Protestant Exiles from France/Book First - Chapter 6 - Section III
III. Du Moulin.
The family of Du Moulin has produced illustrious men in successive generations. There were two Protestant branches — the branch of Mignaux and the branch of Lorme-grenier. To the former belonged Charles Du Moulin, the celebrated jurist, who was born in 1500, joined the Protestant congregation of Paris in 1542, and died in 1566. To the latter belonged the first Joachim Du Moulin, husband of Jeanne de Houville, to whom in her widowhood is attributed the deed of disinheriting her son, Joachim, for becoming a Protestant. The younger Joachim espoused Francoise Gabet, daughter of Innocent Gabet, chief judge of Vienne, in Dauphine. He must have been her second husband, for she is designated Douairière du Plessis (Dowager-Lady Du Plessis). Joachim suffered persecution as a Protestant, and his son, Pierre, was born in the chateau of Buhy, where his parents had taken refuge, which was the seat of Philippe Du Plessis Mornay’s eldest brother. The date of the birth of Pierre Du Moulin is 18th October 1568.
The Du Moulins were in Paris during the St. Bartholomew massacre. Joachim, flying from the Romish butchers, managed to consign his four young children to the care of Ruffina, a Roman Catholic woman who had at one time been his servant. She laid them on a bed below the bed-clothes, and little Pierre (not quite four years of age) began to howl. At once some assassins appeared in search of him. The faithful Ruffina managed to upset a number of tin and brass utensils from a shelf, and with stentorian voice began and continued to exclaim about the supposed accident, noisily kicking the pots and dishes, while pretending to pick them up. She thus drowned the boy’s cries, and the ruffians went away without finding him. On lifting the bedclothes she found that Ester, the eldest child, had laid her hand so firmly on Pierre’s mouth, that he was almost choked to death. The parents with all their children made good their escape to Muret, thence to Sedan, where Pierre became the head-boy of the school.
While the son’s school years seem to have been tranquil, the father’s life was full of vicissitudes. On Good Friday, 1584, he was holding a meeting in a private house in Paris, and dispensing the Lord’s Supper, when the gendarmes entered and arrested him. By the king’s command, the parliament banished him out of the kingdom. During his exile he lived in Scotland — where he was, probably in 1586 when King James issued a license to French Protestants to live in Scotland — certainly in 1589, when the Presbytery of Haddington had before them their Synod’s warrant to make collections in the churches for “Mr. Mouling banest out of France.” The French congregation at Orleans was almost annihilated by the St. Bartholomew massacre, and its ministers had been allowed to transfer their services to London. Sometime before 1596 Joachim Du Moulin was doing the duties of a pasteur at Orleans, and in that year the Synod of Saumur settled him there. When he finally retired in 1615, he had been a minister of the gospel for fifty-six years.
To return to Pierre Du Moulin — at the age of twenty (anno 1588) he went to London for his higher school education. Thence he removed to Cambridge, where he was a pupil of Dr. Whittaker. During the long vacation he preached in the City of London French Church. After a four years’ residence in England he went to Leyden — as a student at first, but very soon he was made Professor of Philosophy and the Greek language. On 28th February 1599, he became a Protestant pasteur of Paris. In 1611, Andrew Melville, who had been banished to France, was his guest.
Isaac Casaubon died in 1614, and our King James, being bereaved of a literary and controversial associate, consulted Dr. Theodore Mayerne. I quote the following paragraph from Geeves’ Status Ecclesiae Gallicanae:—
“In the year 1615 King James sent by Sir Theodore Mayerne to invite Du Moulin into England, to confer with him about a method of uniting all the reformed churches of Christendom, to which he had been often solicited by Monsieur Du Plessis. The issue of which voyage was, that King James resolved to send letters to all Protestant princes to invite them to union, and desired the French churches to frame a confession, gathered out of all those of other reformed churches, in the which unnecessary points might be left out, as the means of begetting discord and dissension. Two months before Du Moulin’s coming into England, Du Perron had made an oration in the States assembled at Blois, where he had used the king very ill, and had maintained that the Pope had power to depose kings; and having published it in print, he sent it to his Majesty. To answer that oration, King James made use of Du Moulin’s service for the French language; and it was printed the first time in French, while Du Moulin was in England, in that year 1615, before it was printed in English. The king, going to Cambridge, carried Du Moulin along with him, and made him take the degree of Doctor.”
