From:           	"Stephen Chaffer" <stephen@gospeldays.force9.net>
To:             	"Phillip Johnson" <phil@spurgeon.org>
Subject:        	Re: Calvin - The man and his Work
Date sent:      	Wed, 14 Jan 1998 14:30:08 -0000





From the Enamel Portrait by Limousin, in possession of Sir Julius Charles Wernher, Bart.
By kind permission.
Limousin, the eminent enamel painter, was a contempory of Calvin.

 John Calvin
Chapter One
THE WORLD INTO WHICH CALVIN CAME
New countries discovered
THE close of the fifteenth century saw the opening of many new pages in the world's progress. The world itself had become suddenly enlarged. In 
1492 the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus not only added new territory to Spain, but opened men's minds to new visions of 
adventure and discovery. The year 1497 was marked not only by the Cabot's further discoveries in North America, but by Vasco da Gama's 
voyage round the Cape of Good Hope, which brought Europe into touch with the romance and wealth of India.
Invention of Printing
Printing, invented by Gutenburg in Germany, was introduced into England in 1476 by William Caxton, and established also by Louis X1. at the 
Sorbonne in Paris. This, coming after the taking of Constantinople and the fall of the Greek Empire, helped to spread throughout Europe the 
literature of Greece and Rome, and contributed to the great awakening of European thought.
Rise of the Western nations
Power, too, was being transferred from the Eastern nations of Erope to those of the West. Venice, Florence, Genoa saw their vast influence 
gradually passing away. Spain, France, and England had become mighty nations. For the time being, at least, the republican states, north as well 
as south, gave way before the monarchical.
Strength and weakness of the papacy
One power alone seemed to stand unshaken amid surrounding changes. High above all monarchies, directing and controlling all, stood 'the 
Chair of St. Peter.' But already it had manifested symptoms of serious weakness. In the beginning of the fourteenth century the strange spectacle 
was witnessed of two rival Popes, one having his residence at Avignon, the other at Rome, while a little later there were three.
In 1439 a council of the Church held at Florence annulled the acts of the council which had met at Basel two years before, and anathematised the 
fathers who had taken part in it. When the century closed, the Papal chair was occupied by Alexander V!., better known as Roderic Borgia, whose 
infamous life brought the Papacy to its lowest depth of shame.
Protest against corruptions in the Church
Against the corruptions of the Church many protests had been made. The crusade for a purer faith and for a simpler life, begun by Wycliffe in 
England, was continued on the Continent chiefly by two men, John Hus and Giralomo Savonarola. . . 
Huss
Hus, besides being a professor in the University of Prague, was also a preacher in one of the churches of that city. He denounced the vices of 
many of the clergy, and recommended the teachings of Wycliffe. In 1415 he was summoned to the Council of Constance. Relying upon the safe-
conduct given him by the Emperor Sigismund, he appeared at Constance to defend his teaching. But the safe-conduct was violated. He was cast 
into prison, and was subsequently condemned as a heretic and put to death by burning, his ashes being thrown into the Rhine.
Savonarola
Savonarola, a Dominican monk, became the most eloquent preacher of Florence. To him belongs that rare distinction, a distinction shared also 
by Calvin, of producing by his preaching a complete reformation of morals in the city which was the scene of his labours. His influence on art and 
literature has been an abiding one. When Michelangelo was painting in the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican his famous picture of 'The Las 
Judgement,' he derived much of his inspiration from the study of Savonarola's sermons. In Romola, one of the first of English novelists has 
immortalised the preaching of the Florentine monk.
Savonarola met with the same fate as Hus. He, too, was unsparing in his attack on the corruptions of the Church. On May 23, 1498, he was put to 
the double death, of hanging and burning, and his ashes were thrown into the Arno. A slab in the pavement in front of the Palazzo Vecchio at 
Florence marks the spot where he suffered, and every year on the anniversary of his death the Florentines lay flowers on the slab in homage to 
his memory. Of him and his relation to the Church of Rome, Potter, a Belgian writer, himself a Roman Catholic, says: Voila un moine condamne par 
l'inquisition comme heretique, et brule par ordre d'un des papes les plus infames qui aient occupe la chaire de St Pierre, tactitement canonise par un autre pape [benedict 
XIV.], adore par une sainte [St Catherine de Ricci] et par un eveque 
Persecution 
Thus the protests of reformers like Hus and Savonarola had been apparently quenched in flames. Fire and sword had been everywhere used by 
the Church of Rome to crush out independent thought and liberty of action. Bohemia, whose people largely sympathised with Hus, had been 
drenched in blood. In England the followered of Wycliffe suffered, under Henry IV., imprisonment and death.
Pope Julius II
Early in the sixteenth century, Pope Alexander VI. Died. His immediate successor, Pius III., lived less than a month after being raised to the 
Pontificate, and was followed by Julius II. This Pope was a man of war. He attacked in succession the Venetians and the French. Victorious over 
the Venetians, he was less successful against Louis XII. Of France, who carried the war into Italy. There the French king not only won upon the 
battlefield, but gained over to his side several of Roman Cardinals. Under their auspices a Council of the Church was held at Pisa in 1511, which 
suspended the authority of the Pope and declared in favour of a general reformation of abuses in the Church. Louis published this decree 
throughout France. All this helped further to weaken the power of the Holy See.
Pope Leo X destroys the Gallican liberties
Soon after this Julius II. died, and was succeeded by Pope Leo X., one of the Medici family. One of his earliest efforts was directed to re-
establishing the weakened influence of the Papacy in France. In 1516 he concluded with Francis I. of France a concordat, by which the Pragmatic 
Sanction was abrogated. This meant the overthrow of one of the main bulwarks of the French Church against the aggression and tyranny of 
Rome - the famous Gallican liberties. By there Pragmatic Sanction the liberties of the French Church was founded upon the decrees of the 
Council of Basel (1433 - 1437), which had been made by Charles VII. part of the law of the state, though the court of Rome had always protested 
against them. But the new concordat declared the superiority of popes over councils, and restored to the papacy the annates, or first year's 
revenue of vacant benefices. It is to the credit of 
Calvin's Contemporaries
Such was the state of thigs in France when Calvin was a boy. In the year that he was born, Henry VIII. Succeeded to the throne of England. When 
Calvin was seventeen years old, Tyndale's New testament was first published at Antwerp. He was only eighteen years old when Luther, then a 
man of thirty-four, nailed his famous theses to the door of the Castle Church at Wittenburg.

Chapter II
CALVIN'S EARLY DAYS
1509
JOHN CALVIN was born July 10, 1509, at Noyon in Picardy, now in the department of Oise. His ancestors, the Cauvins, had been a race of 
bargemen on the Oise river at Pont l'Eveque, near Noyon. His father came to live at Noyon, and there, in a house part of which is now the Hotel de 
France, Calvin was born.
His parents
His father, Gerard Cauvin, was notary apostolic, procurator-fiscal of the county, clerk of the Church court, and diocesan secretary. He was the 
counsellor of the clergy and nobility. Admitted as a burgess in 1497, he married jeanne le Franc, whose father was also a burgess of the town. 
They were people, therefore, of comfortable circumstances.
Gerard Cauvin was a man of independent and anti-clerical spirit. Thus on August 5, 1524, we find him appearing before the chapter and 
demanding of the canons the reason for an imprisonment which he regarded as illegal.
His school- days
As a schoolboy, John Calvin showed a retentive memory and a keen mind. Beza tells us that he received his earliest education with the children 
of the Montmor family, one of the first in the county for its nobility and influence. This family paid for his maintenance. Calvin afterwards 
dedicated his first work, the Commentary on Seneca,  to Abbot Hangest (Montmor) of St Eloi, with whom he had studied. 'Brought up,' he says, 
'as a child in your house; devoted to the same studies as yourself, the first instruction which I received was derived from the life and cultivation of 
your own very noble family.' This event, says Doumergue, was of great importance in John Calvin's life. God was thus preparing him to play his 
part worthily in the society of the great, of princes and kings.
In 1521, John Calvin, then at the age of twelve, received a benefice or bursary from the Cathedral chapter.
Evangelical Influence
In 1523 he went with the young Montmors to Paris, to finish his studies. There, at the College de la Marche, he came under the influence of one of 
its 'regents,' Mathurin Cordier. The latter, says Doumergue, 'was not only the first pedagogue of his time, but the founder of modern pedagogy.' 
He was also a man of thoroughly evangelical spirit. He thought that the teacher should aim at instilling into his scholars the Word of God and the 
love of Christ. But it was not until about 1528 that Cordier definitely accepted evangelical doctrines.
To Cordier, also, Calvin owed his style. Cordier's great linguistic work was to purify the hybrid French of the time - half-Latin, half-French, and 
separate French and Latin.
To Cordier, Calvin dedicated his Commentary on 1st Thessalonians (1550), and when he founded his College at Geneva he brought him to be one 
of its first professors. Cordier died at Geneva at the age of eighty-five, in 1564, four months after the death of Calvin.
College days in Paris
From de la Marche College, John Calvin went to Montaigu College, also in Paris. There the discipline was severe, the food scanty, and the 
education old-fashioned. Its filth was indescribable. Vermin abounded, yet good scholars were educated there. It was at Montaigu that both 
Erasmus and Rabelais were educated.
So far from being an austere and morose youth, as some writers have depicted him in his college days, Lefranc [Lefranc was Secretary of the College 
of France, and a descendant, on the mother's side, of the Calvin family. He wrote La Jeunesse de Calvin (1888); L'histoire du College de France and Les derieres poesies 
de Margurerite de Navarre.] says that 'all that we know of this period of his life shows that he was neither so sad nor so morose as ha has been 
described. Surrounded with sympathetic and attached friends, he know how to enjoy himself and to smile.' (la Jeunesse de Calvin, p. 70, note p. 
71.)
Before Calvin's college days, a work of reformation had already begun at Paris, under Le Fevre (b. 1435). Of him Doumergue says that his 
numerous and learned publications place him by the side of Reuchlin and Erasmus. Beza says that he 'chased barbarism from the most famous 
university of the world,' 'and restored in the University of Paris the true logic of Aristotle and the Mathematics, in place of the sophistry which 
previously reigned there.'
In 1507 Le Fevre came to Saint-Germain de Pres, and there he taught and worte until 1520.
The First Protestant Book
In 1512 appeared his Latin commentary of the Epistles of St Paul. Doumergue says, 'In one sense, this book may be called the first Protestant 
book.' In it he enforced the supreme authority of the Word of God. He boldly says (Col. iii. Fol. 185 b): 'Let us not follow the precepts and the 
dogmas of men, which have not their foundation in the light that has shined from on high.' He also asserts clearly the doctrine of justification by 
faith. He denies a magical virtue in the sacraments, and says that 'the sensible symbols are the signs of Divine things and infusions.' He attacks 
the celibacy of the priesthood, the Latin liturgy, etc. It is true, he retains invocation of saints and purgatory, but he denies the sacrifice of the 
mass.
Farel was a disciple of Le Fevre, and in 1523 (the year Calvin came to Paris) he had founded a secret church in Paris.
In 1516 Le Fevre published a second edition of his Commentary on St Paul, in which, contrary to the liturgy of the Church, he proved that Mary 
Magdalene, Mary the sister of Lazerus, and Mary the woman who was a sinner, were not one and the same person, but three Marys. A great 
commotion followed. The Sorbonnists, the Franciscans, Carmelites, Dominicans all attacked him.
In this controversy Fisher, Bishop of Roachester, took part. Appeal was made to him by the Bishop of Paris, and he wrote two pamphlets against 
Le Fevre and his supporter Clichtove. They replied, and Fisher retorted with two more pamphlets.
Le Fevre was accused as a heretic before Parliament, but Francis I. intervened to stop the trial. Le Fevre in 1520-21 withdrew to Meaux.
Le Fevre and the French Bible
Le Fevre was the first translator of the Bible in its entirety into French. In 1523 he published his translation of the New Testament, and in 1528 of 
the Old Testament. There was a previous translation (1478) by Rely, who became Bishop of Angers in 1491, but it had many abridgements, 
additions and glosses. Le Fevre, however acknowledges his indebtedness to it, and used it largely.
In 1525 he fled from Meaux to Strassburg.
That same year the Inquisition was established at Paris by a Papal Bull. One of its first acts was to condemn to the flames the translation of the 
Bible. In 1526, 'heretics' were burned at Paris and else where in France.
In 1527 John Calvin was presented to the living of St Martin de Martheville (near Vermand, Aisne). But his father, who had meanwhile quarrelled 
with the Chapter at Noyon, had now had other views for him, and wished him to study law. About this time Calvin, too, was changing his own 
views. The principal person who helped to bring his conversion to evangelical views was Pierre Robert (named also Olivetan), a second cousin 
of his own. Olivetan afterwards became a heroic missionary in the Vaudois Alps. He published in 1535 a French translation of the Bible, which is 
dated from 'The Alps.'
Just when Calvin was leaving Paris (1528) Ignatius Loyola came there as a student, also at the Montaigu. Calvin was then eighteen, Loyola thirty-
six.
Calvin studies law
From Paris, Calvin went to Orleans, and remained there from the beginning of 1528 to May 1529. There he studied at the University, then a much 
more enlightened and progressive institution that the University of Paris. He took such a high place in his studies of the law, that they wished to 
make him a doctor free of charge, but he declined, and went to Bourges.
One of his friendships at Orleans was with Fran&ccedil;ois Daniel. It proved to be a life-long friendship. The correspondence between Calvin and 
Daniel, especially when Calvin pleads with him on behalf of his (Daniel's) son, when there was an estrangement between father and son, shows a 
great amount of tenderness and playful kindliness. Once more a very different picture of the real Calvin from that which he enemies have painted.
At Bourges he continued his legal studies. There his principal friend was Melchior Wolmar, a Swiss, and a Lutheran. Wolmar helped him in 
Greek. To him Calvin dedicated his Commentary on St John's Gospel (1553).
His father's death
In 1531 Calvin's father died. This event changed his plans once more, as he had given himself to study of the law in order to please his father. He 
returned to Paris, to pursue the study of literature.
This was a new and important phase in his varied education. He lived at the College of Fortet, and studied Greek and Hebrew, the former 
especially under Danes, a most eminent scholar. 'Perhaps,' says Lefranc, 'Calvin sat more than once on the same bench as Ignatius Loyala, his 
former fellow-student at Montaigu, as Pierre Lefevre and Fran&ccedil;ois Xavier, both of whom, we know on good authority, followed the Greek 
course at this same period.' Rabelais, doubtless, was sometimes also one of the number.
Calvin's first work (atat 23)
In 1532 appeared his first work: Commentary on the De Clementia of Seneca. In this book he opposes the ideas of the Stoics, and enlarges on the 
virtue of sympathy and pity. 'Not to be capable of tears is a vice,' he says. His comments on the appeals of Seneca to Nero to exercise clemency 
and win his people's love were no doubt intended to influence Francis I.
Paris in 1532
Many notable men were living at Paris at that time. Clement Marot, for example, lived in what is now the rue de Conde, and there he translated the 
Psalms into his French metrical version. In the rue de Bethisy, now la rue Saint-Germain Auxerrois, was a house of Admiral Coligny, who, forty 
years later, perished in the massacre of St Bartholomew. On the statue of Coligny near the Louvre and close to the Protestant church of the 
Oratoire, are these words: Il fut assassine n'ayant dans le ca que la gloire de l'Etat. It was from the church of Saint-Germain Auxerrois, opposite 
the Louvre, that the bells rang out the signel for that awful slaughter.
Bernard Palissy lived in the Faubourg St Honore, and died in the prison of the Bastille, his body being flung to the dogs.
In the rue des Marais, where Racine afterwards lived, many leading Huguenots resided. They had secret communications between their houses, 
so that they could go from one to the other without being perceived. Thus in the times of persecution they were able to hold their meetings for 
worship.
Calvin at Orleans
From the summer of 1532 to the summer of 1533 Calvin, according to documents recently discovered by M. Doinel at Orleans, was acting as 
locum tenens (substitut annuel) for the procurator of the 'nation' of Picardy at the University of Orleans. This was his second sojourn in that city.
Struggle between Roman Catholic theologians and the party of 
Reform
Exciting events took place soon after the return of Calvin to Paris in 1533. The struggle between the Roman Catholic theologians and the Reform 
party still continued. The former went so far as to censure a work of Marguerite, Queen of Navarre, entitled, Mirror of the Sinful Soul. The king, 
Henry of Navarre, asked the University the reasons for this censure. The rctor of the University at this time was a friend of Calvin, Nicolas Cop, 
bachelor of medicine and professor at the College of St barbe. He assembled the four faculties, and in a lengthened address severely condemned 
those who attacked the queen. The Faculty of Medicine passed a resolution demanding that, in matters concerning faith, the Faculty of Theology 
should speak in its own name, and not in that of the University. And letters were sent to the king, disavowing that which had been done.
Evangelical Discourse by the Rector of the University of Paris
Then, on the 1st of November, All Saint's Day, it fell to Cop, as rector, to deliver a solemn discourse before the University assembled in the Church 
of the Mathurins. This discourse, according to Beza, he asked Calvin to write for him [Professor Williston Walker, one of the most recent and scholarly biographers of Calvin, thinks 
that the balance of evidence is against Calvin's authorship of this address, and that the MS. In his writing may have been but a copy]. The first page of the MS. Of the sermon has been discovered 
at Geneva, in Calvin's handwriting, but the whole sermon appears in his Works. It is a thoroughly evangelical discourse, and shows how 
Protestant Calvin had become at this time.
Such a storm was aroused by Cop's discourse, that Parliament issued an order for his arrest. Cop fled to Basel. A price of 300 livres was set upon 
his head. Many Lutherans were imprisoned. Calvin also fled. The police searched the College Fortet for him, but in vain. Queen Marguerite 
interposed on his behalf, and proceedings were stopped. He returned to Paris, but soon after left it again. For a time he sojourned at Angouleme. 
There he began to write his Institutes.
Calvin breaks with the Church of Rome
In May 1534 he went to Noyon, and resigned his benefices. On May 26, the register of the Chapter records that he was imprisoned 'for a tumult 
caused in the church on the eve of the Holy Trinity.' The cause of the tumult is unknown. Doumergue thinks it was a simple pretext which was 
taken advantage of to imprison the heretic. He was set free on June 3, but two days after was sent to prison again. Subsequently he was released.
Towards the close of 1534 Calvin went to Poitiers. There he met with several Protestants, and they held meetings together in a cave or grotto, 
where also he celebrated the Lord's Supper.
In the beginning of 1535 he and his friend Tillet arrived at Basel. There Erasmus lived in the Baumlein-Gasse for many years, there he was in 1535, 
and there he died in 1536. It was from the press of Froben in Basel that his Greek New Testament was published.
Calvin lodged there in the Faubourg Saint-Alban, at the house of an honourable matron, Catherina Klein (or Petit). There he completed his 
Institutes, which were printed by Platter of Basel. Part of Platter's printing-house is still standing, in the quarter of Mont Saint-Pierre, the house 
of 'l'Ours noir,' oppisite the 'hotel d'Andlow.'

