PETER, a French Protestant divine, was born at Alençon in France, in the year 1641. He became a learned divine of the English church, and a strenuous defender of the Protestant faith. At the time when the edict of Nantes tolerated and protected the Protestants of France, he entered upon his clerical profession, and remained minister of Rouen until the thirty-fifth year of his age. In this period he wrote several pieces upon the controversy between the Papists and the Protestants, which obtained him great fame among his own party. He removed to Charcuton in the vicinity of Paris, which was the principal church among the reformed, and frequented by persons of the first rank in France, who professed the Protestant faith. Here Allix preached a course of excellent sermons in defense of the Protestant religion, some of which were afterwards printed in Holland, and added to his increasing fame. The chief object of these sermons was to repel the attack of the bishop of Meaux, the most ingenious and able opponent of the Reformation at that time. The unworthy revocation of the edict of Nantes drove Allix and many others to seek refuge in England. Three years after his arrival in England, he had made himself so perfectly master of the English language as to be able to write very correctly a "Defense of the Christian Religion." This work he dedicated to James II. in testimony of gratitude for his kind reception of the distressed refugees of France. In justice to the memory of James, and as a specimen of the talents of Allix, it may be proper to give an extract from this curious dedication.

"As your majesty continues still to give such illustrious instances of your clemency and royal protection to those of our nation; so I confess, Sir, I thought myself under an obligation to lay hold upon this opportunity of publishing what all those who find to sure a protection in your majesty's dominions feel and think as much as myself upon these new testimonies of your royal bounty. When your majesty had taken us into your particular care, and had granted us several privileges, and so made us sharers in all the advantages which those who live under your government enjoy; your majesty did yet something more, and inspired all your subjects with the same compulsion towards us, with which your royal breast was already touched. You saw our miseries, and resolved to give us ease; and this generous design was executed, and your royal clemency diffused in the hearts of all your subjects. The whole world, Sir, which has received upon all its coasts some remainders of our shipwreck, is filled with admiration of the unexampled effects of your majesty's clemency. I could wish, Sir, that this work which I now present to your majesty might be so happy as to pass to posterity with this character of our acknowledgment, and that it might stand as a faithful record for ever to perpetuate the memory of that lively sense of your bounty which is imprinted on all our hearts."

Not long after his arrival in England, he was honoured with the title of doctor of divinity, and also received the more substantial honour of being appointed treasurer of the church of Salisbury. Allix still maintained the station of a champion for the Protestant cause, and in opposition to the bishop of Meaux he proved that the charge of heresy justly belonged to the Papists, and not to their opponents, because they had introduced new doctrines into the church.

After having with much industry and learning exercised his talents in defense of Protestantism, he employed his pen to support the doctrine of the Trinity against the Unitarians, who contended that the idea of Christ's divinity could be traced up no higher than the time of Justin Martyr. With a great display of erudition, he attempted to prove that the Trinitarian doctrine was believed by the Jewish church. But the reputation which he had acquired for learning and ability was somewhat diminished by the ridicule which he brought upon himself in attempting to fix the precise time of Christ's second coming to the year 1720, or at the very latest, to the year 1736. He died at London in the year 1717, after his studious life had been protracted to the length of 76 years. He left behind him numerous proofs of his great talents, extensive learning, uncommon industry, and zealous attachment to the doctrines of the church of England. (Gen. Biog.)