CHAPTER XIII.
SYNOD OF ZURICH.—THE BERNESE AMBASSADORS CONDUCT CALVIN BACK TO GENEVA.—HE CANNOT ENTER THE TOWN.
(End of April to end of May, 1538.)
FAREL AND CALVIN AT ZURICH.
Farel and Calvin did not allow themselves to hesitate by reason of the obduracy of their enemies. They were determined to do all they could to save the Church and likewise the town of Geneva from the calamities which, in the opinion of good men in Switzerland, must certainly fall upon them. The synod of the reformed Churches of this country, to the decision of which they had appealed, was now sitting at Zurich. They went thither without delay, to inform the assembly of the important events which had taken place at Geneva, and to claim its mediation. The deputies of Basel, Berne, Schaffhausen, St. Gall, Glaris, Mulhausen, and Bienne, in conjunction with the doctors of Zurich, constituted the assembly, which sat from April 29 to May 3. Bucer and Capito had also come from Strasburg to be present at it. The principal business of the synod was the union with Luther, who at that time showed a conciliatory disposition. All the members, except Kunz, the Bernese deputy, received the two exiles with true Christian cordiality. It appears that Farel and Calvin found relief and relaxation in this meeting of brethren. From their life at Geneva, constantly in the presence of violent adversaries, they had probably experienced a kind of moral tension. But the loyal affection of the Swiss allowed their minds to unbend, and their souls expanded in the sunshine of charity. After being engaged on matters relating to the Concordia of Wittenberg, the synod passed on to the subject of rites, and decided that with respect to them the Churches ought to retain full liberty—a resolution favorable to Calvin and Farel. After settling this point, the synod took into consideration the state of Geneva. Calvin laid before it the divisions and troubles which afflicted the Church, the forlorn condition to which the good Christians were reduced, and the dangers to which the Reformation was there exposed. He displayed no obstinacy with respect to subordinate points, but immovable firmness on those which he believed to be indispensable to the prosperity of Geneva. He readily assented to the use of baptismal fonts; and also, he added, the introduction ‘into our Church of unleavened bread; but,’ said he, ‘we desire to request of the Bernese that this bread should be broken.’[669] The act of breaking bread, according to the institution and the practice of the apostles, appeared to him essential to the symbol which was intended to commemorate the body of the Lord offered in sacrifice. He felt somewhat perplexed about the question of the festivals; but he gave his consent to four of them, on condition that any persons who might desire it should be at liberty to work after the service. He was anxious not to open the door to the uproar and licentiousness which characterize the Roman populations during the latter part of those festival days.[670] He continued: ‘If there be any thought of reëstablishing us at Geneva, we demand first of all that we should be allowed to clear ourselves of the calumnies which have been heaped on us. We have been condemned unheard, and that,’ said he, ‘is an inhuman, a barbarous proceeding, not to be tolerated.[671] Next, it will be essential to establish discipline, for want of which all that we may restore would soon be overthrown. We demand that the town should be divided into parishes, for no order is possible in the church unless the flock be near its pastor, and the pastor near his flock. We demand that a seasonable use of excommunication should be allowed; and that, for this purpose, the council should select in the several quarters of the town upright and wise men to whom, by common consent, its control should be intrusted. We demand that in the institution of pastors legitimate order should be maintained, and that the authority of the magistrate should not supersede the laying-on of hands, which ministers ought to receive. We demand a more frequent administration of the supper; that it should be celebrated, if not according to the custom of the early Church,[672] at least once a month. We demand that with the public preaching should be joined the singing of psalms. Finally, we demand that, as our own townsmen bring forward the example of the countries which are subject to Berne in justification of lascivious songs and dances,[673] the Bernese should be entreated to put an end to such profligacy in their own states, in order that our people may not take advantage of it to justify themselves in similar excesses.’
THEIR MODERATION.
The above articles, fourteen in number, were in Calvin’s handwriting, but they were read to the synod by Bucer.[674] Calvin and Farel were probably unwilling to put themselves too forward, and preferred to have the question settled on its merits, independently of their personal leaning; and they selected the most moderate of the theologians of the period to be its exponent. Calvin was not a man to exalt himself in the feeling of his own righteousness; he knew by experience that ‘in many ways we offend all.’ ‘We know,’ he said afterwards to Farel, when speaking to him of what had just taken place, ‘we know that our adversaries cannot calumniate us to any further extent than God permits, and we know the end which He has in view in permitting it at all. Let us therefore humble ourselves; unless we choose to contend with God because He humbles us;[675] but let us not cease to wait on Him. “The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under foot,” said the prophet (Isaiah xxviii. 3). Let us acknowledge before God, and before his people, that it is to some extent owing to our incompetency, indolence, carelessness, and mistakes that the Church committed to our care has fallen into so lamentable a condition. But let us also maintain, as it is our duty to do, our own innocence and purity against those who by their fraud, malignity and wickedness have certainly caused this ruin.’[676] Calvin, in charging himself with indolence, assuredly went too far. But it was not to his colleague only that he spoke in this way; he did not hesitate to express the same views before the synod. While depicting the dangers of Geneva, ‘the destruction which seemed to threaten’ the edifice reared by Farel and himself, ‘We openly acknowledge,’ he said to the deputies of the Swiss Churches assembled at Zurich, ‘that in some things we have perhaps been too severe, and on those points we are ready to listen to reason.’[677]
The synod did not censure the reformers. It advised them, indeed, to use ‘moderation and Christian gentleness, necessary with that uncultivated people;’[678] but it acknowledged that, far from displaying obstinacy in unimportant matters, the reformers in their fourteen articles demanded only what is just, legitimate and important. It is true that a Christian ought not to be appointed minister by the mere decree of a council of state, but, after examination, by the laying-on of hands of the elders or pastors. It is true that a more frequent celebration of the Lord’s Supper was according to the Word of God. The subject of greatest delicacy was excommunication. But could not the Genevese commit the management of it to upright and discreet laymen, elected by the councils, themselves an elected body? The good sense of the Swiss told them that men entirely destitute of Christian character ought not to form part of a Christian society.
THE JUSTICE OF THEIR CAUSE.
Not one of the theologians present at the synod seems to have taken the cause of Calvin more to heart than the man who, with Melanchthon, was perhaps the most cautious of the reformers, Capito. A man of naturally gentle spirit, he had nevertheless displayed courage in recalling Luther to moderation, and in doing the same afterwards with respect to his colleague of Strasburg, Mathias Zell. He approved of the course of Farel and Calvin; he even set himself to console them. ‘There is nothing disgraceful,’ he said to them, ‘in your banishment, and we have no fear that it will prove hurtful to the Church. Your enemies themselves only reproach you with too much warmth of zeal. Unhappily, there are not wanting ministers who teach the Gospel without discipline; who prefer to hold an office which they treat as nothing more than an office that yields profit. This leads to license instead of the liberty of Christ.[679] Discipline is necessary to the Churches. Some persons fancy that what each man may do is no concern of ours; as if Christ had not said that if a man has a hundred sheep, and only one of them go astray he must go in search of it. What! because the authority of the papacy has been cast off, must the power of the Word and of the ministry be treated as likewise abolished? Some one may say, I know enough of the Gospel; I can read; what do I want with you? Preach to those who wish to hear you! Ah! discipline is a thing to which our Churches are not accustomed, a thing which flesh and blood detest. Ought we then to wonder that you have not been able, you two alone, to reform at once a town so large?’[680]
The assembly therefore approved the fourteen articles presented by Calvin and Farel, and then ‘declared the causes of their banishment from Geneva to be not legitimate.’[681] In the eyes of these Swiss Christians assembled at Zurich, these two exiles were the glory of the Reformation; doctors whose praise was in all the Churches; two of the prime movers in the great transformation which was being effected in Christendom. The honor, the duty of the Christians of Switzerland, demanded that these pious and illustrious men, victims of passions hostile to the Gospel, should be restored to the position in which God had set them. The synod, therefore, wrote to Geneva, and earnestly requested measures adapted to raise the Church up again, and particularly the recall of the pastors. At the same time, it recommended the Bernese, and especially Kunz, to support this request; and Kunz accepted the charge. Zurich being desirous likewise of doing something, Bullinger wrote on the subject, May 4, to the provost de Watteville. Farel and Calvin then returned to Berne, disposed to endure with patience and meekness, but at the same time full of hope.[682]
A man of whose ill-will they had already had experience was soon to disturb their joy. Kunz, who had been first a pastor at Erlenbach, had contributed to the Reformation in the lower Siebenthal. He was, so far as we can learn, born of a well-to-do family of peasants of those parts,[683] and had retained a certain rusticity and coarseness. A partisan, of energetic character, passionately earnest for everything that concerned the cause which he had embraced, blind and unjust towards the opposite opinions, with no kindly feeling for his adversaries, he fell easily into the indulgence of animosities, jealousies, and quarrels; and had sometimes as much trouble to get on with those of his own party as to endure those who belonged to the other side. With reference to the matter in hand, his hostility had to his mind an excuse. If he warmly opposed Calvin and Farel, it was because the slight interest which they felt in the question about unleavened bread and in other analogous questions might, in his opinion, annoy the Germans, whose indefatigable champion in Switzerland he had constituted himself. He had appeared to share the sentiments expressed to Calvin and Farel by the synod of Zurich, which was unanimous in their favor. He had no wish, in the presence of so considerable an assembly, to give way to his personal hatred. But the reformers were to lose nothing by this reserve. He awaited them at Berne. There Kunz would be on his own ground, and let the adversaries of human traditions beware!
HOSTILITY OF KUNZ.
Calvin and Farel, when they reached Berne, did not find Kunz there. They had to wait for him eight days.[684] He was at Nidau, at a meeting of pastors before whom, forgetting the solemn promise which he had made at Zurich,[685] he had said, ‘I have been requested to go to Geneva to restore those exiles; but I would much rather renounce my ministry and quit my country than assist those men who, I know, have treated me frightfully.’ This delay, considering the present position of the two reformers, put their patience to the proof. They waited, however, convinced that the blame would be thrown on them if the business failed in consequence of their departure. When at length they heard of the arrival of Kunz, they went to his house, and found him in company with Sebastian Meyer and Erasmus Ritter. There, in his own house, he let himself out at his ease. He began with long complaints and finished with violent insults.[686] Calvin and Farel, who had not anticipated this outburst, received it, however, quietly; for they knew that if they answered him with any sharpness, the only effect would be to throw the hotheaded Kunz into a great fit of rage.[687] Ritter and Meyer joined with them in the endeavor to pacify him. When he was a little calm, he said to them, ‘I wish to know whether you ask me to interfere in your business; for I foresee that if it should end otherwise than as you desire, you will blame me for it.’ They assured him three times over that they had no intention of changing anything in the mission with which the synod had charged him and which he had accepted. But they talked to no purpose. Kunz, who was very desirous to be freed from that duty, went on incessantly harping on the same string. At last, exhausted with his passion and wearied with the noise that he had made, ‘I will do,’ said he, ‘what I ought to do.’ They then parted, agreeing to discuss the subject on the following day.
HIS WRATH.
The next day, then, at the hour appointed, Calvin and Farel went to the Hôtel de Ville. They had to wait two hours. Then word was brought to them that the ministers had too much business in the Consistory to be able to attend to them. After dinner the two Genevese reformers again presented themselves; and, the assembly having taken up the matter, they were very much surprised to hear that the first thing to do was to examine carefully the fourteen articles already approved by the synod of Zurich. They suppressed the feelings which this indignity excited in them and consented. There was hardly a syllable in the articles to which objection was not taken;[688] and when they came to the question of unleavened bread, Kunz lifted up his voice, and apostrophizing the two reformers, said, ‘You have disturbed all the Churches of Germany, which were till then at peace, by your unseasonable and passionate innovations.’ Calvin replied that it was not they who had introduced the use of leavened bread; that the practice existed in the early Church, and that traces of it were found even in the papacy. But Kunz would listen to nothing, and grew more and more violent.[689] His colleagues, wishing to put an end to this dispute, begged that they would pass on to the third article, which related to festivals. Thereupon matters became much worse. Kunz did not confine himself to loud talking; he rose violently from the table, and his whole body shook with rage, so that his colleagues attempted in vain to restrain him.[690] ‘It is false,’ said he, ‘that the articles have been approved at Zurich.’ ‘On that point we appeal,’ replied Calvin, with firmness, ‘to the testimony of all who were present at the Synod.’ When Kunz had come a little to himself, he accused the two doctors of intolerable craft; the articles, he said, being full of exceptions. ‘We thought, on the contrary,’ Calvin very justly replied, ‘that we gave evidence of sincerity in thus plainly and openly making exceptions where they ought to be made.’ The two reformers withdrew with deep feeling from the strange scene which they had just witnessed. Two years afterwards, Farel still wrote to his friend, ‘Every time that the recollection of Kunz returns to my mind, I am filled with horror at that Fury who had no consideration for the Church, but whom the devil made beside himself with hatred against me.’[691] Kunz pretended that the two reformers wished to withdraw, and not to keep the promise made at Zurich. Calvin, on the contrary, said, ‘We are ready to do anything sooner than not try all means of providing for the wants of religion, and of acquitting ourselves of our duty towards the Church.’[692] As Kunz and his friends declined their mission, there was no one else to take the matter in hand but the senate of Berne.
A few days later, Farel and Calvin were received by that body. The representations which the Bernese were to make at Geneva, in conformity with the decisions of the synod of Zurich, could not but be very disagreeable to those who wished to introduce the Bernese rites into that town. Must Berne plead against Berne? Did ever any one hear of such a thing? No state whatever voluntarily undertakes to discharge such a duty; and least of all a state which, like Berne, had the reputation of being positive and inflexible in its views. The council therefore attempted to induce Calvin and Farel to renounce their fourteen articles, but this they refused to do. They were then asked to retire. When they were recalled the same attempt was again made, three times over, within an hour.[693] ‘It belongs to the Church,’ they replied, ‘to establish uniformity in a lawful manner.’ It has already been established, said the council. ‘Yes,’ they answered, ‘but by a handful of seditious men, who at the same time cried that we should be thrown into the Rhone.[694] We are resolved to endure everything rather than seem to approve the measures adopted for securing uniformity.’ Farel and Calvin could not answer otherwise: one cannot yield to evil. The Bernese council gave way; thus displaying on this occasion an independence and a sense of justice that were most honorable.
