JANSENISTS, in Church History, a ſect of the Roman Catholics in France, who followed the opinions of Janſenus, biſhop of Ypres, and doctor of divinity of the univerſities of Louvain and Douay, in relation to grace and predeſtination.
In the year 1640, the two univerſities juſt mentioned, and particularly Father Molina and Father Leonard Celfus, thought fit to condemn the opinions of the Jeſuits on grace and free-will. This having ſet the controversy on foot, Janſenus oppoſed to the doctrine of the Jeſuits the ſentiments of St Auguſtine; and wrote a treatiſe on grace, which he entitled Auguſtinus. This treatiſe was attacked by the Jeſuits, who accuſed Janſenus of maintaining dangerous and heretical opinions; and afterwards, in 1642, obtained of Pope Urban VIII. a formal condemnation of the treatiſe written by Janſenus: when the partizans of Janſenus gave out that this bull was ſpurious, and compoſed by a perſon entirely devoted to the Jeſuits. After the death of Urban VIII. the affair of Janſenism began to be more warmly controverted, and gave birth to an infinite number of polemical writings concerning grace. And what occaſioned ſome mirth, was the titles which each party gave to their writings; one writer publiſhed The torch of St Auguſtine, another found Snuffers for St Auguſtine's torch, and Father Veron formed Agag for the Janſenists, &c. In the year 1650, 68 biſhops of France ſubſcribed a letter to Pope Innocent X. to obtain an inquiry into and condemnation of the five following propoſitions, extracted from Janſenus's Auguſtinus: 1. Some of God's commandments are impoſſible to be obſerved by the righteous, even though they endeavour with all their power to accompliſh them. 2. In the ſtate of corrupted nature, we are incapable of reſiſting inward grace. 3. Merit and demerit, in a ſtate of corrupted nature, does not depend on a liberty which excludes neceſſity, but on a liberty which excludes conſtrainſt. 4. The Semipelagians admitted the neceſſity of an inward preventing grace for the performance of each particular act, even for the beginning of faith: but they were heretics in maintaining that this grace was of ſuch a nature, that the will of man was able either to reſiſt or obey it. It is Semipelagianiſm to ſay, that Jeſus Chriſt died, or ſhed his blood, for all mankind in general.
In the year 1652, the pope appointed a congregation for examining into the diſpute in relation to grace. In this congregation Janſenus was condemned; and the
Jansen. the bull of condemnation, published in May 1653, filled all the pulpits in Paris with violent outcries and alarms against the heresy of the Jansenists. In the year 1656, Pope Alexander VII. issued out another bull, in which he condemned the five propositions of Jansenius. However, the Jansenists affirm, that these propositions are not to be found in this book; but that some of his enemies having caused them to be printed on a sheet, inserted them in the book, and thereby deceived the pope. At last Clement XI. put an end to the dispute by his constitution of July 17. 1705; in which, after having recited the constitutions of his predecessors in relation to this affair, he declares, "That in order to pay a proper obedience to the papal constitutions concerning the present question, it is necessary to receive them with a respectful silence." The clergy of Paris, the same year, approved and accepted this bull, and none dared to oppose it.
This is the famous bull Unigenitus, so called from its beginning with the words Unigenitus Dei Filius, &c. which has occasioned so much confusion in France.