CHAPTER XV.
CALVIN ADDRESSES THE KING AND DEPARTS FOR ITALY.
(August 1535.)
THE object of the Christian Institutes was to make known to Christendom, and particularly to the protestants of Germany, the doctrines professed in France by the men whom the king was putting to death. But was that all he had to do? Calvin thought he saw something more pressing still. His representations, instead of passing through Germany, might be addressed direct to the king. In his anguish and solitary meditations, he had often asked himself why he should not do it directly and publicly?... It was no doubt a great enterprise for a persecuted and almost unknown young man to address that powerful monarch, who was mercilessly throwing his best subjects into the flames. Calvin did not at first entertain so bold a project. Later, he said to the king: 'I thought of nothing less than writing things to be laid before your Majesty.'[359] But the lamentable spectacle presented by France was night and day before his eyes. And knowing that the same fate was hanging over the heads of all who desired no other mediator but Christ, was it right for him to be silent?
In truth, the glare of the burning piles was reappearing in France. A pious husbandman of Bresse, 'much exercised in the word of God,' by name John Cornon, was arrested in his native village in the month of May and taken to Macon. When brought before his judges, he spoke with such faith and courage, that they were astonished and confounded. Accordingly at the end of June, he was bound to a hurdle, dragged to the place of execution, and there burnt alive.[360] Shortly after this, one Dennis Brion, a man zealous for the gospel, was put to death during 'the great days' of Angers, in order to terrify the crowds who flocked thither from all parts for these festivals.[361] The flames which burnt these pious confessors might perhaps shortly burn other men of God, whom Calvin desired to save at any cost. He therefore determined to write to the king, dedicating his book to him.... A bold step!
=LETTER TO THE KING.=
'Sire,' he said, 'you are yourself a witness by what false calumnies our doctrine is everywhere defamed. Have you not been told that it tends to nothing else but to ruin all kingdoms and governments, to disturb the peace, to abolish all law, to confiscate lordships and possessions, and, in a word, to throw everything into confusion? And nevertheless you hear only the least part of these outrages. Horrible stories are circulated against us, for which, if they were true, we should richly deserve to be hanged a thousand times over.'
What Calvin undertook to do was not merely to show that the evangelical doctrine of the Reformation has the right to exist side by side with the Roman Catholic doctrine. This philosophical and Christian stand-point was not that of the sixteenth century. If the evangelical doctrine has a right to exist, it is (said Calvin, boldly) because it is the truth. He desired to gain over both king and people to those convictions, which in his opinion were alone capable of enlightening and of saving them.
'Our defence,' he said, 'does not consist in disavowing our doctrine, but in maintaining it to be true. Truth deprives her adversaries of the right to open their mouths against her. And for this reason, Sire, I pray you to obtain full information of a cause which hitherto has been treated with impetuous fury rather than with judicial gravity.... Do not think that I am striving here in my own private defence, in order to return to my native country. Verily, I bear it such human affection as is right, but things are now so arranged, that I am not greatly distressed at being kept out of it.... No, Sire, I undertake the common cause of all believers, and even that of Christ himself, a cause now so rent and trodden down in your kingdom, that it seems desperate.... No doubt, Christ's truth is not lost and scattered; but it is hidden away and buried, as if deserving of all ignominy. The poor Church is driven out by banishment, consumed by cruel deaths, and so terrified by threats and terrors, that she dares not utter a word. And yet the enemies of truth are not satisfied. They insist with their accustomed fury on beating down the wall which they have already shaken, and in completing the ruin they have begun.'
Here Calvin asks if no one is taking up the defence of these persecuted Christians.... He looks ... alas! the evangelicals are silent, the queen of Navarre scarcely raises her timid voice, and diplomatists are persuading the Germans that the evangelicals of France are fanatics and madmen ... every one trembles.... 'Nobody,' he exclaims, 'nobody comes forward to oppose this fury. If even any should wish to appear to favour the truth, they confine themselves to saying that we should in some way pardon the ignorance ... the impudence of these simple folks. Thus they treat God's most sure truth as impudence and ignorance. Those whom our Lord has so esteemed as to impart to them the secrets of his heavenly wisdom, they call simple folks! who permit themselves to be easily deceived, so ashamed are they of the Gospel.'
Who then shall take the cause of truth in hand?...