Chapter III
THE INSTITUTES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION:
ITS ORIGIN AND OBJECT
The Institutes dedicated to Francis I.
CALVIN expressly tells us in his Preface to his Commentary on the Psalms how he came to write the Institutes. All kinds of charges of sedition 
and wickedness had been brought against the Huguenots, and many Protestants had been already burned in France by the decree of Francis I. 
'And this,' he says, 'was the cause which induced me to publish my Institutes of the Christian Religion; first, in order to reply to the lying 
accusations spread by the others, and to clear my brethren, whose death was precious in the sight of the Lord; and then that, since the same 
cruelties might very soon be practised against many poor persons, foreign nations might at least be touched with some compassion and 
solicitude for them.' The Institutes were dedic 
Doumergue thus sums up Calvin's position at this time:
'Francis I. and Calvin!' The one, after long hesitations, having just put himself at the head of the persecutors, and the other, after a long 
preparation, having just put himself at the head of the persecuted.
'The preparation has indeed been a long one . . . but how much more is it wonderful!'
'When almost a child, driven from Noyon by the plague, the son of Gerard Cauvin met the best Latin master of the period, Mathurin Cordier, who 
waited to teach him before leaving Paris. Then at Orleans he met the best Greek teacher of the period, Melchior Wolmar, who seems to have come 
from Germany, to which he presently returns, in order to teach him his method; two incomparable pedagogues. Not content with teaching him 
languages, they speak to him of the Gospel and of Christ.'
M. Guizot on the Institutes
Guizot, in his charming volume Great Christians of France, says of the Institutes: 'In order to understand the fundamental idea and true aim of 
Calvin's book, we must transport ourselves to the precise period when he originated and wrote it. Luther, born in 1483, twenty-six years before 
Calvin, had accomplished, between the years 1517 and 1532, his work of struggle and rupture with the Church of Rome; the Confession of 
Augsburg had been published [1530]; the Protestant princes had entered into the Smalcaldic League [1530]; the religious peace of Nurnberg had 
been concluded, and ratified by the Diet of Ratisbon [1532]; in fact, when Calvin left France and took refuge at Basel in 1534, the German 
Reformation was established in Central and Northern Europe. But the new work was not so far advanced in Western E 
'Calvin was so strongly impressed by this fact that it became an object of constant anxiety to him, . . . and he set to work to remedy it. . . .
'His own position in this great enterprise was full of difficulty; this was the time of Rabelais, Erasmus, and Montaigne on the one hand, and of the 
popes Julius II., Leo X., Cardinal Cajetan, and the Dominican Tetzel on the other. . . He had at the same time to protest against intellectual licence 
and ecclesiastical infallibility.' (Guizot, pp. 178-180.)
Kampschulte, the Old Catholic Professor (I. 275), says that there was good ground for calling the author of the Institutes, 'the Aristotle of the 
Reformation,' and adds that the book contains passages worthy to be placed alongside of the finest writings of Pascal or Bossuet.
The Institutes first written in Latin
Were the Institutes written in Latin or in French? Formerly, scholars like Haag, Henry, and Louis Bonnet answered: In French. Guizot, in his book 
above quoted, took the same view, which was also maintained by M. Vielles, director of the seminary at Montauban, in the Revue de theologie, 
May 1, 1895. But more recent scholars have come to the conclusion that the answer must be In Latin. This was the opinion of critical judges like 
Jules Bonnet, Rilliet, and Kampschulte, and it is very decidedly the judgement of Doumergue, who has weighed all the arguments pro and con, 
and is followed by Professor Williston Walker, Yale University. Doumergue specially bases 
English edition of the Institutes
In the preface to the fourth English edition (1581) the English translators, Thomas Norton, says: 'In the very beginning of the Queen's Majesty's 
most blessed reign, I translated it out of Latin into English, for the commodity of the Church of Christ, at the special request of my dear friends of 
worthy memory, Reginald Wolfe and Edward Whitchurch, the one her Majesty's printer for the Hebrew, Greek and Latin tongues, the other her 
Highness's printer of the books of Common Prayer.' Reginald Wolfe's name appears as one of the printers of the first English edition of 1561.
And now let us turn to the book itself, of which it is safe to say that no such volume was ever written by a young man in his twenty-seventh year. 
His scholarship is seen in his quotations from classical and Christian authors, including Aristole, Plato, Cicero, Virgil, Lucretius, Diagoras, 
Suetonius, Seneca, Plutarch, Xenophon, Ovid, Juvenal, Horace, Homer, Plautus, Lactantius, Statius, Galen, Eusebius, Josephus, Justin Martyr, 
Augustine, Tertullian.
The Prefatory Address is dated Basel, August 1, 1536, 'To His Most Christian Majesty, the Most Mighty and illustrious Monarch, Francis, King of 
the French, His Sovereign; John Calvin prays peace and salvation in Christ.'
The Institutes a vindication of Protestant doctrine
In this address, Calvin says that when he first engaged in this work, his intention was to furnish a kind of rudiments, by which those who feel 
some interest in religion might be trained to true godliness. 'And I toiled at the task,' he says, 'chiefly for the sake of my countrymen the French, 
multitudes of whom I perceived to be hungering and thirsting after Christ, while very few seemed to have been duly imbued with even a slender 
knowledge of Him. . . . 
'But when I perceived that the fury of certain bad men had risen to such a height in your realm, that there was no place in it for sound doctrine, I 
thought it might be of service in the same work both to give instruction to my countrymen, and also lay before your Majesty a Confession, from 
which you may learn what the doctrine is that so inflames the rage of those madmen who are this day, with fire and sword, troubling your 
kingdom. For I fear not to declare that what I have here given may be regarded as a summary of the very doctrine which, they vociferate, ought to 
be punished with confiscation, exile, imprisonment, and flames, as well as exterminated by land and sea.'
In reply to the charge that he and his friends were opposed to the Fathers and that they remove the ancient landmarks, he makes the following, 
amongst other remarks:
The Protestant religion not opposed to the Fathers
'Among the Fathers there were two, the one of whom said, [Acatius in lib. XI. Cap. 16, F. Triport. Hist.] "Our God neither eats nor drinks, and 
therefore has no need of chalices and salvers"; and the other, [Ambose lib. II. De Offisiis, cap. 28.] "Sacred rites do not require gold, and things 
which are not bought with gold, please not by gold." They step beyond the boundary, therefore, when in sacred matters they are so much 
delighted with gold, silver, ivory, marble, gems, and silk, that unless everything is overlaid with costly show, or rather insane luxury, they think 
God is not worshipped.
'It was a Father who said, [Spiridion, Trip. Hist. Lib. I. cap. 10] "He ate flesh freely on the day on which others abstained from it, because he was a 
Christian." They overleap the boundaries, therefore, when they doom to perdition every soul that, during Lent, shall have tasted flesh.
'There were two Fathers, the one of whom said, [Trip. Hist. Lib. VIII. Cap. 1.] "A monk not labouring with his own hands is no better than a violent 
man and a robber"; and the other, [August. De opere Monach. Cap. 7.] "Monks, however assiduous they may be in study, meditation, and prayer, 
must not live by others." 
This boundary, too, they transgressed, when they placed lazy, gormandising monks in dens and stews, to gorge themselves on other men's 
substance.
'It was a Father who said, [Epiph. Epist. Ab Hieron. Verse.] "It is a horrid abomination to see in Christian temples a painted image of Christ or of 
any saint." Nor was this pronounced by the voice of a single individual; but an Ecclesiastical Council also decreed, [Conc. Elibert. Can. 36.] "Let 
nought that is worshipped be depicted on walls." Very far are they from keeping within these boundaries when they leave not a corner without 
images."
'Another Father counselled, [Ambr. De Abraha, lib. 1, c. 7.] "That after performing the offices of humility to the dead in their burial, we should 
leave them at rest." These limits they burst through when they keep up a perpetual anxiety about the dead.
'It is a Father who testifies, [Gelasius, Papa in Conc. Rom.] "That the substance of bread and wine in the Eucharist does not cease, but remains, 
just as the nature and substance of man remains united to the Godhead in the Lord Jesus Christ." This boundary they pass in pretending that, as 
soon as the words of the Lord are pronounced, the substance of bread and wine ceases, and is transubstantiated into the body and blood. . . 
'There were two Fathers, the one of whom decided that those were to be excluded altogether from partaking of Christ's sacred supper, [Gelas. 
Can. Comperimus, De Consec. Dist. 2.] who, contented with communion in one kind, abstained from the other; while the other Father strongly 
contends [Cypr. Epist. 2. Lib. I, De Lapsis.] that the blood of the Lord ought not to be denied to the Christian people, who, in confessing Him, are 
enjoined to shed their own blood. These landmarks also they have removed, when, by an unalterable law, they ordered the very thing which the 
former Father punished with excommun 
'It was a Father who denied [Cypr. Epist. 2. Lib. ii.] that the ministers of the Church should be interdicted from marrying, and pronounced married 
life to be a state of chastity; and there were other Fathers who assented to his decision. These boundaries they overstepped in rigidly binding 
their priests to celibacy.'
Calvin vindicates his own character
In the same address to the king, he refers to 'the absurd insinuations' of their adversaries that nothing else is wished and aimed at by this new 
gospel than opportunity for sedition and impunity for all kinds of vice. . . . 'We, forsooth, meditate the subversion of kingdoms; we, whose voice 
was never heard in fraction, and whose life, while passed under you, is known to have been always quiet and simple; even now, when exiled from 
our home, we nevertheless cease not to pay for all prosperity to your person and your kingdom.'
In a statement on the Method and Arrangement of the Institutes, from an Epitome of that work by Gasper Olevian (Inst., vol. I. p. 34), it is said,
The Institutes based on the Apostles' Creed
'The subject handled by the author is twofold: the former, the knowledge of God, which leads to a blessed immortality; and the latter (which is 
subordinate to the former), the knowledge of ourselves. With this view the author simply adopts the arrangement of the Apostles' Creed, as that 
with which all Christians are most familiar. For as the Creed consists of four parts, the first relating to God the Father, the second to the Son, the 
third to the Holy Spirit, and the fourth to the Church, so the author, in fulfilment of his task, divides his Institutes into four parts, corresponding to 
those of the Creed.'

Chapter IV
THE TEACHING OF THE INSTITUTES (I)
STARTING with the first article of the Creed, the belief in God the father Almighty, Calvin says:
Plato on the knowledge of God
'Moreover, if all are born and live for the express purpose of learning to know God, and if the knowledge of God, in so far as it fails to produce this 
effect, is fleeting and vain, it is clear that all those who do not direct the whole thoughts and actions of their lives to this end fail to fulfil the law of 
their being. This did not escape the observation even of philosophers. For it is the very thing which Plato meant (in Phad. Et theact.) when he 
taught, as he often does, that the chief good of the soul consists in resemblance to God; i.e., when, by means of knowing Him, she is wholly 
transformed into Him.' (Inst. Book I. chap. Iii)
The distinction between Doulia and Latria
On the use of images in the worship of God, he says, -
'The worship which they pay to their images they cloak with the name of ,�*T8@*L8,\" (idolodulia), and deny to be ,�*T8@8"JD,\" (idolatria).  
So they speak, holding that the worship which they call dulia may, without insult to God, be paid to statues and pictures. Hence, they think 
themselves blameless if they are only the servants, and not the worshippers, of idols; as if it were not a lighter matter to worship than to serve.'
Not opposed to sculpture and painting
On the same subject, he says, -
'O am not, however, so superstitious as to think that all visible representations of every kind are unlawful. But as sculpture and painting are gifts 
of God, what I insist for is, that both shall be used purely and lawfully . . . . The only things, therefore, which ought to be painted or sculptured, are 
things which can be presented to the eye; the majesty of God, which is far beyond the reach of an eye, must not be dishonoured by unbecoming 
representations.' (Inst., Book I chap. xi � 12.)
The early Church free from images
'For five hundred years, during which religion was in a more prosperous condition, and a purer doctrine flourished, Christian churches were 
completely free from visible representations.' (Inst., Book I chap. xi � 13.)
The freedom of the will
Adam, says Calvin, might have stood if he chose. He had a free choice of good and evil. 'But those who, while they profess to be the disciples of 
Christ, still seek for free-will in man, notwithstanding of his being lost and drowned in spiritual destruction, labour under manifold delusion, 
doctrine and philosophical opinions, and so erring as to both.' (Inst., Book I chap. xv � 8.)
Divine Providence
The Providence of God, says Calvin, sustains, cherishes, and superintends all the things which He has made, to the very minutest, even to a 
sparrow. (Inst., Book I chap. xvi � 1.)
This Providence is opposed to fortune and fortuitous causes. Who, so has learned from the mouth of Christ that all the hairs of his head are 
numbered (Matt 10:30) will hold that all events are governed by the secret counsel of God. (Inst., Book I chap. xvi � 2.)
The omnipotence of God involves this providence. 'This is the solace of faithful in their adversity, that everything which they endure is by the 
ordination and command of God, that they are under His hand' (Inst., Book I chap. xvi � 3.) This, he says, is the cure for superstitious fears. Such 
are the fears inspired in some by dangers from created objects, 'as if they had in themselves a power to hurt us, or could hurt at random or by 
chance; or as if we had not in God a sufficient protection against them.' (ibid)
'Particular events are evidence of the special providence of God. In the wilderness, God caused a south wind to blow, and brought the people a 
plentiful supply of birds (Exod 19:13).' So Calvin quotes the whirlwind in the case of Jonah; the words of Ps 104:3, 4; 107:25, 29; Isa 3:1; Amos 
4:9, etc. (Ibid. � 7).
This doctrine not Stiocism
This doctrine is not the Stoical dogma concerning Fate. 'For we do not, with the Stoics, imagine a necessity consisting of a perpetual chain of 
causes, and a kind of involved series contained in Nature, but we hold that God is the disposer and ruler of all things - that from the remotest 
eternity, according to His own wisdom, He decreed what He was to do, and now by His power executes what He decreed. Hence we maintain, 
that by His providence, not heaven and earth and inanimate creatures only, but also the counsels and wills of men, are so governed as to move 
exactly in the course which He has destined.' (Inst., Book I chap. xvi � 8.)
Events, though thus ordered by Divine Providence, have the appearance of being fortuitous, such being the form under which they present 
themselves to us. . . . 'Let us suppose, for example, that a merchant, after entering a forest in company with trust worthy individuals, imprudently 
strays away from his companions, and wanders bewildered till he falls into a den of robbers and is murdered. His death was not only foreseen by 
the eye of God, but had been fixed by His decree. For it is said, not that He foresaw how far the life of each individual should extend, but that He 
determined and fixed the bounds, which could not be passed (Job 14:5).' (Inst., Book I chap. xvi � 9.)
Human deliberation and Divine Providence
'As regards future events, Solomon easily reconciles human deliberation with Divine providence. . . . He thus expresses himself: "A man's heart 
deviseth his way; but the Lord directeth his steps" (Prov 16:9); intimating, that the eternal decrees of God by no means prevent us from 
proceeding, under His will, to provide for ourselves, and arrange all our affairs. And the reason for this is clear. For he who has fixed the 
boundaries of our life, has at the same time entrusted us with the care of it, provided us with the means of preserving it, forewarned us of the 
dangers to which we are exposed, and supplied cautions and remedies, that we may not be overwhelmed unawares.' (Inst., Book I chap. xvii � 4.)
Divine decree and human guilt
As all contingencies whatsoever depend on the Divine Providence, therefore, neither thefts nor adulteries, nor murders, are perpetrated without 
an interposition of the Divine Will. 'Why then, they ask, should the thief be punished for robbing him whom the Lord chose to chastise with 
poverty? Why should the murderer be punished for slaying him whose life the Lord had terminated? If all such persons serve the will of God, 
why should they be punished? I deny that they serve the will of God. For we cannot say that he who is carried away by a wicked mind performs 
service on the order of God, when he is only following his own malignant desires. He obeys God, who, being instructed in his will, hastens in the 
direction in which God calls him. But how are we so instructed unless by His Word? The will declared by His Word is, therefore, that which we 
must keep in view in acting. God requires of us nothing but what He enjoins. If we design anything contrary to 
Practical results of belief in God's Providence
'This knowledge [of God's overruling Providence] is necessarily followed by gratitude in prosperity, patience in adversity, and incredible 
security for the time to come. . . . If anything adverse befalls him [the Christian], he will forthwith raise his mind to God, whose hand is most 
effectual in impressing us with patience and placid moderation of mind.' He then instances the cases of Joseph's forgiveness of his brethren: 
'God did send me before you to preserve life;' 'As for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good' (Gen 45:5; 50:20); Job's 
resignation amid his losses: 'The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed by the name of the Lord' (Job 1:21); David's remark about 
Shimei: 'Let him curse, because the Lord hath said unto him, Curse David' (2 Sam 16:10). (Inst., Book I chap. xvii �� 7 and 8.)
Inferior causes
'At the same time, the Christian will not overlook inferior causes.' He will show gratitude to those by whom he is benefited. (Inst., Book I chap. xvii 
� 9.)
Peace of mind
'Here we are forcibly reminded of the inestimable felicity of a pious mind. Innumerable are the ills which beset human life, and present death in as 
many different forms.' [Then follows an eloquent passage about the dangers which beset human life - from disease, in travelling, etc.] 'But when 
once the light of Divine Providence has illumined the believer's soul, he is relieved and set free, not only from the extreme fear and anxiety which 
formerly oppressed him, but from all care.' (Inst., Book I chap. xvii �� 10, 11.)
Is God the author of sin?
Dealing with the objection that, if God not only uses the agency of the wicked, but also governs their counsels and affections, He is the author of 
all their sins; and that therefore, men, in executing what God has decreed, are unjustly condemned, because they are obeying His will, Calvin 
says:-
'Here will is improperly confounded with precept, though it is obvious, from innumerable examples, that there is the greatest difference between 
them. When Absalom defiled his father's bed, though God was pleased thus to avenge the adultery of David, He did not therefore enjoin an 
abandoned son to commit incest, unless, perhaps in respect of David, as David himself says of Shimei's curses. For, while he confesses that 
Shemei acts by the order of God, he by no means commends the obedience, as if that petulant dog had been unyielding obedience to a divine 
command; but, recognising in his tongue the scourge of God, he submits patiently to be chastised. Thus we must hold, that while by means of 
the wicked God performs wht He had secretly decreed, they are not excusable, as if they were obeying His precept, which of set purpose they 
violate ac 
'Modest minds will always be satisfied with Augustine's answer, "Since the Father delivered up the Son, Christ His own body, and Judas his 
Master, how in such a case is God just, and man guilty, but just because in the one act which they did, the reasons for which they did it are 
different?" (August., Ep. 48, ad Vincentium.)'
Original sin
'Oribinal sin, then, may be defined as a hereditary corruption and depravity of our nature, exceeding to all the parts of the soul, which first makes 
us obnoxious to the wrath of God, and then produces in us works which in Scripture are termed works of the flesh.' (Inst., Book II chap. i � 8.)
Freedom of the will
(The Philosophers)
He quotes Plato, Cicero, Aristotle, and Seneca, as teaching that the will is free. 'Thus, in short, all philosophers maintain that human reason is 
sufficient for right government; that the will, which is inferior, may indeed be solicited to evil by sense, but having a free choice, there is nothing 
to prevent it from following reason as its guide in all things.' (Inst., Book II chap. ii � 3.)
(Theologians)
'Among ecclesiastical writers, although there is none who did not acknowledge that sound reason in man was seriously injured by sin, and the 
will greatly entangled by vicious desires, yet many of them made too near an approach to the philosophers. . . . Chrysostom says, "God having 
placed good and evil in our power, has given us full freedom of choice; He does not keep back the unwilling, but embraces the willing" (Homil. De 
Prodit. Juda). . . . In unison with this, Jerome says "It is ours to begin, God's to finish; it is ours to offer what we can, His to supply what we 
cannot." (Dialog. Iii., Cont. Pelag.)' (Inst., Book II chap. ii � 4.)
Definitions of freedom of the will
(Origen)
(Augustine)
(Peter Lombard and the School-men)
(Thomas Aquinas)
'The thing meant by free will, though constantly occurring in all writers, few have defined. Origen, however, seems to have stated the common 
opinion when he said, It is a power of reason to discern between good and evil; of will, to choose the one or other. Nor does Augustine differ from 
him when he says, It is a power of reason and will to choose the good, grace assisting - to choose the bad, grace desisting. . . . Peter Lombard, 
and the school-men, preferred the definition of Augustine, both because it was clearer, and did not exclude divine grace, without which they saw 
that the will was not sufficient of itself. They, however, add something of their own, because they deemed is either better of necessary for clearer 
explanation. First, they agree that the term will (arbitrium) has distinguished between good and evil, and that the epithet 
Necessity verses compulsion
'The schools have adopted a distinction which enumerates three kinds of freedom (see Lombard, Lib. II Dist. 25); the first, a freedom from 
necessity; the second, a freedom from sin; and the third, a freedom from misery: the first naturally so inherent in man that he cannot possibly be 
deprived of it; while through sin the other two have been lost. I willingly admit this distinction, except in so far as it confounds necessity with 
compulsion. How widely the things differ, and how important it is to attend to the difference, will appear elsewhere.' (Inst., Book II chap. ii �� 3, 4, 
5.)
Free will does not mean free choice
The term 'free will' is not therefore appropriate
'All this being admitted, it will be beyond dispute that free will does not enable any man to perform good works, unless he is assisted by grace; 
indeed, the special grace which the elect alone receive through regeneration. . . . In this way, then, man is said to have free will, not because he 
acts voluntarily, and not by compulsion. This is perfectly true: but why should so small a matter have been dignified with so proud a title? An 
admirable freedom! that man is not forced to be the servant of sin, while he is, however, �2,8`*@L8@H (ethelodoulos) (a voluntary slave); his will 
being bound by the fetters of sin.' (Inst., Book II chap. ii �� 6, 7.)
The term used by the Fathers in limited sense
The Fathers have the term 'free will' constantly in their mouths, but they, at the same time, declare what extent of meaning they attach to it. 'In 
particular, Augustine hesitates not to call the will a slave. . . . Again he says, that free will having been made a captive, can do nothing in the way 
of righteousness. Again, that no will is free which has not been made so by divine grace . . . .
Better not use the term 'free will'
'If any one then,' says Calvin, 'chooses to make use of this term, without attaching any bad meaning to it, he shall not be troubled by me on that 
account; but as it cannot be retained without very great danger, I think the abolition of it would be of great advantage to the Church. I am 
unwilling to use it myself; and others, if they will take my advice, will do well to abstain from it.' (Inst., Book II chap. ii � 8.)
General teaching of the Fathers on free will
After quoting Cyprian, who says, 'Let us glory in nothing, because nothing is ours,' and Chrysostom, who says, 'That every man is not only 
naturally a sinner, but is wholly sin,' Calvin says of the Fathers generally:- 'This much, however, I dare affirm, that though they sometimes go too 
far in extolling free will, the main object which they had in view was to teach man entirely to renounce all self-confidence, and place his strength 
in God alone.' (Inst., Book II chap. ii � 9.)
The human intellect
Love of truth
'We see that there has been implanted in the human mind a certain desire of investigating truth, to which it never would aspire unless some relish 
for truth antecedently (formerly) existed. There is, therefore, now, in the human mind, discernment to this extent, that it is naturally influenced by 
the love of truth, the neglect of which in the lower animals is a proof of their gross and irrational nature. Still it is true that this love of truth fails 
before it reaches the goal, forthwith falling away into vanity. . . .
'Therefore, in reading profane authors, the admirable light of truth displayed in them should remind us that the human mind, however much 
fallen and perverted from its original integrity, is still adorned and invested with admirable gifts from its Creator. If we reflect that the Spirit of 
God is the only fountain of truth, we will be careful, as we would avoid offering insult to him, not to reject or contemn truth, wherever it appears.' 
(Inst., Book II chap. ii �� 12, 15.)
Human reason in relation to spiritual things
'We must now explain what the power of human reason is, in regard to the kingdom of God, and spiritual discernment, which consists chiefly of 
three things - the knowledge of God, the knowledge His paternal favour towards us, which constitutes our salvation, and the method of 
regulating our conduct in accordance with the Divine Law. With regard to the former two, but more properly the second, men otherwise the most 
ingenious are blinder than moles. I deny not, indeed, that in the writings of philosophers we meet occasionally with shrewd and apposite 
remarks on the nature of God, though they invaribly savour somewhat of giddy imagination. As observed above, the Lord has bestowed on them 
some slight perception of His Godhead, that they might not plead ignorance as an excuse for their impiety, and has, at times, instigated them to 
deliver some truths, the confession of which should be to their own condemnation. Still, though seeing, they saw not. . . . So th 
The human mind in relation to conduct
Quoting Romans 2:14, 15, Calvin says, 'If the Gentiles have the righteousness of the law naturally engraven on their minds, we certainly cannot 
say that they are altogether blind as to the rule of life. . . . Let us consider, however, for what end this knowledge of the law was given to men. . . . 
He [Paul] had said a little before, that those who sinned in the law will be judged by the law; and those who have sinned without the law will 
perish without the law. As it might seem unaccountable that the Gentiles should perish without any previous judgement, he immediately 
subjoins that conscience served them instead of the law, and was therefore sufficient for their righteous condemnation. The end of the natural 
law, therefore, is to render man inexcusable.' (Inst., Book II chap. ii � 22.)
Corruption of the human will
'When the will is enchained as the slave of sin, it cannot make a movement towards goodness, far less steadily pursue it. Every such movement is 
the first step in that conversion to God, which in Scripture is entirely ascribed to divine grace. Thus Jeremiah says, "Turn Thou me, and I shall be 
turned" (Jer 31:18). . . . Moreover, when I say that the will, deprived of liberty, is led or dragged by necessity to evil, it is strange that any should 
deem the expression harsh, seeing there is no absurdity in it, and it is not at variance with pious use. It does, however, offend those who know 
not how to distinguish between necessity and compulsion. . . . If the free will of God in doing good is not impeded, because He necessarily must 
do good; if the devil, who can do nothing but evil, nevertheless sins voluntarily; can it be said that man sins less voluntarily because he is under a 
necessity of sinning? This necessity is uniformly proclaimed by Augustine, wh 
Objections to Necessitarian View
'If sin, they say, is necessary, it ceases to be sin; if it is voluntary, it may be avoided. . . . I deny that sin ought to be the less imputed because it is 
necessary ; and, on the other hand, I deny the inference that sin may be avoided because it is voluntary. If anyone will dispute with God, and 
endeavour to evade His judgement, by pretending that he could not have done otherwise, the answer already given is sufficient, that it is owing 
not to creation, but the corruption of nature, that man has become the slave of sin, and can will nothing but evil. For whence that impotence of 
which the wicked so readily avail themselves as an excuse, but just because Adam voluntarily subjected himself to the tyranny of the devil?' 
(Inst., Book II chap. v � 1.)
'Absurdity of rewards and punishments'
'They add, that unless virtue and vice proceed from free choice, it is absurd either to punish man or reward him. Although this argument is taken 
from Aristotle, I admit that it is also used by Chrysostom and Jerome. . . .
'With regard to punishment, I answer that it is properly inflicted on those by whom the guilt is contracted. What matters it whether you sin with 
free or an enslaved judgement, so long as you sin voluntarily, especially when man is proved to be a sinner because he is under the bondage of 
sin? In regard to the rewards of righteousness, is there any absurdity in acknowledging that they depend on the kindness of God rather than our 
own merits? . . . And yet, as the beneficence and liberality of God are manifold and inexhaustible, the grace which He bestows upon us, inasmuch 
as He makes it our own, He recompenses as if the virtuous acts were our own.' (Inst., Book II chap. v � 2.)
'Exhortation is vain
'Still it is insisted, that exhortations are vain, warnings superfluous, and rebukes absurd, if the sinner possesses not the power to obey. When 
similar objections were urged against Augustine, he was obliged to write his book, De Corrptione et Gratia, where he has fully disposed of them. 
The substance of his answer to his opponents is this: "O man! learn from the precept what you ought to do; learn from correction that it is your 
own fault if you have not the power; and learn in prayer whence it is that you may receive the power." . . . What purpose, then, is served by 
exhortations? It is this: As the wicked, with obstinate heart, despise them, they will be a testimony against them when they stand at the 
judgement-seat of God; nay, they even now strike and lash their consciences. . . . But their chief use is to be seen in the case of believers, in 
whom the Lord, while He always a 

