Vincent, Jacques Louis Samuel

Vincent, Jacques Louis Samuel a Protestant theologian of France, was born at Nimes, September 8, 1787. After having studied at Geneva, he settled in his native city as pastor. In 1825 he was made president of the consistory. After the revolution, the French Reformed Church gradually sank down into the deism of Rousseau, and its theology became mere conventionalism without any true vitality.

Vincent felt the evil, and it is his great merit that he procured the remedy. His first original production was an attack on Lamennais' Essai sur l'Indifference en Matiere de Religion, and his Observations sur l'Unite Religieuse (1820), and Observations sur la Voie d'Autorite Appliquee a la Religion created quite a sensation. From 1820 to 1824 he published Melanges de Religion; de Morale et de Critique Sacree (10 volumes), which made the French public acquainted with and interested in German theology. Of still deeper influence were his Vues sur le Protestantisme (1829, 2 volumes; republished by Prevost-Paradol, 1860), and Meditations Religieuses (most complete edition by Fontanes, 1863). Vincent died July 10, 1837. See Corbiere, Samuel Vincent, sa Conception Religieuse et Chretienne (1873); Antonin, Etude sur Samuel Vincent et sa Theologie (1863); Plitt-Herzog, Real-Encyklop. s.v.; Lichtenberger, Encyclop. des Sciences Religieuses, s.v. (B.P.)