The provincial letters of Blaise Pascal : $b A new translation, with historical introduction and notes, by the Rev. Thomas M'CriePascal, Blaise
Religion
The provincial letters of Blaise Pascal : $b A new translation, with historical introduction and notes, by the Rev. Thomas M'Crie
Pascal, Blaise
Jansenists -- France -- Early works to 1800; Jesuits -- Early works to 1800; Port-Royal des Champs (Abbey) -- Early works to 1800
3. In order to render human actions meritorious, or otherwise, it is not
requisite that they be exempt from necessity, but only free from
constraint.
4. The semi-Pelagian heresy consisted in allowing the human will to be
endued with a power of resisting grace, or of complying with its
influence.
5. Whoever says that Christ died or shed his blood for all mankind, is a
semi-Pelagian.
The Jansenists, in their subsequent disputes on these propositions,
contended that they were ambiguously expressed, and that they might be
understood in three different senses—a Calvinistic, a Pelagian, and a
Catholic or Augustinian sense. In the first two senses they disclaimed
them, in the last they approved and defended them. Owing to the extreme
aversion of the party to Calvinism, while they substantially held the
same system under the name of Augustinianism, it becomes extremely
difficult to convey an intelligible idea of their theological views. On
the first proposition, for example, while they disclaimed what they term
the Calvinistic sense, namely, that the best of men are liable to sin in
all that they do, they equally disclaim the Pelagian sentiment, that all
men have a general sufficient grace, at all times, for the discharge of
duty, subject to free will; and they strenuously maintained that,
without efficacious grace, constantly vouchsafed, we can do nothing
spiritually good. In regard to the resistibility of grace, they seem to
have held that the will of man might always resist the influence of
grace, if it chose to do so; but that grace would effectually prevent it
from so choosing. And with respect to redemption, they appear to have
compromised the matter, by holding that Christ died for all, so as that
all might be partakers of the grace of justification by the merits of
his death; but they denied that Christ died for each man in particular,
so as to secure his final salvation; in this sense, he died for the
elect only.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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