Neale's Old Catholic History


Neale's History
of the Independent
Old Catholic Movement

A HISTORY

of the So-Called Jansenist

CHURCH OF HOLLAND

with

A Sketch of its Early Annals,

and some account

of the

BROTHERS OF THE COMMON LIFE.

by

Rev. J. M. Neale, M.A.

author of the "History of the Holy Eastern Church," &c., &c.

OXFORD,

and 377, Strand, London

John Henry and James Parker

M DCCC LVIII.

"And I see the good ship riding, all on a perilous road;

The low reef booming on her lea; the swell of the ocean poured,

Sea after sea, from prow to stern; the mainmast by the board;

The bulwarks down; the rudder gone; the boats stove at the chains;

But courage still, brave mariners! the _Anchor_ yet remains;

And that will flinch -- no, never an inch! until ye pitch sky-high;

Then it gently moves, as if it said, 'Fear nought, for here am I!"

The Forging of the Anchor

TO

THE LORD BISHOP OF SALISBURY,

This History of a Church

Which, Cut Off from the Communion of Rome,

Has Clung Fast to the Catholic Faith,

and suffered

for the maintenance of primitive doctrine,

is, by His Lordship's Permission,

Preface

It was in the spring of the year 1851 that, during the course of a visit at Utrecht, I became acquainted with the venerable Archbishop of thatSee, and interested in the history of the Church over which he presides. At that time there was, I believe, not a single work in English which treated of the subject; nor was there any book, not out of print, whether French or Dutch, which gave any detailed account of the fortunes of the so-called Jansenists of Holland. The information generally possessed by English Churchmen, with respect to the Church of Utrecht, was about as full and as accurate as that contained in Murray's "Handbook of Holland:" -- "Utrecht is the head-quarters of the Jansenists, a sect of dissenters from the Roman Catholic Church, who object to the Bull of Pope Alexander VII, condemning as heretical certain doctrines of Jansenius, Bishop of Ypres. They scarcely exist in any number, except in Holland, where they are now reduced to five thousand."

From the time that I first became acquainted with the story of its afflictions and its endurance, it has always been my wish to give English Churchmen the opportunity of becoming better acquainted with the history of the Church of Holland; and having, through the kindness of the Archbishop himself, and several of his ecclesiastics, amassed a considerable number of the most important and rarest books on the subject, I have kept my plan in view from that time to this, and the result is now presented to the reader.

Shortly after my first visit to Utrecht, Dr. Tregelles, so well known for his works on Biblical criticism, published a short general history of the "Jansenists," some pages of which were devoted to their proceedings in Holland. In a review of that work for the "Christian Remembrancer" of January, 1852, I endeavoured to give a more detailed account of that body than had before appeared in English; and some passages in the following pages are quoted from that and from another article contributed by me to the same Review, on the "Mystic Theology of Holland."

In the October of 1854, I spent a week at Utrecht for the purpose of examining the Archives, which were most unreservedly placed at my disposal by the kindness of the Archbishop. Of the great value and importance of those Archives I shall have occasion to speak more at length hereafter.

I have in the Appendix given so very full a list of the works which treat of the history of the Church of Utrecht since the great schism, that I need here only mention a few of the subsidiary helps which I have

employed in my task.

The Introduction contains a sketch -- for it professes to be nothing more -- of the annals of French "Jansenism," some acquaintance with which is absolutely necessary to the right understanding of the more immediate subject of my work. In this I have been under greater obligations to the Abb Guet e's noble _Histoire de l' glise de France_ than to any other book, -- not forgetting, however, the works of S. Cyran, Nicole and Arnauld, and the _Nouvelles Eccl siastiques._

Mr. Dalgairns has published a work entitled "The Devotion to the Heart of Jesus," with -- what he calls -- an Introduction on the History of Jansenism. I only mention the book because it would be difficult to find a single page in the Introduction which does not contain the grossest, and sometimes positively ludicrous, errors. To take an example or two. It is said that -- "the principal evidence on which S. Cyran was sent to Vincennes was that of S. Vincent de Paul." S. Vincent was never even interrogated regarding S. Cyran till after the imprisonment of the latter, and remained, as we shall see at p. 6, his friend till his death. A little further on, Mr. Dalgairns says, "In one of S. Vincent's letters the following passage occurs;" and he then quotes an extract not to be found in S. Vincent's letters anywhere, but taken from his biography by Abelly, and which the biographer himself had to retract. Again, he says, p. 27, "One of the chiefs of the Jansenist party wrote a book against frequent Communion." It is only to be hoped that Mr. Dalgairns has never opened the work of Arnauld's to which he alludes, or such a statement would be worse than an error. Once more: "It was one of their opinions that absolution was invalid if it were given before the penance imposed were performed." Compare this with the formal statement of the Articles of Louvain, and the second Council of Utrecht: "The procrastination of absolution is sometimes necessary, sometimes useful, sometimes pernicious." I have said enough to give an idea of the general amount of truthfulness which characterizes the

Introduction

In the history of Utrecht itself I have principally followed the thread of De Bellegarde's narrative, (_Histoire Abreg e de l' glise Metropolitaine d'Utrecht,_) the third edition of which having been commenced by the Abb Van der Hoeven, now with God, was published in 1852, by my friend the Abb Karsten, rector of the Seminary at Amersfoort. But it is the thread of narration only which I have followed, -- having dwelt on some subjects at much greater length, and on others with far more brevity, than De Bellegarde. Thus, the acts of the Second Council of Utrecht, which I have related with considerable fulness, are dismissed by him in a few lines: thus, also, I have compressed into a few pages the events which occurred previous to the disestablishment of the National Church, and the elevation of Sasbold Vosmeer to the Vicariate Apostolic. The _Batavia Sacra_, the _Historia Episcopatuum foederati Belgii_, and its enlarged translation, the _Kerkelijke Historie en Outheden der zeven vereenigde Provincien_, have always been at my side; and the works mentioned in the Appendix have, with scarcely an exception, been consulted either in England or in Holland.

Of books not mentioned there I may specify: -- For the History of the Brothers of the Common Life, the very interesting _Verhandeling over de Broederschap van Geert Groote_ by G. H. M. Delprat (Second Edition, Arnheim, 1856). The author, though a Protestant, enters well into his subject, and has produced a very instructive book. Several papers in the _Nederlandsch Archief voor Kerkelijke Geschiedenis_, published by Professors Kist and Royaards. The works of Thomas Kempis, Henry Herph, and Gerlach Petersen. The _Athenae Belgicae_ of Francis Sweertius, (Antwerp, 1628). For the main body of the history, the superb edition of the works of Arnauld, edited by De Bellegarde, in 49 volumes, (1775 to 1781). The edition of Van Espen, in three folio volumes (Louvain, 1767). The _M moires Historiques sur l'affaire de la Bulle "Unigenitus" dans les Pays-Bas Autrichiens, &c._ (1755). The _Dictionnaire des Livres Jans nistes,_ (4 volumes, Antwerp, 1752,) one of the most furiously Molinist books ever printed, but valuable from its references to the contents of scarce and forgotten pamphlets. I may add the _Leven van Martinus Steyaert, bestryder van het Jansenistendom,_ by E. A. Dobbelaere, Ghent. Bellegarde's History ends in 1784. The works on which I thenceforth depend are given in the Appendix. To these I must add the _Handelingen van de Regering en de Staten-Generaal over de Grondwets- Bepulingen nopens de Godsdienst_, (Schiedam, Roelants, 1854,), which gives an excellent account of the troubles occasioned by the intrusion of the new Roman hierarchy in that year.

