Eating and Drinking Condemnation Jansenist and Puritan Spiritualities

Elissa Cutter

Eating and Drinking Condemnation

Jansenist and Puritan Spiritualities of Communion

SUMMARY – Following René Taveneaux and Robin Briggs, scholars have made general comparisons between Jansenism and Puritanism – such as their Augustinian theology and spirituality of strict morality – but few have investigated specific similarities between the two movements. This article aims to fill this lacuna by examining parallels between the sacramental theology of the two movements, using the writings of Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) and Antoine Arnauld (1616-1694). Through a close analysis of these writings, this article argues for a fundamental similarity between the theologies of these two figures, in spite of the denominational differences separating their understandings of the sacraments. In particular, this article explores the similar emphases that both Edwards and Arnauld put on using the model of the early church as normative for communion practices and on having an appropriate interior disposition before receiving communion.

Comparisons between Jansenism and Puritanism appear repeatedly in modern scholarship, especially in general overviews of the history of Christianity.1 These two movements lend themselves to such comparison due to their theological commonalities, like an emphasis on Augustinian theology, and spiritualities underlined by a strict morality. Additionally, historians of religion and theology have found a point of comparison in the polemical nature of the names of each of the movements, making it difficult to fully define either Jansenism or

1 For general overviews of Jansenism and Puritanism in English, see Alexander Sedgwick, Jansenism in seventeenth-century France: Voices from the wilderness, Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1977; Leszek Kolakowski, God owes us nothing: A brief remark on Pascal’s religion and on the spirit of Jansenism, Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1995; William Doyle, Jansenism: Catholic resistance to authority from the Reformation to the French Revolution, New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 2000 (Studies in European History); John Coffey & Paul C.H. Lim (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Puritanism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008; Francis J. Bremer, Puritanism: A very short introduction, New York: Oxford University Press, 2009; Idem, First founders: American Puritans and Puri- tanism in an atlantic world, Durham, NH: University of New Hampshire Press, 2012.

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Puritanism.2 Two scholars in particular, René Taveneaux and Robin Briggs, have made a point of comparing the movements.3 Taveneaux’s Jansénisme et prêt à intérêt focused primarily on Jansenism, examining the movement in relation to the morality of lending money at interest.4 He argued that the differing views on credit between Jansenists and Calvinists derived from their differing views of the relationship of the Christian to the world.5 Briggs’s essay on Jansenism, ‘The Catholic Puritans: Jansenists and Rigorists in France’, framed an account of the Jansenist controversy in France with comparisons to Puritanism.6 In this essay, Briggs argued for a fundamental difference between Jansenism and Puritanism,

2 kaspar von Greyerz, Religion and culture in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800 (trans. Thomas Dunlap), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, 88; Robin Briggs, ‘The Catholic Puritans: Jansenists and Rigorists in France’, in: Idem, Communities of belief: Cultural and social tension in Early Modern France, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989, 339-363: 339. The term ‘Jansenist’ was a polemical term, introduced by the Jesuits, to refer to those who defended the (allegedly heretical) theological views of grace that were expressed by Cornelius Jansen (1585-1638) in his Augustinus, which was published after his death in 1640. The movement, however, had clear roots in Counter-Reformation, French, Catholic spirituality and the Jansenists always remained a movement within the Catholic Church. Although scholars have had difficulty coming to a consensus around a specific definition of Jansenism, due especially to the histo- riographical difficulties that attend to any definition of a movement that was denied by those who were alleged to be part of it, in their attempts at definition there are generally three main components: a strict Augustinian theology of grace, rigorist sacramental practices, and opposi- tion to the Jesuits. A fourth component, the tendency to withdraw from the world and shun worldly honors, derived from the first two. The term ‘Puritan’ similarly began as a polemical term. Unlike the Jansenists, however, some of those referred to as Puritans eventually appro- priated the term for themselves. After the Reformation in England, Puritans were those who wished to purify the Church of England from all remnants of Roman Catholicism. They wanted to transform society by first transforming themselves in conformity with God’s will. On the definition of Jansenism, see Doyle, Jansenism, 1-4; Jacques Plainemaison, ‘Qu’est-ce que le Jansénisme?’, in: Revue Historique 553 (1985), 117-130; Sedgwick, Jansenism in seventeenth-century France, ix-xv, 14, 193-207. On the definition of Puritanism, see Bremer, Puritanism, 2-3; Coffey & Lim, The Cambridge companion to Puritanism, 1-7; Patrick Collinson, ‘A comment: Concerning the name Puritan’, in: Journal of Ecclesiastical History 31 (1980) no.4, 483-488. As Elfrieda Dubois has noted, the terms janséniste and puritanical have become virtually equivalent in modern usage. See: Elfrieda Dubois, ‘Jansenism’, in: Cheslyn Jones, Geoffrey Wainwright & Edward Yarnold (Eds.),The study of spirituality, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986, 396-408: 405. 3 See Marie-José Michel, ‘Jansénisme et puritanisme: Une approche historiographique’, in: Bernard Cottret, Monique Cottret & Marie-José Michel Eds.), Jansénisme et puritanisme, Paris: Nolin, 2002 (Univers Port-Royal), 13-16, for the history of the comparison between Jansenism and Puritanism from the perspective of a scholar of Jansenism. 4 rené Taveneaux, Jansénisme et prêt à intérêt: Introduction, choix de textes et commentaires, Paris: Vrin, 1977. 5 Ibid., 89-90. 6 Briggs, ‘The Catholic Puritans’, 339-363.

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due to differing contexts, in spite of any apparent similarities. Like Taveneaux, he concluded that especially the Jansenist tendency to withdraw from the world and the Puritan tendency to engage with it set them apart.7 Subsequent scholarship on Jansenism and Puritanism identifies Briggs’s essay as the first truly comparative work on the two movements, but Briggs used the similarities between Jansenism and Puritanism not as a comparative study in and of itself, but as a lens through which to study French Jansenism.8 Subsequent scholarship comparing Jansenism and Puritanism has built on Briggs’s essay, either agreeing or disagreeing with his conclusion.9 Ultimately, what all these comparisons have in common is that they remain general, point- ing out some theological or spiritual similarities, like an emphasis on predestina- tion or moral rigorism, without examining either movement in detail. However, recent formulations of comparative theological methodology stress the importance of making particular, not general, comparisons.10 This study aims to fill this lacuna, by examining more closely the sacramental understanding of communion in the thought of two figures, the Puritan Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) and the Jansenist Antoine Arnauld (1616-1694).11 I argue that, in

