3^^^ Itheological seminary,! i Princeton, N. J. ' _ ^ f t BR 842 .L67 1842 c.l I Lorimer, John Gordon, 1804- 1 1868. An historical sketch of the Protestant Church of France AN HISTORICAL SKETCH PROTESTANT CHURCH OF FRANCE, FROM ITS ORIGIN TO THE PRESENT TIMES. WITH PARALLEL NOTICES OF THE (OHUJEOHOF 0(0©lE.ASr]D) DURING THE SAME PERIOD. BY THE / Rev. JOHN G. LORIMER, Minis^-^r of St. David's Parish, Glassow. PHILADELPHIA: PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION. PAUL T. JONES, PUBLISHING AGENT. 1842. Printed by WILLIAM ». MARTIEN. CONTENTS. PREFACE. - - - - - - - 15 CHAPTER I. HISTORY OF THE PROTESTANT CHURCH OF FRANCE FROM ITS ORIGIN IN 1559 TO 1571. Importance of the subject — Chief Authorities— Early Reformation indebted to Nobles — Translation of the Scriptures— Great Advan- tage of the Metrical Psalms — Early Success — Severe Sufferings of the Martyrs — Confession of Faith in Forty Articles — Wise Disci- pline of the Church in regard to Pastors, Teachers, Church Mem- bers, the Poor, &c. — Rapid Progress of the^^Church — Illustrated by Modern Missions in the South Seas. - - - 17 CHAPTER II. FROM 1572 TO 1598. Persecution — Fearful Massacre of St. Bartholomew — Disastrous Ef- fects of the Persecution — Efforts after an increased number of Pas- tors, and a well educated Ministry — Recommendations regarding Catechising, a new Translation of the Scriptures, Sanctification of the Sabbath, the Hallowing of God's Name — Testimony of the Church against various Errors, and the Proposal to Unite the Ro- mish and Reformed Churches— Unity of Sentiment and Affection among the Churches of the Reformation— Christian Spirit of the Church of France — Enfeebled and Declining State of many of her Congregations — Apostasy of Henry IV. - - - 42 PROTESTANTISM OF THE PROVINCES OF BEARN AND NAVARRE. Early Refuge for the Suffering Protestants— Rapid Progress of the Truth— Severe Struggles with the Popish Party— Exertions of Montgomery, a Scotchman — Defence of the Protestants taking up 8 CONTENTS. Arms — Christian Character of the Church of Beam and Navarre — Education; Sabbath Observance ; Appointment of Ministers; Mis- sionary Spirit; Sympathy with the Suffering. - - 57 CONTEMPORANEOUS HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND FROM 1560 TO 1592. Early Connection between Scotland and the Continent of Europe — Number of Scotchmen in France — The low Moral and Religious State of Scotland prior to the Reformation — The First Martyrs — Humble Beginnings and amazing Progress of the Reformed Church — Resemblance between the Church of Scotland and the Church of France in Doctrine and Discipline — High Qualifications required for the Ministry — Manifold Labours of the Pastor — Success against Popery — Spirit of Union with Christian Churches, and Sympathy ■with the x\fflicted — Explanation and Vindication of the High Dis- cipline of the Church — Confirmation of preceding Statements from recently discovered Records of the General Session of Glas- gow ..-..-.. 63 CHAPTER HI. FROM 1598 TO 1660. The Establishment of the Edict of Nantes— The Religious Wars which preceded it— The Advantages of the Edict — Early Encroach- ments and Cruelties under Louis XHI.— The Self-Defensive Efforts of the Protestants— Noble Character of Mornay Du Plessis— The Siege of Rochelle— Sympathy of the British Nation with the French Sufferers— Comparative Quiet — The generous Efforts of Oliver Cromwell in behalf of the Persecuted Piedmontese — Revival of Po- pery under Louis XHI.— Tlie Number of the Protestants — Their Loyalty — The Learning of the Ministers— Their Piety. - 77 CONTEMPORANEOUS HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND FROM 1592 TO 1660. Correspondence in the Histories of the Church of France and the Church of Scotland— The Encroachments of James VI. on the Con- stitution of the Presbyterian Church, and his Instruments— Noble Firmness of Ihe Presbyterian Ministers- Christian Character of the Church during the reign of James VI. — Labours in Planting Churches — Strict Discipline on Ministers and People — Exertions against Popery, and Success — Large Number of Communicants in Parishes; Cases of Ednam, Newbattle, Shetland— The Acces- sion of Charles I. and Rule of Archbishop Laud— The Service- Book attempted to be thrust on the Church— The Reaction— The Universal and Disinterested Struggle of the People of Scotland— CONTENTS. Civil Wars of England— Execution of Charles I., and Vindication of the Presbyterians from any share in it— Spiritual Character of the Church during her Wafare with the King— Devout Spirit of the Presbyterian Army— Vindicated from the Charge of Cruelty— - Labours of the Church against Popery, &c.— In behalf of Church Extension— Presbyterial Visitations— Family Worship— Fast Day Appointments— Special Revivals of Religion— Explanation of the Sins and Crimes met with in the Records of the Church— Talents and Attainments of the leading Ministers. - - - 94 PARALLELS BETWEEN THE CHURCHES OF FRANCE AND SCOTLAND WHILE THE EDICT OF NANTES WAS IN FORCE. Sect. I.— The Churches of France and Scotland encourage the Preparation and Publication of Good Books. 124 Sect. II.— Show love for the Word of God. - - 131 Sect. III. — Promote Education and Learning. - - 140 Sect. IV. — Cherish Sympathy and Benevolence. - - 157 Sect. V. — Advocate Christian Union. - - - I'^O Sect. VI.— Protest against the Corruptions of the Church of Rome. - - - - - - 180 Sect. VIL— Sound in Doctrine, and the Enemies of Error. - 190 CHAPTER IV. FROM 1660 TO 1685. Early and Manifold infractions of the Edict of Nantes preparatory to its Abrogation — Striking Testimony of Rev. Mr. Cotton, an En- glishman, to the Persecution in France, of which he was an eye- witness— Testimony of Wodrow the Historian — Petition presented in behalf of the French Protestants, by Marischal Shomberg— Peti- tion of Protestants themselves to the King — Actual Revocation OF the Edict of Nantes — Fearful Atrocities — Seven Different Methods of Persecution— Individual Cases of Suffering — Testi- mony of Bishop Burnet, an eye-witness, to the misery of France, and the Cruelties inflicted on the Protestants— Aggravations in the Sin of Persecution— The Christian Spirit of the Sufferers, Le Febvre — Marolles— Pierre Mauru— A humble Shepherd— Serre — The Romish Falsehood that there was no Persecution, and that the Protestants Conformed of their own accord — Destruction of their Religious books — Extension of the Persecution beyond the boundaries of France — Testimony afforded by Jurieu's Letters — Proscribed Meetings of the Protestants for Divine Worship— Re- markable Death of Rey, a youthful Martyr — Death of aged Mar- tyrs—Wretchedness of a Backslider— Banishment of the Faithful to America, and accompanying Sufferings— Jurieu's Testimony to to the Failure of the Persecution to make any real Converts to the Church of Rome — Moral Causes in the Providence of God for the protracted Persecution of the French Protestants. - - 205 *1 10 CONTENTS. KNOWLFDCE DISSOCIATED FROM TRUE RELIGION UTTERLY UNABLE TO PREVENT OR NEUTRALIZE THE SPIRIT OF PERSECUTION, EX- EMPLIFIED IN THE REIGN OF LOUIS XIV. Origin'of Persecution — Literature and Learning of France — The Pos- sessors did nothing to Prevent the Persecution, though the sufferers were many, and Friends of Knowledge — Attainments of the Re- formed in Learning — Unworthy adulation of the Persecutor by the Literati — Insufficiency of Literature to make men happy in them- selves, or the Sources of Good to others — Value of Religious Prin- ciple. 270 CONTEMPORANEOUS HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND FROM 1660 TO 1688. Cromwell's Rule in Scotland — His Encouragement of Learning and Protestantism — The Moral and Proximate causes of the Coming Persecution — The General Joy at the Restoration of Charles XL — The Character of his Leading Agents in Scotland — The Flagrant Violation of the Constitution and Privileges of the Church of Scot- land— The Disinterested Sacrifices of the Presbyterian Ministers, four hundred of whom were ejected from their Charges — The Mise- rable Character of their Episcopal Successors — The Extent and Severity of the Persecution — Various Testimonies to it — The Pres- byterians Vindicated from the Charge of being Rebels — The Moral and Religious Character of the Covenanters as a whole — The Suf- ferings of the Episcopalians in England, under Cromwell, not to be compared with those of the Presbyterians in Scotland and in Eng- land, under Charles and James — Character of the Church during the Persecuting Times, as appears from Ecclesiastical Records — Character of Charles IL — James IL a Roman Catholic, and labours to Establish Popery — Services of the Church of England against Popery, Disinterested Conduct of the Presbyterians, both in Scot- land and in England — Failure of the Efforts of the King — Revolution of 1G88; Connection between the Persecutors in Britain and France, and Designs of Popery — The French Protestants aided the British Revolution — The Revolution itself the Effect of the Interposition of Providence. ...... 277 THE CHURCHES OF FRANCE AND SCOTLAND VINDICATED FROM THE CHARGE OF REBELLIOxN THE OBJECTIONS OF DR. PUSEY CON- SIDERED. Question of the Lawfulness of Resistance to Civil Power — Argu- ments for Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance; Statements of Dr. Puscy — The Actual Conduct of the Presbyterians in France and Scotland — The Views of Scripture — The Example of the Pri- mitive Church— Turned against Dr. Puscy and his Friends — 'I he Supposed Good of Uniform and Universal Non-Rcsistance, and the Supposed evil of Resistance in any Case Disproved by Acts — Con- CONTENTS. 11 demnation of the Severe and Unwarrantable Tone in which Dr. Pusey speaks of the Suffering Saints of God — Testimonies to the Character of the French Protestant Church by Distinguished Wri- ters: Edwards, Burnet, Croly, Faber — Church of England Divines Approve of Resistance in Extreme Cases — Conduct of the Univer- sity of Oxford in the Matter— Extract from Dr. M'Crie on the Sub- ject, in Answer to Fuller — Illustration from Switzerland — Senti- ments of Calvin— Religious Spirit of the French Protestants ia taking up Arms— Caution with which the whole Subject should be Regarded 300 CHAPTER V. FROM 1685 TO 1715. The Dread Consequences of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes — Emigration from France — Testimony of Bishop Burnet to this point — Correspondence of a Swiss Magistrate with one of the Cap- tives detained in France — Multitude of emigrants to different Pro- testant Countries — France suffered Commercially — Impulse given to the Manufactures of Britain by French Refugees — Dispersion of French Ministers — Residence of several in Edinburgh — De Sou- ligne's Statement of the Commercial Loss to France by Popery — Generosity of British Christians to Suffering Refugees — Collec- tions, &,c. — Kindness to the German Palatinates at the same period — Condition of the Protestants who remained in France — Faithful Christian Counsels Addressed to them by their Exiled Ministers — Persecution still went forward — The Protestant or Camisard Strug- gle— Pretensions to Prophetic Gifts ; the Fruit of Oppression — Per- secution of the Saints the means of the Conversion of a Roman Catholic Priest— The Miserable Death of Louis XIV., an Illustra- tion of Moral Government — Forgiving Spirit of the Protestants — Moral Government in Case of Charles IX., and Insufficiency of Science to Prevent Persecution in Case of Gregory XIII. {Note.) 313 CONTEMPORANEOUS HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND FROM 1688 TO 1715. Diversity of God's Treatment of the Churches of the Reformation — Critical Circumstances of the Protestants of Europe, immediatsiy before the British Revolution of 1688— One of the First Effects of the Revolution was to Check the Persecution of the Protestants in Piedmont — The Moral and Religious State of Scotland at the Revo- lution — Peculiar Difficulties connected with the Revolution in Scot- land— Zeal and Sacrifices of the Church in carrying it through — Generous Conduct of the Presbyterians towards the Episcopalians — Comprehension of the Episcopal Incumbents in the Presbyterian Establishment, a fatal Error — External Circumstances of Britain immediately after the Revolution— Zealous Efforts of the Church of Scotland in Church Extension, especially in the Highlands and Islands — In the Cause of Education — Various other proofs of a Christian Spirit — Universities— Ministers sent to the Colony of 1 2 CONTENTS. Daricn— Favourable Practical Result of the Operation of Christian Means ; Dr. Benyon's Testimony — De Foe's— Favourable Change in the Western Highlands— Also North Highlands— General Tes- timony of Professor Wodrovv, Sir H. MoncriefF, and Pierce — Union between the two Kingdoms, in a chief degree carried through by the Church — Adverse Influences with which the Church had to Contend, particularly Queen Anne's Act Restoring Lay Patronage in 1711. ...... 339 CHAPTER VI. FROM 1715 TO 1755. Ebbs and Flows of Persecution — Persecuting Declaration of 1724 — " French Convert" — Christian Character and Loyalty of the Pro- testants— Character of the Church of Rome in France at the same time ; Jesuists and Jansenists — Notice of Jansenism — Amount of Protestant Population at this time — Continued Persecution; Mar- tyrdom of an Aged Minister — Varied Forms of Persecution — Last Days of Several Martyrs — Aggravating Circumstances in the Per- secution— Notice of the Persecution in other Popish Countries at the same period, Poland, Austria — The Saltzburghers find a Refuge in Prussia — Character and Conduct of — The Tyrolese of the same Country Persecuted at the present day by Austria, and find a Refuge also in Prussia — The Present Erastian Persecution in Prussia — Importance of maintaining the Headship of Christ. - 367 CONTEMPORANEOUS HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND FROM 1715 TO 1755. Improved Protestant security of Britain, by the Accession of the Hanoverian Family — Remarkable Providence of God in connection with the present Royal Family and Protestantism (Note) — Church of Scotland and Presbyterians warm friends of the Protestant Suc- cession— Christian Character and Liberality of the Church of Scot- land— Contributions for the College of New Jersey in the United States — For the Churches of Lithuania — Labours of the Church in the Cause of Church and School Extension — Pleasing Symptoms of Revival in particular parishes — General Decline of Sound Doc- trine and True Religion in the Church; Case of Simson, &,c. — • Indications of Infidelity in Scotland — Similar DecUne in the other Churches of the Reformation — Eff'orts of Faithful Men in England and Germany to Arrest the Degeneracy (Note) — Decline in the Church of England — Among the English Dissenters — In Ireland — In Geneva — In the ProtcstantChurch of Germany — The Proximate Causes of the General Decline — Progress of the Degeneracy in Scotland; the Secession — Attachment of the People to Evangelical Preaching— God's Mercy to the Clmrch of Scotland in the Revi- vals of 1743— Popish Rebellion of 1745— The State blameworthy in not providing the Moral Means for counteracting Popery — At- tachment of the Church of Scotland to the Protestant Royal Fami- ly—Statement of Dr. Doddridge as to the Causes and Cure of Po- pery in the Highlands and Islands. - . - 389 CONTENTS. 13 CHAPTER VII. FROM 1755 TO 1792. Relaxation of the Persecution for a Season— Its Revival in connection with the Prohibition of Protestant Marriages— The Celebrated Case of M. Roux— Troussel's Eloquent Pleading— Dawn of Toleration and its causes — Its connection with wide-spread Infidelity — The French Revolution— Number of the Protestants at this period— Serious decline in Religious Character, and causes of this— Imper- feet Education of the Pastors— Fine Character of Paul Rabaut, the most eminent of the number — Injurious effect of Infidelity on Pro- testantism and Freedom— Decline of Sound Doctrine and Religious Character among the French Protestants in Holland— Some Pro- testant Pastors as well as Roman Catholic Priests avow Infidelity during the French Revolution — The Revolutionists Persecute the faithful Protestants. ... - - 420 CONTEMPORANEOUS HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND FROM 1755 TO 1792. Progress of the Religious Decline — New Secession from the Church owing to the rigorous exercise of Patronage — Arrest of the Church's efforts for increased Schools and Places of Worship — Increase of Popery— The Seven Years' War (Note) — Faithful minority still in the Church— Their labours through " The Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge" — Character and Policy of the Majority in the General Assembly — Their alleged Connection with Literature (^Note) — Description of the cold Christianity, Irreligion, and un- sound Doctrine of Britain generally — Testimony of Toplady in regard to the Church of England — Bishop Lavington — Biographer of Hervey — In regard to the English Dissenters, testimonies of Watts, Doddridge, Orton, Ryland, &c. — Discreditable conduct of Socinians (Note) — Infidelity in Britain, threatening aspects — Over- ruled for the Revival of Evangelical Religion— Similar Revival in the Protestant Churches of Germany from similar causes — Testi- mony of Professor Tholuck to this purpose. - - 436 CHAPTER Vni. FROM 1792 TO 1840. Infidelity a Persecutor— Persecuting Sentiments and Conduct of the French Revolutionists— Moral Retribution of Providence on the Infidel Leaders; the Popish persecution of the Protestant Church the true cause of the French Revolution — Return of France to the Profession of Christianity and Religious Toleration— Improved Condition of the Protestant Church under Napoleon — Code of Pub- lie Rules for her Government— No Improvement in her Spiritual Character— Further External Advantages— Depressed Spiritual 14 CONTENTS. Condition continued; its Causes — Revival by the Instrumentality of the Circulation of the Scriptures, and Visits by British Chris- tians— Labours of Robert Haldane, Esq. — Remarkable Conversion of a French Protestant Pastor — Faithful Protestant Remnant in Secluded Spots — Rev. Mr. Davies' Visit to one of them — Large share of remaining Neology — Severe Persecution of the Protestants , on the Restoration of the Bourbons, in 1816 — Difference between it and the former Persecutions — Present and growing numbers of the Protestant Church — General Condition of the Pastors — Reli- gious Character still low — Progress toward Improvement — Evan- gelical tone of the Religious Press — Missionary Spirit — Special Revivals — Incipient Persecution — Letter of M. Marzials. 456 CONTEMPORANEOUS HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND FROM 1792 TO 1840. Further Testimonies to the General Religious Declension of last Cen- tury— The low State of Religion affected Literature — And the Spirit of Public Freedom — Testimony of Dr. Jamieson to prevail- ing Irreligion — Of Professor Bruce — Revival in Great Britain — Missionary Spirit — Warm Missionary Spirit of Baxter — (Note) — Causes of the Spread of Evangelical Religion in Scotland — Diffu- sion of Scripture; Religious Periodicals — Discussions of Church Courts; Eminent Men raised up; Special Revivals of Religion — The Five Missionary Schemes of the Church — Immense Sale of Works of Practical Theology (Note) — Ascendency of the Evan- gelical Party in the General Assembly — Happy Effects of the Change — Controversies in which the Church has been, and is en- gaged ; the Voluntary Question — Controversy regarding the Head- ship of Christ — Probable Design of Providence in connection with the Present Agitations of the Church — Prospects of the Church ; in all circumstances will be found the Friend of Knowledge — Free- dom— National Happiness — Importance of using the Press on the side of the Church and True Religion. - - - 491 PREFACE. Though the claims of more pressing- avocations forbid the opportunity, even had I the ability, to make profound researches or original remarks, yet the sketches now presented possess the advantage of being, so far as I know, the only work on the sub- ject. Various books have been written, particularly of late, bearing more or less on the Reformed Church of France, parti- cularly Mr. D. Scott's important work, still in progress, " On the Suppression of the Reformation in France ;" but they either comprehend only a limited portion of the history, or they pre- sent it in its merely external and secular aspects. It is the aim of the following pages to give a view of the entire history of the Protestant Church of France through three centuries, and that chiefly in its spiritual character as a Church of Christ. The absence of the latter is, I apprehend, a great defect in most works on ecclesiastical history. Along with these, I have com- bined interesting facts in the contemporaneous history of the Church of Scotland, some of them unknown to any, save to those who have had access to the same documents. The reader, therefore, will know what he has to expect — not an elaborate historical work — but brief sketches, designed to draw forth the spiritual character of Churches towards which God has exer- cised not a few remarkable dispensations. The comparison of the history of the two Churches will serve to show the diver- sity of God's Providential dealings with his own people. It appears from the " Life of Dr. M'Crie," that that eminent man, twenty -seven years ago, strongly recommended his not less eminent friend. Dr. Andrew Thomson, to write the History of the Protestant Church of France — among other reasons, be- cause there was no readable book on the subject, and because of the remarkable correspondence, in many points, between the constitution and history of the Church of France and the Church of Scotland. I have not the presumption to imagine, that the following pages have supplied what such an historical writer as Dr. M'Crie pronounced to be wanting. But the Public have thus the best, and that an unlooked-for testimony, to the fact, that there is a desideratum in Church History to be met; and however defective the present Sketch may be in itself, and even 16 PREFACE. in the views and wishes of the writer, it is matter of no small satisfaction, that having been drawn accidentally to the study of the Ecclesiastical History of the Reformed Church of France, I should have pursued it in a form which so far accords with the views of the immortal biog-rapher of Knox. I have an additional motive for the publication, and it is to be found in the present prospects of Popery, both at home and abroad, and the liberalized feeling with which it is regarded by many professed Protestants. Nothing is better fitted, with the Divine blessing, to correct erroneous views of Popery, than to survey its operation in France, and towards the Protestant Church of that country, during the last three hundred years. In the course of this survey, we behold it in all states of society — in peace and in war — under despotism, and in comparative freedom — in ignorance, and in days of civilization and refine- ment; and we find what experience testifies as to its ability to change for the better in any circumstances. I make no apology for the frequency with which I give quo- tations, particularly from the official documents of the Protes- tant Church. These not only add authority and weight to the facts which they record, but the fine spirit and tone in which they are usually conceived, not unfrequently afllbrd a far more correct impression of the talent of the writers, and religious temper of the Church, than any descriptions of a modern author. I have not always been careful to mark the page or the chapter of the quotation. The most important are given, and I can assure the reader of the accuracy of those which have not been recorded. My earnest prayer is, that the Great Head of the Church may bless the present humble undertaking for the glory of His own name, and that this work may not only prove interesting to Christians at home, but to Christians in France, and urge on the blessed revival which has so happily begun. JOHN G. LORIMER. Glasgow, 21th Nov. 1840. 'T'^^r ^^--r PROTESTANT CHURCH OF FRANCE. CHAPTER I. FR03VI ITS ORIGIN IN 1559 TO 1571. The friends of religion are at present much interested in the symptoms of revival which are appearing in the Protestant Church of France, and well may they be so. The influence of that country, with its thirty-two millions of population, and high state of civilization, must be immense throughout Europe. F«w centres of Christian influence can be more extensively powerful, and the new life and growth of Popery in various parts of France, render the present revival of the truth the more interesting. In these circumstances, it may not be unseasonable to recall the public attention to the state and character of the Protestant Church, from its origin down to the present day. It is always pleasing to trace the steps of the Great Head of the Church towards his people; and memorials of past mercy are fitted, when gratefully acknow- ledged, to draw down the Divine blessing, and to suggest plans of present usefulness. My authority for the earlier statements shall be unexceptionable, consisting chiefly of the public acts and decrees of the national councils of the Reformed Church in France, collected by Quick, in his Sy- nodicon, and published in two folio volumes, at London, in 1692. Various other works shall be referred to, particularly ♦* Status Ecclesise Gallicanae," London, 1676; and, as the history proceeds, a series of rare and important pamphlets, almost inaccessible to the general reader ; also, the Rev. Dr. Erskine's Sketches of Church History. My authority for most of the statements connected with the corresponding history of the Church of Scofland shall be the Acts of the 2 18 PROTESTANT CHURCH General Assembly, printed and unprinted, and various MS. Records of Synods and Presbyteries, to which I have had he privilege of access. Many are imperfectly acquainted with the early history of the Protestant Church of France. It is imagined that it was small and poor, and that its annals contain little to interest the Christian student ; but the truth is, it was one of the largest and most glorious Churches of Christendom, supplied an immense host of martyrs, and furnishes the most inte- resting and valuable instruction to Christians in every age. I can refer only to the more prominent facts. The doctrines of the Reformation were early introduced into France, and, as in other continental countries, the professors of them were not a little indebted to the countenance and support of per- sons of rank and influence. At a period when the Church of Rome w^as so completely paramount, it is not easy to see, humanly speaking, how the gospel, or its first profession, could have made progress at all, had not ministers and people been favoured by the powerful. Accordingly, so early as 1520, the sister of Francis I. was a zealous Protestant, while her brother was a bitter persecutor. Fifteen years later, the Scriptures were translated into the French language, by Oli- vitan, the uncle of the celebrated Calvin, and shortly after, the Psalms of David were turned into verse by one of the popular poets of the day, and set to melodious music. This last undertaking was attended with remarkable success. There had been nothing of the same kind before, and so the whole music of the people was perverted to superstitious and sinful purposes. Now, the national genius was enlisted on the side of truth. " Tiiis holy ordinance," says Quick, " charmed the ears, hearts, and affections of court and city, towm and country. They were sung in the Louvre, as well as in the Pres des Clerks, by the ladies, princes, yea, and by Henry II. himself. This one ordinance alone contributed mightily to the downfall of Popery, and the propagation of the Gospel. It took so much with the genius of the nation, that all ranks and degrees of men practised it, in the temples, and in their families. No gentleman professing the Reform- ed Religion would sit down at his table without praising God by singing. Yea, it was an especial part of their morning and evening worship in their several houses, to sing God's praises." Such offence did this sacred verse and music give to the Popish priests, and so much did they dread its power, that a leading man of their number had the Odes of OP FRANCE. 19 Horace translated and set to music as a counteractive. Let us hope that the turning of the Irish Psalms into verse, an honour which has been reserved for the Rev. Dr. McLeod of Glasgow, will-be as extensively useful in displacing vin- dictive and licentious songs, and conveying a saving know- ledge of divine truth, in the most interesting form, to a people not less susceptible of the charms of poetry, nor less deeply sunk in the moral degradation of Popery. About the same period in which the Scriptures were translated into French, the celebrated Institutes of Calvin were published, and ex- tensively circulated. These means, together with the labours of faithful men, were crowned with the divine blessing; and the Gospel made such decided progress, that persecution was awakened in a very virulent form. The king himself assist- ed at the burning of many martyrs at Paris. These pro- ceedings, as has often been the case in similari nstances, in- stead of hindering, accelerated the cause they were meant to destroy, and in so important a degree, that in 1559, the first General Assembly of the Protestant Church was held at Paris, in the very face of a hostile court. It is remarkable, that this was the very year before the first General Assembly of the Protestant Church of Scotland was held at Edinburgh, so nearly cotemporaneous was the progress of the Gospel in the two countries. In spite of all the persecution v/hich had been sustained, the following is Quick's account of the Pro- testant cause at the time the first Assembly convened at Paris. *' The holy word of God is duly, truly, and powerfully preached in churches and fields, in ships and houses, in vaults and cellars, in all places where the gospel ministers can have admission and conveniency, and with singular suc- cess. Multitudes are convinced and converted, established and edified. Christ rideth out upon the white horse of the ministry, with the sword and bow of the gospel preached, conquering and to conquer. His enemies fall under him, and submit themselves unto him. O the unparalleled suc- cess of the plain and zealous sermons of the first reformers ! Multitudes flock in like doves into the windows of God's ark. As innumerable drops of dew fall from the womb of the morning, so hath the Lord Christ the dew of his youth. The Popish churches are drained, the Protestant temples are filled. The priests complain that their altars are neglected; their masses are now indeed solitary. Dagon cannot stand before God's ark. Children, and persons of riper years, are 20 PROTESTANT CHURCH catechised in the rudiments and principles of the Christian rehgion, and can give a comfortable account of their faith, a reason of that hope that is in them. By this ordinance do their pious pastors prepare them for communion with the Lord at his holy table. Here they communicate in both kinds, according to the primitive institution of the Sacrament by Jesus Christ himself." It would be unjust, however, to the memory of the suffer- ing saints of God, not to be a little more particular as to the early persecutions of the Protestants of France. Clarke, in his Martyrology, gives a short detail, from which it appears that the fire may be said to have been kindled as soon as in 1524. Down to 1560, or in thirty-six years, there were ever and anon cases of martyrdom, in that most dreadful of all forms — burning to death. I have counted eighty-five cases; and, as the historian frequently uses the general terms " several," " divers," we may safely conclude that, before the Protestant Church could boast of any distinct organization, more than a hundred saints had sealed their testimony with their blood. The English martyrologist, John Foxe, parti- cularizes a hundred. This is a much greater number than suffered in Scotland in the same period, and shows how keen and virulent was the hostility from the very first. Indeed, France has ever shown a peculiar appetite for blood. Satan would crush the earliest buddings of the truth, jusdy appre- hensive of what they would grow to. Among the sufferers I may relate, on the authority of M. Savagner, {Histoire de Calvinisme en France,) the case of the six, or rather the thirty-six persons, destroyed in the presence and with the assistance of the king, to whom I have already alluded. Francis I., of France, ranks in history as one of the most heroic and generous of kings, as well as one of the most devoted sons of the Church of Rome. " On the 21st of January 1535, the procession for public expiation of offences against the holy sacrament issued from the church of St. Germain, bearing the bodies and the relics of all tlie martyrs preserved in the sanctuaries of Paris : amongst the rest, the beard of St. Louis, and those relics from the holy chapel which had not been exposed since his death. There were many cardinals, bishops, abbes, and other pre- lates; all the secular colleges — the bishop of Paris bearing the holy sacrament — then followed the king, uncovered, hold- ing a wax candle in his hand; and after him the queen, the princes, the two hundred gentlemen of the court, all the guard. OP FRANCE. 21 the parliament, the masters of requests, and all the bench of justice— then the ambassadors of foreign states and princes. The procession passed slowly through all the quarters of the city ; and, in the six principal places, an altar for the holy sacrament, a scaffold, and a funeral pile, had been previously prepared. At each of these spots six persons were burned alive! amidst immense outcries from the populace, which was so excited, that it attempted to wrest the victims from the executioner, in order to tear them in pieces. The king had ordered those unhappy persons to be tied to an elevated machine, a kind of beam so balanced, that, as it was letdown, they were plunged into the flames of the pile, but lifted up again, so as to prolong their agonies ; and this repeated, until the cords which bound them being consumed, they fell into the fire. It was so arranged, that the operations of this fright- ful see-saw should be complete, and the victims fall imme- diately after the procession and the king reached each station. And then the king, handing his candle to the cardinal of Lor- raine, joined his hands, and humbly prostrating himself, im- plored the Divine mercy on his people, until the victims perished in their horrible tortures. Then the procession ad- vanced, and finally stopping at the Church of St. Genevieve, where the sacrament was deposited on the altar, and mass chanted. After which the king and the princes dined with the bishop of Paris, lean du Bellay ; and the king made a speech." *' At the very moment of these horrible proceed- ings," says M. Savagner, "Francis I. wrote a letter to the Protestants of Germany, seeking their friendship and alliance, in order to strengthen himself against his great rival, Charles v., in which letter he condescended to the utmost baseness to gain his ends." I cannot withhold from the reader the account of another martyrdom, which, while it shows the malignity of Popery, beautifully illustrates the power of true religion. Happily, the Protestant Church of France, like several other Protes- tant Churches, has been favoured with a faithful chronicler of the sufferings of her saints. John Crispin of Arras, a lawyer, has for France executed the part so well done for England by John Foxe, and for Scotland by the author of the Cloud of Witnesses. These publications have been emi- nently useful in arming the Protestants of the respective countries against the Man of Sin, and spreading the princi- ples of the Reformation. In Crispin's celebrated work, en- titled " History of Martyrs, persecuted for the truth of the 22 PROTESTANT CHURCH Gospel, from times of the Apostles to the year 1574," we have a short account of the martyrdom of five young men, students, who were burnt at Lyons in 1553. Their confes- sion and letters from the prison in which they were confined for a year, indicate clear views of divine truth, and the no- blest spirit of Christianity. I have room only for the closing scene. They had been confined in the same dungeon to prevent them contaminating others : " When the hour of two o'clock came they were led out, clad in gray robes, and tied with cords. They exhorted one another to presevere stead- fastly, since the end of their course was won, and victory was certain. They were put into one wagon. They then began to sing the 9th Psalm — ' I will bless thee continually, O Lord,' &;c. Although they had no time to finish it, yet they continued to call upon God, and to recite passages of Scrip- ture. Among others, as they traversed the place called L'Herberie, at the end of the bridge, over the Soane, one of them turning to the crowd, with a loud voice, said, the 'The God of peace, who brought again from the dead the Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will;' then they began to recite the apostles' creed, dividing it by articles, and reciting them one after another. The one who had to repeat the words — ' He was conceived of the Holy Ghost; horn of the Virgin 3Iary,^ — raised his voice, that the people might know the calumny by which it was pretended they denied this article, and that they had spoken evil of the Virgin Mary. Twice they said to the soldiers, who often troubled them, and threatened to make them hold their peace, ' Will you hinder us for the litde time we have to live, from praying and calling upon God? At last, when they had reached the place of punishment, they were seen with a light heart upon the pile of wood which was around the stake. The two youngest of them mounted first, the one after the other ; and when they had taken off their robes, the executioner tied them to the stake. The last who mounted was Martial Alba, the oldest of the five. He was a long time on both knees upon the wood, praying to the Lord. When the executioner, who had tied the others, came to him while he was still upon his knees, he took him under the arms to put him down with the others, but Alba earnestly requested Lieutenant Tignac to grant him a favour. ' What do you wish?' said the lieutenant. 'That I may kiss my brethren before we die.' The lieutenant consented. Theii OF FRANCE. 23 Martial, who was slill upon the top of the wood, stooped and kissed his four brethren, who were already bound and fas- tened to the stake. He said to each of them, 'Adieu, adieu, my brother.'' Then the other four, though tied, kissed one another also, turning their necks, and saying one to another the same words, 'Adieu, my brother.' This done, and after Martial had commended his brethren to God, he wished, be- fore descending to be fastened to the stake, to kiss the exe- cutioner also, saying to him these words, ' My friend, forget not what I have said to thee."* The executioner, when he had tied all the five, surrounded them with a chain, which was fastened to the stake. Then the executioner being or- dered to hasten, put around each of their necks a cord to strangle all the five at once, by means of a machine which he had ready for the purpose but the fire having burnt the cord, they were heard in the midst of the flames exhorting one another wiih the words, ' Courage, brothers, courage J' These were the last words which were heard. Soon had the flames consumed their mortal bodies." This may be called the first period of persecution. It pre- ceded the organization of the Protestant Church. After that event, in 1559, matters became much worse. In the twelve short years which stretched to 1571, the martyrologist speaks of not less than forty towns or cities in France, where per- secution prevafled, and of one hundred, five hundred, twelve hundred persons being involved in sufl^ering for Christ at a time. Troops were brought against them, who inflicted un- speakable atrocities; but the hatred which was manifested to the Scriptures and good books, the stufl^ing of the leaves of the Bible into the mouths and wounds of the dying suflTerers, the jeers and blasphemies which were addressed to them for calling upon God, and the nature of the insult off'ered to their mortal remains, all plainly declared that the cause was not political, as Papists alleged, but religious, and that determin- ed hostility to the glorious Gospel of the Saviour w^as at the root of the whole. It is true that, in this period, the Pro- testants were led to take up arms, and to appear against their oppressors in the field of battle ; and that a gift of one hun- dred thousand crowns was made, and a permission to en- list soldiers among the Protestants of foreign lands, granted. But they were driven to these steps by dire necessity. Self- defence called for them, and but for its urgency, they would never have been resorted to. Let us, however, return more particularly to the Protestant Church now organized. 24 PROTESTANT CHURCH The General Assembly of the French Church consisted only of eleven ministers, that of Scotland of twelve. The French ministers met in secret, and proceeded forthwith to draw up a confession of their faith. This was particularly called for, owing to the misrepresentations of their real sen- timents and views current among their enemies. It is under- stood that the great Calvin bore a part in the preparation of this most interesting and admirable document. And two things are worthy of notice ; first, that it was solely the work of the Church — not the work of the State forced upon the Church; and secondly, that without any concert with other Protestant Churches, it remarkably harmonizes with the con- fessions of all, showing that, under the teaching of God's Spirit, no good men, wherever they may be scattered, and whatever their circumstances of trial, seriously differ in their interpretation of Scripture. It is a state of ease, and a sea- son of speculation, which lead men to doubt and disagree as to what is truth. Persecution drives to first principles, and when the heart is right, it keeps the head clear and sound. The reader will peruse with pleasure the following arti- cles of the Confession of Faith which embrace the doctrinal part: — *' Article I. — We beheve and confess, that there is but one God only, whose being only is simple, spiritual, eternal, invisible, immutable, infinite, incomprehensible, ineffable, who can do all things, who is all-wise, all-good, most just, and most merciful. "Art. II. — This one God hath revealed himself to be such a one unto man, first, in the creation, preservation, and governing of his works ; secondly, far more plainly in his word, which, from the beginning, he revealed to the fathers by certain visions and oracles, and then caused it to be put in writing in those books which we call the holy Scripture. " Art. III. — All this holy Scripture is contained in the canonical books of the Old and New Testament, the cata- logue whereof followeth: — The five books of Moses, viz. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Item, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, the first and second book of Samuel, the first and second book of Kings, the first and se- cond book of Chronicles, otherwise called the Paralipome- na, one book of Esdras, or Ezra, Nehemiah, Hester, Job, the Psalms, Solomon's Proverbs or Sentences, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, Esaiah, Jeremiah, with the Lamenta- tions, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonas, OF FRANCE. 25 Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. Item, The holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, according to St. Mark, according to St. Luke, and according to St. John, as also the second book of St. Luke, otherwise called the Acts of the Apostles. Item, The Epistles of St, Paul, the apostle, to the Romans one, to the Corinthians two, to the Galatians one, to the Ephesians one, to the Phil- ippians one, to the Colossians one, to the Thessalonians two, to Timothy two, to Titus one, to Philemon one. Item, The Epistle to the Hebrews, the Episde of St. James, the first and second Epistle of St. Peter, the first, second and third Epistle of St. John, the Epistle of St. Jude, and the Apoca- lypse or Revelations of St. John. "Art. IV. — We acknowledge these books to be canonical, that is, we account them as the most certain rule of our faith, and that not so much because of the common consent of the Church, but because of the testimony and persuasion of the Holy Ghost, by which we are taught to distinguish be- twixt them and other ecclesiastical books, upon which, al- though they may be useful, yet we cannot ground any article of faith. *' Art. V. — We believe that the doctrine contained in these books has proceeded from God, from whom only, and not from men, it deriveth its authority. And forasmuch as it is the rule of all truth, containing all matters necessarily re- quired for the worship of God, and our salvation, it is in no wise lawful for men nor angels to add unto, or to take from this doctrine, or to change it. And hereupon it followeth, that it is not lawful to oppose either antiquity, or custom, or multitude, or human wisdom, judgments, edicts, or any de- crees, or councils, or visions, or miracles unto this holy Scripture ; but rather, that all things ought to be examined and tried by the rule and square thereof. Wherefore we do for this cause also allow of those three creeds, viz. the Apos- tles', the Nicene, and Athanasius his creed, because they be agreeable to the word of God. " Art. VL — The holy Scripture teacheth us, that in that one and simple divine Being there be three Persons subsist- ing— the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The Fa- ther, to wit, the First Cause in order, and the Beginning of all things ; the Son, his Wisdom and Everlasting Word ; the Holy Ghost, his Virtue, Power and Efficacy. The Son be- gotten of the Father from everlasting, the Holy Ghost from everlasting, proceeding from the Father and the Son. These 26 PROTESTANT CHURCH three Persons are not confounded, but distinct, and yet not divided, but of one and the same essence, eternity, power, and equality. And to conclude in this mystery, we allow of that which those four ancient councils have determined ; and M'e detest all sects and heresies condemned by those holy ancient doctors, St. Athanasius, St. Hilary, St. Cyril, and St. Ambrose. " Art. VII. — We believe that God, in three Persons, working together by his power, wisdom, and incomprehen- sible goodness, hath made all things, not only heaven and earth, and all things in them contained, but also the invisible spirits, of which some fell headlong into destruction, and some continued in obedience. That the fallen angels, being corrupted by their malice, are become enemies of all good, and consequently of the whole Church. That the holy angels, having persevered by the grace of God, are minis- ters to glorify his name, and serve his elect in order to sal- vation. "Art. VIII. — We believe that God hath not only made all things, but also ruleth and governeth them, as he who, according to his will, disposeth and ordaineth whatsoever Cometh to pass in the world. Yet, we deny that he is the au- thor of sin, or that the blame of things done amiss can be laid upon him, seeing his will is the sovereign and infallible rule of all righteousness and equity; but this we confess, that he hath those admirable means, as whereby he maketh the de- vils and the ungodly, as his instruments, to serve him, and to turn the evil which they do, and whereof they are guilty, into good. So that when we acknowledge that nothing can be done without the providence of God, we do most humbly adore his secrets, which he hath hidden from us, nor do we inquire into those which are above our reach and capacity. Nay, rather we apply unto our own use that which the holy Scripture teacheth us for our peace and comfort; to wit, that God, to whom all things are subject, doth watch over us with a fatherly care, so that not so much as an hair of our head falleth to the ground without his will; and that he hath the devils and all our adversaries fast bound in chains, that they cannot, without leave first given them, do us any harm. " Art. IX. — We believe that man, being created pure and upright, and conformable to the image of God, through his own fault fell from that grace which he had received, and thereby did so estrange himself from God, the fountain of all righteousness and of all good things, that his nature is OF FRANCE. 27 become altogether defiled ; and being blind in his understand- ing, and corrupt in his heart, he hath utterly lost that inte- grity; and although he can somewhat discern between good and evil, yet we do affirm, that whatsoever light he hath, it straightway becometh darkness, vihen the question is of ask- ing after God, so that by his understanding and reason he can never come to God. And although he be indued with will, whereby he is moved to do this or that, yet forasmuch as that also is in bondage to sin, that he hath no freedom to desire that which is good, but if he have any it is the gra- cious gift of God. " Art. X. — We believe that all the offspring of Adam are infected with the contagion of original sin, which is a vice hereditary to us by propagation, and not only by imitation, as the Pelagians asserted, whose errors are detested by us. Nor do we think it necessary to inquire how this sin cometh to be derived from one unto another; for it is sufficient that those things which God gave to Adam were not given to him alone, but also to all his posterity; and, therefore, we, in his person, being deprived of all those good gifts, are fallen into this poverty and malediction. " Art. XL — We believe that this stain of original sin is sin indeed, for it hath that mischievous power in it as to con- demn all mankind, even infants that are unborn, as yet in their mother's womb, and God himself doth account it such; yea, and that after baptism, as to the filth thereof, it is al- ways sin. Howbeit, they who are the children of God shall never be condemned for it, because that God, of his rich grace and sovereign mercy, doth not impute it to them. Moreover, we say, that it is such a depravedness as doth continually produce the fruits of malice and rebellion against God, so that even the choicest of God's saints, although they do resist it, yet are they defiled with very many infir- mities and offences, so long as they hve in this world. " Art. XII. — We believe that out of this general corrup- tion and condemnation, in which all men are plunged, God doth deliver them whom he hath, in his eternal and unchange- able counsel, chosen of his mere goodness and mercy through our Lord Jesus Christ, without any consideration of their works, leaving the rest in their sins and damnable estate, that he may show forth in them his justice, as in the elect he doth most illustriously declare the riches of his mercy. For one is not better than another, until such time as God doth make the difference, according to his unchangeable purpose, 28 PROTESTANT CHURCH which he hath determined in Jesus Christ before the creation of the world. Nor can any one, by his own power, pro- cure unto himself so great a blessing : because we cannot by nature nor of ourselves excite in ourselves any one good mo- tion, thought, or affection, until such time as God does pre- vent, and incline us to it by his grace. ♦' Art. XIII. — We believe that whatsoever is requisite to our salvation, is offered and communicated to us now in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is made of God unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption ; so that whoso- ever leaveth Christ doth renounce all interest in, and title to, the mery of God the Father, to which, as to our only sanctu- ary, we are bound to have recourse. *♦ Art. XIV. — We believe that Jesus Christ, being the Wisdom and Eternal Son of the Father, took upon him our nature, so that he is one Person, God and Man — Man, that he might be able to suffer both in soul and body, made like unto us in all things, sin only excepted; so that as to his human nature, he was in truth the very seed of Abraham and of David, conceived in due time in the womb of the most blessed Virgin, by the secret and incomprehensible power of the holy God. And, therefore, we detest, as contrary to that truth, all those heresies with which the Churches were trou- bled in times past; and, particularly, we detest those diabo- lical imaginations of Servetus, who ascribed to our Lord Jesus Christ an imaginary deity, whom he asserted to be the Idea and Pattern of all things, and the counterfeit of figura- tive Son of God. In short, he framed him a body, compact- ed of three elements uncreated, and so did mingle and over- throw his nature. " Art. XV. — We believe that in one and the same Person, to wit, the Lord Jesus Christ, his two natures are truly and inseparably conjoined and united, yet, nevertheless, in such a manner that each nature doth retain its distinct properties. So that even as in this divine conjunction, the Divine nature retaining its properties, doth still abide uncreated, infinite, and filling all places, so also the human nature remaineth finite, having its form, measure, and property. And although the Lord Jesus Christ, when he rose from the dead, did give immortality unto his body, yet he never deprived it of the verity of its nature. Therefore, we do so consider Christ in his Deity, that we do not spoil him of his humanity. *' Art. XVI. — We do believe that God, by sending his Son into the world, did declare his infinite love and inesti- OF FRANCE. 29 mable goodness to us, delivering him over unto death, and raising him again from the dead that he might fulfil all righte- ousness, and purchase everlasting life for us. "Art. XVII. — We believe, that by that only sacrifice which Jesus Christ offered upon the cross, we are reconciled unto God, that so we may be held and accounted righteous in his sight, because we can never please him, nor be par- takers of his adoption, but so far only as he forgiveth us our sins, and burieth them in his grave. Therefore, we aflnrm, that Jesus Christ is our entire and perfect Washing, and that by his death we obtain full satisfaction, whereby we are de- livered from all those sins of which we are guilty, and from which we could never be absolved by any other means or remedy. " Art. XVIII. — We believe that our whole righteousness is founded in the remission of our sins, which is, as David calleth it, our only happiness. Wherefore, we do utterly reject all other means by which men do think they may be justified before God, and casting away all conceits of our own virtues and merits, we do altogether rest upon the sole obe- dience of Jesus Christ, which is imputed to us, as well for the covering of our offences, as that we may find grace and favour with God. And, indeed, we believe, that should we in the least forsake tliis foundation, we could not find else- where any repose, but must needs be agitated with inquie- tudes in our consciences, because we are never at peace with God till we be persuaded upon good grounds thai we are be- loved in Jesus Christ. For that in ourselves we have served to be hated by him. " Art. XIX. — We believe that by this means we have liberty and privilege of calling upon God, with full confi- dence that he will show himself a Father to us, for we have no access unto the Father but in and through Christ the Mediator; and, that we may be heard in his name, it is meet that we should hold and derive our life from him as from our Head. "Art. XX. — We believe that we are made partakers of this righteousness by faith only, as it is written, "He suf- fered to purchase salvation for us, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish. And this is, therefore, done because the promises of life offered to us in him are then ap- plied to our use, and made effectual to us, when we do accept of them, and in no wise doubt, but that we shall enjoy those things which the Lord, by his own mouth, hath assured us 30 PROTESTANT CHURCH of. So that the righteousness which we obtain by faith depencleth upon the free gracious promises of God, by which God doth declare and testify unto us that we are beloved of him. " Art. XXI. — We do believe, that by the secret grace of the Holy Ghost, the light of faith is kindled up in us, so that it is a gracious and special gift which God besloweth upon whom he pleaseth; and the faithful have nothing whereof they may boast, because they are doubly obliged unto God for having preferred tliem before others, and for that he never gave faith unto the elect once only to bring them into the good way, but also to cause them to continue in it unto the end. For as God doth begin faith, so doth he also finish and perfect it. " Art. XXII. — We believe that by this faith we are re- generated unto newness of life, we being naturally imbon- daged under sin. And we do by faith receive that grace to live holily, and in the fear of God, in our receiving of the promise which is given us through the Gospel, to wit, that God will give us his Holy Spirit. So that faith is so far from freezing our affections to godliness and holy living, that contrariwise it doth engender and excite it in us, necessarily producing all manner of good works. Finally, Although God to accomplish our salvation, doth regenerate and reform us, that we may do those things which are well-pleasing; yet, notwithstanding, we do confess that the good works which we do by his Spirit, are never accounted to us for righteousness, nor can we merit by them that God should take us for his children, because we should be always tossed with doubts and disquiets, if our consciences did not repose themselves upon that satisfaction by which Jesus Christ hath purchased us for himself. *' Art. XXIII. — We believe that all the types of the Law ended when as Christ came in the fiesh. But although the ceremonies are no longer in use, yet, nevertheless, the sub- stance and truth of them abideth always in His person who fulfilled them. Moreover, we must be holpen by the law and the prophets for the right ordering of our lives, and that the promises of the Gospel may be confirmed to us. "Art. XXIV. — We believe, that forasmuch as Jesus Christ is conferred upon us to be our alone Advocate, and that he commandeth us, even in our private prayers, to pre- sent ourselves before the Father in his name; and that it is in no wise lawful for us to call upon God in any other way OP FRANCE. 31 than he hath taught us by his Word;— that, therefore, all those imaginations of men about the intercession of saints departed is none other than an abuse and imposture of Satan, whereby he may turn men aside from the right method of prayer. We do also reject those means which men pre- sumed they had, whereby they might be redeemed before God, for they derogate from the satisfaction of the death and passion of Jesus Christ. Finally, We hold purgatory to be none other than a cheat, which came out of the same shop from which also proceeded monastical vows, pilgrimages, prohibitions of marriage, and the use of meats, a ceremoni- ous observation of days, auricular confession, indulgences, and all other such like matters, by which grace and salvation may be supposed to be deserved. Which things we reject, not only for the false opinion of merit which was affixed to them, but also because they are the inventions of men, and are a yoke laid by their sole authority upon conscience. "Art. XXV. — And forasmuch as we are not made par- takers of Christ but by the Gospel, we believe that that good order in the Church, which was established by his authority, ought to be kept sacred and inviolable ; and, therefore, that the Church cannot subsist unless there be pastors, whose office it is to instruct their flocks, and who having been duly called, and discharging their office faithfully, are to be honour- ed and heard with reverence. Not as if God were tied unto such ordinances or inferior means, but because it is good pleasure in this sort to govern us. So that, for these rea- sons, we detest all those fanatical persons who, as much as in them lieth, would totally abolish the preaching the word and administration of the sacraments. " Art. XXVI. — Therefore, we believe that it is not law- ful for any man to withdraw himself from the congregations of God's saints, and to content himself with his private devo- tions, but all of us jointly are bound to keep and maintain the unity of the Church, submitting themselves unto the common instruction, and to the yoke of Jesus Christ, and this in all places wheresoever he shall have established the true discipline, although the edicts of earthly magistrates be contrary thereunto ; and whosoever do separate from this or- der do resist the ordinance of God, and in case they draw others aside with them, they do act very perversely, and are to be accounted as mortal plagues. " Art. XXVII. — However, we do believe that we ought to distinguish carefully and prudently betwixt the true and 32 PROTESTANT CHURCH false Church, because the word church is very much abused. We say, then, according- to the Word of God, that the Church is an assembly of behevers who agree among themselves to follow God's Word, and the pure religion which dependeth on it, and who profit by it during their whole life, increasing and confirming themselves in the fear of God, as being per- sons who do daily need a further progress and advancement in godliness. Yet, notwithstanding all their endeavours, they must have continual recourse to the grace of God for the forgiveness of their sins. Nor do we deny but that among the faithful there be some hypocrites or despisers of God, or ill-livers, whose wickedness, however, cannot blot out the name of the Church. *' Art. XXVIII. — In this belief we protest that when the Word of God is not received, and where there is no profes- sed subjection to it, and where there is no use of the sacra- ments, if we will speak properly, we cannot judge that there is any Church. Wherefore we condemn those assemblies in the Papacy, because the pure Word of God is banished out of them, and for that in them the sacraments are corrupted, counterfeited, falsified, or utterly abolished, and, for that among them, all kinds of superstitions and idolatries are in full vogue. We hold, then, that all those who meddle with such actions, and communicate with them, do separate and cut themselves off from the body of Christ Jesus. Yet, nevertheless, because there is yet some small track of a Church in the Papacy, and that baptism, as to its substance, hath been siill continued, and because the efficacy of baptism doth not depend upon him who doth administer it, we confess that they which are there baptized do not need a second bap- tism. In the meanwhile, because of those corruptions which are mingled with the administration of that sacrament, no man can present his children to be baptized in that Church without polluting of his conscience. " Art. XXIX. — We believe that this true Church ought to be governed by that discipline which our Lord Jesus hath established ; so that there should be in the Church, pastors, elders and deacons, that the pure doctrine may have its course, and vices may be reformed and suppressed, that the poor, and other afflicted persons, may be succoured in their necessities, and that in the name of God there may be holy assemblies in which both great and small may be edified. *' Art. XXX. — We believe that all true pastors, in what- ever places they may be disposed, have all the same author- OF FRANCE. 33 ity, and equal power among themselves under Jesus Christ the only Head, the only Sovereign, and only universal Bish- op; and that, therefore, it is unlawful for any Church to challenge unto itself dominion or sovereignty over another, however it is requisite that all care should be taken for the keeping up of mutual concord and brotherly love. ' " Art. XXXI. — We believe that it is not lawful for any man of his own authority to take upon himself the govern- ment of the Church, but that every one ought to be admitted thereunto by a lawful election, if it may possibly be done, and that the Lord do so permit it. Which exception we have expressly added, because that sometime, (as it hath fallen out in our days,) the state of the Church being interrupted, God hath raised up some persons in an extraordinary manner to repair the ruins of the decayed Church. But, let it be what it will, we believe that this rule is always to be followed, that all pastors, elders and deacons should have a testimony of their being called unto their respective offices. " Art. XXXII. — We believe that it is expedient, that they who be chosen superintendents in the Church should wisely consult among themselves by what means the whole body may conveniently be ruled, yet so as they do not swerve from that which our Lord Jesus Christ hath instituted. And this doth not hinder but that in some Churches there may be those particular constitutions, which will be more convenient for them than for others. "Art. XXXIIL — But we exclude all human inventions, and all those laws which are introduced to bind the conscience under pretence of God's service. And we do only receive such as serve to keep up concord, and to retain every one, from the highest unto the lowest, in due obedience. In which we conceive that we are to observe that which our Lord Jesus Christ appointed concerning excommunication, which we do very well approve and acknowledge the neces- sity thereof, and of its appendages. " Art. XXXIV. — We believe that the sacraments are ad- joined unto the word for its more ample confirmation, to wit, that they may be pledges and tokens of the grace of God, and that by these means, our faith, which is very weak and ignorant, may be supported and comforted. For we confess that these outward signs be such, that God, by the power of his Holy Spirit, doth work by them, that nothing may be there represented to us in vain. Yet, nevertheless, we hold that all their substance and virtue is in Jesus Christ, from 3 34 PROTESTANT CHURCH whom, if they be separated, they be nothing else but sha- dows and smoke. *' Art. XXXV. — We acknowledge that there be two sa- craments only, which are common to the whole Church, whereof Baptism is the first, which is administered to us to testify our adoption, because we are by it ingrafted into the body of Christ, that we may be washed and cleansed by his blood, and afterwards renewed in holiness of life by his Spirit. We hold also, that although we be baptized but once, yet the benefits which are signified to us therein do extend themselves during the whole course of our life, even unto death, that so we may have a lasting signature with us that Jesus Christ will always be our righteousness and sanctifica- tion. And although baptism be a sacrament of faith and re- pentance, yet, forasmuch as God doth, together with the parents, account their children and posterity to be Church members, we aflfirm that infants born of believing parents are, by the authority of Christ, to be baptized. " Art. XXXVI. — We affirm that the holy Supper of our Lord, to wit, the other sacrament, is a witness to us of our union with the Lord Jesus Christ ; because that he is not only once dead, and raised up again from the dead for us, but also he doth indeed feed us and nourish us with his flesh and blood, that we being made one with him, may have our life in common with him. And although He be now in heaven, and shall remain there till he come to judge the world ; yet, we believe, that by the secret and incomprehensible virtue of his Spirit, he doth nourish and quicken us with the substance of his body and blood. But we say that this is done in a spiritual manner; nor do we hereby substitute in the place of the effect and truth an idle fancy and conceit of our own, but rather, because this mystery of our union with Christ is so high a thing, that it surmounteth all our senses, yea, and the whole order of nature : and, in short, because it is celes- tial, therefore it cannot be apprehended but by faith. " Art. XXXVII. — We believe, as was said before, that both in Baptism and the Lord's Supper, God doth indeed, truly and effectually, give whatsoever he doth there sacra- mentally exhibit, and therefore we conjoin with the signs the true possession and enjoyment of what is offered to us in them. Therefore we affirm, that they which do bring pure faith, as a clean vessel, unto the holy Supper of the Lord, they do indeed receive that which the signs do there witness, that is, that the body and blood of Jesus Christ are no less OF FRANCE. 35 the meat and drink of the soul than bread and wine are the meat of the body. *' Art. XXXVIII. — We say, therefore, that let the ele- ment of water be never so despicable, yet, notwithstanding, it doth truly witness unto us the inward washing of our souls with the blood of Jesus Christ, by the virtue and efficacy of his Spirit; and that the bread and wine, being given us in the Lord's Supper, do serve in very deed unto our spiritual nourishment, because they do, as it were, point out unto us with the finger, that the flesh of Jesus Christ is our meat, and his blood our drink. And we reject those fanatics who will not receive such signs and marks, although Jesus Christ doth speak plainly, ' This is my body, and this cup is my blood.' " Art. XXXIX.— We believe that God will have the world to be ruled by laws and civil government, that there may be some sort of bridles by which the unruly lusts of the world may be restrained; and that, therefore, he appointed kingdoms, commonwealths, and other kinds of principalities, whether hereditary or otherwise. And not that alone, but also whatsoever pertaineth to the ministration of justice, whereof he avoucheth himself the Author; therefore hath he even delivered the sword into the magistrate's hand, that so sins committed against both the tables of God's law, not only against the second but the first also, may be suppressed. And, therefore, because God is the Author of this order, we must not only suffer magistrates, whom he hath set over us, but we must also give them all honour and reverence, as unto his officers and lieutenants, which have received their com- mission from him to exercise so lawful and sacred a function. "Art. XL. — Therefore, we affirm, that obedience must be yielded unto their laws and statutes, that tribute must be paid them, taxes and all other duties, and that we must bear the yoke of subjection with a free and willing mind, although the magistrates be infidels, so that the sovereign government of God be preserved entire. Wherefore, we detest all those who do reject the higher powers, and would bring in a com- munity and confusion of goods, and subvert the course of justice." I shall allude next to a few of the points of church dis- cipline in the Church of France. That discipline, as might have been expected, from the strong views of doctrine, was strict and comprehensive. Ministers, on pain of deposition, 36 PROTESTANT CHURCH were required actually to reside beside their churches, and to be entirely devoted to the work of the ministry. This, at a period when there was so much distraction from persecu- tion, and when a pastor's temporal provision was so slender and precarious, shows how high was the sense entertained of the importance of the ministerial office, and how great was the anxiety that the people should reap its full advan- tages. " No minister, together with the holy ministry, shall be a practitioner in law or physic ; yet out of charity he may give counsel and assistance to the poor of his flock and of his neighbourhood — provided always, that he be not thereby di- verted from his calling, nor derive any gain from his practice, unless in times of trouble and persecution, and when he can- not exercise his calling in his church, and cannot be main- tained by it. And those who shall thus employ themselves in law or physic, or in any other worldly distracting business, shall be exhorted wholly to forbear it, and totally to devote themselves unto the duties of their calling as ministers, and to the study of the Scriptures. And all colloquies and synods are admonished to proceed according to the canons of our discipline against the refractory, and such as be willingly disobedient; as also against those who spend so much of their time in teachmg youth, that it is an hindrance to them in the principal duties of their ministerial office. And all consistories, colloquies, and provincial synods, shall have a most especial care and regard that this canon be punctually observed, and to suspend such as do transgress it from their exercise of the ministry." The anxiety was not less for a well educated ministry. It would not have been wonderful, in the circumstances in which the Protestant Church stood, that she had contented herself with pious, though illiterate men; but she knew what it was to fight with Popery — how needful are good training and learning for the contest — and how well entitled the Great Head of the Church is to the best gifts, and qualifications and services of his people ; and so she made provision for a well educated ministry. Candidates for the holy office were required to compose a brief confession of their faith in Latin, and to be able to defend it, when assailed, in the same lan- guage. " That our churches may be always furnished with a suf- ficient number of pastors, and of other persons fit to govern them, and to preach the word of God unto them, they shall OP FRANCE. 37 be advised to choose those scholars who be already well ad- vanced in good learning, and be of the most promising hope- ful parts, and to maintain such in the universities, that they may be there prepared and fitted for the work of the minis- try, ever preferring the children of poor ministers, if inge- nious, before all others; of which the colloquies shall take a most especial care. Kings, princes, and lords, shall be exhorted and petitioned particularly to mind this important affair, and to lay by some part and portion of their revenues towards their maintenance ; and the richer churches shall do the like. Colloquies and provincial synods shall, as they see meet, notify and solicit this affair, and take the best courses that matters of so great necessity may be successful ; and if singfe churches cannot do it, their neighbours shall join with them, that one poor scholar at the least may be maintained in every colloquy ; and rather than this design should miscarry, the fifth penny of all our charities shall be set apart, if it may conveniently be done, to be employed in this service." The education and learning thus received were not to be allowed to remain dormant. They were to be used for the defence and propagation of the truth. ♦* They who are en- dowed with gifts for writing, shall be chosen by the pro- vinces; and if it happen that any books be published against the true religion, they shall be sent unto them, that they may be answered; and there shall be a colloquy in each province, appointed unto this peculiar business, carefully to peruse all MSS. before they be printed, and what is published, and to disperse the copies." While so much was required of ministers, their outward provision was not neglected. Judicious steps were taken for their "comfortable subsistence" while they lived; and an express canon secures " that the church in whose service a minister dieth, shall take care of his widow and orphans; and if the church cannot do it, through want of ability, the province shall maintain them." This was kind and consi- derate, worthy of a Christian Church which had but recently come forth from the furnace of persecution. Other regula- tions were not less wise. With regard to education, the Protestant Church of France, like all other Presbyterian Churches, was its warm friend. She was not afraid of knowledge. It is ordained, " the churches shall do their utmost endeavour to erect schools, and take care of the in- struction of their youth ;" and "all ministers shall endea- 38 PROTESTANT CHURCH vour to catechise every one in their flocks once or twice a year, and shall exhort them to conform themselves thereunto very carefully." With regard, again, to the poor, it was enjoined that every church should seek to support its own poor — a wholesome practice, which, for many years, was universal throughout the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and which still prevails to a considerable extent. *' To pre- vent those disorders which daily fall out by reason of certi- ficates given unto the poor, every church shall endeavour to maintain its own ; and in case any one be constrained, through the urgency of his affairs, to travel, ministers shall examine with the greatest care in their consistories, tiie just causes of his journey, and thereupon shall give him letters directed to the next church, lying in the straight way by which he must go, specifying his name, age, stature, hair, and the place whither, and the cause of his travel, and the assistance which was given him ; nor shall the dale of the day and year be omitted ; which letters, the church he is directed to, shall keep by it, and give him others unto the next; and all certificates formerly given shall be torn in pieces." With respect, again, to the general conduct of church members, it was ordained in the following terms : "Printers, booksellers, painters, and other artificers, and, in general, all the faithful, and, in particular, such as bear office in the Church, shall be admonished that they do not in the least act any thmg in their calling that tends direcdy to countenance the superstitions of the Church of Rome; and as for secret acts, and the censure incurred by them, their judgment is left unto the consistory." "Fathers and mo- thers shall be exhorted to be very careful of their children's education, which are the seedplot and promising hopes of God's Church. And, therefore, such as send them to school to be taught by priests, monks, Jesuits, and nuns, they shall be prosecuted with all Church censures. Those, also, shall be censured who dispose of their children to be pages, or servants, unto lords and gentlemen of the contrary religion." " Churches which have printers belonging to them, shall ad- vise them not to print any books concerning religion or the discipline of the Church, without having first communicated them unto the consistory, because of those manifold incon- veniences which have formerly happened upon this account. And neither printers, nor booksellers, nor hawkers, shall sell any books of idolatry, or that are scandalous, stuffed with ribaldry or impiety, which tend to the corrupting of good manners." OF FRANCE. 39 At the same time, while thus decided, as all Protestant Churches should be, against the errors and superstitions of the Church of Rome, there was no spirit of bitterness or provocation towards individual Roman Cathohcs. It is ex- pressly enjoined, as strongly as any of the preceding canons, that " all violence and injurious words against the members of the Church of Rome, as also against priests and monks, shall not only be forborne, but also, as much as may be, shall be totally suppressed." I might refer to many other wise and salutary regulations, but it is unnecessary. Let me quote only that which alludes to the dispensation of the Lord's Supper. At the first na- tional Synod held at Paris, it was appointed that, at the closing up of the Synod, the Lord's supper " shall be cele- brated, to testify their union, not only by the ministers and elders of the Synod, but in general with the whole Church." And, as a general rule, the following canon was adopted: " Although it hath not been the custom to administer the Lord's Supper in the greatest part of our churches more than four times a-year, yet it were to be desired that it might be oftener, so that the reverence which is needful for this holy sacrament could be kept up and observed. Because it is most profitable for the children of God to be exercised, and grow in faith by the frequent use of the sacraments ; and the example of the primitive Church doth invite us to it. And, therefore, our national Synods shall take that care and order in this matter as is requisite for the weal and happiness of our churches." A striking proof of the high state of discipline, and the deep tenderness of conscience which prevailed in the Pro- testant Church of France, may be gathered from the fact, that in the very first Synod of Paris, above twenty cases of conscience were discussed and decided upon; and, it may be added, the judgments of the Assembly were generally marked with much good sense, and great regard for the au- athority of the word of God. The unexceptionable character of the Confession of Faith and Canons of Discipline which the Protestant Church drew up at Paris in 1559, and published, did not save her from the violence of her enemies. She may have had rest for a year or two, but shortly persecution was revived. One sovereign after another proved equally adverse. Mere men of the world would have been wearied out by such treatment, but the Spirit of God rested upon the Church and upon the 40 PROTESTANT CHURCH admirable standards under which she was organized, and so her members increased and multiplied from day to day. In 1571, or in twelve short years from the period of her first public Assembly, she may be said to have reached her highest prosperity. At the Synod or General Assembly of Rochelle in 1571, the celebrated Theodore Beza presided as modera- tor; and the Queen of Navarre, the Prince of Navarre, Henry de Bourbon, Prince of Conde, Prince Lewis, Count of Nas- sau, and Count de Coligny, Admiral of France, and other lords and gendemen, were present. So rapid had been the diffusion of the Gospel, under the outpouring of the Spirit, that Beza could count 2150 churches in connection with the Protestant Church of France — almost double the number of the present Church of Scotland ; and the churches were not small or insignificant in point of strength. In some there were 10,000 members. The church of Orleans had 7000 communicants; and the ministers in such churches were proportionally numerous ; two ministers to a church was common, and that of Orleans had five. At this period there were .305 pastors in the one province of Normandy, and in Provence there were 60. All this betokens wonderful growth. What a contrast to the present state of the French Protes- tant Church ! With all its revival of late years, it appears, on the testimony of the Rev. Mr. Davis, in his recent "Letters from France," that for between two and three millions of professed Protestants, there are only between four and five hundred churches, and three hundred ministers. The Ec- clesiastical Budget for 1837 gives three hundred and sixty- six pastors of the Reformed Church. What an unhappy change ! We have beheld the French Protestant Church at the height of her glory ; and we may draw from the facts detailing her rapid prosperity the cheering inference, that God, who vouchsafed his Spirit so plentifully in former times, may vouchsafe his influences as richly and suddenly in these latter days. Good men are often discouraged in their prayers and labours, by thinking that the progress of Christianity must necessarily be slow and tedious. Let them remember the history of the Protestant Church of France, and be ani- mated and refreshed. God is as able and as willing as ever to interpose in behalf of his people, and frequently there is one characteristic style of dealing towards the same Church in different ages. If, in twelve years, he wrought such a change in and by the persecuted Church of France, who can tell what happy moral and religious changes may be accom- OF FRANCE. 41 plished by the same Church in these latter days ? And who can estimate what glorious achievements the Christian Church of Britian may be honoured to effect, in more favourable cir- cumstances, in as brief a space of time. In reading the history of modern missions in the South Seas, one is struck with the rapidity of the change. Often a few days, or weeks, or months, according to Williams, were sufficient to induce whole islands, comprehending sev- eral thousand inhabitants, to abandon their idolatry, though taught only by two or three humble agents. The con- version of a kw of the leading chiefs led to the conversion of the great body of the people, at least, to the renunciation of the horrible creed and practices of their fathers. Tidings of change in one island, led to change in another. Singular events in the providence of God, too, such as epidemics and famines, under which superstition could afford no com- fort, seem, when the people had reached a certain awakened state of mind, to have acted as precursors and hasteners of the change. It is certain, that when the lies of heathenism were once found out, like broken credit at a bank, the public confidence at once gave way on every point. The experi- ence of Scotland, in reference to Popery atthe Reformation, as I shall have occasion to notice, was similar. Both cases hold out the pleasing prospect, that when God's time arrives, all superstition, whether Popish or Pagan, shall be overtaken with the same rapid destruction. Who can doubt that were a considerable body of the Roman Catholic priesthood in this country, at this moment, to throw off Popery, tens of thousands of the people would follow their example? This is one of the consolations in connection with false religion, that when it does break up, it will disappear like smoke, and, by the suddenness and universality of its death, so to speak, compensate for the duration of its life. It is an in- teresting remark of the sacred writer, in reference to the cleansing of the House of God, in the days of Hezekiah: "And Hezekiah rejoiced, and all the people, that God had prepared the people ; for the thing was done suddenly. 42 PROTESTANT CHURCH CHAPTER 11. FROM 1572 TO 1598. The progress of the Protestant Church of France was ex- ceedingly rapid, and indicated the outpouring of the Spirit of God in a remarkable manner. But matters were not long permitted to remain in this prosperous condition. Provoked, it would seem, with the amazing growth of the cause of God, the great adversary of the Church stirred up the most violent opposition against her members, and, doubtless, their own shortcomings also lent an unhappy influence in bringing down upon them the heavy chastisement under which they were now destined to groan. No sooner had the Church of France become eminent for character and numbers, than she became eminent for her suflTerings. The day of aflliction often follows quickly upon the day of prosperity. Various are the forms of persecution which the Church of Rome has employed, but the present was, perhaps, one of the most savage and cowardly of the whole. A scheme was devised for treacherously cutting off the whole Protestant population — at least the influential portion — at a blow ; and to a considerable extent the scheme was successful. I allude to the massacre of St. Bartholomew's day, in 1572, — a mas- sacre which was begun at Paris, at midnight, upon unoflend- ing Protestants collected into the capital on false pretences, and which was afterwards extended to the country, lasting for days and months, and destroying not less, according to Sully, than sixty or seventy thousand persons. The iirst who fell was Admiral Colign5s eminent at once for his rank and his piety. I need not sicken the reader with the details of this infamous massacre ; but it is due to the memory of the suffering saints of God, whose record is on high, that I mention a few particulars. It appears, then, from unques- tionable Roman Catholic authorities, that this crime of in- describable atrocity, was not the deed of a passionate mo- ment, but was deliberately planned two years before; and that the peace of the space of time which preceded it, was intended, and, as it proved, successfully, to draw the Protes- tants together, throw them off their guard, and render the slaughter the more complete. There were 60,000 armed men collected in Paris for the work of murder. This inci- OF FRANCE. 43 dentally shows how numerous and influential the adherents of the Reformed Faith had been. One man boasted, that he had killed a hundred with his own hand. The river Seine was literally dyed with blood. The bodies of Protestants were opened, and rifled of whatever could be converted into money.* By a dreadful retribution, those of the Reformed Church who had become apostates, were required to show the sincerity of their new faith, by being foremost in the slaughter of their brethren. The example of Paris was a signal for all the leading towns. They followed in her bloody steps. In a few days, 6000 were slain at Rouen. In five or six towns, such as Sancerre, Privas, Rochelle, Mon- tauban, and Nismes, the Protestants were strong enough to defend themselves, but the attempt brought no real advantage. It added to their sorrows : they were besieged, and involved in famine, which cut off even more than the sword. Such was the fierceness of the siege, that, in the case of Rochelle, in a single month, 13,000 cannon-shot were directed against the town. Amid all these terrible proceedings, there was no relenting on the part of the Church of Rome. At Lyons, the Pope's Legate, meeting the murderers fresh from their deeds of blood, absolved, by making over them the sign of the cross. The celebrated Jonathan Edwards, who is not accustomed to speak without good authority, says, in his History of Re- demption— " It is reckoned that about this time, within thirty years, there were martyred in this kingdom, (France,) for the Protestant religion, 39 princes, 148 counts, 234 barons, 147,518 gentlemen, and 760,000 of the common people;" and yet, as I have said, the massacre of St. Bartholomew called forth no relenting — on the contrary, it filled Rome with joy. It was stated in the beginning of last century, that there were in the great hall of the palace of the Vatican, where the Pope gives audience to ambassadors, several pieces of painting representing the Parisian massacre ; and one in which the news of Admiral Coligny's death is represented as being brought to the French king, with these words, ''''Rex * The persecutors in their work of slaughter, frequently and blas- phemously mimicked the Psalm-singing of the Protestants, which must have made the scene more horrible. They seem to have borne a peculiar hatred to the singing of the praises of God, whether in pub- lic or in private. The practice we believe, was pecular to the Pro- testant Church. The Popish Church executes this, and many other parts of worship, by the proxy of the priest. 44 PROTESTANT CHURCH CoHgnii necem probat.^' The Pope ordered triumphant me- dals to be struck, having on one side the Pope's head, with this inscription, " Gregoriits XIIL, Pont. Max., Jin. 7." on the other side a destroying angel, with a cross held up in one hand, and a sword in the other, killing the Protestants, with these words, *' Hugonotorum strages, 1582," — the slaughter of the Hugonots.* But in spite of all these things, there is verily a Judge — a moral government — even in this fallen world. It is a remarkable fact, that all the chief per- sons who were engaged in the Parisian massacre, at least very many of them, fell at Rochelle, in the course of two brief years afterwards; so quickly does punishment succeed sin. Clarke, in his history of the early Protestant persecu- tions in France, which extends to thirty folio pages, states, that the Duke d' Aumale and Cosseins, who first entered the chamber of Coligny on the errand of assassination, three masters of the camp, not a few great lords and gentlemen, above sixty captains, and as many lieutenants and ensigns, and not less than twenty thousand common soldiers were all slain at Rochelle, or died of their wounds. And to crown the whole, Charles IX., the wretched king — the instrument of the crime — died at twenty-four years of age, of a strange disease, which may be said ever to have wrapt him in blood; and all in the short space of three years after the massacre. The form of his own suffering was surely intended to re- mind him of the sin with which he was chargeable, in in- flicting sufferings, even unto death, upon others. Many Christian men imagine that persecution must al- ways render good service to the Church of Christ; that the blood of the martyrs must always prove the seed of the Church. But various sad cases, and this among others, show * Mission. Voyage d* Italic^ p. 32. — When our great Reformer, John Knox, drew near his end, the tidings of St. Bartholomew were brought to him. It is said that they sunk him much. In a spirit not uncommon among the good men of his day, he uttered a declaration which was afterwards remarkably fulfilled. " Sentence," sajs he, " is pronounced, in Scotland, against that murderer, the King of France, and God's vengeance shall never depart from his house; but his name shall remain an execration to posterity ; and none that shall come of his loins shall enjoy that kingdom in peace and quietness, unless re- pentance prevent God's judgment." This was spoken in a part of the Tolbooth Church, fitted up in Knox's old age, for a hundred peo- ple, to whom he preached. All the ministers of Edinburgh spoke largely on the subject, so that the French Ambassador complained, but inefFectually. OP FRANCE. 45 that the experience is not universal. The Protestantism of France was deeply and permanently injured by the extermi- nating persecution to which it was subjected; and so did it fare with the early Protestantism of Italy and of Spain; with Poland, Bohemia, and Hungary. " Multitudes," says Quick, " were frighted out of their native land, and others were frighted out of their religion. In such a dreadful hurricane as that was, no wonder if some leaves, unripe fruit, and rot- ten, withered branches, fell to the earth and were lost irre- vocably." The leading Protestants, in point of rank and political influence, ^vere destroyed, and so the body of the people were left the more exposed to the violence of their enemies. Unlike the Protestants of Scotland, those of France never, even in their greatest strength, rose to such numbers as to divide the population of the country into any thing like equal parts, nor to acquire such power as seriously to affect the movements of the ruling party. Government was al- ways in the hands of Popery, and almost always hostile ; and so the suflering was great, and apparently without end. For six years after the massacre, the annual meeting of the General Assembly of the Protestant Church was discontinu- ed. It was not safe to meet; and when, in 1578, the Synod did assemble at St. Foy, no special notice was taken of the recent persecution. The only allusion is to be found in the appointment of a general fast, in the course of which it is said, " Forasmuch as the times are very calamitous, and that our poor churches are daily menaced with many and sore tribulations, and that sins and vices are rising up and growing in upon us in a most fearful manner, a general day of prayer and fasting shall be published, that our people may humble themselves before the Lord." While the brave and heroic manner in which the Protestant Church stood out the savage persecution to which we have referred, proves how enlight- ened and sincere was the profession of faith which her mem- bers generally maintained, the fearful increase of wicked- ness, of which the fast appointment speaks, was doubtless the fruit of the persecution. When the Protestants were reduced in number and discouraged in spirit — when apostasy deteriorated the character of many of their friends, and ene- mies were emboldened to act as they pleased, and to triumph in cruelty, it is not wonderful that crime broke out in fresh virulence, and that the country was marked with the presence of an angry God. Nothing very remarkable occurred in the history of the Protestant Church till 1598, or twenty-six 46 TROTESTANT CHURCH years after the fearful massacre of St. Bartholomew. During all that protracted period, the Protestants might be said to be an oppressed people — any Uberties which they enjoyed were by mere sufferance, and were ever liable to be, nay, were frequently invaded. The most arbitrary and vmreasonable restrictions were imposed upon their meetings for divine worship : still they maintained their ground. For several years after the massacre, the diminution of their numbers was not very serious, though their spirit may have declined. By a singular providence of God, the ministers were spared from the destruction of the persecution, as if reserved for another harvest, and this tended to keep the people together. A new and greatly improved edition of the Protestant ver- sion of the Scriptures, revised by the College of Pastors and Professors of the Reformed Church at Geneva, of whom Beza was one, was published at this time, and, under the divine blessing, exerted a favourable influence in maintaining and diffusing a knowledge of the truth. But other influences were in operation, which were destined to affect the Protes- tant Church most perniciously. Before considering these, we shall quote a few facts and circumstances from the pro- ceedings of the National Synods, or General Assemblies of the Church, which were held from the period of the massa- cre, in 1572, till the year 1598. These assemblies were only six in number in a course of twenty-six years; but they serve to illustrate the character of the Church, and frequent- ly present her in an interesting light. 1 need scarcely say that the Protestant Church of France was a thoroughly Presbyterian Church. Well aware that, under God, a chief share of the pros- perity of the Church is ever dependent upon the character of her ministers, the Protestants of France, with great wis- dom, continued to devote much of their attention to the qualifications and faithfulness of their religious teachers. There is no subject which is more frequently or earnestly pressed upon individuals and churches, than the necessity of educating young men for the ministry: the poverty and danger which were associated with the profession, the de- cline of the Church, and the temptation of other pursuits, seem to have rendered such calls peculiarly urgent. " Whereas divers persons do solicit this National Synod to supply the congregations, who have sent them hither, with pastors, they are all answered, that at present we are utterly unable to gratify them, and that, therefore, they be advised OF FRANCE. 47 to set up propositions of the word of God [i. e. religious ser- vices,) and to take special care of educating hopeful young men in learning, in the arts, languages, and divinity, who may hereafter be employed in the sacred ministry; and they are most humbly to petition the Lord of the harvest to send labourers who may get it in." " Because there is every where a visible decay, and a great want of ministers, and that some provision may be made for a succession, the churches shall be admonished by our brethren, the provincial deputies, that such as are rich, would maintain some hopeful scholars at the universities, who, being educated in the liberal arts and sciences, and other good learning, may be fitted for, and employed in, the sacred ministry." " The deputies of every province are charged to advise and press their respective provinces to look carefully to the education of their youth, and to see to it, that schools of learning be erected, and scholastic exercises, as propositions and declamations, be performed, that so their youth may be trained up and prepared for the service of God and of his Church in the holy ministry. " The colloquies shall be exceedingly careful, that that ar- ticle of our discipline, concerning the maintenance of poor scholars designed for the ministry, be diligently observed, and that they make report of it unto their Provincial Synods, and tlie Provincial Synods shall give account thereof unto the National, that so it may be manifested how they have performed their duty in this particular. But forasmuch as the expedients contained in that article are not sutRcient for this end, and the Church's stock is very mean and low, the further consideration hereof is referred unto the General As- sembly at St. Foy." Indeed, so zealous was the Church in this matter, that she resolved to apply to the King of Navarre, and the Prince of Conde, and other lords professing the reformed religion, and to beseech them to contribute liberally " towards the main- tenance of poor scholars and candidates for the ministry;" " and all churches are exhorted to press this duty vigorous- ly upon their richer and more substantial members." Nay, to such an extent did the zeal of the Church reach, that where a Protestant had acquired a right to tithes, he was entreated to consecrate them, not to private profit, but to pious uses, such as the " education of scholars, who be the seminary of the Church;" and he was censured if he refused. And 48 PROTESTANT CHURCH when a suitably qualified minister was found, he was not allowed to secularize himself, poor as his outward provision might be. It was expressly decreed, that a minister should be permitted neither to exercise the office of a judge, nor to practise medicine. And as soon as any minister departed from the faith, or refused to submit to the discipline of the Church, he was set aside. At one Synod, we read of seven ministers being deposed, and at another of twenty-four; the latter number included "vagrants." In some cases there may have been harshness, but the circumstances of the times required zeal and determination, and it is not easy always to separate these from apparent severity. The directions ad- dressed to ministers, as to the manner in which they should preach and catechise, are good. " Churches shall be admonished more frequendy to prac- tise catechisings ; and ministers shall catechise by short, plain, and familiar questions and answers, accommodating themselves to the weakness and capacity of their people, without enlargements, or handling of common places. xAnd such churches as have not used this ordinance of catechising, are hereby exhorted to take it up. Yea, and all ministers shall be obliged to catechise their several flocks at least once or twice a-year, and shall exhort their youth to submit them- selves unto it conscientiously. And as for their method in preaching and handling the Scriptures, the said ministers shall be exhorted not to dwell long upon a text, but to ex- pound and treat of as many in their ministry as they can, fleeing all ostentation and long digressions, and heaping up of parallel places and quotations ; nor ought they to propound divers senses and expositions, nor to allege, unless very rare- ly and prudently, any passage of the Fathers ; nor shall they cite profane authors and stories, that so the Scriptures may be left in their full and sovereign authority." While thus in earnest to render the labours of the minis- try as effective and interesting as possible, the Church of France did not undervalue the word of God. She hailed the new translation of the Scriptures, and encouraged the bre- thren of Geneva to continue their explanatory observations; and when the copies became rare and expensive, she rejoiced in an edition being brought out at Rochelle, and entreated the printer that he have "• a singular care that it be done most ac- curately and correcdy." " Reserving liberty unto the Church for a more exact translation of the Holy Bible, our churches, imitating the OF FRANCE, 49 primitive Church, are exhorted to receive and use, in their pubhc assemblies, the last translation, revised by the pastors and professors of the Church of Geneva. And thanks shall be presendy given unto Monsieur Rotan, and by letters unto our brethren of Geneva, who have, at the desire of our churches, so happily undertaken and accomplished this great and good work: and they be further entreated to amplify their notes, for the clearer and better understanding of the remaining dark places in the sacred text: and ministers in the respective provinces are ordered to collect those difficult passages, and to make report of them unto the next National Synod, who shall consider which most needs explication." With regard, again, to the sanctification of the Sabbath, another of the great means of spiritual good, we find that she was not insensible. Living in the heart of a Popish country, where the Sabbath is uniformly desecrated, the Protestants of France may not have entertained such just and scriptural views of the sanctity of that day as other Protestants who are placed in more favourable circumstances ; and, indeed, the Continental Reformers generally, seem to have put the argument for the Sabbath upon low and insuf- ficient ground, the sad consequences of which are felt to this day : but the following deliverance indicates serious concern for the honour of the Lord's day. " Whereas public notaries in divers churches keep open doors on the Lord's day, and pass all manner of contracts and transactions, whereby very many souls are taken oflf, to- gether with themselves, from the religious sanctification of the Lord's holy Sabbath; it is decreed by this Synod, that for time to come the said notaries shall pass no manner of contracts on the Lord's day, unless it be contracts of mar- riage, last wills and testaments, articles of agreement be- tween dissenting parties, and the amicable terminating of vexatious lawsuits, and such other business as cannot possi- bly be delayed; under which head fall in matters of necessity and mercy, and such contracts may be despatched on the most holy days, provided always that such writings be not drawn up, nor executed, during the time of divine service, and of the public worship of God ; and their offices shall be shut, if possible, whilst they be thus employed." Nor was the concern less for the honour of God's name. " All swearers, who in passion or hastiness, do take the name of God in vain, and others who aflfront the divine Ma- jesty, shall be most sharply reproved ; and if, after one or 4 50 PROTESTANT CHURCH two admonitions, they do not refrain, they shall be suspend- ed the Lord's Table. And all outrageous blasphemers, for- swearers, and such like persons, shall in nowise be tolerated in the Church, but upon the first offence shall be punished -with suspension from the Lord's Supper; and if they con- tinue in their ungodliness, they shall be publicly excommu- nicated. And this Assembly voted unanimously, that when the deputies of the provinces shall be returned to their seve- ral respective homes, they shall cause this article to be read in all the churches, in the audience of all the people." I am still speaking of the twenty-six years which inter- vened between 1572 and 1598 — between the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and the granting of the edict of Nantes. Though there can be little doubt that the Church was al- ready declining in her attachment to sound doctrine, and that light views of truth were beginning to appear, she was still, as a Church, decided in her opposition to heresy, and to the corruptions of the Church of Rome. At an early day, she had deputed a certain number of her ministers to protest against the Popish Council of Trent, and to declare the nul- lity of all its decisions and decrees ; and at a later day, we meet wulh the following dehverance : " The confession being read. Monsieur de Beza acquaint- ed the assembly of those heresies dispersed abroad in Po- land and Transylvania, by divers persons, against the unity, divinity, and human nature of our Lord Jesus Christ, revi- ving the errors of ancient heretics, particularly of Samo- satenus, Arius, Photinus, Nestorius, Eutychus, and many others, yea, and of Mahomet himself also: Whereupon the Synod unanimously voted their detestation of all those abom- inable errors and heresies, and advised all pastors, elders and deacons, and generally all the faithful, vigorously to oppose their admission into the churches of France. Information was also given concerning the errors of Cozain, by the min- ister of Normandy ; and Monsier de Chandiese, and Monsieur de L'Estang, were ordered to examine the table of the said Cozain, and to bring in a report of it; and finally, it was condemned, rejected, and detested; and the English bishops shall be desired to suppress the books of the said heretics, which begin to be in vogue among them." Indeed, it was common to censure and condemn works containing erroneous sentiment, and to guard the churches against them; and a correspondence was even held with foreign churches, where the heresy proceeded from their OF FRANCE. 51 borders. At this time, too (1594,) the Church, as a body, was sound in her opposition to Popery. One of the minis- ters was publicly and warmly commended for his answer to part of Bellarmine's Works, the great Romish champion; and those who had had the courage to hold a discussion with the advocates of the Church of Rome, were honoured with similar approbation. f The present Synod return thanks unto Monsieur Berand, Rotan, and the other pastors, for their pious endeavours in maintaining the truth at the conference held at Mants with Monsieur de Perrote, and other Popish theologers, and rati- fies their whole proceeding, and that offer made by them to continue the said conference at the pleasure and command- ment of his Majesty. In pursuance whereof, the Synod hath nominated twenty pastors, out of whom twelve shall be chosen to confer with those of the Romish Church, that so the provinces may have notice, and come prepared for the said conference." But it is to be feared the seeds of compromise and degen- eracy were now in the course of being sown. Several of the Protestant ministers, disappointed that their preferments were so poor, proposed a reunion of the two Churches, Po- pish and Protestant; and agreed, at a public discussion, to betray the cause of the Reformed into the hands of the Ro- manists. It would seem that they had been largely bribed for this purpose. Though defeated in their object at the time by the superior fidelity of their brethren, yet the very fact that such an idea was entertained, and deemed practicable, showed how sadly both ministers and people were declining from the truth. The General Assembly of 1598 was still clear and decided. " Forasmuch as it is the duty of all the faithful heartily to desire the reunion of all the subjects of this kingdom in the unity of faith, for the greater glory of God, the salvation of millions of souls, and the singular repose of the common weal; yet, because of our sins, this being rather a matter of our prayers than of our hopes, and that, under this pretext, divers profane persons attempt openly to blend and mingle both religions, all ministers shall admonish seriously their flocks, not in the least to hearken unto any such motions, it being utterly impossible that the temple of God should hold communion with idols ; as also, for that such wretches de- sign only by this trick to debauch easy credulous souls from the belief and profession of the Gospel. And whoever at- 52 PROTESTANT CHURCH tempts such a reconciliation, either by word or writing, shall be most severely censured." We are happy to turn to a more pleasing contemplation. While some persons longed for a union between Popery and Protestantism, the Church cultivated a Christian union with the other Protestant Churches of Christendom. Unity of sentiment and affection, as well as a sense of common dan- ger, led to this; and it were well that it were more common now. The Evangelical Churches of the present day are, in this respect, a great contrast to the Christian Churches of the Reformation. The National Synod, held in 1583, high- ly approved of a work entitled " Harmonia Confessionicm,"^ The Harmony of the Confessions of Faith, " as being most useful and needful for these our times," and advised that it should be translated into French, and recommended by the Church. A few years earlier, " many deputies, from sundry famous reformed Churches, kingdoms, and provinces, met at Francfort," to devise measures for uniting all the reformed Churches of Christendom in one common bond of union, so as to terminate all their differences. The Church of France rejoiced in this prospect, and appointed four of her ablest ministers to appear as her representatives. AVith regard to the Church of the Netherlands, she highly approved of their confession, and established a still closer union. " This assembly doth now ordain, that as often as the Synods of the said Low Countries shall be convened, two provinces of this kingdom shall be obliged to send their de- puties; to wit, two ministers and one elder, who shall be ex- pressly sent by those two provinces in every National Synod, and their charges borne by all the provinces of this kingdom; and for this present approaching Synod of the Low Coun- tries, the provinces of the Isle of France and Normandy are appointed to send their deputies. And whereas the brethren, their deputies, have tendered unto this Synod the confession of faith and body of Church discipline owned and embraced by the said Churches of the Low Countries, this assembly having humbly and heartily blessed God for that sweet union and agreement, both in doctrine and discipline, between the Churches of this kingdom and of that republic, did judge meet to subscribe them both ; and it did also request those our brethren, their deputies, reciprocally to subscribe our confession of faith and body of Church discipline; which, in obedience to the commission given them by their princi- pals, they did accordingly; thereby testifying that mutual OP FRANCE. 53 harmony and concord in the doctrine and discipline of all the Churches in both nations. Morever, this assembly, hav- ing, to its great grief, understood the miserable condition of the greater part of the Churches in the Low Countries, how that they be exceedingly pestered with divers sects and here- sies, as of David George, Anabaptists, Libertines, and other errors contrary to the purity of God's Word, and against which they cannot use those remedies that are most desired; and yet, on the other hand, this Synod did exceedingly re- joice at the glad tidings of their care and diligence in oppos- ing and resisting those anti-scriptural heresies, subversive of divine doctrine, order, and discipline ; and it did most earn- estly entreat them to persevere in the confutation and con- demnation of them; as it would also, on its part, cordially join with them in so doing, and would give, as it doth now give, an unquestionable proof thereof, by subscribing unto their confession of faith and Church discipline. And foras- much as this holy union and concord established between the Churches of France and those of the Low Countries, seems necessarily to demand their mutual loves and assistance, this assembly doth judge meet, that the churches of both the nations shall lend and borrow their ministers reciprocally, according as their respective necessities shall require." It were easy to refer to many other pleasing features in the character of the Church of France at this period of her his- tory; such as her loyalty to her Sovereign, and anxiety for his salvation, (Henry IV.) " All ministers are exhorted to be earnest with God in their public prayers for the conver- sion, preservation and prosperity of the King; and whenever they be at court, and have access unto his Majesty, they shall do their duty in reminding him seriously of his soul's salvation. And the pastors ordinarily residing at court, or in its neighbourhood, shall be writ unto by this Synod, more especially to put this our counsel into practice." I might refer to her spirit of love for the suffering and oppressed; the prayers which she requested for the Churches of the Low Countries ; her missionary spirit, recommending to the brethren of Languedoc, " that they do their endeavour to advance the kingdom of God, as much as in them lieth, not only at home in their own Churches, but, if it may be done without incommoding their own flocks, abroad also." I might refer to her zeal in the cause of education; her anx- iety that a college should be erected in each of the pro- vinces ; the selection of the city of Saumur as a convenient 54 PROTESTANT CHURCH place for one of them, and the earnest entreaty addressed to Governor De Plessis to aid in this good cause. But I have space only to allude to the unfavourable change which had already taken place in the character of many of the Protest- ants of France, and which became deeper and more serious as we approach the termination of the period of which we at present write. Pleasing and delightful as are the aspects of the Church which we have been contemplating, it is well known that the forms of truth may remain after the spirit which origin- ally established them has in some measure disappeared, and that fair outward features in a Church, as a body, are quite consistent with the degeneracy of many of its individual members. The dreadful persecution to which the Church of France had been subjected on St. Bartholomew's day, did not improve her character, or call forth new energies. Though she wonderfully maintained her place amid the adverse cir- cumstances with which she was surrounded, it would seem that she had been seriously deteriorated. The perpetual re- ference which is made during the space of twenty-six years, and especially towards its close, to the difficulty of support- ing ministers, and the destitution and desolation of many of the Churches, as well as the various expedients- — some in- effectual— which were resorted to for rearing young men for the ministry, all show that the people had declined in their religious character and diminished in number. From a very early period we read of churches being advised to succour their ministers in their necessities, and to raise maintenance for them and their families, " because foreign countries have been exceedingly scandalised at the neglect and ingratitude of divers churches even in this particular." We read too, of ministers being " given to loan" to churches for six months. But it is at a later day, and after the persecution, that we meet with the most frequent and affecting notices of this kind. Express canons were passed by the Synod of 1579, to prevent the ingratitude of many churches to their ministers; the people are required to advance a provision for the pastor for so many months, and in the event of failure, the minister is authorized to withdraw, and " the ungrateful church shall not be provided with any other pastor, till it shall have first given plenary satisfaction unto its former minister." Notwithstanding that in many cases two or more congregations had been joined together, and put under the charge of one minister, still the support of the pastor was OF FRANCE. 55 becoming more and more precarious, so that the Synod of Montauban, in 1594, was constrained to pass the following resolution: "Forasmuch as the ingratitude of divers per- sons, in not contributing to their ministers' subsistence, is more notorious than ever, and that this crying sin threatens the churches with a total dissipation, after mature delibera- tion, we do decree, that in case these ungrateful wretches, having been several times admonished by their Consistory, (Kirk Session,) do persist obstinately in this their sin, their Consistory shall deprive them of communion with the church in the Sacraments." This was a very strong step, but it proves how general and severe was the evil against which it was directed, and also how seriously the numbers and the Christian spirit of the French Protestants were declining. A few years later, in 1598, we read of " the great desolations and dispersions of the churches in Provence;" of a minister, " by reason of the great necessities of the churches," being appointed to serve two churches; and of another, " foras- much as he receiveth a very small salary from his church, and hath been many years in their service," being granted license to teach youth for his better maintenance — a practice to which the Church was strongly averse. But what, per- haps, is still more impressive and affecting, it was decreed, " Because of the present distress and poverty of our churches, and till such time as the Lord shall have blessed us with greater abilities, it is ordained by this present Synod, that the National Synod shall be convened only once in three years, unless it be in case of very great necessity, as of here- sy and schism." So that such was the poverty of the minis- ters, arising from the weakness of their congregations, and the dechning piety of their people, that they could not bear the expense of carrying on the business of the Church in the way which their consciences judged most scriptural. After all, it is not wonderful that the character and strength of the French Protestant Church should have been seriously impaired. Any Church which, by a stroke, loses between sixty and seventy thousand of its best members, may well be Aveak, the more especially if as many, or a greater number, of the well disposed and timid are, by the same stroke, driv- en into apostasy. What Christian Church, at the present day, could stand such a trial unhurt? How many congrega- tions would be broken up and dispersed altogether! How many of the strong would be damped and discouraged into weakness ! Accordingly, we have reason to believe, from 56 PBOTESTA^T CHTECH an enumeration which was made of the French Protestant Church in 1598, by authority, that it was reduced to less than one thousand congregations. The nuoiber is given so low as seven hundred and sixty. "What a change from the two thousand of Beza, tweniy-six years before I Even ad- mitting that the early number was too great, and the latter too small, still it is plain that a very serious diminution had taken place in the numbers of the French Protestants. And it was not persecution alone which wrought the change. Henry IV., had been educated a Protestant, and had been much indebted to the Protestant p^Tiy : but when the prospect of the throne opened before him, he aban- doned the faith which he had been taught, and became a Ro- man Catholic. As Henry does not seem to have had any rehgious convictions, but was a mere man of the world and of expediency, his adoption of Popery, when he came to power, may be regarded as a proof that he considered the Romish party not only the stronger but the gaining one, and that Protestantism was losing ground. And this quite accords with the representation which has been given. But the king was not alone in his apostasy (if apostasy it can be called, where there was no previous faith;) multitudes of the aristo- cracy went along with him, and indeed almost the whole Protestant class who had any political influence. "While this shows the power of royal example for evil — and why not for good ? it proves also how unsound and degenerate was the religion of a large body of Protestants. Had their religion been any thing better than a name, or a poor politi- cal feeling, they would not have desened the Protestant cause. In such circumstances as these, it is not wonderful that the distinction between the Reformed Church and the Church of Rome began to lose its disrincmess, and that many were ready, especially when encouraged by bribes, to propose a union of the two Churches. All these influences were truly disastrous. But amid these mournful symptoms, we must not forget that a far larger body of the Protestants remained tirm and steadfast, and that, as a Church they continued to adorn the doctrines of the Cross. From the brief review which has been made of an interest- ing period in die histon.- of the French Protestant Church, one may learn how strong is the tendency to, and how rapid the operation of religious decreneracy. In a few years the Church rose to greatness and fflory, and in a few years she declined into comparative weakness. So it was in primitive or FEANCE. 57 times with the churches of Asia Minor; the vigour of their pietv did not survive the death of the Apostles, and so ii not unfrequently happens with the individual Chrisiian. His first are his best davs, and that so generally, that niany good men have concluded in every life of faiih uhere is necessarily a season of backsliding. "V^'hat the more immediate causes of this may be, we are not here called upon to state ; but one can scarcely fail to remark, that such cases strikingly show the amazing depravity of human nature even among good men ; the necessity of the continued agency of the Holy Spirit to the spiritual prosperity of individuals and of churches ; and the sovereismty of the Divine dispensations towards the Church of the Redeemer. PROTESTAXnSM OF THE PEOVrN'CES OF EEARX AND NAVARRE. While I have spoken of the Protestant Church of France as a whole, it may be proper to record a few things more par- ticularly of the provinces of Beam and Xevarre, constituting at that time a distinct kingdom. These provinces, stretching along the range of the Pyreneean mountains, had early le- ceived the light of the Reformed doctrine. Indeed, the Al- pine fastnesses of the South of France, of which they may be said to form a part, seem to have been the asylum where God protected and nourished his suffering saints during the darkest and bloodiest reign of Antichrist. This was the wil- derness into which the woman was driven for 1260 years. Marsfiierite, the sister of Francis I., became by marriage the Queen of Navarre, in 152T. She was. according to her light, a devoted Protestant ; and published a book of piety, which was afterwards translated by Elizabeth, Queen of England, entitled. '-A Godly Meditation of the Christian Soul." About the time of her ascending the throne, a fierce persecution broke out in Germany, which drove many Pro- testants to her kingdom as a refuge — among others the cele- brated Calvin, then scarcely of age : and Marot. the translator of the Psalms of David into French metre. The great Re- former speaks of the Queen: and higher praise could not be given as of " one who was promoting the kingdom of God." She left an only daughter, Jeanne Dalbret, who ascended the throne in 1555, and proved herself a most able and zealous 58 PROTESTANT CHURCH Protestant. Her court was repeatedly the asylum of the persecuted Reformed, who flocked thither from all quarters ; the most eminent of their number being glad of her protection and countenance. She was the mother of the celebrated Henry IV., and when eight years of age, conjured him, with the affection of a mother, never to attend mass, assuring him, that if he did so she would disown him as her son. How it would have made her heart bleed, had she lived to behold his apostasy; and, after all his sacrifices, to know the un- happy end to which his life was brought by the hand of a Popish assassin, whose religion he had adopted ! Great was the rapidity with which the reformed faith ad- vanced in Navarre and Beam. In 1560, when the French Protestant Church may be said to have been first regularly organized, the population of the former was nearly divided between the Protestants and Roman Catholics; so that a question arose, who were best entitled to the use of the pa- rish churches. Two years after, when the aggressions of the Papists stirred up the Protestants to war, a minister at one town offered to place at the disposal of a military com- mander four thousand Protestant soldiers, and also to sup- pgi^rt them — a plain proof, at once, of the numbers and re- spectability of the Protestant population ; and yet, not many years before, this was, in a great measure, a popish country. In 1563, the queen, in the course of a very able letter which she wrote to a popish cousin, a cardinal, in defence of Pro- testantism, declared that the adherents to the Reformed Church increased in number daily. Such was the progress, that the churches were on all hands supplied with Protestant pastors. Two hundred and thirty monks of the convent of Orthez were superseded by Protestant teachers. Golden chalices, and the other apparatus of the Romish Church, were publicly sold, and the proceeds thrown into the public exchequer; and such was the unpopularity of the Popish ecclesiastics, that they needed a guard to protect them against insult. In various considerable towns the Protestants formed the chief part of the population. In twenty-seven years from the commencement of the queen's reign, not less than eighty Protestant churches had been erected in the province of Beam — a province which probably, at that period, did not comprehend more than two hundred thousand souls. How amazing, then, had been the progress of the Gospel in the course of a few years, under the rich outpouring of the Spirit of God. At the same time, how perfectly accordant was this OF FRANCE. 59 with the experience of the Church of God in other quarters — in Germany, and in France generally. But the very pro- gress of the Gospel provoked; and as the people came to be very equally divided, and the court of Navarre was favourable to the Protestant interest, while the court of France was in- tensely Popish ; so it was easy to see, that collision and broils, terminating in civil war, must ere long ensue. This, accordingly, was the case; and the whole reign of the mo- ther of Henry IV. might be said to be chequered with peace and war, often succeeding each other at very short intervals. There was a perpetual struggle, and the fortunes were va- rious. Though we cannot altogether vindicate the proceed- ings of the Protestants — though sometimes they were un- duly severe in their retaliations, yet, generally speaking, there is a very marked contrast between them and their op- ponents: the proceedings of the latter were usually the ag- gressive, and they were tracked with the deepest blood-stains. At Toulouse, in one of the struggles, three thousand five hundred Protestants were most cruelly put to the sword, who, without any sacrifice of principle, yea, in common hu- manity, might have been spared. As the Popish party were strongly supported by the power of the French throne, the queen of Navarre, the sovereign, comparatively speaking, of a very limited territory, was constrained to apply for aid to the queen of England. To the honour of Elizabeth let it be recorded, that she promptly sent £50,000 — a large sum in these days — and six pieces of cannon. On a second appli- cation to the same quarter, the success was similar. What- ever might be the imperfect views, or the serious faults of the English queen, she was, at least, the ready friend of the Protestant cause in foreign lands against Popish oppression; and as such, her services should never be spoken of without gratitude. In the present case her assistance did not prove of such essential use as could have been desired ; it was, however, important: and after all, it was to a foreigner that the queen of Navarre was indebted for the deliverance of her kingdom. Gabriel Montgomery, the grandson of a Scotchman who had settled in France, undertook, in 1569, the rescue of the town of Navarreins, the last refuge and stronghold of Protestantism. There were but 400 soldiers within its walls. Arrayed against them were 12,000 Popish troops. Montgomery, with 3000 Protestants under his command, repaired to the walls, and, by the excellence of his management, and the blessing of the God of armies, re- 60 PROTESTANT CHURCH pelled the besiegers ; so that the unhappy refugees, after being shut up for seventy-seven days, and undergoing the severest hardships, were at once and completely delivered. Looking over their walls on the morning of the 9th of Au- gust, there was no enemy to be seen. In that religious spi- rit in which they contended, they devoted the day to public thanksgiving to the God of heaven. On a similar occasion at an after day, they partook of the Supper of the Lord, plainly showing, that the object for which they struggled was not political, or merely patriotic, but decidedly religious. The character of their commander harmonized with such proceedings. The Scottish soldier seems to have been a true Christian. He escaped the massacre of St. Bartholomew, though he was in Paris at the time. By an almost incredible exertion — the continuous ride of above 100 miles — he reach- ed the shore, from whence he sailed to the hospitable refuge of England. On his return, however, two years after, he was seized in Paris by the Popish party, to whom he was peculiarly obnoxious, and basely executed ; but no cruelty could take from him the glory, that, in ten weeks, with a small body of troops, he reconquered the whole province of Lower Navarre, and re-established tlie legitimate authority — the reign of the Protestant queen. She died in 1572, a few months before the St. Bartholomew massacre, and was suc- ceeded by her son, Henry IV. He, in process of time, succeeded also to the crown of France, and the separate and independent kingdom of Navarre ceased. Though Henry had himself been shortly before preserved from the massacre, yet, forgetful of all his mother's instructions, and his obliga- tions to his Protestant subjects, and of what he owed to God, he speedily issued an ordinance for the abrogation of their privileges, and the re-establishment of Popery in the ancient territory of Navarre. Multitudes of refugees fled from the Parisian massacre to this foreign asylum. But Navarre was no longer what it had been. A large body of Protestants remained, but their protection was gone. Before noticing a few interesting features of Christian character which appear among the Protestants of Navarre, in the period of which I have been writing, let me meet an objection which is often preferred against our Protestant brethren of France. It is said they were wrong in taking up arms in defence of their religion — that this was the cause of their ruin — and that, had they not done so, they would have been more successful, and ultimately, in all probability, tri- OF FEANCE. 61 umphant. It is very easy for men, coolly sitting in their closets, to speculate in this way. Had they been involved in the same sufferings and perils, there is every likelihood they would themselves have acted in the same manner with those whom they condemn. We have yet to learn why men may, in cases of dreadful extremity, take up arms in defence of their civil liberty; and may not take them up in behalf of their far dearer interests, the gospel of Christ, the welfare of their souls, and salvation. We have yet to learn that all the proceedings of our martyred forefathers, and the present set- tlement of the crown of Great Britain, which rose out of them, were wrong and sinful. But, in point of fact, nothing can be clearer to a calm and pains-taking student of French History, than that, had not the Protestants betaken themselves to arms, they would have been utterly extinguished, and that at a very early period. Their petitions, and remonstrances, and patience were amazing — surpassed only by the treachery and violence of their enemies. It may be safely said, that, so far from the armed resistance of the Protestants being the cause of their overthrow, it was only the stand which they were enabled to make in the field, which extorted their toler- ation in any form, from their Popish persecutors; and that, had they tamely submitted to every violation of their rights, civil and religious, speedily the reality and profession of the Protestant faith would have been destroyed. With no truth have I been more impressed than with this, in exploring the history of Navarre, and of France generally; and I am per- suaded, no one can read Mr. Jamieson's interesting " No- tices of the Reformation in the southwest provinces of France" — (Seely, London, 1839) — to which I have been indebted for the preceding facts, without arriving at the same conclusion. And now, to turn for a litde to the Christian character of the Church of Navarre and Beam. Its doctrine and spirit, its discipline and government, were all of the same kind with those of the Reformed Church generally. After the Queen, through God's blessing on the military skill and prowess of Montgomery, had been restored to her authority, in 1 569, she issued an ordinance, embracing seventeen leading heads, which all indicate, at once hatred to Popery, and enlightened views of Protestant doctrine and duty. In these views, it cannot be doubted, that the Protestants heartily concurred. Occa- sionally, some of the regulations may savour of intolerance, but this is not to be wondered at on the part of those who 62 PROTESTANT CHURCH had just acquired power, after smarting under oppression. We select one or two ordinances: — " The effects of proper Education being of the greatest importance, none shall be permitted to act as a schoolmaster, unless of the reformed religion ; and every one who would act in such a capacity, must be examined by a minister, who will judge of his ability and other qualifications for the due performance of his funciions." — Again, "All matters of business and justice shall cease on the Sabbath-day, unless in cases of necessity. The shops and public houses shall be closed during the time of divine ser- vice, at which all persons ought to attend. All sports, usually lawful, are interdicted during the same period." — Again, " In order that no one may have opportunities of wasting time in evil ways, all illegal games, dances, masquerades, impure songs, and such like disorderly proceedings, are hereby prohibited." In a more enlarged proclamation, given shortly after, it is provided, that the Sabbath-day " be sanctified by Christian works, and the suspension of all employment, either servile or vicious," — alluding to sports and public festivities. In regard to the ArpoiNTMENT of ministers of the Gospel, the pastors were chosen by the parishioners of each place. The ecclesiastical council or presbytery, or, in the case of private right, the patron, named two candidates to the con- sistory, who appointed the time of the election by the people of the vacant benefice — the qualifications of the candidates having been previously examined and proved. The ministers were paid by the council, not by the parishioners, and were excluded from all civil power. Speaking of 1579, Mr. Ja- mieson states, among the proofs of the earnest and general impression which the Reformed doctrines had made in Beam, the missionary spirit of the people. The Roman Catho- lic historians describe the Navarese traders to Spain, as car- rying with them, across the Pyrenees, " a dogmatical spirit ;" in other words, an anxious spirit to spread the Gospel, which led the Spanish Inquisitors to send oflicers to the frontiers, to guard the religious health of the people. Nor were they deficient in the spirit of christian sympathy. In the reign of Henry IV., before he ascended the throne of France, a persecution was set on foot, or threatened, by the Popish King of Sardinia, against the honoured Protestant Church of Geneva. Theodore Beza wrote of Daneau, Professor of OF FRANCE. 63 Theology at Orthez, in Beam, to call on the French Protes- tants for 'aid, to "the mother of the pure faith and asylum of the saints;" and so warmly did they respond to his appeal, that though not a little burdened and distracted with their own wants and difficulties, they cheerfully reimbursed the suffer- ing Genevese, and lent both men and pecuniary assistance. Such are some of the leading facts connected with the Pro- testantism of Beam and Navarre ; and surely every Chris- tian must rejoice in them, as affording fresh confirmation of the power and free grace of God, and bearing out the testi- mony which we have drawn together, regarding the Chris- tian character of the Protestant Church of France. NOTICES OF THE CONTEMPORANEOUS HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. The reader may be disposed to ask, what is the connection between the Church of France and the Church of Scotland, that I should propose to give " Contemporaneous Notices" of the latter, in a work devoted to the history of the former. I answer, that besides the diversity of God's dispensations towards two Protestant and Presbyterian Churches, which will become apparent on the comparison of their history, and which may suggest important'reflections, there was, especial- ly in early times, a great degree of intercourse between Scot- land and France, which renders a little blending of their his- tories desirable, and almost essential to a just historical view of either. It may not be generally known, but it is an in- teresting fact, that from a very early period in Scottish his- tory, long prior to the Reformation, the names of various Scotsmen are to be found among the Professors in the Con- tinental Universities. Whether from the poverty of the soil, or, what is more probable, the superior mind of her people, Scotland even then gave indication of the same diffusiveness as regards her children, for which she has been so remarkable in after ages. Thus, a Dr. Elphinston was Professor of Laws in the University of Paris, in 1471, and afterwards at Orleans. He was a native of Scodand ; and after remaining abroad for nine years, returned and obtained an appointment in the Popish Church of Glasgow. He is looked up to as an early promoter of commerce in that city. At the period of the Reformation, it was common for the more intelligent 64 PROTESTANT CHURCH Scottish gentry to send their sons to finish their education on the Continent. France was then eminent for law and lan- guages. Erskine of Dun, one of the early Reformers, spent part of his time on the Continent, and encouraged a learned Frenchman to setde as a teacher of Greek and Latin at Mon- trose. Even then, Scodand had the reputation, in Europe, of being a learned nation — learned, as compared with the wide-spread ignorance of others. There can be litde ques- tion, that this Scottish thirst for knowledge, and the inter- course with learned men on the Continent to which it led, lent an important influence in hastening on the Reformation, and in making it so decided in this country as it proved. In the destructive pursuit of war, as well as the peaceful pursuit of knowledge, Scodand was connected with France. So early as the reign of Malcolm III., she sent not less than two thousand men to the aid of her French neighbour. In- deed, so frequent and large were these warlike contributions, that, putting them altogether, above thirty thousand Scottish soldiers were, on seven occasions, sent to fight the battles of France. Charles VII. of that country, raised a military company, called the Gens de armes d' Ecosse, consisting of one hundred horse and two hundred archers, and gave them the precedency of all the French troops. So lately as the reign of Louis XIV. there was a royal regiment of Scotch- men in France. On the British Parliament, however, con- sidering it improper that so large a body of their countrymen should be in the service of a foreign power, they were re- called; but so great was the reputation which the Scotch na- tion had acquired in France, that it was a common saying, " Fidelle comme une Ecossois." When the military tie be- tween the two countries was so strong, we may believe that others, the literary and the mercantile, would be strong also. Nor was the intercourse confined to France. Scotchmen, from various impulses, were scattered over the Continent of Europe. Many Scotch names, such as Bruce, Douglas, Hamilton, Ogilvie, Stuart, Weems, Leslie, the names of leading families, are to be found in Germany, Russia, and Italy, to this day. Part of the town of Dantzic bears the name of " Litde Scodand," so numerous were its Scotch in- habitants. With regard, more particularly, to the ministers of the Protestant Churches of the two countries, it is well known, that not a few Scotchmen, and these leading men, sojourned for a time in France. The great Reformer Knox, when in exile, preached in French in her churches; Mel- OF FRANCE. 65 ville taught in her colleges; George Buchanan wrote his Psalms and other poems in the same country. Boyd, who had studied under the eminent civil lawyer, Cajucius, for four years, in the same country, became a Professor at Sau- mur. In 1611, he was joined by his relative, ZacharyBoyd, who first was a Regent in the College, then a French Pro- testant minister; and when his congregation was dispersed by war, pastor of the Barony Parish, Glasgow. It is well known that Welch, the son-in-law of Knox, when banished from his charge in Scotland, became a most successful min- ister of the Church of France : and Cameron, a native of Glasgow, and afterwards Principal of the University, was, in the first instance, Professor of Divinity at Saumur; and was so highly esteemed by the learned men of Europe, that he passed among them by the name of " Cameron Ic Grand," speaking Greek extempore with as great ease as the scholars of those days spoke Latin. Many other names could be mentioned; but let these suffice to show, that a very impor- tant connection subsisted between Scodand and France in early times; and that, therefore, there is no impropriety, when treating of the Church of the one, in making a paral- lel reference to the Church of the other. It is unnecessary to say any thing of the moral and reli- gious condition of Scotland, prior to the Reformation. It was deplorable in the extreme. Ignorance, especially igno- rance of God's Word, was paramount; and vice, in a vast variety of forms, was, of course, corresponding. When al- most half the property of the nation, and all the power, was in the hands of the Church of Rome, the patron of super- stition, and idolatry, and licentiousness — when even in Ro- man Catholic countries it was necessary to pass the law of mort 7nain, restraining the donations of devotees, on their death-bed, to the Church, lest the whole property of the country should be swallowed up by ecclesiastics — we may well believe that the degradation of the Scottish nation, which was eminently Popish, in its submission, was complete. I find that there were connected with the Cathedral of Glas- gow alone, eighteen baronies of land, in nine counties, and two hundred and forty parishes, besides an immense estate in Cumberland; and that there were either thirty-two or thirty-nine prebendaries, and as many parsonages, connected with the same church. As to the moral character of the peo- ple, it may be estimated from what is recorded by Wodrow, in his MS. collections of a life of Gordon, Bishop of Ork- 5 66 PROTESTANT CHURCH ney, regarding Shetland, ten years after the Reformation had begun, viz. " that all vice and horrible crimes were there committed, so that six hundred persons were convicted of fornication, incest and aduhery." It is true that there were thirty-two parishes in Shetland, but the population was com- paratively small. Hence, the moral picture is appalling; and if this wj)s the state of things in the remote and quieter dis- tricts, even after the light of Reformation had begun to shine, what must have been the general condition of the population in the more populous districts, where temptations to sin were stronger, before the restraint of the reformed doctrine and discipline had beguo to be felt. Such was the working of Popery with all her power. Surely the Church of Rome had great reason to be ashamed. But no. She boasted of her excellence, and as in France, so here, raised up the most de- termined opposition to the propagation of the Gospel. The Scottish martyrs, down to 1560, were few, compared with those of France at the same period; but they were noble men, and with God's blessing, wrought out the salvation of their country. So early as 1527, Patrick Hamilton was burnt at St. Andrews ; and shortly after, two gentlemen at Glasgow, Jeremiah Russell, a Grey friar, and John Kennedy, of Ayr- shire, a young man not eighteen years of age, shared the same fate. But, as an old writer remarks, " their death was the very death of Popery in Glasgow and the live adjacent shires, in so far, that the people were so greatly enraged, that thereafter, resolving openly to profess the truth, they bound themselves by promise and oath, which they subscribed, that if any of them should be called in question for matters of religion at any time thereafter, they would take up arms; which the citizens of Glasgow did."* While persecution was powerfully teaching in one way, faithful men were not less zealous and laborious in other ways; so that, before the year of the Reformation, (1560,) much had been done to en- lighten and concentrate the public mind. For instance, Wo- drow, in his MS. collections, speaking, in 1558, of Willock, who had been a Franciscan friar, and received ordination in England, whither he had fled for safety from his Popish op- pressors, says, " Such was the greedy appetite now prevail- ing after the sincere milk of the Word, and the unwearied diligence of Mr. W^illock, that every day he taught and ex- horted great multitudes of nobilit}^ barons, and others, who * M'Ure's History of Glasgow. 1737. OF FRANCE. 67 came to hear him in his room, yea, from his bed, when he was unable to rise." It was this previous preparation of years which made the great piibhc change so decided and harmonious when it came. With regard to the actual Re- formation of 1560, great was the revival of true religion which it indicated. The Spirit of God was poured down, though not perhaps in so visible a form as in particular places in after times; yet as really and powerfully. The facts des- criptive of progress are inexplicable, except upon the sup- position of a wonderful descent of the Holy Spirit. At the first General Assembly, which met in Edinburgh in the close of 1560, there were, according to Row's MS. only twelve ministers, and thirty ruling elders. Other persons, forty-three in number, were appointed; some to read the word in the mother tongue, the people being unable to read themselves, and some to exhort: the one class were called readers, the other exhorters. The whole official moral force might be rated therefore at eighty-five. Wodrov/, in his MS. Life of Spotswood, says, that in the same year there was a meet- ing of the well-affected noblemen, barons, and burghers, who had hitherto been carrying oil the Reformation, for the purpose of fixing the few ministers above spoken of in the burgh towns, as the most important spheres. Eight of them were appointed to the leading towns; the remainder, with the addition of another, making five, were appointed superintendents or commissioners, for the purpose of plant- ing the desolate rural districts as pastors could be procured. In the mean time, they were themselves to visit them, and stir up the nobles and people to make provision for the com- ing teacher. It would seem, over the whole wide, and peo- pled, and fertile country of the Lothians, in the vicinity of the metropolis, there were only six churches available for Protestant worship, and they were not all supplied with pas- tors. Such was the paucity of the ministers, that the Ge- neral Assembly parcelled them out in different parts of the country for a few months, sometimes for half a year at a time. No commencement of a National Church could be more humble. And what, under the blessing of the Spirit of God, was the result in seven short years? I learn from the Register of the ministers, exhorters, and readers of 1567, an important document lately printed, like some of the \Yod- row MS. collections, by the Maidand Club, though not pub- lished, and therefore inaccessible to the general reader, — I learn, that instead of 12 ministers there were 252; and in- 68 PROTESTANT CHURCH Stead of 43 readers and exhorters, there were 467 readers and 154 exhorters, making in all 873 moral agents labouring for the spiritual good of the people of Scotland, instead of 65. In other words, there was almost a moral agent of one description or another for every parish of the land in seven years. Wliat an amazing religious achievement was this! How strikingly does it show forth the power and grace of the Spirit of God! The written record of His actual opera- tion on the hearts of multitudes, if it ever existed, may have disappeared; but so long as these dry figures remain, they will constitute an irrefragable proof of the greatness of the work of which He must have been the author. It adds much to the force and interest of a statement so precious to every Christian heart, to notice, that the moral and religious ma- chinery was not limited to the near and populous districts of the country, but reached the thinly peopled, the inaccessible, and the poor. We read of ministers, exhorters, and readers in Galloway, Caithness, Ross-shire, Orkney, SheUand. Thus, to 29 parishes in Ross, we find 3 ministers, 5 exhorters, 13 readers. To 22 parishes in Orkney, 8 ministers, 2 exhort- ers, 15 readers. In 16 parishes in Shetland, 2 ministers and 9 readers. Of course, the provision is very inadequate, and the least effective is the most ample; but, considering the time in which, and the country to which, it was supplied, the result is wonderful. From Wodrow's account of Cars- well, superintendent or commissioner for Argyle, it appears that even so rough and wild a country was not overlooked. In 1564, the commissioner speaks of passing to Kintyre, and then to the Isles, to visit the churches, implying that there were churches to superintend. The reader seems to have been appointed first, then the exhorter, and lastly the minis- ter. The cases are rare, only in large towns, where the whole three offices, or even two, were in operation together. Ge- nerally there was at the outset but one of them in one place. The fact, that nine years after, that is, in 1576, there were in 289 parishes, not less than 116 places where there was both a minister and reader, is an indication of great and con- tinued progress. It proves that faithful men were multiply- ing, 'rhere is, too, a higher proportion of ministers at the same period — another good sign. Seven years after the Re- formation, there were 252 ministers in the whole Church. Sixteen years from the same date, there were 151 ministers in 289 parishes, showing, that more than half the parishes were supplied with the highest religious office — the parochial OP FRANCE. 69 minister — supposing the rest of the Church to enjoy the same proportion. My authority for these later statements is the " Book of the Assignations of the Ministers' and Readers' Stipend for 1576," which has, like the preceding, been but lately brought to light by the Maitland Club ; and, so far as I know, its information never before reckoned in the same way. It may be mentioned, that ^616 to 26 Scots, was a common stipend for a Scripture reader; 40 and 50 merks a common salary for an exhorter; and 100 and 120, not un- frequently the chief support of the minister at this time. Row's MSS. state, that, at every Assembly, the number of ministers increased, and " the number of godly professors grew exceedingly." The Scripture reader, when well quali- fied, seems, in the absence of the minister, to have adminis- tered the sacraments and celebrated marriage ; and both he and the exhorter, where their gifts were approved, appear sometimes to have been admitted to the ministry. Indeed, the Church, with great wisdom, did not, in these trying times, demand, on the part of the ministers, an exact and formal curriculum of study. She was glad to avail herself of their services, when the qualifications were such as to promise usefulness. Thus, the lirst Protestant minister of the West Church of Edinburgh, W. Harlow, originally a tailor, was obliged to flee to England for safety. Having obtained deacon's orders, he returned in 1556, four years before the first General Assembly, and became minister of the West Kirk. The Church was too much animated with the Spirit of Christ to make any question about the validity of his ordination. William Aird, another and subsequent minister of the same charge, seems to have been wonderfully raised up by God for the work of the ministry. Till twenty years of age, he was an operative mason, and then acquired the learn- ed languages in such perfection, as to be as familiar with He- brew as his mother tongue. Having spent a few years at college, and his eminent qualifications being well known, he was received as minister in 1584. I conclude the notices descriptive of the amazing progress which the Protestant faith made under the unwearied prayers and labours of the early Church, with the following remark of the Regent, in 1573, or thirteen years after the organization of the Church of Scotland. It may be over-coloured, as he had an object to serve; but there must have been a general truth in the statement, otherwise it would have been inapplicable. I take it from Wodrow's MS. collections of the Life of Boyd of 70 PROTESTANT CHURCH Trochrig. Speaking of the religious change, the Regent says, " Seeing the most part of the canons, monks, and friars icithin this realm, have made profession of the true religion, it is thought meet that it be enjoined to them to serve as readers at the places where they shall be appointed." These parties in the Church of Rome are among the last to move ; and yet, in thirteen short years, it can be said that they have generally abandoned their own superstitious idola- try, and publicly adopted the true faith, and that so sincerely, that they may be employed in the service of the Protestant Church. The ancient Confession of Faith of the Church of Scot- land, drawn up in the space of four days by the General As- sembly in 1560, may not be so full as that of France, but it is substantially the same in doctrine and spirit, and even in style there is a considerable resemblance. The high ta- lent and piety of those who prepared these documents, the elevated position which they occupied — standing at the head of a religious movement which was to affect unborn genera- tions— and their familiarity with the fine writers of Greek and Roman antiquity as their models, seem all to have be- stowed upon their style a sublimity and greatness which we do not meet with in the writers of later ages. Nor is it only in doctrinal sentiment that we find a strong resemblance be- tween the Protestant Church of France and of Scotland ; as they were the same in government, so in discipline there was a remarkable correspondence. Not only, as we have seen, was there much intercourse between the two countries at that early period — an intercourse from which Scotland was in some respects a sufferer — but both drew their articles of doc- trine and platform of discipline from the word of God. Hence their resemblance. It appears from the " Book of the Uni- versal Kirk," the earliest record of the Church of Scotland, that ministers, under the severest penalty, were required to reside beside their churches, and that they were debarred from holding any civil office, such as that of privy counsel- lor, or judge, or sheriff. By special exception, Mr. Robert Pont, a minister of the West Church, Edinburgh, was al- lowed by the General Assembly to become a Senator of the College of Justice. Even a plurality of ecclesiastical ofHces was repeatedly and earnestly forbidden, under a heavy penal- ty— so anxious was the Church for the full and efficient dis- charge of the ministerial ofBce. Nor was she behind the OF FRANCE, 71 Church of France in her zeal for an educated ministry. With all her fervour there was no fanaticism, and so she made pro- vision for the education of poor scholars and young men for the ministry, and took care that that education should be thorough and comprehensive. And after men were admitted to the ministry, which was not allowed to take place till they were twenty-five years of age, except in special cases, she made various regulations, such as supplying them with books, and testing their proficiency in study, and appointing regular discussions on some point in the Popish controversy, at every meeting of Presbytery, which were all fitted to stir up the gifts of ministers, and to enlarge their literary and theological acquirements. 