Synodicon in Gallia reformata, or, The acts, decisions, decrees, and canons of those famous national councils of the reformed churches in France being I. a most faithful and impartial history of the rise, growth, perfection and decay of the reformation in that kingdom, with its fatal catastrophe upon the revocation of the Edict of Nants in the year 1685 : II. the confession of faith and discipline of those churches : III. a collection of speeches, letters, sacred politicks, cases of conscience, and controversies in divinity, determined and resolved by those grave assemblies : IV. many excellent expedients for preventing and healing schisms in the churches and for re-uniting the dismembred body of divided Protestants : V. the laws, government, and maintenance of their colleges, universities and ministers, together with their exercise of discipline upon delinquent ministers and church-members : VI. a record of very many illustrious events of divine providence relating to those churches : the whole collected and composed out of original manuscript acts of those renowned synods : a work never be extant in any language.

CHAP. VIII. General Matters.

1. THE Province of Higher Languedoc and Guyenne proposed that a most humble Petition might be tender'd by them unto their Majesties, that they would be pleased to grant unto their Ministers a full maintenance. This Synod is of opinion, that it were more proper for a Politick Provincial Assembly to make this request, than for us which are but an Ecclesiastical.

2. The same Province moved another case: Whether Consistories might be allowed to give in evidence unto the Civil Magistrate against insolent and outragious persons abusing their Pastors or Elders, who called them, ac∣cording to the Duty of their Places before them. This answer was return∣ed, that that Canon of our Discipline forbidding the discovery unto a Civil Judicature of matters transacted in the Consistory ought not to be restrained to the sole confessions of Crimes, but is to be understood in the most compre∣hensive sence of all things whatsoever, excepting only such riots and outra∣ges, whose fact being notorious, it may be lawful to inform the Magistrate of: But as for outragious words, of what kind soever they may be, Con∣sistories shall apply the censures of the Church to redress and reform them.

3. The Province of Higher Guyenne requested that there might be a par∣ticular Canon made for removing Elders from their office in the Churches, and that the time of their coming in, and going out might be fixt and limited. This Assembly Judgeth that this matter should be left to the prudence of Provincial Synods. But nevertheless it ordaineth that if an Elder be deput∣ed unto a National Synod by his Province, he shall continue in his office, tho the term thereof be expired, until such time as he have discharged the trust reposed in him, and shall have given an account unto the Province of those affairs concredited to him, and dispatched by him in that National Synod.

4. Forasmuch as divers Provinces have remonstrated that by Reason of the continuance and growth of ungodliness, we be daily threatned with the most dreadful Judgments of God, and that there is an indispensable necessity of extraordinary prayers unto the throne of Grace for the prosperity of their Majesties, and for imploring the good blessing of God upon the beginning and progress of the Kings personal Government, who will be very shortly de∣clared Major, and that the publick weal of the State may be promoted, the Peace and Union of our Churches more firmly stablished, that therefore we be called out to celebrate a publick Fast in all the Churches of this Kingdom: This Assembly for these causes now-mentioned doth appoint the fourth day of this next September to be observed generally in all the Churches of this Kingdom as a day of Solemn Prayer, Humiliation and Fasting. And as for those extraordinary Prayers which are used, 'tis left unto the Churches pru∣dence where they be in use, either to continue them, or lay them down.

5. The Deputies of Berry demanding some alteration in that Canon of the National Synod of Rochell concerning Monks, who forsaking their Convents, were to be sent back unto their respective Provinces: Because it lays a very bur∣densom charge upon the poor Churches, which are utterly unable to Sup∣port under it. This Assembly Judged it not their duty to make any change in that Canon; only it adviseth the Provinces to be very circumspect in their reception of such persons, and in the dispensation of their charities, lest they become a charge unto the Provinces which do already need relief.

6. At the request of the Provincial Deputies of Burgundy and Orleans, our Lords the General Deputies are intreated and exhorted, and also by this As∣sembly, to get those Letters Patents for exempting the Pastors of our Church∣es from all taxes and other subsidies verified, they having been already grant∣ed: And the Deputies of the Provinces in this Synod are charged to carry back this same Petition unto their Mixt Provincial Assemblies, that so they may joyn their most humble requests with those of the General Assembly; in case it be not done before the time of their meeting.

7. The Province of Dolphiny desired that those words Prestre and Préstrise in the 5th. Section of our Catechism might be changed into those of Sacrifica∣teur and Sacrificateure, because none questioned their sence and meaning, and for that words were received by common usage. The Assembly did not Judge it any wise convenient to alter these words.

8. At the request of divers Provinces it was ordained that our National Synods should not only not innovate any thing in the confession of Faith, Catechism, Liturgy, and Discipline of our Churches, unless the matter had been first Proposed by one or more Provinces, but also unless it were a thing of very great importance, nor should that be resolved on, till such time as all the Provinces being duely informed of it, had first debated it at home in their respective Synods; and if it so happen that any of them shall have considered of it before the rest, they may write their thoughts about it unto that Province, which is impowered to call the next National Synod; and, in case the matter be urgent, it shall be couched in the Letters of Summons, that so they may come prepared for it.

9. The Province of Dolphiny moved, whether if two or three Witnesses were brought by an Informer to give in evidence against a Pastor or Elder, they might be admitted, so that their testimony should be of sufficient force and vertue to condemn the accused, altho there be none other crime ob∣jected against them. This Assembly seeth no difficulty at all in the case.