7 Ibid., 362. 8 See Michel, ‘Jansénisme et puritanisme’, 13. 9 Some scholars, like Kaspar von Greyerz, agree with Briggs, emphasizing the differences between Jansenism and Puritanism. Von Greyerz notes that although there are similarities between Jansenism and Protestantism in general, for example in terms of justification and the use of the Bible, ‘on the whole there is no doubt that the elements separating them predomi- nated’ (von Greyerz, Religion and culture in Early Modern Europe, 104). Guy Bedouelle, however, notes the similarities, remarking in his History of the Church that Jansenism ‘approached Puritanism and concurred with the latter’s overall vision’ (Guy Bedouelle, The history of the Church, London: Continuum, 2003 [Handbooks of Catholic Theology], 117). French scholars have engaged comparisons between Jansenism and Puritanism, expanding on Taveneaux’s work. See, for example, Cottret, Cottret & Michel, Jansénisme et puritanisme. This collection of essays came out of a colloquium on comparisons between Jansenism and Puritanism that occurred at the Musée national des Granges de Port-Royal des Champs in 2001. However, none of the authors included has published in both areas; they are all specialists of either Jansenism or Puritanism. The articles included reflect this and are ultimately more about one or the other than an effective comparison between the two. 10 James L. Fredericks, ‘Introduction’, in: Francis X. Clooney (Ed.), The new comparative theology: Interreligious insights from the next generation, New York, NY: T & T Clark, 2010, ix-xix: xii. 11 Antoine Arnauld was one of the leading theologians of the Jansenists in seventeenth-century France, though he never would have claimed such a title for himself. He was a prolific author, defending both the theological views and religious practices of the Jansenists, especially as practiced at the convent of Port-Royal. Arnauld’s complete works are published as Antoine Arnauld, Œuvres de Messire Antoine Arnauld, Docteur de la Maison et Société de Sorbonne (43 vols.), Paris: D’Arnay, 1775-1783; repr., Brussels: Culture et Civilisation, 1964-1967). For more information about Arnauld’s life, see Alexander Sedgwick, The travails of conscience: The Arnauld family and the Ancien Régime, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998, 124-139;

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spite of the denominational differences affecting their understanding of the sacraments, the spiritualities of communion held by both the Puritan minister and the Jansenist theologian have major commonalities, especially in reference to how one should receive communion. For example, their commonalities appear in their appeal to the early church as a model for communion practices and in their theology about the importance of a proper interior disposition for the reception of communion. This article divides into three parts. In the first part, I explain why Edwards and Arnauld make good figures for comparison and provide the context for each of their main texts on communion. Second, I examine their similar appeal to the early church as a normative model for communion practices. And finally, I describe the commonalities in their theological understanding of the reception of communion, namely the role of love, the appropriate internal dispositions for recipients, the experience of conversion, and the function of God’s grace. First, a note on terminology in relation to the areas of comparison in this article. Because the comparison between Edwards and Arnauld that follows examines two different Christian traditions, I would like to briefly note some of the denominational differences that I will not address in my main comparison of their thought. First and foremost, Edwards and Arnauld differed in relation to authoritative sources for theological reflection. Even while recognizing the importance of history and reason, Edwards would have considered scripture as the only legitimate source for theological reflection.12 Arnauld, on the other hand, included both scripture and tradition as legitimate sources for theological reflection and cited thinkers throughout the history of the Catholic Church in his arguments. In this analysis, this distinction in authoritative sources especially affects Arnauld’s and Edwards’s conceptions of the early church. Second, another

Jean Lesaulnier, ‘Arnauld, Antoine, dit le Grand Arnauld’, in: Jean Lesaulnier & Antony McKenna (Eds.), Dictionnaire de Port-Royal, Paris: Honoré Champion, 2004 (Dictionnaires & Références), 78-85. Jonathan Edwards was a Puritan preacher and theologian in eighteenth-century New England. After studying at Yale, he became the assistant pastor to his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, in Northampton, Massachusetts. He is most famous for his sermon ‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God’. His complete works are available online as Jonathan Edwards, Works of Jonathan Edwards, New Haven, CT: The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University, http://edwards.yale.edu/. (further abbreviated as WJE). For information about Edwards’s life, see George M. Marsden, A short life of Jonathan Edwards, Grand Rapids, MI: William Eerdmans, 2008 (Library of Religious Biography); Idem, Jonathan Edwards: A life, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003. 12 michael McClymond and Gerald McDermott have argued that tradition does play a role in Edwards’s theology. Although the communion controversy itself problematized Edwards’s ideas about tradition, he understood the interpretation of the Bible as taking place within the history of its interpretation in the church. See Michael J. McClymond & Gerald R. McDermott, The theology of Jonathan Edwards, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, 142-148.

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denominational difference appears in the sacramental context. As explained below, Arnauld’s text approached communion primarily through the sacrament of penance. Sacramental confession remained, for him, the primary means through which to distinguish one’s spiritual worthiness for communion. Edwards argued for the requirement of a profession of faith, which did not function in the same way as sacramental confession did for Arnauld. Finally, both Edwards and Arnauld used different terminology to refer to communion. Arnauld primarily used the terms ‘Eucharist’ and ‘communion’, while Edwards primarily used ‘Lord’s Supper’ and ‘communion’. I will use the term ‘communion’ most frequently to refer to the sacrament throughout this text because both Edwards and Arnauld used it in their writing. However, in spite of this common term, Edwards and Arnauld held to fundamentally different understandings about what the sacrament of communion entailed. For Arnauld, the bread and wine became the body and blood of Christ and because of this physical transformation one had to ensure that they worthily approached the sacrament. Edwards’s understanding of communion did not include this aspect of physical transformation; he understood communion as a symbolic transformation of God’s self-communication.13 In spite of these differences in terminology and understanding, however, which primarily derived from the differences in the Calvinist and Catholic traditions, there remain several areas of similarity in their thought.

1. Two Communion Controversies

The Methodological Approach and the Edwards-Arnauld Connection This comparative study proceeds on the basis of the ideas that the study of theology and spirituality is ‘an inherently comparative discipline’ and that the study of spirituality has a fundamental relationship with theology.14 I borrow from the methodology of comparative theology to study Jansenist and Puritan spiritualities, namely the historical and systematic comparison between these religious traditions and the implications of these traditions for the understanding of theology and spirituality.15 Although comparative theology normally occurs between different religions, such as Christianity and Islam, these same

13 William J. Danaher, ‘By sensible signs represented: Jonathan Edwards’ Sermons on the Lord’s Supper’, in: Pro Ecclesia 7 (1998) no.3, 261-287: 262-263; McClymond & McDermott, The theology of Jonathan Edwards, 487-492. 14 John Renard, ‘Comparative theology: Definition and method’, in: Religious Studies and Theol- ogy 17 (1998) no.1, 3-18: 3. See also Fredericks, ‘Introduction’, xi; Kees Waaijman, ‘Spirituality as theology’, in: Studies in Spirituality 21 (2011), 1-43: 4. 15 renard, ‘Comparative theology’, 6.

