unquestionable proofs of their affection and loyalty. It had been sworn to by the governors and lieutenants general of the provinces, by the courts of parliament, and by all the officers of the courts of justice. What national perjury! Is it enough to say as this perjured monarch did, My grandfather Henry IV. loved you, and was obliged to you. My father, Lewis XIII. feared you, and wanted your assistance. But I neither love you, nor fear you; and do not want your services! The ill pclicy of it is confessed on all sides. Where is the policy of banishing eight hundred thousand people, who declare that a free exercise of religion ought not to injure any man's civil rights, and, on this principle, support the king's claim to the crown, as long as he executes the duty of his office? Where is the policy of doing this in order to secure a set of men, who openly avow these propositions, the Pope is superior to all law: It is right to kill that prince, whom the Pope excommunicates: if a prince become an Arian, the people ought to depose him? Where is the policy of banishing men, whose doctrines have kept in the kingdom, during the space of two hundred and fifty years, the sum of two hundred and fifty millions of livres, which at a moderate calculation, would otherwise have gone to Rome for indulgences, and annates, and such other trash? Who was the politician, the Count d'Avaux, who, while he was ambassador in Holland, from 1685 to 1688, offered to prove that the refugees had carried out of France more than twenty millions of property, and advised the king to recal it, by recalling its owners; or the king, who refused to avail himself of this advice? Who was the politician, the intolerant Lewis, who drove protestant soldiers and sailors out of his service; or the benevolent prince of Orange, who, in one

his

year, raised three regiments of French refugee soldiers, commanded by their own officers, and manned three vessels, at the same time, with refugee sailors, to serve the Dutch, while France wanted men to equip her fleets? The protestants, having been for some time, excluded from all offices, and not being suffered to enjoy any civil or military employments, had applied themselves either to manufactures, or to the improving of their money in trade. Was it policy to banish a Mons. Vincent, who employed more than five hundred workmen ? Was policy on the side of that prince, who demolished manufactories, or on the side of those who set them up, by receiving the refugee manufacturers into their kingdoms? Had England derived no more advantage from its hospitality to the refugees than the silk manufacture, 1698, it would have amply repaid the nation. The memorials of the intendants of the provinces were full of such complaints. The intendant of Rouen said, the refu gees had carried away the manufacture of hats. The intendant of Poitiers said, they had taken away the manufacture of druggets. In some provinces the commerce was diminished several millions of livres in a year, and in some, half the revenue was sunk. Was it policy in the king to provoke the protestant states, and princes, who had always been his faithful allies against the house of Austria, and, at the same time, to supply them with eight hundred thousand new subjects? After all, it was a weak and foolish step, for the protestants were not extirpated. There remained almost as many in the kingdom as were driven out of it, and even at this day, though now and then a preacher hath been hanged, and now and then a family murdered, yet the opulent province of Languedoc is full of protestants, the Lutherans have the university of Al

sace, neither art nor cruelty can rid the kingdom of them, and some of the greatest ornaments of France now plead for a FREE TOLERATION.

The refugees charge their banishment on the clergy of France, and they give very good proof of their assertion, nor do they mistake, when they affirm that their sufferings are a part of the RELIGION of Rome, for Pope Innocent XI. highly approved of this persecution. He wrote a brief to the king, in which he assured him that what he had done against the heretics of his kingdom would be immortalized by the elogies of the catholic church. He delivered a discourse in the consistory, May 18, 1689, in which he said, the most christian king's zeal, and PIETY, did wonderfully appear in extirpating heresy, and in clearing his whole kingdom of it in a very few months. He ordered Te Deum to be sung, to give thanks to God for this return of the heretics into the pale of the church, which was accordingly done with great pomp, April 28. If this persecution were clerical policy, it was bad, and, if it were the religion of the French clergy, it was worse. In either case the church procured great evil to the state. Lewis XIV. was on the pinnacle of glory at the conclusion of the peace of Nimeguen, 1679, his dominion was, as it were, established all over Europe, and was become an inevitable prejudice to neighboring nations: but here he began to extirpate heresy, and here he began to fall, nor has the nation ever recovered its grandeur since.

Protestant powers opened their arms to these venerable exiles. Abbadie, Ancillon, and others, fled to Berlin. Basnage, Claude, Du Bosc, and many more, found refuge in Holland. The famous Dr. Allix, with numbers of his brethren, came

G

to England. A great many families went to Geneva, among which was that of Saurin.

Mr. Saurin, the father of our author, was an eminent protestant lawyer at Nismes, who, after the repeal of the edict of Nantz, 1685, retired to Geneva. He was considered at Geneva as the oracle of the French language, the nature and beauty of which he thoroughly understood. He had four sons, whom he trained up in learning, and who were also remarkably eloquent, that eloquence was said to be hereditary in the family. The Reverend Lewis Saurin, one of the sons, was afterwards pastor of a French church in London. Saurin, the father, died at Geneva. James, the author of the following sermons, was born as Nismes, in 1677, and went with his father into exile, to Geneva, where he profited very much in learning.

In the seventeenth year of his age, 1694, Saurin quitted his studies to go into the army, and made a campaign as a cadet in lord Galloway's company. The next year, 1695, his captain gave him a pair of colours in his regiment, which then served in Piedmont: but the year after, 1696, the Duke of Savoy, under whom Saurin served, having made his peace with France, Saurin quitted the profession of arms, for which he was never designed, and returned to Geneva to study.

Geneva was, at that time, the residence of some of the best scholars in Europe, who were in the highest estimation in the republic of letters. Pictet, Lewis Tronchin, and Philip Mestrezat, were professors of divinity there, Alphonso Turretin was professor of sacred history, and Chouet, who was afterwards taken from his professorship, and admitted into the government of the republic, was professor of natural philosophy. The other departments were filled with men equally eminent in their

several professions. Some of them were natives of Geneva, others were exiles from Italy and France, several were of noble families, and all of them were men of eminent piety. Under these great masters Saurin became a student, and particularly applied himself to divinity, as he now began to think of devoting himself to the ministry, 1696. To dedicate one's self to the ministry in a wealthy, flourishing church, where rich benefices are every day becoming vacant, requires very little virtue, and sometimes only a strong propensity to vice: but to choose to be a minister in such a poor, banished, persecuted church as that of the French protestants, argues a noble contempt of the world, and a supreme love to God, and to the souls of men. These are the best testimonials, however, of a young minister, whose profession is, not to enrich, but to save himself, and them who hear him. Tim. iv. 16.

1

After Mr. Saurin had finished his studies 1700, he visited Holland and England. In the first he made a very short stay: but in the last he staid almost five years, and preached with great acceptance among his fellow exiles in London. His dress was that of the French clergy, the gown and cassock. His address was perfectly genteel, a happy compound of the affable and the grave, at an equal distance from rusticity and foppery. His voice was strong, clear, and harmonious, and he never lost the management of it. His style was pure, unaffected, and eloquent, sometimes plain, and sometimes flowery: but never improper, as it was always adapted to the audience, for whose sake he spoke. An Italian acquaintance of mine, who often heard him at the Hague, tells me, that in the introductions of his sermons he used to deliver himself in a tone modest and low; in the body of the