AGITATION IN GENEVA.
Having once more called in the reformers, the council announced to them that two envoys from the senate should accompany them, and that when they came within four miles of Geneva, Calvin and Farel should stop, while the Bernese lords go on their way. The place named by the Bernese was below the village of Genthod; this was perhaps at that time on the frontier. The deputies of Berne were to require of the council of Geneva the return of Farel and Calvin; and in case they obtained it they were to conduct them into the town, and to see to it that they were reinstated in their ministry. Farel and Calvin represented that if this course were taken they would seem to be restored only because they acknowledged themselves to be in the wrong, which they could not do. They complained also that no minister formed part of the embassy. The council, consequently, adopted a new resolution, according to which the two reformers should immediately enter the town, and the Bernese envoys should present to the people the fourteen articles of Zurich, in the presence of Farel and Calvin, in order that, if any objection should be raised, the latter might reply to it without delay. The reformers should then set forth their cause, and, if their justification were accepted, they should be restored to their offices. Two ministers, Erasmus Ritter and Viret, were to accompany them. ‘We are now setting out on our journey,’ wrote Calvin to Bullinger; ‘may it please the Lord to prosper it. To him we look to guide us in our goings, and it is from his wise disposal that we expect success.’[695] The delegation set out, and was joined by Viret at Lausanne.
Meanwhile it had become known at Geneva that Calvin and Farel were returning, under the conduct and the patronage of delegates from the state of Berne. This news created much astonishment. What! these two ministers were banished for having refused to adopt the ritual of Berne, and now Berne takes them into her favor and brings them back! Berne appreciated the grandeur of the Reformation and the worth of the reformers. But there were some of the Genevese who could not see beyond their own walls, and who seemed to have no apprehension whatever of the great change which was renewing all Christendom, and of which Calvin and Farel were two of the most illustrious agents. The confirmation of the tidings caused a great stir in men’s minds. The council determined to refuse the reformers permission to enter the town, and the most violent of their adversaries resolved to oppose their return by force. An ambush was laid at some distance from the ramparts, and twenty gladiators, as Calvin calls them, were posted in arms at the very gate of the city, as if the repulse of a hostile force were intended.[696] The deputation was not more than a mile from Geneva when a messenger of the council met them.[697] He handed to the Bernese ambassadors a dispatch from the council, in which it was written, ‘To prevent a scandal, do not bring back Farel and Calvin, for it would be in violation of the decree passed by the community, and of the will of the same.’[698] But their conscience bore them witness that their cause was good, and they desired to get this acknowledged on the part of those whom God had committed to their care. They were therefore willing to pursue their journey, not suspecting what awaited them. But the Bernese delegates, who had doubtless been informed by the messenger of the excited state of the people, strongly urged them to give it up. ‘We should have gone on our way calmly,’ said Calvin to his friends, when he had heard of the violent measures taken to stop them, ‘if the delegates had not forcibly resisted our intention; and this saved our lives.’ The fact that their lives were in danger, attested by Calvin in a letter addressed to Bullinger a few days after the event, cannot be called in question. True, it is easy to invent, more than three centuries later, contrary hypotheses; but the state of agitation prevailing in Geneva, far from invalidating the testimony of the reformers, confirms it.
THE BERNESE EMBASSY.
The two Bernese ambassadors, accompanied by Viret and Ritter, entered Geneva alone, and were immediately received (May 23) by the council. They stated that the deputies of the cantons who met recently at Zurich had been unanimously of opinion that it was just to allow Farel, Calvin, and Courault to re-enter the town in order to explain and defend themselves from the accusations made against them; and that if their justification were accepted, their restoration to their offices could not be refused. ‘Do you not owe this mark of gratitude to them,’ they said, ‘and especially to Farel, who has undergone so much labor and suffering for the good of this people? In short is it not essential to deprive the enemies of the Reformation of an occasion for rejoicing, as they would rejoice at the banishment without hope of returning of the men who established it in Geneva?’ The council replied that it could not accede to this demand, because the ministers had been sent away by the decision of the Council of the Two Hundred and of the general council; the Little Council having only required that they should be committed to prison. In consequence of this the Council of the Two Hundred was convoked for the next day, May 24. The attendance was not at all numerous, only fourteen members being present, doubtless because the meeting appeared to be a mere formality, and because the battle had to be fought and decided in the general council. The members present, among whom were the most thoroughgoing enemies of the reformers, decreed that the resolutions previously taken must be maintained; and for the rest, they referred the deputies of Berne to the assembly of the people.[699]
On Sunday, May 26, the general council of the citizens met. Louis Amman and his colleague, Viret and Erasmus Ritter, appeared as advocates for the two banished ministers. Amman spoke first. He showed the great injustice involved in the banishment of these excellent men. They had to do with Farel, who was justly designated the apostle of French Switzerland, and with Calvin, the greatest theologian of the age. He earnestly requested that they should be recalled, and that, according to the rules of equity, their justification should be heard, for it was not usual for any man to be condemned unheard. He reminded them of the distinguished services of Farel, of the labors and hardships which he had undergone for the good of that people. Was it not Farel who, in 1532, standing in the midst of the council of priests, had seen them rush at him and knock him down with their blows, crying, ‘Kill him! kill him!’ One of their attendants had discharged his arquebuse at him, and he had been driven from the town with threats of being thrown into the Rhone. Since that time to what tribulations had he not been exposed! Was it not incumbent on the people of Geneva to testify their gratitude to him in some other way than by exile? Then Amman spoke of the joy which the adversaries of the Reformation, the subjects of the pope, would feel, and did already feel, to see Geneva banishing her reformers, and he conjured the citizens not to give them such an occasion of triumph and exultation. Next Viret spoke, in his own name and in the name of his colleague Ritter; and we know how well adapted the mild eloquence of this pious pastor was to soothe exasperated spirits. The union of the pastors and the seriousness of the ambassador in pleading the cause of the reformers did not fail to make an impression. A large assembly is always susceptible of wholesome impressions: there is in it a contagion of good. Hearts were moved, and the disposition of many was changed. It was possible for the deputies to suppose that the battle was won. As they were not to attend the deliberations of the general council, they went out full of hope.[700]
THE GENERAL COUNCIL.
But Kunz had spared no pains that this hope might be disappointed. It appears that Pierre Vandel, one of the leaders of the party hostile to the reformers, had been at Berne. Kunz had possession of the fourteen articles proposed by Calvin and approved at Zurich, which doubtless had been intrusted to him because the conduct of the business was especially placed in his hands. Some expressions made use of in them had seemed likely to irritate the people of Geneva. Kunz had placed the articles in the hands of Vandel without the knowledge of the council.[701] Vandel was a man of good family, and one of the most violent opponents of the reformers. ‘I believe,’ said Bonivard, ‘that he was possessed with a demon while yet in his mother’s womb; as is said of St. John with regard to the Holy Spirit. He was not so tall as a spindle when he committed homicide, not with his own hand, but through malice. He and another man killed likewise the bastard son of a canon. He was a great rake, a glutton and a drunkard, talking and acting rashly in his drunken fits. His father, a highly respectable man, had said a hundred times, “Pierre! Pierre! he will never be worth anything; and would God that immediately after his baptism he had been dashed against a wall, for he will bring disgrace on our house.” He was very vainglorious, dressed himself like a nobleman, and was fond of bragging (usait de braveries); for this reason his companions called him Bobereau.’[702] Vandel was very proud of possessing the fourteen articles; and when he met on his way anyone who took an interest in the exile of the reformers, and who asked him what was likely to happen to them, he answered boastfully, according to his wont, but without entering further into details, ‘I have in my pocket a poison which will be the death of them.’[703] The ambassadors of Berne were themselves the bearers of these articles, but they had been instructed not to read them to the people except in the presence of Calvin and Farel, that they might have the opportunity of at once setting aside the mischievous inferences which would be drawn from them.[704] Vandel was at his post in the general council. Hardly had the deputies of Berne gone out, when he rose, drew the paper from his pocket, and began to read the articles of Zurich,[705] as an important piece of evidence which must cause the rejection of the demand of Berne. When he had read the document he began to comment on it, putting forward ill-natured interpretations, and fastening especially on three points fitted to excite hatred against the two reformers.[706] ‘See,’ said he, ‘how, in speaking of the Church of Geneva, they dare to speak of our Church, as if it were their property. See how, in speaking of the lords of Berne, they call them simply the Bernese, without the honorary formula,[707] thus with the utmost arrogance putting contempt on princes themselves. See how they aspire to tyranny, for what else is excommunication but a tyrannical domination?’ The first two charges were baseless and almost childish; and as to excommunication, Calvin remarks that the general council of Geneva had allowed it, July 29, 1537, as ‘a holy and salutary proceeding among the faithful;’ and now they were horrified at the very word. The question was constantly arising for discussion whether the Church is not, like any other society, a union of persons possessing certain common characteristics, aiming at a certain object and under certain conditions, a communion of persons united by a like Christian faith,[708] or whether it is a receptacle for everything (un tout y va); which of all definitions would be by far the most opposed to the word of its founder.
PIERRE VANDEL.
It had been arranged between Vandel and his friends that, when he read or commented on the articles, they should support him with their acclamations, in order to inflame the minds of those present.[709] This plan succeeded. Cries of displeasure, furious and redoubled, were soon heard; one might have thought that the harmless articles were a statement of the blackest conspiracy. The irritation displayed by these partisans infected the whole assembly. It is well known how easily the crowd passes from any mood to its opposite. The lungs of a few passionate men played the part of bellows in setting all hearts on fire.[710] A spark was enough to kindle a conflagration. The flames spread from place to place; nothing stood against them, at least in appearance; and presently the assembly was in a blaze. ‘Better die,’ they shouted, ‘than hear them give us an account of the motives which have actuated them!’[711]
As soon as order was partially restored, the first syndic, Richardet, a hot-tempered man, as we know, put to the vote the demand made by the ambassadors of Berne; or rather, taking a less regular but more artful course, proposed the rejection of the demand. ‘Let all those,’ he said, ‘who wish that Farel, Calvin, and Courault should not enter the town, hold up their hands.’ The secretary of the council said that almost all hands were held up. This secretary was Ruffi, who had been elected in the place of Claude Rozet on the very day of the banishment of the reformers. His partiality was manifest in the fact that he wrote at the same time that the fourteen articles contained some untruths; untruths which the passionate Vandel himself had not been able to detect. It was a piece of gratuitous falsehood, and imputations of that kind do not inspire much confidence in anything that Ruffi might report. After the voting, the first syndic requested that those who wished the preachers to be readmitted to the town and to be heard should hold up their hands. ‘A few were raised,’ said Michel Rozet, ‘to signify that they wished for the ministers.’ The secretary named two or three of them, amongst others Chautemps, in whose house Olivétan, a kinsman of Calvin, had lived; but he added, ‘and certain others, few in number.’ Timid men, in the presence of the storm which threatened to break out, thought it prudent to be silent; some courage was required to face it. In fact, at the mere sight of these few hands raised, a transport of spite and wrath broke out; they could not endure an act of independence, which was at the same time, with many there, an act of respect for the reformers and the Reformation. The rage was so great, says Rozet, that the first two were compelled to fly. Many pursued them; some drew their swords; others, ‘glancing at them fiercely,’ cried out, Kill them! kill them! ‘The majority of votes,’ say the Registers, ‘decided that the preachers should not again be admitted into the town.’ The people of Geneva thus adopted a resolution which, if they had not repented of it, would have prevented light going forth from that city, and would have thrown an obstacle in the way of its greatness.[712]
Thus was the matter decided. Alea jacta est. The powerful party which, in their contest with the pope, the bishop, and the princes of Savoy, had taken for their flag liberty and the truth, and had transformed Geneva into an evangelical republic, had quarrelled after their victory, as very commonly happens, and those who did not wish for the Gospel had remained conquerors. But the citizens, few in number, who had made their voice heard in the general council, were not the only ones who longed for a Christian republic. This minority gradually increased, or rather dared to show itself. It continued united, fervent, determined, active; and to it ultimately the victory was to be given.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE BANISHED MINISTERS AND THEIR SUCCESSORS.
(End of 1538.)
THE REFORMERS SET OUT TO BERNE.
The reformers set out on their journey to Berne. Calvin at length breathed freely, but not without sadness; for while he felt himself free, as if standing on an invigorating height, he looked on Geneva sunk in the flats. It was in fulfilment of a sacred duty that he had made a last effort. He had not, succeeded. ‘It is evident now from the experiment that we have just made,’ said he, ‘that it was no mere groundless fear that influenced us when, although pressed (at Zurich) by the authority of the Church, we could, nevertheless, only with great reluctance consent to reënter that labyrinth. Now we have got clear of it. We have complied with the desire of all pious men, although with no result, except perhaps to render the evil twofold or threefold worse than it was before.[713] Satan exulted at Geneva and in the whole of France on occasion of our first banishment; but this refusal to receive us has added not a little to his presumption and to that of his members. It is incredible with what recklessness and insolence wicked men now give themselves up to all manner of vice; with what effrontery they insult the servants of Christ; with what violence they make a mock at the Gospel. This is a calamity which to us is very painful indeed....’ Afterwards, addressing Bullinger and all the ministers of Zurich, he said to them, ‘Entreat the Lord with us, dearly beloved brethren, with earnest prayer, that very soon he may arise.’[714] It is possible that the reports which reached Calvin may have been a little exaggerated and that his own phrases may be a little sharp; but there is no doubt that the condition of Geneva was at this time extremely critical. ‘There was nothing but confusion,’ says Rozet; ‘the citizens abandoned themselves to licentiousness, dancing, gaming, and drinking. The finger was pointed at those who mourned over these things; they were men marked and hated. No preaching could be fruitful in the midst of such confusion.’[715] The syndic Gautier, a man who was above all a champion of government, and who censured Calvin for not acknowledging that the very foundation of every society is subordination and obedience, duties to the civil magistrate which are as obligatory on pastors as on other men, after examining whether Calvin’s complaints were just, pronounced the following sentence: ‘Calvin was right so far as he had reference to the licentious lives of his adversaries, and to their love for libertinism and independence; but he was certainly mistaken if he considered them as enemies of God for wishing to observe the four principal festivals, and to introduce the use of unleavened bread.’[716] This is likewise our own opinion.
