Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew (1st ed. vol 3).djvu/170

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
158
FRENCH PROTESTANT EXILES

recognition of his learned acquirements, and became F.R.S. He had a host of distinguished correspondents, and his ten volumes of manuscript (eight of which are filled with their letters) are in the British Museum. He was born in 1673, and died in 1745.

The following names occur in this Chapter:— De Monmort (p. 85), Robartes (p. 85), Simpson (p. 86), Baily (p. 86;, Francis (p. 86), Earl of Macclesfield (p. 86), Sir John Leslie (p. 87), Rapin (p. 88), Troussaye (p. 89), Lembrasieres (p. 89), Duke of Chandos (p. 91), Newton (p. 91), Baron de Bielfeld (p. 92).

Page 95. Sylvestre, Des Brisac, Morel, Gervais, Girardot de Sillieux, Blagny, Joseph Addison, David Hume, Dr William Warburton, and the Earl of Macclesfield.

Chapter XII. (pp. 96-118).

Refugee Clergy. — Group First,

(1.) Jacques Abbaide (pp. 96-102) of Nay, in Beam, in the kingdom of Navarre, was born in 1654, and died Dean of Killaloe, in 1727. He was celebrated for his eloquence, and for many invaluable works, such as, “The Truth of the Christian Religion,” “The Art of Knowing Oneself,” “Defense de la Nation Britannique,” “A Panegyric on our late Sovereign Lady Mary, Queen of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland,” &c., &c.

NOTES.

Abbadie’s first preceptor was La Placete, the moralist, whose treatise on conscience, entitled “The Christian Casuist,” was translated into English by Kennett in 1705. The translator differed from some sentiments in the chapter Of Ecclesiastical Ordinances, and therefore he subjoined a statement of the difference between the Anglican and French churches as to the obligation to submission to such ordinances, specially on the ground of their receiving a concurrent sanction from the Christian sovereign of the country. The difference appears in interpretations of the text in Luke xxii., “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them . . . but ye shall not be so” [or as Matt. xx. 26, has it, “but it shall not be so among you.”] Kennett informs us, “As to the disputed text, the generality of French divines of the Protestant Communion agree with our Dissenters in maintaining that it utterly prohibits the conjunction of civil and ecclesiastical power in the same person.” The opposite opinion is expressed by Hooker, who says, that our Lord’s complete statement amounts to this, that the servants of the kings of nations may hope to receive from them large and ample secular preferments; but not so the servants of Christ; they are not to expect such gifts from him: “Ye are not to look for such preferments at my hands; your reward is in heaven; submission, humility, meekness, are things fitter here for you, whose chiefest honour must be to sufler for righteousness sake.”

Bayle’s offensive book, to which Abbadie replied, was printed at Paris, with a licence from Louis XIV., it was entitled, “Avis Important aux Refugiez sur leur prochain Retour en France, donné pour etrennes a l’un d’eux en 1690. Par Monsieur, C. L. A. A. P. D. P. A Paris. Chez la Veuve de Gabriel Martin, rue S. Jacques, au soleil d’or. 1692. Avec Privilege du Roy.” Abbadie’s reply (as already said) gradually slid into a defence of the rival monarch, William III., though he had many fine passages on his proper subject. For instance, in some keen and powerful sentences, he ridiculed Bayle’s insinuation that the refugees on their return home might be dangerous to public tranquillity, because men who had shed so much ink in exposing the horrible cruelty of the recent persecutions, would probably take advantage of a tempting opportunity to shed the blood of their former persecutors. Another answer was undertaken by Monsieur De Larrey, a refugee in Holland, and was published with the title, “Reponse a l’Avis aux Refugiez. Par. M. D. L. R. A Rotterdam, Chez Reinier Leers. 1709.” At page 2 this author says: “I am well aware that a better pen than mine has already produced a refutation, and long ago. But that able author (Abaddie) devoted himself less to the vindication of the refugees than to the defence of the British nation. I shall take another course. I shall speak of the English Revolution only when I must, that is, when I meet that