§ 138.2. Calvin before his Genevan Ministry.—John Calvin, son of diocesan procurator Gerhard Cauvin, was born on 10th July, A.D. 1509, at Noyou in Picardy. Intended for the church, he was, from his twelfth year, in possession of a benefice. Meeting with his relation Olivetan, he had his first doubts of the truth of the Catholic system awakened. With his father’s consent he now turned to the study of law, which he eagerly prosecuted for four years at Orleans and Bourges. At Bourges, Melchior Wolmar, a German professor of Greek, exercised so powerful an influence over him, especially through the study of the Scriptures, that he decided, after the death of his father, to devote himself exclusively to theology. With this intention he went to Paris in A.D. 1532, and there enthusiastically adopted the principles of the Reformation. The newly appointed rector of the university, Nic. Cop, had to deliver an address on the Feast of All Saints. Calvin prepared it for him, and expressed therein such liberal and evangelical views, as had never before been uttered in that place. Cop read it boldly, and escaped the outburst of wrath only by a timely flight. Calvin, too, found it prudent to quit Paris. The bloody persecution of the Protestants by Francis I. led him at last to leave France altogether. So he went, in A.D. 1535, to Basel, where he became acquainted with Capito and Grynæus. In the following year he issued the first sketch of the Institutio Religionis Christianæ. It was made as a defence of the Protestants of France, persecuted by Francis on the pretext that they held Anabaptist and revolutionary views. He therefore dedicated the book to the king, with a noble and firm address. He soon left Basel, and went to the court of the evangelical-minded Duchess Renata of Ferrara (§ [139, 22]), in order to secure her good offices for his fellow countrymen suffering for their faith. He won the full confidence of the duchess, but after some weeks was banished the country by her husband. On his journey back to Basel, Farel and Viret detained him in Geneva in A.D. 1536, and declared that he was called to be a preacher and teacher of theology. On 1st October, A.D. 1536, the three reformers, at a public disputation in Lausanne, defended the principles of the Reformation. Viret remained in Lausanne, and perfected the work of Reformation there. As a confession of faith, a catechism, not in dialogue form, was composed by Calvin as a popular summary of his Institutio in the French language, and was sworn to, in A.D. 1536, by all the citizens of Geneva.The Catechismus Genevensis, highly prized in all the Reformed churches, was a later redaction, which appeared first in French in A.D. 1542, and then in Latin, in A.D. 1545.[370]
§ 138.3. Calvin’s First Ministry in Geneva, A.D. 1536-1538.—In Geneva, as in other places, there sprang up alongside of the Reformation, and soon in deadly opposition to it, an antinomian libertine sect, which strove for freedom from all restraint and order (§ [146, 4]). In the struggle against this dangerous development, which found special favour among the aristocratic youth of Geneva, Calvin put forth all the power of his logical mind and unbending will, and sought to break its force by the exercise of an excessively strict church discipline. He created a spiritual consistory which arrogated to itself the exclusive right of church discipline and excommunication, and wished to lay upon the magistrates the duty of inflicting civil punishments on all persons condemned by it. But not only did the libertine sections offer the most strenuous opposition, but also the magistrates regarded with jealousy and suspicion the erection of such a tribunal. Magistrates and libertines therefore combined to overthrow the consistory. A welcome pretext was found in a synod at Lausanne in A.D. 1538, which condemned the abolition of all festivals but the Sundays, the removal of baptismal fonts from the churches, and the introduction of leavened bread at the Lord’s Supper by the Genevan church as uncalled for innovations. The magistrates now demanded the withdrawal of these, and banished the preachers who would not obey. Farel went to Neuchatel, where he remained till his death in A.D. 1565; Calvin went to Strassburg, where Bucer, Capito, and Hedio gave him the office of a professor and preacher. During his three years’ residence there Calvin, as a Strassburg delegate, was frequently brought into close relationship with the German reformers, especially with Melanchthon (§§ [134], [135]). But he ever remained closely associated with Geneva, and when Cardinal Sadolet (§ [139, 12]) issued from Lyons in A.D. 1539 an appeal to the Genevese to return to the bosom of the Romish church, Calvin thundered against him an annihilating reply. His Genevan friends, too, spared no pains to win for him the favour of the council and the citizens. They succeeded all the more easily because since the overthrow of the theocratic consistory the libertine party had run into all manner of riotous excesses. By a decree of council of 20th Oct., A.D. 1540, Calvin was most honourably recalled. After long consideration he accepted the call in Sept., A.D. 1541, and now, with redoubled energy, set himself to carry out most strictly the work that had been interrupted.
