Calvin had been a faithful and active workman in his Master's vineyard, yet he did not always meet with friendly and docile hearers, even in Ferrara. Among the persons forming the duchess's court, he had noticed a cringing person with insinuating manners, whose look and expression displeased him greatly. That man, by name Master François, chaplain to Renée was one of those double-hearted people who wish to satisfy God and their own cupidity. Calvin had heard that the life of that priest was far from saintly. 'I do not interfere,' he answered, when called upon to declare his opinion as to the chaplain's superstitious doctrines—'I do not interfere, for if I laid myself out to speak evil of him, I should have to speak of far different matters, on which I remain silent.' Master François, seeing the favor which the young stranger enjoyed at court, assumed an air of being convinced by his words, appeared to become his friend, and began to preach as evangelically as he could. He raised no objections to Calvin's meetings, but prevailed on the duchess to be present at mass also, which he continued to say, notwithstanding his evangelical appearances. Such a man could not please the upright and inflexible reformer. 'When I see any one extinguishing the light of truth,' he wrote one day to Renée, 'I cannot forgive him, were he a hundred times my father.'[791]
Calvin tried, therefore, to convince François that the celebration of what he called 'the sacrifice at the altar' was contrary to Holy Scripture. Whenever the chaplain went astray the reformer admonished him. 'I have often tried to bring him into the true path,' he said. The priest would then appear sorrowful, and ashamed of his weakness, and Calvin, pressing him still more closely, would succeed in 'making him confess his iniquity.' But human respect still prevailed in François, and if any one about the court happened to be present at his conversations with the reformer, he would make excuses for himself before them.
=THE CHAPLAIN AND THE INSTITUTES.=
One day, finding his discourses useless, Calvin determined to present him with 'a treatise of his;'[792] that is all he says. He does not mention the title of this work; but as it cannot have been either his commentary on Seneca's De Clementiâ or the Psychopannichia, it was evidently the Institutes of the Christian Religion, which he had just printed at Basle—these three works being at that time all the reformer had written. Even on the supposition that Calvin had left Basle before the actual publication of his book, it would have been very natural for him to take a copy with him when starting for Italy. Master François opened that volume, which, by God's grace, has imprinted indelible convictions in so many minds. This is the first notice we have of the reading of the Institutes: it is mentioned by Calvin himself, and took place during his Italian journey, in the castle of Lucrezia Borgia's son. These circumstances impart to it a peculiar interest. François probably did not read the whole treatise. The mass was the subject of difference between him and Calvin, and consequently it was that part of his work to which the latter referred him. There was much in it calculated to disturb the chaplain. 'Christ,' said the treatise, 'being immortal, has been appointed by God everlasting priest; he has no need then for others to succeed him. Now do not those priests who offer sacrifice every day put themselves in Christ's place, and rob him of the prerogative of his eternal sacrifice?'[793] Further on he adds: 'The mass being established in such a manner that a hundred thousand sacrifices are offered up daily, swamps and buries the sacrifice of Christ which was offered as sole sacrifice. To set up an altar now is to pull down the cross of Jesus Christ. The mass blots out of the remembrance of men the Saviour's true and only death.' And still further on the chaplain read: 'The mass robs us of the fruits which resulted to us from the death of Christ; for who will believe himself redeemed by that death, when a new redemption is presented to him in the mass?' Other considerations put forward by Calvin in his book, were equally calculated to convince the priest.
Calvin who was not deficient in classical recollections and who anticipated a second Iliad in which the princes of the earth would meet—some to retain the mass, others to remove it—compares it, in conclusion, to that woman of antiquity, so notorious by the impure passions and the cruel war she stirred up. 'Assuredly,' he exclaimed, 'Satan never constructed a stronger machine to attack the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Behold that Helen under whose eyes the enemies of the truth are fighting with so much rage, with whom they commit adultery, and plunge into a spiritual impurity which is the most detestable of all.' He then draws up and displays the long catalogue of 'great and serious abuses' which the mass has engendered, namely, disgraceful markets, illicit and dishonest gains, great extortions—all kinds of impurity, idolatry, sacrilege, and other 'consequences' that we omit.
