David Carnegie Andrew Agnew

“ That minister was learned and eloquent, but his piety was brought under suspicion through the reckless and irreverent style of his theological speculations. Cousin would not adopt the idea that instead of making provision for the instruction of the people in definite truths, the church should provide perches, provender, and dormitories for “enquirers;” because to give to a blundering enquirer the salary intended for a teacher would be an abandonment of the souls of the people to perish for lack of knowledge. ”

“ III. Cousin.
The pasteur, Jean Cousin, as a sound divine, a beneficent Christian, and an able and influential man, was never equalled among all the refugee clergy. Although Bishop Grindal’s superlatives were entirely laudatory, and not intending any personal comparisons (in fact, Cousin at the time had no colleague) , yet they were literally true. He was the most faithful and most beloved of the ministers of the French Church (D. Joannes Cognatus, [1] Galliae ecclesiae, quae apud nos est, minister fidelissimus et frater meus in Domino carissimus) . ”

“ In a short time the Protestants were a majority of the inhabitants of Caen, and in 1560 they occupied two of the established churches. It appears that Cousin went to London soon after the accession of Elizabeth, in order to assist the pasteur Des Gallars. He was at Caen in the thick of the civil war of 1562, either as its minister or as a visitor. In that year the Huguenots attacked and devastated those Romish ecclesiastical buildings which they did not require for their own worship; and Cousin told the magistrates that idolatry had been tolerated too long, and was now to be overthrown. ”