(Continued from page 203.)
SOME of the best authorities state that Calvin’s father died in 1531, not in 1529. During his sojourn at Noyon at this period, it is recorded that he expounded the Scriptures in a church at Pont l’Evêque, a small town in the neighbourhood. From Noyon he returned to Paris. As the result of his father’s death, he now gave up the study of the law, and devoted himself to studies that were more directly fitted to prepare him for the ministry of the Gospel. He entered the College of Fortet at Paris, and studied Greek and Hebrew under an eminent scholar named Danès. During this time he began to hold meetings for preaching the Gospel in the house of a merchant, Stephen de la Forge, who afterwards was burned at the stake for his fidelity to the truth. Calvin held this worthy man in high esteem, and declares that his “memory ought to be blessed among believers as a holy martyr for Christ.” It is said that at this period Calvin concluded all his discourses with the inspired words of Paul: “If God be for us, who can be against us?”
In the year 1532 Calvin made his first contribution to literature in the form of a Latin Commentary on the De Clementia of Seneca, the ancient Roman moralist. In this work Calvin condemns the ideas of the Stoic philosophers, who maintained that men ought not to be moved by sorrow or joy, and “enlarges on the virtue of sympathy and pity.” He highly commends the appeals of Seneca to the Emperor Nero to exercise pity toward his people, and thus to command their esteem. It is believed that Calvin was thus making an indirect appeal to Francis I. of France, to show mercy and kindness to those who were now becoming the followers of the Reformed Faith. The Commentary was a masterpiece of elegant and classical Latin, and the attention of many was directed to Calvin as a new and bright star in the literary firmament of France. There can be no doubt that this preliminary effort prepared the people more readily to read his books when he came forward as a champion in the cause of evangelical Christianity. Calvin was at the University of Orleans from the summer of 1532 to that of 1533.
In 1533 some stirring events took place in Paris. The struggle between the Roman Catholic authorities and the Reformers was proceeding apace. Marguerite, the Queen of Navarre, had declared herself on the side of the Reformation, and had published a book called the Mirror of the Sinful Soul, which the Popish theologians condemned. “The King, Henry of Navarre, asked the University the reasons for this censure.” The Rector of the University happened at this time to be Nicolas Cop, a friend of Calvin and the Reformation. He called the various faculties to an assembly, and there delivered a speech in which he denounced those who censured the Queen. Again, on the first day of November, it fell to the Rector to deliver a discourse before “the University assembled in the church of the Mathurins.” It is stated that Nicolas Cop asked Calvin to write this discourse for him, though one recent authority maintains that “the balance of evidence is against Calvin’s authorship of this address.” At any rate the discourse was a thoroughly evangelical one, asserting that salvation was by grace, not by works, and through faith in Jesus Christ. While some of the listeners appeared to be glad at the doctrine, others were greatly incensed, and such a storm was raised that the Parliament issued an order for the Rector’s arrest. Nicolas Cop fled to Basel. Suspicion fell on Calvin as a party to the discourse, and the police went in search of him, but he escaped out of their hands. On the interposition of Queen Marguerite, who personally knew and esteemed Calvin, proceedings were stopped, and he returned, some authorities state, for a short time to Paris. Thereafter he travelled to Angoulême, in the south of France, where he abode for six months in the mansion of his friend, Louis Du Tillet, a curate of the Church, and the member of “a noble and wealthy family,” who possessed a valuable library of about four thousand volumes. It is believed that it was in this house he prepared “the first sketch” of his famous work entitled The Institutes of the Christian Religion.
The month of May, 1534, witnessed Calvin’s formal breach with the Church of Rome. He paid a visit to Noyon, where he resigned his ecclesiastical benefices, and sold his paternal inheritance. His appearance in the church there was the occasion of a tumult, and he was cast into prison for a short time. Towards the end of this year he spent two months at the town of Poitiers, where he gathered a number of Protestants, and held private meetings in a garden and a cave. The latter has been known ever since as “Calvin’s Grotto.” He also celebrated the Lord’s Supper in this place in its scriptural order, and that, it is believed, was the first time it was so observed in France, both elements being dispensed to the people—bread and wine. The wine is reserved for the priests in the Church of Rome. Early in the year 1535 Calvin and his friend, Du Tillet, came to Basel, where he finished his Institutes, and got them printed by Platter of Basel. He providentially escaped the fires of persecution which were blazing in Paris in November, 1534, and January, 1535. Many witnesses for the truth were burned at the stake during these months.
