Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 1.djvu/135

 cum nostratium approbatione ac (praesertim tenuiorum quibus gratuitam operam impendere non gravatur) commoditate medicinam fecit. Nihilominus in Ministerio Ecclesiastico (minimè tamen ordinario nec stipendiario) nobis operam suam denegare solet, — partim ut dona a Domino sibi collata in usum Ecclesise conferat, — partim ut, Deo (quod speramus) iterum vocante, paratior ad ministerii munus obeundum redire possit. Haec ita esse Nos, ecclesiae Londino Gallicae pastores et seniores, testamur Londini in Consistorio 12 Calend. Januarii 1582.

“His literis perlectis et consideratis, gravioris fortunae et egestatis tam probi viri doctique ratione habitâ, unanimi consensu conclusum est, ut liceat illi in posterum liberè et pacatè medicinam exercere in hâc Civitate et alibi, modò se gerat modestè et decenter erga nos censores et collegas nostrae Societatis, nostrique Collegii dignitatem (quantùm in se est) in omnibus tueatur, et in toto persolvat annuatim ad usus Collegii III. lib. ad quatuor usuales hujus Regni terminos, in sequas portiones dividendas.”

The only book published by this worthy refugee was an abridgment (in Latin) of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. He informs us, “At a time when the fields of France were whitening for the harvest, I had completed the study of medicine, and was girding myself for its practice, but was recalled to the elements of theology and to undertake the ministry. The Institutio of John Calvin was the work, next to the Holy Bible, which I chose for study and to be stored in memory. People, who go to a garden embellished with an infinite variety of flowers, usually make a nosegay of those that have delighted either their sight or their smell, so that when they have left it the garden is still present to their view. So I, in this theological parterre, perceiving marvellous celestial odours, collected from its chapters and sections, as from delightful garden beds, what my eyes, mind, and memory most desired to have always present; and hence you have this Epitome.” The title is, “Institutionis Christianae religionis a Joanne Calvino conscriptae Epitome per, in Ecclesiâ Gallicanâ ministrum,” 1st edition, London, 1583; 2nd edition, 1584. The Dedicatory epistle, dated 10 Cal. Matii 1583, begins, “Pietate et dignitate illustri virae, Domino Richardo Martino, omnium Angliae Mineralium fidelissimo Custodi Regio, ac celeberrimae Civitatis Londinensis prudentissimo Senatori.” There are Greek and Latin Odes by Miles Bodley, Timothy Le Maçon (Massonius), and Isaac Delaune, the author’s second son. (An English translation of De Laune’s Epitome was executed by Christopher Fetherstone, minister of the Word of God).  

Pierre, the third (but eventually the second surviving) son of the reverend physician, became pasteur of the French Church of Norwich. The signature, Pierre de Laune, still survives in the Norwich book of discipline, but there is no date. The only notice of him in the register is the baptism of his son, Pierre, on 5th August 1610. His ministry was during a period when refugees, and especially their children, were tempted to take offence at discipline and to fly to the parish church. A petition was accordingly presented to the Bishop of Norwich, requesting his interference in the case of individuals suspended in 1601. The petitioners — namely, the minister, P. de Laune, and the elders, Jean Fremault, Baudouin Burgar, Jaques Farvacques, and Francois Desprez — represented that the congregation was under strict obligation to the city of Norwich to maintain its own ministers, ministers’ widows, divinity students, and poor members, while its members as individuals were also taxed with parochial duties [dues] for the maintenance of the English ministry. Their suit to the bishop was to help us in bringing home these two strayed sheep [Pierre Truye and Nicolas de Corte]. This petition was, presented in 1608. The date of a final settlement was 1613 (according to Blomefield’s “History of Norfolk,” vol. ii. page 256), and was to the effect that, “According to their first patent the strangers should not be assessed by the court to the [English parochial ] ministers’ wages in their parishes for anything but their houses and grounds, the payment for their values and stock being left to their own congregations, — they being to be governed by the bishop as to spirituals, by the city as to temporals, and their own church by their elders and deacons.” In the same year the French refugees of Norwich were relieved from another grievance by the abolition of an independent commercial charter granted to the Dutch on February 6, 1606 (old style), “without