Chapter 26

113.The meaning of Chrysostom is good, but the expressions of these ancient fathers are often more remarkable for their strength than their precision. The Protestant reader hardly needs to be reminded, that if divine grace can be said to have failed the Apostle Peter at his fall, it can only be in the sense of a temporary suspension of its influences; and that this withdrawment of grace must be regarded as the punishment, and not as the cause, of his own negligence.

114.That is, they could more readily procure monks to vote against M. Arnauld, than arguments to answer him.

115.The allusions in the text afford curious illustrations of the mode of warfare pursued by the Jesuits of the seventeenth century. The first refers to a comic catechism, in which the simple language of childhood was employed as a vehicle for the most calumnious charges against the opponents of the Society. Pascal refers again to this catechism in Letter xvii. The second device was a sort of school-boy masquerade. A handsome youth, disguised as a female, in splendid attire, and bearing the inscription ofsufficient grace, dragged behind him another dressed as a bishop (representing Jansenius, bishop of Ypres), who followed with a rueful visage, amidst the hootings of the other boys. The comedy referred to was acted in the Jesuits’ college of Clermont. The almanacs published in France at that period being usually embellished with rude cuts for the amusement of the vulgar, the Jesuits procured the insertion of a caricature of the Jansenists, who were represented as pursued by the pope, and taking refuge among the Calvinists. This, however, called forth a retaliation, in the shape of a poem, entitled “The Prints of the Famous Jesuitical Almanac,” in which the Jesuits were so successfully held up to ridicule, that they could hardly show face for some time in the streets of Paris. (Nicole, i. p. 208.)

116.Vertement—“smartly.” (Edit. 1657.)

117.See Letter ii.

118.Ces docteurs—“those doctors.” (Edit. 1767.)

119.In Nicole’s edition, this letter is signed with the initials “E. A. A. B. P. A. F. D. E. P.” which seem merely a chance medley of letters, to quiz those who were so anxious to discover the author. There may have been an allusion to the absurd story of a Jansenist conference held, it was said, at Bourg-Fontaine, in 1621, to deliberate on ways and means for abolishing Christianity; among the persons present at which, indicated by initials, Anthony Arnauld was ridiculously accused of having been one under the initials A. A. (See Bayle’s Dict., art.Ant. Arnauld.)

120.Etienne Bauni, or Stephen Bauny, was a French Jesuit. His “Summary,” which Pascal has immortalized by his frequent references to it, was published in 1633. It is a large volume, stuffed with the most detestable doctrines. In 1642, the General Assembly of the French clergy censured his books on moral theology, as containing propositions “leading to licentiousness, and the corruption of good manners, violating natural equity, and excusing blasphemy, usury, simony, and other heinous sins, as trivial matters.” (Nicole, i. 164.) And yet this abominable work was formally defended in the “Apology for the Casuists,” written in 1657, by Father Pirot, and acknowledged by the Jesuits as having been written under their direction! (Nicole, Hist. des Provinciales, p. 30.)

121.Francis Annat was born in the year 1590. He was made rector of the College of Toulouse, and appointed by the Jesuits their French provincial; and, while in that situation, was chosen by Louis XIV. as his confessor. His friends have highly extolled his virtues as a man; and the reader may judge of the value of these eulogiums from the fact, that he retained his post as the favorite confessor of that licentious monarch, without interruption, till deafness prevented him from listening any longer to the confessions of his royal penitent. (Bayle, art.Annat.) They have also extolled his answer to the Provincial Letters, in his “Bonne Foy des Jansenistes,” in which he professed to expose the falsity of the quotations made from the Casuists, with what success, appears from the Notes of Nicole, who has completely vindicated Pascal from the unfounded charges which the Jesuits have reiterated on this point. (Notes Preliminaires, vol. i. p. 256, &c.; Entretiens de Cleandre et Eudoxe, p. 79.)

122.When Madame du Valois, a lady of birth and high accomplishments, one of the nuns of Port-Royal, among other trials by which she was harassed and tormented for not signing the formulary condemning Jansenius, was threatened with being deprived of the benefit of the sacraments at the hour of death, she replied: “If, at the awful hour of death, I should be deprived of those assistances which the Church grants to all her children, then God himself will, by his grace, immediately and abundantly supply their instrumentality. I know, indeed, that it is most painful to approach the awful hour of death without an outward participation in the sacraments; but it is better dying to enter into heaven, though without the sacraments, for the cause of truth, than, receiving the sacraments, to be cited to irrevocable judgment for committing perjury.” (Narrative of Dem. of Port-Royal, p. 176.)

