Great Christians of France: Saint Louis and Calvin

by François Guizot

Farel had conquered, but his victory gave him great uneasiness and apprehension. He was as conscientious as he was courageous, and did not deceive himself as to the defects of his work; the reformed faith was triumphant at Geneva, but the foundations of the reformed Church were not laid, nor did Farel feel that he was capable of establishing a church: he lacked the knowledge and authority, the intellect and judicious tact which are necessary for such a task; his vocation was religious warfare, not the organization of a new religious society. In the midst of his perplexity, a French refugee at Geneva, the canon Louis du Tillet,—who was, as we have seen, a lukewarm reformer, and had formerly received Calvin at Angoulême, leaving France with him afterwards,—hurried to Farel's house and told him that Calvin, the author of the 'Institutes of the Christian Religion,' had just arrived; that he had been driven out of Italy, where he had gained great renown teaching and preaching the reformed religion; but that he was only passing through Geneva, and was on his way to Basle or Strasburg. Farel immediately hurried to Calvin, implored him to stay at Geneva, to establish himself there, and work with him to secure the complete triumph of the reformed religion. Calvin refused, pleading the studies he had commenced, his desire of pursuing them, and his dislike to a public and stormy life. Farel pressed him eagerly; Calvin persisted in his refusal. 'When he saw,' says Calvin, 'that he could gain nothing by prayer, he tried imprecation, demanding that it might please God to curse my retirement and the tranquillity which I was seeking for my studies, if I held back and refused to give succour and aid at a time of such urgent need. And these words terrified and shook me as if God from on high had stretched out his hand upon me to stop me, so that I renounced the journey which I had undertaken; but conscious of my diffidence and timidity, I refused to bind myself to undertake any definite office.' [Footnote 71]

[Footnote 71: Calvin's Preface to the Commentaries on the Psalms.]

At first he only engaged to give instruction, in St. Peter's church, in the Holy Scriptures; he began to do so on the 1st of September, and with such success that, on the 5th of the month, Farel said at a meeting of the Council of State, that 'the lectures which had been commenced in the cathedral by the Frenchman were absolutely necessary, and he entreated the Council to retain that minister and provide for his maintenance.' The Council consented, but they did not assign Calvin any official function, and merely spoke of him as the Frenchman. [Footnote 72]

[Footnote 72: 'Iste Gallus.']

Calvin's powers were almost immediately manifested on a very solemn occasion. A conference had been arranged at which Catholics and Reformers should meet and freely discuss their differences of faith and ecclesiastical discipline, and it was held at Lausanne, towards the close of September 1536. Both Farel and Calvin were present, Farel as the chief representative of Geneva, Calvin as his ally and auxiliary. The conference lasted seven days, and until the 5th Farel took the lead in the debate; Calvin was silent. At length he took up the question of the real presence of Christ at the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and after expressing his ideas as to the nature of the debate itself, he protested strongly against the reproach of the Catholics against the Reformers that they despised the Fathers of the Church, their belief and traditions: 'We read them, and learn more from them than you do,' said Calvin; 'but we cannot submit unreservedly to their judgment, because the Word of God forbids us to do so. How can you dare to assert that whoever does not acknowledge the absolute authority of the Fathers thereby rejects all authority whatsoever, even that of the law and the rulers of his country?' And here he referred to all the principal Fathers of the Church, especially Tertullian, St. Augustine, and Chrysostom; he traced back all their thoughts to the New Testament itself, to the Epistles of St. Paul, and that with so much learning and eloquence that Joseph Jandy, a monk who was present at the conference, suddenly started up and called out 'that at length he had found the truth and could understand the teaching of the Gospel; that if he did not receive it he should commit the sin against the Holy Ghost; that he now confessed his errors, and prayed God to grant the same grace to his brethren that they might also confess theirs.'

Calvin's arguments and eloquence produced so deep an impression, both in the conference and elsewhere, that the reformed religion was formally adopted and proclaimed at Lausanne and throughout the Pays de Vaud, as it had formerly been at Geneva, and Calvin returned to the latter city towards the middle of October with greatly augmented fame and influence.

He had need of it; for the task which awaited him and which he imposed upon himself was indescribably complicated and arduous. He desired to establish and promote Christian faith in accordance with his own views;—to secure to the religious society which had been founded in virtue of that faith, on the one hand religious independence from state control, and on the other due authority and power in matters of religion over its members and faithful adherents; to reform public and private morality both in civil and religious society, in the name of the allied powers of Church and State, and by their mutual help. Such was the threefold design which Calvin hoped to accomplish. No doubt he had not set it very distinctly before him, nor had he fully realized all that it involved and all its difficulties, but he commenced the struggle with a stout heart and resolute mind.

He returned to Geneva with Farel in October 1536, was elected pastor and, under this title, solemnly installed in the church of St. Peter. The first time that he preached there the crowd thronged around him with loud expressions of satisfaction, and he was obliged to promise those who had been unable to hear him that he would preach again on the following day. He and Farel together drew up a confession of faith: 'a brief formula of belief and doctrine,' says Beza, 'to give some shape to the newly established Church. Calvin also wrote a catechism, not that which we have at the present time, arranged in questions and answers, but one which consisted of brief summaries of all the principal tenets of our religion.' On the 10th of November in the same year, Farel submitted the confession to the Council of Two Hundred, who ordained 'that the articles should be regularly observed by the citizens,' but did not definitely adopt them, and adjourned the discussion of them to another day.

This first confession of faith by the reformed Church in France was simple in form, moderate in tone, and free from many of the theological controversies which afterwards arose among the reformers; its principal object was to separate the reformed faith clearly and entirely from the Church of Rome, its traditions, its priestcraft, and its worship; at the same time it was entirely in harmony with the facts, dogmas, and precepts contained in the Scriptures, the authority of which it asserted as the fixed basis and law of Christian faith. The confession is divided into twenty-one articles. The starting-point of the three first is the word and law of God 'as they are contained in the Holy Scriptures,' and at their close all the Ten Commandments are inserted according to the version given in the Book of Exodus. The ten subsequent articles enumerate and announce the fundamental doctrines of evangelical orthodoxy; namely, the natural depravity of man, the redemption by our Lord Jesus Christ, the necessity of faith in Christ for regeneration and salvation, and they end with the insertion of the whole of the Apostles' Creed and the Lord's Prayer, together with this previous declaration: 'All that Jesus Christ did and suffered for our redemption, we believe truly and without doubt as it is stated in the creed which is recited in the Church.' The eight remaining articles treat of the sacraments of the Church, which they reduce to two, baptism and the Lord's Supper; they very briefly indicate the essential principles of ecclesiastical organization, the duties of the pastor to his flock, and of believers to the civil powers: 'By which we mean that every Christian is bound to pray to God for the prosperity of the rulers and governors of the country in which he lives, to obey the statutes and decrees which are not in opposition to the commandments of God, to strive to promote the public welfare, peace, and profit, and to take no part in schemes which may provoke danger and dissension.' At the same time in the hands of the Church, and to be exercised by its authority, these articles formally establish 'the punishment of excommunication which we hold to be a sacred and salutary weapon in the hands of believers, so that the wicked by their evil conversation may not corrupt the good and dishonour Christ. We hold that it is expedient and according to the ordinance of God, that all open idolaters, blasphemers, murderers, thieves, adulterers and false witnesses, all seditious and quarrelsome persons, slanderers, pugilists, drunkards, and spendthrifts, if they do not amend their lives after they have been duly admonished, shall be cut off from communion with believers until they have given satisfactory proof of repentance.' [Footnote 73]