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methodologies can apply also to comparisons between Christian traditions.16 In this study, I apply the methodology of a thematic comparison, comparing parallel themes in the spiritual practices of both Jansenism and Puritanism.17 The theological implications that derive from this study include a better understanding of the spiritualities of Jansenism and Puritanism by looking at them in comparison to each other. Specifically, this study examines parallel developments of the spiritualities in Jansenism and Puritanism in relation to receiving communion. As developments in the history of spirituality, both Edwards and Arnauld derived their understanding of the qualifications for communion from the much longer tradition of the interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11:28-29.18 Arnauld specifically references this tradition of interpretation, noting that the Fathers ‘command them with Saint Paul to test themselves before eating this heavenly bread, for fear of eating it to their condemnation’.19 Edwards, in contrast, examined this biblical text without explicit reference to the interpretations of those who came before him – with the exception of his grandfather and predecessor at Northampton, Solo- mon Stoddard (1643-1728), with whom Edwards ultimately disagreed.20 Although Edwards did not reference this longer tradition, however, both he and Arnauld remained heirs to this tradition in their interpretation. From the earli- est periods of the history of Christianity, biblical commentators and homilists had interpreted this passage to indicate that each communicant should examine their conscience and rid themselves of internal and external sins in order to receive the sacrament with a clean conscience.21 By the Middle Ages, the

16 See ibid., 7. 17 Ibid., 12-13. There remains, however, a difference in my application of the methods of comparative theology and the normal use of these methods. Namely, comparative theology usually involves the comparison of one’s own tradition to another. In his introduction to The New Comparative Theology, James L. Fredericks recognizes the possibility of making comparisons between traditions that are not your own, noting that is done by comparing one tradition, which is ‘usually but not necessarily a ‘home tradition’’ to another (Fredericks, ‘Introduction’, x.). However, the majority of his introduction implies that the comparison occurs between one’s own tradition and another. My comparison in this article does come from the perspective of my own tradition insofar as Jansenism is part of the history of Catholicism, but does not in that the spirituality of Jansenism was, for the most part, rejected by the official church. 18 ‘But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eatheth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body’ (KJV). ‘Probet autem se ipsum homo et sic de pane illo edat et de calice bibat qui enim manducat et bibit indigne iudicium sibi manducat et bibit non diiudi- cans corpus’ (Vulgate). 19 ‘ils leur commandent avec S. Paul, de s’éprouver eux-mêmes avant que de manger ce pain céleste, de peur de le manger à leur condamnation’, Arnauld, Œuvres, 27:395. 20 WJE 12:259-263, 276. For more on Edwards’s use of this biblical text, see below. 21 gerald Bray (Ed.), 1-2 Corinthians, Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999 (Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament), 114-115; Liviu Barbu, ‘The turn to

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preparation that communicants needed to do became more specific, including reflecting on Christ’s suffering, maintaining belief in the Christian understanding of the Eucharist, confessing one’s sins, and developing a love of God, in order to become worthy of receiving communion according to Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians.22 The theology of both Edwards and Arnauld developed out of this longer tradition of interpretation. Separated by time and distance, Edwards and Arnauld might seem strange figures to compare on this topic, but there is an interesting connection between Edwards and the writings of Arnauld that provides a historical context for the comparison of the spiritualities of these two movements.23 This connection came from the Scottish minister John Erskine (1721-1803), Edwards’s most frequently written foreign correspondent. Edwards received from Erskine many book recommendations and actual books and pamphlets that he would have had difficulty finding in America.24 Although none of the letters from Erskine to Edwards remain today, the extant letters from Edwards to Erskine reveal that their correspondence centered not only on book recommendations and requests, but also on such spiritual and pastoral topics as communion practices. For example, Edwards recounted to Erskine the events of the communion controversy which led to Edwards’s separation from his parish in Northampton and Edwards even sent to Erskine a copy of his Humble Inquiry, the text of which defends his change of position on communion.25 Erskine, along with another Scottish minister, Thomas Randall, had involved himself in a movement advocating for more frequent reception of communion. Consequently the question of the appropriate reception of communion unsurprisingly appears in the correspondence between Edwards and Erskine.26 One of Edwards’s later letters mentioned a book received from Erskine on the topic of communion. In his letter dated 7 July 1752, Edwards noted that he received with Erskine’s letter, dated 11 February 1752, a copy of Antoine Arnauld’s On Frequent Communion, along with several other texts. Edwards

the inner-self and liturgical participation in the Desert Fathers’, in: Studia Patristica 72 (2014), 233-240: 236-237. 22 Charles Caspers, ‘Late medieval liturgy and its inner tension: The hermeneutic significance of Thomas à Kempis’s Devota exhortacio ad sacram communionem’, in: Mikolaj Olszewski (Ed.), What is ‘theology’ in the Middle Ages? Religious cultures of Europe (11th-15th centuries) as reflected in their self-understanding, Münster: Aschendorff, 2007 (Archa Verbi: Subsidia), 381-396: 383. 23 renard, ‘Comparative theology’, 15. John Renard notes that comparative theology can include ‘even “encounters” between non-contemporaneous historical figures’, such as Edwards and Arnauld, though Renard’s examples of encounters include more substantial engagement between the writings of the non-contemporaneous figures (ibid., 6). 24 WJE 16:6, 26, 247. 25 Edwards to the Reverend John Erskine, 5 July 1750, WJE 16:347-356; Edwards to the Reverend John Erskine, 15 November 1750, WJE 16:363-367. In this letter, Edwards noted that he sent a copy of his Humble Inquiry with his 5 July 1750 letter. 26 WJE 16:366.

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acknowledged this receipt, saying, however, that ‘Arnauld On Frequent Communion will not be very profitable to me, by reason of my not understanding the French. But several of the rest have been very agreeable to me’.27 Erskine could read French, so one can assume that he knew about the contents of Arnauld’s text. Interestingly, Erskine sent this text to Edwards even though Erskine advocated for more frequent communion, while Arnauld advocated for less frequent communion.28 Erskine possibly sent this text for Edwards to refute, as Erskine had done with other texts and correspondents.29 Although he could not read it, Edwards still put the unread text to use, however, unbinding it and using the paper for note taking.30 Although Edwards never read Arnauld’s On Frequent Communion, he knew about Jansenism through other sources. First, New England newspapers especially focused on religious controversies in France and remained sympathetic to the eighteenth-century Jansenists. After the 1713 condemnation of Jansenism in the papal bull Unigenitus, newspapers increasingly printed information about the controversy and New England Puritans followed this controversy as it unfolded in France.31 Second, Yale used the text known as the Port-Royal Logic in teaching logic.32 The text derived from a collaborative effort of the male solitaires at Port-Royal, attributed normally to Arnauld and Pierre Nicole (1625-1695).33 This text, influenced by the thought of René Descartes (1596-1650), first appeared in 1662 and schools in America like Harvard and Yale used the English translation for teaching logic.34 Edwards began attending Yale at age thirteen and he asked his father, in a letter dated 24 July 1719, to get a copy of the text.35 A copy of

27 Edwards to the Reverend John Erskine, 7 July 1752, WJE 16:489. 28 danaher, ‘By sensible signs represented’, 271. 29 thanks to Jonathan Yeager for the information on Erskine’s correspondence practices. For more information about Erskine, see Jonathan Yeager, Enlightened Evangelicalism: The life and thought of John Erskine, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. 30 WJE 26:66. 31 thomas S. Kidd, ‘“Let hell and Rome do their worst”: World news, anti-Catholicism, and international Protestantism in early-eighteenth-dentury Boston’, in: The New England Quarterly 76 (2003) no.2, 265-290: 277. 32 WJE 26:6. 33 the male solitaires had formed an unofficial monastic community at Port-Royal des Champs after the nuns moved their convent to Paris. These men were emblematic of the Jansenist tendency to flee from the world and their emphasis on a mépris du monde, a contempt for the world. 34 See Rick Kennedy, ‘The alliance between Puritanism and Cartesian logic at Harvard, 1687- 1735’, in: Journal of the History of Ideas 51 (1990) no.4, 549-572, which shows how influential this text was used at Harvard, even when it was not being used directly. It was especially influential because Arnauld and Nicole had transformed Cartesian logic to fit with an Augus- tinian epistemology. 35 Edwards to the Reverend Timothy Edwards, 24 July 1719, WJE 16:33.

