JANSENIUS. 



211 



express himself differently in his dispute with the 

 Manicheans and in that with the Pelagians, this 

 controversy was revived at the time of the reforma- 

 tion. The vague and contradictory expositions of 

 the papal court on the subject, served only to increase 

 the contention in the Catholic church, where the 

 pride and jealousy of the Dominicans and Augustines 

 on one side, and the artifices of the Franciscans and 

 Jesuits on the other, kept up this angry controversy 

 with increasing warmth, the former contending for 

 the strict anti-Pelagian principles of Augustine., the 

 latter adopting a milder interpretation of them. The 

 latter obtained a triumph over their adversaries, in 

 1567, by the papal bull condemning seventy-six pro- 

 positions taken from the writings of the chancellor 

 and inquisitor at Louvain, Michael Baius (died 1589), 

 a learned defender of the Augustine doctrine. But 

 the Spanish Jesuit, Lewis Molina (died 1600), went 

 too far on the other side, in his more than semi- 

 Pelagian commentary on the dogmatics of Thomas 

 Aquinas. The violence of the Molinistic controver- 

 sies compelled the pope, in 1598, to establish the 

 congregation de au-xiltis at Rome, for the examination 

 of opinions concerning grace ; and, this proving 

 ineffectual to restore harmony, he wisely required (in 

 1611) of the contending parties, silence on this 

 doctrine. 



Jansenius, who was an advocate of the strict 

 Augustine system, which had always prevailed at the 

 university of Louvain, died 1638, at Ypres, with an 

 unblemished reputation for piety and purity of morals. 

 But his Augustinus, a book in which he maintained 

 the Augustine doctrine of free grace, and recom- 

 mended it as the true orthodox belief, in opposition 

 to the semi Pelagianism of the Molinists, rekindled 

 the controversy on its publication in 1 640. The book 

 tws condemned by a bull of pope Urban VIII., in 

 1643 ; but the partisans of Jansen declared the bull 

 to be spurious ; the university of Louvain protested 

 against it ; and, even in France, it was ineffectual to 

 suppress the applause with which many distinguished 

 theologians received the Augustinus. Jansen 's old 

 friend, the abbot of St Cyran, known as the director 

 of the nuns of Port Royal, and a zealous opposer of 

 the Jesuits, as well as for his mysticism and ascetic 

 piety, John du Verger de Hauranne (died 1643), had 

 already prepared the minds of the French theologians 

 for Jansenism. The scholars of the Port Royal, 

 Nicole, Perrault, Pascal (whose Provincial Letters 

 had exposed the old sins of the Jesuits), and, above 

 all, Ant. Arnaud (born 1612 ; in 1643 made doctor of 

 the Sorbonne), men distinguished no less for religious 

 principles and unblemished virtue than for rare learn- 

 ing and talents, undertook the defence of Jansenism ; 

 and the bull, in which the pope (1653) particularly 

 condemned five propositions from the Augustinus, 

 met with a strong opposition. The five propositions 

 weretnese: 1. That there are certain commandments 

 of God which good men are absolutely unable to obey, 

 though they desire to do so, God not having given 

 them a sufficient measure of grace. 2. That no per- 

 son, in the fallen state of nature, can resist the 

 influence of divine grace. 3. To render themselves 

 meritorious in the sight of God, it is hot requisite 

 that men should be exempt from internal necessity, 

 but only from outward constraint. 4. That the 

 semi-Pelagians are heretical in maintaining that 

 the human will is able to resist or obey the influences 

 of divine grace. 5. That to say that Christ died for 

 all men, is semi-Pelagianism. 



These propositions are really contained in tlie 

 book of Jansenius, but his partisans contended that 

 his propositions were not to be understood precisely 

 in ths sense, and that the pope was not to be 

 regarded as infallible in determining the meaning 



of the writer. Hence arose, the important question 

 whether the pope, whose right to decide a point of 

 doctrine had never been disputed, had authority to 

 determine a historical fact. Alexander VII. assumed 

 this in 1656, in a special bull, declaring that Jan- 

 senius had imderstood the propositions in the sense 

 condemned. The Jansenists were thus compelled 

 either to recant or to secede from the Roman church. 

 Although their protest against this unheard-of arro- 

 gance of the Romish court, in pretending to know 

 and to determine what a deceased author meant by 

 expressions which admit of a double interpretation, 

 could surprise no impartial person it was yet regarded 

 as an attack upon the infallibility of the pope, and 

 drew down the displeasure of Louis XIV. himself. 

 This prince began, in 1661, to interfere in the con- 

 troversy, and to persecute the Jansenists, who were 

 already out of favour at court for preaching repentance 

 and boldly censuring the vices of the age. But their 

 interest with the French clergy and the influential men 

 of the kingdom was such, that it was found impossible 

 to force them to an unconditional subscription of the 

 bull of Alexander VII.; and, in 1668, the agreement 

 with Clement IX., by which a conditional subscrip- 

 tion was permitted them, and the misunderstanding 

 between the courts of Rome and Versailles, about 

 the affairs of Spain, obtained for them a temporary 

 repose. They lost, in 1679, their principal patron, 

 Anna, duchess of Longueville, celebrated in con- 

 nexion witli the Fronde, and sister of the great 

 Conde ; and Arnauld, to escape persecution, retired 

 in the same year into the Netherlands, where he con- 

 tinued till his death, in 1694, the most zealous and 

 esteemed defender of Jansenism ; but, notwithstand- 

 ing these losses, the party stood its ground under the 

 protection of Innocent IX. (died 1689), a friend ot 

 virtue and justice, who favoured them as much as 

 Louis XIV. and the Jesuits opposed them. The 

 Jansenists made themselves worthy of this protection, 

 and of the favour of the better part of the educated 

 men in France. By endeavouring to free theology 

 from the chains of the hierarchy, and to promote a 

 knowledge of the Scriptures among the people ; by 

 inculcating, in the place of formal piety and lifeless 

 ceremonies, an ardent participation of the heart and 

 soul in the exercises of devotion, and a strict purity 

 of life, they rendered undeniable service to the cause 

 of true religion ; and, these being considered, their 

 excessive austerity appears at least more excusable 

 than the looser principles of the Jesuits. But this 

 only rendered them more odious in the eyes of the 

 Jesuits. 



Jansenism, however, notwithstanding all the op- 

 position to it on the part of the court, still continued 

 to prevail. Father Quesnel's Moral Observations on 

 the New Testament the most universally read book 

 of this period gave it new support. The Sorbonne, 

 in 1702, decided the celebrated case of conscience, 

 whether a priest, suspected of Jansenism, could grant 

 absolution, in the affirmative, and the universally 

 esteemed archbishop of Paris, cardinal de Noailles, 

 used his power against the Jansenists no farther than 

 was necessary for the peace of the church. Clement 

 XI. at first pursued the same course, but La Chaise, 

 confessor of Louis XIV., and his successor the Jesuit 

 Le Tellier, urged more violent measures, in which 

 the king, to whose diseased fancy Jansenism and 

 rebellion were synonymous, supported them. Quesnel, 

 now at the head of the Jansenists, was struck from the 

 list of the fathers of the oratory, and driven into exile. 

 He died in 1709, at Amsterdam. In 1708, his New 

 Testament was prohibited ; the monastery of Port 

 Royal des Champs, which was considered as the strong 

 hold of Jansenism, was suppressed, by the royal police, 

 in 1709, the nuns dispersed, the buildings demolished, 

 02 



