1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bernard, Jacques

BERNARD, JACQUES (1658–1718), French theologian and publicist, was born at Nions in Dauphiné on the 1st of September 1658. Having studied at Geneva, he returned to France in 1679, and was chosen minister of Venterol in Dauphiné, whence he afterwards removed to the church of Vinsobres. As he continued to preach the reformed doctrines in opposition to the royal ordinance, he was obliged to leave the country and retired to Holland, where he was well received and appointed one of the pensionary ministers of Gouda. In July 1686 he commenced his Histoire abrégée de l’Europe, which he continued monthly till December 1688. In 1692 he began his Lettres historiques, containing an account of the most important transactions in Europe; he carried on this work till the end of 1698, after which it was continued by others. When Le Clerc discontinued his Bibliothèque universelle in 1691. Bernard wrote the greater part of the twentieth volume and the five following volumes. In 1698 he collected and published Actes et négotiations de la paix de Ryswic, in four volumes 12mo. In 1699 he began a continuation of Bayle’s Nouvelles de la république des lettres, which continued till December 1710. In 1705 he was unanimously elected one of the ministers of the Walloon church at Leiden; and about the same time he succeeded M. de Valder in the chair of philosophy and mathematics at Leiden. In 1716 he published a supplement to Moreri’s dictionary, in two volumes folio. The same year he resumed his Nouvelles de la république des lettres, and continued it till his death, on the 27th of April 1718. Besides the works above mentioned, he was the author of two practical treatises, one on late repentance (1712), the other on the excellence of religion (1714).