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
A stop must be put to this insolence, which does not spare the most
sacred retreats. For who can be safe after a calumny of this nature? For
shame, fathers! to publish in Paris such a scandalous book, with the
name of your Father Meynier on its front, and under this infamous title,
“Port-Royal and Geneva in concert against the most holy Sacrament of the
Altar,” in which you accuse of this apostasy, not only Monsieur the abbé
of St. Cyran, and M. Arnauld, but also Mother Agnes, his sister, and all
the nuns of that monastery, alleging that “their faith, in regard to the
eucharist, is as suspicious as that of M. Arnauld,” whom you maintain to
be “a downright Calvinist.”[281] I here ask the whole world if there be
any class of persons within the pale of the Church, on whom you could
have advanced such an abominable charge with less semblance of truth.
For tell me, fathers, if these nuns and their directors, had been “in
concert with Geneva against the most holy sacrament of the altar” (the
very thought of which is shocking), how they should have come to select
as the principal object of their piety that very sacrament which they
held in abomination? How should they have assumed the habit of the holy
sacrament? taken the name of the Daughters of the Holy Sacrament? called
their church the Church of the Holy Sacrament? How should they have
requested and obtained from Rome the confirmation of that institution,
and the right of saying every Thursday the office of the holy sacrament,
in which the faith of the Church is so perfectly expressed, if they had
conspired with Geneva to banish that faith from the Church? Why would
they have bound themselves, by a particular devotion, also sanctioned by
the pope, to have some of their sisterhood, night and day without
intermission, in presence of the sacred host, to compensate, by their
perpetual adorations towards that perpetual sacrifice, for the impiety
of the heresy that aims at its annihilation? Tell me, fathers, if you
can, why, of all the mysteries of our religion, they should have passed
by those in which they believed, to fix upon that in which they believed
not? and how they should have devoted themselves, so fully and entirely,
to that mystery of our faith, if they took it, as the heretics do, for
the mystery of iniquity? And what answer do you give to these clear
evidences, embodied not in words only, but in actions; and not in some
particular actions, but in the whole tenor of a life expressly dedicated
to the adoration of Jesus Christ, dwelling on our altars? What answer,
again, do you give to the books which you ascribe to Port-Royal, all of
which are full of the most precise terms employed by the fathers and the
councils to mark the essence of that mystery? It is at once ridiculous
and disgusting to hear you replying to these, as you have done
throughout your libel. M. Arnauld, say you, talks very well about
transubstantiation; but he understands, perhaps, only “a significative
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account