CALVIN AND FAREL AT BERNE.
When they reached Berne, Calvin and Farel found their friends in great astonishment at what had taken place. The latter told them that if they were not wanted at Geneva, they should stay at Berne. ‘It would be unpardonable in you,’ they added, ‘to refuse such a call.’[717] To be at Berne with Kunz would have been to abandon their lives to perpetual dissension. They were in haste to be gone. However, they were anxious to express their gratitude to the senate for its conduct towards them, and for that purpose they requested an audience. They were put off to the following day. Remembering all the delays of their recent sojourn, fearing lest they should find themselves beset by claims to which they could not yield, and believing that they had discharged their duty to the council by the request which they had made, they departed for Basel. They did not reach the city without encountering danger on the way. They had to cross a river, believed to be the Aar, and one of them was almost carried away by the swift current, which was swollen by the rain. ‘However,’ wrote Calvin to Viret, ‘the river was more merciful to us than men. The latter had determined, contrary to all right and reason, to compel us to undertake this journey, even were it on foot; but the Lord, in his compassion, preserved us from all evil.’ From the postscript to the same letter it appears that Farel and Calvin crossed the river on horseback. It is not known which of the two narrowly escaped drowning. They arrived at Basel, wet through with the rain, and half dead with fatigue.
At Basel Calvin found a valued friend, Grynæus. Already during the stay of the two reformers at Berne he had written to them—‘I hope that by your Christian meekness and your humility you will overcome all your adversaries, and take away from the enemies of the Gospel every occasion of calumniating you. Oh, that the eyes now sparkling with the fire of Satan may be cast down, and that the passion with which men are inflamed against your ministry may be quenched![718] Work on, work on, my well-beloved brethren, hearts most noble and most holy (optima ac sanctissima pectora); be ready for the conflict, arrayed in the whole armor of Christian warfare, ready and willing, especially at this time, when iniquity prevails, to lead us on with heroic fidelity. Let us apply ourselves to the work of the Lord with unconquerable hearts. The hatred of those who in this proceeding show themselves so worthy of hatred will not win the day. For our part, we are of those who can pray for our enemies, much more support and embrace them. Let not the senseless judgment of the people, let not the foolish and futile dread of popular opinion, disturb you in the least. Rule and protect this Church, which threatens to fall, by your courage and your persistency. How glorious is the function you will discharge! How solid and real the praise which you will deserve if, completely forgetting yourselves in this cause, you think of Jesus Christ alone!’
THEIR RECEPTION.
We can imagine how affectionately Grynæus and his friends received the two brethren banished on account of the noble fidelity which they had displayed. Grynæus had already invited the reformer, while he was still at Geneva, to go to his house rather than bend under the yoke which his enemies wished to put on him. ‘We welcome thee joyfully,’ he said to Calvin afterwards, ‘as our brother in the Lord, and we embrace thee as a distinguished ornament of our Church.’[719] Calvin therefore abode with Grynæus at Basel, where the most brotherly hospitality was shown him. Farel took up his abode in the house of the famous printer, Oporin.
Calvin and Farel bore their great trial with much patience and meekness, forgiving their enemies and praying for them, and endeavoring to avoid everything which might become an occasion of grief to their brethren. Viret was very anxious to see them and to share their tribulations. ‘Thou knowest well,’ replied Calvin to him, ‘that no greater happiness could befall us at this moment than to talk with thee for a short time. But the danger to which the journey would expose thee checks our desire: thou wouldst reap more hatred from it than we should joy.’ Thus did Calvin think of his friends before thinking of himself. It appears, however, that Viret did see him at Basel.[720] This was doubtless at a later period. Calvin was anxious to avoid everything which might lead to any useless dispute. ‘I beg of thee, my dear brother,’ he said to Farel, ‘take pains in these evil times to preserve whatever can be tolerated. Our brethren must not so obstinately dispute about mere ceremonies. Let us be free; but let us be the slaves of concord and of peace.’[721] ‘What I have above all at heart,’ he said further to him, ‘is that we may not cause new quarrels, nor be the occasion of any strife.’
At the same time, nevertheless, one of the first things which the reformers had done after their arrival at Basel was to give an account of what had befallen them to their brethren of Zurich and Strasburg. Their enemies did not cease, indeed, to pursue them with their accusations; and those who had forced them to leave Geneva cried out that they were schismatics, forgetting that they themselves had compelled the two reformers to separate from their Church. Such is party logic. Calvin, Farel, and their friends, therefore, thought it advisable to hold a meeting at which delegates from the towns of Zurich, Berne, Basel, Strasburg, and one of that place (un dudit lieu) (probably Geneva), should attend, and at which it should be ‘declared that they had duly and faithfully administered their office.’[722] They did not, however, eagerly press for this. They knew that their judge was in heaven. ‘I can do nothing,’ said Calvin, ‘but commend the issue to the great physician, who alone can provide for it and give it shape.’[723]
CALLS AND HESITATIONS.
If Calvin committed himself to God as to his past, he did the same as to his future. ‘I withdraw to Basel,’ he says, in the same letter, ‘awaiting what the Lord will do with me.’ Calls were not wanting. They wished to retain him at Basel. Toussaint desired that he should settle at Lausanne, or in the canton of Berne, that he might there be an example of decision and devotion. Others thought it their duty to recommend him to the Duke of Würtemburg.[724] But Strasburg appeared to be the place to choose. Already in November, 1536, Bucer, delighted with the Institution, which had just appeared, had asked for an interview with Calvin. ‘We will go wherever you wish for the purpose of conferring with you on the whole doctrine of Christ.’[725] They saw each other subsequently at Berne and at Zurich. Bucer and Capito, now that they knew he was at liberty and staying at Basel, did not fail to press him to come to them. At the beginning of July he went to Strasburg. ‘I have been so earnestly entreated to come by the two chief ministers of this town,’ he wrote on the 10th of that month, ‘that to satisfy them I have made a journey hither.’[726] It did not at that time appear likely to him that he was to settle there. The terrible conflicts through which he had passed at Geneva made him view with alarm the proposal to accept a new ministry. He recurred to his studious projects. ‘I shrink, above all things,’ said he, ‘from reëntering on the office from which I am delivered, considering in what perplexities I was involved from the time when I was first engaged in it.’ He adds, ‘there are other reasons which I can explain only by word of mouth.’ What were these? Doubtless the too accommodating theology of the doctors of that town. Basel was his favorite city. He returned thither, saying, ‘It is not the fault of the Strasburgers that I am not their guest, but they have burden enough without me.’ He might, however, have found good reasons for accepting their invitation, for his poverty was so great that he found it necessary to sell ‘a part of his books’ for his maintenance.[727]
The entreaties of the Strasburgers, nevertheless, became more urgent. They wrote to Grynæus to do all he could to induce Calvin to settle at Strasburg: only they would rather that he should come without Farel, because they were afraid that, if the two Frenchmen were together, the Germans would have too great difficulty in bending them to their views. This was also the opinion of Grynæus. To give up Farel entirely was too great a sacrifice for Calvin to make. He again declined the offer, giving as his reason the condition which was imposed on him not to take Farel with him.[728] ‘I await thy counsel,’ wrote Calvin to his friend; and impelled by the warmest affection for this man of God, he adds, ‘O that I could now fly to thee! I am only held back by the strongest motives.’
Farel was not at Basel at that moment, and was not to return thither. The tidings of the persecutions which had fallen upon him, of his exile and his sufferings, had grieved the people of Neuchâtel, and revived in their hearts their old love for the man from whom they had learned the elements of the faith. The Council of the Sixty, representatives of the city, after calling upon the Lord, communicated to the class of ministers the desire which they felt of inviting Farel to become their pastor.[729] The post was, as we shall see, actually vacant. Two councillors and two members of the class went to Basel. ‘Come,’ they said to him, ‘and complete the building of which you laid the foundation.’ Farel, like Calvin, could not make up his mind to accept a pastoral charge, but preferred to devote himself to study.[730] At length, encouraged by his friends, entreated in the name of the Lord, and ‘persuaded to it with great earnestness by the German Churches,’ he consented; but it was on condition that he should introduce in the Church the order prescribed in the Holy Scriptures. Having once decided, he set out suddenly for Neuchâtel, about the end of July, ‘with his customary promptitude,’ says Calvin.[731] Thenceforth Farel and Calvin were separated; but this removal from each other did not in any degree impair the union of their hearts nor the firmness of their characters, whatever the moderates of Strasburg might think.
FAREL CALLED TO NEUCHATEL.
The latter once more renewed their call. Would not the ministerial office conferred on Calvin by a Church of such high standing as that of Strasburg be a brilliant justification which would silence evil tongues? What good service might he not render there! The empire had need of able theologians, and perhaps the Strasburgers desired to have him settled among them by way of counterpoise to the powerful personality and authority of Luther. Be that as it may, his friends on the banks of the Rhine could not bear the thought that so powerful a servant of God ‘should be satisfied to live in retirement without undertaking any public office;’[732] and as he still refused, they took steps towards inducing the Genevese to recall the reformer. If he will not come to Strasburg, let him go to Geneva. This proceeding appears to have had some effect on Calvin. He would go anywhere rather than return to the city of his sorrows. The Strasburgers, finding that he was somewhat giving way, made a fresh advance. ‘That excellent servant of Christ, Martin Bucer,’ says Calvin, ‘addressing to me a remonstrance and protest similar to that which Farel had previously made, called me to another place. Alarmed by the case of Jonah, which he set before me, I persevered still in the office of teacher.’[733] Calvin therefore went to Strasburg in September, and began to preach in the choir of the church of the Dominicans to the French refugees in the town, with whom were associated other persons, some of whom understood and others did not understand the tongue, but all of them were desirous of seeing the face and hearing the voice of the famous exile. These refugees, it is said, were fifteen hundred in number.
Calvin was no sooner settled at Strasburg than he heard that his colleague, the blind old Courault, who, ‘after having fought valiantly at Paris for the truth,’[734] had first retired to Thonon, and then had been called as pastor to Orbe, had departed this life on October 4, and gone to God. This was a terrible blow for his loving heart. He wrote to Farel—‘I am so dismayed at the death of Courault, that my grief overpasses all bounds. Not one of my daily occupations is any longer able to fix my attention, and I am incessantly returning to the same thought. To the lamentations and pains of the day succeed the more terrible torments of the night.’[735] This death, so unexpected, was attributed to poison. Suspicions of that kind were very common, and were in those unhappy times too often justified. Calvin rejected this thought, but in spite of himself it was continually presenting itself to his imagination.[736] He endeavored, nevertheless, to console himself and to revive his own courage and that of Farel. ‘All testify,’ he said to him, ‘by their grief and their regrets how highly they esteemed his courage and his uprightness, and this is a great consolation. For us whom the Lord leaves for a time in this world, let us hold on in the path which he pursued until we have finished our course. Whatever difficulties we may have to encounter, they will not prevent us from entering into that rest which is even now his portion.’ ‘When we get there,’ said he on another occasion, ‘it will be known on which side rashness or error was. To that court I appeal from the sentence of all the wise. There the angels of God will bear witness which are the schismatics.’[737] He adds, ‘Only let us stand firm on the height we have reached, which commands the field of battle, until the kingdom of Christ, at present hidden, shall appear.’
Thus the three pastors expelled from Geneva had each found his place; and that of the old blind minister was the best.
NEW PASTORS AT GENEVA.
It was not long before the Genevese established the institutions to which the reformers had objected. It was decreed to reërect the baptismal fonts which had been cast down, and to baptize children in them, to celebrate the four festivals, and to conform to the ceremonies agreed upon. On Whit-Sunday, which this year fell at the beginning of June, there were only two pastors at Geneva, Henri de la Mare and Jacques Bernard, both Genevese. The Lord’s supper was to be celebrated, and for that purpose two ministers were needed in each church. The council deputed two of its members to act instead of them, one at St. Peter’s, the other at St. Gervais’.
The government exerted itself to find substitutes for the two exiles. The states of Berne and Neuchâtel gave up to it Jean Morand, pastor at Cully,[738] on the shores of the lake of Geneva, and Antoine Marcourt, of Lyons, pastor of Neuchâtel, who were installed about the end of June. The council determined to give them, considering their age and their large families, three hundred Genevese florins;[739] the two Genevese each had two hundred and fifty florins. We became acquainted with Marcourt at the synod of Lausanne. He had published several treatises on the Eucharist, on the mass; to him likewise were attributed the famous placards of 1534, which Florimond Raemond believes to have been the work of Farel. The governor and councils of Neuchâtel, in resigning Marcourt to Geneva, declared, June 18, ‘that they had always found him a man of peace, one who desired, and to the utmost of his power maintained, peace and public tranquillity.’ This character seems hardly like that of the author of the Placards, one of the most violent writings of the sixteenth century, which were pronounced by the Roman Catholics[740] to be filled with ‘execrable blasphemies and horrible threats against the king,’ and which gave rise to that bloody persecution by the Valois and the Bourbons of which the reformed Christians were the victims for more than two centuries. However, we must confess that pacific men are not always consistent. It would seem that Marcourt was not so much a man of peace as the people of Neuchâtel had said; at least if we take literally what Calvin says. ‘How our successors will demean themselves,’ he wrote on August 4 to Farel, ‘is a point on which we can form an opinion from their first proceedings. They break off by their irritable temper every promise of peace, and they seem to suppose that the best thing they have to do is to tear to pieces both in public and in private the reputation which we enjoyed, and to make us as hateful as possible.’[741] Calvin is especially severe, perhaps too much so, with regard to the two Genevese ministers. There was, however, some truth in the last touch in the picture which he drew of them for Bullinger: ‘Both of them are very ignorant, and when they open their mouths, it is to rave. This does not prevent them from assuming an insolent pride.’[742]
ACCUSATIONS.
