No. 280.]

I

CHURCH IN FRANCE.

(Continued from p. 137.) HAVE mentioned the reasons which induced Sully to lead Henry IV. to abandon the Reformed Church. The change was expedient in his view of politics, and he looked upon every other point as of little importance. He thought that whatever was lost to the Protestants would be gained to religion itself, which would profit by having more power set to work on its side, whether by Protestants or Catholics. This was obviously a false position, for one religious profession might not tend as much to the advancement of true religion as another: it might indeed act in direct opposition to the progress of truth, and thus become an instrument for promoting irreligion. It is so in the present times, when the influence of the Roman-Catholic Church is employed in shutting out scriptural light and knowledge from mankind. Sully's calculations, moreover, as to the causes of the past

The following is part of a curious letter from Queen Elizabeth to Henry IV. on the occasion of his leaving the Protest

ant Church.

4

"Mon Dieu, qu'elle cuisante douleur! tristesse n'ai-je pas ressentie, au récit que Morland m'a annoncé! Où est la foi des hommes! Qu'el siécle est celui-ci! Est-il possible qu'un avantage mondain vous ait obligé de vous départir de la crainte de Dieu ? pouvons-nous attendre une bonne issue d'une telle action? Ne pensez vous pas que celui qui vous a conservé jusqu'ici par sa puissance; vous abandonnera maintenant? Il-y-a une multitude de dangers à faire du mal, afin qu'il en arrive du bien. J'espère pourtant qu'un meilleur esprit vous inspirera une meilleure pensée."

CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 280.

quences which would arise from the change of religious profession which the king contemplated, seem to have been very doubtful, even in a political view. If it was true that for twenty-six years a dreadful conflict had been maintained, the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and the convulsions necessarily attendant upon a great national change of religion, were sufficient to account for it. But that these dissensions would have continued, seems improbable; for Henry had now arrived at the height of his power: he had an indisputable claim to the crown; he was supported by an excellent and victorious army; his chief enemies were dead, and the religious profession of the court he might have concluded would have soon become the religious profession of the people. It has been so in all ages. Besides all this, if he had felt that he contended for the cause of truth, he might have trusted the providence of God to vindicate its own cause, and it would have prevailed in spite of the opposition of man. The affairs of Henry had prospered during the whole period he had continued faithful to his principles. He had been delivered in a very remarkable manner from many difficulties, into which he had been brought by his connexion with the Protestants; and he might have rested assured that the same power which had protected him hitherto, would protect him to the end. Certain it is, that after his abjuration, he had no reason to feel more confident of his personal protection. The Catholics, jealous of the liber2 D

ties which he had given to his Protestant subjects, or suspicious of himself, after three different attempts, effected his destruction. The arm of an assassin put a period to his existence in 1610.

After Henry had quitted the Protestants, he always behaved towards them with the greatest kindness, and they had no reason to complain as long as he lived. In 1598, he gave them what is called the Edict of Nantes; an edict which confirm ed all the privileges they had ever enjoyed, allowed them free admission into public employments, and secured them liberty of religious worship, and power to educate their children. He also permitted them to open a church at Charenton, within two leagues of Paris; whereas, before, there was none allowed within five leagues of the capital. During the last twelve years of his reign, the Protestants, with the rest of his subjects, enjoyed perfect peace. The defection of the king from their cause had indeed made a great difference in their power and political importance. The nobility, in general, followed the court, and the Protestant cause seemed every day to be losing ground. In the year 1598 they had only 706 churches, the small remnant of the 2150 which twentyseven years before had flourished amongst them.

Louis the Thirteenth succeeded his father in 1610. The government, during his minority, was conducted by Mary of Medicis, the queen-mother. In 1616, the Cardinal de Richelieu became prime minister. One of the first objects of his policy was to abase the power of the Protestants; and this he effectually accomplished. Rochelle, where their strength principally lay, and which, under their influence, defended itself against the king, was at length taken, and its fortifications razed to the ground. The outward defences of the Protestants were thus lost, and the popular voice was turned against them. They did

indeed obtain a pardon from the king, whose views were at that time directed another way; but their power was circumscribed, and their movements became an object of' continual jealousy. Their great defenders, with the exception of two or three, were gone. The abandonment of the Protestant cause by Henry the Fourth had so effectually served as an example to others, that scarcely any person possessing political power stood by it. The Protestants themselves, however, were numerous, but they were principally amongst the middle and lower classes of society. In 1637, the number of their churches had increased to 806, and they reckoned amongst them 641 ministers; including some individuals of remarkable erudition and talents. In 1634 began the celebrated controversy about the doctrines of grace, of which Moses Amyraut appears to have been the originator. He, as well as many other divines, did not approve of the doctrine of reprobation, as it was inculcated in the Calvinistic school; and he therefore attempted in the first instance to prove that Calvin taught the doctrine of universal grace, and then he gave out a creed of his own, in which he endeavoured to reconcile the general doctrines of Calvinism, with the free invitation to sinners to return to God and obtain salvation. In his opinions he was seconded by Mestrezat, Faucher, Daillé, and Dubosc. Their doctrine may be justly compared to what is called moderate Calvinism in the present day. A short account of it is given by Mosheim as follows:

"That God desires the happiness of all men, and that no mortal is excluded by any Divine decree, from the benefits which are procured by the death, sufferings, and Gospel of Christ : That, however, none can be made a partaker of the blessings of the Gospel, and of eternal salvation, unless he believe in Jesus Christ: That such indeed is the

immense and universal goodness of the Divine Being, that he refuses to none the power of believing; though he does not grant to all his assistance and succour, that they may wisely improve this power to the attainment of everlasting salvation: and, That in consequence of this, multitudes perish through their own fault, and not from any want of goodness in God."

How much farther off than it was before, this interpretation places the difficulty, I will leave your readers to determine; and, without entering into the discussion of doctrines which on various occasions have been noticed in your work, will proceed to a statement of facts. The doctrines of Amyraut were ably and vigorously assaulted by Rivets, Spanheim, and Desmarets, who took the higher ground of absolute decrees. At length it was determined in the synod at Alençon, that silence should be kept on these points of doctrine. No recommendation could be more wise than this; but at the same time, none, when the passions of the combatants were warmly engaged in the controversy, was less likely to be attended to. The disputation was carried on in a variety of forms, till the revocation of the Edict of Nantes put aside all question of difference on these points, by involving the debaters in a common ruin.

The history of this remarkable and afflicting period, is briefly as follows. Louis the Fourteenth began to reign in 1642. The regen. cy during his minority was in the hands of Anne of Austria. In the contests in which the government was engaged during the minority, it stood in need of the assistance of the Protestants; and the bribe of fered to them was that of edicts which cost little to the givers, and with which the receivers were constrained, in the absence of any surer pledge, to be satisfied. From the year 1660, when the ministry of the Cardinal de Mazarin ceased, the persecution of the Protestants

began in a direct and alarming degree. Louis the Fourteenth might, when he was young, have possessed that portion of benevolent feeling which would have led him to tolerate his Protestant subjects; but as he advanced in life, every thing concurred to spoil the better dispositions of his mind. His was the age of the revival of arts and literature, and in this revival his own talents and taste may have considerably assisted. But it was also the age of corruption, of inordinate flattery, of unbounded profusion; and all these ministering to his selfishness, made him careless of the wants and sufferings of others. The cruel and exterminating wars in which he was engaged, added to the idolizing admiration of his own subjects, had so hardened his heart, that it was almost relentless to any suffering of his people, which did not at the same time interfere with his own popularity. He was totally unlike Henry the Fourth in this respect. It has been a common course with men who have sat down fatigued with the infliction of human misery, and which has turned rather to their own loss than profit; that they have yielded themselves to idle superstitions, or to the direction of a confessor. Thus did Louis; and his confessor was a Jesuit, a bitter foe to the Protestants. The king was by this man, the Pére De la Chaise, led to the commission of an act which scarcely a bigot will deem praiseworthy, and which has been branded by every wise and virtuous man, as one of the most wicked and impolitic measures which ever disgraced a professedly Christian and enlightened government. I allude to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes; by which the Reformed Church, as a body, was nearly annihilated in France. Every Protestant was either outlawed or compelled to renounce his religion. The ministers who would not consent to abandon their faith, were sentenced to be banished, together with their people; the former at one, the latter at six

months' notice.

But when the unhappy victims endeavoured to take advantage of the permission to expatriate themselves, they were stopped by the way; for their industry was found necessary to the prosperity of the nation, and they were therefore driven back again to their homes. Those who forced their escape, and were afterwards taken, were sent to the galleys; those who succeeded, had their property confiscated; and those who remained at home were subjected to the visitation of the dragoons, by whom they were cruelly tormented, and in the end either ruined or forced to apostatize. The Protestants were forbidden by express edicts to follow any branch of the medical or legal professions ; to fill any public office, or to enter into trade as silversmiths, printers, or booksellers: they could obtain no rank in the army; their marriages were annulled, their children were declared illegitimate, and their wives concubines. By this act 800,000 useful members of society were lost to France, and they carried with them branches of the arts and manufactures which were henceforth to give prosperity to other and rival countries. England and the German States, in particular, were great gainers by this fatal impolicy in the French government.

