Miracles and truth are both needful, as we have to convince the whole man, body and soul alike.
It is good that their deeds should be unjust, for fear it should not appear that the Molinists have acted justly. Thus there is no need to spare them, they are worthy to commit them.
The Church, the Pope.--Unity, plurality. Considering the Church as unity, the pope its head, is as the whole; considered as plurality, the pope is only a part of it. The Fathers have considered the Church now in this way, now in that, and thus they have spoken in divers ways of the pope.
Saint Cyprian, sacerdos Dei.
But in establishing one of these two truths, they have not excluded the other.
Plurality which cannot be reduced to unity is confusion. Unity which depends not on plurality is tyranny.
There is scarce any where left but France in which it is allowable to say that a council is below the pope.
We may not judge of what the pope is by some words of the Fathers--as the Greeks said in a council, important rules--but by the acts of the Church and the Fathers, and by the canons.
Unity and plurality: Duo aut tres in unum. It is an error to exclude one of the two, as the papists do who exclude plurality, or the Huguenots who exclude unity.
The pope is chief, who else is known of all, who else is recognised by all? Having power to insinuate himself into all the body, because he holds the leading shoot, which extends itself everywhere.
How easy to cause this to degenerate into tyranny. This is why Jesus Christ has laid down for them this precept: Vos autem non sic.
God works not miracles in the ordinary conduct of his Church. It would be a strange miracle, did infallibility reside in one, but that it should dwell in a multitude appears so natural that the ways of God are concealed under nature, as all his other works.
Men desire certainty, they like the pope to be infallible in faith, grave doctors to be infallible in morals, in order to have certainty.
The pope hates and fears men of science, who are not at once submissive to him.
Kings are masters of their own power, not so the popes.
Whenever the Jesuits take the pope unawares, they will make all Christendom perjured.
It is very easy to take the pope unawares, because of his occupations, and the trust which he has in the Jesuits, and the Jesuits are very capable of taking him unawares by means of calumny.
The five propositions condemned, yet no miracle, for truth was not attacked, but the Sorbonne and the bull.
It is impossible that those who love God with all their heart, should misunderstand the Church, which is so evident.
It is impossible that those who love not God should be convinced of the Church.
Let us look to the discourses on the 2nd, 4th, and 5th of the Jansenist. They are lofty and grave.
We would not make a friend of either.
The ear only is consulted because the heart is wanting.
Beauty of omission, of judgment.
The rule is that of honourable conduct.
Poet and not honourable man.
These men want heart.
We would not make a friend of him.
The Thoughts of Blaise Pascal · The Wunder Library — complete classics, free to read, with narration.