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the Port-Royal Logic with Edwards’s signature is currently in the rare book collection of Yale University’s library.36 Of course, the Port-Royal Logic was first and foremost a logic textbook, not a theological treatise. However, Arnauld and Nicole focused their text around theology, arguing that logic should be used in service of salvation and that salvation should be one’s primary concern, even above the art of thinking well. Rick Kennedy describes the text as being ‘pugnaciously filled with anti-Protestant examples and insistence on Roman Catholic orthodoxy’ and notes that in discussing method Arnauld gave ‘examples of provable Christian doctrines’.37 In particular, the text includes several lengthy discussions of the Eucharist as examples. The 1717 English edition of the text identifies it as being Jansenist and notes that these examples remain in the text itself. The introduction states: It was compos’d by the famous Mr. Nicole; one of the Society of the Messieurs de Port Royal, those eminent Sticklers for Jansenism, and revis’d and improv’d by the no less famous M. Arnauld. (…) But what is most observable, and with which I shall conclude, is, that being accused by the Jesuits for Hereticks, the Authors, to make their Court to the Pope, wrote very injuriously against the Protestants, to shew there was no Intelligence between Them and Protestants in France. Now, as in their Writings against the Jesuits, who were seconded by the Pope, they vented several Things that seemed derogatory to the Pope’s absolute Authority, and maintained some Principles in common with Protestants, several learned French Writers of that Persuasion made use of, and retorted upon the Jesuits, many of the Passages inserted against them in this very Book. This gave Occasion to the Authors of this Logic, in the Edition of 1683, to add some Remarks to justify and clear those Passages from favouring the Protestant Cause. They likewise threw in some things to endeavour to prove by Reason the Doctrine of Transubstantiation. But as nothing can be more inconsistent than Reason and Transubstantiation, I thought the English Protestant Reader needed no Warning against the Danger of such Arguments, and so I left them as I found them.38 The translator left in most of the passages on the Eucharist from the original text. But, these passages focused more on how to argue transubstantiation against Calvinists than anything related to the reception of communion, the focus of

36 Ibid., 26:423. 37 kennedy, ‘The alliance between Puritanism and Cartesian logic’, 554, 567. 38 Antoine Arnauld & Pierre Nicole, Logic; or, the art of thinking: Containing (besides the common rules) many new observations, that are of great use in forming an exactness of judgment. In four parts. I. Consisting of reflections upon the ideas, or first operation of the mind. II. Of the reflections men have made upon their judgments. III. Of reasoning. IV. Of method; or the clearest manner of dem- onstrating any truth. Done from the new French edition (London 1717), accessed at http://find. galegroup.com/ecco/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=ECCO&userGroupName=sain44199 &tabID=T001&docId=CW105599683&type=multipage&contentSet=ECCOArticles&version =1.0&docLevel=FASCIMILE. Electronic reproduction of original from the British Library.

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this article. Therefore, although the Port-Royal Logic provides another interesting connection between Edwards and Jansenism, it does not demonstrate any direct link in thought on the sacrament of communion between him and Arnauld. Finally, Edwards’s Catalogue of Books shows that he had access to an English edition of the Pensées of Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), an associate of the male solitaires and a defender of Jansenism.39 Published after his death, Pascal’s Pensées include his notes on various topics related to Christianity, as he had aimed to use them to write an apology for Christianity. As Peter J. Thuesen notes in his introduction to the Catalogue of Books, Edwards ‘considered Jansenist texts to be among the few Catholic sources not utterly awash in error’.40 Although none of these examples sufficiently proves a link between the spirituality of Edwards and Arnauld – or Puritanism and Jansenism –, especially on the topic of communion, these connections between Edwards and Arnauld and other Jansenists set an interesting context for the comparison of the thought between the two figures.

Contexts for Controversies Beyond these historically interesting, but ultimately tenuous, connections between Edwards and Arnauld, they also both wrote their main texts on the sacrament of communion in the context of controversy, albeit of different types. Edwards expressed his ideas on communion in the context of a ‘communion controversy’ between himself and his parish at Northampton.41 Although early Puritan tradition limited the reception of the sacraments to those who could produce evidence of a valid conversion experience, by the eighteenth century New England Puritans looking back on their predecessors were ‘struck – sometimes with amusement and sometimes with anxiety – by the saints’ apparent propensity for reporting the exact order of events in their conversions’, publically, prior to being accepted as full members of the church.42 Earlier, Edwards’s grandfather and predecessor at Northampton, Solomon Stoddard, had introduced a ‘half-way covenant’ to per- mit the participation in the sacraments of parishioners who had been baptized has infants, but had not had a conversion experience. Beginning in 1748,

39 WJE 26:66. 40 Ibid., 26:103. 41 See ibid., 12:507-619. For an account of this controversy, see Mark E. Dever, ‘Believers only – Jonathan Edwards and communion’, in: Bibliotheca Sacra 172 (2015), 259-262. In this article, Dever proposes Edwards as a model for modern-day pastors and encourages them to be more exclusionary of church membership. However, he provides a brief and helpful summary of the events of the controversy to introduce his argument. 42 Patricia Caldwell, The Puritan conversion narrative: The beginnings of American expression, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983 (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture), 163; see also 45-46.

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Edwards, now solely in charge of the parish, changed his position on this, rejecting the half-way covenant and deciding, instead, ‘that if any person should offer to come into the church without a profession of godliness, I must decline being active in his admission’.43 Although Edwards claimed that he came to this deci- sion after a long period of reflection, to his parishioners this appeared as a drastic and unexpected change in church policy. In the midst of the controversy, which lasted well into 1750, Edwards briefly expressed his concerns to Erskine, saying: I have nothing very comfortable to inform of concerning the present state of religion in this place. A very great difficulty has arisen between me and my people, relating to qualifications for communion at the Lord’s table. My honored grandfather [Solomon] Stoddard, my predecessor in the ministry over this church, strenuously maintained the Lord’s Supper to be a converting ordinance; and urged all to come who were not of scandalous life, though they knew themselves to be unconverted. I formerly conformed to this practice, but I have had difficulties with respect to it, which have been long increasing; till I dared no longer to proceed in the former way: which has occasioned great uneasiness among my people, and has filled all the country with noise; which has obliged me to write something on the subject, which is now in the press. I know not but this affair will issue in a separation between me and my people. I desire your prayers that God would guide me in every step in this affair.44 Edwards wrote Erskine in detail about the events of the controversy only after his separation from his Northampton parish. He also sent him his defense of his view, written during the controversy, but not read by most of his parish, much to his chagrin. This defense was titled An Humble Inquiry into the Rules of the Word of God, Concerning the Qualifications Requisite to a Complete Standing and Full Communion in the Visible Christian Church.45 R. David Rightmire, in his article on Edwards’s sacramental theology, describes this text as ‘flawless in logic and tedious in its presentation of proofs’.46 Arnauld wrote his text also in the context of a controversy over communion practices. His text, On Frequent Communion, Where the Sentiments of the Fathers, Popes and Councils Concerning the Use of the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist, Are Faithfully Exposed, responded to a controversy between two noble women – one receiving direction from Jean Duvergier de Hauranne, the Abbot of Saint-Cyran (1581-1643) and the other from the Jesuit Pierre de Sesmaisons

43 WJE 12:507. 44 Edwards to the Reverend John Erskine, 20 May 1749, ibid., 16:271. 45 Ibid., 12:167-349. 46 r. David Rightmire, ‘The sacramental theology of Jonathan Edwards in the context of controversy’, in: Fides et Historia 21 (1989), 50-60: 53.