During this visit, which was of only three months’ duration, he preached before the king within the palace of Greenwich on Romans i. 16, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ.”
Du Moulin was a representative of the Provincial Synod of the Isle of France, Picardy, and Champagne in the National Synod of Gap in 1603, and again in 1612 at the National Synod of Privas, when Daniel Chamier was elected moderator, with Pierre Du Moulin as his assessor. In 1620 we find him moderator of the National Synod of Alez, but in 1623 Louis XIII. wrote to the National Synod of Charenton that his Majesty prohibited him from exercising the ministry. It will be sufficient to give the consequent narrative in the words of the Rev. John Quick (Synodicon, vol. ii. p. 105).
“The reason of the French king’s indignation against Monsieur Du Moulin, and for which he would never [thereafter] admit him to serve either in his church of Paris or in any church or university of the kingdom, as it hath been related to me by some eminent ministers of that nation, was this: when Louis XIII., by the advice of Cardinal Richelieu, his perpetual coadjutor in all affairs of state (as he called himself), did first attempt the ruin of those poor churches, Monsieur Du Moulin writ a letter to James I., King of Great Britain, in which he informed His Majesty that not only the eyes of all the Reformed Churches of France were upon him for help in this the day of their exigency and great distress, but the eyes also of all the other Reformed and Protestant churches in Europe. This letter was delivered to the king, but (as some credibly informed) dropped afterwards into the hands of the Duke of Buckingham, who sent the very original itself unto the French king. Upon the receipt whereof, he immediately issues out warrants to seize and apprehend Monsieur Du Moulin — which were not executed with that speed and secrecy but that Monsieur Du Moulin had timely notice given him by some of his friends at court to flee for his life out of the king’s reach and dominions, which he did accordingly, and was sometime afterwards called to be pastor and professor in the church and university of Sedan, a little principality, of which the Marshal Duke of Bouillon was sovereign. And here this worthy minister of Jesus Christ lived the rest of his days, dying in a good old age and full of days in the ninetieth year of his life.”
Thus his end was peace and honour, among the haunts of his childhood and youth. His last sermon, preached a month before his death, was from the text, “My flesh also shall rest in hope.” He died 10th March 1658.
Du Moulin (known to the learned as Molinaeus) was the author of eighty separate publications, enumerated by Haag — the most celebrated were, “The Buckler of the Faith” (1618), and “The Anatomy of the Mass” (1636-39). He was a prince among controversialists, and therefore the terror of the Jesuits, who made this anagram on his name:
Erit Mundo Lupus = Petrus Du Moulin.
His epitaph was written by his son and namesake, as follows:
Qui sub isto marmore quiescit olim fait
PETRUS MOLINAEUS.
Hoc sat, viator! Reliqua nosti, quisquis es
Qui nomen inclytum legis;
Laudes, Beati gloria haud desiderat,
Aut sustinet modestia.
Obiit Sedani, ad 6 Non : Mart : 1658, aet. 90.
The younger Peter Du Moulin was born in 1600, he was D.D. of Leyden, afterwards incorporated in Cambridge, and on 10th October 1656 at Oxford. As a refugee he first appears in Ireland, where during some years of the Commonwealth he was under the patronage of Richard, Earl of Cork. Next he acted as tutor in Oxford to Charles Viscount Dungarvan and Hon. Richard Boyle. He had taken orders in the Church of England, and constantly preached at Oxford in the church of St Peter-in-the-East. He became famous through his contact with the great name of Milton, whom he violently assailed in his Regii Sanguinis Clamor ad ccelum adversus parricidas Anglicanos; the little book was anonymous, but was acknowledged by the author in course of time. In 1657 he trafficked in calm waters, and published a long treatise On Peace and Contentment of Mind, which reached a third edition. At the Restoration he was made a Royal Chaplain; and being installed as Prebendary of Canterbury, he resided in that city till his death, at the age of 84, in October 1684. His sermons and other writings were admired in their day, and he was an honour to his name.