Chapter V
THE TEACHING OF THE INSTITUTES (II)
The Sabbath
IN three things, says Calvin, the observance of the Fourth Commandment consists.
(Three uses of)
'First, under the rest of the seventh day, the Divine Lawgiver meant to furnish the people of Israel with a type of the spiritual rest by which 
believers were to cease from their works, and allow God to work in them. Secondly, He meant that there should be a stated day on which they 
should assemble to hear the Law, and perform religious rites, or which, at least, they should specially employ in meditating on His works, and be 
thereby trained to piety. Thirdly, He meant that servants, and those who lived under the authority of others, should be indulged with a day of rest, 
and thus have some intermission from labour.' (Inst., Book II 
chap. viii � 28.)
'On the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ, the ceremonial part of the [4th] commandment was abolished. He is the truth, at whose presence all the 
emblems vanish; the body, at the sight of which the shadows disappear. . . . 
Hence, as the Apostle says, "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, 
or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days; which are 
a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ" (Col 2:16, 17), meaning by 
body the whole essence of the truth, as is well explained in that passage. This is 
not contented with one day, but requires the whole course of our lives, until 
being completely dead to ourselves, we are filled with the life of God. Christians, 
therefore, should have nothing to do with a superstitious observance of days.'
Referring to the two other uses of the Sabbath, assembling for worship and 
giving relaxation from labour to servants and labourers, he says, 'Who can deny 
that both are equally applicable to us as to the Jews? Religious meetings are 
enjoined us by the Word of God; their necessity, experience itself sufficiently 
demonstrates. But unless these meetings are stated, and have fixed days allotted 
to them, how can they be held?' (Inst., Book II chap. viii �� 31 and 32.)
The Descent into Hell
To explain 'He descended into hell' by saying that it is equivalent to 'He was 
buried' would be, Calvin thinks, to imply a superfluous tautology in the Creed. 
His own explanation is as follows:-
'Nothing had been done if Christ had only endured corporeal death. In order to 
interpose between us and God's anger, and satisfy His righteous judgement, it 
was necessary that He should feel the weight of divine vengeance. Whence also 
it was necessary that He should engage, as it were, at close quarters with the 
powers of hell and the horrors of eternal death. . . . Hence there is nothing 
strange in its being said that He descended to hell, seeing He endured the death 
which is inflicted on the wicked by an angry God. It is frivolous and ridiculous to 
object that in this way the order is perverted, it being absurd that an event which 
preceded burial should be placed after it. But after explaining what Christ 
endured in the sight of man, the Creed appropriately adds the invisible and 
incomprehensible judgement which He endured before God, to teach us that not 
only was the body of Christ given up as the price of redemption, but that there 
was a greater and more excellent price - that He 
Christian Liberty
'The third part of this liberty is, that we are not bound before God to any 
observance of external things which are in themselves indifferent (�*4V2@D"), 
but that we are now at full liberty either to use or omit them. The knowledge of 
this liberty is very necessary to us; where it is wanting our consciences will have 
no rest, there will be no end of superstition. In the present day, many think us 
absurd in raising a question as to the free eating of flesh, the free use of dress 
and holidays, and similar frivolous trifles, as they think them; but they are of 
more importance than is commonly supposed. For when once the conscience is 
tangled in the net, it enters a long and inextricable labyrinth, from which it is 
afterwards most difficult to escape. When a man begins to doubt whether it is 
lawful for him to use linen for sheets, shirts, napkins and handkerchiefs, he will 
not long be secure as to hemp, and will at last have doubts as to tow; for he will 
revolve in his mind whether he cannot sup without napkins, or dispense with 
handkerchiefs. Should he deem a daintier food unlawful, he will afterwards feel 
uneasy for using loaf-bread and common eatables 
Predestination
'By predestination [See the discussion of Calvin's teaching on this and other doctrines in the last chapter of the present 
work.] we mean the eternal decree of God, by which He determined with Himself whatever He wished to happen with regard to every 
man. All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as 
each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been predestinated to life or to death.' Then he quotes in 
support of this Deut 32:8, 9; 4:37; 10:14, 15; Ps 33:12; 1Sam 12:22, etc.; Ps 78:67, 68; Mal 1:2, 3. (Inst., Book III chap. xxi �� 5, 6, 7.)
Farther on (Inst., Book III chap. xxi �� 7.) he quotes the statements of Christ in John 6:37, 39, 44, 45; 13:18; 17:9.
'Doomed to certain death
'Since the arrangement of all things is in the hand of God, since to Him belongs the disposal of life and death, He arranges all things 
by His sovereign counsel, in such a way that individuals are born who are doomed from the womb to certain death, and are to glorify 
Him by their destruction.'' (Inst., Book III chap. xxiii � 6.)
'Horrible Decretum
'I again ask how it is that the fall of Adam involves so many nations with their infant children in eternal death without remedy, unless 
that it so seemed meet to God? Here the most loquacious tongues must be dumb. The decree, I admit, is dreadful; and yet it is 
impossible to deny that god foreknew what the end of man was to be before He made him, and foreknew, because He had so ordained 
by His decree.' (Inst., Book III chap. xxiii � 7.)
See chapter twelve
Does Predestination 'destroy all exhortations to a pious life?
'We have already seen how plainly and audibly Paul preaches the doctrine of free election: is he, therefore, cold in admonishing and 
exhorting? Let those good zealots compare his vehemence with theirs, and they will find that they are ice, while he is all fervour.' He 
then quotes 1Thess 4:4, 7; Eph 2:10. ' (Inst., Book III chap. xxiii � 13.)
'Who will have all men to be saved' (1 Timothy 2:4)
On this passage Calvin says that St Paul 'had commanded Timothy that prayers should be regularly offered up in the Church for kings 
and princes; but as it seemed somewhat absurd that prayer would be offered up for a class of men who were almost hopeless (all of 
them being not only aliens from the body of Christ, but doing their utmost to overthrow His kingdom), he adds, that it was acceptable 
to God, Who will have all men to be saved. By this he assuredly means nothing more than that the way of salvation was not shut 
against any order of men; that, on the contrary, He had manifested His mercy in such a way, that He would have none debarred from 
it. . . . We must expound the passage so as to reconcile it with another, I "will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show 
mercy on whom I will show mercy" (Ex 33:19). He who selects those whom He is to visit in mercy does not impart it to all. But since it 
clearly appears that he is there speaking not 
'I believe the Church'
'When in the Creed we profess to believe the Church, reference is made not only to the visible Church of which we are now treating, 
but also to all the elect of God, including in the number even those who have departed this life. . . . The particle in is often 
interpolated, but without any probable ground. I confess, indeed, that it is the more usual form, and is not unsupported by antiquity, 
since the Nicene Creed, as quoted in Ecclesiastical History, adds the preposition. At the same time, we may perceive from early 
writers, that the expression received without controversy in ancient times was to believe "the Church," and not "in the Church." This 
is not only the expression used by Augustine, and that ancient writer, whoever he may have been, whose treatise. De Symboli 
Exposit 
The Church should not be lightly abandoned
'Let both points, therefore, be regarded as fixed; first, that there is no excuse for him who spontaneously abandons the external 
communion of a church in which the word of God is preached and the sacraments are administered; secondly, that not withstanding 
of the faults of a few or of many, there is nothing to prevent us from there duly professing our faith in the ordinances instituted by 
God, because a pious conscience is not injured by the unworthiness of another, whether he be a pastor or a private individual; and 
sacred rites are not less pure and salutary to a man who is holy and upright, from being at the same time handled by the impure.' 
(Inst., Book IV chap. i � 19.)
Discipline should not be too severe
'It ought not, however, to be omitted, that the Church, in exercising severity, ought to accompany it with the spirit of meekness. For, 
as Paul enjoins, we must always take care that he on whom discipline is exercised be not "swallowed up with overmuch sorrow" (2 
Corinthians 2:7): for in this way, instead of cure there would be destruction. The rule of moderation will be best obtained from the end 
contemplated. For the object of excommunication being to bring the sinner to repentance and remove bad examples, in order that the 
name of Christ may not be evil spoken of, nor others tempted to the same evil courses: if we consider this, we shall easily 
understand how far severity should be carried, and at what point it ought to cease. Therefore, when the sinner gives the Church 
evidence of his repentance, and by this evidence does what in him lies to obliterate the offence, he ought not on any account to be 
urged farther. If he is urged, the rigour now e 
Baptism
We ought to consider that at whatever time we are baptised, we are washed and purified once for the whole of life. Wherefore, as 
often as we fall, we must recall the remembrance of our baptism, and thus fortify our minds, so as to feel certain and secure of the 
remission of sins. For though, when once administered, it seems to have passed, it is not abolished by subsequent sins. For the 
purity of Christ was therein offered to us, always is in force, and is not destroyed by any stain: it wipes and washes away all our 
defilement. Nor must we hence assume a license of sinning for the future (there is certainly nothing in it to countenance such 
audacity), but this doctrine is intended only for those who, when they have sinned, groan under their sins burdened and oppressed, 
that they may have wherewith to support and console themselves, and not rush headlong into despair. Thus Paul says that Christ was 
made a propitiation for us for the remission of sins that are 
Baptism
'It is now clear how false the doctrine is which some long ago taught, and others still persist in, that by baptism we are exempted and 
set free from original sin, and from the corruption which was propagated by Adam to all his posterity. . . . Believers become assured 
by baptism, that this condemnation is entirely withdrawn from them, since (as has been said) the Lord by this sign promises that a 
full and entire remission has been made, both of the guilt which was imputed to us, and the penalty incurred by the guilt. ' (Inst., Book 
IV chap. xv � 10.)
The Lord's Supper
'There are some who define the eating of the flesh of Christ, and the drinking of his blood, to be, in one word, nothing more than 
believing in Christ himself. But Christ seems to me to have intended to teach something more express and more sublime in that 
noble discourse, in which he recommends the eating of his flesh � viz. that we are quickened by the true partaking of him, which he 
designated by the terms eating and drinking, lest anyone should suppose that the life which we obtain from him is obtained by simple 
knowledge. For as it is not the sight but the eating of bread that gives nourishment to the body, so the soul must partake of Christ truly 
and thoroughly, that by his energy it may grow up into spiritual life. Mean while, we admit that this is nothing else than the eating of 
faith, and that no other eating can be imagined. But there is this difference between their mode of speaking and mine. According to 
them, to eat is merely to believe; while I 
'The sum is, that the flesh and blood of Christ feed our souls just as bread and wine maintain and support our corporeal life. For there 
would be no attitude in the sign, did not our souls find their nourishment in Christ. This could not be, did not Christ truly form one with 
us, and refresh us by the eating of his flesh, and the drinking of his blood. But though it seems an incredible thing that the flesh of 
Christ, while at such a distance from us in respect of place, should be food to us, let us remember how far the secret virtue of the 
Holy Spirit surpasses all our conceptions, and how foolish it is to wish to measure its immensity by our feeble capacity. Therefore, 
what our mind does not comprehend let faith conceive � viz. that the Spirit truly unites things separated by space. That sacred 
communion of flesh and blood by which Christ transfuses his life into us, just as if it penetrated our bones and marrow, he testifies 
and seals in the Supper, and that not by presenting a vain or 
Mode of observance
'In regard to the external form of the ordinance, whether or not believers are to take into their hands and divide among themselves, or 
each is to eat what is given to him: whether they are to return the cup to the deacon or hand it to their neighbour; whether the bread is 
to be leavened or unleavened, and the wine to be red or white, is of no consequence. These things are indifferent, and left free to the 
Church, though it is certain that it was the custom of the ancient Church for all to receive into their hand. And Christ said, "Take this, 
and divide it among yourselves" (Luke 22:17).' (Inst., Book IV chap. xvii � 43.)
Frequency of observance
'The sacrament might be celebrated in the most becoming, manner, if it were dispensed to the Church very frequently, at least once a 
week. . . .'
'We ought always to provide that no meeting of the Church is held without the word, prayer, the dispensation of the Supper, and alms.' 
(Inst., Book IV chap. xvii �� 43 and 44.)
'Most assuredly, the custom which prescribes communion once-a-year is an invention of the devil, by what instrumentality soever it 
may have been introduced.' (Inst., Book IV chap. xvii � 46.)
The Mass (origin of the name)
'The origin of the name of Mass I have never been able certainly to ascertain. It seems probable that it was derived from the offerings 
which were collected. Hence the ancients usually speak of it in the plural number.' (Inst., Book IV chap. xviii � 8.)
The true test of a sacrament
'There never can be a sacrament without a promise of salvation. All men collected into one cannot, of themselves, give us any 
promise of salvation, and, therefore, they cannot, of themselves, give out and set up a sacrament. ' (Inst., Book IV chap. xviii � 19.)
'The word of God must precede to make a sacrament to be a sacrament, as Augustine most admirably shows (Hoary. in Joann. 80).' 
(Inst., Book IV chap. xix � 2.)
Confirmation
It was anciently customary for the children of Christians, after they had grown up, to appear before the bishop to fulfil that duty which 
was required of such adults as presented themselves for baptism. These sat among the catechumens until they were duly instructed 
in the mysteries of the faith, and could make a confession of it before bishop and people. The infants, therefore, who had been 
initiated by baptism, not having then given a confession of faith to the Church, were again, toward the end of their boyhood, or on 
adolescence, brought forward by their parents, and were examined by the bishop in terms of the Catechism which was then in 
common use. In order that this act, which otherwise justly required to be grave and holy, might have more reverence and dignity, the 
ceremony of laying on of hands was also used. Thus the boy, on his faith being approved, was dismissed with a solemn blessing. 
Ancient writers often make mention of this custom. Pope Leo sa 
Then he goes on to combat 'the kind of fictitious confirmation as a divine sacramnet.'
M. Brunetiere on the Institutes
A remarkable appreciation of the Institutes appeared in the Revue des Deux-Mondes, in 1900, from the pen of M. Brunetiere, the well-
known French author and critic, in an article entitled, 'The Literary Work of Calvin.'
This Roman Catholic writer and member of the French Academy says:- 'There is a purely French Reformation which has owed 
nothing, or little, of its origin to the German or English Reformation. . . . It was not political, like the English, or social, like the 
German, but religious, theological and moral, and indeed even preceded them both. It was in 1517 that Luther, as we know, posted 
his theses at Wittenburg, but the Latin commentary on the Psalms by our Lefebvre of Etaples dates from 1512, and from Lefebvre to 
Calvin - 1512 to 1536 - one can trace in French documents the logical progress and evolution of a Protestantism exclusively French.'
Having quoted some passages from the Institutes, he continues: 'Assuredly we have not any other models in our language either of 
this vivacity of reasoning, or rather of argument, or of this precision and appropriateness of terms, or of this succinct and 
penetrating brevity. We have no longer this art of "following" one's thought and not losing sight of it - while explaining or 
paraphrasing it. The paraphrase of the Decalogue is, in this respect, one of the finest things in the French language.'
Again he says: 'Like Luther by translating the Bible, so Calvin by translating his Institutes of the Christian Religion into his national 
tongue, established a communication between himself and us and those who shall come after us - a communication, if I may say so, 
and a contact which shall only be interrupted by the termination of our language itself.'
And again he bears this striking testimony:- 'The Institutes of the Christian Religion is the first of our books which can be called 
classical. It is equally so, and even more so than the romance or the poetry of Rabelais, by the severity of its composition, by the 
manner in which the conception of the whole determines the nature and the choice of the details. . . . It is so, finally, because of that 
"liberality," if I may use the expression, a liberality then quite new, with which Calvin brought to our very door matters which up till 
then had only been discussed in the schools of the theologians. It is not the less so because of the fame (retentissement) which 
French prose has received from it in the world.'
He further adds that no one contributed more than Calvin to keep back the world in its downward course into paganism, and he thinks 
that if there must be heresies, that of Calvin has not been entirely useless, even to the Church itself.
It is true that M. Brunetiere thinks that Calvin's teaching and code of morals are out of harmony with the genius of the French people, 
and accuses him, quite baselessly, of anathematising literature and art. But the very antipathy he shows to the Reformer on these 
grounds renders his appreciation of his literary work all the more remarkable.