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(1588-1648) – about the proper frequency to receive communion.47 Sesmaisons had written a short response to the directions provided in writing by Saint- Cyran and Arnauld’s writing responded to Sesmaisons’s text, titled Question, If It Is Better to Receive Communion Often than Rarely.48 In discussing Arnauld’s text in his study of Jansenism, Leszek Kolakowski explains that ‘Arnauld was totally incapable of being concise in his writing’.49 The lengthy text incorporated quotations from a wide variety of church authorities to support Arnauld’s thesis about the relationship between confession and communion. In this text, Arnauld defended the practice of infrequent communion, especially as practiced at Port-Royal under the inspiration of Saint-Cyran.50 The text itself indicates that Arnauld intended his writing for a wide audience because he quoted not only all the scriptural passages in French instead of Latin, but also all church documents and the writings of councils. Arnauld’s text shifted the debate over Jansenism from the theological question of grace to practical issues of religious practice that affected the everyday Catholic.51 The text ended up being extremely popular: it went through six editions between 1643 and 1648 and four more between 1656 and 1703.52 Its publication resulted in a dropping number of recipients of communion in Paris. For example, Vincent de Paul reported in 1648 that as a result of Arnauld’s text ‘several priests in Paris complain that they had many fewer communicants [at Easter] than in past years’.53 Although the text ostensibly concerned the topic of frequent communion, Arnauld focused primarily on the interior disposition necessary for receiving

47 Antoine Arnauld, De la fréquente communion, où les sentiments des peres, des papes et des conciles, touchant, l’usage des Sacrements de Pénitence & d’Eucharistie, sont fidellement exposés (Arnauld, Œuvres, 27:71-673). See Brian E. Strayer, Suffering saints: Jansensists and Convulsionnaires in France, 1640-1799, Portland, OR: Sussex Academic Press, 2008, 33; Jean Lesaulnier, ‘La Fréquente communion d’Antoine Arnauld: Genèse d’une oeuvre’, in : Chroniques de Port-Royal 44 (1995), 61-81: 62-63. 48 Question, s’il est meilleur de communier souvent que rarement. See Arnauld, Œuvres, 27:181. 49 Kolakowski, God owes us nothing, 68. 50 this was particularly controversial because Saint-Cyran opposed the sacramental views of Car- dinal Richelieu (1585-1642), the chief minister of King Louis XIII. See Jill Buroker’s introduction to Antoine Arnauld & Pierre Nicole, Logic or the art of thinking: Containing, besides common rules, several new observations appropriate for forming judgment (trans. Jill Vance Buro- ker), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996 (Cambridge Texts in the History of Phi- losophy), ix-xxvi: xiii. 51 Briggs, ‘The Catholic Puritans’, 348. 52 Jean Delumeau, Sin and fear: The emergence of a Western guilt culture, 13th-18th centuries (trans. Eric Nicholson), New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1990, 250; Louis Dupré, ‘Jansenism and Quietism’, in: Louis Dupré & Don E. Saliers (Eds.), Christian sprituality: Post Reformation and modern, New York, NY: Crossroad, 1989 (World Spirituality), 121-142: 125. 53 ‘Plusieurs curés de Paris se plaignent de ce qu’ils ont beaucoup moins de communiants que les années passées’. Vincent de Paul to M. D’Horgny, 25 June 1648, in Saint Vincent de Paul,

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communion, as examined through the sacrament of penance. Here, he mainly argued that there should not be a practice of frequent confession followed by frequent communion, especially for those who return to the sin that they have confessed. Arnauld argued that ideally one would include a period of satisfaction between confession and communion, during which the penitent would perform works of repentance. He explained, ‘As there is not any true faith without confession, nor true charity without works, there is also not any true penance without satisfaction’.54

2. A Common Source – Communion Practices in the Early Church

Both Edwards’s and Arnauld’s texts incorporate some of the same themes about spirituality in relation to communion practices. First, like many other authors writing about the frequency of communion, both Edwards and Arnauld appealed to the example of the early church as the normative source for contemporary communion practices. Although Edwards rejected the concept of tradition, arguing, as his grandfather did, that Protestantism held no man to be infallible, Edwards still relied on the experience of the early church. However, Edwards appealed to the example of the early church that appeared in the New Testa- ment, particularly in the Acts of the Apostles and the epistles.55 Edwards argued that ‘doubtless, as the Christian church was constituted then, so it ought to be constituted now. What better rule have we for our ecclesiastical regulations in other respects, than what was done in the primitive churches, under the apostles’ own direction…?’56 In this light, Edwards judged that ‘’tis not only a visibility of moral sincerity in religion, which is the scripture qualification of admission into the Christian church, but a visibility of regeneration and renovation of heart’.57 He drew from the example of the church in Acts, which he saw as illustrating the necessity of a visible profession of godliness.58 Edwards also relied on the example set in the New Testament epistles, which ‘evidently show, how all the Christian churches through the world were constituted in those days; and what sort of holiness or saintship it was, that all visible Christians in good standing had a visibility and profession of, in that apostolic

Lettres de S. Vincent de Paul, fondateur des Prêtres de la Mission et des Filles de la Charité, vol. 1, Paris 1882, 239. 54 ‘Comme il n’est point de vraie foi sans confession, ni de vraie charité sans œuvres, il n’est point aussi de vraie pénitence sans satisfaction’. Arnauld, Œuvres, 27:409. 55 WJE 12:167. 56 Ibid., 12:151. 57 Ibid., 12:196. 58 Ibid., 12:234.

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age’.59 For example, as his final supporting argument in the second part of An Humble Inquiry Edwards interpreted 1 Corinthians 11:28-29, which says, ‘But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body’.60 Edwards interpreted this passage as referring to the profession of godliness. He wrote: When the Apostle directs professing Christians to ‘try’ themselves, using this word indefinitely, as properly signifying the examining or proving a thing whether it be genuine, or counterfeit, the most natural construction of his advice is, that they should try themselves with respect to their spiritual state and religious profession, whether they are disciples indeed, real and genuine Christians, or whether they are not false and hypocritical professors.61 Before receiving communion, the believer needed to have examined himself or herself to see if he or she could truly make a visible profession of godliness. In this way, Edwards continued the medieval tradition of examination and preparation for communion, translating that practice, however, into the Puritan theological context. For Edwards, then, the example of the early church, as described in the New Testament, confirmed his position of requiring a profession of godliness from full members of the church. Arnauld, on the other hand, appealed to a broader sense of tradition. How- ever, in line with other Jansenists, he saw as normative the early church as expressed not only in the New Testament, but also through the writings of the Church Fathers, especially Augustine.62 Like Edwards, he drew from scripture, but held a broader conception of the early church, especially in the first part of his text, drawing on both scripture and the Church Fathers.63 Although both Edwards and Arnauld saw the early church as normative, however, a key difference in their thought appears in Arnauld’s understanding of tradition that follows the typical distinctions between Catholicism and Protestantism. Arnauld accepted the authority of thinkers throughout the history of the Catholic Church, citing to support his position, for example, Jerome, Basil, Ambrose, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Charles Borromeo, Francis de Sales, and even Francis Xavier, though Arnauld opposed the Jesuits in much of his writing.64

59 Ibid., 12:245. 60 I quote here the 1611 King James Version, available online at http://www.kingjamesbibleon- line.org. Edwards would have been using a slightly different translation, as can be seen by the passage quoted above which says ‘try’ instead of ‘examine’ 61 WJE 12:259. 62 Von Greyerz, Religion and culture in Early Modern Europe, 103. 63 Arnauld, Œuvres, 27:181-302 (ch. 1-26). 64 Francis Xavier is found on ibid., 27:539.

