HUGUENOT THOUGHT IN ENGLAND
SECOND PART
The foreign land to which the Huguenot was compelled to fly acted upon him
as a mental stimulus. With such an incitement, the progress of Huguenot
thought after the Revocation becomes profoundly interesting. We shall
examine it from the threefold point of view of theology, political
speculation, and toleration, the last question being intimately connected
with the two former, and all three questions being moreover inseparably
related.
Most of the men of letters with whom we are now dealing being pastors or
having been trained for the ministry, theology occupied a foremost place in
their thoughts. In France, the Calvinistic discipline, though it had not
suppressed heterodoxy, at least made its expression very guarded. When
Locke was staying at Montpellier, he remarked that there was in the land
room only for Roman Catholicism or Calvinism, no other creed being
tolerated. A Toleration Act in the most narrow sense of the word, the Edict
of Nantes recognised but one dissenting Communion. But in Holland and even
in England, before the Revolution, the refugees could indulge in a certain
freedom of thought. The charge of Socinianism brought against Colomies does
not seem to have indisposed against him his patron, the Archbishop.
Heterodoxy spread so easily among the Huguenots in England that their
orthodox brethren in Holland were alarmed: "We have learned from the good
and excellent letter addressed to us by Messieurs our dearest brethren the
Pastors of the dispersion at the present moment in London, that the evil
has crossed the seas and spreads in England amongst the brethren of our
communion and tongue."
These words are an extract from the debates of a Synod convened at Utrecht
in 1690 to remedy the spread of heresy among the refugees. Not being backed
by civil authority, its freely-distributed and strongly-worded anathemas
fell flat. The efforts of the orthodox party were spent in petty intrigues
like that which deprived Bayle of his Professorship. They endeavoured to
lay a gravestone upon a living tree and were surprised to find the stone
split.
This freedom in theology was exerted in two directions: the latitudinarian
tenet that the Bible was the religion of the Protestants, now commonly
repeated,[224] led to much regard being paid to textual criticism, and in
this close study of the divine message all parties were united; the
heterodox in their search after truth, the orthodox in their controversy
with the Catholic doctors. It was the age when Richard Simon, the Catholic
founder, according to M. Renan, of modern exegesis, flourished, and Le
Clerc wrote his first book to dispute his conclusions. A more dangerous
method was that of Bayle. The first to lead the life of an absolute
free-thinker, whose mind is entirely severed from traditional theology,
dispassionate to the verge of inhumanity, a perfect example of the abnormal
development of the reasoning faculty to the detriment of sensitiveness, he
must not be mistaken for a Pyrrhonist albeit he poses for one from time to
time.[225] The contemporary Pyrrhonist would write in the spirit of
Pascal's _Pensees_, and showing up the futility of man's effort to fathom
transcendental mysteries, submit to a higher spiritual reason "the reason
of the heart that reason knoweth not." With the subtlest dialectician's
skill, Bayle merely opposes reason and faith. In every Christian dogma he
delights in showing up the latent logical absurdity; not sneering, however,
as Voltaire was soon to do, not even hinting at the consequences of his
method. The little intellectual exercise over, he passes on to another
subject. In spite of his destructive criticism, once out of the
professorial chair, he leads the life of a good Christian and a righteous
Huguenot. In the outward expression of his faith he never wavered. Unlike
Montaigne, a sceptic of a different stamp, he never gave undue advantage to
his personal comfort. To this day he remains, Sphinx-like, a faint smile
lighting up his countenance, a psychological enigma.
In 1709 the great _Dictionary_ was translated into English by J. P.
Bernard, La Roche, and others, and again in 1739-41 by Bernard, Birch,
Lockman, and others; already long familiar to English readers, who were not
slow in recognising a very high literary merit in its lucidity of style and
its extraordinary interest, it had thus been greeted almost on its
appearance by a good judge, Saint-Evremond: "Monsieur Bayle clothes in so
agreeable a dress his profound learning, that it never palls."[226] A
direct influence could be traced of Bayle upon Shaftesbury, the author of
the _Characteristics_.
But the influence of the heterodox Huguenot weighed little when compared
with that of the orthodox. Much led to annul the effect of the _Critical
Dictionary_ on the mass of readers. For one thing, it came a little too
late; then, a bomb exploding in the open does less damage than a bomb
exploding in a closed room. Though looked upon as suspicious by an
Archbishop who had never read them,[227] Bayle's works were allowed to
circulate freely in England. On the other hand, a larger portion of the
English public read treatises of devotion bearing the names of learned and
illustrious sufferers in the cause of religion. Bishop Fleetwood's
translation of Jurieu's _Traite de la devotion_ went through no less than
twenty-six editions, and Drelincourt's _Consolations d'une ame fidele_ was
a success before Defoe appended to it as a vivid commentary the story of
the ghost of Mrs. Veal. In the struggle against deism that marked the first
quarter of the eighteenth century, the widespread influence of such books
told against infidelity.
