It cannot even be said, as is usually said, that the subject of excommunication was in question here. Not to give the supper at present did not mean that it should not be given afterwards. Calvin had given it. But it was not the time for it. Non erat hic locus. The reformer acted with the wisdom of a physician who will not give leave to impatient sick folk to take a mountain journey; he will do so afterwards, when they have regained their strength, but not now. Perhaps there may be individuals among them who will never scale the rocks because they will never have the power to do so. But that has nothing to do with those who are whole. For the physician there will be no more lovely day than that on which, at the head of his party, he shall be able to breathe with his friends the keen and healthful air of the heights, which at an earlier period would have killed them. That joy, we say again, Calvin had once tasted.
Calvin and Farel, having considered everything, took such a resolution as circumstances demanded; they would not give the supper on the following day, which was Easter Day. Having adopted this resolution, they communicated it to the authorities. ‘Farel and Calvin,’ says Rozet, ‘informed the council that they could not administer the supper in the midst of these divisions, gangs, and blasphemies, and with profligacies multiplying around them.’[625] Such was their motive clearly expressed. But they would do more than that. They had been prohibited from preaching. What! on this Easter Day should the doors of the churches be closed and the pulpit be dumb! Moreover, since they had refused to celebrate the supper, they owed to those whom God had confided to their ministry to give them their reasons. That was not for their harm but for their good, and they were bound to do it. Nevertheless, to occupy the pulpit on that day in defiance of the prohibition of the government, which was supported by the majority of the people, would be a grave affair for these two men, both feeble in body, the one in consequence of his labors, and the other by constitution. ‘But,’ said Calvin one day, recalling a saying of David, ‘though a camp, an army, that is to say, everything which is terrible and appalling in the world, should rise up against us, though all men should conspire to destroy us, we have no fear of all their might, for the power of God is far greater. We shall not be entirely free from fear; if we were, it would rather be from stupidity than from courage. But we shall hold before us the shield of faith, lest our hearts should faint or fail through the terrors which beset us.’[626] A victory which the court of Turin, with the aid of Spain and of the pope, failed to gain over the senate and people of Geneva, these two feeble men attempt and win. Here was one of the most beautiful triumphs of which the cause of religious liberty engaged in a conflict with the despotism of the state can boast. It was more than that. It was Christian heroism which prefers the fulfilment of the will of God, with exile, to a comfortable abode in one of the fairest countries in the world, with a conscience sacrificed and a slavish submission to Cæsar in things pertaining to God. It was in this character that the two principal witnesses to Calvin’s life regarded it. ‘Thenceforth Calvin,’ says one of them, ‘as he was of a spirit essentially heroic, stoutly and steadily resisted the seditious, together with the aforesaid Farel.’[627]—‘Farel and Calvin,’ says the other, ‘each endowed with a noble and heroic spirit, openly declared that they could not celebrate in a religious manner the Lord’s supper, among citizens who were so miserably at variance with each other, and so opposed to all discipline in the church.’[628] The decay of Christian principle is the only possible explanation of the fact that some should have ventured a judgment on them, contrary to that which was pronounced by contemporaries.
CHAPTER XI.
CALVIN AND FAREL PREACH IN SPITE OF THE PROHIBITION BY THE COUNCIL.—THEY ARE BANISHED FROM GENEVA.
(Easter, 1538.)
APPROACH OF THE CRISIS.
