CAROLI AT LAUSANNE.
Many friends of the Gospel looked to Calvin, who enjoyed their entire confidence, and begged him to go immediately to Lausanne. This he did. Farel would have liked to accompany him; but the Bernese requested him to look after his own church and not after theirs. Delegates from Berne were sent to Lausanne, and a kind of consistory was thus formed, in which Calvin, it appears, stated the case. But the proud Caroli, who thought it beneath his dignity to make any defence, refused in the haughtiest manner to give the least explanation of his conduct. He was greatly annoyed to find himself accused by Calvin, whose superiority was so troublesome to him. He immediately formed his plan. He resolved to turn against the reformer the sword with which the latter had threatened him, and to plunge it into him up to the hilt. ‘If the minister of Geneva,’ he exclaimed, ‘has shown so much zeal in bringing this business before your assembly, it is a shameful conspiracy, the only object of which is to ruin me completely.’ Viret then spoke, and so clearly set forth the subterfuges and calumnies of Caroli, that the assembly condemned him to make a retractation, regardless of his amour propre. Astounded by a sentence so severe, this man, who so easily passed from one extreme to another, humbled himself, and with lamentings and tears asked for pardon. Calvin was touched by this demeanor, and in the abundance of his moderation prayed the assembly to spare Caroli the act which wounded his pride. Viret did the same. Their request was granted. The doctor of the Sorbonne had then nothing better to do than to retire quietly to his own house, with a grateful feeling towards his two noble adversaries. But their well-meant interposition had not really softened him; his humility was a mere feint. He was determined at all cost to reach his end and become the foremost man in the Church. Jealous of the influence exercised by Calvin, Farel, and Viret in Switzerland, he said to himself that in order to get firmly seated in the saddle, the man already riding must first be dismounted. The ruin of these three doctors was the task which he had to undertake. He felt sure of the secret support, at least at Geneva, of some of the leading men; and he flattered himself that he should be able to involve Calvin in hopeless embarrassment.[499] He resolved therefore to assume the character of accuser, and to reduce his enemies to play the part of the guilty and the accused.
People thought that they had done with this man, and the assembly was on the point of breaking up, when he suddenly rose, with a preoccupied look, as if he had some burden on his conscience of which he was anxious to be rid. ‘For the glory of God,’ said he, speaking in a declamatory tone, ‘for the honor of the lords of Berne, for the purity of the faith, for the safety of the Church, for the public peace, and for the relief of my own conscience, I have now to set before you, my honorable lords, a matter on which I have long kept silence. The silence must now be broken. I must speak. There are in the city of Geneva, as well as in your country, many ministers who are tainted with the Arian heresy.’ Putting himself forward like a second Athanasius, he named a great number of ministers, good men, whom he declared guilty of the error of Arius, but without giving any evidence at all.[500] Calvin was among the first in this catalogue of heretics. To accuse him of being an Arian required an audacity and a passion carried to the pitch of madness. It appears that he was even accused, in common with his friends, of maintaining the errors of the Spaniard Servetus.[501] The Genevese theologians had very recently encountered and defeated an Arian at Geneva, Claude of Savoy. There was something more than passion in this attack; there was absurdity. Calvin leaning towards Deism, indeed! The Reformation was not a beginning of Deism, with which stupid enemies have charged it: it was a reëstablishing of Christianity.
CALVIN ACCUSED OF ARIANISM.
The reformer was struck with astonishment. ‘It had never entered into my imagination,’ he wrote, ‘that we had to fear being accused on this point.’[502] Calvin perceived the scope of the attack which Caroli had just made. If he were to remain under this charge, his ministry would be compromised, his zeal suspected, his labors fruitless. Discord would be thrown into the evangelical camp, and Rome exult to see the most devoted champions of the Reformation accused of denying the divinity of the Saviour. The reformer immediately rose; and without any exhibition of violence, with which his enemies are always ready to reproach him, he pointed out with much spirit the inconsistency of his opponent. ‘Only a few days ago,’ he said, ‘Caroli invited me to his table. I was at that time a very dear brother. He bade me present his compliments to Farel; he treated as Christians all those whom he looks on to-day as heretics, and protested that he wished to maintain for ever a brotherly union with us. Where, at that time, was the glory of God, where the purity of the faith and the unity of the Church?’ Then, turning towards the doctor of the Sorbonne—‘How could you,’ he said, ‘conscientiously celebrate the holy supper on two occasions with an Arian associate? From what source have you learnt that I am tainted with that heresy? Tell me, for I will clear myself of that infamy.’ As Caroli brought forward no evidence, the reformer appealed to the catechism which he had recently published. ‘This is the faith,’ said he, ‘which I have but lately professed. We confess that we believe in the Father, in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit; and when we name the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, we do not imagine to ourselves three gods. But we believe that Scripture and the experience of piety show us the Father, the Son, and the Spirit in simplest divine unity.’[503]
Caroli was not by any means satisfied. The words in his view essential were missing. Calvin thought it advisable, in works of a practical and popular character, to avoid the use of expressions which are not found in holy Scripture. Therefore he had avoided the use, in the passage cited, of the terms Trinity, substance, or persons. Luther had done the same. ‘This term, Trinity,’ said he, ‘is nowhere to be found in holy Scripture; it was invented by men. Moreover the word is frigid, and it is far better to say God than Trinity.’[504] Calvin, who was full of spirit and life, was afraid that by the use of these theological terms Christianity should be placed solely in the understanding of the man and of the child, and not in his conscience, his heart, his will, and his works. He had employed them the year before in the first edition of his Institution, which was intended for professed theologians:[505] but he had excluded them both from his Confession, prepared chiefly for the laity, and from his Catechism, composed for children. All this did not pacify Caroli, who, if he was orthodox, was only orthodox in the head. He alleged that if Calvin was innocent of Arianism, he was guilty of Sabellianism. ‘You will be under suspicion on that matter,’ said he, ‘until you have subscribed the Athanasian creed.’ ‘My practice,’ replied Calvin, ‘is not to approve of anything as in conformity with the Word of God until after due consideration.’ Caroli, thinking that the Athanasian creed was compromised by this reserve, flew into a passion and cried out, ‘that this avowal was unworthy of a Christian.’[506]
CONVOCATION OF A SYNOD.
Up to this moment Calvin had restrained himself; but he felt deeply the injustice of the doctor’s accusations. When he had received an unmerited blow, he not seldom replied by striking another himself. The blow was just, but sometimes rather sharp. ‘You will not find any one,’ he said to Caroli, ‘more earnest than I am in maintaining the divinity of Jesus Christ. I think that I have given a sufficiently clear account of my faith. My works are in everybody’s hands, and all the orthodox churches approve my doctrine. But as for you, what evidence have you ever given of your faith, except possibly in public-houses and the haunts of vice? For it is in such places that you have hitherto practised.’
Caroli, knowing all that could be told of his abandoned life, and as cowardly as he was rash, trembled when he found that Calvin was approaching that subject. In order to break the force of the blow, he retracted his charge, and declared that the writings of his opponent were good; that he had always spoken well of the Holy Trinity; and that no accusation could be drawn up against him, ‘provided that he did not support the cause of Farel.’ Caroli feared Farel less than Calvin, and hated him more. Viret then spoke, and compelled the presumptuous doctor to retract what concerned himself (Viret). ‘These retractations are not sufficient,’ said the two reformers; ‘we mean to defend likewise the cause of Farel and of our other absent brothers, whom you have unjustly accused.’ The delegates of Berne, when they saw what an important character the debate was assuming, declared that it was necessary to carry it before a general assembly, and undertook to get one held. The meeting then broke up.[507]