History of Protestant Church Variations by Bossuet Two Volumes

Histoire des Variations de L’Eglise Protestantes by Bossuet

History of Protestant Church Variations by Bossuet

Printed in Paris.
Language – French.
Probable printing date 1850
Size: 5″ by 7″1/4

The History of Variations in Protestant Churches is an anti protest work by Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, begun in 1682 and published in 1688 in Paris. The original work includes fifteen books.
Because of Pastor Pierre Jurieu’s answer, Bossuet wrote a sequel: Warnings to Protestants on Minister Jurieu’s Letters Against the History of Variations, published in 1689-1691.The Calvinist pastor Pierre Jurieu, author of the Treaty of the Power of the Church (1677), attacks Bossuet with the Condom against the change of religion (Rouen, 1680) before publishing The Politics of the Clergy of France, or Conversations curious of two Roman Catholics, one Parisian and the other Provincial, on the means used today to destroy the Protestant religion in this kingdom (Amsterdam, 1681), a pamphlet that caused him to leave France for the Provinces -Unies. Faced with Bossuet, Jurieu declares in particular that the doctrine of the Catholic Church has varied on the question of the Eucharist, to which the Bishop of Meaux replies by the Treaty of Communion under both species (1682). In parallel, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes took place in 1685, approved by Bossuet.Rethinking the history of the Protestant Reformation, Bossuet enumerates the different Reformed denominations and paints the portrait of their founders (Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin, Zwingli) without giving them the slightest divine inspiration. On the contrary, taking advantage of their plurality, he denounces what he considers their inability to form a homogeneous whole, a sign of their heresy. For him, doctrinal multiplicity is synonymous with instability and error. It starts from the following principle: “The true simplicity of the Christian doctrine is essentially always to determine, in regard to faith, by this fact: yesterday we believed so, so today we must believe still ; for faith that changes is not a faith, it is not the word of God, which is immutable. ” According to Bossuet, diversity in terms of dogma leads to an undifferentiation that leads to the absence of religion, which Ferdinand Brunetière develops in these terms: “When Calvin and Luther, on the question of the Eucharist, for example, or on the matter of justification, would have been a hundred times right against Catholic theology, they would always have been wrong, for Bossuet, to have detached from the Church, because there is no Church without an absolute power to define its own dogmas, and that, on the other hand, without a Church, there is no more Christianity, nor religion perhaps. ”
The book was a great success among Catholics and attracted criticism among Protestants, including Henri Basnage de Beauval and Gilbert Burnet, whom Bossuet opposed his Defense of the History of Variations (1691).

Offered here are volumes 1 and 2. It might be a complete set of what was issued in 1850, but we are not completely certain.
Binding consists of leather spine with brown marble boards. Blind and gold tooling on the spine with 4 raised bands. Original binding in excellent condition. Hinges strong and not worn at all. Bumping and wear on the corners of the boards, some mild scuffing as well. Please consult the pictures.
The original printed title pages are bound with the book as well. The pages have yellowed but are largely clean, with only occasional mild foxing.
There are occasional light pencil underlining to portions of the text.
Beautiful set in great condition.