Protestant Exiles from France/Volume 2 - Book Third - Chapter 10 - Section I
Chapter X.
THE REFUGEE CLERGY— FIRST GROUP.
I. James Abbadie, D.D.
Jacques Abbadie was born at Nay, in Bearn, in the kingdom of Navarre, in the year 1654. To the pasteur of that country town, Jean de la Placette, a celebrated moralist,[1] he owed his early education. He completed his studies at Puylaurens, Saumur, and Sedan; — at the last-named university he took the degree of Doctor of Divinity at the age of seventeen. He never had a congregation in France; although but for the gloomy prospects of Protestantism in that country, “his own, his native land,” he would have refused the offer which enabled him to leave it quietly, and with royal permission. Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg, had resolved to found a church in Berlin, where public worship should be conducted in the French language. He sent the Count d’Espense to Paris to select a minister, and the Envoy’s choice fell on Abbadie, who accepted the appointment. The date of his arrival in the Prussian capital is not preserved. Before leaving France he had earned the reputation of a master in controversial writing. He wrote four letters on Transubstantiation, which have been translated and published by John W. Hamersley, A.M., with the title, “The Chemical Change in the Eucharist — in four letters, showing the relations of faith to sense, from the French of Jacques Abbadie.” The learned translator gives the history of them:—
“The design of Louis XIV. to commit Turenne to the Roman Creed gave the first impulse to the controversy that closed with these caustic letters. Louis, by instinct a bigot and despot, tempted the ambition of the chief captain of the age. The politic Port-Royalists sent the Marshal a thesis, charging the actual presence on the Protestant faith and change of faith to be impossible. Anne De Nompar, his wife, an ardent Calvinist, doubting the stability of her husband if he should survive her, induced Claude, the great polemic of France, to expose the fallacies of Port-Royal. The cordial reception of the Roman laity throughout Europe of Claude’s Critique (written on a journey from Languedoc to Montauban and circulated only in manuscript) evoked the able work of Arnauld and Nicole, La Perpetuité de la foi dans l’église catholique sur l’ Eucharistie. Claude replied. Arnauld rejoined; Nouet the Jesuit came to the relief of Arnauld in the Journal des Scavans. Claude answered Nouet in the Provincial Letter that called out two more folios from Arnauld, which Claude met with equal ability and learning. A clique of the Jansenists, secretly pleased with the confusion of Port-Royal, yet bound in honour to appear in the lists, issued their Just Prejudices against Calvinism. Claude reviewed it in his masterly Defense de la Reformation. Abbadie’s iron pen, ever nibbed with merciless courtesy, now the massive mace of Richard, now wary and keen as the Saracen’s cimetar, gave the coup de grace to the Papal hero of the clerical tilt.”
The above list of works —the one occasioning the next to be both written and printed — represents several years. Madame de Turenne died in April 1666, i.e., when Abbadie was twelve years old; and the controversy went on after the perversion to Popery of the unstable widower. It was in marvellously early youth that Abbadie wrote those Letters, concluding thus:—
“I may seem bold to enter the lists with such stalwart foes; but while those proud Philistines are defying the armies of the living God, may I not hope, though as feebly armed as the shepherd warrior of Israel, to confound them with a single blow? In my own cause I would despair; but I am fearless in thine, O God, who out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast perfected praise.”
He resided at Berlin, says the Biographia Britannica, “for many years with great reputation, and in high favour with the Elector; making now and then a trip to Holland on account of publishing his writings, which were received with great applause.” At first his congregation was thin, but after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, numbers of French refugees retired into Brandenburg. “They were received with the utmost compassion, so that Dr. Abbadie had a great charge, of whom he took all imaginable care; and by his interest, he rendered them many services at court.” His first book, containing four sermons, was published at Leyden in 1680. Early in the year 1684 he brought out the brilliant essay which established his fame — a panegyric on the Elector of Brandenburg. Bayle spoke of it, “not only with great condescension, but also with such marks of approbation as are not usual with that author;” and it was translated into Italian by Gregorio Leti.
In the Rev. William Douglas’s Album there is the following autograph:—
μαϰάριοι οί δεδίωϒμϩνοι ένεχεν διχαιοσΰνης
ότι αϋτών έστιν Βασιλεία τών ούρανώνν.
Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior esto.
Omnia fausta atque felicia
animitus apprecatur hujus libelli
possessori reverendissimo Domino
Douglacio addictissimus servns
Dabam
Berolini
Oct. 3, 1687.
