These words of Calvin are rather sharp. This is doubtless explained by his recent sorrow. Subsequently he expressed himself with more moderation. His partisans at Geneva did the same. While the wisest men still held their peace, the most violent did not spare their adversaries. The two parties were very ill-disposed towards one another, and some of those who belonged to them threw off all restraint both in their deeds and in their words. Licentious men among the enemies of the reformers ‘triumphed over the banished ministers, insulted the servants of God, laughed at the Gospel, and abandoned themselves to impurity, dancing, gaming, and drunkenness. Nothing was talked of but masquerades, gallantries and excesses, and the services of the church turned to the disgrace of the Reformation.’ On the other side, the most vehement partisans of Calvin and Farel had no mercy on the lay and ecclesiastical chiefs under whose administration these things took place. They called the new pastors wolves, and the magistrates the unrighteous. They murmured as they went out from sermon, and their ill-humor was not sparing of criticism. ‘The Gospel which is preached at present,’ said Richard after one of the services, ‘is only the Gospel for twenty days.’ He had no doubt that, when that time had elapsed, the new preachers would be dismissed. For this they sent him to prison. ‘The syndics of to-day,’ said another, ‘are of no use but to bring back lascivious men and women into the town.’ For this saying he was expelled from the town for a year.[743] ‘The mass is sung in Geneva,’ said many, ‘and the people who love the Gospel are expelled the town.’ These charges were circulated in Switzerland, and greatly alarmed the friends of reform.
None felt these reproaches more keenly than the pastors, for they knew that they all recoiled on themselves. On September 17 they all appeared, the two Genevese and the two foreigners, before the council. ‘Calumniators,’ they said, ‘are spreading reports in the cantons which are doing serious injury to the Gospel.’ They requested that two of their number might have leave of absence to go and refute the slanders, which inflicted a blow on the honor of the town. The request was granted. Marcourt and Morand set out for Berne, and presented themselves before the assembly of the pastors, in which Kunz could not fail to support them. In fact it was resolved at this meeting ‘that those who rose against the persons in office at Geneva were worse than wicked men, traitors, and Jews.’ The Bernese pastors communicated this declaration to the council, which contented itself with deciding that if any defamers of Geneva appeared at Berne, information should be given to the magistrates of that town. The lay authorities were obviously less under the influence of passion than the ecclesiastics. It appears even that the council of Berne did not place implicit confidence in the report of the Genevese ministers, for one of their own number was immediately after sent to Geneva to see with his own eyes what was the real state of the Genevese Church.
The complaints made both at Geneva and in other places were well grounded. This is proved by the proceedings of the magistrates, who, although they were hostile to the reformers, perceived that their own honor required them not to authorize licentiousness. It is quite certain that people ‘went about the streets at night, uttering cries and singing indecent songs;’ that ‘gaming, lewdness, haunting of taverns, and drunkenness,’ were common offences; for a decree of July 19 prohibited them under a penalty of sixty sous for the first time; and, as the evil continued, other decisions of a similar character were taken on August 20 and October 22. It is certain that, as was said in Switzerland, some citizens went to mass, for according to the intolerant customs of the age, they were ordered ‘to leave the town.’ The councils were seen to be as much opposed to religious liberty as Calvin had been. Perhaps they went even further than he would have gone; for, on August 20, they ordered the priests who were still on Genevese soil to go to sermon if they wished to remain there.
CALVIN’S LETTER TO THE GENEVESE.