=CALVIN AND FRANCOIS.=
The priest was greatly agitated. The beauty of the language, the clearness of style, the energy of expression, the powerful logic, the strength of affection, the rapidity and seriousness of the reproaches, the accusations and recriminations which fell upon his soul, like hailstones in a storm, and above all the idea that the mass robbed Christ of his cross and his crown, and insulted his divinity, alarmed François who had imagined nothing of the sort. He was 'convinced in his conscience;' he thought himself really guilty and exposed to great danger, while his anguish increased more and more. He hastened to the reformer, and there (says Calvin), 'he protested with strong oaths he would never assist at the mass, it being so great an abomination.'[794] The chaplain's emotion was sincere, only it was not permanent. He soon relapsed into his habitual condition, and recommenced preaching the word of God 'solely because he thought he might thus catch benefices and other prey.' At a later period Calvin wrote of him: 'Madam, I know my man so well that I do not value his oath more than the chattering of a magpie. If persons who can raise him to dignities, or are rich enough to fill his wallet, ask him to give glory to God, he will take pains to gratify them; but if any persecution should come, he will be quite ready to renounce the Gospel. He plays different parts at different times. It is not the duty of a Christian to speak ill of his neighbor, but there is no one with whom I wage such fierce war as with those who, under the cloak of the Gospel, play the hypocrite with princes, and by their cunning and tricks keep them always enveloped in clouds, without leading them to the true goal.[795] This man,' he said, 'is convinced in his conscience, and yet he continues doing what he acknowledges to be wrong.' He added: 'All the hatred which I have shown him hitherto is, that I have endeavored with all my power to edify him in what is right.'[796] Such were the struggles which the valiant champion of the Gospel had to maintain in the palace of the dukes of Este.
One of the duchess's ladies—her name is not known—who had found peace with God in the Saviour's death, refused to be present at mass. François attempted to convince her, but the young lady remained firm as a rock. 'She would not offend her conscience.' The angry priest complained to the duchess and did all in his power to deprive the young maid of honor of the kindly feeling which Renée was accustomed to show towards her. Before long the duchess herself was 'warned,' that those who 'conducted themselves like that young lady' would not be tolerated, seeing that they would give occasion for scandal. The princess, knowing full well that the duke would not permit any one at court to reject the mass, was in great distress, and Calvin was informed of it by the countess of Marennes.[797] The enemies of the Reformation added falsehood to violence. The confessor tried to make the duchess believe that the churches of Germany had not discussed the matter, but that they admitted the mass. Calvin complained loudly of the great injury done to the churches of God. 'All the churches that have received the Gospel,' he wrote a little later, 'and even all individuals hold this article—that the mass ought not to be endured. Even Capito, one of those who endeavors earnestly to moderate matters, teaches in a work dedicated to the king of England, that it is the duty of Christian princes to drive from their realms such a detestable idolatry. There is now not a single man of reputation who is not of that opinion.'[798]
=CALVIN WRITES TO DUCHEMIN.=
During his residence at Ferrara, Calvin was not satisfied with combating the errors of those who surrounded him: he did not forget France, to which his heart was always attached; and he watched, although from afar, the friends he had left there. The superstitions of Italy and the profane spirit displayed by the priests in the midst of their relics and empty ceremonies, produced the same effect upon him as upon Luther, and made him all the more desirous to see his fellow-countrymen withdraw from the authority of the pope. He was therefore deeply moved by the news which reached him at this time. Nicholas Duchemin, with whom he had lived at Orleans, whose character he esteemed, and of whom he had said, 'that he was dearer to him than his life,' had been appointed official or ecclesiastical judge, which brought him into close relations with the Roman clergy and worship. Calvin was alarmed and sent him a letter which, revised and enlarged, was published under this title: How we must avoid the papal ceremonies and superstitions, and observe the Christian religion with purity.[799] 'I do not mean,' said Calvin to his friend, 'that you should make a conscience of things which it is not in your power to escape, and with regard to which you should be free. I do not forbid your entering the temples which surround you, although numberless examples of impiety are witnessed in them daily. Although the images are consecrated to detestable sacrileges, I do not forbid you to look at them. It would not even be in your power, for the streets are full of a multitude of idols. But have a care lest a too great license should make you overstep the bounds of liberty.'[800]