Politics were then a part of theology. In the same way as the Revocation
helped to break up the traditional Calvinistic theology, it shattered the
system of politics most in accordance with the French reformer's political
creed. As long as the Huguenots enjoyed the liberties granted them by Henri
IV., their doctors had preached passive obedience. When the wave of
persecution broke, some faltered, while others obstinately upheld the
doctrine that had then become part of their Church divinity. No doubt in
showing the glaring insufficiency of the old creed to meet the facts, the
Revocation had a demoralising effect. To the reflective few the sudden
change of doctrine of many illustrious theologians must have seemed very
distressing. One bulwark of their faith, as they had been often told,
passive obedience, was being swept away. What destruction might not
threaten their faith itself?
Modern Protestant writers, especially in our democratic age, glory in those
obscure predecessors of 1789 who asserted in the teeth of absolutism, the
rights of the people; yet had the Edict of Nantes never been repealed, and
the Huguenots suffered to live on, the hardy victims of petty vexations, it
is highly probable that the same doctors who in Holland asserted the
sovereignty of the people, would in their French Synods have hurled
excommunication at any "followers of the Independents."
Jurieu's apology for his new opinion was frank and ingenuous: obedience was
due to Louis XIV. as long as the Protestants were his subjects; compelled
by persecution to renounce his allegiance, they obeyed another Prince who
allowed them to profess other political opinions.[228] A little
demoralisation must pay for every readjustment of conviction due to
progress.
Up to the eve of the Revocation, the duty of passive obedience was set
forth by the Huguenots. In the absence of solemn declarations issued by
Synods, the last being held in 1660, we may record the individual sayings
of the luminaries of the party. "Any Huguenot," Jurieu had written in 1681,
"is ready to subscribe with his blood to the doctrine that makes for the
safety of kings, viz., that temporally our kings depend on no one but on
God, that even for heresy and schism kings may not be deposed, nor may
their subjects be absolved from their oath of allegiance."[229] Acting as
spokesman for his co-religionists, he added: "Our loyalty is proof against
any temptation, our love for our Prince is unbounded."[230] Another pastor,
Fetizon, opposing the factious doctrines of the Roman Church to the loyalty
of the Huguenots, showed how they supported the King's absolute powers:
"Where is it commonly taught that kings depend only on God and have a
divine power that may be taken away by no ecclesiastical person, no
community of people? Is it not in the Protestant religion? Where is it at
least allowed to believe that royalty is only a human authority that always
remains subject to the people that have granted it, or to the Church that
may take it back? Is it not in the Roman Church?"[231] In his famous
dispute with Bossuet, Claude maintained the divine right of kings.[232]
Writing in the _Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres_ for April 1684,
Bayle censures Maimbourg for charging Protestantism with sedition, and
alleges the Oxford decree of the preceding year condemning Buchanan and
Milton. The subject visibly haunts him; again and again he reverts to it,
suggesting difficulties, arguing on both sides according to his wont, but
clearly inclining to obedience. The persecution shakes his political faith
a little; must the Huguenots in France go to their forbidden assemblies in
"the Desert"? If it be true that it is better to obey God than man, who is
to determine what the will of God is?[233] And again, the accession of
James II. is a good opportunity for Protestantism to show its true spirit;
because the King frankly avows his Catholicism, his Protestant subjects are
in honour bound to obey him. "The Protestants have never had so good an
opportunity of showing that they are not wrong in boasting of their loyalty
to their sovereign, whatever the religion he should follow."[234] The very
year of the Revocation, Elie Merlat, a pastor who after suffering
imprisonment had fled to Lausanne, published a treatise on the absolute
power of sovereigns, written four years before, and which he, in spite of
persecution, felt no disposition to cancel or modify. The subjects owe
their king "civil adoration," and far from dictating to him, may not
question his decisions. "If it is permitted to the subjects in certain
cases to examine their rulers and ask them to render an account of their
actions, the bond of public union is snapped asunder and the door opened to
all kinds of sedition."[235] A faint echo is perceptible of Hobbes's
teaching. All men are in the origin equal and free, but sin engendering a
state of war, a few men, by God's design, have been instrumental in saving
through their ambition mankind, whom they have reduced to obedience.[236]
Absolute power, though not good in itself, is the supreme remedy devised by
God to save man. The Calvinist's sombre teaching finds here its proper
expression.
