LIBERTY AND AUTHORITY.
Calvin had displayed at Lausanne a steadfastness in the faith, and a faculty of unfolding his views, which attracted more and more attention to him. Bucer and Capito, in reading his Institution, had already recognized the lofty reach of his intellect, and they eagerly desired to have a conference with him on the evangelical doctrine. They both wrote to him on December 1. ‘We acknowledge,’ said Bucer, ‘that it is the Lord’s will to make use of you abundantly for the good of our churches, and to make your ministry greatly useful. We desire to be in agreement with you in all things, and we will go to meet you wherever you please.’[438] Thus, then, the Strasburgers acknowledged in Calvin a vocation for all the churches. They saw in him the reformer. The author of the Institution had in fact conceived an ideal of a Church which was to take the place of the papacy—an ideal difficult, perhaps impossible of realization in this world, but to which he desired that Geneva should make as near an approach as possible. Luther had announced with power the doctrine of remission of sins, without concerning himself much about the constitution of the Church. That doctrine, by penetrating the hearts of men, was to form the congregation of the Lord. The great aim of Calvin was certainly to proclaim before everything, like Luther, the redemption accomplished by Jesus Christ, and the salvation which it gives; but he sought also, more than the German reformer, to found a faithful Church, which, being quickened and sanctified by the virtue of God’s word and the grace of the Holy Spirit, should truly be the body of the Lord. Zwingli had also busied himself with this subject; but there is an important difference between the labors of the reformers of Zurich and Geneva. At Zurich, Zwingli had looked downward: it was the people, so far as they believed in the Scriptures, who were the foundation of the Church. Calvin, on the other hand, looked upward, and placed the origin and the subsistence of the Church in God himself. At Zurich, the Church existed by the will of the reformed majority of the nation; at Geneva, it was the will and the Word of God that formed it. At Zurich, the fulcrum was in liberty; at Geneva, in authority. Both of these are salutary; but each has its own danger. The best system is that in which authority and liberty are combined; but this is not always easy to realize.
After Calvin’s return from the disputation of Lausanne, he resumed his lectures and expositions of St. Paul’s Epistles in the church of St. Peter. These lectures were well attended, and created an interest which continually increased. Ere long, the superiority of the young doctor and of his teaching, at once so profound and so animated, excited in the Genevese the desire that he should definitely settle among them. Towards the close of the year 1536, the office of pastor was added to that of doctor. ‘He was elected and declared such in that church by regular election and approbation.’[439] Calvin, at a later period, felt bound to insist, in his letter to Cardinal Sadoleto, on the regularity of that call. ‘In the first place,’ said he, ‘I discharged in that church the office of reader, and afterwards that of minister and pastor. And as far as regards my undertaking the second charge, I maintain for my right that I did so lawfully and by a regular call.’[440]
Calvin had not forgotten France, and he never did forget her. He had himself just instigated an intervention of several German and Swiss towns in favor of the French Protestants. It was doubtless on this subject that he wrote from Lausanne to his friend François Daniel, October 13, 1536: ‘To-morrow, if the Lord will, I am going to Berne, respecting a business of which I will speak to you another time. I am afraid that it may even be necessary for me to go as far as Basel, notwithstanding the state of my health and the present ungenial season.’[441] But nevertheless, without forgetting his old country, he attached himself to his new one. That republic appeared to suit his taste. Having become pastor at Geneva, he gave his attention to what he had to do in order to substitute for the Church of the pope a real evangelical Church.
THE INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY.