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While Edwards relied on his own biblical interpretation to make his argument, Arnauld said, in one place, that he preferred to use the interpretations found in the tradition of the Catholic Church. For example, he said that he would rather rely on the words of Bonaventure, instead of those of his opponent, ‘an unknown director’ who has ‘no authority in the Church’.65 He also drew on the teachings of councils (especially Basel and Trent) and the popes. Where Edwards limited his source for communion practices to the early church as narrated in scripture, Arnauld, coming from the background of Catholicism, drew on the entire history of tradition from the biblical account all the way through more recently recognized authorities. But, although Arnauld used the resources of the full history of the tradition of the church, he judged the teachings of the Church Fathers normative and he located his conception of the early church there. Arnauld explained that although his opponent also argued that the early church should function as a model, Arnauld made a distinction between the contemporary church, made up of both saints and sinners, and the ideal model of the early church.66 He agreed that Christians of the early church practiced frequent communion, but argued that the purity of their lives allowed for such a practice. But because the contemporary church included both saints and sinners, not everyone should practice frequent communion. Those whose lives followed the model of the saints and the teachings of the Church Fathers could take frequent communion, but most people should not. Arnauld argued that there was no reason to think that what the Church Fathers taught about living holy lives could apply to his time.67 Those who followed the model of the early church in their lives could follow it also in their communion practices, but this would not become the norm for most people. Therefore, although both Arnauld and Edwards had differing conceptions of where to locate information about the practices of the early church, for Edwards in the New Testament and for Arnauld in the writings of the Church Fathers, they both appealed to the practices of the early church as the norm for contemporary practice.

3. Common Theme – Interior Dispositions for Communion

Second, both Edwards and Arnauld followed the longer tradition of the interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11:28-29 in emphasizing the importance of an appropriate interior disposition for communion. Exterior appearance and actions

65 ‘un Directeur inconnu’ who has ‘nulle autorité dans l’Eglise’, ibid., 27:189. 66 Ibid., 27:186-190. 67 Ibid., 27:405.

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did not suffice to prepare one for receiving communion. Interior dispositions held a particular importance because they did not derive from the recipient, but from God’s influence on the recipient. Both Edwards and Arnauld placed love and conversion as central to the appropriate interior disposition of the recipient. However, because the minister or priest needed to judge the interior disposition in each case, both Edwards and Arnauld required some sort of verbal assent to readiness. In the case of Edwards, this verbal assent took the form of a profession of godliness; for Arnauld, it appeared as the expression of true contrition in the sacrament of confession.

The Prerequisite of Love In describing the interior disposition necessary for communion, both Edwards and Arnauld emphasized the role of love, following the tradition of medieval spirituality. Although this love took different forms, which related to their understanding of the sacrament, they both emphasized the need for this love. For Edwards, this love manifested itself as brotherly love, ‘one of the most dis- tinguishing characteristics of true grace, and a peculiar evidence that God dwelleth in us and we in God. By which must needs be understood a love to saints as saints, or on account of the spiritual image of God supposed to be in them, and their spiritual relation to God; according as it has always been understood by orthodox divines’.68 Common grace and moral sincerity could not act as a base for this love, because such ‘lukewarmness’ cannot ‘be a sufficient ground of this intimate affection to them as brethren in the family of a heavenly father, this fervent love to them in the bowels of Jesus Christ’.69 In this case, the sacrament of communion became a feast of ‘the family of God, at their father’s table’ and only those who truly experienced this love, based on God’s saving grace, could participate in the sacrament.70 For Arnauld, this love expressed itself instead in the idea of love of God above all else.71 In On Frequent Communion, Arnauld distinguished between two movements within a person that might lead them to be sorry for their sins: attrition and contrition. In penitential practices, contrition involves sorrow for one’s sins due to love for God, the more perfect form of repentance. The Council of Trent defined contrition in its decree on penance, stating: Contrition, which holds the first place among the above-mentioned acts of the penitent, is a grief and detestation of mind at the sin committed, together with the resolution not to sin in the future. This movement of sorrow has been

68 WJE 12:253. 69 Ibid., 12:255. 70 Ibidem. 71 Although Edwards expresses this idea too, the idea of brotherly love is more prevalent in this text (cf. ibid., 12:233).

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necessary at all times to obtain the pardon of sins and, in a person who has fallen after baptism, it finally prepares for the forgiveness of sin if it is linked with trust in the divine mercy and the desire to provide all the other requirements for due reception of the sacrament. The holy council therefore declares that this contrition includes not only ceasing from sin, the resolve of a new life and a beginning of it, but also a hatred of the old in accordance with the words: Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.72 The Council continued to explain that contrition is perfected by love for God. However, the Council also permitted attrition, calling it an imperfect form of contrition, that is, one not perfected by this love. The Council described attrition as ‘generally conceived either out of a consideration of the baseness of sin or from a fear of hell and punishments’.73 Attrition, then, an imperfect form of repentance, involves sorrow for one’s sins due to fear of God’s punishment. Arnauld understood attrition as sorrow based on a fear of God’s punishment and contrition, which could occur without God’s grace, as sorrow based on love of God.74 Jansenist sacramentology emphasized contrition over attrition, even though the Council of Trent allowed for attrition in the sacrament of penance as an ‘imperfect’ form of contrition.75 In emphasizing contrition, Arnauld described the deep level at which this love of God needed to take root in a person, explaining, ‘Contrition and the love of God are actions of the will, and the actions of the will are not thoughts, but movements, inclinations, and, to say thus, directions of the heart toward its object’.76 This description implied that attrition, conversely, remained a superficial movement toward God, not based on actual grace. A true love of God manifested itself in ‘a detachment from the things of the world’ and an attachment to God.77 For Arnauld, this emphasis on the love of God above all else related to his understanding of communion. Since in the Eucharist bread and wine became the body and blood of Christ, the relational emphasis for him in the sacrament did not connect to the community, but to God. However, Edwards’s description of the brotherly love necessary for communion also emphasized an attachment to God – one loved

72 norman P. Tanner (Ed.), Decrees of the ecumenical councils, Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1990, 705. 73 Ibidem. 74 Arnauld, Œuvres, 27:385. 75 Tanner, Decrees of the ecumenical councils, 704. 76 ‘La contrition & l’amour de Dieu sont des actions de la volonté, & les actions de la volonté ne sont pas des pensées, mais des mouvements, des inclinations, &, pour dire ainsi, des pentes du cœur vers son objet’. Arnauld, Œuvres, 27:382-383. 77 ‘un détachement des choses du monde’, ibid., 27:384. Fleeing from the world was one of the defining characteristics of seventeenth-century Jansenists, one which caused them difficulty in political alliances when once promising statesmen retired from the world for a life of prayer and study.

