The Reformed Church of London, next to that of Strasbourg the oldest of the refugee churches, was formed during the first years of the reign of Edward VI., obtained a legal recognition in 1550, had for ministers Francis Péruçel, called La Rivière, and Richard Vanville, and as moderator an illustrious foreign nobleman, devoted to the cause of religious reform, John A Lasco or Laski. Dispersed in 1553, under the intolerant reign of Mary, it reconstituted itself under the reparative reign of Elizabeth, and reckoned in the list of its pastors one of the most distinguished ministers of Geneva, Nicolas des Gallars. In its early commencement, that Church, which has been perpetuated to our own day, and to which the greater part of the French Churches of England, of Scotland, and even of America, owe their origin and their organization, was troubled by theological disputes, which made the intervention of Calvin needful.
[383] A Lasco had composed a work entitled, The whole Form and Manner of the Ecclesiastical Ministry in the Church of the Strangers, set up at London by the very faithful Prince, Edward VI.
[384] On the back, in the handwriting of Calvin: "The case against Trolliet."
Trolliet, of Geneva, a discontented and unsettled spirit, became, first of all, a hermit in Burgundy, and lived in affectation of sanctity. Soon tired, however, of playing this part, he re-appeared at Geneva, and solicited the functions of the ministry, from which he was warned off by the influence of Calvin, against whom he vowed an irreconcilable hatred. Thenceforward, he made himself remarkable in the ranks of the libertine party, by the violence of his attacks against the Reformer. He arraigned his writings, and offered to prove, that in the book of The Christian Institution, Calvin had made God the author of sin. These accusations, emulously repeated by the adversaries of the Reformer, and speciously tricked up with the authority of Melanchthon, provoked sharp discussions, which were only half appeased by the sentence of the Seigneurs of Geneva, who approved the Christian Institution, while at the same time declaring Trolliet, "homme de bien," out of consideration for the party to which he belonged. The whole of the papers relating to the controversy of Calvin with Trolliet, are to be found collected in Vol. 145 of the MSS. of the Library of Geneva.
[385] "Since we are all corrupt and contaminate by vice, it cannot be but God must hate us, and that not with tyrannical cruelty, but with reasonable equity.... That all the children of Adam come forward to contend and dispute against their Creator, because by his eternal Providence, they were devoted, before they were born, to perpetual calamity. When, on the contrary, God brings them to know themselves, how can they murmur at that? If they have all been taken out of a corrupt mass, it is no way marvellous that they are liable to condemnation. Let them not therefore accuse God of iniquity, because by his eternal decree they are ordained to condemnation, to which their very nature makes them amenable."—Institution of the Christian Religion, edit, of 1554, p. 461.
[386] "The first man fell, because God thought it fit. Now, as to why he thought it fit, we know nothing. Yet it is certain, that he has not thus decided, unless because he saw that it would advance the glory of his name.... Man then falls, according as it has been ordained of God, but he falls by his own vice."—Ibid. edit, of 1551, p. 463.
"Although that by the eternal Providence of God man has been created for that state of misery in which he is, yet notwithstanding he has derived the cause of that misery from himself, and not from God. For he perishes only because of his having, through perversity, degenerated from the pure nature which God had given him."—Ibid., p. 464.
[387] This is the book: De Æterna Dei Prædestinatione et Providentia. Genève, 1550, in 8vo; translated into French the same year.
[388] This is the famous book of the Common Places (Loci Theologici), translated into French under the care of Calvin: The Summe of Theology, or Common Places of Melanchthon, translated from the Latin, by John Calvin. With a Preface. 1546, in 8vo.
[389] It is not uninteresting to compare this estimate formed by Calvin of Melanchthon, with the remarkable one contained in the preface to the Common Places:—"I perceive that the author, being a person of profound knowledge, has not chosen to enter into subtile disputations, nor to treat these matters with that high degree of skill which it would have been so easy for him to employ. But he has brought himself down as much as he could, having only regard to edification. It is, certes, the style and fashion which we should observe, did not our adversaries constrain us by their cavils to turn aside from this course.... The same about predestination, because he sees now-a-days so many flighty spirits who are but too much given to curiosity, and who go beyond bounds in this matter. Wishing to provide against this danger, he has proposed to touch only on what was needful to be known, leaving all else buried out of sight, rather than by disclosing all he could, to give the reins to much perplexing and confused disputation, from whence arises no good fruit. I confess that the whole of what God has been pleased to reveal to us in Scripture ought not to be suppressed, whatsoever happens; but he who seeks to give profitable instruction to his readers, may very well be excused for dwelling upon what he knows to be most essential, passing lightly over or leaving out of sight that which he does not expect to be equally profitable."