1 may mention a few things illustrative of the Christian character of the Church of Scotland during the period in the history of the Church of France of which I have been writing. The " Book of the Universal Kirk" is a chief authority. Conjoined with it, are facts drawn from the West Kirk Records, and Wodrow's MS. Collections. To refer to the education and qualifications of ministers of the Gospel — the General Assembly resolved, in 1575, that, as the leading Scripture commentators are written in Latin, so none should be admitted to the ministry unless they could read that language. Nay, it is required they be able to speak " congruous Latin," unless in cases where Providence has bestowed singular gifts and graces for the edification of his Church. In that event, the rule may be dispensed with. When young men become preachers, they were not released, in point of study, from the watchful superintendence and in- struction of the Church. A controverted part of Scripture was appointed to them by the presbytery within whose bounds they resided, and account was taken of their progress in un- derstanding it, from time to time, in the course of the year. With an eye to their acquiring " certain maturity and solid- ness in the Scripture of God," they are to give the sum and deduction of the passage as a whole, the meaning of the diffi- cult parts, and a collection of illustrative passages, for a con- firmation of the truth, and refutation of error. Such a fami- liar acquaintance with the learned languages as these studies implied, could not be had without a full knowledge of the classical authors; while a familiarity with them, again, must frequently have brought the mind in contact with false prin- ciples. The Church was alive to this danger; and so, in 1583, professors in colleges, regents, and teachers of gram- mar schools, are exhorted to point out what is unsound in 72 PROTESTANT CHURCH principle in the profane aiuhors whose works they used. Aristotle is particularly named; and not less than twenty statements inconsistent with Revelation are singled out, for the purpose of being confuted. This indicated a beautiful union of the love of learning with the love of true religion, and anxiety for the best interests of youth. After a minister was appointed to a parish, large were the services demanded at his hands. As a remedy for the reviv- ing of Popery, it was proposed, in 1586, that in addition to all the usual duty of the Lord's day, and visiting the sick, and administering discipline, &c., there should be four days of the week when there should be public preaching in the burgh towns: this was to give the people an opportunity for full instruction. Two ministers were to be appointed to such parishes. A few years earlier, all ministers are earnestly exhorted to hold afternoon services on the Lord's day for catechetical instruction in the rudiments of religion. This seems to have been an instrument of great moral power. It had been neglected especially in the rural districts, and so it is revived anew, and strongly enjoined. So early as 1562, the Church resolved that the communion shall be dispensed four times a year in the burghs, and twice a year in the country parishes; and, at a later day, a catechism for the preparation of the people for the Lord's Supper is expressly drawn up by the appointment, and under the sanction of the General Assembly. Mr. John Craig was the author. Every pastor is required to labour with his flock to purchase the book, and to persuade them to read it in their families, that they may be better instructed. It is also recommended that it be read in the Doctor's schools, in the room of the little catechism. This excellent manual has recently been repub- lished, with a recommendatory note by some of the minis- ters of Edinburgh. It is worthy of notice, that these labori- ous services were required and expected of ministers, when few of them had more than five hundred merks of a yearly temporal provision — when very many of them had a con- tinual struggle with poverty — when not a few had to demit their charge from its pressure — and when violent assaults upon them, even to the shedding of blood, were not unfre- quent, from the hatred of their enemies. It is not necessary to record any thing of the labours of die Church in behalf of education and the poor. These were generous and unweari- ed. Her perpetual aim and endeavour were to obtain part of the teind or tithe for the support of both. Her visitation, OF FRANCE. 73 too, of such schools and colleges as then existed was labori- ous, and ever directed to their improvement and efficiency. Nor is it necessary to say any thing of her opposition to Popery, and that in a variety of forms. This was the great contest of the day; and though, in the latter period of which we at present write, there was some rallying in behalf of the Church of Rome, owing to the influence, in a considerable degree, of Jesuits and priests from abroad, the south of France, and other quarters, still, the General Assembly's grounds of complaint, in 1588 — such as of their being twelve papists in Dumfries and its neighbourhood ; ten in Angus and Mearns; three in the Lothians, &c. — is a plain proof how successful her labours against Popery had been, and how lofty was the standard of church reformation after which she aspired. It may not be unsuitable to refer to her exertions in behalf of the sanctification of the Lord's day: these always supply a good test of Christian character. The Church of Rome has ever proved herself the great enemy of the due observance of the Sabbath. At the period of the Reformation in Scotland, it was common to hold fairs and markets on the Lord's day. Mills and saltpans continued in operation as on other days. Li time of harvest, reapers were hired, and corn cut down and gathered in; nay, tragedies and comedies, drawn from the canonical Scriptures, were frequently exhibited on the sacred hours of the Sabbath, not excluding even Robin Hood and the King of May. In short, the Lord's day was treated as a day of labour and amuse- ment, just as it is still in Popish countries. The Protestant Church of Scotland set herself vigorously against these crying enormities ; and, in the course of a few years, succeeded, to a great extent, in putting them down. She blended wisdom with her zeal. In 1590, ministers were called upon to give in the names of those within their bounds who had most in- fluence in stopping Sabbath markets, that they might be ap- plied to to use that influence aright; and the vassals of Lord Angus are entreated to give the tenants under them a day of the week for reaping and leading their corn, so that they might be under no temptation to profane the day of God. This latter was a frequent recommendation. With regard, again, to the duties of Christian union and brotherly love, which, we have seen, marked the character of the early Protestant Church of France, similar indications are not wanting in the Church of Scotland. First of all, she allowed of " no service, friendship, or league with Papists, 74 PROTESTANT CHURCH in France, Italy, or Spain, or other countries, by common or particular consent." Here is the presence of decided princi- ple. On the other hand, both in 1566 and 1583, she took steps indicative of enlightened Christian affection. In the one case, addressing the bishops of the Church of England as brethren, and beseeching them to show kindness to those pastors in that country who differed from them in matters non-essential. In the other, entreating the king to charge his ambassador, going into England, to "labour that a union and bond may be made between the king — her Majesty (Queen Elizabeth,) and other Christian princes and realms professing the true religion, for the protection and defence of the true Word of God, and its professors, against the perse- cution of Papists and confederates, joined and united together by the bloody league of Trent; and also, that her Majesty will disburden their brethren of England of the yoke of cere- monies imposed on them, against the liberty of the Word." Some ignorant men imagine, that the ministers of the early Church of Scotland were so blinded by their love of Pres- bytery, that they were unwilling to recognise the Christian character of the Episcopal Church of England; but here is an answer to all such misrepresentations, and a sufficient defence of those of their posterity at the present day, who, amid the menacing aspects of Popery, are disposed to join with the Church of England, as a Protestant Church, against a common enemy, while they hold by all the peculiarities of Presbyterianism as sacredly as ever. Nor are terms of friend- ship with those Christian churches which maintain the head, all for which the Church of Scotland contended in her early days. She discovered the most substantial kindness to the members of foreign churches. While, in 1573, the General Assembly granted a pension of five hundred merks, besides other provision, for the support of the widow and three daughters of the great Reformer, Knox, and fourteen years after called upon all her ministers to intercede with God in behalf of Gilbert Lamb and his company, detained in prison, in a city of Spain, either that He would deliver, or grant them " a final perseverance and constancy to the end, in the true profession of the Gospel." While the CImrch, I say, manifested so tender a regard for her own children, she .was not insensible to the claims of the members of other Churches. A standing reason in almost all her fast-day appointments, is the oppression of the Reformed Churches. In 1578, she calls upon her people to fasting and prayer, for the bloody OF FRANCE. 75 councils of the Romish Beast all over Europe; and, next year, subjects Captain Anstruther to the sharpest discipline of the Church, because, when in France, he had conformed to Popery, and kept the King's Gate at the Louvre, on the night of the butchery and massacre of Paris — doubtless the night of St. Bartholomew. Though the offender confessed his sin, and stated, that he had passed no further than the gate, so that he had no actual hand in the crime, yet the sin is deemed so serious, that he is required to make public repen- tance in the parish church of St. Andrews, after the form of discipline for apostates. This shows, surely, the tender sympathy of the Church of Scotland, in these early days, for the sufTering Protestants of France. And the same feeling was discovered in 1586, when so eminent a man as Andrew Melville was ordained by the General Assembly to write a favourable letter to the French ministers, who had repaired to this country, assuring them of the labours of the Church with the king, and the burgh towns, in their behalf; and two years later, when all ministers are exhorted to labour earnest- ly with their parishioners, and inform them of the necessities of the brethren of France, exiled for their religion, and of the obligation to support them. Beautiful as are these aspects of character, I am far from ascribing any perfection to the Church of Scotland, even in her purest days. I am willing to grant that her discipline, especially towards the members of the Church of Rome, was unwarrantably severe ; but what was the school from which she borrowed any intolerance which clung to her? It was the Romish school. And what, in most cases, was the state of things which provoked it ? It was the claims of self-preser- vation— the first law of nature. If the discipline of the Church was harsh toward the Papist, it was not relaxed toward her own members. With admirable impartiality she called the nobility of both sexes, and the ministers of the Gospel, and office-bearers of the Church, to the strictest ac- count; suspending, deposing, and excommunicating, where she believed that Scripture principles and laws had been con- travened by any of her members, no matter how high and influential. The gross crimes which prevailed in many quar- ters of the country, as appears from the confessions of her fast-days, do not argue that her labours were unwise or in- efficient. There was, no doubt, much vice in her best times, as there has ever been in the best times of the Church of Christ in all countries. But it was not in consequence of, 76 PROTESTANT CHURCH but in spite of her discipline, that sin still reared its head so flagrantly. It is possible that the very presence of so much truth and righteousness provoked the moral evil, and made it the more conspicious. It is certain that the civil law was so weak in these days, and its execution so irregular, that there was no restraint for crimes, which, in most countries, the arm of justice is quite sufficient to repress; and, what- ever may have been the strong remains of human wicked- ness, it cannot be questioned that a vast deal of evil was pre- vented or corrected by the f\iithful preaching, and the strict discipline, of the early Church of Scotland. Since writing the above, I have had access to an impor- tant document recently discovered — the Minute-book of the General Session of Glasgow, from 1583 to 1592. It fully confirms all the views which have been unfolded of the character of the Church of Scotland in the previous pages. I may add a few supplementary facts. It appears, then, that the kirk-sessions of these days were very large; at a period when the population of Glasgow consisted barely of three to four thousand, there were forty-two elders and twenty-four deacons, and these consisted of the leading men of the town, the provost and magistrates, the chief persons at the Univer- sity, and even the nobles of the land. This must have greatly strengthened the hands of faithful ministers. Before persons were admissible to baptism for their children, or to the table of the Lord as communicants, they were required to undergo preparatory examination. Parents were expected to know the commandments, the articles of faith, and the Lord's prayer. In the absence of this knowledge, others suitably qualified became sponsors for their children; and such were the numbers who flocked to the Lord's table, that, for their better accommodation, the Supper was dispensed two or even three Sabbath-days in succession. A regular catechetical exercise praparatory to it was held during the whole year, and those were called to account who absented themselves from it, even though they had already communi- cated. This served to keep alive the knowledge which had been received. Immediately before the dispensation, a meet- ing was held of the office-bearers of the Church, and of the " honest men" of the parish, to go over the roll, and ascer- tain whether there was any objection known to the life or conversation of any intending communicant, and also to aff*ord an opportunity to remove grudges and compose dif- ferences where they existed, so that all might sit down at OF FRANCE. 77 the table of the Lord as the members of a united family. By a singular arrangement, highly indicative of the extreme zeal of the Church for the universal spread of sound religious knowledge, the more instructed were made responsible for the ignorant under a pecuniary penalty; each in this way became the teacher of his neighbour. Much to the honour of the Church, she was the warm friend of the poor, at that period considerable in numbers, owing to the commencement of the breaking up of the feudal system. She made regular collections for them, which in Glasgow amounted each Sab- bath to from ^1 to £3 Scots — a generous sum, at a time when the best sheep in the market could be bought for ten- pence. In the West Kirk parish of Edinburgh — amounting at the time to two thousand souls — there were not less than eighty poor who received public aid. Nor did the church of Glasgow limit her benevolence to her own poor; she felt for the impoverished and distressed in other quarters, and sent many donations. Among these we find a gift to the poor people of Blantyre, whose corn had been destroyed by a sudden storm of hail. Nor did she forget suffering Pro- testant Churches abroad. In 1588, we meet with the fol- lowing recorded deliverance, as to the Reformed Church of France : there had been a previous and similar resolution as to Geneva; — "The which day the session ordains Mr. Patrick Sharp, Principal of the College of Glasgow, and Mr. John Cowper, one of the ministers there, to go to the Coun- cil on Saturday next, and to propound to them the necessi- ties of the poor brethren of France, banished to England for the religious cause, and to crave of them their support to the said poor brethren." They further ask the Council to ap- point six members of session, three to take up collections in the east of the town, and three in the west — the whole to be done with all possible diligence. CHAPTER III. FROM 1598 TO 1660. We have already seen the remarkable rise and progress of the Protestant Church of France in the course of twenty years, beginning with 1560; and the serious decline which 78 PROTESTANT CHURCH it suffered in the same space of time, in the next twenty- years, through the influence of persecution and the apostasy of leading men, particularly Henry IV. We now pursue the history from 1598. This was a memorable year, being the year when the first effectual protection was granted to the Protestant cause, under the name of the edict of Nantes. The author of this most important measure was Henry; and apostate though he was, such was the estimation in which it was held by the poor Protestants, that it procured for his name the title of" great," and for his memory the character of " blessed." Indeed, lie may be said to have been the only French monarch who ever yielded cordial justice to his Protestant subjects; and well he might, for no one had bet- ter opportunities of knowing their worth. It was with no small difficulty the edict was passed, such was the force of Popish opposition; and the very provisions of the measure show how dreadful must have been the state of matters be- fore. According to the edict, the Protestants were to have the free exercise of their religion, and access to all offices of honour. They were to be tried by judges of their own per- suasion. They were to receive so many cities as pledges of security or cautionary towns, and their churches, as well as their garrisons, were to be upheld, in part at least, from the public resources. The garrisons were to receive a yearly sum of eighty thousand crowns. But, by a clause in the edict, it was provided that the Protestants w^ere to have places of public worship only within certain limits — none within several miles of the capital — and they were otherwise sub- jected to various harassing regulations, all in deference to the Church of Rome. Still, the edict of Nantes was a mighty boon; and when we take a glance at the persecutions, issu- ing in civil wars, with which the country had been oppressed for many years before, we cannot wonder at the Protestant joy. So early as the year 1525, in the very dawn of the Refor- mation, Popery began her efforts to extinguish the truth, by burning its professors alive; and down to 1557, or for more than thirty long years, scarcely one was permitted to pass WMthout its complement of victims. Not less than one hun- dred and seventeen public martyrdoms were spread over this period of time. And wdien the Protestants, in spite of per- secution, grew in numbers, and acquired sufficient strength, and were, moreover, tempted to make resistance to their op- pressors, what was the result? In the course of the forty OF FRANCE. 79 years which elapsed from the meeting of the first General Assembly of the Protestant Church, to the granting of the edict of Nantes, there were not less than nine civil wars, four pitched batdes, three hundred engagements. Several hundred places too, were besieged, and one million of French subjects lost their lives. About thirty years later, it was es- timated that not less than one hundred and fifty milhons of livres had been expended in protracted wars and persecutions, and two thousand churches and as many monasteries des- troyed. Infidels would fain lay the blame of all this devas- tation on religion. But not to plead that a considerable share of it was owing to political parties, who contended for the succession to the throne, often disguising their ambition under religious pretexts, it is to be remembered, that the ag- gressor was not the true religion of the Scriptures, but Po- pery, its great caricature and corrupter, and that Christianity is not responsible for its misdeeds. When Protestants re- sisted, it was, for the most part, simply in self-defence. It is not the Gospel which creates discord, or war, or which leads to destruction. It is the depravity of man, which hates the Gospel with such thorough hatred, as to be lighted into a flame at the very sight of it. And this is no more than what our Saviour taught his Church and people to expect in every age, when he said that his coming would not bring peace, but a sword. The appalling facts to which I have referred, especially when conjoined with St. Bartholomew's massacre of seventy thousand persons, will enable us to un- derstand the high importance of the edict of Nantes, imper- fect and intolerant as that measure in some respects was. Under its protection the ministers who had been dispersed by persecution were recalled, and the Protestant Church made decided progress for many years. The doctrine was sound, the discipline strict, and not a few of the ministers and pro- fessors in the universities were eminent men. But Henry was assassinated in 1610, and soon the Romish principle, that faith is not to be kept with heretics, came to be exem- plified in the perpetual encroachments on, and violations of the edict. Louis XIII., son of Henry, was a bigoted Ro- man Catholic. He dedicated himself, and kingdom, and all that he had, to the Virgin Mary. In 1620, he established Popery in Beam, and drove the Protestants to arms, refusing to make peace with them, except on the conditions that they would demolish their garrisons and abandon their cautionary towns, which the edict recognised. In 16:25 he attacked 80 PROTESTANT CHURCH Rochelle, one of the greatest Protestant strongholds, and af- ter a siege of many weeks, carried it with a sacrifice of thir- teen thousand citizens. This, in a great degree, broke the power of the Protestants, and the evil was aggravated by the success with which Richelieu, the celebrated prime minister of Louis, prevailed, by bribes, upon many of the leading Protestant chiefs, to desert the Protestant cause. Such were Dukes Sully, Bouillon, Lesdeguieres, Rohan, &c. Amid all these discouraging circumstances, so discouraging as to drive some eminent men to England, still the Protestants, as a body, did not fall off in numbers, but rather gained during the course of this reign. The king dying in 1043, was suc- ceeded by his son, the well known Louis XIV., in whose hands the edict continued to receive the most cruel infrac- tions, until, in 1685, it was, by an act of inexpressible in- famy and wickedness, wholly repealed. We need scarcely add, that it led to the most serious disasters to France. We do not mean to bring the history of the Protestant Church, at present, down to this date, but shall limit ourselves by the year 1659, the year in which the last General Assembly of the Protestant Church was permitted to be held. Our sur- vey of the spirit and proceedings of the Church will thus extend over sixty years. To give the reader a more accurate idea of the Protestant Church of France during the period of which I write, it will be necessary, without entering into details, to be a little more specific. Starting with 1598, and running the eye along the leading events of an unfavourable character, during the next sixty years, not a few present themselves to our notice. Lnmediately before the granting of the protective edict, we have a remonstrance to the king, which indicates much real, though not very open, persecution. It embraces such points as — interruption of public worship — expulsion from licensed places — the seizure of the Bible and religious books — the silencing of Psalmody (the use of which seems always to have been peculiarly hateful) — forcible conformity — cases of specific violence — disgusting outrages on the dead. These are stated as undeniable facts. Even in regard to the edict, the concession was most reluctant. A year elapsed between the appending of the royal signature and its formally becom- ing the law of the land, and that, too, though the Jesuits had been expelled the kingdom four years before, on the attempt- ed assassination of Henry by one of their number, 'i'he reign of Louis XIII. , his son and successor, lasted for thirty- OF FRANCE. 81 three years; but he was a remarkably weak and bigoted prince; and the first period of his rule was injured, besides, by a long minority and regency, and contending political factions. It was only a strong and impartial government which could have protected the Protestants against their op- pressors, and have rendered the provisions of the edict truly available; and this was wanting. In 1620, the peculiar privileges of the Church of Beam, which had been a strong hold of the reformed, and which had been preserved even after the union of the kingdom with France, were over- thrown, the property confiscated, and the Popish Church restored. The very places of Protestant worship were sur- rendered to the Church of Rome; and the mass, after fifty years of intermission, was celebrated ancAv in the town of Navarreins. Encouraged by the success of his arms against Beam, the king, next year, turned his forces against the re- maining Protestant towns, one by one; and employed the basest treachery, as well as violence, for the accomplishment of his own purposes, or rather those of the party by whom he was governed. It is plain that the only hope of preservation lay in resistance. If the Protestants submitted, no matter what promises had been made, they were forthwith trampled upon and destroyed, just as if they had opposed. The truces which were offered, were not sincerely intended as occasions for bringing about a reasonable adjustment, but merely a breath- ing time, to allow the royal and Popish party to strike a more fatal blow. Good faith with heretics seems never for one moment to have been seriously entertained. The sub- mission then, which some now-a-days would have recom- mended as Christian wisdom and duty, would have been ac- quiescence in known treachery, certain death to individuals, and destruction to the cause of Christ. As might have been expected, there were various risings, and considerable resist- ance, on the part of the poor Protestants ; so much so, that Louis may be said to have disgraced himself with repeated re- ligious wars against his own subjects. In person, he appeared before Montauban with ten thousand troops — a plain proof of the strength of the Protestant party. 'J'he town stood out a severe siege, animated by the exhortations of the Protestant ministers. It ultimately gave way, after having proved its courage. The effect of the resistance probably was, to se- cure better terms of peace than would have been otherwise gained. The treachery and cruelty of the Popish party — often promising, that if the gates of Protestant towns were 6 82 PROTESTANT CHURCH only opened to them, they would enter, and leave them un- injured; and then, no sooner than they had entered, pro- ceeding to destroy the military defences, and lay the inhabit- ants henceforward open to aggression — these, and cases of murder in cold blood, after assurances of protection, roused the Protestant indignation, and, in some cases, led to dread- ful retaliation. We read of the inhabitants of one small town rising upon a royal garrison, and cutting off four hun- dred men in a single night; but these were very rare cases. Perhaps there was not another instance so serious through the whole period which we are reviewing. The Protestant struggle was eminently one of self-defence, not of aggression. Like their brethren of Scodand, the French Reformers some- times carried standards to the field, and the inscription indi- cated their object. In ScoUand, the colours bore, " For Christ's Crown and Covenant." In France, " For Christ and his Flock;" or, according to another reading, "For Christ and the King." Probably both were used. The loyalty of the Protestants, at the very moment of their deep- est sufferings, was equal to the expression of so generous a sentiment. Under its influence, noble were the struggles even of individuals. In 1624, it is related that a royalist army in Languedoc, of five thousand men, were successfully repulsed for two whole days together, and sustained a loss of forty men, by the heroic exertions of no more than seven armed Protestant peasants — peasants who were afterwards cut to pieces ! Christianity, it is believed, can point to deeds of as noble and successful daring as the best days of ancient Athens or Rome. It has higher motives than Thermopylae can boast of. Besides the loss of the strong holds and cau- tionary towns, a very serious injury to the Protestant cause was, the apostasy of a number of its leading and wealthiest families. Several distinguished generals, too, were bribed, by government honours, to abandon the faith of their fathers. During such a struggle for existence as the Reformed Church was sustaining, this was peculiarly adverse; but thus it is that God often tries the faith and patience of his saints. At the time that enemies are most formidable, he allows his people to be wounded by what is more unexpected and bit- ter— the apostasy of friends — it may be an apostasy prompt- ed by cowardice or covetousness. But, in Divine mercy, these cases are generally balanced. If some friends fail on the trial, others come forth in greater glory. Sully, and Bouillon, and Les-Deguieres, and, at an after day, the cele- OF FRANCE. 83 brated soldier, Turenne, may act the part of apostates; but Du Plessis appears in fresh greatness. When, in 1621, the royal parly, or rather the king himself, offered him a bribe to give them possession of the Protestant town of Saumur, of which he was governor, he nobly replied — " Never was I assailed by a bribe. Had I loved money, I might have been in possession of millions; and as for dignities, I was always more solicitous to deserve than importunate to de- mand them. Neither in honour, nor in conscience, can I sell the liberty and security of others." There are few, if any, finer characters to be met with in history, than Phillipe de Mornay Du Plessis. He is a noble specimen of the best of the French Protestants — a beautiful combination of the statesman, the warrior, the Divine — a happy illustration of how consistent personal Christianity is with the exercise of the highest talent, and the discharge of the most onerous public duties of the highest stations in life. The death of such a man, two years after the period to which we refer, and in such critical circumstances, though at the age of se- venty-four, must have proved a heavy loss to the Protestant Church. The fears which the Reformed were led to entertain from the overthrow of Protestant institutions in Bearne, and the breaking up of the leading fortified towns in other quarters, were amply and fatally confirmed by the siege of Rochelle, in 1625. This was the citadel of French Protestantism. Strong in situation, and strong in numbers, it was the last re- fuge of the oppressed. The fate of the whole body of the Protestants might be said to be suspended on the result. The reader is already aware what a terrible siege it under- went, and how, after the loss of thirteen thousand lives by famine, and the endurance of unutterable suflferings, protract- ed for years, it was compelled to surrender; but he may not be aw^are what an unworthy part the British king bore in its history. Charles I. now sat upon the English throne; un- like his predecessors, however, he was no friend to the suf- fering Protestants. Elizabeth may have sent troops and money to them, and his father, James, may have encouraged them with his countenance, but Charles, under the guise of friendship, was an enemy. He had married a Popish prin- cess. This event drew no small favour and sympathy for Popery along with it. Hence, while in answer to the appli- cations of the Rochellois, he wrote that " he would never 84 PROTESTANT CHURCH abandon them," and that "he would employ all the force of his kingdom for their deliverance," with the characteristic treachery of Popery, under the influence of which, at this time, he unhappily laboured, he wrote to Pennington, who had the command of his fleet, " to dispose of those ships as he should be directed by the French king, and to sink or fire such as should refuse to obey these orders." Louis was at this time fitting out a fleet at Dieppe, against Rochelle. The words I have quoted are from a letter signed " Charles Rex," which was found by the Parliament among Pennington's pa- pers. We need not wonder, then, that one of the Parlia- ment's solemn articles of remonstrance against the king was, *' His sending to destroy the Protestants of Rochelle." How disgraceful and wicked was this proceeding on the part of the British king! It shows how injurious was the influence of Popery upon him; and the observation of Hume, the infi- del historian, on the event, shows what has frequenfly been remarked — Hume's Popish leanings, and that infidelity is the twin-sister of Popery. With the servility of infidelity, and its hatred to the Protestant cause and to constitutional freedom, he coolly remarks — " The Hugonots had no ground of complaint against the French Court;" so that the infrac- tion of solemn treaties, and persecution even to death, are no just grounds of complaint! How would Hume have liked this doctrine applied to himself personally? But, while Popery and infidelity act so base a part, not so the poor but noble-minded British sailors employed in the expe- dition. They are Protestants, and they feel for their brother Protestants. As soon as they arrived at Rochelle, and found out — for it had been concealed from them — that they were to act with the French king against the Rochellois, they de- clined the service, and returned, declaring, " that they would rather be hanged at home for disobedience, than either desert their ships or give themselves up to the French, like slaves, TO FIGHT AGAINST THEIR OWN RELIGION." Only OUC gUnUCr remained behind, though all were tempted with chains of gold as a bribe. Next year, Charles was prevailed upon by the Duke of Soubise, the commander of Rochelle, who came over to this country, to declare himself the protector of the distressed Hugonots; but the declaration, if not intended to deceive, was attended with no substantial result. In 1627, the Duke of Buckingham was sent from England, with one hundred ships, besides seven thousand soldiers, professedly OP FRANCE. 85 with the intention of aiding llie Protestants ; but so little had there been of a mutual understanding between the parties, or rather, so much did the French Protestants dread the design, that they would not allow Charles' commander to land with his proffered aid ; and the king, on his return, approved of all his bUindering proceedings. In the subsequent year, the Earl of Denbigh was sent out with ninety ships and provi- sions. The besieged were very sorely pressed — from two hundred to three hundred dying daily. Just as the English fleet came in sight, they gave in to the terms of their French oppressors, who proceeded, as usual, to violate them — level- ling the walls with the ground — and, as if in revenge, melt- ing the very bell which had been used in summoning the Protestants together for civil and ecclesiastical purposes. It is impossible to believe, that had the British Government been really friendly, they would not have been able to render effective relief. Such was the sympathy of the British na- tion with the Rochellois, (in Scotland collections were made for them in the parish churches,) that the king and the Po- pish party could not prevent the sending forth of repeated expeditions, nominally at least, in their behalf, but really for their overthrow. Nay, as we have seen, the king was will- ing rather that the lives of British sailors should be basely sacrificed, than that French Protestants should be successful. "What could better prove the Popish thraldom to which he was enchained ? After the fall of Rochelle, the strength of the Protestants, as a political party, able to resist, was in a great measure gone. Hence there is comparative quiet down to the con- clusion of the period of which I write, (1660.) Their out- ward defences were all swept away one after another. The very distraction of the country by political factions and ca- bals, in which the Protestants took no part, may have con- duced to their repose. Perpetual conspiracies among Popish parties, doubtless operated as a diversion in their favour. Men had not time to quarrel among themselves, and to quar- rel with others whom they no longer dreaded. But the old hatred to Protestantism was as keen as ever. In 1634, a man was liable to a fine of five hundred livres, who called the Protestant places of worship " Churches;" and to a sim- ilar exaction where, in speaking of the " Reformed," he forgot to prefix the word " Pretended." Eleven years later, the most annoying restrictions were added to those already 86 PROTESTANT CHURCH in force. At Rouen, a Protestant youth could not become an apprentice to a goldsmith, unless this were balanced by fourteen Roman Catholic youths becoming apprentices at the same time. In the same city, Protestants were not allowed to act as apothecaries, as if thus there would be danger of their poisoning the members of the Church of Rome. In Paris, Protestant females were forbidden to be seamstresses; and while restricted in this and in many other ways, the whole Protestant population was subjected to the annoyance of a host of ignorant, self-appointed Popish missionaries, who seemed to think, that after the fall of Rochelle, nothing more was necessary to induce them to become Romanists, but their counsel; and who thrust themselves in upon all occasions into their houses, to the serious disturbance of the domestic peace of the unhappy Protestants. Still, now that the Roman Catholics had gained the complete mastery, all was tolerably quiet, and remained so for several years. There were even occasional acts of kindness shown to the Protestants by those in power, in testimony of gratitude for services. The first serious alarm was awakened in 1656, by finding that the French troops had been employed by the Duke of Savoy in a most bloody and unprovoked massacre of his Protestant subjects in Piedmont, on the borders of France. The French Protestants naturally interpreted this as a preparation, if not a signal, for a general extermination of themselves and their brethren on the Continent. And it is not improbable that this might have been the result, had it not been for the zeal and determination with which Oliver Cromwell, who then swayed the power of Britain, stood forward in their defence. If Charles I. acted a part most unworthy of a British monarch in his treatment of the French Protestants, the Protector redeemed the character of the throne. One of the most interesting passages in English his- tory is composed of the ten or twelve letters which Milton, as the secretary of Cromwell, wrote to the leading Protes- tant powers of Europe, and also to the Duke of Savoy, and the king of France, stirring up the former to a united inter- ference in their behalf, and remonstrating with the two latter for the share which they had in the horrible atrocities perpe- trated on the Piedmontese. I would fain extract one or two of these letters; but my space does not allow. Let the fol- lowing sentences, which bear the stamp of Milton, suffice; the sentiment of Cromwell is still finer than the style of his OF FRANCE. 87 secretary.* *' For my part," says he, " this is my opinion of myself, that I am now advanced to this degree in the Com- monwealth, to the end I should consult, in the first place, and as much as in me lies, for the common peace of the Pro- testants." Again, " Neither is there any thing which we account more sacred in our wishes, than that the whole Pro- testant name would knit and grow together in brotherly unity and concord. In the meantime, most certain it is, that the common enemy of the Reformed rejoices at these our dis- sensions, and more haughtily every where exerts his fury." And again, " Nor should we think any fruit of our labours, or of the dignity and supreme employment which we hold in our republic greater, than that we might be in a condition to be serviceable to the enlargement or the welfare, or which is more sacred, to the peace of the Reformed Church." One of the addresses to the King of France, (Louis XIV.) is striking: " I most earnestly beseech and conjure ye, most Christian king, by that right hand which signed the league and friend- ship between us, by that same goodly ornament of your title of MOST CHRISTIAN, by no means to suffer or to permit such liberty of rage and fury uncontrolled, we will not say in any prince, (for certainly such barbarous severity could never en- ter the breast of any prince, much less so tender in years, nor into the female thoughts of his mother,) but in those sanctified cut-throats who, professing themselves to be the servants and disciples of our Saviour, Christ, who came in- to the world to save sinners, abuse his meek and peaceful name and precepts, to the most cruel slaughter of the inno- * It is in connection with this massacre that Milton wrote the well known and beautifiil lines : " Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold, Ev'n them who kept the truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones, Forget not. In thy book record their groans, Who were thy sheep ; and, in their ancient fold, Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that rolled Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans The vales redoubled to the hills, and they To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway The triple tyrant : that from these may grow A hundred fold, who, having learned thy way, Early may flee the Babylonian woe." 88 PROTESTANT CHURCH cent. Rescue, you that are able, in your towering station — worthy to be able — rescue so many supph'ants, prostrate at your feet, from the hands of ruffians who, lately drunk with blood, again thirst after it, and think it their safest way to throw the odium of their cruelty upon princes. But as for you, great prince, suffer not, while you reign, your tides nor the confines of your kingdom, to be contaminated with this same heaven-otlering scandal, nor the peaceful Gospel of Christ to be defiled with such abominable cruelty." Nor did Cromwell only remonstrate; he intimated his in- tention of making use of arms in defence of the Protestants; and it was this, doubtless, which checked the progress of the persecution. It was not a safe thing to come to an encounter with him, who declared, and succeeded in his declaration, that he would make the name of an Englishman as terrible in Europe as the name of an old Roman. Addressing the United States of Holland, which were decided Protestants, he says, " On the other side, if the duke (of Savoy,) shall once permit himself to be atoned and won by our united ap- plications, not only our afflicted brethren, but we ourselves, shall reap the noble and abounding harvest and reward of this laborious undertaking. But if he still persist in the same obstinate resolutions of reducing to utmost extremity those people among whom our religion was either dissemi- nated by the first doctors of the Gospel, and preserved from the defilement of supersUtion, or else restored to its pristine sincerity long before other nations obtained that felicity, and determines their utter extirpation and destruction, we are ready to take such other course and counsels with your- selves, in common with the rest of our reformed friends and confederates, as may be most necessary for the preservation of just and good men upon the brink of inevitable ruin, and to make the duke himself sensible that ive can no longer ne- glect the heavy oppressions and calamities of our orthodox brethren. — Farewell." The States of Holland fully concur- red in these views, and expressed their readiness to co-ope- rate in any way which was deemed most desirable. Important as such steps were, Cromwell proceeded still further. He obtained a collection through England and Wales in behalf of the suffering Piedmonlese, which realized nearly forty thousand pounds — a very large sum in those days. The Protector himself subscribed two thousand pounds. The distribution was intrusted to a number of leading men in the evangelical cities of Switzerland, who, from their vicinity to OP FRANCE. 89 the Duke of Savoy, were supposed to be better acquainted with the people than those dwelling in this country. " Very many places and parts of Europe," we are informed by Moreland, who was commissioned as ambassador, by Crom- well, to Piedmont, " sent letters, with large contributions, to the poor distressed brethren in the valleys," such as Franck- fort, Zurich, Hanaw, Flushing, Middleburgh, Clairac, Ber- gerac, and we may add, the Protestant Church of France. Amid all her own poverty and oppression she contrived to contribute some relief to lier more persecuted fellow-Chris- tians. It is stated that there never was such unanimity known in the history of the world, among so many states and nations upon a matter relating to religion, as in the sym- pathy and liberality shown to the suflering Piedmontese. And what was the result of Cromwell's interposition ? There is reason to think that it was only partially successful. It certainly checked the progress of active persecution, and that was an important matter. But three years after we find the Protector still dealing with France and Savoy on the subject. The duke professes to pardon " the rebels" on account of Cromwell's intercession, and refers him for a final settlement to the French ambassador, M. Servient.- He seems to have deceived the English with a peace which, we are informed, turned out, like many other Popish peaces, to be but " a leper arrayed in rich clothing and gay attire ;" and even this measure was yielded slowly and reluctantly, and with many delays. All shows with what parlies the poor French Protestants had to contend — soldiers who executed the blood- iest work of the Duke of Savoy — an ambassador who could, to a considerable extent, overreach Cromwell and the Pro- testant powers of Europe. The Protector wished the king to make an exchange of part of his dominions, with the duke, and so bring the Protestants within the dominion of France, which was then, it would seem, more tolerant than Savoy; but the proposal was not listened to, neither was the request to punish the soldiers who had committed the crime. The measure of success, however, with which his exertions were attended, show how much might have been accomplished had the influential friends of Protestantism been always zeal- ous, united, and persevering in behalf of their fellow-Chris- tians. 1 need scarcely add, that the Protector of England was a great favourite with the Protestants of France. It is said that they had their eyes ever fixed upon him, and that they were in the habit of praying for him in their churches. 90 PROTESTANT CHURCH We can trace in the history something ]ike protection and safety for them so long as he Hved, and an ahuost immediate change in their condition for the worse when he died. So to speak, he was the guardian angel of Protestantism at the period, whatever may have been the defects of his character, or the sins of his conduct. Returning from this partial digression, and concluding the notices of the adverse influence of Popery upon the Protes- tant Church down to 1660, I may mention, that in that year the last meeting of the General Assembly was held. No meeting had been permitted to assemble for fifteen years previously. In 1657, the holding of colloquies was also interdicted. Thus the Presbyterian Church government might be said to be broken up. Indeed, it is easy to see a strong hatred to this form of government breathing throughout the whole period. It was hostile to the Prelacy of the Church of Rome, and was supposed to create an imperiiim in im- perio; but the true reasons, doubtless, were its popular character and strict discipline. This was a severe blow to the Protestant Church. So long as there were simply vio- lence from without and desertion from within, heavy as the evils might be, the Church, in its noble constitution, still stood, but when that constitution was not only invaded but destroyed, what remained? It may be mentioned, as a proof of the growing strength of Popery during the whole reign of Louis XIII., that in Paris alone there was an increase of sixty-nine religious houses — twenty of them for monks, twenty-nine for females. And if Paris, the metropolis of infidelity, was thus Popish, how much more may we believe was the country generally? Though it is rather anticipating, yet it may, in this connec- tion, be stated, that in the reign of Louis XIV., the monastic establishments of Paris, already so many, became more nu- merous every year — that at its close they were one hundred and seven. With their extensive enclosures they covered one-half of the surface of the city. The population at that time was probably from three to four hundred thousand. What peace or safety could be expected for the Protestant Church in such circumstances as these? Having thus glanced at the unfavourable aspects of events in regard to the Protestant Church during the sixty years of which I write, let me turn the attention of the reader to one or two facts indicative of the favourable. Many will be re- served for subsequent and separate chapters; but, in the OF FRANCE. 91 meantime, I may mention the following, which are of a general chracter ; they are few compared with the long list of evil: — In 1598, it appears from a report to the Synod of Montpelier, that there were still seven hundred and sixty churches belonging to the Reformed ; and that between forty- three and forty-four thousand crowns were annually dispens- ed from the public resources for their maintenance. Many of them, however, were poor and feeble. At the same period when the Princess Catherine partook of the Lord's Supper at Angers, not less than three thousand communicated along with her — a pleasing proof that there was still a large body of devout Protestants — not a few, we may believe, in the higher stations of life. For years after (1603,) Du Plessis, speak- ing of the Protestant Church, could say, " Our churches, by the grace of God, and under the government of the royal edicts, enjoy a condition which they have no desire to change. The Gospel is preached freely, and not without making pro- gress." In 1619, Bentivoglio, an historian, states the num- ber of the churches at seven hundred ; and adds, that generally they have two ministers each. This must be an exaggera- tion, for, in seven years after, the numbers given in as a re- port to the Synod, are six hundred and twenty-three churches, and six hundred and thirty-eight ministers. The diminu- tion from the former number was evidently owing to the fierce and harassing persecution which had been endured in the meantime. Bearing this in remembrance, the array of churches and ministers which the Reformed were still able to present, was highly creditable to their character; and doubtless there was a great deal of latent Protestantism which could not be estimated. In 1606, not less than three thousand persons attended divine worship at Charenton, the first day that a church was permitted to be opened. In 1637, there were six hundred and forty-seven pastors, and eight hundred and seven churches. There appears to have been a growth of the Protestant population onwards to 1669, so that De Rulhiere states, that not less than two thousand ministers were affected by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 1685. It is to be remembered, that in seasons of odium and persecution, it is the natural tendency, as it is the interest of the suffering, to keep as quiet as pos- sible, at least as quiet as principle will allow. I shall not here say any thing of the orthodoxy of the Church. It was only sound doctrine which could sustain so large a body of men through such a protracted warfare. 92 PROTESTANT CHURCH Nor shall I advert to the efforts of the Church to maintain and enlarge the professional literature of her ministers in the midst of all her trials. That will afterwards be referred to. But it may be proper here to remind the reader of the loyalty of the French Protestants. Much, very much, was done to extinguish it. Their Christian principle, however, was strong, and bore up under the pressure. They might be denounced as rebels — as Christian men, contending for the privileges of the Church of Christ, have in all ages been denounced — but they were, in truth, the most loyal subjects. In the long struggle between the Court and the Aristocracy, in the early part of the reign of Louis XIV., usually called the war of the Fronde, they stood by the Crown, so much so, that the Protestant towns which, in the spirit of Popish persecution, had been broken down, proved the king's best defence ; and part of the fortifications of Montauban was actually raised by the hands of the Protestant students of divinity. This was in 1652 ; and so deeply were the king and his party, who had treated the Reformed so ill, impressed with their loyal and devoted services, that Louis, in his answer to one of the letters of Cromwell, a few years after, in the case of the Pied- montese, says, that he was the more disposed to listen to the Protector's call, from his own experience, " in regard to mine own subjects, who are of the same profession, having," he adds, "cause to applaud their fidelity and zeal for my ser- vice: they, on their parts, not omitting any occasion to give me proof thereof, even beyond all that can be imagined, and contributing in all things to the lo elf are and advantage of my affairs.^'' How sad to think that these are the very men whom the writer's father, Louis XIII., so "shamefully en- treated" at Bearne, and Montauban, and Rochelle; and whom the writer himself, as Louis XIV., still more barbarously persecuted by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and a thousand unutterable cruelties, to which we shall afterwards refer. In concluding this chapter, it may be proper to record the names of a few of the leading ministers of the Protestant Church, who flourished during the period of sixty years, the account of which we are drawing to a close. I do not refer to the distinguished Frenchmen — the Reformers and Divines of the Reformation — several of whom spent most of their days, such as Calvin, Farel, Beza and Rivet, in Switz- erland or Holland; nor do I refer to Marloratus, who sufli'ered for the truth at Rouen; and Viret, who preached the Gospel OF FRANCE. 93 to listening thousands at Lyons. These, and many other eminent teachers of the truth, may be said to have belonged to the sixteenth century. I refer to their successors — the faithful men of the first half of the seventeenth century, and how noble is the array ! Du Moulin, a first-rate controversialist, whose works against Popery maybe consulted with advantage to this day. Moms, famed at once for his eloquence and learning. Mes- trezat, profound in the Popish controversy. £ubertin, whose single work on the Eucharist of the ancient Church is said to have obtained more celebrity for him than many hundred volumes do for their authors. Bochart, a celebrated orien- talist and illustrator of Scripture. Faucheur, eminent for persuasive eloquence. Daille, remarkable for erudition ; many of his works, which are very numerous, are well known. The same remark applies to Drelincourt, whose work on Death is said to have passed through more than forty editions in different languages. Du Bosc, eminent not only as a preacher, but for such general talent and address, that he was employed in all negociations with the govern- ment, relative to the Reformed ; and is understood by his in- fluence, to have postponed the fatal measure of the Revoca- tion of the Edict of Nantes for years. Claude, tiie opponent of Bossuet, and author of various works, among others, of the Defence of the Reformation, generally allowed to be the most masterly vindication of the separation from the Church of Rome which has ever been published. Such are the names of the leading ministers of the French Protestant Church in the first part of the seventeenth century. And who, acquainted with their writings, or with the reputa- tion connected with their names, can imagine, that Presby- terian Church government is unfavourable to literature and learning? It would be difficult to produce such names from among seven or eight hundred ministers in any other com- munion of Christians, at the same period, or even now. And when the sad treatment to which they were subjected, dur- ing the whole course of their history, is taken into account, the result is the more wonderful. But, in making inquiries into the character and attainments of ministers of the Re- formed Church of France, in its early days, I have been im- pressed even more with their devoted piety than their learn- ing. Their death scenes seem often to have been very strik- ing. Judging by these, one would have imagined that the men had spent all their lives in religious retirement, not that 94 PROTESTANT CHURCH they were active and unwearied in the business of the church and the world. From such cases one may gather, either that active benevolence is more favourable to the growth of piety than leisure, or that a peculiar blessing rests upon those who devote themselves with zeal to the good of others. The aposdes of our Lord exemplify a similar character, great ac- tivity in their public labours, with the deepest personal reli- gion. Before proceeding further, we shall give a sketch of the contemporaneous history of the Church of Scotland; and then contemplate the Christian character of the Protestant Church of France, under different aspects, from 1598 to 1 660, blending some reference to the Church of Scotland in the same form. CONTEMPORANEOUS HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND FROM 1592 TO 1660. A REMARKABLE general correspondence may be traced, for a considerable period, between the history of the Church of Scotland, and that of the Reformed Church of France. Both starting in the heart of Popish countries, they had a severe and protracted struggle to wage witli the Church of Rome. Though the Reformation in France rose up very rapidly, yet the country, as a whole, was large, and the Protestants, nu- merous and influential as they might be, bore an inconsider- able proportion to the entire population, which remained Po- pish. Scotland, again, being a much smaller and less popu- lous country, the Protestants not only soon became equal in numbers to their Roman Catholic brethren, but formed the great majority. The effect of this state of things was, that in the first thirty or forty years after the organization of the Protestant Church of France, she came into perpetual, and in some sense, equal contests with the Popish Government and party. These constituted what are called the civil and religious wars of France, in which much property and a mul- titude of lives were lost. Treaties of peace were made, only in a few years to be broken. It was at the conclusion of the last of these that the horrible massacre of St. Bartholomew, deliberately planned years before, was carried into execution. The object was, by cutting off the leading Protestants, to render subsequent wars and truces unnecessary. That was OF FRANCE. 95 attempted by treachery, which had long failed in the open field of war. The Protestant Church came out of this dread- ful persecution not a litde weakened; but her spirit and his- tory had shown even enemies the necessity of some protec- tive edict. Extermination was impossible. To attempt it, roused the sympathy and indignation of Europe. There was nothing then, for it, but a recognised toleration ; and this was supplied by the edict of Nantes in 1596. In Scotland, again, owing to the great majority of the people becoming Protes- tant, there were no religious wars. There was, indeed, no small difficulty in dealing with the Government, which, in the hands of Mary, was Popish, and in the hands of Regents Avho succeeded her, with two exceptions, (Murray and Mar,) unprincipled and rapacious men; but her son, James VI. , was a Protestant, and his reign was long. There were con- tests between the Church and the Crown in connection with Church government and discipline ; but these were very dif- ferent from the pitched battles and bloodshed of France at the same period. And moreover, the Church, instead of being massacred by Papists, was successful in her struggles; and in 1592, stood forth a free independent Presbyterian Christian Church; and yet, at the same time, the only re- cognised and Established Church in Scotland. There was diversity, then, in the history of the two Churches, and yet there was resemblance: struggles with Popery, previous to organization — prosperity and success at that organization — protracted w^ar and suffering after it — and again recognition and protection. There is an ebbing and flowing of the wa- ters in both countries — only in the one case, there is much more violence than in the other. The edict of Nantes, 1596, may be regarded as the charter of the Church of France ; the act of 1592, as the charter of the Church of Scotland. They were conceded at much the same period; and here the resemblance between the respective histories becomes more complete. For a series of years, both Churches, generally speaking, prospered. Early in the seventeenth century, however, they began to suffer. In France, there were seri- ous infractions of the edict, which issued in the overthrow of the Protestant stronghold of Rochelle, in 1628. After this, there was comparative peace and freedom from perse- cution till about 1660, when steps may be said to have been begun for the revocation of the edict of Nantes — a revocation preceded and accompanied by unspeakable oppression and cruelty. Similar was the history of Scodand. There were 96 PROTESTANT CHURCH serious invasions of the constitution of the Presbyterian Church as early as 1610; and these were continued and multiplied — often, indeed, defeated — onward to 1638. Then was there a period of victory and triumph, stretching to 1660, when a dreadful persecution, of scarcely inferior severity to any that France was called upon to endure, succeeded. In both countries, the active persecution lasted during much the same time. The grand difference was, that the Revolution of 1688 came to the rescue of the Scottish Church, and gave her thirty years of unexampled prosperity after; whereas, though there might be occasional relief and alleviation, there was no deliverance for the Protestant Church of France : she had a century of suffering to bear, closed by a more dreadful revolution than almost any that ever broke upon the world before. In the latter part of last century, the Church of France lost no small share of her spiritual character as a Church of Christ. In the same period, the Church of Scot- land became deteriorated in a similar manner. It would seem, then, that a general parallelism may be traced between the Church of France and the Church of Scotland in their respective histories. When there is peace in the one, there is peace in the other — when there is persecution in the one, there is persecution in the other. In spiritual declension or prosperity, there is likwise a general conformity. Does this not add to the interest of contemplating the two Protestant and Presbyterian Churches together? Let us then return and take a hasty glance at the Church of ScoUand from 1592 to 1600. We have noticed some of the fine features in the charac- ter of the Church, from her public recognition, in 1560, to 1592 — a period of above thirty years. How high was her standard of duty, and how diligendy she laboured for the salvation of souls. As has been already hinted, she had almost all along to wage a contest with the Crown and many of the aristocracy. They disliked her Presbyterian govern- ment and discipline. The one imposed a check upon the despotic proceedings of the king, the other called the highest to impartial account when they offended. Attempts were made to introduce a modified Episcopacy, to get rid of these evils, as they were regarded, though really most important advantages ; and also to atford an excuse for making over church property to needy or covetous members of the aris- tocracy, 'riiese attempts, though in the first instances par- tially, and for a season, successful, were now defeated, and OF FRA.NCE, 97 days of lengthened prosperity seemed to stretch out before the Church. James VI., who now occupied the throne, was a Protestant, and a Calvinist, and professed Presbyte- rian, and had liad repeated experience of the indomitable spirit of the Church and her ministers. He also fully sym- pathized with the Reformed Church of France: so much so, that he corresponded with her; and in 1614, sent a propo- sal for a general union among the Protestant Christians of Christendom. But with all this, he loved arbitrary power, and the free courts of a Presbyterian Church were more formidable barriers to it than even Parliament. In the ab- sence of those means of influencing public opinion, such as the press — which are open to faithful men now — the minis- ters felt it their duty from the pulpit to arraign what was wrong in public proceedings. The prospect, too, which the king had of succeeding to the English throne, and the desire to please his English subjects — members of a church having a different form of government from that to which he had been accustomed — all prompted him, in the course of a few years, to make repeated and vigorous efforts to introduce Episcopacy into the Church of Scotland, and to appropriate to the Crown much of the power which at present resided in the Church. Sensible that it was hopeless to attempt the change by external violence, in a country so united and at- tached to her Presbyterian Church, he adopted the more ensnaring policy of making the Church herself his instru- ment, and endeavoured to obtain one change after another — discontinuing his efforts in particular cases where he found the prevailing feeling too strong for him, or fitted to alarm. By gathering together some ministers whom he had bribed or ca- joled, and keeping others, on false pretences, away, he con- trived to obtain meetings of Church Courts — properly speak- ing, pretended meetings of Church Courts — which were pliant to his wishes. Thus, he obtained a sanction, first, to the Church being represented in Parliament by so many of her members — then bishops, as perpetual moderators of Pres- byteries— then the Articles of Perth in 1618, conforming the Church of Scotland, in important parts of worship, to the Church of England. In accomplishing those things, of course the act 1592 was rescinded, and not a few faithful ministers, who resisted his proceedings, and asserted the right of the Church to free General Assemblies, were de- prived of their livings, or imprisoned, or banished. Six were exiled to the Continent, among whom was John Welsh, 7 98 PROTESTANT CHURCH the son-in-law of Knox, wlio became for the time a minister of the Protestant Church of France. The celebrated An- drew Melville was, on idle pretences, detained a prisoner for four years in the Tower of London. But with all this, the king and his party did not succeed, or to a most limited ex- tent. The Church and country remained substantially Presby- terian. Any change which was made was accomplished with the greatest difficulty. Much desired projects were defeated or suspended. The Articles of Perth might be sworn to by young and pliant entrants into the ministry; but they could not be introduced among the people generally. It is plain, from Wodrow's Collection of Lives, printed, though not pub- lished, by the Maitland Club in 1830, that the various pro- clamations, letters, &c., which were issued by the king, in London, in 1607 and subsequent years, with a view to these changes, were prepared in Scotland by his miserable syco- phants, the bishops, and sent up for royal sanction. 'I'his is particularly manifest from the letters of George Gladstane, Bishop of Caithness; so that after all, the king was a tool in the hands of his creatures. He sent down, in 1610, lists of the ministers whom he v.-ished to be called to the General Assembly ! What sort of freedom was this? — and what sort of General Assemblies could these be ? Doubtless the list had previously been made out in Scotland by those who could speak of James as their " earthly creator." Strange to say, Gladstane — who had been so ambitious, and who moved about from appointment to appointment live times, and had an income of fifteen thousand merks, when good Presbyterian ministers were glad to have five hundred — died ^820,000 in debt; and so slender was his literary provision, that his books were estimated only at ^1330: 6s: 8d., while Samuel Rutherford's were valued at ^ElBOO. I have said that some of the ministers were bribed to admit Epis- copal encroachments. There can be no question of this. Not only does Gladstane praise the liberality of the king in bearing the expenses of members to the General Assembly — which he might well do, as they were his own (another word for bribery;) but Row of Carnock, in 1610, speaking of the Assembly at Glasgow, states it as a well-known fact, that several were bribed with gold brought by the Earl of Dun- bar. He adds, that the setting up of Prelacy cost the king £300,000 sterling, or £3,600,000 Scots money. Certainly this is not very creditable to the Episcopal cause, nor a very good use of James' English gold. And after all, the king's OF FRANCE. 99 eflbrts were wonderfully unsuccessful. It may be mention- ed, as a proof how well Presbyterianism kept its ground, that in 1607, though all the Synods of the Church met on one day, yet, with one exception — that of Angus — all declined the perpetual moderatorship of the bishop, which was one of the most essential parts of Episcopal innovation. It is re- markable, too, that in spite of all the packing of Assemblies, the intimidation and bribery, which had been employed for years together in a poor country, there were not less than forty-tive ministers in the Assembly of Perth who protested against the conformity to Episcopal worship, while only one nobleman and one doctor joined in the protest. So far from their being any leaning towards Episcopacy, few facts can better show the deep and unalterable attachment of the Church and people of Scotland to the Presbyterian govern- ment and cause. Not a few ministers in particular districts, where stronger influence could be used, many have acquies- ced in tlie royal usurpation; but the feeling was general and powerful on the Presbyterian side. In the city of Edinburgh, for instance, where the influence of the Court was great, most of the ministers may have been willing to administer the Lod's Supper kneeling, but the neighbouring ministers of the West Kirk refused ; and such multitudes deserted the City ministers and repaired to the West Kirk, that for many years the Lord's Supper in that Church was administered on four successive Sabbaths. There was no other way of over- taking the crowds of communicants ; and this was in the very neighbourhood of the metropolis. The celebrated Robert Boyd of Trochrig, at one time a minister of the Church of France, afterwards a minister of the Church of Scotland, as well as a Principal in one of her Universities, in a letter to the not less eminent Mornay Du Plessis in 1610, describes the state and feeling of Scotland in connection with the usur- pations of James. Speaking of them, he says, " This is what all the good people in this country deplore and lament, and very justly, as a desolating stroke, and the true way to introduce or force in among us, Popery, Atheism, ignorance and impiety, and to open the door to a total dissolution ; since this (the Presbyterian) was the only discipline duly and well observed in Scotland — authorized by the laws and statutes of the realm; and not only preserved the Church in purity and concord, without error or schism, but also, as a strong bridle, restrained the audacious, and stopped the unbridled 100 PROTESTANT CHURCH insolence of such as neither feared God nor the king, the law, nor any civil magistrate ivithin the kingdom.''' Robert BJair, who was personally present at the General Assembly of Perth when the articles where passed, states, in his Autobiography, that though there had been bishops for years before, yet that they took little upon them, and were very little opposed, till the Penh Articles came under discus- sion. In short, the Episcopacy was nominal. Doubtless, this was the reason of the quiet. He adds, relative to the Perth Assembly, that the bishops frequently urged the king's will; but as for reasons, he never heard any except one, which was easily blown away. On some discussion taking place in regard to the articles of " kneeling" at the Lord's Supper, which bore rather hard against the king's party, Blair relates that the Archbishop of St. Andrews, who had intruded himself into the moderator's chair, burst out into a great passion, with these words, " This matter shall not be carried either by arguments or votes; but we bishops, with his majesty's commissioner — we will conclude and enact the matter, and see who dare withstand it !" So much for the reign of James VI., or rather for thirty years of his reign. And now, before parting with them, let us look back for a moment, and mark the general character of the Church during their passage. After making all fair abatements, it must be acknowledged that that character, as a whole, was highly creditable. The Church was still very poor. Her rightful property was unlawfully withheld, or di- lapidated in various ways. In 1598, the ministers complain to the king that they are unable to bear the expense of pres- byterial visitations; and application is made to relieve all those ministers from public taxes whose income is under three hundred merks, indicating how very inadequate was their provision. But in spite of all these discouragements, they continued planting churches as they were able, and supplying them with pastors, and raising over the land a strict and impartial standard of discipline. There were still indeed, many vacant churches and destitute parishes. No- thing, under God, but the faithful discharge of duty on the part of the State in aiding the Church, could, in such cir- cumstances as those in which Scodand now stood, fully sup- ply her people with the ordinances of religious truth; and that duty was not performed, or very imperfectly. In 1593, there were twenty vacant churches in Angus and Mearns, and in the Synod of Glasgow. In the same district, there OF FRANCE. 101 were nine ministers who had no stipend. In the Merse, there were thirteen destitute places in which no churches had been planted; fourteen vacant churches in the Presby- tery of Dumblane; eighteen in the Highland part of the Presbytery of Dunkeld, and seven in the Lowland district; one in Caithness, two in Orkney, and six in Shetland. Three years later (1596,) we are informed, on the authority of the Book of the Universal Kirke, that there were in Scotland four hundred parish churches destitute of the ministry of the Word, besides Argyle and the Isles. The prevailing sins of the country are traced, and justly, to this destitution of the means of grace. How could it be expected to be otherwise? But in the face of all this, the Church went forward in the discharge of her duty, and maintained as high a discipline as if she had been in full and perfect organization over the whole land. In 1602, all her unemployed licentiates were required, by commissioners, to take charge of certain vacant church- es;— any refusing to do so, forthwith forfeited their license. We read of twenty-four probationers being at once employed in this way. With regard to ministers, the discipline was strict. In 1596, they were to undergo a searching exami- nation of their own spiritual character and religious life, and that of their families — such an examination as few, perhaps, even of the best, could now successfully stand. Besides, all holding of unlawful employments, to which poverty, in some instances, may have driven them — such as keeping inns, worldly offices in noble houses, attending to merchandize — was forbidden, under pain of deposition. At a later day, taking land besides the glebe, and attending markets, were punished in a similar way. A number of the most eminent ministers were sent forth as commissioners to visit Presby- teries, examine the qualifications of ministers, and, where they were found defective, set them aside. On one occasion (1600,) thirteen were employed in this service: two years after, twenty-nine were sent forth on the same mission. The examinations were thorough — two or three days being de- voted to the examination of a Presbytery; and were attend- ed with important results. John Welsh and Robert Pont were among the examinators engaged in the work. Minis- ters were required to attend Church courts under a penalty; and on not visiting the sick when informed, were suspended. While the ministry were carefully looked after, the people were not allowed to live as they liked. They were required to attend upon divine ordinances, under a penalty. We do 102 PROTESTANT CHURCH not say that this was right, but it was well-intentioned, and, at least, showed the anxious zeal of the Church for the in- struction and improvement of her people. In 1613, in the parish of Murroes, the heritor absent from church or diet of catechising, was ordained to pay 6s. 8d.; the husbandman, 2s. and the servant or cotter-man. Is. — of course, Scots money. For a first case of intemperance, a man was fined 6s. 8d. ; for the second, 40s. and public confession ; for the third, se- paration or excommunication from the Church. The mode of dealing with Roman Catholics indicated a high regard for the truth of God, and true desire to save souls from the aniichristian apostasy. Ministers skilled in the Popish controversy were required to go and sojourn for so many months, sometimes three or four, in the houses of Popish noblemen, to remove their scruples. The instructions to the ministers in 1602 were, to explain the Scriptures at table, avail themselves of opportunities of conversation, cate- chise the children twice at least every day, labour to preserve decorum in the family, and see that churches are planted on their estates. There were three Popish lords on whom the Church seems to have bestowed much of her care — Huntly, Angus, and Errol — and to their ultimate conviction. The public recantation of lord Gray of Kinfauns, in 1613, is ex- ceedingly striking, and shows the success of measures which would now, perhaps, be considered impracticable. Next year, Lord Huntly writes that he is convinced of the Pro- testant faith, with the exception of the sacraments. Such was the impartiality of Church discipline, that at an earlier day, three countesses, Huntly, Sutherland, and Caithness, who were more than suspected of Popery, were summoned to subscribe the Confession of Faith, under pain of excom- munication, if declined. Nor was even the palace safe from Church discipline. In 1681, the king is requested to remove his daughter out of the company of lady Livingston, who was a Papist. Shortly before, he himself is exhorted to ob- serve the forms of religion more carefully in his own family. His conduct is also complained of for not attending week-day services so regularly as he ought, for speaking during public worship, and for indulging in profane swearing. Here was true Christian faithfulness, such as few Churches can boast of. And what was the fruit of this instruction and discipline? Popery almost disappeared from the land, and the vast body of the people made a public profession of religion, by silting down at the Lord's table. Thougii the poverty of the minis- OF FRANCE. 103 try, and the number of vacant or destitute churches, were favourable to the mahitenance of the old superstition, yet, after particular inquiries by Presbyteries, there are only eight names of leading Roman Catholics reported : these are, the Earls of Huntly, Angus, and Errol, to whom reference has been already made, as ultimately abandoning the Church of Rome; Sir Patrick Gordon of Auchindowan; Sir James Chisholm of Dundarn, who next year renounced Popery in affecting circumstances; Mr. James Gordon, Wihiam Ogil- vy, and Robert Abercromby ; these are the only names in- serted in the league against Popery which so many of the leading men of the nation signed. And while the supporters of idolatry and error were so gready diminished in number, the faithful so increased, that in whole parishes all of suitable age made a visible and pub- lic profession of the truth. In 1600, each minister is required to make up a list of those who do not partake of the Supper of the Lord, at least once a year, and to take steps in regard to them. This would tend to swell the roll of communicants. It was almost the test of loyalty to the State and to the Re- formed Church. At the same time, suitable qualifications in knowledge and character were always stricdy required of all who would join in so holy an ordinance. At a later day, the celebrated John Livingstone, whose name is associated with a great revival of religion, speaking of a parish to which he had been appointed, (Ancrum,) says, " The people were very tractable, but very ignorant, and some of them loose in their carriage ; and it was a long time before any competent number of them were brought to such a condition, as we might adventure to celebrate the Lord's Supper; but after some time, several of them began to lay religion to heart." This shows that pains were bestowed in preparation for the ordinance, and that men were not indiscriminately ex- pected or asked to make a Christian profession. Num- bers, therefore, may be interpreted as proofs of the fidelity and zeal of the Church. Thus, at so early a date as the first year of the seventeenth century, the old parish of Tullibody, now so small that it is joined with another, had between four hundred and five hundred communicants, and all seem to have been above sixteen years of age — at least, this was the earliest year of receiving communicants. Shortly after, in 1610, there were four hundred communicants in New- burgh. In 1612, the same number in St. Vigeans, and se- 104 PROTESTANT CHURCH venteen elders. At Dunfermline, two years after, two thou- sand communicants. At the same period, (1611,) there were twenty-six elders and deacons in the town of Perth ; and it is recorded that there was no non-communicant, no Papist, no excommunicated person in the parish. This is a frequent entry in the records of these days. The same testimony is borne as to Rescobie, Fettercairn, Kilmeny, Slamannan, Inverkeithing, Ferry-port-on-Craig, Forganden- ny, St. Vigeans, Inverkeillor, Kilspindie, Linlithgow, and a multitude of others. The authority for these statements is the Synod of Fife Records, from 1611 to 1689, lately printed by the Abbotsford Club. And this brings me to remark that, in 1627, at the end of the reign of James, or rather at the beginning of that of his successor, there was an official report made up by intel- ligent men, in each parish, of all the parishes of Scotland. At the present day, such a document would have been very valuable ; but only a small part of it, extending to forty-nine parishes, has been preserved. Happily these parishes are scattered over different parts of Scodand, so that it is the easier to draw from them a general impression of what the religious character of the country must have been as a whole. The counties from which we have reports are twelve, in al- phabetical order: Berwickshire, Clackmannan, Dumfries, Edinburgh, Haddington, Kirkcudbright, Perth, Renfrew, Roxburgh, Stirling, Wigton, and the Shedand Isles. The points upon which information is given, are the number of communicants, the stipend of the minister, whether there is a school or schools for the young, and an hospital for the poor. Sometimes information upon other points comes out incidentally. I have gone over the list, and counted the num- ber of communicants, and in forty-eight parishes these amount to the large number of nearly twenty-five thousand; in other words, five hundred to a parish, a far higher number than would be found in many of the same parishes at the present day. This may be regarded as the indication of a great revival of religion — a great moral triumph; and let it be remarked that, under God, this must have been brought about, not by the schools, but by the faithful preaching, and catechising, and visiting of the ministers. Important as doubdess was the influence of the teachers, they were comparatively few. A very frequent answer to the query respecting schools is, that though very much needed, and though there was ample teind, there is no school; or that it was attempted, and OF FRANCE. 105 owing to the want of means, abandoned. It is remarkable, too, as showing the imperfect state of education, how many of the commissioners, who were appointed by the Presby- tery to make the inquiries, and many of them were evidently leading men, were unable to sign their own names, and so had to content themselves with " twitching the pen," and making their mark in the presence of a notary. This proves that it was not so much parochial teaching as the Gospel mi- nistry which, in the first instance, renovated the face of Scot- tish society. The power of the preaching, and the zeal of the ministers in instructing their catechumens, seems so far to have compensated for a very partial elementary education. I shall give the substance of one or two of the reports on individual parishes; they may be interesting to the reader. The minister and three commissioners make up the report on Ednam. They state that there are five hundred commu- nicants; that this year there were five hundred and fifty from fifteen years of age and above, besides one hundred and twenty catechumens from eleven years of age and above. The stipend amounts to five hundred merks. There has always been a school — " for we have many young ones," very poorly maintained without any foundation. But, they go on to re- mark, " The teinds might very well bear an honest provision for a school, and there is an absolute necessity that there should be a school; for within the town of Ednam there will be very near six score (that is, one hundred and twenty) bairns capable of learning, and the most part of the parents are not able to pay their school wages. There was an hos- pital for the support of Beadmen — poor pensioners — but there is none now. Twenty merks are appropriated for the purchase of communion elements." " The kirk," they add, ♦' is neither spacious nor specious, for it is not able to con- tain half of our people at any solemn time of meeting. It is not so well upholden as any barn or byre, and except it is helped speedily, it is ruinous, and tends to falling; and our kirk-yard dyke is lying with the ground, and has great need of repairing." One of the commissioners gives his mark instead of his name, for want of a notary to sign it. Of Newbattle, it is said there are between eight and nine hundred communicants. The stipend is four chalders vic- tual, and two hundred and fifty merks. There is no school nor any foundation for one ; no hospital, though ample means ; and " a greater number of bairns are lying near." Two of the three commissioners " touch the pen," being unable to 106 PROTESTANT CHURCH write. The present population of Newbattle is eighteen hundred and eighty. Many other interesting cases might be quoted, but per- haps the most interesting is the Report from one of the par- ishes of Shedand. It is wonderful that in these days, when the Nortliern Islands were almost inaccessible, the Reformed Chiircfi should have carried the Gospel to them. It affords a fine testimony to her zeal. Three heritors act as commis- sioners, and report that there are three churches served by the same minister in turn. The communicants, in all, are four hundred and forty: viz. in Nesting, one hundred and seventy-eight; Sandsting, one hundred and four; and in Sker- ries, one hundred and fifty-eight. There is no school nor foundation, nor ability on the part of the people to maintain one; but it is necessary that there should be a school in the country, " in such a place as is most convenient." The corn teind is paid in butter and oil. The commissioners speaiv of the meanness and uncertainty of the provision. Such are a few facts which may enable us to gather some impression of the general character of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland down to the beginning of the reign of Charles I. Certainly that impression must be most favour- able to her fidelity, self-denial, and zeal. Tlie encroachments of the king render the success of her labours the more won- derful, and leave us to conjecture how much more noble the moral result would have been, had she not been weakened by poverty on the one hand, and royal interference on the other; and had been already allowed to pursue her course unrestrained, with even a moderate share of those outward facihties for planting churches and schools to which she was so well entitled to look. Charles I. succeeded his father in 1625. It might have been thought that, taught by the experience of his predeces- sor, how vain it was to attempt to bend the Church and peo- ple of Scotland to Episcopacy, he would have desisted from the attempt, and given freedom to his Scottish subjects. But he inherited his father's love of arbitrary power. He was married to a Popish princess ; and Arminianism had, in the mean time, been introduced from Holland into England, and was warmly encouraged by Archbishop Laud, who became the king's most trusted though evil counsellor. Arminianism is allied to Popery — indeed, it is its essential spirit; and so, in these days, it was allied to arbitrary power. It professed OF FRANCE. 107 great zeal in support of the prerogatives of the Crown, how- ever usurped. This was most grateful to Charles; and he encouraged it. Laud, knowing that the country was too Calvinistic to endure at once Popish doctrine, endeavoured to pave the way for it by Popish ceremonies ; and therefore a book of canons and a ritual were prepared for the Church of Scotland. No one acquainted with history can suppose that I do injustice to Laud, in accusing him of Popish lean- ings and objects. It is notorious that he was the great fa- vourer of Arminianism, which was looked upon with friend- ship by the Roman Catholics both at home and abroad — nothing being more hateful to them than the Calvinistic Synod of Dort. It is well known, that under his counsels, various concessions were made to Papists ; and that men Popishly inclined were advanced to places of influence, and that the Pope twice proposed to give him a cardinal's hat. It appears from a letter of the Popish queen, recently brought to light, that, in her estimation, he was a right good Catholic in heart. There can be little question, that the violent steps taken to force a book of canons and a liturgy upon the peo- ple of Scotland, in defiance even of the advice of the older Scotch bishops, were dictated by Laud's expectation, that after Scotland was subdued it would be easier to carry through the same changes in England — changes which would approx- imate her Church to the Romish model. Charles's queen pronounced the book nearer to Rome than England. The whole proceedings of the king and of Laud savoured of the despotic and Gospel hating spirit of Popery. Contrary to the constitution, he attempted to rule without a Parliament, and for twelve years no Parliament was assembled. In the first seven years of his reign, he issued not less than one hundred and forty-six proclamations, the chief object of which was to raise money without the sanction of Parlia- ment. His encouragement of profligate stage plays also, and his Book of Sports for Sabbath amusement, aiming a blow at the sanctified observance of the Lord's day, to the grief of his best subjects, and the serious injury of the king- dom, all bespeak the presence of Popery. From such a king, governed by such a counsellor, nothing could be ex- pected for Presbyterian, Calvinistic, Popery-hating Scotland, but the worst. Accordingly, erelong, the worst was realized. Though the Church of Scofland remained wonderfully faith- ful amid all her struggles and temptations, yet it cannot be doubted that the protracted and increasing encroachments of 108 PROTESTANT CHURCH Prelacy and Erastianism were fitted to be very injurious. The substance of the Church might be Presbyterian, and there might be a strong under current of sound evangelical sentiment and feeling; but no General Assembly was allowed to be held for twenty years. The old and experienced min- isters died out; younger men did not inherit all their spirit. The bishops were perpetual moderators of the Synods, and naturally exerted a considerable influence over not a few of the new entrants; hence there was danger of that being ac- complished by dogged perseverance, which both force and fraud had failed to effect. In these circumstances, the fliitli- ful betook themselves to prayer and fasting; they maintained regular exercises of this kind, and God heard and sent de- liverance. It is stated in the Memoirs of Robert Blair, who lived at this period, and who was afterwards chaplain to Charles, and cruelly denied the satisfaction of visiting the monarch in his imprisonment, (though much esteemed by the king,) that the imposition of the service book led to much conference and prayer among serious Christians through all the corners of the land, especially in Edinburgh. Many private meetings were held, and unconcerled movements ta- ken; hence the glorious result may, like many others, be interpreted as the answer of united and persevering suppli- cation. Happily the Royal and Erastian party were per- mitted to take very violent measures — to aim at nothing less than a complete change of the whole form of divine worship. Had the proposed change been slighter, there would have been danger that it might have been successful ; but the breaking up of the entire and most sacred associations of a whole people in a moment, at the command of a semi-popish king, could not be endured. The country, through all its ranks, rose as one man against the ecclesiastical canons and liturgy; the hesitating became at once decided; and Arch- bishop Spottiswood jusUy observed, " All we have been at- tempting to build up, during the last thirty years, is now thrown down." Laud had hoped, from the success of his measures in Ireland against the Protestant Church, that he would be equally successful in Scodand ; but he had mis- calculated his own strength, and the Christian and Presby- terian feeling of a country, whose greatest struggles have ever been for its religion. With the exception of the cathe- dral towns, and one or two others, his service book was re- jected by all with hatred and disgust. The whole country might be said to be unanimous and strong in its condemna- OF FRANCE. 109 tion, and that after the insidious labours of Episcopacy for thirty years. But though the people were so united and strong, and though they had been so long injured and op- pressed by the bishops, they did not rise on them with the violence of revenge ; they were too much under the influence of Christian principle to give way to retaliation; they con- tented themselves with calm, and earnest and universal re- monstrances to the throne. In a single day, two hundred petitions were received against the service book from the central and western districts of ScotUmd alone; and, in a single night, five hundred of the best men appended their names to a supplication to the king. Thirty of the leading peers of the land, declared themselves with the people, in February, 1638. It is estimated that sixty thousand persons, drawn from all quarters, among whom were six to seven hundred ministers, assembled in Edinburgh. When beheld on Leith Links, spread out in multitudinous array, the Mar- quis of Hamilton, who was commissioned by the king to negotiate with them, was aflected by the sight. A National Covenant for the defence of their religious liberties was sworn and subscribed by all ranks — the highest nobles, as well as humble peasants, with cheerfulness and joy. Many testimonies to this effect might be quoted. I content myself with the following words of Livingstone: " I was present," says he, " at Lanark and several other parishes, when, on a Sabbath, after the forenoon sermon, the Covenant was read and sworn; and may truly say, that in all my life time, ex- cept one day at the kirk of Shotts, I never saw such motions from the Spirit of God — all the people generally, and most willingly, concurring — where I have seen more than a thou- sand persons all at once lifting up their hands, and the tears falling down from their eyes; so that, through the whole land, except the professed Papists, and some few who, for base ends, adhered to the prelates, the people universally entered into the Covenant of God, for reformation of religion against prelates and their ceremonies." Indeed, it was only such a united national feeling which could enable a poor and thinly peopled country successfully to resist the forces of rich and chivalrous England. Instead of breathing of rebellion, the Covenant bore that one of its great objects was, the sup- port of the king, in maintaining religion, law, and liberty. It is acknowledged by those most adverse to the Covenant- ers, that, with perhaps the exception of Aberdeenshire, there was no part of Scotland where the vast majority of all ranks 110 PROTESTANT CHURCH were not enlisted on the side of the Presbyterian Church. Even in the remote Highlands, in Caithness-shire, the Cov- enant was most gladly signed. Leading noblemen of the North, such as Sutherland, Reay, and Lovat, were among the zealous friends of the movement. The effect was, to bind the country together, and present such a front to the king as could not be easily overawed, and as perhaps, no nation ever exhibited before. At the same time, the whole steps were taken in such a way, that the ablest lawyers, on being con- sulted, gave it as their opinion that they were perfecdy legal. But I must not detain the reader on this interesting period in Scottish Church history, which it is extremely difficult to condense. Most are aware that all the negotiations with the king terminated in his agreeing to a meeting of the cele- brated General Assembly — so long intermitted — which met at Glasgow in December 1638 — that the Marquis of Ham- ilton w^as appointed Commissioner — that the Assembly had not proceeded far in its deliberations, before he dissolved it in the name of the king — that it continued its sittings in de- fiance of this usurped authority, deposing the bishops, and breaking up the whole system of ecclesiastical innovation and tyranny which had been imposed on the Church for years, and that its proceedings were two years afterwards civilly sanctioned by Parliament, the king himself being pre- sent. I need scarcely inform the reader, that the resolute proceedings of the Assembly were interpreted as rebellion, that the king took steps for war, and the people of Scotland prepared for defence, by raising troops. These were placed under the command of General Leslie, and old officers who had been in the Protestant wars of Germany, and marched to the borders of England. After various negotiations, which did not issue satisfactorily, they crossed the borders; and on the retreat of the royal army, took possession of Newcastle. This led to renewed terms of peace. The armies were broken up; and the king revisited Scotland in 164J. But England w^as now in a flame ; and the three kingdoms having entered into a solemn league and covenant, for their mutual defence, ScoUand sent twenty thousand troops to the aid of the Parliamentary army in 1614. In the meantime, the West- minster Assembly of Divines was called, with the view of re- forming the state of religion in England, and bringing about a uniformity in Church government and order, and entered on its important work, the fruits of which are felt throughout OF FRANCE. Ill Christendom to the present day. In all, it consisted of one hundred and sixty members, seven of them Commissioners from the Church of Scotland — the four ministers were pre- eminent for talent, character, and influence. It sat for five years ; and such was its religious spirit, that it kept not less than seventy fast-days. After suffering many disasters in the civil wars of England, and occasioning much unnecessary bloodshed in Scotland under Montrose, the king at last fell into the hands of the Parliamentary army in 1647; and, by a violent party in that army, the Independents, was, two years after, brought to the scafTold, to the horror of the na- tion, particularly of his Presbyterian subjects, who loudly protested against the deed.* Rebellious as the people of Scot- * I trust it is scarcely necessary now to vindicate the Presbyte- rians from the charge which used at one time to be urged, very igno- rantly and uncandidly, against them, that they were parties to the death of the monarch, and that their principles were disloyal. What- ever influence the delivering him up by the Scottish army to his English subjects, which was expressly done that he *' might be with them in honour, safety, and freedom," may have had as a step in leading to the sad conclusion which terminated his career, few points in history are more obvious, than that the Scottish people, in spite of all his cruelty and provocation, were devotedly loyal to their king. The covenants which they signed, and the reluctant steps which they took against him, the eager coronation of his son, and the joy at his restoration — all breathe of loyalty almost to excess — certainly, loyalty most basely requited. And with regard to their brethren, the Pres- byterians of England, it is well known that they were the most zeal- ous opponents of the military usurpers, who, having excluded two hundred of the Presbyterians and friends of Charles from Parliament, carried through his trial and execution under the semblance of law. As scon as the monarch's life was seen to be in danger, the Presbyte- rian ministers in London, in forties and in sixties, in their own name (and these are still on record,) and in the name of their congregations, repeatedly and most earnestly petitioned and remonstrated against the contemplated deed; nay, did so at the hazard of their own safety. The representatives of the Church and State in Scotland, too, sent up instructions to their Commissioners in London, calling upon them to oppose the trial by all possible means. So far from the Presbyterian party being even douh)tful in their loyalty, it may be safely said, that though they were first in defence of their religion and lit)erties, to draw the sword, and did so successfully, to the lasting good of their country, they were almost the only parties who had the honesty and the courage to appear publicly in behalf of the king. Besides, Salma- sius, IMorus, and Du Moulin the younger, who defended the royal suf- ferer on the continent against the envenoaied pen of Milton, were Presbyterian divines, at least the two former ; and, in thei'r zeal for his family and cause, went even beyond the sound principles laid down in such cases by the fathers and founders of the Reformed Presbyte- 112 PROTESTANT CHURCH land might be accounted, they were loyal to a fault to the royal family. They proclaimed Charles II. king; and, after the most solemn pledges and oaths, securing their religious liberties, crowned him in 1651. This kindled the wrath of Cromwell, who now held the reins of government in Eng- land, and who was afraid of a monarchy in Scotland, and the loyalty of its people. Coming down to this country, he obtained a complete, though unexpected victory; and speedily subjugated the whole kingdom. Fourteen thousand Scotchmen, who followed their king into England, were cut off at the battle of Worcester; and, for the next eight years, the government of Scotland was a strong military usurpation under Cromv/ell, in which troops, and forts, and citadels, ap- pear among the most prominent objects in the history; but there was little or no persecution of the Church. This brings us down to 1660. And now let us ask what was the general character of the Church of Scodand as a Church of Christ, from the period when she broke forth into active resistance to the daring impositions of Laud and the unhappy Charles, down to the last days of the Protectorate. This period was eminently one of warfare. Most reluctantly had she been compelled to call upon her people to take up arms for their civil freedom — above all, for their religious privileges. Did she lose her Christian character in the strife, and with it all the religious zeal for which she had been so distinguished ? No. Freed from the fetters of Prelatic and Erastian oppression, she expanded with unprecedented vig- our. Her very weapons of war seem to have been sanctified. Never were the aspects of an enlightened Christian Church, as a whole, more conspicuous, than during her struggles. Her piety was adapted to her circumstances. The self-denial, liberality, and religious zeal of the ministers and people, were amazing. Many of the noblemen supported regiments at their own expense. The Church maintained a regiment rian Church. Nor is this all. Livingstone, a minister of the Church of Scotland, when called to preach before the Protector, in London, in 1654, had the blended courage and loyalty to pray for Charles II., in the words which follow. We are not aware of any Episcopal min- ister having discovered superior boldness : — " God be gracious to him whose right it is to rule in this place, and unjustly is thrust from it. Sanctify thy rod of affliction to him; and, when our bones are laid in the dust, let our prayers come forth in thine appointed time, for doing him and his family good." Regarding Cromwell, he only added, •' As for these poor men that now fill his room, Lord be merciful to them." OF FRANCE. 113 of horse. Women of high rank worked at the fortifications. Humbler matrons came forth with their plenishing of sheet- ing, and made tents for the army; whilst almost the whole plate of the country was so liberally devoted to the service, that scarcely any traces of it were to be met with for years, though Scotland had been rich in plate. £100,000 were col- lected in a few weeks — not so much by the contributions of the great, as by the preaching of the ministers among the people. It is related by Livingstone, that the army in the neighbourhood of Dunse, in 1640, needing supplies of food and clothing, the celebrated Alexander Henderson, and a few others, were sent to Edinburgh — " and within a few days brought as much meal and cloth to the soldiers, by the gift of well affected people there, as sufficed the whole army," — amounting to many thousand men. Livingstone adds, that his parish of Stranraer, though litQe and poor, sent a comple- ment of fifteen men; and, on a single Sabbath-day, collected £45. An interesting anecdote of a poor Irish woman, (five hundred of whose countrymen have been known to pass over and partake of the communion at Stranraer, under Living- stone,) is recorded. She "gave seven twenty-two shilling sterling pieces, and an eleven pound piece. When, the day after, I inquired of her how she came to give so much ; she answered — ' I was gathering, and had laid this up to be a part of a portion to a young daughter I had; and as the Lord hath lately been pleased to take my daughter to himself, I thought I would give him her portion also.' " The liberali- ties of the Ciiurch and people of Scotland afforded a striking contrast to the difficulty with which money was raised by the king, even with the aid of unlawful means. Chaplains, consisting of leading ministers, were sent forth with the army ; and while they gave encouragement and spirit to the troops, by their instructions and prayers, they exerted such a moral influence upon the soldiers, as to present the army in aspects it had never worn before. The Covenanters would not ac- cept the services of excommunicated or profane men. This was well ; but they went further. They anxiously laboured that the whole army should be animated and governed by a religious spirit. In Blair's Memoirs it is said — " Amongst all the Scots' army there was scarcely a man who wanted a Bible — and a great part of them were devout and religious persons — so that when they came to their quarters, there was little else to be heard but reading:, prayer, and solemn melo- dy." The numbers of the army were from twenty-three 8 114 PROTESTANT CHURCH thousand to twenty-four thousand. How striking a testimo- ny is this to their character; and how impressively does the resuh show, that there is no inconsistency between a devout attention to the claims of religion, and profound military coun- sel, and vigorous military achievements. On Lord Burgh- ley applying to the Synod of Fife for a chaplain to the regi- ment which he raised in that country, a choice of five paro- chial ministers was given him. This was not accounted too great a sacrifice. Four years after, (1644) when Lord El- cho went to the North to put down the " impious rebellion" of Montrose against the kirk and kingdom, he requested the aid of two ministers to go along with him ; and two were sent for forty days. Their places, in the meantime, were supplied by brethren of the Presbytery, who were to relieve them. Similar applications were made by Lord Balcarras, for his regiment of horse, which were at once attended to. Collections were made in parishes for the maintenance of the army. We read of six hundred, and eight hundred, and eighteen hundred merks, being sent in by a few Presbyte- ries; and of two thousand one hundred and fifty merks being contributed by the Presbytery of Cupar, for the support of the regiment of horse maintained by the ministry of the Church. Sums of money, also, were collected for the wi- dows and orphans of those who had fallen in the war. The same Presbytery sent £694 to the sufferers in Argyle. Fasts were held when the army suffered defeat: days of thansgiv- ing when successful. In short, every movement indicated both that the men and the war were religious. It is no satisfactory answer to these facts, to recall the cruelties which were committed by the Covenanting army. Not to remind the reader, that the whole Presbyterian people are not to be held responsible for the proceedings even of their army or their leaders, it must never be forgotten that these were very rare, and prompted by the severest provo- cation, if not inflicted in actual self-defence. It is notorious that the perjured Montrose, the favourite general of Charles I., was the aggressor, and that his atrocious cruelties were most wanton. The simple fact that, in his six victorious battles — gained by twelve hundred Irish foreigners — chiefly Papists, he only lost one hundred men, while he slaughtered sixteen thousand, is a plain proof that there must have been the most unprovoked sacrifice of life. Hundreds who had no connection whatever w-ith the war, were massacred in cold blood. At Kilsyth, seven thousand were slain without OF FRANCE. 115 resistance, fleeing for fourteen miles before their merciless pursuers. So deeply were the general population affected by their fate, that they went into mourning. It is estimated that in two years, thirty thousand Covenanters " were wrapt in their winding-sheet" — five thousand from the county of Fife. It would have been wonderful, if, after such excesses as these, the Scottish army had shown no severity against the Irish foreigners, who had invaded their country in the name of the king. But nothing is plainer, than that had it not been for the presence and power of true religion among the Covenanters, their severities would have been a hundred- fold more keen and extensive than they were. It was their Christianity Avhich restrained them. Nor was it only in connection with the war into which they had been driven, that they showed their religion; the Church, during the whole course of those years of trial, abounded in the labours of a great Christian institution. She was not so engrossed with the claims of self-preservation, as to forget every thing else — she did not postpone her duties to the souls of men to a more convenient season. Incessant and vigorous exertions were made to sweep away all remains of Popish idolatry from the few remaining ecclesiastical buildings which retained them ; and so successful was the Church in her efforts against Popery, as a whole, that in 1642, it could be recorded in the Synod Book of Fife, that there was not so much as one excommunicated Papist in that large synod, which ecclesiastically embraced a much wider circuit than the present county. Exertions not less laborious were directed to the protection and better observance of the Sabbath ; and the education of the young was made a chief object of care, and was carried into effect to an extent in which it had hitherto been altogether unknown in Scotland, and which even to us is marvellous. Nor, if we may judge from particular presbyteries and synods, was there any fall- ing off in the number of ministers, at a season when fear or other motives might have reduced the number; on the con- trary, Church extension went forward with wonderful rapi- dity : vacant parishes were supplied, and there was a greater, a growing number of ministers. The Rev. Mr. Begg, of Liberton, in his excellent pamphlet on the Antiquity of Church Extension, has most conclusively shown that the multiplication of churches and ministers was one of the lead- ing objects of the Church, particularly from 1638, onwards to 1649, the very years of severest national struggle. It ap- 116 PROTESTANT CHURCH pears from the records of these days, that both Presbyteries and Synods laboured with all zeal and perseverance for the division and subdivision of parishes, which now would not be accounted large or unmanageable — that ministers deeply felt and complained of the burden, and sacrificed part of their humble stipend to be relieved — that heritors and leading men were earnestly dealt with for their assistance — that poor men liberally contributed both for the building of the church and the maintenance of the minister — that the most eminent min- isters, such as Henderson, Douglas and Gillespie, members of the Westminster Assembly, did not account it beneath them to be engaged in this work — that the Church thought herself called upon to provide for so small a number of des- titute persons as two hundred ; nay, to make provision for the religious instruction of temporary concourses of people, such as the herring fishery collected. It appears, too, that where these Church extension efforts were unsuccessful, it was from no want of zeal or perseverance on the part of Church courts, but from the speedy overthrow of the Pres- byterian establishment, by the violence of persecution. Mr. Begg's interesting historical facts are drawn from the Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale, and refer to the parishes of Fal- kirk, Borrowslounness, Linlithgow, St. Cuthbert's, Inveresk, Haddington, Tranent and Dunbar; but it cannot be doubted that the spirit was general, yea, universal. The excellent Robert Blair, in 1642, found his burden among the people of St. Andrews insupportable, " by reason that his congrega- tion was vastly numerous," &;c. He obtained a division of the parish — parted with a considerable share of his own pro- vision, so as to form a competent stipend; and then, by a voluntary contribution, built an additional church and manse. A minister was ordained in 1646, whereby Mr. Blair " was much eased of the weighty burden laid upon him." Not wearied out with such labours and sacrifices, this good man, in 1660, attempted to get another parish erected out of St. Andrews. But the infamous Sharpe, afterwards the arch- bishop, saw that this might interfere with his hoped for " living" at St. Andrews, and had sufficient influence at Court to prevent the disjunction — a sad omen of the worldly and persecuting days which were to follow. The case of the second charge of Dunfermline is a good illustration of the Church extension of the middle of the seventeenth century. It appears from the records, that the Synod took up the case, and called a meeting of heritors and OF FRANCE. 117 parishioners to assemble on a certain day. They did so ; and all concurred in the importance of having another minis- ter for the parish, and also in making a competent provision for him from the " rents and lands." A leading heritor, lord Dunfermline, being in England, commissioners are appointed to deal with a lord Callander, who acts for him in his absence. He declares that his lordship, " shall not be deficient for his part." At the request of the heritors, a suitable provision is appointed by the Civil Court, and in eight short months from the beginning of the proceedings, the Rev. Mr. Kay of Dumbarton is settled minister of the second charge of Dun- fermline. The Church acted in the most systematic way in her extension movements. She did not wait till cases of emergency occurred, and the people complained of destitu- tion. She sent down a list of queries to ascertain where there was a deficiency, that she might take steps for imme- diately supplying it. Thus, in 1649, the Commission of the General Assembly write a letter to the Presbytery of Cupar, complaining, that two years before, a list of questions had been sent, which had not been attended to. The Presbytery is now required to set down all the parishes within its bounds that have ministers, and which not — the extent of the pa- rishes— the commodious or incommodious situation of the parish kirk — the number of communicants — the patrons, where there are patrons — the present provision for ministers, and what room there is for further ministers. An imme- diate answer to these inquiries is demanded. But there are, if possible, still more unequivocal proofs of spiritual progress than these things afford. In 1639, when the people were actually engaged in war with their king, we find that lists of topics were drawn up for trial of Presby- teries within the bounds of the Synod of Fife, a very import- tant Synod in these days ; and, doubtless, the spirit of refor- mation was not confined to one county. They are embraced under such questions as these : '* If ministers keep faithfully the ordinary meetings of the Presbytery, for doctrine and discipline — if they have monthly discussions (viz. on theo- logical topics,) according to the Act of Assembly — if all the churches are visited between every Synod — if Presbyteries are careful in planting and providing their kirks — if attentive in the admission of ministers, previously to try them — if any Papists live within the bounds — if they are careful for the provision of the poor — if catechising be universal in burgh 118 PROTESTANT CHURCH and landward parishes — if ministers use doctrine forenoon and afternoon on Sabbath — if there is doctrine on the week- days in burghs — if there is an ordinary visitation of families." These were searching inquiries. It is added, that in several answers there was found great negligence, and sundry things done amiss — but, with God's assistance, amendment is pro- mised for the future. In 1849, men were appointed to purge out "corrupt ministers." In this way, not a few profane, insufficient, and unfaithful were deposed, especially in An- gus, Mearns, and Stirlingshire. Important duties, however, were not only pressed upon ministers and Presbyteries, they were urged upon families. I allude to family worship as an illustration. In 1644, when Montrose was ravaging the country in blood, the Synod of Fife was dealing in such ex- hortations as the following: Immediately after the rising of Synod, every minister is to begin the visitation of the fami- lies of his charge, exhorting them most earnestly to repent- ance, and pressing the performance of prayer in families, and teaching them particularly how to go about the duty. Among further directions, ministers are called upon to inquire what order is kept in every family for religious exercises, both on the week days, and on the Lord's day ; to instruct their people in the materials of prayer, and of the observation of the whole Sabbath in families; and exhort them not to rest in read prayers, nor in spending a part of the Lord's day. Nor must I close these notices of the Christian spirit and character of the Church of Scotland in troublous and suffering times, without alluding to her fast-days, and the reasons of their appointment. Such days were very numerous, parti- cularly while the contest was going on in England, and Mont- rose was making havoc of Scotland. In addition to the fasts appointed by the Commission of the General Assembly, some of which seem to have been quarterly, a monthly fast, I find, was for a time observed by the parishes in the Synod of Fife. The Christian reader will be best able to interpret the reasons assigned, as an evidence of the presence of true religion. The 28th November, 1641, being a Sabbath-day, was publicly observed as a solemn fasting day, for the fol- lowing causes: 1. To crave mercy for the many prevailing sins through all the parts of this kingdom, especially in the time of the manifestation of God's great mercies towards this nation, which has occasioned a most seasonable harvest. OF FRANCE. 119 2. To crave mercy for the universal ingratitude of this na- tion, for the Lord's great mercies and wonders manifested towards us. 3. To crave a blessing on the great meetings and commit- tees to be held in this nation, for the settling of the great matters and affairs which are not yet ended by the Parlia- ment. 4. For seeking help and support from heaven to the dis- tressed Christians in Ireland, holden under the tyranny of their enemies, the Papists, there, and that the enemy's forces may be weakened. 5. Out of compassion of the Palatinate (that is, of the Christians in part of Germany,) that the Lord would pity their distressed estate, extirpate the enemy out of the same, and plant again the glorious Gospel there, where once it had a flourishing estate. Another fast was held on the 1st of May 1642, the rea- sons of which follow. They are taken from the Session Records of Dunfermline : — 1. Our former sins still prevailing, and our unthankfulness for the marvellous mercies of God, in establishing our re- ligion and liberties, and preserving our lives in the midst of so many dangers, contrary to the desires and designs of our adversaries, above our own expectation, and to the admira- tation of the world. 2. Our carelessness in remembering and observing our solemn promises and vows, made in our covenant in the time of our distress and fears. 3. Our lukewarmness and indisposition in the exercises of religion, both in private and public; many pleasing them- selves in the mere formalities of religion, and no change nor reformation observed in the multitude. 4. The heavy afflictions still pressing the kirks of Ger- many, and the desolations of the Palatinate, as if that cause were buried and quite forgotten. As these reasons of fasting are exceedingly interesting and indicative of the religious spirit of the times, I shall quote anoiher series, and I do so the more, that they are taken from MS. records, which, so far as I know, have never been pub- lished. On the 31st December 1643, intimation was made of a fast, to be held on the succeeding Sabbath, and the Wednes- day following, " through the haill kirks of Scofland;" — 1. Because of our manifold addresses to God on like oc- 120 PROTESTANT CHURCH casions of humiliation, our fervent vows and promises in pri- vate, and our solemn public covenants with God; yet we have not as we ought valued the inestimable benefit of the Gospel, nor laboured for the power and purity thereof; nor have we endeavoured to receive Christ in our hearts, nor to walk worthy of Him in our lives, which are the causes also of many other sins and transgressions so much abounding amongst us. 2. The dangers threatened to (his kirk and kingdom, and the most lamentable distresses of our neighbouring kirks and kingdoms of England and Ireland, by the cruel and most horrid insolencies of Papists — the prelatical party and their adherents in these two kingdoms, should move us to pray to God for their deliverance from these calamities incumbent upon them, and for our own safety from these and like im- minent dangers on ourselves. . 3. That the Lord may bless the travel of our Commission- ers wdth the Assembly of Divines in England, and the Par- liament of that kingdom, and all other means that shall be used for the advancement of the intended work of Reforma- tion in England, and the union of the kingdoms. 4. That we trust not, in this expedition, in the arm of flesh ; but, putting our trust in God the Lord of hosts, he may go out with our armies, and bless them, and give an happy success to the undertakings which are for religion, his majesty's honour, and the peace and safety of the three king- doms; to the comfort and relief of the distressed and op- pressed people of God, and the confusion of the bloody and malicious enemy. Many other cases might be quoted of a similar character; but let these suffice. It is plain that only pious men could have resolved upon, and djrawn up, such documents. They indicate a tenderness as to sin which remind one of the best days of the Jewish Church. It was because their moral standard was high, that, after all their attainments, they still complained and confessed that their sins were so many and deep. And what was the moral result of all these plans and pro- ceedings? There was a general prevalence of true religion, and occasional revivals in particular districts, attended with the best consequences to individuals, families, and the com- munity at large. It is a striking proof of the religious know- ledge and sound principle which prevailed in Scotland, that the Sectaries, though they made such destructive progress OP FRANCE. 121 in England, had few converts, and acquired no influence in this country; and that though Cromwell's army of thirty thousand men, chiefly composed of Sectarians, was stationed in Scotland, and many of the soldiers, oflScers, and others, preached, some of them in their uniform, with their swords hanging by their sides. So early as 1625, there were re- markable manifestations of the power of the Spirit of God at Stewarton, under the preaching of Blair and others — as to which we have the testimony of so able a judge as the cele- brated Robert Boyd. " Having conferred both with men and women," it is said, " he heartily blessed God for the grace of God" in their conversion. Similar manifestations appeared at Shotts, under the preaching of Livingstone; and afterwards in the north of Ireland, where both Blair and Liv- ingstone were settled for a season. There the work of religi- ous revival was very extensive. So hateful was it to the bishops in Scotland, that they pursued Livingstone with their hostility — fully as much for his fanaticism, as they were pleased to account it, as for his opposition to Prelacy. At a later day, under the iron rule of Cromwell, there were deci- ded symptoms of revival in various parishes. Livingstone says, "About two or three years after the English had in a manner subdued the land, there began some reviving of the work of God. In several parts sundry were brought in by the ministry of the Word ; among which there were some also in the parish of Ancrum, and other parts of the South. In Teviotdale and the Merse, communions were very lively and much frequented. We had several monthly meetings in these two shires." He mentions the names of ten leading families eminent for their religion; and adds, that he has often been refreshed at religious exercises in their houses, and at communions which they attended. As a proof of their piety and liberality, he mentions, that a motion being made at one communion about Christians honouring God with their substance, the persons referred to, with a few others, agreed to subscribe an annual sum, amounting to £50 sterling — a considerable sum in those days — to be employed on distressed Christians and in educating hopeful youth in learning. Alluding to the same period, and the unhappy contention between the Protesters and Resolutioners, the writer of Blair's Memoirs relates — "Yet notwithstanding, through the Lord's wonderful condescension, these bitter waters were sweetened by his blessing remarkably the la- bours of his faithful servants. This was the case not only 122 PROTESTANT CHURCH at St. Andrews and at Cupar, Forgen, Dunbog^, Ceres, Kem- back, Scoonie, and other places, where Mr. Blair assisted on communion occasions, but in several other places through the land ; and even in some places in the Highlands of Scotland, a great door and effectual was opened to many." But while I thus refer to indubitable proofs of the lively Christianity of the Church of Scotland during her war with Charles, and throughout the Protectorate, and while the general testimony of contemporary historians could be ap- pealed to in behalf of the same pleasing truth, I am far from supposing that all her public proceedings were unexceptiona- ble, or that the country, as a whole, was free from sins and crimes. That would be ascribing a degree of perfection to the character and conduct of Christians which is not to be looked for in the present state of things. There were, doubt- less, many heinous crimes committed in Scotland — crimes which, at first sight, and with hasty writers, awaken the im- pression that the moral character of the period must have been bad ; but it is to be remembered, that the sins to which we refer were always severely punished, which is the just indication of the moral feeling of the community. It is also to be borne in mind, that a state of war, and the presence of a foreign soldiery, are always injurious to the morals of a people. Nor should it be forgotten, that such was the power and strict discipline of the Church, that whatever offences were committed, were sure to be made matters of cognisance and record. It is not improbable, too, that Satan was pro- voked, by the prevailing good, to stir up his agent to greater wickedness, to discredit, if possible, the cause of God. Un- der the reign of James, it cannot be doubted that the minis- ters of the Church were the instruments of a great outward reformation. The revenge and the feuds for which the coun- try had been so long and lamentably distinguished, in a great measure disappeared. It is related that there was a visible change of this kind at Ayr, under the ministry of the eminent John Welch, who was in the habit of rushing into danger to separate the combatants. Sir Walter Scott, whom no one will accuse of partiality to the Presbyterian ministers, says, in his History of Scotland, written in the latter period of his life, " The clergy of that day (James VI.) were frequent- ly respectable, from their birth and connections, often from their learning, and at all times from character. These quali- ties enabled them to interfere with effect, even in the feuds of the barons and gentry; and they often brought to milder OF FRANCE. 123 and more peaceful thoughts, men who would not have lis- tened to any other intercessors. There is no doubt that these good men, and the Christianity which they taught, were the principal means of correcting the furious temper and revenge- ful habits of the Scottish nation, in whose eyes bloodshed and deadly vengeance had been till then a virtue." And with respect to the later period more immediately before us, we have the testimony of Bishop Burnet. Speaking of the age of Cromwell, he says, "There was good justice done, and vice was suppressed and punished; so that we alwajs reckon those eight years of usurpation a time of great peace and prosperity. The unhappy dissensions and party spirit among the ministers, under the names of Resolutioners and Protesters, were, of course, at once unseemly and adverse ; and Popery, doubtless, made some progress, under the guise of Quakerism and other sects which Cromwell's army in- troduced ; and the prohibition of the meeting of the General Assembly for years, which might have repressed disorders; these things were all injurious to the moral and religious character of the nation ; but still, after making every abate- ment, no candid student of the period which we have been reviewing, can question that there was a vast amount of the power of true religion in the land, and that it would be a happy day for Britain which witnessed its revival. In concluding this period, I may, as in the case of the Protestant Church of France, just allude to the leading min- isters. They were eminent for their talents, learning, and devoted zeal. Much did many of them sacrifice and suffer for Christ and for his Church. Such names as the following would have done honour to any Church. Indeed few, if any, Christian Churches of the same limited extent, could, in the same period, point to higher or more estimable names than Andrew Melville, Robert Boyd, John Welch, Patrick Simp- son, Robert Bruce, David Calderwood, Robert Blair, David Dickson, Alexander Henderson, Robert Baillie, Robert Doug- las, Samuel Rutherford, John Livingstone, George Gillespie, James Durham, Hugh Binning, Andrew Gray, Alexander Nisbet, James Fergusson, George Hutchison, the Guthries, William and James, and many others. I might dwell upon the special merits of each, and their rare combinations. I might show how the same man who was honoured of God to stand at the head of a religious revival, which gathered in five hundred souls to the fold of Christ, was eminent as an oriental scholar, and was among the first to conceive the idea 124 PROTESTANT CHURCH of a Polyglot Bible, and to amend the Latin versions of the Old Testament. How another, who held a prominent place in the learned controversies and public business of his time, was the author of a volume of Letters, whose piety and pro- found spiritual experience have converted it into one of the treasured books of the Christian Church in all subsequent times. I might refer also to the rare qualifications of the Scottish clerical commissioners to the Westminster Assembly, men whose learning and acuteness in debate, and wisdom in council, and power in preaching, were the admiration of that famous Assembly, and of the most eminent Christians in England. I might refer to the influence which they exerted on English Presbyterianism, a Presbyterianism which after- wards showed its sincerity and strength in the sacrifice of two thousand church livings in a single day. But I have been betrayed too far from the work in hand already, and this would betray me still further. Suffice it to say, that the pro- vidence and grace of God were remarkably conspicuous, in raising up men worthy of his cause, and meet for the trying times in which thev lived. SECTION I. THE CHURCHES OF FRANCE AND SCOTLAND ENCOURAGE KNOWLEDGE. 1. One of the first and most interesting features with which one is struck, in contemplating the early Protestant Church of France, at this period, is the warm encouragement WHICH SHE lent TO THE PREPARATION AND PUBLICATION OF GOOD BOOKS. The Church of Rome had been the great ene- my of the press ; but the Protestants had nothing to fear from the diffusion of knowledge. In early days they had expe- rienced the value of printing to their cause, and had published tracts against Popery, serious and humorous, to a considera- ble extent, and with great success. The Queen of Navarre, with the ladies of her court, had, even through tapestry, re- presenting a fox's head looking out from under a monk's cowl, and other devices, dealt some hard blows at the Church of Rome; and so, when the Protestant Church became more consolidated, she did not fail to work the press. It were well that the Protestant Churches of modern times acted more largely on the same principle. It is certain that the opposing force of infidelity has owed almost all its success to the un- wearied plying of the press. And the interests of religion OF FRANCE. 125 seem too sacred to be left to random advocates or interested politicians. Like pious men, the Protestant ministers of France sought to perpetuate the memory of what God had done in their behalf. So early as 1603, the thirteen provinces into which the Protestant Church was divided, are charged to collect the memoirs of those remarkable events which had taken place in the course of the previous fifty years, and to transmit them to Monsieur D'Aubigny, to be inserted by him in the history which he was writing. Nine years later, the same provinces are exhorted carefully to collect the history of those minis- ters and other Christians, who, " in these last times, have suffered for the truths of the Son of God," and to transmit them to Geneva, to be inserted in the Book of Martyrs, and be published by the pastors of that Church. In compliance with this exhortation, we read that the deputies of Bearn brought with them the history of the martyrs of that pro- vince, and that it was sent on to Geneva, "to be added to the next impression of our Martyrology." It would seem that at this period the Protestants were not permitted to publish, in France, the account of their martyrs ; and hence, sooner than lose the memory of those they so sacredly re- vered, they had recourse to Geneva. So impressed were they with the importance of such an undertaking, that in the last General Assembly which sat, in 1659, ministers are blamed for not sufficiendy attending to this express article of ecclesiastical appointment ; and all provinces and particular churches are required to keep an exact record of memorable events connected with the Protestant religion, and to send them, " by a careful hand," to the person who had been ap- pointed to compile them into a volume. Nay, a particular pastor is nominated in every province, to whom the account of these remarkable providences was to be directed. Such care as this was at once a proper expression of gratitude to God for his distinguishing goodness to the Church, and also an important mean of preventing that misapprehension or misrepresentation to which Church history is too frequently exposed in the hands of the mere worldly historian. How much error, as to the early history of the Church of Scot- land, might have been prevented or neutralized, had the Church more carefully collected and preserved the memorials of her most prominent events. But it was not about her own history alone that the Church of France discovered so much interest. She encouraged va- 126 PROTESTANT CHURCH rious theological works, and, among others, a history of the persecuted Albigensian and Waldensian Christians, by M. Perrin. He is entreated to finish his history of their true condition; and all having memoirs of the "doctrine, disci- pline, or persecution of these poor saints of Christ," are charged to transmit them with all diligence and care. Two years after, a draught of the history was laid before the Sy- nod, and warmly approved, and five of the brethren were ap- pointed to assist. At the same time, the Synod agreed to aid in bearing his great expenses in books, and in bringing out the first impression. This shoAvs how warm was the interest which one Protestant Church, in those days, took in the welfare of another, and how anxious that of France was to vindicate the character of the unjustly aspersed. There were many similar cases of encouragement to authors. The thanks of the Synod of Tonniers was given to the Rev. An- drew Rivet for his learned works against the adversaries of the truth, and six hundred livres out of the common stock of all the churches were awarded, " as a testimony of love and honour;" while M. Blondel, an eminent minister of the Church, " because his great excellency lieth in Church His- tory and antiquity, he is earnestly desired to follow his geni- us, and to combat and confute the adversaries with that wea- pon." One thousand livres are awarded him to buy books; and the Synod promise to defray the charges of the first edi- tion of his works. A Scotchman of the name of George Thomson, who was a minister of the French Church, re- ceived in the same way three hundred livres, to assist in printing a book in French, on the Romish controversy. Mr. Daniel Chamier, a still more eminent controversial writer, was requested to print three large volumes of his works at once, and two thousand livres were advanced by the Church as a compensation for his labour. So highly were his works valued, that the Synod of Vitre entered into a bargain with the printer about their publication, and advanced eight thou- sand livres for that end, anxious that the book should be sold " unto the pastors of our Church at a very moderate price, and reserving always twelve complete copies to be presented unto their revered and learned author, free of all costs and charges whatsoever." The character of those works shows how sound the Church was on the great doctrines of the gos- pel, as opposed to the errorrs of Popery, and how desirous of spreading abroad the truth as it is in tlhrist. Chamier dying before his work was completed, several of the most OF FRANCE. 127 eminent ministers were appointed, in 1645, to finish it at the public expense. Various other works were undertaken and encouraged in the same way; such as Drelincourt's, and the answers to Cardinal Baronius' Corruptions of History, and to Bellarmine, the great advocate of Rome. But we have time to refer only to one, that of the Lord Du Plessis, on the Eucharist. The author was a most eminent layman, the Governor of Saumur,and the Church manifested the deepest interest in his work. It would seem that he had consulted the Synod assembling at Gergeau, in 1601, about the publi- cation; for they write — " We advise him to send his book unto Geneva, because of the advantage of libraries; and let- ters shall be sent to our brethren, the pastors there, recom- mending to them the examination and the verifying of all the quotations in it." Two years after, we find, that the pas- tors and professors at Geneva gave their very honourable tes- timony, and the National Synod rendered their hearty thanks to his lordship, for his great zeal and affection for the truth of God, and for his worthy labours in its defence. At the same time, they order it " to be printed out of hand, believ- ing that the Lord will give his blessing to it." The Jesuits of Bordeaux were so incensed, that they petitioned the Par- liament of that town publicly to condemn it to the flames — a request which it does not appear was complied with. Ma- ny and important were the services which Du Plessis ren- dered to the Protestant cause. In 1590 he built a church for the Protestants of Saumur, and obtained a grant from the King (Henry IV.) for instituting a university there, which was afterwards carried into eflect. He wrote an earnest re- monstrance to the king on the change of his religion, entreat- ing, at the same time, the continuance of his favour to the Protestants. He was instrumental in healing a controversy between Du Moulin and Tilenus, of the University of Sedan, upon the effect of the union of the natures in Christ; and he so intimidated Cardinal Du Perron, by his knowledge of the Romish controversy, that the Cardinal, though urged by the king, was unwilling to encounter him, pleading, as an apolo- gy, that he was " waiting for some manuscripts from Rome" — an expression which the king came afterwards to apply as a proverb to those who made idle excuses, saying, " I see you stay for manuscripts from Rome too." The Protestant Church of France, however, did not only, by all wise means, encourage the publication of important works; she took steps for the collecting of books into libra- 128 PROTESTANT CHURCH ries, and for informing her ministers and students of their contents. Among express articles of discipline in 1601, we find the following : — " Richer churches and great lords are entreated to erect libraries for the benefit of their ministers and proposans,-' that is, candidates for the ministry. The same call is earnestly repeated six years later ; and it is not only the churches which are addressed ; the Protestant uni- versities are exhorted to do their utmost to obtain a public library, "and, in particular, the King of Spain's Bible in many languages, printed at Antwerp." This was in 1603, when books were scarce, and expensive, and w^hen ministers were poor. It is interesting to see that a Polyglot Bible was the book, above all others, which the poor persecuted Pro- testant Churches of France wished to stand conspicuous in their university library. It showed at once their love of learning, and of the Scriptures, and so was not an inapt type of their true character at that early period. It may not be unsuitable to inform our readers, that the fine spirit of knowledge, and the wise encouragement of theo- logical learning, which marked the Protestant Church of France, was shared by the Church of Scodand in her early days, and manifested in a similar manner. I shall give a few illustrations: — Wodrow, in his MS. Collections of Lives of the Reformers, published by the Maidand Club in 1830, re- lates, in his account of Erskine of Dun, that, in 1574, the General Assembly sent commissioners to the Regent, inform- ing him, that they understood, on good authority, that a French printer, of best renown next to Henry Stephens, had been banished, with his wife and family, from the kingdom, and would be glad to come to Scodand, and bring three thou- sand francs of books along with him, and would print what- ever he was commanded by the Church; moreover, that not a book should be printed in France or Germany, but that it should be obtained by him, simply on the condidon, that the General Assembly would insure him three hundred merks a year. It is added, the offer is " so comfortable to the kirk and country, that it ought not to be overseen" — a plain indi- cation of the literary taste of the Church, whether she were able to avail herself of the proposal or not. Some years be- fore, the well known Robert Pont translated a Confession of Faith of the foreign Churches. It is called the latter Con- fession of Helvetia, and is subscribed by die Tigurines and the Protestants of Berne, SchaflThausen, Sangallia, Milan, OF FRANCE. 129 Vienes, Geneva, Savoy, Polonia, and Hungary. The As- sembly highly approve of the work and order it to be print- ed. As we may be sure that the Church of Scotland would not have printed this work with her public sanction, unless her own sentiments had accorded with those of the foreign Ciiurches, the fact of the publication is a proof of the harmo- ny of the early Protestant Churches. The only parts which the Church of Scotland disapproved were those which re- cognised holidays — such as the nativity, circumcision, &c. Hence, she sometimes held the meeting of her Assembly on the 25ih December (Christmas-day,) instead of observing it as a sacred day. In 1598, Principal Sharp of Glasgow drew up Lessons on the catechism and heads of religion. This work the Assem- bly ordered to be printed, deeming it " necessary and profit- able." Thus the Church indicated her concern for the in- struction of the young, as well as for the literary improve- ment of her ministers. In four years after, she appointed six of her most learned men to revise Mr. John Howison's Work, in three volumes, against the Popish champion Bel- larmine, and then to print it, thinking " it may be profitable to the Kirk of God." At a later day, (1642,) a Lord Scot- starvet, like the late Sir John Sinclair, seems to have endeav- oured to get up a statistical account of Scodand. The min- ister of each parish was to furnish him with information. The Church countenanced the undertaking, and promised assistance. I find that the Synod of Fife, " considering the worthiness of the work tending to the honour of the nation," appointed the ministers within its bounds to fulfil the appoint- ment of the General Assembly. This surely showed a pa- triotic as well as literary taste ; and is the more wonderful, when it is remembered that, at this period, the Church was struggling in open war for the very lives of her members. Three years thereafter, in the height of the contest, we find the General Assembly recommending the Hebrew Grammar of Mr. John Row, the grandson of the Reformer. Every minister is exhorted to possess himself of a copy, in order to promote "the increase of the first language;" so that the Church did not neglect even Oriental and Biblical literature, at the very time that she was raising troops and sending them forth for the defence of the civil and religious liberties of the nation. At a still later day, (1658,) it appears that the Pres- bytery of St. Andrews, having seen and considered a little book of Dr. Colvile's, lately put to press, they earnestly 9 130 PROTESTANT CHURCH request him to publish more of the same kind. It seems to have been a Latin disquisition on James iv. 5, and, of course was intended for the learned. Travelling no further back than the beginning of last century, we meet with perpetual recommendations of good books by the General Assembly. In 1708, a Mr. Semple, the minister of Liberton, is encour- aged to write the History of the Church of ScoUand, and all Presbyteries are enjoined to favour him with materials and assistance. About the same period, a sum of money is voted to a minister engaged in writing a Commentary on the Scriptures. The excellent works of Binning, a faithful min- ister of the Church, who died when a young man, were re- commended by the Assembly of 1704, and sums of money were repeatedly voted to his family, out of respect to the father. Wodrow's History was not only recommended, but it appears that, in 1742, ^630 were paid to the Rev. Mr. Wodrow, of Eastwood, for manuscripts. Directions were given to obtain the manuscript writings of the eminent Sam- uel Rutherford on Esther and Isaiah; and a Mr. Currie, minister of Kinglassie, was presented with ^660 fur his able Vindication of the Church. The works of Poole, at least his Annotations, Durham, Flavel, P. Gillespie on the Cove- nants, Spalding on the Sacraments, Blackwell's Methodus Evungelicus, &c., are all recommended. Nor was the re- commendation confined to books strictly theological. Other works, such as M'Colin's Dictionary, Sir Nicolas Trot on Oriental Learning, Maidand's History of Scotland, meet with the same encouragement. Nay, like the Protestant Church of France, steps were taken for every Presbytery enjoying the benefit of a library. This was strongly recom- mended in 1727; and it is well known, that in the beginning of that century, not fewer than one hundred libraries were sent down from London, chiefly for the use of the Highlands and Islands. It is remarkable how similar are the plans pursued by good men, in difierent countries and periods, in doing good, and that without any concert. It would seem, that the same evils suggest the same remedies; and doubtless all good men are under the guidance of one and the same good Spirit. Most of the facts to which 1 have referred, are passed over by civil or ecclesiastical historians, as too minute; but the real character of a Church may, like the real character of an in- dividual, be better learned from the little minute proceedings of ordinary life, than from greater events, in which motives OF FRANCE. 131 are generally much more mixed. Though there were parti- cular circumstances in the history both of France and Scot- land, which demanded, on the part of their Churches, a special attention to tlie culture of knowledge and learning — though authors are not now so dependent on the recommen- dations, whether of individuals or corporate bodies, for their success, as they were of old — still there can be little question that a great deal might be done by the General Assembly and other Church courts, in aiding and encouraging well qualified men in the prosecution of particular studies, and in the defence of assailed truth, whether by public thanks, or re- wards, or more substantial assistance ; — and now that the in- fluence of the press is so predominant, the call to such mea- sures is the more urgent. SECTION II. THE CHURCHES OF FRANCE AND SCOTLAND SHOW LOVE FOR THE WORD OF GOD. The period of history at present under consideration stretches from 1596 to 1660. This was the chief period during which the Protestant Church enjoyed the protection of the edict of Nantes, poor and imperfect as that protection often was. I am noticing- the most interesting points in the character and proceedings of the Church throughout this era; and in the last section, referred to her strong love of theological and other knowledge, and anxiety to diffuse it, as evinced in her encouragement of the publication of good books, and collecting them into libraries. We must now turn, for a little, to the love which she SHOWED FOR THE WoRD OF GoD. Already have we seen that the Reformers in France early discovered a strong par- tiality for the Scriptures. One of their first steps, four and twenty years before they were publicly organized into a Church, was to translate the Word of God into their native tongue ; and after the dreadful massacre of St. Bartholomew, the Church encouraged the issuing of improved versions, both at Geneva and Rochelle; and, under God, she was very much indebted to the light thus diffused, for the measure of success with which she stood out the dreadful persecution to which she was subjected. When we look into the period of which I at present write, we find the same love for the Scriptures, and anxiety to spread abroad their blessed know- ledge. It has been common, of late, for the advocates of the Church of Rome, feeling how odious is the position which 132 PROTESTANT CHURCH their Church has long occupied as the enemy of the Scrip- tures, now to turn round and appeal to the various transla- tions which Roman Catholics made of the Word of God, in whole or in part, into many European languages, even before the era of the Reformation. It is certain that such transla- tions were occasionally made, but how often did they con- sist of mere parts of the Scriptures, and in most expensive forms ? How often were they a mere literary curiosity, or a Popish paraphrase? How frequently did the translator and the readers suffer for their pains? And how certainly were the body of the people always prevented, alike by their own inability to read, and the prohibition of the priest, from gen- erally availing themselves of the Word of Life? Not a few were the copies which were ignominiously burned and des- troyed. Far different were the spirit and conduct of the Protestant Churches. They were built upon the Bible, re- joiced in it, largely diffused it, and called upon all to read it, and regulate their faith and practice accordingly. Never did they shrink from the Scriptures, and far less destroy them as a noxious book. The Church of France, in 1603, complains of the scarcity and dearness of the Bibles printed at Geneva; and the General Assembly write to their brethren there, not to take amiss that they preferred the Bibles of Rochelle. So zealous were the French Protestants in the cause of Bible dissemination, that they appointed a standing printer and publisher; and, in the year referred to, " exhort him to has- ten a new impression, and to vend it at as low a price as pos- sible." And why? That the Word of God might be acces- sible to all, to the poor as well as the rich. What a contrast to an Italian Popish version of thirteen volumes, and a Span- ish one of eighteen volumes ! To make the new French version admit of easier reference, one of the ministers is re- quested to make " a good index" to it. There are few better signs of the religious improvement of Ireland, at the present day, than the strong demand for Bibles with references, even where a common copy is already possessed. In 1600, Ave read of the printer at Rochelle bringing out a new edition of the Bible in a lesser form, " and that might easily be carried any where in the pocket," and of lists being added of those texts which are most proper and pertinent for confirming the truth and confuting error. And eight years later, we read of a printer at Montauban publishing an octavo New Testa- ment. In this last case, the errata were so numerous, that the Assembly, justly jealous for the honour of the Word of OF FRANCE. 13: God, and the good of the Church, ordered the pastors to re- call and cancel it. All these things indicate zeal for Bible circulation in a right way. And the general result of the translation and circulation of the Scriptures in France, and other nations generally, is well stated by Diodati, professor at Geneva, in a letter to the French Church, asking their permission for his Latin and French translation, in the year 1637:— ♦' Antiquity reaped much fruit this way, as St. Augustine and divers others have witnessed; but the Christian Church in our days hath enjoyed it most abundantly. For the sweet odours dispersed abroad by the new translations of the Bible in divers languages, within these twenty-five or thirty years, is wonderful, and they have largely contributed to the edify- ing, instruction, and confirmation of saints. The English translation, for its great fidelity and clearness, weareth a shining crown of glory upon its head ; those two German ones of Piscator and Cramerus, for their noble qualities and conditions, are exceeding useful, and have done a great dea\ of good ; the new Polonian, made and printed at the instance of the Prince of Radzeville, is of that esteem to allure the present king of Poland to read it, and to enamour him of it, though he be a prince of a contrary religion; the new Dutch translation, which is just now coming into the world, sets persons a-longing for it, because of the excellency of its work, the number and abilities of its workmen, the time they have spent in the doing of it, and for the great helps the Lords' States General have afforded them to effect it; and the Old Testament, which is now v/orking off at Zurich, in the purest Switzer language, must needs be of a raised worth, by that taste we had of the New, which is already printed ; the new Spanish translation of Cyprian de Vallera hath produced incredible effects in Spain, no less than three thousand copies having penetrated, by secret ways and con- veyances, into the very bowels of that kingdom. Let others publish the fruit of my Italian version both in Italy and else- where. If it were expedient and becoming me, I could bring forth numerous examples of it, and those also attested by persons of unstained credit and reputation." We have had occasion to notice many interesting facts in the history of the Church of Scotland, parallel to similar facts in the history of the Church of France, and the resem- blance does not fail in the matter of the Scriptures. So early 134 PROTESTANT CHURCH as 1526, many copies of Tyndale's version, which was print- ed on the Continent, found their way into Scotland, and were very generally read. This, with the use of other means, so hastened on the Reformation, that, in the course of seventeen years, the Parliament decreed it to be lawful to all to read the word of God. Hitherto it had been death to attempt it; and though this act did not secure a universal protection; though, in spite of it, men continued to be burnt by the Popish priests, for no other crime than possessing or reading the Scriptures, still the decision of Parliament was followed with the best effect. " Then," says Knox, " might have been seen the Bible lying almost upon every gentleman's table. The New 'J'esta- ment was borne about in many men's hands." As might have been expected, under such influences, the Reformation grew in strength, and in 1560 had risen to such a magnitude, that the Protestant Church became the recognised Church of the country. In the same year the English exiles at Geneva made a new translation of the Scriptures, to which many valuable notes were appended. This version was used by Knox, and was circulated to a great extent, both in England and in Scotland. As printing had originated on the Conti- tinent, so it could be executed more cheaply and perfectly there than in this country. Hence, for a long time, editions of the Scriptures, which were chiefly intended for Great Britain, were printed in some of the large Protestant conti- nental towns, and then imported. So early, however, as 1565, the Psalms of David, in Scotch metre, issued from the humble printing press of Scotland; and about the same time an impression of the Geneva Scriptures, to the extent of se- ven thousand copies, was carried to poor Popish Ireland, and sold in the course of two years. This shows how strong was the thirst for Bible knowledge at that early period. It had been well if it had been nourished into growing power through succeeding years. It is a remarkable fact, that our fathers not only fully provided themselves with the Scrip- tures, but in 1567 had the Book of Common Order, with Knox's prayers, translated into Gaelic; and Dr. M'Crie doubts not that, in the same century, they had the Psalms in Gaelic. One might be ready to think that books could be of little use to a population in the circumstances of the High- landers. It appears, however, from the researches of the Rev. Dr. Lee, that reading and writing were not, even at that period, very rare accomplishments in Argyleshire, and other parts of the Highlands, and that the complaints were more OF FRANCE. 