Calvin, at Strasburg, was watching attentively what was passing at Geneva. He heard that a certain number of Genevese kept faithfully to the path which they had taken under his direction. Some of his adherents cried out rather loudly, but the majority led a quiet life, and the most decided of the latter displayed their opposition in no other way than by absenting themselves from a form of worship which they did not consider to be in conformity with the principles of the Gospel. Calvin had not written to them during the first months of his exile. He was not willing to lay himself open to the charge of attempting to draw them over to himself. But he felt keenly that the trials of his friends at Geneva proceeded from their supineness in adhering to the Word of God, and that the remedy for them was in humbling themselves before God and waiting upon Him for the remedy. ‘However the affection which he always cherished for them’ did not permit him to remain longer silent, and on October 1 he wrote to them a letter remarkable for the pacific, discreet, charitable, and elevated spirit which it breathed. He addressed it, not to all the Genevese, but to those who had received into their hearts the seed of the divine Word, and who were still deeply affected by the blow which had struck them in the punishment of their pastor. He named them his brethren, the relics of the dispersion of the Genevese church. He spoke of the love which he bore them. ‘I cannot refrain from writing to you,’ said he, ‘to assure you of the affection which I always cherish for you. Our conscience is fully persuaded before God that it is by his call that we were at one time associated with you, and it ought not to be in the power of men to break such a bond.’ He begs them to forget themselves and their sufferings, to forget even the hostility of their adversaries. ‘If we lose our time in fighting against men,’ he said, ‘thinking only of taking vengeance and getting indemnified for the injuries which they have done us, it is doubtful whether we can overcome them, but it is certain that we shall be overcome by the devil. If on the contrary we resist the devices of that spiritual enemy, there is no fear then of our not coming off conquerors. Cast away every evil affection, be led only by zeal for God, controlled by his Spirit and the rule of his Word.’ Calvin went further. He showed himself severe to his friends. ‘It is easy for you to justify yourselves before men, but your conscience will feel burdened before God.’ He did himself what he required of others. ‘I doubt not,’ he said, ‘that God has humbled us in order to make us acquainted with our ignorance, our imprudence, and our other infirmities, of which I for my part have been fully conscious, and which I have no hesitation in confessing before the Church. However,’ he adds, ‘we did faithfully administer our office. The Lord will cause our innocence to come forth like the morning-star, and our righteousness to shine like the sun.’ But he endeavors chiefly to console the believers of Geneva. ‘Be not cast down because it hath pleased the Lord to humble you for a time, for he lifts up the humble out of the dust and takes the poor from the dunghill. He gives the manna of joy to those who are in tears; he gives back light to them that sit in darkness, and he restores to life them that walk in the shadow of death. Be of good courage then, and endure with patience the chastening of his hand, until the time that he reveal his grace to you.’[744] It is impossible not to recognize the wisdom and the Christian charity which have left their impress on this letter. It is indeed a pastor that speaks. Calvin was so far from the excessive strictness imputed to him that he wrote at the same time to Farel—‘If we find in any Church the ministry of the Word and the sacraments, it is better not to separate from it. It is not right even to do so on the ground that some doctrines are not purely taught in it; for there is hardly a Church in existence which does not retain some traces of its former ignorance. It is sufficient for us if the doctrine on which the Church is founded has its place there and keeps it.’[745] Calvin held that there are some doctrines fundamental and vital, essential to salvation; but he acknowledged that there are others on which difference is permissible.
FAREL’S LETTER TO THE GENEVESE.
Farel likewise wrote to the Christians of Geneva. He did so even before Calvin, in June, in August, and again in November. He expressed to them his deep sadness. He would fain be ‘so far away that he could hear nothing of the miserable breaking-up and dispersion of the Church.’ He strives ‘to banish from his heart the pains, the labors that he undertook for that town; for nothing pierces the heart like ingratitude; to see evil rendered for good, hate for love, death and shame in place of the life and the honor which were procured.’ He contents himself with praying for the town and commending it to all who are able to give it any assistance. Meanwhile he cannot help seeing the unhappy condition in which his own friends and all the faithful of Geneva are, deprived of their pastors, and witnessing the triumph of their enemies. He shares largely in their troubles; they are his only trial. ‘I should be too happy,’ he wrote to them, ‘if you were not so unhappy.’ But at the same time he exhorts them to Christian charity and gives evidence of it himself. ‘Cherish in your hearts no rancor,’ he said to his former flock, ‘no root of bitterness, no anger. Do not reproach this man nor that man, but let each one reproach himself: lay all the blame on yourselves and say nothing but good of others. Let God’s holy will be your rule, and not poor man (the natural man), and what is in him.’ He does not hesitate to rebuke his friends. ‘You have not obeyed God wholly, but have halted and swerved to one side and the other.’ Then he earnestly exhorts them to repentance. ‘You, great and small, men and women, cast yourselves humbly before God, with all earnestness and love, beseeching his grace, and praying him to turn away his anger from you. Yes, cast yourselves before him with sobs and tears, with fasting and prayer, like the king of Nineveh and his people. Cry, weep, lift up your voices; that your cry going forth from the depths of this terrible calamity may reach the ear of God.’[746] Thus spoke Farel and Calvin.
CHAPTER XV.
STRASBURG AND GENEVA.
(End of 1538–1539.)
CALVIN AT STRASBURG.