Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 2.djvu/47

 an infant was very delicate, a petition for private baptism might be presented and acceded to, without prejudice to the discipline of the Church.

An oath being properly a devotional deed, I may notice that in the mode of swearing witnesses the French Protestants coincided, not with the English but with the Scotch practice. As to “the custom of swearing by laying the hand upon the Gospels and kissing them,” a foreign author states, “Many of the Protestant churches condemned the usage and laid it aside. The Protestant Church of France in a national synod at Gap, 1603 (Quick’s Synodicon, vol. i., p. 239), determined it to be unlawful, and gave it as their judgment, that those who were called to swear, should content themselves barely with the lifting up of the hands. The Reformed Church of Scotland has also exploded the custom, and established the other in its stead. . . . Books were surely meant for reading and not for kissing; but [in England] we see those, who care not to read, forward to kiss. Many who never read the Bible once in their lives, can kiss it twenty times in a day. Thousands of infidels, who know not or believe not a sentence in the Gospels, are yearly allowed, nay, compelled to swear by or on them.”

A writer in the Edinburgh Review (vol. 121, page 495) suggests that in a preference for Scriptural names, and especially for Old Testament names, for their children, the French Protestants resembled the English Puritans. He says, “About the middle of the sixteenth century, as we gather from the names in their pedigree, the Dumont family became Huguenots, in common with many of the nobles of the province [of Normandy]. The Geoffreys, the Pierres, the Remys, and the Guillaumes, who had transmitted the honours of the house, give place to Isaacs, Abrahams, and Samuels.” By consulting the long lists which I have printed under the head “Naturalization,” my readers can form an opinion for themselves on this suggestion. The peaceful patriarchal names of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are frequent; and the Apostolic names of Peter (the same as Pierre), James and John; Guillaume seems no less abundant, and it is the fault of our language, that its equivalent “William” has not an old Norman sound. There is the Bible name, Daniel, to hint at the call for fidelity in a court and society which were more than semi pagan; there are Abel and Stephen to whisper “Be thou faithful unto death.” But from secular history there is a favourite name, “Mark-Antony” (perhaps associated with the difficulty of steering between the rocks of governmental vindictiveness and mob brutality). Antoine and Antoinette, Francois and Francoise, Louis and Louise, Mary and Mary-Magdalen, are the other names that seem to have been most in favour.

To return to Church-government. The French Church courts were careful as to the trustworthy teaching for which the office of pastor was instituted. The pastors, as a body, were anxious that their soundness should be proved. In 1691, the Jesuits having accused of heterodoxy the French pasteurs in England, the charge was met by ninety-six ministers issuing and signing a paper declaring their sentiments. Along with their names they gave the places in France where they had resided (Baynes, p. 276). The dictum of Pasteur Cousin of London in 1569, expressed their idea of a minister as distinguished from a groping individual enquirer. A Protestant preacher, soliciting admission to the French Church, was confronted before the consistory by a letter of his own writing, in which was a series of heterodox statements. His defence was that his letter was written by way of questioning, not of affirmation. The President replied, “Such kind of questioning is not meet in these times for a minister of God’s Church.”

From a Minute-Book which is still extant, it appears that the French Churches of London formed themselves into a General Assembly, “pour la paix et pour l’ordre dans notre Refuge.” (Article 8.) The first moderator was the Rev. Louis Saurin, minister of the Savoy; the first secretary, Moses Pujolas. There are several articles of Constitution. At the date of institution, 10th August 1720, there were eight churches in the City and eight in Westminster; of these churches, Threadneedle Street and the Savoy were to send, each of them, two ministers and four ciders as representatives to sit in l’Assemblée Generale des Eglises Francoises de Londres; the other churches were to send, each of them, one minister and two elders, except the chapel of St. James’s Palace, which (having no elders) was to be represented by two ministers. The Eighth article declares that the Assembly’s decisions are to have no authority except that of advice, unless in special cases, where consistories