135 frequent that there were no good books, than that there were not persons able to read them. If even the Gaelic popula- tion formed thus early an object of Christian care and atten- tion lo the Church, we cannot doubt that the Lowland popu- tion were watched over with, if possible, still more parental affection. Well as Scotland was supplied with the word of God, both from England and the Continent, she would bring out an edition for herself: accordingly, in 1575, proposals were made, by a printer, to the General Assembly, to pub- lish an edition of the English Scriptures from the Geneva version. The Church cordially entered into the plan, and by way of encouraging the work, it was agreed that burghs and parishes should advance money to defray the expense, on the understanding that, to those who thus contributed, the Bible, when printed, should be cheaper. Regent Mor- ton subscribed a large sum — not from the public purse, for no edition of the Scriptures was published in Scotland at that period, at the government expense, but from the collections of parishes ordered by the Church. Thus the first edition of the whole Bible ever printed in Scotland, was published, with a dedication to the King, in 1579; and it was required by Act of Parliament, and under a penalty of jEIO, that every family should have a Bible and a Psalm-book, and search- ers were appointed to see that this act was carried into effect. Whatever some may think of the apparent severity of this law, none can question the zeal for the dissemination of the word of God which it discovers. Mr. Robert Pont was ap- pointed by the General Assembly, in 1574, to overlook Ar- buthnot's edition of the Bible, and to form a calendar, which was prefixed to it. His skill in history, clironology, and the learned languages fitted him for this work. During the next forty-five years no fresh edition of the whole Scriptures is- sued from the press of Scotland; but in 1610, the same prin- ter republished the same version, with the exception of some change on the New Testament, taken from another version ; and the Synods required every parish church to have a copy, under the penalty of a fine. We must not imagine, how- ever, that these two native editions supplied all the wants of Scotland for nearly half a century. No; we read of the Scotch printer bringing out an JEnglish edition with the Scotch Psalms, at Dort, in 1601, evidently for the use of our country, where such Psalms could alone be in de- mand; and, in addition to this, we have to bear in mind, that both in London and on the Continent there were a raul- 136 PROTESTANT CHURCH titude of editions of the Psalms and Catechisms, and the whole Bibles published for the Scotch market. It is known that there were not less than thirty editions of Buchanan's Psalms im- ported into this country, during the forty-five years of which I speak. In the same space of time, it is estimated, there could not be less than one hundred editions of the various translations of the Bible printed in England, and that not less than twen- ty of these were absorbed by Scotland; and the number of copies in these editions w^as not small or inconsiderable. It appears that one impression, at a later day, amounted to nearly eight thousand copies, and that the demand for the Psalms in metre was at the rate of twenty thousand yearly. The annual copies of the whole Scriptures cannot be esti- mated at a much lower number, and considering the compa- rative poverty and small population of Scotland, what an idea do these facts suggest of the religious spirit of our fa- thers, their devoted love, and unwearied use of the word of God. It is a curious but interesting circumstance, illustra- tive of the views which I have been presenting, that in 1637, when there was an open resistance to the imposition of the English service-book, it is said a shower of small clasp Bibles followed the stool of Jenny Geddes, amounting, in number, to " whole pockfuUs," — proving at once, the indignation of the people, and the abundance of the Scriptures. Twenty years afterwards, we are assured by Kirkton, that " every family had a Bible, and was able to read it;" and twenty years again after that, in days of hot and intolerable persecu- tion, we find the king's printer in Scotland bitterly complain- ing of "great sums of money" being daily expended upon foreign Bibles, that is, English Bibles printed out of Scotland. It is unnecessary to pursue the investigation farther, with reference to English Bibles ; but it may not be uninteresting to mention a few facts, in reference to the Scriptures in the Gaelic language. The Protestant Church of France had only to provide for one language, the Protestant Church of Scotland had to provide for two. AVe have seen that even in the 16th century there is reason to believe the Psalms of David were circulated in the Gaelic tongue ; and in the middle of the 17th, about 1650, we find the Synod of Argyle pub- lishing the first fifty Psalms in the same language. Twenty- seven years later, or about 1687, the Hon. Robert Boyle, of London, a name dear to every Christian heart, had the Irish Bible of Bishop Bedell published at his own expense, and two hundred copies sent down to the Highlands, on the con- OF FRANCE. 137 ditions tliat the ministers should *' read some chapters every Lord's day to the people," and that the Bible should be taken care of " as for the use of the parish." This reading of the Word of God excited great interest, so much so that the Bible travelled through different parts of the parish during the whole week, and was restored upon the Saturday even- ing or the Sabbath morning, that it might be read publicly to the assembled multitude, as a part of divine worship; and as a proof of the salutary effect of even this imperfect diffu- sion of the knowledge of the Word, it may be mentioned, that in the troubles which followed the revolution of 1688, in the Highlands, scarcely any of the natives who had receiv- ed Bibles, or been instructed from them, were implicated in hostility to the Revolution Settlement. Immediately after the revolution an impression of the Irish or Gaelic Bible was printed in London, and 3000 copies of the Bible, 1000 of the New Testament, and 3000 Catechisms transmitted to the care of the agjent of the Church of Scot- land, for distribution in the Highlands and Islands. It is an interesting fact, that £1000 Scots, or £83, 6s. 8d. sterhng, were given out of the vacant stipends, for binding the Gaelic Bibles, and the balance, if there were any, was to be devoted to the publication of a new edition. The Rev. Robert Kirk, of Aberfoyle, first translated the Psalms into Gaelic verse, and altered Bedell's Bible from Irish to Gaelic, and published it in Roman letter in 1690. In 1699, a fund was begun by the Church for printing another impression; and sixteen years later there is an earnest demand, from several places, for more Bibles, so much so, that the Commission are en- treated to do their best endeavour to procure tbem. In the mean time, the Confession of Faith and the Catechisms, which contain a large body of Scripture, were translated and published. So early as 1708 a letter is written to the Synod of Argyle, requesting them to undertake the work. Shortly after, a collection is made to defray the expense ; and in 1714 the Confession appeared, and ten years later the two Catechisms. This was a most important publication, and quite in keeping with the other exertions of the Church at the same period, to provide the destitute parts of the High- lands and Islands with the blessings of religious instruction. At the beginning of the century, a work was revived and enlarged, in which the Church had been engaged many years before. Bursaries of £10 a-year were raised by the Synods for the encouragement and support of young men at College, 138 PROTESTANT CHURCH having the Gaelic or, as it is called, Irish language. These were continued for four years to each student, and strict care was taken not only as to the punctual payment, but as to the real Gaelic knowledge and acquirements of the young men at college. In 1704, when the lowlands had come to be well supplied with ministers, one-half of the bursaries, which had served as an encouragement to young men having Eng- lish, were transferred for the use of those having Gaelic. About the same period, the Society in Scotland for Propa- gating Christian Knowledge began its inestimably important labours ; and by the establishment of schools, the translation of works of practical divinity, the employment of catechists, and the establishment of libraries, was honoured to effect a vast amount of good, which eternity alone will be able fully to reveal. Were it not that I wish, at present, to restrict the reader's attention to the Gaelic Scriptures, I might men- tion many pleasing proofs of the zeal, both of the Church and of the Society, in attending to the spiritual wants of the Highlands. To recur to the Scriptures : though I have not been able to lay my hands upon any document which shows that the Scriptures, in the Gaelic language, were translated, in Scotland, previous to 1767; yet, from the anxiety dis- played in other ways, to promote the spiritual welfare of the Highland population, and the actual fact that there were co- pies in England, I cannot doubt that many were obtained from London. The delay of the new translation in this country seems to have been owing to an unhappy idea, in which even intelligent and good men concurred, after the sad Popish rebellions in 1715 and 1745, that it was essential to the civilization of the Highlands, in the first instance, to abolish their language. Tiiis impression, by no means an unnatural one, of course, for a time, postponed the transla- tion into Gaelic, but gave new animation to the efforts of Christians through English channels. After trial for a sea- son it was found that this was not the way of getting rid of the language, and that the Christian instruction, conveyed through the medium of English, was partial and imperfect. Hence good men recurred to the former plan of reaching the people through the Word of God, translated into their native language; and in 1767, the New Testament, translated by the Rev. James Stewart, of Killin, under the care of the So- ciety in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge, was published in an edition of not less than 10,000 copies. It may be mentioned that the great Dr. Samuel Johnson heartily OF FRANCE. 139 approved of the object, and encouraged the translator in his important undertaking. Thirty years after, a second edition was pubhshed by the same society, of course before the days of the Bible Society, amounting to the immense impression of nearly 22,000 copies, The Old Testament was published in parts as it was translated. Collected together, it was printed in 1802, to the extent of 5000 copies; and five years afterwards an edition of 20,000. In 1810 the Old Society printed the New Testament anew, in an edition of 10,000 copies, so that in about forty-nine years it had been instru- mental, under God, in putting 66,000 copies of the Gaelic Scriptures into circulation, without counting the parts of the Old Testament, or the editions of the British and Foreign Bible Society, the latter of which now came into considera- ble circulation. It is an interesting fact, that so early as 1782, collections were made throughout the Church, and in subsequent years repeatedly renewed, to defray the expense of the Gaelic translation. In 1816, it was considered desira- ble to revise part of the translation of the Old Testament. This was done; and in the course of a few years a quarto edition was brought out under the care of the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge and a Committee of the General Assembly, which for excellence is not surpassed, it is understood, by most modern versions of the Scriptures. So impressed were the Lords of the Treasury with the great services which had been rendered to the cause of God, and the moral and religious interests of the Highlands, by the labours of the late eminent Reverend Dr. Stewart, of Luss, son of Mr. Stewart of Killin, as a translator of the Gaelic Scriptures, that in 1820 they awarded him the sum of £1000. Previous to that period, and since, various large impressions of the Scriptures have been published by the British and Fo- reign, and latterly by the Edinburgh, Bible Society ; and instead of perpetuating the language, it is believed, that never was the anxiety to acquire English stronger or more general in the Highlands than at the present time. Thus it appears that both the Protestant Church of France and the Protestant Church of Scotland, were remarkable for their love of the Word of God, and their anxiety to dissemi- nate it; and what higher testimony could be given in behalf either of an individual or a Church? Next to the love of God himself, what is more beautiful or befitting than the love of his Word. Indeed they are identical. Few tests of re- ligious character are better or more conclusive than the way 140 PROTESTANT CHURCH in wliich men feel towards the Scriptures, and in which they treat the Scriptures. How often does the Psalmist tell us of his love for the Word of God; and whatever scoffers and the supporters of an apostate Church may allege to the con- trary, the benefits which attend the wide and indiscriminate circulation of the Scriptures are incalculable. The twelve million of copies which have been scattered, during the last thirty years, by the Bible Society, may seem a vast number, and some may think there has been no corresponding fruit; but could we estimate how much evil has been prevented, which, but for them, would have burst forth, how much sub- stantial good has actually been wrought out, and what trains have been laid for infinitely more in the future, no philan- thropist, and much more no Christian, could hesitate for a moment to approve of, yea, to rejoice in the sacrifice. SECTION III. THE CHURCHES OF FRANCE AND SCOTLAND PROMOTE EDUCATION AND THEO- LOGICAL LEARNING. In the last section, I directed the reader's attention to the love which the Protestant Church of France showed for the Word of God, and the exertions she used to disseminate it among her people in sixty of the years which elapsed be- tween the granting and the revocation of the edict of Nantes; in other words, between 1596 and 1660. I have now to call his attention to the zeal which she discovered for a sound AND THOROUGH EDUCATION, AND ALSO THEOLOGICAL LEARN- ING, during the same period. From the general difi'usion of knowledge at the present day, the progress of art and science, and the improved modes of education which have lately been introduced, we are apt to imagine that the present is the only age in which the claims of knowledge are understood, and to look with dis- paragement upon the attainments of all former periods; but such an impression is unjust and erroneous. Of course, from the very nature of tlie case, the past cannot compete with the present in the diffusion of the same kind of know- ledge; but it cannot be doubted, that the early Protestant and Presbyterian Churches showed as enlightened an apprecia- tion of the value of knowledge, and, according to their cir- cumstances, made as great sacrifices to spread it abroad, as any of its friends in modern times. Every sensible and OF FRANCE. 141 pious man, in whatever age he lives, must wish the Scrip- tures of truth to be universally known; and he can scarcely do so, without valueing the other works of God, and wishing a knowledge of them to be widely diffused. All God's works are connected together, and reflect mutual light and fresh illustrations on each other. The reason why general knowledge was not so widely communicated in former as in present times, is not that Christian men were indifferent about it, but that it did not exist. Had it been accessible, such was the estimation in which it was held, it would have been diffused; but no science can be propagated till it is established and ascertained. In defect of knowlege as to existing things, our ancestors betook themselves and their children to the knowledge of the past, and dealt in the study of antiquity to a degree in which they far surpass the men of modern days. This shows that they were not careless about, and far less hostile to, the claims of knowledge ; and, in all fairness, such considerations should be attended to in making a comparative estimate of the love of knowledge in former and present times. True religion almost necessarily drawing along with it the study and dissemination of the Word of God, must ever supply at once the most powerful stimulus to the general acquisition of elementary education, and the best incentive to the attainment of those higher branches of knowledge which are essential to the defence and elucidation of divine truth. We need not wonder, therefore, to find that the Protestant Church of France, which, in her early days, was remarkably influenced by the spirit of true religion, should have laboured to bestow a scriptural education upon all her youth, and a high professional education, in addition, upon all who were destined to minister at her altars. Thus did she approve herself the friend of the best knowledge and the best interests of man. I have already referred to the indications which she gave of this spirit from the very beginning of her existence, from the middle of the sixteenth century down to the establishment of the edict of Nantes, in various decrees and canons, by which she provided that the churches should take care schools be erected, and the youth instructed; and also that money be raised by influential members of the Church, and by Presbyteries and Synods, for maintaining young men of piety and promising parts at the university, preparatory to their coming forth as ministers of the Gospel. 1 shall not recur to these measures, but shall shortly advert to their 142 PROTESTANT CHURCH maintenance and enlargement, in the later period of which I now write; that is, during a great part of the seventeenth century. Though the Church of France was considerably reduced in strength, and was exposed to perpetual and harassing inter- ference from the Church of Rome, still such was her love of literature, and philosophy, and theological science, that she could boast of not less than five universities, those of Mon- tauban, Saumur, Nismes, Montpellier, and Sedan. She at- tempted, in 1619, to rear a College of Philosophy and Litera- ture at Charenton, but was frustrated by the Papists. Nor was this all. Dissatisfied with the acquisitions which were made in the learned languages at the elementary and private schools, she, in 1607, used means, and successfully, for raising a college or grammar school in each of the thirteen provinces into which the Protestant Church was divided, where young men might be trained preparatory to entering on their university course, and by which they might be bet- ter enabled to profit by that course. The universities and bursars were originally supported by the subscriptions of in- dividuals and churches, and the fifth part of the money con- tributed for the poor ; but this proving inadequate and pre- carious, it was made one of the provisions of the edict of Nantes, that the Government should contribute an annual sum to the Church of one hundred and thirty-five thousand livres : of this the universities received between twelve thou- sand and thirteen thousand livres, and each of the provincial colleges one hundred crowns. Even with this assistance, individuals, and churches, and Synods, were called upon for free contributions. Owing to the necessities of the State, and the hostile influence of the Church of Rome, the royal grant was repeatedly, and for years, discontinued. In these circumstances, the Protestant Church had no resource but to apply to her friends. In 1631, the Synod of Charenton com- plains, that the colleges and universities had not received any assistance from his Majesty's bounty for a long time; and, in the dread of being plunged "at last into total ruin," or- dained, that the fifth denier of all alms received in all the churches, should be set aside, out of which a sum might be raised for their maintenance, " by way of advance and loan, only until the monies granted by his Majesty being received, restitution be made of those borrowed sums to the comfort and benefit of the poor." A sort of assessment for these purposes was fixed upon the churches in each of the thirteen OF FRANCE. 143 provinces, and some of the provinces were required to con- tribute from twelve hundred to eighteen hundred livres. Such were the difficulties with which the Protestant Church had to struggle about this period, from the wants of many of the •churches, and her own " deep poverty," that she was obli- ged, very reluctantly, to abandon the professorships of the Greek language in the universities, and to trust to increased diligence in the grammar schools for making up the deficien- cy. These things all show the warm and enlightened zeal of the Protestant Church in behalf of learning and a superior education. She submitted to sacrifices. How many would have been hopelessly discouraged by half the difficulties ? The following deliverance of the Synod of Alanson, in 1637, now two hundred years ago, proves at once the piety of the Churchy and her anxiety to maintain the interests of literature and theology : " The National Synod doth exhort all the churches, all lords, gentlemen, and all persons in particular, to prefer the service of God, the glory of his holy name, and the re-estab- lished order of his house, before all other human considera- tions whatsoever; and every one of them, according to tlieir abilities, to consecrate unto his Divine Majesty their free-will offerings, and to levy among themselves those charges neces- sary for the subsistence of our universities and colleges, and to use and exercise therein their Christian charity and piety, in supporting those which are more feeble." Church courts are called upon in the same way ; and the object is stated, " that all professors and regents who serve in the said uni- versities and colleges, may annually receive their appointed salaries, and so discharge the duties of their place and call- ing with cheerfulness." Many have the idea that the Reformers were a class of rude, ignorant enthusiasts, who had no value for knowledge, but rather despised it. Let such a testimony as the above silence so unwarrantable an imputation. But the anxiety of the Protestant Church of France for a high and enlarged style of theological education will be more apparent, if we advert to the number of the professors em- ployed, and the branches which they taught. In the univer- sity of Montauban there were two professors of divinity, two professors of philosophy, one professor of Greek, and one professor of Hebrew. In the university of Saumur there was the same number of professors teaching the same branches, and five regents in addition. At Nisnies and Montpelier there 144 PROTESTANT CHURCH were two professors of theology, and two of Hebrew ; and at Sedan, one of divinity, one of Greek, and one of Hebrew. In all, there were not fewer than seven professors of theolo- gy, live of Hebrew, four of philosophy, and three of Greek, for the now comparatively limited Church of France. Does not this show a true love of learning? We shall look in vain in our British universities, whether in the northern or south- ern division of the island, for the same proportion of profes- sors. In the general laws for the universities of the Reformed Churches of France, in 1620, we have the follow^ing interest- ing resolution: — " We shall need two professors, at least, in divinity, one of whom shall expound the Holy Scriptures, without expatiating into common places. The other shall read common places. If God so bless us with ability, we shall have a third, and then one of them shall expound the Old Testament, and the other the New, and the third shall handle common places, which he shall have finished in three years' time, with that brevity and solidity as becomes a scholar." With regard, again, to the work of the professors, every one of them was required to read four lectures a week, and to exercise the students weekly in certain themes, both in Latin and in French. For the greater benefit, too, of the students, the general heads of the lectures were dictated to them. And such was the care for religious instruction, that the tutors and the regents, in the literary and philosophical classes, were required to read to their scholars a section of the Greater Catechism, either in French, Latin, or Greek, according to their capacities, " and to cause them to get it by heart, and to give them a plain and familiar exposition of it.*' In 1631, metaphysics, which had not been publicly taught in the uni- versities, were added to the course, and every professor of philosophy was called upon to instruct his students in this branch of knowledge ; and the Protestant Church was the more anxious upon this head, that the Romish Church had, by false metaphysical principles and depraved theology, brought a great prejudice upon divine truth. It was appointed, too, that the first elements of logic should be taught in the first classes, that the young men might be prepared for higher learning. At the same time, the professors of philosophy were warned not in the least " to invade the profession of theology, but to contain themselves within their own bounds, without roving abroad on the handling of unprofitable ques- OF FRANCE. 145 tions." The Protestant church, well aware what metaphysi- cal questions had been started and pursued by the Romish Churchmen, and that serious injury had thus accrued to the cause of religion, were justly jealous upon this head; hence professors of philosophy, in handling physical and metaphy- sical questions connected with divinity, are exhorted to take care that they do so in such manner as not, in the least, to injure the principles of true religion, nor " infuse any scru- ples contrary to piety into the tender minds of our youth." Curious and unprotitable questions are to be avoided; they are not to enlarge on the confutation of unknown heresies, further than is necessary for the right interpretation of the Scriptures, and in all their expositions, they are to preserve that gravity and simplicity of style " which shineth forth so conspicuously in the writings of those famous divines whom the Lord raised up to kindle, in the last century, the flam- beau of the gospel in these and the neighbouring nations." No intelligent man can read these counsels without being struck with the strong sense and enlightened piety which they discover. The mode of appointing the professors was equally wise. The Provincial Synods within whose bounds the university was situated, had the filling up of the chairs. Candidates for those of divinity were required to prove iheir qualifica- tions by public lectures on some special text out of the origin! Hebrew and Greek Bible, given to them for that purpose, " and by disputations, in one or two days following, as may be most advisable." And, after the appointment had taken place, the eye of the Church did not cease to watch. On the contrary, the provinces bordering on the universities are entreated "to oversee and visit them, and certify the ap- proaching Synod of the duties or defaults of their respective regents and professors." In a long chapter on the universi- ties in 1659, it is expressly ordained by the Synod of Lou- doun, that some pastors shall be deputed every year to inspect and visit the universities, and to notice what progress is made by the young men in philosophy and divinity, "and by the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ and this assembly, to re- dress whatsoever disorders shall be particularly notified or observed by them." In furtherance of this object, two pas- tors and two elders were appointed as visiters for each uni- versity, and they were commissioned forthwith to proceed upon their important errand. Thus did the Clmrch exercise an active superintendence 10 146 PROTESTANT CHURCH over ilie universities, and most anxious was she for well qualified professors. So early as 1601, we read, *' And the colloquy of Quercy is charged to take special care thatMon- tauban be furnished with most able professors, who may reputably and conscientiously perform their duty ; as also, the other colloquies are to put to their helping hand, that the liive be done for their universities." Every encouragement also was to be given to the professors. That they might not be needlessly anxious about their maintenance in these un- setded times, it is expressly provided, that, at least for a sea- son, they shall be paid a year in advance. And to secure a fair attendance on their lectures, every province was bound to maintain a certain number of scholars at the universities; and the young men were not eligible to the ministry, vi^ithout producing good and sufficient testimonials of their learning and godliness, signed by the professors of those universities where they studied. What could wise and faithful men have done more to promote the united interests of learning and religion? And when it is remembered that all this was carried forward at a period when the Protestant Church of France was poor, and every now and then persecuted, what better proof can we have of the power of that true religion which still reigned in the hearts of her ministers, and elders, and people? It is not necessary to dwell upon the parallel history of the Church of Scodand in the same acquisitions. It is well known that, previous to the establishment of the Protestant Church of Scotland, the ignorance in every branch of know- ledge was extreme. Tyder, in his history of this country, stales, that in the one hundred and thirty years which interven- ed between Alexander III. and David 11., it would be difficult to find a Scottish Baron who could sign his own name. And as to higher literature, it is well known that one of the early Reformers was the first to introduce the study of the Greek language into this country, a few years before the Reforma- tion; and that the Hebrew language was unknown for some years after the establishment of the Protestant ('hurch, and that though Scotland could boast of three universities! It is also equally well known, that from the first hour of her birth, the Church of ScoUand has been the warm and unwearied promoter of knowledge among all classes of the people, and has required a superior education for her ministers, 'i'he First Book of Discipline, drawn up in 1560, sets forth the OP FRANCE. 147 necessity and obligation of "the virtuous education, and the godly upbringing, of the youth of this realm;" and means were instituted for the purpose. The scheme which the Re- formers sketched contemplated a school in every parish ; a grammar school in every "notable town;" an increased number of universities ; and the efficient use of those already in existence ; and though, from many causes, some of them similar to the adverse influences which retarded the Protes- tant Church of France, the noble designs of the Church of Scotland were not carried into full effect, yet much was ac- complished, so that, in point of knowledge and improvement, the face of the country assumed a new aspect. It was uni- formly found that when the Church was strong, and just ac- cording to her strength, successful means were undertaken for the education and elevation of the people. The General Assembly of 1571 ordains, "that ministers and elders of kirks shall, universally within the realm, take trial and examine all young children within their parishes, who are come to nine years, for the first time ; thereafter, when they come to twelve years, for the second time ; the third time, when they are of fourteen years, whereby it may be known what they have profited in the school of Christ from time to time." From various sources, some of them not very accessible to the general reader, I have collected together the following notices of the strong educational taste of the Church of Scot- land. So early as 1595, every Presbytery is to see to the visitation and reformation of grammar schools in towns, and to deal with the magistrates for augmenting the salaries of the masters, and to assist the masters in maintaining discip- line. In the same year, eight ministers are appointed, some of them of eminent learning, such as Rollock, Mellville, &c., to visit the colleges, try the life and qualifications of the mas- ters, and see after the temporalities, that there is no abuse, and that all is turned to the best account. And next year, owing to the want of suitably educated men for the ministry, every Synod is enjoined to support a bursar at the College of St. Andrews. Ministers' sons are to be preferred. When their course is completed, they are to labour within the bounds of the Synod which has sustained them, unless they obtain ex- press permission to labour elsewhere. With regard, more particularly, to elementary schools, which, in some cases, seem to have been taught by the min- ister, in addition to all his other duties, we have the follow- 148 PROTESTANT CHURCH ing information. Limiting our view to the parallel period in the Church of France, it is ascertained from the report of a visitation of schools, in 1611 and 1613, in the district of St. Andrews, that schools were, at so early a period, planted in about two-thirds of the parishes. There can be little doubt that this held true of the country generally. The eminent Alexander Henderson, in 1630, liberally endowed a school in the parish of Leuchars, of which he was then minister, and another at Creich. Mr. Gabriel Seniple set apart two thousand merks for the same purpose, in the parisli of Kil- patrick Durham. Kirk-sessions defrayed the educational ex- penses of the poor, out of the parish funds, and sometimes made it a condition of parents receiving relief, that they should send their children to school. And the education was not slender. In 1645, it was resolved by the General Assembly, that no schoolmaster should be appointed to burgh or considerable parish schools, unless he were found skilful not only in writing Latin prose, but Latin verse. In a parish so small as Ormiston, money was expended by the session at that period, in purchasing Greek Lexicons for the use of the school, and other expensive books. But in a matter so honourable to a Christian Church, and at a period like the present, in which every thing connected with education is so deeply interesting, it will be necessary to be a little more particular. It appears from the records of the Synod of Fife, that in the parish of Forgan, in 1611, every plough was to pay 13s. 4d. for the better entertain- ment of the school, every child 6s. 8d. in the quarter, and strangers from other parishes from 20s. to 30s. This is re- presented as the common order. A few years afterwards we read, that at Errol, every person occupying £l of land was to pay to the school 13s. 4d. ; and in accordance with this anxiety for the education of the young, we find that, in 1619, the Synod of Fife appointed a catechism to be formed for their use, "of as intelligible and edifying terms as pos- sible; and the great Alexander Henderson, who afterwards bore so prominent a part in drawing up the Solemn league and Covenant, and the Standards of the Westminster As- sembly, is requested ro revise one which had been prepared by three of his brethren. But with all this anxiety, and la- bour, and sacrifice, on the part of the Church, the education of the country, as a whole, was still very imperfect. We have alreatly seen how many of the parishes, in 1627, re- ported that they had no school, or that it was falling to decay, OP FRANCE. 149 or was about to be abandoned for want of pecuniary resour- ces ; and how many commissioners, in respectable circum- stances of life, could not write their own names. The fol- lowing extract from the records of the Presbyiery of St. Andrews, in 1641, shows at once the large amount of edu- cational destitution, and the zeal of the Church to supply it, though then struggling for her very existence against the troops of her king: — "And because the woful ignorance, rudeness, stubbornness and incapacity that is seen among the common people, proceeds from want of schools in landward parishes, and not putting of children to school where they are — therefore it is ordained, that all possible means be used that there be a school in every congregation, and that where there is one already, every one who has children, one or more, put them to the school, having once passed seven years old. If the parents be poor, then, in that case, the kirk-ses- sion take order for paying the schoolmaster his due, either out of the poor's box, or else by a quarterly collection made for the purpose, in the congregation, before divine service; but if the parents be able, then let them be obliged both to send their children, when the session gives an order for it, and not to remove them till the session be acquainted there- with ; and that the onwaiting (diligence) of the schoolmaster be precisely looked to by the minister and elders, and if they be found negligent, to be censured ; and that every house that is able have a Bible and a Psalm-book, at least a New Testament." In perfect harmony with these anxious labours for the spread of education in the east of the kingdom of Fife, we have the following interesting proof of the same zeal in the extreme west of the same county. I have been favoured by a friend with the following and various other extracts from the Session Records of Dunfermline, in 1647, a few years later than that of St. Andrews : — " The session, considering the great ignorance of children, and of the youth in this parish, especially of the poorest sort, from want of education at schools — their parents not being able to sustain them thereat — which occasions gross igno- rance, and great increase of sin, therefore the session has thought fit, that schools be set up in the several quarters of the landward part of this parish, especially in those parts that are remotest, and stand most in need, and are fittest for the same ; and that men and women teachers be sought out and provided thereto ; recommending the same to the care 150 PROTESTANT CHURCH and diligence of the elders and odiers who are able, in these quarters, with the minister, to see the same done ; and also recommending to the elders and deacons, both in town and landward, to give in to the session a monthly roll of the children who are not educated and put to schools, whose parents, being able to sustain them thereat, are negligent of that duty; as also, to give a roll of the poor ones who are neglected, that the session may take cause with both, and that the poor ones may some way be sustained and helped, and furnished, at the least, by the session, in books to them- selves, and in quarterly payments to their teachers ; and the elders are desired to report their diligence to the session." These were admirable resolutions, and they were excel- lently confirmed and sustained by the following overtures for promoting education, which were approved by the General Assembly, and sent down to the inferior courts in the course of the same year. Nothing at the present day can exceed the wisdom and the zeal of the following suggestions and recommendations : — 1. Ministers are frequently to press the duty of parents training up their children at schools. 2. Ministers, in the course of visiting, are to take up a roll of children above five and under ten years of age. 3. Parents are frequently to be exhorted, in the course of visitation, to send children to schools, on their own charges, if they be able, and where not, the session provide ; and in case of negligence, parents to be threatened with processes, (church censure.) 4. Masters to inform ministers or sessions of any children withdrawn from school before they have attained to profi- ciency ; if they neglect this, they are to be censured by the session. 5. Ministers are frequently to visit the schools, and see whether the number of children correspond with the roll, and also the diligence and pains of the master on the poor ones. 6. Masters of families are exhorted to use means for teach- ing their servants to read. Such were the earnest injunctions of the General Assem- bly: and were they attended to? Were they followed with any favourable result? There was decided progress. In answer to certain queries, two years after, regarding the planting of schools and churches, the Presbytery of Dunferm- line report, that they have already planted theirs, with the OF FRANCE. 151 exceplioii of one or two, which, with God's blessing, they intend to plant by the next visitation. The Presbytery of St. Andrews and Kirkaldy report, that they have already done their diligence in that matter; and the Synod recom- mends the Presbytery of Cupar, which seems to have been slow in the work, to provide for their schools according to Act of Parliament. Early next year this Presbytery call upon every brother to state the condition of his parish in re- gard to schools, that diligence may be used for planting wherever they are awanting. The judgment is, that the only way to get schools fully settled is, to visit the several congre- gations ; and the brethren resolve to do this at their earliest convenience, after the meeting of Synod. With regard, more particularly, to the parish of Dunferm- line, to which reference has been already made, I find from its records, that they followed out the excellent resolutions which they had formed. In regard to one of the landward schools of which they speak, certain individuals are appoint- ed " to see and have a care that a house be biggit (built) in the said part within a month, and to report their diligence therein." In the twenty eminently Presbyterian years which stretch from 1640 to 1660, there are above a hundred entries in the record in connection with education, paying the teach- er, and the bursar, and particularly for the instruction of poor children. In the single year of 1648, there are not less than nine entries about the payment for poor scholars ; and the whole sum expended is not less than ^262 Scots. In the beginning of 1660, there is a resolution passed, that "it is thought fit the collection be only for those poor scholars who are learning to read English, and that the session be not bur- dened with paying the quarterly payments of those who are able to read the New Testament perfectly, unless they are of a quick and pregnant spirit." It may be noticed, in pass- ing, that in the next twenty years, those of prelatical per- secution, from 1660 to 1680, there are only twenty educa- tional entries, and only nine of these respect payments for poor children. Doubdess there would not have been so many, had it not been for the good system which prevailed before, and which, like a wheel once set in motion, continued to operate after the impulse had ceased. It was after the Church's labours in the cause of educa- tion to which I refer, that Kirkton, the historian, speaking of the country generally, could say — "All the children of age could read the Scriptures, and were provided with Bibles, 152 PROTESTANT CHURCH either by their parents or their ministers. After a commu- nion, there were no fewer than sixty aged people, men and women, went to school, that even then they might be able to read the Scriptures with their own eyes." Of an earlier period in the history of the Church, Livingstone states, that Mr. Greig, the minister of Loudoun — one of those impri- soned in the reign of James VL — told him, "that in one winter, forty persons in his parish, and each of them above forty years old, did learn to read, that they might enjoy the benefit of the Bible." Passing from elementary schools, we may advert shortly to higher education, to what was designed to fit for the min- istry of the Gospel in these days, the instrument of greatest power. Much care was taken that there should both be a full supply of men, and that they should be well educated — men of learning. Some notices have been already given of this in the earlier periods of the Church. But the same spirit was active and strong in the years whose history we are now reviewing. Thus, in 1616, the Synod of Fife, agreeably to the recommendation of the General Assembly, resolves to maintain five students of divinity at the New^ College of St. Andrews. The expressed motives of the Synod are, the glory of God and the entertainment of learning. Three years after, we find the same Synod supporting six bursars. Each bursar is to receive ^80 Scots to defray three-fourths of the expense of his board. The maintenance is to be continued for four years — showing how thorough was the education which was contemplated. Where they were found, on trial, not likely to profit by the education, they were to be dismissed, and others received in their room. These were important steps; but when the General Assembly recovered her power, she went further. In 1639, she ordained not merely Synods, but every Presbytery, to support a bursar. This would raise and support a considerable number of young men over Scotland, for Presbyteries were numerous. At a later day she went further, and required every congre- gation and parish to contribute a certain amount to the same object. £20 for the bursar is the common payment from the parish of Dunfermline. Nor was it students having En- glish only for whom she showed so much concern. The poor Highlanders were not neglected. The Presbytery of St. Andrews, in 1648, ♦' considering how necessary it is that those who have the Irish, or Gaelic tongue, be trained at schools and colleges, for the better planting of kirks in the OF FRANCE. 153 Highlands; and being certainly informed of the good hopes of Zachary M'Callum, that he is a quick youth, capable of learning, and that his father is not able to train up his child- ren in that way, appoint him to be sent for to St. Andrews, and the Presbytery is willing to take the burden of his en- tertainment till the meeting of Synod." At the meeting, the Synod agree to maintain Zachary M'Callum, " a boy having the Irish tongue," at the grammar school of St. Andrews, for the space of a year, until he be ready for the college. Every church is to pay forty shillings towards his support. I need say nothing of the Church's love of learning, and of her anxiety to promote its interests. So early as 1662, we find her making inquiry as to what books her ministers possessed — whether their libraries were adequate to their calling. Presbyteries are to see if the minister has the Scrip- tures in the original languages, and Tremellius's Translation of the Old, and Beza's of the New Testament — if he has works on Ecclesiastical History — and what Commentaries, and what course of reading he has pursued in controversies. A few years after, the Synod of Fife assist the College of St. Andrews in getting up a library for the use of learning, and agree to call for the benevolence of gentlemen in differ- ent parishes, in furtherance of the object. And as ihe means of a superior clerical education were provided, so considera- ble attainments were expected at the hands of candidates for the ministry. It appears from the records of the Synod of Fife, that, in 1624, they were required to bring testimonials of character — of blameless life and conversation — that they had passed through a course of philosophy — were twenty- five years of age — had conducted themselves well and use- fully since leaving college. They are required to read the Greek Testament ad aperturam — and a chapter of Hebrew after twenty-four hours meditation. They are then to be examined on the grounds of religion, according to Calvin's Institutes and Beza's — question and answer — unless, from other learned writers, they are able to give of their own knowledge, the best and soundest replies. They are then to be questioned on controverted points, in which they are to be required to state the case and answers on both sides, in the form of Chemnisius, or any other learned divine who has written on controversy. Then they are to make a ser- mon, privately, in Latin and English, and next publicly. In 1641, the General Assembly used her best exertions that " a sufficient maintenance be provided for a competent 154 PROTESTANT CHURCH number of professors, teachers, and bursars, in all faculties, and especially in divinity, and for upholding, repairing, and enlarging the fabric of the colleges — furnisliing libraries, and such like good uses, in every university and college." It is earnestly recommended that only the ablest men should be appointed to professorial chairs. And in 1645, it is enacted that at the time of the General Assembly, commissioners from the different universities of the kingdom shall meet and consult together for the advancement of piety, learning, and good order, in the schools and universities. It is is scarcely necessary to menlion, that while so earnest in promoting the interests of literature and knowledge, the Church never, for a moment, lost sight of the paramount claims of true religion, but on the contrary, made every thing else subservient to them. It is a striking illustration of this, that professors of languages and philosophy were re- quired, along with their respective sciences, to ground their students in the first principles of Christianity. The Confes- sion of Faith was translated into Latin, that it might be used as a text book by the young men at college. By an act of the General Assembly, at a later date, 1705, it was strongly "recommended to masters in universities, and all other in- structors of youth, that they be careful to instruct their scho- lars in the principles of the Christian reformed religion, ac- cording to the Scriptures." We have seen what efforts were used to create and wisely administer bursaries ; and what was their great end, but to assist and encourage young men in studying at the universities? Here, too, religion was the reigning object. Who were the bursars? They were youths intended for the ministry, especially in Gaelic parishes. Such was the anxiety of the Church to obtain a sufficient number for this work, that she ordered a contribution of forty shil- lings Scots from every congregation, yearly, to raise the ne- cessary funds; and in 1648 there were not fewer than forty Higliland youths, approven by the Synod of Argyle, in the course of training for the ministry. At the same time, were it not unduly protracting this chapter, it were easy to show that in the matter of university visitation there is also a pa- rallel between the Protestant Church of France and the Pro- testant Church of Scotland; but enough has been adduced to show that both were, even in the earliest times the warm friends of enlarged knowledge and enlightened education, and enough has been brought forward to rebuke the silly and unfounded notion, that religious men care nothing about the OP FRANCE. 155 culture of mind, and are the enemies of knowledge. It will be difficult, indeed, for those who are so fond of arro- gating to themselves, exclusively, the title of the friends of knowledge at the present day, to give evidence of such ge- nerosity, self-denial, and sincerity, in the cause, as the friends of religion, and the Protestant Presbyterian Churches have manifested all along. We may take a specimen of the visitations of colleges from that of Glasgow in 1642. The Commissioners, among other things, ordained that the C4reek text of Aristotle should be analyzed viva voce, and thereafter the sense of the text writ- ten— that the discussions of the students should continue in their classes and in the public schools — that the students in private should speak Latin — that they should be exercised in lawful games — all games of chance being prohibited — and that every master should educate his own students through all the four classes.* After the reference which has been already made to learned works and learned men whom the Church encouraged, it is scarcely necessary to ask, were her various lobours in be- half of a superior educated clergy successful? Considering how unpropitious the disturbed times of James and Charles were to the peaceful pursuit of study, the Church was emi- nently successful in this department. I have already pointed to a galaxy of illustrious names; and, in conclusion, may just allude to the testimony which Livingstone, himself a man of decided attainments, gives in regard to leading men of his day, most of whose names I have already mentioned. Of himself, he says, that when in Holland he spent much of his time in biblical studies, in comparing Pagnin's version with the original text of Scripture, and with the later trans- lations, such as Munster's, the Tigurine, Junius, Diodati, the English, but especially the Dutch; and that he was en- couraged with the approbation of Voetius, Essenius, Nethe- nus, and Leusden; and that he wrote some emendations on Pagnin's translation, which were sent to Dr. Leusden. Such personal attainments render Livingstone more trustworthy when speaking of others ; and he testifies what was otherwise well known, that Robert RoUock, a minister in Edinburgh, and principal of the university, was "very learned,"! — that * See new statistical account of Govan, p. 707, whose minister at that period was one of the Commissioners. t Beza having met with his commentary on the Romans and Ephe- sians, wrote to a friend, " I have got a treasure of incomparable va- 156 PROTESTANT CHURCH John Scrimzeor, of Kinghorn, " was very learned, especially in the Hebrew," — that Robert Boyd was " a man thoroughly learned, and had a great turn for poetry, as his Hecatomhe Christiana shows," — that David Calderwood lived long in Holland, " and wrote his learned book, entided, Altare Da- masceniim, in Latin, and some other pieces in English, which helped to keep many straight in that declining time." After speaking in the highest terms of Samuel Rutherford, he re- lates, tliat " he wrote his Lex Rex, asserting the lawful liber- ties of the subject, and that it is reported, when king Charles saw it, he said it would scarcely ever get an answer; nor did it ever get any, except what the Parliament, 1661, gave it, when they ordered it to be burnt by the hand of the hang- man." Of George Gillespie, he says, that when a proba- tioner, he " wrote that elaborate piece, entitled The English Popish Ceremonies f^ and when member of the VVestmiister Assembly, "displayed great learning and a deep judgment, and debated with perspicuity, strength of argument, and calmness of spirit, above any man in his time." Other tes- timonies to the learning of the ministeries of the Church of Scotland might be referred to, such as Robert Baillie's Opus Chronologiciim, and David Dickson's Therapeutica Sacra, in Latin, and the published Discourses of the Scottish Com- missioners, which were preached before Parliament, as com- pared with those of their English brethren; but this were to enter on a wide field. I would simply refer to what Mr. Row, the biographer of Blair, states of '* The New Explication of the Holy Bible," which the General Assembly resolved upon. It would appear, that, as the commentaries on the Scriptures in English, if there were any, were expensive, and inacces- sible to the great body of the people, the Church determined to write a Commentary for them herself. With this view, the several books were divided amongst a number of the most godly and learned of the ministry. Blair wrote on the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes; Dickson, on the Psalms, St. Matthew, the Romans and Hebrews; Hutcheson, on Job, and the twelve minor Prophets, and the Gospel of John ; Fergusson, on several of the Epistles, &c. This Commen- tary, intended as it was for popular use, may not have afford- ed much scope for learning, though there are sufficient indi- cations that the writers were no strangers to it; but it pre- luc, having never before met with the like for brevity, elegance, and sound judgment." OF FRANCE. 157 senls a fine specimen of the full and thoroughly scriptural style of instruction in which the ministers of those days so largely dealt, and which doubtless paved the way to that ge- neral religious knowledge, which, even among "the com- monalty," filled Bishop Burnet with wonder, and which enabled the people of Scotland so heroically to brave the persecutions and the martyrdoms of eight-and-twenty years of tyranny. SECTION IV. THE CHURCHES OF FRANCE AND SCOTLAND CHERISH SYMPATHY AND BENEV- OLENCE FOR THE SUFFERING. In several of the former sections I have endeavoured to bring out some interesting features in the Christian character of the early Protestant Church of France, and especially in the period in which the edict of Nantes, might be said to be in considerable force. I have now to direct the reader's atten- tion to another, an additional feature, and that one of great interest and beauty, viz: the sympathy and benevolence WHICH THE French Reformed Church manifested for THOSE IN suffering, PARTICULARLY^ SUFFERING CHRISTIANS. Few aspects of character are more affecting, or more indu- bitably indicative of Christian principle. It may be added, that, in reference to the French Church, few are less known. The Saviour went about doing good to the bodies and the souls of men, sympathizing with the afflicted, and adminis- tering suitable relief. So has it been, so will it ever be, with his true followers, according to their circumstances and op- portunities. The Protestants of France were not hardened by their own sufferings, into a selfish insensibility to the suf- ferings of others. This is generally the way of the world. As became Christians, their own afflictions only served to make them more alive to the afflictions of those who claimed their sympathy. We have many proofs of this. Not only as individuals, but as a Church, they took up cases of all sorts of distress, individual and collective: those which pro- ceeded direcdy from the providence of God, and those which were the result of the persecuting wickedness of man. To select a few illustrations: In 1620, Quevedo, a Spaniard, who had escaped from the Inquisition of the Romish Church, applied to the Synod of Alez for some relief, that he might live in the profession of the Gospel, for which he had suflfer- ed. The Assembly ordered him one hundred livres from ] 58 PROTESTANT CHURCH the common funds of the Church. The same was to be continued as long as his deportment justified his profession. It was to be put into the hands of the consistory of Mont- pellier, and paid quarterly, ♦' that so he may learn some honest trade, whereby to gain a livelihood." I need not remark on the union of good sense and Christian principle and benevolence which such charity discovered. About 1630 and 1645, the Mediterranean was infested with Turkish pirates, who made a prey of all who came within their reach, carrying them to the coast of Africa, and shutting them up in hopeless slavery. Thus did wronged and miserable Africa make reprisals, as it were, upon Eu- rope. The Protestant Church of France, sympathizing deeply with the sufferers, issued the following beautiful de- claration and resolution, which acquires a fresh interest when we remember how early it was proclaimed, and how narrow and impoverished were the circumstances of the Church at that period: — "The maritime provinces making great com- plaints of the vast number of captives detained in Algiers, Tunis, Salee, and other places of Barbary and Morocco, and of their sad and woful condition, and that they do indis- pensably need all the charitable assistance of the faithful to redeem them out of misery — this Synod adjureth, by the bowels of compassion of the living God, and by that fellow- feeling which all members of our Lord Jesus ought to have of one another's straits and necessities, all the provinces, and all the Churches, and every particular individual professor of our religion, to yearn, with bowels of pity, over the afflic- tion of these our poor brethren, and to contribute liberally towards their redemption." After stating in what manner the money is to be collected, the Synod go on to say, " Every province shall send unto the consistory of Paris a list of their captives and an account of their alms, that so these monies may be employed in the redemption of those captives who are natives of provinces, before any other, and after them, as a supplement of charity, for others also, that so this whole work of love may redound to the glory of God, the common edification and particular consolation of these our poor alllictod brethren." This is a noble resolution, worthy of a Christian Church. WhUe the French Protes- tants were moved by the claims of humanity and country, their motive was still, in a chief degree, religious. They were drawn out in sympathy and compassion, especially be- cause their brethren were " poor afflicted Christians." Nor OF FRANCE. 159 did they allow their charity to evaporate in empty words; they embodied it in liberal doings. They collected con- siderable sums of money, and continued to do so for many years. In 1659, or fourteen years after the date of the reso- lution which we have quoted, we find them testifying, that the alms obtained from the faithful for this pious work had been most beneficially employed ; and they determine that, seeing there is still a great necessity for this noble charity, they will persevere in it, and press its claims upon all the provinces. Under the influence of Christian principle, they continued in well-doing. But leaving illustrations of sympathy and kindness in cases of outward and bodily bondage, we may turn to other manifestations of Christian benevolence. Not unfrequently some particular church in France was visited with a special affliction of Divine Providence; and in such cases, the Church, as a body, immediately discovered the most open- hearted and open-handed generosity. In 1620, the magis- trates and consistory of the town of Privas represented to the Synod of Alez, " the great losses, damages and afliic- tions," sustained by them since the death of their pastor, M. Chambaud, so that they were reduced to a lamentable con- dition. The Assembly immediately ordered six hundred livres to be " given for a present supply," and all the churches of the kingdom to make a general collection in behalf of the afilicted church of Privas; and not only so, but the governor of Montauban, and persons in high rank, as well as the kindred of the late minister, are written to, and earnestly entreated to take special care of the religious education of his children, " that they may not be diverted from the true religion, and trained up in Popish idolatry." These things may seem minute details for the representative Assembly of a large Church to concern itself with; but they sliow how warm and enlightened was the piety which reigned in the hearts of its members. In the same year, the church of Puymiroll presented a petition for immediate re- lief, owing to the whole town being recently consumed by a most dreadful fire, 'i'he case is taken up; the neighbouring provinces are exhorted to assist with special collections; and the afflicted state of the distressed inhabitants is recommen- ded to the general deputies, that by them it may be laid be- fore the king. Cases of famine were mef in a similar way. But, perhaps, the most interesting class of cases are those of neighbouring persecuted churches — pursecuted for the 160 PROTESTANT CHURCH faithful testimony which they held up in behalf of Protestant truth, and the cause of Christ. The Church of France sym- pathized deeply with all in such circumstances. Among the grounds for a day of fasting, in 1620, we find the Synod enumerating " the late doleful changes happened in the churches of Beam, and in divers other churches and provin- ces united and incorporated with us, which are either ruined, or upon the very brink of ruin and destruction." The churches which most frequently appear in the records of the Church of France, as demanding and receiving her sympathy and assistance, are those of the Marquisate of Saluces. These were situated in the near vicinity of the churches of Pied- mont, and were harassed with long continued persecution by the Duke of Savoy, a bigoted Roman Catholic, at whose hands the Protestant churches of these regions generally suf- fered severely. So early as 1603, we have the following interesting statement from the proceedings of the Synod of Gap: — " The petition tendered by our brethren of the Mar- quisate of Saluces, exiled, for the Gospel's sake, from their houses and inheritance, was read, and it was judged reason- able that the churches of the said Marquisate should be pre- served and conlirmed in their union and communion of faith and discipline which they ever had with the Church of this kingdom. And, therefore, the king's majesty shall be most humbly entreated to recommend them to the Duke of Savoy, that the liberty granted them by his edicts may be continued and confirmed to them. And letters also to this purpose shall be written from this Assembly to the Duke of Savoy ■ and the Duke de Les Diguieries, and the churches of the valleys shall be exhorted to join themselves in a stricter bond of union, as they have done in times of former troubles, one with the other." The first thing which the Church of France did for their suffering brethren was to give them the advice which seemed most appropriate to their circumstances. Those who still remained in their native land are exhorted to forsake the places where they are constrained to participate in idolatry, and to accompany their banished brethren in bearing the cross of Christ. About this time, letters are received from the Christians of the valley of Barcelona, asking for advice how to conduct themselves, under the apprehension of being deprived, by the Duke of Savoy, "of their precious liberty to profess the Gospel, and worship God according te his holy will, prescribed in the Scriptures." The answer of OF FRANCE. 161 the Synod is, that they most smcerly condole with them, and earnestly recommend them to a stricter union with the Christians of the other valleys of Piedmont, assuring them of all offers of Christian charity, should they be persecuted or banished. All this was well, but stronger and more decided assistance than that of advice was necessary, and, accordingly, the Protestant Church of France was not slow in awarding it. The persecution of the churches of Saluces continuing, the Synod of Rochelle, four years afterwards, called upon all the provinces of the kingdom to assist them with extraordi- nary alms, and on no account to direct any of the money already raised for this purpose to other ends, however praise- worthy and good. Nay, such was the zeal of the Church in behalf of the suffering, and such the urgent necessities of the case, that four hundred crowns were advanced by M. Bernardin, an elder, to be afterwards repaid from the collec- tions and the king's annual grant. And the sums raised by the poor, but still pious, churches of France were not incon- siderable. The church of Bordeaux raised four hundred livres, the church of Rochelle eight hundred, the province of Poictou fourteen hundred and forty-four, Brittany seven hun- dred and fifty, Normandy one thousand, Zaintonge ten hun- dred and thirty-six, Orleans and Berry nineteen hundred : thus, of five provinces alone, above six thousand livres. All this was very creditable, and, with God's blessing, seems to have been decidedly useful to the cause of the persecuted. Ten or eleven years after, instead of extermination, we read of one Laurence Jolly, one of the exiled Protestants, bring- ing letters from the church of Guillestre, which was com- posed of the poor Salucian refugees, praying the Assembly for a portion of the royal grant for the maintenance of a pas- tor, " because they are in hopes it may allure and attract a great many others, who are groaning under that sore and heavy persecution, and do hunger after the Word of Life, and ardently desire the enlargement of Christ's kingdom." The Church complied with the request; and the very fact that such a request was presented, bears strong testimony to the success with which the persecuted had maintained their ground, and the hope which they entertained of grow- ing strength. I might refer to other cases of Christian sympathy and assistance, such as that rendered to the church of Gignac, when reduced by the impetuous assaults of its adversaries to sore affliction and straits ; how the Professor of Divinity in 11 162 PROTESTANT CHURCH the University of Nismes was sent by the Synod to visit, and comfort, and strengthen the members, and how the pro- vince of Languedoc was ordered to defray the expenses of liis journey. I might refer also to the eight hundred livres which were paid, in 1631, to the Lord Ramboullet, an elder of the church of Paris, to be employed by his agent at Mar- seilles for "the comfort and deliverance of the faithful, who, for religion and a good conscience kept by them, have been there detained in chains ever since the last commotions." But it is unnecessary to multiply the proofs of a Christian principle and disposition sufficiently conspicuous: the whole is a beautiful manifestation of Christianity in trying times. What a contrast to the narrow sympathy, and cold and selfish doings of the men of the world ! That it may not be imagined that the pleasing picture we have been considering was the result of accident or national temperament, I shall produce a few parallel cases from the history of the Protestant Church of Scodand, which will go to show that the cause was deep and all-comprehensive, that Christianity lay at the foundation, and that in all countries its operation is substantially and wonderfully the same. With regard to sympathy and relief in cases of outward slavery, the records of the Church are full of them, through a space of almost two hundred years. So early as 1596, we read in the records of the Presbytery of Glasgow, of the parishes being called upon to collect for the support of an afflicted Grecian, who liad been ransomed by the Church, for his kindness towards the Christians in bondage. The following interesting case was brought before the Synod of Fife in 1616. As it is a good specimen of the style in which many others run, which occur in the ecclesiastical records, I give it in full:— "Anent the supplication proposed by Mr. William Wed- derburn, minister at Dundee, making mention, that whereas the Lords of his Highness' Privy Council being certainly informed, that Andrew Robertson, John Cowie, John Dar- ling, and James Pratt, and their associate mariners, indwel- lers in Leith, being lately upon the coast of Barbary, after a cruel and bloody conflict, were overcome and led into cap- tivity by certain merciless Turks, who presented them to open market at Algiers, in Barbary, to be sold as slaves to the cruel barbarians; from the which miserable state, James Fraser, now resident in the said town of Algiers, moved with OF FRANCE. 163 pity and compassion, redeemed them, by the present pay- ment of £140 sterling money, for their ransom, to be repaid by the said captives at a term now approaching, who, not- withstanding, are reduced to such extreme poverty, that they are not able to repay the said sum. Whereupon their I^ord- ships have, by their letters patent, recommended the said distressed travellers to the charity of all our Sovereign Lord's subjects, as the same, of the date at Edinburgh, the 21st December, 1615, at more length bears; craved, therefore, that this Synod would hold hand to that so charitable a work, and provide that the support and benevolence granted within their bounds may be collected in such form as may best serve for the comfort and relief of the forenamed distressed. The Synod considering the equity of the premises, and that they have, from time to time, being moved with pity, sup- ported strangers who have sought to them for relief, in such case, being more obliged to their own bowels, as also, that the frustrating of the said James Fraser of his money, so lovingly advanced for their redemption, may afterwards be prejudicial to others falling in the like state, which God for- bid, therefore concluded and ordained, that every brothei, immediately after their return from the Synod, shall deal carefully and earnestly with their people, and bring in to the moderators of the exercises according as they shall obtain by their benevolence ; and that the moderators of the exercises within Fife shall receive the contributions at the hands of their brethren, and deliver the same to the Principal of St. Leonard's College, and the remainder shall deliver the same to the ministers of Dundee, that it ma^ be employed to the use above expressed. ^'^pril, 1616." We may merely notice a few similar cases. In 1632, ap- plication is made to the same Synod in behalf of Alexander Lathersk, and David Kirkaldy, sailors of Kinghorn, taken and detained three years by the Turks, and thence reduced to slavery in a Spanish galley, where they remained for eight years. £1000 Scots are necessary for their redemp- tion, and they have nothing. All the members of Synod are exhorted immediately to raise money among their people. Four years after, the same brethren are earnestly exhorted to make a contribution in behalf of John Brown of Prestonpans, and his crew, fourteen in number, taken by the Turks, and detained in slavery. In 1643, it appears from the records of the parish of Dunfermline, that d640 and half a dollar 164 PROTESTANT CHURCH were collected for the redemption of Matthew Greg of Inver- keithing, taken captive by the Turks. Tn 1655, the same parish collect £'30 for William Menzies, detained in the same captivity. Next year, there are two similar contributions for captives at Algiers ; and a peculiarly interesting collec- tion of ^58, 9s., for fifteen or sixteen Grecian ministers held in the same miserable bondage. The parties also apply to the Presbytery of St. Andrews for relief, and the application runs in these terms: " Petition from Anastasius Comnenus, as minister of the Grecian Church, praying relief for himself and other fifteen ministers, taken by Turks, and now cap- lives at Algiers." Tn the small parish of Dunbog, in Fife- shire, one of the smallest in the Church of Scotland, we find that a contribution was made, in 1678, for the relief of some Montrose seamen, taken by the Turks. Two years later, we read of contributions in the same parish for two separate parties of Scotch seamen, taken by Turkish men-of-war, the one being carried to Sallee, the other to Algiers. And if even £0 small a parish manifested so much sympathy and gener- osity, well may we conclude that the feeling throughout the country was general and deep. Accordingly, we meet with innumerable cases where the General Assembly enjoined collections for the redemption of men out of slavery. Tn 1698, for Christians detained in bondage in Barbary ; in 1705, for a captive at Algiers; in 1719, for Captain Stewart and his crew at Sallee, in the dominions of the Emperor of Morocco; in the same year, certain Presbyteries are required to raise money for the redemption of Matthew Roger, a Bor- rowstowness sailor; in 1734, the sumof £l4. 2s. lOd. was paid for the release of a slave at Algiers. This, I presume, was William Dowell, forwhom I find the parish of Morham, another of the smallest parishes in Scodand, contributed. So lately as 1740, several northern Synods were recommended to collect in behalf of Robert Anderson, a captive at^ Tan- giers. In reference, again, to other forms of distress — such as calamities proceeding directly from the hand of God — we meet with the same sympathizing spirit and ready co-opera- tion. In 1598, nine Presbyteries are called upon to assist the sufferers by a dreadful fire at Haddington, and Glasgow is one of the number. In 1616, there was a severe fire at Cu- par, which called forth the following recommendation from the Synod of Fife: — " The Synod understanding that upon the last day of August last, about eleven o'clock at night, it OF FRANCE. 165 pleased the Lord to visit the Burgh of Cupar with a fearful burning of the principal quarter of the town, in the most eminent place of the same, whereby the policy of that ancient necessary burgh is miserably defaced, the handling of traffic- aries and tradesmen within, among themselves, and with their neighbours about, is utterly impeded, and a great number of good Christians and laborious persons brought under distress- ful heaviness and want of employment, in such measure, that the said town, by themselves, are neither able to support their present necessities of lodging and means of life, neither to repair the policy, nor to restore their desolate neiglibours to their handling and trades again ; and being, as it is known, the head burgh of the shire, and the seat of the exercises (Presbytery), their desolation, so as it touches them in par- ticular, so in Christian compassion it concerns all them that, fearing God, wishes the weal and standing of such societies: Likeas the Lords of his ^lajesty's Honourable Privy Coun- cil having considered the said pitiful case, have recommended their relief to all and sundry his Highness' subjects, well- affected in such causes, by their Honours' letters, given at Edinburgh the 18th of September, this instant year of God hereof; the said Assembly ordains every exercise and par- ticular congregation within their bounds, to take the best way and order among themselves for relief of their said distressed brethren, with all convenient diligence, at their return home- ward, by contributions and other means, as they shall lind most meet." The town of Kelso seems, in 1645, to have been suffering gi'eatly from the plague. A letter is sent round to the Pres- byteries, describing its great desolation, and praying for Christian relief. Similar was the slate of things in Perth, Next year, the elders of Dunfermline report their diligence in obtaining contributions for the town of St. Johnstone (Perth,) " visited with the plague of pestilence: they deliver in all to the session, five hundred and seventy-two merks, ten shillings." A few years afterwards (1652,) there was a fearful conflagration in Glasgow, worse in proportion than the great fire of London: a third part of the town, and that the best, was consumed ; one thousand families were ruined; the loss was estimated at £100,000. Cromwell and twenty four English othcers signed a representation, setting forth the greatness of the calamity, and praying for contributions. The General Assembly did the same. The whole sum raised by the parish of Dunfermline was £IG0. Many similar 166 PROTESTANT CHURCH cases might be quoted; such as £32, 10s. for the town of Kilmarnock suffering from the effects of fire in 1670; and £'Z0 for Cupar in 1672. During the persecuting period, indeed, the contributions appear to diminish very considera- bly, both in number and amount; still the Church retained somewhat of her character for Christian benevolence, and from time to time gave collections for good objects. In 1676, the small parish of Dunbog contributes to the rebuilding of the town of Kelso, destroyed by fire; and in 1671 assists two poor men whose houses were burnt at Sligo in Ireland. In 1733, the parish of Go van aided, by collection, the suffer- ers by a serious fire at Paisley; and in 1749, assisted one hundred families in the Gorbals of Glasgow, suffering from the same calamity. At a period when insurance against loss by fire was unknown, such generous aid was the more valua- ble. The most interesting cases, however, and those which most distinctly mark the presence of Christian principle and feeling, were cases of sympathy and aid to Christian Churches in straits and persecutions. There were many such calls, and never did the Church of Scodand fail gen- erously to respond to them. I do not allude to mere cases of Church extension, whether at home or abroad, in Scot- land, in Ireland, in America. These were very numerous. I allude to cases where there was actual distress or suffering for the cause of ("hrist. So early as 1604 the Presbytery of Glasgow made a collection for the persecuted Church of Geneva; and twenty years afterwards, the same Presbytery collected £1200 Scots, for the relief of the French Protes- tants of Rochelle and Beam. The following is part of the acknowledgment which Basnage gave of the receipt of the money: — " I, in name of tiie said General Assembly of the Reformed Churches of France and Sovereignty of Beam, render most humble thanks to the brethren of the ministry, and faithful members of their kirks, for this charitable and willing help, which is a pledge of our mutual communion in one body, in their parts, and in our parts; making a firm band, binding us and all our kirks to pray to God for the long peace and prosperity of the Kirk within this Kingdom of Scotland, and other his Majesty's dominions; by Mr. Archi- bald Graham, (witness) my hand, at Edinburgh, as follows, Basnage, 1622 years. Before these witnesses, John Mac- knight and James Spier, merchant-burgesses of Edinburgh. " Sic Subscribilur — Basnage, Depute from the General OF FRANCE. 167 Assembly of the Reformed Churches of France, to his Ma- jesty of Great Britain. — James Spier, Witness ; John Mac- kni^ht, Witness.— ■1th August, 1622." Nor, liberal as this sum was, was it all that the French Protestants received from their Scottish brethren. Robert Blair, who lived at the period, states in his memoirs, that in August, 1622, Mr. Basnage granted receipt to William Dick and James Spier, collectors, for ^80,424, 6s. 8d. Scots ; and in June, 1632, granted receipt for the further sum of £23,237, I8s. 6d., all from the Church of Scotland. This was an immense sum in those days for a poor country. Surely so generous a gift argues the presence of high Chris- tian principle and feeling. I need scarcely remind the read- er, that in the fast-day appointments of that and subsequent periods, the afflicted condition of the Protestant Churches was always a prominent point. Thus, in a fast appointed in Fife for two Sabbaths in succession, in 1021, the distressed state of the foreign Churches of France, Bohemia and Hol- land, is particularly noticed; and prayer is recommended for the deliverance and preservation of Christians from the Turks and Papists. But, as we have seen, the Church, im- poverished and oppressed as she was, did not confine herself to prayer and fasting; she made generous contributions. In 1626, a nobleman of the Orisons, exiled from his country for his religion, received £100 Scots. In 1632, the minis- ters of St. Andrews' Presbytery are required to use all their diligence in collecting for the distressed ministers of the Pal- atinate ; and one of the charges brought against Alexander Gladstanes, a minister of the town, when arraigned before the Presbytery for various offences, was, that he had appro- priated to his own use £692 of what had been collected for the relief of these German Christians. I am unwilling to swell this section, and so shall content myself with shortly alluding to the Church's benevolent doings nearer home. It appears from the Session Records of Dunfermline, that in 1647 a letter was sent down from the Commission of the General Assembly, to Presbyteries and their several congre- gations, recommending to their help and charity, " the lamen- table condition of the distressed people in Argyle — whose blood had been shed by the bloody rebels, their estates whol- ly ruined and destroyed, their houses burnt with fire, and the remnant that they have left exposed to all the miseries of famine and nakedness, daily dying and starving for want of bread, destitute of all means of livelihood or comfort." The 168 PROTESTANT CHURCH sum almost immediately raised for this object was not less than ^400, 2s. Nor did the Church only collect for her own people overrun by rebels — she made provision also for the poor Irish Protestants fleeing from the Popish massacre. In 1642, a general collection was appointed throughout all the parishes of Scotland, for " the distressed Christians who are fled from the cruelty of the Irishes and Papists in Ireland, and who have come to the west country;" ^50 were raised for seven of the number who had taken up their residence at Dunfermline. Livingstone bears testimony to the liberality with which these refugees were treated in Scotland. As he was minister at Stranraer, whither many came, and had moreover been a minister in Ireland, and so was well known to not a few of the Irish, his brethren placed £1000 Scots at his disposal, for distribution among them. They were so numerous, as to be glad of such humble sums as Is. and Is. 6d. Scots. The Presbytery of St. Andrews alone, raised for this object £500. In 1719, the small parish of Morham, in Haddingtonshire, collected for the distressed Protestant brethren of Franconia, in Germany, the sum of £8, 9s. lid. Scots. The parish of Govan, in 1739, raised money for the persecuted Christians of Piedmont; and there can be little doubt that such parochial collections were general, if not uni- versal. In 1752, the poor Protestants of Breslau, in Silesia, received from the Church of Scotland the munificent sum of £1100 sterling. The Ecclesiastical Records of Dunferm- line alone, abound in many pleasing traces of Christian sym- pathy and zeal. ThuSj in 1718, a contribution is ordered for the distressed Protestants of Lithuania. In 1721, £20, 10s. Scots are collected for the French Protestants of Saxony. Next year, 30s. are given to John Stancher, a French Pro- testant refugee recommended by the Synod. In 1724, a voluntary contribution is appointed in aid of the Scots Pres- byterian congregation of New York. In 1730, there is a similar contribution ordered in favour of the Reformed French and German congregations of Copenhagen. A few years later, the Reformed Church of Breslau, in Silesia, receives £27 Scots; while in 1752, the German Protestants in the British Colonies of Pennsylvania receive a gift of £2, 5s. 6d. sterling. Three years after, there is a collection in behalf of the College of New Jersey, which amounted to £2, 13s. 4d. sterling. In the meantime, repeated contributions were made in behalf of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Chris- tian Knowledge. I have been led beyond the period more OF FRANCE. 169 immediately under review ; but I have thought it not amiss to collect together the evidence under one view. It might have beeil greatly enlarged. The sums sent for the relief of the suffering, and the propagation of the Gospel, are almost incredible in number and amount, when the poverty of the country, and the manifold demands of home are taken into account. Such are a few illustrations of the sympathy and benevo- lence manifested by the Protestant Church of France to those who are in suffering and affliction; and such, also, are a few parallel specimens of the same dispositions exhibited in the character and history of the Church of Scotland. And what do such facts prove? They prove how fallacious and untrue is the common allegation of the world and of infidelity, that religious men, in their zeal for the forms of piety, are indif- ferent to the temporal wants of man. On the contrary, they are the best friends of mere humanity, and, in point of sym- pathy and liberality, will not only stand a comparison with, but will be found immeasurably to out-distance, all the de- vices and doings of the irreligious, by whatever name they may be called. If any entertain doubt upon this point, let them ask and ascertain what mere worldly men really do for others, and ihey will doubt no longer. Another inference deducible from the facts presented is, that true Christianity is expansive in its liberality. Infidels have often objected to the Gospel, that even its virtues are narrow and confined, and have talked of a universal benevo- lence, a citizenship of the world as far nobler, and have hoped to work this out from theories of their own. Let the kindness shown by the poor Protestant Churches of France and Scotland to the afflicted, wherever they might be found, however far removed, contradict so foolish an assertion. What have infidels, what have the irreligious done to realize their own speculations? "Where are the distressed whom they have succoured — where the record of their liberality? What did they do for those afflicted parties whom impover- ished Christian Churches were so forward to aid? The truth is, that though the Gospel lays great stress upon do- mestic virtues and relative duties, and may be said to start with individual affections, yet it is so truly expansive in its character, that ere long it embraces in its benevolent regards, the whole human race in their noblest interests; while the aim of infidelity to begin with general and do away with particular aflfections, as narrow, is not only unsuited to the 170 PROTESTANT CHURCH weakness of our nature, but frequently terminates in intense selfishness, nay, must do so, from drying up the very source of large and expanded affections. SECTION V. THE CHURCHES OF FRANCE AND SCOTLAND ARE THE ADVOCATES OF CHRIS- TIAN UNION. The next feature which I shall mention in the character of the Protestant Church of France, indicative of her decided Christianity, was her anxiety for peace among christians AT HOME, AND UNION AND CO-OPERATION AMONG CHURCHES OF CHRIST ABROAD. There is no call addressed to Christians, more frequent or earnest, than to be one in mind and affec- tion. Compliance with it is one of the best evidences of genuine religion. But the reader does not need to be re- minded that, to the reproach of Christians, in every age of the Church, few calls have been less attended to. Though, in the hostility of a fallen world, and in the identity of their leading views and hopes, as well as the authority of their Master, Christians have the strongest motives to unity and peace; yet such is the imperfection of their attainments in the present life — such the power of remaining depravity, that the history of the Christian Church has too often been the history of discord and alienation. Those who should have been united as brethren, have been separated as if they were enemies, and that upon inconsiderable points. In saying this, I am far from meaning to join in the infidel's cry as to the perpetual war among Christians, and of Christianity sowing dissension in society, and of the impossibility, amid so much strife, of ascertaining what is truth, and of the su- preme value of peace, no matter what its kind or foundation. I have no sympathy with such a spirit. It is exaggerated and unreasonable, and proceeds upon false and dangerous grounds. Infidels as really differ from each other, and sometimes as hotly, as any Christians can do. The points in which Christians are at one, are far more numerous and important than those in which they are at variance; and the superior moment of these points to any about which mere men of the world are concerned, is the very reason why con- tests among Christians are so many and long continued. It is easy to have peace and agreement where the mind is deal- ing about what it considers comparative trifles. But while OF FRANCE. 171 I hold the objections of infidels against Christianity, from the divisions and discord of Christians, to be utterly unrea- sonable, and that they themselves are inexcusable in the sight of God, I desire not to be blind to the existence and the evils of that religious dissension which has prevailed so widely in the Christian Church. It dishonours the name of Christ and reproaches his Gospel, weakens the influence of Christians, abridges their resources for the good of others, and so hardens the ungodly against the truth, that the Saviour expressly as- sures us, till his followers are " one," the world will not believe the Father has sent Him, indubitable as may be the evidences of his divine mission. Most mischievously as separation and strife among Christians may have wrought, we are not to imagine that such an unhappy experience has been uniform and unbroken. There have been periods, rare, alas ! but real, when Christians generally have been united in understanding and heart, and made it their study and prayer to diffuse abroad the blessings of a universal religious concord. Such was the case with the Christians of the ear- lier apostolic days, of whom it is recorded, that they were of " one heart." This was the fruit of their living Chris- tianity; and, indeed, the more simple and sincere one's reli- gion is, the stronger will be his love of peace. It is when the cold, and the selfish, and the self-righteous obtain an in- fluential place in a man's religion, that he will be most ready to quarrel with his Christian brother, and to treat him inju- riously. The force of violent persecution, too, from with- out, has frequently concurred, with the presence of true Christianity within, in bringing about harmony and love. In seasons of trial, Christians individually and as churches are driven together; they become better acquainted with each other; points of inferior moment, which separated, are sunk, and thus union is created. It is humbling to think that nothing short of persecution should avail to teach Christian love; but such seems to be one of God's great intentions in permitting persecution; and both in primitive times, and in the early days of the Protestant Church of France, such seems, in part at least, to have been its operation. Though the motive may have been mingled, I am happy in being able to refer the infidel, the scofier, and the worldly, to in- dubitable proofs that all Christians are not, as they allege, given to strife, and division, and hatred — that the Gospel is the grand healer of the dissension which obtains between man and man, and that if they would have the peace and 172 PROTESTANT CHURCH charity whicli they professedly love so much, they must have recourse to that maligned doctrinal Christianity for which the primitive Christians and the early French Protestants were distinguished. To allude, in the first place, to the anxiety which the Protestant Church of France manifested for peace and unity in her own borders, we have a striking illustration in the proceedings of the Synod of Privas in 1612. It would seem that, in spite of all the motives to union which a state of partial persecution supplied, considerable division prevailed among the Protestants of France. It does not very clearly appear what was the cause; probably it was owing to their Popish enemies, who laboured to sow discord among the Protestants, as one of the ways of weakening their power. Whatever might be the cause, as soon as tlie Church was generally aware of the evil, her representative body, the Synod, drew up a long and earnest recommendation, entitled *' The Act of Reunion," in which all ihe members of the Church, and especially those in influential situations, are called upon to exert themselves, with all zeal and affection, to bring about complete and universal harmony. Men of infidel leanings have alleged that Christians delight in strife and war, and have turned this as an argument against Chris- tianity ; but not to inquire whether multitudes of those whom they account Christians are really so, and deserve any Aveight in the question, let the following sentences, from the Act of the Synod of Privas. be considered, and then let the reader judge whether true Christianity holds any connection with dissension and warfare: — "The present National Synod of the Reformed Churches in this kingdom desiring to secure the peace and union of the said churches, and inflamed with the zeal of God's house and glory, and grieved to see Satan sowing the seeds of discord amongst us, which redound to the weakening and infamy of said churches, and may, in after times, produce worse and more dangerous effects, moved with charity towards the members of our body, and being willing to make some provision for a fraternal concord, the indispensable duty of all the faithful, hath, and doth now re- solve to exert itself, even unto the utmost, for the compass- ing of a blessed and holy peace and reunion among ourselves, under their Majesties' authority." All persons are exhorted to labour that the memory of past differences be buried in oblivion, and that all may become peace-makers, " that so the several humours, and different opinions risen up in the OF FRANCE. 173 Assembly of Saumur, may be balanced, allayed and com- posed." With this view, several gentlemen of the highest rank, lords and dukes (for the Protestant Church could still boast of some of the first families,) were appointed to confer with a committee of the Synod, and with the Government, being first exhorted to lay aside their own differences and resentments, and then do what in them lay to remove the misapprehensions and prejudices of others; and for the bet- ter prosecution of this great and good object, the Synod pro- mises to defray any necessary expenses which might be in- curred. Nothing can be more beautiful or earnest than some of the conckiding sentences of the Act of Synod: " Moreover, this Assembly entreateth and exhorteth that, for God's sake and glory of his great name, and their own salvation, and the peace and welfare of the nation, yea, it adjures, by all that is desirable or commendable, the whole body of our communion in general, and every faithful soul in particular, to divest themselves of all animosities whatsoever, and to lop off immediately all dissolutions and dissensions, lest they should be the causes of the dissipation of the churches of God in this kingdom, which have been planted in the blood of martyrs, and preserved by the zeal and concord of our fathers ; and that they would at length open their eyes, and see and consider that their churches' enemies bot- tom all their designs of ruining us upon our own intestine dissensions, and that, by reason of these, we are become very little and exceeding despicable with our adversaries; and all pastors and elders of churches are enjoined diligently to procure the reunion of the respective members of their flocks, and to lend one another their helping hand to effect so good a work, and mightily to insist upon it in their public sermons and private exhortations and remonstrances." Do these things look like indifference to peace ? Do they show any love for discord and war? Men, indeed, may be closely united, especially in public objects, and yet be stran- gers to Christian peace and love. The members of the ('hurch of Rome are an illustration of this; but the French Protestants were animated by Christian motives. They contended for union, not to subserve the interests of party, but for the sake of the Divine glory, and for the wider diffu- sion of Divine truth. Secondly. Those who were so anxious for union at home, and among themselves, could not be insensible to its claims and 174 PROTESTANT CHURCH advantages among Christian Churches at a distance. Hence the Christians of France were most desirous of fraternal cor- respondence with foreign Churches. They did not, at a time w^hen intercourse with other nations was much more difficult than it is now, think it enough to care for them- selves. They comprehended other Christians, though not at one with them in all the external forms of religion, in their sympathy and affection. So early as 1603, we find the Sy- nod of Gap despatching letters to the orthodox Univerities of Germany, England, Scotland, Geneva, Basil, and Ley- den, and to certain gendemen in London, entreating them to assist in holding a conference Avith the Lutheran Churches of Germany, that so the schism between them and the Church of France might be removed. Princes also are entreated to assist in effecting this holy union. The great desire is, that all may be more firmly united in the confession of the same doctrine. Four years later, in furtherance of this object, there are letters from the Prince Palatine and the Ecclesias- astical Senate of the Palatinate, the University of Heidel- berg, Synods of Holland and Zealand, the Canton of Beam, and Church of Geneva. These, all showing sincere affec- tion for the end in view, the French Synod render most hearty thanks to God, and earnesUy hope that, in reward of their perseverance, the Lord will be graciously pleased to touch ihe hearts of those who yet dissent from and disagree. " And all persons are exhorted to be mighty wresders with God, in humble and ardent prayers, that it may be effected." In 1614, the King of Great Britain, by a Mr. Hume, a na- tive of Scotland, who had been for some years a minister of the Church of France, sent a letter to the Synod meeting at Tonniers, strongly advising them to procure and maintain a firm union- in points of doctrine among the pastors, profes- sors, and otlier members of the French Church, and not to quarrel wiUi the divines of Germany, or any others. Instead of taking amiss this advice from a foreigner, the Synod hum- bly accepted and rejoiced in it, and drew up a long chapter entiUed, " Expedients for reuniting the Christian Churches which have shook off the Papal yoke, and for composing the differences which are already risen, or may hereafter rise up among them." They speak of a union and agreement be- tween Churches as a most useful, pious, and necessary work, and very feasible, and the differences between them as con- sisting, not in fundamental articles of faith, but " in the quil- lets of ceremonies and church government." They propose OF FRANCE. 175 that a conference should be held of good men, of different Churches and nations, to decide on the terms of union; and that they should begin their labours by partaking together of the Lord's Supper, and calling for a universal fast throughout the Churches, " in order to the drawing down of the blessing of God upon it, and to touch the hearts of the people with respect and reverence for it." They propose that sectarian names of distinction, such as Lutheran, Calvinisl, Sacramen- tarian, should be utterly abolished, and that the Churches should be known by the name of the Christian Reformed Churches ; and further, and as a chief recommendation, they propose that, at certain times, there should be an interchange of ministerial services between the pastors of the different Churches, such as at present subsists betwixt the Church of Scotland and the Presbyterian Church of Ireland. Many imagine that the early Protestant Churches were bigots to their own forms; had no sympathy with other Christians, unless in every point they reflected their own image; and that Christians of the present day are much more liberal and reasonable in these respects than their fathers. But this is a misapprehension. The early Protestants, whe- ther Calvinists or Lutherans, were much too warm in their religion, to stand highly upon forms. It is generally a cold and declining period of the Church which makes religion consist in points of external ceremonial. Accordingly, the Church of France, thouo[h Presbyterian, was ready to em- brace the Lutherans of Germany wMth open arms; and hence we have the following deliverance of the second Synod of Charenton in 1631, more than two Imndred years ago, in a chapter styled " An Act in favour of the Lutheran Brethren." " This Synod declareth, that inasmuch as the Churches of the Confession of Augsburg do agree with the other reformed Churches in the principal and fundamental points of true re- ligion, and that there is neither superstition nor idolatry in their worship, the faithful of said Confession, who, with a spirit of love and peaceableness, do join themselves to the communion of our churches in this kingdom, may be, with- out any abjuration at all made by them, admitted unto the Lord's Table with us, and as sureties, may present children unto baptism; they promising the Consistory that they will never solicit them, either directly or indirectly, to transgress the doctrine believed and professed in our churches, but will be content to instruct and educate them in those points and articles which are in common between us and them, and 176 PROTESTANT CHURCH wherein both the Lutherans and we are unanimously agreed." Had such a sph'it as this been transmitted to after genera- tions, we would not have been so famihar, as we unhappily are, with separation and exclusion among Christian Churches which hold the same great confession of doctrine and duty; nor would Christians only be beginning to think of the obli- gations of union. The Protestant Church of France did not confine herself to strong recommendations of peace and union with foreign Churches. These are interesting illustrations of her spirit, but she embodied her sentiments in action. She gladly numbered the ministers of several foreign Churches among her own, and allotted them a sphere of labour within her borders. We read of several ministers of the Church of Scotland being at the same period ministers of the Church of France. In the first half of the seventeenth century, there are the names of fourteen Scotchmen among the professors and ministers of France: Gilbert and David Primrose, J. Hamilton and Son, Adamson, Duncan, Sharp, Fergusson, Simpson, Thompson, Hume, Hog, Lundy, and Boyd. So early as 1607, Mr. Primrose, a native of this country, was minister of Bordeaux. On presenting letters from the magis- trates and ministers of Edinburgh, and also from the Kino^ of Great Britain, to the Synod of Rochelle, praying that he might be released from his charge in France, and restored to the Church of Edinburgh, the Synod earnestly entreated him to consider well all the circumstances, " and to have a tender care and respect to the Church of Bordeaux, which, by his most fruitful preaching, and exemplary godly conversation, had been exceedingly edified." He promised not to move till he saw Bordeaux better supplied. Mr. John Welch, the celebrated son-in-law of the still more celebrated John Knox, was another of the ministers of the Church of Scotland, who became a minister of the Church of France. His services also were gladly received, and highly appreciated. From a short History of his " Life and Sufljerings," I extract the following interesting sentences: — "Now the time is come he must leave Scotland, and never to see it again. So, upon the 7th of November 1606, in the morning, he, with his neighbours, took ship at Leith; and though it was but two o'clock in the morning, many were waiting on, with their afflicted families, to bid them farewell. After prayer, they sung the 23d Psalm ; and so, with the great grief of the spec- tators, set sail for the south of France, and landed in the river of Bordeaux. Within fourteen weeks of his arrival, such OF FRANCE. 177 was the Lord's blessins: upon his diligence, he was able to preach in French, and accordingly was speedily called to the ministry, first in one village, and then in another. One of them was Nerac; and thereafter was settled in St. Jean d'An- gely, a considerable walled town, and there he continued the rest of the time he sojourned in France, which was about sixteen years." Mr. David Hume, pastor of the church at ]3uras in France, we have seen, was, in 1614, the bearer of a letter from James VI. to the Synod of Tonniers. He also was a native of Scotland, and seems to have been on a visit to his native country when he received the royal commis- sion. Nor did the Protestant Church of France only avail her- self, with all gladness, of the services of foreign ministers; she was not backward, in return, to lend ministers of her own number to those foreign Churches which needed their aid. We read, in 1620, of the Prince of Orange, and the curators of the university of Leyden, applying for M. Rivet, a French minister, to act as professor of divinity, either for life, or till the next meeting of Synod. The Synod of Alez gave their judgment on the request in these words: — "This Assembly, highly valuing the favour and honour of such an illustrious prince, and his great merits, from all the reformed Churches, and that most strict and entire union betwixt the holy churches of the Netherlands and ours of France, doth yield that the said M. Rivet shall be continued for two years more unto the famous University of Leyden, which term be- ing expired, he shall return to his church, according to the agreement passed between them." Such are a few illustrations of the spirit of the early Pro- testant Church of France ; and surely there is nothing in it which savours of the bigoted and exclusive, far less of the bitter and hateful. It is throughout the spirit of peace, and love, and union among all the followers of Christ — a spirit far superior to that which is entertained and manifested by not a few professedly Christian Churches at the present day. I need say little of this aspect of character exhibited by the Church of Scotland, in the parallel period of her history. It were easy to show that her love of peace and union, at home and abroad, was not inferior to that of the Church of France. Her enlarged and generous views of the true nature of the Church of Christ, as discovered in her early standards, and the deep interest which she took in the welfare of foreign 12 178 PROTESTANT CHURCH Churches, though their forms might not at all accord with her own, as discovered in her early history, are well known to those who have made the Church of Scotland, even par- tially, a subject of study. Let me merely refer to a few points. Though occupying a small mountainous country, and differing materially, at least in form, from the religious observances of the larger part of the island, there is nothing narrow or exclusive in the spirit or practice of the early Church of Scotland. In her Confessions of Faith and Cate- chisms, and the forms of public prayer which were drawn up for the use of the Catechists and Scripture readers, who were employed in the absence of a stated ministry, THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL evidently holds a prominent place. The Scots Confession of Faith, of 1650, begins by wishing " Grace, mercy and peace to all the realms where the true knowledge of Christ is professed," whether that profession be in the Presbyterian form or not. There are also prayers for particular Churches under trial — as for the Reformed Church of England, though her government was Episcopal. It is well known that in early days, those of Edward VI., the Reformers of the Continent and of Britain contemplated a grand Protestant league, which only the fraudulent machi- nations of Popery defeated, by sending emissaries of discord from abroad under the guise of friends. In such a bond, none could rejoice more tiian the fathers of the Scottish Church. After the days of Edward, when the Episcopacy of the Church of England became much more rigid and ex- clusive, and the hope of further reformation began to grow faint; above all, when the Erastianism of James and the semi-poper}'- of Charles I. had inflicted serious injury upon the Church of Scotland, it is not wonderful that she should become cool, nay, opposed to that Church. The Church of England could be no longer regarded as the same Christian body; and, indeed, she was then daily approximating much nearer to the new Popish school, than the evangelical portion of the English Church at the present day. But the Church of Scotland still cherished the warmest sympathy and benev- olence for the foreign Churches of the Reformation, as we have seen from her generous contributions in their behalf; and she clierished similar feelings towards the evangelical and reforming party in England, usually called the Puritans, a party, be it remembered, not inconsiderable, as many ima- gine, but almost dividing the country, and embracing much, if not most, of the ministerial talent, and learning, and use- OP FRANCE. 179 fulness of the time. When Charles, by the semi-popish counsels of Laud, had brought matters to such a pass that the country was involved in civil war, and the Episcopal Establishment was subverted, never did any party show greater anxiety, or labour with greater zeal and self-denial for Christian union, than the Church of Scotland. She sought to bind the three kingdoms into a holy brotherhood; and had all parties been as much under the influence of reli- gious principle as she was — apart from political motives — she would have been much more successful. Her corres- pondence with the Westminster Assembly breathes the most earnest desire for peace and uniformity. Her chief hostility is to Popery under its different phases; and unsuccessful as the Church of Scotland, from unhappy circumstances, was, in bringing about so perfect and permanent a concord with the Christian Churches of England and Ireland, as she longed and laboured after, yet such root had her principles taken in England, that on the passing of the Act of Unifor- mity by Charles H., not less than two thousand Presbyterian ministers were ejected from their charges — men of whom historians have related, that " to say that they far excelled any whom England can produce at the present day, in learn- ing and worth, would not be flattery, but faint praise." At the same time, it is believed nearly one-half of the religious part of the community left the fellowship of the Established Church. Nor should it be forgotten, that such was the strength of the Presbyterians of England, that after prepa- ring, during the dread silence of above twenty years of per- secution, theological works which have constituted an impor- tant part of the food of the Christian Church in every subse- quent age to the present hour, she burst out into such vigour the moment the Toleration Act was passed, that in twenty- five years she could boast of an accession of eight hundred newly erected places of worship. It would be difficult, in the same period, to point to any religious party which indi- cated greater spiritual vitality; and yet they were the friends and brothers of the Church of Scotland. Their love of peace and union, too, is well known. The celebrated Richard Baxter might, in this respect, be said to be their represen- tative. From the absence of the exercise of Presbyterian Church government, however, and other causes, the Pres- byterian professors of England, like many others, became unsound in doctrine, and have long ceased to be a distinctive body. The Church of Scotland, too, with her religious 180 PROTESTANT CHURCH declension in the last century, ceased to be so warm in her affection for other Churches. She did not care for Chris- tian union as she had once done; but, blessed be God! she is in this, as in many respects, reviving and setting an ex- ample to others of renewed Christian harmony. She has received to her pale those who have been separated for a century; she has opened her pulpits to the Presbyterians of England and Ireland; and is at the present moment entering into friendly correspondence with various Churches, particu- larly on the Continent and in the United States of America, and taking important steps for making all who are at one in great principles, one also in visible communion. In short, she is renewing the spirit of her early days. If it ever was supposed that Presbyterian Church government was adverse to peace and union, either at home or abroad, such an idea must rapidly disappear before the most pleasing evidence to the contrary. The facts to which I have alluded, all show the depth of the Church's principle and piety, and rebuke the sweeping charges brought by the friends of intidelity against the peaceable character of Christianity and of Chris- tian Churches. But a vast deal remains to be done in all the Churches of the Reformation, before their members shall see eye to eye, and the peace of Jerusalem be universally estab- lished. The God of truth has promised, and will accom- plish the promise in his own good time. Let us join our prayers for its fulfilment with those of the ascended Saviour. Jesus said, " I pray for those that shall believe on me through their (his disciples) word; that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us : that the world may believe that thou hast sent me." SECTION VI. THE CHURCHES OF FRANCE AND SCOTLAND PROTEST AGAINST THE CORRUP- TIONS OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. The different features in the character of the Protestant Church of France, which I have already presented, are, 1 humbly conceive, in no small degree, decisive of her truly Christian spirit. The feature to which I have now to call the reader's attention is scarcely less interesting, while it is, if possible, a still more striking illustration of lier attachment to the Gospel of Christ. The feature to which I allude is, HER MANLY PROTEST AGAINST THE CORRUPTIONS OF THE OF FRANCE. 181 CHURCH OF ROME. Many, especially at the present day, have light views of Popery. They look upon it as one of the many forms of Christianity, and see nothing very serious in its evils. Widely different are the views of Scripture upon the subject. The Word of God describes Popery as the great enemy of Christ and of his Church, and denounces against its adherents the most dreadful doom, reaching to nothing short of utter destruction. Popery runs, through- out, directly counter to all that is peculiar and vital in the truth of God, subverting the law, and marring the Gospel, and perverting ordinances. Indeed, it seems a grand device of Satan to neutralize the whole scheme of Divine Revela- tion. The Reformers, and the Churches which they plan- ted, were familiarly acquainted with it in its true spirit and operation from sad experience: hence they drew up their Confessions of Faith, armed against it at every point. In- stead of cultivating any alliance with the Church of Rome, they dreaded the most distant approach to union, and con- structed their most important measures of Church discipline, schools, (fee, in such a way as to weaken and counteract Popery on every hand. We do not gready wonder at their zeal. Just as men know, and value, and love the Gospel of the grace of God, must they hate Popery ; while a thorough acquaintance with Popery seems almost essential to the en- lightened appreciation of the Gospel, the dark ground of the picture setting off the illuminated figures the more brightly and impressively. The early Church of France, though seated in the heart of a great Popish country, with compara- tively few adherents, subjected to many privations and op- pressions, and in danger of provoking fresh assaults, yet lifted up a bold protest against the errors and corruptions of the Romish Church. She inserted among her articles of faith, the following strong, but just representation of Anti- christ. We give the form in which it was put by the Synod of Gap in 1603:— " That article treating of Antichrist shall be the one and thirtieth in order in our Confession of Faith, and shall be thus worded: Whereas the Bishop of Rome hath erected for himself a temporal monarchy in the Christian world, and usurping a sovereign authority and lordship overall churches and pastors, doth exalt himself to that degree of insolency, as to be called God, and will be adored, arrogating unto him- self all power in heaven and in earth, and to dispose of all ecclesiastical matters, to define articles of faith, to authorize 182 PROTESTANT CHURCH and expound at his pleasure the Sacred Scriptures, and to buy and sell the souls of men — to dispense with vows, oaths and covenants, and to institute new ordinances of religious worship: and in the civil state he tramples under foot all lawful authority of magistrates — setting up and pulling down kings, disposing of kings and of their kingdoms at his plea- sure • We therefore believe and maintain that he is truly and properly The Antichrist, the Son of Perdition, predicted in the holy prophets — that great whore clothed with scarlet, sitting upon seven mountains in that great city, which had dominion over the kings of the earth; and we hope, and wait, that the Lord, according to his promise, and as he hath already begun, will confound him by the Spirit of his mouth, and destroy him finally by the brightness of his coming." — Again, " Divers pastors and members of several churches remon- strated in this Assembly, how they had been troubled and prosecuted for calling the Pope Antichrist in their private and public discourses. This Synod protesting that this was the common faith and confession of all our churches, and of this present Synod, that the Pope is the Great Antichrist, and one of the principal causes of our separation and depar- ture from the Church of Rome; and that this confession was contained in, and extracted out of the Holy Scriptures; that it liad been sealed with the blood of a world of martyrs : Therefore, all the faithful, be they pastors or private Chris- tians, are exhorted constantly to persist in the profession of it, and openly and boldly to confess it; yea, and this very ar- ticle shall be inserted into the body of the Confession of our Faith; and the general deputies of our churches at court are required to petition his Majesty, that none of his officers, in any sovereign or other inferior courts of judicature, may be suffered to infringe our liberty of conscience, granted us by his edicts, of making a free confession of our faith, and that none of them may trouble or vex us, as di\ers of them liave done for this very matter. And whoso are now prosecuted and molested on this account, or may be hereafter, they shall be supported and defended by the whole body of the churches in the best manner tliat can be, according to that firm bond of union which is established among us. And letters shall be written to our lords, the judges in the mixed courts, to ex- hort them vigorously to maintain this article of our common confession." It would seem that this bold statement gave great offence. OF FRANCE. 183 The king, led on by his Popish priests, was highly dis- pleased, and expressed his displeasure to the Synod of Ro- chelle, which met four years after; but while every disposi- tion was manifested to avoid unnecessary offence, the Pro- testant Church strictly adhered to the honest confession which she made. Having reweighed the article, she unani- mously approved of its form and substance, " as very true, and agreeing with Scripture prophecy;" on which it was re- solved, that it should continue in its place, and be printed in every copy which came from the press. This was decided ground, and long after was steadily maintained. Above fifty years later, in 1659, when persecution became more oppres- sive, as the day for revoking the edict of Nantes approached, we find the Protestant Church of France struggling for her old principles. " As for those words Antichrist,'*'' say they, " in our liturgy, and idolatry, and deceits of Satan, which are found in our Confession, they be words declaring the ground and reason of our separation from the Romish Church, and doctrines which our fathers maintained in the worst of times, and wliich we are fully resolved as they, through the aids of Divine grace, never to abandon, but to keep faidifully and inviolably to the last gasp." Unlike the latitudinarians of later days, the Christians of France were not afraid to call things by their right names. They were not frightened, by charges of uncharitableness, from apply- ing the language of Scripture to the enemies of the Lord. Nor did they content themselves with putting on record a general declaration against Popery — they were forward to denounce and expose particular errors as often as the circum- stances of the times required it. It might have been expect- ed, that the harsh treatment which, with a few exceptions, they had ever experienced at the hands of tlie civil power, would have prejudiced them against kingly authority ; but no. Regarding civil rule as the ordinance of heaven, and their great protection against the usurping power of an apos- tate Church, they used their best exertions against the doc- trine of the Jesuits, so fatal to the true welfare and authority of sovereign princes. In 1614, the Synod of Tonniers, " de- testing that abominable doctrine, together with its authors, exhorts all the faithful of our communion to abhor and exe- crate it; and all our ministers and professors are to teach and preach against it powerfully, and to batter it down with force of arguments, and to defend, at the same time, conjointly together, the rights of God, and those of the higher powers 184 PROTESTANT CHURCH ordained by him." This showed noble superiority to pre- judice, and enlightened regard to the authority of the Word of God. Passing from strong statements against Popish doctrines, we may now proceed to notice the actual discipline of the Protestant Church of France, as illustrating the same decid- ed and Scriptural attachment to sound principle. While far from being rigid in small and indifferent matters, she forbade her members lending the least countenance or encouragement to Popery in any of its forms. Hearing that some of them, in 1631, hung their houses and lighted candles in honour of a Popish festival, the second Synod at Charenton are deeply concerned that any Christians should have awarded to the creature the self-same honour which is due to the Creator, and express themselves in strong language. Would to God that the Christians of this country would speak out against the British encouragement which is at present yielded to the superstitions and idolatry of the East, in the same bold strain ! "This Assembly, wanting words with which it may ex- press its just grief and resentment for such an inexcusable cowardliness, doth adjure the consciences of those persons who haven fallen into sins so repugnant unto true piety, by the fear of the living God, by the zeal of his glory, by the bowels of his mercy in the Son of his dearest love, and by that special care the faithful ought to have of their salvation, that they would revive the zeal, and show themselves loyal followers of the faith and constancy of their fathers, and tes- tify, by their perseverance in well-doing, the sincerity and soundness of their repentance, and of their affection to the service of God. Moreover, the consistory of those places where such scandals do fall out, is enjoined to rebuke them with an holy vigour, who give such an evil example; and all Synods are to proceed against them with all ecclesiastical censures; and if they be pastors or elders, who, by their connivance and dissimulation, have, or for the future may favour such offenders, they shall not only be suspended, but deposed also from their offices." In the same spirit tliose Protestants are severely reproved who show respect to the Popish host as it passed along the streets, by taking off their hats. Protestant lawyers are forbid- den to plead those causes for Papists which were intended to suppress the Word of God, and set up the mass. Nor are they allowed to give their assistance in any case which might OF FRANCE, 185 be turned to the oppression of the Protestant Church. In 1637, we read of a M. Fourneaux and his wife being sus- pended for a time from Church privileges for allowing their daughter to marry a Roman Catholic. Nor were they ab- solved until they had publicly confessed, in the consistory, their sorrow for the sin which their compromise of principle had brought upon their famdy. A few years later, we meet with the case of a minister who M'as deposed for attempting, in an elaborate work, to reconcile the differences in doctrine between Popish and Protestant Churches. This was justly considered most dishonouring to the truth of God. But strongly as the Protestant Church of France was op- posed to Popery and to all that savoured of it, she cherished no hatred to Roman Catholics themselves. Many seem to think these two are inseparable — that hatred to a religious system must make us hate.;its professors — but the very re- verse is the truth. It is pity and love for the souls of men which make us detest the more the fatal errors which would destroy them. Just in proportion to our love for the one is our hatred to the other. Accordingly, we find that the French Protestants showed the utmost kindness to their poor Roman Catholic brethren, and gave every encouragement to them in abandoning the pernicious system in which they had been educated. In 1614, we have the following statement — and till Protestant Chuches now-a-days favour converts from the Church of Rome with a better protection against starva- tion than they often receive, the cause of Protestantism can- not be expected to prosper as it deserves: — "John de Luna and Laurens Fernandez, both Spaniards, presented themselves before this Assembly, with valid testi- monials from the Church of Montauban, declaring their ab- juration of Monkery and Popery, and approving of iheir conversation ever since their conversion ; as also Stephen Converselt of the Franche Comte, who had quitted the order of the Dominicans; and Peter Mercurin, a provincial, who had also abandoned Popery. This Assembly granted unto the said Fernandez, Conversett, and Mercurin, an hundred and forty crowns a-piece; and further ordaineth, that the said Mercurin shall be put into the catalogue of Proposans, and be first of all employed in the ministry in Provence. And as for John de Luna, who desires leave to retire for some time into Holland, there be sixty livres granted him for his voyage. And whereas one called Buisson, born in the Lower Guyenne, is lately converted from the Popish religion 186 PBOTESTANT CHURCH unto the Reformed, thirty livres are given him towards his relief until the next Provincial Synod, wherein he shall be particularly cared for." But while the French Protestants gave all due encourage- ment to serious inquirers, and to proselytes from the Romish faith, they were extremely cautious and guarded in receiving converts, and especially in intrusting them with the office of the ministry. They knew well in what a system of false- hood the Roman Catholics are born and brought up — what varied temptations there are to insincerity — how strong are the claims of divine truth, and how unexceptionable all the ministrations of divine ordinances should be. Hence, they were very scrupulous about Romish conversions. It would be well if Protestants in Ireland now showed a little more of their spirit. It would save themselves not a few disappoint- ments, and the cause of true religion not a little reproach. Strictness may wear the aspect of severity, but in reality, it is kindness to all parties. The discipline of the French Protestant Church required that priests or monks coming over to the Church should study two full years and give proof of their sincerity, in that period, before being admitted to the ministry. Such was one of the canons ; and churches and col- leges are earnesdy exhorted to attend to it. The Synod of Ro- chelle, in 1607, decreed that •' monks forsaking Popery shall not be received into church-fellowship till they be found well instructed in the grounds of the Reformed religion, and they shall be sent back to the provinces whereof they are natives, with certificates attesting for what employment they are best qualified." Converted Roman Catholics could not be ad- mitted to the Church as elders or deacons till after a proba- tion of sincerity for two years. Monks and priests relapsing into Popery after for a time being rescued from its thraldom, and praying again to be restored to the bosom of the Church as ministers, were not to be received till there has been " ten year's trial of their repentance, nor shall they, when that time is expired, be admitted without the previous advice of a National Synod; and with regard to monks from foreign quarters, order is given to the provinces to examine them most stricUy of their fitness to study divinity, "that so they may be supplied with maintenance," or employed in other callings, according to their capacity. While the Protestant Church of France blended encourage- ment with strictness, in her dealings with converts from the Church of Rome, she did not fail zealously to apply all suit- OF FRANCE. 187 able means to awaken men from their errors and spiritual death. In addition to the faithful preaching of the Gospel, and well appointed schools, and books on the Romish con- troversy, she instituted something like anti-Popery lectures. She was not, like many, frightened at the idea of controversy. She knew that it is essential to the vindication and establish- ment of divine truth, and that there is ample authority for it in the example of Scripture. Hence the whole Popish con- troversy was divided into fourteen different parts, corres- ponding to the fourteen provinces of the Protestant Church ; and "some worthy ministers" were particularly called upon to study each part, and to be prepared for the defence of a particular truth opposed by the great adversary. Thus, to the Province of Poitou was assigned, as a standing subject of controversy with all opponents, "The Word of God, writ- ten and unwritten," — to the Isle of France, "Monks, lay and clerical," &c. This indicated how serious were the views entertained by the Protestant Church of the evils and the dangers of Popery ; and their conviction that Popery could, with the Divine blessing, be overcome only by perseverance and long-continued exertion — the exposure of error and the circulation of truth. Nor were these exertions unsuccessful. We read, so early as 1601, of numbers of the Romish church- men being daily brought over to the Reformed religion; and the churches are exhorted to keep a register of their names. Such are a few specimens of the spirit which the Protes- tant Church manifested towards the Church of Rome and her adherents, and what can be more enlightened and faithful, and, at the same time, more truly charitable ? What better proof can we have of her decided Christianity ? We may just refer to the parallel period in the history of the Church of Scotland. From the two parties, Protestant and Popish, being for a time more nearly balanced in this country, the violence of the latter came out in a more palpa- ble and proclaimed form, and strong measures were necessa- ry in self-defence. Moral means were largely employed, and the success was much more rapid and extensive in Scot- land than in France. Some, such as the controversial, were remarkably similar, and there were the same jealousy and caution in reference to professed converts from the Romish faith. It may be safely said, that if the Church of Scotland was for one thing more eminent than another in early times, 188 PROTESTANT CHURCH it was for her vigorous and all compreliensive protest against the doctrines and practices of the Church of Rome: her most ancient standards are a beautiful illustration of this, and her subsequent ones are not wanting in force. It was just as she maintained a bold and consistent testimony against Popery, that she flourished; just as she relaxed in her testi- mony, that she became weak for good. The great Head of the Church honours those who honour him; and it seems to be His will that the best state for his Church in this world, like the best state for the individual believer, shall be a mili- tant one. The reader may be interested in the following brief anti- popish notices which I have collected. They indicate, that the vigorous protest which was lifted up against Popery by the Reformers, and their immediate successors, was main- tained with greater or less energy through all the period which we are contemplating, and that in spite of the repeated- ly adverse influence of the Crown. It appears that, in 1593, the General Assembly, with a maternal regard for the mer- chants of Scotland, forbade any of her people to go to Spain, " where the Inquisition still is, until the king has got the promise of security for them from the king of Spain." In 1612, orders are given to obliterate all idolatrous figures from the Church of Foulis. The repeated directions v/hich are given in regard to so minute a matter, prove how completely the most prominent Popery of the country had been subdu- ed. In 1639, one of the heads of examination for Presbyte- ries is, " Whether there be any Papist within their bounds;" and the answer from the Synod of Fife, two years after, is, that there is no excommunicated Papist in all the province — one of the leading provinces of the kingdom. A general or- der is given by the Synod, that all idolatrous monuments be defaced; and " the Church of Dairsie is to be visited, to see that the idolatrous arms and paintings be removed." About the same period, the people of Dunfermline are forbidden to observe New Year's day " by feasting and the cessation of ordinary work ;" and the observance of Yule Day, in a simi- lar manner, is also forbidden. The origin of such observan- ces was, doubtless, superstitious. One John Morrice is called before the Presbytery of St. Andrews, for pretending miraculously to heal disease, " as the seventh son of a wo- man." And another Presbytery forbad superstitious resort- ing to wells "for the cure of sick and distracted persons." The latter is a well known Popish practice to this day, as OF FRANCE. 189 the sacred wells of Ireland can testify. To prevent also the Popish mode of conducting funerals, as they are still conduct-- ed in that country, the following good rules were framed in 1664. It would seem that the house where the corpse lay was sometimes kept open, and that a sort of wake was held — " dishonouring to God, scandalizing to the Gospel, and fostering superstition." Therefore it is ordered, that the doors be kept close as at other times, and no admittance al- lowed to the confused multitude. None are to go to the fu- neral uninvited, and none are to be asked to the house to bear the dead, except three or four grave kinsfolk or friends wdiom they think most meet. It is not to be a time of eating and drinking; but the people are to carry themselves Christian- ly, as men professing godliness. The heathenish custom, with a Popish name, of drinking dirges after the corpse is interred, is to be utterly abolished. What is left by the de- ceased to the poor, is to be sent for, and distributed by the session, who know the necessities of the people, and not to be given at the grave, where there is a great tumult of beg- gars, and those " that cry most, and have least need, come often best speed." Among the reasons for fast-day appoint- ments, the increase, or rather the eflbrts after the increase of Popery, are repeatedly assigned. The Church was pecu- liarly sensitive on the subject of Popery, and seems to have apprehended progress where there was none. At the same time, there can be little question, that Jesuits and trafficking priests insinuated themselves into the country, under the guise of the nondescript sects — Quakers of the age of Crom- well; and that the unhappy divisions among the Presbyte- rian ministry then furthered the interests of a Church which always gains by disorder and confusion. In 1647, the Gene- ral Assembly direct the Presbytery of St. Andrews "to take inspection of Lord Paisley (second earl of Abercorn) and his attendants, as also of his education, considering that lie is a nobleman come of Popish parents." Three years after he is excommunicated for his Popery; and Lord Linton is sub- jected to the same discipline for marrying a daughter of the Marquis of Hundey, an excommunicated Papist. Thus strongly did the Church testify against Popery, and thus strictly and impartially did she exercise her discipline over high and low. 190 PKOTESTANT CHURCH SECTION VII. TIIE CHURCHES OF FRANCE AND SCOTLAND SOUND IN DOCTRINE, AND THE ENEMIES OF ERROR. In the last section I directed the reader's attention to the bold protest which the early French Protestant Church lifted lip against the errors and corruptions of the Church of Rome. Were it necessary, I might appeal to additional evidence, in proof ot the wisdom as well as the duty of this course. I might refer to the success which attended the public discussions of one of the most eminent controversialists on the Protestant side — De Moulin, and that so early as 1602. It is related of him that he held a discussion for a fortnight, that there were scribes on both sides present, and multitudes of hearers, and that it resulted " in the great satisfaction of many faithful souls, and the instruction of many ignorant Papists, who since gave glory to God by an open profession of the truth." The same author remarks that, by his instrumentality, in the way of public discussion, " God was glorified, his truth con- firmed, and the Church edified and increased with many con- verts." From this and similar cases one may see how un- warranted are those general charges which are frequently brought against the agitation of the Romish controversy, as, at best, useless, if not fitted to confirm the Romanist in his errors. But we have not time to pursue such inquiries, nor is it necessary. Let me only quote what the author of the Status Ecdesise GaUicanae says of De Moulin. " A Jesuit came to the Doctor's study to dispute with him. M. de Monginot, a famous physician, was present at the conference, whereby he was converted, and set forth an excellent book of the reasons why he abjured Popery. He, viz. De Mou- lin, had many encounters ; and to relate all his conferences might fill a great volume. Scarcely was he a week without one while he lived in Paris, and some of them were very long. He was the object of the public hatred of the Roman- ists. His name was the general theme of libels cried about the streets, of railing sermons in the pulpits, and of the curses of ignorant zealots;" and yet we have seen he was honoured of God to be very useful in the trying and difficult course which he followed. Various and similar cases might be quoted. But it was not only against the errors and corruptions of the Church of Rome that the early Church of France pro- OF FRANCE. 191 tested. She lifted up the same testimony against error wher- ever it appeared, though within her own borders, and coun- tenanced by names which Protestants could not fail to res- pect: thus she proved her faithfuhiess. So early as 1603 she guarded her people against the error of those who denied the imputation of the active and passive obedience of Christ in order to the justification of sinners, and decreed that the minister who taught such doctrine should be deposed. These " new-fangled opinions" being warmly advocated by Pisca- tor, a foreign divine, letters were appointed to be written to the Universities of England, Scotland, Leyden, Geneva, Heidelberg, Basil, and Herborne, requesting them to join in the censure; and should Piscator continue in his error, two members of the French Synod are directed to write an an- swer to his book. At a later day, in 1620, the Protestant Church of France adopted the judgments and canons of the celebrated Synod of Dort, against the many errors of Armin- ianism. Indeed, she incorporated them into her own Con- fession of Faith ; the mode in which she did so is interest- ing. "This Assembly," says the Synod of Alez, after invocation of the name of God, " decreed that the articles of the National Council, held at Dort, should be read in full Synod; which being done accordingly, and every article pondered most attentively, they were all received and ap- proved by a common unanimous consent, as agreeing with the Word of God and the Confession of Faith in these our churches — that they were framed with singular prudence and purity — that they ^vere very meet and proper to detect the Arminian errors, and to confound them; for which reason, all the pastors and elders deputed to this Assembly have sworn and protested, jointly and severally, that they consent unto this doctrine, and that they will defend it to the utmost of their power, even to their last breath." Part of the solemn adjuration runs in these words, which it may not be unsuit- able to record, at a period like the present, when so many are afraid to avow the higher doctrines of theology: " I de- clare also and protest that I reject and condemn the doctrine of the Arminians, because it makes God's decree of election to depend upon the mutable will of man, and doth extenuate and make null and void the grace of God. It exalteth man and the powers of free will to his destruction. It reduceth into the Church of God old ejected Pelagianism, and is a mask and vizard for Popery to creep in among us under that disguise, and subvertelh all assurance of everlasting life and 1 92 PROTESTANT CIIUECH happiness." But while the dangerous errors of Arminianism are boUUy condemned, and the great doctrines of election and predestination, of free grace and the assurance of salva- tion, as fearlessly avowed, the Protestant Church is not in- sensible to the injudicious manner in which good men may treat the Divine decrees; and so she subjoins some admira- ble counsels, not nnlike those which the Church of Scotland addresses to her ministers for the treatment of the same sub- ject. " Moreover, this Assembly conjureth, by the bowels of Divine mercy, and by the blood of the everlasting cove- nant, all ministers, pastors of churches, to whom the care of precious souls is committed, that they would walk together evenly and harmoniously in one and the same way; that they abstain from all idle, unprofitable, and curious questions; that they do not pry into the sacred acts of God's hidden and unrevealed counsels and decrees, above or beyond what is recorded in his written Word, the Holy Scriptures of truth; but rather that they would humbly own and acknow- ledge their ignorance of those profound and unfathomable mysteries, than intrude themselves into things unlawful; and that they would so order their discourses and sermons con- cerning predestination, that it may promote repentance and amendment of life, console wounded consciences, and ex- cite the practice of godliness; that, by this means, all occa- sions of disputes and controversies may be avoided, and we may abide united in one and the same faith with our brethren of the Netherlands, and other Churches of our Lord Jesus without the kingdom, as maintaining together with them, and contending for one and the same faith, assailed by the same common enemy, and called to one and the same hope, through our Lord Jesus Christ — to whom, with the Father and Holy Ghost, be honour and glory, for ever and ever. Amen." Three years after the Church of France had thus adopted and homologated the doctrines of the Synod of Dort, she published a series of canons and decrees on " Predestination, Election, and Reprobation," consisting of a full and able statement of the truth upon these points, and a not less suc- cessful exposure of the corresponding errors. The document extends to twenty-six pages folio; and, without approving of every expression, we may safely say it is one of the finest expositions of the higher doctrines of theology which we have met with. We need scarcely add, that it remarkably harmonizes with the Confession of Faith of the Church of OP FRANCE. 193 Scotland; and that, as in it, so here, the sublimity of the sentiment bestows a wonderful elevation upon the style. In the year 1637, two ministers were called by the Synod of Alanson to explain the opinions which they held and taught upon the universality of the efficacy of Christ's death. They had spoken of the Saviour dying equally for all. This was inconsistent with the Scripture doctrine of parti- cular redemption, and had proved an occasion of stumbling to many. On their stating their faith to be, that Christ died for all sufficiently, but only for the elect effectually ^ and that they were prepared to sign the whole doctrine of the French Church " with their best blood," they were restored to the good opinion of their brethren. All this shows how tenaciously the early Protestants of France held by the peculiar doctrines of Revelation, and how jealously they dreaded every approach to Arminian and human sys- tems of salvation. Entertaining such views, no wonder that they were the declared and uncompromising enemies of the Romish Church. That Church, with exceptions too inconsiderable to be named, is built upon human merits and doings. She is, throughout, Arminian, and must ever pro- voke the opposition and the warfare of the consistent advo- cates of salvation by free grace ; though even within her pale, there has generally been a party who hold the doctrine of free salvation. Too many are ready to imagine that such points are ques- tions of idle theological controversy, which do not affect the character of a Church, or serve only to lower and to weaken it. But the character of the French Protestant Church, when thus maintaining what is called decided Calvinism, was any thing but trifling or weak: it was eminendy noble and independent. Indeed, just views of the Church, as the peculiar people, the elect and redeemed family of God, have a tendency to raise the mind and impart a greatness to the character, to which all mere human systems of religion are strangers ; and hence the spirit and resolution wliich humble Christians have often discovered in trying circumstances. AVhen, in 1612, Louis, by bad advice, published " a procla- mation of pardon," treating the Protestants as if they had been guilty of a crime in holding their usual provincial meetings, and as needing forgiveness, they boldly met, in the course of a month, and issued, as a Synod, a declaration, in the course of which they say that they are ready, all of them, jointly and singly, to be responsible for their actions, 13 194 PROTESTANT CHURCH and to publish them to the whole world, openly and at noon- day; counting all manner of torments far more easy to be borne, than that they and their posterity should be stigma- tized as if they were not loyal and faithful subjects. Hence, they declare that they will not, in any way, make use of these letters of pardon, and that they M'ill disavow any per- sons who do so; and that they say these things not in vanity and vain-glory, but to give testimony to the truth, and to show that they are ready to venture their honour, estates, and lives, in performance of the duties and service which they owe to their sovereign. This was a noble spirit for a poor suffering Church to exhibit ; and parallel was the spirit of her members. In allusion to trouble and difficulty from the civil authority, the Dukes Rohan and SuUy, and the Lord de Plessis Mornay, in 1614, wrote letters to the Synod of Tonniers, " all tending to assure the churches of this king- dom of their holy resolution immoveably to persevere in our faith and discipline, and to adventure their estates, their lives, and fortunes, for the advancement of the kingdom of Christ; expressing also their great desire that all the members of our churches might be preserved in a sweet and perfect concord." A fine anecdote is related of the courage and independence of Welsh, the son-in-law of John Knox, who, we have al- ready noticed, was, for a number of years, a minister of the French Church. When the king was using strong measures against his Protestant subjects, he and the court came to the small town where Welsh preached. In the circumstances, his friends dissuaded him, but in vain, from appearing in the pulpit. During the time of sermon an officer was sent from the king commanding his immediate presence; he, however, was overawed by the authority with which the preacher ad- diessed him before the assembled multitude. The historian goes on to say — " The sermon being ended, Mr. Welsh, with much sub- mission, went to the king, who was then greatly incensed; and, with a threatening countenance, asked who he was, and how he durst preach heresy so near his person, and with such contumacy carry himself? To which, with due reverence, bowing himself, he did answer: ' I am, (Sir,) the servant and minister of Jesus Christ, whose truth I preached this day: which, if your majesty rightly knew, you would have judged it your duty to have come and heard. And for my doctrine, I did this day preach these three truths to your people: 1. That man is fallen, and by nature in a lost con- OF FRA3SCE. 195 dition ; yea, by his own power and abilities is not able to help himself out of that estate. 2. That there is no salva- tion or deliverance from wrath by our own merits, but by Jesus Christ, and his merit alone. 3. I did also preach this day the just liberties of the kingdom of France; that your Majesty oweth obedience to Christ only, who is Head of the Church; and that the Pope, as he is an enemy to Christ and his truth, so also to the kings of the earth, whom he keepeth under slavery to his usurped power.' Whereat the king for a time keeping silence, with great astonishment turned to some about him, and said, 'Surely this is a man of God.' Yea, the king did afterwards commune with him, and with much respect dismissed him.' Boldly, however, as the French Protestants declared the truths of God, and asserted the independence of the Church of Christ, they were free from being what their enemies styled them — disloyal subjects. This has, in every age, been a common charge against serious Christians. Nothing, however, can be more unfounded. Respect for human au- thority is quite consistent with the freedom wherewith the truth makes believers free. Accordingly, numerous as might be the charges, no real disloyalty was ever established against the Protestant Church. When Louis XIII. was approaching his majority, a day of fasting and prayer was appointed in 1614, to draw down the Divine blessing on his head. Consi- dering how much the Protestants had been suffering all along, and was suffering at that time from the jealousy and oppres- sion of the civil power, such warm-hearted loyalty was re- markable indeed. It reminds us of the loyalty of the suffering Covenanters of Scodand. In addressing the king as a Synod a few years afterwards, they trace the feeling to its proper source. While they acknowledged their obligations to Henry IV., whom they denominate " Henry the Great, our late King, and your Majesty's father of most glorious memory," they add, " but there is another bond and obligation upon us stronger than all these, even that of our conscience and reli- gion, which from the divinely inspired Scriptures are taught and instructed to subject ourselves unto the higher powers, and that to resist them is to resist the ordinance of God." I am aware that the enemies of the Protestants charged them with being political and tumultuous, nay, traitorous. And when men are persecuted, it is not wonderful that some should be driven to excess. But the Church, as a Church, discountenanced, in the strongest manner, every thing like 196 PROTESTANT CHURCH an interference with matters purely of State. With respect to the accusation of " holding intelligence with the Spaniard, the most implacable enemy of France," the Synod of Cas- tres, in 1626, declares, that after the most diligent and rigor- ous inquiries, not one of their pastors could be impeached with that crime, and that it could not even be fastened upon any one individual of the Protestant communion ; nay, that the innocence of the Church was proclaimed before the whole world. It would seem that political meetings were not un- frequently held in the provinces, and deputations sent from them to the Court. The Protestant ministers, from their intelligence, and enjoying the confidence of the people, were sometimes employed in these services. This proving a se- rious hindrance to the work of the ministry, by secularizing their minds, and creating prejudices against their spiritual la- bours, the Church deprecated and condemned such proceed- ings; and also guarded her ministers under the severest pe- nalty, against bringing their secular politics into the pulpit. In 1617, we read the following resolution of the Synod of Vitre: "All ministers are forbidden to vent in the pulpit their private sentiments of State affairs, it being contrary to the resolutions taken up in our General Assemblies; and Consistories, Colloquies, and Provincial Synods, are enjoin- ed to have a watchful eye over such pastors as do so, and to inflict upon them all the censures of the Church; yea, to Suspend them from the ministry ; and the same punishment shall also be laid on them who, in their public sermons, clash one against another upon these matters." When we consider how strong were the temptations of the Protestant Church, in her oppressed circumstances, to allow any political proceedings, on the part of her ministers, which promised relief, such resolutions and actings as these must be regarded as strong testimonies to her just views of the character of a Church of Christ, and her higli spirituali- ty of feeling. Nor is the testimony weakened, when we remember that, while so strict against interference with the province of others, on the part of the ministry she rigidly se- cured an attention to the peculiar duties of their calling. The residence of her pastors in their parishes, she enforced by the severest censures; indeed, it Avas made quite indispensable. I might go on to notice various other proofs of the excel- lent character of the French Ciiurch, but it is unnecessary. Suffice it to say, that she frequenUy appointed days of hu- miliation, and fasting, and prayer. The confessions of de- OF FRANCE. _ 197 clension, lukewarmness, ungodliness, and even vice, which she solemnly records against her members on such occasions, are no evidence that she was not still a truly Christian Church of superior attainments. The more advanced that believers or Churches become in the divine life, they will see and confess their shortcomings and offences the more. It is not to be denied, however, that the Church of France degenerated not a little even during the period of which I have been writing, when so many excellencies could be pointed to in her general character. Similar was the experience of some of the churches of Asia Minor. But while she thus confess- ed sin, she was not indifferent to amendment. She exhorted to a punctual attention to those parts of her discipline — the canon, for instance, providing for the discharge of parental duty — which were fitted to reclaim aiid to reform. I cannot withhold the affecting terms in which a Fast for the General State of Europe was appointed in 1637. They are remark- ably striking, and indicate the presence of blended loyalty and piety. "'Whereas for divers years last past, war and mortality have overspread, with a deluge of woes, the far greatest part of Europe, and- made the unrepenting nations sensible, what a dreadful thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God, justly incensed against those hard-hearted sinners, who de- spise the riches of his grace, the abundance of his goodness and long-suflering — the National Synod of the Reformed Churches of France, assembled by tlie king's permission, in the town of Alanson, beholding, in the continued plagues with which all the provinces of this kingdom are scourged, evident threatenings of new impendent judgments: Where- fore, that those affrightful and approaching storms may be averted, and the bowels of God's fatherly campassions may be moved, and that we may obtain from his infinite mercies and goodness the preservation of his Majesty's sacred per- son, a blessing upon his armies, the return and re-establish- ment of peace and prosperity in the State, and a quiet settle- ment of this poor afflicted Church, tossed with tempests, and not comforted — we do exhort all the faithful, by a deep humiliation of soul, and a sincere and serious conversion of heart, to seek after the help, grace, and favour of God. And to this purpose the Synod decreeth, that a public fast shall be kept and solemnly observed in all the churches of this kingdom, on Thursday the 19th day of November next coming, which shall be notified unto them by reading of this present act." 198 PROTESTANT CHURCH We cannot better close this section, than by a picture m the French Protestant Church, at the period of which we have been writing, drawn by the ministers and professors of Geneva. At this distance of time, and with imperfect ma- terials, we may be apt to exaggerate or undervalue her gene- ral attainments. From the following beautiful extracts, we shall learn what was the estimation in which she Avas held by contemporaries of competent judgment. They strikingly show the connection between pure doctrine and elevated character. The exhortations may not be unsuitable to Christians still. The divines of Geneva, among whom were Prevost, Diodati and B. Turretine, bear testimony to the pure evangelical doctrine of the French Church, and her zeal against error in such passages as these, forming part of two long and interesting letters which they addressed to the Na- tional Synod: — "AH the Reformed Churches, as far as ever we could learn, were fdled with joy at those solid declara- tions made in your National Synod against revived Pelagian- ism, and at that singular care taken by those venerable and holy councils to exclude it out of your churches." Again, alluding to the errors connected with universal redemption, they say: — " This accident hath been the worst and most ill-boding sign and token that could befall you ; for you had, for many years together, retained constantly and invariably that most holy faith, taught and established in your churches, in its purity and simplicity — the wicked one not being able, during all that time, to mingle any of his leaven, nor to sow any of his tares among you; you have therein imitated the most famous Gallican Church of the best and purest times of antiquity, which is as free of heresies as your land is of monsters." Referring to the high Christian cliaracter of the Protestant Church of France, and the remarkable interpositions of God in its behalf, we have the following extract: — " His gracious providence shines forth with a most admi- rable lustre in the defence of your churches, and particularly in the free enjoyment of your religious assemblies; so that at the many strange accidents which have befallen you for divers years together, and the tempests with which the king- dom of France hath been assaulted and battered, the sore and grievous aillictions of many of our brethren, having astonish- ed our souls and overwhelmed our hearts with sorrows, had made us almost despair of ever seeing the comfortable returns of peace unto your realm, and of repose and settlement for OP FRANCE. 