The provincial letters of Blaise Pascal

by Blaise Pascal

1. There are divine precepts which good men, though willing, are absolutely unable to obey.

2. No person, in this corrupt state of nature, can resist the influence of divine grace.

3. In order to render human actions meritorious, or otherwise, it is not requisite that they be exempt from necessity, but only free from constraint.

4. The semi-Pelagian heresy consisted in allowing the human will to be endued with a power of resisting grace, or of complying with its influence.

5. Whoever says that Christ died or shed his blood for all mankind, is a semi-Pelagian.

The Jansenists, in their subsequent disputes on these propositions, contended that they were ambiguously expressed, and that they might be understood in three different senses—a Calvinistic, a Pelagian, and a Catholic or Augustinian sense. In the first two senses they disclaimed them, in the last they approved and defended them. Owing to the extreme aversion of the party to Calvinism, while they substantially held the same system under the name of Augustinianism, it becomes extremely difficult to convey an intelligible idea of their theological views. On the first proposition, for example, while they disclaimed what they term the Calvinistic sense, namely, that the best of men are liable to sin in all that they do, they equally disclaim the Pelagian sentiment, that all men have a general sufficient grace, at all times, for the discharge of duty, subject to free will; and they strenuously maintained that, without efficacious grace, constantly vouchsafed, we can do nothing spiritually good. In regard to the resistibility of grace, they seem to have held that the will of man might always resist the influence of grace, if it chose to do so; but that grace would effectually prevent it from so choosing. And with respect to redemption, they appear to have compromised the matter, by holding that Christ died for all, so as that all might be partakers of the grace of justification by the merits of his death; but they denied that Christ died for each man in particular, so as to secure his final salvation; in this sense, he died for the elect only.

Were this the proper place, it would be easy to show that, in the leading points of his theology, Jansen did not differ from Calvin, so much as he misunderstood Calvinism. The Calvinists, for example, never held, as they are represented in the Provincial Letters,[^[20]] “that we have not the power of resisting grace.” So far from this, they held that fallen man could not but resist the grace of God. They preferred, therefore, the term “invincible,” as applied to grace. In short, they held exactly the victrix delectatio of Augustine, by which the will of man is sweetly but effectually inclined to comply with the will of God.[^[21]] On the subject of necessity and constraint their views are precisely similar. Nor can they be considered as differing essentially in their views of the death of Christ, as these, at least, were given by Jansen, who acknowledges in his “Augustinus,” that, “according to St. Augustine, Jesus Christ did not die for all mankind.” It is certain that neither Augustine nor Jansen would have subscribed to the views of grace and redemption held by many who, in our day, profess evangelical views. Making allowance for the different position of the parties, it is very plain that the dispute between Augustine and Pelagius, Jansen and Molina, Calvin and Arminius, was substantially one and the same. At the same time, it must be granted that on the great point of justification by faith, Jansen went widely astray from the truth; and in the subsequent controversial writings of the party, especially when arguing against the Protestants, this departure became still more strongly marked, and more deplorably manifested.[^[22]]

The revenge of the Jesuits did not stop at procuring the condemnation of Jansen’s book; it aimed at his living followers. Among these none was more conspicuous for virtue and influence than the Abbé de St. Cyran, who was known to have shared his counsels, and even aided in the preparation of his obnoxious work. While Jansen labored to restore the theoretical doctrines of Augustine, St. Cyran was ambitious to reduce them to practice. In pursuance of the moral system of that father, he taught the renunciation of the world, and the total absorption of the soul in the love of God. His religious fervor led him into some extravagances. He is said to have laid some claim to a species of inspiration, and to have anticipated for the Saviour some kind of temporal dominion, in which the saints alone would be entitled to the wealth and dignities of the world.[^[23]] But his piety appears to have been sincere, and, what is more surprising, his love to the Scriptures was such that he not only lived in the daily study of them himself, but earnestly enforced it on all his disciples. He recommended them to study the Scriptures on their knees. “No means of conversion,” he would say, “can be more apostolic than the Word of God. Every word in Scripture deserves to be weighed more attentively than gold. The Scriptures were penned by a direct ray of the Holy Spirit; the fathers only by a reflex ray emanating therefrom.” His whole character and appearance corresponded with his doctrine. “His simple mortified air, and his humble garb formed a striking contrast with the awful sanctity of his countenance, and his native lofty dignity of manner.”[^[24]] Possessing that force of character by which men of strong minds silently but surely govern others, his proselytes soon increased, and he became the nucleus of a new class of reformers.

