“Instruction in Christianity.”

BY JOHN CALVIN.

A Translation by Mr. J. P. Wiles, M.A., Devizes.*
* See Advertisement, Third Page of Magazine Cover.—ED.

JOHN CALVIN was one of the great master-minds of the Christian Church, and his work, “The Institutes of the Christian Religion,” is one of the masterpieces of the theology of the Reformation. Calvin, whilst a man of profound intellect and extensive learning, was also a man deeply taught of God in the things of Christianity. By a definite spiritual experience, he was brought to sit at Christ’s feet, and his highly-acute understanding was made reverently subject to the teaching and authority of Him whose wisdom is infinite. We believe that no divine in Reformation or later times was, by God’s grace, made more loyal to the whole counsel of God as set forth in His Word. Some excellent men have their minds fascinated by a certain line of truth, which they work out at the expense of other lines, to their own detriment, and to that of others. But it was not so with Calvin. He was prepared to give full scope to all aspects of divine truth, whether they were at first sight, or in appearance, logically consistent or not. He recognised that the human mind was a small matter in comparison with the infinite mind of God, and that various lines of truth that might not be easily reconcilable by us, God was able to reconcile in accordance with His unerring wisdom. Judiciousness, proportion, absence of extremes, are eminent characteristics of Calvin’s writings, all conspiring to bring out “the mind of Christ” in its exactness and entirety. He wrote a Commentary on the books of the Bible, as well as “The Institutes,” presently under notice.

It appeared to Mr. Wiles (who is a Baptist minister, and a scholar of University attainments), the author of the present translation of the “Institutes,” that if the book could be reproduced in an abbreviated form, “in simple modern English,” it might be much more extensively useful than it has been in recent times among the ordinary run of serious-thinking people. Besides, he was aware that many places of worship in England of the Calvinistic type are supplied by lay preachers who are engaged in business during the week, and who have little time to read through large volumes, even of sound theology, and he considered that such a compendium of truth as Calvin’s “Institutes,” if suitably abbreviated, and made easy to read, would fulfil a highly useful purpose in directing and informing the thoughts of such preachers on the fundamental verities of the Christian faith. We believe that he has judged rightly, and trust that his laudable effort will, by God’s blessing, be attended with much success.

“The Institutes” consist of four “books.” The first treats of “the knowledge of God the Creator”; the second, of “the knowledge of God the Redeemer”; the third, of “the Manner in which the grace of Christ is received and the Effects that follow;” and the fourth, of “the External Means of Grace.” Mr. Wiles has omitted “Book IV., which deals with ecclesiastical government and external ordinances,” containing, as it does, Calvin’s views of baptism, etc., which would be disputed by some, so as to make the work more generally useful, and he has also left out “many controversial passages referring to the opinions and errors of persons now forgotten,” without interfering with the main argument. No doubt, students who desire to be acquainted with all the “Institutes” will find the remainder elsewhere, but for the practical purpose the translator has in view he has done the best possible, all things considered. As our readers may conclude from the titles of the “books” given, Calvin treats of the various sources of the knowledge of God. He gives the supreme place to the Holy Scripture, without the guidance and teaching of which no true or adequate knowledge of God can be obtained. He has a very instructive statement on the unity of the Godhead and the Trinity of the Persons. Under the head of “God the Redeemer,” he deals with the Fall, Original Sin, the Bondage of Man’s Will, Redemption of Christ, the Moral Law, a “Comparison of the Old and New Testaments,” and Christ’s Person and Offices. The chapters on the Moral Law and the Old and New Testaments should be found very illuminating and helpful to those who have difficulties on the subjects dealt with. In Book III. Calvin discourses on “the secret operation of the Spirit,” Faith, Repentance, the Roman doctrines of Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead, “the Life of a Christian Man,” “Bearing the Cross,” Justification by Faith, Assurance, Christian Liberty, Exposition of the Lord’s Prayer, Eternal Election, the Resurrection, etc. In dealing with “Assurance,” Calvin shows himself the deeply-taught, experimental Christian in the following statement:—

