judge him to be born and bred in France: so well was he furnished with an exact knowledge, both of the propriety and due pronunciation of that language, and of the persons, places, and affairs of that kingdom and the churches therein; a thing not often seen in one who had never been out of England.” Before his death in 1647 he testified the affections of his heart by praying aloud for himself and others; one of the petitions was, “Lord, do good to Scotland and the churches of France; bless New England and foreign plantations.”]
Principal Baillie in one of his famous “Letters” (vol. ii. p. 111) had written, “The Parliament became the other day sensible of their too long neglect of writing to the churches abroad of their condition; so it was the matter of our great committee to draw up letters in the name of the Assembly for the Protestant Churches. The drawing of them was committed to Mr Palmer, who yet is upon them” (7th December 1643). The inscriptions were many, but it was one and the same letter that was transcribed and sent to the various churches. There was no continuous exchange of correspondence; so Baillie had occasion to say, when a correspondent desired that a favourable letter sent in return from the “Zeland” church should be answered by the [Westminster] Assembly; “As for returning an answer, they have no power to write one line to any soul but as the Parliament directs; neither may they importune the Parliament for warrants to keep foreign correspondence. With what art and diligence that general one to all the churches was gotten, I know. You know this is no proper Assembly, but a meeting called by the Parliament to advise them in what things they are asked.”
Baillie hoped that some of the Huguenot Divines would help them by private Letters. He said in 1644 (“Letters,” vol. ii. p. 180): “There is a golden occasion in hand, if improved, to get England conform in worship and government to the rest of the reformed. If nothing dare be written in public by any of the French, see if they will write their mind for our encouragement, to any private friend here or in Holland.” He became rather out of humour with the Parisian Divines, and declared “the French Divines dare not keep public correspondence, and I heard that the chief of them are so much courtiers that they will not [say] the half they dare and might; policy and prudence so far keeps down their charity and zeal, &c, &c.” (“Letters,” vol. ii. p. 170). However, in the end of 1644 he was better pleased (see his vol. ii. page 253) and wrote, “It were good that our friends at Paris were made to understand our hearty and very kind resentment of their demonstration of zeal and affection towards the common cause of all the reformed churches now in our poor weak hands.”
Mr De la March, who apparently had been entrusted with the duty of forwarding the Westminster Assembly’s letter, reported on the 13th March that the senior pasteur of Charenton having received it, did, by advice of the pasteurs and elders, hand it unopened to the Deputy-General of the Reformed Churches of France; and that the Secretary of State, having been informed of it, took it ill that these churches should hold any correspondence with England in its divided condition. The consequence was that the letter was still unopened, and those churches uninformed of its contents. The Assembly therefore sent a Deputation to the House of Commons requesting that the letter might be printed.[1] This request was immediately granted, and it was ordered, “That the Letter from the Assembly of Divines to the Reformed Churches beyond Seas shall be printed in Latin and English, with the several inscriptions to the particular several churches, and that Mr Selden and Mr Rous do acquaint the Assembly with this Order.”
The Letter described the bigotted and persecuting policy of the Cavaliers and of their ghostly advisers, their leanings to Popery, and their coolness and aversion to Foreign Protestants. The illustrative facts were the sufferings inflicted on the Church of Scotland, the massacre of Irish Protestants and the King’s truce with their armed murderers, and the opposition of the Court to the Westminster Assembly. The conclusion contained three requests, (1) That foreign Protestants would be persuaded of the innocence and integrity of the leaders of the popular party in Britain; (2) That they would sympathise with them as sufferers “in the same cause wherein you yourselves have been oppressed;” (3) That they would make common cause with them, “the quarrel of the enemy being not so much against the persons of men, as against the power of godliness and purity of God’s word wherever it is professed. The way and manner of your owning us we leave wholly to yourselves.” It is plain that, with regard to the British broils, two counteracting influences must have been at work in the minds of the Protestants of France. Their veneration
- ↑ See both Lightfoot’s and Gillespie’s diurnal notes of the proceedings of the Westminster Assembly, which are printed in the collected works of each author.
