There came a moment when Calvin, desirous of possessing God alone, renounced the world, which, from that time, has never ceased to hate him: 'I have not sued thee by my love, O Christ,' he said; 'thou hast loved me of thy free will. Thou hast shone into my soul, and then everything that dazzled my eyes by a false splendour immediately disappeared, or at least I take no count of it. As those who travel by sea, when they find their ship in danger, throw everything overboard, in order that, having lightened the vessel, they may arrive safely in port; in like manner I prefer being stripped of all that I have, rather than be deprived of thee. I would rather live poor and miserable than be drowned with my riches. Having cast my goods into the waves, I begin to have hope of escape since the vessel is lightened.... I come to thee naked and empty.... And what I find in thee is not a trifling vulgar gain: I find everything there.'[41]
Thus lifting up his hands to God, Calvin offered the sacrifice of a heart burning with love. He made this grand thought the charter of his nobility, his blazon, and engraving this design on his seal, a hand presenting a heart in sacrifice, he wrote round it: Cor meum velut mactatum Domino in sacrificium offero—'O Lord, I offer unto thee as a sacrifice my heart immolated to thee.' Such was his device—such was his life.
The eyes of many began already to be turned upon him with admiration. The surprising clearness of his mind, the powerful convictions of his heart, the energy of his regenerated will, the strength of his reasoning, the luminous flashes of his genius, and the severe beauties of his eloquence—all betokened in him one of the great men of the age. 'A wonderful mind!' says Florimond de Rémond, one of his chief adversaries, 'a mind keen and subtle to the highest degree, prompt and sudden in its imaginations! What a praiseworthy man he would have been, if, sifting away the vices (heresy), the virtues alone could have been retained!'[42] There was doubtless something wanting in Calvin: he may not have had that smiling imagination which, at the age he had now reached, generally gilds life with the most brilliant colours; the world appeared to him one wide shipwreck. But, possessing the glance of the eagle, he discovered a deliverance in the future, and his powerful hand, strengthened by God, was about to prepare the great transformations of the Church and of the world.
He was indefatigable in labour. When the day was ended, and his companions indulged in dissipation or in sleep, Calvin, restricting himself to a slight repast for fear of oppressing his head, withdrew to his room and sat down to study the Scriptures. At midnight he extinguished his lamp,[43] and early in the morning, when he awoke and before he left his bed, he 'ruminated,' says Beza, on what he had read and learnt the night before.[44] 'We were his friends, we shared his room with him,' said Theodore Beza's informants. 'We only tell you what we have seen.'—'Alas!' adds the reformer, 'these long vigils, which so wonderfully developed his faculties and enriched his memory, weakened his health, and laid the foundation of those sufferings and frequent illnesses which shortened his days.'[45]
=CALVIN SOUGHT AS A TEACHER.=
His taste for Holy Scripture did not divert Calvin from the study of law. He was unwilling that the labours of his profession should suffer in any degree from the labours of piety. He made such remarkable progress in jurisprudence that he was soon looked upon, by both students and professors, as a master and not as a scholar.[46] One day, Pierre de l'Etoile begged him to give a lesson in his place; and the young man of nineteen or twenty discharged his duty with so much skill and clearness, that he was considered as destined to become the greatest jurist in France. The professors often employed him as their substitute.[47]
To knowledge he joined communion. While still continuing to follow the lessons of Etoile, Calvin 'sought the company of the faithful servants of God,' as he tells us. All the children of God (he thought) should be united together by a bond of brotherly union. He mixed also with everybody, even with the gainsayers, and if they attacked the great doctrines of Gospel truth, he defended them. But he did not put himself forward. He could discern when, how far, and to whom it was expedient to speak, and never exposed the doctrine of Christ to the jeers of the unbeliever by imprudence or by the fears of the flesh. When he opened his mouth, every one of his words struck home. 'Nobody can withstand him,' they said, 'when he has the Bible in his hand.'
Students who felt a difficulty in believing, townspeople who could not understand, went and begged him to teach them.[48] He was abashed. 'I am but a poor recruit,' he said, 'and you address me as if I were a general.'[49] As these requests were constantly renewed, Calvin tried to find some hiding-place where he could read, meditate, and pray, secure from interruption.[50]
At one time it was the room of a friend, a nook in the university library, or some shady retreat on the banks of the river. But he was hardly absorbed in meditation or in the study of Scripture, before he found himself surrounded by persons eager to hear him, and who refused to withdraw. 'Alas!' he exclaimed, 'all my hiding-places are turned into public schools.'[51]
Accordingly he sought still more private retreats; for he wished to understand before he taught. The French love to see clearly into things; but their defect in this respect is that they often do not go deep enough, or fail to observe that by going deep they arrive at truths in whose presence the most eminent minds ought to confess their insufficiency and believe in the revelation from God. In the middle ages there had been men who wished to bring the mysteries of the catholic faith to the test of reason;[52] Abelard was at the head of that phalanx. Calvin was not a new Abelard. He did not presume to fathom impenetrable mysteries, but sought in Scripture the light and the life of his soul.