the honour of their own understandings by overvaluing me, and would fain have spent his time in translating some of my books into the French tongue.” Again, in 1671, Baxter writes, “Dr Ludov: Molineus was so vehemently set upon the crying down of the Papal and Prelatical Government, that he thought it was that he was sent into the world for, to convince princes that all government was in themselves, and that no proper government (but only persuasion) belonged to the churches. To which end he wrote his Paraenesis contra adificatores imperii in imperio, and his Papa Ultrajectinus, and other tractates, and thrust them on me to make me of his mind, and at last wrote his Jugulum Causa: with no less than seventy epistles directed to princes and men of interest, among which he was pleased to put one to me. The good man meant rightly in the main, but had not a head sufficiently accurate for such a controversy, and so could not perceive that anything could be called properly Government, that was, in no way, co-active [co-ercive] by corporal penalties. To turn him from the Erastian extreme and to end that controversy by a reconciliation, I published An Hundred Propositions conciliatory, on the difference between the magistrate’s power and the pastor’s." Dr Du Moulin had some angry paper warfare with three Deans — Stillingfleet, Durell, and Patrick, and with his kinsman, Canon De l’ Angle; and before his death he wrote for publication a retractation of all the mere personalities which he had printed. What most offended those dignitaries was that in the last year of his life he published these two pamphlets — (1.) The conformity of the discipline and government of those who are commonly called Independents to that of the ancient Primitive Christians. (2.) A short and true account of the several advances the Church of England hath made towards Rome. His comparatively young relative De L’Angle, besides using an unbecoming magisterial tone, had brought Prebendary Du Moulin’s name into the dispute. Louis Du Moulin, in reply, hoped that his brother would discover where the Church’s true distemper lay, and thereafter what was the remedy for it. His concluding paragraph I quote as a specimen of his style:— “In a word, I hope from my brother that being reconciled to the people of God and to me, he will make my peace with Monsieur de l’ Angle, which he may easily do; for oftentimes some seem to be in great wrath and indignation, who would fain notwithstanding be made friends again, when they find they are angry without cause and to no purpose. I attribute that bitterness of his towards me, not to his natural temper which is meek and humble and full of benignity, but to that great distance which he fancies to be between his fortune and mine, and to that high place of preferment wherein he now is. So that I say of him what the fable reports of the Lamb and the Wolf — that the Lamb seeing from the top of the house, where he was, the Wolf passing by, gave him very railing and injurious language; but the Wolf answered him mildly, ‘I do not concern myself much at thy sharp and scornful words, for I am sure thy nature is quite contrary to it, but I attribute it to the highness of the place to which thou are exalted, which makes thee to forget thy usual and ordinary sweetness of temper.’” Dr Du Moulin died on the 20th October 1680, and was buried in St Paul’s, Covent Garden. He was aged 77.
The most able Divine of the Refugee Churches in England was Jean D’Espagne, called by the English John Despagne (or, Despaigne). He was a native of Dauphiné born in 1591, and ordained to the pastorate at the age of nineteen.[1] It is said that he came to England soon thereafter, perhaps after the assassination of Henri IV. His name does not appear until the era of the Westminster Assembly and the Long Parliament. The City of London French Church claimed the charge of all the French Protestants in London, and resisted the formation of a congregation in Westminster. About 1641 the Due de Sonbise, being physically unable to go to the City Church, provided service in a room in his house, which he opened for public worship. Perhaps Monsieur D’Espagne was the preacher to this
- ↑ See a useful book, entitled, “Sound Doctrine, extracted from the writings of the most eminent Reformed Divines chiefly of the French Protestant Church. Translated from the French. Bath, 1801.” The French Original was published at Basle with the following “Approbation”; Imprimatur, Johan. Balthasar Burcardus, S.S. Th. D. et. Prof.; Facul. Theologicae in Academiâ Basiliens. h. a. Decanus, D. 29 Scptembr. 1768.