199 your poor afflicted churches, and the exercise of your most excellent discipline, than which a better was never practised in the Christian world. And now in this calm the divine Wisdom gathers his children, as the hen doth her chickens, under her wings, and reneweth the face of his Church in your congregations, as the eagle doth his youth. We be gready comforted, most honoured lords and brethren, at the glad tidings of those excellent fruits which the Lord's visita- tion hath produced in healing of your churches, once again bringing into use and exercise those graces and virtues so necessary for the faithful, and so difficult to be exerted and practised in times of prosperity — such as the love of God's Word, contempt of the world, and kindling again a fire of holy zeal, by the Spirit of God, upon the altar of the sacred ministry, to the conviction of sins and errors, and the refor- mation of life and of former miscarriages, and the strength- ening of the infirm and weaker Christians." We might introduce many other passages of a similar import. Let the following fine address to ministers suffice. The Church which could write such a letter, and the Church to which such a letter could, with any propriety, be written, must have been eminent at once for sound principle and enlightened piety. Surely the whole facts brought together in these chapters go far to show the intimate connection be- tween high doctrine and high character: — "And inasmuch as by these overturnings of the world, 'tis visible that its last end cannot be far off, and that our long-looked and long- hoped-for redemption, in the coming of the eternal kingdom of the Son of God, draweth nigh; for God's sake, most dear sirs and honoured brethren, be not weary of fighting the good fight, with the weapons of righteousness, on the right hand and on the left, against the baits and charms of this present world, and against that hatred and fury you shall meet withal for opposing the torrents of its general and reigning corrup- tions. Revive, therefore, the zeal of Elijah; preach the words of life and wisdom; get the Spirit of might, of judg- ment, and of burning; wield the two-edged sword of the Spirit of the Word of God, that it may cut on this side and on that ; that it may hew down them who do actually deceive and poison souls with their erroneous and seducing doctrines ; that so the true faith and religion which we have received from our godly and blessed fathers, may be handed down unto our children; and we, recalling into our personal prac- tice and imitation, that holiness of their lives by which they 200 PROTESTANT CHURCH did so nobly justify their profession, and exalted to the high- est pitch of evidence the power of the Gospel, and made it known unto the world, to its condemnation, this very holi- ness of our heavenly Father may appear more conspicuous in the holiness of our lives, who are his own sanctified chil- dren." With regard to the Church of Scotland, in the aspect of character under which we have been contemplating the Church of France, happily she had no doctrinal errors of which to complain in her communion. AVhile Arminianism, before and throughout the reign of Charles I., made serious progress in England, it was unknown in Scotland, except, perhaps, among the small prelatical party. The divine bles- sing on the standards of the Church, and on the struggles which she was called to maintain, seems to have kept her sound and pure. It is not till the days of Cromwell that we meet with any false doctrine apart from old Popery, of which there was now very little. The Protector's army brought Quakers, and Anabaptists, and sectaries in its ranks, many of whom seemed to have been as erroneous in their senti- ments as they were extravagant in their proceedings. In 1649, the General Assembly prohibit the sale or use in schools or families, of a little catechism entitled the ABC, with a catechism which contains very gross errors, in regard to universal redemption — the number of the sacraments. The Assembly's catechism is, at the same time, recommen- ded for schools. Eight years after, two Anabaptists having been called before the Presbytery of Cupar, maintained that Christ died for all intentionally — that the soul sleeps with the body till the resurrection — that saints may fall away from saving grace — that the decree of election is not absolute, and yet that the Spirit of God is irresistible in his operation. Nothing could be more contrary to the doctrine of the Church of Scotland, and she, of course, used her best exertions against the errors in question. The people, however, were too deeply and generally well-grounded in the truth, to run any serious risk of being misled by them. I referred in this section to the high and independent character of the Church of France, springing out of the high doctrine which she held. I need not say how much the same spirit characterized the Church of Scodand. Manli- ness and boldness mark her whole history, particularly during the period we are surveying. I shall not refer to her OF FRANCE. 201 many and well known struggles, terminating in the dire ne- cessity of taking up arms in self-defence; but shall refer to two cases which will bring out the doctrine of the indepen- dence of the Church in spiritual things — a doctrine for which she seems destined in the providence of God to be called to contend anew. Row, the author of the Life of Blair, relates, that " in July 1653, those of the ministers who were for the public resolu- tions, met in Assembly at Edinburgh, but before they were constituted they were commanded to disperse by a parly of English (Cromwell's) soldiers. Mr. David Dickson, the Moderator of the former Assembly, who opened this, an- swered that they had power from Jesus Christ to convene for the affairs of his house ; but the officers disregarding such topics, the Assembly were commanded, in the name of the Parliament of England, to dissolve presently. Against this usurpation, Mr. Dickson protested, in the Assembly's name, 1st, Because they had power and authority from Jesus Christ to convene in his courts; 2d, Because their meeting was warranted by the unrepealed laws of the land; and 3d, Be- cause the English were, by the first article of the Solemn League, bound with them to defend the doctrine, discipline, and government of the Kirk of Scotland. But he had scarcely done speaking, when they were conveyed by a party to Bruntsfield Links. Next day, a immber of the protestors against the public resolutions having likewise convened, the English got notice of their meeting, and served them with the same sauce they had done their brethren ; against which those ministers did also protest, and sent a copy of their protestation to Lilburn, commander-in-chief of the English forces in Scotland." A similar case occurred in the Presby- tery of Cupar two years after. " While the Presbytery, being met at the ordinary time and in the ordinary place, was consulting about revising the acts of the last half year, that the register might be in readiness against the Provincial Assembly, Lieutenant Crossraan (an Englishman) told us that the meeting of the Provincial was forbidden, and forth- with went away, and within an hour after came back again and commanded the Presbyterial meeting to rise and dis- perse, till further orders — which the brethren resolved to obey. But withal, Mr. John Macneili, protested against the encroachment made upon the liberties of our kirk judicato- ries, which hold of Jesus Christ himself, and are not subor- dinate to any civil or military power whatsoever. And that 202 PROTESTANT CHURCH ' notwithstanding, it may be free to iis to meet in our respective judicatories, in a peaceable manner, about the affairs of the Church of Christ, within the bounds of our charge, as ne- cessity requires, when and where the Lord, in his good pro- vidence, should give us opportunity and a call. And this we do, not out of humourness or turbulence of spirit, but that we may approve ourselves to God in our station, by asserting of, and bearing testimony unto, the government, liberties, and privileges of the Church of Christ, and judicatories thereof (according to the Word of God, and the bonds of our sacred and solemn covenant,) which to us are so precious that we dare not be consenting unto, nor silent at any thing which directly, or by consequence, may be prejudicial unto them. " Mr. James Wedderburn. " May 1655." " William Row adheres:' In concluding this section, I may call the reader's atten- tion to a few points of a miscellaneous character, but at the same time so important as to merit notice. The Church continued to require all that undivided exertion from her ministers with which she started. The Synod of Fife, so early as 1612, "directs an act against plurality of kirks being held by one minister, as a great hindrance to the Gospel." Poor as the provision was, the Church, as much as possible, confined a pastor's care to a single flock. At a later day (1657,) the Laird of Rankeillor brought a minister before the Presbytery of Cupar, even though his stipend had been ill paid, because he had taken land which occupied his atten- tion. It is said the Laird "wishes his minister to be more painful in visiting and catechising, and is willing to take the land off his hand, though it should be to his own disadvan- tage." The Presbytery recommend this course. While ministers were expected and required to be busy in every department of professional duly, they seem to have devoted much of their care to the instruction and preparation of the people for the holy Communion. In the Session Re- cords of Dunfermline there are some strong rules on this head — too strong perhaps for the present slate of society — but indicating aboundant zeal in the franiers, and, it may be, well adapted to the people whom they were meant to guide. "27th March 1656: the said ministers and elders going about the examination of the people for the Communion, resolved — " 1. That those persons who neglect the diets of examina- OF FRANCE. 203 tion, whether masters or others, if twice absent, to be ad- monished by the minister and elders; and if the third time, to be cited to the Session, or suspended from the Commu- nion, without respect of persons, and these to be marked by the ministers and elders. " 2. That the minister, with the elders, shall try the know- ledge of every one that comes, according to the Act of As- sembly 1648, sess. 38. "3. x4fter persons are observed to be ignorant, or absentees from catechising, the elders on their several quarters may deal with them, by visiting their families, and exhorting their masters and themselves yet to learn. "4. For their measures of knowledge, that the ministers shall agree upon some common questions to be proposed to every one whose knowledge they doubt, and that they insist most upon those questions which are preparatives for the Sacrament. "5. Concerning scandalous persons, such as ordinary tip- plers, and swearers, and scolders, and who live at variance with their neighbours — ordinary absentees from catechising, ordinary neglecters of the worship of God in their families, &c. — that some way be taken for trying of them, and keep- ing them back from the Communion if they continue in it, comformly to the directions of the General Assembly. "6. That, at the least, there be two elders with the minis- ter at the examination. " 7. That if any elder or deacon be appointed to wait on the absentees, and do not wait on, either himself or some other with whom he may agree, he shall be suspended from his place for a time, except he have a very reasonable ex- cuse." The reconciling of quarrels previously to the dis- pensation of the Lord's Supper, seems to have been a com- mon, as it was a most appropriate, part of sessional duty. Nor must I omit to notice the Church's unwearied la- bours after the due observance of the Sabbath. The Church of Rome may make a holiday of the Lord's Day, and Charles, a professed Protestant monarch, may command the reading of a Book pf sporls on its sacred hours, to correct the exces- sive religious spirit of his people, and prepare them for a return to Popery ; but the Presbyterian Church of Scotland holds by the Sabbath as a sheet-anchor of Christianity, and carefully guards and honours it. If there be one feature in her history more marked than another, it is her love for the Sabbath; and how much she is under God, indebted to this 204 PROTESTANT CHURCH for her superior religious knowledge, and character, and pri- vileges, civil and sacred, in short, civihzation, no one can estimate. The county of Fife being noted for its fishing and salt-making, and both employments tempting men to trench upon the rest of the Sabbath, we find frequent reference in its ecclesiastical records, particularly in the Presbyterian periods, to the efforts of the Clmrch courts for the protection of the Sabbath. The people are forbidden to set their nets even during the "herring drove" on the Lord's Day, or to loose ships and boats which are in safe harbours. The salt- makers, also, are prohibited from working on any part of the Sabbaih. A compromise seems to have been proposed by proprietors at Kirkaldy. The Synod is asked to allow them lo work till six o'clock on Sabbath morning, and begin again at six in the evening; but the Church declines all com- promise, and contends that there shall be no work from twelve on Saturday night till twelve on Sabbath night. Other forms of Sabbath desecration were not allowed to pass without challenge or correction. Sabbath funerals were forbidden. " Whereas," say the Presbytery of St. Andrews, " there is a superstitious practice of making graves upon the Lord's Day, which may be conveniently avoided, the Pres- b3'^tery appoint that no graves be made upon the Lord's Day, but in case of urgent necessity allowed by the minister and session." A remarkable case occurs in the Presbytery Re- cords of Cupar, which shows how severely the honour of the Sabbath was vindicated in 1647. The offender appears to have shot some animal, probably a bird, upon the Lord's Day. This was regarded as a serious scandal; and the fol- lowing is the account of the punishment: — " David Blyth, in the parish of Abdie, for shedding 'blood on the Sabbath- day, is appointed to stand at the kirk door next Sabbaih, bareheaded and barefooted, with the gun in his hand where- with the blood was shed, until the last bell; thereafter to sit before the pulpit in the time of sermon; and after sermon, to acknowledge and confess his sin upon his knees, and then to be received." Whatever may be thought of this kind or degree of punishment, no enlightened Christian can doubt that the Sabbaih should be protected by legislative enactment and penalty; and that dark will be the liour for Britain, when even its present imperfect Sabbath defences shall be with- drawn. OF FRANCE. 205 CHAPTER IV. FROM 1660 TO 1685. We have now arrived at a very interesting and affecting period in the history of the Protestant Church of France — the period which preceded the revocation of the edict of Nantes, in 1685. We have marked the enactment of this edict under Henry IV., and have contemplated the Christian character of the Church, as manifested by a variety of indi- cations during the ninety years in which it was in force. We have now to consider its abrogation. Even had it been per- fecdy observed all along, the civil and religions liberty which it secured to the Protestants would have been very inade- quate. The joy with which its institution was hailed only strikingly proves how wretched and oppressed had been their previous condition ; but its regulations were not fairly or honourably observed. At first, under Henry, and for a con- siderable period under Louis XIII., its provisions were pretty well regarded, and the Protestants were gladdened and in- creased in numbers ; but during the whole course of it, and particularly towards the close, the infractions were many and ■grievous — the protection which it afforded only nominal. A Church so spiritual and faithful — as we have seen, from indubitable evidence, the Church of France was, to a great extent, at the period of which we speak — could not be en- dured by the Popish multitude, whether lay or clerical, and so there was incessant hostility every now and then break- ing out into direct persecution. Even where the king and civil power were disposed to befriend the Protestants, the ecclesiastical party were too strong for them ; and either by force or fraud, as best suited the purpose, stirred them up in- to opposition. Hence, in various parts of France, especially the more remote, many of the provisions of the edict of Nantes were never complied with, and in others these provi- sions were ever and anon openly violated. A Popish noble- man or landlord kept a whole parish in misery. The truth is, the edict was never a cordial or hearty mea- sure. It was extorted by circumstances, and being disliked by the most powerful party in the country, it could not be expected to be well observed. Solemn promises may have been made, but the history of the edict conclusively shows 206 PROTESTANT CHURCH that the Romish doclrine — no faith is to be kept with here- tics— was no obsolete imagination, but a stern reality. The least resistance, on the part of the Protestants, to the most arbitrary proceedings, however excusable in their trying cir- cumstances, was always and immediately laid hold of as a reason for greater encroachments and severity. There can be little doubt these were often provoked, for the very pur- pose of affording an occasion, from the irritation w^hich might be created, still further to abridge the narrow freedom. Remembering these things, we need not wonder to learn that, so early as 1603, there were not less than fifty-four des- titute Protestant churches — that, four years later, there w^ere vexatious lawsuits about churches, one of which entailed up- on the poor Protestants a debt of not less than from seven to eight thousand livres — and that, ten years subsequently, there were complaints of persecution from a variety of dis- tricts embracing many churches — persecution which had lasted for years, and involved the sufferers in most serious pecuniary burdens. The Protestant Chuich may, as she ad- vanced in years, have lost somewhat of the piety for which she was distinguished at first, and errors may have occasion- ally appeared which were not sufhciendy rebuked ; but even these were owing to the harsh treatment of her Popish neigh- bours. The Presbyterian Church government was invaded. From 1645 to 1659, a period of fourteen years, no General Assembly or Synod was allowed to be held, and so the Church had no opportunity of checking incipient error, or exercising necessary discipline. In such circumstances, it would have been strange if the Presbyterian Church did not suffer some degeneracy. Were the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland not to meet for fourteen years, how serious would be the evil ! The very fact, however, of the continued and bitter, and increasing hostility of the Church of Rome to her, is no mean proof that she still retained her decidedly evangelical character. Popery has litUe quarrel with error, however serious. Indeed, error is always, to a great extent, allied to herself. It is truth, vital, living Chris- tianity, wdiich is intolerable to her spirit, principles, and claims. The highest authority has said, " All who will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." And the history of the French Protestant Church impressively proves and proclaims the sentiment. But we must turn to more direct evidence of the tyranni- cal treatment to w^hich the Protestant Church was subjected OF FRANCE. 207 previous to the repeal of the edict. In religious persecution, the oppressed party often suffers for political reasons. It is punished, not because it is religious, but because it is disloy- al and seditious. In restraining it, the State is only acting on self-defence. Hence the origin of the penal enactments against Popery in this country ; but it was not thus with the Protestants of France. No one, with the least pretence of reason, could accuse them of doubtful attachment to the Crown. They were, like the suffering Presbyterians of Scotland, remarkable for their loyalty. At the very time that the twenty year's persecution began, which terminated in the abrogation of the edict of Nantes, they had rendered a distinguished service to the family of the reigning monarch — so much so, that both Louis XIV. and his mother acknow- ledged it by public proclamation; and yet they were forth- with made the victims of the most intolerable oppression. What does this prove, but that the true source of their suffer- ing was their religion — the hatred of the unrenewed mind of man to the free and holy Gospel which they professed. We shall mark a few of tlie more prominent points in the march of persecution, merely premising that we have room for very few, and that there can be no question the whole which is recorded bears a very small proportion to what was actually inflicted. So early as 1626, the Synod of Castres was con- strained to present such a summary of wrongs as the follow- ing:— " His Majesty is most humbly petitioned to cast his royal eyes of compassion upon the deep afflictions of his Protestant subjects, who, though they have always laboured to gain and keep the love and friendship of their fellow-citizens, as coun- trymen, are yet, notwithstanding, in divers places of the kingdom, molested in their persons, disturbed in the exercise of their religion, deprived of their temples, yea, and see them demolished before their faces ever since the peace, or else given away from them for dwelling-houses unto the Romish priests and ecclesiastics ; and that they be dispossessed of their bury- ing-places, and the dead bodies of very many persons digged up most ignominiously ; that our ministers have been bar- barously beaten, bruised, wounded, and driven away from their churches, although they have been the most innocent and inoffensive persons in the world, who neither injured the public in general, nor any one in particular, as our gene- ral deputies shall more and at large make report hereof unto his Majesty." 208 PROTESTANT CHURCH Five years later the infractions of the edict had risen to such a height, that the second Synod of Charenton was com- pelled to address the king in a long paper of grievances, of which the following is an extract. Among other things, they complain of the royal bounty which, though small, had been of important use to the Church, having been withheld for eight years : " This desolation. Sir, is therefore the more worthy of your royal compassions, because it is extreme; for in Viva- retz there be nine-and-twenty churches wholly destitute of all religious worship, and in Cevennes nineteen, and in the Land and Isles of Re Olleron there be twenty-four, besides those which decay, through the many cunning obstructions brought against the rebuilding of the demolished temples in Xaintonge, Burgundy, Brittain, Berry, Normandy, Poitou, and the lower Guyenne, whose number, indeed is not so great, but, however, their damage is inestimable. And, Sir, all the Provinces demand no new favour of your Majesty, but only what hath been formally granted them by your edicts." These petitions produced little or no effect. Fair promises may have been made by the civil authority, but the ecclesi- astical was too powerful for it; and so, after twelve years of complaint, the condition of the Protestants was worse than before. In 1637, a Bill of Grievances was given in to the king running to seven long folio pages, describing the various ways in which these faithful men were annoyed and perse- cuted, even when the country was blessed with peace, and when the Protestants could look up to a monarch, not open- ly, at least, opposed to them. What, then, must have been the state of things when the usual restraints of society were weakened by the distractions of war? If there were so much oppression under the reign of the edict, what must have been its amount when that reign was broken up? In the paper referred to, the Protestants speak of thirty-nine places where the king, by some previous order, had com- manded their churches should be restored, and after a lapse of twelve years that order was still unfulfilled. They speak also of other forty-nine places where the exercise of their religion, during the last ten years, " by the wickedness and violence of those troublesome times," had been removed, and of their schools being disturbed, and their children seized for Popish baptism, their ministers driven away from their parish- es, and they themselves required, in the most open manner, to OF FRANCE. 209 counteHance the abominations of Popish superstition and idol- atry; and yet it was during this and a similar period, those beautiful indications of Christian character appeared, of which I have spoken in former sections. Who does not see in this the power of Divine grace, supporting the faithful, and mak- ing them fruitful even in the darkest and most adverse days? Suppose that the churches of our country were shut up or pulled down at the rate of thirty-nine in one brief period, and forty-nine in another, could we justly wonder that the cause of true religion was greatly deteriorated? It is only the special blessing of the Great Head of the Church which can explain its maintenance in any tolerable strength amid such unfavourable circumstances. We subjoin an extract from the Bill of Grievances of 1637. "And whereas your Majesty was pleased, in considera- tion of our Bill of Grievances, presented to your Majesty in the year 1625, to ordain that the churches and the grounds (wherein we bury our dead, which have been taken away from those of our religion in these following places : — Lunel, Sommieres, Florensac, Le Vigan, Mazellargues, Villemur, St. Antonia, and Puymirol) should be restored, and that they should be permitted to rebuild their temples in the same places which had been accorded to us by the edict; none of the ordinances of your Majesty have been in the least executed; yea, smce this, it hath so fallen out that the churches and church-yards of Vitte Goudou, of Castres, St. Affirick, St. Gelais, Valy, Vallon, Aubenas, St. Estienne in Forest, Senes, and divers other places in Annix, the Isle of Re, and Province of Burgundy, have been forcibly taken away and detained from us, and the building of our temples at La Motte of Argues and Canmont is quite obstructed ; — we therefore do most humbly beseech your Majesty to continue unto us that royal favour you had before granted us by your edicts, and by your gracious promise, upon the reading of the afore- said Bill of Grievances, and that you would, according to it, ordain that the aforesaid churches and church yards may be rendered and restored in all those places before mentioned; and that your Majesty would be pleased to forbid all trou- bling of us in the rebuilding and the re-establishing of them, and particularly at Aubenas, where the inhabitants are con- strained to bury their dead in the open fields, and they will not suffer any more than three persons to accompany the poor corpse unto that uncouth grave neither." It would but weary the reader to attempt to detail the 14 210 PROTESTANT CHURCH many and growing breaches of the Protective Edict during the next twenty years. Louis XIII. died in 1643, and was succeeded by Louis XIV. ; but in spite of all the loyalty and services of the Protestants, in vindicating his legitimacy and title to the throne, and in spite of the royal promises and proclamations which, from time to time, were made in their behalf, intolerance and persecution held their course ; now and then slackening their speed for a little, but only to break out in new violence. Thus it ever has been with the Church of Rome where she has had the power, and where she has had living evangelical Christianity with which to contend. She may go on peacefully with Infidelity, or So- cinianism, or even dead Orthodoxy, but she cannot endure a living Gospel. These two, Popery and Evangelism, are not merely different from each other, they are opposite and mutually destructive — they inust maintain an unyielding warfare. This doubtless, is " the sword" which the Saviour declared he brought to the earth. Passing over twenty years in the history, let us come down to 1660, the sad year when, as the event showed, an almost Popish king (Charles II.) was restored to the throne of Britain — how fared matters with the poor Protestants of France at that time, and during the subsequent years? Popery received an impulse, and manifested its persecuting power in Scotland and in France at the same moment. In- deed, from the connexion between the royal families, as well as the substantial identity of their religious creed and prac- tice, there is, as I have already remarked, a remarkable cor- respondence in the religious history of the two countries. When Popery rose in France its influence was immediately felt in Britain; when it received a blow in France, the happy change was forthwith fell in this country. From the StatiLS Ecclesix Gallicanae I extract a specimen of the acts injurious to Protestants, passed by the king's counsel in five brief years, beginning with 1060. "One act (May 6, 1659, and March 17, 1661) hath be- reaved them of the liberty of praising God, by forbidding the singing of the Psalms, even privately in their houses, though it be an eminent part of Christian worship. " Another act (August 7, and November 3, 1664) compel- leth them to bury their dead clandestinely, and in the night, forgetting that the very heathen had respect to the tombs of their enemies. " Another (October 5, 1663) hath divested Protestant ma- OF FRANCE. 211 gistrates (whatever be their charge or quaHty) of the privi- lege of presiding in their courts. " ^noiher (February 26, 1663) hath taken away all means of instructing or educating their children, leaving them at most (and tliat only in some places) the smaller schools, where is only taught to read, write, and count. " Another (January 19, 1663) hath restrained the liberty of printing any books in favour of their religion, by imposing upon them a necessity of obtaining licenses from the king's council, which cannot be had. "Another (Declar. October 24, 1663, and Act of Council, January 30, 1665) ordaineth parents to give pensions to their children who change their religion, even although the said children will not dwell with them; as if parental authority were nulled by children's apostasy. " Another (October 5, 1665) prohibits the exercise of charity toward their brethren who are in want. " Another dischargeth payment of debts, by those of the commonalty who shall turn Papists. " Another (February 22, 1664) prohibits ministers to preach without the place of their residence ; thereby depriv- ing the Hugonots of the benefit of annexations; that is, the privilege of one minister supplying two churches, which sin- gly are not able to afford a competent maintenance. "Another (September 13, 1660) deprives them of the liberty of their classical meetings in the intervals of Synods, whereby the exercise of discipline is restrained. " Another (October 5, 1663) prohibits the censuring of Protestant parents by the parochial eldership, or otherwise for sending their children to be educated by Jesuit or Popish tutors. •' Another (September 18, 1664) gives liberty to priests and friars to enter the houses of Protestants, and to come to their bed-sides when sick or dying, to solicit them to change their religion. And after their death, they carry away their children, alleging falsely, that their parents at their death gave some sign of willingness to embrace the Romish reli- gion. "Another (June 30, 1663) makes it criminal in ministers to style themselves pastors or ministers of the Word of God. They forbid ministers to wear a long garment, that they may have nothing to distinguish them from the common people." The historian adds, " the clergy also do endeavour to af- fright the Protestant ministers. Some they have violently 212 PKOTESTANT CHURCH silenced, others they seek to ensnare on every hand; some they criminally indict for very trifles; some are banished, others are transported whither their adversaries please; and they vex them so, to the end no man may be willing to em- brace the calling of a minister." Can any thing be conceived more discouraging or vexa- tious, without proceeding to the higher forms of persecution? Surely it reminds one of what the Scriptures call, the " wearing out the saints" of the Most High. In these, and subsequent years too, the work, not of church extension, but of church demolition, went forward with terrible rapidity. By a single decree of August, 1662, not less than twenty- three churches were pulled down on the merest pretences, sheer tricks of law. Next year, one hundred and two churches shared the same fate ; thirteen followed the year succeeding; in 1664, forty-nine; so that, in four short years, not less than one hundred and eighty-seven places of Protes- tant worship were destroyed. The historian adds, that " many churches have been destroyed since 1666, yet few of their names are come to our hands." The names of all the others, and the date and decrees of their overthrow, are given ; so that there can be no exaggeration in a statement which almost seems incredible. In Scotland, at the same period, faithful ministers were expelled from their churches in hundreds; but the churches themselves vv-ere preserved for very unworthy successors. In France, the spirit of Po- pery was stronger and less controlled; and so it destroyed the very churches to such an extent, that the author of Stat- us Ecclesise, &c. says, "The Hugonotshave lost three parts of four of all their churches ;" anil if the Papists were so un- merciful upon the churches, what must have been their spi- rit to the ministers and people? Quick, in his Synodicon, says, that, previous to the year 1673, the Popish party had desolated hundreds of churches, under colour of law. A monk, from Beam, boasted, that out of one hundred and twenty-three churches in that province, resting on the most unquestionable legal titles, only twenty were spared. In 1674, out of sixty-one churches in Poitou, only one was un- condemned ; so that eighty thousand persons were thrown destitute of the means of grace. In Guienne, eighty churches were reduced to three ; in Gex, twenty-three to two; in Pro- vence, sixteen to three; and so of the other provinces. In- deed, Quick says of some districts, " If there be any churches standing, and not converted into ruinous heaps, they be such OF FRANCE. 213 as are most inconveniently situated in marshes or low grounds, which were often overflown with water, or impas- sable in winter ; so that these poor Christians were depri- ved of all possibility of hearing God's word, and necessitated to travel forty miles and more to worship God publicly, and to get their children baptized." This was one, and to a Christian people a very distressing form of persecution, in some respects the most grievous of all; but there were many — so much so, that Quick, the his- torian, was obliged to arrange them under six leading heads, and the record of the awful proof extends to nearly sixty closely printed folio pages. The period of which I now write consists of the twenty-five years which preceded the repeal of the edict, stretching from 1660 to 1685 — years stained in a peculiar manner with the barbarities and atroci- ties of persecution — sadly, but successfully, preparing the way for the grand consummation of cruelty and blood. Some of the proceedings of these years have been already noticed. I shall add only a few additional points, but I am sure the reader will consider them a sufficient specimen. Though the edict of Nantes had expressly and carefully granted the right to Protestants of holding public offices, and though from their superior education they were employed to a great extent in these departments, yet one of the first infractions was to deprive them of all such offices, even in towns where the great majority belonged to the Reformed Church. As in primitive times there were Christians in Cesar's house- hold, so were there Protestants — and this was much to their honour — connected with the King's household. One would not wonder much that malignant influence should rob them of these appointments, and of those belonging to royal courts; but the deprivation went much further than this. In 1680, the king issued an order for depriving them in general of all kinds of offices and employments whatsoever, from the great- est to the least. They were pronounced incapable of serving in the custom-houses, the guards, treasury, or post-office — of being messengers, coachmen, or waggoners, or any thing of that kind; and during the succeeding years down to the recall of the edict, the professions in which the Protestants could serve, were always more and more narrowed. One very important restriction was, that they were rendered incapable of acting as tutors or guardians. Hence the cliildren of Pro- testant parents who were minors, were brought under the 214 PROTESTANT CHURCH power of the Church of Rome, and these were often fami- lies of weahli and influence. Another instrument of oppression was, a decree by which Protestants professing Popery were released from any debts that were due to their Protestant brethren, for the -three years preceding their so called conversion. This was noth- ing short of a bonus upon covetousness, fraud and hypocrisy. When a man wished to get rid of a troublesome debt, he had merely to profess Popery and he was released. Nay, the public taxes of the new converts were laid upon the Protes- tants who remained firm, and thus their charges were arbi- trarily raised from forty or fifty, to seven or eight hundred livres. Another fearful oppression was, a decree by which the Protestant ministers forfeited their churches, had their property confiscated, they themselves exiled, if they received any convert from Popery. Even in these troublous times, the Popish party dreaded the power and progress of the truth; and so, while they held out the most avaricious temp- tations to the Protestants to become Papists, they held out the most formidable prohibitions against the Papists becoming Protestants. Frequently nothing more was necessary than for an insidious Roman Catholic to mix himself up with a Protestant congregation, and say that he had been converted to it, in order to draw down upon the minister all the dread penalty of proselytism. We may sum up a few of the persecuting ordinances of this period, in an extract from Quick's Synodicon. In a few years they amounted to not less than thirty-four, all of them vexatious — many cruel in the extreme. *' The first of these orders which appeared, was touching the manner of burial and interring the dead. In those places where the exercise of our religion was actually established, the number of attendants was reduced to thirty persons, and to ten where it was not. *' Orders were also issued out to hinder the communica- tion of one province with another by circular letters, or any other way whatsoever; though it were about matters of alms and the distributions of charity. *' One decree forbiddelh the singing of psalms in their private houses, yea, and another to forbear singing in their temples, when as their consecrated host was carried by in procession. '* Other decrees banish out of France all foreign ministers OF FRANCE. 215 not born in the kingdom, though they had been ordained in France, and spent the greatest part of their lives in it. " Another decree hindereth rich cluirches from assisting the weaker in maintaining of their ministers, and other ne- cessities. " Another forbiddeth Jews and Mahomedans to embrace the Reformed rehgion, and the ministers either to instruct or receive them into it. " Another forbiddeth consistories, on pretence of charity, to assist poor sick persons of their rehgion ; and ordaineth, that our sick shall be carried into the Popish hospitals, most strictly forbidding all persons to entertain them in their houses. " Another subjecteth sick and dying persons to the neces- sity of receiving visits sometimes from judges, commission- ers, churchwardens, sometimes of curates, monks, mission- aries, or other Popish ecclesiastics, thereby to induce them to change their religion, or to require of them an express de- claration concerning it. " Another doth enjoin all physicians, apothecaries, and chirurgeons, to notify unto curates and magistrates the condi- tion of sick Protestants, that so those dying persons may be visited by them.'' Dreadful as this catalogue is, I must add to it. It is due to the memory of the suffering saints of God to show how much they endured. It is useful, also, to know well the horrible atrocities of Popery, and the relentless hostility of the unrenewed mind to evangelical religion. One wonders at the ingenuity which is discovered in framing modes of an- noyance and persecution. The whole talent of the mind — and that of the French is not small — seems to have been turned into the channel of cruelty — one is reminded of more than mortal, of Satanic agency. Oh, how different the re- sult, had men been as ingenious, as laborious in benevolence, as in spreading pain. Louis was indeed engaged in an enter- prise, in which all monarchs, even the most powerful, had hitherto failed. The attempt to extirpate true religion, not in the bud, but after it had acquired considerable strength, and was professed by the intelligent, the learned, the weal- thy of the middle classes, of a comparatively civilized nation, was almost unprecedented — more arduous than any external war. It was necessary that the instruments of fraud and force should correspond. After all, the success, though wonderful, was far from complete. I am writing now of the 216 PROTESTANT CHURCH five or six years which immediately preceded the Revocation. In 1679, the Courts of Toulouse, Bordeaux, and Grenoble, before which civil and criminal charges affecting the Protes- tants had been tried, were abolished, because the parties were so quiet and regular, that no cases had been tried for many years. The very correctness of the reformed, with perverse ingenuity, was employed as a reason why their protection should be withdrawn, and their causes handed over to the courts of their enemies. To encourage Popish conversions, in other words, apostasies, from a Protestant ■Ciuu'ch, the apostates were declared free from the liability of (prosecution for debt for several years, of any Protestant /creditor. The intermarriage of Protestants and Roman Ca- ■ tholics was forbidden. There was no great harm in this ; ; and it would have been well had it been always and univer- ; sally attended to ; but it was meant as an engine of oppres- : sion — and the next step was horrible. It was neither more nor less than constituting Protestant children, at the age of seven years, capable of saying whether they would remain in the religion of their fathers, or join the pompous religion of the Church of Rome. The children of every Protestant family were thus exposed to the thousand briberies of nurses and false friends, and the parents harassed with perpetual anxieties the moment their children were out of their sight. Another device was, to forbid Protestant public worship where one Roman Catholic, or an apostate from the Re- formed, was present. This threw all Protestant congrega- tions into a panic. Many were afraid to assemble ; others scrutinized every person who entered. The next charge was, that being thus left alone, the Protestant pastors preach- ed sedition. To prevent this, a particular part of the church was devoted to Roman Catholic inspectors, who soon came in such crowds, and practised such indignities, as to disturb and defeat the ends of Divine worship altogether. Severe oppressions at home induced many to think of emigrating to a foreign shore. In 1682, there were not less than three thousand Protestant families who emigrated from a single quarter. The depopulation of the country, which they them- selves thus created, alarmed the Government. Departure from France was therefore made severely penal. In the case of a sailor or manufacturer, the punishment was confinement for life to the galley-boat. Down to 1683, the patience of the people was wonderful. Nothing could tempt them to any resistance or retaliation. The Christian virtue of meek- OF FRANCE. 217 ness, we may safely say, was carried to excess, and it pro- cured them no release. The Protestants, thinking at this time that they were oppressed the more, because tlie king, from their quietness, imagined that they were extinct, resolved to meet simultaneously all over the country, even in places of worship where they had been forbidden, and among the ruins of those which had been thrown down. In short, they wished to give some public manifestation of their existing numbers and strength, hoping that this might undeceive, and perhaps propitiate the Court. The sight must have been a very affecting one, hundreds and thousands assembled at once, often among the ruins of churches. But the Popish party were inexorable. The story of the numberless con- versions which had been made from the ranks of the Reform- ed might be a little damaged ; but the old reign of persecu- tion continued, or rather it became worse. A French army which was marching against Spain, was turned against the south of France — in the first instance, against Beam, which had once been a Protestant stronghold, and which still retained a share of its Protestant character. The dragonades, in other l words, the system of quartering dragoons on the suspected, y* a favourite mode of persecution in Scotland, was introduced j in 1685, and long continued. So exactly do the proceedings L in the two countries under this head correspond, that one would think Louvois, the French minister, and Claverhouse, the bloody Dundee of ScoUand, must have had some mutual understanding. An army might be said to be let loose on the southern provinces of France, and all punishments, however wanton and cruel, inflicted, short of immediate death. Amid such heavy oppressions, it may scarcely be worth while to notice the smaller enactments passed about this time, except as proving the attachment of the Reformed to their pastors, and their love of knowledge. No pastor is allowed to re- main in one charge longer than three years, and the Reform- ed are excluded from all trades connected with books and literature. Such were the violence of the persecution, and the slenderness of the form of abjuration of Protestantism which was required, that in a few provinces, not less than two hundred and forty thousand, it is said, conformed to Po- pery in a month. Of course, no one of the least intelligence would care for such conversions; they were merely nominal, and would be changed the moment the pressure of the suf- fering was removed. But the Church of Rome values such external conformity. Her religion is eminently an outward 218 PROTESTANT CHURCH or visible religion. If men will only acknowledge her au- thority, and place themselves within her external pale, they may believe and live as they please. She cares not for the state of the heart and conscience in the sight of God. It is the outward tie which gives her power over men, and that is the great object of her concern. Fearful as is the picture which I have already given of the persecution of the Protestant Church of France, and drawn from the most unexceptionable sources, I can understand the feeling which may prompt one to ask, without disparaging French authorities, whether I can appeal to the testimony of any intelligent and impartial native of Britain, in behalf of such facts as those which I have been detailing. The reader may wish to hear a countryman on the subject. Happily I can appeal to the testimony of a respectable nonconformist minister — the Rev. Thomas Cotton, who afterwards had a charge in London: he was an eye-witness. As tutor to a gentleman, he visited France in the latter days of Charles II., a few months before the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and therefore just at the time of which I have been writing. Wilson's History of Dissenting Churches is my authority for the following important statements, which admirably bear out the facts which have been collected from other quarters. The narrator says, that their situation was rendered very un- comfortable by the revocation of the edict, and the melan- choly account which they heard of the Protestants in distant parts of the country. Their travelling was often very dan- gerous and distressing. In the course of it they witnessed many dreadful scenes of persecution — as the breaking up of large congregations — the demolishing of churches — the si- lencing of ministers — the banishment of some — the imprison- ment of others — some pastors were made galley slaves — others put to a cruel death. They also saw numberless families utterly ruined, and the nearest relations rent asunder. They were present at Saumur, a seat of the Protestant min- istry, when the church was condemned, and orders were sent for its demolition. They relate that one zealous Papist was anxious for his daughter to take down the first stone, which she did. Dying shortly after, the Protestants natural- ly interpreted the event as a proof of the displeasure of the Great Head of the Church: but her father, on the contrary, considered it a call to an early reward for a meritorious ser- vice. The tearing down of the church was attended with the most dreadful outrages; even the graves of Protestants OP FRANCE. 219 were opened, and the bodies treated with indignity. On the British travellers interposing with the Governor, instead of being listened to they were ordered to assist the Roman Catholics in their violence, and were told that they would, in common with their country, be soon obliged to become Roman Catholic, for Charles was dying, and his successor (James II.) was of their communion. The Papists spoke of the death of the British king with great confidence five days before it took place — showing how profound was the interest which the French nation were taking in the prospects of Po- pery in Britain, and how entirely they sympathized with the Popish James. Mr. Cotton describes the last act of public worship in the church at Saumur — the church in which the great Robert Boyd ministered. He says, that the congrega- tion all in tears — the singing the last psalm — the pronounc- ing the blessing — the people passing before their ministers to receive the benediction^ — were attended with a solemnity which words could not describe. He accompanied the exiled ministers and university professors to the vessel, and took leave of them in circumstances of great danger. He wit- nessed similar proceedings at Poictiers, and speaks of the vast numbers that appeared at the last public exercise, and the great difficulty with which the ministers pronounced a blessing, when they all burst forth into a flood of tears. On going to his inn, he was much struck with the following cir- cumstance : — An old gentleman of considerable family and large estate, coming into the house, stood leaning on his staff; and whilst weeping and shaking his head, exclaimed, "Unhappy France! If I and mine were now but entering some country of refuge, where we might worship God ac- cording to our conscience, I should think myself the hap- piest man in the world, though 1 had only this staflf in my hand!" Mr. Cotton was also present at the breaking up of the great church at Charenton. He states, that the sight of the vast assembly there convened was most transporting, and that the thought of such numbers being devoted to banish- ment, slavery, and the most barbarous deaths, some cf which he witnessed, was more than he could bear. Many things, he adds, were extremely afllecting to him, in the faith, courage, and devotion of the sufferers, particularly of some of little note, from whom little was expected, but who stood out boldly, and suffered the loss of all, whilst others of eminence failed in the day of trial. He speaks also of the remarkable deliverances which God wrought for some who 220 PROTESTANT CHURCH were doomed to death, and of the humanity of some of the Roman Catholics, who were shocked with the prevailing severities. On reaching Lyons, the travellers heard such afflictive tidings of tlie persecution, and became so alarmed for their own safety, that they were glad to leave France as expeditiously as possible for Geneva, where they met with sad tidings of the persecution of the Vaudois. There can be no doubt, then, that the sufferings of the French Protes- tants, previous to the recall of the edict of Nantes, were deep and comprehensive indeed. Wodrow, the excellent historian of the sufferings of the Church of Scotland at the same period, was struck with the exactness of the bloody parallel in the history of the two Churches, and expresses himself in the strongest language. "Whether," says he, "that grand oppressor of Protestants (Louis XIV.) copied from the management of Britain during this reign, or if rather the procedure of the two royal brothers among us, was in concert with him, and paved the way to his beloved project of rooting out the northern heresy, T leave others to determine. A large parallel might be drawn between the noble confessors in France, and the persecuted party in Scotland — betwixt the laws made against the Re- formed there, and those against Presbyterians here, and the vigorous execution of both ; but these would take up too much time and room." At a later period in the history, the same faithful and truly Christian chronicler bears testimony to the character of the Church of France. He speaks of "the most ungrateful and utter razing of that once glorious and numerous Protestant Church, and of the bloody dragoon- ing conversion which followed;" and of the importance of awakening the sympathies of Scottish Christians " with the the noble confessors of our sister Church yet remaining, after so long and black a night as they have been under; and to quicken any who have interest at the throne of grace, to re- double iheir ardent supplications for them, and that the Lord may cherish the essays and struggles which good numbers there at this time (1722) seem to be making to wrestle from under the yoke of Rome and Popery." He then recurs to the parallel in suffering between the Churches of France and Scotland — remarking, that " the French king never ventured upon revoking the famous edict of Nantes, whereof Britain is the undoubted guarantee, till once our throne was filled with a bigoted Papist (.Tames IL,) his own creature, &c. 'Jlien was the proper juncture to fall upon the Reformed in OP FRANCE. 221 France, and this was not delayed unnecessarily one mo- ment." "I have observed," says he, "with surprise, a considerable agreement between a collection of edicts, arrests, and acts against the Reformed in France, from the year 1660 to the year 1683, and the Acts of Council and Parliament in Scotland — the steps taken, the penalties, and the very phrases in both, do very much agree; and, generally speaking, the French king hath the honour of precedency in this severe and antichristian work. Whether our people copied after him, I cannot say; but the harmony is such, one is almost forced to suspect it." Though I have already referred generally to the repeated and earnest petitions and remonstrances which were pre- sented to the king by the poor persecuted Protestants, yet the reader may wish to see a specimen of such documents in a complete form. I transcribe two — the first presented by the Duke of Schomberg. Taken together, they strikingly show at once the dreadful persecution which was endured, and the fine spirit of piety, and meekness, and loyalty with which it was borne. It is plain, that only enlightened, evan- gelical religion could have prepared the way for and dictated such petitions as the following. They breathe the pure Gos- pel of Christ: — " Petition presented bv Marischal Schomberg for the French Protestants. " Sir, — We, your subjects of that religion (which we call the Reformed,) do, with most profound reverence, cast our- selves at the feet of your Majesty, that so we may represent the many aggrievances which have becii passed upon us, one after another, and may most humbly beg some efiectual resentment of the same, from your justice and goodness. " The edicts of the kings, your predecessors, and particu- larly those of Henry the Great, and Louis the First, which your Majesty most authentically confirmed at your happy inauguration; and since, by divers and sundry declarations, have always had regard to those of the said religion, which consists of a considerable part of those people which God has committed to your charge ; and as such, they have not only been permitted to exercise their employments, and arts, and trades, whereby they gain their livelihood, but also have been promoted to places of trust and honour, as effects of their merit and virtue; they have also enjoyed a liberty of 222 PROTESTANT CHURCH conscience, by a free exercise of their religion and discipline in all places privileged by the aforesaid edicts, and commis- sioners also have been appointed to take care that there should be no infringements or violations thereof. " There have been also courts of justice, consisting of men of both religions, that at all times the Protestant might be assured of impartial justice, both as to their persons and estate. And the gentlemen, particularly, had right to place in their lie-farms, those of one or the other religion, without any difference. In short, your petitioners enjoyed almost the same freedom and advantages, as the other subjects of your Majesty. " It is true, Sir, that these are the concessions of the kings, your predecessors, and of your present Majesty, and have been established with such circumstances as the edicts themselves call a perpetual and irrevocable law, designed purposely to keep your subjects, both of the one and the other religion, in perfect amity. And your petitioners can confidently aver, that they so demeaned themselves under this law and privileges, as never to have rendered themselves unworthy thereof; but, on the contrary, have gained this advantage, that your Majesty hath made many solemn and gracious declarations, testifying the entire satisfaction that your Majesty had conceived of the zeal and loyalty of your petitioners, in times of most hazard and difficulty. And now, Sir, we need not to search the histories of many years to de- monstrate the difference of our present condition from those times; for it is now but a few years since your petitioners have not only been made incapable of being admitted into public offices, but discharged of those in which they were invested, and in which they have always served with honour and fidelity. For, contrary to the true intents and words of this edict, they have taken from your petitioners the privi- lege of equal admission with others into the commission of consulates and the municipal officers of towns, even in those very corporations wherein your petitioners are the greatest in the administration of the civil government and management of that money which is levied upon them. "They have not now in many places any admittance to the meanest office in the public, nor are they licensed to ex- ercise those arts and trades whereby they gain their whole livelihood and subsistence. " They can reckon up at least three hundred Protestant Churches, which in the space of ten years have been demol- OF FRANCE. 223 ished, notwithstanding that some of theni have been express- ly named in the edict of Nantes, and others comprehended within the limits and sense thereof. " The Commissioners, which are always ready to receive process against your petitioners, yet stop their ears to their complaints, and if they do take notice of them, it is with a corrupt and partial sentence; and oftentimes the Catholic Commissioners pronounce judgment against your petition- ers without the intervention and assent of those of their reli- gion. " Those who have changed from the Protestant to the Catholic religion, not finding that quietness of conscience which they expected therein, so that they have returned again to their first persuasion, have been exposed to the most rig- orous penances, under the term of relapse, and the ministers and consistories have been liable to be suppressed. " If any of the Catholics become Protestants, they pre- sently persecute those to whom they applied themselves for clearing their doubts, or declaring their belief, pretending that thereby they come within the compass of that crime which is called insubordination. " The chambers of this edict are not only incorporated with the Parliaments, against the express sense of the edicts, but are extinguished wholly and suppressed. " 'J'he children of your petitioners, though born in their religion, are often taken from them before they have attained to that age which the edicts allow them, before they are ob- liged to declare the religion on which they resolve to profess. And if hereupon they address themselves to your Commis- sioners, advising them to put in execution the edict, they either refuse to take cognizance thereof, or else elude it in that manner, that for several years together they take not the least notice of their complaints ; nor have the ordinary judges any regard thereunto. " They will not suffer the Protestants to entertain more than one schoolmaster in the town where they live; and though the children amount to two or three thousand in num- ber, yet they will not allow them more than one master for them all. " Your petitioners have been much surprised by a declara- tion issued out for changing the form and tenor of their Sy- nods, by placing certain Catholic Commissioners for assis- tants therein — which being entirely contrary to the meaning and substance of those edicts and declarations of Louis XIII., 224 PROTESTANT CHURCH set out in the year 1623, and to the custom always observed^ hath no other foundations than those pretences which reflect on the honour of your petitioners, and that fidelity which they have ever possessed towards the service of your Ma- jesty. " The bishops, under colour of their visitations, and by virtue of an order of arrest from your Privy Council, have pretended to suspend the exercises of the religion of your petitioners for several weeks. *' The clergy which have entered the Protestant churches, to hear sermons which are there preached, do object unto the ministers matters which they never uttered, or take advan- tage of certain terms which cannot be avoided in controversy, to form a criminal process against them before a judge, who is prepossessed with a prejudice against them; and in the meantime the clergy do not cease to justify themselves against the petitioners, by such courses as are expressly for- bidden by the aforesaid edicts. *' The justices of several places to whom matters relating to the edicts did never appertain, do now undertake, by un- known methods of procedure, to interdict or suspend the ministers of whole provinces. " In fine, so far are they proceeded, as to make a declara- tion forbidding Protestant women to make use of other chi- rurgeons or midwives, than those which are Catholics, that so their children may be dipped in water by them in case of necessity — which, as it is directly opposite to the sense of the edicts, so it is also to the principles of that religion which your petitioners profess; for their consciences will never allow them to consent hereunto, because that, as on one side, they cannot believe that baptism is of an absolute and indispensa- ble necessity, where death prevents the due care and caution we use to obtain it ; so, on the other side, your petitioners have that just reverence to so great a sacrament, as not to commit the same to the administration of lay persons, nor believe that such dipping or sprinkling with water can ever supply the place of baptism. '* 'J'hese proceedings, Sir, and many more of them very considerable, are more easily mentioned in general, than to be troublesome to your Majesty in a recital of the particulars, which are either notoriously known to the world, or to be justified and made good by attestations which your petition- ers have in their hands, together with judgments, arrests, and declarations. All the world, which observes the low OF FRANCE. 225 condition unto Avhich your petitioners are reduced, begin to consider them as persons exposed to the mahce and persecu- tion of those who desire their total destruction. " Nothing more can be added to the general consternation of those who profess the Protestant religion in all parts of the kingdom ; so that many for fear, or for necessity, have been forced to abandon their dwellings, and seek their repose in the dominions of strangers. Such as remain here are de- tained by the love they bear to their native country, or by some difficulty they find in the disposal of their estates, though the greatest number are obliged with an affection to your Majesty and your government. In all these aggriev- ances, Sir, your petitioners have no other defence and pro- tection, under God, than the justice and clemency of your Majesty, by which they have formerly had access to your sa- cred person, which have ever lent a gentle ear to the just complaints of your petitioners, having nominated Commis- sioners of your Council particularly to examine their cause, and make report thereof to your Majesty. But the great wars which your Majesty hath lately maintained, have diverted this care to greater thoughts, whereby the evils and oppres- sions of your petitioners have been multiplied and increased. " And now. Sir, since your Majesty enjoys the triumph of those glorious successes with which God hath favoured your designs, and that your people expect likewise to share some part of the fruit of their labours, your petitioners hope, through the justice and gracious goodness of your Majesty, that no distinction shall be made between your petitioners and your other subjects, lest, while some are in joy and at rest, the others should mourn and groan under oppressions. " For which reason. Sir, and because your petitioners have ever entertained the same zeal and fidelity to your service, may it please your majesty to make known to the lords of your Council, Presidents, and Attorney-Generals of Parlia- ments, to Superintendents and Commissioners executing the law, that your royal rule and pleasure is, that the edicts be observed and executed ; and particularly to encharge such Commissioners as are already named by your Majesty, or shall be hereafter named, that they examine the memorial and papers of justification which your petitioners shall pro- duce, and to inform your Majesty thereof; and especially to the Secretaries of State, that a due report may be made thereof, and of those aggrievances and burdens which are most pressing, that so your Majesty, being truly made sensi- 15 226 PROTESTANT CHURCH ble thereof, may act therein according to your gracious plea- sure. And your petitioners shall continue their vows and prayers for the glory of your Majesty, and the prosperity of your sacred person and kingdom." *' Petition of French Protestants, July 1683. " To the King. " Sir — Your most humble subjects of the Protestant reli- gion, not having power to resist the motions of their con- sciences, are constrained to assemble together, to call upon the holy name of God, and sing his praises; and by this religious acting they expose themselves to all the violence and rigour which a too fierce zeal can infuse into the breasts of your officers. And because God hath established your Majesty for their Monarch, they are obliged to justify their proceed- ings and behaviour before your Majesty, with all the humi- lity they are capable of. " These assemblies. Sir, do no way hurt or wound that fidelity which your petitioners owe your Majesty ; they are all accorded to sacrifice their fortunes and their lives for your service. The very same religion which constrains them to assemble together to celebrate the glory of God, teaches them that they can never dispense, under any pre- tence whatever, with that allegiance which is due to your Majesty. Nor has your Majesty any need to publish your declarations to enforce them to embrace a maxim so certain and so well grounded upon Christianity. It remains, then, Sir, that your petitioners insist upon nothing but what is only due to God; for as to what concerns your Majesty, their past behaviour gives testimony of the reality and purity of their intentions, and may serve as a security to your Ma- jesty for the future; and in a word, your petitioners are all ready with their blood to sign the oath of their allegiance. As to what concerns their duty towards God, your Majesty hath so much piety to take it not amiss, that they render to that great God that worship and adoration which they ow^e him. They also presume to hope that your Majesty will have the goodness to reflect upon their behaviour, that you will compassionate the desolations to which their piety ex- poses them; and that perhaps you will extend your indigna- tion against those who have by surprise obtained so many se- vere decrees and declarations against them, and yet would further provoke your wrath against subjects so faithful and so innocent. OF FRANCE. 227 " Your supplicants, Sir, are persuaded that God has not ijent them into this world, but to glorify him ; and they will rather choose to lose their lives a thousand times, than fail of their duty so holy and indispensable. " It is in your Majesty's power to deprive them of all the advantages of this world, and also to doom to utter destruc- tion. *' They are ready to sacrifice all, to suffer all miseries, at your Majesty's pleasure. But it may be, when your Majesty shall consider, that your petitioners do not give way to the most faithful of all your subjects (which all the world con- fesses) in their duties to God, your Majesty will not do that injury to His glory and to His goodness, as to destroy a people for no other reason meriting your indignation. " The miseries of your petitioners, Sir, only arise from the reverence they have for the Divinity, whose Word they look upon as the only rule for their religious worship. " Were the dispute alone concerning our opposing men for the service of your Majesty, though all the world should rebel against your Majesty's will — though all your subjects should fail of their fidelity and obedience — your petitioners would inviolably stand by their august Monarch, and with pleasure spend the last drop of blood in his service. "But their unhappiness is so great, that the declarations put forth against them (to the prejudice of so many edicts and decrees made by your Majesty, and the kings your pre- decessors) appear to them incompatible with the commands of the great Creator of heaven and earth. " For God hath ordained them to instruct their children and their families, and to declare unto them the Word of Life. He also pronounces his dreadful anathema against them who shut the gales of heaven against those to whom he freely opens them. He commands them to offer to Him hymns and spiritual songs. Nevertheless, Sir, those declarations that have been surreptitiously obtained against us, forbid us to sing the Psalms of David, which do contain the praises of God. " In short, Sir, it is the pleasure of God that we should assemble together in his name, to render him the solemn adoration and honour which is due to him. Nevertheless, Sir, those declarations which your petitioners' enemies have obtained against us by repealed surprises, forbid them to as- semble together to render to that great God the service which is due to him. 228 PROTESTANT CHURCH " During this inability of your petitioners to reconcile the will of God to what is exacted from them, they find them- selves constrained by their consciences to expose themselves to all sorts of calamities, for the continuance of giving glory to the majesty of God, who will be served according to his Word. " If the doctrine of your petitioners were abominable, if their xvorship w^ere scandalous, if they preferred the creature in place of the Creator, there might be some reason to solicit your Majesty to refuse them protection. But all their crime and all the difTerence between theirs and the Catholic religion consists in this — " That they prefer the Word of God before the traditions of men, and the true worship of that great God (who pro- tests to be jealous of his honour, and that he will not yield to any other) before the religious worship of the creature. *' x4.ll religion. Sir, to speak properly, consists only in be- lief, in prayers, and in works ; and your petitioners believe and hold the creed of the holy apostles, and the Lord's Prayer to be the model of those which they present to God; and the commandments of ibeir God are the rule and guidance of their conduct and conversation. They know, and have no need, according to St. Paul, of knov/ing any other but only Jesus Christ, and him crucified. They acknowledge God to be the only true God, and Him who sent Jesus Christ; for on this belief it is that our Lord hath founded life eternal. " Their enemies make strange interpretation of their opin- ions and their worship. However, Sir, your petitioners im- plore the mercy of God. They trust in the incomprehensible charily, and infinite merits of their adorable Saviour, whom they do embrace with a constant and lively faith. They have recourse, with all humility, to the healthful succour and grace of his Holy Spirit; and to this Trinity it is that they render their adoration and homage, invoking it after the same form that the Scripture hath prescribed in his Word. They meditate upon his wonders; they sing his praises; and they make it their continual study to live holily among themselves, justly toward their neighbour, obediently toward your Ma- jesty, and religiously towards God. " They therefore supplicate your Majesty to be the judge, whether your petitioners are unworthy of your paternal goodness, and the honour of your protection ; whether they merit to be thrown into the extremity of destruction, wherein OF FRANCE. 229 they are at present overwhelmed, sufficient enough to move the groans of the most insensible ; and lastly, Sir, whether it be possible that they should live without continuing to as- semble together, to render to God the service which they ow^e him. "After all this, your petitioners cannot but pray to the great God, who advances your throne above all thrones of the earth, to incline your Majesty's heart towards your sub- jects, whose innocency and allegiance is apparent to the eyes of thf whole world; and if these, your poor people, shall not yet be able to move the compassion of their august Mo- narch, for whom they shall always retain a sincere love and awful reverence, a singular veneration, and inviolable fidelity, they do protest before the face of that great God, for whose sake they are exposed to so much misery, that they will render him honour and glory in the midst of their most ter- rible calamities. " But, Sir, your petitioners hope much better things from the natural equity, goodness, and piety of your Majesty; for which reason they prostrate themselves at your royal feet, and most humbly implore your Majesty to recall all the de- clarations, decrees, and other judgments which have reduced them to that deplorable condition wherein they are, and de- prive them not of the liberty of their consciences and exer- cise of their religion, by virtue of so many edicts, confirmed by so many declarations granted them by your Majesty; without which it is impossible for them to live. " And your petitioners shall continue to pray for the preservation of your Majesty's sacred person, your royal family, and the honour and prosperity of your kingdom." REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES. As the direful day of the public and proclaimed revocation of the edict drew near, steps of oppression became, if pos- sible, more active. Romish missionaries, like Maynooth priests, full of fire and fury, were sent forth over the country to stir up the populace against the Protestants; and for a higher class, books were published, full of calumnies and lies, fabricated for the same end. Some of the authors re- ceived twenty thousand livres from the king as a reward for their services in this way. " For a long time," says Quick, •* we have seen in Paris and elsewhere, nothing but such 230 PROTESTANT CHURCH sort of writings — to such a height was passion come." The ruin of the Protestant academies and colleges was reserved till towards the last; but come it did, and it was complete when it appeared. Sedan, though specially protected by edict, led the way. " They had been very fruitful nurseries of many excellent scholars — furnished the churches with some thousands of able, godly, and painful ministers. This was the great eye- sore of the Jesuits, and cause enough for their bigoted dis- ciples at court to procure their ruin. The professors in these academies were men of most eminent learning and piety, ex- ceedingly studious, and laborious in their calling. They read four lectures every week publicly, besides the private col- leges they had in their own houses daily ; for a number of young students would combine together to prosecute one body of controversies, and the professor reads to them at home, and they draw up their theses, and dispute upon it. We have a world of these exercises in the foreign universi- ties. Their professors exercise their scliolars with public disputations, and strictly examine their proficiency once a quarter. Their stipends were but mean — never amounted to i£70 a year ; yet they were generally men, as of great parts, so of great reputation, and highly esteemed by their churches, synods, and the nobility." The universities were suppressed, the professors thrown into prison, detained there for a great part of a year, and then banished, with all the other ministers, in October, 1685 — that is, immediately before the edict was revoked. A most base part of the persecution throughout was the Jesuitry, and air of justice and kindness with which the whole was conducted. At the very time the strongest mea- sures were passing, yea, down to the very hour of the revo- cation, there were promises from the king and his parly that they meant no harm to the Protestants; that the edict was to remain unaltered; and many things were done — as the dis- countenancing of occasional violent proceedings — which lull- ed not a kw Protestants into the impression that their rights, though abridged, were not to be recalled. In the same spirit of attempted deception, not a few Popish writers, then and since, have contended, that there was no violence used against the Reformed Churcli of France at all, and that her members changed their religion of their own free choice! 'J'his has always been part of the sad policy of the Church of Rome, and has added not a httle to its cruelty. She has been full m OF FRANCE. 231 of deceit; but this is what we are taught from Scripture to expect. Antichrist is represented as having " the eyes of a man" — sagacity and cunning; to have the appearance of a lamb, while he acts the dragon, and to use " all deceivable- ness of unrighteousness." The Protestants complained to the king, but complained in vain. Deputy after deputy was sent from different provinces ; but their appeals were unheed- ed. Often their persons were harshly used ; they were for- bidden to come to court, or were immediately imprisoned. " The last petition presented to the king himself by the Lord Marquis of Bourigny, the general deputy, in 1684, was couched in the most submissive t°rms, that would have mov- ed and melted into pity the hardest heart; yet they got no- thing by it but the hastening of their ruin and destruction." And now the awful day looked forward to, and prepared for during twenty years, arrives. On Thursday, the 8th of Oc-i tober, 1685, the fatal revocation was signed, and the doom of the Protestant Chui-cK "sealed. The revocation consists of a preface and twelve articles : the preface, which is meant as an apology for the measure, is, as might have been ex- I >y:^ pected, full of notorious falsehoods. " By the first article* the king suppresses and repeals the protective edicts in all their extent; and ordains that all the temples which are yet f^p found standing in his kingdom shall be immediately demol- '"^^ ished. By the second, he forbids all sort of religious assem- blies of what kind soever. The third prohibits the exercises of religion to all lords and gentlemen of quality, under cor- poral penalties, and confiscation of their estates. The fourth banishes from the kingdom all the ministers, and enjoins them to depart thence, within fifteen days after the publica- tion of this edict, under the penalty of being sent to the gal- leys. In the fifth and sixth, he promises recompenses and advantages to the ministers and their widows w^ho shall change their religion; and ordains, ' That those who shall be born henceforward shall be baptized and brought up in the Catholic religion; enjoining parents to send them to the churches, under the penalty of being fined five hundred livres. The ninth gives four month's time to such persons as have departed already out of the kingdom, to return, other- wise their goods and estates to be confiscated. Tiie tenth, with repeated prohibitions, forbids all his subjects of the said religion to depart out of his realm, they, their wives, and children, or to convey away their effects, under pain of the galleys for the men, and of confiscation of money and 232 PROTESTANT CHURCH goods for the women. The eleventh confirms the declara- tions heretofore made against those that relapse. The twelfth declares, that as to the rest of his subjects of the said reli- gion, they may, till God enlightens them, remain in the cities of his kingdom, countries, and lands of his obedience, there continue their commerce, and enjoy their estates, with- out trouble or molestation upon pretence of the said religion, on condition that they have no assemblies under pretext of praying, or exercising any religious worship whatever." Such cruel enactments as these could not be carried into effect without much suffering and violence. Accordingly, the most atrocious force was called into operation, and cruel- ties inflicted, which have seldom been surpassed in any pe- riod of the history of the world. This was the more dis- graceful, that France was, at this time, a leading power in Europe, and boasted of an almost Augustan literature. But let civilization be what it may, the character of Popery is, and must always be, substantially the same. liiterature is no match for it, as a counteractive. I have hesitated whether I should shock the reader with the following awful summary. But, as many are ignorant of the martyrdom to which the Church of France submitted, and to the value of Protestant privileges, and as the true character of Popery can be known only from its uniform operation, where unrestrained, so I have resolved to run the risk of wounding at once the hu- manity and modesty of many of my readers. Sad is it to think that, while such horrors were transacting in France, our own Scotland was a fellow-sufferer to a great extent, and that from the same Popish or semi-Popish principles. First of all, dragoons were sent forth and quartered upon the Pro- testants, and encouraged to plunder them of all that was val- uable, in order to compel them to become Roman Catholics. "Afterwards," says Quick, 'Mhey fell upon the persons of the Protestants, and there was no wickedness, though ever so horrid, which they did not put in practice, that they might enforce them to change their religion. Amidst a thou- sand hideous cries and blasphemies, they hung up men and women by the hair or feet upon the roofs of the chambers, or hooks of chimneys, and smoked them with wisps of wet hay till they were no longer able to bear it; and when they had taken them down, if they would not sign an abjuration of their pretended heresies, they then trussed them up again immediately. Some they threw into great fires, kindled on purpose, and would not take them out till they were half OF FRAJVCE. 233 roasted. They tied ropes under their arms, and plunged them to and again into deep wells, from whence they would not draw them till they had promised to change their religion. They bound them as criminals are when they are put to the rack, and in that posture, putting a funnel into their mouths, they poured wine down their throats till its fumes had de- prived them of their reason, and they had in that condition made them consent to become Catholics. Some they strip- ped stark naked, and after they had offered them a thousand indignities, they stuck them with pins from head to foot; they cut them with penknives, tore them by the noses with red-hot pincers, and dragged them about the rooms till they promised to become Roman Catholics, or that the doleful cries of these poor tormented creatures, calling upon God for mercy, constrained them to let them go. They beat them with staves, and dragged them all bruised to the Po- pish churches, where their enforced presence is reputed for an abjuration. They kept them waking seven or eight days together, relieving one another by turns, that they might not get a wink of sleep or rest. In case they began to nod, they throw buckets of water in their faces, or holding kettles over their heads, they, beat on them with such a continual noise, that those poor wretches lost their senses. If they found any sick, who kept their beds, men or women, be it of fevers or other diseases, they were so cruel as to beat up an alarm with twelve drums about their beds for a whole week together, without intermission, till they had promised to change. In some places they tied fathers and husbands to the bedposts, and ravished their wives and daughters before their eyes. And in another place rapes were publicly and generally per- mitted for many hours together. From others they pluck off the nails of their hands and toes, which must needs cause an intolerable pain. They burnt the feet of others. They blew up men and women with bellows, till they were ready to burst in pieces. If these horrid usages could not prevail upon them to violate their consciences and abandon their re- ligion, they did then imprison them in close and noisome dungeons, in which they exercised all kind of inhumanities upon them. They demolish their houses, desolate their hereditary lands, cut down their woods, seize upon their wives and children, and mew them up in monasteries. When the soldiers had devoured all the goods of a house, then the farmers and tenants of these poor persecuted wretches must 234 PROTESTANT CHURCH supply them with new fuels for their lusts, and bring in more substance to them ; and that they might be reimbursed, they did, by authority of justice, sell unto them the fee-simple estate of their landlords, and put them into possession of it. If any, to secure their consciences, and to escape the tyranny of those enraged cannibals, endeavoured to flee away, they Avere pursued and hunted in the fields and woods, and shot at as so many wild beasts. The provosts and their archers course it up and down the highways after these poor fugi- tives ; and magistrates in all places have strict orders to stop and detain them without exception; and being taken, they are brought back, like prisoners of war, unto those places from whence they fled." At the hazard of wearying the reader with details of Po- pish cruelty, I must add some information to that already communicated. Laval, in one of the volumes of his pro- tracted history of the Reformed Church of France, has an appendix extending to one hundred pages, in M'hich he des- cribes the seven different ways in which Louis endeavoured " to force the Reformed in his dominions to renounce their religion: — by the dragonade — the prisons — the galleys — transportation — divers kind of death — and the dragging of the corpses after death." The French are an ingenious people. They seem to have been ingenious in cruelty. Almost every day they had a new invention — inventions which transcend- ed all that were known to the most tyrannical heathen op- pressors. What Moses said of the Romans, as God's ap- pointed messengers of judgment against the perverse and rebellious Jews, might be transferred with all propriety to the French dragoons: — They were "swift as the eagle flieth — a nation of fierce countenance, who shall not regard the honour of the old, nor show favour to the young — who shall eat the fruit of thy catUe, and the fruit of thy land, until thou be des- troyed— who also shall not leave thee either corn, wine, or oil, or the increases of thy kine, or flocks of thy sheep, until they have destroyed thee." The soldiers seemed to receive general orders to weary and torment, as well as impoverish. They prevented their victims, by perpetual noise, from sleeping — burnt their limbs before tiie fire — violated female modesty — tortured mothers with unavailing and unrelieved cries of their children, till not a few females died from mental agony. When even the soldiers grew tired of their horrible oppressions, and were disposed to relax, the Popish priest OF FRANCE. 235 Stirred them up anew, and took pains to excite near relations to bear a part in the persecution — a plain proof that it was religious — not political. If men were released from the dragonade, it was generally- only to be plunged into the dungeon; and if the philanthropy of Howard made such awful disclosures of the state of the prisons of Europe in his day, where no particular suffering was intended, what must have been the wretchedness of such places of confinement a century earlier, where they were meant to be instruments of suffering, as well as detention. Unlike even the prisons of heathenism, in which the primitive Chris- tians were immured, those of Popish France permitted no sing- ing of psalms — no visits of pastors. The saints were shut up with lewd and blasphemous felons, whose society and language were worse than death — fed on the worst fare— subjected to a thousand indignities — continually removed from prison to prison, sometimes as many as eleven times in succession, that they might not by their meekness and patience soften their jailer, and so lighten their torment. Amid the places of confinement, there were some of such pre-eminent cruelty, such as the prison of Valance, under a fiend of the name of Heraphine — as to be altogether indescribable. The galleys, something like the British hulks for convicts, formed another mode of oppression. There, a vast body of Protestants, some of them, such as Marrolles and Le Febvre, of the highest station and talent, were confined — wretchedly fed 91 disgusting fare — and wrought in chains for many years. The prisoners often died under their sufferings. When they did not acquit themselves to the mind of their taskmasters, or disregarded any of their persecuting enact- ments, they were subjected to the lash. Fi^ty or sixty lashes were considered a severe enough punishment for the criminals of France — men who were notorious for every species of profligacy ; but nothing less than one hundred to one hundred and fifty would suffice for the meek and holy saints of God. They were considered a thousand times worse than the worst criminals. Transportation to foreign lands was a form of punishment which had been long disused, but the French Papists revived it. When navigation was very imperfect, multitudes were put on board vessels wliich were no more than sea-worthy, and committed to tempestuous seas. Sometimes aged wo- men of eighty years were included in the number. Of three thousand persons thus shipped to the West Indies in a few 236 PROTESTANT CHURCH vessels, but two hundred escaped shipwreck — it is to be fear- ed vohmtarily induced by their persecutors. As usual, they were forbidden, under sentence of death, to cheer their hearts by the singing of psahns. Such exercises seem to have been regarded as intolerable — very gall and wormwood — by their oppressors. . Death, which often would have been desired by the vic- tims as a relief, was occasionally inflicted as a punishment for non-conformiiy. Many individuals, from twelve and twenty-four, up to sixty and seventy years of age, were sepa- rately destroyed in the most dreadful forms. In a few years, we read of thirty in two southern provinces. And then there was slaughter upon a larger scale. Troops, at one stage of the persecution, received a general order to fire upon all assemblies of the Reformed for public worship. In this way, it is estimated that eight thousand persons, in the course of a few years, lost their lives. All of them might have been spared, had they only been willing to renounce the Protestant faith ; but they would not listen to apostasy. If possible, the most revolting species of punisiiment was the last, viz., the indignities offered to the dead. It seems scarce- ly credible, but it is true, that a nation boasting of refine- ment raised the dead from the tomb, and put the corpse through a mock trial, and sentenced it accordingly — hanging and mutilating the mortal remains of the faithful followers of the Lamb. Many, when they read of these barbarities, whether in France or Britain, are ready to conclude they were inflicted on a few poor, perverse, ignorant fanatics. This would be no apology for the cruelty, even were it well-founded. But it is not so. • In Scotland, many of the sufferers belonged to the first families in the country, and many more were well educated, superior men; and in France, noblemen and gen- tlemen of the first consideration, scholars, military ofi[icers, aged ladies of high families, were among the victims. In- deed, no respect was shown to station or sex. Directly and indirectly there was a great loss of human life. Multitudes of the old and young must have died from the effects of the persecution to which they were subjected. But persecution to the shedding of blood does not seem to have been the po- licy of the Church of Rome on this occasion. It had been tried in the bloody massacre of St. Bartholomew, a century before, and its success had not been such as to encourage a repetition. The general plan seems to have been to wear OF FRANCE. 237 out the saints of God with something short of actual blood- shed; and certainly this scheme, as the event proved, is less likely to provoke a reaction. Still, there was enough of the most brutal cruelty, as we have seen, reaching even unto death, to proclaim the old and established character of the Church of Rome. M. Homel, a venerable minister of sixty-five years of age, of unblameable life, for simply exhorting his brethren to preach the Gospel on the ruins of their churches, while they continued their allegiance to their earthly sove- reign in all civil matters, was broken on the wheel. Fifty or sixty Protestants, for taking up arms in self-defence, and breaking through a force of six thousand dragoons, were burnt alive. One would rather have thought that their va- lour should have drawn forth general admiration. Two cases of savage cruelty I subjoin: " Monsieur Bayley, minister of Carla, in the county of Foix, and who was, in June 1685, seized upon by the pro- vost of Montauban, and thrown into a dungeon in the Casde of Trumpet at Bordeaux, not one of his friends or relations being ever permitted to visit him, or to know the cause of his imprisonment, died the 12lh of November following, but with that constancy as became a martyr of Jesus Christ, praising and blessing God for his sufferings. These suffer- ings of his had been very great and exceedingly grievous. He lay a long while together sick, without any relief or assist- ance; yea, they were so barbarously cruel to him, as to deny him a cup of cold water to quench his burning thirst, his merciless guards treating him in his very malady with all manner of barbarities, that by those torments he might be enforced to apostatize from the truth; but this excellent man of God held steadfasdy to the last, and, by his faith and pa- tience, conquered the cruelties of his tormentors, and died triumphantly. He was a person of great worth and learn- ing, all which was communicated by him to the edification of his flock. His brother, one of the rarest scholars of this age, is that famous author of the Republiqiie des Lettres. "An eminent French minister gave the writer hereof this relation — that, January 23, 1685, a woman had her sucking child snatched from her breasts, and put into the next room, which was only parted by a few boards from hers. These devils incarnate would not let the poor mother come to her child, unless she would renounce her religion and become a Roman Catholic. Her child cries and she cries ; her bowels yearn upon the poor miserable infant; but the fear of God, 238 PROTESTANT CHURCH and of hell, and losing her soul, keep her from apostasy. However, she suffers a double martyrdom, one in her own person, the other in that of her sweet babe, who dies in her hearing with crying and famine before its poor mother/' It is worthy of record, that whatever policy may have dictated as to the way of extinguishing the Reformed in France, the miserable king was himself prepared for a second St. Bartholomew massacre. If we may credit the biographer of the profligate Jesuit, La Chaise, who was his counsellor, he had consented to this horrible step, and had signed the necessary orders for a certain day in 1684. But this having been whispered to the Prince of Conde, he hurried to the presence of the monarch, and by entreaty and remonstrance, prevailed on him to recall the bloody preparations. The spirit which the king and his advisers betrayed towards the poor Protestants would amply warrant us in crediting the statement. And what a view does this give us of the Court of France at the conclusion of the seventeenth century, and of the unchanged spirit of Popery through a hundred years. As I was able to refer to the testimony of a Briton, a non- conformist minister, to the sufferings of the Protestants of France immediately before the Revocation, I am happy to have it in my power to refer to the testimony of another countryman — a bishop of the Church of England, Dr. Bur- net— for a similar testimony to the state of things immediate- ly after that dread event. Writing from Zurich, in Septem- ber 1685, the month before the actual and formal Revocation, he says, " As I came, all the way from Paris to Lyons, I was amazed to see so much misery as appeared, not only in villages, but in big towns, where all the marks of an extreme poverty showed themselves both in the buildings, the clothes, arid almost in the looks of the inhabitants ; and a general dis- peopling in all the towns was a very visible effect of the hard- ships under which they lay." What these hardships were, though Burnet does not here state, we can be at no loss to know. The persecution of so large a body of the most active and enterprising inhabitants as the Protestants were, is the grand explanation. As a matter of mere political economy, no step could indicate greater madness. Eight months after the Revocation, the bishop, writing from Nimmegen, says, *' I have a strong inclination to say somewhat concerning the per- secution (viz. in France) which I saw in its rage and utmost fury, and of which I could give you many instances, that are so much beyond all the common measures of barbarity OF FRANCE. 239 and cruelty, that I confess they ought not to be believed unless I could give more positive proofs of them than are fitted now to be brought forth ; and the particulars that I co^kl tell you are such, that if I should relate them, with the necessary circumstances of time, place, and per- sons, these might be so fatal to many that are yet in the power of their enemies, that my regard to them restrains me. In short, I do not think that in any age there ever was such a violation of all that is sacred, either with relation to God or man. And what I saw and knew there from the first hand, hath so confirmed all the ideas that I had taken from books of the cruelty of that religion, that I hope the impression that this hath made upon me shall never end but with my life. The applauses that the whole clergy give to this way of pro- ceeding, the many panegyrics that are already writ upon it, of which, besides the more pompous ones which appear at Paris, there are numbers writ by smaller authors in every town of any note, there; and the sermons, that are all flights of flattery upon this subject, are such evident demonstrations of their sense of this matter, that what is now on foot may be well termed — the acts of the whole clergy of France, which yet hath hitherto been esteemed the most moderate part of the Roman communion. If any are more moderate than others, and have not so far laid off" the human nature as to go entirely into those bloody practices, yet they dare not own it, but whisper it in secret as if it were half treason ; but, for the greater part, they not only magnify all that is done, but they animate the dragoons even to higher degrees of rage ; and there was such a heat spread over all the coun- try on this occasion, that one could not go into an ordinary, or mix in any promiscuous conversation, without finding such eff'ects of it, that it w^as not easy for any one who were touched with the least degree of compassion for the miseries that the poor Protestants suffered, to be witness to the insult- ings that they must meet with in all places." Such is Bishop Burnet's testimony, as furnished in his Letters. Tliat re- corded in the History of his own Times is not less striking. He seem.s to be of opinion that the declarations in behalf of Popery, by the British king, at this time (James II.) had an important influence in hastening on the persecution in France. It was an assurance to the persecutor that he should not be disturbed in his deeds of plunder and violence. Had Britain remained Protestant in her government, France might have been afraid to venture on her Popish deeds : so important is \> 240 PROTESTANT CHURCH it that states should recognise, and, by all legitimate means, defend the truth of God. How great ihe contrast between Britain under Cromwell, redressing the wrongs of the per- secuted Protestants of Piedmont, and Britain under James II., by tame indilference, if not by active zeal, encouragin'g the persecution of their still nearer brethren, the Protestants of France! Various passages could be quoted from Burnet. We limit ourselves to the followhig, which seems the most important. After telling the reader how he had been led to r visit France, he says — "Men and women of all ages who would not yield, were not only stript of all they had, but kept long from sleep, drawn about from place to place, and ; hunted out of their retirements. The women were carried i into nunneries, in many of which they were almost starved, / whipped, and barbarously treated. Some few of the bishops and of the secular clergy, to make the matter easier to some, \ drew formularies, importing that they were resolved to re- j unite themselves to the Church, and that they renounced the \ error of Luther and Calvin. People in such extremities are easy to put a stretched sense on any words that may give them present relief. So it was said. What harm was it to promise to be united to the Catholic Church, and the renoun- cing of wliose eiTors did not renounce their good and sound doctrine? But it was very visible with what intent those sub- scriptions or promises were asked of them. So their com- pliance in that matter w^as a plain equivocation. But how weak and faulty soever they might be in this, it must be acknowledged here was one of the most violent persecutions that is to be found in history. In many respects it exceeded them all, both in the several inventions of cruelty, and in its long continuance. I went over a great part of France while it was in its hottest rage — from Marseilles to Montpellier, and from thence to Lyons, and so to Geneva. I saw and knew so many instances of their injustice and violence, that it exceeded even what could have been well imagined, for all men set their thoughts on work to invent new methods of cruehy. In all the towns through which I passed 1 heard the most dismal accounts of things possible; but chiefly at Valence, where one D'lierapine seemed even to exceed the furies of inquisitors. One in the streets could have known the new converts (the Protestants) as they were passing by them, by a cloudy dejection that appeared in tlieir looks and deportment. Such as edeavoured to make their escape, and were seized (for guards and secret agents were spread along OP FRANCE. 241 the whole roads and frontiers of France,) were, if men, con- demned to the galleys, and if women, to monasteries. To complete this cruelty, orders were given that such of the new converts as did not at their death receive the sacrament should be denied burial, and that their bodies should be left where other dead carcasses were cast out to be devoured by wolves and dogs. This was executed in several places with the utmost barbarity ; and it gave all people so much horror, that seeing the ill effect of it, it was let fall. This hurt none, but struck all that saw it even with more horror than those sufferings which were more felt. The fury that appeared on this occasion did spread itself with a sort of contagion; for the intendants and other officers that had been mild and gentle in the former periods of their life, seemed now to have laid aside the compassion of Christians, the breeding of gentlemen, and the common impressions of humanity. The greatest part of the clergy, the regulars especially, were so transported with the zeal that their king showed on this occasion, that their sermons were full of the most inflamed eloquence that they could invent— magnifying their king in strains too indecent and blasphemous to be mentioned by me."* Such is the dread picture of Popish cruelty inflicted on the Protestant Church of France; and what shall we say of it? The heart sickens at the contemplation. Human language cannot describe it. It is only the Spirit of God who can mark the terrible lineaments, and he does so when he speaks of "wearing out the saints of the Most High," and of Antichrist being "drunk with the blood of the saints," and of their blood crying from under the altar, "O Lord, holy and true, how loiig dost thou not judge and avenge our blood upon them that dwell on the earth;" and when he speaks of similar worthies as persons " who were stoned, were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheep skins and goat-skins; being destitute, afliicted, tormented (of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth." In some respects the persecution of the Protestant Church of France was more atrocious than that of any similar persecution. The author i of a rare and interesting pamphlet, published in London injjrfi 1686, justly says, — |{.^ »Vol. iii.,p. 1127. 16 242 PROTESTANT CHURCH "The Egyptians and Assyrians once persecuted the Israel- ites, but they forced them not to embrace the worship of their idols ; they contented themselves with making them slaves without doing violence to their consciences. The Heathens and the Jews persecuted the primitive Christians, forced their consciences indeed, but they had never granted them an edict, nor, by persecuting them, did violate the public faith, nor hindered them to make their escape by flight. The Arians cruelly persecuted the orthodox, but besides that, they went not so far as to make the common sort of people sign formal abjurations; there was no edict or concordat between the two communions. Innocent III., by his cru- sades, persecuted tlie Waldenses and Albigenses, but these people also had no edict. Emmanuel, king of Portugal, furiously persecuted the Jews, but he gave them leave to de- part out of his kingdom, and they had no edict. It was the same with those remains of the Moors who had settled them- selves in some cantons of the kingdom of Grenada — they were defeated in a war, and commanded to retire into the country from whence their ancestors came. In the last age the Duke of Alva exercised dreadful cruelties upon the Pro- testants of the Seventeen Provinces, but he did not hinder them from flying, nor violated any edict; and, at the worst, death was their release. The Inquisition is to this day in Spain and Italy, but they are countries in which no religion, besides the Roman, was ever permitted by edicts; and if the inquisitors may be accused of violence and cruelly, yet they cannot be convicted of perfidiousness." And yet the Pope, Innocent XL, the professed vicar of Christ upon earth, and jiead of the Christian Church, re- joiced in the plunder, exile, and blood of the poor French Protestants. He writes a special letter to Louis upon the occasion, which he requests him lo consider as a remarkable and lasting testimony to his merits; and concludes by say- ing, " The Catholic Church shall most assuredly record in her sacred annals a work of such devotion towards her, and celebrate your name with never-dying praises; but, above all, you may most assuredly promise to yourself an ample retribution from the Divine goodness for this most excellent undertaking, and may rest assured that we shall never cease to pour forth our most earnest prayers to that Divine good- ness for this intent and purpose." The king had not less than three medals struck with different devices, but all de- claring that the French Church was destroyed. In this, as OF FRANCE. 243 the event showed, he was mistaken. The circumstance, however, indicates the nature of his spirit. We have listened to the testimony of an eye and ear wit- ness, and that none less than the calm and learned Gilbert Burnet. There can be no question as to the extent and atro- city of the persecution. But the reader may wish to know somewhat of the Christian spirit with which it was borne. Though this might almost be taken for granted, yet I am happy in being able to appeal to the letters of M. Le Febvre, whose name has been already mentioned. He was arrested in 1686, was condemned to the galleys, and was confined fifteen years in a solitary dungeon, where he died in 1702. His life was written by a French pastor at the time. I avail myself of a new translation by the Rev. Mr. Pearson, of Tunbridge Wells, entitled " The Faith and Patience of the Saints," which I strongly recommend to the attention of the reader. Tlie spirit of the sufferer and his friends is emi- nently Christian, and shows how clear were the Gospel views from which they drew their hope. There can be little doubt that their temper was the prevailing one of the afiiict- ed Protestants. I make the following quotations respecting Le Febvre and a few fellow-snfierers. Le Febvre says — " Nothing can exceed the cruelty of the treatment I receive. The weaker I become, the more they endeavour to aggravate the miseries of the prison. For several weeks no one has been allowed to enter my dungeon; and if one spot could be found where the air was more in- fected than another, I was placed there. Yet the love of the truth prevails in my soul; for God, who knows my heart, and the purity of my motives, supports me by bis grace. He fights against me, but he also fights for me. My wea- pons are tears and prayers. My faith is weak, and I am a great sinner; but the God of all goodness, the refuge of the afflicted, the only hope of the wretched, who does not quench the smoking flax, nor break the bruised reed, will have pity upon me, and on the extreme weakness of my faith. He will not sufller me to be put to confusion, because I hope in his promise, that with the temptation, lie will make a way to escape. I will not let him go until he bless me." " Re- lapse has followed relapse," he tells us, " and I have been- at the point of death. The physician of the hospital has taken ^reat care of me; and he was astonished to find that I uttered no complaint nor murmur in the midst of pain. I have been unable to walk these two days, and my strength 244 PROTESTANT CHURCH is excessively wasted ; but you must not conclude that we are in so miserable a condition as the world naturally think, and that we are so much to be pitied; for the testimony of a good conscience is alone sufficient to make us happy; and having this, nothing can deprive us of our joy in the midst of sufferings and extreme pain; for the Divine Comforter, who cheers our hearts under every trial, comes to our relief, though sometimes he stands aloof, because we are of little faith; but God, who knows our sincerity, pities our weak- ness, preserves us, and holds us by the hand. Death, then, is not to us a king of terrors; for we are assured by Him who has loved us, that we shall obtain mercy and die the death of the righteous. What an advantage! What conso- lation! What solid happiness !" His description of the dun- geon is: — *' It is a vault of an irregular form, and was for- merly a stable; but being very damp, it was found injurious to horses. The rack and manger are here still. There is no way of admitting light but by an opening with a double grating, in the upper part of the door. Opposite the opening, there are iron bars fastened at their upper ends into the wall. The place is very dark and damp. 'I'he air is noisome, and has a bad smell. Every thing rots and becomes mouldy. The wells and cisterns are above me. I have never seen a fire here, except the tlame of the candle." " You will feel for me in this misery," said he to a dear relative, to whom he was describing his sad condition : ''but think of the eter- nal weight of glory which will follow. Death is nothing. Christ has vanquished the foe for me; and when the fit time shall arrive, the Lord will give me strength to tear off the mask which that last enemy wears in great afflictions. ' Ma- jor est metus vitae, quam mortis.' The fear of living long is greater than that of dying soon ; yet it is more expedient to endure life than to desire death." " Far be it from me to murmur. J pray without ceasing, that he would show pity, not only to those who suffer, but also to those who are the cause of our sufferings. He who commanded us to love our enemies, produces in our hearts the love he has commanded. The world has long regarded us as tottering w^alls; but they do not see the Almighty hand by which we are upheld." Regarding MaroUes, a man of science, we have the fol- lowing notices: — " Mons. de Marolles would say to his friend, ' You express my opinion, my dear brother, when you say that we alone shall be the persons whom the king will not allow to feel the effects of his clemency. We are OP FRANCE. 245 brought upon the stage in order to strike terror into the whole kingdom; and upon us must fall that vengeance which the king denounces upon those who do not acquiesce and sub- mit to his command. But if we have had the misfortune to disobey our great monarch, let this be our comfort, that we did so from the indispensable necessity to which we were reduced. We have preferred the obedience which we owe to the divine, to that which we owe to human majesty. This is the laudable crime for which we suffer. Let us fix our eyes upon the glorious recompense which God reserves for us in heaven, for that very crime which the god of this world will never forgive us. Let us wait the Avill of the Lord, and be ever faithful to him.' " " When I was taken out of the galley and brought hither, I found the change very agreeable at first. My ears were no longer offended with the horrid and blasphemous sounds with which those places continually echo. I had liberty to sing the praises of God at all times, and could prostrate myself before him as often as I pleased. Besides, I was released from that uneasy chain, which was far more troublesome to me than the one of thirty pounds weight which you saw me wear. But the Lord, who was pleased to make me experience his succour in a surprising manner, suffered me to fall into a terrible trial. The solitude and perpetual darkness in which I spent my days, presented my narrow mind with such frightful and terrifying ideas, that they made a very fatal impression upon me. My imagination was filled with a thousand false and vain things, which frequently carried it away into delirium and idle phantoms, which lasted sometimes two whole hours. My prayers were no remedy against this calamity. God was pleased to continue it several months, and I was plunged into a profound abyss of affliction ; for, when I considered this melancholy condition, in connection with my want of sleep, I concluded that I was fast proceeding to a state of in- sanity, and that 1 should never escape falling into it. I in- cessantly implored the help of my God. I begged that he would never suffer my enemies to triumph over me, nor let my sufferings end in so sorrowful a manner. At length, after many prayers, sighs, and tears, the God of my deliverance heard my petitions, commanded a perfect calm, and dissi- pated all those illusions which had so troubled my soul. After the Lord has delivered me out of so sore a trial, never have any doubt, my dear wife, that he will deliver me out of all others. Do not therefore, disquiet yourself any more 246 PROTESTANT CHURCH about me. Hope always in the goodness of God, and your hope shall not be in vain. I ought not, in my opinion, to pass by unnoticed a considerable circumstance which tends to the glory of God. The duration of so great a temptation was, in my opinion, the proper time for the Old Serpent to endeavour to cast me into rebellion and infidelity ; but God always kept him in so profound a silence, that he never once offered to infest me with any of his pernicious counsels; and I never felt the least inclination to revolt. Ever since those sorrowful days, God has continually filled my heart with joy. I possess my soul in patience. He makes the days of my affliction speedily pass away. I have no sooner begun them than I find myself at the end. With the bread and water of affliction, he affords me continually most deli- cious repasts." This was his last letter. He resigned his spirit into the hands of his Father on the 17th June, 1692. Respecting another sufferer, Pierre Mauru, we give the subjoined extracts: "You ask me to tell you how many blows of the cudgel and the hoop I have received, but that IS out of my power. Sometimes I have had forty or more at a time; and these have been repeated eight or ten days in succession. I have seldom had less than twenty at a lime. But I must tell you, that though these stripes are painful, the joy of suffering for Christ gives ease to every wound; and when, after we have suffered for him, the consolations of Christ abound in us by the Holy Spirit, the Comforter: they are a heavenly balm, which heals all our sorrows, and even imparts such perfect health to our souls, that we can despise every other thing. In short, when we belong to God, nothing can pluck us out of his hand." " If my body was tortured during the day, my soul rejoiced exceedingly in God my Saviour, both day and night. At this period especially, my soul was fed with hidden manna, and I tasted of that joy which the world knows not of; and daily, with the holy apostles, my heart leaped with joy that I was counted worthy to suffer for my Saviour's sake, who poured such consola- tions into my soul that I was filled with holy transport, and, as it were, carried out of myself. But this season of quiet was of short duration; for soon afterwards the galley was furnished M'ith oars to exercise the new-comers ; and then these inexorable haters of our blessed religion took the op- portunity to beat me as often as they pleased, telling me it was in my power to avoid these torments. But when they held this language, my Saviour revealed to my soul the ago- OF FRA^XE. 247 nies he suffered to purchase my salvation, and that it became me thus to suffer with him. After tliis, we were ordered to sea, when the excessive toil of rowing, and the Wows I re- ceived, often brought me to tlie brink of the grave. When- ever the chaplain saw me sinking with fatigue, he beset me with temptations; but my soul was bound for the heavenly shore, and he gained nothing from my answers." " In every voyage there were many persons whose greatest amusement was to see me incessandy beaten, but particularly the cap- tain's steward, who called it painting Calvin'' s back, and in- sultingly asked if Calvin gave me strength to work after being so finely bruised ; and when he wished the beating to be repeated, he would ask if Calvin was not to have his por- tion again. When he saw me sinking from day to day un- der cruellies and fatigue, his happiness was complete. The officers, who were anxious to please him, had recourse to this inhuman sport for his entertainment, during which he was constantly convulsed with laughter. When he saw me raise my eyes to heaven, he said, ' God does not hear Cal- vinists when they pray. They must endure their tortures till they die, or change their religion.' In short, my very dear brother, there was not a single day, when we were at sea, and toiling at the oar, but I was brought into a dying state. The poor wretched creatures who were near me did every thing in their power to help me, and to make me take a litde nourishment. But in the depth of distress, which nature could hardly endure, my God left me not without sup- port. In a short time all will be over, and I shall forget all my sorrows in the joy of being ever with the Lord. Indeed, whenever I was left in peace a little while, and was able to meditate on the words of eternal life, I was perfectly happy; and when I looked at my wounded body, I said, here are the glorious marks which St. Paul rejoiced to ber.r in his body. After every voyage I fell sick; and then, being free from hard labour and the fear of blows, I could meditate in quiet, and render thanks to God for sustaining me by his goodness, and strengthening me by his good Spirit." The following testimony is borne by a humble shepherd: " Amongst others, Mons. Le Febvre mentions a shepherd, who was removed from the galley to Fort St. Nicholas, and from thence to a deep dungeon in the Chateau d'If. This dungeon is a place into which they descend by ladders, and is lighted only by a lamp, for which the jailer makes the 248 PROTESTANT CHURCH prisoners pay. At first, he was left to lie on the ground, or rather mire, almost without clothing. A monk who went clown into it to visit the unhappy beings who are kept there, could not help declaring that the horrors of the place made him shudder; that he had not nerve enough to go again; that the deplorable condition of the poor creatures drew tears from his eyes ; and that he saw one of them who was become the prey of worms even before his death. In such a place as this, the unlettered but gracious shepherd wrote several notes to his dear brethren in the galleys. The following was addressed to Mons. Fortunat : " Though I have not the honour, Sir, to be personally acquainted with you, yet knowing by sad experience, that your love and zeal extend to the meanest of the flock of Christ, I have reason to hope you will kindly permit me to leave this gloomy prison to-day, at least in my affections, to offer you my most respectful regards in the chains you bear for Christ, and to thank you, with heartfelt sincerity, for all your kindness to me, but above all for the prayers you offer in my behalf. I entreat you, dear suff'er- ing servant of the living God, to pray that he will have pity on such a poor, weak, fainting creature as I am; that he will give me humility of soul to abase myself as I ought to; that he will so penetrate my heart with his infinite love, that he may become the only object of my love unto my life's end. Beseech him to give me that entire conformity which I ought to have, to the will of his dear Son, who came into the world to save sinners, to teach us by his word, and to guide us by his example. Pray that I may neither speak nor act but for the glory of his name, the edification of those around me, and the advancement of my own salvation. If you grant me this favour (which your Christian love will not deny,) I assure you I shall be grateful for it as long as I live. I send you a letter which I have taken the liberty to address to Mons. Du Bessonere, and other friends in ... . AVith prayers that the Lord may shortly deliver you from the cruelty of our unjust oppressors, and again permit you to sing the songs of our Zion in his holy temple — I am, dear Sir, and illustrious sufferer for Christ's sake, with all the re- spect I owe you, and which it is possible to feel. V — ." The last quotation respects Serre, who writes in the fol- lowing strain: — "To those dear faithful followers of Christ who are not ashamed of my chain — grace, peace, and love from our Lord Jesus Christ be multiplied unto the end. Be- OP FRANCE. 249 loved brethren and sisters in Jesus Christ, I write with my hands in manacles, and the marks of my blessed Saviour ploughed as deep furrows in my body . . . . C, and another, who were stretched on the gun before me, having yielded after three or four blows, the major addressed some senseless observations to me, to which I replied briefly, but with composure, 'Execute your orders.' My resolution exasperated him, and I was therefore lashed with all the violence that could be put forth, till I was ready to expire. He then ordered a cessation, in the hope that I should com- ply; but finding me still firm in my resolution, he became furious. My steadfastness encouraged all the others. But what do I say ? — it was the power of divine grace. What thanks do I owe to God for the inestimable favour he has granted me of suffering for his name's sake! Praise him with me all ye people of the Lord. But above all, I beseech every faithful soul, beloved of the Lord, to implore for me supporting grace, that I may persevere to the end; without which all will have been suffered in vain, and I sludl be overwhelmed with everlasting confusion. While the major was cruelly torturing our brethren, and my hands were being manacled hy his orders, there arrived a messenger from the intendant, named Regis, who whispered to the major, and showed him a memorial. The major then called for me, and in a threatening tone said, ' This is Mons. Serre. Well, I have just given him a sound bastinado; but this evening I will tear the flesh from his bones.' Thus, my dear friends, I expect death. Happy if I die faithful. They seem to be more bitterly enraged against me than against all my com- panions together. It is said, that this evening or to-morrow I am to be conveyed to the Chateau d'lf, after 1 have been again put to the torture. I have done what I could for my dear brethren at the peril of my life, both in the prisons and here also. I have exhorted them, and set them an example. May the Lord in his mercy grant that I may not dishonour his name. Implore the help of God, for Jesus Christ his Son's sake, that I may come off victorious. Let your hands be lifted up in prayer, and let them not fall till I have gained the victory. Follow me with your prayers to my dungeon, if I go there. I shall not forget you, and shall ever bear in remembrance your love and tenderness. May God grant you an abundant recompense in this life, and eternal felicity in that which is to come. I love and honour you most af- fectionately, and am, and shall ever be, most entirely yours, 250 PROTESTANT CHURCH dear brethren and sisters in Christ Jesus, your very humble and very obedient servant — Serre." The reader will now be able to appreciate the value of those conversions to the Romish Church, which her partisans boast of having taken place at this period. The Bishop of Valence tells his majesty of the "infinite number of conversions" which are made to the Roman Church ; and has the impudence to add, "much less by the force of your edicts, as by the ex- ample of your exemplary piety;" — a monarch who was no- torious for his proflii^acy! In the "Life of Bossuet," by the late Mr. Charles Butler, it is stated, on the authority of M. Do Bourigny, that in 1685, more than nine hundred Hugonots, within the diocese of Meaux, embraced the Roman Catholic religion, through the exertions of Bossuet. Not to question, which I might jusdy do, any statement founded on the word of a man convicted of so many gross frauds and falsehoods as the Bishop of Meaux,* there can be litde doubt that there were not a few miserable Protestants who conformed to the Church of Rome. But what led to this? Was it conviction? No. It was twenty years of unrelenting persecution. Men who found peace or wealth better than principle, gave way; but were these creditable converts? Besides, the converts were bribed, and those who bribed them had strong temptations to do so. " Mr. Pelison," says the author of the pamphlet to which I have already referred, " has for a long time been the great dealer of Paris in this infamous trade of purchasing converts. These conversions have of late been the only ways of gaining applause and recompenses at court, and, in a word, of raising one's fortune." Pelison's charge was two thousand crowns for seven hundred converts! When there was, from the force of persecution, so powerful a temp- tation to Romish conformity on the one hand, and from the force of worldly honour and avarice, so strong a reason for attempting to make nominal conversions on the other, is it wonderful Uiat some fell a prey ? The wonder is that these were not tenfold more numerous. Multitudes of the conver- sions were imaginary; mere false lists of names got up for the purpose of obtaining money. Persons were paid for as converts who had no existence. It was Bosquet's scheme for vindicating die revocation of the edict, to show that all the Protestants had become Roman CaUiolics, and therefore that the edict was unnecessary — practically annulled. Hence » Vide Rev. Mr. Cunningham's Edition of Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome, p. 23. OF FRANCE. 251 the multitude of pretended conversions — the more of them the less use was there fur the edict!* In closing this Chapter, I must advert to a species of op- pression to which I have not yet referred — I mean the des- truction of the religious books and writings of the French Protestants. This may seem small, compared with the per- sonal cruellies to which they were subjected; but it was serious, both as regarded the present, and especially the future character and power of the Church. The Protestants were an educated people; many of their ministers highly distinguished. Their enemies knew this, and dreaded the effect of their writings in preserving alive and reviving their sentiments even after they themselves had been exiled. Ac- cordingly, no small portion of the fury which was directed against the pastors, was directed also against the standards, * Bishop Gibson, in one of his Tracts on Popery, speaking of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, says : — " There seems to be a kind of conspiracy among the French clergy to deny this persecu- tion, or at least to represent it as neither so violent nor universal as indeed it was; to vi'hich purpose it is affirmed, in a discourse said to be written by order of the clergy, under this title, ' A Letter from a Churchman to his Friend,' that there were not forty churches of Pro- testants demolished in the ten years preceding 1682; when it is no- toriously known, tliat in the province of Poitou alone nearly that number were pulled down ; and the agent of the clergy had, the May before, said, at the opening of the Assembly, that the king had demol- ished an injinite number of them ^ Jurieu, one of the French Protestant ministers at Rotterdam, in his book on The Accomplishment of the Scripture Prophecies, p. 20, ex- claims still more forcibly — " But to what a pitch of impudence must they be arrived, who print and publish that no violence at all hath been employed to make these conversions. All France abounds with strangers who are witnesses of it. The ministers of Princes of Eu- rope behold it. Foreign merchants see and know it. An hundred thousand witnesses, who have escaped out of the hand of these execu- tioners, carry tidings of it to all the ends of the earth; and yet there are some who have the confidence to deny a matter of fact that was done in the sight of all Europe. We read the arrests— we see the ordinances of the intcndants — we see woods cut down, and houses razed — we behold twelve or fifteen thousand prisoners in all the prisons of the kingdom ; and yet they tell us there is no such thing as persecution! There is one thing which is very singular in this per- secution, and which hath no example. I could not read, without trem- bling, what M. De Brueys saith in his last piece — 'that the success of the method employed for the conversion of the Reformed, make it evident that they were altogether disposed to receive the Catholic truth.' I know not what those dispositions were as to himself; but I question not, by the same means to make him turn Turk, and after- wards heathen, in a very little time." 252 PROTESTANT CHURCH records, and books of the Church. Hence Ihe difficulty with which Quick had to contend in collecting the Acts of the Synods, though writing shortly after the Revocation, and introduced to the acquaintance of several hundred French ministers. The very private papers and books of the banish- ed pastors were all destroyed. Indeed, these were the first things which the persecutors seized. Julian, the apostate, attempted to arrest Christianity in a similar way, by the des- truction of the sacred writings; and, comparatively speaking, the small number of French Protestant works which have survived, and the dead and ruined state of the Church since their destruction, are sad proofs, in this respect, of the wis- dom and success of the eflbrts of Antichrist. Nor must I forget to notice the persecution of the district of Orange, a district on the borders of France, but not be- longing to it any more than to Great Britain, as an illustra? tion of the wanton and reckless extension of the cruelties of Louis. One might have thought that he had succeeded in stirring up a sufficient share of oppression at home, and might have been contented with this. But no. He bears a deadly hatred to the name of Orange — to all that reminds him of the Protestant Prince who has been his most formi- dable antagonist in aspiring after a universal sovereignty, particularly of what pertains to his territory and dominion. Accordingly, in spite of protest and remonstrance, he over- runs Orange as if it were part of France, and there inflicts similar atrocities to those w^hich will make his name odious in his own country to the latest posterity. A memorable instance of Popish treachery, under the semblance of mercy, is supplied in the fact, that the people were allowed to sell their possessions and to remove; but Popery, in the mean- time, took care to pronounce it "a mortal sin" for any to buy, and so encourage heretics to withdraw, and live and die in heresy ! The consequence was, that the poor people con- tinued to be the prey of their enemies. The case of an aged minister, M. Chambrun, is affecting. It reminds one of Cranmer, the English reformer and martyr. The minister of Orange was universally beloved. When carried off to a dungeon, on a litter, for his nonconformity, even the Roman Catholics, nay, the very dragoons who were employed in the service, were affected. The people along the roads through which he passed were moved to tears. In a pa- roxysm of pain he was heard to say — "I will reunite my- self." This was greedily caught up as confession ; and OF FRANCE. 253 though he would not repeat the words, nor fulfil the promise which they seemed to convey, he was declared to be a con- formist, and his influential example was immediately pressed with energy upon his flock. When he came to himself, after uttering the fatal words, he fell into the greatest mental agony, and "the pains of the body were nothing in compa- rison of the troubles of his soul." — Such is the power of guilt. Wherever his voice could be heard, or letters reach, he confessed the greatness of his sin before friends and ene- mies, in public and in private — aggravating every circum- stance, even the least. Though such cases are, in one sense, less creditable than those where the fortitude is unbroken throughout, yet they ought not to be thought of liglidy. They, in another view, better show forth the depth and se- verity of the endurances which are submitted to for Christ, a depth and severity which, but for momentary failure, could not have been known. Who can doubt that Cranmer and Chambrun had really as much of the spirit of martyrs as multitudes who seem to have been insensible to pain, and who never knew^ what it was to shrink? Of Chambrun, it is said by Laval — " He was received at Geneva as he so justly deserved. He insisted to acknow- ledge his fault publicly, in order to be admitted to the Lord's Siipper, which was done as he desired. At his most earnest instance he was likewise restored to his ministerial functions by an assembly of eighteen refugee ministers, though they represented to him that, never having signed any abjuration, or done any action that might prejudice his character, such a ceremony was superfluous; but his humility and repent- ance were such that he could not rest satisfied without it."* Long as I have detained the reader with the perfidious atrocities of the Popish persecution of the French Protest- ants at the period of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and varied and indubitable the sources from which 1 have drawn the bloody evidences, I have not by any means ex- hausted the proof. It could be greatly enlarged ; but this is not necessary. At the same time, it would be improper altogether to pass over the testimony furnished by the writ- ings of so distinguished a Protestant minister as Jurieu. After he had been compelled to flee for safety to Holland, he published a series of letters amounting to twenty-four in number, to his brethren who remained in France : these * Vol. iv., p. 34. 254 PROTESTANT CHURCH consist of a very lively and thorough exposure of the lead- ing errors and corruptions of the Church of Rome. In the course of them there are incidental but striking pictures of the miseries endured by the French Protestants, resting on unexceptionable testimony, and descriptive of the prevailing state of things two years after the Revocation ; in other words, in the years 1686 and 1687. The work from which I quote, and I quote from it tlie more largely that it is little known, and not very accessible to the general reader, is en- tided ; " The Pastoral Letters of tlie incomparable Jurieu, directed to the Protestants in France, groaning under the Babylonish tyranny, translated : wherein the sophistical ar- guments and inexpressible cruelties made use of by the Papists for the making converts, are laid open and exposed to just abhorrence; to which is added a brief account of the Hungarian Persecution. London, 1689." We had occa- sion to notice the similarity in the modes of persecution be- tween the Church of France and the persecution of the Church of Scodand ; at the same time, they seem to have had a mutual understanding, at least they were under the guidance of the same Satanic spirit. There is a similar and a beautiful correspondence in tlie conduct of the persecuted in the two countries : I do not here allude to their patience and resignation, so much at one with the holy spirit of Christ, but to the assemblies, or conventicles, as they are called in Scotland, which they held for public worship, in the open air and in inaccessible retreats, when deprived of their pas- tors and churches, and forbidden to convene for the exercises of religious worship. 'I'he faithful Protestants of France hallowed many desert and mountainous spots with similar devotions. *' Learn the conduct of our poor brethren, the inhabitants of Cevennes. The Edict of Nantes was made void the year past, on the month of October; the pastors were chased away, and all exercise of religion forbidden upon great pe- nalties expressed by the declaration. But these inhabitants of the mountains began their private assemblies from the month of November following. And God raised up from among them persons that, without study, and without learn- ing, put themselves at the head of these assemblies for their edification. I will not tell you their names, lest I should put them in hazard and danger. *' There was a private person of the place called V , to whose word God gave so much efficacy, that after some OP FRANCE. 255 assemblies where there were but a few persons, one night he had the pleas^ure of comforting many hundreds. And these assembhes continuing ahnost every day, one day, a little be- fore night, there were found more than eight hundred persons upon the mountain of Brion, near to Caderles. They had there the consolation of hearing two excellent prayers and one sermon ; after all, those that had the courage to resist temptation, did partake in the sacrament of the Supper of our Lord. " Many of those which had fallen, with a great many fears, desired the communion. Among others, a woman of quality was very desirious thereof, weeping, and professing that she would never go to mass; but it was refused her, until they should receive greater marks of the sincerity of her return and repentance. A few days after there was an- other assembly in a desert, under the covert of a barn, in the parish of St. Martin de Carcones, where there were full out sixteen hundred persons. It was in the night, and con- tinued until two hours before day. Two days after there was another assembly in the parish of St. John de Gaido- ningue, where there were seven hundred or eight hundred persons. The day after, on the Lord's day, in the parish of St. Cross de Caderles, there was another, where there were about fourteen hundred persons from all the neighbouring villages. They had knowledge of this Assembly. The in- tendant and judges sent an advocate, named Joly, to inform them concerning it. All their diligence went no further than to discover three or four persons — there was so much fidelity among those that made up these assemblies." Though the meetings were often interrupted, the people were not discouraged, but in a few days assembled in large numbers. Jurieu relates that in a meadow of another parish of the same district, where they had been disturbed, they immediately after convened to the number of two thousand, and when the alarm of dragoons was given, and he who act- ed the part of the pastor, exclaimed, " Let those who are afraid depart," not one stirred — all prepared themselves for martyrdom. Li the midst of winter — in spite of the rigour of the season — the precipices on the way — the darkness of night — the Protestants did not fail to meet where they had agreed to worship God and dispense the Sacraments. In certain places, three thousand and four thousand persons con- vened; and when lights were hung upon the trees to enable them to see the psalms which they sung, the scene must 256 PROTESTANT CHURCH have been very impressive. Smaller assemblies were held in caves, and woods, and private houses. But instead of softening their enemies, such proceedings seem to have in- flamed their Gospel hatred the more, till death became the penalty for all convicted of professing any religion, save that of the (/hurch of Rome. The dragoons frequently surround- ed and fired upon the congregations, leaving the field a field of blood; and such was their hatred to the very places where, as they alleged, the Devil's Sabbath had been held, that they have been known to raze the humble farm-house, where the suflJering saints of God assembled, to the ground, and cut down and burn the trees on which the lamps were hung which lighted their Bibles, so as to enable them to read the Word of God and sing his praises. These assemblies of the mountain and the desert long continued in spite of every atrocity, till we are assured one could scarcely take four steps upon the mountain side without finding a corpse hanging on a tree, or lying on the ground. I have already referred to the fine Christian spirit and conduct of the martyrs, but the following death-scene will not be uninteresting to the reader. It is that of M. Fulcran Rey, a student of divinity, of twenty- four years of age, who acted as pastor to some of the scat- tered remnant of whom I have been writing. He was con- demned to be hung. The following is the account of his death; and surely the temper and constancy which it dis- plays, are worthy of the noblest periods of the Church of Christ:— " The intendant was present, who began by arts of sweet- ness and promises, adding thereunto all that which is most terrible in death. But to his promises he answered, ' I love not the world, nor the things of the world. I esteem all those advantages whereof you speak as dung; I tread them under my feet.' Unto the threalenings of punishment he said, ' My life is not at all dear to me, if so be I may finish my course with joy, and gain Jesus Christ. Whatsoever death is prepared for me, it will be always glorious if I suffer it for God, and for the same cause for the which my Saviour died.' An incredible company of other people came to see him in the prison, all to the same end; and nothing was for- gotten of all that which might soften the mind, and weaken the firmness of his courage. All these means being unsuc- cessful, in conclusion, the intendant proceeded to his con- demnation. He appeared at the bar. When he was there, the intendant said to him, ' Mr. Rey, there is yet time for OF FRANCE. 257 your preservation.' ' Yea, my Lord,' answered he, ' and for that reason I will employ the time that remains in en- deavouring my salvation.' He replied to him, ' But you must change, and you shall have life.' ' Yea,' saith he, « I must change, but it is to go from this miserable world, and go to the kingdom of heaven, where a happy life attends me, which I shall speedily enjoy. Don't promise me the present life; I am entirely disengaged from it; death is much more eligible. If I had been afraid of death, you had not seen me here. God hath caused me to understand his truth, and does me the honour to die for it. Speak no more to me of the good things of the world, they have no savour or taste with me: for all the treasures of the earth I will not renounce that which I expect in heaven.' When the judges saw him thus firm and steadfast, they gave over vexing him about his religion, and proceeded to make his process. He answered to all their questions with a respect, sweetness, and modera- tion, which melted all the auditors. When they were ready to pronounce his sentence, they solicited him anew to have pity on himself, and not by an unhappy obstinacy sacrifice a life which was given him to preserve. ' I am no more,' says he, ' in condition to advise about what 1 am to do. I have made my choice: here is no further place for bargains. I am ready to die, if God hath so appointed it. All the promises which can be made will never be able to shake me, nor hinder me from rendering what I owe to my God.' Therefore they read his sentence, by which he was con- demned to be hanged, and put to the rack before he was led to the gibbet. He heard his sentence read without any com- motion; and when it was ended he said, 'They treat me more gently than they treated my Saviour, in condemnmg me to so easy a death ; I had prepared myself to be broken on the wheel, or be burnt.' And lifting up his eyes to hea- ven, he added, ' I give thee thanks, Lord of heaven and earth, for all the blessings that thou hast bestowed upon me. I give thee thanks that thou hast found me worthy to suffer for thy Gospel, and die for thee. 1 give thee thanks also for that thou hast called me to suffer so easy a death, after 1 had prepared my heart to suffer the most cruel death for thee.' In execution of the sentence he was put upon the rack. He suffered it without any complaint, or one word of murmuring, answering no other thing, but that he had said all, and had nothing more to answer. And when he was taken from the rack, turning to the judges, he told them, 1 17 258 PROTESTANT CHURCH have not suffered the pain which you would have made me suffer. I believe that you have suffered more than I; I have had no sense of pain, I do profess before you.' " They bring back our martyr to the place where he was to prepare himself for death. He dined, because they would have it so ; and whilst he was eating he said to those that gave him his meat, very calmly, ' Others eat to live, and I eat to die. This is the last repast that I shall take upon earth; but against the evening there is prepared a banquet in the heavens, to which I am invited, and whither I shall be con- ducted by the angels. These happy spirits will suddenly remove me, to make me partaker with ihem of ihe delights of paradise.' 'i'he rest of the day they let loose npon him many monks, who received no other fruits of their assaults but disappointment and confusion. Amidst all those distrac- tions into which they endeavoured to cast him, he employed himself in singing of psalms, in lifting up his soul to God, and presenting fervent prayers to him. About the evening, as he went forth out of the prison, to go to execution, two monks drew near to him, saying, ' We are here to accom- pany and comfort you.' He answered them, ' I have no need of you. I have a comforter that is more faithful, and which is within me, for my consolation. I have a guard of angels round about my person, and which have assured me that they will be with me to my last breath.' He marched to- ward the place of execution with an appearance of satisfac- tion and tranquillity of spirit visible to all the spectators ; and having observed some of our brethren that were fallen pour- ing out floods of tears while they saluted him, said to them, ' Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves ; I shall be soon out of sufferings, and from this vale of tears, but I see and leave you there. In the name of God recover, and repent, and he will have pity upon you.' When he was in a place and distance that he could see the gibbet, where he was to end liis combat, he cried out with transport of joy, ' Be strong, be strong; this is the place which 1 long since pro- posed to myself, and for which God himself hath prepared me: how welcome doth this place appear to me! I there see the heavens open to receive me, and angels coming to accompany me thither.' He would afterwards have sung a psalm, as he drew near to the gibbet; but the judges, who saw that the crowd was moved and pierced by the signs and tokens of his constancy, imposed silence on him, and forI)ad him to sing. He obeyed, because they constrained him; OF FRANCE. 259 and arriving to the foot of the ladder, he said, * Oh, how welcome is this ladder to me ! since it must serve me as a step to finish my course, and mount to heaven.' They per- mitted him to say his prayers at the foot of the ladder. And when he was ascended, he saw monks ascending after him, which obliged him to repel them, saying, ' Retire: I have told you, and I tell you again, I have no need of your suc- cour. I receive enough from my God to enable me to take the last step of my journey.' He would have gone on, and given a reason of his faith to that innumerable crowd of peo- ple, above which he was raised. But they feared the effect of a sermon preached from such a pulpit, and by such a preacher. They well foresaw that he would speak, and therefore had set round about the gibbet many drums, which they appointed to be beaten at once. 'Tis a new kind of gag, which is not altogether so frightful as that of another kind, but produces the same effect. The spirit of hell is al- ways the same, and hath always the same fears. He hath often felt the force of those preachers which preach from gibbets, and out of the piles of wood; he fears their elo- quence, and judges it most safe to impose silence on them. Our martyr therefore speaks not but for himself; but his countenance, his eyes, his hands, bespeak his courage, his faith and constancy ; and this language was so effectual that the village of Beaucaire, although wholly plunged in dark- ness and prejudices for Popery, was moved thereby in an extraordinary manner." Nor was it the young and the strong only who thus cheer- fully sacrificed their lives for Christ — the aged, the men of hoary hairs, did not in the infirmities of years shrink from similar martyrdom. A correspondent of M. Jurieu writes, a few months after the sacrifice of Rey — " I hope that Marseilles, which has seen the last hours of the martyrdom of Mr. Du Crosse, will become more famous by the number of martyrs than by its antiquities and other singularities. We have been informed that two good old men of Vassi, in Champagne, have there received their crowns. One of them is called Monsieur Chantguyon, of seventy-four years of age, of which he employed thirty-four in the service of that church, in quality of an elder, with great care and fidelity. This good old man was arrested on the frontiers of Champagne, endeavouring to go out of the kingdom; he was condemned to the galleys; he appeals to ihe Parliament of Mets, whither he was transmitted; his 260 PROTESTANT CHURCH sentence was confirmed, and there he received that glorious chain under which he hreathed his last. He was so oppress- ed with age and infirmities, that he was so far from being able to bear a chain, that he was not able to bear himself. His judges were touched and afilicled with it, but they said they must make examples. He went from Mets about the end of September, with his brother-in-law, Mr. Chemet, who was sixty-nine years of age, and also in chains, and much more infirm than he, having both a rupture and an asthma. They were both full of joy, and gloried that they were found worthy to suffer for the name and truth of God. In all the places through which they passed upon the road, they found persons which have given testimony to their constancy and courage. These two martyrs bore their chain to Marseilles: but the end of their journey was the end of their race, and the time of their coronation. They both died within a few days of each other, giving glory to God, and confessing his truth, haviug never had any inclination to deny it, to deliver themselves out of this sad condition. Mr. Chantguyon is of the blood of the martyrs, for he had for grandfather Peter Chantguyon, who was one of those that suffered death in the massacre of Vassi, which was the signal to the civil war of the past age." And while under the smile of the Saviour, martyrs were so happy to part with life, the misery of those who shrunk for a time from the trial, renders the power and glory of the truth which pierced them the more illustrious. The same correspondent adds: — " How sad soever the state of these confessors which suffer for the name of Christ may seem to be, 'tis neverthe- less infinitely less calamitous than that of those who are lapsed and fallen, whose conscience makes them feel those torments which cannot easily be expressed. We have thought ourselves obliged to communicate to you on this subject the letter of a person of great quality, wife to one of our most famous confessors. She had imitated the courage of her il- lustrious husband for the space of above a whole year; but the tempter assailed her at an ill season, and caused her to lose her crown. Behold how bitter the tears are which dropt from this unfortunate gentlewoman ! " ' Alas, my dear Mr. , blame me not if I have not acquainted you with the unhappy state in which I am ; so great was my confusion, by reason of my fall, that I have not the boldness to publish it myself. It is impossible to OP FRANCE. 261 express unto you my grief, 'tis such that I am not able to bear up against it; 1 am oppressed by the weight thereof; I am neither able to hve nor die; no body can conceive how lamentable my state is. I was so content with my trial, and so resigned to the will of God, that 1 could willingly have suffered death, if he had called me ihereunto. I was accept- able, and in good reputation among all persons, and enjoyed a wonderful rest and repose of mind. 'Tis true it was a little disturbed by the coming of my son, who tormented me extremely, but all was to no purpose. God bestowed those mercies on me that I did not deserve, nor did I make any suitable returns for them. I presumed too much on myself, yet I was not altogether without suspicion. Alas, how do I find true in experience, that the spirit is ready, but the flesh is weak, and that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an offended God ! How great are my sins, since the casti- gation of them is so terrible ! Whilst I write I pour out tears, I do assure you, and they flow from me night and day. I repent: O my God, help my weakness! I for- give you that upon the first hearing of this thing, you cried out to all against me, and did judge that it was the world, estate, and ease, and to conclude whatsoever you please was the cause thereof. I do not justify myself at all, nor do I plead any thing for my excuse. I was weak and feeble, my faith failed me in a time of need, and God did not enable me to sutler for his name. In my unhappy state I have never- theless this perfect confidence in the mercy of my great God, that he will raise me up, and I shall glorify him, whether it be in life or death, and that my Christ will be always gain to me, whether I live or die. He desires not the death of a sin- ner, but his conversion and life. My God draw me, and I will run after thee, and do thou lead me to the haven of hap- piness. Thou seest my heart, O my God, 'tis entirely thine, as well as my mouth: I will confess thee every where. For the space of four hours I was tormented by fifteen persons ; I cried with all my strength, begging the gallows and death. I was nigh unto death, and how happy had I been if I had died. I had not one moment of rest; I knew not where I was, by reason of the great noise that was made. They made use of this great trouble and confusion, and well per- ceiving that if they suff'ered me to return to myself they would gain nothing, therefore they repeated their assaults with the greater force, and reduced me to the most pitiable condition in the world. I do not hide my anguish from any 262 PROTESTANT CHURCH one ; and I speak with greater courage than ever. By the grace of my God I am prepared to suffer all the evil which can betide me in the world. The good God will be my de- fence, and my support. I entreat you to pray to God for me, and don't think that I am fastened to this world; I am more estranged from the love of it than ever. It seems to me that my house is a tomb; I will never more see any per- son ; every thing that I see reproaches me ; my own soul smites me so sharply that 'tis deplorable. Suffer with me in my grief, I pray you — I am worthy of pity ; and oh that the great God would pardon and deliver us quickly from the torments which we feel!' " Such affecting cases give us a deeper impression of the piety and sufferings of those who, from the first, successfully endured the fiery trial, than we could otherwise have pos- sessed. They supply us with a visible measure and index of what men underwent for Christ, and so do not allow us to imagine that they acted under the vain influence of a wild enthusiasm — they show that there was deliberate calculation beforehand, and that the prospect was sometimes too appal- ling for the faith even of the acknowledged saints of God. I might fill pages with pictures of the desolation of the Protestant provinces of France, such as Languedoc and Ce- vennes, but this would merely be repeating what has been already described. Instead of dwelling any longer upon the persecutions at home at this period, let the reader for a mo- ment contemplate the embarkation and banishment of the faithful to a foreign shore, to which a general reference has been already made. A correspondent of Jurieu, under date February 12, 1687, ^vrites : " To overcome the constancy of those who have resisted prisons, galleys, dungeons, hunger, thirst, vermin, and rot- tenness, they have thought of a new kind of persecution in the council of persecutors, and it is to send our faithful bre- thren to Canada: they conduct them in troops to Marseilles, and to Casteldy, where they must be embarked. In one month's time they have drawn from the prisons of Montpel- lier, of Aygues-Mortes, of Nismes, and of all the parts of Cevennes, a number of prisoners so great that we know not how to count them, for fear of speaking it too little ; or of not being beheved, for reporting it too much. This is cer- tain, that the letters which have been written more than six weeks or two months since, do say that there are already four hundred prisoners at the least, which have been embark- OP FRANCE. 