Saurin, JACQUES

Saurin, JACQUES, a celebrated French Protestant preacher, was born at Nîmes, 6th January 1677, studied at Geneva, and was chosen minister of a Walloon church in London in 1701. But the climate of England did not agree with his delicate health; and in 1705 he settled at the Hague, where his extraordinary gift of pulpit oratory was prodigiously admired. But at length his clerical brethren enviously assailed him with the accusation of heresy. The dispute was carried to the synod of the Hague, and Saurin was subjected to a series of petty persecutions that shortened his days. He died at the Hague on December 30, 1730. As a preacher he has often been compared with Bossuet, whom he rivals in force, if not in grace and subtlety. His chief productions are Sermons (12 vols. the Hague, 1749; abridged Eng. trans. 6 vols. 1775-76); Discours sur les Événements les plus Mémorables du V. et du N. T. (Amst. 1720-28), often called Saurin's Bible; and Etat du Christianisme en France (the Hague, 1725).