who had transmitted to him the first of your letters: "You can have no idea how much I am obliged to you for the letter you sent me, it is so very ingenious, and so nicely written. It narrates, and yet it is not a narrative; it clears up the most intricate and involved of all possible matters; its raillery is exquisite; it enlightens those who know little about the subject, and imparts double delight to those who understand it. It is an admirable apology; and, if they would so take it, a delicate and innocent censure. In short, that letter displays so much art, so much spirit, and so much judgment, that I burn with curiosity to know who wrote it," &c.*

You, too, perhaps, would like to know who the person is that writes in this style; but you must be content to esteem without knowing him; when you come to know him, your esteem will be greatly enhanced.

Take my word for it, then, and continue your letters; and let the censure come when it may, we are quite prepared for receiving it. These words, "proximate power," and "sufficient grace," with which we are threatened, will frighten us no longer. We have learned from the Jesuits, the Jacobins, and M. le Moine, in how many different ways they may be turned, and how little solidity there is in these new-fangled terms, to give ourselves any trouble about them.-Meanwhile, I remain, &c.

*Though some have supposed that Pascal could not have written in such a complimentary style of his own production, there seems no reason to question that he was the author of the above reply. Nothing is more customary in such kind of writings than to keep up the vraisemblance by some such self-praise. Had Pascal been able to foresee the fame which his Letters would really acquire, he would not have indulged in this b..dinage,

LETTER III.

INJUSTICE, ABSURDITY, AND NULLITY OF THE CENSURE ON M. ARNAULD.

PARIS, February 9, 1656.

SIR, I have received your letter; and, at the same time, there was brought me a manuscript copy of the censure. I find that I am as well treated in the former, as M. Arnauld is ill treated in the latter. I am afraid there is some extravagance in both cases, and that neither of us is sufficiently well known by our judges. Sure I am, that were we better known, M. Arnauld would merit the approval of the Sorbonne, and I the censure of the Academy. Thus our interests are quite at variance with each other. It is his interest to make himself known, to vindicate his innocence; whereas it is mine to remain in the dark, for fear of forfeiting my reputation. Prevented, therefore, from showing my face, I must devolve on you the task of making my acknowledgments to my illustrious admirers, while I undertake that of furnishing you with the news of the censure.

I assure you, Sir, it has filled me with astonishment. I expected to find it condemning the most shocking heresy in the world; but your wonder will equal mine, when informed that these alarming preparations, when on the point of producing the grand effect anticipated, have all ended in smoke.

To understand the whole affair in a pleasant way, only recollect, I beseech you, the strange impressions which, for a long time past, we have been taught to form of the Jansenists. Recall to mind the cabals, the factions, the errors, the schisms, the outrages, with which they have been so long

charged; the manner in which they have been denounced and vilified from the pulpit and the press; and the degree to which this torrent of abuse, so remarkable for its violence and duration, has swollen of late years, when they have been openly and publicly accused of being not only heretics and schismatics, but apostates and infidels with "denying the mystery of transubstantiation, and renouncing Jesus Christ and the Gospel." *

After having published these startling accusations, it was resolved to examine their writings, in order to pronounce judgment on them. For this purpose the second letter of M. Arnauld, which was reported to be full of the grossest errors, is selected. The examinators appointed are his most open and avowed enemies. They employ all their learning to discover something that they might lay hold upon, and at length they produce one proposition of a doctrinal character, which they offer for censure.

What less could any one infer from such proceedings, than that this proposition, selected under such remarkable circumstances, would contain the essence of the blackest heresies imaginable? And yet the proposition so entirely agrees with what is clearly and formally expressed in the passages from the fathers quoted by M. Arnauld, that I have not met with a single individual who could comprehend the difference between them. Still, however, it might be imagined that there must be a very great difference; for the passages from the fathers being unquestionably catholic, the proposition of M. Arnauld, if heretical, must be widely opposed § to them.

Such was the difficulty which the Sorbonne was expected to clear up. All Christendom waited, with eyes widely opened, to discover, in the censure of these learned doctors, the point of difference which had proved imperceptible to ordinary mortals. Meanwhile M. Arnauld gives in his

*The charge of "denying the mystery of transubstantiation," certainly did not justly apply to the Jansenists as such; these religious devotees denied nothing. Their system, so far as the dogmas of the Church were concerned, was one of implicit faith; but though Arnauld, Nicole, and the other learned men among them, stiffly maintained the leading tenets of the Romish Church, in opposition to those of the Reformers, the Jansenist creed, as held by their pious followers, was practically at variance with transubstantiation, and many other errors of the Church to which they nominally belonged. (Mad. Schimmelpenninck's Demolition of Port-Royal, pp. 77, 80, &c.) t Atroces-" atrocious." (Edit. 1657.)

