Chapter XXI: 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.