The death of the Elector in 1668 seems to have spoilt the charm of his adopted home; not that he had anything but happy feelings towards his successor, in whose honour he published “Sermon prononcé à l’occasion du couronnement de l’Electeur de Brandenburg, le 13 de Juin 1688.” Though the Elector was a friend, yet the venerable and admirable Schomberg was a dearer one; and at the Marshal’s pressing invitation he accompanied him to Holland (where perhaps he had been superintending the publication of the coronation sermon) to England.
I cannot do better than quote Professor Weiss’s summary of the literary history of Abbadie up to this date:—
“It was Count de Beauveau who called him to Berlin, and attached him to the rising church in that city. Frederick William soon had reason to congratulate himself on the choice made by his Master of Horse; for his panegyric, eloquently written by Abaddie, made the tour of Europe, and gave him, before his death, a renown which powerfully contributed to the success of his later designs. Men were still inquiring the name of the Protestant writer who had composed this discourse, when the author made it known, and almost at the same time ensured it a very great celebrity by his Treatise on the truth of the Christian Religion, published in the same year as the panegyric, Protestants and Catholics received the treatise with unanimous expressions of approbation. It is long (wrote Bayle, in his News of the Republic of Letters) since a book has been written displaying greater vigour and grasp of mind. Bussy Rabutin, who did not pass for being very orthodox, or even a believer, wrote to Madame Sevigné, We are reading it now; and we think it is the only book in the world worth reading. This judgment delighted Madame de Sevigné It is the most divine of all books (said she, in her turn); this estimation of it is general; I do not believe that any one ever spoke of religion like this man. The Due de Montausier, speaking of it one day with the Prussian ambassador, said, The only thing that grieves me is, that the author of the book should be at Berlin and not at Paris. . . . Some years after the publication of this masterpiece, Abbadie brought out his Treatise on the Divinity of Jesus Christ. Although not so successful, this book was not unworthy of its predecessor. It extorted from Pelisson the essence of the prayer of Polyeuctes for Pauline —
[“Seigneur! de vos bontés il faut que je l’obtienne,
Elle a trop devertus pour n’être pas Chrétienne”]:—
Lord! it is not without you that any one combats for you thus powerfully; deign to enlighten him more and more. [Seigneur, ce n’est pas sans vous qu’ on combat pour vous avec tant de force; daignez l’éclairer de plus en plus.] Pelisson and other eminent minds among the Catholics mistook the real tendencies of this defender of the Christian religion : they thought he had but a step to take to re-enter the pale of their church, and they held out a hand to help him to take that step. With some pride, Abbadie made them feel that they deceived themselves. Instead of returning to France after the death of the great Elector, he embarked for England with Marshal Schomberg, who had conceived the warmest friendship for him.”
These two theological treatises were translated into English, the first in 1694, the second in 1704, the translator of both being John Henry Lussan. As to the second, we find the date of the publication of the French original in Darling’s Cyclopaedia Bibliographica, “Traité de la Divinite de notre Seigneur Jesus Christ, Rotterdam, 1689.” The English translation, as re-issued in 1718, is remarkable for its grand title-page, “The Great and Stupendous Mystery of Man’s Salvation by Jesus Christ asserted and defended, in proving from the old and New Testament, the writings of the Fathers of the Primitive Church, and many other holy men and learned doctors the Divinity of our Blessed Saviour — that he is God co-eternal with the Father, and that by him and through him the heavens and earth and all things were created. Plainly confuting those that impiously hold the doctrine of the Arians and Socinians in our days — answering and repelling their objections, and silencing the strongest proofs and reasons they can bring to authorise their absurd assertions.” By James Abbadie, D.D., London, printed for John Morphew, near Stationers’ Hall, and are to be sold by the booksellers of London and Westminster, 1718." The concluding words are:—
“This treatise I dedicate to the glory of the Saviour. Forgive, O God, my imperfections and infirmities; and do thou thyself establish by thy Holy Spirit the sacred and eternal truths of thy gospel, that as thou hast been pleased to manifest thyself in the flesh, so all flesh may acknowledge thy glory. Amen.”
