Historic Proof of the Doctrinal Calvinism of the Church of England

Augustus Toplady

SECTION IV.

The Arminianism of the Church of Rome farther evinced in her Treatment of Jansenius and Quesnell.

Cornelius Janssen, bishop of Ypres, flourished about fifty years after the dissolution of the above execrable synod. Though born of Popish parents, and conversant with Papists all his life, it pleased, God to open the eyes of this prelate, in such a manner, as gave the most serious alarm to the friends of Rome; and with a success, which has, probably, laid the basis of a future reformation in the Church of France. This great man, naturally of a studious turn, applied himself, with peculiar diligence to the works of Austin. On reading them carefully, he saw, and was surprised to see, how enormously the Church, which calls herself Catholic, had deviated from the system of that ancient father, whom, nevertheless, she has justly honoured with the titles of saint, and doctor of grace; and to whose authority she has, often, been so audacious, as to carry her appeal. Many of the enlightened clergy and laity, of our own church, can easily form a judgment of Jansenius's feelings on this occasion, by the astonishment, which themselves have experienced, when, on a careful review of her admirable Liturgy, Articles, and Homilies, they first began to discern the vastness of that doctrinal chasm, which severs her real from her imputed sons. 

The farther Jansenius advanced, the more he read, prayed, and reflected, the deeper and the clearer was his conviction of the general apostacy from truth. Yet, determined to make no rash conclusions, and resolved to have firm ground for every step he took, he devoted more than twenty years to the momentous enquiry. He went through the whole works of the voluminous father, tell times. Those parts of them, which professedly treat of grace, predestination, and free-will, he read thirty times over: making such large and laborious extracts from those valuable writings, as, when properly arranged, and digested into a regular synopsis, might ascertain the doctrine of St. Austin, concerning these points, beyond all possibility of doubt. 

In a world like the present, but especially in those parts of it where Popery is the reigning superstition, it is, often, extremely difficult to connect integrity with prudence. The man who will be honest, must run come risque. Jansenius, having been sent on a kind of academic embassy, to negotiate some business of importance with the Spanish king, in favour of the university of Louvain, the good fathers of the inquisition appeared extremely desirous to sacrifice Jansenius to the manes of Pelagius. Probably, during his residence in Spain, Janssen might have rendered himself suspected of heresy, by talking too freely in favour of predestination and by imprudently hinting, how much he wished to see his church really espouse the principles of that saint, whose works she pretended to revere as oracles. However this was, the inquisitors were alarmed; and actually applied to Basil de Leon, at whose house he had lodged, to furnish them with such materials against him, as might justify their citing him before the tribunal of the Holy Office. But by the blessing of Providence on the courage and address of Basil, the rising storm was dispelled; and Jansenius, then lately returned to Flanders, continued unmolested in his college: whence, a few years after, he was (not for his religions, but for his secular services) raised to the mitre. In his consecration to the see of Ypres, the Romanists have had the mortification to behold an heretical bishop of an infallible Church. Nay, he was the very bishop, by the imposition of whose hands cardinal Bellarmine himself received the order of priesthood. Misfortunes these, which the zeal of the good Spanish inquisitors would willingly have rendered impossible, by laying the axe to the root in due season. 

Let no reader imagine, that I am either blind to the dark parts of this eminent prelate's conduct, or willing to conceal them. Intimidated, very probably, by the narrowness of his escape in Spain, Jansenius did not venture to publish his collections from St. Austin. Nay, (such is man!) he even waged a paper war with the Protestants of Holland, and sought to retrieve his character at Rome, by ridiculously attempting to prove, that the doctrine of grace maintained by Austin, was not that doctrine of grace maintained by Calvin. To such wretched shifts, and palpable contradictions, are even great and good men reduced, when they have not a sufficient portion of intrepidity to assert the truth at all events. And what did he gain by this duplicity? What all trimmers deserve, and most of them meet with, hatred and contempt. His memory is execrated by the general voice of the Romish Church, who have, without scruple, branded heresy on his name, and whose bigotry would not suffer his very1 tomb to be left standing in his own cathedral of Ypres. For, his valuable Excerpta from St. Austin, which he had not the courage to publish himself appeared within two years after his decease: and raised such a ferment among the papists, particularly in France and Flanders, as all the arts and efforts of infallibility knew not how to lay. Light shone in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. She, who affects to pride herself on being the "centre of unity," found herself agitated with all the discord and distractions of a chaotic war. The book asserted from St. Austin, that "there are no remains of purity or goodness, in human nature, since the fall: that the influence of grace is irresistible: and that, in the work of conversion and sanctification, all is to be ascribed to grace, and nothing to human nature. On the contrary, the Jesuits maintained, as they still do" [would to God that Jesuits were the only ones], "that human nature is far from being deprived of all power of doing good; and that man born free may resist the operations of grace;"2 i.e. so resist them as to render them eventually ineffectual. 

