(Continued from page 244.)
IN the year 1536, John Calvin, now at the age of twenty-seven, embarked on his great life-work in Geneva. He was appointed by the Council teacher of theology and accepted the office. It appears that at first he shrank from the regular work of preaching. The burden and excitement of addressing large public assemblies were no doubt, to begin with, too much for that sensitive nature with its profound sense of responsibility. He preferred the quieter task of the lecturer or teacher. But the next year he was enabled to undertake the duties of pastor and preacher, as well as professor, and his grave eloquence in the pulpit drew and impressed large audiences.
In October of this year a very important Council was held in the Cathedral at Lausanne between Calvin, Farel, Viret, and others, and the representatives of the Church of Rome. The disputation proved very beneficial to the cause of the Reformation. The mass and images were abolished at Lausanne. Farel and Calvin next drew up a Confession of Faith consisting of twenty-one articles. In November, this Confession was presented to the Council of Two Hundred in Geneva, who guided the affairs of the city, and they endorsed it and “ordered it to be printed, publicly read, and circulated.” Some trouble was caused at this time by a man named Caroli who had professed to have been converted to the Reformed Faith. He had the audacity to charge Calvin with Arianism, in other words, with denial of the divinity of Christ. Calvin’s defence overwhelmed his accuser, but he appealed to the Council. This was without success, for they ordered him to make a public acknowledgment of his fault. Instead of doing this, Caroli hastily departed to Rome, where he was received back again into the corrupt fold he had left.
It may be stated at this point that Geneva was a very dissolute city under the reign of Popery. The inhabitants were gay in their habits and loose in their morals. Licentiousness of all kinds was allowed full sway. The Reformation had now begun, and Calvin and Farel were anxious to advance the work and to purge out abuses. This was no easy task, and their efforts met with much opposition. It was one thing for the citizens to nominally throw off the yoke of Rome; it was another to take up in real earnest the yoke of Christ. The liberty of Protestantism appealed to many in Geneva more than its purity. Freedom from ceremonies was their desire more than freedom from sin. A party, who were fitly called the Libertines, rose up against the measures proposed by the Reformers. The principle of one of these measures was embodied in the nineteenth article of their Confession, namely, that the Church had “power to excommunicate unholy and vicious persons” until they were “repentant.” Farel and Calvin set about this work of purgation; and the Libertines opposed it with all
their might. The city elections came round, and it seems that the latter secured a majority in the Council on their side. Here the pastors and the Council were brought into antagonism with one another; but the former steadfastly held their ground. A somewhat extraneous element got into the discussion. The Council of Berne had recommended Geneva to restore certain ceremonies, one of which was unleavened bread in the Communion. Calvin and Farel regarded unleavened bread as a matter of indifference, but they strenuously objected to give the Sacrament to the Libertines. The Council, on the other hand, came to the decision 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 Berne. This was to override all spiritual independence.” Calvin and his colleagues refused to submit to these decrees. This took place in April, 1538. What is known as “Easter” Sabbath was nigh at hand. The Council forbade Calvin and the other pastors to preach, but notwithstanding prohibition, Calvin preached in one church and Farel in another, and they took the opportunity of expounding the nature of the Lord’s Supper and of the qualifications necessary to worthy communicants, and concluded by stating that it would only be a profanation of the holy ordinance, if it were dispensed, before the people were “better disposed.” “Calvin declared that his blood should dye the wood he stood upon rather than he would dishonour his Lord.” The unflinching attitude of the preachers was met with violence on the part of their enemies, and there were scenes of public riot and disorder. The Council of the Two Hundred met on the following day. Calvin and Farel attended in their own defence, but they were not allowed to enter. The Council on this, the 23rd of April, commanded them to leave the city within three days. “Well and good; God has done it,” was their reply, to which it is said that Calvin added, “Had I been the servant of man I should have received but poor wages. But happy for me it is that I am the servant of Him who never fails to give His servants that which He has promised them.” They left the city without delay. Geneva had thrown out her benefactors in less than two years from the date of Calvin’s entry. Wickedness had a triumph for a short period, but as we shall see, Geneva, a few years hence, was glad to invite the banished to return.