These words of Calvin are rather sharp. This is doubtless explained by his recent sorrow. Subsequently he expressed himself with more moderation. His partisans at Geneva did the same. While the wisest men still held their peace, the most violent did not spare their adversaries. The two parties were very ill-disposed towards one another, and some of those who belonged to them threw off all restraint both in their deeds and in their words. Licentious men among the enemies of the reformers ‘triumphed over the banished ministers, insulted the servants of God, laughed at the Gospel, and abandoned themselves to impurity, dancing, gaming, and drunkenness. Nothing was talked of but masquerades, gallantries and excesses, and the services of the church turned to the disgrace of the Reformation.’ On the other side, the most vehement partisans of Calvin and Farel had no mercy on the lay and ecclesiastical chiefs under whose administration these things took place. They called the new pastors wolves, and the magistrates the unrighteous. They murmured as they went out from sermon, and their ill-humor was not sparing of criticism. ‘The Gospel which is preached at present,’ said Richard after one of the services, ‘is only the Gospel for twenty days.’ He had no doubt that, when that time had elapsed, the new preachers would be dismissed. For this they sent him to prison. ‘The syndics of to-day,’ said another, ‘are of no use but to bring back lascivious men and women into the town.’ For this saying he was expelled from the town for a year.[743] ‘The mass is sung in Geneva,’ said many, ‘and the people who love the Gospel are expelled the town.’ These charges were circulated in Switzerland, and greatly alarmed the friends of reform.
None felt these reproaches more keenly than the pastors, for they knew that they all recoiled on themselves. On September 17 they all appeared, the two Genevese and the two foreigners, before the council. ‘Calumniators,’ they said, ‘are spreading reports in the cantons which are doing serious injury to the Gospel.’ They requested that two of their number might have leave of absence to go and refute the slanders, which inflicted a blow on the honor of the town. The request was granted. Marcourt and Morand set out for Berne, and presented themselves before the assembly of the pastors, in which Kunz could not fail to support them. In fact it was resolved at this meeting ‘that those who rose against the persons in office at Geneva were worse than wicked men, traitors, and Jews.’ The Bernese pastors communicated this declaration to the council, which contented itself with deciding that if any defamers of Geneva appeared at Berne, information should be given to the magistrates of that town. The lay authorities were obviously less under the influence of passion than the ecclesiastics. It appears even that the council of Berne did not place implicit confidence in the report of the Genevese ministers, for one of their own number was immediately after sent to Geneva to see with his own eyes what was the real state of the Genevese Church.
The complaints made both at Geneva and in other places were well grounded. This is proved by the proceedings of the magistrates, who, although they were hostile to the reformers, perceived that their own honor required them not to authorize licentiousness. It is quite certain that people ‘went about the streets at night, uttering cries and singing indecent songs;’ that ‘gaming, lewdness, haunting of taverns, and drunkenness,’ were common offences; for a decree of July 19 prohibited them under a penalty of sixty sous for the first time; and, as the evil continued, other decisions of a similar character were taken on August 20 and October 22. It is certain that, as was said in Switzerland, some citizens went to mass, for according to the intolerant customs of the age, they were ordered ‘to leave the town.’ The councils were seen to be as much opposed to religious liberty as Calvin had been. Perhaps they went even further than he would have gone; for, on August 20, they ordered the priests who were still on Genevese soil to go to sermon if they wished to remain there.
CALVIN’S LETTER TO THE GENEVESE.
Calvin, at Strasburg, was watching attentively what was passing at Geneva. He heard that a certain number of Genevese kept faithfully to the path which they had taken under his direction. Some of his adherents cried out rather loudly, but the majority led a quiet life, and the most decided of the latter displayed their opposition in no other way than by absenting themselves from a form of worship which they did not consider to be in conformity with the principles of the Gospel. Calvin had not written to them during the first months of his exile. He was not willing to lay himself open to the charge of attempting to draw them over to himself. But he felt keenly that the trials of his friends at Geneva proceeded from their supineness in adhering to the Word of God, and that the remedy for them was in humbling themselves before God and waiting upon Him for the remedy. ‘However the affection which he always cherished for them’ did not permit him to remain longer silent, and on October 1 he wrote to them a letter remarkable for the pacific, discreet, charitable, and elevated spirit which it breathed. He addressed it, not to all the Genevese, but to those who had received into their hearts the seed of the divine Word, and who were still deeply affected by the blow which had struck them in the punishment of their pastor. He named them his brethren, the relics of the dispersion of the Genevese church. He spoke of the love which he bore them. ‘I cannot refrain from writing to you,’ said he, ‘to assure you of the affection which I always cherish for you. Our conscience is fully persuaded before God that it is by his call that we were at one time associated with you, and it ought not to be in the power of men to break such a bond.’ He begs them to forget themselves and their sufferings, to forget even the hostility of their adversaries. ‘If we lose our time in fighting against men,’ he said, ‘thinking only of taking vengeance and getting indemnified for the injuries which they have done us, it is doubtful whether we can overcome them, but it is certain that we shall be overcome by the devil. If on the contrary we resist the devices of that spiritual enemy, there is no fear then of our not coming off conquerors. Cast away every evil affection, be led only by zeal for God, controlled by his Spirit and the rule of his Word.’ Calvin went further. He showed himself severe to his friends. ‘It is easy for you to justify yourselves before men, but your conscience will feel burdened before God.’ He did himself what he required of others. ‘I doubt not,’ he said, ‘that God has humbled us in order to make us acquainted with our ignorance, our imprudence, and our other infirmities, of which I for my part have been fully conscious, and which I have no hesitation in confessing before the Church. However,’ he adds, ‘we did faithfully administer our office. The Lord will cause our innocence to come forth like the morning-star, and our righteousness to shine like the sun.’ But he endeavors chiefly to console the believers of Geneva. ‘Be not cast down because it hath pleased the Lord to humble you for a time, for he lifts up the humble out of the dust and takes the poor from the dunghill. He gives the manna of joy to those who are in tears; he gives back light to them that sit in darkness, and he restores to life them that walk in the shadow of death. Be of good courage then, and endure with patience the chastening of his hand, until the time that he reveal his grace to you.’[744] It is impossible not to recognize the wisdom and the Christian charity which have left their impress on this letter. It is indeed a pastor that speaks. Calvin was so far from the excessive strictness imputed to him that he wrote at the same time to Farel—‘If we find in any Church the ministry of the Word and the sacraments, it is better not to separate from it. It is not right even to do so on the ground that some doctrines are not purely taught in it; for there is hardly a Church in existence which does not retain some traces of its former ignorance. It is sufficient for us if the doctrine on which the Church is founded has its place there and keeps it.’[745] Calvin held that there are some doctrines fundamental and vital, essential to salvation; but he acknowledged that there are others on which difference is permissible.
FAREL’S LETTER TO THE GENEVESE.
Farel likewise wrote to the Christians of Geneva. He did so even before Calvin, in June, in August, and again in November. He expressed to them his deep sadness. He would fain be ‘so far away that he could hear nothing of the miserable breaking-up and dispersion of the Church.’ He strives ‘to banish from his heart the pains, the labors that he undertook for that town; for nothing pierces the heart like ingratitude; to see evil rendered for good, hate for love, death and shame in place of the life and the honor which were procured.’ He contents himself with praying for the town and commending it to all who are able to give it any assistance. Meanwhile he cannot help seeing the unhappy condition in which his own friends and all the faithful of Geneva are, deprived of their pastors, and witnessing the triumph of their enemies. He shares largely in their troubles; they are his only trial. ‘I should be too happy,’ he wrote to them, ‘if you were not so unhappy.’ But at the same time he exhorts them to Christian charity and gives evidence of it himself. ‘Cherish in your hearts no rancor,’ he said to his former flock, ‘no root of bitterness, no anger. Do not reproach this man nor that man, but let each one reproach himself: lay all the blame on yourselves and say nothing but good of others. Let God’s holy will be your rule, and not poor man (the natural man), and what is in him.’ He does not hesitate to rebuke his friends. ‘You have not obeyed God wholly, but have halted and swerved to one side and the other.’ Then he earnestly exhorts them to repentance. ‘You, great and small, men and women, cast yourselves humbly before God, with all earnestness and love, beseeching his grace, and praying him to turn away his anger from you. Yes, cast yourselves before him with sobs and tears, with fasting and prayer, like the king of Nineveh and his people. Cry, weep, lift up your voices; that your cry going forth from the depths of this terrible calamity may reach the ear of God.’[746] Thus spoke Farel and Calvin.
CHAPTER XV.
STRASBURG AND GENEVA.
(End of 1538–1539.)
CALVIN AT STRASBURG.
Calvin, meanwhile, notwithstanding the melancholy which sprang from the remembrance of his recent struggles, was happy at Strasburg. This town, in which, as in a common centre, met the influences of Germany, Switzerland, and France, was esteemed, next to Wittenberg, the most important seat of the Reformation. It was called the Antioch of that epoch, in remembrance of what Antioch was in the apostolic age. Some named it subsequently the New Jerusalem, and this partly because it was ‘the hostess of the man who gave his name to Calvinism.’[747] At the period of Calvin’s arrival, Strasburg was already the home of several distinguished men—Capito, Bucer, Hedio, Niger, Mathias Zell, and others besides, who shone in its Church like precious and transparent jewels.[748] ‘What gratitude we owe you,’ they wrote to Farel, ‘for resigning Calvin to us!’ He was a treasure for them. He very much enjoyed their society, and this sojourn was to be beneficial to him. Not only did the affection of Strasburg for him heal the wounds inflicted by the hostility of Geneva, but his mind was to receive still further development. The small city on the shores of the Leman lake was a narrow platform on which it was not easy to move about. But on reaching Strasburg Calvin set foot on the vast Germanic realm which contained so many illustrious men, in which so many profound thoughts were stirring, and in which the Reformation had already fought so many battles and won so many victories. There were, it is true, some opposite teachings, but it was necessary to be acquainted with them. Strasburg, moreover, was the place in which doctrines were weighed one against the other, and where the labor destined to conciliate them was undertaken. At Geneva Calvin might have occupied the post of a spectator who attempts to distinguish by means of a telescope an action fought at a great distance. But now he was in the thick of the battle, learnt to recognize the feeble and the strong, and became one of the combatants, or at least one of the negotiators. His horizon was widened, his intelligence in this vast sphere would be enlarged, his ideas would be developed, would grow, ripen, and move with greater freedom. He would be brought under influences to which he was not exposed at Geneva, and which would contribute to form the great theologian. Embracing at a glance the whole extent of the kingdom of God, he would become familiar with its various provinces. Winds blowing from so many and adverse regions would bring to him new reports. There would doubtless be sometimes stormy blasts, powerful enough to overthrow the strongest, but often also a pure and life-giving air fitted to sanctify his Christian energy.
The theological and Christian circle which he entered at Strasburg was in more than one way in sympathy with him. He was convinced, as the doctors of this town were, that it was necessary not to stick at trifling differences, but to consider Christianity in its great facts, its great doctrines, the new life which it creates, in the great whole on which all the reformers were agreed. All those who took their stand on the same rock, Jesus Christ, no matter whether a little higher up or a little lower down, ought in his view to join hand in hand. Calvin and the theologians of Strasburg were disgusted with the theological subtilties and the scholastic nomenclature beneath which the living doctrine of the Gospel, especially as to the supper, was stifled. ‘Can I in very deed believe that I receive in the holy supper the body and the blood of the Lord, substantialiter, essentialiter, realiter, naturaliter, præsentialiter, localiter, corporaliter, quantitative, qualitative, ubiqualiter, carnaliter? The devil has brought us all these terms from the abyss of hell. Christ said simply, This is my body. If all these fantastic expressions had been necessary, he would certainly have employed them.’ Calvin, like Zell, the author of the above passage, found in that heap of qualifying terms a mass of rubbish and confusion. There was, however, one difference between the doctors of Strasburg and the doctor of Geneva. Bucer and Capito were willing to bring union by the way of accommodation, perhaps by the use of phrases in a double sense. The eagle of Geneva, soaring in the higher regions, called on Christians to have but one thought in contemplating one and the same sun, and in attaching themselves to one and the same truth.[749]
HIS SPIRITUAL JOYS.
Another happiness awaited Calvin at Strasburg. His greatest sufferings at Geneva had their source in that state-church, that people-church, that shapeless community which comprised the whole nation, believers and unbelievers, righteous men and profligates. In its place at Strasburg he found some Christians exiled on account of their faith, purified by their trial like gold, who had given up all for Christ, their righteousness and their life. The mass of professing Christians at Geneva had as it were suffocated him. Now at Strasburg he was in the midst of brethren and sisters, and almost all of them belonged to his own country, France. He breathed freely. The evangelical order intended by the apostles prevailed in his Church.[750] He preached four times a week. He met his elders and deacons once a week for the study of the Holy Scriptures and for prayer; and some of those lay friends well endowed by God were soon qualified to take the place of their pastor in case of his absence, and to edify their brethren. The first supper was celebrated in September, and it was repeated every month. How wide the difference for Calvin between that repast at Geneva, to which men came who drank, gamed, quarrelled, and sang indecent songs, and whom, for all that, he had to admit to the communion of the body and the blood of the Redeemer, and this brotherly supper at Strasburg, celebrated in company with pious Christians, persecuted for righteousness’ sake, whose names were written in heaven, and who drew nigh to the Lord with devotion, as members of his family! Calvin gave all his attention to the cure of souls. If there were any Christians who had not an adequate acquaintance with the doctrine of salvation, he instructed them; if any were reproached by their own conscience, cast down and in distress, he consoled and lifted them up; if any had gone astray from the path of righteousness, he rebuked them. He certainly met with some opposition, especially on the part of the younger folk; but he held his ground. While he required a pure faith and life, he protested against the tyranny exercised by the priests in auricular confession, and declared that no man had the right to bind the conscience of his brethren. Thus he saw his flock thriving from day to day under his direction.[751] ‘It was at Strasburg that the first Church was organized to serve as a model to others,’ says Raemond. A remarkable conversion distinguished its early days. Herman of Liége, who had engaged in discussion with Calvin at Geneva, was converted by him and joined his Church. He embraced the doctrines which Calvin found in the Holy Scriptures, on free will, the divinity and humanity of Christ, regeneration, and baptism. He was in doubt only as to predestination. Calvin gained other victories besides.