Chapter VI
Calvin comes to Geneva
The Duchess of Ferrara
CALVIN went to Ferrara, Italy, in February 1536. There he was the guest of Renee de France, wife of Hercules d'Este and Duchess of 
Ferrara. There, too, he met Clement Marot, who became secretary to duchess. The atmosphere of that city was then favourable to 
religious freedom. Its university chairs were held by liberal-minded scholars. From Ferrara Calvin wrote many letters attacking 
vigorously the errors of the Church of Rome. But the duke was less disposed towards reform than the duchess. The Inquisition, under 
his auspices, began to arrest Protestants and put them to the torture. Calvin thought it wiser to take his departure, and left about the 
end of April.
From there he passed through the Vale of Aosta. A cross erected in the town of Aosta commemorates his flight. In July he reached 
Geneva.
State of morals at Geneva
The condition of Geneva, before his coming, was one of scandalous immorality. The bishops and priests were no exception. In 1513 
the Pope, Leo X., had appointed as bishop, contrary to the wishes of the Chapter, 'the bastard' John of Savoy, son of Bishop 
Fran&ccedil;ois and a common courtesan. Even a historian like Kampschulte, the Old Catholic professor at Bonn, not too favourable 
to Calvin, admits the evil morals of the ecclesiastics. Doumergue has conclusively proved from the registers of the council of 
Geneva, especially of July 12, 1527, that the priests of the Madeleine kept houses of prostitution, and others frequented houses of ill-
fame.
Reform movement before Calvin'c arrival
The Reformed faith had been already preached at Geneva, first, by Lambert of Avignon in 1522. The first observance of the Lord's 
Supper in the Protestant form was held by Guerin Muete in 1533.
Exciting events soon took place. The Reformed faith was making such headway by the labours of Froment, Canus, and others, that the 
Council tried to check its progress. They invited a Dominican, Guy Furbity, a doctor of the Sorbonne, to preach during Advent 1533. 
His language was most violent. He accused the Lutherans of being bestial, sensual, ambitious, homicides, and thieves. In a sermon 
on the 2nd December, he asked in closing, 'Where are our fireside preachers [prescheurs 
de cheminees] who preach the contrary? Let them now come forward, and we will talk to them Ha! Ha! They will take good care not to 
show themselves at present, unless at the fire-places, to deceive poor women and those who do not know anything!'
Froment was in the congregation, and when the sermon was finished he cried out, 'Gentlemen, gentlemen, hear what I have to say to 
you.' The people kept silence, and he went on: 'Gentlemen, I give my life, and I shall give myself to the fire, in order to prove that all 
this man has said is but lying, and words of Antichrist.' A tumult arose. They cried out, 'To the flames! To the flames!' He escaped. 
The Council from the town. But they ordered Furbity not to preach except in conformity with the Gospel.
The Council of Bern (now Protestant) took the matter up. They wrote letters to the Council of Geneva, saying that they regarded as 
personal the insults which Furbity had offered to the Germans, and that they would take criminal proceedings against him. They 
demanded his arrest. Four anbassadors from Bern came to Geneva to see the matter through.
Arrest of Furbity
Furbity was arrested and brought before the Council. They gave him the opportunity of proving his case from Holy Scripture. At first 
he challenged their right to try him, but then yeilded. There ensued a discussion between him and the preachers, which lasted 
several days.
Finally he declared himself ready to do whatever it might please the Council to order. He only asked permission to occupy the pulpit 
once more. He promised to retract the things which he had said, and then to leave Geneva for ever.
Accordingly on February 15, 1534, he commenced to preach. Then there arose a cry that he should carry out the sentence which had 
been pronounced; but he would do nothing. He was removed to prison - or rather kept in a nice house and well treated, though 
guarded.
The people enter a convent
The Protestant cause grew stronger and stronger. On Sunday, March 1, 1534, no sooner had the Franciscan, Coutelier, finished his 
sermon than, led by Baudichon, Perrin, and Farel, the people entered the convent of Rive. The bells rang, and amid applause Farel 
preached for the first time at Geneva, in the large hall of the convent, capable of holding four or five hundred persons.
Priests and monks began to abandon the Church. Some of them married. On this latter point, Froment says: 'Women and several men 
thought it very strange at first that priests, monks, and nuns should marry and have lawful wives and husbands. But they did not 
marvel in Geneva when they kept mistresses, so much was that the ancient and frequent custom.'
In the summer of 1534 the Bishop Pierre de la Baume, ally of the Duke of Savoy, made war upon his old town. This only attached the 
Council the more to the Protestant side. Farel and his companions worked on the ramparts and inflamed the courage of the citizens.
At the end of 1534 the position was this. The Council of Geneva still recognised episcopal authority. Only a third of the population had 
decided for Protestantism. But the attacks of the troops of the duke and the bishop only served to ally the Council more with the 
Bernese.
Attempt to poison Protestant preachers
The Roman Catholics made an attempt, through a cook, to poison the Protestant preachers. She had prepared some soup for Farel, 
Viret, and Froment. Farel did not feel inclined for any. Froment was called away suddenly by a message. Viret alone partook of it, and 
was taken ill. The woman, having hid in the grotto of a cannon, was arrested, tried, and executed.
A public discussion between Farel and two Dominicans, Chappuis and Caroli, took place in 1535. It lasted from May 30 to June 24. It 
was held by authority of the Council, which named eight commissioners, half of whom were Roman Catholics, and four secretaries, 
and it took place in the great hall of the convent of Rive.
Farel preaches in the Cathedral 1535
On the 8th of August the people carried Farel to the Cathedral of Saint-Pierre, and 
insisted on his preaching, for the first time, in its pulpit. On the same day and the 
day following, the people pulled down the images in the cathedral, and in the 
churches of St Gervais, the Dominicns, and the Augustinians. On the 10th of 
August, Farel preached before the Council.
The Mass abolished in Geneva
A few days afterwards the priests were forbidden to say mass in Geneva until further orders. Thus the mass was abolished in 
Geneva.
'The Roman Catholics,' says Doumergue, 'speak of the profanations and vandalism of the scenes which occurred at the downfall of 
Catholicism. They are right. But they forget to tell of the discoveries brought to light in the wreck - the tricks to make the dead bodies 
of the saints sing, during all the nights of Christmas-time, by means of the wind passing through tubes. An alleged brain of St Peter, 
venerated for centuries, was discovered to be a common piece of pumice-stone.'
On December 4, 1535, the Council of Two Hundred decreed that the coins should henceforth bear the new device, Post tenebras 
lucem [spero].  This was shortly afterwards changed into, Post tenebras lux. It was then no longer a hope, but a reality.
Yet all this time geneva was being threatened and attacked from time to time by the soldiery of the duke and the bishop.
The Reformation officially accepted May 21, 1536
On Sunday, May 21, 1536, the Reformation was officially accepted by the people assembled in General Council. The question was put 
by the Council of Two Hundred whether any one wished to say anything 'against the word and doctrine which has been preached to us 
in this city, and whether all wished to live according to the Gospel and Word of God. Without a dissentient voice, this was agreed to, 
and with uplifted hands all swore by the help of God to live according to this evangelical law, 'abandoning all masses and other papal 
ceremonies and deceptions, images and idols.'
On the same day, free and compulsory education was proclaimed.
Calvin's arrival
In July 1536 Calvin, as we have said, arrived at Geneva. He was on his way to Strassburg. But Farel, hearing that he was in Geneva, 
hastened to see him, and besought him to remain and help him in organisation of the Church. Calvin at first shrank from this, 
pleading his other plans, his desires, his tastes. Then Farel said sternly, 'You give your studies as an excuse, but if you refuse to 
give yourself here with us to this work of the Lord, God will curse you, for you seek your own interests rather than those of Christ.'
Then Calvin yielded. At first he began by giving expositions of Scripture in the church of Saint Pierre. The Council, soon after, 
approved of the appointment.
Mass abolished at Lausanne
In October 1536 was held the famous discussion in the Cathedral at Lausanne between Farel, Viret, and Calvin on the one hand, and 
representatives of the Church of Rome on the other, which resulted in the abolition of the mass and images there by the vote of the 
Council.
But Calvin's first ministry at Geneva was of short duration. It lasted less than two years. In that brief period, however, he laid the 
foundation of much that was to follow. It was the period of the Church organisation, of the Articles, the Catechism, and the Confession 
of Faith.

Chapter VII
An exile in strassburg
WHEN we speak of Calvin as an exile, our thoughts instinctively turn to other illustrious exiles of history.
Dante
We think of Dante, exiled from the city which he helped to make great and famous, wandering from province to province, from city to 
city, from court to court, 'tossed about,' to use his own words, 'like a ship without sail or rudder, driven through every port, harbour 
and shore, by the bleak wind of grievous poverty.' Well for him that he was able to find refuge in his won conscience,
'Sotto l'usbergo del sentiris puro.'
And from that exile there came the greater part of the Divina Commedia. But Dante never returned to Florence, and though his 
monument may be seen there to-day in Santa Croce, his grave is at Ravenna.
John Knox
We think too of another exile under greyer skies than those of Italy. 'Many years ago,' says Froude, 'when I was first studying the 
history of the Reformation in Scotland, I read a story of a slave in a French galley who was one morning bending wearily over his oar. 
The day was breaking, and, rising out of the grey waters, a line of cliffs was visible, and the white houses of a town and a church 
tower. The rower was a man unused to such service, worn with toil and watching, and likely, it was thought, to die.' That town was St 
Andrews, that galley-slave was John Knox. Unlike Dante, Knox had not actually been banished by his own countrymen, but by the 
French besiegers of the Scottish fortress. But Knox, during his nineteen months on the galleys, tasted even more deeply than Dante 
the dregs of the cup of suffering. 'What torment I sustained in the galleys,' he says himself, 'and what were the sobs of my heart, is 
now no time to recite.' Unlike Dante aga 
Napoleon
In more modern times the lonely figure of Napoleon at St Helena arises before us, eating out his heart in that remote island of the 
ocean. In his case the tragedy was greater than in that of either of the two just mentioned, and the contrast more vast between his 
former power, splendour, ambition, and the narrow cage against whose bars his proud spirit chafed in vain.
Kossuth
The Hungarian patriot, Kossuth, was an exile too, but his banishment became a triumphal march through England, where he found an 
enthusiastic welcome.
Dante was banished because he tried to deliver Florence from the tyranny of faction; Knox because he was the foe of the Papacy; 
Napoleon was exiled because his freedom was a menace to the freedom of the nations; Kossuth by the Austrians, from whose 
oppressions he sought to emancipate his country.
Calvin's exile from Geneva, less tragic than that of Napoleon, was as pathetic in its personal circumstances as any of the others, and 
is was banishment in the cause of spiritual independence and moral reformation.
It came about in this wise.
The Council opposes Calvin
Soon after Calvin's coming to Geneva in 1536, he began the work of ecclesiastical organisation and moral and social reform. Of 
which we give a detailed account in chapter ix. Such reforms, accepted and enforced by the civil authorities, soon began to excite 
opposition. This opposition steadily increased, and in course of time extended to the Council itself. In 1538 the Council came to two 
decisions, which struck at the heart of Calvin's teaching and reforms. It resolved that 'the Lord's Supper should be refused to no one.' 
This, obviously, was an end to all ecclesiastical discipline. And it further decreed, in opposition to the Geneva pastors, that the mode 
of observing the Lord's Supper itself should be that adopted in Bern. This was to override all spiritual independence.
The reference to Bern requires a little explanation. As is shown fully by Heiz, in the Protestantische Kirchenzeitung, 1886 (pp. 1173-
1184), in an article on Calvin's banishment from Geneva, there was considerable difference in detail between the Reformed Church 
of Bern and that of Geneva. Two of the differences were that in Bern the font was used in baptism, and unleavened bread in the Holy 
Communion.
Now, Calvin was not the man to make strife about modes of observing the Lord's Supper, provided no essential principle was 
violated. In the preface of his Latin Catechism, published in that very year, he denounces the pedantry of those who insist on 'exact 
conformity in ceremonies,' and he pronounces it 'unworthy of us to introduce a servile and unedifying conformity into matters where 
the Lord has left us free to use our liberty, for the much greater advantage of edification.' And in a subsequent letter from Strassburg 
to the city of Geneva he advises it to admit the use of unleavened bread.
But it was a very different matter when this use was imposed upon him by an external authority. Then, he felt, he must assert his 
Christian liberty and the liberty of the Church.
Calvin refuses to submit
Calvin, supported by his colleagues, refused to submit to the decree of the Two Hundred. The Communion was to be administered on 
Easter Sunday. Calvin's refusal being known, he and his colleagues were forbidden to preach. But, understanding this prohibition, 
Calvin and Farel both preached in the churches of Saint Pierre and Saint Gervais respectively. They stated publicly that they must 
decline to administer the Lord's Supper, not because of the unleavened bread, which was 'a thing of indifference,' but because 'it 
would be to profane so holy a mystery until the people were better disposed,' and then they referred to the disorders and 
abominations prevalent in the city.
Commanded to leave the city
The Council of Two Hundred met the following day. Calvin and Farel attended to defend themselves, but were not permitted to enter, 
and on the 23rd of April they were commanded to leave the city within three days (in the 
quaint words of the Register of the Council, qu'il doyjen vuyder laz ville dans troys jour prochain).
The Register of the Council also records their memorable answer. 'Very well! If we had been the servants of men, we would have 
been badly recompensed, but we serve a great Master, who will reward us.' They left the city immediately.
A remarkable glimpse of how Calvin was regarded by outsiders during the struggles preceding his banishment is given by 
Doumergue, who quotes from a letter written to Calvin in March 1538 by two English travellers, John Butler and Bartholomew 
Trehern. These two men, after having resided four months at Geneva and having come under the influence of the Reformer, write to 
him to express the regard with which his gentleness of character (tanta ingenii suavitas) and his charm of conversation (tanta 
colloquiorum dulcedo) had inspired them. They address him as suavissime doctissimeque Calvine (most gentle and learned). And 
they express their sympathy with him in the treatment he had received from wicked men.
For four months he moved about from place to place in Switzerland. His own feelings at this time may be best judged from his letter 
to his friend Louis du Tillet, July 10, 1538. He has, on the one hand, a sense of relief at being free from the cares and anxieties which 
accompanied his work at Geneva, and yet he wishes to be guided by the Divine will. 'On looking back,' he says, 'and considering the 
perplexities which environed (to surround) me from the time when I first went thither, there is nothing I dread more than returning to the 
charge from which I have been set free. For while, when first I entered upon it, I could discern the calling of God, which held me fast 
bound, with which I consoled myself, now, on the contrary, I am in fear last I tempt Him if I resume so great a burden, which has been 
already felt to be insupportable. . . . Nevertheless, I know assuredly that our Lord will guide me in th 
Like Dante, he had the consolation of his conscience, l'usbergo del sentirsi puro. Writing to the Church of Geneva, October 1, 1538, 
he says:- 'God is our witness, and your own conscience before His judgement-seat, that while we had our conversation among you, 
our whole study has been to keep you together in happy union and concord of agreement.' Thus he indicates what his life amongst 
them had been. In the same letter he shows how opposed he is to all vindictiveness for personal wrongs.
Absence of Vindictiveness
'If we set ourselves to do battle with men,' he says, 'thinking only to wreak our vengeance upon them, and so to have satisfaction for 
wrongs which they have done to us, it may well be doubted whether we would ever conquer, so long as we entertained such views. 
Nay, it is a certain fact, that by following that method we ourselves shall be vanquished by the devil. On the other hand, if, avoiding 
all conflict with men, except only in so far as we are constrained to have them opposed to us, inasmuch as they are the adversaries 
of Jesus Christ, we do resist the wiles of our spiritual enemy, being furnished with the armour wherewith the Lord would have His 
people to be guided and strengthened; there need be no fear about our getting the upper hand. Wherefore, my brethren, if you seek 
true victory, do not oppose ev 
Martin Luther
Bucer, an ex-Dominican and friend of Luther, was then the leader of the Reformed party at Strassburg. In that German town there was 
a small French colony of Protestant refugees, which began about the year 1524, but which had as yet no settled pastor. Hearing of 
Calvin's banishment, Bucer set himself to obtain his services for the French congregation. In July he wrote to him, urging him to 
come there. He would have, he said, but a small flock, but he might hope to exercise a very fruitful ministry.
The invitation to Strassburg
But Calvin hesitated. In August he wrote to Farel: 'I suspect that Bucer will press me more strongly to go to Strassberg. I shall not fall 
in with this unless I am compelled by a greater necessity.' But the necessity of a stronger will than even Bucer's was laid upon him. 
In the Preface to his Commentary on the Psalms he says: 'Being at liberty and released from my office, I had thought of living in 
peace without taking any public charge, until Martin Bucer, using a remonstrance and protestation like those which Farel had used 
before, recalled me to another place. Being then terrified by the example of Jonah, which he held up to me, I continued still in the 
office of teacher.'
In September 1538 he preached his first sermon in Strassburg, and he laboured there until 1541. His exile was not one of enforced 
idleness and solitude, but of ceaseless activity.
From the first he took an honoured position in the German city. In less than a year he became a citizen, and was enrolled in the 
tailor's Company, just as in London to-day men are Cloth-workers, Fishmongers, Ironmongers, who have no connection with those 
trades.
Lecturer in Divinity
His office as minister of the French Church was held under the council of the city. His scholarship was held in such high repute that 
he was also appointed as lecturer in divinity in the academy, the university of that time, already famous by the labours of men like 
Sturm. It was then that he began those Biblical expositions which laid the foundation of his Commentaries.
Of Calvin's work as a commentator, perhaps the best estimate is that of Tholuck.
'Calvin,' says the great German professor, 'was not only skilful and happy in his exposition of the grammatical sense, in his correct 
remarks on particular expressions, and in his characteristic views, but also in his inquiries carried beyond the grammatical into the 
historical, poetical, and prophetic sense of the important passages. . . . 
Tholuck on Calvin's Commentaries
'In his commentary on the New Testament we cannot but admire his simple, elegant style, his dogmatic freedom, the tact with which 
he treats his subject, his multifarious learning and profound Christian piety. Corresponding to the form is the elegance of the diction; 
a neatness and propriety of expression, especially apparent in the prefaces. But this elegance is not discovered in an affected 
selection of words. . . . . 
'Another excellence in Calvin is his care not to fall into digressions. The Lutheran commentators were engaged rather in explaining 
particular heads of doctrine (loci communes) than in writing connected commentaries. Thus we miss, in Melanchthon, for example, 
the explanation of difficult passages immediately before us, while he dilates at great length on others which afford him the 
opportunity of dogmatic expositions. Calvin himself even was not altogether free from the habit of his time, and often breaks out into 
violent declamation against the pope and the monks; but he does this much less frequently than his contemporaries, and such a 
species of polemics in a time like his was not to be condemned.
'Calvin was far from following the error of Luther, who, neglecting the basis of historical testimony, supplied its place by mere 
subjective opinion, and hence brought the genuineness of Scripture itself into dispute. As little disposed was he to sympathise with 
those who anxiously defended the apostolic origin of writings to which the testimony of history is clearly opposed. He guards 
himself, however, with the greatest moderation, where the larger number of historical authorities is on the other side, against a rash 
opposition. Thus he says in his argument to the Second Epistle of Peter, "Even though in all parts of the Epistle the Majesty of the 
Spirit of Christ may be clearly seen, I regard is as a matter of religion utterly to reject every phrase which cannot be recognised as 
the genuine expression of Peter." On the Epistle to the Hebrews he says, "I must not be quoted as among those who consider Paul the 
author of this Epistle." He adds his reasons with critical and philosophi 
His Poverty
But his work as pastor and professor was never lucrative. He was indeed so pressed by poverty, as his letters to Farel show, that 
more than once he had to sell his books. His actual salary was a florin a week (about five francs and a half). It was therefore 
necessary for him to take boarders. But as these pensioners were themselves poor students, Calvin's income was not thereby 
greatly increased.
His marriage
It was during his residence in Strassburg that, at the age of thiry-one, he married. His wife was Idelette de Bure, a native of Liege, 
whose family had been banished from Belgium in 1533 for their adherence to the Protestant faith, and who was herself the widow of 
Jean Stordeur, another Belgian refugee. But Calvin's married life lasted but a few days, and his wife died in March 1549.
Bonnet (Recits du XVIe Siecle) speaks of Madame Calvin as a true helper of her husband. She visited the poor, consoled the 
afflicted, received the numerous strangers who knocked at the door of the Reformer, sustained him in hours of discouragement and 
sadness. In a letter to Viret, written after her death, Calvin himself said of her: 'My sorrow is no common one. I have lost the 
excellent compassion of my life (optima socia vita), who, if misfortune had come upon us, would have gladly shared with me, not 
merely exile and wretchedness, but death itself. While she lived, she was the faithful helper of my ministry. Never did I experience 
from her the least hindrance.'
Friendship with Melanchthon
It was during the Strassburg period that Calvin first made at Frankfort the acquaintance of Melanchthon, an acquaintance which 
afterwards ripened into a close friendship. They sometimes differed, but they held one another in true affection. To Melanchthon, 
Calvin dedicated his Commentary on Daniel. Melanchthon died in 1560. And Calvin, in an apostrophe in his work on the Lord's Supper 
(1561), thus writes: 'O Philip Melanchthon, to thee I address myself, to thee who art now living in the presence of God with Jesus 
Christ, and there awaitest us, till death shall unite us in the enjoyment of that divine peace. A hundred times hast thou said to me, 
when, weary with so much labour and oppressed with so many burdens, thou laidest thy head upon my breast, "God grant, God grant 
that I may now die!" But I, on my side, have also a thousand times wished that we had the happiness to live toge 
Luther's message to Calvin
In his correspondence with Farel at this period we get a pleasing reference to one of the rare occasions in which Luther and Calvin 
exchanged courtesies. In his letter to Farel, November 20, 1539, Calvin says: - 'Crato, one of our engravers, lately returned from 
Wittenberg, who brought a letter from Luther, in which there was written, "Salute for me reverently Sturm and Calvin, whose books I 
have read with special delight." Now consider seriously what I have said there about the Eucharist; think of the ingenuousness of 
Luther; it will now be easy for you to see how unreasonable are those who obstinately dissent from him. Philip [Melanchthon], 
however, wrote thus, "Luther and Pomeranus have desired Calvin to be greeted; Calvin has acquired great favour in their eyes!" 
Philip has informed me at the same time by the messenger, that certain persons, in order to imitate Luther, have shown him a 
passage in which he and his friends have been criticised by me. T 
Calvin was responsive to such approaches. He adds: 'If we are not affected by such moderation, we are certainly of stone. For my 
part, I am profoundly affected by it, and therefore have taken occasion to say so in the preface which is inserted before the Epistle to 
the Romans.'
If Calvinist and Lutheran kept apart, the fault lay not with the leaders. Great men can afford to shake hands over their differences.
Geneva without Calvin
But Calvin was not to remain in exile. Geneva could not do without its greatest man. His banishment had been followed by fresh 
outbreaks of moral disorder in the city. Factions increased both in civil and ecclesiastical affairs.
More than once efforts had been made to induce him to return. But he shrank from the task. On the one hand, he wished well to 
Geneva. He would gladly help her Church and people. But he felt that the Church at Strassburg had strong claims upon him.
In a letter to the Syndics and Council of Geneva, October 23, 1540, in reply to overtures from them, he says: 'I am in singular 
perplexity, having the desire to meet your wish, and to wrestle, with all the grace that God has given me to get her [the Church] 
brought back into a better condition, while, on the other hand, I cannot slightingly quit the charge or lay it down lightly, to which the 
Lord has called me, without being relieved of it by regular and lawful means. For so I have always believed and taught, and to the 
present moment cannot persuade myself to the contrary, that when our Lord appoints a man as pastor in a church to teach in His 
Word, he ought to consider himself as engaged to take upon himself the government of it, so that he may not lightly withdraw from it 
without the settled assurance in his own heart, and the testimony of the faithful, that the Lord has discharged him.'
And the sufferings and ill-treatment of the past had left their mark upon the soul. To Viret he wrote: 'I could not read one part of your 
letter without laughing. It is that in which you exhibit so much care for my prosperity. Shall I go then to Geneva to secure my peace? 
Why not rather submit to be crucified? It would be better to perish at once than to be tormented to death in that chamber of torture. If 
you indeed wish my welfare, dear Viret, pray cease from such advice as this.'
The same inward shudder is evident in his letter to Farel, October 21, 1540. 'As often as I think how unhappy I was at Geneva, I 
tremble in my innermost being when mention is made of my return. . . . . I must pray you to forgive me, if I dread that place as 
destructive of peace and safety.' It was in a subsequent letter, October 24, that he used the famous phrase, Cor meum velut 
mactatum Domino in sacrificium offero.
See chapter eight
After months of anxious consideration, pressure from Geneva, and consultation with his wisest friends, he became more resigned to 
what seemed to him to be the call of God.
Banishment revoked
The Council General of Geneva left nothing undone on its part to show its regret for the past and its desire for his return. On May 1, 
1541, it revoked the sentence of banishment pronounced in 1538 against the ministers and their friends. All the members held up 
their hands for a declaration that they regarded them as good men (pour gens de bien et de Dieu), and that they might go and come in 
safety.
Returns to Geneva
On September 13, 1541, Calvin returned to Geneva. On the same day he appeared before the Council, and presented his letters of 
commendation from the city and preachers of Strassberg. Strassberg, on its part, had shown its sorrow at parting with him, and gave 
a very substantial evidence of its esteem. It allowed him to retain his citizenship, and voted the continuance of his stripend. But the 
latter he declined to accept.
The Geneva Council at once provided him with a house and garden, and voted him a stripend of 500 florins a year. This sum is 
estimated by Doumergue to be equivalent to from 3000 to 3500 francs (�120 to �140) (todays value would be thousands of pounds). Probably at 
no time did his income, apart from house and garden, exceed �160 of our money
The main feature of Calvin's life and work at Geneva are dealt with in the succeeding chapters. Until the present year little was done 
beyond a tablet in the cathedral where he so often preached, to commemorate his memory in the city which, more than any other 
man, he made illustrious. He died on May 27, 1564, before the completion of his fifty-fifth year. His supposed grave in the Plain-
Palais Cemetary at Geneva bears, like Knox's grave in Parliament Square, Edinburgh, only the initials of his name. But 'J.C.' has 
other monuments, more enduring than brass or marble, in the lives he influenced and the principles which he taught. 