123.Will it be believed that the Jesuits actually had the consummate hypocrisy to pretend that Pascal meant to throw ridicule on the grace of God, while he was merely exposing to merited contempt their own perversions of the doctrine?

124.See before, page 70.

125.The Jesuits were notorious for the assiduity with which they sought admission into the families, and courted the confidence of the great, with whom, from the laxness of their discipline and morality, as well as from their superior manners and accomplishments, they were, as they still are, the favorite confessors. They have a maxim among their secret instructions, that in dealing with the consciences of the great, the confessor must be guided by the looser sort of opinions. The author of theTheatre Jesuitiqueillustrates this by an anecdote. A rich gentleman falling sick, confessed himself to a Jesuit, and among other sins acknowledged an illicit intercourse with a lady, whose portrait, thinking himself dying, he gave with many expressions of remorse, to his confessor. The gentleman, however, recovered, and with returning health a salutary change was effected on his character. The Jesuit, finding himself forgotten, paid a visit to his former penitent, and gave him back the portrait, which renewed all his former passion, and soon brought him again to the feet of his confessor!

126.“The doubtsome faith of the pope,” as it was styled by our Reformers, is here lamentably apparent. The “fear and trembling” of the apostle were those of anxious care and diligence, not of doubt or apprehension. The Church of Rome, with all her pretensions to be regarded as the only safe and infallible guide to salvation, keeps her children in darkness and doubt on this point to the last moment of life; they are never permitted to reach the peaceful assurance of God’s love and the humble hope of eternal life which the Gospel warrants the believer to cherish; and this, while it serves to keep the superstitious multitude under the sway of priestly domination, accounts for thegloomwhich has characterized, in all ages, the devotion of the best and most intelligent Romanists.

127.Augustine.

128.Imago Primi Seculi.—The work to which Pascal here refers was printed by the Jesuits in Flanders in the year 1640, under the title of “L’Image du Premier Siècle de la Société de Jesus,” being a history of the Society of the Jesuits from the period of its establishment in 1540—a century before the publication. The work itself is very rare, and would probably have fallen into oblivion, had not the substance of it been embodied in a little treatise, itself also scarce, entitled “La Morale Pratique des Jésuites.” The small specimen which Pascal has given conveys but an imperfect idea of the mingled blasphemy and absurdity of this Jesuitical production.

129.Isa. xviii. 2.

130.The reader is requested to notice how completely the charge brought against the Provincial Letters by Voltaire and others is here anticipated and refuted. (See Hist. Introduction.)

131.“It must be observed that most of those Jesuits who were so severe in their writings, were less so towards their penitents. It has been said of Bourdaloue himself that if he required too much in the pulpit, he abated it in the confessional chair: a new stroke of policy well understood on the part of the Jesuits, inasmuch as speculative severity suits persons of rigid morals, and practical condescension attracts the multitude.” (D’Alembert, Account of Dest. of Jesuits, p. 44.)

132.Petau was one of the obscure writers who were employed by the Jesuits to publish defamatory libels against M. Arnauld and the bishops who approved of his book on Frequent Communion. (Coudrette, ii. 426.)

133.The policy to which Pascal refers was introduced by Matthew Ricci, an Italian Jesuit, who succeeded the famous Francis Xavier in attempting to convert the Chinese. Ricci declared that, after consulting the writings of the Chinese literati, he was persuaded that the Xamti and Cachinchoam of the mandarins were merely other names for the King of Heaven, and that the idolatries of the natives were harmless civil ceremonies. He therefore allowed his converts to practise them, on the condition mentioned in the text. In 1631, some new paladins of the orders of Dominic and Francis, who came from the Philippine Islands to share in the spiritual conquest of that vast empire, were grievously scandalized at the monstrous compromise between Christianity and idolatry tolerated by the followers of Loyola, and carried their complaints to Rome. The result is illustrative of the papal policy. Pope Innocent X. condemned the Jesuitical policy; Pope Alexander VII., in 1656 (when this letter was written) sanctioned it; and in 1669, Pope Clement IX. ordained that the decrees ofbothof his predecessors should continue in full force. The Jesuits, availing themselves of this suspense, paid no regard either to the popes or their rival orders, the Dominicans and Franciscans, who, in the persecutions which ensued, always came off with the worst. (Coudrette, iv. 281; Hist. of D. Ign. Loyola, pp. 97–112.)The prescription given to the Jesuits by the cardinals, to expose the image of the crucifix in their churches, appears to us a sort of homœopathic cure, very little better than the disease. Bossuet, and others who have tried to soften down the doctrines of Rome, would represent the worship ostensibly paid to the crucifix as really paid to Christ, who is represented by it. But even this does not accord with the determination of the Council of Trent, which declared of imagesEisque venerationem impertiendam; or with Bellarmine who devotes a chapter expressly to prove that true and proper worship is to be given to images. (Stillingfleet on Popery, by Dr. Cunningham, p. 77.)

