Calvin retreated to Strasbourg, and devoted himself to theological study, especially to his critical labors on the New Testament. Here, in October, 1539, he married the widow of a converted Anabaptist.
The Genevans found, after a short time, that they could not well get on without Calvin. His rule might be rigid; but an authority even such as his was better than no settled authority at all; and the Libertine party seem to have been unable to construct any efficient and beneficent form of government. Accordingly, they invited Calvin to return; and, after some delay on his part, in order to test the spirit in which they were acting, he acceded to their invitation, and in the autumn of 1541, after three years' absence, once more made his entry into Geneva.
Now, at length, he succeeded in establishing his plan of church-government. By his College of Pastors and Doctors, and his Consistorial Court of Discipline, he founded a theocracy, which aimed virtually to direct all the affairs of the city, and to control and modify both the social and individual life of the citizens. The Libertines still remained a strong party, which was even augmented after Calvin's return, by men such as Ami Perrin, who had strongly concurred in the invitation to Calvin, but who were afterward alienated from him by the high hand with which he pursued his designs, as well as by their own schemes of ambition. The struggle with this party lasted, with varying fortune, for no less a period than fifteen years, and was only terminated in 1555, after a somewhat ridiculous émeute in the streets. Perrin and others, driven from the city, were executed in effigy; and the reformer's authority from this date was confirmed into an absolute supremacy. During the long struggle with the Libertines occurred also Calvin's controversies with Sebastian Castellio, Jerome Bolsec, and above all, Michael Servetus.
After the execution of Servetus, and the expulsion of the Libertines two years later, Calvin's power in Geneva was firmly established, and he used it vigorously and beneficently for the defence of Protestantism throughout Europe. By the mediation of Beza he made his influence felt in France in the great struggle that was there going on between the hierarchical party, with the Guises at its head, and the Protestants, led by Condé and Coligny. In 1561 his energies began to fail. He had been long suffering from bad health, though his strength of will and buoyancy of intellect sustained him; but his health grew very much worse, and although he survived for more than two years, he never regained any vigor. He died on May 27, 1564.
Very different estimates have been formed of Calvin's character. None, however, can dispute his intellectual greatness or the powerful services which he rendered to the cause of Protestantism. Stern in spirit and unyielding in will, he is never selfish or petty in his motives. Nowhere amiable, he is everywhere strong. Arbitrary and cruel when it suits him, he is yet heroic in his aims, and beneficent in the scope of his ambition. His moral purpose is always clear and definite: to live a life of duty, to shape circumstances to such divine ends as he apprehended, and in whatever sphere he might be placed, to work out the glory of God.
He rendered a double service to Protestantism, which, apart from anything else, would have made his name illustrious: he systematized its doctrine, and he organized its ecclesiastical discipline. He was at once the great theologian of the Reformation, and the founder of a new church polity which did more than all other influences together to consolidate the scattered forces of the Reformation and give them an enduring strength. As a religious teacher, as a social legislator, and as a writer, especially of the French language, whose modern prose style was then in process of formation, his fame is second to none in his age, and must always conspicuously adorn the history of civilization.
His famous "Institutio" entitles Calvin to the foremost place among the dogmatic theologians of the Reformed Church. This masterpiece of luminous argument presents a complete system of Christian faith, based on the Protestant principle that the Scriptures are the source of Christian truth. "Two things there are," says Hooker, in the preface to the "Ecclesiastical Polity," "which have deservedly procured him honor throughout the world—the one, his exceeding pains in composing the 'Institutions of the Christian Religion;' the other, his no less industrious travails for exposition of Holy Scripture." His Commentaries embrace the greater part of the Old Testament and the whole of the New, except the Revelation, and place him in the front rank of expositors of Scripture.[Back to Contents]