Provinces and the French Protestant Church Courts, the latter
on the whole favouring him, the former more and more bent on
disgracing him. In April of the present year a Walloon Synod at
Tergou had actually passed on him a sentence of suspension from the
ministerial office and from the holy communion "until by a sincere
repentance of his sins he shall have repaired so many scandals he has
brought upon us." In spite of this, a French Provincial Synod, held
at Ai in Champagne in the following month, had ordered his admission
to be carried into effect, and the Parisian consistory had obeyed
this order, though two members of it protested. There had since then
been another Walloon Synod, held at Nimeguen in September, in which
the former sentence of the Tergou Synod was confirmed, but, for the
sake of peace between the Walloon Church and their brethren of the
French Protestant Church, it was agreed to waive all farther
jurisdiction over Morus in Holland and to "remit the whole cause unto
the prudence, discretion, and charity of the National Assembly of the
French churches to meet at Loudun." This was the Synod of whose
approaching meeting Oldenburg had informed Milton--the Synod of
Loudun in Anjou (Nov. 10, 1659--Jan. 10, 1660). It was to be a very
important assembly indeed,--no mere Provincial Synod, but a national
one, expressly allowed by Louis XIV., and to consist of deputies,
clerical and lay, from all the Protestant churches of France,
empowered to transact all business relating to those churches under
certain royal regulations and restrictions, and in the presence of a
royal Commissioner. As there had been no such National Protestant
Synod in France for fifteen years, there was an accumulation of
business for it, the case of Morus included. They were to examine
that case _de novo_, and to pronounce finally whether Morus was
guilty or not guilty, whether he should remain a minister of the
French Church or not.[1]

[Footnote 1: Bayle, Art. _Morus_, and Bruce's Life of Morus,
204-226.]

Milton's replies to the two letters will now be intelligible. He
writes, it will be observed, in a gloomy mood, on the very day on
which Whitlocke, for different reasons, was in a gloomy mood too and
"wishing himself out of these daily hazards":--

TO HENRY OLDENBURG.

"That forgiveness which you ask for _your_ silence you will
give rather to _mine_; for, if I remember rightly, it was my
turn to write to you. By no means ha