The prescription given to the Jesuits by the cardinals, to expose the image of the crucifix in their churches, appears to us a sort of homœopathic cure, very little better than the disease. Bossuet, and others who have tried to soften down the doctrines of Rome, would represent the worship ostensibly paid to the crucifix as really paid to Christ, who is represented by it. But even this does not accord with the determination of the Council of Trent, which declared of imagesEisque venerationem impertiendam; or with Bellarmine who devotes a chapter expressly to prove that true and proper worship is to be given to images. (Stillingfleet on Popery, by Dr. Cunningham, p. 77.)

134.Lent.

135.“According to the rules of the Roman Catholic fast, one meal alone is allowed on a fast-day. Many, however, fall off before the end of Lent, and take to their breakfast and suppers, under the sanction of some good-natured doctor, who declares fasting injurious to their health.” (Blanco White, Letters from Spain, p. 272.)

136.Father Antoine Escobar of Mendoza was a Jesuit of Spain, and born at Valladolid in 1589, where he died in 1669. His principal work is his “Exposition of Uncontroverted Opinions in Moral Theology,” in six volumes. It abounds with the most licentious doctrines, and being a compilation from numerous Jesuitical writers, afforded a rich field for the satire of Pascal. The characteristic absurdity of this author is, that his questions uniformly exhibit two faces—an affirmative and a negative;—so thatescobarderiebecame a synonym in France forduplicity. (Biographie Pittoresque des Jesuites, par M. C. de Plancy, Paris, 1826, p. 38.) Nicole tells us that he had in his possession a portrait of the casuist which gave him a “resolute and decisive cast of countenance”—not exactly what might have been expected from his double-faced questions. His friends describe Escobar as a good man, a laborious student, and very devout in his way. It is said that, when he heard that his name and writings were so frequently noticed in the Provincial Letters, he was quite overjoyed to think that his fame would extend as far as thelittle lettershad done. Boileau has celebrated him in the following couplet:—Si Bourdaloue un peu sévère,Nous dit, craignez la volupté:Escobar, lui dit-on, mon père,Nous la permet pour la santé.“If Bourdaloue, a little too severe,Cries, Fly from pleasure’s fatal fascinationDear Father, cries another, Escoba,Permits it as a healthy relaxation.”

Si Bourdaloue un peu sévère,Nous dit, craignez la volupté:Escobar, lui dit-on, mon père,Nous la permet pour la santé.“If Bourdaloue, a little too severe,Cries, Fly from pleasure’s fatal fascinationDear Father, cries another, Escoba,Permits it as a healthy relaxation.”

Si Bourdaloue un peu sévère,Nous dit, craignez la volupté:Escobar, lui dit-on, mon père,Nous la permet pour la santé.

Si Bourdaloue un peu sévère,

Nous dit, craignez la volupté:

Escobar, lui dit-on, mon père,

Nous la permet pour la santé.

“If Bourdaloue, a little too severe,Cries, Fly from pleasure’s fatal fascinationDear Father, cries another, Escoba,Permits it as a healthy relaxation.”

“If Bourdaloue, a little too severe,

Cries, Fly from pleasure’s fatal fascination

Dear Father, cries another, Escoba,

Permits it as a healthy relaxation.”

137.Four celebrated casuists.

138.Hippocrass—a medicated wine.

