that those amongst some of the new Doctors who would be thought the most favourable to Popes as Monsieur du Val have not been afraid to maintain the Pope's being Infallible was no matter of Faith Duvallius de Suprema authorit Rom. Pontific l. 2. q. 1. Non est de fide Summum Pontificem esse Infallibilem And that the Opinion which assures us he is not is neither erroneous nor rash Ibid. Non est erroneum neque temerarium temeritate Opinionis dicere Summum Pontificem in decernendo errare posse But these very Divines however studious of exalting as much as they could possibly the Authority of the Soveraign Bishops do acknowledge as a thing certain indubitable and constant amongst all Catholicks That they are not Infallible in matters of Fact That therein they may erre and That indeed they are very frequently mistaken Bellarm de Sum. Pontif l. 4. c. 2. All Catholicks saies Cardinal Bellarmine accord in this That the Pope acting as Pope and with the Assembly of his Counsellers yea even with a General Council it self may be deceived in particular facts which depend upon the information and testimony of men And applying this general Maxime to a matter of Fact perfectly resembling that of Jansenius which is to consider whether the Heresie of the Monothelites be comprehended in the Epistles of Honorius as the VI. General Council confirm'd by so many Popes hath defin'd it he adds A General and Lawfull Council cannot erre in defining Points of Faith as neither has the Sixth Council erred therein but it may erre in Questions concerning matters of Fact Ibid. c. 11. Generale Concilium legitimum non potest errare ut neque erravit hoc Sextum in Dogmatibus Fidei definiendis tamen errare potest in Quaestionibus de Facto And Cardinal Baronius affirms the very same upon the same Subject of the Sixth Oecumenical Council We do not so strictly receive the Condemnation even of General Councils themselves as to what concerns mens Persons and their Writings For no body doubts but that who-ever it is he may be deceived in matters of Fact and then is that expression of S. Paul to take place We can doe nothing against the Truth but for the Truth Baron ad An. 681. n. 39. In his enim quae Facti sunt unumquemque contingere posse falli nemini dubium est All other Divines even the most devoted to the Court of Rome have hitherto contain'd themselves within these limits but the Jesuites will no more indure either bounds or Examples in their excess and extravagancies It suffices not them to render the Pope Infallible as some Divines may possibly have done They will have it that Jesus Christ has absolutely imparted to him the very same Infallibility which He himself possess'd upon the Earth and that as this Infallibility of Jesus Christ extended to all and not onely to things already reveal'd but to those things which had never yet been so reveal'd and that he made known himself in saying them so the Pope does also become Infallible not onely in proposing to the Church what is contain'd in the reveal'd Will of God but in proposing to her likewise matters of Fact which it is evident and certain God has never yet reveal'd as when for Instance the Question is Whether these Propositions are in a Book of the Seventeenth Age. Nor are these any Consequences which we may naturally deduce from their doctrine they draw them thence themselves and form Catholick Assertions of them conformable to the Title of their Position There is then say they an Infallible Judge of Controversies of Faith even extrinsecal to a General Council it self as well for Questions appertaining to Right as for those which concern matters of Fact And that you should not doubt what it is they would signifie by these Questions of Fact albeit the word Fact oppos'd to Right renders it sufficiently perspicuous they produce for an Example and as a new Consequence of this Infallibility of Jesus Christ communicated to the Pope That since the Constitutions we may believe with a divine Faith that the Book of Jansenius is heretical and that the Five Propositions do belong to this Author Unde post Innocentii X. Alexandri VII Constitutiones fide divinâ credi potest Librum cui titulus est Jansenii Augustinus esse haereticum Quinque Propositiones ex eo decerptas esse Jansenii Behold then here the Proposition which these men assert publickly in one of the greatest Cities of the World and it is worth observing to note the Original and the date of it For those who now at present promote it so boldly had long since scatter'd the seeds thereof in some of their Writings and it was sufficiently evident that all their design was to be bottom'd upon this Errour they had likewise themselves advanced the Conclusions in one place and the Principles in another but it was still with certain windings and ambiguities of termes which as yet furnish'd them with lurking-holes and places of subterfuge but now they discover nakedly and without disguise to the Church what it is they pretend to establish in her Let the whole Church take notice of it then and record it That it was the 12 of December in the year 1661 that the Jesuites openly publish'd that monstrous Opinion which they have been so long a-brooding That it was upon this day they propos'd as a most Catholick Assertion That whenever the Pope does speak out of his Chair HE HATH THE SAME INFALLIBILITY THAT JESUS CHRIST HATH not onely in Questions of Right BUT ALSO IN MATTERS OF FACT and that hence we are to believe WITH A FAITH DIVINE that those Five Propositions are of Jansenius It will My Lords be needless to amplifie much in letting the world see that this is not here onely a solitary Errour or simple Heresie but a whole source of Errours and as one may say an Universal Heresie which overthrows all Religion For you know My Lords that the very prime Fundamental of Christian Religion is That our Faith is not supported upon the word of Men but upon the Word of God which is Truth it self and that it is That which renders it immoveable and altogether Divine whereas it would else prove but Humane were it upheld by any other Authority less then that of God and if we were not able to render our selves that Testimony which S. Paul gives the Christians of Thessalonica To have received the Word which God hath taught us by his Church and that not as the Word of Men but as the Word of God and as in truth it is Non ut verbum hominum sed sicut est verè verbum Dei De error Abailardi c. 4. Whatsoever is comprised in the Faith saies S. Bernard is built upon solid and certain Truth persuaded by the divine Oracles confirmed by Miracle and consecrated by the production of the Virgin by the bloud of
be they what they will yet the Sense of Jansenius must in general be condemn'd and it is this general and unexplicable Sense of Jansenius in which according to the Jesuites consists the Heresie of Jansenius It must be confess'd that since men did ever reason together there was never the like Extravagancy But the consequence is yet infinitely more strange For albeit the greatest part of the world laugh'd at it in particular yet they so carried it in publick as if they were of it and the Jesuites have the credit to establish this unheard-of Absurdity to introduce the practice of a Subscription which was never yet heard of in the Church unless it were amongst the Hereticks who are blam'd for it by those who have defended the Church against them For 't is requisite we should know that since the Church was a Church one has never oblig'd either Religious men or School-masters or Clerks or so much as simple Priests to sign They were the German Lutherans of the Confession of Ausburg who for one time onely caus'd their Confession of Faith to be sign'd by the Principals of the Colleges and the Masters of Schools And they are reprov'd for it by Cardinal Bellarmine as of an insupportable Vanity and a Novelty unheard-of in the Church of God ever since the Apostles Now that so strange a thing as this practice to which there was never any recourse in the most damnable Heresies should be introduc'd in France that is to say in a Church the free'st of the world and the greatest enemy to these Servitudes and upon occasion of such Trifles this is what is most stupendious indeed but in that manner which we admire the extraordinary effects of the Fantasticalness of men It is certain yet that the Jesuites could not have better publish'd to the world the excess of that credit which they have in the Church then by this means 'T is nothing to establish reasonable things no man can tell whether it be Reason or Force which has made them to be receiv'd but to make their power appear indeed one should chuse such things as these which are most excessively irrational I can say no more to exalt the power of the Jesuites and we must acknowledge that having succeeded in this Design they are able to doe what-ever is not impossible But in this as ill luck would have it the Heresie of the Sense of Jansenius which they would universally establish is one of those impossible things since to persuade the world of it they must of course change the common Sense of men so as in spight of them the Cause of their adversaries must of necessity vanquish in this last point which is as it were the ultimate Redoubt of the Jesuites I do not onely say that it must needs be so for the future and that all the pretensions of the Jesuites upon the question de facto of Jansenius should pass for ridiculous but I say 't is already so because they do pass for such already amongst all persons who have any cognisance of those matters and that there are very few of them but are disabus'd This I have demonstrated by other proofs in my precedent Letters and therefore I satisfie my self for this time with a concluding one There are divers Bishops in France who have boldly declar'd in the face of the Church that matter of Fact and matter of Right are different things in the affair of Jansenius that all Heresie consists in a precise Dogm and that one cannot with the least shadow of Justice treat those as Hereticks whom they do not reproch with any particular Heresie because they do simply question whether any such Propositions are in a Book or no. M. de Alet M. de Vence M. de Beauvais and M. d' Anger 's clearly promote all these Propositions as certain and indubitable and you may find them all comprehended in M. de Comenge's Letter to the King which is alone sufficient to ruine all the Impostures of Father Ferrier and all the Errours of the Jesuites In the mean time these Fathers with all their credit cannot find Five other Bishops in France that dare formally to promote the Propositions contrary to those which are maintain'd by these Prelates They may find some that may speak of the conceal'd venome of the Heresie of Jansenism because they are words which signifie nothing and which they willingly yield to the strongest party But they could never yet find any that durst affirm that matter of Fact and matter of Right were things inseparable and that there was ever any Heresie without some particular Dogm because there is a certain stop to common Sense which hinders those who have never so little wit from such a degree of Extravagance But you will say at least that the Jesuites Cause has all the advantage at Rome because the Briefs are all in their favour But let me tell you Sir 'T is true the Calumnies of the Jesuites have render'd the Divines odious there because they are opposite to the unjust pretences of the Roman Court against the Sovereignty of Kings and the Jurisdiction of Bishops and therefore perhaps they are not displeas'd at Rome at the Oppression which they suffer But since they have common Sense at Rome as well as at other places all that these Divines maintain here is receiv'd there and as well believ'd as in other places indeed more generally then in France it self because Passion has not so much disturb'd their Reason and their Judgement I do not love to report things without proof and therefore I shall alledge one which is very decisive upon this particular viz. That even the Inquisition of Rome has newly authentically approv'd all that those whom they call Jansenists have taught in France upon the Question de facto de jure which is so ridiculously oppos'd by the Jesuites I conceive you will not require of me to shew you that the Inquisition has given this Judgment in favour of them under the express names of Jansenius and Jansenists You know well enough what Reasons they have to hinder them from rendring them this exact Justice But you ought to be satisfied that I shew you wherein they have render'd it in a Cause so like it that it differs only in the name And now judge whether I do not make it good What do these Divines pretend There is say they a very wide difference between defending of condemn'd Opinions and such as are repugnant to the Catholick Faith which they attribute to Jansenius Bishop of Ypres and maintaining that Jansenius Bishop of Ypres has not taught those condemn'd Opinions The First would be prejudicial to the Church and to their selves but the Second is not in any kinde so For as all Divines acknowledg there is a great deal of difference between saying that the General Councils the Church can erre in jure in condemning an Opinion which does not deserve to be condemn'd and affirming that it can