Farel, Viret, and Froment had begun the work at the right end. In building a temple the first process is the cutting of the stones one by one. Science has sometimes disparaged the individual. She has said, ‘An individual, of whatsoever species it be, is nothing to the universe; a hundred individuals, or a thousand, they are still nothing.’[442] It is not so with individuals that have souls. Christ anticipated and refuted these audacious assertions when he said, ‘What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?’ It was by the conversion of individuals (Cornelius, Lydia, &c.) that the Apostles established the Christian religion in the world; and it was by proceeding in the same way that Farel and his friends laid the foundations of Reform. Calvin, while appreciating this work, felt nevertheless that another was necessary. After analysis must come synthesis; and after the individual, society. Catholicism neglected the individual, and concerned itself almost exclusively with society. The Gospel proceeds otherwise. Farel had been everywhere, enlightening minds one by one with the torch of the Word. It was now needful to bind together the souls thus enlightened. The Christian individual must first be created, afterwards the Christian Church. The Reformation had begun in Geneva with the law of life. Another law, the law of unity, must now be fulfilled. Calvin was alarmed when he considered the state of Geneva. ‘When I first came into this town,’ said he, ‘there was as it were nothing—no morals, no discipline, no life. Preaching went on, and that was all. To be sure they burnt the idols, but there was no reformation at all.’[443] This judgment is perhaps too severe. It was twenty-eight years after the time referred to that Calvin thus expressed himself; and the ‘wonderful conflicts’ which he had been engaged in may possibly have led him to depict in too dark colors the church which Farel had left to him. Be that as it may, Calvin, while attaching the utmost importance to individual conversion, was profoundly convinced that a task of another kind remained to be achieved. We find that the same conviction possessed Luther when he returned to Wittenberg after his confinement in the Wartburg. It is the conviction that upon the revolutionary principle (and the revolution, we must admit, had been necessary and admirable) the conservative principle must erect itself.
DIVISION AMONG THE HUGUENOTS.
When a brilliant victory is won, we usually find, both in the world and in the Church, that a number of men gather around the victor who have indeed something in common with him, but who have at the same time characters and propensities opposed to his own. All who muster and fight under the same flag, however, have not always the same thoughts and the same affections as the brave warrior who hoists the flag. The Genevese, who were designated by the name of Huguenots, had declared for the Reformation because it attacked the abuses and the superstitions of popery, and because, in bidding them prove all things, it restored to them those privileges of free men of which Rome had robbed them; many had also been attracted by the love of novelty, others by the prospect of a new career opened to their ambition. There were doubtless a certain number of citizens who sincerely agreed with the Reformation, with the faith which it professed, and with the morals which it prescribed; but they did not form the most numerous class. In any expedition of great daring, and which exposes to many toils and privations, we know that many of the soldiers quit the standard under which they first ranked themselves; so it was inevitable that a large number of the Genevese would abandon the flag around which they had rallied, and would place themselves in opposition to the leaders whom at first they had followed. Calvin was not long in observing this. ‘The abomination of papistry,’ said he, ‘is now cut down by the power of the Word.[444] The senate has decreed that its superstitions, with all their paraphernalia, shall be suppressed, and that religion shall be regulated in the city according to the purity of the Gospel. However, the form of the Church does not appear to us to be such as the legitimate exercise of our office requires. Whatever others may think, we for our part cannot imagine that our ministry ought to be anything so slight as that when once we have preached our sermon, we have nothing to do but to fold our arms, like people that have done their task.’
Calvin’s first thought for insuring a prosperous state of things in Geneva—and this deserves to be noticed—was that it was essential to pay great attention to Christian instruction. He had no sooner returned from his journey than he began to draw up a catechism, to which he added a confession of faith.[445] Although his own word was full of force and authority, it was to the understanding, to the conscience, and to conviction that he appealed. The Holy Scriptures possessed in his eyes an infallible authority to which every soul of man is bound to submit. Nevertheless, he did not mean that men were to submit in a slavish manner, as Rome required; He would have them understand the Holy Scriptures in order that they might grasp their truth and beauty. ‘It is mere nothing,’ said he, ‘that words are thrown out, until our minds are enlightened by the gift of intelligence. If we cannot comprehend with our own understanding and know what is right, how should our will suffice to obey?’[446]
It was not difficult for the author of the Institution Chrétienne to compose, according to the same notions, a book designed for religious instruction. Calvin therefore prepared a catechism in French, which was not divided into question and answer. It seemed, from the way in which it was drawn up, less fitted to be placed in the hands of children than of masters, as a clue; or rather in the hands of adults, to aid their attempts after self-instruction. It appears, nevertheless, that the book was also used by children. It has hitherto been found impossible to discover a single copy of it. It is conjectured that the leaves of the book were used up, being torn out with the wear and tear of daily lessons, as frequently happens still with school-books.[447]