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their brothers because of their relation to God. Therefore, following a longer tradition within Christianity, although both Edwards and Arnauld emphasized different aspects of love in relation to communion, they both ultimately pointed to an attachment to God as a prerequisite for the sacrament.

The Profession of Godliness and True Contrition Although both Edwards and Arnauld emphasized attachment to God in the interior disposition of the recipient of communion, they each had to also address the question of how to determine that one had an appropriate interior disposition. Edwards argued for the profession of godliness as the way in which to determine that one had the appropriate interior disposition. His text, An Hum- ble Inquiry, raised the main question of whether or not he might admit parishioners to communion without a profession of godliness. He explained this at the very beginning of the text, writing, The main question I would consider, and for the negative of which, I would offer some arguments in the following discourse is this: whether, according to the rules of Christ, any ought to be admitted to the communion and privileges of members of the visible church of Christ in complete standing, but such as are in profession, and in the eye of the church’s Christian judgment, godly or gracious persons?78 By ‘in complete standing’, he further explained, he meant full, ordinary, adult members of the church, that is, those who have made a full profession of faith. Here, he distinguished between members in general, who may attend church and listen to the preaching of God’s word, and those in complete standing, who could participate in the sacraments, especially communion.79 He emphasized the action of profession and the public visibility of this profession, judged by the minister, who acted on behalf of the church.80 He expressed the importance of this visibility throughout his text, not only of the initial profession, but also of the Christian behavior that acted as evidence of the holiness expressed in the profession. However, the profession itself remained central. Christian behavior did not sufficiently allow the minister to make a judgment on holiness because the interior disposition needed to conform to that behavior. The minister’s judgment rested on the only possible evidence for this interior disposition, that is,

78 WJE 12:174. This profession of godliness, for Edwards, was not the same as the earlier Puri- tan conversion narrative. It is a profession of assent to God’s covenant, combined with a life- style that gives visible evidence to that consent. For more on the earlier Puritan conversion narratives and their development in America, see Caldwell, The Puritan conversion narrative. 79 WJE 12:175. 80 Ibid., 12:176-179.

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the profession of godliness.81 Edwards described communion as a covenant between Christ and the communicant, comparable to the covenantal bond of marriage.82 The profession of faith functioned in the same way as a marriage vow. As in marriage the spouses pledged to be faithful to each other for the remainder of their lives, so in receiving communion Christ and the communicant pledged their faithfulness to each other. In this interpretation, those who received communion without a corresponding pledge of faithfulness lied to Christ. Edwards wished, therefore, to limit communion to those of the parish who made a public profession of godliness, as evidence of their inner commit- ment and faithfulness to Christ, while still permitting those who had not made such a profession to attend services and listen to God’s word, as preparation and, hopefully, a catalyst for conversion. Like Edwards, Arnauld argued for a limitation of reception of communion to those who had the appropriate interior dispositions, established, in this case, by the judgment of the confessor. Those who did not have the appropriate interior dispositions could attend Mass, but could not receive communion.83 He emphasized the importance of the recipient’s examining themselves to ensure that they had the appropriate disposition for receiving communion. He argued, ‘Let us conclude thus with all the Fathers, that as the words of Jesus Christ oblige us to seek in the reception of his body the food for our souls, they also oblige us at the same time, to put ourselves into the disposition required for so saintly an action’.84 Arnauld argued that communion was not a sacrament of healing, like penance, nor one that aided in perfecting the Christian. Instead, one should perfect themselves before approaching the sacrament.85 He warned that ‘a soul still weak and imperfect cannot without peril nourish itself so frequently on this bread’.86 Clearly, Arnauld’s argument focused on a different question, namely the frequency of communion, which Edwards did not raise in his text. However, this argument still paralleled Edwards, who moved away from the arguments of the half-way covenant, in which Stoddard argued that communion would act as an aid to conversion, to requiring evidence of conversion, through a profession of godliness, prior to receiving communion. This demand

81 Ibid., 12:189-190. 82 Ibid., 12:256. 83 Arnauld, Œuvres, 27:196. 84 ‘Concluons donc avec tous les Peres, que comme les paroles de Jesus Christ nous obligent de rechercher dans la réception de son corps la norriture de nos ames, elles nous obligent aussi en même temps, à nous mettre dans les dispositions requises pour une action si saint’. Ibid., 27:255. 85 Ibid., 27:549-550, 556. 86 ‘une ame encore foible & imparfaite ne peut sans péril se nourrit si souvent de ce pain’. Ibid., 27:274.

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of perfection prior to receiving communion remains unique in the spiritualities of Edwards and Arnauld. Overall, as Edwards emphasized the necessity of the appropriate interior disposition for communion, as evidenced by a profession of godliness, Arnauld also emphasized the necessity of having an appropriate interior disposition, as judged by the confessor, before approaching the sacrament.

The Experience of Conversion and God’s Grace Both Edwards and Arnauld also placed an importance on the experience of conversion in forming the appropriate interior disposition. Edwards saw the whole conversion as a process which used means of grace, like preaching and reading the Bible, to lead a person to God. God normally brought about a conversion in a person after a process of preparation during which they experienced these means of grace.87 Edwards responded to the half-way covenant, which described communion as part of the process of conversion, and instead emphasized that communion occurred at the terminus of this process. Edwards argued in this way because he understood the act of receiving communion as the act of committing oneself to God’s covenant. Therefore, one needed to make a verbal profession, uniting oneself to God’s covenant, before the act of receiving communion.88 He compared the covenant to marriage, saying that Christians give their souls to Christ as spouse. He explained: To own this covenant, is to profess the consent of our hearts to it; and that is the sum and substance of true piety. ‘Tis not only a professing the assent of our understandings, that we understand there is such a covenant, or that we understand we are obliged to comply with it; but ‘tis to profess the consent of our wills, it is to manifest that we do comply with it. There is mutual profession in this affair, a profession on Christ’s part, and a profession on our part; as it is in marriage.89 Because the sacrament of communion manifested the profession made, a profession similar to the promises in marriage, one needed to fully give oneself to God prior to one’s receipt of the sacrament. The sacrament became the terminus of the conversion experience, not part of the process. Likewise, Arnauld emphasized the necessity of conversion prior to receipt of communion.90 Both Edwards and Arnauld saw conversion as a process. For Arnauld, although the process normally took a long time, he did recognize the possibility for an instan- taneous conversion, as illustrated by the experience of Paul, something that he considered a miraculous occurrence.91 He argued, like Edwards, that one’s

87 mcClymond & McDermott, The theology of Jonathan Edwards, 373-388. 88 WJE 12:199-201. 89 Ibid., 12:205. 90 Arnauld, Œuvres, 27:376-377. 91 Ibid., 27:381. Cf. Acts 9:1-19. See also Sedgwick, Jansenism in seventeenth-century France, 34-35.