I have now to express my thanks, in the first place, to the venerable Archbishop of Utrecht, Monseigneur Van Santen, for his kindness in supplying me with books, directing me by letter to sources of information which I could not have discovered for myself, and assisting me in every way during my visits to Utrecht. For similar kindness I should have had to thank the late Can Van Werckhoven, had he lived to read a book which I think he would have perused with interest; as I now have to thank the Abb Karsten, of Amersfoort, and the Canon Mulder, pastor of the Church of S. Gertrude in den Hoek at Utrecht. Nor must I forget the kindness of the Ven. Archdeacon Otter, and of F. H. Dickinson, Esq., in supplying me with "Jansenist" works from their libraries. Whatever importance the Annals of the Church of Utrecht must always have possessed, they undoubtedly have acquired increased interest now, when the Ultramontanism of such works as the _Univers_, and the new school of French theologians, and also the promulgation of the Bull _Ineffabilis_ has revived the ardour and the devotion of the old Gallican party, the party of Gerson, Pierre d'Ailly, and Bossuet. The sympathy felt by this school with the oppressed Church of Holland is not obscurely expressed in its historical masterpiece, the Abb Guet e's History; in the respect and veneration with which he speaks of the present head of that communion, Archbishop Van Santen.

One more remark may not be out of place. The part which the Jesuits have played in the oppression of the Church of Utrecht obliges an historian of that communion to dwell on the dark, with scarcely any reference to the bright, side of that wonderful Society. The _Ubi male, nemo pejus_ is certainly demonstrated in the following pages; but God forbid that we should forget the other part of the same proverb, when we remember the exertions of the Company in Japan, in Cochin-China, in Paraguay, in North America, -- _Ubi bene, nemo melius_.

Nov. 20, 1857.

CONTENTS

1. The Church of Holland before the Reformation.

2. The Brothers of the Common Life.

3. The Church of Holland in the Reformation.

4. From the death of Frederick Schenk, Archbishop of Utrecht, to the death of Sasbold Vosmeer, second(a) Archbishop of Utrecht under the title of Archbishop of Phillipi, 1580-1614.

5. The See vacant, 1614-1620. Philip Rovenius, third Archbishop of Utrecht, under the title of Archbishop of Phillipi, 1620-1651.

6. James de la Torre, fourth Archbishop of Utrecht, under the title of Archbishop of Ephesus, 1651-1661.

7. Baldwin Catz, Vicar-Apostolic, 1661-1663. John Van Neercassel, fifth Archbishop of Utrecht, under the title of Bishop of Castoria, 1663- 1686.

8. The See vacant, 1686-1689, Peter Codde, sixth Archbishop of Utrecht, under the title of Archbishop of Sebaste, 1689-1710.

9. The Schism commences. The National Clergy appeal to the Future General Council. Proceedings of the Bishop of Babylon, 1710-1723.

10. Cornelius Steenoven, seventh Archbishop of Utrecht, 1723-1725.

11. Cornelius John Barchman Wuytiers, eighth Archbishop of Utrecht, 1725- 1733.

12. Theodore van der Croon, ninth Archbishop of Utrecht, 1733-1739.

13. Episcopate of Peter John Meindaerts, tenth Archbishop of Utrecht, till the Second Council of Utrecht, 1739-1763.

14. Second Council of Utrecht, till the death of Archbishop Meindaerts, 1763-1767.

15. Walter Michael van Nieuwenhuisen, eleventh Archbishop of Utrecht, 1767-1797.

16. John Jacob Van Rhijn, twelfth Archbishop of Utrecht, 1797-1808.

17. The See vacant, 1806-1814. Willibrord van Os, thirteenth Archbishop of Utrecht, 1814-1825.

18. John van Santen, fourteenth Archbishop of Utrecht, 1825.

__________

(1) These numbers would more properly have been reckoned, as they usually are by Dutch writers, one higher; S. Willibrord being counted as the first Archbishop.

INTRODUCTION

---

A SKETCH

of the

RISE AND PROGRESS

of

SO-CALLED JANSENISM IN FRANCE

INTRODUCTION

1. On a winter's evening of the year 1630, two personages, both learned, both zealous, both reformers, were seated in a student's room in Paris, and discussing the state of the Church. The one, tall, stern, pale, harsh, commanding, looked every inch an ascetic; the other, words, eyes, manner impregnated with love, the true missionary to a miserable people. The name of the former was Jean du Verger de Hauranne, Abbot of S. Cyran; that of the Latter, Vincent de Paul: the one the great saint, the other, according to Ultramontane teaching, the great heresiarch, of the seventeenth century.

2. Who were these two men, and what their past life? Let us begin with the saint. A priest, yet directing the holiest bishops of his time; a _routurier_, yet the companion of nobility; a saint, yet the favourite of a corrupt court; a Catholic, yet beloved by heretics; how did he acquire his name and his influence in the Church? He had been a slave in Morocco, and there his heart was touched with that love which became the guiding principle of his life. Hence that most blessed institution, the Sisters of Charity. Hence, when the armies of this world swept and reswept over miserable Lorraine, -- when fields lay fallow for years, -- when wolves boldly entered villages and towns, -- when the hearths of cottages and mansions were alike fireless during the winter, -- when mice, rats, and adders were publicly sold, and bought at enormous prices, -- when the starvation in the villages was so fearful, that men shut their eyes as they passed, -- when, to use the words of an eye-witness, the peasants that wandered about were like "skeletons covered with tanned sheep's-leather," -- when high-born ladies sold their honour to the brutal soldiers of Germany and France, that their children might not die before their eyes, -- then this true servant of God poured _his_ army of missionaries over the devoted country. They, taking their lives in their hands, in perils from pestilence, marauders, wild beasts, went out into the highways and hedges. Alms were absolutely rained upon them from Paris. Death thinned their ranks; but Vincent, like a determined general, maintained his post, and poured in fresh soldiers to supply the place of the fallen. They took the infant from the breast of the dead mother; they set free the ecclesiastic from drawing the plough like a beast; they rescued women from perilling their salvation for a piece of bread; they lived the lives of angels; and "they died," says a contemporary, "as I pray and beseech God that I may die." The expenses of this holy war were reckoned at 400,000. The same charity planted missionaries in Harris and Lewis, in Benbecula and Uists, in islands that the since the Reformation had never seen a minister of any sect; consoled the Roman Catholics of Ireland under the savage persecution of Cromwell; entered the dark and fetid holds of the galleys, and turned many a prisoner from darkness to light; solaced the captives of Algiers and Tunis; ransomed them for their return, or fortified them for their martyrdom. Thence, too, foundlings, rescued from the horrors of the _Rue S. Landri_, became the special charge of the _Ladies_ of Charity; thence, when the funds of the new institution were totally inadequate to the work in hand, Vincent called together its supporters, and "I appeal to you," said he, "no longer as their mothers, but as their judges: pronounce, if you will the sentence of their death: I proceed to take your votes." Necklaces, bracelets, jewels, rings, caskets then, -- broadlands and fair houses afterwards, -- were poured in to the succour of the helpless children; and to that decision, and to that priest, a million of infants owe their lives annually in all parts of the world. Such was the great saint of the seventeenth century.

3. We now come to him whom Ultramontanes call its great heresiarch -- the Abb de S. Cyran. His fortunes are so interwoven with those of his ally, Cornelius Jansen, Bishop of Ypres, that we must pursue them together. Jansen, born 1585, near Leerdam, in Holland, was educated first at Utrecht, and then at Louvain, where he formed an acquaintance with Jean du Verger, with whom he visited Paris, and afterwards Bayonne, the native place of his friend. Hence he returned to Louvain, was made Principal of the College of S. Pulcheria, Professor of Holy Scripture, and finally Bishop of Ypres. This see he only held six months, being carried off by the plague in 1636. Hauranne became Vicar-General of Poictiers, and obtained the abbey of S. Cyran, by the name of which he is generally known. Here he formed the acquaintance of Robert Arnauld d'Andilly, with whose family he removed to Paris, and became intimate with their connexions. The elder Arnauld was manager of the estates of the Abbey of Port Royal, and by his means De Hauranne was there introduced, and acquired great influence. Agnes and Angelica, in particular, the daughters of Arnauld, received his instructions with avidity, and venerated him as a saint. Accused of false doctrine, he was imprisoned at the Ch teau de Vincennes, and after seven years' confinement, was released only to die, in 1643.