Dr. Abbadie accompanied the Marshal to Ireland, and did not return to England until after the victory of the Boyne, bereaved of his friend and patron. He served as one of the ministers of the church in the Savoy, where his “mild eloquence” “instilled peace into the souls of the numerous refugees who flocked to hear him.” Amidst the noise of the Irish camp, he began to write his book on “The Art of Knowing One-Self,” which has been praised as “a book of remarkably vigorous conception,” and “the most perfect of his religious treatises;” he finished it in London, and it was published in 1692 under the title, “L’Art de se connaitre soi-même, ou la Recherche des sources de la Morale.” A Romanist reprinted it at Lyons in 1693, leaving out all the passages which favour the Protestant religion. An English translation was published in 1694, with this advertisement, “The translator, by the author’s advice, retrenched from the former part of this treatise certain obscure and metaphysical passages, which may be seen in the original. In doing which, he has cut off rather superfluous and useless branches than any material or necessary part, and has rendered it more agreeable and fitted for every capacity. — April 29, 1694.” (A second edition appeared in 1698.)
In 1693 Dr. Abbadie published his “Defence of the British Nation,” occasioned by an anonymous pamphlet, which Weiss thus describes:—
“The Advice to the Refugees on their approaching return to France, which appeared in 1690, and which his enemies attributed to Bayle, although he never admitted himself to be its author, was a cutting pamphlet [his antoganist Jurieu having prophesied the triumphant return of the Protestants to France in 1689]. The author ironically congratulated the exiles. . . . . But he charitably warned them not to set foot in the kingdom without having previously undergone a slight quarantine, to purge them of two maladies contracted during their residence abroad, namely, the spirit of satire, and a certain republican spirit which tends to nothing less than to introduce anarchy, that great scourge of society.”
Bayle’s offensive book, to which Abbadie replied, was printed at Paris, with a licence from Louis XIV., it was entitled, “Avis Important aux Refugiez sur leur prochain Retour en France, donné pour etrennes à l’un d’eux en 1690. Par Monsieur, C.L.A.A.P.D.P. A Paris. Chez la Veuve de Gabriel Martin, rue S. Jacques, au soleil d’or. 1692. Avec Privilege du Roy.” Abbadie’s reply gradually slid into a defence of the rival monarch, William III., though he had many fine passages on his proper subject; for instance, in some keen and powerful sentences, he ridiculed Bayle’s insinuation that the refugees on their return home might be dangerous to public tranquillity, because men who had shed so much ink in exposing the horrible cruelty of the recent persecutions, would probably take advantage of a tempting opportunity to shed the blood of their former persecutors.
Dr. Abbadie’s Panegyric on our good Queen Mary, who died on 28th December 1694, was probably preached as a Funeral Sermon in the French Church in the Savoy. The French original is to be found in the collected edition of Abbadie’s Sermons et Panégyriques (published in three volumes, Amsterdam, 1760). I have now before me the spirited English translation of the wonderful oration, entitled, “A Panegyric on our late Sovereign Lady, Mary, Queen of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, of glorious and immortal memory. By James Abbadie, D.D., Minister of the Savoy.” A few passages from it will be interesting to my readers:—
“In vain we strive to eternize the memory of heroes . . . if we do not labour to revive the spirit that animated them, and to immortalize their glory by a careful imitation of their actions. Only such an elogy is worthy of Mary, a queen the exemplar of her subjects, a heroine the model of queens, elevated above her rank by her virtues, and even in some measure raised above her virtues by her modesty. . . . She condemned thankfulness to silence, and made this seeming ingratitude the condition of her favours. With one hand she dried the tears of the afflicted, and with the other drew a veil over their misery. . . . But in vain she imposed a silence which sooner or later would certainly be broken. The whole universe, that was a witness of her virtues — the world that is filled with her charity, which she scattered through all nations and all climates — such an infinite number of persons that felt the consoling influence of her bounty, cry so much the louder after her death as they were forced to be silent during her life. Imprisoned gratitude shakes off its fetters. . . .
“The merit of our illustrious Mary was great, but it was not greater than her destiny. . . . The State demanded our Princess as its sure refuge and the source of all its comforts; and superstition courted her for a support and foundation of its hopes. . . . She believed that she owed herself to God and to the State, and that she could not answer the call of heaven but by devoting herself entirely to her country and her religion. . . . With an unshaken constancy, she reserved herself for that important and necessary marriage, to which the Church and the State, the Parliament and Council, and God and the King, had appointed her. Never was the public joy better grounded than on this occasion. For then it was that Providence laid the foundations of the public liberty; and to this happy marriage we owe the succeeding union of England and Holland, and the general confederacy of their allies. When the Prince went to England, accompanied with the prayers and acclamations of the whole world that was concerned in the success of his voyage, he seemed to ask the Princess, in the name of all those nations that were one day to owe their liberty to this blessed match. And, if I might be allowed to join the present events with the occurrences of those times, I would not scruple to affirm that their contract of marriage was a treaty which God by his Providence negotiated with all the nations of Europe, for their common defence and preservation. . . .
