160. Far more important than Zwingli's teachings, especially for England and America, was the work of Calvin, which was carried on in the ancient city of Geneva on the very outskirts of the Swiss confederation. It was Calvin who organized the Presbyterian Church and formulated its beliefs. He was born in northern France in 1509; he belonged, therefore, to the second generation of Protestants. He was early influenced by the Lutheran teachings, which had already found their way into France. A persecution of the Protestants under Francis I drove him out of the country and he settled for a time in Basel.[297]
Calvin's Institutes of Christianity.
Here he issued the first edition of his great work, The Institutes of Christianity, which has been more widely discussed than any other Protestant theological treatise. It was the first orderly exposition of the principles of Christianity from a Protestant standpoint. Like Peter Lombard's Sentences, it formed a convenient manual for study and discussion. The Institutes are based upon the infallibility of the Bible and reject the infallibility of the Church and the pope. Calvin possessed a remarkably logical mind and a clear and admirable style. The French version of his great work is the first example of the successful use of that language in an argumentative treatise.
Calvin's reformation in Geneva.
Calvin was called to Geneva about 1540 and intrusted with the task of reforming the town, which had secured its independence of the duke of Savoy. He drew up a constitution and established an extraordinary government, in which the church and the civil government were as closely associated as they had ever been in any Catholic country.[298] The Protestantism which found its way into France was that of Calvin, not that of Luther, and the same may be said of Scotland.
The gradual revolt of England from the Church.
161. The revolt of England from the mediæval Church was very gradual and halting. Although there were some signs that Protestantism was gaining a foothold in the island not long after Luther's burning of the canon law, a generation at least passed away before the country definitely committed itself, upon the accession of Queen Elizabeth in 1558, to the change in religion. It seems at first sight as if the revolution were due mainly to the irritation of Henry VIII against the pope, who refused to grant the king a divorce from his first wife in order that he might marry a younger and prettier woman. But a permanent change in the religious convictions of a whole people cannot fairly be attributed to the whim of even so despotic a ruler as Henry. There were changes taking place in England before the revolt similar to those which prepared the way in Germany for Luther's success.
John Colet.
English scholars began, in the latter part of the fifteenth century, to be affected by the new learning which came to them from Italy. Colet,[299] among others, strove to introduce the study of Greek in Oxford. Like Luther he found himself especially attracted by St. Paul, and had begun to teach the doctrine of justification by faith long before the German reformer was heard of.
Sir Thomas More and his 'Utopia.'