4. But it was Vincent de Paul who consoled De Haranne in his long imprisonment; who was constantly subjected to interrogatories intended to draw from him some censure of the prisoner's doctrines; and who, when the corpse was lying in the Church of S. Jacques de Hautpas, was the first to sprinkle it with holy water. And the literary organ of that day, the _Gazette de France_, tells us that the dying man "received the viaticum with a piety worthy of his eminent virtue: the prelates who are at present in town, wishing to give a public testimony of their esteem for so great a personage, recognised by all as one of the most learned men of the present day, attended his funeral; the Bishop of Amiens performing the service, and the Archbishop of Bordeaux, and the Bishops of Valence, Chalcedon, Aire, and the coadjutor of Montauban, assisting at the ceremony."

5. It was Jansenius and s. Cyran who had early agreed to dedicate their talents to the exposure and overthrow of the entire system of the Jesuits as regarded the Doctrine of Grace on the one hand, and the Discipline of the Church on the other. The question of Discipline was undertaken by S. Cyran, and treated at full length in his celebrated work called _Petrus Aurelius._ The immediate occasion of its composition was as follows. Urban VIII. had, in the year 1625, sent into England Dr. Smith, with the title of Archbishop of Chalcedon, and with jurisdiction over all English Roman Catholics. The Jesuits attacked the Bishop in every possible way; one of their number, named Floyd, published a work which was completely subversive of all episcopal rights whatever, and which was denounced by the Roman clergy in England, and by the University of Douay. The question was warmly agitated in France; and it was then that the _Petrus Aurelius_ appeared, and immediately became the grand object of attack to the whole Company. They were compelled, however, to disavow Floyd's book; while S. Cyran's work, which acquired a continually-increasing reputation, was formally approved by the assembly of the French clergy in 1642, ordered to be printed in a handsome manner at their expense, and to be presented to every Bishop and Chapter throughout the kingdom. One may still see in the cathedral libraries of France those three huge folios, bound, according to the Assembly's order, in tooled calf; and probably eliciting from the ecclesiastical librarian the simple remark, _Mais c'est tout- -fait Jans niste._ Thus was S. Cyran's part of the compact performed; and it will be observed that the name _Aurelius_ is also that of the great Bishop of Hippo, whose sworn disciples both the friends were. But the work of Jansenius, if not more learned than that of his coadjutor, became far more celebrated; and produced an effect on the whole history of the Western Church for the succeeding 150 years which probably no other volume ever occasioned. I allude, of course, to his _Augustinus_; in which he endeavoured to restore the theology of the seventeenth century to the doctrine of the saint who has always been regarded as _the_ Doctor of Grace, -- Augustine. Before speaking further of this work itself, it will be necessary to give a brief sketch of the then state of the controversy.

6. We shall see, in the second chapter of this History, that the great reformers of Holland in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Ruysbroek, Geert Groote, Herph, Thomas Kempis, and their companions, brought most prominently forward the Augustinian Doctrine of Grace. Partly in consequence of their labours, the same tendency had long characterized the University of Louvain. Baius, a predecessor of Jansenius in his professorial chair, had openly accused the Jesuits of Pelagianism, and was in his turn accused by them of Calvinism. Seventy-six propositions extracted from his works, though not ascribed to him by name, were condemned by Pope Pius V., and the Professor himself had been compelled to sign the condemnation.

7. The Augustinian party were not slow in returning the attack; and it was resolved to make an example of Molina, a Spanish Jesuit, Professor of Theology at Evora in Portugal, whose work "On the Concord of Free-will with Grace and Predestination," published in Lisbon in 1588, was supposed to be the most Pelagian of any composition of the Jesuits. The Dominicans were the principal assailants; the Franciscans and Jesuits resolved to make the doctrine their own. The affair was brought before the Inquisition. The Universities of Louvain, Douay, and Salamanca stood forward in defence of Augustinianism. Baronius in vain besought the Jesuits not to defend Molina. "I confess," he writes, under date of March 15, 1603, "that I cannot read the books of Molina without indignation: one might say that his sole aim was to condemn S. Augustine, to reproach him with negligence, and to prove that, on these questions of Grace, his own lights were far superior to those of that great bishop, to whom he affects never to give the name of Saint. Can one see such ostentation without disgust? He glides like a serpent from the hands that would grasp him, so that it is easier to prove his temerity than to convince him of heresy." However, I have marked more than fifty expressions or propositions that savour of Pelagianism or Semi Pelagianism." But bolder counsels prevailed. The work of Molina had obtained the approbation of the General Aquaviva, and to desert one was to condemn the other. The Jesuits built their hopes on the condemnation of Baianism, and on the fourth canon of the sixth session of the Council of Trent. The question was referred by Clement VIII. to thememorable Congregations _de Auxiliis._

It is not necessary to our purpose to enter into the history of thosecongregations. Carried on under Clement till 1605, the year of that Pope'sdeath, they were resumed under Paul V., and finished in 1607. Theycensured the delated propositions of Molina as severally Pelagian, Semi-Pelagian, or approaching to Pelagianism; and a Bull, which is still extant, for their condemnation was prepared. But the Pope -- who, like a successor of his in the next century, "wished to live" -- dared not publish it. "It was reserved," he said, "till a convenient time:" which convenient time has never yet arrived.

8. The system of Molina, if _very_ charitably expounded, as it is by Ultramontanes of the present day, resolves itself into the following propositions: --1. God, by the knowledge of simple intelligence, sees all that is possible, and consequently all the orders of possible things. 2. By His hypothetical knowledge, He foresees certainly what, in each of these possible orders each created will, using its own liberty, will do, if God gives it such and such a grace. 3. He wills, with an antecedent and true will, to save all men, on condition that they are willing to save themselves, -- that is, to act in correspondence with the graces which He shall give them. 4. He gives to all as much help as is necessary and sufficient to their salvation, though He gives more to some than to others. 5. The grace given to angels and men in the state of innocence is not efficacious in and by itself: in a part of the angels it became efficacious by the good use made of it; in man it was inefficacious, because resisted. 6. So it is in fallen nature. No absolute decrees, efficacious by themselves, and antecedently to God's provision of free consent on the part of the human will: therefore no predestination to eternal life before prevision of merits, no predestination to eternal damnation before prevision of sins. 7. The will of God to save all men, even in a state of fallen nature, is true, sincere, and active; it sent Jesus Christ to be the Saviour of man; and it is by virtue of this will, and of the merits of Jesus Christ, that He gives to all, in a greater or less degree, grace sufficient to salvation. 8. God, by His hypothetical prescience, sees with absolute certainty what man, placed in such and such circumstances, and assisted by such and such grace, will do or will not do; by consequence He foresees who would use grace ill, and who well. When He determines, absolutely and efficaciously, to convert any soul, or to dispose it to perseverance, He forms in Himself the decree to give to that soul the graces to which He foresees that it will consent, and with which it will persevere. 9. By the knowledge of vision, involved in this decree, He sees who they are that will persevere in well-doing; who they are that will do ill, or will not persevere in doing well. In consequence of this prevision, He predestines the former to eternal glory, and the latter to eternal damnation. To which, in fairness, must be added, 10. The _sufficient_ grace, which is, as it were, a watchword of the party, means grace which is _insufficient_, until, by its adhesion, the will of man renders it efficacious. And this is the venom of the whole system, because, however the fact may be glossed over, it subjects, in fact, the will of God to the will of man. We shall have occasion to recur to this subject a little further on.

