[397] Ambroise Blaurer, of a noble family of Constance, entered in early youth a convent, which he soon left to become a preacher of reform, for which he had contracted a taste from reading the writings of Luther. Present at the Controversy of Berne with Zwingle, Œeolampadius, Bucer, and Capito, he beheld his preaching attended with the most gratifying success, and saw the Gospel victoriously established in his native town, where he exercised his valuable ministry until the war of Smalkald. Having at that time refused submission to the Interim, he left Constance, and retired first to Winterthur, near Zurich, and afterwards to Bienne, whilst his unfortunate city, fallen into the hands of the Imperialists, saw itself deprived at once of the Gospel and of liberty. Esteemed by Calvin, Blaurer witnessed his influence at Zurich and at Berne solicited more than once by the Reformer of Geneva. He died in 1567.—See Beza, Icones, and Melch. Adam, Theolog. Germ., p. 413.
[398] In a letter to an unknown personage, (Opera, tom. ix. p. 238,) Calvin mentions this same event, adding to it a curious detail taken from the letter of an eye-witness: "Among other things, he informed me of a circumstance which I am unwilling to withhold from you—that a striking spectacle presented itself to him in the destruction of our city, viz., that my father's house stood entire after all the others had been reduced to ashes." Farther on he adds,—"I have no doubt but that God wishes to make this a testimony against all those of our city who, eight or ten days before, had burnt in effigy Monsieur de Normandie."
[399] Commentarius in Evangelium Johannis. Geneva, 1553. Fol. Robert Estienne.
[400] See Letter, p. 270. Doubly afflicted by the wars which were desolating Germany, and by the disorders which were rending the Church, Melanchthon had maintained a long silence, which was only broken on the 1st October 1552, by a touching letter to Calvin:—"Reverend sir and very dear brother,—I should have written you frequently, had I been able to secure trustworthy letter-carriers. I should have preferred a conversation with you on many questions of very serious interest, inasmuch as I set a very high value on your judgment, and am conscious that the integrity and candour of your mind is unexceptionable. I am at present living as if in a wasps' nest. But perhaps I shall ere long put off this mortal life for a brighter companionship in heaven." Full of affection and respect for Melanchthon, whose character he venerated, while he freely blamed him for his weakness and indecision, Calvin made known, in turn, to the German Reformer, the struggles of all sorts which he had to undergo at Geneva, and with which the name of Melanchthon himself is found mixed up, owing to the astute intrigues of the Libertines, who had an interest in involving these two great men in mutual opposition.
[401] The same fact is related in a letter of Calvin to Dryander in the following terms: "After that monk let loose against us from the service of M. de Falais had been condemned, a plot having been clandestinely hatched, a noisy fellow was found who, not only at table in private families, but up and down the taverns, kept constantly bawling, that we made God the author of sin, and otherwise traduced our ministry in the most insulting manner possible. When I saw that these evenomed words were spread about everywhere, by means of which profligate men were intriguing, by no means covertly, to overthrow the whole kingdom of Christ in this city, I mildly admonished the people to be on their guard against them. I also pointed out to the Senate how dangerous dilatory measures were in such dissensions. Those who had suborned him to molest me, by their intrigues so protracted the cause, that I was kept in suspense upwards of three months. For among the judges there were several who favoured the adverse party. But among many injuries, there was nothing I felt more keenly and bitterly than that this affair forced me into a hateful contest with M. Philip, with whom, however, I broke in such a manner that I never spoke of so great a man except in honourable terms."—Library of Geneva. Vol. 107, a.
[402] We can judge of this from the remarkable memorial of Calvin to the Seigneurie, entitled La Cause contre Trolliet, where we meet with these words:—"That party, Noble Seigneurs, which is desirous of bringing Melanchthon and myself into mutual conflict, is doing great wrong to both of us, and in general to the whole Church of God. I honour Melanchthon as much for his superior learning as for his virtues, and above all, for having laboured so faithfully to uphold the Gospel. If I find fault with him, I do not conceal it from him, seeing that he gives me liberty to do so. There are witnesses in abundance on his side, who know how much he loves me. And I know that he will hold in detestation all those who, under cover of his name, seek to blacken my doctrine."—6th Oct. 1552. (Library of Geneva, vol. 145.) Calvin's preface to Melanchthon's Common Places may also be consulted. Geneva, 1546, 8vo.
Osiander had published many writings against Melanchthon, in which, by a strange reversing of the orthodox doctrine, he attempted to derive Justification from God the Father, by forgetting the part which belonged to Jesus Christ as the Redeemer. See Seckendorf, and Melch. Adam, p. 229.
[403] No date. Written evidently about the end of 1552. This letter, the last which Calvin wrote to M. de Falais, throws a great light on the circumstances of their rupture, of which Jerome Bolsec's process was the occasion. Banished from Geneva for his attacks on the doctrine of predestination and his invectives against Calvin, Bolsec had found means to interest in his cause M. de Falais, whose physician he was, and who interceded to no purpose for him with his judges: "Master Jerome is better acquainted with my constitution and what affords me relief than any other doctor that I know.... It is to him after God that I am indebted for my life."—Archives of Geneva. Letters of the 9th and 11th November 1551. These steps undertaken from a feeling of humanity, would certainly not have indisposed Calvin, if M. de Falais had not too openly taken part with Bolsec against the Reformer. Calvin bitterly complained of it, "that M. de Falais should write that he (Bolsec) was not a bad man, and for the sake of an obscure wretch should hold up his reputation as a subject of mockery." Letter to the ministers of Bâle, January 1552. Expelled from Geneva and settled at Thonon, Bolsec contrived to envenom this difference which the recollections of a long friendship should have appeased, and which terminated in a painful rupture. In a vehement letter, Calvin, at that time suffering from bad health, took leave of his old friend, whose name he erased four years afterwards from the preface to his Commentary on the first Epistle to the Corinthians, in order to substitute in its place that of the Marquis de Vico.
[404] See vol. i. pp. 403, 409. Settled at Bâle, Castalio had just published his Latin version of the Holy Scriptures, which being judged with excessive severity by the Reformed Divines, drew on him numerous enmities.—Bibla Sacra Latina, Basil, 1551.
[405] The history of M. de Falais, after his rupture with Calvin, is enveloped in much obscurity. He left Geneva in order to settle at Berne, lost his wife in 1557, and contracted a second marriage. We know neither the date nor the place of his death. Is it true, as Bayle affirms, that this seigneur, chagrined by the spectacle of the divisions which he had witnessed at Geneva, at last returned to the Catholic church? We are rather inclined to believe, from the testimonies of Calvin and Beza, indirectly confirmed by the silence of the Brabançon historians, that, though differing on some points of Calvinistic theology, the great-grand-son of Philip of Burgundy did not abjure the tenets for which he had sacrificed his fortune and his country. See Bayle, Dict., Art. Philip of Burgundy, remark G; Calvin, Comment. on the 1st Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, dedication to the Marquis of Vico, 24th January 1556; and the preface of Beza to the Commentary on Joshua.