erre de facto in judging that such or such a Proposition has been taught by a certain particular person The Errour of General Councils or the Church in matter of Fact can cause no prejudice to the Church but the Errour of a Council in matter of Right would be extremely prejudicial to the Church Therefore do we not pretend to defend the Errours of the Five Propositions attributed to Jansenius but that which we pretend is that there is no harm in believing that Jansenius is innocent and at least to acquit him from this ignominious Aspersion You see what these persons say 't is a summary of all their pretensions Now hear my History and observe if you can where the difference consists which distinguishes it from the affair of Jansenius In the Council of Lateran the fullest of all the Councils since there were no less then 1280 Prelates at it they examin'd the Works of Abbot Joachim so famous for his Prophecies and among the rest a small Treatise which he compos'd on the Holy Trinity against the Master of the Sentences The Council finding in this Writing a corrupt Proposition condemn'd him for an Heretick and the Condemnation is inserted in the Canon Law There was at the same time another Abbot call'd Gregory de Laude Doctor in Divinity who having undertaken to write his Life and interpret his Prophecies thought himself oblig'd to justifie the Heresie which was imputed to him by the Council of Lateran This was an otherwise bold undertaking then that of justifying Jansenius of the Errours which were charg'd upon him He did it yet without fear in the 67 Chap. pag. 281. of his Book printed at Naples in folio 1660. where he thus discourses That none may be scandaliz'd at what we are about to affirm they are to know that there is a vast difference between defending an Opinion condemn'd and repugnant to the Catholick Faith which is attributed to Joachim Abbot de Flore and the maintaining that Joachim Abbot of Flore has not taught those condemn'd Opinions The First would be prejudicial to the Church and to my self but the Second not at all For as that most Learned person Dominicus Gravina according to his custome saies There is a great difference between saying that General Councils can erre in matter of Right by condemning an Opinion which merits not that Censure and affirming they may erre in matter of Fact by judging such or such a Proposition was taught by an Author The Errours of Councils in matters of Fact can doe no prejudice to the Church but the Errour of a Council in matter of Right may be highly injurious to the Church And therefore we do not in the least pretend to defend the Errour attributed to Joachim by the Council of Lateran but that which we pretend is to defend the innocence of Abbot Joachim and to discharge him from this stain and ignominy Benetamen intendimus Joachimi innocentiam defendere eum à tali labe ignominia vindicare Well you will reply to me this is the Opinion of this Author He speaks the Jansenists very language and the wonder is not great there should be a Jansenist at Naples But how shall I know that this is the Sense of the Inquisition at Rome This is that you are to make good This Book has past the Inquisition where they have examin'd it with extraordinary care For the Prophecies which he authorizes are extremely curious But haply this passage escap'd them No They particularly examin'd this 281 page finding all the rest very sound and have chang'd onely one place which I shall sincerely turn you to as it stands in the page of the Corrigenda of the Book printed by order of the Inquisition the 6th of March this very year 1664. You see I bring you no old stories for news In stead of these words in this 281 leaf line 11 where 't is said Bene tamen intendimus Joachimi innocentiam defendere that is We pretend to clear the innocency of Joachim the Inquisition ordains you should put Conabimur tamen si fieri potest Joachimum defendere that is We will endeavour if it be possible to defend Joachim O how easie would it be to make Peace in the Church of France were the Jesuites but as reasonable as the Inquisition of Rome is upon this point I cannot devise why they should be so troubled to find Expedients to terminate this difference See here one to your hand and the easiest in the world There is no more to doe then to bid the pretended Jansenists for the future to say that they will no more defend the Innocency of Jansenius Bene tamen intendimus Jansenii innocentiam defendere but content themselves in saying We will endeavour if we can to defend Jansenius Conabimur si fieri potest Jansenium defendere I dare pawn my word Sir that there would not be a man of them who would refuse this Condition and that would not be yet satisfied with less so reasonable they are and moderate And with what justice can it be refus'd them Is it that Joachim's Book is more considerable then that of Jansenius which was without controversie one of the most knowing Prelates of his Age or that we owe more respect to a Constitution of P. Alexander ☞ then to the Decision of the most Universal of all the Councils Conclude we therefore Sir that the Jesuites have succeeded in the Dispute concerning Grace as they have done in that of all the rest to torment men which is no such great wonder 'T is but the natural effect of violence The Law of the World is That the weak succumb to the strongest and therefore we are not to admire that a small number of Divines who have nothing on their side save Truth and Innocence should be overthrown by the Jesuites that is to say by an Army of thirty thousand men who have for so long a time been so cruelly resolv'd upon their Ruine But what is most admirable is to see in the mean time the greatest part of the world persuaded of the justice of the Jesuites and that yet the Doctrine of those Divines should have more approbators then ever it had in which properly consists the Victory of Truth This miserable Question de Facto this Sense of Jansenius of which the Jesuites make such a noise at present is but a wretched corner of ground to which they are retir'd after their having been beaten out of all their other holds which have hitherto been the subject of the Dispute nor are they yet able to make that good They must either render or precipitate themselves that is they must either acknowledge that the matter of Fact which is the present Controversie being no matter of Heresie there can be no Heresie in all this or that obstinately defending this Errour they fall into Heresie themselves I know very well yet that this distinction between the Advantage of Persons and that of a Cause is too
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is ANOTHER PART OF The Mystery of Jesuitism OR The new Heresie of the Jesuites Publickly maintained At PARIS in the College of CLERMONT the XII of December MDCLXI Declar'd to all the Bishops of France According to the Copy printed at Paris Together with The Imaginary Heresie in three LETTERS With divers other Particulars relating to this Abominable Mysterie Never before published in English LONDON Printed by James Flesher for Richard Royston Bookseller to His most Sacred MAJESTY 1664. To my most honour'd Friend from whom I received the Copy SIR I Transmit you here the French Copy which you were pleased to consign to me and with it the best effects of your injunction that my weak Talent was able to reach to but with a Zeal so much the more propense as I judged the publication might concern the World of those miserably-abus'd Persons who resign themselves to the conduct of these bold Impostors and who may indeed be said to be what the Athenians mistook S. Paul for 17 Act. 18. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Setters forth of strange Gods as well as of strange and unheard-of Doctrines whilst they take upon them thus to attribute as much to Dominus Deus Papa Gloss in Extr Jo. c. 22. Cum inter de verborum signif their Lord God the Pope as to God Almighty himself I stand amaz'd that a Church which pretends so much to Puritie and that is so furious against the least dissenters to her Novelties amongst Protestants should suffer such swarms of impure Insects amongst themselves lest these Cancerous Members in stead of edifying the Church and conducting Consciences eat out in fine the very heart and vitals of the common Christianity For my part Exetasis sive Tho. Albii Purgati◠after I have seen what Mr. White has lately publish'd concerning the Method of the Roman Court in her Decrees and of her rare abilities to discern as he there affords us the Prospect I have no great reason to hope for any redress of these Enormities and then to what a monstrous growth this Head is like to arrive let all the World compute by the strange pretences of these audacious Sycophants Nor let any man wonder how those other Errours are crept into their Religion who in a day of so universal light permit such pernicious Doctrines to be publickly asserted to the dishonour of our B. Lord the scandal of his beloved Spouse and the hinderance of that glorious Unity which none does more earnestly breath after then He who subscribes himself SIR Your most humble and most obedient Servant 21 Sept. 1664. LESSIVS MOLINA S. IGNATIVS LOYOLA SOCIETATIS IESV FVNDATOR VASQUEZ ESCOBAR Optabilior est Fur quam Mendax assiduus vtrique Perditionis haereditatem consequentur Eccles. 20. vers 25. THE New Heresie of the Jesuites publickly maintain'd at Paris in the College of Clermont by Positions printed the xij of December M DC LXI Declar'd to all the Bishops of France c. AS it is the constant duty of Bishops to stifle those Errours in their very birth and cradle which tend to the ruine and subversion of Faith so is it no less that of Divines to make discovery of those Errours to them and by giving timely notice of them to excite and stir up their Pastoral Vigilancy You will therefore My Lords doubtless approve of the Information which is made you of a New Heresie that has been publickly maintain'd by the Jesuites in their College at Paris in a Thesis printed and defended the twelfth of December last The Position bears this Title ASSERTIONES CATHOLICAE de Incarnatione contra Saeculorum omnium ab incarnato Verbo praecipuas Haereses CATHOLICK ASSERTIONS concerning the Incarnation against the principal Heresies of all Ages By which they sufficiently demonstrate that abating some few Subtilties of the Schools they pretend We should accept what-ever They oppose against these Heresies for Catholick Verities and Truths indubitable In order hereunto They propose for the Heresie of the Tenth Age the Schism of the Greek Church and by these words declare the Opinions to which they expect our Assent as a mark and characterism of our aversion from that Heresie X. SAECULUM Romanae Ecclesiae Caput contra Graecos Schismaticos Hoc tandem Saeculo Schisma Photii invalescens Graecos ab Ecclesiae Capite disjunxit Christum nos ità Caput agnoscimus ut illias Regimen dum in coelos abiit primùm Petro tum deinde Successoribus commiserit EANDEM QUAM HABEBAT IPSE INFALLIBILITATEM concesserit quoties ex Cathedra loquerentur DATUR ergo in E.R. Controversiarum Fidei Jadex infallibilis ETIAM EXTRA CONCILIUM GENERALE tum in Quaestionibus Juris tum FACTI Unde post Innocentii X. Alexandri VII Constitutiones FIDE DIVINA CREDI POTEST Librum cui titulus Augustinus Jansenii esse haereticum Quinque Propositiones ex eo decerptas esse Jansenii in sensu Jansenii damnatas Propugnabuntur Deo duce auspice Virgine in Aula Collegii Claromontani Societatis Jesu die 12 Decembris An. 1661. The TENTH AGE The Head of the Church of Rome against the Schismatical Greeks It was in this Age that the Schism of Photius prevailing did separate the Greeks from the Head of the Church We acknowledge Christ to be so the Head that during his absence in Heaven he hath delegated the Government thereof first to Peter and then to his Successors and does grant unto them THE VERY SAME INFALLIBILITY WHIGH HE HIMSELF HAD as often as they shall speak è Cathedra There is therefore in the Church of Rome an Infallible Judge of Controversies of Faith EVEN WITHOUT A GENERAL COUNCIL as well in Questions appertaining to Right as in matters of FACT Therefore since the Constitutions of Innocent the Xth and Alexander the VIIth WE MAY BELIEVE WITH A DIVINE FAITH that the Book intituled the Augustin of Jansenius is heretical and the Five Propositions which are gathered out of it to be Jansenius's and in the sense of Jansenius condemned These shall be defended by the assistance of God and the favour of the Virgin in the Hall of the College of Clermont belonging to the Society of Jesus the 12 day of December in the Year 1661. This Position contains in it two parts the one concerning the Primacy of the Pope in which all Catholicks do agree the other touching that Infallibility which these Jesuites do attribute to him We do not speak here of that which is by some Divines maintain'd and which onely concerns the Judgments which the Popes have of such Truths as are revealed by God in the Scriptures in Tradition It is sufficiently known what has been upon this Subject the sense and opinions of the Gallicane Church and of the University of Paris and what we are to understand by this expression Sententia Parisiensium when we find it upon this matter in the books even of the Jesuites themselves As evident is it also
