Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 2.djvu/281

 Musgrave, Baronet, a descendant of this eminent traveller, and the proprietor of these MSS., to whom I sometime ago returned them. And I beg leave in this public manner to return my thanks to that gentleman for granting me the liberty of perusing these Papers, and for the permission he gave me of publishing any part of them that I should select as proper to be introduced into this work.”

[In 1787, Harmer published the third and fourth volumes of his “Observations,” and said in the Preface, “Sir Philip Musgrave most obligingly sent me, after the two first volumes of my Observations appeared, the three tomes of Sir John Chardin’s Travels printed in French, at Amsterdam, 1711, which have furnished me with considerable additions.” Many years after Harmer’s death (which happened in 1788), Dr. Adam Clarke brought out the standard edition (the fourth).]  

The eminent refugee, who bore the surname of Colomiés, might have been classified among the clergy, if it was not that it was in literature that he distinguished himself. His grandfather, the pasteur Hierosme Colomiés, was a native of Bearn in Navarre. As a paslor his home was La Rochelle; he was one of the six ministers who constituted the staff of the Reformed Pastorate of that city. In Quick’s Synodicon we find him in the Roll of Ministers for the year 1603, a member of the National Synod in 1614, and surviving in the Roll of Ministers for 1626. The son of Hierosme and the father of the refugee was Jean Colomiés, doctor of medicine; the pasteur’s daughters were Francoise, wife of Pierre Hamelot, doctor of medicine (the date of whose marriage was 1628), and Sara, wife of Jehan Hamelot, merchant in La Rochelle, a brother of Pierre. Thus the refugee had two Hamelot uncles and many Hamelot cousins, the Hamelots being illustrious Rochellers.

Paul Colomiés was born in La Rochelle on 2nd December 1638. He was educated for the ministry, and qualified for a charge in the Reformed Church of France. We do not hear of his having a pastoral charge. As a refugee, he preferred to settle in England, because his friend Isaac Vossius was there. He came over in 1681; he appears at the head of a list of Naturalizations, 21st March 1688. Like Vossius, he imbibed heterodoxy, and he received a severe castigation from the pen of Jurieu. His hobby, however, was to substitute the Greek version of the Old Testament for the Hebrew; and he took bitter revenge upon all who would not follow him in abjuring all the vernacular translations “done out of Hebrew.” He took a special aversion to Presbyterians as the most methodical opponents of heterodoxy — an aversion which he manifests in his “Icon Presbyterianorum,” and in his “Parallele de la pratique de l’Eglise Ancienne et de celle des Protestans de France.” Professor Weiss says that “he passed in England for one of the pillars of Socinianism,” and that “St Evremond, who was amused by his mental eccentricities, described him as an unbeliever, who in his books strove to prove that the Version of the Seventy was divinely inspired, while by his discourse he showed that he did not believe in Divine inspiration.” His temper was perhaps soured by poverty. When Dr Allix, who appreciated his varied learning, came to England and obtained a French Church in London, he gave Colomiés the office of Reader in the church. He accordingly speaks feelingly in his “Parallele” (which should rather have been named Contraste) concerning the services demanded from a Reader:—

“In the ancient church, only one chapter of the Old and of the New Testament was read. Among the French Protestants, the Reader reads ten or twelve, sometimes with a little vexation. In the ancient, the Reader did not begin to read until the clergy and people had come in, as we may conjecture from the celebrated passage of Justin Martyr. Among the French Protestants, when ten persons have assembled, the Reader ascends the pulpit — by which excellent arrangement all the people, who arrive afterwards, understand the Scriptures but imperfectly, having also disturbed the attention of those who had come first.”

He received episcopal ordination, and was made Librarian to the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace. But Archbishop Sancroft lost his see on refusing to take the oaths in favour of William and Mary in 1691; and Colomiés had to retire from Lambeth with his patron.

He had another source of income, the so-called Rectory of Eynsford in Kent. The actual ministers of Eynsford were and are Vicars. Only the Vicars of the parish are recognised in its registers. The Rectory is a sinecure, or an annual rent which is in the gift of the dignitaries of Canterbury Cathedral. This annuity was enjoyed by the Rev. Paul Colomiés. He resided in London, and in his Will he assured the poor of the parish of “Einsford” that he without ceasing prayed for them, and he left them a legacy of five guineas. 