Beausobre, Isaac de

BEAUSOBRE, bō´´sō´br, ISAAC DE: One of the most distinguished preachers of the French Protestant Church; b. at Niort (220 m. s.w. of Paris), in the present department of Deux-Sèvres, Mar. 8, 1659; d. in Berlin June 5, 1738. He was descended from a Protestant family of Gascogne, whose head took refuge in Geneva in 1578. He began his theological studies at the celebrated academy of Saumur, was ordained at the last synod of Loudun, and was called to be minister of the church at Chatillon, department of Indre, 1683. During the religious persecution, he fled in Nov., 1685, to Rotterdam, where he was welcomed at the house of the princess of Orange and, through her, was appointed chaplain to her daughter, princess of Anhalt-Dessau. In 1694 he was appointed chaplain to the elector of Brandenburg, Frederick III, and was called to Berlin as minister of the French Church. He stayed there for thirty-six years, preaching with much success, and was loaded with favors by King Frederick II. Among other honorable missions, he was sent in 1704 to the Duke of Marlborough, and, in 1713, to the commissioners of the Treaty of Utrecht, to ask for the exchange of Huguenot galley-slaves for French prisoners. He was privy councilor of the king of Prussia, director of the French House and of the French schools, and superintendent of all the French churches in Berlin.

His works are: Défense de la doctrine des Réformés sur la Providence, la prédestination, la grâce, et l’Eucharistie (Magdeburg, 1693); Les Psaumes de David mis en rime française (Berlin, 1701); Le Nouveau-Testament de J. C. traduit en français sur l’original grec, avec des notes littérales (Amsterdam, 1718); Histoire critique de Manichée et du Manichéisme (1739); Sermons (4 vols., Lausanne, 1755); Histoire de la Réformation ou origine et progrès du Luthéranisme dans l’Empire de 1517 à 1536 (4 vols., Berlin, 1785–86).

G. Bonet-Maury.

Bibliography: A life is prefixed by A. B. de la Chapelle to Beausobre's Remarques . . . sur le Nouveau Testament, 2 vols., The Hague, 1742. Consult J. H. S. Formey, Éloge des académiciens de Berlin, 2 vols., Berlin, 1757; E. and É. Haag, La France protestante, ed. H. L. Bordier, ii, 127, Paris, 1877; C. J. G. Bartholmess, Le Grand Beausobre, in Bulletin de la société d’histoire du protestantisme français, ib. 1876.