“We may easily remember that time which our latest posterity shall never forget, for they also are concerned in it — a time, in which God set bounds to the oppression of the people, and to the affliction of his Church, in which, by one sudden stroke, he stopped the progress of that Power which threatened to devour all the world — in which he preserved the earth from the overbearing inundations of that raging sea, by writing on the sand, Hitherto shall thou come and no further. We saw, and still have before our eyes that important juncture of affairs, when the all-wise governor of the world, who disposes second causes according to his pleasure, thought fit to chain the preservation of England, and of so many other countries to the resolution of one man — when the laws, rights, liberty, and religion of so many nations were entrusted by Providence to the inconstancy of the waves — when even the tempests served in so admirable a manner to advance the work of our deliverance, when unbloody victories executed the designs of the God of mercy, when the armies of the wicked were subdued by the harmony and union of our minds — when the Deliverer appeared, and the terrors of God seized on our enemies, and when, by the miraculous blessing of God on the noblest and most necessary undertaking of our age, England is still suffered to enjoy her laws, the Church to serve God, and we to live and breathe.”
The Assassination Plot, in which the name of Sir John Fenwick is notorious, was detected in 1696. By the king’s command a narrative of the conspiracy was written by Abbadie, and printed in French, Dutch, and English; the Earl of Portland and Secretary Sir William Trumball furnished the original papers from the Government archives for the author’s use. An exposure of the conspiracy was peculiarly required by the Protestants of the Continent. I have the original French edition before me; it is entitled, "“Histoire de la deinère conspiration d’Angleterre, avec le détail des diverses entreprises contre le Roy et la Nation qui ont precedé ce dernier attentat. A Londres, Par W. Redmayne dans Jewen Street, 1696.” The concluding words are:—
“Quand les siecles suivans oublieroient les obligations qu’ils auront au Prince et au Peuple; il est tonjours vray que, malgré leur ingratitude, le bienfait subsistera autant qu’il y aura des loix en Angleterre et des peuples libres dans l’Europe.”
The air of London disagreed with Dr. Abbadie’s health, and he expressed a wish to reside in Ireland. The king accordingly designed for him the Deanery of St. Patrick’s, Dublin, as the best preferment, to which, however, he could not be presented, because of his want of facility in speaking English. But the first vacancy of a similar nature was promised to him; and thus he became Dean of Killaloe In 1699. There was no Deanery and no other house suitable for a residence, so that Dean Abbadie was unavoidably non-resident and a sinecurist. His signature appears in the Chapter-Book[2] twice only — namely, on the occasion of his installation, 13th May 1699, and again on the following November 13. He resided sometimes in Dublin, sometimes in Portarlington. He is mentioned in the Portarlington Register as “doyen dc Cilalou.” His life was varied by journeys by sea and by land, for (as the Biographia Britannica observes) — “Business, and especially the printing of his books, called him frequently into England and Holland; in both which places he was extremely beloved.” Two volumes, entitled “La Verité de la Religion Rcformée," were issued in 1718. [Dr. Henry Lambert, Bishop of Dromore, translated them for the information of the Roman Catholics of his diocese, and to convince them of the truth of the reformed religion.] He devoted much attention to the interpretation of the Apocalypse, especially the chapters on the opening of the several Seals — and the result was a remarkable work in four volumes, under the title of “La Triomphe de la Providence et de la Religion, ou, L’ouverture des sept seaux par le Fils de Dieu; ou l’on trouvera la première partie de l’Apocalypse clairement expliquée par ce qu’il y a de plus connu dans l’histoire et de moins conteste dans la Parole de Dieu. Avec une nouvelle et très sensible demonstration de la verité de la religion Chrétienne” — published at Amsterdam, 1723.
