SAUBIN, JAequEs, a celebrated French Protestant preacher, was b. at Nimes, Jan. 6, 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 pro digiously admired, but not by his clerical brethren, who enviously assailed him with the of heresy. The ground of their charge was that Saurin had attributed false hood to God. Commenting in a thesis on the conduct of Samuel (1 Sam. chap. xvi.) when about to proceed to Bethlehem to anoint David, Saurin had pointed out that God certainly induced the prophet to adopt such measures and such language as could not but lead king Saul to believe what was not true. He argued, however, that the "will of God" can never command what is criminal or wrong, and that this deception—this falsehood, as men would call it—was quite innocent and permissible. Saurin's logic is
not perhaps quite faultless, but he at least deserves credit for not denying the existence of a moral difficulty. The dispute was carried to the synod of Hague, and Saurin was subjected to a series of petty persecutions that shortened his days. He died at the Hague m 1730. As a preacher, Saurin has often been compared with Bossuct, whom lie rivals in force, if not in grace and subtlety of religious sentiment. His chief productions are Sermons sur divers Textea de l'Ecriture Sainte (La Haye, 1708-25); Nouveaux Sermons sur la Passion (Rotterdam, 1732); Discours sur les Evenements les plus memorables du V. et du N. T. (Amst. 1720-28); Abrege, de. la Theologie et de la Morale Chretiennes en Forme if Catechisme (Amst. 1722); and Etat du Christianisme en France (La Haye, 1725).