Calvin, meanwhile, notwithstanding the melancholy which sprang from the remembrance of his recent struggles, was happy at Strasburg. This town, in which, as in a common centre, met the influences of Germany, Switzerland, and France, was esteemed, next to Wittenberg, the most important seat of the Reformation. It was called the Antioch of that epoch, in remembrance of what Antioch was in the apostolic age. Some named it subsequently the New Jerusalem, and this partly because it was ‘the hostess of the man who gave his name to Calvinism.’[747] At the period of Calvin’s arrival, Strasburg was already the home of several distinguished men—Capito, Bucer, Hedio, Niger, Mathias Zell, and others besides, who shone in its Church like precious and transparent jewels.[748] ‘What gratitude we owe you,’ they wrote to Farel, ‘for resigning Calvin to us!’ He was a treasure for them. He very much enjoyed their society, and this sojourn was to be beneficial to him. Not only did the affection of Strasburg for him heal the wounds inflicted by the hostility of Geneva, but his mind was to receive still further development. The small city on the shores of the Leman lake was a narrow platform on which it was not easy to move about. But on reaching Strasburg Calvin set foot on the vast Germanic realm which contained so many illustrious men, in which so many profound thoughts were stirring, and in which the Reformation had already fought so many battles and won so many victories. There were, it is true, some opposite teachings, but it was necessary to be acquainted with them. Strasburg, moreover, was the place in which doctrines were weighed one against the other, and where the labor destined to conciliate them was undertaken. At Geneva Calvin might have occupied the post of a spectator who attempts to distinguish by means of a telescope an action fought at a great distance. But now he was in the thick of the battle, learnt to recognize the feeble and the strong, and became one of the combatants, or at least one of the negotiators. His horizon was widened, his intelligence in this vast sphere would be enlarged, his ideas would be developed, would grow, ripen, and move with greater freedom. He would be brought under influences to which he was not exposed at Geneva, and which would contribute to form the great theologian. Embracing at a glance the whole extent of the kingdom of God, he would become familiar with its various provinces. Winds blowing from so many and adverse regions would bring to him new reports. There would doubtless be sometimes stormy blasts, powerful enough to overthrow the strongest, but often also a pure and life-giving air fitted to sanctify his Christian energy.

The theological and Christian circle which he entered at Strasburg was in more than one way in sympathy with him. He was convinced, as the doctors of this town were, that it was necessary not to stick at trifling differences, but to consider Christianity in its great facts, its great doctrines, the new life which it creates, in the great whole on which all the reformers were agreed. All those who took their stand on the same rock, Jesus Christ, no matter whether a little higher up or a little lower down, ought in his view to join hand in hand. Calvin and the theologians of Strasburg were disgusted with the theological subtilties and the scholastic nomenclature beneath which the living doctrine of the Gospel, especially as to the supper, was stifled. ‘Can I in very deed believe that I receive in the holy supper the body and the blood of the Lord, substantialiter, essentialiter, realiter, naturaliter, præsentialiter, localiter, corporaliter, quantitative, qualitative, ubiqualiter, carnaliter? The devil has brought us all these terms from the abyss of hell. Christ said simply, This is my body. If all these fantastic expressions had been necessary, he would certainly have employed them.’ Calvin, like Zell, the author of the above passage, found in that heap of qualifying terms a mass of rubbish and confusion. There was, however, one difference between the doctors of Strasburg and the doctor of Geneva. Bucer and Capito were willing to bring union by the way of accommodation, perhaps by the use of phrases in a double sense. The eagle of Geneva, soaring in the higher regions, called on Christians to have but one thought in contemplating one and the same sun, and in attaching themselves to one and the same truth.[749]

HIS SPIRITUAL JOYS.

Another happiness awaited Calvin at Strasburg. His greatest sufferings at Geneva had their source in that state-church, that people-church, that shapeless community which comprised the whole nation, believers and unbelievers, righteous men and profligates. In its place at Strasburg he found some Christians exiled on account of their faith, purified by their trial like gold, who had given up all for Christ, their righteousness and their life. The mass of professing Christians at Geneva had as it were suffocated him. Now at Strasburg he was in the midst of brethren and sisters, and almost all of them belonged to his own country, France. He breathed freely. The evangelical order intended by the apostles prevailed in his Church.[750] He preached four times a week. He met his elders and deacons once a week for the study of the Holy Scriptures and for prayer; and some of those lay friends well endowed by God were soon qualified to take the place of their pastor in case of his absence, and to edify their brethren. The first supper was celebrated in September, and it was repeated every month. How wide the difference for Calvin between that repast at Geneva, to which men came who drank, gamed, quarrelled, and sang indecent songs, and whom, for all that, he had to admit to the communion of the body and the blood of the Redeemer, and this brotherly supper at Strasburg, celebrated in company with pious Christians, persecuted for righteousness’ sake, whose names were written in heaven, and who drew nigh to the Lord with devotion, as members of his family! Calvin gave all his attention to the cure of souls. If there were any Christians who had not an adequate acquaintance with the doctrine of salvation, he instructed them; if any were reproached by their own conscience, cast down and in distress, he consoled and lifted them up; if any had gone astray from the path of righteousness, he rebuked them. He certainly met with some opposition, especially on the part of the younger folk; but he held his ground. While he required a pure faith and life, he protested against the tyranny exercised by the priests in auricular confession, and declared that no man had the right to bind the conscience of his brethren. Thus he saw his flock thriving from day to day under his direction.[751] ‘It was at Strasburg that the first Church was organized to serve as a model to others,’ says Raemond. A remarkable conversion distinguished its early days. Herman of Liége, who had engaged in discussion with Calvin at Geneva, was converted by him and joined his Church. He embraced the doctrines which Calvin found in the Holy Scriptures, on free will, the divinity and humanity of Christ, regeneration, and baptism. He was in doubt only as to predestination. Calvin gained other victories besides.