“It may be objected that the experience of believers differs widely from this enjoyment of unwavering assurance; they are not merely troubled by frequent returns of discouragement and disquietude, but sometimes by most dreadful terrors and temptations. This is true, and this apparent contradiction must be explained if we wish the above definition of faith to stand. When we say that true faith is characterised by certainty and security, we do not mean a certainty which is never affected by doubt nor a security which is never assailed by disquietude; on the contrary, we maintain that believers have a perpetual conflict with their own diffidence. But we also maintain that they never give up the fixed confidence in the mercy of God which they have received. One of the most memorable examples of faith to be found in the Scriptures is the faith of David, especially if we keep in view the whole course of his life: and yet his numerous complaints prove that his mind was by no means always at rest. A few quotations will suffice. Is he not fighting against his unbelief when he cries, ‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me?’ (Psa. xlii. 11, xliii. 5). And again: ‘I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes’ (Psa. xxxi. 22). And again: ‘Return unto thy rest, O my soul’ (Psa. cxvi. 7). And yet, wondrous to say, in the midst of these trials and convictions faith sustains the hearts of the godly, and whatever be the burdens with which it has to struggle, it always rises victorious from the conflict. Indeed, he who contends with his own weakness, and in the midst of his fears, endeavours to believe, is already more than half a conqueror. We may gather this from such passages as the following: ‘Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart; wait, I say, on the Lord’ (Psa. xxvii. 14).”

We trust the volume, which is well written and well printed, will have an extensive circulation.

PEACE is to Churches as walls to a city; nay, unity hath defended cities that had no walls. It was once demanded of Agesilaus why Lacedemon had no walls; he answers (pointing back to the city) that the concord of the citizens was the strength of the city. In like manner, Christians are strong when united; then they are more capable to resist temptation, and to succour such as are tempted. When unity and peace is among the Churches then are they like a walled town; and when peace is the Church’s walls, salvation will be her bulwarks.—John Bunyan.

A FRIEND of the eminent Mr. Ryland, in conversation, addressed him thus: “Are you never afraid lest you should go to hell?” “No, sir,” replied Ryland, emphatically; “and if I were to find myself there, I should say, ‘I love the Lord Jesus Christ with all my heart and all my soul.’ And all the devils in hell would say, ‘Turn that fellow out; he has no business here.'”

A Sermon.

By the REV. THOMAS ADAMS, One of the Puritan Divines.

“He hath given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling saviour.”—EPHES. v. 2.

THIS latter part of the verse is a fair and lively crucifix, cut by the hand of a most exquisite carver—not to amaze our bodily eyes with a piece of wood, brass, or stone, curiously engraven, to the increase of a carnal devotion, but to present to the eye of the conscience the grievous passion and gracious compassion of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, “who gave himself for us,” etc. This text presents to our eye seven considerable circumstances:—(1) Who? “Christ.” (2) What? “Gave.” (3) Whom? “Himself.” (4) To whom? “To God.” (5) For whom? “For us.” (6) After what manner? “An offering and sacrifice.” (7) Of what effect? “Of a sweet saviour.”

The points, you see, lie as ready for our discourse as the way did from Bethany to Jerusalem; only fail not my speech, nor your attention, till we come to the journey’s end.

WHO?—The person that gives is Christ; the quality of His person doth highly commend His exceeding love to us. We will ascend to this consideration by four stairs or degrees, and descend by four other. Both in going up and coming down we shall perceive the admirable love of the Giver. Ascendantly—

1. We will consider Him a man. “Behold the man” (John xix. 5), saith Pilate. We may tarry and wonder at His lowest degree—that a man should give himself for man. “For scarcely for a righteous man will one die” (Romans v. 7). But this man gave Himself for unrighteous men, to die not an ordinary but a grievous death, exposing Himself to the wrath of God, to the tyranny of men and devils. It would pity our hearts to see a poor dumb beast so terrified; how much more a man, the image of God!