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reception of communion took place at the end of the process of conversion, not as an aid to help one toward that full conversion. Edwards and Arnauld both understood the experience of conversion as linked to the experience of God’s grace, without which true conversion would not occur. For both Edwards and Arnauld, therefore, God’s grace had an important role in preparing the recipient for the sacrament of communion. Although their ideas differed slightly and used different terminology, they both emphasized a sort of ‘saving grace’ as the work of God in the recipient. In An Humble Inquiry, Edwards argued for Christian grace as the prerequisite for the sacraments.92 However, he distinguished between ‘common grace’, given to all, and ‘saving grace’, given only to those predestined to salvation. In the profession of godliness, he required this saving grace. He argued, By the things which have been observed, I think it abundantly evident, that the saintship, godliness and holiness, of which, according to scripture, professing Christians and visible saints do make a profession and have a visibility, is not any religion and virtue that is the result of common grace, or moral sincerity (as it is called [by Stoddard]) but saving grace.93 Edwards understood the problem as that those receiving only common grace did not love God before all else and merely had a ‘lukewarmness’ that did not indicate perseverance.94 Saving grace, therefore, became the prerequisite for the sacraments, especially communion, because ‘the Lord’s Supper is plainly a mutual renovation, confirmation, and seal of the covenant of grace: both the covenant- ing parties profess their consent to their respective parts in the covenant, and each affixes his seal to his profession’.95 So for Edwards, the profession of godliness, and therefore also receipt of communion necessitated saving grace, because it signaled future perseverance and because the act of receiving communion acted as a seal to the covenant, a promising of oneself to Christ. Arnauld also required that one be in a true state of grace in order to approach the sacrament of communion. Although some scholars have made a distinction between the Jansenist theology of grace and Cyranist sacramental practices, Yuka Mochizuki recently has shown the fundamental link between them.96 The rigorism that would bar a follower of Saint-Cyran’s methods from taking communion derived from an Augustinian theological anthropology that saw human beings as fundamentally fallen and the gift of God’s grace as a rare gift that the penitent needed in order to prepare himself or herself properly for confession and

92 WJE 12:178. 93 Ibid., 12:199. 94 Ibid., 12:223. 95 Ibid., 12:256-257. 96 Yuka Mochizuki, ‘Spiritualité de Port-Royal: Grâce et pénitence’, in: XVIIe siècle 62 (2010) no.3 [no.248], 479-489.

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communion. Arnauld made this argument using the example of the Apostles, noting that the Apostles did not participate in the Eucharist until after they had received grace, as the Holy Spirit, at Pentecost.97 He argued that ‘it is necessary that the Holy Spirit descends on humans, to make them capable of approaching this holy flesh’.98 In fact, he further explained that the only place before Pente- cost where Scripture mentioned the Eucharist is with the disciples on the road to Emmaus.99 In this instance, the fact that the disciples’ ‘hearts were burning’ within them meant that they had already received grace. Like Edwards, Arnauld distinguished between two types of grace: habitual grace and actual grace, the latter of which only appeared in ‘les Justes’.100 He said that heretics, like the Pelagians, did not deny the existence of habitual grace, but rather the existence of actual grace, the grace that made us act and without which ‘we can do nothing that is pleasing to God’.101 Of course, as Edwards required both a profession of godliness and a saintly life as evidence of grace, Arnauld required that not only the interior disposition, but also the exterior actions of a person conformed with God’s grace. He said, It is to be Jewish to imagine that all exterior actions, however holy they appear, can please God, if they are not sanctified by his spirit. And it is to be Pelagian to believe, that these acts of faith, hope, charity, and humility (…) can do so other than by a particular gift of the grace of Jesus Christ, that forms in us the movements of the heart.102 For both Edwards and Arnauld, one had to be a recipient of God’s saving, or actual, grace, and to have some visible manifestation of that grace in order to approach the sacrament of communion.

4. Conclusion – Limiting Communion in Two Contexts

This comparison between Edwards and Arnauld on their teachings about communion has aimed to go further more in depth than the general comparisons

97 Arnauld, Œuvres, 27:191-192. 98 ‘il faut que le S. Esprit descende sur les hommes, pour les rendre capables de s’approcher de cette viande sainte’. Ibid., 27:192. 99 See Luke 24:13-35. 100 Arnauld, Œuvres, 27:633. 101 ‘nous ne pouvons rien faire qui plaise à Dieu’. Ibidem. 102 ‘C’est être Juif de s’imaginer que toutes les actions extérieures, quelque saintes qu’elles parois- sent, puissant plaire à Dieu, si elles ne sont sanctifies par son esprit. Et c’est être Pélagien que de croire, que ces actes de foi, d’espérance, de charité & d’humilité (…) se puissent faire autre- ment que par un don particulier de la grace de Jesus Christ, qui nous en forme les mouvements dans le cœur’. Ibid., 27:602.

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between Jansenist and Puritan theology and spirituality that have appeared in scholarship thus far. Although Edwards and Arnauld wrote in different contexts and had no direct intellectual link between them, many similarities appear in their spiritualities in spite of their doctrinal and contextual differences. These similarities in particular highlight some of the common theological themes between Jansenism and Puritanism. Some of these similarities derived from both Jansenism and Puritanism being developments from a longer tradition of communion spirituality. For example, both Jansenism and Puritanism held the example of the early church as normative for Christian practices. This appears in both Edwards’s and Arnauld’s texts, though Edwards located the early church in the example provided in scripture, while Arnauld located it primarily in the writings of the Church Fathers. This difference highlights the differing conceptions of authoritative sources for theological reflection between the Calvinist and Catholic traditions. Additionally, both Jansenism and Puritanism emphasized the importance of one’s interior disposition in relation to the morality or salvific nature of one’s actions. In reference to the spirituality of communion practices, both Edwards and Arnauld advocated the limitation of communion to those deemed worth based ultimately on the interior disposition of that person. However, because of the different practices of the Calvinist and Catholic traditions, each identified a different manner for identifying the worthiness of the interior disposition. For Edwards, the minister determined this worthiness through a public profession of godliness. For Arnauld, the confessor determined this worthiness, while seeking out evidence of true contrition and true love of God in a person’s penitential actions. Finally, both Jansenism and Puritanism placed importance on conversion experiences and the role of love in the interior disposition of the Christian. Edwards and Arnauld both necessitated an experience of conversion prior to reception of communion, the sacrament being the terminus of the conversion experience, not an aid to help one in the process of converting to a Christian life. This aspect of their thought, the delay of communion until achieving a certain perfection, remains unique to their spiritualities. They both also emphasized love of God as a prerequisite to the sacrament, though their differing emphases on the type of love derived also from the differing conceptions of the sacrament of communion coming from the Calvinist and Catholic traditions. Edwards placed more emphasis on a concept of brotherly love as part of God’s family at the communion table, while Arnauld emphasized the idea of love of God before all else. The Puritans, like Edwards, tended to emphasize involve- ment in the world, so his conception of love appears as a brotherly love, embrac- ing the other. The Jansenists had a tendency to retreat from the world, so Arnauld emphasized this love as a love of God before all else, separating oneself from the other.

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Although this study has limited itself to an examination of the spiritualities of Jonathan Edwards and Antoine Arnauld through their main texts on communion, Edwards’s Humble Inquiry and Arnauld’s On Frequent Communion, it provides a concrete comparison of Jansenism and Puritanism through one of the major figures in each movement. It illustrates just a beginning to possible comparisons between the spiritualities of the Jansenists in seventeenth-century France and Edwards and his followers in eighteenth-century America. Although separated by chronology and geographical distance, there remain many such affinities, and these comparisons can show in detail some of the ways in which Puritans and Jansenists remained cousins, across a denominational divide.

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