§ 138.4. Calvin’s Second Ministry in Geneva, A.D. 1541-1564.—Calvin set up again, after his return, the consistory, consisting of six ministers and twelve lay elders, and by it ruled with almost absolute power. It was a thoroughly organized inquisition tribunal, which regulated in all details the moral, religious, domestic, and social life of the citizens, called them to account on every suspicion of a fault, had the incorrigible banished by the civil authorities, and the more dangerous of them put to death. The Ciceronian Bible translator, Sebastian Castellio, appointed rector of the Genevan school by Calvin, got out of sympathy with the rigorous moral strictures and compulsory prescriptions of matters of faith under the Calvinistic rule, and charged the clergy with intolerance and pride. He also contested the doctrine of the descent into hell, and described the Canticles as a love poem. He was deposed, and in order to escape further penalties he fled to Basel in A.D. 1544. A libertine called Gruet was executed in A.D. 1547, because he had circulated an abusive tract against the clergy, and blasphemous references were found in his papers; e.g. that Christianity is only a fable, that Christ was a deceiver and His mother a prostitute, that all ends with death, that neither heaven nor hell exists, etc. The physician, Jerome Bolsec, previously a Carmelite monk in Paris, was imprisoned in A.D. 1551, and then banished, because of his opposition to Calvin’s doctrine of predestination. He afterwards returned to the Romish church, and revenged himself by a biography of Calvin full of spiteful calumnies. On the execution of Servetus in A.D. 1533, see § [148, 2]. Between the years 1542 and 1546 there were in Geneva, with a population of only 20,000, no less than fifty-seven death sentences carried out with Calvin’s approval, and seventy-six sentences of banishment. The magistrates faithfully supported him in all his measures. But under the inquisitorial reign of terror of his consistory, the libertine party gained strength for a vehement struggle, and among the magistrates, from about A.D. 1546, there arose a powerful opposition, and fanatical mobs repeatedly threatened to throw him into the Rhone. This struggle lasted for nine years. But Calvin abated not a single iota from the strictness of his earlier demands, and so great was the fear of his powerful personality that neither the rage of riotous mobs nor the hostility of the magistracy could secure his banishment. In A.D. 1555 his party again won the ascendency in the elections, mainly by the aid of crowds of refugees from France, England, and Scotland, who had obtained residence and thus the rights of citizens in Geneva. From this time till his death on 27th March, A.D. 1564, his influence was supreme. The impress of his strong mind was more and more distinctly stamped upon every institution of the commonwealth, the demands of his rigorous discipline were willingly and heartily adopted as the moral code, and secured for Geneva that pre-eminence which for two centuries it retained among all the Reformed churches as an honourable, pious, and strictly moral city. In spite of a weak body and frequent attacks of sickness Calvin, during the twenty-three years of his two residences in Geneva, performed an amazing amount of work. He had married in A.D. 1540, at Strassburg, Idaletta de Bures, the widow of an Anabaptist converted by him. His wife died in A.D. 1549. He preached almost daily, attended all the sittings of the consistory and the preachers’ association, inspired all their deliberations and resolutions, delivered lectures in the academy founded by his orders in A.D. 1559, composed numerous doctrinal, controversial, and apologetical works, conducted an extensive correspondence, etc.