263 ed at Marseilles, or are ready for it, to be led into slavery in those new countries. " It is expedient that you see here some extracts of letters that came from that country. One letter from Aries says, that a great number of men hath been seen to pass with their legs lied under the bellies of horses, followed by twelve long carts, covered over, and filled with men and women, tied by the waists to the carts. These are persons of Upper Lan- guedoc, which were carried to Marseilles to be sent to Ame- rica. Among these persons there were some very famous. Amongst others, an advocate of Nismes, who is famous by a confession of eighteen months, which he passed in a dark dungeon, nasty and infectious, tired with the verbal persecu- tions of the Bishop of Mire-poix, but was never prevailed upon to make any subscription. A more glorious testimony cannot be given to the courage, piety, constancy, and zeal of a confessor, than is with one consent given to this man. Behold him at present going to carry the torch of his faith into a new world, and I hope that it will kindle other torches there. There are also Mr. Guirant and Mr. Martin, both of Nismes, which are not less illustrious for their perseverance and their piety, having never made any defection from the faith. Mr. Serre, of Montpellier, Mr. Guy of Bederieux, a widow named Madam de Bosc, and her sister. Mademoiselle de Cavaille, with Mr. Martin also of Montpellier, two sisters of Mr. Arnauld, minister of Vaunert, are also of this number. There are also gendemen and persons of quality, which we will not name unto you until we are perfectly assured there- of. Behold a letter from one of those honest men, which will acquaint you with the disposition of mind in which ihey are on the subject, and in the prospect of this new kind of punishment." The following seems to have been written to a refugee, probably residing in Holland : — '^I have thought, my dear mother, that before I am re- moved into a new world, as they threaten us, it is my duty to inform you of my state, and to acquaint you with the true sentiments of my soul. Oh! how happy are you and my dear sisters, whom God by his infinite mercy hath preserved so long in your retirement, and preserved from the snares that have been so often laid for you ; but more especially in that he hath led you in so miraculous a man- ner out of this sad and unhappy kingdom, that you may taste his divine consolations in holy assemblies, with all 264 PROTESTANT CHURCH the liberty that can be desired. Be never forgetful of be- nefits so great, if you desire that God should continue his blessings and mercies upon you and yours. Pray continually for the liberty of Zion ; for all our poor brethren that have unhappily fallen, and for the prisoners of Jesus Christ. You have begun gloriously, but all that is nothing if you do not persevere to the end ; therefore give up yourselves to Divine Providence, and be assured that God will give you all that is necessary in this life, and that which is to come, if so be you offer unto him that acceptable sacrifice of your goods, your families, and even of your lives. Never turn your face back again, through trouble and regret for what you have forsaken ; do not do as the wife of Lot, lest you par- take in the same punishment. I do acknowledge that there is need of extraordinary endeavours, and very great grace to surmount our natural affections, and that tenderness and na- tural compassion which does so strongly bind us to each other ; but when the glory of God and our own salvation is discoursed on, we ought not to stagger one moment from following our duty; for he which loves father or mother, husband, wife, or children, more than his Saviour, is not worthy to be called his disciple. Wherefore, my dear mo- ther and sisters, make appear to your last breath the differ- ence you make between earth and heaven, betwixt the per- fect love which we have for our Divine Redeemer, and that which we have for the things of the world; and let us assure ourselves of his protection and favour if we persevere to the end. The death of my father hath extremely edified and comforted me. His patience and perseverance hath given a joyful and certain assurance of his happiness, that it is so far from afflicting me, that I desire to be dissolved as he is, to be with Christ Jesus, which is much better. I reserve my tears for the sad and deplorable state of the Church, and for the fatal hard-heartedness of my poor brethren, for whorii I pray unto God night and day, that he would cause them to return from their wanderings, and show them mercy and grace. This is tliat true affliction which eats up my soul, and sadly overwhelms my spirit. For my own part I was never more content, and at rest, than I find myself at pre- sent: so that, after having exactly considered the world and all its vanities, I esteem, with St. Paul, that all things duly reckoned, the sufferings of the present world are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed; so that, my dear mother, I am fully resolved to do ray duty, even to OF FRANCE. 265 my last moment. They have already conducted to Mar- seilles one hundred prisoners, and the 17th of this month we, being seventy in number, departed from Montpellier together. They have brought from Sommieres twenty-four maids, or wives, and to-morrow they bring forty more from thence — it is the general rendezvous. I know what will be the event of all this; nevertheless, all are perfectly resolved for this long voyage. Monsieur de Cross is always here, who is shortly to be embarked with his own daughters, and four of Monsieur Audemard's, who never changed their religion. Whatever be our fate, we shall always be under the eyes of God and his protection. Pray for us, as we do for you; and let all our friends and all our churches, redouble their prayers for those poor unhappy persons which are carried away, it may be, to the shambles. God be with you, my dear mother, and dear sisters. Be assured that I shall be faithful to my God, to my last breath, in whatsoever place I shall remain. " This last kind of punishment has stricken men with more horror than all the preceding. Whilst persons remain in their country they endure the labours of flight, the uneasi- ness of sojourning in woods, famine, thirst, prison, and the galleys, in some hopes of change and alterations; but to see their entrails torn from their bowels, the half of ones self — a wife, a husband, children — unmercifully forced into a new world, exposed to the rage of the sea, to the dangers of a long voyage, and at the end of all, to a cruel slavery upon barbarous or unknown shores, where they live without any communion with those that are their own, without con- solation in the rigours of a very calamitous servitude ; — this is the new kind of punishment, say I, which puts the pa- tience of the most confirmed to a period. But nothing does more discover the temper of the devil of persecution. It does not suffice to lay waste the kingdom after a hundred modes, to put to flight an infinite number of men, and to make wil- dernesses of countries heretofore well peopled; they will depopulate the state, and transport the best of its inhabitants into barbarous countries. Poor slaves ! remember that God is every where, and that the gates of heaven are open in all places. Be you persuaded that Canada will rejoice to see your constancy, and that the voice of your confession will pass the seas, and come even to us; but above all, that it will pierce the heavens, and arrive even at the throne of God, where you will find favour, and it may be your enemies will find displeasure and wrath, for the voice of your suffering 266 PROTESTANT CHURCH M'ill solicit Divine vengeance, and hasten their punishment. The Lord have pity on them and convert them : they ought to be the objects of our compassion, rather than those of our wrath. Whilst they empty the citadels on one side, they fill them on the other. A letter written about three months since says, that they had conducted from the country of Cas- tres to Montpellier, more than five hundred prisoners, who, without doubt, must travel into the new found world, as well as others. How sad soever the lot of these poor people that are carried into the new world may seem, I reckon it more easy than the state of those who are in the prisons of the province of Languedoc, where they treat them as cruelly as they can do the worst of criminals and parricides, yea, they insult over them in a more insolent manner." Six weeks after, one of the ships bound for America, de- scribed in the above extract, was seen and visited oft' Cadiz. The Protestant visiter writes to Jurieu, that on asking the sufferers on what account they went to America, they an- swered with an heroic constancy, " Because we would not worship the Beast, nor prostrate ourselves before images." "Behold," say they, "our crime!" After finding a cousin- german on board, and describing her condition, he goes on to say: — *' 1 desired leave of the captain to see her sister, who was not able to come upon the deck, which he freely granted me. I was no sooner below but I saw fourscore women, or maids, laying upon mats, overwhelmed with miseries: my mouth was stopped, and I had not one word to say. They told me the most moving things in the world, and instead of giving them consolation, they comforted me ; and I not being able to speak, they told me with one common voice, ' We put our hands upon our mouths, and say that all things come from Him who is King of kings, and in Him we put our trust.' On the other side we saw one hundred poor miserable per- sons, oppressed with old age, whom the torments of tyrants had reduced to their last gasp. We saw there of all sorts, of all ages, and of all qualities, for they spare none. They told me, when they left Marseilles, they were two hundred and fifty persons, men, women, girls, and boys, and that in fifteen days eighteen of them died. There is but one gentle- woman that is of Poictou; all the rest are of Nismes, or Montpellier, and the countries in the neighbourhood thereof. A countryman who lived about a league and half from St. Ambrose, who suffered all that he could suff'er, upon whom OF FRANCE. 267 these barbarians could gain nothing, was put upon board among others, and is since dead in the harbour of Grenada. His son, who was in the same ship, knew me at first sight. He is called Griollet, and the village of his abode Ceurla. There are yet six vessels upon their departure from Pro- vence, laden with these poor men, who wait for nothing but a fair wind to hoist sail. I was willing to have encouraged my kinswoman. She said tome, 'Dear cousin, 'tis not death that I fear: if God will call me hence, I shall escape a great many miseries which I liave yet to suffer; but I am resigned to whatever He shall please to lay upon me. A young gentleman, which the Captain entertained at his own table, died of grief about some eight days since." It is needless to make any comments on these affecting facts — they speak for themselves. To the Scottish Chris- tian they will recall similar days and instruments of suffer- ing and woe, of which his forefathers were the victims. The last extract which I shall quote from the Pastoral Letters of Jurieu, contains his own testimony to the indestructibility, in spite of all these desolations, of the real, living, spiritual Church of the Redeemer. Mere nominal Christianity may be overthrown, but it is cheering to think that the Gospel — living Christianity — cannot perish, but lives and grows often- times the more it is wounded and crushed. "I will at this time tell you no more sad news; but, on the contrary, I will comfort you by giving you to under- stand, that in this general misfortune, wherein the Reformed Church of France sees so many persons, in some sort, fall under the temptation, we have the joy to know that scarce one falls in love with this wicked religion. We have taken care to inquire concerning it of those which came from all parts, and we have caused inquiries to be made upon the places, as much as it is possible for us ; but we can assure you, my brethren, as a thing certain, that the hatred of the Roman religion increases every day, insomuch that the per- secutors are further every day from accomplishing their designs than ever. We may say, without fear of lying, or hyperbole of expression, that this persecution has not gained to the Church of Rome two hundred hearty converts; and although I know a vast number of persons have been pre- vailed withal to make their subscriptions, yet the number of those which have, with a satisfied judgment, embraced their religion, is so small that it does not deserve to be computed : but on the contrary, by a surprising marvel of Divine Provi- 268 PROTESTANT CHURCH dence, this persecution has opened the eyes of a great num- ber of ancient Catholics, as they are called. That which we tell you is no conjecture or fiction, 'tis that which we know upon good testimony ; so that it is certain that the Church of God has gained more souls than it has lost. These seeds will bring forth in their time. Every day we see persons arrive here who abjure the Roman religion, and amongst them there are such as are eminent by their merit, by their birth, by their parts, and by their learning. When we know that they will not take it ill, if we name them, we will do it ; for 'lis necessary that all the world know it, that the depths of Divine Providence and his judgments may be admired thereby." Do any, surveying the dread persecution which we have been contemplating, as a whole, ask the question, why God gave up his saints to suffer so long and so severely? The question is a delicate one, and if answered at all, should be answered with humility and caution. We know little of God's reasons. We see the immediate or proximate causes, and that those alleged by Roman Catholics, in the present case, are not the real ones. One party said that it proceed- ed from the king's zeal for the truth. This is notoriously false, and would be no vindication though it were true. To use the language of Bayle regarding persecution in general, it is nothing "but ferocity, rage, brutal passion, ambition, and principles of a similar nature." In short, it is hatred to the holy Gospel of Christ. As regards Louis XIV., proba- bly the Marquis de Louvois, one of his ministers, described the animating motive pretty accurately, when he ascribed it to royal pride and self-will. " It is the king^s pleasure that such as refuse to conform to his religion, should be punished with the utmost rigour." Voltaire confessess that the pre- vailing spirit of the court at the period was, " that every thing ought to submit to the will of Louis XIV." But what- ever may have been the instrumental, what was the efficient and procuring cause of so much woe? It must be sought for in the character of the sufferers. While God has wise and gracious reasons for every step which he takes in the treat- ment of his own people — while He means to do them good by every stroke which he inflicts, it must never be forgotten that error or sin of some kind lies at the foundation of his atHictive discipline. What was the evil which provoked in the French Reformed? It is to be feared that the compara- tive quiet which, as a Church, they enjoyed during a con- OF FRAXCE. 269 siderable part of the reign of the Edict of Nantes, hilled them, as peace at an after-day lulled a greater body — almost all the Protestant Churches of Christendom — into a state of carnal security or spiritual carelessness. Men who were active in days of trial, became relaxed in days of prosperity. Then there must have been a want of correct scriptural prin- ciple on the part of many of them. A number of years be- fore the Revocation, not a few ministers — in the course of a year sometimes as many as twenty — recanted their Protes- tantism, and went over to the Church of Rome, moved by such arguments as the doctrine of "apostolic succession" supplies. Very many of the people enlisted, at the same time, as soldiers in the armies of Louis, though it was noto- rious that his object was, the aggrandizement of the power of France, in order better to cripple the Protestantism of Eu- rope. There must have been something very defective, in point of principle, which allowed Protestants to ciioose a profession, which not only might bring them into deadly war with brother Protestants, but which raised up a power for the express purpose of crushing their cause throughout the world. Worst of all, the entire Church seems to have been culpable in the low ground which it took in its dealings with ihe State, contenting itself with asking for mere freedom of worship for its members, instead of holding out before tlje nation the supremacy of Christ as King of nations, as well as King of the Church, and calling upon men to acknowledge Christ, by renouncing the countenance of idolatry, and re- cognising the worship of the true God. The ground occupied by the French Protestants, however excellent very many of the ministers and people were, was comparatively timid and selfish. They asked peace and protection for themselves which was all proper; but they ought to have asked more: they should have pleaded for the honour of Christ. 'J'his was the ground which, under the guidance of the illustrious Knox, was occupied by the Protestants of Scotland; and doubtless they conquered in this sign. High principle is always at one with true safety. If the Church honours Christ, He will honour the Church in return. It is not im- probable that the narrow and timid views to which I have alluded formed some of the reasons why God visited his people with the rod. He would teach a bolder confidence in himself and in his Son; and probably, had the French Church possessed such a counsellor as Knox, she would have pursued that course. 270 PROTESTANT CHURCH KNOWLEDGE, DISSOCIATED FROM TRUE RELIGION, UTTERLY UNABLE TO PREVENT OR NEUTRALIZE THE SPIRIT OF PERSE- CUTION EXEMPLIFIED IN THE REIGN OF LOUIS XIV. Looking over the long and bloody history of persecution which we have been contemplating, and remembering that a chief part of it occurred, not in a dark and barbarous age and country, but in the heart of Europe — in the seventeenth century — during the reign of Louis XIV., celebrated as the Augustan age of French literature — it is impossible not to ask the question, Is there any connection, and if so, what connection, between knowledge and persecution? It seems strange that these should co-exist in the same place and time. Many imagine that the persecution of others for their reli- gious opinions is the mere effect of ignorance and barbarism, and that, were these removed by the spread of knowledge and refinement, so hateful a crime would speedily disappear; bui the case of France and other quarters show that perse- cution is founded more deeply — not in mere ignorance or barbarity, but in the very nature of unrenewed man. The progress of civilization, and the experience of its inexpedi- ency, may restrain it, or mitigate its features; but it is the spirit of all by nature. It is only true religion which can dispel it; and even the faithful servants of God, from various unfavourable circumstances, may long remain under its in- fluence, in spite of their better principles. Its essence con- sists in hatred to the Gospel of Christ. Other things — sys- tems philosophical or religious — may be persecuted; but this is accidental. The hatred and accompanying persecu- tion of the Gospel of free salvation, and its adherents, are essential to the character of the natural man. There can be no question that there were many learned men — much literature — no small general knowledge and re- finement in France during the persecuting times which we have been surveying. Any one who has read the Memoirs of Huet, one of the tutors of the Dauphin of FVance, the son of Louis XIV., and afterwards bishop of Avranches — memoirs which stretch over a period of nearly ninety years — must be persuaded of this. Not a little of the literature and learning might be trifling or useless. There may have been much poetry, which has perished — elaborate editing of ancient authors, who did not deserve such care — large at- OF FRANCE. 271 tainments in history and antiquities, which were of no great value — oriental acquisitions, which were not applied to any- important purpose; but after making every deduction, hun- dreds of names could be referred to in most departments of literature and science, ancient and modern, which are highly- creditable. The Jesuits then flourished, many of whom were eminent for classical and other attainments. The French Academy, too, was founded, and gave a powerful impulse to the pursuit of knowledge. Indeed, the most illustrious names in France are to be found in the age when the Protestants were most severely persecuted. 'J'he question presents itself, how did these enlightened men — men of large and capacious minds — of great learning — familiar with the past experience of the world — how did they feel and act toward the injured and oppressed Protes- tants of their own land? Did they combine together to de- fend and vindicate their cause ? As patriots, as friends of humanity, as men of knowledge and refinement, they were called to this course — they could not have found a finer field for the display of their talents, energies, and sympathies. It was far superior to that on which they expended so much care and labour; and doubdess their influence, even on the highest councils of royalty, would have been very powerful. But to the disgrace of mere literature and human knowledge, the learned and civilized classes of France did nothing, and attempted to do nothing, to arrest the hand of oppression and violence upon their own brethren. They were utterly inefficient and powerless for good. They were not only, like too many literati, ignorant of true religion, and so full of mean jealousies, and torn with 'petit quarrels among themselves; but, while vaunting of their civilization and philanthropy, they allowed the most shocking barbarities and bloody persecutions to go forward for years, under their very eyes, unchallenged and unrestrained : nay, many of them went over, for miserable mercenary bribes, to the side of the royal oppressor. Louis, who has been so much lauded as the disinterested patron of learning and art, was most par- tial and exclusive in his favours. No Protestant, however largely endowed with talent, however accomplished in the walks of literature, had any prospect of success in his call- ing as a man of science or literature, unless he conformed to the Church of Rome. Indeed, it was the only mode of passing a peaceful and unsuspected life. Hence the number of Protestants of literary taste and acquirement, who, in the 272 PROTESTATS'T CHURCH course of the reign of Louis, externally at least, professed themselves of the Roman Catholic Church. While in Huet's Memoirs we read of only one Papist becoming a Protestant, Lefevre, subsequently a professor at the Protestant College of Saumur, and no great credit to the body, we read of very many Protestants, for the sake of literary encouragement, becoming apostates. The bishop's own father was one; the Duke of xMontausier another; Fontanier, who was bribed to become his flattering historiographer, another; beside many others. This was disgraceful both to tlie king and to those whom he thus prevailed upon to abandon the religion of their fathers. What a contrast were they to those faithful Protestant ministers who were as well educated — as eminent in their literary tastes and talents as they, and yet preferred not only to bear the frown of royal discouragement, but the pressure of royal persecution, sooner than sacrifice their reli- gious principles ! What a contrast is piety in its operation to mere literature! This brings me to notice, that the conduct of the literary men of France, in reference to the Protestant persecution, was the more inexcusable, yea, reprehensible, inasmuch as the parties who were oppressed were not a small or contempt- ible body of ignorant rustics. Even that would be no apol- ogy for indifference to cruelty. But it is well known that the Protestants formed a large and influential body. A re- monstrance to Pope Pius IV., on the part of Charles IX., in 1565, spoke of them in such language as the following; and there is no reason to believe that they had very seriously fallen off in numbers or character in the time of Louis: — " A fourth part of the kingdom is separated from the com- munion of the Church, which fourth part consists o{ gentil- homnies, (men of noble blood,) men of letters, chief bur- gesses in cities, and such of the common people as have seen most of the world, and are practised in arms : so that the said separated persons have no lack of force, havino* among them an infinite number of genfilhojnmes, and many old soldiers of long experience in war. Neither do they lack good counsel, having among them three parts of the men of letters. Neither do they lack money, having among them a great part of the good wealthy famihes, both of the nobility and the tier etat,^' &c.* * See Mr. D. D. Scott's important work on the Suppression of tlie French Reformation, page 12, recently published. OF FRANCE. 273 And with regard to literature, the reformed, both in France and in other countries at that time, were eminent for their knowledge and attainments. Comparatively speaking, they were far superior in these respects to their Popish brethren. Even from the Memoirs of the Roman Catholic Bishop, who was strongly prejudiced against the Protestants, it is ap- parent that they had their full share of men of talent and learning at the very time they were the victims of the king's manifold oppressions. Samuel Bochart was the Protestant and Presbyterian minister of Caen, which was noted at once for its Calvinism and its love of literature. Alexander Mo- rus was minister at Paris, and nobly adhered to his Protes- tant principles and professions, in spite of the offers of royal bribery. Blondel was a learned Protestant minister, and so was Stephen le Moine and Stephen Morin — the latter of whom had to flee at the Revocation of the Edict, and leave his children a prey to Popery. Benoit, who wrote the His- tory of the Revocation, was a learned refugee minister. Ta vernier, the celebrated traveller, belonged to the number of the French Reformed: so did Madame Dacier, so eminent for her classical attainments, that she edited some of the Delphin editions of the classics, for the use of the king's son; and yet she could not escape the royal displeasure for her Protestantism. Madame Tiliac, noted for her attainments in oriental literature, belonged to the same body. Many names might be added to these — such as Rapin, the author of the History of England, an elaborate work. Cameron, who acquired so great fame by his Prelections on the New Testament, that he was esteemed by the most learned men of Europe, and of whom a modern critic, (Dr. Pye Smith,) says that he often anticipates, in biblical criticism, the re- marks of later and more celebrated writers. Basnage, of whom Voltaire said that he was fitter to be a minister of state than a minister of a parish, well known for his acquisi- tions in Church history. L'Enfant, celebrated for his attain- ments in the same line of study, and of whom Voltaire said that he had done more than any other man to spread the knowledge of the energy and beauties of the French language to the extremities of Germany. Saurin and Superville, emi- nent as pulpit orators and men of learning; besides many who have been already quoted. Most of those here noticed are mentioned in the literary Memoirs of the Popish Bishop of Avranches, and are spoken of with honour. Were it necessary to appeal to learned men belonging to other Pro- 18 274 PROTESTANT CHURCH testant Churches of the Continent about the same period, it were easy to draw together a long and impressive array. Suffice it to say, that Presbyterian Holland, with its minis- ters, was a great centre of learning in the seventeenth cen- tury, and can produce in the course of her history, names of learned men which no Popish or Prelatical Church ever sur- passed. I merely mention Sahnasius or Saumai-ze, who has been already referred to as the advocate of the cause of Charles I. against the republican Milton ; Scaliger, Golius, eminent in Arabic and Chinese literature; Heinsius, Span- h:eim, professor of theology at Leyden; Leclerc of Amster- dam; Madame Shurman, of unrivalled attainments, which seem to have been consecrated to the cause of true religion; Mark, Glass, Vitringa, Witsius, Stock, Mcestricht, Reland, Lampe, Vantil, De Moor, Venema, Wetstein. The portraits of the professors of the different chairs, from the earliest times down to the present day, still shown in the University of Leyden, and which I have had the happiness of seeing, exhibit, it is believed, a combination of talent and acquire- ment which no Christian Church can exceed. As to the universities among the Reformed, Dr. Douglas, professor of divinity at Aberdeen in 1647, gives the following numbers at that date: — In Upper Germany, nineteen; in Switzerland, four; in Holland, six; besides other illustrious schools, as Amsterdam, Middleburgh, &:c. &;c. In Denmark and Swe- den, two; in Prussia, three; in France, eight; in England, two; and in Scotland, four; making in all, forty-eight univer- sities— a highly creditable number, and, doubtless, the foun- tain-heads of much literature and learning, and, at that day, also sound religion. But I must not enter upon these points. It is abundantly obvious, that the Reformed in France, and their brethren in neighbouring lands, could boast of their full proportion of literary and learned men ; and yet, that when they were long and grievously oppressed, the literary men of France, in their most golden age, showed them no sym- pathy, held out to them no support; nay, Naude, a man of literature, and who is described as candid and without preju- dice, vindicated the massacre of St. Bartholomew ! What, then, are we to think of mere human learning, as distin- guished from that which is divine ? Are we not compelled to conclude, that however gratifying it may be to the indivi- dual possessors, it is of little use to others — to society at large — when it is unable to prevent or check the most crying and atrocious crimes; and does such an experience not serve OF FRANCE. 275 to drive us the more to that revealed knowledge of the char- acter and will of God, which corrects the most serious evils, whether affecting individuals or society, and blesses both, with a harmony and love which are the foretaste of heaven? But the French literati not only did nothing for the persecu- ted Protestants, though they had such strong claims on their sympathy — they yielded the most fulsome and mean spirited flattery to their persecutor. This was the crying, the uni- versal vice of the literature of the age of Louis XIV. He was worshipped by all classes of literary men as ademi-god. Panegyrics in poetry and prose seem to have been the stand- ing topics of the time. Even the Academy bowed to this ignoble employment; and not satisfied with all the praise which his countrymen at home could offer, the miserable monarch pensioned foreigners to extend the degrading flat- tery. Some of the French sycophants, such as Boileau, felt the humiliation ; the loss of liberty to which they submitted for a pension, and confessed it; but the great body of them seem to have gloried in their shame. As a suitable return for such meanness — for such a perversion of those powers and attainments with which God had blessed them — the royal persecutor gave them very humble pay for all their ob- sequiousness. The greatest annual sum for pensions never exceeded one hundred thousand livres — a sum not the hun- dredth part of what he shamelessly expended on personal profligacy; and even this sum was always the flrst to be cut down on any real or supposed emergency ; and yet men treated in this way were the men who worshipped Louis, or at least his purse, and were so ambitious and vain-glorious, as to propose to make the French language universal! It may be mentioned that the king expended two hundred thou- sand livres in procuring Delphin editions of the classics, sixty-two in number, for facilitating the classical education of his son, the Dauphin; but such was his jealousy of free- dom, that Lucan, a free-spirited classic, was not translated, like the others. What failure here also in literary views 1 The Dauphin, in spite of all the pains bestowed upon him by Bossuet and Huet, turned out miserably ignorant, and could never be prevailed on to read any thing ; like the son of Chesterfield, who received no training in religion or mo- rality, but in the rules of mere conventional politeness, and who, instead of proving a well-bred man, was noted as utter- ly unmannerly. What a view does all this give us of the vanity and meanness of an irreligious literature ! Tried by 276 PROTESTANT CHURCH a Christian standard, few pictures are more melancholy than Johnson's Lives of the Poels. Most of them, alas ! built on the sand. How striking the contrast between the French literati, doing nothing for the persecuted — praising the per- secutor for a wretched mercenary return — the great body of them miserable while they lived, and now forgotten; and the faithful friends of religious and well-principled knowledge, who ranged themselves on the side of the suffering, were themselves part of the sufferers, who, amid poverty and royal frowns, persevered in cultivating sound learning, and diffusing its blessings; and, through their ministry, better prepared the Protestant people to withstand the consuming violence of persecution. How noble the spirit and conduct of similar men in Scotland ! Persecuting monarchs may have favoured them with no encouragement. They may have harassed and wearied them. The sufferers may have had to struggle with severe poverty ; influential parlies, even Universities, may have sided with the oppressor; but they were not ashamed of the principles of the Word of God; they made learning and Hterature subservient to religion and the spiritual good of men; and when the storm of persecu- tion was over, they had their reward. The names of Mel- ville, and Henderson, and Carstares, and many others, are honoured now; and even should this act of justice be denied them, they themselves shall have their reward hereafter. Yea, long ere this, we may be sure, as Christian men, they are reaping its enjoyment in the heavenly world. From the views which have been presented, we may see how utterly insufficient mere secular knowledge is, what- ever its form, to prevent intolerance and persecution. It cannot make the possessor truly happy in his own mind. It cannot eradicate his native haired to the Gospel, nor check and destroy its manifestations in others. If so large a part of the literary and learned classes of France, far from being on the side of the suffering, were on the side of the perse- cutor, at least, did nothing to restrain persecution, is it to be expected that the secular knowledge of other countries and ages will be more effective? If France failed in its Augustan period, when is any other land to succeed ? 'J'he truth is, as vve have already hinted, the hatred of the Gospel, and the persecution of its adherents, are founded in the very nature of the unrenewed man — a favourable combination of circum- stances may restrain, but cannot eradicate them. It is only the love of the Gospel in the heart — in other words, true OF FRANCE. 277 religion, which can dispossess the soul of a persecuting spirit; and it is only that deep love to man which the faith of the Gospel inspires, which can lead us suitably to respect the rights and privileges of others, and, while we hate the error or superstition which enthrals the soul, cherish the tenderest compassion for the soul which is enthralled. So far, then, from deep views of religion — as many philosophers have imagined — leading to uncharitableness and persecution; if these views are the views of the true religion, they will be found to conduct to the very opposite result. To all its other honours, Christianity adds that of being the first suc- cessfully to inculcate true toleration to those who differ from us in religious sentiment, whether more or less seriously. Philosophy, reason, extensive experience would fain appro- priate the honour to themselves ; but the history of the suf- fering French Protestants repudiates the claim, and makes over the tide to the living Gospel. A lesson which, of all others, seems most within the reach of human wisdom, can be taught and learned effectually only by the Revelation of heaven. The best instructions for time, it will be found, must ever be learned in the school which is to prepare for eternity. CONTEMPORANEOUS HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND, FROM 1660 TO 1688. Most melancholy as is the picture of the Church of France which has just been presented, it is not more dark and ter- riable than that of the Church of Scotland during the same sad years. I broke off my last notices of the Church of Scotland with the close of the Commonwealth. Cromwell's rule in Scodand had been a rule of iron. It might be said to be a military despotism; but though the General Assem- bly had been forbidden to meet, and there had been other unwarrantable interferences, there was no such persecution of the Church as disgraced the reign of previous monarchs; and, moreover, the English judges whom Cromwell sent down, administered justice much more to the satisfaction of the people than the native judges. Coming from a distance and a larger country, they were not open to the same preju- dices and local feelings which influenced men born and bred in so small a territory as Scotland. Hence they settled a 278 PROTESTANT CHURCH multitude of cases which had accumulated in hundreds, some of them of sixteen and twenty years' standing, and so dif- fused confidence throughout the country. I am not called to pronounce any opinion on the character of Cromwell. Sup- posing him to have been as detestable a hypocrite as many are disposed to imagine, his very hypocrisy is a testimony to the strong and widely diffused religious spirit of the times. He saw no other way to power than by assuming the pre- vailing religious sentiment; but whatever may have been his personal character, it cannot be denied that his court was a model of moral propriety — that he was the patron of most able men — Milton, Blake, Owen, &c., — that he was the en- courager of learning, making a present of valuable oriental MSS. to the University of Oxford — and granting permission for the paper used in the pr-inting of Walton's Polyglott to pass free; above all, that he was the defender of the in- terests of Protestantism throughout the world. The Rev. Dr. Croly, Rector of St. Stephen's, London, has well said in his preface to his New Interpretation of the Apocalypse, " What- ever was in the heart of the Protector, the declared policy of his government was Protestantism. His treasures and his arms were openly devoted to the Protestant cause in France, and Italy, and throughout the world. He was the first who raised a public fund for the reUef of the Vaudois churches. He sternly repelled the advances which Popery made to seduce him into the path of the late king. England was in- stantly lifted on her feet as by miracle — all her battles were victories — France and Spain bowed before her — all her ad- ventures were conquests — she laid the foundation of her colonial empire, and extended that still more illustrious com- mercial empire to which the only limits in either space or time may be those of mankind. She rapidly became the most conspicuous power in Europe," &c. But the reign of Cromwell is at an end, and now the Church of Scotland has to prepare for new trials — among the severest perhaps Avhich a Christian Church was ever called upon to sustain. 'I'hough the power of the Church had been considerably weakened by the sad divisions which prevailed among the clergy, un- der the names of Resolutioners and Protesters — divisions which, to Cromwell, it is said, were worth twenty thousand armed men; still, the ministers were very powerful, as powerful almost as any priests of the Church of Rome are now. And what was the source of their power? Not the power of superstition, but of the attachment which results OF FRANCE. 279 from the faithful discharge of ministerial and Christian duty. In other words, the power was of the most honourable kind. The people felt that they had received the most important benefits from the labours and sacrifices of their pastors ; and could not fail to respect, and love, and serve them in every possible way. But the great Adversary of God and of man had been sorely provoked with the progress and triumph of true religion during the last twenty years. He grudged the many souls who were in that period gathered into the granary of heaven; and v/orldly men hated the restraints and disci- pline of a Christian and Presbyterian Church. So long as evangelical religion is greatly in the minority in any country, the irreligious can bear it; but when it rises into the ma- jority, and crosses their path as in the matter of Sabbath ob- servance, or any other important part of Church discipline, they cannot tolerate it, and so endeavour to hem it into a corner, or to restrain it by persecution. It is popular when it is weak: it is hateful when it is strong. There are not a few facts in the history of the Church of Christ which coun- tenance this explanation — and the experience of the Church of Scotland, in the middle of the 17th century, is one of them. God, too, would try the faith and patience of his saints more severely than they had yet been tested. The keen dissensions which prevailed among his ministering servants indicated a proud spirit, which needed to be humbled ; while suffering is one of the means of melting into one those who may have been long asunder. Hence persecution received its commission, and most unmerciful was its progress ; but it taught lessons which it would have been ditBcult other- wise to convey. I can only refer to a few leading outlines of the history. The Scottish people, wearied with the usurpation of Crom- well, and feeling themselves committed to the royal family by the covenant which they had sworn, and Charles II. hav- ing in the most solemn manner taken that engagement, and pledged himself, as they thought, to future justice, and ho- nour his restoration, was welcomed with the most cordial and universal joy. A party of Anabaptists collected a large sum of money, and formed a plot against the life of the king — being opposed in principle to monarchy — but they were easily crushed, and all parties vied with each other in the demonstration of their attachment to the recovered prince. The Presbytery of St. Andrews entered the following reso- lution in their books:— "The Presbytery being sensible of 280 PROTESTANT CHURCH the great mercy of God towards these lands, in breaking the yoke of the usurper's tyranny and oppression off the neck of his people in these kingdoms, and restoring to us our rightful dread Sovereign, and his Majesty's lawful govern- ment, and being very willing to evidence and testify on every occasion their loyalty and cordial affection which they, with the people of God, have always borne towards his Majesty's person and government, and the person and government of his royal predecessor, hath appointed that every minister of this Presbytery shall, next Lord's day, warn the people to be assembled solemnly on the 29th of May, for hearing ser- mon, giving thanks to God for restoring, in great mercy, our king to his just right, and for praying for blessings to his person and government, and that he may be more and more fitted to be a blessed instrument for preserving and promoting the truth of religion in these lands ; and withal, that they do prudently inform their several people that the observation of such days for commemoration of such a singular mercy, doth not impart any holiness to the day, such as God himself hath put upon the Sabbath day, which none but God himself can put upon any day." This is an excellent appointment, in- dicating at once enlightened loyalty and religion ; and similar appointments seem to have been universal. The Presbytery of Cupar, thankful to the Lord for delivering the king without blood, in such an unexpected manner, resolve to hold a day, with as great thankfulness, joy, and gladness, '^ as can pos- sibly be." Surely a people so loyal, confiding, and religious, deserved well at a monarch's hand ! They were not unreasonable or impracticable. But, alas I scarcely is Charles seated on the throne, before, like a thorough Papist — which he truly was — he violated all his oaths, and proceeded, by the most violent means, to overthrow the Presbyterian Establishment which he had sworn to uphold. Ere the year was out, that Estab- lishment might virtually be said to be at an end. In reading the history, one is struck with the rapidity of the change. The joy of the Restoration seems to have intoxicated and blinded the people. Surely the result shows the powder which wicked men, at least for a season, may wield without restraint, and how necessary it is that the national patriotism be ever kept alive and enlightened. We are ready to ask, where are the men who, in the days of Charles L, were banded together as one man by their Solemn League, and who determined the fate of England? The answer is, very OF FRAXCE. 281 many of them had left this earthly scene of warfare, and their spirit was not fully inherited by their sons. Not a few of the gentry did not remain faithful like the ministers ; and above all, there was no civil war, as before, to divide the forces of the king and country. Scotland had to bear the brunt of English power alone, and this was too heavy for her, especially after past and severe losses. Had it not been for these adverse circumstances, and the feeling of hopeless- ness which they created, there can be little doubt that there would have been the same resistance in the days of the son as of the father — against Charles II. as Charles I. The leading agents in the overthrow of the Church, and the per- secution of its ministers and members, were, in point of cha- racter, worthy of the mission on which they were employed. While they belonged to a party which boasted of its chivalry and honour, they were noted for the basest treachery and falsehood, and the meanest avarice — for practices of which the poorest Covenanter would have been ashamed. They gloried in wickedness and debauchery, impressively pro- claiming what were the real grounds of their hatred to a Presbyterian Christian Church, whatever might be the osten- sible."^ It may be safely said, that there is no hatred of the light so great, as that which proceeds from the conscious- ness that the deeds are evil, and cannot stand its scrutiny. The steps taken for the destruction of the Church of Scot- land, and with it, of evangelical religion, were as rapid and comprehensive as they were unprincipled and violent. The Scottish Parliament, which had been prepared to the hands of the king, met in the beginning of 1661, with Middleton, as royal commissioner, at its head. The first measure was an oath of allegiance, which involved the supremacy of the kina in ecclesiastical as well as civil causes; in other words, whi^ch struck at the Headship of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the constitution of the Presbyterian Church. The next measure was the Act Rescissory, which at one blow can- celled all the excellent reformation legislation of the previous twenty years. The step which followed placed the external policy and government of the Church among the inherent rights of the crown ; and, as a very appropriate sequence, next moment created the bishops, and invested xhern with all their former privileges and jurisdictions. All the acts of the covenanted Reform'aiion were next declared to be trea- sonable and rebellious ; and shordy after, the Solemn League and Covenant, which at one time most of the members of 282 PROTESTANT CHURCH Parliament had taken with hands uplifted to heaven, was condemned to be burnt by the common executioner. In short, measures were passed which involved the absolute authority of the king over both church and nation — an au- thority which dethroned the Redeemer, and swallowed up all the rights of the subject. The reader will not wonder to learn, what is a melancholy fact, that not a few of the members of Parliament who passed such acts were habitual^ ly intoxicated, and that the proceedings had again and again to be adjourned, owing to the gross drunkenness of the royal commissioner. When the poor Presbyterians assembled in their Church Courts to protest and petition against these ar- bitrary and most despotic measures, they were broken up and dispersed as rebellious and treasonable ; and, by an act of Privy Council, passed when all the members were in a state of intoxication, between three hundred and four hun- dred ministers were driven out of their charges, and all the remainder were required to receive collation at the hands of the bishops. The madmen who made such enactments, judg- ing of others by themselves, thought that no minister, when his living was at stake, would hesitate to sacrifice conscience to convenience: but they were remarkably deceived. The principle and self-denial of the Presbyterian ministers on this occasion are highly honourable. They manifested the same spirit as their brethren in England, two thousand of whom were ejected in a single day, for conscience' sake, at the same period; and in Ireland, when of sixty-nine ejected in the province of Ulster, only seven conformed to Prelacy. What a contrast was this to the conduct of the Episcopal clergy in the reign of Mary and her sister Elizabeth ! Out of the nine thousand four hundred and fifteen Avho had been minis- ters under the popish and bloody Mary, only two hundred and three refused to conform to the views and wishes of the Protestant EHzabeth. What a grievous absence must there have been of the high religious principle which animated the poor Presbyterians of Scotland; and yet there are men who have not praises ample enough for the one, nor censure and contempt keen enough for the other! I may just add, that the places of the ejected ministers were supplied by raw, ignorant — many of them immoral — young men from the Highlands — men, of whom even bishop Burnet says, *' They were the worst preachers I ever heard : they were ignorant, and a reproach, and many of them openly vicious : they were a disgrace to their orders and their sacred functions, and OP FRAWCE, 283 were indeed the dregs and refuse of the northern parts !" And these are included in the "apostolic succession," of which so many of the English Church now-a-days make a boast! Sir Walter Scott, whom no one will suspect of saying any thing harsh of Scottish Episcopacy, states in his History, that a gentleman in the north regretted the ejection of the Presbyterian ministers, because it deprived the coun- try of herd-boys. What a contrast to the able and faithful, and 'learned and beloved men who had been dispossessed, and of whom Burnet says, " They were related to the chief families in the country, either by blood or marriage, and had lived in so decent a manner, that the gentiy paid great re- spect to them." It would have been strange if the people of Scotland had tamely put up with the substitution of the one for the other, and been contented with the curates. To this they could never agree. Accordingly they deserted the churches in thousands, flocking to their own ministers, now more endeared to them than ever. The effect of this again was to lead to enactments against holding conventicles — that is, meetings for the public worship of God, which, being generally disregarded, the Government was at once brought into collision with the people; and wide-spread and fierce persecution began. I shall not sicken myself or the reader by entering on the bloody details of nearly thirty years of persecution which followed. I shall not speak of the different and successive inventions of cruelty — the courts of almost popish inquisition which were reared — the letters of intercommuning — the quartering of lawless soldiers on the suspected — the High- land host. I shall not speak of the fines, often amounting to oppressive sums, sometimes £2000, nay, £8000 sterling, of imprisonment — of confiscation — of the instruments of tor- ture— of the forms of violent death — of perpetual banishment to foreign shores — above all, of multiplied oaths and tests to involve men of conscience in the guilt of perjury— to them worse than a capital execution — of the deaths from broken hearts* The cruelties were savage — worthy of cannibals; ihey were refined — worthy of fiends. Even Sir Walter Scott repeatedly says that they seemed as if suggested by Satan. The result of the whole was, that in twenty-eight years, in a small and poor country like Scotland, there were above twenty thousand persons, of all ranks and conditions, and both sexes, brought under the grinding oppression of the persecution. Hundreds and thousands lost their lives by 284 PROTESTANT CHURCH it. What an appalling picture ! The whole number of mar- tyrs thoughout England, under the reign of the bloody Mary, was about four hundred; and the number of sufferers under Elizabeth was sixty; but here are twenty thousand suffering in a far smaller population; and what is more wonderful, suflerers by the hands of professing Protestants — Christian brethren! While 1 shun details, I must give the reader one or two extracts, which may enable him to conceive in a general way, of the measures which were pursued. I select the extracts from the writings of men whose ancestors were pre-eminent sufferers in the cause of Christ. "By degrees the whole frame of Government seemed con- verted into one vast court of Inquisition, in which the Epis- copal clergy, of all ranks, held a conspicuous place as infor- mers, witnesses, or judges. Of fining and imprisoning there was scarcely any cessation. From the privy councillor down to the common soldier, pillage was the universal prac- tice. Multitudes, who had possessed a comfortable abun- dance, or who had lived in affluence, were stripped of their entire property, and became houseless Avanderers. The prisons of the kingdom were often crowded to excess, and although death was continually removing numbers of prison- ers by the cruel treatment to which they were subjected, and by the busy hands of the executioner, it was frequently- necessary to make room for new companies, by banishing hundreds to foreign plantations, where many of them were sold into perpetual slavery. By what were termed letters of inter communing, issued by the Government, great num- bers, both of ministers and of private Christians, were pro- claimed ouflawfi, and cut off from the common rites of hos- pitality. In such cases it was declared to be a capital crime to hold any communication with these persons by word or writing, to afford them food or lodging, or the smallest relief and assistance ; no exception being made in favour of those who stood in the nearest relation to them. According to this law, if an individual was denounced by Government as having been guilty of hearing a sermon in the field, the nearest relative could not offer him a morsel of bread, but at the hazard of life. To establish the crime of treason, it was not necessary, in the more advanced state of this persecu- tion, to prove any act of resistance to the law, nor even to find evidence of an intention to resist the law, however tyran- nical: the opinions of the persecuted Covenanters were pro- nounced treason. OF FRANCE. 285 "By all the various tribunals which were erected, mul- titudes were condemned to die for owning the obligation of the Covenants — for refusing to acknowledge the king's ec- clesiastical supremacy — for avowing the sentiment, that it is lawful in subjects to make resistance to 'tyrannical Govern- ments— for refusing to call the death of Archbishop Sharpe murder — or the rising at Pentland or at Bothwell rebellion. Neither was it deemed always requisite for convicting an offender, that competent witnesses should be produced against him, whether it was before the supreme court of justiciary that any suspected person was arraigned, or one of tlie circuit courts, or a sheriff, or his deputy, or his under-deputy, or a military officer: the pannel was interrogated, first, in regard to his conduct, and next, in regard to his opinions. If, on these heads, nothing was elicited, he was immediately re- quired to take the test, or the current oath of the day; and if the fear of God would not allow him to renounce his prin- ciples by compliance, the process was immediately closed. He might, perhaps, in the first instance, be deprived of all his property, and shut up in prison, or sent to the Bass (a barren rock near the entrance of the Firth of Forth ;) but at one period of the persecution, such an examination was fre- quently followed by a speedy execution. Even the common soldier was at last permitted to adopt the same mode of trial in the case of any person whom he suspected, or pretended to suspect, of disloyalty — and, having his eye on the plunder, to become at once witness, judge, and executioner." The above is from an official document — " 'i'he Historical Part of the Testimony of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Scotland. 1839." The next extract is from an unpublished account of a man in respectable life — Alexander Reid, tenant in Broxburn, who lived in the time of the persecution, and who was exposed to its violence. It is but a few years ago that his narrative has become accessible. He says, " Our persecution grew aye the hotter and hotter — the devil raging in wicked men, for his time was to be but short. Searches were made through all the country where they heard any of those whom they called rebels haunted, many falling into their hands, and they taking their lives in a cruel manner, not suffering them to speak on the scaffold, yea, some not to read, pray, or sing psalms: took some of their lives soon in the morning, some late at night; some taken away to the scaffold as soon as ever they got their sentence. Great searches were in Edin- burgh— the ports closed — guards set round about the town 286 PROTESTANT CHURCH several limes, because many persecuted people came lurking privately in the town; for. their cruelty went so on, that they took men's lives for their opinion, although they had been in no action ; and not only men's lives, but women's also for their opinion. Two young women suffered in the town of Edinburgh — for they raged more and more. There was one great search which I narrowly escaped from the enemy's hands. 1 went to an uncle's house near the West Kirk, and continued there all night. In the morning when we rose, there was a guard standing at the door. My aunt cried that we would all be ruined, which was true according to their law, for those that haunted them were in danger as well as those that haunted with them. 1 desired her to hold her peace, and, putting on a mealy coat of my uncle's, got safely without the guard, and went to the country." Such are general but faithful descriptions of the persecu-^ tion of the Church of Scodand. It came nearer in horror to the bloodiest scenes in the persecution of the Church of France, tlian the sufferings of any other Church since the Reformation. Indeed, a peculiar severity appears to have been the lot of Presbyterian Christian Churches. It would seem, that in the extent and strength of their religious prin- ciple, they have presented a greater amount of unyielding resistance than other bodies; while their Church government and discipline, founded as they are on the Word of God, peculiarly irritate and provoke the ungodly mind, especially wicked civil rulers, who imagine that such a form of govern- ment is in various ways at war with their power. There are some periods in the history of the Church of ScoUand, where the records are scanty and the impressions compara- tively faint. But it is not so with the sad period which we have been contemplating. Its memorial is written in blood — in relics, and monuments, and traditions, which will never die. There are cases of martyrdom surpassing in interest all that romance ever feigned. The execution of the youth- ful Hugh M'Kail, and his farewell to the world; the slaugh- ter of John Brown, the Christian carrier, in the presence of his wife and children, in the act of prayer, by the hand of the bloody commander, when even the soldiers declined the deed ; and the drov.'ning of the two faithful females in the advancing tide of the ocean — will never be forgotten so long as Scodand remains a country. Prejudiced writers may at- tempt to misrepresent the characters, and explain away the grounds of the struggle ; but the effort is vain. Nay, these OP FRAjSCE. 287 very assaults will, as heretofore, only lead to a more tho- rough study, and a more just and universal appreciatioft. But while the memory of the Scottish martyrs is devoutly and affectionately cherished by their descendants, it were well that the members of the Church, at whose instigation, in a great measure, the oppression and the bloodshed were perpetrated, would bethink them of their responsibility, and confess the sins of their Church in other days. A divine blessing can scarcely be expected on their Church, while such a slaughter of the saints of God remains publicly un- confessed and unbe wailed. Let it not be said that the Scottish Presbyterians rose in rebellion against the civil authority of the kingdom. There were three or four risings in the course of thirty years; but the patience and submission, when it is considered how much was at stake, is almost incredible. The sufferers were con- tending, not, as it has been ignorantly or wilfully misrepre- sented, like the Roman Catholics of Ireland at the present day, against the pecuniary demands of an adverse Church. No. It was no contest about Church property; it was a struggle fur the rights of conscience — the freedom to wor- ship God according to the forms and ordinances of the Church of their fathers; in other words, it was the question of — Christ or Antichrist. It was not wonderful that, when these rights were usurped, men should resist. There is a limit in submission where endurance becomes criminal; but assuredly the suffering Church erred on the side of submission. Even Sir Walter Scott, in his History of Scotland, can say, " In danger, want, and necessity, the inhabitants of the wilder- ness, and expelled from civil intercourse, it is no wonder that we find many of these wanderers avowing principles and doctrines hostile to the Government which oppressed them, and carrying their resistance beyond the bounds of mere self- defence." Their lengthened patience is far more astonishing than their occasional outbreakings under the most intolerable violence. And even though their spirit and conduct had not been so justifiable as they arc, yet who that considers how unspeakable have been the advantages, civil and religious, which were wrought out by their firmness and perseverance, can doubt that they are well entided to the gratitude and es- teem of every patriot and every Christian. Though they did not succeed in their risings, or the success was only tem- porary— generally leading to severer inflictions — yet the courage and constancy which they manifested, taught their 288 PROTESTANT CHURCH oppressors that their principles could only be destroyed with the extermination of their persons; and such a conviction, doubdess, exerted an important influence in paving the way to their ultimate deliverance. And here I must introduce a few observations on the char- acter of the Covenanters as a whole. It serves greatly to aggravate the guilt of persecuting them. The Rev. Dr. Symington, of Paisley, thus writes: " They were distin- guished by strict morality, fervent piety, and exemplary practice of the private and public duties of religion, and of the virtues of life. They cultivated the devotion of the closet, and gave themselves to the reading of the Scriptures, and to prayer in secret; and to habitual watchfidness over their hearts, and the ways of providence and grace towards them. They worshipped God in their families daily, morn- ing and evening, in the exercises of praise, reading the Scriptures, and prayer; and they resorted with greater fre- quency to these duties on the Sabbath. It appears that the Paisley martyrs were thus employed when they were appre- liended. Tlie Covenanters were distinguished by regular attendance upon the public ordinances of religion; and it is manifest from their history, that they waited upon the preach- ing of the Gospel with special preparation and prayer, and followed it up with faithful, personal self-application. They took heed not only ivliat, and how, but wJiom they heard. They would not wait upon the ministrations of the curates, regarding them as not properly appointed, and many of their services as unauthorized in the Scriptures ; nor would they give countenance even to those ministers whom they con- sidered, by accepting indulgences, to have made a compro- mise of the authority and the independence of their ministry. They cherished a profound respect for the ministry of the Word, and often waited upon it with great personal sacrifice and hazard. The Sabbath was held peculiarly sacred by the sufferers of these times. They kept it holy, and opposed, by their sentiments and practice, the violation of it by civil employments or amusements. The abuses of the Sabbath that had prevailed in England, and under authority from the time of the publication of the Book of Sports, they testified against. The puritanical Scottish Sabbath is made the jest of the profane, and has been held up to ridicule by legisla- tors in the recent discussions in Parliament; but it was the honour of our country. Would to God we saw it back again ! Besides waiting on the public institutions of religion, our OF FRANCE. 289 fathers held private meetings for prayer and religious fellow- ship. These associations conduced both to cherish in their hearts the principles of piety, and to keep alive their zeal in the public cause. They were a great blessing to our fathers when deprived of their loved ministers; and many, in their dying moments, testified to the enjoyment they had expe- rienced when waiting on them. I must not omit to notice another practical feature of character. The pious men of these times paid strict attention to the religious education of children. They were painfully and conscientiously diligent in instructing them in Bible knowledge, in Christian doc- trine, and in the nature, constitution, and history of the Christian Church, and in prayer. They were persons, too, of correct morality. They were industrious in their callings, Justin their transactions, and strict in their morality; and all this upon religious principles. They abstained, indeed, from certain prevailing amusements — cards and dice, theatrical entertainments, dancing, assemblies, and such like; because they viewed them as inconsistent with religion, and trenching upon morality. But there is no just reason to charge them with moroseness and austerity — the accusations which a light generation is ever ready to bring against that unbending nonconformity to favourite indulgences, which ofl'ends be- cause it reproves. They \vere not, indeed, polished in a Pa- risian school ; but they were distinguished, not only for stern regard to integrity and zeal for religion, but for the imaffect- ed simplicity of their character and manners."* It is common for party writers to attempt to take olf the edge of the sympathy which is due to the suifering Presby- terian ministers in Scotland and in England, by reminding us of the sufferings of the Episcopal ministers in England, in the days of Cromwell, when Episcopacy was overthrown. Now, that a considerable share of suffering was endtired by many ministers of the Church of England at that period, no one who has read good Bishop Hall's tract, entitled, " Hard Measure," can doubt. There was indeed hard measure meted out to not a few, and every humane and Christian heart must condemn such proceedings. 'J'hey savoured too much of revenge. But nothing can be more unreasonable, than to compare the persecution undergone by the Episcopal ministers with that endured by their Presbyterian brethren. 'Ihere is no comparison. At the worst, the one was inflicted * Vide an excellent discourse, entitled, " The Blood of Faithful Martyrs precious in the sight of Christ," 19 290 PROTESTANT CHURCH with whips, the other with scorpions and death. Out of the ten tiiousand clergy of the Church of England, it never could be proved that more than two thousand were deprived of iheir livings ; and this number, it is to be remembered, comprehended the ignorant and the scandalous, who were a disgrace to their order — who ought never to have been in- trusted with parishes ; and these were very numerous. Moreover, those who were displaced were allowed to retain a fifth part of their sequestered livings, for their temporal provision. How different the character and condition of the Presbyterian sufferers in Scotland and in England! Those in the former country were almost one half the entire Church in number. In both countries they were men not of doubt- ful but of the highest character and attainments, and no pro- vision whatever was made for their support. How many of them were robbed of any private properly which they pos- sessed of their own ! How happy would they have been to have escaped so easily as their Episcopal brethren ! I have already referred to the fearful cruelties in Scotland, under the royal brothers, Charles H. and James H. — to the ejec- tion of nearly four hundred faithful ministers — not in a time of confusion, such as the civil wars in England, but in days of peace — in days of public joy on the restoration of a long exiled monarch — and to the nearly twenty thousand sufferers to deprivation and death in the same bloody reigns. But the Presbyterians of England, though less alHicted than their Scottish brethren, had their full share of woe. The Act of Uniformity which was passed in the House of Commons only by six votes, and was strongly opposed in the House of Lords, at once ejected two thousand of the best ministers from their churches and homes ; and there were aggravations in the cruelty. It was intentionally passed at such a period of the year as deprived the sufferers of the salary of the eleven preceding months, for which they had faithfully la- boured ; nor were they allowed, by keeping schools and acting as tutors in private families, to compensate in some measure for the change in their circumstances : they were expressly shut out from such employments. With all these disadvantages, and though tlie straits of many were very se- vere, it is a remarkable fact, recorded by one who knew them well — by Philip, the father of the well-known commen- tator, Matthew Henry, " that he never heard of a single nonconformist minister being in prison for debt." Such was the watchful providence of God over his own people — su(;h OF FRANCE. 291 the Christian liberality and kindness of the friends whom He raised up in their behalf. How different the result in the case of the agents of the persecution — the hired informers who were employed in detecting the proscribed meetings for nonconformist religious worship. Of them it is related, that the money obtained in this way never prospered ; that being spent in taverns, gaming, and debauchery, most of the in- formers died in prison or poverty, and not a few were brought to a miserable and untimely end. It is a beautiful illustra- tion of the over-ruling providence of God, that the plague and great fire of London which were the source of so much alarm and suffering, and death to multitudes, were the means of bringing the afflicted Presbyterian clergy into public fa- vour and repute. While many of their oppressors (led in the hour of danger, they faithfully remained at their post, and had facilities for discharging ministerial duty of which they had long been deprived. The public sympathy was excited in their behalf. Their meetings were attended by crowds, and their adherents and influence visibly increased. Yet, strange to relate, such was the blind, infatuated, atro- cious spirit of persecution, that, during the worst days of the plague, which cut off one hundred thousand inhabitants of the metropolis in a few months, the Five Mile Act was pass- ed by the Parliament met at Oxford — an act intended to sepa- rate and banish the faithful ministers who were hazarding their lives for the souls of their fellow-men. Such were the oppressions and sufferings of the Presbyterian ministers; — and how fared their people? The Rev. Mr. Cornish, in his " Brief History of Nonconformity," gives the following summary : " It is impossible to make an exact computation of the number of sufferers, or of the damages sustained by the Dis- senters in the space of twenty-five years, under the reigns of Charles II. and James II.; — how many families were re- duced to beggary — how many lives were lost in loathsome jails — how many pastors were driven from their congrega- tions, and forced to live as they could, five miles from them or from any corporation ; how many industrious tradesmen were cut off from their employments, their substance plun- dered by rude soldiers, and divided amongst idle, infamous informers. The vexatious suits in spiritual courts also, and the expenses attending them, were immense. One writer quoted in the preface lo Delanne's ' Plea,' says, ' That near ci^ht thousand perished in prison during the reign of Charles 292 PROTESTANT CHURCH II., merely for dissenting from the Church in some points, which they were able to give good reason for; and that, within the compass of three years, they suffered at least in their trades and estSiies two millioiis.'' Mr. Jeremy White had carefully collected a list of the dissenting ministers and their sufferings, with the names of sixty thousand persons, who had suffered on a religious account, between the Restora- tion and the Revolution, Jive thousand of whom died in prison. King James offered him one thousand guineas for this manuscript, but he resolved to conceal it, that it might not appear to the disreputation of the Church of England when in real danger. For this generous conduct some of the clergy thanked him, with the offer of an acknowledgment, which he to his further honour declined accepting, though not in affluent circumstances. Besides those who suffered at home, multitudes retired to Holland and America. Reckon- ing the. dissenting families at that time in England to be no more than one hundred and fifty thousand (no extravagant computation,) and that each family incurred the loss of three or four pounds per annum, the whole will amount to twelve or fourteen millions, a prodigious sum for these times ! ' But these,' adds Mr. Neal, ' are bare conjectures. The damage done to the trade and property of the nation was immense, and the wounds made in the estates of private families were deep and large, many of whom, to my certain knowledge, wear the scars of tl)em to this day.' The loss of such as emigrated, was in some degree supplied by the many indus- trious Protestant refugees, of whom the abominable cruelties of Louis XIV. and his clergy, drove from France, merely on account of their religion, since their loyalty was unim- peached. King James, though a bigot, yet, from political motives, encouraged these valuable m-embers of society to settle in his dominions, which they enriched by the intro- duction of their manufactories, and improved by their virtu- ous examples." From these statements it is abundantly obvious, that while the sufferers of no denomination, at any period of British history, are disparaged — while the sincerity of all religious sufferers is honoured — the Presbyterians in Scotland and in England were the great and leading witnesses, even to mar- tyrdom, for the truth and kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. To them the privilege spoken of by the Apostle Paul was awarded, " Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to sutler for his sake." OF FRANCE. 293 But to return to the Church of Scotland under Charles II. As in the course of this sketch I have frequently illustrated the character of the Church from the ecclesiastical records of its courts, I may mention a few things which appear in these during the Episcopacy persecuting times now under re- view: they may not be uninteresting to the reader. It ap- pears, then, that the same sort of crimes existed as in the Presbyterian period — that witchcraft, for instance, was com- mon, and was punished in the same way. This was not, then, it would seem, a crime created or fostered by Presby- terian Church courts. It appears also, that collections were made for objects of general utility and benevolence. These had been very common before. Roads were repaired, and bridges built, and harbours "formed in this way, as well as poor and deserving persons aided ; and the practice is still continued ; but the contributions are fewer in number and less abundant in amount, and are often delayed. In some cases the bursar seems still to be maintained at college; and there are occasional complaints against Popery ; but there are few traces of true religion in the records to which I have had access. How, indeed, could there be during a period and a policy, in reference to which Leigh ton, by far the most spiritual man of the Scottish Episcopal Church, declared on abandoniog his office, " that he could not concur in planting the Christian religion itself in such a manner, much less a form of government?" But while there are few traces of religion, there are ample proofs of persecution. Ministers were ordained to parishes without the least concurrence from the people being asked or expected — by " the gift of the Bible and the keys of the Church." Churches were so de- serted that they were shut up. The parishes of Edinburgh, instead of being multiplied, were reduced in number. There are sad complaints too, of Sabbath-breaking by attending conventicles ; but the most impressive part of such records, is the lists of fines, &c. We are informed by the author of the " History of the Church of St. Cuthbert's," who found, chiefly on the Session Records, that " through the whole period of the Episcopal rule, little else is to be found on the records but fines and imprisonment, a detail of which would sicken rather than gratify the reader." He adds, that in these days one was made an ofliender for a word ; an expres- sion of sympathy for the suffering brought down a heavy fine. Two poor women are fined a dollar each, and to be imprisoned till paid, because they had said something which 294 PROTESTANT CHURCH the Episcopal minister thought directed against him. It may be liere worth mentioning, on the authority of Wod- row's unpublished Analecla, that it was only the record of the ("riminal Court of Edinburgh which was regularly kept. As to the other parts of the country which should have re- ported to the metropolis, "there were no accounts given al- most in writing of the fines that were exacted, for these were all pocketed." What an idea of rapacity and plunder does this open up ! To proceed with the history. Charles II. died in 1685, a period so bloody, that it was called, by way of eminence, " the killing time." He was a miserable, perjured, and pro- fligate Papist — dancing in gaiety and revelry at the Hague a few months after his father's execution — violating his oath to his Presbyterian subjects, apparently on the Popish prin- ciple that no faith is to be kept with heretics — and leaving many fruits of his shameless and protracted adulteries be- hind him. It was a testimony to the character of the Pres- byterian Church, to be hated and persecuted by a monarch of such character; no great credit to any professedly reli- gious party to have him for their patron, and support, and head. And yet this man was an encourager of the fine arts, and not deficient in intellect and accomplishment — a plain proof, surely, how insufficient the cultivation merely of the mental and the tasteful is to secure the happiness of our moral nature. But, though Charles was removed, there was no improvement of the condition of the Church and nation un- der his brother James II., who succeeded him. If possible, matters became worse. He was avowedly what Charles was half disguisedly — a Papist; and in his private morals, like his brother, was a profligate. His great object, in the short period which he was allowed to reign, seemed to be, to sub- vert Episcopacy and re-establish Popery, probably as an atonement for his sins. Charles had, by the overthrow and oppression of the Presbyterian Church, and the tyrannical principles of government which he had long sanctioned, pre- pared for this. James was but going a step further, and completing his work. The moral retribution, too, would have been just. But now that, instead of a small and re- mole country, the w^hole of Great Britain had the revival of the Church of Rome, with all her terrors and abominations, full in sight, public sentiment was roused from its sleep, and the Popish king was driven into hopeless exile. I have said that his object was to restore Popery. He scarcely made a OF FRANCE. 295 secret of it. Indeed, he pursued his design with a haste, and zeal, and recklessness which defeated the scheme. The first step, of course, was to remove the penal laws against the Roman Catholics, and so render them eligible to offices of power and trust. With characteristic Jesuitry, there was conjoined with this proposal a toleration and indulgence for the oppressed Presbyterians, both in Scotland and England. Had they been like many, after twenty-eiglit years of suf- fering, they would have accepted the proffered boon, and permitted those to feel the weight of Popery, who had wounded them longer and more grievously than even the Church of Rome. But, under the influence of that noble religious principle which had governed the Presbyterians all along, they declined the king's kindness, and joined with the Episcopalians in resisting Popery as a common enemy. The Episcopal party had reasons, apart from principle, for strenuously opposing a restoration of popery. The aristo- cracy would, without doubt, have, ere long, lost the Church lands which they at present enjoyed, and the clergy would soon have been deprived of their livings. We do not say that many, especially in England, were not influenced by the highest motives. Indeed, the able theological resistance which was made to the Church of Rome at this time, is one of the brightest passages in the history of the Church of England. To her credit it deserves to be recorded, that in four short years her ministers published three hundred works, some of them of considerable size, against the doctrine and spirit of the Church of Rome. Archbishop Wake gives a list of them ; and some of them are of leading importance at the present day. The Presbyterians had previously delivered and published their " Morning Exercises," or Course of Ser- mons against Popery. But there were other motives, be- sides strict religious principles, to guide the ministers and members of the establishment. It was otherwise wiih the Presbyterians. Their temptation was, for present relief, to go over to the side of the king; but with noble disinterest- edness they overcame the trial. As Christian men, they hated Popery in every form. They and their fathers had ex- perienced the bitterness of its real principles under a Protes- tant name; and they would not have others, it may be after generations, subjected to the same galling yoke. Tliey clear- ly saw, moreover, to use the language of Mr. Rcid's unpub- lished narrative, that " a liberty granted lo all sorts of reli- gion in the nation, was no less a just object of fear to all 296 PROTESTANT CHURCH honest people — thinking that, by making them secure, the Papists might strengthen themselves to cut them all off." Hence they vigorously opposed Popery, and it was by the union of the Protestant interest that that system of idolatry and falsehood was kept down, and the glorious Revolution of 1688 accomplished. Ere that could be gained, various and desperate were the efforts which James made, not only to release Popery from its subjection, but to raise it to suprem- acy. Vi/'ith the utmost severity he punished the unsuccess- ful rise, under his nephew, the Duke of Monmouth, in Eng- land, and the Earl of Argyle in Scotland — beheading both the leaders — casting even a medal with the brutal emblems of two trunkless heads on one side, and two bodies without heads on the other. About the same time, those confined in the different prisons for religion, amounting to one hundred and sixty — men, women, and even children — were conducted like felons to Dunottar Castle, and kept there for weeks, sub- jected to innumerable indignities and sufferings. To this day openings remain in the walls of the building, which in- dicate how little children had been tortured. In vain did James apply to the Parliaments of England and Scotland to sanction his measures in regard to the Ro- man Catholics. Though both bodies had been wonderfully submissive before, and though the king was only calling upon them to follow out the principle of passive obedience, and that the sovereign is responsible only to heaven — prin- ciples which they had been well taught by their clergy, and which they had acted upon with all severity towards their Pres- byterian brethren — yet now that their own interest is at stake, and Popery is in full view, they tremble at their own cher- ished doctrines, and turn aside from the consequences. The king then tried the army, the universities, the Churcli, in one form or other, labouring for the introduction of Popery ; but he was defeated in them all. Seven bishops had the courage to go to the Tower, rather than comply with one of his orders. Even old friends, and some of his own family, turned from him in the day of trial; while the Pope, to whom he sent an ambassador, probably thinking that he was injuring matters by haste, did not receive him with that wel- come which might have been expected. Never was indi- vidual or sovereign more mortified on every hand. At length, his son-in-law, the Prince of Orange, was encouraged to come from Holland, and assume the sovereignty; and James, terrified lest the doom of his father, Charles [., should OF FRANCE. 297 await him, left the throne, and Parliament voted that he had abdicated ; and William was called to the vacant crown. Thus, one of the greatest Revolutions which was ever effect- ed, leading to the most important consequences, even to un- born generations, was accomplished with scarcely the shed- ding of a drop of blood. The event strikingly proclaims the providence of God, and the proclamation is still louder when we view it in connection with the sufferings of the Protes- tants of France. There can be no question, that throughout the whole of the reign of Charles 11., particularly towards its close, there was a decided progress to Popery. Whether avowed by the nation in as many words or not, such were the tendencies of the age. The result appeared in the short reign of James. Charles' Popish marriage, and the Act of Parliament against any calling his Majesty a Papist, or saying that he meant to introduce Popery — the addresses to the king to banish the the Jesuits and Popish priest — the remonstrance of Parlia- ment, in 1673, against James' Popish marriage — the address- es against Charles' queen, and her Popish parly, and his Popish counsellors — and the removal of James for a time from the presence of his brother, on the score of Popery — all indicate the progress and working of the system, in spite of the occasional blinds which were hung out to deceive and mislead the truly Protestant people. Then it is to be re- membered, that Louis XIV., at the head of France, the op- pressor and murderer of the French Protestants, was the sworn friend of the royal brothers, particularly of James. There is reason to believe that the cabal ministry, in 1670, of whom Lauderdale, the profligate and avaricious persecu- tor of the Scottish Presbyterians, was one, were in the pay of France ; at least, their advice' to their sovereign was to get money from France, and rule without Parliament. In 1685, Louis congratulates James on subduing the rebels — that is his own Protestant subjects; and, in the day of calamity and terror, offered to send thirty thousand troops to aid in recover- ing his throne. When this was hopeless, he received him to the palace of St. Germain with the warmest regard, and treated him as a most devoted friend. A few years before, the French ambassador in London complained to James, then king, of a pamphlet describing the sufferings of the French Protestants, as a scandalous lihcl, deserving of pun- ishment. The title is, " The Complaints of the Protestants, 298 PROTESTANT CHURCH cruelly oppressed in the kingdom of France." It was writ- ten by the eminent Protestant minister, Claude. Dr. Calamy, inhis "Life and Times," states that Charles IL, when in Paris, though strongly urged, could not be pre- vailed on to own the French Protestant Church, by attend- ing divine service at Charenton ; so that any favour which he may have shown to any of the refugees in this country, is extremely suspicious. Wodrow, in his unpublished wri- tings, states that Mr. Stewart, a well informed friend, inform- ed him, that about the latter part of the king's reign, the Duke of Schomberg's son — a leading Protestant family — was sent over by the Protestants to represent their sufferings to Charles, and to beg for his interposition. The king grant- ed him a private audience, but his brother James got behind the hangings, and heard all that passed. When the Protes- tant returned to France, he was immediately sent to the Bas- tile, or some other place of imprisoment. So it was, that he never more was heard of. All this shows the close sympathy and connection which subsisted between the Popish monarchs of France and Bri- tain ; in short, that they were leagued for the advancement of Popery, so far as circumstances permitted. Of course, Louis was able to act much more openly and freely than his British friend, though James was fast preparing to follow in his steps, particularly in the purchase of Popish conversions. And now let us mark what influence the French Protestants had in breaking up this Popish league at the Revolution of 1688. It must be borne in mind, that when James ascended the throne, there was no prospect of a favourable change — that so far from this, the prospects grew darker and darker; and yet his power became more consolidated. Sir Walter Scott says — "The enemies of the monarch were so com- pletely subdued, both in Scotland and England, that no prince in Europe seemed more firmly seated on his throne." The very risings against his authority, M'hich he so successfully extinguished, tended to strengthen it. Scotland, once the foremost to rise, though she held by her principles was so worn out by thirty years of unprecedented suffering tliat she was unable to move ; and yet the danger of the Popish designs of James needed but to be reduced from an abstract to a prac- tical form, to arouse the people of Britain. In the poor per- secuted French refugees who came over in hundreds and in thousands, and wandered all over the country, the necessary OP FRANCE. 299 Stimulus and alarm were given. They were so many wit- nesses and preachers of tlie horrors of Popery. They told the British people, in a more impressive way than could be done in broken words, what they might expect on the revi- val and re-establishment of the power of the Church of Rome. This came in excellent time to defeat the monarch's plans. And three years later, when the Prince of Orange stood forth upon the field, the same French Protestants appeared in a new but most important form. The same hurricane in France, which had driven so many to tlie British shores, scattered not a few to Holland. Many of them had been trained to arms in their native country, and now unemployed, placed themselves under William. To the usual courage of their nation, they added the fire of men who had just been suflfering for their Protestant faith, and who were about to be engaged in what was really a Popish war. It is easy to see what their spirit and resolution must naturally have been. Accordingly, they formed an important part of the Dutch army, on the presence of which the fate of the British Revo- lution turned. " The wisdom and power of the Prince of Orange," says Sir Walter Scott, in his "History of Scot- land," "?!«?/, even the assistance of his military force, were absolutely indispensable to the settlement of England, divid- ed as it was by two rival political parties, who had indeed been forced into union by the general fear of James' tyranny, but were ready to renew their dissensions the instant the overwhelming pressure of that fear was removed." Thus do we see that the French Protestants, both by the picture of their sufferings, and by their presence as soldiers, exerted an important influence on the great Revolution of 1C88 ; and what a mortification must this have been to Louis, that the very men whom he had been persecuting as Protestants in France, should appear upon a foreign shore, and aid in defeating finally, and, we trust, for ever, the disastrous de- signs of Popery upon the British empire; in short, that his ieaaue should in part be frustrated by his own former sub- jects whom he hated and despised, and under the leadership, too, of one who had been his most successful military op- ponent on the Continent! This, together with the loss of so many of his best subjects, must have been deeply g-.illmg to the proud patron of Popery. Had matters been otherwise ordered— had the French Protestants not been persecuted so severely— or had they not touched the British soil, who can tell humanly speaking, how diflerent might have been the 300 PROTESTANT CHURCH result ? It is beautiful to see God educing good to his Church on a great scale, from the sufferings of his saints in a limited quarter. Even historians, who are not accustomed to ac- knowledge the providence of God, are struck with the rapidity and peaceful manner in which the Protestant Revolution of 1688 was accomplished. Nothing could seem more unlike- ly— the clouds were thickening — the long reign of persecu- tion seemed to have accomplished its object both in France and Britain — Christian men were at their wits end; but *' man's extremity proved to be God's opportunity." The Most High interposed, and so disposed the hearts of men, that in two short years, the king, of his own accord, fled to a foreign land, at a moment when his continued presence or his forced departure would have been the source of many hazards ; and for the first time almost in history, the heads of two great and keen-spirited parties sunk their mutual jeal- ousies and dissensions in anxiety for the common good of the nation, and were eminently successful in their delibera- tions and labours for this end. How easy is it for God to extricate from the most formidable dangers, and at the least expected hour ! THE CHURCHES OF FRANCE AND SCOTLAND VINDICATED FROM THE CHARGE OF REBELLION— THE OBJECTIONS OF DR. PUSEY CONSIDERED. The Presbyterian Churches of France and Scotland have often been charged with rebellion. T have repeatedly, though incidentally, referred to this accusation. But it may be pro- per to be a little more full and distinct in the answer, the more especially, as Dr. Pusey, one of the leaders in the new school of revived Popery in England, has, in a very strong manner, attacked the Protestant Churches of France and of Britain on this score; and it is to be feared his sentiments and feelings are participated in by no small or uninfluential party, who generally range themselves un- der his standard. There can be no doubt, that, prompted by self-defence, the Presbyterians of France and of Scotland have occasionally felt themselves constrained to resist the persecuting tyranny to which for many long years they were subjected. Was this unlawful ? Dr. Pusey and many others, some of them far sounder men, have contended that it was so — that in all circumstances, passive obedience and non- resistance are a Christian duty — and that in departing from OF FRANCE. 301 this principle, they viohUed the law of Christ, and were chargeable with rebellion. He holds, that patience and un- resisting suffering are the strength of the Church. Others have quoted our Lord's saying to Peter — " Put up thy sword into its place, for all they that take the sword, shall perish with the sword" — attempting to show historically, that where Christians have had recourse to self-defence in behalf of their religion, they have always been cut off by the sword. But Dr. Pusey, in a recent sermon before the University of Oxford, has gone greater lengths than any writer whom we remember on the same subject. He holds, that the French Protestants were allowed to fall a prey to the horrible Po- pish plot of St. Bartholomew, in which sixty to seventy thousand were massacred in the basest treachery, " because they were an active, busy, scheming body, with worldly wisdom;" and that the Church and people of England were preserved from the Popish Gunpowder Plot, because "they were passive." He is pleased also, in his presumptuous interpretation of Providence, to attribute the decline of re- ligion in Great Britain, in the last century, to the Revolution of 1688, and to regard it as an expression of the judgments of God on the nation for dethroning the Popish James! He speaks of men "daring" to call the Revolution of 1688 " a glorious Revolution" — declares that we must " disavow" the sins of the men who carried it through; and that, had the people " remained passive under the shadow of God's wings, the tyranny had passed over; but man interposed schemes of his own — they did that which their Lord upon the cross was taunted to do, but did not — ' they saved them- selves,' and so they were permitted to mar the good purpose of God." He speaks also of the age of Charles H., being the golden age of the divines of the English Church, when their passive virtues were called forth and exercised by suf- fering; whereas, the last century was the deadest and shal- lowest period of English theology and of the English Church; and that the Revolution of 1688 "ejected a valuable portion of her members — the nonjurors — divided and so weakened her," &c. It would greatly and unnecessarily swell this liitle work to enter upon a discussion of these and similar points. There is not one of them which would not admit, as an ob- jection, of a satisfactory answer. Let me rather shortly ad- vert to the general principle which is involved in cases of resistance. No Christian doubts that in all cases it is ilie great 302 PROTESTANT CHURCH and imperative rule to submit to authority, however despotic, and that it is unlawful and sinful to resist it; but most Chris- tians have usually allowed that there are exceptions to this rule — that if a Government commands what is contrary to, or forbids what is enjoined by, the law of God, it is the duty of subjects in these cases to obey God rather tlian man — just as parents and masters are to be resisted when they re- quire what is contrary to the Divine will. These, however, are rare and terrible steps, which are to be resorted to only in the clearest cases, and after all other means have failed. Such, we contend, was substantially the case on those oc- casions where the Protestant Presbyterians of France and Scotland betook themselves to arms against their oppressors. These oppressors forbade what God had enjoined; for in- stance, they denied them the free exercise of public worship. Would it have been right here to have obeyed man, and to have abandoned the worship of God? The Christians of France and of this country did not hastily rise in rebellion. They bore long, and with pre-eminent meekness, all the hardships and persecutions to which they were exposed. They showed vasdy more forbearance and good temper un- der provocation than the Puseyites in controversy, who are so forward to condemn them. It was only when all other resources failed, that they betook themselves to the last ex- tremity ; and not a few of their reluctant risings in self-de- fence were the act of the moment, prompted not by delibe- rate design, but the urgency and suffering of the occasion. These considerations surely go far, not only to vindicate their proceedings, but to proclaim them worthy of approba- tion. It is no answer to say, that Scripture and the primi- tive Church give no authority to, or example of, resistance to civil government. The cases to which we refer are con- fessedly extreme. Scripture deals rather in general princi- ples, leaving the application to enlightened conscience, than in minute details of cases, and of all possible exceptions to general rules. It does not tell us to resist parents when they command what is wrong; yet this must be taken for granted. As Christianity does not deprive men of their natural rights, of what they possessed as men antecedent to, and indepen- dent of, revelation, so the burden of proving the obligation of non-resistance in every possible case, even the clearest and most atrocious, obviously rests with Dr. Piisey and his friends, and those who hold his sentiments; and that can be done only by their adducing from Scripture a direct prohibi- OF FRANCE. cUo tion against Christians resisting civil authority in any case whatever. This would establish the point, for Scripture is supreme, and entitled to limit natural rights; but nothing else will avail. I need scarcely say, however, that this is what Dr. Pusey does not attempt to do. Besides, in a country where Christianity is civilly recognised, as it was both in France and Britain, men stand upon a difTercnt footing from those who live in a heathen country, like the primitive Chris- tians, where Christianity is not tolerated. In the one case there might be such an outrageous violation of public and acknowledged rights, as would warrant men in having re- course to resistance as the last and only remedy, while the same resistance would be quite unlawful and wrong in a Pagan country, where the Christians (Christianity not being tolerated) could have no rights, existed only by sufferance, and so were not entitled to run counter to the known and proclaimed constitution of the country, and endeavour by forcible means to subvert it. With regard to the primitive Church, of which Dr. Pusey is so much enamoured, no one who has studied its character and history, especially with the lights which the eminent au- thor of " Ancient Christianity" has recently struck out, will be disposed to place much reliance on either its testimony or example. It is well known that a fanatical love of suffering and martyrdom early appeared in the Church, which would render such proceedings as are condemned in the Protestants of France and ScoUand in a great measure inapplicable." The earlier primitive Church stood in very peculiar cir- cumstances. Oppressed and persecuted, and anxious chiefly for the faithful maintenance of its testimony against Pagan idolatry, it is unfair to make it the pattern for a Christian community, whose condition is altogether differenl; of men possessed of certain civil powers and privileges. Who knows but that, had the early Christians been otherwise situ- ated, they would not have felt and acted diff'erently ? It is highly probable that they would. But whatever may be thought of the unresisting, meek submission of the earlier Church, all who are acquainted with ecclesiastical history are well aware that very different was the spirit of Us suc- cessor. Dr. Pusey and his friends are as great admirers of the Christian Church of ihe fowih as of the Ihird century. They pay as much, perhaps more, regard to Basil and his contemporaries, than to Cyprian and his associates. And what was the spirit of the leading men of the fourth century? 304 PROTESTANT CHURCH How did they take the contempt and rough treatment of the apostate Julian, and afterwards of the Arian emperors? Was their temper that of passive obedience and non-resistance? Were Basil and the Gregories, in addressing Julian and speaking of him, noted for the mildness of the dove or the lamb? Were they not eminent for their bold arrogance and lawless contumacy, so that one wonders the Cassars bore the provocation so meekly ? Assuredly the writings of Basil and of Gregory indicate a spirit of resistance^ to which we shall find no parallel among the persecuted Presbyterians of France and of Britain. And yet these are the great autho- rities of the new Anglican school of passive obedience and non-resistance, and leading guides of what is called the pri- mitive Church! If Dr. Pusey and his party will be ruled by the primitve Church, let them be fair and consistent, and go the full length of their professed principle. Let them take the primitive Church *' for better or for worse," and not for the former only. With regard to the supposed good which has resulted from passive suffering, and the still greater amount of good which would have resulted, had there never been any deviation from it — and with regard also to the alleged evil which has been the fruit of making use of self-defence in religion, it must be confessed that there is great uncertainty in such in- terpretations of Providence. Many of them are obviously unwarranted and presumptuous. How does Dr. Pusey know that the Protestants of France were allowed to be massacred in thousands, because they were active, and busy, and schem- ing, as he alleges ? We deny that such characteristics be- longed to them at all. It is well known, that for a considerable time previous to the massacre, they had been as quiet as could be desired. And how does he know that England was saved from the Popish plot of the 5th November, be- cause she was passive ? It is well known that her sovereign at that period, James VI., the head of the Church of Eng- land, was a decided advocate of the duty of Christian sub- jects resisting tyrannous rulers, and aided foreign Protestants and encouraged them to rise against their oppressors. It is not unknown, also, that in the previous reign, the whole Convocation of the English Church publicly acknowledged it "glorious to assist subjects in their resistance to their sovereign, and their endeavours to rid themselves of their ty- ranny and oppressions." What were the j)unishments inflict- ed on the Church of England for these incentives to rebel- OF FRANCE. 305 lion ? How, too, does Dr. Pusey come to know that the irreligion and infidelity of the last century were the punish- ment of the successfiil rebellion of 1688; and that, if the Church and country had been passive in the hand of God, deliverance would have come from another quarter? These are mere assumptions — not very loyal to the royal family at present on the throne; and there is not the smallest attempt at proof. The truth is, that the facts of history in this and other cases warrant an entirely opposite inference. It is not true that those Christians who have been constrained un- willingly, and in direful extremity, to take the sword, have perished ; and that those who have practised passive obedi- dience and non-resistance, have Uved and prospered. The reverse is nearer the truth. We do not think that the cau- tion of our Lord to Peter was intended to convey the doc^ trine for which it is quoted. Understood in this sense, it is a denial of the right of self-defence in any circumstances. It is equivalent to saying that we are neither to defend our- selves nor others in cases of the greatest danger. But apart from this, in point of fact, Protestantism has perished in Italy and Spain where there was no resistance, while it has prevailed in France, and England, and Scotland, and Ger- many, where men defended themselves and their religion against oppression and persecution. The cases referred to by Dr. Pusey are at war with his theory. It is imagined that the doctrine of unlimited passive obedience is favourable to nonconformity to the world and high spirituality; but were there any of the " passive" periods of England, which in these respects could compare with the "rebellious" periods of Scotland, from 1638 to 1649, and from 1688 to 1711? According to this theory, after the two rebellions. Christian men should have perished. Any religion which remained should have been tumultuous, worldly, political. Can any thing be more entirely at variance with the fact ? The French Protestants employed no resistance at the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Did that preserve them, and refine their Christianity? No. The Scottish Presbyterians aided the Revolution of 1688 by their arms. Did that destroy them and their Christianity? No. They lived, and for thirty years after the Revolution the Gospel made progress, so that the period is called the Third Reformation. It was not till the Jacobite party succeeded in carrying the Patronage Act of 1711, that there was any serious check to the progress of true religion, and that check did not operate immediately. So 20 306 PROTESTANT CHURCH far, then, from the decline of religion being the punishment of the Revolution, it was the Revolution, at least in Scotland, which was a main cause of the revival of religion. The decline began under the revived influence of the Act 1711, of those very principles which Dr. Pusey thinks should never have been cast out of the throne ! The truth seems to be, that so far from resistance to persecution being always punished with dis- aster to religion and religious men, the firmness and resolution, blended with meekness and temperance which it often dis- plays, are made the means, in the hand of God, of overawing enemies, and procuring more reasonable terms for the pro- fessors of the Gospel, than they would otherwise obtain. In such cases, Christians frequently cannot be worse than they are. They are persecuted if they suffer unresistingly, and they are but persecuted if they are constrained to resist. After all, perhaps, it is not wonderful that Dr. Pusey should dislike the Revolution of 1688. It was a great Pro- testant Revolution. His sympathies must be much stronger with the Popish James, and the semi-Popish non-jurors, than with Protestant William. But what a view does it give the people of Great Britain of the true character of Pu- seyism — that it hales and denounces, as the harbinger of judgment, one of the brightest events in the history of Bri- tain. This dangerous heresy has been, and is, in the course of exposure in many of its doctrinal aspects. It would seem that in its political features it is not safe. Whatever its fol- lowers may profess to the contrary, holding the principles which they do, they cannot be warm friends of the House of of Hanover. The present remarks will not be thrown away if the reader sees more clearly than before, that what is un- sound in religion cannot be safe in politics, and vice versa. But I cannot dismiss the subject without condemning the severe tone in which Dr. Pusey, and doubtless his party, speak of the French Protestants. It is easy for men living under their own vine and fig-tree, with none to make them afraid, to sit as critics upon the spirit and proceedings of men who are smarting under protracted persecution, and to say here and there they were censurable. This is heartless enough. But for professed ministers of the Gospel to lake into their puny hands the thunderbolt of heaven, and to say that the massacre of men in thousands — far better men than themselves — by the hands of Popish treachery and violence, was the punishment of a scheming and worldly-wise spirit, is insufl?erable presumption. Who is Dr. Pusey or his friends, OF FRANCE. 307 to sit in judgment on such men as Coligny and Peter Ramus, and the noble French martyrs of 1572? Is this the meek spirit of the new school of Anglican theology? Is Puseyism free from all that savours of a worldly-wise spirit? But the truth of the matter seems to be, that the French Protestant Church, through all her history, is hated because she is a Pres- byterian Church, because she lays no claim to that nonenti- ty— " Apostolic Episcopal succession" — while the best blood of Protestant Christendom flows in her veins. But however harshly the new semi-Popish party may speak of the French Protestants, men of higher name speak in very different terms. Jonathan Edwards, one of the first names in the Christian Church, referring to France, says, towards the end of last century — " Heretofore there have been multitudes of Protestants in France. Many famous Protestant churches were over all that country, who used to meet together in Synods, and maintain a very regular discipline; and a great part of that kingdom were Protestants. The Protestant Church of France was a great part of the glory of the Refor- 7nafion.''* But in case the testimony of a Presbyterian and a Calvinist, however intellectual and learned, should have little weight with the new English school, I beg leave to re- fer them to the testimony of a bishop of their own Church. Gilbert Burnet, after being on the Continent, writes, in the " History of his own Times," under the year 1686: " I was indeed amazed at the labours and learning of the ministers among the Reformed: they understand the Scriptures well in the original tongues. They had all the points of controversy very ready, and did thoroughly understand tlie whole body of divinity. In many places they preached every day, and were almost constantly employed in visiting their flocks." These are the men who know nothing about the Episcopal succession, and who would probably despise it if they did. These are the ministers of the Church of which Dr. Pusey and his party speak so disrespectfully — so daringly. It would be well if all who absurdly boast of this fictitious " succession" could point to learning, qualifications, and la- bours equally decided. But perhaps the " succession" makes up for all other deficiencies. Should it be thought that Bur- net, though a bishop, was too liberal and charitable towards the Presbyterians, we can appeal to a more modern testi- mony. The Rev. Dr. Croly, the present eminent Rector of St. Stephens, Walbrook, London, whom no one will accuse * History of Redemption, p. 298. 308 PROTESTANT CHURCH of want of regard for the Church of England, in his " Inter- pretation of the Apocalypse of St. John," finds the Protest- ant (church of France, of whom the new Anglican school speak so contemptuously, represented under the third trum- pet, " as a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp ;" and his historical illustration runs in these Avords: " 'I'he Protestant Church of France long deserved its emblem. It was a burning lamp for half a century, unquestionably one of the most illustrious Churches of Europe. It held the Gospel in singular purity. Its preachers were apostolic. Its people the purest, most intellectual, and most illustrious of France. Before the close of the 16tii century it amount- ed to two and a half milhons of souls. The spirit of the Papacy then resolved upon its destruction,"* &c. Such, according to Dr. Croly — an enlightened minister of the Church of England — was the Church which many of his brethren would pronounce not to be a Church at all ; such was the Presbyterian Church of France at the very time in which Dr. Pusey speaks of her being "an active, busy, scheming body, with worldly wisdom," and therefore pun- ished with the massacre of St. Bartholomew ! I might quote other testimonies. Let me only remind the reader, that Mr. Faber, one of the most learned and distinguished ministers of the English Church, has recently v/ritten a large volume, to show that the Waldenses, who form the original stock of the French Protestant and Presbyterian Church, are the honoured "witnesses" of the Book of Revelation; in short, the only visible Church of God in a long part of the reign of Antichrist; and yet he cannot show thatihey have the Episcopal succession! With regard to the greater passiveness and non-resistance of the Church of England, these did not proceed from ihe greater prevalence of enlightened Christianity within her pale, but because her evangelical religion has in general been so slender compared with that of Scotland, that she has not, like her, been so frequently brought into collision with the powers of a persecuting Slate. She has shown, however, when the occasion occured, that she did not feel it to be her duty to be entirely passive. It is justly said by Bishop Hoadley, in his "Answer to the ^Dean of Chichester," — " The remonstrances both against the crown and the mitre, and the civil tear ilaelf, were begun and carried on by Churchmen — by constant Churchmen — by a Parliament full * P. 95. OP FRANCE. 309 of Churchmen." The contest of the members of the Church of England with Cromwell, after he had manifestly the power — with James VII., issuing in the dethroning of the latter, show that she is alive to the lawfulness, in extreme cases, of resisting the existing civil authority ; and we are not aware that these periods in the history of the Church in- dicated less piety and learning than others. It was not the Established Church, it was the Nonconformists who were the great sufferers throughout the reign of Charles II.; and ad- mitting that the theologians, subsequent to the Revolution of 1688, were decidedly inferior to those who immediately pre- ceded them, it is to be remembered that the theologians of a still earlier period — of the days of Elizabeth and James VI., were superior to those of Charles II.; and yet these were the men, such as Jewel and many others, who held the law- fulness and duty, in certain circumstances, of resistance; and they lived under sovereigns who held and exemplified the same doctrine. The clays of Charles I. are generally looked back to by Dr. Pusey and his followers as the most glorious days of the Church of England, as the happy days when Archbishop Laud bore the sway ; but even Charles I., at least his Parliament, encouraged the French Protestants to resist; and in the office of devotion prepared for the oc- casion, the naiion was directed, throughout the Church of England, to pray for all those " who here, or elsewhere, were fighting God's batdes and defending his altars." I need scarcely remmd the reader, that, at a later day. Hooker, the idol of the Church of England, numbered himself among the resistance men ; and that the other eminent divines of the age of Charles II. owed much to their learned Puritan tu- tors, for whom they entertained the greatest respect, and all of whom, speaking generally, held the sentiments of the Church of France and the Church of Scotland on the duty of resistance in extreme cases. Many divines of the Eng- lish Church in more modern times, and, among others, the present Bishop of Exeter (Dr. Philpotts,) in his Phamphlets on the Popish Question, could be quoted to the same effect; but I cannot enlarge. It would be a serious omission, how- ever, not to notice the sentiments of the University of Ox- ford on the subject, as attested by indubitable historical facts. Dr. Pusey dedicates the sermon which forms the ground of the present comment, to the Rev. John Keble, M. A., Pro- fessor of Poetry; and his strong recommendation for the honour is, that " in years past he unconsciously implanted a 310 PROTESTANT CHURCH truth, which was afterwards to take root — himself the duti- ful disciple of its ancient guardian and faithful witness in word and action — the University of Oxford.'' The alleged truth referred to — unless there be a marvellous discrepancy between the dedication and the doctrine of the sermon — is, the truth of passive obedience and non-resistance. And has the University of Oxford, then, of which Dr. Pusey is one of the Professors, always been, as is contended, a faithful witness to passive obedience and non-resistance? The Pro- fessor should know the history of his own University ; but it would seem that here he has forgotten one of its most striking passages — certainly not a very honourable or con- sistent one. It is a remarkable fact, that the divines of the University of Oxford extracted twenty-seven propositions from the writings of Baxter, Milton, &c. , which maintained that subjects might examine into the rights of rulers, and resist them, where they forfeited their tide by rebellion against the Constitution. These propositions the predeces- sors of Dr. Pusey, in full convocation assembled, condemned as the worst of heresies — seditious and^blasphemous ; yet, in four short years afterwards, they themselves resisted the authority of the king, and refused to practise the same pas- sive obedience and non-resitance which, by solemn decree, they had so strongly recommended to others. They did not commit themselves to the hands of God, and look for super- natural deliverance. As soon as the Popish James invaded their rights and property, they betook themselves to the Presbyterian Prince of Orange in a body — declared in his behalf — offered him their plate— -and all this while the anoint- ed king still sat upon the throne ! Surely such tergiversation, on the part of learned men, is a plain proof that, however fair the doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance may look in theory, it is found to be utterly impracticable on trial. The University of Oxford is but a sorry witness to Dr. Pusey's great truths and principles; and yet he says, that *' in word and action" she has ever been their chosen guar- dian! Perhaps I cannot better close my observations on this sub- ject than in the words of the late Dr. M'Crie, distinguished at once for sobriety of judgment, depth of learning, and en- lightened Christian principle. They completely meet an objection which has been urged against the French Protes- tant Church by a leading literary journal within these few years. In his interesting work on the " History and Pro- OF FRANCE. 311 gress of the Suppression of the Reformation in Spain in the 16th Century," Dr. M'Crie says,*— "The following words of a writer, whose knowledge of facts was not equal to his strong natural sense, express an opinion which is not now uncommon : — ' I believe it will be found, says Andrew Fuller, in his " Christian Patriotism," that when Christians have resorted to the sword in order to resist persecution for the Gospel's sake, as did the Albigenses, the Bohemians, the French Protestants, and some others within the last six hundred years, the issue has commonly been that they have perished by it — that is, they have been overcome by their enemies and exterminated; whereas, in cases where their only weapons have been, "the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, loving not their lives unto the death," they have overcome.' The facts which have been laid before the reader will enable him to judge of the last part of this assertion. (The faithful in Spain, instead of overcoming, were extinguished.) Nor is the first part less incorrect and objectionable. The truth is, that the Albigen- ses, &c. &c., who resisted, were not exterminated; while the Italian and Spanish Protestants, who did not resist, met with that fate. If the defensive wars of the Albigenses were not successful, it ought to be remembered that those of the Protestants in Germany, Switzerland, Scotland, and the Low Countries, were crowned with success. The French Pro- testants were suppressed, not when they had arms in their hands, but when they were living peaceably under the pro- tection of the public faith, pledged to them in edicts which had been repeatedly and solemnly ratified. It is to be hoped that the public mind in Britain, much as has been done to mislead it, is not yet prepared for adopting principles which lead to a condemnation of the famous Waldenses and Bohe- mians for standing to the defence of their lives, when pro- scribed and violently attacked on account of their religion. They lived during the period of Antichrist's power, and ac- cording to the adorable plan of Providence, were allowed to fall a sacrifice to his rage; but while the Scriptures foretell this, they mention it to their hoyioiir, and not in the ivay of fixing b/ame on them. ' It was given to the Beast to make war with the saints, and to overcome them.* Instead of being ranked with those who perished in consequence of their having taken the sword without a just reason, these Christian patriots deserve rather to be numbered with those *P. 137. 312 PROTESTANT CHURCH who, through ' faith, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens, and others were slain with the sword ;* all of whom, 'having obtained a good report, through faith, received not the promises, God having provided some better things for us.' " A case of similar success to those quoted by Dr. M'Crie, and comparatively recent, might be referred to. Mr. Ander- son, Professor of Church History in the University of Glas- gow, informed Wodrow, the historian, as appears from his unpublished MSS., that he was in Switzerland about the be- ginning of last century, and visited the valley of Lucerne, where he found fourteen ministers labouring among a serious and religious people ; but such were their hazards from the Popish House of Savoy, that they felt their only security to lie in being always armed to defend themselves and their re- ligion ; and what was the consequence ? Were they exter- minated? Did they perish? No; their enemies ceased to trouble them: their resolution, under God, was the means of saving them from destruction. I may add, in reference to the French Protestant Church, that the great Reformer, Calvin, — whom Hooker, and Baxter, and'even the infidel D' Alembert, have concurred in admiring, and who is remarka- bly cautious in his sentiments as to the doctrine of resistance, so much so, that he has been claimed by the passive obe- dience and non-resistance writers as according with them, — even Calvin exhorted the king of Navarre, as first Prince of the blood, to save France from the ruin into which the Po- pish Guises were plunging it; in other words, approved of the civil and religious wars which Dr. Pusey and his party denounce as rebellions. It may be added, too, as an indica- cation of the religious spirit of the Protestants in the strug- gle of that period, that, like their brethren of Scotland at a later day, they carried religion into the army, where, in France, perhaps, it had never been before. A modern writer on the Reformed Church of France, who has no great favour either for Calvinists or Presbyterians, (Smedley,) says, "At tlie opening of the campaign, prayers were read night and morning at the head of each regiment by its own minister; no cursing or reviling were heard in the ranks; no gambling or debauchery sullied the camp; peasants, tradesmen, and strangers resorted in safety to the military quarters, and nei- ther the hope of forage nor of plunder allured the soldiers from their standard. In their spirit of liberality also, there was a remarkable correspondence betv.een the French Pres- OF FRANCE. 313 byterians and their brethren of Scotland a century afterwards. The same writer, speaking of a later day in the French struggle, when the German Elector Palatine sent seven thou- sand troops to their aid, and it was necessary to raise the large sum of one hundred thousand crowns, says, " The Prince (Conde) and Coligny, however, contributed their plate and jewels, and their example, and the exhortations of the ministers, who always accompanied the march, prevailed so greatly, that every officer and man made some personal sa- crifice, and even the meanest horse-boy and camp follower in the host emulously threw in his mile to the general fund." Thirty thousand crowns were in this way speedily raised in the Protestant army. But while I thus vindicate the Churches of France and Scotland from the severe censures of Dr. Pusey and others, and believe that their circumstances were so extreme as to warrant resistance, and that their resistance was not rebellion but duty, I have again to repeat, that I do not feel called up- on to justify all their proceedings, not a few of which were doubtful, some decidedly wrong; and I have again to repeat, that obedience to civil authority is so high and imperative a Christian duty, and resistance to it so rarely warrantable, that it is not a theme of desirable discussion, but should be left among those difficult and urgent cases to be decided on when the dread emergency occurs in that peculiar light of circumstances which cannot be imagined in theory, but which the providence of God usually supplies for the guidance of his own faithful people. CHAPTER V. FROM 1685 TO 1715. Having described the awful preparations for the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes— the terrible revocation itself— I must now describe the consequences of that measure. It was to be expected that so horrible a deed would be attended with disastrous results. Even the chief actors in the revocation were ashamed of it, and attempted to deny it; but the exces- sive eulogies of Louis' partisans frequently betray the truth. They laud the king almost into a demigod. But why? Be- 314 PROTESTANT CHURCH cause of his great services to the Popish Church. And what are these? The rooting out of heresy — in other words, the destruction of the Reformed Church. Thus is the disgrace- ful truth, which men would fain hide, incidentally discover- ed. Besides, in addition to all other testimonies, there"" are six volumes of documents still extant, consisting of the re- ports, &c., to the Government, of those who were leading actors in the oppression and slaughter of the saints of God; and one of the accounts consists of the enormous sum of five hundred and thirty-six thousand six hundred and forty livres for books for the use of the pretended converts who had been driven by persecution into outward conformity to the Church of Rome. Even a Roman Catholic, the Duke de St. Simon, could say, " The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, without the least pretext or necessity, depopulated one-fourth of the kingdom, ruined trade in all its branches, placed it (the country) so long under the public avowed pil- lage of the dragoons, and authorized torments and execu- tions, in which thousands of innocent persons of both sexes perished." But we must enter a little more into detail. While the Protestant pastors were all driven from their country under the heaviest penalty, their people were not allowed to leave it except at the risk of severe punishment. So much, however, had they now lost, and so much did they now suffer, that France became embittered to them, and their great anxiety and effort were to emigrate to other lands. This was the course which, perhaps, nearly one-half of the whole Protestant population pursued, though almost incredi- ble were the hardships which they encountered in accom- plishing it. So early as 1681, four years before the edict was actually revoked, Mr. Quick, then minister of the Eng- lish church at Middleburgh, recollected having been credibly informed that five hundred families of French merchants had left their native country, and settled in Amsterdam; and that fifty families had, in the course of two months, taken up their abode at Hamburgh. The whole population thus re- moving probably amounted to between fourteen and fifteen thousand souls. They were the families of merchants, too, indicating a measure of wealth and respectability; and if so many betook themselves to two commercial cities, it cannot be doubted that many more removed to other quarters. But it was after the revocation that the people fled in pro- digious numbers. The succeeding month, we read in a let- ter from Geneva, that some time previously not a day passed OF FRANCE. 315 in which that town did not receive and supply from thirty to ninety persons of all ages and conditions, and of both sexes; thus, in two short months, probably becoming the asylum of five thousand poor French refugees. In one morning, the inhabitants saw at their gates five hundred carts laden with household goods, and followed by an innumerable multitude of persons, who went and came from all quarters. The wri- ter beautifully adds, " The country of Vauxis filled in every quarter with French fugitives. Within these three weeks there have been reckoned seventeen thousand five hundred persons that have passed into Lausanne." " Zurich wrote admirable letters to Berne and Geneva, desiring them to send of those poor people unto them, and that they would receive them as their own natural brethren, into their coun- try, into their houses, yea, and into their very hearts." I subjoin, in a few sentences, a picture of the melancholy condition of the poor fugitives, from the same important document: — " Women and maids came to us in the habits of men, children in cofiers packed up as clothes, others without any other precaution at all than in their cradles tied about their parents' necks; some passing this, others that way, all stop- ping either at the gates or churches of the city, with cries and tears of joy and sorrow mingled together; some demand- ing, where are our fathers and mothers? others, where are our wives and children? — not knowing where to find them, not having learnt any news of them from the time they de- parted from their houses. In short, every one was so affected with these miserable objects, that it was impossible to refrain from weeping. Some had no sooner passed the first barricado, but prostrating themselves, upon their knees, sung a psalm of thanksgiving for their happy deliverance; though, poor creatures, they had not wherewithal to get themselves a meal's meat, and might have gone to bed that night supperless, had not the Lord, of his great goodness, extraordinarily provided for them. Thus we spent two months, every day affording us new adventures, fresh and eminent examples of self-denial, and that divers ways. " No longer than yesterday, in despite of all guards at the several passes, and dangers of the galleys, there arrived hither no less than fifty persons. A tall chairman, who had been a lacquey, as lie was coming from his house, espying Monsieur de Cambiaques passing over the bridge, immediate- ly stopped, and embraced him in his livery coat. Four young 316 PROTESTANT CHURCH ladies of Grenoble, disguised in men's apparel, after they had lodged four or five days in the forests and mountains, without any other provision than a little bread, having tra- velled only by night, came hither but a few hours ago in this their gallant equipage. Should I write you all the stories I know, we should never have done." We have the following interesting testimony to the same purpose from Burnet, who was at that time sojourning in Switzerland. He says, in his " History of his own Times,'* " I was all the winter at Geneva, where we had constantly fresh stories brought us of the miseries of those who were suffering in France. Refugees were coming over every day, poor and naked, and half starved, before they got thither; and that small state was under great apprehension of being swallowed up, having no strength of their own." In a let- ter from Zurich, he has a still more ample statement, highly honourable to the Presbyterian Church of Switzerland : *' There is one thing," says he, " for which the Switzers, in particular those of Berne, cannot be enough commended. They have, ever since the persecution first begun in France, opened a sanctuary to such as have retired thither, in so ge- nerous and Christian a manner, that it deserves all the ho- nourable remembrances that can be made of it. Such minis- ters and others that were at first condemned in France for the afiair of the Cevennes, have not only found a kind re- ception here, but all the support that could be expected, and indeed much more than in reason might have been expected ; for they have assigned the French ministers five crowns a month, if they were unmarried, and have increased it to such as had wives and children — so that some had above ten crowns a month pension. They dispersed them all over the Pays de Vaud, but the greatest number resided at Lausanne and Veray. In order to the supporting of this charge, the charities of Zurich, the other neighbouring Protestant States, were brought thither. Not only the Protestant Cantons, but the Grisons, and some small States that are under the pro- tection of the Cantons, such as Neuchatel, St. Gall, and some others, have sent in their charities to Berne, who dis- pense them with great discretion, and bear what further charge this relief brings upon them ; and in this last total and deplorable dispersion of those churches, the whole coun- try has been animated with such a spirit of charity and com- passion, that every man's house and purse has been open to the refugees that have passed thither in such numbers, that OF FRANCE. 317 sometimes there have been two thousand in Lausanne alone, and of these there were at one time nearly two hundred mi- nisters; and they all met with a kindness and free-heart- edness that looked more like somewhat of the primitive age revived, than the degeneracy of the age in which we live." Nor was the kindness of foreign Protestants limited to the sufferers who emigrated and came among them in nakedness and want. They did not forget the prisoners in the dun- geons and galleys of France. Accordingly, we find that let- ters of sympathy were written, liberal contributions made, and earnest intercessions employed with the French Go- vernment, through their ambassadors, in behalf of the suffer- ing saints of God. Very frequently such applications as the last not only failed, but were the occasion of greater severity to the persecuted. It was alleged that they were holding correspondence with enemies, and plotting against the French kingdom. Hence the captives were sometimes constrained to beg their friends not to interfere for them, as it added to, instead of diminishing, their sufferings. Alluding to Switz- erland, it may be mentioned, that M. Escher, burgomaster of Zurich, and his family, were particularly kind to the excel- lent Lefebvre and his fellow-captives. We insert the follow- ing beautiful Christian letter of the Swiss magistrate, ad- dressed to them in their loathsome dungeon : " My Dear Brethren, — I should be the most ungrateful of men, if, after the expressions of love and esteem with which many of your letters are filled for me, the most hum- ble of your friends, and one so undeserving of your regard, I could be at all insensible to your affectionate remembrance. I should have endeavoured, some time ago, to acknowledge the kind attention you have shown me ; but I have waited, in the hope of having some good news to tell you. I have laboured to obtain your deliverance. I have made use of my friends; and last week, being on a journey to Soleure, I re- peated my earnest entreaties to Mons. Amelot, the ambassa- dor. But as I can get no positive answer, and am always sent away with the recommendation to make myself easy, for the business will be setded sooner than I may expect; and as, to my great regret, the hopes I had till this time conceived are frustrated, I can no longer remain silent. " Accept my most humble thanks, my dear brethren, for your kind remembrance of a person who is, indeed, a sharer of your sorrows, your sufferings, and your atflictiuns ; who 318 PROTESTANT CHUECH has hitherto made every effort to soften the rigours of the bondage with which you are so unjustly oppressed; but who does not, on that account, think himself entitled to the great encomiums in your letters. I am fully purposed, and feel myself bound, as a Christian and a brother of the same com- munion, still to seek to procure your release; but I must beg you to be less liberal of your thanks, and to believe that, though I have the honour to fill the first office of the Helve- tic State, I confess myself to be a poor sinner, who am not to seek my happiness in the vanities of this world, but in humility and self-abasement. " 1 have read your letters, my dear brethren, with atten- tion and edification. I see that God makes use of you as extraordinary instruments of his glory. I remark in you zeal for the glory of God, unexampled piety, a perfect imi- tation of the glorious martyrs and confessors of the primitive Church, unequalled steadfastness, indescribable patience, souls that are filled with spiritual comfort, and eyes that are enlightened with the vision of the Deity, even here below. By all these virtues, you triumph over your enemies, des- pise the evils they make you suffer, and bear patiently the reproach of the world, with the sole view of glorifying God's holy name. Go on, then, my beloved brethren, in this blessed resolution, since you see that God works such great things for you ; and that he has called you to suffer for his great name's sake, in those vile places which are usually the receptacles of the dregs of the earth, who, without doubt, distress your pure minds by their wickedness. But take courage, my dear brethren, since you know that it is thus or- dained by God ; that all must work together for good to them that love him; that, as all human things have an end, the God of all goodness has appointed an end to your sorrows, when he will recompense you with the reward of the right- eous. " I solicit for myself and my numerous f\imily an interest in your prayers, for I know that, proceeding from the be- loved servants of God, they will assuredly be heard and an- swered; and on my part, I shall always bear your afflictions in mind in all my supplications, though mingled with so much infirmity. " I have sent to Mons. M , at Berne, forty pistoles, to be transmitted to you in the most convenient way. Please to accept this small sum, which is made up by myself and three of my sons ; and be assured that it is offered in the OF FRA.>'CE. 319 sincerity of our hearts. We pray that you may continue to receive all divine consolations, and obtain a speedy deliver- ance from your bondage; and we rejoice in every opportu- nity of rendering you service, especially myself, \vho am truly, my beloved brethren, your very humble and devoted servant, Henry Escher." Great exertions were made in behalf of the afflicted Pro- testants by the Queen of Denmark and the Prince of the family, through the French ambassador at Copenhagen, and with some success; but in general it was with the greatest difficulty that any relaxation or release could be obtained. Even the ambassadors of England and Holland had no small labour in obtaining from France a fulfilment of the treaty of Ryswick in 1697, in virtue of which the Protestants con- demned to the galleys were to be given up as prisoners of war. Though they laid claim to none save those most ex- pressly comprehended within the terms of the treaty of peace, there were many repulses and defeats ere they were successful. The number of those doomed to the slavery of the galley-boat may be estimated from the fact, that the Court had a list of sixteen hundred of them subjected to the bastinado — a most shocking punishment. It may be believed that there were many in the galleys who were not reduced to this extremity. The conclusion therefore is, that the num- bers in the galleys were immense. It would not be easy, nor is it a matter of much conse- quence, precisely to ascertain how many Protestants left their country. .A few months after the revocation, it is confi- dendy stated that one hundred and fifty thousand had departed. Some years afterwards, it was estimated that from eight hun- dred thousand to one million, had sought safety in exile. It is certain that in a single year the Prince of Orange raised three regiments, and manned three ships of war, with French Pro- testants; and that there were not less than sixty-two Walloon or French Protestant Churches in Holland. In 1698, the States General of Holland wrote to the King of Sweden, that their country was so full, they could support no more of the refugees, and entreated him to find a place for them in his German dominions. Cotemporary statements bear that not less than eleven m/fre English regiments were composed of French refugees, besides many individuals enrolled in the troops of the line. It is estimated that fifty thousand Hugo- 320 PROTESTANT CHURCH nots, as a whole, crossed to the shores of Britain. In Ger- many, the Elector of Brandenburg was particularly kind to them. He invited them to settle in his dominions, and gave them a separate code of jurisprudence, framed in their own language, and administered by judges chosen from among themselves. As true religion makes men intelligent, indus- trious, and frugal, and as the Protestants had been shut out from public offices, so they generally followed manufacturing and commercial pursuits, and not a few of them were weal- thy. Persons of quality among them left properties yielding from ten to thirty thousand livres per annum. The manu- facture of silks, hats, and drugs, suffered so seriously from their removal, that in some quarters the revenue sunk one- half. As a whole, it was estimated, that not less than £20,000,000 sterling of property left the country; and that in the loss of her active and enterprising Protestants, France sustained as great an injury as she would have received from four ordinary civil wars. In the course of five years after the Revocation, the city of Tours fell from eighty to thirty thousand in population. While this shows how serious was the suffering which the Protestants endured, it also shows. how serious a sufferer France was in a commercial point of view. But instead of being an evil, this was a blessing to the cause of Protestantism throughout the world. The re- vocation of the edict, which France hoped would strengthen her, was the first step to her fall. It weakened her power for evil both at home and abroad, and by scattering her man- ufacturing skill and commercial resources to Protestant lands, in the same degree made them so much the more pow- erful. It is well for the cause of true religion, that France did not remain so influential as a nation as she was before the revocation of the edict. The manufactures of Great Britain received an important impulse from the accession of the French Protestants. The Spitaltield silk manufactures originated with them; and glass-working was introduced, which had been almost con- fined to France ; also some manufactures in Edinburgh, which, I believe, have become extinct there. The French name, Picardy, in that city, still marks the site. It may be no- ticed, that this country has more than once gained in a com- mercial and manufacturing light, by the Popish persecution of Protestants. God would thus seem to reward her faith- fulness, and punish the infatuated enemies of his Ciiurch. OF FRANCE. 321 In "Lardner's Cylopsedia," in the treatise on the silk manu- facture, there is the following notice : — "The city of Antwerp having been taken after an obsti- nate resistance, in the year 1585, by the Duke of Parma, then Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, it was consigned during three days, to indiscriminate plunder and destruction. Its ruin was a death-blow to the commerce of the Low Countries, and the noble manufactures of Flanders and Bra- bant were dispersed into various countries. About a third part of the artizans and merchants, who wrought and dealt in silk, took refuge in England, where they finally settled, and taught those arts by which they had long prospered in their native land." " The introduction of the weaving of silk damask into England, is said to have been occasioned by the flight to these hospitable shores of certain Dutch and Flemish weavers from the persecutions of the Duke of Alva, when, in the year 1567, he was deputed by Philip I., of Spain to extin- guish the kindling spark of liberty in the Low Countries." With regard to cotton, Baine, in his " History of the Cot- ton Manufacture," says — "I am more inclined to think that the art [of making cotton cloth] was imported from Flanders about the same time [1582,] by the crowd of Protestant ar- tizans and workmen who fled from Antwerp, on the capture and ruin of that great trading city, by the Duke of Parma, in 1585, and also from other cities of the Spanish Netherlands." And what is the state of the cotton trade now ? Let the same writer answer. " The cotton trade supports now one mil- lion Ave hundred thousand individuals, employing more than one-eleventh part of the population of Great Britain;" " and the receipts of our manufacturers and merchants, from this one production of the national industry, are equal to two- thirds of the whole public revenue of the kingdom." With regard more particularly to the manufactures estab- lished by the French Protestants at the period which we are contemplating, we have, from the same authors, the subjoin- ed interesting information: — " Mr. James Thomson, a scientific and accomplished calico-printer at Primrose, near Clitheroe, in his evidence be- fore a select Committee of the House of Commons, on trade, manufactures, and shipping, in 1833, informed the Commit- tee, that the origin of printing in England dated from about the year 1690, when a small print-ground was established on the banks of the Thames at Richmond, by a Frenchman, 21 322 TROTESTANT CHURCH who, in all probability, was a refugee after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes."* "It was," says Lardner, "from the refugees of that (the French) nation, when forced to abjure their country by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in the year 1685, that the art of weaving velvet became known, and was domes- ticated in SpitaUields, where it has since continued, and been followed with success." The Protestant ministers dispersed themselves to various quarters. Claude, Basnage, and De Bosc, went to Holland; Saurin to Geneva; Allix to England. These were the lead- ing ministers; but many brethren went along with them. Quick met with not fewer than one hundred and fifty in London. There were two hundred in Holland. We have seen that at one time there were two hundred at Lausanne. In Edinburgh, so considerable was the French population, that it enjoyed the services of two ministers ; the one received ^100, and the other ^70 a-year. In the metropolis there were twenty-two French churches supported by the Govern- ment, and not less than three tliousand refugees maintained by public subscription. Spitalfield and Seven Dials Chapels in London were originally French Protestant churches. Bower, in his "History of the University of Edinburgh,"! has the following statement: — " Upon the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, a small colony of French Protes- tanls emigrated from Picardy to Scotland, and first intro- duced the manufacture of silk and cambric into this country. Another party of refugees from Bordeaux settled within about three miles of Edinburgh, and the village is still vulgarly called Burdy-house (Bordeaux-House.) Both of these were ac- commodated with houses built by the town of Edinburgh, which was called Picardy, at the head of Leith Walk. The Council also gave them the privilege of assembling for pub- lic worship in the lower common hall of the College. Some persons still living remember when they regularly met for this purpose; and the whole service was conducted in the French lannfuage. In the course of litde more than two generations, the knowledge of French was lost, and the prac- * "The separation of Holland and Belgium, which has been fol- lowed by the loss, to the latter, of the trade with Dutch colonies, has crushed the manufacture (which was stated to Jiave been before in a ver}' flourishing state) again, and the weavers and spinners are at this moment in a state of the deepest distress." t Vol. ii., p. 24. OF FRANCE. 323 tice consequently discontinued. In the year 1603, King William granted to the town of Edinburgh a duty of two pennies upon the pint of ale, for a certain number of years. By this Act of Parliament, the town was burdened with the sum of two thousand merks yearly, for the benefit of the minister of the French congregation. Upon the deaih of one of the clergymen, the magistrates agreed to give the sur- vivor fifteen hundred, the widow of his former colleague two hundred, and three hundred merks to the precentor, who, in 1713, was a student of divinity from Franequer in Friesland, provided he would assist the Greek professor in teaching his students."* It is scarcely necessary to say, after what has been stated, that wherever they went they were kindly treated. Indeed, they themselves bear testimony to this with lively gratitude. De Souligne, the grandson of the celebrated Protestant, Du Plessis Mornay, in a pamphlet upon French Popery, re- printed in Edinburgh in 1699, and dedicated to the House of Commons, says, addressing them, "The tender care and great charity which you have manifested towards the poor refugees who suffer for their religion; but above all, the courage and zeal you have discovered in this last war, by sparing nothing that was necessary for the preservation of the Protestant interest, have made it gloriously to appear to all the nations of the earth, that you value neither your trea- sures nor your blood when there is a necessity of spending them in defence of your religion." I may mention in pass- ing, that this grandson of Mornay was himself one of tiie refugees, and that he was the first to expose Popery on the side of its political and social evils. The pamphlet from M^hich I have quoted is a very able one, extending to one hundred pages, and bearing the title, "The Political Mis- chiefs of Popery, or Arguments demonstrating, 1. That the Romish religion ruins all those countries where it is estab- lished, and has given rise to most of the mischiefs that have overspread die Christian commonwealth. 2. 'J'hat, as an instance hereof, it occasions the loss of above two hundred millions of livres, or ^16,000,000 sterling per annum, to France in particular. 3. That if Popery were abolished in France, that kingdom would become incomparably more rich and populous, and the kmg's revenues would advance above one million of livres, or £8,000,000 sterling per annum. 4. That it is impossible that France should ever be re-establish- * Council Register, vol. xli., p. 73. 324 PROTESTANT CHURCH ed whilst Popery is their national religion." No one who reads this rare but excellent pamphlet, can doubt that the author makes out his point. But to return from this digres- sion to the kind treatment which the suffering received at the hands of British Christians. An aulhor whom I have quoted more than once, and who wrote shortly after the revocation, says, — " But we comfort ourselves likewise in the Christian com- passion showed us by foreign princes, and more especially by his Majesty of England, who has received us into his countries, succoured and relieved us, and recommended our distressed condition to all his subjects; and we have found in them not only new masters, or the affections of new friends, but of real parents and brethren. And as these bowels of commiseration have been as balm to our wounds, so we shall never lose the remembrance of it, and hope we nor our children shall ever do any thing, by God's grace, unworthy of any of these their protections." Contributions were made in their behalf by the Christians of this country. So early as 1681, collections were appoint- ed, and subscriptions raised through the Bishop and Mayor of London. This was in the days of Charles 11., and at first sight may seem strange. But it does not prove that he had any real compassion for the French refugees — a compassion which his whole history belies. It only shows that the pub- lic feeling in their behalf was very general and strong, and could not be disregarded. Even James II., the great friend of Louis XIV., and the most bitter enemy of Protestantism, w^hether at home or abroad, we are informed by Burnet, made a contribution, and indicated some interest in behalf of the afflicted refugees. It would have been injurious to his Popish policy to have done otherwise; a plain proof of which is, that the motive of Charles in showing favour, was at the lime suspected by the people. Hence it was necessary for the French Protestant ministers in London to certify that their countrymen were not disguised Papists, before the ad- vantages of the contribution could be extended to them. It is also stated by Pierce,* such was the bigotry which was blended with humanity, that in 1683, no refugee was relieved, unless he first took the Sacrament according to the forms of the Church of England. But while the Popish brothers could have no real sym- pathy or affection for Protestant refugees, the Prince of * Vide "Vindication of Dissenters." OF FRANCE. 325 Orange and the Christian people of Scotland regarded them with the deepest kindness and commiseration. Wodrow, in his MS. Analecta, states that it is well known that William, when Prince of Orange in Holland, was very kind to the exiled French ministers sojouring in that country, and gave them large sums from his own purse. He also mentions that, when they waited on the Prince in a body to thank him, he received them affectionately, and blessed God who had opened his mind to the knowledge of saving truth. When raised to the British throne, he did not forget the French Protestants. One of his first acts was a declaration inviting them to settle in this country, and giving the com- mand of ten thousand troops to counteract the proceedings of James and the Roman Catholics in Ireland, to the Duke of Schomberg, who belonged to a French Protestant family. In 1695, not less than £15,000 were voted by Parliament for the relief of the French refugees — a very large sum in those days ; and the next year the king calls upon Parlia- ment to provide for the civil list and the French Protestants together. Indeed, one of the great and professed objects of the allied war in which William bore so prominent a part, and the British troops gained so much honour, was for the rescue of the French and other Protestants, their restoration to their goods, and liberty of conscience. As an indication of the general interest which was felt in England in behalf of the refugees, I may refer to the " Life of Mr. George Trosse," a nonconformist minister. The writer says, "The French refugees, those noble confessors who were driven hither by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and the bloody per- secution which ensued, had large supplies from his bounty. To one French minister he gave £5 per annum." As usual, the Church of Scotland w^as not behind in her liberality. I find she repeatedly made their sufferings a ground for the appointment of fast-days; that, on the 13th June, 1689, there was a collection made in the parish church of Dunfermline, of £52 16s. lOd, for the French and Irish Protestants. There can be no doubt this was general. Di- rections are given that it be delivered to Sir Patrick Murray, who is said to be appointed by the Privy Council for that end. At the same time, £50 Scots were contributed by the parish of Haddington. At a later day, the same parish sent a sum of £48 for the use of " the Protestants that lied from France into Saxony." In a former chapter I showed, that so early as 1622 the Presbytery of Glasgow contributed for 326 PROTESTANT CHURCH the relief of the French Protestants; and it is not to be im- agined, when they actually appeared in our country, in pov- erty and distress, they would be overlooked. The General Assembly, in 1707, presented an address to the Queen, thanking her for her gracious answer to the address of their brethren, the distressed and persecuted Protestants of France. In 1709, the British Parliament passed a bill for the natu- ralization of foreign Protestants. This shows both that they were numerous, and that the feeling of our country toward them was kind. So recently as 1829, one of the money votes of the House of Commons runs in these words : — *' That a sum not exceeding ^65812 7s. lOd. be granted to his Majesty to pay the annual allowance to Protestant dis- senting ministers in England, poor French Protestant refu- gee clergy, poor French Protestant laity," &c. This would intimate, not only that Christian churches, but that the Gov- ernment, had taken up their case; and that, for many years, some regular provision was made for them from the public purse of the nation. This private and public liberality is the more creditable, when it is remembered, that in 1709, when warmly befriending the French Protestants, our countrymen had also to supply the w^ants of the persecuted Germans from the Palatinate. Dr. Calamy states in his Diary, that several thousands of these came over to Britain at this time — not less than seven thousand — that a large sum was raised, which was carefully distributed among them by commission- ers— that five hundred families were sent to Ireland, where, if I have not been misinformed, their descendants can still be traced, many to Carolina, and a number returned to their own country. Indeed, Britain at this time seems to have been what we hope she will ever be — the great asylum for the op- pressed and the persecuted of all the nations of the world. Passing from the history of those of the Protestants who left France, let us now shortly turn our attention to those who remained in the land of persecution. These were still very numerous ; and though it is more than probable the more spiritual were among the emigrants, still there can be little question that a considerable number of pious men, from various causes, remained. Their condition, now that their pastors and the most devoted of the laity had abandoned the country, was one of great danger to their Christian charac- ter, 'i'his, accordingly, soon appeared. About a year after the revocation of the edict, we learn, by a letter from Metz, that in a church which was wont to number ten thousand OP FRANCE. 