Another son[1] of the great Du Moulin was Louis Du Moulin, born in 1603. was a Doctor of Physic of Leyden, and incorporated in the same degree at Cambridge (1634) and at Oxford (1640); he was admitted a licentiate of the College of Physicians at London, 7th February 1649 (n.s.) Under the Parliamentarian Commissioners he was made Camden Professor of History in the University of Oxford. The Camden Society (1881) has enabled us to give the exact words of his commissionsion. The rubric or marginal note is “Dr. Du Molyn, History Reader of the University, admitted by the Visitors, Oct. the 10th, 1648.”[2]
“Septemb : 14o 1648.
“At the Committee of Lords and Commons for the Reformation of the Universitie of Oxon:
“Whereas it appeared to this Committee that Mr. Robert Waringe, the pretended Historie Reader of the Universitie of Oxford, hath not submitted to the authority of Parliament in the Visitation, nor delivered upp the Insignia of his office according to a former order of this Committee being thereunto required when he was Proctor of the said Universitie, and being chosen into the place of History Reader by Doctor Fell, pretended Vice-Chancellor and Heades of Houses when the Universitie was under Visitation, and contrary to the Articles of the Surrender of Oxon : as by a Letter from the Generall is declared : And whereas it was this day resolved by this Committee that for an effectual remedy hereof the said Mr. Robt : Waring, the pretended History Reader, be removed from the said place, and that Dr. Lewis Du Molyn, recommended upon good testimony for a person of piety and learning, be History Reader : It is Ordered by this Committee, that the sayd Doctor Lewis Du Molyn be, and hereby he is constituted and established, History Reader of the said Universitie of Oxon in the place of the said Mr. Robert Waring, pretended Historie Reader, and shall enjoy and have all profitts, priviledges, advantages and benefitts by any statute, custome, or right, belonging to the said place.
Francis Rous.”
Oct. 10.
“Ordered : That Dr. Du Mullyns, upon his Petition, be dispensed with for his readinge the present Terme as History Reader; saveing his first Lecture.”
The Royalist Commissioners turned him out soon after 1660, and he retired to Westminster. He had adopted the Independent theory of church government, and he worshipped with the Nonconformists. He is described as of a hot and hasty temper, no doubt aggravated by the intolerance with which he was treated by the ruling powers in Church and State, and even (it is said) by his own brother, the Prebendary. Otherwise he was a sociable and agreeable member of society, especially of literary society. In 1678 Rou met him in London, and describes him as d’ un caractere tout singulier: he said that he had translated Rou’s Chronological Tables into English, and that a nobleman would be at the expense of engraving and publishing them, if Rou consented. That consent was refused (very unwisely, for afterwards they were pirated and appeared as the production of a Dr. Tallents). At a much earlier date Louis Du Moulin got into controversy with Richard Baxter, publishing under the pseudonym of Ludiomseus Colvinus, instead of his Latinised name, Ludovicus Molinaeus. Baxter concludes his account of these contests by declaring, “all these things were so far from alienating the esteem and affection of the Doctor, that he is now at this day one of those friends who are injurious to the honour of their own understandings by overvaluing me, and would fain have spent his time in translating some of my books into the French tongue.” Again, in 1671, Baxter writes, “Dr. Ludov : Molineus was so vehemently set upon the crying down of the Papal and Prelatical Government, that he thought it was that he was sent into the world, for to convince princes that all government was in themselves, and that no proper government (but only persuasion) belonged to the churches. To which end he wrote his Paraenesis contra cedificatores imperii in imperio, and his Papa Ultrajectinus, and other tractates, and thrust them on me to make me of his mind, and at last wrote his Jugulum Causea with no less than seventy epistles directed to princes and men of interest, among which he was pleased to put one to me. The good man meant rightly in the main, but had not a head sufficiently accurate for such a controversy, and so could not perceive that anything could be called properly Government, that was, in no way, co-active [co-ercive] by corporal penalties. To turn him from the Erastian extreme and to end that controversy by a reconciliation, I published An Hundred Propositions conciliatory, on the difference between the magistrate’s power and the pastor’s.”