speaking of such as gave others occasion of sinning that your Brother is not yet dead through the scandal you have given him He is not dead and yet are you an homicide Et ille vivit tu homicida es We may say the very same of the Jesuites in relation to the Pope into whom they strive to inspire an Opinion so mortal Non sibi blandiantur quia ille non est mortuus ille vivit isti homicida sunt But it is not the Pope alone to whom they give an occasion of Scandal they offer it to all the Faithfull in general whilst they persuade them to establish their Belief upon the Word of a mortal Man and to submit themselves to it as to the prime Verity which can in no sort be done as has already been demonstrated without a kind of Idolatry So as the Jesuites doe in a manner the very same thing with those Hereticks who would have men render Divine honours to the Virgin For as the true respect which we owe to the Virgin the most holy of all the Creatures would not diminish the Crime of these Hereticks and their Disciples so nor would the veneration that all the Faithfull have for the Head of the Church exempt them from the guilt of a very hainous sin before God if thus deluded by the Jesuites they should render to the Word of a Man howsoever conspicuous in the Church this soveraign deference of Divine Faith which cannot be pai'd without manifest impiety but to the Word of God himself Little do the men of the world consider the magnitude of these sorts of offences since being wholly carnal they are not concern'd but with things altogether gross and exteriour These hypocritical Devotes permit themselves to be easily transported with such excesses because they conceive it a great degree of Piety blindly to embrace what-ever it be that elevates those Things and Persons to whom we owe respect and hence it is proceeds that variety of Opinions which they term Pious without at all putting themselves to the trouble of inquiring whether they are true or false as if what were false could be a fit object of Piety or that the God of Truth might be honour'd with a Lie But you my Lords know that those who are bred up in the sincere spirit of Christianism make a far different account of these matters They equally detest Lying to whose profit soever it may possibly appear advantageous were it to the Pope to the Virgin were it even to J. Christ himself And which one would hardly say had not S. Augustin said it before us for this Father was not afraid to assert it Aug. de Mendacio cap. 20. That if the Lying and the Calumny which is us'd to take away the temporal life of a man be a detestable crime much more abominable is that which tends to the bereaving us of the life eternal such as is all prevarication in matter of Religion yea though it were even employ'd in ascribing false praises to Jesus Christ himself Ibid. cap. 10. Wherefore saies the same Father it were an extreme folly for a Christian not to be rather prepar'd to suffer all sorts of indignities and even such as strike a terror into holy Souls then once condescend to whomsoever would oblige him to corrupt the Gospel by any fictitious praises of J. Christ Seeing then according to this holy Saint it would be an abominable Crime to attribute any false Praises to J. Christ himself who being God is superiour to all Praises how much greater is it to ascribe to a mortal Man inviron'd with infirmities as the Scripture expresses it the Praises which appertain to God alone But into what Labyrinths of Errours shall we not precipitate our selves if once we grant a liberty to our humane fancy to shroud its various wandrings under a pretext of Piety For if Opinions must be tolerated how false soever they may be because an ill-advis'd Piety judges them Pious and if it be a plausible and sufficient reason to exempt Popes from Faults and Errours obnoxious to humane nature by pretending one may piously believe that God having intrusted them with the Government of the Church will never permit them to fall into any Errours which may be prejudicial to it as the Jesuites do from hence believe they have a right to invest the Popes in the same state of Infallibility which J. Christ had and that even in matters of Fact when they propose them to the Universal Church why may they not as well pretend they have the same right also of attributing to the Popes the same Impeccability which J. Christ had in all those concernments which relate to the Government of the Church and the functions of their Soveraign Pontificate why should not this latter opinion be as pious as the former Would it not seem incomparably more advantageous to the Church that the Popes could not sin in this manner then to be Infallible in matters of Fact And the Souls which are purchased by the bloud of J. Christ have they not receiv'd infinitely more detriment from the wicked Administration of some Popes then they could ever contract from their want of illumination or due attention in the understanding of some particular Author A man that had liv'd in the Primitive Ages of the Church resting himself upon these Probabilities and Conveniencies of humane Witts would he not have believed he had reason to say That God would never permit that the Seat of S. Peter should for near one intire Age be possess'd by Persons so prodigiously unworthy Baron ad An. 897. n. 4. As Cardinal Baronius does with grief acknowledg it happen'd for during almost the whole Tenth Age by the power of the Marquess of Toscany who domineering with his Arms and Mony over the Clergy and people of Rome establish'd such Persons in S. Peter's Chair as were not onely wicked in regard of themselves but were so also to the Church by introducing most horrible Disorders such as the same Baronius complains were brought in by John the Xth who made a Child of five years of age Archbishop of Reims upon which the Cardinal makes this sad reflexion Tantum nefas Ad An. 923 n. 11. quo jura omnia Ecclesiastica sauciantur ejus Pontificis authoritate introductum quem infamis foemina infami operâ Petri solium intrusisset Would not this man have believed that God would never have permitted the Vicar of him who said his Kingdom was not of this World to undertake the disposal of temporal Kingdoms to depose some from them and conferre them upon others Mr. du Puis in his Treatise of the Rights of the King to the Kingdom of Navarre as Julius the II d did the Kingdom of Navarre which the Kings of Spain now possess to the prejudice of ours and that by virtue onely of a Gift pretended to be receiv'd of this Pope who took it away from its lawful King Would
Boulogne and that whosoever should dare maintain this Translation was unjust did erre both from the Truth and Catholick Faith Fuit igitur à Basileensi Civitate legitima pro tunc nostra Concilii dissolutio asserentes contrà sunt penitus ab omni veritate fide Catholica alieni And yet notwithstanding the Fathers of the Council of Basil persisting that this Translation was unjust and null Eugenius was forc'd to acknowledge by another as authentick a Bull that in effect it was void and that the Council was alwaies legitimately assembled from the beginning of it to that very time You may find both the one and the other of these Bulls in Raynaldus the first in the year 1433 and the latter in Anno 1434. Now shall both of these be embrac'd for Articles of Faith And shall we be oblig'd to believe that the same Council at the very same time was an Unlawfull Conventicle and a Lawfull Council of the Universal Church assembled by the Holy Spirit The same Raynaldus mentions a Bull of Eugenius the IVth against the Cardinal d' Arles Ad Ann. 1640. who presided at the Council of Basil wherein he is call'd Iniquitatis alumnus atque perditionls filius If the Suffrage of the Popes in the Judgments which they make concerning Persons by their Bulls are to be reputed as Infallible as that of Jesus Christ we should be oblig'd to hold this Cardinal for a very wicked Caitiff But what shall we think if God have judg'd otherwise concerning him and that far from willing us to detest him as a Child of Iniquity and a Son of Perdition he would have us to reverence him for one of the Blessed confirming his Sanctity by publick Miracles authoriz'd by another Pope which was Clement the VIIth who has by an authentick Bull enroll'd him among the number of the Happy by declaring not that he had done Penance after his being a Child of Iniquity but that he had alwaies led a most heavenly chast and immaculate life as it is to be seen in that Bull of his Beatification recited at large by Ciaconius These are some Examples which sufficiently discover to us the false pretence of these Jesuites But without seeking farther the very Authors of this Doctrine find themselves plung'd in Heresie by the undeniable sequel of their Errours For they maintain in this very Conclusion That Pope Honorius has taught nothing in his Epistles but what was most consonant and agreeable to the Catholick Faith concerning the two Wills and two Operations in Jesus Christ Duas in Christo Voluntates Operationes fuisse profitemur nec aliud à nobis sensit Honorius dum Operationem Christi unicam esse scripsit Now if this be a point of Faith as these Jesuites pretend That the Book of Jansenius is Heretical and that the Five Propositions are of this Author because two Popes have affirmed it and that we are oblig'd to consider what they say in those Particulars as if J. Christ had himself pronounc'd it with how much greater reason may we affirm the same of Pope Honorius's Epistles which have both been examin'd condemn'd and Burnt by a General Council of the whole Church where the Pope himself presided by his Legats and which has been confirm'd as to this very point and Article by two other General Councils more and by a very great number of Popes beside For if ever Popes speak out of the Chair it is then when they speak with the General Councils and confirm them by their Apostolical Authority And thus doubtless Leo Epist ad Constan Pope Leo the Second spake out of his Chair when in several of his Epistles which he wrote to confirm the VIth Oecumenical Council he did in particular ratifie the Condemnation of Honorius and pronounced him Anathema because he had not enlightned the Apostolical Church they are the express words by the doctrine of Apostolical Tradition but suffered her to be defiled by a prophane Tradition Qui hanc Apostolicam Ecclesiam non Apostolicae Traditionis doctrinâ illustravit sed prophanâ Traditione maculari permisit And by consequence if then when the Popes dictate from their Chair whatsoever the Subject be matter of Right or Fact they have the same Infallibility with Jesus Christ and that all which they pronounce is an Article of Faith it ought to be as much a matter of Faith that the Epistles of Honorius are Heretical and the person who denies it after assent to this general Maxime