§ 138.5. Calvin’s Writings.—The most important of the writings of Calvin is his already mentioned Institutio Religionis Christianæ, of which the best and most complete edition appeared in A.D. 1559, a companion volume to Melanchthon’s Loci, but much more thorough and complete as a formal and scientific treatise. In this work Calvin elaborates his profound doctrinal system with great speculative power and bold, relentless logic, combined with the peculiar grace of a clear and charming style. Next in order of importance came his commentaries on almost all the books of Scripture. Here also he shows himself everywhere possessed of brilliant acuteness, religious geniality, profound Christian sympathy, and remarkable exegetical talent, but also a stickler for small points or seriously fettered by dogmatic prejudices. His exegetical productions want the warmth and childlike identification of the commentator with his text, which in so high a degree distinguishes Luther, while in form they are incomparably superior for conciseness and scientific precision. In the pulpit Calvin was the same strict and consistent logician as in his systematic and polemical works.Of Luther’s popular eloquence he had not the slightest trace.[371]
§ 138.6. Calvin’s Doctrine.—Calvin set Zwingli far below Luther, and had no hesitation in characterizing the Zwinglian doctrine of the sacraments as profane. With Luther, who highly respected him, he never came into close personal contact, but his intercourse with Melanchthon had a powerful influence upon the latter. But decidedly as he approached Luther’s doctrine, he was in principle rather on the same platform with Zwingli. His view of the Protestant principles is essentially Zwinglian. Just as decidedly as Zwingli had he broken with ecclesiastical tradition. In the doctrine of the person of Christ he inclined to Nestorianism, and could not therefore reach the same believing fulness as Luther in his doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. He taught, as Berengar before had done, that the believer by means of faith partakes in the sacrament only spiritually, but yet really, of the body and blood of the Lord, through a power issuing from the glorified body of Christ, whereas the unbeliever receives only bread and wine. In his doctrine of justification he formally agrees with Luther, but introduced a very marked difference by his strict, almost Old Testament, legalism.His predestination doctrine goes beyond even that of Augustine in its rigid consistency and unbending severity.[372]
§ 138.7. The Victory of Calvinism over Zwinglianism.—By his extensive correspondence and numerous writings Calvin’s influence extended far beyond the limits of Switzerland. Geneva became the place of refuge for all who were exiled on account of their faith, and the university founded there by Calvin furnished almost all Reformed churches with teachers, who were moulded after a strict Calvinistic pattern. Bern, not uninfluenced by political jealousies, showed most reluctance in adopting the Calvinistic doctrine. Zürich was more compliant. After Zwingli’s death, Henry Bullinger stood at the head of the Zürich clergy. With him Calvin entered into doctrinal negotiations, and succeeded in at last bringing him over to his views of the Lord’s Supper. In the Consensus Tigurinus of A.D. 1549, drawn up by Calvin, a union was brought about on a Calvinistic basis; but Bern, where the Zwinglians contending with the Lutheranised friends of Calvin had the majority, refused subscription. The Consensus pastorum Genevensium, of A.D. 1554, called forth by the conflict with Bolsec, in which the predestination doctrine of Calvin had similar prominence, not only Bern, but also Zürich refused to accept. Yet these two confessions gradually rose in repute throughout German Switzerland. Even Bullinger’s personal objection to the predestination doctrine was more and more overcome from A.D. 1556 by the influence of his colleague Peter Martyr (§ [139, 24]), though he never accepted the Calvinistic system in all its severity and harshness. When even the Elector-palatine Frederick III. (§ [144, 1]) wished to lay a justificatory confession before the Diet of Augsburg in A.D. 1566, which threatened to exclude him from the peace on account of his going over to the Reformed church, Bullinger, who was entrusted with its composition, sent him, as an appendix to the testament he had composed, a confession, which came to be known as the Confessio Helvetica posterior (§ [133, 8]). This confession, not only obtained recognition in all the Swiss cantons, with the exception of Basel, which likewise after eighty years adopted it, but also gained great consideration in the Reformed churches of other lands. Its doctrine of the sacraments is Calvinistic, with not unimportant leanings toward the Zwinglian theory. Its doctrine of predestination is Calvinism, very considerably modified.