139.All persons above the age of one-and-twenty are bound to observe the rules of the Roman Catholic fast during Lent. The obligation of fasting begins at midnight, just when the leading clock of every town strikes twelve. (Letters from Spain, p. 270.)

140.Ad insequendam amicam.(Tom. ii. tr. 27, part 2, c. 6, n. 143.) The accuracy with which the references are made to the writings of these casuists shows anything but a design to garble or misrepresent them.

141.In the technical language of theology, an “occasion of sin” is any situation or course of conduct which has a tendency to induce the commission of sin. “Proximate occasions” are those which have a direct and immediate tendency of this kind.

142.“The casuists are divided intoProbabilistæandProbabilioristæ. The first, among whom were the Jesuits, maintain that a certain degree of probability as to the lawfulness of an action is enough to secure against sin. The second, supported by the Dominicans and the Jansenists (a kind of Catholic Calvinists condemned by the Church), insist on always taking thesafestor most probable side. The French proverb,Le mieux est l’ennemi, du bien, is perfectly applicable to the practical effects of these two systems in Spain.” (Letters from Spain, p. 277.) Nicole has a long dissertation on the subject in his Notes on this Letter.

143.“When one god presses hard, another brings relief.”

144.In the twelfth century, in consequence of the writings of Peter Lombard, commonly called the “Master of the Sentences,” the Christian doctors were divided into two classes—thePositiveor dogmatic, and theScholasticdivines. ThePositivedivines, who were the teachers of systematic divinity, expounded, though in a wretched manner, the Sacred Writings, and confirmed their sentiments by Scripture and tradition. The scholastics, instead of the Bible, explained the book of Sentences, indulging in the most idle and ridiculous speculations.—“The practice of choosing a certain priest, not only to be the occasional confessor, butthe director of the conscience, was greatly encouraged by the Jesuits.” (Letters from Spain, p. 89.)

145.In this extraordinary list of obscure and now forgotten casuistical writers, most of them belonging to Spain, Portugal, and Flanders, the art of the author lies in stringing together the most outlandish names he could collect, ranging them mostly according to their terminations, and placing them in contrast with the venerable and well-known names of the ancient fathers. To a French ear these names must have sounded as uncouth and barbarous as those of the Scotch which Milton has satirized to the ear of an Englishman:—“Cries the stall-reader, ‘Bless us! what a word onA title-page is this!’ Why, is it harder, sirs, than Gordon,Colkitto, or Macdonnel, or Galasp?Those rugged names to our like mouths grow sleek,That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp.”(Milton’s Minor Poems.)

“Cries the stall-reader, ‘Bless us! what a word onA title-page is this!’ Why, is it harder, sirs, than Gordon,Colkitto, or Macdonnel, or Galasp?Those rugged names to our like mouths grow sleek,That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp.”

“Cries the stall-reader, ‘Bless us! what a word on

A title-page is this!’ Why, is it harder, sirs, than Gordon,

Colkitto, or Macdonnel, or Galasp?

Those rugged names to our like mouths grow sleek,

That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp.”

(Milton’s Minor Poems.)

146.That is, they were all, in Pascal’s opinion, favorable to the Gospel scheme of morality.

147.Luke xi. 41.—Quod superest, date eleemosynam(Vulgate);τα ἐνοντα δότε(Gr.);Ea quæ penes vos sunt date(Beza); “Give alms of such things as ye have.” (Eng. Ver.)

148.When Pascal speaks of alms-giving “working out our salvation,” it is evident that he regarded it only as the evidence of our being in a state of salvation. Judging by the history of his life, and by his “Thoughts on Religion,” no man was more free from spiritual pride, or that poor species of it which boasts of or rests in its eleemosynary sacrifices. His charity flowed from love and gratitude to God. Such was his regard for the poor that he could not refuse to give alms even though compelled to take from the supply necessary to relieve his own infirmities; and on his death-bed he entreated that a poor person should be brought into the house and treated with the same attention as himself, declaring that when he thought of his own comforts and of the multitudes who were destitute of the merest necessaries, he felt a distress which he could not endure. “One thing I have observed,” he says in his Thoughts—“that let a man be ever so poor, he has always something to leave on his death-bed.”

149.These bulls were directed against gross and unnatural crimes prevailing among the clergy. (Nicolo, ii. pp. 372–376.)

150.An allusion to the popularity of the Letters, which induced many to inquire after the casuistical writings so often quoted in them.