CHAPTER VIII
An exile in strassburg
His Faith
CALVIN was a man of faith. He lived under the power of things unseen. Very early in life he took as his crest a hand holding out a 
burning heart. Beneath it was the motto, Cor meum velut mactatum Deo in sacrificium offero (I offer to God my heart, as if slain for 
sacrifice).
He does not tell us much about his own spiritual experiences. But in the Preface to his Commentary on the Psalms he lifts the veil for 
a little. Speaking of his turning from the study of law, he says: 'Though I tried to devote myself faithfully to it in order to please my 
father, yet God at length turned my course in another direction by the secret guiding (arcano freno) of His providence. And in the first 
place, when I was too firmly attached to the superstitions of the papacy to make it easy to draw me from so deep a slough, by a 
sudden conversion He reduced to docility my mind, too hardened for my age.' When or how this sudden change took place it is 
difficult to say. Professor Lefranc, in his book La Jeunesse de Calvin, thinks that, though the decision may ha 
His conversion
The important thing is that, whatever means were used, whatever circumstances aided, Calvin attributed the charge to the Divine 
Spirit working on his heart and conscience. 'Except a man be born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.'
And all through his life he saw God's guiding hand. Thus he says in the Preface to Psalms, already quoted, 'I who by nature am of a 
rustic disposition (subrusticus), loved retirement and leisure, and sought seclusion, which indeed was not granted to me, since all 
my retreats became like public schools. In fine, while this has been my one desire, to cultivate an obscure leisure, God has so 
guided me by various turnings, that He never let me rest anywhere until, contrary to my own inclination, I was forced into the light.'
In his coming to geneva, he was guided, it is true, by Farel he heard another voice speaking to him. This also we learn from his 
Preface to the Psalms. 'I was kept at Geneva not so much by the advice or appeal, as by the terrible adjuration of William Farel, as if 
God had laid a violent hand upon me from heaven.'
In the Institutes (Book III, chap. ii � 21) he shows us what a power faith has to calm the mind and strengthen the character. 'If the 
believing soul is driven to and fro in an unusual manner, still will it rise again superior to all its distresses and never suffer itself to 
be deprived of its trust in the divine mercy. The soul of the believer, far from being finally cast down, will always rise through its 
anxieties to a higher degree of security. . . . . Faith is never wholly rooted out of the heart of the believer. However shaken he may be, 
and however wavering, yet does he continue planted in the truth. . . . . We see the accomplishment of what John says in his canonical 
epistle, "This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." For he affirms that it will be not only victorious in one or in a 
few battles, or against some particular assault, but that it will overcome the whole world, though 
His faith in prayer
And how beautiful are his words about prayer (Inst., Book III. Chap. �� 1, 2): This, indeed, is that secret and recondite philosophy 
which cannot be extracted from syllogisms, but is well understood by those whose eyes God hath opened, that in His light they may 
see light. . . . By means of prayer we penetrate to those riches which are reserved with our Heavenly Father for our use. For between 
God and men there is a certain communication, by which they enter into the sanctuary of heaven and in His immediate presence 
remind Him of His promises, in order that His declarations which they have implicitly believed, may in time of necessity be verified 
in their experience. . . . It is certainly not without reason that our Heavenly Father declares, that the only fortress of salvation 
consists in invocation of His name; by which we call to our aid the presence of His providence, which watch 
The conscienceless of God's presence was indeed the supreme influence and dominant force in his life. In his letter to Melanchthon, 
for instance, he appeals to 'God and the holy angels who see us.' And elsewhere he appeals to Christ as the master of the lists, the 
witness and the judge, under whose eyes we contend.
His courage
He was a man of courage. It might be said of him, as of his contemporary and friend John Knox, that he never feared nor flattered any 
flesh.
He needed all his courage for the ecclesiastical and moral reforms which he sought to effect at Geneva. One of the fundamental 
principles which he laid down was the purity of Church communion and the necessity of discipline. Naturally this gave offence to 
people of loose morals and godless life. The party of the libertines invoked the help of the Council, and actually succeeded in 
carrying a resolution by which that body asserted the right to override the decisions of the consistory, or Church government, in 
regard to the admission of persons to the Holy Communion. Appeal being taken to the 'Council of Two Hundred,' which was the 
supreme legislative authority, it was decided that the 'little Council' had to absolve offenders. The libertines thought they had 
triumphed Calvin, they thought, would never dare again to resist the Council.
Refuses the Communion to the Libertines
But they little knew the man they had to contend with. They determined to attend the Church of St Pierre on the first Sunday in 
September 1553, the day when the lord's Supper was to be celebrated, and if necessary to take the sacred emblems by force, or 
compel Calvin to administer them. The eventful day arrived. The church was thronged. Many of those present carried weapons. 
Calvin ascended the pulpit. He preached on the nature of the sacrament, and the danger of treating it with contempt. He concluded by 
stating that he would not give the sacrament to anyone who had been excommunicated, and that if anyone should attempt to seize the 
bread of the Lord by force, he would do so at his peril. The libertines pressed forward, as if determined to partake. Placing his hands 
over the bread these arms, you may take my life, but you will never compel me to defile the table of the Lord, or to give sacred things 
to the profane.' A hush fell upon the whole congr 
Confronts the Council
Or take the scene when he himself in 1547 confronted the Council of Two Hundred. Feeling had then been running high about the laws 
for the enforcement of public morals. The Council itself was fiercely divided. Calvin, of course, was fiercely abused by those who 
were opposed to his policy. The Council met on December 16. Word was brought to him that sharp contention had arisen at the 
meeting, and that threats of violence had been uttered. The streets were filled with excited throngs. He said, that he would himself 
attend the Council. His friends remonstrated, but in vain. He passed through the streets to the council chamber, at the doors of which, 
as he tells us in his letter to Viret, a tumultuous assembly was gathered. 'Fearful,' he says, 'was the sight. I cast myself into the 
thickest of the crowd. I was pulled to and fro by those who wished to save me from harm. I called God to witness that I was come to 
offer myself to their swords, if they t 
Calvin and the plague
In 1542 there was an outbreak of the plague. The plague-hospital was full. A chaplain was required. The Protestant minister Pierre 
Blanchet offered himself, and was accepted by the Council. After a short time the plague ceased, and Blanchet left the hospital.
The plague broke out again in 1543. On May 1, Calvin announced to the Council that Castellion, a minister, was ready to go as 
chaplain to the hospital. The Council accepted his offer, at the same time censuring some ministers who were unwilling to go to the 
hospital. This was on May 2, but on the 11th Castellion was superseded and Blanchet re-
appointed. Blanchet, however, died, and on June 1 the Council ordered the 
ministers to meet and choose a chaplain, 'Mr Calvin being excluded, because he 
was required for the Church.'
The following week a chaplain was appointed.
Doumergue says we can understand that the Council did not wish to expose 
Calvin to the risk of infection in the hospital. The general who commands is not 
placed in the front rank of the battle. But if Calvin had been called, what would he 
have done? Doumergue's answer is that he would have simply done his duty.
He quotes from a letter written by Clavin to Verit in October 1542, at the 
beginning of the plague. 'If anything happens [to Blanchet], I fear that after him it 
will be my turn to run the risk. . . . We cannot fail those who need our ministry 
more than others. . . . As long as we are in this charge, I do not see how we could 
excuse ourselves if, through fear of danger, we deprive of help those who need it 
most.
Doumergue devotes a good deal of space to this whole incident, because Roman 
Catholic authors have quoted Calvin's expression of fear without his expression 
of sense of duty. He points out that Calvin's letter, written to a friend, is quite 
frank. He does not pretend to despise the danger. But if duty requires, he is 
willing to face it.
His unselfishness
He was also an unselfish man. Earthly riches he never sought after. In Strassberg, where, as we have seen, he was lecturer in the 
academy as well as minister of the French congregation, he was often in extreme poverty. He had even to sell his books to provide 
for his sustenance. During his ministry in Geneva, the Council, noticing that his coat was threadbare, voted a sum of money to 
purchase a piece of broadcloth for him.
In his Preface to the Book of Psalms, he says: 'People circulate ridiculous rumours respecting my treasures, my great power, and 
my wealthy sort of life. But is a man satisfies himself with such simple fare and such common clothing, and does not require more 
moderation in the humblest than he himself exercises, how can it be said that he is a spendthrift and fond of self-display? My death 
will prove what they would not believe in my life' (Me non esse pecuniosum, si vivus quibusdam non persuadeo, mors tandem 
ostendet).
His salary, when he occupied the chief ecclesiastical position in Geneva as preacher in the cathedral and minister of its 
congregation, never exceeded about �160 in our money, and he was provided with a house and garden.
His Sympathy
He was a sympathetic man. Stern indeed he could be in denunciation of evil and in condemnation of those who he believed to be 
acting contrary to the law of God. But that he had a tender heart is abundantly clear from his correspondence. There is extant a letter 
which he wrote to Richeburg, a citizen of Strassburg, whose son had died in the plague of 1541. In this he speaks of his affliction in 
seeing a young man in the first bloom of his years snatched away, 'whom I loved as a son, he loving me not less than a second father.
Letter to a father about his son's death
. . . . He is an one who, having set sail upon the stormy ocean, is summoned back into port before he reached the open sea. . . . From 
the confused, uncertain shadows of life, he has been admitted into immortality. . . . But thou wilt say, it is difficult so to suppress a 
father's affections as not to feel pain at the death of a son. Nor have I wished thee not to grieve. We do not learn a philosophy in the 
school of Christ which would have us suppress all those feelings which God has given us, and turn men into stones. All that we have 
said is only to this end, to persuade thee to set a term to thy grief, and to assuage it; that when thou pourest out thy heart in tears, as 
nature and fatherly love dictate, thou mayest not altogether resign thyself to grief.' What true sympathy, what wise consolation, 
breathes in these words!
His letters to Viret, his friend and fellow-worker, show the same tenderness. Speaking of the illness of Viret's wife, he says: 'Be 
assured that we are as anxious about her, as if she were our own wife or daughter.' And when a rumour of Viret's death was 
contradicted by letter from Viret himself, he writes: 'As soon as your letter came in sight, such was the storm of joy which 
succeeded that we were scarcely masters of ourselves. It is well that we had not had a night of sorrow.'
Guizot's estimate of Calvin
To a father who, in displeasure with his son, had refused to receive him into his house, Calvin wrote a letter of intercession on the 
son's behalf. To the Duches of Ferrara, who was in deep sorrow at the death of her son-in-law, Francis, Duke of Guise, and at the 
assertion of some of the Reformers that he would be condemned to everlasting punishment, he wrote amost sympathetic letter. He 
tells her that we must guard against all rash presumption in speaking of a man's future state, 'for there is no Judge only, before whom 
we must all render up our account.' Guizot says on this, 'Surely very few men in the sixteenth century were liberal and large hearted 
enough to use such language concerning the death and the future state of their most formidable enemy.' The words which the 
Archbishop of Armagh wrote in the death of Archbishop Temple might almost be applied to Calvin:-
'The iron heart to self and not to others
All his long life was given;
The heart of flesh was for his human brothers,
The heart of fire for heaven.'
Beza's estimate
Beza, who had ample opportunities of knowing Calvin intimately, has left on record his esimate of his character. 'Although nature had 
endowed Calvin,' he says, 'with a dignified seriousness, both in manner and character, no one was more agreeable than he i.e., 
ordinary conversation.
He could bear, in a wonderful maner, with the failings of others, when they sprung from mere weakness; thus he never shamed any 
one by ill-timed reproofs or discouraged a weak brother; while, on the other hand, he never spared or overlooked wilful sin. . . . His 
temperament was naturally choleric and his active public life had tended greatly to increase this failing; but the Spirit of God had 
taught him so to moderate his anger, that no word ever escaped him unworthy of a righteous man. Still less did he ever commit aught 
unjust towards others. It was only, indeed, when the question concerned religion, and when he had to contend against hardened 
sinners, that he allowed himself to be moved and excited beyond the bounds of moderation. . . . Having been for sixteen years a 
witness of his labours, I have pursued the history of his life and death with all fidelity; and I now unhesitatingly testify, that every 
Christian may find in this man th noble pattern of a truly Christian life and Ch 
Calvin a hard worker
He was an indefatigable worker. Though in his later years especially he suffered much from ill-health, he was always a laborious 
student. He gave little time to sleep, and was usually at work by five or six in the morning. A letter of his to Farel from Strassberg 
gives us an idea of his work: 'I remember no day in this whole year in which I have been so pressed with such a variety of 
occupations. When the messenger was prepared to take the beginning of my work with his letter, I has about twenty leaves to look 
through. I had then to lecture and preach, to write four letters, make peace between some persons who had quarrelled with each 
other, and answer more than ten people who came to me for advice.'
Every alternate week at Geneva he preached daily. Three days every week he lectured on theology. He attended regularly the 
meetings of the consistory and devoted much time to other public duties.
He was a firm believer in pastoral visitation - a duty too frequently neglected by ministers of the Gospel. Bucer wrote to him in 1547, 
commending him for his attention to 'this duty of piety and love.'
Yet, laborious though his life was, he found time for simple amusement. Out of doors he played quoits, and indoors a table game 
called clef.
In this connection Calvin's attitude to the theatre may be noted. It was not one of blind hostility. The passion of dramatic 
representation was as strong among the old Genevese as the passion for dancing.
His attitude to the theatre
On April 8, 1546, Monet and several others presented to the Council a 'Morality' play, requesting authority to perform it on the 
Sunday after Easter. The Council instructed the ministers to be present at a performance of this morality, to see if it was for 
edification; and on the report of the ministers that the story was 'for edification and confirmation of the Word of God,' the 
authorisation was granted on April 16.
This 'morality' (probably a Passion-play) was so successful and popular that on May 24 a request was made to the Council for 
permission to perform the Acts of the Apostles for the edification of the people. 'It was resolved to communicate the said story to 
Monsieur Calvin, and if he found it sober and for edification, that it may be performed.' The 'story' was written by Abel Poupin, one of 
the ministers of Geneva and colleague of Calvin.
Calvin refused to give his own individual opinion, preferring only to communicate the decision arrived at in conference with his 
colleagues. 'And let us at once say,' says Doumergue, 'for the certain astonishment of our readers, that the narrow, unbending 
opinion was not that of Calvin. He joined with his colleagues by moderating them.'
The minutes of Council of May 31 inform us that the authorisation was granted to perform this piece at Whitsuntide, after having 
made communications to Monsieur Calvin and Monsieur Abel; that these two ministers were quite of opinion that there was nothing 
ungodly (contre Dieu) in it; but that the other pastors made an objection on principle. They do not like it, good or bad (i.e., whether the 
play be good or bad), and do not want plays to be performed.
This is clear: the objection on principle, the formal opposition to theatrical representation was made, not by Calvin, but by his 
colleagues.
The Council asks for a second opinion of Calvin and Abel. If they approve of its being performed, and find nothing ungodly in it, the 
Council will fix the date of its representation.
Next day, June 1, Calvin appears before the Council. He tries to reconcile the views of those who object to the representation and 
those who desire it. The objection made by Calvin's colleagues, the ministers, was that some persons would wish to perform certain 
plays, and would spend their money on these instead of on works of charity. Calvin tries to show that it is not necessary to abandon 
the one in order to do the other.
The minutes of the Council do not relate what decision was arrived at.
Subsequently, there was a request for permission to perform another play, the Labours of Hercules. But as this was a profane play, 
and professional actors were to be employed, the Council did not hesitate to refuse permission.
The Acts of the Apostles was brought up again. Calvin reported on behalf of the ministers that the play was good (bein saingt et cellon 
Dieu), but they thought it expedient that it should not be performed. But the Council thought better to permit the play, and the 
ministers offered no further opposition.
Writing to Farel on the 3rd July, on the eve of the representation, Calvin syas, 'We declared 
that the performance of this piece did not please us at all. But we did not resist to 
the end, because there was danger that we should weaken our authority if we 
opposed it obstinately, and if finally they passed beyond us. I see that we cannot 
refuse men all amusements' (video non posse negari omnia oblectamenta).
Subsequently, Cop (one of the ministers) strongly denounced the drama from the pulpit, and particularly the presence of females on 
the stage. The result was a riotous demonstration against Cop. Calvin, however, succeeded in allaying the tumult. Viret was present 
as a spectator at the performance of the play.
Renan on Calvin
It is Ernest Renan who has said: 'Lacking that vivid, deep, sympathetic ardour which was one of the secrets of Luther's success, 
lacking the charm, the perilous, languishing tenderness of Francis de Sales, Calvin succeeded, in an age and country which called 
for a reaction towards Christianity, simply because he was the most Christian man of his generation.'