bears the most notorious mark of an Heretick according to S. Paul which is to be self-condemned It would not signifie in the least to have recourse to that pretended falsification of the Acts of the VIth Council and the Epistles of Leo the Second For as this pretence is altogether unmaintainable frivolous and extravagant as even the most devoted Bishops to the Jesuites have themselves acknowledged in the last Assembly of the Clergy were there onely this miserable evasion to excuse us from believing with a divine Faith that Honorius was justly Anathematiz'd and his Epistles legally condemn'd as replete with Heresies we must certainly have renounc'd our common Senses to form any other judgment concerning that Pope and not to hold his Epistles for Heretical But as it is the property of Errour to destroy it self He that should be engaged by this novel Opinion of the Jesuites necessarily to hold that the Epistles of Honorius are Heretical by the same would find himself oblig'd to acknowledg the Fallacy of this Opinion For how should he believe that all Popes are endow'd with a like Infallibility with J. Christ what time they speak out of their Chair considering that Honorius slipt into an Errour in a conjuncture in which 't is difficult to conceive but that he did speak out of his Chair seeing he spake as a Judge in a Controversie of Faith and in order to the adjusting of the greatest difference which was then on foot in the Church and which had divided all the Oriental Patriarchs And for all this not regarding the judgment of the VIth Council and supposing what is extremely ridiculous that the Acts thereof were corrupted how should it be pretended that Honorius had in this encounter the same Infallibility with J. Christ since having by his Letters approved the heretical Epistles of Sergius Patriarch of Constantinople either he understood it as he ought and then he erred in point of Right by approving the heretical Opinion of one single Will in J. Christ which he had acknowledg'd to be in effect contain'd in this Epistle of Sergius or he understood it amiss for accepting that in a Catholick sense which Sergius had asserted in an Heretical and so he had at least erred in point of Faith So that the Jesuites can in no sort avoid the being Hereticks in either sense For if it be Heresie as doubtless it is to attribute to Popes speaking è Cathedra the same Infallibility with Jesus Christ as well
in Questions pertaining to Right as to those of Fact so as their Decisions concerning the Facts themselves may be believed by a divine Faith they are rank Hereticks as being engag'd to maintain this Blasphemy And in case they pretend that this is a true Opinion they are nevertheless Hereticks because they oppose the Faith not submitting to the Decision of so many Popes and General Councils in reference to the condemnation of Honorius who according to their Errour we are by divine Faith oblig'd to believe had been justly condemn'd because he was so by Judges as Infallible as Jesus Christ as well in matters of Right as those of Fact I insist too long my Lords in refuting an Errour so notorious Give me leave yet to represent to you one most pernicious Consequence You have seen what the design of this Position is and how specious a Title they have prefix'd before it Assertiones Catholicae contra Saeculorum omnium praecipuas Haereses This being so what may we else imagin when we shall see by the sequel of that which they oppose to these Heresies but that they are Catholick Truths maintain'd by the Church against these Hereticks and which we are oblig'd to acknowledge under censure of being our selves Hereticks and of Apostasie from the Communion of the Church Never then according to these Jesuites must we think of receiving the poor Greeks into the Communion of the Catholick Church or re-unite these divided Members sever'd by so deplorable a Schism but in obliging them to confess that J. Christ has bestowed the same Infallibility upon all the Popes which He himself has in all that they propose to the Universal Church yea even in matters which concern particular Facts And as all the Hereticks of these last Ages have embrac'd the Errour of the Greeks against the Primacy of the holy See we must never open the doors of the Church to them before they make profession of this fine new Article of Faith But admit we should not exact that so strictly of them what an Obstacle do we not lay in the way of their Conversion what Scandal are we not guilty of and what pretext do we not afford their Ministers to decry the Catholick Church before their abus'd People by rendering her odious and contemptible and by confirming them in those their ancient Calumnies and Reproches which they have so frequently objected to the Catholicks for equalling the Pope to Almighty God 'T is well known that it is from their Principles they have inspired Rebellion into so many People Should therefore Religious and Pious persons favour them in this detestable design that they furnish them with Armes to fight against us and suffer them to look upon the deference which the Faithfull owe to the Pope as an insupportable Yoak upon the Conscience in things that do not at all concern any point of Faith and whereof the knowledge does not in the least conduce to Salvation This is it my Lords which has chiefly oblig'd us to speak upon this occasion And it was highly necessary that the Catholick Divines should make hast to decry this Impiety lest those Uncircumcis'd should take occasion of insulting over the Armies of the living God We were obliged to prevent them to the end they may see that we do no less abhor this excess in the Catholick Church for the love of Truth then they appear to detest her by the design which they pretend to justifie their faulty separation But if it be sufficient to acquit Divines of their devoir that they represent this publick Complaint it is not enough for the honour of the Church and for the entire reparation of this Scandal that there have been onely Divines which have reprov'd it It is You my Lords who ought to be enflamed with Zeal for the Purity of the Doctrine whereof You are the Depositaries for the Salvation of the Faithfull of whom You are the Fathers for the Sanctity of the Church whereof You are the Spouses les Espouses for the Honour of J. Christ of whom You are the chief Ministers to consider as in the presence of God what your Duty is upon so important an Occasion in which the Faith of the Church is violated by a Capital Errour which subverts its very Foundation where the Faithfull are empoison'd with an Opinion which tends to the changing of that Veneration into Idolatry which they ought to bear to their soveraign Bishop where the Church is prophan'd by an Impiety that dishonors and exposes her to the outrages of her Enemies in summe where J. Christ is horribly offended by the Sacrilegious Parity which is put between the words of his Servant and his own most Sacred Dictates by making the one as well as the other the Object of a divine Faith Haply some there be may reply that this Extravagance deserves not half this aggravation and doubtless they will make use of it for a pretext to induce you to connive at so foul an excess But my Lords you ought to consider that how extravagant soever this Opinion may appear it is promoted by Persons who may give us just occasion to apprehend the strange Consequences of it For 't is sufficiently evident that it is not by chance or through the blindness of any particular man that it comes thus to appear in the World It is long since that they have prepar'd and dispos'd all things for its production and entertainment though they never usher'd it in with pomp before they were well assur'd all things were favourable for its reception and that there was not a Champion remaining who had the courage or confidence to oppose it openly Perhaps indeed their Pretence is not yet so far advanc'd as to draw a formal Approbation from the Bishops But that which they hope for is since I am obliged to speak all that their credit and their power of being able to doe good or ill offices will be a means to retain all the Bishops in silence so as none of them shall dare to condemn them for fear of drawing upon them the strength and displeasure of so puissant a Society and that the Sorbonne which they now reckon to be in their dependence will never have the confidence to Censure this Doctrine whatever their aversion may be to it Thus they hope that during this Silence and whiles all the World is as it were snorting dum dormirent homines this Cockle which they have sown in the field of the Church will take root and in time get strength There they will leave it to ripen and as they use to say relinquent tempori maturandum and when it shall be arriv'd to full maturity produce the natural Consequences that must necessarily spring from it At present indeed they do but say onely One may believe Particular Facts with a divine Faith but they will shortly pronounce that men are bound to believe them which will be very easie for them to establish because it is but a
necessary Consequence of their Principle since it is certain that one may not believe any thing with a divine Faith but what truly is of divine Faith and that what-ever is so ought to be believed with a divine Faith when it is sufficiently proposed to us It suffices them for the present that the Bishops do not condemn this Opinion but within a little while they will make the Bishops Approbators according to another of their Maximes P. Bauny Theol. Mor. Tract p. 321. viz. That the Church does approve all those Opinions which she suffers without opposing It therefore highly concerns you my Lords to consider not onely the Peril to which the Church is expos'd but that also wherein you your selves are lest the Jesuites one day vouch you for abettors of their Heresie and lest God himself do lay it to your charge For though there be nothing more false then that the Church does approve all those Opinions which she does not repress yet is it no less true as both Councils and Popes have taught that God does impute the approbation of an Errour to those Pastors which have not in due time resisted it Greg. l. 7. p. 2. Ep. 115. Error cui non resistitur approbatur Qui non corrigit resecanda committit Which induc'd the Second Council of Tours to declare Concil Turon 2. Anno 1567. That the Shepherd seem'd to be at an agreement with the Wolf who whiles it was in his power hindered not the spoil which he made in the Flock And S. Leo speaking of those who neglected the application of those necessary Remedies to the Evils of the Church accuses them as plainly fomenters of them Leo Magnus Ep. 4. Qui multam saepe nutriunt pestilentiam dum necessariam dissimulant adhibere medicinam But these are Reflexions my Lords which it were needless to represent to you whose Zeal and Pastoral Illumination is more capable to inform you what is most expedient for the Church upon this occasion then all the Discourses which can be made you It is sufficient that private Divines display and lay open before you the sad Diseases and deep Wounds which they have given to the Faith and to say to every one of you in particular what once the Prophet said to God Vide Domine considera Behold and consider what Doctrine is taught in the Church whereof you are the Overseers Their Duty reaches no farther after this they may retire themselves to lament before Almighty God in Humility and Silence FINIS An Advertisement to the Reader IT will be very conducible to the more perfect understanding of divers particulars in these Papers especially as to what concerns the Five Propositions pretended to be in Jansenius that the Reader did cast his Eye upon the Provincials or Letters written by Lovis de Montalte and chiefly upon the 17 Letters c. which the Interpreter of these Papers had subjoyn'd to them were they not commonly to be had at every Bookseller's shop and already translated into English THE Imaginary Heresie The First LETTER SIR I Would willingly send you something that were new concerning Church-affairs but what can be more said of them then that they are still where they were They perpetually talk of the Five Propositions and threaten to treat them as Hereticks who refuse to acknowledg them to be in Jansenius Some are preparing to persecute them by secret Cabals and others to defend themselves as well as they are able by publick Writings which men reade and give their different opinions of Some commend them