[80]. Douglas on Errors in Religion, p. 113.
[81]. Anthony Arnauld, or Arnaud, priest and doctor of the Sorbonne, was the son of Anthony Arnauld, a famous advocate, and born at Paris, February 6, 1612. He early distinguished himself in philosophy and divinity, advocating the doctrines of Augustine and Port-Royal, and opposing those of the Jesuits. The disputes concerning grace which broke out about 1643 in the University of Paris, served to foment the mutual animosity between M. Arnauld and the Jesuits, who entertained a hereditary feud against the whole family, from the active part taken by their father against the Society in the close of the preceding century. In 1655 it happened that a certain duke, who was educating his grand-daughter at Port-Royal, the Jansenist monastery, and kept a Jansenist abbé in his house, on presenting himself for confession to a priest under the influence of the Jesuits, was refused absolution, unless he promised to recall his grand-daughter and discard his abbé. This produced two letters from M. Arnauld, in the second of which he exposed the calumnies and falsities with which the Jesuits had assailed him in a multitude of pamphlets. This is the letter referred to in the text.
[82]. The book which occasioned these disputes was entitled Augustinus, and was written by Cornelius Jansenius or Jansen, bishop of Ypres, and published after his death. Five propositions, selected from this work, were condemned by the pope; and armed with these, as with a scourge, the Jesuits continued to persecute the Jansenists till they accomplished their ruin.
[83]. And yet “the question of fact,” which Pascal professes to treat so lightly, became the turning point of all the subsequent persecutions directed against the unhappy Port-Royalists! Those who have read the sad tale of the demolition of Port-Royal, will recollect with a sigh, the sufferings inflicted on the poor scholars and pious nuns of that establishment solely on the ground that, from respect to Jansenius and to a good conscience they would not subscribe a formulary acknowledging the five propositions to be contained in his book.—(See Narrative of the Demolition of the Monastery of Port-Royal, by Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck p. 170, &c.)
[84]. The Thomists were so called after Thomas Aquinas, the celebrated “Angelic Doctor” of the schools. He flourished in the thirteenth century, and was opposed in the following century, by Duns Scotus, a British, some say a Scottish, monk of the order of St. Francis. This gave rise to a fierce and protracted controversy, in the course of which the Franciscans took the side of Duns Scotus, and were called Scotists; while the Dominicans espoused the cause of Thomas Aquinas, and were sometimes called Thomists.
[85]. Sorbonique—an act or thesis of divinity, delivered in the hall of the college of the Sorbonne by candidates for the degree of doctor.
[86]. The Jansenists, in their dread of being classed with Lutherans and Calvinists, condescended to quibble on this question. In reality, as we shall see, they agreed with the Reformers for they denied that any could actually obey the commandments without efficacious grace.
[87]. Molinist. The Jesuits were so called, in this dispute, after Lewis Molina, a famous Jesuit of Spain, who published a work, entitled Concordia Gratiæ et Liberi Arbitrii, in which he professed to have found out a new way of reconciling the freedom of the human will with the divine prescience. This new invention was termed Scientia Media, or middle knowledge. All who adopted the sentiments of Molina, whether Jesuits or not, were termed Molinists.
[88]. Pierre le Moine was a doctor of the Sorbonne, whom Cardinal Richelieu employed to write against Jansenius. This Jesuit was the author of several works which display considerable talent, though little principle. His book on Grace was forcibly answered, and himself somewhat severely handled, in a work entitled “An Apology for the Holy Fathers,” which he suspected to be written by Arnauld. It was Le Moine who, according to Nicole, had the chief share in raising the storm against Arnauld, of whom he was the bitter and avowed enemy.
[89]. Father Nicolai was a Dominican—an order of friars who professed to be followers of St. Thomas. He is here mentioned as a representative of his class; but Nicole informs us that he abandoned the principles of his order, and became a Molinist, or an abettor of Pelagianism.