‘But for thyself, Sadoleto, a foreigner, who hast hitherto had no acquaintance at all with the people of Geneva, thou professest on a sudden to feel for them singular love and goodwill, of which, nevertheless, no fruit ever appeared. Thou who didst serve thine apprenticeship at the Court of Rome, that shop of all artifice and cunning, who wert not only brought up as it were in the arms of Pope Clement, but what is more, made a cardinal, thou hast certainly many spots which render thee suspected. The duty of pastors is to lead obedient souls straight to Christ; but thy chief aim is to deliver them over to the power of the pope.
‘With a view to cast suspicion on us thou taxest us, unjustly (for thou well knowest the contrary), with having wished only to gratify our ambition and avarice. Certain it is that if I had paid regard to my personal advantage, I should never have separated from your faction. And who would dare to cast such charges at Farel, who, born of a noble house, had no need to ask assistance from others? Was not our shortest way of attaining to wealth and honors to accept from the first the conditions which you have offered us? For what price would your pope then have purchased the silence of many, and for how much would he still purchase it to-day? Did we not require that, after having assigned to the ministers so much as was fitting for their condition, the wealth of the Church, swallowed up by those gulfs, should be distributed to the poor as in the primitive Church? Our only thought has been the extension of the kingdom of God by means of our littleness and lowliness; and to attempt to persuade men of the contrary is a thing most unbecoming to Sadoleto, a man of such high reputation for knowledge, prudence, and seriousness.
CHRISTIAN ANTIQUITY.
‘The men of Geneva, extricating themselves from the slough of error in which they were sunk, have returned to the doctrine of the Gospel, and this thou callest abandoning the truth of God! They have retired from papal subjection and tyranny in order to have a better ecclesiastical government, and this, sayest thou, is a real separation from the Church! Surely, Sadoleto, I shall stop thee on the way. Where is, on your side, the Word of God, which is the mark of the true Church? If a man belongs to God’s army he must be prepared for the battle. See, the enemy is quite near; he approaches, he fights, and he is indeed an enemy so well-conditioned that no earthly power can resist him. What armor will this poor Christian be able to put on, to save him from being overwhelmed? It is the Word of God. The soul deprived of the Word of God is delivered over to the devil, quite defenceless, to be slain. The first attempt of the enemy, therefore, will be to take from the combatant the sword of Jesus Christ. The pope, like the “illuminés,” arrogantly boasts of possessing the Spirit. But it is to insult the Holy Spirit to separate him from the Word.
‘We are more nearly in agreement with antiquity than you our opponents, as thou knowest, Sadoleto, and we ask for nothing else than to see restored that ancient face of the Church which has been torn to pieces and almost destroyed by the pope and his faction. And, not to speak of the condition of the Church as constituted by the apostles (which, however, we are bound to accept), consider what it was among the Greeks in the days of Chrysostom and Basil, and among the Latins in the days of Cyprian, Ambrose, and Augustin, and afterwards contemplate the ruins which are all that now remain to you. Thou wilt find as much difference between the two as between the Church as it flourished under David, and the Church as fallen into all kinds of superstitions under Zedekiah. Wilt thou call that man an enemy of antiquity, who, full of zeal for ancient piety, longs to restore in their first splendor the things which are now corrupted? With what right are we accused of having subverted the ancient discipline, by the very party that has abolished them?
‘Dost thou not recollect that at the time when our people began to appear, nothing was taught in the schools but pure sophistries, so tangled and twisted that scholastic theology might well be called a kind of secret magic? There were no sermons from which foolish old women did not learn more dreams than they could relate in a month by their own fireside. The first portion was devoted to obscure questions of the schools, to excite the wonder of the poor people, and the second portion to merry tales or amusing speculations, to rouse their hearts to mirth. But no sooner had our preachers raised their banner than the shadows were dispersed, and your preachers, taught by them and compelled by shame and the murmurs of the people, were obliged to follow their example, although they have still traces of these old follies.
‘Thou touchest on justification by faith. But this article, which stands supreme in our religion, has been effaced by you from the memory of men. Thou allegest that we take no account of good works. If thou lookest into my catechism, at the first word thou wilt be silent as if overcome. We deny, it is true, that they are of any avail in the justification of man, not even so much as a hair, for the Scripture gives us no hope except in the goodness of God alone. But while we deny the virtue of works in the justification of man, we attribute worth to them in the life of the just, for Christ came to create a people zealous of good works.’
We pass over the beautiful passages in which Calvin speaks of the supper, confession, the invocation of saints, purgatory, the ministry, and the Church, and we come to the moment at which he remembers that Sadoleto had cited him and his brethren ‘as criminals before the judgment-seat of God.’ He accepts that summons.
CALVIN’S DEFENCE.
‘We prick up our ears,’ said he, ‘at this sound of the trumpet which the very ashes of the dead will hear in the depths of their graves.’ And then, not only in his own name but in that of all the reformers, Calvin says to God:—