Protestant Exiles from France/Book First - Chapter 7 - Section VIII
VIII. De Beaulieu.
Luc de Beaulieu was a French Protestant, born in 1645,[1] of whose antecedents we know little, except from Anthony a Wood, who says, “he was born in France, educated in his juvenile years in the University of Saumur, and came into England upon account of religion about the year 1667.” He was made divinity reader in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, having joined the communion of the Anglican Church. Of this he practically gave public notice in his pamphlet, published in 1675, entitled, “Take heed of both extreams, or plain and useful Cautions against Popery and Presbytery.” He earned considerable fame by translating into English a valuable Latin MS. composed by the then deceased Bishop Cosin. When King Charles II. was in exile, the Romanists presented his titular Majesty with a Latin MS., asserting and defending the dogma of transubstantiation. Dr Cosin, on the part of the Protestants, composed and presented a reply in the same language. On the restoration he was made a bishop, but always refused to print the aforesaid MS.; on his deathbed, however, in 1672, he was understood to consent to its being translated and published. The work was undertaken by De Beaulieu, and was published in 1676; and it is in the English of this accomplished refugee that Cosin en Transubstantiation obtained, and has retained, celebrity. I give the contents of the original title-page:
The History of Popish Transubstantiation, to which is premised and opposed the Catholick Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures, the Ancient Fathers, and the Reformed Churches about the sacred elements and presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist — Written Nineteen years ago in Latine by the Right Reverend Father in God, John, late Lord Bishop of Durham, and allowed by him to be published a little before his death at the earnest request of his friends. London : Printed by Andrew Clark for Henry Brome at the Gun at the West of St. Pauls. 1676.”
The translator presented a copy to the Bodleian Library, and wrote upon the bottom of the title-page, donum interpretis.
The Epistle Dedicatory is addressed, “To the Right Honourable Heneage Lord Finch, Baron of Daventry, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England.”
“My Lord, — The excellency of this Book answers the greatness of its author, and perhaps the badness of the Version is also proportioned to the meanness of the Translator. But, the English being for those that could not understand the original, that they also might be insiructed by so instructive a Discourse, I hope with them my good intent will excuse my fault; only my fear is, I shall want a good Plea wherewith to sue out my pardon for having intituled a person of the highest honour to so poor a labour as this of mine. My Lord, these were the inducements which set me upon this attempt, it being the subject of the Book, to clear and assert an important truth, which is as a Criterion whereby to know the Sons of the Church of England from her adversaries on both hands, those that adore and those that profane the blessed Sacrament; these that destroy the visible sign, and those that deny the invisible Grace: I thought I might justly offer it to so pious and so great a son of this Church, who own'd her in her most calamitous condition, and defends her in her happy and most envied restauration. I was also perswaded that the Translation, bearing your illustrious name, would be thereby much recommended to many, and so become the more generally useful. And I confided much in your goodness and affability, who being by birth and merits raised to a high eminency, yet doth willingly condescend to things and persons of low estate.
“My Lord, I have only this one thing more to alledge for myself: That besides the attestation of publick fame which I hear of a long time speaking loud for you, I have these many years lived in a Family where your Vertues being particularly known are particularly admired and honoured; so that I could not but have an extraordinary respect and veneration for your Lordship, and be glad to have any occasion to express it. If these cannot clear me, I must remain guilty of having taken this opportunity of declaring myself
Your Lordship’s
most humble and
most obedient servant,
Luke de Beaulieu.”
(The second edition was published in 1679.)
His attraction to Oxford was its library. He seems to have early made the acquaintance of Dr. John Fell, Dean of Christ Church, and through his favour or approval he was made a member of that renowned college in Oxford University. The reverend doctor, soon afterwards, became Bishop of Oxford, and to him as a “Right Reverend Father in God,” Beaulieu dedicated a small devotional manual, signing himself, “Your Lordship’s most dutiful Son and most humble Servant, L.B.” This book was entitled, “Claustrum Animae: The Reformed Monastery; or, The Love of JESUS. A sure and short, pleasant, and easie way to Heaven. In Meditations, Directions, and Resolutions to Love and Obey Jesus unto Death. In two Parts. London, Printed for Henry Brome at the Gun in S. Paul’s Churchyard the West-End. mdclxxvii.” (The Second Part has a shorter title-page, dated mdclxxvi., and the Imprimatur is dated February 16, 1675-6.) This pocket manual has been much admired, especially by one school of divines, and was reprinted in 1865 by [Rev.] F. G. L[ee]. But I have the original before me. The long Preface 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 Protestants are on the safer side, and that their religion is the surest way to heaven.” 4to., London, 1687. This pamphlet is mentioned by Beloe in his Anecdotes, the copy before him having this note written upon the title-page, “by r. bolieu, Chaplain to the Lord Chancellor Jefferies.” Identified in politics, though not in character, the chaplain and the chancellor passed away from public notice simultaneously. During the clerical years of his life, the Reverend Divine had called and signed himself “Luke Beaulieu.” But many years after his death the ground in the churchyard of Whitchurch, in which his remains repose, was unavoidably disturbed, and his coffin-plate was found, inscribed thus, “r. Luke De Beaulieu. Died May ye 26th 1723, aged 78 years.” His widow, Mrs Priscilla De Beaulieu, was buried beside him on 5th December 1728.
- ↑ I am much indebted to the Rev. John Slatter, rector of Whitchurch, to John A. Stewart, Esq., M.A., Oxon., and to other obliging correspondents!.