"'We believe and confess,'" Calvin proceeded, "'that Jesus Christ, being God's wisdom and His eternal Son, clad himself in our flesh to the end of being both God and man in one person. We worship Him so entirely in His divinity, that we strip Him of His humanity. We believe and confess that God, by sending us His Son, wished to show His ineffable goodness toward us, and by delivering Him to death and raising Him from the dead, wished that justice be done and heavenly life be gained for us.'"
"Glory to God!" cried the reformers. "He has sent us His Son to redeem us with His blood! God has been crucified for the salvation of man!"
Communing with himself, Christian Lebrenn only said: "Another absurdity laid by Calvin at the door of the Godhead. Can God condemn man for the pleasure of afterwards redeeming him? O, Christ! Poor carpenter of Nazareth, the friend of the afflicted, the penitent and the disinherited, you do not wrap yourself in an impenetrable cloud. I see your pale and sweet smile encircled by a bloody aureola, and bearing a stamp that is truly human. Your divine words are accessible even to the intelligence of children. Your Evangelical morality should and will be the code of all humankind. The chains of the slave will be broken, said you now more than fifteen hundred years ago; and yet, the Pharisees, who call themselves your priests, have, during all these centuries, owned slaves, later serfs, and to-day they count their vassals by the thousands. Love ye one another, said you; and yet, the Pharisees, who call themselves your priests, caused, and to this hour continue to cause, torrents of Christian blood to flow. I do not share the belief of the reformers, but I remain with them body and soul so long as they combat the cruelties, the iniquities and the idolatries of the Roman Church! I remain body and soul with them so long as they devote their lives to the triumph of your doctrine, O, Christ! in the name of equality and human fraternity! In that does the real strength lie, the real power of the Reformation. Of what concern to us are those Mosaic dogmas concerning original sin, the fatedness of evil, the inherent wickedness of man? The Reformation acts valiantly, it acts generously, it acts in a Christian spirit in seeking to restore your Church, O, Christ! to its simplicity and pristine purity by combating the Pope of Rome."
Calvin continued: "'We believe and confess that, thanks to the sacrifice our Lord Jesus Christ offered on the cross, we are reconciled to God and fit to be held and looked upon as just before Him. Accordingly, we believe that we owe to Jesus Christ our full and perfect deliverance. We believe and confess that, without disparagement of virtues and deserving qualities, we depend upon them for the remission of our sins only through our faith, and the law of Jesus Christ.'"
"The law and faith in Jesus Christ is embraced in that" responded the reformers. "It is our code. The law and faith in Jesus Christ—that means love towards our fellow men; it means equality; it means fraternity; it means revolt against the idolatries, in whose name the greatest malefactors are and believe themselves absolved of their crimes by the purchase of indulgences! Only through faith and the practice of the Evangelical law will our sins be remitted."
"'We believe and confess,'" proceeded Calvin, "'that whereas Jesus Christ has been given us as the only intermediary between us and God, and since He recommends to us that we withdraw into seclusion in order to address, in private and in His name, our prayers to His Father, all the inventions of men concerning the intercession of martyred saints is but fraud and deception, schemed in order to lead mankind aside from the straight and narrow path. Furthermore, we hold purgatory to be an illusion of the same nature, likewise monastic vows, pilgrimages, the ordinance of celibacy to clergymen, auricular confession, and the ceremonial observance of certain days when a meat diet is forbidden. Finally we consider illusions the indulgences and other idolatrous practices through which grace and salvation are expected, and we regard them as human inventions calculated to shackle human conscience.'"
"That is the essence of the Reformation," said Christian Lebrenn, apart. "The reform of action, the militant reform. Hence it is that my dignity as a man, my mind and my heart are with it. It is a long step towards the reign of pure reason, planted upon the freedom of inquiry. The road is cleared. Man is in direct communion and communication with God through prayer, without the intervention of any church. No more Popes—the incarnation of divine and human autocracy, as Ignatius Loyola understands it! No more dissolute and savage pontiffs, claiming to be Your vicars, O, God of mercy! No more saints, no more purgatory! Down goes the traffic in indulgences! No more monastic vows—the idle monks shall become honest and industrious citizens! No more priestly celibacy—the pastors shall themselves become heads of families! No more auricular confession—a bar to Ignatius Loyola, whose aim is to take possession of the conscience of mankind by means of the tribunal of penitence; through the conscience of mankind, the soul of man; through the soul, the body; and thus to rear the most frightful theocratic tyranny! O, sweet carpenter of Nazareth! May the Reformation triumph! May your Evangelical law in all its pristine purity become the law of the world! The power of the casqued, the mitred or the crowned oppressors will then have ceased to be! No more Kings, no more priests, no more masters!"
"No more Popes! No more cardinals, or bishops! No more idolatry! No more celibacy! No more adoration of images! No more confession! No more intermediaries between God and man! Such is our confession, such our belief," cried the reformers in answer to Calvin, who continued:
"'We believe and confess those Romish inventions to be pure idolatries. We reject them. Sustained by the authority of the sacred books, by the words and acts of the apostles—I Timothy 2; John 16; Matthew 6 and 10; Luke 11, 12 and 15; the Epistle to the Romans 14, and other Evangelical texts—we believe and confess that where the word of God is not received there is no Church. Therefore we reject the assemblages of the papacy, whence divine truth is banished, where the sacraments are corrupted, adulterated and falsified, while superstitious and idolatrous practices flourish and thrive in their midst.'"
"Yes," answered the assembled reformers, "let us draw away from the usurping Roman Church—that impure Babylon; that sink of all vices; that notorious harlot; that poisoned well, whence flow all the ills that afflict humanity! No more Popes, bishops, priests or monks!"