Letter 72.

Footnote 296:

Defence of the Chaplet of the H. Sacrament, p. 217.

Footnote 297:

Theol. Famil., lec. 15.

Footnote 298:

Ibid., p. 153.

Footnote 299:

_John Mestrezat_, Protestant minister of Paris, was born at Geneva in 1592 and died in May 1657. His Sermons on the Epistle to the Hebrews and other discourses, published after his death, are truly excellent. This learned and eloquent divine frequently engaged in controversy with the Romanists, and on one occasion managed the debate with such spirit that Cardinal Richelieu, taking hold of his shoulder, exclaimed: “This is the boldest minister in France.” (Bayle, Dict., art. _Mestrezat_.)

Footnote 300:

The statement of the Protestant faith, given in a preceding note, may suffice to show that it differs, _toto cœlo_, from that of Rome, as this is explained in the text. The leading fallacy of the Romish creed on this subject is the monstrous dogma of transubstantiation; the adoration of the host is merely a corollary. Calvinists and Lutherans though differing in their views of the ordinance, always agreed in acknowledging the _real_ presence of Christ in the eucharist, though they consider the sense in which Romanists interpret that term to be chargeable with blasphemy and absurdity.

Footnote 301:

Mascar., tr. 4, disp. 5, n. 284.

Footnote 302:

Ecclesiasticus (Apocrypha).

Footnote 303:

Freq. Com., 3 part, ch. 11.

Footnote 304:

Eccles. iv. 25 (Apocrypha).

Footnote 305:

_Jean du Verger de Hauranne, the Abbé de Saint Cyran_ was born at Bayonne in 1581. He was the intimate friend of Jansenius and a man of great piety and talents, but was seized as a heretic, and thrown by Cardinal Richelieu into the dungeon of Vincennes. After five years’ imprisonment he was released, but died shortly after, October, 11, 1643. By his followers, M. de Saint Cyran was reverenced as a saint and a martyr.

Footnote 306:

This Father Jarrige was a famous Jesuit, who became a Protestant, and published, after his separation from Rome, a book, entitled “_Le Jesuite sur l’Echaffaut_—The Jesuit on the Scaffold,” in which he treats his old friends with no mercy.

Footnote 307:

_Misérables que vous êtes_—one of the bitterest expressions which Pascal has applied to his opponents and one which they have deeply felt, but the full force of which can hardly be rendered into English.

Footnote 308:

With regard to this famous assembly at Bourg-Fontaine, in which it was alleged a conspiracy was formed by the Jansenists against the Christian religion, the curious reader may consult the work of M. Arnauld entitled _Morale Pratique des Jesuites_, vol. viii., where there is a detailed account of the whole proceedings. (Nicole, iv. 283.)

Footnote 309:

_The Secret Chaplet of the most Holy Sacrament._—Such was the title of a very harmless piece of mystic devotion of three or four pages, the production of a nun of Port-Royal, called Sister Agnès de Saint Paul, which appeared in 1628. It excited the jealousy of the Archbishop of Sens—set the doctors of Paris and those of Louvain by the ears—occasioned a war of pamphlets and was finally carried by appeal to the Court of Rome, by which it was suppressed. (Nicole, iv. 302.) Agnès de St. Paul was the younger sister of the Mère Angélique Arnauld, and both of them were sisters of the celebrated M. Arnauld.

Footnote 310:

This refers to the celebrated miracles of “the Holy Thorn,” the first of which, said to have lately taken place in Port-Royal, was then creating much sensation. The facts are briefly these: A thorn, said to have belonged to the crown of thorns worn by our Saviour, having been presented, in March 1656, to the Monastery of Port-Royal, the nuns and their young pupils were permitted, each in turn, to kiss the relic. One of the latter, Margaret Perier, the niece of Pascal, a girl of about ten or eleven years of age, had been long troubled with a disease in the eye (_fistula lachrymalis_), which had baffled the skill of all the physicians of Paris. On approaching the holy thorn, she applied it to the diseased organ, and shortly thereafter exclaimed, to the surprise and delight of all the sisters, that her eye was completely cured. A certificate, signed by some of the most celebrated physicians, attested the cure as, in their opinion a miraculous one. The friends of Port-Royal, and none more than Pascal, were overjoyed at this interposition, which, being followed by other extraordinary cures, they regarded as a voice from heaven in favor of that institution. The Jesuits alone rejected it with ridicule, and published a piece, entitled “_Rabat-joie_, &c.—A Damper: or, Observations on what has lately happened at Port-Royal as to the affair of the Holy Thorn.” This was answered in November 1656, in a tract supposed to have been written by M. de Pont Château, who was called “the Clerk of the Holy Thorn,” assisted by Pascal. (Recueil de Pieces, &c. de Port-Royal, pp. 283–448.) It has been well observed, “that many laborious and voluminous discussions might have been saved, if the simple and very reasonable rule had been adopted of waiving investigation into the credibility of any narrative of supernatural or pretended supernatural events said to have taken place _upon consecrated ground, or under sacred roofs_.” (Natural Hist. of Enthusiasm, p. 236.) “It is well known,” says Mosheim, “that the Jansenists and Augustinians have long pretended to confirm their doctrine by miracles; and they even acknowledge that these miracles have saved them when their affairs have been reduced to a desperate situation.” (Mosh. Eccl. Hist., cent. xvii., sect. 2.)

Footnote 311:

Isa. xxviii. 15.

Footnote 312:

Isa. xxx. 12–14.

Footnote 313:

Ezek. xiii. 23. Pascal does not, either here or elsewhere, when quoting from Scripture, adhere very closely to the original, nor even to the Vulgate version.

Footnote 314:

This was the name given to St. Francis de Sales, bishop and prince of Geneva, previously to his canonization, which took place in 1665.

Footnote 315:

Serm. 24 in Cantic.

Footnote 316:

These two postscripts have been often admired—the former for the author’s elegant excuse for the length of his letter; the latter for the adroitness with which he turns his apology for an undesigned mistake into a stroke at the disingenuousness of his opponents.