The confusion that prevailed in Geneva at this period is attested by contemporaries. ‘Popery had indeed been forsworn,’ says Theodore Beza,[612] ‘but many had not cast away with it those numerous and disgraceful disorders which had for a long time flourished in the city, given up as it was for so many years to canons and impure priests. Some of the families which stood in the highest rank still kept alive those old enmities which grew up at the period of the wars with Savoy.’[613] ‘The mischief had gone to such a length that the city, owing to the factious temper of some of the citizens, was divided into various parties.’[614] ‘Nothing was to be heard,’ says Michel Rozet, ‘but informations (dénonces) and quarrels between the former and the present lords (the former and the new councils), some being the ringleaders, others following in their steps; the whole mingled with reproaches about the booty taken in the war, or the spoils carried off from the churches.’[615]
‘There was nothing but confusion.’[616]
Neither the mild admonitions which were at first tried, nor the more rigorous reprimands to which recourse was afterwards had, produced any effect on the disturbers of the peace, and they failed to put an end to their disorderly proceedings.[617]
‘I have lived here,’ says Calvin himself, when speaking of this period, ‘engaged in strange contests. I have been saluted in mockery, of an evening, before my own door, with fifty or sixty shots of arquebuses. You may imagine how that must astound a poor scholar, timid as I am, and as I confess I always was.’[618]
Such was the melancholy condition of Geneva according to men who, on questions of fact and of public fact, are the most respectable authorities that history can produce. She has but few witnesses endowed with the moral courage of Michel Rozet, Theodore Beza, and Calvin.[619]
PERPLEXITY OF THE REFORMERS.
The reformers were in great perplexity. The synod of Lausanne, at which the Bernese had opposed the hearing of the representatives of the Genevese Church, could not bind the latter. Their resistance to the introduction of new usages, which was ordered by the council without awaiting the decision of the synod of Zurich, was legitimate. If matters of that kind are left to the decision of the civil power, the natural order of things is inverted, the autonomy of the Church is disowned; and who knows whether, in a turbulent democracy, religion may not fall into the hands of an excited people who will, according to the saying of a celebrated but scoffing writer, take it up ‘to play at ball with it, and make it bound upwards as readily with the foot as with the fist.’[620] However, Calvin could not help asking himself whether the actual question, the acceptance of unleavened bread which the Jews used to eat at the time of the Passover, was of a sufficiently weighty kind to put an end to his ministry at Geneva. He did not think it was. ‘If we have at heart,’ he said, ‘union and peace, let us seek after a unity of minds in doctrine, rather than insist in a too scrupulous manner on a conformity of the most exact kind to this or that ceremony. There are some points on which the Lord leaves us freedom, in order that our edification may be the greater. Not to be careful about this edification, and to seek instead of it a slavish conformity, is unworthy of a Christian.’[621] Such were Calvin’s views on the question about leavened or unleavened bread.
But the question was about a quite different matter. The reformer had before him a town in agitation and division, its parties, quarrels, hatreds, scoffings, cries, disorders, and scandals. Is this the temple in which the festival of peace is to be celebrated? ‘No,’ said he, ‘the aspect of the Church is not at present such as the legitimate administration of our office requires.[622] Whatever people may say, we do not believe that our ministry ought to be confined within such narrow limits that when once we have delivered our sermon we have nothing more to do except to rest as if we had accomplished our task. It is more than that; it is that we must with greater vigilance take care of those whose blood will be demanded at our hands if they should perish through our negligence. This solicitude fills us with distress of mind at all times, but when we have to distribute the Lord’s supper, then it fiercely consumes and cruelly torments us.[623] While the faith of many of those who wish to take part in it is in our opinion doubtful and even open to suspicion, we see them all rushing headlong and pell-mell to the sacred table. And one would say that they are eating greedily the wrath of God rather than partaking of the sacrament of life.’[624] Calvin, as these words show, had still before his eyes that riotous communion of January, previous to which the council had decreed ‘that the supper should not be refused to anyone.’ He recollected the disposition, the look, the deportment, with which many had taken part in it; he still felt the heaviness of heart which he had experienced when giving the bread of life to such men. Now all had grown worse. The evil which had then shown itself, bursting the few chains which kept it down, now broke forth with violence. The population was excited, angry, rebellious. It was no longer merely the profligacy of some individuals; there was general perplexity, disturbance, and confusion. The agitation was not confined to the coarser minds; some of the most cultivated were going beyond all bounds. The saying of a celebrated writer with respect to another city might be applied to Geneva, ‘The devil is let loose on this town: within the memory of man so frightful a time has not been seen.’
VIOLENCE OF PARTIES.
Was this the moment for celebrating the feast of peace? In the judgment of every sensible man it would have been an absurdity. If a feast is to be held on board ship, is it to be just when the whirlwind of the tempest strikes the vessel, when the sea-waves lift themselves up, when those on board shake and totter like a drunken man, while they go up to the heavens and down to the abysses? Is that the time for the dance to begin, and for the passengers gracefully to execute measured paces, to the sound of musical instruments? Or would anyone choose for attendance at a sweet and harmonious concert the moment when the hall is on fire? And yet it was proposed, in the midst of burning lawless passions, to have by force, by the decree of the magistrate, a display of holy things which would be nothing but a profanation.