It was as to the doctrines of personal salvation, that Louis Du Moulin seems to have agreed with Baxter, who, along with entire reliance on the merits of Christ, curiously insisted on somehow introducing our own good works into the purchase-money of our salvation. Dr. John Owen, the opponent of Baxter in this matter, consistently excluded all our good works from the purchase-money, and placed them among the things freely purchased for — graciously presented to — actually possessed by the saved sinner. Du Moulin had enjoyed Dr. Owen’s friendship at Oxford, and had dedicated to him his Introductory Lecture. On this and similar knotty points of Divinity the outed professor wrote to the quondam Dean of Christ Church with characteristic vehemence, and the great theologian’s letter in reply has been printed.[3] Only a few lines can be inserted here:—
”Sir, — I have received your strictures upon our Confession, wherein you charge it with palpable contradiction, nonsense, enthusiasm, and false doctrine — that is, all the evils that can be crowded into such writing. I understand, by another letter since, that you have sent the same paper to others. When you shall have been pleased to read my book on Justifies tion, and have answered solidly what I have written upon this subject, I will tell you more of my mind. . . .
(Signed) John Owen.”
In some of Louis Du Moulin’s controversies, his relatives were against him. The French, unlike the more frigid English, and like the clannish Scots, acknowledged cousins of every degree as relations. The following table shews how the Du Moulins were connected with English neighbours:—
| Joachim Du Moulin, pasteur of Orleans. | |||||||||
| Pierre Du M. (the great). | Ester Du M., wife of Rene Bochart. | ||||||||
| Pierre Du M., jun., Prebendary of Canterbury. |
Louis Du M. | Samuel Bochart. | Marie Bochart, wife of J. M. De L’Angle, of Rouen. |
||||||
| Samuel De L’Angle, afterwards D.D. |
J. M. De L’Angle, Canon of Canterbury, |
Marie De L., wife of Dean Durell. | |||||||
Dr. Du Moulin had some angry paper warfare with three Deans — Stillingfleet, Durell, and Patrick, and with his kinsman, Canon De L’Angle; and before his death he wrote for publication a retractation of all the mere personalities which he had printed. What most offended the dignitaries was that in the last year of his life he published these two pamphlets — (1.) The conformity of the discipline and government of those who are commonly called Independents to that of the ancient Primitive Christians. (2.) A short and true account of the several advances the Church of England hath made towards Rome. His comparatively young relative De L’Angle, besides using an unbecoming magisterial tone, had brought Prebendary Du Moulin’s name into the dispute. Louis Du Moulin, in reply, hoped that his brother would discover where the Church’s true distemper lay, and thereafter what was the remedy for it. His concluding paragraph I quote as a specimen of his style:— “In a word, I hope from my brother that being reconciled to the people of God and to me, he will make my peace with Monsieur de L’Angle, which he may easily do; for oftentimes some seem to be in great wrath and indignation, who would fain notwithstanding be made friends again, when they find they are angry without cause and to no purpose. I attribute that bitterness of his towards me, not to his natural temper, which is meek and humble and full of benignity, but to that great distance which he fancies to be between his fortune and mine, and to that high place of preferment wherein he now is. So that I say of him what the fable reports of the Lamb and the Wolf — that the Lamb seeing from the top of the house, where he was, the Wolf passing by, gave him very railing and injurious language; but the Wolf answered him mildly, ‘I do not concern myself much at thy sharp and scornful words, for I am sure thy nature is quite contrary to it, but I attribute it to the highness of the place to which thou art exalted, which makes thee to forget thy usual and ordinary sweetness of temper.’” Dr. Du Moulin died on the 20th October 1680, and was buried in St. Paul’s, Covent Garden. He was aged 77.
- ↑ There were three sons; the other was Cyrus Du Moulin, who married Marie de Marbais, and died in Holland before 1680; his daughter was married in 1684 to Jacques Basnage.
- ↑ He printed his Introductory Lecture, with the title, “Oratio auspicalis cui subjuncta est laudatio clarissimi viri Gul : Camdeni, dicente Lud. Molinaeo, Prof. Hist. Camd. et. M.D. Oxon: 1652.” 4to. (Dedicated to John Owen, Dean of Christ Church.)
- ↑ See Owen’s Works (Goold’s edition), vol. i., page cxiv., where the letter is printed at full length.