Hence arose that horrible Jansenist doctrine of predestination, borrowed from Calvin, in which God is made to appear pitiless even in his mercies, the reprobate as a victim less guilty than unfortunate, and the elect one as a spoiled child who ought to blush at his immortal crown.[227]
I shall return to this latter point hereafter. Meanwhile, let us point out another consequence of the doctrine here laid down. If it be true that man is often abandoned by grace, and if, in consequence of his impotence, he necessarily violates the divine commands, must we, then, believe that God orders what is impossible? No doubt of it, reply the Jansenists; Pelagius first dared to deny this consequence—that the just themselves do often lack necessary grace.[228] This monstrous error is expressed in the first proposition of Jansenius, as follows: "Some of God's commandments are impossible to the just in the state of their present strength, whatever will they may have, and whatever efforts they may make; and the grace through which these commandments would become possible to them is wanting."[229] Catholics, with the Council of Trent (session vi. chap. xi.), say quite the contrary. It is a doctrine universally held in the church, and borne out by the unanimous consent of the fathers, that no one is deprived of the graces indispensable to salvation, except through his personal fault. Theologians also, for the most part, teach, with reason, that God confers the grace of conversion on sinners the most obstinate and hardened.
How is it that Jansenius was unable to perceive one of the clearest points of Christian revelation—the infinite mercy of God towards the sinner? It was the inevitable consequence of his doctrine concerning liberty.[230] In his eyes, the equilibrium of the human will has been irreparably lost; man naturally follows the attraction which dominates him.
Without grace, our poor will tends irresistibly to the depths of sin; an evil cupidity dominates it. But let the delectation of divine love take possession of this entirely passive and powerless heart, and it will be drawn to good by an equal necessity. Now, we see but too well that this holy passion which operates in man, in regard to God, the same effects which the dominant cupidity operates in regard to the things of earth, is the privilege of but a small number. One only explanation is possible—all the rest are without grace. Be it observed that, according to the Jansenists, every grace is charity, irresistible, victorious delectation. The Augustinus, it is true, speaks of certain little graces which do not at once carry the soul to the heights of perfection. Such as they are, they are none the less efficacious; if their power is not greater, it is because God has not given them more force than they in effect possess. The grace called by the theologians sufficient is held in aversion by the Jansenists; it is a grace which has for them the demerit of not being efficacious.[231] The three following propositions from Jansenius on liberty and grace have been pronounced heretical:
"In order to merit or demerit in the state of fallen nature, it is not necessary that man should have a liberty opposed to necessity (as to willing); it suffices that he should have a liberty opposed to constraint."[232] "In the state of fallen nature, we never resist interior grace."[233] "The semi-Pelagians admitted the necessity of an interior and preventing grace for all actions, even for the beginning of faith; they were heretics in so far as they assumed that grace to be such that the human will could resist it or obey it."[234]
Quesnel renewed every one of these errors,[235] and the Synod of Pistoia gives Quesnel's book an unreserved approbation.[236] Ricci and his adherents tell us, with Jansenius, that the equilibrium of the human will is lost, and that "this idea of equilibrium is a rock against which the enemies of grace" (that is, Catholic theologians) "have dashed themselves." They themselves ignore every grace from Jesus Christ, except that which creates in us a holy love, a holy delectation.[237]
The efficacy of grace, say they, "does not depend on our will, but produces it by changing us from not willing to willing, through its all-powerful force.... Far from waiting our consent, grace creates it in us."[238] In the synod's whole body of doctrine, by means of which it aims to bring back the faith to its primitive purity, we find not a word in contradiction of the heretical system of Jansenius; it everywhere follows, on the contrary, the spirit of that system, but carefully avoids reproducing literally any one of the famous five propositions. But we do find in the acts of the synod that celebrated conclusion which concentrates in itself the poison of the Jansenist heresy in its full force: "There are in man two loves, which are, as it were, the two roots of all our actions—cupidity and charity; the first is the bad tree, which can produce only bad fruit, and the second the good tree, which alone produces good works. Where cupidity dominates, charity reigns not; and where charity dominates, cupidity reigns not."[239] As if there were not, remarks Pius VI., lying between culpable love and divine charity, which conducts us to the kingdom of heaven, a legitimate human love![240]
When our common humanity is thus debased and disparaged, a distance is necessarily placed between it and its sole mediator, Jesus Christ, himself man also, but evidently incapable of taking upon himself a nature as incomplete as ours. Hence, the disciples of Jansenius have generally manifested an antipathy to devotions which bring us into intimate relations with the sacred humanity of our Saviour. The tender and Christian devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is especially intolerable to them.[241] As to the Blessed Virgin Mary, her title of Mother of God, so solemnly defined in the Council of Ephesus against Nestorius, hardly finds favor among them. To the Jansenists, Mary is certainly not the Immaculate One who crushes the head of the infernal serpent. They represent her the most frequently as the Virgin depicted by Michael Angelo, trembling and almost hiding before the glance of Christ the judge, on the last day.[242] Her greatness is terrible, said the Abbé de Saint-Cyran to Mère Angélique. Could it be otherwise? Could Jansenist fatalism give more room for confidence than for intercession?
May I be permitted to add a last word to this already long analysis? It is said that Jansenism has had the merit of recalling Catholics to a respect for the sacraments.[243] Is this said seriously? Luther had made all spiritual life centre in faith; the sacraments were thus nothing but ceremonies proper to excite this principal sentiment. In place of faith, Baius and Jansenius have substituted charity. Redeeming grace, the divine adoption, justice, holiness, all these they identify with love, as Luther identified them with faith. Now, I ask, what is it that renders the sacraments so worthy of veneration? Christian tradition replies with one accord: it is their efficacy; the sacraments are truly the causes and the instruments of grace and charity; they are, as it were, vases filled with redeeming blood. But the Jansenists do not so regard them. According to them, the sacraments do not confer sanctity; they suppose it.[244] Before baptism, and before penance, the adult must have dominant charity in his heart; without this, his repentance, and even his prayers, would be but movements of the dominant cupidity, and, consequently, new sins. It may be thought that I exaggerate; I subjoin, therefore, passages from the Synod of Pistoia, in which Quesnel and Jansenius speak again: "When we have unequivocal signs that the love of God reigns in a man's heart, we may with reason judge him worthy of participation with Jesus Christ in the reception of the sacraments. This is the rule which should be observed in the tribunal of penance (in the question of granting absolution). Works alone afford a morally certain proof of conversion. When the love of God takes possession of the soul, it becomes active and efficacious."[245] Again: "The first disposition for praying as we ought is a perfect detachment from all created things and a kind of disgust for all earthly consolations."[246] Until the sinner has received this grace of the Holy Ghost, he is unworthy of absolution quite as much as of communion. The words of Saint-Cyran to poor Sister Mary Clare are well known: "It is necessary to come, living, to penance. This is why I have kept you waiting so long. I have left you to live; for five months you have been living a spiritual life." So far no sacraments. The practice was still worse than the theory, as we well know. And this is the way in which Jansenism would recall Catholics to a respect for the sacraments! It has, at one blow, narrowed Christ's functions and those of the church.[247]
TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.