Chapter IX
CALVIN THE REFORMER
Church discipline
HIS earliest work in Church organisation was begun soon after his arrival in Geneva in 1536. It is embodied in the Articles, 
Catechism and Confession of 1537. That Calvin's work, as M. Brunetiere has acknowledged [see chapter five] was eminently 
spiritual, these Articles show. They commence with a declaration in favour of the frequent and dignified observance of the Lord's 
Supper. Calvin had already in the Institutes advocated its celebration every Sunday, but as a concession to the weakness of the 
people he now recommended its observance, for the present, once a month.
In close connection with the celebration of the Holy Communion there is the question of Church discipline. The Articles 
recommended the government to appoint upright persons, not easily corruptible, all over the city, who should have oversight of the 
life and conduct of all the people, and if they saw any notable fault, should communicate with the ministers, with a view to admonition 
and reform of the offender. Should these measures fail, excommunication ought to follow.
A further recommendation was that all inhabitants of the city, beginning with the Councillors themselves, should be required to make 
confession of their faith. And in order that the Christian faith should be understood, a brief and simple outline of it was to be taught to 
all children, and a public catechising held by the ministers at certain seasons of the year.
These recommendations were accepted by the civil authorities, the Little Council and the Two Hundred, except that referring to the 
Lord's Supper. It was, as before, to be observed but four times yearly. It is curious how this infrequent communicating, contrary to 
Calvin's view, became the rule not only in Geneva but in Scotland, where, until recently, it was very generally observed only twice a 
year.
In Strassberg, however, where he was pastor of the French refugees, Calvin succeeded in having a monthly celebration of the Lord's 
Supper. There, too, he established the presbyterian form of Church government.
Laity admitted to a share in Church government
The admission of the laity to a share in the government of the Church is indeed Calvin's unique distinction as an ecclesiastical 
reformer. Before his time the Church was governed by the clergy only. But the ruling or 'ministering' presbyter, as distinguished 
from the clergyman or preaching presbyter, was admitted by him to a share in its control, having been duly elected by the people and 
set apart to the office.
Yet Calvin did not reject episcopacy. In his Institutes he admits that in the early Church, 'to guard against dissension, the general 
consequence of equality, the presbyters in each city chose one of their own number, whom they distinguished by the title of bishop. . 
. . The establishemnt of one archbishop over all the bishops of each province, and the appointment of patriarchs at the Council of 
Nice, with rank and dignity superior to the archbishops, were regulations for the preservation of discipline.' (Inst., Book IV. Chap. 
iv., �� 2 and 4 See chapter nine latter part)
His liturgy
At Stassburg, too, Calvin prepared a liturgy for public worship. Upon this John Knox afterwards based his famous Service-book. The 
Scottish and Presbyterian reformers generally have been represented as hostile to the use of liturgical forms. Jenny Geddes has 
been taken as a type of anti0liturgical Puritanism. But the wrath of Jenny Geddes, whom the late Professor John Stuart Blackie 
apostrophised as
'O Jenny, Jenny, valiant dame,'
was excited not by the use of the service book, but by the use of an English service book, which the authorities of that time sought to 
impose upon the Scottish people.
Calvin's liturgy included the General Confession, very similar to that of the Church of England, the recital or singing of the Ten 
Commandments and the Apostles' Creed, prayers of supplication and intercession, and the Lord's Prayer. Later on, in his Genevan 
order of service, he made provision for extempore prayer along with the prescribed prayers.
Important place assigned to music
Calvin too, gave a large place to music in Church worship. This was, as Doumergue has shown, different from the attitude of Zwingli, 
who had abolished Church music at Zurich. At Strassberg, Calvin published the first small collection of metrical Psalms and hymns 
in French, eight of which were by Clement Marot and seven by himself. Afterwards in Geneva he added a hundred of the Psalms, 
translated into French by Beza. Henry, Calvin's German biographer, says: 'It is highly characteristic of the spirit of the age that 
Marot's psalms were sung with success at the court of Francis I. and later at that of Francis II. and the formidable Catherine. King 
Henri II. sang, while hunting, the psalm, "As the hart panteth after the water-brooks," and the King of Navarre, "Lord, avenge me." The 
Sorbonne sought in vain to persuade Francis to suppress the translation.' Kamposchulte shows (I. 455 n. drafted by him in 1541, on 
his return from Strassburg to Geneva, at the request of the Little Council. Though modified by this body and the two Hundred, these 
Ordonnances are on the whole expression of his principles. Dr. Fairburn (Cambridge Modern History) says: The Ordonnance 
Ecclesiastiques may be described as Calvin's programme of Genevan reform, or his method for applying to the local and external 
Church the government which our Lord had instituted and the Apostles had realised.' They provided for the four classes of office, 
following t 
The Church elders were to watch over the morals of all. They were to watch over the morals of all. They were elected every year, but 
might be continued in office for a longer period. They, with the pastors, formed the consistory. In Geneva the elders were in the 
majority. To this body, which assembled every Thursday, was assigned the administration of the Church discipline, as in the 
Presbyterian session (or 'kirk - session') in English - speaking countries. The deacons had care of the poor and the sick and the 
offerings of the congregation. Full provision was made under this system for poor-relief, and begging was forbidden.
Church and State
In Calvin's system Church and State were closely interwoven. And while he maintained, as we have seen, the spiritual independence 
of the Church in matters affecting doctrine and worship, he gave a large place to the civil government in questions of administration. 
Thus he provided in the Ordonnances that the Church could deal with offenders up to the point of excommunication, but afterwards, 
'where it shall be necessary to make some punishment or constrain the parties, the ministers with the Consistory, having heard the 
parties and made remonstrances and admonitions as shall be fitting, shall report all to the Council, which shall deliberate on their 
report, and order and render judgement according to the merits of the case.' The elders had a seat in the civil court, and were bond of 
union between Church and State.
Calvin as social reformer
It is commonplace to say that Calvin's idea of the state was that of a theocracy. He aimed at making Geneva a city of God. And in that 
city, in spite of great opposition and more than one temporary defeat, he effected a great social and moral reformation. John Knox 
said of it, 'In other places I confess Christ to be truly preached; but manners and religion to be so sincerely reformed I have not seen 
in any other place beside.' (M'Crie: Life of Knox, I. 197.)
Public morality
We have seen what the condition of Genevan morals was before Calvin came to it. With his high ideals of what individual and natural 
life ought to be, he set himself resolutely to the amendment of public morality. He had to contend with vices which are the vices of 
our own time and of our land. Immorality was open and un-blushng. Drunkenness was rampant. Gambling even then held its deadly 
fascination for many. Against all these evils he spoke from the pulpit. Against them, too, he assisted in the formation of a court of 
morals. Adulterers were to be imprisoned, to pay a fine, and to do public penance. Playing games for money was prohibited. 
Doumergue, however, has shown that Calvin, in urging legislation of this kind, was simply acting in continuation, and perhaps 
extension, of a right exercised even before the Reformation by the episcopal authority and by the city councils. That historian, no 
doubt, urges this with the purpose of clearing Calvin fr 
Severity at Geneva not inaugurated by Calvin
Before Calvin's coming to Geneva the civic authorities in some at least of the Swiss cities found it necessary to check the abuses 
which had arisen in connection with taverns and other places of public resort. The Council of Zurich in 1530, and that of Bern in 1534, 
suppressed hostelries of a low class, only authorising respectable inns in the towns and villages and on the main roads.
In 1529, according to Bonivard, 'the prisoner of Chillon,' the hostelries and taverns of Geneva were so numerous that they were able 
to billet in them all the troops sent by Bern and Fribourg against the Savoyards. And until Calvin's intervention they were scenes of 
unrestricted licence (das ungebundenste Leben, says Liebenau).
Then there were several social clubs, called abbayes, a kind of rival to the taverns. They existed before Calvin. What he did was to 
insist on the regulations for their good order being carried out.
Further, the necessity for restrictive legislation arose from the great influx of strangers. Geneva was in the sixteenth century a town 
of about 13,000 inhabitants. From all parts, France, England, Spain, Italy, came refugees. In eleven years, 1549-1559, the population 
of the city was augmented by a foreign immigration of more than 5000 residents (Mallet, Recherches historiques et statistiques sur 
la population de Geneve. 1837, p. 41, n. 2).
'it is not surprising,' says Doumergue, 'that Geneva took precautions with these new-comers. And as it owed its independence, its 
existence, to its faith, the point on which it took its first and greatest precautions was that of religion.
'"Firstly," says the formulary of the letters of habitation issued in 1550, it is necessary to take a loyal oath "to live according to the 
holy Reformation, and to be obedient and subject to us." All were required to attend sermons and public worship, and to denounce 
blasphemers and dissolute and dishonest persons. No Roman Catholic could be received as a "habitant," still less as a "bourgeois." 
Any burgess who became a Roman Catholic forfeited his citizenship. It was not until the seventeenth century that Roman Catholic 
was permitted to reside in the city, and then as an exceptional case, and for a limited time.'
'The Blue Laws'
As Professor H. D. Foster, in his article on 'Geneva before Calvin' in The American Historical Review (1903), has shown, 'the Blue 
Laws, i.e., the regulations affecting religion and morals, were not an invention of Calvin and the Puritan State. They were rather the 
sequela of the Middle Ages.' The blame attached to Calvin for inquisitorial and fastidious legislation has been largely based on want 
of knowledge. He brought to bear upon it his own high ideals, his conception of a godly, righteous, and sober life for the individual and 
for the nation.
Calvin's services to education
Like Knox, Calvin was a firm believer in education. One of his greatest and most abiding works at Geneva was the establishment of 
the College, now the University of that city. Beza was its first rector, and with him were associated professors of Greek, Hebrew, 
philosophy, and a staff of subordinate tutors or masters for the classes of the high school connected with it, while Beza and Calvin 
gave lectures in theology. The college which thus began with arts and divinity, afterwards included medicine and law. From all parts 
of Europe, England, and Scotland students flocked to it. At Calvin's death its high school department (scholia privata), corresponding 
to the German gymnasium, had twelve hundred scholars, and its university, or scholia publica, had three hundred students. On June 
5, 1559, a day now observ 
Kampschulte on Calvin's College
One of the fullest accounts of Calvin's educational work, and an account marked by much sympathy and fairness, is that of 
Kampschulte, the famous Old Catholic Professor at Bonn University. He gives a careful analysis of the subjects laid down for study 
in the Geneva College, and the time devoted to each. And then he remarks: 'The Calvinistic school is to educate the whole man, not 
merely his intellect, but also his character and will; it is to give him a footing for the whole of life. Along with the didactical side, it 
emphasises more than any other the padagogic work of the school. It is, as Beza's inaugural address announced, an institution not 
merely for instruction, but also for education (nicht bloss Unterrichts-, sondern auch Erziehungsanstalt), nay, indeed, it is preferably 
the latter, and seeks, with Spartan severity, in accordance with the character of its founder, t 
The Jesuit imitation of Calvin's academical system
Kampschulte, too, was, we believe, the first to institute a comparison between Calvin's academical regulations and the educational 
system of the Jesuits, Ratio atque institutio studiorum societatis Jesu, which first appeared at Rome in 1591, twenty-seven years 
after Calvin's death. The two systems, says this author, are in essential agreement in their ideas and method. 'This recognition and 
approval,' he says, 'which the Geneva Reformer's plan of study elicited even from his avowed opponents, is at the same time the best 
proof of its adaptability to its time and purpose' (II. Band, p. 340).
Church reform, social reform, educational reform, all these were the work of Calvin's master-mind.
Guizot on the defects of Calvin's legislation
Defects of course there were. Perhaps the words of M. Guizot best express the objections to his civil legislation: 'Although Calvin's 
system was righteously conceived and carried out, his thoughts and legislation were influenced by two false notions, which soon 
proved fatal. . . . Calvin's religious system for the Evangelical Church almost entirely overlooked individual liberty. He desired to 
regulate private life in accordance with the laws of morality and by means of the powers of the State; to penetrate all social and 
family life, and the soul of every man, and to restrict individual responsibility within an ever-narrowing circle. In the relation of the 
Evangelical Church to the State, he asserted and carried out the principle adopted in the Catholic Church, the right of the spiritual 
power to appeal to the secular arm, in order to suppress and punish those offences against religion recognised by the State; that is, 
impiety and heresy. Calvin thus deni 
Michelet's tribute to Calvin's social work
But over against this we may set the judgement of another distinguished French historian. Michelet says: 'This elete of France, with 
an elite of Italy, founded the real geneva, this astonishing asylum between three nations which, without support (for it feared even the 
Swiss), lasted by its moral force. No territory, no army; nothing for space, or time, or matter; the city of the mind, built by Stoicism 
on the rock of predestination. . . . . To every people in peril Sparta, instead of an army, sent a Spartan. It was so in Geneva. To 
England it gave Peter Martyr, to Scotland Knox, to the Netherlands Marnix; three men and three revolutions' (Michelet, Histoire de 
France, 1855, x. pp. 483, 484).
[Note on p. 131, Calvin's Attitude to Episcopacy. An important statement on this subject occurs in a letter of Calvin to the King of 
Poland, in 1555, quoted by Henry, ii. 343. Calvin says:- 'So also there might be bishops for the various provinces or cities, whose 
office it should be to keep order in all things, as circumstances required; and one might be chosen from every assembly of bishops, 
to whom the principal charge be entrusted.']