"In the year 1641," continues the last cited historian, "the Jesuits, adding to their arguments the interest they had at the Court of Rome, got the book 'Augustinus' prohibited by the Inquisition; and, the following year, condemned by the Pope, as reviving the errors which his predecessors had banished." This pope was Urban VIII. His successor, Innocent X. went still farther in his opposition to the synopsis of St. Austin; for he condemned, "By a bull, dated May 31, 1653, the five following propositions, selected, by the Jesuits, out of Jansenius's 'Augustinus,' as the most proper to discredit that work. These propositions were, 

"I. There are divine precepts which good men, notwithstanding their desire to observe them, are absolutely unable to obey, &c. 

"II. No person, in this corrupt state of nature, can resist the influence of divine grace. 

"III. In order to render human actions3 meritorious or otherwise, it is not requisite that they be exempt from necessity, but only that they be free from constraint. 

"IV. The Semipelagians admitted preventing grace to he necessary to every" [good] "action; and their heresy consisted in this, that they allowed the human will to be included with a power of resisting that grace, or of complying with its influence.4 

"V. Whoever says, that Christ died, or shed his blood, for all mankind, is a Semipelagian. 

"The condemnation" [of these propositions] "afforded great matter of triumph to the Jesuits:"5 and no wonder; for, that artful order of men know but too well, that nothing so effectually bars out Popery, as the belief of those doctrines, by whatever name they are called: whether we term them Austinism, or Jansenism; Calvinism, or Church-of-Englandism. 

Sir Paul Rycaut, in his continuation of Platina, gives us the very words, in which each of the above five propositions were respectively condemned. A consistory of cardinals and divines being called, and the Pope himself presiding in person at the board; the propositions were reprobated in manner and form following:6 "We pronounce the first of these propositions to be presumptuous, blasphemous, heretical, and condemned with a curse; and, as such, we condemn it accordingly. The second also we pronounce to be heretical; and, as such, we condemn it. The third we pronounce heretical: and we condemn it as such. The fourth we condemn, as false and heretical. The fifth, as importing that Christ died for the salvation of those only who were elected, we pronounce to be false, presumptuous, scandalous, impious, blasphemous, scurrilous, derogatory to the goodness of God, and heretical; and, as such, we condemn it." 

Pope Alexander VII. who succeeded Innocent X. "not only confirmed, at the instance of the Jesuits, the bull of Innocent, condemning the five propositions, mentioned above; but, by a new bull" [dated A. D. 1657,] "declared that the said propositions were the doctrines of Jansenius, and were contained in his book; and that they had been condemned in the obvious sense, and in the sense of their author; in sensu obvio, in sensu ab auctore intento. Nay, the Jesuits procured, by their interest in cabinet-councils, a mandate from Louis XIV." [of France], "commanding all, within his dominions, to receive a formulary, or confession of faith, in which the doctrine, condemned by the Pope was owned to be the doctrine contained in the book of Jansenius, styled Augustinus. They, who refused to sign that formulary, were deprived of their livings, and either cast into prison, or sent into exile."7 