151.Lenten life—an abstemious life, or life of fasting.

152.Prevaricateurs.—Alluding probably to such texts as Rom. iv. 15: “The law worketh wrath; for where no law is, there is no transgression.”—Ubi enim non est lex, nec prevaricatio(Vulg.); or Rom. v. 13, &c.

153.The Rules (Regulæ Communes) of the Society of Jesus, it must be admitted, are rigid enough in the enforcement of moral decency and discipline on the members; and the perfect candor of Pascal appears in the admission. This, however, only adds weight to the real charge which he substantiates against them, of teaching maxims which tend to the subversion of morality. With regard to their personal conduct, different opinions prevail. “Whatever we may think of the political delinquencies of their leaders,” says Blanco White, “their bitterest enemies have never ventured to charge the order of Jesuits with moral irregularities. The internal policy of that body,” he adds, “precluded the possibility of gross misconduct.” (Letters from Spain, p. 89.) We are far from being sure of this. The remark seems to apply to only one species of vice, too common in monastic life, and may be true of the conventual establishments of the Jesuits, where outward decency forms part of the deep policy of the order; but what dependence can be placed on the moral purity of men whose consciences must be debauched by such maxims? Jarrige informs us that they boasted at one time in Spain of possessing an herb which preserved their chastity; and on being questioned by the king to tell what it was, they replied: “It was the fear of God.” “But,” says the author, “whatever they might be then, it is plain that they have since lost the seed of that herb for it no longer grows in their garden.” (Jesuites sur l’Echaufaud, ch. 6.)

154.It has been observed, with great truth, by Sir James Macintosh, that “casuistry, the inevitable growth of the practices of confession and absolution, has generally vibrated betwixt the extremes of impracticable severity and contemptible indulgence.” (Hist. of England, vol. ii. p. 359.)

155.Tiers etat.—These were the three orders into which the people of France were divided; thetiers etator third estate, corresponding to our commons.

156.With all respect for Pascal and his good intention, it is plain that there is a wide difference between the duty, illustrated by the apostle from the ancient law, of supporting those who minister in holy things in and for their ministrations, and the practice introduced by the Church of Rome, of putting a price on the holy things themselves. In the one case, it was simply a recognition of the general principle that “the laborer is worthy of his hire.” In the other, it was converting the minister into a shopman who was allowed to “barter” his sacred wares at the market price, or any price he pleased. To this mercenary principle most of the superstitions of Rome may be traced. The popish doctrine of the mass is founded on transubstantiation, or the superstition broached in the ninth century, that the bread and wine are converted by the priest into the real body and blood of Christ. It was never settled in the Romish Church to be a proper propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead till the Council of Trent, in the sixteenth century; so that it is comparatively a modern invention. The mass proceeds on the absurd assumption that our blessed Lord offered up his body and blood in the institution of the supper, before offering them on the cross, and partook of them himself; and it involves the blasphemy of supposing that a sinful mortal may, whenever he pleases, offer up the great sacrifice of that body and blood, which could only be offered by the Son of God and offered by him only once. This, however, is the great Diana of the popish priests—by this craft they have their wealth—and the whole of its history proves that it was invented for no other purposes than imposture and extortion.

157.Heb. vii. 27.—It is astonishing to see an acute mind like that of Pascal so warped by superstition as not to perceive that in this, and other allusions to the Levitical priesthood, the object of the apostle was avowedly to prove that the great sacrifice for sin, of which the ancient sacrifices were the types, had been “once offered in the end of the world,” and that “there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins;” and that the very text to which he refers, teaches that, in the person of Jesus Christ, our high priest, all the functions of the sacrificing priesthood were fulfilled and terminated: “Who needethnotdailyas those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s: for this he didonce, when he offered up himself.” The ministers of the New Testament are never in Scripture called priests, though this name has been applied to the Christian people who offer up the “spiritual sacrifices” of praise and good works. (Heb. xiii. 15, 16; 1 Pet. ii. 5.)

158.Treatise 10, p. 474; ib., p. 441; Quest. 32, p. 457.

159.Tom. ii. tr. 25. n. 33. And yet they will pretend to hold that their Church is infallible!

160.Book of the Hierarchy, p. 611, Rouen edition.