Calvin proceeded to Ferrara, in Italy, in the month of February, 1536. Here he was the guest of a lady of high rank, who favoured the Reformation, Rênée, the Duchess of Ferrara. From this place he wrote many letters, “attacking vigorously the errors of the Church of Rome.” But the Duke of Ferrara was unfavourable to the cause, and Calvin left the scene about the end of April. It is recorded that he now paid another and final visit to his native town of Noyon, his brother Charles having died at this juncture. After he settled all his family affairs, Calvin set out for Strasburg, along with his brother Antoine, and his sister Maria. Owing to war, then carried on, they had to take an indirect route, which compelled them to pass through the city of Geneva. Calvin lodged in the house of Peter Viret, one of the ministers of the town, with the intention of staying only a single night. But the thoughts of God are higher than man’s thoughts. Calvin had reached the chief scene of his future life-work, and he was to go no further for the present.
For four years previous to this, Geneva had witnessed many conflicts between the Roman Catholics and the Reforming party. William Farel, a bold and intrepid man of God, was the leader of the Reformers, and after many vicissitudes, he had the joy of seeing the city yielding to the Gospel of Christ on the 21st day of May, 1536. The Council, or Magistrates, called the citizens together, and put the question whether they would decide for Popery or the Reformed Faith. After a pause, the answer was given “in a loud and solemn voice”: “We all, with one accord, desire, by God’s help, to live in the faith of the holy Gospel, and according to God’s Word, as it is preached to us.” With uplifted hands, the people said, “We swear to do so; we will do so by God’s help.” In commemoration of this great event, the Council ordered a striking inscription to be composed, and affixed over one of the gates of the city and over the entrance to the town hall. Calvin’s arrival in July, so shortly after this change in Geneva, was divinely ordered, as after events proved. William Farel heard with gladness the unexpected news of his coming. He had read the Institutes with intense interest and appreciation, and he felt that Calvin was the very man that was needed to help on, by teaching and counsel, the work of Reformation in Geneva. He hastened to have an interview with him, and on meeting, pointed out the field of Gospel labour that was to be found in Geneva, and urged him to remain and help. Calvin replied that he was only passing through the city, that in any case he preferred retirement and was desirous of leisure to write rather than preach, that he was of a timid disposition and needed rest. “Rest!” cried Farel, “death alone releases the servants of Christ from their labours.” His words of entreaty not producing the desired impression, Farel at last rose from his seat, and “placing his hand on Calvin’s head,” spoke, in a voice of thunder, words to the following effect: “May God curse your retirement and your studies, if you withdraw and refuse to give assistance in such a dire necessity as ours, for you seek your own interests rather than those of Christ!” Calvin surrendered, and said, “Then I will remain at Geneva. I will give myself up to the Lord’s good pleasure.” Calvin felt that it was the hand and voice of the Lord that had laid hold of him, not the hand and voice of Farel merely, for he gives in his Preface to his Commentary on the Psalms, an account of the matter, as follows: “I had resolved to continue in the same privacy and obscurity, until at length William Farel detained me at Geneva, not so much by counsel and exhortation, as by a dreadful imprecation, which I felt to be as if God had, from heaven, laid His mighty hand on me to arrest me.”
It is to be observed as a striking circumstance in the history of many of the most highly-honoured servants of God, both in Bible and subsequent times, that they felt a profound diffidence, to enter upon that very work that the Lord, in His secret purpose, had called them to, and that it was only after they got message after message from heaven that they went forward, and even then with fear and trembling. Witness the examples of Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Jonah, and Paul in Scripture times, and John Calvin, John Knox, and John Bunyan in later generations. The evident design is that it may be clearly manifest that the call to the work and the success in it are not of the wisdom, eloquence, and power of man, but “of my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.”
(To be Continued.)
Reverence for God’s Word.
“Not as a critic dare I approach this Book as if it were an ordinary book which I may hope to master and fathom. It is above me, and I cannot exhaust its fulness; it knows me, even the hidden things of the heart, and judges me, bringing me into contact with the all-seeing God. I enter with reverence into the temple of Scripture, which from the height of God’s eternal counsel, and out of the depth of God’s infinite love, beholds and comprehends all ages, and is sufficient for the guidance and perfecting of souls in all generations—praying with trustful hope that out of Christ’s fulness the Spirit will minister unto me also Grace upon Grace. But while I thus stand in awe, beholding the grandeur and infinite depth of the Scripture as One Organic Spirit-built Temple, and the beauty and perfection, and exquisite skill which characterize the most minute portion of this structure, I feel at home, and as in a peaceful and fragrant garden.”
—DR. SAPHIR.