According to all these data, the responsibility of Calvin in the ecclesiastical government of Geneva does not seem so great as is supposed; and the circumstance that the deputies or nominees of the Council formed the majority in the consistory is certainly significant. Many of the alterations or additions were just. This was especially the case with the article which assigned to the ministers the spiritual sword alone. Calvin must have acceded to it with joy. But others were real encroachments of the civil power. It is probable that the reformer was pained to see them, for he wished the church to have for its supreme law the word of its divine head. He would never have made a compromise on doctrine; but considering the great work which had to be done in Geneva, he believed—as otherwise he must have renounced the hope of accomplishing it—that he ought to make concessions on some points of government. He always condemned ‘the hypocrites who, while omitting judgment, mercy, and faith, and even reviling the law, are all the more rigorous in matters which are not of great importance.’ He did not strain at a gnat while he swallowed a camel. The dangers involved in the intrusion of the state into the affairs of the church were not recognized in his time; and the sacrifices which he made were more important than he imagined.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CALVIN’S PREACHING.
A great work had thus been accomplished; it remained to make practical application of its principles. The machine must work, must bring into act on the spiritual forces, and produce a movement in the pathway of light. As soon as Calvin had settled at Geneva he had resumed the duties of his ministry. On Sundays he conducted divine service, and had daily service every other week.[[164]] He devoted three hours in each week to theological teaching; he visited the sick, and administered private reproof. He received strangers; attended the consistory on Thursday, and directed its deliberations; on Friday was present at the conference on Scripture, called the congregation; and, after the minister in office for the day had presented his views on some passage of Scripture, and the other pastors had made their remarks, Calvin added some observations, which were a kind of lecture. He wished, as he afterwards said, that every minister should be diligent in studying, and that no one should become indolent. The week in which he did not preach was filled up with other duties; and he had duties of every kind. In particular, he devoted much attention to the refugees who flocked to Geneva, driven by persecution out of France and Italy;[[165]] he taught and exhorted them. He consoled, by his letters, ‘those who were still in the jaws of the lion;’ he interceded for them. In his study he threw light on the sacred writings by admirable commentaries, and confuted the writings of the enemies of the Gospel.
Calvin’s Principal Office.
Calvin’s principal office, however, was that which, in the Ordinances, he had assigned to the minister; namely, to proclaim the Word of God for instruction, admonition, exhortation, and reproof.[[166]] It is important to observe that he gives to preaching a practical character. He felt the need of this so strongly that he established it in the fundamental law of the church. For all this, it has been said that we find in his discourses chiefly ‘political eloquence, the eloquence of the forum, of the agora.’[[167]] Unfortunately, the finest minds have believed this on mere hearsay. Reproaches of another kind have been made against him. It has been supposed that his sermons were full of nothing but obscure and barren doctrines. Calvin is certainly quite able to stand up for himself, and needs not the help of others. His works are sufficient, and if they were read as they deserve to be, although he might not be found eloquent after the present fashion, he would be found invariably Christian; a man possessing great knowledge of the world, with a strong popular element.
It is indispensable, however, to give in this place some account of Calvin’s preaching. He was, with Luther, the most important actor at the epoch of the Reformation; and there is no character in history more misunderstood than he is. It is a duty to come to the aid of one who is assailed—were it even the weakest that offers his aid to the strongest. Besides, it is no task of special pleading that we undertake. We shall confine ourselves to laying before the reader the documentary evidence in the trial.
Two or three thousand of Calvin’s sermons are extant. He could not spend weeks on the composition of a homily. During great part of the year he preached every day, sometimes twice a day. He did not write his sermons, but delivered them extempore. A short-hand writer took down his discourses during their delivery.[[168]] These sermons opened the treasures of the Scriptures, and spread them abroad amongst men; and they were full of useful applications.
Calvin’s Sermons.
Calvin usually selected some book of the Bible, and preached a series of sermons on the divine words contained in it. These were published in large infolios. One volume appeared which contained a hundred and fifty-nine sermons on Job; another which consisted of two hundred sermons on Deuteronomy; in a third were given a hundred on the Epistles to Timothy and Titus. There are volumes of sermons on the Epistles to the Ephesians, the Corinthians, the Galatians, &c. How can it be thought that on these sacred books Calvin would deliver harangues of the forum? We have seen, from the Ordinances, that he esteemed it a great fault in a preacher to adopt an unusual manner of treating the Scriptures, which gives occasion for scandal; a curious propensity to indulge in idle questionings, &c. While so many prejudices with regard to Calvin exist among Protestants, there are Catholics who have done justice to him. One of these, a writer not generally friendly to him, has acknowledged that, according to this reformer, ‘the first and principal duty of the preacher is to be always in agreement with Holy Scripture. It is only on condition of his faithfully and conscientiously setting forth the divine word, that he has any right to the obedience and confidence of the church. From the moment that he ceases to preach the pure Gospel, his right to speak is extinct.’[[169]] It is a pleasure to record this just and true judgment. It is entirely in agreement with what Calvin said of himself from the pulpit. ‘We must all,’ he said, ‘be pupils of the Holy Scriptures, even to the end; even those, I mean, who are appointed to proclaim the Word. If we enter the pulpit, it is on this condition, that we learn while teaching others. I am not speaking here merely that others may hear me; but I too, for my part, must be a pupil of God, and the word which goes forth from my lips must profit myself; otherwise woe is me! The most accomplished in the Scripture are fools, unless they acknowledge that they have need of God for their schoolmaster all the days of their life.’[[170]] In Calvin’s view, every thing that had not for its foundation the Word of God was a futile and ephemeral boast; and the man who did not lean on Scripture ought to be deprived of his title of honor, spoliandus est honoris sui titulo. This was not the rule laid down for the orators of the agora.
Calvin used to preach in the cathedral church of St. Peter, which was more particularly adapted for preaching. A great multitude thronged the place to hear him. Among his hearers he had the old Genevese, but also a continually increasing number of evangelical Christians, who took refuge at Geneva on account of persecution, and who belonged, for the most part, to the most highly cultivated of their nation. Among them were also some Catholic priests and laymen, who had come to Geneva with the intention of professing there the reformed doctrines, and to these men it was very necessary to teach the doctrine of salvation. But if, in the sixteenth century, people came from a great distance to hear Calvin, will they be ready at this day, without stirring from their homes, to make acquaintance with some of those discourses which at that period contributed to the transformation of society, and which were, as usually stated on the title-page, ‘taken down verbatim from his lips as he publicly preached them’? They are considered by many persons the weakest of his productions, and it is hardly thought worth while even to glance at them. It is generally asserted that what was printed in the sixteenth century is unreadable in the nineteenth. Times are indeed changed; but there are still readers who, when studying an epoch, desire to see at first-hand the words of its most distinguished men. It is our duty to satisfy such readers.