Boursier, Lawrence Francis

, doctor of the Sorbonne, was born at Ecoven in the diocese of Paris, in 1679, and died at Paris in 1749, at the age of 70. He published, 1. “L’action de Dieu-sur les creatures,Paris, 2 vols. 4to, or 6 vols. 12mo. This treatise, in which he endeavours to establish physical premotion by argument, was attacked by Malebranche; but it discovers the powers of a profound metaphysician. 2. A memoir presented to Peter the Great by the doctors of Sorbonne for the reunion of the Greek and Latin churches.- When the tzar appeared in the Sorbonne, Boursier addressed him on the subject of this memoir. The monarch immediately answered, that he Was but a soldier. Boursier replied, that he was a hero and that, as a prince, he was a protector of religion. “This re-union is not so easy a matter (said the tzar); there are three points that divide us: the pope, the procession of the Holy Ghost” As he had forgot the third point, which is the unleavened bread and the cup, Boursier recalled it to his mind. “As for that article,” returned the emperor, “we shall have no difficulty in coming to an agreement.” At the end of the conversation, the Russian sovereign asked for a memorandum of it: it was given him; but nothing more was ever heard of it. 3. An enormous quantity of publications on subjects of ecclesiastical controversy, enumerated by Moreri. There was another of the name, almost a contemporary, Philip Boursier, deacon of Paris, where he was born in 1693, and died in 1768, aged 77. He was the first author, in 1727, of the “Nouvelles ecclesiastiques;” in which work he had several coadjutors, as Messrs. d’Etemare, de Fernanville, Bergfer, de Russye, de Troya, Fontaine. But he alone composed the greatest part of the discourses that annually precede this periodical work. 2

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