Chapter I: Preface: , vii

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION, ix

LETTER I.

Disputes in the Sorbonne, and the invention of proximate power—a
term employed by the Jesuits to procure the censure of M.
Arnauld, 63

LETTER II.

Of sufficient grace, which turns out to be not
sufficient—Concert between the Jesuits and the Dominicans—A
parable, 76

Reply of “the Provincial” to the first two Letters, 88

LETTER III.

Injustice, absurdity, and nullity of the censure on M. Arnauld—A
personal heresy, 90

LETTER IV.

Actual grace and sins of ignorance—Father Bauny’s Summary of
sins, 100

LETTER V.

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