161.Op. Mor. p. 1, disp. 2, p. 6.Ferdinand de Castro Palaowas a Jesuit of Spain, and author of a work on Virtues and Vices, published in 1631.

162.This Letter was revised by M. Nicole.

163.In praxi: liv. xxi., num. 62, p. 260.

164.De Just., liv. ii., c. 9, d. 12, n. 79.

165.In his book, De Spe, vol. ii., d. 15, sec. 4, 848.

166.De Sub. Pecc., diff. 9; Diana, p. 5; tr. 14, r. 99.

167.Before the age of Louis XIV. the practice of duelling prevailed in France to such a frightful extent that a writer, who is not given to exaggerate in such matters, says, that “It had done as much to depopulate the country as the civil and foreign wars, and that in the course of twenty years, ten of which had been disturbed by war, more Frenchmen perished by the hands of Frenchmen than by those of their enemies.” (Voltaire, Siècle de Louis XIV., p. 42.) The abolition of this barbarous custom was one of the greatest services which Louis XIV. rendered to his country. This was not fully accomplished till 1663, when a bloody combat of four against four determined him to put an end to the practice, by making it death, without benefit of clergy, to send or accept a challenge.

168.Sanchez, Theol. Mor., liv. ii. c. 39, n. 7.

169.Escobar, tr. 6, ex. 4, n. 26, 56.

170.Francois Amicus, or L’Amy, was chancellor of the University of Gratz. In hisCours Theologique, published in 1642 he advances the most dangerous tenets, particularly on the subject of murder.

171.This is true; but in the case of heretics, at least, they found out a convenient mode of compromising the matter. Having condemned their victim as worthy of death, he was delivered over to the secular court, with the disgusting farce of a recommendation to mercy, couched in these terms: “My lord judge, we beg of you with all possible affection, for the love of God, and as you would expect the gifts of mercy and compassion, and the benefit of our prayers, not to do anything injurious to this miserable man, tending to death or the mutilation of his body!” (Crespin, Hist. des Martyres, p. 185.)

172.It may be noticed here, that Father Daniel has attempted to evade the main charge against the Jesuits in this letter by adroitly altering the state of the question. He argues that theintentionis the soul of an action, and that which often makes it good or evil; thus cunningly insinuating that his casuists refer only toindifferentactions, in regard to which nobody denies that it is the intention that makes them good or bad. (Entretiens de Cleandre et d’Eudoxe, p. 334.) It is unnecessary to do more than refer the reader back to the instances cited in the letter, to convince him that what these casuists really maintain is, that actions in themselvesevil, may be allowed, provided theintentionsare good; and, moreover, that in order to make these intentions good, it is not necessary that they have any reference to God, but sufficient if they refer to our own convenience, cupidity or vanity. (Apologie des Lettres Provinciales, pp. 212–221.)

173.This Letter also was revised by M. Nicole.

174.The president referred to was Pompone de Bellievre, on whom M. Pelisson pronounced a beautiful eulogy.

175.The Jesuits exemplified their own maxim in this case by the famous bankruptcy of their College of St. Hermenigilde at Seville. We have a full account of this in the memorial presented to the King of Spain by the luckless creditors. The simple pathos and sincere earnestness of this document preclude all suspicion of the accuracy of its statements. By the advice of their Father Provincial, the Jesuits, in March, 1645, stopped payments after having borrowed upwards of 450,000 ducats, mostly from poor widows and friendless girls. This shameful affair was exposed before the courts of justice, during a long litigation, in the course of which it was discovered that the Jesuit fathers had been carrying on extensive mercantile transactions, and that instead of spending the money left them forpious uses—such as ransoming captives, and alms-giving—they had devoted it to the purposes of what they termed “our poor little house of profession.” (Theatre Jesuitique, p. 200, &c.)

176.Molina, t. ii., tr. 2, disp. 338, n. 8; Lessius, liv. ii., ch. 20, dist. 19, n. 168.

177.Escobar, tr. 3, ex. 1, n. 23, tr. 5, ex. 5, n. 53.

178.Molina, l. tom. i.; De Just., tr. 2, disp. 94; Escobar, tr. 1, ex. 8, n. 59, tr. 3, ex. 1, n. 23.