It appears that Calvin and Farel, for the first four months of their exile, wandered about in Switzerland without any fixed place of habitation. At length Farel took up his residence in Neuchatel, which became the scene of his labours to the end of his noble and strenuous life. His was truly a career of holy zeal and devotion in the cause of Christ. “The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up,” are words that could be truly applied to William Farel. Calvin sojourned for a short time at Basle, and
while there received an invitation from Martin Bucer, “the leader of the Reformed party at Strassburg,” to come and take charge of the French congregation in that town, which consisted of Protestant refugees, and had no settled pastor. Calvin was at first not disposed to accede to this request; he wanted again to live in retirement, without any public charge, until, as he says, “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.” Calvin preached his first sermon in Strassburg in September, 1538, and he continued there for three years. Strassburg was a city of refuge to the persecuted, and many such flocked to it from France. Calvin’s preaching was also a source of attraction, and he became pastor of a large congregation. He held this office under the Council of the city, who also appointed him Lecturer in Divinity in the Academy, the University of that day. Students came from other countries to sit at his feet, so that “Strassburg promised to become a rival of Wittemberg,” the city of Luther, as a centre of Gospel light and truth. It was here that he began those expositions of Scripture which eventually formed his famous Commentaries.
During his stay in Strassburg, and at the age of thirty-one, Calvin entered the married state. His wife was Idelette de Bure, the daughter of a family which had been banished from Belgium for its adherence to the Reformed cause, and the widow of Jean Stordeur, a Belgian refugee. Idelette de Bure, it appears, was a truly excellent woman, and proved a devoted helper to Calvin in every good word and work. From all accounts, she was a real heroine of the faith. But their married life together was comparatively short—about nine years—and that not without sorrow. Their only child, a son, lived but a few days. Madame Calvin died in March, 1549. The good report of her is that “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.” Calvin himself said of her in a letter written after her death: “My sorrow is no common one. I have lost the excellent companion of my life, 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.”
Calvin, though absent, did not forget Geneva during this period, but maintained a correspondence with his Church there. The Papacy supposed that the exile of the Reformers was the hour of its opportunity in Geneva. Cardinal Sadoletto, an able man, addressed a very polished and crafty letter “to the Senate and people of Geneva,” with a view to win them back to the Papal fold, but the letter had an opposite effect to that which was intended. The Genevese became alarmed, and began to see the folly of their previous conduct. At this juncture Calvin wrote a
masterly reply to the Cardinal’s letter—a reply, copies of which spread far and wide. Luther was delighted with it. It effectively helped to check the Papal inroad. Another attempt on the part of the Papacy to frustrate the Reformation took place while Calvin was in Strassburg. It was the Conference at Ratisbon, held in April, 1541. Calvin attended, and took a leading part in the discussions. The Romanists professed to make concessions, but it was only a device to destroy the Reformation, and the device was a failure.
We next come to the period of Calvin’s return to Geneva.
(To be Continued.)
Dr. Mason and the Dying Unitarian.
THE Rev. Dr. Mason, of New York, was once requested to visit a lady in dying circumstances, who, together with her husband, openly avowed infidel principles, though they attended on his ministry. On approaching her bedside, he asked her if she felt herself a sinner, and perceived the need of a Saviour. She frankly told him she did not; and that she wholly disbelieved the doctrine of a Mediator. “Then,” said the doctor, “I have no consolation for you, not one word of comfort. There is not a single passage in the Bible that warrants me to speak peace to any one who rejects the Mediator provided for lost sinners. You must abide the consequences of your infidelity.” Saying that, he was on the point of leaving the room when some one said, “Well, but, doctor, if you cannot speak consolation to her, you can pray for her.” To this he assented, and kneeling down by the bedside, prayed for her as a guilty sinner, just sinking into hell; and then arising from his knees, he left the house. A day or two after, he received a letter from the lady herself, earnestly desiring that he would come and see her without delay. He immediately obeyed the summons; but what was his amazement, when, on entering the room, she held out her hand to him, and said, “It is all true; all that you said on Sunday is true. I have seen myself the wretched sinner which you described me to be in prayer. I have seen Christ that all-sufficient Saviour you said he was; and God has mercifully snatched me from the abyss of infidelity in which I was sunk, and placed me on the Rock of Ages. There I am secure; there I shall remain. I know in whom I have believed!” All this was like a dream to him; but she proceeded, and displayed as accurate a knowledge of the way of salvation revealed in the gospel, and as firm a reliance on it, as if she had been a disciple of Christ for many years. Yet there was nothing like boasting or presumption—all was humility, resignation and confidence. She charged her husband to educate their daughter in the fear of God; and, above all, to keep from her those novels and books of infidel sentimentality, by which she had been nearly brought to ruin. On the evening of the same day, she expired in fulness of joy and peace in believing.