His treatise on L’Art de se connaître soi-même (“The Art of Knowing Oneself”) is full of judicious observations, and shows that the author had profoundly meditated upon the relations of the human conscience to the duties of the Gospel. But the most celebrated of his works is the treatise on La Verité de la religion Chrétienne (“The Truth of the Christian Religion”). It obtained the suffrage of (Roman) Catholics as well as Protestants. “This admirable work,” said the Abbé Desfontaines, forty years afterwards, “eclipses everything that has ever been published before it for the defence of Christianity. How many conversions has it not effected! How many strong minds has it not subjected!”
Madame de Sévigné wrote to the Comte de Bussi-Rabutin, “It is the most divine of books; this esteem is general. I do not believe any one has spoken of religion like this man. I shall re-peruse it every three months for the remainder of my life.” And the count answered with the same enthusiasm: “Until now I have never been touched by other books, which tell me of God, and now I see well the reason; it is that the source appeared doubtful; but seeing it clear and transparent in Abbadie, I value what I did not before esteem. I repeat it, this is an admirable book. He pourtrays to me everything he says, and compels my reason not to doubt that which once appeared to it incredible.”
The author combats the Atheists in the first part of his work, the Deists in the second, and the Socinians in the third. He starts with this proposition, “There is a God,” to arrive at this: “Jesus is the promised Messiah.” Then he ascends from this last proposition to the first. The book has been translated into several languages, and it has appeared in a great variety of editions.
Elie Bénoît (1640-1728) was a learned and industrious theologian. We discharge a debt of gratitude in consecrating a few lines to the author of L’Histoire de l’Edit de Nantes (“The History of the Edict of Nantes”), of which we have made great use in our own.
He was pastor of the church of Alençon, and had the pain of seeing his place of worship closed, under the futile pretext that the faithful had assumed a defensive attitude on some occasion of their worship being interrupted by the populace. He went to Paris in support of their cause; but instead of obtaining the redress of his complaints, he was answered by threats.
Bénoît took refuge in Holland, and published there a letter addressed to his former parishioners. As we read in his memoirs, they emigrated en masse; for there remained in France scarcely an eighth, which will serve to explain why the town of Alençon ceases to figure in the catalogue of the Reformed churches.
The chief work of Bénoît is the history we have so often quoted. It should be read by all who are desirous of studying one of the most important periods of the French Reformation. More brevity and precision might perhaps be desired in this book, but assuredly not greater exactness. The author displays a correct judgment, and a moderation which proves him to have been swayed by no other passion than that of truth.
Jacques Saurin (1677-1730) was the greatest preacher of the French Protestants. He was born at Nismes, where his father practised as an advocate, and received his early education at Geneva. He was tempted, at the age of seventeen, by the profession of arms, and became an ensign in the Savoyard service. On the re-establishment of peace, he resumed his academical studies under the learned teachers Tronchin, Turretin, and Pictet.
In 1701 he was appointed pastor of a French church in London; and some years subsequently, having visited Holland and preached at the Hague, he received so much applause that a new place was created for him, under the title of “minister of the nobles:” he held it until his death.
From 1708 to 1725 he published five volumes of sermons; seven others, inferior to the first, appeared posthumously. He possessed all the great qualities of a Christian orator: a profound knowledge of the Bible, a healthy and vigorous theology, the art of devising learned and original plans, a masculine logic, judicious and always serious ornaments, and a style which was eminently subservient to thought; though sometimes it might be desired that there had been more unction in his speech and more correctness in his language. The misfortunes of the faithful, to whom Saurin preached the Gospel, enhanced his oratorical powers, by surrounding it with a tragic poignancy. Some of his sermons have thrown weight into the scales of the destinies of Europe.