9. About twelve years after the suspension of the Papal Bull _de Auxiliis_, Jansenius commenced his great work the _Augustinus_. In this he attempted to develop the teaching of S. Augustine on grace. He devoted to it the patient labour of twenty years, and is said to have read the entire works of that father as many times. Modern "improvements" at Louvain have destroyed the tower in which he was traditionally said to have occupied himself in the labour of his life. The work was still manuscript when the author was seized with the plague, and he recommended it to his chaplain, to his friend, the Doctor Libert-Fromond, and to Henry Calenus. Arrangements were made by them with the leading bookseller at Louvain, by name Zegers, (I suppose of the same family which gave one of his Christian names to the great Van Espen,) for its publication. By the treachery of a workman, some of the proof-sheets were seen by the Jesuits. Representations were made both to Rome and to the faculty of theology at Louvain, that both Paul V. and Urban VIII. had expressly forbidden the publication of any work on the subject of grace. The University summoned the printer, and forbad his proceeding further. Zegers represented the injustice of leaving him with two thirds of so enormous a work on his hands, and demanded a formal hearing. Temporising with the University, he made his men work by relays night and day, and to the surprise of every one ghe _Augustinus_ was one morning exposed for sale, with a dedication to the Cardinal Infant, Governor of the Low Countries. This was in 1640, and shortly afterwards a reprint appeared in Paris.

10. A brief outline of this celebrated work is almost necessary, and may at least give a truer idea of its nature than the character bestowed on it by a late pretended historian of the Church: "Mahomet, Spinosa, Jansenius -- it is all one and the same thing." In the first volume, which contains eight books, Jansenius examines the tenets of the Pelagians and the Semi-Pelagians, and enquires in what exact points their heresy consisted, thus shewing that their dogmas, and those of the Molinists, were in point of fact one and the same. In the second volume he proves, as a preliminary consideration, 1. That the truths and mysteries of Christianity, and especially that of grace, are not to be judged by natural reason, but depend on a superior authority; that they cannot therefore be decided by human ratiocination, but by the purest and most certain light, -- Holy Scripture, Councils, and Fathers: 2. That the Church acknowledges S. Augustine as her Doctor on the matter of grace, and that she has no other doctrine than that of this great saint: 3. That consequently we are bound to follow that which Holy Scripture has discovered, that which the Councils have defined, that which S. Augustine, and the other Fathers who follow him, have taught. He next treats of the grace bestowed on, and the blessedness enjoyed by, angels, and by man before his fall, reducing into its due order all that S. Augustine has written on the subject. He proceeds to dwell, in the same way, on the miserable consequences of the fall, and the bondage and darkness of concupiscence and ignorance in which men were held till the grace of God, which bringeth salvation, had appeared. Lastly, he treats of the state which theologians call _of pure nature;_ and shews that to admit the possibility of such a state is to overthrow all the principles of the doctrine which S. Augustine maintained till his death, against the Pelagians, and to deny the necessity of grace.

In the third volume he treats of the cure of man, and of the re-establishment of the liberty which he had lost by sin. He arranges, with great clearness and skill, everything that S. Augustine has said of the necessity and efficaciousness of grace, and argues in defence of absolute and gratuitous predestination against the Pelagians and the Semi-Pelagians.

11. As soon as the _Augustinus_ had appeared, the Jesuits lost no time in attacking it by a series of theses. Both the book and the theses were condemned by Urban the Eighth, in his Bull _In Eminenti_, on March 6, 1642: but this Bull was never legally published in France, and was not accepted by the Sorbonne. Jansenius was also attacked by Habert, afterwards Bishop of Vabres, and the editor of the Greek Pontifical; and defended by Antoine Arnauld, on whom the mantle of S. Cyran appeared to have descended.

This great man, known in his own age as _the_ Doctor, was the twentieth and youngest son of the advocate Arnauld, who had distinguished himself by opposing, before Henry IV., the re-establishment of the Jesuits in France. That Society was not in the habit of forgetting an injury, and the whole family was regarded by them as their natural enemies. He early attached himself to S. Cyran, and before the appearance of the _Augustinus_ had distinguished himself in his various theses for academical degrees, by his defence of the doctrine of grace, as well as his opposition to the corrupted casuistry of the age. In December, 1641, he received his Doctor's bonnet from the Sorbonne, and shortly afterwards published his celebrated work "On Frequent Communion."

12. Eight years previously, a young and rising advocate, by name Le Maistre, nephew to Antoine Arnauld, had, touched by the exhortations of S. Cyran, resolved on renouncing the world, and leading a life of retirement and penitence. One can imagine the astonishment and good-natured contempt with which, in that luxurious and worldly age, the Chancellor, one winter's morning, received the letter which contained his resolution, and how strongly he deprecated the loss to the Parisian bar. When S. Cyran was imprisoned in Vincennes, Le Maistre, with one or two friends who had joined him, and Singlin, a priest, who was their director, retired to the then deserted, afterwards world-famous, convent of Port-Royal-des-Champs. Here, with him, came also Arnauld d'Andilly, eldest brother of the Doctor, Arnauld himself, Le Maistre de Sacy, brother of the advocate, Pascal, Nicole, Tillemont, -- names, every one, that will never die; Hamon, Dufoss , Fontaine, and others of equal piety: and the life of austerity and piety, and learning that they led in a place which to Parisians must have seemed a distant exile, recalled the better ages of the Church. A violent effort was made by the Jesuits to procure the censure of the work "On Frequent Communion;" it was subjected to a rigid examination at Rome, and came forth scatheless. The Society was not disposed to acquiesce in its defeat, and resolved to retaliate on the _Augustinus_.

13. It was on the first day of July, 1649, that the struggle really began. On that day Nicolas Cornet, Syndic of the Faculty of Theology, laid before the Sorbonne seven propositions, which he affirmed to be extracted from the Augustinus. These, afterwards reduced in number, became the Five famous Propositions, the Lambeth Articles of the Roman Church. They were as follows: -- (1.) Some commandments of God are impossible to some righteous men, even when, with all their might, they are endeavouring to keep them, according to the present strength which they have: also the grace, by which they may become possible, is wanting in them. (2.) Internal grace, in the state of fallen nature, is never resisted. (3.) To merit and demerit, the state of fallen nature, liberty from (4.) The Semi-Palagians admitted the necessity of internal prevenient grace for all good works, even for the commencement of faith: but it was in this that they were heretical -- that they would have that grace to be such

31. But to return. In February, 1712, Clement XI. appointed a congregation of five cardinals and eleven theologians to consider the _R flexions Morales._ After the deliberations of a year and a half -- the assemblies having been for the latter part of the time held twice a-week, and the Pope generally being present -- the work was ended. On September 8, 1713, appeared the famous Constitution _Unigenitus_, in which one hundred and one propositions, extracted from the writings of Quesnel, were condemned, not separately, (as is usually the case,) but in the lump.

This dogmatic Constitution, the occasion of such innumerable troubles, so long openly rejected by so large a portion of the Roman Church, even now secretly abhorred by vast numbers who have not the courage openly to protest against it, -- and some future day to be withdrawn, as other less important Bulls have been withdrawn, -- may be considered the work of three persons -- Louis XIV., Madame de Maintenon, and Le Tellier, the king's confessor. It is said that one hundred and one propositions were condemned, because Le Tellier had pledged himself that the "Moral Reflections" contained _more than_ a hundred heretical propositions. Though, as I have mentioned, the extracts were condemned _in globo_, each was separately characterised by the censors: and the Abb Guett e has done considerable service to ecclesiastical history by publishing for the first time, from papers preserved in Rome, the separate qualifications of each. Thus we find that twelve only were condemned as heretical; that the rest were either "erroneous," "suspected of heresy," "approaching heresy," "as it stands, to be suspected of heresy," or "offensive to pious ears." It is further to be remembered that, in the judgment of Clement XI., twelve of the propositions were worthy of censure; yet these twelve go to make up the one hundred and one condemned by the actual _Unigenitus_.

32. As, in point of fact, it is this Constitution beyond everything else against which the Church of Utrecht has for a century and a half struggled, and is still struggling, it will be necessary to enter a little more minutely into its details. And that the account may be as fair as possible, I will first give the abstract of it published by a most zealous Ultramontane, the Abb Rohrbacher, in the work which he calls a "History of the Catholic Church:" --

"1. It teaches that no commandment of God is impossible, and it condemns those who maintain that the commandments of God are impossible, when not obeyed. This is the sense of the first five propositions of Quesnel."

