For twenty-eight years the name of Calvin was inseparably associated with that of the city which owes its chief renown to his connection with it. Excepting the three years of exile, from 1538 to 1541, occasioned by a powerful reaction against his rigid system of public morality, he was, during the whole of this period, the recognized head of the Genevese commonwealth. A complete mastery of the principles of law, acquired by indefatigable study at Orleans and Bourges, before the loftier teachings of theology engrossed his time and faculties, qualified him to draw up a code to regulate the affairs of his adopted country. If its detailed prohibitions and almost Draconian severity are repugnant to the spirit of the present age, the general wisdom of the legislator is vindicated by the circumstance that he transformed a city noted for the prevalence of every form of turbulence and immorality into the most orderly republic of Christendom. Few, it is true, will be found to defend the theory respecting the duty of the state toward the church in which Calvin acquiesced. But the cruel deaths of Gruet and Servetus were only the legitimate fruits of the doctrine that the civil authority is both empowered and bound to exercise vigilant supervision over the purity of the church. In this doctrine the reformers of the sixteenth century were firm believers. They held, as John Huss had held a hundred years before, that Truth could appropriately appeal for support to physical force, under circumstances that would by no means have justified a similar resort on the part of Error. The consistent language of their lives was, "If we speak not the truth, we refuse not to die." "If the Pope condemns the pious for heresy, and furious judges unjustly execute on the innocent the penalty due to heretics, what madness is it thence to infer that heretics ought not to be destroyed for the purpose of aiding the pious! As for myself, since I read that Paul said that he did not refuse death if he had done anything to deserve it, I openly offered myself frequently prepared to undergo sentence of death, if I had taught anything contrary to the doctrine of piety. And I added, that I was most worthy of any punishment imaginable, if I seduced any one from the faith and doctrine of Christ. Assuredly I cannot have a different view with regard to others from that which I entertain respecting myself."[411] So wrote Farel, and almost all his contemporaries agreed with him. And thus it happened that the conscientious Calvin and the polished Beza were at the pains of writing long treatises, to prove that "heretics are justly to be constrained by the sword,"[412] almost at the very moment when they were begging the Bernese to intercede with their ally, King Henry the Second, of France, in behalf of the poor Protestants languishing in the dungeons of Lyons, or writing consolatory letters to Peloquin and De Marsac, destined to suffer death in the flames not many days before the execution of the Spanish physician at Geneva.[413]
His fault the fault of the age.
In truth, however, it was less Calvin than the age in which he lived that must be held responsible for the crime against humanity with which his name has come to be popularly associated. He did, indeed, desire and urge that Servetus should be punished capitally, although he made an earnest but unsuccessful effort to induce the magistrates to mitigate the severity of the sentence, by the substitution of some more merciful mode of execution.[414] But the other principal reformers of Germany and Switzerland—Melanchthon, Haller, Peter Martyr, and Bullinger gave their hearty endorsement to the cruel act;[415] while if any further proof were needed to attest the sincerity and universality of approval accorded to it, it is afforded by the last letters of the brave men who were themselves awaiting at Chambéry, a few mouths later, death by the same excruciating fate as that which befell Servetus at Geneva.[416]
Calvin shuns notoriety.
The prominence obtained by Calvin as chief theologian and pastor of the church of Geneva, however, was foreign to his tastes. He was by preference a scholar, averse to notoriety, fond of retirement, and, if we are to believe his own judgment, timid and even pusillanimous by nature.[417] He had in vain sought seclusion in France. From Basle and Strasbourg he made a hasty retreat in order to preserve his incognito, and avoid the fame the Institutes were likely to earn for him.[418] Only Farel's adjuration detained him in Geneva, and he subsequently confessed that his fortitude was not so great but that he rejoiced even more than was meet when the turbulent Genevese expelled him from their city.[419] But not even then was he able to secure the coveted quiet, for Martin Bucer was not slow in imitating the urgency of Farel, and employed the warning example of the prophet Jonah seeking to flee from the will of the Almighty, to induce him to employ himself in the organization and administration of the French church at Strasbourg.[420] Not less decided was Calvin's reluctance to accede to the repeated invitations of the council and people of Geneva, that he should return and resume his former position.
His character and natural endowments.
He is consulted by Protestants in every quarter of Europe.
Such was the man who was called to take the reins of the spiritual direction, not only of a single small city, but of a large body of earnest thinkers throughout France, and even to distant parts of Christendom—a man of stern and uncompromising devotion to that system which he believed to be truth; of slender imagination, but of a memory prodigious in its grasp, of an understanding wonderfully acute, and of a power of exposition and expression unsurpassed by that possessed by any writer among his contemporaries. His constitution, naturally weak, had been still further enfeebled by excessive application to study. In his letters there are frequent references to the interruptions occasioned by violent pains in his head, often compelling him to stop many times in the writing of a single letter.[421] His strength was taxed to the utmost by the unremitting toil incident to his multifarious occupations. The very recital of his labors fills us with amazement. He preached twice every Sunday, besides frequent sermons on other days. He lectured three times a week on theology. He made addresses in the consistory, and delivered a lecture every Friday in the conference on the Scriptures known as the "Congrégation." To these public burdens must be added others imposed upon him by his wide reputation. From all parts of the Protestant world, but especially from every spot in France where the Reformation had gained a foothold, the opinion of Calvin was eagerly sought on various points of doctrine and ecclesiastical practice. To Geneva, and especially to Calvin, the obscure and persecuted adherents of the same faith, not less than the most illustrious of the Protestant nobility, looked for counsel and direction. Under his guidance that system was adopted for supplying France with ministers of the Gospel which led the Venetian ambassador, near the end of the great reformer's life, to describe Geneva as the mine from which the ore of heresy was extracted.[422] How faithfully he discharged the trust committed to him is sufficiently attested by a voluminous correspondence, some portions of which have escaped the wreck of time; while the steady advance of the doctrines he advocated is an enduring monument to the zeal and sagacity of his exertions.
Meets with bitter opposition,
but obtains the support of the people.