327 communicants, there were only two who did not sign an ab- juration of Protestantism, dictated by the cruel mercy of dragoons. It is very probable that many of these communi- cants had previously removed from France; and it is certain, that though for the sake of their lives, many signed the docu- ment, they did not believe it. They add, " We know we have subscribed, but we know also, we have not changed our religion, and through grace, we shall never change it." However they reconciled the signing of this abjuration to their consciences, no one can question that such a posture of things was most injurious to the general Christianity of the Protestant population, and must have sadly deteriorated the character of those who gave way to the temptation. So much were the exiled pastors alive to this, and so deeply did they feel for their sutfering flocks, that they wrote a long, pathetic, and most Christian letter to them, advising them how to conduct themselves with all faithfulness. It is en- tilled, " An Epistle to our Brethren groaning under the Cap- tivity of Babylon, for whom we wish the mercy and peace of our God." It extends to five closely printed folio pages. I extract a few sentences as a specimen of the Christian spirit, fidelity, and wisdom of the whole. " Keep carefully your books of piety, of devotion, and of * controversy, and read them with singular diligence and at- tention. Preserve them, by hiding and conveying them from the reach and search of your persecutors. Above all, keep, as your most precious jewels, the most Holy Bible, and suffer every thing rather than suffer your Bibles to be snatched away from you. Read them daily, and with the greatest devotion. " Never forget, nor spare any pains or expense in procur- ing from foreign countries books capable of instructing and strengthening you ; and when as the priests shall have rob- bed you of your own, cause others to be brought you, what- ever rates you pay for them. " The poor country peasants, and mechanics in towns and cities, by reason of their ignorance, are exposed to the great- est dangers. But the strong ought to support the weak, and you must earnestly endeavour each other's edification. This you may do as you travel into your country iiouses, as you walk in the streets, yea, when as you meet one another in your shops, there being none by you of the contrary religion. Supply these poor people with books for their instruction, and exhort them, without ceasing, to bear up against all dis- 328 PROTESTANT CHURCH coLiragements, and never to let loose their hearts unto idola- try, but contrarywise to detest and oppose it by their dis- courses, " If you can at any time meet together secretly by night in the retirements of your houses, let it be for the reading of God's Word, and of good books capable of instructing you; but above all, for prayer. " By reason of that commerce and communion you are necessitated to hold with the Papists, endeavour also after their conversion. Who knows but that God may have or- dained this sore persecution for this very end, that you should carry the light of the Gospel into the very bosom of Popery in order to its destruction. " 'Tis visible that the sinful disorders and miscarriages of your conversations have brought upon you those fearful judgments from God under which you are now groaning. There was no kind of worldliness in which you were not engaged, such as rich household goods, vessels of silver, tapestry, feasts, gluttonies, idle days, plays, pastimes, cloth of silk and gold, rings, pearls, and jewels. If you be wise, your first reformation must begin here ; all these must be rejected; sell your tapestries, your silver vessels; wear the plainest woolsteds — have nothing to do Avith silk or gold at your feasts or repasts. Every day should be with us a day of prayers and tears — not a feasting but a fasting day. " Family duties, family prayer, hath been either neglected or very negligenUy performed. That you may turn away God's wrath from you, set upon the religious performance of these religious duties. Let them be frequent, prolonged, and wiih greater fervency. " 'J'ake a special care of your poor persecuted brethren; give liberally towards the charges of their escape. All things should now be in common among you, and no person should count any thing his own whilst his poor brother needs it. This is the very soul of Christianity, and if you thus bestow it, God may restore again unto you his Gospel, whereof he hath deprived you. " And you must take the first opportunity you can of de- parting. For don't fool yourselves with this imagination, that you shall be able for any long space of time to keep the truth of God in the land of Meshech. Your piety will gra- dually decay. Your children having never known any other religion than the Romish, will accustom themselves unto it, and never desire to leave their country. Wherefore spare OF FRANCE. 329 neither pains, diligence, nor costs, that you may be trans- ported into a land of liberty. And look not back behind you to carry away what is in your houses. Whosoever looks back again is not meet for the kingdom of heaven. And though you were stript of all in your flight, yet you would be rich enough in having your souls given you for a prey. The worst that can befall you is to die of famine. But is that kind of death more terrible than any other? Can any death be dreadful to us when the life of our souls lies at stake, and the glory of God is concerned ? " We should reckon it our great honour to be debased, scorned, impoverished, stript of all for Christ Jesus. Our life is very short. No matter how we suffer in it. Our great concern should be for eternity. We live and work for eter- nity. My brethren, count it great joy when you fall into divers temptations." One might have thought that the Government, led on though it was by the Popish Church, would have grown tired of persecution, and that the public losses sustained by tlte State, in the removal of so large a body of enterprising and useful citizens, would have opened their eyes to the impolicy, if not the sin, of the dreadful course which they had been pursuing. But no; Popery is blind. The hatred of the truth of God is stronger than the love of outward prosperity. Hence the work of oppression still went forward. Before the century was completed — in other words, in the course of fourteen years from the revocation of the edict, we read of not less than eight additional decrees and declarations, all *' breathing threatenings and slaughter" against the poor sur- viving Protestants. Instead of their being any mitigation, as sometimes happens, the subsequent edicts were all an ag- gravation of the suffering, and this continued after the new century was entered upon. A frequent punishment for males was still to send them to the galleys, and work them in chains. One of the number, we have seen, was M. De Marolles. His case is interesting. He had been chancellor to the king, but was condemned to the galleys for his Pro- testantism in 1685. Here he remained for seven long years, and died in a dungeon. Besides being an eminent Christian, he was a distinguished philosopher, mathematician, and alge- braist, a proof of which is, that he solved many difficult problems while lying with a weight of thirty pounds about his neck. It is remarkable, that the year in which the suf- ferings of this distinguished man began— the year 1685— 330 PROTESTANT CHURCH and in which the edict was revoked, was the year also in which the liottest persecutions were going forward in Scot- land— as if the monster were moving in different lands at the same moment. Not less than twenty out of the one hundred and thirty-nine Scottish martyrs who were mocked with the semblance of a public trial and legal forms, were put to death in this year of blood; and of the vast multitude who, in the course of twenty-eight years, were sufferers for the supremacy of the King of saints, without any trial at all, not less than forty-four were murdered in five short weeks of this terrible year. In one of these weeks, the more than semi-Popish tyrant, Charles II., M'as called to give up his account. He might be said to leave the world in a shower of blood. I have stated that the work of persecution continued in France, and though afraid to weary and sicken the reader with additional proofs, I must shorUy refer to the new and peculiar form which it assumed. Passing over the various suffering which stains the records of the country, from 1685 down to 1700, we are introduced, at the last date, to a fear- ful struggle which lasted for several years. It was in the south of France, in the mountainous district of the Cevennes, that the Protestants, after all the extermination which had been wrought, still prevailed. Like their brethren, the Wal- denses and Albigenses, they lived among the fastnesses of nature, which partially afforded that protection which man denied. The pastors had now been driven from their flocks. Multitudes had been sent into hopeless foreign exile. The galley oar, the dungeon, and the scaffold, had terminated many a holy life. The strength of Protestant- ism was now concentrated among the mountainous and in- accessible retreats of the south. This was like the last battle-field. The Popish Government and party determin- ed to exterminate the rebels, as they accounted them, and so restore peace to France. On the other hand, not a few of the Hugonots, now reduced to a suffering remnant, and driven, by years of woe, to madness and despair, re- solved to take up arms and sell their lives at the dearest rate. Hence the Camisard war, so styled from the white frocks which the peasants, who were the chief actors, wore. Many, perhaps most of the Protestants, disapproved of this form and kind of resistance, and condemned the spirit of re- taliation which was displayed. A Synod of the Swiss Church remonstrated in the strongest manner. The Re- OF FRANCE. 331 formed Church of France then cannot, with propriety, be held responsible for the result. But it is not to be wondered at, that oppression made wise men mad. The Camisards numbered from six thousand to ten thousand persons able to carry arms. They were distributed over the country, in parlies of a few hundreds, familiarly acquainted with mountain passes and retreats, and able, at a small risk to themselves, to inflict serious injury upon their persecuters. They were headed, not by captains or pastors regularly educated, but by bold untaught young men, who joined the soldier and the preacher in the same person. Fired with the warmest en- thusiasm, some of them guided by prophetic impulse, and accounting themselves the commissioned messengers of hea- ven, the deepest religious feeling mingled with the struggle. The enemy was repeatedly paralysed before their religious fervour; and their moral character corresponded with their religious profession. We are informed that there were no quarrels nor slanderings among them, that oaths and ob- scenity were unknown, that goods were held in common, and that they addressed their chief as brother.* In short, th'ey discovered high moral propriety and the greatest bro- therly love. So deep and general was the enthusiasm, that women — wives and daughters — gladly bore a part in the warfare, and astonished even their enemies with deeds of surpassing valour; and severely were they tried. 'J'his civil war of the mountains lasted for four successive years, by day and by night, in summer and amid the snows and storms of winter. Large districts of many square miles were laid waste with fire and sword by the Popish troops. In one case one hundred and sixty-six, in another four hundred and sixty-six, hamlets and villages were devastated at once, and the horrors of winter were added to those of conflagration. The worst banditti were let loose against the peasants. Proved felons were preferred to them, and the Court and Popish Bishop, instead of showing any commiseration, applauded the most atrocious proceedings; nay, tlie Pope granted the pardon of sin to all who imbrued their hands in the blood of the pea- santry. But with all this, the Camisards were successful in many engagements, and instead of being destroyed because they resisted, their resistance procured them better terms of peace than they would otherwise have enjoyed. Indeed, there is reason to think, that had they started earlier, and * Browning's History of the Hugonots, p. 259. 332 PROTESTANT CHURCH conducted a wise and vigorous opposition throughout, they might have procured a favourable pacification, not only for themselves, but for the Protestants of France generally. Even as it was, they were not overcome. They gave in, but it was at the persuasions of a Protestant noble. Their leading chief, Cavallier, though young and plebeian, received an important command in the French army, and died hold- ing an honoured place in the British service; and, at least for a season, which only bad faith interrupted, the Camisards obtained the great object for which they toiled and sacri- ficed, freedom of religious worship — a freedom which filled them with joy, and made the country resound with the voice of psalms. Doubtless, their struggle was not unstained with bloody revenge — but this is justly attributable to the dire persecution which they suffered. The oppressor, in the eye of reason, is responsible for the aroused passion of the oppressed. What could be expected of men who knew that certain death awaited them the moment they fell into the hands of their Popish enemies? — that, in all the consi- derable towns and villages of the district, the gibbet was ever standing ready, and the executioner within call? What could be expected of men who knew that their very psalm singing inspired with deadly hatred, and, to use the language of a Roman Catholic general employed against them, " blis- tered, not only the ears, but the skins of the (Popish) cler- gy?"— or what peace or toleration could be looked for from men animated by such a spirit? What prospect of safety but in resistance? It may be added, that so righteous did both England and Holland account the struggle of the Ca- misards, that steps were taken to assist them, though the good intention was not rendered effectual. A striking proof of the strength and power of the perse- cution, may be found in the appearance of the poor fanatics, called the French prophets, in 1703. These men arose among the Protestants of Dauphiny, and pretended to pro- phetic gifts and miraculous powers. About 1709, a body of them came over to England, and gathered a considerable number of followers. The French Protestant ministers in London used all their influence to expose their delusions and repress them. Dr. Calamy preached a series of sermons on the subject, and Government in one case interfered. Still they succeeded in making some progress, and appeared in various parts of the country, in Scotland as well as England, for some subsequent years. There can be little doubt that, or FRANCE. 333 in France, they were one of the spurious fruits of protracted persecution. In such circumstances, many minds gel un- hinged and excited, and men betake themselves to the pro- phecies of the future as a refuge from the misery of the pre- sent. Hence mysticism, and claims to inspiration, and ex- travagant proceedings of a religious kind, fraquently appear in persecuting times. The persecutor may justly be held responsible for these evils. The progress of the persecution, though severe, was at- tended, in some cases, with good. M. Bion, a Roman Cath- olic priest, was converted by it to Protestantism. He says, " In the year 1703, several Protestants of Languedoc and the Cevennes were put on board our galleys. They were nar- rowly watched and observed, and I was exceedingly sur- prised on Sunday morning, after saying mass on the ban- cafTe, (a table so placed, that all in the galley may see the priest when he elevates the host,) to hear the comite, (an officer similar to a boatswain of a ship,) say he was going to give the Hugonots the bastinado, because they did not kneel or show respect to the mysteries of the mass, and that he was proceeding to acquaint the captain therewith. The very name of bastinado terrified me; and though I had never seen this dreadful execution, I begged the comite to forbear till the next Sunday, and said that in the meantime I would endea- vour to convince them of what I then thought their duty and my own. Accordingly, I tried all the methods I could pos- sibly think of for that purpose; sometimes making use of fair means, giving them victuals and doing them good offices; sometimes using threats, and representing the torments that were designed for them ; and often urging the king's com- mand, and quoting the passage of St. Paul, ' that he who re- sists the higher power, resists God.' I had not at that time a design to oblige them to do any thing against their con- sciences; and 1 confess, that what I did proceeded from a motive of pity and tenderness. This was the cause of my zeal, which would have been more fatal to them, had not God endued them with sufficient resolution and virtue to bear up against my arguments and the terrible execution which they had in view. I could not but admire the mo- desty of their answers, and the greatness of their courage. ' The king,' said they, * is indeed the master of our bodies, but not of our consciences.' " At last, the dreadful day being come, the comite narrow- ly observed them, to see the fruit of my labours. There 334 PROTESTANT CHTIRCH were only two out of twenty that bowed the knee to Baal: the rest generously refused it, and were accorduigly, by the captain's command, served in the manner following: — In or- der to the execution, every man's chains were taken off, and they were put successively into the hands of four Turks, who stripped them stark naked and stretched them upon the coursier, (a great gun, near the stern of the galley, which carried six and thirty pound ball;) there they are so held that tliey cannot so much as stir, during which time there is a horrid silence throughout the whole galley ; and it is alto- gether so cruel a scene, that the most profligate, obdurate wretches cannot bear to dwell upon the sight, but are often obliged to turn away their eyes. The victim being thus pre- pared, the Turk chosen to be the executioner, with a long cudgel, or knotty rope's end, unmercifully beats the poor wretch, and that the more willingly, because he thinks it ac- ceptable to his prophet Mahomet. But the most barbarous of all is, that often the skin is flayed off from their bodies. The only balsam applied to their wounds is a mixture of vinegar and salt; after this they are thrown into the hospital already described. I went thither after the execution, and could not refrain from tears at so much barbarit3^ They perceived it, and though scarcely able to speak, through weakness and pain, they thanked me for the compassion I expressed, and for the kindness I had always shown to them. I went with a design to administer some comfort to them, and was glad to find them less moved than I was myself. It was truly wonderful to see with what patience and Christian constancy they bore their torments; in the midst of their pains never expressing any thing like rage, but calling upon Almighty God, and imploring his assistance. I visited them day by day; and as often as I did, my conscience upbraided me for persisting so long in a religion whose capital errors I had before perceived; but, above all, which inspired so much cruelty — a temper directly opposite to the spirit of Christian- ity. At last, their wounds, like so many moutlis preaching to me, made me sensible of my errors, and experimentally taught me the excellence of the Protestant religion. But it is time to conclude, and draw a curtain over this horrid scene, which presents none but ghasUy sights and transac- tions full of barbarity, but which all show how false it is what they now pretend in France for detaining the Protes- tants in the galleys, viz. that they do not suffer there on a religious account, but are condemned for rebellion and dis- OF FRANCE. 335 obedience. The punishments inflicted on them when they refuse to adore the host, the rewards and advantages oflered on their compliance in that particukir, are a sufllcient argu- ment against the above pretence, there being no such offers made to those condemned for crimes. It shows the world, also, the most incredible barbarity practised against the French Protestants; and, at the same time, sets forth, in a manner the most honourable, their virtue, their constancy, and zeal for their holy religion." The peace of Utrecht, in 1713, which closed the desola- ting wars, in which France alone had been engaged against the confederated Protestant powers of Europe, with the Duke of Marlborough at their head, did not procure almost any relief to the poor French Protestants. They had long been looking forward to this, and, when the hour arrived, made assiduous application; but though the British Queen was their friend, and their case was represented at the council, and though the French Popish party acknowledged that, but for this peace, the ruin and destruction of their country had been inevitable, yet, in spite of all these propitious circuni- stances, to use the language of Calamy, "they were left in the same destitute condition they w^ere in before, with the exception only of some slaves being released from the gal- leys." It should be remembered, to the honour of Britain, that through the intercession of her successive monarchs, one hundred and thirty-six captives were released in 1713; in the next year, seventy ; and at different times during the reign of George I., &c., about one hundred and twenty. This country, it is believed, was n»ore successful than any foreign Protestant power in this good cause. At the same time, it is to be remembered with sorrow, that, in 1713, not less than one hundred and eighty-six Protestants still re- mained captive in the galleys of France. I must draw this part of the subject to a close, and I know not a more appropriate termination than the death of Louis XIV., the great instrument, if not prime author, of all the horrors we have been contemplating. This event took place in August 1714. Though a very old man, it is believed a scheme was in contemplation most formidable to the Protes- tant liberties of Europe at the time of his death. Had he been spared a little longer, he was to have been at the head of a new Roman Catholic league, better cemented than its predecessors. But amid these schemes, and with thousands on thousands of his best subjects suflfering both at home and 336 PROTESTANT CHURCH in foreign lands, he was called hence. The death of this most powerful enemy of the Protestant cause produced a great impression in this country, and indeed over Europe, sadly disconcerting the Popish party and their friends, while it gave new hope and courage to the Protestants. It is not presumptuous to expect that, even in this life, we should be able to trace something of a moral retribution for crimes so flagrant and wanton as those of Louis. There is nothing for which God will more certainly visit than the per- secution of his people; and therefore, without meaning to forget the Divine declaration, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord," I think I may safely request the reader to mark the visible judgments which rested on this persecutor's family and kingdom. He may have been a patron of literature and learning; he may have encouraged the arts ; in some respects his reign may be said to be the most brilliant in French history : it was the age of Fenelon, and Bossuet, and Massillon. It is said, too, by Madam Maintenon, " that he sometimes read his Bible, and was of opinion it is the finest of all books ;" but, personally, he was a profligate, and eminendy he was an enemy of the people of God. In reference to this, ]3r. Calamy remarks, that, perhaps, he wrought more evil than any single individual in his lifetime. It is estimated that three hundred thousand lost their lives through his instrumentality. Not only did he oppress the Protestants in France, but it was he who was at the root of no small part of the troubles of this country. It was he who, by advice, and men, and treasure, laboured to make the throne of Britain a Popish throne; and, when disappointed here, encouraged and assisted the Preten- der in his attempts to embroil the nation. And what was the result of the whole? Did he escape the moral government of God? Was his career one of unbroken worldly glory? If he had died before lifting up his hand against the Protestant Church, his name might have been great, in the sense in which sovereigns are frequently great. But shortly after the destruction of the Church of Christ, in an attempt to build up for himself a power which was to overawe Europe, he provoked the Protestant feeling of Christendom, and, under the arms of Marlborough and his associates, he fell. Year after year his once victorious troops were worsted and cut down. For nme years, from 1702 to 1711, his reign was one continued series of calamities and defeats; and now that he himself was suffering under smart affliction of body, as OF FRANCE. 337 afterwards of depressing melancholy of mind, he had the bitter mortification of seeing the places taken from him, Avhich, at an earlier day, had cost him so much money and blood, and had crowned his name with military renown. In one short season, he who had made so many parents child- less, and broken the peace of so many famihes, was deprived of his son at fifty; his grandson, the pupil of Fenelon, at thirty; and a child of his; so that three dauphins were cut off in a single year. These were most bitter bereavements to the king. A writer, who lived at that period, uses the striking expression — Providence seemed to be " breaking Louis upon the wheel," by destroying his posterity, upon whom he valued himself so much, that he used to boast he was the only king of France that had ever seen great grand- children. Moreover, his descendants were the hope of his allies as well as his own comfort. And how did he leave his country? He left it full of faction, political and ecclesias- tical, in debt £300,000,000 sterling, which was a great sum for those days. Worn out and exhausted, the vain old man made a will, by which he seemed to hope to rule after death as well as when alive; but scarcely had he died, before it was traversed and trampled upon in its most material parts. While hired literati lauded, the people generally hated and despised him; so that there was a burst of indecent popular joy on the tidings of his death and on the day of his funeral. Thus perished a man who made the world to tremble. In his old age, broken in his family, broken in his kingdom, and leaving to his successor an empire ripening for the judg- ments of heaven. Vain is it for man to fight with God. " Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me ? It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks." While it becomes us thus to mark the moral government of Heaven, it is our duty also to cherish the spirit of Chris- tian meekness and forgiveness. Saurin, an eminent French Protestant minister, when in exile, finely addresses the tyrant monarch — and his sentiments are certainly those which every Christian should cherish : " And thou, dreadful prince ! whom 1 once honoured as my king, and whom I yet respect as a scourge in the hand of Almighty God, thou also shalt have a part in my good wishes. These provinces (Holland) which thou threatenest, but which the arm of the Lord pro- tects— this country which thou fillest with refugees, but fugitives animated with love— these walls which contain a thousand martyrs of thy making, but whom religion renders 22 338 PROTESTANT CHURCH victorious — all these yet resound benedictions in thy favour. God grant that the fatal bandage which hides the truth from thine eyes may fall off! May God forget the rivers of blood with which thou hast deluged the earth, and which thy reign hath caused to be shed. May God blot out of his book the injuries which thou hast done us; and while he rewards the sufferers, may he pardon those who exposed us to suffer. Oh ! may God, who hath made thee to us and to the whole Church a ministerof his judgments, make thee a dispenser of his favours and administrator of his mercy."* * Some of the sad points referred to above, in the experience and character of Louis, have appeared in the case of other persecutors. Thus, Charles IX., a predecessor, and the instigator of the St. Bar- tholomew massacre — the man who said, in reference to the mortal remains of the Hugonots, that the " body of a dead enemy always smelled sweet," and who sent a messenger all the way to Rome, to tell the Pope, that " the Seine flowed on more majestically after re- ceiving the bodies of the murdered heretics" — the man who left the couch where his first-born had been brought forth, and hurried straight- way to the sight of Protestant executions ; — this man, hardened and insensible as he may seem, was, under the moral government of God, visited with awful compunctions. Pare, his body surgeon, was a Protestant, and was wonderfully preserved. He relates, that after the fatal deed, the king used often to come to him, and confessed, that from the beginning of the massacre, he felt as if he had been in a high fever, and that the figures of the murdered, with their faces besmear- ed with blood, seemed to start up every moment before his eyes, both while he slept and while awake. What a fearful punishment ! The reader will remember that he died in three years after, of a strange and bloody disease. It was noted that Louis XIV., was a patron of literature, and yet that the persecution took place in his Augustan era — an obvious proof that mere knowledge cannot restrain, and far less extinguish, the in- tolerant spirit of Popery. This is not a singular instance. Gregory XIII., the Pope who rejoiced in the St. Bartholomew massacre, struck medals of different metals, and granted a jubilee, to which one hun- dred thousand pilgrims flocked to Rome in honour of it, was not only a kind and humane man, but was one of the most learned of the Popes. He was a man of so much science, that he converted the Julian into the Gregorian year; and 3'et he was the patron of that horrible deed, which. Sully tells us, was punished by the vengeance of Heaven, in national disasters and distractions of twenty-six years' duration. How vain, then, is it to think that the intellectual progress of the nineteenth century can change Popery, and make it harmless and good ! OF FRANCE. 339 CONTEMPORANEOUS HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND, FROM 1688 TO 1715. God, for his all-wise purposes, seems to have treated differ- ent Churches of the Reformation from Popery in different ways. In some countries, as Italy, Poland, and Spain, he suffered Protestantism to be utterly extinguished by the vio- lence of protracted persecution. In other quarters, as in Britain, and HoUand, and Germany, he blessed it witli a speedy triumph over its enemies, which, in spite of occa- sional assaults and declensions, it maintains to the present day. In the case of France, his treatment of the Christian Church was mingled. Protestantism was neither allowed to be extinguished, nor to triumph. It was called upon to oc- cupy a middle space — to maintain a perpetual contest down to 1685, when it might be said to be nationally overthrown. There is, then, at this period of history, a grand contrast between the Church of Scotland and the Church of France. While the Church of France was broken up in a way from which she has never recovered, the Church of Scotland started forth from the Revolution of 1688 into new vigour, and was soon introduced to what may be called her third era of Reformation. But before entering on the consideration of this noble pe- riod, it will be necessary to advert to the state of things in Europe generally, and in Scotland in particular, at the Revo- lution. We have already remarked, that the hand of Divine Providence was most conspicuously manifested in bringing about that great event. The darkness was deepest just before the light burst forth. Bishop Burnet remarks, that among the different crises of the Protestant religion, of which he enumerates five, the year 1685 may be considered one. In February, the King of Britain (James II.) declared himself a papist. In June, the crown of the Elector Palatine of Germany went to a bigoted Popish family. In October, the Edict of Nantes— the protective shield of the Protestants of France — was withdrawn. In December, the Duke of Savoy withdrew a similar protection from his Protestant subjects — the long persecuted Vaudois. No prospects could be more dismal. But in three short years the cloud begins to break up. As the most important step of the whole, the British Papist is set aside, and a Protestant prince from Hol- land, specially upon Protestant grounds, is called to the 340 PROTESTANT CHURCH throne. Though as we have seen, the oppression of the Protestants in France continued, yet a place of refuge was afforded in this and other Protestant countries, to as many as chose, or were permitted, to emigrate. The next effect of the British Revolution was to put a period to the persecu- tions of Piedmont. As the influence of Cromwell at an earlier day had been exerted in the same cause, so now the reflex influence of the British Revolution reached the valleys of the Duke of Savoy. The cruelties had been very shock- ino-. As a specimen, we may mention that twelve thousand poor prisoners — men, women, and children — were shut up in fourteen prisons, castles, and strongholds, choked together » during the heat of summer and the cold of winter. In a short time, eight thousand out of the twelve thousand perish- ed from the effects of the cruel treatment to which they were subjected. Burnet, who was on the Continent at the time, states in his " Letters," that the Court affected to be asham- ed of the persecution, and alleged that the Duke had been reluctanfly constrained into it to please France, a country which seems to have wished to be kept in countenance in her course of blood, by similar proceedings among her neigh- bours. It is stated also, that, according to the acknowledg- ment of the Duke himself, the Vaudois Protestants were his most faithful, industrious, and profitable subjects, and had proved eminendy loyal in a recent war; but that the French king insisted they should be treated in the same way as his Protestant subjects, otherwise he would send troops himself for the purpose. It is on this that Jurieu, the French Pro- testant minister, in his book on the " Prophecies," exclaims, " All other persecutors have been content to persecute their own subjects or countrymen; but behold persons who, after they have reduced the subjects of their own king to the ut- most extremities, go and make themselves the hangmen and murderers of the subjects of foreign princes !"-^' But the Pro- testantism of Europe was reassured and reinvigorated by the Protestant Revolution of so powerful a country as Britain; and in 1689, between eight and nine hundred Vaudois re- turned to their native valleys, headed by M. Arnaud, a minis- ter, and took successful possession of the land of their fathers, severely retaliating the harsh treatment under which they and their countrymen had been groaning for the last three years. Turning from Europe to this country — I refer particularly * P. 256. OP FRANCE. 341 to Scotland — the consequences of the Revolution were most important. The Church of Scotland was established anew, and a thousand blessings, temporal and spiritual, followed in her train. We shall better appreciate these if we think, for a moment, of the moral and religious slate of the country as the persecution left, and the Revolution found it. Though, during the reign of Charles II., there was much more of the operation of the Presbyterian Church than many imagine — though there was only one parish (Sallon) into which the English Liturgy was introduced, and the courts, with the exception of the General Assembly, discharged their usual functions, and the forms of Presbyterian worship were sub- stantially observed — yet there was a vast change for the worse in the character of the great body of the people. However the party of the martyrs and their immediate friends may have been quickened and sanctified by the fires of the furnace, a relentless persecution of twenty-eight years' duration could not fail to be most injurious in a multitude of ways. There were many broken vows. Not a few in all ranks, particularly in the higher, had failed in the day of trial. In spite of solemn purposes and professions, they had abandoned their plighted faith. This must have been very prejudicial to their own moral feeling, and that of the country. Much, too, of the instruction which was communicated by the Presbyterian ministers was irregular and interrupted, un- der perpetual fear and restraint; while no small share of what was supplied by the ignorant and scandalous intruded curates was grossly erroneous — at best rank Arminianisra, if not Pelagianism, tending to Popery. The result was, that multitudes received no proper instruction at all, and that others were tempted to make a hasty profession, on an im- perfectly prepared foundation. It is owing to these causes that, while Bishop Burnet bears witness to the amazing re- ligious knowledge even of the "poor commonalty," their familiarity with the Scriptures, their ability to argue on dis- puted questions of principle, and their extemporaneous prayers, other writers relate how much ignorance prevailed not merely in the Highlands and Islands — which would not be very wonderful — but in parishes of the western Low- lands, where the persecution had been general and fierce. Thus, Hogg of Carnock, who was minister of Dalserf, in Lanarkshire, immediately after the Revolution, in the " Me- moirs of his Life and Times," states, in regard to that parish, that though the people made a large profession, many of 342 PROTESTANT CHURCH them were grossly ignorant, and otherwise seriously defec- tive. It is said, " Some few he found intelligent ; yet many, of whom he had better thoughts, were very ignorant, having patched and kept up a sort of profession, without ever making it their business to learn. This obliged him to lay aside his former designs, and wholly to apply himself pub- licly and privately to teach them the plain ground of reveal- ed truth, as it might please the Lord to direct and furnish him." He states, that while abroad in Holland he had been acquainted with not a few of the common people, who not only knew the principles of religion, but who were tolerably well versed in the controversial parts of theology, and that he had expected as much of his charge at Dalserf ; but that, though many of them made a great profession, he found them exceedingly ignorant ; and that he records this without meaning to disparage those who feared the Lord, and who were docile and tractable. There can be litde doubt that many other parishes were in the same predicament as Dal- serf. The result shows, that persecution, instead, as many imagine, of being uniformly a good to the Church of Christ, is often most injurious, and that in ways which at first would not be thought of. The absence of regular instruction, and the temptations to a party profession, would just bring about the state of things over which the excellent Mr. Hogg mourns; though after all, perhaps, his standard of attainment may have been a high one. The profligate example, too, of the Court party must have been very adverse. Their man- ners were formed upon the French Popish model, in which open debauchery, obscene stage plays, and gross Sabbath desecration, bore a prominent part. Indeed, it seems to have been their labour to run directly counter, in every pos- sible way, to the stern morality of the Commonwealth. They were anxious not only to shun every trace of connec- tion with the spirit and manners of Cromwell, but to pro- claim their deadly hostility to them, though religion and morality, yea decency, should be sacrificed in making the proclamation. There is little doubt, too, that long-sighted priests encouraged such courses as the best mode of break- ing the power of evangelical religion and the Presbyterian Church, and of preparing the way for the re-establishment of Popery, which they seem always to have kept in view. No religion is more suited to the taste of a profligate than the Popish ; and the progress of the elTorts of James aflbrd melancholy proof, how speedily a nation, by a course of sin, OF FRANCE. 343 may be ripened for the welcome of Popery, with its promise of easy absolutions. Taking these different causes into ac- count, we need not wonder to be informed by Fletcher of Salton, a few years after the Revolution, that besides many wretchedly provided for, there were two hundred thousand persons — a fourth or fifth part of the entire population of Scotland — begging from door to door ; that a large propor- tion of these were vagabonds, who lived without any regard to the laws either of God or of man — in the greatest crimes, oppressing the people — rioting in years of plenty — " men and women perpetually drunk, cursing, blaspheming, and fighting together." Such were their beggary and wretched- ness, that two Acts of Parliament were passed, and four proclamations issued, to build houses of correction, and estab- lish a system of poor rates like that of England. A few years ago it was estimated that there were fifty-five thousand persons in Scotland dependent on parochial relief, and ten thousand regular mendicants. Putting these together we have about a fortieth part of the entire population in the character of paupers. How different the state of things in the days of Fletcher, when a fourth part were at once beg- gars and criminals ! And what could Be the grand cause of this, if not the persecution of the two unhappy Stuarts ? It would be well for men to remember for what they are responsible in the generation which follows, as well as in that to which they directly belong. Such was the miserable moral condition of Scodand at the Revolution; and great were her other difiicuUies, political and ecclesiastical. Some have spoken to the disparagement of Scotland, as compared with England, in the management of the Revolution. She has been represented as intolerant, and disposed unnecessardy to resort to arms, and so as indi- cating an inferior civilization; but supposing the charges well founded — which we do not concede — it is to be remem- bered that the circumstances of the two countries were widely different, and fully explain the difference of feeling and con- duct. Though there had been much oppression of the Pres- byterians or Puritans of England in the reigns of Charles and James, yet it was not to be compared, in extent and severity, with the bloody persecution of Scodand; hence there had not been nearly the same amount of provocation. Indeed, Baxter and other Presbyterians had been labouring after a peaceful comprehension of the Puritans in the southern Establishment. Then the English Episcopal Church was 344 PROTESTANT CHURCH not, like her Scottish sister, imbued with Popery; on the contrary, many of her sons had written nobly against the Church of Rome ; and the people, as a whole, had deprived James of his crown for his attempts to establish Popery. There were no parties to come into collision in the south. It was otherwise in Scodand. Not only was there all the pro- vocation which the memory of thirty years of bitter suffering could supply, but the Episcopal party in Scodand still re- tained their Popish leanings. They not only did not use their exertions against Popery, but their Bishops, with two exceptions, sent the most adulatory address to James, after his design to establish Popery was quite notorious, merely because an adverse wind detained the Prince of Orange in Holland, and gave them the hope that James might not be disturbed. That James had a much greater number of friends, proportionally, in Scotland, than in England, — that the Po- pish party regarded Scodand as their stronghold, pardy from the remains of the feudal system in the north, and the almost inextinguishable loyalty of the people to their royal family, and chiefly from the Popery of some great families, and the semi-Popery of the Episcopal Church, — is evident from the fact, that the Popish Pretender, through the next sixty years, in his successive attempts upon Britain, almost always look- ed to Scodand as his great hope and confidence. It is plain, then, that it was a much more difficult matter to carry through the Revolution peacefully and satisfactorily in Scodand than in England. The first duty was to protect the Convention or Parliament in declaring that James had forfeited his title to the throne; and this was done, not by the regular troops, but by nearly two thousand Presbyterian volunteers, wdio were raised in a few days, and constituted the Cameronian regiments. Eight hundred were raised in one day, by the Earl of Angus, without beat of drum. The city of Glasgow, which was always distinguished for its Protestantism, on this occasion sent five hundred men to Edinburgh. At an earlier day, in 1568, the same city sent out six hundred young men to the batde of Langside, — a batde which decided that the Protestant principles of Regent Murray, and not the Popish government of his sister. Queen Mary, should prevail; and at a later day (1715,) sent forth five hundred men for sixty days, and offered to the Government of the day permanenUy to support them in behalf of the Protestant line of Bruns- wick, against the Popish Pretender. The conditions upon which the Presbyterians proffered their services, show at OF FRANCE. 345 once their principles and the religious character of the strug- gle: "That all the officers of the regiment should be such as, in conscience and prudence, might, with cordial confi- dence, be submitted to and followed — such as had not served the enemy in destroying, nor had engaged, by oaths and tests, to destroy the cause now to be fought for and defended; but that they should be well affected, of approved fidelity, and of a sober conversation ; — that the cause they were called to appear for was the defence of the king's majesty, in the defence of the nation, the recovery and preservation of the Protestant religion, in opposition to Popery, Prelacy, and arbitrary power, in all its branches and steps, until the gov- ernment in Church and State be brought to the lustre and in- tegrity established in the best and purest times." Colonel Blackadder, a gentleman of eminent piety, whose diary and letters have been published (from which the above extract is taken,) was an officer of the regiment raised under Angus. It afterwards became the 26th regiment of foot, was distin- guished in the Protestant wars of the Continent, under Marl- borough, and for a long time was marked for the religious character of its origin. Thus it appears, that it was the Church of Scotland which bore a leading part in carrying through the Revolution of 1688 in Scotland; and but for her influence, the Revolution, in all probability, could not have been accomplished. But though arms were taken up, let it not be supposed that any intolerance or persecution was practised. It was for defence, not aggression, that the Presbyterian volunteers enrolled themselves, and that many others took arms. A few weeks after the landing of the Prince of Orange, and before any ecclesiastical arrangements were made, there was some mob- bing of Popish priests and places of worship, and the armed Presbyterians called upon the Episcopal curates quietly to leave the churches which they had so long usurped, or sub- mit to forcible ejectment; but even according to the testi- mony of Sir Walter Scott, there was no bloodshed, nothing that could be called persecution, in the sense to which Scot- land had been so long accustomed to it. " Now," says he, in his "History of Scotland," "since these armed noncon- formists had been, to use their own language, for nearly twenty years, proscribed, forfeited, miserably oppressed, given up as sheep to the slaughter, intercommuned, and in- terdicted of harbour or supply, comfort or communion, hunted and slain in the fields, in the cities imprisoned, tortured, ex- 346 PROTESTANT CHURCH ecuted to the death, or banished and sold as slaves;" "and as many of them avowed the same wild principles which were acted upon by the murderers of Archbishop Sharpe, — it might have been expected that a bloody retaliation would take place as soon as they had the power in their own hands. Yet it must be owned, that these stern Cameronians showed no degree of positive cruelty. They expelled the obnoxious curates with marks of riotous triumph, tore their gowns, and sometimes compelled them to march in a mock procession to the boundary of their parish. They plundered the private chapels of Catholics, and destroyed whatever they found be- longing to their religion; but they evinced no desire of per- sonal vengeance. Nor have I found that the clergy who were expelled in this memorable month of December, 1688, although most of them were treated with rudeness and insult, were in any case killed or wounded in cold blood."* What a contrast is the treatment thus candidly confessed, of the Presbyterians towards the Episcopalians, to the treatment of the Episcopalians towards the Presbyterians; and yet the Presbyterians constituted the vast majority of the country! Even in the cases of insult referred to, the deed was not, as with the Episcopal Church, the legalized deed of the Pres- byterian Church or of the State, but an ebullition of the pas- sion of the populace. What can account for this milder treatment, save the more widely diffused influence of Chris- tian principle and views of toleration, far more enlightened than the Presbyterians of this period generally receive credit for entertaining? But we now come to the formal settlement of the Presby- terian Church as the Established Church of Scotland. There was no difficulty in this, so far as the rights of Presbyterians to the Church property, and their own numbers in the nation, were concerned. Twenty-eight years of cruel usurpation and persecution could not annul such titles; they rather strengthened them. 'Jlie Prince of Orange, though he came from a Presbyterian country, would have wished for uni- formity of religious worship throughout Britain, and have approved of a modified Episcopacy for Scotland. He was soon, however, persuaded that this would never be submitted to; and so the ancient Presbyterian Church, with some change in the mode of appointing ministers, was recognized and established. The great difficulty was, how to arrange respecting the Episcopal incumbents. The best plan, per- * Vol. ii., p. 95. OF FRANCE. 347 haps, would have been, to have allowed them the freest tole- ration,— to have pensioned and allowed them to die off. In this way they would soon have disappeared, as their party shrivelled in its dimensions; but in an evil hour, in the exer- cise of a false charity and expediency, it was agreed that they should be received, on easy terms of conformity, into the new Presbyterian Establishment. Not being restrained by much religious principle — on the contrary, being worldly- minded men — they almost universally availed themselves of the facilities which had been injudiciously granted, and soon formed a party in the Church, which at the time, and ever since, has proved a severe hindrance to the successful spirit- ual working of the Church of Scotland. In this respect, there is a vast and most beautiful contrast between the con- duct of the Presbyterian and Episcopal Churches in Scotland. The one persecuted — the other spared, and opened the door of a generous admission to its greatest enemies. But how- ever kind or politic these ready comprehensions may be, they are most injurious. Where there is decided diversity of prin- ciple and feeling, it is far preferable that the parties should keep asunder. The Church of Scotland suffered, in the early days of the Reformation, from pensioning the existing Popish priesthood, out of resources which should have been devoted to the extension of the Gospel in its purity. Thus her efibrts were crippled for many years, and she suffered still more seriously and permanently by comprehending hol- low-hearted Presbyterians within her pale at the Revolution. The Popish priests died out, and the parishes were relieved, but the Episcopal conformists, or " the temporary Presbyte- rians," as Hogg styles them, were perpetuated from age to age. Besides cooling down the spirit of the Church, and weakening her in various ways, they hindered her in the ap- pointment of such faithful fast-days as she could have wished. How could she confess and mourn over a departure from former attainments, and resolve upon a revival of better prin- ciples and practice, when the very persecutors of the Church, the very causes of many of her former defections and w^oes, were present as ministers and elders in her councils, and ex- erted a considerable influence in her proceedings? They could not sincerely concur in such views. Hence the Church was restrained in the course of duty; and it may be safely said, that she has always been much more injured by the leniency than the severity of her discipline — by false charity than by stern adherence to principle. At the same time, it 348 PROTESTANT CHURCH is to be borne in mind that the circumstances of the Church at the Revolution were trying and difficult. There was a great want of ministers. Not above sixty of the three hun- dred and seventy-six who had been ejected at the Restoration survived to the Revolution. After such protracted persecu- tion there was great anxiety for peace, and a desire to shun every thing that could provoke or continue strife. The ad- mission of a number of Episcopal ministers, it was thought, would tend to cement harmony. The moral condition of the people, too, as we have seen, was fearful, and called loudly for an immediate and extensive application of Chris- tian means; but unless the Episcopal ministers were adopt- ed, that application could not be made for many years. But with all this, the proceeding was wrong in principle. It failed to work out the good which was expected, and it led the way to a thousand evils. And now the Church of Scotland, freed from persecution, and blessed with all the advantages of a legal establishment, starts in her new career of usefulness. Impeded, as in some measure we have seen she was, still that career is vigorous and noble. But before describing, in a litde detail, the means which she employed, and the happy, moral, and religious results with which these, under God, were crowned, it will not be amiss to advert to the exteiiml circumstances of Bri- tain, as a Protestant power, at the period of which we write. This will serve at once to magnify the proceedings and suc- cess of the Church, and to explain the subordinate stimulants to her zeal. Tranquillity reigns in Great Britain. The Prince of Orange, under the title of William III., and his Princess as Queen Mary, are now seated on the throne. The Church of Scotland, raised from her oppressions, and embracing a large portion of conforming Episcopal ministers, is the re- cognized Church of the land. This was a great step. It was the triumph of the principles for which faithful men had long suffered on the mountains and the moors of Scodand, and it was their triumph, too, on the very spot where they had endured most. 'I'he Revolution was equivalent to a public declaration, that arbitrary power has its limits, — that there are cases when it is right for a people to set aside their sovereign, — that Popery is the greatest curse of nations, — that the claims of conscience and private judgment in religion are sacred, — that tlie Lord Jesus Christ is the supreme Head of the Church of Scotland, — and that Presbyterian Church OF FRANCE. 349 government is most important and well worth contending for. It is pleasing to dwell on the Revolution as the triumph of these principles, — to think that the good seed sown in the blood of the Covenanters was not lost, but speedily grew up and bore fruit. It is gratifying, too, to see the principles of Charles and of James, once so powerful and prevailing in this country, first exposed and then trodden down, till they became associated only with the reigns of Popish Pretenders, and were at length extinguished as irrational and cruel. But though steps of vast magnitude were gained, the con- test was not over. The Popish party, from a variety of sources, domestic and foreign, had still a considerable share of power, and laboured for years to embarrass the working of the Revolution Settlement, and bring back the nation to Popery. The special Providence of God was still necessary, and was not wanting, for the protection of the Protestant cause. Indeed, it was not to l3e expected that so great a Revolution should take place, even though successful and complete, without some effort being made to recover the ground which had been lost. Satan could not fail to be angry and provoked. The machinations of many years were defeated — power long enjoyed was transferred to other hands. Accordingly, there were frequent plots to cut off William — strong efforts to break up the Protestant succession — and a Popish Pretender, under the shield and guidance of France, ever ready to make a descent upon the most vulnerable part of the British Isles. It was necessary to keep up a system of continued watchfulness. The hazards were the greater, that, unlike the Popish reigns which, with the exception of James's, were comparatively long, those of the Protestant sovereigns were remarkably short. William and Mary, Anne and George I., did not stretch over forty years, while the nation might be said to have had nothing but Popish queens for the previous sixty years. There were not less than seven Popish rebellions, or serious preparations for rebellions, in the course of a few years. And had it not been for the Providence of God determining the royal suc- cession to a Protestant family — and that by a single vole in the Parliament of William — and removing Anne by death before the schemes of the Papists were ripe, and singularly infatuating the counsels of the Pretender at a later day, no one can estimate how serious might have been the conse- quences. The most crafty and persevering efforts were employed, doubtless, under priestly influence, against both 350 PROTESTANT CHURCH the State and the Church, particularly the Presbyterian Church. But happily they were defeated at home ; while, on the Continent, the allied troops, under Marlborough, were eminently successful. In ten years' war he scarcely ever lost a battle, or failed in carrying a siege. His success, prayed for on fast-days, and acknowledged on days of public thanksgiving, had the effect of greatly weakening the power of France, and, in the same degree, the power of Popery and the British Pretender, and also in releasing the general liberties of Europe from a thraldom under which Roman Catholic as well as Protestant States had long groaned. The immense struggles which were made by the nation in the wars of Marlborough, the treasure which was spent and the lives which were lost, were so many sacrifices in behalf of Protestantism, both at home and abroad; and the laws which were made, in the mean time, against blasphemous and vicious publications, against false doctrine and profane swearing, and for the reformation of manners generally, all bear wit- ness to the religious spirit of the age, and to the blessing of God upon the British councils. It is well to remember that the Church of Scotland, in the period of successful progress which we are about to describe, was not living in unbroken quiet — that, on the contrary, the country was involved in protracted war on the Continent, and was constrained to main- tain an attitude of the utmost watchfulness over the insidious movements of a Popish enemy at home. Nations, under the sway of false religions, may enjoyHengthened tranquillity, they may repose for centuries in the lap of inactivity ; but in this fallen world, as soon as a people begin to act upon Christian principles, they must lay their account with war or disturbance of some kind. A Christian nation, like a Christian man, is essentially militant. While, in some res- pects, this is injurious to the Church of Christ, in other res- pects it is useful — acting, as it does, as a continual spur to diligence. As persecution had reduced the number of ministers, and laid waste churches, and left large districts of country, par- ticularly in the Highlands and Islands, in darkness and superstition; so the first and chief object of the Revolution Presbyterian Church was, by ministers and licentiates, to send forth a preached Gospel to the most destitute quarters, and to take steps for dividing parishes and building churches. This good work, which carries every other in its train, had been going vigorously forward when interrupted by the Res- OF FRANCE. 351 toration of Charles II.; and now it is revived. Letters, too, are written to the exiled ministers to come home, and spheres of labour are immediately appointed them, and commis- sioners are named for visiting certain districts of the Church, north and south of the Tay, preaching the Gospel, examin- ing the people, and taking steps towards the planting of churches. This was done in little more than twelve months after the Revolution. Prosecuting this good work, in 1694 not less than sixteen Lowland ministers, at the earnest re- quest of noblemen, burghs, and people, are sent to supply parishes, north of the Tay, for a quarter of a year. When their time is completed, other brethren fill their places, and thus the supply is kept up. In the same year, the Scottish ministers who had been labouring in the north of Ireland, are loosed from their charges, and brought home. The General Assembly also discourages the translation of minis- ters from one parish to another, particularly from the north or more destitute districts, to the south, which was better provided. Next year, a committee for sending ministers to the north, composed of " the gravest men," are required always to sit in Edinburgh, and never to desist from their efforts, till they succeed in sending twenty-two of the best ministers to labour north of the Tay for three months, to be relieved by other twenty-two for the next three months, and so on progressively. This surely indicated true church ex- tension zeal. Some ministers and probationers are appoint- ed to go as far north as Caithness-shire. But in tlie anxiety for men, the (Church does not overlook the claims of profes- sional literature. The same Assembly decrees that none are to be ordained who do not give good proof of knowing Latin, and Greek, and Hebrew ; while Chaldee and Syriac are recommended. In 1697, we meet with the same spirit of church extension. It would seem that some of the ministers sent to preach the Gospel in the north, returned before their full term was completed. To remedy this, the Assembly calls upon Presbyteries to see that ministers exacUy fulfil their appointments. On an application from the commander of the forces in Scotland, the Assembly appoints ministers to take a pastoral care of the soldiers, and provide them with seats in their churches, and also take steps for sending min- isters to regiments abroad, as well as at home. The labours of the Church in supplying the district north of the Tay with ministers, seems to have been attended with so much suc- cess, that it was not necessary to send the same number as 352 PROTESTANT CHURCH before. In 1697, eighteen ministers are sent, instead of twenty-two; but next year, twelve ministers are permanent- ly transported to the north, and twenty probationers or preachers along with them. Both parties are obliged to ac- cept of calls, whether from the people or the presbyteries where they sojourn. The travelling expenses of the preach- ers are borne to the extent of one hundred merks ; and when they go to Orkney, they receive two hundred. The ap- pointment lasts for a year. In addition to these appointments, eighteen ministers itinerate as formerly, and fifteen are sent for four months. In the mean time, so impressed is the Church with the importance of ministers being kept steady to one sphere of labour, that the Assembly refuses to remove ministers in the Lowlands, from one charge to another, though there are many applications of this kind. In 1699, we read of other twenty preachers being sent north ; and no one north of the Tay, whether minister or probationer, is allowed to accept of a Lowland parish. This to us may seem a harsh proceeding, but it shows the deep zeal and anxiety of the Church to supply the destitute Highlands with the permanent ministrations of the Gospel. As the vacan- cies in the north are beginning to be filled up, only eleven ministers are this year sent to idnerate — a plain proof that the labours of the Church had been successful. In 1700, a commission of ministers and elders was appointed to visit Shetland, to promote the cause of the Church and of Chris- tianity among the people. An account of the visit was pub- lished by one of the Commissioners (Mr. Brand,) which shows how hazardous was the enterprise ; the party being repeatedly in danger of shipwreck: but the writer bears wit- ness to the good which resulted from such appointments. It would have been well had they been continued. In the course of the same year, nine ministers and eighteen proba- tioners are sent on similar errands to those which had en- gaged so many before. The ministers are to reside four months in the north. Four years after we read of efforts being nsed to obtain pious persons to go to St. Kilda, and instruct the people from house to house. This is a naked rock in the Adantic, one hundred and twenty miles from the main- land, inhabited by about one hundred poor people. Such, however, was the zeal of the Church, that even they are not overlooked. In 1706, tiie catechist of St. Kilda receives four hundred merks, and the proprietor is written to, to en- courage the mission. This was not a peculiar case. The OF FRANCE. 353 commissioners of the Church wrote to the heritors of desti- tute districts generally, stirring them up to contribute. They were often successful, and had the pleasing duty afterwards of conveying to them the public thanks of the Church for their services. In 1708, we read of various new erections in Shedand — no doubt the fruit of the commissions which were repeatedly sent to that inaccessible and inhospitable country. Soon after, the Presbyteries of the Church are called upon to collect money for building and repairing manses in Shetland. In the course of the same year, it is ordered that every minister of the Church contribute to a fund, called the centesima fund, to send a mission to the north against Popery. Four hundred merks were shortly raised in this way, two hundred of which Avere applied to the support of a probationer in Glenlivat. Lord Strathaven applies for a probationer for the north, and his request is complied with. This appears to have been as chaplain to a regiment. The parishioners of a southern parish (Morham) pray the Assembly to allow Mr. Kirk, a probationer, to be settled as their minister ; but such is the Church's desire that the north be supplied, that he is required first to go and itinerate in Ross and Sutherland, on condition that, if not called by the people of any parish in these counties in six months, he may return to Morham. And while such exertions were used m sending and main- taining ministers and preachers, who spoke English, to des- titute districts of Scodand, the Church did not fail to make special efforts to provide instructers in the Gaelic language. In 1694, the Assembly enjoins that all the laws relating to bursars, which had been long in operation, and some of which affected Gaelic students, should continue, and that no minister having the Gaelic language should be settled in a Lowland parish. Various efforts are made to raise up Gaelic preachers. Ministers and probationers, who do not possess a facility in speaking the language, are to use means to acquire it. In 1701, Synods are strongly recommended to educate bursars having the Gaelic language, and to main- tain them as students of divinity, in addition to the bursars who were supported by Presbyteries. It is proposed that these Synod Gaelic bursars shall be eight in number, shall receive £10 a-year, and be maintained for four years. Four years after, it would seem that the Lowlands were so well supplied with ministers, that it is arranged one-half of the bur- 23 354 PROTESTANT CHURCH saries of Lowland Presbyteries sliall henceforward be devo- ted to students of divinity speaking Gaelic. In 1708, the Assembly ordains that no Gaelic preacher shall accept of a situation in the south, unless he has ilinerated for a year in the Highlands, and had no call from the people. Should he afterwards receive a call, he is required to return. Probation- ers seem in some cases to have been averse to labour in the Highlands, and, in excuse, to have alleged, that they had lost their knowledge of the language. Where this is plead- ed, Presbyteries are to examine into the case, and see that they regain it. If any having Gaelic are inadvertently set- tled in the Lowlands, the settlement is to be broken up, and they are to be translated to the north. The better to en- courage the Gaelic bursars the money is to be punctually paid them. At the same time, while the Church is so anxious for young men, she is not indifferent to suitable qualifications. In 1714, acts are passed to discourage un- w^orlhy bursars, and to see that strict attention is paid, in the appointments, to piety, and literature, and probable use- fulness. It may be noticed, that a few years before a Gae- lic minister was appointed to take charge of the Gaelic po- pulation in Edinburgh, an important step, which led, I be- lieve, to the Gaelic church in that city. So great was the zeal of the Assembly for the spiritual welfare of the High- land population, that she followed them even when they left their own native districts. Adverting to the subject of education, the diligence of the Church in this cause was scarcely inferior to her zeal in the department of church extension. Doubtless it was through her influence that an act passed the Scottish Parliament in 1690, devoting the vacant stipends of the Synod of Argyle to educational purposes, to the training of young men at school and college, who might afterwards be schoolmasters. This resource proving inadequate, a few years after King William made over the rents of the bishoprick of the county to the object. At the same time, he appointed ^6150 of the bishoprick of Dumblane to be applied to the building of schools and schoolmasters' houses, and the better support of the schoolmasters in the Highland parts of Perth, Stirling, and Dumbarton. At the end of the century, the General Assembly strongly recommends to Presbyteries to use their endeavours to have parochial schools in the Lowlands, wherever they have not yet been planted. Next year, rules are passed indicating great care for the character and quali- OF FRANCE. 355 fications of sclioolmasters. Those who have been at college are to be preferred to those who have not. A few years after (1704), a collection is appointed for establishing paro- chial schools in all the destitute districts of the Highlands; and in the existing schools, the children of poor parents who give promise of being afterwards useful, are not only to be taught the usual branches of knowledge, but the Latin lan- guage in addition. On the application of some private gen- tlemen in Edinburgh, who seem to have associated together for prayer and the reformation of public manners, the Gene- ral Assembly took steps to ascertain the educational wants of the Highlands and Islands, and to excite interest and spread information on the subject. This resulted, in 1709, in the establishment of the " Society in Scodand for Propagating Christian Knowledge," a society which still exists in a flourishing condition. Some efforts had been made by the friends of religion to plant schools a few years before, but unsuccessfully. Now, however, that the cause is taken up by the Church, above ^61000 are speedily collected — no small sum in Scotland at that day: a royal proclamation is issued by Queen Anne in favour of the scheme, and the asso- ciation is incorporated by charier, embracing many of the most influential names in Scodand in its membership — lead- ing nobles, country gendemen, judges, merchants, &;c. The constitution and rules of the society were exceedingly en- lightened and wise: religious instruction was made supreme. At the same time provision was made for a superior class of teachers, and a superior style of intellectual instruction. It was part of the plan to have catechists and missionaries, as well as schoolmasters, in remote and destitute districts, so that the school frequenfly became a mission station. In this way, church extension and school extension were blended together. It may be interesting to record, that the first of the Society's schools was planted in 1711, in the desolate Island of St. Kilda; and a salary w^as appointed of three hundred merks, or £lG 13s. 4d. By this time the capital amounted to £3700. Eleven itinerating schools were set up in the most Popish districts of the Highlands at the same time, and all the materials provided for a full scriptural education. In 1715, the schools had risen to twenty-five, and the capital had in- creased to ^66177. It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader, that at the same period the claims of education were carefully attended to in the Lowlands. We read in the ec- clesiastical records of the parish of Govan, that in 1714, a 356 PROTESTANT CHURCH collection was made for the schoolmaster from door to door, and next year it appears that not less than three schools were maintained by the same parish. I might refer to various other proofs of the Christian spirit and power of the Church of Scotland, during the period which we are surveying — such as her zeal against Popery — her kindness to distressed individuals, both at home and abroad — her sympathy with suffering Protestant Churches, her attention to the wants of the poor — her encouragement of literature and learning; but I would be merely repeating what we found to be characteristic of her history at earlier periods. Indeed, it is one of the beautiful indications of the Church of Scotland, as a spiritual Church, that she is no sooner freed from external oppression, but all the symptoms of true religion, the love of truth, a quickened conscience, an improved intellect, and renovated social affections, become apparent in a thousand forms. I may merely mention, be- fore proceeding to the practical resuhs of the operation of the Church, that her love for the higher species of knowledge embraced at universities, is proclaimed in the interesting facts which, by a careful investigation, I have made out from the recent Parliamentary Report on the Scottish Universi- ties, viz., — that in the twenty-eight years of Episcopal per- secution, there was an addition of but four chairs in the University of Edinburgh; whereas, in the twenty-eight years of the Presbyterian period following the Revolution, there was an addition of not less than twelve new professor- ships in the same University. It appears also, that during the same periods, there were but ten bursaries founded in the University of Glasgow the first era — seven of them by the same person ; while in the corresponding Presbyterian period, there were not less than twenty-four, and these chiefly by separate individuals. Surely these facts indicate a superior taste for knowledge, and anxious endeavours to diffuse it. With regard, again, to the propagation of the Gospel in foreign parts, it was in 1690 and 1700 that the Church of Scotland sent forth six ordained ministers, and three probationers, to the Caledonian Colony at Darien, with the view not only of instructing the Scotch colonists, but of carrying the Word of Life to the heathen. And though the colony in a short time proved a complete failure, yet the spirit of the Church was not on that account less admirable or worthy of praise, 'i'he letters which were written, the prayers which were offered, the fast-day which was appoint- OF FRANCE. 357 ed in connection with the disasters of the colony, all pro- claim the piety and zeal with which the Church entered into the undertaking. And it need scarcely be added, that the disposition to communicate to others is, in genera], a just index of the estimation in which what is given is held by ourselves. To send the Gospel to the heathen, is a good proof that it is understood and valued at home. And now let us turn to the practical fruit of that operation of Christian means which we have been describing. How did the Presbyterian Church affect the country in its reli- gious, and moral, and social interests? It wrought in the most beneficial manner. Many testimonies to this effect can be appealed to. I do not refer to the outward improve- ments which appeared in the building of bridges, and the en- largement of harbours, and the constructing of roads. The country was indebted for not a few of these to the Church. There was, in these days, no public fund save her collec- tions, and so she might be said to be, in this respect, the great civilizer of the nation. But I refer to higher and better things? The Church greatly improved the character, and through it the condition, of the people. Previous to 1700 there were but three parishes under a legal assessment for the support of the poor ; and in forty years after, there were but eight parishes in that predicament. When it is con- sidered how great was the poverty and wretchedness des- cribed by Fletcher of Salton in 1698, and how glad the Government would have been to find a refuge for the suf- fering in a poor's-rate, the small number of parishes is almost incredible, and sliows how tlie mind of the people general- ly must have been raised, in the meantime, by the power of Christian principle, so as to render poor-laws unnecessary. How marvellous, too, that this should happen in so poor a country as Scotland. But the fact rather leads one to infer how high must have been the moral standard of the people, than actually to describe it. We can turn, however, to eye- witnesses of their character for an account of its leading features. Matthew Henry, speaking of his friend Dr. Ben- yon, who sojourned in' Glasgow in 1703, says, "He ob- served, to his great satisfaction, that all the while he was in Glasgow, though he lay in a public town, he never saw any drunk, nor heard any swear — nay, he observed, that in all the inns of the road to that part of Scotland where he lay — though some of them mean — they had family worship per- formed morning and evening; from which, and other re- 358 PROTESTANT CHURCH marks made in that journey, he inferred, that practical reli- gion doth not depend on worldly wealth, for where he had seen the marks of poverty, there he had seen withal the marks of piety." Probably Glasgow was, at the period re- ferred to, a town of twelve thousand souls, and yet its moral and religious character was visible to the eye of an intelligent and pious stranger. What, however, is most worthy of no- tice, is that the town was not singular; and that the inns along the way, the very houses where the calls of religious duty are, from various causes, least attended to, all resounded with the voice of family devotion. We may safely interpret this as the proof of a very widely diffused religious spirit. Passing from Dr. Benyon, we have a well known and charac- teristic testimony by De Foe, who visited Scotland about the period of the Union — not long after the friend of Henry. He says, " The people are restrained in the ordinary prac- tice of common immorality, such as swearing, drunkenness, slander, licentiousness, and the like. As to theft, murder, and other capital crimes, they come under the cognizance of the civil magistrate, as in other countries ; but in those things which the Church has power to punish, the people being constantly and impartially prosecuted (that is, sub- jected to Church discipline where they offend,) they are thereby the more restrained, kept sober and under govern- ment; and you may pass through twenty towns in Scotland, without seeing any broil, or hearing one oath sworn in the streets; whereas, if a blind man were to come into these parts into England, he shall know the first town he sets his foot in within the English border, by hearing the name of God blasphemed and profanely used, even by the very little children in the streets." Such testimonies may be supposed to refer chiefly, if not exclusively, to the Lowlands ; but the Highlands were not strangers to the same blessed change. There were, indeed, influences in these districts, peculiarly adverse to the pro- gress of divine knowledge. The inaccessibility of the peo- ple, owing to the natural barriers of the country — the feudal form of government under the despotic chieftains — the native superstitions — the unconquerable attachment to the very language which cut them of!" from intercourse with the more intelligent; — these, and many other causes, pre- sented great obstacles to the progress of the Reformation among the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Hence, in not a few districts, the Gospel was scarcely known down to the OF FRANCE, 359 period of the Revolution, but at that era great and successful exertions were made for proclaiming it. In the western Highlands — to select an example — there appears to have been a very decided revival of religion under the devoted labours of Donald Campbell of Kilmichael Glassary. He was settled a few years after the Revolution, and found his people in a deeply ignorant and heathenish condition — wild like the mountains among which they lived. Through the Divine blessing on his prayers and labours, not a few were turned from darkness to light, and became civilized as well as converted men. The works on practical divinity which he published, particularly his " Sacramental Meditations on the Sufferings and Death of Christ," while they show the style of his instruction — a style far ahead of the age in which he lived — also show his piety and high professional attain- ments. They are works eminently fitted to be useful, and themselves bear witness to his success. " The Medita- tions," at one time, had a large sale in England and in Ireland, as well as in Scotland, and the memory of their author is fragrant and revered as that of an apostle. In the northern Highlands, again, the moral renovation of the peo- ple was still deeper and more extensive. Long previous to the Revolution, in the Presbyterian periods of the seven- teenth century, Ross, Sutherland, and Caithness, and part of Inverness, had given evidence of decided attachment to evan- gelical religion. So early as 1624, the Protestant chieftains, with three thousand of their people, had crossed to Germany to fight the battles of the Reformed faith, under the great Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, who repeatedly attributes his success to his Scottish allies. Dr. Doddridge, in his " Life of Colonel Gardiner," states, that sixty gentlemen of the name and family of Munro of Fowlis, one of the leading families of the north, were officers in the Germanic army. In the days of the Covenant, the same northern counties came out boldly and unanimously in the Presbyterian and Evangelical cause. But after the Revolution, the religious character of the people was confirmed and deepened. Many of the good ministers fled to the northern Highlands in the days of persecution, where they found an asylum, and the highest families continued faithful to the Covenant. These things were most favourable ; but in addition, the Earls of Sutherland, who had more power in the three northern coun- ties than any other family, and who were eminently pious themselves, and gave every encouragement to laborious min- 360 PROTESTANT CHURCH isters in their parishes, after the Lay Patronage Act of 1711 was passed, continued for forty years to give the people the choice of their ministers. This tended to keep np the spirit of evangelical religion ; for the unhappy change which after- wards took place, first appeared, not among the people, but among the pastors. Not a few of the ministers in the north were eminent. Among these may be mentioned Frazer of Alness, who laboured in that parish for forty years, and pub- lished a treatise on Sanctification which has been much es- teemed and highly useful in the Christian Church ever since. The name of M'Kay, minister of Duirnish, a relative of Lord Reay's, may also be recorded. He was sometimes three months absent from his own house, in the laborious catechis- ing of his extensive parish. The effects of the labours of these, and of many men of kindred spirit, are visible to the present day. The Committee of the Highland Missionary Society, speaking of this district of Scotland a few years ago, quote, in their eighth report, with approbation, the fol- lowing sentence of a pious historian: — "The apostolic unc- tion which the Holy Spirit then imparted to that county, has not only been continued among the ministers in regard to sentiments, consistorial procedure, and general character; but the traveller, as he approaches the nothern shore of the east of Scotland, perceives, when he mingles with the com- mon people, that he begins to breathe in an atmosphere of evangelical and practical purity, which his moral sense is not accustomed in many places to inhale." Another writer quo- ted by the same Society, says — "The crimes of rapine, murder, and plunder, not unusual during the feuds and con- flicts of the clans, were put an end to alDOUt the year 1640. Domestic and social virtues are now cultivated and revered by all ranks of people — family worship is common — cursing and swearing are rarely heard; and no native of these dis- tricts would perform an ordinary work, such as carrying in water, on the Sabbath-day." The same spirit follows them when they leave their homes. The regiments raised in these quarters have been distinguished for moral and religious feel- ing; court-martials are rare, while prayer-meetings are fre- quent. A few years ago, the Rev. Dr. Thom, of the Scottish Church at the Cape, bore testimony to the high character of the 93d, or Sutherland Highlanders. In eighteen months, they saved, officers and men, the large sum of seven thou- sand rix dollars, or £J400 currency, from their pay, and devoted it to the maintenance and propagation of the Gospel, OF FRANCE. 361 "Their example," adds Dr. Thorn, *' had a general good effect on both the colonists and the heathen. How they may act as to religion in other parts, is known to God ; but if ever I thought that apostolic days were in modern times on earth, I certainly believed them to have been among us in Africa." Leaving the Highlands, and surveying the Church gene- rally at the period of which I am writing, there are one or two interesting testimonies to the excellence of her charac- ter, which I must not omit. Professor Wodrow, the father of the historian, and Professor of Theology in the Univer- sity of Glasgow, says, in the interesting life of him publish- ed a few years ago by the late Rev. Dr. Campbell of Edin- burgh— " I am of opinion the Church of Scotland never enjoyed such a pleniiful measure of the outpouring of the Spirit as since the Revolution, though the Lord has been pleased to bestow it in a different manner. In former times, the gift was more, much more, particular — conferred and restricted to some particular persons here and there; but since the Revolution, I hope, and am persuaded, it is far more diffused, enlarged, and general." This is the testi- mony of a pious and intelligent professor, through whose hands seven hundred young men in Scotland passed on the way to the ministry ; and when it is remembered how re- markable and wide-spread were the religious revivals of Scotland in earlier days, the state of the Church posterior to the Revolution must have been favourable indeed. Speaking of the General Assembly in its spirit and proceedings, at the same period, Sir Henry Moncreiff, in the Appendix to the "Life of Dr. Erskine," says — "An unbiassed reader, who dispassionately examines the proceedings of the Gene- ral Assemblies from 1690 to 1713, cannot but perceive the sincerity with which the great body of the clergy then united to promote the religious interests of the people, and the general tranquillity of the country, as well as the uniform attachment shown by them all to the principles which placed William and Mary on the throne, and the usefulness and respectability of the Presbyterian Church. There were oc- casional differences of opinion among them, such as occur in all numerous assemblies. But though we must suppose the influence of Government to have been at all times con- siderable, there do not appear, in the General Assemblies of this period, any settled combinations, or indeed any offen- sive symptoms, either of party spirit or of political intrigue." 362 PROTESTANT CHURCH This is a strong testimony, and it is amply confirmed by the preface to Pierce's " Vindication of the Dissenters," — a respectable English Dissenter, who, surveying the Church of Scotland from a little distance, thus, in his dedication, addresses the ministers : — *' To the Most Reverend, Pious, and Learned Pastors and Ministers of that part of Christ's Church which is in Scotland. " Reverend Brethren — Many weighty reasons move me to dedicate this my defence, such as it is, to you, and to make choice of you as the arbitrators to whom I would es- pecially appeal. For what better judges can I desire in this controversy, than those who are famed both for Christian discipline and true piety ? which noble virtues, (1 say it with- out flattery) are nowhere more conspicuous than in your Assemblies. The ardent zeal for God's worship and pure religion, for which you have been renowned of old, has been so far from being extinguished, that it has been inflamed and brightened by those horrible and very long persecutions, out of which, above twenty years ago, it pleased our most merciful God and Father to deliver you. Being mindful of this great benefit, you diligently discharge the important trust committed to you. The good Lord grant you may always go on to do so, with the like, and even greater care, diligence, and success. What pious person can forbear res- pecting and reverencing Christ's vineyard, happily planted among you ; where it is not, as in many other parts, misera- bly trampled under foot, but wonderfully defended by his mighty and gracious hand, and abounds in all the fruits of righteousness ; wherein impiety, which elsewhere rages without control, is stricUy curbed and restrained? Nor are there wanting among our Churchmen persons of candour and reputation, who highly honour you upon this account." There are additional facts which might be appealed to, indicative of the sound character and justly earned power of the Church. For instance, a Form of Process was drawn up and agreed to, in 1707, for maintaining and following out the discipline of the Church upon her oflice-bearers and members, where they transgress the laws of Christ. This Directory, introduced by wise and able men, is now found to be cumbrous in its working, and to need revision; but it has stood for nearly one hundred and forty years. It is still OP FRANCE. 363 the guide of the Church in such cases ; and at the time it was agreed to — to use the language of Wilhamson's " Per- sonal Testimony" — it " was a step of reformation beyond what was attained in our former purest times." It is a good sign in any Church to be strict in her rules of discipline. The prevailing error and evil have lain upon the other side — the side of relaxation. While the Form of Process bears testimony to the Church's character, the success of the union with England testifies to her power. It is well known that that union, which has been the source of so many commercial and other blessings to Scotland, was, in the first instance, much opposed on various grounds — nay, was the source of no small evil to the northern division of the island. Such was the hostility, that had it not been for the influence of leading ministers in the Church, it could not have been carried into effect. Ac- cordingly, the best informed historians give the Church ihe credit of that most important measure. Her courage in re- sisting the wishes of so many of her own people, and in encountering the perils of an untried experiment, in which, as the event has proved, she might be a sufferer, shows how warm was her attachment to the Protestant succession, and how much she was prepared to risk for the Protestant cause. Scottish nobles might receive bribes of money to obtain their acquiescence — some of them so low as £10 or £\2 — but the Church was untainted. It was upon principle that she not only acquiesced, but yielded her support to the Union; and in this she presents a striking contrast even to the aristo- cracy, who were glad to receive among them some £400,000, apart from which Scotland might long have remained an independent kingdom. How different from the noble mind- ed men who sacrificed all, even life itself, for their prin- ciples ! But while the character and operation of the Church of Scotland, as a whole, were so favourable, and while her power was justly so considerable, we are not to imagine that her course from the Revolution was smooth and easy. She had many difficulties and adverse influences with which to contend. A Revolution almost always leaves a number of keen and exasperated parlies behind it. The expedition to Darien, in which Scotland suffered — not a little through the jealousy of her southern neighbour — was most disastrous. Though the circulating capital of Scotland did not exceed £800,000, not less than one-half o^ it was turned into Da- 364 PROTESTANT CHURCH rien stock; and, first, an expedition of twelve hundred per- sons, embracing three hundred sons of the best families; and then another of thirteen hundred, went forth to the shores of America. All may be said to have perished. This, in various ways, must have been very injurious. We have remarked that the opposition to the Union was strong, general, and protracted. Only a solitary petition, from the town of Ayr, could at first be obtained in its favour. Its influence upon Scotland's trade was at first unfavourable ; and not less than forty years elapsed before its full advantages began to be realized. Besides, there were the constant plotting and threat- ened usurpation of the Popish Pretender, aided by France. In the meantime, while Queen Anne did so much for church extension and endowment in England, nothing was done for Scotland by the Crown or Parliament for the same object. It was resolved, in 1710, that fifty churches should be built in London, within the Bills of Mortality; and a sum of £350,000 was granted by Parliament for the purpose, which proved to be a very popular measure. But though the Church of Scotland was acknowledged by the difi'erent Protestant sovereigns, and by Anne among the rest, to be the best friend of their cause; and though Dr. Calamy, who visited Scotland about this period, states it was a very common com- plaint that there was a want of places of worship, and speaks of the plainly over-crowded churches of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen; yet the Church of Scotland was abandoned to her own private resources, heavily as these were already tasked. Nay, what was worse than all, instead of receiving any aid from public funds, in 1711, the Act restoring Lay Patron- age, one of the most obnoxious and hateful measures which could be proposed, was hastily and treacherously carried through Parliament. This, as now appears from the Lock- hart Papers, was the doing of the Jacobites, to alienate the people of Scodand from the Church, and to weaken her. Bolingbroke, the infidel, who afterwards fled to France in dread of an impeachment and the scaff'old, had a chief share in the work — thus illustrating what has been often illustrated since —the close connection between Popery and Infidelity, and the deadly hatred of both to evangelical religion. In its object, origin, progress, and result, this was one of the most iniquitous measures which ever passed the British Legisla- ture. It proceeded on falsehood, and was carried by treach- ery and fraud. It proved a severe blow to the Church of OF FRANCE. 365 Scotland — more fatal to her true interests than all the preced- ing persecution. Evangelical religion grew in spite of the one — it withered under the other. The measure was so hateful, that for twenty years no party scarcely dared to act upon it; and for great part of a century it was the object of regular annual complaint and protest in the General Assem- bly. Many efforts were made to obtain its repeal, and re- peatedly there was the promise of success. The family of Argyle, to which the Church had been so much indebted in the former century, strange to say, after the act was passed, were its great supporters. But for them, Wodrow states in his unpublished Jlnalecta, it might have been abrogated. Thus does God, in his providence, stain the glory of man, and forbid his Church to idoHze any family, however noble. Most destructive as the measure has proved in its operation, it was not all that the Jacobite party contemplated at the time. They had another bill in prospect for the abolition of the General Assembly— a Presbyterian Court which, as one of the bulwarks of the national liberties, has ever been a thorn in the flesh to the friends of despotism, whether civil or ecclesiastical. It was intended, too, that the evangelical Dissenters should be put down. They had, in 1701, through Sir Thomas Abney, Lord Mayor of London, one of their number, lent an important influence, by sending an address from the city, in encouraging William, then on the Conti- nent, in uniting the Protestant powers, and so in securing the Protestant succession. Accordingly, the same semi- Popish Ministry and Parliament which fixed the yoke of lay-patronage around the neck of the Church of Scotland, brought in, first, what was called an " occasional bill;" then " a schism bill," which deprived the Dissenters of control over the education of their children ; and prepared to bring in another bill, to rob them of the right of voting in all elec- tions! These shameful projects against the best friends of the Hanoverian succession, were, in the providence of God, cut short by the sudden death of the Queen. But the mea- sures which were carried show how many hostile influences were directed against the Church of Scotland, while they must have operated very injuriously to her interests. It was in the midst of them all that she held on her course so nobly and successfully. Doubtless it was her growing progress and power in the country, which alarmed the adversary, and led to those more violent proceedings to which I have just referred. Alas! these measures have been too successful. 366 PROTESTAXT CHURCH The external evils to the country of a Pretender's invasion may soon have been overcome, fears may have been dissi- pated, rebellion extinguished, peace restored ; but the moral and religious evils of the act 1711, though longer of show- ing themselves, though quiet and silent, have been more per- manently disastrous. They poisoned the Church, which alone can give true life to the State, and all but destroyed her. It is indeed no small proof of her vital power, that she has survived such miserable maltreatment — that, like the Christianity which she is set up to diffuse, she lives, in spite of all the efforts which have been made, some wilful, some unintentional, to rob her of life. The union, too, between the kingdoms, which has proved the source of so many advantages to the Stale, and to the accomplishment of which the Church so generously lent her aid, and which she maintained after the gross violation of its provision by the Patronage Act of Queen Anne, even the union has been in various respects adverse to the Church. It has withdrawn the education of the greater part of the aristocracy from her control, and placed it under Episcopal guidance. Had Wodrow's idea been acted on, and resident commissioners to look after the interests of the national Church of Scotland been appointed in London, and Scottish churches been reared and ably supplied in the metropolis, for the use of the Scottish nobility, and members of Parlia- ment, and merchants, the evil might have been in a great measure prevented. But little or nothing of this kind was done, and hence a large number of influential families have been lost to the Church of Scodand: not a few have become keen opponents. It is a remarkable fact, that between the years 1670 and 1736, there were not less than twenty of the leading Scottish nobility — two dukes, two marquises, eleven earls, and five lords — educated in Glasgow College alone; while it is believed there are not as many educated now in the whole four Universities of Scotland, in the same space of time. Various and adverse, then, have been the influ- ences with which the Church of Scodand has had to con- tend, from the Revolution of 1688 to 1715, and most credi- table the place which she has been enabled to maintain, and the moral and religious good which she has been honoured to work out for the nation in spite of them all. How dif- ferent her position and success from that of the poor and sinking Church of France in die same period ! OF FRANCE. 367 CHAPTER VI. FROM 1714 TO 1755. The next period in the history of the French Protestant Church, to which I must direct the attention of the reader, is the period embraced by the life and reign of Louis XV., extending from 1714 to 1774, being a space of sixty years. In the present chapter I come down to 1755, as a pretty good division. The first part of it was under a Regency. It might have been hoped, that the miserable condition of the country at the death of Louis XIV. would have mitigated the spirit of persecution — and certainly there was a little relaxation under the Regency of the Duke of Orleans, who, though personally a wretched profligate, saw the impolicy of violence, and repeatedly expressed himself in favourable terms towards the Protestants; but any gleam of sunshine was soon overcast. It is interesting to mark the ebbs and flows of persecution in the period now under review. God's dispensations to his people are at once merciful and trying. Under the Duke of Orleans, who was the first Regent, there were nine years of comparative quiet and freedom. He is followed in 1723, by the Duke of Bourbon, who exercised a merciless severity for three years. Then come eighteen years of peace under Cardinal Fleury, which brings the history down to 1744, when the spirit of persecution is again evoked in its ancient horrors, and continued, with greater or less violence, dur- ing the rest of the long reign of Louis XV. Not a little in these different changes seems to have depended on the per- sonal character of the Regent or Prime minister. It may seem strange how the happiness of so large a body of people should be suspended on the humour or temperament of a single individual. But thus has it always been under the providence of God. And surely such mystery of dispensa- tion teaches the necessity of an overruling Providence, and of earnest and persevering intercession with God on behalf of civil rulers. It is not always necessary that they be Christian men, in order to protect, or at least not to perse- cute the saints of God. They may, like the Duke of Or- leans, who was, as we have stated, a miserable profligate, be influenced by other considerations adapted to his character, 368 PROTESTANT CHURCH but not less under the providence of the Supreme Ruler. It is said that he was so indolent and abandoned to vicious pleasures, that he did not persecute, because it would have given him trouble, by demanding a measure of activity. It is more probable that, as a politician, he saw the danger of doing any thing to encourage the Jesuits, who were already too powerful. Hence it is understood that he secretly fa- voured the Jansenists, as a balance to their growing influ- ence. Whatever may have been his motive, one of his first acts was to open the gates of the Bastile. and send forth the Protestant victims to their long-lost liberty ; and another was, his permission to Lord Stair, the English ambassador, not merely to have a Protestant place of worship, but a church in which the service might be conducted in French as well as English. This was a great boon to the poor Pro- testants of Paris. Their religion was thus publicly protected and honoured under the British ambassador, and they went in crowds to worship along with him — several thousands attending at a time. Of course, the leading causes of emi- gration having ceased to operate, emigration was no longer resorted to. The Protestants remained in their own land. If even so abandoned a man as the Duke of Orleans could thus, in the overruling providence of God, be made to min- ister to His cause without thinking of it, yea, while hating it, how much more surely may it be expected that other rulers of better character, but equally hostile, may be guided into the same course. In 1724, Louis, or rather his minister using his name, is- sued a long Declaration, embracing nearly twenty articles, and, if possible, breathing a spirit of more fiery persecution than had hitherto been manifested. He complains of the decrees of former years having been but coldly and remissly executed, especially in the provinces which had been afflict- ed with the plague; as if the judgments of God were not enough, and it was necessary to add to them the violence of man. The articles of his edict are most sanguinary, in some respects worse than any preceding. Any one, on any pretence whatever, publicly professing the Reformed faith, was, if a man, to be sent to the galleys for life; if a woman, to be shorn, and confined as long as the judges thought proper. In both cases, there was a complete confiscation of property. That the reader may have some idea what the French galleys were at this time — though I have given a view of them at an earlier period — I subjoin an account from OF FRANCE. 369 a little work entitled "The French Convert," published af- ter the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. It must have passed through many editions, as that which I possess is the sixteenth, li is entitled, " A True Relation of the Happy- Conversion of a Noble French Lady, from the errors and superstitions of Popery to the Reformed Religion, by means of a Protestant gardener, her servant; wherein is shown her great and unparalleled sufferings on the account of her said conversion; as also her wonderful deliverance from two as- sassins hired by a Popish priest to murder her; and of her miraculous preservation in a wood for two years ; and how she was at last providentially found by her husband, who, together with her parents, and many others, were brought over to the embracing of the true religion." The story might be pronounced a romance, the events are so singular, had not the truth of them been solemnly attested. The pic- ture which it indirectly presents of the profligacy, and treach- ery, and violence of Popery, is most appalling. The follow- ing is the account of the galleys of which we have heard so much: — " Some they condemn to the galleys, where they are coupled commonly with the vilest miscreants condemned thither for the most flagitious crimes, whose fearful oaths and execrations are continually wounding their pious ears. There are generally five of them placed upon every form, fettered with a heavy chain, about ten or twelve feet long. They shave their heads from time to time, to show they are slaves, and are not allowed to wear their hats or peri- wigs. They have only beans, and nothing else, for their food, with about fourteen ounces of coarse bread a-day, and no wine at all. They are devoured by vermin, and forced to lie upon one another as hogs in a sty ; and every day threatened and tormented by friars and priests, who, not being able to convince them by reason, think to do it by severity. He declared also, that when he was delivered, the number of those chained to the galleys for the sake of reli- gion, was about three hundred and seventy, who glorified God in their sufferings, with an unparalleled courage and constancy." To return to the articles of 1724. All those among the Protestants who dared to preach, were immediately to be put to death. The pubHc preaching of the Gospel is the great instrument, in the hands of the Spirit of God, of con- version and sanctification; and so it is the instrument against 24 370 PROTESTANT CHURCH which, in all persecutions, Satan lifts up the most terrible power. The children of Protestant parents were ordered, under a heavy penally, to be baptized by the Popish priest within twenty-four hours after birth. This, by one of the fictions of the Church of Rome, so brings them under the Popish yoke, that they maybe compelled like deserters from an army, if they attempt afterwards to withdraw from her allegiance. All Protestant parents sending their children out of the country for education, were liable to a fine of six thousand livres. In self-defence, the Popish parly were obliged to provide schoolmasters and schoolmistresses — not from any love for the arts of reading and writing, but that the Protestant children might be regularly carried to the Ro- man Catholic festivals. They were required to attend the schools, and repeat the catechisms, till they were fourteen years of age; " and from fourteen to twenty attend the in- structions on Sundays and holidays." There could be litde danger of Protestant leanings after such a training. Then those attending sick Protestants, such as surgeons and nurses, were required, under heavy penalties, immediately to send for the Popish priest. If the sick refused the sacra- ments at his hands, and recovered, they were doomed to perpetual banishment, and the loss of one half of their pro- perty; if they died, their memory was publicly arraigned and dishonoured. " No physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, or midwives, no booksellers or printers, may, or shall, be admitted to exercise their art and profession, in any place within our realm, without producing a (Popish) certificate." Various similar persecuting enactments were passed in re- gard to Protestant marriages; but of these we shall have occa- sion to speak more fully afterwards. Such was the dread persecution of Louis XV. ; and what was the character of the Protestants at this time? Were they unsound in the faith? Were they disaffected subjects of the State? It would be difficult to produce direct evi- dence, perhaps, of the precise religious condition of a Church which was scattered and trodden down, whose ministers were not allowed to publish any works, nor suffered to meet for the administration of discipline. These things were most adverse, not only to their Christian character, but to the proof of it; but if patient endurance under protracted trial, and the most steadfast loyalty, furnish evidence of soundness in the faith, then the Protestants of France gave ample proof of their Christianity. Popish assertions, that they had be- OF FRANCE. 371 come Socinian in their religious views, are entitled to little weight. Of course, some were much more spiritual than others; but this is no more than what is to be met with in all Churches, and in all conditions of Churches. There may have been a French translation of the Bible by Le Cene, one of the French refugees, Socinian in its tendency; but we have no evidence that he was a Protestant minister; and though he were, this would be most inadequate ground on which to fasten any general charge of Socinianism against a Christian Church. Moreover, it was not circulated in France. The submission and loyalty of the Protestants were re- markable. Indeed, nothing can be more striking than the contrast between the way the people treated their sovereign, and the way in which he treated them. Repeatedly did Ro- man Catholic criminals confined in the same prisons with the persecuted Protestants seek, but seek in vain, to enlist them in a conspiracy, which, if successful, would have released both. One case is mentioned, where they not only solemn- ly protested against a horrible conspiracy, but gave informa- tion of it, and so saved the lives of a captain and his garri- son. On another occasion, in May, 1705, they refused to stir out of their cells, when Roman Catholics of some con- dition had destroyed the governor of the castle, mastered the guards, made their escape, and left the doors open. At a later day, in 1744, when they were allowed to hold a Na- tional Synod in the deserts of Lower Languedoc — a privi- lege which, so far as I can learn, had not been enjoyed for more than half a century — what did they resolve upon? Did they denounce their oppressors, and proclaim rebellion against the State? No; they commanded that a fast should be kept in all the Reformed Churches of the kingdom, " for the preservation of his Majesty's sacred person, the success of his arms, a cessation of war, and the deliverance of the Church." Ministers are ordered to preach at least one ser- mon a-year, on the duty of submission to civil authority. When news arrived, during the sitting of the Synod, of the illness of the king, *' they all fell upon their knees, and made a fervent prayer to God for his recovery;" and when he was restored, they sung " Te Denm," and mingled in the general rejoicing. In a petition to Marshal Count de Saxe, to implore his intercession with their sovereign in their be- half, they declare themselves " firmly resolved to sacrifice their lives and fortunes for his Majesty's service." Nay, 372 PROTESTANT CHURCH they proceed still further, and counsel their teachers to ab- stain from points of controversy with the Romanists, and to speak witli the utmost circumspection of the sufferings of the Protestant Churches; to avoid working on saint's days, lest they should give offence ; and, in fine, to bear patiendy all the ill usage they might be exposed to on account of their religion. What noble sentiments are these ! What an ad- mirable spirit, and mode of proceeding!* How unlike the suggestions of natural feeling! Surely this compliance with the Scripture call, " to love their enemies, to bless those who cursed them, to pray for those who despitefully used and persecuted them," indicated the presence of no doubtful Christian discipleship. An eminent Protestant minister, in 1746, thus expressed himself: — " This I can affirm for truth, that if his Majesty allow the Protestants the liberty of having pastors, to celebrate their marriages, baptize their children, and perform the other ministerial offices of their religion, only in the desert, they would be ready to do all that men can do to demonstrate their gratitude and their attachment to his person. Nay, I dare say, that were they to be employed in repelling the enemies of the State, they would fill the world with the fame of their exploits; and Louis XV. would be no less charmed with their bravery, than Henry the Great was with that of their forefathers." Reviewing these manifestations of Christian feeling and conduct, I cannot but think the labours of those faithful men must have been eminently blessed, who acted as their teach- ers. When all Protestant schools and colleges were over- thrown, and when it was death to assemble the people and preach the Gospel, and dispense ordinances, in 1731 a semi- nary was erected at Lausanne, in Switzerland, for the educa- tion of Protestant ministers for France, drawing its chief support from Holland and England. Doubtless it was of such men tliat a missionary in France lately made the inter- esting statement, speaking of Mirabel, and of a person whom lie met there. " He told me," says he, " that formerly in the days of persecution, the pastors were received and con- cealed by his family. He showed me a large tumbler, on which were written these words — ' I love God,' and the date of the year 1738; and which, he informed me, had been used by the pastors in the days of persecution, when admin- istering the Lord's Supper in desert places. He also showed * This rather seems to have been an unjustifiable servility. Am. Ed. OP FRANCE. 373 me a white embroidered linen cloth, more than a century old, which he said had been used to carry infants into the same desert places to be baptized by the pastors." It would not have been wonderful, if men, provoked and oppressed as the Protestants were, had been driven to resistance. One or two slight cases of this kind there may have been ; but the Protestants were remarkable throughout for patient endur- ance and the most unsullied loyalty; and what so likely to form such a character as the diffusion of Christian instruc- tion, even amid trials and difficulties? While the character of the Protestant Church was thus so praiseworthy, what was the character of the Church of Rome, her great enemy, during the same period? Not to speak of the persecution of the Protestants, which she insti- gated and upheld, and which proved her a tyrant, she, in other respects, presented a miserable aspect to the eye of Christendom. The Church of boasted unity appeared rent and torn in her own members. The Jansenists and Jesuits carried on a most furious warfare, which ended in the perse- cution, even to imprisonment and death, of the Jansenists. The work of Quesnel upon the Gospels, who was an emi- nent member of this body, was condemned by the Pope, and he himself driven into exile, where he died. The con- troversy connected with his book gave rise to the celebrated bull of Unigenilus, issued by the Pope in 1713 — a bull which denounces, as heretical and reprobate, one hundred and one such precious and important truths as — " That it is useful and necessary for all persons to know the Scriptures — that the reading of the Scriptures is for every body — that the Lord's day ought to be sanctified by Christians, in read- ing pious books, and above all, the Scriptures — that to de- prive the unlearned people of the comfort of joining their voices with the voice of the whole church, is a custom con- trary to apostolical practice, and to the design of God;" and many others. Indeed, the great leading truths of the Gospel salvation were all pronounced heretical, and their preachers accursed; while the Jesuits, the successful party, were ere long found to be so formidable to the peace of the Church and of the nation, that they were first deprived of their pow- er, and ultimately suppressed. What a contrast is here be- tween the Protestant Church and the Church of Rome, and how honourable to the former ! For the sake of those who may not be acquainted with the nature or history of Jansenism, it may be proper to 374 PROTESTANT CHURCH State, that Jansen was a bishop of the Church of Rome, who flourished at the beginning of the seventeenth century ; and that his sentiments, which were formed with the greatest care and deliberation, after many years of mature study, are Calvinistic, and so entirely at one with the doctrinal articles of the Church of England, and the Church of Scotland, and also the Protestant Church of France — of course they are at perfect war with the prevailing doctrine of the Church of Rome, which is essentially Arminian. As might have been expected, though Jansen himself acted a timid and unworthy part, his opinions called forth keen opposition within the borders of the Church of Rome. But, in spite of this, they spread, particularly in France and Flanders, till multitudes more or less secretly entertained them. They were formally condemned by the Church of Rome in 1653, in 1657, in 1705, and in 1713; and the penalty for holding them was most severe. At the second date to which I refer, all clergy refusing to abjure them, were deprived of their livings, cast into prison, or sent into exile, and the abjuration was re- quired not merely of the secular clergy, but of every monk and friar. In short, it was safer to be an Atheist than a Jansenist. The existence of Jansenism shows, that even the Church of Rome cannot exclude the saving truth of God, and it is delightful to find such truth even in so corrupted a quarter. Indeed, apart from the faith of it, there can be no salvation in the Church of Rome. The sentiment may seem a harsh one, but, on the principles of Scripture, a genuine Roman Catholic cannot be saved. Men in the external communion of the Romish Church, but holding Jansenist or evangelical doctrine without being sensible of it, may be subjects of sal- vation. It is impossible, however, to believe that any cling- ing to systems which subvert and destroy the Gospel of grace can be saved. " Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, Christ Jesus the righteous." In this view, how cheering is the Jansenism of the Churcli of Rome. It places men on the right foundation, without, it may be, their being aware of it. It makes salvation possible, though they may still shrink from the name of Protestantism with horror, and cling tenaciously to the visible communion of Rome. Had tiie Jansenists seen things in the proper light, they sliould have joined with the persecuted Protestants of France. In essentials they held far more in common with them than with the Church of Rome; but they were blinded by the OF FRANCE. 375 dogmas which the Popish Church has circulated so indus- triously, that there is no salvation beyond her visible pale. The case of the Rev. Martin Boos, in modern times, is a remarkable illustration of the same point. But though Jan- senists may not appreciate their true place, nor act out their own principles, let us rejoice that there are such persons. Once they were so numerous as to alarm Rome with the terror of wide-spread change, and rouse the energies of the Jesuits, the most active of her orders. And blessed be God! they are not now extinct even in Italy, the head-quarters of papal superstition and error. It may be noticed, in passing, as a curious circumstance, somewhat provoking to the men who place supreme virtue in the integrity of " Episcopal apostolic succession," that the heretic Jansen was not only a bishop himself, and ordained multitudes, but that one of the persons whom he ordained was Bellarmine, the most illustrious champion of the Church of Rome. Slrange that Bellarmine was ordained by one whose works the Church of Rome anathematized as full of every species of evil, im- piety, blasphemy, heresy ! In such circumstances could Bellarmine's ordination be sound? If so, where is the suc- cession of truth? If unsound, what becomes of the "apos- tolic succession" of Episcopal churches, which derive from the Church of Rome? But I must return to the history of the Protestant Church. Vast as were the multitudes who emigrated, and exhausting the treatment to which those were subjected who remained, the Protestant population, as a whole, was not nearly so much reduced in numbers as might have been expected. The Rev. Dr. Less, Professor of Divinity at Gottingen, who travelled in France, speaking of the period between 1715 and 1743, states, that persecution had had the effect of in- creasing the number of Protestants. " With these persecu- tions," says he, "the persecuted increase; desires opposed become stronger; love of honour, or liberty, or religion, transform into pleasures pains suffered for these beloved ob- jects. Compassion excited in the spectators of these tra- gedies, inclined them to favour the cause of the sufferers; the courage of the Protestants grows ; the number of their preachers increases." At a later day we find them estima- ted as high as from three to four million, which is as large a number as they were rated at before persecution began in its severity. This would make them about a sixth part of the then population of France. But however they are estimated. 376 PROTESTANT CHURCH there can be no question they were still very numerous. Towards 1743, it is stated in a pamphlet, chiefly of original papers, that such was the scarcity of ministers, and such the anxiety of the people to hear the Word of God, though for- bidden, that if intimation were given very late upon a Satur- day night of one being to preach next morning at seven o'clock, several thousands were assembled ready to hear him. It would seem that the decline of the power of the Jesuits, who had been the greatest persecutors of the Pro- testants, and the distraction of the public attention with foreign war, had relaxed the severe measures enacted in 1724. They still stood upon the statute-book, and doubt- less, in many cases, were in full operation; but, generally speaking, they were not executed, at least with the same se- verity. In not a few provinces the public assemblies were connived at, and many Protestant marriages and baptisms were solemnized. The civil power seemed not averse to toleration. This provoked the ecclesiastical Popish party, and so a severe persecution was revived. The year 1745 was a year of trouble in Great Britain, from the movements of the Popish Pretender, and it was a year in which the per- secuting enactments in France were executed with sad rigour, as if the Popery of different countries had a common sym- pathy. It would weary the reader to detail the cases of persecution which are recorded. The vast multitude, we may believe, are known only to God. I shall merely notice a few. Several bales and casks of religious books, by which the Protestants kept up their knowledge in their solitude, were seized and burnt. The same destructive policy had been pursued at an earlier day. In 1685, such a pile of Bi- bles and Testaments was collected in the town of Melz, as required twelve hours to consume — no bad proof, by the way, of the extent of Scriptural reading among the people. A number of both sexes, and all ranks and professions, were imprisoned, and severely punished for various offences against the persecuting edict of 1724. Some were subjected to the rack, others hanged in effigy. One Stephen Arnaud, for teaching some young people how to sing the Psalms of David, was branded with a hot iron and set in the pillory; and, as he had about him, when taken, a New Testament and a book of Psalms, these were hung about his neck. Mr. James Roger, a man of eighty years of age, of indefatigable zeal and apostolic character, was condemned to be hanged for preaching the Gospel to various assemblies of Protes- OF FRANCE. 377 tants. An interesting account is given of the last moments of this venerable martyr: — "Being apprised in jail of his sentence, he took the first opportunity to step into the adjacent yard, from whence he could easily be heard by many confined Protestants, and told them that ' the happy day was come wherein he was to seal, wnth his own blood, the grand truths which he had preached unto them ; and exhorted them to be steadfast and unmove- able in the religion which, by the grace of God, they had hitherto professed.' This he did in so moving and so strong a style that every body melted into tears. About four in the afternoon, he was carried to the place of execution, repeating, with a loud voice, the 51st psalm. So much mildness and serenity appeared on his countenance, that the Papists them- selves, of the better sort, could not help crying; and even two Jesuits appointed to attend him, passed great encomiums upon him. Thus died that good man, much regretted by his flock, and by all that are friends to truth and virtue. After his body had hung twenty-four hours on the gallows, it was taken down and dragged through the streets, and thrown into the river Isere, that runs through the town. Such was the burying-place assigned for him." We read, and all on unexceptionable authority, of various other species of great harshness and cruelty — such as de- grading twenty-nine persons of noble extraction to plebeian- ism — of declaring the marriages of Protestants invalid, ille- gitimatizing their families, and rendering them incapable of inheriting property — of fines, and sentences to the galleys, of slavery for life — of firing upon a Protestant assembly, and killing nearly forty persons on the spot, after solemnly pro- mising to protect them. Notwithstanding all this rigour in those provinces where the Protestants chiefly prevailed, it is gratifying to be informed by the author of " Popery Always the Same," a pamphlet published by the " Society for Pro- moting Christian Knowledge," that the zeal of the Protes- tants was not in the least degree slackened, and sixty years of persecution failed to destroy them ; and that, so far from being diminished, they were very much increased in num- ber. It is worth recording the noble reply of a lawyer who had been confined for a year for attending upon Protestant worship, and who was promised release if he would only agree'never to return to it. " He could be contented," he said, " to remain in jail, upon condition that he should have leave to join every Sabbath-day with his brethren in the pub- 378 PROTESTANT CHURCH lie worship of God, and be bound to surrender himself pris- oner the day following; adding, that if they scrupled to take his word, he would give them a legal security." In an " Historical Memorial of the most Remarkable Pro- ceedings against the Protestants in France, from the year 1744 to 1751," we have a number of similar sad illustrations. Part of this pamphlet was translated from the French by the Bishop of Worcester, showing the interest which was felt in the cause of the French Church in this country at that time. The author classes the persecution under nine different heads. "Blackened by the vilest calumnies; deprived of what is dearest to them in this world — their children; made ac- countable for the elopement of those children; necessitated to have their marriages celebrated by their own ministers, and yet charged, on account of those marriages, with fornication, their children pronounced illegitimate, and their inheritance taken from them; their ministers marked out for death, and despatched like common malefactors; themselves also ex- posed to heavy fines, expensive law charges, whippings, the pillory, the galleys, and death, for worshipping the Supreme Being according to their consciences ; nay, denied even the repose and quiet of the grave itself; and yet, under this com- plication of evils, not daring to complain, lest the weight of their misery should be increased." We shall notice one or two specimens of Popish cruelty which have not yet been referred to. The Saviour and his apostles, in primitive times, were assailed with calumnies. This is a bitter form of persecution, to which the French Protestants were largely exposed. They were charged with most serious crimes, were at no small trouble and expense in vindicating themselves, and bringing home guilt to their ac- cusers ; but when they succeeded in doing so, a slight punish- ment of two or three months' imprisonment was all which was awarded. This, instead of restraining, proved an en- couragement. Many children and young people, from eight to nineteen years of age, were carried off by Popish priests to convents and nunneries. In Lower Normandy there were not less than thirty such captures in four years, creating so great consternation and distress, that six hundred Protestants immediately set off from this district for foreign parts.* If the young persons escaped from their confinement, the parents were held responsible, and were fined and imprisoned * See Historical Memoir p. 79. OF FRANCE. 379 accordingly, to such an extent, that many fathers were redu- ced to beggary, or died in jail. By a single decree, the Par- liament of Bordeaux, in May 1749, dissolved the marriage relation in nearly fifty cases, pronouncing wives to be con- cubines, and lawful children illegitimate, because the parents had not been married, and would not be married by a Romish priest. With regard to the various ways of punishing the Protestants, on account of assemblies convened for divine worship, the author says : — "The instances of this kind are so numerous, that I do not well know where to begin the account. I could set out with a list of above six hundred prisoners, all taken up in 1744, in the Upper and Lower Languedoc, Upper and Lower Cevennes, Vivarais, Dauphiny, Provence, County of Foix, Saintogne, and Poitou, among whom there are many gentle- men, barristers, physicians, substantial citizens, rich mer- chants and tradesmen, who have suffered long and cruel con- finement, and were not released without arbitrary and ruinous fines and contributions. I might also produce another list of upwards of eight hundred persons sentenced to divers penalties, among whom there are more than eighty gentle- men. The ParHament of Grenoble alone summoned up- wards of two hundred and fifty persons, in the months of August, October, and November, 1744, and put them to a great expense both in travelling charges and law charges." One of the leading offences in these days, was the assem- bling for public worship, and celebrating baptism, marriage, and the Lord's Supper. In the face of opposition, twenty thousand persons have been known, in the light of day, to convene for such purposes — and what was the penalty ? In one case it was accounted an exceedingly mitigated one, though it condemned twenty-eight Protestants in a single province to the galley for life; in another, forty-five to the same doom, all of them gentlemen by birth. Among them was the en- tire family of the Lord of Lesterne. The indignities ofll'ered to the dead were very shocking. In the case of La Montague, in 1749, the Popish curate re- fused to bury the body, and as soon as the poor Protestants had found a grave for it in the open field, a Roman Catholic mob, headed by a surgeon, dug it up. " They had no sooner retired from the grave, than these men dug up the body, tied a rope about its neck, and dragged it through the village, skipping and dancing all the way, to the sound of a tabret and fife. In every place they stopped at — to take a breath- 380 PROTESTANT CHURCH ing — they beat the body with their clubs, using these ex- pressions:— 'This blow is for such a meeting where thou hast been; and this for another meeting. Ah! wretched Montague, thou shalt go no more to sermon at Lormarin.'" In 1752, there were two martyrs in Languedoc, both min- isters of fine talents. Of M. Benezet, one of them, who was only beginning his pastoral work, it is said that he died with the most resigned, pious, and edifying dispositions, so that the executioner himself could not help saying that he did not hang a man but an angel. " When he was taken out of prison to be brought to the place of execution, M. Flechier, who was confined near the prison, and who guessed by the noise what was transacting, looked through the bars of his window, and seeing M. Benezet, he cried out to him, 'Be stout, my brother, you have but one step to heaven ; fight to the end the good fight; keep your faith, and you shall receive the crown of righte- ousness which is prepared for you : sing a psalm ;' — which the martyr hearing, he began to sing the 51st psalm and being reproved by the major of the citadel, he told him with resolution, ' Do your duty; I do mine.' When he was at the foot of the gallows, he kneeled, and prayed to God with a great deal of zeal, then went up the ladder, and being fol- lowed by one of the Jesuits, who presented him with his crucifix to kiss, he repulsed him with disdain; and, after a short prayer, desired the executioner to turn him oft'. So died M. Benezet, gloriously and like a Christian, with a courage, a modesty, a mildness, a serenity, and holy joy, which greatly edified the witnesses of his martyrdom." Of the other, Flechirr, it is related: "There is a Roman Catholic gentleman who says he would gladly bestow his own blood to save his ; and if three millions of livres would purchase his liberty, he would oblige himself to raise that sum." Three brothers, of the name of Grenier, for aiding in the escape of a pastor, were condemned to be beheaded. The eldest was not above twenty-one years of age. When the Jesuit annoyed the brothers with the crucifix and the sug- gestions of superstition, the eldest exclaimed — and thus showed the soundness of the faith of all — " Speak to us of Him who died for our sins, and rose again for our justifica- tion, and we are ready to listen; but do not introduce your superstitions." When, after two had suffered, the Popish executioner was so much overcome, that he entreated the OF FRA^'CE. 381 third to save his life by abjuration — he boldly replied, " Do thy duly," and submitted to the axe. This was a very sad season in the history of the poor Protestants. No year seems to have been more terrible than 1752. In addition to the persecutions of man, there was a great failure of the means of subsistence in Languedoc, one of the provinces in which the members of the Reformed Church were most numerous. A gentleman writes: "The harvests for the last seasons have been so fruitless, that the whole country is in a state of inexpressible poverty. The crop of silk-worms, which used to bring in such considerable sums, has entirely failed for the last three years, as have the other crops of corn, wine, and oil. Every thing sells at an exorbitant price, and two-thirds of our town, with incessant labour, can scarcely procure subsistence." Such a state of things as this might have softened a savage, but it could not soften Popery. The Protestants, in their deep distress, had assembled together for the worship of that God who alone could sustain them, and for this the place was immoderately fined £1216 16s., which was exacted without the delay of a moment. Another letter, speaking of the same district, and period, says: "In the meanwhile trade is entirely stop- ped. No payments are made. No sale of goods is to be obtained even at a loss. The province is in the utmost con- sternation." Dr. licss, describing the general effects of Popish severity at this time, states that multitudes left their houses and pos- sessions, and fled to Switzerland or Ireland, which occasion- ed so great a depopulation in Languedoc, that the Marquis de Paulney was sent by the Government to inquire into the cause of the emigration. And yet so little does he seem to have ascertained the true and obvious cause, that, two years later, we learn there was an army of not less than fifty to sixty thousand men in the single province of Languedoc to hunt down the Protestants. Well might the great and good George Whitfield, in "A Short Address to Persons of all Denominations, occasioned by the alarm of an intended Invasion," printed in 1756, exclaimed in his animated style, — " Speak, Languedoc, speak, and tell, if ihou canst, how many Protestant ministers have been lately executed, how many more of their hearers have been dragooned and sent to the galleys, and how many hundreds are now, in conse- quence of the above mentioned edict, lying in prisons, and 382 PROTESTANT CHURCH fast bound in misery and iron, for no other crime than that unpardonable one in the Romish Church — I mean hearing and preaching the pure Gospel of the meek and lowly Jesus." If there can be any aggravations of a crime in itself so aggravated as persecution, we must say there were various aggravations in the period which we have been surveying : there had been all the direful experience of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes to warn — the desolation and misery of protracted and unsuccessfid war — repeated, wide-spread, and severe distress, as in 1748, when the specie of the coun- try disappeared, thousands of acres w^ent out of cultivation, ships rotted in the harbours, the village of fifteen hundred sunk down to six hundred, and taxes could not be raised. These things should all have softened, and led to repentance toward God, and mercy toward man; but the Church of Rome is incorrigible; she still pressed forward in her career of persecution, and that, too, at the very time when her own pretensions were so extravagant, that an edict was passed against monasteries, and the king had to restrain the ridicu- lous miracles at the tomb of the Abbe de Paris, by posting up over the gate of the burying-ground the celebrated in- scription, " By the authority of the king: No more miracles are to be wrought here." While the Protestant Church of France was so depressed and suffering, though withal firm and resigned, the Church of Scotland was, as a whole, peaceful. How different the fortunes of the Church of France! Her persecution termi- nated not in freedom, but in a deeper and more comprehen- sive imprisonment and slaughter. Man did all that he could to blot her out of existence. Most varied are God's dispen- sations to his people, but they are all righteous; and, in the present case, there may have been an important end to serve. Who can tell, that while the Church of Scotland was placed in circumstances to succour and befriend the Church of France, the very protracted sufi'ering of the latter may not have been the means of protecting her from the successful inroads of Popish pretenders? Certainly nothing was more fitted to arm the people of Scotland against such an invasion, in 1745, if they were in danger of forgetting the sufferings of their fathers, than just the continued spectacle, through seventy years, of the most unrelenting persecution of their French Protestant brethren. How great the wisdom and the goodness of God! OF FRANCE. 383 Perhaps the reader will here pardon a slight digression. It is melancholy, that, with all the light and civilization of modern times, and all the proved inefficiency of persecution, the saints of God should still be so severely oppressed. Po- pery was a persecutor, we have seen, in France, in the six- teenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. We shall, by and by, see that she is a persecutor in the present, the nine- teenth century; but the fact to which I wish to call the reader's attention is, that while there was so much suffering for the truth's sake in France, other quarters of Europe were not altogether free. Britain might now be at rest; but in Poland and Austria a violent persecution was awakened. With regard to the first, it appears, that though the king of Poland, like the late monarch of France, w^as under deep obligation to his Protestant subjects, he forgot the claims of gratitude, and on occasion of some tumult in the town of Thorn, in 1724, called forth by a Popish procession, in- flicted the severest punishment on the Protestants, as its supposed authors. The Protestant President and Vice-Pre- sident of the town, for not preventing the commotion by the exercise of official authority, were beheaded, and their pro- perty confiscated; fifteen were beheaded for not showing due respect to a Jesuit college; a number of others were quar- tered and burnt for treating an image of the Virgin in a sim- ilar manner; and a multitude, besides, fined and imprisoned as accessories. The Protestants were also deprived of their magistrates and place of worship ; and though most of the Protestant powers of Europe interposed for a reversal of the sentence, and threatened Poland with war if she persisted, such was the keen and malignant spirit of the Papists, that they defied all opposition, and held by their cruelly unre- strained. Much about the same time, (1730,) the poor Vau- dois of the valley of Pragelas, to the number of eight hun- dred, were driven from their homes by the violence of the Popish Duke of Savoy, and sought refuge in Switzerland and Holland. The adherents of the savage " Beast" of persecution in Europe seem to have had a mutual under- standing, and to have moved together as if they would over- whelm the Church of God. With reference, again, to Austria, as the fruit of a won- derful interposition of the Holy Spirit of God, between twenty and thirty thousand of a Roman Catholic population, situated in the very heart of Popish territories, and without any aid from Protestant missionaries — with nothing to guide 384 PROTESTANT CHURCH them but the Word of God and good books — were brought to the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus. The persons to whom I refer were Austrians, residing in the district of Sahzburg, and their religious change was so decided, that they would no longer remain in the communion of the Church of Rome. The Popish archbishop, in whose domin- ions they dwelt, making their lives bitter to them, they emi- grated from their native country in successive companies, during the years 1731-32-33. On application to the king of Prussia, he received a large body into his Silesian terri- tories, where he gave them a permanent residence. Others, and in great numbers, found their way into Holland and England, from whence they sailed to Georgia, in America. Much kindness was shown to them wherever they went. In this country a collection v/as made in their behalf, and two missionaries and a schoolmaster were sent out and long main- tained for their benefit. Reference is made to this in the following extract from the proceedings of the " Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge in Foreign Parts," in 1740:— *'In the beginning of the year 1732, the society, when they heard the melancholy account of the sufferings of the Protestants in Saltzburg, (having first obtained his Majesty's leave,) resolved upon doing all that lay in their power to raise collections for their persecuted brethren. To this end, in June the same year, they published an account of the suf- ferings of the persecuted Protestants in the archbishoprick of Saltzburg, and afterwards published a further account in 1733. These accounts being enforced by the generous ex- ample of many noble and honourable persons, as also by liberal contributions and earnest exhortations from the right reverend the bishops and their clergy, had, through God's blessing, so good an efl^ect, that the society, (besides many large remittances to Germany,) have been enabled to send over to the English colony in Georgia, in the years 1733- 34-35, three transports consisting of more than one hundred and fifty Protestant emigrants, who, with two missionaries and a schoolmaster, are settled by themselves atEbenezer."* As to those who found their way into Silesia, the accounts given by contemporaries and eye-witnesses are very inter- esting, nay, afl!'ecting. The exiles were, for the most part, poor labouring people, humbly clothed, and, to use the lan- * Vide An Account of the Society for Promoting- Christian Know- ledge.— London, 1740. OF FRANCE. 385 guage of a writer at Augsburg, it added " to their calamity, that they were forced to begin their journey in the depth of winter, when the cold is most severe. The first eight hmi- dred spent five whole weeks on their journey, and that in the most bitter, cold, and stormy weather, and were a fort- night in wandering over mountains and hills, not knowing whither they went. This fatigued and emaciated them so much, that they were almost starved, having been in want of bread for three days together." But, amid all privations, these and their fellow-sufferers were most contented and cheerful, spending much of their time in reading the Scrip- tures, and prayer, and singing Luther's favourite psalm — the 46th, " God is our refuge and our strength," &c., as they moved along in companies to the place of their destination. They also showed the greatest anxiety to hear and profit by the addresses of the Protestant ministers who were appoint- ed to receive and instruct them, and who seem all to have been faithful evangelical men. The character of the exiles became their profession. Whatever enemies may have al- leged, their Confession of Faith is a proof of their ortho- doxy, and the very passports which they received from their Popish oppressor, the archbishop, plainly testify that they were altogether free from any moral charge. It was their Protestantism, and their Protestantism alone, which vyas ground of warfare. A writer, describing the party which bent their way to Kauff beeyren — and it is true of all — says, " Their behaviour among us, both in word and deed, was such as became true Christians: they were modest, humble, peaceable, contented with, and thankful for, whatever was given them; and expressed the greatest delight in praying, singing of psalms, and reading good books." It was re- marked, that though they had suffered so much, they seldom spoke of their oppressors, and when they did so, discovered no bitterness or resentment. The way, too, in which they M^ere treated by the people, through whose countries they passed, and among whom they sojourned for a season, bears high testimony to the consistency of their Christian charac- ter and spirit. They were hailed with welcome by multi- tudes who vied with each other who should receive them to their houses and service: some taking them home in coaches and other conveyances. A liberal collection of £000 sterHng was at once raised in the town of Augsburg for their relief; and the whole deportment of the exiles was so meek and striking, that it is related, not only the older Protestants, but 25 386 PROTESTANT CHURCH many of the Roman Catholics, and some even of the Jews who were brought into contact with them, were favourably impressed in behalf of the true religion, and gladly contri- buted pecuniary aid. Indeed, the persecution of the Saltz- burgliers, which was meant for evil, yea, for destruction, proved the occasion and the means of spiritual and lasting good to many. Another writer, speaking of the preaching of the Gospel to the exiles, when they arrived in Augsburg, says that it took place in the presence of a great multitude of people, high and low — Protestants, Papists, Jews, and others; and adds, "such a remarkable publication of the Gospel, and attended with such sensible impressions, hath not been known at Augsburg since the time that the Confes- sion of Faith was first presented to the Emperor Charles V. in the year 1530, in this place;" in other words, for two hundred years ! Such was the persecution of the Saltzburgh- ers of Austria. Happily, the result was very different from that of the poor Protestants of France. Though it w-as a privation to leave their native land, yet they were speedily received into a neighbouring countr}^, where they were so well treated, that they w^ere tempted to forget the land of their fathers. Unlike their French brethren, they were not trodden down and destroyed by violence. It is impossible, how^ever, to think of the persecuted Ans- trians, and of the refuge which they obtained in Prussia more than a century ago, without thinking of the persecu- tion, at the present day, of the men who occupy the same soil, and of the asylum which they have found in the same Silesia. The Tyrolese, or Zillerthallers, occupy the same district with the Saltzburghers of a former age, and were brought to the knowledge of the truth by similar means — not schools, or a preached Gospel, far less by clergy of the " Episcopal succession," — but by the written Word and good books. It is probable that some remains of the seed of the kingdom lingered on the ground for one hundred years, 'i'he Popish archbishop thought the seed quite ex- tinct, and so it seemed ; but as some of the seeds of nature can sleep in the earth for ages, and yet as soon as brought near the surface, and favoured with the sun and the shower, can, and do, start into life, so the interesting associations con- nected with the name of the persecuted Saltzburghers, could not be forgotten. When the favourable season arrived, the fruit accordingly appeared. Hence the importance of cher- ishing the memory of the martyrs. It may be the means of OF FRANCE. 387 religious revival at a remote after period. Whether any tie can be traced between the two cases or not, the fact is cer- tain, that Popery, which has persecuted wherever its authori- ty has been called in question, particularly in the lifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, has also per- secuted in the nineteenth. Five hundred Tyrolese, poor natives of the mountain, after much cruel treatment, were driven from their homes by Popish Austria so lately as 1835, and for no other crime than that of leaving the communion of the Church of Rome. Much to the credit of the late king of Prussia — the descendent of the infidel Frederick — they were received with open arms, and located in part of the Prussian territory in Silesia. There their residence is now permanently fixed ; and while they continue to adorn their Christian profession, they also prove loyal and indus- trious subjects of their new sovereign. It is remarkable that Protestant Prussia should thus, at the end of one hundred years, be again honoured as the asylum of persecuted Aus- trians. In this respect, she acts the part of Holland to the oppressed French and British of other days ; and surely it is matter of gratitude to the Great Head of the Church, that he thus, in all ages, so opportunely opens up refuges for his suffering saints. In this connection, it would be improper to forget or dis- guise the persecution which, unhappily, at present, prevails in Prussia under the sanction of government. The same country which is affording an asylum for the persecuted, is the scene of a severe persecution of its own inhabitants, some of them probably the descendents of the Saltzburgher exiles. This is deeply to be deplored, not only on account of the gross inconsistency which it betrays, but because the late king, who was the chief instigator, was a warm friend of the " Bible Society," and the " Society for the Conversion of the Jews," circulated one hundred thousand copies of the Scriptures among his soldiery — encouraged evangelical min- isters in the churches, and professors in the universities — and boldly resisted the revived pretensons of Popery in the person of the Popish archbishop of Cologne; in short, gave considerable evidence of personal Christianity. At first sight it is rather difficult to explain the persecution. As there has recently been no small revival of evangelical religion in Prus- sia, one might imagine that it was the expression of the natural hatred and hostility of men and civil Governments to the Cross of Christ, such as was manifested a fev/ years 388 PROTESTANT CHURCH ago, not only by the Socinian ministers and magistrates, but by the Socinian mob of Switzerland — but this explanation is not applicable. The king was evangelical — and a great body, the largest number of the evangelical ministers and professors, are not persecuted. They are allowed to retain and propagate their evangelical sentiments unchallenged. The question turns upon the reception or rejection of a new liturgy which is acknowledged to be evangelical. Those who receive it, enjoy all the rights of toleration — those who refuse it, are the victims of fine and imprisonment. The persecution then is, strictly speaking, not an Evangelical, but an Erastian persecution, and it is well to see that there may be different grounds of persecution even in the nineteenth century, and that Erastianism, or the usurped power of the civil magistrate over sacred things, may be one, and that not an unlikely form. However unexceptionable the liturgy may be in itself — and I believe there are few complaints on this head — what the faithful men in Prussia object to is, that the king or civil power interfere with ecclesiastical things in such a way as the Scriptures condemn, in short, prescribe to the Church in what manner she is to worship God. It is Eras- tianism of which they complain ; and well may they do so. It is the curse of their country ; nay, it is one of the most serious evils of the age. Dr. Pye Smith, in his preface to " Guido and Julius," remarks, of Prussia — "To other causes of evil is to be added, the ubiquitous meddling of Government with all private and public life ; the dilhculty, amounting to almost an impossibility, of holding any meet- ing for a religious purpose, except with the permission of Government — a permission not very readily granted, and to ask for which would not always be safe; the utter prostitu- tion of religious liberty; the acts of the civil power for ad- mission to the requisite studies, for ordination, for induction, and for permanence in a parish or in any situation; the sum- mary ejection of any clergyman without reason assigned, or trial, or remedy; these, and other causes allied to them, can- not but secure a supply of unbelieving and ungodly young men who will lay waste the Church of God. That such a man as Tholuck should have only the alternative of support- ing this system, or of suffering expatriation, is a melancholy reflection. The governors of those nations little think what they are doing. They may for a time stop up the vents of the volcano; but they are only compressing its forces, that the inevitable burst may be at last the more terrible. In the or FRANCE. 389 meantime, the proceedings of the king of Prussia attract great observation. To support evangelical truth, to unite the two Protestant communions, and to recommend his new- liturgy, he is employing both smiles and frowns — the expec- tances of favour on the one hand, and on the other, ejectments, banishments, imprisonment, and military force. The gen- uine friends of the Gospel are confounded with those who are so only in appearance, and the evangelism of all is as- cribed to the sunshine of court favour, while men of neolo- gical or infidel views, and profane men generally, are revolt- ed, disgusted, and hardened in their guilt." Erastianism is, in a great measure, the fruit of the degene- rate Christianity of the last century, both on the Continent and in Britain, and wherever it prevails it goes far to keep true religion in a low and weakly condition. If men have relaxed and slender views of the honour of Christ as King, and of the rights and privileges of the Church which he has bought with his blood, they will not entertain very exalted views of other doctrines, of his offices, and of the Church's duties. Hence the importance of maintaining the headship of Christ, and the spiritual independence of the Church at all hazards. Persecution in any circumstances is most me- lancholy, it is essentially antichristian; but it is peculiarly affecting when it appears in the form of evangelical men op- pressing evangelical men, and driving hundreds and thou- sands from their native land, simply because they resist that Erastianism which the Word of God requires them to resist. But if it has the effect of drawing public attention, in this and other countries, to the evils and dangers of Erastianism, and more resolutely arming men against its spirit and prac- tices, the Christian Church will have little cause to regret even the privations and sufferings of the many faithful Ger- man Lutherans who are now emigrating to the shores of America. Nor will there be much harm though the king and kingdom of Prussia, which were perhaps unduly extol- led, should henceforward be rated at a lower and juster es- timate. CONTEMPORANEOUS HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND, FROM 1715 TO 1755. We have seen that the Revolution Church of Scotland had various difficulties with which to contend, and these of a 390 PROTESTANT CHURCH serious character ; but that she made the most pleasing pro- gress, and that her labours were crowned with gratifying success. The most formidable injury which she sustained was the passing of the Act of Lay Patronage, in 1711, under Queen Anne. This was at once a breach of the Articles of Union, and an invasion of her rights, seriously affecting her character and best interests. But the poison worked slowly and secretly. Viewed externally, the Protestant aspects of Great Britain became more favourable than they had been. In the latter years of Queen Anne, there was a growing ten- dency towards Jacobitism and Popery. Many believe that the Queen was inclined to the succession of her brother, the Pretender; some are of opinion that she herself leaned to Popery. It is certain that the Popish party were full of life and energy in her latter years, and that they hoped for an overturn of the Protestant succession, to which the proceed- ings against the Scottish Church were steps. In the provi- dence of God, these schemes and hopes were blasted, by the death of the Queen, and the calling to the throne of the Han- over family, in the person of the Protestant George I.* * Many of the circumstances connected with tiie succession of the present royal family to the throne of Britain, indicate the presence of the providential and moral government of God. It is through the Princess Sophia Elizabeth, a daughter of James VI., that they are connected with the former family, and hold their title. . Sophia was a Protestant, of strong mind and amiable manners, and married Frede- rick, Elector Palatine of Bohemia and the Rliine, who was also a Protestant. Ere long they were called upon to suffer for their religion, and they nobly endured the trial. Popish Austria refused to fulfil the edicts in behalf of the Protestants — rose against their prince, and drove him, his queen, family, and many of his subjects, to Presbyte- rian Holland, at that time the refuge of the oppressed. There they re- mained for twenty-eight years, while the Protestant cause was well- nigh destroyed in their dominions. At the end of this period they regained part of their possessions, and were restored to the throne, but considerably shorn of their resources. In process of time, how- ever, after many changes in this country, they were found nearest to the British throne, and were called to it in the person of George I., wlio was the great-grandson of James VI. The fortunes of the male and female branches of James' house are remarkably diverse. The male, in the person of Charles I., and under the miserable guidance of his Queen and Laud, encouraged a restoration of Popery. The foreign Protestants were frowned upon. The English ambassador to France was not allowed to worship with the French Protestants, or to acknowledge them as a part of the true Church; and those of the number who had found their way into this country, were ill used by Laud. Ten congregations of Dutch and French Protestants, of six thousand communicants, who had been publicly recognized from the OF FRANCE. 