§ 138.8. Calvin’s Successor in Geneva.—Theodore Beza was from A.D. 1559 Calvin’s most zealous fellow labourer, and after his death succeeded him in his offices. He soon came to be regarded at home and abroad with something of the same reverence which his great master had won. He died in A.D. 1605. Born in A.D. 1519 of an old noble family at Vezelay in Burgundy, he was sent for his education in his ninth year to the humanist Melchior Wolmar of Orleans, and accompanied his teacher when he accepted a call to the Academy of Bourges, until in A.D. 1534 Wolmar was obliged to return to his Swabian home to escape persecution as a friend and promoter of the Reformation. Beza now applied himself to the study of law at the University of Orleans, and obtained the rank of a licentiate in A.D. 1539. He then spent several years in Paris as a man of the world, where he gained the reputation of a poet and wit, and wasted a considerable patrimony in a loose and reckless life. A secret marriage with a young woman of the city in humble circumstances, in A.D. 1544, put an end to his extravagances, and a serious illness gave a religious direction to his moral change. He had made the acquaintance of Calvin at Bourges, and in A.D. 1543 he went to Geneva, was publicly married, and in the following year received, on Viret’s recommendation, the professorship of Greek at Lausanne. Thoroughly in sympathy with all Calvin’s views, he supported his doctrine of predestination against the attacks of Bolsec, justified the execution of Servetus in his tract De hæreticis a civili magistratu puniendis, zealously befriended the persecuted Waldensians, along with Farel made court to the German Protestant princes in order to secure their intercession for the French Huguenots, and negotiated with the South German theologians for a union in regard to the doctrine of the supper. In A.D. 1558 Calvin called him to Geneva as a preacher and professor of theology in the academy erected there. In A.D. 1559 he vindicated Calvin’s doctrine of the supper against Westphal’s attacks (§ [141, 10]) in pretty moderate language; but in A.D. 1560 he thundered forth two violent polemical dialogues against Hesshus (§ [144, 1]). The next two years he spent in France (§ [139, 14]) as theological defender and advocate of the Huguenots. After Calvin’s death the whole burden of the government of the Genevan church fell upon his shoulders, and for forty years the Reformed churches of all lands looked with confidence to him as their well-tried patriarch. Next to the church of Geneva, that of his native land lay nearest to his heart. Repeatedly we find him called to France to direct the meetings of synod. But scarcely less lively was the interest which he took in the controversies of the German Reformed with their Lutheran opponents. At the Religious Conference of Mömpelgard, which the Lutheran Count Frederick of Württemberg called in A.D. 1586, to make terms if possible whereby the Calvinistic refugees might have the communion together with their Lutheran brethren, Beza himself in person took the field in defence of the palladium of Calvinistic orthodoxy against Andreä, whose theory of ubiquity (§ [141, 9], [10]) he had already contested in his writings. Very near the close of his life the Catholic Church, through its experienced converter of heretics, Francis de Sales (§ [156, 1]), made a vain attempt to win him back to the Church in which alone is salvation.To a foolish report that this effort had been successful Beza himself answered in a satirical poem full of all his youthful fire.[373]
§ 139. The Reformation in Other Lands.
The need of reform was so great and widespread, that the movement begun in Germany and Switzerland soon spread to every country in Europe. The Catholic Church opposed the Reformation everywhere with fire and sword, and succeeded in some countries in utterly suppressing it; while in others it was restricted within the limits of a merely tolerated sect. The German Lutheran Confession found acceptance generally among the Scandinavians of the north of Europe, the Swiss Reformed among the Romanic races of the south and west; while in the east, among the Slavs and Magyars, both confessions were received. Calvin’s powerful personal influence had done much to drive the Lutheran Confession out of those Romance countries where it had before obtained a footing. The presence of many refugees from the various western lands for a time in Switzerland, as well as the natural intercourse between it and such countries as Italy and France, contributed to the same result. But deeper grounds than these are required to account for this fact. On the one hand, the Romance people are inclined to extremes, and they found more thorough satisfaction in the radical reformation of Geneva than in the more moderate reformation of Wittenberg; and, on the other hand, they have a love for democratic and republican forms of government which the former, but not the latter, gratified.—Outside of the limits of the German empire the Lutheran Reformation first took root, from A.D. 1525, in Prussia, the seat of the Teutonic Knights (§ [127, 3]); then in the Scandinavian countries. In Sweden it gained ascendency in A.D. 1527, and in Denmark and Norway in A.D. 1537. Also in the Baltic Provinces the Reformation had found entrance in A.D. 1520; by A.D. 1539 it had overcome all opposition in Livonia and Esthonia, but in Courland it took other ten years before it was thoroughly organized. The Reformed church got almost exclusive possession of England in A.D. 1562, of Scotland in A.D. 1560, and of the Netherlands in A.D. 1579. The Reformed Confession obtained mere toleration in France in A.D. 1598; the Reformed alongside of the Lutheran gained a footing in Poland in A.D. 1573, in Bohemia and Moravia in A.D. 1609, in Hungary in A.D. 1606, and in Transylvania in A.D. 1557. Only in Spain and Italy did the Catholic Church succeed in utterly crushing the Reformation. Some attempts to interest the Greek church in the Lutheran Confession were unsuccessful, but the remnants of the Waldensians were completely won over to the Reformed Confession.
