His Institutes were scarcely finished before Calvin went to Italy to see Rénée de France, daughter of Louis XII. and duchess of Ferrara, who had, like Marguérite de Valois, opened her heart to the Reformed faith. This visit established a correspondence which was never interrupted, and Calvin still wrote to her when on his death-bed.
In 1536 he was appointed pastor and professor at Geneva. The religious, moral, intellectual, and even political revolution he brought into that town with him, is beside our work. Let us only add, that from his new country he never ceased to act upon France by his books, his letters, and by the numerous students, who, after having received his lessons, carried back to their churches what he had taught them. Calvin was the guide of the French Reformers, their counsellor, the soul of their first synods; and the immense authority he exercised over them was so well recognised, that the name of Calvinists was given to them about the middle of the sixteenth century.
“He was most restless for the advance of his sect,” says Etienne Pasquier. “When our prisons were gorged with victims, he incessantly exhorted, consoled, confirmed them by his letters, and never wanted messengers, to whom the doors were open, despite whatever trouble the gaolers might take.”[16]
Considering the irreparable loss the Romish church has suffered through this Reformer, we are little astonished at the anathemas she poured upon him, and with which she still pursues him. She has measured the strength of her blows according to the magnitude of her wounds. We are not penning Calvin’s apology, but some short explanations may not be out of place here. Calvin has been accused of ambition. He had only that which is common to men of genius, who are thrust into the foremost rank by the instinct of ordinary minds, and by the force of circumstances. Did they refuse to ascend, they would not be humble; they would be unfaithful to their mission, and prevaricators. The vulgar herd, which sees their lofty position, raises the cry of pride: it judges the vocation of great souls by its own.
It is also said that Calvin was absolute and inflexible in his ideas. Yes, because he had strong convictions, with the consciousness of his own superiority. And if we consider the wants of his time, it will be acknowledged, perhaps, that this was the only way of preventing the new doctrines from failure in every sense, and being lost.
That he should appear to us, at the distance we are from him, with our opinions and our manners, to have fallen into grave errors, may be conceived. But to judge him properly, it is from his own point of view, and from that of his age, that we must observe him—not from our own.
We are constantly reminded of the execution of Michel Servet. If it be said that this was an act to be deeply deplored, the remark is just; but if Calvin is accused of contradicting his own maxims, it will only be proved that those who make the accusation have never studied them. The Protestants claimed the right of citizenship in Germany, in Switzerland, in France, in the name, in the sole name of the Divine truth of which they judged themselves to be the faithful interpreters, and never in the name of liberty of belief and of worship. To convince oneself of this, it is only necessary to read the detail of their trials. Not a single word could be found in the whole volume of Crespin’s Martyrs, expressive of toleration understood in the sense of Bayle, Locke, and modern ideas. They justify themselves by texts from the Bible, and summon their adversaries to prove that their faith is not conformable to it, or able to absolve them. Their defence is here, and here only. If it had been proposed to them to accord similar rights to those whom they themselves regarded as impious or heretics, they would have beheld herein a rebellion against the will of God. It is not, therefore, Calvin who set up the stake of Michel Servet: it is the whole sixteenth century.[17]
If Rome beholds in this act an excuse for her own intolerance, we do not deny it. But it is no excuse for her refinements of cruelty; it is none for her slaughters en masse, nor for her perpetual violations of plighted faith. Either no treaty of peace, no contract between the two worships ought to have been accepted, or, when they were accepted, they ought to have been kept.