the tumultuary acclamations of a giddie brain'd people who hearing him speak cryed out It was the voice of a God and not of a man Dei voces non hominis For the Scripture teacheth us that immediatly the Angel of our Lord stroke him because he had not given to God the honor due