In 1726 Dr. Abbadie resolved to apply for ecclesiastical promotion, as his income could not afford him an amanuensis to render assistance in the manual and mechanical departments of authorship. He addressed himself to Primate Boulter (of Armagh), who at once wrote to Lord Carteret, the Lord Lieutenant:—
“Dublin, July 6, 1726. — . . . . The present vacancy of the Bishopric of Cloyne, as it occasions (no doubt) very numerous applications to your lordship, so it brings some upon me. Mr. Abbadie, Dean of Killaloo, has been with me to desire my recommendations to Your Excellency, to be thought of for some deanery, which he supposes may happen to be vacant by promotion on this occasion. . . . . Your lordship knows him to have the character of a man of learning, and one well affected to His Majesty.”
This letter not having any practical result, the aged Dean resolved to wait upon the pillars of Church and State in London. The primate gave him a very handsome letter of introduction to Dr. Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London, which I quote entire (the blanks in the extract from the letter to Lord Carteret contained the information which is detailed in the following communication):—
“My Lord, — The bearer is Mr. Abbadie, Dean of Killaloo, one who for many years has made a figure in the world by the writings he has published. I find upon inquiry, he was by King William recommended to the government here for somewhat considerable, and would have had the Deanery of St. Patrick’s which fell soon after, but that having no knowledge of our language, it was thought improper to place him in the greatest preferment in this city. However, it was then fixed that he should have the next deanery that fell, which happened to be that of Killaloo, which was given him with one or two little things to make him amends for its falling short of the other deanery, and with those helps he had but about half the value of what had been designed him. At first he made about £240 per ann. of his preferment, but afterwards, upon a great scarcity of money here, was obliged to let his preferments during his incumbency for about £120 per ann., which I find was a pretty common case at that time with a great many other clergymen. He had afterwards repeated promises of having somewhat farther done for him, but nothing beyond promises. As this is but a small income, and now he grows old, he finds he wants an amanuensis to assist him in his studies, he would gladly have somewhat better either here or in England. He has firmly adhered to His Majesty’s interest here in the day of trial, and is every way a worthy man. I shall do my endeavour to serve him here, but as opportunities may not offer here so soon, he desired I would recommend him to your lordship, in hopes somewhat might be done for him in England.
“He would hope (if that consideration may be of service to him) that as his preferments are all in the gift of the government, they might easily be obtained for some friend of your lordship’s, if the dean had somewhat given him in England.
“I take the liberty to recommend him to your lordship’s favour and countenance, and if it shall lie in your way to help him to somewhat in England that may be a honourable subsistence to him the small remainder of life he is likely to live, you will do a kindness to a person of merit, and very much oblige, &c,
The Dean’s visit to England was his adieu to Ireland. In 1727 he issued a prospectus for publishing all his writings in four volumes 4to, containing a complete collection of his printed works, with the addition of several others prepared for the press. “But before he could bring his design to bear he was taken away by death.” He died at Marylebone on the 25th of September 1727, aged seventy-three. “He had,” says Dr. Kippis, “great natural abilities, improved by a large stock of solid and useful learning, was a most zealous Protestant, and, without flattery, one of the most eloquent men in the age in which he lived.”
Among the refugees of Portarlington lived Cornet Daniel D’Abbadie, half-pay of the Earl of Galway’s Horse; his annual pension in 1719 was £27, 7s. 6d.; and in 1723, £36, 10s.
- ↑ La Placette’s treatise on conscience, entitled “The Christian Casuist,” was translated into English by Kennett in 1705. The translator differed from some sentiments in the chapter Of Ecclesiastical Ordinances, and therefore he subjoined a statement of the difference between the Anglican and French churches as to the obligation to submission to such ordinances, specially on the ground of their receiving a concurrent sanction from the Christian sovereign of the country. The difference appears in interpretations of the text in Luke xxii., “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them . . . but ye shall not be so” [or as Matt. xx. 26, has it, “but it shall not be so among you.”] Kennett informs us, “As to the disputed text, the generality of French divines of the Protestant Communion agree with our Dissenters in maintaining that it utterly prohibits the conjunction of civil and ecclesiastical power in the same person.” The opposite opinion is expressed by Hooker, who says, that our Lord’s complete statement amounts to this, that the servants of the kings of nations may hope to receive from them large and ample secular preferments; but not so the servants of Christ; they are not to expect such gifts from him: “Ye are not to look for such preferments at my hands; your reward is in heaven; submission, humility, meekness, are things fitter here for you, whose chiefest honour must be to suffer for righteousness’ sake.”
- ↑ The Chapter-Book is in the keeping of the Rev. Dr. Reeves, of Armagh, my much-valued correspondent.