"2. It teaches that we may resist grace, and condemns those who maintain that we can never resist it. -- (Props. 6-39.) It teaches, according to the words of Jesus Christ, that He came to seek and to save that which is lost, and condemns those who restrain the benefit of redemption to the elect alone. -- (Props. 30-33.) It defines that grace is necessary and gratuitous, and condemns those who, in attacking this doctrine, renew the Pelagian heresy as regards unfallen nature, in Props. 34-37. It teaches that free will exists in fallen nature, and condemns those that deny it. -- (Props. 38-43.)

"3. It teaches that there are good actions which do not spring from a motive of love, and condemns those who maintain the contrary; because all that God commands is good, but He commands other acts besides love. These acts, then, are good. On this principle, it condemns the Propositions 44-67, which suppose that God can command acts which are not good, but evil; which is to agree with hell in its most horrible blasphemies.

"4. It teaches, after Jesus Christ, that if we would enter into life, we must keep the commandments; that thus there are other means of salvation than faith and prayer; and it condemns those who reduce all means of safety to these two, as Prop. 68 does, which thus provokes fanaticism and illusion.

"5. It teaches, that first grace is gratuitous; that, if we merited it, it would not be grace; that glory is, nevertheless a _crown of righteousness_ as due to merits, and condemns the error which teaches that first grace and glory are equally gratuitous, as Prop. 69, which supposes that man, not being free, merits no more than an automaton.

"6. It teaches, after the Scriptures and tradition, that God sometimes afflicts us to prove us, and condemns the error which teaches that God never afflicts except for the sake of punishing or purifying the sinner, (Prop. 70): whence it might be impiously concluded, that if the Blessed Virgin, the Patriarch Job, and so many martyrs, have suffered more than others, it was because they were greater sinners than others.

"7. Following this saying of Jesus Christ, 'If any man destroys one of the least of these commandments, he shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven,' the Constitution teaches that man cannot dispense with the observation of the commandments of God, and rejects the error which asserts that every one, for his preservation, may dispense with their observation. This is the error of Prop. 71, which opens the door to all kind of relaxation, even to anarchy, and condemns implicitly the conduct of confessors and martyrs.

"8. It teaches, as Jesus Christ in several passages of the Gospel, that in the Church the good are mingled with the bad, and rejects the error which affirms that the Church consists of the good and righteous only. (Props. 72-78.) As inherent righteousness is an invisible thing, this is to make the Church in like manner invisible, and so to destroy all hierarchy, all subordination.

"9. As religion was established by oral teaching, and before the Scriptures were in being, the Constitution teaches that the reading of Holy Scripture in the vulgar tongue is not necessary to every one for salvation, and condemns the contrary error expressed in Propositions 79-86, which are so many outrages on the Church of God, as practising and teaching the opposite.

"10. It teaches that, in conformity with the practice of all the Church at all times, although it is proper to defer reconciliation or absolution of certain sinners, nevertheless there are others whom it is right to absolve at once, and before satisfaction. It teaches that all sinners, not excommunicated, ought to assist at the sacrifice of the Mass; and it proscribes the opposite error, contained in Props. 87-89, which blames the father of the family for receiving so promptly the prodigal son, and restoring to him his first robe; which blames Jesus Christ Himself, who said to the penitent thief, `Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.'

"11. It teaches that Jesus Christ, in giving to the apostles and to their successors the power to loose, gave them also the power to excommunicate; and that, as excommunication deprives of many benefits, it is always to be feared; consequently it condemns the opposite error contained in Propositions 90-93, which, supposing each individual the judge whether the sentence which condemns him be just or not, weaken the authority of the Church and render it contemptible.

"12. It teaches that, since Jesus Christ has promised to be with His Church alway, even unto the end, her administration is always holy, as being directed by the Holy Ghost, and it condemns those who deny and outrage it, as Props. 94-101, which teach that the Church, become old and decrepit, is ignorant of, and can even persecute, the truth; whence it may be impiously concluded that Christ, not having fulfilled His promise, is not only not God, but is not even a Man of His word; and that God, if there be one, does not meddle with the affairs of the world, and that all goes by chance."

33. We will now take some of the actual propositions, with the passages alleged by Quesnel and his supporters in their favour, and the qualification attached to them by the Bull: --

Proposition 1. "What does there remain in a soul which has lost God and His grace, except sin and its consequences, a proud poverty, and idle indigence; that is to say, a general impotence to work, to prayer, to everything that is good?" _Texts._ `Without Me ye can do nothing,' (S. John xv.5). `Who then can be saved?' `The hings that are impossible with men, are possible with God,' (S. Matt. xix. 26). `Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God,' (2 Cor. iii. 5). `No man has in himself anything but falsehood and sin.' (Council of Orange, Can. 22.) _Qualification._ heretical.

Proposition 2. "The grace of Jesus Christ, the efficacious principle for every kind of good, is necessary for every good action. Without it not only we do nothing, but we can do nothing." _Texts._ `No man cometh unto Me, except the Father draw him,' (S. John vi.44). `It is God that worketh in us both to will and to do,' (Philipp. ii. 13). `Without grace we can do nothing, achieve nothing, commence nothing.' - _St. August. ad Bonifac._, ii. cap. 9. _Qualification:_ as it stands, heretical; from the context, suspected of heresy and near akin to it.

Proposition 3. "In vain Thou commandest, O Lord, if Thou dost give that which Thou commandest." _Texts._ `Except the Lord build the house, their labour is but lost that build it.' (Psalm cxxvii. 1). `Every time that we do any good thing, it is God who acts in us and with us, to the end we should do it.' -_Council of Orange_, Can. 9. _Qualification:_ ill- sounding, and offensive to pious ears.

Proposition 12. "When God determines to save a soul, in every time, in every place, the indubitable effect follows the will of a God." _Text._ This proposition is literally transated from S. Prosper in his poem _Contra ingratos._ _Qualification:_ suspected of heresy, -- unless, indeed, these are the very words of S. Prosper.

Proposition 13. "When God determines to save a soul and touches it with the hand of His grace, no human will resists Him." _Texts._ `When God wills to save anyone, no will of man resists Him.' - _St. August. de Correct. et Grati _ cap. xiv. `No man is saved, save he whom God wills to be saved; it is therefore necessary to pray that He may will it, because if He wills it, it must come to pass.' - S. August. Enchiridion, cap. cii. _Qualification_: His Holiness suspends his judgment.

Proposition 25. "God enlightens and heals the soul as well as the body by His will alone." He commands and is obeyed. _Texts._ `As the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom He will.' (S. John v. 21.) `Turn thou me, and I shall be turned, for Thou art the Lord my God: surely, after that I was turned, I repented.' (Jeremiah xxxi. 18). `There are certain properties of the soul which perish through an evil will, and this so that they cannot be recovered by a good will, unless God does that which man cannot do; -- God, who could restore to a man the yes which he should willfully have put out, or the limbs which he should willfully have cut off.' - _S. August., Opus imperfect._ vi. 18. _Qualification:_ suspected of heresy.

Proposition 28. "The first grace which God grants the sinner is the pardon of his sins." _Texts._ `The first grace which the sinner receives is that by which his sins are pardoned.' - _S. August. Tractat. iii. in S. Joan._ sec. 8. `There are three degrees of the justification of a Christian; the first is the remission of sins by baptism.' - _S. Fulgentius, de Remissione Peccatorum_, i. 5. _Qualification:_ suspected of heresy.

Proposition 31. "The will of Jesus has always its effect; He bestows His entire peace on the heart, when He desires it for that heart." _Texts._ `Father, I thank Thee that Thou has heard Me, and I know that Thou hearest Me _always_.' (S. John ii. 41, 42). `It is impossible that, when the Almighty Son declares to His Almighty Father that He desired a certain thing, that thing should not come to pass.' - _S. August. Tract. iii. in S. Joan._ i. _Qualification:_ ill-sounding, and akin to heresy.

Proposition 50. "It is in vain that we cry to God, _My Father_, it it is not the Spirit of love that cries." _Text._ `We cry, but it is by the Holy Ghost, that is to say, by the love which He sheds abroad in our hearts, without which, shosoever cries, cries in vain.' - _S. August. Serm. 71, in S. Matt._ _Qualification:_ scandalous, temerarious, impious, and erroneous.