0^1 Wodrow, in his unpublished MS., notices the remarkable death of a number of the friends of Jacobitism and Popery at the same time: — The French King (Louis XIV.,) just be- fore the contemplated Popish invasion of Britain — the Duke time of Edward VI., were broken up, and three thousand manufac- turers were tlius driven out of the kingdom, from the bishoprick of Norwich alone, some of whom employed one hundred people. The Mayor of Canterbury, on intereeding with the king, stated, that twelve hundred of their people were supported by the foreigners. The ef- fects of Charles' measures, civil and religious, were, that he and his counsellor raised a civil war in Great Britain, and both lost their heads upon the scaffold. After the usurpation of twenty-years, the exiled son of Charles was brought back to the throne, in the person of Charles II., and tJie providence of God gave tlie family a new opportunity of recovering themselves, and blessing their country; but untaught by their own experience, and that of the usurpation, viz., that Protestant- ism is the only safety of the Ciov/n, and of this land, Charles went back to Popery in a more offensive and flagitious form than his father, blending with this the most shocking persecution of the saints of God. He dies without an heir : his brother James ascends the throne a thorough and avowed Papist. In three short years a great and glori- ous Protestant Revolution takes place, and he is driven for ever from the palace of his ancestors. His son-in-law, the Prince of Orange, is called in as a decided Protestant, and, though a Dutch Presbyterian, receives the crown of Britain. As if to teach the nation its absolute dependence on the providence of God, he dies without an heir, and so does his successor Queen Anne, another daughter of James. In the meantime, her brother, the Popish Pretender to the throne, still lives, and, aided by France, is eager to return, and bring back Poperj' along with him. These were alarming circumstances, and the Prince of Orange laboured, through the latter years of his reign, to meet them. By an Art of Parliament in the Commons, carried by a single vote^ it was resolved, on the death of Anne, to settle the succession to the throne upon the female branch of the family of James VI., as the male branches might now be said to be exhausted or destroyed by their connection with Popery. Even this solemn act of the Legisla- ture was attempted to be set aside at an after day, and the attempt was well nigh successful. A Popish succession was prevented only by a few votes. On this kind interposition of Providence, George I., a Protestant, and the representative of a severely tried Protestant family, was called to the throne. His successors have not only been of the same faith, but they swear allegiance to it at their coronation, and would forfeit their right to the crown by its abandonment. How striking, then, the contrast between the male and female branches of the Stuart family ! The former favour Popery, and, after the warning of various reverses, are, in sixty years, dethroned and expelled. The female branch clings to Protestantism for a season — suffers for it — is gradually restored to its continental possessions, and, in eighty-five years from the death of James VI., is unexpectedly and honourably rewarded with the crown of Britain^ the noblest crown in the world, which, we trust, they are destined for ever to wear, and that expressly 392 PROTESTANT CHURCH of Hamilton, immediately before going to France, where his influence would have been exerted on the Popish side — Queen Anne, when the schemes of the party were becom- ing mature — the King of Sweden, when setting out to Nor- way to use his influence against Britain. These were provi- dential events, which damped the enemies of the Church; and the succession of a Protestant king was most important. George I., during his short reign of thirteen years, may be said to have held the balance of power in Europe, while he crushed Popish rebellion at home, and maintained peace among his own subjects. The Evangelical Dissenters were indebted to him for various favourable changes in the laws, which pressed heavily upon them ; and distressed and per- secuted Protestants, in foreign lands, owed much to him, for his counsels, the orders he gave to his ambassadors, and various letters which he directed to be written in their behalf, all intended at once to protect and unite their interest. It need scarcely be said that the Church of Scofland was warm- ly attached to the Hanoverian family. After the proclama- tion by Marr, in favour of the Pretender, all the ministers next day, some of them in the face of no small danger, prayed for George I. by name; and their Irish brethren felt in a similar manner. The celebrated Francis Hutcheson, after- wards Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow, and an able writer against lay patronage, informed Wodrow, as related in his unpublished Analecta, that his father was a Presbyterian minister in Ulster, and suggested on Protestant principles. Such is the reward of a faithful adherence to Protestantism. It may be mentioned, as tending to illustrate the moral government of God the more, that the Boliemian or German family, and tlicir Protestant subjects, were so much reduced in pecu- niary circumstances, when obliged to sojourn in Holland, that the Princess Sophia begged her brother, Charles I., to appoint a public collection for her poor people. The king did so ; but the terms in which the appointment was made having, by recognizing the German Protestants as members of a true Church, offended the semi-Papist tyrant Laud, the collection was first discouraged, and then stopped by him; and in the same spirit he left out the names of Sophia, and her husband and family, from the Collect for the Royal Family, in a new edition of the Book of Common Prayer, not judging such sufferers for the Reformed Church good enough Christians. Strange, that in God's good time and way, those who had been thus insulted and de- pressed, should be raised to honour, and that their children should now be seated on the British throne, while the memory of Laud has perished, except as the dangerous counsellor, who, by his Popish per- versity, brought himself and his sovereign to the scaffold. OF FRANCE. 393 to the Irish Presbyterian ministers, about the year 1713, when the Hanoverian succession was in danger, the pro- priety of making out a list, in their respective congregations, of persons who were prepared to maintain the Protestant cause. This was generally agreed to ; and soon a list of fifty thousand persons was sent over to the Elector of Han- over, by the hands of a French Protestant minister — persons who might be counted on as staunch friends of his family and succession. This was very encouraging, and is a fresh proof how much the present royal family are indebted to the professors of Presbyterianism. Externally, then, the reign of George I. was favourable to the Church of Scotland ; and it cannot be doubted, that much good continued to be wrought out for the country, through her instrumentality, both at that period and for many years afterwards. Her different schemes and labours of social and Christian benevolence, might be said to be in active operation. On turning to the Acts of the General Assembly, printed and unprinted, we find the same liberality in contributing to the erection of bridges and harbours as in former days. In the course of a few years I have counted twenty-three such cases ; and many others, doubtless, are not recorded. They are often mentioned incidentally, and were so numerous, that at one time (1723,) the General Assembly resolved she would take up no new ones — a resolution, however, which she did not long observe. I have noticed six bridges building from the funds of the Church at the same time. At the same pe- riod, and in the course of a few years, nearly twenty collec- tions were made for the special relief of the poor and the suffer- ing; several of them for widows and orphans, and the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. Nor was the cause of the Gospel in foreign lands overlooked. We read of contributions for German Calvinists— for the churches of Lithuania, in behalf of which, not less than fifty Presbyteries collected — for the French Protestants of Hildburghausen — for Swiss Protest- ants— for French and German Protestants at Copenhagen — for French Protestants in Saxony — for the Swiss of Pied- mont— for the Germans of Pennsylvania — nay, for Lithua- nian bursars, to be educated regularly in this country — and for the Cohege of New Jersey, in the United States of America.* * Of a later day we have the following- notices: — "At a meeting of the Associated Pastors in Boston, New England, September, 1752 : " The Reverend Mr. Pemberton of New York, one of the trustees of the Infant College of New Jersey, having represented to us that 394 PROTESTANT CHURCH With regard to the Lithuanian contributions, Wodrow states in his AnaUcta, on the authority of Principal Chambers, that they were so large and handsome, that they brought the the trustees are sending an agent both to England and Scotland, in order to solicit charitable collections for the building and endowing the said College, which the trustees, in the present circumstances of these colonies, can see no other way to accomplish — and Mr. Pem- berton desiring our recommendation of this design to our brethren in Great Britain — we cannot but express our apprehension of the im- portance of such a society in that part of North America, for supply- ing the eight British Provinces, south-westward of New England, with ministers of piety and learning, for want of which great and growing numbers of people in those southern provinces are in immi- nent danger of perishing in ignorance and error; the two Colleges in New England being unable to supply them : and though our own College in Cambridge hath great need of future benefactions — and we shall be glad if the friends of religion and learning would help us — yet, therewith we would also commend this undertaking to the Divine blessing, and to the beneficence of those who desire the enlargement of Christ's kingdom, and the advancement of learning in those ends of the earth. And whatever any shall give to this important interest, we apprehend will be an offering acceptable to God, and of extensive good to men both in the present and future generations. " In the name and by order of the Association. James Sewall, D. D." "General account of the rise and state of the College lately estab- lished in the Province of New Jersey in America, by Rev. G. Tennant and S. Davie?, agents for the trustees. Edinburgh, 1754." " Abstract of the act and recommendation of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, met at Edinburgh, May 31, 1754, for a collection for the College of New Jersey. "The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, on the 31st day of May, 1754, having had presented to them by the Rev. Messrs. Gilbert Tennant, and Samuel Davies, two petitions, the one from the Synod of New York, and the other from the Trustees of the College of New Jersey, of the same import with the preceding papers ; and having also laid before them certificates and recommendations from persons of honour and credit, and being sensible that the encouraging of the said College is of great imprn-tance to the interests of religion and learning, and to the support and further advancement of the king- dom of Christ in those parts of the world, appoint a collection to be made at the church doors of all the parishes through Scotland, upon any Lord's day betwixt the first day of January next, the particular day to be fixed by the several Presbyteries, as they find to be most convenient for the parishes in their bounds ; and the money collected within the bounds of the Synods of Glasgow and Ayr, and of Argyle, to be paid into Bailie Archibald Ingram, merchant in Glasgow, and that collected within the other bounds of the other Synods in Scotland, to be paid into Mr. William Hogg & Son, merchants in Edinburgh; and the General Assembly earnestly recommends it to all, to contribute, according to their ability, to this useful and charitable design; and OF FRANCE. 395 Church of Scotland into no small reputation with the Dissent- ing Churches of England, and with the Foreign Churches.* ordains their act and recommendation to be read from the pulpit tlie Sabbath immediately preceding the day that shall be appointed for the collection, and that ministers enforce it with suitable exhortations." There is subjoined to the Assembly's act and recommendation, a letter directed to their Moderator, from the " Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge," signed by the most Honourable the Marquis of Lothian, their President, the tenor whereof follows: — " Very Reverend Sir, — The ' Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge,' take this opportunity to signify the genuine pleasure it gave them to observe with what alacrity tlie venerable Assembly countenanced a general collection through Scotland, for the encouragement of the lately erected College at New Jersey. We had, some time ago, the state of that College under consideration, and, for promoting its interest, gave a sum for purchasing books for the use of its library. It would give great satisfaction to this Society if the Assembly would be pleased to authorize this letter to be annex- ed to their act, and appoint it to be read along with it, that it may be known to the whole Church how much the Society is persuaded that the encouragement of that newly erected College will tend to the ad- vancement of learning and the advancement of religion in that distant part of his Majesty's dominions. This, in name and by appointment of the general meeting of the said Society, is subscribed by, very Reverend Sir, your most obedient humble servai\t, Lothian. " Edinburgh, May 30, 1754." It may be mentioned, that the sum raised in Scotland, in answer to the appeal, was not less than £2529 Sterling, — a very large sum for so poor a country, engaged in so many home undertakings; at the same time proving, however, the strength of her remaining piety. It is an interesting fact which was stated before the Synod of Glas- gow, by the Rev. Dr. Cook of Quebec, at present (October, 1840,) with the Rev. Mr, Rentoul, a deputation from Canada, for raising funds to build and endow a College, in connection with the Church of Scotland at Kingston, in Upper Canada, that the above sum raised in Scotland, still exists ; that it forms a Scottish foundation ; and that, a few years ago, an Indian chief was educated on it for the Christian ministry, is now an ordained Presbyterian minister, and has been the means already of the hopeful conversion of not less than thirty of his tribe to the faith and obedience of the Gospel. How blessed is the perpetuity of spiritual good! The liberality of the Church of Scot- land nearly a century ago, is bearing fruit on a distant Continent at the present day. What an encouragement to generous zeal in rear- ing the new Canadian College, where Evangelical and Presbyterian principles are to be established, and, we trust, perpetuated to the latest generations! * " An act and recommendation of the General Assembly, for a collection for the Reformed Church of Breslaw in Silesia, and su)>port- ing a school there, dated Edinburgh, May 19, 1750. " There was presented to the General Assembly of the Church of 396 PROTESTANT CHURCH It would weary the reader to refer to the efforts of the Church Courts in behalf of the extension of churches and education Scotland, by Mr. Christian Lewis Finne, one of the ministers of Bres- law, a letter from the Reformed Church at Breslaw, the capital of Silesia, with proper credentials, representing that after having for seventy years been deprived of the exercise of their religion, and in a state of persecution, they are now happily restored to their ancient privileges by the king of Prussia, their sovereign, who has given them ground for building a church and school, which will prove comforta- ble to them, atid useful for supporting the Reformed religion in that and the neighbouring countries; and though the king of Prussia has given leave to make a collection in the churches of his own territories for building and endowing a church and school, yet that collection has proved deficient, and will not answer the said good purposes ; and that the said pious and useful work cannot be carried to perfection without the assistance of other Protestant Churches ; and therefore humbly supplicating such relief as to the Assembly shall seem meet for the service of a Church which has kept the faith once delivered to the saints, steadfast and pure, amidst a long continued series of afflic- tion and persecution. A Church ! which is surrounded with Popery, and rears up its head as a bulwark against the errors of that idola- trous religion. A Church ! which is situate in the capital of an ex- tensive country, a large trading city, and therefore, by the blessing of God, may be of important service to the truth as it is in Jesus, to give a check to Popery, and to bring many souls out of darkness to the light of the Gospel. A Church! which, if once well settled, is likely to be of great use to the neighbouring Protestants in Hungary, Poland, and Bohemia, who are still groaning under the yoke of Po- pish bondage, as it may serve for a seminary and city of refuge and defence, of which things there have been already seen some first-fruits, for that not only several Popish families, and amongst them the family of Count D'Arco, have been converted to the Reformed religion, but also above five thousand Hussite Protestants have come over to them from Bohemia, and settled in Silesia, whose children may be instruct- ed in the school at Breslaw, taught the principles of religion, and be brought up to trades, which will be a great addition and strength to the Protestant interest. " The General Assembly having considered what is above repre- sented, from a charitable and compassionate regard to their distressed brethren, and a pious zeal to support the Reformed interest abroad, did, and hereby do recommend a general collection to be made at the doors of all the parish churches in Scotland for the said good purposes, upon the third Lord's day of November next; and appoints the money so collected, to be paid to James Mansfield, merchant, and late Bailie of Edinburgh, or William Hogg, also merchant there; and the Gene- ral Assembly earnestly recommend to all charitable and well disposed persons to contribute for so good a work, and appoint that this act be read from the pulpits of the several churches, the Lord's day imme- diately preceding the above day hereby fixed for making the foresaid collection." Tliis application obtained a contribution of ^1100 ster- linjr. OF FRANCE. 397 at home. If the Church were so zealous as to bethink her of foreign Christians, she was not likely to neglect her own peo- ple, whether in the Highlands, or Islands, or Lowlands. Suf- fice it to say, that all the ground which was formerly acquired she retained, and that in addition, she made great advances in the same department of labour. Who that has even partially read the Records of the General Assembly, can have forgot- ten the erections of Enzie and Norrieston, and the three new erections of the district of Stralhnaver, and the new churches of Skye and Shetland, and the labours which were made to provide ministers with suitable salaries. The bishops' rents, and the public funds of tlie Church, which at this time do not appear to have exceeded ^6500, and the liberality of lead- ing families and individuals, as well as public collections, seem all to have been put into requisition for the purpose; and, in the meantime, Gaelic probationers, and schools, and schoolmasters, and libraries, are employed for the furllierance of the Christian instruction of the ignorant and destitute. The Society in Scotland contrived to proceed from twenty- live to one hundred and twelve schools, and from an income of i^eOOO to an income of ^16,000, in 1736. No feasible plan is left idle; nay, the Popish rebellion of 1715 seems to have added fresh zeal to the liberality and labours of the Church. She has a salutary fear of Popery before her, and can see no way of disarming its dangers but by the spread of the parochial system, w^iih all its kindred institutions of good. And this Christian diligence and perseverance are the more creditable, when it is remembered that for a num- ber of years the Episcopalian Jacobites were ever intruding into parish churches, and disturbing the ministers, under the name of " Rabblers." There can be little doubt that, with God's blessing on the means employed, there was not mere- ly an extension of the outward apparatus of the Church, but spiritual fruit. In the Wodrow MSS. for 1714, we are in- formed that communions this year were more than usually- sweet; that ministers were much countenanced, and that a spirit of prayer was poured out on many of the young. Of 1729 it is said, that communions were particularly pleasant; that there was a greater number than usual of young com- municants ; that at Strathblane there were more than two hundred additional from that parish and neighbourhood. Next year, again, it is related that there were one thousand and forty communicants at Eastwood, the parish of which the historian was minister, and that the increase of commu- 398 PROTESTANT CHURCH nicants was general. At the same period he records, that in the north, in Sutherlandshire, there were vast confluences of people to the dispensation of the Lord's Supper; that many came from a distance of fifty miles ; that the great body of the religious people waited on the ordinance; and that mul- titudes assembled even when there was a vacancy in the parish. Much good, then, was still in active operation in the Church of Scotland — she had a large share of spiritual life; but, alas ! good is short lived! it cannot be disguised that the symptoms of religious decline were beginning to appear. I have already referred to the slow and insidious, but mischie- vous operation of the restored Lay Patronage Act of 1711. Men were afraid and unwilling to enforce it at first, but it gradually moved forward, and its progress was always from bad to worse. This, however, was rather an act of violence from without, than decay from within ; the latter, hov\-ever, daily became more visible. I do not refer to the undue de- ference to civil authority in matters spiritual which has been charged upon the Revolution Church. The General Assem- bly of that day may have yielded *to civil power in a way which the General Assembly of the present day would have respectfully declined. I refer rather to doctrine. It is to be feared that Simson, the Professor of Divinit)^ in Glasgow, was seriously unsound in the faith; and, from the influential station which he occupied, tended to make others, especially young men, unsound. I have heard intelligent Irish Pres- byterian ministers trace the Arianism which for many years infected and paralysed their Church, to the teaching of Sim- son. The undue leniency, again, with which he was treated by the Church courts, from 1714 down to tlie date — fifteen years afterwards — in which he was deprived of his profes- sorship, indicates that the Church was losing tlie high and stern tone of discipline for which she had been distinguish- ed. At the same time it is scarcely fair to condemn a whole Church for the proceedings of one of her judicatories, es- pecially in a case where, as often happens, with unprinci- pled heretics, the heresy is disowned. It is plain from the testimony of Wodrow, who lived during that period, and took a part in the business of Church courts, that the unsound sentiments of Simson were almost universally condemned. In 1729 and 1730, after he had been set aside, Presb} teries, with a few exceptions, petitioned the General Assembly to depose him from the office of the ministry ; they instructed OF FRANCE. 399 their commissioners to that effect, and elders refused to serve at the communion where ministers were supposed to liave a leaning towards his being reponed. It is right, too, to state that slow and gentle as the proceedings of the Church against him may seem to have been, the very act which sus- pended him contained a clear and strong testimony to the supreme Divinity of our blessed Lord. It is contained in these words: — " That in all the judicatories of this Church which have had this process under their consideration, there hath not appeared the least difference of sentiment, but on the contrary, there hath been the most perfect and unanimous agreement among them as to the doctrine of the glorious Trinity, and the proper supreme Deity of our Lord and Sa- viour Jesus Christ, according as the same is revealed in the Holy Scriptures, and contained in our Confession and Cate- chisms." With all this, the case of Simson is indicative of a Church not advancing, and therefore declining, and the condemnation of a work entitled the " Marrow of Modern Divinity," in 1720, which contains, with some incorrect statements, much that is excellent and good, taken in con- nection with the dismissal, without censure, of Professor Campbell of St. Andrews, who had given utterance to senti- ments decidedly and seriously erroneous ; these things all proclaim thai peaceful as the days of the Church now were, there was a worm in the bud — that her glory was tarnishing. About 1730 there was a marked change in the style of preaching, particularly of the young men who were selected to preach before the Commissioner of the General Assembly, and strong complaints by the older and graver ministers, that that change was much for the worse. On one occasion of this kind, an aged and venerable minister moved that notice should be taken of those sermons on morality, in which there is nothing of Christ or the Gospel, and that the Assem- bly should provide against innovations in preaching. Of one of the preachers at this time it is said, that his discourse was upon charity, and was chiefly borrowed from Addison's " Spectator." The choice of such preachers for such im- portant and honourable occasions, was certainly no auspi- cious token of the spirit of many of the leading men in the Church, and was the more melancholy, when it is consider- ed that down to this time the Church of Scotland had been always pure in her doctrine. The intelligent Christian reader will not wonder to learn, that when error appeared, infidel- ity began to lift up her head. The moment that the peculiar 400 PROTESTANT CHURCH doctrines of Revelation are denied or obscured, the best part of the internal evidences of Christianity is destroyed, and unbehef acquires the sway. In 1729, there are complaints of the growth of loose and corrupt principles among young men — the sons of merchants in Glasgow. Absence from diets of catechising, and attendance on clubs where improper books were read, are assigned as the probable causes. In the same year, Wodrow speaks of several young men, be- longing to the same class in society, meeting in a tavern on the Lord's day, in the town of Ayr, where they read Wool- ston's infidel book, and ridiculed all religion, often, inten- tionally, meeting the congregations returning from church, as if to pour contempt upon their v/orship. Though this was considered going a fearful length in sin, yet no notice was taken of ii by the Church courts of the bounds. Two years after, the infidel principles of Tindal, another infidel writer, are said to make much progress among the gentry. The Church became so far alarmed, that the Synods of Fife, Stirling, Angus, Moray, and several Presbyteries, sent in a representation on the subject to the General Assembly, which gave rise to an address from the Supreme Court against error and infidelity. The fact, however, that Boston, the Erskines, and Webster, never, in their sermons, almost allude to speculative infidelity, shows that it was quite un- known among the great body of the people. They were strictly evangelical. How diflerent the state of things in 1792! The unfavourable change referred to was not peculiar to Scotland. It would have been well if it had; but it seems to have affected all the Churches of the Reformation, and much about the same period.* Nay, it reached to the * Faithful ministers in Germany and in England seem to have fore- seen the dark days Vv^hich were coming, and to have stirred them- selves up to zeal, which was useful for the time, and gave promise of good for the future, but w^hich was overborne by the deadening in- fluence which was already in operation, till it became extinguished. Of these, the leading men, derided by the name of Pietists or Metho- dists, were Dr. Spener, a native of France, and Dr. Franck, a Ger- man. The towns of Frankfort, Dresden, Berlin, Leipsic, and Halle, &c., were the chief scenes of their labours; and, through the medium of lectures to students attending universities, and meetings for con- ference and prayer, and the spread of works on spiritual Christianity, they, aided by not a few coadjutors of less name, were honoured to awaken a considerable revival of true religion among the Reformed Churches of Germany — Churches which, towards the close of the seventeenth century, were fast sinking into spiritual death. An in- OF FRANCE. 401 churches of America. In England it appeared much earlier than in Scotland. At the very beginning of the eighteenth century there are questions regarding the doctrine of the Trinity, which are, not only taken up by the Convocation of the English Church, but find their way to Parliament. This indicated that unsound doctrine was spreading, otherwise terestingf account of their leading- proceeding's is to be found in a little volume, entitled "Pietas Hallensis; or, an Abstract of the mar- vellous footsteps of Divine Providence, in the building of a very large Hospital, or rather a spacious College, for charitable and excellent uses ; and in the maintaining many orphans, and other poor people therein, at Giaucha, near Halle, in the dominion of the King of Prussia. By the Rev. Augustus Franck; with a Preface by Dr. Woodward, Lon- don, 1707." Hundreds of students of theology flocked to the Univer- sity of Leipsic, to listen to the warm-hearted expositions of the lead- ing ministers in this revival. The opposition which, in many quar- ters, was provoked against it, proclaims the progress to which the work attained. Not less than sixty-three distinct and important re- sults are enumerated among its fruits. The hospital, school, and college, seem to have been maintained almost exclusively by prayer. Their history furnishes many eminent proofs of the answers which God vouchsafes to his people. Bochim, in his " Short Account of Pietism," about the year 1700, after speaking of the University of Halle, where there were three thousand students, many of them at- tracted by Franck, and the hostility with which he was assailed, adds, " All these clouds now begin to scatter, and by the uninterrupted en- deavours of the Pietists who have been engaged now almost twenty years with carrying on a practical reformation, many are fully con- vinced of their soundness, both in life and doctrine, and are now glad to see their children well instructed and educated by these teachers, whom the world calls Pietists. However, they have not been con- fined to the King of Prussia's dominions, but have spread all this while among the Lutheran Churches, so that there has been a stirring both in Denmark and Sweden, tending to a more practical reforma- tion," &LC. But interesting and effective as these labours were, they appear to have lasted but for a season. Ere long the reign of de- generacy resumed its sway. Similar was the experience in England about the same, or rather at a somewhat later period. Good men felt that the piety of the early days of the Reformation had undergone a sad decline, and that, with irreligion, vice was increasing; they felt also that it was their duty to attempt a decided revival of religion, both at home and abroad. From "A Letter" regarding the origin of the " Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge," it appears that "about the year 1680 a considerable number of pious persons of the Church of England met frequently together to pray, sing psalms, and read the Holy Scriptures, and to reprove, exhort, and edify one another, by their religious conferences; and their number hath since increased (1724) to about forty societies in and about London and Westminister. This example hath been followed by several devout persons in divers other parts of this nation; as also in Ireland, where 26 402 PROTESTANT CHURCH the Church and the State would not have felt themselves called upon to interfere as they did. Salmon, in his " Chro- nological Historian," states, that in 1721, hell-fire clubs abounded; that one of them had forty members, of whom sixteen were ladies; that they ridiculed the doctrine of the Trinity, and assumed the names of the patriarchs and pro- several of the like societies are encouraged by the bishops and inferior clergy." Out of these conferences, and at no great intervals of time a variety of schemes of Christian usefulness arose — such as the "So- ciety for the Reformation of Manners," to check gross evils at home — the improvement of the provision for poor ministers of the English Church — the establishment of parochial libraries of suitable religious books — a fund for the relief of ministers' widows and orphans — the "Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts," and the "So- ciety for Promoting Christian Knowledge at Home,"— the last work- ing through the medium of planting charity schools, the distribution of Bibles and other books, and the setting up of lending libraries. In Scotland there was a similar spirit of revival. Wodrow, speaking of Dundas of Philipstone, who abridged the Acts of Assembly, bears testimony to his high Christian character ; and adds, that he was one of a society of laymen, chiefly lawyers, eight or ten in number, who formed themselves into an association for prayer and conference, in Edinburgh, in 1697, and that their labours laid the foundation of the "Society for the Reformation of Manners." I need not record the result of these prayerful exertions : they were by no means incon- siderable. In the year 1724, the " English Society for the Reformation of Manners," successfully prosecuted two thousand seven hundred and twenty -three violations of the law regarding the Sabbath, intemper- ance, blasphemy, &c.; and in thirty, three years not less than eighty- nine thousand persons, while they circulated four hundred thousand books of a moral and religious character. If I am not mistaken, a shoot of the same society, under the name of the "Society for the Suppression of Vice," still exists. So recently as last year, the Direc- tors gave the following account of themselves — " For putting down the offences against which it is directed, the Society has found it necessary since its commencement, to institute not less than ninety- four prosecutions, of which four only have failed. In many instances the whole stock in trade of these offenders has been seized, or deliver- ed up to the Society for destruction. Thus, within the last three years alone, the Society has been instrumental in withdrawing from circulation not less than two hundred and seventy-nine infidel and blasphemous publications, exclusive of a large quantity in sheets; eleven hundred and eighty -two obscene books and pamphlets, besides a large quantity in sheets, ten thousand, four hundred and ninty-three prints and pictures, both English and foreign of the most infamous description; besides a great number of obscene cards, toys and snufF- boxcF, and sixteen copper-plates melted down under the inspection of the Society." With regard to the other schemes, in 1724, there were sixty parochial libraries, distributed over the poorer parishes of Eng- land and Wales, and twenty were about to be sent abroad. They OF FRANCE. 403 phets, and made mirth of them. As the century moved forward, it is well known how much cold moral preaching, positive error, and flagrant infidelity, prevailed. The great- est amount of avowed and speculative unbelief, of regulai* attacks upon Christianity in books, appeared in this period, and yet the Church was in the least favourable circumstances for meeting them. She herself, by her unfaithfulness and error, had, in a great measure, created the infidelity, and she neither possessed nor preached to the extent which she ought, that pure and free gospel salvation which is the best evidence of the truth of Christianity, and the best answer to infidels. Accordingly, the works on the Evidences of this age, however able and learned, on the external and some parts of the internal argument, are very defective and ineffi- cient as compared with the more thoroughly evangelical works on the Evidences of more modern times. One, in reading them, is often struck with the low ground which is taken up by the advocate of Christianity, and the compara- tively feeble defence which he is able to make for her. This holds true of books which, in the absence of better, have been much praised. The reason is to be sought, not in any want of talent or learning, on the part of the writers, but in generally cost from £30 to £60 a piece. In London and the neigh- bourhood one hundred and thirty-three schools were opened, which taught from five to six thousand children, and the Society apprenticed out as many more. Under the same management there were twelve hundred schools scattered through the English counties, educating twenty-two thousand children gratis, and often clothing and feeding them. In Ireland, again, the same Society had one hundred and sixty schools, and three thousand children. In the reports and proceedings, there are many suggestions which breathe the deepest piety, and most enlightened regard for the best interests of man. The Mission- ary Society which sprung up at the same time still exists, and now in a very extended form. Sixty years from its foundation it had nearly one hundred missionaries and schoolmasters supported at an annual expense of £5000, and labouring chiefly in the United States of America. But in spite of all these favourable symptoms, there was deep decline. About the middle, and toward the end of the century, the schemes were greatly paralysed. Not a few even of the Mission- aries abroad partook of the prevailing character of the Church at home. The infusion of new life and power into the old Society is a comparatively recent event. The interesting point to notice is, that their institution seems to have been called forth by the felt degene- racy which had begun, and was intended to arrest it, and revive the power of true religion. How profound the lethargy which neutralized the force of so many plans of usefulness, whose successful operations had been already ascertained'' 404 PROTESTANT CHURCH the cold and fallen state of Christianity and the Church as a whole, at the period in which they wrote. The decline was not in England confined to the Estab- lished Church: it reached to the Protestant Dissenters. So early as 1723, their debates upon Arianism, and the leaning of many of their young ministers to this heresy; and their opposition to subscriptions to Confessions of Faith, were all symptomatic of an unfavourable change, and seriously aflfect- ed their character and reputation with the more serious part of the community ; so much so, that not a few, seeing now no marked line of distinction between them and the Estab- lished Church, ere long conformed to the latter. Six years afterwards there was growing decay. The old societies among the Nonconformist ministers, for prayer and confer- ence, and mutual improvement, were in a great measure broken up. In the meantime, with the loss of piety, the temporal provision of the ministers suffered. Wodrovv states, on the authority of Mr. VVishart, a Scottish minister in Lon- don, that even Dr. Calamy's salary was much impaired, and all the others in proportion. On another authority, he relates, that several of the ministers had already become Arian, and that many more would have done so, had they not been afraid of losing their people, who were still sound. Like true Jesuits, they concealed their false principles. Does this not show that it is not the people who are so apt to fall into heresy as the ministry, and that tlierefore, at least, a popular control in the appointment of ministers is safer in their hands than in those of Church courts. It is, however, to be remembered, that among the Dissenters in England there was really nothing which could be called Church courts. Though nominally Presbyterian, there was no organization of Presbytery ; hence there was no opportunity for deposing unsound ministers, and so preserving the purity of the Church. The spread of Arianism among the Dissenters was very much facilitated by the nature of their Church government, or rather their want of Church rule. It is scarcely necessary to add, that the Protestant Dissenters in Ireland were at the same period much the same in character w^ith their brethren in England. Mr. Warner, an excellent minister in the west of Scotland, after a visit to Dublin, in 1730, speaks of the very low state of religion among the Dissenters — " of the terrible degree of decay in serious god- liness,"— that where divided they were weakened and where united they were cold. And another testifies as to the north, OF FRANCE. 405 that the nonsubscribing, or unsound party, though by that time qniet, were much deserted by their people. It would enlarge this chapter to an undue length to refer to the Church of Geneva. It might otherwise be shown, that at the same period there was a marked declension in the Church of Switzerland. The influence of the younger Tur- retine, who was headstrong and opinionative, was very dis- astrous. By 1730, the signing of a Confession of Faith was no longer required. This at that season was a plain proof of unsound doctrine. Twenty years afterwards D'Alembert and Voltaire — the former in the article Geneva, in the " En- cyclopaedia"—and the latter in his " Letters," not only bear testimony to, but rejoice in, the change from evangehcal Cal- vinism to Arianism and Socinianism, and mercilessly expose the apostate ministers who, stung by the article in the " En- cyclopaedia," attempted to conceal their shame from their people and the world. The moral character of Geneva sunk with its religious character. When it got rid of Calvinism, it got rid of moral propriety, and in various respects became like one of the large towns of popish and infidel France.* In addition to this passing notice, it may be mentioned, that a strong positive proof of declension appeared in 1777, * The "Christian Observer" for 1833 gives the following just ac- count of the Swiss Church :— " This Church, reformed in doctrine, and Presbyterian in discipline, has seen its doctrine become adulte- rated since the beginning of the eighteenth century, and practical Christianity lost its strength, as was natural, at the same time that doctrine became corrupt. In 1724, the pious Benedict Pictet died. From that moment the Company or Assembly of Pastors, by succes- sive alterations in the editions of the Liturgy and Catechism, com- menced this unhappy degradation of the faith. The decline from truth continued to increase during this century of false philosophy, till at last, on the 14th September, 1818, the Assembly of Pastors de- clared, in an official letter, that for a long period four important doc- trines had not existed in the Catechism. These were, the Trinity, the Divinity of Christ, the original corruption of human nature, sal- vation by grace, and regeneration by the Holy Spirit. Nor was there merely a prohibition to inculcate these doctrines on the minds of young persons, but Arianism was publicly taught to young children, and preached to adults. At the close of the last century, and at the commencement of the present, the Professor of Divinity lectured on nothing more than natural theology; the essential doctrines of Chris- tianity were no longer subjects of teaching or inquiry." Again, " In the Church of Geneva ministers are elected, not by their congregations, but by the Assembly of Pastors. The leaders of this body now resolved no longer to choose orthodox ministers, but Arians only. Hence the young ministers who had been enlightened 406 PROTESTANT CHURCH when Professor Vinet did not forbid, but allowed, exercises of an Arian character to be maintained in his presence by the students of the college. Rousseau, the celebrated infidel, gave a severe but just account of the pastors of that period, when he says, "You ask them whether they believe in the Divinity of Christ — they dare not answer. You ask them if he were a mere man— they are embarrassed, and will not say they think so." Matters proceeded from bad to worse, till almost all the ministers of the Swiss Church became grossly unsound in their doctrinal sentiments. In the kind- ness of God, light and revival appeared at the period of the peace, in 1815, but with it the bitterest persecution was called forth among those who professed themselves to be the only friends of candour, freedom, and toleration, — persecution worthy of the Church of Rome. The men who abolished all creeds and confessions, in twelve short years expelled five of their number out of thirty-five at Geneva, for no other crime than that they were spiritual men, and faithful preach- ers of the Gospel, according to the ancient standards of the Church ! A gentleman still alive — the Rev. Mr. Magnin — was prosecuted by the Socinian Government of Neufchatel, because he was a faithful minister — banished for ten years from the Canton, and obliged to hear his sentence kneeling in the mud, in the public streets, with a halter round his neck. Such is the tender and tolerant spirit of Rationalism, which has patience and kindness for every thing but the Gospel of Christ! I might refer the reader to Holland and Germany for simi- lar illustrations, but it is unnecessary. I shall only give a short account of the decline in the Protestant Church of Germany, in the words of the French correspondent of the " New York Observer," a gentleman to whose writings I shall have occasion repeatedly to refer, if I am not mis- taken, he is now a Professor of Literature in the Protestant University of Montauban. " Rationalism rose in Germany about the middle of the eighteenth century, under the influence of several external were obliged to seek for posts of duty in foreign churches: one only, Mr. Gausscn, had been elected pastor of a parish before the revival became conspicuous, and hence was a member of the Company," From the last quotation, it would seem that the appointment of ministers by Church courts, for which some in Scotland contend as a grand bulwark against error and heresy, is no protection at all. His- tory proves that the ministry are much more likely to depart from orthodox doctrine than the people. OP FRANCE. 407 causes. The writings of the English Deists — Toland, Wool- aston, Morgan, Chubb, Shaftsbury, and others, had begun to circulate beyond the Rhine, and to diffuse there the poi- son of infidelity. But these books, reaching only a i'ew hands, would have produced little evil, if they had not been soon followed by the writings of French sceptics. Three men in particular, Bayle, Voltaire, and John James Rous- seau, were read with avidity. All persons of liberal educa- tion were acquainted with the French language, and could read in the original the objections, sophisms, and jeers, of these celebrated infidels. Besides this, there was at Berlin a king, who held intimate intercourse with the French phi- losophers, and especially with Voltaire. This king, I need not say, was Frederick II. He possessed, it cannot be de- nied, eminent qualities: a great warrior, a wise legislator, a skilful chief, a learned man, unwearied in toil, attentive to supply the physical wants of his country — he raised Prussia to the rank of the great powers of Europe. But by this very superiority of his talents and genius, he exerted a powerful influence over the religious opinions of Germany. Frederick II. professed openly sceptical principles ; he col- lected in his court a host of infidels, who, with himself, mocked at the most sacred truths of Christianity. And as his name was every where respected, he \vas not long in forming a numerous party among the German literati to sup- port and propagate his opinions. " It should be observed, also, that Leibnitz, his disciple, Wolff, and the School of Philosophy, of which they w^ere at the head, had prepared the way for infidelity. I do not mean to say that Leibnilz and Wolff were themselves ene- mies of Christianity. They always took care, on the con- trary, to testify in their writings a great reverence for reveal- ed religion. But yet the tendency of their philosophy was antichristian. They constructed a system of rationalism wholly independent of revelation, and by exalting the hu- man mind to the first place, instead of subjecting it to the Word of God, they opened a dangerous path, in which their disciples went further than the masters designed. This was evident when Kant, who acknowledged* Leibnitz and Wolff as his precursors and his masters, raised his edifice of what he called pure reason, and would not receive Christianity except on condition of reducing it to a simple philosophical theory. Kant did not attack the Gospel, like Voltaire, with weapons of ridicule and insult; he even claimed the name of 408 PROTESTANT CHURCH Christian, and composed a ' theory of true reUgion and mo- rals appHed to pure Christianity;' but the pretended Chris- tianity of the Professor of Konigsberg existed only in the title of his book; the historical facts of Revelation, its doc- trines, positive precepts, all that constitutes the true Gospel, were left out of account, as unworthy of a place in the new philosophy. The German theologians, from obvious mo- tives, did not advance so rapidly as the philosophers in the career of scepticism. The first who entered upon the new ground, and struck the first blow at the old orthodoxy, was David Michaelis, Professor of Goettingen. He published, in 1761, "An Abridgment of Dogmatic Theology,'* in which, while preserving the doctrines of the Reformation, he attacked, in several points, the authority of the Old Tes- tament. After him, Augustus Ernesti, Professor of Leipsic, undertook to place the interpretation of the New Testament upon a new basis, opening a wide door to the conjectures of human reason. "But the theologian who distinguished himself most by his opposition to articles in the Confessions of Faith, was John Solomon Semler, Professor of Halle. He possessed great historical learning, and remarkable sagacity. Unhap- pily he did not stop in his theological opinions, at the limits fixed by the feebleness of the human understanding, but al- lowed himself to be led astray by the pride of learning. The attack against generally established doctrines began with a discussion on the demoniacs. Semler pretended that the demoniacs, or persons possessed, mentioned in the New Testament, were only persons afflicted with violent nervous affections; and that, if the sacred writers spoke of demons inhabiting the bodies of these sick persons, it was merely to conform to the popular notions of the Jews of that time, Slc. " Thus, Semler laid down the principle of accommoda- tion, which has been the chief weapon of rationalism. No- thing more easy, indeed, than to extinguish, with this princi- ple, not only all the doctrines, but all the facts of Revelation ; it is only to say, that in this narrative the aposdes accommo- dated themselves to the prevailing opinions, and immediately the letter of the Gos'pel gives place to the most arbitrary ex- planations. "When Semler had taken this first step, he ne- cessarily took a second, by attacking the divine inspiration of the Scriptures. He made a nice distinction between the word of God and the Bible, contending that it was wrong to take the whole contents of the Bible for the word of God — OF FRANCE. 409 a new and extensive principle, offering wonderful latitude to the comments of every interpreter, for as each might say, when expounding the Bible, ' this chapter or this passage is the word of God, but this other chapter or passage is not the word of God;' the result was, that every one was at liberty to accept or reject what he pleased. And is not the pride of these men wonderful, who arrogate the riglit of determining what God could or could not say? As well might there be no Bible at all, as one consisting of phrase- ology which the mind of man may shape at pleasure. " Semler prosecuted his work of opposition, from 1760 to 1791, the period of his death; and numerous theologians ranged themselves under his standard. Abraham Teller, Gottlieb Toellner, .Toachim Spalding, were the chief. One maintained, in his 'Dictionary of the New Testament,' that the words of the Bible must change their meaning as know- ledge increases. Another maintained, that God is revealed in nature so clearly that we may dispense with the revela- tions of Moses and Jesus Christ. A third pretended to find in several doctrines the marks of a delirious imagination. " At this time a publication, called the ' German Univer- sal Library,' was commenced in Berlin, by Frederick Nico- lai, bookseller, under the protection and encouragement of the King of Prussia. Liberal Germany would have her Encyclopaedia also, and she summoned the whole phalanx of anti-orthodox theologians to build this new tower of Babel. The 'Universal Library' was issued, with some interrup- tions, from 1765 to 1806; and, as it mingled literature, his- tory, poetry, and the fine arts, with theological questions, it circulated among men of the world, and made popular the opi- nions of rationalism. The result was as might have been ex- pected. Laymen seeing theologians combat successively the doctrines of inspiration, original sin, redemption, eternal pun- ishment, &c., rejected the whole, and lived in utter infidelity. "In 1781 appeared the famous 'Fragments' of Samuel Reymarus. This writer censures, in his first fragment, the preachers who would restrict the authority of human reason. In the second fragment he tries to prove that it is impossible for God to command all men to believe in the same Revela- tion. Then he questions the truth of the narratives of the Old Testament; the passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea, for example; and finally, he denies the resurrec- tion of Jesus Christ. This posthumous book of Reymarus excited a very strong sensation. Theologians saw the need 410 PROTESTANT CHURCH of answering it, but they made great concessions to their adversary; and the truths of the Christian faith were more and more obscured in religious works. *' The rapid progi'ess of neologists and infidels at last awakened the attention of several of the governments of Germany, [n Saxony, the reading of heterodox books was forbidden. The Prussian Government published, in 1788, a law against the innovators. It should be added > that Fre- derick II. was now dead, and was succeeded by one who possessed religious faith. This law complained that the sad errors of the Socinians, Deists, and Rationalists, were shamelessly revived and propagated among the people, under the false name of the progress of light. Three years after, in 1791, a committee of examination was established in Ber- lin to condemn bad books of theology, and some professors were publicly censured. But these measures of Government had no good effect. The evil was already widely extended. A violent opposition was made in the Universities against the examining committee, and not without reason, it must be confessed; for it does not belong to civil governments to decide religious controversies. The King of Prussia asserted, indeed, that he was the first bishop of his kingdom, but this was only a political fiction. The ancient Confessions of Faith which the Cabinet of Berlin ordered to be kept, were, on the contrary, attacked with the greatest violence, and the civil power was almost always forced to retire before the strong opposition of Rationalism. " Observe further, that at this period occurred the wars in Europe against the French Revolution. Times of war are not favourable to the study or the practice of evangelical truth. The increased intercourse of the German population with the French soldiers contributed to disseminate upon the ancient Teutonic soil the principles of infidelity. It is not surprising, then, that the period, from 1790 to 1813, was calamitous for orthodoxy. '* For twelve or fifteen years the philosophy of Kant reigned despotically over all branches of human learning. Theology was remodelled upon -a new philosophical style. There were Kantian doctrinal tracts, Kantian moral lessons, Kantian sermons, and Kantian catechisms. The theories, formulas, and maxims of Kant were universally diffused. It was the driest, coldest religion imaginable. Faith was found- ed on meagre abstractions, and morals were subjected to the formula which Kant calls the imperative category. What OF FRANCE. 411 became of the true Gospel in Germany, while the philoso- pher of Konigsberg reigned absoUite master? The Gospel was forgotten, or, if it still dwelt in any hearts, it remained timidly concealed, to avoid the blows of theologians. But at last it appeared that Kant was not infallible, and that an undue authority had been allowed to his opinions. A two- fold opposition now arose. On one hand, the philosophers raised a new standard under the guidance of Fichte and Schelling, and the pantheistical theories of Spinosa were re- stored to honour. These led to the doctrine of Hegel, a celebrated philosopher of Berlin. On the other hand, the theologians, having shaken off the yoke of Kant, were divided into two parties, called Supra-Naturalists and Rationalists. The chief of the Supra-Naturalists was Reinhard, preacher of Dresden, who published several distinguished works, and among others, a ' Course of Morals,' and numerous volumes of sermons. The Supra-Naturalists admit a supernatural interposition (hence their name) in the establishment of Christianity; they believe that the miracles mentioned in the sacred books were real miracles ; they pretend not to reconstruct the whole Christian religion according to their own fancy. But it would be wrong to believe that the Supra- Naturalists are in general orthodox Christians; they are but little removed from Socinians. As to Rationalists, they be- came more and more rash in their heterodox systems, and some of them fell at last into the most monstrous infidelity." An interesting inquiry presents itself — What were the proximate causes of the melancholy change in the character of the Churches of ' the Reformation? Doubtless a with- drawal of the Holy Spirit of God was the real cause. But what were the instrumental? This would lead into a very wide field, which we can merely touch. The writer remem- bers to have put the question to the late eminent Dr. McCrie. His answer was, that " There were a great variety of causes, which it would require much time to unfold; but that he thought much of the degeneracy was owing to false doctrine having got into the Universities, and been from them propa- gated by the young, whom they educated, throughout the Church." There can be little question that the causes dif- fered in different countries, though the result was brought about in all at nearly the same time. Some of the leading general causes may have been common to all churches. Pro- bably the keen contests and divisions, and subdivisions of Protestants, upon minute and unessential points, alienated 412 PROTESTANT CHURCH the spirit of love, and left a cold orthodoxy, without devo- tion, standing behind, which is the twin sister of error. Pro- bably, too, a failure in the duty of propagating the Gospel abroad, which seems to be one of the grand conditions of its being allowed to remain in purity at home, led to the withdrawing of the vital power of the Spirit. The Church is like water. If she stands still, she stagnates into heresy; if she be busy and laborious in doing good to others — in propagating the Gospel — she is kept pure, like living water, by her very flowing. I have also a deep conviction that the rise and gradual progress of Arminianism, strictly so called, from an early period in the seventeenth century, was at the root of much of the subsequent infidelity. It is of the es- sence of that system to exalt the reason and ivill of man. This not only weakens the internal evidence for the truth of Christianity, derived from its unfolding the greatest of all wonders, which never could have occurred to the human mind — a free grace salvation, but it directly leads to infi- delity, by praising and paying homage to the powers of hu- man reason. What is the best argument for infidelity ? Is not the sufficiency of that light which man can strike out for himself from his own reason and conscience, and the observation of nature around him. Calvinistic views of the- ology have a closer connection with the Evidences of the divine truth of the Gospel than many imagine. Besides, Arminianism and Popery go hand in hand, and it is well known that Popery and Infidelity have always been singu- larly allied to each other. There is a statement of Wodrow's remarkably confirmatory of these views. Writing in 1731, he relates, on the authority of Mr. Stewart, that since the publication of Tyndal's infidel book, many of the bishops and clergy of the Church of England showed a disposition to return to Calvinistic doctrine and the Thirty-nine Articles; and that several of them acknowledged, in conversation, that, on the principles of Tillotson, Sherlock, &c., on the suffi- ciency of man's natural powers, " it would be very hard to defend Christianity against the Deists." But with regard more particularly to Scotland. I have little doubt that the protracted and tyrannous persecution of the Church by pro- fessed Protestants, and the. ready conformity of so many ministers at the Revolution, for a piece of bread, to the very Church which they had been oppressing for years — these things disgusted thousands, and led them to believe that re- ligion was mere self-interest and hypocrisy. To men in this OF FRANCE. 413 State of mind it need scarcely be said, that the progress from one error to another, and from heresy to infidehty, is easy. How could mere men of the world, if possessed of any sense, and judging of religion by its professed ministers, think favourably of it when they saw ministers of religion persecuting their brethren one day, and, for the sake of their livings, going over in hundreds the next day to the very same party whom they had been persecuting? This must have been most adverse. It is sad, but not at variance with the ordinary plans of Providence, that the misdeeds of the Church should thus be the cause of her own punishment. We do not say, that though she were to act with perfect consistency fully up to her professed character, all men v/ould be convinced, and there would be no infidelity. Far from it. The more pure the ("hurch becomes, she will pro- voke the fiercer opposition ; but, at the same time, she will remove one of the ready apologies for infidelity, and hold men up to themselves as inexcusable; and this state of things, under God, is very favourable to conversion. There was now, then, a leaven of irreligion and unsound doctrine in not a few of the pulpits of the Church of Scot- land within, and there was much infidelity in the richer and higher classes of society without. Had the voice of the body of the people, who had been well instructed in other days, and whose humble libraries consisted solely of sound theology, and who held by the peculiar doctrines of the Gos- pel, and the scriptural principles for which their fathers died on the scaffold, been listened to, much, humanly speaking, would have been done to retard, if not altogether to counter- work the progress of the poison; but now the operation of the unhappy Patronage Act of 1711 became more and more visible. The sound part of the people lost the power in the appointment of ministers which they once enjoyed, and that power was transferred to the very party who were most accessible to the irreligious and infidel influences of the age. In process of time patrons obtained Church courts like them- selves. The wishes of an evangelical people were not only disregarded, they were trampled upon with disdain. So early as 1720, a minister was settled at Bathgate by the aid of dragoons. By 1731, such cases became more numerous. At least, it was not uncommon, Wodrow says, for the Church courts to prefer the man who happened to have the presenta- tion, though but few heads of families supported him, to the man who had many. The immediate effect of this severe 414 PROTESTANT CHURCH and growing exercise of patronage, was the secession of a large body of people from the Established Church. The people would not sit under the ministry, not only of the men who were intruded into parishes, but of those who had borne a part in the settlement. The elders, too, in these cases, re- fused to assist at the communion. This swelled the ranks of Dissent, which, headed by a few leading ministers, moved on from step to step, till, in twenty-five years, it could boast of one hundred and twenty places of worship, and many thousand adherents. While, as a minister of the Church of Christ and of Scotland T deplore this schism, and think it might have been spared, and that it would have been better for the interests of truth and righteousness had the men who seceded remained in communion with the Establishment, and prevented the Church becoming so cold and useless as she becanne, and Dissent itself from degenerating so sadly from its original principles — while I hold these views, it is impos- sible not to regard so large and rapidly formed a Secession as a striking proof of the wide-spread influence of true reli- gion over the country generally, in spite of all the tendencies to unsound doctrine which have been described. Nor should it be forgotten, that in the dark and cold age which followed, the Seceders, with their ever augmenting numbers, kept up the spirit and power of religion in many quarters from which, under the baleful Act of 1711, or rather its rigorous exercise, they had disappeared. While of all religions evangelical religion is the most strict and spiritual — while it most severely condemns men as sinners, and most earnestly calls them to repentance and holiness, and is therefore hated by the natural mind, it is a singular fact, that it is, at the same time, more interesting and popular than any religious system which the wisest men have been able to substitute in its place. He who is its Au- thor, and He who formed the human conscience, is the same Being; hence the one is adapted to the necessities of the other, and even ungodly men feel the adaptation : the truth commends itself to their consciences in spite of themselves. The effect of this again is, that, as compared with any sys- tem of false doctrine, the Gospel is permanendy popular. Some men who have been long accustomed to a cold dry Arminianism may dislike the warmth and strictness of a sal- vation by free grace, but they will not abandon its preaching on this account. Let, however, an Arminian teacher follow the faithful ministration of the Gospel, and there is an im- OF FRANCE. 415 mediate secession from the Church. It is owing to the same cause that no book of unsound doctrine has ever been gene- rally or permanently popular in Scotland; while many works, such as those of Boston, without any adventitious attraction, have been amazingly wide-spread and useful. What work, in point of popular interest, can compare with the "Pil- grim's Progress?" and what is it but a striking picture of evangelical religion in its creed and practice? The essen- tially popular and interesting character of evangelical reli- gion, of which the history of Scotland is a remarkable illus- tration, may be regarded as one of the internal evidences of its divine truth. It is fitted to render men inexcusable. If they could plead that the message of God was inherently dry and repulsive, inattention would admit of the greater apology ; but when it is remembered that it is inherently in- teresting, the guilt of inconsideration is the more fatal — de- struction is confessedly the more just. With regard to the seceders from the Church of Scotland, there were various divisions and subdivisions in the party ; one of them, and a very serious one, occurred in fourteen years from the date of the first separation from the parent Church. But throughout all these, the doctrine, government, worship, and discipline of the Presbyterian Church were maintained, with the exception of one principle of very re- cent agitation; so that, at this moment, with all her apparent divisions, Scotland is perhaps the most religiously united country of any in Protestant Christendom. What higher testimony could we have to the depth and extent of the pre- vious religion? The powerful hierarchy of the Church of Rome, which once covered the land, may have shrunk into seventy priests, though the population has, in the meantime, more than doubled; and the Episcopal Church, which once boasted that the country was her's, may have been reduced to a similar number, and even of these a large number may be most miserably paid or starved, nearly a third oUhe whole clergy being paid under £60 a-year. Deprived of the aid of temporalities and civil power, both Churches, even though the last embraces in its communion the wealthiest families of the land, may be, comparatively speaking, insignificant; but Presbyterianism, whether in the Establishment or out of it, has grown and flourished. Favoured by the State or not, it has proved itself, in spite of all declension and divisions, to be the Church of Scotland. And how has this been brought about? There is no answer but the marvellous labours and 416 PROTESTANT CHURCH sacrifices of the founders of the Church and their successors, and the widely-extended religious principles which, with the blessing of God, they were enabled to spread abroad among all classes of the people. The declension of the Church still went forward. Indeed, the Secession hastened it. It drew not a little of the life- blood from the already bleeding body, and the settlement of ministers became more secular and violent than ever. The wonder is that the Church survived such heavy strokes — that she still remains in the land, and is daily adding to her character and numbers. Many Churches would have been extinguished by similar treatment, but her hold upon the people was deep and tenacious, and God was pleased, at a very dark and discouraging season, to cheer the hearts of her remaining faithful people. Not only did he enable her General Assembly, in 1736, with the consent of Presbyte- ries, to give forth a glorious testimony in behalf of Gospel truths, in an Act regarding the preaching of the Gospel, which was a public deed and encouragement of evangelical doctrine; but in 1743, when not a few were disposed to question whether she were a Christian Church at all. He visited several of her parishes with remarkable revivals of religion — at Kilsyth, where three to four hundred, and Cam- buslang, where three hundred were brought to the know- ledge of the truth in a few wrecks, and evinced the moral change to their dying day, by a life and conversation becom- ing the Gospel ; besides, in many other places the Holy Spirit stamped the Church of Scotland as still a Church of the living God. In subsequent days — at Moulin in the begin- ning of the present century, and at Kilsyth and elsewhere so recently as last year; in Ross-shire, in the present year, the Spirit lifted up a similar testimony in behalf of the Church of Scodand, and that, too, at a time when her enemies are many, and calling in question the validity of her ordinances, or denouncing her as antichristian in her alliance with the State. It is remarkable, that at the same seasons — the mid- dle and conclusion of the last century, and the present day — when the Church at home has been revived with drops of the shower of blessing, there have been similar manifesta- tions of the power of the Spirit of God in the United States of America; as if the same Spirit who was withdrawn from the Churches together, would show that He may be com- municated to them in conjunction, and would invite the joint intercessions of the people of God in all lands the more. OF FRANCE. 417 In 1745, the country was alarmed and agitated by the last Popish rebellion. Had the Church been as uninterrupted and faithful in her labours as she had been for many years after the Revolution of 1688, her moral influence must have gone far to prevent this infatuated struggle. Every man" whom she converted from Popery would have been turned from rebellion to loyalty. But she was weakened; and the state had done nothing to extend Cliristian education and instruc- tion in the Popish districts. A proposal had been made, or rather an Act of Parliament passed, early in the reign of George T., enacting that £20,000 should be appropriated out of the sale of the estates forfeited in Great Britain and Ire- land, in the recent Popish risings, for erecting and main- taining schools in the Highlands of Scotland; but though £100,000 were oflfered for the apprehension of the Pretender, and £5000 were jusdy awarded to the Dissenters to rebuild their places of worship, which had suffered from the violence of the Jacobites, and a fixed sum of £15,000 a-year was generously paid for the relief of the French Protestants, the grant to the Highlands was never made available, and that though both the Church and the " Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge" repeatedly and earnestly applied to Parliament for the purpose. The Highlands and Islands, which, owing to the ignorance, superstition, and insubordination which Popery nursed, were the greatest suf- ferers from the Popish party, received no public aid to coun- ter-work their deleterious influence, except the royal grant of £1000, afterwards raised to £2000 a-year, which the Church still enjoys, and devotes to the maintenance of mis- sionaries. This treatment of the Church v/as the more cul- pable, that she was not only eminently loyal, but the success of her efl?brts against Popery, and so in behalf of the best in- terests of the country, was almost immediately visible. It was found as a matter of fact, in the Rebellion of 1745, that the friends and supporters of the Pretender were drawn from quarters where the Church had no Christian schools, — in short, where the people had been left to themselves. There were fewer, too, of the common people engaged in the Re- bellion of 1745 than in that of 1715— so slates the Rev. Mr. Walker of Edinburgh; and from an intercepted correspond- ence between a Popish bishop and a Popish emissary, found in the Island of Morar two years after the Rebellion, it ap- pears that charity schools, and itinerant missionaries, and, above all, " the erecting of new parishes in such places where 27 418 PROTESTANT CHURCH our folks (i. e. , Roman Catholics) chiefly abound," were objects, from experience, of great dread and terror to the priests of Rome. Declining as the Church of Scotland was, in character and doctrine, by ihe period of the Rebellion, she was very warm- ly attached to the existing royal family; and many of her ministers indicated no small courage, and submitted to no small suffering, in taking arms and employing other means in their defence. Principal Robertson was one of the num- ber. It is related of the Rev. Mr. M'Vicar, one of the min- isters of the West Church of Edinburgh, that he boldly prayed for George by name, in a crowded house, where many Jacobites were assembled, after he had been threatened and when the city was in the hands of the rebels ; and con- tinued to do so during the whole six weeks that the High- landers kept possession of Edinburgh. There was here real courage. The faithful minister was in danger, during the very act of public worship, of being cut off by the rebels' sword. The zeal and courage of the Church are the more creditable, that large promises were held out on the other side, and that the clergy have usually been accused of lean- ing to power as distinguished from popular rights. In former reigns, respectable parties, such as the universities and the lawyers of the land, leaned to the exiled family and the op- pressor. In the times of Charles I. and Charles II., while the students were on the side of the Covenant and Presbyte- rianism, not a few of the professors temporized to the royal side, and would have put up with semi-Popery and Persecu- tion. At the Revolution, the decided majority in all the universities were the friends of the Popish James; so that several, in consequence, lost their situations. At a later day, the whole legal strength of the country, advocates and wri- ters to the signet, according to Bower, were arrayed on the side of the Stuaris. How honourable, then, was it for the Church, all along, to maintain so consistent a testimony against " Popery, slavery, and arbitrary power," and to expose herself to trial and suffering in vindication of her testimony! How well did she deserve of the State ; and how much, then, is it to be lamented that the State failed so greatly in her duty to the Popish quarters of the land — a duty which might have been so easily and cheaply discharged; and how sad, that the de- generacy of the Church came in to countenance the coldness of the Slate. Had proper means been employed, the High- lands and Islands, under the Divine blessing, might, long OF FRANCE. 419 ago, have been as Protestant as the Lowlands. The eigh- teenth century might have completed what the seventeenth so well began, and so vigorously carried forward. Instead of being called, at the present day, to mourn over many dis- tricts which remain Popish, and some which have lost the Protestantism to which they had formerly attained — such as the Island of Barra — the Christian might have rejoiced in a universally Protestant population, both at home and in the Canadian Colonies; but the reign of sound religious principle seems ever to have been unhappily short. Surely the Church of Christ in these lands lies under a heavy responsibility ; and those who weaken her influence are not guiltless. How sad and humiliating, that there should be a large body of na- tive-born Roman Catholics in this country, after the Pro- testant Church has been established for nearly three hundred years ! How different the zeal and success of our forefathers at the Reformation ! I cannot better conclude these observations than in the words of the pious and accomplished Dr. Doddridge, in his " Life of Colonel Gardiner." " According to my best in- formation, from persons who are most thoroughly acquainted with afTairs in the north, the two great springs of rebellion amongst the inhabitants of these Highland countries are their idleness and their ignorance. The former subjects them to a slavish dependence on their masters, and is also the cause of their being so addicted to stealing, and the latter makes them a prey to Popish priests and missionaries from Rome, who are constantly, and in great numbers, trafficking among them. It has been very justly remarked, that the success they have in seducing these poor ignorant people, is occa- sioned, in a great measure, by the vast extent of parishes in those Highland countries ; some of them being betwixt thirty and forty miles in length, and twenty and thirty in breadth, full of great mountains, rapid rivers, and arms of the sea; and those parishes which are more moderate in their extent, are about twenty miles in length, and ten or twelve in breadth ; and it is every where to be observed through these parishes, that around the place of the minister's residence, the inhabi- tants are almost all Protestants, but in the corners which are remote from his residence they are generally all Papists. Now it is evident that these poor people can only be cured of idleness, by teaching them manufactures to which they are wholly strangers. And it is hard to imagine how they can be rescued from Popish ignorance, until there are several 420 PROTESTANT CHURCH new parishes erected in those extensive countries. It would ill become me to pretend to direct the government of Britain on such an occasion ; but I know it to be the opinion of many persons in these parts, of distinguished wisdom and experi- ence, that if it should be thought fit to employ the produce of the estates confiscated by the late Rebellion for these valu- able purposes — this, with the ^61000 of his Majesty's royal bounty, annually bestowed, would go a good way towards remedying these two great evils, vi^ith their train of misera- ble consequences which we have of late so deeply felt. And wlio would not rejoice to see all these poor people sharing with us fully in all the privileges and advantages of Christians and Britons? I pray God to guide and prosper every scheme for this purpose; and in this connection I cannot but mention and recommend the ' Society for Propagating the Knowledge of Religion,' and with it the principles of loyalty in these Highland countries — a design in which so many worthy per- sons, both in the northern and southern parts of our island, are incorporated. But their stock is by no means equal to the purposes here mentioned; and by their constitution, they are confined to the support of schools, which are indeed going on with great success, as far as the revenue will allow them." CHAPTER VH. FROM J 755 TO 1792. The history of the Protestant Church of France, which I am at present rapidly tracing, is very painful. It is almost the unbroken history of persecution. In former periods, I had the satisfaction of presenting pleasing evidence of the spiritual character and undertakings of the Church; but, however excellent her spirit and exertions may have been at the period under review, we have no record of them. The Protestants were wholly occupied with their sufferings; they were seldom allowed to assemble in Church courts. They were not permitted to publish books or documents. Hence their present history may almost be called a blank. The only traces of it are in the blood of persecution. Sick- ening as these traces are, we must not shrink from them. It is well to see the true character of Popery, and to remember OF FRANCE. 421 the sufferings of the saints of God. Thus only can we value aright our own inestimable privileges. It is sad that France, which boasts of her civilization and refinement, of her literature and the arts, should have been, we may say, the latest country in Europe to abandon persecution, and that on a great scale, and in a legal form. At the middle of the eighteenth century she was still pursuing her course of cruelty and oppression; and, what is singular, her bitterest persecution may be said almost to run parallel with the most brilliant days of her literature. Does not this, as we have taken occasion already to remark, show, at least, that science, and polite learning, and civilization, cannot change the sav- age dispositions of men — their hatred to the truth of God; and that it is vain to look to them as the safeguards of liber- ty, whether civil or religious? How idle, then, the expecta- tion, that they are to introduce into society a new era of brotherly love and universal happiness. In the former chapter I brought down the history of the Protestant Church to 1755. Immediately before there had been a most violent persecution, and though it was now abating, the waters were still restless and disturbed. In 1758, Oliver Goldsmith translated from the French the ac- count of a Protestant gentleman, who had been condemned to the galleys, and detained in slavery for thirteen years. He was set free at the intercession of the Court of Great Britain. The original work had very recently been printed at the Hague in two volumes. The biographer of Goldsmith declares it is full of horrors; and the fact that the poet trans- lated so large a work, is a proof of the interest which was felt on the subject in this country. Down to 1761, there was a relaxation in the violence. Though the laws of per- secution were in full and unaltered force, yet the breach of them was, to a considerable extent, connived at by the civil authorities. The severity of the proceedings, especially in connection with Protestant baptisms and marriages, from 1751 to 1753, seems to have driven such multitudes from the country, that the Court became alarmed, and were glad to permit" something like an intermission. This, however, was short-lived. The rest was but a breathing time. In less than ten years these persecuting measures were revived with great severity. The author of a pamphlet, entitled " The Very Humble and Respectful Prayer of the Protestants of Langue- doc to the King," speaking of them, says, *' It is not the cause of one, but of more than twelve thousand families in 422 PROTESTANT CHURCH the diocese of Nismes, and more than eighty thousand in the province of Languedoc, who implore justice from the king." These numbers indicate a Protestant population, in two districts alone, of nearly five hundred thousand; show- ing that the Protestants were still a large and respectable body. Shortly after, in the account of the Protestant mar- riages of France from the work of Walch, it is stated, that a suit in the Presidial Court at Nismes involved the fate of six hundred thousand married persons, and of three and a half millions of children. Thus completely did Popory in this case fail to exterminate the objects of its hatred and per- secution ; but how dreadful, that the domestic comfort and happiness of so large a body of men should still be at the mercy of enemies, whom eighty years of cruelty could not appease ! Protestant marriages, it will be recollected, after the Edict of the Revocation, and particularly after the Declaration of 1724, w^ere rigorously forbidden, except upon terms which no consistent Protestant could agree to. In short, they were made Popish ceremonies, and means of educating the young for the Church of Rome. The penalty, however, of disre- garding these persecuting decrees was very serious. 'I'he conjugal relationship w^as pronounced concubinage. The children were illegitimatized, and declared incapable of in- heriting the property of their parents. Still did the poor Protestants continue to marry accordmg to their own forms. From now having no churches in which to solemnize them, and from their being therefore conducted in the open fields, they were cnWed mamages of the desert. Through few in- struments of oppression did their enemies more grievously wound them. If Roman Catholics wished to exclude the children of a Protestant marriage from an inheritance, that the property might come to themselves as next heirs, or if there were any disagreement in a Protestant family, and either of the parties wished a separation, nothing more was necessary than to dispute the validity of the marriage, and a door was opened at once to avaricious cruelty and the worst forms of licentious profligacy. Where the parties were of considerable standing in society, and the consequences de- pending on the suit important, these cases were tried before the appropriate civil court; and, in the providence of God, such public discussions of the most heart-rending cases, were the very means of cliecking the progress of persecution, and of creating a relaxation, if not a reaction, in behalf of the OF FRANCE. 423 Protestants. The courts were open to the public ; the inter- est was general; the most able advocates were employed on both sides, and the nature of the cases was such as to give the finest scope to the peculiar powers of French oratory. It is easy to see, then, how beneficially this state of things must have operated in behalf of the Protestants. To select a celebrated case. In 1774, Mr. Roux, one of the wealthiest merchants of Nismes — for the Protestants still held much of the mercantile wealth of the country in their hands — had been happily married for a number of years, and was blessed with a family. In the course of an illness with which he was afflicted, his wife was betrayed into unfaithfulness. In self-defence she fled to a nunnery, professed herself a Roman Catholic, and brought an action in the supreme court of the province, in order to prove that her marriage was null and void. The only alternative which she offered her husband was, to become, like herself, a Roman Catholic, to which he would not submit. Troussel, an able advocate, took up the Protestant cause, and showed, from the law of nature, the civil law, a bull of Benedict XIV., and the decrees of the Council of Trent, that marriages solemnized in Protestant Churches were valid. It would seem there was some ambi- guity in the prohibitory decrees, which enabled him also to plead the ground of dubiety. I select one or two passages from the advocate's pleading, which, as a whole, was pro- nounced not unworthy of Cicero or Demosthenes. " Will you, by dissolving this marriage, strike horror in- to six hundred thousand virtuous families? Wiiat my lords ! shall this province, blessed with so favourable a climate and so rich a soil, and which is chiefly indebted for its beauty and fertflity to the industry of Protestants ; shall this city, where the sciences, where the fine arts, and where manu- factures flourish, and where such multitudes of that religion are numbered among their patrons ; shall the whole land be- come the dreadful abode of vice and violence? Shall those united by the tenderest ties be cruelly torn asunder, and the purest love blotted with the hated name of concubinage? Shall ladies, estimable for their natural charms, but more so for the thousand virtues which adorn them, be taught, that what they imagined the chaste embraces of a husband, were indeed the pollutions of a seducer? Here I visit the hall of affluence, honesfly earned and honourably used. I see a venerable old man surrounded with his sons, their wives, and their children. I hear them mutually addressing one another 424 PROTESTANT CHURCH by the names of father and child, or in the still more sweet and endearing language of the marriage relation ; vieing one with another in expressions of warm affection, and in pray- ers for long life to their king, and for prosperity to their country. If the request of the lady against whom I plead is granted, I behold this respectable asylum, this seat of har- mony and bliss, suddenly filled with anxiety, with tears, and with the outcries of despair. Yonder I see the cottage of the poor. I see an infant sucking the breast of his mother, while the wearisome' and almost uninterrupted labours of the father procure his family a scanty subsistence. Though they have long sighed under the burdens of poverty, they have regarded with reverence a connection which they had vowed to God death only should dissolve. But in an ill-fated hour the tidings reach them that it is more honourable and pious to break off than to continue their connection. I should never end, did I attempt to unfold all the fatal consequences of annulling the marriages of the desert. Yes, my Lords! you will confirm the happiness of the poor children here prostrate before you, and pleading, Our cruel mother has forsaken us. O adopt us as your children! Ah! take from us our substance; only leave us that inestimable treasure — the tender-hearted father who loves us. He beholds our tears: he mingles with them his own. With transport he presses us to his breast, and cries, God preserve you, my dear children, my only hope, my only happiness. O our judges ! deprive us not of this worthy, this virtuous, this best of parents. So wmU we bless you. And your decision, approved of by your country, shall be transmitted from age to age, as a lasting monument of your wisdom." Maser, the king's counsel on the other side, admitted the force of these pleadings, and was glad, by some technicality, to get the case postponed. The Court afterwards put a stop to it by a compromise, which left the Protestants under the impression that their marriages were tacitly sanctioned by law. It is interesting to hear the testimony which the king's counsel, Roman Catholic though he was, bore to the cha- racter of the Protestants. He speaks of the Protestants as men who loved order and peace, who zealously promoted the public welfare, and wiio atoned for their errors by their virtues. And, in conclusion, after addressing the many Protestants in the assembly to dismiss their fears of a sen- tence which might deeply wound iheir dearest interests, he says, — OF FRANCE. 425 " France will never forget that in a tempestuous season you fastened the pillars of the tottering monarchy, and raised to the throne, when fanatics would have deprived him of it, that pattern of princes, whose name excites the most pleasant emotions in the heart of every Frenchman — Henry IV. From the grave where his ashes rest, his shade watches over your destiny. He is risen T^ Here the judgment-hall resounded with the shouts and ac- clamations of Protestants. In the meantime, their enemies wrote to Court, that the Protestants in Languedoc had begun an insurrection, and pressed by thousands to the judgment- hall, and that Troussel and Maser were at their head and in their pay. When the Protestants were suffering so much in connec- tion with their marriages, it may be noticed, that the royal marriage of the Dauphin, the Due de Berri, to Maria Antoi- nette of the house of Austria, in 1770, was conducted with extravagance almost beyond conception. It is said that thirty thousand horses were employed in her journey, and sixty new carriages formed part of her train from Strasburg to Paris, and this when the country was suffering under a general exhaustion. How melancholy was the dissolution of their marriage ! It was not a legal suit, but the guillotine of the Revolution which separated them. After so long contemplating the horrors of persecution, it is gratifying to perceive and record the dawn of more tolerant days. The old laws of oppression might remain unrepealed, and the Protestants be exposed to the hazard of their execu- tion, wherever a violent Roman Catholic, whether priest or layman, chose to call for their application. Still there was a general and growing improvement in the circumstances of the Reformed: their meetings for public worship were con- nived at and some of the worst forms of persecution allowed to go into desuetude. So recently, indeed, as 1767, the Par- liament of Grenoble condemned a minister to death for preach- ing in the open air; and because he could not be found, burnt him in effigy. Five years before, Mr. Rochelle was execu- ted at Toulouse; but this seems to have been the last year of persecution unto death. Various circumstances led to this milder treatment. The Jesuits, the most formidable enemies of the Reformed Church, had been deposed from power in this year, as a society of men who, from their proved com- mercial delinquencies on a vast scale, were dangerous subjects of the State. Louis XV. had died in 1774, of disease con- 426 PROTESTANT CHURCH tracted in his guilty pleasures, and had been succeeded by Louis XVI., the unhappy king who afterwards lost his life in the revolutionary frenzy. This monarch was much milder, and more retired and literary in his character than his pre- decessor, and more disposed to regard the privileges of others. Indeed, on various occasions, he showed strong leanings toward toleration, and was only prevented by his circumstances from making them more effectual. Then the appointment of Neckar, a Swiss and a Protestant, as Direc- tor of the Royal Treasury, in 1776, an appointment called for by the financial ditTiculties of the country, as well as the success of his economical plans, had an influence favourable to the Protestant cause. In addition to these things, in- fidelity had now been busily at work for between thirty and forty years, and was beginning to bear fruit. Not that in- fidels had any alliance with, or liking to. Protestantism (his- tory proves that they are among the most merciless of per- secutors,) but the better to difluse their poison, they spoke much of liberty and toleration. So early as 1746, Diderot had published his "Pensees Philosophiques," which were considered one of the most direct attacks ever levelled against the Christian religion in France ; and the labours of his co- adjutors, Voltaire, Rousseau, Buffon, D'Alembert, Montes- quieu, and their great common work, the "Encylopedie," ail wrought in the same direction. Voltaire's works in behalf of toleration, which were dictated not by the love of man, but by hatred of the clergy, were amazingly popular, and exerted a very powerful influence. The infidelity was ex- ceedingly wide spread and virulent. " When I myself was in France in 1774," says Dr. Priestly, "I saw sufficient reason to believe that hardly any person of eminence in Church or State, and especially in a great degree eminent in philosophy or literature — whose opinions, in all countries, are sooner or later adopted — were believers in Christianity; and no person will suppose that there has been any change in favour of Christianity in the last twenty years." He writes, in 1794 — "A person, 1 believe now living, and one of the best informed men in the country, assured me very gravely, that (paying me a compliment,) I was the first per- son he had ever met with, of whose understanding he had any opinion, who pretended to believe Christianity. To this all the company assented. And not only were the phi- losophers, and other leading men in France, at that time un- believers in Christianity, or Deists, but Atheists, denying OF FRANCE. 427 the being of a God." The only objection which the literati and philosophers of France had to David Hume, the most subtile of modern infidels, when he visited their country, was his remaining " fanatacism," in believing in the existence of a Supreme Being! Such infidel influences, by sapping the power of Popery, more than by any assistance which they rendered to the Protestants, were overruled, as instruments in the hand of God, for the protection and milder treatment of his own Church. The progress to greater toleration of which I speak, may be traced in the fact that, in 1787, or twelve years from the accession of Louis XVI., an edict was granted favourable to the Protestants, in virtue of which they could assemble for public worship, enjoy their property in peace, and transmit it to their children. This important protection was not sanc- tioned without considerable opposition from the Parliament. One ardent member started up, and presenting a crucifix, asked if they were going to crucify the Son of God afresh? The favourable result was the work, in a great degree, of Rabaut de St. Etienne, an eminent Protestant minister, the tried friend, through many years, of the suffering Church. As might have been expected, the protective edict, so differ- ent from those to which they had been accustomed for nearly two hundred years, was received by the Protestants with the greatest thankfulness and joy. No sooner was the Reform- ed Church publicly recognized, than multitudes ranged them- selves under its standard. Vast crowds — it is said not less than one million of persons — hastened to the houses of the judges to have their births and marriages registered. Fre- quently aged men were seen registering their own birth, and that of their children and grandchildren together. Such was the pressure of the crowd, that it was necessary for the judges to spread themselves over the country to avoid it, and probably also to avoid collision with the more intolerant Ro- man Catholics. And now the Revolution drew on. In the National As- sembly of 1789, it was decreed, in the Declaration of Rights, that " all the citizens are equal in the eye of law, and are equally admissible to all dignities, places, and public employ- ments, without any distinction but that of their virtues and talents." Rabaut, the great and good man to whom 1 have referred, had been returned a member of Assembly, and spoke long and ably in behalf of liberty of conscience. " I demand," says he, " for all the non-Catholics what you de- 428 PROTESTANT CHURCH mand for yourselves — equality of rights — liberty, the liberty of their religion, the liberty of their worship, the liberty of celebrating it in houses consecrated for that purpose — the as- surance of not being troubled in the exercise of their religion any more than you are in yours, and the perfect assurance of being protected like you, as much as you, and in the same manner as you, by the common law." "I suppress a crowd of motives, which should render two million of unfortunates interesting and dear to you: they could present themselves to you yet stained with the blood of their fathers, and they could show you the marks of their own fetters." In the course of a few months, and won by the labours and elo- quence of this pastor, the Protestants were admitted to the rights of electors, and to a share in all civil and military em- ployments. On the 10th of July, 1790, the confiscated property of the Reformed Church, which remained in the hands of Government, was restored ; the heirs and claimants were invited to make good their claims, and the fugitives or their heirs solicited to return. These were happy steps of progress, and good men might rejoice and hope that the complete deliverance of the Protestant Church had come; but, alas! the triumph of infidelity was at hand. She is the severest of despots. Speedily was it found that the liberty which had been advancing was based on unsound principle — unsanctioned by the Word of God; and so, scarcely had it reared its head before it perished in the dark waters of revo- lution. In 1790 the Protestants might be said to be free. In eighteen months the Christian religion, whether Protest- ant or Popish, was proscribed, and all the institutions of Christianity trampled under the feet of the most unrelenting persecution. Such was the beginning of the reign of Infi- delity and Atheism. Decided as was the improvement which was introduced into the condition of the Protestants, during the reign of Louis XVI., down to the commencement of the Revolution, I am anxious to guard the reader against the idea that the toleration was steady or unbroken. No. It was at best pre- carious— depending chiefly on the good feeling of individu- als, and every now and then there was an attempt at revived persecution. What, indeed, could be expected of a coun- try which, in a population of little more than twenty mil- lions, could boast of nearly two hundred thousand Popish ecclesiastics, male and female? At the very time that the monarch was showing kindness, at least forbearing cruelty, OF FRANCE. 429 to the Reformed Church, as in 1775, there was an attempt to restore the Jesuits; and, contemporaneous with this, there was an endeavour to revive the oppression of the Protestants. Nay, in 1782, shortly before the favourable edict was pass- ed, and in 1788, just after it had been enacted, and when the doom of so many of the Popish clergy was fast ap- proaching, we find the old spirit of persecution strong at work. In the one case, the religious society of Dieppe was served with a lettre de cachet, and for three months the churches of several provinces were sliut up. In the other, M. Mordaunt, the pastor at Dieppe, though he had attended to all the prescribed formalities, was seized by warrant for celebrating a marriage. What does all this show, but that the toleration which Popery or Infidelity permits is incon- sistent and insecure, even where it boasts of edicts and legal instruments? And now we must turn back and contemplate the spiritual character of the Protestant Church during the latter period of the century which we have been surveying. We have seen that, in point of numbers, they were still very consider- able— that some estimated them so high as between three and four millions — a sixth part of the whole population of France. There can be little doubt that the Protestants were numerous. It was not uncommon for five or six thou- sand to attend upon the ordinary preaching of the Gospel under one minister, and eight or ten thousand to assemble for the celebration of the Lord's Supper. But whatever might be their numbers, truth compels us reluctantly to declare they had decHned, and were declining still more in their Christian attainments. There were various adverse causes in operation. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes had driven the largest body of the spiritual and devoted into exile. This was a sad loss, the magnitude of which it would not be easy to estimate. Then, men of political feeling were attracted by sympathy, and a spirit of pride and resistance, to join the suffering Church; — these were comparatively ignorant, uninfluenced by the higher mo- tives of Christianity, and must have deteriorated its cha- racter. There is generally such a party in times of persecu- tion— men of mere feeling and policy, who need to be as much guarded against as the oppressor. Next, the circum- stances of the Protestants were exceedingly unfavourable to the exercise of Church discipline. The courts of judicature were not permitted to meet; national Synods did not assem- 430 PROTESTANT CHURCH ble for twelve, and in some cases twenty years. In the meantime, great neglect or serious errors might prevail in particular districts, but there was no authority to detect and check the evil. The few ministers who still remained were left to themselves, without the counsel or support of regu- larly constituted courts. Then, the provision for the instruc- tion, not only of the people, but also of the ministry, was very inadequate. The people were not allowed to have pub- lic schools, and the circulation of books among them was equally forbidden. Hence the great body could not but be- come ignorant. In the same proportion must their religion have declined, and they themselves become the easier prey of superstition or infidelity, both of which were in active operation in the country. After the persecution in Scot- land, as we had occasion to notice, a large body of the people were found in great ignorance, the slaves of various superstitions and no small immorality. With regard, again, to the French pastors, the Rev. Dr. Less, speaking from the testimony of Rabaut and his own observation in 1774, says — " Through the want of ordinary schools, their clergy know little Latin, no Greek, and are strangers to the writings of the ancients. Having no academies for educating their clergy, those designed for the sacred office receive their first instructions from som.e minister, and then go to a semi- nary at Lausanne for Protestant ministers in France. After a slight and short course of study they are ordained, and re- turn to their native country destitute of any learned know- ledge of religion; so that in a Church that could boast of Amyraldus, Capellus, &c., perhaps there are not now three clergymen who can understand, or even read, the Bible in the original languages." The seminary at Lausanne, highly creditable as it was in its own place, could not supply a substitute for the distin- guished colleges and universities of earlier days. It was but a private institution, upheld by the bounty of foreign Chris- tians. The whole number of pupils, when visited by Dr. Less in 1775, was only twenty-two, and the professors three: the annual expense — the students being maintained as well as educated — six thousand rix dollars. It would have been idle to expect tlie ministry of a great Christian Church to be upheld in any thing like efficiency under such tuition as this. Accordingly, the pastors, limited as they were in number, degenerated seriously in character, and with them the peo- OF FRANCE. 431 pie. Indeed, with an uneducated clergy, and the other un- favourable influences which have been adverted to, it would have been strange if the Reformed Church of France had retained its former character and power. The wonder rather is, that it did not fall earlier and more disastrously. Dr. Less, describing the people and pastors generally, says — "From this imperfect preparation under their teachers, it cannot be expected that the state of the Protestants in France should be very flourishing. Exclusion from all offices in the State has diminished them more than a violent perse- cution would have done. Among them, too, as well as amons^ Roman Catholics, the writings of Voltaire and Rous- seau have diff'used the poison of infidelity, or of indifference to religion; and Protestant advocates, without scruple, pro- cure from priests false attestations of their having confessed and attended mass, that they may not be debarred from pleading before the tribunals. The lives and possessions of Protestant preachers not being protected by law, lie at the mer- cy of every vile informer. Their salaries are small, the high- est not exceeding two hundred and fifty rix dollars. Hence their preachers are men of the lowest rank, of mean educa- tion, and often do more hurt by their bad morals, than they do service by their very defective instructions. Attendance on public worship, zeal for a religion of which they know little more than the name, and liberality to the poor, are by most of their hearers deemed sufl^icient to constitute them good Christians. Still, however, there are among them some illustrious characters, to which the reading of the Bible, and books of devotion, as well as the instructions of their preacJjers, greatly contribute; and, in general, there is a dif- ference of conduct in them, and in their Catholic neighbours, much in their favour." The same author furnishes us with a fine picture of the able Protestant pastor in Mr. Rabaut, of whom he gives the following interesting account : " Paul Rabaut, the eldest of the three clergymen at Nismes, is their most respectable clergyman. Learning is not to be expected in one of so narrow an education, and constantly engaged in such a variety of labours. But his talents are great, his judgment quick and solid, and his knowledge of religion and of the sciences so profitably applied, that few of the most learned are equally useful in their stations as he is in his. His merits have impressed me with an indelible respect; though 1 had that near view of them, from which 432 PROTESTANT CHURCH even the most shining characters generally lose something of their lustre. To him the preservation of Protestants in France has been chiefly owing. His whole life has been a constant sacrifice to the interests of religion. He devoted himself to the pastoral office at a time of violent persecution, when he had every thing to dread. With an income which scarce furnishes him the necessaries of subsistence, in the midst of difficulties, and in a thousand instances with the hazard of his life, he has performed, in the most disinterest- ed manner, the laborious duties of his function. For many years he was nowhere safe, not even in his own house. Soldiers came suddenly both by day and by night, surround- ed his house, and searched for him. Every trick was used for seizing and getting rid of one justly viewed as the chief sup- port of Protestantism. Every where surrounded by spies, and every moment in danger, he usually performed his mi- nisterial duties only in the night ; or if it was needful in the day, he disguised himself as a bricklayer or a stocking- weaver. Often he \vas obliged to leave his house, and to lie whole days and nights in the open fields, or in some re- mote pitiful hut, certain that, if seized, he must instantly suffer an ignominious death. In these dangers his only hu- man security was the fidelity of his flock. They constantly watched over him, and at the first approach of hazard gave him warning. He assured me, that he often escaped by se- cret forebodings of the designs of his enemies. One night, at supper, he felt a sudden and almost irresistible impulse to leave his own house, and to sleep somewhere else. Accord- ingly he left it, though his wife entreated liim to stay, as there was not the least appearance of danger. Next morn- ing he was informed, that about three o'clock in the morn- ing, a detachment of soldiers had surrounded his house, and searched for him. 1 the rather regard these accounts, as I never knew a man further from enthusiasm. The lustre of his other virtues was increased by his unaffected modesty. Though rich in deeds which command respect, he used no art to display them, and spoke as little of them as if he had no concern in them. This, however, rendered their influ- ence more irresistible. The Protestants honoured him as a parent. Nay, so great was his authority, both with Catho- lics and Protestants, that no day passed in which he was not employed as an arbiter; and more processes were ended in his house liian were brought before the tribunals of the city." There can be no question that there were many faithful or FRANCE. 433 men — men whose preaching was in full correspondence with the standards of the Church, and who rejoiced to spend and be spent for Christ; but the state of things brought about by the various adverse elements to which I have adverted, was favourable to coldness and indifference, and to the introduc- tion and spread of dangerous error. Accordingly, such seems to have been the prevailing character of the Protestant Church during the seventeen years which preceded the Re- volution. The infidelity of the philosophers, diffused with amazing activity and vast pecuniary sacrifices — it is said ^600,000 — through the medium of cheap publications, ope- rating upon minds which had been deprived of suitable pas- toral instruction, naturally exalted human reason to an undue place in religion. This, again, in its turn, opened the door to Arminianism, which had appeared before the dispersion, occasioned by the recall of the Edict of Nantes, but which now verged to Socinianism, and occasionally, perhaps, passed into it. The progress was the more easy, that, in many cases, the life of spiritual religion had departed, and left no- thing but the forms of a dead orthodoxy behind ; and then the Presbyterian Church government of the Reformed Church was in abeyance, indeed might practically be said to have no existence. Hence there was no befitting authority to check error, and arouse the negligent to their duty. Pro- testants might rejoice in the freedom which infidels promised them ; but the instrument of their partial deliverance was a dangerous one, and soon passed into a most grinding tyranny. How different the position of the Protestant Church of this country! Her deliverance was brought about, not by the hazardous aid of infidelity in any degree, but by religious principle and religious agents, and hence her freedom has been stable. I do not say that the Protestants of France courted the infidels, or asked their allegiance; but the amount of infidelity then in the country, and the channels in which it was running, and the names which it assumed, were all most injurious to the Protestant cause, and fitted to deterio- rate the high evangelical character for which it had been dis- tinguished. It leavened the mind and taste, even of the well-disposed, without their being aware of it. Never should it be forgotten, that infidel principles are a poison, and act like the most insidious of poisons, as weli as the most viru- lent. Many are so impressed with the notion, that a persecuted Church must ever be a pure Church, they may be indisposed 28 434 PROTESTANT CHURCH to believe that the Protestants, while still suffering, had lost so much of their living Christianity as I have described; but the fact is certain, and strange to say, the deterioration was not confined to those who remained at home; the refugees who fled to Holland, and other lands, shared in the same de- generacy. It is a melancholy truth, that the sermons of the Walloon ministers, published in Holland towards the end of the last century, as well as at the beginning of the present, though not without merit, present a sad decline in tone, and spirit, and doctrine, from other days. These sermons are exceedingly numerous: many congregations apparently making it a regular practice to publish several volumes of the discourses of their deceased pastors ; so that it is easier to draw a general inference as to the prevailing character of the preaching. While their advantages were superior in many respects to those of their brethren who remained in France — while they enjoyed the benefits of clerical education, and regular Church government, still they felt the benumbing in- fluence of the same infidelity. The memory of former per- secution, and the enjoyment of present blessings, were not a sufficient safeguard against its power. The grand error of their preaching lay in light views of Christ — of his sacri- fice and salvation — a forgetfulness of the Holy Spirit — of the absolute necessity of his regenerating and sanctifying grace. Of course with this was conjoined a high idea of the reason and moral power of man ; in short, infidelity applied to the doctrines of revelation, while the divine origin of revelation itself was admitted. I do not know whether, even with these explanations, the reader will be prepared for the appalling fact, that such had been the decline of religion among the Protestants of France at the period of the Revolution, that several of the pastors publicly abjured Christianity as a lie. It is well known that not a few of the Roman Catholic clergy did so, and we do not greatly wonder at this. It is to be feared very many of them were and are infidels, and wear the sacerdotal habit merely for secular ends. Popery and infidelity — the believ- ing too much, and the not believing at all — have always gone together. Indeed, in an age of any light, it cannot be other- wise; but it was a new thing for Protestant ministers to be found in the open ranks of infidelity. Yet so it was. Two representatives of the people at Rochefort wrote to the Con- vention in October, 1793, that eight Popish priests, and a ProUatant minister , " had abjured their errors in the tern- OF FRANCE. 435 pie of truth, formerly the parish church, and had promised to teach nothing but morality, and the hatred of all religious tyranny. They confirmed their oath, by burning their let- ters of ordination amid the mixed acclamations of both Catholics and Protestants:' On the 7th of November, Go- bet, the Archbishop of Paris, appeared at the bar of the Convention, attended by his vicar, eight rectors, and a Pro- testant minister of the name of Julien — fit name for such an apostate. They all not only abjured their sacred offices, but the religion of Jesus Christ. On the 14th of the same month, Morron, the Protestant pastor of St. Thomas de Louvre, in Paris, deposited on the table of the Commons, four silver cups, which had been used in administering the Lord's Sup- per, adding these words: " They served our worship; but prejudice, and sometimes reason, reproached us with the ex- treme folly of using them." It were easy to multiply these horrifying details, especially as regarded the Popish clergy; but the specimen is more than sufficient. It clearly proves how sad was the degeneracy which had overshadowed the Protestant Church, when any of her ministers, or professed people, could be guilty of such moral atrocities. The great body of the pastors may have held these outbursts of infidel- ity in abhorrence. Indeed, the Protestants who would not go the length of the Revolutionists, were subjected to the crudest treatment. In the department of Gard alone, the slaughter was wide-spread. During the reign of terror, the Protestants were as much oppressed and persecuted as the Roman Catholics. This is apparent from the religious pro- fession of those who were guillotined. Of one party of suf- ferers, Lauze de Peret gives the following summary: — ninety-one Roman Catholics, forty-six Protestants, and one Jew — showing a higher proportion of Protestants than others. Nothing, then, can be more unreasonable than to de- nounce them as Jacobins and Revolutionists. It is to be re- membered, too, that the eminent Protestant minister, Paul Rabaut, was, by order of the Convention, arrested, and sent to prison on an ass, being too aged and infirm to walk; and that it was only the fall of Robespierre which saved him from the guillotine, at nearly eighty years of age — a doom which overtook his son, also a minister and a scholar, a few months before the venerable father died in his own house at Nismes. The wretched facts, however, which we have been reviewing, proclaim the progress and the power of infidelity even in the Protestant Church ; and ere this result could 436 PROTESTANT CHURCH have been reached, we may be sure both irreligion and error must have attained an unhappy sway. It is a fallen Chris- tianity which is the grand pioneer of infidelity. CONTEMPORANEOUS HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND, FROM 1755 TO 1792. In the last chapter on the history of the Church of Scot- land, the melancholy change which came over her character and operations was shortly described. It is matter of deep regret, that the present chapter must deal in a similar des- cription. There was no favourable change. Our remarks will necessarily be brief. The Church, as a Christian Church, was so cold and dead, that she has left little or nothing to record. A desert is much more easily and quickly described than a richly cultivated country. The Secession of 1733 had grown rapidly, and there had been a formidable Popish rebellion in 1745. Still there was no relaxation in the en- forcement of the disastrous Patronage Act of 1711. There may have been occasional compromises of difficult cases, but where the patron and presentee assert their claims, the Church enforces them at the point of the bayonet: the evil continues and deepens, and the cold irreligion of the Church grows apace. There is a fresh secession from the Establish- ment in 1761, solely on the score of the rigorous and intol- erable exercise of lay patronage, hence taking the name of the Relief. This party have now risen to nearly one hun- dred congregations, a more numerous body than the Roman Catholics or the Episcopalians, who could once call the Es- tablished Church their own: so great is the evil which crea- ted them. Divisions among the seceding Presbyterians gave no strength to the Church — they weakened her the more as each party required to collect adherents from her pale to sup- port its separate interests. Matters became so formidable about 1766, from the spread of dissent, that efforts were made in the General Assembly after milder measures. The near balance of parties in the Supreme Court, (99 to 85.) shows that a large body of sound men still remained in the Establishment, that they were still nearly one-half; and for some years there was a mitigation of the severity of the past procedure, but there was no real change of principle. Dis- sent continued to swell, and all the more, that the dominant OF FRANCE. 437 advocates of rigorous patronage now, with all propriety, be- came the protectors of scandalous ministers, whom they ought to have deposed from the holy ministry. This added to the disgust of the people. The good work in which the General Assembly was engaged in earlier years, in planting schools and churches, seems in a great measure to have been arrested. In 1758, there were not less than one hundred and eeventy-five Highland parishes, in which not so much as one parochial school had been established; and if in a depart- ment in which all are agreed, even those who are little in- fluenced by religious principle, there were so much careless- ness and failure in duty, we may be sure that in departments more strictly Christian, the culpable remissness would be still more flagrant. The religious destitution of the High- lands, as appears from several reports to the Assembly on the subject in 1766, was very clamant, but no steps seem to have been taken to meet it. Indeed there can be little ques- tion, that the native Popery, instead of diminishing, grew under the adverse influences which have been referred to. It is only a living and fervent Gospel, such as that which was wielded by the Reformers at the period of the Reforma- tion, which can successfully meet it. Besides, a Roman Catholic scarcely thinks it worth while to change from the Arminianism of Popery to the Arminianism of Protestant- ism: the systems are substantially the same. Hence the Churches of the Reformation, after they became infected with cold Arminianism, made no head against Popery; nay, the Church of Rome gained fresh adherents. She has at- tractions to boast of which the Arminian school in the Church of Scotland could not present. The well authenticated re- port of the " Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge," in 1783, certifies, that from 1750, there had been an increase of two hundred Roman Catholics in the parish of Inveraven, and of seventy-seven in that of Kirk- michael, which adjoins; that in five years, one hundred and fifty had been perverted by Popish priests in the parish of Lochalsh, and that not a year passed in which the Society were not well informed of the progress of Popery in differ- ent parts of the Highlands. Shordy before the report was drawn up, a Popish academy was established at North Mo- rar, for the education of priests, and almost as soon as open- ed, there were sixteen students, most of them " sons of gen- tlemen in that country. Popish schools and chapels were also multiplied." The Society state, that their information, 438 PROTESTANT CHURCH on the best authority, leaves no room to doubt that the evil, though apparently small, is real, and if some means are not employed to prevent its progress, may in the course of a few years become truly alarming. One important mean to which the Church looked, was, as has been already hinted, pubhc aid out of the forfeited estates, for planting new churches and parishes. In 1761, the Assembly corresponded with the Board of Estates on the subject, and matters proceeded so far, that a sum of £450 was actually set apart for building a church and manse in the parish of Ardnamurchan ; but nei- ther have been erected to the present day. The Assembly was referred to the Treasury, and the Treasury had no money to spare. Perhaps the scarcity of funds may have been owing to the expenses of the seven years' war which raged at that period.* At the same time, though the spiritual character of the Church was clouded, and becoming darker and darker, there can be little question that there was still a considerable leaven of sound doctrine and true piety, even in the worst days. The Church of Scotland does not seem ever to have been abandoned by the Spirit of God, to the same extent in which other Churches of the Reformation were deserted. On ex- amining her acts and proceedings, we can still discover some traces of life. What had been begun in better days, such as bursaries, and Gaelic missionaries, and collections for Chris- * An American writer gives the following account of the Seven Years' War: — "This war raged from 1756 to 1763, and almost all the European powers were engaged in it. It originated in a dispute between England and France relating to the Canadas. The French encroached on a tract of country claimed by the English, in the wil- derness, uncultivated and uninhabited, excepting by savages ; and this war has often been called ' a strife about so many acres of snow.' The miseries which it occasioned in the interior of Europe have been seldom equalled ; and at length the Grand Signor invited the Euro- pean ministers at his Court to hold a conference, and after stating to them the great abhorrence he felt at the bloody war thus raging be- tween so many Christian nations, offered his mediation for effecting a general peace. The offer of the Mahommedan peace-maker was not accepted, but rejected with pride and scorn, and hostilities were commenced, until poverty brought peace. The war was represented by historians as one of the most successful that England was ever engaged in. One hundred ships of war were taken from the enemy or destroyed, and X12,000,0U0 sterling acquired in prize money ; but these glorious successes cost the nation two hundred and fifty thou- sand human lives, and upwards of £111,000,000 sterling! The slaughter of the opponents and allies of Great Britain, in this dread- ful contest, was little less than eight hundred thousand men I" OP FKANCE. 439 tian objects, schools, and churches, and foreign Christians, seem in many cases to have been kept up. In all proba- bility, the faithful minority were the chief contributors; but in addition, there was a Pastoral Address against Infidelity; and ministers who attended the theatre — among whom were some of the leading members of the majority in the General Assembly — were sharply censured, and steps were in some cases successfully taken for the protection of the Sabbath ; and a few chapels of ease were allowed to be built, reluctant- ly indeed, in such a way as greatly to lessen their influence; but still they struggled through, and retained some thousands within the pale of the Establishment, who otherwise would certainly have fallen into the ranks of the Secession, or what would have been infinitely worse, into the hands of irreligion and crime. Much of the remaining good which was attempted and accomplished by the faithful ministers and members of the Church, seems to have been through the channel of the " Society in Scotland for Propagating Chris- tian Knowledge." This Society, embracing many of the leading and religious men of Scotland, continued its labours through the coldest and darkest days of the Church of Scot- land. It frequenUy applied for, and received, contributions and collections for its two great objects — of spreading scrip- tural education in the destitute districts at home, and sending the Gospel to the savage Indians of America abroad. At the end of the century, it could point to an income of several thousand pounds a-year, and to three hundred and sixty schools; having, from the outset, been instrumental in com- municating a superior and industrious education to not less, it was estimated, than three hundred thousand persons. With regard, again, to its foreign missionary operations, these commenced in 1732, in aiding three ministers who were resident on the borders of the Indians' country. After various unsuccessful attempts to reach the people, Brainerd was appointed a missionary in 1743. His labours were eminently blessed, but he was succeeded by others who did not meet with the same encouragement. Various plans having failed, a contribution was made, in 1761, throughout the Church, amounting to above ^62500, to establish a semi- nary for raising native teachers. This scheme, taking all circumstances into account, was for a considerable time suc- cessful in spreading Christianity and civilization among a number of the natives. Missions to other tribes were after- wards set on foot; and though, as a whole, the work never 440 PROTESTANT CHURCH seems to have prospered with them, yet there was doubtless spiritual fruit from time to time. The Society still holds some connection with the remaining Indians of America, and other parties have now come forward to dispense among them the blessings of the Gospel. Although not one soul liad been converted, yet it was the duty of the Church, through the means and opportunites afforded her, to labour to enlarge the boundaries of the Redeemer's kingdom ; and in doing so, amid much discouragement and the most unpromis- ing materials, she doubtless had her reward, at least those of her number who possessed and cherished a missionary spirit. The great loss was, that at that period, even throughout Christendom, so few were alive to their obligations. Towards the conclusion of the darkest days of the Church (1796,) the General Assembly rejected the proposal of various Pres- byteries and Synods to send the Gospel to the heathen, by a small majority, indeed, in a small house; but the grounds upon which several of the leading men opposed the proposal were most unscriptural, and indicated views at utter variance with a just understanding of the Gospel. There might be able, and learned, and tasteful ministers among the clergy in the very sad times which we have been contemplating — though, judging by the literature which has survived, these seem to have been wonderfully few ;* but the growing igno- * There was, indeed, quite a constellation of eminent contemporary literary characters in Scotland, in the middle and towards the end of last century ; but the unevangelical and anti-popular policy in the Church can take no credit for calling them forth; at least, the friends of that policy, by doing so, only proclaim their own connection with infidelity. Most of the literati to whom we refer were either infidels, or trod on the borders of scepticism. Hume was the leading and most ingenious infidel of his time. Black, the celebrated chemist, who attended him on his death-bed, highly approved of his character. So did Adam Smith, who pronounced him as perfect a specimen of man as human nature admits of. Kaimes, though a Judge of Jus- ticiary, held, in his book on Necessity, that there is no such thing as sin or crime, and that Deity has bestowed upon men a deceitful sense that they are free, while they are really mere machines ! Hutton held that the world never had a beginning, and, of course, that Revelation is false. Robertson, though a minister of the Church, and leader of the Moderate party in the General Assembly, maintained the warm- est friendship with the most dangerous |infidels of his time — Gibbon and Hume; regetting the attacks of the former upon Christianity, not (at least he does not say so) because Gibbon was assailing the truth of God, but because it would hurt the sale of his book; and per- mitting the latter, in his correspondence, to indulge unchecked in pro- fane swearing. Robert Burns, a man, with all his acknowledged OF FRANCE. 441 ranee, and infidelity, and licentiousness, and pauperism of the country, and the general want of interest in the Church and its proceedings, plainly show that their system of doc- trine was not sound, and their whole system of management most inefficient. Sir H. Moncrieff states, tliat it "was not till the Secession broke ofl", that the parochial collections be- came inadequate for the support of the poor, and that legal assessment became necessary." Indeed, no small part of their policy seems to have consisted in doing nothing — in allowing the greatest changes to take place in society, with- out any attempt, by church or school extension, to meet them. They seem to have been afraid to move, lest they brought evil upon themselves, or danger on the Establish- ment. No wonder that, in such a country as this, such a policy should have bequeathed a world of difficulty and labour to those who were to arise after them, but with a dif- ferent spirit. That the Christians of this land may more gratefully ap- preciate the blessings which they enjoy, in being delivered from so cold and paralyzing a system, and may be animated to resist its return, it may be well to remind them that the sister country groaned at the same time under the same op- pression. We have seen that, in an early part of the cen- tury, all the Churches of the Reformation underwent a seri- ous decline, and they did not improve with its progress. The genius, of miserably immoral life, who, aware of the sanctifying" power of the doctrines of free grace, declared that the Gospel would not suit him, and that he must trust to " sincere though imperfect obedience !" was later in the day. The most respectable, in point of Christian character, of the literati to whom I refer, was Dr. Campbell of Aberdeen, the"antagonist of Hume on miracles ; and Mr. Hutchison, the Professor of Moral Philosophy in Glasgow, who, according to Wodrow's Analecta^ assembled the young men attending his class for religious instruction, on the morning of the Lord's day, and wrote an able pamphlet against Lay-Patronage, and in behalf of the rights of the Christian people in the appointment of their ministers. Even Dr. Reid, with all the meekness and amiableness of his character, seems, at an advanced period of life, to have been sadly ignorant of the Gos- pel of Christ. In a letter written to a friend on the death of a near relative — a season well fitted to stir a man's religion to the bottom — he suggests, as grounds of consolation, considerations which do not surpass the standard of Epictetus, Seneca, or Cicero ; and yet he had been a minister of the Church ! There is not the slightest reference to Revelation, though it is it alone which has brought life and im- mortality to light. Supposing, then, that Moderatism in the Church were connected with the literature of Scotland, it would have little to boast of. 442 PROTESTANT CHURCH tendency of false doctrine is to get worse and worse. There is no consistent or logical ground upon which a man can stand between holding the true Gospel and holding the principles of Infidelity. Consistent Arminianisni leads to Pelagianism (though many are happily better than their principles, and stop short in the course,) and Pelagianism leads to Arianism and Arianism leads to Socinianism, and Socinianism leads to Infidelity. Universal redemption, and universal pardon, and universal restoration, are all connected together, and lead fur- ther and further from the truth. We need not wonder then (to confine our attention to England) that the aspects of the Protes- tant Church, both Established and Dissenting, became more and more unfavourable, and that though the country was called, in the meantime, to endure trials at home and wage wars abroad, which, it might have been hoped, would have recalled to serious religion. The violent opposition with which the disinterested and most successful labours of White- field and his coadjutors were assailed in the middle of the century, is an obvious proof of the wide-spread irreligion of all ranks. The testimonies which could be produced to this purpose are innumerable. In 1772, not less than two hun- dred and fifty ministers of the Church of England petitioned Parliament to be released from the obligation of signing the Thirty-nine Articles as a Confession of Faith. Though this may seem a small number out of ten thousand clergy, yet it cannot be questioned, that there were many more who held the same sentiments, whom regard for appearances, and the fear of endangering their livings, restrained from a public expression. About the same period there was a similar proposal in the Church of Scotland, but the merciful Provi- dence of God happily defeated it, though it cannot be sup- posed that religious considerations swayed the parties who were the instruments of prevention. Alliance with the State, on the ground of recognized standards, has repeatedly proved a protection and rallying point to sound doctrine. In this connection I may state, that it has sometimes been made a question, how Principal Robertson, who began to lead the General Assembly at thirty years of age, and who continued to do so for thirty years, almost without a rival, laying the foundation of that unevangelical and anti-popular policy which has been so destructive to the Church, came suddenly and unexpectedly to abandon Church courts while yet in his prime! — and one answer, and, we believe, the true one, is, that there was a growing disposition on the part OF FRANCE. 443 of the younger men of the party to get rid of subscription to the Confession of Faith. Low as the stale of religion must have been before such a proposal could have been made, Robertson, as a far-sighted man, saw the hazard of thereby shaking the connection between Church and State, which is intended to secure the teaching, not of any doctrine, but of the Calvinistic and free grace doctrine of the standards. Widely as many may have practically departed from this, it was dangerous to avow the departure. Hence Robertson discountenanced the proposal, at the expense of displeasing not a few of his own friends, and withdrawing from their counsels. Perhaps the Principal's fears were not altogether unfounded. It is related that at least some proprietors who paid the ministers' salary, declared that the moment the signing of the Confession of Faith was given up, they would consider the alliance between Church and State at an end, and would pay no more money. This was rather a critical question at that time to agitate. Had the multitudes of op- pressed and insulted people who abandoned the Established Church for the Secession, instead of following the course which they pursued, stated to the Legislature that many of the ministers were not preaching according to the Confession of Faith, but false doctrine, and petitioned that the temporali- ties should be withdrawn from the Church till she ceased to teach error; in short, called upon the state, in a constitu- tional manner, to satisfy herself that the money which she contributed was properly applied to the purpose for which it was given, there can be little doubt that they would have exerted a very salutary check on the downward course of ministerial carelessness and error, and would, perhaps, have alarmed the Church much more than by building dissenting places of worship. It is a remarkable fact, stated by Wod- row in his ^naleda, on the authority of Lord Grange, that Lords Townsend and Somers, leading statesmen, though semi-infidels themselves, were quite opposed to Dr. Clarke's Arian doctrines on public grounds ; and declared their opin- ion, that if the received scriptural tenets were departed from, there was nothing for this country but Popery, slavery, and confusion. This indicated no small discernment on the part of irreligious statesmen, and if generally shared in by official men at a later day, might have rendered it a perilous thing to abrogate the signing of the Confession of Faith in Scot- land, even in the dark and cold reign of Principal Robertson. But to return to some proofs of the fallen Christianity of 444 PROTESTANT CHUKCH the last century. Augustus Toplady, the able defender of Calvinism, thus speaks in 1776: — " We live at a time when the generality of professed Protestants appear to have lost sight of those grand and essential principles to which the Church of England was reformed, and in defence of which her martyrs bled. Religious ignorance, and a general un- concernedness about divine things, together with the most profuse dissipation, and a growing disregard of moral virtue, are the reigning characteristics of the present age. In a country thus circumstanced, Popery (ever on the watch for advantages) will, and must, and does, gain continual ground. Ignorance, infidelity, and licentiousness, naturally terminate in superstition as their ultimate refuge; and Rome too often reaps what profaneness and immorality have sown." Addressing the clergy of the Church of England in the conclusion of his " Historical Defence of the Calvinism of that Church," he says — " Where shall we stop? We have already forsook the good old paths trod by Moses and the prophets, and by Christ and the apostles — paths in which our own reformers also trod — our martyrs, our bishops, our clergy, our universities, and the whole body of this Protest- ant, {. e., of this once Calvinislic nation. Our liturgy, our articles, and our homilies, it is true, still keep possession of our church walls ; but we pray, we subscribe, we assent one way; we believe, we preach, we write another. In the desk we are verbal Calvinists, but no sooner do we ascend a few steps above the desk, than we forget the grave character in which we appeared below, and tag the performance with a few minutes' Entertainment, compiled from the fragments bequeathed to us by Pelagius and Arminius, not to say by Arius, Socinus, and by others still worse than they. Ob- serve, I speak not of all indiscriminately. We have many great and good men, some of whom are, and some of whom are not, Calvinists. But that the glory is, in a very con- siderable degree, departed from our Established Sion, is a truth which cannot be contravened — a fact which must be lamented, and an alarming symptom which ought to be pub- licly noticed. " In the opinion of the late Dr. Young, ' almost every cottage can show us one that has corrupted, and every palace one that has renounced the faith.' Are matters much mend- ed since that pious and respectable Arminian launched the above complaint? I fear not. Is there a single heresy that ever annoyed the Christian world, which has not its present OF FRANCE. 445 partizans among those who profess conformity to the Church of England? At what point our revohings will end, God alone can tell. But this I affirm, without hesitation, and on the most meridian conviction, that Arminianism is the poi- sonous wood to which the waters of our national sanctuary are primarily indebted for all their imbitterment. In par- ticular, Arianism, Socinianism, practical Antinomianism, and infidelity itself, have all made their way through that breach at which Arminianism entered before them. Nor will the Protestant religion gain ground, or finally maintain the ground it has got, neither is it possible for the interests of morality itself to flourish, till the Arminian bondwoman and her sons are cast out, i, e., till the nominal members of our Church become real believers of its doctrines, and throw the exotic and corrupt system of Van Harmin, with all its branches and appurtenances, to the moles and to the bats." JVI^iny similar melancholy testimonies might be quoted. *' Socrates, preaching moral virtue, and dying to bear wit- ness to the unity of the Godhead, was made to the Grecian people wisdom and righteousness, not less than Jesus."* " Morality is the new creature spoken of in the New Testa- ment. Morality is all in all in the Christian religion. The Christian religion is the law of nature revived and perfected. The fruits of the Spirit are the same with the moral virtues; grace and virtue are but two names that signify the same thing."t " My brethren," says Bishop Lavington, address- ing his clergy, " I beg you will rise up with me against moral preaching. We have long been attempting the refor- mation of the nation by discourses of this kind. With what success ? None at all. On the contrary, we have dexter- ously preached the people into downright infidelity. We must change our voice, we must preach Christ and him cru- cified. Nothing but the Gospel is, nothing will be found to be, the power of God unto salvation besides. Let me, there- fore, again and again, request, may I not add, let me charge you, to preach Jesus and salvation through his name. Preach the Lord who bought us ; preach redemption through his blood; preach the saying of the great High Priest, ' He who believeth shall be saved;' preach repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. The truth, I fear, is, that many, if not the most of us, have dwelt too little on these doctrines in our sermons; by no means, in general, from disbelieving or slighting them, but partly from know- * Warburton. t Archbishop Tillotson's Sermons, passim. 446 PROTESTANT CHURCH ing that formerly they had been inculcated beyond their pro- portion, and even to the disparagement of Christian obedi- ence ; partly from fancying them so generally received and remembered, that little needs to be said but on social obliga- tions ; partly, again, from not having studied theology deeply enough to treat of them ably and beneficially. God grant that it may never have been for want of inwardly experien- cing their importance. But whatever be the cause, the effect hath been lamentable. Our people have grown less and less mindful, first, of the distinguishing articles of their creed, then, as will always be the case, of that one which they hold in common with the heathens — have forgot, in fact, their Creator, as well as their Redeemer and Sanctifier; seldom or never seriously worshipping Him, or thinking of the state of their souls in relation to Him ; but flattering themselves that what they are pleased to call a moral and harmless life, though far from being either, is the one thing needful. 'V The biographer of Hervey, speaking of the same period, says — "At that time a minister of the Church of England who ventured to maintain her articles and homilies in doc- trine, and who supported them in fact by a holy practice, was a kind of prodigy, and met with nothing but censure, persecution, and hard names from all ranks and sorts of men. Our pulpits resounded with morality, deduced from the principles of nature and the fitness of things, with no re- lation to Christ or the Holy Ghost — all which the heathen philosophers have insisted on, and perhaps with more than modern ingenuity, and in consequence of this, our streets have resounded with heathen immorality."* And what were the effects of this state of things? Such were the relaxation of discipline in the Church, and clerical carelessness, that, in 1789, the eminent Hannah More found thirteen adjoining parishes in Somersetshire, where there was not so much as a single resident curate. The popular ignorance corresponded. Out of one hundred and eight chil- dren in these parishes, drawn together to her school, not one could tell who made them ! Among the Protestant Dissenters matters were much the same. Indeed, their want of Church government, and want of connection with the State, made them more accessible to the inroads of error, of which they became the melancholy prey in the worst forms. Dr. Isaac Watts, in his Dedica- tion of his Sermons, speaking of the dissenting interest, * Herve}''s Life, p. 22. OF FRANCE. 447 says: *' As lo the savour of piety and inward religion — as to spiritual-mindedness, and zeal for God, and the good of souls — and as to the spirit and power of evangelical ministers, we may all complain. The glory is much departed from Israel." Dr. Doddridge says, " The defection of our younger minis- ters T greatly lament; the dissenting interest is not like it- self; I hardly know it. I knew the time when I had no doubt into whatever place among Dissenters I went, but that my heart would be warmed and comforted, and my edifica- tion promoted; now I hear prayers and sermons which I neither relish nor understand. Evangelical truth and duty are quite old fashioned. From many pulpits one's ears are dunned with reason — the great law of reason — the eter- nal law of reason — that it is enough to put one out of conceit with the chief excellency of our nature, because it is idolized and even deified." Job Orton, the biographer of Dod- dridge, thus expresses himself on the same subject: "Their congregations are in a wretched state. Some are dwindling to nothing, as is the case with several in this neighbourhood, where there are not now as many scores as there were hun- dreds in their meeiing-houses fifty years ago; but when, by trade and manufactures, new persons come to the place and fill up the vacant seats, there is a fatal deadness spread over the congregation. They run in the course of this world, follow every fashionable folly, and family and personal god- liness seems in general to be lost among them. There is scarcely any appearance of life or zeal in the cause of reli- gion, which demands and deserves the greatest." Again, a few years later, he writes, speaking of a minister: " I hope he will be long spared, as his life is of great importance to our interest in its present low state. 1 am glad to hear it re- vives among you, but it is almost sunk to nothing in those parts of Cheshire which I am acquainted with, and this I think, must be oAving to that which is indeed the grand source of its decay every where, the want of seriousness in our ministers, and by their principles and their practices making concessions in favour of fashionable indulgences, and neglect of religious exercises." Again, in 1777 he thus writes of the state of religion among the Dissenters of Lon- don : " I grieve for the state of things amongst us, especially in and about London. The spirit of the world, and the love of dissipation and trifles, prevail so much as to eat out the very life of religion, and throw public worship into a matter of mere entertainment, or an idle ceremony." 448 PROTESTANT CHURCH There is a striking testimony to be found in " The Con- temphitions" of the Rev. Mr. Ryland of Northampton, pub- lished in 1776. He declares, after twenty-nine years of ex- perience in the teaching of youth, from seven to twenty years of age, he never had one who had been taught by his pa- rents or former instructors in the solid evidences of the Christian religion. He adds, " if my observations be a spe- cimen of the state of the British youth in general, no won- der that the nation is going back to Popery and atheism." Perhaps the most impressive testimony, however, is to be found in the fact which appears from accredited historical docu- ments, that there must have been a falling to pieces, and de- struction of not fewer than eleven hundred dissenting churches in England, in sixty years. Neal states their places of worship, in 1715, at two thousand eight hundred; and Josiah Thom- son, sixty years after, draws up a particular catalogue, which shows only seventeen hundred and one. As the people very generally hated the unsound doctrine which the minis- ters insidiously taught, it is not difficult to explain the disap- pearance of so many congregations. It was creditable to the people, but what a sad picture does it present of the change in the ministry, and of the withering and destroying influence of false doctrine. The British Churches in peace and outward prosperity, and the French Church under de- pression and occasional persecution, are destined to exhibit the same error, and its malignant eflfects. Perhaps at this particular period, the Presbyterians of Scodand, as a whole, were the most thoroughly evangelical party in the Christian Church. They had not had time to degenerate, and they were the descendants of noble sires ; but their quarrel with the Spirit's work of revival in some of the parishes of Scot- land, and the speedy and bitter divisions which appeared among themselves, show how much they, too, were aiTected by the unhappy age in which they lived. It may be added, that the great body of the present Socinians in England are descended from the faithful Nonconformists of old. Of two hundred and six places of worship, one hundred and seventy belonged to founders, whose sentiments on the most impor- tant subjects were not only different from, but contrary to those of their pretended successors.* That this fact may * The « Christian Observer" of April 1833, has the following state- ment — " The French Protestants complain that large funds, intended for the benefit of their Church, are disposed of in a secret and irre- sponsible manner by a committee at Geneva. They state that at the OF FRAXCE. 449 not be perverted, as it has been, into an argument against popular rights in the appointment of ministers, it may not be amiss to mention anew, that it was the ministers, not the people, who were, in the first instance, unsound and hereti- cal— that it was the ministers who perverted the people — and that this was perpetuated by the pastoral appointment being vested, not in the people, but in a very small body of trustees, whose funds, were sufficiently large to enable them, in a great measure, to maintain religious worship without the aid or control of the people. I have been in- formed by those who have given some attention to the sub- ject, that the same holds true of the heterodox ministers who, for so many years, poisoned the Churches of America and Ireland. It was not the breadth but the narrowness of tiie popular basis which was the source of evil. Even the most popular constitution may not, in every case, be an effectual protection against false doctrine; but, as a general rule, it is a far better protection than any other, whether lay or clerical, which can be devised. The Presbyterian Dis- senters of Scotland, who have now subsisted for a century, and can boast of several hundred congregations, were never accused of any love of Arminianism, or Arianism, or So- cinianism, though the right of electing their ministers is placed on the most popular footing. But, to return from these observations to the state of reli- gion, or rather the want of religion, in England, toward the close of the last century, I cannot better conclude than in the time of the persecution of their ancestors, a considerable sum was raised by some French Protestant families for the promotion of reli- gion, and especially in assisting the studies of candidates for holy orders, and that this fund has been largely increased by gifts and le- gacies. Its administration, in the days of persecution, was of neces- sity secret, and placed beyond the limits of France; but its objects were essentially French, and the period for secrecy having long pass- ed, the descendants of the donors wish an account of the amount of the funds, and the mode of apportioning them. The very names of the secret committee are only a matter of conjecture, and the whole affair is involved in mystery. We fear, however, there is too much reason to believe that they have for some years been rendered subser- vient to the growth of Neology instead of building up the pure Pro- testant Church, for which the original donors hazarded their property, their liberty, and their lives." This is quite in accordance with the proceedings of Socinians in other quarters — in short, v^herevcr it has had the opportunity ; and yet it pretends to be the great patron of justice, and candour, and charity, and freedom — in other words, the only representative of true Christianity! 29 450 PROTESTANT CHURCH words of the celebrated Jonathan Edwards, in his History of Redemption, written in 1773. Speaking of England, and the Christian Church generally, he says — " In this kingdom those principles on which the power of godliness depends, are in a great measure exploded, and Arianism, and Socinian- ism, and Arminianism, and Deism, are the things which pre- vail and carry ahnost all before them. And particularly, history gives no account of any age wherein there was so great an apostasy of those who had been brought up under the light of the Gospel, to infidelity; never was there such a casting off of the Christian and all revealed religion; never any age wherein so much scoffing at, and ridiculing the Gos- pel of Christ by those who have been brought up under Gos- pel light, nor any thing like it, as there is at this day." And now full manifestation having been made of the de- pravity of man, and of the insufficiency of all ecclesiastical forms and arrangements to preserve the Gospel in its purity, God was pleased to interpose in mercy, and make the very weakness of the Church, and the wickedness of men, sub- servient to revival and restoration. Carelessness and error in the Church — violent settlements — ministers subscribing doctrines which plainly they did not believe — men of no reli- gion persecuting the faithful, and then conforming to the same communion for a piece of bread — the undue exaltation of human reason and the freedom of the will, the favourite tenets of Arminianism; — these, and various other things, had spread irreligion and infidelity widely among the more educated classes of society. In the meantime, there was a sudden enlargement of the resources of the people, through commercial and manufacturing channels, and withal, a great enlargement of the numbers of the people, while the Estab- lished Church denied them the means of adequate or sound religious instruction. What could be expected to follow from this state of things? Infidelity descends from the liigher to the humbler classes, and is greedily swallowed. This hatred to the restraints of God and of man (for that is true infidelity,) takes a direction to political rights and liberty. Popish France, with its Protestantism well nigh extinguished, and with a more excitable people, had still less to keep its infidelity in check than even this country. Hence all social bands were loosed, and a revolution of unprecedented horrors burst forth. The contajrion spread to this country. Paine is read, or rather devoured, wherever the people can read, and this is peculiarly true of Scotland. The middle and OF FRA^XE. 451 higher classes, who had patronized irreligion and infidelity, get alarmed for themselves and the nation, when they see their own work in practical exemplification. There is an immediate and general conviction that it is only true efl&cient religion which can preserve the people in social order, and minister consolation amid the changes of time and the terrors of revolution. Men in office, and thousands on thousands not in office, betake themselves to the churches which, as in Popish lands, they had in a great degree abandoned to females, and now proceed to set an example to the humbler classes, of reverence for religion and submission to its claims. In the meantime, the French Revolution moves on with its scenes of indescribable atrocity. Infidelity, produced in a great measure by the unfaithfulness of the Church, is pictured forth in blood before her eyes. The event is sanctified to many. Thousands begin to turn to God for safety, and to think seriously of religion. They see the vanity of that cold, careless formalism which had been so much patronized by the Church. They inquire for the fervour and power of evangelical truth. Men and ministers who are already faith- ful, are stirred up to new zeal. The inquiries of others quicken their own activities; and the consequence is, that, at the very time when Satan is hoping for, and the timid are fearing, an utter overturn of true religion, there is a revival, and the Gospel expands its wings and prepares for a new flight. It is worthy of remembrance, that 1792, the very year of the French Revolution, was also the year when the " Baptist Missionary Society" was formed, a society which was followed, during the succeeding, and they the worst, years of the Revolution, with new societies of un- wonted energy and union, all aiming, and aiming successfully, at the propagation of the Gospel of Christ, both at home and abroad. What withering contempt did the great Head of the Church thus pour upon the schemes of infidels! And how did He arouse the careless and instruct His own peo- ple, by alarming providences, at a season when they greatly needed such a stimulus and excitement! The first favoura- ble religious change, then, in this country, in recent times, may be attributed to the French Revolution. That event in its consequences — in the wars and sufferings which it created over Europe — has, doubtless, been blessed to many in vari- ous countries of the Continent. It has taught them the inse- curity and vanity of earthly distinctions, and led them up to God himself as the only refuge of the soul. The favourable 452 PROTESTANT CHURCH changes which have appeared in Prussia and Holland have been traced to this influence. And if public trials have ope- rated in this way in tlieir result, is it strange that they should have acted in a similar manner at their appalling commence- ment and prospects? I am happy in these views to be borne out by the following statement of Dr. Tholuck, Professor of Theology at Halle. Speaking of the revival of rehgion in Germany, at a somewhat later date to the French Revolution, he says,* — and his observations apply to the Churches of the Reformation generally — " One of the most interesting views in Church history, is to examine how Christianity revives and shines with new lustre after having been greatly obscured and almost extin- guished. The period of the first French Revolution was the time of the greatest abasement of the Christian revelation. In Germany we never went so far as the French ; we never publicly abolished religious worship, and condemned as a crime the adoration of Jesus Christ crucified. But though the grave character of the Germans preserved them from these excesses, they drank even more deeply of infidelity. "While in France the people, led astray by satirical poets and pretended philosophers, broke crosses, drove away priests, and shut churches; in Germany, learned men, and even ministers of the Church, endeavoured to rest upon science the foundation of scepticism, and to prove that the Gospel was no more a revelation of God than the various religions successively adopted by the human race. " What was, at the beginning of this century, the state of theology in Germany? We may know by the religious and literary journals published at that time. There was a perfect calm on great religious questions. No one doubted that Ra- tionalism was, and must be, the only religion of enlightened men. Here and there, on the shores of the Baltic Sea, in Pomerania and in the remote provinces of Prussia, were a few obscure orthodox pastors; but every body supposed they, too, would soon be persuaded to follow the general example. Rationalists had no need of defending their cause, for, with a few unimportant exceptions, they met with no adversaries. Peace was in the Church ; but what a peace ! It was the tranquillity of death. Sometimes infidelity broke forth in shameful acts. Thus, at the beginning of this cen- tury, the students of theology of one of the most celebrated universities of Germany, dared to carry the Bible in proces- * Vide Address to the Students of Divinity at Strasburgh in 1837. OF FRANCE. 