Calvinism A Kind Of Madness.

Calvin said to Christians, in conformity with the Scriptures, that it is God who seeks them and saves them; and that this goodwill of God ought to make them rejoice, deliver them from fears in the midst of so many perils, and render them invincible in the midst of so many snares and deadly assaults. But he makes a distinction. There are the hidden things of God, which are a mystery, and of these he says—‘Those who enter into the eternal council of God thrust themselves into a deadly abyss.’ Then there are the things which are known, which are seen in man, and are plain. ‘Let us contemplate the cause of the condemnation of man in his depraved nature, in which it is manifest, rather than search for it in the predestination of God, in which it is hidden and altogether incomprehensible.’[[179]] He is even angry with those who want to know ‘things which it is neither lawful nor possible to know (predestination). Ignorance,’ says he, ‘of these things is learning, but craving to know them is a kind of madness.’[[180]] It is a singular fact that what Calvin indignantly calls a madness should afterwards be named Calvinism. The reformer sets himself against this craving as a raging madness, and yet it is of this very madness that he is accused.

In Calvin there is the theologian, sometimes indeed the philosopher, although before all there is the Christian. He desires that every thing which may do men good should be offered to them. ‘But with regard to this dispute about predestination,’ he says, ‘by the inquisitiveness of men it is made perplexing and even perilous. They enter into the sanctuary of divine wisdom, into which if any one thrusts himself with too much audacity, he will get into a labyrinth from which he will find no exit, and in which nothing is possible to him but to rush headlong to destruction.’[[181]] We are not sure that Calvin did not allow himself to be drawn a step too far into the labyrinth. But we have seen the deep conviction with which he declares that the gate of heaven is opened, that the will of God is that his grace should be known to all the world. This is enough.

Calvin did not, however, hide from himself the fact that a minister of God’s Word must look forward to many contradictions and struggles. Thus, in his sermon on the duty of a preacher, it is said to the minister—‘It is thy duty to prepare thy hand betimes, so that no assault should overcome thee. Thou must not retreat nor fly before the foe (que tu placques làtout), but take warning that henceforth thou must needs fight.’[[182]]

Such was Calvin as a preacher. He points out the evils which are in man’s heart, but he proclaims still more loudly the love and the power of Him who heals him. He makes man feel that he is powerless, but he breathes into his soul the power of God. He casts down, but he also lifts up; and if he humbles, he is still more in earnest in getting men to run straight to the mark, in entreating them not to go astray in cross-ways, but to ‘get rid of all distractions.’ Forwards! forwards! he cries to the loiterers, and he shows them the means of advancing.

Calvin Not A Politician.

Calvin certainly was not narrow-minded; and while he was before all a member of the kingdom of God, he did not think it his duty to take no interest in the concerns of nations and of kings. He never forgot his persecuted fellow-religionists; and if for their deliverance it was needful to appeal to the powerful, to the princes, of the earth he did so. Is he to be accused of having therein played the part of a politician? Would it not have been a sad blemish on so fair a life to have forgotten his countrymen who were cast into prisons or bound on the galleys? But Calvin, having gained the rock on which the tempest could not harm him, did not cease to direct his attention to such of his brethren as were still pelted by the storm and well-nigh swallowed up in the abyss. He prayed; he cried aloud; he called upon those in power to stay the sword which was unsheathed against the righteous; he was able likewise, in grave emergencies, from the pulpit to invite to prayer and humiliation, to recall to mind the martyrs of old time, to declare that persecutors will have to render an account, to show that faith in the living God is an impregnable fortress; to urge those who, having come from a distance, had taken refuge at Geneva, to behave themselves holily, and to entreat all Christians, especially the weak, to make no blameworthy concessions, but to continue steadfast in the purity of the faith. What is there in all this incompatible with the evangelical ministry? What is there in all this that is not even obligatory and that could not fail to be approved of God? No, Calvin was neither a Dracon nor a Lycurgus; neither a political orator nor a statesman. His pulpit was no tribune for harangues; his work was not that of a secret chief of Protestantism. He was before all things an evangelist, a minister of the living God. Far from addressing himself to the people in general, he laid hold of the individual, and on him he made a deeper and more lasting impression than modern preachers have done with their vague discourses.

CHAPTER XXIV.
CALVIN’S ACTIVITY.
(February 1542.)

State Of Mind At Geneva.

With Calvin words and deeds went hand in hand. If he took part in external affairs, we understand that he did so in the midst of his flock. He was preacher and pastor, although he is chiefly known as teacher and reformer. Apart from Calvin, without the institutions of which he was the promoter, the evangelical reformation, religious and moral, would not have been accomplished in Geneva. We may also add that national independence and political liberties would not have been maintained in this town. The old Genevese population would have been unable to do this. Undoubtedly there had been men among this small people who had displayed great energy in repulsing the ambitious attempts of the Dukes of Savoy, in taking from the bishops the temporal privileges which they had usurped, in restoring civil liberties and in uniting Geneva to the Swiss cantons. All these measures were essential to the Reformation, for which a free people was indispensable. We have already narrated their achievements; and we have been reproached, unjustly, we think, for having done this at too great length. But at the time when Calvin appeared in the city of the first Huguenots, morality was far from being irreproachable; religion, scarcely disengaged from the forms and errors of Rome, was with the majority neither personal nor evangelical, deep-seated, pure, vital, or active; and civilization itself was hardly at a higher level there than it had reached in other countries. The heroes of independence had need themselves of being enlightened by the light of the Gospel, and of being transformed by its fire. Their first education was defective, and it was necessary to begin it again. Their intercourse with all that surrounded them exerted an influence over them which needed to be counterbalanced. The great advantage of the Reformation having been, in their view, their deliverance from the pretensions of priests and of princes, it was needful that they should learn to recognize in the Gospel the tidings of a higher order, of a spiritual enfranchisement, which would deliver them from sin and would give them the liberty of the children of God. They had availed themselves of the reformation as a political instrument; they must now learn to have recourse to it as a religious, moral, and divine instrument, capable of making them citizens of another and more glorious city. Many did this. Calvin’s return was not exclusively the work of a party. A profound conviction existed, both in the most influential men and in the minds of the people in general, that Calvin was the man they wanted. The Genevese population was therefore disposed to accept the institutions which he offered them. But there were nevertheless some secret discontents, which were to break out some day, and would become for Calvin and for the consistory the occasion of frequent and obstinate conflicts.