CALVIN’S is one of the greatest names on the roll of the Christian Church. Dr Cunningham, a competent judge, pays the following noble tribute to the greatest of the Reformed Divines:—”Calvin had received from God mental powers of the highest order. Distinguished equally by comprehensiveness and penetration of intellect, by acuteness and soundness of judgment, his circumstances, in early life, were so regulated in providence, that he was furnished with the best opportunities of improving his faculties, and acquiring the learning and culture that might be necessary with a view to his future labours. Led by God’s grace early and decidedly to renounce the devil, the world, and the flesh, and to devote himself to the service of Christ, he was also led, under the same guidance, to abandon the Church of Rome, and to devote himself to the preaching of the Gospel, the exposition of the revealed truth of God, and the organisation of churches in accordance with the sacred Scriptures and the practice of the Apostles. In all these departments of useful labour his efforts were honoured with an extraordinary measure of success. Calvin did what the rest of the Reformers did, and, in addition, he did what none of them either did or could effect. He was a diligent and laborious pastor. He gave much time to the instruction of those who were preparing for the work of the ministry. He took an active part in opposing the Church of Rome, in promoting the Reformation, and in organising Protestant Churches. Entering with zeal and ardour into all the controversies which the ecclesiastical movements of time produced, he was ever ready to defend injured truth or to expose triumphant error. This was the work which he had to do in common with the other Reformers, though he brought higher powers than any of them to bear upon the performance of it. But in addition to all this, he had for his special business the great work of digesting and systematising the whole scheme of divine truth, of bringing out in order and harmony all the different doctrines which are contained in the Word of God, unfolding them in their mutual relations and various bearings, and thus presenting them in the most favourable aspect, to the contemplation and the study of the highest order of minds” (Reformers and Theology of the Reformation, p. 293).
This tribute by one of the greatest of our modern Calvinistic theologians and a master of the theology of the Reformation may well be set over against the ill-informed and often ill-natured attacks made on Calvin and his work. The theologians of the twentieth century alike in mental grasp and theological output are like the merest pigmies when placed alongside Calvin and his enduring work. The work on which his fame will rest as long as there is a people to appreciate profound reasoning and sound spiritual teaching is his “Institutes of the Christian Religion.” Our readers will bear with us in quoting again from Dr Cunningham. This is how he speaks of the Institutes:—”The ‘Institutio’ of Calvin is the most important work in the history of theological science, that which is more than any other creditable to its author, and has exerted directly or indirectly the greatest and most beneficial influence upon the opinions of intelligent men on theological subjects. It may be said to occupy, in the science of theology, the place which it requires both the ‘Novum Organum’ of Bacon, and the ‘Principia’ of Newton to fill up, in physical science—at once conveying, though not in formal didactic precepts and rules, the finest idea of the way and manner in which the truth of God’s Word ought to be classified and systematised, and at the same time actually classifying and systematising them, in a way that has not yet received any very material or essential improvement. There had been previous attempts to present the truths of Scripture in a systematic form and arrangement, and to exhibit their relations and mutual dependence. But all former attempts had been characterised by great defects and imperfections; and especially all of them had been more or less defective in this most important respect, that a considerable portion of the materials, of which they were composed, had been not truths but errors—not the doctrines actually taught in the sacred Scriptures, but errors arising from ignorance of the contents of the inspired volume, or from serious mistakes, as to the meaning of its statements.
One of the earlier attempts at a formal system of theology was made in the eighth century by Johannes Damascenus, and this is a very defective and erroneous work. The others which had preceded Calvin’s ‘Institutes,’ in this department, were chiefly the production of the Schoolmen, Lombard’s four books of ‘Sentences,’ and Thomas Aquinas’s ‘Summa,’ with the commentaries upon these works; and they all exhibited very defective and erroneous views of scriptural truth. Augustine was the last man who had possessed sufficient intellectual power, combined with views, in the main correct, of the leading doctrines of God’s Word, to have produced a system of theology that might have been generally received, and he was not led to undertake such a work, except in a very partial way. The first edition of Melancthon’s ‘Common Places,’ the only one published before Calvin produced the first edition of his ‘Institutes,’ was not to be compared to Calvin’s work, in the accuracy of its representations of the doctrines of Scripture, in the fulness and completeness of its materials, or in the skill and ability with which they were digested and arranged; and in the subsequent editions, while the inaccuracy of its statements increased in some respects rather than diminished, it still continued, to a considerable extent, a defective and ill-digested work, characterised by a good deal of prolixity and wearisome repetition. It was in these circumstances that Calvin produced his ‘Institutes,’ the materials of which it was composed being in almost every instance the true doctrines really taught in the Word of God, and exhibiting the whole substance of what is taught there on matters of doctrine, worship, government, and discipline, and the whole of these materials being arranged with admirable skill, and expounded in their meaning, evidence, and bearings, with consummate ability. This was the great and peculiar service which Calvin rendered to the cause of truth and the interests of sound theology, and its value and importance it is scarcely possible to overrate” (Reformers and Theology of the Reformation, pp. 295, 6).
In his great work Calvin set forth as clearly as ever they had been set forth since the days of Paul the great doctrines of grace. God’s sovereignty in its majesty and awe-inspiring glory was set before the Reformed Church as it is presented in Scripture. His election of a people in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world not for any good in them and His passing by others are presented with a clearness and logical reasoning from Scripture that have made the professing Church of Christ Calvin’s debtors for all time coming. These truths have never won the affection of the natural man. They awaken a rebellion in his heart that manifests itself, at times, in speech and action, that is simply Satanic. But while they are usually termed Calvinistic, it is to be borne in mind that Calvin did not invent them; he found them in the Scripture, and his master mind systematised them for the benefit of the Church. In his “Institutes” they are clearly set forth, and especially in his work against the opinions of Pighius he has entered more fully into a discussion of these. This work, which was first translated in 1855 by Dr Cole, has been reprinted by the Sovereign Grace Union with Calvin’s “Defence of the Secret Providence of God.”* The reprint has a short preface by Mr J. K. Popham, Brighton. We intend making further reference to this work and the subject of our article in next issue.
(To be continued.)
* Calvin’s Calvinism: First Part, A Treatise on the Eternal Predestination of God; Part Second, A Defence of the Secret Providence of God Translated by Henry Cole, D.D. London: Sovereign Grace Union, 98 Camberwell Grove, S.E.5. Price 5s net.