Juried, Peter

, a French protestant divine, sometimes called by the catholics the Goliah of the protestants, was born Dec. 24, 1637. His father, Daniel Jurieu, was minister of the reformed religion at Mer his mother, the daughter of Peter du Moulin, minister and professor at Sedan. He was sent, after the first rudiments of his education under Rivet in Holland, to his maternal uncle Peter du Moulin, then in England where, having finished his theological studies, he took orders in that church but, upon the death of his father, being called home to succeed him at Mer, and finding what he had done in England disliked by the reformed in his own country, he submitted to a re-ordination by presbyters, according to the form of the foreign protestant churches. After some time, he officiated in the French church of Vitri, where the people were so much pleased with him, that they endeavoured to procure his settlement among them; and here he composed his | “Treatise, of Devotion.” Before this, in 1670, he had attracted public attention by refuting a project for reuniting all the sects of Christianity, wrote by d’Huisseau, minister of Saumur. He was afterwards invited to Sedan, where he discharged the office of professor in divinity and Hebrew with great reputation. In 1673 he wrote his “Preservative against Popery,” which he opposed to the exposition of the doctrine of the catholic church by M. de Meaux, bishop of Condom. This treatise did great credit to the author, who endeavoured to prove that the prelate had disguised the doctrine of his church. In 1675, Jurieu. published the first part of his work (the whole of which appeared in 1685), entitled “La Justification de la Morale,” &c. or, “A Vindication of the Morality of the Protestants against the Accusations of Mr. Arnauld,” &c. la 1681, the university of Sedan being taken from the protestants,*

our professor resolved to accept an invitation sent to him from that of Rouen; but discovering, in the mean time, that the French court knew him to be the author of a work he had published anonymously, under the title of “La Politique du Clerge,” which was a severe satire on the Roman catholics, he was apprehensive of being prosecuted, and therefore retired hastily into Holland, where be almost immediately received an offer of the divinitychair in the university of Groningen; but his friends having founded the same professorship for him at Rotterdam, he preferred this residence to the other; and he was also appointed minister of the Walloon church in the same town. He had not been long in this happy situation, when he produced to the public “Les derniers Efforts de PInnocence afflige’e,” or “The last Efforts of afflicted Innocence.”

At Rotterdam, having nothing to fear, he gave full scope to his imagination, which was naturally too warm and sanguine. Jn this temper he applied himself to study the book of “the Revelations,” and thought he had certainly discovered the true meaning of it by a kind of inspiration, | which shewed him, that France was the place of the great city, where the witnesses mentioned in the apocalypse lay dead, but not buried; and that they were to rise to life again in three yeafs and a half, namely, in 1689. He was unalterably fixed and confirmed in this persuasion by the revolution which happened in England in 16SS; and even addressed a letter upon the subject to king William, whom he considered as the instrument intended by God to carry his designs into execution. At home, however, all this was charged upon him as an artifice, only to prepare the people for a much greater revolution; and he was suspected to harbour no other design than that of exciting people to take up arms, and setting all Europe in a flame. The foundation of this belief was his not shewing any signs of confusion after the event had given the lye to his prophecies: they built likewise on this, that, after the example of Comenius, he had attempted to re-unite the Lutherans and Calvinists, in hopes of increasing the number of troops to attack Antichrist. But these accusations were brought only by the Romanists, his constant enemies, while his more indulgent friends attributed his prophecies to enthusiasm, and it is certain, that, under this period of mental delusion, he affected to believe a great number of prodigies, which he maintained were so many presages or forerunners of the accomplishment of the prophecies. Nor is it true that he was indifferent to the ill success of what he had predicted in his “L’accomplissement des Propheties,” Rotterdam, 1686 on the contrary, his chagrin was great; and it was not a little heightened when he thought himself insulted by some of his best friends, who opposed his sen-, timents. This drew him into violent disputes, and particularly with Bayle ,*

who wrote against him. The opposition of Bayle was the more resented by him, as he had been a friend to him, and was instrumental in procuring him the philosophical chair at Sedan in 1675. They seem to have been very intimately connected; for, after the suppression of that university, they were preferred together to different professorships at Rotterdam in 1681; and they both wrote against Maimbourg’s “History of Calvinism” in 1682. But here, it is said, the first seeds of the quarrel | between them were sown. Both the pieces excelled in different ways. Jurieu’s was more complete and full than Bayle’ s, and he answered Maimbourg with a great deal of strength; but then the reader did not meet there with that easy and natural style, those lively and agreeable reflections which distinguished the latter. The preference given to Bayle was observed by Jurieu with disdain: he began to look upon Bayle as his competitor, conceived a jealousy and hatred for him; and to what length it was carried afterwards may be seen in our article of Bayle. In short, it must not be dissembled, that our author’s conduct was far from being commendable in regard to Bavle, or any of his antagonists. Even those synods, where his authority was the greatest, engaged in the contest, and justified Mr. Saurin, pastor of Utrecht, and other persons of merit, whom Jurieu had not spared to accuse of heterodoxy: nay, the matter was carried so far, that, in some of these church parliaments there passed decrees, in which, though his name was not mentioned, yet the opinions he had advanced upon baptism, justification, and the new system of the church, were absolutely condemned. These troubles continued while he lived, and at length threw him into a lowness of spirits, under which he languished for several years before his death; yet he continued to employ his pen, and revised and printed his history of opinions, and forms of religious worship, “Histoire des dogmes et des cultes,” which he had composed in his youth, a work of very considerable merit. In the two or three last years of his life he wrote only some devotional pieces. At length he sunk under a load of infirmities, at Rotterdam, Jan, 11, 1713. He was unquestionably a man of considerable learning, but peculiar in some of his own notions, and intolerant to those of others. Among his works, not mentioned above, are “Histoire du Calvinisme et du Papisrne mise en parallele,” &c. 1683, 3 vols. “Lettres Pastorales.” These letters are upon the subject of the accomplishment of the prophecies. In one of them, for Jan. 1695, having quoted, as proof of the favourable intentions of the allies, a proposal for peace, drawn up by the diet of Ratisbon, which had been forged by a speculative politician in Amsterdam, he was so ashamed of his having been imposed upon by this fictitious piece, that he instantly printed another edition of his letter, in which he omitted that article, 3. “Parallele de trois Lettres pastorales de Mr. Jurieu, c.” | 1696, quoted in a “Dissertation concerning defamatory Libels,” at the end of Bayle’s Diet. 4. “Traite de TumlS del’eglise,” &c. 1688. 5> “Le vray systeme.de l'église et la veritable analyse de la foi,” &c. 1686. 6. “L’Esprit de Mr. Arnauld,” 1684. 7. “Abrege de i’Histoire du Concile de Trente,” &c. 1683. 8. “Les prejugez legitimos centre le papisme,” 1685. 9. “Le Janseniste convaincu de vaine sophistiquerie.” 10. “Le Philosophe de Rotterdam accuse, atteint, et convaincu.” 11. “Traite historique, contenant le jugement d’un Protestant sur la Theologie Mystique,” &c. 1700. 12. “Jugement sur les me*­thodes rigides et relache’es,” &c. 1686. 13. “Traite* de la Nature et la Grace.” 14. “Apologie pour Paccomplissement de Propbe’ties,” 1687. 15. “Quelque Sermons,” &C. ¹