[275] The pontifical chair, rendered vacant in the month of November 1549, by the death of Paul III., was occupied in the month of February of the following year by the Cardinal del Monte, who took the name of Julius III. The irregularities of his past life, and the disgraceful accusations which rested on his character, rendered him very unfit to be a reformer of the Church.
[276] On the back: "To the very Illustrious M. Francis Dryander, a Spaniard, at Baslo, with M. Myconius."
Dryander left Strasbourg (for England) in 1548. Melanchthon gave him letters of introduction to King Edward and to Cranmer, by whose patronage he obtained a Chair in the University of Cambridge.—(Zurich Letters, first series, tom. i. p. 349.) At the end of the following year (December 1549) we find Dryander in Strasbourg again. What were his motives for returning to the Continent cannot now be ascertained. See the notice of Dryander, p. 111.
[277] "To Nicolas Colladon, a man distinguished for piety and learning."
Among the numerous French refugees whom persecution led yearly to Geneva, there were none more distinguished than the members of the Colladon family, originally from Berry, where they occupied an eminent position, and are reckoned, even in our own day, among the number of the Genevese aristocracy. Nicolas Colladon, to whom the letter of the Reformer is addressed, was the son of Leon Colladon, the celebrated parliamentary advocate of Bourges, who, with his brother Germain, retired to Geneva in the early part of the year 1551. Long initiated in evangelical doctrine, Nicolas Colladon continued to exercise those pastoral functions in his adopted country, which he had previously performed in Berry. In 1564 he was made Principal of the College of Geneva, and in 1566 succeeded Calvin himself in the chair of theology, without ceasing to discharge his pastoral duties with a zeal which, during the plague of 1570, found a perilous opportunity of signalizing itself. He spent the last years of his life in the Canton de Vaud. The precise date of his death is not known.—Senebier, Hist. Litt., tom. i. p. 398. Galiffe, Notices Généalogiques, tom. ii. p. 566; and Haag, France Protestante, Art Colladon.
[278] In allusion to the various members of the Colladon family, who were contemplating a removal to Geneva.
[279] Anne Colladon, the sister of Nicolas, was on the point of being married to Laurent de Normandie. See Note 1, p. 217.
[280] Three years after the death of Gruet, beheaded for the crime of rebellion and of blasphemy, (see the note p. 226,) there was discovered in a garret of his house a writing in his own hand, of twenty-six pages, which was brought to the magistrates of Geneva. These latter submitted the document to Calvin, who drew up his opinion in the Memorial which we here reproduce, as an undeniable evidence of the religious doctrines and the morals professed by some of the chiefs of the Libertin party.
The writing in question was condemned, the 23d May 1550, as being full of the most detestable blasphemies, and was burnt by the hand of the hangman in front of the house of Gruet.
[281] The proclamation of the Interim plunged Germany into a state of extraordinary confusion. Some towns were so bold as to present remonstrances to the Emperor, and protested against an arbitrary edict, which reprobated alike the partisans of the ancient worship and those of the new. But their voice was not heard, and the greater number of the towns submitted. There were even theologians compliant enough to legitimize this submission. Of this number was Melanchthon, who, by his virtues and his knowledge, deserved the first rank among the Reformed doctors, but who, deprived now of the manly exhortations of Luther, and led away by an excessive love of peace, and by the natural weakness of his character, was making concessions which cannot be justified. Led by his example, and seduced by the artifices of the Elector Maurice, the Assembly of Leipsic declared that in matters purely indifferent we ought to obey the orders of our lawful superiors,—a dangerous principle, which applied to ceremonies, and led to the revival of the grossest and most pernicious errors of the Romish Church. Melanchthon himself wrote a great number of the letters of [Greek: Adiáphoros]Αδιάφορος [indifferent], in support of this doctrine, and his weakness drew down upon him the most violent reproaches from the zealous Lutherans, who accused him of being an accomplice of the enemies of the Gospel.—Sleidan, book xxii.; Robertson, book x. Moved by this sad news, Calvin did not hesitate to blame Melanchthon in a letter addressed to him, in which respect and affection are joined to a just severity.