[Illustration: JEAN CLAUDE]
In contradistinction with the Catholic doctrine, the Huguenot divines do
not admit of an exception to the rule of obedience which they have laid
down, not even that of an insurrection with religion as a motive. We have
already quoted Jurieu's sweeping assertion. Like the early Christians, they
wished to oppose only silent resignation to their tormentors. "The Prince,"
said Jurieu, "is the master of externals in religion; if he will not allow
another religion besides his own, if we cannot obey, we may die without
defending ourselves, because true religion must not use weapons to reign
and be established."[237] "We deny," said Merlat, "that rebellion is
justifiable to-day for religion's sake."[238] The same feeling of loyalty
impelled the French congregation of Threadneedle Street, on 26th May 1683,
to reject Lambrion, a minister at Bril, in Holland, because it was reported
that he had said that "persecuting tyrants might be looked upon as wild
beasts, and that any one might fall upon them."[239]
After the Revocation, a different opinion speedily obtained among the
refugees. No doubt they were influenced in Holland, as Jurieu stated, by
public opinion. The political education of both England and Holland was far
in advance of that of France. Then the question, which before had seemed
merely a theme for academic discourses, became a pressing reality. By most
Huguenots the Revocation was looked upon as a temporary measure due to the
intrigues of some Jesuits at the Court; the King, they repeated, would not
fail to revoke his reactionary decrees when better informed about his
faithful subjects; once more the refugees would be allowed to return to the
homes of their childhood and enjoy their restored estates. As the months
went by without bringing relief, they fell into two parties: on the one
side, the peaceful men of letters and diplomatists by nature advocated
temporising; on the other, the great mass of the people bearing the brunt
of the persecution, the fiery ministers, the army and navy officers who had
forfeited their commissions, relied only on the strength of arms and
entertained wild hopes of a successful insurrection. As the fall of James
II. appeared imminent, the violent party more openly discovered their
sentiments. Among them, the Prince of Orange recruited his soldiers and
pamphleteers, who, like sharpshooters in front of an army, spread
consternation among the upholders of arbitrary power in England a few years
before the Dutch actually landed at Torbay. The advent of William III. and
the war that followed helped only to strengthen the party of resistance,
insomuch that Protestantism has hitherto stood in France for a synonym of
Republicanism.
On all sides the pamphleteers have received scant consideration: Bayle
attacked them violently,[240] Jurieu declined to acknowledge them as
allies;[241] yet their influence on the issue of the struggle carried on in
England between the house of Stuart and the Whigs was far from
inconsiderable. A press war was waged between the Prince of Orange and his
father-in-law long before the official war broke out. "Several libels,"
reports Luttrell in the early spring of 1688, "and pamphlets have been
lately printed and sent about; many are come over from Holland."[242] These
were not the able productions of the London clergy, the Stillingfleets and
Tenisons and Tillotsons, raising the standard of a holy war against the
Catholic divinity that was pouring forth from the King's press. Scurrilous,
libellous, violent leaflets came over from Holland to be eagerly devoured
by the same credulous mob that believed both the Popish and the
Presbyterian plots. Short, pithy, coarse, they may be read to-day, if not
with the interest born of warfare in which one takes part, at least without
wearisomeness. The most popular are issued in English and in French, so as
to sting at one blow James II. and Louis XIV. Such is the letter of Pere de
la Chaise, father-confessor to the French King, to Father Petre, James's
notorious privy councillor (1688). A scheme being set on foot by the
Jesuits to murder all the Protestants in France the same day, the King, to
obtain absolution from his confessor for a horrible crime, grants the
commission to execute the design. The letters duly sealed are about to be
dispatched in the provinces when Louis XIV., whose conscience smites
him,--because, after all, the most blood-thirsty tyrant relents where a
priest remains obdurate,--confides the secret to Prince de Conde. The
latter lays a trap into which the confessor falling, must needs give up the
commission. Five days later, the Jesuits poison the Prince, and the
Huguenots, deprived of their protector, are delivered over to the tender
mercies of the dragoons. "In England," adds La Chaise by manner of
conclusion, "the work cannot be done after that fashion ... so that I
cannot give you better counsel than to take that course in hand wherein we
were so unhappily prevented"--that is, to cut the throats of the
Protestants.[243] Another production, the offspring of a kindred pen, was
the _Love Letters between Polydorus, the Gothic King, and Messalina, late
Queen of Albion_. The struggle over, and James II. beaten, the victor,
instead of lending him murderous projects against his former subjects,
makes him the butt of coarse sarcasm.