Des plus detestables erreurs-"the most detestable errors." (Edit. 1657.) Erreurs" errors." (Nicole's Fdit., 1767.)

Horriblement contraire-" horribly contrary." (Edit. 1657.)

defences, placing his own proposition and the passages of the fathers from which he had drawn it in parallel columns, so as to make the agreement between them apparent to the most obtuse understandings.

He shows, for example, that St Augustine says in one passage, that "Jesus Christ points out to us, in the person of St Peter, a righteous man warning us by his fall to avoid presumption.' He cites another passage from the same father, in which he says, "that God in order to show us that without grace we can do nothing, left St Peter without grace." He produces a third, from St Chrysostom, who says, "that the fall of St Peter happened, not through any coldness towards Jesus Christ, but because grace failed him; and that he fell, not so much through his own negligence as through the withdrawment of God, as a lesson to the whole Church, that without God we can do nothing." He then gives his own obnoxious proposition, which is as follows: The fathers point out to us, in the person of St Peter, a righteous man to whom that grace without which we can do nothing was wanting."

In vain did people attempt to discover how it could possibly be, that M. Arnauld's expression differed as far from those of the fathers as truth from error, and faith from heresy. For where was the difference to be found? Could it be in these words, "That the fathers point out to us, in the person of St Peter, a righteous man?" St Augustine has said the same thing in so many words. Is it because he says "that grace had failed him?” The same St Augustine, who had said that "St Peter was a righteous man," says "that he had not had grace on that occasion." Is it, then, for his having said "that without grace we can do nothing? Why, is not this just what St Augustine says in the same place, and what St Chrysostom had said before him, with this difference only, that he expresses it in much stronger language, as when he says, "that his fall did not happen through his own coldness or negligence, but through the failure of grace, and the withdrawment of God?”*

Such considerations as these kept everybody in a state of breathless suspense, to learn in what this diversity could con

* The meaning of these fathers is good, but their expressions are often more remarkable for their strength than their precision. The intelligent 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.

sist, when, at length, after a great many meetings, this famous and long-looked-for censure made its appearance. But, alas! it has sadly baulked our expectations. Whether it be that the Molinist doctors would not condescend so far as to enlighten us on the point, or for some other mysterious reason, the fact is, they have done nothing more than pronounced the following words: "This proposition is rash, impious, blasphemous, accursed, and heretical!"

Would you believe it, Sir, that most people finding themselves deceived in their expectations, have got into bad humour, and begin to fall upon the censors themselves? They are drawing strange inferences from their conduct in favour of M. Arnauld's innocence. "What!" they are saying, "is this all that could be achieved, during all this time, by so many doctors joining in a furious onset against one individual? Can they find nothing in all his works worthy of reprehension except three lines, and these extracted, word for word, from the greatest doctors of the Greek and Latin Churches? Is there any author whatever whose writings, were it intended to ruin him, would not furnish a more specious pretext for the purpose? And what higher proof could be furnished of the orthodoxy of this illustrious culprit?

"How comes it to pass," they add, "that so many denunciations are launched in this censure, into which they have crowded such terms as 'poison, pestilence, horror, rashness, impiety, blasphemy, abomination, execration, anathema, heresy' the most dreadful epithets that could be used against Arius, or Antichrist himself; all to combat an imperceptible heresy, and that, moreover, without telling us what it is? If it be against the words of the fathers that they inveigh in this style, where is the faith and tradition? If against M. Arnauld's proposition, let them point out the difference between the two; for we can see nothing but the most perfect harmony between them. As soon as we have discovered the evil of the proposition, we shall hold it in abhorrence; but so long as we do not see it, or rather see nothing in the statement but the sentiments of the holy fathers, conceived and expressed in their own terms, how can we possibly regard it with any other feelings than those of sacred veneration?”

Such is a specimen of the language in which they are giving vent to their feelings. But these are by far too deepthinking people. You and I, who make no pretensions to such extraordinary penetration, may keep ourselves quite easy about the whole affair. What! would we be wiser than our