VIEW OF THE LORD’S SUPPER.

He was now not only a pastor, but also a teacher. At the beginning of the year 1539, Capito, struck with his gifts for theological teaching, entreated him to join that office with his pastorate. Although he felt reluctant to do so, from his sense of the difficulty of that ministry, he at length consented. Every day he preached in the church of St. Nicholas, in which he taught the students of the academy. The interpretation of the Scriptures was for him the basis of theological science, and for his exposition he selected two of the richest books of the New Testament—the Gospel of St. John and the Epistle to the Romans. His plan was to search out the meaning of the sacred writer, and to set it forth with an easy ‘brevity which did not entail obscurity;’ and for that purpose ‘he took pains to regulate and proportion his style.[752]’ In his view the Epistle to the Romans was ‘a path to the understanding of the whole Scripture.’ Some doctors attended these lectures, and expressed their high admiration.[753] He did not content himself with being at the same time pastor and professor, he also worked diligently in his study. He revised his Institution, and prepared a second edition; he recast his Catechism; he composed a treatise on the Supper, of which he sent a copy to Luther. Calvin, like Zwingli, regarded the bread and the wine as signs, as pledges that Christ gives to the believer his crucified body and his shed blood; that is to say, communicates to him the expiatory virtue of his death. He taught that the believer receives the body and the blood by faith, which is the mouth of the soul, and not by the bodily mouth. But he differed from the reformer of Zurich in that he saw in the supper a mysterious union with the glorified person of Christ. ‘With good reason,’ he said, ‘the bread is called body, since it not only represents him, but also presents him to us. We must therefore really receive in the supper the body and the blood of Jesus Christ, since the Lord sets forth to us therein the communion of both. If God gave us only bread and wine, leaving behind the spiritual truth, would it not be the case that he had instituted this mystery on fictitious grounds?[754] This alliance is effected on our part by faith, and on the part of God by his secret and miraculous virtue. The Spirit of God is the bond of this participation; that is why it is called spiritual. When Luther began his course, he appeared to say that the bread was the body of Christ. Œcolampadius and Zwingli appeared to leave in the supper nothing but the bare signs without their spiritual substance. Thus Luther failed on his side, Zwingli and Œcolampadius on their side. Nevertheless, let us not forget the grace which the Lord gave to all of them, and the benefits which he has conferred on us by their instrumentality.’[755]

Luther acknowledged that Calvin’s doctrine went beyond that of Zwingli, and expressed the delight which it gave him. As early as October, 1539, the Saxon reformer wrote to Bucer—‘Greet John Calvin respectfully, whose book I have read with singular enjoyment.’[756] As the treatise on the Supper appeared only in 1541, the Institution must be the book spoken of, in which the doctrine of the Eucharist was already set forth. When the reformer of Germany read the little treatise to which we have just referred, he said, ‘Ah, if the Swiss did the same, we should now be at peace instead of quarrelling.’[757]

In addition to his other labors, Calvin attended the theological debates in the universities, sometimes even presiding at them. He held conferences with the Roman Catholic doctors, at which he defended the evangelical theology; thereby acquiring so high a renown that a great number of students and even of learned men came from France to Strasburg to hear him.[758]

This man, who already occupied so important a position, was at the same time in the most humble circumstances. Poverty was added to his other trials. He received from the publishers of his works only very low remuneration. He did not think that he had any right to ask remuneration from the state or even from the Church; but he would not have refused it if it had been spontaneously offered to him. He was living at this time on a small sum derived partly from his paternal inheritance and partly from the sale of his library and other property of various kinds. But this was far short of his need, and sometimes the payment for his lodging was a great embarrassment. He wrote to Farel—‘I am obliged to live at my own expense, unless I were willing to become a burden to my brethren; and my destitution is now so great that I do not possess a farthing.[759] It is not, you see, so easy for me to take care of my health as you with so much kind care counsel me to do.’ Calvin afterwards received a salary, but too small to suffice even for his modest wants.