Proposition 54. "It is love alone that speaks to God, it is love alone that God hears." _Texts._ `Though I speak with the tongue of men and angels and have not love, I am become as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal,' (1 Cor. xiii. 1). `It is the heart that God hears; men have ears only for the voice; the ears of God attend only to the voice of the heart.' - _S. August. on Psalm cxix._ Qualification: scandalous, temerarious, impious, and erroneous.

Proposition 71. "Man may dispense for his preservation with a law which God has made for his benefit." _Texts._ `The Maccabees fought on the Sabbath-day. David ate the shewbread, and our Lord approved that action. The apostles gathered the ears of corn and ate them on the Sabbath-day.

_Qualification:_ scandalous and pernicious in practice.

Proposition 81. "The holy obscurity of the Word of God is no reason why the laity should be dispensed from reading it." _Text._ `We may still derive benefit from Holy Scripture though we do not understand its hidden meaning; besides, it is impossible that all can be unintelligible, for the Holy Ghost, Who inspired it, took care that it was written in such a manner as that publicans and sinners, rtizans, shepherds, and other illiterate persons, might be saved by these books.' - _S. Chrysos., Serm. iii. on Lazarus._ _Qualification:_ His Holiness passes over this proposition as dubious.

Proposition 82. "Sunday ought to be hallowed by the reading of good books, and above all things, of Holy Scripture." _Text._ `We assemble together to read Holy Scripture; and by its sacred words we nourish our faith, we confirm our hope, and we increase the knowledge which we have of the commandments of God.' - _Tertullian, Apolog._ `Ignorance of Holy Scripture is the source of all evil.' - _S. Chrysos., 9th Homily on the Galatians._ _Qualification:_ either to be passed over, or at the utmost to be censured as suspected of error, contained more clearly in preceding propositions, and dangerous in practice.

34. It was the Bull, then, of which the above propositions represent the fair average of doctrine, which now came before the clergy of France. Louis XIV. assembled a certain number of bishops of his own choice, appointed Cardinal de Noailles president by his own authority, and gave them to understand that his royal pleasure was the acceptance of the Bull. Any opposition by Quesnelists was denounced as opposition to the royal will. Before the final acceptation, Cardinal de Rohan, Archbishop of Strasbourg, gave a banquet to the assembled prelates, which surpassed in its luxury everything that had up to that time been seen in France. Some unfortunate Jansenist ventured to observe that, in primitive times, bishops were accustomed to prepare themselves for the promulgation of a dogmatic creed by a solemn fast. Forty bishops resolved to go along with the court; fourteen, afterwards reduced to nine, were more or less opposed to the acceptation, -- De Noailles being at their head: and thus the _Unigenitus_

was received by the clergy, registered in parliament, and accepted by the Sorbonne. Several of the opposing bishops published pastoral letters against the Bull; several of these were suppressed by the king in council, and censured by Rome. The prelates themselves were commanded to retire to their dioceses. One only, the Bishop of Laon, De Clermont-de-Chaste-de- Rousillon, had the weakness to withdraw his signature from the protest which he, in common with the Cardinal, had signed.

35. But the scene was about to change. In the following year, at ten o'clock on a stormy August night, Louis XIV. entered his death-agony. The next morning, with the herald's proclamation, _Le Roi est mort! Vive le Roi!_ fell the reign of Madame de Maintenon, and of the Molinists. Cardinal de Noailles reappeared at court; and it was seriously debated in what way to oppose the publication of _Unigenitus._

"Appeals to the future council," says a modern author, "had always been usual. We find that even Nestorius remained unmolested between the convocation and the assembly of the Council of Ephesus. Innocent III. had said, on a subject of far less importance than the _Unigenitus_, `If we should endeavour to decide anything on this point without the deliberation of a general council, besides the offence to God, and the infamy in the eyes of man, we should perchance incur danger to our order and office.' But this doctrine of appeal to a future council did not suit more modern pontiffs. Therefore Martin V. forbade all such appeals, in a bull of 1418; Pius II. (1459), in the Bull _Execrabilis_; Julius II. (1509), in the Bull _Suscepti regiminis_; Gregory XIII., in the Bull _Consueverunt; Paul V., in the Bull _Pastoralis_; and lastly, the famous Bull, _In Coena Domini._ On the other hand, we find that in 1239, Frederic II. appealed from Gregory IV. to a general council; in 1246, the Church of England made the same appeal from Alexander IV.; in 1264, the bishops, in the Council of Reading, sanctioned an appeal `to the Pope in better times, or to a general council, and the Judge of all.' And after these appeals were forbidden, they still continued. In 1418, six weeks after the publication of the Bull mentioned above, the Polish ambassadors appealed from a decision of its author to a general council. In 1427, Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury, did the same; so, in 1460, did Sigismund, Duke of Austria, when excommunicated by Pius II.; so, in 1472, did the Elector of Mayence, from the same Pius II.; in 1478, the bishops of the Duchy of Florence from Sixtus IV.; in 1509, the Venetian Republic from Clement VII. As late as 1688, Archbishop de Harlay, and the University of Paris, had appealed from Innocent XI. to a general council."

It is clear that, if every one is to appeal about everything from the existing authority, the Church can never be governed but while a general council is sitting. But it is equally clear that, if such an appeal is never to be allowed, the most extreme Ultramontane theory is the only true one. Nor does it concern us now to determine what is the least occasion, or who is the least important personage, that may authorize or may originate such an appeal. We may content ourselves with this remark: --If any circumstances could make it lawful, those of the Church under Clement XI. might. Great uneasiness, even where the _Unigenitus_ was accepted, -- in France, sixteen bishops, one of them the Archbishop of the metropolis, ready to become appellants, -- the first theological school in Europe, the Sorbonne, joined with them, -- canons, abbats, clergy innumerable, ready to follow their example: it needed only the courage to lead the way.

For three years France was torn by the disputes between the Constitutionalists, as they were called, and the opposers of the Bull. The faculty of theology, followed by several provincial faculties, revoked its acceptation of the _Unigenitus;_ and then a long series of useless negotiations went on. At length the more energetic opposers of the Bull became weary of inaction, and of the vacillation of the Regent Duke of Orleans.

36. The morning of the 5th March, 1717, was cold and sleety; nevertheless, at an early hour two bishops, Labroue, of Mirepoix, and DeL'Angle, of Boulogne, might have been seen approaching the Sorbonne on foot by the so-called House of Navarre, and two others, Colbert of Montpellier, and Soanen of Senez, by the Rue S. Jacques. Arrived in the great hall, they found the members of the faculty assembling; and having informed the bedell that they had matters of importance to propose, they were received by eight Doctors, ushered with great solemnity into the common hall, and placed immediately below the Dean of the Faculty. Labroue made a short address in which he described the dissensions created by the _Unigenitus,_ and the wound which it inflicted on the Catholic faith. Soanen then read a formal document in which the four bishops, after reciting the nature and the consequences of the Bull, and nevertheless professing all due and canonical obedience to Rome, formally appealed from it to the next general council, legitimately assembled, and to which they should have free access. Scarcely was this document concluded, when there arose a confused shout from the Doctors of _Adhaeremus! Adhaeremus!" Voices being called for, ninety were for adherence to the appeal, while twelve oy pronounced themselves against it. The prelates, escorted with a suitable body of Doctors, next waited on the Procurator-General, who refused to allow them to lodge their appeal with him; they then went to demand the _Apostoli_, by which, on appeal made, the cognizance of a cause is transmitted from the lower to the higher tribunal; in this case, from the Pope to the Council. Somewhat to their surprise, these letters were most graciously given; and such was the ardour for adhesion to the appeal, that the officiality was, for some time, kept open both by night and by day; and in comparatively a few hours two thousand ecclesiastics had signed their names to the Protest of the four bishops. In the meantime the news had already reached the palace. One Vivant, curate of S. Merry, as soon as he saw the turn which matters were taking at the Sorbonne, had hastened to inform the Regent.