and say they are good others that they are too violent 'T is confess'd that they prove very well what they pretend M the Lieutenant Civil has made a very particular judgment of them as pronouncing them injurious to the Person of the King whiles others find nothing in them but Elogies of his Majestie and the defence of his sovereign Authority This is all I can inform you of it in general unless perhaps you would have me adde my own reflexions and the truth is there is an ample subject for them I must needs confess that I have long since admir'd at the patience of men and especially of the French who were not wont to be reproch'd with that fault 't is now at least ten years that they have been continually talking of a thing that did not deserve to be discours'd of one day What does it signifie whether the Five Propositions be or be not in Jansenius's book whether men believe any such thing or whether they doubt of it In the mean time the whole business of the Church seems to be engag'd in this pleasant Question Nor do the Bishops who superintend the Clergy take notice of any other disorder which they think worthy of their application They discourse of nothing save this in all their Assemblies the Formularie is almost the onely Canon which men are now oblig'd to obey and the onely great Crime which is punish'd among the Ecclesiasticks by privation of their employments is to but doubt of this matter of Fact A small grain of anti-Jansenism purges all kinds of defects as the least degree of Indifference in the Point sullies all their other vertues so as the most compendious way for one to make his fortune is to appear something zealous for the Formularie be the man never so Ignorant or Scandalous this zeal supplies and covers all In summe never was the Spanish Catholicon appli'd to so many uses as these Five Propositions Nor are they onely our men of Learning who talk of these matters the very Courtiers entertain themselves with nothing else and though the most understanding persons discourse of it as of a thing really ridiculous to make sport there are some Sr Politicks that make a great business of it One would imagine to hear them speak as if all Religion depended on it and the whole State were concern'd so that there happen no Inundations Tempests Storms Shipwrecks Poison or Plague which they do not attribute to this Foppery But what does most of all surprise me as I said is that men should thus persevere to be alwaies talking of the same thing and of so mean a subject For my own part I protest to you I am so tir'd with the Five Propositions and with all that Dispute that their discourses of it would be insufferable to me did I not look on the whole affair with a particular view according to which it affords me a very strange prospect and I shall impart it to you There is nothing in my opinion more wonderfull in all the histories of the Ages past or in what has happen'd in our own times and of which we have been the spectators then to contemplate the images of the Vanity of mens Fancies and withall to consider the infinite troubles and agitations which the most inconsiderable Trifles have produc'd amongst them Is it not for example a thing worthy of astonishment to behold all the
to reherse the particulars And thus was the success of this pleasant Question Whether the Cordeliers were owners of the bread which they ate For so it pleased God to humble mens pride by suffering them to bring the greatest Trifles to the very height and greatest of extremities and by that to let them see that they were all but mere Vanity themselves Thus it is we judge of things at present because we are now free'd from those passions which did then disturb them but then it was that they pass'd for very serious matters indeed and it had not haply been safe to have laugh'd at them There 's no doubt but it will be just so with our present Disputes and that within these fifty years they will all be put among the long Hoods and the Bread and Cheese of the Cordeliers Verily I have long since had these Examples in my thoughts and have look'd upon them as equally expedient to demonstrate to us the trifling folly of mens imaginations The sole difference which I can find is that there are in the present controversie very many things less reasonable then in the others which I have alledg'd 1. For in earnest there is some real difference between a large Hood and a narrow Hood but 't is not possible to find any between the Orthodox Faith and the Heresie of our Age. The same individual person without any alteration of his Opinion and all the world knowing he has not alter'd it is Heretick in the morning and a good Catholick by after-dinner A Curat who offers himself to sign the Formularie with protestation that he does not ingage in the belief of the matter of Fact and that his Bishop has declar'd he does not in the least pretend to oblige any man to it is imprison'd upon this as an Heretick Afterwards having sign'd the Formularie without revoking his protestation and solemnly refusing to revoke it is free'd out of prison as an excellent Catholick 2. Those spiritual Friers who were so far in love with their narrow Hood that they could not be brought to obey in it either their Superiors or the Pope himself were certainly in the wrong because these exterior things absolutely depend on the power of the Church which no man may presume to disobey on pretence of not being able to doe it since 't is alwaies in a man's power to change a Hood when he pleases But so is it not in the present Dispute where they command us to alter an Opinion upon a Question of no importance or to renounce that exteriourly which they permit us to retain in our hearts both of them equally impossible to consciencious persons Reason it self not allowing that one should change his Opinion without some new light and subject for it and Piety not permitting us to belie our sentiment without really altering it 3. It is manifest that in the dispute 'twixt John the XXIIth and the Cordeliers they could fix no reproch of Heresie but upon certain Points contain'd in the Scripture and therefore this Pope expressly distinguish'd the Question concerning the Right of the Cordeliers to temporal things from that of the Poverty of J. Christ and shews that he onely appli'd the note of Heresie to this Question as believing the Opinion of the Cordeliers upon this point to be repugnant to the Scriptures But now they pretend here I know not how to found an Heresie on the refusing to acknowledge a pure and simple Fact which every body knows cannot be establish'd or proved by Scripture In summe they disputed in those daies in good earnest Pope John the XXIIth making them very well understand what he meant and subtily answering the others reasons without at all dissembling them or making as if he did not comprehend them But in the present difference all the address is made to consist in saying nothing that is intelligible They perpetually talk of the sense of Jansenius but what is this sense of Jansenius 'T is a Mysterie which is forbidden to be revealed Father Annat one day endeavour'd to doe it but was like to have spoil'd all for 't was told him that they had condemn'd what he call'd the sense of Jansenius so there was an end of the Question And since that time men have been very tender of making any such offers keeping themselves within the inseparability of Fact and Right for that the world which understands none of these terms are not aware of the absurdity If they were they would be astonish'd that men should presume to publish such an extravagance since in one word 't is as much as to say that 't is the same thing to affirm Jansenius has not taught those Propositions as to maintain in effect those Propositions and that to say a friend of ours has not kill'd a man is all one as really to have kill'd a man Behold here the sole foundation of the Formularie which those who are the Authors of it have rais'd upon this Principle That one cannot separate matter of Fact from matter of Right But since no humane Reason is able to suffer such a violence upon it long they have been forc'd to seek for other pretexts to defend that which they had done Most of the Bishops declaring in particular that it is a most absurd and stupid thing to confound matter of Fact with Right they pretend that they do not require our belief of the Fact so as it seemed that after this there remain'd nothing and all were at an end they contest not the Right nor require they our belief of the Fact and yet for all this the Heresie remains intire because indeed the Heresie consists in nothing For at the same moment that they indulge you not to believe the matter of Fact provided you declare that you do not believe it you are become an Heretick without remedy There is therefore visibly something of more extraordinary in our disputes then was in those other Examples which I but now produced but if the Vanity be equal the Injustice is here incomparably the greater And truly 't is that which prevents a Reply I conceive some persons of the World might make which is That they are verily persuaded there is nothing more frivolous then all this Contestation and that all those who have any thing to doe in it are equally ridiculous it being as much a wonder there should be people so obstinate as to maintain that Five Propositions are not to be found in a Book as to see there are others so impudent to avow that they are there But however this Judgement may conform to the humor of the men of the world 't is certainly most unjust in the reality of the thing For in differences which spring from mean and low considerations the fault and the injustice is not alwaies of both parties and oftentimes one may be persecuted for a ridiculous matter yet without being culpable or ridiculous For Instance Pope John the XXIIth having simply injoyn'd the Cordeliers to
Right and Fact and Questions purely of Fact as will appear by these Examples The Semi-pelagians affirm that the Doctrine of S. Augustine concerning Grace was not orthodox The Calvinists on the contrary maintain that it is The Jesuites say the same And the Church saies so too Whiles we dwell here one shall never come to know whether these Questions are of Fact or of Right but we shall easily discover it by the same Rule The Semi-pelagians acknowledge with the Church that the Doctrine of the Necessity of Grace efficacious of it self for all good actions was really S. Augustine's but they reject this Doctrine as not true at least in regard to the inception of Faith And the Church on the contrary maintains it against them that it is both certain and very true as well in respect of the beginning of Faith as of all other actions of Piety So as since the matter of Fact was not contested and that the dispute was onely concerning the quality of the Doctrine the whole Question between the Church and the Semi-pelagians was purely concerning Right They say with the Semi-pelagians that the Doctrine of efficacious Grace per se is not true but as they are a great deal less sincere then the Semi-pelagians they adde that this Doctrine is not S. Augustine's which the Semi-pelagians do not affirm They are therefore agreed upon the Right with the Semi-pelagians and differ onely upon the pure Fact whereas they neither accord with the Church about the Fact nor the Right though they consent with her in this uncertain expression that the Doctrine of S. Augustine is true because in particular they maintain that the Doctrine of efficacious Grace per se is false and not S. Augustine's albeit the Church has ever acknowledged both the one and the other of these two Points No wonder at all then if in speaking to persons who were at variance not about the Doctrine of S. Augustine in general but the particular Doctrine of efficacious Grace per se it has been said to them in a certain Writing which F. Ferrier has abus'd That it was a Crime an Attempt and an Heresie to condemn the Doctrine of S. Augustine of Heresie which the Church has approved forasmuch as treating of the particular Dogm of efficacious Grace they had reason to affirm that they could not brand it with Heresie without erring in matter of Right and of Faith whether one attacque it for not avowing it to be S. Augustine's as do the Jesuites or acknowledg it for S. Augustine's as did the Semi-pelagians and as those persons would seem to doe to whom this Writing is directed So that the difference which is 'twixt the Church and the Jesuites upon the Doctrine