begins thus: — “’Tis probable that they who, these many years have cry’d out Popery (till they made way for it to come) upon every thing they lik’d or understood not, will start and think that their fears are come upon them at the sight of the first title-page. And possibly our Lay-Abbots will also be frighted at it, as though the dispossest Coenobites were coming again to reclaim their old mansions and fat indowments. . . . [However] its design is not to alter the establish’d religion, but to make us more devout and sincere in the profession thereof — nor yet to inrich any persons with temporal estates, but to make us gather treasures in heaven and set our affections on things above.” Further on in the preface, he exclaims, “Must we retire into Thebais with the Fathers of the desert? — Must we confine ourselves to the solitude of a Monastick Cell? — Or shall we become Quakers and profess the sullenness of melancholy fanaticks? — Why, truly in Popish Countreys the Cloister hath ingrossed the name of Religion, and they that would be, or be thought to be, devout beyond others, do usually put on a Fryers hood, and imbrace the Rule of some Religious Order. And amongst us Puritanism hath usurp’d the name of Godliness.” “I would have every Christian to be really devout and precise without entering the Cloister or Conventicle.” In his preface to Part Second, he says:—
“My Monastery as to the place is the Church — as to the Rule is the love of Jesus — and the orders of it are such as should be observed by all Christians. . . . Not that I would deny that places for religious retirement might afford many great advantages in order to greater devotion and heavenly mindedness; for I bewail their loss, and heartily wish that the piety and charity of the present age might restore to this nation the useful conveniency of them. Necessary reformations might have repurg’d Monasteries as well as the Church, without abolishing of them; and they might have been still houses of Religion without having any dependence upon Rome. . . . Yet we must go to heaven; wherever we live we must live to God that we may live with God; therefore — if we cannot have a material — we must have a spiritual cloister, which may defend us against temptations, and guide and assist us in doing our duty. Such a one is the love of Jesus; it will protect us against all dangers and spiritual enemies better than the strongest walls of any Abbey; and it will make us devout and zealous in God’s service beyond what the exhortations of the wisest Abbot could do.”
De Beaulieu next testified to his Protestantism by publishing a tract, entitled, “The Holy Inquisition, wherein is represented what is the Religion of the Church of Rome,” London, 1681.
As Anthony a Wood (Fasti, ii. 225) says that De Beaulieu “exercised his ministerial function,” we may say that he came among us as a minister of the Reformed Church of France. But he became a Church of England man (as my quotations from the Reformed Monastery have shown; see also Part I., p. 49), and a supercilious partizan of that communion. He did not therefore regard it as an imperious demand from her that he must ignore his Foreign Orders and submit to re-ordination, if he wished to be an Anglican clergyman. His first step was to be formally naturalized at Westminster on 28th June 1682 (see List VI. in my Vol. II., Historical Introduction), where he was inserted in the Patent-Roll as “Luke de Beaulieu,” without the designation of minister or clerk. He obtained a chaplaincy as his title to English Orders, and was ordained (in 1682?) as chaplain to the Lord Chief-Justice Jeffries. In that capacity he preached a sermon, which was printed with the title, “The terms of Peace and Reconciliation between all Divided Parties, a Sermon preached at the Assizes held for the county at Bucks, at the town of Wycomb, on the 1st July 1684, on Romans xii. 18.” The University of Oxford conferred upon him the degree of Bachelor in Divinity (B.D.), on 7th July 1685, and in October of the same year he became Rector of Whitchurch in Oxfordshire, in succession to Rev. Edmund Major, deceased. It was on the 17th January 1686 that he, as “Lucas Beaulieu,” was made a Prebendary of St. Paul’s Cathedral (stall of Twyford), on the promotion of Dr. Cartwright to be Bishop of Chester. And on the 21st May 1687 he was installed to the third Prebendary Stall of Gloucester Cathedral, on the death of Dr. Washbourne. Promotion so flowed upon him under the Royal Stewart and his Chancellor, that it seemed certain that he would soon be a Dean; and, accordingly, though the blessed and glorious Revolution stopped this flow of promotion, he was often called Dean Beaulieu. The Historical Register, however, styled him correctly (in 1723), “Mr. Beaulieu, Prebendary of St. Paul’s.” He seems to have been a resident rector at Whitchurch, as far as ”is other appointments permitted. He preached a sermon before the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen at Guildhall, 27th December 1685, on St. Jude, verse 3, which was printed in 1686.
He united with the learned clergy, in publishing sermons (usually anonymous) against Popery, and against Romish doctrines and customs, in the end of the reign of James II. His contribution to this series was, “A Discourse showing that