2. The second degree gives Him an innocent man. Pilate could say, “I have found no fault in this man” (Luke xxiii. 14); no, nor yet Herod. No, nor the devil, who would have been right glad of such an advantage. So Pilate’s wife sent her husband word: “Have thou nothing to do with that just man” (Matt. xxvii. 19). So the person is not only a man, but a just man, that gave Himself to endure such horrors for us. If we pity the death of malefactors, how should our compassion be to one innocent!

3. In the third degree, He is not only a man, and a good man, but also a great man, royally descended from the ancient patriarchs and kings of Judah. Pilate had so written His title, and he would answer, not alter, it: “What I have written, I have written.” And what was that? “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews” (John xix. 19). Now, as is the person, so is the passion: the more noble the giver, the more excellent the gift. That so high a King would suffer such contempt and obloquy to be cast upon Him, when the least part of His disgrace had been too much for a man of mean condition; that a man—a good man, a great man—bore such calumny, such calamity, for our sakes; here was an unmatchable, an unspeakable, love.

4. This is enough, but this is not all. There is yet a higher degree in this ascent; we are not come to our full quantity. It is this: He was more than man; not only the greatest of men, but greater than all men. He was more than the Son of man—even the Son of God. As the centurion acknowledged, “Truly this man was the Son of God” (Mark xv. 39). Here be all the four stairs upwards: a man, a harmless man, a princely man, and yet more than man—even God Himself. Solomon was a great king, but here is a greater than Solomon. Solomon was the anointed of the Lord, but this is the Lord Himself anointed. And here all tongues grow dumb, and admiration sealeth up every lip. This is a depth beyond sounding. You may perhaps drowsily hear this, and coldly be affected with it; but let me say, principalities and powers, angels and seraphims, stood amazed at it.

We see the ascent. Shall we bring down again this consideration by as many stairs?

1. Consider Him, Almighty God, taking upon Him man’s nature. This is the first step downwards. “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John i. 14). And “God sent forth his Son, made of a woman” (Gal. iv. 4). And this was done by putting on our nature, not by putting off His own. Humanity is united to the Godhead, but the Godhead is not disassociated from itself. He is both God and man, yet but one Christ; one, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person. Now in that this eternal God became man, He suffered more than man can suffer, either living or dead. That man should be turned into a beast, into a worm, into dust, into nothing, is not so great a disparagement as that the glorious God should become man. “He that thought it not robbery to be equal with God, was made in the likeness of man.” He that is “more excellent than the angels” became lower than the angels. Even the brightness of God’s glory takes on Him the baseness of our nature; and He that laid the foundations of the earth, and made the world, is now in the world made Himself. This is the first descending degree.

2. The second stair brings Him yet lower. He is made man; but what man? Let Him be universal monarch of the world, and have fealty and homage acknowledged to Him from all kings and emperors, as His viceroys. Let Him walk upon crowns and sceptres, and let princes attend on His court; and here was some majesty that might a little become the Son of God. No such matter. “He took upon him the form of a servant” (Phil. ii. 7).

He instructs us to humility by His own example. “The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister” (Matthew xx. 28). “O Israel, thou hast made me to serve with thy sins” (Isa. xliii. 24). He gave Himself for a minister, not for a master. He that is God’s Son is made man’s servant. Proudly blind, and blindly poor man, that thou shouldest have such a servant as the Son of thy Maker. This is the second step downwards.

