(Continued from page 365.)
THE subject of Calvin and Servetus, already alluded to, may be briefly dealt with at this point. Calvin has been much blamed for the part he took in connection with the death of this man. His accusers, however, have been chiefly the Papists, who, on various grounds, should be entirely silent on the matter. The whole affair has been often misrepresented. The facts appear to be these in short compass:—Michael Servetus was a physician of considerable genius, but of an erratic temperament, who published two books of a theological kind, in which he wrote of the sublime doctrine of the Trinity in insulting and blasphemous terms. He was first arrested on this account by the Roman Catholic authorities at Lyons, but he escaped out of their hands. Notwithstanding this, in June, 1552, they pronounced upon him the sentence of death—”to be burned alive at a slow fire.” The following month he appeared at Geneva, and he was arrested by the Council there. Calvin drew up thirty-eight articles of accusation against him, not without the earnest desire that he might be prevailed upon to retract his dreadful errors. After two examinations, the articles and answers of Servetus were sent to several of the surrounding Reformed Churches, and they all concurred in the view that Servetus was deserving of death. The final result was that, on the 20th October, the Councils of Geneva sentenced Servetus to death by fire. Now, let it be carefully noted that the one man in Geneva who stood up and pleaded for a milder sentence was John Calvin. He desired them to make it death by execution instead of by fire. Farel also, who came to the city, joined in this intercession, but their pleadings were in vain.
The explanation of the whole matter is that at that time in the history of the Church, the Reformers, as well as the Papists, considered that certain extreme forms of heresy deserved punishment by death. It was no wonder though they should carry with them out of the Church of Rome some remains of their former views. The whole history of the Reformation, however, bears testimony that the punishment of all heresy by death was no principle of the Reformers, but was the ruling and active principle of their Popish persecutors. The Papists to this day have it as one of the leading principles of their Church that heretics of all degrees are to be pursued to death, while no such principle in any form is to be found among Protestants. Let it be further remembered that the case of Servetus was one of high blasphemy—it was not merely the statement of certain errors, but the statement of them in a most irreverent and horrid manner, in which he poured contempt on the faith of the Gospel, with respect to the persons of the Godhead. Blasphemy of the very same kind is punishable with imprisonment in our country to-day. Still further, the offence was treated as a civil one, and was so dealt with. It was the State—the Councils of Geneva—which sat upon Servetus, and not the Church, and the final decision was therefore a State sentence. Calvin’s part was simply that of a witness for truth and against blasphemy. He was not one of the judges who condemned Servetus to death. He had no personal feeling whatever against the unhappy man, but treated him with much kindness in his last hours. In view, then, of all the circumstances, we can safely assert that there is nothing more to be laid to Calvin’s charge than may be laid to the charge of the best men of the times in which he lived. Not so much, indeed; for he appears as the most Christian and sympathetic figure in the various steps of this whole transaction.
Modern Protestants having felt, however, that some reparation was due in view of the death of Servetus, erected a “monument of expiation” in 1903 on the spot near Geneva where he suffered. On one side of the monument, the birth and death of “Michel Servet” are recorded, while on the other is the following inscription (in French): “Dutiful 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. 27th October, 1903.”
It is a commonplace to state that Calvin’s influence as a theologian and a reformer extended far beyond Switzerland, in which he dwelt and laboured. His influence affected every country in Europe when the Reformation came. He corresponded with all the Protestant Churches, and many of his letters were addressed to persons of the highest social position. He dedicated his Commentary on the Hebrews to the Emperor of Poland; the first part of his Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles to Christian I., King of Denmark and Sweden, and the second to his son, Frederick. He wrote constantly to the Reformers in England, and addressed several letters to the Duke of Somerset who was appointed Protector, after the death of Henry VIII., until Edward VI. came of age. In one of these letters he gives a description of what he considered good preaching should be: “The people should be so taught as to be touched to the quick, and feel that the Word of God is a two-edged sword. I speak this, master, because it appears to me that there is very little preaching of a lively kind in the kingdom, but that the greater part deliver it by way of reading from a written discourse. This preaching ought not to be lifeless, but lively. Now, you know, my lord, how Paul speaks of the liveliness which ought to be in the mouth of good ministers of God, who ought not to make a parade of their rhetoric to show themselves off, but the Spirit of God must resound in their voice.” He dedicated to Somerset his Commentary on 1st Timothy, and then to Edward VI. his works on the General Epistles. He wrote several letters to the godly young Edward who was cut off at an early age, and to Queen Elizabeth at a later date. Calvin’s Institutes became a prized book in England. It was fixed in some of the parish churches to read, and was used as a divinity text-book in Oxford and Cambridge. Then Calvin’s influence reached Scotland mainly through the medium of his friend and fellow-Reformer, John Knox. Calvin and Knox were largely of one mind in the things of God, and they were mutually helpful to one another. Knox entertained the highest veneration for Calvin, and Calvin’s Commentary on the Ephesians was one of the books he delighted to hear read to him when on his dying bed. The views of the two Reformers coincided as to Presbyterian Church government, and as to the relations of Church and State; and Calvin’s name, and writings and labours have been regarded with profound and lively esteem in Scotland ever since Reformation days.