179.Tr. 31, c. 9, n. 231.—“Occultæ fornicariæ debetur pretium in conscientia, et multo majore ratione, quam publicæ. Copia enim quam occulta facit mulier sui corporis, multo plus valet quam ea quam publica facit meretrix; nec ulla est lex positiva quæ reddit eam incapacem pretii. Idem dicendum de pretio promisso virgini, conjugatæ, moniali, et cuicumque alii. Est enim omnium eadem ratio.”

180.Quoted by Escobar, tr. 3, ex. 2, n. 138.

181.Molina, 94, 99; Reginald. l. 10, 184; Filiutius, tr. 31; Escobar, tr. 3; Lessius, l. 2, 14.

182.Cellot, liv. viii., de la Hierarch, c. 16, 2.

183.“Since all this, a new edition has been printed at Paris, by Piget, more correct than any of the rest. But the sentiments of Escobar may be still better ascertained from the great work on moral theology, printed at Lyons.” (Note in Nicole’s edition of the Letters.)I may avail myself of this space to remark, that not one of the charges brought against the Jesuits in this letter has been met by Father Daniel in his celebrated reply. Indeed, after some vain efforts to contradict about a dozen passages in the letters, he leaves avowedly more than a hundred without daring to answer them. The pretext for thus failing to perform what he professed to do, and what he so loudly boasts, at the commencement, of his being able to do, is ingenious enough. “You will easily comprehend,” says one of his characters, “that this confronting of texts and quotations is not a great treat for a man of my taste. I could not stand thisdisagreeable labormuch longer.” (Entretiens de Cleandre et d’Eudoxe, p. 277.) We reserve our remarks on the pretended falsifications charged against Pascal, till we come to his own masterly defence of himself in the subsequent letters.

I may avail myself of this space to remark, that not one of the charges brought against the Jesuits in this letter has been met by Father Daniel in his celebrated reply. Indeed, after some vain efforts to contradict about a dozen passages in the letters, he leaves avowedly more than a hundred without daring to answer them. The pretext for thus failing to perform what he professed to do, and what he so loudly boasts, at the commencement, of his being able to do, is ingenious enough. “You will easily comprehend,” says one of his characters, “that this confronting of texts and quotations is not a great treat for a man of my taste. I could not stand thisdisagreeable labormuch longer.” (Entretiens de Cleandre et d’Eudoxe, p. 277.) We reserve our remarks on the pretended falsifications charged against Pascal, till we come to his own masterly defence of himself in the subsequent letters.

184.“Towards the conclusion of the tenth century, new accessions were made to the worship of the Virgin. In this age, (the tenth century) there are to be found manifest indications of the institution of therosaryandcrown(or chaplet) of the Virgin, by which her worshippers were to reckon the number of prayers they were to offer to this new divinity. The rosary consists of fifteen repetitions of the Lords Prayer, and a hundred and fifty salutations of the blessed Virgin; while the crown consists in six or seven repetitions of the Lord’s Prayer, and seven times ten salutations, orAve Marias.” (Mosheim. cent. x.)

185.These are the devotions presented at pp. 33, 59, 145, 156, 172, 258, 420 of the first edition.

186.See the devotions, at pp. 14, 326, 447.

187.The Jesuits raised a great outcry against Pascal for having, in this letter, as they alleged, turned the worship of the Virgin into ridicule. Nicole seriously undertakes his defence, and draws several distinctions between true and false devotion to the Virgin. The Mariolatry or Mary-worship, of Pascal and the Port-Royalists, was certainly a different sort of thing from that practised in the Church of Rome; but it is sad to see the straits to which these sincere devotees were reduced, in their attempts to reconcile this practice with the honor due to God and his Son.

188.Father Daniel makes an ingenious attempt to take off the force of this statement, by representing it as no more than what is done by other societies, universities, &c. (Entretiens, p. 32.) But while these bodies acted in good faith on this rule, the Jesuits (as Pascal afterwards shows, Letter xiii.) made it subservient to their double policy. Pascal’s point was gained by establishing the fact, that the books published by the Jesuits had the imprimatur of the Society; and, in answer to all that Daniel has said on the point, it may be sufficient to ask, Why not try the simple plan of denouncing the error and censuring the author? (See Letter v., p. 117.)

189.There is an allusion here to the phrase which is perpetually occurring in theConstitutionsof the Jesuits, “Ad majorem Dei gloriam—To the greater glory of God,” which is the reason ostentatiously paraded for almost all their laws and customs.

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