As this act was most unjust and impolitic, so it was entirely unprovoked, Since the year 1628, the Protestants had possessed no power which could be troublesome to the government. They had lost all their aristocratical supporters, and most of their landed influence, and they existed only as a large body of respectable, industrious, quiet, and orderly citizens, employed chiefly in the laborious branches of the mechanical arts and in agriculture. They might be said to be the salt of that kingdom, in which superstition, profiligacy, and infidelity sa remarkably abounded. If the ruin of the Protestants did not bring down a curse upon the guilty go

vernment which directed it, and draw upon it a portion of those horrors to which it was afterwards subjected, their banishment unques-tionably entailed upon France many obvious and positive evils. Not only did the loss of so many industrious subjects diminish the wealth and proportionably weaken the resources of that country, but the materials of disorder, which had existed for a long time among its population, being by this act of signal injustice and impolicy set in motion, finally produced the most disastrous results. If ever national crime called for national retribution, surely it might be expected to follow in this instance. The massacre of St. Bartholomew, and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, as they have been among the worst acts ever perpetrated by a government calling itself Christian, against a Christian and unoffending people, so they may well have brought down upon the government which directed them, the judgments which are appropriated to those who are chargeable with "the blood of the prophets and of the saints, and of them that are slain upon the earth.”

During the hundred years which followed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the Protestants continued under persecution, which however varied in activity according to the circumstances of the times, and the bigotry or forbearance of the different governors under whose superintendence they lived. The chief part of those who remained in France were obliged either to fly to the mountains, and carry on their worship in seclusion, or to conceal their real opinions, or to apostatize from the faith. Many acts of great cruelty are recorded to have taken place, in the interval before the reestablishment of the rights of dif ferent denominations of Christians by the States-General. There were some terrible executions at Toulouse; and, even in the year 1767, the parliament of Grenoble condemned a minister to death, for

having preached in the open air, and burnt him in effigy. As toleration was not granted by law, it was of course precarious, and depended upon the willingness of the provineial governors to evade existing statutes. At the same time, the Protestants, if they were tolerated, were still outlaws: they received no public protection, could possess no property, and partook of no privileges. They had no power legally to baptize their children, to enter into the married state, or to join in public or social worship. It was not till the reign of Lewis XVI., during the ministry of Malesherbes, that any disposition was discovered in the government to alter the law which respected those who were called "Non-Catholics." In 1787, Rabaut de St. Etienne was at Paris. From circumstances which occurred, he was led to suppose that something might then be effected in the relaxation of the laws which had been enacted against the Protestants. He applied to the minister, and received immediately a favourable answer. He was soon after invited, and received in public, as a Protestant clergyman, and obtained an edict favourable to the body to which he belonged. The Reformed Church being thus again acknowledged, a great number of persons ranged themselves under its banners. Nearly a million of people came forward to profess their faith, and to register before the local governments the baptisms and marriages which had been secretly performed. At the meeting of the States-General in 1789, some Protestants were returned as representatives; and a decree was passed that no one should be interrupted in his religious opinions, if the manifestation of them did not break in upon the public peace. Soon after, all Non-Catholics were permitted to hold civil and military employments in common with other citi

In 1790, that portion of the confiscated property of Protestants which had remained unsold after the

revocation of the Edict of Nantes in the hands of the government, was restored to the heirs of the former possessors. The government of the National Assembly, which usurped the authority in 1792, declared itself hostile alike to all ministers of every religious persuasion, who would not join with it in the desecration of the profession to which they were attached, and would not assist in the establishment of Atheism, pronounce death to be an eternal sleep, and partake of those diabolical acts which characterized the age of terror. It was not till the year 1802 that Christianity could be said to be publicly recognized by the Government of France. Till that time, the decades took the place of the Sabbath, and the altars of God lay in ruins. It was in the consulate of Bonaparte that the churches were repaired, and religion publicly re-established. Whatever might be the character, and whatever the political views of that remarkable man, religion, and especially the Reformed Church, was greatly indebted to him for its revival. Reports upon this subject were, by his direction, presented to the different members of the state; and upon them was founded a religious establishment, which, of course, gave to the Catholics a pre-eminence in the state, but which afforded also to the Protestants a free worship, and equal political rights. The day which brought in the re-establishment of religion, was hailed with joy by many faithful servants of God, who had survived the storm which for twelve or fourteen years had been desolating that wretched country. Nothing was wanting on the part of the Government to justify the expectation, that it intended to fix the institutions of religion on a solid and permanent footing. The: First Consul went in state to Nôtre Dame, from which the altar of Theophilanthropism had been removed; the statue of Mars was taken from the temple of the invalids; churches