DOCTRINE OF THE FATHERS.
At this point, Calvin, wishing to show fully how chimerical the Romish opinion is, offered one or two considerations which, while they display his fine intelligence, are not lacking in solidity. ‘It is not without reason,’ he said, ‘that we reject the foolish opinion which the craft of Satan introduced into the world. In the supper we certainly eat the same body of Christ as the apostles ate at its institution, and it must be either his mortal body or his glorified body. If it be his mortal body, Jesus is then at this hour mortal and passible, while the Scripture declares to us that he has laid aside all infirmity. If it be his immortal and glorified body, Jesus, at the first supper, was in a certain place (seated at the table) in his mortal and passible body, and he was in another place (in the hands and mouths of his disciples) in his immortal and glorified body. The dreams of Marcion were never so fantastic!...’
Calvin, however, went further and, knowing the importance which Rome attached to the letter, felt bound to show to what that method leads. He has explained his own doctrine elsewhere in a more complete manner, but we must not suppress what he said on this solemn occasion. ‘If you tie yourselves to words,’ said he, ‘if you so rigorously insist on these words, Hoc est corpus meum, you are compelled by such verbal strictness to separate the body of the Lord from his blood. For he said, This is my body, pointing to the bread, and when pointing to the wine, This is my blood. Now, to imagine that the body of Christ was separated from his blood is an abominable thing. I know that you evade this by what you call the concomitance. But do not allege it, for it is mere mockery. If the real body is in the cup, as you affirm it to be, the Lord of truth then spoke falsely when he said, This is my blood.
‘No, it is neither the natural body nor the natural blood of our Lord Jesus which is given to us in the holy supper. But there is a spiritual communication, by virtue of which he gives to us all the grace that we can receive from his body and his blood. Christ makes us truly participants, but altogether in a spiritual way, by the bond of his Holy Spirit. St. Luke and St. Paul write that Jesus said, This is the new testament in my blood; that is to say, the new alliance which the Father has made with us, blotting out our iniquities by his mercy, receiving us into his favor that we may be his children, and writing his law in our hearts by his Spirit; an alliance really new, and ratified and confirmed by the body and the blood of Jesus Christ.
‘Constrained by reasons so forcible, we interpret the Scripture according to the true analogy of faith. We do not put glosses on it out of our own heads, and we give no explanation which is not expressed in itself.’
CONVERSION OF JEAN TANDY.
Calvin was silent. The young man, whose face was unknown but full of expression, had been listened to with astonishment, and people recognized in him a master. Everyone felt the force of his words, and no one raised an objection. ‘At this point,’ say the Acts of the Disputation, ‘both the Mimards and the Blancheroses remained without making any attempt to reply.’ The minds of the hearers seemed to be enlightened by fresh knowledge. This was soon evident.
A monk of the order of Cordeliers, the Franciscan Jean Tandy,[402] who had been present at the disputation from its opening, listened with eager interest to Calvin’s speech, and felt that its truth reached him. His heart was affected, his understanding was satisfied. He embraced by faith the sacrifice of the Saviour; and, according to the expression of the Evangelist, he ate of his flesh and drank his blood. For awhile he sat silent, awaiting the objections which might be offered. But ‘when he saw that those who had taken part in discussion till that hour had their lips closed,’ he took courage, rose and said, the assembly listening to him attentively—‘Holy Scripture teaches that there is no remission for the sin against the Holy Ghost. Now this sin is that of men who, through unbelief, willing to contend against the clearest truth, choose rather to exalt themselves against God and his Word than to humble themselves and obey him. As I desire now not to resist the truth, but to receive it and confess it openly, I acknowledge before you all that I have long been mistaken. While I thought that I was living in a state of perfection, as they had given me to understand, I have been, on the contrary, only the servant of men, submitting myself to their traditions and commandments. Nothing is good but that which God commands. I have heard the truth. I see that I must hold fast to Jesus alone, must stand to his Word, and must have no other head, leader, or Saviour, but him who by his sacrifice has made us acceptable to the Father. I will henceforth live and die according to his Gospel. I ask forgiveness of God for all that I have done and said against his honor. I ask pardon of you and of all the people, so far as by my preaching or by my life I have taught you amiss, or have given you a bad example. And since, by following the rule of the Cordeliers and assuming this garb of dissimulation, I have been led out of the right way, at this moment in which I renounce all superstition, I abandon also this garb full of all hypocrisy and trumpery.’ As he uttered these words, Jean Tandy cast off his monastic dress, and then added—
‘Let no one be offended, but let each examine himself and confess that if the state in which he has lived be contrary to the will of God, he ought not to persevere in it, nor to reënter after quitting it. I will live as a Christian, and not as a Cordelier; according to the Gospel of Jesus, and not according to the rule of the monks; in true and living faith in Christ, and united with all true Christians. To this God calls us all, to the intent that, instead of being divided into so many rules, we may be all one in Jesus Christ.’
This frank, noble, and affecting conversion gave great joy to those who loved the Gospel, and Farel, as their spokesman, said, ‘How great God is! how good and how wise! How he smites and heals, how he casts down to hell and brings up again to heaven, we see with our own eyes. What superstition is there equal to that of the Cordeliers, in which the enemy has with so much skill colored his work that even the elect are deceived! Let us rejoice, therefore, that the poor sheep which was straying on the mountains and in the deserts, in the midst of wolves and wild beasts, now, by the grace of the Lord, abandoning the barren deserts, the vexatious thorns of human traditions, is entering into his fold, and finds now his pasture in God’s holy Word.’