To the same period belong more serious productions, due to the fact that
both parties in England were anxious to appeal to some French authority. In
a _Catalogue of all the Discourses published against Popery during the
Reign of King James II._ (1689), out of two hundred and thirty-one tracts
noticed, there are no less than eleven answers to Bossuet. If Bossuet was
the Catholic champion, the Protestants elected Jurieu to enter the lists
against him. To the devotional works already mentioned may be added the
political writings, especially the _Seasonable Advice to all Protestants in
Europe for uniting and defending themselves against Popish Tyranny_ (1689),
and the _Sighs of France in Slavery breathing after Liberty_ (1689), with
the quaint information, "written in French by the learned Monsieur Juriew."
The violent party, headed by Jurieu and the moderate by Bayle, found in the
fall of James II. the occasion of fully publishing their several systems of
political theology. "Formerly," said Bayle, "your writers, either in good
or in bad faith, were careful not to approve of the pernicious teaching of
Hubert Languet.... What are they thinking about now to publish so many
books where, without circumlocution or reserve, they vent the same dogmas
and push them still further?"[244] Under the same political necessities,
the same doctrines, after an interval of a century, were reappearing.
Religious leaders are inclined to advise their followers not to attack the
secular powers, but when the inevitable conflict breaks out, a wholly
different sentiment prevails. The early Christians, who had heard Saint
Paul teach them to obey the Roman Emperor, soon found the denunciations of
the seer of Patmos against the tyrant better suited to their feelings. In
spite of Calvin, the Huguenots, when persecution became violent, were
prepared to listen to the _Vindiciae contra Tyrannos_. Circumstances
favoured a revival of the "republican" doctrines of the sixteenth century:
the English Revolution needed apologists on the Continent; the Protestant
hero, William III., although a King, held his title by the will of the
English people; for once Protestantism and a liberal doctrine were
confronted and impugned by Catholicism and absolutism. Apologies were
accordingly written, by which must be understood abler, less scurrilous
works than the productions of the hired pamphleteers, but pamphlets
nevertheless, because the furtherance of a political cause was their
immediate pretext. For years already had Jurieu been engaged upon the task
of answering the numerous controversial works issued in France, in
_Pastoral Letters_, the circulation of which the French police were unable
to stop. Together with the controversial argument, each letter contained
some new information, the account of a dragonnade, the prophecy of a
shepherdess, the testimony delivered by a preacher with the halter round
his neck, or a galley-slave dying under the lash. With the year 1689 new
tidings came every fortnight to the Huguenots who read these letters,
tidings of hope after so much gloom; under the rubric _affaires
d'Angleterre_, their spiritual comforter recounted them the wonderful fall
of the popish tyrant and the triumph of the hero of Protestantism and
liberty. Yet the joy of some was not unmixed with scruples; was not James,
after all, the Lord's anointed, and William the usurper? Was the
deliverance only a snare and a pitfall into which the Saints must be wary
of stumbling? To all which questions Jurieu had a ready answer.[245]
In principle all men are free and equal, but their sins make authority
needful. They have chosen kings and governors to whom they have yielded
sovereignty their birthright; not without reservations, however. In all
cases a contract, either avowed or tacit, intervenes between rulers and
subjects, the former swearing to govern according to law, and the latter to
obey their governors. If the rulers break their word, the contract becomes
void, and, sovereignty reverting to the people, the king forfeits his
crown. If the king dies, the contract is void also, and the people have to
choose another ruler. Monarchy, and in particular the French Monarchy, is
therefore in its essence elective.
The origin of kingly right is popular, not divine; but God sanctions the
popular choice, and, as long as the contract stands, it is sinful to
disobey the sovereign. "The kings are the vice-regents of God, His vicars,
His living images," and he goes on to use the comparisons of man who,
though made in the likeness of God, is the son of man; in the same manner
the king instituted by the people is God's representative upon earth.
Why, then, has James lost his crown? because he attempted to "violate
consciences," usurping a power that no man could give him, since "no man
hath the right to do war unto God."
With his usual impulsiveness, there is no doubt but Jurieu, had he not been
chaplain to the Prince of Orange, would have become a republican. He is
ever trying to give the kings with the one hand what he withholds with the
other.