VIEW OF THE LORD’S SUPPER.
He was now not only a pastor, but also a teacher. At the beginning of the year 1539, Capito, struck with his gifts for theological teaching, entreated him to join that office with his pastorate. Although he felt reluctant to do so, from his sense of the difficulty of that ministry, he at length consented. Every day he preached in the church of St. Nicholas, in which he taught the students of the academy. The interpretation of the Scriptures was for him the basis of theological science, and for his exposition he selected two of the richest books of the New Testament—the Gospel of St. John and the Epistle to the Romans. His plan was to search out the meaning of the sacred writer, and to set it forth with an easy ‘brevity which did not entail obscurity;’ and for that purpose ‘he took pains to regulate and proportion his style.[752]’ In his view the Epistle to the Romans was ‘a path to the understanding of the whole Scripture.’ Some doctors attended these lectures, and expressed their high admiration.[753] He did not content himself with being at the same time pastor and professor, he also worked diligently in his study. He revised his Institution, and prepared a second edition; he recast his Catechism; he composed a treatise on the Supper, of which he sent a copy to Luther. Calvin, like Zwingli, regarded the bread and the wine as signs, as pledges that Christ gives to the believer his crucified body and his shed blood; that is to say, communicates to him the expiatory virtue of his death. He taught that the believer receives the body and the blood by faith, which is the mouth of the soul, and not by the bodily mouth. But he differed from the reformer of Zurich in that he saw in the supper a mysterious union with the glorified person of Christ. ‘With good reason,’ he said, ‘the bread is called body, since it not only represents him, but also presents him to us. We must therefore really receive in the supper the body and the blood of Jesus Christ, since the Lord sets forth to us therein the communion of both. If God gave us only bread and wine, leaving behind the spiritual truth, would it not be the case that he had instituted this mystery on fictitious grounds?[754] This alliance is effected on our part by faith, and on the part of God by his secret and miraculous virtue. The Spirit of God is the bond of this participation; that is why it is called spiritual. When Luther began his course, he appeared to say that the bread was the body of Christ. Œcolampadius and Zwingli appeared to leave in the supper nothing but the bare signs without their spiritual substance. Thus Luther failed on his side, Zwingli and Œcolampadius on their side. Nevertheless, let us not forget the grace which the Lord gave to all of them, and the benefits which he has conferred on us by their instrumentality.’[755]
Luther acknowledged that Calvin’s doctrine went beyond that of Zwingli, and expressed the delight which it gave him. As early as October, 1539, the Saxon reformer wrote to Bucer—‘Greet John Calvin respectfully, whose book I have read with singular enjoyment.’[756] As the treatise on the Supper appeared only in 1541, the Institution must be the book spoken of, in which the doctrine of the Eucharist was already set forth. When the reformer of Germany read the little treatise to which we have just referred, he said, ‘Ah, if the Swiss did the same, we should now be at peace instead of quarrelling.’[757]
In addition to his other labors, Calvin attended the theological debates in the universities, sometimes even presiding at them. He held conferences with the Roman Catholic doctors, at which he defended the evangelical theology; thereby acquiring so high a renown that a great number of students and even of learned men came from France to Strasburg to hear him.[758]
This man, who already occupied so important a position, was at the same time in the most humble circumstances. Poverty was added to his other trials. He received from the publishers of his works only very low remuneration. He did not think that he had any right to ask remuneration from the state or even from the Church; but he would not have refused it if it had been spontaneously offered to him. He was living at this time on a small sum derived partly from his paternal inheritance and partly from the sale of his library and other property of various kinds. But this was far short of his need, and sometimes the payment for his lodging was a great embarrassment. He wrote to Farel—‘I am obliged to live at my own expense, unless I were willing to become a burden to my brethren; and my destitution is now so great that I do not possess a farthing.[759] It is not, you see, so easy for me to take care of my health as you with so much kind care counsel me to do.’ Calvin afterwards received a salary, but too small to suffice even for his modest wants.
DEATH OF OLIVÉTAN.
Just at the time when Calvin was gaining new friends at Strasburg, he lost some of his oldest and most beloved ones. We have seen his grief on hearing of the death of Courault. At the beginning of January 1539, he received a letter from Francesca Bucyronia, wife of the physician Sinapi, tutor to the children of the Duchess of Ferrara, informing him that his cousin Olivétan, one of the first evangelists of Geneva, and translator of the French version of the Bible, had just died in that town. Calvin’s pain at this news was increased by the report that his friend, while at Rome, had taken poison, and that of this he died. This was a conjecture at that period commonly put forward to account for unexpected deaths. There is little probability of its truth. Calvin does not speak of it. He contents himself with calling Olivétan our friend, and adds that the natural sorrow which he feels must be his apology to his correspondents for his short and disjointed letters.[760] Few men have had so many friends as Calvin. His was no ordinary friendship; it was always felt to be deep and unchangeable.
But Calvin’s thought was at this time occupied with affection of another kind. He believed that those who have received a new life from Christ are called to love all those who have received the same grace; ‘to love them with that simple affection, that natural proneness, with which relations love each other.’ It was, however, no exclusive love that he required. ‘In bidding us begin by loving the faithful, the Lord leads us on, by a kind of apprenticeship, to the loving of all men without exception.’[761] But union and agreement between the children of God was the great need of his heart. When writing to Bullinger (March 12, 1539) he said—‘Satan, who plots the ruin of the kingdom of Christ, sows discord between us. Let us all then have a cordial agreement with one another, and may it be the same with all the Churches. I clasp you in my arms, wishing you all good.’[762]
With this cordial charity Calvin maintained an indomitable courage. Capito was given to looking at the dark sides of things: black thoughts often hovered around him and took possession of his imagination. In vain his faith strove to lighten the darkness; mournful forebodings overwhelmed him, and a dull distress was often read in his countenance. One day he protested before God and men that the Church was lost unless prompt aid should arrive. Afterwards, when he found that the state of things did not improve, he prayed God that he might die.[763] It was not so with Calvin. ‘Ah,’ said he, ‘the Lord will bless us although everything should be against us. Let us therefore try all remedies; and if we do not find any to be efficacious, let us nevertheless persevere as long as we have any breath of life.’[764] It is this unconquerable steadfastness which made Calvin the great reformer.
DESPOTISM AT GENEVA.
The faith of Calvin was not to deceive him. But few voices had been raised in his favor at Geneva in the general council of May 26, 1538. The minority which adhered to the Reformation had at first shrunk away into retirement and silence. The most active men, who are not always the wisest, alone had spoken. But gradually the more competent influential men appeared, recognized and united with each other, and took combined action. The government party made little account of them; and as Master Guillaume, as they called Farel, was in the popular judgment the chief of the Evangelicals, they used to call these, with a shrug of the shoulders, the Guillemins, nor had they a suspicion that these people would ever recover themselves. The council, which was little disposed to respect individual freedom, less so perhaps than Calvin and Farel, ordered all heads of families to attend sermon on the Sunday. This order was especially aimed at the friends of the reformers and their refusal to hear the ministers who had taken the place of the latter, and who, to make themselves agreeable to the magistrate, openly censured their predecessors.
Farel and Calvin had established in Geneva not only the Church but also the school; and some of their best friends, Saunier and Mathurin Cordier were among the most eminent masters. This institution naturally remained faithful to its founders, and the conduct of the government towards it showed that they looked on it as decidedly opposed to their views and opinions. The council did not intend to allow its subordinates to show themselves hostile to its scheme for the direction of ecclesiastical affairs. However, while they shrank perhaps from disorganizing the school, they resolved, sparing at the outset the leading men, to give them a lesson by energetically prosecuting one or two of their under-masters.
Eynard and Gaspard were consequently cited, September 10, before the council, which made complaint of their publicly censuring the preachers, and inquired of them where they had received the supper at Easter and Whitsuntide. They replied that they had not joined in the communion anywhere, because St. Paul enjoined that every man should examine himself, and that they had not felt in the right frame of mind. They had no doubt been unwilling to receive the bread and the wine, which are the communion of the body and the blood of the Saviour, from the hands of pastors whom they judged unworthy. The council ordered them to leave the town in three days. After having thus inflicted disciplinary penalties on the humble under-masters, they awaited Christmas.
Matters were by that time far worse. Many foreigners, chiefly refugees, did not take the supper. They were condemned to leave the town, ten days only being allowed to them to set their affairs in order. The councillors and other Genevese who had been guilty of the same offence were obliged to apologize and to promise ‘to live from this time forth according to the way of the town.’ These things did not pass without lively altercations; and in consequence of a dispute which took place in the street on the night of December 30, 1538, one man was killed and many were wounded.[765] The most enraged of the refractory party, thinking to justify their conduct in attacking the settled ministers, called them infidels, corrupters of Scripture, and papists, who tried to deceive the people. The pastors, who were certainly not possessed of ability enough to fill the place of the eminent doctors banished by the council, but who endeavored for the most part to do as much good as their moral and intellectual qualities permitted, were greatly annoyed, complained to the council, and desired to withdraw and make room for others better qualified than themselves. ‘These reproaches,’ they said, ‘we find it very hard to bear.’ The council assured them that it meant to keep them, and to reconcile them with their accusers.
THE REGENTS OF THE COLLEGE.
After this second act of discipline, or rather, at the same time, the council undertook a third, of graver character still. In their eyes the college was still a fortress in which Calvinism had entrenched itself, with the intention of resisting the attacks of its adversaries. The magistrate resolved to give the regents an opportunity of declaring themselves, and if they offered resistance, to expel them. To join the ministers who had succeeded Farel and Calvin, to administer the supper with them, to do an act which those great doctors had refused to do,—this was the requirement addressed by the magistrate to Saunier, rector of the college, and to the three regents, Mathurin Cordier, Vautier, and Vindos. It would have been straining a point for them to take the supper; but to be in the number of those who administered it, after all the controversies which had taken place, was not this ‘to be an occasion of stumbling’ for many, and a taking part against those venerated men whose absence they deplored? These four professors therefore stated to the council that their conscience did not allow them to do what was required. The magistrates ought to have considered that this act is not within the province of the regents, and that they ought not to do anything which might, by depriving the college of the able men who directed it, possibly lead to its ruin. But Richardet and his friends were despots who did not intend to allow any resistance to their will. On the day after Christmas, they ordered the rector and the three regents to quit Geneva in the space of three days. Saunier was dismayed. He had a very numerous household. Many boys of good family from Basel, Berne, Zurich, Bienne, and other towns, lived in his house; and he had a young daughter, in delicate health, whom he would be obliged to take with him in the depth of winter. The next day, December 27, he appeared before the Council of the Two Hundred, stated the circumstances which we have just related, reminded them that he was a citizen of the town, and showed them that the resolution which they had adopted might be the ruin of the college, which was indispensable to the youth of Geneva. In fine, he could not possibly make the necessary arrangements in so short a time. This last point was the only one to which the Great Council took any heed. It confirmed the resolution of the Little Council, but granted to the regents fifteen days to act upon it. He must therefore depart. Saunier and his colleagues took the same road as Calvin and Farel had taken. Mathurin Cordier, who had received the knowledge of the Gospel from the celebrated Robert Etienne, had devoted his life to the task ‘of training youth in piety and in good morals, cultivating in them a pure and elegant style, and the love of literature;’ had composed some important works;[766] and was one of those antique souls, it has been said, who always prefer the public good to their own interest. The loss of such a man was irreparable, but it was not final. The council sought for substitutes for these men; but they were forced to acknowledge that to find them was no easy matter. The first candidate who offered himself was rejected because he was a German. The second, Claude Viguier, beat one of his pupils so severely as to draw blood. The republican magistrates of 1538 placed submission to their arbitrary orders before the real interests of the schools and the people.[767] Calvin seemed to regret the course taken by Saunier. He entreated Farel to do everything in his power to prevent division and confusion from extending, and to induce the brethren no longer to refuse the rites adopted by the council.
PERSECUTION OF CALVIN’S FRIENDS.
When this matter was settled, the council undertook another campaign. Among the partisans of Calvin and of the Reformation were several eminent men whose submission was much desired. The severity which had just been displayed towards the learned might induce these citizens to yield to the conquerors. Two former syndics especially, Porral and Pertemps, looking more at the lamentable occurrences which had attended the government appointment of the supper than at the supper itself, had not yet been able to bring themselves to sanction blameworthy proceedings (the banishment of their well-beloved pastors) by taking part in the ceremonies condemned by their friends. They had, it is true, received the letter from Calvin which urged them ‘to have only a zeal for God moderated by his Spirit and ruled by his Word.’ But when Christmas drew near, and the supper was to be given with unleavened bread, they had hesitated as to what they should do; and as they doubted, they had abstained. The council was not inclined to decide this case of conscience in an accommodating way. On January 9, 1539, Porral having appeared and being asked by the council whether he would conform to the ordinances respecting the supper, made answer at first in a rather vague way; and on being requested to answer more distinctly, he said, without entering into the question of the ordinances, ‘If it please God, I am ready to take the supper, after having examined myself.’ Pertemps spoke to the same effect.[768]
The friends of Calvin knew that the reformer was distressed at the disorders which prevailed in Geneva, and which reduced the town to the saddest state. ‘Nothing causes me more sorrow,’ he wrote to his friends, ‘than the quarrels and the debates which you have with the ministers who have succeeded us. There is hardly a hope of amelioration while altercation and discord exist. Turn away, then, your minds and your hearts from men, and cling solely to the Redeemer.’ Calvin did not approve the renunciation of the communion by his friends on the ground of its celebration with unleavened bread, and he gave them a serious admonition not to disturb the peace on this immaterial question.[769]
The council did not stop here. There were still some principal citizens of whom they had a wish to be rid. Claude Savoye, formerly first syndic, who had shown so much love for Geneva and even so much heroism, was a friend of the reformers and had censured the council. He was put in prison, September 6, 1538, on merely frivolous charges. He refused to answer magistrates whom he regarded as his personal enemies. The council deliberated whether it should not cause torture to be applied to this great citizen. But honorable men revolted against this notion; and the council, having nothing against him but presumptions without any foundation, contented themselves with taking from him all his offices, depriving him of all his rights, and making the town his prison. Savoye escaped, went to Berne, and from that city announced to the syndics that he resigned the citizenship of Geneva. Jean Goulaz, who in 1532 had posted on the walls of the town the great pardon of Jesus Christ in opposition to the indulgences of the pope,[770] informed the council that he likewise renounced the citizenship, requested them to release him from his oath, and withdrew. While the council were deliberating on his request, he felt it prudent to quit the territory. The council, receiving information of this, ordered pursuit to be made. He was overtaken on the bridge of Arve and was sent to prison. Michel Rozet says with reference to these various prosecutions, ‘Those, in a word, who had banished the ministers, omitted no occasion of entirely dislodging their adherents.’[771]
SUPPRESSION OF DISORDERS.
