Françoise was not slow to reply. ‘My allowance has not been paid the last year, as the treasurer alleges. His wife never brought me broth in my illness, nor did he ever give me any of his wine, except two bossots, which I cannot drink.’ ‘I gave her good wine,’ said the treasurer, ‘but she put it into a vessel not fit to keep it in. Mother,’ said he, turning to her. ‘I am not thy mother,’ bluntly replied Françoise.
The consistory, then, through the medium of Calvin, who had been charged with the duty, addressed to them remonstrances and warnings (commonitions). ‘Lay aside,’ said the reformer, ‘all hatred and rancor for all bygone time to the present day. Live together in true peace and love, as son and mother ought, and let any thing that is due to the said Françoise be paid to her.’ ‘I am ready,’ said the treasurer, ‘to pay her what shall be quite sufficient for her, the utmost that I can, and more than before.’ Then, speaking to Françoise, ‘Mercy, mother, for God’s love, and let bygones be bygones.’ ‘But,’ says the Register, ‘Françoise would do nothing of the sort.’ This woman seemed to have a heart of flint. Her look, her manner, and her words showed this. The consistory, vexed at her obstinacy, requested her to appear again the following week, asked her to reflect on the business and to attend the sermons, and directed that fitting remonstrance should be made with her. At this moment, whether Calvin’s words made some impression on her, or whether she became conscious of her fault and a better spirit was given her from on high, or probably from all these causes combined, Françoise was softened and affected. ‘The mountains melted like wax at the presence of the Lord.’ ‘Ah, well,’ she said, ‘I am going to forgive them for the love of God and the seignory. I forgive my son all the faults he has committed against me, and I forgive also my daughter-in-law.’ The latter, who was perfectly innocent, and had done all that she could for her mother-in-law, then said, ‘I am not the cause of the quarrel. When my mother was ill I went to be of service to her, as the neighbors know. When I knew that she was in want of any thing I used to give it her. It is no fault of mine that we are not all friends with one another.’ So the matter ended. The poor Françoise was particularly sharp, exacting, and irritable, but at the same time open to conciliation. The restoration of goodwill between parties who were at variance was, it is evident, one of Calvin’s duties. ‘While we preserve peace,’ said he, ‘the God of peace counts us as his children.’[[207]]
The institution of the consistory and the beginning of its activity mark the epoch at which the reformation of Geneva may be considered to be accomplished. At the same time it is the work which is characteristic of Calvin. To form a people it is not enough to collect a vast assembly of men; they must be governed by the same spirit, the same constitution, and the same laws. A multitude of soldiers levied in a whole country is not yet an army; they must form a single body, must be subjected to the same discipline, and must obey the same general. Here are two distinct operations: in the first place, the creation of the elements; next, their organization. We can hardly fail to acknowledge that God had given to Luther the qualifications needed for beginning the work, and to Calvin those which were required for completing it. Each of these undertakings was not only suited to their individual characters, but was likewise in accordance with the spirit of the two races of men to which they belonged. One of these races takes an enterprise in hand with energy, and the other carries it out to perfection. These are the flags of the two leaders.
Originators Of Reformation.
Luther had not been the only man of action, although he was such in the broadest and loftiest acceptation. What he had been in Germany, Zwinglius had at the same time been in German Switzerland, and Farel somewhat later in the French districts. Later still, Knox and others were the same in their respective countries. Energetic men, fearless and blameless knights of the spiritual realm, they assailed courageously the stronghold of the enemy, and made noble conquests. At the sight of the deplorable condition to which Rome had reduced Christendom, of the licentiousness and the dissensions of popes, bishops, monks, and council, they had cried aloud. This cry had been heard by a great multitude of men, who were sleeping at the time, and it had created immense excitement in all Christian lands. Starting out of a sleep of several centuries, they had rushed to arms from all quarters. The wise and the good had laid hold of the Bible; but sometimes fanatical peasants had laid hold of the scythe. Philosophers had devised erroneous systems; and libertines had given themselves up to immoral imaginations. There was a great tumult in Christendom and immense confusion.
