DAVID, a minister of the reformed church at Metz, where he was born the 17th of March 1617. He studied from the ninth or tenth year of his age in the Jesuits college, where he gave such proofs of his genius, that the heads of the society tried every means to draw him over to their religion and party; but he continued firm against their attacks. He went to Geneva in 1633; and studied divinity under Spanheim, Diodati, and Tronchin, who conceived a very great esteem for him. He left Geneva in April 1641, and offered himself to the synod of Charenton in order to take upon him the office of a minister: his abilities were greatly admired by the examiners, and the whole assembly were so highly pleased with him, that they gave him the church of Meaux, the most considerable then unprovided for. Here he acquired a vast reputation for his learning, eloquence, and virtue, and was even highly respected by those of the Roman Catholic communion. He returned to his own country in the year 1653, where he remained till the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685. He returned to Frankfort after this fatal blow; and having preached in the French church at Hanau, the whole congregation were so edified by it, that they immediately called together the heads of the families, in order to propose that he might be invited to accept of being minister there. The proposition was agreed to; and he began the exercise of his ministry in that church about the end of the year 1685. His preaching made so great a noise at Hanau, that the professors of divinity, and the German and Dutch ministers, attended his sermons frequently: the count of Hanau himself, who had never before been seen in the French church, came thither to hear Mr Ancillon: they came from the neighbouring parts, and even from Frankfort; people who understood nothing of French flocked together with great eagerness, and said, they loved to see him speak. This occasioned a great jealousy in the two other ministers; which tended to make his situation uneasy. He therefore went to Berlin; where he met with a kind reception from his highness the elector, and was made minister of the city. Here he had the pleasure of seeing his eldest son made judge and director of the French in the same city, and his other son rewarded with a pension, and entertained at the university of Frankfort upon the Oder. He had likewise the satisfaction of seeing his brother made judge of all the French in the states of Brandenburg; and Mr Cayart his son-in-law, engineer to his electoral highness. He enjoyed these agreeable circumstances, and several others, till his death, which happened at Berlin the 3d of September 1692, when he was 75 years of age.

—Mr Ancillon having got a considerable fortune by marriage, was enabled thereby to gratify his passion for books; his library was accordingly very curious and large, and he increased it every day with all that appeared new and important in the republic of letters, so that at last it was one of the noblest collections in the hands of a private person in the kingdom. He published a book, in quarto, in which the whole dispute concerning Traditions is fully examined; he also wrote an apology for Luther, Zuinglius, Calvin, and Beza, and several other pieces.