CHAPTER X
Calvin's influence on the Reformed Churches
His correspondence with the Duke of Somerset
WITH the leaders of the Reformation in England Calvin was in constant correspondence. On the death of Henry VIII. in 1547, Hertford, 
Duke of Somerset, became Protector during the minority of Edward VI. He was an ardent reformer of the Church. By his order images 
and crucifixes were removed from the churches. To him Calvin wrote letters of sympathy and counsel. Recognising that there were 
two extreme parties in England, the one of 'fanatics who, under the pretence of zeal for the Gospel, overturn all social order; the 
other of those who obstinately desire to retain the whole mass of Catholic superstitions,' Calvin advises Somerset to resist both. 
'The best means, however, to check the evil,' he adds, 'is to instruct men in the knowledge that we are created after the image of God, 
and that Christianity is opposed to all disorder.'
Correspondence with Edward VI. And Archbishop Cranmer
To Edward VI. Himself Calvin wrote more than once. He sent him a copy of his Commentary on Isaiah. He dedicated to him his 
Commentary on the Catholic Epistles, and afterwards his Commentary on the Eighty-seventh Psalm.
Between Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Calvin, many friendly letters were exchanged. The correspondence is chiefly 
notable as showing how these two great men rose superior to their minor differences on questions of Church government. Calvin has 
so often been accused of narrowness and intolerance that it is interesting to find him pleading for unity. He responded to Cranmer's 
suggestion that 'pious, sensible men brought up in the school of God, would unite in setting forth a common confession of Christian 
doctrine,' and expressed the wish that Cranmer would appoint some place in England where the heads of all the Protestant Churches 
might meet,
Proposed Conference of Protestant Leaders
and agrees upon certain fundamental articles of belief as a basis for permanent union. 'As far as I am concerned,' he says, 'I will 
readily pass over ten seas to effect the object in view.' His friendship for England, as well as his zeal for unity, is shown in the 
following sentences: 'if the welfare of England alone were concerned, I should think it a sufficient reason to act thus. But at present, 
when our purposes is to unite the sentiments of all good and learned men, and so, according to the rule of Scripture, to bring the 
separated |Churches into one, neither labour nor trouble of any kind ought to be spared.
This noble vision of closer unity was shared by Melanchthon, Bucer, Peter Martyr, and Bullinger. But the death of Edward VI. And 
Cranmer's subsequent martyrdom prevented the assembling of the conference, and nothing further was done.
Queen Elizabeth and Grindal Bishop of London
The accession of Elizabeth in 1559 brought Calvin into touch with English Church life once more. He dedicated to her in that year his 
Commentary on Isaiah. In the same year he corresponded with the bishop of London, about the French Church in London, in whose 
formation Grindal had been very active. He sent him a pastor, who had been trained under him at Geneva, to minister to the London 
congregation.
Toplady on Calvin's influence on the Church of England
The whole subject of the relation of Calvin and his teaching to the Church of England has been very fully treated by Toplady, the 
author of the hymn 'Rock of Ages,' and Vicar of Broad Hembury, Devon. In his book, Historic Proof of the Doctrinal Calvinism of the 
Church of England (6 vols., London, 1825), he shows that the earliest English Reformers, Wycliffe and Tyndale, held substantially the 
same views as Calvin.
Bishop Burnet, in his History of the Reformation of England, recalls Calvin's letter to Somerset, October 29, 1548, encouraging him 
to go on with the Reformation. In this letter he much approves a set form of prayers, whereby the argument of all the Churches should 
more manifestly appear. He advises a more complete reformation, including the abolition of prayers for the dead, chrism and 
extreme unction, as nowhere recommended in Scripture. But, above all, he complains of the great impieties and vices that were so 
common in England, as swearing, drinking, and uncleanness; and earnestly prays the Lord Protector that these things may be looked 
after.
Calvin, says Toplady, 'did not remonstrate in vain. The Communion Office underwent a further reform in 1550; as did the whole 
liturgy in 1551, when, among many other alterations, the chrism in baptism, the unction for the sick, and prayers for the dead, were 
totally expunged.'
Hooker on Calvin
Hooker, the author of the Ecclesiastical Polity, in his preface to that work says that Calvin was incomparably the wisest man that 
ever the French Church had, and a worthy vessel of God's Glory.
Parker, Grindal, and Whitgift, the three Archbishops of Canterbury in Elizabeth's time, all held Calvinistic views.
Laud attacks Calvinism
It was Laud who struck the first blow at Calvinism in the Church of England. He became Bishop of St. David's in 1621. 'This prelate,' 
says Toplady, 'had not worn lawn sleeves much longer than eight months, before he became instrumental in procuring and in drawing 
up a well-known court paper entitled, "Directions concerning Preachers." The third article of these directions enjoined "That no 
preacher of what title soever, under the degree of a bishop or dean, at the least, do, from henceforth, presume to preach, in any 
popular auditory, the deep points of predestination, election, reprobation, or the universality, efficacy, resistibility or irresistibility 
of God's grace; but leave those themes rather to be handled by the learned men"' [in the two universities]. This paper under royal 
authority was dated from Windsor in 1622.
After the accession of Charles I. Laud got him, in 1626, to revive the directions concerning preachers; of which a new edition 
appeared in the form of a proclamation, extending the prohibition even to bishops and deans who were, by what Toplady calls this ill-
judged stretch of royal supremacy, commanded to forbear from treating of predestination in their sermons and writings.
The Articles and Homilies of the Church of England, had become embodied in the Westminster Confession of Faith, adopted by the 
Assembly of Divines held under the Long Parliament, 1643. This Confession expressed the views both of the Presbyterians and 
Independents of that time.
It is a remarkable fact that the Westminster Confession is very largely a reproduction of the Articles of the Irish Church, prepared 
thirty years before by Ussher, afterwards archbishop. Professor Mitchell, in his introduction to Minutes of the Sessions of the 
Westminster Assembly of Divines (1874, p. xlvii.), says: 'In the order and titles of many of its chapters, as well as in the language of 
whole sections or subdivisions of chapters, and in many single phrases and voces signata occurring throughout the Confession, the 
Westminster Divines . . . have followed very closely in the footsteps of Ussher and his Irish brethren. The headings of those chapters 
which cannot be clearly traced to this source may generally be found in a Body of Divinity which was publis 
This shows how close was the doctrinal identity of the evangelical Churches of the seventeenth century. Episcopalians, 
Independents, Presbyterians, differing as to modes of Church government, were at one in holding in its essentials the creed of John 
Calvin.
Calvin's influence in Scotland
So far as Scotland is concerned, the teaching of Calvin, as followed by Knox, dominated its religious thought and Church 
government. Knox, who had been at Geneva from 1556 to 1559, had the gratification of seeing the Presbyterian form established in 
the Church of Scotland in 1560. In that year the first Confession of Faith, drafted by Knox, was accepted by the Scottish Parliament. 
Its main positions are entirely Calvinistic. So also were the rules of government in the Scottish Book of Discipline adopted at the 
same time.
In 1647, after the two nations of England and Scotland had been united for four years by the Solemn League and Covenant, the General 
Assembly of the Church of Scotland adopted the Westminster Confession of Faith. That Confession still remains a 'subordinate 
standard' of the Presbyterian Churches throughout the world though the modes of subscription to it vary, and the general tendency is 
to shorter creeds.
Influence on French Protestantism
In France, during Calvin's own life-time, wonderful changes took place. He who had leave his native country on account of his 
religious opinions, and who had heard of his fellow-countrymen suffering imprisonment, confiscation, exile and death, lived to hear 
of the first Protestant Synod at Paris in 1559, and to see the edict of January 1562, by which the Evangelical Church was granted free 
exercise of its religion. The wars of religion, it is true, followed, but they were terminated before his death, for a time at least, by the 
peace of Ambiose, 1563. In the beginning of 1559 there were seventy-two regularly organised Protestant congregations in France. 
From Geneva came their pastors, trained under the direct influence of Calvin and inspired by his spirit.
Holland a Calvinistic country
Holland came under the power of Calvin's teaching more, perhaps, than any other country. So completely was this the case, that 
when, about fifty years after Calvin's death, Arminius, a professor of theology at Leyden, rejected the Genevan doctrines, a Synod 
held at Dort, in 1618, condemned the Armenian views, and those who held them were deprived of their office. The great Dutch 
Reformed Church of the United States of America, like its mother Church in Holland, still holds the same Calvinistic creed.
The Reformed Church in Poland
In the Reformation which took place in Poland, Calvin was deeply interested. He dedicated his Commentary on Hebrews, in 1549, to 
the king, Sigismund Augustus. His Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, in Latin, he dedicated to Prince Radziwill, the principal 
correspondent in Poland, however, was John Laski or a Lasco, who was also the friend of Erasmus, Cranmer, and Zwingli, and who 
became the chief superintendent of all the Protestant Churches in Lesser Poland. Under him Calvin's ideas of Church government 
were put into operation, and the Bible translated into Polish. One of Calvin's latest acts was to write an Admonition to the Polish 
people,
Influence of Calvin in Hungary
The visitor to Budapest to-day finds in the centre of that beautiful city on the Danube a square called the Calvin Square. It is indeed a 
surprise to find the Reformer's name thus honoured. The surprise increases when he finds the spacious 'Reformed' Church at the 
side of the square, and learns that it is but one of many vigorous centres of Reformed Church life throughout Hungary. The Protestant 
population of Hungary numbers about four millions, of whom two-thirds belong to the Reformed or Calvinistic Church. The 
foundations of this Church were laid in Calvin's life-time. By 1563, the year before his death, his doctrines were generally accepted 
in the Protestant Churches, and the Presbyterian form of Church government was in use.
In Germany
So far as Germany is concerned, the Lutheran theology, that of the Augsburg Confession, has remained the dominant force. But even 
there Calvinism has had many able and earnest followers. See APPENDIX B Its doctrines were enshrined in the Heidelberg 
Catechism of 1562. For Luther himself, although differing from him on some points both of doctrine and government, Calvin had a 
sincere respect. In a letter to Laski of Poland in 1556, he said that there was nothing in the Augsburg Confession which did not agree 
with his doctrine. In Germany to-day there is a tendency to make less of the differences between the Lutheran and Calvinistic 
('Reformed') Churches, and to blend both together in one united Protestant or Evangelical Church.
Sweden and Denmark
Like Germany, Sweden and Denmark were too much under Lutheran influence for Calvin's view to make much headway. But he was 
interested in the Reformation work in both countries. To Gustavus Vasa, King of Sweden, he dedicated his Commentary on the 
Twelve Minor Prophets, and to King Christian of Denmark he dedicated his French edition of the Acts of the Apostles.
There are few parallels to the influence which Calvin exercised in his short life-time of fifty-four years. Feeble in health, but of 
indomitable industry, unfaltering faith, and determined will, he contributed mightily to the great revolt from Rome. He corresponded 
with kings and rulers. His books became the rich mine from which theologians and preachers drew ideas and their inspiration. On 
the lines which he laid down, national Churches were organised and developed. By him ideals of civic life were set before the world.
Influence of Calvin since his death
And who can measure the influence which his doctrines have exercised since his death? The house which stands on the site of that 
occupied by Calvin in the rue Calvin at Geneva now bears over its door the inscription, Bureau de Salubrite. It is the office of public 
health. The title is not without significance. The life and teaching of Calvin were a moral tonic to Geneva, and to the world. Austere he 
may have been, but he lived at a time when austerity was needed. His doctrines have their defects, but they moulded men. They 
elevated character. They purified national life.
It was something for men to realise the sovereignty of God, His divine purpose in their lives, and the high standard of life which the 
profession of Christianity involves. These were the convictions which inspired the Huguenots of France, the sturdy Dutchmen, the 
Puritans of England, the Covenanters of Scotland, and the Pilgrim Fathers who laid broad and deep the foundations of civil and 
religious liberty beyond the seas. Whether men agree with Calvin's views or not, they must recognise his influence upon history. 
Lord Morley says: 'Calvinism saved Europe in the sixteenth century.' And Bancroft, the American historian, has written: 'He who 
does not honour the memory and influence of Calvin, betrays his ignorance of the origin of American liberty.' (See Appendix C.)

Chapter XI
CALVIN AND SERVETUS
ON the death of Servitus, and Calvin's share in it, much ink has been spilled. Roman Catholic controversialists, forgetful of the 
Inquisition and its holocausts, or desiring to make the most of the isolated acts of Protestant tyranny, have branded Calvin as an 
executioner. Even Protestant writers, ill-informed as to Calvin's share in that lamentable incident, glibly say, 'Calvin burned 
Servetus.' Thus, for instance, Farrar, History of Interpretation, p. 351. Compare Mark Pattison, Essays, ii. 6.
Let us say at once that we condemn the burning of Servetus. It is contrary to the genius of Protestantism to put any man to death for 
his religious opinions. But that genius, the genius of New Testament Christianity, was only slowly awakening in the sixteenth 
century. The Protestants of that time had to unlearn the Roman Catholic maxim, that you are justified in killing a man's body in order 
to save his soul, or on putting a heretic to death in order to preserve the Church.
But the odium attached to Calvin in connection with the death of Servitus has been excessive, and to a large extent unjust. He is 
blamed because he acted on a principle shared by Protestant as well as Roman Catholic theologians of that time. He is blamed, in 
other words, for not being in advance of his age.
It is unnecessary to recite the whole history of Servetus. But some facts connected with his teachings, trial, and death, are essential 
to a right judgement on the case.
Melanchthon's opinion of Servetus
The chief object of the attacks of Servetus was the doctrine of the Trinity, and for that reason Calvin has been specially abused by 
those who deny that doctrine. Anti-Trinitarianism was certainly unfortunate in its champion. Melanchthon, one of the fairest and 
gentlest of men, says in a letter quoted by Willis, one of the apologists of Servetus, that he has been reading Servetus a good deal, 
and to another correspondent, 'You ask me what I think of Servetus? I see him indeed sufficiently sharp and subtle in disputation, but 
I do not give him credit for much depth. He is possessed, as it seems to me, of confused imaginations, and his thoughts are not well 
matured on the subjects he discusses.' �colampadius, the Basel theologian, who had met with Servetus, and tried by friendly 
conference to win him to the orthodox faith, wrote to Zwingli that Servetus 'is so proud, presumptuous and quarrelsome that it is all 
to no purpose.'
Servetus and the medical profession
That Servetus was a man of ability cannot be disputed. He rendered important services to medical science, and anticipated Harvey 
by his theory of the pulmonary circulation of the blood. But even in his own profession he had made many enemies, by the 
accusations of ignorance which he brought against the medical men of his time. He was denounced by the Medical Faculty of Paris as 
an impostor and a wind-bag, because of his astrological views and his practice of casting nativities in harmony therewith, and he 
was forbidden to act as a professor or practitioner of judicial astrology, otherwise called divination.
Servetus regarded as a blasphemer rather than as a heretic
In his attacks upon the doctrine of the Trinity he used language which was repulsive to all reverent minds. In one letter to Calvin, for 
example, he said: 'False are all the invisible Gods of the Trinitarians, as false as the gods of the Babylonians.' Elsewhere he spoke of 
Trinity as a three-headed Cerberus, and used other language with which we prefer not to sully our pages. It is enough to say that it is 
language of a kind still regarded as punishable by English law.
All this is of importance in estimating the attitude of the Reformers towards Servetuc. He was looked upon as being not so much a 
heretic as a blasphemer.
Servetus condemned by the Inquistion at Vienne
Again, let it be borne in mind that before his trial at Geneva, Servetus had already been tried and sentenced by the Roman Catholic 
authorities at Vienne, in France. The attempt has been made to throw upon Calvin the blame for the denunciation of Servetus to these 
authorities. Dr. Willis strongly supports this, and even an impartial writer like Professor Walker seems to think that in the later 
stages, at any rate, 'Calvin must be deemed the chief, though indirect agent in the denunciation of Servetus to the Catholic court.'
To this charge, however, Calvin's own distinct statement is a sufficient reply. In one of his epistles he says: 'I have the credit given 
me of having him arrested at Vienne. But why such familiarity between me and the satellites of the Pope? Is it to be believed that 
confidential letters could have passed between parties who had as little in common as Christ and Belial? Yet why many words to 
refute that which simple denial from me suffices to answer?'
As a matter of fact, Servetus was first brought under the notice of the Roman Catholic authorities through a correspondence between 
Arneys, a Roman Catholic gentleman at Lyons, and his friend William Trie, who had become a Protestant, and had taken refuge at 
Geneva. Arneys had written to Trie, urging him to return to the Church of Rome. In his reply, Trie defended Protestants against 
charges of heresy and disorder, and said that they never suffered the name of god to be blasphemed or errors to be diffused without 
opposing them. And then he alluded to Servetus, who, though a blasphemer, was in France held in great esteem and treated as if he 
had done nothing amiss. Trie also sent to Arneys part of the book by Servetus, the Christianismi Restitutio.
In this unpremeditated way the name of Servetus was mentioned. The correspondence did not begin from Geneva or on the Protestant 
side, but at Lyons and on the Roman Catholic side. And it was a private correspondence between friends.
While these pages were passing through the press, the writer has read an article in the Bulletin of the Societe de l'Histoire du Protestantism. Fran&ccedil;ais for Sept - 
Oct 1908, by the Rev. N. Weiss, Secretary of that Society. In this article M. Weiss gives a conclusive reply to the charge, still being repeated on the eve of Calvin's 
quarter-centenary, that it was the Reformer who denounced Servetus to the Inquisition at Vienne. He quotes, for example, from Trie's second letter, in reply to the 
request of Arneys for the complete book of Servetus. 'When I wrote to you,' says Trie, 'the letter which you communicated to those whom I accused of indifference, I did 
not think the matter would go so far. My intention was only to show you how fine is the zeal and devotion of those who call themselves pillars of the Church, while they 
suffer such disorder in their own midst, and yet persecute poor Christians who desire to follow God in simplic 
M. Weis further shows that Trie's first letter was written when every one was lamenting in Geneva the fate of five young Protestant Frenchmen who had been languishing 
in prison at Lyons since May 1552. They had appealed to the Parliament of Paris against the condemnation of the ecclesiastical court of Lyons, but the appeal had been 
dismissed on Feb. 18, 1553, a few days before Trie wrote his letter, and they were burned at the stake on May 16.
Arneys placed his friend's letter in the hands of the Roman Catholic authorities. Servetus was summoned before their tribunal at 
Vienne in March 1553. During the trial he made his escape from prison on April 7. But on the 17th June he was 
condemned to death by slow fire, and was burnt in efficy.
However effective the tu quoque argument, it hardly becomes Roman Catholic controversialists to use it by saying, 
'Calvin burned Servetus.' Even if he did so, he was punishing a man whom Roman Catholic authorities themselves judged worthy of 
death by fire.
Calvin accuses Servetus
Now let us pass to the part which Calvin admittedly took in connection with the trial of Servetus at Geneva. For some reason which 
has never been explained, Servetus, after some weeks' wandering about, came to Geneva in August. Calvin, hearing of his presence 
there, informed the Council. Servetus was arrested, and Calvin drew up articals of accusation against him. After several days of 
examination, the Council asked for written documents to be furnished on both sides.
Opinion of the other city councils of Switzerland
These documents, containing Calvin's charges on the one side and the replies of Servetus on the other, were sent, along with the 
Restitutio, to the Churches and Councils of Zurich, Bern, Basel and Schaffhausen. The Council requested their opinion.
The replies received were in every case hostile to Servetus. The method of punishment was not suggested, but all the Churches held 
that Servetus should be made an example of. The magistrates of the various cities were equally strong in their support of Calvin. It is 
evident that it was the blasphemous language of Servetus which specially called forth their indignation.
Calvin seeks to mitigate the punishment
On the 26th of October, the Council condemned Servetus to die by fire. Calvin 
approved of the punishment of death, but he sought to mitigate the sentence. In a 
letter to Farel he said, 'I think he will be condemned to die; but I wish that what is 
horrible in the punishment may be spared him.' After the sentence he wrote 
again to Farel, 'We have endeavoured to change the mode of execution, but 
without avail.'
To say therefore that 'Calvin burned Servetus,' is to utter what at most is but a 
half-truth. Calvin was not the sole actor. He was one of many. As the 
representative of Protestant opinion, he acted in his public capacity. That 
Servetus was worthy of death was the general opinion of the time, and by no 
means peculiar to Calvin. Coleridge said that the death of Servetus was not 
Calvin's guilt especially, but the common opprobrium of all European 
Christendom. So far as burning is concerned, Calvin opposed it. He urged the 
swifter and therefore more merciful death by beheading.
Andrew Fuller's judgement
The remarks of the great Baptist preacher, Andrew Fuller, as worth recording here. Speaking of Calvin's treatment of Servetus, he 
says: 'Far be it from us to vindicate him, or any other man, in the business of persecution. We abhor everything of the kind as much 
as our opponents. Though the principles for which he contended appear to us, in the main, to be just; yet the weapons of his warfare, 
in this instance, were carnal . . . As a Baptist, I might indulge resentment against Cranmer, who caused some of that denomination to 
be burned alive; yet I am inclined to think, from all that I have read of Cranmer, that notwithstanding his conduct in these instances, 
he was upon the whole of an amiable disposition. . . It was the opinion that erroneous religious principles are punishable by the civil 
magistrate that did the mischief, whether at Geneva, in Transylvania, or in Britain; and to 
Modern Protestantism has, however, with no uncertain sound, expressed its opinion of the death of Servetus. On the spot where on 
October 27, 1553, Servetus suffered death at Champel, near Geneva, an expiatory monument was unveiled in November 1903. On 
one side of it is the simple record of the birth and death of Michel Servet. And on the other side are these words
FILS
RESPECTUEUX ET RECONNAISSANTS
DE CALVIN
NOTRE GRAND REFORMATEUR
Mais conDAMNANT UNE ERREUR
QUI FUT CELLE DE SON SIECLE
ET FERMEMENT ATTACHES
A LA LIBERTE DE CONSCIENCE
SELON LES VRAIS PRINCIPES
DE LA REFORMATION ET DE L'EVANGILE
NOUS AVONS ELEVE
CE MONUMENT EXPIATOIRE
LE XXVII OCTOBRE MCMIII
(Duteous and grateful followers of Calvin our great Reformer, yet condemning an error which was that of his age, and strongly 
attached to liberty of conscience, according to the true principles of the Reformation and of the Gospel, we have erected this 
expiatory monument, October 27, 1903.)
The funds for the erection of this monument were contributed by members of the Reformed Churches in Switzerland, France, and 
Holland, and of the Presbyterian Churches in the United Kingdom and America. Its erection was promoted by the Historical and 
Archaological Society of Geneva.
On the occasion of its unveiling an address was delivered by Professor Doumergue, of Montauban, whose great work on Calvin 
entitle him to speak with authority.
A challenge to the Church of Rome
'Suppose,' he said, 'that to-morrow the daily papers were to publish the following item of news: "The Papal Nuncio at Paris has 
arrived at Rome, and Pius X. has at once acquainted him with a project which, it seems, he has very much at heart. The matter 
relates to the erection of a monument in expiation of the massacres of St. Bartholomew. In order to proclaim that, in the name of the 
Church, he repudiates its action in the persecutions and intolerance of past centuries, the Pope has decided to raise in front of the 
Louvre and under the shadow of Saint Germain l'Auxerrois, whose bell tolled the signal for that terrible butchery, a block of granite 
with this simple inscription: In the name of the Church and of Catholic Christianity: PECCAVIMUS. The monument will be unveiled on 
the 24th of August next."
'What stupefaction would prevail in the political as well as in the religious world! 
How the newspapers would be snatched from the hands of the vendors! At first 
one would refuse to believe one's eyes. And what an immense power, what 
prestige Rome would at once regain! Her most dangerous adversaries would be 
disarmed. Free-thought would no longer be able to reproach her on account of 
the Inquisition. Protestants would be compelled to withdraw the charges relating 
to the Dragonnades and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Since the 
Reformation of the sixteenth century, no revolution would have been more 
thorough or more wide-reaching.'
Without taking too literally all the results which the learned professor forecasts 
from Rome's possible disavowal of persecution, there can be no doubt that one 
of the accusations against that Church would be no longer possible. So far, 
however, there seems no sign of its amendment in this direction. It still claims 
the right to persecute heretics. Its bishops take an oath to do so.
Within the last few years, a debate took place in the Athenaum of Madrid, a 
society of the most learned men of that city, most of them at least nominally 
Roman Catholics. One of the speakers denounced the intolerance of the Roman 
Church, when he was interrupted by one of his audience with the exclamation, 
'What about Servetus?' The speaker was ready with his reply. He referred to the 
expiatory monument at Champel. That, he said, expresses the spirit of 
Protestantism. Let the Church of Rome do likewise. Let it express regret for its 
mistakes in the past. Let it erect an expiatory monument in the place that is still 
known in Madrid as the Quemadero de la Cruz, the burning-place of the cross, where the martyrs of the Inquisition 
yielded up their lives amid the flames. Then it will have the best answer to the charge of intolerance. Rome's expiatory monuments, 
however, have yet to be erected.