St. Cyran was soon called to preside over the renowned monastery of Port-Royal. Two houses went under this name, though forming one abbey. One of these was called Port-Royal des Champs, and was situated in a gloomy forest, about six leagues from Paris; but this having been found an unhealthy situation, the nuns were removed for some time to another house in Paris, which went under the name of Port-Royal de Paris. The Abbey of Port-Royal was one of the most ancient belonging to the order of Citeaux, having been founded by Eudes de Sully, bishop of Paris, in 1204. It was placed originally under the rigorous discipline of St. Benedict, but in course of time fell, like most other monasteries, into a state of the greatest relaxation. In 1602, a new abbess was appointed in the person of Maria Angelica Arnauld, sister of the famous Arnauld, then a mere child, scarcely eleven years old! The nuns, promising themselves a long period of unbounded liberty, rejoiced at this appointment. But their joy was not of long duration. The young abbess, at first, indeed, thought of nothing but amusement; but at the age of seventeen a change came over her spirit. A certain Capuchin, wearied, it is said, or more probably disgusted, with the monastic life, had been requested by the nuns, who were not aware of his character, to preach before them. The preacher, equally ignorant of his audience, and supposing them to be eminently pious ladies, delivered an affecting discourse, pitched on the loftiest key of devotion, which left an impression on the mind of Angelica never to be effaced. She set herself to reform her establishment, and carried it into effect with a determination and self-denial quite beyond her years. This “reformation,” so highly lauded by her panegyrists, consisted chiefly in restoring the austere discipline of St. Benedict, and other severities practised in the earlier ages, the details of which would be neither edifying nor agreeable. The substitution of coarse serge in place of linen as underclothing, and dropping melted wax on the bare arms, may be taken as specimens of the reformation introduced by Mère Angelique. In these mortifying exercises the abbess showed an example to all the rest. She chose as her dormitory the filthiest cell in the convent, a place infested with toads and vermin, in which she found the highest delight, declaring that she “seemed transported to the grotto of Bethlehem.” The same rigid denial of pleasure was extended to her food, her dress, her whole occupations. Clothed herself in the rudest dress she could procure, nothing gave her greater offence than to see in her nuns any approach to the fashions of the world, even in the adjustment of the coarse black serge, with the scarlet cross, which formed their humble apparel[^[25]]. Yet, in the midst of all this “voluntary humility,” her heart seems to have been turned mainly to the Saviour. It was Jesus Christ whom she aimed at adoring in the worship she paid to “the sacrament of the altar.” And in a book of devotion, composed by her for private use, she gave expression to sentiments too much savoring of undivided affection to Christ to escape the censure of the Church. It was dragged to light and condemned at Rome[^[26]]. There is reason to believe that, under the direction of M. de St. Cyran, her religious sentiments, as well as those of her community, became much more enlightened. Her firmness in resisting subscription to the formulary and condemning Jansen, in spite of the most cruel and unmanly persecution, and the piety and faith she manifested on her death-bed, when, in the midst of exquisite suffering, and in the absence of the rites which her persecutors denied her, she expired in the full assurance of salvation through the merits of the only Saviour, form one of the most interesting chapters in the martyrology of the Church.