The great victory which Calvin obtained, by the grace of God, over the Libertines in 1553, marked an important period in the history of his life and work in Geneva. During the well-nigh eleven years which remained of his all too short career, he devoted himself with untiring energy, in spite of a delicate body, to his varied duties as minister of the gospel and professor of divinity. The amount of work which he accomplished was extraordinary, in lecturing, preaching, and writing. He ate and slept but little. One meal a day was frequently all that he could take, and a few hours’ sleep sufficed his frame, while all the time the mental fire was burning with vigour, and the daily toil was arduous and incessant. During this period he secured the erection of a college or university at Geneva, which was opened in June, 1559. Five chairs were instituted, namely, Philosophy, Greek, Hebrew, and two in Theology. The motto that was engraven on the keystone was the following, in Hebrew: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Calvin and Theodore Beza, his excellent friend and colleague, 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.” It appears that a “high school” was also organised in connection with it, and at the time of Calvin’s death, this department had twelve hundred scholars, while the college had three hundred students. Geneva was indebted to Calvin for its first great advance in education, as well as in the sound doctrine of the gospel.
In pursuance of our brief outline, we now come to the close of this great and noble career. Calvin died in 1564. Worn out with self-denying, arduous labours, and strenuous conflicts in the cause of truth and righteousness, he was a prematurely old man at the age of fifty-four. His body had never been robust, and latterly asthma and other disorders supervened. On the 6th February, 1564, he preached his last sermon. His life, however, was prolonged for nearly four months. During this time, though suffering much, he continued active with his pen, revising and translating some of his Commentaries. The one thing he could not endure was to be idle when the Lord should come for him. Marvellous industry was one of the talents he had received from above. On the 25th April he made his last will and testament—his wealth consisted of only two hundred and twenty-five crowns. In the course of his remarks, the following interesting passage occurs: “I thank God that He has not only had mercy on His poor creature—having delivered me from the abyss of idolatry—but that He has brought me into the clear light of His Gospel, and made me a partaker of the doctrine of salvation, of which I was altogether unworthy; yea, that His mercy and goodness have borne so tenderly with my numerous sins and offences, for which I deserve to be cast from Him and destroyed.” On the 30th of the month the Council of Geneva visited him, and on the next day—1st May—he was visited by the pastors of the city. To both parties he addressed affectionate and suitable exhortations, begging pardon of God and of them for all his faults, and impressing upon them the importance of maintaining the Reformation and the Gospel in their midst. Once again—on the 19th—the pastors met at his house, and he was carried into the room, and sat with them a short time at table, saying, “I am come, my brethren, to see you for the last time, for I shall never again sit at table.” He offered prayer, and attempted to eat a little; but before the meal was ended, “he requested to be carried back to his chamber.” He gradually grew weaker, until, on Saturday evening, the 27th May, he gently passed into “the rest that remaineth to the people of God.” Death came as he was repeating those precious and appropriate words of the inspired Apostle Paul, whom, in not a few things, he much resembled: “The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to be revealed in us.” His breath departed before he uttered the words “revealed in us,” and so it happened very beautifully that what his dying lips failed to express, his emancipated spirit, at that very moment, entered into the full and blessed realisation of. The glory was “revealed,” which shall continue for ever and ever. Beza gave as the fitting inscription of his life: “He endured as seeing Him who is invisible.”
“Los Von Rom.”
—Our contemporary, the Christian Irishman, says the Bulwark, devotes a page each month to a chronicle of this movement. The February issue tells of the people flocking to the ministrations of a Baptist missionary at Florida, near Syracuse, because the clergy of the place were at open war with each other. It tells of the opening of a Protestant church (on a site gifted by the Town Council) at Leoben, a mining town in the Austrian Alps. In the surrounding region of Styria over 6,000 persons have been officially enrolled as Protestants since the “Los Von Rom” began ten years ago. Also in the Salzburg district of Austria there has been progress, though scarce as rapid.