This persecution of Jansenius's numerous disciples (for his book had opened the eyes of multitudes) was both severe and lasting. The truths which he had brought to light were, at all events, to be stifled and exterminated, as opening a door to Protestantism, and as shaking the very foundations of the infallible Church. Hence, in France, where Jansenius's formidable book had made most havoc amongst Catholics, the abjuration of the five propositions was exacted, not only from all the secular clergy, but even from every monk, nun and friar, who was not willing to undergo the opprobrium and penalties of heresy. Nay, the very laity of the several dioceses were not excused from abjuring these reputed and real doctrines of Calvinism:8 which, however, could not extirpate the party of Jansenius; who subsist, in vast numbers, to this day, and are suspected (not without reason) of only waiting a favourable opportunity of entirely shaking off the papal yoke. The bread of sound doctrine, which the bishop of Ypres has cast upon the waters, will, I doubt not, be found after many days. In vain did pope Clement XIII. by his bull, dated July 15, 1705, renew the fulminations of his predecessors, by declaring, that "the faithful ought to condemn, as heretical, not only with their mouths, but in their hearts, the sense of Jansen's book contained in the five propositions."9 In vain did the same pontiff deal out his anathemas, A.D. 1713, against the same five propositions of Jansenius, and against the hundred and one propositions extracted from father Quesnell. The papal fulminations, though launched by pretended infallibility, and seconded by all the real power of the civil arm, have not been able to eradicate the good seed sown by Jansenius in France and Flanders. It is true, the seed is, at present, and has been from the first, under the barrow of persecution: insomuch that, in France especially, it is far less dangerous to be taken for an Atheist, than for a Jansenist. Truth, however, at the long run, will and must prevail. It is more than probable, that, in some future period, Jansenius (as having laid the first stone) will be considered as the virtual reformer of France. I have dwelt, thus largely, on the violent efforts of the Romish Church to extinguish the minutest glimmering of Calvinism; the more clearly to demonstrate, either the utter ignorance, or the criminal unfairness, of Mr. Sellon, which induced him to aver, that the Calvinistic system is the system of the Church of Rome, and embraced by ten Papists out of eleven. 

I have already observed, that, so low down as the year 1713, the hundred and one propositions, extracted from the writings of Quesnell, were condemned at Rome, as the very quintessence of heresy. Some of these propositions (for I have not room to recite them all) were as follow: 

"The grace of Jesus Christ, the efficacious principle of all good, is necessary to every good action. 

"The difference between the Jewish and the Christian Covenant" [i.e. the difference between the law and the gospel] "lies in this: that, in the former God requires the sinner to avoid sin and to fulfil the law, leaving him, at the same time, in his state of inability; whereas, in the latter, God gives the sinner that which he commands, by purifying him with his grace. 

"How great is the happiness, to be admitted into a covenant, wherein God confers upon us that which he requires of as! 

"Grace is an operation of the Almighty hand of God,which nothing can hinder nor retard. 

"When God willeth to save a soul, the undoubted effect always and every where followeth the will of God, 

"When God accompanies his command and external word with the unction of his Spirit and the internal power of his grace, it then works in the heart that obedience which it requires. 

"All those whom God willeth to save by Jesus Christ are infallibly saved. 

"Faith, the use, the increase, and the reward of faith, are all a gift of the pure bounty of God. 

"What is the Church, but the congregation of the children of God, adopted in Christ, redeemed by his blood, living by his Spirit, acting by his grace, and expecting the grace of the world to come. 

"The Church is composed of all the elect and just of all ages." 

These truly scriptural propositions are, among the rest, recited in the bull Unigenitus, above mentioned, and there stand anathematised by the Church of Rome in these very words: "We do, by this our constitution, which shall be of perpetual force and obligation, declare, condemn, and reject, respectively, all and every one of the propositions before re- cited, as false, captious, shocking, offensive to pious ears, scandalous, pernicious, rash, injurious to the Church" [i.e. to the Romish Church] "and her practice; contumelious, not only against the Church, but likewise against the secular powers; seditious, impious, blasphemous, heretical, and manifestly reviving several heresies. Whosoever shall teach, defend, or publish them, or any of them, jointly or separately; or shall treat of them by way of dispute, either publicly or privately, unless it be to impugn them; shall, ipso facto, without any other declaration, incur the censures of the Church, and all other penalties appointed by the law against such delinquents."10 Is it possible for the Church of Rome to execrate and abjure Calvinism in stronger terms? And is it possible for words to convey clearer and more solid proof, that Popery and Arminianism are (so far as these points are concerned) one and the same? And is it possible for impudence itself to forge a more flagrant untruth, than by saying that Arminianism is not Popery, and that ten Papists out of eleven hold predestination? Well may the author of the Confessional (than whom, with all his mistakes, scarce any age has produced a more keen and nervous reasoner) make the following just and incontestable remark: "Our first reformers framed and placed the Thirty-nine Articles, and more particularly those called Calvinistical, as the surest and strongest barriers to keep out Popery."11 