of S. Augustine forms a direct Question of Faith together with a dispute of Fact And of the very same nature is that between the Church and Calvin on the same Doctrine of S. Augustine For he attributing this Errour to S. Augustine That God is the Author of Sin and that he compells the Will to good and evil the asseveration which he makes of this general Proposition that the Doctrine of S. Augustine is orthodox does not excuse him from a double Errour both of Right and Fact since he takes that for a Truth which is an Heresie and attributes to S. Augustine a Blasphemy which was infinitely remote from his thoughts But it may be that the Question concerning the Doctrine of S. Augustine might be purely of Fact from another supposition For if a man led by a false persuasion as was Calvin that S. Augustine teaches God to be as well author of Sins as of Good actions should at the same time condemn the Blasphemy which Calvin approves and by a consequent of this Opinion refuse to acknowledg S. Augustine's Doctrine to be orthodox one could not justly accuse him of Errour in point of Faith because he should condemn what the Church condemns but of an extreme Temerity onely to have father'd so impious an Opinion on S. Augustine But what would be strange in this encounter is That he who should affirm in the sense of Calvin that the Doctrine of S. Augustine were orthodox would notwithstanding be an Heretick because he did not doe it but as approving an Errour which he imputed to S. Augustine whereas he that should say as this person does that the Doctrine of S. Augustine is not orthodox should be Catholick because he would say it without any Errour so little regard there is to be had to be able to judge whether a man be Catholick or Heretick and whether the Questions concern matter of Right or of Fact to these wild and indetermin'd Propositions which approve or condemn anothers Doctrine without so much as shewing it 'T is what S. Augustine has himself decided and in respect to himself by these words full of unction and charity Whilest men saies he L. 1. de Trinit c. 3. imagine that I have held some false Opinion in my Books which in truth I never held and that they condemn this Opinion the law and dictates of Charity advertise and command me but with an injunction full of sweetness to be rather willing to be reprov'd by him who condemns this Errour in attributing it to me without reason then to be prais'd by those who would maintain this Errour because they believ'd I had taught it For though the first did wrongfully to attribute an Errour to me which I never committed they had reason yet to condemn it But the others are under a double mistake since they praise me for an Opinion which the Truth condemns and approve an Opinion which is condemn'd by the Truth True it is that this person who should thus impute an Errour to S. Augustine would be oblig'd to say that the Church has not compris'd it in approving of his Doctrine which would be very rash and scandalous because he would say it without and against all Reason whereas there are some occasions wherein one might doe the same thing without temerity or scandal because one does it not but upon great reason the only Rule for these kind of things being That 't is lawfull to doe them with Reason but by no means without it And therefore It is lawfull to accuse of Supposition the Council of Sinuessa and it is not so in reference to the Council of Nice It is lawfull to say that Theodoret has been ill understood by the Sixth Council but it is not lawfull to say that Nestorius was so by the Council of Ephesus It is lawfull to affirm that they did not understand the Doctrine of Pope Honorius in the VIth Council but it is not so of the Doctrine of Pope Leo in the Council of Chalcedon That which makes that some of these things are permitted and others of them forbidden is that there is Reason to say it of some but none at all to say it of the other So that 't is a very frail consequence which F. Ferrier
urg'd to condemn it because supposing they do not understand it they can neither truely averr that they do reject it nor promise truely that they will not embrace it for peradventure they may be engag'd to doe it without knowing of it and perhaps fall into it before they are aware Now if we suppose that these Divines do know what the Pope and the Bishops understand by this Sense of Jansenius they have so much the more reason to demand because they onely know it by particular waies and such as are not authentical so that if they should themselves determine what the Pope understands by the Sense of Jansenius as these Propositions are susceptible of various senses the Jesuites would not fail presently to say that this were not yet what the Pope understands and what they ought to condemn in fine that 't were some other thing without saying what and so one should never have an end It were therefore much better they should make their addresses to those who have the power to determine this Sense that if they once did it it might clearly appear by condemning this Dogm together with them in which they had comprehended the Sense of Jansenius that one be not enwrapp'd in any Errour But the plain truth is These Divines both do know and do not know the Sense of Jansenius They do very well know a Doctrine in Jansenius to be very holy very Catholick and most Orthodox which is that of Efficacious Grace per se which infallibly causes the Will to act without imposing of a necessity They acknowledge the Catholick Doctrine of the free Predestination of the Elect receiv'd by the whole Church and maintain'd by Bellarmine himself as a point of Faith and they do acknowledge no other Point upon the subject of the Five Propositions But since it is evident by the universal consent of the Church that this is not that which the Pope and the Bishops mean by the Sense of Jansenius which they condemn but a certain Sense which was never known to our Divines before Baius and Jansenius according to those Gentlemen the Bishops of the Assembly a certain Sense contrary to the Doctrine of all the Catholick Schools as these very Bishops do assure us a certain Sense different from efficacious Grace repugnant to S. Augustine and which has been constantly condemn'd by the Dominicans and the Jesuites as F. Annat and M. Hallier have so deeply protested before the Constitution of Pope Innocent It is this certain Sense which these Divines do not understand or at least which they but very confusedly know They know all that the Jesuites and the other adversaries of Jansenius have said of it in divers Books But they see that their Explanations do not agree together whiles some of them place it in one Point and others in another All that they know of this Sense is that it is different from Efficacious Grace and by consequent that they do not hold it and that they reject it because they hold but this Doctrine and that whatsoever Doctrine is repugnant to it is false So as in the necessity to which they are reduc'd for the justification of their Faith and to avoid the reproch which they cast on them touching this uncertain unexplicable Sense they have reason to appeal to the Bishops who ought to know it since they condemn it and to the Pope who could not have condemn'd it without knowing it to conjure them to explain it that so they may be inabled to confound their Accusers in shewing the world how free they are from any Errour This is the onely reason which makes them require with so much earnestness the Explication of this Sense for they have otherwise no such hast to know it They hold the truth of the Doctrine of Efficacious Grace per se and reject whatsoever Errour is repugnant to it whether it be in attributing too little to Grace as the Molinists or in destroying its liberty as this pretended Errour of Jansenius's Sense should be This suffices them so as men molest them not with the indetermin'd Sense of Jansenius and they will soon leave enquiring what it is But if they continue their Persecutions thus upon this point they will be forc'd to continue the pressing of them to explain this Sense nor can they refuse to doe it without an evident sign of Oppression For the Bishops cannot in conscience make them condemn it without they know it and if they do know it 't is a foolery not to be understood that they should refuse to declare it But Sir it is now time we took off our spirits from these subtile matters and which smell of the School to oppose another Illusion of Father Ferrier not a whit less dangerous but somewhat more intelligible This Father does upon all occasions represent the present Church as divided in two Parties The one pompous and triumphant as compos'd of the Pope the Bishops and of all both Ecclesiastical Secular and Regular who condemn the Sense of Jansenius as heretical who believe that matter of Fact is inseparable from matter of Right and that therefore it is not to be deny'd without being an Heretick The other poor and abandon'd as consisting but of a small number of Divines who refuse to acknowledge that the Sense of Jansenius is heretical who hold that there is a Fact separate from Right in the Decision of the Pope which condemns it and that therefore one may by consequence refuse to believe it without being an Heretick This is the Idea which F. Ferrier gives us of the Church in his Treatise But as there is nothing more prodigious then this Idea so is there also nothing more false God will never abandon his Church to that degree as to suffer so gross and visible an Errour to reign in it And every man may by himself be convinc'd of the falseness of this phantastick Supposition For unless a man wilfully shut his own eyes one cannot deny but there are in the Church no less then four different Opinions upon the Formularie The First is that of the Jesuites who affirm that matter of Fact is inseparable from that of Right and that quatenus so it cannot be deny'd without Heresie The Second is that of a considerable number of Divines who believe that though it be no Article of divine Faith to hold that the Sense of Jansenius is heretical and that the Fact may very well be separated from Right yet that Christian humility obliges us nevertheless to prefer the Sense of the Pope to his proper Illumination and so they ought to believe the Fact by humane Faith and under that notion sign the Formularie The Third and the most embrac'd consists in affirming that a man is not oblig'd to believe the matter of Fact as decided either by divine or humane Faith but that one may for all that sign the Formularie without violating his Conscience because the Signature does never concern or fall upon the Facts