37. The opposition to Rome increased daily. The appellants were now joined by De Noailles, the Bishops of Verdun, Pamiers, Agen, Condom, Ch lons, and S. Malo; the three former, indeed, put forward an appeal of their own to the Pope better informed, and to a general council. Clement XI. issued his Bull _Pastoralis Officii_, whereby he cut off the appealing prelates from his communion. The appellant bishops appealed again; they were now eighteen or nineteen in number: whole religious communities joined them; chapters, isolated parish priests, laity, all united. The various parliaments suppressed the _Mandemens_ of the Ultramontane bishops against the Appeal.

38. Amidst these commotions, the Cardinal de Noailles did not forget the surviving nuns of Port-Royal. Six only remained; they were received, five in the House of Malnoue, one into that of Etr es. To the latter, Madame de Valais, the Cardinal wrote on the subject of her reception to Communion. His crime had been public -- so sould his penitence be; and he fixed the church of S. Genevi ve for her reception, that it might be performed in the most solemn manner. The nun agreed to the place; but to spare the Cardinal's feelings, appointed four in the morning as the time.

Had Clement XI. lived, it is difficult to guess what might have been the end of the controversy. The same Faculty of Theology which had obliged John XXI. to retract his errors on the Beatific Vision, might have overthrown the Molinism of an Albani. But the timely concessions of Innocent XIII. and Benedict XIII., preceded as they had been by the accommodation of 1720, by which, in a measure, the _Unigenitus_ was explained, weakened the party of the Jansenists. One by one, the principal appellants withdrw their Appeal.

39. The infamous Dubois, who united the most disgusting debauchery to the wildest dreams of ambition, he who destroyed the marriage register to obtain, in his wife's lifetime, an archbishopric, -- he who refused the Viaticum, and died, from the effects of his licentious life, cursing and blaspheming, -- threw the whole weight of his corruption on the Ultramontane side. The Bishops of Mirepoix and Boulogne had been taken away from the evil to come; Colbert of Montpelier, with inflexible resolution, persevered in his appeal, and defended himself so well that, eager as his superior, the Archbishop of Narbonne, was to censure him, it was not thought desirable to proceed to a Council. The fury of the storm burst on Soanen, whom I have already mentioned as one of the four original appellants, and whom we shall hereafter find one of the great supporters of the distressed Church of Utrecht. He, now in the eighty-first year of his age, afforded his opponents an opportunity, by his Pastoral Instruction of August 18, 1726. He expressed himself so strongly, in this document, against Papal Infallibility and the _Unigenitus_, that the royal license for a provincial council was obtained.

Tencin, a man of infamous character, and an ally of the Molinists, was now Archbishop of Embrun, and Metropolitan of Soanen. In the letters which convoked the council not one word was said of the real object; and the good old Bishop expressed his joy at the meeting of a provincial synod, and his

resolution, notwithstanding his great age, to be there. Others, longer sighted, if less charitable, than the prelate, warned him of his danger. He disregarded the warning, yet he took the precaution of protesting beforehand against recognising in the council any judge of matters connected with the Constitution and his own appeal, as a body incompetent to entertain this kind of questions. In the beginning of August he commenced his journey, and toiling over the rugged passes of the Basses Alpes, reached Emburn on the 11th. He had scarcely taken up his residence there, when an earnest of the intended proceedings was given by the violent seizure of some packets of papers sent him by a friend at Digne, as necessary for his defence.

40. On Saturday, the 16th of August, the council was opened with great solemnity. There were five bishops present: Tencin himself, Soanen, De Bourchenu of Vence, whose mind was weakened by repeated fits of epilepsy, De Crillon of Gland ve, educated for the sea, but removed from the service as unfit for it, and Anthelmy of Grasse, a prelate who was the creature of the court. The other suffragans were, the Bishop of Digne, who was ill, and the Bishop of Nice, who was not consecrated, and who besides was not a French subject. In his opening address, Tencin spoke of "a wolf in sheep's clothing," "a gross liar," and "persevering rebellion;" but no actual steps were taken against Soanen till everything had been prepared for the blow that was to be struck. In the second general congregation, the Archbishop called on the promoter of the council to bring forward any business that might be waiting its consideration. This personage, who was Vicar-general of the diocese, then, in a set speech, full of the most fulsome flattery of Tencin, his Christian virtues and austere morals, (Tencin, whose debaucheries were as notorious as revolting, -- Tencin, who had been engaged in all the vile negotiations which elevated the monster Dubois to the cardinalate, -- Tencin, judicially convicted of perjury to conceal simony, -- Tencin, whose sister, with his full approbation, originally a nun, and expelled from her convent for unchastity, then a canoness, was Cardinal Dubois's avowed mistress, and the builder of her brother's fortunes,) brought Soanen's Pastoral Instruction before the council, and demanded that he should either disavow it, or that the synod should condemn it.

41. The aged Bishop was ordered to withdraw. "Your protest against the incompetency of the council," whispered one of his theologians. The demand was insisted on by the President; Soanen did not persevere in his with to present his act, and went out. Recalled at the end of an hour, he acknowledged the Pastoral Instruction, signed a copy of it, and then demanded that his Act of Incompetence should be considered. He retired a second time, and when readmitted was informed that the synod rejected his protest. Untouched by the evident tendency of the proceedings, Soanen read and left on the table a new act, by which he refused every single member of the council as his judges, -- Tencin as publicly and notoriously guilty of simony; the others as avowed partisans, and as having prejudged the case they were about to try: --

"We therefore," he concluded, "declare to you, Monseigneur Gu rin de Tencin, Archbishop of Embrun; to you, Monseigneur Bourchenu, Bishop of Vence; to you, Monsigneur de Crillon, Bishop of Gland ve; to you, Monsigneur Anthelmy, Bishop of Grasse; and to you, M. de Puget, as representing the Bishop of Digne, -- 1. That we renew our former act of refusing the council as our judges, on account of its notorious incompetency to juddge of our person and writings, -- for reasons alleged in the said act. 2. That even were the said council competent to judge us, which is is not, we refuse you, all and each, as our judges, for the reasons we have stated; beseeching, requiring, and demanding that you abstain from all judgment, and protesting the nullity of all that you may do or attempt to the prejudice of our said recusation, and reserving to ourselves the right to procure, by all lawful ways, the reversal of your judgment." "Done at Embrun, this 18th of August, 1727."

In the succeeding days, attempts were made to bring the resolute Bishop to submission, or, at least, to a recognition of the authority of the council. As his deprival was predetermined, the only question now was, how to effect it -- twelve bishops being necessary. It was agreed to request the attendance of some prelates from the neighbouring provinces of Arles, Aix, Besan on, Lyons, and Vienne: the most strenuous supporters of the _Unigenitus_ were selected, two being actually Jesuits. Ten accepted the invitation: it would have been difficult to find an equal assembly of Constitutionaries in France. While they were on their way some general resolutions were adopted, to pass the time.

42. When the bishops had arrived, Soanen was canonically cited, -- the first time on the 9th, the second and third on the 11th, of September. He obeyed the last summons, went to the synod, and then and there appealed to the Pope and to the Future Council. Belzunce, Bishop of Marseilles, -- the same who had more happily distinguished himself in the great plague, -- yawned ceaselessly, and fanned himself with a roll of paper; Anthelmy chattered to his neighbour. At the conclusion of this appeal, the venerable prelate again refused the five original bishops as his judges; and, in addition, four of the new-comers. He appealed, in defence of his civil rights, to the Parliament, and notified to the invited prelates that they could only be his judges in a general or national council, not in a provincial council out of their own province. The appeal to the Parliament staggered some of the bishops, but Tencin produced a document from Cardinal Fleury, then prime minister, by which, according to the abuse of those days, he evoked all questions connected with the Synod of Embrun to the council -- that is to say, to himself.