An improvement, however, had just been made in the government. On February 9, 1539, the general assembly of the people having to elect the syndics of the year, not one of the citizens who had played a part in the expulsion of Calvin and his friends was chosen. The new magistrates were taken from the moderate party, and one of them, Antoine Chiccand, was attached to the reformer. The less respectable class of the people did not seem to be aware of the change, and they celebrated the accession of the new magistrates after a strange fashion. It was the time of Carnival, Easter falling that year on April 6; and although Geneva had no longer any wish for the religion of the papacy, this class of the inhabitants still kept up its festivals and its amusements. Their pastimes were numerous, burlesque, and even indecent. ‘There were mummeries, lewdness, indecent songs, dances, and blasphemies. Some went naked about the town with timbrels and pipes,’ says a contemporary.[772] Did these disorderly doings form part of the Roman Catholic reaction that was then attracting attention? We do not assert this. However it might be, the pastors complained to the council, and the latter ordered an inquiry, especially against those who went about the streets at night without their clothes. It appeared from the inquiry that ‘those who had done so were all young, and had intended nothing more than a freak of youthful folly.’ The council ‘remonstrated’ with the delinquents; and some women who had ‘danced to the songs’ were put in prison for a day, and afterwards were severely censured by the syndic. Three days later the council issued a decree which enjoined the people ‘devoutly to listen to the Word of God on Sundays, and to govern themselves according to it; not to swear nor blaspheme, nor play for gold or silver;’ and forbade them ‘to go about the town after nine o’clock without candles, to dance at any dances except at weddings, to sing any indecent songs, to disguise themselves, or to indulge in masks or mummeries.’
At the time when magistrates who were better disposed towards Calvin were called to the government of the republic, a door was opened on another side which revealed to the reformer a new world, Germany with her doctors and her princes. Calvin was living on the banks of the Rhine at the period when the emperor was convoking frequent and important assemblies, which were attended by the princes either in person or by their delegates, and in which they discussed the deepest questions of theology with as much eagerness as diplomatists in congress discuss the interests of their respective governments. From the year 1535 to 1539 Protestantism had been gaining in strength; it had made many conquests in North Germany, and appeared to be on the point of winning the decisive victory. The Catholics were beginning to lose heart, and the successive congresses at which they required the Protestants to come to terms with them might well lead one to call them a weakened army which desired only favorable conditions for lowering its flag. Calvin watched with his keen eye this astonishing process. He continually asserted in his letters that it was not the existence of one Church (that of Geneva), but of all Churches, that was at stake. There were moments when he thought that he had a glimpse of the triumph of the Gospel in Europe; at other times he was seized with great despondency. There was a conflict within him. His natural timidity led him to shrink from appearing in the Germanic assemblies; but his faith and his zeal for the kingdom of God made him long to take part in them.
CONFERENCE AT FRANKFORT.
Charles V., after making peace with Francis I., had convoked, at Frankfort, for the month of February 1539, a conference of evangelical and Roman Catholic theologians, who were to endeavor to find a basis of agreement. We have not to devote our attention to all the work done at the German assemblies which Calvin attended, but only to that which concerns him personally. Deputies from Strasburg went to Frankfort, but the young French doctor did not accompany them. He contented himself with earnestly commending to Bucer the cause of the persecuted Protestants. But shortly after, having received a letter from Bucer, informing him that he found it was impossible for him to do anything for his co-religionists, and hearing at the same time that Melanchthon was present at the conferences, his spiritual earnestness overcame the timidity of his nature. He was seized with a strong desire to go to Frankfort and to converse with the friend of Luther on religion and the affairs of the Church. He set out in great haste the next day. At Frankfort he met some of the most prominent characters of the Reformation. Here were the pious John Frederick, elector of Saxony; young Maurice of Saxony, who was one day to prove so formidable to Charles V.; the famous landgrave Philip of Hesse, the Duke of Luneburg, and many other princes, whose acquaintance could not be a matter of indifference to the young reformer. Several of these young princes were accompanied by a great number of knights and soldiers, and all appeared to be full of courage for the defence of the Gospel. Calvin, in long letters to Farel, gave an account of all that he saw and thought. He formed a most just conception of the Protestant question in Germany, of the disposition of the princes, of the policy of Charles V., and of the various matters under discussion. But one man was there whose society he coveted more than that of all the princes. Calvin’s sojourn at Frankfort is especially marked by the conversations which he had with Melanchthon ‘on many subjects.’[773] Several of the most influential men of the Reformation, in Switzerland and in France, were not well informed as to the opinions of this celebrated doctor. Calvin wished to be able to bear testimony to them with certitude. The great idea of the French doctor was agreement between all evangelical Christians. He was convinced that it was necessary, not only for the sake of obedience to the commandments of Jesus Christ, but further to promote the triumph of the evangelical cause. He wished for union, not only of the various parties in Germany, but of Germany and Switzerland. Now Melanchthon appeared to him the fittest man to bring about agreement among the Protestants. No sooner had these two great doctors met and exchanged the most kindly greetings, than Calvin opened the question. He had communicated to Melanchthon some articles in which his view of the supper was set forth in a way to terminate dissension. ‘There is no room for controversy between you and me,’ said Melanchthon, immediately; ‘I accept your articles.’[774] This was a great pleasure to Calvin. It was however soon disturbed. ‘But,’ continued the friend of Luther, ‘I must confess to you that we have some among us who demand something more material, and this so obstinately, not to say so despotically,[775] that I have found myself for a long time exposed to danger because they know that I differ from them on this subject. I do not believe that a solid agreement is attainable. But I desire that we should abide by the present agreement, such as it is, until the Lord lead us by one way or another into union in the truth.’ Calvin perfectly satisfied, hastened to write to Farel—‘Entertain no more any doubt about him, but consider him as holding altogether the same views as we do.’ Farel and Calvin found in Melanchthon an important ally.
CALVIN AND MELANCHTHON.
There was another question on which Calvin desired to ascertain the opinion of Melanchthon; it was that of discipline. On this subject he was not fully satisfied. Hardly had he mentioned it when his companion began, like others, says Calvin, to lament its absence in the Church. ‘Ah,’ said Calvin, ‘it is easier to mourn over the miserable state of the Church in this respect than to change it. And meanwhile how many examples are there which ought to animate us in seeking a remedy for this evil! Not long ago a good and learned man, who could not take on himself to tolerate vice, was driven from Ulm in disgrace, while his colleagues gave him the most honorable references. The news received from Augsburg is no better. Some day people will make a sport of deposing their pastors and sending them into exile.’ ‘We are in the midst of such a storm,’ said Melanchthon, ‘that we can do nothing better than give way for a short time to adverse winds.[776] We may hope that when external foes give us more repose, we shall be able to apply ourselves to remedying the evils that are within.’
These conversations of Calvin and Melanchthon possessed a great attraction for both of them. We can imagine how interesting was this exchange of views between two of the most distinguished minds of the age. Their speech was simple, profound, and natural. They listened well and replied well. Calvin spoke with great freedom, although without dogmatism. The ceremonies of worship in the Lutheran churches, the singing in Latin, the images and other things quite as much to be censured, were among the subjects which he had at heart. ‘I must confess to you frankly,’ he said to Melanchthon, ‘that this superfluity of ceremonies pains me; it seems to me that the forms which you have kept are not far removed from Judaism.’[777] Calvin having given his reasons, ‘I will not dispute with you on this subject,’ said Melanchthon; ‘I own that we have among us too many of these senseless, or at any rate certainly superfluous rites.[778] But it was necessary to concede this to the canonists, who show themselves very obstinate with respect to it. For the rest, there is no place in Saxony which is less overloaded with them than Wittenberg, and even there much of this farrago will be thrown overboard. Luther disapproves just as much the ceremonies which he has been compelled to keep as he does your parsimony in regard to them.’ Calvin when relating this conversation to Farel adds, ‘Bucer cannot endure that for the sake of these paltry outward observances we should separate from Luther; and I too believe that they are not legitimate causes of division.’[779] From all these conversations Calvin derived the conviction of the complete sincerity of Melanchthon, and this he was anxious to communicate to those who doubted it.
HENRY VIII. AND MELANCHTHON.
Henry VIII. was at this time requesting that a new embassy should be sent to him, and that Melanchthon should be a member of it. The princes were not inclined to intrust the mission to this doctor, as they feared that he might, for want of firmness of character, make imprudent concessions to the king.[780] Calvin opened his mind freely to Melanchthon on the subject. ‘I swear most solemnly to you,’ replied the latter, ‘that there is no ground for this fear.’ ‘I rely on him no less than on Bucer,’ wrote Calvin to Farel. ‘When the business is to treat with those who require to be treated with some indulgence, Bucer is animated with so much zeal for the propagation of the Gospel that, content with having obtained the most important things, he is perhaps sometimes rather too ready to give up those which he looks on as very subordinate, and which for all that have their weight.’ Further, Calvin’s opinion of Henry VIII. was formed, and he did not conceal it. ‘This prince,’ said he, ‘is scarcely half wise.[781] He prohibits the marriage of priests and bishops, not only under the penalty of deprivation of their offices, but by severe punishments besides. He maintains the daily masses and the seven sacraments. He has thus a mutilated Gospel, half of it torn off, and a Church still full of many absurdities.[782] He has recently published a new edict, by which he endeavors to keep the people from the reading of the Bible; and to show you that it is not mere thoughtlessness, but that he takes up the matter in earnest, he has lately had a good and wise man burnt because he denied the carnal presence of Christ in the bread.’[783] Calvin afterwards says, ‘The worst of it is that the king tolerates nothing but what he has sanctioned with his own authority. Thus it will come to pass that Christ shall profit them nothing, except the king should be willing to permit him. The Lord will punish such arrogance by some notable chastisement.’[784]
It was determined at Frankfort that another assembly should be held in the course of the summer. Melanchthon, soon after his arrival in that town, had seen in a dream a large picture in which was represented the figure of Christ on the cross, and around him souls clothed in white. The electors of the empire, bearing the ensigns of their dignity, were approaching it in regular order. Next after them came an ass, covered with a linen cope and dragging after him with a rope the emperor and the pope, as if he were going to conduct them to that assembly of the blessed.[785] ‘I think,’ said Myconius, who was then at Frankfort, ‘that it is the Germanic ass which the emperor and the pope have hitherto ridden so hard and miserably treated.’ The good Melanchthon was very much taken up with the thought of leading to Christ all the German princes, and even the emperor and the pope; and it appears that in his great humility he had represented himself in his dream under the figure of an ass. Luther in his reply thinks decidedly that it was a two-footed ass.[786] Be that as it may, the assembly at Frankfort does not appear to have led anybody to the crucified, and especially neither pope nor emperor. It would have taken more than one rope to draw them thither. Calvin did not wait for the close of the colloquy to return to Strasburg.
CHAPTER XVI.
CALVIN’S RELATIONS WITH SADOLETO.
(1539.)
MEETING OF PRELATES AT LYONS.
Rome, meanwhile, was not indifferent to what was taking place at Geneva. Between the papacy and the Reformation there were action and reaction, which kept both in constant agitation. When once the Catholic reaction began, not content with mere resistance, it assumed the offensive. The partisans of the pope, still pretty numerous in Geneva, informed the Bishop de la Baume of what occurred in the town; and he, who like all dispossessed princes was always expecting to be restored to his episcopal see, the sweets of which he remembered better than the bitterness, communicated with the pope. The latter gave to La Baume the cardinal’s hat, in the hope that this dignity might be a bait to draw the Genevese to place themselves once more under the crook of their bishop. Then he invited the prelates who were nearest neighbors to Geneva to take in hand the cause of their colleague. The Bishops of Lyons, Besançon, Lausanne, Vienne, Turin, Langres and Carpentras, met the Bishop of Geneva in the first of these towns. ‘The flock,’ they said, ‘being now deprived of its pastors, men so eminent, we must seize the opportunity to rescue it from the Reformation.’[787] Many Genevese Catholics had emigrated to Lyons, and they spared no pains to bring about the restoration of the prelate. Pierre de la Baume asked of his colleagues ‘the recovery of his diocese.’ The Cardinal of Tournon, the notorious persecutor of the Vaudois, and the introducer of the Jesuits into France, who was at this time archbishop of Lyons, was president of the meeting. He had thus an opportunity of satisfying his inextinguishable passion against the Calvinists. Jean Philippe, chief author of the banishment of Calvin, met with Tournon in the church at Lyons, and carried on intrigues with him.[788] The affair might perhaps have had a violent ending, but that a man was there present of a different stamp from the archbishop. This was Cardinal Sadoleto, who, as bishop Carpentras, a town in Dauphiné bordering on Savoy, seemed by his neighboring position bound to concern himself more particularly with Geneva. He was connected with Bembo, secretary to Leo X., was a great lover of the classics, of philosophy and the arts, and was a man of great eloquence, says Beza, but used it for extinguishing the true light.[789] He very much regretted that the Reformation appeared to be taking precedence of the Renaissance. He was, however, of more liberal mind than adherents of the pope usually were. He loved Melanchthon. He thought that it was not right to address the Genevese in the imperious tone of a master, with dogmatic arguments of the school, or with the intolerance of inquisitors, but rather in a polite style. Sadoleto was therefore instructed to write a letter to the Genevese in which he was to invite them mildly to return to the bosom of the Church. That the contrivances and efforts of the pope, of the Bishop de la Baume, of the Cardinal of Tournon and his colleagues, should issue only in a letter, was rather a feeble conclusion.
Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.