In consequence of the above papal fulmination, Quesnell (whose crime only consisted in his having a little more spiritual light than most of his brethren) was, first, banished from Paris; then, thrown into a dungeon at Brussels from whence, after almost four months, imprisonment, he found means to make his escape into Holland, where he died A. D. 1719, after an exile of about fifteen years. The bull itself, by which his 101 propositions were condemned, is to this very day, so strictly enforced in France, that the clergy of that kingdom (though, generally, less bigotted than the clergy of other Popish countries) will not administer the last offices to a dying person, until he has solemnly declared his detestation of the doctrines which those propositions contain. What a front, then, must Mr. Sellon have, to insinuate, that ten Papists out of eleven hold the doctrine of grace; when, even in France, where Popery sits much lighter than in any other unreformed nation, not a single Papist, though lying on the bed of death, is permitted to receive the sacrament, until he has, with his dying breath, disavowed the doctrine of predestination in all its branches. 

Let me further ask the calumniator,whether he ever knew a single person, who, from being a doctrinal Calvinist, was perverted to the Church of Rome? But I myself have known several Arminians, who were carried over to Popery with very little difficulty; and, from being half Protestants, easily commenced complete Romanists.12 Ask your friend and dictator, Mr. John Wesley, whether numbers of his followers have not, from time to time, gone off to the mother of Abominations, particularly, in Bristol? where, I have been credibly informed, the Romish priests cry him up (not without reason) as a very moderate and a very useful man.13

Endnotes:

  1. Mr. Bayle, from Leydecker gives the following account of the demolition of Jansenius's monument "Francis de obes," who succeeded Janssen in the bishopric of Ypres, "caused the tomb-stone of his predecessor to be taken away silently by night, on which were written the praises of his virtue and learning, and, particularly, of his book intitled Augustinus." The epitaph, it seems, imported, that "this most. faithful interpreter of St. Augustin's most secret thoughts, had employed, upon that work, a divine wit, an indefatigable labour, and all the time of his life;" adding, that "the Church would receive the fruit of it upon earth, as he did the reward of it in heaven." Words these, which were not only totally incompatible wit}r the decisions of the Council of Trent; but moreover, as Mr. Bayle observes, "Injurious to the bulls of pope Urban VIII. and Innocent X. who had condemned that book" He adds, that "the destruction of the grave-stone was made by an express order of pope Alexander VII." Bayle's Dict. vol. iii. p. 548.
  2. Bower's Hist. of the Popes, vol. vii. p, 480.
  3. Jansenius was, certainly, a man of too great penetration, and too well versed in the theory of consequences, not to know that absolute grace cuts up human merit by the roots. But, being determined to keep up some appearance of attachment to the Roman see, that these truths, he ventured to assert, might have the wider and securer spread among the people of that communion; he found, or thought he found it needful, to open their eyes by degrees, and not pour too much light upon them at once. He contented himself, therefore, on some occasions, with establishing certain promises, whence, indeed, certain conclusions naturally and necessarily follow; but which he prudently left to the illation of his disciples. This was shrewd; but all the candour in the world cannot call it honest.
  4. The learned Mastricht cites this fourth proposition with a little variation: Semipelagiani admittebant prxaevenientes gratiae interioris necessitatum ad singulos actus, etiam ad initium fidei: et in hoc erant haeretici, quod vellent, eam gratiam talem esse cu posset humana voluntas resistere, vel obtemperare. Operum p. 1176. Amstel. 1724.
  5. Bower, u. s. page 482.
  6. Primam temerariam, impiam, blasphemam, anathemaie damnatam, et haereticam, declaramus, et uti talem condemnamus. Secundam haeraticam declaramus, et uti talem damnamus. Tertiam haereticam declaramus, et uti talem damnamus. Quartem falsam et haereticam declaramus, et uti talem damnamus. Quintam falsam, temerariam, scandalosam, et (intellectam eo sensu, ut Christus pro salute duntaxat praedestinatorum mortuus sit) impiam, blasphemam, contumeliosam, divinae pietati derogantem, et haereticam, declaramus, et uti talem damnamus. Rycaut's Lives of the Popes. p. 318.
  7. Bower, ubi supr. p. 484.
  8. "The assembly of the clergy, in the years 1660, 1661, and 1664, ordered all persons to subscribe the formulary. Which, being confirmed by the King's declaration, all the ecclesiastics, monks, nuns, and others, in every diocese, were bliged to subscribe: those who refused, being interdicted and excommunicated." Biographical Diction. vol. vii. p. 173.
  9. Biogr. Dict. ibid. p. 18.
  10. See the bull Unigenitus, prefixed to Russel's translation of Quesnell on the N. T. vol. i.
  11. Confessional, p. 331. Edit. 3. What immediately follows the above citation, I here throw into a note, because, though too important to be entirely omitted, it yet does not directly pertain to the argument I am upon. "A Protestant divine," adds this masterly writer, "may possibly have his objections to the plain sense of these articles" [i.e. to the plain sense of the Calvinistic articles of the Church of England]; "but in this case, he ought not to subscribe them at all. For if he can bring himself to assent and to subscribe them in a Catholic" [i.e. in a Popish-Arminian] "sense I would desire to know what security the Church has, that he does not put the like Catholic sense (with which he may be furnished by the Jesuits) upon those articles which concern transubstantiation and purgatory?"
  12. How natural and easy the transition is, from Arminianism to avowed Popery, is evident among others, from the examples of Bolsec and Bertius abroad; and, at home, from those of William Barrett Godfrey Goodman, bishop of Gloucester.
         Jerom Bolaec was, originally, a Carmelite friar of Paris. From motives either of conscience, or of secular interest, he forsook his order; and, leaving France, made open profession of the Protestant religion. Among other places, he went, says, Bayle, "to Geneva, as a physician; but, finding that he did not distinguish himself to his satisfaction in that profession, he set up for divinity; and dogmatized, at first, in private, on the mystery of predestination, according to the principles of Pelagius, and afterwards had the boldness to make a public discourse against the received opinion. As soon as his conversation with certain persons to infect them with his Pelagianism, was known, Calvin went to see him, and censured him mildly: afterwards, he sent for him to his house, and endeavoured to reclaim him from his error. But this did not hinder Bolsec from delivering, in public, an insulting discourse against the decree of eternal predestination. It is thought, that he was the bolder because he imagined that Calvin was not among his auditors. He had such a thought, because he did not see him [sitting] in his [usual] place. The reason was, Calvin, not coming in till after the discourse was begun, kept himself hid behind the crowd." (Bayle's Hist. Dict. vol. ii. art. Bolsec). Mr. Samuel Clark, a pious, learned, and laborious writer of the last century, informs us (see his