Petit had a profound acquaintance with the Oriental languages. Having one day entered the synagogue of Avignon, he heard the Rabbi pronounce in Hebrew injurious expressions against Christians. The learned professor immediately answered him in the same tongue, and without expressing the least resentment, exhorted the Jewish doctor to become better acquainted with the faith he attacked. The disconcerted Rabbi apologised.
A cardinal had conceived so much esteem for Samuel Petit, that he offered to throw open the doors of the library of the Vatican to him, and to procure for him the appointment of revising the manuscripts. The professor refused. He might have found learning in the archives of Rome; but he would have lost what he esteemed still more—liberty of conscience.
Petit has left divers works upon chronology and philosophy. He also laboured to elucidate the antiquities of the Old and New Testament. His character was kind, and he was more bent upon doing good, than upon raising questions of controversy.
XI.
Beside the professors of the universities, the French Reformation owned, in the seventeenth century, learned and hard-working pastors, who equally claim a short notice.
André Rivet (1572-1651) exercised the pastoral functions in France to the age of forty-seven, presided over the national synod of Vitré, in 1617, and was then a professor of theology in Holland. His Introduction to the Study of the Bible lays down the true basis of sacred criticism. The author insists that we must seek, not an allegorical or convenient sense in the Scriptures, but the exact and real sense—that which results naturally from the terms of the original text.
Rivet was extremely severe in his doctrines, and sometimes violent in his polemics; but he preserved a constant moderation in his private life. “Adverse events, whether public or otherwise,” says the author of his Last Hours, never surprised him, or disturbed his serenity. He was accustomed to say: “Everything is possible; I wonder at nothing.” Thus he never burst into laughter; for he looked upon all mundane things as mutable and transitory.
Edme Aubertin (1595-1652) had particularly studied the Fathers. He published a book in 1633, upon the Eucharist of the Ancient Church, in which he sought to prove that the doctrine of the Real Presence was unknown during the first six centuries of the Christian era. This work was denounced to the privy council; but it was more easy to condemn than to refute it. “That great and incomparable work L’Eucharistie” says the son of Jean Daillé, “has outlived all the attacks of the other communion, no one of whom has ventured into open war with it, or, so to speak, dared to meet it tête-à-tête” (face to face).
In his last moments, the door of his apartment was forced by the curate of Saint Sulpice, escorted by a commissary of police and the mob. Edme Aubertin awakened by the tumult, and gathering his presence of mind, declared with a firm voice that he died in the Reformed faith.
Benjamin Basnage (1580-1652) was commissioned, both by the political assemblies and the national synods, with missions as important as they were delicate. The court, which feared his credit, would have prevented him from taking his place at the national synod of Charenton in 1630. He has written, besides several controversial treatises, an approved work upon the Visible and Invisible State of the Church. We shall have to speak in the following book of his illustrious grandson, Jacques Basnage.