As early as 1682 Shaftesbury won his admiration: "He has perhaps," he said
of him in an admirable character-portrait, "a soul a little too republican
to live in a monarchy, but we do not think him guilty of the cowardice
which is imputed to him."[246]
The _Soupirs de la France esclave_, published in 1690, attacks the absolute
government of Louis XIV., whom he accuses of being a usurper, sovereignty
belonging to the States-General. Historically such a position is untenable,
but it is a significant fact that a little before the Revolution of 1789
the same book was reprinted under the title _Voix d'un patriote_. Jurieu
proved a century in advance of his time.
Behind the chief press a band of lesser officers. Jacques Abbadie, after
preaching up passive obedience in Prussia, wrote at the desire, it appears,
of William III., an apology of the Revolution. "Kings," he began, "are the
lieutenants of God ... to offend them is to show no respect for the glory
of God whose image they are, and for the majesty of the people in which
they are clothed."[247] A subordinate's authority can never extend to a
chief's. Unlike God's power, that of the king is limited. Even a conqueror,
becoming the king of a conquered nation, enters upon a treaty by which he
undertakes to protect their lives and property. The compact gives the king
only the rights possessed by the individual free man, and these are by no
means absolute. The people choose their kings, but God deposes them if they
betray their trust. The desertion and abdication of James was brought about
by God's Providence, and the English people freely accepting William for
king, William's title is even better than that of his predecessor. Several
restrictions are brought to bear upon the exercise of the right of
insurrection, the most important being the denial of that right in cases of
individual injustice. Limited monarchy is proclaimed the best and most
perfect of governments.
The theories on which the political writers in the seventeenth century
founded limited monarchy rapidly became popular among the refugees,[248]
the dissentients being in small numbers. The most famous of these is Pierre
Bayle, the author of the _Dictionary_. The development of his political
theory is characteristic of his whole enigmatic mental nature. Brought up
by the French Jesuits, as Voltaire was to be a few years later, afterwards
a student of divinity in Geneva, and a Professor in the very orthodox
Academy of Sedan, with Jurieu for colleague and friend, he accepted a chair
of philosophy in a small Dutch college in Rotterdam (the _schola
illustris_). The greater part of his life was thus spent among republicans,
and under republican government; in Holland his best friends were the few
republicans that piously venerated the memory of the unfortunate De Witts,
so much so that the Prince of Orange suspected his loyalty. Yet his faith
in absolutism remained unshaken. With the aversion of the man of letters
for the mob, an incapacity of sharing the general enthusiasm for William,
and a very great and genuine affection for his country, he could not
sympathise with the violent party. Some imperfectly known private
resentment urged him to contradict Jurieu, a leader that had the completest
faith in his own infallibility. Lastly, Bayle's cast of mind lent flavour
to the design of exposing the error ever lurking in accepted truths,
insomuch that for any one who has carefully read Bayle, the authorship of
the _Avis aux refugies_ is not doubtful. The famous answer to the political
doctrine of the _Pastoral Letters_, the last able defence of absolutism,
was penned by Bayle and no other. In the number of the _Nouvelles de la
Republique des Lettres_ for September 1684, some words about the fiction of
the decision of the majority standing for that of the whole contains in
germ an important argument of the _Avis aux refugies_.[249] An English
dissenter is supposed to be the author of the _Philosophical Commentary_,
yet when speaking of sovereignty he leaves it an open question whether its
origin is divine or popular; for, even under his disguise, Bayle did not
care to renounce entirely his personal convictions.
The _Avis aux refugies_ falls into two divisions: in the former, the
refugees are reproached with writing libellous pamphlets against the French
King; in the latter, the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, "that
pet chimera," is confronted with some weighty arguments. From the doctrine
must be inferred the right of the people to revolt against their Prince,
the individual being in all cases entitled to criticise the decisions of
the executive. Anarchy must necessarily ensue: "If the people reserved unto
themselves the right of free inquiry and the liberty of obeying or not,
according as they found just or unjust the orders of those that commanded,
it would not be possible to preserve the public peace."[250] The right of
the majority to overrule the minority cannot obtain if the people are
sovereign; should the majority use coercion, they act unjustly; nothing can
be reproached the minority if they call foreign soldiers to their aid. The
oath of allegiance is a farce, since the safety of the people is the
supreme law. No one can deny the force of these arguments. The liberal
doctrines are two-edged swords striking the tyrant down, it is true, but
not without inflicting wounds on the people. France in the nineteenth
century experienced some of the evils resulting from the continual
presence in the minds of the people of their right to remedy sometimes
slight evil by insurrection. It remained, of course, to the Anglo-Saxon
race to contradict the too general statement of Bayle by showing how masses
under favourable circumstances could be taught the exercise of
self-government.