1. This is not low enough yet: “I am a worm, and no man,” saith the psalmist in his person. Yea, the shame of men and contempt of the people. He is called (Psalm xxiv. 7) “the King of glory.” “Be ye open, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in.” But Isaiah says, “He is despised and rejected of men: we hid as it were our faces from him: he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” O the pity of God, that those two should come so near together—the King of glory and the shame of men. The loftier the majesty, the lovelier the humility. Thus saith the apostle, “He made himself of no reputation” (Phil. ii. 7). He that requires all honour as properly due to Him, makes Himself (not of little, but) of no reputation. Here was dejection, yea, here was rejection. Let Him be laid in His poor cradle, the Bethlehemites reject Him; the manger must serve—no room for Him in the inn. Yea, “He came unto his own, and his own received him not” (John i. 11). All Israel is too hot for Him; He is glad to fly into Egypt for protection. Comes He to Jerusalem, which He had honoured with His presence, instructed with His sermons, amazed with His miracles, wet and bedewed with His tears? They reject Him. “I would, and ye would not.” Comes He to His kindred? They deride and traduce Him, as if they were ashamed of His alliance. Comes He to His disciples? “They go back, and will walk no more with him” (John vi. 66). Will yet His apostles tarry with Him? So they say (verse 68), “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.” Yet at last one betrays Him, another forswears Him; all forsake Him; and Jesus is left alone in the midst of His enemies. Can malice yet add some further aggravation to His contempt? yes, they crucify Him with malefactors. The quality of His company is made to increase His dishonour. In the midst of thieves, as it were the prince of thieves, saith Luther, He that “thought it no robbery to be equal to the most holy God,” is made equal to thieves and murderers; yea, as it were, a captain amongst them. This is the third step.

2. But we must go yet lower. Behold now the deepest stair and the greatest rejection. “The Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger” (Lament. i. 12). “It pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief” (Isaiah liii. 10). No burden seems heavy, when the comforts of God help to bear it. When God will give solace, vexation makes but idle offers and assaults. But now, to the rejection of all the former, the Lord turns His back upon Him as a stranger; the Lord wounds Him as an enemy. He cries out, “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” How could the sun and stars, heaven and earth, stand while their Maker thus complained! The former degree was deep; He was crucified with evil-doers; reckoned amongst the wicked. Yet thieves fared better in death than He. We find no irrision, no insultation, no taunts, no invectives against them. They had nothing upon them but pain; He both contempt and torment. If scorn and derision can vex His good soul, He shall have it in peals of ordnance shot against Him. Even the basest enemies shall give it; Jews, soldiers, persecutors, yea, suffering malefactors, spare not to flout Him. His blood cannot appease them without His reproach. But yet the disciples are but weak men, the Jews but cruel persecutors, the devils but malicious enemies; all these do but their kind; but the lowest degree is, God forgets Him, and in His feeling He is forsaken of the Highest. Weigh all these circumstances, and you shall truly behold the person that gave Himself for us.

WHAT?—We come to the action, He gave. Giving is the argument of a free disposition. “I lay down my life; no man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again” (John x. 17, 18). He that gives life to us, gave up His own life for us. He did not sell, set, or lend, but give. He was offered, because He would be offered. No hand could cut that stone from the quarry of heaven; no violence pull Him from the bosom of His Father, but His own mercy: He gave. “He cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills” (Cant. ii. 8). He comes with willingness and celerity, no human resistance could hinder Him; not the hillocks of our lesser infirmities, not the mountains of our grosser iniquities, could stay His merciful pace towards us.

He gave His life; who could bereave Him of it? To all the high priest’s armed forces He gave but a verbal encounter, “I am he;” and they retire and fall backward; His very breath dispersed them all. He could as easily have commanded fire from heaven to consume them, or vapours from the earth to choke them; He that controls devils could easily have quailed men. More than twelve legions of angels were at His back, and every angel able to conquer a legion of men. He gives them leave to take Him, yea power to kill Him; from Himself is that power which apprehends Himself. Even while He stands before Pilate scorned, yet He tells him, “Thou couldst have no power against me, unless it were given thee from above.” His own strength leads Him, not His adversaries; He could have been freed, but He would not; constraint had abated His merit; He will deserve though He die.

