The Animadversions of Bishop Bossuet upon the Quakers and Quietists

Abstract

The power of Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet's intellect is not yet spent; few theologians—Catholic or Protestant—have wielded a major premise so cogently; that premise for him, hors de l'église, point de salut; and of this premise, the most impressive conclusion is still, after two hundred and fifty years, the work entitled Histoire des Variations des Eglises Protestantes. It is quite true that his adversaries, for the moment dismayed by the appalling results of the Reformation, as therein portrayed, rallied and returned to the attack, asking whether, indeed, variation was necessarily so great an evil, whether in fact it was not the very genius of Protestantism; to which there is but one answer, and that pragmatic rather than metaphysical. But here, too, the Bishop of Meaux was singularly equipped, for the penchant of his thought is assuredly towards the Visible; the Six Avertissements aux Protestans sur les Lettres du Ministre Jurieu contre l'Histoire des Variations were in the nature of a brilliant counter-attack; they were to be the Bishop's last word on this question. What, asks Bossuet, is the result of disobedience to the Church Universal? He concludes, “que faute de se soumettre à une autorité si inviolable, on se contredit sans cesse, on renverse tous les principes qu'on a établis, on renverse la Réforme même et tout ce que jusqu'ici on y avoit trouvé de plus certain; et qu'enfin on se jette dans le fanatisme et dans les erreurs des Quakers.” His Ultima Thule, then, of nonsense, was the doctrine of the Society of Friends.