LETTER OF SADOLETO TO GENEVA.
But they probably saw that they were powerless to do more. The cardinal-bishop hoped to gain over the Genevese ‘by wheedling them with fine words to turn them away from Jesus Christ,’ says a contemporary, ‘and by blaming the ministers of whom God had made use for reforming the town.’[790] On March 26 his messenger, Jean Durand, of Carpentras, was admitted into the hall of the council, and delivered the missive addressed by his bishop to his well-beloved brethren the syndics, councils, and citizens of Geneva. There was not a word about the conference at Lyons. ‘It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to me to write to you. The reason is that while at Carpentras I have heard reports concerning you which partly make me sad and partly give me hope.’ Knowing how seductive flattery is, he writes the most beautiful eulogy of Geneva. ‘I love the noble aspect of your town, the order and form of your republic, the excellence of the citizens, and, above all, the exquisite humanity which you display towards all foreign people and nations.’ But by the side of this flattering picture he hastens to place a portrait not so pleasing of the reformers. ‘Certain crafty men, enemies of Christian union and peace, have cast into your town the seeds of discord. I hear on one side the weeping, sighing, and groaning of our holy Church. On the other side I perceive that these innovators are not only pestilential to souls, but also pernicious in a high degree to public and private affairs.’ Next he himself makes an almost evangelical profession. He exalts the Word of God which, says he, ‘does not entangle minds in difficult processes of reasoning; but, a heavenly affection of the heart coming to its aid, offers itself with clearness to our understandings.’ He exalts the work of Christ, ‘who was willing to be our salvation, by suffering death in the flesh and afterwards resuming an immortal life.’ He even exalts justification by faith, faith alone, which all Roman controversialists curse. ‘This everlasting salvation comes to us,’ said he, ‘by faith alone in God and in Jesus Christ. When I say by faith alone, I do not mean that charity and the duty of a Christian are dispensed with.’ Sadoleto was undoubtedly sincere in these professions. He belonged, as is known, to a small body of men feebly inclined towards the Gospel, who were at that time supported by the papacy in the hope that they would be the means of bringing back the Protestants. But he must have known well that the doctrine of the reformers, far from dispensing with duty and charity, asserted them, made them possible, and at the same time necessary.
Having thus gained his hearers, as he thought, the cardinal-bishop began the contest. ‘The loss of the soul,’ said he, ‘being the greatest ill possible to a man, our duty is, to the utmost of our power, to take care. Amidst the waves of our life we are in need of some means of escape from striking on the rocks and losing the vessel. This is what the Catholic Church has provided for fifteen hundred years; while these crafty men only began their innovations against the perpetual authority of the Church five-and-twenty years ago.’ Then follows a fine rhetorical burst which lacks nothing but truth and solidity. ‘Here is the point,’ said he; ‘here is the parting of the ways, the one road leading unto life, the other unto everlasting death. Every man arrives by his own road before the judgment-seat of the supreme Judge, Catholic and Protestant alike, there to have his cause investigated.’
The Catholics get off wonderfully, but when the turn of the Evangelicals comes it is quite otherwise with them. Sadoleto takes good care not to let the simple faithful ones appear, and brings before the tribunal only ‘one of the promoters of these divisions.’ He does not name either Luther or Calvin, but it is evident that it is one of them that he brings on the scene, probably the latter. Having leave to speak, the reformer begins thus: ‘O sovereign God! when I considered how all but universally corrupt are the morals of ecclesiastics, I was justly moved to anger against them; and when I thought also how much time I had spent in the study of theology and of human science, and that nevertheless I had not attained in the Church the rank which my labors deserved, while other men, my inferiors, were raised to honors and to benefices, I induced the greater part of the people to despise the decrees of the Church. I asserted that the bishops of Rome had falsely usurped the title of vicars of Christ; and having by this reputation of learning and wisdom obtained renown among the nations, I caused many seditions and divisions in the Church.’
CONCLUSION OF THE LETTER.
Sadoleto having made the reformer speak in this fashion, again addresses the men of Geneva, and says to them, ‘How will it turn out, then, brethren, whom I wish to be united with me?’ The result of this double appearance is inevitable, and the promoter of all this evil, ‘taking his stand upon his works, holding in contempt the general assemblies of bishops, dismembering the one spouse of Christ, and tearing to pieces the Lord’s robe, can only weep for ever over his misery, gnashing his teeth even at himself.’ Consequently, the cardinal-bishop exhorts his brethren of Geneva, after having removed all the mists of error, to abide in union with our holy mother Church.[791]
The reasoning of Sadoleto failed in its basis. He had confounded the Reformation of the sixteenth century with the so-called reforms of the preceding centuries. Those attempts, numerous enough, aimed at the morals of the clergy and the abuses of the Church without attacking the doctrine, and they miscarried. But the true Reformation directed its efforts against the false doctrines of Rome, in order to put the doctrine of the Gospel in its place. ‘It took the bull by the horns,’ as Luther says, and had him down. Liberal Catholics have imagined, that if from the first such a course as Sadoleto’s had been adopted, the course of the Reformation would have been entirely different.[792] But they are mistaken, as the Bishop of Carpentras was, who, aiming his blows at an enemy in the air, hit nothing but the air.
The council having heard the letter, very gladly accepted the compliments paid to Geneva, sincerely thanked the cardinal’s messenger, and charged him to say that a full reply should be sent in due course. This was necessary, for the partisans of the pope in Geneva praised the cardinal’s letter to the skies, and eagerly circulated it in all directions. But there was no one able to answer it. The pastors established by the government were not strong enough to venture a struggle with Sadoleto. Morand himself, who was requested by the council to undertake it, was incompetent. All those who in any degree adhered to the Reformation were in a state of alarm, for they understood that silence in this state of things would inevitably be a great calamity to Geneva.[793]
It was on March 26 that the letter in which Sadoleto urged the Genevese to forsake the Reformation had been delivered to the council, and on the 27th this body resolved to reply to it in due time and place. On the 28th several citizens appeared before the council; one of them, François Chamois, demanding on their behalf that the confession of faith of the Reformation which had been sworn at St. Peter’s, July 29, 1537, should be withdrawn from the possession of the former official secretary, as contrary to their liberties; and that they themselves should be released from the oath which they had taken to that confession.[794] There is so intimate and evident a relation between the proposal of Sadoleto and this proceeding of the citizens, the one so punctually followed upon the other, that it is very difficult not to suppose that the letter of the bishop had much to do in promoting the requisition of Chamois and his friends. The audience given by the council to the deputy of a cardinal, and the proposal of which he was the bearer, were a matter so considerable and of such exciting interest that the rumor of it could not fail to spread immediately in this town, where people so habitually used to say, ‘What is the news? What is talked of? What is going on?’
IMMEDIATE CONSEQUENCES.
Among the citizens who accompanied Chamois there might be some who did not belong to the Catholic party, and who merely took advantage of the opportunity for getting rid of a confession of faith which was burdensome to them. But it is not to be wondered at that some Roman writers have looked on the demand of Chamois as the consequence of the letter of Sadoleto. Michael Rozet, the son of Claude, says, not undesignedly, in his Chronicles, that it was one day after the reception at Geneva of the cardinal’s despatch, that the citizens protested against the articles. He even adds, ‘There was warning from neighbors of a body of armed men in preparation by the enemy, and that these had an understanding with a party in the town.’ This measure was not unsuccessful. Claude Rozet had received the oaths of the citizens on July 29, and in his hands the original of the famous articles was still deposited. The council gave him orders to deliver them up. However grave a step this might be, it cannot be said that the faith was given up with the articles of faith. Many had never held this faith, and those who had held it, held it still. Nevertheless, the surrender of the fundamental document of the evangelical reformation was certainly an important step towards Rome.[795]
It was soon apparent what was to be thought of the Christian charity, and the affection touched with double pity and compassion, of which Sadoleto had given assurance. In the very month which followed the delivery of his letter, an eminent Genevese, Curtet, castellan of Chaumont on the Mount du Vuache, went to Annecy, which was not far distant; and during his stay, April 17, in his hostelry, talked with the country people of God and his Gospel.[796] Among those present was Montchenu, who, annoyed at having failed in his scheme for giving up Geneva to Francis I., continued to feel much bitterness about it; and, quite as much out of pique as from hatred of the Reformation, denounced the Genevese citizen and inflamed the clergy against him. Curtet was seized and burnt alive.
Another Genevese, Jean Lambert, brother of the councillor, had been for some time a prisoner in Savoy, on a like charge. A week after the execution of Curtet, the public place of Chambery was filled with such a crowd as always runs after the terrible spectacle of a violent death. Lambert was brought there about three o’clock. He was a ruddy and strong young man, and they led him up and down to show him to the people. ‘This is one of the bigots of Geneva,’ people said as he passed, with other speeches of the like kind. He was taken to the front of the castle, where a pile was erected. The provost wanted him to make some confession, but Lambert did not open his mouth. ‘Slit his tongue if he will not speak,’ barbarously cried the enraged provost to the executioner. The priests who stood round their victim would fain have compelled him to recite the Ave Maria, but the martyr refused to do it. Then addressing the Father who is in heaven, he uttered aloud the Lord’s prayer. This provoked the priests and the monks, who cried to the spectators, ‘Do not pray for this cursed dog, for he is damned to all the devils.’ ‘Lambert died,’ says one of the narratives, ‘for his faith in God and without any trial.’ If the words of Sadoleto were tender, the deeds of his fellow religionists were harsh.[797]
CALVIN’S REPLY TO SADOLETO.
The letter of the Bishop of Carpentras could not remain unknown to Calvin; in fact it was communicated to him in April by Sulzer, a pastor of Berne. The reformer read it, and his first impulse was to consider whether it was worth while to reply to it. But apprehending the evil which the letter might bring on Geneva, ‘forgetting all the wrongs that he had received,’[798] and yielding to the entreaties of his Strasburg friends, he undertook the task. ‘It will occupy me for six days,’ he wrote to Farel. Calvin’s letter bears date September 1, 1539.[799] It is an important document, both for the light which it throws on the character and the work of Calvin, and because it is necessary to know in what manner the blow then struck by Rome at the Reformation was parried. This letter, we may say, was the mighty voice which led back Geneva to the true Gospel.[800] Two feelings are conspicuous in it with regard to Sadoleto. Calvin, in addressing one of the most distinguished and most enlightened men in the Catholic Church, will speak to him with respect and even with praise, but at the same time he will not hide from him the indignation aroused by his attacks.
‘Thy surpassing learning,’ says he in beginning his letter, ‘thine admirable elegance of speech, have deservedly caused thee to be held in high esteem and admiration by the true votaries of polite literature, and it is exceedingly painful to me to be obliged by this complaint to sully thy fair renown. I should never have undertaken the task if I had not been compelled to do so.... No one can suppose that I could have abandoned the cause without great cowardice and contempt of my ministry.
‘Thou hast very recently written a letter to the council and people of Geneva, and having no wish to display harshness towards those of whom thou hadst need in order to gain thy cause, thou hast attempted by soft words to circumvent them. Next, thou hast come up impetuously, and so to speak, at full speed to discharge thy force against those who, according to thy saying, have involved that poor town in trouble by their sophistries. I would have thee know, Sadoleto, that I am one of those against whom thou speakest; and although I am at the present time relieved of the administration of the Genevese Church, this does not prevent my cherishing towards it a fatherly love.
‘But for thyself, Sadoleto, a foreigner, who hast hitherto had no acquaintance at all with the people of Geneva, thou professest on a sudden to feel for them singular love and goodwill, of which, nevertheless, no fruit ever appeared. Thou who didst serve thine apprenticeship at the Court of Rome, that shop of all artifice and cunning, who wert not only brought up as it were in the arms of Pope Clement, but what is more, made a cardinal, thou hast certainly many spots which render thee suspected. The duty of pastors is to lead obedient souls straight to Christ; but thy chief aim is to deliver them over to the power of the pope.
‘With a view to cast suspicion on us thou taxest us, unjustly (for thou well knowest the contrary), with having wished only to gratify our ambition and avarice. Certain it is that if I had paid regard to my personal advantage, I should never have separated from your faction. And who would dare to cast such charges at Farel, who, born of a noble house, had no need to ask assistance from others? Was not our shortest way of attaining to wealth and honors to accept from the first the conditions which you have offered us? For what price would your pope then have purchased the silence of many, and for how much would he still purchase it to-day? Did we not require that, after having assigned to the ministers so much as was fitting for their condition, the wealth of the Church, swallowed up by those gulfs, should be distributed to the poor as in the primitive Church? Our only thought has been the extension of the kingdom of God by means of our littleness and lowliness; and to attempt to persuade men of the contrary is a thing most unbecoming to Sadoleto, a man of such high reputation for knowledge, prudence, and seriousness.
CHRISTIAN ANTIQUITY.
‘The men of Geneva, extricating themselves from the slough of error in which they were sunk, have returned to the doctrine of the Gospel, and this thou callest abandoning the truth of God! They have retired from papal subjection and tyranny in order to have a better ecclesiastical government, and this, sayest thou, is a real separation from the Church! Surely, Sadoleto, I shall stop thee on the way. Where is, on your side, the Word of God, which is the mark of the true Church? If a man belongs to God’s army he must be prepared for the battle. See, the enemy is quite near; he approaches, he fights, and he is indeed an enemy so well-conditioned that no earthly power can resist him. What armor will this poor Christian be able to put on, to save him from being overwhelmed? It is the Word of God. The soul deprived of the Word of God is delivered over to the devil, quite defenceless, to be slain. The first attempt of the enemy, therefore, will be to take from the combatant the sword of Jesus Christ. The pope, like the “illuminés,” arrogantly boasts of possessing the Spirit. But it is to insult the Holy Spirit to separate him from the Word.
‘We are more nearly in agreement with antiquity than you our opponents, as thou knowest, Sadoleto, and we ask for nothing else than to see restored that ancient face of the Church which has been torn to pieces and almost destroyed by the pope and his faction. And, not to speak of the condition of the Church as constituted by the apostles (which, however, we are bound to accept), consider what it was among the Greeks in the days of Chrysostom and Basil, and among the Latins in the days of Cyprian, Ambrose, and Augustin, and afterwards contemplate the ruins which are all that now remain to you. Thou wilt find as much difference between the two as between the Church as it flourished under David, and the Church as fallen into all kinds of superstitions under Zedekiah. Wilt thou call that man an enemy of antiquity, who, full of zeal for ancient piety, longs to restore in their first splendor the things which are now corrupted? With what right are we accused of having subverted the ancient discipline, by the very party that has abolished them?
