1856.
CONTENTS.
| PAGE | |
| [Preface,] | vii |
| [Historical Introduction,] | ix |
| [LETTER I.] | |
| Disputes in the Sorbonne, and the invention of proximate power—a term employed by the Jesuits to procure the censure of M. Arnauld, | 63 |
| [LETTER II.] | |
| Of sufficient grace, which turns out to be not sufficient—Concert between the Jesuits and the Dominicans—A parable, | 76 |
| [Reply of “the Provincial” to the first two Letters,] | 88 |
| [LETTER III.] | |
| Injustice, absurdity, and nullity of the censure on M. Arnauld—A personal heresy, | 90 |
| [LETTER IV.] | |
| Actual grace and sins of ignorance—Father Bauny’s Summary of sins, | 100 |
| [LETTER V.] | |
| Design of the Jesuits in establishing a new system of morals—Two sorts of casuists among them—A great many lax and some severe ones—Reason of this difference—Explanation of the doctrine of probabilism—A multitude of modern and unknown authors substituted in the place of the holy fathers—Escobar, | 116 |
| [LETTER VI.] | |
| Various artifices of the Jesuits to elude the authority of the gospel, of councils, and of the popes—Some consequences resulting from their doctrine of probability—Their relaxations in favor of beneficiaries, of priests, of monks, and of domestics—Story of John d’Alba, | 135 |
| [LETTER VII.] | |
| Method of directing the intention adopted by the casuists—Permission to kill in defence of honor and property, extended even to priests and monks—Curious question raised as to whether Jesuits may be allowed to kill Jansenists, | 152 |
| [LETTER VIII.] | |
| Corrupt maxims of the casuists relating to judges—Usurers—The Contract Mohatra—Bankrupts—Restitution—Divers ridiculous notions of these same casuists, | 170 |
| [LETTER IX.] | |
| False worship of the Virgin introduced by the Jesuits—Devotion made easy—Their maxims on ambition, envy, gluttony, equivocation, mental reservations, female dress, gaming, and hearing mass, | 188 |
| [LETTER X.] | |
| Palliatives applied by the Jesuits to the sacrament of penance, in their maxims regarding confession, satisfaction, absolution, proximate occasions of sin, and love to God, | 206 |
| [LETTER XI.] | |
| The Letters vindicated from the charge of profaneness—Ridicule a fair weapon, when employed against absurd opinions—Rules to be observed in the use of this weapon—Charitableness and discretion of the Provincial Letters—Specimens of genuine profaneness in the writings of Jesuits, | 225 |
| [LETTER XII.] | |
| The quirks and chicaneries of the Jesuits on the subjects of alms-giving and simony, | 243 |
| [LETTER XIII.] | |
| Fidelity of Pascal’s quotations—Speculative murder—Killing for slander—Fear of the consequences—The policy of Jesuitism, | 260 |
| [LETTER XIV.] | |
| On murder—The Scriptures on murder—Lessius, Molina, and Layman on murder—Christian and Jesuitical legislation contrasted, | 277 |
| [LETTER XV.] | |
| On calumny—M. Puys and Father Alby—An odd heresy—Barefaced denials—Flat contradictions and vague insinuations employed by the Jesuits—The Capuchin’s Mentiris impudentissime, | 295 |
| [LETTER XVI.] | |
| Calumnies against Port-Royal—Port-Royalists no heretics—M. de St. Cyran and M. Arnauld vindicated—Slanders against the nuns of Port-Royal—Miracle of the holy thorn—No impunity for slanderers—Excuse for a long letter, | 314 |
| [LETTER XVII.] | |
| The author of the Letters vindicated from the charge of heresy—The five propositions—The popes fallible in matters of fact—Persecution of the Jansenists—The grand object of the Jesuits, | 341 |
| [LETTER XVIII.] | |
| The sense of Jansenius not the sense of Calvin—Resistibility of grace—Jansenius no heretic—The popes may be surprised—Testimony of the senses—Condemnation of Galileo—Conclusion, | 366 |
| [LETTER XIX.] | |
| Fragment of a nineteenth Provincial Letter, addressed to Père Annat, | 391 |
THE TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.
The following translation of the Provincial Letters was undertaken several years ago, in compliance with the suggestion of a revered parent, chiefly as a literary recreation in a retired country charge, and, after being finished, was laid aside. It is now published at the request of friends, who considered such a work as peculiarly seasonable, and more likely to be acceptable at the present crisis, when general attention has been again directed to the popish controversy, and when such strenuous exertions are being made by the Jesuits to regain influence in our country.
None are strangers to the fame of the Provincials, and few literary persons would choose to confess themselves altogether ignorant of a work which has acquired a world-wide reputation. Yet there is reason to suspect that few books of the same acknowledged merit have had a more limited circle of bona fide English readers. This may be ascribed, in a great measure, to the want of a good English translation. Two translations of the Provincials have already appeared in our language. The first was contemporary with the Letters themselves, and was printed at London in 1657, under the title of “Les Provinciales; or, The Mysterie of Jesuitism, discovered in certain Letters, written upon occasion of the present differences at Sorbonne, between the Jansenists and the Molinists, from January 1656 to March 1657, S. N. Displaying the corrupt Maximes and Politicks of that Society. Faithfully rendered into English. Sicut Serpentes.” Of the translation under this unpromising title, it may only be remarked, that it is probably one of the worst specimens of “rendering into English” to be met with, even during that age when little attention was paid to the art of translation. Under its uncouth phraseology, not only are the wit and spirit of the original completely shrouded, but the meaning is so disguised that the work is almost as unintelligible as it is uninteresting.
Another translation of the Letters—of which I was not aware till I had completed mine—was published in London in 1816. On discovering that a new attempt had been made to put the English public in possession of the Provincials, and that it had failed to excite any general interest, I was induced to lay aside all thoughts of publishing my version; but, after examining the modern translation, I became convinced that its failure might be ascribed to other causes than want of taste among us for the beauties and excellences of Pascal. This translation, though written in good English, bears evident marks of haste, and of want of acquaintance with the religious controversies of the time; in consequence of which, the sense and spirit of the original have been either entirely lost, or so imperfectly developed, as to render its perusal exceedingly tantalizing and unsatisfactory.
It remains for the public to judge how far the present version may have succeeded in giving a more readable and faithful transcript of the Provincial Letters. No pains, at least, have been spared to enhance its interest and insure its fidelity. Among the numerous French editions of the Letters, the basis of the following translation is that of Amsterdam, published in four volumes 12mo, 1767; with the notes of Nicole, and his prefatory History of the Provincials, which were translated from the Latin into French by Mademoiselle de Joncourt. With this and other French editions I have compared Nicole’s Latin translation, which appeared in 1658, and received the sanction of Pascal.
The voluminous notes of Nicole, however interesting they may have been at the time, and to the parties involved in the Jansenist controversy, are not, in general, of such a kind as to invite attention now; nor would a full translation even of his historical details, turning as they do chiefly on local and temporary disputes, be likely to reward the patience of the reader. So far as they were fitted to throw light on the original text, I have availed myself of these, along with other sources of information, in the marginal notes. Some of these annotations, as might be expected from a Protestant editor, are intended to correct error, or to guard against misconception.