The Provincial Letters

Design of the Jesuits in establishing a new system of morals—Two sorts of casuists among them—A great many lax and some severe ones—Reason of this difference—Explanation of the doctrine of probabilism—A multitude of modern and unknown authors substituted in the place of the holy fathers—Escobar, 116

LETTER VI.

Various artifices of the Jesuits to elude the authority of the gospel, of councils, and of the popes—Some consequences resulting from their doctrine of probability—Their relaxations in favor of beneficiaries, of priests, of monks, and of domestics—Story of John d’Alba, 135

LETTER VII.

Method of directing the intention adopted by the casuists—Permission to kill in defence of honor and property, extended even to priests and monks—Curious question raised as to whether Jesuits may be allowed to kill Jansenists, 152

LETTER VIII.

Corrupt maxims of the casuists relating to judges—Usurers—The Contract Mohatra—Bankrupts—Restitution—Divers ridiculous notions of these same casuists, 170

LETTER IX.

False worship of the Virgin introduced by the Jesuits—Devotion made easy—Their maxims on ambition, envy, gluttony, equivocation, mental reservations, female dress, gaming, and hearing mass, 188

LETTER X.

Palliatives applied by the Jesuits to the sacrament of penance, in their maxims regarding confession, satisfaction, absolution, proximate occasions of sin, and love to God, 206

LETTER XI.

The Letters vindicated from the charge of profaneness—Ridicule a fair weapon, when employed against absurd opinions—Rules to be observed in the use of this weapon—Charitableness and discretion of the Provincial Letters—Specimens of genuine profaneness in the writings of Jesuits, 225

LETTER XII.

The quirks and chicaneries of the Jesuits on the subjects of alms-giving and simony, 243

LETTER XIII.

Fidelity of Pascal’s quotations—Speculative murder—Killing for slander—Fear of the consequences—The policy of Jesuitism, 260

LETTER XIV.

On murder—The Scriptures on murder—Lessius, Molina, and Layman on murder—Christian and Jesuitical legislation contrasted, 277

LETTER XV.

On calumny—M. Puys and Father Alby—An odd heresy—Barefaced denials—Flat contradictions and vague insinuations employed by the Jesuits—The Capuchin’s Mentiris impudentissime, 295

LETTER XVI.

Calumnies against Port-Royal—Port-Royalists no heretics—M. de St. Cyran and M. Arnauld vindicated—Slanders against the nuns of Port-Royal—Miracle of the holy thorn—No impunity for slanderers—Excuse for a long letter, 314

LETTER XVII.

The author of the Letters vindicated from the charge of heresy—The five propositions—The popes fallible in matters of fact—Persecution of the Jansenists—The grand object of the Jesuits, 341

LETTER XVIII.

The sense of Jansenius not the sense of Calvin—Resistibility of grace—Jansenius no heretic—The popes may be surprised—Testimony of the senses—Condemnation of Galileo—Conclusion, 366

LETTER XIX.

Fragment of a nineteenth Provincial Letter, addressed to Père Annat, 391

THE TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.

The following translation of the Provincial Letters was undertaken several years ago, in compliance with the suggestion of a revered parent, chiefly as a literary recreation in a retired country charge, and, after being finished, was laid aside. It is now published at the request of friends, who considered such a work as peculiarly seasonable, and more likely to be acceptable at the present crisis, when general attention has been again directed to the popish controversy, and when such strenuous exertions are being made by the Jesuits to regain influence in our country.