Marrow of Ecclesiastical History, part i. p. 298, 299,) that Bolsec delivered this harangue October 16, 1551, taking for his text these words, "He that is of God, heareth the words of God:" whence he took occasion to preach up free-will, and that predestination was out of works foreseen. Calvin himself (see Bayle, ut supr.) in a letter which he wrote to the Swiss churches, says, that among other things asserted by Bolsec, on the above, or a similar occasion, the wretch spoke to this effect: that "men do not therefore obtain salvation, because they are elected; but are therefore elected, because they believe; and that no man is reprobate by the bare decree of God, but only those who deprive themselves of the common election." Being, after several fruitless efforts to reclaim him, banished from Geneva, he retired into the territory of Bern; where, says Mr. Clark, "he was the cause of many and great stirs." After being twice expelled thence, on account of his turbulent behaviour, he returned into France; and, "presently after, when he saw the [French] churches under affliction, he fell back to Popery, loading the reformed Churches with many reproaches." Thus did this man's tenets of free-will, conditional predestination, universal grace, and salvation by works, ripen him for a relapse to the church of Rome.
          Those principles had the same effect on Peter Bertius. He was an intimate friend and devoted admirer of Arminius. This gradually prepared him for his subsequent apostacy to Popery. Arminius died the 19th of October, 1609. And who so fit to deliver his funeral oration (or, in modern language, to preach his funeral sermon,) as his good friend and coadjutor Bertius? Preached by him it accordingly was, on the 22d of the same month, which was the day of Arminius's interment. And, to this very hour, the said funeral oration (notwithstanding the orator's revolt to the Church of Rome a few years after) stands prefixed to all the editions of Arminius's works, which I have ever seen: as if Popery and Arminianism were fated to be inseparable. I do not recollect to have met with the exact era of Bertius's declaring himself a Papist. But, in the collection of archbishop Usher's Letters, annexed to his Life by Dr. Parr, I find the following paragraph, in a letter from Dr. Ward to that prelate: "Your lordship was partly acquainted with a business which I had undertaken, to answer one chapter of [cardinal] Perron's latest work, set out after his decease. Since that time, Petrus Bertius, the remonstrant [i.e. the Arminian,] is turned Roman Catholic, and hath undertaken the translation of that whole book into Latin." This letter is dated September 25, 1622. In one from bishop Usher, to the same Dr. Ward (who was master of Sidney college, Cambridge, and succeeded bishop Davenant in the Margaret professorship of Divinity,) the excellent prelate tells him, "I do very well approve the judgment of them, who advised you to handle the controversies mentioned in that chapter of cardinal Perron's book, which Bertius pretendeth to have been the principal motive of his verifying the title of his old book, Hymenaeus Desertor. His oration of the motives to his perversion, I saw, before I left England: than which, never yet did see a more silly and miserable discourse proceed from the hands of a learned man." Let. l. and liii, p. 82. and 85. Thus easy, quick, and ready, is it to pass, from the religion of James Arminius, to that of Cardinal James Davy du Perron!
          A sadly memorable instance of the same kind happened in our land some years after. Godfrey Goodman, the unworthy bishop of Gloucester, who had long swam with Laud in almost every measure that conduced to the extension of Arminianism, Civil tyranny, and Ecclesiastical pomp, at length declared in his last will, that he died "in the faith and communion of the mother Church of Rome." But I dismiss so shocking an event, with that observation of the Apostle: " They went out from us, but they were not of us; for, if they had been of its, they would doubtless have continued with us." Yet must I subjoin the remark of Echard: "As this was the only apostate English bishop, since the reformation, so he was the only one, who left children to beg their bread." Ech. Hist. of Engl. vol. ii. p. 782.
          The case of William Barrett, fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, is well known. I have, already, given a sketch of his history, and taken notice of his revolt to Popery, in my former pamphlet, entitled, The Church of England vindicated from the charge of Arminianism, p. 48. &c.
  13. Many specimens might be given of Mr. Wesley's lax Protestantism. Among them, every considerate reader must rank the following paragraph: "Justification by works is not the fundamental doctrine of Popery; but the universality of the Romish Church and the supremacy of the bishop of Rome. And to call any one a Papist who denies these, is neither charity nor justice" (page the 9th of a twopenny tract, written by Mr. John Wesley, and entitled, A Letter to a gentleman at Bristol, 1758.) According to this reasoning, a man may hold transubstantiation, ecclesiastical infallibility, purgatory, image worship, invocation of saints and angels, &c. &c, and yet be a good Protestant all the while! The French clergy (for instance) who put a query on the Pope's supremacy, but are (or, at least, generally profess themselves to be) stiff Romanists in most other points, cannot, in Mr. Wesley's estimation, be with "charity and justice" considered as Papists! Does not such a bare-faced concession look as if the conceder himself was fearful (and upon very good grounds) lest, without a prudent caveat of that kind, the charge of Popery might fall heavy on somebody else?