Next to the general argument are some minor arguments drawn from the
immediate events. Jeremy Collier, the non-juror, would have used them with
great effect had he known them. Are the Irish Jacobites rebels or no? The
refugees under Schomberg treat them as such, and yet the King of England is
at their head. The answer, of course, is that Ireland, being a country
added to England by conquest, is bound to acknowledge the sovereign chosen
by England. If the Emperor in becoming a Calvinist were deposed by the
Electors, would not the Protestants throughout Europe once again preach up
passive obedience? History justifies the charges of this remarkable little
book, to which there only lacks the proposition that large sections of
mankind are constantly reshaping their political doctrines to meet the
pressure of unforeseen events. As the expected advent to the throne of
France of Henri de Navarre made the sovereignty of the people acceptable to
Ultramontanes, so the English Revolution appeared to Huguenots a convincing
argument in favour of the same doctrine.
Between Bayle and Voltaire, more than one striking analogy can be noticed.
Both in respect to French internal politics held the same opinion.
Persecuted by fanatical Huguenot ministers and Catholic priests, they
dreamed of an impossible alliance between the King and the free-thinking
tolerant men of letters. It is certain that Bayle corresponded with
Pelisson, Secretary of State to Louis XIV. In the _Avis aux refugies_ he
probably stretched to their utmost his concessions to the French Court.
Nothing short of going to Mass was deemed sufficient to allow him to reside
in France, so he brushed aside the temptation. But public opinion in France
treated him well. Boileau, then a kind of sovereign magistrate in the
Republic of Letters, expressed high approval of the _Dictionary_, and the
French courts of law, contrary to the King's edicts, admitted Bayle's will
to be valid.
For reasons different from Bayle, Basnage kept shy of the liberal
doctrines. Although Jurieu's son-in-law, he was essentially for moderate
courses. Saumaise, Amyraut, Claude, he thought, had gone too far in
extolling divine right,[251] but Bayle was right in the main. Held in high
esteem by the States-General, Basnage exerted himself in different
diplomatic missions to wring some concessions from the French Court.
Wishing his co-religionists to return to France, he thought it expedient to
publish his thoughts on the subject of obedience. Like his father-in-law,
he wrote, but in a less heroic strain, _Pastoral Letters_ to the Huguenots
remaining in France. "Remember," he said, "only the teachings of the
Gospel and the principles that we derive from Holy Scripture, and that we
shall inculcate till the end of our life without change, that loyalty to
the sovereign must be inviolable, not only through fear, but for conscience
sake."[252] He warns them against holding large noisy assemblies in the
"desert," advising family prayers in the stead: "Do not call down upon
yourselves by tumultuous assemblies and indiscreet zeal, fresh misfortunes
which in the present time would appear to be due to justice rather than to
hatred and difference of religion." On no account are they to bear arms:
"You ought to be alive to the honour of your religion ... that never
authorises any one to bear and use arms for his preservation."[253]
Those diplomatic words do not reflect the general feeling of the refugees;
in England they adopted, as we have seen, current Whig theories; for them
the French and the Tory interest coincided. Later on, they supported the
house of Hanover. In an address presented to the King a little before the
rebellion of 1745 by the merchants of the City of London, out of 542 names,
Rev. D. Agnew identified no less than 99 refugees. The Tories, feeling the
danger accruing to them from this active Whig element, brought against them
several measures. The Act of Settlement passed by a Tory administration had
a clause that, ostensibly directed against the Dutch favourites of the
King, was detrimental to the refugees. In 1705, the Tory majority in the
Commons rejected a Naturalization Bill, for fear the new-made subjects
should return Whig members.[254]
The problem of toleration interests politics as well as religion. For the
refugees who, driven from France, settled in England or Holland, civil
toleration was in question only in so far as it referred to the French
King's policy. But in the French churches abroad, the question of
ecclesiastical toleration arose from the intolerance displayed by the
Synods to the heterodox preachers. From those various discussions two
dissimilar theories presently took shape, in which once more Bayle and
Jurieu were pitted together.
Bayle, hearing how his brother had died for his religion in a French
prison, dashed off against the persecutors a virulent pamphlet[255] out of
which there soon grew a theory of toleration. The chief argument of the
Catholic clergy was Christ's words in the parable: "Compel them to come
in." Bayle set to work to show how the literal meaning of the words must be
rejected, because force cannot give faith; it is contrary to Christ's
meekness, it confounds justice and injustice, and is the cause of civil
wars; it makes Christianity hateful in the eyes of the pagans, and is a
temptation to sin, the dragoons losing their souls in carrying out their
master's commands; it makes the persecution of the early Christians
justifiable, and entitles every sect to persecute in the name of truth,
which to their belief they possess.
