MORNAY, Sieur du Plessis-Marly, Philippe de De la vérité de la religion chrestienne. Contre les Athées, Epicuriens, Paiens, Juifs, Mahumedistes, & autres Infideles.

Second Parisian edition, entirely revised by the author, of “this treatise is considered as one of the best works of the famous Protestant author” (Morgand et Fatout, n°11426). Brunet, III, 1911.

The first edition was published in Antwerp at Plantin’s in 1581.

Philippe de Mornay, sieur du Plessis-Marly (1549-1623), was one of the most illustrious representatives of the Reformation in France. The accounts of the historians are unanimous about this great statesman who was also a religious man and a man of character as rarely met. The Catholics themselves did justice to the “Pope of the Huguenots”. Man of action as much as erudition, he was a close counselor of Henry IV, for whom he did several important diplomatic missions in France and abroad. If the King progressively turned his back on him after his abjuration, Mornay nonetheless actively contributed to the preparation of the Edict of Nantes (1593).

His treatise De la vérité de la religion chrétienne describes the main foundations of the Christian faith in accordance with the Protestant precepts.

“In this treatise, considered as one of his best works, Mornay, presupposing the existence of God and the natural religion, deducts, with a suite of very strong reasoning, the doctrines of the world’s creation, of Providence and of the immortality of the soul; but he isn’t always as fortunate. When he tries, for example, to base the dogma of Trinity on proofs taken from reason and on the testimony of pagans, or to prove man’s fall with natural religion, we easily admit that he has undertook an impossible task. Besides, his plan is simple and methodical, and the erudition he displays really huge”. (E. Haag, La France protestante ou vie des protestants français…, p. 538)

A precious and very pure copy, preserved in its contemporary limp overlapping vellum binding.