Chapter XII
CALVIN AS A RELIGIOUS TEACHER
Misrepresentations
THE theology of Calvin, like the man himself, has suffered much from misrepresentation. Isolated statements and subordinate 
positions have been given a prominence which he never gave them. Many a man, if asked, what is the distinctive teaching of Calvin? 
would answer: The doctrine of predestination. Yet predestination occupies a comparatively small place in Calvin's teaching. Taking 
the English translation (by Allen) of the Institutes, we find that the subject of predestination occupies four chapters out of eighty, or 
fifty pages out of two volumes of 1200 pages, one twenty-fourth part of the whole. And its position is not one of prominence, but of 
subordination. It comes at the close of the third book of the Institutes, in which it follows his teaching on the work of the Holy Spirit, 
faith, repentance, 
The Doctrine of Predestination not peculiar to Calvin
Nor was predestination by any means a doctrine peculiar to Calvin. It had already been taught by Augustine. Calvin acknowledges his 
debt to that great Father of the Church. He quotes from his treatise on the Perseverance of the Faithful. 'Augustine admits,' he says, 
'that he was frequently blamed for preaching predestination too freely,' as a dangerous discussion to pious minds, shaking faith, and 
disturbing the heart; 'but he readily and amply refutes' these objections.
And, whether we accept the Calvinistic or Augustinian view of predestination or reject it, we have to go further back than either of 
these teachers for the origin of a doctrine on the subject. 'Whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the 
image of His Son,' are the words of the Apostle Paul in the 8th chapter of Romans; and in the 9th chapter 
of the same epistle, as well as in the 1st chapter of Ephesians, predestination is 
very clearly taught.
That there is a predestination, an election, a Divine choice of man for some 
specific purpose, cannot be doubted. Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, all these 
were chosen men. To His own apostles our Lord said, 'I have chosen you.'
Right and wrong views of predestination and Election
But it is possible to believe in predestination and election, without attaching to them the sense that Calvin did. Men were chosen for 
special duties, for special privileges. This did not necessarily imply that they alone were chosen for salvation, to the exclusion of 
others. This was the mistake the Jewish nation made, in regarding itself as the exclusive people of God. It was an error which the 
early Christian apostles were slow to unlearn, so that St. Peter had to be taught by the vision upon the housetop that 'in every nation 
he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him.'
Professor Orr, of the United Free Church College at Glasgow, one of the ablest and at the same time conservative theologians of our 
time, has stated very correctly the modern evangelical view on the doctrine of predestination, he says: 'The conception is that God 
wills, as the highest of all ends, His own glory - that is, the manifestation of His whole character, wrath as well as love; and the plan 
of the world is directed with infinite wisdom to the attainment of this end. . . . Now this, I think I may safely say, is not a conception in 
which the Christian mind can permanently rest. Our deeper penetration with Christ's doctrine of God as love, as well as the express 
testimony of Scripture respecting God's character and love to the world, forbid it.'
In the Outline of Christian Theology (T. &amp; T. Clark, 1898) Professor William Newton Clarke thus states what he calls the Scriptural 
doctrine of election: 'The elect of the New Testament, like the elect of the Old, are chosen and called of God, that He may use them for 
a good of other men. Like Israel, the Christian people are chosen of God for the good of the world. Instead of holding that the elect are 
the only ones who can be saved, it is more accordant with Scriptures to hold that the elect are elect for the sake of the non-elect - that 
is, they are chosen by God to serve for the saving of those who have not yet been brought to God as they have been.'
Calvinism and Arminianism
Thus, as it appears to us, Calvinism and Arminianism may be reconciled. They are both sides of the same truth. As Canon Liddon has 
said (Passiontide Sermons, p. 215): 'It is no doubt difficult, if not impossible, with our present limited range of knowledge, to 
reconcile the Divine Sovereignty in the moral world with the moral freedom of each individual man. Some of the great mistakes in 
Christian theology are due to an impatience of this difficulty. Calvin would sacrifice man's freedom to the Sovereignty of God; 
Arminius would sacrifice God's Sovereignty to the assertion of man's freedom. We cannot hope here to discover the formula which 
combines the two parallel lines of truth, which meet somewhere in the Infinite, beyond our point of vision; but we must hold fast to 
each separately, in spite of the apparent contradiction.'
There is a Divine decree. There is a predestination. There is an election. But it is an election to privilege and to service. And at the 
same time the free offer of the Gospel, not in any mere illusory or fictitious sense, is to be made to all. 'All that the Father giveth Me 
shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast our.'
The Doctrine of Reprobation
For this reason Calvin's view of reprobation, or election to damnation, is now held by very few. It was the logical outcome of his 
doctrine of predestination and election. To him there was not the repulsiveness in this doctrine which it presents to many to-day. 
Holding as he did the theory of Duns Scotus, that a thing is right by the mere fact of God willing it, he never questioned whether a 
course was or was not in harmony with the Divine character, if he was once convinced that it was a course attributed to God in 
Scripture.
'Horribile Decretum'
At the same time it is right to point out that here also he has been misrepresented. His famous description of reprobation, God's 
decree condemning the sinful, as horribile decretum has been quoted over and over again as if Calvin had spoken of it as a 'horrible 
decree.' Toplay (as quoted above) criticised John Wesley for thus quoting Calvin. 'We have annexed,' he said, 'a secondary idea to the 
English words "horror" or "horrible" which the Latin horror and horribilis do not always import. . . . When Cicero says Horriblie 
Esther, causam capitis dicere; horriblius, priore loco dicere (Orat. Proverbs quinct.< 
His preaching more generous than his theology
Calvin, too, was not always consistent with himself. His preaching was sometimes better than his theology. For example, preaching 
on 1 Timothy 2 verses 3, 4, 5, he says: 'We say what everyone sees: It is God's will that we should all be saved, when He commands 
that His Gospel should be preached. . . . We ought, therefore, as far as lies in our power, to seek the salvation of those who are to-day 
strangers to the faith, and endeavour to bring them to the goodness of God. And why? Because Jesus Christ is not the Saviour of three 
or four, but offers Himself to all. . . . Jesus Christ did not come to be mediator between two or three men, but between God and men; 
not to reconcile a small number of people to God, but to extend His grace to the whole world.'
The freedom of the will
Closely connected with Calvin's doctrine of predestination was his denial of the freedom of the human will. Here Calvin was at one 
with those who differed widely from him philosophically and theologically. He stated his view not only in the passage above quoted 
from the Institutes, but also in his reply to Pighius in 1543, in which he shows that his doctrine agrees with that of Origen, Tertullian, 
Jerome and Augustine. But even conservative theologians like the late Dr Charles Hodge, of Princeton, who fully accepted Calvin's 
views of predestination, found it necessary to assert, in opposition to him, the freedom of the human will.
It must, we think, be admitted that to deny the freedom of the will is to take away human responsibility, and therefore human guilt. 
There can be no right or wrong, no morality or immorality, if the will is not free. We have no right to punish the criminal for his 
actions, if he is not free and therefore responsible agent. Extremes indeed meet. The late Professor Huxley, in his address at the 
British Association in Belfast, suggested that animals may after all be mere automata, and then quoted in his favour the theology of 
Calvin and Jonathan Edwards. Cotter Morison, in his Service of man, denying all distinctions between morality and immorality, did 
so, on the ground that man is not a free agent. Such teaching is contrary to all ordinary human justice, all Christian ethics.
Robert Taylor
16 Penine Way
Halton-le-gate
Cumbria
United Kingdom
Modern science and Calvin's theology
The mention of Huxley's name reminds us that more than once Calvin's teaching, supposed to be out-of-date and unscientific, has 
received remarkable confirmation, or at any rate found remarkable parallels, in modern scientific theories. Thus the doctrine of 
original sin has a striking confirmation in the scientific doctrine of heredity. Evolution and natural selection lend at least probability 
to the doctrines of predestination and election. (See Appendix D.)
Of the three doctrines most criticised in connection with Calvin's teaching, one of them therefore, that of predestination, is held in 
modified form. Two of them, his doctrine of reprobation and denial of freedom, are held by very few. They are not the essentials of 
Calvinism. It was in spite of them, and not because of them, that Calvin's teaching exercised the influence which it has had upon the 
world.
Calvin's leading thoughts
What, then, are the leading features of Calvin's religious teaching?
The sovereignty of God
We would mention, in the first place, the sovereignty of God. God's overruling providence was the sheet-anchor of his own faith. In 
his Institutes he devotes much space to it, dwelling upon it as the consolation of the faithful in adversity and the cure of superstitious 
fears. 'This knowledge will divest us of temerity and false confidence, and excite us to continual invocations of God; it will support 
our minds with a good hope, that without hesitation we may securely and magnanimously despise all the dangers which surround us. 
Herein is discovered the inestimable felicity of the pious mind.' And then he speaks of the continual dangers which threaten human 
life, and the misery which man must feel if he be subject to the dominion of fortune or chance. But, he adds, 'On the contrary, when 
this light of Divi 
Sometimes we are told that Calvin dwelt on the Divine Sovereignty to the exclusion of the Divine Fatherhood. But there are many 
passages in his writings in which the fatherhood of God is set forth. Take for instance the 20th chapter of Book III. Of 
the Institutes, in which he deals with prayer. The whole chapter is an exposition of prayer, as 'the principal exercise of faith, and 
the medium of our daily reception of divine blessings.' Sections 35 to 47 deal with the Lord's Prayer. Treating of the words, 'Our 
Father who art in heaven,' he says, 'Therefore He demonstrates Himself our Father, and wishes us to give Him the same appellation; 
delivering us from all diffidence by the great sweetness of this name, since the affection of love can nowhere be found in a stronger 
degree than in the heart of a father' (� 36). And again (� 37), 'To give us the more assurance that He is our Father, if we be Chris 
But those who only now Calvin through the Institutes have a very imperfect knowledge of the scope and depth of his matured 
teaching. To know him in his true greatness as a religious teacher, we require to study his Commentaries.
Perhaps it is in his Commentary on the Psalms that he most powerfully sets forth the Divine Sovereignty, and the comfort to be 
derived from it. This is very noticeable in his remarks on the 46th Psalm, where he quotes the lines of 
Horace regarding the just man:-
'Si fractus illabatur orbis
impavidum ferient ruina
His opinion of the Psalms
Speaking of the Psalms as a whole, he says in his Preface (we quote from Tholuck's Latin edition of 1836): 'I Amos accustomed to call 
this book the a*natomhv of all parts of the mind, since no one will find any emotion in himself the image of which is not reflected in 
this mirror. Nay, the Holy Spirit has here represented to the life all the sufferings, sorrows, fears, doubts, hopes, cares, anxieties 
and tempestuous passions by which human minds are wont to be tossed about.'
And if we turn to his sermons, we find the same comforting lessons derived from the overruling providence of God. Hosea beautiful, 
for example, are his words on the text, 'Underneath are the everlasting arms' (Opera, vol. xxix. pp. 198, 199). 'If God,' he says, 'has 
His throne in the heavens, how can He have His arms down below? It is because He fills all things; because not only is He infinite in 
His being, but also in His power, and He wants us to know it by experience. If is was said that the arms of God are in the heavens, that 
would indeed be to support the angels; but we should not cease to tremble and to be alarmed when threatened by some evil; we 
should look here and there, and be distressed without remedy. But the Holy Spirit provides for such trials, and tells us that the arms 
of God are underneath us here. . . . The arms of G 
The Sovereignty of God - this was the great thought that brought comfort to the Reformers. Luther sang his hymn Ein' fests Burg ist 
unser Gott, and cheered his own heart and the hearts of thousands since. In the struggles, persecutions, exiles, martyrdom's of the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the suffering saints of God found their comfort in the assurance that 'the Lord reigneth.' And for 
us still, amid the perplexing problems of life, what more comforting thought? Here Calvin is at one with psalmist and with poet.
'There's a divinity doth shape our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.'
And Tennyson sings:
'Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.'
His high ideal of life
The second great feature in Calvin's teaching was his high ideal of character. We have seen what high ideals he cherished for civic 
and national life. These were but the expansion and the natural consequence of his ideal of what the individual Christian character 
ought to be.
It is sometimes urged against those who hold Calvinistic views of predestination and election that these views tend to 
Antinomianism. In other words, it is said that men who regard themselves safe, no matter how they live. Whatever may be the 
theory, or the logical consequence, in actual fact this has not been the case. The Reformers, who denied justification by works, were 
the most zealous in insisting upon good works as the fruit and evidence of faith. The Calvinist who emphasised election, emphasised 
also the fact that it was an election unto holiness (see Ephesians 1 verse 4).
Thus, in the 6th, 7th, 8th chapters of Book III. of the Institutes Calvin treats of the Christian life, and particularly 
of self-denial and bearing the cross. There ought, he says, to be a symmetry and agreement between the righteousness of God and 
the obedience of the faithful. The Scripture plan is first, that a love of righteousness be instilled and introduced into our hearts, and 
secondly, that a rule be prescribed to us, to prevent our taking any devious steps in the race of righteousness. Christ is proposed to 
us as an example, whose character we should exhibit in our lives. What, he asks, can be more efficacious than this one 
consideration?
Then, speaking of the knowledge of Christ, he says: 'It is a doctrine not of the tongue, but of the life; and is not apprehended merely 
with the understanding and memory, like other sciences, but is then only received when it possesses the whole soul, and finds a seat 
and residence in the inmost affection of the heart.'
The Christian will live in a constant sense of God's presence. 'Indeed, a Christian man ought to be so composed and prepared, as to 
reflect that he has to do with God every moment of his life. Thus, as he will measure all his actions by his will and determination, so 
he will refer the whole bias of his mind religiously to Him.'
He will show kindness to others. 'The Lord commands us to do good unto all men' universally, a great part of whom, estimated 
according to their own merits, are very undeserving; but here the Scripture assists us with an excellent rule, when it inculcates that 
we must not regard the intrinsic merit of men, nut must consider the image of God in them, to which we owe all possible honour and 
love: but that this image is most carefully to be observed in them 'who are of the household of faith,' inasmuch as it is renewed and 
restored by the Spirit of Christ.' And then he pleads for kindness even to complete strangers, and for forgiveness of injuries. 'We 
should remember that we must not reflect on the wickedness of men, but contemplate the divine image in them; which, concealing 
and obliterating their faults, by its beauty and dignity allures us to embrace them in the arms of our love.'
His ethical teaching
Calvin's sermons, as might be expected, are full of ethical teaching. He brings the Gospel to bear upon business and social 
relationships in the most thorough fashion. He pleads for simplicity of living, simplicity of dress and surroundings. And yet he 
guards against asceticism or undue severity. He quotes, for instance, the 104th Psalm, in which it is said, 'that 
God has not only given men bread and water for the necessities of life, but that 
He had added wine as well, for their comfort and enjoyment.' (Opera, xxviii. pp. 29-37.)
Nor does he ignore the brotherhood of man. Thus in one sermon (Opera, liii. p. 474) he says: 'We know that we are created in the 
image of God, that we are all of one flesh, I mean the whole human race.' Again (Opera, xxviii. pp. 9-16): 'Even with regard to people 
who are unknown to you, God says that you should take pains to preserve their rights and their property.' And he quotes the 23rd 
chapter of Exodus to show that even our enemy is there called our 'brother.' 'All 
people that are in the world,' he adds, 'are your neighbour.'
We might say then that the two great lessons of Calvin's teaching are God's 
sovereignty and man's responsibility. Both have an elevating and inspiring 
influence upon the mind and character. The American orator and statesman, 
Daniel Webster, was once asked by one who sat next him at dinner what was the 
most important thought that ever occupied his mind. After a moment or two of 
refection, he answered, 'The most important thought that ever occupied my mind 
was that of my personal responsibility to God.' Or, as Browning, has it:-
'Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand fast.'
It is this that explains the great moral power which Calvin's teaching has exercised. To quote again from Professor Williston Walker: 
'A personal relation of each man to God, a definite divine plan for each life, a value for the humblest individual in the God-appointed 
ordering of the universe, are thoughts which, however justly the social rather than the individual aspects of Christianity are now 
being emphasised, have demonstrated their worth in Christian history. Yet perhaps the crowning historic significance of Calvinism 
is to be seen in its valuation of character. Its conception of the duty to know and to do the will of God, not indeed as a means of 
salvation, but as that for which we are elected to life, and as the only fitting tribute to the "honour of God" which we are bound to 
maintain, has made of the Calvinist always a representative of a strenuous morality.'
Froude's testimony
Mr. J. A. Froude, in his Rectorial Address at St Andrews in 1871, bore a similar testimony. 'I shall ask you,' he said, 'why, if it be a 
creed of intellectual servitude, it was able to inspire and sustain the bravest efforts ever made by man to break the yoke of unjust 
authority? When all else has failed - when patriotism has covered its face and human courage has broken down - when intellect has 
yielded, as Gibbon says, "with a smile or a sigh," content to philosophise in the closet, and abroad worship with the vulgar - when 
emotion and sentiment and tender imaginative piety have become the handmaids of superstition, and have dreamt themselves into 
forgetfulness that there is any difference between lies and truth - the slavish form of belief called Calvinism, in one or other of its 
many forms, has borne ever an inflexible front to illusion and mendacity (falsehood), and has preferred rather to be ground to powder 
like flint than to bend before violence or 
Lord Morley on Calvinism
One of the most remarkable as well as most recent tributes to Calvin's moral power is that of Lord Morley in his Oliver Cromwell. He 
says:-
'Nothing less than to create in man a new nature was his (Calvin's) far-reaching aim, to regenerate character, to simplify and 
consolidate religious faith. Men take a narrow view of Calvin, when they think of him only as the preacher of justification by faith, 
and the foe of sacerdotal mediation. His scheme comprehended a doctrine that went to the very root of man's relation with the 
scheme of universal things: a Church order as closely compacted as that of Rome; a system of moral discipline as concise and as 
imperative as the Code of Napoleon. He built upon it a certain theory of the universe which by his agency has exerted an amazing 
influence upon the world. It is a theory that might have been expected to sink men crouching and paralysed into the blackest abysses 
of despair, and it has in fact been answerable for much anguish in many a human heart. Still, Calvinism has proved itself a famous 
soil for rearing heroic natures. . . .
'Calvinism exalted its votaries to a pitch of heroic moral energy that has never been surpassed; and men who were bound to suppose 
themselves moving in chains inexorably riveted, along a track ordained by a despotic and unseen Will before time began, have yet 
exhibited an active courage, a resolute endurance, a cheerful self-restraint, an exulting self-sacrifice, that men count among the 
highest glories of the human conscience. . . .
'Is it, in other words, character that fixes creed, or creed that fashions character? Or is there a bracing and an exalting effect in the 
unrewarding morality of Calvinism; in the doctrine that good works done in view of future recompense have no merit; in that 
obedience to duty for its own sake, which in Calvin, as in Kant, has been called one of the noblest efforts of human conscience 
towards pure virtue? Or, again, is there something invigorating and inspiring in the thought of acting in harmony with the eternal law, 
however grim; of being no mere link in a chain of mechanical causation, but a chosen instrument in executing the sublime degrees of 
invincible power and infinite intelligence?'
Away in the background in Geneva lies Mont Blanc, its snowy summit glittering in the sunshine. The deep calm blue waters of Lake 
Leman lie close to the town. From Mont Blanc, white and cold, but sunny, flow the waters of the Arve. From Lake Leman, blue as the 
lake itself, purified by their passage through it, flow the waters of the Rhone. A little below Geneva the two rivers meet, the white, or 
grey, and blue keeping foe a good way distinctly separate, as they flow on side by side. But soon they blend, and make their onward 
way through mountain gorges, to fertilise and beautify the sunny plains of Southern France. So the teaching of Calvin, a little cold 
perhaps and severe in itself, has blended with a warm spiritual fervour, and has brought life and power to the Churches, while to the 
nations that have been influenced by it, it has brought the priceless boon of civil and religious liberty.

APPENDIX A
CALVIN AND AMUSEMENTS
PROFESSOR KUYER of Leydon says:-
'Card-playing has been placed under a ban by Calvinism, not as though games of all kinds were forbidden, nor as though something 
demonical lurked in the cards themselves, but because it fosters in our hearts the dangerous tendency to look away from God, and to 
put our trust in Fortune or Luck. A game which is decided by keenness of vision, quickness of action, and range of experience, is 
ennobling in its character, but a game like cards, which is chiefly decided by the way in which the cards are arranged in the pack, 
and blindly distributed, induces us to attach a certain significance to that fatal imaginative power, outside of God, called Chance or 
Fortune. To t 

APPENDIX B
CALVINISM IN GERMANY
THERE are still important centres of German life where the Calvinistic principles are strongly held. There is, for example, Western 
Friesland, including the city of Emden, where the Walloons took refuge when they were driven from England in the time of Queen 
Mary.
There is also the Wupperthal with its great manufacturing cities of Barmen and Elberfeld, the former being the headquarters of the 
Rhenish Missionary Society. Both cities are marked by strong spiritual life as well as by philanthropy of very thorough and practical 
kind.
And then there are the two principalities of Schaumburg-Lippe and Lippe-Detmold. In Detmold, the capital of the latter principality, a 
lecture was delivered on Calvin in December 1908, by M. Charles Correvon, Pastor of the French Church of Frankfort. The Reformed 
Church of Detmold, in which the meeting was held, is described as a marvel of Gothic architecture. It was filled to overflowing on the 
occasion. Amongst those present were the Prince of Lippe and his suite. Such is the honour in which Calvin is held in one of the most 
virile centres of modern German life.

APPENDIX C
Calvin's influence on history
PROFESSOR KUYER thus writes:-
'Just ask yourselves, What would have become of Europe and America, if in the 16th century the star of Calvinism 
had not suddenly risen on the horizon of Western Europe? In that case Spain 
would have crushed the Netherlands. In England and Scotland the Stuarts would 
have carried out their fatal plans. In Switzerland the spirit of half-heartedness 
would have gained the day. . . . The whole American continent would have 
remained subject to Spain. . . . If the power of Spain had not been broken by the 
heroism of the Calvinistic spirit, the history of the Netherlands, of Europe, and of 
the world would have been as painfully sad and dark as now, thanks to 
Calvinism, it is bright and inspiriting.' - Calvinism, Princeton Lectures, 1898, pp. 43, 44.

APPENDIX D
ELECTION AND SELECTION
PROFESSOR KUYPER says:-
'Our generation turns a deaf ear to Election, but grows madly enthusiastic over Selection.' - Calvinism, p. 269.