The Fourth is the opinion of several other Divines who are persuaded of one part that it is most false the Fact should be separated from Right or that it should be a point of Faith to hold the Doctrine of Jansenius heretical or that a man is obliged to believe it by humane Faith but who believe on the other part that the Fact being contain'd in this Formularie those who scruple it cannot sign it without restriction since the declarations which men make to the Church ought to be intirely sincere and free of all duplicity It is visible that in this difference of Divines each party condemns the others but after a sort very different The Jesuites who make the first ought by the necessary consequence of their Opinion to condemn for Heresie not onely the last who absolutely refuse to sign that the sense of Jansenius is heretical but those likewise who do not believe it of humane Faith or that believe it not at all albeit they sign it For Heresie consists in the opinion of the spirit and not in the omission of an exterior action of the hand A person who should not believe but with an humane Faith that the Body of J. Christ were in the Sacrament of the Eucharist or that should sign it in infidelity would be never the less an Heretick then he who should absolutely refuse to sign it So as all those many Bishops that have caus'd none to sign or that receive restrictions concerning the matter of Fact or that declare they do not require the belief of the Fact or that pretend not the Fact can be otherwise believ'd then by humane Faith are as much Hereticks in the judgement of the Jesuites and of F. Annat as these Divines whom they particularly persecute True it is their Politicks oblige them to distinguish of two sorts of Hereticks in France some of which they treat civilly and others most outrageously They place the Bishops Sorbonists the Fathers of the Oratory the Benedictines c. in the first order and whom they do not yet attacque but by consequence though by a very necessary one whiles they range in the other those whom they immediately design for ruine that so they may with the greater force surprize the other Therefore it is sufficiently evident that all those persons who have sign'd the Fact either of humane Faith or without believing it shall be never the more acquitted for that but be all Hereticks in their turn when they have left off oppressing the others seeing they must of necessity be so in the opinion of the Jesuites But on the contrary all these three last parties who accord in this point that this Fact of Jansenius is very separable from Right that it does not in the least concern the Faith and that one may safely deny it without Heresie ought from a necessary consequence of this their mutual Opinion condemn the Jesuites both of Calumny and Errour It is certain these four Parties reside in the Church and that if one would now consider which of them were the most numerous one might safely affirm that there are none more profligate and abandon'd and who have fewer sincere approbators then that of the Jesuites Nor is this an aiery Supposition but a real Verity to be discern'd by every one that has a mind to it that the Jesuites stand almost single in this pretension that matter of Fact is inseparable from matter of Right and that one cannot believe without being an Heretick the Doctrine of Jansenius not to be heretical The most devoted to the Jesuites of the Bishops ask for whom the World takes them that they should believe them capable of so monstrous a Folly as is that of affirming that a Fact should be inseparably joyn'd to Faith They express as much as one would wish in words that they do not require the assent of Fact They receive the Subscriptions of those whom they very well know do not believe it and who declare as much before they sign All the Curats of Paris do solemnly approve and by an authentick Act the Distinction between Fact and Right contain'd in the first Mandat of Paris In fine they proceed with confidence that the Jesuites cannot find six Bishops in all France and ten Divines of the least considerable persons who will sign this Proposition which F. Ferrier maintains and which is the basis of all his Treatise The Fact of Jansenius is inseparable from Faith and one cannot reject the Dogm which is condemned without acknowledging it to be Jansenius ' s. And in particular they affirm that he could not make M. Grandin sign nor M. Moret nor amongst the Doctors M. Chamillart nor Monsieur de Rouën amongst the Bishops It is certain therefore that the Jesuites are in a manner alone in their erroneous opinions And 't is as true that the Divines whom they persecute are almost wholly united to the Church in this difference which is between them I confess they have yet some dispute with the other Divines because against the one they maintain that one owes not so much as humane Faith to Decisions de facto when there is any cause of doubt administred and against the other that it was not altogether sincere in them to subscribe a Formularie which clearly comprizes a Fact without being fully persuaded of the Fact But this difference has relation to Manners onely and not to Faith and in this very difference they may make use of the authority of the one to defend themselves against the other Those who sign the Fact as of humane Faith approve of their Doctrine touching the Sincerity of Subscriptions Those who sign the Fact without believing it approve what they affirm That the Church obliges none to believe the Fact by way of command so as to the truth they have this consolation that in every of the Points whereof they are accus'd they are united in Opinion with the greatest part of the Divines of the Church Whoever shall take the pains diligently to inform himself of the bottom of these particulars will clearly find that what I say is most true And if any man ask why the contrary appears to the World that the Jesuites domineer every-where and the Divines are oppress'd it is not very difficult to give a reason for it They are onely to consider what Post F. Annat holds and what Power the place in which he is affords him both at Rome and at Paris to doe what he pleases as to this matter They know nothing at Rome but from the Instructions which he sends them and he stands at the gate of all the Benefices of France to exclude who-ever stands in his way in any thing Every one has his particular business at Court and those who have no other either for themselues or their Communalty enjoy their repose in which they will not be molested Jansenism is the onely affair of Father Annat so as that people may not be cross'd in their particular businesses
they let F. Annat alone with his Not that this Reverend Father with all his credit is yet arriv'd so far as to be able to procure the Bishops or the Pope by any formal Decisions to support these particular Absurdities of his Society That matter of Fact is inseparably annex'd to Faith and That he who denies it is an Heretick He is not so weak a man as to attempt that at present He satisfies himself that every one signs the Fact simply without taking notice of his intention to make use of these Subscriptions when time serves and as may best conduce to his ends nor for the most part does he find any difficulty in it since their spirits furnishing them with expedients to sign without believing the Fact either of divine or humane Faith their Interests easily persuade them to embrace them They fansie themselves not oblig'd openly to oppose F. Annat but that they may safely shelter themselves from this rowling tempest and therefore suffer him freely to oppress those against whom he is particularly animated because they conceive it their own fault that they do not seek their safety as they doe by a Subscription which as they affirm engages them to nothing By this means those who refuse to sign remain expos'd to the unjust violence of the Jesuites Those who agree with them in certain Points and condemn them in others blame them highly in those particulars about which they contest with them but they are very wary to defend them when they think they have reason on their side How infinitely are these Gentlemen mistaken saies honest M. Moret in all his Sermons not to believe the Decision de facto with an humane Faith But he is wary enough not to adde that the Jesuites are mistaken who require we should treat those as Hereticks who acknowledge no Fact which we can onely assent to but by humane Faith Yet is this manner of acting more tolerable then that of those who say nothing at all in publick concerning their intention but joyn simply with the Jesuites by an exteriour signature however different and remote in their sense If they did but say clearly what they reprove in those who do not sign the diversity of their opinions would render their authority less considerable but whiles they say nothing at all such as onely judge things by the out-side take them for approbators of the Opinions of the Jesuites 'T is not therefore an universal Illusion but an universal Baseness which makes these Divines to be oppress'd or rather 't is the Oppression of the Church in general which renders their Oppression particular Let every man speak as he thinks and they shall be fully justified Let every man also condemn them as he thinks and they shall yet be more fully justified seeing it will appear that in all the Points on which they are accus'd they are united with the greater number of the Divines of the Church But the terror and dread of F. Annat keeps all mens tongues bound to defend them and lets them all loose to condemn them uniting in one equivocal expression persons that are extremely distant in Opinion that so F. Annat may seem to be follow'd of the whole Church whenas in truth he is in effect condemn'd by the whole Church Were there indeed no other Life besides the present nor any other Judge save Men it must needs be confess'd that F. Annat were a marvelous able man for knowing how to conceal with so much address the weakness of his Party How victorious in appearance is he whenas in effect he is abandon'd by all the World But this Father whilest he thinks to cheat others cheats himself first because the business in agitation here is of things which depend upon the truth and will be judged by the truth and not on appearance It is not a deceitfull union in an equivocal expression which renders one orthodox but a real and veritable conformity of ones sense with that of the universal Church in matters which concern the Faith So as these Divines maintaining no other Doctrine upon the Fact of Jansenius but that of the whole Church which is that this Fact has no relation to Faith continue Orthodox whatever Cabal they contrive to oppress them And both F. Annat and the Jesuites who would make it a point of Faith are not Orthodox for all their power and credit forasmuch as in this they are really repugnant to the sense of the Church into which they do introduce a Real Heresie under pretence forsooth of destroying an Heresie which is but Imaginary One may therefore justly applie these words of J. Christ to the Jesuites which he spake to a Bishop in the Apocalypse Dicis quòd dives sum locupletatus nullius egeo nescis quia es miser miserabilis pauper cacus nudus You conceit your selves indeed rich and aboundant by the number of your Sectators whereas in the mean time you are miserable and objects of compassion You are poor abandon'd blind and naked since all those who seem so much to follow you do in effect condemn you And one may on the contrary applie to these persecuted Divines those other words of our B. Saviour to another Bishop in the same Book Scio tribulationem tuam paupertatem tuam sed dives es blasphemaris ab his qui se dicunt Judaeos esse non sunt I know the Oppressions which you suffer and the poverty which they reproch you of notwithstanding ye are rich because the most part of those who appear against you are in truth for you and you are born down but by people who pronounce themselves Orthodox but who are indeed replete with Errours Sir I am c. This 1. of March 1664. Since this Letter was finished I have receiv'd a large Writing of F. Ferrier's intituled Relation veritable c. A true Relation c. I conceive as to what relates to the Heresie of which he continues to accuse the Divines who are more Catholick then himself you will find nothing in it which is not here overthrown before-hand But as to the prodigious number of Falsities with which his Relation abounds this Father deserves to be particularly answered and I am assur'd there will some body be found out that will so doe it as the Jesuites will hardly find the advantage they expected of their Impostures The Third LETTER SIR I Have already told you and I repeat it again that within one fifty years men will look upon this pretended Heresie of Jansenism but as a rare example of the Vanity of mens spirits and rank the whole Dispute with that of the Cowls and the Cordeliers Bread They will then ask with astonishment what this Father Annat and F. Ferrier were that spake such impertinent things in the Age they liv'd in and who those silly persons were that suffer'd themselves to be led by their Dotages But these you 'l say are Prophecies and 't is no hard
