THEIR MODERATION.
The above articles, fourteen in number, were in Calvin’s handwriting, but they were read to the synod by Bucer.[674] Calvin and Farel were probably unwilling to put themselves too forward, and preferred to have the question settled on its merits, independently of their personal leaning; and they selected the most moderate of the theologians of the period to be its exponent. Calvin was not a man to exalt himself in the feeling of his own righteousness; he knew by experience that ‘in many ways we offend all.’ ‘We know,’ he said afterwards to Farel, when speaking to him of what had just taken place, ‘we know that our adversaries cannot calumniate us to any further extent than God permits, and we know the end which He has in view in permitting it at all. Let us therefore humble ourselves; unless we choose to contend with God because He humbles us;[675] but let us not cease to wait on Him. “The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under foot,” said the prophet (Isaiah xxviii. 3). Let us acknowledge before God, and before his people, that it is to some extent owing to our incompetency, indolence, carelessness, and mistakes that the Church committed to our care has fallen into so lamentable a condition. But let us also maintain, as it is our duty to do, our own innocence and purity against those who by their fraud, malignity and wickedness have certainly caused this ruin.’[676] Calvin, in charging himself with indolence, assuredly went too far. But it was not to his colleague only that he spoke in this way; he did not hesitate to express the same views before the synod. While depicting the dangers of Geneva, ‘the destruction which seemed to threaten’ the edifice reared by Farel and himself, ‘We openly acknowledge,’ he said to the deputies of the Swiss Churches assembled at Zurich, ‘that in some things we have perhaps been too severe, and on those points we are ready to listen to reason.’[677]
The synod did not censure the reformers. It advised them, indeed, to use ‘moderation and Christian gentleness, necessary with that uncultivated people;’[678] but it acknowledged that, far from displaying obstinacy in unimportant matters, the reformers in their fourteen articles demanded only what is just, legitimate and important. It is true that a Christian ought not to be appointed minister by the mere decree of a council of state, but, after examination, by the laying-on of hands of the elders or pastors. It is true that a more frequent celebration of the Lord’s Supper was according to the Word of God. The subject of greatest delicacy was excommunication. But could not the Genevese commit the management of it to upright and discreet laymen, elected by the councils, themselves an elected body? The good sense of the Swiss told them that men entirely destitute of Christian character ought not to form part of a Christian society.
THE JUSTICE OF THEIR CAUSE.
Not one of the theologians present at the synod seems to have taken the cause of Calvin more to heart than the man who, with Melanchthon, was perhaps the most cautious of the reformers, Capito. A man of naturally gentle spirit, he had nevertheless displayed courage in recalling Luther to moderation, and in doing the same afterwards with respect to his colleague of Strasburg, Mathias Zell. He approved of the course of Farel and Calvin; he even set himself to console them. ‘There is nothing disgraceful,’ he said to them, ‘in your banishment, and we have no fear that it will prove hurtful to the Church. Your enemies themselves only reproach you with too much warmth of zeal. Unhappily, there are not wanting ministers who teach the Gospel without discipline; who prefer to hold an office which they treat as nothing more than an office that yields profit. This leads to license instead of the liberty of Christ.[679] Discipline is necessary to the Churches. Some persons fancy that what each man may do is no concern of ours; as if Christ had not said that if a man has a hundred sheep, and only one of them go astray he must go in search of it. What! because the authority of the papacy has been cast off, must the power of the Word and of the ministry be treated as likewise abolished? Some one may say, I know enough of the Gospel; I can read; what do I want with you? Preach to those who wish to hear you! Ah! discipline is a thing to which our Churches are not accustomed, a thing which flesh and blood detest. Ought we then to wonder that you have not been able, you two alone, to reform at once a town so large?’[680]
The assembly therefore approved the fourteen articles presented by Calvin and Farel, and then ‘declared the causes of their banishment from Geneva to be not legitimate.’[681] In the eyes of these Swiss Christians assembled at Zurich, these two exiles were the glory of the Reformation; doctors whose praise was in all the Churches; two of the prime movers in the great transformation which was being effected in Christendom. The honor, the duty of the Christians of Switzerland, demanded that these pious and illustrious men, victims of passions hostile to the Gospel, should be restored to the position in which God had set them. The synod, therefore, wrote to Geneva, and earnestly requested measures adapted to raise the Church up again, and particularly the recall of the pastors. At the same time, it recommended the Bernese, and especially Kunz, to support this request; and Kunz accepted the charge. Zurich being desirous likewise of doing something, Bullinger wrote on the subject, May 4, to the provost de Watteville. Farel and Calvin then returned to Berne, disposed to endure with patience and meekness, but at the same time full of hope.[682]
A man of whose ill-will they had already had experience was soon to disturb their joy. Kunz, who had been first a pastor at Erlenbach, had contributed to the Reformation in the lower Siebenthal. He was, so far as we can learn, born of a well-to-do family of peasants of those parts,[683] and had retained a certain rusticity and coarseness. A partisan, of energetic character, passionately earnest for everything that concerned the cause which he had embraced, blind and unjust towards the opposite opinions, with no kindly feeling for his adversaries, he fell easily into the indulgence of animosities, jealousies, and quarrels; and had sometimes as much trouble to get on with those of his own party as to endure those who belonged to the other side. With reference to the matter in hand, his hostility had to his mind an excuse. If he warmly opposed Calvin and Farel, it was because the slight interest which they felt in the question about unleavened bread and in other analogous questions might, in his opinion, annoy the Germans, whose indefatigable champion in Switzerland he had constituted himself. He had appeared to share the sentiments expressed to Calvin and Farel by the synod of Zurich, which was unanimous in their favor. He had no wish, in the presence of so considerable an assembly, to give way to his personal hatred. But the reformers were to lose nothing by this reserve. He awaited them at Berne. There Kunz would be on his own ground, and let the adversaries of human traditions beware!
HOSTILITY OF KUNZ.