The crisis was approaching. The danger was increasing. Geneva was in one of those perilous but decisive moments in which some sudden change takes place, whether for better or for worse. The population was getting more and more excited. The news that the ministers would not celebrate the supper in Geneva raised irritation to the highest pitch. All explanations were useless; many people would not listen to anything; anger had stopped their ears. It is said that in the evening the streets were in an uproar, and that bands of factious men were shouting against the ministers. It is even added that a masquerade had been organized for the purpose of presenting a parody of scenes from the Gospel. We are not sure that the libertines went to that length; but there was during the evening a great agitation in the town, as the next day too plainly showed. These scenes of tumult greatly grieved Calvin. If he turned his thoughts to the past, the great sorrows which he had already borne in Geneva appeared to him again; and he foresaw that those which were approaching would be more bitter still. Interfered with in the preaching of the Word, in the administration of the sacraments, in the maintenance of apostolical discipline and in the organization of the Church (the council refused its consent to the division of the town into parishes, a measure which would have greatly facilitated the discharge of pastoral duties, and have promoted the good of families), what was he to do? ‘I confess,’ he wrote, ‘that the first letters by which the senate endeavored to turn aside my will from the right path struck me a heavy blow.[629] I saw that I was thus again plunged into the distresses from which I had hoped that I was delivered by the great goodness of God. When I accepted the government of this Church, in conjunction with my excellent and most faithful colleague Farel, I applied myself in all good conscience to seeking out the means by which it might be maintained; and although it was for me a very laborious charge, I never thought of abandoning the place. I considered myself as set by the hand of God at a post from which I could not withdraw. And nevertheless, if I were to tell the least part of the cares, or rather of the miseries, which we were forced to endure throughout a whole year, I am sure that you would think it incredible.[630] I can assure you that not a day has passed in which I did not ten times wish for death.’[631] This Easter eve, when he was on the point of exposing himself to the greatest griefs, while giving unto God the honor which is due to him, was doubtless one of those days. He must drink the cup of the people’s wrath. He, the timid scholar, as he declares that he always had been, must now face these furious men. But one thought gave him strength; it is the will of God, and his will must be done.
EASTER SUNDAY.
Easter Sunday dawned. From early morning great agitation prevailed in the town. The adversaries and friends of the reformers were both troubled, but in different ways. The former were impatient to see if they would really preach notwithstanding the prohibition of the council, and to hear what they might have to say. The latter also were eager to go to divine service, either from a sentiment of piety or in order to defend the ministers in case, as some expected, there should be any disturbance in the churches. The movements of the multitude, the groups which were forming at various points, the violent speeches which were uttered from time to time, all were calculated to inspire fear. In timid souls there was also an inward trouble, an anxiety, and a heart-ache, inevitable under circumstances so grave. Men, women, and children, the roar of the crowd, and the confused voices of the people, filled the streets. Strange things were fancied, evil reports were circulated. One would almost have said, seeing the general stir, that some one was going to be led to execution. The crowd was drifting towards the places of execution. The inhabitants of the right bank betook themselves to the church of St. Gervais, in which Farel was to preach; those of the left bank and of the upper part of the town to the cathedral of St. Peter, where Calvin would preach. They entered the doors and filled the churches. The friends of the reformers took their places in general about the pulpit. Their adversaries, distributed over all parts of the building, and exchanging bold words with each other, asked themselves whether it was not their duty to aid the magistrate and prevent the ministers from speaking. The district on the right bank was that in which most of the opponents of the ministers lived. Probably some of their most violent enemies had come from other quarters to hear Farel, whose presence was less imposing than Calvin’s, and with whom they were more familiarly acquainted. The brave evangelist had not ceased for some years lavishing his powers for the good of Geneva, and for this they meant to pay him on this day. Farel appeared, entered the pulpit, and at the sight of him considerable excitement was manifested by the audience. No attempt, however, was made to close his mouth. The preaching of this popular orator at the present moment was a spectacle which interested them as much as or even more than any other. The prayer and the hymns being over, the discourse began. Farel, with his intrepid heart, his fervent spirit, his strong convictions, and his power of impressing and carrying away his hearers, did not conceal the truth. Without dwelling on the question of bread, which he declared was a secondary matter, he spoke of the holiness of the supper. He remonstrated with the people, as if they intended, in his opinion, to defile the holy sacrament,’[632] and he declared that, to prevent such a profanation, the holy supper would not be celebrated. These words moved the whole assembly, and roused a great part of them to indignation. Adversaries became disorderly, friends were in alarm. Imaginations were heated, anger burst forth, and outcries were heard. In the morning a disturbance was got up against Farel in the church of St. Gervais.[633] But the preacher’s habit was to brave danger; and, above all, he knew no fear when unworthy men