Church History, Volume Two by John D. Woodbridge

Author:John D. Woodbridge [Woodbridge, John D.; James III, Frank A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780310515142
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2013-04-22T23:00:00+00:00

III. THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE JANSENISTS AND JESUITS

The bitter controversy between Jansenists and Jesuits and their respective allies in the Parlements and among the nobles often held center stage in the political life of France, not only during the reign of Louis XIV, but during the regency of Phillippe d’Orléans (1715–23) and the reign of Louis XV. Contests between Jansenists and Jesuits also flared up in Spain, Austria, Austrian Netherlands, the city-states of Italy, and Utrecht.

Jansenists were the followers of Cornelius Jansen (1585–1638), a professor of theology at the University of Louvain who for a time was a bishop of Ypres. Jansen had proposed an interpretation of St. Augustine in his posthumous work Augustinus (1640) that — in extolling God’s majesty, awesome power, justice, and righteousness — challenged any role we humans might have in winning our salvation through free will. Instead, the elect are saved by God’s grace alone. As their lives are transformed, the elect want to do the will of God by performing acts of love for God and their neighbors. The elect, in anxiously seeking assurance of salvation, attempt to overcome temptations of the world, the flesh, and the Devil by following an austere life of sincere contrition, by doing acts of rigorous penance, by celebrating frequent Communion, and by demonstrating true love for God.

The Jansenists employed a distinctive “Figurist” form of scriptural exegesis in discerning a warrant for “the witness to truth” of a religious minority. They argued for the inviolability of the Christian conscience even to the extent of refusing to accept a church teaching they deemed in error.

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