“The loss of His life was necessary, yet was it also voluntary” (Ambrose); therefore He gave up the ghost. In spite of all the world He might have kept His soul within His body; He would not. The world should have been burned to cinders, and all creatures on earth resolved to their original dust, before He could have been enforced. Man could not take away His spirit: therefore He gave it. Otherwise, if His passion had been only material and not formal, it could not have been meritorious, or afforded satisfaction for us. For that is only done well that is done of our will.

But it is objected out of Heb. v. 7, that “he offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto him that was able to save him from death.” Hence, some blasphemers say, that Christ was a coward in fearing the natural death of the body. If He had so feared it, He needed not to have tasted it. Christ indeed did naturally fear death, otherwise He had not been so affected as an ordinary man. Yet He willingly suffered death, otherwise He had not been so well affected as an ordinary martyr. But He prays thrice, “Let this cup pass.” Divines usually distinguish here the sententiaries, thus: That there was in Christ a double human or created will, the one a natural will, the other a reasonable will. Christ, according to His natural will, trembled at the pangs of death, and this without sin; for nature abhorreth all destructive things. But in regard of His rational will, He willingly submits Himself to drink that cup. “Not as I will, O Father, but as thou wilt.” A man, saith Aquinas, will not naturally endure the lancing of any member, yet by his reasonable will he consents to it, for the good of the whole body; reason masters sense, and cutting or cauterizing is endured. So Christ, by the strength of His natural will, feared death; but by His reason, perceiving that the cutting, wounding, crucifying of the Head, would bring health to the whole body of His church, and either He must bleed on the cross, or we must all burn in hell; behold now He willingly and cheerfully gives Himself an offering and sacrifice to God for us.

But was it a mere temporal death that our Saviour feared? No; He saw the fierce wrath of His Father, and therefore feared. Many resolute men have not shrunk at a little; divers martyrs have endured strange torments with magnanimity. But now when He that gave them strength quakes at death, shall we say He was a coward? Alas, that which would have overwhelmed man, would not have made Him shrink; that which He feared, no mortal man but Himself ever felt; yet He feared. The despair of many thousand men was not so much as for Him to fear. He saw that which none saw, the anger of an infinite God; He perfectly apprehended the cause of fear, our sin and torment; He saw the bottom of the cup, how bitter and dreggish every drop of that vial was; He truly understood the burden which we make light of. Men fear not hell because they know it not. If they could see through the opened gates the insufferable horrors of that pit, trembling and quaking would run like an ague through their bones. This insupportable load He saw; that the sponge of vengeance must be wrung out to Him, and He must suck it up to the last and least drop. Every talent of our iniquities must be laid upon Him, till, as “a cart, he be laden with sheaves” (Amos ii. 13). And with all this pressure He must mount His chariot of death, the cross, and there bear it, till the appeased God gave way to an “It is finished.”

The philosopher could say that a wise man miserable is more miserable than a fool miserable, because he understands his misery. So that our Saviour’s pangs were aggravated by the fulness of His knowledge. No marvel then if He might justly take David’s words out of his mouth, “Thy terrors have I suffered with a troubled mind.” This thought drew from Him those tears of blood. His eyes had formerly wept for our misdoings; His whole body now weeps; not a faint dew, but He sweat out solid drops of blood. The thorns, scourges, nails, fetched blood from Him, but not with such pain as this sweat. Outward violence drew on those; these the extremity of His troubled thought. Here, then, was His cause of fear. He saw our everlasting destruction, if He suffered not; He saw the horrors which He must suffer to ransom us. Hence those groans, tears, cries, and sweat; yet His love conquered all. By nature He could willingly have avoided this cup; for love’s sake to us He took it in a willing hand; so He had purposed, so He hath performed. And now to testify His love, saith my text, “He freely gave.”

(To be continued.)