of Absolution had the same success with the rest The power of the Jesuites has procur'd them impunitie for their Calumnies and Errours M. Arnauld and those who have supported the Cause of Truth have had Persecutions for their share But the Truth has in fine both triumph'd over these Errours and all the power of the Jesuites besides The Fourth Contestation which is that of the Morale of the Casuists is the most considerable of all the rest for the greatness of the events Every one knows what authority the Casuists had acquir'd in the Church and that albeit the honest men did alwaies govern themselves by Rules which were totally contrary to their Maximes yet they were I know not how got into possession of magisterially deciding the Morals of the Church and to make the Opinions pass for indisputable which they pleas'd to agree upon and those for probable and safe in Conscience which they thought good to doubt of or to controvert It was above fifty years that this reign of theirs continu'd in the Schools and though this their licence was become odious to many knowing persons yet the small resistences which had been made against them from time to time were too feeble to remedy so great an evil as had been fomented by all the power of the Jesuites It was not till the year 1656 that any body undertook to attacque them in good earnest He who made the first onset thought the best way to accomplish his design would be to represent them as they are in their native colours and render them ridiculous to all the world And whereas they exalted themselves like Masters of the Church he treats them as the very abjects and last of men and without troubling himself with opposing Casuist to Casuist he confounds them pel-mel Suarez Vasquez Molina Lessius Filiutius Escobar the head and the tail of the Jesuites undertaking to render them all alike odious and despicable There was never any design that to the Jesuites appear'd more rash who looking upon themselves as elevated to a degree so eminent in the Church looked down as from their sublime Throne on this Incognito that durst presume to attacque the whole Body of their August Society which is the name they give themselves and to accuse them for having corrupted all the Christian Morality Nor were they ever heard to cry out so hideously through all France The Author of the Provincials was an Heretick I and more then an Heretick He borrow'd all his reproches against them from Hereticks He assaulted amongst the Jesuites Morals the most undoubted Maximes of the Christian Faith In fine to answer Fifteen of his Letters it was enough to say according to the R. F. Annat that they were Fifteen Heretical Letters For this has ever been a common Reproch with this good Father to brand those withall who disapprov'd the Doctrine of his Companions But above all he could never sufficiently exaggerate the excess of boldness of this Incognito who should dare thus to condemn so many grave Authors And Father Ferrier does triumph in his Book of Probability in setting out this his Council of Casuists and in opposing them to this unknown Theologue But in spight of all these fine Arguments of the Jesuites maugre the infinite numbers of their Partizans and the weakness of this Adversarie they were astonish'd to find themselves in so little a time the Fable of all France and all the world declaring against them as themselves are forc'd to acknowledge in their Apologie of the Casuists I do not question saies Father Pirot Author of that Book but the Banishments and Martyrdoms have not been less grievous and more easie to support then the Abandoning which this Society finds it self constrain'd to suffer amongst these Railleries since in all their retreats the FF Jesuites were still entertain'd with honour in the Provinces which receiv'd them they had a respect to their Patience and their merit whereas on this encounter what-ever countenance they preserv'd they are basely treated The Book of Escobar having been 39 times printed for an excellent Book was printed the fourtieth time as the most wicked and abominable Book that was ever publish'd and to satisfie the curiosity onely of those who had a desire to search out the passages which the Author of the Provincial Letters had cited out of him The Curates of Paris of Rouën and of divers other considerable Towns of the Kingdome rose up against these detestable Maximes A very great number of Bishops condemn'd them by authentick Censures so as the Jesuites could not so much as find one single Bishop who would openly take upon him their defence which considering all the circumstances of this Affair ought to be taken for an infallible mark of the universal Consent of the Church in the Condemnation of the Casuists The Jesuites at first vaunted that the Pope disapprov'd what was done in France But the Pope has himself taken away this pretext so injurious to the Holy See and the Church by condemning likewise the Apologie of the Casuists and in so manifestly consenting with the Judgments which the Bishops had express'd against the Jesuites Morality I tell you here nothing but old stories having onely a design to recall them to your memory but I will now shew you some newer ones and that are more rare to let you see that the Moral of the Jesuites is as well disapprov'd at Rome as elsewhere A certain Professor of Boulogne nam'd Antony Merenda having conceiv'd a very just horror at the unbridled licentiousness of these Casuists compos'd a considerable Work against them not many years since in which he chiefly opposes their Doctrine of Probability as an Invention of the Devil Commentum Diaboli A Dominican Inquisitor of Pavia nam'd Mercorus publish'd soon after a Book against the same Doctrine and divers other Loosenesses of the Casuists And in fine after these last contestations touching the Moral a famous Prelat of Rome call'd Prosper Fagnani a person that the Pope honour'd with a particular friendship has inserted in a great Volume which he has compos'd upon the Decretals a large Treatise against the Probability of the Casuists where he represents this Doctrine as the fountain of all sorts of Corruptions and Disorders and treats it with Merenda as a Diabolical Invention Commentum Diaboli In this Treatise he mentions with an Elogy the pursuits which the Curats of Paris and of Rouën have made against the Casuists He inserts the Extracts which they propos'd to the Assembly of several dangerous Propositions of these Authors and the Censures which have been given them in the Low-Countries and had he been but acquainted with what has been since done in France there is no doubt but he would likewise have mention'd the Censures of the French Bishops as he does those of certain Bishops of Flanders This was all done by consent of the Pope and the Book it self is dedicated to him so as one may well judge it was not
very welcome to the Jesuites Yet durst they never attacque him openly But they made use of two Artifices to have ruin'd this Work The First was To bring Merenda's Book to the Inquisition and endeavour to have it censur'd upon some pretext which in that Country they never fail of when they desire to blast a Book And accordingly they soon succeeded and we have seen the Book of Merenda in the list of such as the Inquisition has condemn'd The Second was To instigate Caramuel now a Bishop in Italy to write against Fagnani He undertook it and after his manner acquitted himself that is to say with his ordinary Impudence For he maintains in his Book the Doctrine of Probability as an Article of Faith oppos'd to the Heresie of the Jansenists He will have all the Curates of Paris and of Rouën together with all those Bishops who censur'd the Casuists to be arrant Jansenists and of whose authority there is no regard to be had This put him well with the Jesuites who were marvellously satisfied with these goodly beginnings but they were not so with the consequence For the Pope being clearly advertis'd by Fagnani of these Intrigues caus'd Merenda's Book to be fetch'd out of the Inquisition and condemn'd that of Caramuel which continues so censur'd without remedy And thus Sir finish'd the Warr against our Casuists by which it fully appears that they are stuff'd with an infinity of pernicious and impious Maximes that above all the Doctrine of Probability which is the Source is an Invention of the Devil and that therefore F. Ferrier who has defended it and as many Jesuites as have maintain'd it are Co-operators and Predicators of that Serpent Praedicatores Serpentis as S. Augustine saies and that on the contrary those who have oppos'd the Casuists have done the Church one of the most considerable services that Divines are capable of rendring her Their Doctrine continues still victorious as that of the Jesuites quite wither'd and come to nothing in the contest But so is it not as to their Persons The greatness of the Service which these Divines have render'd to the Church has diminish'd nothing of the Persecutions which they have for so long time suffer'd nay on the contrary it does but augment them in provoking the Jesuites to pursue them with the greater violence Nor have the so many Censures of the Moral of the Jesuites abated ought of their temporal power 'T is known they still persevere in the very same Maximes that have been condemn'd nor do they themselves conceal them yet in the mean time they are permitted the administration of the Sacraments Men would never suffer that the Physicians of our Bodies who had been known for Empoisoners should continue to exercise their faculty whiles yet they permit these Physicians of Souls convinc'd to have govern'd them with their envenom'd Maximes to prescribe this pretended spiritual Medicine without giving any mark or caution to the Church that they have sincerely renounc'd them But it is an Effect of the depth of God's Judgements who imparts his Graces on his Church according to measure and boundaries them within the sight of mens Sins A great one it is which he has bestowed on her in causing the Moral of the Jesuites to be condemn'd by so many Bishops and by thereby giving all men an opportunity who sincerely pursue their own Salvation to renounce their Conduct But he has not altogether accomplish'd this favour but suffers the Jesuites to enjoy the same Authority and to preserve themselves in the same Credit which they formerly had to the end they may serve him as ministers of his Wrath that those who deserve to be misled may be misled and by their Persecutions to prove those who are worthy to be prov'd This is their emploiment and office in the Church not unlike to that of the King to whom God directs these words in the Scripture Vae Assur virga furoris mei But I beseech you Sir do not imagine that it is the difference of Opinions upon the quarrel of Jansenism which imports me to embrace these opinions The most Religious persons of the Church and who have never been so much as suspected of any kindness for that which they call Jansenism have I assure you no other Idea of the Jesuites And amongst others the late M. the Bishop of Cahors being upon his Death-bed expressly ordered M. the Abbot Ferrier great Vicar to my Lord Bishop d' Alby to say from him to M. de Alet M. de Pamiers and M. de Comenge That he had done all he could to reduce the Jesuites from their Errours but that he knew them for people incorrigible and without remedy that he held them for the greatest Enemies of the Church and did earnestly desire that these Gentlemen would never have any thing to doe with them This person perform'd his Commission and said the same things to some persons of great Quality from whom we have receiv'd that which we here mention I suppose Sir that you expect what I should say of the Contestation concerning Jansenism which is the most tedious and refractory of all the rest and that you haply think I could not say as much of that that the Cause of these Divines has had its Triumphs also seeing the Jesuites produce whole Volumes of Decrees Briefs Constitutions Arrests and Declarations which they have obtain'd against them and that the Letters of these Gentlemen make a great part of those which have furnish'd the Inquisition of Rome any time these ten years But all this shall not hinder me yet from assuring you before-hand that the success of this Warr will not be at all inferiour to that of the others and that you will there likewise see these Divines oppress'd the Jesuites unpunish'd and the Truth triumphing over their Errours You are onely to follow me as I do that of the various faces of this Dispute It began first in Flanders at the University of Louvain it being there that the Jesuites publish'd those famous Theses against Jansenius where they accus'd him of an infinity of Errours But the Doctors of Louvain repell'd them with so much vigour that whiles they insisted on their Books the Jesuites had no cause to boast of their advantage A little after the Dispute came into France upon occasion of the Sermons of M. Habert a Parisian Divine who in the Pulpit did publickly accuse this Prelat's Book of no less then Fourty Heresies But the first Apologie for Jansenius having taught him a little to moderate his Zeal he reduc'd these Heresies to the number of Twelve of which he continu'd to accuse him in a Treatise which he writ against this Apologie The second Apology for Jansenius which appear'd a little after made him yet to cut off Seven more For Monsieur Cornet how-ever enemy against this Bishop's Book durst propose but Five Propositions to the Faculty and that without naming them though with a design of one day causing his Book to