But St. Cyran aimed at higher objects than the management of a nunnery. His energetic mind planned a system of education, in which, along with the elements of learning, the youth might be imbued with early piety. Attracted by his fame, several learned men, some of them of rank and fortune, fled to enjoy at Port-Royal des Champs a sacred retreat from the world. This community, which differed from a monastery in not being bound by any vows, settled in a farm adjoining the convent, called Les Granges. The names of Arnauld, D’Andilly, Nicole, Le Maitre, Sacy,[^[27]] Fontaine, Pascal, and others, have conferred immortality on the spot. The system pursued in this literary hermitage was, in many respects, deserving of praise. The time of the recluses was divided between devotional and literary pursuits, relieved by agricultural and mechanical labors. The Scriptures, and other books of devotion, were translated into the vernacular language; and the result was, the singular anomaly of a Roman Catholic community distinguished for the devout and diligent study of the Bible. Protestants they certainly were not, either in spirit or in practice. Firm believers in the infallibility of their Church, and fond devotees in the observance of her rites, they held it a point of merit to yield a blind obedience, in matters of faith, to the dogmas of Rome. None were more hostile to Protestantism. St. Cyran, it is said, would never open a Protestant book, even for the purpose of refuting it, without first making the sign of the cross on it, to exorcise the evil spirit which he believed to lurk within its pages.[^[28]] From no community did there emanate more learned apologies for Rome than from Port-Royal. Still, it must be owned, that in attachment to the doctrines of grace, so far as they went, and in the exhibition of the Christian virtues, attested by their sufferings, lives, and writings, the Port-Royalists, including under this name both the nuns and recluses, greatly surpassed many Protestant communities. Their piety, indeed, partook of the failings which have always characterized the religion of the cloister. It seems to have hovered between superstition and mysticism. Afraid to fight against the world, they fled from it; and, forgetting that our Saviour was driven into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, they retired to a wilderness to avoid temptation. Half conscious of the hollowness of the ceremonial they practised, they sought to graft on its dead stock the vitalities of the Christian faith. In their hands, penance was sublimated into the symbol of penitential sorrow, and the mass into a spiritual service, the benefit of which depended on the preparation of the heart of the worshipper. In their eyes, the priest was but a suggestive emblem of the Saviour; and to them the altar, with its crucifix and bleeding image, served only as a platform on which they might obtain a more advantageous view of Calvary. Transferring to the Church of Rome the attributes of the Church of God, and regarding her still, in spite of her eclipse and disfigurement, as of one spirit, and even of one body, with Christ, infallible and immortal, they worshipped the fond creation of their own fancy. At the same time, they attempted to revive the doctrine of religious abstraction, or the absorption of the soul in Deity, and the total renouncement of everything in the shape of sensual enjoyment, which afterwards distinguished the mystics of the Continent. Even in their literary recreations, while they acquired an elegance of style which marked a new era in the literature of France, they betrayed their ascetic spirit. Poetry was only admissible when clothed in a devotional garb. It was by stealth that Racine, who studied at Port-Royal, indulged his poetic vein in the profane pieces which afterwards gave him celebrity. And yet it is candid to admit, that the mortifications in which this amiable fraternity engaged, consisted rather in the exclusion of pleasure than the infliction of pain, and that the object aimed at in these austerities was not so much to merit heaven as to attain an ideal perfection on earth. Port-Royalism, in short, was Popery in its mildest type, as Jesuitism is Popery in its perfection; and had it been possible to present that system in a form calculated to disarm prejudice and to cover its native deformities, the task might have been achieved by the pious devotees of Les Granges. But the same merciful Providence which, for the preservation of the human species, has furnished the snake with his rattle, and taught the lion to “roar for his prey,” has so ordered it that the Romish Church should betray her real character, in order that his people might “come out of her, and not be partakers of her sins, that they receive not of her plagues.” The whole system adopted at Port-Royal was regarded, from the commencement, with extreme jealousy by the authorities of that Church; the schools were soon dispersed, and the Jesuits never rested till they had destroyed every vestige of the obnoxious establishment.