Then it was that Calvin appeared. Calm in the midst of violent excitement, strong in the midst of fatal weakness, he did not confine his attention to the little city in which he had been twice settled. He went bravely forward over a burning soil, the shot hissing right and left of him; he stretched out his hand to Christendom. Raising his eyes to his Chief, who was in heaven, he besought his aid; and for the purpose of influencing men he took into his hands the sovereign Word of God. Commander of the armies of the Lord, if we may so speak, nothing disturbed the serenity, the security, or the majesty of his aspect. Called to introduce order in the midst of great confusion, his penetrating glance was turned to the conflict in which the combatants were engaged hand to hand. He distinguished in the crowd who were friends and who were foes. He saw who ought to be repulsed and who ought to be encouraged. He understood that he had to contend not only with Rome, which was making open war on the Gospel, but also with those perfidious adversaries who insinuated themselves into the ranks of the evangelicals, and under shelter of their colors promulgated deadly errors, and even overthrew the counsel of God from its foundation. He did more. Those who were fighting for the same cause as himself gave him hardly less trouble. It was necessary to prevent their firing madly at one another, to make peace between their divided chiefs, to establish order and to promote unity. Above all it was necessary to baffle and repulse with a face of brass the crafty and powerful enemy, Jesuitism, which was mustering against him all the forces of the papacy. After the great Luther, the bold Zwinglius, and the indefatigable Farel, there was need of a man who should temper and restrain the minds of men, who should demand and get, not the factitious unity of Rome, but the spiritual and true unity of the people of God, and whose forehead, ‘as an adamant, harder than flint,‘[[208]] should repulse and disperse Rome and her army. The first three champions whom we have just named carried the sword. Calvin, humble, poor and of mean appearance, held in one hand a balance, and in the other a sceptre; and if the first three were the heroes of the reformation, if Luther was, under God, its great founder, Calvin seems to have been its lawgiver and its king.
Calvin, The Pilot.
The vessel of reform, indeed, had been energetically launched by Luther; but there soon appeared on her decks, from Italy, Spain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Poland, men of acute and cavilling spirit, of restless disposition, who, by their agitations and their disputations, might cause the ship to capsize; while at the same time a well-armed and well-appointed galley, under Roman colors, running at full speed with oars and sails, struck the vessel with its beak-head, intending to sink her in the deep. What errors and what dangers were threatening! But God delivered the reformation from them, and no man contributed more to this deliverance than Calvin did. A skilful and trustworthy pilot, he saved the ship. He had, doubtless, some formidable conflicts with those proud spirits; but the truth won the day. He provoked in the Roman camp spite and hate against himself which have never been quelled. But evangelical truth has held its ground, and is at this day making the conquest of the world. When a healthful wind blows over a sickly land, and drives away the poisonous exhalations, there will sometimes be seen, it is true, after the passage of the wind, some shattered branches strown here and there upon the ground; but the air has been purified and life restored to the people.
It is generally imagined that the doctrines of Calvin were of an extreme and intolerant character; but, in fact, they were moderate, mediating, and conciliatory. He took a position between two extremes, and established the truth. Of all the teachers of the reformation, Zwinglius is the one who pushed furthest the doctrine of election; for, in his view, election is the cause of salvation, while faith is nothing more than its sign.[[209]] Calvin, in opposition to Zwinglius, places the cause of salvation in the faith of the heart. He teaches that ‘the will of man must be aroused to seek after the good and to surrender itself to it;’ and, as we have already seen, he declares that those who ‘to be assured of their election enter into the eternal counsel of God plunge into a deadly abyss.’ But if Zwinglius was at one extreme, the semi-Pelagians, some of whom were outside the pale of Rome, were at the other, and attributed to the natural will an importance in the work of salvation which enfeebled the grace of God. Calvin opposes their error, and says ‘that man is not impelled of his own good pleasure to seek Jesus Christ until he has been sought by him.’[[210]] And he teaches, as Augustine did, that God begins his work in us, places it in the will of man, and, like a good rider, guides it at a proper pace, urges it on when it is too backward, holds it back when it is too eager, and checks it if too much given to skirmishing. Nowhere does the mediating character of Calvin appear more distinctly than in his view of the Lord’s Supper. We have seen this, and it is needless to repeat it. We refrain likewise from giving other instances which forcibly exhibit the mediating, moderating, conciliatory character of Calvin.[[211]]
If Calvin was everywhere to be found, at least by his influence, at the head of the armies which contended with Rome, he was also to be found everywhere preaching the brotherhood and the unity of all evangelical Christians. He was united in the closest friendship with Farel, minister at Neuchâtel, and with Viret, minister at Lausanne; and he wrote to them, ‘By our union the children of God are gathered into one flock of Jesus Christ, and are even united in his body.’[[212]] He soon endeavored to draw into this union, into this body, not only the churches of Reformed France, but also those of German Switzerland, of Germany, the Netherlands, England, and other countries. The aim of his life and his chief desire was to see all of them included in one great network of unity. ‘For this end,’ said he with heroic energy, ‘I should not shrink from crossing ten seas, if that were needful.’[[213]] He succeeded, at least in the most important part of his aim; for if it was not possible to establish an external unity between the various churches, which was not his object, there is at this time an internal, spiritual unity between all those who love Jesus Christ and keep his word.