§ 139.1. Sweden.—For fifty years Sweden had been free from the Danish yoke which had been imposed upon it by the Calmar union of A.D. 1397. The higher clergy, who possessed two-thirds of the land, had continuously conspired in favour of Denmark. The Archbishop of Upsala, Gustavus Trolle, fell out with the chancellor, Sten Sture, and was deposed. Pope Leo X. pronounced the ban and interdict against Sweden. Christian II. of Denmark conquered the country in A.D. 1520, and in the frightful massacre of Stockholm during the coronation festivities, in spite of his sworn assurances, 600 of the noblest in the land, marked out by the archbishop as enemies of Denmark, were slain. But scarcely had Christian reached home when Gustavus Vasa landed from Lübeck, whither he had fled, drove out the Danes, and was elected king, A.D. 1523. In his exile he had become favourably inclined to the Reformation, and now he joined the Protestants to have their help against the opposing clergy. Olaf Peterson, who had studied from A.D. 1516 in Wittenberg, soon after his return home, in A.D. 1519, began as deacon in Strengnæs, along with Lawrence Anderson, afterwards administrator of the diocese of Strengnæs, to spread the reformed doctrines. Subsequently they were joined by Olaf’s younger brother, Laurence Peterson. During the king’s absence in A.D. 1524, two Anabaptists visited Stockholm, and even the calm-minded Olaf was for a time carried away by them. The king quickly suppressed the disturbances, and entered heartily upon the work of reformation. Anderson, appointed chancellor by Vasa, in A.D. 1526 translated the N.T., and Olaf with the help of his learned brother undertook the O.T. The people, however, still clung to the old faith, till at the Diet of Westnæs, in A.D. 1527, the king set before them the alternative of accepting his resignation or the Reformation. The people’s love for their king overcame all clerical opposition. Church property was used to supply revenues to kings and nobles, and to provide salaries for pastors who should preach the gospel in its purity. The Reformation was peacefully introduced into all parts of the land, and the diets at Örebro, in A.D. 1529, 1537, and at Westnæs, in A.D. 1544, carried out the work to completion. The new organization adopted the episcopal constitution, and also in worship, by connivance of the people, many Catholic ceremonies were allowed to remain. Most of the bishops accepted the inevitable. The Archbishop Magnus of Upsala, papal legate, went to Poland, and Bishop Brask of Linköping fled with all the treasures of his church to Danzig. Laurence Peterson was made in A.D. 1531 first evangelical Archbishop of Upsala, and married a relative of the royal house. But his brother Olaf fell into disfavour on account of his protest against the king’s real or supposed acts of rapacity. He and Anderson, because they had failed to report a conspiracy which came to their knowledge in the confessional, were condemned to death, but were pardoned by the king. Gustavus died in A.D. 1560. Under his son Eric a Catholic reaction set in, and his brother John III., in A.D. 1578, made secret confession of Catholicism to the Jesuit Possevin, urged thereto by his Catholic queen and the prospect of the Polish throne. John’s son Sigismund, also king of Poland, openly joined the Romish Church. But his uncle Charles of Sodermanland, a zealous Protestant, as governor after John’s death, called together the nobles at Upsala in A.D. 1593, when the Latin mass-book introduced by John was forbidden, and the acknowledgment of the Augsburg Confession was renewed. But as Sigismund continued to favour Catholicism, the peers of the realm declared, in A.D. 1604, that he had forfeited the throne, which his uncle now ascended as Charles IX.—The Reformation had been already carried from Sweden into Finland.[374]