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
This information has satisfied my purpose. I gather from it that this
same heresy is one of an entirely new species. It is not the sentiments
of M. Arnauld that are heretical; it is only his person. This is a
personal heresy. He is not a heretic for anything he has said or
written, but simply because he is M. Arnauld. This is all they have to
say against him. Do what he may, unless he cease to be, he will never be
a good Catholic. The grace of St. Augustine will never be the true
grace, so long as he continues to defend it. It would become so at once,
were he to take it into his head to impugn it. That would be a sure
stroke, and almost the only plan for establishing the truth and
demolishing Molinism; such is the fatality attending all the opinions
which he embraces.
Let us leave them, then, to settle their own differences. These are the
disputes of theologians, not of theology. We, who are no doctors, have
nothing to do with their quarrels. Tell our friends the news of the
censure, and love me while I am, &c.[119]
-----
Footnote 109:
The charge of “denying the mystery of transubstantiation,” certainly
did not justly apply to the Jansenists as such; these religious
devotees denied nothing. Their system, so far as the dogmas of the
Church were concerned, was one of implicit faith; but though Arnauld,
Nicole, and the other learned men among them, stiffly maintained the
leading tenets of the Romish Church, in opposition to those of the
Reformers the Jansenist creed, as held by their pious followers, was
practically at variance with transubstantiation, and many other errors
of the Church to which they nominally belonged. (Mad.
Schimmelpenninck’s Demolition of Port-Royal, pp. 77–80, &c.)
Footnote 110:
_Atroces_—“atrocious.” (Edit. 1657.)
Footnote 111:
_Des plus detestables erreurs_—“the most detestable errors.” (Edit.
1657.) _Erreurs_—“errors.” (Nicole’s Edit., 1767.)
Footnote 112:
_Horriblement contraire_—“horribly contrary.” (Edit. 1657.)
Footnote 113:
The meaning of Chrysostom is good, but the expressions of these
ancient fathers are often more remarkable for their strength than
their precision. The Protestant reader hardly needs to be reminded,
that if divine grace can be said to have failed the Apostle Peter at
his fall, it can only be in the sense of a temporary suspension of its
influences; and that this withdrawment of grace must be regarded as
the punishment, and not as the cause, of his own negligence.
Footnote 114:
That is, they could more readily procure monks to vote against M.
Arnauld, than arguments to answer him.
Footnote 115:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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