453 sion, and inter it with mockery, pronouncing over the tomb of this Bible a sacrilegious funeral oration. Oh I who could then have foreseen the religious contest which we now wit- ness? Who could have thought that in every city of impor- tance the struggle would be renewed between the orthodox and Rationalists, and that we should see every where socie- ties for missions. Bibles, and pious books ? Who could have imagined that politicians would eagerly seek the support of revealed truth, and that philosophy herself would be judged of in a Christian point of view? *♦ Whence came this religious movement? Not from halls where professors give their lectures. Young men who are studying the sciences often believe that the universities are the fields of battle on which are decided the destinies of the kingdom of God. But it is not so, my dear friends. Man lives not by the bread only which professors distribute; and the theologian must not confine his view to that side. The history of our religious revival is a striking proof that God can make bread of stones, and restore the life of faith by means which no one could have foreseen. *' The first attack against Rationalism, the first step taken to return to the Gospel, was on the part of the poets of the romantic school ! You can form no idea of the impression pro- duced by the poetry of Tiek, Novalis, Mai de Schenkendorf, and other writers of the same school. Cold and barren Ra- tionalism was smitten and wounded to the heart by the noble and ardent inspirations of these poets, who sought, in the bottom of our nature, the primitive wants of the human soul. ** At the same time, philosophy penetrated more deeply into the knowledge of our moral faculties, and restored their rights to sentiments which had been repudiated by Rational- ism. Christian doctrines began to be examined under a new aspect, and to be regarded, at least, as the expression of great thoughts, containing all true philosophy. " It was perceived that there was no contradiction between Christianity rightly explained, and other departments of human knowledge ; and that, when the Gospel was sought in the Gospel, the solu- tion was found of the most difficult problems of our moral nature. All this reconciled to Christianity such men as Eschenmeyer, Schwaz, Daub, Schubert, and others, who became afterwards skilful and zealous defenders of the Bible. '* But this literary and scientific movement would not pro- bably have produced new life in the Church, if it had not been followed by a powerful appeal addressed to all who possessed 454 PROTESTANT CHURCH a German heart. I speak of the great and bloody struggle, maintained in 1813 and 1814 against Napoleon, in order to achieve again the independence of Germany. If it is true that the Emperor Alexander said, ' The burning of Moscow lighted the flame of religion in my soul,' many others can hold nearly the same language. 1 was then a youth when Germany was called to contend for her freedom ; but I well re- member that this memorable event awakened religious desires in hearts which had remained, till then, strangers to every Christian sentiment. Every one was penetrated with this thought, that if aid came not from on high, no aid is to be expected on earth, and that the moment was come for the display of the eternal justice which governs the world. The inhabitants of Prussia, in particular, turned their attention to religion ; and from that period the heart of the King of Prus- sia was opened to the truths of Christianity. Germany be- gan to feel that she could not, in such grave and painful cir- cumstances, forsake the piety of our fathers. They were taken for models; but it was perceived, that to have their confidence in God, and their courage in dangers, it was also necessary to resume their faith, and that thus a new sap might circulate in all branches of our Protestant Churches. " Inquiries and reflections were directed anew to the grand period of the Reformation in the sixteenth century. The Rationalists had almost entirely effaced the remembrance of this glorious time, and seemed to despise it as a period of ignorance and barbarism. Two distinguished theologians assured me, that during the whole course of their studies in the Universities of Halle and Wirtemberg, they had hardly once heard a quotation borrowed from the writings of the Reformers ! But as soon as Germany returned to evangeli- cal sentiments, a great change appeared in this respect. The writings of Luther, Zwinglius, Melancthon, and Calvin, were reprinted by thousands of copies. Ecclesiastics and laymen read, with serious attention, these monuments of the piety of the Reformers, and tried to return with them to the unity of the faith. " Here should be mentioned the festival of the Reforma- tion, celebrated in 1817. Then, especially, sermons, books, lectures of Professors, all our theology, was impregnated with the opinions and language of our pious ancestors. See what abundant fruits this evangelical spirit has borne for twenty years in our Church! What department of Theo- logical science does not now possess books written in a OF FRANCE. 455 Christian spirit? How many excellent works of piety dif- fuse among thousands of hearers or readers the love of sacred things? There are, in the north and south of Germany, presses wholly employed in the publication of books com- posed by true friends of the Gospel. How many associa- tions, religious and philanthropic, and founded on principles of Christian love ! Recollect our Societies for Sunday schools, for orphans, for the amelioration of prisons, for the education of children ! ♦'Traverse all Germany; inquire into the origin of her institutions, and you will be convinced that they owe their existence to the revival of rehgion. True, the old school of Rationalists have still some organs in our literature; but their influence is feeble, their authority diminishes every day, and though they do not admit that their last hour ap- proaches, the fact is not less certain. The feebleness of the Rationahst journals may be seen, by considering to what miserable sliifts they are put to attract public attention. They do not scruple to employ personalities, slanders, and scandal, in favour of their cause, as if these were proper arms to defend a system attacked on all hands by most powerful antagonists. "I say with all assurance, if we look attentively at the present state of our theology and our piety, we shall be con- vinced that a new period is open to the extension and estab- lishment of the kingdom of God. Is it not the same in other countries of the Christian world ? Every where there is a movement bringing back the present generations to the faith of their predecessors — to the faith of the Reformers, the martyrs, and apostles. Every where war is maintained vigorously against the lax opinions of Deism and Rationalism. Look at France, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, the German Provinces of Russia — at England, Scotland, North America. In all these countries two parlies exist, and the Gospel gains ground over its adversaries. One Protestant country alone seems, at least in part, to remain at present unaffected by this general movement: I speak of Hungary. Is it, then, by chance that from Petersburg to the Alps, and from France to the banks of the Mississippi, a new spirit animates the world? No: we must be convinced that God is preparing great things for his Church ; that he is opening a new period, in which learning will be reunited to piety, and that magnifi- cent destinies are reserved to the Gospel of Christ. Per- haps Cliristianity will yet sustain rude shocks, pass through 456 PROTESTANT CHURCH the fire of persecution, and submit to the baptism of blood ; but it will be purified, strengthened by these trials, and will assert its empire." CHAPTER VIII. FROM 1792 TO THE PRESENT TIME, 1840. Many men entertain the notion that it is only religious par- ties who are intolerant and persecuting, and that ihe irreli- gious and the infidel are liberal, and lovers of freedom. It would not be difficult to show, on principles of reason, that such an idea is altogether unfounded, and that only true Christianity can make men really respect aright the privi- leges of others. Nor would it be difficult to gather from the writings of infidels, ancient and modern, ample evidence, that they are essentially intolerant of divine truth and its friends. It w^ould be easy to show, for instance, that Hume, throughout his w^hole History, palliates the persecutor and blackens the persecuted, where living Christianity is associa- ted with the latter; that Voltaire condemns the suffering Protestants of France as weak and obstinate men, because they endured persecution, while he extols Galileo as a mar- tyr, though he was guilty of a cowardly recantation of which the poorest Protestant would have been ashamed. We might quote, too, the following remarkable passage from Rousseau, in a published letter to D'AIembert, where, speaking of what he calls fanaticism, but what we might probably call true religion, he says, "Fanaticism is not an error, but a blind senseless fury, which reason can never keep within bounds. The only way to hinder it from spreading, is to restrain those who broach it. In vain is it to demonstrate to madmen that they are deceived by their leaders ; still will they be as eager as ever to follow them. I see but one way to stop its progress, and that is to combat it with its own weapons. Little does it avail either to reason or convince. You must lay aside philosophy, shut your books, take up the sword, and punish the knaves." These sentiments occur in a letter in which he praises pacific dispositions, and denounces per- secution ! Such is the consistency of infidel philosophers. But it is unnecessary to appeal to the writings of infidelity; her practice, in the treatment alike of Roman Catholics and OP FRANCE. 457 Protestants, in the course of the French Revolution, has settled for ever the question of her tolerant spirit. On the twentieth of September, the National Convention abolished the Sabbath, a day sacred in the eyes of every Christian, by decreeing a new division of the year. The decree runs in these words: *'That the era of the French shall be reckoned from the foundation of the Republic, which took place twenty-second September 1792 ; that the Christian or vulgar era is abolish- ed; that the year is divided into twelve months, each of thirty days, after which five days shall ensue, ^yhich shall make part of no month whatever. Each month shall be divided into three parts of ten days each. The months shall bear the names of the Liberty and Equality of the people, of the Regeneration of the Mountain, of the Republic, of the Tennis Court of Unity, of Fraternity, of the Pikes, of the Sans Culottes, &:c., &c. The days shall bear the name of the level of liberty, of the national cockade, of tlie plough, of the compass, of the fasces, of cannon, of oak, of rest," &:c., &c. The report on which this decree proceeded is said to have been made up by the first French astronomers, and was received by the Convention with bursts of applause. It may be said that a Government is entitled to make what division of the year it pleases, and that this involves no per- secution; but what did Infidelity do as soon as she had changed the week into a decade, or a period of ten days? She ordered reclaiming merchants to keep open their shops on the Sabbath, under the penalty of being considered sus- pected persons if they dared to shut them; and it is com- manded that religious exercises, instead of being observed on the Sabbath, shall be celebrated on the last day of the decades. The municipality of Paris decreed, "That all the churches or temples, of whatever religion or worship existing in Paris, shall be instantly shut; and that every individual who should seek for the opening of a church or temple, shall be arrested as a suspicious person." It was decreed by the Convention, that a colossal monument should be raised in the great hall of the commonalty of Paris, to proclaim the suppression of all religious worship; to bear on its front the word Light, on its breast Nature and Truth, and on its arms Strength and Courage. A deputation of citizens from the department of Cantal addressed the Convention in these terms; "One thing is wanting to the Revolution — one department has been eager to give an example of philosophy — we have suppressed 458 PROTESTANT CHUBCH priests and their worship. The Eternal will have among us no other temples than our hearts, and no other worship than acts of civism." When the goddess of Reason, in the person of a prostitute, was worshipped, the multitude ex- claimed, " No more altars ! No more priests ! No other God but a God of Nature !" " In the wretched city of Lyons, not only was public worship suppressed, and the churches de- filed, but the most gross outrage was committed on every thing sacred. On the tenth of November, an ass, dressed out in a sacerdotal habit, was led in procession through the town by two sans culottes, carrying a sacred cup, out of which they gave the animal drink; and when they arrived at one of the public edilices, Bibles books of devotion, &c., &c., were piled up in a heap, which was set on fire amidst horrid shouts from a vast concourse of people, ' Long live the Sans Culottes !' " It was not mere Popery which was put down: Protestan- tism shared the same fate. The doctrines of a future state and day of judgment were derided — the Sabbath abolished — public worship prohibited — the Book of God consumed to aslies — Christianity, as a whole, nationally disowned and contemned— the worship of Nature and Reason alone allowed. Indeed, during the reign of Terror, the Protestants were proportionally more persecuted than the Roman Catholics. Out of one hundred and fifty guillotined in the district of Gard, one hundred and seventeen were Protestants — many of them persons of wealth and consideration. Many good men, both in this country and on the Conti- nent, imagined that the French Revolution was to prove the handmaid, as well as the harbinger, of true religion ; and when the aged Protestant pastor Rabaut was seated in the chair of the National Convention in 1790, it might well be esteemed a wonderful triumph over former prejudice and persecuiion; but the freedom was as brief as it was baseless. Soon did infidelity show its native ferocity — its unquenchable hatred to the truth and cause of God in every form ; so that, as has been well said by Mr. Haldane, " the little finger of this monster was found to be thicker than its predecessor's loins." It might have been imagined that infidelity, which boasted so much of philanthropy, would have been kind to the Protestants, as a party which had suffered long and severely at the hands of the Romish Church. But, no. The religious Protestant meetings, which had been connived at under Louis XVI., were utterly prohibited. Every private OF FRANCE. 459 library was plundered of its religious books. Any of the writings of the good old authors of the Protestant Church, which had survived the fury of Popery, were destroyed, or if saved, were saved only by being buried under ground, and hence their scarcity and expense. One of the Protest- ant pastors was compelled to make gunpowder in his own church on the Lord's day. Wherever a Bible could be found it might be said to be persecuted to death; so much so, that several respectable commentators interpret the slaying of the two witnesses in the eleventh chapter of the Apocalypse, of the general suppression, nay, destruction, of the Old and New Testaments in France at this period. The fall of the witnesses is to be accompanied with national rejoicings; and it is a remarkable circumstance, that twenty-six theatres in Paris were open and filled to overflowing, at a season when, in a single month (July, 1794,) not less than eight hundred persons, of chief consideration, perished by the guillotine in the metropolis alone. It is not my object to go into the hor- rors of the French Revolution; that were foreign to the de- sign of these chapters. It is only so far as they have a bear- ing upon the Protestant Church that 1 have been called to notice them. The simple fact which is stated by Mr. Alison, in his able " History of the French Revolution," that so early as 1792 the Convention had absorbed more than two-thirds of the landed property of the country, owing to the perpetual confiscation of the estates of the emigrant nobility, and that human life was sacrificed at the rate of one thousand lives per day, may satisfy any one that the persecutions of Infi- delity were of the most appalling kind. A spot is still shown near the Notre Dame in Paris, where women were as busy in the use of the guillotine as men ; and the only difl^erence between the two was, that the women tucked up their sleeves for the work of blood. It is a remarkable illustration of the moral retribution of Heaven, that the journalists, who were all infidels, and most active agents in pressing forward the Revolution, sufi'ered most severely in the hurricane which they were instrumental in awakening. Infidelity had its punishment even in a present life. It has been stated, and 1 believe the statement is correct, that all the Presidents of the National Convention, with a few exceptions, were journalists — men connected with the press, and using it as tlieir great weapon; and the following were their fortunes: — Out of sixty-three who were raised to the President's chair, eighteen were guillotined; three com- 460 PROTESTANT CHURCH mitted suicide; eight were transported; six were imprisoned for life; four became mad, and died at Bicetre, an hospital for the insane; twenty-two were declared outlaws; and only- two escaped a heavy infliction of some kind. In eight short years, from 1789 to 1797, at least one-half of the political writers of Paris, who were also infidels, perished by violence. But it should never be forgotten, that whatever may have been the instrumental causes of the Revolution — such as the anti-social influence of infidelity, and the return of soldiers from a country where republican principles had just been triumphant, and the gross mismanagement, abuses, and des- potism of the Government at home — that the real and efficient moral causes are to be found in the protracted persecution, and almost destruction, of the Evangelical Church of France. Mere political writers may not enter into such views ; but to those who make the Word of God iheir standard of judg- ment, they are the only sound ones. It was to be expected that the great Head of the Church would not allow the blood of so many hundreds and thousands of His saints to be poured forth without challenge — that He would punish the nation which, without reason, oppressed and massacred those dear to Him as the apple of His eye. This is a principle of government to which the history of the world bears ample testimony. The persecutors of the saints are, in their turn, almost always suff"erers; and the course of events in bringing about this result in France, strikingly showed that it was indeed the persecution of the Church which was the remote cause of the Revolution. What produced the infidelity which awoke and carried through that dread event? It was the burying of the Bible — the extinguishing of that visible Church which alone presented Christianity in a light which com- mended it to the conscience, and admitted of vindication be- fore intelligent minds. What chance had the absurdities of the Breviary against Voltaire? It should be remembered, that by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, six hundred evangelical churches were at once destroyed — a discipline, which had maintained a large body of people in remarkable purity of morals, broken up — several hundred thousands driven into exile — a million and a half, including thousands of children, left uneducated, to wander as sheep without a shepherd, in the midst of wolves. Let it be considered, also, that the many and powerful con- troversial writings of the Protestant Church had laid bare all the weaknesses, and absurdities, and tricks of the Church OF FRANCE. 461 of Rome; and that while all good books were buried or pro- hibited, the press did nothing for half a century among an acute and inquiring people, alive to the ludicrous, than pour forth a torrent of licentious and sarcastic scepticism. Need we wonder at the infidel, immoral, atrocious result! Mark the justice of God. Popery, by destroying Protestantism, let loose and gave encouragement to infidelity, which, in its turn, brought on a frenzied political Revolution, which over- threw Popery and trampled it in the dust. It was only a warm, zealous, evangelical Church, and a well educated Pro- testant clergy, which could have successfully contended with scepticism and unbelief; and both were wanting; yea, their opposites were present. Thus did Christ avenge the wrongs of His saints. He punished the persecutor with infidelity in religion, and anarchy and revolution in the political relations of society. He showed the most powerful enemies that they cannot injure the humblest of His people with impunity. But to return. How could a Christian Church be expected to live, and far less to flourish, amid such confusion and slaughter as the French Revolution? For ten years, the Protestant religion, and all religion, might be said to be al- most extinguished. During the greater part of this period there was no Sabbath. Time was regulated by decades ; and what must be the condition of a Christian Church which is a stranger to the Sabbath ? The interpreters of prophecy, who think the slaying of the witnesses fulfilled in the sup- pression of the Scriptures, have remarked that, agreeably to the prophecy of the raising up of the witnesses in three years and a half, there was a favourable enactment in 1797, under the head of " Revision of the Laws relative to Reli- gious Worship," in virtue of which all citizens, Protestants as well as Roman Catholics, might purchase or hire edifices for the free exercise of religious worship, and that without laying ministers under any test or restriction. Whatever mitigation of the universal persecution this may have afibrd- ed, there can be little question that it was not till 1802, or ten years from the beginning of the Republic, that any steps decidedly advantageous to the Protestant cause can be said to have been adopted. Previous to this, the poverty of the Protestants, in a great measure, prevented them from buying or hiring places of worship, and so availing themselves of any favourable change which may have occurred ; but now that the bloody republic of infidelity was over, and the con- 462 PROTESTANT CHURCH sulship of Bonaparte begun, an important measure of tole- ration was passed. It was found, after trial, that a nation could not do without religion. The human mind, weary with the uncertainties and horrors of infidelity, longed for peace, and turned towards the old superstition. At the same time, a large body of the conquered subjects of the French sceptre were Protestant in their religious profession; hence it was desirable for this, as well as other reasons, that the Protestants of France should be well treated. It was by the treatment measured out to them that Protestants of other parts of Europe were to learn what they themselves were to expect. Napoleon saw the force of this ; and while peace, by a celebrated concordat, was established between the French Government and the Pope of Rome, the Reformed Church was favoured with a protection and countenance to which it had been long a stranger. I cannot omit one or two sentences from the speech of Portalis, Minister of Public Worship, on the restoration of religion in France. *' It is religion alone that affords a consolation for the in- equality of rank, for chagrin and affliction, that collects and relieves from their fatigues the inhabitants of an immense territory. The Government could not, therefore, hesitate to adopt an institution which makes the most essential truths the domains of the public conscience, which calms every mind, which calls all men to justice and humanity, and es- tablishes equality among all ranks. Christianity has the sanction of time and the respect of nations, and though it is distinguished into Catholic and Protestant, these are only two branches from the same trunk. Christianity has civilized Europe; it has created a social disposition in the countries where it has penetrated; it connects itself with the progress of the arts and sciences." In accordance with these views of the importance of reli- gion, the First Consul went in great pomp to Notre Dame, from which the altar of infidelity was removed in order to honour Christianity. The statue of Mars was displaced from the Temple of the Invalids, churches were reopened, and the Sabbath restored to its ancient rule. With regard to the Protestants, they were well received at the seat of power. Bonaparte graciously addressed, and promised them an am- ple toleration. A code of discipline, founded on their ancient acts of Synod, was authoritatively drawn up for their guid- ance. We select, as a specimen, an interesting extract from OF FRANCE. 463 it on the ministry, quoted in a paper on the " History and Prospects of the French Protestant Church," which ap- peared in the " Christian Observer" of 1825. *' The examination of the candidate shall begin with a theme in French, on certain texts which shall be given him from the Scriptures, and another in Latin, if the Conference or Synod shall judge it to be expedient. For each of these discourses twenty-four hours shall be allowed for preparation. If the company are satisfied with these, they shall examine him in a chapter of the New Testament, to ascertain how far he understands and can interpret Greek ; and in the He- brew language they shall examine whether he knows enough of it to enable him, at least, to make use of valuable works to assist him in understanding the Scriptures. To these shall be added a trial of his knowledge of the most necessary parts of philosophy ; but all in a spirit of kindness, and with- out aiming at thorny and useless questions. Finally, he shall make a short confession of his faith in Latin, and shall be examined on it by oral discussion. "Those who shall be elected shall subscribe the Confes- sion of Faith agreed upon amongst us, and also the Code of Ecclesiastical Discipline in the Churches in which they shall be elected, and in those to which they shall be sent. " The duty of ministers is chiefly to preach the Gospel, and declare the Word of God to their people. They shall be exhorted to abstain from every mode of instruction which is not conducive to edification, and to conform themselves to the simplicity and general style of the Spirit of God, taking care that there shall not be any thing in their discourses which can detract from the authority of the Holy Scriptures, which they shall generally follow, and from which they shall take a text which they shall explain to the best of their ability; ab- staining from all unnecessary amplifications, from long and irrelevant digressions, from quoting a mass of superfluous passages, and from a useless repetition of various interpreta- tions. They shall quote the writings of the ancient doctors but sparingly, and still less profane history and authors. They shall not treat of doctrines in a scholastic manner, or with a mixture of languages ; in short, they shall avoid every thing which may lead to ostentation, or excite a sus- picion of it. " The churches are enjoined to make more frequent use of the catechism, .and the ministers to explain it by succinct, simple, and familiar questions and answers, adapting them- 464 ' PROTESTANT CHURCH selves to the ignorance of the people, without entering upon long discussions upon common-place subjects. It will also be the duty of ministers to catechize every individual of their flocks once or twice a year, and to exhort every per- son to come carefully to the examination. " Those to whom God has given talents for writing, are exhorted to do so in a modest manner, becoming the majesty of God, consequendy not to write in a light and injurious strain; which propriety and gravity they shall also maintain in their ordinary style of preaching." These were, all circumstances considered, good regula- tions, much more unexceptionable than might have been ex- pected, and much more in keeping with Scripture. For the better understanding of the position of the Protestant Church at that time, we add a few more. *' No doctrine, nor alteration of doctrine, shall be published or taught, without being first authorized by the Government. " The maintenance of ministers shall be provided for, wherever the property and oblations of the communities fall short. ♦' The articles for tlie liberty of foundations in the organic laws of the Catholic worship, shall be common to the Pro- testant Churches. " There are to be two seminaries, one in the East of France for the instruction of ministers of the Confession of Augsburg, and the other at Geneva for the Reformed Church- es. The professors are to be named by the first Consul, and no minister to be appointed without a certificate of his having studied in the seminary of his religion. The rules for the government of these seminaries to be also settled by the Government. " The Reformed Churches of France shall have pastors, local consistories, and Synods. There shall be a consistorial church for every six thousand souls of the same communion. Five consistorial churches shall form the district of a Synod. " The number of the ministers or pastors in the same consistorial church cannot be increased without the authority of Government. " The pastors cannot resign without stating their motives to Government, which shall approve or reject them. *' The title of elecdon shall be presented to the First Con- sul for his approbation. " All the pastors now in exercise are provisionally con- firmed. OF FRANCE. 465 " Each Synod shall be composed of a pastor and a notable of each church. The Synods shall superintend the celebra- tion of worship and conduct of ecclesiastical affairs, and all their decisions shall be submitted for the approbation of Go- vernment. The Synods cannot assemble until they have received the permission of Government, and no Synodal As- sembly shall last more than six days." If the Church of France had reason to complain before of the persecution of the ecclesiastical power, she had not less reason now to complain of the unscriptural interference of civil authority. The deliverance vouchsafed, and the pro- tection afforded, after a long course of suffering, might tempt her members to acquiesce in the jurisdiction of Napoleon in sacred things, but nothing could be more inconsistent with the spirit or requirements of the Word of God. The very fact of the Protestant Church so universally and tamely sub- mitting to it, is a plain proof that her people had lost much of the religion for which they were once distinguished. It would have been bad enough to have given such a power as that of determining what doctrines were to be taught — the number of ministers — their appointment — the judging of their dissensions, and resignation, &c., to any civil ruler, even the most eminently Christian; but to commit it to the hands of one so unprincipled, ambitious, and wicked as the First Consul, was in the last degree unwarrantable. But the Church was daily becoming more and more unsound, and irreligious men care not about compromises — they pre- fer peace to principle. The Protestant Church might now be said to be thoroughly Erastian — one of the great dangers of the present day to all the Churches of Christ. It appears from the statement of a deputation from the London Mis- sionary Society to France at this period, that it was estimated there were not less than from thirty thousand to forty thou- sand Protestants in Paris ; and that, so far as could be gather- ed, they were, as a whole, deplorably ignorant. In proof of this, it may be mentioned that it required four days' search among the booksellers' shops of the metropolis, ere a single Bible could be found. No wonder that, in such circum- stances, the Protestants humbled themselves, as a Church, to the most unworthy concessions. The dread of Napo- leon's arm, if provoked, might tend to the same acquiescence. But while we mark what was contrary to principle in the conduct of the Protestant Church, we must not lose sight of the important advantages to which her members were now 30 466 PROTESTANT CHURCH admitted. They were protected in the free exercise of their religious worship, and many public edifices were granted for that end — some of them being deserted Roman Catholic churches, others public barracks, or buildings used for simi- lar objects. On the Protestants of Paris complaining to Na- poleon of their need of places of worship, he asked them how many they wished, and being informed that three were necessary, he pointed to as many Popish churches, and told them at once to assume them as theirs. Land, too, was given to aid the cause of this Church extension. Nor were the pastors forgotten. They were, like their fathers at an earlier day, favoured with assistance from the public purse, while seminaries were opened for the instruction of young men intended for the ministry. These were most important benefits. In some respects, indeed, the Protestants were more favoured than the Roman Catholics. The former en- joyed theological seminaries, which were not granted to the latter. The Protestant pastors at Paris were decorated with the gold cross of the Legion of Honour, of which Roman Catholic priests of the same rank could not boast. When the Popish party began to murmur, Protestants were raised at once to the vacant offices of Minister of Public Worship, and Minister of Police — situations of great power and re- sponsibility— which afforded excellent means of protecting the Protestant cause. Imperial edict after edict was issued in their behalf; nor was Napoleon long in possession of the sovereign authority, before he restored to the Protestant Church the University of Montauban, of which the Revoca- tion of the Edict of Nantes had deprived them. All this was most encouraging ; and w-hatever might be his motives, called for their devoutest gratitude to God. Comparatively favourable, however, as might be the ex- ternal circumstances of the Protestant Church, I need scarce- ly say that her spiritual character, which had already dege- nerated, continued still further to decline. There were va- rious adverse influences at work. The open reign of infidelity and merciless persecution for ten long years — the wide- spread horrors of civil and foreign war — the silencing and dispersion of the pastors — the destruction of the Sriptures and works of sound theology — and, above all, the education of such pastors as remained, not at a French university, but at Geneva, or Lausanne, or Strasburg, where, long before this time, the Gospel of Christ had been supplanted by the pernicious errors of Pelagius, and Arius, and Socinus ; these OF FRANCE. 467 influences were all hostile to the spiritual character of the Protestant Church. There was every thing to break down its Christianity, and nothing on the other side to raise or en- large it. It was not renewed connection with the State under Napoleon, unwarrantable as, in many respects, the terms of that connection were, which wrought the mischief. The Church had, in the purest and best days of its history, been recognized and assisted by the State, and to manifest advantage; but before the patronage of the First Consul was extended, it had lost its character, and instruments of stiU further deterioration were in active exercise. All that can be said of the protection and patronage of Napoleon is, that they did not restore the character of the Church — that the Church, from far different causes, was previously so completely destroyed, that she could not avail herself of ad- vantages which, in other circumstances, might have been of considerable importance. And even as the case stood, though the public favour came too late to do the Protestants any real Christian good, we have no reason to believe it wrought any evil. The faithful men who remained rejoiced in their im- proved external condition; and there was nothing in this which was adverse to their spiritual progress. I have endeavoured to show how serious was the declen- sion under which the Protestant Church laboured in the days of Napoleon Bonaparte, in the beginning of the present cen- tury, and the circumstance of being almost inaccessible to Christian influence from without, must have deepened the religious desolation. The only counteractive and propitious agency, on the other side, was the institution of the " Bible Society" and the circulation of the French Scriptures. What- ever may have been the unhappy and culpable administra- tion of those in the management at an after period, there seems to be litde doubt that the diflJ'usion of the Word of God was at that time attended with important advantages. So early as 1810, we read of four thousand copies of the French New Testament having been purchased and sent to difl^erent parts of France, where they were well received, and of steps being taken to publish an edition of the Old Tes- tament in the same language. In every subsequent year, so far as the circumstances of the country would allow, the same great and good work was carried forward. When the peace came in 1815, multitudes flocked from Britain to the Continent, from which they had been so long debarred, and among these some devoted Christians, who made it their 468 TROTESTANT CHURCH care to use all their influence to diffuse the Gospel of Christ. In this best of all works their labours were crowned wdth the Divine blessing; and from that day down to this, there has been a growing religious revival in the Protestant Church of France, a shaking off of slumber and error, and a return to the spirit and orthodoxy of other days. The number of faithful ministers has been considerably increased, and a variety of scriptural means have been put into operation, which have already achieved much good, and which promise still more in the future. Among the persons who have been honoured to be useful, no one, I believe, has been more successful than Robert Haldane, Esq., of Edinburgh, who spent a number of years upon the Continent, and with great wisdom devoted much of his care to the instruction of the young men coming forth to the ministry. Not a few of the present ministers of the Genevan, as well as of the French Church, look up to him as their spiritual father. The fol- lowing most interesting illustration of the power of the Gos- pel, in the conversion of a French Protestant pastor, is ex- tracted from Mr. Haldane's valuable work on the " Evi- dences." It may not be known to many of my readers : " The pastor of a French Protestant Church, near Mar- seilles, visited Montauban in the south of France, in the year 1818, when 1 resided there. On his arrival I was intro- duced to him, and we immediately entered on the subject of the Gospel. I found him strongly fortified in his opposition to the grace of God, and learned, that on his journey to Montauban, having heard of the discussions that were agi- tated there respecting justification, and the way of acceptance with God, he had in various meetings entered keenly and even violently into the subject, thinking it his duty to op- pose, with all the energy he possessed, such a doctrine as that of justification by faith w^ithout works. This question, among many, we fully discussed at our first and subsequent interviews. I had not encountered one who appeared more decidedly hostile to the truth as it is in Jesus, although he was not an Arian or Socinian, but professed to believe in the divinity of Christ. Having met him one evening, I pro- posed that we should take a walk in the country. We im- mediately, as usual, commenced a discussion respecting the Gospel, each of us maintaining his own views on the sub- ject. At length I began to speak on the all-important decla- ration of the Lord on the cross, ' It is finished,' and endea- voured to show from that expression that every thing neces- OF FRANCE. 469 sary for a sinner's acceptance with God is already accom- plished, and that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believelh. I had only spoken a few minutes, when it pleased God to shine in his heart, givmg him the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. He suddenly stopped, and with extended arms, vehemently exclaimed, ' Cest trop grand pour etre vraV — ' It is too great to be true !' From that moment there was no more difference of opinion, no further opposition on his part, no more objections. In Christ he was a new crea- ture ; old things had passed away ; behold all things had be- come new. It was now all his desire to hear more of the great salvation. Our conversation in returning to town was most interesting and edifying. He remarked with earnest- ness how differently he would preach when he should go back to his flock. He confessed, at the same time, that he had often preached on texts in which there was something that he had not fathomed * approfondi,^ and that now he knew what that was. This is worthy of notice, as it discovers the unsatisfactory state of mind of many who, professing to preach the Gospel, understand neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm. He said he wondered that his people should have had patience to listen to such a system as he had been endeavouring for seven years to inculcate, so totally different from what he now saw was the doctrine of the grace of God. When we parted, he who an hour before hated and opposed the doctrine of salvation, was filled with peace and joy in believing. " This happened on Friday. Next morning he called on me in the same state of mind in which I had left him the evening before, rejoicing in the grace of God; but he said, that being engaged to preach on the Lord's day, he read, after we parted, the sermon he had prepared, and found that not one sentence of it could be made use of, for it was alto- gether opposed to what he was now convinced was the truth of the Gospel. He added, that he was utterly at a loss what to do, for he was not accustomed to speak extempore, and that the sermon he had with him, and which he had greatly admired, as so well composed, he would not on any account make use of. I replied that I never knew a case so similar to his as that of the jailor at Philippi, and therefore advised him to preach on his question to the apostle, and the answer he received, ♦ What must 1 do to be saved?' ' Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.' After pausing 470 PROTESTANT CHURCH a few moments he said he would do so. The place where he preached was at some distance in the country; I there- fore was not present; but was informed, that his hearers who had known him before, listened with astonishment, wonder- ing that he now preached the faith which so lately he des- troyed. He spoke with great feeling and power, and what he said made a deep impression on those who were present. During the short lime he remained at Montauban I had several most agreeable conversations with him, and shall never forget his prayer when we parted. I never heard one more affecting. It was evidently the warm effusion of his heart, entirely different from those studied and written pray- ers used by many of the French pastors. He referred, in a very striking manner, to his conversion, and to his former and present state, confessed the great sinfulness of his past ministry, and prayed earnestly for himself and his flock. *' On his return home he passed through Montpelier, where he preached the same sermon as in the neighbourhood of Montauban. It produced an impression on those who heard him very different from what they had ever received from the discourses to which they had been accustomed to listen. A flame was instantly kindled. The elders of the consistory remonstrated with their own pastor in the strongest manner, demanding of him how he could employ one to preach who brought forward such doctrines. He affirmed that these doc- trines were the same which he himself taught. They de- nied this most peremptorily, and threatened to denounce him to the Government. During more than three months the greatest agitation prevailed in his church. I saw several let- ters which, in the course of that time, he wrote to his friends at Montauban, declaring his apprehension, that in the issue he would be dismissed from his charge. At length, how- ever, the storm subsided, and the preaching of the pastor from the neighbourhood of Marseilles appeared to have been useful. " A very different feeling was excited when the account of the conversion of this pastor was carried to his father, a man above eighty years of age. I afterwards saw another pastor who happened at the time to be at his house on a visit. It was truly affecting, he said, to see the old man quite absorbed in the subject, and for several days going about his house, clasping his hands, and joyfully exclaiming, 'Tout est accompli!' — 'It is finished.' It is now fifteen years since the event above narrated took place, and the pas- OF FRANCE. 471 tor in question has never wavered in his views of divine truth. I have heard of him at different periods since that time, and learned, with much joy and satisfaction, that he has continued a faithful minister of Jesus Christ. " The sequel of this history is also very interesting. I received the following letter, dated September 21, 1825, from one of the most zealous and successful pastors in France, of whom I had never before heard. After a general introduc- tion, he says, ' I address myself to you to communicate the favourable circumstances in which the Lord has placed me in respect to the ministry of the Gospel, which, by his grace, I exercise. I begin by telling you who I am, and the favours the Lord has vouchsafed to me. I pursued my first theological studies at Lausanne, in Switzerland ; 1 continued them at the Faculty at Montauban, where I was ordained in 1812. The year after I was appointed pastor at and about the end of 1817 I became pastor in this place. Till the month of August, 1822, I was only a blind man leading those who were blind. Much external zeal without knowledge, a vain noise of life, {loi vain bruit cle vivre,) and a profound wretchedness, (misere profonde,) which I did not feel I Such is what 1 possessed. {Voila ce que je possedais.) At the above period I went to visit my former fldck at , where I saw, after nine years of separation, one of your spiritual children, my old fellow-student.' (The pastor above referred to.) ' lie became, in the hand of God, the instrument of my deliverance. I then learned the great mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh; and, trans- ported out of myself by the joy of my salvation, I returned to my church, where since then the Lord has given me grace to render testimony to him, and to advance a little, but very little, in the knowledge of him. In spite of the opposition which the preaching of the Gospel and my imprudent zeal excited in the bosom of my flock, and in spite of my own unfaithfulness and coldness,"^ {mes infidelites et mes giaces,) with which I am often affected, the Word has nevertheless produced, and does produce, every day its effects. A goodly number of parishioners confess the Saviour, whose infinite compassion they have experienced; and, in general, all are more seriously attending to the Gospel. I can give you but a faint idea of the field which the Lord has opened before me, and of the progress which the Gospel might make if that field were better cultivated. But I am alone with the 472 PROTESTANT CHURCH Lord. All my colleagues of the department are indifferent (froids) about the one thing needful.' " But it will be necessary to be a little more particular as to the present state and character of the Reformed Church of France. The degeneracy had been very general, and down to a recent period, comparatively speaking, almost unbroken. In 1819, a French preacher of intelligence and piety estimated the number of faithful men in the Protestant Church, as not exceeding ten, and as exerting a salutary influence only over from fifteen to twenty thousand souls, out of a general popu- lation of twenty-seven millions. The overthrow of Napoleon, though deeply deplored by the Protestants generally, as exposing them anew to the violence of the Roman Catholic people, if not to the persecution of the Bourbon Government, does not seem to have affected the spiritual character of the Church. The ministers and places of worship may have increased in number under the protection and fostering care of Napoleon, but there was litde improvement in orthodoxy. Probably the sufferings occasioned by protracted wars were, in many cases, sanctified to the spiritual good of the sufferers, and it is not unlikely that in some remote and mountainous districts, the spirit of ancient piety survived after it had dis- appeared from the more crowded city. Such secluded descendants of a martyred ancestry are referred to in the following interesting extract from the First Report of the " Paris Bible Society," a few years ago: " Many small tribes of Protestants scattered over the sur- face of France, appeared worthy of the attention and care of the Society. Some are without pastors, and without public \yorship. The department de la Somme alone counts about six thousand individuals in this state of abandonment and religious privation ; yet among these Reformed Christians, so long forgotten, the faith of their fathers has been preserved in all its purity. For want of sacred books, of which vio- lence had deprived their obscure families, and from replacing which either fear or poverty had prevented them, oral tradi- tions have transmitted, from generation to generation, the most interesting narratives, the most important lessons, and the holiest precepts of the Bible. Passing from the father to the children, prayers and hymns — the most fervent and the most proper to nourish faith and hope — have never ceased to resound in their cottages, and tlie paternal benediction has stood in place of that of the minister of the Lord. Jn some OF FKANCE. 473 instances, a sufficient number of these interesting individuals have been brought together to constitute a church, and to claim an allowance for the payment of a minister. In other cases this would have been effected but for the want of suit- able ministers to take charge of congregations." The Rev. Mr. Davies, in his interesting " Letters from France," a few years years ago, gives a striking picture of another of these suffering remnants. " But I must hasten," says he, " to conclude this letter, embracing a greater variety of topics than within such limits could be adequately dis- cussed, with a brief account of my visit to the interesting little Protestant community of Cheffresne. I stated in a for- mer letter, that the present king had kindly promised to use his best endeavours to procure a resident and settled minis- ter for this isolated band of Protestant professors. Many dif- ficulties have arisen in the way of carrying into execution this generous engagement. I trust, however, that ultimately they will be surmounted, and that the ardent and long cherished desire of this very interesting body of people, for a fixed pastor, will be accomplished. In the meantime, the excellent Baron de P , who is an elder of this little church, proposed to drive me over for the purpose of visit- ing them, and spending a Sunday among them. " On Saturday, March 22, we accordingly set out for this pleasing expedition. At Ville-Dieu, situated about fifteen miles from Avranches, and within about five miles of Cheff- resne, we accidentally met one of the people, who was quite delighted with the sight of my excellent and kind-hearted companion. About three miles on this side of Cheffresne, we were met by a fine elderly peasant, quite such in appearance, though he was, perhaps with one exception, the principal landed proprietor belonging to the Protestant church. His name I soon found to be Duchemin. It was really quite de- lightful to witness the glow of honest pleasure which lighted up the countenance of this frank and open-hearted man, when the carriage stopped, and he offered his cordial saluta- tion to the generous baron and your poor friend the " pas- teur," whom they had been prepared to expect for the fol- lowing Sunday. I was immediately informed that either the baron or myself was to be the guest of this good man during our stay at Cheffresne. He had gone to the neighbouring town of Ville-Dieu on that day, partly to prepare suitable provisions for his expected visitants, and pardy to be our guide through a rather difficult part of the road. He walked, 474 PROTESTANT CHURCH or rather ran — such was the spring of delight which seemed to animate his frame — by the side of the carriage during the remainder of our journey. When we arrived, about seven in the evening, at the door of his rustic and modest dwelling, we found a considerable number of his friends and relatives awaiting us in front of his house. Among the rest was a very fine old man of the name of Daniel Vilaine, the neigh- bour and brother-in-law of Duchemin. These were the two principal men of the place belonging to the Protestant com- munity, and, from their comparatively superior rank and influence, might jusfly be considered as the chief pillars of the church. My kind friend and companion had forewarned me of the homely character of the accommodation we were to expect, and, from a regard to my comfort, had taken with him the necessary appendages of an English breakfast. When that common utensil called a tea-kettle was brought out, it was examined with intense curiosity, and it became a matter of amusing interest what could possibly be thefiame of so singular a piece of furniture. The daughter of the good Duchemin, who had gone over to Jersey some years before for the purpose of being married, at once, with much apparent satisfaction, pronounced it to be a teach. Not to dwell, however, too minutely upon various amusing circum- stances connected with our evening's repast under the hos- pitable roof of this generous villager — as soon as it was over, M^e entered into conversation with Duchemin and his bro- ther-in-law, Vilaine, respecting the present state and past history of Protestantism in that neighbourhood. " These worthy men were evidently quite delighted to narrate the horrible persecutions which their forefathers had encountered during a long series of years, during, in fact, the whole period intervening between the infamous Revoca- tion of the Edict of Nantes, by Louis XIV., in 1685, and the partial recognition of the civil rights of Protestants, by Louis XVL, in 1787. Our host showed us, with deep and reverential interest, an old Bible which had been in the family for very many years, and which must have been carefully concealed during the century of persecution, be- cause, in those days, it would have exposed any one to the most imminent peril even to possess a Bible. Duchemin told me, that during that era it was a common practice to burn Protestant heretics with their Bibles fastened to their backs. It was also common to tie large bundles behind them to give them the appearance of monsters. I was forcibly re- OF FRANCE. 475 minded by this statement, of what is well known to have been the strange notion of the Romish persecutors respecting the Waldenses — that their children were little monsters, hav- ing black teeth and other unnatural deformities. On Sunday- morning, having slept at the house of Vilaine, I rose early and walked out into the fields. It was a beautiful spring morn- ing. The country, which was rich, woody, and well culti- vated, looked lovely, and the whole atmosphere was literally vocal with the music of the innumerable feathered songsters which were chanting their early carols. In returning to the house I met Duchemin, accompanied by liis guest, who came to breakfast with me at the house of Vilaine. When I referred to the charming melody with which our ears were delighted, Duchemin instantly took up the remark, and with a glowing countenance, exclaimed that these little warblers were all employed in celebrating their Maker's praise, and thus afforded us an instructive lesson of gratitude and love. A little before ten o'clock we set out for the temple, as all the Protestant places of worship are called in France. Here I must tell you, that, in consequence of some misapprehen- sion, the Baron de P had communicated to these good people that he would bring with him a minister that would give them a sermon. Of this I had not the least idea, until within two or three days of our journey; and when it was then mentioned to me, I was at first disposed to shrink from an attempt for which I felt myself, especially with so short a notice, to be very inadequate. Unwilling, however, to dis- appoint a people who appeared to be literally hungering for spiritual food, I prepared a short and hasty discourse founded on the apo'sde's reply to the jailer of Philippi, ' Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,' &c., endeavouring to embody, in terms as simple and concise as possible, the great doctrine of salvation through Christ. What some of my ecclesiastical brethren might have felt I know not, but I confess that any scruple about the regularity of this proceeding never for a moment entered into my mind. In fact I felt a secret satis- faction in forgetting my Episcopalian ism for this day, and identifying myself with the polity founded by one whom Hooker describes as ' incomparably the wisest man the Church of France ever produced,' namely, John Calvin. " Having robed myself in the usual vestments kept there for the use of occasional visiters, and not greatly differing from our own, I was conducted into the pulpit. 'I'he chapel is a very neat, plain little building, capable of holding about 476 PROTESTANT CHURCH two hundred persons. The congregation was already as- sembled— men, women, and children, all cleanly though very plainly attired : the women on one side, with their high Norman caps ; and the men on the other, all clad in short blue cloth jackets. The Service had been already begun by one of the elders reading the Established Genevese Liturgy, in which I was delighted to recognize the same great doc- trines of our common faith, the same simple humiliating con- fession of guilt, the same simple reliance on the merits of the Saviour, and the same prominency given to the volume of inspiration, as so strikingly characterise our own. On this occasion, two chapters of the Bible, with Ostervald's reflec- tions, were read. Here I may be pardoned the expression of a sentiment which forcibly struck me on the survey of this scene — and after the service, a similar remark was made by my benevolent companion — that whatever inconveniences — and I do not wish to deny them — may attend a uniform, and authorized, and public formulary of devotions, yet in circum- stances like the present, it is of inestimable value. Deprived as these people have been, for nearly one hundred and fifty years, of any regular ministry, how could the worship of God be conducted among them without such a provision? It is in such circumstances that the value of a devout and scriptural liturgy is most distinctly seen. " At a given signal, your unworthy friend, ' Mons le Pas- teur,' pronounced his discourse, which, with all its imper- fections of style and pronunciation, was heard with the most profound attention; and he was never nearer being unduly elated in his life, than by the cordial and affectionate gratu- lations with which these poor people crowded around him after the service was over. When the benediction had been pronounced, my excellent friend distributed among the peo- ple a large packet of ' Burder's Village Sermons,' translated into French ; and it was delightful to see with what heart- felt pleasure these simple villagers received this valuable boon, which they seemed to know so well how to appreciate. When this was over, they showed us a new piece of bury- ing-ground which they were on tlie point of enclosing, and in which they appeared to take a deep interest."* *'The children sung some beautiful hymns at Daniel Vi- laine's, where the party dined ; and there was then another service, at which the Baron and elder read a most admirable sermon by a modern Swiss divine. Saurin's and Durand's *Pp. 157— 163. OF FRANCE. 477 are generally read. After service, the settlement of a min- ister was eagerly discussed ; and in the course of the even- ing, D. Vilaine brought out some curious documents illus- trative of the vexations and persecutions which his forefa- thers had endured. "Among others, he showed us a dispensation authorizing his grandfather to receive his son, the father of D. Vilaine himself, into his family. At that time, it was the common practice to carry off by violence the children of the Protes- tants, in order to bring them up in the convents in the prin- ciples of Popery. I believe there are some persons still living at Cheflresne, who remember cases of this horrible system of child-stealing. When the emissaries of Govern- ment entered the village for this purpose, parents endeavour- ed to hide their little ones as from the assaults of so many beasts of prey ; and there were frequent instances in which Catholic neighbours, moved by the voice of nature, assisted them in their endeavours. Vilaine's father had thus been carried off in his infancy, to be reared up in the convent of Caen, where however, it is fair to state, that it does not ap- pear that he was ill treated, and, at the age of twenty-one, he was restored to his father, on condition, as the document specifies, that regular certificates should be sent of his attend- ing church, and receiving the instructions of the priests. Another very curious old record he showed us, was a pope's bull, authorizing the marriage of Vilaine's father, without which, his children would have been illegitimate, and inca- pable of maintaining any civil right. He also showed us a copy of the famous edict of Louis XVI. issued in 1787, which may be considered as the first, though yet very ob- scure and glimmering dawn of religious liberty in France. The worthy old man dwelt upon these and other matters connected with the former state, and the present more favour- ed condition, and more animating prospects of the religion he professed, with a calm and chastened enthusiasm, in which it was impossible not to sympathize, and which, in my esti- mation, really gave a character of sublimity to the whole train of his reflections. V^ith information comparatively limited, though by no means unacquainted with the leading features of the history of their country since the era of the Reformation — with views of the great doctrines of religion, marked by considerable obscurity and indistinctness — these interesting people are evidendy actuated in general, not only by a fervent zeal for the Protestant profession, but by deep 478 PROTESTANT CHURCH devotional feelings; and it seems only to require the foster- ing influence of an enlightened ministry, in concurrence with the Divine blessing, to render this isolated part of the spiritual vineyard an oasis in the midst of a desert, verdant with the streams of life, rich in the fruits of righteousness, and fra- grant as the garden of the Lord."* In the interesting little work, entitled; " A Voice from the Alps," Mr. Burgess states, that touching scenes occa- sionally occur, when the recollection of other days is awaken- ed in places where the Gospel had been extinguished. This shows the value of the traditionary associations and memo- rials of the martyrs, and the wisdom of cherishing them: they form a seed which God may bless for the revival of evangelical religion. At Troyes, there has recently been reared a place of Protestant worship. This is the town where the first Protestant pastor, Jean Dubec, was publicly burnt in 1549, where the Popish bishop received the truth, and a flourishing Protestant church was built. Most of the members lived in the same street, which, in derision, was called " The little Geneva." It is in that very street that the present place of worship has been opened, and the cir- cumstances connected with its history have lent a deep in- terest, and, it is hoped, a salutary impression to the event. These are interesting cases; still, after making every favourable allowance, the number of faithful men in France was very small, and they were loaded with reproach by their own brethren as fools and sectaries. On the other hand, the far larger body of the Protestant pastors preached a mixed doctrine, and built upon a self-righteous foundation. Not a few of them advocated the w^orst errors of Neology and So- cinianism. The consequences of this teaching were such as might have been anticipated. The people were ignorant, worldly, and ungodly. The profanation of the Sabbath, both by pastor and flock, was almost universal. The theatre was the usual termination of the Lord's day; so much so, that in some places the Roman Catholics blamed the Protest- ants as the chief supporters of theatrical exhibitions. One eminent pastor of the Genevan Church, so lately as 1821, published a laboured apology for spending the Sabbath even- ing in playing at cards, — a practice which was recently, and for aught known to the contrary, is still followed by many pastors and professors of divinity on that evening, though they abstain from it on other days. The result of false doc- * P. 166. OP FRANCE. 479 trine, however philosophical, in Protestant Germany was the same. The churches were emptied — the Sabbath desecrated — the theatre filled. Before proceeding any further, it is necessary to advert to the persecution of the French Protestants in 1815. Some good men may doubt the propriety of the application of the term to the circumstances of the case ; and the very fact, that two such able and excellent periodicals, as the " Clirisiian Observer" of London, and the " Christian Instructor" of Edinburgh — the articles in the latter written by the late emi- nent Dr. M'Crie — were here ranged on different sides — the one contending that there was nothing which deserved the name of religious persecution, and the other that there was much — may satisfy us that the suffering, whatever it was, was somewhat different in circumstances from that of former seasons and generations. There is no question, that there was much suffering among the Protestants of Nismes and its vicinity on the restoration of the Bourbons — a greater amount than is generally imagined. There were plunder, and vio- lence, and a loss of life, and contemplated massacre. Though the Protestants of Gard, of which Nismes is the capital, formed but a third part of the population, yet such was the creditable place which they held in society, that they were proprietors of one-half of the land, and paid two-thirds of the taxes of the district. This should have recommended them to public protection and favour; but instead of this, they were exposed to a persecution which lasted for five protract- ed months, though the interference of any of the leading powers of Europe could have crushed it in a moment. From three hundred to four hundred Protestant lives were sacrificed, while, according to the showing of the most prejudiced Papists, not above thirteen Roman Catholics suffered. One savage boasted that he had killed forty Protestants with his own hand. It is certain that above fifty were assassinated in a single day. The indignities and atrocities, too, perpetrated on respectable females, were worthy of the scenes of the First Revolution. Such was the general dread, that six thou- sand Protestants left the town of Nismes alone; and multi- tudes were kept for months in a state of anxious suspense, more intolerable than death. Not indistinct whispers, but longings for a second St. Bartholomew were publicly ex- pressed by not a few. It need scarcely be added, that the other kinds of persecution were strong and wide-spread — two thousand houses were plundered and burnt down — 480 PROTESTANT CHURCH churches were shut up — twenty pastors fled into exile for safety. Nor was the oppression local, rising out of peculiar circumstances. It prevailed in four different departments, and seemed to be dictated by a general wish to reduce the Protestants to the state of wretchedness and woe under which they had groaned previously to the Revolution. Such was the general result. And what was the cause which led to it, and who were the persecuting parties? It could not be true religion, as by this time, with a few exceptions, it is to be feared, evangelical religion had disappeared from among the Protestants, and given place to cold-hearted Neology. The oppression appears to have been dictated by a mixture of political, but mainly religious prejudice and animosity. It was the deed — not of the government, or the army, or the Roman Catholics as a church, but of a violent Popish and political faction — an infuriated mob. The magistrates were most culpable in not interfering as they ought to have done, and restraining this ultra party; and also, in not pun- ishing so much as one of the ringleaders ; but they do not appear to have wilfully countenanced them. The truth is, that the faction seem, for a lime, to have been too strong for the authorities, even backed by the troops. It was not the Protestants only who suffered; some of the soldiers who were Roman Catholics were violently assailed. Whatever might be the motive, the Protestants were the chief sufferers ; and the fact of their being so violently attacked, when they had lost their truly religious character, and therefore pos- sessed only the name of Protestant, is a striking proof how deadly w^as the Popish hatred to all that savoured of Protest- antism, that the very name was sufficient to kindle their enmity into a conflagration. It is pleasing to think, that the manliness and courage of not a few of the Protestants were so great, that when to confess themselves of the Reformed Church was immediate death, they yet boldly declared their Protestantism. The Papists of France, though the proceed- ings of 1815 are little to their honour, would, perhaps, be glad to identify the sufferings of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries with them, and to represent the protracted persecution of the saints of God, in early times, as the mere ebullition of popular violence, which no Church or Government can restrain. There is, therefore, the more need that Protestants should remind the friends of the Papa- cy, that the grand and prevailing persecutions of France, in all ages, were carried on by the active and urgent support of OF FRANCE. 48 the authorities, civil and ecclesiastical — by the Church and the State ; and that even the more mingled proceedings of a popular faction in 1815, were the fruit of the unhappy preju- dices which their anti-Proteslant and anti-Evangelical policy had so long maintained and cherished, and were also en- couraged by influential men — the clergy and others. It may be added, that the violent proceedings in the south of France in 1815-16, were soon brought to a close. 'I'o this, the public meetings in this country, and the discussions in the British Parliament, largely contributed. Since then, down to the present day, there has been no persecution, properly so called, with the exception of the recent jealousy and op- position which have been stirred up in various influential quarters against revived evangelical religion. The accession of the present King of the French, who is much more free from Jesuit influence than his predecessor, was hailed by the Protestants with the warmest joy. But already there are indications that the Popish party may be too strong for him; and should they ever be permitted again to persecute, it will not be as in 1815, from mere religious prejudices, but from deadly hatred to true evangelical religion, which has been awakened in the meantime, and which is the grand, as it is the only, befitting object of the hostility and persecution of the fallen and unrenewed mind of man. It may be interesting to notice the numbers of the present Protestant Church of France, and the public provision which is made for its ministers. In 1637, or about fifty years be- fore the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the Protestants numbered six hundred and forty-one ministers to eight hun- dred and six churches. They had grown considerably during the forty previous years. In 1815, after the Revocation, and the Revolution, and the overthrow of Bonaparte, accord- ing to Mr. Cobbin, in his work, entitled "The French Preacher," the whole number of churches was only two hundred and thirty ; the whole number of ministers two hun- dred and fifty. This shows how terribly the Church had sufl^ered under the successive persecutions of Popery and Infidelity, the more especially, if it be remembered that, in the meantime, the general population of the country had greatly increased. In 1829, M. Soulier ascertained that the whole number of pastors was three hundred and five, the churches four hundred" and thirty-eight, the elementary schools three hundred and ninety-two. This indicates a considerable increase under the protection and encourage- 31 482 PROTESTANT CHURCH ment of the law. Three years ago, an intelligent American minister, resident on the Continent, stated the present French pastors at three hundred and fifty. And there is little ques- tion they are advancing in numbers. In 1837, an official document presented to the Chambers, stated them at three hundred and sixty-six; they are now three hundred and ninety-seven, or nearly four hundred. Persons well acquaint- ed with the Protestants of France have remarked, that the number of ministers and churches does not give a correct idea of the Protestant population. The means of religious instruction are very inadequate to the wants of the people. Hence it was stated a few years ago, that many of them are obliged to meet for public worship in out-houses, barns, or in the open air; and in many places one minister has the charge of several distant churches, so that instruction can be supplied only at lengthened intervals. According to the budget of 1837, the expenses of Protestant worship in France amounted to eight hundred and ninety thousand francs. In 1825 they were only five hundred and seventy-five thousand; thus showing the progress of the Protestant feeling and cause. Indeed, there was recently an increased grant of one hun- dred and eighty thousand francs for additional Protestant pas- tors and places of worship. Under this head, the Lutherans, two hundred and thirty-two in number, are included as well as the Reformed ; but the same point is proved, for both par- ties are professedly Protestant, and the latter is much the larger body. It may be stated generally, that, since 1825, the public provision for Protestant worship has been doubled^ which indicates many additional churches and ministers. Still the Protestants are, proportionally, considerably behind the Roman Catholics, but their share of the grant is annually enlarged. At least there seems no ground of complaint on this score. With regard to the condition of the French Protestant pastors — they are generally much scattered — are able to maintain little intercourse with each other — are poor in their outward circumstances. Though not unacquainted with gen- eral literature, yet, from the adverse fortunes through which they have passed as a Church, and particularly the want of books, they have no opportunity of becoming deeply versed in theology. Hence they do not occupy the same high place in the Christian ministry which was held by their illustrious ancestors. It has been noticed, that there is a marked su- periority in the character and attainments of those who have OF FRANCE. 483 been thrown into intercourse with the pious British resident on the Continent. The general condition of the Protestant pastors is thus described, in 1825, by an intelligent writer in the " Christian Observer:" — " The number of pastors is at present insufficient to pro- vide for the vacant charges; and many districts have no pas- tor, nor any spiritual instructor whatever. Whence does this deficiency of ministers arise? One cause is, that in France the Protestant clergy are very poorly paid, and those persons who look to the Church for support can scarcely ob- tain it. The allowance made to each minister by the Gov- ernment does not exceed forty, sixty, or eighty pounds a year, and they derive very little in general from voluntary contributions to supply the scanty allowance of the State. This condition of things not only produces a want of minis- ters, but it tends to prevent men of superior talents and learn- ing from engaging in the important office of the ministry, which is thus apt to be occupied by persons but ill fitted, not only to maintain with advantage the interests of religion against the enemies of the faith, but to enlarge the numbers of enlightened and pious attendants at their place of worship. It is true that there are many distinguished ministers in the French Church, but they stand in need of help; they are in general encumbered with a weight of occupation; and al- though the influence of their character is powerfully felt in their own circle, their exertions can reach but a little way." As to their religious character, more particularly their soundness or unsoundness in the faith, it cannot be denied, and it should not be concealed, that the larger portion of them, to say the least, are still very defective in their knowledge of the Gospel — many grievously ignorant and hostile, Arminian, Socinian, Neological, in different stages and degrees. Till very recently, all their colleges or theological seminaries, both in France and Switzerland, might, in point of decided influence, be pronounced Socinian. Faithful ministers are, in various quarters, reproached and persecuted by their own brethren. Within these few years, the Rev. M. Monod, one of the most distinguished ministers of the Protestant Church, was deposed from his charge through the influence of his colleagues, for no other crime save the faithful preaching of the Cross. In 1833, the same party in the Church published a book, entitled " Letters on Methodism," which, we are informed, consist of a collection of disgraceful calumnies, aimed not only against pious men, but against the most sacred 484 PROTESTANT CHURCH doctrines of the Gospel. The spirit of the party may be gathered from the facts, that they are anxious to be released from the signing of the Confession of Faith, and contend that the " Bible Society" should confine its labours to the Protestant population, and not meddle with the Roman Ca- tholics. Of course, they support the circulation of the Apocrypha. Poor examples are they of contribution for re- ligious objects. Ten years ago, the whole sum raised for such purposes in France, was only forty thousand francs. But even among them there is progress. An intelligent writer, one of the ministers of the French Protestant Church, and a correspondent of a religious paper in the United States, to whom I have already referred, and to whom I shall have occasion repeatedly to refer, says,* — " It may be added, and I say it with joy, that some of the latitudinarian or univer- salist pastors are inclining more and more to the true and pure evangelical doctrines, and that several among them give the hope of a speedy and thorough conversion." While even the erroneous and hostile are improving, the decidedly evan- gelical clergy were lately estimated at nearly two hundred, without reckoning the Lutherans. Some expect that they will soon have a majority. Twenty years ago, we have seen, they could scarcely berated higher than ten; and what is very cheering, they are yearly increasing in zeal as well as in numbers. In Switzerland there are now more than two hundred faithful ministers of the truth: twenty-five years ago they were reckoned by so small a number as five. In Paris, the Rev. Mr. Baird stated, a few years since, that the Gos- pel is faithfully preached in six places of worship in French, and in nearly as many places in Enghsh. And what is a great matter, M. Monod, who was deposed for his faithful- ness by his brethren, was lately installed Professor of Morals and Eloquence at Montauban. The event is a very impor- tant one, gratifying to all the Christians of France, who re- gard the appointment as the beginning of a new era of bless- ing to the Protestant Church. Some idea of its importance may be formed when it is remembered that, after his depo- sition, M. Monod was successful in collecting at Lyons a congregation of four hundred— one-half of them Roman Catholics — and formed them into a Christian Church, in- creasing at the rate of forty to fifty a year; established a week-day school, attended by one hundred Roman Catholics of all ages; held public discussions with accomplished priests * New York Observer, May, 1834. OF FRANCE. 485 of the Church of Rome, till the archbishop of the district vainly attempted to prohibit his flock from listening to the discussions. Moreover, M. Monod put an agency of young men as tract distributors, &c. &;c., into operation, which was felt so powerfully, that the priests of Lyons stuck up large placards, warning their people against the " pernicious little books, which would deprive the holy virgin of the honour which is her due." While faithful professors are thus finding their way into seats of influence, a new and strictly evangelical college has been lately erected at Geneva, presided over by five eminent Christians, and preparing an increasing number of young men for the holy ministry — from thirty to forty. D'Aubigne, the accomplished biographer of Luther, is one of the Pro- fessors. Then it is to be considered that the religious press of France is very much in the hands of the faithful part of the Reformed Church. It is remarked that the Neological party publish almost nothing, and that the religious journals, books, and sermons, proceed from the pens of orthodox pas- tors. " The Sower," " The Journal of Missions," " The Friend of Youth," " The Archives of Christianity," are all organs of Christian truth. The chief branch of Chris- tian literature, during the last twenty years, has been sermon writing; and the most popular and wide-spread discourses have been those of evangelical authors, such as Cellerier, Vinet, Grand Pierre, SchoU, and Bonnet — a mighty contrast, indeed, to the prevailing sermons of the beginning of the century. These are powerful instruments to be wielded by a small party, and indicate the presence, while they provide for the extension, of a salutary influence. To turn to other evidences, we find from the table of M. Soulier, that in 18*29, the Reformed Church could point to four hundred and fifty- one Bible associations, one hundred and twenty -four Mis- sionary societies, seventy-nine Sabbath schools, and fifty- nine depots for religious tracts. Many of these may be so small and inefficient as to be only nominal, but, taken as a whole, they proclaim the existence of spiritual life. And it is worthy of notice, that the Evangelical, though a much smaller part, receive three or four times as much in gifts and subscriptions for religious objects as the Neological. If some Bible associations be asleep, others are awake. To that of Paris, not less than from forty to fifty pastors of the French Protestant Church, some of them from a distance of one hundred and fifty to three hundred leagues, assembled on 486 PROTESTANT CHURCH a recent anniversary. Never was there a wider circulation of the Word of God in France than during late years. Apart from other societies, the Evangelical associations of Paris and Geneva alone sell, not merely distribute, twelve thousand copies annually. With regard, again, to missionary labour, not only is the spirit of it greatly on the increase, but recently several men have actually gone forth from the shores of France to the heathen world. Nine have already been settled as missiona- ries in the north-east of the Cape at four stations, and not long ago six or eight were in a course of study at Paris for the same work. When there is so loud a call for their ex- ertions at home, the self-denied devotement to the foreign field is the more remarkable, and argues the presence of no common zeal. I might appeal to various other proofs of the renovating spirit of true religion, but it is unnecessary. Per- haps the most striking evidence is to be found in the Popish persecution which, in many quarters, is kindling anew with the revival of the faithful preaching of the Cross. In some quarters the revival, through the labours of the Protestant Church, and the different religious societies which are direct- ed to the spiritual good of the Continent, is very marked. We have noticed the case of M. Monod at Lyons. At Stras- burg, the capital of Alsace, a pious evangelist, a few years ago, collected a congregation of more than four hundred per- sons, and his place of worship proving too small, the extra- ordinary sum, in France, of from thirty to forty thousand francs was raised by his people to build a larger; and all this in a city lately notorious for the deplorable errors of Neology. The correspondent of the " New York Observer," states, that lately there was a remarkable revival of religion at Sion- ville, near Cherburg. The majority of the inhabitants of this populous village, with the mayor at their head, avowed their abandonment of Popery, and invited the Protestant pastor of Cherburg to preach to them the Word of God. This invitation he has accepted, and statedly performs the duty. The Roman Catholic journals denounced with ex- treme violence the defection of three quarters of a large com- mune, and in their anger said that it was in consequence of the marriage of the Prince Royal to a Protestant woman. The writer adds: "The latest information I have received respecting the evangelization of the department of Saone and Loire is very satisfactory. Chapels have been built at Cha- lons, at Branges, at Sorney, &c.; and it is worthy of remark, OF FRANCE. 487 that the Government of the Canton of Berne, in Switzerland, has voted a donation of six hundred franees for this object. The rehgious movement has assumed a most serious and set- tled character in the department of Saone and Loire." M. D'Aubigne of Geneva, in a recent communication, relates the following case. It is one of affecting interest; and the annals of the " Evangelical Society of Paris and Geneva" can appeal to many of the same character: — "A man named Potier, a bigoted Roman Catholic, had been exceedingly anxious, from his early youth, to secure the salvation of his soul. To gain this all-important end, he adopted for his patron Saint John the Baptist, and began to imitate his aus- terities. Like him, he retired into solitude, and lived upon wild herbs and water; but, as you will easily imagine, these austerities brought no comfort to his weary spirit. As soon as he came of age, and got possession of his property, he left the desert, and was determined to try a new method of sav- ing his soul: he resolved to give his goods to feed the poor. He divided his property into nine parts, and, reserving but one-ninth for himself, he distributed the rest among some poor families. After this he inquired of his own soul whether it had yet found peace by these acts of self denial, and the answer was, that there was yet no peace within. He then tried another mode of finding the pearl of salvation : he re- solved to do something for the Church. It happened that there was a project in the village where he lived, of erecting a new church, but the plan was on the point of being aban- doned on account of the expense. Potier advanced imme- diately four hundred francs, put himself at the head of the workmen, went with them to the quarries, encouraged ihem by his example, and from his knowledge of the country, which he gained during his imitation of John the Baptist, he knew where to find plenty of stone. In a little time he got together a considerable quantity, which he carried away with his own hands; but neither did this religious occupation bring peace to his troubled spirit. At length, in 1834, a Colporteur offered to give him a Bible, which he accepted: he read it, was made to understand it, and believed. Then all that he had before considered his righteousness, he re- nounced as a thing of no price ; and now he is living in peace with his Lord, and is a zealous member of one of tlie churches connected with our Society." A late report of the '* Euro- pean Missionary Society" states that, at one town in the south of France, in the course of last winter, no less than 488 PROTESTANT CHUKCH three hundred persons presented themselves as converts from Popery, anxious to be admitted into communion with their Protestant brethren. The " Christian Observer" of April 1833, speaking of the symptoms of revival in another quarter at that time, says, *' On every side are chapels and churches dedicated to Papal saints; and the true worship of God had been superseded by the grossest idolatry. Lately, however, some Bibles have penetrated the place, and the perusal of them has been conspicuously attended by the blessing of God. M. Renous, a pious Protestant minister, hearing that some of the people were assiduously studying the Word of God, and were even preparing to throw off the yoke of Popery, repaired to the place, and has been labouring diligently among them in preaching the doctrines of salvation. The attendance at his discourses has already increased from twenty to two hundred ; thirty heads of families have sent in a declaration to the mayor, that they are determined to live and die Protestants, and have demanded the protection of the laws as a religious body. M. Renous describes his discourses as being inter- rupted with the frequent exclamations of his astonished and delighted auditors ; contrasting the blessedness of Christian truth, and the offer of free pardon through the blood of the Saviour, with the follies and penances to which they had been accustomed." AVhatever difficulties the Evangelical Societies of Paris and Geneva may, in common with all similar institutions, have to struggle with, the cause of home evangelization is growing in interest and importance. In three months the Paris committee have received two hundred and fifty applications from different quarters, for spiritual labourers. The funds of the religious institutions of Protestant France have tripled in two years, and it is estimated that the two societies toge- ther employ two hundred Christian labourers of one kind or another — making, with the faithful pastors of the Church, a litde band of four hundred soldiers of the Cross; surely the indication of a decided revival. Such a state of things as this — and what has been record- ed is only a specimen — could not be allowed to go on with- out opposition. There would be a strong presumption that the work was not sound, if Infidelity and Popery could look tamely on at its progress. Accordingly, persecution, so far as the law will allow, is beginning to appear anew. Many men imagined that the Revolution of 1830 was to seal for OF FRANCE. 489 ever the triumph of religious freedom, and that after the ar- ticle in the charter, declaring the Roman Catholic to be the religion of the State, had been abolished, there could be no possible pretext for oppressing evangelical communions ; but the truth is, that persecution has a far deeper foundation than the accidental circumstance of M^hether a particular Church is or is not recognized by the State. It is founded in the depravity of human nature — in the hatred of Popery and In- fidelity to the holy truth of God. Persecution will show itself whether Churches be established or not. Witness the persecutions of the truth by the unestablished Popish Church of Ireland at this moment: so in France. Two years ago a faithful minister relying on that article of the constitutional charter, by which it is declared that all Frenchmen may pro- fess their religion with equal freedom, opened a chapel at Metz, in Lorraine. For this he was prosecuted by the mayor; and after an appeal to the highest court — that of Cassation — it was found that the previous leave of the mu- nicipal authorities is indispensable to the opening of a place of worship. And what was the ground of objection in this case? It does not seem that the mayor had any himself — he may even have been friendly to the chapel — but the preacher had offended the rich Jews by some publications on the subject of Judaism, and it was they who were the persecutors — men who but lately had been themselves the vic- tims of oppression ! Had they not succeeded in this legal objection, it is certain that a thousand other modes of annoy- ance and oppression would have been employed. The preacher was fined. Various other and more serious cases have occurred since — so much so, that the writer in the " New York Observer" remarks — " The French Cabinet shows hostile feelings against religious sects, and seems dis- posed to tread in the steps of the Ministers of Charles X." * * * * a Facts evince that the French Government have adopted a systematic plan of judicial prosecutions against the liberty of worship." Any one who is living in such personal danger as the present monarch, would need a more enlight- ened faith than it is to be feared Louis Philip possesses lo preserve him from the temptation of leaning to the priests who surround him. But these incipient persecutions show that divine truth is making progress. It would not be worth while to attempt forcibly to restrain what was not worth fighting with, or what threatened no danger. The following are extracts from an interesting letter which 490 PEOTESTANT CHURCH I have received from the Rev. Fr. Marzials, the Protestant minister of Lille in the north of France. They shortly de- scribe the condition of the Reformed Church at the present moment: " Most likely you are aware that the French Go- vernment has communicated lately to our high consistories a plan of constitution for our churches. The confessed motive of it is to get us out of the anarchy in which we are as a body; and the real motive is, as much as possible to prevent true Christian principles to exercise any influence over the nation. This is the conviction of our pious clergymen ; and I do not see how any other view can be entertained on the matter. Who is the real author of this plan we do not know ; we only guess that the Rationalist party of our Church has much to do with its origin, and that the Popish influence has found its way to it. This plan has three abominable leading principles: 1st, It makes our Church, in every respect, the humble servant of the Government; 2d, It prevents our Church from ever becoming a Missionary Society for France ; and, 3d, It establishes a few rules of interior discipline, which are really nothing more but an insult to the spirit and sense of our Protestants." * * * " A nobleman of great repute, as a statesman, a faithful citizen, and a Christian — the Comte de Gasparin — has writ- ten a pamphlet in answer to the letter of M. Coquerel, in which he plainly says, as his most decided conviction (and he is in a position to know the true state of things,) that this plan has originated in the desire to shut, in the narrowest bounds possible, our Church and its influence. No wonder at this : the Spirit of the Lord is blowing upon the dry bones; and the Rationalist party, and the Popish party, feel their cause to be in such a peril by this slow but sure revival, that they are decided to use all means to put a stop to it. Nay, but the Lord reigneth — there is our rock, our foundation. From this movement I cannot but infer two or three reflec- tions : — " 1st. It shows that the Lord is amongst us for good. Nobody, I think, can deny this. If I was going to choose a part of France as a proof of this, I would tell you to look at this departement — Le Nord. By the blessing of God upon the Bibles distributed, the tracts sold, the preaching of his servants, nearly ten new churches have been formed, mosdy in towns and villages where, ten years ago, there was not to be found one Protestant. I remember well, dear Sir, the time 1 had only sixteen hearers in my Church; and now OF FEANCE. 491 by the grace of God, the church is too small — so much so, that the Government has granted us sufficient money to build three galleries in it, which will be begun in a few days. Perhaps I am below the truth when I say that eighty Catho- lics in this town have embraced our views, and many of them, I trust, the truth as it is in Jesus. What 1 say of this departement I could say of many other parts of France. *' 2d. That the Catholic priests are annoyed at this revival. Last year the bishops of this Church published in their mandements strong and bold anathemas against our Bibles, our colporteurs, and our tracts ; and two of them this year have gone further ; their mandements are as violent as pos- sible ; this is specially the case with the bishop of Arras. Their newspapers bear also large proofs of their dissaUsfac- tion. No doubt, therefore, that they exert all their power and influence with the Government to have our liberties cur- tailed as much as possible. *' 3d. All this agitation about the plan of the Government shows, according to my humble views, that our Protestant people themselves are not satisfied with our present laws as regards the Church. Indeed, how could they be satisfied with a law which makes us the mere slaves of temporal au- thorities ? I do not say much on this point, because every body amongst us acknowledges it.'' It is to be feared that the Erastian interference of the civil with the ecclesiastical, is one of the stages of persecution through which the Church of Christ is destined to pass on the way to the happy era, when He is to be universally acknowledged ♦' King of kings and Lord of Lords." CONTEMPORANEOUS HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND, FROM 1792 TO THE PRESENT TIMES— 1840. In the last chapter, on the Church of, Scotland, I directed the attention of the reader to the wide-spread religious de- clension of the latter half of the eighteenth century, and to the spirit of thoughtfulness and revival which was awakened by the shakings of the French Revolution in 1792. Before tracing the history of the Church from that date to the pre- sent, it may be well to point to a few additional proofs of the irreligion which so extensively characterized the Church of Christ in this land, and the infidelity which marked the 492 PROTESTANT CHURCH world. It is desirable to know from what a " horrible pit and miry clay" our country has, in some measure, been de- livered. This will naturally excite gratitude to God, and lead the Church, at the present day, to humble and abase herself before Him for her past unfaithfulness. Thus, too, will she be armed with the greater vigilance and resolution against the revival of that ecclesiastical policy which would restore days of former darkness and degeneracy. The eighteenth century had its ample share of the mental excitement which war is supposed to carry along with it. In the first ninety years of the century, before the wars rising out of the French Revolution had begun, there were not less than thirty-five years of warfare, which, not to speak of the loss of life, cost the nation three hundred and seventy- four millions of money — almost one-half the present national debt: I allude to the wars of the Spanish succession in 1702 — the war of Spain in 1739 — the seven years' war in 1756 — and the war of American independence in 1775: but all this loss of men and treasure does not seem to have been sancti- fied, nor to have stirred the national intellect and conscience. The science and literature of the period appears to have par- taken of the same character with its religion. The Edin- burgh Review* — a very competent judge on such ques- tions— comparing the authors of the eighteenth with those of an earlier century, makes the following statement: — " Speaking generally of that generation of authors, it may be said, that, as poets, they had no force or greatness of fancy, no pathos, and no enthusiasm; and as philosophers, no comprehensiveness, depth, or originality. They are sa- gacious, no doubt, neat, clear, and reasonable ; but, for the most part, cold, timid, and superficial." Such was the cha- racter of the authorship when true religion was rapidly de- clining. How great the contrast with the slate of things which obtained when the Church and country were decided- ly evangelical ! The same high critical authority says, in the same paper — "There never was any thing like the sixty or seventy years which elapsed from the middle of Elizabeth's reign to the period of the Restoration. In point of real force and originality of genius, neither the ajre of Pericles, nor the age of Augustus, nor the time of Leo X., nor of Louis XIV., can come at all into comparison ; for in that short period we shall find the names of all the very great men that this nation has ever produced — the names of Shakspeare, Bacon Spen- * Vol. xviii. p. 275. OF FRANCE. 493 ser, Sydney, Hooker, Taylor, Barrow, Raleigh, Napier, Ilobbes, and many others." We might add Milton, Owen, Baxter, Bunyan, and the truly great men of the Church of Scotland, ministers and elders, who appeared during the struggles of the same period. It is remarkable, as showing a connection between evangelical religion and the higher mani- festations of mind, that no persons of national greatness ap- peared from the Restoration to the Revolution — the days of irreligion, vice, and persecution — and that in one department at least of literature in the eighteenth century — that of poetry — the first to break loose from the tame formalism of the age was the evangelical Cowper — a poet whose misery has sometimes been charged upon his religion, but who owed the only happiness which he almost ever possessed to the Gospel of free grace. To return, however: the last century, with the exception, in Scotland, of the first twenty years, was an age of sad re- ligious declension. In spite of the favourable impulse which was given to the country by the devoted labours of Wesley and Whitefield — labours which were called forth by the deep decline into which all religious parties in England had sunk — and but for which matters would have been worse — the lethargy was still appalling. Twenty years after their ministrations had been blessed to the awakening of thou- sands (1772,) it could be said, in connection with the peti- tion to Parliament for the abrogation of the signing of the Thirty-nine Articles — the late eminent Robert Hall of Bris- tol is my authority — "There was not one member who ex- pressed his belief in the Articles; and Mr. Hans Stanley opposed the bringing up of the petition, as tending to disturb the peace of the country. Of the state of the public mind in the metropolis, we have a striking picture in a letter from John Lee, afterwards Solicitor-General: — 'It will surprise you who live in the country,' says he, ' and consequently have not been informed of the discoveries of the metropolis, that the Christian religion is not thought to be an object worthy of the least regard ! and that it not only is the most prudent, but the most virtuous and benevolent thing in the world, to divert men's minds from such frivolous subjects with all the dexterity that can be. This is no exaggeration,^ I assure you; on the contrary, it seems to be the opinion of nine-tenths of both Bouses of Parliament.' The fact is, that through the secularity and irreligion of the clergy, evan- gelical truth was nearly effaced from the minds of the mem- 494 PROTESTANT CHURCH bers of the Establishment in the higher ranks; that an indo- lent acquiescence in established formularies had succeeded to the ardour with which the great principles of religion were embraced at the Reformation, ^uch was the state of the public mind, that in a contest between orthodoxy and heresy, the former proved triumphant, merely because it was already established, and had the plea of antiquity and prescription in its favour." Mr. Colquhoun of Killermont, in a beautiful paper on *' The moral character of Britain the cause of its political eminence," surveying the adverse influence of the irreligion of the last century on public liberty, says — " The Crown laid aside the instruments of force, but found more effectual weapons in the use of corruption. The practice of bribery was regularly adopted, and largesses seduced the representa- tive from the path of his duty. Few withstood the tempta- tion. VValpole, who practised it, declared that every one had his price. The House of Commons was thus filled with a hireling body, two-thirds of whom were the official ser- vants, one-third the secret pensioners of the Crown. All check was thus removed from the prerogative, which entered upon a course of policy eccentric and desultory, but always injurious. Debts were contracted, national burdens com- menced, embarrassment at home, dishonour abroad. The corruption of Walpole was succeeded by the vacillation of the Pelhams — this by the imbecillity of Lord Bute, and that by the errors of Lord North, which cost us the richest ap- pendage of England. So that, after the struggles of the seventeenth century — after all the labour, and toil, and blood of these critical times — having, with great pains, acquired a good government — the nation seemed to have wilfully thrown it aside, and, stooping again to degradation, bending under a new yoke, more vexatious, though less palpable, she seemed to be hastening with rapid steps into the road which other nations had traced, the descent from a short-lived eminence to a deep decline. Her escape from this, and the steps by which she accomplished her recovery, forcibly illustrate the con- clusion I am urging. It was no politiccd movement which rescued Britain from ruin. It was the same hand which had led her through her past history — which had raised her in weakness, and sustained her in conflict, that now came to her assistance in the lethargy which had fallen upon her in these latter times." In other words, it was the revival of evan- gelical religion. OP FRANCE. 495 But coming later down — to the period of the first Revolu- tion in 1792 — and directing our attention more particularly to Scotland, we meet with several striking testimonies. The late Rev. Dr. Jamieson of Edinburgh, well known in the literary world as the author of the " Scottish Dictionary," and various other works, wrote a pamplet entitled, " An Alarm to Britain," explanatory of the causes of the prevail- ing infidelity of the period. The following are one or two extracts which describe the general irreligion, particularly as exhibited in the treatment of the Sabbath, and the ordinances of divine worship: *' May I not appeal to the experience, not of individuals merely, but of nations: the history of the Christian world assures us, that true religion and the strict observation of the Sabbath have still gone hand in hand ; and that infidelity and the profanation of this holy day have extended their baneful influence together? In Britain, since the Reformation, there never was an age in which the day of sacred rest was so generally and daringly profaned ; and there never was an age in which infidelity made such an alarming progress. This day hath God given to his people to be a sign between him and them, a permanent evidence of his being 'The Lord that sanctifieth' them — a perpetual badge of distinction between them and the heathen. When, therefore, His Sab- baths are profaned, the badge is broken down; and need we wonder that ' the heathen should enter into his inheritance?' " The enemies of revelation in a neighbouring country have testified their conviction of the inseparable connection between Christianity and the observation of the Sabbath. As the most eflfectual plan for bringing men back to what they call the religion of reason, they have changed the day of rest; with an evident design that the very day of the Sab- bath may be gradually forgotten, they have totally altered their calendar." — Again: " Perhaps there never was a time when divine ordinances were more despised than they now are. Many avow that they can learn as much from a well- wrote tragedy as from a sermon. It would seem, indeed, that they thought they could learn more. Let the crowded theatres, and the empty churches in our cities and villages, tell whether this be the truth. When a remnant of the hea- thenish worship is supposed to be, at least, as useful to mankind as the institutions of the true God ; when the re- presentation of a fiction is viewed as no less serviceable to the best interests of society than the ' setting forth of Jesus 496 PROTESTANT CHURCH Christ as crucified and slain ;' need we wonder that infidelity- pours in like a torrent, and threatens to sweep every thing before it?" The last quotation which I shall give is from the pen of the Rev. Professor Bruce of Whitburn, a man of great learning, the friend and associate of Dr. McCrie. In his preface to Pictel's works on "True and False Religion Ex- amined," which he translated, he says, particularly in refer- ence to the relaxed views which were entertained of Popery in this country at the period of the French Revolution, and which indicated a great change for the worse — " Something of this kind (alluding to Pictet's work,) adapted to ordinary capacities, executed in a pious as well as rational strain, is rendered but too needful in our land, from the infectious poison and creeping gangrene of infidelity that has begun of late to appear among the lower classes of people, for which the long indifference and growing ignorance as to religious concerns, both among high and low, have been gradually preparing the way and made them an easy prey ; while a false glare of modish wit or learning, the abuse and false pretext of liberty, and the parade of some modern improvements of another kind, impose upon the unthinking, fill novices with pert con- ceit, and make them assume insolent but contemptible airs of superior wisdom." " It were to be wished that there were less occasion for still displaying to the view of professed Christians, and of Protestants themselves, the wicked tenets and shocking super- stitions of the Romish Church, and for inculcating the hein- ous guilt and danger of continuing to adhere to them, or of participating therein. Perhaps at no time since the retreat was sounded from idolatrous Babel, was there greater necessity for this than at the present juncture, though almost all des- criptions of men have got nearly every apprehension on this head banished from their minds. While multitudes, from sottish ignorance, and by the arts of imposition, ^are still detained in the old errors and grossest superstitions of Rome ; many who profess to have renounced them are ready to afford them patronage and the most direct and effectual sup- port, some from political views of particular interests, others from absolute indifference about every species of religion. What our reforming ancestors strove to abolish, what the true Church of Christ hath been incessantly praying heaven to destroy, and what God hath declared to be above all other things most abominable in his sight, and against which his OF FRANCE. 497 indignation shall bum most fiercely in this world and in the lowest hell, that is what even modern Protestants scruple not to maintain or labour to restore, by furious wars or negociations of peace. The fall of idolatrous altars — the overthrow of image-worship — the abolition of monkery — the degradation of mass-priests — the destruction of the usurped jurisdiction and tyranny of prelates — the alienation of the abused wealth and secularization of the immense estates belonging to the papal establishment, whereby its force and vital spirits are drained; — these are now bewailed, even by the clergy of Reformed Churches, as the most dreadful events and serious evils, equivalent to the abolition of the institu- tions of the true God and Redeemer. Thus the true religion and holy institutions of Jesus are blasphemously confounded with the abominable interests and constitutions of the Man of Sin, and His zeal and glory are represented as equally concerned in the preservation and vindication of both. Terms of the most opposite signification have lost all proper and distinct meaning in their mouths. Christ and Antichrist — the kingdom of the I^amb and of the dragon — the temple of God and of idols — the worship of God and of creatures — in- stead of being totally and diametrically opposite, are, it seems, but different names for one and the same thing. ' Be aston- ished, O ye heavens, at this! be horribly afraid.' Our fathers could not have believed such a thing possible, and posterity will hardly credit it. The native import of such language is, that the glorious Reformation was a sacrilegious farce, or a lamentable tragedy of outrage, spoil, and robbery. Such men, while they may pretend to laugh at Popery as an antiquated absurdity, are, in fact, engaged in defence of the very life and substance of it, as really as any people formerly were or presently are. They are not content to receive again the mark of the Beast only in their right hand, but they are not ashamed to bear it in their forehead. Those minis- ters who can preach, and fast, and pray, and learn the use of arms to such an effect, or the nations who can deliberately make war and peace of such a tendency, deserve no more to be called Protestant — they have forfeited the very possession and name." However commendable as a deed of humanity, the wel- come and entertainment of seven thousand refugee Roman Catholic Priests, for so many years, was not fitted to improve the religious spirit and tone of the British people ; the more especially, as the refugees did not remain neutral when in 32 498 PROTESTANT CHURCH this country, but laboured, and it is believed not unsuccess- fully, to spread the doctrines and practices of the Church of Rome. Strange that they did not see that it was Popery, in a chief degree, which created the infidelity under which they suffered exile, and by the hands of wliich twelve hundred of their brethren suffered a violent death. Strange that they did not see they were nursing the tyrant under whose thral- dom they groaned! Very different to this country were the effects of the visit of the French Protestant and French Popish refugees. The one brought industry, and skill, and commercial advantage — the other, ignorance, prejudice, and superstition, which ripened into persecution on their return to their own land. Though Great Britain did not suffer so severely from the French Revolution and its effects, as many nations of the Continent, whose lands were the scenes of actual devastation and bloodshed; yet the danger of invasion, and the expendi- ture of treasure and life, were well fitted to rouse the moral sensibilities of the country, and, with the Divine blessing, to lead to salutary thought and seriousness. In the nine years of the French Revolutionary war, and the twelve years of the war against Bonaparte, above sixteen hundred million sterling were Expended ; and though, during the heat of the war, this burden was little felt, yet it was serious in itself; and the loss of life, the loss of relatives and friends, cut dow^n in the prime of their days, could not fail to awaken the most solemn thoughts. I have already ascribed the revived reli- gious feeling of the country, which appeared in the end of the century, in part to this cause; and the very manifestation of the effects of infidelity, irreligion, and vice, would natu- rally drive many minds to true religion as their refuge, and endear it to them the more. God sometimes teaches the value of sound principle, by a manifestation of the horrors of its opposite — false principles. But it is to the different societies for promoting the knowledge of the Gospel at home and abroad', among the young, and the growni up, and the aged — themselves the fruit of a revived religious spirit — that I would attribute the growing increase and power of the blessed change which had begun. Perhaps there is nothing which better shows forth the irreligion and infidelity of much of the eighteenth century, than the absence of the missionary spirit from all the churches of Christ in this country during that period. It is not wonderful, perhaps, that in the six- teenth and seventeenth centuries, when the Church was OP FRANCE. 499 struggling for her very existence at home against powerful enemies, she should have had little time or spirit for foreign missionary enterprises, though, even in such circumstances, we believe her non-exertion on this field to have been culpa- ble in itself, and injurious to her own stability and extension. But there was no excuse for it in the eighteenth century. Whatever might be the wars in which the country was en- gaged with foreign enemies, the Church at home was exter- nally peaceful and prosperous. She had rest from her foes ; and so strongly did she feel her obligations to attempt some- thing for the honour of Christ and the salvation of souls, that, at the beginning of the century, when sound in doctrine, mis- sionary undertakings were actually set on foot in England and in Scotland for the good both of Jews and Heathen, though upon a very limited scale. It is a melancholy fact, however, which speaks volumes, that from the period of the institution of the " Society in Scotland for Propagating Chris- tian Knowledge" in 1709, with the exception of the " Mo- ravian Society" in 1732, and the " English Methodist" in 1786, and the " Baptist" in 1792, there was not a single missionary association formed for the propagation of that Gospel, the knowledge and belief of which, we are assured, are essential to salvation by any religious party or Christian Church in Great Britain, for the protracted period of eighty years! Since then not a year has passed in which various associations have not been formed for the furtherance of the Gospel both at home and abroad. Some fifty societies of leading importance, connected with different divisions of the Christian Church, could be named. What a happy change is this! What a token of decided revival, and what a foun- dation laid for further progress ! It is interesting and worthy of notice, that the first Bible Society was formed in 1670, and the first Missionary Society in 1663; and that the head of the one was Dr. Thomas Gouge, and the principal founder of the other the Rev. Richard Baxter, both of them Puritan and Presbyterian divines. The missionary spirit of Baxter is well known.* How striking the contrast between these * The state of the heathen appears to have occupied the thoug-hts of Baxter through the whole course of his ministry. Numerous allu- sions and references to the subject are found in his writings. In the Preface to his work, entitled, the " Reasons of the Christian Religion," he states, that his desire to promote the conversion of idolaters and infidels to God and the Christian faith, was one of the reasons which prompted him to write that work. "The doleful thought, that five 500 PROTESTANT CHURCH good men in the midst of persecution, providing for the cir- culation of the Word of God and the preaching of the Gospel in the American wilderness, and multitudes of professed min- isters of the Gospel in the midst of external ease and pros- parts of the world were still heathens and Mohammedans, and that Christian princes and preachers did no more for their recovery," awakened the most painful anxiety and distress in his mind. In his work, " How to do good to many," «&c., he asks, " Is it not possible at least, to help the poor ignorant Armenians, Greeks, Muscovites, and other Christians who have no printing among them, nor much preaching, and knowledge, and for want of printing have very few Bibles, even for their churches or ministers ? Could nothing be done to get some Bibles, Catechisms, and practical books printed in their own tongues, and given among them ? I know there is a difficulty in the way ; but money, and willingness, and diligence, might do something. Might not something be done in other plantations as well as in New England towards the conversion of the natives there ? Might not some skilful zealous preachers be sent thither, who would promote serious piety among those of the English that have too little of it, teach the natives the Gospel, and our planters how to behave themselves so as to win souls to Christ?" At the close of his life, and on the near approach of eternity, his mind was deeply interested on this important subject. The un- bounded benevolence of his heart is poured forth in the following ex- tract from his solemn review of his own character, made in his last days: " My soul is much more afflicted with the thoughts of the miserable world, and more drawn out in desire of their conversion than hereto- fore. 1 was wont to look little further than England in my prayers, as not considering the state of the rest of the world ; only I prayed for the Jews — that was almost all. But now, as I better understand the case of the world and the method of the Lord's Prayer, so there is nothing that lies so heavy upon my heart as the thought of the miserable nations of the earth. It being the most astonishing part of all God's providence to me, that he so far forsakes almost all the world, and confines his special favour to so few — that so small a part of the world has the profession of Christianity in comparison of hea- thens, Mohammedans, and infidels! and that among professed Chris- tians there are so few that are saved from gross delusions and have any competent knowledge; and that among those there are so few that are seriously religious, and truly set their hearts on heaven — I cannot be affected so much with the calamities of my own rela- tions or the land of my nativity, as with the case of the heathen, Mohammedan, and ignorant nations of the earth. No part of my prayers is so deeply serious as that for the conversion of the infi- del and ungodly world — that God's name may be sanctified, and his kingdom come, and his will be done in earth as it is done in heaven. Nor was I ever before so sensible what a plague the division of lan- guages was which hinders our speaking to them for their conversion; nor what a great sin tyranny is, which keeps out the Gospel from most of the nations of the world. Could we but go among Tartars, OF FRA.NCE. 501 perity, talking perpetually of friendship and the love of man, and yet leaving millions on millions of their fellow-men to perish without a single efibrt, yea, hostile to any effort to give them that truth which alone can save. The immense increased circulation of the Scriptures, through the medium of the various Bible Societies which were called into existence early in the present century — the consequent growth of general knowledge and sound public opinion — in part the fruit of the action of the Word of God — the intimate union and co-operation of Christians for religious objects who had long been estranged — God's blessing upon Christians at home when contributing and labouring for the salvation of sinners abroad — all tended to the spread of evan- gelical preaching, both in the Established churches and among the Dissenters. Though the people of Scodand had little or no political power at this time, yet public sentiment began to exert a strong and growing influence upon the ad- ministration of Church patronage. Many patrons exercised the Act of Queen Anne in such a way as to secure acceptable evangelical ministers, and regarded their patronages rather as a trust for the good of parishes, than as the sources of pri- vate influence or personal rewards. In the meantime, the cause of sound ecclesiastical policy, as well as evangelical religion in the Church of Scotland, was greatly aided by the publication, for many years, of the "Edinburgh Christian Instructor," under the powerful edi- torship of the late Rev. Dr. Andrew Thomson. This peri- odical rendered to Scotland a similar service to that which the " Christian Observer" rendered to sound doctrine and principle in the Church of England. It can scarcely be ques- tioned, that not a litfle of the good which has appeared in the Established Churches of late years, has been owing to the seed which was sown by these able Journals in earlier days; nor have they ceased to exert a powerfully propitious influence still, though the work is now divided among a greater number of coadjutors. Another important source of good was the discussion in Turks, and heathens, and speak their language, I should be but little troubled for the silencing of eighteen hundred ministers at once in England, nor for all the rest that were cast out here, and in Scotland, and Ireland, there being no employment in the world so desirable, in my eyes, as to labour for the winning of such miserable souls, which makes me greatly honour Mr. John Elliot the apostle of the Indians in New England, and whoever else have laboured in such work." 502 PROTESTANT CHURCH Church Courts, Presbyteries, Synods, and General Assem- blies, of cases which involved great principles of Scripture, or ecclesiastical policy, and which, through the press, found their way, more or less, fully to the public. This is one of the vast advantages of Presbyterian Church government, to which other forms of rule are strangers. It affords scope for discussion, and so for the exposure of error and abuse, and the elucidation and propagation of truth. Who can doubt that the Church of England, especially in these times of in- quiry and discussion, is weak compared with what she might be from the absence of such courts. The vote may often be adverse, and, it may be, in the face of the best argument; but the discussion is of great service in preventing evil, and in maturing the mind of the Church for change, and in has- tening on a return to a sounder state of things. The able discussions which year after year took place on many great questions, such as against Pluralities, and which practically, though not formally, carried them, it cannot be doubted, had an influence favourable to the revival of evangelical religion. Presbyterian government, moreover, is fitted to propagate and perpetuate salutary influence, after the influence has once been called into existence. Nor must we forget the special and kind Providence of God, in raising up several very eminent persons, in both parts of the island, and in assigning to them distinct spheres of labour, in wliich they all excelled, and by means of which they brought divine truth under the view of different in- fluential classes, in a way in which no single individual, nor even society of less gifted individuals, could have been ex- pected to accomplish. Among these may be mentioned, William Wilberforce, Hannah More, Henry Thornton, Dr. Thomson, Dr. M'Crie, and Dr. Chalmers — all now gone to their reward, with the exception of Dr. Chalmers, who still lives (1841) to see much of the fruit for which he and others of high powers and similar spirit prayed and laboured, but which they were not privileged to behold. Let us hope that he is yet destined to behold a vast extension of the life and power of true religion, and that through his own surpassing labours in enlarging the Church, and vindicating the honour of her exalted Head. The raising up, at the same time, of persons of such rare and singular gifts and graces — and others could be named — indicates, in a remarkable manner, God's interposition to bless his Church. Shortly after the termination of the war in 1815, there OF FRANCE. 503 was a decided revival of religion in many families of the middle and higher classes of society in Edinburgh, chiefly owing to the faithful application of evangelical truth to the heart and the conscience, under the ministration of Dr. Thom- son. At the same period, a similar change appeared at Glas- gow, as the fruit of the labours of Dr. Chalmers; and through the press the blessed influence was widely diflused. Ere long, evangelical religion appeared in several of the Episcopal pulpits of Scotland, from which it had well nigh departed, if it ever held a place in them. In this way many of the higher classes heard and received truths to which they had been altogether strangers. In the meantime, evangelical religion steadily spread among the people generally, and sometimes in very striking forms. About the year 1814, simultaneous revivals, of considerable extent, appeared in several Highland parishes, such as Arran. Many were ad- ded to the Church of such as should be saved; and, through the labours of the " Society in Scodand for Propagating Christian Knowledge," and the " Gaelic School Society," it is certain that the spirit of true religion was widely diff'used in various other quarters. Such was the growing progress of evangelical religion in the Established Church, that she had now strength to insti- tute and maintain difTerent schemes of Christian usefulness for herself. The faithful among her ministers and people had all along carried on, and stifl continue to carry on, the same objects with Christians of other denominations, asso- ciated into societies; but now she would act for herself, and was the first, we believe, as a Church, to do so. As there can be little question that this is the Scriptural mode of pro- ceeding, it may be expected that she shall receive the richer blessing. Already she has five great schemes : the Educa- tional at home for the Lowlands, as well as Highlands and Islands, embracing schools and teaching children ; — the Co- lonial scheme, for providing churches in all the many colonies of the British empire, and making provision for the reli- gious wants of the Scottish Presbyterians scattered through- out the continent of Europe; already the Colonial Church of Canada alone numbers above sixty ministers, and every year is adding to the number ;— the scheme of Foreign Mis- sions, intended to convey the Gospel of salvation to the heathen: the sphere of labour has hitherto been confined to the three Presidencies of the East Indies: the British la- bourers are twelve in number, of the highest qualifications, 504 PROTESTANT CHURCH and their past success furnishes the best pledge and promise of future and extensive usefulness ; — the Church Extension scheme, intended to provide churches and the means of sal- vation to destitute districts at home, by the subdivision of parishes, Slc. The success of this scheme has, for the time, been perhaps unprecedented in the history of the Church of Christ. In six years the sum of ^6288, 000 had been raised; and two hundred and ten churches built, or building, or in the course of being built; while not less than one hundred and fifty thousand persons, it is estimated, have been already brought within the reach of the Gospel by its instrument- ality. x\nd, lastly, there is the scheme for the Conversion of God's ancient people, the Jews — the more recent, but not the least interesting of these Christian enterprises; its la- bours, though only beginning, are full of promise. Leaving the contributions to Church Extension out of view, the whole sum raised for the other four schemes, amounts to not less than ^16,000 annually — compared with the necessities of the respective cases, an inconsiderable sum; but, taking into account that, a few years ago, no contribution was made by the Church, as a Church, for any of these objects, no small proof of the enlarged and growing revival with which she has been blessed by her great Head. Such is her mis- sionary progress, that she now needs and possesses a month- ly periodical, expressly devoted to the recording of her pro- ceedings. Its sale is nearly eight thousand copies monthly.* * A remarkable proof of the revived evangelical spirit of the day is to be found in the immense sale of works of standard practical theology. I do not refer to the vast and meritorious labours of the " Religious Tract Society of London," to the olden theology which they have recalled from obscurity, and the cheap and admirable libra- ries of all sizes which they have formed, and which they are spread- ing over the country, but to the large sales of private publishers. Mr. Blackie, of Glasgow — a leading publisher in Scotland — has kindly in- formed me of his sale of a few principal evangelical works in the course of a few years, and it is to be remembered that this is but one publishing house. Of " Haweis' Commentary on the Scriptures" he has sold nearly thirty thousand copies ; of " Brown's Self-Interpreting Bible," nine thousand copies. There are not less than four other editions of the same work, the property of other publishers, and doubtless their sales have also been very great. Of " Watson's Body of Divinity," nearly fifteen thousand copies ; " Dwight's Theology," nine thousand copies; "Fleetwood's Life of Christ," six thousand copies in three years ; " Baxter's Saint's Rest," five thousand five hundred copies. Such is a specimen of works of practical theology. A few others bearing on theology may be added, such as the " Scots OP FRANCE. 505 The great political change which took place in 1832, and which particularly affected Scotland, by adding to the popu- lar influence in the country, favourably influenced the exer- cise of Church patronage. The number of faithful ministers and elders was now so multiplied, that, in 1834, the evangel- ical, or popular party, gained the ascendency in the General Assembly — an ascendency which they had not enjoyed for nearly eighty years. It is particularly worthy of notice, that this was not owing to, nor in connection with, secular poli- tics. The progress was decided and growing before : political changes may have aided it, but that is all. Though these changes had never taken place, the same result must, ere long, have been attained. Ecclesiastical are not synonymous with political parties. The first thing which the majority Worthies," nine thousand copies ; " Moshiem's Church Histery," nine thousand copies ; " Stackhouse's History of the Bible," in four years, five thousand copies. With the exception of Fleetwood and Brown, Mr. Blackie's sale of the works which have been noticed has been almost confined to Scotland, and it is to be remembered that the works are not of trifling value. They are comparatively large and costly, and yet the sale has been most extensive. It is worthy of notice also, that it is only works of evangelical sentiment, not works of cold or unsound theology, which prove so acceptable. Even selections from the works of Jeremy Taylor, though in many respects attractive, and edited by the late accomplished Rev. Mr, Patterson, of Falkirk, did not meet the taste of the Scottish public, while a work of similar size, " The Beauties of the Rev. Ralph Erskine," has had the very large sale of nine thousand copies. The only unsound theological work which has had an extensive sale of late years, is the " Morning and Evening Sacrifice ;" but this, it is believed, has been chiefly in England, and its success rather proves the felt want of a book of a devotional character at the time of its publication, than any approba- tion of its slender and defective Christianity. Mr. Blackie's work on «' Family Worship," now publishing, by the time it has been out for a year, will, it is estimated, have had a sale of twenty thousand copies. It is well known that of late years no class of books have been in greater demand than devotional works, as the large and rapid editions through which several have run amply testifies. This, of itself, is no bad symptom of the revived influence of evangelical religion. Surely no one acquainted with Scotland can imagine that there was in the end of the last, or the beginning of the present century, as great a thirst for sound and devotional theology as we have seen to prevail at the present day. None can suppose that there would have been such sales of such works as have been referred to in 1792. It may be ad- ded, that the plan, the amazing cheapness, and the unprecedented sale of "The Scottish Christian Herald," through five successive years, are quite in harmony with the above important facts, and prove the same point. 506 PROTESTANT CHURCH did as soon as they had come to power was, not to seek for any aggrandizement for themselves, but to protect their peo- ple against unacceptable and useless ministers. With this view, and after the best legal advice, what is popularly called the Veto Act was passed — a measure which, whatever may be thought of the difficulties into which it has ultimately brought the Church with the Civil Courts of the country, it must be acknowledged by all parties, has wrought excellent- ly for the religious purpose for which it was intended. It has doubdess added to the evangelical influence of the Church, and so of the country ; in other words, to the great end for which a Christian Church was instituted at all. It is unnecessary to say any thing of the progress of the Church of Scodand during the last six years, since the evan- gelical party acquired the ascendency. It is too well known, and too striking to be forgotten. Judging by the views which many have been accustomed to entertain of the party, imagining that they consist of weak, well disposed men — so much absorbed in the study of religion, that they do not care for, if they are not actually opposed to, the claims of literature and science — one might fear that their ascendency could be associated only with ignorance and fanaticism. How much, then, must the country be surprised to find, the first men of general and acknowledged talent — the man of greatest genius in the age — the leading man of science — the man of highest attainments in oriental literature in Scotland, all num- bered with this once despised party; and that, since their in- fluence became prevailing, there has been a zealous and suc- cessful effort to improve the literary and theological attain- ments of the students, to an extent which was unknown before. I need not refer to the increased labours and sacri- fices after a higher style of popular education, or to the great internal reforms which are going forward, particularly in the exercise of discipline on unworthy probationers and minis- ters; so that, instead, as formerly, of vice being too often sheltered, it is now sure of meeting with its appropriate award. Nor need I refer to the deUghtful spirit of union with other sound Presbyterian bodies which has been call- ed forth — of the union of a respectable class of Seceders in Scodand with the Established Church, re-echoed by a similar and still larger union of the Presbyterian Churches of Ireland; nay, which has reached even to the wilds of Canada, and joined in brotherhood those who had long been separated there. Nor need I refer to what is best of all, to OF FRANCE. 507 the decided revivals of religion in various parishes in the north, and south, and east, and west of Scodand, which have appeared within these two years ; revivals which are bring- ing in hundreds at once to the spiritual fold of the chief Shep- herd and Bishop of souls, and assuring the Church, amid all her difficulties and trials, that she is a Church of Christ, what- ever some parties may say to the disparagement of her title, also that her present course of reformation and progress is the right one, and the course which she must be encouraged yet more and more to pursue. Nor is it necessary to refer to the greatly increased public interest which is felt in the proceedings of the Courts of the Church, and to the growing appreciation of the principles and advantages of Presbyterian Church government; its scriptural character, and entire ac- cordance with the views of the most enlightened representa- tive civil rule. All these, and many other pleasing proofs of spiritual progress, particularly the enlarged missionary spirit of the Church, might be referred to; but it is unne- cessary. Suffice it to say, that the influence of the Evan- gelical party, in spite of opposition from enemies of the Church without, and mistaken friends within, is steadily and rapidly advancing. The majorities of the General Assembly are yearly increasing: the last (1840) almost doubled its predecessor. And such is the spu'it of prayer and union, of self-sacrifice and liberality for the good of others, and of re- gard for the honour of the Redeemer, that there is every reason to think, instead of declining, they will grow stronger and stronger. The Church, indeed, since her counsels and proceedings became thoroughly evangelical, has not been without trials, but these seem to have been sanctified to her greater zeal and usefulness. First, there was violent hostility from without; an effort to break up the union of Church and State altogether, as an unscriptural thing. Here the Church vigorously met her opponents, first in argument, and then by a great exten- sion of the means of religious instruction and worship. So far as can be at present estimated, she sustained no injury, she lost no part of her adherents by this assault. On the contrary, while the discussion has been useful in bringing out principles which involve the honour of Christ as king of nations, and which had been much forgotten, it has also served to direct the attention of statesmen and politicians to the important truth, that the disorders of communities and nations are to be sought for in moral causes, and that the 508 PROTESTANT CHURCH restoration of health and happiness is to be secured by moral and religious means. The gross irreligion and Sabbath pro- fanation which prevail, especially in the larger towns, and the Infidelity and Popery which seem to be increasing in particular districts, carry no just reflection against the pre- sent labours of the Church. Whatever ground of humilia- tion they may suggest for the relaxation and carelessness of the past, they are too old to be charged upon the present generation with any equity. It is to be feared that the ani- mating spirit of this hostility has long existed, and that cir- cumstances are only now bringing it into outward manifes- tation. It is not improbable that it is the very good which the Church is doing, and threatening to do, which is pro- voking the great adversary of God and man to unwonted violence. The other opposition with which the Church has been called to contend is more serious. It is from within — from a considerable party of her own ministers and members — those who once held the sway, but who now form the mi- nority. Her contest with them, they being aided by the courts of law, is still in progress. The question at stake is not here, the point of the propriety or impropriety of the union of Church and State, but whether Civil Courts shall, or shall not, bear rule in the Church of Christ, and shall have the exclusive power of interpreting what is civil and ecclesiastical, and governing the Established Church accord- ingly. The former controversy respected the laivfulness of the union of Church and State; this concerns the right terms on which the union should be formed. In short, the exist- ing controversy is the Erastian controversy revived, and of course involves the supreme Headship of the Lord Jesus Christ in his Church. Not a few good men may not see things in this light, and much less, that dislike to evan- gelical religion is the main source of the opposition of many to the present proceedings of the Church. But events in the providence of God are rapidly making this apparent. It is certain, that if men are strangers to true religion, they can- not value aright the honour of Christ and the claims of his Church ; and, if they are indifferent and hostile to these (as all men naturally are,) they cannot approve, but must con- demn the existing position of the Church of Scotland. In perfect harmony with this, we find the enemies of all religion, also the enemies of the Church of Scotland as an Establish- ed Church, and the secular and worldly-minded professors OF FRANCE. 509 of Christianity, among her leading opponents. Nay, so strong a bond of union is hatred to a common object of dis- like, that those who for years, upon all other matters have been sworn foes, are here seen uniting together as devoted friends and brethren. Any of a different spirit and charac- ter from those described — and there are many such labour- ing under grievous ignorance, prejudice, and misapprehen- sion— are the exception, not the rule. Whatever may be the result of this controversy, it has, at least, as yet done no injury to the Church as a Christian Church — a spiritual society intended to spread spiritual know- ledge and feeling among the people. On the contrary, it has called forth much prayer which would not otherwise have been offered. It is endearing the ministers and office-bearers of the Church, who are running hazards for the Christian people, in whose behalf these risks are encountered. It is making the memory of the martyrs more fragrant. It is drawing the public attention to the constitution of the Church of Christ — the distinction between what is civil and what is sacred, and the honour which is due to Christ as the King and Head of his Church ; in short, instructing the people in great truths which are little known and much forgotten. Not improbably it is intended to expose to public indignation and contempt, the false principles and evil policy which ruled the Church of Scotland for generations, and which well nigh brought her to destruction; and also to hold out, as a model to other Churches, the principles by which they ought to be guided. Though it be upon the soil of Scotland that the contest is at present waging, the principles involved are more extensive in their operation. There is reason to think that the same Erastian spirit which troubles the Church of Scot- land, is at present vexing the reviving evangelical Church of France, as it has long depressed the Church of England. Secular-minded men, and particularly the politicians of this world, would fain coerce and put down that Gospel doctrine and kingdom which they so foolishly imagine to be at war with their peace, but which is really the only source of abiding happiness, order, and freedom. The second Psalm, however, addressed to Messiah, renders the effort useless, yea fatal:—" Why do the heathen rage, and the people ima- gine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his Anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asun- der, and cast away their cords from us. He that silteth in 510 PROTESTANT CHURCH the heavens shall laugh : the Lord shall have them in deri- sion. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my hill of Zion." Such is the present character and position of the Church of Scotland. The revival of evangelical doctrine and practice within her pale, especially of late years, has been marvellous ; its rapidity greater than even the most sanguine could have anticipated. Opposition, instead of overthrowing, has hither- to only confirmed and extended her — deepening the interest of the pious and the prayerful in her cause. The attitude which she occupies is a noble one — at once self-denied and generous — refusing power for her office-bearers — seeking it only for the protection and edification of her people — an attitude which has seldom been exhibited by Christian Churches when allured by the temptations of power. And, now, what are her prospects for the future? It may be, that in punishment of past unfaithfulness, and for her greater purification, and for the higher honour and glory of her Head, God is preparing for her darker days than has be- fallen her for a protracted season. It is not unusual, under the Divine Governor, to visit with revival previously to the infliction of trial. It may be, on the other hand, that God intends present mercy to be the precursor of richer mercy in the future; that he is blessing the Church, that she may be a blessing to the world, and bear a leading part in ushering in the glory of the " latter days." Whatever may be the intention of the great Head of the Church, I think we may safely say, reviewing her past his- tory, that, apart altogether from her more spiritual objects in the conversion and edification of souls, she will, whether in affliction or in prosperity, be found the warm Friend of Knowledge, of Freedom, and of Social Happiness and Improvement. These are the great objects after which all intelligent men are labouring. These are the very grounds on which Infidelity founds her pretensions to public coun- tenance and support. The history of the Church of Scot- land, through three hundred years, proclaims that there is not only no inconsistency between Christianity and general knowledge, but that the Presbyterian Evangelical Church is a zealous friend of knowledge, both in its elementary cha- racter of universal popular education, and in the higher forms of literature and science for the more instructed. In proof of this, it is not needful to appeal to the distant past — to the OF FRANCE. 511 schools, and colleges, and learned men of other days. We have but to look around us at the present day, to contem- plate the proceedings of the Church in connection with her Educational scheme — her Normal schools — her additional chairs of biblical learning. We have, also, but to ask our- selves, whether there has been any decline in literature, or science, or art, since the beginning of the present century, Avhen evangelical religion began to revive, and particularly during the last few years, since it gained its ascendency. The result of such contemplations and questions must satisfy us, that the more true religion has grown, the more has knowledge in all its forms grown. Nor is this wonderful. True reUgion is the best food for the intellect. It raises up a large body of thoughtful and intelligent minds: it increases the reading public. Besides, by quickening the tone of so- ciety, it indirectly reaches those authors and philosophers who refuse to receive its saving blessings. An irreligious nation, such as France, may be able to boast of men who excel in art and science, but she will not carry knowledge to the mass of society, and her triumphs, where unsanctified, will be comparatively limited. Doubdess, the most perfect and general knowledge of the Works of God will be in the blessed day of the Millenium, when the knowledge of the Word of God shall be deep and universal. Irreligion is in- jurious to the intellect as well as the morals of a people. Many true Christians may be very humble in their mental attainments, but had it not been for their Christianity, there is reason to believe these attainments would have been still more slender than they are. With regard to freedom, personal and national, whatever Infidelity, misled by the deeds of Popery, may say to the contrary, true religion is its best friend. It is only the Gos- pel which can destroy the selfish, ambitious, anti-social feel- ings of human nature, and teach men to respect the rights and privileges of others from principle and conscience. Any other sort of liberty, such as that of ancient heathen, or of modern Popish republics, does not provide for the happiness of the whole body of the people, but only of a class, and so quickly perishes through ignorance and vice, as to give coun- tenance to the notion, that all civil governments and nations must, like individuals, necessarily pass through a state of in- fancy, manhood, and certain decay. The history of Britain, particularly of Scotland, in connection with her Church, clearly shows that evangelical religion was the parent of her 512 PROTESTANT CHURCH civil freedom — that she was free just as she was religious. The reign of Erastianism under James, of semi-Popish per- secution under Charles II., and of cold-hearted Moderatism during a large part of last century, was, in the two first, the reign of civil despotism, and in the last, of the decay of pub- lic spirit — of political corruption — of abuses and bribery, which almost ripened the people for following the example of the French Revolution. Since the revival of evangelical religion during the present century, there has been an en- largement of the public liberty. We do not enter upon the question, whether it has, or has not, been too ample for the smooth and successful working of the British Constitution; but the fact is certain, that public spirit has been rising from the days of the French Revolution, and that the people take an interest in, and enjoy a control over, the government of the country, which was altogether unknown during a large part of the last century, and which, but for the influence of Christianity, might not be safe. And regarding national happiness, the past history of the Church of Scotland holds out the most certain prospects for the future. If the possession of knowledge and the exercise of freedom be important elements of social happiness, then, by securing these, the Church secures the public welfare. But there is more than this. Her history shows how great is her power, through the truths which she difl'uses, to sup- port and give joy to the mind in the most trying times — amid the fires of martyrdom; and if so, then how much more must she be able to gladden it in days of peace and pros- perity. If she successfully meets the most arduous, she can- not surely be overcome before the less formidable. The truth is, she carries in her bosom all the seeds of social hap- piness— the moral virtues and aff'ections — fortitude, courage, patience, sympathy, benevolence, hope, and many others. It may be difficult, from the adverse influences which divide and distract, to see the full unbroken operation of the Gospel in any particular parish or country ; but certainly the history of the Church of Scotland presents the nearest approximation to this blessed slate of things. She can point to revivals of true religion in individual parishes and districts, and over large parts of her territory, which changed the entire moral aspect of society. She can, with gratitude to God, look back to scenes — and they have not altogether disappeared— in which regard to the will of God was predominant, and personal, relative, and social duty, in its best forms, flourished — OF FRANCE. 513 scenes, in reference to which good men could only wish that they might be universal and lasting, in order to introduce the glory of the latter days. Who can doubt, from the experi- ence of the past, that the Church of Scotland, retaining and deepening in her Evangelical and Presbyterian character, and, aided by all due facilities, shall, with God's blessing, be the source of the highest social improvement to the coun- try— shall carry forward the blessings of civilization to the great body of the people, as they have never been enjoyed before, and prove an example and a stimulus to the other Churches of the Reformation, to arise and pursue a course of public usefulness on which some have scarcely entered? Judging from the past, there are Churches in regard to which it could not be certainly affirmed, that their progress would be synonymous with that of knowledge, and freedom, and social happiness. But there is no reason for doubt or fear in regard to the Church of Scodand. Her character is estab- lished. Only let her be free, as a Church of Christ, of the yoke of patronage and of civil interference in matters sacred, and give her those means of extension from public resources to which she is entided to look, and, crowned with the grace and blessing of the Holy Spirit, there is no limit which can be assigned to her advancement and usefulness. The field is the world, and to it, having gathered together the long-divided parts of Presbyterianism, and sympathizing with all the Churches of the Reformation now rising in their evangelism, will she direct her noble energies, and stand^orth as one of the leading forces in the army of the living God, destined to bear a chief part in overthrowing all opposition, and establishing the everlasting kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. In concluding, it would be improper to forget the influ- ence in behalf of Evangelical Christianity, which has been called forth in the form of newspapers conducted on Chris- tian principles. This is a new source of power, which has conduced not a litde to the progress which has been already gained, and which holds out pleasing prospects for the future. Indeed, their very existence may be regarded as indicating religious revival. Till within these few years, Christianity and'^the proceedings of the Christian Church might be said to be proscribed in the newspaper press. Every sort of in- telligence was to be met with but religious; religion was thought a private matter for the closet or the church. Hap- pily mere secular and political men can no longer despise 33 514 PROTESTANT CHURCH OF FRANCE. Christianity. It is lifting up its head in the senate and the seat of business, and can now number in its behalf several im- portant organs in the newspaper journals of the day. What influence they exert in preventing the publication of unsound principle in secular newspapers, in vindicating truth, diff'us- ing religious information, and concentrating the interest and sympathy of Christian men on Christian objects need not be named: it would be difficult to estimate its force. Mere politicians feel and confess, whether they like it or not, that religious questions are the great dividing questions of the day, by which Cabinets are made and unmade, and that this again proceeds from the immense religious movement which has taken place of late years, and which, in spite of the pro- gress of infidelity and error is still steadily advancing. It is our earnest prayer that it may advance more and more; and that, with this view, the newspaper which forms almost the only reading of multitudes, may be daily rescued from the hands of neutrality, ungodliness, or infidelity, and devoted to the elucidation, maintenance, and propagation of Christian principle with all its unspeakable blessings. The Church of France has, with decided advantage, availed herself, to a considerable extent, of the aid of the press. It is well adap- ted to a reading, intelligent people, such as the Protestant Church raises up around her; and the Church of Scotland, since she became so warmly evangelical, has followed in the same course. Her "Christian Instructer," and "Presby- terian Review," and " Home and Foreign Missionary Re- cord," and "Scottish Christian Herald," besides various Christian newspapers, all show that her people are educated and intelligent — that she is not afraid of discussion — and that she is anxious to consecrate all the advantages which she possesses to the glory of God and the extension of the Redeemer's kingdom. THE END. 1 Date Due F^-"UL'h mib%( MY' MR 20-53 AP S- ■■ AD O? 'f- i^V^lf' WUt^^ 5^ mi 5 199^ ■ 1 ^ ^ \v