‘Dost thou not recollect that at the time when our people began to appear, nothing was taught in the schools but pure sophistries, so tangled and twisted that scholastic theology might well be called a kind of secret magic? There were no sermons from which foolish old women did not learn more dreams than they could relate in a month by their own fireside. The first portion was devoted to obscure questions of the schools, to excite the wonder of the poor people, and the second portion to merry tales or amusing speculations, to rouse their hearts to mirth. But no sooner had our preachers raised their banner than the shadows were dispersed, and your preachers, taught by them and compelled by shame and the murmurs of the people, were obliged to follow their example, although they have still traces of these old follies.
‘Thou touchest on justification by faith. But this article, which stands supreme in our religion, has been effaced by you from the memory of men. Thou allegest that we take no account of good works. If thou lookest into my catechism, at the first word thou wilt be silent as if overcome. We deny, it is true, that they are of any avail in the justification of man, not even so much as a hair, for the Scripture gives us no hope except in the goodness of God alone. But while we deny the virtue of works in the justification of man, we attribute worth to them in the life of the just, for Christ came to create a people zealous of good works.’
We pass over the beautiful passages in which Calvin speaks of the supper, confession, the invocation of saints, purgatory, the ministry, and the Church, and we come to the moment at which he remembers that Sadoleto had cited him and his brethren ‘as criminals before the judgment-seat of God.’ He accepts that summons.
CALVIN’S DEFENCE.
‘We prick up our ears,’ said he, ‘at this sound of the trumpet which the very ashes of the dead will hear in the depths of their graves.’ And then, not only in his own name but in that of all the reformers, Calvin says to God:—
‘I have ever appealed to thy tribunal, Lord, from the accusations with which I have been harassed on the earth, and it is with the same confidence that I now appear before thee, knowing that in thy judgments truth prevails. They have accused me of very grievous crimes and of heresy. But in the first place, what have I done? Seeing that, with no regard to thy Word, they abused the common people, and made a mock at them by I know not what sort of drivelling, I dared to contradict their constitutions. Thy Christ was indeed adored as God, but he was virtually without honor; for deprived of his virtue and of his power, he was lost sight of in the crowd of saints, as if merely one of the common mass. There were none who rested in his righteousness alone; and if any one, enjoying thy loving kindness and the righteousness of thy Son, conceived a sure hope of salvation, this was, they said, rash presumption and foolish arrogance. Then, O Lord, thou didst set before me thy Word, like a torch, to make me know how pernicious these things are; and thou hast touched my heart, to the end that I may hold them in abhorrence.
‘They have accused me of schism. But is that man to be reputed a traitor who, when he sees the soldiers quitting the ranks, forgetting their captain, the battle, and the oath which they have taken, scattered, wandering to and fro, raises the standard, calls them back, and sets them again in order? To recall them from such wanderings I have not given to the wind a strange flag, but that noble standard which it is necessary we should follow, if we would be enrolled in the number of thy people. But those whose duty it was to keep the soldiers in good order and who have on the contrary cast them into error, have laid hands on me, and the conflict has been so furious as to break up union. But on which side is the fault? It is for thee, Lord, now to say and to decide.
‘If I had desired to maintain peace with those who boast of being the foremost in the Church, I could have purchased it only by the renunciation of the truth. I have felt it my duty to risk all the dangers of the world rather than stoop to a compact so abominable. But I do not think that by being at war with those great ones I am at variance with thy Church. Thy Son, and thine apostles, had foretold that there would be ravening wolves even amongst those who gave themselves out for pastors. Was I bound then to give them my hand? The prophets were not schismatics by reason of their contending against the priests. For my part, confirmed by their example, I have so persisted in my course that neither their threats nor their denunciations have in the least degree amazed me.
‘Commotions have followed; but as they were not caused by me, they ought not to be imputed to me. Thou knowest well, Lord, that I have had no other object in view except this, that by thy Word all controversy might be terminated. Thou knowest that I have not objected, even at the peril of my life, that peace should be restored in the Church. But what did our adversaries do? Did they not run off suddenly and furiously to the fire, to the gallows, to the sword? Did they not stir up people of all ranks to the same rage?... Hence it has come to pass that such a war has been kindled. And whatever may be thought, I am freed from all fear, since we are before thy judgment-seat where justice and truth meet together.’
HIS FIRST FAITH.
At this point Calvin narrates his conversion. It is an important part of his defence, and we cannot omit it. He still addresses the Supreme Judge:—
‘As for me,[801] Lord, I confessed the Christian faith as I had learnt it from my youth.
‘At that time there were but few people to whom was committed the pursuit of that divine and secret philosophy, and it was with them that the oracles had to be sought. But they had not instructed me well respecting either the adoration of thy divinity, or an assured hope of salvation, or the obligation of a Christian life. To obtain thy mercy they showed no other means than making satisfaction for our sins, and blotting out thy remembrance of them by our good works. They said that thou wast a rigorous judge, severely avenging iniquity; they pointed out how terrible thy look must be, and commanded us to address the saints, to the end that through their intercession thou mightest be made propitious to us. But when I had done all these things, and although to some extent I relied on them, I was very far from having a quiet and trustful conscience. Every time that I descended into myself, or lifted up my heart to thee, a horror so extreme seized upon me that there were neither purifications nor satisfactions that could heal me. The more closely I considered my case, the sharper became the stings with which my conscience was tormented: there was neither solace nor comfort left me.
‘As nothing better was offered me, I pursued the course which I had begun, when there arose an entirely different form of doctrine, not intended to turn us away from the Christian profession, but to trace it back to its real source, and to restore it in its purity, cleansed from all defilement. Offended with this novelty, I would not listen to it; and I confess that at the outset I did courageously resist it. One thing especially kept me from believing those people; this was reverence for the Church.
‘But after I had consented sometimes to be instructed, I perceived that the fear of seeing the majesty of the Church lessened was idle. These people showed that there was a wide difference between forsaking the Church and correcting the vices with which she was defiled; and that if they spoke freely against the Pope of Rome, held to be the vicar of Christ and head of the Church, they did so because these titles were only idle terrors which ought not to dazzle the eyes of the faithful; that the pope had risen to such magnificence only when ignorance oppressed the world like deep sleep; that it was by his own authority and sole will that he had elected himself, and that we were under no obligation to endure the tyranny with which he oppressed the nations, if we desired that the kingdom of Christ should remain in its fulness amongst us; that when this principality was erected, the genuine order of the Church was wholly lost, the keys (ecclesiastical order) wickedly falsified, Christian liberty suppressed, and the kingdom of Christ totally overthrown.
‘When I began to discover in what a slough of errors I had wallowed and with how many stains I was disgraced, desperately alarmed and distracted at the sight of the misery into which I had fallen, and by the knowledge of the eternal death which was at hand, I condemned with tears and groans my former way of life, and esteemed nothing more needful for me than to betake myself to thine. What then is left for me to do, for me poor and miserable, but to offer to thee, as all my vindication, a humble supplication not to impute to me the so horrible forsaking and estrangement from thy Word, from which thou hast once rescued me by thy marvellous kindness?’
THE REAL SCHISMATICS.
Having finished his pleading before the Judge, Calvin returns to Sadoleto and says: ‘Now, if it seem good to thee, compare this address with that which thou hast put into the mouth of thy man, whose defence turns only on this hinge, to wit, that he constantly kept the religion which had been handed down to him by his forefathers and predecessors. His salvation is in great peril, without a shadow of doubt; for on the same ground Jews, Turks, and Saracens would escape the judgment of God. The tribunal will not then be prepared to accept the authority of men, but to maintain the truth of God. Your doctors will not then have a stage at hand for the sale, without risk, of their imitation gems, and for the abuse of consciences by their trumpery and inventions. They will remain what they are, and they will fall by the judgment of God, which depends not on popular favor, but on his unchangeable justice.
‘Although thou treatest us with too little humanity in the whole of thy letter, it is nevertheless in the last clause, in the plainest terms, that thou imputest to us the most enormous of all crimes, to wit, that we disperse and tear to pieces the spouse of Jesus Christ. What! would the spouse of Jesus Christ be torn in pieces by those who desire to present her as a chaste virgin to Christ, and who, finding her polluted with many stains, recall her to her plighted faith? Was not the purity of the Church destroyed by strange doctrines, disgraced by innumerable superstitions, tainted by the worship of images? Indeed, because we did not endure that the sacred resting place and nuptial chamber of Christ should be thus defiled by you, we are accused of having dismembered his spouse. It is you that have been guilty of this laceration, and not with regard to the Church only, but with regard to Jesus Christ himself, whom you have miserably cut in pieces. Where is the wholeness of Christ, when the glory of his righteousness, of his holiness, of his wisdom, is transferred to others?
‘I acknowledge that since the Gospel has appeared anew, great conflicts have been occasioned. But it is not at our door that the guilt of this is to be laid. We ask for a peace with which the kingdom of Christ shall flourish; but you judge that all that is gained for Christ is lost to you. Pray the Lord, Sadoleto, that thou and thy people may once for all understand that there is no other bond in the church but Christ our Lord, who withdraws us from the dissipations of the world to place us in the society of his body, to the end that by his only Word and by his Spirit, we may be united in one heart and one thought!
‘Strasburg, the 1st day of September, 1539.’
This letter found its way wherever the great question of the age was discussed, and made a deep impression. There were in it an impulse, a strength, a freedom, and a life which people were not accustomed to find in the writings of the Roman doctors. Luther greatly rejoiced in it, and soon after its publication sent a ‘respectful’ greeting to Calvin. At the same time, struck by the Romish presumption of Sadoleto, he added, with a touch of malice, ‘I wish that Sadoleto could believe that God is the Creator of men even beyond the borders of Italy.’[802] He expressed his joy that God raised up men like Calvin, and, far from looking on him as an antagonist, he saw in him a doctor who would continue what he had himself begun against Antichrist, and with God’s help would complete it.
EFFECT OF THE REPLY AT GENEVA.
But it was especially at Geneva that Calvin’s letter made a deep impression. The respect which he had shown to Sadoleto prepossessed people in his favor; and the eloquence of his discourse, that gift of the soul which he possessed, made him master of men’s minds. In his thought and in his expressions there was a close correspondence with the disposition of a large number of his readers. Moreover, it was impossible to read the two letters without seeing that the young evangelical doctor had beaten the Roman cardinal. And then, was not the cause in behalf of which Calvin had given battle that of Geneva? Was not the defeat of Sadoleto, and thereby also that of his constituents, the pope and the conference of Lyons, the greatest service that could be rendered to the republic? And finally had not this man whom they had driven away spoken of the town which had expelled him with fatherly love? Did he not say in his letter, ‘I cannot divert my attention from the Church of Geneva; I cannot love it less nor hold it less dear than my own soul.... Consider what folly it would be not to lay to heart the ruin of those for whose protection I am bound to watch day and night.’
Sadoleto could not conceal from himself the force of the blow which he had received, nor did he venture to reply. The general himself being beaten, the staff dispersed. There was nothing more said about the conference of Lyons, and the Bishop de la Baume was not long before he disappeared from the scenes of this world. At the same time that Calvin replied to Sadoleto, he wrote to Neuchâtel, Lausanne, and Geneva. He called the inhabitants of the latter town to repentance towards God, to patient bearing with the wicked, and to peace with their pastors; and above all he exhorted them to call upon God.[803] Geneva was confirmed in her love for a cause which had been so well defended against the attacks of one of the most distinguished orators of the age, and the gates of the city, lately closed against the reformer, began to open again.
Calvin had at this time to do with another Catholic doctor of much less worth than Sadoleto, Caroli. This man is not worth the trouble of dwelling long on anything that concerns him. As he had not succeeded in gaining the good graces of the pope or of the Cardinal Tournon, he made one more change and turned anew towards the reformers. Farel received him with much kindness, believed in his promises and made peace with him. Caroli came to Strasburg. Bucer, as kind by nature as Farel, nevertheless requested Calvin to make known all the faults of the adventurer. This the reformer declined to do, believing that it would have no good result; but he invited the haughty doctor to confess cordially and sincerely that he had sinned. Instead of this a writing was handed to Calvin in which Caroli said, ‘that he left to the judgment of the Lord the offences which had been committed against himself, and which had induced him to quit the Evangelical Church.’ The reformer was indignant. ‘This stirred my bile so much,’ said he, ‘that I discharged it with bitterness. I declared that I would sooner die than sign such a paper as that.’ He yielded, however, a little to his friends, and said that he would consider the matter with more care before giving a decisive answer. Hardly had he returned to his own house when he was seized with an extraordinary paroxysm. ‘I could find no consolation,’ said he to Farel, ‘but in sighs and tears; and what afflicted me most was the circumstance that you were the cause of all this mischief. You ought not to have received him anew into our communion until he solemnly confessed his offence and declared that he repented of it. But now that you have received him, prevent at least your people from insulting him.’[804] Ere long, however, Calvin’s friends at Strasburg and Farel himself acknowledged that they had been too indulgent. Caroli, finding that the churches of Neuchâtel and Strasburg refused to comply with the requests that he addressed to them, retired to Metz. From that place he wrote to Calvin a letter in which he offered to be reconciled with him if he would get a benefice for him. He seemed to wish to overawe him by reproaches and idle bravado. Calvin asked him how it came to pass that he had made a boast before the adversaries of Christ at Metz that he was prepared to convict of heresy the reformer and his friends. He added that he was not able to procure for him the church which he asked for, in the first place because he had none at his disposal, and further because he could not do so while they were not in agreement about doctrines. ‘Turn you seriously to the Lord,’ he said to him, ‘and then you will be able to return to us with that friendship and brotherly concord which Farel and I are prepared, in that case, to show you.’ Caroli did not adopt this friendly council. He returned to Rome, and died in a hospital there of want and, it is said, of foul diseases.[805]