10. The Province of Anjou requesting it, this Synod injoineth all Consisto∣ries in their choice of Elders, to cause such persons to be elected as are irre∣prehensible, according to our Discipline, and carefully to observe that Ca∣non about the qualities necessarily required in them who are called unto those Offices. And all Colloquies and Provincial Synods are charged to put to their helping hand, that this Ordinance be duely kept and observed.

11. The Province of Xaintonge moving it, this Assembly ordained that such Persons who get themselves preferred unto the Government of our cau∣tionary Towns, or unto the office of Counsellors in the mixt Courts, or shall obtain any other places granted unto Gentlemen professing our Religi∣on, without taking the necessary attestations according to the Letter and import of the Kings Writ for Governours, and the particular Articles for Counsellors in Sovereign Courts, they shall be declared Desertors of the Union of our Churches, and prosecuted with all Church-censures. And those of our Religion which are in possession shall be exhorted to keep still possession of those places, and not to resign them, but on this condition, nor consent to their admission and reception, who offer themselves without such a Testimonal. And as for those other ways of complaints and remonstran∣ces to be made unto their Majesties, of the notorious violations of our Privi∣ledges, they shall be carried unto the next approaching Political Assemblies granted us by the Writ of their said Majesties. But for the present our Lords the General Deputies are charged to require that some other person duely qualified according to the above mentioned orders may be substituted in the place of the Sieur Berger, who is of late revolted from the truth. And if that particular Government, now become vacant by his Apostacy be not sup∣plied before the next meeting of the general Assembly, notice shall be given un∣to them of it, that so they may prosecute it in the name of all the Provinces.

12. At the request of the same Province of Xaintonge all Consistories be injoined to take special heed that Commanders in our Cautionary Towns do not admit into their familiar converse any debauched persons who be guilty of crimes deserving corporal punishment.

13. And whereas the same Province, hath desired that we would frame another form of excommunication besides that which is inserted in our Dis∣cipline, we concur with them in their motion, and shall take care that it be done accordingly.

14. The Province of the Isle of France requested that an order might pass for our Readers to publish the Banes of Marriages out of their desks, and not for Pastors to do it from the Pulpit. But this matter was left to the pru∣dence and liberty of Consistories.

15. The aforesaid Province of the Isle of France demanding it, this As∣sembly ordained, that the Canons of former National Synods concerning Attestations should be most strictly observed, and whatsoever Consistory presumeth to give one in any other form shall be most severely censured: And therefore all Officers into whose hands such Attestations may fall are intreated to detain them, and to present them unto the Provincial Synods, or Colloquies, upon whom the Churches which have given them are de∣pendant.

16. The Provinces of Xaintonge, the Higher and Lower Longuedoc, and of the Isle of France all moving that it would be expedients lessen the number of our Universities in this Kingdom, and to reduce them unto two only, that so they might be rendered more compleat: This Assembly doth not

judge meet to diminish their number, but adviseth that the Professors there employed do discharge their duty carefully and acquit themselves of their Offices faithfully and most conscientiously.

17. Provincial Synods, Colloquies, and Consistories are expresly forbid∣den to admit any Persons unto the Lords Table, who directly maintain Ido∣latry, or breed up their Children in it, or have recourse unto the Pope for Dispensations, that they may enjoy Benefices, or others under their name. And all such are judged utterly unworthy of obtaining Testimonials from our Churches, whereby they may be advanced unto those important Charges in our Cautionary Towns.

18. The Lord's General Deputies are ordered to give their Majesties the most humble Thanks of this Assembly, for that they have been pleased to discharge our Churches of the Sous in the Liver, which was formerly taken for paying the Salaries of our General Deputies out of the Moneys granted us by their Liberality, and they are with all humility earnestly to request them to ease us of paying three thousand six hundred Livers, which have been extraordinarily given unto the Inhabitants of the Baylywick of Gex, by way of recompence for the loss of their Churches Stock, whereof they were formerly in possession, and that it may be paid them out of some other Fund than ours.

19. Relation being made that divers Persons of eminent Note and Qua∣lity, both within and without the Kingdom, are designing how to bring the Orthodox Churches of France, England, Germany, Switzerland, the Low-Countreys, and Geneva, to a nearer Communication in some conve∣nient place, by Deputies sent from them all, that so there may be a more strict and familiar Correspondence in Doctrine effected and kept up among them; whereunto His Majesty of Great Britain expresseth a very great in∣clination. It was resolved, that those excellent persons who travail in this most pious Undertaking, should have the Thanks of this Assembly, and be intreated to persist in their laudable prosecutions of it. And in the mean while this Design shall be imparted by the Provinces unto such as understand these matters, that so this Proposal may be more seriously ad∣vised on in the next National Synod.

20. For as much as the pernicious Doctrine of the Jesuits against the Lives, Estates, and Authority of Soveraign Princes is propagated, and most impudently published to the World by the chiefest of that Sect; Suarez having within a few months gone beyond all the Fellows of his Order, in a Book newly published by him: This Assembly detesting that abominable Doctrine, together with its Authors, exhorts all the faithful of our Com∣munion to abhor and execrate it, and all our Ministers and Professors are to Teach and Preach against it powerfully, and to batter it down with force of Arguments, and to defend at the same time conjoyntly together the Rights of God, and those of the Higher Powers ordained by him.

Notes

• 1614. The 21th Synod.
• 3 Rochel g. m. 16. See St. Maixant, ob 4 upon the same Synod.
• 2 Syn. of Vi∣tré g. m. 38.
• 1. Paris 27.
• 3. Rochel. observ. 23.
• Privas, of Col∣ledges, 23.2. Vitré, of Colledges, 1.
• 2. Paris 3.
• Privas, p. m. 20.
• 2. Synod of Vitré, g. m. 34.