After that preliminary passage of arms, comes the capital argument in the
book. Conscience in each individual is the sovereign judge whom he is bound
to obey. Since invincible causes often prevent us from discovering truth,
all that God asks of us is sincerity. If a pagan is guilty before Heaven,
it is not because he is an idolater, but for crimes committed against the
dictates of his conscience. The greatest crime is to disobey one's
conscience, to be insincere. A heretic of good faith is entitled from a
human point of view to the same respect as a sincere believer. Persecution
being contrary to the order of things established by God, is not only
criminal but absurd.[256]
A reply to the _Commentary_ was dashed off by Jurieu, who always wrote at
white-heat.[257] When there is, as often happens, a conflict between the
revealed law of God and the dictates of the individual conscience, if our
conscience is the sovereign judge, God's word is in vain. Justice, equity
depending on individual caprice, the responsibility of the criminal
logically disappears. A murderer like Ravaillac, who, in stabbing Henri
IV., obeys his conscience, must not in strict justice be put to death. No
happier state there is, according to the _Commentary_, than that of a
cannibal innocent, because his conscience is not enlightened, and free to
follow the lowest instincts of man's nature. Erring conscience to Jurieu's
mind has the power, not the right, to command; the fountain-head of right
is justice and truth, not their counterfeit.
In a supplement to the _Commentary_, published in 1687, Bayle met Jurieu's
attack. On the question of toleration no distinction can be drawn between
orthodoxy and heresy. Suppose that, in obedience to Christ's command to
give alms, a man relieves a fellow-creature feigning to be poor, he has
none the less obeyed the command; therefore a heretic compelling an
orthodox to renounce his belief obeys Christ's command "compel them to come
in." The Protestant has the same right as the Catholic to persecute, the
Pagan as the Christian, and the whole argument of the upholders of
intolerance rests on worthless distinctions.
This objection Jurieu had foreseen by expounding a bold uncompromising
theory. The right to persecute is a right granted by God to the Christian
magistrate. No Church of Christ can hold its own in the struggle going on
in this world against darkness and sin without the use of force. Early
Christianity would never have won ascendancy without the help of the
Christian Emperors who destroyed the Pagan temples and forbade the worship
of the false deities. "It is God's will that the Kings of the world should
despoil the Beast and smite down its image." The King of France has no
right to persecute the Huguenots, they being Christians "confessing God and
Jesus Christ according to the three Creeds." Bossuet had already flung into
his adversary's face the fate of Servetus. Servetus, Jurieu readily
answered, was no Christian: professing "damnable errors," he was justly
burned at the stake.
A complete account of the battle that raged round these two treatises it is
unnecessary to give here.[258] The drift of the argument is sometimes hard
to follow, as civil toleration and ecclesiastical toleration are constantly
confounded. The discussion must have unsettled the convictions of the
refugees. One of the best instances of the difficulties which beset a
sincere believer when examining the question, is a treatise written by a
minister at Utrecht, Elie Saurin,[259] who endeavoured to steer a middle
course between Jurieu and Bayle. The magistrate, he urged, has received a
commission from God to procure eternal happiness to his people and promote
the interests of religion. But the religion thus promoted must be the true
religion and none but legitimate means employed to further it. Some of
these he proceeds to enumerate: the true Church is more or less a State
Church, the magistrate assists the Church in carrying out her decisions,
particularly in depriving heretical ministers. And, further, the magistrate
exterminates atheism and immoral religions. But he has no right to the
individual conscience. The most honest men in the world entertain errors
impossible to eradicate, they may be tolerated. "The magistrate," sums up
Saurin, "must do, to establish and propagate the true doctrine and
extinguish error, all that he can without offering violence to the
conscience, or depriving his subjects of their natural or civil rights." A
hard programme to carry out![260]
An influence might be traced of these debates on the minds of the
contemporary English political writers. But Bayle's _Commentary_ had a
greater influence on French thought. While its philosophical argument
appealed to Frenchmen, its lack of a political basis robbed it of
popularity in England. That these refugees, with their unmistakable Gallic
love for general ideas irrespective of any practical application, should
end in gaining regard in their own country is not to be wondered at, but it
is surprising that their opinions became popular in France only after
Voltaire's visit to England. A few conversations at the Rainbow
Coffee-House revealed to him what France had given up with the Edict of
Nantes. The originality stamped upon the refugees' works showed that their
political teaching was not entirely due to England or Holland. In truth,
they either stopped short of English liberty or overstepped the bounds that
the prudent Whigs had set to the sovereignty of the people. While Bayle
pretty accurately represented the yet to come French eighteenth-century
gentleman, a cultured free-thinking monarchist, an enemy to the priests and
a conservative Gallican, with a dangerous tendency to allow seductive
reasoning to run away with his judgment, Jurieu strangely anticipated the
fanatical Jacobin. Under Louis XIV. France was a country in which Bayle
would have chosen to live. In 1793, in the Public Safety Committee, Jurieu
might have been considered by Robespierre as a trustworthy patriot.