43. Every difficulty being thus removed, the council proceeded with extraordinary speed. In the final report, Belzunce had the good taste to decline acting as judge; the rest signed the sentence, condemning the Pastoral Instruction as schismatic, full of heretical spirit, abounding with errors, and fomenting heresy; and suspend Soanen from all episcopal power and jurisdiction, and from the exercise of every sacerdotal function. Soon came the judgment of the court: a _lettre de cachet_ consigned the illustrious prisoner to the _Chaise Dieu_. Passing through Grenoble, he breakfasted with the Bishop of that city, and with the Bishop of Vence, who was there on a visit. The latter, a good-hearted sort of man, asked for Soanen's blessing. "You have broken," he said with a smile, "my arms and my legs, -- how can I give you the benediction? Allow me rather to embrace you." On entering the _Chaise Dieu,_ -- "This," he said, "shall be my rest for ever; here will I dwell, for I have a delight therein." Hence he went, thirteen years afterwards, to the freedom of which a tyrannical monarch had deprived him on earth. He was not, however, left without advocates in the hour of his distress: thirty-one prelates approved the council; but twelve, one of whom was De Noailles, rejected it, and they were followed by 2,000 priests. The _Instruction_ of the Bishop of Montpellier on the occasion, in which he proves the invalidity of the sentence, is a very able work. De Tencin, president of the Council of Embrun, whose sister ruled the counsels of Dubois, was rewarded with the archbishopric of Lyons, and a cardinal's hat. It cannot, however, be denied that the party was much shaken by this proceeding; and still more so by the acceptation of the _Unigenitus_, which De Noailles, never a strong minded man, and now apparently in his dotage, published during the course of the next year.

44. We may fix 1727 as the period at which French Jansenism began to decline, - though from another cause. In that year, a deacon, by name Paris, a man, it would seem, of holy life, and of some name among the opposers of the _Unigenitus_, was buried in the cemetery of S. Medard. It soon began to be reported that miracles were performed at his tomb. Whatever may now be said to the contrary, the belief was very general, and the witnesses unsuspected. Rollin, so well known in our schools, was convinced of the reality of the cures; and it must be confessed that, if anyone will take the trouble of looking into De Montgeron's large quarto on the subject, it does seem extremely difficult to allow sufficient evidence for any miracle, if we deny it to these. But it is also most certain that false miracles began to be got up, and that with very little skill. A glazier, who had spoken ill of Paris, had his windows broken, by invisible hands, at night. The Duke of Anjou was poisoned by earth taken from the tomb. Soon a frenzy seized the most devoted adherents of the party. Men and women resorted in numbers to the cemetery. There they worked themselves up to a pitch of fanaticism; they leapt wildly about, they foamed at the mouth, they tore their hair and their clothes;; there were groans, sobs, hysterics, and finally the most frightful contortions and convulsions. Sometimes a hundred of these devotees were fanaticising themselves at one time. The spectacle was most revolting; and the king very wisely caused the cemetery to be closed. The Jansenist epigram has more wit than truth: --

"De par le Roi. -- D fense Dieu

De faire miracles en ce lieu."

45. The chief supporters of the cause in the middle of the eighteenth century were, Colbert of Montpellier, who may be regarded as, while he lived, its leader; Fitz-James of Soissons, a son of the Duke of Berwick; Bossuet of Troyes, a nephew of the great Bossuet; and De Montazet of Lyons, the latter of whom upheld the French Revolution the same tenets for which S. Cyran and Soanen suffered. He died in 1788. But of all the prelates who remained firm to Augustinian teaching, De Caylus of Auxerre was the most celebrated. During his long episcopate of fifty years he pursued one consistent course; and he never retracted his appeal. While he believed in the miracles of Paris and others, -- as Levier, of the parish of S. Leu, Noe-Menard of the diocese of Nantes, and Duguet, -- he strongly reprobated Convulsionism. For fourteen years he was the only survivor of the appellants; and he maintained most friendly connections with the Church of Utrecht.

46. On the closing of the cemetery of S. Medard, at once, by one of those strange contagions which physiology cannot yet explain, _Convulsionists_ appeared al over the country. They plunged more and more wildly into every kind of madness, and, it is to be feared, licentiousness; and a set of men appeared who, under the name of _s couristes,_ gave their assistance to the actors. Of the unhappy Convulsionists -- almost always women -- some caused themselves to be publicly scourged, some threw themselves into water, and barked like a dog; some took upon themselves to confess men; till at length a young girl, as the delusion was wearing out, was actually persuaded to be _crucified_. This was on the Good-Friday of 1758; and the spectacle was more than once repeated. The P re Cottu was the principal performer on these occasions and the Soeur Fran oise on one occasion remained for three hours on the cross. In the diocese of Lyons, as late as 1787, a girl was crucified in the parish church of Fareins, near Trevoux. Truly, when one calls to mind the names of Jansenius, De Hauranne, Arnauld, and Nicole, and the works by which they supported the cause of Augustinianism, and then turns to the extravagance of their miserable followers, one cannot but exclaim, "How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished!"

47. The party, in the latter half of the eighteenth century, split off into various sects, each vieing with the other in profanity and fanaticism. There were the _Figurists_, who in the cries of the Convulsionists saw and explained a type of the sufferings of the Church; the _Discernants_, akin to the last; the Vaillantists, disciples of one Vaillant, who appeared in Provence, and expected the immediate coming of Elias; the _Marguillistes_, infamous for their debaucheries; the _Eliasites_, who during the French Revolution renewed the belief of the Vaillanists. Some ecclesiastics who had defended Convulsionism were alive

under the reign of Napoleon I.

Another mark of the decline of Jansenism was the unholy alliance it now made with the various parliaments who persecuted those that refused communion to the appellants from the _Unigenitus_. It is the same scene over and over again. A priest refuses the _viaticum_ to a Jansenist; the bishop supports him; the Parliament makes an _arr t_ against the prelate; the King annuls the _arr t_. In 1754 matters came between Louis XV. and the Parliament of Paris to that open rupture, which not obscurely heralded the French Revolution.

And here we may well draw the veil over French Jansenism.

48. Ultramontane writers see in it the germ of the social disunion of France. They regard Robespierre, Marat, and Danton as three distinguished Jansenists. The murder of Louis XVI. is in their eyes a Jansenist outrage. The worship of Reason is the mere development of Jansenist theology. We may, perhaps, come to a somewhat opposite conclusion. The Molinist king, Louis XV., in the intervals of the seductions of La Pompadour and the revolting licentiousness of the Parc-aux-Cerfs, persecutes Jansenist ecclesiastics and condemns Jansenist tenets. The Molinist ecclesiastic Terray, one of the ministers of state, employs his utmost ability to stifle the remorse of the king in fresh scenes of, ind incitements to, debauchery. The Molinist minister Dubois lives an infidel, dies blaspheming; Cardinal, Archbishop, Abbat of seven abbeys, postulant of Citeaux and Pr montr . A nobility that stigmatised Jansenism as belonging to the _canaille_, would not allow Lange to become the king's mistress till one of themselves had married her for the purpose of ennobling her. Molinist abb s, that had never taken orders, vied with each other in applauding the wit of Voltaire or the sentiment of Rousseau. The Molinist head of a celebrated branch of the Cistercians, Nicolas Chanlatte, fifty-second Abbat of Pontigny, and _Primarius Pater_ of the order, was remarkable for the extreme elegance of the bouquets which he prepared for the boudoirs of his lady visitors, and for the charming manner in which he accompanied himself to the song, _Du moment qu'on aime._ De Monsigny and De Grety never heard their airs more delicately given than in the abbatial drawing-room. I have seen it in the ruins at Pontigny, -- that drawing- room which looks out on the church, so tremendous in its Cistertian and Transitional sternness, -- the church which Hugh of Macon had founded, -- where S. Thomas of Canterbury had prayed, and where S. Edmund rests. Are we, after all this, to look to Jansenism, or to the corrupted morals of Molinism, for the cause of the horrible dissolution of civil and ecclesiastical relations which shewed itself so awfully around the dying bed of Louis XV.?

Return to

The Independent Catholic History Page