Farel persevered in his exertions, exhorting and consoling. Fabri, pastor at Thonon, in the Chablais, had to pass through trials of special severity. He wrote to Farel, ‘I cannot tell you how cruel are the crosses which so violent an opposition lays upon me.’ Farel was prompt to offer him consolation, and he shows in his answer how well he had himself learnt to profit by the blows struck at him by the enemies of the Gospel. ‘There is no ground for dejection,’ said he, ‘although so many distresses weigh on you. It is in this way that the Lord teaches us to depend entirely on him, and to call down by our sighing the favor of our heavenly Father, which we are so backward to do.’ At the same time Farel communicated to his friend his own experiences, and made fresh allusion to the case of Caroli and Viret, which appears to have greatly troubled him. ‘I am bidden,’ he said, ‘to call ministers from all quarters, but where to find them I cannot tell. People slight those who are the fittest, and who always breathe Jesus Christ; but they exalt to the skies those who are mere masks, and breathe nothing but arrogance. Some ministers, of too fastidious taste, are unwilling to come into this country; they would rather bury themselves in the tombs of Egypt than eat manna in the desert and be led by the pillar of fire.’[430] At the same time that Farel wrote to Fabri at the foot of the Alps, he wrote also to Hugues, pastor of Gex, at the foot of the Jura. ‘Act with firmness,’ he said to him, ‘but with wisdom and without passion. Put forward weighty proofs drawn from Scripture, and let your words always be accompanied with the moderation of Christ.’[431] He wrote likewise to many others. Calvin began at this time to exercise the functions pertaining to the government of the Church. A minister, Denis Lambert, formerly a monk, but who having been since 1534 pastor in the country of Neuchâtel, had been chosen almoner to the little army which marched in 1534 to the aid of Geneva, and fought the battle of Gingins, had been settled by the Bernese as pastor in the neighborhood of that town. He had remained full of monkery (moinerie), and he had a wife of sorry reputation; so that their life and their manners might ruin, but could not build up the Church. Some better ministers, particularly Henry de la Mare, having been preferred to him, he flew into a great rage at a colloquy held at the beginning of December, 1536. ‘Everybody persecutes me,’ he exclaimed; ‘it is not on the part of men that I am sent!’ And he loaded his colleagues with insults, threats, and innumerable calumnies. ‘Truly,’ said Farel, ‘the man speaks like a Mars or a Bacchus.’[432] ‘It is not I,’ Farel said to him, ‘that made you a preacher; I always suspected you too much.’ ‘No,’ replied Denis, ‘I was sent by the Bernese, and we shall see whether you dare resist them.’ Calvin then rose to speak, and we must notice it as the first occasion of his taking part in the government of the Church. He entreated Denis in the name of them all to resign the holy ministry, promised that he should be provided for. Denis cared nothing for this young doctor, and refused to comply with his request. Farel desired to separate him from the population to which his life was a scandal. The Bernese bailiff of Thonon thought that Denis was monk from head to foot, and that he ought to be relegated to the convent of the Augustinians of that town.
Although they were influenced quite as much by political as by religious motives, and made some mistakes, as in the case of Caroli, the lords of Berne neglected no means of enlightening the Vaudois, and of leading them to accept with their heart the evangelical doctrines. They enjoined on all fathers and mothers, all pastors and bailiffs, the duty of seeing that children were well instructed according to the Gospel. Without going so far as to say, as some have alleged, that education is everything, the Bernese did believe that if a child be trained up in the way he should go, he will not depart from it.[433]
BERNESE EDICT OF REFORMATION.
To crown its work, the council of Berne made, on Christmas eve, December 24, 1536, a complete edict of reformation for its new territories; and at the beginning of 1537 it caused proclamation to be made in all the country that the ministers were to preach purely the Word of God; that they were to celebrate only two sacraments, baptism and the supper; that it was lawful to eat flesh at any time; that ecclesiastics were not forbidden to marry; that all popish ceremonies, masses, processions, lustrations, pilgrimages, and ringing of bells for the dead and for bad weather, were abolished. These were followed by many ordinances against gluttony, drunkenness, impurity, adultery, blasphemy, gaming, military service abroad, and dancing. Three modest dances for marriage festivals were, however, conceded.[434] Priests and monks were at liberty to remain in the country, where they received fitting allowances, or if they preferred it, to withdraw into a Catholic country. The canons of Lausanne having no wish to be witnesses of such a reform, took the latter course. They crossed the lake and settled at Evian. The sisters of Sainte-Claire of Vevey did the same.[435]
Calvin and the other ministers of Geneva and its neighborhood watched with interest the changes which were taking place in the Pays de Vaud. But they did not conceal from themselves how much there still remained to do. On October 13, Calvin, before he started for Berne, whither he was summoned, wrote from Lausanne to one of his friends—‘Already in many places the idols and the altars of the papacy have begun to totter, and I hope that ere long all the superstitions that still prevail will be abolished. The Lord grant that idolatry may be altogether uprooted in all hearts.’[436] These words characterize the condition of the Pays de Vaud at that epoch.
On November 21, 1536, a conference was held at Geneva, at which the pastors of the surrounding districts appear to have been present. Those of the Pays de Gex and of the Chablais undoubtedly attended.[437] A letter addressed by the conference to their brethren of Lausanne and of Vaud sufficiently refutes the calumnies cast upon the Reformation, and shows to what extent the reformers took heed of the purity of the Church. ‘The pontifical tyranny has been overthrown,’ they said; ‘silence has been imposed upon the monks, because of their doctrines and their unchaste lives. Brethren, take heed lest another tyranny erect itself in place of the former. See that order and discipline be maintained among you, and everything that becomes a holy assembly. To that end seek your directions, not from any pontiff, nor in the rites of the pope, but from Jesus Christ and in his Word.... Examine with the utmost care the brethren whom you accept as pastors; see that their doctrine be pure and their lives spotless. Inform yourselves even of their family and the family of their wives, as St. Paul enjoins. Without such care you will prepare your own ruin and that of your people. As for ceremonies, let them be wholesome. Exercise your Christian liberty, but in such a way as to cause offence to no one.’ The pastors of Geneva, they said, had received two letters in which they found no Christian charity or moderation at all, but which savored of pontifical authority. This passage doubtless refers to Caroli.
CHAPTER IV.
THE REFORM AT GENEVA.—FORMULARY OF FAITH AND OF DISCIPLINE.
(End of 1536–1537.)