[Illustration: LOUIS XIV DESTROYS HERETICAL BOOKS]
And withal, these refugees are practically unknown in France. Lacking the
needed passport to fame--the graces of style--they are forgotten; and the
melancholy impression one feels in unearthing in the great public libraries
their dust-eaten pamphlets, is that of disturbing the dead. The men that
live in French literature are the contemporary prose-writers, Bossuet, La
Bruyere; but turn to England, compare the influence of those men with that
of Bayle or Jurieu, or even Drelincourt. After 1688 the influence in
England of French official literature sinks to nothing, while that of the
refugee literature is immense. No better justification there is of the
necessity of comparative literature to discover the errors of familiar
assertions, and dispel common optical illusions.
FOOTNOTES:
[224] By Lecene and Le Clerc, for instance, in _Conversations sur diverses
matieres de religion_, 1687, p. 216.
[225] See Renouvier, _Philosophie analytique de l'histoire_, iii. 537. On
Bayle may be read with profit, besides Sayous, _op. cit._ i., studies by
Sainte-Beuve, _Port. Litt._ i.; Faguet, _Etudes du XVIIIe Siecle_;
Brunetiere, _Etudes critiques_, 5e serie; Delvolve, _La Philosophie de
Bayle_, 1906; Lenient's work, _Etude sur Bayle_, 1855, is worthless.
[226] _Oeuvres_, vi. p. 292.
[227] "He said there was one Bayle had wrote a naughty book about a comet,
that did a great deal of harm ... he said he had not read it."--Burnet,
_Own Time_, vi. p. 55 n.
[228] _Pastoral Letters_, III. 1. xv. p. 355.
[229] _Politique du clerge de France_, p. 133.
[230] _Ibid._ p. 75.
[231] _Apologie pour les reformes_, La Haye, 1683, p. 177.
[232] _Avis aux refugies._
[233] _Nouv. Rep. Lettres_, vol. i. p. 141.
[234] _Ibid._ p. 466.
[235] _Traite du pouvoir absolu des souverains_, Cologne, 1685, p. 159.
[236] _Ibid._ p. 25.
[237] _Derniers efforts de l'Innocence affligee_, 1682, pp. 177, 178.
[238] P. 249, cf. "Aux rois appartient le gouvernment exterieur de l'Eglise
de Dieu," Bochart, _op. cit._ p. 23.
[239] Schickler, quoting _Bull. Soc. Prot. Franc._, V. 43.
[240] _Avis aux refugies_; _Lettres choisies_, ii. p. 376.
[241] _Droits des deux souverains_.
[242] _Diary_, i. p. 634.
[243] _The Jesuit Unmasked_, 1689.
[244] _Avis aux refugies_, pp. 83, 84.
[245] _Lettres Pastorales_, III. ll. xv.-xviii. (1st April-16th May 1689).
[246] _Derniers efforts de l'innocence affligee_, p. 214.
[247] _Defense de la nation britannique_, La Haye, 1693, p. 107.
[248] _Bayle, Lettres choisies_, ii. p. 453.
[249] Vol. ii. pp. 699, 700 (the first fifteen volumes only are by Bayle).
[250] _Avis aux refugies_, p. 88.
[251] _Histoire des ouvrages des savans_, April 1690, p. 368.
[252] _Instruction pastorale_, Rotterdam, 1719, p. 29.
[253] _Ibid._ pp. 21, 24.
[254] Burnet, _Own Time_, v. p. 199.
[255] _Ce que c'est que la France toute catholique sous le regne de Louis
le Grand_, Rotterdam, 1686.
[256] _Commentaire philosophique sur les paroles de Jesus-Christ,
Contrains-les d'entrer_, 1686.
[257] _Du droit des deux souverains en matiere de religion, la conscience
et le prince_, 1687.
[258] See Puaux, _Precurseurs francais de la tolerance_.
[259] Not to be confounded with Jacques Saurin, the preacher.
[260] _Reflexions sur les droits de la conscience_, Utrecht, 1697.