to his system. A theory of tyranny lay in his books and creeds; but he never acted on it in real life; but on the safer, because the more humane, liberal, and generous dispositions of his own good heart.

The episcopal clergy continued all this while in variably to pursue their favourite plan of extirpating the reformed ; but it is not my-design to attend these sanctimonious hypocrites through any other of their sanguinary measures, than those which affect Mr. Claude. It had long been a maxim of court policy, as Voltaire expresses it, to kiss the Pope's feet and tie his hands. The clergy knew their interest, and as the crown had at this time a dispute with Rome concerning the regale, that is, a collation to benefices, the clergy in a body waited on his Majesty to express their surprize at the papal claim. They took care, however, to play their cards cunningly, by sending an abject apology to the Pope, assuring him, they were obliged to act as they did. In their address to the King, they lamented, that the pretended reformed took advantage of their dispute with Rome to strengthen themselves in schism and sedition. They opened their convocations with the most fulsome sermons and harangues, that the lowest degree of sordidness could utter. Bossuet, like his predecessor Balaam, spouted away in his sermon from Num. xxiv. 5. How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel! A little change, soon made by a prelate of genius and erudition, metamorphosed the text into,-How goodly is thy conclave, O

Rome, and thy hierarchy, O Gallican church! Consequently, how heretical, schismatical, and seditious is the pretended reformed conventicle ! The man runs metaphor-mad, and inflames all the convocation with a specious but a fiery zeal for extirpating heresy. At the end of the session they published instructions for the conversion of their dearly beloved brethren, the straying sheep of Christ, the pretended reformed. They dispersed circular letters through all the kingdom, and therein they insulted the miseries of a people, already harrassed to death by their cruelty. Crocodile cries and cant phrases, compliments and curses, the name of Christ and the spirit of Antichrist, the omnipotence of the throne and the nauseous titles of the prelates, made up those horrible instruments of devastation, entitled, Circular letters of the Assembly of the Clergy of France.*

It was a bold attempt to expose the iniquity of these letters; however, Mr. Claude did so most effectually, by printing a small piece, entitled, Considerations on the circular letters of the Assembly of the clergy of France of the year 1682. This anonymous book was known to be his, and it did him great honour. Several of the prelates were men of birth, family and fortune; and, viewing them in this point of light, the author paid them several compliments and professed as much respect for them as was their due; but all of them were

**

Voyez Procez du Clerge du France-Affairs du Clerge, 1680. 1, 2, &c.

the unprincipled tools of a gloomy tyrant, and were carrying on infernal schemes of a bloody polity under the name of Jesus Christ. In this light he detested the men, assumed an air of true dignity, upbraided them with their affected mildness, exposed their tyranny over conscience, declared that he did not own them for his masters, and that he took his pen only to state the principles of the protestants in a fair light, and to vindicate that liberty of conscience, which God had given to all mankind.

These letters of the Assembly not producing such effects as the prelates hoped, they procured an order for the notification of them to all the protestants in the kingdom. The Intendant of each province had orders to convene the protestant consistories, to take with him the bishop's vicar, and some other attendants, and to go in person and read the circular letter to each consistory. All the reformed churches fixed their eyes on Charenton, and determined to act in this new and difficult case as Mr. Claude should set them an example. Happily, Charenton was the first consistory summoned, and Mr. Claude was chosen to answer. The consistory · met. Claude was in the chair. Monsieur the Intendant entered with his train, and read the letter. Mr. Claude replied in a few words, well chosen and full of sense. He owned the august character with which Monsieur, the Intendant, was vested :—he declared, that he and his church had a profound respect for civil magistracy-that, as a proof of their submission to it,

they had assembled to hear him read a letter, which contained nothing but affliction for all the reformed that my Lords the prelates challenged their respect on account of the rank, which his Majesty had thought proper to give them but that, if they pretended in these letters to speak to them as from an ecclesiastical tribunal, he was bound in conscience to declare, that neither he nor his church did at all acknowledge their authority. This judicious answer was instantly printed, and it served for a model to all the other consistories through the kingdom.

Mr. Claude neglected no opportunity of doing good; but employed the little remaining breathing time in writing and publishing a small practical book on preparation for the Lord's supper, from 1 Cor. xi. 28. In this admired piece the author developes the human heart, follows the sinner through all his windings, takes off his mask, shews his misery, and conducts him to our Lord Jesus Christ as his sovereign good. This book had a most rapid sale. The people would have exploded transubstantiation, had not the king and the prelates forbidden them.

About this time, the university of Groningen invited Mr. Claude to accept of a professorship of divinity there. The offer was made with all the due forms, and with all the inducements that could be desired; but neither could the church at Charenton endure the thought of parting with their pastor, nor could the pastor bear to leave his flock at the approach of the heaviest storm, that had

ever fallen on them. He therefore returned a handsome answer to the university; but begged leave to decline the honour intended him. The disinterested shepherd of the flock at Charenton saw the thief and the wolf coming to steal, and to kill, and to destroy; but, not being a hireling, he determined not to flee, but to abide, and to lay down, if it should be necessary, his life for the sheep.

The calamities of the protestants increased every day, and the established clergy seemed to single out Claude in all their publications as the ringleader of the heresy. He, all placid and serene in his conscience, answered what wanted answering, and despised the rest. Aware of the worth of every moment, he became more indefatigable than ever. He preached very often, and very frankly; he advised and assisted other churches; he opened his hand liberally to all his brethren's necessities; and pressed home practical religion in private more than ever. His church was now a noble sight; the countenances and the tears of his crouded auditories produced tenderness and zeal in occasional preachers, and excited the idea of a shipwrecked people climbing up a rock of hope. Sleep, and whispering, and compliments, and all the disgraces of christian worship were banished these assemblies, while all acts of piety and benevolence supplied their place.

At length the fatal year (1685) arrived, in which the long laid plot of extirpating protestantism, begun and conducted by those infernal instruments of des